Trickery
Whoa. That was all I could think. Wow. Just wow.
I was very sure that my thoughts were not unique. I was too fixated on the contents of the vault to behold the expressions of my brethren.
For the first twenty square yards, there was no cash. Instead, there were forklifts and stacks of wooden pallets. But surrounding them was a collection of green rectangular paper slips that gave my imagination a run for its money, no pun intended. I knew, I always knew that the Morbucks were the richest family ever, but seriously!
The inside of the vault was as large as a basketball coliseum, but nowhere near as spacious, thanks to the money that was placed here. It was stacked in about a dozen pyramids that reached the ceiling.
I felt numb, floating into the vault twelve seconds later. I felt a lot during that short transition. So much money, what we were going to do to it, the possibilities money could bring us, how its destruction would affect certain lives…
Bud apparently did not have these concerns. She shot straight into the vault after a four-second stare and stared making snow angels, giggling and shouting. Most of us paid her no mind, save for Berry, Bunny and Brutus, who followed suit in that order.
"Ah yes," Bumblebee said shakily. "The fruits of Morbucks' greedy labors. Where did he get all of this money to begin with?"
"Oh you know," I replied with Hardy's voice. "Deforestation, mining, farming, criminal activity, charity donations-"
"Charity? You're-Y-Y-You're joking, right?" Bumblebee stammered.
"Nope. That's what Morbucks calls it, that's the world calls blindly calls it. We on the other hand, call it Antidote X funding."
"Righty-o! Belladonna! Get the grab bags from the van!" Balrog barked after an unnaturally short time for Balrog. He was still smirking, but it was clear that the shear amount of cash had impressed his arrogance as well.
"Mm-hm!" Belladonna squeaked, swinging her hips. She raised her arms up to eye level and twisted them, making a snapping sound and covering them in purple static. Our grab bags flew into the vault and landed at our feet, save for Bud's, whose bag started beating on her.
"Hey! Stupid Bag!" she yelled stupidly, sitting up. "I'll beat you up when I'm done with… Oh! Right! Bag! Need bag for money! I knew that!" She started cramming the bills her bag messily before Balrog gave his command.
"Alright, puffruffs! You know the mission! Take as much as you can! I'm sure that with the abundance of thousand-dollar bills, we can take out Morbucks the way he did us! Just remember that I alone will be in control of the money. You got that?"
"Yes, sir!" we all replied, save for Bud.
"Is that clear, Bud?"
"Screw you, Ballsack! This loot is mine!" Bud snapped, half insane.
"What did you just call me?!" Balrog growled, turning a little red. We all turned away from the impending fight and attended to our task.
There was mixture of guilt, fear and thrill going through most of us as we barely made a dent in the hoard. I worked with Bumblebee, neatly placing stacks of thousand-dollar bills in our grab bag. Balrog, Blaze, Bunny and Belladonna followed this formula as well, the others just recklessly cramming as much loot as they could stuff into their bags. Our grab bags were originally body bags. The kind that the military uses to dispose of diseased corpses.
After about twelve minutes, Bud finally relented and stopped shoving cash into her very obese bag (we were all done in seven minutes). She also stopped shoving it in her pockets, in her shirt, in her coat pockets, down her pants, in her boots… you get the idea.
"O… kay then," Balrog muttered. "Bella, get the gas."
Belladonna summoned the gas-filled jugs from the shuttlecraft and levitated one to each of us. I looked at the jug in my arms and thought that we were going to need a lot more gas.
"Well, what are you waiting for?!" Balrog barked, already dispensing gasoline on the closest pyramid. "You know what to do with it! Do you idiots need a command for everything?!"
We hastily scrambled off to different pyramids and smothered the hoard in the messy, smelly liquid. Those who had neatly placed the bills into their bags were smart, me included. We dispensed the gas at the base of each pyramid so that the flames would easily rise up and burn what was on top. It was obvious to anyone who knew anything about fire. Bud, Berry, Burgundy, Bomber, Blackjack and Brutus just made various messes. Blaze went over to Bud to try and correct her, but it was already too late.
"Balrog, we have company!" Bumblebee yelled urgently. I turned to the entrance of the vault and saw nothing but the shuttlecraft. No sight or sound from the X-Cops. I knew that Bumblebee always had the best senses of any of us, so I wasn't confused.
"About time! Is their teleporter faulty, or something?! Ah whatever!" Balrog shouted. "Everyone grab your loot, and Blaze, get ready to light it up!"
We all retrieved our grab bags and rendezvoused at the entrance where we found a squadron of fifty X-Cops all pointing their weapons. Somehow, they looked less scary, though I can't imagine why…
"Puffruffs, drop to the ground, get on your knees, put your hands behind your head, and look down!" One of the guards demanded as if they would do anything less horrible if we obeyed. "You have 10 seconds to comply!"
We all just hovered in front of them, pouting like disobedient children. "Let 'er rip, Blaze!" Balrog commanded.
Blaze turned around and inhaled. His mask looked like a 1950's camera. As he inhaled, the spring-like nozzle folded up to his face. It shot out a foot and a half when Blaze unleashed his pyre upon Morbuck's money, instantly turning the entire vault into a furnace.
Three seconds early, the X-Cops all opened fired upon us. Some of reacted like we usually did and fled to the back of the furnace, I mean vault. But the drugs within our systems had made most of us a little cocky. Balrog, Blackjack, Burgundy, Bud, Bumblebee, Bomber and I stayed where were and absorbed many laser blasts.
By now we should have been dead. But thanks to Barbie, those of us that stayed barely flinched. We continued to float still, mocking the cops as they fired their squirt guns at us.
"Alright, this is getting old!" Burgundy grumbled after twenty seconds. "See you in Hell, my fellow assholes!" She unsheathed her swords (which were a whole lot sharper and shinier) and skewered six dumbfounded cops.
"Wait Burgundy!" Berry shouted, appearing out of nowhere. "Now's my chance to use my new toy. Berry partly regurgitated her new minigun so that only the barrels stuck out of her mouth. She hopped into my arms and mumbled "Pll ma fnngumph!"
"How on Earth does that-!" Bumblebee started, shocked.
"It's Boysenberry." I explained, priming her. "Don't question it."
Berry's new gun brought much better shooting quality than she did on her own, and I took out fourteen retreating soldiers before they got out of range.
"Alright! Everyone to the shuttle!" Balrog commanded. We flew out of the vault, grab bags on our backs… only to find that the shuttlecraft had been blown up. We gasped.
"Bomber!" Bud accused.
"It wasn't me, I swear!" Bomber defended.
"Shut up you two!" Balrog barked. "Everyone grab a piece of the shuttle! We're taking it back to base and Breaker is going to repair it."
"In this state?!" yelled Bud and Bumblebee.
"He'll fix it with duct tape if he needs to, but he will fix it! Now go! We are done here!"
I scooped up the cab of the shuttle and bolted out of Morbucks Manor with my brethren following, each with a piece of the shuttle. As soon as we could see the sky we shot towards the asteroid belt at full velocity.
We made excellent time getting back home. It took us only a half hour to reach our rock. We placed the shuttlecraft puzzle pieces and grab bags in the cave, and went inside laughing and congratulating each other. That last mission was so easy. Bunny proclaimed that Barbie deserved a party.
We entered and found Breaker, Barbie and the kids watching late night TV.
"Barbie-girl! You mad genius! Your pills are the stuff of miracles!" Balrog greeted. Barbie blushed.
"Thanks… Do I need to ask how the mission went?"
"It went near flawlessly, thank you! The only thing that went wrong was the shuttle was destroyed."
"What!?" Breaker cried.
"But that's OK! Because Breaker is gonna put aside his laziness and fix it! Step three of my plan is complete! We now only have to contact Mr. Green, send him the money and wait for everything to fall into place!"
"Uh yeah, Balrog, about that… I have some good news and bad news.
Everyone's cheerful demeanor vanished when Barbie said it. She had said that she had bad news. No matter what the good news was, the fact alone that she had bad news implied that we were still a ways away from achieving our goal.
"Well, spit it out!" Burgundy demanded. Berry spat out her minigun.
"The good news is that when I contacted Mr. Green, he said that he and his friends, a group of rebels and puffruff supporters labeled the Powerpuff Men, are more than willing to help us take down Morbucks."
There was a group of puffruff supporters? That was definitely news to me and very good news as well. It made my day. It filled me with hope. There were still people who wanted us… This was amazing! Come on Barbie! Bring on the bad news!
"The bad news is…" Barbie hesitated, pulling at the collar of her blouse. Her eyes pointed away from for a few seconds. "The bad news is that the hold you incinerated today… was only one of twelve."
Every single one of us popped our eyes and dropped our jaws. Like when Mojo Jojo took over the world, only to make a better place, and when he relapsed shortly afterwards, we had never been so incredulous.
"You're joking right? Tell me you're joking!" Balrog almost pleaded.
"I'm afraid not. I did some online research and found that Morbucks has seven mansions with smaller shares of his money within. Well, six now. The other five are placed in various fortresses across the United States, including Fort Knox."
Bunny and Brutus slumped to their knees. Burgundy and Blackjack roared in frustration. Bumblebee and I groaned. Berry and Bomber fainted. Balrog turned red. "Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!" he yelled through clenched teeth. Belladonna disappeared into thin air.
"We're gonna be rich!" Bud cheered excitedly, with dollar signs in her eyes.
"We're gonna be dead!" Blaze moaned fearfully, with X's in his eyes.
The kids gasped in excitement when they heard Bud's proclamation and then in fear upon hearing Blaze's.
"Breaker, the profanity detectors aren't going off!" Barbie complained.
"Yeah, I took 'em down because Balrog was using them as an alarm clock! Do you have any idea how annoying it is to wake up to that every single day?"
"Yes, Breaker, I have a pretty good idea. Just because Balrog abuses it is no reason to take it down!"
"Yes it is!"
"SHUT UP!" Balrog roared, his voice deeper than normal. "Everyone, get to bed! We will deal with this tomorrow!" His anger was understandable, but his wrath was frightening. So we hastily raced for our bedrooms. We shook our gear off onto the floor and hopped into bed feeling like we had ripped off, big time.