Blueberry

by ChakiChakiGirl

A new Powerpuff Z Girl makes the scene and boy, is she full of surprises!

1. Chapter 1

Blueberry

by Dee Eon

Foreword:

Blueberry origins: I fell in love with the two cute artist renderings of "Bunny" by Kjbionicle on the "To The Z!" web page and on Yuji Battakun's PPGZ site, and so I imagined a blended alternate character for it that'd uniquely bring the PPGZ into a racy pop aspect of amine it oddly hasn't touched. My anime fanzine addict brother turned my fancy into a piece of collaborative fiction. I welcome critiques and for someone to put this to a comic, but foremost, enjoy.

Dee Eon dot mac

--

"Where did you say, professor??" Akatsutsumi Momoko asked in the lab when she and Miyako and Kaoru arrived.

"Just wanted to know whether any of you have been doing any unauthorized travel around South America," asked Professor Utonium.

"South America??" Momoko said, puzzled. "But we've never even flown near there!"

"Nevertheless, it's come to my attention almost by accident reports that at least one of you have been sighted around Rio DeJaneiro and Buenos Aires and points south. In fact for quite a while."

"That's crazy!" Kaoru said with a snicker. "We don't even speak Spanish!"

"Actually, it's mostly Portuguese with heavy Italian influence in this province, mixed in with German and Dutch," Ken informed.

Momoko asked, "So what do you know professor?"

"The reports are very sketchy because this being doesn't tend hang around after good deeds and take autographs like some do. In fact these sightings are always so sudden and brief no one's even a close description much less a photograph, but what identification there is almost fits you girls to a 'T', that being a girl wearing a violet Powerpuff uniform, though the more keen eyed male witnesses tend to describe her as being a little more - er, developed."

"It's gotta be a joke!" Kaoru scoffed. "There's no one else but us!"

"At least in this era," Momoko added.

"Yes! I would know!!" Peach squeaked.

"Not necessarily," the professor continued. "After all, it just might simply be too far for you to detect more white energy! There's a whole planet between these two points."

"And Buenos Aires is about as from Tokyo City as you can get!" added Ken.

"But all the white lights have been accounted for since you found out about the fifth!" Momoko said.

"I know, that's the puzzle." Utonium said, pacing, "Also, there're no reports of monsters or super villains in South America like Mojo or Fuzzy to blame any black light activity on which usually results in the city wrecking battles and widespread havoc and devastation you three engage in while taking a monster down."

Momoko smirked. "Thanks Professor."

"Nothing personal. Instead, these sightings seem to occur at small minor incidents."

Miyako asked. "What kind of 'small incidents,' professor?"

"Small things like car accidents, zoo breakouts, bank robberies, kids who've fallen down wells, things like that."

"How long's this been going on, professor?" asked Kaoru.

"From what I could discern, almost a year."

Momoko was astonished. "Why haven't we heard this long ago??"

"Because these sightings are so brief and caught by so few, the police just log the sightings in an "X" file. It was just by chance our trouble scan computer's Google search found them in the new South American index."

Miyako wondered aloud, "Bank robberies. Animals escaping from zoos. Kids who fall in wells. It doesn't sound like stuff monsters are into to start with."

"Yea," Kaoru said. "Sounds like this violet UFO's just doing Girl Scout duty, not monster control."

"True, still, we've long suspected that though Kare's made Japan his home, he's definitely been around more places around the world, so there is a chance of spores being active in places we can't detect."

"And without Kare around to rule them maybe they're just lying low," Ken suggested. "We know they're lots of quiet monsters out there with regular jobs like Sakurako-san."

"Yea, wimps in hiding, not standouts like Mojo!" Kaoru put in. "Gotta give the monkey some credit for taking his lumps and bouncing back or it'd get real boring 'round here!"

Momoko nodded. "So you want us to investigate it, professor?"

"Yes. This sighting might well be a ploy by a new type of monster or even Kare's quietly returned from space somehow to cause mischief with your reputations to turn people against you. Odd thing is, there's no reports of anything bad about you all there at all."

"Doesn't seem to make sense," Momoko said.

"Right, that's when I worry when I don't know what villains are up to! Since you'll be away for a day or two get your standard permissions from your parents first."

Kaoru chuckled. "Gee, you'd think our folks would've wondered by now why we spend so much time being here – even at nights."

Miyako said, "Silly! Because they think the Professor's tutoring us for school."

"I know that, ditz! I meant sometimes we don't come home over for whole days and nights – and they don't even call here to check how we're doing."

Momoko shrugged. "I guess they're so pleased by the marks Miss Kean gives us that they don't care!"

"But we have to care about Kare!" Miyako tittered. "Care about Kare! Get it?"

Kaoru snickered. "Don't quit being a day student, Madonna."

- - -

The trio leisurely skimmed over the still South Pacific and the roughed snow-capped Andes and the flat brown pampas of southern South American in a half hour and soon dodged jetliners approaching a harbor metropolis.

"Look! Rio!" Buttercup called. "Just like in our school videos! Sugarloaf Mountain!"

"It's really just a big rock!" Blossom sighed with great disillusionment.

Suddenly their compacts beeped and pulsated. "Hey – look! Our compacts!" Bubbles said.

"The alert signal!" Buttercup quizzically noted, "But they shouldn't be doing that! We're way out of range from the lab!"

"Can't blame the professor," Blossom stressed, "He hacked our compacts into phones the best he could since he barely knows how they work anyway."

"So what's making them do this?" Bubbles asked.

"I know! Let's follow the signal!" Blossom said, flying in a circle till they found the strongest pulsating direction and flew south far outside the city along the coast.

Bubbles said, "Gee, we're flying fast and we're still no closer what's causing the signal."

"Must be awfully strong," Buttercup noted, firming herself up. "I think we can handle it, though."

"Diplomacy first, Buttercup!" admonished Blossom. "We're visitors, remember?"

"Hey, what city's that?" Bubbles said, pointing out a sprawling metropolis.

"Buenos Aries," Blossom said. "Look, there's Avenida 9 de Julio! Remember last month's lesson?"

"Oh yea, the widest street in the world, right?"

"They've got great Italian restaurant here I remember, and some Japanese ones too."

"Yea, that reminds me; we've been flying a long time," Buttercup hinted, rubbing her tummy just as their compacts emitted a long beep.

"It's way over there, those far hills!" Blossom cried steering southwest,

Suddenly a meteoric violet streak swooped across the horizon far ahead of them, momentarily taking the trio aback.

"Wow!!" Buttercup said. "What's that??"

"Look how fast it's going!" gasped Bubbles. "Is it a hawk? Is it a jet?"

Buttercup snickered. "Enough reinventioning, please?"

"It's headed for that forest! Com'on!!" Blossom said, soaring into the thick forests and landing under a canopy of trees.

Buttercup said, "Wow! It's wild under here!"

Bubbles pointed beyond a clearing; "What's that?"

The others turned to see a towering growling half-ape half-bear thing cornering a group of terrified campers cowering in a hollow under a cliff.

"What the frig is that??" Buttercup said.

"I haven't the slightest nightmare!" Blossom said.

Bubbles gasped. "It has a black aura!"

Buttercup clucked and reached behind for her mallet which made Bubbles materialize her bubble wand in unison. "It's clobbering time!"

Blossom pulled her back. "Wait! Look!" she said, pointing up to see descending through the trees like a floating bubble a slender leggy girl about fourteen or so in a curvy violet Powerpuff uniform with a violet heptagon cameo on her choker, her platinum-blond poodle ears roiling over her slim shoulders like twin silvery veils down to her slim elbows.

The trio gasped in awe. "Wow!!"

Buttercup wistfully shook her head. "Nice curves."

Bubbles breathlessly breathed, "She's – breathless!!"

"Huh!" Blossom chaffed, "Coming from you that's a heck of a compliment."

The girl in violet landed between the beast and the campers and brandishes her hand at the startled group to scram – which they did without any encouragement like bats out of hell.

"You again!!" The beast angrily roared like a dog growling at its food being taken away. "Haven't you dredged the bottom of your bag of tricks yet, little girl? Or maybe I've already adapted to all you've got! Let's see!!" and the beast shot a stream of eye-fire at the girl in violet.

"Watch out!!" Bubbles impulsively cried out just as the violet girl swiftly held out and cupped her hands together then opened them up like a clam and a bright glowing boomerang sprang out which whirled like a spinning fan shield before her, bouncing the beam back at the cringing beast to singe and smoke its fur.

Impressed, Buttercup nodded. "Cool tactics too!"

Staggering back, the beast recovered, red eyes glaring. "Curse you!" it hissed like a roaring lion deep a well, "The day will come when I have a piece of you, little maid! I will devour that soft luscious body with relish and it will be slow dining! So deliciously slow to savor your every scream and whine and cry for mercy!!"

It grabbed up a boulder and flung it at the girl who deftly dodged it light as a hummingbird then waved her bright boomerang toward the beast to first knock it on the head then circled it – all the while shining a white bright light at it.

"AGGGGGGHHHHHH!!"

The beast howled and shrank, shrank, shrank as a stream of black spores escaped it and borrowed deep into the ground and the boomerang dissolved in mid-air.

Blossom shook her head in fascination. "Wow! White energy as a weapon!"

"She's got that much to spare??" Bubbles said, watching the girl approach the now normal timid raccoon and knelt to gently pet it's smoking pelt then she suddenly started and stood up as the trio came out.

"Don't be scared," Blossom diplomatically began and the girl, composing from surprise suddenly looked abashed then zoomed off.

"Hey wait! We just want to talk!" Blossom cried in pursuit.

"Wow, she's fast!" Bubbles exclaimed.

"And shy!" Buttercup remarked. "We must've really spooked her, else it's my hair."

"Let's not make her think we're ganging up on her. If she turns that white light on us, it's a long way down," Blossom said, apprehensively.

"She won't do that," Bubbles confidently said. "See how gentle she was with that monster? She didn't even punch it!"

"I noticed that," Buttercup said, curious. "I mean we usually get one or two licks in before we use our weapons."

"Maybe having angelic looks like that's made her just as gentle too," Blossom suggested, leading them in trailing the girl in violet, never really catching up, but apparently wearing her down because she landed on a mountaintop and defensively cupped her hands and sprung forth a glowing four-armed combat staff.

"Easy, easy, we're friends!!" Blossom said, receiving a snort of disdain from the girl whose huge deep violet eyes were glaring. "We were just admiring your work."

"Yea!" Buttercup commented, "You handle white energy like a Rose Bowl majorette's baton! You ought teach me those moves!"

Bubbles whispered aside; "Maybe she doesn't understand Japanese here?"

"Er, right. Er – Cumprimentos! Nós somos amigas!" Mokomo said like a half-remembered lesson. "Meu nome é flor e este é buttercup e esta é bolhas!"

Bubbles asked Blossom, "Isn't it 'esta é bubbles'?"

"No, I'm sure it's 'esta é bolhas'."

"But that sounds silly! Anyone can tell 'este é buttercup' sounds just like her name!"

"Well, look at mine! I'm no 'flor'!"

"Then change your name too!"

"Alright, alright; 'esta é bubbles esta é blossom' then!"

"Stop murdering the Portuguese, uh? You'll start an international incident!" the girl in violet snapped with a harsh husky cowboy accent totally incongruous her soft voice and delicate beauty.

The trio were startled. "You speak English!" Blossom blurted.

"Sure! I'm from Dallas!" the girl in violet defensively said. "Where you from? Your English's got a funny dainty chipmunk accent."

"We're Japanese."

"Sure don't look it!"

Blossom chirped. "Wait till we pose! It'll explain everything, because – I'm Hyper Blossom!" she cried, jumping into pose.

Bubbles; "Rolling Bubbles!"

Buttercup: "Powered Buttercup!"

Trio posing together; "The Lovely Fighting Science Legend! Powerpuff Girls Z!!"

The girl in violet smirked. "Cute act – but this ain't Vegas. Yea, I once read something about you all in O Inquiridor Nacional."

Blossom perked, flattered. "Oh! Is that a real big newspaper here?"

"The National Enquirer," the girl in violet said, relaxing slightly as her glowing staff dissolved. "So you're all real, huh? What you doin' here this far?"

Bubbles seemed to wince every time the girl in violet spoke, as though every utterance she made slashed the Mona Lisa.

"Looking for you!" Blossom said.

"Well, you found me, so you can take off!" the girl in violet curtly said.

Blossom blurted, "Hey, we would've helped you with that spore beast, but the way you moved we'd just been in the way!"

The girl in violet snickered. "Help? Heck, the Creeper just would've had you all for breakfast!"

"Hey!" Buttercup snapped. "We've handled suckers ten times that size!"

"Huh!" the girl cockily snorted. "I mow my crabgrass early so pests never grow that far, babe! Besides, do you all have monsters who adapt to any weapon's first attack over there? Didn't think so! After getting first whacks and a bubble bath, he'd been over you all like Bill on Monica!"

Bubbles frowned with terminal disappointment; "Gee, you're so darn pretty – but your attitude's even worst than Buttercup!"

"What you mean?"

"She's the tomboy of our team!" Blossom said and the girl in violet looked at Buttercup funny and chuckled.

"Tomboy, huh? Cute as you?"

Buttercup growled. "Cute?? Cute?? Who ya callin' 'cute'??"

"You, babe! Heck, half the chicks in my school wish they looked nice as you!!"

Buttercup bridled and shoved her face at the girl. "I'm not 'pretty'! Or cute! Got it??"

The girl in violet looked amused for once. "Then you're blind, sister."

"Am not !!"

Blossom moved up. "Buttercup, it's a whole lot better than ugly, right?"

Bubbles admired the girl's looks. "In fact...I hate to say it, but I think you're the prettiest girl I ever sawl!"

The girl in violet snorted as though from a grievous insult. "Great! Just great! Freak! Look, I gotta go!"

"Why so fast?" Blossom said, "We want to talk to you."

"Ain't nothing to talk about! Everything's under control here! Just fly on home, will ya?"

Bubbles sourly sniffed. "Forget Buttercup. You almost act like a Rowdyruff!"

"Who?"

"A bunch of really jerky juvenile delinquents in training," Blossom ruefully said.

The girl in violet almost perked like her vanity had been stroked. "Yea? I come off like a dude even like this, huh? Least that's a relief!"

"I wouldn't exactly cluck about spoiling those looks by acting so butchy like that!" Bubbles complained.

"Hey, you can have it all if I could trade them for your powers, blondie!"

"But there's no need to! We're all sisters!" Blossom assured, making peace. "Look! We're all Powerpuff girls! Look at our uniforms!"

"Our fancy coiffeurs!" added Bubbles.

"Our awesome kick-ass weapons!" Buttercup said..

"We're the same!" Blossom finished then paused, jealously noticing the other's mildly mounded chest. "Er, a little more – mature maybe, but the same!"

"Not the same!" the girl in violet snapped vehemently.

"Yes we are!"

"No! I ain't like you! I ain't no –" the girl in violet cut herself off as though embarrassed.

"You're not what?" Blossom asked and the girl in violet fell quiet.

"Nothing! Just beat it!"

Buttercup groaned. "Look, we came a long way here to find you and I'm going to sit on your heels till we get some information out of you!"

"Didn't ask you to come! Just leave me alone!"

"But you don't have to be alone – not anymore!" Bubbles assuaged. "We're your friends! You can tell us things you can't tell anyone else. We know; we can't even tell our families about our super heroine lives! Tell us, please. At least give us your name if you have one?"

"What is this? Me Tarzan – you Jane? Of course I gotta name!" the girl in violet snapped, then hesitantly grumbled.

"Well?" asked Blossom.

"I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it! I'm... I'm... 'Blueberry'," she grudgingly uttered in a low abashed voice.

"Blueberry??" the trio chorused and Blueberry grimaced.

"Not so loud! Sheesh! That's what mom called me, not me!" Blueberry gushed with chagrin touched with pain and bitterness. "Only reason I use it is because it was one of her last words to me!"

"Oh. Sorry," Blossom apologized. "Please tell us more! Please! How did you get this way? Did a white light from the sky hit you?"

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"Well, how'd you get the way you are then?" Bubbles asked.

Blueberry shook her head. "You wouldn't believe me."

Buttercup retorted, "Hey! We're underaged girls who can fly without a plane and knock down buildings. How much more's a stretch to believe??"

Blueberry grumbled. "Ain't gonna tell no one, are you?"

"Maybe the professor –" Blossom admitted, "But we have to. He's like a dad and doctor for us...like he'll be for you too, Blueberry."

"Please stop calling me that, alright?"

"Why?" Bubbles asked. "It's a lovely name!"

"It's sissy fag!"

Buttercup snickered. "No sissier than 'Buttercup'!"

"You don't understand! It's way way worst for me!!"

"Worst? How??"

"Because I'm – !" Blueberry swiftly gnashed her coral lower lip like catching a slip. "Forget it. Look, I gotta split."

Blossom pleaded. "First tell us how you came to be!"

"Yes!" Bubbles said. "You must be itching to tell someone your secret!"

"Already got someone."

"We mean someone who's gone through it too – like us?" Blossom coaxed and Blueberry sighed and stepped away and turned her back as though half-ashamed yet anxious to relieve herself of a burden.

"My...my dad's a museum curator here, and sometimes he asks me to take people on a tour, you know, like on-the-job training he thinks? Anyway, during this storm last year, we had this group of knockout kid pageant winners in and I was showing them our exhibits and we stopped at this glass flask that grandpa found in Yokohoma where he was stationed when the war ended. He found it in a bomb crater which used to be some kind of library or something before he passed it on to dad."

Buttercup asked, "What's so special about an old flask?"

"It glowed, like it was radioactive, but the college said it was just phosphorus, still it looked pretty neat so dad kept in the collection. Anyway the chicks were checking it out when suddenly there was a crash from the skylight and a bolt of lightning came down and hit the flask. Scared the shit out of us, and I was surprised the flask was still in one piece except then it started glowing even harder, like a heartbeat, stronger and stronger, till you could hardly look at it, and I sensed it was going to explode or something so I – I threw myself over the girls closest to it and suddenly this big burst of light whacked me from behind like a big wave at the beach!..."

Blueberry stopped like she was collecting her thoughts or trying to forget. "Then I remember feeling all woozy and dazed and saw all those girls staring at me all funny...and I looked down, and saw – all this!" Blueberry said, waving hands over herself almost with self-disdain or shame. "I was scared and confused shit and ran back the office and tried to chill out and wake up, but I was still like this, all over. Dad came in and didn't believe it was me till I told him all about – er, anyway he believed me, and brought the flask in and shined it under a UV light to get a better look at it and that light turned me back to normal. Man, I was so happy I almost crapped on the floor!"

Blossom was fascinated. "A sun lamp made the flask glow a reverse transformation beam?"

"Just like the professor's gun!" Buttercup exclaimed.

"Is that still how you untransform?" Blossom asked, "Your compact can do it when you pose in reverse, you know."

"Er, I'm not all that into dancing," Blueberry demurred. "Besides it works both ways for me."

"You mean you don't need any Peach to transform??" Bubbles quizzically asked.

"Peaches? I'm allergic to peaches."

Blossom said, "She means do you have a pet or toy who cries for you to transform?"

Blueberry chuckled. "A pet crying for me? Like talk? Heck, if I did its ass would be in the circus and me and dad would be millionaires!"

"I suppose there wouldn't be anyway, since Peach got changed in the same explosion that first transformed us," Blossom thought aloud. "Blueberry –"

"AGGGHHH!!"

"Sorry. Er, Just how long have you been a Powerpuff?"

"Huh, almost two years I guess."

"Even longer than us!" Bubbles blurted.

Blossom nodded. "So your monsters didn't come from the black light that the Chakichaki Musume sacked in Edo then."

"Cha-Cha-Cha what??"

"Powerpuffs from ancient Japan. They're the ones that your flask created, Blu – er, Berry."

The girl in violet impulsively gasped. "Barry??"

"No, I said 'Berry'. Isn't that better than calling you Blu -- er, by the whole name?"

The girl relaxed like a sigh and sheepishly tittered. "Oh! 'Berry'. Oh, yea, I get it. Er, sure that's – that's cool."

"So have you ever seen Kare, Berry?"

"Care? About what?"

"A bad evil demon with a forked tail and overboiled lobster hands!" Bubbles said with a shudder.

"O yea, I saw something like that at New Orleans before you had to use a snorkel!"

"Not Mardi Gras! We mean here, for real!"

"Real? No, nothing freaky like that. Spores turning flora and fauna into rejects from chiller theater are weird enough – but there used to be lots devil stuff going on these parts in the ancient days when the Inca and Toltecs were running around tearing peoples' hearts out. You can see it in all the old temples and pyramids."

"So maybe Kare was here and fried everyone outta town and moved across the sea for more suckers to terrorize," Buttercup said and Blossom nodded and asked Blueberry;

"Did your black spore monsters only start appearing after you first transformed?"

"Uh...around then, yea I guess, and they just keep coming like the Chinese Army."

"What made you think stopping them was your job anyway?" Buttercup asked and Blueberry's face suddenly went pained and bitter again.

"'Cause the friggin' shits made it my job!"

Blossom sensed it'd be more than rude to pursue that line, besides it was painful to hear talk like that from such a delicate-looking stunner. "We're just trying to find out where the live spores here came from."

"Yea," Buttercup said. "Especially since Kare leaves them lying around like dust bunnies."

"Not as cute as real bunnies though!" Bubbles added.

Rolling eyes, Buttercup continued, "You'd thought he'd call on them to help him out when we sacked his ass into space but I guess he didn't have time or was too busy chilling out to."

"But where were they all this time?" Blossom asked.

"Maybe they were sleeping," Bubbles commented. "There're lots of old things and places to hide in a museum."

"Yea, sure are!" Blueberry nodded as though long suspecting it. "Hey, you're smart too, gorgeous!"

Bubbles blushed. "Aw..."

"Flukes happen," Buttercup quipped. "So when the lightning crashed in the burst of white light didn't just transform you, Blue, but zapped alive any spores around you. But I don't get it, why would some old flask transform you anyway?"

"Because it wasn't phosphorus in that flask – it was 'Kennaium He'!" Blossom surmised.

"'Kennaium He'??" Bubbles quizzically blurted. "But only Kennai Hiraga made that!"

"Exactly! Blueberry's –"

"PLEASE!!"

"Oh, bad slip, Berry. Your grandfather must've found the flask in the bomb rubble where Kennai had his workshop back in Edo times! There must've been residues of 'Kennaium He' left in the flask he used to first make it. For all we know the insides may've been caked with it! And like nuclear energy, just a little goes a long way!"

Buttercup nodded. "Yeah, that makes sense! And the lightning jump-started it to flare up with white energy! Boy, the Professor's sure going to be surprised to learn that iceberg didn't have all the stuff!"

Blossom said to Blueberry. "It also explains why you're so powerful, Berry. You got zapped by the original pure 'Kennaium He' from the same flask it was created in. Ours came from the 'Kennaium He' Kennai used to line the trunk holding the bag of Kare's black energy before Ken exploded it apart."

"I get it," agreed Buttercup. "Over time that 'He' would've lost a little strength fighting to keep Him's black energy sealed in the bag."

"So that means there're no black light monsters here either, right?" asked Bubbles.

"Then, the spores here are a lot different the ones we're used to," Blossom guessed. "I'm guessing that this 'Creeper' is your 'Mojo Jojo' here, right – er, Berry?"

"Mojo who?"

"A warped twisted murderous little chimp in a psychedelic turban who wants to rule the world."

"Oh, you mean Osama Bin Laden!"

"No, the saner ape in Tokyo City!" Bubbles said, "You have to see him for yourself, Berry! Why don't you come back with us?"

"Back??" Blueberry suddenly turned skittish.

"For a visit!" Blossom concurred. "We can cruise the malls, raid candy stores, whack the chimp, and you can see the professor for a Puff orientation, morality lecture, and full medical examination even though he's no M.D. Just watch out for his Pap smear."

"In Japan? I ain't flying way over there!"

"Only takes us a couple of minutes. He'd be delighted to see you."

Blueberry suddenly looked almost terrified. "Nuh-huh! I ain't meeting no dude! No way, no how!!"

"Why? You got something 'gainst guys?" Buttercup asked and Blueberry almost snickered aloud.

"Man, if only you knew! Look, I – I gotta split. I hung out here too long anyway."

"Too long?" asked Blossom. "You put the creature away in only a minute, and you must've gotten here just a couple after you sensed black spores were here, right?"

"I – just don't like being – like this too long," Blueberry anxiously said, fidgeting. "I just do the job and get back to normal pronto, Tonto."

"Why don't you stay out longer? It's fun getting to know what you can do!"

"For you maybe..." Blueberry floated up. "Look, I gotta go!"

"Wait Berry! Can't we see you again – soon?" Blossom pleaded and Blueberry hesitated.

"Alright, here tomorrow this time – just for a few minutes, but no promises!"

"We'll be here," Blossom promised and they watched Blueberry streak off. Awed, Blossom shook her head. "Wow! Was she here or what??"

"Just a snotty silver-haired pretty-faced show-off!" Buttercup wryly quipped. "Bet I can arm wrestle Tinkerbelle's sassy little butt off any day!"

"Wonder why she's so skittish to leave us?" Bubbles asked. "I thought she'd be happy to see she's not all alone!"

"More like antisocial!" quipped Buttercup, shaking her head. "Man! And you two call me butchy!"

"What do you mean?"

"Notice the way gorgeous was slyly checking us out all the time? How she kept glancing at our legs and chests? She's a lesbie sure as rain."

"That's not fair! She's way too beautiful to be queer!" Bubbles protested. "Though I admit, she's the first girl I've met who makes you look like a ballerina!"

"I think she's hiding something from us." Blossom admitted.

"She sounds totally sincere to me," Bubbles said. "Crude and boorish, but honest."

"I didn't mean in a mean way. She just seems – totally embarrassed about herself somehow."

"How can she be embarrassed having looks like that?? It's almost – unnatural!"

"Yea, I know. She's almost too pretty to be true...pretty. Pretty girls..." Blossom snapped her fingers. "Beautiful girls!"

"Huh??" Bubbles and Buttercup chorused.

"She threw herself over those pageant girls to protect them from the flask's exploding, remember? The white light must've made her transform absorb the beauty of all those girls, just like how it created our weapons from the toys belonging to those kids who we protected from it!"

Buttercup nodded. "So that's why she has no real weapon – but uses white energy instead!"

"Ah! That makes better sense why she acts so totally opposite from the way she looks!" Bubbles said. "She could really be a frumpy grumpy plain Jane bookworm who's bitter from not getting hit by guys! Girls with looks grace magazines not haunt museums!"

Buttercup shook her head. "Then why does she hate such a generous overhaul? I mean I'd stay a puff all day and night strutting my stuff if I were her – and that's saying something!"

"It's a puzzle," Blossom agreed, pausing. "It's funny, but when she looked at you and talked, you kind of get the impression that you're with a...a..."

"Dyke princess?" Buttercup put in with a snort but Blossom shook her head.

"No. Like...naw, that's crazy. It's just that there's something about her that's normal, yet misplaced. I can't explain."

"Well, what I know is I'm hungry!" Buttercup put in. "Let's check out the tacos."

"That Spanish for octopus puffs??" Bubbles wondered.

- - -

Blueberry weaved through forested hills, her almost frantic bee-line home slowing as anxiety waned to the onrushing wind stream skimming and softly caressing her creamy perfect skin, quietly suffusing her with tingling waves mellowing her qualms with a soft inner glow. Breathlessly titillated, she languorously sighed and rolled on her back like the clouds were her mattress and closed her feathery eyelashes and gently stroked her arms and legs like in a bubble bath, softly giggling as she luxuriated the sensation, indulging a wild amnesic wonder of sensuous self-exploration – rudely jarred by a screaming jet overhead.

Blinking abashed and sheepishly dismayed by her near self-seduction, she anxiously dashed toward Buenos Aries' sprawling outskirts and swooped into a classy mixed European neighborhood to land light as a feather in an alley behind a museum and began pacing almost in frustration and anxiety.

"Alright, let's change!" Blueberry said aloud to herself as though trying to coax and convince herself to. "Com'on, I DO want to change, darn it!! I still wanna be who I am! I do!!"

A commotion from the street down the alley turns her head to see passing on the sidewalk a smug husky junior high jock strutting with three fawning tittering girls, the sight of the handsome jock making Blueberry sharply catch her breath as a shot of wild delicious swimmy weakness welled her chest.

"O no!'

"Oh – ohhhhhh...Chuuuuccck!!..." Blueberry dreamily sighed as a warm swoony smile crossed her face and she drifted toward the sidewalk, but her boot accidentally kicked an empty can whose loud clatter ricocheting off garbage cans down the alley snapped her out of her wild ditzy daze and she gasped aback in appall and shame.

"What the frig am I doing?? Stop it!!" she cried, banging her head against the brick wall. "Stop it! Stop it! I wanna be me again!! I want to! Want to! Really want to!!" She steels herself with her hands at her sides like she's psyching up with a desperate grappling passion. "Alright, alright! Longer later, okay? Way longer, deal, ego?? Okay, let me be, okay? Let's do this! Count of three! One...two...three!!"

Shaking with effort, her eyes squeeze tight as her pretty face crinkles like she's straining before she blurts and yells –

"AYYYYYYYYY MMMMMMAAAAAAA GUUUUUYYYYYY!!"

A blinding violet flash floods the alley and in Blueberry's place stands a tall and husky denim-clad dark-haired junior high jock worthy of a harem like Chuck, only now he gasps and grimaces in pain because the violet PPGZ belt that once fitted so snugly around Blueberry's tiny tapered waist is now crushing his like a vice while his fingers frantically scratched at its buckle latch.

"Owwwwwww! Oww! Oww!!" he gasps and yelps, managing to unhook the crushing belt then slumps against the brick wall in exhaustion, wiping sweat off his brow with relief and dismay.

"Oh Man, that was close! Almost lost it! And over Chuck! My own knucklehead buddy!! Freak, took some friggin' tin can to snap me out of it – just because it feels so snug an' awesome the other way! Hey guy, what are you – chopped liver?? Man! Is all this super shit worth it? Maybe I ought to go cold turkey from all this while I'm still a dude!"

Faint squawking overhead made him look up at a passing flock of ducks and he bit his lip as he held up the belt and sighed and gathered himself the museum's rusty rear exit door but it's stuck and he tries all his strength. "Freak! Can't believe it! I can chuck this whole building a mile as a chick, but can't even budge a stupid rusty door–!!"

And the door gives way and he nearly falls backward then mutters and enters the museum's rear storeroom and puts the belt inside an Egyptian urn and picks up his school books and moves into an office crammed and cluttered with shelves stuffed with scrolls and artifacts and old books stacked everywhere and even the desk where his grey-bearded bespectacled father was deep into an ancient manuscript then looked up.

"Don't say you've been out jogging, Barry!" Elmer Jennings chided and Barry blushed.

"Just – on patrol, dad."

"'Just'?" the elder said with a suspicious look that made Barry blush.

"Com'on dad, I'm home, ain't I?"

"I suspect just barely 'I'."

"Gee whiz, I take a couple more minutes than normal and you're already sizing me up for a prom dress!"

"You're taking a risk making 'detours' like this, Barry. I don't like your being Blueberry a second longer than you have to."

"Someone's gotta do it, dad! I mean, had I known about the dark spores before I started fooling around with the belt then mom would still be here, right?..." he reminded his suddenly sober father, then guilty for that Barry perked up; "Besides, I had a great excuse! Guess what? I met them!"

"'Them'?" his dad looked puzzled then surprised. "Here??"

"Yup! All three of them, and man are they cute! Man, if I hung around them all the time, I wouldn't have to worry about any girlie feelings taking over!"

"Then I'd have to worry about them!" Elmer quipped, sitting back intrigued. "Why are they here?"

"I dunno. Maybe they finally found out that you've fixed my – Blueberry's compact to tap in on their chatter and stuff on the sly."

"Well, it was inevitable I suppose. Do they know your secret?"

"Kiddin'?? I'd rather confess to a bunch of girls that I'm really a fairy than I turn into a chick even better than them!"

"That's good to hear, that you still feel so strongly about your virility after being so steeped in estrogen, son."

"Hey, go ask the Creeper whether girl juice made me any marshmallow! The Puffs were real impressed!"

"Well, they could sure use some lessons in preempting spores in the bud before they start chewing up cities. Still, it would be nice if they could take the load off you here once a while before Blueberry becomes too – 'addictive'."

Barry blushed again and flopped on a chair. "Com'on dad, that's bull! I just get my kicks off having super powers, not off being a chick! What do you take me for, a sissy werido freako?? I mean, I haven't even see myself – her naked!"

"And don't even try – and it's nothing to do with my being prudish!" Elmer staunchly admonished. "The transformation is far more complete and deeper than you know, Barry, The only thing XY about you in Blueberry's form is your mind. Even her brain's totally female – along with powerful female instincts and feminine wiles which will try to squeeze and mold any mind seated in it to its natural configuration. Remember 'Call of The Wild'?"

Barry smirked. "Since when haven't you made me memorize every word? You really think I'd jump the fence just from being a chick for a couple of minutes?? Get real!" he balked then shrank a little before shrewder eyes. "Okay, sure, I kinda feel that happening a little, especially when it guides my moves fighting the spores – but I'm not dropping jockey briefs for panties anytime soon!"

"Doesn't help your resistance either when you 'explore' that other self, son," Elmer tactfully said and Barry cackled.

"Heck, you sayin', dad? That I get my jollies off being Blueberry??"

"I'm talking to a young man who's been peeking on little girls since kindergarten and who's now been plunked inside an adolescent jock's dream!"

Barry blushed and shrugged. "Okay, okay, so I stroke mysel – er, Blueberry a little now and then – but what guy wouldn't in my place, huh? I mean, I'm just – curious about how different it is, like an – an experiment!"

"Which can blow up in your face one day. That's why you must also never never allow Blueberry to face her reflection long or her public like the PowerPuff Z lavishly do. Flattery fed you in her state will seduce your ego and genetic male allegiance but good."

"Com'on dad! I'm a straight arrow red-blooded red-white-and blue dude through and through! I'd never ever give that up for a short short skirt and nice long legs and cute bouncy boobs I haven't even seen yet!"

"Barry, you might fancy yourself a jock and God's gift to junior high girls, but that self-esteem's not as rock solid as you think. You sensed it when you first went weak-kneed seeing Blueberry in the mirror; she's several fold more beautiful than you're handsome, and one day vanity's going to judo that cocky male ego and your will and desire to turn back into a boy is going to be as hard as convincing Yolanda Jarvis that she's one too."

"Aw, com'on dad! Even if I screwed up that bad – which I won't – I'd still be me. Kinda."

"I'd have a stunning new daughter with a macho mind – briefly, but soon enough she really wouldn't be the same, son," Elmer soberly said, waving at some X-rays and microcircuit diagrams of the Powerpuff compact pinned on a crowded corkboard. "That's why I'm working so hard on these."

Barry looked dubious. "You really think you can re-set the compact to make me a Powerguy instead of a Powerpuff?"

Elmer sat back on his chair and lit his tobacco pipe and puffed. "It's one thing turning part of a miniaturized matter transmuter into a mere transceiver like Utonium did, and reinitializing its primary transmutation snapshot. In fact, I'm surprised the 'compacts' are so resilient to allow such tinkering by primitives as we and still function. You'd think Utonium would be raptly curious of how and why it can convert a mortal into a superbeing and create proto-matter out of seemingly empty space instead of going off building mega bots and exo-suits. I guess it's the water over there. As for myself, as a retired professor of archeology as well of quantum physics, I have a greater view of the possibilities."

"Like what?" Barry asked and Elmer paused a long while to puff at a astrolabe.

"My past research in the vague origins of the legendary belts of the Amazons and the Greek goddess Artemis leads me to believe that we're dealing with the products of an ancient but extremely advanced race."

"Aliens?"

"Or time or extra-dimensional travelers or even a prehistoric supercivilization. What ever case, Powerpuffs are actually the fluke benefactors of a hyper-technology designed for a very different purpose. I'm coming to the conclusion that Substance 99 – or 'Chemical Z' as Utonium calls it – is actually a kind of sub-atomic matter transmutational template."

"You mean like some kind of weird DNA?"

"Really are learning something in school besides feminine figures, uh?"

Barry chuckled. "Well, I'm actually just trying to get to know their minds now, since girl watching isn't the same thrill it used to be!"

"My poor spoiled mannered son! Anyway, that's a good analogy. For a better term, Substance 99 is a kind of 'seed' if you will, containing within its subatomic structure the full blueprints to both hyper-energerize any being and materialize a 'compact' matter transmuter and costumes by condensing and weaving local magnetic fields into proto-matter once provided an impulse of energy."

"Sounds so off-the-wall wild!"

"Well, you can barely see the seed of a sequoia tree, right? Theoretically, you can blueprint New York City down to the last bolt and paper clip in a molecular crystal lattice smaller than a grain of rice – and in another the self-generating matter transmuter to create it. But that's all Substance 99 can do; stamp out superbeings from local materials like a cookie cutter. The real action is in its creations."

"Yea, you got a point. Sure explains how old Kennai Hiraga was using hyper-future technology in Japan so far back."

"And why his girls were irreversibly transformed as superbeings without compacts; there was no high technology in the area to generate the electric fields needed for Substance 99 to reap and create a device as complex as a compact's matter transmuter."

"That makes sense, but where do you think he got the stuff to begin with?"

"Now that's the 64,000 question! Perhaps he stumbled over a meteorite containing it or a piece of an alien craft or just saw it materialize from empty space-time, who knows?"

"Yea, from who? And why??"

Elmer clucked. "Well, speculations can run wild."

"Then you're good at that! That's why Los Alamos kicked you out, for daydreaming over nuclear engine designs, right?"

"Thanks for the kick down memory lane, son. But as for a speculation, just imagine an advanced race long long ago far far away which knows how to create super soldiers – not by lengthy recruiting and training and outfitting, but by using a substance containing the means to transform an ordinary being at electronic speeds into hyper-beings with minds programmed with advanced battle tactics to use with any weapon? Soldiers with electric-eel type organs which can generate skin-tight auras of mega-force fields that not only protects them from physical duress and mega-amplifies their every muscular motion like an invisible exo-skeleton, but can even locally concentrate and repulse a planet's magnetic field to levitate and fly by under mind-control. I'm pretty sure I'm not too far off that's the original design of Substance 99."

"Sounds cool to me! And some of the stuff got away from them or they just lost it or something?"

"Something like that. Fortunately this hypertechnology's only found its way here into the hands of juveniles with ethical mentors, but I'll need years of study to reach a more solid conclusion resembling the truth."

"Why not join Utonium? Two eggheads fry better than one."

Elmer demurred. "I'd rather wait."

Barry sighed. "Still afraid you'll get all your ideas ripped off again?" he asked and was instantly sorry by the wince on his father's face, for bringing up the reason for his father's remote retirement and by later result the death of his wife. "Sorry dad. I just figured this Utonium might be different from the guys you worked with at the lab, especially since his chicks seem to trust him like a dad. In fact maybe I should meet the guy. After all he knows I'm real now. Well, Blueberry is."

"Out of the question. You've never been Blueberry more than ten minutes at a stretch and you're talking hours away at the minimum?"

About to balk, Barry reflected the struggle in the alley, the tug of war between his macho ego and the deliciously new vanity of being a bewitchingly lovely girl whose charm was magnified more by unique super-powers. Only sheer willpower managed to break that budding feminine self-esteem by conning himself that he'd return to that new self – which he did. Too regularly. He already intimately knew more of the sense and sensation of being a female far beyond the comprehension of any staunchly heterosexual male, and the emasculating delight nibbled at his male ego far more than he admitted. He recalled his reaction at merely glimpsing Chuck – his best buddy – only Blueberry's instinctive inverse of that regard stunned and shocked him, like a sudden brief lick of puppy love.

Dangerous.

Being Blueberry's dangerous because my thrill and awe being her can win me over and it'll be bye-bye Barry. It's creepy enough feeling her bod helping my thoughts and moves fighting spores, and while that's great it's also like a ghost waiting to seep my mind and color me sissy. I don't wanna give up all those awesome powers like flying and mega-strength and knocking the snot outta monsters, but it's like there's a bear trap getting to them! Dad's right; When I first started it felt weird having a chick's bod, but I still felt like I was a guy, but the more I get used to being Blueberry I'm starting to feel like it's almost just as normal as being a guy.

So what happens when it's not 'almost' anymore?

Man, I gotta watch it!

"Okay dad, dump that idea. I can meet him myself in secret and flash him Blueberry as proof without his girls knowing squat. I really think I should, dad. I was fighting it while talking to them, but I – my Blueberry feelings felt kinda – close and relieved, like those chicks were my sisters."

"I'll – consider it," Elmer demurred, puff his pipe while mulling his son. "When was the last time you took Yolanda out to the movies?"

"Uh...last month? Com'on, dad! 'We're just fourteen' – like you keep telling me!"

"Old enough. Take her out tonight."

"Tonight??"

"When a red-blooded American junior jock start saying that girl watching's not the thrill it was anymore it's time to hang up that belt and get out with a girl you can face to face without a mirror!"

END OF CHAPTER ONE?