(To view the artwork/cover page for Act 4, go to the Archive of Our Own version of this fanfic and the same chapter)

ACT 4: SPRING CLEANING

'You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.' -Al Capone

A/N (03 JUL 2021): I've decided to remaster the first half of this chapter. The main purpose is to solve a plot hole pointed out by one of my readers, which is that Bubbles had received a missed call from Elodie Morbuck's phone even though the Princess had called from a hospital desk phone. I have also made some minor grammar edits and polished the text further to include more details. The remaster efforts will focus only on the first scene.

Chapter 121: Severance

The City of Townsville. Central District. Kingdom Hospital.

11 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1315.

Elodie 'Princess' Morbucks had been waiting for the past half hour. At first, she believed that Bubbles and her sisters, Blossom and Buttercup, would be early. They were almost always early, and she took it as a sign that their friendship was genuine. She believed, too, that their friendship had grown deeper with each play date. But as time wore on, one minute dying after the next, her heart sank. When the clock struck 1 o'clock, which was the agreed timing that the Powerpuff Girls would visit her, she believed that they would fly through the ward doors any second now, but the minutes continued to disappear without a trace of her BFF, nor her sisters, who were close seconds in her thin, thin book of friendship.

The Princess of Townsville flipped open her phone. Nothing. No messages, no missed calls. The flip-phone had been a gift from her father. It was latest tech, an upgrade from the 'brick' phones that were hard for her to carry.

Ten minutes passed, and before Elodie knew it, the clock began fingering the '3' on its face nervously, and now Elodie believed that they were just held up by something, not that she had any way to tell. Things had been strange lately in the hospital. Her father hadn't stopped by to visit her in the morning. He would normally do so every single day. In fact, she hadn't had any visitors at all - some of her mansion's staff would come in as they were very fond of her, and she, of them. Even the fan mails from the city had stopped coming through. Normally, she would receive at least a few a day. Her position as the city's wealthiest little girl, being the daughter of the city's wealthiest local, and her brief stint as a child model, had made some impression.

Elodie thought she knew what loneliness and isolation were, but now she truly understood. All she had for company all day long was the steady beeping of her own heart hooked up to the ECG, her breathing apparatus, and the silent, grim-looking doctors and nurses who would come in to check on her occasionally. They weren't even the same ones as the last time she was here. Those doctors and nurses from last year were at least friendly. These doctors and nurses of today couldn't even crack a smile to reassure her. Most of the time, they couldn't even look at her.

Even the television and radio in the ward were removed, as they were deemed by the doctors to be too agitating for a girl of her condition. It had been a week since they were removed. All Elodie had for entertainment were a few books, some drawing blocks, and a box of cancer-friendly crayons. But she was done reading those books… multiple times over, and she had expended all her drawing blocks. All she could draw were the Powerpuff Girls, and she had gotten pretty good over time. If only they were really here…

The ward double doors swung open. For a second there, she had hoped that it was the Powerpuff Girls, but she was quickly disappointed. A few doctors and nurses came through instead, their faces like stone, all cold and grim. If the TV and radio in her room were removed as hazards to her health, then those faces should be too! That was Elodie's impression, and she thought childishly that maybe they should wear masks like those from the fundraising ball she had made possible for The Powerpuff Girls, the same one that… made their father angry and separated them for a time.

"Miss Elodie Morbucks, it's time for your procedure," the head doctor said. Something seemed off about him, but the Princess couldn't quite put her finger on it. Something was wrong. Instinctively, she slipped the flip-phone her dad had given her into the pocket of her purple patient gown. It was the only way the Powerpuff Girls could be close to her.

"Can't we wait a little longer?" Elodie pleaded with the doctor. "Please?"

"I'm afraid not. Your condition is precarious as it is," the doctor said, still looking down at her with those eyes - those cold, grave eyes. There was something in them that the Princess couldn't quite figure out, and she didn't like it. "Any further delay in the procedure will be too dangerous."

"But my friends are coming…" the Princess mewled, powerless both physically and emotionally. She couldn't even believe in her own words anyway since the clock had given her no hope, and neither did her best friends.

"It appears that they are not. You said they were coming at one o'clock, and we gave you your time. It is now one-sixteen. One-seventeen now," the doctor said while looking at his branded wristwatch. "It happens, I suppose. I'm sure they are preoccupied with something… more important to them-" The doctor stopped talking all of a sudden as if he realized that he had said something wrong.

What the doctor said broke Elodie Morbucks, and she did not resist any further as they put her on a little kid's wheelchair and wheeled her out.

Emerging out of her ward, something she hadn't done so since Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had last visited her, Elodie was struck by the intense white light at first. She was wheeled past groups of people, families both hopeful and bereaved, past friendlier medical staff who were, unfortunately, not in charge of her. She hadn't seen this number of people in a long while.

They went past the radiology room, but wasn't that where they were normally supposed to go first? They'd gone way past, down to a floor she wasn't familiar with, to a corner of the hospital she had never seen before. She was eventually brought through another set of swinging double doors, where the interior told her everything about where she was.

For some reason, she was brought into a surgery room, one of the smallest in the hospital, and it was the kind that didn't come with a theater for supervising staff and visitors. It was a closed-up affair, and there was something very, very wrong that even Elodie, a 5-year-old, could tell.

When Elodie expected to be carried up to the surgical bed, the doctors and nurses accompanying her hurried out instead, leaving her alone. The doors behind her swung just as hurriedly. Looking behind her, she could see the head doctor talking to someone… someone in an ominous, gray suit.

"She's all yours," Elodie heard the head doctor mutter. "Do whatever you want with her."

"Don't look so down, doctor," the other man, who she had never seen before, said. "I'm sure you know about her chances with your treatment option. One in ten, was it? At least with our way, she'll stand a better chance, even if it's tantamount to a… flip of the coin. Even if she might… turn into something else."

"You've corrupted me. I used to think that I'm a good man," the doctor said, still down despite the assurances he received, but the man in the gray suit simply laughed.

"Is that how you see it? Any man could easily be bought with the kind of money I gave you - and for what? For giving this rich, undeserving brat a better chance at living? At becoming something else other than a dying, aborted fetus?" the man in the suit scoffed at him. "Now off you go. You should be satisfied that you've gotten some life advice from a man like me. That doesn't happen very often…"

Elodie was already on the move when she heard the men talk. They weren't going to cure her! They were going to do things to her, bad things! She didn't know exactly what, but the unknown was more troubling and outright terrifying to her than what she already knew. If they weren't going to try to help her, then they must be looking to harm her, she feared.

There was another way out of the surgery room. Going through another set of double-doors, she found herself in a kind of preparation area for surgeons to suit up. She could see the surgical scrubs and gloves lining one side of the wall.

"Where the hell is she?" Elodie heard the man in the suit said. She hurried through the exit, emerging into the corridor.

In her panic, Elodie hadn't thought of a plan, not that she had ever needed to plan for her survival in her life. She simply ran, barefooted, barely clothed in her purple patient's gown.

"Stop her!" she heard the doctor yell. "She's over there!"

The Princess ran. She couldn't help but wet herself on the way, and she didn't have a pair of diapers on. She had never been pursued like this before, and this was precisely only the second time she was in any danger at all. Vaguely, loosely, an idea for salvation formed in her mind - it was the only thing she could think of: The Powerpuff Girls.

Turning the corner, she panted as she ran as fast as she could. Loud footsteps from her pursuers weren't too far away.

There was the muffled sound of people speaking. The Princess ran towards it, busting through another set of doors, her entire body flaring up from the pain, as she searched the room for help.

Oddly enough, there was no one in the room. It was as if the entire floor had been vacated. The sound of people speaking had come from a television broadcasting the news, and the room was a kind of office of some sort, likely used by hospital admin staff for making arrangements and putting day-to-day affairs in order. Hiding under a desk, Elodie pulled her phone out and began going through her the digital phonebook within - looking for Bubbles' flip-phone number, which the sweetest of the three had provided her just in case she needed it. Despite being in panic, she was able to find it, having used it so many times.

"Where's that lil' shit!?" Elodie heard the Suit Man cuss, not too far away from the admin room. Sensing that her hiding place felt exposed, she crawled away and hid under a corner desk, pulling a swivel chair close to her for concealment. There, she waited out the dial tone and beeping of her flip-phone, which threatened to make her scream from frustration and terror for how slow it was.

Ring… Ring… The door slammed open. Slow, menacing footsteps echoed towards the center of the room.

Ring… Ring… Elodie could see the feet of the Suit Man. Grey leggings, fine leather shoes.

Ring… Ring… It came towards her. Her phone's ringing was a dead give-away, and the swivel chair before her was useless in concealing her.

It was at this moment that a voice came through, and Elodie's heart leaped. Bubbles would come to the rescue, she would! She had always believed that Bubbles, if no one else, would be the first person to jump to her defense.

"Hi! Thanks for calling, but I can't talk right now-" came Bubbles' high-pitched, cute and perky voice.

"Bubbles! I'm in big trouble, I-" Elodie whispered into the phone, but it seemed that Bubbles wouldn't stop to listen.

"Please leave a message! Hugs and kisses!" and with that, as quickly as Bubbles' voice came up, she was gone.

Hands shot into Elodie's hiding spot just as the phone had connected, pulling her out from under the desk roughly. "NO!" Elodie screamed.

"Bubbles! Please!" she screamed into the phone one last time.

"To leave a message for subject Bravo-Four-Nine, please press one…" a robotic female voice took over.

"There you are, you spoiled little brat!" the man yelled as he dragged her away, and the flip-phone was left behind. Not even a voice message could be recorded, as it required a button to be pushed to start the recording…

Meanwhile, as Elodie was dragged all the way back to the surgery room, anger and a sense of being betrayed boiled inside her - the kind that she had never felt before. They PROMISED! Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup had PROMISED to come! Had they kept their promise, she would have been saved - she wouldn't have been kidnapped and brought under the control of these men, who surely had only ill-intent for her!

"BUBBLES!" Elodie screamed as she was brought through the doors into the surgery room, her hands at one point stubbornly clinging onto the swinging door, but her fingers were easily pried off the door.

The last thing on Elodie's mind as she was forcibly gassed was that she had been betrayed and that she would never trust any so-called 'friends' again. She would make them sorry, really sorry!

Especially Bubbles, whom she thought was her BFF.

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

11 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1346.

Professor Utonium had driven his entire family back home after… IT happened. The entire family was silent in the car, except for the occasional outbreak of weeping among the Girls. A USDO armored military ambulance had been trailing behind them all the while, carrying IT. The professor himself was in tears, though he'd been holding most of it back. The occasional tear would escape him, but that was about it. He had to drive, after all.

When they reached The House, finally, the professor got Selicia to escort the kids in. Selicia had to carry Buttercup in her arms due to her injured thigh, which made walking impossible for the tomboy. Blossom and Bubbles followed her with their head held low, the latter still clutching her shoulder in pain. The Girls were all bloody and battered from being savaged in a no-holds-bar beatdown perpetrated by dozens of drugged officers and Townsville citizens.

Blossom stopped.

"Dad, aren't you going to fix us up?" she asked.

"Get moving, Blossom!" Selicia snapped at the leader of the Powerpuff Girls. "You know your Dad's busy with something more important!"

"Mom will take care of you, Blossy," Dad said without turning to look at them, though Blossom didn't know why. Her only clue was how defeated he looked, with slumped shoulders, and perhaps ashamed, with how he hid his face. "I've already called Doctor Simmons in the car to take a look at the three of you later."

Selicia was right. He had something else to attend to, something of utmost importance now. IT was a burden that he, alone, must carry for the family; Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had seen enough, too much for a trio of four-month-olds.

Going around to the back of the ambulance that followed him, he stood there and waited. He didn't have to wait for long, something which he wasn't sure he should be grateful for. The doors opened and out climbed a pair of USDO medics, who rolled a gurney out, a gurney that was used to transport IT.

"Do you need some help with the body, Utonium sir?" one of the medics asked.

"No, I'll take it," Professor Utonium said, almost absent-mindedly, his eyes dead. The medics said nothing more. The professor approached IT, the small body on the gurney, which was stored in a black body bag, stained at places by blood. Two arrow-like prods were still poking out from the middle, and the body bag couldn't be fully closed. The professor scooped it up with an arm under the crook of the knees and the back, hugging the body closely, afraid that he would have to let go again.

After that, the professor began his longest walk down to the labs, first past the melting snow on his lawn, then through the front doors of The House and the living room. Selicia and the Girls weren't there. They were upstairs, far away from IT. He took the lift installed beside the stairs leading down, before crossing the lab floor.

It was then that he finally arrived at the medical side of the lab, where he deposited IT on one of the hospital beds, where Bunny used to be just before… IT happened.

The professor unzipped the top portion of the body bag. A pale face could be seen when he did it, a face that was oddly at peace. She… Bunny… looked like she could just be sleeping, but the professor knew better. Seeing her face broke him. His hand went up to his mouth to stifle a cry as he turned away from the body and walked rapidly away to his desk.

It was much, much harder than he anticipated. He knew he would be emotionally affected by the sight, but he thought that he had accepted Bunny's fate. The Chemical X2 which was used to create her had sealed her fate, made it an inevitability. As he'd discovered, he could never accept it. He turned to look at his blackboard. There were chemical and mathematical formulas scribbled hastily with chalk there. It wasn't old. Those had only been there for a few hours. He had been working on a cure for Bunny ever since he discovered her condition last night - with the little time he had, it had all amounted to nothing as it would be weeks before some kind of hope could be found, and that was being liberally optimistic.

The atoms and numbers on the blackboard had pulled hours from him, and even now, he felt tempted to sink more hours into it…

But there was one final thing he had to do for Bunny. Due to the chemical make-up of her body and the classified nature of Bunny, Professor Utonium had to take charge of her embalming and preparation for the military funeral General Blackwater had planned for her. Anyone else would have been a security risk, and neither would they know what to do with Bunny's body.

"Thomas…" a voice called out to the professor from behind while he was hunched over his desk, in anguish from the recent tragedy. It was Selicia, he knew from the vice. She was holding a parcel out to him. "I found this in the mail. It's… for Bunny."

The professor did not so much as look at her. He simply grunted his approval.

"What about our wedding?" Selicia asked.

"What about it?" the professor asked dryly, still refusing to turn around even for his other half.

"Are we still going ahead as planned?" she asked.

The professor did not reply. Eventually, she left, understanding what he meant. It took the professor some time before he found the courage to turn around and face Bunny's corpse again, and that was when he discovered that Selicia had left the parcel beside Bunny.

Standing up, his body aching from his exertions earlier in the day, he padded over to the parcel. Looking at the label, he saw no return address. The symbol on the label told him everything he needed to know. The symbol itself was an odd marriage between the stout shield and eagle of a defense organization and the atom and DNA of a science lab. The Institute. What are they doing sending him a parcel?

It had piqued his curiosity, however, dulled by grief though it was. Ripping it open gracelessly, caring little about such nuances because of everything he'd been through, he found a purple box under layers of bubble wraps. He unlatched the box and opened it.

There was a pair of braces and a card. The professor set it down. It'd slipped his mind. He had sent the designs for Bunny's braces for fabrication in the Institute. Since the braces were made of Duranium and finely detailed, it required a manufacturing capability that the USDO simply did not possess.

It came too late for Bunny.

With shivering hands, the professor picked up the card that came with the braces and opened it up. He was immediately greeted by a quick sketch of a short boy in lab scrubs and a tall girl in a security uniform. There were words below, written in dark blue ink and in blocky letters.

'Dear Professor Thomas Lewis Upton,

Forgive my lack of professionalism but I finally found out your actual name! I have always been a huge fan of you and your work! Anyway, I pen this down with much glee to note that I was put in charge of this project by my creators in the Institute as part of my education and training in the sciences and manufacturing of technology.

I am proud to present these Duranium braces, which I made through the use of an unheard-of technique only the Institute could make possible - digital modeling and robotic sculpturing! It is from my understanding that it is meant for your creation, a certain Bravo-50, also known as Bunny Utonium if my research is accurate. I have also unearthed the fact that she is a fine specimen of Chemical X enhancement rivaled only by yours truly. I would be glad to meet her one day!

This project had also the unintended effect of uniting me and my sister creation under a common goal! While her contributions to the Duranium braces are minimal at best, as she focuses so much on the aesthetics of the braces, the project has, at the very least, put an end to the menace that was her running all around my lab like an idiot, pushing random buttons out of a sense of misplaced and warped curiosity and damaging equipment in her sheer, wanton ignorance. Well, at least temporarily.'

The handwriting from here onwards had changed drastically from block to cursive. The color had gone from dark blue to bright pink.

'HI PROFESSOR!

I hope you like our artwork lots! We spent a long, long time on it! I heard from my bro that it's for a girl like me who likes ballet! I helped him decide on the color and the 'design' because what does he know about what a girl likes?

Hope Bunny likes purple! (My bro was going to make it silver - EWWWWW and yucky yuck yuck!) I've also added some bunny pictures I drew myself in the braces because bunnies as in Bunny, haha, that must be really funny and smart, right? Anyway, that's beside the hearts and stuff on the braces. The pictures are really, really tiny because there isn't much space on the braces, but I bet her smile will look nicer because of it!

Maybe we'll get to meet her one day! My brother isn't very good at ballet at all and I can use a dancing friend.

Anyway, I'm done! Xoxoxo

Xoxoxo

Xoxoxo

Xo

Smile! :o)

With regards,

Subjects D-1 and D-2

The Institute'

As if the recent death of Bunny wasn't enough on its own, Professor Utonium was met with constant reminders of it. The possibilities of what could have been haunted him like a ghost. He knew who subjects D-1 and D-2 were. Those two subjects were so stable and successful even though they were created with a Chemical W base that a new branch of classification was created just for them. Though they had few real enhancements to speak of, they would have made for some good company for Bunny. Well, not anymore… because Bunny's gone.

Coming back to Bunny's corpse, the professor unzipped the body bag all the way. Gently and with respect, he lifted her while he was removing the body bag. She was cold to the touch.

She was still in her (un)powered armor, which had been damaged in her last fight. Taking a sampling kit from the nearby table, he began scraping off some dead cells for analysis…

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

11 MAR (Saturday) 1989. 1427.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had locked themselves away in their room, with Buttercup, once again, hiding in the closet with Blanky. Blossom and Bubbles were sitting at their pink round table, where Bunny's chess set was placed.

"She really loved this game…" Bubbles said as she stared at the checkerboard and army pieces set on top of it. "We used to play together… I just wish we finished this game…" The pieces, were, indeed, still in the very same positions before Bubbles and Bunny had their falling out.

"We've never really played together that much…" Blossom reminisced about her past with Bunny. Much of it had been spent in resentment and jealousy, and now there was no way to make up for that fact. "I really hated her and I shouldn't have… I shouldn't have said all those mean things to her…"

Blossom was about to break out in some fresh tears when Bubbles came up and sat beside her, hugging her from the side.

"But you told her everything that's nice, Blossom. She died knowing how much you really cared about her…" Bubbles tried her best to comfort Blossom, but the truth was, both of them were shaken, and beyond consolation.

The door to the Girls' room was slammed open. The Girls look in its direction and saw Mom, who was holding a tray of bowls and glasses. Blossom and Bubbles could smell porridge and orange juice. They immediately stopped talking and looked away from Mom, tense.

"Buttercup! It's lunchtime!" Mom shouted as she padded towards Blossom and Bubbles. "Buttercup!" The sound of scrambling could be heard from within the closet. The door opened after that as Buttercup emerged from her girl-cave.

Selicia set down the tray while Buttercup limped towards the pink table. Her thigh had been bandaged up, but it was only a band-aid solution, or rather, the first-aid solution, as Doctor Simmons was still on the way. The moment Buttercup got to the round table, she began heaping spoonfuls of watery wheat and rice into her mouth, devouring her meal like a girl-sized piranha. Blossom and Bubbles, on the other hand, weren't as ravenous.

"What are the two of you waiting for? It's lunchtime!" Selicia shouted at Blossom and Bubbles, frowning as she crossed her arms.

"Mom…" Blossom mewled at her, looking up. She towered over her, and with most of her powers gone, she was downright intimidating.

"What?" Selicia growled at Blossom. "I don't have all day."

"Why won't Daddy come up to fix us?" Blossom murmured, cowed by Selicia's fierce demeanor. "I'm really sad that Bunny's gone… and I want him to spend some time with me…"

"Oh, I see," Selicia snarled at Blossom. "Still the jealous little shit now, are you? Are you!?" She got down and pulled Blossom by the hair. "IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT THAT BUNNY DIED!"

"Ow! Mom!" Blossom yelled in pain. Selicia was almost lifting her by the hair, and it'd hurt more than usual because of her disempowerment. "STOP!"

"BUNNY DIED BECAUSE OF YOU! AND YOU STILL WANT TO TALK ABOUT DADDY-TIME!?" Selicia screamed at Blossom. She had been stewing ever since she got out of the labs, pissed that her wedding plans were ruined, and she was pretty fond of Bunny too, who had become her second favorite.

"Mom! Stop hurting her!" Bubbles shouted, only to receive a slap in the face for her trouble. She began crying from the blow. Buttercup, in the meantime, was watching with disinterest. She would normally enjoy seeing her sisters get disciplined by Mom, but the fact that they weren't really her family had somehow tarnished the experience as if it was all fake.

"Shut up, Bubbles! Don't start talking over me! You know how I FUCKING hate that!" Selicia said before turning back to Blossom. "You don't deserve any of this. You're LUCKY you still have any of this. You should be lying down there in the lab, not Bunny, but she decided that you're worth saving somehow. Here's a hint in case you're too DENSE to figure it out: if I get to choose between Bunny and you, I would have chosen Bunny."

"Me too…" Blossom murmured in response to what Selicia professed about her preference.

"Now start eating before I stuff the whole bowl down your throat," Selicia said coldly before walking away and slamming the door shut.