For Disclaimer, see part 1.

The PowerPuff Chronicles

1 - Here we go again

Chapter 3

"OK girls, lets get 'em!" shouted young Blossom to her two, equally young sisters. At once, the three puffs manoeuvred into standard flying formation, ready to attack their own older selves.

"RUN!!!", yelled Buttercup, not only to Bubbles, but also to herself. She knew just how tough she and her sisters could be.

"But BC", interjected Bubbles, "we're super-heroes, we don't run. We fly."

"Run, fly, whatever. Let's just get the fuck out of here!"

And with an "OK" from Bubbles, the pair did a quick 180 and bolted away from their younger selves just as fast as they could.

The Professor was at home, and for once, was taking a break from his research. In fact, he was watching a film on TV, and had decided to take the day off so that he could look after Blossom, who was so ill she'd had to go back to bed. The movie was just getting to a really interesting bit, when, suddenly…

BOOOOOMM!

"Dad, help!" screamed Bubbles, as the two girls came crashing through the front window of the house, barrelling straight into the sofa, and knocking both it and the Professor over in a single move.

The Professor hoisted himself up to a sitting position on the floor, and started searching around for his glasses (one of the few items in the house made with glass that the girls hadn't smashed.

"Girls! Honestly, what I have told you about using the door? Nothing is ever important enough to warrant forgetting your manners and acting like a bunch of......what is it? What's happened?" At last, he found his glasses and put them back on, and finally saw the terrified expressions on their faces.

"It…it…it's us…"

"What? What's you?"

By now, Buttercup had started to get her breath back, though it didn't help her make any more sense. "We just attacked ourselves…I mean, we were just attacked by ourselves. Or do I mean…I don't know what I'm saying, but I think you know what I'm trying to say."

"I'm sorry to say Buttercup, I don't think I do know what you mean."

Finally, Bubbles decided to speak up, figuring she couldn't sound quite as crazy as her sister at that moment. "What Buttercup is trying to say, Dad, is that we were just attacked by PowerPuff girls…that Mojo Jojo created."

"So? Remember, I saw you three destroy the RowdyRuff boys, and you were only 5 years old at the time. Why can't you just defeat these new PowerPuffs that Mojo Jojo's created just as easily?"

"Because they're us, Dad", said Buttercup, who finally had her breathing back into a calm, regular pattern. "Don't you get it? Mojo Jojo has just created three PowerPuff girls, which look exactly like us, only 5 years old. They call themselves by OUR names, wear what we used to wear, act how we used to act. And he created them, like, yesterday, or something. They're not just any old PowerPuffs, they're us."

"Aah, I think I see where you're coming from Buttercup. And because they're you, you can't fight them. Yes, very tricky indeed. I shall have to think about this…"and the Professor wandered off into his laboratory, still muttering to himself.

Bubbles turned back to her sister. "I don't get it BC, why can't we fight them? They're us, only younger, so we'd be way tougher than them."

Buttercup just rolled her eyes at this question, before realising that she didn't really have an answer to it. "Well…"

"Come on sis, why? There must be a reason. I've never known you to back out of a fight like that before."

That was certainly true. In all seven years of their lives, Buttercup had never turned away from a fight, even if there was something more effective that she could have been doing.

"We-ell…for one thing, we may be tougher than them…"

"Of course we are. We're seven years older."

"OK. We are tougher than them, but there're three of them, and we're one puff down. Blossom's sick, remember. That gives them the advantage."

"Alright, I'll buy that. And the other thing?"

"Huh?" Bubbles gave her sister a truly withering look. "You said 'for one thing'. So what's the other? There has to be at least two things."

"Oh, right. Well the other points a bit technical. You'd be better off talking to Bloss."

"Blossom's too sick. Just give me the gist of it."

"Oh, OK", sighed Buttercup, knowing that all she knew about temporal mechanics she'd learnt from watching Star Trek. "Right, let's see if I know enough about this to make it make sense. Mojo Jojo created three PowerPuffs to destroy us, and they might just do it, too. With me so far, Bubbles?"

"Yes, just get on with it, the mayor might call."

"Alright, keep your hair on. Well, it seems quite obvious that they're us, before we were sent back in time to the Professor. I don't know why they're evil, but we're not, so Mojerk probably hypnotised them. Bubbles, what're you making a funny face at now?"

"Well", Bubbles started, thoughtfully, "all this time, we thought Mojo Jojo was sort of a...stepbrother. This means he's our dad. I mean our real Dad, or as close to one as we have."

"Hmmm, yeah. I get what you mean there. Anyway, as I was saying, they're us, but much younger. About 7 years younger. So, anything we do to them, was done to us 7 years ago. Which means we can't just try and destroy them, because, if we kill them..."

"Then we kill ourselves. OK, that makes this a lot harder than other fights."

"No, as far as I can work out, we wouldn't die if we killed our younger selves."

"Huh?"

"We'd never have existed. If we died at the age of five, then we couldn't go through the next seven years to become us now. So we wouldn't die if we killed them, we'd just...cease to exist. Which would mean that we wouldn't kill them, and so they'd grow up to become us, and then we'd kill them, and…well, I think you get the idea."

"Uh-huh. It's a time loop paradoxy thingy, isn't it?"

"Yeah, which means that we can't kill them. So let's go see if the Prof...Dad's come up with anything we can to knock them out without killing them."

"OK, BC, I'm right behind yooooooooooouuuu........oh dear...."

"Bubbles, what is it? What's happened? Are you.......oh dear, you don't look to well. I'll get you down to lab so Dad can give you a check-up. You OK to fly?"

"I think so.......just give me a sec to.....to....." Bubbles started spinning in mid-air, and then dropped like a stone to the floor, with a sickening loud THUD. The moment the Professor heard this, he came running out of the lab at full speed.

"What's going on here? Oh my god, Bubbles, you look so sick. Come on dear, I need to do some tests, see what wrong with you."

"Unnnnnnnnnnnnnggggghhhhh......"

The Professor was so intent on doing his job, he didn't hear Buttercup in the background. "Dad, do you think I'll come down with whatever this is? Dad? Someone's still got to fight our young selves, and if I get ill, then who'll do it? Dad? You listening? DAD!!"

The Professor was still busy with what he was doing, but quickly laid Bubbles down on a sickbed, and then started manipulating various instruments. Finally, he looked up at his tomboy daughter. "Yes, Buttercup, what is it now?"

"Well Dad, as I was trying to say..."

"Yes, keep talking, I just need to need to get everything going as quickly as possible. If I don't find out what's happened to Bubbles and Blossom, it very well could happen to you." He was rushing from one piece of equipment to another, switching them on, turning dials, pressing buttons, taking blood samples, taking Bubbles' pulse, temperature, blood pressure, seemingly all at once.

"And if I do come down with...whatever this is...who's going to protect Townsville from the constant attacks then?"

"Well, if the worst comes to worst, I still have my PowerProf suit."

"Alright, we have a backup plan. Unless you come down with this as well."

"I don't think that's going to happen Buttercup. And before you ask why, I did the same tests this morning on Blossom that I doing to Bubbles now. This seems to be the result of a particularly virulent strain of bacteria..."

"Virulent? What's that mean?"

"It means powerful Buttercup. But I won't be affected, because it seems to be engineered to attack the Chemical X in your bodies, and break it down."

At this last piece of news, Buttercup's jaw dropped. She was aghast. "You mean we're going to be powerless? Just normal girls?"

The Professor realised how much of a shock this was to his daughter (although she'd taken it better than either of her sisters probably would), and gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm sure it won't be permanent, honey. People get ill all the time, and return to full health afterwards. You'll probably simply lose your powers for a few days. Then I'm sure all three of you'll be right as rain. In the meantime, though, we'll have to look seriously at security measures. Both for us and for Townsville as a whole.

Then suddenly, a scary thought struck in Buttercup's mind. "What about us...our younger selves? If I fall ill as well, they'll realise and attack. Mojo's given them orders to kill us!"

"Well", began the Professor, stroking his chin thoughtfully, "I do have one idea. But it might be dangerous."

"Dad, we're out of options. They've got a 3 to 1 advantage, I can't kill them because of a time paradox, and I'm about to fall ill with a serious case of...something. We need to sort them out, before they sort us. Any plan has got to be better than none at this stage."

"Of course. Let me explain it as briefly and thoroughly as I can..." and the two of them went upstairs to discuss the Professor's plan in detail.

About an hour later, the plan was ready. The Professor had moved Blossom down to the laboratory, so he could easily look after both girls while they fought whatever this disease this was, and so he could continue his research into the bacteria itself. He also had his part of the plan to put into action.

Meanwhile, Buttercup was flying around over Townsville, looking for her younger self and sisters. Suddenly, she saw them. They'd given up chasing buttercup, as she was way too fast for them to follow, and were just calmly and quietly playing hopscotch out the front of the Town Hall.

Buttercup flew lower so that they could clearly see her. "Hey, you three! You want a piece of me? Well come get it!", and then Buttercup took off, but not too fast, so the others would follow her. She didn't want to fight the younger PowerPuffs, but she needed to get them back to the house, where the Professor should almost be set up by now.

"Come on girls, let's get after her! She's getting away again!" the young Blossom yelled at her sisters, as they put on an extra burst of speed to chase after Buttercup, who had started blowing raspberries a them from above a skyscraper on the next block.

However, just when they thought that they had caught her, she would dash off again, to the next tower block, and the next, and the next; always keeping one step (a giant step) ahead of them, but never getting too far away that they might get bored and go off to do something else. This leapfrogging from tower block to tower block lasted until Buttercup reached the city outskirts, and then she started an almost slow-motion dash for home, keeping herself in her younger sister's sights the whole time.

"Nyah nyah, you three are so slow, you couldn't even catch a cold!" Buttercup yelled back at herself, before realising that she had actually just insulted herself. When she did, she made a face at the thought, and then muttered "Oh well, they're evil", before continuing to hurl abuse at the other three.

"I know snails that can fly faster than you lot! And that bow in your hair looks really lame....Bloss!"

At this last, the young Blossom was so stunned that she almost flew straight into a tree, but swerved a split second before she struck. "Did you hear that girls? She's insulting us! How uncouth! We must get her!"

"Yeah, I agree. She needs to be taught a lesson, and so do her sisters. Our master commands it." Bubbles nodded her head so violently, that for a moment she was blinded by hair whipping across her face, and bumped into young Buttercup.

"Yeah, I agr...hey Bubbles, watch where your going, 'k?"

"Oops, sorry, I couldn't see. I'll try to be more careful."

"You'd better. Now as I was saying, I agree, but how come Mojo's our boss? He hasn't got any powers. And this feels like a trap. That Buttercup doesn't seem to be going as fast as she and her sister yesterday. I think she's leading us somewhere."

"What does it matter where she's leading us, BC?" asked Blossom, who was confident they'd accomplish their mission. "We'll just pound her when we get there. It's a 3 on 1 fight, sis; she hasn't got a hope."

"Yeah, Blossom's right, BC. There's no way we can't lose. By the way, does anyone know where we are?"

They had just arrived in Pokey Oaks, and saw the older Buttercup disappearing through the back window of a nearby house. The house looked like all the others, except the curtains were drawn, and there was no light coming from inside. They decided to follow her.

Blossom nodded her head at her sisters. "OK girls, ready? 'Cos we're going in!"

The moment they entered, Bubbles immediately bumped into something big and hard (A/N. No smutty comments please, people!). She almost screamed, not because it hurt, but because it gave her a fright. Luckily, she remembered they were chasing someone in the dark, and wanted to keep the element of surprise, so she opted for a suitably meek "eep" instead.

"What was that? Bubbles, try to be more careful, 'k?" Blossom whispered in her ear. "If she can hear us, then we'll lose the element of surprise in attacking her here."

"Well then", whispered the five-year-old Buttercup, "perhaps we should all ZIP IT! Now shuddup, both of you."

"Yeah, before I hear you three", whispered another, more mature voice from directly behind them.

"Sorry Buttercup."

"Yeah, sorry BC."

"Yeah, I'll try to be qui...Oh shit", muttered the younger Buttercup, just as the lights came up. All three girls got into battle stance, preparing for a surprise attack, but were more surprised when none was forthcoming. Gradually, they relaxed and looked all around themselves.

They were in someone's lounge. This house obviously had very lively occupants. There were drawings and crayons scattered about in the kitchen, a well-worn punch-bag in the corner of the lounge, and a very impressive library of scientific and philosophical texts. A lot of the furniture looked it didn't quite go together, as though it was being constantly replaced, and yet, at the same time, everything seemed almost brand new.

Finally, they came to the machine at the top of the basement steps. The three girls floated over to it. It was, basically, an outboard motor with a giant disc attached to the front of it, painted in alternating black and white pie-slices. The girls examined it closely, wondering what on earth was going on.

"What the hell is this, then?", asked Buttercup. "It's not a weapon of some kind is it? DO you think we might have fallen into a trap, Blossom?"

"We-ell", began Blossom, as she poked her nose into the motor on the back of the disc, "I don't think this is a weapon, and if we were in a trap, doncha think someone'd of caught us already? No, we're quite safe."

"Errr…Blossom…."

"Not now Bubbles, I'm busy."

"But Blossom, you really should…"

"I said I'm busy! Just be quiet, and get out of my light. I'm trying to work out what this thing does."

"Blossom…."

"WHAT?!?"

"I believe I can tell you what this machine does, young lady."

"Oh good…who are you? Where did you come from?"

"My name is Professor Utonium, and this is my house."

"Oh, sorry 'bout that", put in Bubbles. "We we're chasing someone and she…er, she came in here. We were just looking for them." As she said this, she began backing towards the front door, as did her two sisters.

"Well, seeing as how you're here now..."

"Yeah?" The young Blossom was scared of this man. He had a slightly lopsided grin on his face, as though he...no. He wasn't evil. Mad, maybe, but not evil.

"How would you three like to see this machine in action?" He pointed to the machine they had been examining.

"What does it do?" asked Bubbles, moving forward.

"I'm glad you asked; it's a hypnosis machine."

"Hypnosis? Pfft." Buttercup was sceptical. "Hypnosis Schmipnosis".

"You don't believe you can be hypnotised, young lady?"

The green puff arched her "eyebrow". "Sure, maybe really gullible people can be, but I bet you couldn't put us in a trance."

"If that's what you think, let's put it to the test." And with that, the Professor pressed a button that the girls hadn't seen on the side of the machine, and the black-and-white-swirls patterned disc began spinning, picking up speed as it went.

The girls just floated there, looking a bit bored. "See, told you it wouldn't work. We're not that easy to catch out after all, are we?"

The Professor stood to the side, watching the girls intently for any changes in their behaviour. "Give it time, it's just warming up at the moment. We'll soon see who's gullible or not."

As he said this, the professor noticed all three girls blink at exactly the same time, as they tried, in vain, to refocus on the swirling image in front of them.

"Yeah Buttercup, let's give it a while", repeated Blossom. "After all, it's not like we're in a hurry to...err..."

"What is it, Blossom?" asked the Professor, who noticed the girls' eyes had a glazed look in them, and their breathing was becoming shallow.

"I...er...erm..." Blossom was blinking rapidly now, trying to concentrate on the disc in front of her. She was also beginning to sway slightly, from side to side, as were her sisters.

A couple of minutes later, the Professor decided that it had been long enough, and snapped his fingers right in front of the girls. None of them reacted at all. "It's OK Buttercup, you can come out now."

"Phew, I was starting to wonder if we were gonna be able to pull this plan off", Buttercup replied, as she flew out from the safety of the lab, being careful not to damage the Professor's equipment. "So, what do we do now? Programme them to kill Mojo? Or make them perform weird tricks every time I say 'globule'?"

The Professor simply glared at her off that question. "Neither, Buttercup. We need to deprogram them, and then send them back to the day that I thought I created you three."

"Right. So they're us. It's freaky."

"What's freaky."

"My hair. I never realised it looked that...wide."

"That's the least of our worries, Buttercup. Now, keep quiet. I'm going to deprogram them all at once."

With that, the Professor turned to address the three catatonic 5-year-olds, and said, in his most authoritative voice, "Now, listen up. Are you girls naturally evil?"

"No", the girls all answered as one.

"Good, good". The Professor gleefully rubbed his hands together. "In that case, I want all of you to return to your normal behavioural patterns. In fact, when you wake up, you will not remember anything before that moment. You will all wake up the moment I say the word...", the Professor trailed off, unable to think of a good trigger word.

"Globule!"

"Right", the Professor said, shooting Buttercup a very odd look. "You will awake when I next say the word 'Globule'. Next thing, follow me."

The Professor, and Buttercup, led the three entranced tots down the staircase into the laboratory, where the time machine was already running, and the Professor tapped in the time co-ordinates. "This should do it. If my calculations are correct, they'll arrive here, in the lab, at the exact time, recorded on CCTV cameras." And with that, the Professor thrust all three girls into the time portal, and shouted after them a single word.

"GLOBULE!"

A moment later, all three snapped back to consciousness, just as they crashed to very solid earth in the lab, seven years earlier.

Meanwhile, back in the present, Mojo Jojo had been tracking his three girls as they chased the older Buttercup. He was hiding in the bushes just outside the Utonium house, ready to watch his creations tear first Buttercup and then her sisters to pieces.

Suddenly, however, their life-signs started to become weaker on his scanner. "What on earth is going on, and occurring, and happening at this instance? Why are they disappearing and vanishing, ceasing to be? They cannot be dead, for if that were the case, then their life-signs would just vanish in a moment, would go at once, not gradually fade, and tail off into nothingness. So they cannot be dead, because this has not happened. I must get in there...aah, a window!"

And with that, Mojo climbed through the ground-level skylight window into the basement, and immediately fell into a crate of assorted beakers.

"Oh well, there goes the element of surprise. I suppose I'd better run!"

"Buttercup! Mojo's here. Shut the time portal down now!"

However, as Buttercup went to shut down the time machine, she hesitated, realising that she didn't actually know how to operate it. Instead, as Mojo leapt into the still open hole in time, Buttercup simply pulled the plug on the machine. Literally. She just reached down and yanked the power cable out of the Professor's portable power generator.

As the portal began to close, and Mojo Jojo disappeared into the distance, he could be heard yelling "You have not seen the last of me! No one can get rid of Mojo Jojo that easily. I will be back. I will return. And when I do, you and you're sisters will pay for this, Buttercup Utonium! I repeat, YOU WILL PAY! PAY, WITH YOUR LIVES! ALL OF YOU!" And with that, the machine shut down, and the portal closed.

The Professor wiped his brow, and turned to Buttercup. "Well, it seems like we've got rid of Mojo Jojo permanently, Buttercup. There's no way he could have reached the other end of that time tunnel so soon."

"What!" Buttercup was aghast. "You mean he's stranded in time? He'll die!"

"I don't think so, dear. You see, Mojo Jojo is now outside of the universe as we know it, and, as such, is not subject to all the physical laws that govern it. He'll never grow old, he won't need to eat, and he can't die. He'll just live forever, and rule over all that exists outside of time, which is him." The Professor cracked a slight smile. "He finally has everything he's ever wanted. He's master of his own domain, and, even more than that, he'll never die. He'll be master of his kingdom, until the end of time."

Buttercup, quite simply, was amazed. "Wow. And what about us three? Will we be alright?"

The Professor motioned his tomboy daughter out of the lab, back to the comfi-ness of the lounge sofa. "Relax, honey. You three will be fine. You're still here, so you're pasts can't have been changed. And, hopefully, you'll never have to face-off against yourselves again."

"Thank goodness for that. It was creepy."

"Yes", laughed the Professor, "I suppose it would be. Facing an enemy who knows you as well as you do, who you can't kill, but who can kill you easily. That would be creepy indeed."

"No", Buttercup shook he head wildly, "I just never realised before how much of a dork I looked in that dress!"

"Oh Buttercup, what am I going to do with you?"

"Well, we could always have some dinner. I'm star.......oh no."

"What is it dear, you not feeling well?"

Buttercup couldn't answer that question. She had, rather interestingly, turned the same colour of green as her dress, and then flew for the toilet as fast as she could.

"Hmmm, how will Townsville cope without it's three young super-heroes, I wonder? I suppose I had better inform the Mayor of this situation at once."

Outside the house, someone was watching the Professor's actions intently through a pair of binoculars. Someone with a big, evil grin on their face. Someone who was laughing quietly, yet at the same time, maniacally.

Then, that someone walked away. There were places to go. Things to be. People to do. And all the time in the world to do them, as well.

To be continued...

A/N. The next story's not a follow-on from this one. It's actually set before this. And it'll probably start going up in the new year.