Chapter 1
Within the walls of the Townsville Penitentiary, the activity level of the staff had skyrocketed in the timespan of a mere fifteen minutes. Being a huge fan of the Powerpuff Girls, he wanted to be at the firework finale to the Power-Palooza Parade, an event meant to celebrate the local superhero trio. He had been adamant about leaving to see it, even if it meant bribing the employees so that his absence would not be reported to the higher-ups.
It went about as smoothly as one would expect.
Once the warden had left the facility, many of the less devoted guards immediately dashed from their stations to the mess hall. There, one among them had stashed a cooler full of beers, which had been saved for "emergencies" only.
In the wake of the initial migration, it was clear which employees were committed to their jobs, even in the boss's absence. One such guard was stationed outside a high security cell.
The man wished he could say he wasn't swayed by the peer pressure of his coworkers to join them in the merriment, but it had taken all of his willpower just to decline their invitation. Moreover, the distant sounds of laughter and rap music coming from the other end of the building were growing more difficult to resist with each passing moment.
As the guard stood there awkwardly, another man in the same uniform approached him with a slight skip in his step. "Hey Joey," greeted the passing guard, "you wanna grab a drink with the rest of us?"
Joey the guard sighed and replied reluctantly, "Can't do it, Aaron." He pointed to the cell behind him. "This one's too dangerous to leave alone for too long."
"Come on, Joey, lighten up," Aaron chided, playfully punching his coworker's shoulder. "Where's your sense of adventure? Everyone is having a great time in the mess hall and you're stuck here! All I'm asking for is one drink! I swear it will only take a few minutes out of your life," he waved a hand dismissively at the prisoner, who appeared fast asleep on his cot, "and then you can go back to watching Monkey-business over there." Aaron casually relaxed his shoulders and grinned mischievously, "Whaddya say?"
Making eye contact with Aaron, Joey's resistance finally crumbled, and he returned the smile with an eager nod. "Okay, but just one beer! I'm still mentally recovering from the hangover I got from our sci-fi drinking game two days ago."
With that, the two guards sprinted down the hall, leaving behind the most infamous resident of the Townsville Penitentiary.
The green-skinned, black-furred simian grinned beneath his covers and threw them off as soon as he could no longer hear the footsteps of the two guards.
"These foolish fools are truly foolish!" The primate muttered triumphantly to himself. "First they decide to place me in the same, exact cell they kept me in before, and now they leave me alone and unguarded so I may execute my diabolical plan of escape!" The primate removed his helmet, revealing the massive brain that protruded from his skull. He then made his way to the toilet in the corner of his cell.
"Honestly, they should know better when dealing with the greatest villain Townsville had ever seen: Mojo Jojo!" He threw his arms upwards and laughed maniacally before scooping up a few cups of the cloudy toilet water.
"In fact," Mojo Jojo continued to himself and he moved towards the window, being careful not to spill the liquid, "the foolish fools have yet to realize that their toilet water contains miniscule, trace amounts of Chemical X!"
He thought back to four weeks ago, when the Powerpuff Girls had defeated him, yet again, and tossed him into prison. Ever since those girls had appeared, Mojo Jojo had existed in a vicious cycle of devising plans, being thwarted, and falling in defeat. In spite of his horrendous track record, the primate mastermind chose to believe that with each defeat, he was growing closer and closer to crushing the girls. Slowly but surely, he was learning their strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. One of these days, he told himself, he would formulate the perfect plan, and finally emerge victorious, as he so rightfully deserved.
Initially, he had expected this particular stay in prison to be his shortest yet, an estimated two days at the longest, as he had planned to spend all of his time devising new ways to escape.
The past five days, however, had sapped all concentration, and even a substantial amount of confidence, from Mojo Jojo.
When rumors spread among the inmates about the Power-Palooza, Mojo Jojo hadn't believed them. Townsville would never find a way to pay for a five-day festival, he told himself, especially after his latest battle with the girls, which had left a considerable number of the city's buildings in need of repair.
Apparently, he had been wrong.
He woke up on Monday morning to a raucous combination of stamping feet, incessant shouting, and obnoxious music. He was able to see the tops of the largest floats from his high-up window, but he could only imagine the grand scale of this event. Mojo Jojo had spent the rest of that day huddled in the opposite corner from that window, trying in vain to keep the sounds outside from reaching his sensitive ears.
The rest of the week had progressed much in the same way; everywhere in the prison, staff and inmates spoke about the celebrations, and it infuriated Mojo to no end. This could have been a festival honoring him, he thought. After all, the chemical reaction that had created the Powerpuff Girls was the very same that mutated him from an average monkey into a simian supergenius.
Ever since his transformation, Mojo Jojo knew he had the potential to change the world for the better, and create a society where everyone would be happy under his rule. Sure, his methods weren't the most diplomatic, but that didn't mean he deserved to wallow in prison while his greatest adversaries were showered with praise. It seemed that no citizen in Townsville truly valued him or his intelligence.
Mojo Jojo chuckled to himself as he tested the bars on the window, snapping them off one by one. How lucky he had been to steal some soap from the showers. Blending it with corrosive chemicals from the toilet allowed him to slowly erode the bars until they were brittle enough to break with his bare hands.
When Mojo Jojo thought about it, there were only three individuals who even acknowledged his worth and meant something to him in return: the Rowdyruff Boys.
Although they didn't live with him anymore, the boys came to visit Mojo Jojo in his lair quite frequently. He was so proud that they had begun do evil independently at the young age of six.
The boys would soon be turning ten years old, Mojo remembered suddenly as the last bar broke off. He made a mental note to buy them presents before they barged into his lair and claimed something anyway.
Multicolored flashes of light in the sky, followed by a booming din, told him that the fireworks show had just begun. That meant that nearly every citizen in Townsville would be outside of the city limits.
Now was the time to make his getaway.
Cradling his helmet under one arm, Mojo used his other arm to climb through his window and inch along quietly on a ledge on the outside wall. As many villains tend to do, Mojo Jojo considered aloud the plans he would set into action as soon as he returned home.
"The boys are powerful, there is no doubt about that, but they have too many obviously weaknesses that can be easily exploited by the girls." He flung himself to a nearby building under the cover of the darkness, taking care only to move between the bursts of fireworks.
"The girls don't have any clear, obvious weaknesses, but they are not as strong as my boys." He hopped across a few more rooftops before crouching behind a chimney as another volley of colorful explosives painted the sky.
Looking down in his helmet, Mojo continued, "If I take this solution of toilet water and Chemical X and mix it with the proper ingredients that made the Powerpuff Girls," he swung to another building and finished, "then I can create three rotten little girls! The combined power of six child supervillains will certainly be more than enough to overtake Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup! For six is twice the amount of three, and three is what they are, and six is what I shall have created!" Once again, Mojo threw his arms up victoriously and laughed maniacally, his menacing frame outlined by a backdrop of fireworks. "And this time, I shall be the victor, the winner, the champion!"
When his bought of evil laughter was finished, Mojo Jojo travelled once again under the cover of darkness, eagerly anticipating the advent of his next project the following day.
