A/N: Whew! This was a longer chapter than the others! The scene switches between the greens and the blues and further storyline develops, which I hope isn't too confusing. Enjoy!
P.S.: Referring to Episode Bubble Boy and Beat Your Greens would be helpful!
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It certainly was a turbulent day back at the main streets of Townsville, as thick concentrated dark-green bolts of energy thrashed onto the asphalt of a road. A green Rowdyruff was zigzagging above the avenues with both hands harnessing balls of energy, aimed tenaciously at his prey. With no doubt, facing the barrage was a light green heroine, who swiftly dodged the attacks of her assailant, causing the energy bolts to damage streets and blow up fire hydrants instead. Before long, jets of water spewed forth from underground pipelines and broken hydrants, cloaking the road entirely with sprays of artificial geysers.
Butch, while becoming drenched by the shower of water, narrowed his eyes from the impaired vision and took random shots below him. But in the midst of his attack, a giant moving truck was tossed from behind the fogs of water and slammed into him dead on, credits to his counterpart. Butch was consequently hurled along the back of the truck and crashed into the windows of a glass building.
The green boy, in the end, landed fully inside the floor of an office while the moving truck only half-entered through the window. And as if the first impact wasn't enough, the back openings of the truck released, sending boxes of packed materials toppling down on him. The employees in the office gazed at the happening for a while, but scurried away in a frenzy as the green ruff rose viciously from the packages. At the same time, the moving truck that had lost its balance from the unleashed boxes plummeted to the ground and revealed his enemy floating outside the shattered window. Butch at last, didn't miss his chance to finally hit his target successfully with his energy ray, and thus the electrified girl feebly plunged to the ground on top of the fore fallen truck. The dazed Powerpuff shook her dizzy head and looked up to find her counterpart.
"Had enough girly?!" Butch sneered, cracking his knuckles.
"Far from it, dirt-face!" Buttercup countered, and used the crushed truck as a jump pad to skyrocket after him.
Her spike-haired opponent generated a force field just in time, yet was knocked back from the clash. Nonetheless, using the remaining momentum, he safely docked on a nearby rooftop of one of the low buildings. The fortunate boy was about to project a haughty grin towards his foe, but it waned when his eyes came in contact with hers filled with abnormal malice and contempt. He rapidly darted out of the way as Buttercup zapped lasers with her eyes massive enough to obliterate the whole of the roof.
Butch dropped his jaw. "Whoa, what's got into you? A little touchy today, aren't we?"
"You got a problem with that?!" Buttercup barked, lessening the gap between them again.
Butch avoided to the side, got a hold of her arm, and wrung it behind her back. The green puff winced in pain.
"Nope, glad to see you're finally putting up a fight." He smirked cunningly.
Seeing her vulnerable in his hold, the Rowdyruff forcefully spun her around by the gripped arm and sent her sailing into a billboard. Buttercup ended up penetrating it and landed on the other side.
"But seriously," he shrugged his shoulders casually, "what's the deal? Ants in your pants?"
While Butch celebrated on his ingenious remark, Buttercup sprung up from her fall and blasted the billboard in her way. With her visual obstacle gone, she aggressively dusted herself and revealed her true purpose of battling him.
"You hurt my people and friends, so I POUND you! It's as simple as that!"
She crouched down and took off to promptly carry out her goal. Her antagonist was ready for her as they squared off into a full-scale brawl.
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Strangely, it seemed to be quite a wet day for everybody. For on the other side of the streets where the blues battled, Boomer stepped out of a water tank completely soaked from a leakage, thanks to the blow from his opponent.
"How's the shower?" Bubbles giggled teasingly. "Has it got you to your senses?"
"No!" Boomer retorted, then scratched his head from uncertainty. "I mean… yes! But not in the way you want me!"
Looking for his next move, the blue boy suddenly got an idea and detached the rest of the giant water vessel over his head. He held it high above the sky and hurled it towards the pig-tailed girl. Bubbles, in panic, attempted to catch it in her arms but was flung back with it. She and the water tank crashed into a nearby masonry, and gradually, the enormous tank slipped from her loose hands and tumbled down to the streets. People below screamed and sought safety as they fled desperately from the rolling vessel and the gushes of water that flooded the roads. Heeding their cries, the blond girl gasped and dived down to rescue distressed civilians and the cute talking dog that was casually strolling by. She gently let them down onto high land and glared back at her enemy.
"Hah! You can't even catch!" Boomer made fun of her ineptness from afar. "That's what you get for messing with my food, you wimp!"
Bubbles straightened herself up and threw him a ferocious scowl from where she was standing. "I'm not a wimp! You're just a mean bully!"
Boomer's expression instantly stiffened into a frown as Bubbles' recrimination left her tongue. Somehow the word 'bully' didn't really please him.
"I'm the bully?! You're the one who took away my burgers!" He yelled, directing a blaming hand at his counterpart. "Thanks to you, now I have to steal them all over again!"
The blond accuser threw his hands up violently in the air, all tensed up thinking of the rampage he'll receive from Butch.
Bubbles was watching his stressed behavior closely, ingesting his words, when she cocked one of her eyebrows higher than the other, realizing something that she had completely dismissed before. Could it be...? She agilely evaded an incoming frontal attack from Boomer, and wheeled around, letting her eyes chase up Boomer who zoomed past his intended striking zone.
"Wait a minute," she gathered, "I knew there was something going on! Why were you getting the burgers alone?" She eyed her counterpart with strong suspicion, drifting closer to him steadily.
"Huh..?" Boomer, who was just about to initiate another attack, was a bit freaked out, and backed away from her incomprehensible interrogation.
Though her approach had little speed, the Rowdyruff could sense her drawing closer by the second, her dogged heavy-weighted gaze fixed on him the whole time. Whatever she was up to, he didn't have a good feeling about it. It was as if she knew something. As if she could see through him!
"Duh! Because I was hungry! What's wrong with getting a burger for myself?" Standing up to her forwardness, the ruff blurted the first most obvious excuse that came to mind, circumventing away from the real reason.
Because no way was he going to tell her the truth! He wasn't stupid! He could fully imagine the backlash when she catches on that his bossy brother ordered him to do so. If that were to happen, even this lame Powerpuff would think he was a total loser! And that's the last thing he wanted to hear when it was already enough with Brick and Butch dumping on him for that.
In the middle of his anxiety, said 'lame Powerpuff' stopped a short distance away from him, eventually ceasing the ruff from his retraction. Now the two super-beings faced each other crossly at the same level aloft ground, locking eye-to-eye without straying. With neither side yielding to the other, Bubbles narrowed her eyes and knowingly disrupted the tension.
"Your brothers bullied you into it, didn't they?" She asserted flatly.
Her blunt tongue struck a chord inside the boy as it caused a nervous panick attack in his stomach.
"N-no they didn't!" The startled ruff stammered at the exposed truth, but of course, Bubbles instantly caught his fluster and wasn't about to let it slide.
"Yes they did!" She persisted, "It's just like what happened with the candy last time!"
"What candy?!"
"The candy last time that your brothers made you steal!" (A/N: Episode Bubble Boy.)
Boomer searched his memory. "Oh that candy. The candy that I stole for myself?" He lied.
"As if! Admit it Boomer, I dressed up like you once. I know exactly how they treat you!"
"Peh! That's how they treated you! I'm no pushover!"
"No. They treated me like that because they thought I was you! You're just too afraid to say it!"
"Nuh-uh! I'm not afraid to say that I'm…! ?!...No I mean, I...!"
Bubbles' last counterargument finally clogged Boomer up of his objections. The blue ruff, dumbstruck and offended, hung his mouth agape as he realized there was no way out of this. He had been told off yet again in his life—but this time, not by his brothers, but a dumb puff! He snarled and put his teeth together. Why was she so darn insistent in hearing the truth? What on earth did she want?!
While the boy constricted in anger, his mirroring counterpart rested in the air with a bitter frown on her face. But in time, she softened a bit with a hint of sympathy, remembering why she was badgering him like this in the first place.
Why she kept mentioning a specific past event was simple. Through her disguise as Boomer that time, the Powerpuff was able to put herself in his shoes for once. And secretly, all through the mission she couldn't help but feel bad for her male counterpart. The way his brothers knocked him back and forth, and how they would pester him to do errands for them—but most of all, how little they cared about him to even notice that it was her in disguise! In her case, she sucked it up and stood up to them, but she could never imagine her sisters treating her like that. Poor Boomer on the other hand, was putting up with the ordeal all the time...
"SO WHAT IF I'M BEING PUSHED AROUND?!"
It was then when Boomer's abrupt rage-filled spasm harshly derailed her from her thoughts. The feverish blond boy balled up his fists and glared straight at her with resentment, prepared to charge at her any second.
But contrary to the demeanor he just displayed, he soon loosened his posture and lowered his head down defeatedly in shame.
"Go ahead! Call me a loser and laugh at me if that's what you want!" He pointed to his chest and then turned his back on the puff resignedly. "It's not like that's anything new to me anyway…!"
"...!"
His light blue counterpart, greatly surprised by his unexpected morose behavior, stared at his defenseless back but posed no verbal attack. Rather, she felt a pang of regret.
All she was trying to do was pressure him just enough to admit how his brothers treated him, so that she could… though it was a crazy thought, maybe give him some advice on how she handled the two tykes.
She knew of course that he was her enemy. As a matter of fact, she had actually decided on ignoring his discontent the few times she noticed it before. But seeing it happen again, despite her effort to hold back, it had compelled her to take action. She had experienced his place for a while, and she knew how unfair it felt.
Now in actuality however, she realized the error in her coarse approach that concerned a sensitive topic for him. Surely he would be afraid that others would make fun of him; that's what he always received from his brothers. His discouraged back gave her more the reason to make this right…
"No Boomer," she began as to redeem herself. "I'm not going to make fun of you. You're not a loser at all." The Powerpuff assured softly.
Boomer, with his eyes fastened shut, had pursed his lips in preparation for her taunting, but popped his eyes wide open as she let out a phrase he'd never expected to hear in his life.
"Wha..?" A sound of disbelief escaped from his mouth as he steered back at the puff.
Instead of repeating herself, the puff nodded him a sincere smile that spoke for itself.
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Butch and Buttercup were still in the middle of trading blows, both equal in competence. They continued to punch, kick, gnaw at each other until they both shot their eye laser that cancelled in the middle and hauled them apart.
Buttercup exploded right back into action while Butch just watched her near and extended his hands out to stop her by the head. He knee-kicked her right in the stomach, but Buttercup made a sharp comeback by smacking him across the face. The two again duke it out restlessly.
"Look who's mad." Butch taunted the puff between his punches, then puckered his lips to make a babyish sound. "Are you angwy that we destwoyed your fwiends wittle Powderpuff?"
"Shuddup! Mitch didn't deserve it from you, you jerk!" The raven haired girl swatted the boy's head and sent him crashing down on the pavement. Butch shook himself up and blasted Buttercup away right before she reached him. Buttercup settled down on the ground some yards away.
"Who the heck is Mitch? Your boy-friend?" The green ruff laughed derisively, standing up from his crater.
"He's my friend, you moron!" Buttercup spat in a vindictive tone. "Which you obviously don't have because you dorks are so stuck-up and full of baloney!"
"Hah, who needs friends!" Butch scoffed, unaffected by her speech.
He did, however, still somewhat wonder who this Mitch person was to have driven her to foam in the mouth. He vaguely recalled the memory earlier at the park, but the only face that gave him an impression to remember was the freckled boy who had foolishly challenged him.
"Is it that dopey freckled kid with brown hair?" He guessed with marginal care in his voice. Buttercup's scowl deepened as she absorbed his description of Mitch.
"So it was you." She gnashed her teeth in fury. "You hurt him."
Butch's eyes now perked up in high interest knowing his assumption was correct.
"Actually, it was Brick." The green ruff showed his palms, admitting the glory to be his brother's. "But, it was me who gave that sick bruise on that sucker's eye." The triumphant boy confessed his deed as he cackled cockily, provoking the puff on purpose.
In a flash, an unendurable amount of red smoke built up inside Buttercup before she went ballistic and double-smashed the ground in retaliation. Earth-shattering enormous shockwaves hurtled towards her enemy as a result. Butch smirked at the predictable attack and took off from the ground before the waves touched him, but he was too full of himself to notice that the green puff had approached close in his range. Catching him off guard with the waves, she had uprooted a street light and had sailed towards him, ready for a full fledged swing. She clubbed her opponent with the bludgeon, hitting one of his eyes hard, and leaving a bruise.
"That's for Mitch!" She hollered and dropped her makeshift club.
Butch at the moment, was being thrown away from the former impact, but Buttercup easily surpassed him and pummeled him relentlessly to the ground. The sufferer of attack was practically drilled into the road, until Buttercup stopped her pounding and yanked him up by the collar.
"Where's your red crook of a brother?!" The green puff yelled into his face.
Butch snapped out of his grogginess and spat blood onto her cheek that gathered from his bleeding teeth. "Don't know, and don't care!"
Buttercup, agitated, smashed his head to the ground. "Liar!" She roared, sending another consecutive bout of thrashes one after the other. "Of course even a lowlife like you cares about your brother! WHERE IS HE?!"
"I care about NOBODY!" Butch screeched in defiance and kicked his aggressor off of him.
Buttercup staggered backward into place and glared at him fiercely through squinted eyes. "Well I do." She stated rigidly. "And if you EVER try to hurt anyone around me again, then this will not be the end of it! You hear?!"
Grinding her teeth, she smashed her fist into her palm as a last threat, then catapulted into the air without sending any additional attacks. As soon as she cleared out of sight, Butch drew out of the rubble with furrowed eyebrows and wiped the remaining blood left on the edge of his jaw line.
"Geez, that girl's crazy!" He muttered.
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It was no surprise that it took some time for Boomer to grasp the situation at hand. If she didn't pester him to make fun of him, then why?
He squinted his eyes dubiously at the puff. "What girly trick are you trying to pull on me?"
The pig-tailed cutie shrugged innocently. "Nothing." She said with integrity. "It's just that, I know nobody likes to be treated in a mean way, no matter who it is. And it doesn't matter whether it's the people in Townsville, or even you, a Rowdyruff."
She swayed her foot back and forth while she kept her hands clasped behind her back, standing by for a response. The blond Rowdyruff in the meanwhile, mulled on the words she had spoken. Nobody likes to be treated in a mean way…? Yeah, he sure didn't. She was right about that. So what about the people at the park? And the people at the burger place? …Even Brick?
Boomer's head was piling up with awareness. But wait, he halted uneasily, this was a dumb girl talking!
The ruff glimpsed back at his opponent that had caused the fuss inside his head. He squirmed while he chose his next words carefully as to not become reeled into her scheme. Whatever it was.
"Okay, let's say for some crazy reason, that you are… right." Boomer slightly grouched at the last word. "So what? What if I don't want to be treated meanly? What do you expect me to do? Cry like a girl?"
Bubbles crooked an eyebrow at his sexist offense, and returned an insult of her own.
"No, you doo-doo-brain. What you do is stand up for yourself." She stated matter-of-factly, ignoring Boomer's unimpressed eyes. The blue puff's previous stern look returned as she straightened her posture to look more assertive.
"Don't you see? You have to do it, or else they will keep on being mean to you. Don't just stand there and let them eat you away! If they punch you, you punch back. If they tease you, you do the same. If they tell you to eat a cockroach, then you crunch it into pieces!" The blue puff gnawed her teeth in demonstration and posed confidently in front of his foe.
"..Yeah…" Boomer agreed in a trance. He was honestly fascinated by the blue girl's bold advice. "I heard you chomped it in one bite. That was pretty coo-" The ruff stopped dead in his sentence as he stirred out of his stupor. He knitted his face. What was he doing, about to call a girl cool!?
"I mean bleh! Disgusting!" He averted in denial. Bubbles rolled her eyes at his lack of cooperation.
"Look, it's not that bad once you try it." She said, searching her head for an analogy. "It's like… uh… broccoli." She presented as an example, remembering another past incident. "You eat them and realize that they aren't so bad."
"Broccoli?" Boomer recalled the vegetable inside the fridge. "But Butch said that ain't food."
Aha! Bubbles brightened and smiled somewhat smugly as she figured out how to psych him.
"Yeah but that's what Butch said." She sneered, poking at his ego. "Are you going to listen to every single thing your brother says the rest of your life?"
"No way!"
Boomer scoffed and shook his head vigorously. Fortunately Bubbles seemed to have convinced him on that side of the story. But the ruff still appeared doubtful of her claim about broccoli.
So, although they were sidetracking to a weird direction, in order to prove her point Bubbles decided to briefly recite the time when broccoli aliens invaded Townsville, and how the girls and several normal kids all got together as a team to save their parents and planet earth from alien infiltration. (A/N: Episode Beat Your Greens.) During the whole time, Boomer was so enthralled by Bubbles' narrative that he for a while forgot about his animosity towards her.
"…So lesson learned, the only way to get rid of them was to eat them. They looked nasty, but boy did they taste good." Bubbles finished up her tale, rubbing her tummy.
"Whoa…" Boomer remarked, astonished (literally and figuratively) by the guts of the girls and Townsville kids. "Why have I never heard of this?"
Bubbles ran through the timeline in her head. "Because, it was when you hadn't come back from the dead yet." She concluded, which surprisingly, caused Boomer's face to droop a bit in disappointment.
All through his short life, he was always either busting things under HIM's lair, or following what his brothers wanted to do for fun. Never did he know that there were other exciting things in life other than what he experienced.
Bubbles up front, had caught the disappointment in Boomer, and felt a little dejected as well. As much as she felt a bit anxious from growing a bit comfortable with her enemy, she wanted to cheer him up now that she was seeing some of his soft side. Maybe he wasn't all bad.
"Hey," she called, catching his attention. "Don't be sad. You'll have lots of fun adventures coming forth. And uh… whenever we're not beating each other up and stuff, I'll tell you more of these stories, okay?"
Boomer's face seemed to lighten up in relief just until he promptly put on a scowl as another cover-up.
"Listen to more of those lame stories from you?! In your dreams!" He opposed, but Bubbles wasn't fooled.
"Okay," she smiled meaningfully. "I'm just letting you know."
Before Boomer could add anything to her suggestion, the sound of one-sided merciless beating resonated in the foreground, causing the blue super humans to glance back at the battle field of their green siblings. Buttercup was beating Butch brutally into the asphalt with flaming eyes, and the intensity of her wrath instantly sent chills down the blue bystanders. In mutual silence, they found themselves taking cover from the greens' range of view.
"Wow.. he's getting owned!" Boomer peeked in awe as he cringed a little at the scene.
"Yeah…" Bubbles mumbled from behind. She peeped at Buttercup with concern, hoping her anger won't get the better of her. She then glimpsed cautiously over at Boomer.
"Um… don't you have to go help him?" She inquired. But Boomer shook his head.
"Nah, he deserves it. So much for acting all tough and bossy!" He chuckled.
Bubbles wasn't really compelled by his reasoning but decided it best to stay out and watch over the situation as well. Not because she agreed to what Boomer said, but because she didn't want her sister to question why she wasn't smashing her counterpart into oblivion. She swallowed from the thought. That was going to need a huge explanation.
Back at the greens, offensive remarks were exchanged back and forth between the two warriors, until finally Buttercup gained altitude up the sky and left Butch lying in his crater.
Boomer got out of his cover and snickered at the punishment Butch received. "I'm totally gonna call him out on that for the rest of his life!" He hooted, descending toward his brother.
Just when he could've fooled her into leaving, he glanced back over his shoulder to shout, "You're still a sissy!" towards Bubbles, which was his way of saying goodbye.
The pig-tailed Powerpuff wrinkled her nose and murmured, "Silly boy…" with a small smile before she decided to catch up to her green sister.
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"Buttercup wait!"
The green puff who captured her sister's voice with adept hearing slammed her breaks in mid-air.
"Yeah? What up Bubbles? Did you find any of them?" She asked, gliding towards her.
"Uh.. yeah, I…"
Bubbles' reply trailed off as the two Powerpuffs heard nearing momentum and noticed their leader closing from a distance.
"Look who's back." Buttercup grumbled. "Where's your twin, Blossom?!" The green puff called out, her previous question now directed brusquely at the redhead. "I have to give that swine a hiney-whoopin'! Unless you still have more of your smart objections!"
Blossom, who spotted the two girls, dropped her speed and hovered unnervingly until she reached a stop close to her teammates. She chewed her bottom lip as she hadn't exactly thought through this confrontation yet. And surely, her mental agony was understandable, because, just how was she going to persuade them about the change in Brick? And the change in how she thought matters should be dealt with?
Nervously, she looked at her siblings one from the other, then opened her mouth to appease her green sister as well as divert them both from manhandling Brick.
...But no bright ideas came to her head other than resorting to lying.
"Well?!" Her green sister, unaware of her dilemma, trapped her further with shortening patience.
However, what greeted Buttercup was something else. Saving the pink leader from the trouble, a beastly howl shook the three heroines from the opposing direction. What was caught in the three trio's vision was a gargantuan monster shadowing the town buildings while it trampled vehicles and architectures along its way.
Blossom wiped away her sweat in small relief. "Now's not the time girls," she evaded, "looks like we have something else coming our way." She turned to Buttercup. "Let's just try to forget about our fight for now and deal with that abomination first. Call it truce?"
Buttercup crooked an eyebrow at her lucky escape, but grunted unwillingly. "Yeah, for now.."
Undoubtedly, the three girls had their minds lingering elsewhere, but to no degree could they ignore the imminent evil lurking on the horizon. Hence, without further setback, the three warriors flashed into the battle field, engaging in their next prolonging combat.