CHAPTER FOUR: "Black Hole"
The sun was setting. Brick checked his watch; it read 6:38 P.M.
The traffic rush had finally begun. People were getting off work and racing to get home as soon as possible. The lights of Townsville began to illuminate the streets.
Walking down the busy metropolis of Townsville, the RowdyRuff Boys finally reached their destination. They stopped at a jewelry store that was on the corner of a street right next to a Burger King.
"This is where Him said it would be. Someone dug it up and decided to sell it in the shop. It's also on sale," said Brick. He turned to his brothers. "Thanks to Princess' money, this is a one man job. Boys, you can go into the Burger King and get something to eat. I'll go in and buy the piece."
Butch and Boomer nodded and headed into the Burger King while Brick entered the jewelry store.
The entire inside of the store was white with a black carpet. Wall to wall was decorated with expensive jewelry held in protective glass cases that had locks over them. Diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, gold, and silver were well advertised. He began searching the precious rocks around the store to see if he could find what his master was looking for.
A young, female store clerk approached him. "May I help you, sir?" she asked.
Brick had a picture of the piece that Him had drawn by hand and uploaded onto his Blackberry. He took out his cell and opened the picture. "I was told I could find this here," he said, showing her the drawing.
The drawing was lousy, but the clerk seemed to recognize it. "Follow me, please" she said.
She led him to the near back of the store to a tall glass case with a rather large lock on it. Inside was exactly what Brick was looking for: a silver ring with a spherical sapphire jewel that was suspended in the middle by unseen forces. The price listed was $5,000.
"Thank you, ma'am. I'll take it," he said.
The woman looked shocked. "Sir, it's five thousand dollars," she said, obviously unsure if he had the money.
"My father is a rich collector and he sent me down here to buy it. I have the money in cash with me."
Brick reached into a pocket on the inside of his jacket and pulled out $5,000 worth in $100 dollar bills. The woman seemed surprised. "Well, I'm sorry, sir. Someone has already purchased it. It's scheduled to be shipped tomorrow."
For a second Brick was thinking about offering the woman a bribe, but he decided that it was too risky. If she refused then she might call the police and warn them of a suspicious character entering the store, which would in turn increase the security at the store and make breaking into it a lot more difficult than it needed to be, if he needed to do it. "Who purchased it?" he asked.
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you. It would go against our privacy policy, sir."
Brick stuffed the money back in his jacket. "Thank you for your help, ma'am," he said politely.
The red ruff began to pretend to wonder aimlessly around the store; however, he was actually memorizing where he saw security cameras and defensive systems.
He then headed outside and went over to the Burger King to find his brothers sitting at a table, each with several burgers in front of them. The red ruff bought three cheese burgers and sat down with his brothers.
"Where's the rock?" asked the green ruff.
"Someone's already got it waxed. Looks like we'll need to get it the old fashion way," he replied.
"If we get seen this time, Him's going to blow his top," said Boomer.
"Thank you, Dr. Obvious," Butch replied sarcastically.
Five and a half hours later...
Brick checked his watch. It read 12:35 A.M.; now it was time to make his move.
He and his brothers were clad in black. Their sacks were loaded with their equipment. Their night vision goggles had been pushed up on their foreheads. They stood on the roof of a tall sky scraper. The sky was clear and the moon was bright and almost full. Stars and planets littered the heavens. It was a rather cool night. Down below was the corner street where the jewelry store was.
They jumped down, falling several hundred feet before slowly descending on top of the store. An air duct on top of the roof was their target. Boomer quickly reached into his sack and pulled out some power tools to remove the grill of the duct from its place. Below was a pitch black, square hole that led to the air vents of the building.
The three dawned their night vision goggles and crawled inside.
Brick led the way. He weaved through the narrow vent passages to where he thought the jewel was closest. Finally he looked down through an exhaust of the vent that led into the store.
The store was dark since all the lights had been turned off. Just like the museum, it was only lit with moonlight that entered from the windows along the wall. The place appeared deserted, but he knew appearances could be deceiving so he kept his guard up.
He saw the jewel in its glass, locked case. A mere vent grill separated his way to the floor. He checked the vent for screws or latches, but then realized that it was screwed to the vents from the outside. Using brute force, he ripped the grill out of place.
He reached into his sack and pulled out the spray can. He aimed it at his drop zone and sprayed a cloud of mist into the area. Surprisingly, there were no lasers. He then peeked his head out of the vent and made his eyes level with the ceiling scanning for cameras. There were two, mounted in black bulbs on the ceiling surface. He took them both out with his laser vision.
With that done, he then dropped out of the vent and landed on the floor. The walls of the store were white and the floor itself was black, as was his outfit; so once he hit the ground he laid flat on his stomach in a prone position to blend in with the floor.
The floor smelled like it was new and the carpet felt like something common in an office complex. There was another smell that was less pleasant, but then he discovered that his outfit was covered in dust and cobwebs from crawling through the vent shafts. It was extremely dusty in the vents.
Not too long after he went prone he heard Boomer land to his side and Butch land behind him. They both went prone as well.
The red ruff began to crawl along the floor in classic army fashion towards the case, spraying mist in his path to reveal any lasers. His brothers soon followed.
To their surprise the jewelry store had fewer defenses than the museum did. However, unknown to them a security camera disguised as a jewelry box was watching them from behind.
Inside of the security monitor room sat a very nervous guard with his name tag designating him as Joe Frankie. He saw three thieves inside his store and attempting to steal a certain item. He instantly knew he had three options.
The first was to take care of the job himself. He had a revolver at his side, but he was outnumbered and in most cases when jewelry stores were robbed, the perpetrators were heavily armed. Joe immediately ruled that option out.
The second was to call the police, who could be there in seventeen minutes. By then the robbers might have been gone and already taken a good several hundred thousand dollars worth of property.
The third option was to call the mayor, who was strangely up late at night playing video games, and tell him to call the PowerPuff Girls, who could be anywhere in Townsville in under a minute.
Joe watched the camera footage of the figures clad in black. As one of them began to pick the lock to a certain jewelry case, the choice became obvious. He got on the phone and dialed the mayor's office.
The cackle of fire was the only thing audible. She could smell something burning.
Blossom opened her eyes and found herself on the floor of her home; only it wasn't home. It was an empty shell of what once was. Flames coated the walls and illuminated the walls with a bright orange light. There was not one thing in the house that was not broken. Smoke from the flames began to fill the inside.
She stood on her feet and began to wonder who had done this and, more importantly, where was her family.
She bolted up the stairs to her room and kicked down the door. The force of her kick knocked the door down and shattered it into a dozen fiery pieces.
Blossom had no fear of the flames since they could not harm her Chemical X-saturated body.
She then began a frantic search for her sisters, flipping over the beds, tearing down the closet doors, and searching the bathroom. They weren't anywhere in the room.
Just then a chunk of the ceiling broke off and fell to the ground. It didn't take a genius to know that her house was beginning to collapse.
She then zoomed down stairs and punched through the door to the lab, only to find it in the same condition as the rest of the house. The heroine desperately searched for her father, overturning nearly ever piece of broken, burning lab equipment. Her search turned up nothing.
Another chunk of roof fell to the ground. The walls let out a groan as they began to give way. By this time Blossom was convinced that her family wasn't in the house, which meant that there was no point in remaining inside.
She launched straight upward and punched through the roof as the house gave way. However, instead of meeting the dark night sky as she thought she would, the pink puff entered a black void that appeared to be endless. She looked back towards her house and saw that it was being sucked away into what appeared to be a black hole.
Blossom tried to fly away, but the black hole suddenly took hold of her and pulled her down into it.
She felt helpless as she was pulled into the swirling, dark vortex. Panic swept through her mind and fear took hold of her. Desperation began to set in. She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
She looked down towards the bottom of the black hole and saw a large, metallic human skull with long, pointy teeth and angry eye sockets. It had a ram's set of horns at the sides of its head and on its top were the horns of a gazelle. The mouth opened wide, eagerly anticipating to devour her.
Blossom fought harder, trying to fly away, but the effort was futile. The skull's mouth was sucking her in quickly. It was not long before she was subdued by it and fell into the mouth head first. Razor sharp teeth clamped down on her waist and left arm like lightning and tore through her flesh.
Blossom sat up straight in her bed, once again sweating cold and breathing heavily. She realized that her mouth was still open from her failed attempt to scream and quickly shut it. Her heart was beating like a machine gun. Her waist and left arm were completely numb.
She looked down on the other two beds and found that her sisters were still peacefully asleep. The pink puff was glad that she did not wake them this time.
The teenage super heroine climbed out of bed, still in her PJ's, and unlocked the window. She flew outside and landed on top of the roof before sitting down and curling up into a ball.
The night sky was clear. It was fairly cool outside, yet the roof itself was pleasantly warm. A gentle breeze brushed her skin. Townsville far off in the distance was dimly lit. Moonlight was her only source of illumination. The heavens were decorated with twinkling stars and planets. It appeared as if the sky had been removed and she now had a window to look freely into deep space that revealed the unsurpassed beauty and design in the universe.
Blossom had really been shaken up by that nightmare. She needed time to calm her nerves. The pink puff knew that she was most likely just suffering from the memories that came from doing battle with evil. However, what struck her the most was the fear that pulsed through her. Even when Him had invaded her dreams she had never been so afraid.
She needed time to clear her thoughts and bring herself to peace. She inhaled deeply, then exhaled. The fresh air of Townsville soothing. The chaos swarming in her mind was slowly brought to rest.
Just then her super hearing picked up the hotline ringing down in her room. A leader persona that had been ingrained in her since she was little took her over once more. She bolted back inside and picked up the phone as quickly and silently as she could, careful not to wake her sisters. The lead PowerPuff Girl only wanted to wake them up if she needed them.
It was late, she thought. Why on earth was the mayor calling only a little after midnight? All too soon, the question didn't matter to her. She was up already anyway.
"What is it mayor?" she whispered.
"Blossom, there's a robbery in progress at the Townsville Jewelry store! Three thieves are trying to steel precious jewelry! Hurry, over there and stop it!" he said.
"I'm on it," she replied.
Heading over to the triple bunk bed that held her sisters as they rested, Blossom began to decide if she should wake them both up. There were only three thieves, but experience told her that in Townsville anything could happen. She decided to wake up only Bubbles.
The super charged teenager then went over to the second bunk and shook Bubbles shoulder gently in an attempt to wake her up.
Her sister's eyes slowly opened in response. "What is it, Blossom?" she asked in a sleepy voice.
"There is a robbery at the Townsville Jewelry store. We need to go stop it right now. It might even be the same guys that broke into the museum," she told her sister.
Bubbles sat up straight and rubbed her eyes. "Shouldn't we wake up Buttercup?"
"She's grounded remember. Besides, there are only three of them. This should be a cake walk," she replied.
With that, the two puffs changed into their clothes and launched out the window towards the jewelry store in the middle of the night.
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