Red Crown: In the words of The Joker from The Dark Knight: "Here we go..."

CHAPTER TEN: "Revealed"

Meanwhile…

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup had just flown over Algeria and Libya and were now entering Egyptian territory. Blossom looked down below her and spotted several Egyptian towns. Farther east of her were the Ancient Pyramids.

She flew further north and found the specific one that she was looking for to her left. To her surprise the Sphinx was moving and was fighting what appeared to be three figures clad in black. She instantly recognized them as the thieves she and Bubbles had encountered last night. This time there really were three of them. They made quick work of the sphinx.

"There's the Pyramid. How did those guys get here before us?" wondered the lead puff. Swiftly, Blossom directed her sisters to attack the thieves. The thieves were standing in formation. Buttercup would take the one on the left, Bubbles the one on the right, and she picked the one in the middle to be her target. Simultaneously, they dove towards them with intent to hurt.

"Not so fast, bad guys!" they said together.

At the same time they flew in together and struck their targets. It was a perfect attack. The thieves were too busy gloating over defeating the sphinx and didn't even see them coming. Three loud sounds of impact pulsed through the air as the thieves were each hit hard and knocked off their feet several yards back.

The girls landed on the ground a few feet from the suspects. To their surprise the foes got up from the blows. They knew that no ordinary human could withstand a punch from a being charged with Chemical-X.

Brick and his brothers regained their footing quickly. The leader quickly examined his subordinates. Butch stood and immediately assumed a fighting stance, ready to do battle. Boomer for some reason was hesitant again, but he assumed a fighting stance as well.

"Hello there," Brick said in a calm tone, his voice synthesizer was now turned on and actively disguising his voice. "Seems you're not as good as we thought you were. You're always one step behind us, heroes." He spat the word "heroes" with a mocking tone.

"Correction, we're not heroes. We're heroines. I know what you're looking for. It's a ring with jewel in it isn't it?" Blossom stated.

"Good for you," he said with a flat tone.

"Who are you guys and why are you searching for the pieces of the key?" asked Bubbles.

This made Brick even more curious. He had been told by Him to retrieve these specific items; however, he didn't really know what they were for. He didn't even know that they were parts of a key. 'How is it that my enemies know what I am searching for and yet I do not?' he wondered. All that Brick really cared about was destruction and causing as much evil as he could because he found pleasure in it. Boomer and Butch were his followers for the most part. His master only told him that the key would be a lot of fun for him.

"Why on earth do you think we would tell you?" Brick said.

"Because if you don't, we'll beat it out of you," Buttercup responded.

Butch immediately took a step forward and made eye contact with Buttercup. A smirk slowly came across his lips and could be vaguely seen behind his ski mask. "I'd love to see you try, sweetie."

Buttercup immediately became tense and hint of anger could be seen on her face. "What did you just call me?" she asked slightly in disbelief of the stupidity of this man.

"I didn't stutter," he said. The smirk on his face deepened. "Sweetie."

Buttercup immediately charged towards him with her fist raised and ready to strike.

Blossom remembered that the thieves were much more powerful than they looked and reached for her sister, but she was too late. "Buttercup, no!"

The green puff threw a punch aimed directly at the thief's face. With ease he caught it in his hand and stopped Buttercup cold in her tracks. With the smirk still plastered on his face Butch countered with a powerful front kick that landed dead center of her stomach. The force of his kick was more than enough to knock the heroine off her feet and sent her flying into her sisters. Bubbles caught her and stopped her from slamming into the sand.

At first Buttercup seemed like she was going to blow a fuse. Instead she began to smirk as well. "Finally, someone worth my time," she said.

"Attack pattern D-U-X!" Brick shouted to his brothers and quickly advanced on Blossom while his brothers went for their own counterparts.

This time Blossom knew what to expect. Brick attacked her with two swift punches, followed by a round house kick. The leader of the Power Puff Girls blocked all the attacks and returned them with equal efficiency. Her opponent was just as sharp as she was, because he blocked her moves as well. She finally found an opening and launched her fist directly into it. Her blow connected squarely with the enemy's head. He took two steps back, mentally recovered in a near instant, and stood ready to continue the fight. Blossom was impressed that her adversary could not only dish out punishment, but take it just as well.

Buttercup immediately was on the defensive and took two hits to the head from her opponent. Her opponent threw another punch towards her face. She tilted her head to the side and let his fist skim her cheek, before she smashed her elbow into the side of his face. The green puff didn't stop there. As he staggered back slightly she committed to a low spin kick that knock him off his feet and onto his back. She drove her fist down toward his head, aiming to cause extreme damage; however, her enemy moved his head to the side and grabbed her arm with both his hands after her fist missed him. The mysterious figure then kicked out one of her legs and with her off balance pulled her to the ground with him. In almost a moment he rolled on top of her and sat on her torso. The green puff found herself completely restrained and unable to get him off of her. All she could do was try to block the assault of strikes that went straight to her head.

Boomer attacked Bubbles with a series of kicks. She blocked all of them and quickly did a back flip to dodge a right hook that had been thrown at her. The blond heroine landed in a crouch and pounced forward with her fists out in front. They slammed dead center into his stomach, but seemed to have little effect as the blue ruff grabbed bother her arms, pulled her forward and shoved his knee into her face. The blow was stunning and caused her to have an immediate headache. She stepped back a few feet and held her head, trying to recover. This left a large window of attack for her foe. He could have easily continued the attack with an arsenal of other moves, but for some reason, to Bubbles' amazement, he didn't take it; he hesitated. The hesitation lasted only a few moments, until she recovered, then he pressed the attack.

As Brick continued to test Blossom's skill he found himself impressed. She was fast, durable, strong, and precise. However, he was in no way worried because he was holding back a little of his own speed and strength, just to see how well she could perform. Now he decided to increase his technique, not to maximum, but enough to cause some serious pain.

Blossom threw a right hook followed by a straight punch towards him. He blocked the hook and tilted his head to the side to dodge the straight; however, right after her fist flew by his face he reached up and grabbed her elbow. The red ruff in disguise yanked her off to his side and thrust his knee into her stomach. The resulting blow knocked the wind out of her and forced her to keel over. The villain then hammered his elbow down on the back of the heroine's head. She fell to ground, disoriented.

A smirk grazed the lead ruff's lips. She had gotten rusty over the years, since Townsville hand been relatively safe and not pushed her to her limits in anyway. Brick had been training for his revenge against her. In her current condition, she was not a worthy match for him. He knew he had the ability to kill her, but he had promised that pleasure to him. For some reason at that moment the thought of killing her seemed delicious to Brick.

"Maybe Him shouldn't have this glory." He thought to himself while he looked at her trying to recover on the desert sand. "I think I'll take it, but not now. The moment isn't right."

Buttercup unleashed a blast of energy from her eyes and hit Butch directly in the chest. The powerful blast forced him off of her and burned his chest. This allowed Buttercup to get back on her feet. Butch bit back the urge to give her some of her own medicine and resumed a fighting stance.

"Flash!" Brick shouted. What Brick didn't know was that his voice synthesizer had been damaged when he took a hit from his counterpart, so when he had shouted his voice was no longer disguised. He reached over to the part of his mask where it was placed and felt the damage. "Crap," he thought.

At that moment the heroic leader of the Power Puff Girls recovered and recognized the voice "Hey, that sounds like Rick Jones!" said Blossom as she regained her footing.

The boys put on their shades and headphones. Brick produced a flash bang grenade and pulled the pin. The six second fuse was set. Before the first second started Blossom came to an epiphany. The thieves were stronger, faster, roughly their size and there was three of them. Apparently they had something like their laser vision to melt camera lenses. The mistake the teacher had made when calling Rick Jones' name also was brought to mind. They suddenly became unmistakable. She used her X-ray vision to looked directly behind the shades of the one that she had fought with and into the leader's eyes. She quickly recognized him. She could see that he knew what she was thinking.

"You're the... the…" she found herself shocked and unable to complete her sentence.

Brick on the other hand could see just by looking at the expression on her face that she clearly knew who they were. Hiding his identity was no longer an issue.

A gust of wind flew buy them. For a brief moment it was completely silent. Swelling with pride he broke the silence in a whispered tone. "We're the Rowdy Ruff Boys."

Not a moment later the grenade went off. The girls covered their ears and looked away as a thunderous clap and a blinding white flash illuminated the area. When it had dissipated the girls turned around to find their opponents had vanished.

"Holy crap! They're back," shouted Buttercup with anger.

"Oh my gosh! I thought that we had finished them for good! They're even better than the last time we fought them," said Bubbles.

Blossom quickly let her leader persona take over. Her mind went from a frantic panic to a calm investigator. "Some one must have brought them back. We don't have any leads for that right now so the best thing we can do is search the Pyramid and see what we can find. Maybe they left something that we can use," she said.

She saw the entrance that the boys had exited near the spot where the sphinx was. The team of heroines entered the small trap door and passed through the hallway into the corridor. There they found the place had been illuminated by torches. The walls were painted with ancient Egyptian writing.

"I wonder what all those strange writings mean?" asked Bubbles. Her photographic memory was immediately active and saving images of the paintings.

Blossom knew this too. She may not be able to translate them, but with Bubbles' memory she could take the images with her and find someone that could translate it.

They continued to walk further down and finally came to two bronze doors. Buttercup tried to open the doors, but they wouldn't budge. The green puff became frustrated and punched a hole in the door. She reached inside and opened it from the other end.

Behind the doors was a tomb also lit by torches that had been left by the thieves. The first thing that caught Blossom's sight was a dead man lying on the ground. She could tell just by his clothing that he was not Ancient Egyptian. Only his bones remained.

Bubbles looked a little shaken by the sight, while it seemed to have no effect on Buttercup.

The pink puff examined his back pack. She gently pulled it off of the dead man and unzipped it to pear at what was inside. She found several dozen papers, a book, some equipment for dusting off artifacts, and a few other tools. The heroine took the papers and recognized them as identification papers. Immediately she found a name.

"This is Henry Stanford!" she said with joy.

She looked down at Henry once again and noticed that he had a book and pen in hand. Blossom picked up the book and recognized it as a journal. She decided to read the last entry.

February 28th, 1981

I haven't much time so I'll need to be brief. I have found the bronze doorway to the ancient chamber where the Pharaoh's religious leaders and magicians were put to rest. I found his sarcophagus and to my surprise it had the next piece of the key right at its center. I was only meters away from it when someone shut the doors on me and locked me inside. I stepped on a trap by accident and a wall launched poisoned darts at me. I am dying as I am writing this. Should anyone find me I have left all that is needed to continue the search for the pieces of the key in a bank vault located in Townszville, USA. It's number is A-0642498. It is my dying wish that those pieces be collected and destroyed to prevent great horrors from entering this world. I can only hope and pray that whoever finds me has a good moral conscious and a deeply intense desire to do the right thing even in the face of extreme opposition.

The last words of the journal had been sloppily written and Blossom could clearly see that he was losing consciousness as he was writing this entry down. Silently she made a promise to Henry to fulfill his dying wish. She stuffed the journal in the back pack and put it on her person. "Girls, we have what we need. Lets go," she said. She turned around to find that Buttercup was no longer standing behind her; there was only Bubbles. She looked ahead and found her standing in front of the golden sarcophagus and staring at it with awe.

"How much money do you think we could make if we pawned this off?" she said thinking out loud.

"Buttercup, that's a national artifact! It would be like stealing another nation's history," she scolded.

"Oh fine," reluctantly replied the green puff as she crossed her arms defiantly.

In a short moment, they exited the room and departed for Townszville.

Meanwhile…

The Rowdy Ruff Boys landed back in the warehouse.

"That was awesome! They were completely no match for us," said Boomer with a smug look on his face.

"They didn't stand a chance! We could have killed them if we wanted to," gloated Butch, equally smug.

Brick on the other hand was dead silent. He headed for his room, a smirk on his face. He reached into his sack and pulled the jewel out, wondering why it was so important to his master.

"Listen up, boys. The Power Puff Girls know who we are now, which means that we need to accelerate the timing of the plan. That means…," Brick turned to Butch, "…you need to start going to your classes."

"Darn," replied the green ruff in disappointment.

Brick then turned to Boomer. "And you need to start hanging out with Princess, ASAP."

Boomer shuddered at the thought.

"But, boys, remember to do what you do best the entire day every day you are at school," said the leading villain.

"What's that?" asked the blond brother.

Brick removed his ski mask and put his bright red hat back on his head. "Be cool," he said with a smirk before disappearing into his room to get some sleep.

Red Crown: Now I won't update unless I get more reviews. Muhahahahahahahaha!