How strange it was that the earth could seem so hard and closed when its vulnerability painted the memories of all its inhabitants.
War did not rage down there. It crept and it crawled down there, its savagery akin to a disease that not one soul knew how to cure.
Force. Science. Faith. Hope. Trust. Pixie dust. Earth’s mightiest heroes wielding earth’s mightiest weapons did little to impede the hostile takeover.
Mortality was always on Blossom’s mind. The reality of loss had hit her hard and fast like a shooting star; not just losing those around her, but her own eventual decay had become far too pressing. She had always had the sense to comprehend that being ultra-superhuman wasn’t the same as being invincible, but one close call after another chinked the armoured skin she so proudly wore.
Strong would never be strong enough. Smart would never be smart enough. Fast would never be fast enough when everyone, everywhere, would end.
She supposed it was that lack of permanence that had convinced Blossom to abandon her post in the end. Sleepless nights turned days into tar pits that bled into each other and consumed her, and for all her meticulous planning, she was one giant step behind the chaos that none of them could seem to quell. It was only once she had left the sanctity of Sector V for the first time in Liberty Belle-knew how long, only once she’d thrown responsibility out with her tattered aspirations, that Blossom realized she had lost herself to the war long, long ago.
Buttercup had been the start. Maybe. If Blossom was honest, she’d been paling long before that. Though the separation hurt her more than her own selfishness at feeling it, leaving the reunited trinity of her family at least put things in perspective.
Whether it was a solution Blossom was looking for, or perhaps some inspiration to call to arms once more, it was only allowing space for her wounds to breathe that they could begin to heal, and she could be born anew.
It had been months. Months and months. No one had come looking. If they had, then Blossom could take pride in being exceptionally difficult to recover. It felt strange gliding back through Pokey Oaks as though she’d never left it, her home’s once quaint and tranquil normality marred by lesions upon the ground and reanimation seething like parasites.
Maybe she’d been declared missing in action. Maybe her absence hadn’t been noted at all. Maybe Blossom’s genetic identification to DexLabs had been wiped entirely from the system, and, for all intents and purposes, she was dead to the cause and to her friends. How many of them had truly fallen during her absence? How many faces would Blossom have to scrounge and save to remember now for their absence among her friends?
Would they still be her friends… or would they be changed people, as changed as she was? It was enough to make Blossom consider about-facing right then and there and launching herself into the cosmos.
But Blossom was bold and brave. She would face them. What was left of them.
She wondered where her feet would hurt the least to land, whether her own former home was hallowed ground now that she’d all but ousted herself from the front lines. It would almost be a betrayal to the familial bond that Blossom had so casually forsaken; oh, how it would ache.
There was the Treehouse. DexLabs. Familiar places filled with familiar people and the old routine of grin-and-bear-and-bandage-though-your-heart-is-about-to-shatter. Those would be the most hostile… places where Blossom would not only have to confront those she’d abandoned, but her own reasoning for abandoning them, too.
It’d be like ripping a bandaid; she’d endured worse pain. She’d inhaled Fusion matter and felt it rip its way through her, reversing the complex chemistry that held her together, yet Blossom’s nausea was incomparable.
Bandaid. Brave. Bold. Blossom, go.
She didn’t have her communicator anymore. She’d left it on her desk with no more than her lip gloss and her well-worn hair bow. But Blossom wondered all the same if she was worthy of global positioning as she glided effortlessly towards the Treehouse.
She felt a difference in the air here. It was harder to breathe… but re-adapting would be a process best taken in small steps.
“I’m home. And reporting for duty."
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