While her sisters attended to cleaning her up (She wanted to know if she was getting 'rigatoni' yet and Blossom had to correct her. "It's rigor mortis, Bubbles, not rigatoni!", and yes, she was.), Bubbles tried out her new superpower. She could fly through the walls, floors and ceiling without leaving a hole. But it upset her that she had lost most of her old ones. Her lasers didn't work. She could punch and kick but nothing happened. She waited to try out her sonic yell because she didn't want to wake Professor up just yet. They still had to figure out how they were going to explain this one to him. She did stop by his room, though, and saw he was still peacefully snoring away. She almost gave him a kiss on the cheek but if he woke up and saw her he might be afraid, so she went back to the bathroom, taking a shortcut through the walls.
"Hi, Girls, I'm back!" Bubbles exclaimed as she zipped into the bathroom through the closed door.
Her sisters practically jumped out of their skins and they let go of her former self. Bubbles watched herself topple backward and almost fall into the tub before they recovered and grabbed her arms.
"Geez, Bubbles, don't scare us like that!" Blossom scolded.
"Sorry."
"We're gonna hafta find some way for you to let us know you're coming."
"Wow, Bubbles, you can go through walls without breakin' 'em! You lucky stiff!" Buttercup said.
"I'm a ghost. I do that." Bubbles said with a smug smile.
Her sisters stepped back from the sink and Buttercup pointed. "Well, kid, whaddaya think?"
They had her propped up against the sink, where she stood stiffly. She was clad in her usual dress, tights and shoes. They weren't able to close her eyes, which stared in amazement at nothing, or her mouth, which formed a perfect 'O'. Her skin and eyes had both gone very pale and it wouldn't take someone long to see that she definitely had a problem. Bubbles looked at the job they'd done on her. She wasn't too happy.
"My pigtails are too small!"
They were extremely small, but there was enough hair left after the burnt ends were trimmed away to make her 'do look normal otherwise.
"Well, you didn't leave us a whole lot to work with." Buttercup told her.
"Don't worry, Bubbles, your hair keeps growing after you're dead, so it'll be back to normal pretty soon." Blossom added.
"Oh. Well, couldn't you at least get my mouth closed?"
"Bubbles, if dying can't shut your mouth, nothing can!" Buttercup joked. Bubbles stuck out her tongue and made a raspberry.
"OK, now what?" Blossom asked.
"Where can we hide you until we talk to Professor?" Buttercup wondered. "I bet he doesn't even notice right away!"
"Hey!" Bubbles pouted.
"Will you two knock it off? I'm trying to think!" Blossom grouched. "We can't hide her, Buttercup, we have to tell him right away! The sooner he knows, Bubbles, the better chance he has to fix you."
"Oh, man, he's gonna be mad."
"I know, Buttercup, but we don't have a choice. We'll just leave you on the bed for now, Bubbles. Come on, let's go wake him up and get this over with!"
Bubbles floated out ahead of her sisters. Buttercup picked up her earthly form and carried her out, but not without banging her head on the side of the doorframe.
"Ow! Watch it!" Bubbles cried.
"You felt that?" Blossom asked in surprise.
"No," Bubbles said, pointing at herself as Buttercup laid her on her back. "But I did only I can't talk so I had to say it for me!"
"Oh, brother!" Buttercup griped as they all headed out. "You know what the worst part of this is, Bubbles? Now you can't help us fight crime anymore!"
"Oh yeah? I'll just fly up to the bad guys and say 'Boo!' Hee hee hee!"
Bubbles floated above Professor while Blossom and Buttercup tried waking him by shaking him. All three demanded he get up right that minute, but he grunted and groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. Hey, you would too if you spent the time he did in the lab. Finally he pushed the blanket back and started to sit up. He peered at the clock on the night stand.
"Eight-thirty? Please, Girls, can't I have a little more shut-eye?" he whined, and laid his head back on the pillow.
"No, Professor, you gotta get up now!" Bubbles pleaded.
But he wasn't listening. His eyes closed again. Frustrated, Buttercup reached over to the reading light that was clipped to the headboard, aimed the shade right at his face and flipped the switch.
"GAAHHH!!" He jumped up, shielding himself from the bright light that suddenly flooded through his closed eyelids. "Girls, what do you want?!" he asked crossly. He pushed the shade away.
"Professor," Blossom said, pulling on his arm, "Bubbles has something to tell you."
"Yeah, she did something REALLY stupid this time!" Buttercup smirked.
"I did not!"
"Oh, dear, what now?" he said, opening his bleary eyes a bit wider.
"It wasn't my fault, Professor!"
Blossom crossed her arms and looked at Bubbles, who was still floating above them. "Go ahead, Bubbles. Tell him."
Bubbles nervously hemmed and hawed, but then began her recount of the events. Professor's stubble-covered face took on a peeved look, and he cut Bubbles off.
"Girls! I was up late and I'm really tired. I don't have time for this foolishness!"
Buttercup protested, "But Professor, Bubbles is tryin' to explain-"
"Bubbles? All I see are two Girls who are in a lot of trouble if they don't let me get some sleep!" he thundered.
Blossom and Buttercup blinked at each other and stared up at Bubbles, who looked horrified.
"Uh, oh." they said. Bubbles flew down from above him, next to her sisters, and frantically waved her arms in front of his face.
"Professor?! Can't you hear me? Can't you see me?! Oh no!"
Ghostly tears poured from Bubbles' eyes and landed on nothing. Her sisters gave him sheepish grins and side-stepped away from the bedside, then tore out of the room.
"Sorry, Professor!" Buttercup called out. Blossom added, "Go back to sleep!"
A very upset Bubbles disappeared through the wall of his room.
Bubbles was literally beside herself, or should I say, above and slightly to the left of her body on the bed. She had made it back to the room first and her sisters rushed to console her, banging into each other again in the process as they sailed on through.
"Ow, we've got to remember to stop doing that!" Buttercup said, rubbing her head.
"He can't see me!!" Bubbles wailed.
"I know, Bubbles, but how come we can?" Blossom wondered. "This is weird!"
Buttercup frowned. "Yeah, well what do we do now? If he can't see you, Bubbles, he's NEVER gonna believe us even if we could wake him up!"
"I got an idea! Let's go ask HIM!" Bubbles said brightly.
Blossom thought about that for a second and said, "You know, Bubbles, that's not a bad idea! If he was behind this, he'd be laughing in our faces right about now!"
"Hey yeah! If he doesn't know, maybe he'll help us!" Buttercup agreed.
"Exactly!" Bubbles exclaimed. "He can't destroy me if I'm already destroyed!"
"Let's roll!"
Professor shook his head and laid back down, grumbling to himself. His eyes looked upward and he frowned. The reading light was still on.
"Oh, darn it. I forgot to turn off the switch!".
He raised his right arm, fumbled to find it, flicked the light off, and dropped his arm. He closed his eyes and sighed happily. Peace and quiet once more. Seconds later his eyes flew open and he sat up.
"Oh my gosh! I forgot to turn off the switch!!"
He sprang from the bed and stepped into his slippers, then ran downstairs to the laboratory. The conversation ran back through his head, over and over. "Bubbles has something to tell you."
"Yeah, she did something REALLY stupid this time!"
"Go ahead, Bubbles. Tell him."
"But Professor, Bubbles is tryin' to explain-"
"Bubbles? All I see are two Girls who are in a lot of trouble if they don't let me get some sleep!"
Like all three of them were there in the room with him. He raced into the lab, and sure enough, the 'outflow' switch on his super-generator was in the 'open' position. The power level indicators on each of the series of cylinder-like fuel cells read zero. They were totally drained of the huge supply of electricity he'd built up in them. If one of the Girls had done something..."REALLY stupid", Buttercup had said.
"Bubbles!!!"
He turned and ran, back up the steps from the lab and up to the Girls' room as fast as he could. Fear wasn't the only thing causing his heart to pound madly. There was also the growing thrill of imminent scientific discovery. He was almost certain of what he was going to find. He tore into the room and straight into the bathroom, because that's where he expected to see her. He saw the bathtub full of water, the ruined CD player, the burnt hair clippings. The lingering acrid smell of singed hair and flesh was in the air. He saw a fist-sized hole in the wall near the ceiling that made no sense at all.
What he saw told him everything he suspected except where she was. He hurried out of the bathroom, and that's when he saw her. He cautiously approached the bed, saw the pale skin and the wide-open eyes.
"Bubbles?" He touched her face. She was ice cold. He saw the burn mark on her left hand. The clippings of uniform length on the bathroom floor and her now neat but short hair told him that she hadn't been the one to do it. The scene in his bedroom played itself out in his mind once more, and he tied it all in with what he knew regarding forces of energy. He was on the verge of having proof of one of his major theories concerning the Girls' creation.
Had they been in the room at the moment, the Girls would not have been pleased by what happened next. Especially Bubbles.
"Oh, Bubbles, this is WONDERFUL!"
He scooped her empty shell off the bed and into his arms. She was still stiff as a board as he held her out at arms' length and spun around the room with her in a waltz. The wide eyes and open mouth silently looked back at him.
"Oh, honey, this is INCREDIBLE! You're going to make scientific history!"
He drew her close in a hug and held her out again.
"You're going to be the first person in history to come back from the dead!"
He tucked her sideways under one arm and started to leave the room. He stopped, looked up and grinned sheepishly.
"Ooops, sorry! Make that the second!"