CHAPTER FOUR


They let out a collective "Oh, no!" the second they returned to their bedroom.

"I'm gone!" Bubbles shouted.

"Professor found you! Oh, no!" Blossom cried, imagining the grief he must be feeling.

"We better get to the lab right now!" Buttercup said, and off they went.

When they got there, the door was shut. Bubbles floated right through and Blossom was about to open the door when Bubbles screamed. Her sisters burst through the door and saw their sister with a fearful look on her face, her hands up to her mouth. Professor sat, dejected, at his desk, holding his head in his hands. Bubbles' body sat on a beanbag chair, slumped over to one side, looking right at them. The stiffness had worn off. Aside from her pallor, she now looked like she was asleep, because her eyes and mouth were closed. Professor looked up at the sound of them entering. They froze at the sight of a pair of strange-looking goggles on his face.

"Oh, Girls, I'm so sorry!" he said in a choked voice. "I-I tried everything!"

"But Professor," they all said together, "you don't understand!"

"Yes, Girls, I do understand. I know exactly what happened."

He looked up. "Bubbles, I am so sorry. This is all my fault!"

They reacted with shock.

"Professor? You can SEE me?" Bubbles squealed.

"Professor, can you really see Bubbles?" Blossom asked in wonderment.

"Yes, Bubbles, I can see you."

It dawned on Buttercup first. "With them weird glasses! Where'd you get 'em?"

"Oh, Professor!" Bubbles screamed, and flew to him. She hugged him joyfully, then pulled back, gave him a stern look, and bonked him on the head, which he didn't feel, of course. "You dummy!"

"Bubbles, look right at me and speak slowly. I can see you but I can't hear you, I can only read your lips."

"OK." She went back to where she had been and began to repeat the entire sequence, including the flying and hugging, in slow motion, from "Oh, Professor!"

"Oh, brother! Bubbles, I think he already got that part!" Buttercup yelled.

"Oh. Sorry!"

"But Professor, how can this be happening?" Blossom cried.

"Have a seat, Girls, this may take awhile."


* * * * * * *

Blossom and Buttercup went to their room and brought their beanbag chairs down to the lab. Bubbles sat next to herself.

"Where'd you get them things, Professor?" Buttercup asked again, pointing at the strange eyewear.

"I won them in a poker game when I was in college, a long time ago. I forgot I had them. Mind if I take them off, Bubbles? They're tough on the old eyeballs after a while."

"But then you can't see me anymore!" she whined.

"I know you're here, that's what matters. Just don't get into anything, OK?"

"OK."

He took the glasses off. Bubbles floated up in front of him, waved her arms and asked if he could see her. She got no response, and looked back at her sisters.

"No, Bubbles, he can't see you." Blossom said.

Bubbles turned around to completely face them, and with a huge grin on her face, mooned Professor.

"Now we're even!"

"Bubbles!" Blossom shouted. Buttercup fell over on her side, laughing hysterically.

"Bubbles! What are you doing?" Professor asked sharply.

"Oh, she just got a little cheeky with you, that's all, Professor!" Blossom said. She couldn't help but laugh along with her sisters, it was pretty funny.

"That will be enough, Bubbles. Now sit down, so we can get started here."

He asked them to explain what had happened up to the point where they had tried to wake him up. After they finished, he began. He told them how his device was supposed to work, and exactly why it had done what it did to Bubbles. He explained how he had realized that Bubbles was actually with them when they tried waking him, and that's why he wasn't too worried when he later found her lying on the bed. He also told them that that moment was when he also realized his theory about their creation might be true.

"But why can we see and hear Bubbles when you can't, Professor?"

"Well, Blossom, that's part of the theory. Did you Girls ever wonder how it was that you were born knowing who you were?"

"I thought it was the Chemical X that did it!" Buttercup said.

"That's what gave you your powers and it's what gave me you three instead of the one girl I was expecting. But I really expected a baby I would have to raise, not fully developed children with a sense of purpose about themselves, although you did need a LOT of training. You see, Girls, I always believed that for whatever reason, you were together before I created you."

"What in re-in-tarnation are you talking about, Professor?" Buttercup frowned.

"Professor, are you sayin' that we might have lived before as something else?" Blossom asked.

"I don't know, Blossom, all of us may have even though we don't remember it. But I always suspected that if anything ever happened to you, you would still be together. That's what is happening right now. Your life forces, your energies, are tied to each others'. That's why Bubbles can be seen and heard by you two but no one else. My theory is that because this only happened to you, Bubbles, that connection between you three is what's keeping you here with us, honey. If something were to happen to all of you at the same time, you probably would be considered gone to the rest of the world. I would lose you, but you would still be together. But because your life force is still here, Bubbles, I believed I could restore it to your body. That was the second part of my theory."

"Believed? Was? You mean you can't?" Bubbles said anxiously.

Blossom repeated Bubbles' concerns. Professor sighed. "I tried everything I could think of but nothing worked. But you're still here, so there has to be a way somehow."

"So why can you see her with them things?" Buttercup asked, pointing at the weird specs on his lap.

"These were designed to be able to visually detect geothermal energy fields. They're quite primitive, but the design did work. That's what you are, Bubbles, displaced energy, unable to be in either of the places you belong, back in your body or wherever it is you will go. To be precise, you are a Geothermal Holographic Obstruction of Space and Time. You're a GHOST."

"Duh!" she said. "We already knew that!"

Blossom was astounded. "No, Bubbles. Professor, I had no idea that the word ghost was really just an acronym!"

"Well, the word was around long before the acronym, but... these energy fields hang around because they have some unfulfilled purpose, usually that the person died before their time. But with their body gone, they have no place to go until that purpose is served and they can go to their final resting place."

"Well, Bubbles sure isn't ready for hers. Heck isn't expecting us for a long time yet!" Buttercup said.

"What?!"

After giving Buttercup an angry glare, Blossom recounted their trip to Him's lair.

"Well, that must have been very strange, but it reinforces my theory. You aren?t going anywhere, Bubbles. But I don't know how to put you back."

"Can't you just give her some more Chemical X?" Blossom asked.

"There would have to be Chemical X in every cell of your body, Bubbles, but the electricity destroyed it. I tried injections, but that didn't spread the chemical evenly. I tried hooking you up to an IV and giving you the chemical that way, and having a heart pump and respirator spread it. You're full of Chemical X again, but that didn't work either. You've been out too long. There's a few other things I wanted to try, but there's some even bigger problems."

"What?"

"One, I had to take you off the machines to avoid organ damage. Two, I thought the Chemical X would act as a preservative, but it doesn't."

"OH!" Blossom cried. "You mean she's going to decay?"

Buttercup was horrified, but not as horrified as Bubbles. She couldn't get away from herself fast enough.

"Yes, Blossom. We're going to have to do something with you until I can think of something else, Bubbles."

"We got an even bigger problem, Professor!" Buttercup complained. "She can't help us fight anymore!"

"Yes she can!"

"I can? How?!" Bubbles flew up to him, all excited.

"How, Professor?!" her sisters shouted together.

He decided he'd better put the glasses back on. There was Bubbles, right in front of him.

"Do you remember that movie with Patrick Swayze?"

"Yeah!" they said.

"Well, Bubbles, you're going to have to do what he did."

"Huh? No way am I going inside Whoopi Goldberg!"

Her sisters broke up again.

"Hahahahahaha!! No, Bubbles!" he said, laughing. "You are energy. You have to learn how to channel it and learn to make things move. Remember that scene in the subway?"

"Hey, yeah!" they all said. Suddenly, Bubbles turned and disappeared through the wall of the lab.

"Bubbles, come back here!" Professor and Blossom shouted.

"Where the heck is she going?" Buttercup asked. "Hey, you don't think-"

"Uh, oh." Blossom said.

"Go get her, Girls! Hurry!"

As they took off to catch their sister before she started tossing trash cans in the subway, he shook his head.

"That girl takes things too literally!"



Chapter Five


Chapter Three