Chapter 113: Heart of the Labyrinth (Part 1)
Audio Sensor Recording 03091989-2004
DOC: 09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 2004.
Extracted: 11 MAR (Saturday) 1989.
The following is a recording of a conversation detected by a sensor embedded in the wall of The House, located in the living room.
Field Researcher Utonium: Why did you chase her off, Blossom!? She's your sister! Your YOUNGER sister! If there was something to argue about, couldn't you just get me!? I was right there in The House!
B-47 (Blossom): She's dangerous, Dad! I was trying to protect you!
Sergeant Selicia Goodwin: What do you mean, dangerous? I think I can say the same thing about you!
B-47 (Blossom): Mom! You don't understand!
Sergeant Selicia Goodwin: Don't you USE that tone on me, LITTLE lady!
Field Researcher Utonium: Selicia, we need to get to the bottom of this. (brief pause) What do you mean by dangerous?
B-47 (Blossom): She flew into a police station, started releasing the bad guys there and killing off the policemen!
B-48 (Buttercup): And they were all 'sploded and torn to little itty tiny bits and cut in half and-
Sergeant Selicia Goodwin: I think we get the picture, darling.
Field Researcher Utonium: Is it true, Bubbles?
B-47 (Blossom): (Whining) Dad!
(Silence)
B-49 (Bubbles): (Sadly) Yes… I saw it myself… Bunny hurt our friends too…
B-47 (Blossom): And they had really big boo-boos!
B-48 (Buttercup): Bunny must have shot them and used a big knife to stab them-
Field Researcher Utonium: Yeah, I get it, Buttercup, calm down.
B-47 (Blossom): She didn't just kill the policemen, Dad. She killed those… normal people too. The kind you find walking on the street? She just… killed everyone there.
Field Researcher Utonium: There's got to be a reason for this.
B-47 (Blossom): I think she's becoming evil Dad. I saw her eyes and they were like… Bubbles back when she had her drug problem…
B-49 (Bubbles): That's true too…
Field Researcher Utonium: Was she asked to kill everyone in the police station?
B-47 (Blossom): I don't know…
Sergeant Selicia Goodwin: The USDO wouldn't have done this. It has a public face now. It would be a PR nightmare! Won't Director Cliff face a backlash for this?
Field Researcher Utonium: I honestly won't put it past him, or General Blackwater.
B-47 (Blossom): But her eyes, Dad! Her eyes turned red! There's something wrong with Bunny!
Field Researcher Utonium: I know you've come to associate red eyes with bad things, Blossom, but you just don't know! You shouldn't have been so rash! She's still your younger sister! Haven't you learn anything yet!? How could you be so stupid!?
B-47 (Blossom): (in low volume, barely audible) I'm sorry… I just wanted to- (impossible to discern)
Field Researcher Utonium: Look, I'm sorry, Blossom dear, I was just mad. I didn't mean to yell at you. I know you thought that we're all in danger, but you shouldn't have acted before thinking things through first. (rips out tissue) Here. Hey, I'm sorry-
Sergeant Selicia Goodwin: Why are you even going easy on her! Blossom just caused a Run-Away event! And this is Bunny we're talking about!
Field Researcher Utonium: Kids are just kids… Nothing we can do but pick up the pieces. There's nothing they can do but learn.
Sergeant Selicia Goodwin: Well I'm going to have to call this in. You better hope nothing happens to Bunny, Blossom! Or there'll be something in store for you! That goes for you too, Bubbles!
The City of Townsville. The Coast. Devil's Reef.
09 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 2015.
When Bunny flew away, she just kept going without looking back, without regard for her own safety and health, or protocols and standard operating procedures. She accelerated and accelerated until she had unknowingly made a sonic boom and exceeded the speed of sound. She flew across Townsville, traveling the breadth of it until she had reached the coast, far from civilization, with even the Townsville Port dozens of miles up the coast.
Having exhausted herself beyond what she thought was possible, she let herself fall, braking only when she was close to the reef there before settling herself down, perching on the tallest rock formation there. There, she cried and cried the time away, the memory of her sisters' rejection, their anger, and hostility towards her stuck in her mind - she couldn't remember the better times even if she tried.
She felt it again, what felt like the sensation of hot needles pushing through her eyes and her brain, as if she was being lobotomized, what might as well be a heart attack and punctured lungs ravaging her chest. She curled up into a fetus on the reef, still weeping and crying, staining the lifeless rock with her blood as she retched and coughed and bled like an old woman, and finally vomited even more blood out.
And the pain didn't entirely leave her alone even after that, even if that's all she wanted right now - to be left alone.
All was lost. There was nothing for her now. Not even Dad and Mom. By now, they would surely have known that she had done a terrible deed. She knew how police officers were perceived - they were seen generally as heroes - more so by those who considered them friends. And she had killed or wounded so many of them.
Standing up unsteadily, Bunny stared at the moon, enjoying this beautiful, unreachable thing. Her flip-phone began ringing in her pocket. Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! It screamed as if a bystander trying to dissuade her from what she wanted to do next, crying and begging for her attention, but she ignored it.
She let herself fall forward, plunging head-first down into the reefs. She felt a heavy knock on the head, then the sensation of falling into what was like the biggest tub of water ever, before everything went dark.
The City of Townsville. The Coast. Devil's Reef.
10 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0731.
"Poor little Bunny, hated by those you love…" a singing voice whispered into Bunny's ear. "forsaken by those for whom you spent your all to save…"
"And now you just want to END IT ALL!? But no… it's not over. Not yet. Wake up. There might still be hope for you yet…"
The first thing that Bunny sensed wasn't visual. There was something soft, and her cheek was pressing against it. She opened her eyes to find that her left eye was buried in something. Sand. She got up, wiping the stuff away. She had never really seen it before, except in pictures. Water lapped at her from the waters of the shore. She had never really had a chance to get up close to the shoreline before.
She could feel something on her back. Looking up, she saw that Nana was half-kneeling next to her, stroking her back lovingly with pitying eyes. General Blackwater stood behind her, imposing, more so than the storm clouds.
Little raindrops fell from the sky, the prelude to spring. Bunny felt a few of them in her hand and face. Even spring, that mythical season that wasn't winter, felt unreachable.
"Bunny! You're awake!" Nana cried, pulling Bunny into an embrace. The enhanced girl was sopping wet. Miraculously, all her weapons were still with her, if waterlogged; they would have been easy to lose in the waters of the reef. "You're alright!"
Bunny felt like anything but alright. She was a wash-up, literally and figuratively. She didn't dare look up at the general again. She knew that she had erred, broken protocol, and leaving home without permission. She had been so broken then that she hadn't even thought about it, but a mistake was a mistake.
"How did you find me?" Bunny asked Nana. "I thought I would be alone here forever…"
"There's a GPS locator in your armor," General Blackwater replied for Nana. "We used it to track you. Darn thing broke last night though. Must be the water. But we combed the area and found you."
USDO soldiers were either patrolling or guarding the beach. The area was otherwise deserted. There would have been few beachgoers in the late winter morning anyway.
"I'm sorry…" Bunny mumbled, and when she remembered what happened yesterday, she couldn't help but cry again. "I- I'm so sorry… I just-"
"We know what happened yesterday, Bunny," Nana said. "That was mean of your sisters. Don't they know how lucky they are to have you? You poor, poor thing." Bunny sobbed in her arms, and Nana held her close, stroking the back of her head.
"Where will I go now? They don't want me around anymore…" Bunny said. Her joints ached. Her chest was still suffering from lingering pain, both of the dull and the sharper sort. Her sickness just wouldn't go away, and Bunny feared that it would never be gone.
"You'll be bunking in the USDO HQ until I sort this," General Blackwater growled, clearly angered by the turn of events. "I will get to the bottom of this, and when I do, I'm going to have a word with your sisters."
"Please don't-" Bunny murmured, weak and barely able to speak.
"What?" the general tried to clarify what she meant.
"I don't want them to be trouble…" Bunny said.
"Even after everything they put you through?" the general said, completely baffled by Bunny's devotion to her sisters, whom she had only essentially just met - two and a half weeks wasn't a long time.
Bunny fell silent. She couldn't justify what she said. She hadn't thought that far ahead. All she had was what she felt, and a dim sense of consequences and right and wrong, which was a miracle in and unto itself considering the scant few days she had to develop it. Bunny didn't think her sisters were wrong. She hated herself for killing all those people, for attacking their friends without knowing it. She just thought that it was preferable to losing her entire family. The enemies were at the gates - and she knew this not just because General Blackwater told her, but she felt that it was, what with Feig being so very close to the Girls, so very involved in their crime-fighting.
With that, Bunny was relieved of her weapons and heavy armor, which were piled into the arms of two privates. Corporal Nana Weston cradled Bunny lovingly in her arms as she carried her away, humming a lullaby to the injured and distressed Bunny. It almost seemed as if Nana was her mother, perhaps even more so than Selicia Goodwin herself - she had been so kind and sweet to her since the day they met, and she had never raised her voice nor her fist at her. It was so comforting that Bunny cried into her chest, and Nana held her tighter, rocking her like a baby.
Bunny would receive medical attention at HQ, before being fed and watered and put to bed. She was so exhausted that she slept through much of the day, and spent the rest of it either in a daze or in tears.
The pain never left. It was now a lingering presence, like a predator stalking in the bushes, waiting to pounce on her again. It had already done so a couple of times since her return to HQ. Her joints, the sides of her neck, her chest, and her head were the biggest culprits in causing her physical suffering, but they had nothing on the gaping hole in her heart, inflicted by the very people she was closest to.
Still, despite her ailing health, her wounds had disappeared by noon - they were already halfway there when they found her, despite the mistreatment of the wounds by the elements.
One thing that sailed over the heads of everyone, including Bunny herself, however, was that it had taken far too long to heal. Twelve hours would have been excessive for a deep and wide surgical wound. Sixteen hours for her bite marks and bullet holes was a crawl in comparison.
The City of Townsville. Downtown. USDO Headquarters.
10 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1551.
Once upon a time, what felt like a world away, her bunk in the USDO Headquarters was like a prison cell despite the lack of bars. Now, removed from the wasteland that was The House, it provided her with a modicum of comfort. There was at least no arguments, no strife or sibling rivalry and violence. Not that she could enjoy it.
She'd tried, at least. Sitting at her little desk and leaning on the tabletop, she tried her best to read a book she had taken from the complex's lounge, where there was a tiny library for the children of guests, employees, and USDO operatives. It was one of several that formed a mountain beside her, but she couldn't even get past the first page of the first book even though it was a story familiar to her: The Ugly Duckling. Instead, all she could do was to stare at the picture on the introductory page: the titular Ugly Duckling, that gray-purple little thing that no one wanted, not the mother duck, and certainly not the three ducklings swimming behind her.
Then it happened again. What felt like a bullet to the heart. Bunny clutched her chest. It was worse this time. She slammed her fist against the desk and shouted wordlessly, not just in pain, but in anger and a sense of injustice. As if being ostracized by her own family and failing several missions wasn't enough! Struggling to her feet as she gasped for air, she kicked her chair back, picked up the book, and flung it across the room with a frustrated screech.
There was a knock on the door but she didn't hear it. She was too busy sweeping the other children's books off her desk. The door opened and this time she heard it. Turning around, she realized too late that she had been throwing a tantrum right in front of General Blackwater. She felt his eyes focusing on the hand she had placed on her chest. She promptly put it away, folding it behind her back. She straightened herself out and tried her best not to show any signs of pain, but it was hard.
"Recovering quickly, I see," the general said, and he didn't seem offended or perturbed by how Bunny had been thrashing the children's books.
Bunny was too afraid to even stand in ceremony, too in tears to observe it. She rubbed her hands nervously in anticipation of a tongue-lashing, but it didn't come.
"Sit down, Bunny," the general ordered. She promptly did. The huge man took his place on Bunny's bed, which creaked almost as painfully as Bunny's frame. "How are you? Are you feeling any pain anywhere?"
Bunny was shocked. Had General Blackwater found out? She tried her best not to show any emotions, and she thought she had it.
"No. I'm feeling a lot better…" she lied. It wasn't just about driving Dad to the point of depression and suicide anymore, or at least that was the impression. She didn't want to lose the opportunity to regain her sisters' trust.
"Are you sure? Because I have something else for you. Yesterday was a mess, but I think we've found him. It's easier now that the cultist agent disguising as him was killed, thanks to you," the general said, praising Bunny and making it as glorifying as he could. He knew that Bunny was in low spirits. It didn't have the intended effect, however, as Bunny still appeared depressed. "I want you to finish what you've started. Are you up to it? Because if you're not ready to return to service, we can always send in the next best thing. Not your sisters, of course, as they would be too emotionally involved - you know how they're like - but a crack team of soldiers will do the trick. I'm sure Boomer would love to get back into the field with an important mission like this."
Bunny did not answer immediately. Her eyes wandered to the floor, where her confidence seemed to be. She had failed too many times, in her view; she saw the general's reassurances of the latter as attempts to make her feel better. What if she failed again?
"The reason why I want you to take up this mission is that it means something to you. Remember that, Bunny," the general added, and he seemed to know her better than herself. "Take Feig out, and you'll save your sisters, and by extension, your family. He's planning something, I know it. We're still trying to figure out his plans, but I don't think he wants your sisters to live."
The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.
10 MAR (Friday) 1989. 1724.
And that was the story of how Bunny found herself speeding towards Steele's Stellar Steel on her bike. Unknowingly, she was heading towards where all the recent troubles of Townsville began, where her sisters fought the first of countless battles against crime. Apparently, this was where Chief of Intelligence Rook's agents had traced Police Chief Feig to. No one knew why he had chosen the steelworks as his hideout; perhaps he thought that he would never be found in a place where the Powerpuff Girls had once crashed into.
Dismounting from her bike a distance down the road, Bunny began pulling excess weapons off her vehicle. A China Lake grenade launcher and a belt of ammunition for it, which she slung on her shoulder, more claymore traps and… she hesitated as she reached for Ace's sword. That weapon was deadly in her hands, but there was something off about it. Bunny couldn't quite put her finger on it, but every time she used it, she would go berserk, dropping her guard. Even if it provided her with such a boost, it went against everything she had been taught, and she had paid the price for it multiple times.
It seemed to whisper to her, promising her victory in honeyed words. Yes, she needed it, so much. Yes, she couldn't afford to fail. She took the sword, regretting it the instant she did.
It was growing dark, one of the few dark winter nights left on the year's calendar. Bunny hovered up onto the roof of a factory opposite the steelworks. Putting on her night vision goggles, she zoomed her vision in. The outside was deserted. There were no conspicuous guards. She thought it was to be expected from someone who was hiding.
Looking through the walls of the steelwork, however, the deserted outside was proven to be deceptive, and Rook's intel correct. One of Rook's informers in the TPD had reported on the ties Feig had with the Cult of His Promise. They had been protecting him all along, them and pretty much every other criminal elements in the city. The face-dancer's involvement was proof enough. How Feig had come to be such an important figure in the criminal underground, no one knew. Nor did Bunny care, as long as he would soon turn to grass.
There was a hole in the corrugated zinc roof, the same one made by Blossom and Buttercup to let Bubbles through. It was too obvious an entrance, one that she would not be caught using.
The steelworks had a number of chimneys rising into the darkening sky. Those seemed more promising. Taking one last look at the entire industrial facility, she saw that no one was looking, and so she flew to her selected chimney.
The entrance was tight, but it was something that even an adult could squeeze through. Gently lowering herself in, she hovered downwards, descending towards the dim, gray light at the end of the tunnel, all the while using her x-ray vision to watch the cultic guards around the area. There weren't many of them, perhaps eight or so, all armed with light weapons like pistols, revolvers, and shotguns, and some not even that - some were armed with machetes or swords, but their iridescent glow made it clear how dangerous those things were to her.
Far into the distance, in an office high up and accessible by elevated walkways, she could make out the shape of Feig. Just seeing him sitting in there and enjoying a smoke while talking to another cultist made her blood boil. Feig MUST die.
As she got close to the opening in the chimney, she saw her first target: a cultist on the patrol who was passing through with a shotgun in his hands. He wore the striking red cloak of the cult.
Bunny landed at the base of the chimney, which wasn't enclosed at all. She had ended up in a basin for molten steel. Hovering out of it, she touched down on the walkway, behind the cultist, and began trailing him, coming closer and closer. Pulling out a garrote wire from a pouch, she jumped on the cultist's back and wrapped it around his neck, giving it a pull so strong the wire had cut through skin, flesh, windpipe, and esophagus to the spine.
The cultist couldn't even make a sound. Bunny hovered and took the corpse along with her, flying it into the molten steel basin she had landed moments earlier, hiding it.
When that was done, she brought up her cloaking field, and sneaked towards her next target…