Chapter 143: Aces in the Hole (Part 2)
The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0045.
When Olivia fell, Mullens and Wednesday resumed fire, having reloaded their weapons just in time. Stanley Talker tried his best, but he couldn't help. Drawn into a brawl with three Russian mobsters, he couldn't kill all of them before one of them used his shoulder wound as leverage. After killing one with a bite to the neck, the second had pressed his thumb into his shoulder wound just as he was about to bite his face off. The third mobster fired a Duranium round from a rifle, and it'd tore through his lung.
There were still too many for Mullens and Wednesday. After gunning down the Triad shooters, they'd spread rounds across all the Yakuzas, but they weren't taken out of the fight. The Triad members had put a bullet through Mullens' arm too before he could dispatch them. Like the talking dog, they got into a brawl with the Yakuza; both of them ending up wrestling with two enforcers and more were coming in for the kill.
And as if things couldn't get any worse, Stanley Talker couldn't get to all the Russians on his side before one of them took an opportunity shot at Wednesday right before the talking dog lunged for his neck. The shot had struck Wednesday in the calf as the mobster was on the ground, aiming low. The wound had caused Wednesday to fall to the ground, taking the Yakuza he was wrestling with along with him.
The City of Townsville. Industrial District. Steele's Stellar Steel.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0047.
Blossom had been having trouble even keeping her eyes open as the battle raged on without her and her sisters. With each blink, it seemed that time flew by. First, the talking dog went away, then he returned after the next blink. Before she knew it, criminals were pouring in from the other side of the steel mill.
And then she saw Olivia getting cut down by bullets and blade.
Memories flashed by Blossom's mindscape, of them hanging out in the milk bar, having ice-cream together, fighting minor crimes on slow days as a team. They had 'walked the beat' together in a funfair after the New Year. Olivia had been kind to her, kinder than Mom, and she was way up there with Alice and Miss Keane; only Dad could be kinder still.
And now she was lying on the ground, a dozen or more holes in her, spouting blood that collected as a red pool beneath her. She was coughing up blood, trying to speak, and her dad, Garrett Mullens, couldn't even tend to her because of the criminals who were trying to end him.
Tears dripped from her eyes, tears that quickly boiled away when Blossom charged up her eyes. Floating up to an adult's chest level, she took aim at the Yakuza enforcer wrestling with Mullens. They were behind a molten steel vat, but Blossom had used her x-ray vision to aim through it… and generated enough heat to melt through the vat. The Yakuza was knocked down, and it was only because of the vat absorbing much of the heat that he survived whilst making a puddle of his vomit on the floor before receiving a kick in the teeth from Mullens.
The Anti-X in Blossom's blood had caused an electrical feedback in her eyes and body, but she didn't care - that kind of pain could only be second worst now.
"Get up!" Blossom screamed at her sisters, fresh tears replacing boiled ones. "Olivia's in trouble!" She dashed towards Mullens to help even before Bubbles and Buttercup could follow.
Bubbles caught up in the end, but Buttercup didn't. Behind her were the remaining Lombardi muscle, making a stubborn push towards them. The toughest of the three thought it'd be good fun to fight them, especially without Blossom to hold her back.
Ignoring the electrical surges in her legs, Blossom dashed towards the molten steel vats. Shouldering her XM4 Carbine, she fired rounds into the criminals' legs, taking care not to kill them, but doing enough to take them out of the fight. Bubbles came up behind her, and on seeing some stragglers still stubbornly on the offensive, sucked in a deep breath and let out a sonic scream, blowing them all away before they could fire a single bullet.
Buttercup, meanwhile, had started her fight sprinting towards the closest gangster, shrugging off both bullets and the effects of Anti-X. Leaping at her first target, she punched him in the face, scattering teeth and breaking jaw, the force even cracking the skull as the man fell; he certainly wouldn't be crawling back up. Another Lombardi soldato pointed a bolt-action Duranium rifle at her, but she was too fast: leaping at him, she clung onto his shoulder while pushing the gun up. The man struggled of course, but there was no way he could break free. With a hand on the back of his neck, she dug deep into it, seizing the spine inside and pulling it halfway out, leaving the man lifeless even before he hit the ground.
Gazing behind her second victim, Buttercup saw Palladino pointing his cute toy-like flaregun at her again. This time, the element of surprise wasn't on his side. A huge plume of white smoke exploded in the center of the action, but Buttercup had long dashed out of there. The smoke had only served to distract Palladino's remaining men.
"That was mean, but I'm meaner!" Buttercup shouted at Palladino as she began sprinting towards him.
But Fedele Palladino was already ready to receive her. Having loaded a special Duranium round into his flaregun, he fired it at Buttercup, who didn't expect another Duranium ordnance. It'd gone through her easily, but it was inaccurate - the flaregun wasn't designed as a firearm. The Duranium slug had gone into her hip instead, causing her to crash and roll, painting the floor with consistent splotches of blood.
Buttercup cried out in pain, holding her hip - this time, she was really crying. The Duranium bullet had lodged in her hip bone, and it was up there on the pain scale.
The next time she looked at Palladino, he was already on the run, with what few men he had left. She fired a quick pair of laser beams, but one of the Lombardi soldatos who happened to get in the way took it in the back but kept on running. Electrical arcs surged through Buttercup once more.
Meanwhile, Blossom and Bubbles were mopping up the rest of the second criminal group. Unable to use their powers anymore from sheer exhaustion, they had switched to their firearms. Blossom fired a few rounds at a few stubborn Triad holdouts, hitting them non-fatally. A few more Yakuza members rushed her with swords. One of them had landed a cut on her shoulder, but it did nothing. Blossom bashed him in the knee with her rifle butt in turn, and when he fell, kicked him in the face, knocking him out. She launched herself into a flying kick after that, landing a fairly weak one (by her standards) at a second Yakuza, stumbling him and knocking him into another. They both fell in a heap. Bubbles was nearby, having finished punching out a few others, and she helped by knocking these two out with a few kicks.
Somehow, they had emerged victorious. Blossom didn't know how they managed it, but they'd done it. But she hadn't forgotten that it came at a great cost.
Still panting and wiping blood and sweat from her forehead, Blossom turned to her more mortal friends, and regretted looking, for she saw Olivia on the ground, largely bled dry, still trying to talk but couldn't because of the gash in her throat. Detective Garrett Mullens was kneeling beside her, holding her hand, in tears and blubbering.
Detective Wednesday was leaning against a steel vat, flushed and exhausted, but otherwise intact with just a bullet wound to remember the battle. Stanley the talking dog limped closer to the dying Olivia, whimpering both out of pain and sadness, nudging her in the shoulder with his nose before settling down beside her.
"Blossom…" Bubbles muttered as she came up beside her leader sister. They both put an arm around each other. "What do we do?" She had asked that question, but as the team medic, she knew there was nothing to be done. In her studies on the art of first-aid, Doctor Simmons, Alice and Mom had talked at length about the fragility of normal humans, and how little damage they could take before dying, compared to enhanced human beings. Bubbles could see too many wounds on Olivia that would be difficult to treat even in a well-equipped hospital, much less an abandoned, ravaged steel mill, and they had only reached her long after any slim window of opportunity to save her had closed.
Olivia and her father's eyes had been locked together for some time; they knew this was the last time they got to see each other. Garrett Mullens held her bloodied hand with both of his. Her hand was getting cold.
"You just had to be a heroine, do you?" he said, smiling sadly. "You saved me - shoulda been the other way around."
Olivia smiled too, her teeth gleaming red. Her lips moved, but no words came out. Just then, she spasmed and struggled to even draw the next breath. In her death throes, she turned her eyes one last time to Blossom and Bubbles, and finally Buttercup, who had just hopped over on one leg.
Then, with one final breath taken, her eyes glazed over, and the spasms stopped.
"Mister Mullens?" Blossom called out softly to her friend. She took careful steps towards Mullens, her heart beating fast. She had never seen Mullens like this, crying like the rest of them. Her hand settled on his shoulder, and he seemed to freeze when he felt her.
"Just go, leave me here," Mullens said, his voice almost a whisper, sounding like he was barely in control.
"But Mister Mullens-"
"I said GO. Get away from me. Go back to your daddy," Mullens re-emphasized, before turning to Wednesday and the talking dog without look at them. "That goes for the both of you too."
"Let's go, kids," Detective Wednesday said as he hobbled away. "Let's give the old man some time alone." The talking dog rose up, limping away as well but not before giving Mullens a lick.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup did not follow until Wednesday pulled the first Girl by the hand. With that, Bubbles picked Buttercup up from the ground and followed her leader sister.
"Is he going to be okay?" Blossom asked Wednesday, herself in tears. It took all her energy not to start breaking down and sob.
"Okay? No, not at all," the younger detective simply said, eyes forward and not looking back. "But he will be, once he's destroyed the Lombardi. Olivia's his daughter. Killing a father's child tends to turn him into a killing machine. He-" That was when he heard the sound cocking. Turning back, Wednesday saw Detective Mullens raising his massive revolver and pointing it at his own head. "Fuck!"
Bolting over to Mullens, Wednesday seized him by the arm, pulling the gun away from his head, but Mullens was too strong, filled to the brim with negative emotions and energy, and he was able to throw Wednesday off. When the younger detective insisted, Mullens pistol-whipped him in the face before punching him in the guts, the attack knocking him clean off his feet.
"Blossom! Girls! Stop him!" Wednesday shouted for help as Mullens settled down on his knees again and rested the muzzle of his revolver on his head. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup flew in on him, ignoring their Anti-X poisoning. Blossom was able to seize his gun arm, pulling his Colt Python away. Buttercup was restraining his other arm while Bubbles was simply hugging Mullens from behind, her arms around his neck, crying - she, too, knew what Mullens was going to do.
"Let me go!" Mullens cried.
"Don't do it, Mister Mullens! Please don't!" Blossom cried.
"I said let me go!" Mullens didn't care. "You don't understand!"
"But we do understand!" Bubbles cried.
"Y-yeah man, we kinda do!" Buttercup followed along with this.
"Please don't leave us, Mister Mullens!" Blossom begged him as she hugged his arm, rubbing tears into the sleeve of his trenchcoat.
"Why do you even care!? I can't even protect my own daughter!" Detective Mullens howled in utter pain.
"Olivia's my friend and so are you!" Blossom tried, tried so hard to make him understand. "We lost Olivia and I don't want to lose you too! I don't wanna lose anyone else!"
"Please don't kill yourself, Mister Mullens," Bubbles joined in, barely able to speak. "Bunny and Mommy's gone… We've lost so many people!"
"I was supposed to die, not her!" Detective Mullens cried. "A father isn't meant to outlive his kid!"
"So take revenge!" Detective Wednesday suggested while he was rubbing his jaw; he was still feeling the bear-like man's pistol on his face. He had circled around Mullens to face him. "Destroy those who're responsible! Don't just… just roll over and die! That's not the Garrett I know! They didn't promote you to lieutenant after all these years for nothing!"
"What's the point?" Mullens cried. "The reason why I worked so hard to clean up this GARBAGE city is so my daughter gets a future in it. I wanted her to feel how it was like to sit in her office all day, feeling bored! I wanted her to be able to greet people all day long with a smile on her face, without having to reach for her gun every five seconds!"
"But what about everyone else?" Blossom asked.
"Yeah, aren't you a big hero who wants to save everyone in Townsville?" Buttercup added, doing her bit to look good.
"Screw everyone else!" Mullens. "They've done nothing but make things worse in this city! Turning a blind eye or helping the low-lifers! They can all go to hell!"
"Is that what you think of us?" Blossom asked, appalled at both his language and what he'd been thinking about all along, on the verge of tears; it felt like hell, keeping it all in. How the adults could do it so well and so easily, she had no idea.
Mullens fell silent. Stanley Talker had been whining beside him, either in too much pain or too much grief to say anything.
"Look, old man, the kids - they're kids - they might know some of the same tricks as Superman, but they don't know anything about how the world works," Wednesday said. It'd taken the Girls by surprise. Blossom and Bubbles, especially, didn't really like him much, especially because he didn't see eye to eye with Mullens. They didn't expect him to speak up for them anytime soon. "They came to help. If it weren't for them, every one of us and the dog would be dead too."
"They didn't save Olivia," was all Mullens could save. Those words were like Duranium bullets to Blossom. She loved Olivia too, and it seemed as if she was running out of people to care about.
The sound of police sirens was coming in from the outside, long after the last of the combined gang forces had scattered into the darkness. Police cruisers, SWAT vans, USDO humvees, and APCs were getting lined up outside, either too slow or too crooked to help.
Detective Wednesday stared in their direction, half his face painted in lights of red and blue. He looked anything but glad at the new arrivals.
"Look, we'll have to chat next time," he said. "I don't think our pals in blue are here to welcome you back with champagne and roses, Mullens."
"What about us, Mister Wednesday?" Blossom asked.
"I don't think your USDO friends will be able to get Mullens out safely. You're going to have to bring him over for a slumber party," Detective Wednesday said. "Just make sure you watch him, don't let him check out - I don't think Olivia died for this."
"Since when did you care about me and Olivia?" Mullens said.
"Believe it or not, I always did," Detective Wednesday said. "I guess we were both just too caught up in this war to really sit down and talk it over a few mugs of beer."
Mullens fell silent again. He squeezed his eyes and lips shut, falling into himself, no doubt still torn apart by his daughter's death.
"But what about you and Mister Doggy?" Bubbles asked Wednesday.
"We'll be fine," the younger detective said. "We're not wanted, and they haven't slapped much dirt on us yet. Still, it wouldn't hurt to exit through the backdoor. We may not have laser eyebeams and the ability to fly like Superman, but we'll be fine. Just go."
Before they left, Mullens had asked for a moment to say goodbye to his daughter. He hugged her for one last time, closing her eyes, and laid her to rest before leaving. Just as SWAT officers, aided by USDO forces, were filing through the doors, the Powerpuff Girls carried Detective Mullens and flew out a window high up, slowed by Anti-X but still fast and unexpected enough that the police presence in the area could not do anything about it.
The journey home took much longer, and they had to take breaks on top of buildings twice before they were able to reach The House. By the time they did, it was way, way past midnight.
The City of Townsville. Suburbs. The House.
24 MAR (Friday) 1989. 0153.
Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had flown through one of the three circular windows of their room. They were barely able to squeeze through it. As soon as they were able to seat Detective Mullens down on their bed, the lights in the corridor outside their room lit up like clockwork. Before they could even prepare themselves to explain Mullens and everything that had happened, the door to their room was flung open, and at the doorway stood their Dad, Professor Utonium, mouth agape as he stared at Detective Mullens as though he was a ghost.
"W-what is he doing here?" the professor uttered, pointing at the detective. "Girls, what's going on? You- you can't just bring in a detective from the streets!" He'd said it as if the Girls had brought in a stray cat or a stray dog.
"Dad!" all three Girls shouted with glee, in unison, and they all rushed to hug him.
"It's Mister Mullens, he tried to kill himself!" Blossom tried to explain, finally allowing herself to sob a little; she wasn't even sure where to begin, and so she started with the last thing that happened.
"What did you just say?" the professor asked, surprised, and unable to believe his ears. Mullens seemed to have shrunk in the meantime, ashamed that he had nearly taken the easy route.
"His… His daughter, Olivia - she-" Bubbles struggled to speak, herself traumatized by the loss of a friend. "She was killed and it made Mister Mullens really sad!"
"Yeah, if we hadn't stopped him, he would have shot himself!" Buttercup went along with this, mimicking what the detective had tried to do to himself. "Right through the head!"
"That's…" the professor couldn't decide what to say. The Girls had constantly been exposed to many dark things, but this was a whole other breed of darkness on its own. He turned to the detective, shock on his face turning to something soft. "I'm sorry for your loss, detective. While I hardly know your daughter, I know she's a nice person whenever I got to talk to her."
The detective hardly acknowledged the professor. He simply grunted while staring into space.
"Come on, I'll set you up for the night," the professor said with a hand on the detective's shoulder. He gave him a gentle tug and got him to follow him out of the room.
"Wait!" Blossom called out to them before they could leave the room. She scanned Detective Mullens from head to toe and found what she was looking for towards the toe-end of his body.
"What? Why?" the professor asked, but what got his attention the most was how there were the arcs of pink energy surging from Blossom's eyes. He knew what it was. He'd seen it before.
"Blossom, what is it?" the professor asked again.
Blossom didn't reply to her Dad. Instead, she walked up to Mullens and pulled up the right leg of his trousers. His trousers had been somewhat baggy, and the bump there was almost unnoticeable. Had Blossom lacked x-ray vision, she would have missed it even with her enhanced visual acuity.
There was a holster with a mini-pistol hidden underneath Mullens' pants. Blossom pulled it out, wondering at first why Mullens hadn't used it, but figured that he likely didn't have the time to. At the same time, she removed the Colt Python she had confiscated from him earlier from her belt. They formed a pile in her arms.
"I'm sorry, Mister Mullens," Blossom apologized. "I don't want you to go."
"I understand," Mullens mumbled sullenly.
The professor wasn't impressed that Blossom had to prevent a suicide, but he kept it to himself. Leading Mullens down and grabbing a pillow and blanket along the way, he arranged them quickly before gesturing for the guest to take his place.
"Sorry about the mess around the house," the professor apologized, referring to all the wounds the living room had suffered when Buttercup had acted up and nearly killed him. There were still scorch marks on the wall, and the coffee table was a shattered wreck on the floor. "I guess I still can't bring myself to move on yet."
The professor knew that it was more than just the living room, but Mullens didn't need to know that. Unable to move on, there were still signs of Selicia's past habitation in the house that he just couldn't get rid of.
"That makes the two of us," Detective Mullens said, before lying down on the couch and curling up, facing the back of the furniture as if a prisoner hiding in a corner of his cell in shame.