[PPGZ][HPL]The End of The Powerpuff Girls - L
hcobb
By Henry J. Cobb
The Powerpuff Girls were created by Craig McCracken. Demashita!
Powerpuff
Girls Z was produced by Cartoon Network, Toei Animation, and Aniplex.
The
L part is from H. P. Lovecraft rather than say an Aegean island.
-----
At last it was Kaoru Matsubara's time to be the hero. After the
accident
at the Utonium Laboratory last year she'd had all those blackouts.
She
hated how people looked at her, especially her parents. Treating her
like
she was just a hopeless case, some sickly child. But today she had
saved
the day. In the final seconds of the match she had scored the winning
goal.
She was the only girl on her school's soccer team, but you'd hardly
know it
from the way she looked with short spiky purple hair and the way she
dressed and spoke almost like a boy, especially when she talked about
sports.
The after action pizza party had gone on a little longer than planned
so it
was a little dark out as Kaoru skateboarded up to her house. She
frowned
as she noticed her house was dark. Surely her family must be home by
now?
Mom had said that she'd pick Dad up from the airport. Had his flight
been
delayed? Had something happened? She took out her key and opened the
door. Inside she turned on the light and stopped stunned.
Her entire family, Mom, Dad and her two brothers were tied up in the
living
room. How could this have happened? What kind of crook could beat
her
Dad, the professional wrestler? She noticed that her family wasn't
looking
at her, but at something behind her.
She tried to turn, but somebody grabbed her and put a cloth over her
mouth. She tried to struggle, but whoever it was had superhuman
strength.
As she breathed in the vapors from the cloth she noticed that there
was
something odd about the hand that held it to her face. It wasn't
human.
She faded out.
When Kaoru awoke she felt a little dizzy so she tried to raise her
hand to
her head, but she couldn't. She looked down and saw she was clamped
down
to a metal slab with metal straps. She glanced to the sides and saw
that
Momoko Akazutsumi and Miyako Gotokuji, her classmates who had also
been in
the accident, were strapped down beside her. Looking around she saw
they
were suspended over some sort of device that a strange figure was
working
on, "Say what is this?"
The figure looked up at her. It was that mad mutated monkey, Mojo
Jojo.
He was even more disgusting looking in person than on the news. "Ah
Buttercup, so nice of you to join us. I so wanted you to see this
before I
disposed of you. So that you would see that it was I, Mojo Jojo, who
saved
the world from the evil that is The Powerpuff Girls."
"Buttercup? You crazy monkey. She may look a little like me, but she
flies around in a skirt. I don't do that skirt thing."
"I think you'd look cute in a skirt," Miyako tried to grab Kaoru's
hand,
but couldn't reach.
"So you three intend to continue your denials until the very end? So
be
it. Do not worry about your so called families for you have the word
of
Mojo Jojo that I shall not harm them. They have suffered enough to
put up
with horrible monsters in place of their lost daughters. And if you
three
are not The Powerpuff Girls, then please explain to me why you were
wearing their belts?" Mojo pointed at the device.
Kaoru looked and saw her special belt buckle, and the other girl's
also,
attached to the device with wires, "Hey give that back," She knew
it was
important that she always wore it. What was the reason? "That's our
epilepsy control belts!" Epilepsy! Kaoru had never been sick a day
in her
life before she went on the field trip to that lab.
"You cannot fool Mojo Jojo, for I know that without these devices you
are
stuck in those forms without your superpowers. The signals from these
interesting devices led me right to you three, but the most unusual
thing
about them is their use of L-Dimension technology. With that I am
able to
send you three back to where you belong. And so goodbye," Mojo
flipped a
switch. A strange yet familiar black glow appeared above the device
and
then the straps holding the girls snapped open and they fell towards
it.
"Nooo!" The girls attempted to keep screaming as they entered the
L-Dimension, but the geometry would not support it. It wasn't just a
vacuum, it was a place where the space for molecules of air to exist
was
poorly defined. They struggled to retain their humanity then gave up
and
assumed their true forms.
The being that had been briefly known as Buttercup, that had eaten the
soul
of Kaoru Matsubara and taken her place, came to her senses and true
mind.
She had been known by many names and many designations that could not
be
truly called names, but the short concise definition she preferred was
that
she was Green, The Enforcer.
Nearby, to the extent that term had meaning in the L-Dimension, she
sensed
that Red, The Devourer, had discarded the form of Momoko/Blossom and
that
Blue, The Merciless, had discarded the form of Miyako/Bubbles.
Seeing that all was in order, Green led the way. If the L-Dimension,
that
quantum foam that underlay all the universes, could be said to have a
center in space, time, or importance, it was Azathoth. The palace of
Nyarlathotep was located just out of reach of the din of Azathoth's
strange
orchestra. The three landed on one of the balconies of this palace
and
Green rushed forwards, "Father, forgive me."
The other two kept a small distance, as always amused by Green's
devotion
yet annoyed by the attention bestowed on her.
"Fear not, for I knew you were not yourself," Nyarlathotep wore the
form
of the Egyptian the three had called Him. He reached out a hand and
patted
Green on her equivalent of a head.
"Please, let me make this up to you," She wrapped one of her
tentacles
around his hand.
"Very well," He ticked her tentacle with his fingers, "Go and destroy
their
remaining hero in front of them. Let them drink deeply of despair."
"At once, my lord", Green turned and the other two followed her. They
took
the quickest and easiest path back to Earth and reappeared a moment
after
they had left and in the same space.
Once again Green spoke in Kaoru's voice, "Not so fast, Mojo Jojo."
"Impossible!" Mojo looked up at the three.
"I've always wanted to play with a monkey," Blue spoke with Miyako's
voice
as she wrapped a tentacle around Mojo.
Green gave the equivalent of a shrug, so Blue extended her two other
tentacles and reached inside Mojo's body to touch at his heart. It
wasn't
beating. She had forgotten how fragile these Earth creatures were.
In
frustration she tossed the corpse aside.
Red grabbed it from midair and ate in one gulp.
"Come, we have a mission," Green flew into the night and the other
two
followed.
Professor Kitazawa awoke to the sound of his bedroom window opening.
He
looked up and saw the three bizarre familiar forms. He reached into
his
nightstand and pulled out a revolver, but Green snatched it away
before he
could point it at his own head.
"Not so fast, Professor Kitazawa," Green had stopped time in order to
beat
his reflexes and took a moment to communicate with her sisters. It's
a
pity that we have to destroy this world.
Do we? Blue asked.
Master will be angry if we don't, Red pointed out.
Let him, Green reassumed the form of Buttercup, put the gun back in
the
drawer, retrieved her disk, made some changes in it and restarted
time.
She saw that her sisters had done the same, "We know our true selves
now so
these things cannot control us, but we'll keep them anyway. When the
world
needs the Powerpuff Girls call us, but now we must go face
Nyarlathotep."
"Nyarlathotep?" The Professor looked down at his empty hand and then
back
at the three monsters who wore the forms of the girls they had
devoured.
"The being we called Him, our former master."
"Can we win?" Bubbles asked.
"Nothing can stop the Powerpuff Girls!" Buttercup replaced the disk
in her
belt then flew out the window and the other two followed.
They climbed and accelerated and within a few minutes were outside the
atmosphere. There was a flash of darkness and they were gone.
Nyarlathotep was not pleased, "Again with this foolishness?" He
assumed a
form of hundreds of tentacles.
"I guess we're just fools then," Buttercup blasted him with heat
vision
and climbed away as he reached for her.
Blossom spit out soccer ball sized chunks of ice that Buttercup kicked
at
Nyarlathotep then used her heat vision to explode just before they hit
him.
"You three are planning something. What is it?" Nyarlathotep reached
out
for Buttercup's mind, but it was filled with a jumble of sport
scores. He
tried Blossom's mind, but found only memories of the delicious foods
of
Earth and the men she drooled over. He searched for Bubbles and found
her
approaching him at the local speed of sound. Her mind was filled with
fashion designs and beauty tips, but she was screaming at the top of
her
lungs. He wrapped his tentacles around himself and rolled with the
shockwave, but by the time he recovered his senses the girls were
gone,
"Hit and run all you like, but I know the world you are defending,"
He
reached out with his mind to the coordinates of Earth's Universe.
It wasn't there.
"How very clever of them. Let them have their fun for a while then.
It
will make it all the sweeter when I bring them to heel."
All over the Earth people of unusual sensibilities stopped for a
moment as
they felt that something was a little off, then shrugged and went back
to
their pursuits.
The three girls lay on the grass of a Townsville park and watched the
sun
rise. Momoko turned her head towards the other two, "Let's not move
the
world again."
Kaoru crossed her legs. She had the confidence to do so, for unlike
the
other two she wore shorts, "It probably wouldn't work a second time
anyway."
"I feel bad about Mojo," Miyako sighed.
"Don't worry Bubbles, we can get you another monkey to play with. I
bet
Blossom is hungry again anyway."
Her two teammates gave Kaoru looks that could have melted lead, if
they had
been willing to broach her prerogative of heat vision.
She stood, "Speaking of food. Let's all go to our families and have
breakfast. I bet they're really worried about us now."
"I don't think Nyarlathotep is our father," Miyako got up and dusted
off
her skirt, "I think he may have messed with our memories."
"I've had enough of that," Momoko stood, "See you two in school."
And so the three horrible monsters cosplayed happily ever after.
The End.
----------
Epilogue:
Twenty years after we moved the Universe, I met Bubbles in a cafe.
Well
she was dressed as Miyako at the time, obviously. Same old Blue. She
was
sitting there in a frilly yellow dress and waved me over.
I took off my sunglasses (purely for style obviously) and put them in
my
vest pocket, "What's the news? Did Momoko get a new boyfriend?"
"That wouldn't be news, Ms. Kaoru."
"I guess not. She's go through so many thrills that it's a wonder she
hasn't tried bestiality."
"Technically, we're not even mammals."
"Point taken. I surrender," I held up my hands, "So what's the big
news?" I picked up the cup of tea she had obviously ordered for me.
"Taka-chan is cheating on me."
I put down the cup, "You don't look so upset."
"He's a good man. He deserves children. That's the one thing I can't
offer him."
"Not in any good way. So knowing you, this isn't being left to
chance?"
"Of course not. I sneaked in and replaced her birth control pills."
"So how is this going to work, with you, him, her and the baby?"
"I suppose I'd best be hit by a truck or something. I haven't worked
out
the details yet," She looked up at the cafe's TV, which had cut to a
news
flash, "Why does that hussy reporter always have to chase after
monster
stories? Taka-chan has already introduced me as his wife, so could
you?"
"Let me see if I have this straight. I've got a picnic with Hitomi on
one
of her rare days off and you want me to cancel out of that so I can go
save
your rival from certain doom just so she can steal your husband away
from
you?"
"If you would please."
"I'll add it to the tab you owe me, but all this sneaking around,
messing
with peoples' lives, doesn't it remind you of somebody?"
"I only do it to help people."
"Yeah, I bet Nyarlathotep started out the same way."
Miyako just looked down at the table and said nothing.
There it was. I had used the N-word on her. We both knew that
canceled
out what she owed me, and I'd be busy the next few years working off
this
new debt as her errand girl.
I walked out of the cafe, turned a corner, switched outfits and leapt
into
the sky. I had a monster to go beat up. I didn't want to slow down
enough
to talk on a phone so I tapped into the cellphone network
electronically
and told Hitomi I'd gotten called into work. That wasn't a power that
Buttercup was supposed to have, but time was pressing.
-HJC
Buttercup Utonium and Louie Duck wear the same color and share the
same
attitude and voice actress, so how come nobody writes the crossover?