One place that hadn't changed much in Townsville was the junkyard. I kicked a stray can, watching it soar into the air. I heard the clang as it landed far on the other side of the complex. Yup, the junkyard was still full of garbage.

I'd spent about an hour floating around the place. Butch had already told us that the Gang Green Gang was long gone, and yet part of me was hoping they'd be here. Or some kind of sign, like the remains of an old hideout. But no, any hideout they had set up here was long gone. Crushed by some machine or bulldozed away years ago.

I'd spent the day looking around old hangouts like this one. The volcano base was still there. What was left of it anyway. We hadn't left much behind. The giant telescope was broken, of course, and the walls were rusted and falling over. Why was there a volcano in Townsville anyway? I'd never really stopped to consider how strange that is. Then again, there's a lot of strange things in Townsville, so maybe a volcano isn't all that out of place.

Princess' mansion is different. Her dad must have torn down the old one and built a whole new one, because it doesn't look anything like it used to. Not as many security cameras as the old mansion. It was something me and my brothers used to do all the time when we were kids. We would storm in in the middle of the night and start trashing the place. Princess would freak out and try to chase us off while we laughed at her. Mojo always got so pissed off when we did that, because Princess would send him the bill.

I'm not really sure why I was looking around all the old places. I guess this is what people do when they feel like…like they're going to…die soon. I decided that tonight I was going to tell Brick about what had happened last week. I hadn't done much of anything since then. Guess I've just been too afraid. Him could be watching my every move. He's probably been watching me this entire time. Every time I see the color red my blood freezes over. But I can't just keep living in fear like this. I decided I had wasted enough time for one night and flew home.

Right after I let the door slam shut I realized I had made a mistake. Brick was on the satellite phone with Mojo. Great, now I was going to have to go over and talk with them. Brick smiled a little when he saw me and nodded his head. I came over and saw Mojo on the large screen.

"Ah Boomer, you are just in time! Brick was telling me about the vast pool of Chemical X that is located deep underground in Townsville."

I momentarily forgot about my nervousness and widened my eyes. "Really? There's a big pool of it under the city?" I asked.

"That's right," Brick said, "and we finally have access to it now."

Mojo let out an evil laugh. "I have been waiting so long to use that immense source of power for my experiments! Think of all the amazing weapons we can power with it! It only took a small amount to give you and the Puffs your amazing powers, just think of what would happen if we created a being with triple that amount! Or quadruple even!"

"Slow down there monkey brain, we've got to figure out how to stabilize it before we can start using that much at once." Brick replied.

"Yes, yes, but just think of the possibilities. It's not only Earth that will be under our control, but we can take over the entire universe! We can explore the cosmos to find new amazing worlds like nothing we could have ever imagined…and then enslave all of them!" Mojo yelled as he threw his fists into the air.

"Where's uh…where's dad?" I asked as Mojo laughed like a hyena.

"I don't know. That weirdo is always disappearing. But Boomer, you must be very careful. If you get too much Chemical X in your system, it will cause your body to become unstable and you will die, cease to exist, melt into an inanimate puddle, cross over to the other side, purchase a farm, kick a bucket…"

"He gets it Mojo." Brick said while rolling his eyes.

Mojo started happily jumping up and down. I have to admit it was kind of funny to see him so excited like this. He stopped and cleared his throat. "But first thing is first, we must get those Powerpuff Girls out of our way. If they discover the whereabouts of the Chemical X, they could use it against the three of you. And even worse, they could use it against me! Do not reveal its existence unless you absolutely must."

"Not a problem." Brick said with a smile.

"Excellent. I've still got lots of work to do on my machine. Keep up the good work you two. Mojo, signing out." And with that, he was gone.

"Wow, a whole giant pool of it." I said absentmindedly.

"Amazing, huh? There're endless possibilities to that stuff. Once we learn how to stabilize it, that is." Brick said, walking to his room.

"Hey Brick wait, there's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" He said, stopping at his door but not turning around.

"Last week I uh…I…I had a run in with Dad."

Brick turned around. "Oh, he was here?"

"Yes and he told me some things."

Brick crossed his arms and looked at me with his sharp, red eyes. "What did he say?"

I swallowed hard. "He was upset with me for not working hard enough so he…he did something to me. It really hurt. And then he said…and said that…well he implied that if we don't do our job this time…he's going to kill us."

"Is that right." Brick said without flinching.

"And listen. He also said that if something happens to him, like if he dies, then that means we'll die too."

"I know about that." He said quickly.

"You knew about that?" I said disbelief.

Brick turned around for a moment. He began tapping his foot. "Well I didn't know for sure, but I had my suspicions." He turned back around and looked at me. "I mean it makes sense, right. Him is weird but he's not stupid. He wouldn't create something more powerful than he is unless he could control it to some degree."

I let out a sigh. "Yeah, that makes sense."

"Look Boomer, I know what was going on back when we were kids."

I felt my body tense up. "Butch told you, didn't he?" I said quietly.

"Yes he told me about your former rendezvous with Bubbles. I can understand why you've got some reservations on what we're going to do to the three of them. But listen…it's either them, or us."

I couldn't come up with a response, so Brick went into his room and shut the door.

The stars are nice and bright tonight. The moon looks great too, nice and full. Bubbles told me once that she and her sisters ran away to the moon. I wonder what would happen if I just flew up there and sat on the moon. Would Him be able to sense I was up there? Would he look for me? Would he just let me be if I stayed up there forever?

I frowned. What am I doing, thinkin' about running away? Isn't that what I did when I was a kid? I could have stayed with Bubbles. But instead I ran away from her because I was scared. It's been seven years, and have I changed at all?

What have I even accomplished since I got here? I wanted to stop this whole thing from happening. Every time I tried to talk to Blossom or Buttercup, I'd either get nervous or scared. And when I tried to talk to Bubbles, I couldn't get anything done.

I stand up. I've been sitting on the roof of our house for a while now. Brick left about an hour ago, saying he had to go do something in the Chemical X pit. Butch is out doing who knows what, and me…I'm just sitting here. Doing nothing.

I take to the sky and fly out into the suburbs. I've had enough of this. I came here to stop my family from killing the girls, and I'm going to do it! And it's not just them, now the whole universe is going to be at risk. I remember hearing a quote once. It said that the only way for evil to be victorious is if good men do nothing to stop it. Well I'm not going to sit by and let everyone get killed, or enslaved or whatever by my parents. I land at the girl's house and knock on the door.

I wait a little bit and the door opens. It's the professor guy again. "Hello there Boomer. Come to visit at an unreasonable hour again, have you?" He says without any hint of anger or irritation. How does this guy stay so upbeat all the time?

"Are any of the girls home?" I ask. "I need to speak with them about something really important."

"I'm sorry Boomer, but none of my girls are home right now. I'm not really sure where Bubbles or Blossom are. Those two have such hectic lives an old man like me can't even begin to keep up with them, ha-ha." He says with a smile. "But if you want to talk to Buttercup, she left a little while ago to meet with one of your brothers actually."

My eyes widen. No doubt it was Butch she went to meet. He'd been bragging to me yesterday that he finally found a way to get her to fall into his hands. Dammit, I'd been so depressed lately that I'd barely been paying attention to anything he said. "Where did she go? Where are they meeting?" I ask as quickly as I can.

"At the junkyard. Apparently-"

I fly off before he can finish. It doesn't take me long to get there. Funny that I was there not long ago. If I had stuck around longer I would have bumped into them. Of course if I hadn't gone home I probably wouldn't have found my resolve.

I slow down as I approach. The stench of rotting food surrounds me as I silently hover over the fence. I can hear the two of them arguing. I make my way over to where they are standing. There isn't a lot of cover, but they seem too absorbed in each other to notice me, I hope. I don't want to pop out until I know what's going on.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that stuff is?!" I hear Buttercup yell.

I look over at them. Butch is throwing something up and down in the air. "I think someone might have mentioned it being kind of dangerous." I hear him say.

"If even a drop of that spills on something there's no telling what could happen!"

"Think that got mentioned too. Imagine how exciting this is going to be. I can pour it on anything and it will probably turn into something from a Godzilla movie. And when I run out…well…there's plenty more where this came from."

I can see the anger on Buttercup's face. It's nostalgic watching these two like this. I remember how Butch used to go out of his way to upset her. It was always some small, childish thing. He would steal her basketball, or throw mud at her, or chuck rocks through her window in the middle of the night. "It's so funny when she's angry." Butch would tell us when we were hanging out at Mojo's place. "And it's so easy too."

Brick would usually come up with some mean remark like "Of course it's easy, I'd be angry too if I had to see your ugly face that much," or "Of course she gets really angry, kicking your ass is so easy she's sick of having to do it all the time." Then they'd get in a fight and Mojo would yell at them for trashing the place.

I stop daydreaming and pay attention. She's getting into her old fighting stance I haven't seen in years. "I've been trying very hard to contain that chemical for the last year Butch, and I am not letting you ruin this city and my efforts to keep it safe."

Butch has an evil grin on his face. He holds the thing they've been talking about in front of him. It looks like some kind of tube. "If you want it so bad, then let's see you take it."

Taking his advice, I zip between them and grab the small tube. They both look at me with shocked faces. Butch's expression quickly turns to an angry one. "And just what the Hell do you think you're doin'?" He demands.

"I'm taking a stand." I say to him.

"Why do you have to do this now!" He yells as he flies right at me. He's completely lost his cool and collected composure, which is good, because now he can't focus. On the other hand, if he catches me he'll beat the stuffing out of me. I zigzag away as he chases after me. The nice thing about this junkyard is all the large piles of garbage. They give me some form of cover to work with. As we rush around I eventually manage to lose him. Butch keeps flying around at high speeds, looking everywhere he can. He stops for a second to survey the area. I take this chance and push him as hard as I can into one of the huge piles. I immediately speed off to the other end of the junkyard.

I land next to a pile as far away as I can. I start digging around, looking for another small tube. I can hear Butch yelling as he flies around the junkyard. "Dammit Boomer, as usual you've picked the worst possible time to start pulling some stupid shit! I finally got her right where I want her!"

I keeping looking but I can't find any kind of tube. Just my freaking luck. After another minute I find one of those dog toys that looks like a bone. It will have to do. I take the tube Butch was holding earlier and put it in my pants pocket. After it's secured away I wait for Butch to fly closer. Once he's close enough, I jump up on top of the garbage pile and throw the dog toy as hard as I can.

Butch stops and watches as the dog toy I threw disappear over the horizon. He looks over at me with lowered eyes. I just stand there and wait for him to make a move. If I'm lucky I might be able to outrun him. Otherwise there isn't much of anything I can do. There's no way I can take him in a one on one fight. He'll just pound me to a pulp like he used to do when we were kids. There's a nostalgic trip I was really hoping I wouldn't have to take.

Butch doesn't attack me. Instead he just crosses his arms. "So that's it then." He says while he looks off into the distance where I threw the bone. "You've chosen them over us."

Buttercup suddenly appears near us. She's about to say something but Butch starts talking first. "It's gone. He threw it all the way to Russia, probably." Buttercup spares me glance, then redirects her attention back to my brother, who's smiling at her. "Guess I'll just have to go get some more." Butch says shrewdly.

Dammit, no wonder he isn't beating the crap out of me. He still has her hooked.

"That was Chemical X, wasn't it?" I ask. "Brick just told me about the huge pool he found."

Buttercup's eyes widen. "A huge pool? Where? How much is there?" She demands.

"More then I'd ever know what to do with." Butch says smugly. He looks over at me. "Look Boomer, I know you're havin' a hard time with all this. If you would just leave I can pretend this little setback you've made never happened."

I glare at him. "What would it matter, you already told Brick about me and Bubbles." I say.

"No I didn't." Butch says as he raises an eyebrow.

"I was just talking to him before I came here, and he said that you told him."

"But I didn't tell him anything. I've barely seen the guy all week."

"That doesn't make any sense! Why would Brick…"

I stop talking. I just had a thought. I really, really bad thought. I look over at Buttercup. "Has Brick been in any of the classes you two had this week?" I ask.

Buttercup shakes her head. "No he hasn't. Blossom hasn't seen him either, and she's been wondering."

"He told me he was going to his other classes." I say. I remember how Brick hadn't been coming to our photography class. I asked him a few days ago and he said he'd been skipping the small stuff because he had too much work to do.

"He told me that too." Butch says. "Why would he tell us that he-"

I fly up and grab Butch by his jacket. "Where's the Chemical X pit!" I yell.

Butch quickly pushes me off. "Hey watch it there, traitor. I'm not about to take you over to-"

"Butch, I think something bad is happening. Brick might be in a lot of trouble right now. He told me he was going to the pit." I say. Butch tries to say something but I keep going. "You're the only other person who knows where the pit is. I'm serious, he could be in really big trouble! And if he is, that means we're in a lot of trouble too! Something weird is going on with Brick, and I think I know what it is! Please, show me where the pit is!"

Butch grits his teeth and looks at me. He looks over at Buttercup for a moment, then up at the starry sky. "You know, Bubbles was lookin' for him the other day, which is weird enough. And she said something strange is goin' on…"

Butch sighs and looks at me. "Every bone in my body is telling me this is a mistake, but-"

"Oh thank you!" I say happily.

Butch starts flying towards the forest while Buttercup and I follow him. After a couple of minutes we follow him down into the trees. "If he's not in trouble, I want you to know that you sure as Hell will be." He says as we land next to a large rock.