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Mark - January 15, 2019 - 5:03 AM

On one side of the Treehouse's hangar, there are five big, metal doors, each one having a large red number painted on them, ranging from 1 to 5. The passages beyond these doors lead to the rooms of Sector V's commanding operatives: Numbuhs One, Two, Three, Four and Five. My friends and I are actually in one of those rooms; Numbuh One's room, to be exact. We were put in here to make sure I was safe at all times, as the commanding operatives' rooms are much more fortified and can withstand a lot more than regular rooms in this Treehouse, with only a few exceptions, like the vault. And when you add that operatives regularly guard these rooms, I'm as safe as I can be in this place. At first, it was only me who was going to be in the room, but my friends and Andrew convinced Numbuh Two to have them in there as well.

After what happened yesterday, it was pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn't have a peaceful sleep. My dreamland was now a place of unending nightmares. First, I was stuck in darkness, with those same red eyes that I've seen before chasing me. Next, there was a dream where I was at first in a bright area with several of my friends, but then darkness started consuming them one by one before it swallowed up everything. Then there was one where I was being chased through a dark hallway by something and I ended up falling into Fusion Matter. The worst one, though, was when I had to relive that moment where Aidan was killed by Fusion Buttercup, but it was on repeat, and it got worse every time. In fact, when I woke up from that one, I screamed so loud I woke up everyone in this room, and the operatives guarding my room, as well as those is nearby rooms, came in to make sure I was OK. Thankfully, I don't wake up filled with fear this time.

After I wake up, I lie there for a while, glad that it wasn't a nightmare that woke me up this time. As I stare through the large skylight on the ceiling, I can see the branches above swaying slightly, as well as some of the night sky. But the light coming onto the Treehouse from the sky is a very slight shade of green. That's odd... Maybe it's because of Planet Fusion or something. As I lie there, I think once again about everything that has happened, and everything that may happen in the future. I am very hopeful that I'll able to get back in one piece, and it shouldn't take long for me to get back to the past. Then again, nothing always goes according to plan. I can just hope that this will be one of the times it does because as I said, the less time I'm in this time, the better.

I get my NanoCom and activate it to see what time it is. After the holographic screen loads up and my eyes adjust to the light, I can see "5:12 AM". Dang, it's really early. I ponder whether or not to go back to sleep, but I know the risk that I could have yet another waking nightmare, given the several times it's happened last night. And it's so close to morning anyway that I might as well just start my day now.

I begin sitting up, but I still feel achy and sore all over from everything I did yesterday. As I do so, I try as hard as I can not to wake up Jade, who's sleeping next to me on the bed. I also make sure to look what side of the bunk bed I need to get off on, because I'm on the top and I don't want to fall off, especially onto the hard, wooden floor. All my friends are in bunk beds, actually. We organized ours so that they would be facing each other with the ladders all on the outer sides, and we'd have our own "friend square" in the middle of all the bunk beds where we hang out. It's not completely closed in, though. We have plenty of space to get out without having to climb over a bunk bed.

Lucas's sleeping on the bottom bunk of my bunk bed. In the bunk bed opposite ours, Evan is sleeping on the bottom bunk and Amanda is on the top bunk. She and Evan had played Rock-Paper-Scissors over who'd get the top bunk, and Amanda ended up winning that game. Well, it was a stalemate for a moment, but her paper defeated his rock in the end.

As for the bunk beds adjacent to mine, the one on the left side (or the side my pillow is on) has Andrew on the top bunk. Gumball is sleeping on the bottom bunk of the bed. And as for the bunk bed on my right, Penny is sleeping on the bottom bunk, and it's in this darkness that I notice she gives off a faint glow that's not bright enough to make it hard to sleep, but still noticeable. Anais is on the top bunk, holding on to her doll still. She told me that it was "Daisy the Donkey", and Gumball added on that she is about as much of a fan of Daisy as Andrew is a fan of the Powerpuff Girls. Now, I've rarely heard of anyone having as much dedication and love for something as Andrew has for the Powerpuffs. The only other one I can think of is Lucas and his admiration of the Gangreen Gang because he goes to almost all their concerts.

OK, so what should I do now? I'm already awake, and I know I won't be able to sleep. But none of the other people in this room are awake. I'm in the "early morning" phase of a slumber party, where if you wake up early and everyone else is asleep, and you can't do much without accidentally waking other people up, and so everything is quiet. That phase usually doesn't end until 3 or 4 others are awake, at which point we would all get sick of having to wait for every single person to wake up and just do it ourselves. But when Andrew started getting involved in our slumber parties, he'd just start waking everyone up as soon as he did because he just wanted to get to the fun immediately. And since the earliest time I've seen Andrew wake up normally is at around 6:00 AM, I have around 45 minutes or so to wait around until today can really start.

I slowly lift the covers off me, making sure that Jade doesn't wake up as I do it. I start climbing down the ladder and get to the floor. Thankfully, nobody wakes up from this either. Once I'm on the floor, my eyes adjust to the dark, allowing me to navigate it more easily. There's a group of large, wooden crates near a corner of the room, close to the exit. On each one of the crates is one of our names: "MARK", "ANDREW", "LUCAS", etc., so that we can tell whose stuff is in what crate. There is one exception, though; it's a slightly bigger crate with the word "PAINTINGS" painted on it.

Before I went to sleep last night, I had put my Lightning Gun and necklace on top of my crate. A slight glow is also coming from the area in my Lightning Gun where you can see the amount of energy within it, and some of the light is causing my pendant to gleam a bit too. This makes it easier to find my specific crate. I still haven't used my Lightning Gun since Andrew re-filled it with his powers. It's still weird for me that my brother has those. On one hand, it's cool, and he always dreamed of having powers and he got to meet a lot of the people he looks up to as a result, but on the other hand, his life had lost a good amount of its normality. It's like when Ben 10 got the Omnitrix: His life went from normal to completely extraordinary the moment he got it.

I kneel down in front of the crate and open it, beginning my search. A fair amount of stuff in here, such as my hoverboard, as well as clothing, toys, puzzles, my video game systems and games to go with them. I carefully take things out to make sure that nothing can accidentally fall and land on the floor because I know that would wake everyone up. Even though that happening would make things a lot more convenient on my end, I'm not gonna do that. After a bit of digging, I find the game case for "Heroic Battles II". Despite having played it only yesterday for me, I still feel an odd sense of nostalgia. Yeah, I can see us playing this again. It's a bit crazy when you can have things as high as 10-player free-for-alls. Thankfully, there are maps big enough to support all that craziness. My friends, Andrew and Jade and I would do that all the time. And if every one of my friends plays, including my newest friends, we can have 9-player games like I had before all this. That'll be cool.

I look at the multitude of TVs that cover the wall on the side of the room across from the exit. I know there's got to be something in this room that allows me to plug my game system into the TV and play the game. As I pass by the rest of the crates with the game system, something piques my curiosity. What are the paintings in there? Why is there a whole crate dedicated specifically to them? I didn't notice it before due to all the other things I was doing with my friends, but with no other distractions, this just raises a ton of questions. I'm going to take a peek. It's not like I could ruin the paintings by opening the crate. I put the game case down, head to the crate, and like with my crate, slowly open it.

The first painting I see is what looks like a family portrait, but obviously homemade. I can see Gumball and Anais, but there are more people in the photo as well. The most noticeable is a big, pink, anthropomorphic rabbit in the center. There's also another blue, anthropomorphic cat, who's almost as tall as the rabbit when not accounting for its ears. These have to be Gumball and Anais' parents. I assume that the rabbit is the father and the cat is the mother because the mother cat has clearly visible eyelashes in the painting, while the father doesn't. But there's one other family member, between Anais and Gumball in the painting. It's an orange fish. It's obviously not a pet because it's not in a fish bowl or anything. It seems like it can breathe oxygen fine. What's even crazier is that it's huge in terms of size, as it's almost as tall as Gumball. This includes the fact that the fish seems to have LEGS. Actual, legitimate legs that could allow it to walk around. I'm gonna ask Gumball who he is sometime after he wakes up. Hopefully, he'll be OK with me having looked through here.

I get ready to put the painting back in, and when I look into the crate, I see another painting. But this one is much more confusing. It's a painting that shows Gumball, but also Andrew and myself. This is right when I first met Gumball after reuniting with Andrew in the hangar. Who painted this? And when? Was it one of my friends? I've never really known anybody of our friend group to paint except for John. I mean, Evan does edit images for video thumbnails, but he doesn't actually paint things. Was it Gumball, then? I have no idea. I would think more about it, but I hear somebody gasp behind me, which stops me from moving any further. I turn around and see that Gumball is sitting up, staring straight at me. and even through the darkness, I can feel that he's a bit tense right now.

"Mark, is that you?" Gumball whispers.

"Yeah," I whisper back. "Don't worry, I'm alright."

Gumball sighs. "Sorry about that. It's just... I thought something else was here."

"What else did you think would be here?"

"It's... Never mind. It's fine." Gumball starts slowly getting out of his bed and heading over to where I am. Uh-oh. I don't know if he'll be mad for looking through this crate. I quickly try to put the painting back in the crate, but I'm not able to do it in time. "What are you trying to look for that's in there?"

"Sorry. I was curious as to what could have been in there."

"Hmm... I guess I can't blame you." Gumball looks at the family portrait. "...You're wondering who they are?"

"Well, I know the other cat and rabbit have to be your parents, but I don't know about the fish." Gumball chuckles as he walks over to the portrait. I put it down for a second to allow him to see it more easily. He looks at it with remembrance and sighs with a slight smile on his face.

"That's Darwin... He was my brother. Well, not by blood, but we were so close we might as well have been. We were not only brothers, but the greatest of friends. I mean, we were virtually inseparable. We did all sorts of things together, and we'd always end up in these crazy scenarios. I miss those days, before... the Fusions showed up.

"You want to know something about Darwin? He wasn't always like that. When I first got him, he didn't have legs or anything that would allow him to live on land. He could understand us and talk, though, and after another one of the many misunderstandings that happen in Elmore, he first talked in front of my parents when we trying to take a photo with him. They freaked out, he flew out of the bowl, and he accidentally got flushed down the toilet. Even though my parents tried to help me move on, there was a connection I had with Darwin which was stronger than almost anything I had ever seen. And even though Darwin was who-knows-how-far away from us, that connection, that love... It was still there. It was so strong it literally allowed him to evolve and grow lungs, legs, and the like."

"So... he evolved through love?"

"Yes."

I'm silent for a moment. I would normally try to process how that would work, but honestly, compared to physics-defying matter, time portals, Fusion doppelgangers and a slew of other things, this is barely anything. I feel like I'm slowly starting to get desensitized to weird stuff. Maybe I'll reach a point where I meet a talking balloon or something, and barely get fazed by it. Heck, Elmore probably has one of those somewhere.

"And he was able to get back, right?" I ask, wanting to hear more.

"Yeah, of course. You know, we were just about to get another fish when I felt the connection again. I don't really know for sure what it was, and I can't exactly put it in words, but I just knew he was close. I ran out of the pet store and the front of the mall, where I saw him across the parking lot. And as we ran to each other and hugged, that connection became stronger than ever. And the rest is history: we were best buddies ever since I knew him, up until..."

And immediately the mood changes from nostalgic to somber. And like with the many other times yesterday, his lack of saying anything gives me the answer.

"...What happened?"

"I... I don't want to talk about it. It's better that way."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to."

"No, it's fine. I just... If you're going to go home soon, then we shouldn't burden you with it."

Gumball gets up and starts walking back to his bed as I put the family painting back in the crate and put the lid back on. I feel like there's definitely something more to this than Gumball's letting on. Maybe a lot more. When I turn back, Gumball is looking down at the game case for Heroic Battles II with a smile on his face.

"That game's fun, right?" I ask him.

"Heck yeah, it is! Andrew and I have had tons of fun with it. You're thinking of playing that one?"

"Sure, why not? What about the others, though?"

"I don't know. Want me to wake 'em up?"

"What? N-no. You don't have to do that."

"I'm not going to scream or anything. All I was gonna do was-"

While Gumball turns around, his arm accidentally knocks the Lightning Gun off the crate, causing it to land on the wooden floor with a loud thud. Even though that didn't seem to be intentional, it still proves effective in waking everyone up. Some wake up with a simple "Huh?" while others get up instantly and focus directly on us. Evan already has his THUMPER in his hands, but I think a normal teddy bear is loaded in there, so all it'd do is disorient me for a few seconds. But I also noticed something interesting where Penny was. Before, the part I could see of her that wasn't underneath covers was a dim, glowing yellow. Now, I don't see anything anymore. There is something small underneath the covers, though. Did she shapeshift?

"Oh, no! I'm sorry, guys!" Gumball says, tensing up again. He puts his hands up, and in the tense moment, I look back and forth between the rest of my friends and Gumball. I notice there's a scar on Gumball's right palm that has yet to completely fade. As for the rest of our friends who hae weapons, they thankfully calm down and put them down. Then Penny peeks out from under the covers. She looks like a mouse now, but she doesn't have fur. In fact, her "skin" seems to be the same even after shapeshifting, except the color and glow have changed to dark purple. In front of the mouse ears she has, she's also got the same antlers, but they've been scaled to be smaller. After calming down a bit, I see her transform back into the form I've seen her in before. It happens so fast that all I can really see of her while she transforms is just a blur that changes color from purple to yellow.

"No, it's... it's cool," Evan says. "Well, if you were trying to wake us up, it worked."

"Was that intentional?" I ask Gumball, to which he shakes his head. Well, I guess now that everyone's up, it does bypass that aforementioned phase where everything is awkward. And now that everyone's up, we can get to the fun much sooner than before. I check the time on my NanoCom again and it says "5:24 AM". Well, it's so close to the morning anyway, we might as well begin our day, or my first new day in this future.

We decide to hang out in the room for a while, using one of the several TVs on one side of the room to play video games. A lot of us choose to play Heroic Battles II like I hoped to, and peer pressure brings the rest of them in. A bit before 6:00 AM, we can start to hear some commotion. Some of the early birds have awakened, and soon enough, everyone will be awake because of the alarm. But it isn't any ordinary alarm. And sure enough, right as the clock hits 6:30 AM, an ice cream truck sound plays throughout the entire Treehouse. Moments later, the base springs to life. Alright, I think it's time to leave this room. By this point, none of us are tired anymore, and we're ready to go out into the new world. But we'll first finish the round we're in the middle of. Only 4 people are left: Gumball, Penny, Andrew and Amanda. In this game, Penny and Gumball have chosen to team up to fight Amanda and Andrew, who are Dexter and Bubbles, respectively. Andrew's almost always played Bubbles if he's not playing random characters. At the end of the round, though, Andrew wins the battle.

Now that we're done playing the game, it's time to go. We turn off the game, get up and walk across the room to the hallway that leads to the hangar. Even though it's been only minutes since the alarm went off, some operatives are already in the hangar, getting ready to do things. As we're standing there, thinking of what to do, I think I see someone in my peripheral vision, looking down at us from the upper level. I glance over there to see what it is, but it dashes off before I can get a good look at it. I then turn back to my friends as Numbuh Two leaves his room.

"Good morning, guys," Numbuh Two says.

"Good morning," Amanda says.

"So, uh... Numbuh Two?" I ask. "Sorry if it seems like I'm asking a bit much, but what's going to happen today?"

"Well, I don't see why I should bring you into anything if you aren't needed for it," Numbuh Two says, before yawning. Then we all yawn. "We do plan for some sort of meeting for what we're going to do to bring you back, but until then, what I said before about you guys being off-duty for now still stands. Feel free to do whatever you want. Just... don't get into too much trouble."

Then we see Numbuh Five show up in the hangar. She looks way more tired than the rest of us. She doesn't even talk to us, though. She just leaves to go somewhere else. The operatives that she passes by don't even say anything, but they do look at her with concern. Numbuh Five doesn't pay them any mind as she leaves the room. She doesn't want to talk to anyone or do anything after what happened. We don't say anything either, because we understand. One of her only remaining friends of the Sector V squad is dead, and she was so close as he was blasted by Fusion Dexter. The Fusions have taken so much from all of us, and that's why I will make sure to help when I go back. Well, hopefully I will go back. It's best to stay optimistic.

That reminds me. If Numbuh One was killed, I believe that means Numbuh Five should now be the leader of Sector V. And since I haven't heard anything about the Moon Base, she could even be the Supreme Leader of the Kids Next Door now, as Numbuh 362 was the Supreme Leader at the time I was decommissioned. The only problem with that hypothesis is that becoming the Supreme Leader is not that simple. It's actually determined by a game of tag that all KND operatives take part in every single year. Consider it our version of an election. If you're it, you're the Supreme Leader, and you need to tag someone else to transfer the power to them. But maybe that's not how it'll work now, as during that time, there was no huge war, especially one this dire.

"Anyway, guys, do whatever you want. I'll be going off to do stuff."

"What stuff?" Lucas asks.

"Get a few things ready. Call some people. Get some food. The usual."

Numbuh Two then leaves the hangar through some other door. At this point, the sky is much brighter now, but it doesn't like the Sun has come up just yet. Now, there's many operatives in the hangar, and they're all going to one place: the kitchen, to get their breakfast. We similarly follow the operatives, and after waiting in line for a while, we get our breakfast. For me, it's simply cereal with milk, and juice. I don't want to use up too much. After that, we go down the the TV room again. This time, not many people give me a weird look. Even if they did, I wouldn't be affected by it this time. When we get to one of the TVs, Andrew starts to get really excited. I can tell because I can see a weird electric current within his body that jumps to the surface mere moments later.

"I just had a really good idea!" Andrew says. "Mark! We should catch you up on Realms! There's been, like, three seasons worth of stuff that have come out or been released online in the time you were gone! Come on! Let's watch it!"

"That'll take a while, though, won't it?" Gumball asks. "Isn't that days worth of episodes or something?"

"Well, there are 3 seasons, each with 26 episodes, each of which are roughly 11 minutes," Anais says. "So that rounds to about 28.2 total hours of watch-time, but that doesn't account for other things. And we're not going to be binge-watching either, so maybe it'll be a few days when accounting for other factors."

"Well, let's start watching, then!" Andrew says, eagerly grabbing a remote and navigating a huge archive of TV recordings. As he starts doing that, I realize something: I'm pretty sure that if things go smoothly, I'll be back in the past real soon. And if I were to watch all the new episodes of Realms so far, then that means I'd know everything that happens for the next three seasons, while everyone else would not. So nothing would really surprise me, because I'd know the plot twists, revelations, major events and even when characters get killed off for years, and if things go really well when I go back, then I'd have to wait until Season 5 to feel like they've caught up with me. I don't want to be in that situation. It's at this point Andrew's found a recording for episode 2 of Season 2, titled "Singularities". The description reads: "After many black holes have appeared out of nowhere within other solar systems in the Milky Way, Aura and her team attempt to find the source of this mystery."

"Wait! No! Don't!" I suddenly blurt out. "Don't... do it yet..."

"What? Why not?" Andrew says.

"I don't want to, OK?"

"Come on!" Andrew complains, as we enter one of our little brotherly arguments. "So much cool stuff went down over the time you were gone!"

"That's exactly the point," I say, before I explain again that if I watch all the episodes now, then I'll know everything that happens before everyone else. It won't feel like I'm watching something new with all my friends, but just slowly re-watching the series again. Once I tell them, they understand my viewpoint, and they agree that it would be weird having to wait for years until they would be on the same page as me.

"Well, maybe just three or four episodes, then?" Andrew asks, trying to find a compromise. "Because those episodes are pretty crazy!"

"I guess a few episodes wouldn't be too much of a problem," I say. I'm not really sure of when the date of my return would be, but I hope for it to be rather soon after I left. In that case, I'd only have to wait for a few weeks to be back in the swing of things, which isn't too bad. I have to admit: my curiosity is getting the better of me, and waiting for a few weeks won't seem that bad compared to having to wait years if I were to watch all of what's come out so far since Project Future. Heck, I could do that thing I sometimes do when I'm catching my friends up on shows. For instance, when I was first showing my friends Season 1, I ended up sneaking very cryptic hints at certain things, such as Aura's friend Walter dying. I would say things like, "Walter's a really cool character. I'd hate to see him go", and so on. And if the next few episodes of Season 2 are as crazy as they say, I could maybe do the same thing as before when I go back.

"Alright, let's go up to those episodes for now for now. If the time that I'll be going back to is later than then, we can watch the episodes up to that point."

Andrew clicks the play button, starting the episode. Over the next couple hours, we watch up to the fourth episode, allowing time to pause if we want to discuss what went down, or if someone needed to go to the bathroom. Andrew was so correct, too; Those episodes were game-changing. The characters' situation got way worse within only a couple episodes, due to the destruction of their spaceship base. Now I'm wondering how they get out of this. We end up watching a few more episodes than we initially intended, because we couldn't stop ourselves then. We're able to stop ourselves after episode 6, much to Andrew's disapproval. He wants to show me all the crazy things that will happen in the episodes after. I simply tell him:

"I want us to experience those crazy moments in those episodes together when I go back."

After that, I do something that I had totally forgotten to do when I was first with my friends again. I activate my NanoCom and go to my Nano Systems again, and summon my Buttercup nano. Everyone in the room immediately looks in my direction when they see the Nano, then look at me with this awe in their eyes. After all, if I have a Buttercup nano, this must certainly mean I defeated a Fusion Buttercup. And that is true. I did defeat Fusion Buttercup, but at one of the greatest costs. Aidan. I know they must think of me now as some super-strong hero, but as far as I'm aware, I was too late to stop something from killing my friend. My Buttercup nano, while really cool, is a constant reminder that I was too late. Regardless, my other friends seem to like the Buttercup Nano.

I ask my friends if they have any Nanos, and it turns out that a few of them used to have Nanos too, but mostly they were ones made from "nano creation sets" that were mass-produced. Apparently the Nanos that could be created from these sets were always Nanos of some sort of hero, whether it be a Nano of a Powerpuff Girl, of one of Ben 10's numerous aliens, of Dexter, of Mandark, or something else. It's believed, though, that just like a Fusion, a Nano could be made from anyone. My friends also told me that some of the stronger operatives in the Kids Next Door have been heard to have Nanos of high-level operatives like Numbuh Three or Four. But when the Battle of Downtown (which is what they're calling the battle I was in yesterday) started, the center of the Nano network, or the "Great Machine", was attacked and partially corrupted. Almost all the Nanos connected to it, which was pretty much all Nanos, were also corrupted and destroyed. My friends had experienced this first-hand, as they all had at least one Nano, but then when the Great Machine was damaged, all their Nanos just exploded into the components that made them up, and when they tried to re-summon them, it wouldn't work. Any Nanos created after would be unaffected by this corruption, which is why my Buttercup nano is OK.

All this talk of heroes reminds Lucas of something because he looks up as if something just popped into his head. He tells me, "Hey, Mark! I just thought of something! We should all go to Heroes Square!"

"Oh, yeah! That's not far from here, right?" Andrew asks. "Isn't it only a few minutes away when walking?"

"Yeah, but we can take an even cooler way there!" Evan says. "We can take a zip-line down there!"

"Wait, a zip-line?!" I say. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"Well, I need to let them know where we're going first so that you're safe and all." Evan then calls Numbuh Two and says we are going to head to Heroes Square in a moment. Numbuh Two allows us to, and says he'll increase the number of operatives in that area as soon as he can. Well, it'll still take a while for us to get to Heroes Square from here, so by the time that we arrive there, the operatives will all be there. Well, if we're going out, I should probably find a change of clothes. My old clothes have been almost totally wrecked, whether they've been torn in some places, or stained by mud, Fusion Matter or even blood. Regardless, these clearly aren't fit for wearing anymore. So, before we do go out, I go back to our room and get some of the spare clothes from the crate with my stuff.

I simply grab the first things I see that seem like they'd be a good idea to wear. The first thing I grab is one of my hoodies. The torso and cuffs of the hoodie are blue, while the sleeves, shoulders, and hood are white. I had got this the winter before I went into the future, and it still fits me well when I put it on. I then grab another thing willy-nilly through the box: A blue pair of pants. As for shoes, I'm not sure at first, but in another box, I find a shoebox with some shoes in them. Like my hoodie, they have blue and white on them, but the straps and back of the shoes are also yellow. It's funny: I didn't care at all what I chose, and yet the outfit I've made is rather... matching. I'll just wear it. Why not? Even though there's nobody else in this room, I still move to a hard-to-see area as I change into my new clothes. Once I'm changed, I grab my Lightning Gun and put on the necklace before I leave.

Once I meet back up with my friends, we go to the main transportation tube and take it all the way down to where Numbuh One's house is. The Treehouse literally grows out of Numbuh One's house, by the way. I don't know how, but I know from personal experience that you can't really question much with the Kids Next Door. After walking down the small brick path, we reach the edge of the floating ground. From here, I can see rather far. There are houses as far as the eye can see, but it's clear that many of them are destroyed and/or infected. The ones that aren't are heavily fortified and boarded up. I look down and see the large machine keeping things up.

"I never got to ask: How the heck is this floating?" I ask.

"It's some sort of anti-gravity projector that keeps the Treehouse suspended above the ground," Amanda says. It was installed after there were numerous attempts by the Fusions to attack the Treehouse, and being kids, we decided to just make the place float. The chains keep the Treehouse in place so it doesn't just float away. Mandark Industries actually helped a lot in constructing it pretty early on in the war, going so far as to even create some of the more difficult devices for us, like the Gravity Decelerator. I guess he was trying to gain the KND's favor."

"Did he?"

"More than usual, definitely," Evan says.

"Hold on a sec. Couldn't the monsters just attack the projector, then?"

"That's what the energy shield's designed to stop," Amanda says. "And so far, this place hasn't collapsed, and we hope for that to be the case for as long as possible."

On many different parts of the edge, there are zip-line posts that extend out to many different parts of Sector V. I know that if John were here, he'd start getting worried about the bad possibilities: What if the zipline breaks? What if something attacks us while we're going down on it? I push those thoughts out of my mind, and I ask which of us are going to go first. In response to this, Evan just grabs one of the zip-line handles from the nearby crate, which is blue in the center with metal handles. He links the top of the handle to the rope, and slides down the zip-line, screaming, "WOOOOOOO!" Andrew then follows suit, then Gumball, then Amanda and then myself. I feel the air on my face as I go down the zip-line, over houses and a couple trees. I brush by the branches of one of the trees and the leaves hit my face, but I'm not knocked off. Once I get to the end and come to a stop, I let go before Lucas, who said he was gonna go after I went, reaches where I am. Anais comes down next, then Penny. As for Jade, she simply flies down to us.

Once we're all here, I look at my surroundings. The most noticeable thing is a large, marble structure in the center of this square-shaped park. The structure has five wide, tall "spokes" that stretch out from the center, and on the tops of the ends are projectors that show the holograms of people, as well as their names. Specifically, those being projected are fallen heroes. I can see several recognizable people being projected: Ben 10, Dexter, Blossom, Bubbles and somebody else I don't really recognize. Is that guy wearing a sock on his head? I wonder what that guy did to get his place here. In the center of this structure, it rises upward, and there's a holographic book being projected on the very top, but I can't really read what it's saying. In the small park, numerous benches with that KND-shaped backrest have been placed. And yeah, operatives are everywhere. They're hanging out on a lot of places near the edges of the park to keep any Fusion Monsters out. Well, we definitely know that we're safe here. OK, now for what to do...

Well, for starters, we decide that the Hero Square park is going to be the "area" for a game we might play. After all, we don't want to be talking about what happened all the time. We know that we want our game to be one that all of us can play and understand. When we decide on a simple game of tag, most of us are really interested in playing. Anais, though, isn't as sure as the rest of us. I guess she is right to think that being 6-7 years old in a game of tag with 18-year-old players at most, she'll either take forever to tag someone or get tagged instantly, with the latter usually coming before the former. I tell her that if she doesn't want to play, it's fine, but she succumbs to peer pressure within a few moments. She says that she'll try, at the very least.

So, with the game now in motion, we decide on one particular rule: Don't use any special things that could give us an advantage, such as Jade's flight, Andrew's powers or Penny's shapeshifting. Evan and all my friends register our weapons in one of the small storage units at the edge of the park before we go back to where we were before, get in a circle, and do the simple Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe game to select who'll be it. Now, I've done this so many times that I'm already counting ahead of the selector, to see who'll be it. Well, Andrew's the selector right now, and he's counting clockwise after starting on himself. So while Andrew's doing the selecting, I calculate ahead of time that I'm gonna be it. Well, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. I ran so much yesterday I could certainly do some more running today, although I might get sore again. However, Andrew does the "My mother told me" part after, so that throws me off. Before I can calculate it, it turns out Gumball's it.

As soon as Gumball is chosen to be it, everyone scatters. I run around the structure to the other side of where we were, looking for something to hide behind. I turn around as I run. Gumball isn't chasing me, but I do see him chasing Andrew. They're moving really, really fast. I hide behind one of the cone-shaped bushes as I watch Gumball and Andrew chasing each other. I'm right in front of one of the ends sticking outward. For curiosity's sake, I look up to see who it is that's being projected, and it's Blossom.

Apparently, they ran into where Amanda was hiding because she's also running away from Gumball now. Gumball manages to tag Andrew, and I duck down before he can see me. I peek through the leaves in the bush to try and see where Andrew is. I can see him going after Amanda, while Gumball's running the other direction. I keep an eye on Andrew, and they chase each other down some sort of stairway until they're out of view. Where that goes I'm not entirely sure. OK, now that they're nowhere to be seen, I'll find somewhere else to hide. This is not really the best place, in all honesty. I quickly glance for where to go. OK, there's a pretty big rock on my right, but it's about 30 feet away. But it's way easier to hide behind than this bush. I'm gonna go for it.

I sprint over to a pair of those same KND benches, lined up side by side. Next to them is a birch tree that is casting a shadow on an area near where the benches are. I crouch down and sneak past the benches, listening carefully for the sound of footsteps rapidly getting closer. But right now, that sound isn't there.

"Mark," something whispers from the shadows. I instinctively gasp and stare directly at where the voice is, with my fists in front of me. That legit scared the hell out of me, especially after all the things I've been through yesterday. I was this close to activating my Buttercup nano.

"Chill, man, it's just me," Lucas says, peeking out from behind the bush near the birch tree. "Are you it?"

"If you thought I could be it, why would you reveal yourself?" I ask. "And no, I'm not it. But if I do become it, you might want to get somewhere else."

I continue moving slowly toward the rock, keeping an eye out for anything. There's another cone bush near the path I'm taking to the rock, which is really close now. I head to the cone bush just in case something shows up, and I wait for a few seconds. Nothing. I move to the rock, and just as I reach it, I see Amanda and Andrew coming from the side nearest me, heading in my direction. But Amanda's now behind Andrew, and they're both running toward me.

"Run, Mark! Amanda's it!" Andrew says. I dash away from the rock toward where I came from. As we run, I turn around again and see Lucas jump out of his hiding place when Amanda sees him. He's now running with us. We pass the end with the Blossom hologram on it as we run around Hero Square. We run into the space between the Blossom and Bubbles holograms, and something stops us in our path. There's nothing physically blocking our way, but the fact that it's there makes us stop. It's Buttercup. She's looking at both the Blossom and Bubbles holograms, while sitting in the space between them. It's incredibly obvious she's still mourning the loss of her sisters, and she's isolating herself from everything because she doesn't want to talk to anybody. I know I'd do the same if I lost Andrew. Amanda arrives soon after, but when she sees Buttercup, she doesn't bother to tag any of us.

"Hello?" Andrew asks. "Are you OK?"

Buttercup looks up and gives us all this glare that creeps us out. "Are you serious? Do you really think that I could possibly be OK after what's happened?" The ground shakes a little bit as she does this, and her eyes start to glow green a bit. OK, this was a really bad time to try and talk to her.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I'm sorry!" Andrew backs up, a bit scared. Buttercup calms down, and just looks down, sighing loudly.

"Just leave me alone," Buttercup says. "You can't understand what I'm going through right now."

Lucas tries to say, "I think we can, actually-"

"NO, YOU CAN'T!" Buttercup screams, cutting Lucas off right then and there. Her voice is so loud it forms a semi-shockwave, and when I'm knocked back, I can see the Blossom hologram flicker in and out for a brief moment as I turn back to Buttercup. "I knew my sisters since the very moment we were created in the Professor's lab. We fought together, played together, and did so many more kinds of things together! And now... they're both gone. I wasn't there to help them when they needed me the most. I should've been there for them..."

We're stuck in an uncomfortable silence for a moment as Buttercup just sits there. I don't know how to react to this. I'm sure that when Lucas first lost Chris, nobody who hadn't also lost a twin would know what to say. You can't exactly know for certain how it feels to lose someone dear until it happens.

"You know, I was going to say 'I know how you feel' and all that stuff, but we already all know this," Lucas says, breaking the silence. "We've all lost people we love. Friends, parents... siblings... I wasn't there to save my brother. He went into our school as it was being infected because he was trying to find me. If I was with him at the time, he might've lived... But as Amanda told me on that day, 'you have nothing to fault yourself for'. You didn't know this was going to happen to you. Nobody did. So don't blame yourself. We all have a common enemy to divert our hate toward. The Fusions. That's what we should be focusing our anger on, because blaming ourselves for these things will only make this fight harder."

Wow... That was probably the most powerful speech I've heard from one of my friends. Bravo to Lucas. What Lucas is saying seems to be working, as Buttercup was trembling and her fists were clenched tightly before. But now her hands are open, and she's just looking down at the ground, and the small tear puddle she's made. We sit down next to Buttercup, so that we can all talk this through. She looks up at us, then to Lucas.

"Thanks," Buttercup says, before smiling a tiny bit. Andrew immediately becomes excited by this, and runs directly into Buttercup to give her an "Andrew hug". But since he has superpowers, this is way stronger than the Andrew hugs he'd give me, and those were enough to nearly knock adults over, like when Andrew hugged Dad when we got to him in Dexlabs.

"Whoa, whoa! What are you doing?" Buttercup says, starting to laugh. Andrew's made another person happy today, and given it's a Powerpuff Girl this time, Andrew must be super proud of himself. It's a good thing that we're having these moments to hang out and to be happy. It helps us get better. Of course, I still am adjusting to this new reality, but having my friends here has helped me adjust way easier than if they all weren't here.

"You know what? Should we, uh, pause the game for a bit?" I ask.

"Yeah, let's do that for now," Lucas says. "What's going on right now is way more important. Amanda, can you contact them?"

Amanda activates her NanoCom's screen and does a few things. I try to decipher it as well as I can by trying to read what the letters are backwards, and I guess she's selecting the names of all our friends who aren't here, and therefore still think the game is on. Amanda presses some other holo-button, and says, "Hey, guys. Game of tag is paused for now. Meet us between the Blossom and Bubbles holograms. We're with Buttercup. Oh, and if the game starts back up later, just remember I'll be it." The holograms coming from her NanoCom deactivate, and we start talking with Buttercup again.

"You guys are good people," Buttercup says. "It's hard to find people with your kind of mindset nowadays."

"Well, when we have the chance to make things right, we're going to," Amanda says. "And we'll try as hard as we can to help get Mark to the past."

"Hey, guys!" Evan says, making his presence known. He and Penny walk up to us, with Jade showing up from above. Anais and Gumball soon show up not long after. Now that the group's all here, it's time to hang out with a Powerpuff. And we do just that. As we help cheer Buttercup up, Andrew is still really happy to be here. Very soon after our hangout begins, Buttercup brings something up:

"Hey, does Mark, um, know all about what happened to me yet?"

"No, not yet, really," Andrew says. "We've been focusing on more things that involved us."

"Wait, what happened to her?" I ask. All my friends proceed to look at me with this look, like there's something everyone here knows that I don't.

"So, uh, you remember when we were at that ice cream shop, right before we found out that you were chosen for Project Future?" Evan says.

"That was like, yesterday for me, dude. Of course I remember. Didn't John say how, uh... Wait, wasn't it, uh... Belladonna! The new Gangreen member! Yeah, John said how she looked like Buttercup, and..." My eyes are immediately drawn to Buttercup. That green streak of hair... that's in the exact place Belladonna's green streak of hair was in the picture Lucas showed us. The scar... It's definitely faded, but I can still make it out. It's also in the same place as it was on Belladonna. ...I know what they're talking about. Belladonna was Buttercup somehow!

"You were Belladonna?" I say to Buttercup.

"...Yeah, I guess you can say that," Buttercup says.

"But... how come you-"

Before I can finish my question, Buttercup is fully aware of what I was going to ask, because she proceeds to explain everything to me.

Buttercup

I wasn't really myself at the time. After I was blasted into the ocean, I had lost my memories, and so when I resurfaced somewhere else in the world, I had no freakin' idea who I was. The only thing that I knew was that my name started with a 'B', and there was not much else to work with. That's when I came across the Gangreen Gang after one of their gigs, and their leader, Ace, decided to take me in. I didn't know why at first, but I didn't complain, because I now had a place to crash. But now that I think about it, he must have known who I was the entire time.

Your friend was not the only person to compare me to... me. Belladonna to Buttercup, I mean. I got that quite often, actually. At first, I just dismissed those comparisons, always saying, 'If I were Buttercup, I'd know it.' I never had told anyone I had no memory of who I was except for the rest of our band, but over time, more and more details began to show up. I had really liked wearing this one kind of clothing, and it would always be green. I used to have a family at one point, but I didn't know their names.

A lot of these details that came back would be blurry and hard to totally understand most of the time. I remembered being popular before I lost my memories. When we were buying stuff once, there was this one cereal on display that I saw that made me feel nostalgic for some reason. Then another time, I saw this blanket, and I was reminded again of something. Then I realized I loved to punch stuff, and, around a year and some change after I had been brought into the Gangreen Gang, something started to click.

Belladonna - June 17, 2017 - 5:30 PM

I don't know what it is about punching stuff that's so fun for me, but I just freakin' love it. I've used up a few punching bags already this week, and I just can't stop. Now that I've learned of my love for punching things, I just want to do it more and more. On punching bags, of course. I'm not going to hit anyone unless they're doing something bad to people or destroying stuff. Interestingly, sometimes whenever I punch these punching bags, I think of an unrealistically large scrap of meat hanging from the ceiling of some even larger place, like a warehouse or something. I don't know why this is the case, but maybe it's more memories. I don't know why that's part of them, but at least I'm getting something new.

Anyway, I'm beating the heck out of this one punching bag, and I've giving it all I've got. I see things normally for a while, but then I suddenly get flashes of things in my mind. I'm beating up some of the villains that the Powerpuff Girls fight against. The settings and villains flash by very fast: Mojo Jojo, Him, a few others. Why am I seeing these things? I stop punching the bags to think about why the heck I'm thinking this. If they're other memories, what the heck did I do before I lost my memory? Maybe if I continue punching the punching bags, I'll see more.

I continue punching the punching bag, and what I see starts getting clearer. I punch harder and harder as time goes on, to the point that the punching bag swings up to the ceiling. I see more times where I am punching some sort of villain, and it lasts just a tiny bit longer every time. However, after a few minutes, something new comes up. Now I see myself pushing... Blossom. A Powerpuff Girl. I push her out the way before something bright hits me from the right, and then I'm back here again. At that moment, I stop punching, only to realize that I had sent the punching bag off its hook, across the room and through the wall of our apartment building. Sand and pieces of the wall are all over the floor. What the... Uh... What the heck just happened? Why was I pushing Blossom? I sit down for a moment to think about what just happened. How did I send the punching bag through the wall? Am I that strong? I look back through the new hole in the wall and to top this craziness off, the punching bag has gone across the street and through the building on the other side. The people in the room that was busted into are even more freaked out and confused than I am. I get out of view before anyone can see me, of course.

Ace and the rest of our band are all somewhere else right now. I need to tell them what happened. I try to call him, but nobody picks up. Ace said one of our next gigs was going to be at Sunny Bridges Auditorium, and that they'd be practicing near there around this time today. I'll try going there. As I get out of the building, I start thinking about how I did that. Why was I thinking of beating up bad guys? Why was I pushing Blossom? Why would I be there? Was that what happened that made me lose my memory? I don't know... As I enter the hotel lobby, I see a poster of Buttercup, with "REMEMBER BUTTERCUP" under it. I stare at it for a moment, feeling some weird sense of familiarity. At the very least, I looked a lot like her before I lost my memory. I don't want to jump to conclusions, though. I need to make sure I'm right about this before I start saying it.

When I leave the hotel lobby, there's a ton of people outside looking at the holes in the walls, pointing and taking photos. Some people even called the police. I remain as calm as I can and try to slip away. Of course, some people notice me and ask for my autograph or to take a photo with them. I do so, but I'm starting to think more and more: Am I actually Buttercup? Am I really her? After giving them the autographs, I head to a nearby bus stop so that I can take the bus up to where Ace and the rest of the gang are. I'm not gonna call them yet. If I'm going to call them, it'll be when I know for certain who I am. I search on my phone, "buttercup final battle footage". I've seen this several times before, but I need to see it again. I need to see what Buttercup did, or if I'm right about this, what I did. The first thing that pops up is a video from a channel known as "Infiniteam". Funny enough, they're the ones who become popular from the whole Project Future thing, and then again when the brother of that kid who went in the time machine got superpowers. I click on the video and I'm seeing that battle. The battle between Buttercup and one of Mojo Jojo's giant robots that made Buttercup go missing. I watch the footage carefully. It's a little wobbly, but that's not what I care about. The camera zooms in on the three Powerpuffs when they regroup. I don't hear what they're saying, but we can hear the sounds of Mojo's giant robot rising up. The camera zooms out a bit, and we see Mojo's robot and the three Powerpuffs. This next part goes by really fast, so I have to slow down the video using the settings. After the light from the robot's chest comes out. Buttercup sees the light focus on Blossom, and quickly pushes her out of the way... Blossom turns around to face Buttercup right before she gets blasted by the laser from her right... Yeah, this is exactly what I saw, which would be the exact thing Buttercup would see from her view in this video. So... there can't be any other way. I must be her.

At this point, the bus arrives, but I don't know what to do. I always wanted to figure out who I was, but this is something I didn't expect. All those people who compared me to Buttercup in terms of how similar we looked were right. They were all right. Still, there's a small, nagging doubt in my mind, saying that I may have just been someone who happened to look a lot like Buttercup, and I saved Blossom from something. I glance at the bus times, and there are other buses that stop here. So, I simply do nothing, contemplating what I've just learned about myself. I don't want to go to Ace now. If I'm Buttercup, then I need to get to Blossom and Bubbles first. They'd know whether or not this could be true. Then I'll call Ace and tell him what happened. As the bus leaves the stop, I hear a couple kids on the other side who are freaking out because they see me, Buttercup. I guess this also explains how I've been able to hear certain things that I normally shouldn't hear, but that only happens sometimes. The parents say that that isn't me, and that it's actually Belladonna. No... the kids are right. This whole time, they've been right, and not even I knew it until now. So, if I'm trying to get to Pokey Oaks, the Slider's going to be the fastest way to do that, not the 88 bus. I'm about to get up and start going to the Slider, but I start hearing screaming and panic. It's far at first, but then it gets closer. It's behind me and to the right. I turn in that direction and look down the street the bus is heading for. As the bus reaches the intersection, a large Fusion Monster runs right into it.

The monster looks like someone took several fire hydrants and water pipes, oversized some of them and merged 'em all together to form something. It also has two large, red hydrants attached to the ends of its arms. Followed by this monster are a bunch of other floating, mechanical monsters, that, while smaller than it, are sleek and equipped with only cannon arms, but the bottom of it is four sharp blades sticking downward. Their cannon arms also have blades on them. They wreak havoc on the street, blasting Fusion Matter and other kinds of attacks at the civilians. As for the hydrant-armed monster, it overturns the bus completely, making its top the bottom. People start running in all directions to get away from the chaos.

Wait, why am I just standing here? I'm supposed to be Buttercup, and these Fusion Monsters are causing all sorts of destruction. I need to save these people and kick Fusion butt! This propels me into action, although I don't know if my powers, particularly ones like flight and laser vision, will work as well. I run to the bus, and people are hurrying out. Those two kids that saw me are getting out, as well as their parents. OK, they look alright. Now where are those monsters?

"Dad! Mom! It's Buttercup!" the kids scream, jumping and pointing. The hydrant monster suddenly appears directly behind them. The kids scream in terror, and the hydrant monster raises one of its hydrant arms to attack us. But I won't let it. I intercept the hydrant arm, and my super strength stops it in its tracks. I keep a tight hold on it as I turn to the family on my right, and they're shocked. The kids are jumping and smiling with glee, as I have returned. If everything else wasn't enough to convince me that I was Buttercup, this definitely has.

"Go!" I yell, as I tear part of the hydrant monster's arm, and swing it back at it. The hydrant hits it directly, sending it back. Some of those monsters with the cannons and blades try to attack close-up, but their blades not only do pretty much nothing, but they break off. So it tries to blast me, but I slam it in the ground, and break it apart. The hydrant monster tries to come back at me, but I hit it so hard it breaks into pieces. Then I see lasers coming down from the sky and destroying the monsters I hadn't gotten to yet. The other Powerpuffs are here. Those two other kids start screaming, "BLOSSOM! BUBBLES! BUTTERCUP'S HERE!"

I hear them land on the ground behind me, and I know that they want to see if I am Buttercup. They know it can't be anyone else here, because I'm surrounded by the pieces of Fusion Monsters that I beat up and destroyed.

"...Buttercup?" Blossom asks. I turn around and I see both her and Bubbles. Both of... my sisters... I know that they're my sisters, and even though not many of my memories are here, I feel a sense of being at home again. I hesitate for a moment before responding, but I begin to smile as I say:

"...Yeah."

Immediately, Blossom and Bubbles zoom over and hug me harder than I think they ever have, from what I'm now beginning to remember of them. And as they hug me, I now remember another thing: Blossom, Bubbles and I playing together. And as hard as I try not to, the emotion gets to me, and some tears escape. But it's all tears of joy, because I have come back. While I may not be completely Buttercup yet, I know who I am now. I am Buttercup of the Powerpuff Girls.

Mark - January 15, 2019 - 10:11 AM

"Over time, I got more of my memories back, until I was pretty much myself again," Buttercup says. "Needless to say, the world exploded with happiness when I was found out, but there was one thing on my mind. Not long after I realized who I was and saved those people, my sisters and I went to Ace and asked if he always knew this. Ace tried to say he didn't know, but we could see right through his lies. And like I always did to those villains, we gave them many knuckle sandwiches for hiding such a secret from me. Speaking of which, at the same time that people were really happy I returned, the Gangreen Gang got barraged with hatred from then on."

"Yeah, the Gangreen Gang's reputation really started to plummet from then on," Lucas says. "A lot of people who used to be their fans gave up on them, especially Ace. Even I, who was a diehard fan of them at the time, knew that what Ace did was a big no-no. Knowing that she was Buttercup and instead of letting people know, he tried to change her into something else for personal gain while the whole world mourned their loss... That's just unforgivable. And to top it all off, Ace tried to twist the situation in their favor by making it seem like they were just as unaware she was Buttercup as we were, but not only did they not do a good job of it, there was plenty of evidence to combat their claims. They went from one of the most popular bands in recent times to one of the most hated. There were still some who said they forgave them, but that was a very small percentage. The rest, they left them for good, and like me, put their Gangreen Gang stuff away and disconnected themselves from that band. I still have my Ace Jacket somewhere, but I just don't like to wear it anymore."

"It was crazy, though. #WelcomeBackButtercup was trending for at least a week," Evan says. "The whole world became more hopeful in mere hours, and Andrew... you should've seen how he reacted."

"I nearly caused a power outage in our apartment at the time," Andrew says, chuckling at the craziness of his situation. "I was that happy. I know I could've overloaded the whole building if that suit hadn't been able to stop me."

"And I had just met Andrew only, uh, a week or so before then, right?" Gumball says. Andrew and Anais both nod. "So I didn't know his powers were that crazy."

"Man... Now I'm wondering how you'll react when I tell that to you guys after I return to the past," I say. I mean, Andrew would not only have less control of his abilities, but he'd already be super happy I was back. "Although, to be fair, I'll be telling you everything else. Well, minus the Kids Next Door stuff. I'll have to make something else up. At least, until the war starts again and you guys get recommissioned, then I'll tell you guys the truth. And Buttercup, I'll let your sisters know where you are as soon as I can."

"Thanks," Buttercup says. "Just know that it might be a little harder to convince me at that point in time. What time is he going to head back to?"

"Well, we think it'll be rather soon after that whole time machine thing happened, which was just at the start of summer."

"Yeah, in that case, it'll be way harder. I didn't have that many memories of who I was at the time, so if you tried to talk to me, I'd probably continuously say how that couldn't be true. I was very stubborn about that."

"Is there anything we could do now that could help?"

Evan then suddenly looks up like Lucas did earlier in the Treehouse, and says, "We could take the group photo now, with Buttercup! That way, we can get multiple things done at once! We can show proof that Buttercup is back in the Future, and Mark, you can use this as one of the photos to show what happened in the Future!"

"Yeah, that's a great idea!" Andrew says. I can hear him mumbling to himself excitedly on how awesome this is and how he's going to be in a photo with a Powerpuff Girl. You know what, I'll agree to this for him alone, but also because it really gets two things done at once. Evan's idea can work, and we get ready to take the photo. We set up similar positioning to what we did in the previous photo we did yesterday, but Buttercup is now floating with us. Now, the problem here is that there's no benches to put the photo on, and if we went to anywhere else, it would take a while to move all the operatives and KND stuff in the sightline of the phone so that nothing belonging to the KND is there. Thankfully, we get someone walking by to take the photo for us. As the photos get taken, I feel colder for just a moment. Once we get my phone back, we all look at the photo like we did before, and boy, it's still awesome. Having Buttercup in there definitely increased the coolness factor.

Our group continues to talk with Buttercup about things for a few more minutes, particularly about what I should do to help Buttercup get back to her old self. She does tell me that while I may not be able to change her immediately, I can definitely spread the word about who she is. If I find her, I could also do something to prove that she is at least more powerful than she knows, such as by causing something to make her realize she has super strength or is immune to things.

In the midst of our conversation, my NanoCom starts to beep rapidly. A holographic screen appears above my NanoCom and says, "INCOMING MESSAGE - COMPUTRESS". I obviously answer, and Computress's hologram appears above the NanoCom.

"Greetings, Mark," Computress says.

"Hey, Computress," I say. "Do you need me for something?"

"That is indeed the case. We are sending a SCAMPER to bring you back to the Treehouse. Once you've arrived, come speak to us right away at the Briefing Room."

"Who's 'us'?"

"Well, myself, Numbuh Two, Numbuh Five, and..." Computress visibly gets a bit annoyed. "...Mandark."

"Wait, what?!" Amanda says. Yeah, she's really not a fan of Mandark Industries. None of us really are.

"Unfortunately, yes, but we have no other choice," Computress says. "Your SCAMPER should be arriving any moment now."

"Alright, we'll see you soon," I say. "Bye for now."

"Goodbye." The call ends there. I look at my friends. Some of them aren't so sure about this. I know a few of them don't like Mandark. I will admit: I'm not really a fan either. He's tried as hard as he can to direct attention from Dexlabs and toward his own company by any means necessary so many times. We've heard that often, he's tried to beat Dexter in his attempts to discovering breakthroughs, even if the subject of said breakthrough was not at all in Mandark's interests. But he barely ever can make it in time before Dexter, and so a lot of his inventions just seem like lesser copies of Dexlabs stuff. Case in point: His Mandroids are exactly like Dexbots, but black and red instead of blue and white, more menacing, have blades on their arms and heads, and can be really rude. We should know, as we encountered one once while hanging out in Townsville, and it was completely unhelpful in what we were trying to do. Another time, Amanda tried to prank one by asking it where Dexlabs was, and it told her to leave immediately or face severe consequences. We never stayed around to see what it would do.

"Well, if he's the only way I can get back, we might as well just do it even if we don't like him that much," I tell my friends. "Let's go to the SCAMPER."

After we say goodbye to Buttercup, she flies away to go somewhere else. She's probably going back to her home in Pokey Oaks, or the iconic Powerpuff house. Once she's gone, we make our way to the corner of Heroes Square that faces the Treehouse just in time to see a SCAMPER come down and land in one of the open parts of the park. We head over and are about to enter when I see something bright green in my peripherals. I glance over and see several Fusion Spawns peeking at me from behind houses and bushes outside Heroes Square. They quickly move back once they know I see them. I'm unable to contain my anger as I shoot at them.

I am so tempted to run in after them right now, to find them and blow them to smithereens. But I have a feeling that Fuse wants that. Of course he'll want that. He'll want me to run in, blinded with rage, and then I'll get ambushed or something. So while I want to go after them, I restrain myself from doing so. Andrew also lets a blast off at the Spawns for good measure, and it proves very effective. I guess that helped, as now there's less Fusion Spawns over there. I needed to let my anger out somehow, anyway. Well, with that taken care of, we get on the SCAMPER, and it takes off toward the Treehouse.