Butch was flying along, trying to hurry home. He wanted to go hunt down that robot as soon as he could, but he was mentally pondering how he could get his siblings to come meet up with the powerpuff girls. He was worried he would be insulted a lot and then ignored. He could see an image in his head of Brick calling him a sissy for even talking to the girls without hitting them. He got an idea, however, that put a devious grin to his face. He headed straight for the volcano in Townsville that had a small base built on it. It was the rowdyruffs' home, which their father had built a long time ago with the help of the powerpuffs after he had tricked them. It was a mess in and of itself that had to be handled, just one of many tales that mojo had told his sons, as if they did not have enough reasons to hate the girls.
"Hey! I'm back!" Butch called out as he entered into the evil home base. The entrance seemed as normal as any other. He had flown in through a window like they were ordered to do. Though they did love breaking through roofs a lot, it angered their father. Their living room didn't look like anything special. There was no television but a mess of junk lying around on the few chairs in the room and the side tables being covered in trash. They recalled not getting the chance to clean up before they got bored and went off to fight. The green rowdyruff went to another room of the evil base. He entered in through the door, finding just who he was looking for.
"Butch! There you are," Boomer exclaimed in relief, glad to see his brother, having been worried after they couldn't find him when they all got separated in the fight. Boomer had his nose stuffed with tissue paper and his hands were all wrapped in bandages like he had been partially burnt.
"We wasted an hour looking for you," Brick added, his face being a bit bruised. He didn't look all that happy, either, not hesitating to remind their brother about the time they spent searching for him. He didn't show it, but he had been concerned, and he hated having a worrying feeling.
"Sorry. How did your fights go?" Butch replied, wondering how they fared against Buttercup and Bubbles, though he was already aware of the outcome. He wanted to put on an act to help his idea into motion so the super-powered kids could all meet up together. He was desperate to get revenge on that robot more than anything else. Boomer showed his bandaged hands.
"Buttercup's heat vision is strong! She passed out from using too much energy before I blacked out from pain," Boomer exclaimed. Recalling it alone hurt, but another stalemate was another stalemate. It was better than losing.
"Bubbles screamed so loud my ears started bleeding, but I buried her in rubble before I blacked out," Brick explained. He only had recently regained his hearing. He had spent the last span of time with damaged eardrums. Everything he heard had a bad ringing behind it that just gave him a headache. He was thankful to be over it already. Butch thought it was time to put his plan into motion.
"So our fight pretty much went just the same," Butch said before going onto his idea. Their room didn't have much in it. They had a few bean bag chairs, a small television that had a game console on top of it, and three beds put together. It was always an awkward wake up in the morning whenever one of the brothers woke up in another part of the bed like they had a sleepwalking issue.
"I found a great place we can hang out if you guys want," Butch claimed that he had found area for them to spend time at whenever they wanted to. The rowdyruff boys had certain locations in Townsville where they loved to relax at. If they ever needed to get away from their father or just away in general, they would go to one of these secret locations. They had quite the list of hideaways, at least twenty available in Townsville. They had a few emergency ones in the neighboring town Citiesville in case they ever needed to flee town at any time.
"Butch, I'm tired, I'm hungry and I'm too lazy to go anywhere right now," Brick responded. They hadn't received the same quality care that their green brother had secretly gotten. He rolled his eyes, having already thought of something to help get them to this new meeting spot.
"Would you guys come check it out if we steal some pizza along the way?" Butch offered, not minding the idea of thieving some pizza from a delivery vehicle. They were easy to take from. Just one phone call to any location from a payphone, and a flip of the delivery vehicle, and voila. Free pizzas. They did it more frequently than they realized. This offer made Boomer happy.
"Oh yeah! I want anchovies!" Boomer excitedly jumped. His brothers never understood what was with his odd taste buds. Their leader had his arms behind his head.
"Fine. Let's go," Brick got up from his comfortable spot, willing to go check out this supposed hang out since they could enjoy some pizza. The red ruff just hoped this wasn't another water damaged abandoned apartment. He hated those the most as they tended to just horribly fall apart after they tried to spend anytime inside of them. The three rowdyruffs flew off through the window, leaving dark green, blue and red streaks of light behind them. Butch had a grin on him, glad that his plan was working so far. From there he wished to just get them to agree to work with the powerpuffs, but he doubted this would go well. He felt scared, imagining another fight to break out when they were all injured to begin with. Either way, he had to help get some pizza before they went anywhere.
Blossom was in the lab with the professor, helping him out with building one of his many inventions. She always wondered how he tolerated what he did since most of his inventions were failures, but the successful ones were so few and far between. She was amazed he had the patience for it, but she assumed that was the life of being an inventor, working hard until it pays off in the end.
"Blossom! They're almost here!" Bubbles's voice rung out from upstairs. She had seen the rowdyruffs' streaks of light in the distant sky, far from the living room window. Blossom looked up to the professor.
"Do you want to come too?" Blossom offered her father the chance to chat with the rowdyruffs together. He lightly chuckled, rubbing her head.
"No, honey. I'm going to stay down here… and hide in the panic room until you have this sorted out," the professor stated, though he still gave her his utmost confidence that things would work out, even if he didn't believe this would go smoothly. In fact he was already pondering what to tell the insurance company this time if his home got damaged.
"Alright, professor," Blossom giggled before floating up the stairs to let her father go hide away until this was dealt with. Either it resulted in some big fight or just some very annoyed boys leaving with nothing done but time wasted. She noticed Bubbles doing her best to remain calm on the couch. She was hugging a small octopus doll with a tiny top hat on its head. It was named Octi, a toy that she cherished so much since she was born. Blossom approached the door and looked through the eyehole. She saw Butch with his back turned and a bag slung over his shoulder dangling off his side. His brothers were in front of him, looking unamused.
"What in the world, Butch? Why are we here?! I thought you said you were taking us to a new hideout…!" Brick spoke up. It was a little aggravating.
"I said I found us a great place to hang out," Butch reminded them with his exact words. Boomer was looking at the house, aware of the owners of this household.
"This is the puffs' home," the blonde boy pointed out. Before anything more could be said or asked, Blossom opened the door, doing her best to fake a forced smile that already gained a few raised eyebrows.
"H-hi guys, welcome!" Blossom greeted the rowdyruffs. Brick looked bored, Boomer seemed confused, but Butch looked happy. He got them over like he said he would, though she realized the bag over his shoulder was the type of bag a pizza delivery person would carry. She had a good idea where they got that. She could only hope they didn't injure the poor delivery boy too badly.
"Hey, Blossom! I brought my bros. And pizza," Butch happily said as the three entered inside. Brick hated being dragged here. The only reason he followed the green ruff at all was because he withheld the pizza from them. That much was clear when Boomer's stomach rumbled.
"Alright, what's going on? You brainwash Butch or something?" the ruff leader cut to the chase. He wanted an explanation for this right now or else he was going back out that door. The puff leader was taken aback by the sudden wild accusation. Butch didn't seem phased.
"C-calm down, Brick! We needed to talk to you all…" Blossom stated. Bubbles was staying out of this. She vowed to help if a fight broke out, but she hated verbal arguments. They did nothing but depress her.
"And give us one good reason why we should listen," the orange haired boy demanded. Clearly he was in a bad mood between the hunger and the stalemate of a fight both families had today. The raven haired boy spoke up.
"She saved my life. I'm doing her a favor because of that, and our fight got ruined," Butch explained. Brick and Boomer looked to each other, Brick processing the announcement. He groaned going over and sitting in a chair.
"Fine. We'll talk," he agreed. Bubbles and Blossom were relieved with the agreement to talk now. Butch opened up the bag and rested the three boxes of pizza on the table. The blonde girl rested her toy aside, opening one of the boxes, smiling upon seeing the mushroom slices on top of it. She happily took a slice, beginning to eat.
"Right… where do I begin," Blossom muttered, thinking it was best to start out by telling them about the robot and describe every detail she could recall, the key point being the robot's immunity to their attacks, though over the course of her explanation, everyone else in the room was more enjoying their pizza.
"So… a robot beat you both?" Boomer repeated what he heard. It sounded impossible but their injuries seemed to suggest otherwise.
"It ruined our fight! And we need everyone to hunt the piece of junk down," Butch exclaimed. Blossom was glad that everyone was talking without squabbling, it was a good sign that they were all on the right topic for the problem at hand, and Butch was clearly doing his best to make sure the point was made clear.
"Bloss, look, I'm glad you saved my brother's life, but are you sure it's that bad?" Brick wondered if this robot just fluked its way to winning, Butch and the blue children letting the leaders discuss negotiations from here on.
"Yes, it's really bad. We need you boys to help us," she assured that this was a problem too big for the powerpuffs to handle alone.
"Why should we help? You haven't told us that yet," Brick requested a good reason why the ruffs should help. It didn't show, but he was very grateful to Blossom for saving his brother's life. He was happy to know she could put violence aside if one of them was going to die, but no matter what, it didn't matter to his opinion if they wasted their time fighting a pathetic robot. The pink puff slammed her hand on the table.
"Because it's a robot! That's the problem, Brick! That means someone made it and can make more... maybe thousands of them! If we die, you'll never get the chance to win a fight against us," Blossom was glaring at her counterpart, her pink eyes affixed on his blazing red eyes. Brick leaned back, looking to his brothers.
"Alright… we'll help," Brick nodded. He had agreed to extend his help to hunting the mechanical menace. Boomer had a deep smile over this. Butch grinned, the tension in the room immediately fading with the agreed cooperation between the two families, even if the situation seemed to cause forced teamwork.
"So what do you need us to do?" Boomer quirked. He was more curious where Buttercup was, assuming she was upstairs. That or she didn't want any hand in this.
"We need a piece of it so the professor can find out why we can't hurt it," Bubbles exclaimed what Butch and Blossom had already heard before, though one look out the window showed that the sun was beginning to set. Brick got up, stretching.
"Fine. Come on, Bloss, let's get to hunting," Brick was ready to go out now that his stomach was full. The sooner this was over with, the better.
"So who's going where, then?" Boomer wanted to know who he was going to be partnered up with, thinking if they split up to search it'd be easier to find the robot that way. Though if he wasn't going to be with his blue counterpart, he would be saddened to know this, since they were the most passive of both families.
"Butch and Bubbles can go search the east end of town. Brick and I will go to the north part, and Boomer… I guess since Buttercup's not awake, you can go check out the storage facility and see if you can find any clues. When she's ready to go, we'll get everyone partnered up with their counterparts. Just remember, everyone, we're only after any piece we can get off the robot. Nothing more," Blossom described her plan out. Butch and Brick didn't like being ordered around by her, but she was being logical. The blonde ruff didn't feel comfortable being alone. He felt bubbles pat his back.
"Don't worry, it'll be fine," Bubbles assured. He smiled back at her. Now that everything was set, the five super powered children flew off, leaving various streaks of light behind them. Blossom knew the professor had plans to talk with Buttercup later and catching her up to speed on the matters. Boomer had to be sent off alone, due to how injured his hands were they thought it'd be best for him to do the investigating.
"Well, at least it all worked out," Butch laughed while casually flying. He seemed a lot better than earlier. His depression had worn off, somewhat, but he still hungered for revenge against the machine, even if the plan was only to steal one part of it. If the chance arose to smash it into shrapnel, the ruffs were most likely to take it.
"Yeah… we'll probably need your special ability to help break a piece off," Bubbles said. Butch quirked an eyebrow, looking at her confusedly.
"Special ability? What like Blossom's ice lungs?" he questioned. She looked annoyed at how wrong he was on the name of her sister's ability.
"It's ice breath. Oh, please don't tell me…" she got cut off mid-sentence just after correcting him.
"Yeah. Me and my brothers don't have any special tricks like that," Butch proudly declared. Bubbles wondered how the powerpuffs had stalemates with the rowdyruffs so often then if all they had were their normal attacks and powers. It went to show how strong the guys could be.
"Well… maybe we could do some training sometime and try to find out everyone's abilities. But for now, we should focus on the mission," the blue puff groaned, imagining this. Training any of the rowdyruffs sounded horrible and agonizing in itself. She was pondering on how to break a piece of the robot off.
Blossom was more nervous and uncomfortable to be flying alone with the rowdyruff leader. She was terrified to encounter the robot again. She looked to the boy beside her, thinking maybe they should talk to try and get their minds off it.
"Did you really decide to help us because of what I said?" the orange haired girl had to ask, if beating the powerpuff girls was really a strong motivation to them, and if so, then this partnership was built on nothing but reluctant teamwork.
"No. Not just because of that," Brick responded, not bothering to look back at her as they were heading to another part of Townsville. Blossom could never get him to answer as to why else he agreed, which worried her. All she could do was put her faith in him and hope that they can take a part of the robot. If they find it, they just had to work together and they will be fine. She wanted to believe this, but she knew she couldn't drop her guard, in case the rowdyruffs were setting up some very elaborate trap.