Devil’s Food
By: Mark J. Hadley
The townspeople burst into the diner, carrying the bound and gagged Bubbles. They quickly tossed her onto one of the tables, all of them gathering around. She struggled to free herself, but was having a hard time…besides, where could she go, with everyone surrounding her? She didn’t know what to do…it looked like the end. If the girls didn’t show up soon, all they might find would be leftovers…
“All right!” one of the townspeople said, “We’ve got her! Fire up the grill, and let’s get cooking!”
“Wait a minute, we’re not going to grill her, are we?” someone else said. “She could burn…”
“Well, what do you suggest?” a third person said.
The second person suggested, “How about we boil her? We can get a pot of water going in about…”
“No way!” a fourth shouted. “Let’s just fry her…I’m hungry now!”
A fifth person approached the table and said, “If you’re hungry now, then use the microwave, it’ll be the fastest!”
“We can’t do that!” the second person said. “It’ll be like putting a potato in there! I’m telling you, boiling’s the best way!”
“No, we should grill!” the first person reiterated.
“Fry!” yelled the fourth.
“Microwave!”
“Boil!”
“Grill!”
“Fry!”
“Microwave!”
“Boil!”
The crowd all started arguing, each of them taking sides, as they tried to decide the best way to cook Bubbles. She, in the meantime, started to roll over to the edge of the table while their attention was off of her. As she did, she felt herself rolling over something that was on the table…she felt it with the tips of her hands that were sticking out from the ropes, and discovered that it was a fork…a little more searching, and she found a knife, also.
Bubbles started moving against this to slowly cut through the ropes that were holding her. She cast glances back at the people to make sure they were still arguing, and tried to hurry it along. Just a little more, she thought…there! The ropes fell away from her arms, and she quickly pulled the ropes off of herself, kicking them away, and taking off the gag from around her mouth. Thankfully, the people were too busy arguing to notice any of this. She smiled a little…sometimes the stupidity of the townspeople came in handy.
Quietly, she hopped down from the table and snuck out of the front part of the diner towards the back, into the kitchen. She stopped to catch her breath at the close call, and then started looking for a back exit to the place… They’ll notice I’m gone pretty soon, she thought, so I’d better make sure I’m not here when they do…
* * *
“Bubbles!” Buttercup called out as they combed through the trees. Blossom was looking for her as well, but wasn’t having any better luck than she was. They both began to worry…she could be in serious trouble without her powers, and they had to find her fast.
“Where could she be?” Blossom fretted. “We’ve looked everywhere…”
Buttercup suggested, “Maybe she’s not in the woods anymore…” She trailed off suddenly, and tilted her head to the side, “Wait, do you hear that?”
“What?” Blossom said, listening.
“I hear something,” Buttercup said, “but it can’t be Bubbles, it’s moving too fa—…” She didn’t get to finish what she was saying, as suddenly a bright orange blur of light arced across the sky, ramming into her and slamming her into the ground in the woods below. Blossom gasped and flew after her to see what had happened.
Buttercup was on the ground, dazed…she looked up to see what had hit her. Standing across from her was someone that she had almost forgotten about, that called these woods home…in a little bit of disbelief, she said, “Bullet?”
The super-powered squirrel that Bubbles had rescued some time back was standing at the ready, but his expression wasn’t a friendly one…instead, he looked at her with a determined glare, although he still seemed to be smiling. Oh great, Blossom though, from her position above them, not him, too! Fighting off Fuzzy is one thing, but Bullet has all of our powers, too! And he’s our friend…we can’t hurt him!
Bullet pounced at Buttercup, and she had enough time to say, “No, wait…!” before getting slammed into…the force of his impact caused the two of them to slide about a hundred feet through the woods, a trench of dirt digging up behind them as they went. Buttercup decided that she had had enough, and kicked Bullet off of her with both of her legs. The squirrel was knocked past a few tree branches and tumbled through the air a few times before coming to a halt.
Flying over, Blossom called out, “Bullet, it’s us! Don’t you recognize us?” Instead of answering, bullet shot past her in a streak, grabbing hold of her ponytail and yanking her along with him. “Hey!” Blossom exclaimed…Bullet spun her around and then tossed her straight down towards the ground. She hit the ground, leaving a crater and creating a little shower of dirt and leaves in that section of the woods.
Before she could recover, Bullet had dropped down to where she was, and clamped onto her arm with his teeth. Blossom yelped and waved her arm wildly to try and shake him off, “Ow, OW!! Leggo!!”
He wouldn’t budge, though…shaking the arm vigorously a few more times, she flung him off into the air at last. Bullet only flew a few feet before he started hovering again…he was about to dive towards Blossom once again, when he was suddenly tackled from behind by Buttercup, the tackle carrying him into the treetops. She let go as he crashed amongst the branches, and flew back to a safe distance.
“Thanks, Buttercup,” Blossom said, rubbing her arm and flying up to where Buttercup was.
“No problem,” Buttercup replied. “But Bullet will probably be up any second…”
No sooner than she had said this, the squirrel emerged from the treetops, heading right for them. The two of them prepped themselves for his attack, but he unexpectedly fired his eyebeams at them while he was still halfway to them. This took them by surprise, and both of them were knocked from the sky.
They crash-landed together into the side of a large tree, then fell to the ground. Both of them seemed to have been knocked out…as they lay still at the base of the tree, Bullet landed in front of them. He rubbed his tiny paws together in expectation, then started towards them, grinning hungrily…
* * *
There turned out to be a back exit from the diner right in the kitchen. What luck! Bubbles thought…until she noticed that the door was locked. Frowning, she climbed up onto the counter directly next to the door and tugged on the lock a few times. Naturally, it wouldn’t give, so she started looking around to see if the key was lying around someplace by any chance.
She didn’t see it, but then her eyes fell on a roast chicken that was cooking over one of the stoves on a long metal spike. She carefully pulled the spike down—it was a little heavy, but not too bad—and started carrying it over to the door. She paused for a moment, reaching down in an attempt to slide off the roast chicken so that it wouldn’t be so heavy, but pulled her hand back with an “EEP!”…it was too hot. She shrugged, and just continued the rest of the way to the door.
Carefully aiming the spike at the lock, Bubbles shoved it hard…it struck, and Bubbles could see some dents forming. After repeating the process a couple more times, it broke off, and the door immediately pushed open from the impact. Her momentum carried her and the spike over the edge of the counter and through the door, where she landed outside on the ground.
She rubbed her head and sat up, taking a look around…it was the alley behind the diner. Relieved that she had made it out all right, Bubbles got back to her feet and dusted her clothes off. That’s when she heard a snarling sound…spinning around, she looked at the exit to the alley and screamed loudly in surprise, as she saw a pack of dogs gathering by the entrance. They were growling at her, and she already knew what was on their minds…
One started to trot towards her, so she quickly picked up the spike, roast chicken and all, and held it up defensively, yelling, “Back! Stay back!” The rests of them came into the alley…she waved the spike around to try to keep them at bay, but she could see that their attention was too focused on her. They continued to advance, as she continued to back up, shouting, “Go away, you mean ol’ dogs! Go away!”
The alley was a dead end, though…there was nothing but a pile of junk and empty boxes, and nowhere for her to go. With little else to do, she decide to try something else…letting the end of the spike fall to the ground, she braced her foot on top of the roast chicken and pushed down hard, pulling the spike back up at the same time. It worked; the chicken came free, and she quickly kicked it towards the dogs, then ran back to the boxes to take cover.
Peeking out from her cover, she saw that it worked. The dogs may have been focused on her, but they still couldn’t pass up an effortless meal like the chicken. All of them gathered around it and started eating. Bubbles smiled and stayed where she was, waiting for them to finish, so that she could get out of the alley safely…at least, she hoped that they would leave after they were finished…
* * *
Buttercup opened her eyes groggily, and blinked a few times to clear her vision…she suddenly noticed someone face-to-face with her: Bullet. He had just finished tying a tiny bib around his neck, and bared his teeth, just about to bite into Buttercup’s leg…snapping back to full attention in an instant, Buttercup yelled and pulled her leg away from him just in time. Bullet ended up biting down onto empty air…he narrowed his eyes at Buttercup, glaring at her in slight annoyance.
“Hey, don’t look at me like that!” Buttercup shouted, climbing back to her feet. “You could be helping us instead of trying to eat us, you know…” Bullet gave a little shrug in return, yanking his bib off and preparing to pounce at her again…she braced herself…
As the squirrel launched himself at Buttercup, a wave of cold air suddenly rolled across him. When it cleared, Bullet was frozen solid in a block of ice, with a wide-eyed expression. He fell to the ground with a *thunk*, and Buttercup looked over at Blossom, who had obviously woken up during the commotion and used her ice breath.
Buttercup thanked her, “Fast thinking, Red!”
“Thanks,” Blossom nodded…then cocked her head suddenly to the side, as she heard a scream come from the distance…one that sounded just like Bubbles. “Did you hear…”
“Yeah, c’mon!” Buttercup shouted. The two of them immediately took off in the direction of the sound. It came from inside Townsville, and they started looking below to see if they could spot where it had come from. Eventually, when they reached the diner, Buttercup spotted something below and pointed, “Look!”
They saw the pack of dogs all clambering around something in the alley. Without wasting a single moment, the two of them dropped out of the sky and fired eyebeam blasts at the ground around them to scare them off. The dogs jumped at the near misses and scrambled out of the alley…but the girls saw that they had left something behind: a tiny pile of bones…
Blossom gasped, “Oh no…” She slowly lowered to the ground, landing next to the bones, and fell to her knees, staring at them. Tears filled her eyes as she whispered, “B-Bubbles…no…w-we were…too late…” She buried her head in her arms, crying. Buttercup landed next to her, staring at the bones in equal shock, and closed her eyes as tears escaped from them as well.
As the two wept, Bubbles poked her head out from the stack of boxes, relieved that the dogs were finally gone. She was surprised to see her sisters there, and noticed they were crying over something, so she curiously wandered over. The girls didn’t notice her immediately, since their backs were to her. She stood on her tip-toes to get a better look over them, and saw the chicken bones. Scratching her head, she said, “Um, there’s more chicken inside, if you wanted some that badly…”
The two of them looked up, then turned their heads to stare at Bubbles. Blossom’s expression turned to one of great relief as she nearly tackled Bubbles in a hug, crying, “Bubbles! You’re alive!”
“Of course,” Bubbles said, still confused. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Blossom didn’t press the matter any further, she just smiled, happy to be seeing her sister again. Buttercup, though, was glancing back and forth between Bubbles and the pile of bones…after a few moments, she just shook her head and said, “Ahh, I’ll figure it out later…good to see you’re okay, Bubbles.”
Bubbles nodded back and said, “Maybe we should go, before the people in the diner here find us…” Agreeing, the other girls scooped her up and took off for the skies, back on their original course: to find Mojo, and hopefully discover what was causing all of this…
* * *
Him tightened his claws on the armrest of his couch, growling, “Those little brats have more lives than a cat!” He settled down at last and said in a more pleasant tone of voice, “That’s okay…they’re heading in completely the wrong direction! And they have no idea that the professor’s still looking for them…it’s only a matter of time before the snare finally closes, and those three get their just desserts…”