The samurai gasped for breath. His strength and reflexes had saved him yet again, as his strong hands and legs had shot out to push against the wall and stop his fall to certain death. But his heart was pounding not out of fear, but amazement. Total disbelief. What had eluded him had suddenly come flooding back upon seeing those strange creatures.
On one of his many treks he had come across a small religious sect in the dense jungles of what had once been the country of Nigeria. It was a country that had not existed in his time. Aku's tyranny had extended to there also, and this small group had so far gone undetected, a tiny light in the vast darkness. He had spent three days and nights with them before travelling onward.
When he had met two of the sect members foraging for food on the outskirts of their settlement, they had invited him to come stay with them. And upon meeting their leader, he had been in for a surprise.
"Professor Utonium!"
The small, wizened figure of an elderly primate, a chimpanzee, greeted him. With great excitement, too, until Jack had explained who he was. The leader was greatly disappointed and told the tale of his group's creation. In a very odd, repetitive manner of speaking, yet Jack had enjoyed hearing the story. There was still some goodness in this future, and the story promised of more, when the storyteller's prophecy came true. Jack had met many animal creatures with the intelligence and power of speech that humans had; this was not surprising. The story was.
The leader called himself simply Mojo, and his clan of human followers were known as the Keepers of the Lights of Virtue. He himself had been a vile, despicable criminal in his former life. He explained how he had been given his gift of intelligence as a byproduct of the experiment done by the man who Jack had been mistaken for. The three children who were the product of that experiment had been a gift to the world, but he, Mojo, had not seen it that way and had made it his goal to crush them. They stood in his way of attaining his goals. Until the day they disappeared. Then he had had free reign, and learned that it was instead a curse. Those children had been saviors, not enemies, and he had seen the light. He had escaped their city before its final destruction and come here, to the roots of his original creation. It was here, through prayer and study, that his beliefs had taken shape and he had amassed a small but devoted following.
The children, they believed, would one day return, to restore the world to its former state and cleanse the world of evil. But not until the sinners of this world had fully repented their crimes against mankind, the animal kingdom and nature. The sect dressed simply and lived what could only be called a meager existence, but they were happy to share with the stranger what little they had. Each member wore a necklace of small beads made from the quartz native to the area, and the stones were the very same colors that Jack had seen in the sky this day. Pale blue, green and pink.
Jack had briefly told of his tale, and the old chimp had nodded his head sadly.
"Ah, yes, I am familiar with the evil of which you speak, though I have not heard of this Aku. I have heard of him, who is probably the same evil by another name. But perhaps him is not Aku."
"What is he talking about?" Jack had wondered, very confused. Then Mojo had led him to their simple altar, where the group practiced their daily devotions. There, rising ten feet into the air, stood a solid rock statue of three female children, holding hands as they appeared to rise into the sky right out of the ground.
"They are the Virtues of Mercy, Strength and Wisdom. And when they return, as certainly they will, they will again be known as the Powerpuff Girls."
The same Powerpuff Girls that the old hag had called for in vain; the one that had tried to kill him in the destroyed government building. The same Powerpuff Girls who had just soared away from the spot above his head. What the elderly primate had told him just before he left their camp make perfect sense.
"It is fortuitous that I have made your acquaintance, samurai. I have always had an affinity for things Japanese and appreciated the tenets of honor and sacrifice practiced by the samurai, even if I did not always practice them myself. If this Aku sent you into the future to escape defeat, then he is not as strong as he thinks. That is true of all evil. It cannot win. I now believe that is what happened to the girls. If they were sent into the future as you were, they will find their way back. And so will you."
It made him think of a passage he had read during his studies of the world's religions in his youth. It was not from the religion of his people but it held great significance now.
"And a child shall lead them…"
Jack had bade his hosts a thankful farewell and promptly forgotten the tale. He'd heard many strange ones on his journey, and many were of a religious nature, even somewhat similar to this one. Good creatures across the many lands held onto their beliefs of someday being delivered from Aku's treachery. But no longer was this one just a tale. He had found the allies he hoped he might. Mojo's prophecy was coming true.
Allies he would not have if he remained clinging to these walls. Climbing back up would be near to impossible in his present position, but he could walk himself carefully down, like a crab, an arm and a leg at a time. Once there, he could climb back up, though it would be painful with the skinning his hands and bare legs had taken from scraping against the stone and steel. Or, he might find another way out down below. Surely anyone with the intelligence to build something like this place would have provided for an alternate means of escaping it. Down it would be.
He found a large, open chamber with steel beams holding up the rock ceiling. It was fairly dark, but incredibly, artificial light was coming from small recesses in the rock ceiling. What was powering them? Everything outside indicated that any source of power was also destroyed.
It looked like the elevator shaft had been located in the volcano's crater, and this underground level had been carved out of the volcanic rock. There was practically no damage to the array of machinery that lined the walls. Most looked like giant mechanical men and appeared quite fierce. Everything was covered with a fine layer of dust. Along one wall of the chamber stood a tall metal rack with shelves full of boxes. Amazingly, the boxes were in good shape. The elements had not gotten down here.
He walked the length of the chamber, trying to sense where the power could be coming from, and also trying to spot a way out. As he did he noticed that the boxes on the shelves had large quantities of writing on them. Obviously listing what was stored inside, so the items could be easily found when needed. But the words had a very strange, repetitive pattern to them. One box in particular caught his attention:
'This box contains as its contents various components with which to construct from the assorted parts a device that will be like the device that Professor Utonium has already constructed so that I may return myself to the past, thereby going back in time and preventing the Powerpuff Girls from being created when I am able to obtain the plans for such a device from Professor Utonium, because I do not yet have them.'
Incredibly, nearly the same thing was inscribed beneath it in Japanese characters.
"What? I have found the place once occupied by Mojo!"
The significance of those words sunk in. "A time-travelling device? Such a thing actually exists? I have been promised this means back to my time before but always it has been a myth. And this professor is the one in possession of it."
That confused him. If this professor had the means to send them through time, was he the one who had removed them from the city of the past, thereby causing its destruction? Mojo had said very little about the man and surely would have if this professor had turned on his own creations. Confusing, but he would not find the answer standing here.
What should he do? Keep looking down here for another way out? If he searched some more, he might find something among Mojo's creations, ones that had been intended to do evil, with which to fight that evil. But then, how to find the girls? This place was the highest around, but he might have to wait before he saw them again, and he hated sitting still. Searching seemed like the better choice and he would spare his sore arms and legs the climb back up.
He made his way beyond the rack of boxes and turned a corner. And there sat the source of power. Painted in red on a steel door was the word 'Danger!', and in yellow the sign that he had learned meant radiation. Behind that door, he knew, was something very powerful if controlled. But in the wrong hands, it was a fearsome weapon of mass destruction. He had been horrified to learn that such a weapon had been used not once, but twice, against the people of his homeland. He had been even more appalled when told that those weapons had been used justly to stop the horrors caused by a few madmen who happened to be Japanese, to prevent even more horrific ones. More of Aku's work.
It was sad that Mojo had used his talents as he had, but at least he had seen the light. And it was a shame that so much of his work, that could have been turned to good use, now lay in ruins. At least what was up there at the mountaintop. He envisioned all that destruction, and suddenly his eyes went wide.
"The telescope!" He would be able to find the girls much easier if it still worked. Finding them was more important. The long climb began.
