Downtown Townsville– some time later
"You ssssure that we won't get jumped by that bulletproof blue girl thisssss time?" Snake asked as he and Ace stood point in front of the hapless jewelry store that had been given the dubious honor of being the Gangreen Gang's latest target.
"Uh, yeah," came the reply. "I mean, if she was still running around, you'd think we'd have heard about it by now." He smirked. "Besides, even if she is out there, we'll make sure she's a day late and a dollar short for this one," he continued as the muffled sound of breaking glass rose out of the store.
"Wanna bet?"
Both delinquents felt a pit form in the base of their stomachs as a familiar girlish voice filled their ears.
"Well, Snake, you know what they say about he who fights and runs away!" Ace whimpered as he turned towards a nearby alleyway.
"No, I don't. Feel like explaining?" another, raspier voice asked from the shadows.
"Err…um…"
"Well?" a third one piped up.
"Err…well, it means…oh, it doesn't matter! Snake, tell the others we're outta here!" he said before making a run for it.
"Um, how much more of this do we have to take?" Big Billy asked as he crammed another few necklaces into the duffle bag on his shoulder. "I mean, we'll be rich anyways if we just stop now, and it's nearly time for Puppet P–"
"Sorry to break it to you, big guy, but you'll probably miss it anyways. After all, I'm pretty sure they don't have TV in jail," a girlish voice proclaimed.
"Who said anything about going to jail?" Lil' Arturo nervously retorted before he and the others bolted towards the nearest exit.
"Yeah, that's right!" the raspier voice jeered from behind Ace. "You better run, buddy, even if all you're doing is makin' it easier for Gullfire to catch you!"
"Who?" the Gangreen Gang's leader asked as his breathing picked up, noticing slightly too late that the alley he'd just entered was a dead end.
"Gullfire! The newest, leanest, greenest, and meanest superhero in town! Wanna meet her?"
"Maybe some other time!"
"Well, too bad for you, 'cause you're gonna meet her right about…now."
And with that, a figure similar to the one that had foiled the Gang's attempted hold-up in Pokey Oaks landed in front of Ace.
"So, I was t-t-t-thinking that maybe we could just…well, find a way to forget this ever happened," the latter stammered as he slowly backed away. "How much do you want?"
"What do you think I am– a cop or something?" the figure asked, stepping out of the shadows to reveal a girl in either her late preteens or early teens wearing a green t-shirt, ski mask, and a black trench coat and jeans. "Because if you think you can buy your way out of this, then boy do you have another thing coming!"
Before Ace could make a move, "Gullfire" shot forward and picked him up by the lapels before returning to the air, seemingly unfazed by the sallow-skinned hoodlum's terrified flailing in her grasp.
"What'd I ever do to you?" he whimpered, trying his damnedest not to look down.
"Why don't you ask that one guy from the Speed-E-Mart?" his captor snarled as she oriented herself towards a nearby dumpster.
Ace gulped. "Look, we weren't really going to plug him!" he pleaded. "Just…y'know, try and persuade him to see things our way."
The airborne girl smirked behind her mask. "Well, looks like it isn't nearly as fun when it happens to you."
"Whatever you say! Just don't drop me, please!"
"No promises, punk," Gullfire snarled before descending like a dive-bomber, the sound of the wind whipping around her almost drowning out a constant refrain of "Please don't kill me!" from her captive.
"Wasn't planning on it," she said, coming to a screeching halt about ten feet above the dumpster before dropping Ace into it.
Big Billy skidded to a halt as a girl in a pink shirt and skirt worn over a similarly colored long-sleeved leotard darted up to him, her face artfully concealed by a red-and-white striped neck gaiter and a pair of mirrored sunglasses.
"Going somewhere?" she snarkily asked.
"Of course we are!" Lil' Arturo proclaimed, seated atop his companion's shoulders.
"Uh, yeah! Of course we are!" Billy parroted. "Uh, where are we going?"
The figure in pink snorted. "In that case, mind telling me what's in the duffle bags?"
"Uh…accessories?"
Arturo's palm collided with his face. "Oh, sonuva…" he began, the words soon trailing off as the figure lunged forward and slammed her fist into Billy's gut with what felt like the force of a freight train.
In a nearby dead end alleyway, Snake's heart was pounding in his ears as he and Grubber saw a familiar figure slowly walking up to them. Behind her was an old car, artfully placed as to keep the two from making a break for it.
"So, once wasn't enough, was it?" she said as she continued her advance, giving her targets a good look at her new bomber jacket and blue hoodie ensemble, each of the former's upper sleeves adorned with a patch depicting a purple octopus. "You didn't think I ever show up again, did you?"
"That'sssss adorable, creampuff," Snake said with an air of false bravado as he reached for the shotgun he'd taken from Grubber. "Thinking that you could intimidate usssss so easily."
The only thing to come out of Grubber's mouth was a series of raspberries that, to a trained ear, would've sounded something like "It's not worth it" in Morse code.
"Call me that all you want, buddy," the figure continued, "but mark my words– this little creampuff's got the power!"
"Well, sssssoooo do I!" Snake retorted as he drew the shotgun. Before he could open fire, however, the figure dashed up to him in a streak of blue light, grabbed the weapon right out of his hands, and then broke it over her knee like it was nothing.
"You were saying?"
The only reply was another series of raspberries from Grubber, this one sounding like "We surrender".
"Not accepted, buster!" the figure retorted.
Donut King– a few blocks away
"You wanna know something, rookie?" an older cop with a bad mustache asked his partner.
"It's 'Perez', Officer Brikowski."
"Yeah, whatever," Brikowski dismissively replied. "Now, as I was about to say, when you really think about it, the trick to working these late nights is figuring out the right pairing of coffee and donuts. Y'know, like how you pair certain wines with certain foods."
Perez rolled his eyes. "Look, when I joined the force, I thought I'd be doing actual work as opposed to hanging around a donut shop in the middle of the night."
"This is actual work, kiddo! I mean, how else are you gonna stay awake at these ungodly hours without taking speed?"
"Caffeine pills," came the retort. "Now, if it's all the same to you, I'm getting back to–"
Right on cue, there was a distinct thud from outside as something made impact with the hood of a nearby car.
"Work."
"And here I thought one of those punks was bad enough," Ace said as he and the rest of the Gangreen Gang tried to wriggle out of a length of rope that Gullfire and her cohorts had picked up earlier and used to tie them up.
"Agreed," Snake tersely replied.
"Well, look on the bright side," Lil' Arturo piped up. "At least we won't be the only ones who'll have to deal with them now!"
Before either Big Billy or Grubber could get a word in, they saw a pair of cops walk up to the squad car that the Gang had been left on the hood of.
"What'd you do this time?" one of them– a younger man with brown skin– asked.
"None of your beeswax, copper," Ace grumbled. "And before you go reading us our rights, I suggest you consider going after the punks who did this to us!"
"What punks?" the other cop asked.
"Read the note, Brikowski."
The second cop leaned over, his eyes gravitating towards a piece of notebook paper held in place with no small amount of scotch tape. On it were the words "SPECIAL DELIVERY FROM YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD POWERPUFF GIRLS– CANDY STRIPER, BLUESHIFT, AND GULFFIRE" in big letters.
"Who the…"
"I know, right?" Lil' Arturo said. "I mean, 'Powerpuff Girls'? I wouldn't even use that name for a band!"
Brikowski inhaled through clenched teeth as he turned towards his partner. "Just what we didn't need around here– a bunch of vigilantes."
"Especially if they have superpowers," Big Billy added.
Both cops' jaws promptly went slack.
"You shoulda seen the look on that guy's face when I threw 'im in the trash!" Buttercup whooped as she and her sisters sat along the side of a rooftop, a large plastic takeout bag with the words "Genndy's All Night Eatery" on the side sitting next to them.
"Or when I broke that other guy's gun!" Bubbles excitedly added in between bites of her burger.
"Or when the short guy realized the jig was up with those duffel bags," Blossom piped up before proceeding to shovel a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. "Y'know, I almost feel bad for that big guy who was lugging him around– I mean, what sort of crook would try and pass off their loot by claiming it was 'accessories' with a straight face?"
Buttercup snickered. "Same type of person who thinks 'Candy Striper' is a good superhero name," she said with a smirk on her face.
"It's an accurate one, though. I mean, we are technically volunteers–" Blossom began.
"Yeah, but we're probably gonna be sending people to the hospital, not helping nurses take care of the ones already there!"
Blossom tried not to smile. "Touché."
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
In case you're wondering just where the hell Blossom's superhero alias came from, a "candy striper" is someone (usually a young woman) who volunteers at a hospital, with the name coming from the red-and-white striped uniforms that said volunteers used to wear up until the 1990s (hence the pattern on Blossom's neck gaiter). As for Bubbles and Buttercup, the former's alias (Blueshift) is a reference to an astronomical phenomenon where, thanks to the Doppler effect, the light from astronomical bodies moving towards us starts shifting towards the blue end of the visible spectrum (though considering that this is Bubbles we're talking about, she probably saw the term in one of Blossom's encyclopedias once and thought it sounded cool), whereas the latter's is a reference to Escape From New York (in case you've never seen that movie, "Gullfire" is the name of the glider that Kurt Russell uses to get inside the city).
As for what's next for the Girls, all I'm willing to say is that Townsville's going to see War on the Streets Tonight and leave it at that.