Location: The city of Townsville
"I said, 'Is that understood'?"
"Ye-yes. We're sorry! We'll never pick on kids again" the two preteen thugs sniveled, legs flailing as they were held up by their jacket collars.
"Good now get out of here" Buttercup snapped, dropping the wanna-be thieves, keeping up her glare until the two had fled the park.
Allowing herself to relax Buttercup easily picked up and carried the stolen bike back to the play park. A gaggle of young kids cheered as she approached, a young girl running forward to reclaim her stolen toy.
"Thanks super lady" She giggled happily as she peddled off towards her waiting parents.
As the rest of the kids slowly went back to play Buttercup took to the sky before lazily flying off towards the suburbs. A pair of juvenile bike thieves were hardly much of a challenge, they barely counted as a diversion.
Ever since the girls had started middle school the number of monster and supervillain attacks had steadily decreased. As much as she'd love to say it was because of how awesome she was that wasn't the case. Thanks to the international task force funded by Dexlabs the majority of monsters had been successfully contained on Monster Isle, while the majority of the nations supervillains were securely locked up in the new meta-prison called 'The Keep'.
While she'd never admit it out loud (she could barely admit it to herself) she was a little relieved that they didn't have to fight off super powered threats as often as they used to. After their final encounter with Mojo Jojo she doubted they could keep up that pace anymore.
Coming to a halt beside a skyscraper she paused to take in her reflection. Mojo had attempted to destabilise the Chemical X in their bodies to destroy them once and for all, luckily they managed to destroy his device before it could finish the job. The resulting blast seemed to have killed Mojo and although it did not kill them it had some...unexpected side effects.
The reflection staring back at her could only be described as..normal. No stubby limbs, no eyes taking up most of her face, just a perfectly normal looking 12 year old girl. Minus the flying of course. Honestly those changes weren't so bad once she got over the shock, it was the changes to her powers she had problems with.
Sure she was still super strong, could fly and was definitely still the 'toughest fighter', but it took a lot more effort to reach the level of power they used to have. Shaking away such thoughts she continued her slow flight home when a deafening boom echoed across the city. Quickly flying above the skyscrapers, Buttercup began to search for the source of the noise.
A large cloud of smoke rose from Townsvilles' central park, The location of Mojo Jojos' ruined lair. Blasting across the sky Buttercup quickly reached the park as a wave of unknown creatures swarmed out of a hole near the base of a volcano that Mojos' lair sat atop.
"I knew Mojo wasn't gone for good" she growled, dropping out of the sky like a green meteor and scattering the front line of creatures. Their bodies bursting into pixels as they slammed into the nearby tree and buildings.
"You ready for a butt kicking? 'Cause I need a good warm up before I take down old bucket head"
Seeing how this new threat had decimated their brethren the remaining creatures focused fire on their green clad foe, attempting to overwhelm her with their sheer volume of fire. Crossing her arms to shield her face Buttercup kicked off the ground and raced forward, the majority of the bolts doing little but stinging her skin. Delivering a devastating jab to one of the blocks sending it into the air and taking out a swarm of the flying bugs before unleashing her heat vision upon a trio of crabs.
"I may not be as strong as the last time I kicked your butt Mojo but I'm still tougher than anything you can throw at me" She announced confidently.
From the hole in the mountain she could hear a distant rumbling sound that was growing steadily louder as the rubble around the entrance began to shake. Emerging from the tunnel was a large silver sphere with a ring of eye icons around its middle.
"Finally bringing out the big guns? Good I was starting to get bored" She said slammer her right fist into her left palm.
Flying forward Buttercup struck her target with a mighty right hook, sending it rolling across the park and through several trees. Coming to a stop the sphere began to roll back towards her, its shell not showing any damage. Frustrated she attempted to burn through the shell with her heat vision but with no luck.
"Hey stop hiding in there and fight me!" she shouted, attempting to break through with a flurry of kicks.
As if in response to her demand the shell began to open, causing her to jump back in surprise with her guard up. Inside was a bundle of red sinewy tendrils connecting the two halves to a large central eye.
"I can see why you hide in that shell. But now I'm gonna pound your ugly mug into dust!"
Before she could me good on her boast a yellow vertical wall of energy bursts from its eye, throwing up her arms to block the hit Buttercup found herself thrown back across the park and into the base of a nearby skyscraper, her arms burning from the force of the attack.
"Okay so you're actually pretty tough. Well now it's MY turn!" she yelled preparing to fire back.
Before she could, two streaks of Pink and Blue crashed down onto the sphere crushing its central eye and causing its shell to dissolve into light. As the smoke cleared Buttercup watched as her sisters casually dusted themselves off before floating over.
"Are you okay Buttercup?" Bubbles asked offering her a hand up, which she stubbornly ignored.
"I've got this why don't go back to your school clubs and shopping trips" She said rudely pushing past them.
Rolling her eyes Blossom made to grab her arm until a volley of energy bolts began to tear up the area around them. Giving Buttercup a look that promised they'd talk about this later Blossom led her sisters in a charge against the new host of monsters.
Location: Intelligencia server
From within inside the datascape Gigabyte observed as the trio of colorful organics tore their way through his army and began to force their way towards Mojos' hidden lab. The Amity Park devirtualization chamber had just gone offline thanks to that spectral anomaly, while Drakken ordered Shego destroy his.
Norrisville and Copper Canyon were also under attack by strangely costumed users, and Danville was moments away from being deactivated by that bizarre mammal. Despite this Gigabyte continued to smile. These attacks were never intended to be the killing blow, any destruction cause was welcome of course but the objective here was data gathering.
Now that the virus could see what the was up against he could plan accordingly. Shifting his focus briefly, he opened a connection to Sockmans' secret facility. The foolish organic may have been able to hide it from even his fellow 'Intelligencia' but nothing can stay hidden from his sight. On the outskirts of New York Gigabyte had his minions improve upon the hidden devirtualization chamber, the system being prepared for his new, upgraded army.
Pleased at the progress Gigabyte turned once more to observe the attack on the Townsville facility. Although this attack hadn't wasn't expected to wipe out these pests it might be prudent to...delete a few of the more troublesome users now. Ordering the creation of two Megabyte clones, Gigabyte prepared his own download. After all this new body did need a test run…
Location: Mojo Jojos' secret lab
As the last of the creatures collapsed into pixels the girls took a second to catch their breath as they observed their surroundings. The lab had certainly seen better days, the only intact machinery appearing to be the main console and a large circular device glowing brightly.
"Come out Mojo! Take you beating like a man!" Buttercup yelled, throwing aside the debris while she searched for the villainous simian.
"It doesn't look like anyone's here. Perhaps it's entirely automated" Blossom suggested.
"Whatever! Let's just smash the stupid thing and then find Mojo" Buttercup said making her way over to the console.
Bubbles however noticed that the machine was steadily glowing brighter "Buttercup watch out!"
Heeding her sisters' warning Buttercup barely managed to dodged as two black, metal humanoids leapt from the machine, their claws slicing through the floor where she had stood. The machine gave one more flash of light as another figure emerged. Humanoid but standing heads and shoulders above the others, its clawed right hand glinting dangerously in the machine's glow.
"I don't know who you are creep. But if Mojo thinks you can stop us from taking him down he's as dumb as you're ugly" with that Buttercup launched herself at the largest enemy.
"Buttercup wait!" Blossom yelled, attempting to stop her sister's reckless charge.
Before they could move to help the two smaller beasts leapt into action, forcing her and Bubbles to defend themselves. While her sisters fought their own enemies Buttercup reared back and struck the leader in the face with a heavy right hook, smirking as its head was snapped to the right. Her smirk quickly vanished as her fist was forced back as the figure turned to face her.
"I am Gigabyte destroyer of systems, and you will not stop us" it rumbled.
With a savage warcry Buttercup unleashed a flurry of attacks, hammerfist, dropkick, uppercut. Gigabyte was slowly pushed back by the assault as Buttercup felt her confidence return.
"Hah you talk big but looks like you can't back it up" she taunted, taking one last swing at its face. Only to watch in horror as its left hand snapped up catching her by the wrist and stopping her attack dead.
"Is this the best a user can do?" With that Gigabyte rotated his torso a full 180 and slammed her into the floor.
Gasping as the wind was knocked out of her she could only watch as Gigabyte raised up its claw to strike.
"Hey creature!" Blossom yelled, causing Gigabyte to turn just in time for iits minions to smash into his face knocking him to the floor "Leave our sister alone!"
While Gigabyte and the two beasts returned to their feet, Blossoms and Bubbles flew to Buttercup's side. Groaning as they helped her up, the trio stared at the digital menaces with the two beasts looking worn and battered.
"If you're done trying to kill yourself we should take out those beasts first, once they're gone we can take out the big guy together" Blossom said causing Buttercup to look away in embarrassment and frustration.
"Your systems are inadequate" Gigabyte said, staring down at his lesser clones before crushing the head of the one on his left while stabbing through the one to his right. As the girls watched on in shock as they dissolved into black mist before being absorbed into Gigabytes hulking form.
A low growl was all the warning they got before Gigabyte was in front of them, fist reared back to strike. Reacting fast, Bubbles shoved her sisters out of harm's way before Gigabyte's fist swung down, driving her face first into the floor.
"Bubbles!" they screamed as he lifted her up by her head, his hand squeezing shut and sending arcs of electricity across her body, causing her to cry out.
"Let. Her. Go!" Buttercup and Blossom fired together, two pairs of heat vision striking him in the side. As the beams hit Gigabyte's armour seems to light up as ripples of energy passed over it.
"He's absorbing our attack" Blossom realised as Buttercup clenched her fists.
"So we take him out up close and personal" she said as they charged together.
Seeing the attack, Gigabyte flung Bubbles towards them causing Buttercup to stop and catch her as they collided. Blossom, momentarily distracted, was sent sprawling to the ground by a claw swipe. Landing hard she forced herself into a crouching position and let loose with her ice breath. As the icy wind battered his armoured skin Gigabyte lunged forward, attempting to stab through her chest.
As the ice solidified his claws came to a stop inches from her as she allowed the attack to end. A quick glance to ensure her sisters were okay and Blossom forced herself to her feet.
"I don't know how long that will hold. We need to destroy the machine and fall back"
Buttercup looked outraged "What? We're running away!"
"We can't just rush him. We need to fight smarter, not harder" Blossom explained as she prepared to blast the machine.
"You think I'm too weak to beat him!" Buttercup yelled, not noticing that the ice containing Gigabyte had begun to crack.
"You know that's not…"
With a deafening roar Gigabyte burst free of his icy prison, the shards causing the girls to shield their eyes. With a brutal charge Gigabyte smashed Blossom into the lab's far wall before countering Buttercup's wild attacks with a crushing knee to the stomach.
"It is time to delete you meddlesome users" Placing an armoured foot on her prone form and slowly pushing down.
From outside came the roar of engines and the squeal of tires. Reinforcements had arrived causing Gigabyte to pause in his attack, victory may have been probable but there was no need to risk its plans this early. Looking around at the wounded heroes Gigabyte turned and made his way back to the machine.
"Hey" a voice weakly called out behind him. A quick glance back showed that it was the green clad one. "Get..back here...I'm not..done with you yet"
"All relevant data on your powers has been acquired. Further intervention is unnecessary" He replied before walking back into the light, causing it to blink out as the machine shut down.
The lab was silent, save for the laboured breathing her sisters. Buttercup felt her eyes sting as she forced back tears. "Damn it.."
Slamming her fist into the ground so hard the room shook, she glared hatefully at the device. She didn't care where he went, she'd find him, and when she did she'd tear that metal monster to pieces!
Finally noticing the sounds from outside, Buttercup staggered to her feet as she turned to meet these newcomers. A group of six, all wearing blue jumpsuits and carrying laser rifles, entered the lab pausing in surprise at the sight that greeted them.
"I'm in a pretty bad mood here so I'm only going to ask once" she snarled readying a fist "Who are you guys?"