CHAPTER FIVE: "No Witnesses"
This was almost too easy, the leader of the RowdyRuff Boys thought to himself.
Butch picked the lock effortlessly and Boomer reached in to grab the ringed jewel. The blue ruff stuffed it in his sack.
Brick, then remembered that the security cameras probably caught him inside the store when he walked in during the afternoon. They most likely got him trying to buy the jewel in the store earlier, which meant that if there was ever an investigation, he would turn up as one of the suspects.
He briefly lifted his night vision goggles to switch to his natural X-ray vision and scan the room. To his surprise there was a room inside the store that packed a lot of security monitors and recording equipment. Also, there was a person inside.
"Butch, see that door in the corner?" he told his brother, his voice synthesizer in his ski mask, kept his voice from being distinguishable.
Butch immediately looked where he was pointing and nodded.
"Check it out."
"Brick, I don't want to be here any longer than we need to be," said Boomer.
"Neither do I, but I got this gut feeling," replied his leader.
Boomer did not question any further. He and Butch had learned to trust their leader's gut. It had never been wrong in the past.
Just as he was ordered, Butch stealthily proceeded towards the room.
Brick remained silent and calm as he watched his brother. It was then that his keen eyes saw something move out of the corner of his field of vision. He centered his eyes on the movement and discovered a jewelry box with what appeared to be a hole cut into it. He made his eyes focus on the hole and realized that it was not a hole at all, but a camera lens. When the lens was focusing on him it had to shift a little and reflected some light in his eye, which gave away its position.
The red ruff mumbled a curse word. "Boys, we've been spotted," he said. "Butch, kick down the door."
The green ruff bolted over to the room with the monitors and kicked down the door. He had come to find a guard with a name tag that read "Joe Frankie" and in front of him were several monitors, one of which displayed an image of his brothers.
Watching from behind, Brick saw the guard. This man had become a witness and Brick knew that there could be no witnesses. There was only one order he needed to issue to Butch to remedy the situation: "Kill him."
Joe Frankie drew his revolver and took aimed at the green ruff, but the Chemical-X charged super villain was faster. He bolted over to the guard and struck him in the gut with enough force to make him slam against the wall. The gun went off on impact. Joe slowly slumped forward falling on his knees, then his face. The villain lifted his foot and hammered it down on the guard's neck. There were several satisfying cracks from a cluster of bones being shattered.
Cold, green eyes showed no remorse. Once the green ruff was confident Joe was dead he then turned to his leader.
Brick entered the room and started ejecting the tapes and other recordings of all the cameras in the building. He stuffed the evidence in his sack. Right before he left he shut off the defense systems and the alarm.
Butch picked up the body. He would need to hide it.
With that done the boys went out through the front door. The alarms were useless to alert anyone to their exit.
Brick then turned to Butch. "Get rid of him," he said.
Butch nodded and flew off in the direction of the ocean.
Just as Boomer and Brick were about to fly away they heard two voices that startled them.
"Not so fast, bad guys!"
Just as Brick looked towards where the voice had come from, he felt the force of a fist colliding with his face. He was knocked flying into the street and struck the ground. Boomer was struck too and dropped his sack with the jewel in it.
Blossom and Bubbles landed on the street, confident that their blows had put the thieves out of commission. The two super heroines noticed that they were clad in black and that their faces were covered in ski masks and their eyes hidden by night vision goggles. They could not recognize them.
Bubbles went over to the sack that lay on the ground. She picked it up and reached inside to pull out a certain silver ring with a sapphire jewel suspended in the center. "Blossom, I found what they were trying to steal!" she said and held it up.
"Looks like you boys need a lesson on respecting other people's property," said Blossom as she put her hands on her hips.
Brick and Boomer looked at their attackers and were surprised. They had not seen the PowerPuff Girls in nine years; however, they were still recognizable. The two individuals standing before them were undoubtedly the same that they had faced when they were little. They never expected them to be up at night, much less fighting crime at the hour.
At the mere sight of them, Brick's heart burned with a desire for revenge against them. In a split moment he recalled the humiliation and the horror that they had done to him when they were little. After nine years, this was his chance to finally make them pay. However, he then remembered that the ringed jewel took top priority. He regained his footing in less than a second and stood ready to fight.
"Well, if it isn't the PowerPuff Girls," said Brick, his voice synthesizer disguising his real voice. "I couldn't be less afraid," he said with a smirk.
"If I have to pound fear into you, then I have no problem with that," replied Blossom.
"Bring it on," replied the thief.
He took a glance towards his brother.
He could not discern what was going on in Boomer's mind. Boomer, for some reason, almost didn't seem ready to fight. He stood up and looked to his leader, awaiting orders.
"Attack pattern Delta-Uniform-X-Ray." Brick said. Delta, Uniform, and X-Ray were letters of the military alphabet, D, U, and X to be specific. DUX meant "Don't Use chemical X powers." The use of their special powers would give them away and Brick did not want the girls to recognize them just yet. They would now fight with only speed and strength. "Get the sack," Brick told him before lunging toward Blossom.
Blossom didn't expect him to be as fast as he was. Brick caught her off guard and landed three lightning quick punches that all hit home. He finished his combo with a spin kick that went straight to her head and sent her flying across the street into a subway.
"Blossom!" shouted Bubbles in concern for her sister.
This left a good enough distraction for Boomer to charge towards her and thrust his heel into her stomach. She went flying several feet and careened into a concrete street lamp. The lamp broke in two on impact. She had lost her grip on the sack and the jewel in the process. Boomer quickly dashed to the sack and jewel.
"Flash!" the blue ruff heard his brother say. This was code for him to reach into his sack and pull out a pair of thick, dark shades and Bose sound reduction head phones and put them on. He saw his leader do the same.
Once that was finished, Brick reached into his sack and pulled out a flash bang grenade. Flash bang grenades were designed to stun victims with a blinding flash and a loud, violent sound that was deafening to the ears. With the PowerPuff Girls' super sensitive sight and hearing it would have an extremely devastating effect. He pulled the pin and the six second fuse was set.
Just as Brick had calculated in his mind, he pulled it right at the same time that Blossom recovered from his assault and was charging back towards him for a counter strike.
He threw the grenade up in the air and it exploded at exactly the right time he wanted it to. A blinding white flash lit up the entire street accompanied by a thunderous clap.
Blossom and Bubbles were instantly blind and deaf. Brick and Boomer, on the other hand, had their eyes shielded by the shades and their ears kept safe with the Bose headphones.
With Blossom and Bubbles completely disoriented, the two ruffs flew away at a lightning quick speed and made their escape.
Butch flew out above the ocean. Without a second thought, he dropped Joe Frankie into the water and then turned to head back towards the warehouse that he and his brothers were occupying. He expected to meet his brothers there.
What he didn't know was that a fishing boat would arrive at that exact same spot and spread its net only ten minutes later.
When the sailor tried to pull his net back out of the water to see what he had caught he was surprised to find he had fished up a man. He was overcome with shock and immediately pulled the man aboard. The first thing he did was check for a pulse. To his surprise, he found one.
The next day...
Blossom and Bubbles climbed out of bed groggily. They both had a few bruises from the small skirmish last night with the two thieves.
Blossom felt horrible for letting the thieves get away. It was their first mission in several months and she blew it. She realized that she got too cocky and was hit by what she didn't expect. She purposed it in herself to never make the same mistake again.
"That's funny," Blossom thought. "Didn't the mayor say there were three thieves?" She remembered that the mayor was never known for being the sharpest tool in the woodshed. Numbers were not his strong suit and she figured he most likely miscounted.
She and Bubbles freshened up and got ready for school. They then went down stairs to find Buttercup already up and finishing her breakfast.
Buttercup noticed her sisters' condition immediately. "What happened to you two? You look like you got in a brawl with Fuzzy," she said.
Blossom knew that she would be angry if she told her the truth, but she decided that telling her sister a lie would only make things worse. So she quickly explained the events that occurred last night.
"Why didn't you wake me up?" the green puff shouted. "There was finally some action and you held out on me!"
"You know you're grounded, Buttercup. I would be disobeying the professor to take you along with us," Blossom calmly replied.
Buttercup was fuming. The frustration in her mounted like a volcano and erupted. She stormed out the door and left in advance toward school without her sisters.
"Do you think we were too hard on her for not waking her up?" asked Bubbles. She hated to see her sisters angry at each other.
"You know how Buttercup is. She just needs to blow off some steam," replied Blossom. She hoped she was right. Sometimes it was hard to do the right thing. "Anyway, did you catch a glimpse of what they were trying to steal last night?"
"What?" loudly asked Bubbles, who was still slightly deaf from the flash bang grenade. Her hearing was slowly returning.
"I said, 'did you catch a glimpse of what they were trying to steal last night?'" repeated Blossom, louder this time.
"Yes! I even drew a picture of it," she cheerfully replied and pulled out a piece of paper with a drawing of the object on it.
Bubble's drawing skills had dramatically improved since she was a little girl. On top of her amazing talents as an artist she also had a new power: photographic memory. Blossom had no doubt that the drawing looked exactly like the tiny object that they had seen the thieves with.
"We need to find out what is so special about this ringed jewel. There were several other pieces of jewelry in the store that were ten times the value of that single ring. Why would the thieves only go for this specific one?" said Blossom.
The police were still investigating the crime scene and would email her a report so Blossom knew that she would just need to wait for more answers to arrive.
Red Crown: I hope you enjoyed the chapter. For those of you that love Buttercup and Butch, I have a feeling that you will very much like the next chapter. Please Review. Reviews are the fuel that power my writing engines and bring you chapters.
Okay, Skitzophrenick, Your next easter basket clue is right under the key board!