Silently gliding through the vents of the prison, knowing their way exactly, as being former 'residents' of this former institution, the boys didn't even need to use their X-ray vision. During their time here, they actually managed to memorise the placement and directions of the air vents, though they never used them to escape, preferring to serve their full sentence as to avoid getting into any more trouble. But now this knowledge was fully coming in handy.

"Okay here's what we do," Brick addressed his brothers in a hushed voice. "The biggest obstacles are obviously the other girls and Ian himself. So we each tackle one of those girls first and then Ian. He'll be too busy with the experimental equipment, so he'll definitely send out his girls to deal with us rather than him." Getting on his ear piece, the red ruff began talking in a normal toned voice. "Chief, are you there? We might need something to assist us in this…."

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Ian was finally ready with his Duranium scalpels to cut up and investigate the Powerpuffs and their super chemical. The three Puffs were still unconscious, and the entire room they were all gathered in was laid out with beakers and test tubes. Human experimentation was of course illegal and immoral but the half corpse had no time to be concerned about that.

But what suddenly started to concern him however, was the voices he began to hear. He stopped and listened out. "Do you hear that?" he asked his girls without breaking his concentration.

The punks too with their super hearing could hear what he was talking about, and detected the voice of a boy up above in the next room talking to someone. And with X-ray vision they could see the three Ruffs themselves in the vents. So they had found them and decided to intervene after all.

"What do they want? Don't tell me they've actually come for the same girls who practically exiled them?" Brute scoffed.

"How did they get past my defences?" Ian wondered to himself, but quickly snapped out of it and turned to his minions. "Girls," he gave a signal and the three nodded, and darted straight for where the boys were.

Wendy stared in the direction the punks had flown in. Her sons had found them, but now she was deathly worried of the impending fight they were about to get into.

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"...And you'd better call the hospital Professor, I hate to tell you this but your girls need it right now" Brick sighed getting off the comm with not only the chief but the Powerpuff girls father as well.

"Okay boys, on my mark I need you both to dodge out the way" the leader suddenly said to his brothers.

"Why-?" they tried to ask.

"Just do it. Three, two, one…." the three immediately darted out of the way as between them all, another group of lights slammed straight into the vents, missing the boys completely.

Flying out of said vents, the ruffs glanced up to see the three other chemical X girls rubbing their heads. "I thought they might've heard us" revealed Brick.

Floating to their level, the pink punk girl addressed the opponents. "So you've decided to come revisit your old home then? I read about this place, you three were residents here at one point weren't you?" Berserk taunted.

"We've come for the girls and our mother" the red ruff got straight to the point, not taking his gaze off them.

"Really? Even Blossom? The girl who turned everyone against you and ran you out of town?"

"Yes. Even her" the boy stated bluntly.

"Look you three" Berserk begun. "This is not about you. You were never intended to be in our plan. Now Ian has promised your mom to leave you three and her alone afterwards if she agrees to help us. Even try to use the chemical X to revive her pushin'-up daisies husband."

"Mom would never agree to help your sorry-" Butch interjected before Brick gave him a look to stop.

"Oh no? Use your x-ray vision, she's in there right now, preparing and assisting with the equipment" the punk girl pointed and the ruffs turned to see that she was indeed correct.

"Mom? But, she can't be doing this-? You must be threatening her or something!" Boomer protested along with Butch, not wanting to believe what they were seeing, whilst Brick just kept his quiet expressionless face.

"Who are you girls?" the leader ruff finally said, slowly turning his head back towards his newest adversaries.

"We're the Powerpunks dear, not that knowing will do you any good. Girls!" Berserk gave the order and the blue and green punks flew straight forward at their ruff counterparts, with Butch and Boomer only barely managing to counter their attacks. They proceeded to each engage in the fight that Brick had told them they would have to proceed in; and they were prepared for.

Brick was too facing his own punk counterpart, staring her down as the other siblings fought the other.

"Y'know Brick, it doesn't have to be this way, you could join us. Once Ian learns more about chemical we could be practically unstoppable" Berserk proposed in a tempting voice.

The boy just glared back at her. "Tell me, once you do become this apparent 'unstoppable force' would you still leave me and my family alone? And how does Ian know you won't betray him? Perhaps he has a plan for you three too?"

"No, that's impossible. We'd know about it" Berserk retorted quite sure of herself.

"When he gives you all these 'new abilities' who's to say he'll do the exact opposite instead and hinder you with them?" Brick continued, his tone definitely jabbing at her. Berserk had clearly not considered that alternative.

"I just-, well I-, No! We know what we're doing!" she fired heat vision at him, that he dodged and countered with his own, beginning the battle between the two leaders.

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The fight between the blues had taken them to another room, out into the old courtyard even, where they continued to battle it out, countering each other with strikes and other powers. Both were pretty much equally matched with each other and couldn't gain the upper hand.

"C'mon Boomer, you don't have to fight me, we could work together. Just think, us two, tearing down cities entirely" Brat offered.

The blue ruff looked at the courtyard they were in, recognising it to be the area where he once helped out that fellow prisoner and was beaten by other inmates along with his brothers.

If he hadn't been roughed up, that other prisoner would've, and he even thanked them afterwards. He gave that prisoner a chance. Bubbles had also given them a chance, when she first found them and look what happened; him and his brothers ended up being heroes. And when Wendy gave them a chance, they then ended up with a mother.

"What was your name again?" he asked.

"Brat. Brat Plutonium honey."

"Brat," he instead held out his stubbed hand to her. "Why don't you work with me? I mean destroying cities? Sure I guess it's kind of a powerful feeling, but is it worth it in the end?"

"Of course it's worth it! People will be crawling at our feet the time we're finished" the punk gloated.

"But what then? I can tell you don't really know what to do with all those abilities and all that stuff. I mean if people are forced to crawl at your feet, they probably wouldn't like you very much would they? And then you'll be friendless. I became a lot happier when we started to be heroes, rather than being the bad guys. We have a loving mom, a great friend in Bubbles, and hopefully once this whole situation is explained, Founders city will love us! Isn't that worth it?" he held out his hand again.

The Powerpunk floated across from him, just looking him up and down. Truth be told, everything he said once thought about did make some sense. People did seem to love heroes more than villains. And-, wait no. She was made like this, she couldn't be anything else. Could she?

"No, no I can't, I'm sorry" she replied with genuine sincerity, before lunging at the Rowdyruff once more, again engaging in a battle. She didn't want to see the disappointed look on Boomer's face though.

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Butch had to admit, this 'Powerpunk' or whatever girl was tough, almost as tough as Buttercup herself. If his skin wasn't uncuttable then he would've been worried about those braces on her wrists. She was fast. Fast with her strikes, an effort just to dodge, which luckily he did with every single one.

Other strikes he had to block with his arms, which he kept by close to his body the whole time in order to protect it, taking his own swings and hits whenever he saw an opening. He would block her blows then take very precise hits with his. Now normally Butch wasn't one to let off taunting, but here he really was concentrating. Brute's blows and strikes were swift. So were his, except his were on target.

"Kinda holdin' back a bit aren't ya" the Powerpunk girl tried to provoke him, before launching another strike to have him dodge it and hit her hand on a duranium bar. "Ahhh!" she yelled in pain.

"You kinda have to hold back when we're surrounded by duranium bars" the ruff smirked.

There were a few more blows exchanged, with Butch turning every counter into a strike. He counterattacked her blows perfectly, until she got tired and was starting to slow down. Having already waited patiently enough, he seized his chance at unleashing several blows on her, specifically at her joints and then one final big blow right where her nose would've been.

Brute was finished, she couldn't stand up to her opponent for much longer.

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Brick and Berserk's fight had far more combinations of attacks and powers. Heat vision, balls of energy. Turns out Berserk also had her own ice breath, so Brick once again was forced to spin at superspeed in order to generate enough heat to melt the ice before it hit him.

Every attack or combination Brick tried was countered by another combination Berserk would make which reacted to and perfectly blocked his. She knew what she was doing. The girl even flew behind some of the duranium cell bars whenever he tried to strike her with his fist, making him hit a bar, hurting his hand slightly as she zoomed to the other side of the room.

"Given up yet?" she chuckled evilly.

The Rowdyruff rubbed his stubbed hand. There must be some weakness to this girl, something he could use. What did she and Blossom have in common-, the hair. She had laces in her hair. Carelessly flailing around. He knew what he had to do. Feigning to be in more pain than he actually was, the boy waited for her to charge him.

The girl scoffed. "Pathetic."

She darted straight towards him, and timing this accurately, right before she was about to hit him, he dropped the facade and dodged with super speed, grabbing the laces in her hair and wrapping around the bars.

Berserk was pulled to a sudden halt by her laces, hurting her head in the process. "Ah!" she yelped from the pain.

Attempting to hit her opponent again, she zipped inbetween the bars, but Brick knew what he was doing. He moved in such a way that caused Berserk to only be more tangled. So much so that her movement was very limited, and Brick took full advantage, smashing her head straight into a bar.

She tried to strike back, but he shifted back ever so slightly that she couldn't reach him, still being tangled. He proceeded to unleash his full attacks on her, even ripping her tangled laces from the bars once he was finished. Berserk was beaten, she didn't have the strength left to continue. And in one final move, the ruff grabbed the limp punk, and threw her like a baseball through the walls, into the direction of Ian and the captive puffs.

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By now the Powerpuff girls had woken up very drowsily, although they were too weak to put up any fight. They saw that they were in a different cage this time, inside a different room. Looking out from the bars, the girls could see a table covered with medical tools and experimental equipment. Each of them knew it was all meant for them.

There was no sign of the Powerpunks strangely enough, but there was Ian, and to their obvious horror, Mrs Innlost was there too. Seeming to be helping the half corpse.

"Wendy?" Bubbles tried to say in a very weak voice, and also a very confused one. The scientist woman didn't look at the girls. Too ashamed to.

That's when out of nowhere, the pink Powerpunk herself came smashing through the wall rolling onto the table knocking over half the equipment causing glass to fly everywhere. She was unconscious and badly beaten, which slightly stunned all the persons in the room, and looked up to see Brick himself, not looking too good, glide in through the hole Berserk had been thrown through.

"Brick!" Bubbles exclaimed happily whilst still in the cage with her surprised sisters. The boys came, even after what Blossom did to them.

The ruff took a quick glance at the girls to make sure they were okay. And although they didn't look to be in the greatest condition, they were alright at least. He also took a quick look at his mother, to check the same with her, and unlike the girls she didn't seem too physically hurt in any way. Then he turned to the half dead man.

"Ian, I know who you are. How my mother and late step-father experimented on your body with chemical X, and how it brought you back. I don't know what you're trying to do with these 'experiments', I can only assume you're trying to figure out the secrets of the substance, but via this, experimenting on live humans, it will not be allowed."

"Under whose authority?" the corpse asked, clearly playing on the fact he was not the police.

"I won't allow it" the ruff declared in a serious tone. "You let the Powerpuff girls and my mother go, and I'll try and convince the police to help you with your condition after I bring you to the FDPD."

"And how could they help me?" the decaying man argued back in a similar serious voice. "How could they possibly return my body to a pre-decaying state? Not only that, but don't you see Brick? The people I could help with this chemical, once I've discovered it's secrets. I could even bring it's creator, your deceased stepfather Mark Innlost back! I've already promised your mother I would."

Meanwhile, said Rowdyruff mother Wendy, was slowly stepping towards the table behind their captor's back, reaching for the keys to the cage the puffs were held in.

"Ian, I do want to help people," Brick continued. "I've lived in Founders city long enough now to know that a lot of people live in fear and have lost loved ones. I too nearly lost my brothers. I don't know what I'd do if I did; to the criminals that were locked up with us in this very prison. And that's how I help people, by fighting the same crime that this building once contained. Not by committing more of it, like human experimentation."

Wendy started to slowly make her way towards the cage the Powerpuffs were held in, keeping her eyes on Ian the whole time.

"Ian believe me, I know you had to avoid the public and any eyes after you 'woke up'. How you must've only gone out at night, how frightened you must've been of people looking at you like this. Boomer Butch and I went through the same thing," the red ruff reasoned. "We had to hide away in a warehouse. We were forced to only go out in the non-crowded streets scraping for food, so no one would jeer at us or try to attack us. How frightened we were that someone would falsely accuse of something, and we'd be sent back here."

Blossom, who was watching, remembered the footage of Brick looking over his beaten brothers in the prison's infirmary, hersef feeling fully regretful.

"Hm, what a turn of fate" the corpse commented.

"Yes, it might be. And what also might be, is the help I can get you."

"What help could I possibly receive?" Ian replied flatly. "There isn't a way, 'this'" he held up his hands to reference his own condition. "-can be undone."

"Perhaps, and perhaps not. We could research it, without having to resort to this. Look at myself and my brothers, all we needed was a chance. A chance Bubbles over there gave us, and then later our mother, who benevolently took us in despite knowing who we were."

The girls were listening intently, watching the whole scene play in front of them. Bubbles with a growing smile on her face at the ruffs words.

"Through them, and our time living in and observing Founders, we realised we could do more good with our abilities, than committing crimes like this. It was fear of this prison, that made us swear off crime in the first place. We could find a way to 'un-decay' you, if you're willing?" Brick held his stubbed hand out, as some sort of reassuring gesture.

There was a silence. No one said anything. Although Ian had a very stone face, appropriate for him, you could tell it was thoughtful. He sighed and finally said "I-, I'm sorry Brick. But I've crossed the line too much already. I've committed kidnapping, robbery and assault, they won't go easy on me now. I have no choice." Ian, from seemingly out of nowhere, pulled a dart gun on the ruff and got a direct shot on him, causing Brick to fall to the ground in slight pain.

"Brick!" his mother accidently let slip out. The corpse man spun around and held his palm with black chemical X energy emitting from it, causing the woman to freeze in place.

"Don't think I didn't hear you pick up those keys with my super hearing."

All of a sudden, two more objects burst through the wall just like Berserk was, and rolled onto the table. It was an unconscious Brat and Brute, with a bruised and worn out Boomer and Butch floating in behind them. The Puffs just stared on. Even Buttercup had nothing to say. They had done it. They had defeated the Powerpunks, something the puffs could not do.

Both brothers spotted their red comrade on the floor. "Brick!" they flew down to him quickly.

"Brick what happened?" asked Boomer clearly worried, wheezing through his breath.

"Antidote, X" he managed to get out through gritted teeth.

"You leave them alone!" Bubbles exclaimed from behind the cage bars towards their captor. It went ignored, instead said captor simply turned back to Wendy.

"I wondered how these boys got past my defences I set up. Now it occurs to me that I left you in here alone with my laptop when I went to fight those girls."

"Why do you think I agreed to help you Ian? How else was I supposed to lower the defenses for my sons to get through" the scientist confessed holding her hands in the air.

"I knew you wouldn't betray us!" Boomer exclaimed quite happy at this revelation.

"Big mistake Innlost, what about getting your husband back?"

The woman looked down. "I miss him, oh so much. But I also knew him, and as tempting as it was to see him again, he would've said he'd rather remain deceased, than let something like this happen." She had a little regret in her tone, but knew she was doing the right thing. "Now let the seven of us go, or I'm afraid you'll have to face my boys."

"I do believe that one of them right now Wendy has just been injected with antidote X-" Ian turned around, only to see Brick rising and floating next to his brothers. "How-? How are you doing that? How can you be resisting the antidote X?" Ian shot him again, causing Brick to drop slightly, struggling to keep afloat.

"Go, get him" the boy breathed out. His brothers nodded, and as Butch darted for Ian, Boomer picked up his mother and placed her gently in a nearby cell, in order to get her out of harm's way.

Ian countered Butch masterfully, locking them both in a stalemate. Brick, holding his sides in pain, looked around the room and noticed that this place was still full to the brim with duranium. "Butch!" he warned and pointed. The green ruff acknowledged, and with his heat vision blasted the dead man back against a slab of it.

Ian, despite his state, quickly recovered, and fired three balls of energy from his hands directly hitting each of the ruffs, knocking against a wall.

"Stay at even distances apart from each other" Brick instructed as the three surrounded Ian with an equal distance between them each, in a sort of equilateral triangle shape. They struck at him individually. "Keep a good radius away from him."

Ian knew what they were doing. Thinking maniacally, he used his super speed to hit all three boys, right before hitting them all again with heat vision.

Brick was still weak with Antidote X, and couldn't keep this up for much longer. But there were a few things he could do. Banging his arm on a nearby piece of rubble, he made several sounds with it, in some sort of distinctive rhythm. Shaking their heads, Boomer and Butch recognised the sound their leader brother was making: Morse code. He was giving them instructions. Of course, he couldn't whisper it to them because Ian would hear too. As the green and blue ruff prepared to carry them out, Brick had grabbed a nearby syringe, and took a sample of his blood.

Watching on the fight, Blossom had eyed the keys to the cage Wendy had dropped earlier, on the floor closeby. Not wanting the boys to have to fight Ian on their own, she turned to her sisters. "Girls quick, push the cage forward! It may be duranium, but the three of us together can at least push it over!"

Bubbles and Buttercup agreed and all three puffs began to push the cage with lunges, creeping it closer to the edge of the table.

Butch and Boomer kept countering Ian's attacks, as he persisted to take out more of the room's infrastructure.

Finally, the girls managed to push the cage they were held in off the table, landing right next to the keys that were within Blossom's reach. Grabbing them and freeing herself and her sisters.

Bubbles and Buttercup joined in fighting alongside their counterparts. The four of them together launched a series of attacks in usion all against their mutual opponent.

The pink Powerpuff immediately flew straight to Brick's side to see if he was okay. "Brick, are you alright? Is that, Antidote X?" She noticed the vial of red in his hand.

He shook his head. "No, it's blood." He glided past her, calling off the attacks of the greens and blues and floated in front of a now defeated Ian. " You know you're beaten Ian, at least I think you do, but I'm not about to let my brothers and counterparts die finding out. Take this, and leave us" the ruff held up the vial of blood. "It's mine. You can use it to experiment with. It's not much, but at this point what choice do you have."

At this, Boomer and Butch obviously protested. "Wait, bro, what about bringing him to justice?" they questioned clearly confused at their leader's action.

Brick threw the vial to him. "Take it."

Holding the vial in his hands, Ian began to hear something not too far away, approaching the island. The children heard it too, and the ruffs smiled at the sight of a police helicopter descending right above the crumbling building. Chief Mccoy had come at last with the police helicopter they asked for.

Everyone knew in that moment Ian was done for, especially said half-corpse. Knowing he was trapped, he went to a desperate not well thought out resort. He fired two beams of black chemical X energy from his hands right at the six children. Luckily Boomer was able to block it with his own shield power before it could hit any of them, though with Ian's energy the blue ruff wouldn't be able to hold it for long.

Brick and Butch knew this, and flew to their brother's side, using their own energy to help him block Ian's.

Unsure of what to do, the girls looked up at the helicopter and back to the boys, almost joining in themselves blocking the energy, until Brick shouted: "GO! Get our mother to safety! We'll join you!"

Hesitantly, and looking at the other, the puffs did as he instructed and grabbed Wendy from the cell flying her up to the helicopter. "Wait No!" the woman protested. "My boys!" She struggled with them a bit not taking her eyes off her sons as they flew her into the vehicle.

"Wendy!" police chief Mccoy, who was commanding the copter, rushed to her side. "Where are the boys?" he asked looking up to the girls, and all of them looked back down again to see the energy become too much, and explode right between the man and the three Rowdyruffs, causing each of the boys to be thrown back rapidly and smash their heads on a cold slab of duranium on the ceiling. They all fell to the floor lifeless.

"No!" Wendy exclaimed as the girls gasped.

"Grab them!" Blossom ordered, and the three puffs darted down each picking up their own unconscious counterpart in their arms, flying them to the copter as the prison building collapsed on top of Ian.

"Boys? Boys?" Wendy took the three of them in her arms, panic beginning to fill her as well as tears in her eyes.

"Oh god, get us back to the mainland quick!" Mccoy ordered the pilot.

Like the boys mother, Bubbles too had tears streaming down her face kneeling by the side of her injured 'brothers'. At least that's how she saw them.

Although they weren't crying, Blossom and Buttercup stared on, with a lot of worry and guilt, mainly in Blossom, churning furiously around inside of them.

Hello everyone, I know I've been away for so long, and kinda left you all hanging when we are so close to the end. There's only one more chapter to go now anyway, and I have really enjoyed writing this fic, as well as coming up with ideas for it. And although I loved it, it will be nice to finally move on to different fic and conclude this one.

I appreciate you guys sticking around too, and just as glad that you enjoyed it as much as I did. Anyway, see you guys for the last chapter.

Powerpuff girls and Rowdyruff boys belong to CN.