"You see anything yet?" I asked from behind the TV.

"Nope nothin' yet." Butch responded. "Why didn't you set this up yesterday?"

"I didn't have any time yesterday." I said as I switched around a few cords. It's funny, when it comes to more advanced systems I have no problem, but simple stuff like this tends to trip me up.

"Ok it's showing up now." Butch told me.

I crawled out from behind the television and brushed some stray dust off my shirt. It was a pretty good TV, a big one. Mojo and Him had set us up in a fully furnished apartment flat on the richer side of Townsville. Life isn't too bad when you can rob banks with practically no effort. I guess when your basic necessities like food and shelter are taken care of, it gives you more time to think about your other needs. Scary needs, like the need to find purpose in life.

"Alright let me just send out the call." I said as I walked over to my laptop. I saw that Butch was shuffling a deck of cards. "Put those away, this isn't a casino."

"You're not a casino." He said as he dropped them onto the table. I could hear Boomer trying to hold back his laughter.

I sent out the call and we waited for a minute. Mojo and Him soon appeared on the TV screen.

"My babies!" Him said as he put his whole face into the camera. "Are my boys doing ok all by themselves?"

"Stop hogging the camera!" Mojo yelled, pushing Him out of the way. "Boys, have you intersected with the Powerpuff Girls yet?"

"Mojo, the boys just got there and are probably all scared. Try to have a heart." I heard Him complain off camera. I rolled my eyes. Him floated over and we could see both of our parents on the screen.

Mojo glared at Him. "Oh yes, you're one to talk about having a heart! You're an unholy demon from the darkest depths of the netherworld!"

"Well you've got me on that one." Him said with a grin, which only made Mojo angrier. "So tell us boys, how are you settling in?"

"So far everything is in order." I reported. "We're at the apartment and everything is here. We went to the school today and had no problems."

"Good, good." Mojo said with a dark smile. "And what of the Powerpuff Girls? Did you see them?"

"We saw two of em'," Butch chimed in, "no sign of the blue one yet.

"Hmm…that's strange." Mojo said as he stroked his chin. "But you saw the other two?"

"Yes we saw them," I said, "just brief glimpses. We're still sizing up the situation."

Mojo clapped his hands together. "Good! Make sure you retrieve as much information as you can. Information is power, and power is what we will use to crush those Powerpuff Girls. Power gained from observing the girls to find out what they value most, which is a kind of power in its own right. They will expect you to use your superpowers, but this time it shall be your mind power that crushes them by turning their own power against them to-."

"How are you doing Boomer? We haven't heard a peep out of you." Him asked, interrupting Mojo.

"Huh?" Boomer woke up from whatever day dream he was having. "Oh, uh…yeah I'm doing fine. I still have to find Bubbles."

"Well I'm sure it won't take long at all." Him said with a smile. "Now if you'll excuse us, mommy and daddy have lots of work to do on the new weapon."

"Yes, weapons." I thought to myself.

"We will call again next week for an update. Good luck!" And with that, the two disappeared.

"So that is her!" Butch said with excitement. It was the next day and we were in gym class again. I'd asked around and as hard as it was to believe, the blonde, goth-looking girl was in fact Bubbles.

"You really couldn't get a word out of her?" Butch asked.

I lied back on the soft grass. "I couldn't even get her to look at me. I have no idea how Boomer's gonna be able to talk to her."

"Yeah he wasn't exactly trained in the way of the goth."

"He might not even need to do anything, because she doesn't even bother to protect Townsville anymore."

"Oh that's not true at all! She could be the deciding factor once we start our attack."

"What do you mean?"

"See she's a wildcard right now. The thing about wildcards is, you never know which way they'll fall. It's a pretty big gamble, and I know how much you hate that."

He's right, I do hate gambling. Why Butch is so fascinated with it, I'll never know. We can't take any chances like that if we're going to win this war. Butch started walking over towards the Blue Puff.

"What are you doing?" I asked, following him.

"I've got an idea on how to crack her open."

"Butch you-"

"I don't mean literately. I've just got a little experiment I want to try out. See if all my trashy TV shows have taught me anything."

"Fine, as long as you don't tell her exactly why we're here. I guess we don't have a whole lot to lose with her."

"Yeah now you're gettin' it."

We stopped once we got over to the tree. She was lying under it on her back, in the shade, eyes closed. Today she was wearing a black skirt, but her shirt was long sleeved with blue and white stripes. This girl had some strange fashion sense. At least the blue made her look familiar.

Butch walked right up to her and looked down. "Listen up Powerpuff!" He said. "It's us, The Rowdyruff Boys, your sworn enemies, and we're back! We know it's you Bubbles, you can't trick us. You better start runnin' if you know what's good for you, cause me and Brick are bad news, baby. You don't want to know what we're thinking about doing to you right now."

Bubbles didn't move. She hadn't even flinched during Butch's stupid little boast. If I didn't know better I'd say we were trying to threaten a dead body. Butch crossed his arms and started tapping his foot. This girl was more out of it than I thought. So far all she had done in our government class was read books. Boomer told us that during Tech Ed she would come out and sit under this tree, just like she was doing now. I suppose none of these humans would dare tell a mighty Powerpuff Girl what to do. Though I have to wonder, why do her sisters allow this? Have they disowned her or something?

Butch was now floating over Bubbles, no doubt with another brilliant idea. "Ah, but there's something different about us now." He said. "Something you three girls could never have expected! For you see…The Rowdyruff Boys…have become…" Butch snapped his arms out, causing the wind to kick up some stray leaves. "VAMPIRES!"

"Oh god," I said as I face palmed.

"And we didn't come back to kill you, oh no. We came here to turn you three into our eternal love slaves! And there's nothin' you can do to stop us!"

She started laughing.

Now there was something unexpected. It wasn't a big laugh, more like amused giggling. She had a little smile on her face. Now that looked like the Blue Puff I remember. Butch looked rather proud of the display he had created.

She opened her eyes and looked at us. "Then how come you guys were just in the sunlight?"

Butch landed back on his feet. "Oh yes, very observant of you. But you see, we are not the old kind of vampires, we're the new age kind. The sun doesn't hurt us."

She slowly sat up. "Then why aren't you sparkling?"

Butch opened his mouth and held a finger up. No words came out. "Dammit!" He muttered under his breath after a few seconds. "I forgot about that."

"That's ok," she said with another giggle, "I don't like vampires." She slowly began floating off towards the tree line.

"Hey where you goin'?" Butch asked.

"I'm leaving now." She said matter-o-factly as she floated away.

"What's the rush?" Butch asked. "It's been seven years, how bout we catch up a little?"

"Go talk to Blossom if you want to play catch up." She said as she got to the tree line. She stopped and looked back at us. "Oh and…it's good to see you guys again." Then she disappeared into the trees.

"Well that was something." I said, crossing my arms.

"See I totally knew that would work." Butch replied. "These goth girls just want some excitement. All you got to do is rock the boat a little and they'll fall into your arms."

"She wasn't excited, Butch. She was laughing at how stupid you are."

"Well that's just your opinion." Butch said as he sat down. "But did you hear that, she said Blossom would play catch up. You gonna try that out?"

I sat down and looked at the sky. "I already have something planned for Blossom. There's a paper due next week and we have to read it to the class. I'll write something so good it will blow hers out of the water. Hopefully that will get on her nerves."

"Hopefully?"

I let out a sigh. "Things are…not exactly how I expected them to be."

"Oh you're upset? Look at what I've got to deal with. Buttercup doesn't fight or do any sports or anything. She's some kind of freaking egghead scientist. What am I supposed to do now, magically become a rocket scientist and get to the moon before she does?"

"Don't give up yet. You did just make the Blue Puff laugh, after all."

"Yeah I am pretty amazing."

"The Green Puff must have another side we haven't seen yet. Why don't I try talking with her tomorrow?"

"You want us to start switching targets now? That goes against the ever so holy plan. How very unlike you, dear brother."

"I'll do whatever's necessary if it gets the ball rolling."

"That's what she said."

"Shut up."

"That's not going to work." I said from behind Buttercup's back. She turned her head just enough to give me an annoyed look, then went back to her calculations. I never thought I'd be trying to chat up the Green Puff, but it seems life can be filled with such unexpected moments.

"You've got a little problem in step five." I said. "The claw will end up going too far to the left."

"What are you doing over here?" She asked without turning around.

"What are you doing over here?" I repeated back.

"I'm trying to get my work done. I can figure it out myself, so go back to your brother."

"Ok try not to be mean," I thought to myself, "she won't cough up any information if she's pissed off."

I sat down in the empty chair beside her. "I never expected to see you interested in robotics. I was expecting Blossom to be the one in my science class."

"Well people do change. Seven years is a long time you know."

"Your other sister definitely changed."

I heard her give out a sigh. "That's a long story." She said sadly. "And anyway, it's none of your business. Bubbles wants to be left alone…so just leave her alone, ok."

"I wanted to ask because I've been hearing a lot of rumors. This morning someone told me that, a few years ago, she attacked some of the other cities around here. Seems pretty farfetched to me, but I suppose it's possible. For all I know, she could have gone nuts and attacked a bunch of people."

"You're right."

"What?"

"I did mess up step five."

"Hey, don't try changing the subject."

Buttercup put her pen down and looked over at me. "Blossom's been talking about you."

Oh Christ, that was not what I needed to hear. I tensed up. I put my elbows on the table and put my hands near my mouth. It's something I do when I get uncomfortable.

Buttercup turned her chair so that she was facing me. "You must of made some kind of impression, because she's really happy that you're here."

I stared down at my knuckles. This was just great. Buttercup had completely turned the tide. Dozens of questions were bouncing around my head. Why was she happy? What was she saying about me? That smile she gave me the other day, what was that for? Did she feel the same way I did when our eyes met? Was she wondering where I had been for the last seven years? What about all that time we spent as kids trying to kill each other? And the biggest one on my mind, why is she taking so many basic classes?

"She's in my English class." I said, trying to keep my cool. "But I'm curious…how come she isn't in any of my other AP classes? I was expecting her to be taking a lot of them."

Buttercup gave me a coy smile. "I don't know. You'll have to ask her yourself."

I wasn't going to let this get to me. One thing I've learned about life is to never take anything at face value. Who's to say Buttercup was telling me the truth? She could just be trying to mess with me, maybe to judge my reaction to this information. Butch said something yesterday about a card falling different ways, or whatever. I'm can't be sure that the Puffs aren't planning something of their own. They are an astute trio. I should know, it's why they always beat us in fights when we were kids. If this was some kind of ploy to throw me off, it wasn't going to work.

"Well none the less, you're right about it being none of my business." I said, trying to feign my disinterest as I got up. "It's merely unexpected considering she was such a brainiac back in the day, always bragging about her intelligence and she loved to flaunt it whenever we got in any kind of argument, if we managed to get some words in before we had a rumble over some robbery or whatever kind of illegal activity I'd be up to causing her to rush in and…"

I noticed that I'd been talking a bit too fast. Not to mention a bit too much. I inwardly cursed and told myself to get a grip. Buttercup was giving me the same curious look from the first day, only this time she looked like she was about to laugh.

I turned away to avoid further embarrassment. "I'm glad to see you've taken up an interest in science. I wish I could say the same for my brother, but he's still the same muscle headed idiot from before." I said as I started back to the engine area.

"Speaking of your brother," Buttercup called after me, "could you ask him to come over here for just a second?"

I walked over to Butch who was tinkering around with some kind of an engine. "Just got done talking with her." I reported.

"Yeah, so what did the midget have to say?" He asked.

"Well she did mention that she wanted to speak with you, if you would go over to her station."

Butch lifted his head up. "YOU CAN TELL BUTTERCUP," he said in an unnecessarily loud voice, "THAT I DON'T TALK…TO LITTLE…PUSSIES." He put a good amount of emphasis on that last word.

I glanced over at Buttercup. She had that angry face of hers on, where half her teeth are showing. Now that looked like the Green Puff I remember.

"Boomer. Hey Boomer, you don't mix those two chemicals, you mix these two." I said to my dazed brother.

"Oh uh…right." He said.

We were in our photography class. I like having this and gym as my last classes for the day. I feel at home in the dark room. Must be all the red. It's a great way to unwind after all the days stress. At least it would be if Boomer would pay attention to what he's doing for more than three seconds.

"You ok?" I asked. "You've been out of it since we got here."

"I've just been thinking about Bubbles." He said quietly.

"Sure is weird, isn't it? To think that she, of all people, would become so isolated. You gonna be able to find out what made her that way."

"I will find out." Boomer said with a healthy amount of determination in his voice.

"Excellent, that's what I like to hear. I'm thinking about changing the plan up a bit."

"You want to mess with the plan?"

"It's a good change, trust me. Since the Puffs…aren't exactly what we expected them to be, I'm thinking we may need to share targets."

Boomer let out a little laugh. "Oh really! You…you want to do that?"

"Yes, and you've got both Blossom and Buttercup in one of your classes. So feel free to try and strike up some conversations with them. We need to get more information on what they're doing and what they're into. No doubt they'll be more comfortable around you than me or Butch."

Boomer let out another little laugh. "Yeah, they uh…might be."

AN: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed. Here's hoping I can keep messing with your expectations.

I was just thinking about how lots of writers like to have imaginary conversations with the characters down here. I find that so annoying.