"You sure we should keep this umbrella?" Brick asked.
"Eh, it makes for a good house decoration" shrugged Butch.
The blue counterparts then entered the warehouse talking with each other. "You didn't need to, Brick told us he found some money on the street earlier, a twenty dollar bill, which he used to buy us some food today. Don't know where he got the umbrella from though, oh well, hey guys" Boomer waved to his brothers. "She did show up after all."
"Hello Bubbles" Brick greeted in a formal tone.
"Yeah hey" Butch muttered.
"I brought you guys some things" Bubbles emptied the bag revealing the food supplies.
"Why would you bring us this?" Butch raised an eyebrow.
"Who cares? The point is we got these things" expressed Boomer.
"That toy octopus isn't for us too is it?" Brick said somewhat jokingly.
"Huh? Oh, no. This is my, stuffed animal" Bubbles realised she was still holding it in her arms, becoming slightly embarrassed again.
"You have a stuffed toy?" Butch smirked.
"Butch" Brick sternly said.
"It fell in my bag just before leaving I guess. But Boomer fixed it for me, as it tore in half in a fight I had with Buttercup just before I left" Bubbles explained.
The red and green ruff looked at their brother briefly before turning back to Bubbles. "Speaking of which" Brick wondered "how are you allowed to be here? I doubt that father of yours, Professor Utonium or whatever, is letting you go out this late at night."
"Well that's the thing" the blonde puff laughed nervously. "He isn't. I snuck out when everyone else was asleep. They're going to get suspicious if I keep heading out like this during the day."
"So you still haven't told them about us?" Boomer realised.
"Not a soul" promised Bubbles. "I hope to do this every night when I can, since sometimes my sisters and I go out on patrol in Townsville late, if that's okay of course?"
"Eh, I see no harm" Brick shrugged, and Butch just shook his head rolling his eyes.
The four chemical x users sat around the fire the boys had made in the middle of the warehouse. "Is this all you have for warmth at night?" Bubbles continued with questions.
"That and those newspaper blankets" Boomer answered.
"Couldn't you boys, I dunno, go to an orphanage or something?" she wondered, and Butch just laughed at the idea.
"They'll refuse entry to us Bubbles" Brick explained.
"I know that they have to be cautious and everything, but they can't surely deny the fact that you three are suffering from homelessness too. Even if you are the uh, Rowdyruff boys. Boomer told me what happened to you all about the wallet he tried to return and everything, you've suffered from street violence too" replied Bubbles.
"People know we do, but they don't care" Butch dismissed looking down at the floor. "Violence seems acceptable when it's us it's happening too."
"I see" Bubbles decided not to press that any further. "So, what do you boys do for fun now? Since you're not, robbing stores or anything like that anymore" she joked.
"Well we play cards sometimes, or ball games with a soccer ball we bought" told Boomer.
"Hm, soccer isn't usually my thing, but I'll give it a try if you want?" Bubbles supposed.
"Nah soccer's a dumb game, I'm just gonna head outside if you don't mind" Butch said in a bored tone and flew up.
"Where you goin'?" questioned Boomer.
"For a cigarette break-, I'm just going outside for some air" Butch dismissed flying.
Brick observed him for a bit before turning back to the blue counterparts. "Boomer why don't you draw on the walls with Bubbles for a while, here" he threw him some charcoal before floating up. "Just like you use to on the prison walls."
Boomer looked at Brick confused before turning to Bubbles. "What do ya wanna draw?"
"You like to-? can we draw a bunny?" Bubbles asked excitedly.
Brick flew out onto the roof of the warehouse and joined his green brother. "Still haven't warmed up to her huh?"
"I don't know why you and blonde have. You do remember she's part of the same group that fought us and at one point killed us" the green ruff reminded.
"To be fair we kinda did the same thing" said Brick.
"Why are even letting her visit us? Why are you letting the former enemy, whose sisters would jump at the chance to have us thrown us back in that prison, come in and out of our warehouse like some sort of hotel guest?"
"Didn't you show her some martial arts moves the other day?"
"That doesn't mean I enjoyed it. Brick, it honestly feels like she's just some law official come to check on us to make sure we're 'behaving'."
"Butch, I'm the one who's making sure we don't get into trouble again. Think about it. What if we didn't let her visit us? Bubbles would get suspicious about three former criminals hanging around in another city, she wouldn't just let it be. She would get worried and would be bound to tell someone. Before we know it we would be dealing with pink green and a whole bunch of vigilante mobs. So I figured if she came by every now and then and saw that we're not in the whole crime business anymore, we wouldn't have to deal with all of that" Brick gave his explanation.
Butch refused to look at him, still keeping his sulky demeanour, but he seemed to have accepted the explanation. "Where did you get that umbrella from by the way?" he asked changing the subject. "It seemed to good in a condition for you to have just found it on the street."
"Then it must've been recently thrown away when I found it" dismissed Brick.
Then with his super hearing, Brick heard something which normally would've sounded distant, but he could hear just fine. He heard gunshots, a rapid fire of gunshots, and a voice he swore he heard before. "Do you hear that?"
"Just gunshots, we hear them a lot Brick, especially in this neighbourhood" shrugged Butch.
Brick, with his x ray vision saw through the buildings a shootout between two officers who were waiting for back up, against three people up in an apartment building. He zoomed his sight in, and recognised one of the officers to be the same one whose house he had accidently entered earlier. He thought of something and turned to Butch. "Go back inside Butch, it's getting cold out."
"What are you doing?"
"Just, don't repeat what I do, okay?" Brick then flew in the direction of the shooting leaving a red streak behind.
"What the hell is he doing?" Butch questioned watching his brother shoot off.
Brick could hear the gunfire decrease slightly and that same officer call desperately on his radio. "This is officer Jones, I have an officer down, my partner, gunshot to the leg, we need that back up now-"
"Officer Jones, is it?" Brick floated above the car the two policemen were hiding behind.
"You! What are you doing here?" Jones pointed his gun at Brick, seeming quite scared.
"Is that a, Rowdyruff?" the injured officer looked up, holding his leg.
"Just to prove to you, I wasn't there in your house to harm you." The Rowdyruff flew into the apartment building, the assailants confused at him being there, their gunfire not penetrating his skin at all. Brick dodged the bullets anyway with his speed, zapped the guns out of their hands with his heat vision and knocked out two men and one woman. Grabbing them all he floated outside and dropped them in front of the squad cars.
Jones stood up, staring at the unconscious assailants and looked at Brick. "Why-?"
"Like I said, my brothers and I, aren't going to hurt anyone, especially any cop, not anymore."
The back up just then arrived, and the red ruff pointed to the wounded officer. "Tell him to keep pressure on that until medical help arrives." He zoomed off back in the direction of the warehouse, and the other cops ran out of their cars to the other two and the assailants. Among them was Founder's police chief Mccoy, a man who appeared to be in his early 50s and whose uniform was different to the rest of the officers.
"Officer Jones, what happened? Was that a Rowdyruff boy?" the chief stared in the direction the ruff flew in.
"I-, I'm not sure what happened sir. We were caught in the shooting then all of a sudden that boy appeared, the same one who was in my house earlier, and he apprehended these three" Jones explained.
Chief Mccoy kept staring for a few seconds before turning back to the other officers. "Get a medic over here quickly" he ordered for the injured officer.
As Brick flew back, he was thinking over his decision to help the officer. He did to correct his mistake earlier, that's all. He made it clear himself, he and his brothers would not get involved in anything like this, at least not by choice anyway. But as the ruff leader thought more about it, he was starting to realise something. Something similar to what he felt when he saved that man who was going to testify against the those criminals. That officer, officer Jones, he had family, his wife. If Brick hadn't intervened in that shooting just now, she could've lost family. To criminals. The Rowdyruff had a similar experience.
Not just Jones and his wife, but those people in the mall. The people standing outside, dreading the thought their loved ones wouldn't make it. Brick tried to prevent the memory of staring at his unconscious, blood soaked, battered brothers in the prison medical ward out of his head. He wondered briefly whether they would make it too when that happened.
"So that was a gallant act of heroism wouldn't you say?" Butch said sarcastically, appearing alongside Brick.
"You decided to watch then?" Brick replied in an unamused tone.
"You didn't see me."
"No, I heard you. We make a distinctive sound when we fly y'know."
"Yes, and I followed your orders, and didn't intervene" Butch scorned.
"Look, I know I may seem like a hypocrite right now, but the only reason I did that was because, well because, I accidently flew into that officer's house earlier" Brick hesitantly admitted.
"I was wondering what you meant by that. How d'ya do that?" wondered Butch.
"I was, I thought I was on the trail of a hitman, but I got it wrong and ended up that officer's house, believing the hitman to be hiding there. So I wouldn't to prove to him I wasn't there to harm him" Brick confessed.
"So this is not the first time you went back on your own orders?" Butch exclaimed.
"Only because there was a five thousand dollar reward money on him" Brick defended.
"You-, five thousand? Well I don't blame you there. But why should Boomer and I follow your orders, when you don't even do that?" Butch questioned.
"Because Butch I'm starting to think, maybe I don't always know what's best. For us anyway. I mean heck, I hardly ever was before. I'm the reason we ended up in that prison, by making us attack those police officers in Townsville all that while ago. Come to think of it, isn't it ironic that we were subjected to beatings in prison, after being sentenced for assault?" Brick figured.
"I suppose" Butch looked down. "I still hate the fact that the guards and the warden thought the beatings against us were acceptable because we had powers, but if we had hit back once, we'd get in trouble."
"So are you going to disobey me and commit a crime?" Brick, not with an angry tone but with a curious one, asked.
Butch sighed "No, I'm not. I don't want to go back to that hellhole as much as you don't want to. I was only tempted to commit a crime again because I thought it was inevitable. But I'm telling you now Brick, if the other two puffs find out about us, that's it for us. Thank god Bubbles is naive."
The two brothers floated alongside each other for a bit. Butch then quietly said "I'll play a ball game. With you, Boomer and Bubbles, if you want."
Brick's felt his mood become a little brighter. "Let's go ask them."
The blue ruff and puff had by now, each drawn their own choice of animal on the wall, using up several pieces of charcoal. "I hope you don't mind these drawings on your walls Boomer" worried Bubbles after finishing her bunny.
"Pfft, in this building? It's begging for something like this. By the way is my shark's nose too big?" Boomer scratched his head.
Bubbles giggled. Once you really got to know Boomer, he was actually quite fun to be around. She only fought him before, but now she was getting to know a sweet, naive, somewhat innocent side to him. And he could be quite funny too. Heck he fixed Octi for her, just because she looked upset. She wondered what he would've turned out to be like if raised by a different parent. Come to think of it, she wondered what would've happened if the boys weren't born to Mojo Jojo. It wasn't their choice to turn out the way they did, for the first part anyway. It was hard to believe that the Boomer she was talking to now was the same boy who committed crimes all those months ago.
At this point Brick and Butch had returned to the warehouse. "You guys took a long time" pointed out Boomer.
"We, just had a talk is all" Brick responded. "So, what ball game should we play?"
"Ooh ooh, could we play piggy in the middle?" Bubbles asked waving her hand up.
The boys looked at her with blank faces, even Brick. "What? Don't you know what-" Bubbles realised "You don't know do you? Well I'll teach you" she flew down and grabbed the ball. "Normally you play with three people, but we can work with four."
The boys looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders, and listened to Bubbles. After the game, which the three boys, even Butch, seemed to really enjoy, Bubbles had to head home. She picked her empty bag up, along with Octi, and waved goodbye to the boys. "Bye boys, see you again tomorrow night. And thanks again for Octi Boomer" she waved, and flew off in the direction of Townsville.
The three waved back and Brick turned to his brothers. "C'mon we'd better get to bed." The three Rowdyruffs settled down in their cardboard beds, ready for another attempt to stay warm through the night.
Brick awoke grudgingly the next morning to the sound of knocking at the warehouse door to the alleyway to the side of the building. He rubbed his eyes and sat up. 'Ugh, better see who's at the, door?' He floated up and used his x-ray vision on the door. 'No it, it couldn't be' he flew to the door and zapped off the padlock, opening it to see that same woman from the bus stop yesterday.
"Um, hello Brick. Not disturbing you am I?"
Hey guys, another chapter. I feel like not that much happened this chapter, but we got to see a bit of development in Brick. And a bit of Butch too. More will most likely happen next chapter. Updates coming as soon as possible.
Powerpuff girls and Rowdyruff boys belong to CN.