A/N: This chapter turned out to be too long so I split it up into two. The third part of The Trial will be released a day after this.
Chapter 103: The Trial (Part 2)
The City of Townsville. Old Town. Pioneer Avenue. Precinct 13.
07 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 1648.
It had gone by without a hitch at first. Bunny had gone to the top of the tea shop and flown from rooftop to rooftop from there. Nowadays, with her presence known, it didn't matter anymore if she was seen by the wider public.
The TPD was another matter though. Bunny had to keep an eye out for any police cruisers and officers, as alerting them could put her target on his guard - causing him to even do something rash, like burning all his evidence. Thankfully, the path to the police station was well-hidden. Few normal people traverse the rooftops, after all. After leaping from one short apartment after another, and running across the roof of some terrace housing, Bunny jumped onto the roof of the police station.
Fading into invisibility, she let herself into a window on the top floor, inaccessible to those who couldn't fly, before landing with a soft thump. There were a few officers who happened to be walking in that corridor, and one of them heard it. The officer turned to look, only to see nothing before attributing the sound to her imagination.
Bunny was still unused to being invisible. Every time she thought she had attracted someone's attention, she would freeze, even break out in cold sweat and involuntary thoughts of failure. She would fear being seen, despite her invisibility, as if her mammalian brain, enhanced though it was, couldn't accept the fact that she could no longer be seen.
Gingerly, she began sneaking down the corridor, peeking at the occupants and contents of each room before moving on. She could read the signs, no doubt, but it would take too long - she was barely literate despite her best efforts. Heightened intelligence and enhanced brain processing and speeds could only help so much without the practice and experience that came with time. It was why she wanted so much to go to school - and it wasn't just for the fun and the feeling of normalcy.
Whenever a person passed by, she had to avoid bumping into that person. After several rooms and no Detective Marion, a group of officers had formed a wall unknowingly against her, and she had to fly up to avoid them. It was a close call, as one of them felt the wind that came with her flight, but again, the lengths a person would go to ignore certain stimuli when he couldn't see anything was a wonder.
Bunny would painstakingly scour through the entire third floor of the police station this way before concluding that her target wasn't on that floor. She was beginning to tire, the core of her being hollowed out. It would have been manageable had it just been the constant drain of her cloaking field, but she had to leap great distances and fly before she even reached the police station, and she found herself flying to avoid unaware cops all too often…
The City of Townsville. New Harlem. Crowe Apartments.
07 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 1650.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had been briefed on the Black Brothers gang of New Harlem by the police chief Feig himself. They were said to be a highly hypocritical bunch, initially formed to protect the blacks in the district back in the 40s and 50s, but had since become a parasite living on the local New Harlem subculture, collecting 'protection money', smuggling in narcotics to the detriment of impressionable young men and women, turning them into either their piggy banks or workhorses (of many kinds).
Feig, in particular, had shown great disdain for the gang during his briefing, though why he hated this particular gang more than the others was a mystery to the Girls.
'They should be wiped off the face of this Earth, their kind,' the police chief had said during the briefing, in no uncertain terms. 'No one will say a thing. They resisted arrest, End of story.'
After being given the location of the gang's hideout, the Powerpuff Girls were off. Midway in transit to New Harlem, however, Blossom stopped both of her sisters and got them to float high up into the sky for a discussion.
"What now?" Buttercup asked, annoyed at Blossom. She had been looking forward to some bloodbath the whole time - she wasn't really even paying attention to the police chief of Precinct 77 as she was dreaming up many different ways to maim a man all the while. To suddenly be stopped on her way to a day of bloody fulfillment was more than what she was willing to take.
"Oh, so you can talk now?" Blossom criticized Buttercup sarcastically. She had rarely used that tone of voice before, but after enduring so much of what she saw as 'injustices', she couldn't resist it any longer.
"Blossom, Buttercup, please!" Bubbles tried to break them apart - though not physically… yet. "Be sweet to each other… We're sisters…"
"Fine," Blossom said, before crossing her arms and pouting a little.
"Hey, that's my pose!" Buttercup complained after crossing her own arms.
"Look, we need to fight crime soon," Blossom explained why they stopped.
"Well, duh!" Buttercup interrupted, earning herself a glare from Blossom.
"-And we need to talk about how we're going to do that," Blossom said.
"Do we talk to them first?" Bubbles guessed.
"That's close, actually," Blossom said, smiling. Good ol' Bubbles, the angel who had always been on her side. Every single time she had used the past to spite her had been regretful, and she was hoping to learn to stop that soon. It was hard, as it had become almost involuntary, but it was the least she could do for her sweetest sister.
"No way! I say we beat them into pulp, like usual!" Buttercup insisted. If Bubbles was the angel, then what was she? Blossom couldn't help but notice that Buttercup had always brought out the worst in her.
"I've just been thinking that we've been killing too much…" Blossom said. She closed her eyes, and summoned up an image in her mind of a Dad she recalled from the past before Bunny joined the family. "And I remember what Dad said… That some of the bad guys just aren't really that bad. We shouldn't even be killing."
"Yeah, poor Mister Pang and his friends…" Bubbles said, remembering their last encounter with crime, both physically and mentally traumatic though it may be. "Poor Mister Exposito…"
"I don't care," Buttercup said. "It was fun killing them."
"But it's not!" Bubbles argued.
"Yes, it is!" Buttercup countered with equal childishness.
"It's not!" Bubbles argued back. "Won't you be upset and angry if I kill you?"
"People can't be upset OR angry when they're killed, stupid!" Buttercup scolded venomously, ticked off further by Bubbles' extreme naivety (even by little children's standards).
"But Dad will be upset AND angry if we hurt people!" Bubbles fought back, holding back tears. "No one will like it!"
"Which is why we're not going to kill anyone if we can help it," Blossom decided.
"If we can help it…" Buttercup echoed Blossom's words, adding her own meaning into it, with an emphasis on the word 'if'.
"Buttercup! I'm being serious!" Blossom chided her when she noticed what she did there. "No killing, unless someone's carrying like a Duranium gun or sword or something!"
"And even then…" Bubbles' voice trailed off. "Can't we just… try to be nice? We could just take their toys away. Maybe these people are just grumpy… I know I would be if I live in a place so dirty and full of yucky little animals like cockroaches and rats…"
"Right. We could try using our handcuffs - when's the last time we've used them anyway?" Blossom said, pulling out one of her handcuffs and showing it to her sisters. "We kept carrying around a few of those and we've never used them."
"I hate this!" Buttercup exclaimed, looking away from Blossom. "Just when I thought I was about to have some fun! This stinks!"
Blossom sighed. She never expected Buttercup to understand. As was usual most of the time, Buttercup was Buttercup - just like how the sun would rise in the east and set in the west. "Let's go…" Blossom said dejectedly, starting to fly forward again. Bubbles followed eagerly, glad that things were changing for the better, and that soon, things would be back to how it used to be - bloodless and nicer.
Right there and then, dark thoughts were running through Buttercup's mind. She was actually considering killing her sisters then and there before making a run for it. Or to make things simpler, just simply flying off into the horizon, never to return. But the thought of just being on her own scared her more than she thought it would. Where would she even sleep? How would she eat? Where would she get water? How would she obtain fresh underwear and clothes? Armor? Weapons? Ammo? Grenades? How would she even find bad guys to kill?
"Buttercup, come on!" Blossom had stopped and yelled at her from afar.
"We need your help!" Bubbles called out to her.
"I hate this!" Buttercup screamed and gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to fly over to Bubbles and punch her teeth out. Reluctantly, she decided to play along… For now.
The City of Townsville. Old Town. Pioneer Avenue. Precinct 13.
07 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 1652.
After descending down to the second floor, deftly squeezing past a rather fat cop holding a cup of coffee and a donut, Bunny began a new search pattern, first checking out the rooms on the eastern wing before setting out for the western wing.
However, a familiar feeling of unease was rising in her once more. It was that little itch in her nose, and as mere seconds passed, it had graduated to pain. 'Oh no! No, not now!' Bunny thought frantically. She remembered passing by the washrooms on this floor. Abandoning all thoughts of the mission, she retraced her steps towards the washroom. She felt like sneezing, and she couldn't hold it in for much longer, and so she flew into the women's washroom. It was only due to luck that there was no one there to notice the door, which seemed to open and close on its own.
She was barely inside when it happened. Clutching the sides of a washing basin, she sneezed into it. Immediately, she saw her invisibility field fading away from the mirror. She could see her own hands. But it was the sight in the washing basin that got her. There was a large splotch of blood there, as if from a serious laceration. 'What's… happening to me?' Bunny thought. Before she could complete it, there was the sound of a stall door opening.
Turning to the source of the noise, she saw a woman officer walking out of the stall, still working on her utility belt. It didn't take long for the cop to notice Bunny. Her response, however, took way too long - all she did was to stare at Bunny as if she was unable to believe that an 8-year-old equivalent wearing a set of dark purple military fatigue and black combat gear was floating in the air before her. She wouldn't get a chance to respond when Bunny zipped towards her, muffling her completely with one hand as she drew her Duranium combat knife with her other hand. In her panic, the police officer tried to draw her gun, but her utility belt had already fallen down on the floor as it hadn't been buckled yet. Slamming the female cop back down on her toilet seat, Bunny thrust her knife into her throat without hesitation.
The muffled scream did not last long as Bunny had cut below the vocal cord. Soon, it was just gurgling blood, mixed with air escaping from a hole in the officer's neck, blood spurting out in shocking volumes. Bunny had narrowly avoided a splash, though she still had spatters on her.
"I'm sorry…" Bunny whispered into the cop's ear as the woman convulsed from hemorrhagic shock and suffocation, before leaning back to look at her again. The cop's eyes were wide open in shock, life draining out of it rapidly, before slowly, very slowly, as if one was going to sleep, shutting for one final time.
When Bunny was convinced she was dead, she floated backward, horrified by what she had done. The female cop was a threat, but it didn't necessarily mean she was bad. She took another glance at the cop's face, which was half-covered by a mat of black hair. Tears prickled her eyes. The dead cop reminded her of her Mom, somehow. She read the nametag on her uniform. Officer Clarissa Adams.
"This is Rook. I'm hearing some strange stuff from my earpiece. What's going on? Over," Bunny heard Rook's voice in her own earpiece.
"I was caught, but I… killed the witness," Bunny whispered into her mic.
"Proceed with the mission. We will talk about this later. Over and out," Rook said and stayed silent as quickly as he came in.
Stifling a cry, Bunny proceeded to close the stall door from the inside. She locked it before flying out from above. Glancing at the door, she saw no one there. She focused on her hearing, enhancing it. No one was approaching. Quickly, she flew to the washing basin to wash off whatever blood she had on her blade and face, before turning invisible again…
The City of Townsville. New Harlem. Crowe Apartments.
07 MAR (Tuesday) 1989. 1657.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had introduced themselves the only way they knew how, or cared to do so: By crashing through the windows of the district's dominant gang, the Black Brothers. The only foresight and planning Blossom had managed was to scan the many windows of the apartment building in search of the gang's Big Brother.
And she'd hit the jackpot when she saw the surest sign of gang activity - a huge group of armed men. The Big Brother and his lieutenants, the Mid Bros, were holding a discussion in their ancient apartment when the Powerpuff Girls smashed through the windows and landed. All around them, guns were drawn. There was a symphony of metal clicks and clangs, one that Blossom had decided not to contribute to.
"Mister Lydel Lucas?" Blossom called out to no one in particular. She didn't dare move too much and hadn't seen where Big Brother was. The sofa was blocking the way, as were a few mobsters. "I wanna talk!"
There was a pregnant pause, a tense moment with dozens of itchy fingers on triggers waiting to be pushed. There were about eight men around a coffee table - the leaders of the gang, presumably. Around the Girls were twenty others, likely trusted right-hand men and buttons and bodyguards entrusted with the deepest secrets the gang could keep.
Hushed murmurs followed after that.
"The Powerpuff Girls? Talk?" one gangster said, though Blossom could barely make out the words. Buttercup heard It loud and clear.
"They're just playin', I know it," another one of them guessed.
Just then, someone stood up - a surprisingly young man in his mid-twenties, wearing an earthy-colored suit. Like most other mob bosses, he wore a lot of rings and a necklace, but unlike most other mob bosses, he had an earring on one of his ears as well - a short, golden thing hugging his earlobe closely.
"You wanna talk? So talk," Mister Lydel Lucas said, firmly but with a face that bore the kind of hostility an enemy would. He had only a cane in his hand, not a gun or a sword, but it had only done more to emphasize his authority. He didn't need weapons to project himself, to intimidate.
For some reason, Blossom could feel her entire body shaking with nervousness. When was the last time she had to negotiate? What was worse was that the distant wail of police sirens had added urgency into the mix, and Blossom knew that police sirens make criminals jumpy.
Blossom took in a deep breath before kicking herself up to a floating position so that she and the Big Brother could speak face-to-face properly. This had caused some alarm in some of the mob guards; where they had previously relaxed a little, they raised their guns again. The man himself gestured for them to lower their pieces.
"Urm… I'm supposed to kill all of you-" Blossom stated plainly, and was quickly interrupted.
"Is that the best you can do?" the Big Brother said. "I'm shakin' in my boots." His taunt drew some laughter, some understandably nervous, others arrogantly so.
"But I don't want to," Blossom said.
"Well, I really want to!" it was Buttercup's turn to interrupt Blossom, who promptly shushed her down.
"Is that right? Who sent you?" the Black Brothers boss questioned the leader of the Powerpuff Girls.
"Urm… the police?" Blossom replied, somehow gaining an innocent look despite the weapons and gear she was packing.
"And by police, you mean Police Chief Paul Feig and his posse?" Lydel Lucas guessed - and accurately too.
Blossom lowered her head in shame - for some reason she couldn't realize immediately, she felt shame for having followed the police chief's orders, and in effect, the Amoeba Boys'. It didn't take long for her to realize she felt that way because she had been led by them to kill a good number of people, almost too many to count.
"Yes…" Blossom admitted. The Big Brother laughed, looking around the room as he did. Some of his men laughed along with him.
"What's so funny?" Buttercup scolded. Bubbles had been silent the whole time - she shared Blossom's shame, though she had little to do with it as her body count had been very low.
"Now, I was thinking that it couldn't possibly be true - all that crap about you girls being all goody two shoes and idealistic and all that nonsense," the Big Brother said, gesticulating wildly, almost jubilantly, much to the Girls' confusion. "But I don't know, maybe it's not all fascist propaganda."
"What do you mean?" Blossom asked, confused. There were so many big words being thrown around, words she would not come to know until years later. As it was, she could only understand half of it, but it was the essential half of it: that somehow, against all odds, she had impressed the gang leader, and that they now believed her to be good despite… some of the terrible things she had done, things that she was sure these people knew about.
"Nevermind," Lydel said. "So tell me, Miss Blossom, what do you want?"
"I don't have to kill you, but I have to arrest you," Blossom said. "I don't want anyone to get hurt."
"Arrest me? Hey! You come into my turf-" Lydel began shouting, infuriated.
"She's being nice!" Bubbles yelled suddenly. "She- we killed the others, but she's being nice now!"
"Too nice, actually," Buttercup added. Her LMG was twitching, rearing to go off.
"So we're supposed to just put down our guns and let you cuff us like a buncha niggers? Fuck ya'll and fuck that! I ain't going to some pig's pen to be treated like dirt!" the leader of the Black Brothers yelled aggressively; it wasn't a mystery to Blossom that she had offended him, somehow.
"But- It's not like that!" Blossom struggled to explain her viewpoint, nearly brought to tears by the harsh language dished out by Lydel.
"You're a bunch of no-good criminals who should've been killed a gazillion minutes ago!" Buttercup yelled back, frustrated at the lack of violence, and death, and gore, seconds away from just giving up on restraint and doing things her way - why she still relied on Blossom to decide what to do was beyond her. Was it a habit? Buttercup wasn't sure - but she was sure that it had something to do with that strange sensation coming from her head, that sensation that sometimes gave her a headache.
"Yeah, says a bunch of 5-year-old white bitches who know nothing about life!" Lydel shouted.
"We're four months old, actually…" Blossom corrected, a comment that raised a good number of eyebrows around the room. "Can't we just be friends?"
"Yeah, right. How bout if I put one between your eyes? And then we can talk about being friends." the mob boss threatened. Blossom did not reply. It was all happening again - all the violence, the hate.
"You can't beat us," Buttercup warned the gangsters all around the room.
"You have no idea what we're packing," Lydel said, and before anyone knew it, the room had become a thunderstorm of flashes and lead and explosions.