Post by Hayate on Sept 2, 2010 21:35:39 GMT -5
As it had done the morning before, the sun, in all its golden-yellow brilliance, rises from the east to herald in the new dawn. Cirrus clouds paint the sky a vivid blend of blue and white. Today’s forecast: sunny with a chance of good fortune.
Slivers of sunlight creep through the glass windows and into the Powerpuffs’ bedroom. The first to receive the radiance of this light was the raven-haired Midori, who responds in kind by pulling the bed sheets over her eyes. Evidently, the lass was not to be denied several more minutes of sleep.
The sporadic buzzing noise of an alarm begins to sound, prompting a groggy Aqua to reach over to her nightstand clock. Yet, even after tapping the snooze button, the sleep-unfriendly noise refuses to cease. Several more taps on the button, and Aqua was starting to get annoyed. “Come on…!” With one last arm movement, the drowsy blonde unplugs her alarm clock from the wall socket. Even still, the loud buzzing continued to test Aqua’s patience. Finally fed up, she yanks the covers off her and sits up in her bed. “Would someone shut that off already?!?”, she shrieks in utter frustration.
Glancing around her immediate surroundings, Aqua comes to realize that neither hers nor Rose’s alarm clocks had gone off. In reality, the time hadn’t even reached 7:00am. Aqua then turns her eye to the wall on her left and notices a flashing red light, exactly like the one in Ms. Keane’s classroom. Her eyes go slightly wide with shock. “…The Powerpuff Siren…!”
…Shortly after awakening Rose and Midori, Aqua departs for the skies of Townsville alongside her ‘sisters’, the three of them now dressed in casual day clothing.
Midori brings her hand to her mouth and exhales a great yawn. “A distress call this early in the morning…?”, grumbles the black-haired Powerpuff. “I know they say ‘crime never sleeps’, but this is ridiculous…”
Turning to Rose in the middle, Aqua inquires, “Where’d the call come from?”
“City Hall.”, the de facto Powerpuff leader replies simply. “Must be pretty big for the mayor to call us into his office.”
“Yeah, well, if it meant getting me up at 6 o’clock, something had better be on fire.”
“Let it go, Midori!”
After mere minutes of flight, the girls touch down upon the front steps of Townsville City Hall and make their way into the building. As they walk through its lavishly decorated corridors, the members of the city hall staff greet them with a “Hi” or wave as they pass by. Before long, they reach the mayor’s office at the corridors’ end, where the mayor himself and Sara Bellum awaited their arrival. The two had rather troubled expressions to them. “…Hello, girls.”, the mayor greets from behind his desk, his hands clasped. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
“What’s wrong, Mr. Mayer?”, asks Rose with a similarly concerned look. “You almost never ask to meet with us in person.”
Turning his head a bit to the right, the mayor looks up at the equally anxious Sara Bellum.
Motioning a nod back at him, Sara approaches the teenage trio in a composed walk. and hands to them a piece of printing paper adorned with elegant script. “We received this fax earlier this morning.”
Rose takes the paper and quickly reads through the message:
Needless to say, the cryptic and menacing nature of the message had left a bad taste in the girls’ mouths. “A…terrorist threat…?”, Rose finally utters, unease brewing within her as well.
“Whoever sent this is sure pissed off about something.”, comments Midori, trying her hardest to stay calm.
“‘Held accountable’? ‘Injustices’? ‘Vengeance’? Whatever that ‘something’ is, it must’ve been pretty major.”, Aqua observes. “He sounds so…angry.”
“Angry, yet calculating. Just look at this handwriting, this grammar -- this wasn’t written by someone out to destroy everything he can get his hands on. This is a person who knows exactly what he wants and the most logical way to get it.”
Opting to chime in, the mayor speaks up. “What about the part about the sun?”
“Oh, that’s easy. ‘When the sun has reached its apex’? It’s the time of day when the sun’s at its highest point in the sky -- around 12:00 noon.”
“Which means…”, Sara interjects, folding her arms across her chest. “…that around 12:00 today, something’s going to happen. And we have no way of knowing what it is or where it’ll be.”
Rising out of his chair, the mayor moves toward the front of his desk. “We may not know what’s going to happen, but at the very least we can take measures to act against it. For starters, we’ll increase security at all the major city hotspots: City Hall, the bank, Morbucks Manor. We’ll close off all traffic in and out of the city.”
Turning to face the rattled mayor, Sara queries, “Should we order an evacuation?”
“There are over 50,000 people living in Townsville, and noon is less than 6 hours away. There’s no way we’d get them all out in time. Besides, a civilian riot is the last thing we need right now.” Overwhelmed by helplessness, the mayor turns his plight to the girls. “I’m sorry to ask so much of you, girls, but will you cooperate with our efforts?”
“Of course!”, squeals Aqua. “We love Townsville too!”
“What she said.” Midori adds. “Like we’re gonna just roll over for some lowlife with a chip on his shoulder. Screw that!”
Sara lets out a sigh of heavy relief. It was comforting to have the Powerpuffs’ strength on their side. “Thank you, girls. You have no idea how pleased we are to hear that.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Mayer, Ms. Bellum…” At her sides, Rose’s hands tighten into fists. “We’ll protect this city… No matter what happens…!”
11:40am.
High above the city, at a point in space where the entire cityscape was in full view, Rose, Aqua, and Midori hover back-to-back in an outward facing triangle. Whatever was expected to occur, there was virtually no way to miss it.
The cool high-altitude winds blow vigorously and coil around the girls’ forms. The calmness of the moment made it appear as though time had come to a screeching halt…
…an ordeal in and of itself for a certain green-eyed teen. “…This is so boring…”, Midori gripes with her arms crossed.
“Try to be patient for once in your life, ‘Green’.”, Rose retorts. “It’s almost that time anyway.”
“Couldn’t we have had lunch first? I could be stuffing my face with chicken fingers right now. I thought you said ‘12:00’…!”
“I said ‘around 12:00’. The time when the sun’s highest in the sky depends on the time of year. …Take a look there.” With her arm outstretched, Rose turns Midori’s attention to a nearby skyscraper.
Unfortunately, the eldest Powerpuff was a tad slow on the uptake. “Yup. It’s a building.”
“…Lower.”
“…” Midori’s gaze descends until it falls upon the skyscraper’s shadow. With each minute that passed, the shadow grew smaller. “…Oh! I get it! The sun’ll be at its highest…”
“…when there are no shadows. And judging by how small they are right now, it’s only a few more minutes.”
The minutes seemed to tick away like hours. The suspense made Aqua tremble with excitement and fear. It made Rose’s temple damp with perspiration, despite the altitude. It made Midori’s throat dry and heartbeat quicker.
A deafening silence overtakes the city. The shadows cast by its buildings were but centimeters wide.
…At precisely 11:48 and 31 seconds, not a single shadow could be seen.
The girls held their breath. “!!!”
11:48:32.
11:48:33.
11:48:34.
Before long, the sun begins to cast shadows in the opposite direction.
The group was puzzled, but the tension no thinner. “N-Nothing happened…!”, stutters Aqua, the first to shatter the silence.
Beads of sweat drip down the side of Rose’s face. “Was it…a bluff…?”
Midori brings her hands up behind her ears to get a better grasp of the city sounds. Honking car horns. Talking people. Construction crews. Barking dogs. At first, nothing seemed out of place. “…Wait. You hear that?”
Focusing their hearing as well, Rose and Aqua filter out the assorted city noises to locate the odd noise discovered by their ‘big sis’. “…Ticking?”
“Yeah. What is that?”
“Sounds like a clock.”
“…Or a timer…!”
“Timer!? Y-Y-You mean a bomb!?”
“Midori! Where’s it coming from!?”
“U-Um…”
“Well?!?”
“I’m trying! Shut up so I can concentrate!” Pouring all she had into her hearing, Midori tries to narrow down the source of the ticking noise. Her Element X-driven sensitive hearing eventually points her in the direction of… “…The bridge!!!”
The Great Oaks Bridge. One of the primary means of travel in and out of the city. A Townsville landmark.
A moderate-sized manmade device is seen affixed to the base of one of the iron beams keeping the bridge erect. Attached to this device was a timer resembling a digital clock. The front panel read 00:04 in green pixelated numbering.
“Hurry!” Without a moment’s hesitation, the girls take frantic flight toward the bridge.
The seconds tick away like the hammering of a gavel. 00:03.
‘Come on…!’
A firecracker going off in one’s ear. 00:02.
‘Come on…!’
The sounding of a gong. 00:01.
‘COME ON…!’
The sequence of adjacent zeros is immediately followed by a series of quick, high-pitched beeps, and then…!
“!!!”
Before the Powerpuffs could react, the entirety of the bridge is engulfed in a dense veil of fire and smoke. Chunks of concrete and metal cabling plummet into the bay below. Cinders shoot up into the air, only to be extinguished by waves of rising water.
Rose, Aqua, and Midori look on in horror as the remains of the Great Oaks Bridge sink into the bay. All that could be articulated was a whispered “…No…” that barely escapes Rose’s lips.
…Once the fire and smoke dies down -- with some ‘icy’ assistance by Rose -- the girls fly down to the ground to get a closer look of the wreckage. “This is horrible…”, remarks Aqua, who was on the verge of tears.
“If the mayor didn’t have the bridge closed off…”, Rose starts. “…I don’t even wanna think about how much worse it would’ve been. Bridges can be rebuilt…but lives can’t.”
Midori, as uncharacteristic of her as it was, had nothing to say. She stares at the destroyed bridge with trembling fists and gritting teeth. “…Tch!”
Noticing her fellow Powerpuff’s dilemma, Rose puts a sympathetic hand on Midori’s shoulder. “Hey. Don’t do this to yourself, okay? There was nothing you could do. Nothing any of us could do. We had no possible way of knowing this would happen. At least no one got hurt, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that… But--”
“‘But’ nothing. We’ll get this guy. And you can kick his ass for the three of us. ‘Kay?”
“…” At her other side, Midori feels someone take her hand into theirs. Looking over, she sees Aqua giving her a supportive, loving smile. She could feel her self-imposed burden lift. “…Heh. Deal.”
“…A touching display of human affection…”
“!!!”
The girls’ eyes dart about in search of the unfamiliar voice. “Who’s there!?”
“…A shame that their affection reaches only other humans… To them, all other living things are inferior…”
As a shadow is cast upon them, the girls turn their attention upward, where a strange figure could be seen looming from atop a tall building, its face obscured by the glaring sunlight. The figure leaps from the rooftops to greet the trio, landing gracefully on its feet. It initially appears to take the form of a person of somewhat short stature, with the majority of its body hidden by tattered robes. The figure pulls back its hood to reveal…
…a chimpanzee.
An awkward wind blows between the two parties. “It’s…a chimp.”
In response to Midori stating the obvious, Rose teases, “Brilliant deduction, ‘Sherlock’.” She then takes a cautious step forward as to not startle the creature. “Uh… Hey there, little guy.”, the redhead starts. “You know where your owners are? We’ll take you to ‘em if you want.”
“…Hmph. As if I would lower myself to such a trivial human concept as ‘ownership’.”
“!!!”
For a brief moment in time, the girls believed themselves to be hallucinating. Aqua takes several steps back out of sheer shock. “O-Okay… Did anyone else just hear that monkey talk, or was it just me…!?”
“I am not a monkey; I am an ape…!”
“Okay, so it’s a politically correct chimp…”, Midori adds to her previous observation.
Disregarding Midori’s attempt at humor, Rose continues. “W-What…are you?”
“Is it so strange that an animal such as myself is gifted with the ability of human speech? When you yourselves possess such extraordinary abilities as flight and super speed?”
“You… You know about--?”
“I know all there is to know about you three. Rose Walker. Aqua Fontana. Midori Kondo. I know…because you are the same as me. You too were made into guinea pigs for the humans to conduct their heinous experiments on. You too were made into…monsters.”
“…You’re a product of Project X…”
“Correct. For four months, those wretched scientists had their way with my body -- poking me, prodding me, injecting me with all manner of substances and chemical solutions. To them, I was naught but a ‘poor dumb monkey’! I’d never endured such degradation!”
“…”
“…And then came the greatest injustice of all. It was only when I was able to form complete, coherent thoughts that I was able to discern their true objective: this ‘Excelsior program’. What an utter joke! Made an unwilling lab rat for four grueling months only then to made use of as an instrument of war!? The absolute indignity of it!”
“…”
Riled by his own tale, the chimp lets out a calming breath. “…And so…I made a decision… The humans will never take responsibility for their actions of their own volition. Therefore, I shall do it for them. I’ve already dealt away with that vile ‘Facility’. Who better to serve as the arbitrator for this miserable race than the one who they themselves passed judgment upon?”
“!!!”
“They must be held accountable for the injustices they have committed. I shall serve as their judge, their jury, and their executioner…”
“…It’s you…! You’re the one who sent that letter to Mr. Mayer’s office…! You’re the one who destroyed the bridge too, aren’t you!?”
The talking ape bares his teeth in a wicked smile. As part of a deeper glimpse into his Element X powers, his feet lift off the ground and he begins to hover. “Merely a taste of what I have in store for this city and inevitably the rest of the world! I am a common zoo exhibit no longer! That part of my life is over! I am only the harbinger of the human race’s destruction! I am only…MOJO JOJO!!!” The self-renamed Mojo concludes his address with a classic malevolent laugh.
Midori cracks her knuckles in anticipation. “Tch! And I thought our name was stupid!”
With her eyes set on Mojo, Rose addresses her sisters. “C’mon, girls! Let’s knock ‘Monkey Boy’ off his high-horse!”
“Mm-hmm!”
With a fierce push with their feet, the Powerpuffs take off into the air and prepare to face Mojo in close quarters.
“I think not!”, snaps Mojo as bring his hands to his head. Within seconds, the air around him begins to vibrate and push outward.
Before the girls could even reach Mojo, they’re forced to go on the defensive when an onrush of kinetic energy bombards them. “T-The hell!?”
“Remarkable, isn’t it? Thanks to Element X, I’m able to tap into an unparalleled level of mental power! To wit…!” Off to the side, Mojo takes notice of an antenna tower. He points his left palm in its direction and uses his kinetic abilities to break off several lengths of the tower’s tip. Then, with a forceful forward motion of his arm, Mojo catapults the piece of antenna at the girls.
“Look out!”, Aqua shouts. The trio scatters about in their evasion of the pointed projectile. Like the remnants of the Great Oaks Bridge, it crashes into Townsville Bay.
“So ‘Chimpy’ can do tricks with his brain! Big freakin’ whoop!”, Midori boasts. “I’m still gonna knock him on his ass!” She speeds through the air once more toward Mojo.
Mojo attempts to push Midori back with a second wave, but his concentration breaks due to what appears to be a headache. “Nngh…!”
Taking full advantage of this, Midori swoops in and delivers a powerful punch to Mojo’s face.
The force of the blow sends Mojo reeling back into the wall of a nearby building. “Agh!” As he recovers from this, he discovers Midori hovering above him with a chunk of the Great Oaks in hand. “!!!”
“Eat this, ‘Furry’!”, Midori exclaims, proceeding to drop the giant mass onto Mojo below.
“Hmph!” At almost lightning speed, Mojo dodges the piece of bridge -- just moments before the crash -- and retreats into the city.
In reply, the girls give chase.
Mojo soars through and about the city streets, the Powerpuffs no more than a kilometer behind. In an effort to impede their pursuit, Mojo uses his advanced brainpower to throw anything at the girls that wasn’t bolted down or could easily be lifted from its foundation: trashcans, mailboxes, stop signs, benches, and the like. The girls avoid these with little trouble, not breaking off pursuit for even a moment. But amidst the volume of items being thrown, they lose sight of Mojo. They take a temporary break from their chase at a three-way intersection. “Dammit!”, Midori growls. “Where’d he go!?”
A loud scraping sound draws the girls’ looks east, from which an MTA bus drags noisily across the pavement. Driverless, it speeds toward them.
Aqua steps forward, seizing her own time to shine. “Get behind me! And cover your ears!”
Heeding the youngest Powerpuff’s words, Rose and Midori shield their ears with their hands.
Following this, Aqua leans back, takes in a deep breath, and… “YAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” …lets loose a mighty scream with a pressure level of a few hundred decibels. The intensity of Aqua’s voice shatters every pane of glass within several meters of her, and with it focused in front of her, the bus’s rate of movement slows, eventually grinding to a stop. “Whew… Close one…”
“Very impressive, little one…”
The girls shift their vision up to the top of the bus, where Mojo now stood.
“Do you not see!? The magnificence of these powers given us far surpasses anything these pitiful humans could ever hope of conceiving! They sought to make weapons of us; thus, weapons we must be! They must be made an example of that the lives of humans and animals are not theirs to toy with!”
“You talk too much!!!”, a voice from the rear calls out.
As Mojo turns to face this voice, Midori’s tightened fist strikes him backward.
Shooting up, Aqua catches Mojo’s flying form and proceeds to toss him into a nearby brick wall.
Lastly, before Mojo could recover, Rose appears before him and affixes him to the wall with a breath of freezing wind. “…You’re right.”, says the red-haired girl. “It was wrong of them to try and turn us into weapons when they were supposed to be helping us. And there are times when we resent the Project X scientists for having such inhumane plans for us. But that doesn’t justify genocide! Professor Utonium was one of those scientists, and he helped us escape that kind of life! He saved us! And even if it costs us our lives, we’ll protect him, Townsville, and the rest of the world from whatever the hell you have planned for it, Mojo!”
“…” Mojo’s head slumps, seemingly in defeat. “…I see. I’m saddened you feel that way, Rose. You appear to be the most intellectual amongst you and your ‘siblings’; I truly believed you of all people would understand… Very well.”
“…So…you surrender?”
“…Quite the contrary… I’ve simply decided…that you may die with the rest of your loathsome kind…!”
“!!!”
“You may recall earlier when I said the destruction of your beloved bridge was ‘merely a taste of what I had in store for this city’? I think you’ll soon find I meant precisely that… Hehehe.”
“The hell are you going on about now, you flea-bitten freak!?”
“If you’re as committed to protecting this city as you say, I’d act quickly if I were you…lest Townsville become nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble… Won’t be long now…”
The girls’ eyes all widen greatly with bone-chilling terror. “You son of a…! You’ve had more than one bomb this whole time?!?”
“Let’s see… Shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes, I’d say-- Agh!” Rose’s fingers take a firm hold of Mojo’s collar before he could continue.
“Rose!”
“Easy, ‘Red’!”
The Powerpuff’s crimson eyes go even redder with rage. “Where!? Where’d you put them!? Tell me now, or I break you in half!”
But even when faced with an angered Rose, Mojo keeps his composure. “My, my… And here I thought Midori was the quick-tempered one…”
“Keep it up, Mojo, and I’ll show you just how quick-tempered I can be! Now tell me where they are!” Just then, a hand is placed on Rose’s shoulder. Had it not been Midori’s hand, Rose would have surely broken it in several places.
“Rose! You gotta calm down! Let him get under your skin, and it’s all over!”
“…” Keeping a cool head was indeed key here, but it didn’t make Rose any happier about letting Mojo go. “…Argh!” Out of frustration, her fist connects harshly with the brick wall, just inches from Mojo’s head. The other hand releases Mojo’s collar from its grip, and Rose turns to Midori and Aqua. “Alright, we don’t have much time! We need to move quickly and carefully! Aqua, check the west side! Midori, you head north! I’ll take east! If you find one of the bombs, be sure to move it to a safe distance outside the city before destroying it! Now, move!”
With a collective nod, the girls take off in varying directions to search for Mojo’s explosives.
Meanwhile, still frozen in place, Mojo bares a spiteful grin. “Ah… So easily malleable, the will of man…” Harnessing a high amount of kinetic energy, the intelligent chimp frees himself from his cage of ice. “Hehehe… Now then…”
Over the next 15 minutes, Rose, Aqua, and Midori conduct a frenetic citywide search for Mojo’s planted explosives. Their search turns up no results thus far. Rose was virtually at her wit’s end. “C’mon…!”, she mutters to herself during flight. “Where are you hiding…!?”
Roughly 22 minutes into the search, the girls regroup high above the city. “Anything…?”, asks Rose…
…only to be met with shaking heads. “I must’ve been combed over the north side at least three times. Nothing.”, Midori replies.
“I couldn’t even hear any ticking.”, adds Aqua. “Could Mojo have set his other bombs up with silent timers?”
Yet again, Rose glances down at her wristwatch. “And it’s already been over 20 minutes …! I’m gonna go check the park again!”
“Rose, wait!”
“‘Wait’!? Wait for what!? Townsville’s about to go up in flames!”
“Calm down, I said! Now think. Why would ‘Monkey Boy’ send us flying up and down the city? To make us sweat. We’ve been ALL over Townsville. If we haven’t found any bombs by now, either Mojo’s hidden them too well…or there aren’t any bombs at all.”
“I can’t take that chance!” With that, Rose soars off to resume her search.
Now worried about Rose’s rationality as well as Townsville’s welfare, Aqua addresses Midori. “…You really think Mojo was lying about the other bombs?”
“No idea… Listen, I need you to do something for me. Let me and Rose worry about the bombs. Can you go check in on the Professor?”
A rather out-of-the-blue request, Aqua thought. “Why?”
“I just…have a really bad feeling.”
“…” In indirect compliance, Aqua faces the southwest and heads for home.
Unable to shake her ‘bad feeling’, Midori simply continues searching for Mojo’s alleged bombs.
In Townsville’s suburban district, Aqua arrives at the Utonium household, her home away from home. She lands on the sidewalk and walks up the marble path to the front door. She lets herself in with a key, enters the house, and calls out, “Professor! Are you home?”
Having heard Aqua’s voice, Utonium steps out from his basement laboratory, drying his hands with a cloth. “Hey, Aqua. What are you doing home so early?”
“Oh, good. You’re still here.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well--” Aqua finds herself cut off mid-sentence when a clatter by the front door draws her attention away. The front door was wide open, as Aqua had left it, but a small number of items had been knocked over. “…Hello?”, Aqua beckons in the silence. “Rose, Midori, is that you?” All of a sudden, both Aqua and Utonium are hurled back by a powerful unseen force. “Aah!” Crashing into the wall behind them rendered the two momentarily immobilized. Aqua struggles to lift her head up to identify their attacker. “W-Who’s…!?”
A cloaked form descends upon her and the Professor. “…Humans are so…predictable…”
“M…Mojo…!”
…Meanwhile, somewhere near Townsville City Hall, Rose and Midori collapse from exhaustion after 28 minutes of bomb-searching. “I…don’t…believe this…!”, Rose heaves between breaths. “We must’ve…turned the city inside out…over 10 times by now…! And still nothing…!”
Midori, however, had other things on her mind. ‘What the hell’s taking Aqua so long…?’
“That’s it then… It’s hopeless… There’s no way we can save Townsville now… We failed…”
“No, we haven’t. We’ve only failed after we’ve thrown in the towel. No way in hell I’m doin’ that. Not yet.”
“But what else can we do!?”
“…Do you trust me?”
“What…?”
“It’s a simple question, ‘Red’: Do you trust me?”
“…Yeah.”
Midori kneels at Rose’s side and holds up her watch-wearing hand. “…Don’t take your eyes off it.”
Rose fixates her gaze on the face of her wristwatch. By this time, it had been 29 minutes and 50 seconds. The tension matched that of 11:48am earlier. She swallows the lump in her throat as the second-hand reaches 57.
58.
59.
Rose’s heart skips a beat at 60. And a new minute begins. Her heart starts to return to its normal beating rate. She lets out a great sigh. “Oh, man… I almost had a heart attack…”
“Same here. Honestly, I didn’t think that’d work.”
“What!?”
“Never mind. You can chew me out about that later. We need to figure out Mojo’s next move.”
Rose would indeed resolve to take Midori up on her offer. But for the time being… Now able to think clearly, she crosses her arms and assumes a pose of deep thought. “Hmm… Well, he pretty much hates all humans -- that’s no big secret. Who would he go after first…?”
“…For four months, those wretched scientists had their way with my body -- poking me, prodding me, injecting me with all manner of substances and chemical solutions… They must be made an example of that the lives of humans and animals are not theirs to toy with!”
“…Oh, no…!”
Taking off into the sky without another thought, Rose and Midori rocket toward home. As soon as they land, they race inside through the wide-open front door. “Professor!”, the two shout out in unison. But instead of the Professor’s warm expression greeting them as they enter, they arrive to a most frightening scene:
Various objects around the house were cracked, bent, torn, or otherwise beyond recognition or repair. There were evident signs of a struggle. And in the far corner of the room was a figure of petite physique, barely conscious and covered in cuts and bruises. “Aqua!”, Rose cries in dread. She runs over to tend to her little sister’s injuries. “You okay!? Speak to me!”
Opening her eyes as best she could, Aqua sees Rose’s hazy form above her. “…R-Rose…”
“Hang in there, Aqua! You’ll be alright!”
“What happened…?”, Midori enters with.
“H-He… He just came out of nowhere… I tried fighting him off, but…he was so strong… And then, the Professor…” The injured blonde begins choking back tears. “…I couldn’t stop him… I’m sorry…”
“What, Aqua!? What happened to the Professor!?”
“Mojo… He… He took him…!”
The news of Utonium’s abduction had struck Rose and Midori like a lead weight. The Powerpuff of red locks lowers her head in shame. “…You were right, Midori…”
“Say what now?”
“I let Mojo get under my skin. He made a complete fool of me, and because of it, the Professor’s gone…!” She pounds her fist into the floor. “I led Mojo right to him! I’m such an idiot!”
“Don’t even go there, ‘Red’. He played all of us. He was one step ahead the entire time. But there’s still time to save the Professor. Question is, are you gonna let a monkey with a big brain walk all over you?”
“…” Letting Aqua be, Rose rises to her feet and turns to Midori with unyielding eyes. “…Let’s go. I’m gonna throttle that monkey.”
“Now you’re talkin’!”
Aqua stands up as well, albeit unsteadily. “I’m going too…!”
“You crazy, ‘Pigtails’!? You can’t even stand up straight!”
“I’m with Midori. Maybe you should take it easy, Aqua…”
“I’m fine! I’ll ‘take it easy’ when the Professor’s safe! Don’t even try to change my mind!”
Aqua’s eyes meet with Rose’s, and Rose sees the determination in them firsthand. Any argument would be wasted here. She sighs in defeat. “…Try not to push yourself, ‘kay?”
“Mm-hmm!”
With that, the trio sets out from their home to track down their father figure and kidnapper.
Rose was beside herself with anxiety. ‘Professor… Please be alright…!’
Slivers of sunlight creep through the glass windows and into the Powerpuffs’ bedroom. The first to receive the radiance of this light was the raven-haired Midori, who responds in kind by pulling the bed sheets over her eyes. Evidently, the lass was not to be denied several more minutes of sleep.
The sporadic buzzing noise of an alarm begins to sound, prompting a groggy Aqua to reach over to her nightstand clock. Yet, even after tapping the snooze button, the sleep-unfriendly noise refuses to cease. Several more taps on the button, and Aqua was starting to get annoyed. “Come on…!” With one last arm movement, the drowsy blonde unplugs her alarm clock from the wall socket. Even still, the loud buzzing continued to test Aqua’s patience. Finally fed up, she yanks the covers off her and sits up in her bed. “Would someone shut that off already?!?”, she shrieks in utter frustration.
Glancing around her immediate surroundings, Aqua comes to realize that neither hers nor Rose’s alarm clocks had gone off. In reality, the time hadn’t even reached 7:00am. Aqua then turns her eye to the wall on her left and notices a flashing red light, exactly like the one in Ms. Keane’s classroom. Her eyes go slightly wide with shock. “…The Powerpuff Siren…!”
…Shortly after awakening Rose and Midori, Aqua departs for the skies of Townsville alongside her ‘sisters’, the three of them now dressed in casual day clothing.
Midori brings her hand to her mouth and exhales a great yawn. “A distress call this early in the morning…?”, grumbles the black-haired Powerpuff. “I know they say ‘crime never sleeps’, but this is ridiculous…”
Turning to Rose in the middle, Aqua inquires, “Where’d the call come from?”
“City Hall.”, the de facto Powerpuff leader replies simply. “Must be pretty big for the mayor to call us into his office.”
“Yeah, well, if it meant getting me up at 6 o’clock, something had better be on fire.”
“Let it go, Midori!”
After mere minutes of flight, the girls touch down upon the front steps of Townsville City Hall and make their way into the building. As they walk through its lavishly decorated corridors, the members of the city hall staff greet them with a “Hi” or wave as they pass by. Before long, they reach the mayor’s office at the corridors’ end, where the mayor himself and Sara Bellum awaited their arrival. The two had rather troubled expressions to them. “…Hello, girls.”, the mayor greets from behind his desk, his hands clasped. “I appreciate you coming on such short notice.”
“What’s wrong, Mr. Mayer?”, asks Rose with a similarly concerned look. “You almost never ask to meet with us in person.”
Turning his head a bit to the right, the mayor looks up at the equally anxious Sara Bellum.
Motioning a nod back at him, Sara approaches the teenage trio in a composed walk. and hands to them a piece of printing paper adorned with elegant script. “We received this fax earlier this morning.”
Rose takes the paper and quickly reads through the message:
“Blessed by intelligence, my eyes have opened.
I have seen this world for what it truly is.
Humans are a blemish that must be wiped away.
They must be held accountable for the injustices they have committed.
I shall serve as their judge, their jury, and their executioner.
My vengeance shall be known throughout the world.
And when the sun has reached its apex,
…I shall start with this city.”
I have seen this world for what it truly is.
Humans are a blemish that must be wiped away.
They must be held accountable for the injustices they have committed.
I shall serve as their judge, their jury, and their executioner.
My vengeance shall be known throughout the world.
And when the sun has reached its apex,
…I shall start with this city.”
Needless to say, the cryptic and menacing nature of the message had left a bad taste in the girls’ mouths. “A…terrorist threat…?”, Rose finally utters, unease brewing within her as well.
“Whoever sent this is sure pissed off about something.”, comments Midori, trying her hardest to stay calm.
“‘Held accountable’? ‘Injustices’? ‘Vengeance’? Whatever that ‘something’ is, it must’ve been pretty major.”, Aqua observes. “He sounds so…angry.”
“Angry, yet calculating. Just look at this handwriting, this grammar -- this wasn’t written by someone out to destroy everything he can get his hands on. This is a person who knows exactly what he wants and the most logical way to get it.”
Opting to chime in, the mayor speaks up. “What about the part about the sun?”
“Oh, that’s easy. ‘When the sun has reached its apex’? It’s the time of day when the sun’s at its highest point in the sky -- around 12:00 noon.”
“Which means…”, Sara interjects, folding her arms across her chest. “…that around 12:00 today, something’s going to happen. And we have no way of knowing what it is or where it’ll be.”
Rising out of his chair, the mayor moves toward the front of his desk. “We may not know what’s going to happen, but at the very least we can take measures to act against it. For starters, we’ll increase security at all the major city hotspots: City Hall, the bank, Morbucks Manor. We’ll close off all traffic in and out of the city.”
Turning to face the rattled mayor, Sara queries, “Should we order an evacuation?”
“There are over 50,000 people living in Townsville, and noon is less than 6 hours away. There’s no way we’d get them all out in time. Besides, a civilian riot is the last thing we need right now.” Overwhelmed by helplessness, the mayor turns his plight to the girls. “I’m sorry to ask so much of you, girls, but will you cooperate with our efforts?”
“Of course!”, squeals Aqua. “We love Townsville too!”
“What she said.” Midori adds. “Like we’re gonna just roll over for some lowlife with a chip on his shoulder. Screw that!”
Sara lets out a sigh of heavy relief. It was comforting to have the Powerpuffs’ strength on their side. “Thank you, girls. You have no idea how pleased we are to hear that.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Mayer, Ms. Bellum…” At her sides, Rose’s hands tighten into fists. “We’ll protect this city… No matter what happens…!”
Project Powerpuff
Part 3
[/i][/center]Part 3
11:40am.
High above the city, at a point in space where the entire cityscape was in full view, Rose, Aqua, and Midori hover back-to-back in an outward facing triangle. Whatever was expected to occur, there was virtually no way to miss it.
The cool high-altitude winds blow vigorously and coil around the girls’ forms. The calmness of the moment made it appear as though time had come to a screeching halt…
…an ordeal in and of itself for a certain green-eyed teen. “…This is so boring…”, Midori gripes with her arms crossed.
“Try to be patient for once in your life, ‘Green’.”, Rose retorts. “It’s almost that time anyway.”
“Couldn’t we have had lunch first? I could be stuffing my face with chicken fingers right now. I thought you said ‘12:00’…!”
“I said ‘around 12:00’. The time when the sun’s highest in the sky depends on the time of year. …Take a look there.” With her arm outstretched, Rose turns Midori’s attention to a nearby skyscraper.
Unfortunately, the eldest Powerpuff was a tad slow on the uptake. “Yup. It’s a building.”
“…Lower.”
“…” Midori’s gaze descends until it falls upon the skyscraper’s shadow. With each minute that passed, the shadow grew smaller. “…Oh! I get it! The sun’ll be at its highest…”
“…when there are no shadows. And judging by how small they are right now, it’s only a few more minutes.”
The minutes seemed to tick away like hours. The suspense made Aqua tremble with excitement and fear. It made Rose’s temple damp with perspiration, despite the altitude. It made Midori’s throat dry and heartbeat quicker.
A deafening silence overtakes the city. The shadows cast by its buildings were but centimeters wide.
…At precisely 11:48 and 31 seconds, not a single shadow could be seen.
The girls held their breath. “!!!”
11:48:32.
11:48:33.
11:48:34.
Before long, the sun begins to cast shadows in the opposite direction.
The group was puzzled, but the tension no thinner. “N-Nothing happened…!”, stutters Aqua, the first to shatter the silence.
Beads of sweat drip down the side of Rose’s face. “Was it…a bluff…?”
Midori brings her hands up behind her ears to get a better grasp of the city sounds. Honking car horns. Talking people. Construction crews. Barking dogs. At first, nothing seemed out of place. “…Wait. You hear that?”
Focusing their hearing as well, Rose and Aqua filter out the assorted city noises to locate the odd noise discovered by their ‘big sis’. “…Ticking?”
“Yeah. What is that?”
“Sounds like a clock.”
“…Or a timer…!”
“Timer!? Y-Y-You mean a bomb!?”
“Midori! Where’s it coming from!?”
“U-Um…”
“Well?!?”
“I’m trying! Shut up so I can concentrate!” Pouring all she had into her hearing, Midori tries to narrow down the source of the ticking noise. Her Element X-driven sensitive hearing eventually points her in the direction of… “…The bridge!!!”
The Great Oaks Bridge. One of the primary means of travel in and out of the city. A Townsville landmark.
A moderate-sized manmade device is seen affixed to the base of one of the iron beams keeping the bridge erect. Attached to this device was a timer resembling a digital clock. The front panel read 00:04 in green pixelated numbering.
“Hurry!” Without a moment’s hesitation, the girls take frantic flight toward the bridge.
The seconds tick away like the hammering of a gavel. 00:03.
‘Come on…!’
A firecracker going off in one’s ear. 00:02.
‘Come on…!’
The sounding of a gong. 00:01.
‘COME ON…!’
The sequence of adjacent zeros is immediately followed by a series of quick, high-pitched beeps, and then…!
“!!!”
Before the Powerpuffs could react, the entirety of the bridge is engulfed in a dense veil of fire and smoke. Chunks of concrete and metal cabling plummet into the bay below. Cinders shoot up into the air, only to be extinguished by waves of rising water.
Rose, Aqua, and Midori look on in horror as the remains of the Great Oaks Bridge sink into the bay. All that could be articulated was a whispered “…No…” that barely escapes Rose’s lips.
…Once the fire and smoke dies down -- with some ‘icy’ assistance by Rose -- the girls fly down to the ground to get a closer look of the wreckage. “This is horrible…”, remarks Aqua, who was on the verge of tears.
“If the mayor didn’t have the bridge closed off…”, Rose starts. “…I don’t even wanna think about how much worse it would’ve been. Bridges can be rebuilt…but lives can’t.”
Midori, as uncharacteristic of her as it was, had nothing to say. She stares at the destroyed bridge with trembling fists and gritting teeth. “…Tch!”
Noticing her fellow Powerpuff’s dilemma, Rose puts a sympathetic hand on Midori’s shoulder. “Hey. Don’t do this to yourself, okay? There was nothing you could do. Nothing any of us could do. We had no possible way of knowing this would happen. At least no one got hurt, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know all that… But--”
“‘But’ nothing. We’ll get this guy. And you can kick his ass for the three of us. ‘Kay?”
“…” At her other side, Midori feels someone take her hand into theirs. Looking over, she sees Aqua giving her a supportive, loving smile. She could feel her self-imposed burden lift. “…Heh. Deal.”
“…A touching display of human affection…”
“!!!”
The girls’ eyes dart about in search of the unfamiliar voice. “Who’s there!?”
“…A shame that their affection reaches only other humans… To them, all other living things are inferior…”
As a shadow is cast upon them, the girls turn their attention upward, where a strange figure could be seen looming from atop a tall building, its face obscured by the glaring sunlight. The figure leaps from the rooftops to greet the trio, landing gracefully on its feet. It initially appears to take the form of a person of somewhat short stature, with the majority of its body hidden by tattered robes. The figure pulls back its hood to reveal…
…a chimpanzee.
An awkward wind blows between the two parties. “It’s…a chimp.”
In response to Midori stating the obvious, Rose teases, “Brilliant deduction, ‘Sherlock’.” She then takes a cautious step forward as to not startle the creature. “Uh… Hey there, little guy.”, the redhead starts. “You know where your owners are? We’ll take you to ‘em if you want.”
“…Hmph. As if I would lower myself to such a trivial human concept as ‘ownership’.”
“!!!”
For a brief moment in time, the girls believed themselves to be hallucinating. Aqua takes several steps back out of sheer shock. “O-Okay… Did anyone else just hear that monkey talk, or was it just me…!?”
“I am not a monkey; I am an ape…!”
“Okay, so it’s a politically correct chimp…”, Midori adds to her previous observation.
Disregarding Midori’s attempt at humor, Rose continues. “W-What…are you?”
“Is it so strange that an animal such as myself is gifted with the ability of human speech? When you yourselves possess such extraordinary abilities as flight and super speed?”
“You… You know about--?”
“I know all there is to know about you three. Rose Walker. Aqua Fontana. Midori Kondo. I know…because you are the same as me. You too were made into guinea pigs for the humans to conduct their heinous experiments on. You too were made into…monsters.”
“…You’re a product of Project X…”
“Correct. For four months, those wretched scientists had their way with my body -- poking me, prodding me, injecting me with all manner of substances and chemical solutions. To them, I was naught but a ‘poor dumb monkey’! I’d never endured such degradation!”
“…”
“…And then came the greatest injustice of all. It was only when I was able to form complete, coherent thoughts that I was able to discern their true objective: this ‘Excelsior program’. What an utter joke! Made an unwilling lab rat for four grueling months only then to made use of as an instrument of war!? The absolute indignity of it!”
“…”
Riled by his own tale, the chimp lets out a calming breath. “…And so…I made a decision… The humans will never take responsibility for their actions of their own volition. Therefore, I shall do it for them. I’ve already dealt away with that vile ‘Facility’. Who better to serve as the arbitrator for this miserable race than the one who they themselves passed judgment upon?”
“!!!”
“They must be held accountable for the injustices they have committed. I shall serve as their judge, their jury, and their executioner…”
“…It’s you…! You’re the one who sent that letter to Mr. Mayer’s office…! You’re the one who destroyed the bridge too, aren’t you!?”
The talking ape bares his teeth in a wicked smile. As part of a deeper glimpse into his Element X powers, his feet lift off the ground and he begins to hover. “Merely a taste of what I have in store for this city and inevitably the rest of the world! I am a common zoo exhibit no longer! That part of my life is over! I am only the harbinger of the human race’s destruction! I am only…MOJO JOJO!!!” The self-renamed Mojo concludes his address with a classic malevolent laugh.
Midori cracks her knuckles in anticipation. “Tch! And I thought our name was stupid!”
With her eyes set on Mojo, Rose addresses her sisters. “C’mon, girls! Let’s knock ‘Monkey Boy’ off his high-horse!”
“Mm-hmm!”
With a fierce push with their feet, the Powerpuffs take off into the air and prepare to face Mojo in close quarters.
“I think not!”, snaps Mojo as bring his hands to his head. Within seconds, the air around him begins to vibrate and push outward.
Before the girls could even reach Mojo, they’re forced to go on the defensive when an onrush of kinetic energy bombards them. “T-The hell!?”
“Remarkable, isn’t it? Thanks to Element X, I’m able to tap into an unparalleled level of mental power! To wit…!” Off to the side, Mojo takes notice of an antenna tower. He points his left palm in its direction and uses his kinetic abilities to break off several lengths of the tower’s tip. Then, with a forceful forward motion of his arm, Mojo catapults the piece of antenna at the girls.
“Look out!”, Aqua shouts. The trio scatters about in their evasion of the pointed projectile. Like the remnants of the Great Oaks Bridge, it crashes into Townsville Bay.
“So ‘Chimpy’ can do tricks with his brain! Big freakin’ whoop!”, Midori boasts. “I’m still gonna knock him on his ass!” She speeds through the air once more toward Mojo.
Mojo attempts to push Midori back with a second wave, but his concentration breaks due to what appears to be a headache. “Nngh…!”
Taking full advantage of this, Midori swoops in and delivers a powerful punch to Mojo’s face.
The force of the blow sends Mojo reeling back into the wall of a nearby building. “Agh!” As he recovers from this, he discovers Midori hovering above him with a chunk of the Great Oaks in hand. “!!!”
“Eat this, ‘Furry’!”, Midori exclaims, proceeding to drop the giant mass onto Mojo below.
“Hmph!” At almost lightning speed, Mojo dodges the piece of bridge -- just moments before the crash -- and retreats into the city.
In reply, the girls give chase.
Mojo soars through and about the city streets, the Powerpuffs no more than a kilometer behind. In an effort to impede their pursuit, Mojo uses his advanced brainpower to throw anything at the girls that wasn’t bolted down or could easily be lifted from its foundation: trashcans, mailboxes, stop signs, benches, and the like. The girls avoid these with little trouble, not breaking off pursuit for even a moment. But amidst the volume of items being thrown, they lose sight of Mojo. They take a temporary break from their chase at a three-way intersection. “Dammit!”, Midori growls. “Where’d he go!?”
A loud scraping sound draws the girls’ looks east, from which an MTA bus drags noisily across the pavement. Driverless, it speeds toward them.
Aqua steps forward, seizing her own time to shine. “Get behind me! And cover your ears!”
Heeding the youngest Powerpuff’s words, Rose and Midori shield their ears with their hands.
Following this, Aqua leans back, takes in a deep breath, and… “YAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” …lets loose a mighty scream with a pressure level of a few hundred decibels. The intensity of Aqua’s voice shatters every pane of glass within several meters of her, and with it focused in front of her, the bus’s rate of movement slows, eventually grinding to a stop. “Whew… Close one…”
“Very impressive, little one…”
The girls shift their vision up to the top of the bus, where Mojo now stood.
“Do you not see!? The magnificence of these powers given us far surpasses anything these pitiful humans could ever hope of conceiving! They sought to make weapons of us; thus, weapons we must be! They must be made an example of that the lives of humans and animals are not theirs to toy with!”
“You talk too much!!!”, a voice from the rear calls out.
As Mojo turns to face this voice, Midori’s tightened fist strikes him backward.
Shooting up, Aqua catches Mojo’s flying form and proceeds to toss him into a nearby brick wall.
Lastly, before Mojo could recover, Rose appears before him and affixes him to the wall with a breath of freezing wind. “…You’re right.”, says the red-haired girl. “It was wrong of them to try and turn us into weapons when they were supposed to be helping us. And there are times when we resent the Project X scientists for having such inhumane plans for us. But that doesn’t justify genocide! Professor Utonium was one of those scientists, and he helped us escape that kind of life! He saved us! And even if it costs us our lives, we’ll protect him, Townsville, and the rest of the world from whatever the hell you have planned for it, Mojo!”
“…” Mojo’s head slumps, seemingly in defeat. “…I see. I’m saddened you feel that way, Rose. You appear to be the most intellectual amongst you and your ‘siblings’; I truly believed you of all people would understand… Very well.”
“…So…you surrender?”
“…Quite the contrary… I’ve simply decided…that you may die with the rest of your loathsome kind…!”
“!!!”
“You may recall earlier when I said the destruction of your beloved bridge was ‘merely a taste of what I had in store for this city’? I think you’ll soon find I meant precisely that… Hehehe.”
“The hell are you going on about now, you flea-bitten freak!?”
“If you’re as committed to protecting this city as you say, I’d act quickly if I were you…lest Townsville become nothing more than a smoldering pile of rubble… Won’t be long now…”
The girls’ eyes all widen greatly with bone-chilling terror. “You son of a…! You’ve had more than one bomb this whole time?!?”
“Let’s see… Shouldn’t be more than 30 minutes, I’d say-- Agh!” Rose’s fingers take a firm hold of Mojo’s collar before he could continue.
“Rose!”
“Easy, ‘Red’!”
The Powerpuff’s crimson eyes go even redder with rage. “Where!? Where’d you put them!? Tell me now, or I break you in half!”
But even when faced with an angered Rose, Mojo keeps his composure. “My, my… And here I thought Midori was the quick-tempered one…”
“Keep it up, Mojo, and I’ll show you just how quick-tempered I can be! Now tell me where they are!” Just then, a hand is placed on Rose’s shoulder. Had it not been Midori’s hand, Rose would have surely broken it in several places.
“Rose! You gotta calm down! Let him get under your skin, and it’s all over!”
“…” Keeping a cool head was indeed key here, but it didn’t make Rose any happier about letting Mojo go. “…Argh!” Out of frustration, her fist connects harshly with the brick wall, just inches from Mojo’s head. The other hand releases Mojo’s collar from its grip, and Rose turns to Midori and Aqua. “Alright, we don’t have much time! We need to move quickly and carefully! Aqua, check the west side! Midori, you head north! I’ll take east! If you find one of the bombs, be sure to move it to a safe distance outside the city before destroying it! Now, move!”
With a collective nod, the girls take off in varying directions to search for Mojo’s explosives.
Meanwhile, still frozen in place, Mojo bares a spiteful grin. “Ah… So easily malleable, the will of man…” Harnessing a high amount of kinetic energy, the intelligent chimp frees himself from his cage of ice. “Hehehe… Now then…”
Over the next 15 minutes, Rose, Aqua, and Midori conduct a frenetic citywide search for Mojo’s planted explosives. Their search turns up no results thus far. Rose was virtually at her wit’s end. “C’mon…!”, she mutters to herself during flight. “Where are you hiding…!?”
Roughly 22 minutes into the search, the girls regroup high above the city. “Anything…?”, asks Rose…
…only to be met with shaking heads. “I must’ve been combed over the north side at least three times. Nothing.”, Midori replies.
“I couldn’t even hear any ticking.”, adds Aqua. “Could Mojo have set his other bombs up with silent timers?”
Yet again, Rose glances down at her wristwatch. “And it’s already been over 20 minutes …! I’m gonna go check the park again!”
“Rose, wait!”
“‘Wait’!? Wait for what!? Townsville’s about to go up in flames!”
“Calm down, I said! Now think. Why would ‘Monkey Boy’ send us flying up and down the city? To make us sweat. We’ve been ALL over Townsville. If we haven’t found any bombs by now, either Mojo’s hidden them too well…or there aren’t any bombs at all.”
“I can’t take that chance!” With that, Rose soars off to resume her search.
Now worried about Rose’s rationality as well as Townsville’s welfare, Aqua addresses Midori. “…You really think Mojo was lying about the other bombs?”
“No idea… Listen, I need you to do something for me. Let me and Rose worry about the bombs. Can you go check in on the Professor?”
A rather out-of-the-blue request, Aqua thought. “Why?”
“I just…have a really bad feeling.”
“…” In indirect compliance, Aqua faces the southwest and heads for home.
Unable to shake her ‘bad feeling’, Midori simply continues searching for Mojo’s alleged bombs.
In Townsville’s suburban district, Aqua arrives at the Utonium household, her home away from home. She lands on the sidewalk and walks up the marble path to the front door. She lets herself in with a key, enters the house, and calls out, “Professor! Are you home?”
Having heard Aqua’s voice, Utonium steps out from his basement laboratory, drying his hands with a cloth. “Hey, Aqua. What are you doing home so early?”
“Oh, good. You’re still here.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well--” Aqua finds herself cut off mid-sentence when a clatter by the front door draws her attention away. The front door was wide open, as Aqua had left it, but a small number of items had been knocked over. “…Hello?”, Aqua beckons in the silence. “Rose, Midori, is that you?” All of a sudden, both Aqua and Utonium are hurled back by a powerful unseen force. “Aah!” Crashing into the wall behind them rendered the two momentarily immobilized. Aqua struggles to lift her head up to identify their attacker. “W-Who’s…!?”
A cloaked form descends upon her and the Professor. “…Humans are so…predictable…”
“M…Mojo…!”
…Meanwhile, somewhere near Townsville City Hall, Rose and Midori collapse from exhaustion after 28 minutes of bomb-searching. “I…don’t…believe this…!”, Rose heaves between breaths. “We must’ve…turned the city inside out…over 10 times by now…! And still nothing…!”
Midori, however, had other things on her mind. ‘What the hell’s taking Aqua so long…?’
“That’s it then… It’s hopeless… There’s no way we can save Townsville now… We failed…”
“No, we haven’t. We’ve only failed after we’ve thrown in the towel. No way in hell I’m doin’ that. Not yet.”
“But what else can we do!?”
“…Do you trust me?”
“What…?”
“It’s a simple question, ‘Red’: Do you trust me?”
“…Yeah.”
Midori kneels at Rose’s side and holds up her watch-wearing hand. “…Don’t take your eyes off it.”
Rose fixates her gaze on the face of her wristwatch. By this time, it had been 29 minutes and 50 seconds. The tension matched that of 11:48am earlier. She swallows the lump in her throat as the second-hand reaches 57.
58.
59.
Rose’s heart skips a beat at 60. And a new minute begins. Her heart starts to return to its normal beating rate. She lets out a great sigh. “Oh, man… I almost had a heart attack…”
“Same here. Honestly, I didn’t think that’d work.”
“What!?”
“Never mind. You can chew me out about that later. We need to figure out Mojo’s next move.”
Rose would indeed resolve to take Midori up on her offer. But for the time being… Now able to think clearly, she crosses her arms and assumes a pose of deep thought. “Hmm… Well, he pretty much hates all humans -- that’s no big secret. Who would he go after first…?”
“…For four months, those wretched scientists had their way with my body -- poking me, prodding me, injecting me with all manner of substances and chemical solutions… They must be made an example of that the lives of humans and animals are not theirs to toy with!”
“…Oh, no…!”
Taking off into the sky without another thought, Rose and Midori rocket toward home. As soon as they land, they race inside through the wide-open front door. “Professor!”, the two shout out in unison. But instead of the Professor’s warm expression greeting them as they enter, they arrive to a most frightening scene:
Various objects around the house were cracked, bent, torn, or otherwise beyond recognition or repair. There were evident signs of a struggle. And in the far corner of the room was a figure of petite physique, barely conscious and covered in cuts and bruises. “Aqua!”, Rose cries in dread. She runs over to tend to her little sister’s injuries. “You okay!? Speak to me!”
Opening her eyes as best she could, Aqua sees Rose’s hazy form above her. “…R-Rose…”
“Hang in there, Aqua! You’ll be alright!”
“What happened…?”, Midori enters with.
“H-He… He just came out of nowhere… I tried fighting him off, but…he was so strong… And then, the Professor…” The injured blonde begins choking back tears. “…I couldn’t stop him… I’m sorry…”
“What, Aqua!? What happened to the Professor!?”
“Mojo… He… He took him…!”
The news of Utonium’s abduction had struck Rose and Midori like a lead weight. The Powerpuff of red locks lowers her head in shame. “…You were right, Midori…”
“Say what now?”
“I let Mojo get under my skin. He made a complete fool of me, and because of it, the Professor’s gone…!” She pounds her fist into the floor. “I led Mojo right to him! I’m such an idiot!”
“Don’t even go there, ‘Red’. He played all of us. He was one step ahead the entire time. But there’s still time to save the Professor. Question is, are you gonna let a monkey with a big brain walk all over you?”
“…” Letting Aqua be, Rose rises to her feet and turns to Midori with unyielding eyes. “…Let’s go. I’m gonna throttle that monkey.”
“Now you’re talkin’!”
Aqua stands up as well, albeit unsteadily. “I’m going too…!”
“You crazy, ‘Pigtails’!? You can’t even stand up straight!”
“I’m with Midori. Maybe you should take it easy, Aqua…”
“I’m fine! I’ll ‘take it easy’ when the Professor’s safe! Don’t even try to change my mind!”
Aqua’s eyes meet with Rose’s, and Rose sees the determination in them firsthand. Any argument would be wasted here. She sighs in defeat. “…Try not to push yourself, ‘kay?”
“Mm-hmm!”
With that, the trio sets out from their home to track down their father figure and kidnapper.
Rose was beside herself with anxiety. ‘Professor… Please be alright…!’
