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Antithesis pt4 - Red Lightning

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Dexter couldn't imagine his day getting much worse. Matter of fact he was finding it hard to imagine anything right at the moment. He was unsure how long the world had been black and shapeless, with only the faintest of voices and sensations reaching his frazzled head. For a split second of coherent thought he could remember the object that struck him in the arm and delivered the first knockout pulse. From that moment onward it was a slew of half-formed thoughts and far-off sounds and cold, hard sensations against his back and head. Being able to list off those feelings to begin with had to mean that he was awake on some subconscious level, but his eyes--let alone his entire body--refused to budge.

He was just barely sure his ears registered something a little more coherent. A voice? Some sort of recording? Whatever it might've been it sounded comforting. Familiar. Surely its owner wasn't responsible for his helpless state. Maybe he'd called out. Maybe he'd said something to that voice, like calling out the name of whom it belonged to. The one person he wanted to see and reconcile with. If she was here, he'd be alright. Instead, blackness returned with another dull ache through his entire being. That hadn't gone down too well, it would seem.

Now his mind was slowly clearing again. He could feel himself lying on a solid surface, facing upward. His glasses felt askew on his face. Judging by the very slight compressive feeling around his limbs, he was still clothed. Big plus. But something heavy was pressing down on his chest. A big weight, not just sitting there but actively applying force. Something was keeping him anchored to the spot.  He willed himself to bring life back to his dead arms and legs, shaking the pins and needles to get sensation into his toes and fingertips. From what seemed like miles and miles away, he felt the first of his fingers twitching and wiggling. Good start. But at that moment, a voice spoke again.

That same familiar voice. The one he'd called out to before. This time, Dexter remained silent and waited for the words to become clearer.

"....ally.... ing around, huh..."

Dexter stirred a little, trying to compel his eyes to open.

"Took-.... -azy ass long eno...."

The voice seemed harsh yet so, so familiar. He gave a very loud grunt. His arm, the right one where he'd been hit with that pulse, still gave a very unpleasant tingle through the rest of his body when it wasn't suffering from sudden numbness.

"...such a lightweight, I swear..."

Humans, be them soldiers, parents or boy geniuses, all had an innate response to facing danger. And that was to identify and avoid it as soon as possible. When Dexter finally forced his eyes to open and the blurriness cleared from his vision. He cared not where that voice was coming from or what his immediate surroundings were. He wanted to know what it was that had him pinned to the ground. His arms were a little while off working yet. But his eyes worked fast. He lifted his head off the floor as best he could and stared at the object forcing him down with such force.

It was a shoe.

A blue and white sneaker, poorly laced, belonging to a right foot. A crinkled, off-white sock rose out of the shoe and above that was a smooth and slender leg of a creamy colour. It was placed squarely on his sternum. No amount of struggling, even if he were capable of it, would shake the foot loose. Instead he gawped at it some more, his mind still a little slow in working out why someone was practically standing on him.

His ears were working though. The voice was much clearer now "Ohh, theeere he is. Hallo little science-boy, did you have a good nap?"

Dexter struggled to lift his vision from the shoe on his chest but slowly did, tracing the leg upwards. It seemed familiar, as did the voice, but everything he was seeing and hearing was totally wrong.

"I've heard things, ya know?" It had to be her voice. HAD to be! But the way she was speaking, so offhand and thoughtless and rough, didn't add up at all. Is this what she was like after a big breakup? He didn't even know how long ago that was, now. "Smart kid, friends with superheros, respected genius..." a shrill and maniacal cackle split his ears, making him wince sharply. Still he followed the leg up to a bare knee, which appeared to be covered in the faint scars of old scratches and wounds. "Instead here you are, drooling on the floor. He was right, the other side IS pretty pathetic."

Behind the leg, Dexter could see a mane of shimmering chestnut hair, scraggly and somewhat unbrushed. This wasn't right. That hair, that beautiful hair, it was ALWAYS kept groomed and perfect. This was very unsettling. The girl's thigh appeared bare until his eyes reached the hem of a deep red tartan skirt.

"So go on, genius, why don't you introduce yourself to me?" the foot pressed down even further, almost suffocating Dexter. Whoever it belonged to seemed to be enjoying this, "Oh you ARE hopeless. How 'bout we just settle for something sensible. A bit of basic English. Show me the famous boy genius still knows how to talk."

Dexter couldn't help what happened next. Just as the voice instructed him to 'say the first thing that comes to mind' he looked beyond the red skirt, still following the leg as it made no attempt to conceal the fact that it ended at the sight of- "P-pink stripes..."

Even his regret couldn't move as fast as the shoe on her foot, which moved from his chest to the middle of his throat in a lightning instant. The force and speed were terrifying and he felt his windpipe, esophagus and carotid all being mercilessly compressed. But even with blood to his brain being torturously cut off, he could still hear the girl scream "THE HELL DID YOU SAY!?"

Dexter's hands and arms seemed to be working as they were now uselessly clutching the girl's ankle, trying to remove her vicelike shoe from his neck. He tried to shout out something, anything, to placate her. Instead she pressed harder, strangling him and his words. Colour began to swim before his eyes. He preferred unconsciousness by shockdart instead of this. Less potential brain damage. And pain.

"T-Think.... straight!" he managed.

The foot eased up. The voice didn't seem as furious "You SURE that's what you said?"

"Can't... think.... straight!" Dexter tried again, sucking in a merciful gasp of air when the foot finally lifted from his throat. The girl now stood over him, feet either side of his body and hands on her hips. She didn't care that her skirt did her no favours. She only seemed to dislike having it mentioned.

Dexter found himself propped up on one arm, holding his neck in the other as he wheezed and spluttered. Breaths of stale air swan-dived down his throat, burning his windpipe and making him want to retch. But it was still sweet, blissful oxygen. He coughed hoarsely.

Above him the voice warned, "Say anything else stupid and I'll drop my knee into your gut so fast I'll paint the floor with your liver."

Dexter, still coughing, nodded his head frantically. He wouldn't be surprised if his whole neck would bruise, but that's fine. Would probably match the slap mark on his cheek. His soul had already been a punching bag recently, what harm was there in a little more? Steadying his breathing, he could finally look up at the girl who had assaulted him who sounded so much like his girlf... no, his ex-girlfriend.

It was her. Had to be. But she was wearing clothing he was sure she'd never worn in front of him before. The short red tartan skirt was just the start of the peculiar wardrobe and it just got stranger as it went. For one thing, he was sure Blossom never owned, much less wore, a red and white collared shirt. White on the front and red on the collar and sleeves with a similarly-red double V pattern across her scant chest. Two buttons descended from the collar. One of those buttons was frayed and ready to fall off. The base of the shirt was a little short, allowing the tiniest of midriff to be seen between it and the waist of her skirt.

There were red sweatbands around her wrists. That was something else that Blossom never seemed to wear. Buttercup, maybe, but Blossom was never overly sporty. These ones seemed more for show than anything else. Their bright red hue was a stark contrast to the pale and pasty knuckles of her clenched fist. Like fire off a white-hot, plummeting meteor.

He'd already noted her hair. It was unbrushed and wild and seemed to roll off her head in waves rather than a straight waterfall. Deedee would have jumped at the chance to brush that mane and make it perfect. The hair fell about Blossom's eyes in the same sort of way. Her eyes did seem a lot more red than he remembered. Maybe it was the light - wherever he was, it was darker than he would've liked. But it was what was on Blossom's head that frankly perplexed him. Gone was her giant and gorgeous red bow. In its place was something entirely different.

Blossom had taken to wearing a pair of long ribbons with her bow in the last year and a half. Now, instead of the bow, four of these long streamers erupted from the crown of her head, attached to some sort of scarlet headband buried deep in that untamed scruff of hair. The ribbons flew upward and then darted every which way in the manner of a quartet of ruby lightning bolts. They, like her hair, were wild and unpredictable, fluttering one way and darting another and falling around her like rain. The way they split into two points at each end reminded Dexter of the sinister forked tongues of serpents. This was not a look he was used to. In all honesty, he rather disliked it. He spoke up. And wasn't thinking straight.

"Geez, Blossom, what's with the new clo-"

A pincer-like hand seized him around the throat, drilling him back against the cold floor. His head struck hard and a new pain surged from his skull to the rest of his body. Sharp fingernails dug into his skin as the girl's face, still youthful and beautiful but terrifying all the same, leaned in so that her nose almost touched his. Even with his crooked glasses, he could stare right into her deep red eyes and know that this wasn't the girl who had dumped him yesterday. Somehow this was even worse.

"If you EVER call me that again, I'll-!" she stopped as she saw him try to straighten his glasses with a shaky hand. His face was going blue again but all he cared about was seeing her properly. The girl smirked and deftly plucked the glasses away from his face, holding them up and out of reach, "Oh dear me, are these YOURS?" she bunched her fist around the bridge between the lenses, preparing to crush, "Whatever would you do without your..." her voice trailed away when she looked down into his unfocused but shining sapphire eyes. Her grip on his glasses loosened. Then they fell to the floor and clattered away. The girl eased her grip on his throat, then released him altogether. She lowered herself, sitting on his waist, and kept staring at his eyes. Her cheeks were going red. "You... you're..."

Dexter managed a few steadying breaths before, as calmly as possible given both having been nearly choked out twice and now being sat upon by this pretty yet ruthless NotBlossom, speaking up carefully "Can you please tell me what is going on?"

The girl gave a loud huff and slid off him, allowing Dexter to suck in several more merciful gasps of acrid, metallic-tasting air. The girl folded her arms and remained silent as though thinking of how next to make things miserable for him. But the red across her cheeks hadn't yet subsided. He stared up at her. She felt his accusing look demanding answers of her. She bared her teeth and hissed between them "Put. Them. On." she pointed to his dropped spectacles. His hand, wrapped inside an indigo glove, fumbled miserably for a few moments before it managed to place the specs back upon the bridge of his nose. The girl breathed a relieved sigh. The flush on her cheeks began to fade.

Dexter heaved himself up into a seated position, still feeling the phantom pain of the girl's fingers crushing his throat. He saw her look away and took the time to observe her again for the briefest moment. It was her... yet not. She'd certainly made it clear she wasn't Blossom. It was as if all of Professor Utonium's love and fatherly guidance had been thrown away. The zig-zagging streamers, like red lightning, seemed to only exemplify her dominant erratic personality. This could very well have been Blossom had something from her past gone very very differently.

Then came the wider world around him. It sunk in on Dexter slowly that this wasn't the place he'd been seemingly moments before when the thing hit his arm (it still stung) and brought on nothing but dark. 'Nothing but dark' was a good description of the lab around him. His lab, or so it seemed to be, was poorly lit. Sparks caused tiny explosions in the distance, giving all-too-brief bursts of illumination. The ceiling was high just like normal, but entire panels seemed to be missing. Nothing but the framework remained in places and some of the consoles appeared gutted for parts. It seemed less like a science laboratory. More like a berserk cathedral. He was on his feet, unsteady, before he was even aware of it. He shuffled, stumbling. Then he stepped. Walked. Began to pace. Fight the discomfort by applying a scientific approach. Comfort is subjective.

"This isn't my lab. Or it is but someone has modified it. It... ahh...." Dexter squeezed his cranium between his gloved hands, "Head hurting. Refocus. Come on... Ugh."

The red girl made a loud scoff, still hiding her face from his view.

Dexter ignored her, "Dimensions... floor plan, base materials... all identical to my lab's construction. Nobody here, no-one but myself and Blo-"

The girl made a sound not unlike an angry lion cub.

Dexter waved at the air in her direction, apologetically, "Myself and YOU, ok? I just... need a moment here. Rule out unlikelihoods-"

"My GOD you love to hear yourself talk, huh?" the girl barked.

"Oh, I'm gonna get to you in a moment..." Dexter retorted, a silly grin on his face. He seemed almost drunk. The girl curled her lip in conflicted disgust. "Sparks and dulled screens still indicate power, lab in decrepit state... air contaminated but" he breathed in through his nostrils hard "breathable. Contents of lab not illuminated, but presumably accounted for. Initial hypothesis," he beamed to the girl "I'm in the far future and it's not a good one!"

The girl gawped. Her arms unfolded and flopped by her sides. Her characteristic aggression gave way to a stunned quiet, "Y-You're mad."

Dexter clapped his hands together, "You're right. I have absolutely no idea what's going on." he glanced around, his bravado fading like the few remaining lights in this messed up mirror of his lab, "A lot of this is freaking me out. And, especially..." he waggled a finger in the girl's direction. She puffed out her chest, taking it as an affront. Dexter didn't care - if she walloped him on the skull it might return the world to normal. His hand travelled to his arm and rubbed it protectively, "Still hurts... it was strong, whatever it was."

The girl went 'pffft' and strolled toward him, "You took just ONE of his shots to the arm and didn't wake up 'til I found you?" she let out a sick little laugh, another thing that made Dexter bristle with nerves "Come on, you lightweight - Brute can take ten of those things and still be able to-"

Dexter seized her by the shoulders, "A brute?" he asked loudly, "Is that who did this to me?"

The girl tried to shrug him off, "Get away from m-"

"Is it?"

"Let GO!"

Dexter reached for his glasses and slid them off. His vision went blurry but he still stared her right in the scarlet eyes, "Tell me what's going on!"

The girl sputtered, "N-No!" she shoved him back, scrunching her eyes up as her cheeks burned again. Dexter went stumbling backwards, his butt kissing the cold and lifeless floor again. He straightened his glasses, but then the girl was upon him once again. Her knee found his sternum and knocked the wind out of him. His skull cracked the floor, sending bright flashes across his vision. She placed her hands either side of his head and seethed down at him. Her lips were peeled back, her perfect teeth bared in the snarl of a savage animal. She seized him about the neck and swiftly raised him with no effort off the floor. Dexter's head felt like it would pop off from his neck. He began to turn purple immediately. The girl didn't care, slamming him back-first against the nearest alcove wall. When she spoke it was with a very measured, VERY demanding tone "All you need to know is that I am Berserk!"

His head was killing him and he could barely breathe but Dexter still grinned, "Tell me about it-"

The girl pounded the steel plating beside his head. Loud. It left a large dent. "It's my NAME! And you'd BETTER learn it because as of right now, I'M IN CHARGE HERE! I'm not gonna be the weak one, NOT THIS TIME!"

Dexter blinked, his feet dangling as she held him off the floor, "O-Okay, just-"

"No more talking!" she spat, "Not unless I say so, got it!? You're my pet now. I've aaaaalways wanted a pet all to myself. Not one that my sisters could mess around with, either dolling it up like a toy or kicking it around cos it doesn't do what it's told. But you're gonna do what YOU'RE told, right Dexter? You always do what your girl says, am I right?"

There was a look so unhinged on the girl's face that Dexter couldn't take his eyes off it. His lips quivered and head pounded but his voice hadn't abandoned him, "Y-Yes."

"Good. Get comfortable, boy genius, you're gonna get used to it. You belong to me - your old life is meaningless now. It's gone. Farewell, goodbye, d..." Berserk's face twisted in concentration, "do svidánʹja." she grinned, proud of herself.

Dexter burst her bubble, "That's not the right word."

Berserk's shoulders slumped and she dropped him back to the floor, "Crap, really?" she threw her head back with a groan, "You mean you still speak like him? Ugh!" She tried again, refusing to release her grip, "D...Doviždane...?"

Dexter nodded, "Better."

Berserk grinned, letting him go.

Dexter coughed, his throat burning as he stumbled back to his feet. He was half a head taller than the girl - she wasn't quite as tall as the one he knew much better "Who is this 'him'?"

Berserk stuck her hands on her hips and cocked them sideways in a coy gesture "The genius still needs a hint?"

Dexter's teeth grit together but he tried to hide it as best he could, "I need to find something to make use of." he told himself. 'Not you, obviously' his mind added as he glanced at the girl once more. "If this is my lab, then... Computer!" he called, marching to the nearest monitor. He'd been sitting at a workstation almost identical to this when that thing hit his arm. How long ago had that been? An hour? Six hours?

A day!?

Berserk leaned against the side of the chair Dexter slid into as he looked upon the myriad controls and inputs before him. The computer hadn't made a beep or any other acknowledgement but that was ok. Everything else seemed to be in power saving mode, why not the computer too? He expanded his command "Computer I need security footage from all cameras for the last two hours."

There was a tap on his shoulder. He turned his head, his sore neck aching dully in protest. Berserk leaned in. She had the familiar face but not the familiar faint smell of strawberries. It was something else. Not unpleasant, just... else. She whispered in her usual unhelpful tone "You've been here five hours." and ended with an exaggerated nod to drive her point home. Dexter resisted rolling his eyes. Berserk did not.

The computer did nothing and said nothing. The barely-lit screen didn't respond. Dexter's hands curled into fists. "Am I invisible?"

"Wish you were."

"Oh shut up." Dexter slid out of the chair. A sudden pain made him grab his arm and wince.

Berserk looked over his shoulder, the unwanted lamb to his Mary, "What's up?"

"Arm hurts again..." he muttered.

Berserk blinked, "Y-You got shot in the right arm. You're holding your lef-"

Dexter spun on her and said loudly, "I don't need ANY of this right now if you're not prepared to help me figure out what's going on. I don't know what kind of trick this is, but I want out. You're not Blossom. I can't change what happened but this is just a bad joke."

Berserk looked suddenly offended, "You don't need this? Pff, really? You have no idea where you are and NO idea who put you here. It wasn't me, genius. I'm just the lucky girl who stumbled upon you. You're lucky I'm only gonna make you my pet! Others in this place would happily make you their victim!" her voice did that thing where it began rising a quarter octave with each sentence. Dexter fully expected her to do something very unpleasant to his neck again.

He called out again, "Computer!!"

"You think that's going to help?"

"Please respond!"

"For a supposed genius you're incredibly stupid!" Berserk's mouth was a toothy grin even as the words coming from it were ice-cold, "This lab isn't yours, it belongs to-"

A voice cut them off. The floors, the cold metal and the loose innards of the ceiling overhead trembled as the voice reverberated from hidden speakers "Computer access failure! All audio inputs disengaged!"

Dexter glanced about, his brain going miles a minute. The voice he'd heard sounded so very much like his own, and yet something was brutally amiss about it. It seemed pitched slightly deeper, and the difference in syllabic emphasis was ever so minute. But even for a recorded message, Dexter could tell that the voice came from someone who, despite sounding like him, was truly nothing alike. His theories started up again. But he knew he'd find nothing useful to him here. "If it's not my lab, I don't want to be inside it."

Berserk's arm snatched his own, the same one he'd just been favouring. He didn't wince at all, not once he saw her arm. It was bristling with goosebumps. It wasn't cold in here; quite the opposite. There was a mugginess that had added to his discomfort ever since he first came to. No, these goosebumps weren't from the ambient temperature. His eyes moved to hers. Her face spoke volumes - she knew he'd noticed.

"Who is he? And what's he done to you?"

"You don't need to know any of that."

"Are you going to stop me from leaving?"

Berserk paused. Then she let him go. At once her bravado took over, shoving her momentary look of fright off her face "I guess I can let my pet off his leash. It's not like he's going anywhere."

Dexter turned his back, "I'm leaving."

"And going where? You've no way out of here. And bad things happen to strays when they wander too far away!"

Dexter was beginning to think of other words starting with B that better described this poor parody of Blossom. Even in the dimness he knew where he'd find his exit. He made his way toward what he knew to be the west wall. Sure enough, up ahead and out of the gloom, it arose. "The stairs to the library." he said aloud. If this wasn't his lab, whoever owned it had the exact same design blueprints.

Berserk was huffily following, muttering in a deadpan voice "No. Stop. Come back. Don't go that way."

Dexter passed the alcove, glancing at it. There was no robot Deedee. Perhaps that was good. Perhaps whoever owned this lab had a sister like he once did, only he never built a monstrous doppleganger out of machinery because that girl was still alive. Somewhere. Safe. Untouched. The owner of the lab maybe didn't bear the guilt that Dexter constantly felt, everyd-

His eyes found the blackened stain within the circular bay. It smeared across the metal and splattered up the wall, too dark in the gloom to be seen from afar. But up close there was no mistaking that this was blood. Old blood. Perhaps here for a very long time. No way of telling who it belonged to... or if it was human. He wanted to ask. The first thing he wanted to know was if, in this strange place, a girl had died. But Berserk hadn't been a reliable font of knowledge so he kept it to himself. His gloved hands worked their way over the walls, trying to find the depressor switch.

Berserk had caught up to him, "Come on, boy genius, stay around and play a while. You're the most interesting person to come here in a LONG time. I'm sure I'm WAY more fun than that prissy pain in the ass Blossom." She reveled in seeing him look over his shoulder at the mention of that name, "Oh yeah!" Berserk intoned, "I know Blossom! I know alllll about Blossom. Once you give up trying to get out of here, maybe I'll tell you about how I kicked her ass all the way across BOTH our cities. Cos it's true, ya know! She's no match for me in a straight-up fight. But you're never gonna hear about it unless you accept that there's absolutely no way you're getting out of-"

The wall gave a heavy CLUNK and gears that screeched and screamed as though they hadn't turned in years began to spin.

"....here." Berserk mumbled. The wall began to move and slide aside. She'd never seen this before. He'd never shown this to her.

Dexter turned to her, "In a moment I'll be heading up these stairs" he chucked a thumb over his shoulder - sure enough, behind the wall, stairs - and looked at her through those cruelly obscuring spectacles, "and I will be doing all I can to get home. Above me should be the school. Maybe someone there can be more help to me. You can be, if you want, otherwise I'm leaving you here. I'm giving you one chance - should you come with me or not?"

Berserk's response was blunt, "Ssssssschool?" she said as though the word were a different language.

"Ugh." Dexter grumbled. He spun on a dime and began to ascend the dilapidated staircase.

The climb seemed eternal in the dark. Dexter counted each of the 28 steps underfoot. He'd been up and down this very flight more times than he could recall. This time was different from all those other times. As he went up one after another, a thick and unpleasant smell grew closer to him. His nostrils twitched at the unfamiliar and out-of-place odour. There was no light in the inclined tunnel save for a sliver of dull illumination up ahead. He reached out for it. There was a panel here, usually. Alight with proximity sensors to tell him whether there was anyone on the other side of the passage and if it was safe to exit without being seen. The dull glow wasn't coming from any screen. When he reached the terminus of the staircase he wasn't even sure if there was a screen at the barrier at all. Instead the light was coming through a thin triangle of open space between the wall and the slanted, not-quite-closed secret door. In the sparse light he saw the air was thick with some sort of dust, dancing in the fleeting illumination like a tiny swarm of insects.  Dexter threaded his fingers into the gap between the wall and the door, hoping it wouldn't snap fully closed and sever them.

When there was no mechanism triggered by his touch, Dexter began to pull. The door creaked in protest. Dexter pulled again. Again. It budged only an inch. He threw a glance over his shoulder but the stairs descended into black. No sign of Berserk. Which was bad. He could use her strength. But it was good too. He hated the thought of being trapped in a confined space with her.

Propping his foot against the wall and adjusting his grip, he tried again. He designed this door to be manually sprung back in the event of a power loss. It was being particularly stubborn. Still, he pulled even harder, straining and grunting and hoping no crazed red-eyed girl would appear between him and the darkness behind him. Finally, just as he thought all the tendons in his arms would tear, the door came free and shot back into its recess. Light washed over Dexter's face. And a horrendous rotting smell flooded his nose.

Dexter stumbled forward and his foot crunched on something brittle. Covering his nose he reached a desk - he assumed it was a library desk - and took a moment to suck in a steadying breath. The light from above was hot and harsh. A breeze caught his crinkled labcoat and ruffled it around his knees. Strange sounds came from all around. He looked up. He saw not a library but a wreckage. The object he was leaning on was in fact a toppled bookcase. What was left of its books were strewn along the floor, all their pages rotting away, their covers blackened and ancient. The one he'd stepped on had practically crumbled to powder. Another shock of breeze - 'There was no breeze in a library!' was his immediate thought. Libraries also normally had walls. He could see trees, clouds, sky. No roof either. He'd stepped out of what he thought was his lab and emerged into a husk.

He was moving. As his head tried hard to process everything around him his feet carried him onward. It wasn't just the library destroyed, it was the whole school. The second floor was gone altogether. Trees, vines and roots were slowly encroaching from the surrounding woods. The library was a side wing of the building and before long Dexter found himself in front of the main structure itself. It was as though someone had built the school and simply forgotten it. There wasn't a single intact window left. At its tallest the school was four storeys high. The top of those floors was missing, collapsed onto its lower levels. The grand clockface on the centre facade was nothing but a hole in the wall, a couple of clockwork mechanisms protruding where the timepiece once sat. And then there were the grounds themselves. He re-evaluated his first impression.

The school had been built and seemingly forgotten. But not before some giant invisible force ripped out most of what was inside and dumped it on the outside. The kindergarten playground space was a twisted mass of rusted metal with several student chairs propped up on it like an abstract sculpture. A tall and evergreen tree that, in the school HE knew, was a favoured place of shade and study for himself and Blossom was split down its middle but still clearly alive. Its branches reached out in all directions, desperate arms pleading silently for help. Its roots tore through the asphalt of the nearby ball court and seemed to be snaking toward the remnants of the school itself. Someone had wedged an entire whiteboard into the split in the formerly mighty tree's trunk. In big red lettering, which had run in past rains and now looked like blood running down a wall, the words SPARE THE CHILDREN were scrawled. Dexter shuddered, moving back toward the main structure in hope of finding something - someone - who could possibly help him.

He hadn't realised it but he had been calling out. Yelling things like 'Hello?' and 'Anyone?' repeatedly. He tried to yell again. His throat scratched painfully. He heard dull noises. Scratching. Clicking. Shuffling. He had a feeling he wasn't quite alone in the wreckage.

The smell of rot was everywhere, still bombarding his nose. He wondered what sort of catastrophe could have wiped the school out so. The building was in places torched, like in the library. Elsewhere it was falling apart. Someone (or something?) had piled an entire classroom's worth of desks into a heap nearby as he reached the outer framework of the northern science wing. What happened to the students? The faculty? Where was Sensei Jack or the Principal or even the class pets? He spotted something on the ground nearby and froze. It was a backpack, books and stationery still inside. The faded clipboard hanging out of it was a dull pink. There was a flower in the bottom corner. Dust and debris had half-buried it, but there it was. Another icy shiver ran down his spine and he refused to contemplate just what might have happened - or who was here when it did.

A hiss of air made him freeze. He whirled, seeing nothing. Instinctively he reached for his glasses and tapped the frame beside his right eye. A tiny beep. Then nothing. No infrared as requested. He huffed, remembering. His glasses required a direct linkup to his lab computer. That cavern below where he'd awoken, it wasn't his. Nor, luckily, was this school. But if that were so, where was he? One overarching possibility remained in his mind but he did all he could to avoid accepting it as the reality. It was the one breakthrough he'd never made, ever since he started to study that giant mirror on loan from Profess-

The hiss again. It was closer now. The sound of creaking metal reached his ears. A chair, precariously balanced atop some sort of shattered and looted trophy cabinet wobbled and toppled to the ground. He was standing in what was once one of the school's main halls. The large superstructure rose up behind him, all three and a quarter floors of it. On this side of the building it was simply rubble and rust with the dark trees seeming to loom over everything beyond it. Cables hung from beams that once supported ceilings. Big halogen hallway lights lay in pieces on the floor. There was another creaking sound, again behind the cabinet. The bare framework of a bathroom lay beyond it, its stalls all rotted away, the toilets themselves caked in muck or smashed to pieces. Pipes poked out of the floor where sinks used to be. Mirror glass all over the ground. Something moved between it and the toppled, eroded cabinet. Dexter's heart raced - had he found someone? Something dark and spindly - an arm! It reached up from behind the cabinet and landed with a thud on its wooden exterior.

Dexter clenched his fists "E-Excuse me, can you help? I need to know everything that has happened here!" Something rushed past behind him, making a splitting shriek that caused him to yelp. He saw it vanish between two segmented panels of the decrepit floor. He blinked the image out of his mind, for he swore that he had just witnessed something not entirely unlike a cockroach. One the size of a beagle. His voice caught in his throat but he persisted "If you can help me, I-I... I would really be quite..." he turned back to the cabinet. He saw the dark armlike mass attached to a much larger body. As it emerged he felt the pit of his stomach drop out from under him. The dog-sized cockroach was no longer on his mind.

Clambering over the fallen cabinet, hissing like a steam vent, was a much, MUCH larger cockroach. And when its saw-like mandibles parted, it screamed a scream so horrible.

Dexter screamed too. He turned and he ran toward the demolished building. And the car-sized insect charged after him, its wings beating furiously and sending rippling shockwaves through the air.

Genius suffers when adrenaline courses through one's veins. Reaching the partially-collapsed structure of the main building, Dexter's first and only clear thought was to get away from the massive insect. Another dark shape flitted between piles of rubble, crawling over concrete shards and in between large gaps. There were more roaches. Nowhere near the size of the main one, but still far larger than anything he'd encountered. He hated roaches. That was the only other coherent message his brain was telling him, besides 'run like hell'. Sweat dripped down his face, onto his glasses, into his mouth. He had no time to care about any of it - he charged up the collapsed second floor like a ramp, reaching its end where jagged rebar hung from the top floor. Out of nowhere a smaller roach jumped him, its jaws seizing leathery sheath of his glove and ripping it apart. The bug fell to his side, spitting out the torn scrap of purple rubber and waggling its giant antennae in a perceived panic. Dexter, without thinking, drove his boot hard into the pillow-sized pest. It skittered off the edge of the fallen slab and into the darkness beneath.

Dexter spun, grabbed the rebar and hauled himself up. His legs kicked out, finding nothing. He hoisted himself up with a loud grunt as, behind him, the enormous roach-king stampeded toward the crooked slab of floor. Dexter's fingers found cracks in the surfacing. He locked his fingers into them and pulled up, shredding his gloves along the knuckles. His knee struck the rebar and he shouted in pain but he dragged himself back to horizontal, rolling onto his back and wheezing miserably. His arms were sore. He was certain his knee was bleeding. But for a moment he stared up at the sky in peace.

The sky was dark. Full of black cloud. The sun was just a phantom glow beyond it, but it was still hot against his sweaty face. Dexter dragged himself to his feet, tired of finding himself on the floor all the time. He glanced behind him - he was at the top level now. The central 'spine' of the school where the clockface was mounted. His footing was unsteady. He looked down at the massive cockroach - from here he figured its body was about the length and width of a small hatchback car. Its antennae jiggled furiously, staring at him with beady black eyes while its brown and bronze body glistened like a leathery reptitle. But it was down there. He was up here. Dexter threw his arms up and whooped. To hell with science - thank you physical education!

And then he spoke "I don't know where you sit in your messed-up food chain but I will NOT be a part of it!"

As if to mock him, the roach's wings clicked, whizzed and then began to beat themselves into a blur. And the roach lifted off the ground.

Dexter's arms dropped "That's unfavourable..."

The roach gave another screaming hiss and launched itself toward Dexter.

Dexter jumped backward as the roach, bogged down by its own sheer size, crashed into the decking where he had been standing. Its six legs scrambled frantically, trying to get purchase and hoist its giant body up once more. Its wings beat and Dexter felt slightly nauseous. Dark shapes moved on his periphery - more roaches. Smaller but ravenous. Waiting for their pack leader - or perhaps their queen - to make the kill. Dexter edged himself back further but a hiss behind him made him jump. No less than three smaller bugs advanced on him from behind. He turned, going sideways. Right toward the edge of the building.

There would have been a wall here once, with windows providing a view from this hallway out over the school grounds where kids would play, birds would dance in the sky and the manmade forests around campus would sprawl on for what seemed like miles. All major schools in the city were ringed by woodlands. Some design quirk they'd thought to include. But instead of the wall there was just a long sharp drop to the fractured and unforgiving concrete below. Even from here Dexter could see the dark swarms at the bottom of the building. An entire swarm of these bloated roaches were waiting for their next meal. Maybe that's what happened to all the others who once attended this school. He'd just be their next meal.

He backed toward the edge as the main roach bore down on him, an endoskeletal grizzly bear. Dexter's boot caught a nick in the floor and with a dull thud he found himself once again lying flat on his back at the mercy of another monster from this crazy mockery of home. The smaller roaches chirped excitedly. Dexter wanted to shuffle further back, despite its futility, but found his head dangling off the edge of the building. He craned his neck back as far as it would go, no floor impeding it. There was terra firma, a five second freefall away, upside down in his vision. He wondered if it would be better for him if he simply fell, rather than-

The king roach pinned him down, its huge pointed feet stepping all over his coat and tearing it in a half dozen places. He couldn't bear to watch as the mandibles, huge sharp bronze bolt-cutters, split apart and the creature gave another mutated howl right in his face. Cold sticky mucus dripped from its jaws, splattering him. Dexter's eyes clenched shut. In his mind, he began to pray. A man of science. Praying. But not to a divine entity. No, to the force of good he would always choose to believe in over any quasi-fictitious being of omnipotence.

"Blossom..." he murmured, wishing the roach king would get off, scamper away, leave him alone, "Blossom.... Blossom, please..."

The mandibles clacked. They caught his glasses and knocked them from his face. Then Dexter felt the beast rear up, no doubt preparing to impale him or crush him or otherwise render him effectively deceased. But the weight lifted. It didn't return. The other roaches squealed in some sort of fright or disapproval. Dexter chanced opening an eye. And knew right then that his angel had saved him.

Only when he heard the manic laughter coming from dead ahead and his blurred vision showed the figure of a girl with long orange/brown hair wreathed in red, not pink, did Dexter remember that it was no angel looking out for him. Rather, the devil's estranged daughter. He fumbled for his glasses, finding them and sliding them with shaking hand back upon his nose. There was the gigantic cockroach, still screaming its unholy cries, held a clear five feet off the ground by Berserk herself, a frenzied radiance in her gaping rouged eyes. "DEXTER!" she called as wind began to howl around them and the smaller cockroaches began a chorus of affrighted warbling "What's WRONG!?" Her hoisted arms began to crackle with furious energy. Red lightning, like her bow. It coursed it toward her hands. "Your boots not BIG ENOUGH to SQUASH these things!?"

And all Dexter could do was watch as Berserk plunged her hands, one after the other, into the thorax of the helpless bug. Her mouth had split into a ferocious grin. The squalling hurricane of wind around them both seemed to come directly from her. Above, the oily-dark clouds began to swirl, parting directly above her head. The roach writhed and struggled as the red fury flooded into its body. Its shiny black eyes seemed to bulge. Sections of its carapace split open and radiated reddish-white light. Its legs spasmed, stiffened and seized. Then, as Berserk let out a triumphant scream, the bug exploded violently with a most brilliant spark of crimson fire. Disgusting greenish-brown offal splattered Berserk beneath it. Dexter turned away, his upset tummy backflipping once again.

Above the clouds settled. The winds died away. The smaller roaches scattered in fright. One was stupid enough to run right in front of Berserk. A single punt kick sent it flying into the distant treetops. And the crazed inverse-Powerpuff began to laugh like she'd heard the funniest joke on earth.

Dexter tried to stand. His knee wobbled and failed him. A new stench filled the air - sautéed roach. A strong grip roughly tugged the back of his jacket and hoisted him up to his feet. Berserk steadied him. Her eyes lanced into his, "I told you, it's not safe out here for strayed pets."

Dexter gave a defeated sigh "You didn't mention the roaches."

Berserk pulled him close, her nose pressing his "Roaches are the least of your troubles out here, 'genius'." She paused, then slid his glasses down his nose with her finger. She beheld his eyes a moment, then a strangely cute grin spread across her mouth. "Gonna be a good dog now?"

Dexter saw no other option, "Yes, ma'am."

"Right answer." she glanced down, "You're hurt. You're stupid."

Dexter felt he'd been demeaned enough for one day. He looked around, finally able to breathe a bit easier, "What happened to the school?"

Berserk let go of him, folding her arms, "I wouldn't know. This was here long before me and my sisters moved here." Dexter suppressed a loud gulp of apprehension. One inverse-Powerpuff was enough; he hoped not to meet the other two. "This was a school, huh? What a dump. There's no schools in this city anymore."

"A-Anymore?" Dexter parroted, perplexed. "But how?"

Berserk laughed again, "You really have no..." she trailed off. Then her arm flung out and the familiar burning lightning shot out from her fingertips. Dexter ducked instinctively. As the red light flashed, Berserk's face was a picture of sadistic delight. The sound was gone in the same instant it thundered. Then came a pained squawk as behind Dexter a bird fell from the sky in flames. Berserk wiggled her fingers and grinned again "Moving targets are more fun."

Dexter resisted the urge to say 'You're insane!' aloud.

Berserk was back on track immediately, "You really have no idea where you are, huh? He really pulled the wool over your eyes."

Dexter ran his hand through his hair, "Am I just talking to myself? WHO is HE!?"

Berserk was looking skyward, "Hey, checkit!" she was pointing out in the distance. Dexter's vision followed, seeing something hanging low above a rather large clump of black trees. "Think I can hit it?"

"What is it? It doesn't seem that far away."

Berserk's hands lit up, "You flatter me, doggie!" The air was ripped open with her blast of red light. It zinged off at the dark floating shape, growing imperceptively small as it went. Dexter blinked in surprise. There was no flash around the distant object, no sign that it had been struck. It just kept floating lazily. Berserk let out a resigned harrumph as Dexter's eyes squinted. Suddenly, far further from both of them, he saw more of those things floating about the sky - a sky that seemed to be choked with smog and fire hanging around those tall black trees.

And then he looked again. Those weren't trees at all.

"You really don't know who he is, huh? And they call you a genius. Puh..." Berserk's hands were on her hips again before the red glow had even faded from them, "He was so gracious to let you sleep off the stun-bullet on the floor of his la-borr-a-torr-ee."

A chill shot down Dexter's spine as he watched yet another big dark object - some sort of airship - emerge from those pointy trees. Trees that looked a lot like buildings. He had eliminated the impossible from his mind. As one of his literary heroes was fond of saying, whatever remained - no matter how unlikely - was the truth. But this was more along the lines of the impossible "Wh-where am I, Berserk?"

Berserk brushed a chunk of roach-salsa off her shoulder, "Hmm?"

Dexter turned, his face pale and brow sweaty. He only needed her to say it aloud; to confirm the worst of his fears. "That's a city... but that's MY city! But it's not, is it? That lab is mine, but it ISN'T! Your name should be Blossom, BUT IT ISN'T!"

Berserk's grin was pure and blissful sarcasm "Aaaaaaaaaaaand?"

"And he... his name... it should be Dexter but..."

Berserk leaned in and whispered slowly "It's not." Dexter's face was sheet white. Berserk threw her arm around his shoulder and made him wince. "Great sleuthing, doggie. His name isn't Dexter. And he's nothing like you, either, or so I've seen. You think I'm some crazy version of your little girlfriend? Well you haven't seen HIM yet." Her voice dropped again.

Dexter said nothing.

Berserk finished, "You haven't met Drax."

Something rumbled distantly. Whether it was a knell of thunder or another giant roach stampede, he didn't know. All that hung on his mind was that single syllable and how Berserk acted the moment it left her creamy-pink lips. Lips very close to his ear...

Berserk spun him around suddenly to take in the distant cityscape again "And this isn't your city, geek-boy. There's no city of tomorrow, no beacon of justice, and especially no Powerpuffs saving the world before bedtime!" she caught Dexter looking at her oddly, and grinned again, "Oh yeah, I know about your world. All about it. Drax has been keeping an eye on it for a while, waiting for a moment to see it firsthand. See, that's what happened in case your slow noggin didn't catch on. When you came here, guess where he went? Guess who is probably chillaxing with Blossom right now?"

"Oh no..."

"Yup! But you're with me, so smile! Smile for your new master, doggie. Cos you're in my city now." Berserk gestured to the dystopian metropolis ringed in fog and smoke, where the giant metal skyships hovered and everything around it seemed to be burning, "Welcome to my idea of paradise! Welcome to your new definition of hell!"

Berserk clamped him on the shoulders, staring directly into his face. Her eyes seemed to quiver with a sickening delight as she uttered the words "Welcome.... to Megaloville!"
After a while away from writing, I present the next part of the current story.

And to make up for the slowness, it's nice and big for y'all.
Enjoy!
© 2016 - 2024 Griddles
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Bytecraftninja's avatar
I was a silent reader for a long time.

The only reason I'm speaking up is to give you encouragement (and inflate your ego just a little more), because I honestly love your stories and your take on the PPG world. Keep it up, good sir!

Also, you might want to change the chapter number. Last time I checked, 4 doesn't come after 2.