Chapter 141: The Royal Flush

The City of Townsville. Outskirts. Precinct 82.

23 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 2315.

Sleep is for the weak. That was what I told myself. It wasn't the first time I'd found myself in a cell, incarcerated by people on the same team. But I was safe even back then. Now, it was a whole different story.

"You done goofed up, Mullens," my jailer said. He had put up his legs on his desk while he was flipping through the day's newspaper close to midnight. Thankfully, he wasn't one of them. He was on the right side, even though it was always the losing side in Townsville. Luck of the draw, I suppose. The Powerpuff Girls had done right even at random. "You weren't even supposed to be investigating."

"Easy for you to say. I had to. Somebody's got to do the leg work," I defended myself, even though I was little more than a fish in a barrel at this point. "Someone's gotta stand up."

"Yeah well, it didn't look good. The Powerpuffs, of all people, found you hanging around a bottom-feeding drug pusher while you're supposed to be suspended," the jailer went on. "You were on TV because of it. I saw it. I think that's the end of everything you've been working on."

The conversation, as painful as it was filling the emptiness of boredom, would have gone on had a group of men not entered the detention room. More cops, but I was all but sure that they weren't on the same team as me despite the uniform. They weren't internal affairs, and they weren't from the same precinct and department as I was.

I studied them as I sat on my miserable, grey cot, still stranded behind bars like a gorilla looking for a banana. These cops weren't packing standard gear. One of them had a sawn-off shotgun. The other two were holding revolvers that were too ancient to wound up in the hands of young cops like them. They were from the evidence room. I could tell from a single glance. And they were wearing gloves outside a crime scene.

"Evenin' fellas," my jailer greeted them, standing up. I knew the man well enough to know that he was acting dumb just like me. He knew that the cops who just came in weren't friendly. I could see his pistol arm itching to unholster his pistol. "Here to bring in more cronies?"

"Not at all. We're here to get rid of them," the head of the corrupt cops wisecracked, a young man not even halfway through his twenties. It was a rookie mistake, one that my jailer and I knew well.

Shots were exchanged. My jailer went first; he was able to teach the wisecracker his final lesson, but he was outnumbered. We were outnumbered. He'd gone down with the wisecracker.

I reached under my mattress and pulled something out from under it. Before the other two bent cops could shoot, I capped them both in quick succession, dropping them. But I wasn't taking any chances. From my cell, I took shots at their skulls, made sure they stay down like the good little boy scouts they were.

"Frankie?" I called out to my jailer. He didn't respond. I'd seen what happened. He was shot in the head, but I'd seen miracles.

"Frankie? You still there?" I called out to him again.

Miracles happen, but this wasn't one of those times.

We'd anticipated this. We knew what was coming, and we had prepared for it. Frankie had stuffed my revolver under my mattress. That just left the cell door key. I went over to the washing basin next to my toilet seat and reached under it. Good ol' Frankie had left the key there, just in case he didn't make it. Picking off the tape holding it up, I tore it from underneath the basin and proceeded to unlock my cell door and get out.

Opening the doors to the detention room, I peeked out from the left and the right. There was no one around. Figures. The entire staff of the station was either coerced or induced to leave things be and vacate their own premises. Flinging open the doors, I started running. All the while, my mind was racing.

I had become a fugitive, an outcast of the very team I was going above and beyond for. That would make the rest of my task force wanted too, including Olivia.

It was at that point that I realized I had been dealt a royal flush. The Amoeba Boys were going all in. It meant that I had to match their bet, go all-in as well. They would have to be taken down as quickly as possible, or the same would happen to Olivia, to Wednesday, Talker, and the rest of my task force.

Waltzing out the entrance, I made my way to the carpark outside. It was just like the old days, being branded as a criminal. Only, this time I wasn't going undercover. I gave the police cruisers a pass. I needed something more subtle, so I chose a steel grey sedan, likely owned by one of the cops stationed at the precinct. I took off after I hotwired the car.

The City of Townsville. Downtown South. Hagues Apartment. Mullens Residence.

23 MAR (Thursday) 1989. 2341.

I drove as fast as I could to my place, or at least as fast as I could without looking like a criminal. I ditched the car a few buildings down the lane. Folding up my collar and tilting my hat lower, I began a cautious approach towards home. I kept my hands in my pockets, but it wasn't because of the cold.

It didn't take long before I'd hit a barrier, figuratively and literally. The street my residence was in was blocked off by police barriers. The red and blue of police bar lights and the wailing of sirens had advertised the no-go zone. I caught the sight of a few uniforms preparing to break into the lobby of my apartment building before I hid.

Retreating to the nearest alleyway like a rat, I mulled over my options. Like a fucking addict, I lit myself a stick. Couldn't help myself. The Lombardi had the upper hand this time. My home advantage meant nothing. My residence was a no-go. Chances were, so was the police HQ I worked from. Members of my taskforce were likely being detained in one fell swoop. Olivia and the talking dog were likely going to get a special surprise from the cops I'd just seen, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Fuck the investigation. Months of hard work, only for this. I laughed at the pointlessness and absurdity of it all. Officers like me had to cut through, hell, swim through kilometers of red tape to get anything done, tripping over others, and getting tripped over by others in the meantime. The Lombardi and the rest of the criminal underground? They moved quickly, and they had no paperwork to file. They thrived on losing the paper trail. It was why they had been winning for the past couple of decades.

A few tears escaped my eyes as my lips struggled to hold onto my cancer stick. My daughter could be dead by now, and I bore a shard of the guilt for it. I should've stormed the apartment and rescued her, a dozen cops or more notwithstanding. Fuck the innocents among them, they should have known better. Fuck hiding and sneaking around like a rat. My life didn't matter, but with the police surrounding the building and in the know, I would have cast my life away and Olivia would've still been killed. It would mean that her death would be for nothing.

It'd left me with only one option. One that became obvious to me now that all was lost. I needed to get to the Amoeba Boys somehow. Cut the head off the snake just like how they did with the other local gangs and crime families.

And I would have gone for that suicide mission too, had my daughter not proven me wrong when she went up to my alley with Stanley Talker padding alongside her.

"Olive! You're alright!" I couldn't stifle my surprise and relief, as per tradition. I ran up to her. First thing I did was to check her for wounds. I wasn't thinking, only feeling. My baby girl had always had that effect on me. "It was a close call, wasn't it? They got you somewhere?"

"I'm fine, dad! I got out the moment I heard about it," Olivia said. She gave me a hug. It was then that I realized that I hadn't hugged her for a while. I had been too busy with work lately. Stanley Talker had even joined in.

"C'mon, let's get out of here before some overeager rookie comes our way," I said before leading her out. We played it safe. I took a peek around the mouth of the alley. We darted only when I was dead sure that no one was looking.

"What's the game plan, dad?" Olivia asked.

The game plan had since changed when she returned from the dead. But it'd changed for the better. I had to improvise to think of something better.

For some reason, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup came to mind even though they had betrayed the cause and thrown me in jail. It was the only way out of the labyrinth; they could fly and I couldn't.

Charging at the Amoeba Boys head-on was suicide. I would have done it alone, but with Olivia and Stanley Talker still breathing and running next to me, it had become a last resort.

"We call the Powerpuff Girls," I decided, and the moment I did, I could feel eyes both human and canine drilling at me.

"Rut they threw ryou in jail!" the talking dog panted at me. After spending months with the dog, I had largely deciphered his unique canine dialect of English.

"Talking Dog's right!" my daughter added. "It's all over the news, dad. That's how we knew to get out! Why call them?"

"Yeah, rhy not call the USDO?" the talking dog suggested.

"There could be a spy in the USDO," I explained, and not without doubt. It all added up, but I had no time to explain the winding trails my intuition took. "The Powerpuff Girls are the only people who can defeat the Amoeba Boys."

If I could convince them to ignore the Amoeba Boys' hold on them long enough, that is.

The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0005.

Bzzz! Bzzz! Bzzz! The clown phone in the Powerpuff Girls' room rang a precocious alarm clock that wouldn't leave them alone.

Blossom was the first to awake from the disturbance. Her first thought of the day, as early as it was, was that the Powerpuff Hotline, or the Amoeba Boys, were being incredibly rude. She had been dreaming, and once again, Bunny was in it. It was the only time she got to see her 'living' and 'breathing', though she was aloof and largely unresponsive as usual. This time, she had been busy polishing marble figurines that were like miniatures of historical roman sculptures before turning to stare at her gravely.

Those white marble statuettes had been made after Mister Mullens, Olivia, Stanley Talker, and Mister Wednesday, and it gave Blossom a bad feeling.

Rubbing her eyes, she floated lazily over to the phone and picked it up.

"Hello? It's really late… You promised to let us go…" Blossom mumbled sleepily into the phone, thinking that it was one of the Amoeba Boys.

"Blossom! It's me!" came another voice that certainly wasn't one of the Amoeba Boys. It'd knocked Blossom right out of her mid-sleep stupor. Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Mister Mullens?" she said.

"Listen, I can't speak for long - they could be listening in on us even as we speak - I need your help. Meet me in that place where you first saw Stanley Talker," the detective said, panicky. What could cause him to be so rattled in the first place?

"I- I don't-" Blossom mumbled, her mind still hazy from her restless sleep, unable to decide what she should do.

"Blossom, you NEED to help us," Mullens pressed her. "You nearly got me killed in that jail cell. The Amoeba Boys sent his goons after me while I was stuck down there. You OWE me. You OWE your friends and family and the city after everything you've done."

Mullens had shown in their meeting last night that he'd somehow figured out her involvement with the Amoeba Boys. Blossom never knew he could go one step further, but the surprise was dulled by the fact she knew: that Mullens was, after all, a police detective with infinite times more experience than she had.

Being reminded of everything she had done wrong wasn't exactly a pleasant way to start the day. Tears spilled out at the accusations, made real and worse by how right Mullens was.

"What's going on?" Buttercup said, then yawned. She had snuck up on Blossom while she wasn't paying attention.

"Yeah, who'd call so late at night?" Bubbles came up beside them, rubbing her eyes.

"It's Mullens," she said while wiping her eyes and hiding the fact that she had just been brought to tears.

"Mister Mullens?" Bubbles and Buttercup exclaimed at the same time while Blossom had returned to her conversation on the phone.

"I'm really sorry about what I did, Mister Mullens but-"

"Is this what it comes down to?" Detective Mullens snapped at her. "All that talk about friendship and love and all that song and dance? It's all gone when Don Ricci points his finger at you? That it?"

"I'm going to try to end this with or without you, Blossom. But without you, I'm going to die, chances are. Olivia's going to kick it, and so will Detective Wednesday and every other sorry sucker who was involved in my operations. Can you live with that? Forever and ever?"

Blossom remained silent, pursing her lips, biting them. The Amoeba Boys' threats and mockeries were still storm clouds hanging over her head. They had been taking more photos too, even videos. The shame of it all had only worsened over time. It was a hole from which there was no climbing out.

"No…" Blossom finally said. "Can we really end this?"

"With your help, yes," Mullens said without a moment's hesitation. "It will all end in one day if we play our cards right, and that's a promise."

The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.

24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0026.

Flying there to meet Detective Mullens hadn't been easy. Dad had woken up first before the Powerpuff Girls left. Blossom had great difficulty lying to his face about where she was going. What made it possible was Mullens' promise.

They flew towards the steel mill, keeping low as instructed by Mullens. The Girls had all been flying at top speed. Blossom and Bubbles wanted this to be over as soon as possible; Buttercup didn't like being controlled by someone else either - having Blossom as the leader was enough, and she didn't need three more overlords looking over her shoulder.

They had flown straight through the broken windows above, the same ones they had flown through to get to Bunny two weeks ago, back when she was trying to kill Feig before the parade.

The steel mill had been abandoned since that day. It had been abandoned ever since their first battle here. The floor they landed on was cold and wet from melting snow. The lights were still working, though most of them were off. Beside a massive steel cast stood a familiar dog.

Stanley Talker.

The Girls flew towards him. The talking dog did not speak, but simply barked at them before disappearing behind the steel cast. The Girls followed. Around the corner was the rest of them. Detective Garrett and Olivia Mullens. Detective Wednesday had only just joined them, but there was no one else.

The officers were already looking at Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup when they turned the corner. They had been discussing something before the Girls joined them. Blossom had heard bits and pieces of it. Something about their taskforce and how it was no longer available.

"Look who decided to show up," Detective Wednesday remarked cynically when the Girls landed next to them.

"Am I glad the three of you are here," Detective Mullens said, quite uncharacteristic of himself. Desperate times tended to bring out the hidden side of people. "We'll stand a chance at changing the 'local management' now."

Blossom, however, was anything but glad. A tangled mess inside, she didn't even know how she felt about this, or how she was supposed to feel. Life had become too confusing and too fast an affair, and the consequences were as far from enjoyable as far could be.

"I don't know…" was all she managed to say.

"Out with it, Miss B. Were you working for the Amoeba Boys all along?" Detective Wednesday had jumped straight to the interrogation without warning that the Girls were taken completely by surprise. It was easier to talk about it on the phone, infinitely so. Now, Blossom couldn't even bear to look up and face her friends. "I'm asking any one of you who is brave enough to admit it."

It'd made for an awkward conversation starter.

"Not at first…" Bubbles squeaked, prompting Blossom to take over.

"It wasn't like that at first," Blossom said. "We thought they were good! We thought they were trying to help…"

"Yeah, they tricked us!" Buttercup contributed her bit, pounding her fist against her palm.

"But why continue working for them? You could've just walked away, even blasted your way out," Detective Mullens questioned.

"Mister Ricci- He said that he'll tell everyone about me if I leave," Blossom said, with no small amount of shame in her voice. "He has pictures of me…"

"What kind of pictures?" Olivia asked, concern in her voice. In her mind, she was thinking about the worst kind of leverage a man could have over a girl. "What did that bastard do?"

"He had pictures of me being friends with him- and eating with him, and sleeping in his bed…" Blossom said.

"That's… Not too bad," Olivia said, her fears dispelled. "At least he wasn't… you know, at least he didn't do… that." She had been thinking of sexual abuse and child pornography, but as it turned out, even the biggest crime lords of Townsville were averse to such things.

"What? Do what, Miss Olivia?" Bubbles asked.

"Nothing," Olivia replied quickly. "We'll talk about that when all this is over."

"So how do we beat the Amoeba Boys?" Buttercup asked, straight to the point.

"Simple, we fly straight to his house and end it - right now!" Detective Mullens said with no small amount of zeal. "The longer we dilly-dally around, the more schemes they'll come up with."

"I like that plan!" Buttercup said, even though Detective Mullens' 'plan' couldn't really be counted as such.

And even though it was as simple as a 'plan' could be, it wouldn't come to be, for an explosion rang out and the doors along the front of the steel mill were blown off their hinges.

Blossom zoomed her vision in on one of them… and saw that Palladino, Bossman's button pusher, was leading a large, disparate group of criminals right towards them…