Author's Notes: I am really excited to start this new PPG fic! While my first PPG story is a slow burn character study, this one is a more of a dramatic plot driven story. I already have several chapters mapped out, so hopefully I'll be able to keep this fic updated on a fairly regular basis, though given the sheer number of fanfics I have yet to complete I can't promise anything beyond I'll do my best. Oddly enough the hardest part for me is writing Mojo Jojo's dialogue in such a way that it is in-character without going overboard. Hopefully you will stick around to see where this story goes, and thank you for checking it out in the first place :)
Chapter 1
Lost
The girls were only a few days old, yet this was without question the worst day of their lives. They had accidentally destroyed most of the town in a game of tag, they had to suffer ostracisation and humiliation at school even as the repair crews worked to fix the broken kindergarten building, the professor had left them waiting for him for hours at the school's park lot ultimately forcing them to walk home, and to top it all off the entire town hated them and it was raining. It felt like life couldn't get much worse for the chemically engineered little girls.
Blossom tried to lead her screaming and crying sisters through the rain without giving away how scared she was. They were all scared, but she didn't feel like she should show it. She wasn't scared that they were lost, but rather that this all might've been by design. The professor had claimed to love them and want them around, but at the same time he was the one who told them their powers were something bad. Maybe he had changed his mind and had never intended to come back.
Still, trying to go home seemed like the best solution. None of the girls knew what they were going to do when they got home, but they had to try. Even if the professor didn't love them anymore, maybe they could convince him to give them one more chance. All they had to do was never use their powers again and maybe the rest of the world would let them live in peace.
The rain was coming down harder, so they sought shelter in an alley. There were many boxes just lying around, so maybe they could dry off in one and wait out the storm before trying to go back home again. Blossom felt triumphant at having come up with a solution for their rain problem, Bubbles felt hopeful that they could make it home, and Buttercup just felt lost.
As they ran closer to the pile of boxes, lightning flashed and suddenly they were face to face with a little green monster with big eyes and big teeth!
"AAHH!" The girls screamed, having never seen such a thing before.
Just as they backed away, another green monster popped out of a dumpster and hissed at them. They screamed and headed in the opposite direction, only for a giant fat green monster to pop out of a pile of boxes and roar at them! They screamed and huddled closer together, and then noticed a truck that was parked behind the alley. The truck's door lifted open, and out jumped another tall green thug. This one had an especially sinister look, and the others seemed to gravitate toward him like the students to Ms. Keane. The girls were terrified and sopping wet as they looked up at the grinning visage of the dangerous looking gangster.
"Aww, whatsa matter? Did somebody get wost?" The leader of the gang cooed mockingly at the girls, followed by the collective cackling of the disheveled green demons.
The girls backed up defensively, not understanding everything that could happen but the fear in their hearts overtaking them anyway. They turned toward the three larger gangsters, then turned toward the boxes where the little one still stood there laughing, and then looked toward the way they came. They thought they could backtrack, but that idea was thrown out when another green monster leapt down at them. This one was the ugliest of all, with a long tongue, bulging bloodshot eyes, a hunched back, tattered clothes, messed up teeth, and lanky arms ready to grab them.
"Please, leave us alone!" Blossom called out to the leader of the gang; knowing he could stop the others.
"We just wanna go home!" Bubbles sobbed as she hid behind Blossom.
"Yeah, we're sorry already, okay? We can't help it that we're freaks!" Buttercup shouted defensively.
The hunchbacked teen grabbed at Bubbles, who tried in vain to pull away. He opened his mouth and tried to shove Bubbles in, but she held onto the outside of his mouth with her arms and legs to keep herself from getting eaten or whatever he was planning to do.
"Bubbles!" The other two girls shouted in unison.
Suddenly there was a shrill whistle, and the hunchback put Bubbles back down next to her sisters. They hugged her in relief, and then looked back up at the sunglasses wearing gang leader that had called off the attack.
"You think you're freaks?" The gangster scoffed at the little girls, "Yous think you're special? Hah! That's rich. You don't know what bein' a real freak is all about. You're nothin' like us."
"Well, they do have really big eyesss. That'sss kind of freaky," The reptilian gangster pointed out, which earned him a punch to the nose from his leader.
The girls flinched, not used to seeing violence up close and now worried the gang leader would turn his anger toward them.
"Please sir, we have to get home," Blossom pleaded with the gang, "Our father was supposed to pick us up from school, but he never came. We're lost. Can you help us?"
"Oh get real, Blossom!" Buttercup suddenly shouted in frustration, "The professor doesn't want us to come back! That's why he left us! This is because of all that stuff we broke, and because he didn't want freaks for daughters! We might as well just curl up in the garbage, because he threw us away!"
"Hm...abandoned by society, eh?" The leader mused as he looked over the tiny well dressed little girls, "I never would've pegged you for the type. Oh well. Boys, we're going home. Move it!"
"We're just letting themsss go?" The reptilian asked uncomprehendingly, "But they might have moneysss."
"Those little pipsqueaks? Doubtful," The leader scoffed before turning his back on the girls.
The rest of the gang followed their leader out of the alleyway, leaving the girls behind in the alley with the boxes and the open truck. They breathed a sigh of relief at being spared a horrible fate, but now realized they were still cold, wet, hungry, and lost. They looked at each other, looked at the truck, and looked back at the retreating forms of the green gangsters. Nodding at one another in understanding, they ran after the gang.
"Hey Ace," Lil' Arturo hollered up at his leader, "Those chicas are following us. What should we do?"
"Pfft!" Grubber suggested.
"I already told you no," Ace reprimanded Grubber, "Besides, I'm sure that much sweetness is bad for your health. If they get too close just kick some puddle water on them. That'll make 'em leave."
The gang continued to ignore the three soaking wet little girls, but the girls refused to stop following them. After a few seconds Billy noticed they were still there and stopped walking and turned around to look down at them.
The girls noticed that the large man's attention was on them now, and they started rethinking whether or not this had been a good idea. He bent down, and they backed away apprehensively. The others noticed Big Billy wasn't with them, so Ace went back with the gang in tow and glared at his dumb muscle.
"And just what do you think you're doin'?" Ace asked Billy accusingly.
"Dah, I was lookin' at the pretty little girls," Billy replied with a dopey smile, "I wanna keep 'em!"
"Billy that's stupid," Ace shot down the request, "We ain't lettin' no little girls in the Gangreen Gang, even if they are bug-eyed freaks."
"Um, sir?" Blossom piped up despite her fear of the gang leader, "We don't have anywhere else to go. Nobody wants us. Can we stay with you?"
"Please?" Bubbles added for good measure.
"No," Ace replied pitilessly, "You're lucky we didn't pound yous into the concrete back there, and now you're pushin' your luck by botherin' us? What's wrong with yous?"
"We told you, we need a place to stay!" Buttercup shouted; nearing her breaking point after the crappy day she'd had.
"We're good girls, really!" Bubbles proclaimed, knowing that was a hard argument to make in lieu of the damage they caused.
"Good girls, eh?" Ace asked with a sly smirk, "Good girls don't end up here. This is Townsville, ladies. Townsville's buttcrack to be more precise. If you're here, then it's because there's somethin' wrong with yous. We'll let yous flop with us for one night, but then you're gone. Got it?"
"Got it," Blossom quickly agreed before he changed his mind.
"Good," Ace nodded in satisfaction despite completely caving into their request, "By the way, I'm Ace. That's Big Billy. The short guy is Lil' Arturo. The ugly guy is Grubber, and the scaly guy is Snake. Don't forget it because I ain't repeatin' myself."
The girls nodded readily and then continued to follow the Gangreen Gang through the rain-soaked decimated streets of Townsville.
After a few minutes Bubbles got tired of walking, but she knew she wasn't allowed to fly anymore, so she collapsed and fell behind the group. Big Billy was the first to notice she was lying on the ground unable to get up, so he went over and picked her up; carrying her the rest of the way.
A few blocks away on the roof of a building near the alley of boxes stood a shadowy figure glaring at the roadway ahead of him. Jojo stood there in the rain, a bag over his exposed freakishly large brain and a ratty coat and scarf for warmth. He saw his last chance to get revenge on the world walking away with a group of green hoodlums, and he growled low from deep within his wretched soul.
Lightning struck, and if anyone had been around they would have seen that this mysterious figure of the night was no homeless man or vigilante but was in fact a mutated green and black chimpanzee.
Yes, Jojo, former assistant of Professor Utonium and victim of an explosion involving Chemical X. Jojo, an ape that had until that moment been like any other chimp until he had screwed up the professor's perfect little girl formula and aided in the creation of the chemically enhanced super strong little girls that had just run off with the Gangreen Gang. Jojo, hater of mankind and freak of nature.
"How am I to complete my plans without the aid of the girls?" Jojo asked himself in frustration, "How is it that I am to rule the world and take complete control of it if I am unable to procure the super powered super girls and use their mighty abilities to my own nefarious ends? How am I to free my monkey and ape brethren if I am but a mere super genius simian with no super powers and no lair? I must think of a new plan."
Jojo returned to the cardboard box he had been living in for the past few days. After he left the professor's lab he had at first wandered in a daze, lost and confused as to what to do with himself now that the professor no longer seemed to need him. It didn't take long for him to find himself at the Townsville Zoo and to see for himself the apes and monkeys that were being exploited for the amusement of man.
Jojo had always known that humans could be cruel. He knew that apes were captured and killed, but he never understood the reason until he saw that zoo. He barely remembered the rain forests where he had lived in his infancy. He didn't remember much, but he would never forget the day poachers killed his mother and took him away from his troupe. He remembered being cold, scared, and hungry. Much like he was right now in this rain-soaked box.
Jojo hated humanity for what it did to his fellow primates. His plan was a complex one, yet achievable if he had the right materials. He wanted to turn all the monkeys and apes at the zoo into super intelligent simians and then use their combined intellect to take over Townsville, and eventually the world. Then he would be king over a perfect world where man served ape.
When he thought about those humans gawking at those poor defenseless monkeys it made his blood boil.
"Stupid humans," Jojo muttered to himself as he watched the rain fall down onto the garbage littering the allwayway, "They capture monkeys for exhibits, and they kill apes for their body parts and their infants. When I think of it I shudder. It could have easily been me behind those iron bars getting peanut shells thrown at me by imbecilic children. It could have been me murdered for my hands to be turned into ashtrays. It could have been me-..."
Then Jojo suddenly stopped speaking as his mind finally caught up with what his mouth had been saying. His anger suddenly turned to sadness as he realized something he had overlooked in his tirade against the human race.
"It could have been me...if it weren't for the professor," Jojo whispered as he hugged his knees against his chest and shivered in the cold, "The professor rescued me from that horrible market. The professor raised me in his own home, as his own lab assistant. The professor is...is...the closest thing I have to a father. How could he abandon me for those horrible girls? They betrayed him! They left him for a group of criminals. Why? Why did he stop paying attention to me to make those awful girls? Does he even know I am gone?"
The more intelligent side of Jojo was in that moment overshadowed by the young ape that just wanted to go home to his father. He hated humans, that much was true, but did he truly hate the professor? Jojo wondered if the professor would apologize to him if given the chance.
"Maybe he'll like me better now that I'm toilet trained," Jojo briefly pondered.
For a few minutes Jojo just sat there in the cold wet box and pitied himself for not being loved by his father figure anymore. His plans for world domination were still in the back of his brilliant mind, but they were being pushed aside for the moment as Jojo tried to solve the puzzle of how to handle his former family.
"Wait!" Jojo suddenly realized, "The girls have superpowers! If that gang of teenage thugs harnesses such power, then they could take over Townsville and the world! The professor would be killed by those vengeful little harpies. I must do something, and I must do it now! But how? The only place with decent technology is...the lab! I must go back home to find what I need in the professor's laboratory. There, I will use what I have procured to fashion a device to destroy the girls, and by destroying the girls I will be the only one left for the professor to pay attention to, and then he will help me take over the world! Mwahahahahaha!"
Jojo might have had augmented brain power, but at this point in his life he was still young, and his plan was less than sound. Still, he had a plan, and it started with going back to the lab to gather supplies and perhaps even tricking the professor into helping him destroy the girls. Yes, Jojo thought, this could work.