'It's a fine view, isn't it?'

All of Townsville, its lights already twinkling under the leaden sky, seemed encompassed by the wave of Him's claw. A cold wind plucked at the curtains by the open door, pulling them out onto the balcony to wave and flutter like mocking ghosts.

'Do you like the view, Blossom?'

Him was not looking at Townsville when he said these words. In fact, he had his back to the city. Blossom didn't answer. Her head hurt.

'This is your chance, Blossom. You won't get another like it. Time for you to grow up, time for you to stop doing other people's work for them. You can decide now. Think about it for a minute. Think of what you can do.'

Something wasn't right in all this. What Him said made sense, sort of. Yes, she had been constrained by what she thought was the right thing to do, by that constant desire to live up to some half-formed ideal of behaviour, an ideal that had been shaped and informed by what she now knew was a poor, warped template: the Professor. Why should she be held back by that? Yet something didn't work in this vision, something she couldn't quite grasp.

Blossom looked at Him, smiling so sweetly as he leant against the stone balustrade of the balcony. Did he really believe in her? He wasn't joking, there was no hint of humour or deceit in his eyes, just an arrogant look of victory. It seemed he really believed in what he was saying, really believed she had that awesome potential. The prospect he offered her was vast, overwhelming, and yet, strangely, simultaneously meaningless. It wasn't the picture that he painted before her that made her feel giddy, made her head ache, it was the way he was treating her. Sitting there quietly, speaking to her as an adult, treating her like an equal. It was a form of respect she had not anticipated and it was shocking. It didn't seem to matter what he said, what he offered, just that he was here, now, saying it to her. It made her feel as if she'd grown ten feet tall. It made her feel like... like...

It made her feel like she did when the Professor had given her her Christmas present. It made her feel like she did when she rattled off pages of flowing prose to the class at Pokey Oaks, after the faltering attempts of her classmates at spelling out the words painfully one by one, keeping their place on the page with their fingers.

'You could feel like that all the time,' said Him, with a knowing smile.

She wished he wouldn't do that, try to anticipate her thoughts, pretend that he understood her innermost feelings. It irritated her. She hated to be thought of as predictable, as just like anyone else. She was Blossom, she was herself, unique. She hated that smug smile, that piercing stare under heavy eyelids. It suddenly annoyed her that he thought he had got her, a little fly caught in his web. She wasn't a puppet to be manipulated by his saccharine words.

'Maybe I could do it,' she snapped, 'Maybe I could get rid of all the evil in the world. Maybe I could get rid of all the wars and all the criminals and make people live happily with each other.'

'Yes!' exclaimed Him, his eyes glowing red, 'That's right. You could do those things. You could make the world a beautiful place. No more wars, no more crime. Everyone living happily ever after.'

Blossom looked at him, puzzled. She had snapped the words in irritation, yet Him seemed to have misunderstood their intention. He smiled.

'Let's go inside again,' he said.

As they descended the stairs, Blossom was lost in a confusion of thoughts. Could it really be that she, and the others, had misunderstood Him all this time? Had they merely mistaken his knowledge, his understanding of the ways of the world, for evil? Cynical, the Professor had called Buttercup when she had demonstrated that she understood some of the ways of the world; yet, one meaning of 'cynical' was simply sceptical, as Blossom had found when she had looked it up in the dictionary. Being sceptical surely wasn't bad; knowing the ways of people, having eyes open to the reality of the world – had they mistaken these things for evil, been persecuting Him for all the wrong reasons? But then, not long ago, he had tried to make all the citizens of Townsville hate Blossom and her sisters. He had forced the Girls to hurt their loved ones in order to break the spell that he had placed over them. It didn't make any sense.

They entered the yellow room again. It was so beautiful, such a contrast to the cold wind and the low grey clouds that had covered Townsville. It raised Blossom's spirits for an instant. How odd that someone like Him should have a room like this! It was a thought that had occurred to her when she had first entered his house. She had always imagined that he must live in…

Of course! That was what was wrong!

The shock of revelation must have been evident on Blossom's face, for Him turned reflexively to look at her, and for the first time she saw, just for a fraction of a second, a similar look of surprise and confusion pass over his face. He glanced away quickly, and when he turned to look at her again his features had relaxed into their customary knowing, half-mocking expression. He sat down again oh-so-slowly and expansively in one of the big armchairs, and beckoned Blossom to follow suit, but it was a sharp and intense look that he directed at her from beneath his superciliously half-closed eyelids.

Him opened his mouth to speak, but Blossom interrupted.

'Good and evil don't exist. That's right, isn't it?' she said. She smiled at Him, the first genuine smile that had appeared on her face for days.

'That's right,' Him replied, with another smile, 'You see, now you're…'

'Or are they just the same?' interrupted Blossom again.

'The same?' There was no disguising the note of irritation in Him's voice, the flicker of annoyance in his eyes. 'What do…'

'I love this room,' interrupted Blossom a third time. Her heart was pounding, her mind racing with thoughts that seemed to have been bottled up for days only suddenly, now, to burst forth like water through a broken dam. It was here, all the time, in this room! She floated slowly to the window, then to the fireplace, then over to one of the walls, all the while admiring the décor and forcing Him to twist and turn in his chair to follow her with his eyes. 'It's a lovely, pretty colour,' she continued, 'Bubbles would love a room like this!'

'But we weren't talking about the room, were we?' said Him, in an emollient tone that could not quite cover the hard edge to his words, 'We were talking about you, your future.'

'Oh yes,' replied Blossom, 'How I'm going to rid the world of evil and make everyone live happily ever after!'

'If you like. Of course, I didn't actually suggest that…'

'No, you're right. You didn't actually suggest that.'

Blossom sat in the armchair opposite Him, and smiled again. She was shaking with excitement, with the effort of repressing words that threatened to spill uncontrollably from her mouth.

'Good and evil are just the same thing aren't they?' she asked, as calmly as she could.

'I…'

'Oh, you didn't actually say that either, did you?' interrupted Blossom again, 'But you've shown me that's true. Here, anyway. You know, your garden is very ugly. All those dead leaves, and those rattly brown stalks that used to be flowers. You ought to get a gardener.'

'My garden?' exclaimed Him, his eyes briefly flashing red. With a visible effort that made Blossom smile all the more, he regained his composure. 'Blossom,' he continued in a sickly tone, 'you're probably tired. I've given you a lot to think about, and I've been very inconsiderate. I expect you usually have a little nap about this time in the afternoon.'

'Oh, I'm not tired,' said Blossom, brightly, 'In fact, I feel quite wide awake. I expect it's this lovely, sunny room. It's lovely and warm in here, and horrible and grey outside.'

'Yes, yes, so you keep saying. Really, Blossom, I thought you were more grown-up than this. We've got important matters to discuss, and the fact that this room is a pretty colour really is a subject I would expect to discuss with your sister Bubbles, not you.'

'Ah, but Bubbles would like your garden,' replied Blossom, 'Even though the pretty flowers are all dead – or maybe there never were any pretty flowers? – she'd still find things to draw, and little animals to talk to! And Buttercup would like it too, because it's all dark and gloomy and moody and she'd love to play there. And that's why Bubbles and Buttercup aren't here, and I am.'

Him was silent, unmoving, his mouth a thin, hard line across his face, his arms crossed, staring coldly and intently at the little girl who sat smiling at him from the recesses of the big armchair opposite. The game was over.

'Because it's your garden, isn't it, and your room,' continued Blossom, 'One's cold and dark and one's warm and light, but they're both yours. I thought your house would be dark and mean, and I thought you'd hate the light and pretty things, but you don't mind, do you? They're all the same to you. And when I said to you I never thought someone so evil could appreciate beauty, you told me there's no such thing as good and evil. But that was a lie, wasn't it? You had to say that, to stop me thinking about it. You don't believe there's no good and no evil: you just believe they're two sides of the same thing. And you thought you'd get me to believe it, too. Try to do good, and what happens? Sometimes it turns out to be bad. And, I guess, sometimes bad things turn out to be good. The Professor did a bad thing to Simon, but he's done lots of good things since, and he's learnt his lesson…'

'And that makes it all right, does it?' interjected Him, trying his best to restore his sugary smile but succeeding merely in contorting his face into a sneer.

'Don't pretend you care about Simon,' replied Blossom, 'but I know the Professor does, and I'm sure it's changed him.'

'But he still did a bad thing, Blossom, I know you think so.'

'Yes, it's all muddled up,' said Blossom, sadly, looking down at the vivid Art Deco pattern of the carpet, her smile disappearing for a moment as she reflected on the events that had brought her here. She looked up at Him once more. 'I don't know if I'll ever be able to be the same way with the Professor any more. I don't understand what he did or why he did it, and I don't know whether what he did was really right or really wrong: maybe there isn't an absolute Good or an absolute Bad you can measure things against. But I do know this now: it suits you that's it's all muddled up. Because if good and evil are just the same thing, then the only way to avoid doing evil is to do nothing at all. I can see now that's what I've been thinking, underneath, all along. Why do anything, if good things keep turning out to be bad? You'd like that, wouldn't you? People doing nothing? Because that's just a living death, and that's what you feed on.'

'I can't see anyone really doing nothing, can you?' replied Him in a weary, disdainful tone.

'Oh no? "People want guidance". That's what you said, they want to be told what's right and what's wrong. That's true. But there isn't a formula for good and evil. You can't say, "do that, and you'll be good". It's not that simple: you taught me that. Wanting to be good, trying to do the right thing, trying to live in some sort of harmony with other people and the world around you: those aren't passive things, they aren't about just following a rule book, being told what to do so you don't have to think about it – that's just the same as doing nothing. They're things you've got to want to do, and things you've got to think out and work out with other people, and learn for yourself. And, yes, I suppose that means that people will always go wrong and make mistakes, and other people have to try and live with that and pick up the pieces. Maybe it means there'll be bad things in the world and some people won't live happily ever after, but at least we can try and do our best, and not just roll over and die in the name of an easy life. It's called being alive, and being human people, not gods.'

All the words seemed to tumble from her mouth unbidden. Where the inspiration had come from, Blossom could not say: maybe from all those nights agonising over what she and her sisters had been doing; maybe from the tears she had shed over losing her Professor; maybe from the tears she had shed for her Professor.

The last word dropped into a stony silence. The smile had gone from Him's face. So had the supercilious expression, the languorous pose, the half-closed eyelids. In their place was a snarl, a curled lip, and a sneer.

'I see,' he said, the muscles of his face twitching with anger and contempt, 'So you have to learn and make mistakes, do you? Well learn THIS!'

As he roared the last word, he flung out a claw and the television set in the corner once again sprang into life. On the screen, Bubbles and Buttercup were still engaged in combat against some diabolical mechanical contraption of Mojo Jojo's.

'There: your sisters!' screamed Him, his body shaking with maniacal frenzy, 'Not doing too well are they? In trouble. Tiring. I have only to intervene now, and they're finished!'

Again, Him roared out the final word, his eyes red with fury.

'I give you a lesson to learn in your new-found morality, Blossom,' he continued, his voice hoarse with barely suppressed anger, 'Bubbles or Buttercup. Which is it to be? I give you the choice. Whichever one you choose I shall kill. You choose – or else I kill them both!'

Blossom recoiled in horror from the scene of battle shown on the screen. Bubbles was caught in some sort of mechanical pincer, Buttercup being forced back by some form of ray gun. They were both tiring. They had been fighting for – how long? How long had she been here, listening to Him's lies and deception? For how long had she deserted them?

'Don't imagine that attacking me will save your sisters,' crowed Him, 'Touch me and they both die! Make up your mind: Bubbles or Buttercup. Quickly. Painful, isn't it, being alive?'

What could she do? She had upset Him with her fine words, but fine words were valueless, powerless to help her sisters.

'So, Blossom, what's the right thing to do? Better make a choice. At least you can save one of your sisters. Which is it to be? Better think about their qualities. Who do you love the most? Who's going to be the most valuable? Who's going to forgive you the most readily?'

'Buttercup!' screamed Bubbles.

'I… can't… get free,' panted Buttercup, exhausted.

Blossom buried her face in her arms.

'Quite a dilemma,' chuckled Him, 'You know, if you don't hurry, they might both just die anyway. You see, I could even end up saving one of them. What irony!'

Blossom tried to muffle the sound of Bubbles' screams with her arms, but her sister's pain was communicated to her by more direct means than mere senses. She could feel Bubbles' pain, just as she could feel the drain of Buttercup's flagging energies.

'This is your responsibility Blossom. You have the choice. If you want to grope your own way through your pathetic morality, then now's the chance. It's all down to you.' Him laughed triumphantly.

The serrated claws of Mojo's machine were biting into her arms, into Bubbles' arms. The pressure in her head was intolerable, it felt like her teeth were being pushed out from the inside. There was blood in Bubbles' eyes.

It was over. For a moment she had thought that she had escaped Him, even imagined that she had some power over him, but she could see that he still had her. There was no way out, no right solution. She was trapped, trapped by an inexorable logic of evil.

Trapped…

Blossom looked up.

'No,' she exclaimed, shaking her head, 'It's your responsibility. Whatever happens, happens because you want it to. You say, choose which one has to die. I say, choose to let them live. You told me when I got here I was trapped by my ideas of right and wrong and good and evil. Well, maybe, but you're trapped too, and more than I ever was. I say, let them both live – but you can't, can you? You're more trapped by your evil than I ever was by morality. I may go wrong sometimes, but you can never go right. Didn't someone say that evil was banal? Now I know what they mean.'

Him continued to laugh. Bubbles screamed again, and a searing pain shot through Blossom's head. No! She had to focus! She was right, it wasn't her responsibility, Him had the power. She mustn't accept his warped way of looking at things

They think it makes them tough, having nothing to lose. But it doesn't. It just means they've got nothing to live for. That's so sad, it seems like punishment enough.

God, she must be going mad! What a stupid thing to think of now! She'd failed. For her own selfish, conceited reasons she'd left Bubbles and Buttercup to fight Mojo without her. Him was right: it was her responsibility. She had put them there. Against Mojo, they might still hold their own, but against Him too, they had no chance. And she was right again: he would do it, he would kill them, because he couldn't do anything else; he was as trapped by his own evil as any of them. And that was sad. How stupid, to feel sorry for Him!

Something strange had happened. Blossom sensed it, through the pain, some change in the light. Through the blur of tears she could see that the room looked different, not so bright any more. She blinked hard. What was that on the walls? Wallpaper? A sort of green flock wallpaper? She hadn't noticed that before. But it wasn't a pattern: it was a stain, an ugly, green, slimy, spreading stain.

Confused, Blossom looked at Him. He seemed transfixed, staring through her, his claw still outstretched towards the TV set. The TV set! Horror swept over Blossom like an icy wave as she looked at the set again. There was no picture there! In its place was a gaping hole, an evil, unfathomable blackness that seemed to hang in the air like a rent in space itself, like the entrance to another world.

Had he done it? Had he killed them? The shock, the horror, the pain rose inside her, an irresistible pressure bursting inside her head. If he'd hurt them, if he'd touched them…! But no! They were still alive, she could sense them, Bubbles and Buttercup, still fighting, still holding on. She looked at Him again. He was still motionless, his arm still outstretched, and as she looked into his eyes, strangely flat and lifeless, she realised with a jolt that she didn't feel angry with him; this anger wasn't about him, it was about her, about her selfishness and self-pity, about putting her own petty conscience and personal satisfaction ahead of everyone she loved. She wasn't angry with Him, she was angry and ashamed with herself. If anything, she almost felt grateful to him, for opening her eyes to what she had become.

There was a flicker of movement in Him's face. Blossom looked at him and caught a glimpse of… What? Something in his eyes, those crafty, insinuating, knowing eyes. Except that they weren't knowing and crafty now: if anything was written there now, it was bewilderment, a wide-eyed incomprehension that seemed to have taken the light out of them.

There was an enormous crash from outside the room that shattered Blossom's thoughts. She looked around, suddenly aware that her teeth were chattering. The room was freezing cold, a cutting draught blowing through the broken panes of the window. She could see daylight through the ceiling.

'What's happening?' she asked, dazedly, but when she looked across again to where Him had been sitting there was nothing to be seen except a pile of charred timber.

'Hey! What are you doing in there?'

The voice came from behind her. Blossom turned, to see an elderly man peering in through the window.

'This ain't a playground, you know,' said the man.

Blossom looked at him blankly.

'It's dangerous,' he said, leaning further through the window to emphasise his words, 'Place should've been torn down years ago, after the fire. Go on, get off home!'

Almost without thinking, in a sort of automatic deference to an adult, Blossom leapt into the sky, much to the old man's evident astonishment. When she looked down, she could scarcely see Him's house, just a few broken down walls and blackened timbers overgrown with weeds and shrubs.

-oOo-

'Now I have you, little Powerpuffs! Scream all you like, but you cannot escape. I, Mojo Jojo have defeated you. You are beaten, and it is I, Mojo Jojo that is victorious. Now that you are beaten…'

The citizens of Townsville never heard the remainder of Mojo Jojo's typically verbose victory speech, for at that moment the sky was split in two by a lightning flash of pink that grounded on his robot destruction machine, hurling it off its feet and causing it to crash drunkenly into the side of a nearby office building, bringing a horrifying shower of glass down onto the sidewalk beneath. Mojo's ray gun veered crazily skyward, releasing Buttercup from its stupefying power, whilst the monstrous grip of the claw slackened sufficiently to allow Bubbles just enough movement to smash the pincers into a dozen fragments.

Blossom was floating a little way off, watching her sisters. Much as she wanted to go to them, hug them, try, somehow, to tell them how much she loved them, she was yet afraid. Afraid of what they would say, afraid that she could never atone for leaving them.

The two freed girls darted over to where Blossom was floating.

'Blossom!' exclaimed Bubbles, rushing up and hugging her sister tightly, 'We've been worried about you!'

Tears welled up in Blossom's eyes. They were worried about her!

'Yeah, where've you been?' asked a frowning Buttercup, gently taking hold of Blossom's arm, 'We've been to Hell and back here!'

'Funny you should say that,' smiled Blossom, wiping her eyes. 'Just a minute,' she continued, 'There's still Mojo to deal with.'

The force of the crash had thrown Mojo from his cabin inside the robot out onto the road. He was now sitting with his hands in the air, looking down the barrels of a dozen automatic weapons held by police marksmen and surrounded by a hostile crowd that was jeering and cursing. Blossom floated down into the middle of this melée.

'You've done a bad thing, Mojo,' she said.

'I know,' replied Mojo, rather humbly. He flinched a little as Blossom walked over to stand right by him.

'Yes, you really do, don't you?' replied Blossom with a broad smile. With that, she promptly kissed him on the cheek and, with a giggle, rocketed into the sky, leaving an astonished crowd and an astonished Mojo behind her.

Blossom paused when she reached her sisters, who were staring at her wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

'Come on, let's go home,' she said, 'I've got to tell the Professor what I want for Christmas.'

THE END