Like a good communist, I own nothing.

"Gauntlet: Lies"
Part 2

May 7

Brick wasn't happy.

Far from it, he was bordering on enraged.

"Dude. Where the hell are we?" Butch looked down at the blasted and desiccated island. It was pockmarked by scars and craters. Great towering trees lay burnt or broken, like matchsticks scattered to the winds. Worse even than the stench of burnt flesh and noxious fumes that hung heavy in the air, even at their height over the place, were the streaks of brown and black, the torn and mutilated bodies, and the rivers of ichor, green and red and yellow, that leaked and flowed into the sea.

"This... this is Monster Island, isn't it?" Boomer gulped, but didn't sound nervous or afraid.

"Yeah," Brick answered, though not quickly.

"Monster Island? Why on earth did you drag us to...?" Butch narrowed his eyes, concentrated his vision. In the distance, at the far side of the Island, something was moving and shifting. It was almost like a mirage, or the shimmer of the sun on the ocean - a trick on the eyes. But this had an almost palpable aura to it. Not malevolence, just ...being. Life.

"This way." Brick flew down, to the side of the Island opposite where the mirage seemed to be. As they flew, both of Brick's brothers confirmed that the destruction of the place was nearly total. Carcasses rotted in the baking sun, and the ground was as barren and lifeless as could be imagined. There were no birds in the sky: only the buzzing of flies greeted them as they made their approach closer to the ground.

A large volcano that smoked eerily dominated the center of the Island, and the stink of sulfur nearly burned their eyes, as they got closer to it. The remains of what might have once been massive grass huts and stone edifices glimmered in the rising heat, and their shadows cast long palls on the tortured land.

"This... this is nasty, man. Why ARE we here?" Boomer winced, eyes almost watering.

"I need to see something," Brick answered, and kept descending, seemingly immune to the atmosphere of the place. "I'll need you two as backup."

Finally, they were hovering just a couple dozen feet from the surface of what looked like a sort of Monster encampment. Most of the bodies looked either splattered and gibed, or eaten away. Arching bones reached mutely into the sky. Boomer swatted at the bugs that passed by them, investigating the living in a land of the dead. Butch kept his eyes almost closed, but his arms stayed stubbornly crossed. Brick just passed by, looking from one body to the next, and his back to his brothers - they couldn't see his expression.

Suddenly, one of the still bodies moved, reached up for them. It barely got half way there when Brick's eyes erupted with red fire, spearing the entire arm, and then narrowing as it melted it away from the periphery inwards. In a second, there was nothing left except a few wisps of dust and chips of bone.

Without another word, Brick flew up and over the crest of the mountain, past several still standing stone obelisks, closer to the other side of the Island. Butch felt a measure of apprehension at this, but the group stopped high over the peak of the active volcano. Down below, an indistinct shape, like living air, moved over the land. A few living creatures: dogged inhabitants of the Island, were fighting it. Some attacked with long bladed tentacles, others with beams from eyes or mouths. All did so in vain.

Brick snorted.

"Shouldn't we..." Boomer rethought what he was going to say. "Maybe we should help them..."

"Don't even think about it!" Brick turned on his brother, suddenly angry. Boomer flinched.

"S...Sorry..."

"No." Brick held up his hands to his forehead, like he had a headache. "No... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at ya like that."

"So what do we do?" Butch growled. He couldn't believe Brick had actually yelled at Boomer. It was totally unlike him. Sure, Brick occasionally raised his voice at his impulsive brunette brother, but never at Boomer.

"Damn it." Brick looked down at the exposed and smoking caldera far below them. "Butch... use your eye beams to blast part of the side of this volcano facing that thing. Boomer, you and I are going to mix things up a bit and blast out the inside of this baby."

Boomer quickly nodded.

"Gotcha," Butch agreed.

"Let's get this done, then." Brick looked sharply to Boomer, and the two dove right into the smoking bubbling cover of the volcano. As they did, Butch went to work blasting away at the side of it, cracking and pulverizing the earth. Deep in the magma, Boomer and Brick swirled the ultra-thick mineral mixture, and fired down at obstructions and clogs. The swim wasn't terribly harmful as long as they focused their power on resisting the transfer of thermal energy. Boomer had once compared the elementary tactic to a sort of skintight force field. The analogy wasn't totally accurate. Both boys could feel themselves moving through the molten mixture, and it was indeed in contact with their skin, but instinctively they knew how to dampen the amount of heat they absorbed.

Steadily, the magma began to churn with increased intensity. Great cracks down below vented angry gasses from many miles deep in the earth. Sensing things reaching a climax, Boomer and Brick silently nodded to each other and headed for the surface. Splashing from the angry surface they reunited with Butch, who was waiting for them.

"So?" He cracked a grin. "How was the lava today?"

"Not bad." Boomer motioned down at it. "We just turned on the jets. It's startin' to bubble up real nice."

"Let's get a little distance. See what develops." Brick led them off a few miles, and watched as the volcano exploded in a wave of flame and ash. The summit broke apart, especially on the side that Butch had weakened, and a torrential flow of pyroclastic material - fragments of glass, pumice, glass shards, ash and hot gasses - swept down at over a hundred miles an hour over the entire Island, putting it to the flame and sweeping away everything underfoot or into the sea. The water bubbled and steamed as the wave of ash crashed into it, and then again, as the entire Island was drowned in molten lava.

Around the boys, it rained ash and chunks of burning vulcanian rock.

"That should take care of that thing!" Butch smiled, but didn't add that it had also almost certainly killed what few surviving monsters were on Monster Island.

Brick gave Butch a questioning look, and then suddenly perked up. "Yeah. That should tie things up a bit!"

"So we're done here?" Boomer spoke up for the first time since Brick had snapped at him.

"Yeah. I think so." Brick seemed back to his normal self.

"When we get back to Townsville, I'm gonna crash 'El Cactus' again! Them's good burritos!" The black-haired Rowdyruff licked his lips at the mere thought.

"Burritos again?! Geez, man! All this hot sauce is gonna kill you one day!"

As Butch and Brick took off, Boomer followed them from behind. He gave one last look over his shoulder to the burning wreck that had once been Monster Island, but didn't keep very comfortable about what they'd done. What was that... thing... that they were fighting? Why had they been attacked in the first place? Brick had mentioned that Blossom's Girls had found the severed arm at the docks, and so he'd decided to check things out, but how did Brick even know the way there?

None of them had been there before, so it must have been something their leader picked up during his mysterious time 'alone' before he brought his brothers back or possibly from Mojo. Also, why did Brick want to destroy the whole Island? If he wanted to get to that thing that the Monsters were fighting, wouldn't they have headed directly for it, not taking time to check out the opposite side of the Island first? Brick hadn't even wanted to get near it.

To his horror, Boomer began to think that there was something serious Brick wasn't telling him. Something serious that he was keeping from his brothers. But that couldn't be. Brick was their leader, he was their brother, he'd brought them back from the dead, he'd organized their great return and victory over the Powerpuff Girls, and he'd gotten them everything they'd ever wanted. Sure, put a lot of stress on the guy, and he'll act like any other human being and get a bit short tempered, but still Boomer had a bad feeling that he couldn't quite pin down.

He shook his head and dismissed the notion.

Brick had done everything for them. He had put up with Mojo for Boomer's benefit, and tried to keep things there good, like Boomer had always wanted. The confrontation between Brick and Mojo days before had been proof enough of that. Hell, Brick was Butch's best friend as much as his brother. Brick was probably the only person on the planet Butch respected enough to take orders from. They were brothers. They were family.

Family.

Family.

Buttercup broke the surface and gasped for a clean, fresh breath of air.

"Ugh! Nothing!" She shook her head, droplets flying every which way.

"Blossom says keep looking." Bubbles was the only halfway dry member of the Powerpuff Girls. She was in the air, coordinating - an unusual role for her. She'd gone down into the ink black depths once, and absolutely refused to repeat the effort. Blossom had taken her place, so Bubbles took on the role of overseeing the whole effort, or at the least repeating Blossom's orders to Buttercup whenever she surfaced.

"I'm seriously getting tired of this! You tell Miss Obsessive-Compulsive that this is the last time! We've been out here for hours!" Buttercup took another deep breath and submerged.

Bubbles sighed and looked out over the open stretch of ocean. Far in the distance she could make out the higher buildings that defined the Townsville skyline. Normally she liked the water, and swimming, but the dark churning sea out here was nothing like the perfect tranquil blue of Townsville Lake. Here, the waves rolled endlessly, never really going anywhere, never really hitting anything... and it struck her and depressingly pointless. She'd never really thought about it, but the fact that most of the world's surface was a depressing expanse of rolling dark blue, hiding who knew what, was somewhat unnerving.

She wanted to go home.

But she also wanted to find the submarine and boat that had disappeared.

In the distance, she saw one of the many small frigates that had been called, just recently, into the area to coordinate their own search effort. There were even a few Navy Destroyers about. Blossom had responded to that fact cynically, still bitter that the city officials had kept information from her. Bubbles had been surprised too, and disappointed - didn't people trust them yet, after all they'd done for Townsville and the world? It seemed not. Buttercup took it the best.

"Big surprise there!" She'd said, about the whole thing. Bubbles wasn't sure if it was bravado, covering up her own sadness at the news, or if she honestly wasn't surprised that they still weren't trusted by everyone. Their experience in Citysville had had a negative effect on all of them, though perhaps none more so than Buttercup.

Down below and some distance off, Blossom emerged, shaking cold water from her hair. She broke the surface completely and started to rise. Bubbles took that as a sign that she'd given up the search, at least for the time being.

"Buttercup said that she was only going one more time. She wants to go home."

Bubbles watched as Blossom took off her bow and started wringing out her long hair. The Powerpuff leader didn't say anything, she just looked down at the water, as if the submarine would suddenly rise up and validate her going home. Needless to say, it didn't happen.

"Did you see anything interesting?" Bubbles asked, wanting Blossom to say something.

"Not a thing. It was pitch black." She carefully put her bow back on. "I didn't hear anything that sounded right either. Just... fish."

"No whales?"

"No whales," Blossom answered, sharply. The whole experience was starting to get to her. There were a lot of people on the USS Townsville, and Blossom was starting to feel responsible for letting them down. Bubbles didn't push the matter.

After a few minutes of pregnant silence, Buttercup broke the water.

"Nothing!" She said, repeating what she'd told Bubbles several times already. "Can we PLEASE go home now?"

"Yeah. We'll get back to this later..." Blossom started to frown. "Maybe when they give us a call and ask for help we'll be able to do something."

Buttercup quickly came to the same conclusion that Bubbles did.

The flight back to Townsville was a silent affair.

It was fairly late at night when the Hotline finally rang.

Blossom answered with even greater speed than normal. "Mayor? ...Nice to hear from you, too. What's the problem? ...What Museum? We're on it!"

It wasn't what she wanted to hear about, but it was something to do.

"Let's go!" Blossom turned to Buttercup and Bubbles and shot off out the windows and into the air. They flew with unusual gusto - this had been the first major robbery type situation in a while, and they were eager to flex some muscle and make a difference. It was showtime: time for Townsville to see that the Powerpuff Girls were back and ready to get down to business.

The Townsville Museum of Science and Technology wasn't normally a target for robbery, but tonight seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. There was a large black van parked in front, over several marble steps. Several thugs were firing sporadically at the police cordon that had surrounded them from behind the cover of the van's open doors.

The girls took care of them in a flash, swooping down and right into them.

It was child's play, literally, and the Girls took the opportunity to give a quick wave to the assembled police. Several people cheered. One person, high on a rooftop, watching the proceedings, did not.

Inside, the building was largely untouched.

It was on the third floor that the action was taking place.

"Boss! Sounds like trouble with a capital T!" One of the men, his assault rifle holstered and one finger to his left ear, listening, spoke.

"Which ones?" A man in white and black body armor said, his voice filtered and grainy. He carried no visible weapons, but one gauntleted hand was held up to a computer terminal, reading data at a rate faster than any human was capable of, and copying it into the computer that controlled and regulated the power armor that encased him.

"Dunno, sir." Another man, in fatigues, answered. "Izzy and Mark didn't exactly say much. Probably the Girls, though."

"I'm almost done here. Go down and distract them. The Girls won't hurt you... just play dead when they hit you."

"You got it, boss. Let's move!" The men locked and loaded their weapons and headed downstairs. In a few seconds, the sound of gunfire echoed in the open area of the Museum. When they were gone, the man under the visor of the armor slowly smiled.

"Got it." He drew his gauntleted hand back. "Soon we'll be ready to move."

"On who, Burnday?"

The Mercenary whirled at the voice. "You!"

"Yeah." Brick floated, arms crossed. "Me. I knew you were a hitman and a gun for hire, but I didn't think data theft was one of your special skills."

"You can thank Professor Utonium for that." The Mercenary took a few careful steps back and away from the red Rowdyruff.

"Who are you working for, Burnday?" Brick floated forward, voice menacing. "Tell me now. You remember the last time you tried fighting me, don't you?"

"How could I forget? I had to have the whole arm replaced."

"Then you won't do anything stupid like force me to do the same to the other one. ...Who hired you and to steal what?"

"Just downloading some porn, kid." In a single smooth motion, he pointed a hand at the terminal and fired, melting it into oblivion. Brick growled.

"Bad timing, pal: real bad." Brick surged forward. "You caught me in a very ...very ...bad ...mood."

Downstairs, the last of the hired muscle hit the ground.

"Do you hear that?" Blossom looked up, at a shadowed alcove on the third floor. It had sounded like voices, but she'd only caught the end of a conversation spoken very softly. She pointed and rallied her troops. "Up there!"

They raced up, just as a white and black form flew past them and down to the ground. A dark red streak of light followed it as the body hit the ground, rolled back, and onto two feet. Wide flaming blasts of blue poured from the figure that had fallen, but Brick evaded them and unloaded a haymaker at the figure, snapping the head back. The armor held, just barely, in time for the mercenary to try something new.

"Smile for the birdie, kid!"

Brick's eyes widened as a circular indentation in the armored man's chest glowed, for a quarter second, and then a beam of light engulfed him. Following it, a directed shockwave hit the stunned and surprised Rowdyruff, sending him flying up along the beam and into the sky as blasted and broken bits of the roof rained down like snow and ice in a hailstorm.

"That should keep him... woah!" The mercenary jumped to the side as something small, green and fast nearly pegged him. Buttercup carefully withdrew her fist from the hole it had made in the floor. Blossom and Bubbles flowed their sister, looking more than ready to try the same.

"Wait, wait wait! Girls!" The man held out his arms, his voice still sounding urgent even through the armor's filter. "I'm not your enemy!"

"You broke into the Museum. You're sure not our friend." Blossom advanced. The man quickly backed off.

"No, you don't understand! I am your friend! When I heard you were killed I was devastated! Your father, a great man, he made this armor for me... and a bunch of others. We were going to avenge you, try and bring down the tyrants that had tried to take your places!!"

"The Rowdyruff Boys?" Buttercup held back, curiosity overcoming bloodlust at least momentarily.

"Them!" The armored man nodded. "They've got this whole city under their thumb... We've got allies, and information! They're planning..."

A lance of red energy cut the man off as it bored into his left shoulder, sending him spinning and struggling to recover. The armor was of superb design, and the chemical X enhanced man wielding it a true professional, but under Brick's relentless assault there was no defense. In desperation, the man held up his arms to try and block the energy and delay the inevitable.

"You didn't think that would kill me, did you, Burnsday?" Brick slowly floated down from the hole in the roof, eye beams' blazing and beating down relentlessly. His body was smoking, his clothes torn, but he seemed mostly unharmed. "It's new, I'll admit that. ...But not enough! Even if your whole gang were here, it wouldn't be enough to stop me!!"

"Damn you..." The man writhed and fell backwards as his left arm, his mechanical arm, exploded in a spray of sparks and metal. "Killing me won't... stop things..."

"You think so?" Brick sneered, eyes still raining fire down on the man. "Let's find out!"

"Stop!" Blossom suddenly intervened, pushing Brick to the side and throwing his eyebeams off target. They streaked along the ground, carving a furrow of destruction, before he shut them off and faced her.

"What are you doing?!" Brick's face was still a cold sneer.

"What am I doing? What are you doing?! You were about to kill that man!"

"I still am!" Brick pushed her aside and tried to find his target. He found him being held up by Buttercup and Bubbles. His armor was smoking, and he looked unconscious, but obviously alive.

Brick hesitated.

"Since when do..." He started, but changed gears in mid sentence. He wasn't in a physically advantageous position anymore and he knew it. "That man is dangerous - an assassin. He's one of the hired guns that the Professor gave armor and Chemical X to so that they could try and kill my brothers and myself. I found him using his armor to hack data from a computer upstairs."

"What kind of data?" Blossom asked, but made she to keep between Brick and the beaten mercenary.

"I don't know. It could have been anything." Brick crossed his arms, defiantly. "Why are you protecting him?"

"Protecting people is what we do. You know that." Blossom chided. Brick's sneer deepened at her tone of voice.

"Are you lecturing me, Bloss?" His eyes flared, but didn't fire. It was obvious he was aiming at her, now. There was an instant of palpable tension; thick and heavy in the air like fog. Blossom looked, briefly, to her side, trying to gauge her sister's expressions. Thoughts conflicted with memories. Brick was outnumbered - he wouldn't start a fight with all three Powerpuffs. Probably. Then again, he had taken care of Buttercup without much trouble, maybe he could take all of them on and at least finish off his target before fleeing.

Her image of him, too, was in conflict. Brick was cold, dispassionate and reasoned. He was not one to act out of blind anger or rage, and yet here he was, ready to kill a man. How could someone so intelligent, so ...like her ...want to kill? Or maybe it was a bluff on his part, and he was overplaying the role to save face. Somehow, someway, after all the talks they'd had when she was their prisoner, she had developed a respect for him, even as an enemy. She didn't want to fight him. She didn't want to oppose him. She really didn't want a repeat of before.

"Brick..." She said, finally. "Do you really want to kill this guy?"

His look softened a fraction.

"...No." He blinked, and the energy to his gaze was gone. "No, I suppose not. His armor is ruined anyway... the data he got won't be accessible, and that's what matters."

The danger passed, at least for the moment. Bubbles and Buttercup left the unconscious mercenary by a pillar. The police would handle stripping the melted armor from his body and locking him up. Blossom floated closer to him, voice low.

"Were you bluffing, or..."

"Don't ask..." He answered with a quick grin. "For what you don't want to hear."

He turned around and was about to take off, when he felt someone come up next to him. He pivoted slightly, and was surprised to see Buttercup there instead of Blossom. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before her fist lashed out at his jaw, only to be caught in his own formidable grip. He narrowed his eyes at her.

"Was that supposed to be a sucker punch?" He asked with a small smile.

"I want to know how to beat you." She pulled her arm back with a jerk.

He looked at her questioningly. "Why?"

"I want to be the best!" She said, standing tall. Or as tall as she could, anyway. "And I want you to help me."

"Why ask me?" He looked back over his shoulder and saw that Blossom and Bubbles were talking between themselves some distance away. "Why not Butch or Boomer or Blossom?"

"Butch fights like I do. Boomer doesn't fight like I want to." Her green eyes sparkled. "That leaves you."

"Or Blossom."

Buttercup shook her head. "She wouldn't. She'd want me to change completely. Not just how I fight, but who I am."

"So you came to me?" He turned away from her. "Sorry, girl. I've simply got better things to do."

In a bolt of red, he was gone.

"You're going to help me... whether you want to or not!" She followed, sped up, and intercepted him above the city. His smile was gone when she confronted him again. Mind set, she said nothing; she simply attacked. The exchange was brief, and ended with her face down in the concrete several hundred feet below. For a second time, she raced up and engaged him. Fists flying, she tried to peg him cleanly as he dodged and blocked, before finally flipping her down and onto the roof of a building with a tremendous crash. Again, she got up, and again she attacked. Over and over, as the fight continued, and the ended as it had before, with her on the ground: beaten.

And Brick standing over her like he had before. Untouched.

It came to Buttercup that he'd obviously been holding back with her before, because she had fought far more intelligently than she had previously against him, and the result had been the same. Slowly at first, the red Rowdyruff floated upwards, his eyes still downward set on her, before he took off in a trail of crimson light. Groaning, she got to her feet and limped home. Blossom had told her that asking him wouldn't work, so she had done it her own way. All the way home, she mentally replayed what she remembered of the fight.

She'd fare better tomorrow.

And if not, then the day after that.