Newb World Order
By: Matthew Charran
Chapter 1
The City of Townsville. Ahh, what a beautiful Saturday morning today! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and…
"BOOM HEADSHOT!"
… Buttercup is playing online video games apparently. Inside the Utonium household, sitting in the computer room was Buttercup playing the online video game, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
"HAHA, GET R-E-K-T, NOOB!" She cackled over the microphone to her online opponents. Being as loud as she was, Blossom and Bubbles heard her shenanigans from their upstairs bedroom and floated downstairs over to the computer room door to investigate.
"Buttercup, are you all right?" Bubbles asked from the outside.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOO!" Buttercup screamed from the room. Bubbles held her hands over her mouth with fear from hearing her sister's reply. Blossom was skeptical though and just figured it was a prank or something else blown out of proportion. Blossom opened the door and slowly peeked her head in to see what all the noise was about. She immediately had an annoyed look on her face seeing her sister playing the video game and overreacting.
"Ugh, it's just Buttercup playing that stupid game." She said to Bubbles. Buttercup had overheard what she said and took off her headset to argue back with her.
"HEY! IT'S NOT A STUPID GAME. It's one of the greatest online first-person shooter games ever made!" She argued.
"Yeah… sure… playing violent video games are definitely not addicting, or a complete waste of time that don't make you a borderline psychopath." Blossom said sarcastically.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Buttercup asked angrily. "If you think video games cause addiction, promote violence, and are a complete waste of time, then you are out of your mind."
Blossom floated out of the room irritated. "Whatever, c'mon Bubbles, let's go."
"Okay I'll be right over." Bubbles said to her. Bubbles watched Blossom leave the room; down the hallway, off into the living room. Buttercup put her headphones back on and resumed her game. Bubbles floated into the room and stayed behind Buttercup watching her clicking around on the menus.
"Watcha playing?" She asked her.
"Counter-Strike." Buttercup said without looking at her.
"So it's a violent game?" Bubbles asked curiously.
"Yes Bubbles, it's pretty violent." Buttercup replied.
"Oh." Bubbles said. "Well, I'm not into those kind of games, but I'm not a complete anti-gamer like Blossom. I love Nintendo games! Like Super Mario, Pokémon, Kirby, Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda, just to name a few."
Buttercup turned back and smiled at her sister. "Wow, that's really cool Bubbles." She said in amazement. "Nintendo's games are timeless, that's for sure!"
"Haha, you know it! We should get a game of Mario Kart later on, maybe even some Smash Bros? I bet I could beat your butt!" Bubbles smirked.
"Oh, you're on!" Buttercup said back. "There's also that game called Splatoon. It's really cool!"
"Oh yeah! That one is really fun. You're a kid now, you're a squid now!" Bubbles laughed.
Buttercup laughed along with her at the joke for a few moments. With that, Bubbles waved bye to her sister and left the room. Buttercup was happy that she could share her gaming passion with someone else close to her. She loved video games ever since the Professor bought them a Nintendo 64. The Professor, himself, loved old arcade classics like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong. Buttercup always stayed up to date with all the latest and greatest in the world of gaming. It was also a place where she could easily vent her frustration out on. If she had a hard day, she would just tune out her anger and stress over a great video game. Did bad on a school test? Rescue the Princess. Had trouble fighting a monster attacking the city? Frag some noobs online. Got into an argument with her sisters? Speech skill level increased for her role playing character. Not being biased over any specific game platform, and having equal love towards the modern and the classics, Buttercup was a truly passionate gamer.
Bubbles loved video games just as equally as her sister. She wasn't a diehard, hardcore gamer like her, but she was a fan of Nintendo and enjoyed playing their games a lot. Couch co-op in Super Mario was so much fun; the game play and story of The Legend of Zelda was always such a rich and wonderful experience, and spending hours, upon hours getting lost in the worlds of Animal Crossing and Pokémon were so intriguing. Bubbles even liked to take her art to into virtual worlds. On her 3DS, she would create her best drawings possible. She even started animating them to make them seem more lifelike and real in her eyes. Bubbles was an average lover of video games, with Nintendo games being her favorite.
Blossom wasn't a complete anti-gamer. She enjoyed simple games, mostly on mobile devices like Angry Birds or Candy Crush. The real reason why Blossom never got big into playing video like her sisters was because she wasn't particularly good at understanding them and how to play them. She also didn't want to look stupid in front of Buttercup, who was the video game expert in the family, and felt jealous of her for that. So, most of the time when Bubbles and Buttercup were playing a game together, she would be reading or studying, completely oblivious to their actions.
In the depths of the underworld, the lair of the most wretched, fowl, horrible, nasty, wicked, and evil creature lived… Him… Him was sitting down at his computer desk while platforms of broken land and background images flashed of random sequences around him. On his computer screen was the video game DOOM, as it was one of his favorite games to play. A classic first-person shooter, where demons from hell take over the planet Mars and it's up to a lone space marine to take them down.
"TAKE THAT, AND THIS AND THAT!" Him yelled in rage over the game. "THE CHAINSAW IS COMING FOR YOU WRETCHED CREATURES!"
In the game, the main character's chainsaw cut into a demon and was instantly killed before he could attack. The character proceeded to rampage through a horde of demon monsters until he made it to the exit door of the level, hit the switch, and the results screen popped up.
"Ah, yes, another speed run record broken by me." Him said deviously. "Those fools online could only beg to be as good as I am at video games. Now, let's play a little Counter-Strike before I continue with my evil deeds. I want to rank up today and with this new aimbot program I installed that is undetectable and untraceable, nobody will be able to stop me!"
Him switched his game over to Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and started searching for a match.
Back at the Utonium household, Buttercup was just finishing up her own match.
"BAM! SIT DOWN NOOB!" She yelled excitedly into her microphone. Her match was over with a score of 16-13.
"Counter-Terrorists win." The in-game announcer said.
"Alright, let's get another game going. I am on fire today!" Buttercup clicked to find a match and quickly readied up.
"Ready. Let's roll." The announcer said.
De_Dust2 loaded. The warm up round began. "Time to show these noobs who's boss." Buttercup and Him said at the same time.
The two of them didn't know at first, but they were on the same team for the counter-terrorist side. Buttercup opened up the buy menu and bought an M4A1 with suppressor to practice her shots. Him didn't do anything in-game at that moment, but was instead loading up his aimbot hack. With a wide smile on his face, he engaged the computer console commands and started typing into the command list.
"Aimbot has loaded. Wall hacks are up, now let the fun begin!" Him cackled loudly to himself. Him turned on his voice chat and began speaking in-game. The computer screen displayed the online ID, 'His Infernal Majesty' as he spoke.
"Hello team! This game is going to be so much fun! I wish the best of luck to all of you and hope that we can all have a wonderful time!" Him said in his usual soft voice.
Buttercup listened to the voice through her headset and had an awkward expression on her face the entire time. The screen displayed the online ID, 'XxButt3Rmyb1scuitsxX' as she spoke. "Ugh, is this guy alright in the head?" She asked in the voice chat.
The screen displayed the name '2Fuzzy2Furious' as this person spoke. "Yeah, he seems a bit messed up. Acting way too nice for an online video game." They said.
The screen displayed another name going by 'The OG Green Gangsters' as they spoke. "Probably forgot to take his medication." The other person said.
The screen displayed yet another name simply called 'Dex' as this person spoke. "Perhaps he has been playing for too long and is in need of some proper rest to rehabilitate his mind and body." This person said.
The screen displayed one more name going by 'MOJOISDABEST' as this final person spoke. "Who cares what he says! Just listen to me and everything will be in good hands. I have an expertly crafted plan that only I could come up with to win, so therefore, everyone should be listening to me and what I have to say, if they want to win. Furthermore I..."
"Dude, shut up." Buttercup bellowed. "Nobody is going to listen to your rambling with a stupid name like that."
"HOW DARE YOU! My name is not reflective to my skill and intelligence level, which I bet greatly surpasses yours!" The anonymous person with the name 'MOJOISDABEST' argued back with Buttercup.
"Whatever man, you probably suck at the game and can't aim for poop! That's why your ranking is silver and mine is Gold Nova. NOOB!" She argued back.
"I AM BETTER AT THIS GAME IN MY SLEEP THAN YOU PROBABLY ARE!" They continued arguing.
"YEAH RIGHT! I could play the game with my feet and while asleep and still be better than you!" Buttercup argued again.
The bickering between the two started to annoy Him as he listened to their rambling. The other players on the team joined in to argue with them as well. Finally, Him had had enough of it.
"SHUT UP AND LISTEN TO ME YOU INSIGNIFICANT PIECES OF FILTH!" He shouted in his menacing voice. Everyone on the team went silent. The warmup round ended and the real match was starting. Soon the pistol round had loaded up in a couple of seconds. While everyone was in the buy menu at spawn, Him started speaking again. "Now, nobody here has to worry about anything because I have a little surprise for the enemy team. All you have to do is go along with it, and you'll get an easy win out of it, alright?" Him said deviously.
This guy is a hacker! Buttercup thought. A no good, sleazy cheater that is gonna ruin the game. The thing is though, he is on our team, so he could get us an easy win. No! It isn't right. I don't care if it's an easy win. It's not fair, and not fun for the other team or us. He's going to ruin the fun for everybody.
The pistol round began. Nobody had said a word yet, until Buttercup finally spoke up.
"LISTEN YOU GUYS! Don't fall for this dirtbag! He's probably got an aimbot and wall hacks on. He's going to cheat!"
WHY THAT UNGREATFUL LITTLE... Him thought. Nevermind, they know my secret now. I'll have to improvise. Hmm... wait I've got it! A little threatening should do the trick.
Him spoke into his microphone. "Well, you already figured out my game, have you? No need to fret. Yes, I do in fact have some hacks loaded up as we speak, but mind you, if you say or do anything... I WILL EXPOSE YOU, GET INTO YOUR SYSTEM, CORRUPT IT AND SHUT IT DOWN, PERMANENTLY." Him growled.
"YEAH RIGHT!" Buttercup argued back. "You're just trolling. No way can you actually do that nonsense."
"Wanna bet?" Him asked.
"I bet your account will be banned from CSGO servers in a few minutes." Buttercup replied.
"Fine, have it your way." Him said.
The monitor displayed 'His Infernal Majesty' has left the game.
"HAHA! WHAT A LIGHTWEIGHT!" Buttercup mocked. "Sayonara sucker! C'mon everyone, report him still anyway so that he gets permanently banned."
"Wow, good job getting rid of that guy." '2Fuzzy2Furious' said.
"Yeah, that hacker dude thinks he's all cool and what not. What an idiot." 'The OG Green Gangsters' said.
"XxButt3Rmyb1scuitsxX, do you think he was bluffing or is he actually going to try to cause internal damage to your machine?" 'Dex' asked.
"No way dude. That nerd can't touch this beauty. Probably some pimple-faced dork that has too much free time on his hands." Buttercup responded.
"Yes, yes, good job getting him out, but now we have lost an extra team-mate, that surely would have benefited us in winning!" 'MOJOISDABEST' said.
"So what if we lost an extra team-mate? I like to play and win my matches fairly, with skill and tactics. Not with a program built to do it automatically." Buttercup said.
"Now come on everyone, focus. Let's do this..."
Him backed out of the match and got a temporary suspension for quitting. He quickly dismissed it though, and went to his desktop to use an IP tracker tool to locate XxButt3Rmyb1scuitsxX's location. Once he had found it, he used special software to obtain their IP address, take control of the person's computer, and send a DDOS to interrupt their Internet connection and make them lag out of the game.
"Let's see what information I can get on this person. Hmm... Aha, here we go. This person lives in... TOWNSVILLE? Hold on a minute." Him looked through the readings and came up with a proper result. "According to the information listed here, this person resides in Townsville at this specific address... I remember mailing a gift to this address before. It was for... a birthday party." Him smirked. "Well, well, well, I should've known all along that of course, 'she' would be the one big into video games."
Meanwhile, Buttercup was in the middle of her match and everything was going pretty smoothly.
"B-Tunnels clear! Going down to check mid doors." She said into her mic.
However, out of nowhere, her game froze on her.
"HEY!" She yelled in frustration, slamming her fist on the desk. "FREAKIN LAG!"
She waited to see if the connection would re-establish, but she was out of luck. She quit the game and went to the desktop. "GRRRRRRR, WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO THIS THING!" She growled.
After checking the network connection, she saw it was unstable, so she went ahead and started to repair the connection. "Out of all times for that to happen..." Buttercup said to herself. Once the connection was back up and running, she logged back into Steam and to her surprise, she received a friend request from 'His Infernal Majesty.'
"YOU!" She shouted. "That's it pal! You're getting reported."
She went to their profile to report them for violations of code of conduct, but was suddenly stopped by something.
The mouse cursor had been taken control over by someone else. "WHAT THE?!" Buttercup said, surprised.
The cursor instead hovered over 'accept friend request' and proceeded to click it. The screen now displayed 'His Infernal Majesty' as Buttercup's friend. "WHAT'S GOING ON?!" Buttercup demanded.
The mouse cursor exited Steam and opened up Skype. It started dialing in an unknown number to Buttercup and called it. "666-666-666?" Buttercup said confused. "Who the heck has a number like that?"
The other person picked up and Buttercup finally got a glimpse of who was the one causing her all the problems.
"Hello Buttercup, or should I say... XxButt3Rmyb1scuitsxX. What kind of name is that anyway?"
"HIM! YOU'RE THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS!"
"Right you are, my dear." Him said.
"Wait a minute... you like to play video games?" Buttercup asked.
"Yes, I do love to play Counter-Strike and other first-person shooter games quite a lot actually. I'm also a big fan of RTS, puzzle games, simulation, open world, and RPGs." Him responded.
"Oh man, the name 'His Infernal Majesty', the unsettling voice. I should've known! Wait... you're a hacker as well?"
"It's a spare time hobby." Him said. "You know Buttercup, these games are quite too mature for you, if I do say so myself. You could meet some very harsh and nasty individuals playing these games online."
"YOU'RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME!" Buttercup protested.
"Just some friendly word of advice, and by the way, the office looks a bit cluttered back there. You should probably get to cleaning it up."
Buttercup suddenly realized she still had the webcam turned on. Oh crud! No wonder he can see me and my surroundings.
She quickly covered it up with a sheet, but remained on the chat with Him.
"What's the matter Buttercup? It's just me. Aren't I your friend? There's no need to be afraid."
"I'm not afraid of you, Him." Buttercup said confidently. "You have to resort to using hacks and cheating just to win in an online video game. How pathetic is that?"
"I DO NOT USE HACKS ALL THE TIME! I CAN BEAT YOU IN A VIDEO GAME LEGETIMATELY, ANYTIME." Him shouted.
"Even in real life, I can still whoop your butt. As a matter of fact, I could go to your place and whoop your butt right now if I wanted to." Buttercup mocked.
"I see you have mighty high confidence in yourself Buttercup. Tell you what. How about we play a little game ourselves?" Him asked.
"Alright, let's see how really good your actual skills are Him. Your call, pick any game and I'll destroy you in it."
"Oh don't worry, I have the perfect game for us to play..."
Blossom and Bubbles were busy playing in their room. Blossom was on a laptop doing some 'research' of watching funny cat videos online and Bubbles was drawing some animals on her Nintendo 3DS. All of a sudden they heard a loud scream come from downstairs.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Bubbles gasped, covering her mouth in fear once again.
"I wouldn't be so hasty Bubbles. It's most likely just her acting up again from the video game." Blossom told her.
"NONONONONONONO! GIRLS, COME QUICK!"
"She's in trouble!" Bubbles said, and rushed downstairs to her sister's aid.
"She probably just wants to brag about her score to us or something." Blossom joked as she rolled her eyes and slowly floated out of the room and down the stairs. When she arrived however, it was a completely different scene than what she expected. The computer screen was flashing repeatedly and was displaying random message boxes and pop-ups everywhere.
"Oh man, the Professor's gonna kill me!" Buttercup said.
Bubbles stood floating behind Buttercup, unsure what to do. Buttercup noticed Blossom arrived and turned towards her to ask her for help. "Bloss! Help me please! The computer got infected by a virus and I don't know how to get rid of it!" Buttercup said in a panicky state.
"This is your fault Buttercup; I'm not going to take responsibility for your actions." Blossom told her.
"PLEASE BLOSSOM! PLEASE!" Buttercup begged. I'll, I'll do your chores for a month."
"Hmm... I'll have to think about it." Blossom said.
"PLEASE BLOSSOM, I'M BEGGING YOU! I DON'T WANT TO GET GROUNDED!" Buttercup wailed.
"Fine, but on one condition... you quit playing those dumb video games." Blossom said.
"WHAT? ARE YOU INSANE? VIDEO GAMES ARE APART OF MY LIFE!" Buttercup said.
"Only temporarily, then when you kick your addiction, you can go back to them." Blossom explained.
Buttercup's mind was telling her to instantly say no to her, but she would risk getting in big trouble from the Professor. Finally, she cracked.
"ALRIGHT FINE! I'll take a break from playing too much. JUST FIX THE STUPID THING!" Buttercup yelled.
"With pleasure. Just give me a sec." Blossom said. She flew out of the room and came back with a USB stick and plugged it into the computer's port. She went on the computer and quickly started to clear the numerous pop-ups on screen.
"Now I just need to run this anti-virus software and it should clear everything out. I learned it from the Professor."
"Great job Blossom!" Bubbles commended her sister.
"Yeah... great job." Buttercup said sarcastically, unamused by her sister's actions. "Wait a minute, you missed one!"
The computer screen displayed a single message box with the statement 'Would you like to restart?' It had two options, one on the left asking 'no' and the right asking 'yes.'
"Would you like to restart? No." Blossom said, as she clicked the 'no' option. The screen displayed another message saying 'Are you sure?'
"Are you sure?" Blossom repeated. "Yes." She said as she clicked 'yes' this time.
The screen then displayed an error message saying 'The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application.'
"What the heck?! That's not supposed to happen!" Blossom said, as she tried to click 'OK', only for the box not to close.
Suddenly, the screen turned black and the computer shut off instantly.
The girls stared at it in disbelief for a couple seconds, until Buttercup spoke up.
"You, YOU BROKE IT!" Buttercup yelled.
"I DID NOT!" Blossom yelled back.
"DID TOO!"
"DID NOT!"
"DID TOO!"
"DID NOT!"
As Blossom and Buttercup were arguing, Bubbles looked back at the computer monitor and saw it began to glow a bright blue-ish white color. The glow continued to grow bigger and bigger, as if it were coming out of the screen towards her.
"IF IT WEREN'T FOR YOUR STUPID GAME, THIS WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Blossom shouted.
"YEAH, BUT YOU WERE STUPID ENOUGH NOT TO KNOW THAT THERE WAS ONE POP-UP LEFT THAT THE ANTI-VIRUS DIDN'T PICK UP!" Buttercup rebutted.
"GIRLS! LOOK!" Bubbles shouted, as she moved the chair for them to see the monitor.
The three of them stared in awe at the screen. "What the heck?" Buttercup said. "That can't be normal."
"I've never seen anything like this at all when dealing with computers." Blossom said.
The glowing light extended further out of the screen and flashed brightly at the girls as they shielded their eyes. The glow now rested upon their entire bodies. A portal suddenly opened up from the screen, with the glow now bright as ever. The girls looked down at themselves and saw parts of their bodies were being digitally materialized.
"WHA... WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" Bubbles screamed in fear.
"I... I DON'T KNOW!" Buttercup stammered.
"WE'RE BEING SUCKED INTO THE COMPUTER!" Blossom yelled.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The three of them screamed in fear, as they struggled from the force of the portal.
In a matter of seconds, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup's bodies had been fully materialized and were sucked into the portal from the computer. The glowing light faded and the portal closed up, leaving the office in a mess with papers scattered all over the floor and furniture tossed to the side.
END OF CHAPTER 1
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey everyone! Matthew here. I would just like to thank-you for reading my story and I hope you enjoyed it so far! Video games are a huge part of my life. Ever since I was 5 I played Super Mario Bros on the original Nintendo, that my Dad owned and gave to me. I've always wanted to do a story of something with video games and Powerpuff Girls related. This idea just popped in my head one day, and I stuck with it ever since. The girls get caught in a video game world and they go through different levels based on famous video games to escape was my original intent with this fic. There are going to be tons of video game references in this fic, that mostly gamers would know, but even if you don't play video games, I can always explain it to you at end of the chapter.
Some clarification: So, when I was thinking of how to apply the concept of video games and the Powerpuff Girls, it was pretty difficult at first, but I thought it through and came up with a pretty good idea. The girls would all have different personalities on what types of video games they prefer and like to play. Buttercup would be the "hardcore gamer." She loves video games to death, and it's one of her favorite past times. Him is also a "hardcore gamer" in this story, and thinks he's the greatest video game player in the world. (But, he really isn't XD) Bubbles would be the "average gamer." She does it for fun and in her spare time. She also only sticks to one specific area of interest: Nintendo games. Blossom would be the casual gamer. (Not an anti-gamer like what bubbles referred to her as in the story. That's a person who despises video games entirely.) "Casual gamers" are gamers who primarily play casual games, but can also refer to gamers who play less frequently than other gamers. Casual gamers may play games designed for ease of gameplay, or play more involved games in short sessions, or at a slower pace than hardcore gamer. So, the reason why Blossom is acting out against her video game loving sisters, is that she doesn't want to admit she sucks at video games, so she pretends not to like them. As she is transported into the virtual world however, her perception of games may have to change, in order for her to adapt.
Trivia:
-I was heavily inspired by "Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase" when making this.
-I use a lot of gamer lingo in the fanfic, such as "rekt" or "noob" for comedic purposes.
- "Counter-Strike" is a first-person shooter game series created by Valve software and was first released back in 2000. It was originally a mod for the game, "Half-Life." The game is a team-based tactical shooter where two teams consisting of Terrorists and Counter-terrorists compete against one another. In 2012 Valve released "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive," where in future updates it became one of the most competitive and popularly played online video games in the world. The map known as "de_dust2" is one of the most widely known and famous video game map ever created.
- Doom is one of the original first-person shooter games ever made, that helped popularize the genre.
- A lot of the Nintendo franchises that Bubbles talked about are also huge personal favorites of mine.
- I actually did a bit of research and used some of my own knowledge about Him's entire hacking scheme.
- The online names of the characters are indeed the characters who you would think they are. (I.e. Fuzzy Lumpkins, Ace from the Greengang Gang, Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory, and Mojo Jojo were all playing that online match with Buttercup and Him.)
- Reference to the PPG episode "Birthday Bash" when Him was talking about the party he sent a gift to before.
- Him's online name and phone number on Skype are references to... well... Him, himself. The Devil.
- I thought of a random funny name to give Buttercup for her online persona, like a traditional nerdy online name with 'X's' at the beginning and end. XD
- RTS and RPG stand for "real-time strategy" and "role-playing game."
Final brief: So, the girls have been transported through the computer into a cyber world. What lies upon their arrival, you may ask? What does Him have up his sleeve, err, claw for the three of them? You'll find out in the next chapter. Once again, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned for more and check out my other fanfic "Same As It Never Was" on my profile, if you like!
Thanks all...
-GoldMatt 007, Matthew