The Girls Are All Grown Up

Ch. 39

''Scarlett was flipping out like I'd never seen her before, and then the next thing I knew,'' Dracy hesitated and looked down for a second. She looked back up and at the red head ex-superhero, sitting quietly in the corner as if hoping no one would see her at all. ''I thought I was seeing things, I thought I was in a walking-talking-breathing-nightmare. But when my head cleared like a fog that left suddenly, I still couldn't make sense of it all.''

''There was so much freaking blood- on me, on Scar, and on the ground-- we both were lying there injured too. We'd attacked each other in all the chaos, it had been like she was someone else-- somewhere else-- and she didn't snap out of it until I'd stabbed her after she shot me. There were these horrible sounds as the dark grew around us, and the effing blood just went on and on--''

Dracy was caught up in the memories, Brick realized as her breathing and tone changed. Her eyes turned glassy like she was reliving it all over again.

''Something stepped out of the shadows, and no villains I've seen in this City were nothing compared to it. It walked over to Scarlet and was talking about sisters and revenge and justice-- I didn't catch it all but I caught that.'' Dracy continued, her voice getting colder. ''And then...Scarlet...looked so terrified I knew, she'd seen this somewhere before. Whatever it was, it was what she kept running from.''

''And then he laughed,'' Blossom said hollowly after Dracy had finished her story. ''He effing laughed again.''

''Who laughed?" Brick clenched his teeth. The monster that'd started it all...had laughed over Blossom's limp body and terrified eyes. It filled him with so much rage he felt his lasers ready to come out.

''He never said a name, but I know that...'' Blossom swallowed thickly, her eyes squeezed shut. ''He used to be the Professor's partner, they'd gone their separate ways and then he'd done a experiment on himself. It changed him into this...monster. And then he made more.''

''What're the rules he mentioned over and over again?" Dracy spoke up.

Brick looked at her, the way she held herself after the story, and realized she'd had to work up so much courage to ask. To ask Blossom, the friend she'd had, a question that would take them back to their worst nightmare.

Blossom looked up and met his eyes, ''A game we have to play-- our only chance to survive. There's rules we have to follow for it, and one of the rules is if the right question is asked just the right way-- we can answer it. It was the only way we got out alive that night, when we were little.''

''What's the right way to ask a question-- in a riddle?'' Dracy frowned.

Blossom shook her head.

''Backwards like Yoda?"

Another head shake.

''What about as a sentence instead of a question? Like reverse Jeopardy?" Brick guessed.

Blossom smiled for the first time that evening, ''yes.''

''But if we get something wrong you can't correct it, we have to guess it again?" Dracy asked, catching on quicker now.

''The last night you were superheroes,'' Brick started, ''he was there.''

''Yes.''

Brick exhaled, relieved to be getting somewhere. ''Alright. And he tried to kill you all.''

Blossom bit her lip, ''Yes...and no.''

''...like the night where we were attacked, something happened to you and it was...both you and him attacking.'' Dracy said quietly.

Blossom closed her eyes as if in pain, ''It was much more than that, but yes.''

Brick slammed his hands on Dracy's desk, beyond angry at the realization of what he'd been overlooking. Blossom's guilt and shame, he'd known there'd been a huge reason for her to just cut all ties with her sisters and father, to literally rather have them away and not know if they were alive than being with them in hiding. He should've known.

''He's able to...make you do something? Do you remember it?" He asked through gritted teeth, praying and pleading that she hadn't been haunted by the details of what happened that night.

''Wrong question,'' is all she was able to say. 

But he didn't miss the flinch on her face or the haunted look in her eyes, and just like that-- he knew the answer to his question.

She did remember it. She remembered what the monster had been able to make her do while he mind-controlled her somehow all those years ago.

It'd probably haunted her every step since then. 

The good girl that had always made others happy and never stepped out of line, had been used like a doll to attack her sisters in the dead of night and so much more.

''How are we supposed to find out the details and figure out how everything works with this 'monster' if we can't even ask a actual question?" Dracy asked in frustration, running a hand through her hair as she thought hard.

Brick jolted in suprise, he had been so focused on the red head he'd forgotten her friend was in the room too. But...she was right.

''Buttercup and Bubbles know everything too.'' Blossom said, ''Bubbles might have figured out a way to share more by now.''

Hopefully, she thought to herself. 

***************

Boomer had caught on so well and had pretty much gotten the whole story now.

Well, more or less.

Bubbles bit her lip as she watched him process everything. There was so much more than just the one rule, there was so much more to this all than just a now-enemy-of-the-professor wanting to destroy all the best experiments the Professor himself had made.

It was so so much more.

And yet she couldn't tell him all of it unless he got it right.

She exhaled long and slow, We're fucking doomed.

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Hopefully you guys like this at least a little and it's somewhat worth the wait to finally get to know so many answers...there's more coming of course and more answers to come, but this is the first part!