Chapter 186 - Distance

Sugar, spice, and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls, but Professor Antonio accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction – Chemical-Zed.

Thus the Blunderbuss Girls were born, using their ultra-super powers: Rapid, Rose, and Rondel, have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil.

...however, that was only the beginning.

"At least try something else, Rose," Rick said, then bypassed her guard with a sucker punch to the side of the head, followed by a jab to the gut. "What makes you think you can win a fight just by blocking all the time?" He snickered. "Tanking a few punches probably won't be enough to save the city. Just saying."

Rose was still reeling from the blow when he knocked her down with a powerful roundhouse kick, and pitch black blood, like oil, sprayed from her mouth. "You're getting...way too much enjoyment out of this," she said, her whole body shuddering as she got back unto her feet and wiped some of the leaking blood off on her arm, took a deep breath, and steadied herself – bruised and battered by his repeated assaults but not beaten, the intensity of her stare was enough to let him know that, at least in her mind, this fight was far from over. "Does hitting me turn you on, or are you just a sadist in general?"

"This is nothing." Rick cracked his knuckles. "But if you promise not to go crying to the cops, I'll let you get a taste of how I fight with the boys."

He lunged at Rose, but she saw it coming and barely dodged it. The wide miss left an opening for for her to exploit, but Rick was too quick. He grabbed Rose by her ponytail with his other hand and shoved her face into an upward knee kick. Shards of Rose's skin broke off and scattered across the grassy glade as she fell to her knees, grasping at the gaping hole in her forehead – revealing the dark, viscous membrane underneath – from which more Chemical-Zed oozed uncontrollably.

Rick turned his back on the felled Blunderbuss. "Let's call it a day," he said while straightening his hat, which had been turned around slightly during the brief scuffle, but other than that he looked as though he had just returned from a leisurely stroll. "I'm getting pumped up...which means, if this keeps up for much longer..."

Rose, panting in her exhaustion, drooped her head low enough that she could smell the earth as it was gradually being polluted by her leaking lifeblood, searing the countless tiny blades of grass to produce a sharp, pungent odor not unlike chlorine. At the same time, she could feel the tingly embrace of instant regeneration overtaking her body—her injuries would recover in time, although a wounded pride was another matter entirely. One would think being repeatedly beaten up like this would be a humbling experience, but it only made her feel more frustrated at her own state of helplessness.

I'm still not strong enough to stop her, but I can't give up.

She looked to the sky, at the pink and red flashing wall of the translucent dome that was originally constructed for the sake of protecting Brownsville, but now threatened to destroy it.

There isn't much time left.

Flash back to when the first bell rang, but Stitch Stitchelson was too busy sorting through a bowlful of exotic herbs in the shade of the bleachers by the French Peak Private school athletic field to notice, and wouldn't have cared anyway.

"So, a friend told me about this pizza place downtown," Stitch started to say as he passed the next rolled up clump to the girl sitting across from him. "He says if you ask for a Bob Marley extra crispy on the side, they'll give you a bag of weed with your pizza."

"Which one?" Rondel asked then lit up, had her first puff, and let out a long sigh. She could think of no better way to enjoy her downtime between a brisk morning jog and first period Biology class than this.

"The Domino's with all the Jamaicans," Stitch replied, making unknown gestures with his hands. "Next to the club with the DJ who played Sandstorm unironically that one time."

"Oh yeah," she laughed and said. "That place is always too busy."

"Well...do you think it's true?"

"I don't know, man." Rondel said, internally getting a huge kick out of how gullible Stitch could be sometimes. "Honestly, I think someone's bullshitting you."

Stitch just stared at her with an amused half-grin, while he continued to brush falling ashes off the Rumblestein band T-shirt he bought on a trip with Rondel to one of their concerts in Germany last summer. She felt a shiver go up her spine just thinking about it, or maybe it was just the extra 'kick' of the weed that Stitch bought from a man who liked to hang around a dumpster in an alley next to the Home Economics block, claiming to have direct connections with Venezuelan growers. Whether or not that was true, his stuff sure did the trick.

"Who needs school anyway," she said, purposefully flicking away the last charred bits of her first joint unto the pair of track shoes Professor Antonio had bought for her at the start of the school year. "I've got everything I need right here."

Stitch cocked his head toward the track, at the lone figure approaching.

"You might want to check that, babe, 'cuz it looks like we've been found out."

…...

Of all the accidents that have occurred in the history of French Peak Preparatory High School's Advanced Cooking class, Rapid Antonio was responsible for precisely three of them.

The first time, she was boiling some eggs and accidentally brushed the edge of a piece of paper towel that was recently used to dab up some spilled vegetable oil into the lit burner, and it set on fire.

Another time, she tried to scrub oil out of a pot and it must of have been due to the friction coupled with the fact that the pot was still hot that caused the paper towel she was using to spontaneously combust.

Most recently, Rapid managed to set an entire roll of paper towel on fire after setting it inside of a preheated oven because she apparently mistook it for a log of meatloaf.

"I was talking to Jeff from the Beginner Class while I was cooking," she told her friend Kim over lunch the day after, "I guess I got a little distracted."

"Jeff from 2-D? What was he doing there?"

"Well...Mrs. Rodney wanted them to learn new things from us for the day."

Rapid blushed and tried to hide her face behind a forkful of caesar salad.

"I was giving him cooking safety tips."

Despite all these mishaps, though, and the obvious impact they had on her grade, Rapid was an excellent cook. Because of this her less accident prone classmates often came to her for assistance, and of course she was always willing to lend a helping hand so long as there weren't any paper towel rolls nearby.

While Rondel and Stitch were drifting off into space that day, Rapid was waiting by the door to the Home Economics classroom, about ten minutes early, when she heard something move among the metal trash cans that were lined up behind the tall chain link fence which bordered the school.

"Hey, girl...are you looking for some real shit?"

From the corner of her eye Rapid saw a tall man in an oversized trench coat with sunglasses, greasy, jet black hair that fell along the sides of his face, and a dirty red bandana worn over his mouth and nose like a mask filter.

"Want some mariposa? I've got plenty here, real cheap, but only if you buy now, dollface."

Rapid thought to ignore him until he realized she wasn't interested in what he was selling and slithered back to whatever hole he came from, but several agonizingly slow minutes went by without any sign of the teacher or her other classmates.

"A dollar an ounce for some high quality shit - that's the best deal you'll find anywhere in Brownsville, guaranteed."

She heard the fence rattle when he pressed against it, letting the strong odor of his wares and his unwashed self wash over her.

"Don't be like that," the strange man persisted, growing more and more irate as Rapid started to walk away at a brisk pace. "Just buy some, you little bitch! I need the fucking money, man! Bitch, I'm gonna die if I don't get that mo'fuckin' money!"

Walking quickly, Rapid turned a corner and bumped into Kim running in the opposite direction.

"Was your phone turned off again? I tried messaging you like crazy!"

"I'm sorry, there was this-"

She glanced over her shoulder, but the drug dealer was not there.

"Forget about it." Kim grabbed Rapid arms and shook her, "Listen, Rondel is seriously effed up."

"I kind of already knew that, Kim."

"This morning Mrs. Rodney caught her and Stitch Stitchelson from Brownsville High smoking weed under the bleachers, and I guess they beat up her real bad."

Rapid gasped. "That's..." 'Unbelievable' she wanted to say, but it actually wasn't that much of a stretch to imagine Rondel flying off her handle in any situation.

Needless to say, cooking class was canceled that day.

...

Rose burst into the student council room and dropped a fat manilla folder with the words 'Case Load' stamped on its front cover unto the conference table. "It's him again," she said, silencing everyone.

"He's changed his base of operations again it seems," Rose went on, removing a stack of student complaint forms from the folder and holding it up in one hand for all to see. "Just in case any of you missed it, there is a drug dealer operating on our campus, people, and if he's still around after three months he's probably making a killing."

At the head of the table, the student council president yawned loudly.

"Madam president," Rose said venomously. "

Priestess Morbucks leaned forward in her chair and rested her head on one palm propped up by the elbow, smiling impishly.

"Haven't we already discussed this matter, Rose?"

"Yes, but still I feel like we aren't treating this case with the level of seriousness it demands."

Priestess rolled her eyes. "Might I remind you, this kind of thing doesn't fall under student council jurisdiction. This is a police matter."

She shot Rose a castrating glare.

"But, if you ask me, anyone stupid enough to get hooked on drugs deserves to suffer the consequences."

The other council members all looked at Rose with varied expressions. News that one of her sisters had been caught smoking weed with a boy from the public school that morning had already spread, and they were all interested to see if the notorious 'Ice Priestess' of the student council would thaw from the blatant jab.

Rose took a deep breath.

"If that's how you really feel," she said after a while, then turned and started heading for the door. "It's no wonder things never get done around here."

Priestess looked amused - still on a euphoric high from the thrill of causing Rose to lose her temper - and Rose was aware, but she had more important issues to deal with than keeping Priestess's ego at a manageable level.

"What do you intend to do now, Rose?"

The oldest Antonio girl stopped with one foot out in the hallway. She was already cycling through Rondel's frequent haunts in her mind, whilst simultaneously running through a mental list of all the pair's known acquaintances.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of this before things grow out of control," she said, slamming the door behind her.