Chapter 116: Flight of Icarus (Part 1)

B-50 W3 Medical Report

DOC: 10 MAR (Friday) 1989

Created by: Professor Utonium

Title: Post-Battle Medical Screening

While I wish this report would merely be a routine description of the injuries Bunny had sustained from a mission and the treatments doled out to facilitate quick recovery, I am afraid this is going to be more than that.

The injuries Bunny has sustained in her latest operation are minor. She suffered a 3-inch long cut to her right shoulder, inflicted deep enough to cut the muscles underneath. She had also suffered minor second-degree burns to her chest and right flank of the stomach. Other than this, she had also sustained minor internal bleeding under the skin around her right eye, left cheek, and stomach. The cut had been stitched up, the burns treated with antiseptic cream and her bruises did not require treatment.

What concerned me was her condition after the battle. When she had to be dragged home for assaulting her own sisters and a law enforcement official (which is a topic for another report), she began suffering from - in layman's terms - bleeding in the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. She appeared to have suffered from internal bleeding in the lungs, as she coughed up a huge volume of blood. On first observation, this is what I assumed, as there was no gastric fluid mixed up in the blood. She underwent a kind of seizure after that, before falling unconscious.

This necessitated a full medical examination. Initially, I assumed that Bunny might have suffered from internal injuries to her respiratory system, parts of the cardiovascular system interlinked with it and the brain, accounting for the blood and seizure respectively, all inflicted during battle. That is not the case, however. Far from it, much to my regret.

Where do I even start? Perhaps with my regrets. The last medical examination I performed on Bunny was last Saturday, and it turned up nothing abnormal. Had the timing been different, would I have detected something?

Bunny appears to be suffering from the end stage of multiple terminal diseases ravaging her body. I have scanned her entire body and no part of her body was left untouched. Tumors have spread throughout her lungs, which accounted (partly) for the blood originating from her respiratory system. However, I have also detected cancerous growths in her lymphatic system and every other major organ. There is no hope of arresting the development of this cancer she is suffering from. I do not even know what kind of cancer it is, as it has advanced so far that I cannot pin down the origins of it. It has gone beyond Stage IV.

If only that is the only problem. She appears to be suffering from perforations in her organs as well, some microscopic, some slightly larger. Some had even become ulcers. This has become so serious especially in her heart that a hole would open up between the left and right ventricles intermittently, only to be repaired quickly - spontaneously and reversible Ventricular Septal Defect, in other words. These perforations are much harder to explain. The only thing I can think about was the Chemical X2 in her blood. With this thread of thought, I examined the guinea pig I kept for observation. The guinea pig has never displayed any symptoms up until the last check-up, which was two days ago, and even then, I observed only minor hemorrhaging in its gum, which I thought was self-inflicted. When I checked it today, it appears to have just developed the early-stage version of the same disease. The guinea pig had a delayed response. Based on this hunch, I drew blood from Bunny to examine the cells within, only to see that there is more horror hiding at the cellular level.

Bunny's white blood cell count was through the roof, appears malformed and they appeared to have attacked cells of the same markers, and if that is not enough, some cells appeared to have spontaneously died for no apparent reason. But there can only be one reason now. I took a second blood sample and prepared it for Chemical X2 imaging. Through this, I found out that the cells that have died appear to contain the highest concentration of Chemical X2.

In summary, Bunny is suffering not just from every possible cancer that humanity has ever faced. She appears to be suffering from Leukemia, another cancer (because a dozen others are not enough), as well as a form of autoimmune disease I have yet to identify - if it is at all possible given that we are dealing with an enhanced being. In addition to this, the spontaneous cell death is giving rise to a slow form of tissue necrosis. This is connected to her cancers and organ perforations as well.

I have done a brain scan as well, and it is not pretty. There are signs of brain hemorrhages, which indicates brain damage, though the bleeding has stopped. This explains the seizure.

Running the numbers, I have a theory. This could be what I would term 'Chemical X2 poisoning'. I have been measuring Bunny's Chemical X2 blood levels over the past two-and-half weeks, and it has been increasing rapidly, likely from the use of her enhanced abilities - it was established that repeated use of enhanced abilities causes Chemical X - and Chemical X2 - to increase in concentration. Now, the very same thing that has been aiding in her survival is slowly killing her - destroying her cells, damaging tissues and organs, and causing aberrations in physiological functions.

Bunny is dying. Bunny is dying and I have no solutions.

Phone Recording 03101989-2245

DOC: 10 MAR (Friday) 1989.

EXTRACTED: 11 MAR (Saturday) 1989.

-TRANSCRIPT START-

Field Researcher Utonium: (Tired) Hello? Who are you and what do you want?

General Blackwater: You watch your tone. This is General Blackwater. Drag Blossom to the line, right now.

Field Researcher Utonium: If you want so much to speak to Blossom, why did you call the house line?

General Blackwater: (Sternly) Because I want you to pay attention as well. Now get Blossom here, right now.

Field Researcher Utonium: I don't know if you know how things work - if you want to deal with a child, you deal with her parents. If it's anything to do with Blossom, you'll talk to me.

General Blackwater: That's the first time you outlined it that way. You seem fine with letting your 'children' run rampant without any adult supervision before now.

Field Researcher Utonium: What do you want, general?

General Blackwater: I think you should know what happened by now if you're anything you claimed to be.

Field Researcher Utonium: And?

General Blackwater: Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup ATTACKED Bunny during an important mission, Utonium!

Field Researcher Utonium: Bunny tried to kill a high-ranking police officer. Did you order her to do that?

General Blackwater: So what if I did? You don't understand what's at stake here!

Field Researcher Utonium: Blossom did what she thought was right-

General Blackwater: Blossom's decision wasn't sanctioned. It wasn't legal and it wasn't allowed! Flight control tried to turn her back and she ignored the orders!

Field Researcher Utonium: And who are you to talk about what's legal? If I'm not mistaken, the Girls aren't even legally persons, or humans, or even US citizens, am I right? There's nothing you can do to control them.

General Blackwater: Damn you, Upton! I don't have time for games!

Field Researcher Utonium: They did what they thought was right. They saved a man from death when you should have just ordered him to be taken alive, even if he's guilty of something. You have no one to blame but yourself!

General Blackwater: You'll find that the USDO doesn't just exert its power and influence through the law, Upton, and petty semantics and linguistics aren't going to mean shit either. You watch yourself, professor, and I'd keep the Girls close if I were you.

Field Researcher Utonium: Are you done threatening a poor, helpless, and saddened father and a trio of kids? Or are you going to tell me you'll kill Selicia during our wedding as well?

General Blackwater: Who do you think I am? A terrorist?

(Silence)

Field Researcher Utonium: Isn't this the part where you hang up loudly and angrily?

General Blackwater: How's Bunny? I've just received your report.

Field Researcher Utonium: Why do you even care? She's just a pawn on your chessboard, a piece in your war game. And don't give me that crap about how she's a soldier under your command and all that. I don't think officers care THAT much about their soldiers.

General Blackwater: I'm done playing games with you, professor. You need to tell me about Bunny. You WILL tell me about Bunny!

Field Researcher Utonium: And my report isn't enough?

General Blackwater: Is she… is she still alive at this point?

Field Researcher Utonium: Yes. Yes, she is.

General Blackwater: And have you thought of a solution to her… disease?

Field Researcher Utonium: I'm working on it, and you're interrupting me.

General Blackwater: What ideas do you have?

Field Researcher Utonium: Just one. I can try removing the majority of the Chemical X2 in her body by manufacturing Anti-X2 and dousing her with it. But… I don't know if it would save her or kill her immediately. Her body depends on Chemical X2 to keep functioning now, to repair the damage it has sustained from both injuries and her terminal illnesses. At the same time, the Chemical X2 is killing her. It's a delicate matter, like standing between a rock and a hard place. I need more time, and you're not providing it.

General Blackwater: Fine, I'll be signing off for now. But please - think of something, and don't you dare give up. (hangs up)

Field Researcher Utonium: (Hangs up)

-TRANSCRIPT END-

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

11 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1155.

Bunny opened her eyes, and when she did, she wasn't even sure what time or day it was. Her vision was blurred, and it didn't go away immediately like it normally would. The ceiling was high up above. Her vision wasn't just blurred. It was swimming, throbbing. Pain pierced her eyes shortly after she saw bright white light.

She sat up; it took too much effort. The pain in her body hadn't gone away. She thought she might even have dreamed about the pain. Aches and pains were everywhere, the former almost alien, the latter, all too common. Looking down at herself, she saw that she was dressed in hospital garbs, and she was covered in a light-blue blanket. She found herself lying in a hospital bed. Looking around her, she saw that she was down in the lab.

She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed it. Her vision was still blurry, but she thought she could see a figure hunched behind a desk, feverishly writing something, as evident from how his arm would jerk left and right and all over the place.

It didn't take long for there to be piercing pain in her heart once more, except this time, it was quite unexpected that she yelped in pain.

The figure hunched behind the desk looked over his shoulder and spotted her. He pushed back his chair and padded up to her, almost jogging.

"Bunny, you're up," the figure said. It was Dad all along. In a way, Bunny knew from the white top he had on, which was a lab coat, she noticed when he came closer. Even with her blurred vision, she could tell how tired he was from the black eye bags under his eyes, his messy hair, and the unshaven look about him. "You need to lie back down and rest. You're not well."

Bunny resisted initially but gave in because of how tired and in pain she was.

"What happened? Why am I here?" Bunny asked.

"You… urm… you fainted," Dad said, but the uncertainty in his voice was obvious, and he wasn't fooling anyone.

"It was more than that. I was bleeding too…" Bunny said.

"Yes, you were," Dad said. Bunny could tell that he was deeply upset, even though she couldn't see his face really well. "How long has it been happening?"

This was it. Bunny knew that Daddy hated dishonesty. But she was backed into a corner now, and there was no point in hiding it, not when she was almost bedridden by now.

"I don't know... A week ago, I think…" Bunny said, thinking back. No, it had been going on for slightly longer than that. She remembered her first foray into a police precinct to clear it out. She'd bled from the nose despite there being no reason for it. "Dad… I think it started happening last Friday."

The look on her Dad's face had changed, and from the looks of it, she knew she had messed up big time. He'd shrunk from learning of the fact, sighing deeply. He leaned on her bed, as if an old man, no doubt weathered by how she'd kept her illness from him.

"Are you mad at me, Dad?" Bunny asked, her voice gone down to a whisper, frightened, not just at how Dad had changed into a shriveled up thing, but at how serious things have become.

"No," Dad said immediately, with surety. He didn't want Bunny to suffer anymore stress, but he genuinely wasn't angry; there was simply no room for it when Bunny's life was at stake. "I'm just… just…"

"Please don't be sad, Dad," Bunny said. "I'll get better soon, I promise. I still need to protect Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup…" All she wanted to do was make Daddy smile again, but what she said seemed to make things worse - it felt as if everything she was doing was making things worse.

"You- you need to stop thinking about that for now," Dad said while wiping something from his eyes. "They'll be fine. They can take care of themselves. Mom and Dad will be there for them, too."

"Where are they?" Bunny said, realizing that it was just Dad and her in the labs. "Where are my big sisters?"

"Blossom phoned me from the city just now. They flew off after a call from the hotline. She said that it was actually Mayor Wilford's 'surprise'. Your sisters are attending a parade dedicated to them, arranged by the entire city to celebrate their hard work and crime-fighting efforts," Dad said. "I told you they'll be fine. Now, why don't you settle down and rest-"

The professor had tried to calm Bunny down, but it'd done the exact opposite.

She remembered the contents of Feig's file. The corrupt police chief was in charge of security around the 'victory parade' involving her sisters. He was also handing out the drug known as 'His Secret' to as many police officers as possible. As it just so happens, he was handpicking his own men for security.

She knew what it meant. Feig was putting his own people around her sisters and loading them up with drugs. Bubbles had told her about her dark past involving the drug, how it had warped her, how a being known as the 'Fairy Godmother' had used it to turn her against her own family. She knew about how people who used the drug would change, become greater threats to even enhanced beings like her; she'd fought her fair share of them.

Her sisters were in the middle of an ambush, right now.

"Dad! My sisters are in trouble!" Bunny suddenly bolted up. The professor seized her by her shoulders in an attempt to hold her down, but she was too strong.

"Nonsense, Bunny! They're fine! They'll be surrounded by friends and police officers!" the professor said. "The USDO-"

"But I need to help them! Those policemen are bad!" Bunny insisted, and the only reason she didn't push the professor out of the way was that she was afraid of hurting him.

"Look, Bunny, just stop. You can't get involved anymore!" Dad said, the sadness in his voice returning.

"Why?" Bunny asked, the look on her Dad's face giving her pause. There was gravity to it, as though he knew something she didn't.

"You're… sick. Really sick," Dad said.

"I know, but I'll get better - I just need to help my sisters this time, please!" Bunny insisted.

"No, Bunny!" Dad yelled, causing Bunny to jump. Shaken, she held firm and did not let herself cry. "You don't understand! You're dying! And it's all because of this DAMNED Chemical X2 in your blood! If you use your powers, you'll die from it!"

It was the only logical explanation. Professor Utonium had drawn his conclusion from his observations of how Chemical X had behaved in Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup's body. As they continued to use their enhanced abilities, the concentration of Chemical X increases - and the trend accelerates as they use more of it. The professor had been taking blood samples from Bunny every week, and it had been increasing rapidly. Where Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup was created with under 1500 parts per million of Chemical X in their blood, which recently rose to about 2000ppm, Bunny was created with 3000 parts per million of Chemical X2 in her blood, and it had been growing exponentially since. The blood test he conducted just last night detected Chemical X2 in excess of 12000ppm in her blood.

There was never any negative side effects in Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup even when they drank Chemical X, which meant that there was something wrong with Chemical X2, and it was poisoning Bunny somehow, causing damage to her internal organs, cancer, and other insidious diseases.

"But what about my sisters?" Bunny asked, discouraged, and upset from this rare feeling of helplessness that was welling up in her.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'll give General Blackwater a call," the professor said. He couldn't decide if Bunny was onto something, or if she was just imagining danger at every corner because of her training and experience - or even her illness. Bunny had suffered a degree of brain damage, and it could be impairing her judgment.

"Now would you please just lie back down?" Dad said as he gently lay Bunny down to her bed again. "Your condition will worsen if you keep stressing yourself out this way."

But Bunny appeared restless, unwilling. The professor sat down next to her, at first rubbing sweat off his forehead, then his face, as if he could wipe his troubles away.

"Remember that story I told you? About Icarus and Daedalus?" Dad said.

"You didn't finish it," Bunny said.

"Then let me finish it for you," he said. "Icarus and Daedalus made themselves wings using feathers and wax. They did it to escape the Minotaur's labyrinth and the palace of Minos over the sea so that they can be free and live happily ever after.

Daedalus, the father, warned Icarus not to fly too low, or the dampness from the sea will soak his wings, but most importantly, he warned him not to fly too high, or the sun's heat will melt them. Icarus did not listen to his father. He flew too high, the wax in his wings melted, and the feathers scattered. He couldn't fly any further - he was halfway to land too - and so he plunged into the sea and drowned.

Daedalus was heartbroken, and he had to fly alone to Sicily. He had to live on alone, without his beloved son, Icarus, for decades more."

"Do you understand the meaning of the story, Bunny?" the professor finally asked. Bunny fell silent; she knew what it meant implicitly. "Don't be like Icarus, Bunny, please. Don't leave me alone for the coming decades, don't make me a Daedalus. You- you have the potential to live for years, and years, and years - hundreds, even thousands of years. Don't throw all that away. Don't throw away a hundred lifetimes of happiness over something that may not be real."

Reluctantly, Bunny stayed in bed, still thinking about what Dad had said, still thinking about the story and its meaning. She was dying? It seemed an impossible prospect at first, considering that she had survived everything from getting beaten up by enhanced beings like her, to getting impaled with agony bolts and losing most of her blood that way. But it sunk in, hard. Yes, she was dying, and she wasn't getting any better. That explained it, why she had been bleeding and hurting more and more as the days went by. Dad was never wrong…

But the thought of leaving her elder sisters out there, unwittingly exposing themselves, surrounded by enemies, in the form of bent cops and who knows what else, out there to be piled on or peppered with shots, both conventional and Duranium… All this did not sit well with her. General Blackwater had been wrong before. Chief of Intelligence Rook too. So, it stood to reason that Dad could be wrong. She knew what she'd read and seen. She knew from her clashes with corrupted police officers how deadly they could be, and she knew her sisters were no match in an ambush against dozens, even hundreds of cops and other enemies.

So, as Dad was dialing a number on the phone furnishing his desk, Bunny bolted for it, up the stairs and out the airlock.

Professor Utonium turned around, only just able to catch a glimpse of Bunny and the purple streak of Chemical X2 exhaust behind her.

"BUNNY, STOP!" the professor screamed, alarmed by her use of her abilities. He ran to the stairs, then up, painfully slow compared to his youngest adopted daughter, even as he ascended two or three steps up the stairs at once. "Bunny!"

At the airlock, he tried to open the door, only to find that it wouldn't open beyond a thin gap. Looking down at the gap, he discovered, to his horror, that Bunny had torn a steel bar from inside the airlock to jam the doors.

He tried ramming it open with his shoulder. He'd even gone back to fetch his pistol and tried shooting out the steel bar to no avail. "Bunny!" he cried repeatedly. He knew what she was going to do, and he was way behind if he were to try to talk her down. Going back down a second time, he realized that he hadn't been thinking straight because of how emotionally affected he was and developed a solution via rational thought, which was his strong suit. He did have concentrated Nitric acid in the lab. Taking a whole bottle of it and a pipette, he dispensed the acid on the barely-exposed steel bar blocking the airlock doors over and over until it was weak enough for him to ram open the door… only to discover when he tried going through the second set of airlock doors that she had blocked it by stacking almost all the furniture in the living room in front of it.

"Bunny!" the professor cried as he tried to brute-force his way through the furniture, making almost no progress that way.

"Thomas?" Selicia's voice came through the crack in the airlock. She was in the garage, assembling a few pieces of security shutters and systems for the windows and doors. Her work had been such a noisy affair that it was only when she left the garage for a glass of water that she noticed the makeshift barricade Bunny had put up to block the laboratory's airlock. "What's going on?"

"Selicia! You have to stop Bunny from leaving! She can't use her powers or she'll die!" the professor shouted from the airlock within. Selicia took off after that. After ramming his shoulder against the second set of airlock doors a few more times and making little progress, he'd given up and sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. The silence that followed was ominous. Unable to help it, he sobbed at how ineffectual he was as a father, at how he was unable to protect his own family.

Soon, there were footsteps again. Wiping his tears, he took a deep breath and willed himself to put up a stronger front. Standing up, he stood by the crack in the airlock doors. Selicia had returned. He couldn't see Bunny from any angle.

"Selicia, where's Bunny?" the professor asked.

"She's… gone," Selicia said. "I think she flew out the window. Look, I'm going to get you out, and we'll figure it out from there, okay?"

It took far too long for Selicia to dig out Professor Utonium from the airlock. By the time they went up to the Girls' room, she was long gone. The walk-in closet was wide open. Bunny had been helping herself to the armory within. Discarded gear littered the floor nearby, probably stuff that she deemed unnecessary or not worthwhile enough to bring along. There were a few grenades, a mixture of high explosives, smokescreen, and flashbangs, which were likely excesses. Bubbles' spare shotgun was likewise thrown aside, as was one of Buttercup's few pieces of light machineguns. Boxes of ammunition were scattered, some with the bullets spilled out. Bunny was in a hurry.

But something stood out from all this. On the pink table where the Girls frequently gathered to discuss things as if it was a conference table, the professor's voice recorder was left behind. Underneath the device was a note, written with a purple crayon. There were drops of blood on the paper, which crushed the professor's spirit as it reminded him of her terminal illnesses.

The professor padded over to the grim note and sat down on the pink table, picking it up.

'I LUV U, DADDY,' the note read.

Bunny had drawn a purple heart next to the sentence. The professor could barely stifle his whimpering and cries; he had to cover his own mouth to do it. Selicia sat beside him, keeping close to him in hopes that she could be his emotional anchor.

"We've been good to her, Thomas," Selicia said, leaning on him, trying to make him feel better.

Picking up the voice recorder, he browsed through the LCD screen. There were almost twenty files in it. The professor had long forgotten about the voice recorder in favor of more important things, but it'd turned out that the voice recorder was vital after all - vital for him to understand Bunny better, and evidently vital as an emotional crutch.

"Not good enough," the professor said. To him, the voice recorder was a sign that there were needs that had gone unfulfilled. Pressing on an arrow button, the professor navigated on the voice recorder's LCD screen to arrive at the last file, titled simply as Sound Record File 19. Bunny had yet to learn how to rename the files, but it didn't matter. It was dated 03/11/89 - today. The timestamp read 1207 - mere minutes ago. He hit the play button, and listened, with resignation, to the content of the file…

There was silence instead. For seconds as the file ran, nothing came out, and for seconds, the professor thought that Bunny had made a critical mistake when it came to her message. But then her voice came out, coughing at first, which was not a good sign. It could be that she wasn't sure what to say, but eventually, it began in earnest.

'Dad… I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, but I need to go and I have no choice. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup need me and I can't just lie down and hope they'll be okay. (sobbing, sniffles) Dad… Thanks for being so good to me. I'm sorry that you'll have to be sad like Daedalus but… I would rather die saving my sisters than live a thousand years without them. I'm sorry for making you upset, for hurting Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, for everything. Big hugs and kisses and goodbye, Dad. I love you.' - Bunny Utonium, 03/11/89, 1207. Sound Record File 19.