The next afternoon, Bubbles was trying to think of a good excuse to leave the house on her own all day. She said she'd check on the boys in the afternoon, but the hotline kept ringing requiring the girls help. They were busy all day unlike yesterday.
"See now this is more like it!"
"Buttercup stay focused. We have a robbery in progress" Blossom scolded.
"At a bank? But it's Sunday!"
"Not at a bank, a chemical factory."
"Who'd wanna rob that?"
The Powerpuffs burst in and caught the robbers by surprise. Blossom ordered them to fly at super speed to grab the crooks one at a time.
One of the robbers was quite muscular, and Bubbles was having quite some trouble with him as he got the best of her, knocking her to the ground. He clearly knew some martial arts. Bubbles got lucky however when she zapped a metal pipe above him, making it fall onto him.
After all stolen chemicals were returned, the girls returned home. Bubbles was becoming a little more worried that she wouldn't be able to keep her promise to the boys the rate things were going.
"Geez I can't believe you let that guy best you Bubbs, I mean the way he struck you to the ground, and you were there all helpless, I mean there's no shame in admitting defeat sometimes."
"I had it under control!" Bubbles protested.
"Yeah, sure."
"Girls please" Blossom stopped them. "The professor's about to give us our allowances."
"Really?" Both Bubbles and Buttercup's, but mainly Buttercup's eyes lit up.
"Speaking of which, you were beaten by all those villains that time you knocked their teeth out" Bubbles pointed proud of her retort.
"Shut up" her sister had no better argument.
Professor Utonium gave the girls their Allowances and Bubbles finally thought of an excuse. "Professor, could I go out and see all the arts and crafts items they have downtown?"
"Okay but don't spend all your allowance money Bubbles, and be back before bedtime, you have school tomorrow."
"I promise." She flew out of the house and headed in the direction of Founders city. She had her money she saved in the past few weeks in her pocket. It wasn't that much, but enough to buy that arts drawing set, which she decided she would get on the way home.
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Above the city of Founders, Brick and Boomer were not having much luck finding food. Nothing in the garbage cans that looked safe enough to eat, not a single dime on the street to be found.
"Boomer go check on Butch back at the warehouse, make sure he's alright."
"It's Butch. I'm sure he is, but okay." Boomer flew back to their home where Butch was sat there looking bored out of his mind. "Hey bro."
"Hey" Butch replied in an unamused tone.
Boomer stood there for a bit, trying to start a conversation. "Bubbles hasn't shown up yet. I wonder if she's actually coming?"
"I hope she doesn't" the green ruff muttered, but just a few minutes later, the blonde puff knocked on the window and let herself in.
"Hi boys. Just checking on you like I said, where's Brick?"
"He's out looking for food. Don't know when he'll be back." Boomer flew up to meet her.
'Ha, check up on us' Butch thought. 'Like we're criminals under house arrest that can't be trusted.'
He was not too keen on just letting a former enemy in and out like this. It was like some police officer checking a recently released prisoner. She was probably reporting his brothers current status to her sisters for all he knew. But then again, why would they send her? It's not like Bubbles was the smartest of the puffs or even the toughest. Even if she was, why would they send her on her own? Maybe this was all a trap, but he and his brothers were not doing anything anymore that was criminal so it wouldn't matter.
"Where did you get that mark from?" Boomer noticed the tiniest of marks on her face. He wasn't all that trusting about Bubbles either, but he decided just to try and talk to her to see if she was hostile.
"Oh, well earlier today while crime fighting, which there was so much of today which was why I'm so late, I was up against this guy who was quite big, and I think he knew some type of martial art, and well, he countered my attack."
"You should've let him attack you first, then you'd have the upper hand" Butch remarked.
"Yeah, Buttercup was making fun of me for it."
"Ah well, siblings do that. I gotta put up with ol' happy over there" Boomer pointed to Butch, who didn't say anything and Bubbles giggled.
The blonde ruff could tell that his brother wasn't too happy about Bubbles being here, but then he got an idea. "Gee, I wish there was someone here who knew martial arts to help you."
"Yeah" Bubbles sighed.
"I mean there's no one here good enough too-" Boomer was interrupted.
"You block their attacks first, then you strike with your palm" Butch turned around. "Of course you two idiots wouldn't know that."
"Well, could you show us then? If we don't know." Boomer winked at Bubbles and she smiled, realising what he was doing.
"Yeah, Butch, can you show me? You seem to be pretty good with that sort of thing" Bubbles asked.
"I, I am? Of course I am yes. Fine, I could show you a few moves."
"Great! I should really go and check on Brick, see where he is. Be back soon." Boomer was about to fly away when Bubbles stopped him.
"Wait, Boomer, do you have to go?"
"Don't worry" he whispered. "Butch hasn't warmed up to you that much so I figured this would be a great way for him to do so." Boomer winked and flew off.
Bubbles wasn't too sure. She had talked to Boomer the most out of the three and preferred for him to be around. But she accepted and turned to the green ruff.
"So what moves do you know?"
"Let your opponent strike first, and put your hands on their forearm to push their punches away. Pretend to try to punch me." Butch figured if she was going to be around she might as well be helpful to pass the time.
"You sure?"
"Positive."
Bubbles did so, and to her surprise, Butch pushed both her arms, so that she missed him.
"Then use a palm strike." He pretended to palm strike Bubbles but stopped just before he hit her, causing her to flinch.
"But uh Butch, we don't have palms."
"You know what I mean. After the palm strike, go for a kick in the stomach."
The two chemical x users were just mock fighting at first, but it eventually became physical, in a training way.
"Try to go for the opponent's nose. Their nose isn't going to get any stronger unlike their body" Butch advised.
The blue puff didn't quite get it all however, and ended being bested by Butch. Maybe she should've stayed home after all. "You're clearly a long way from perfection. But I suppose, you do have potential."
Butch floated down and offered his hand. Bubbles couldn't believe it. Was he, helping her up? She took his hand and stood up. "Wouldn't you just leave me on the floor?"
"If we were fighting for real I would. But, in a martial arts training session, you have to be respectable of your opponent. Even if it is a puff." He floated away. "But don't get any ideas, we're not friends, not you and me, and I don't know about the other two. Honestly I don't know what Brick is thinking letting you visit us."
Bubbles looked at him, a bit intimidated, but mainly curious. "Why do you hate me so much Butch? If I'm a superhero and you're not a villain anymore, then why do you dislike me so much?"
"Because I-, because you-" Butch couldn't really think of a legitimate reason. Well obviously it was because of their past defeats. But wasn't that just because the boys were doing wrong and the girls were just doing their job?
Something occurred to Butch. His brothers could've done far worse. They had incredible powers that rivaled the girls and all they chose to do with them was try to survive and cause a bit of mayhem every now and then. They could've made it far worse for the Powerpuff girls and Townsville if they wanted to, rather than choosing just to destroy them. And maybe they should've. Let those girls have a taste of the real world, instead of their little happy pampered family life-.
An explosion was heard by both the ruff and puff with their super hearing. They looked at each other. "Wanna bet Brick and Boomer are involved?" Butch sighed, and out of curiosity, they flew out to investigate.
A few minutes earlier, Brick was looking through the trash cans in a lane of the side of a bakery, and after he lifted the lid off of one, he couldn't believe it. Someone had thrown out a whole picnic basket, with still some food in it.
'Now who'd wanna to throw out that?'
He seized it and was about to fly away, when he heard a crash. He spun around to see a car crashed into the front of a shopping mall. Broken glass and black smoke rising up from the hood. He heard police sirens in the distance. The car was probably stolen.
Brick had flown above the streets of Founders many times, and things like this always happened. And apart from that one incident saving that man in the alleyway, he never got himself involved. He turned back, and started flying away, as the people who stole the car ran into the shopping mall, armed.
Boomer, like his brother, too heard the crash. He heard an alarm and people running off screaming. Dropping bags and shouting in a panic. The people who'd stolen the car had run into the mall itself.
'Well they're never going to get away from the police in there, unless' Boomer used his x-ray vision and saw the criminals had guns.
They were armed. And there were five of them. 'Well, surely the security guards are armed aren't they-, oh no.' Boomer had seen the guards. They had been shot dead.
No, it wasn't Boomer's job to do anything. This was something out of his control. Brick knew best, and he had to obey his brother's wishes. Saving the baby from the fire was just a one off incident. But his curiosity made him watch the event unfold. In fact he couldn't stop watching. Patrons ran out the mall, ducking behind the police cars. He heard gunshots and they screamed. They were terrified.
"Sir, the suspects ran upstairs, and they've taken hostages. They don't want anyone near them. We're awaiting more squad cars. We'll try to negotiate."
"Hold back 'til I get there! Don't do anything that might get them hurt! Let me do the negotiating." The voice on the radio instructed them, but the officers ignored it.
"Sorry chief Mccoy, but we've got this. We're gonna take 'em out." They hung up on him clocking their weapons.
Boomer remembered back to when he and his brothers assaulted the police outside that supermarket in Townsville. There was a very strange parallel with this. He doubted five armed criminals could do that sort of damage to the police. But the way the officers were going about it they could-. The boy shuddered. He and his brothers never did that. They never took a life, ever. His attention was brought back, when a little girl about his age ran up to a police officer.
"Mister, my big brother's in there. He told me to run, and he hasn't come out!" She wiped her tears with her fist.
"Don't worry little girl, we're going to get everyone out" the officer replied with no hint of empathy in his tone.
Boomer stared at this little girl, holding onto the officer, tears in her eyes. His brothers were beaten, threatened, and on one instance, he almost lost them. This little girl could lose hers too. He flew down to her instantly, forgetting about everything else.
"Excuse me, uh, what's your brother's name?"
The girl, a little surprised, answered "Peter,"
Boomer nodded and flew straight into the shopping mall. "Wha-? Hey wait!" the officer next to the girl realised who that was just now.
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The Rowdyruff entered, taking sudden glances with his x-ray vision trying to locate anyone hostile. He did see some people in some of the stores upstairs, crouched down and hiding for dear life. Boomer zipped up and entered one of the stores. Quietly as he could he called out "Is anyone here called Peter?"
Upon seeing him, everyone flinched back, not knowing what he would do, from what they heard about the Rowdyruffs. "Please don't hurt us."
"I don't want to, is anyone in here called Peter?" Boomer called out again. Getting no response, he flew out and looked around some more. He then spotted someone who looked like an older teenage boy hiding behind a plant pot. The ruff flew over. "Hey."
The boy jumped back. "What? I don't want any trouble!"
"Are you Peter?" Boomer was becoming quite frustrated.
"Y-yeah, I am. Why?"
"And do you have a little sister about that high?" Boomer made a height gesture with his arms and floating upward.
"Yeah, I promised I'd take her to a toy store here, how do you-"
"Okay good." The Rowdyruff picked up the boy and flew him straight outside and lowered him to the girl.
The little girl gasped and ran to hug her brother who hugged back. "Lucy! Lucy you're alright!"
"Peter!" the girl turned to Boomer. "Thank you! Thank you very much."
"You're welcome. I'd better go now, I-" the ruff looked up to see other shoppers looking at him, their eyes pleading. He realised what they were thinking. "I, look, I can't save everyone in there, I shouldn't-"
"Please, my husband hasn't answered his phone, he could be in danger!" a woman begged. Boomer knew these people still had family inside.
"No I-, I shouldn't, I, awww" he groaned a bit seeing their faces before flying back in. With his super speed, Boomer grabbed all the people he could find in the mall, both shoppers and employees, and flew them outside. The only people left were the ones being held hostage by the gunmen.
Brick floated away from the mall still carrying the basket, about to head back to the warehouse. Then he heard what sounded like something flying back and forth really fast. The exact sound that they made when they were flying. That 'whoosh' sound. He turned back to see a dark blue streak zooming in and out of the mall. That could only be one person. "No, he can't,"
The red boy hurriedly made his way down and saw the crowd reuniting with each other, presumably family members that were trapped inside. Brick waited for Boomer to fly back out, but he never did.
He broke down the situation. Five gunmen ran into the mall but the police hadn't gone in yet, that meant there were hostages, and if Boomer was getting everyone out, and he suddenly stopped, that meant he was trying to handle the gunmen.
Now Brick knew normal guns wouldn't be able to harm Boomer, but he was more worried about what people would think about a Rowdyruff and a hostage situation.
The police were preparing to charge in. Fools. It'd be a mess.
He couldn't just fly in holding a picnic basket. He was forced to leave it behind a dumpster, hoping that no homeless person would stumble across it. The red leader flew into the mall, once again to the bewilderment of everyone and searched for his brother.
Boomer was leaning outside the store the gunmen were in, holding their hostages and plotting their next move. Suddenly pulled Boomer to the side, and stub covering his mouth.
"Mpph-, Brick?"
"Boomer, what the hell are you doing?"
"Those people are in danger, they have family outside."
"And what do you think people are going to believe, when they hear the words 'hostage crisis' and 'Rowdyruff boy' together?" Brick scorned.
"They can believe what they want. There was a little girl outside our age that could've lost her brother. Sound familiar?" Boomer argued uncharacteristically determined of him.
"Yes, it does, which is why I'm getting you out of here."
One of the gunmen stepped outside the store to see what was going on, to see if the cops had entered the building yet. Boomer then zoomed straight into the gunman and knocked him far back, to Brick's absolute surprise.
Another came out holding a hostage and immediately was on edge seeing the Rowdyruff and his unconscious accomplice. He pointed the gun to the hostage's head so the Rowdyruff couldn't make any moves against him.
Boomer, who didn't know quite what to do, glanced at Brick for help, and the red ruff just groaned and floated up behind the gunman, knocking him out from behind. "Go" he ordered the hostage.
He had only done that to help his brother, and now he had seen Boomer was determined to rescue the rest of the hostages. But the gunmen would kill them if they saw the ruffs, and Brick definately did not want them to be involved in an incident with a dead hostage.
"We'll have to be quick, I'll take the guns from them, and you knock them out" Brick whispered. Boomer didn't know whether to feel surprised or glad his brother decided to help him, but nevertheless nodded at Brick's plan.
A red streak suddenly flew into the store and robbed the guns from the crooks hands. It was followed by a blue streak, punching the rest of them out.
"I'll tie 'em up and hand 'em to the police, you get these people out of here" Brick ordered as Boomer and grabbed the unconscious criminals.
Boomer tried to help the hostages up, who were surprised and unsure at the Rowdyruffs being here. They still remained skeptical of the boys and kept their distance, despite Boomer leading them out. One of the hostages had a dog with them, which Boomer couldn't help but smile at and pet it.
Brick examined over the unconscious criminals he had tied up and was carrying. He could not deny he had felt something, something familiar, upon seeing a group of innocent people being threatened by criminals. All they were doing was causing chaos, and hurting people, much like, much like his brothers used to do. It was weird seeing it from the outside. It made him feel anger, but not at himself or his brothers, but at his past, and at these-.
The small fire on the car that had crashed into the front of the mall quickly started spreading, and Brick realised "The gas tank! Boomer! Get all these people out now! And get yourself out!"
The red ruff flew outside and dumped the tied up criminals behind the squad cars, whilst his brother used his super speed to fly everyone outside. Boomer turned and realised, he left the dog behind.
"Oh no!" he sped back, grabbed the dog, and on his exit just when he was escaping the building the car exploded. Boomer was caught up in part of the explosion but he did what he could to save the animal. He fell on the floor, and luckily the dog was alright. People ducked for cover and Brick nervously looked for his brother.
"Boomer!" he spotted him on the floor and flew to him. The dog was helping the blue ruff up, and apart from a few bruises and scratches, both were alright. Brick helped Boomer fly away to on top of a building close by.
"Ow" Boomer complained, holding his head with both arms. Although he was a chemical X user and that explosion couldn't do any damage, the boy's head was hurting like crazy.
"You'll be fine Booms, just a bit of temporary pain."
"A bit?" Boomer was lying on his back still clutching his head. A green and light blue streak suddenly headed towards them and stopped revealing Butch and Bubbles who had come to see what had happened.
"What happened?" Bubbles asked seeing all the people in front of the mall and destroyed car.
"A hostage crisis. Boomer here decided it'd be a good idea to intervene and help get the people outside and stop the assailants. I went in myself to stop him and I, I got caught up in it too" Brick admitted. "You shouldn't have done that Boomer."
"There was a little girl whose brother was inside, and other people with family too, I couldn't do nothing" Boomer explained.
"You got caught in that explosion."
"I couldn't just let that dog get caught in it too."
Bubbles observed the scene and the people getting treated. "Did you two save them all? Including the dog?" she couldn't help but awe at the animal.
"Yeah, we did, ah!" Boomer's head was still hurting and Bubbles looked down at her counterpart and gasped to see him bruised all over, after just saving an innocent animal and group of people. Something inside her made her feel so sorry for him, despite being enemies the last time two years ago, despite being a former adversary, she floated down next to Boomer and rested his head in her lap, hugging him and trying to comfort him. Maybe it had something to do about him telling her how he was beaten to near death in prison. Boomer seemed surprised, but he didn't protest against it. In his current state, he didn't actually mind this right now.
"What happened to staying neutral?" Butch asked Brick with a half amused tone.
"I had no choice. Your brother went in there himself to get them and, and I suppose it wouldn't look good on our part in the public eye if we didn't do anything" Brick sighed, and Bubbles noticed.
"And after that argument about not getting involved in anything the first day we came here" Butch turned away, disgusted at the hypocracy.
"Just get back to the warehouse. I found some food for us earlier, I'm going to get it." Brick flew off.
"I'll help Boomer, if that's alright?" Bubbles proclaimed.
"Whatever" Butch flew back in the direction of their 'home'.
"So, was he nice?" Boomer joked.
Brick landed where he left the picnic basket. "Good it's still here" he said relieved. But the basket seemed lighter.
He opened it up and saw that most of it had gone. Only two sandwiches left. A homeless person must have gotten to it after all. Brick just sighed disappointed. He and his brothers had hardly eaten today, and it looks like they hardly will. He closed the lid and flew back to the warehouse. It was evening now and all the shops were closing apart from a few convenient stores. He got back and dropped the basket on the floor. "I managed to find this. Don't worry it's clean."
Bubbles suddenly realised how late it was, and remembered how she told the Professor she'd only gone out to spend her Allowance money. What would the Professor and her sisters say? "I should really be going now boys. It's late as it is. You get better okay Boomer." She went to fly out the window.
"Don't worry about me" Boomer's head was feeling a lot better. He had experienced worse pain anyway when he was beaten with Duranium bars in prison.
"Okay, bye I guess." She flew out the window and was about to head back to Townsville, but something in the back of the blonde's mind nagged her, about the boys struggle to live, just to find a decent meal everyday. Did Brick really find a whole picnic basket? She floated outside and watched them with her x-ray vision. Another deed she shouldn't of been doing. Spying was not something a good citizen did. But this she couldn't help.
"Did you really find a whole picnic basket?" Boomer asked, quite excited. "We've hardly eaten at all today."
"It's, not much, just a few sandwiches" Brick explained in a quiet voice. The ruff leader stared down at the basket's continents. It was only enough for two of them. "Here you go boys" he handed them a sandwich each.
"Aren't you going to have one?" Butch asked.
"No I, I've already eaten one. When I first found it, and I was just so hungry I couldn't help myself" Brick lied. Suddenly he felt his stomach growl which he tried to hide.
"What was that?" Boomer asked.
"Nothing, just the fire crackling."
Boomer was just too tired from the mall incident that he ate his ration of food and went straight to sleep. Butch knew from the tone in his voice, Brick wasn't telling the whole truth, but he didn't want to argue.
Bubbles watched from outside. Like Butch, she knew Brick was lying. She couldn't help but feel her heartbreak at this, if only she could-, wait.
She took out the allowance money she had in her pocket. She was saving this for that arts and crafts set she wanted, saving up over weeks. Something she was going to buy hopefully today on the way home. She looked down at Brick, making a bed for himself out of newspaper. She sighed. Bubbles flew down to the nearest still open store and grabbed a large sandwich in her hands, and went up and paid for it.
"Aren't you that Powerpuff girl from Townsville?" the employee asked.
"Yeah, just this please" she gave him the money.
"Hey um, I heard that those Rowdyruffs, or whatever they're called, from your city are here. Are you here looking for them?" the employee asked.
"Uh, yeah. I'll, find them eventually" Bubbles nervously laughed.
The puff flew back to the warehouse and by now both Boomer and Butch were asleep. Brick was sat holding his legs close to his body by the fire when he noticed Bubbles fly back in.
"Hi" she could only think to say.
"I thought you were going home?" he wondered.
"I uh, wanted to buy you this" she handed him the sandwich. "I had some of my allowance money with me."
"Why did you bring that?" Brick asked.
"Well" Bubbles sat down. "I was saving up originally. There was an arts and drawing set I really wanted," she held her hands together sounding rather saddened and scraping her foot in the dirt. "But I suppose this is more important."
Brick stared at her thoughtfully. "You didn't have to buy this you know. But, thank you Bubbles." He didn't look her in the eye.
"Brick?" Bubbles began. "Why did you-, I mean, what I'm trying to say is, Boomer told me about the prison and everything, and well, you seem a lot different from the last time I met you. Was it really that bad?"
Brick didn't say anything. A look of slight pain grew on his face. The only noise was the fire crackling. Bubbles decided not to press that further.
"What happened in the mall today?" she asked about the day's incident instead.
Brick decided to talk about that. "I told these two that we're not getting involved in anything, so I originally went in to get him out. But, he wouldn't leave until the shoppers were safe. So I helped him do it, that's all."
"But Boomer told me he followed your plan. When me and my sisters are fighting crime, we always follow Blossom's plans, and most of the time we win because of that. She always knows the right thing to do. And don't you think, that this city might need a bit of that crime fighting too?" Bubbles implied.
"Then I suggest you and your sisters start fighting here then. Just don't disturb us" Brick countered. "Look Bubbles, like I said before, I only want my brothers to live and be safe. You see, the real world, and people, it's not a pretty thing, and this city is full of the scum that we were locked away with for eighteen months. I don't want them hurting my brothers again. Thank you Bubbles for not telling anyone else about us, you'd better get home now."
Bubbles took in everything he had said, and simply nodded. "Sure." She floated up towards the window.
"And Bubbles" Brick called and she looked back down. "You seem like you're giving us a second chance, instead of just attacking us. I'm grateful for that, thank you."
She stared for a second, then smiled back and waved before heading home, a happier feeling replacing her worry of what her sisters and the professor would say.
Sorry everyone for the long wait, had a bit of writer's block with this one. I think I already said this before but, I want the boys character's to develop into being heroes and their attitudes towards it, rather than becoming heroes straight away. And also Bubbles's experience with them.
Powerpuff girls and Rowdyruff boys belong to CN.
