Reader's Discretion is Advised
The following story contains highly disturbing content, including graphic depictions of violence, torture, experimentation, and abuse. The narrative may be unsettling and is intended for mature readers only. Reader discretion is strongly advised as certain themes explored in the story may be distressing or triggering to some individuals. Please proceed with caution.
...
0200HRS (28 April 2024)
Dil's fingers moved swiftly over the keyboard, his eyes scanning the lines of code and data flooding his screen. He kept tousling his unruly red hair with unease, as he had been known to do when he was troubled.
The officer's NameDrop was all they needed to begin a deep dive into the shadowy existence Dick Hardly had led. The jet's cabin hummed around Dil as he pieced together the macabre puzzle they had just unraveled.
Across from him, Blossom was deep in her tablet, doing the same. Her face mangled in an unreadable expression of disgust and anger as she cross-referenced files.
Bubbles - concerned for how this might affect the Professor - leaned against the window, arms crossed. The reflection of the night sky glinted in her narrowed eyes, determined to avenge and clear her father at all costs.
Buttercup's specter stood motionless - waiting, unnervingly still, listening. Always listening.
She had seen sheer terror in her final moments; information which would be pointless to tell her already emotional sisters. In a bid to save her lover, the militia captured her, tormented her, and discarded her. To them, she was a thing to be taken apart literally until they had no further use for her. That had been the plan all along. They had needed her, just not dead.
Experimentation.
That word alone made Dil's stomach turn. The files he and Blossom had uncovered left no doubt about the scale of what they were dealing with. Nearly 450,000 lives lost. Mutations. Mutilations. Unauthorized human testing carried out under the radar for decades.
And the mastermind behind it all? No surprise - Professor Dick Hardly.
Dil clenched his jaw as he read the reports again, trying to process the sheer horror of it. Blossom was briefing her sisters as well on the findings.
This wasn't just another rogue scientist playing god in a hidden lab. This was systematic. Entire human trafficking networks linking from the poorest areas across the globe, thousands upon thousands of desperate people in poverty falsely lured to greener pastures and promises of jobs or money. Fueled the operation: kidnapping people from their homes, their beds—newborns ripped from their mothers before they could even cry out. Women forced to give birth in captivity, their fetuses and infants taken for experimentation.
Seventeen mass graves, hidden deep within a sprawling forest, filled with the discarded remains of those who had suffered in Hardly's experiments.
All of it—hushed up.
The government, the locals, the authorities—bought. The money Hardly received from worldwide military contracts had ensured silence. How could billions not? Many powerful men were banking on Hardly's experimentation being successful. What could possibly be a better internment than mindless biological weapons of mass destruction?
What money couldn't cover, terrorist groups and gangs did, keeping the region and the supply chain far beyond locked down so that no one could seek help, no one could escape.
The operation needed numbers.
Blossom even read of ghastly human/animal mutations occurring in young toddlers, old women, and all demographic age, gender, and racial groups which turned innocent people into zombified creatures that would scream consistently in their mangled, transformed bodies.
The worst part? It worked.
Buttercup was the missing link to ensuring a transformation from human to superhuman was natural and non-painful. Unfortunately, the detailed requirements from her body would mean she herself would have to lose her life in a torturous, slow manner.
Dil forced himself to take a slow breath; he met Blossom's gaze and they shared a silent agreement to not delve further. They had read enough.
Hardly's dream had come true.
Dil sat there, laptop ajar as he tried to wrap his mind around the grotesque imagery and words; his mind struggled to process it. His stomach twisted, and he swallowed back the bile creeping up his throat.
Then, the temperature dropped.
Dil barely had time to react before Buttercup materialized beside him, her form flickering between solid and translucent. The glow of his screen cast unnatural shadows over her face, making her smirk look even more unsettling.
"You think you know what Hardly is doing," she murmured, tilting her head, "but you don't."
Dil stiffened. Buttercup rarely spoke about what she knew—about what happened to her. Most of the time, she acted like none of it mattered. But there was something different about her now.
"Then tell me," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
She let out a small laugh, but there was no humor in it. "Nah. Some things… they rot your brain just knowing about them. And yours? It's soft, Pickles. Real soft."
Dil clenched his jaw. "That's not an answer."
Buttercup's gaze darkened. She floated closer, her presence unnervingly real despite the fact that she was dead.
"There's something in that compound worse than what you've seen. Worse than the experiments. Worse than the graves. And the best part?" She leaned in, her voice almost playful. "It's still alive."
A shiver ran down Dil's spine. He wondered why she wasn't letting her sisters in on this tip-off. "What is it?"
Buttercup's eyes were empty. "You'll see."
Before he could press further, Blossom's voice cut through the cabin.
"Enough. We have a mission to focus on," she said, stepping in with the authority of a commander. "Here's the game plan."
Buttercup gave Dil one last look before turning to her sister.
"We have a location," Blossom continued. Her voice was measured, but her hands were tight fists on the table. "It's cloaked though, no average tech can detect it. A compound outside Dakar - Hardly's been operating from there for years."
She looked up from her tablet, her gaze sharp. "We bring him in. Alive."
Bubbles raised an eyebrow, her eyes dark with anger. "You're sure about that!?"
Blossom nodded, her expression unreadable. "Dead, he's a martyr for some fucked-up cause. Alive, he's proof. We bring him to book—make sure the world sees what he's done, and we also bring to book everyone involved—or at the very least scatter the operation into discord."
Bubbles exhaled, but there was no disagreement in her eyes. "Fine. But if he so much as breathes wrong, I'm putting him in the ground."
Blossom didn't argue. Instead, she glanced at Dil. "The files?"
"Already sent to Princess," he confirmed. "If we fail, she'll activate Plan B."
It was a quiet admission, but one that carried weight. They were powerful, yes. But Hardly's reach was vast. This mission could fail, the odds were actually against them.
Not that Bubbles was worried. She gave a sharp grin, rolling her shoulders. "Stealth mission. Should be easy enough."
Buttercup stirred. "Don't get cocky."
They all hiked and sat around the main console, the flickering holo-display illuminating their tense faces.
"We're going in now before Hardly catches wind that we've found his operations," Blossom said, her voice steady. "We disable communications, and extract the target. Clean. Fast."
Dil had gone silent now; he didn't respond. His fingers drummed against his knee, his mind still stuck on Buttercup's warning.
"This is reckless," he muttered, shaking his head. "We should wait for backup. Hardly has military funding from all over the world—his security is tight. Did you read those fucking papers? He knows the Illuminati."
"The Illuminati doesn't exist," Bubbles added, annoyed at Dil.
"Yeah, yeah. I just mean - only God knows who is backing this dude up - we're just three and a half kids…"
Blossom shot him a sharp look. "Right. Backup from who, Dillan? The same people who let this happen in the first place, hm - the government, police?"
Bubbles crossed her arms, frowning. "Also - we are superheroes. We step in when the governments and law enforcement have failed. We're not waiting. Every second we delay, more people die; it's not like the police or world leaders give a rat's ass."
Dil exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "I get that, but—"
"You're scared."
Buttercup's voice cut through the tension like a knife. She was floating nearby. Her green eyes glowed faintly in the dim light.
"Not scared," Dil countered, annoyed. "Just trying to be realistic."
Buttercup scoffed. "Yeah? Realistically, you don't think you're making it out of this alive; we get it. But we've been doing this since we were five years old."
Silence.
Blossom didn't argue. Neither did Bubbles.
For the first time, Dil felt the weight of their confidence—and the crushing sense that he didn't belong. They were invincible in their own minds, but here he was, a mortal, a normal human, completely unqualified for the job ahead.
...
0300HRS
Blossom and Bubbles moved like shadows across the compound's exterior, their stealth training making them near-invisible against the night. The plan was simple—get inside, locate target, nab target.
But something was off.
Bubbles barely had time to whisper, "Do you hear that?" before the ground beneath them lit up.
A second later, the trap was sprung.
Metallic limbs burst from the ground like skeletal fingers, snatching their wrists and ankles with inhuman strength. Super-powered militia descended from above, their red-visor helmets glowing in the dark.
"Ambush!" Blossom shouted, struggling against the restraints.
Before either girl could react, their spyware crushed itself to dust, the signal completely cut off.
Meanwhile, in the jet Dil scrambled to reconnect "Guys? Hey! Shit, I've lost connection!" the sound of crackling static filled the aircraft.
Then, a voice.
A grainy transmission from Hardly's compound spouted from every speaker around him.
"Dil."
The voice was strained. A familiar tone that made Dil freeze in the jet's cockpit.
Stu Pickles.
His father.
The comms inside the jet were still open. The girls' connection was severed, but whatever this was? Surely it wasn't what he was hearing...?
Dil's breath caught in his throat.
His father's face now filled every screen in the jet—warped, flickering, but undeniably him.
"Son, please… I told you; leave this alone."
Dil's fists unclenched; he wanted to pass out. His father looked older. Broken. His eyes darted wildly, as if he were looking over his shoulder.
Buttercup hovered near the console, arms crossed, her expression unreadable. "Dil this might be A.I."
He didn't answer.
Instead, the screens glitched again. The image of Stu Pickles flickered—now in full clarity.
Tears ran down his face. His lip trembled.
"Dil," he pleaded. "Go back home. Let this go."
The transmission cut to black.
And then—the jet powered down.
All screens, all controls, everything.
The mission had just taken a very personal turn.
A single, chilling sound brought him back to reality. It was Buttercup's voice. Calm and resolute. "Dil, Dil get up. It's time to do the thing…"
…..
~Date: circa 2001
~Location: UNKNOWN
The first baby that survived wasn't the one they expected.
Hardly watched through the reinforced glass as the woman on the operating table convulsed violently, her belly split open in a jagged Y-shape. She had stopped screaming hours ago, her body too weak, her mind too broken. He was relieved she shut up, her painful screams were more irritating than anything.
It was always like this—the ones who made it this far were more corpse than human, held together by failing organs and a will that had been systematically shattered.
Her pulse had flatlined six minutes ago. The fetus should have died with her.
But it didn't.
The thing inside her kept moving.
"Scalpel," murmured Dr. Kael, the lead surgeon, his voice hollow.
One of the assistants handed it over without hesitation, but Hardly could see the way his hands shook. They all knew what they were doing here. What they had done to make this possible.
Kael's blade sliced deeper. Then—movement.
The belly shifted from the inside, stretching unnaturally, as if something was pushing to escape on its own.
Hardly leaned forward, fascinated.
There was a sickening rip.
Then the child—if you could call it that—clawed its way out of the mother's stomach.
No umbilical cord. No fragile newborn wail. The thing's lungs expanded instantly, breathing in its first choking gasp of air. Its skin was waxy, almost translucent, veins crawling underneath like a network of tiny black roots.
Its eyes opened.
Not the murky, unfocused stare of an infant. These were wrong—too sharp, too knowing. A deep, inky blackness filled the sockets, stretching out unnaturally, absorbing light instead of reflecting it.
One of the assistants vomited into his mask. Another stumbled backward, knocking over a tray of instruments. The thing turned its head toward the sound, tracking him.
"God," the man choked. "God, no—"
The child smiled.
Hardly had never seen an expression like that on a newborn. There was no innocence, no confusion—only a raw, predatory amusement.
And then it moved.
The assistant didn't even have time to scream before his chest collapsed inward. Ribs shattered outward like brittle branches, skin tearing apart as if unseen hands were crushing him from the inside. His body caved in, folding unnaturally into itself until he was nothing but a mangled heap of flesh and bone, his head lolling at an impossible angle.
The room erupted in chaos.
"Contain it!" someone shrieked. "Get it under control!"
The baby crawled out of the open womb, dragging itself across the blood-slick table, leaving tiny, glistening handprints in the mess of its mother's entrails.
Hardly didn't move. He simply watched.
Fascinated.
No—in awe.
They had done it..! HE had done it…!
This was beyond evolution. Beyond anything science had dared dream of.
This was God's work.
And Hardly was its architect.
...