What does Blood hope to do against someone who's practically immune to her powers? And yes, it is round 4.

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

Maybe stall or something? As mentioned earlier, Blossom won't be joining the front lines anytime soon and Bubbles is still trapped in the ever-growing sphere of death.

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Blood shook her head "None of them want what I want, and I - HEY!" Blood's arms rose to her front, Buttercup's advance halted by the sudden ensnarement of every cable, cord and wire Blood's reach could acquire, ripping them from out of the floor and ceiling and turning them into a co-ordinated vinelike restraint. They wrapped around Buttercup's wrists, thighs and ankles. A red and white rubber-insulated cable dropped like a snake from the ceiling panel above and coiled itself around Buttercup's neck. Blood grunted, her hold on the dozens of thin cords feeble and cumbersome. Just as the rubbery coatings preventing the innards being exposed, so too did it hinder her control over them. If only she could reach and manipulate the metal within... such a power would be extremely versatile in a decaying steel prison like this tower. Her voice was almost as unsteady as her control over the constricting wiring "And I want this for all of us. This is a future for US!"

Buttercup wasn't perturbed by Blood's attempt to hinder her. To the contrary, she flashed a smirk. The lynching cord around her neck didn't stop her slightly boyish voice from giving a chuckle "And how do you want to get there, Blood?" she clenched her fist and tensed her left arm, the wiring ensnaring it pulled tight "By killing?" with a single wrenching act, her arm tore its bonds from the floor, the lack power to the building removing any further danger. "By intimidating" she did the same with her other arm, uprooting a small junction box from the floor as flashes of green across her skin snapped and melted the flimsy rubber coatings "people who can't defend themselves?" She lunged forward, the remaining bonds around her legs and neck unable to contain her. She seized Blood by the throat, lifted her off her feet and slammed her to the floor. She sound of Blood's breath catching in her throat made Buttercup's grin widen.

"I-It's... our destiny...!" Blood choked.

"Yeah? I thought you said our destiny was to fight each other for the rest of our lives."

Blood grunted, her voice straining its way past Buttercup's vicelike grip "Only... if... you keep kidding yoursel-ACK!" Buttercup's hand compressed against Blood's windpipe, furious eyes of emerald staring down at her.

"You blew your chance with Sora and you've got no chance in hell against me. You beat my sister up and you put this town - OUR town - in huge danger. People have done that before and it always turned out the same for them. Whaddya say to that?"

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Oh my. Looks like Buttercup got Blood in a bind.

And no offense to Blood, but she really needs to talk less.

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The longer it gets, the surer I'm getting the impression that Blood just another Hitler clone. "It's our destiny" typical aimless extremist view. They never get bored using that line.

What do I think of Sora? I wasted potential. Sora has gone down real bad. She's mad, alright. I do hope Bubbles can still pull out of her dark, abysmal ass--because, if she didn't, Sora's end will not be a happy ending---and Bubbles' views would shift. This girl has so much to give, but was all too blinded with grief and rage. That how Blood got Sora to 'acknowledge' her views, and I feel so sorry for her being this way. She deserved better than listening to Blood's bullshit. She's just in a very wrong environment to grow

Bubbles better get Sora's head straight. Sora's mind is in a total downward spiral.

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I'm sure Bubbles will break Sora out of "Unstoppable Rage" episode, but considering how Grids here states that Sora's the "first recruitment for Helix" I seriously doubt that she'll make her see the right path.

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She's shaping up more like a victim to me. I guess Caton's words weren't as biased as I thought.

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The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

She's already a victim the moment she met Blood. I couldn't fathom the image she built an 'empire' at beginning of this fic. Blood needs to lurk moar.

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Blood gurgled, unable to say much of anything. Realising that, Buttercup eased her grip as the smirk on her face remained. That'd bruise nicely, if temporarily. "You've... no idea what we could accomplish if we had a common goal... But I guess there's no reasoning with you - not yet. So until... until you change your mind..." Blood's eyes narrowed as she stared into the irises of a creature that to her immense reach seemed devoid of everything that made her a person "Then for as long as we both shall live, we're enemies."

Buttercup smirked, placing her elbow upon Blood's chest. For a demented, self-aggrandising esper, she sure made a comfortable cushion. "Well, first of all I'm glad we got that straight 'cause I'm sick of you trying to tell me how wrong I always am. And second-" she pressed down harder on Blood's rips "I'm totally fine with that because if I can help it, you're not gonna be alive much longer."

"Nnngh..." Blood grunted "you won't kill me..." she said with a twisted smile.

"Oh, why? 'Cause I'm a public icon or something? 'Cause I got given one of those wimpy stars from the government?"

Blood chuckled, her breath slightly raspy "No... because while you've been talking-" WHACK went the flatside of the big steel door against Buttercup's head before spiralling out the open window to the ground far below "-I found where my doors went." Buttercup slumped, her forehead landing on Blood's cheek.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

There's something strangely humorous about the line "i found where my doors went", but I can't quite put my finger on it.

And Buttercup really should've been paying more attention to her surroundings.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

Hey, Puppetpal Buttercup, what's green and stupid and has a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig lump?

Who is it, Puppetpal Blood?

It's YOU!

BONK!


Narrator: Ooooooh, Buttercup.

*crowd laughs*

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Blood grumbled. The effort to lift the steel object from deep within the shaft and then fling it back toward herself accurately enough to avoid hurting herself as well, all without visibly showing the strain on her face and thus giving herself away to Buttercup, was much more taxing than she anticipated. Buttercup wasn't moving but she felt the faintest exhale upon her skin. She couldn't get the faintest psionic reading on this girl but she could at least tell she hadn't killed her. Curious at what she'd find, she raised a hand to the back of the Powerpuff's neck where she'd previously pinched. The face of her thumb dabbed something warm, wet and sticky, halting her. She lifted her hand and saw her own namesake trickle onto her thumbnail from the open wound on Buttercup's nape. She stared at it for a moment.

Even a creature, an abomination that she couldn't sense like Buttercup still had that same red stuff flowing inside her veins. She named herself after it - her earliest memory. So simple on the outside, so complex on the inside much like herself. And a rather wonderful shade of crimson. She pushed Buttercup off her and sat up, wiping her thumb on the smaller girl's green school vest. The wound on her neck was seeping down her neck to her shoulder. That'd sting. Blood pushed herself up and managed to stand, arching her back for a moment as a breeze caught her auburn/chestnut hair and fluttered it about her shoulders. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. That breeze felt uneven and came in strobes. She turned around as her eyes reopened. The breeze was coming from...

"Sora..." she murmured, staring out at the resonating sphere of indescribable energies. Golden radiance filled her eyes, even from this distance. She could have sworn it was closer, earlier. She squinted, realising pretty quickly that the sphere and Sora within it was moving. Slowly, hovering about a hundred feet from the ground, still drawing loose objects into itself like meteors into a planet's atmosphere. Another tower, buffeted but otherwise untouched, stood out to its western side as the sphere tracked gradually north to where the skyline receded and only the residential areas lay beyond. High up, out to the far north-east and marked by the smoke trailing off its starboard wing, the remaining giant UAV that she had not long ago admired circled, out of engagement distance but still on site if required. They didn't seem to be attacking her anymore. Perhaps they'd given up. Nothing could touch her anym-

The building shook violently and Blood wobbled as her balance was upset, her face lit up with a sudden purple flash as something huge roared past just outside. She watched it close in on the sphere and recalled the strange object almost immediately. It looked different now that she wasn't watching it screaming toward her general direction. Its nexus shone a bright silver, the object at the core roughly spherical but inconsistent as the heat of its own velocity warped its body. The 'fire' that trailed it gave the bright purplish glow and probably wouldn't have smelt nice either. Like a flaming projectile launched from a middle age trebuchet, it streaked through the sky toward its intended target. Blood had seen this before. She wondered, now, whether Sora would be so terrified of its battlefield presence.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Hmm? Are we going to have a new challenger approaching?

The railgun round smacked into the side of the sphere, which rippled gently - pondwater disturbed by a daintily-thrown pebble. And just like a pebble, the round disappeared beneath the surface, which remained intact. The purple fire died behind it, leaving naught but a dirty trail of smoke. Blood grinned at the result and muttered to herself "So much for the great and powerful Whetstone." She moved to the corner of the tower, the apex of the north and west ends. Things seemed clear, below. No waves of footsoldiers rushing to their doom, no feeble army vehicles to be sucked into the golden maw. She watched the dark trail of smoke hanging in the sky and wondered if anything they had left would be enough to stop Sora. If anything, all it would manage to do would make her-

A shockwave struck the building, stronger than any that Blood had felt before. It whisked her off her feet and sent her skittering to the edge of the tower. She held on, her feet kicking the air as she dangled waist-down from the side of the floor. She scrunched her eyes shut, pulling herself back up. She rolled onto her back, let out a relieved sigh and then scrambled to her feet. She whirled around again, staring at the origin of the familiar tremor. This time, as her eyes were lit by the second golden sun, her jaw dropped a little. From the sphere a vicious, whiplike tendril extended. It struck the battered-but-unscathed tower that stood nearby, bridging it with the distortion void. Another shockwave rumbled past much less suddenly and Blood kept her feet. She watched in unspoken trepidation as the tendril surged with that same vicious energy and the tower it impaled began to wither. She could almost see the fragments being ripped up and sucked away from within, the structure - 60 storeys or so and taller than the tower in which she stood - began to crumple and wither. The tendril drew out its innards like a straw, the tower a juicebox being drained. Then it collapsed entirely and tumbled to the ground if but for a moment before it was drawn into the growing void sphere. More tendrils emerged from the surface, lashing the air and the terrain beneath, leaving scorched black swathes where it contacted the land. Another shudder through the tower and the strange sound to her ears. Her face was basked in the brief purple firelight again as another Whetstone railgun round roared past. Blood could do nothing but watch, a growing fear gestating inside herself. Sora's anger gave rise to that thing out there and that anger was caused by...

Well...

Blood grit her teeth and watched as one of those spindly tendrils swat at the purple comet, plucking it from the sky before it could strike the actual sphere. It was rising, now. Growing. Everything it touched, it consumed. Blood felt something in the pit of her stomach turn icy-cold. Buttercup's groans reached her ear, soft and distant. Their argument seemed pointless in the face of this. A world of united espers versus a world of ignorance and naivety. Neither would exist if Sora replaced everything with her own. The purple fire receded once again, the faraway UAV just as useless.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Wait..... is Blood finally coming to her senses?

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

Blood finally realizes she overdid her self. The world's gonna change--but she'll not be there to see it.

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"Don't worry, Sora." Blood muttered "There's still another way. Hang on." She bit her lower lip, the extent to which this had gotten out of hand more evident than ever. A golden glint out the corner of her eye from the streets far below was ignored for a moment. A second glint an eighth-second later made her head snap around. Her eyes widened. Then her breath seized in her windpipe. Then she spun, ran and dropped to the floor just as a volley of fleck-like golden bullets tore through the air where she stood, drilling into the ceiling and up into the next floor. She glared at Buttercup for just a moment, the girl still motionless on the floor. "You brought it here!?" Blood gasped, remembering how that machine had followed and distracted Buttercup earlier. Even when she was unconscious and drooling on the floor, Buttercup could still one-up her.

The golden light ripped through from beneath and Blood thought to do nothing but run. She sprinted for the elevator shaft as the volleys from the street far below tracked her, the distance delay just enough for her to remain ahead. But then it did something she didn't expect - it anticipated her. The light streams split in two, one ripping up through the floor behind her, giving chase. The second had deviated, shredding the solid metal around the elevator shaft and tearing it up from within. No escape. Blood yelped and jumped aside, her heart pounding in her ears. All this time, duelling with the strongest member of this city's former elite and now she was being hunted by the weapons of normals! The floor shifted underneath her, the building's own inner skeleton buckling as the distant, automated attacker shredded through steel like it was crepe paper. She slipped as it gave way once again, falling and smacking her chin on the concrete floor.The two light streams were converging. If she stopped, they'd catch her. If they could shred steel and cement then there was no hope for flesh against it. She could feel her eyes stinging, not from exhaustion or from the dust and smoke kicked up from the attack but because she was scared. She was on the back foot. A weapon built by normals, succeeding where Buttercup and all her exertion could not; bringing a sudden end to the future she'd envisioned.

"Built..." she breathed as the golden lances closed in "by normals..."

The two streams converged.

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Yes, built by normals, schematics from Ancient Aliens. :o

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They'll fizzle out or not outright kill her. They had their chance way back when Buttercup had Blood pinned down under the wreckage, and went for the former instead. There's a Wild out there that knows of the Junior Citizen project and was powerful enough to yank Sora from their control. I'm sure they have a lot of questions.

_________________
The Life and Times of Shad Staydamind PPG fic; finished. part 1/3
Dual Minds Think Alike PPGD fic, part 2/3; finished (trilogy is on an indefinite hiatus)
Hidden Angels Original, ongoing fiction. (also hiated. Stupid college!)

Indeed. Blood may be dangerous, but she's also valuable. I'm sure the norms will try to take her in.

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And thus the countdown before the inevitable scenario where Blood slaughters everyone and escapes.

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Spirit. In every language in all the Realms, surface and Underdark, in every time and every place, the word has a ring of strength and determination. It is the hero's strength, the mother's resilience, and the poor man's armor. It cannot be broken, and it cannot be taken away. - Drizzt Do'Urden, Ranger of Mielikki

Yeeeeeeep.

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"What the hell am I DOING!?" she screamed, her fists clenching as from her tiny body exploded a burst of scarlet light. Her eyes shone past narrowed lashed as her teeth grit fiercely, her hair billowing about her ears as her dirtied blue hairband did its best to stay in place. Whisked up by the psionic barrier, the golden lances were repelled and dissipated as Blood's own anger at her stupidity pushed the growing force into a globe shape which began to expand out to the edges of the building. Human weapons. Human limitations. Her powers, so useless as they were against something as mysterious as a Powerpuff, were not so similarly contained against mere amplified light. Her shield, her cocoon grew solid and stable and at its perimeter she could still feel the distant machine trying to break through it with all the futility of a toothpick trying to puncture solid lead. She steadied herself and took a deep breath, calming herself as best she could. "It's not so bad... it's not so bad..." she assured herself. Sora was out of bounds right now and even a simple gatling laser had nearly killed her. Sure, could be worse.

"Nice trick." came a soft mutter.

Blood felt that icy feeling again and the light vanished from her eyes. It just got worse.

Buttercup staggered toward her, groggy but well and truly awake. Her neck and shoulder were heavily bloodstained and there was a paleness to her face. She was hurt. But she was far from beaten "You might wanna do this forever, but I don't. So instead, you can stay like this forever. See how long you can hold this shield thing up before you give out and that dumb machine thing down there turns you into Swiss cheese. Try that out with your 'superior powers'."

Blood winced, fists still clenched but remaining rooted to the spot. That distant tapping sensation wasn't about to go away. If she dropped her barrier, it'd rip right through the floor below her, into her body and then just keep on going. This had been Buttercup's plan. Lure it here and trap her. "How did... you know...?"

"I met the guy who... aaahh..." Buttercup winced, trying to avoid moving her neck. Her skull had taken most of the hit but that pretty little cut hurt a bit more. "I met the guy controlling that thing. I knew he'd probably answer to the same guy everyone else in this place seems to."

"Nngh... you stopped me from killing him."

"Believe me, I'll probably regret it. But I knew the moment I met him that he didn't just want you and Sora gone. He wants us all gone. He's got one little bit of tenuous power and we both crap all over that. This was gonna be his fight. His win. We're in his way, so he ordered that thing down there to hunt us both. Now it knows where you are. And you ain't moving."

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Bloodsguar Studios member

WE ARE ALL GRIDS

Tsk tsk tsk Blood. Don't you know never to say "It could be worse" or anything along those lines? Per shame.

Anyway, guess Buttercup actually planned this out too. Perhaps she was the one who was stalling?

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While Davroe does have the subtility of a sledgehammer, Buttercupseems to slowly becoming more insightful and those new abilities of hers are a nice addition as well. Seeing forethought is certainly welcome character development.