Seven years, is that right? Man what a long time. Each day crawling by. For me it was. It all started on that day Mom and Dad had come up with a new plan. Each of us had to train so we could destroy the girls mentally, then finish them off physically. It made sense. After all, that's how the girls would always beat us.

I recall one time when we had stolen some really cool tanks. They belonged to that girl, Princess. I remember asking Brick if it was really a good idea, because then we'd have the girls and Princess trying to stop us. "See that's the beauty of it," he explained, "those stupid girls will end up arguing with each other cause Princess will want the tanks back. She'll stop the Powerpuffs from doing anything to us." Brick was exactly right. Princess was so busy stopping the girls from attacking our tanks that we spent hours tearing up Townsville. Seemed like it was a foolproof plan.

Then something bad happened.

Blossom flew right in front of Brick's tank. We all aimed our cannons at her. Brick had theorized that one of the girls would end up having to hold back Princess, meaning we'd only have to deal with two of them. With a three to two advantage we'd finally be able to destroy them. Then Blossom's voice came up on my monitor. "You guys have some pretty awesome tanks. But I'm wondering something, which one of you has the coolest tank?"

Butch immediately responded. "That's me, of course."

"No you don't," Brick piped in, "I picked the biggest, coolest looking tank. I could run yours over if I wanted to."

"Oh yeah!" Butch said. He was starting to get angry. "Mine has the most weapons! The only thing your tank can do better than mine is make a bigger explosion when I waste you!"

I was also starting to get angry. "Hey!" I yelled. "Do I just not exist or something?"

"Shut up Boomer!" Brick yelled to me. "Everyone knows you have the lamest tank!"

"Oh yeah!" I said as I took aim at him. "We'll see about that!"

I'm sure you can guess what happened after that. That happened when we were about seven. It was the first time the girls had turned us on each other like that, and definitely not the last. Thanks to Butch and Brick having such big tempers, the girls could always make us fight each other. Mom and Dad were aware of this, but they aren't exactly therapists. They'd just yell at us. Mostly at Brick and Butch. I've never had much of a temper. Yeah I know that example I gave isn't really backing up my claim, but as I got older I just lost interest in picking fights. I was even losing interest in causing any mayhem.

There was a reason for that. A reason that was secret. If my brothers or parents found out…man they would completely lose it. It was ironic that Mom and Dad wanted me to pretend to become friends with Bubbles. Kind of like the universe was messing with me or something.

I was already friends with Bubbles.

It wasn't pretend either. Very wrong of me to become friends with the enemy. Wrong of her too, and she's supposed to be one of the good ones. But…it felt right.

It happened the day after that episode when I got captured and Bubbles spent the day pretending to be me. My brothers had been giving me a ton of crap about it. They wouldn't stop laughing about how no one could tell the difference between me and Bubbles.

"Geez Boomer, you sure you wanted to get the same kind of clothes as before? Maybe you should start wearing dresses instead." Brick said and laughed as his stupid joke.

"Haha, yeah Boomer. We should try their plan out. You can pretend to be the Blue Puff. They won't doubt it for a second." Butch added in, laughing it up.

I gritted my teeth. My face was getting red from embarrassment and anger. I took a swing at Brick, who caught it with no trouble. "Whoa careful there," he said, "wouldn't want to chip a nail, now would you?"

They kept laughing like two stupid hyenas. I just flew off. Those jerks were always picking on me. I hated being the runt of the litter. There was no way I was ever going to live this down unless I did something extreme.

I started flying over to the mall. "First I'm gonna get myself some new clothes." I thought to myself. "Some really cool clothes. Stuff they've never seen that will shut them up. Oh but wait." I stopped in midair. "We've been to the mall a ton of times. They already know all the clothes that sell there." I took a minute to think about what to do. "I know! I'll go to another city. Find a bunch of cool stuff there that makes me look like an awesome guy. They'll get jealous and I won't tell them where I got any of it."

I took off and started following the highway. It was the most ingenious plan I had ever come up with. Actually I think it was the first plan I had ever come up with. It didn't take long to reach the next city. Err, technically it was town. The Town of Cityville, in fact. Pretty big place for a mere town.

I hovered around, scoping the place out. I found an outlet mall and landed in the middle of it. A bunch of people got scared when they saw me land. A few of them even screamed. Not that I cared at the moment. I was there to get some clothes. I wondered around looking for a promising store. I didn't know a thing about fashion so this was going to be a tricky mission. I eventually came across a bigger store that had pictures of skaters and snowboarders all over the windows. I grinned. This would be perfect. I could wear a bunch of awesome sports clothes and make my brothers look like wannabe punks.

It was a really cool store. Not only did they have a ton of clothes, but a lot of sports gear too. The walls were aligned with all kinds of snowboards, skateboards, roller skates, bicycles, surfboards, and all kinds of stuff. I made my way to where the skateboards were. They had so many awesome designs on the boards. One in particular that I liked had a flaming skull on it. "That's what I should do," I thought, "I should go around Townsville on that skateboard. And I can wear cool clothes with skulls on them. Brick and Butch will be totally jealous and everyone will think I'm awesome! Like to see that girl pretend to be me then!"

I went over to the left. Rows of T-shirts towered above me. Too bad most of them were way too big for me. I kept going, looking for small sizes. "They better have something in my size." I thought as I turned into another row. Then a new thought entered my mind. A thought I never expected to have.

"Why is Bubbles here, looking at a pirate T-shirt?"

She turned her head and saw me. She let out a little gasp and dropped the shirt she had been holding. "Uh…wha, wha, Boomer?" She managed to spit out.

"Bubbles?" I said in disbelief. "What, what are doing here? In this store?"

Man, how unexpected was this?

"I uh…ummm…uhhh…" She was looking all around. Looking at the rack of clothes to the left, the one to the right, the shirt she had dropped, the ceiling, and finally at me. "Do you promise not to tell anyone?"

"Uh sure. I mean who am I gonna tell?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. I just noticed that they'd been really tense.

"The thing is…." She started, "…a couple days ago when I had to pretend to be you and hang out with your brothers for the day…I had a lot of fun." She smiled and put her arms in the air for emphasis.

"You had hanging out with my brothers?"

"I know it sounds crazy, but I really did! I thought it would be horrible, but doing all that boy stuff was really neat! I even got over my fear of bugs!" She was all wide eyed and smiling ear to ear while she told me this. I could feel her exuberance bouncing off the walls.

"But I thought girls hated all that stuff. Girls like dolls and ponies and clothes."

"That's why it's a secret Boomer. You really promise you won't tell anyone?"

I threw my arms in the air. "No I'm not gonna tell anybody. It's still pretty weird though. So what are you doing here? If you wear those clothes everybody will think you're crazy."

She reached down and picked up the pirate shirt. "Nobody will know it's me if I only wear them around here. And I won't use my powers so nobody will have any idea it's me."

"Oh ok. So Cityville will be like your secret hangout."

"Yeah just like that. But why did you come all the way over here?"

I felt the anger start to build up again. "My stupid brothers have been making fun of me because you tricked them. They keep saying I look so much like a girl that when a real girl replaces me they can't tell the difference. I came here to get some really cool clothes they've never seen before so they'll shut up."

"You know what, I noticed something when I was pretending to be you."

"What's that?"

"When Brick and Butch were being mean I would sort of challenge them. Like they asked me where the candy was, and I told them I ate it all and they would have to cut me open if they wanted it. They just laughed and we went off to have some fun."

I chuckled. "That's pretty funny."

"I bet if you stand up to them like that then you'll get along better."

I sighed. "Yeah I guess. It's just kind of…tough, you know?"

Bubbles had a big smile on her face. "You know Boomer, you're so much nicer than your brothers. If Brick or Butch saw me they would have attacked me."

I let another sigh. I didn't know if I should have been glad or upset that she said that.

"Let's go get something to eat." She said as she took my hand. "I think you and I have a lot in common. I'll tell you about what I do when my sisters are mean to me."

"Aw come on don't do that!" I said, trying to get out of her grip. She was right, even back then I was too nice.

It was the night before we moved. Well evening to be exact. As usual I flew over to Cityville to meet with Bubbles. We were planning to hit up the skate park. I didn't bring my board. Didn't fly very quickly either. It would have been so easy to just not go. It was all I had thought about ever since Mom and Dad told us we were going to move. Should I tell Bubbles I had to go, or just avoid her? In the end my instincts took me to Cityville.

It was Friday night so the skate park was rowdy. Fitting word there. Even with all the craziness, finding Bubbles was no problem. She always had the weirdest clothes on. Tonight she was wearing a bright green shirt with a nuclear explosion graphic. Her pants were hot pink and sparkled like crazy. Bubbles never cared about fashion. She just wore whatever she liked, no matter how strange it looked. I admired that. Even though this was her secret life of sorts, it was still the real Bubbles. The real Bubbles did her own thing.

I asked her if we could go somewhere private because I had something important to tell her. We flew to the coast and landed on a cliff by the ocean. Bubbles asked if everything was ok. I realized coming to the ocean was a bad idea. Looking out at the endless body of water…something about that just…it just makes me you feel things. Right now I was feeling upset, sad, and scared. "Come on Boomer, you're supposed to be Cityville Boomer right now. Cityville Boomer has lots of courage, no matter what kind of scary things he faces."

"I'm moving." I said with a little tremble in my voice.

"What?! Moving?" She asked in a surprised voice.

"Mojo and Him told us yesterday. They want to take us far away so they can train us." I said quietly. My heart was beating like crazy.

"Train you…to kill us…" Bubbles said sadly.

Neither of us spoke. Waves crashed against the rocks below. It's a peaceful, yet sad sound. Perfect for the situation I was in. I really didn't know what to say. My mind was blank. All I could hear were waves crashing. All I could see and smell was the ocean. All I could feel was my heart as it beat sadly.

"Don't go with them."

"Huh?" I let out. "But they-"

"No don't." Bubbles said, silencing me. "You don't have to. You can stay here. I'm sure there's a place somewhere you can stay. I'll help you find something. My dad and sisters can help!"

"But your-"

"They'll listen to me! Buttercup might be upset at first, but I know that Blossom and the Professor will believe me! They'll be really happy to see that you aren't evil. Then we won't have to fight anymore."

I looked over at her. She looked like she was going to cry. I hadn't seen her cry in forever. "Can I really do this?" I thought. "Can I really say no to them…and stay here?"

"Yeah…yeah you're right!" I said decisively. Bubbles expression immediately changed from sad to happy. I started punching my hand, something I did to give myself courage. "I don't have to do this anymore. Pretending to fight you all the time and hiding out here to have fun. It's time for Cityville Boomer to become the only Boomer!"

"Yes! That's wonderful!" Bubbles said as she hugged me. I hugged her back, feeling like a million bucks. "I'm really gonna do it. I'm gonna change everything around." I thought.

"I'll come over to your house tomorrow." I said once our embrace ended.

Bubbles clapped her hands together. "Yes! We can tell my family all about it! You won't have to worry about Mojo or Him or your brothers making you do anything bad anymore!"

It's a good thing everyone was already asleep when I got back to the volcano. I had the biggest smile on my face that just wouldn't go away. I silently floated into our room where I could hear Brick and Butch's snoring. I snuggled into my bed and let out a content sigh, and went to sleep almost right away.

I had a nightmare.

Everything was red. Huge cracks ran along the ground. Fire spewed out of them. People were screaming from every direction. I tried to look around. Houses. There were houses all around me. Some of them were crumbling, some were burning, and some were just holes in the ground. I turned around and saw Bubbles house. Fire was coming out of the windows. The ground began to shake, nearly throwing me off my feet.

I blew away the flames blocking the door and went inside. The four of them were there. Bubbles, Blossom, Buttercup, the Professor…all lying on the ground. Everything started shaking again. I covered my head and crouched down until the shaking stopped. When I moved my arms away the girls were gone. There was just a bunch of red smoke.

"Boomer…" I heard a voice call. Only one voice like that. Him's voice.

The red smoke took form, and there was Him, with a big grin on his face. "Oh Boomer…how could you ever turn on your own family like that?" Him said in his soft voice. "And fraternizing with our sworn enemies. Such a horrible thing to do. AND THE LAST THING YOU'LL EVER DO!"

Suddenly I felt myself getting sucked into something. I had no idea what, but I knew it was bad.

"Unbelievable." I looked up and saw my brothers. Brick was shaking his head. "You picked those stupid girls over us? Did you really think they were going to win this war?" He said with an evil grin. "Now you can die with them!"

The screams got muffled. The image of Him and my brothers got hazy. It all went black.

When I woke up I was trembling. My heart was beating faster than ever before. I was taking deep breaths, trying to calm down.

I slowly ate my pancakes. They tasted great, but my brain couldn't seem to register anything.

"Eat up everyone." Him said as he danced around the kitchen in an apron. "We've got a long way to go and I hate having to make pit stops."

"There won't be any pit stops." Mojo said between mouthfuls. "My airship has more than enough food and a bathroom on it. Stopping would make no sense; everything needed is on the airship; no stopping will be necessary for food or bathrooms; if we did stop it would have to be for a senseless reason that makes no sense, for I had the sense to include-"

"Uh, Mom." Brick said, tapping Mojo's shoulder. "Could you be a little clearer? You're not making any sense."

Butch started to laugh, spraying orange juice on the table.

"All right we have eaten enough." Mojo said as he got up from the table. "Let's start moving the last of the cargo onto the airship. I want to get there before nightfall."

Brick and Butch flew off in the blink of an eye. Mojo turned around and looked at me. "Boomer? Boomer we have to go now."

"Huh?" I said, looking around.

"Wakey wakey, Boomer honey." Him said as he began clearing the table. "It's almost time to go."

"Oh uh…right." I said, flying out of the room.

It didn't take us long to pack in the rest of our stuff. It was weird seeing our house so empty. No furniture, no machinery, no weapons all over the walls. I made my way outside to the docking bay Mojo had set up. Looking around I could see almost all of Townsville.

"That's the last of it, we can finally depart." Mojo said, heading into the ship.

Over there was the junkyard where the Gangreen Gang always hung out.

Brick entered after Mojo. "You better have had the sense to put a TV in this thing. I'm not listening to you talk about nothing the whole way." He said.

Over there was that grocery store we terrorized every week.

Butch entered next. "I'm just going back to sleep. Best way to travel." He said.

Over there was the suburb where…

"Boomer, it's time to get on the ship." Him said.

I looked over at Him, who had a big smile on his face. Then over at the airship.

Him motioned with his claw. "Come on now, we don't want mommy to be angry."

I looked back at the suburb one more time. Looked at the ship, and got on it.

Now we're back in Townsville. Time to face the music. Time to go to school. A private school, now there's something new. I felt so out of place at this school. There was so much space, but so few people. The public schools we had gone to were crammed with kids. Every day you'd see a new face in the flooded hallways. I wondered if Butch would be able to stay under control. So many times we had to move because he would either break something or attack some kid who pissed him off. At first Brick was just as bad. After a few years he found more delight in playing head games rather than bashing in heads.

My classes weren't exactly the high end kind. My first two classes were filled with more sophomores than juniors. That was fine with me. I talked with a few people. Had to be friendly after all. Hard to be cheerful though when you're dreading the near future so much. I didn't know what I was going to do when I ran into one of the girls. There was always a chance I could share a class with Blossom, or more likely Buttercup. What were they going to do? Did they know about me? Did Bubbles ever tell them…

That's what really scared me. Having to see Bubbles again. Running off and leaving her. Abandoning is more like it. I had dreaded this day for so long and now it was here.

I let out a large breath. Trying to calm myself down as much as possible. There I was in my third class. A history class, something basic called World History. Soon I could go get lunch with Brick and Butch. I wondered if they'd had any classes with the girls. I was sure Brick has run into Blossom already. He's taking almost nothing but AP classes. Outside the window I could see some tennis courts. I thought about getting involved in some kind of sport. I was going to need to unwind.

There she was! It was Blossom! I looked down at my textbook. Tried to keep my face straight. It was her, and she wasn't alone. The girl she was talking to, that girl had black hair and green eyes. It must have been Buttercup. They were both in my class! I peeked over and saw them sit down over on the left, near the front of the class. I was towards the right, in the middle. I focused all my energy into remaining calm. Had they recognized me? Even if they hadn't, it was only a matter of time until they did.

The teacher pointed me out once the class started. We are using fake names, so he introduced me as Matthew. I smiled and looked at everyone. Tried my best not to make eye contact with Blossom or Buttercup. Once class was over I left quickly and briskly made my way down the hall. Ugh, I feel like such a coward. Bubbles used to be my only real friend and now I'm scared to death of talking to her. My next class is Tech Ed, whatever that is. I'll probably get there first. Too bad I don't have any classes with my brothers in the morning. I could use a little moral support.

The Tech building is pretty big. Here's hoping I can have some fun in this class. I'm going to need it after having a class with two of the girls. It's funny, yesterday I was considering dying my hair. Anything so that the girls wouldn't recognize me. Really though it would just be a waste, sooner or later they-

Oh…it's Bubbles.

There she is, sitting right there. Only she would wear a crazy purple skirt like that. You know I can't believe how calm I am right now. This must be what frozen in fear is. I thought there'd be actual fear. I guess the frozen part-

There's the fear. She's looking at me. I can't move. I can't speak. She turns away. Now I can move again. It's like she just released me from a spell. Alright, time to gather up any and all courage. I sit down next to her. She's in the way back. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't move. She just stares down at the table. Staring into nothing. I try to say something.

"B-bubbles…it's…uh"

"Boomer, you're back." She says to me.

"Uh, yes. Got here yester-uh, yesterday."

"Are all of you back?"

"Uh n-no. It's just um…me and my…brothers."

"Oh."

Silence. Other students are coming into the class. Some of them are looking over at us and whispering. My mind barely registers them. I look at Bubbles. She isn't talking, or looking at anything, or moving at all. I used to feel a certain energy from her, but now there's nothing. It's like I'm sitting next to a statue.

The teacher comes in and class begins. He spends some time introducing the course. Bubbles still hasn't moved. He then tells us to pick out any station we want. Bubbles finally moves. She gets up, and without a word, walks outside. I watch her go sit under a tree and take out a book.

"Hey new kid, want a word of advice?" A voice says from behind me.

I turn around and see a slightly taller guy with blonde hair. "You're wasting your time with her. She never talks to anybody."

"What's uh going on with her?" I ask, looking back at Bubbles under the tree.

"Believe it or not, she's one of the Powerpuff Girls. Or used to be. She doesn't do the whole super hero thing anymore. None of the teachers even try to mess with her so she just does whatever she wants. She pretty much just sits around and reads."

"She's one of the Powerpuffs?" I asked, trying my best to sound surprised. "What did, I mean why is she-"

"Nobody knows. Back in Middle School she just…changed. Started wearing weird clothes and stopped talking."

"What uh, what could have done that?"

"Well I never knew her personally. You'll hear plenty of rumors about her, but her sisters are probably the only ones who really know anything. But anyway, are you brothers with Scott? He's in my AP Calculus class and-"

I couldn't hear what this guy was saying anymore. Bubbles had…she had…she had lost it or something.

Was it because of me?

"If she's in one of the public schools you'll transfer over." Brick explained. I wasn't really paying attention. "It won't take me long to check tomorrow. Hey Boomer."

"Huh, what is it?" Shoot I'm zoning out again. Can't even read this magazine.

"What's with you? You've been really out of it today."

"Oh it's…it's just…being back here is kind of weird."

"Yeah I feel ya. In a few days we'll go look around. Check out some of the old areas and see if any of the old rouges gallery is still in town. It'll make us feel better. Now if you transfer, you're going to have to…"

I'm not scared anymore. Now I'm worried. I need to find Bubbles and talk to her. Really talk to her. Find out what's made her this way. And if it's me…then…I'll have to figure out how to fix this. I don't have a ton of time. Him, Mojo, and my brothers are getting ready to kill the girls. I've got to figure out a way to stop them, on top of all of this.

Man, I sure miss when life was simple.