CHAPTER ONE: THE CITY OF TOWNSVILLE

A booming metropolis! A great big bastion of the modern world! There it sits under a flawless blue sky as its people run about the tasks of everyday life.

There's Townsville Bakery, where there's no shortage of scrumptious treats to share with the city's hungry citizens!

Here's Townsville Park, where well-meaning parents take their children for a fun day of frivolity!

And there's Townsville's monster….

TOWNSVILLE'S MONSTER!?

Oh no! It's hideous! Orange scales, teeth and back spikes equally long, half again as tall as the tallest skyscraper. Men and women scream, run! What will Townsville do?

Luckily, just outside of Townsville's borders, in quiet Suburbia:

BRAMP, BRAMP, BRAMP.

…..

BRAMP, BRAMP, BRAMP.

…..

BRAMP, BRA―

"God, Buttercup, will you get that already?" Blossom lay on top of the bedspread she shared with her two twin sisters, head over dark forest green and feet kicking idly over a deep rosy pink. Two textbooks and a spiral notebook sprawled under her face, which had carried a studious look, but which now glared at her sister. "Some of us are doing hoooooomewwwwwork." She sounded out the word in an exaggerated fashion.

Buttercup, who lounged on the other side of the criminally messy room, lifted one half of a pair of comically oversized headphones from her ear. "Yeah, some of us are doing next week's homework," she responded. "Others of us are listening to kick-ass music."

"Ugghhh! Can't you for once just get the―"

But Buttercup only made jerky motions with her arms in sync with the electronic music. "I cannot hear you," she said. "I am programmed only to dance."

"I'll get it!" said Bubbles in a sing-song voice, and zipped across the room in a blue flash. The latest issue of the latest manga she'd gotten her hands on fluttered to the floor. "Powerpuff Girls! Bubbles speaking."

For a moment, the other end of the line was silent, as though waiting for a familiar memory of a blathering, hysterical voice. Then, a clipped tone: "Giant monster. Make it snappy." The line went dead.

"Okay!" Bubbles replaced the receiver into the cradle. "Giant monster!" she cried. She made a jet out one of the circular windows in their room, the same blue streak trailing behind her.

"Right behind you!" Blossom called. She quickly stacked her things so they wouldn't fly everywhere, then she followed Bubbles outside. They sailed together across the quaint houses of their neighbors at blinding speed, fast approaching the city.

Go girls! Go! Hurry!

"What happened?" Buttercup flew up beside them. "I looked up and you guys were gone."

"Huh. Big surprise," Blossom said. "You know, if you'd listen more carefully, you wouldn't get left behind."

"Whatever."

Uh oh. Looks like some tension has arisen between these two. Can't they just get alo―?

"Oh, shaddup!" said Buttercup.

The narrator did.

To the girls's bemused dismay, it wasn't even a particularly exciting monster. It was as tall as any structure in the center of the city, swinging its stubby limbs at its inanimate competitors. Its countless eyes moved as one from side to side, up and down. Its orange, scaly skin covered all but those eyes.

"Do you remember Steve?" Bubbles asked, as she clocked the monster on top of the head. "I liked Steve."

"Oh yeah!" Buttercup directed her heat vision at their target, which roared in pain. "Cyclops, kind of heart-shaped, actually talked?"

"He said monsters come here hoping to challenge us," said Blossom. "How about it, big guy? You wanted a piece of us? Well, you got it!"

The monster, dazed, rocked back and forth on its heels.

"Alright girls, let's wrap this up." Blossom spread her arms, and her sisters followed her lead. "POWERPUFF…WRECKING BA―"

They screamed. Blinding white light sparked all around them, bringing an equally blinding pain. When it dissipated, they plummeted to the ground and crashed into the pavement. Atop a nearby building, a small strand of smoke trailed from the mouth of a wide gun barrel. Behind it stood a green-faced, bipedal primate with a flowing, flapping purple cape and matching tunic. A particularly hairy primate.

"Muahahahaha!" Mojo Jojo cried as the girls groaned and detached themselves from the holes they'd made in the asphalt. "You Powerpuff Girls are always focused on the monster when a monster comes! So I thought, why not seize the opportunity? Thus I have caught you off guard, unawares, backs turned, none the wiser…"

"Well, at least this is something different from him," Buttercup muttered under his stream of redundancies.

"But just as stupid," Blossom put in. "Alright, Mojo, the jig is up. Put down the ray gun and come quietly."

"Oh, you would like that, wouldn't you?" Mojo showed a row of teeth. "I do not think I will."

"Whatever," Buttercup said. "Let's roast 'im!"

They flew at their eternal archnemesis…only to be smacked aside by an orange stump. The monster had regained its bearings.

"I would say you have larger problems to worry about!" Mojo Jojo said, cackling.

Dang, Blossom thought. This just got complicated. Mojo Jojo opened fire with his laser again; they had to be aware of that while still fighting a monster. Not only that, but the monster was faster now, as impossible as that seemed. Its attacks were as relentless as Mojo's. Blossom had to focus. Her sisters were waiting for her instruction. It was hard to concentrate, though, with those terrible monster's eyes following them wherever they went.

All of its eyes…

"Buttercup!" Blossom yelled. "Come around to its left with me! Bubbles, as soon as we do, get Mojo!"

And they were off. Because Blossom and Buttercup went first, the monster completely missed Bubbles as she attacked Mojo Jojo. As many eyes as it had, it couldn't make them move independently of one another. For the same reason, a moment later, when Blossom and Buttercup themselves split up, Buttercup was entirely in its blind spot.

She quickly punched out two of its eyes. When it turned its attention toward her, Blossom took her turn. And on and on they went. Irritated tears trickled from the monster's bleary orbs. It tried to find the accursed tiny attackers again, but the damaged eyes weren't as effective as they had been a minute ago.

The two girls were uninterrupted by Mojo Jojo. Bubbles had done her part. She had flown to Mojo's left, low, so he wouldn't hit her sisters but so there was a chance he would shoot the monster. He, in fact, did shoot the monster, buying Buttercup and Blossom an extra few seconds.

"Ach! Stay still, you little runt!" he growled.

Bubbles dodged and weaved. She couldn't get close! So she screamed, and expanding circles of vibration from her open mouth made Mojo Jojo shudder. He clapped his hands to his ears and dropped the gun. Bubbles barreled into him, delivered an uppercut and left cross, and laid him out on the building he had chosen as his vantage point.

"Hah!" She stood over him with a foot on his chest. "You are defeated, Mojo-chan!"

"Oh brother." Mojo Jojo rolled his eyes. "What junk are they feeding children these days?"

"It's not junk, IT'S MAGICAL PRINCESS VOLUME 5!" Bubbles yelled. "She's a superhero, like me."

"Oh, good for you," Mojo drawled.

The air whipped at them harshly, and they both looked up to find helicopters descending. Police officers in full protective gear hopped out and formed disciplined lines. One broad-shouldered man stepped out from the others, one with a large red mustache and beady eyes.

"Bubbles," he said, a little darkly. "Hand him over to us now."

"Okay!" she said cheerfully, and literally picked Mojo up and held him out to the chief. A few snickers drifted from the line-up, quickly silenced by a glance from their boss. At that, Bubbles' good spirit faltered.

Meanwhile, her sisters tossed the monster back into the ocean from whence it had come. Blossom noticed the crowd of cops, and her nerves jumped. "C'mon," she said to Buttercup, and they joined their sister in seconds.

"Secure the blaster," the chief ordered. Two of his men did; then, once Mojo Jojo was standing, two other slapped cuffs on him. Mojo pulled, but couldn't break them. Of course not. He didn't have superpowers.

"Curse you, Powerpuff Girls." But he didn't shriek it, as he normally might have. He only muttered it. Then, the police led him quietly away.

"Excuse me, Powerpuff Girls?" someone repeated. It was a woman in a striped pantsuit. Her pointy-edged glasses gave her a stern demeanor. "The mayor asked me to come. He wants you over at City Hall."

"We're on it," said Buttercup. Good. She wanted to ditch this scene. She didn't like how the cops were making her feel. Neither did her sisters, from the look of it―especially Bubbles, who seemed crestfallen.

As they took off, a cheer arose from the streets, something to which the girls had grown accustomed in their many years of crime-fighting…but something about it seemed off.

"Hey," said Bubbles. "Do they seem quiet to you guys?"

They did. It wasn't the people who were cheering; they called and hooted and praised as loudly as they ever had. What the girls were realizing just now was that there were fewer cheerers than there once had been. When had that happened?

A pallor that hadn't been there that morning stayed with them through their whole flight.

They landed gracefully before the impeccably white building of City Hall. Inside, they walked into the mayor's office through the double doors. The man in the old high-backed swivel chair wasn't short. No bald head, no hat, no mustache, as much as the girls still expected it after all this time. The mayor they'd known their whole lives hadn't held the title for six months. In his place sat a man whom, even before he had become the new mayor of Townsville, the girls had seen before: in a much smaller office in the town of Citiesville. He had a full head of white hair and a long, lined face that had a way of brooking no argument.

When they came in, he put down his pen and looked at them over clasped hands. "I've heard that you three cut off some police officers dealing with a bank robbery in progress," he said. His voice was almost permanently dry.

They looked at each other, nervous. "Yeah?" The word was a challenge from Buttercup. "So? They were doing a bad thing, so we stopped it."

"You know what we discussed," he said. "No interfering in common crimes."

Buttercup opened her mouth again―probably some snappy retort was forthcoming―but Blossom put an arm across her sister's chest, and she fell silent.

"We're sorry we went against your order, Mayor," Blossom said reasonably. "The thing is, when we see wrongdoing, we act to stop it. It's our moral imperative. It's what got us crime-fighting in the first place. We can't ignore something because it's a certain type of crime. It's just not in our nature."

There was a long pause. The mayor considered them. The girls shuffled their feet.

"I'm going to speak plainly to you," he finally said, and his voice had changed. There was a note of sympathy in it, maybe even caring. "Not only do you deserve it, but I think you can handle it. You don't get much credit because of how you look, but I think you're more mature than many adults. The problem is, not everyone thinks that way, so you haven't had the luxury of learning what any adult must.

"I feel sorry for you, Powerpuff Girls. You're not much older than my granddaughter, to tell you the truth. But the fact of the matter is, if you want to remain relevant in this city―relevant anywhere, even―you're going to have to look certain hard things in the face. Despite your appearance, anyone who's really paying attention can see you're experienced. Battle-hardened. But only against monsters and supervillains, who are, let's face it, only a few innings out of the whole ballgame.

"There have always been two types of crime in Townsville. The kind we need you three for, and the kind we don't. The kind that punches, heat vision, and ice breath don't solve. Organized crime, murder investigations, corruption in business. You were never exposed to such things. The previous mayor saw to that." He smiled to himself. "Yes. Yes, the previous mayor did. She certainly did."

The girls exchanged glances again. Did he mean Miss Bellum?

"But that's in the past. Here's the point. The golden age of superheroes is over, and because of you three, Townsville is the last place to realize it. Other major cities around the world suffered from this sickness of…dependence on people in costumes, but things have changed. Major Glory has retired, Valhallen apparently left Earth, and the Association of World Super Men hasn't made any collective action in over a year.

"Listen. I was the mayor of Citiesville for many years. I have only one term left in me. I know that now. I like you girls, I really do, and if you're going to stick around long after I'm gone, then you need to learn these things. You need to be ready for changing minds in the city. You need to be ready for a mayor who's openly hostile to you, like I once was in Citiesville."

The girls didn't look at each other this time, but they didn't need to. They were all thinking about what Bubbles had said about that crowd. About how it was quieter than it used to be.

"There's something I should show you," he said, pushing himself up with the desk. It looked like it wasn't easy. "No one else has taken the time to. Meet me at Townsville Jail."

"C'mon, mayor," Buttercup said. "Let us carry you. The old mayor did!"

"My car is just fine," the new mayor said before exiting the room.

"In case you haven't been paying attention recently, this is the newly constructed wing." The mayor opened a door upon a fluorescent-lit corridor, even brighter than the day outside. Uniformly spaced cells lined the hall. They looked unfinished; concrete blocks littered the floors, and trowels caked with mortar rested atop fresh packages of mix.

"Why are we here, mayor?" Bubbles asked.

"As you can see," he said, "security and, more importantly, living conditions have been vastly improved. Prison reform is in full force, girls. It's not enough to throw criminals in the clink, and it never has been."

"Um, no." Buttercup talked like she might have to the biggest idiot in the whole class. "That's the whole point."

"Is it? That only makes sense if bad guys are just that: bad guys. And to think that is easy, real easy. To try to turn them into something other than bad guys: that's hard.

"The story isn't over when the cell doors close. Townsville is used to this rinse-and-repeat cycle where criminals come here to stay for good, because it's where they belong. Or, stay until they find a way out. But not only is that not sustainable, it doesn't reduce the possibility of criminals growing up in the next generation. What we really want is a prison system that can unmake criminals―and keep the ones that can't be unmade."

Cells further down were complete. Panes of glass, not rusting bars, secured them from the civilized world. The finished rooms inside were clean, white, and seemingly a little more spacious than the old cells. The air smelled stale, almost sickening―the smell of cleaners. Blossom realized that the offensive odors of prison had become so commonplace to them over the years, that they were smelling what most people wouldn't notice.

But it was the cells's inhabitants that were the most shocking. Always, they had been dressed in black and white, violent, raucous, and leering. These guys, dressed in orange instead, were well-behaved! Two of them were even too absorbed in books to notice their popular visitors.

"Highlight lesson of the day, girls: everything has to be paid for. Everything. By all accounts, Townsville should have gone the way of Citiesville much sooner. You three know: my old city hasn't seen its best years since I was a young man." His audience nodded. "Not only has Townsville avoided that fate, it has prospered. And that is only because of one man: Morbucks."

"Morbucks?" Buttercup asked, a touch of anger in her voice. "You mean, like Princess Morbucks?"

"Mr. Morbucks, yes. I don't know what Townsville would have done without him. Sure, his daughter's a spoiled brat―" (Blossom smirked triumphantly at this) "―and his one real weakness of character is that he can't seem to say no to her, at least not as much as she needs to hear it. But he's a philanthropist, no question about it. By this point, his money is in every building here in Townsville.

"His generosity has given Townsville a chance to re-brand itself. We don't intend to―"

Buttercup gasped. She zoomed to one of the cells and pressed her face to the glass. From the inside, her already large eyes were further magnified. "Look!" she said.

"Right," the mayor said, joining her. "We've made it to the high-profile zone…"

A tall, skinny young man with long, greasy black hair sat disconsolately on his narrow bed. His long chin and pale, sickly skin made him seem vampiric―without any of the threat. He didn't notice his visitors; he wouldn't take his eyes from the window, despite its small size and the paltry view it offered.

Blossom peered through as well but the strange man didn't have the same effect on her. "Buttercup, what's wrong?"

"That's Ace."

Blossom was thunderstruck. "Wait, what?"

"Ace D. Copular," the mayor confirmed. "Leader of the now defunct Gangreen Gang."

"Well…I guess that explains why we haven't seen them for a while," Blossom said. "Okay, but why isn't he green anymore? And where are the others?"

But before the mayor could respond, Ace finally realized they were there. His eyes, which they had rarely seen, were forlorn when he turned, but then color rushed to his cheeks as a smile bloomed.

"Girls!" he said in his thick accent, muffled by the glass. He stumbled over to them, shaking vaguely. "I'm so happy to see youse!"

"Uh…heeeeeeeyyyyyyyy, Ace," Blossom said, eyes squinting in an awkward, forced smile.

"My boys…they took them away from me, girls! Billy, Snake, Arturo, Grubber―all gone! Please, ya gotta help me! Won'tcha help your old pal?"

Bubbles clapped her hands to her mouth in a horrified gesture. Blossom threw her a disapproving look, which Bubbles didn't notice. Buttercup's face was still all but glued to the see-through panel. "Where are they, mayor?" asked Blossom.

"They're not here because they don't belong here," he explained. "They never instigated a thing. It was always this one. Without him, we've got them working on their GED's so they can get jobs."

"What's a GED?" Bubbles asked.

"It's what you do instead of going to high school, dummy." Buttercup finally turned away from Ace to deliver her insult, and there were spots of red in her cheeks.

"Mr. Gribberish is already an English teacher's assistant at Townsville High," the mayor said. "Away from the gang, he doesn't blow a single raspberry. Imagine that."

"This guy's got them bein'…being all upstandin' citizens and whatnot!" Ace howled. He held his hands, which were shaking harder than ever, tight against his gut. "They need their buddy! They need me! GIRLS!"

"Walk away," the mayor advised. "Don't listen, don't look back."

As they did: "But mayor," Bubbles protested (though she had enough presence of mind to whisper), "I don't think he's faking it. I think he really misses them."

"I know he does," the mayor responded, just as softly. "And that makes him more dangerous to them, not less."

They continued walking, allowing the already muted voice of Ace to die away. After his cell, one after another were again unoccupied. In the absence of any change, the girls began to notice the echoes of their footfalls. They trailed away, fading into the silence.

"A bit of a misnomer, 'gangreen,'" the mayor eventually said. "Once the docs started working on them, it was clear it wasn't gangrene. They couldn't carry gangrene for over ten years and still walk around. No, it's something with their livers, don't quite remember what it's called. Though, it seems the cause was a steady diet of snails."

"Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew," Bubbles chanted. Buttercup cackled over her.

Blossom rolled her eyes. "Any other villain developments we should be aware of, mayor?" she asked. At the same time, she wondered why more people didn't already know about this stuff.

He thought for a moment. "Well, the Amoeba Boys are in quarantine. Separate facility. They're buffoons, but they've caused some trouble in the past just for being what they are.

"Now this―" he stopped in front of a cell, "―is intended for a very special guest."

This room, unlike any of the others, was larger and walled in metal. The bed and window were the same, but a new contraption hung from the high ceiling: a long, padded bar supported by two thick wires. Twice as many books lined the cell's shelves, justifying the little reading lamp above the bed.

"Who, mayor?" Bubbles asked.

He turned to her with a little smile. "You caught him today."

"Ohhhh." She took another look at the hanging handlebars and giggled, imagining Mojo Jojo swinging around on that.

"We've been waiting for him to do something for weeks, ever since this was finished," the mayor went on. "He's going to go away for a long time, girls. No permanent resident of Townsville has caused as much mayhem as he has, and it ends now. If bells and whistles in his cell can keep him preoccupied, I'm game."

He showed them through a back exit, and they emerged back into sunlight. "This is what I meant, girls. Townsville is learning to get by without you. I know that sounds harsh," he said, seeing the expressions on their faces, "but I encourage you to see it as a good thing. We all want the city to be a place that doesn't invite some kind of big trouble every day. Deep down, I think even you want Townsville not to need the Powerpuff Girls.

"Of course, there are dreams and there is reality. Now is not the time to say goodbye. No one would outlaw your powers today, like I once did. The monsters are a big part of that: they aren't going anywhere. However, what you've seen today will help keep supervillains behind bars―physically and mentally. The days when Mojo Jojo is released every other week to wreak havoc are over. And maybe one day, we will deal with the monster problem. Maybe we'll finally relocate them from Monster Isle and destroy it. You have to be ready for that day. If it happens…you'll be part of a truly bygone era."

The words hung in the hazy summer air. Bubbles stared very hard past the mayor, her lips quivering. Blossom touched her sister's back, admiring her growing ability to hold in her tears when need be. Buttercup worried at the gravel with her shoe and muttered under her breath.

"Is there something you'd like to say to me, Buttercup?" the mayor asked. He kept his hands clasped in front of him and waited. His car pulled around the back of Townsville Jail, followed by his security detail.

"You're wrong," she murmured.

"Beg pardon?"

"You're wrong!" It just burst out, and suddenly her teeth were clenched and muscles tensed. "You don't know what'll happen here without us, you just…you don't know!"

"Well, why don't you tell me?" he said. He didn't look very surprised or angry. He must have expected this.

Buttercup's whole face was red, and her mouth quivered, but she wouldn't answer. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to describe it.

Car doors began to click open. Blossom thought it was time to cut in. "Thanks for your time, mayor," she said. "I know you're just trying to help―"

"That I am, Blossom."

"―and we're grateful." A terrible look from her silenced Buttercup. "But I think we've had enough for one day. Can we go now?"

"Of course you can."

The mayor's guards caught up with him just as the girls took off. One of them had removed a weapon from the back of his belt and held it behind him. The white gleam of a laser gun peeked out. Closer inspection would reveal it to be a smaller replica of Mojo Jojo's.

"Put that thing away," snarled the mayor. He followed the Powerpuff Girls's departure over the skyline with his eyes. "You never were gonna need it, and you never will."

"This stinks!" Buttercup said once they were flying home. Bubbles cried freely now, safe with her sisters and free from needing to hold her image.

"You have to admit," answered Blossom, "he made some good points."

"But it doesn't matter!" Buttercup cried. "Not even if he's right. We're not gonna leave anyway. We can't."

"I know," Blossom said soothingly. "We know we never will. But he doesn't know that."

"Or why," Bubbles put in quietly, sniffling. Her sisters nodded at that. Suddenly, the shadows cast dismally by the setting sun took on a sinister edge.

The girls flew slowly and low over town, Blossom instinctively and thoughtlessly in the lead. She scanned the darkening, quiet streets. She didn't stop to think about it often, but she and her sisters all knew that at some point, Townsville had changed. She didn't think about it, not only because it was too sad, but because it was too hard to explain. Whenever she tried, her mind went to the way school was now. They were in the later years of Pokey Oaks Grade School, almost ready to go to Edwards Middle School. The other kids all looked older than Blossom, and even acted older in some ways. The Powerpuff Girls were different because they never aged, and everyone knew it. While they were never bullied―the kids weren't that stupid―it was harder to make and keep friends. Other girls especially would include them in a group for a while, then ignore them for good afterward, and Blossom could never figure out why. Buttercup had suggested that it might be a good idea if they tried to talk and act like everyone else, but for whatever reason, they couldn't keep it up for long. That's what always came to Blossom's mind whenever Townsville's alleys and buildings looked so much like Citiesville's.

They had been to Citiesville once, years ago, and only for all of a week, but they all remembered it well. The Professor had accepted a job there―what he had even thought was so great in that town was beyond them―and ended up hating it. Good thing, too, because they hated their school, the police, and, yes, the mayor. The town was gloomy, dark, rude, often disgusting. Everything Townsville was not. Or, hadn't been.

If they'd ever talked about this to the Professor, he might have told them that maybe the city had changed…but so had they. Probably even more so.

The streets were mostly quiet, but now the girls passed an alley crowded with kids from school, though they were a couple of grades younger. Down there, where they crowded around a dumpster and some beat-up piles of cardboard, Bubbles saw something. Whatever it was, it brought a look to her tear-stained face that Buttercup had always found frightening, though she'd never admit it in a million years. Most of the bad guys didn't know it, but sweet little Bubbles had the fiercest anger out of any of them. It flashed on her face now, and she disappeared.

"Bubbles! Wait!" said Blossom, to no avail.

Bubbles took a deep breath and opened her big mouth. "HEY, YOU….BAD…..BOYS, YOU! LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Him? Buttercup appeared next to Bubbles, but her sister hadn't even shouted two words before the kids went scrambling. A few of them looked back, terrified.

"Bubbles!" Blossom scolded. "What's gotten into you?"

Bubbles flew down the rest of the way, to where the boys had grouped. Seeing little else they could do, Blossom and Buttercup followed her. Bubbles knelt in the gravel in front of the cardboard. She slowly and gently lifted the pile and peeked under it. "It's okay," she said in a crooning, lilting voice. "They're gone. You can come out now."

For a moment, nothing changed. Then, a big triangle of a snout poked out abruptly, surrounded by a muzzle of purple fur. An unmistakable whine drifted from beneath.

"It's a…dog?" Buttercup said.

After another moment, Buttercup's guess was confirmed. The rest of a head followed. Floppy ears pulled free out into the open, and big eyes darted in all directions. The dog's fur was matted, giving him quite the city-alley look. He slid the rest of the way out, exposing his spotted back and stub of a tail

"They were poking sticks under the boxes!" Bubbles protested. She was still angry, but she tempered her voice in consideration of the still-wary animal before her. Finally, the dog seemed to realize the danger had passed. He relaxed, laid his snout to the ground, and looked up at them dolefully.

"Aww. He is kinda cute." Blossom closed her eyes and smiled herself, in a perfect arc, the kind of face that could only come from sugar, spice, and everything nice.

"He looks depressed," Buttercup noted sourly. "And probably gonna croak soon," she finished under her breath, under Bubbles' notice.

"We should take him to an adoption center," said Blossom. "There's one on the other side of―"

"I'mgoingtotakehimhome." Bubbles beamed and threw her arms around the dog, who remained largely non-responsive. Though he did give her face a tiny lick, a flick of a quite large tongue, as if he could understand what she was saying.

Blossom slapped her own forehead. "Bubbles…you know how the Professor is with you and animals. Remember when you brought that baby whale home?"

"He's not a whale!" Bubbles argued. "He's a dog. He's a normal pet."

Blossom glanced at Buttercup, who only shrugged, as if to say: She said it, not us.

"Look at you," Bubbles crooned to him. He wasn't looking at her, though. At any of them. "You're not even shaking. You must be very brave."