Chapter 94: A Long Time Coming

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

04 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 2133.

"Is there anything else you would like to add about the operation at the warehouse?" Alice asked in the sweetest tone she could manage. A single outburst from Bunny was more than enough as a warning sign that things could turn upside down at any time - literally. Even the smart and normally nice and calm Blossom was prone to turning the office into a disaster zone. Kids were kids, even those that could fry a dozen men just by looking at them or turn over a truck with minimal effort.

"No…" Bunny muttered as she nibbled away at her gummy carrot, taking tiny bites out of it with her crooked teeth. It wasn't food to her, nor tidbit. It was as if biting into it helped with the distress she was feeling. She then stopped after that, before looking up at Alice. "Did Bunny do good?"

The look on Bunny's face was palpable; There were so many negative emotions running through her mind. Had she been a normal little girl instead of an enhanced human pressed into service as a black ops assassin, Alice would have had her committed to a mental institute for treatment.

"Yes, Bunny did great," Alice nodded. She picked up a third piece of gummy carrot from her bowl and handed it to Bunny. The enhanced little girl took it meekly. It was unbelievable how gentle her little hands were when she could have crushed her hand to a pulp with almost no effort. "Now how about if we talk about something more… positive?"

"Like what?" Bunny mumbled as she was chewing on her previous gummy carrot, the one she had been nibbling on. Alice thought it was an improvement, considering she had noticed Bunny's tendency to avoid food when she was in a negative mood. All the Girls, except Buttercup, had this problem.

"I think it'd help if we talk about… hobbies," Alice said, adding an air of mystery to the word of the day. "Do you know what hobbies are, Bunny?"

"It's things people do when they're free?" Bunny said.

"Very good, little rabbit. To add, we have hobbies because we want them. Hobbies are stuff we do for fun," Alice explained. "Where did you learn that word from?"

"Miss Nana told me about hobbies when I was with her," Bunny said, catching Alice off-guard. The psychiatrist would have thought that Professor Utonium would have been the one to teach her about hobbies. But it made sense. Alice had read the reports on Bunny. General Blackwater and a soldier named Corporal Nana Weston had spent an inordinate amount of time with her, effectively inserting themselves as additional parental figures in Bunny's life. Alice had concluded that it was Blackwater's method of getting Bunny to imprint herself on him, allowing him to control her, and it worked. It worked too damn well. "She had her own hobbies before she became a soldier. She was a ballet dancer and a singer."

"That's great! I think I've met Nana Weston before. She's a great lass. I'm glad you met her," Alice said, making it obvious what her age was, and how she was almost twice Nana's age. Though Bunny did not quite catch it because of her naivete, she at least got the part where Alice was senior to Nana. "I don't know how she got into the USDO last year, but yes, she's a very talented kid. She would've been a celebrity if she didn't get it into her head to be a soldier."

"She's really nice to me when so many people are mean to me. She never said a mean word to me and I don't remember her hitting me before too," Bunny said, her eyes distant as if she could see Nana right at that moment, her eyes watery. "She's just like Daddy."

Alice smiled. It was a moment she'd been waiting for, all this while. She'd set Bunny up for something good, something she could reach for on her own, and she had done it. Alice reached out and took Bunny's hands into her own.

"You've done it, Bunny," Alice said. "Remember this moment whenever you find yourself in a dark place. Remember Nana Weston, remember your Dad, and anyone else you love. Go back to your fond memories and don't let the darkness drown them. I don't know how long you'll have to operate, but it'd make things easier for you. Perhaps one day, when this is all over-"

"Will it really be?" Bunny couldn't help but ask.

"Yes. Everything has an end," Alice encouraged her. Bunny smiled too, and held Alice's hands too, reciprocating.

"May I remember you too?" Bunny asked, quite unexpectedly, taking Alice by surprise.

"Yes, you can! I'm flattered I've made an impression on you in such a short time," Alice said, her smile widening.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you before. I didn't mean it," Bunny said, becoming morose once more.

"It's perfectly fine. People yell at me all the time - I'm used to it," Alice reassured the distraught Bunny.

"People… yell at you all the time?" Bunny said, unable to believe that people could be so mean to such a nice woman.

"It's part of my job, talking to people. I dig out something that hurts them so I can finally stop the pain forever, but it can be so painful that I get lashed at," Alice said. "You're not the first person to do it, and you won't be the last."

"I'm sorry I did it. I won't do it again," Bunny promised Alice, her eyes firmly fixed on Alice's.

"You don't have to be so apologetic, Bunny," Alice said with a laugh. "It's my job to get yelled at anyway - sometimes, it really helps to get things off your chest."

"Okay…" Bunny fell silent after that, and so Alice returned to her clipboard, scribbling notes that Bunny could only guess at. Even with her x-ray vision, she couldn't tell what was being written by looking through the clipboard and pages of paper.

"Speaking of getting things off your chest - the warehouse wasn't your only operation today," Alice said. "Would you like to talk about your second operation?"

Bunny thought back to the second operation of the day. The operation had taken place after the first one at Quickdrop Warehousing Co. The moment she was reminded of it, she could feel the blood draining from her face, from her hands.

"No…" Bunny said. "I can't."

Alice understood immediately what she meant. Even to ask Bunny about it was a huge risk she was taking. Bunny had, in fact, protected her from certain consequences. Had General Blackwater found out that she had been trying to gather classified information from Bunny, he might have something in store for her that would make her wish she was never born. The worse part was, there would have been consequences for Bunny, too.

"I see," the psychiatrist said. "In that case, I guess we're done for the day. It's been nice talking to you, Bunny Utonium. I look forward to our next session this coming Wednesday."

The City of Townsville. Gangrene Gulag. Abandoned Villa.

04 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1803.

The world had gone dark early; winter still held sway even as it approached death as an old man would. Bunny found herself in a part of Townsville she would never have suspect existed. After her successful purge of Townsville's homegrown American Mafia's leadership, General Blackwater had ordered Bunny to move towards the slums, then to its worse-off neighbor, the so-named 'Gangrene Gulag'.

There was no other place in Townsville that could top the Gangrene Gulag when it came to misery.

Chief of Intelligence Rook had described the place in arduous detail during debriefing back at the Townsville docks. Where the slums were where the poor lived in, the Gangrene Gulag was where the utterly desperate eke out an existence. The people there were barely living, surviving on what little food they could find. Where the slums still had soup kitchens and homeless shelters operating in cramped conditions between barely-functional housing, the Gangrene Gulag was largely abandoned in terror by even the most idealistic charity organizations. While the police would occasionally risk venturing into the slums, the Gangreen Gulag was completely abandoned by the local government. Where the denizens of the slums took care of their own where the police were unavailable, the inhabitants of the Gangreen Gulag rarely do so.

And it was in one of those pockets of civilization where people still do that Bunny was ordered into. There was a huge, abandoned villa on the eastern end of the Gangrene Gulag. It was an old residence that had existed since the turn of the century, built back when the Gangrene Gulag was like Old Town, rich and full of culture and tradition. The owner was gone the moment it became obvious that the district was falling into ruin from the escalating crime since decades ago.

Now, the abandoned villa was home to a notorious gang, as Bunny had been told. While most of the inhabitants were guilty of only minor crimes such as petty theft, burglary, battery and public nuisance, five of them formed the center of the gang, who, despite being the de facto leadership of the gang, were usually the ones handling the biggest gigs, usually mercenary work, but they had recently conducted raids on Townsville proper, intercepting armored trucks, carrying out heists and aggravated burglary.

All Bunny needed to know was that the Gangreen Gang (appropriately named since they came from the area) had run-ins with her sisters before, resulting in Blossom getting severely injured last Christmas and Bubbles wounded mere days before she was born. General Blackwater had made sure to tell her this fact, and it had made Bunny bloodthirsty.

The moment Bunny was within range after taking a turn from a nearby alley, she raised her MP5 and opened fire on a man-woman couple guarding the entrance. They were punks in torn leather jackets and jeans, barely adults. And they were killed instantly.

There was no panic on the streets (which barely qualified as such), as crime was rampant there, and there wasn't even anyone on the streets. The few houses that were occupied in the area immediately had their windows and doors shut and barred as soon as there were gunshots.

Bunny sprinted through the empty doorway and right into the courtyard of the villa. There were several campfires at the courtyard, the wood bought by stolen money. Men, women and even children rose up from the fire when they saw the purple menace come through. Some of them - even the children - had guns, mostly ancient revolvers, and bolt-action rifles and old shotguns, but they were barely able to raise them when an explosion blew up one group - Bunny had thrown a frag grenade at them the moment she came through. She gunned down the rest of them, leaving no one alive, not men, not women, not even the children.

Darting into the building, busting down the front door in the process, she fired off shots indiscriminately, putting down anyone who happened to be in the way. Few shots were fired at her. The living room had another family who was huddled around a broken television with a fire in it. She killed them all first, and when the three guards there rose up to point their barely-functional firearms at her, she reloaded her MP5 almost instantaneously and exchanged shots at them. She was the only one left standing.

There were shouts of panic everywhere in the villa. It was only at this time when Bunny had to take in her surroundings for just a second, that she realized how filthy the villa was; it was filled with rubbish, ash and rats scurrying for the nearest hole. The smell was terrible. It was no place even for a criminal gang. Her rage precluded any further thoughts on the matter.

Running deeper into the building, she mowed down several gang members armed with old pistols and revolvers coming her way, her unpowered armor soaking up bullets before she opened the next door she came across. It turned out to be a bedroom, though it was barely recognizable as such. The moment she realized there was a man, woman, three children and several guards inside, she unpinned and primed another frag grenade and threw it in. Blocking the entrance, Bunny waited and while she did, she heard men, women, and children screaming inside, followed by an explosion. She opened the door after that. The room was painted in red, even a lit light bulb that the frag grenade had miraculously missed. Dead bodies and their severed limbs were all over the place. One man, another guard in a shredded leather jacket, moaned. Bunny aimed her MP5 at his head and fired, putting him out of his misery.

Continuing down the corridor, Bunny dispatched a few more gang members coming her way. There was a turn in the corridor, but before she could make that turn, someone else did it first, someone with a katana, and he swung the sword at her on the get-go, putting a deep notch in her armor as she backed away.

It was only after she put some distance between her and her new assailant that she recognized the man. Tall but thin, the man had green skin. He wore tan pants, black boots, a blue-orange trucker jacket over a white shirt, but the most prominent part of his attire was his angular shades. He had dressed down this time; the photos of him Bunny had seen was of him in mercenary combat gear.

"You! You ain't leaving here alive for busting up my place and folks!" He screamed bloody murder as he charged forward. Bunny had raised her MP5 too late as the green-skinned man - Ace was his name from the briefing - chopped it into two. Dropping her drastically shortened submachinegun, Bunny crossed her forearms when Ace swung his sword down on her once more. The kevlar on her forearms had caught the blade, but the sword had penetrated the armor. She shoved him away, only for the lanky man to swing his sword again, screaming in pure rage.

He'd managed several more well-directed sword-strikes, but Bunny had continued to use her armored forearms to block the attacks. Deep cuts were being put into the armor until there was blood. Then ace went for a fully wound-up swing-

But this time, Bunny had caught Ace by the fists. For a time, they were caught in a status quo, with Ace pushing his blade towards Bunny and Bunny pushing it away. However, it was broken when Bunny was able to push his blade further and further back using pure, brute force, before giving him a flying knee in the stomach, which sent him flying backward into the wall. He bounced off the wall, making a crater in it, before landing on the rotten wooden floor.

Ace got up as Bunny dashed towards him. In one fluid motion, he was able to swing his sword as he got into a half-kneel, but Bunny had kicked him in the stomach at the same time. It was like as if two magnets were repelling each other; Bunny stumbled back, clutching her chest, while Ace had gone through the weakened wall behind him.

"Leave him alone, you punk!" an old voice shouted, as if with what remaining energy it had. Bunny turned to look in the direction of the voice. There were rapid footsteps. Instinctively, Bunny's hand had gone to her pistol holster, drawing the weapon quickly and firing from the hip. Her superior hand-eye coordination made sure she was on the target…

And that target happened to be an old, bearded man in his seventies, wielding a katana. The old man fell and slide right up to Bunny, blood pooling. There was no way he could have survived that, as Bunny had fired several shots, and those shots had gone right through the old man's heart. Still, he continued to gasp and gurgle, and eventually, fall silent.

However, the old man had bought Ace some time. Jumping through the hole he was thrown through, Ace was going for a downward strike with his sword when Bunny noticed and struck him in the chin with an uppercut, sending him up into the ceiling, destabilizing the floor above. Rubble rained down on the three of them as Ace fell, crushing whatever remained of the wall he jumped through.

It was as if Ace's entire body was on fire. He twitched his fingers, only to realize that he had lost grip on his sword. Looking around, however, he saw that it wasn't far away. He reached for it, but Bunny had been watching him. She stomped on his hand and picked up his Duranium katana instead. With that, she gave him another kick in the face, breaking his angular shades.

"This is Bravo-Fifty. Primary Echo-Tango eliminated," Bunny spoke into her radio before driving the sword down Ace's back. The green-skinned man screamed before falling silent. Satisfied, Bunny reached for his scabbard and pulled it off, wearing it on her own belt. It was a little awkward, considering the size of the thing; it was like wearing the scabbard of a greatsword as she was small. She scampered off after that, determined to wreak even more havoc with her new weapon.

The City of Townsville. Gangrene Gulag. Abandoned Villa.

04 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1814.

When Ace came to, his mind was a haze, and for a time, he couldn't remember what had transpired before. It all came back to him slowly, but with each bit of memory, he slowly began to realize how dire things had become. Yes, it was all coming back to him now! The Gangreen Gang was out doing chores - scrounging for fuel for the fire, buying food and water, scavenging materials for making stuff - only he alone remained behind to deter any intruders. He was patrolling the walls around the villa when it happened: the screams, the explosions, the gunshots. They were attacked, he tried to defend his people, and now he had failed.

Looking ahead, Ace saw a dead body before him. It had a shrunken stature, a wrinkled face, and a beard. He knew who it was immediately, but the reality of it did not sink in as willingly. He didn't want to believe it; memories of the old man flashed before his eyes. Tears stung it.

"SENSEI! No, no, no! NOOOOOOOOOO!" he screamed, crying, horrified.

The City of Townsville. Gangrene Gulag. Abandoned Villa.

04 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1817.

How long Ace stared at the corpse, he did not know. Screams deep in the villa jolted him awake. His old teacher was dead - the same man who had taken him in when something, or someone, had turned him into a freak, was dead.

But his duty was to his village, and they were getting slaughtered by some kind of enhanced being like him. He rolled over on his back. Pain sprung up all over his body. He saw the mess on his chest. He felt his very core pierced. His heart ached, literally and figuratively. It was a miracle he survived with so much blood all around him; he'd chalked it down to his monster form.

There was no way he could save his people now, and the rest of his gang wouldn't be back until a couple of hours later. He closed his eyes, but tears came through regardless. He had never felt so helpless before. All his efforts to preserve what was essentially his family in this God-forsaken mess called the Gangrene Gulag had been for nothing.

Unless…

It would be like making a deal with the devil, but he had no choice. It was a longshot, but it was the only shot he had left. Reaching for a pocket in his orange-blue trucker jacket, Ace pulled out his trusty satellite phone. It was a miracle it was still functional, despite the cracked plastic hull. He punched in a number, his finger shaking in panic and pain, and held the phone up to his face. The phone beeped, thankfully. But the distortion in the beep told him that his phone might die on him anytime.

He had learned of the number from his connections in the Townsville Police Department. Police Chief Feig of Precinct 77 had provided it. Apparently, he had learned of it through an informant in the USDO itself.

"Hello? Who is this?" It took forever, but a young, female voice finally came through. It sounded sad, like the person on the other end was grieving, even.

"Blossom, it's me! Ace!" he shouted through the phone.

"How did you call me through this phone?" Blossom asked, confused.

"Please, I need your help! For your ol' pal!?" Ace pleaded over the phone.

"I'm not listening to you, Ace!" Blossom retorted. "You tried to kill Bubbles the last time!"

"But-"

"And you were stealing! You killed those men in that big truck! What if they were someone's daddy!?" Ace could hear Blossom going off on him through the phone. Whatever sliver of hope he had left had slipped away. His past had come back to haunt him, big time.

"Blossom-"

"No! You said you hate me! You called me names and said bad things about me! I feel stupid for thinking we were friends!" Blossom continued yelling through the phone. Ace remembered every word he'd said to Blossom on that day. They were sincere words, if tactless, and he was paying the price for it now. No, his friends were paying the price for it.

"Blossom, please! My friends are dying!" Ace made one final, hopeful push for help. But instead of coming around like what Ace hoped Blossom would do, there was only silence, before the sound of the phone being hung up. "Blossom-"

From then on, the only thing Ace could do was lie down where he was and listen to his village in the villa die screaming. It was no comfort, when eventually, there were fewer screams, coming from further away…

Until there was no more.

Ace squeezed his phone in anger and disgust as he was lying down there, immobilized still. How could she? How could Blossom do this to him? For all the claim the world had made that she was the very paragon of justice and law, Blossom had ignored him in his greatest time of need! Sure, they were at odds with each other, but couldn't she have understood that times were desperate, and she stood in the way of feeding an entire village of desperate souls?

"Blossom!" Ace snarled. "On the deathbed of my dead family… I swear revenge! You ain't seen nothing yet!"

He'd squeezed his satellite phone so hard that it broke in two, its electronic innards spilling out like the guts of a small animal. He dragged himself up to the wall, leaning himself against it as he looked at his dead sensei one more time. "And you, purple freak, whatever you are, I'm getting you too!"

By the time Bunny was time clearing out the abandoned villa, she was covered in blood, so much blood that she couldn't tell if any of it was hers. Her nose did itch, however, but after she sneezed, the feeling was gone. She wiped her face, but it was still slick with blood. Looking at her hand, she saw that, it, too, was covered in blood.

But it was over. The tears could come later. For now, there was a debriefing to attend.

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

04 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 2135.

"Bunny?" Alice had to call out to her several times before she could regain the enhanced little girl's attention. "Bunny!"

"Hmm?" Bunny turned to look at Alice. She had let her mind wander back to her second operation when she had killed the children and the unarmed by the dozens. Sure, some of the children were actually armed and she had to silence everyone in the area to preserve her status as a secret weapon and hide USDO involvement, but as a kid running on emotions and not logic, Bunny found it impossible to reconcile with her gut reactions to what she had to do. She felt utterly dirty, irredeemably evil. Her guilt was like a part of her body, impossible to shake away.

"Did you hear what I just said?" Alice asked and Bunny shook her head. The woman smiled kindly before giving her a squeeze in the shoulder and standing up. "Nevermind. Just… take care of yourself. I'll see you again soon."

She began packing hastily before leaving the room. Even though Bunny did not follow and had opted to stay in the professor's office, she could hear Alice speaking to her Dad using her enhanced hearing. It was then that she learned to trust Alice, for what it was worth since the psychiatrist had revealed not a word of her confessions to her Dad. Instead, she'd gone straight to her psychiatric report and advice.

Seconds ticked by, and Bunny could hear the professor's distinctive footsteps echoing in The House outside the office. She heard the door open. Getting off the couch, Bunny padded up to her Dad and hugged him tightly, rubbing her face in his lab coat.

"Hey there, little rabbit!" the professor laughed as he hugged Bunny back, running his hand affectionately down her hair. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," Bunny cried. "I just miss you, that's all. It was nice meeting Alice."

"See? I told you you'll like her," the professor said.

"Dad…" Bunny said. "There's something I want to tell you."

"It's not about what you want for your birthday, is it?" the professor joked. Bunny did not laugh, nor did she go on. "What is it, sweetie? Hey… You can talk to me about anything…"

"Nothing…" Bunny said, deciding against telling him anything about her activities outside. It was like taking a sledgehammer to the chest, but it was a decision she had to make. "It's just that… I love you, Daddy."

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" the professor praised Bunny, before gently pulling her off him. He began leading her out of the office and towards the living room. "Now how about we get ready for bed? I'll be reading you and your sisters a story about Jack and the Beanstalk…"