Chapter 1: The Assassination Sensation

The television was on, but he wasn't watching it. He thought he had something more important to attend to. The woman in the next room was making coffee for the two of them, but she had entered the kitchen some time ago and hadn't come back. It must have been at least five or ten minutes. He could've checked on her. He wasn't doing anything. He was sitting on the couch pretending to watch television as if there was someone else in the room he was trying to convince that he actually cared about watching the mayoral inauguration.

Clearly, she was doing something else in the kitchen. "Is the coffee ready yet?" It was a neutral question. It would supply the answer he was looking for, but it would not appear to be negative in anyway.

"Just about," she told him from the kitchen. "Do you drink it black? I always forget."

"Yeah. Black." Then came another minute of silence, full only of sounds coming from the television, of which he was still not paying any attention to. She came into the living room with two mugs of coffee in her hands. She stood motionless for a few seconds trying to remember which one she made for herself and which one she was supposed to give to the man seated at the couch. She made a decision and handed him one of the mug.

"How are the girls?" she asked him. He was waiting for her ask ever since she arrived unannounced.

"They're fine," he said. "I put them to sleep about an hour ago. They seem to be accustoming themselves to life here. They haven't asked about outside in almost a week now. I believe that you're having a positive effect on them."

"There is only so much I can do in this house," she said, for probably the millionth time. "The girls really need some kind of social interaction. A basic education is better received at school. Social interaction is key for girls at such a young age."

"They're teenagers."

"No they're not. When everything is said and done, they're newborns." He didn't say anything in response, so she continued. "I should go down there and talk to them. I haven't seen then in a few days. They probably miss me."

"Better let them rest for now," he suggested. "They actually behaved themselves earlier, so I think they deserve some time to rest." She hadn't heard the last thing he said. She was looking at the television with great interest. "What are you looking at? Don't tell me that the inauguration is interesting to you."

"No," she said slowly. "It's just that I saw a girl there who looked a lot like Buttercup. She was wearing green, too." He joined her in surveying the crowd for the girl in green. They both looked, but they couldn't find the girl who looked like Buttercup. They both shrugged it off, but the sight of light blue caused them to spin back around. "That was Bubbles!" she yelled. "That was Bubbles!" The girl in light blue was once again off camera, but in her place was a shot a girl sitting in the aisle seat near the front of the crowd watching the inauguration. She was a redhead wearing a predominately red outfit, completely unaware that the camera was directly on her.

"Blossom!"

Blossom still didn't know the camera was on her. She was too preoccupied with surveying the people, places and smells around her, of which she had only been told about when Miss Keane would come to read to her and her sisters. Blossom, along with her sisters, had the body of a teenager, but it did not reflect her mental state. Mentally, she was a few years old, and she only had memories that went back two months. That entire time, she lived in the basement.

The Professor (he didn't give a name) told them that they weren't like regular boys and girls, even more so since an accident created them differently than other people. Blossom didn't understand the complexities of childbirth. To her, she was created in the professor's lab. There was no other way to reproduce than the artificial gestation she and her sisters grew in. She was told that the gestation period was accidentally cut short and that they were meant to continue maturing before birth as to match their physical age. Instead, they were "born" at around 4 or 5 years old.

Blossom didn't really understand most of that, and she didn't really want to. When the professor would talk, she and her sisters would generally tune out. They much preferred to listen to Miss Keane. She would talk about the outside, something that the professor thought was a bad idea; that the girls were not suited to experience the outside world that all other boys and girls could.

Blossom didn't see anything wrong with herself or her sisters. Their physical appearances were not radically different than the professor's or Miss Keane's. Why then, did they not deserve the outside would? The Professor would say that the same accident that awoke them prematurely also gave them abilities that the other boys and girls did not have. She didn't see them, so the only thing she could think of was the outside world, which Miss Keane spoke of fondly during every visit.

Blossom was the self-proclaimed leader of the group. Bubbles and Buttercup found no reason to have a leader, but they would hardly ever challenge her authority. At that present moment, Blossom had sent them to get snacks from the concession stand. The outside world seemed so perfect when the system of monetary exchange had never been mentioned.

Buttercup, the dark-haired girl wearing dark green jeans, green shirt, and with brand-new green highlights in her hair stood next to her sister, Bubbles. She was the blonde wearing blue jeans (extremely light in color) along with a light blue T-shirt and blue bracelets on each wrist. They stood side by side while the man at the concession stand stood in front of then behind the concession counter.

"I'm going to explain how this works to you girls one more time," he said irritated. "In the United States, you have to pay money before you can get food from me? Do you understand now?"

"I think he doesn't want to give us food!" Buttercup complained to her sister.

"That's not fair!" Bubbles shrieked back. "Whenever we ask nicely, Miss Keane gives us all kinds of goodies. I really like lollipops."

"I'm not Miss Keane," the concession man replied. "Here, you either pay for the food, or you don't get any at all."

"I don't like the outside world as much as I used to," Bubbles said.

"I'll handle this delicately," Buttercup assured her. She leapt over the counter with ease and grabbed on to the man's shirt collar. He squirmed, but he couldn't get out of Buttercup's grasp. "Okay! Listen here you little thief! I don't know anything about this money scam you're trying to run, but that's not the way we were raised. Here's what's going to happen. You're going to give us the food we ask for, we're going to thank you, and you're going to say 'you're welcome.' You got it?" The man nodded. He couldn't do anything else.

"Okay," Bubbles began as she pursued the selection at the stand. "I'm getting lollipops. You said you wanted chips, right? Barbecue?" Buttercup nodded. "Okay. What did Blossom say she wanted? She said popcorn, right?" Bubbles grabbed as much as she could before leaping back over the counter. Buttercup gave the concession man a long, hard stare to ensure he would try anything after she let hi m go, which she did and left to follow her sister back to their seats. The man just watched them leave as Buttercup yelled, "Thanks!" before she was out of view.

Buttercup was still idly sitting in her chair, waiting for the inauguration to get started. She didn't plan to come here immediately. After leaving the professor's house, she and her sisters asked the first person they saw if anything interesting was going on. He told them about the inauguration, and the sisters pretended to know what that word meant as the followed him to mayor's office building.

Bubbles and Buttercup came up with snacks in hand and sat down next to Blossom. Bubbles handed her the bag of popcorn, but Blossom raised an eyebrow and stared at it. "Miss Keane always brings us buttered popcorn. These are white. There's no butter on them."

"Sorry Blossom, but the man was not being very nice with us. It was all I could get from him."

"It's all right," Blossom replied a she turned back forward to watch the inauguration, which had yet to commence. They waited a little bit longer. Finally, someone came out. He was just checking to see if the microphone was working well. He left, and someone else came on. He was young. A man of no older than thirty, he was dark hair that appeared to be freshly dyed (maybe that's what took him so long) and a suit that was missing the all-important tie. On top of that, he was wearing sneakers.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen," he said in a robust and loud tone. "I want to first thank you all for coming out and hearing me talk. I really wasn't expecting this large of a turnout. I was hoping that there wouldn't be this large of a turnout, so in case I screw up, not many people would notice." If that was supposed to be an icebreaker joke, it didn't work. "Again, I thank you all for coming and I thank you more that you all voted for me, Elliott Meyer, as your mayor for life!"

Someone, a tall woman with powerful red hair that hid much of her face from the audience, came up and whispered into Meyer's ear. He whispered back, unaware that his mouth was still close to the microphone. "I'm only elected for four years?" She whispered back. He whispered; "So I have to do all this caring and campaigning crap again four years later?" She nodded and left the stage.

"Well," he began, "I've just been informed that my tenure as your mayor only lasts four years, so my first legislation would be to change it to a lifetime appointment! Who's with me?!" No one said anything. His enthusiasm cause the sister to want to join him, but the fact that no one else did kept them firm in their seats.

"Does that seam odd to you?" Blossom asked her sisters.

"What?" they asked in unison.

"That man over there watching the speech from his telescope." Her sisters looked over to see a man crouched on the edge of a building holding something pointed at the mayor. It wasn't a telescope. It was a sniper rifle. "It seems weird to me that he didn't just take a seat down here with everyone else."

"Don't worry about it," Buttercup said as she kicked her feet up, tiled back, and closed her eyes. "This is our time to relax. No professor. No Keane. No studies. No nothing."

"Buttercup," Bubbles said. "When you said 'professor', she got up and left." Buttercup sat upright to see that Blossom had gone. She looked at Bubbles. They knew they had to retrieve her.

At the same time, Miss Keane and the Professor parked their car across the street from the parking lot, after having spent ten minutes driving aimlessly for a place to park closer. "We could have avoided this," Keane said. "I told you that the girls need human interaction outside of just you and me. Maybe they're not normal, but they are humans, and humans are all the same deep down inside."

"Reprimand me all you want later," he told her. "Right now, we need to focus our efforts on finding and reprimanding the girls." He took the lead, and Keane followed close behind and they entered the crowd. They passed through the line of concessions and fat fans enjoying what they just got from the concession stand. They barely squeezed through the tightening crowd, but they finally managed to make it through, and Bubbles and Buttercup were visible across the field.

They moved faster, but quietly to make sure that they didn't hear them coming (as if you could hear anything in the crowd). Bubbles and Buttercup were talking and looking at a building in front of them when Keane and Professor caught up to them. She grabbed Bubbles' arm, and he grabbed Buttercup.

"You girls know you're not supposed to leave the basement!"

"And you know you're not supposed to figure out that we left!" Buttercup shot back.

"Out of fairness," Bubbles added, "it was mostly Blossom's idea."

"Selling each other out," Keane noticed. "They're acting more and more like real sisters everyday."

"Where is she?" he asked commandingly.

"Well, we were seated and watching the inauguration when she thought there was something suspicious about the man watching it from the roof of this building with a telescope. Blossom went to go check it out, and me and Buttercup were discussing whether or not to go in after her."

"Buttercup and I," Keane corrected. "And I don't he's watching it from a telescope." The professor nodded and led the small group into the building.

Upstairs, Blossom had jut finished trekking the way up the stairs and now found herself in front of a locked door leading to the rooftop. She looked at the handle before grasping it. When it didn't turn, Blossom figured the only thing she could do was turn the handle harder. Eventually, it shattered and the door swung open.

There, she could see the back of the man watching down below with his telescope. "Excuse me," Blossom called to him. "I was just wondering why you're watching it from up here and not down there along with everyone else."

Her turned to look at her, a hefty man with a thick beard and sunglasses. He looked at her in surprise and pull out a smaller gun. "Girly," he started. "You had better turn back around and forget what you saw. I'm giving leniency only because you're a little girl."

"Is that supposed to be a insult?" she asked with a snarl. "Miss Keane says it's not nice to insult people. And it's not polite to point either, with whatever that is you're holding."

"I'll give you until the count of three. One. Two. Three." Blossom didn't move. The man shrugged and pulled the trigger. He began to turn back, but turned back toward Blossom upon not hearing a body drop. She was still standing there, except she was holding the bullet.

"That was unnecessary loud," she noticed. "And really, this could probably have hurt someone if they weren't paying attention." Blossom began to move closer to the man, and he fired two more shots. Blossom caught them both and tossed them to the side. She grabbed onto his wrist, breaking it with ease and causing him to drop the gun. He was at her mercy, but she didn't realize it and she let go of his arm. As he reeled in pain, the others came in.

"He wasn't really a problem," Blossom told them. "He was just being rude to me."

The professor looked down at the man, still reeling in pain. "We need to get out of here. Now."

The all turned back into the stairwell, where police officers were now coming up. Two of them went to the man on the floor and immediately placed him in handcuffs. The adults had a look of despondency in their faces, but the girls were completely unaware of what was going on. Then, the last person came onto the roof. He was wearing a suit and tie. He whistled, and then said, "The man's arm is broken, the door handle is shattered, and mayor's life is saved. Which one of you is responsible for all of that?" Blossom desperately wanted to answer his question, but the professor shot her a look to keep silent.

"I know you," he said to Miss Keane. "You're Kathleen Keane. You teach the kids over at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten." He moved over to the professor. "You I don't recognize. Are you new in town?"

"Kind of. My name is John," he lied. "John Utonium." Keane rolled her eyes at the obvious lie, but none of the officers appeared to notice.

The suited man continued. "Of course, you don't expect me to believe that the one of the girls did all of this, do you?" Utonium shot him a smirk, as if it was obvious. "Well, Miss Keane has never shown the ability to do any of this before, so that leaves only you. I think you have a lot of explaining to do."

"It was me," Blossom interrupted on instinct. Utonium shot her another look, but she ignored this one. "I'll prove it." Blossom grabbed one of the officers by the wrist and broke it with ease.

The suited man stared at Blossom with raised eyebrows and a dropped jaw. He finally turned back to Utonium, saying; "I think you have even more explaining to do." His breathing was heavy and a bit labored. Keane was the only one to notice. The big secret was out, and it was about to come out on a grand scale with one more arrival on the rooftop.

The redhead from the podium was now with them on the rooftop. "You guys are making quite a scene, and it's very noticeable. Mayor Meyer would like to see you all downstairs immediately." She led the group down. The police chief was directly behind her, with Utonium, then Keane, the girls, and the remaining officers brining up the rear. She led them through the crowd and up onto the stage net to where the mayor stood at the podium.

He said to the audience; "I don't know if anyone of you realize this, but there was just an attempt on my life." No one in the audience seemed to care. "Anyway, I just wanted to bring out the people who saved my life. No, I don't mean the police. I mean the girls. From what I've been told, it was the girls, the one in red in particular, who took down the assassin single handedly. Come on over here!" Utonium sighed. There was no stopping her.

Blossom came up to the podium, and stared at all the people who were staring right back at her. "It was a team effort," she lied as she ran back and grabbed her sisters to join her up stage. Of course, this was just her acting like a real sister. If she was going to embarrass herself, she was going to make sure her sisters went down with them.

"How'd you do it?" a reporter in the front row finally asked.

"I broke his wrist, apparently," Blossom replied. People murmured, and the girls couldn't figure out why. "You do realize that girls your age don't normally do that, right?"

"No," Blossom said. "The professor did tell us that we weren't like other boys and girls, but he wouldn't tell us why."

Most everyone was in silence, except Meyer, who joined the girls back on stage. "I know this is the point where we should be questioning the laws of science, whether or not they still apply, who or what the professor really is, is it legal, and stuff of the like, but I like partying better, and I think now is the time to celebrate, because crime in this town won't be able to lift a finger against the Powerpuff Girls!"

"The what?" they said together.

"Don't you get it?' he asked with a smile. "It's like the word powderpuff, but then I took out the 'd' so it says Powerpuff. It's your superhero team name. See? It's a play on words! It's clever. Right, Sarah?"

"Clever, sir," the frizzy redhead said with little enthusiasm.

"Powerpuff! Powerpuff! Powerpuff! Powerpuff!" He kept chanting it over and over again, and some of the audience joined him. Sarah stood in silence. The police chief cracked a smile. Miss Keane didn't know what emotion to express. Utonium simply stood thinking about the future, and if he had one outside of prison. The girls, on the other hand, were chanting along with Meyer. They've never had more fun.