To Boldly Go Where No Puff Has Gone Before
Disclaimer: I do not own the Powerpuff girls and their related content, as they belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon network. I also do not own anything that is related to the Star trek Universe, which are created by Paramount Pictures. However I do own the idea for the design of the Starship, the USS Dynamo, and several made up alien races scattered throughout the galaxy. Everything else, like the galaxy quadrants, warp drives…etc belong to startrek.
A/N:This is a slightly similar Powerpuff Girls version of the "Startrek Voyager" series. There is bound to be some violence, so this will be rated "R" in later chapters for graphic scenes and language.
And now on with the story!
Chapter 7: A Way HomeButch was showing more of the Dynamo Systems to Dranico. The alien looked at the different functions with interest. "Such an interesting technology. It appears some what primitive…but efficient." Dranico made some adjustments to some power relays and the power level on board the ship boosted to a much efficient percentage. "Hey! How'd you do that? The ship seems to be much energy conservative." Butch then thanked Dranico as he examined the adjustments done by Dranico. The two of them worked together to make adjustments and minor upgrades to the Dynamo's systems.
Brick was in the astrometrics lab examining the maps of the quadrants given by the Kounians. "Hmmm…perhaps we should make a turn here…" He looked at the holographic projection of the quadrant. He checked the computer readouts of their current location and noticed they would approach the turning point in a few minutes. He checked for more course headings they could take and proceeded to the bridge. "The auto pilot is about to run out of course plots…gonna need some human input." He stepped through the sliding door and boarded the lift.
The girls were going to the holodeck to play some games. "Good thing the professor equipped the ship with holodecks! I can't imagine what I'm going to do for fun around here!" Buttercup muttered as she and her sisters stood in front of the lift entrance. It opened up and they saw Brick inside. "Oh hey, Brick! Where are you going?" Blossom said as she hovered over to kiss him briefly. Brick smiled and said he was going to the bridge to input new course headings into the auto pilot systems. "So, what are you ladies planning to do?" He asked. Buttercup said they were going to the holodeck to seek some entertainment. "Sounds fun. Say, how about in a few minutes, I'll round up my brothers and join you?" He replied. The girls nodded and got out when the lift stopped on their destination. Brick waved as the lift door closed again to continue the journey up the decks to the Bridge.
Boomer was lounging around in the mess hall. He decided he wasn't really that hungry to be lounging around a food place, so he flew out of the mess hall and decided to go try out the holodecks. As he went to the nearest holodeck on that deck, he noticed it was occupied and a program was running. It showed information about the users and it showed it was the girls. "I see…what are they playing? Monster Quest? That's my favorite game! Wait…their first time? Heh, I'm going to have some fun!" Boomer said with a sinister tone as he thought of a plan to fool around with the girls while they're playing the game. He hovered quickly down the hall to the other holodeck and went in.
The door slid open as Brick hovered into the Bridge. He sat down at his seat and keyed in the new course headings for the computer to execute. He was going through the headings when something caught his eye. "Hmmm…there's something not far from here…it's looking somewhat peculiar." Brick proceeded to Boomer's station and manned the ship's long-range scanners. "Hmm, how does Boomer use this thing?" He presses a few buttons and a screen displayed the starboard view of the stars nearby. "I see, it's working. Ok…acquiring scanning target…target acquired…gathering information…what the hell? 45 minutes!" Brick said as he growled impatiently at the scanning system. "I guess I'll stop the ship for now…" Brick muttered as he stopped the ship's autopilot and slowed the ship to a stop.
The Dynamo dropped out of warp and appeared in the middle of a large patch of clear space. No asteroids or planets could be seen in the system. Brick looked out the view screen and took a breath at the view of beauty. "We're not in a system, just blank space…and those stars…they looked even better here than viewed from Earth." Brick sighed then looked over the scanning equipment. It read 40 minutes to go. "Hmmm…oh well…might as well join the girls for their games while waiting…After its done, I'll have Boomer analyze the strange thing I found." Brick thought as he hovered out the Bridge and into the lift once again.
Butch and Dranico stopped their adjustments as they suddenly see the warp core module inside engineering went offline. "What the? Why it stop? Oh wait…someone must have stopped the ship at the Bridge." Butch muttered as he read the core's systems as nominal. "Why would we stop?" Dranico asked Butch. Butch just shrugged. "Maybe Brick decided to stop the ship a bit, admire the area…or let the ship's engines cool or something. I don't know exactly what, but I'm sure everything's fine. Let's return to our modifications." Butch said as he watched Dranico shrug as well and went back to helping Butch modifying the ship's systems.
Boomer walked into the second holodeck and closed the door behind him. He went to the console and activated the matrix. "Computer, access program Monster Quest, under my profile." He spoke out the commands. A large holographic menu appeared in front of him. He touched the individual buttons on the menu as he "logged" into his Monster Quest account. "Look up current games in session." He spoke. The menu became a list displaying all of the Monster Quest games being played on the ship's holodecks. He found only one other game on it and it was labeled PPG. "Join channel as saved character: Boomer of Angara. Also set character's allegiance to neutral. Set game entering preferences to hidden." Boomer said the final commands and preferences and then spoke the confirmation command. "Begin game."
Buttercup and Bubbles were fending off medieval monsters as Blossom worked her character's sorcery. It was their first game and they were learning quite well. "Wow, I never knew the professor liked RPG's!" Buttercup said as she slew another monster with her sword. "Yea, and wow…this game is fun! Although a little scary." Bubbles said as she shot an arrow from her crossbow, impaling the orc warrior that was attacking her in the chest. For some reason, Buttercup had set the gore preferences at max, and sometimes the gruesomeness sickened Bubbles. The particular orc that Bubbles killed, splattered blood all over the forest floor as it collapsed to the ground in agony. Buttercup blew a low whistle and complemented on her sister's accuracy. "Nice shot sis! That was sweet!" Buttercup cheered. Just then she ducked as another orc warrior tried to slash at her with its sword. Buttercup swung back and prepared to swing at the monster but was shocked when it was blown to pieces by Blossom's fireball. Chunks of the warrior's flesh littered the forest floor. "Hey, no fair, it swung at me first!" Buttercup complained. Her sister just blew a raspberry at her and said, "I'm way faster than you ever be, warrior!" Blossom then playfully shot out a small blast from her hands. Buttercup stumbled back a bit as the game displayed the damage she had taken on top of her head. Buttercup rubbed the sore spot and growled.
While the 3 girls were having their fun poking each other and attacking enemy monsters, a lone figure was watching them from on top of a tree. It was Boomer's alternate identity in the game. Boomer appearance was not very different except he was wearing a large suit of plate armor. He wore a steel helmet on top of his head and he brandished a huge double-sided axe. Boomer smiled as he procured a rune from his pack. The rune glowed as he said a few words. Moments later a medium sized fireball shot out towards Blossom. She cringed as she felt herself being charred. She felt no pain, but she soon saw a red 450 appear on top of her head. She then somehow fell to the ground and appeared dead. She then faded from the holographic environment and returned to her normal form. "What? I…I…died? Ooooh! Who did that!" She asked her sisters as they watched the holographic version of her character's corpse. They cringed, as it appeared very realistic with dismembered limbs and torn flesh. "Gross… and who ever did it was very strong…450 damage!" Buttercup spoke to Blossom, who appeared a bit transparent, as she is not in the game. "Well, we're gonna avenge you…" Buttercup began saying before getting hit by one of those fireballs. A moment later, a red 500 appeared on top of her and she collapsed to the ground. "Who the hell keeps killing us? Run Bubbles!" Buttercup and Blossom warned her blond sister.
Bubbles yelped as she dodged another one of those fireballs. She focused her eyes on where the fireballs were coming from and they were coming from the tree in front of her. She bent down on one knee and took careful aim with her crossbow. She began glowing in a bright blue hue as she charged up a critical hit. She fired the arrow a second later and rolled to the side to avoid another fireball. As soon as she rolled to safety, she heard the arrow plunge into flesh and a growl of in game sounds of pain and agony. Seconds later, a large red 500 appeared on top of the tree and Boomer fell out, defeated, with Bubble's arrows sticking out of his chest. She gasped as she saw the body of her boyfriend lying there. His body then faded and Bubbled ended the game. "I had enough…what was that? I hope I didn't really kill Boomie!" She said as she cringed at the gruesome scenes in that game.
Buttercup was just stunned as she saw the identity of their rival. Suddenly the door chimed as Boomer walked into their holodeck. He was all right, but a little disappointed that he lost to his girlfriend. "Damnit, why do you always win in everything? I knew I should have worn the other holy armor!" He complained. He then chirped and said, "Well, at least I got 2 player kills!" He grinned after he boasted. Buttercup and Blossom just glared at him. Bubbles just smiled and said, "Well, at least I know you're still ok!" The couple hugged for a little while. "Oh brother." Buttercup muttered as she hovered out of the holodeck. "I'm going to the mess hall, meet you there Blossom. Let's leave these two lovebirds here to their fun…after all…I'm gonna need something to eat after finding out I got beat in a game like that!" Blossom just smiled and nodded. She hovered after her sister leaving Bubbles and Boomer alone.
Brick hovered towards the holodeck just in time to see Blossom and Buttercup came out. They did not look so pleased. "What's wrong?" Brick asked them. They said that Boomer had them killed in the game. "Ouch, Monster Quest huh? Damn…you should have asked me to join, I would have been able…" Brick was interrupted when Blossom said that Bubbles managed to beat Boomer with a lucky shot. "And she's level 6? Damn she's lucky!" Brick said as his jaw hit the floor. The girls told him that they were going to the mess hall to get some food. He agreed to go join them in a minute, as he told them that he needed to speak to Boomer.
Brick went inside the holodeck to see that Boomer had loaded a comfortable quarters program to give Bubbles and him a place to sit while they relax. Brick noticed that Boomer and Bubbles were sitting on a sofa bed, just embracing each other. Bubbles was resting her head on Boomer's lap and just admiring his presence. Brick hovered over and said, "Nice program…Anyway Boomer, while I was on the Bridge a moment ago, I found some kind of strange anomaly or something in the distance and commanded the computer's long-range scanners to analyze it. It should be done analyzing in about 20 minutes…so, when you're done here…can you go see what that object was?" Boomer nodded and agreed that he will go see what the scanners have picked up soon. Brick then smiled and hovered out of the holodeck and towards the mess hall.
Twenty minutes later, Boomer and Bubbles was in the Bridge, taking a look on what the scanners had found out. "This…this is very interesting…" Boomer said as he read on. He suddenly blinked very quickly as his jaw dropped to the floor. "This could be a shortcut home!" He exclaimed at the top of his lungs. Bubbles looked at the information for herself and was shocked just as much at the possibility of a way home. She went over to the comm. and informed the crew to come to the briefing room. While the others were on their way, Bubbles looked at Boomer with joy. They could be home in a blink of an eye if whatever they found was true.
"It's a what!" Brick stammered as he heard what the anomaly was. "It appears to be some kind of subspace corridor. Almost like a wormhole, except probably more stable instead." Boomer explained. "I think there's a way to use it to even shorten our journey home at least. We should approach the vicinity of the corridor's entrance for us to get a better readout on how to use this sort of thing." Bubbles added. Dranico spoke up, "I am familiar with subspace corridors quite a bit. But I am not familiar with this one at the moment…must have been opened up recently. I could help make the adjustments to the ship's systems to make it capable of going through a subspace corridor." Brick nodded and told him to make it so. "Ok then. Everyone get to your stations. Butch and Dranico, go down to engineering and proceed with the modifications to the systems." Everyone nodded at Brick's orders and went to work.
The Dynamo turned around towards the anomaly and zipped to warp. Moments later the ship dropped out of warp in the middle of a star system. The ship pulled up close to what seems to be a vortex of sort. It looked almost like a wormhole's vacuum characteristics but the mouth was a lot smaller. Back on board the Bridge, Boomer scanned the corridor even more. "It's even better than we thought…the corridor opening here is only an access to some kind of natural network of tunnels! I believe the network leads all the way to the Solar system!" Brick smiled at the possibility. "Will you be able to navigate once we inside the corridor?" Boomer nodded. "Yes, I believe I can help show the way through the corridor to take us all the way home. But it'll be a tough job, as once we're inside we can't stop…stopping will take us out of the corridor and most likely we won't be able to find another access point so easily." Just then, Butch's voice goes on the intercom. "Brick, we're ready to engage the corridor…me and Dranico are coming to the Bridge now." "Understood." Brick replied as he readied the ship for the journey through.
Brick increased the propulsion and the ship gradually loomed forward. Once they reached the mouth's threshold, Butch engaged something in the ship's shielding. The ship then suddenly began to shake badly as the ship got pulled into the corridor. "Its just the entry process! We'll be fine!" Butch said as he grabbed his seat for stability. Boomer then yelled a moment later, "Now, make a 90 degree turn towards starboard! That should take us into the mainstream of the corridor!" Brick nodded and turned the ship towards starboard. The ship stabilized and was going very smoothly and quickly down the corridor like a blood cell going through a blood vessel. The ship itself at the moment was going really fast that it was extremely difficult to make course changes.
While the ship made several tight turns, the crew was very glad that they felt they were almost home. Suddenly, something large appeared in front of the view screen and Boomer analyzed it. He looked at the results in shock and desperately tried to give a course change. "Bro! It's the remains of a ship that probably didn't make it! We will collide with it if you don't turn!" Brick gritted his teeth and slammed the throttle up as he tried to make a turn. "Yea, tell me something I didn't know!" The Dynamo slid to portside as they tried to go past the debris of the destroyed vessel. But they still came within contact of the debris. The starboard wing of the Dynamo clipped the side of the destroyed vessel, causing the Dynamo's shields to flicker.
Inside the Bridge, a sudden shower of sparks blinded Brick for a brief moment, causing him to lose control over the delicate procedure of steering the ship inside the corridor. The kids screamed as the ship careened and slammed through the walls of the corridor and shook with even stronger force as the ship exited the corridor unexpectedly. The Dynamo appeared in the middle of another system, looking very worn and damaged, but not as bad as it looked with they were stranded by the wormhole some time earlier. They had traveled a great distance and have traveled close to a quarter of the journey home. They could have gone all the way home but the obstruction inside the corridor caused them to lose the chance.
Boomer was the first to wake up. He shook his head and went over to check on Bubbles and the others. They are all right. The others slowly began to come to as Boomer tried to get the astrometrics system operating. "Well…at least we've shortened our journey a bit…we have traveled about a quarter of the way home." The other nodded as they all went to help restore the ship's systems to full operation. They were just glad that they were alive.
A/N: And that the end of chapter 7! Oooh! They almost made it home! Well, stayed tune for more adventures to come. CH 8, "Temporal maze" is now in the works! Thank you for reading and please review! No Flames please! –James of Vale.
