Chapter 96: Stalker of the Dark (Part 1)

'Hey, sound recorder, hey Dad. Thanks for getting your friend to meet me. She's really nice and she talked to me about everything. She's so nice, she didn't tell you about how I yelled at her. If you ever found out, I just want you to know that I'm sorry. Anyway, we talked about my trip to the warehouse. I killed lots of bad men and women today. She helped me to feel better about it because talking about it helps, I guess.

I'm just sorry I can't talk to you about it. I wish I could, but I have to protect you and our family. Alice is right. It really hurts inside that I can't talk about it. But soon, Dad. Soon, we'll all live happily ever after and we'll talk about anything we want…

It's just… Some of it is really bad. I killed lots of children and some really sad people yesterday. I'm still thinking about it and I can't sleep because of it. They were really sad. Their clothes were dirty and all torn up and stuff, and some of them were thin and the way they look… Some of them had guns and they were shooting at me and I didn't know what to do! General Blackwater and Chief of Intelligence Rook told me I had to get rid of all of them or you'd be in danger, Dad. So I did.

But lots of them were just scared. Even those with the guns. I feel sorry for them and… I feel sorry for myself.' - Bunny Utonium, 03/05/89, 0103. Sound Record File 13.

The City of Townsville. Tenements. Run-Down Apartment.

05 MAR (Sunday) 1989. 2203.

It was a dark night, more so because the tenements area of Townsville was barely lit, with some of the streetlamps under-maintained or intentionally broken by rocks thrown by vandals. Bunny was perching on the rooftop of a dilapidated water tower like a gargoyle, a hand on the katana on her back, still unused to equipping it. She had to put her night vision goggles on to be able to scout her next objective at all. Zooming her vision in, she could see guards at every entrance - literally every entrance around the apartment she had to enter. Using her x-ray vision, she was able to see everything. The marriage of high technology and her Chemical X2-enabled biological enhancements had enabled that.

It was going to be another long and bloody night. A night when she would surely have to kill blameless people who were just mixed in with the bad. Bunny heaved a sigh. She couldn't help but daydream a little.

The morning had started strangely. Blossom and Bubbles were quick to forgive each other and breakfast was a fun time for them. Buttercup, however, was even more aloof than usual. So much so that she didn't seem to have the same appetite that she was famous in the family for, and that was even with Mom's pancakes on the menu.

When Bunny tried to make Buttercup feel better by helping her cut her pancakes up and feeding her, hoping that perhaps Buttercup might smile at her and say a single kind word, all she got in return was a shove. Sure, Mom would defend Bunny of course, and Dad would give Buttercup an earful, but all it did was to drive an even bigger wedge between them.

They were up in their room after that. Buttercup had isolated herself from the rest of them by hiding in the walk-in closet. Bunny had thought about approaching her again but decided against it. There was just something about Buttercup that scared her; it was the hateful look that she would give her.

Blossom and Bubbles would then rope her in for their games. They had fun at first, playing with a kitchen set, Buttercup's fleet of road vehicles, which lay abandoned, and Bunny's wargame simulation. They had a little blindfold hide-and-seek after that, and Bunny couldn't help but use her x-ray vision. Bubbles was impressed, and Blossom was not. Still, things seem to be looking up. At least Blossom did not blow her top. Instead, the leader sister invited Bunny up to the roof of The House.

There, Blossom continued teaching Bunny how to fly. There were a few false starts at first, with Bunny bouncing in angles that caused her to crash and slide on the snow headfirst. But after that, it was smooth sailing, and Bunny was able to perform her double-hop effectively and reliably. However, flight had yet to be achieved.

'Mister Blackwater's going to kill us,' Blossom had said then…

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

05 MAR (Sunday) 1989. 1125.

"Mister Blackwater's going to kill us," Blossom said.

"General Blackwater. He prefers being called that," Bunny corrected her, only to get a glare from the leader of the quartet. "I'm sorry…" She would apologize several times over. Still, Blossom had remained scary throughout, crossing her arms and glaring at her. It was as if she had become much more angry and aggressive in the absence of Buttercup.

"She said sorry…" Bubbles stuck her neck out as she always did for Bunny. Blossom turned her glare on her instead, but with time, she seemed to calm down.

"You know, there's a way you can make up for that," Blossom said with a smile after that. It'd gotten Bunny's hope up. "I'll call it even if you tell me about all those adventures you've been having."

"Oh…" Bunny said. She found it odd that Blossom would keep requesting this despite rejecting her the first time. Couldn't she understand the meaning of 'classified'? "I'm sorry, Blossom. I can't. General Blackwater wouldn't want me to."

Blossom's glare and frown had returned then. Hard. Enough to startle Bunny with the possible consequences alone.

"Is General Blackwater your sister!?" Blossom scolded. "There shouldn't be any secrets between sisters, Bunny! There's always trouble each time there is!" She then turned to Bubbles. "Right, Bubbles?"

"Right…" Bubbles mumbled with her head held low. She knew what Blossom was referring to.

"I… I was…" Bunny had genuinely tried to say something about her experiences outside then, but too much was holding her back. Duty. Responsibility. Love for her family - talking about classified information could get her family in some huge, unfathomable trouble. "I really can't, Blossom. I'm sorry."

"You're not a Powerpuff Girl. You won't ever be a Powerpuff Girl," Blossom scolded.

"But-" Bunny cried. She had always wanted to be like her older sisters, to emulate them. Being called a Powerpuff Girl was everything to her. "I've been fighting crime and keeping you guys safe and-"

"You're lying," Blossom accused.

"I'm not!" Bunny said, this time more firmly. It didn't feel good to be misunderstood. It was worse when it was something that had hardly ever happened before. It was way, way worse, knowing that it was coming from someone she least expected.

"Shut up!" Blossom screamed. Bunny was going to say more when she felt a punch across her face; something else she didn't expect. She stared at Blossom, stunned. How could her big sister hit her like that? "Don't ever think about calling yourself a Powerpuff Girl again. You're not like us. Not at all!"

There was still so much that had been brewing like a dark cloud over Blossom's head. Dad had told Blossom everything about Bunny's achievements in the lab, the tests performed to probe at the limit of her enhancements. He had all but told Blossom that Bunny was better in every way. Though that wasn't the exact wording Dad had used, Blossom had interpreted it that way, and it didn't sit well with her.

Dad had broken his promise once more. He hadn't been spending much time with Blossom at all, and it was unlike him. To Blossom, it could only mean one thing. It was all Bunny's fault.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the strife between Blossom and Bunny that day. Later that day, Blossom had walked in on Bunny, who was distracting herself from her sadness by maintaining her motorbike like how General Blackwater had taught her to.

Something on the bike had attracted Blossom's attention. Reaching out for it and gripping a handle, she pulled the object out. It turned out to be a katana, and it looked very familiar. The scabbard of the Japanese sword was of a crimson color, like blood, and the handle was colored the same way too. The blade itself was Duranium. Blossom could see the shimmering aura of the metal using her Duranium-vision.

Bunny stood rooted to the ground, dropping everything she had been doing. She didn't dare to look at Blossom for fear of setting her off.

"Where did you get this?" Blossom asked, her voice trembling with anger.

"Nowhere…" Bunny lied. She couldn't talk about her secret missions - she just couldn't.

"If you're not going to tell me, I won't give it back to you," Blossom said, hiding the sword behind her back. The weapon appeared huge behind her.

"Blossom! Stop! Give it back!" Bunny cried, circling her bike. She accidentally knocked it over. Tools she'd set on the seat of the bike had fallen over, clattering on the floor. Spare parts were scattered. Work was undone.

"Not until you tell me what you've been doing outside!" Blossom interrogated the distraught Bunny. She backed away from Bunny, who was coming closer.

"It's mine! General Blackwater gave it to me!" Bunny lied. Blossom didn't look convinced.

"I saw it somewhere before. It was Ace's!" Blossom revealed. "He used it to fight me and hurt Bubbles! You're a big, fat liar!"

"Give it back!" Bunny yelled aggressively before launching herself at Blossom, reaching for the sword. Together, they fell down on the garage floor, and all of a sudden, Blossom let out a bloodcurdling scream. Bunny scrambled off, wondering how she could have injured Blossom without using any offensive strikes.

Shockingly, there was blood on the floor. Blossom had left Ace's Duranium katana on the floor. The bottom of the blade was stained with blood. Looking at her hand, which was awash with blood, it didn't dawn on both kids that the older child had accidentally sliced her palm on the sharp edge of the blade in their tussle. But it quickly did, and both of them burst into tears on seeing it.

The bawling was so loud that it had attracted the attention of both Dad and Mom, who rushed into the garage to witness the grisly scene before them.

"What in Einstein's hair happened!?" Professor Utonium was close to screaming when he saw Blossom and Bunny on the floor. It was equally shocking to the man, as he wasn't used to seeing blood outside the operating theater.

"Blossom! What did you do!?" Selicia accused immediately, hands akimbo.

"She- Bunny- stole- and hurt me!" Blossom tried to explain in between her sobs, but it was harder than putting down a bad guy.

"I didn't steal that sword! It was mine!" Bunny, despite being younger, was able to keep her emotions under control enough to explain herself. Tears were still running freely, but she was easier to understand. "She tried to take it away and I asked her to stop but she wouldn't!"

Bunny appeared far more credible by a mile. Selicia was able to reach Blossom before the professor could. Instead of reaching for her injury, however, Selicia pinched Blossom by the ear and forced her to her feet by pulling her up by the ear.

"You better hope your hand doesn't hurt more when I'm done with you! Picking on your younger sister like that!" Selicia scolded as she pulled Blossom by the ear, leading her out of the garage that way.

"But Mom!" Blossom's cry grew faint as they went out of view.

"Are you okay, Bunny?" Professor Utonium asked as he half-knelt beside the youngest of the quartet. She hugged him without saying another word, nearly taking him down with her.

"Blossom's been mean to me the whole day!" Bunny cried. "I can't stand it!"

"Oh, Bunny," the professor said. How was he going to explain this? His own childhood was fraught with sibling rivalry. Eugene Upton, his younger brother, wasn't exactly a gentle soul. He was his father's son, a born marine, and it showed way too many times in his youth. "I'm sure Blossom didn't mean it that way. She's young... She's, well, born with a really young mind and body, and I guess she doesn't know how to express her sisterly love for you very well."

"I hate her. She doesn't love me," Bunny said, still full of grief.

"Honey, that's simply not true…" the Dad said. "You're just upset, that's all…"

"She said I can't ever be a Powerpuff Girl. She said I'm not like them at all," Bunny said.

"I see. I'll talk to her about it," Dad would say. His expression seemed to have changed. Was he angry? And just trying not to show it? "But just think about what I said."

Blossom did not have a good time after that. Mom was extremely rough with her while applying first aid. True to her words, her hand did hurt much worse after that, and that was before Dad started stitching it back up. Even after that, she would receive some tongue-lashing from both Dad and Mom, which was arguably even worse.

The City of Townsville. Tenements. Run-Down Apartment.

05 MAR (Sunday) 1989. 2204.

From Bunny's perspective, it felt as if there was no reason for her to continue. Blossom despised her, and Buttercup shunned her. She couldn't help but focus on that. It was only when her thoughts turned to those who seemed to care about her that she found a reason to continue. Dad was waiting for her at home. Bubbles promised to give her extra flight lessons, and spend another day with her in the wind tunnel. Even General Blackwater came up in her mind, then Nana Weston. She remembered even Alice, and what she said about remembering who was waiting for her after the mission was over. It was all thanks to her that she hadn't frozen up longer than she did.

"Rook to Bravo-Five-Zero. Explain stationary position, over," Rook on the radio asked.

"Nothing, just looking, over," Bunny found a quick excuse, but then decided to start moving before Rook could say anything else. Sprinting forward, she jumped off the top of the water tower as hard as she could. In mid-air, she emitted an X-thrust, allowing her to 'double-hop' in mid-air, giving her enough speed to land on the closest apartment building.

She had been briefed on the mission before it started. It concerned a man named Paul Feig, a police chief with the TPD who ran Precinct 77. He was recently put in charge of a huge task force responsible for dispersing the numerous criminal gangs of Townsville. Rumor has it that he was corrupted and had been working for the Lombardi Crime Family, though his goals were unknown. He had been following through with the job he had been given personally by Commissioner Davis himself, so it was hard to pin anything on him.

What was known, however, was that though Feig had been given free rein to execute his role however he pleased, more than half the TPD was critical of him for how he had gotten so many crime bosses and their lieutenants killed. While no one knew the specifics, many suspected him of engineering their deaths. The Powerpuff Girls were used like tools, and he'd unleashed them with zero supervision - and who knew what Feig had said to the Girls? Even the crime bosses who didn't die by the Powerpuff Girls' hands had died by other means. Unidentified assassins would always happen to be there to carry out drive-bys or simple shootings to dispose of anyone the Girls let go.

Had the crime bosses been taken alive, justice would have been carried out with due process; much of their crimes and associated cases would have seen the light of day and be solved one after another. Stolen goods and reparations would have been extracted.

The USDO had a working theory that all this would be to the advantage of the Lombardi, as their criminal links with most of the gangs in Townsville would have implicated them, and when the many gangs' wealth had been left untouched, they would be ripe for the taking - and guess who knew best about where to find them?

Intelligence had worked all day to find out more about Police Chief Feig. Their agents and informants managed to gather that he would be meeting members of the Lombardi in the Tenements Area. Bunny's job was simple: she was to collect evidence for Feig's corruption and apprehend him on the spot.

Bunny continued hopping from building to building using the new ability Blossom had taught her. It felt like a magical moment to her. A reminder that, despite how mad Blossom seemed to be towards her all the time, perhaps there was sisterly love in her. Why else would she teach her such an important skill? Why else would she keep coming back to her?

It didn't take long for her to reach a high-rise that was close to the apartment building she had to infiltrate. Perching on the edge of the decaying structure, she surveyed the scene before her. Approaching it would be difficult without getting detected. The apartment had once been a luxury apartment, likely devalued because of the surrounding tenements and the urban decay infecting the neighborhood like a disease.

The apartment building was further away from the rest of the buildings and was likely chosen as a secret meeting place because of this. There were too many eyes at every entrance, all within earshot of each other. Floodlights and streetlamps were everywhere, and there was no way to deactivate them without digging up the cables deep in the ground and cutting them. There were no underground entrances that led into the interior of the apartment either, based on the briefing she had.

The only way was the hard way. And time was running out. A car drove up to the entrance of the luxury apartment, and out came a man in a fedora and duster. Bunny zoomed her vision in, but she could only see the back of his head. Still, it was convincing enough for her. She whipped out a camera and began snapping pictures.

Despite the urgency of the mission, Bunny opted to wait. General Blackwater's lessons came to mind. Patience was key. It was all like a game of chess. The pieces were moving, and opportunities would eventually present itself. She kept waiting, even as her mark had entered the building. Guards continued to patrol the building. Some remained stationary.

Minutes passed. It was starting to look hopeless, but then an opportunity did present itself. The eastward entrance's patrolling guard had gone around the corner, and the guard at the entrance had gone back in. It was perfect.

Without waiting another second, Bunny sprinted back to where she came from and dropped down from the rooftop and into an alley. Peeking out of it, she saw that the coast was clear. She sprinted again, this time towards the entrance, and she was there within seconds.

Opening the door quietly, she saw the stationary guard inside with his back facing her, drinking from a canteen. Drawing her knife, she pounced on top of him and slit his throat before he could even let a word out. Oddly enough, there was no one else. Bunny did not have time to study her surroundings when she made the kill, but in a few seconds after, she realized that she was in the lobby of the luxury apartment.

The indicator lights above an elevator attracted her attention. Taking a quick look at the indicator lights of the other elevators, she saw that they weren't moving. Putting two and two together, she realized that her mark had taken the elevator, and it was going up, its progress marked by the lights. It was on the third floor, but it had moved to the fourth.

The elevators were a no-go. It would be far too easy to get ambushed in one of them. Knowing this, Bunny took the stairs instead. The stairs were surprisingly bereft of guards. She stopped on the fourth floor, tireless despite the climb, and looked through the door of the landing with her x-ray vision to check on the elevator. It had gone to the fifth floor, then the sixth.

"Who the-" a man said. Someone had spotted her while coming down the stairs. Bunny had reacted quickly, turning her head and taking off his with her newly discovered ocular laser beams. The man's head rolled down the steps, and his body collapsed after. Identifying the man was an afterthought, but it seemed obvious who he was, judging by the pistol that had clattered on the ground, and the stereotypical fedora and suit that Lombardi soldatos wear.

Bunny sprinted up the stairs to the sixth floor, only to see that the elevator had gone up to the seventh. Quietly, she ran up once more, before using her x-ray vision again. The elevator doors had already opened because it was closing the moment she saw it. She listened intently, using her enhanced hearing, and she could pick up footsteps. She turned to look, x-ray vision still on, and she saw him. It was the same man but with dusters and a fedora. She saw a profile of his face. Overweight, but with thick bones and even thicker muscles underneath. Not that it mattered. Normal people were way too easy to overpower no matter their size.

Going back to the doors at the landing, she peeked out of it to see the mark approaching a door. Whipping out her camera once more, she took a quick snapshot before the man could notice her. He almost did, as he had turned to look. Bunny gasped and hid in the landing outside the common corridor, a hand over her mouth and nose as if the disguised police chief could hear her breathing.

She x-rayed the walls again and saw the mark knocking on the door before being let in. She listened for a few seconds for any movement in the corridors. Nothing. She went through the doors of the stairs landing and into the common corridor, sneaking towards the door the mark went through quietly. Had she been a rabbit, her ears would have been standing and peaked. When she was at the door, she peeked through it with her x-ray vision again. She could see the whole apartment unit. The mark was accompanied by a couple of men in suits. Likely Lombardi. They were walking towards a flight of stairs leading up to the unit's second floor. It was a luxury apartment, so she expected each residence to be much larger than normal.

DING! It sounded so loud when her enhanced hearing was active. Another elevator had reached the seventh floor, and the metal doors were already opening. Bunny backed away, discovering that she was cornered.

'Hide!' she was telling herself. Only, there was nowhere to hide. The common corridor was little more than an elongated box. 'Please, Bunny, hide!'

A group of three men and a woman, all smartly dressed as if for a business meeting, had walked out of the elevator. Bunny drew her SMG and tensed up, unprepared for a confrontation so soon, but there was no way for her to hide. She could feel tingling up her spine, some kind of a pins-and-needles sensation running up her entire body.

Only, she realized something after that. The four Lombardi soldatos were just walking towards her, continuing down the common corridor as if she wasn't there. Confused, Bunny lowered her MP5. Her four enemies continued walking towards her, coming closer - close to the point where she could reach out and touch them. Out of nervousness, Bunny reached for the handle of Ace's katana, which was slung on her back. If she had to, she would fight with SMG on one hand and sword in another.

But there was no fight to be had. They did not even suspect that she was there. One of them produced a key from his pocket and unlocked the door before the four criminals walked in.

The door slammed shut after that.

'What happened?' Bunny thought. She slung her MP5 on her back once more, and that was when her question had been answered.

She could see right through herself. And it wasn't because of her x-ray vision! Bunny put her hands in front of her eyes to look at them. She couldn't see her hands at first, and as if it was some kind of delayed reaction, her hands soon appeared, at first nearly transparent, before becoming translucent, then finally back to normal after that.

She had turned invisible, somehow, invisible… like some stalker of the dark.