Chapter 112: Palace of Minos (Part 3)
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1854.
After killing off the twenty or so police officers and prisoners on the ground level office, Bunny began hovering towards the lobby, where a few more cops and some unlucky civilians were holed up in. Some of the said civilians began running her way, unaware of her intentions, and Bunny dispatched them with pinpoint accuracy, putting bullets through their head as they were coming towards her.
"She's coming," Detective Mullens said to his daughter, Olivia. He could see the faint glow of purple-red down the corridor lit by the red glow of emergency lights. They hid on either side of the entrance leading into the lobby, guns drawn.
"Ri can rake her," Stanley Talker, the talking dog, decided as he hid beside Olivia, ready to pounce.
"Hold your horses," Mullens said. "She's dangerous. We can't afford to lose you."
"Yeah, I don't know about you, but I don't think we'll find another talking dog on this planet," Olivia added.
"Rhanks," the talking dog said.
"We'll do it smart," Detective Mullens said. He peeked around the corner. She was coming closer, about the pass the stairs leading up and down the building. "Olivia and I will lay down some covering fire. You'll blindside her while we're shooting. Aim for the neck. If she's anything like Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, she'll bleed like 'em and faint."
"Rokay! Ri'm ready!" Stanley Talker growled, getting into a ready-to-sprint stance.
Mullens held up two fingers while he was still peaking around the corner. The red-purple glow was getting closer, but Mullens wasn't sure why it wouldn't be right up next to him by now.
In the end, it didn't matter. All that mattered now was the fact that he and his family was still breathing, that the helpless civilians behind him were still alive. He counted down with his fingers. Two. One.
Leaning out, he began firing rounds at the red-purple eyes, and Olivia did the same. The talking dog sprinted in after that. The detective returned to cover mere milliseconds before bullets chipped at his corner wall.
"Olivia, stay in cover!" Mullens screamed in horror when he realized that Olivia was still leaning out and shooting, trying to empty her revolver and keep the talking dog covered. A bullet ripped through her shoulder before she could even process his instructions. Screaming, Olivia fell behind cover, clutching her shoulder. Blood spurted out from between her fingers.
At the same time, Stanley Talker lunged at the figure in purple - it was actually by his intervention that she could not fire as straight as she usually did since she had to switch gears because of a huge, speedy dog bounding after her.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1855.
Bunny unloaded the rest of her MP5's magazine into the beast sprinting towards her, aiming for the dull brownish glow in the red-colored dark. Pretty soon, her submachinegun ran dry, but the beast continued coming towards her.
It was a German Shepherd of some kind, larger than the sort she had seen in the USDO HQ. It was armored, and it was angry. It leaped for her as she hovered in shock, tackling her to the ground. It had aimed for whatever exposed bit of flesh it could reach: her right hand and its teeth had sunk deep into her skin, spilling blood.
It was then that she understood that she was facing an enhanced being in the form of a dog. Pain erupted in her hand and the more she tried to shake the dog loose, the more it hurt. She screamed in both agony and fear, having never felt such raw and wild pain before, having never faced an animal in a frenzy of violence.
The enhanced German Shepherd growled wildly as it continued to apply more force on her hand as if trying to rip it to shreds. It shook its head and bit down with reckless abandon and Bunny could only scream and panic. With what little rationality she had left, Bunny fired a quick infrared beam at the dog, only to sear Kevlar.
As if reacting intelligently, the enhanced dog released her hand before pinning her right arm and head down with its paws, such that she could only stare to the side in horror as she felt hot breath down her neck. With her left hand, Bunny unsheathed the Duranium combat knife on her chest and plunged it into the dog - she didn't even see where she had stabbed.
The enhanced dog yowled in pain as it withdrew and limped quickly back from whence it came, tail tucked messily between its legs.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1856.
It'd happened so quickly. At first, Detective Mullens thought that Stanley Talker had taken down the 'Anti-Powerpuff Girl', but that had only been half-true. She fought back, and now the talking dog had limped back to him. Staring into the distance, the detective could just about see, with his old eyes, that the destructive being had only been wounded, and was lying on the floor. He could hear her though, and she wasn't unconscious.
Good enough.
Mullens got Talker to lie down next to Olivia on his good side. Taking a knee beside them, with his ears still open for any change in the situation, he began stripping away the talking dog's Kevlar jacket. Blood was pouring, gushing like a river. The detective strained his eyes to see what the little monster had done to his canine partner.
There was a small slit. But it wasn't a slash wound. It was too short and too deep for that. It was a stab wound, and it had gone very deep, like Marianas Trench deep. Detective Mullens was not a veterinarian, but he could roughly estimate that the knife wound had gone through the canine analogue of the shoulder. Whether there were any internal injuries was another matter, one that would have to be unresolved in the time being for lack of skills.
Mullens could still hear her. The talking dog's assailant. Was she… crying? If it weren't for what she had done, Mullens would have felt sorry for the enhanced girl.
"Don't move," Mullens told both of his wounded companions.
"Not that I want to!" Olivia said through gritted teeth. Stanley Talker on the other hand seemed to have regressed, and he was whining throatily like a normal dog from the pain while Mullens pressed a torn strip of dark blue cloth he had salvaged from a dead cop into the wound to stem the bleeding. With that, Mullens picked up his Colt Python and leaned against the wall by the corridor where the enhanced girl was.
She was still crying, quite wretchedly too. He peeked around the corner. She had picked herself back up, got on her knees while leaning against the wall, all the while clutching the wrist of her injured hand.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1858.
Bunny inspected her injured hand with gritted teeth. She couldn't help but to break out in tears because of how vicious and sudden the dog's attack was. The enhanced dog's teeth had penetrated her glove, now soaked red with blood. Unstrapping it, she pulled it off. A burst of pain accompanied the gesture.
The dog had bitten down on her hand so hard that there were half-ovals of teeth marks on both the back of her hand and her palm, and every teeth was represented by its own wound. At some places, the blood was thick and congealed, and at others, the skin was partially torn off. Almost all of them were deep, and it hurt to even move her fingers slightly.
Just then, she could hear footsteps coming down from the stairs next to her. She charged up her eyes even before the STARS team appeared as she retreated back towards the office. She fired heat beams haphazardly at them, managing to burn one of them in the chest. Bullets were flying, some of them hitting her. One of them had a grenade launcher, and the moment he raised it, Bunny raised her arm and formed a purple energy shield. A grenade detonated on her shield, sending her flying in the direction she was running. She was dashed against the wall, which cracked from the force.
Bunny's head was ringing from the explosion. The blast had deafened her, and the dust blinded her.
"She's over there, move, move, move!" she could barely hear a STARS officer shout even with her enhanced hearing focused. With her x-ray vision, she penetrated the dust and fire and saw where the STARS grenadier was. She charged her ocular beam up and sniped him out with a focused laser beam, putting a hole through the neck, which exploded in a gush of blood.
There had been four, now there were two. One of them dropped his SMG and unstrapped a Duranium anti-material rifle from his shoulder - Bunny could identify it from the shine - and trained it on her. They both fired it at the same time. Bunny had drilled into his heart with laser, but not before the STARS officer had fired his rifle. Bunny recoiled - she could feel what felt like a punch in her shoulder, and she knew it had been shot. The pain did not come immediately. Bunny charged up another laser beam.
The last STARS member panicked and ran screaming, so Bunny sliced him up in the back instead, severing spine and spilling open the bag that was his stomach. He fell down, grunting in pain. Walking up to him, Bunny observed the poor man trying to crawl away. He was indeed STARS, alright, with his heavily customized military uniform. His vest wasn't even police-issued, but self-bought and optimized to the point of being military-grade. Not that it mattered. Bunny stomped on his neck so hard that there was a loud, audible crack, and he was still after that.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1901.
Mullens was relieved. He watched the enhanced being make its way towards the stairs, going up. It meant that he and his daughter and sapient dog weren't her main target, but it begged the question. What was her main purpose for being here? The USDO might have sent her, but what did the USDO want?
He returned his attention to his daughter and canine colleague. One of the women trapped in the lobby offered to help, introducing herself as a licensed paramedic.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1902.
Bunny pushed on, despite her master hand being disabled. But it was more than that. Her joints were stiff and hurting again, and the chest pains were coming back. The moment she came up to the second floor, however, she wasn't given any respite. Shots were fired at her from either side, and she brought up a bubble of energy around her with her arms outstretched on instinct, which absorbed the bullets or deflected them.
She glimpsed SWAT cops on either side, trying to ambush her. But they were the least of her worries - and the worst threats the station could muster were already defeated. Pulling out Ace's sword, she jumped through a window in the corridor and brought up her cloaking field once more.
"She- she just- disappeared!" one of the SWAT officers exclaimed as he pointed his assault rifle here and there, trying to find her, but unable to believe what he had just witnessed.
Bunny sprinted towards the cops on the right, going through a detective's office and jumping through another window, dodging bullets from an opportunistic burst-fire from her targets. Her cloaking field dispersed only when she got up close and was about to swing Ace's sword one-handed.
Her first target could only gasp when Bunny sliced open his chest, the blade going through lungs and heart, instantly killing him. The SWAT officer next to her trained his gun upon her, but Bunny had already broken it in two with a single stroke before he could fire. Before he knew it, she had already skewered him through the lens of his gas mask. The SWAT officer jerked and convulsed as the sword went through his head before collapsing, lifeless.
Whirling around, she saw too late that an officer on the left had launched a teargas grenade at her. She was soon engulfed in gas, which stung her eyes and nose. She sprinted away, and soon the nasty sensation disappeared.
Taking the long route around the corridors, she encountered more SWAT officers taking positions in the alternate corridor. She was taking shots the moment she turned the corner, some of which had struck her in the face. Smashing through a door, she laid her sword down on the floor and pulled the LAW from her back, arming it. Leaning out from the door, she fired a rocket at the SWAT strong point, blowing them up and rocking the building. Picking up her sword again, she continued on without surveying her handiwork - the officers were little more than scattered body parts and blasted corpses burned and filled with holes, barely recognizable.
Bunny brought up her cloaking field one more time, ignoring the rising pain in her head and chest, before descending on the remaining SWAT officers from her alternate route. Leaping up into the air, she decloaked and brought her sword down on one of them, skewering him from the top, the sword plunging into his shoulder and through his left lung, killing him instantly.
The others turned to shoot. Sweating off the bullets, Bunny drew her sword across a SWAT's stomach, laughing, before bringing it around and hacking another into two across the waist. She launched herself shoulder-first into the last SWAT officer, ignoring the mounting pain, tackling him to the ground, before gripping the lower half of the sword with her injured hand and stabbing him in the face over and over, again, ignoring the pain she was inflicting on herself by this act. She had cut her own fingers on the sword when she gripped the lower half of its blade.
She didn't know when it started, but she had begun enjoying it despite the agony she was going through. When she had finally had her fill, she fell on all fours, and when the adrenaline wore off and the pain all over her body reasserted itself, she began coughing heavily, spattering blood all over the floor, adding even more to the pool of blood beneath her.
"Ow…" Bunny cried as she wiped her face instinctively. Looking at her hand, she saw more blood, perhaps even more than the last time. It was coming from her nose and eyes. She could feel more snaking out of her ears and down the sides of her neck. Pain shot up in her chest meanwhile, and even her head was getting in on the act as she felt a sharp pain, as if hot needles were being pushed through her eyes and deep into her brain.
And it wasn't going away as it should. She waited and waited, rolling off the body she was straddling to lie alongside those she had killed, hoping that she hadn't reached a terminal point where the pain would never leave.
She remembered her family then, how much she wished to return to the arms of her loving Dad, to the embrace of her loving parents, and even her sisters one day, when they would all forgive her.
No, she would not let the pain beat her down like this. Picking up her sword, she sheathed it once more, determined not to use it again - its weird effect on her was making her careless with both her safety and powers. With some difficulty, she got up with the help of a nearby wall. There was still a mission to accomplish.
"Bunny…" a voice called out to her, singing her name. Bunny turned around, surveying the devastation all around her. She was alone. But she knew who it was. The Red Man. He was rooting for her, him in his lonesome when her sisters refused to.
Feig. He must die. Starting forward, Bunny began making her way towards the stairs leading up to the third floor. She pulled her SMG out, reloaded it, and held it one-handed… and left-handed.
Her eyes stung, but she brought up her x-ray vision one more time, intensifying it to the point where she could see the entirety of the station. Looking all around her, she saw that there was still one group of police officers on the third floor. The second floor hosted another surviving group huddled in a corner she did not visit, and there were those two trenchcoat-wearing detectives and their dog. Two of them were hurt. Numerous civilians had stayed behind, and they were now under the protection of the detectives. These pockets of resistance would have to come later.
For now, she knew exactly where Feig was. She'd seen him briefly, hiding behind a wall, a door, and a group of officers. Her eyes hurt more after her use of x-ray vision. She had decided to use her powers only sparingly until after her sickness was better. Running to the back of the floor, she unpinned a flashbang, primed it, and threw it into the corridor where the cops were making a last stand. They shouted immediately, and Bunny could hear them scuttling for cover.
Leaning out of her cover, she began gunning down the stragglers. Some doors were open, and she'd heard some officers smashing them open and running through when she threw her flashbang. For each opened door, she primed a frag grenade and lobbed them in without a moment's thought. It was all good if the cops inside were killed, and if they weren't, she'll deal with them later after she was done with Feig.
Moving up to Feig's door, she kicked it open recklessly and unloaded her SMG into the room. She thought she heard a man whimpering in pain behind his desk. Feig. She knew that voice. He popped out of his desk after that, one hand clutching his chest and shooting a pistol with the other.
It was special this time. Feig was close, so close, and he was completely vulnerable. Helpless. Bunny allowed herself to hover and come towards him, ignoring the bullets bouncing off her face and armor.
The corrupt police chief backed away from her, his back meeting with the grilled window that was supposed to protect him, but now, ironically, had conspired with Bunny to kill him.
Bunny zipped up to him when she was halfway across the room, gripping him by his fleshy neck.
"You've been tricking my sisters!" Bunny screeched at the man venomously as she squeezed his neck. The hate in her voice was so strong that she scared even herself. "Hurting them!" Feig could only grab at her wrist helplessly. He felt himself being lifted off the ground, and the little flow of air he had left was cut off. He croaked for mercy, and he could barely make a sound.
But Bunny wasn't about to give him mercy. Obedience brings victory. Victory is life. Her life was her family. She squeezed Feig's neck further, cracking something inside. Feig spasmed in pain as he croaked helplessly. Bunny continued to squeeze, even using both her hands. She had to make sure. There was no room for error.
It was only when minutes passed that she let go. Feig's lifeless body fell in a heap.
Bunny could finally take a deep breath after that, as she sat down on the police chief's desk. The feeling of being free felt… priceless, second to none. She could already imagine floating into her sisters' arms, giggling and smiling with glee.
She pressed a button on her radio. "Mister Rook, it's Bunny. I did it. I killed him," Bunny said, all the while being lightheaded, but giddy with joy.
Bunny looked down at the corpse of Feig, which was when joy turned to terror. The corpse began convulsing as if having a seizure. The head shook from side to side so rapidly that it blurred. Like a broken toy, the corpse kicked and slammed its fists against the floor, and then it began changing, turning shorter, much thinner. Feminine. It was only when the change was over that the body stopped moving.
It was the same 'face-dancer' who had tricked Bunny in her attempt to arrest the wayward police chief, and now the face-dancer had tricked her into killing her - and over thirty other officers and prisoners in a precinct.
"Mister Rook!" Bunny exclaimed in alarm, tearing up. "It wasn't the chief at all! It wasn't him!"
"What do you mean? Over," Rook asked over the radio.
"He's changed into- into a woman! Again!" Bunny cried. It had all been for nothing - the dreaded killing, the pain, the suffering, her sickness, and her injuries.
"God damn it!" Rook shouted angrily over the radio. "Get out of there ASAP and return for debriefing, over."
"What about the other policemen and people in the station?" Bunny asked.
"Forget them! The mission is already a failure and other USDO elements not in the know are already responding to this incident. Leave the place and come back, over and out," Rook said before signing off.
If the concept of souls was real, Bunny might have lost hers at that moment. She had done everything that her sisters hated - that her Dad hated too - and it was all for nothing. Coming up to the grilled window, Bunny yanked the entire steel frame off, taking bits of the concrete wall with it.
She was depressed, and she couldn't care less that she smashed through the window to fly out. She cared even less that flying seemed to be exacerbating the pain in her joints, chest, and head. She wanted to just fly as far away from Precinct 77 as possible, never looking back.
The City of Townsville. Outskirts. En Route to Precinct 77.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 1916.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had been called out to fight the Chechens while Bunny had left for another of her secret missions. It was easier than expected. Blossom had extended them a chance to surrender, and some of them took it. There was infighting among the Chechens as some of them disagreed with giving up, and the Powerpuff Girls ended protecting one faction from the other. Unlike the Russian Mob, however, the Chechens were ill-equipped to fight them, so they were taken down without too many problems.
After leaving the Chechens to the TPD, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were on their way home when they received a call from Detective Mullens to help with a serious incident at Precinct 77.
When they on the way to Precinct 77, they saw that there was some fire on one side of the building; it was hardly blazing, but it told them that it was serious. There were fire engines and ambulances at the entrance, but they were stuck as the precinct was sealed up tight. Up in the sky, they saw a purple streak flying away, and immediately, Blossom knew who was responsible for attacking the precinct.
Touching down at the entrance, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup met Detective Mullens at the front entrance of the police station. There was a security gate preventing him, the injured Olivia and Stanley, along with a group of civilians, from escaping the building. They had been trying to dismantle it for over ten minutes now but to no success. Together, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, however, managed to yank the gate off effortlessly and instantly, throwing it aside so that the civilians within could finally run out to the paramedics while firefighters could finally rush in to put out the flames.
Inside, Bubbles did what she could to help Olivia and Stanley Talker, assisting the paramedics attending to them the best way she could. Blossom surveyed the surroundings and spoke to Detective Mullens while Buttercup swept the area for any straggling enemies - though she quickly found that there was nothing for her to maim and kill. Bunny had acted alone, Blossom believed.
The modus operandi sure matched Bunny. Disemboweled cops and prisoners. Beheadings, severed limbs, and men who were chopped in half, or even worse, blown to bits.
"That was your younger sister?" Detective Mullens had said with disbelief when he found out. "If this 'Bunny' was your sister, then why would she help release arrested criminals, attack us, and kill everyone here? Even the average Joes and Jills who came here to report on crimes were gunned down like dogs…"
Blossom had no words for it, at least not immediately. The bad blood between her and Bunny was mainly caused by the latter's monopoly over Dad's attention, and only later by their differences. But this confirmed it. There was no denying it. Blossom had explored the station briefly, seen the mutilated bodies of cops and prisoners alike.
"Because she's evil," Blossom simply said. Looking past Detective Mullens as they were sitting down in the lobby, she saw Olivia and Stanley Talker. The former could barely sit while the latter couldn't even get up from the ground. Bunny had hurt her friends and killed the innocent when even criminals should be spared. None of these points were the last straw. The camel's back had been broken many times over, ever since the previous day.
Blossom grew afraid after that as she talked about how evil Bunny was. She had seen Bunny flying away on the way to Precinct 77. Now that she had gone beyond the threshold, what would she do once she reached home? She didn't even know why she had gone on a rampage. Had she succumbed to evil as Bubbles did?
"I gotta go! Bubbles, Buttercup!" Blossom bade Detective Mullens farewell hastily as she rushed out of the police station. Bubbles had objected to leaving so quickly only to fall on deaf ears, so she followed Blossom regardless. Buttercup simply had nothing else to do.
They flew back home at breakneck speed, coming closer than ever to the sound barrier. All kinds of possible scenarios came and went in Blossom's mind, and each time, she was afraid of what might happen to Dad and Mom, of whether she would see them again.
They had flown so fast that they were home within twenty minutes, with every minute of it unbearable to Blossom. But they were home. They were exhausted, but at least they'd made it. The House seemed fine, with the lights at the windows still on. No walls and windows were busted, and neither were there fires raging nor explosions going off. The security team outside were on alert but were otherwise fine.
Where was Bunny? She had left the police station just before they arrived, leaving them in the wake of her purple X-energy contrail, and Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had spent nearly half an hour at Precinct 77.
The very same purple X-energy contrail in the distance, coming from the skyline of Townsville, answered that question.
"Blossom, what's going on?" Bubbles asked, confused.
"Yeah, what gives? Why the sudden race?" Buttercup exclaimed irritably, talking for once.
"It's Bunny - she killed all those poor people in the station, and- and she hurt our friends- and she did all those other things!" Blossom struggled to explain now that time was of the essence. "The eyes! The red eyes! She's not right! She's evil!"
"You're perfectly right!" Buttercup agreed wholeheartedly, not because of all the things Bunny did, but simply because she didn't like her and wanted her out of the way.
Bubbles was silent. There was no way she could deny the charges Blossom had brought up. She had helped bandage Olivia and the talking dog herself personally, and she'd heard them loud and clear who had done it to them. She had overheard Blossom's conversation with Detective Mullens if that wasn't enough.
"We have to protect Dad… and Mom," Blossom said. "We can't let Bunny into The House."
"Now we're talking!" Buttercup exclaimed excitedly. She was dying for a rematch ever since that time when Bunny had defeated both her and Blossom both at the same time. "I can't wait to kick her teeth in!"
Bunny landed on the street soon after that, giving the Girls no time to prepare. She appeared to have cleaned herself up, but the scars on her armor, the blood still evident on it reminded Blossom of everything Bunny had done.
"Blossom- Bubbles- Buttercup!" Bunny uttered as she walked towards them, a tired smile on her face. "It's really nice to see the three of you…" None of the Girls liked the way she was smiling. It seemed wrong after everything she had done.
Blossom greeted Bunny by raising her compact pistol. Buttercup followed suit by raising the XM4 carbine she had brought along. Bubbles reluctantly did the same with her MP5. Bunny stopped, her smile disappearing.
"W-what's going on?" Bunny said, shrinking away from the guns pointed at her. Blossom found it insidious and dishonest, the way Bunny was trying to lie her way out of trouble. "Blossom! Why are you being so mean-"
"We know what you did!" Blossom interrupted quickly, having no more patience for this monster she called her sister.
"Yeah, you come any closer, and we'll beat you up to pulp!" Buttercup added.
Bubbles was silent, uncommitted. She still had her memories of a good Bunny, and it was paralyzing, how they clashed with what Bunny had become.
"You released the bad guys and killed policemen! You killed innocent people! Normal people who were just looking for help!" Blossom accused the youngest of the quartet.
"But- But they were bad!" Bunny tried to defend herself. "Bunny did good!"
"Are you stupid!? Bunny did bad!" Blossom yelled at the stalker of the dark. "You were supposed to beat up criminals, not the police!"
"But- but they were bad!" Bunny defended herself. "They wanted to get you in trouble! Mister Feig was working with the bad guys!"
Bubbles could not take it any longer; she had had enough.
"You HURT our FRIENDS!" she screamed at Bunny, and it was Bubbles that got her the most. Bunny had always thought that she was the infallible pillar that she could lean on. Now, it had fallen on her. Not even Bubbles could like her anymore. "I looked out for you! I played with you, and I talked to you! And you HURT our FRIENDS!" Bubbles was nearly hyperventilating, and shades of her BerXerker frenzy was showing - it would make sense, as the drug was still lingering in her blood. Bunny could have sworn that Bubbles' eye glow had changed slightly in color.
Buttercup merely smiled in triumph and sadism.
"Looks like not even sweet lil' Bubbles likes you, Bunny," she said meanly as she brandished her gun threateningly. "I would scram if I were you."
"Blossom! Please!" Bunny pleaded with Blossom, the thought of being kicked out of The House previously unthinkable, and how it was terrifying, more so than facing Mojo Jojo, or any of the enemies she had fought against so far. "Bubbles! I- I didn't mean to hurt your friends, I didn't even know that-"
"Liar! You're not a Powerpuff Girl. You'll never, ever be a Powerpuff Girl!" Blossom scolded Bunny.
"But- but Bunny do good!" Bunny repeated herself, regressed from the stress. She took steps forward again, desperate for a hug, determined to convince her sisters that she was right. She had only alarmed them. Blossom charged up a quick one and fired an infrared beam at Bunny's feet.
"Go away! Don't come any closer!" Blossom warned her. The noise of asphalt exploding had alerted security. Dad and Mom emerged from The House, wondering what was going on.
With shaking lips, Bunny could only look on in abject horror and depression, until finally, she couldn't hold herself back any longer. She bawled, unrestrained, uncontrolled - her dream of a happily-ever-after shattered. Turning around, she sprinted away before flying off into the night, her cries and wails fading away into the void.
Professor Utonium and Selicia were too late to stop it. By the time they shouted for her to come back, she was no longer within conventional earshot - and Bunny was accelerating close to the sound barrier, motivated by pain and sadness.
Where she would go, Blossom did not bother to even think about it. As far as she was concerned, she had no younger sister, and she had saved her family from certain doom.
Bunny could die and she couldn't care less.