Chapter 63: Recreation

Training Segment: Close Quarters Combat (Melee)

Date: 26 FEB (Sunday) 1989

Time: 1605

Subject: B-50 'Bunny Utonium'

Role: Black Ops Organic Weapons Platform (Bioweapon)

Status: In Training

"Never expose your body!" Bunny's martial arts instructor shouted when he was able to strike her in the side with his shinai multiple times within the space of seconds, despite her enhanced reflexes. "Not unless you can sacrifice defense for a clear advantage!"

Bunny was impressed by the man, who had introduced himself during the previous lesson as someone from Japan, a land far away and separated by an unimaginably vast stretch of water. Normal people were slow, but not him. Although, in reality, he could never beat Bunny in terms of raw physical performance, he was able to gain an advantage through misdirection, cunning, and experienced anticipation. Bunny had tried to block his attacks, but her moves, bumbling and lacking in concentration, would always come out short or misplaced.

He had been teaching her the fundamentals of kendo. But that wouldn't be all. She would soon be privy to other kinds of techniques belonging to other schools involving archaic weapons, something which her elder sisters were hardly exposed to, beyond a few stray common-sense lessons conducted by Selicia. General Blackwater had never thought it necessary, at least until recently, when Bunny came into the picture.

Things took a Sinocentric turn when the instructor had some men bring in a rack of weapons, filled with medieval implements of death of all shapes and sizes. From the Chinese straight sword known as the Jian to the Chinese spear known as the Qiang, from the Dao, a huge, machete-like weapon, to the intimidating Da Dao, which was similar to the aforementioned thing but mounted on a pole, Bunny would be drilled in their use, through both dance-like routines to practical 'fights' with wooden dummies. Through this exercise, she gained a much better understanding of footwork and its importance, as well as the theory of hand-to-hand weapons in general.

The lesson didn't end there, however. General Blackwater dismissed the Japanese instructor before taking over the class on his own. His lesson was much more humble in outlook - he simply handed Bunny a modern combat knife and brought her over to a dummy made of ballistic gel and filled with blood sacs and organs harvested from a dead pig, arranged to be roughly anatomically correct.

"Imagine that this is your enemy, Bunny," General Blackwater told the enhanced girl as she was staring at the grisly sight of animal organs stuffed into a human-shaped jelly-like substance made to simulate flesh. It even had a pig brain where the skull was, and pig eyes in front of it. "I want you to kill it."

Bunny stepped forward timidly, intimidated by the grotesque features of the organs-filled gel mannequin. Remembering her lessons, she stepped forward, then lunged at the artificial corpse, stabbing it in the heart with her combat knife by thrusting the weapon upwards with a frightened shout. She didn't put much energy into it, but the blade of her combat knife was able to sink all the way into the swine heart in one motion. She withdrew the blade after that, letting blood spurt out from one of the blood sacs she punctured. Some of it had gotten onto her, startling her and causing her to recoil.

Bunny stared at the result of her handiwork, eyes wide and jaws hanging as she forgot herself in the horror of the gore. It took her some time for her to remember what she was doing: impressing General Blackwater, or at least trying to. She turned to him with a bitter smile. She thought she could taste some of the blood on her lips.

"D-did Bunny do good?" she asked the general, almost pleading for some validation from him. The lack of a proud smile and his eyes, which projected unimpressed apathy and even boredom. He crossed his arms and Bunny's eyes drifted to the ground when she realized that she had somehow disappointed the general. It didn't matter why - she just did.

"That was weak, Bunny," the general growled, back to his usual self again, something which she was afraid to see after knowing how good he could be. "Do you know why you were weak?"

"Bunny don't know…" she said, both hands playing nervously with the combat knife. She was sliding the sharp edge of the blade on her fingers. It couldn't cut her, so she didn't know that it was improper.

"You were afraid, that's why," the general said. "You were afraid, and you still don't get it."

Gripping Bunny by the arm, he turned her around, and with his other hand on her head, turned it to force her to look at the ballistic gel mannequin.

"Look at it, Bunny!" General Blackwater bellowed. "Stop closing your eyes and look!"

Bunny did as he was told, wishing that he would stop, afraid that he would do worse if she didn't.

"It's just blood and a bloody dummy!" the general yelled into her ear. "Are you going to be afraid when you have to save Blossom or Bubbles? Or Buttercup? Because if that's so, you're useless! And everything we've been doing today would have been for nothing!"

The general let go of Bunny, and she turned around to face him, shocked that he had made a one-eighty turn and called her useless when he had praised her for being good before.

"I want you to take it on, attack the dummy like it's an enemy!" the general bellowed roughly, pushing Bunny back towards the organ-filled lump of ballistic gel. "Destroy it like it's going to kill your sisters! Go!"

Bunny whirled around, sending her combat knife singing past the mannequin's throat, slicing half the neck away - had it been a human being, it would have dropped dead then. With a shout, she then followed her first strike up with a stab to the head, then further repeated stabs in the heart, just like how she was thought. But she was still doing it wrong, she knew. She was afraid, and her attacks weren't the sharpest as a result. She had seen, clearly, one of her knife strikes missing the heart by half an inch, her blow to the brain didn't sink all the way to the knife's guard. Her shout was just advertising her fear; she sounded more like the victim of an attack than the attacker.

Looking back at General Blackwater, she could only hope that she had done enough. His crossed arms and glower told her otherwise. Without a word, the general walked away, leaving Bunny behind with the mutilated fake human being.

But then the general stopped after he was a distance away from Bunny, far enough to tell her that he held her with less regard.

"I think you must be exhausted. We'll take five before we continue," he said, before continuing on his way.

"But Bunny's not exhausted…" she mumbled to herself, her eyes closed while she was still facing the ground, trying extremely hard not to let the tears spill for fear that the general might become even more disappointed in her.

Training Segment: Strategy and Tactics

Date: 26 FEB (Sunday) 1989

Time: 1924

Subject: B-50 'Bunny Utonium'

Role: Black Ops Organic Weapons Platform (Bioweapon)

Status: In Training

"You need to watch your flanks, Bunny," General Blackwater warned his protege as he pushed a knight on a game board up towards her in an L-shape, worryingly closer to her king. He had opted to start the next training segment with something he thought would capture Bunny's attention. A game of chess, the undefeated classic, the game of choice of kings and generals, and now, it would be the game of choice for the queen of all enhanced individuals. The lesson was held in a lounge, with dimmer lights that were easy on the eyes. The only bright light was a table lamp aimed at the chessboard.

Thus far, he was able to massacre Bunny's army in short order, with most of her pawns KIA and half her special pieces out for the count. Bunny was only able to inflict minor losses on General Blackwater's plastic division, with just a few pawns, a knight and a bishop dead - targets of opportunity that he gave her in order to secure footholds in her territory, as well as to set up kill zones to devastate her army.

"Bunny watch flanks…" she said obediently. In the next few turns, she followed his tip, and with the remnants of her army, attempted to reinforce her flanks, pushing them to the breaking point and sacrificing the few center kill zones she had left going for her.

The general then proceeded to wipe the floor with her - or at least the floor of the chessboard, with her inanimate minions. Bunny looked on in both awe and sadness. It wasn't even the first game they were playing. It was the third game, and she had improved little.

"You know what's your problem, Bunny?" the general growled at her, though this time, he wasn't as mad as before.

"Bunny bad…" she muttered as she continued to stare at the chessboard, and what was left of her white-donning medieval warriors. She stared at her hapless king, surrounded by intimidating enemies wearing black surcoats.

"That's not very specific," the general said. "You're still in the dark, huh? I told you to watch the flanks, and you did. And before that, I told you to beware the center, which you did. In our first game, you did everything as I asked, even after I told you I've held your hand long enough, just to teach you the game. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"

"No…" Bunny said. Her eyes flitted up to meet the general's, only to go back down again.

"You're too naive, Bunny. I told you all those things to bring your defenses down, and you listened without thinking," the general revealed. "You are not your sisters, Bunny, but you're acting like them. As in dumb and naive. You're better than that, Bunny."

"Bunny try again…" she offered meekly. It took all her courage to do it, as she knew early on that it was the general who tended to initiate things, and it would be rude for her to do so. "Bunny's not dumb and naive."

And so they had another game, only for General Blackwater to beat her in a couple of moves. Bunny had moved a couple of pawns forward, only to inadvertently open up her king to an attack. The general had seen the opportunity from a mile away and moved his queen across the board to give her a line of sight against Bunny's king. With no place to move and no expendable soldiers to block the queen's sniper shot, it was all over before the match had really begun.

"Checkmate, Bunny," the general said simply, before leaning back. "Game over."

Bunny gave a sigh, though unexpected, a question floated to the surface of her mind.

"But why is it over? Bunny has many soldiers…" she asked, waving a hand at her army, which was completely intact and arrayed in formation against the general.

"Well…" the general started, but paused quickly, as he had to rack his brain to think of a simple way to explain things to the days-old Bunny. "In an army, there's always one man who gave all the orders. In your family's case, it's your Dad. In the Powerpuff Girls' case, it's Blossom."

Bunny smiled briefly when she remembered about Daddy. General Blackwater was really good at distracting her, making her forget about missing him. In some twisted way, Bunny liked the general for it, as it'd made missing Dad a little more bearable.

"In the USDO's case, it's me, and in your army's case, it's your king," the general went on. "Imagine what would happen if your Dad were to die, taken out by some sniper. What would happen to your family?"

"Bunny doesn't want Dad to die…" Bunny said, downcast upon the bare mention of Daddy going away forever.

"And that is why we have the queen," the general went on, picking up his black queen piece and handing it over to Bunny. "The pawns could only do so much - ordinary soldiers are numerous for a reason. Even the bishops, knights and rooks can't handle everything, that much is true whenever your sisters fail time and again. But the queen - the queen will make amends, turn the battle around… Will she?" He'd said this with eyes pinned on Bunny as if penetrating deep into her soul Bunny held the general's black queen piece even tighter. It was precious in her eyes, considering the feat it had performed - basically defeating an entire army in just two moves.

Bunny thought about Dad. She really didn't want to see the day when he wouldn't be there anymore.

She nodded to the general after that.

The general would see to it that she got to apply her new-found sense of logic and strategy to a more realistic and less abstract setting. At first, they swapped out the chessboard for what amounted to a highly realistic tabletop war game, complete with hundreds of soldier pieces - but the key difference was that realism was the only rule. The pieces could do anything as long as it was deemed realistic, logical or believable.

Instead of having black pieces go up against white pieces in a medieval setting, the war game was built to emulate the different factions of Townsville, with law enforcement agencies going up against the various forces of evil; the Foundation, criminal enterprises, and cults in the local area. There were even pieces representing the Powerpuff Girls and Bunny.

The first scenario was the easiest - a hundred USDO soldiers and police officers, the Powerpuff Girls and Bunny had put an army of gangsters, cultists and Foundation agents under siege in the town hall. Bunny was given control of the 'good guys' while General Blackwater was moving the 'bad guys'.

She would send all USDO soldiers and police officers rushing headlong towards the town hall, most hurtling towards the front, while the excess manpower was sent into the sides. This, despite sending them into a hail of bullets and grenades. Bunny would keep her sisters in reserve, far behind and idle, her reasoning being that she wanted them safe. She would then send herself through an opening that was available when an entire squad of USDO soldiers was cut down by machinegun fire. The soldiers and police officers had done little damage and killed few of the enemies, and when Bunny was inside the town hall, was only able to take down ten or so bad guys before she herself was rendered unconscious by too much pain from too many gunshots, before being dragged off and abducted to be interrogated and experimented upon by the Foundation. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup wouldn't be far behind in the near future - at least, that was General Blackwater's narration of the events that transpired in the tabletop scenario.

Bunny would hone her tactics after that, using what the general had taught her in chess. Rather than applying pressure at a single spot, she would form a line around the town hall and prod at the enemy's defenses, losing few men in the process, and when there was a gap in their defense - the general had introduced one in the form of a gaping hole in the side of the town hall - she would flood it with troops.

"I know how you feel about your sisters," the general had said in the middle of this. "But you can't hold on to them so tightly when they're powerful in their own ways. They are assets you must use."

"But what if they get hurt?" she asked while the war game was frozen in time like a diorama produced by an obsessed hobbyist. "Bunny love sisters…"

"Sometimes, when you love someone, you have to let them go…" the general said, with surprising warmth, eyes softened as he stared down at Bunny. "You just have to watch over them and make sure they're safe, like the good leader you are."

"Okay…" Bunny said, once again won over by the general's way with words, as direct and gruff as he was. In the war game, she would direct her sisters to drop down on the enemy when it was fully encircled by the combined USDO-TPD task force, and she herself would go in to add chaos to the misery of the besieged criminals. A fair number of soldiers and police officers died, but Bunny and her sisters survived without being abducted.

"Did Bunny do good?" she would ask again as she was looking down on the town hall map filled with figurines that were knocked over, representing their 'dead' status.

"You did great, cadet," the general praised the enhanced girl, with a barely-suppressed smile on his face. "But that's just the warm-up…"

Bunny would next be treated to a scenario where the only piece she was in control of was herself, the purple-black ops figurine. Set in a rural plantation, the USDO-TPD task force numbers were reduced to half the size. Because of this, all they could do was hide behind vehicles or other barriers to trade gunshots with the larger Foundation-Criminal-Cult coalition. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were directed by General Blackwater, the game master, to smash through the roof of the plantation house and begin slaughtering criminals. Bunny decided that speed was key here to protect her sisters, so she moved her piece through the front entrance of the town hall, fighting through the numerous enemy guards there. Bogged down by the overwhelming numbers, she was taken down by the sheer firepower directed at her. Her sisters eventually succumbed without reinforcement.

"Oh…" Bunny said sadly as she watched General Blackwater knocking down the Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup figurines, which symbolized their defeat. Instead of waiting for him to do the same to her, she lay her piece face-down as well.

"You can't let your feelings get in the way of your objectives, Bunny, whatever that may be," the general lectured her. But Bunny wasn't listening. Disappointed with herself, she was close to tears. It was all the worst, as she was supposed to be better than this, as the general had mentioned countless times. The general sighed and thought about the best tactical maneuver to approach the Bunny situation. In the end, he put a beefy hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "This is a simulation, Bunny. While I want you to get it right, don't take it too hard. If you want to help your sisters, you need to be stronger than this. We'll take five before continuing."

Bunny turned to the general in surprise as he went on his way to the break room. He had never spoken to her that way before, and she liked it so much that she was tearing up anyway.

"Come on," the general beckoned for her to follow him after opening the door, and a bright light shone in. Smiling, she trailed behind him, Professor Utonium, once again, forgotten in her distraction.