Endless Possibilities

Endless Possibilities

Author's Note: Here it is, the last chapter in the first part of Map of the Problematique. Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. This is just the beginning.

Chapter 25

XxXxX

"Now isn't that just the sweetest thing? Yes...so very, very adorable!" The Pit of Hate took on an eerie red tinge. The Master of Masters closed his eyes, ignoring the second trickle of blood leaking down his face. The presence was growing stronger, drawing ever closer. Crimson haze covered the blazing stone floor and a dissonant tune, like a thousand broken bells and a single poorly tuned violin, wafted through the air. Aku opened his eyes. The other had arrived.

"So at last you reveal yourself..." The other tittered and covered his mouth with his claw. His green eyes gleamed and narrowed.

"You've known all along? My, my, you are just sooo intriguing..." Clack. Clack. Clack. His steps were measured, but had all the grace of a lazy predator. From the subtle swing of his hips, to the airy breaths he took, everything about the other permeated absolute arrogance, a sense of total control.

"You became careless near the end, as if you wanted Aku to feel your presence," He giggled again and faced away from Aku, scanning the flames with a tiny goblin's grin. With only the faintest hint of a shrug, he glanced over his shoulder at the Shogun of Sorrow.

"Perhaps I did, perhaps I didn't, does it really matter now? If I'm not mistaken...you have lost," Aku nodded, keeping a firm focus on the petrified fire before him. It was all he could do to ignore the painful laceration etched across his chest. No, physically there was no wound...it was something deeper. As if sensing his thoughts, the other giggled wildly. Suddenly, Aku felt his hot breath. He could feel the other's claws on his shoulders.

"Ooh, what's that? Are those tears? Oh but no...no, no, no! Our kind...we don't cry, do we? No...those can't be tears but...mmmm..." His searing hot claw stroked the greater demon's cheek, smearing the blood. Aku lashed out, whipping around and becoming something horrible. The other stared back with a wicked grin. He, too, had cast aside all masks. His fangs gleamed; his mane bristled from the power emanating from his body.

"Do not mock me! I am Aku, the greatest of all the Fallen! I am the harvester of this mortal realm's sorrow, the very incarnation of hatred itself! I am Aku! This world shall be Aku and everything in it will belong to Aku!" The other simply stared back, wearing the same prideful grin. Around them, the Pit of Hate burst into living flames, the air echoed with the shrill screech of a broken violin. The other cocked his head and pouted his massive lips.

"I'm so terribly sorry...but you are very mistaken. You see, this world and all who inhabit it, are already taken," Aku leaned back and snarled. The darkness around them grew thicker; the other's smile grew darker.

"Yes, this world belongs to me...and while I appreciate your interest, I simply must decline your very boastful offer. No, no, no it simply won't do for you to stick your big nose into my business!" The other stalked across the chamber. The walls fell away, the flames erupted into a swirling ring of inferno. A great void blanketed the sky, stretching out into infinity. Countless lights, greater than any star in the heavens, filled that void. Now they, two, stood at opposite ends of this new realm, greater than anything that could have ever existed.

"You dare to challenge Aku? He who has conquered so many worlds in but a mere day's time? You have no chance against Aku's might!" The other giggled and shook his massive head. With a single step, the realm around them began to crumble and shift. He breathed a thick red fog that filled the void around them. Staring into it with a malicious gleam in his eyes, a single shining mass of red light appeared.

"Ah yes but I...I have conquered but a single world...each and every creature that walks my world, from the moment they are born, learn to worship one of my so very many names!" Aku sneered and the towering inferno circling them grew brighter, fiercer still.

"I have conquered the greatest of all our kin, Death herself!"

"How lovely...I have never seen a need for such talent, you see I have never died. Why, frankly I'm not even sure I can!" He burst into hysterical laughter and, without a doubt, all of the mortal realm quaked. Aku clutched his chest, and the darkness became absolute. Not even the flames of hate could fight against the all-consuming blackness. The other noticed his sleight and grinned, walking through the absolute darkness. Once again, they were in the Pit of Hate.

"A very interesting ailment you've developed...a positively delicious weakness," Aku turned away from Him and clutched his chest tighter. His body was a jigsaw of blazing red cracks, more bloody tears streams down his sickly green cheeks.

"...What has become of me?"

"Why, isn't it obvious? Just think back...don't you remember?"

Aku sniffed, the metallic scent of her blood floating in the air. Something familiar drew him closer to her. Blossom's breathing sped up, a few frightened tears working their way to her eyes, even if they were lost in the rain. Aku's tongue flicked out, passing over her bleeding cheek.

"The cut...I was drawn to the child...or perhaps the child was drawn to me? But this blood..."

"It is simply fascinating isn't it! To see you cry bleeding tears of sweet, delicate suffering! But how, I wonder? After all...we don't have blood, do we?"

The sludge peered up through the cracks as a feminine scream echoed overhead. The sludge heard two voices yell a name, and watched as blood rained down from the sky. The blood dribbled down through the crack onto the substance.

"It is...her blood. The Red Child..."

"Very good...are you starting to understand? No? Oh poo! I took you for someone far more intellectual..."

Sugar...Spice...and Everything Nice, these were the ingredients chosen to create the Perfect Little Girl. But an extra ingredient was added-THE MASTER OF MASTERS! THE DELIVERER OF DARKNESS! THE SHOGUN OF SORROW-Chemical X! Thus-ONCE AGAIN I AM FREE TO SMITE THE WORLD AS I DID IN DAYS LONG PASSED-the Powerpuff Girls were born!

Aku stared down at his hands, his eyes wide and trembling. Him giggled and covered his mouth, watching with sadistic glee. The pieces were all starting to fit together. The pain was growing stronger with every breath he took. Every rhythmic pump in his chest was like a searing jolt of fire.

"Yes...yes...isn't it amazing? Why...just as you gave something to dear, sweet, precious little Blossom...it would seem she gave something back to you...oh but, deary me, it would appear her gift was far less satisfactory!" Him cackled with psychotic glee and floated into the air, a throne materializing beneath him. Daintily, he folded his claws on his lap and continued to grin at the troubled demon.

"Why have you come here?" Aku could barely speak. Somehow...the pain was worse knowing its source.

"Merely a friendly warning...you could say we're friends, right?" Aku snarled, "Acquaintances?" His eyebrows became small smoldering fires and Him shrugged, his jovial expression never changing, "Well we're both..." He smirked and looked away, "Right?" Aku crossed his arms and nodded, his imposing glare dampened by flinches of pain and tears of blood.

"Yes...and that-and only that-is why I will let you stay...call it a community service! But this world is mine...and next time, Aku," The room became a sickening shade of green, "I won't play nice," There was another laugh that slowly faded away. Once again, he was alone...

XxXxX

Beep...beep....beep...beep...beep

"I don't know how...but her body is trying to produce both Chemical X and synthetic Chemical X...it's having a very debilitating effect on her. Her powers are out of control, her healing factor isn't working properly...her body is actually...actually tearing itself apart,"

Beep...beep...beep...beep...

"I don't...I don't know what to do. She's been physically mutated by...whatever it was that did this. The Antidote-X drip is keeping her sustained but...it can only do so much. If she doesn't bleed to death from the cut on her stomach...the mutation has an almost guaranteed chance of killing her..."

Beep...beep...beep...

"At this point there's nothing else we can do...I'm...oh God, I don't know what else to do! There has to be something! But what? What?! No...no I can't lose her...please..."

XxXxX

The silent intensity of the underground laboratory was broken only by the monotonous beeping of the nearby heart monitor, and the almost inaudible sound of the tiny figure's strangled breaths. Every one, as shallow as a puddle left behind by a snowflake. Her chest heaved, her entire body trembling as if merely drawing in air was more difficult than lifting the weight of the entire world. Mere hours previous, the latter seemed so easy.

The little girl scarcely resembled the maniacal planet killer of yesterday. Once silken smooth hair lay flat and stringy, caked with dried blood and a deathly sheen of sweat. At one time, hers had been perhaps the most powerful body in the world. Now, it was fragile as a porcelain doll, sickly and pale, shifting between fatal degrees of hot and cold. A red tinged tube came from her side, pumping out the blood and toxins filling her deteriorating stomach. Dripping red bandages draped over her chest, a trickle of blood pooling beneath the bed as it slipped over the side.

In the shadows surrounding the tiny bed, the darkness grew deeper and a pair of flickering flames lit up the night. His wicked red eyes fell upon her, and the darkness lit up with painful red light. To see her slipping so far...to see her so weak and helpless, it was worse than dying. Every struggling breath she took, felt as though it was sustaining him as well. Cautiously, he slipped from the shadows and approached the tiny goddess.

"No...no longer a goddess...but a child," He whispered, lightly stroking her hair. She moaned and arched her back, falling back with a painful hiss into unmoving sleep. Time was definitely against him...for once in his immortal life, Aku was faced with a situation he couldn't wait on. A moment where biding time was the same as plunging into the sacred steel of the Samurai's sword.

"Child...no...Blossom, your time is running out..." Aku sighed and stroked her cheek, trailing a finger across her jaw, he light brushed his fingertips against her lips.

"Perhaps, when you awaken, you will question just what has transpired. What you need know is that you were given another chance...I have realized a grave mistake. It would appear that from the moment I awoke into this world...from the moment I first met you, when it was your very life blood that gave me strength to be reborn...I have been unable to do...to achieve anything. I simply cannot act correctly since I met you child..."

"Blossom, you have changed Aku in a way that I never imagined, never even thought possible," Aku's fingers slipping into her mouth, his tendril reached into her, became a part of her. He could feel the blight spreading through her, could feel the mutation tearing her body, more precious than anything else to have ever been, asunder. His darkness spread through her and-where previously he had merely oppressed the mutation-completely wiped away all trace of the rogue synthetic chemicals.

"You could not know...could not understand what you have done to me. You have delivered to me a blow greater than any fatal strike...you have given me a weakness greater than any Spirit. That day I was given a heart...a heart that beats with your blood, forever linking us together,"

Blossom moaned and curled up, pulling the blankets tighter around her now fully healed body. The tube that had previously been connected to her stomach hung uselessly at the side of the bed. Aku smiled as a trickle of blood slipped from his cheek and landed on her hand.

"It is most incredible to think...all this time, I have told you that you can never hope to defeat Aku," Aku looked down at the drop of blood sliding down her hand. He chuckled and gently stroked her cheek. Blossom smiled, as Aku faded into the shadows and left the room in peaceful serenity once more.

"All along...it was I who could never hope to defeat you, Blossom,"