By
Gary CurtisPowerpuff Girls created by Craig McCracken and all characters associated with the show are owned by Cartoon Network
PROLOGUE
HIM watched the battle in disgust, from the comfort of his netherworld lair. On the screen of his all-seeing television, the Powerpuff Girls were putting an end to yet another monster. There was just no stopping those brats. Casting his spells on the beasts from Monster Isle and having them do his evil for him never worked. Trying to get the Powerpuffs to turn on one another was a dismal failure. Having all of Townsville hate them; they saw right through that, too. Even teaming up with those worthless mortals who called themselves super-villains turned out to be a flop.
Someday, though, he would find a crack in them. Something in their personalities, their way of doing things, to use against them. Blossom, the leader, didn't like being opposed. Buttercup, the headstrong one, didn't always take kindly to being led. Bubbles, the baby of the three, tended to be the most easily frightened. But as of yet, it hadn't caused them any serious trouble. Their squabbles had caused problems, but their basic goodness and their self-confidence had always seen them through. He'd just have to keep watching and throwing little problems at them whenever he could, to stir the pot. It might take years, but what the heck...he had eternity to wait. The future was under his domain.
PART ONE
In all her fifteen years, Blossom had never smelled anything this bad. The stench of the monster's breath each time it roared was an assault as much as a punch or kick would be. It was keeping them from getting too close, which was probably a good thing, because they didn't want to run into those massive, gleaming blades on the ends of the creature's fingers and toes. They'd already had a few close scrapes, literally, as each girl had rips in her dress from them. All she and her sisters had been able to do so far in almost three hours of battle was to hold it at bay with their hand and eye beams. Blossom's ice breath and Bubbles' sonic yelling had no effect on it.
In fact, as they were tiring, the massive yellow-green, scale-covered creature let out a mighty plume of flame at Bubbles, as if to show that it was getting even stronger. It seemed to break her spirit, and she cried out, "What are we gonna do?"
"We're gonna quit pussyfooting around and clobber it!" Buttercup spat, eyeing Blossom with as much anger as she was giving the monster. Three hours of this game of chess was three hours too many, in her book. She broke toward it.
"No, Buttercup!" Blossom shouted. "It's tiring! We wait, and that's an order!" She could see the thing wasn't tiring at all, but maybe if she could show it that they were prepared to wait it out, too...she just didn't know what else to do.
Her sister stopped and hovered, looking even angrier. Anything they had thrown at it was knocked away. A direct attack was the only thing that would work But she had to control that attack, wait for the right time; Buttercup was going to mess it up...
It spun suddenly, slicing toes at Bubbles, who screamed and fled. "Get back here!" Blossom yelled. Bubbles came to a halt, turned to see her scowl, and fearfully returned.
The monster watched them closely, and Buttercup used the distraction to sneak up behind its right ear. "No, Buttercup!" Blossom shouted again. It swung a massive arm at the green-eyed girl and she barely stepped out of the way. Bubbles' fear either lifted or caused her to act blindly, because she tore at it. Blossom tried, too late, to hold her back, and her sister was struck with a savage slash of that arm on its backswing. Blossom's cry of, "Bubbles!" was joined with Buttercup's; then a horrifying second later, Blossom saw the other arm moving, heard a sickening thud and her sisters were plummeting toward the ground, a red ribbon seeming to rise up from Bubbles' midsection.
In a blind rage, she sped into the snarling face as it turned away from Buttercup, and she exploded a kick into one eye. To her surprise, (and the monster's-it would be its last earthly sensation), she sailed through it into the creature's cranium. Disgust and dawning realization of where she was struck her simultaneously. She spun herself rapidly, arms and legs outstretched, turning the beast's brain into pudding. She looked for daylight, saw it and burst out through the same eye socket to see the creature already falling toward the ground. She caught it and gently lowered it to the grass of the park. Very few people were cheering, and to her, that meant very bad news. She broke into a run, calling out her sisters' names.
"Over here!" came a man's voice, and she flew to the spot to see Buttercup laying white-faced in the street. Blossom knelt, gently lifted her unconscious sister's head and felt for a pulse. She got none. Her hand was wet from the back of Buttercup's head, and before she could pull it away, she heard sobbing behind her. She turned her head to see a crowd gathered over Bubbles, and all she saw was blue, stained red...a piercing scream met her ears, followed by the sound of breaking glass...and more screaming...
CHAPTER TWO
The piercing scream was her 10-month-old Julie, crying to be fed, laying in her diaper that needed changing, in her crib in the bedroom of Blossom's tiny, roach-infested trailer in a muddy little park on the outskirts of a large mid-western city. The other screaming was from her three-year-old Samantha being chased by four-year-old Bobby, somewhere else in the house. She yelled for them to stop. The breaking glass was from the broken bottle at her feet, vodka sitting there in a puddle. She was half-drunk and it wasn't even nine-o'clock. Even fully drunk, she never stopped having yet another of the dreams that had tormented her since that day thirteen years ago-the day she had failed in her duty as leader of the Powerpuff Girls and caused her sisters' deaths.
And now, here she was. The drunk, used-up-at-twenty-eight-looking-at-least-forty-no-good-mother-of-three-battered-wife-of-another-no-good-bum. She screamed again for her other two to stop, then set about changing the baby. Who should have been changed and fed back at seven, except her mother had slept until well past, and gone straight for the bottle after climbing out of the filthy bedsheets.
Life hadn't started out this badly, after she had fled Townsville at sixteen, right after graduating early. It was less than a year after that terrible day. To the city, she had been a hero, and they had mourned her sisters along with her. But to herself, she was a failure. She knew she had caused the tragedy, by failing to let Bubbles leave. Escaping for a bit and having time to think of a strategy was the best thing they could have done. Then, to make matters worse, she had tipped the beast off to Buttercup's presence, causing the near-miss and Bubbles ill-fated attempt to intercede. While she stood, doing nothing but giving orders. Her father never blamed her for what had happened, at least not outwardly, but to her, it seemed as if the professor's eyes were constantly asking the question, "Why, Blossom, why? How could you let it happen?"
She had gone right back to saving the day when required, though for some reason, no more monsters ever came after that day. If sport had been the only reason for them to come to Townsville, it would never be the same for them, either. It just wasn't the same. She knew she was letting her sisters down even more by quitting. But her heart wasn't in it. So she'd decided to leave, to put Townsville and all of its memories behind her. She moved to a small town in the midwest, someplace where she could lose herself and become someone different. She changed her name and social security number, and now Blossom was no more. Except she hadn't been able to run from those dreams.
She found a day job as a paralegal for a law firm and at night, took classes in the big city twenty miles away, toward becoming a lawyer. She could still help people in some way, without putting anyone in physical danger by misusing her powerful abilities. Those, she had sworn to never use again. To help make ends meet, she worked weekends as a waitress in the small town she lived in. One night, a shy young man came into the restaurant. By that time, she had gotten to know many of the townspeople and she was popular and well-liked, as the person they all thought she was. She was able to get him talking, and though she sensed he had a dark side, there was something she liked about him. He worked for a local trucking firm and wrote poetry. They became friends, then lovers, then one day, he asked her to marry him. A year after the wedding, Robert Jr. was born.
Life was great finally, in this idyllic small town America, and Blossom rarely had those dreams anymore. Until the day Bobby came home, only a week after Samantha was born, with the news that he had gotten a job with another company, a much better one at three times the pay. It meant that he would be on the road for long stretches, but she would be able to quit her job and stay home with the family they planned to raise. She smelled liquor on him and knew he had been celebrating with his buddies before coming home. It didn't bother her, because she liked his friends and she would sometimes spend a fun evening with her husband, having a few drinks and shooting pool at their favorite hangout. Until that night. She wasn't sure if him being away that much was a good idea, that they were doing OK on both their incomes. That's when he told her he didn't want her working at all anymore. She argued that she didn't want to give up her dream of being a lawyer. Things escalated from there, to the point that he slapped her.
For a split second, Blossom the Powerpuff Girl was back. Enraged, she pulled her hand back...and it wasn't there. Her powers, after not being used for years, had simply gone away.
CHAPTER THREE
It's the story repeated over and over, the cycle of spousal abuse. The man, not really a man at all, is unable to control his frustrations in life and takes it out on his wife and kids. At first, he is tearful and apologetic, and the woman is swayed. She doesn't want to believe she made a mistake. She wants to believe she can change him. She thinks it was all her fault. In reality, the thing she should do is run, because this behavior is only a warning of what's to come. But she stays. Mostly, and sadly, because there are children in the equation, kids who will be hurt and have their worlds disrupted either way. So she stays and tries to make the best of it.
Blossom, having been betrayed by her lost powers, was trapped. She stayed, because she had two kids to think about, and she, like all the others in that situation, believed it was an isolated incident. But things only got worse, and soon, she was drinking, too. Not only because that is the pattern so often, to try to bury the pain with alcohol and drugs; but in her case, those dreams were coming back. As a way of telling her that her life as it was now was punishment for her past mistakes. The downward cycle continued. Bobby's drinking cost him his job and he was back in town, unemployed. After being evicted from the nice apartment they had, dreams of the house long vanished, they moved to the dismal little trailer park halfway between the city and their old town. It was no place to raise kids. In the midst of all of this, Blossom learned that she was pregnant yet again.
After the baby came things got better. For about two weeks. The drinking and the fights resumed, until the night Blossom had had enough. This time, she got a restraining order against Bobby. That was it for him. He wasn't allowed to see the kids unsupervised and said to hell with that. He stopped seeing them at all, and soon he was running with someone else. Blossom, saddled with three children and no job, tried to get by on welfare but her depression and drinking made her just as lousy a parent. She was nearing her breaking point.
Now, as she threw the soiled diaper into a pail full of them that should have been emptied days ago, the noise from the other room filled her aching head. She put the baby down on the dirty sheet of her crib and tore out of the bedroom, slicing her foot open on the broken glass. Yelping in pain and anger, she saw her son, hair the color of flame like hers, laughing just as a bowl of soggy cereal left his hand. It caught his younger sister, who was already bawling, in the side of the face. A nearly-empty plastic milk jug lay on its side; the contents leaking all over the table and onto the floor. Blossom had just bought it the night before with the last three dollars she had for the week.
With three quick strides, she reached Bobby Jr., yanked him out of the chair by his arm, spun him to face her and raised her left hand. She saw the fright in his eyes and on his little face as he cried out; at the same time she saw her own reflections, dozens of them, in the mirrored glass of the cheap china cabinet. Who was that...that...animal in the filthy nightgown? She had never struck one of them before, and she'd come this close. She dropped her hand and pulled the scared child to her, beginning to shake and sob at what she had almost done. Samantha, milk and cereal dripping from her uncombed long blonde hair, had stopped crying long enough to stare open-mouthed from her chair, then began to wail again. Julie, still not fed, added her screaming to the cacophony in the cramped trailer.
Blossom gently sat her son back into his chair and righted the empty jug. "Bobby, will do something for Mommy?"
Still afraid, he nodded yes.
"Go to your room and wait for me, 'kay?" she said, smiling at him through her tears. Again, he nodded, then got up and did so.
She went to the tiny kitchen. Dirty dishes covered the counter and table, and pans with food still in them sat on the range. Several roaches scurried to get away from her. She rummaged in a drawer, found a clean towel and then got the last bottle of formula she had from inside the near-empty refrigerator. She took the bottle to Julie, then came back to wipe Samantha's face, oblivious to the blood still dripping from her cut foot. She led her daughter to the small room she shared with her brother, found clean clothes for them and quietly got them both washed up and dressed. Then she asked them to please wait there for her while she got Julie ready. She got the baby into another clean diaper and the nicest little outfit she had for her. Then she carried Julie into the kids' room and laid her on Samantha's small bed, asked them to watch her for just a second, and went to the phone in the kitchen. She dialed a number and waited...
"Hello, Child Protective Services?" she said quietly so the kids wouldn't hear her. "I want to report an unfit mother. You need to get those kids out of there...yes, right now, as soon as you can get someone over there...the address is 8410 Creekside Manor...
CHAPTER FOUR
She sat with her babies for the last time, trying not to cry while reading to them a story. She kept one eye on the driveway for the car from the county; she knew what it would look like because they had been out there before. When the car pulled in just over an hour after the call, she stood suddenly, hugged her two older ones, picked Julie up, kissed her and laid her back down, then told them to be good for the nice people. Still in her nightgown, she ran out the back door for the brush, hearing her son cry mournfully, "Where you goin', Mommy?", and Samantha starting to shriek, knowing something wasn't right. She never looked back.
She ran, throwing aside the brush, small trees and bushes, and tearing the flimsy nightgown on thorns and nettles that lined the overgrown path along the creek. She paid no attention to the small cuts and scrapes she was getting, the pain in her heart was too severe; yet she kept running until she had gone a mile and a half from her home. There, across the same creek that passed the trailer park, was an old foot bridge that looked down 150 feet to the gorge below. She and Bobby had picnicked there in happier days, but she had never brought the kids there because the bridge had no sides. This time of year, heavy rains had the creek gushing mightily and she knew that if the fall to the rocks below didn't do the job, it would at least knock her out so that the raging waters would finish it.
The wood planks of the bridge extended two feet beyond the thin handrails that ran along both sides. It would be just enough for her to stand on, to jump from. She ducked below the rail and gripped it with her right hand when she came up. The gorge yawned below and she felt woozy. Her knees sagged and she grasped onto the rail as she began to fall. Her heart pounded madly in her chest as the thought came to her.
"Now, why'd I do that? What did I hang on for?"
She knew why. She didn't really want to die, but there was no other way out. Her kids would have a better life without her in it. She stood up straight and looked down once more, taking her hand from the rail.
"For once in your life, Blossom, do something right!"
She bent her knees slightly and pushed off. Panic took over again as the split-second's realization struck her that there was no going back now. The scene below rose up to meet her and she cried out in terror. Then, unbelievably, she felt herself being thrown back, almost as if she was being pulled. She cried out again and whipped her head to the sides but saw nothing. She found herself sitting on the deck of the bridge, gasping for breath.
Out of nothingness, a form materialized before her. It was an old man, stooped with his age and dressed all in white. He carried a crooked white cane and his long white hair and beard reached to his knees. She gaped in disbelief at the vision.
"Hello, my child." The voice was soft and aged, too.
"Who-who are you?"
"Who do you think I am?"
She looked down and saw she was still sitting. The planks pressed hard into her bare flesh underneath the ripped gown and she felt self-conscious all of a sudden about her appearance. She pulled the ends of her tangled red locks to cover her breasts as she stood. No, she definitely wasn't dead; the throbbing in her heel told her that infection was probably setting in from the germs on the floor getting into the cut. She stood up, taller than the vision, who now looked very real.
"No, it can't be who I think it is, can it? God doesn't just show up like this for losers. No, it can't be God. But...they say those really do exist."
"What are you, my guardian angel or something?"
"Yes, my child, that's exactly who I am."
"Then where are your wings?"
"I'm afraid I haven't earned them, my dear."
Blossom was suddenly furious. "I should say not!! Well, why are you showing up now? Why the hell didn't you do something for me back before I screwed up my whole life?!"
She paused for a second. "Oh, I get it. This is just like that movie, isn't it? You talk me out of killing myself by showing me the terrible things that will happen without my presence. Well, I ask you, just how much worse can things get?! And if they can, I don't want to see them!"
She went for the side again. The old man didn't move to stop her, just said sadly, "No, Blossom, that's not what this is about." The words stopped her and she turned to face him again.
"You are absolutely right, my dear. I failed you. I was asleep at the wheel, so to speak, in the times when you needed my guidance. I'm a failure."
"That makes two of us. But I still say my kids and the rest of the world are better off without me, so what's the point of showing up now?"
The old man gave her a small smile. "Ah. You see, Blossom, we are both in luck. We both have been given a second chance."
"A second chance, how? I'm not interested in picking up the pieces from today."
"No, you misunderstand. My second chance is that I have been granted the power to give you the opportunity to change one event in your life. Any event, not just this one."
She stared dumbly at him. "You mean, I can change anything in my past?"
"Yes, my dear, but you must choose wisely, because I cannot control whatever comes from that choice, and I cannot help you any further from that point on. And you must do so quickly, as my time here is very short."
She could see that he was already beginning to shimmer faintly. Her thoughts raced immediately to her babies. How to fix their damaged lives and give them a decent future? With the knowledge she possessed, it made thinking difficult. If she never took up with their father in the first place, they would never exist. The thought made her sick. If, that first night he raised his hand to her, she had just walked out and remained firm, perhaps Bobby and Samantha might have improved lives, but her own would still be difficult. A single mother raising two kids...well, she could always swallow her shame and go back to Townsville. She would have a lot of making up to do to a lot of people for leaving like she had. Especially to her father. She had never done anything except send him cards at Christmas and his birthday. But with her using a new identity, he'd never tracked her down. He never knew where she was, that he had grandchildren, anything. That might be a good way to start over...but...Julie hadn't yet been conceived at that point. How would she live, raise her other two with the knowledge that they'd had a baby sister she could never tell them about? Or subject them to their existing hell until she was pregnant again with the baby, then go back home and try to start over?
It might be better for them if they never lived at all, never mind her pain. It was her pain and self-centeredness that had blinded her to their needs in the first place. So what thing should she change? The one thing that, in the back of her mind, she had always wanted to have back? But she had always been afraid that, if given the chance, she would get it wrong again. And now, here that opportunity was. To give her sisters the chance to live again, to experience the joy of someday having their own babies. Even if hers were lost to her forever?
"Okay, Mister Guardian Angel. I've decided."
"And a wise choice it is, my child." he told her with a smile.
Momentarily taken aback by his knowing her thoughts, she smiled back and took the extended right hand in her left. They turned toward the side, and as he asked her to trust him, and her own judgement, stepped right through the rail and disappeared.
She would get it right, this time. She had to.
PART TWO
"Damn her! She never listens to me!"
Buttercup glared angrily at Blossom. Three hours of playing patty-cake with this monster had worn her nerves raw. But no, her 'older, smarter' sister would never let her fight the way she wanted to, the way that got things done. It was always, 'let's think this through and plan our attack', or some dumb cliché like 'fight smarter, not harder'. So they ended up wasting precious time on something that should have taken only minutes; time that Buttercup could be spending doing something better. Like working out to stay in top form. Hanging out with her friends at the mall to check out guys, and to let them check her out. But mostly, like taking acting lessons after school, after her lead role in the spring play this past year as a junior drew the attention of the local critics.
To Blossom's credit, this beast had been a lot tougher than others they'd faced recently. Those claws were deadly. But still...three hours was just too long. Her patience was worn thin. Then Bubbles had to chicken out, something she'd never outgrown, and had seemed to get worse about in the last year or so. She saw her blonde sister cut out and heard Blossom yell for her to get her butt back there, though not in those words...and she used the moment's distraction to sneak in behind the monster to give it one of her patented 'Butterchops' behind the ear. They sent shock waves along the ear canal and upset the balance of whatever she hit.
At the same exact second Blossom yelled at her, the monster swung. She could yell at her sister later for opening her mouth, but right then, she knew that the thing had sensed her anyway. She managed to duck enough to miss most of the swipe, feeling one dagger-like nail rake across her scalp. It hurt but it was only a flesh wound. As she tried to correct her angle, she saw Bubbles going down. She cried out her sister's name and heard Blossom doing likewise, then out of nowhere the creature's other arm backhanded her. As she fell toward the street, she could see Blossom sailing into the monster's eye. Just before she blacked out, she knew just how wrong she'd been and how right Blossom was. For all the good it would do any of them.
CHAPTER SIX
She woke with her head pounding. It hurt like heck and she reached up to feel the bandages covering it. The room was not hers; it looked like a hospital room. Except for herself, it was empty. She'd seen enough of them to know what a call button was, and she found it clipped to the bedframe.
A nurse came running in, saw her awake, and stepped right back out.
"Hey, where you goin'? I just-"
The nurse came back in with a man in a white coat. A doctor. He immediately went to her and checked her eyes with an instrument, ignored her complaints and stepped back, seemingly satisfied.
"Well, Buttercup, it's good to see you awake finally. How bad does your head hurt, on a scale of one to ten?"
"Eleven."
He grinned. "That's about what I expected from you. Which tells me you're doing fine."
"Great. When can I get out of here? When can I see my sisters? When can I-"
He held up his hand. "Whoa, slow down. We want to keep you here for a few days, just to be sure. I'll let your father know you're awake. He'll tell you what's been going on."
He traded a quick glance with the nurse that Buttercup caught. "What? What's going on? I want to see my sisters!"
"I'll get your father." he repeated, and left with the nurse.
* * * * * * *
Professor Utonium had to confirm her worst suspicions, and it hurt to see her reaction almost as much as the pain of losing his other two girls. Bubbles had been killed almost instantly. Blossom had still been trapped inside the monster's skull when it hit the ground. She had made it as far as the hospital.
Too weakened to lash out in her grief and damage anything, Buttercup could only weep uncontrollably in his arms and blame herself. He would have none of it. He forced her to look at the papers, as difficult as it was for her to have to see it in cold black and white. She was a hero. The same thing was all over the TV. And the cards and gifts and flowers that came to her all told her the same thing. She refused to believe it. She knew the real truth; if not for her rashness, that Blossom always complained about, they would still be alive.
Everywhere she went, from the day of her sisters' memorial service, delayed until she was released from the hospital, onward, she was given nothing but love and respect on top of the condolences. It was hoped that she would return immediately to fighting crime, to give her something to do as well as to prove to herself that she was still a hero. But she withdrew completely into herself. She couldn't fight without her sisters, she told the professor, and besides, she was a danger to everybody. Finally, he told her that she had a duty to do it that lived beyond the deaths of her sisters, and that at least got her to make the attempt. On her first emergency call, a huge apartment building fire, she was paralyzed by indecision. Without Blossom, she just didn't know what to do. Hearing the screams of people trapped inside, she tore the roof off the top floor and tried to snuff the flames by exhaling, but instead a massive backdraft resulted. If not for the fire chief getting her attention and sending her inside the top floor to get the residents out, the loss of life may have been staggering. As it was, she was now convinced she was finished.
After that, she went through months of depression. Nothing the professor tried, to get her to start enjoying life again, would work. It was very hard on him also, but he couldn't let this tragedy claim his only remaining child. One day he took her to the training room for a workout. He had a trick to play on her that he hoped might lift her out of her funk. He had a way that she could be any superhero she wanted, to fight any villain or monster of her choice. She didn't believe it, until he showed her herself as Wonder Woman.
It worked, but not as intended. She never got back the desire to fight. But her interest in acting was revived. She suddenly realized that acting gave her the power to be someone else. Anyone else, except who she really was: the person responsible for killing her sisters. She threw herself into it with a fierceness that rivaled anything the professor had ever seen in her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Life was a wonderful dream for Buttercup. Now 28, she was the most famous young actress in the world. She had burst onto the scene at 21, fresh out of her year at the New York Film Academy (and her four years at NYU, where she acted in school and off-off Broadway productions), by auditioning for and winning the lead role in the Broadway revival of Miss Saigon. Her very first film, a low-budget production by a fellow NYFA graduate, was a surprise hit, and her performance as the tough-talking, wise-cracking half of a female cop team on patrol earned her a best supporting-actress Oscar. She was equally comfortable with comedy or drama, action-adventure or historical period pieces. Only three years later, at 26, she had her first of her two Best Actress statues. She commanded $30 million per film but often agreed to much less, if there were a script to her liking. She worked non-stop, often flying from a several-days break on location of her latest feature to work on another project.
To everyone who she worked with, she was a joy. Down to earth, never the 'prima donna'; and her energy level was amazing. She never seemed to slow down. Personal appearances and autograph sessions were things young actors did to help publicize themselves, but once they made it, that ended in a hurry. Not with her. As a result, her signature wasn't worth all that much on the open market. She signed literally thousands upon thousands of them, to be sent out by her publicist on written request from a fan.
But to her closest friends, she seemed different lately. Moody and unlike her old self. When advised to slow it down a bit, she scoffed at the notion. Migraines, she claimed. Nothing a few pain relievers couldn't handle.
The truth was, she had begun having flashbacks to that day. Even her relentless pace, immersing herself in one part after another, no longer worked. She knew who she was, and that, no amount of role-playing, money or fame could ever wash away. She wasn't really having migraines. Waking from those dreams was making it more difficult to give her best. She went to see her old acting coach in New York and told him about it. He advised trying to exorcise those demons by flying home to face them once more. Townsville was one stop she seldom made, because of that, but she decided to give it a try.
It did seem to help. Her father still lived in the home she'd grown up in, and she found herself being happy there. They had long talks and she was able to speak of her sisters and the fun times they'd had without guilt, only a sense of loss tempered by the years. Her coach had been right, and so had everyone else all those years. Fate had stolen them from her and the world; she could not have prevented it.
She advised her agent that she'd be staying with her father for a few more weeks. She made several appearances around Townsville and thousands flocked to see their hero, returned home at last. One afternoon, while signing photos at a mall, there was a sudden disturbance in line. People were shouting and screaming. When she looked up from the picture she was signing, the line had parted. Mall security couldn't do a thing. Standing there waving a gun unsteadily at her was an unkempt, unshaven man who could have been her age, or older, or younger. She recognized him as a boy she knew from school, named Joey Finkelmeyer.
"What? Joey?! Okay, Buttercup, keep cool..."
She remained seated. "Joey. I remember you. Please tell me what's wrong." Maybe he needed money. "I should just kick his butt, but it's been so long I'm not even sure I could anymore...and I can't risk anyone else getting hurt."
He didn't move any closer, remaining about twenty feet away, waving unsteadily. "Shuddup."
Even at that distance, he smelled like a brewery. "Great...he's plastered...can't reason with him..."
"Joey, maybe I can help you, if you just tell me what's wrong."
He shuffled a wobbly step forward. "I said, shuddup!" The gun shook as he trembled. "It ain't fair!"
"What's not fair, Joey?"
"It ain't fair!" he repeated. "Why'd it hafta be her? Why coo'nit been you? It ain't fair, dammit!"
She didn't know if it was Bubbles or Blossom he meant. She couldn't remember either of them liking him, or vice-versa. But she was sure he meant one of her sisters. Didn't really matter now, which one. "Who, Joey?"
He ignored her and took another step. "Lookit you, Miss Cool." He sneered, wiping his mouth with a dirty sleeve. The gun dropped to point off to one side. Next to her, one of the security men whispered something into a radio, and a few more came up quietly from behind Joey. Not taking her eyes from him, she whispered, "Easy..." to the man with the radio.
The gun snapped up and the crazed man's focus seemed to be back. "It shoulda been you..."
"Why, Joey?"
His face crumpled suddenly and he covered it with his free hand. "Because I loved her! It's your fault she's dead!" The gun was now aimed at the floor and the men were moving closer. Everyone else stood mesmerized by the drama unfolding before them. A few of the crowd called out things to defend her, like "Don't listen to him, Buttercup, he's nuts!"
But his words, like a mortar shell, pierced the wall of defense she had been able to build against her guilt over the past. The dam burst, washing away the peace she had finally made with herself, and all those feelings flooded over her. She buried her face in her hands and her head dropped to the table; her tears spilling all over the photos she'd been signing. She never saw Finkelmeyer lurch and wave his gun wildly at those who'd been about to seize him.
"Back off!" he shouted, and the guards did. The crowd backed off, too. Hearing the noise, she raised her head, and she noticed the publicity photos. Her smiling face mocked her. She had no right to be that happy person with such a wonderful life when her sisters were lying in their graves because of her. She was no longer playing someone else; she had to be who she was again. She savagely flung the pictures aside and screamed, "He's right!"
The tears poured down her face as everyone else's whirled to look at hers. Her voice trembled. "I'm sorry, Joey! I loved them, too! I'm sorry!" She looked away from him for a second; her eyes sweeping the room. "All these years you all thought I was a hero and you've given me so much love and I don't deserve any of it! I killed them!"
More expressions of denial came from her fans and fellow citizens, more expressions of their love for her. Angry shouts at Finkelmeyer for causing her such pain and threats of what they'd do to him if they got their hands on him. But she just sat there, weeping.
"Shut up!" he screamed at them all, turning his head, and the arm with the gun dropped again. "Can't you see it's just a friggin' act?" His head whipped back to her and the gun came up. He pulled the trigger.
So, at last, the payback had come. The price she was now paying for her great talent was that when her innermost feelings finally surfaced, they weren't believed. She'd earned this moment of irony, and now she welcomed it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Buttercup felt all the air being sucked from the huge mall interior. It was like a slow-motion special effect shot, one she was very familiar with, for she was a student of the filmmaking process as well. She heard the slowed-down 'pop-pop-pop' of three shots. She could see the flame spit from the barrel; see the deadly projectiles coming toward her. See the twisted look of hate and anguish on Finkelmeyer's face and the shocked reactions of the crowd, the slo-mo movement of the futile attempts to grab her assailant. Then she felt, no saw, a ghostly presence reaching across in front of her to catch the bullets in its hand. She gasped and jumped up in a delayed reaction to the shots, but she was saved. Standing there before her was an old man, dressed all in white, with long flowing hair and beard the same color. Smiling, he crossed his legs and leaned on his cane, tossing the bullets up and catching them as they fell.
"Not bad for an old geezer, eh?"
"Who-who are you?" she stammered.
"Why, your guardian angel, of course!"
"My guardian?" The shock of nearly being shot caught up to her, overwhelming her nerves, and her legs buckled. She fell against the table and he reached out to steady her, helping her to sit. The hand on her shoulder, though pale and ghostly, was real enough. She looked up at the old face in astonishment. The entire mall was frozen in time, except for the two of them. She studied him for a second and frowned.
"Guardian angel? Don't tell me...you haven't earned them yet."
He smiled again. "Very good, my child. You always were brighter than you gave yourself credit for."
"But...why me? And why not my sisters?"
He shrugged. "Can't answer that one, dear. Not everyone is so lucky, I'm afraid...but I can make an educated guess."
"What?"
"You're a damn good actress." He looked to the heavens for a second and said, "Oops, sorry."
She was totally disarmed by that and laughed in spite of the absurdity of the situation. It seemed too real to be just a dream. She saw his expression change.
"I wish I had more time to chat, my child, but this is very serious business. You have a choice to make."
"What? What choice? I thought you just saved my life! You mean I can't just walk out of here?"
"Well, after I leave, you can try. Maybe he doesn't have three more bullets in his gun."
He opened his hand out flat so she could see the three he'd caught. She touched one; it was still warm and very, very real.
"Maybe those men will stop him in time. Maybe you still have your superpowers and didn't really need me at all. I'd hate for any of those to not be true."
That flustered her and she started to become angry, for the first time in many years. "Then what did you even bother for? That's stupid!"
"Please, Buttercup, allow me to fully explain. You see, I interceded on your behalf to give you another chance at life. But that chance is not limited to this moment. I can't control what goes on after you choose. You may choose to continue your life from this point, taking the risks I've already pointed out...or you may change another event in your life."
"Really? You can do that? Change anything?"
"No. I only prevented this. I haven't changed the final outcome of today. Only you can do that. Just as, should you choose something else, I can only return you to the moment. You must decide what to do. Or what not to."
"Oh." she said, then gave it some thought. "This can't really be happening, but if it is, it's a no-brainer. I can always get into acting again-if I still want to."
"Okay, whatever your name is, I know what I want to change. This better not be a joke!"
He took her hand and drew her forth. She passed through the table in front of her, and just before they vanished, she looked around at the frozen landscape.
"I guess it isn't. Now, if I can only remember what I did wrong so I don't do it again!"
PART THREE
"I got a real bad feeling about this!" Bubbles told herself. Nothing they tried was working, and it was all things Blossom had ordered. She could see her sister growing more worried by the minute and her other sister, Buttercup, champing at the bit to do things her way. Though they had grown older and bigger, and their powers had increased along with their physical size, all of that plus their years of experience hadn't gotten her sisters to fully cooperate with each other. Bubbles had for years had a feeling that it would haunt them someday. That feeling was stronger today. This monster wasn't the biggest they'd seen, nor the most powerful, nor the scariest. But there was something about it that worried her. Maybe it was the one that could finally outlast them, keep fighting after they were exhausted. She knew there had to be one eventually.
As if to confirm it, the thing spat a mountain of flame at her. She shrieked, backing away. Something else she couldn't explain was that she was acting more afraid of things all the time. Her sisters were on her for it and even the professor had noticed. Maybe it was because as she'd grown, she realized that there were other things in life that meant more to her than what they'd been doing almost since they were born. She tried to stay focused on the task at hand and called out to Blossom, "What are we gonna do?" That's when she heard Buttercup's frustrated 'pussyfooting around' remark and Blossom's shout to continue waiting it out. But even she could see that the creature wasn't getting tired at all.
Then, it attacked her and she broke and sped away. Blossom's angry shouting stopped her and she flew back, chagrined once again at her growing cowardice. She suddenly saw what her foolish flight had caused. Buttercup had grown bold and used Blossom's momentary lack of attention to move in on the creature. But it detected her somehow and swung. Bubbles saw her sister fall back and overcame her fear enough to launch herself at it. It sensed her, however, and the arm that got Buttercup came back around and raked across her body. She felt the intense pain the sharp blades caused and blood flew up into her face. Panicking, she headed for the ground below. She heard her sisters call out her name and she knew she should go back to help them. But she was too afraid. They'd be better off without her anyway. She could stay out of their way, safely on the ground, until the fight was over. They were both attacking it now.
She landed and pulled up her dress to look. Bloody scratches criss-crossed her chest and stomach, but they didn't look too bad. Maybe she should go back up. Then, Buttercup crashed to the ground a hundred feet away, got up, staggered a few feet more, and collapsed. Nothing she hadnt seen before, or done herself more times than she could remember. She looked skyward to find Blossom. Her sister was nowhere in sight, but the monster was falling. So, they had finished it without her! She breathed a sigh of relief and sat down. But she knew her respite would be short, for in a minute, Blossom would be giving her holy hell for bailing out. Buttercup, too, when she saw the few measly scratches.
She'd have given anything if that had happened, but the chewing out from her sisters never came.
CHAPTER TEN
"Professor, why do you hate me?"
Bubbles asked the question, a year after her father and Townsville had buried their two fallen heroes and the city had turned its back on the one remaining. The one everybody blamed for what happened that day, after her meager injuries had been revealed and the footage of her sisters' final battle had been replayed over and over.
Professor Utonium had, in fact, not treated his one remaining child as though he cared much about her, instead wallowing in his own grief and self-pity. This day, though, he regarded her sadly instead of snapping at her like always. She'd tried to be helpful, doing everything he asked of her, but it was never good enough. "Oh, if only Blossom were here..." Things like that.
But now, he said, "Bubbles, honey, I don't hate you. It's my fault your sisters aren't here as much as it is yours."
That hurt. Though she already knew how he felt, it was the first time he'd actually come out and admitted that he believed she was at least partly to blame. But she hid it for the time being.
"Why, Professor? You weren't there."
"But I should have seen it was coming. I shouldn't have been letting you fight at all."
"What?!"
"Yes, Bubbles, you were always the weakest...but I hoped you'd get stronger as time went on. I was just in denial, not paying attention to what your sisters and my own eyes kept trying to tell me."
"But I'm just as strong as they are!" She still slipped up occasionally, referring to them in the present.
"Yes, Bubbles, but not where you need it the most."
Horrified at what he was saying, she shrieked, and her head was never the same after that.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
"Get in here and shut the door, stupid!"
The uniformed cop nervously approached the young blonde woman with the bulging muscles and the hard blue eyes. She was dressed in black, wore no makeup and her hair was cut short. Easy to hide under a dark cap.
"Anybody see you?" hissed the woman, formerly known as Bubbles, the Powerpuff Girl. She sat in the dark of her hideout in the warehouse district of Townsville.
"No."
"Good. Let's have it!"
"Okay...the raid is set for nine tomorrow night. Full riot gear, gas, dogs...the whole nine yards."
"What a waste of the taxpayers' money!" she barked, and laughed a mirthless laugh. Anyone who dared join in uninvited got a painful reminder from her with a non-lethal blast from her eyes. When she expected you to laugh at one of her jokes, her eyes told you. This time, everyone laughed. Oh, and you hadn't better call her Bubbles, either. Ma'am would do just fine. Or Sir. She liked that even better.
At 25, she was leader of the biggest gang of thieves in Townsville. Something inside her had snapped after that day the professor had told her how he'd really looked at her all those years. And that her sisters had complained to him about it...she felt betrayed, and no longer had any feelings toward them, or anyone, for that matter. Her heart was a block of granite. The only thing she cared about was committing crimes, the bigger, the better. And they were getting to be both every time out. Coming up next was the planned heist of two billion in gold from deep below the army base. No one would dare to attempt that. But she already had it figured out, just like every other plan of hers that had worked. For the last nine years she had shown everyone just who was 'weak in the head' and 'yellow'. It was clear this woman feared nothing and no one.
She snapped her fingers. A signal to one of her henchmen, who opened a steel box and took out a stack of bills. He tossed it to the crooked cop, who quickly counted out ten grand in used 100s, as agreed upon.
"All there?" the cold-eyed woman asked.
"Yes, ma'am." The officer grinned.
"Pleasure doing business with you. Make sure you aren't followed."
With that, he was dismissed. Another one of her dark-clad men let him out into the night. She took a cell phone out of her pocket and called someone. "Ten minutes." was all she said. She stood and walked to the freight elevator, to take her to the roof, where she would fly off to her new headquarters, already fully stocked for weeks after hearing the rumors about the raid. All that the police would find the next night would be empty coffee cups, sandwich wrappers and the like. And three large wooden crates filled with army-surplus automatic pistols and rifles. All with their firing pins jammed in backwards and welded into place, all perfectly useless. And all perfectly legal, with the original bill of sale sitting in the open on top. Her way of saying, "So, you still think you're smarter than me?"
Ten minutes later, while she was flying unseen in the dark over the city that had spurned her, and her cohorts were on their way in their vehicles, a derelict suddenly wandered into the path of a single patrolling police car. The driver screeched to a halt, got out and rousted the drunk, slamming the poor unfortunate against the hood. It was a dark, abandoned stretch of street and no one heard, or if they did, cared that one of Townsville's finest was about to get the beating of his life from someone who turned out to be stone-cold sober. The stunned cop never knew until later his 'reward' had been lifted from him. Laughing to himself as he hurried to his car parked five blocks away, her loyal lackey thought, "Lucky for him he ain't floating in the bay right now! Imagine, insulting the boss like that, counting the cash right in front of her!"
The gang members all knew better than to do anything that stupid.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Three years later she was the most successful, the most feared, the most ruthless criminal Townsville had ever known. Allegedly. The police had never been able to pin a single crime on her. Underlings had been caught and were doing their time, maintaining their silence. They would be paid handsomely for it upon their release, and if they didn't keep their mouths shut... She was free to walk the streets, or fly over them. People shrunk back from her wherever she passed. No longer did anyone think the former Powerpuff Girl was a weakling. They hated her, and she reveled in that hatred.
Professor Utonium, though, had never stopped trying to reach out to his daughter after seeing what he had caused. She ignored every attempt, until one day, she decided to meet him for lunch. To rub it in.
He arrived early. After being taken to their table, he opened a small packet of powder and dumped it into a glass of water. It dissolved, leaving no indication at all of anything being there. The act was witnessed by several nearby diners, who looked at him strangely. When they saw who his lunch partner was as she came through the door, they turned their heads back to their own meals, grim, rigid smiles on their faces.
She walked to the table, a half-sneer on her face, and sat. She laughed inwardly at the instantly solicitous waiter. Everyone in the business knew she was an extremely generous tipper, but they didn't know she did it just to watch them performing like circus monkeys. The professor seemed to have aged at least twenty years instead of the dozen since she had left, and that pleased her as well.
"Thank you for meeting me, Bubbles."
He had to know she hated that name. "I figured it was about time, Dad."
He winced at the snide usage of the title none of the girls had ever called him by. He shook his head sadly. "You never did change, Bubbles."
He pushed on in spite of her angry expression. "No, you haven't changed at all. I can remember a little girl who couldn't keep up with her sisters until one day she got so angry at being a little bit behind them that she tried to prove she was as good as they were. Physically, she was...in the training room...but she just didn't have the mental capacity to go with it, and she turned against innocent people. What you've been doing these last twelve years is the exact same thing."
"How dare you?" she growled.
He ignored her. "Intimidation...violence...corruption...those are the only things that make your schemes come to fruition. You aren't half as smart as you think you are, and you never were."
He said it all without a trace of rancor. That, she could have countered. If anything, he seemed even more sad, and his pity infuriated her. Because it was all true. Her jaw worked as she fought to keep her temper under control. She reached for her glass of water and drained it. She found the words that would hurt him equally.
"I was never your little girl. None of us were. We were just your little experiments. Well, Professor, this one backfired on you!"
She stood suddenly to walk out, too fast, she thought, because the blood seemed to rush out of her head. Funny, that had never happened before. She felt dizzy and warm all over, and she gripped the edge of the table to steady herself. Everyone in the room seemed to be looking at her...except the professor, who looked away, tears running down his face. Her hands went to her throat and she gave a strangled cry as she collapsed. She heard the chair falling backward underneath her, and she heard something else...applause...cheering. They were standing at their tables, cheering!
In what she thought was her final moment, the block of granite broke. She knew that he had poisoned her and she forgave him. She cried out inside her head, "I'm sorry, Professor! Girls, please forgive me! I'm sorry! I know I was bad! Please don't let HIM get me!"
"That old fool?"
The voice startled her, and the touch of a cool hand on hers; then she was being pulled to her feet. The dizziness was gone. The voice and hand belonged to an old man dressed all in white. He helped her to her feet, picked up her chair and got her seated, then leaned on his cane to watch her, a bemused look on his face.
"Who-who are you?"
They all said the exact same thing, he noted. "Why, I'm your guardian angel, of course."
"You don't look like one."
"Yes, I know. But wings don't last forever, you know. We have to keep earning new ones."
"Oh. But why are you saving my life?"
"I'm not, my child."
"But-" She waved around the room where time had stood still.
"Have you ever heard the saying that if you save someone's life, you become responsible for it? We don't do that. You're responsible for your own life; I'm only showing you that there are alternatives."
"But the professor poisoned me! I was dying!"
"My dear, you don't know that and neither do I. Maybe what was in that water would only take your powers away. You would have some serious choices to make then."
"So what are you here for, then?"
"Just what I said, to offer you alternatives. Bubbles, you may change any one thing in your life. You can choose to see if you will in fact die, or just lose your powers and have to deal with the consequences of what you've done. You could go back and decide to not drink that glass of water. Or you could choose something else entirely...but whatever it is, I'm not responsible for the result."
She couldn't believe this was happening. But it was all real. The tears frozen on her father's face certainly were. What should she do? Take the chance of dying and take her punishment in the afterlife? Or live, without her powers, and face the music here? Maybe she should just go all the way back to the beginning, to the day she and her sisters decided to dedicate themselves to fighting the forces of evil, and stay out of it. She gasped. That was what she had chosen. How had she gotten so far away from it that she had become the evil she'd sworn to fight? By refusing to admit that she was weak, when she could have been working on getting stronger instead of denying it. It was the day her sisters died, the day she finally gave in to her fears and ran...
"Can you really send me back to any moment in time?"
"Yes, Bubbles, I can."
"Okay. I know what one." She stood up and held out her hand. "Let's go."
The next time she saw the professor's face, she swore, he would be happy.
PART FOUR
Far, far away, on the screen of a strange-looking television set in a strange-looking dwelling, were the frozen images of the teenage Powerpuff Girls and the monster. They had been frozen in that same exact position since time had stopped. In that odd room, out of the mist suddenly arose a ghostly figure, an old man dressed in white. It morphed into the red demon known to the world as HIM, and as it took a seat on the couch, it laughed balefully.
"Hahahahahaha!!! Guardian angel, indeed! And it only took me ten of those mortals' years to come up with it! Now, those Powerpuff Girls will be mine for eternity!"
It picked up from a table the TV remote control and a rubber duck. It aimed the remote at the set.
"Now, Mr. Quackers, let's just sit back and enjoy the show, shall we?"
The demon gave the toy a squeeze, as if in reply.
* * * * * * *
Blossom was suddenly aware of her surroundings and it caught her off-guard. Directly ahead was the creature and behind it somewhere had to be Buttercup; off to her right, Bubbles floated uncertainly at a safe distance, waiting for instructions. But all she could see before her were the images of her children, and her son's wailing, "Where you goin', Mommy?" filled her ears. She shook her head to rid it of them and shouted, "No! Go away!"
* * * * * * *
"No, Joey, no!" Buttercup cried out, putting out her hands to stop the bullets. Blossom's shouting snapped her out of it. "Huh? Who's she talking to?"
The scene before her brought her fully back to reality. "Oh, man, it really happened! Okay, now how do I fix things?"
* * * * * * *
"Joey? Who's Joey?" Bubbles wondered, the second after she had snapped out of her trance by hearing her sister. Right after she had screamed, "I'm sorry, Professor!"
* * * * * * *
"It's working!" shouted HIM. "They think they're undoing the past and that past hasn't even happened yet!"
* * * * * * *
"Professor? Where?"
Blossom swiveled her head and didn't see him. Or Joey. Whoever that was. This was strange. But she had to stay focused and try to remember exactly what she had done wrong the first time, so she wouldn't do it again. Which was it? She had ordered Buttercup to stay in place and Bubbles to come back after she had fled. Which one shouldn't she do? Maybe both!
"Oh, this is so confusing! I don't know what to do!"
So when the monster continued to flail at her, she just tried to stay out of the way but did nothing else. It seemed to get larger in front of her eyes. She was sure it hadn't; it was just her doubt confusing things even more for her.
* * * * * * *
Buttercup didn't see the professor either, but she was more intent on remembering what not to do. She remembered. When Bubbles had flown away, she had moved in, in spite of Blossom's warning. So she hovered in place, waiting. And she thought she saw the monster grow in size. "Nah, it s just an illusion!"
* * * * * * *
"I'm not afraid of a little fire! I'm not gonna run! I'm not!"
And when the monster spit the huge plume of flame at her this time, Bubbles stayed there and took it. When the smoke cleared, she could have sworn the monster was a lot bigger than before, but she couldn't be sure.
* * * * * * *
HIM watched the girls trying to avoid the savage arm-swings and kicks as they fired their lasers ineffectually.
"Hah! Those little fools can't see that they've been tricked into doing the opposite of what they thought they did the first time, and their fear and confusion is feeding the creature's strength! I'm winning! I'm winning!!"
* * * * * * *
Blossom narrowly avoided another kick and took another rip in her dress. The stench of the beast's breath made it hard to think. She did her best to move in and out between those slashing daggers and give a few kicks of her own, but she was fighting it by herself. Her sisters were hanging back. They weren't doing at all what she remembered.
Bubbles decided to take action. She headed for the creature. It turned its attention away from Blossom to her and swung at her. She was able to get inside the blades enough to be hit by just the open palm of the huge hand, and it knocked her back.
"Ah, okay." Blossom thought. "This is where she takes off. Then Buttercup comes in, and now is when I just let them do what they were gonna do."
But Bubbles snarled in anger and rejoined the fight. Startled, Blossom saw the monster suddenly increase in size. Confused, she shouted, "Bubbles, why didn't you fly away?"
"Why should I? I'm not a big chicken like you think I am!" She delivered a kick to the underside of the beast's chin. Instead of rocking the beast, it only grew again.
Buttercup had seen Bubbles returning and it confused her, too. It wasn't like she remembered. But she wasn't going to disobey Blossom's orders to wait the thing out, never mind that Blossom was disobeying her own commands. To her amazement, the monster grew even larger. "Something's not right here! This is all wrong!"
Blossom expected Buttercup to be joining them, but her sister still held back. How could she not make the same mistake she made earlier if her sisters weren't doing the things she told them not to do? Angry and confused, she yelled, "Buttercup! Get your butt in here and help us!"
"No! I can't!" was the response Blossom heard. She did the splits just as a kick was about to disembowel her and the claws passed harmlessly beneath. The monster realized it would get more done by retracting its blades. The girls took harder hits when it connected. It could finish slicing them up later. Blossom never saw the arm coming straight at her from her left. Bubbles did and stepped into its path to break the force of impact. It sent her hurtling into her sister, which slowed them both just enough. This time, Buttercup broke her holding pattern and rushed down to them. They corrected and came up to meet her.
Bubbles exclaimed, "Girls! Is it just me or is the monster getting bigger?"
"Yes!" Blossom said, then angrily turned to her other sister. "Buttercup, why aren't you helping us?"
"Because you told me to wait, and I didn't, and that's when everything went wrong!" Buttercup put her hands up to her mouth. "Oops!"
"What did you say?" Blossom asked, feeling suddenly chilled.
Bubbles interrupted, "Yeah, Blossom, I didn't run away this time because you yelled at me last time!"
They floated there staring at each other and came up with the same answer at the same time. "Guardian angel, huh?"
"Girls, we've been tricked!" Blossom spat. "The monster is feeding off of our decisions to undo what we never really ever did in the first place!"
"Forget the monster!" Buttercup cried. "Let's get HIM!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"BLAST IT!!" the demon roared. "Those accursed little brats figured it out! I never thought they'd have time to compare notes!"
He swung one claw, creating a pink cloud that rose up through the ceiling into the sky far above his lair. "Well, I'll fix that! I'll remove their memories. No, wait. If I do that, they'll just focus on defeating the creature...I want them confused!"
* * * * * * *
"No!" Blossom ordered. "We have to get rid of the monster first. Then we'll go take care of...of...gee, I forgot what I was gonna say!"
"Yeah, me too." Buttercup agreed. "Somethin' about a weird dream I had...only now I can't remember!"
The monster all this time watched them, and seeing them forgetting about it, approached.
Bubbles mumbled, "Me either...all I know is that...hmmm...I'm not even sure if I was in it!" Then she saw the beast bearing down on them. "Girls! Look out!"
They got out of the way of the two hands slapping together, just in time. They regrouped above.
"Well, I know the monster was in mine!" Buttercup glared.
"Yeah, mine too!" Bubbles said. "It was a famous actress!"
"Not in mine!" Blossom countered. "Joey Finkelmeyer was the monster and you and he had three kids, Bubbles, and you had to kick the professor out of the trailer park so you could all stop Buttercup from being the worst criminal in...Hollywood?" She scratched her head.
Buttercup frowned. "That is one strange dream, Blossom, but where were you in it?"
"I dunno."
This time they didn't get out of the way, and they found themselves crawling out of craters. Buttercup dusted herself off as they flew back toward the fight. "Man, if we don't get those stupid dreams out of our heads, that thing is gonna finish us!"
"But what if our dreams are the key to us beating it?" Bubbles asked worriedly.
Blossom's eyes shot open wide. "Bubbles, that's it! We've gotten all mixed up somehow. It sounds like we all had kinda the same dream. Keep attacking this thing and think to yourselves, what wasn't in our dreams that should have been?"
* * * * * * *
"What in Hades is she talking about now?" HIM wondered, scratching his beard. The plan seemed to be working beautifully once he'd mixed up their memories. Now, he had no clue as to what he could have possibly forgotten.
* * * * * * *
The girls concentrated on fighting, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Gradually, they started to wear the creature out. It began to shrink a bit.
Blossom tried to recall her dream. It seemed to have involved her leaving Townsville and the professor at some point, and her sisters were in it but not herself. It wasn't a very happy dream. It wasn't even like what she had told them it was. She tried to make a mental list of everyone who appeared in it. People she knew and complete strangers. In one part, Townsville had been under someone's evil control...but whose? There was a piece missing and she couldn't find it. She quit thinking and kept punching and kicking. Maybe it would come to her...
Bubbles had the same problem. Her dream was also very sad, and she had the impression that Blossom had been the cause of it, and Buttercup was a hero somehow. But she couldn't remember herself at all. It had taken place mostly in Townsville, she thought, and she remembered guns...a lot of guns. Now, who liked guns that she knew? A kick almost tore her arm off, and she decided she'd better get back to fighting. She'd figure it out...she hoped.
"Forget that stupid dream and fight!" Buttercup told herself. She tried, but the puzzle wouldn't leave her alone. She remembered a really old man signing a bunch of autographs, and at one point, Blossom was up on a stage accepting some gold statue thingies from a guy in a tuxedo, only before she could give her speech, her sister drank a glass of water and fell over. Then she remembered Bubbles yelling at the professor because he knocked over a jug of milk. But where was she? If she wasn't around, Townsville wouldn't be the nice place it seemed to be in the dream...but why? Why wouldn't it? Something was missing, and she tried the same thing as Blossom, making a mental list. It had to click sooner or later...and later might be too late, period.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
To the people on the ground it looked bad for the girls. They had been battling the creature for hours, and doing a good job of keeping the damage to downtown to a minimum. Most of it was from the girls crashing into buildings or cars or the street. Each time they got up and went back, but the girls could be heard talking to themselves instead of calling out to each other like they always did. It looked very bad indeed.
HIM thought it looked very good. Whatever idea Blossom had come up with, it hadn't worked. The creature on its own would have gone down some time ago, but he was still influencing it, and would until the Powerpuffs were destroyed. It shouldn't be too much longer, the way it looked to him...
* * * * * * *
"Keep attacking, girls!" Blossom encouraged them. "Don't give up!"
Buttercup grunted with her exertions. "Man, I wish I had one of Mojo's laser guns right about now!"
"Huh?" Bubbles said, looking sharply at her sister.
"Buttercup!" cried Blossom. "You took over Townsville in my dream! Mojo should've tried to stop you but he wasn't in it!" She thought she saw the beast's eyes reflect pain when she gave it a few punches before nailing it in the chest with a laser as she retreated.
Bubbles got very excited and gave the monster two savage kicks to the neck before escaping a slicing claw. "Yeah! He wasn't in mine either, but there were all these guns and weapons!"
Buttercup saw the beast seem to sag and gave it two chops and a kick. "Hey! I don't remember him either! That's gotta be it!"
"But why wouldn't Mojo be in all of our dreams?" Bubbles wondered. She followed up a laser blast to the monster's eyes with a karate kick to its snout. It decreased in size slightly more.
Buttercup frowned. "Yeah, he'd be the one I'd think of first!"
"Yes, Buttercup! Unless...unless someone was controlling what we dreamed about!"
Buttercup grinned at her red-haired sister. "And just who might that be?"
"Someone who hates Mojo more than we do!" Bubbles called out.
"Yes, Bubbles." Blossom said with a smile. "He wouldn't ever give Mojo credit like that, by putting him in our dreams!"
* * * * * * *
At that moment, HIM heard a ringing in his ears. He had no idea what it was. It wasn't the telephone. It was annoying, but nothing compared to what he was witnessing on his set. Those not-so-little-anymore creeps had figured him out anyway. The game was over, and he let them have the used-up creature. Ten long years to come up with this scheme and they had beaten him once more. He half-expected them to show up any minute and give him another pounding. He sighed and turned off the TV, wishing for that infernal ringing to stop.
* * * * * * *
The monster hadn't been dispatched as gruesomely as in their visions. Buttercup had simply flung it into orbit to be with the many others sent there over the years. Wearily, they floated to the ground and accepted the accolades from the relieved citizens and posed for snapshots. Things quickly turned into a carnival atmosphere in the early evening sun.
Usually, they just wanted to go home after a fight. They had plenty of things to do as busy teens. But this evening, they felt a sense of just how close they had come to their destruction, and they needed to feel some of that love. As they made their way through the crowd, Blossom's sensitive ears picked up something. In an alleyway, a man was yelling at a woman holding a baby. Why it angered her so she didn't know, but she was in the man's face in an instant. She backed him up against the wall.
"See here, buddy, there's no excuse in the world for you to verbally abuse someone like that! Don't let me ever catch you doing it again!"
The man backed away, looking for somewhere to run, but her sisters were blocking his path.
"You better think about taking some anger management classes, pal!" The guy pushed his way past Bubbles and Buttercup and ran.
"Nothing to see here, folks!" Buttercup sang out, and she and Bubbles shooed people away from the alley.
Blossom turned to the woman, who was deeply embarrassed. "How often does this happen?" she asked softly.
"He's good to us." the woman protested. "He just got laid off from his job and he's worried."
Blossom frowned. She was defending the bum. "Has he ever hit you?"
"No!"
"Does he drink?"
"A little. He had a couple this afternoon..."
Blossom reached into her dress pocket for two of the small, plain white cards she always kept handy, and a felt-tip pen. She wrote her phone number on one, gave it to the lady and then wrote the woman's address on the card she kept. When that was done, she said, "I think it would be a good idea if you went to those classes together. I'm going to pay you a visit in two weeks to see how things are going. And if he ever lays a hand on you, you call me, no matter what time of day it is."
Blossom stroked the baby's hair and smiled. The boy had managed to sleep through the whole thing. "Take care of that baby."
The woman said a simple 'thank you' and walked away. Blossom found Bubbles standing at her shoulder.
"Blossom, what was that all about? We've always been too busy to get involved in peoples' personal problems."
"I don't know, Bubbles. That kind of thing goes on every day. It just made me mad for some reason."
They headed back toward where the media was. They hadn't been interviewed yet. Blossom saw someone heading toward Buttercup with a pen and paper. "Uh oh, Bubbles, let's move!"
Buttercup hated being asked for her signature. She thought it was stupid to collect someone's name on a piece of paper or a photo and when asked, always told the asker to get a life. In disbelief, her sisters saw her write something and hand the man back his paper and pen. A kid might get away with it, but a man? That's when they noticed the line. They sauntered over, grinning at their sister.
"Gee, Buttercup, what brought this on?"
"Oh, I don't know. It ain't as bad as I thought it would be. It's kinda fun, actually." She said all that without looking at them, instead smiling at two people and signing their pieces of paper. "I don't want to see this turning up in some auction, now." she warned the next person, who promised to treasure it always. Before long, all three of them would be signing the next hour away.
CONCLUSION
When they finally floated into the house, it was dark. They had missed dinner, but they weren't hungry. The professor was probably down in the lab, working. He would know from the news that they were all right. But to their surprise, he was sitting in the darkened living room watching an old black-and-white movie. He turned around.
"Oh, hi girls. Boy, what a day you had! You must be starving. Let me heat up the leftovers..."
They held up their hands in protest. "No, I think we're just gonna hit the sack, Professor." Buttercup told him.
"Hey, what movie is this?" Bubbles asked. It looked familiar.
Blossom recognized it. "Professor, what's this doing on now? It isn't Christmas!"
"I know Blossom, and it wasn't even listed, but when I went to watch the movie I'd planned on, this was on instead, and I just had to see it. It's one of my all-time favorites!"
Buttercup groaned. "Professor, you've seen this a hundred times! How can you sit through it again?"
"What is it?" Bubbles demanded.
"It's a Wonderful Life", Bubbles. It's about a guardian ang-"
Blossom stopped in her tracks. "Oh my God!"
"'Night, Professor!" they called out and raced up the stairs.
* * * * * * *
Bubbles had their old room. It was the biggest, so her sisters dragged their mattresses over and squeezed them in. They probably wouldn't be getting to sleep right away, anyhow.
They remembered...all of it. They lay there staring up at the ceiling in the dark, exchanging their horror stories and sharing each others' agony. Then they talked about what it all meant.
"I didn't really have it so bad, Blossom." Buttercup said. "But what HIM put you through, I say we go over there right now and make him pay for it!"
"Now I know why you wanted to help that lady so much, Blossom." Bubbles sniffed.
"Yes, Bubbles. And it was despicable of him to convince you that you were a coward, to make you into something evil like that. But girls, we have to remember it was all just HIM's illusions. We weren't those people. None of it was real."
"It sure felt like it. Pretty darn clever of him to make us feel guilty for causing each other to die."
"Yeah, Buttercup." Blossom agreed. "He used that to build on, and it almost worked. We tried to do the opposite of what we thought caused our lives to go so bad, and that only strengthened the monster."
"HIM must have seen we were figuring it out and mixed up what we remembered." Bubbles said. "But we figured it out anyway."
"Maybe not, Bubbles."
Bubbles sat up sharply. Blossom turned over on her side toward her sister, seeing only the luminescent green eyes in the dark. "What do you mean, Buttercup?"
"Maybe we had help. Did'ja ever think that maybe we have somebody looking out for us?"
"You mean maybe we really do have a guardian angel?" Bubbles asked, somewhat disbelievingly.
"Could be. They supposedly do exist, but it ain't like the TV and movies. You never get to meet them."
Blossom was amazed by the possibility. "Gee, Buttercup, I never thought about that before! We've always kinda been Townsville's guardian angels in a way, but even superheroes need 'em, too, I guess."
"We sure needed one today, whoever it was." Bubbles said softly.
"Yeah." Buttercup answered. "I hope if they were new, God gave 'em their wings. They sure earned 'em."
The girls talked quietly for a little while longer, then drifted off to sleep; blissfully free of any lingering bad memories. When they awoke the next morning, all they would remember as a group was the fight the day before. Blossom would remember her promise to check back with that woman. Buttercup would no longer be averse to signing her autograph. Bubbles would only have a vague sense that her occasional bouts with fear were a good thing and kept them all out of danger. None of them would remember why. HIM would have to try something else.
* * * * * * *
Those were the demon's thoughts exactly. While the girls slept peacefully, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. Ten years was nothing to him, but they might be old ladies by the time he came up with another good plan. And then, what would be the point?
He put another pillow on top of his head and still it wouldn't block out that infernal ringing. It hadn't ceased since he'd first heard it, the moment the Powerpuff Girls had broken his spell for good. He clutched his toy duck and tried to think of something else to block out the noise.
"Oh, Mr. Quackers," the demon sighed. "I think it's going to be a loooong eternity!"
Author's Notes: When I originally posted this story for comments, I wasn't sure if my chosen title was the best. So I asked for suggestions, and one that I seriously considered was 'Living to Die', which was passed along to me by Alexander Ramirez. While it didn't fit quite as well as the twist on the classic Frank Capra retelling of Philip Van Doren Stern's 'The Greatest Gift', it came close and would have added a touch of irony. You may or may not know that I also did a story called 'Dying to Live'. So I thank Alexander for that, and for his thoughtful and greatly appreciated commentary on all of my work.
Please email your comments/critiques on this story to icekings2000@yahoo.com