For the next couple of weeks Dexter spends all his free time working on the communicators he was building for the Utonium sisters.
He had designed them to look like wrist watches but has used a reinforced metal cylinder for the face and a harden rubber plastic for the straps. It took a lot of work to build the communicators but he enjoyed the work and after late nights working he would go to sleep with a smile on his face.
The communication system would have range all over the city and he also made an adapter to The Mayors phone that Blossom had told him about.
When he had finally finished the communicator watches it was the last week of school before they went on winter break. He had put in some extra thought into the design of them and had made them each a different color to match the girls. He had made Buttercup's green, Bubbles was light blue and Blossoms was pink.
Dexter had waited till they had left the school for the day to give the girls the devices.
"So I've been working on something for you and your sisters." Dexter says to Blossom as they walk down the sidewalk.
"You made us something?" Bubbles says jumping over Dexter looking excited.
"Yeah I built you guys something I thought you needed." He says surprised that Bubbles had jumped over him.
"Nothing dangerous I hope." Blossom says watching Bubbles start to float into the air from excitement.
"Don't worry it's nothing that could hurt anyone, unless you really tried." He says as he pulled his backpack off and opens it.
He pulls out three brown paper wrapped packages from his bag each with one of the girl's names written on them and hands them to the girls.
"Oh what is it?!" Bubbles says with excitement as she ripped open the package.
"Calm down Bubbles." Buttercup says as she opened hers curious as to what Dexter had made for them.
Even though Bubbles was going to town on getting the wrapping off, Blossom was the first one of the three to get the package opened. "Watches?" She asks looking at Dexter as she took the device out of the wrapping.
"They only look like watches, but they are actually a communicator that will allow you to talk to each other if you get separated." He says as Buttercup and Bubbles finish unwrapping theirs. "I also made an adapter for the phone The Mayor has that you told me about Blossom." He adds as he pulled out a fourth package from his bag and holds it out to Blossom.
"This is really great Dexter." Blossom says warping her communicator around her left wrist then fastened the strap.
"I'm glad you like them." He says proud of his work.
"I like how it matches my shirt." Bubbles says as she put on her own communicator.
"You would care about that Bubbles. They seem like something out of a comic book, or a cartoon." Buttercup says looking hers over.
"Says the girl who can fly." Bubbles says grinning at her sister.
"I'm going to show this to The Mayor, this is going to be such a big help. Thank you Dexter." Blossom says smiling at him with a warm caring smile.
"You're welcome, I'm happy that I could do something to be helpful." He says returning the smile.
"I'll see you two at home later and I'll see you tomorrow Dexter." Blossom says as she started to float up into the air then took off towards downtown.
"So much for low profiling." Buttercup says watching her sister fly away.
"She just forgot over her excitement." Bubbles says still admiring her communicator. "These must have taken a lot of work Dexter." She says looking up at him.
"It wasn't that much." He says lying about the amount of work he put into them not to mention all the new tools he had to find. "And I enjoyed doing it." He added.
"Still they look really cool Dexter." Buttercup says as she put hers on.
"I even came up with a unique sound file for them to play when you are calling each, here look." He says pushing a button on Bubble's communicator that caused Buttercups to play a digital tone *de de dede dee de*
"That's cool Dexter, I bet Blossom will like it too." Bubbles says pressing the button to make Buttercups play the tone again.
For the rest of the walk back to their houses Dexter explained how they worked, what button did what and Bubbles and Buttercup promised to show Blossom how they worked when she got home.
"Thanks again." Bubbles says waving bye to Dexter as her and Buttercup walked up the path to their house.
"You're welcome." He says waving back at them. 'You've done good today Dexter old boy. I think we've earned some ice cream after dinner.' He thinks as he walks the few feet to the path to his own house with a smile on his face.
The communicators worked just as Dexter had hoped for the girls, they were able to respond to call from The Mayor faster and more once school let out for the winter break Dexter didn't see as much of the girls due to him working more and his family having one holiday family event or another for them to do. Like driving seven miles out of town to a pine forest to cut down a tree and then spending the rest of the day decorating it, or making gallons of homemade eggnog.
Christmas was just like every year at the McPherson house. Dee Dee would wake Dexter up early in the morning to open presents, even though she was coming up on her twentieth birthday, and their parents would sit on the couch watching their daughter rip open presents and their son carefully open them.
Dee Dee had gotten a new pair of dancing shoes from their parents, a knitted sweater from their grandparents and Dexter had gotten her a book on Broadway musicals.
"Thank you Mom, thank you Dad and thank you Dexter" Dee Dee says as she pulled on her pink and red striped sweater.
"You're welcome Dee Dee, Dexter do you like your presents?" Mom asks as Dexter finished opening his last gift.
"Yes Mother." He says looking over his gifts. He had gotten a sweater just like Dee Dee's except it was purple and blue striped, a stack of comic books from his parents, ironically mostly Iron Man ones, and Dee Dee had given him an Erector Set for a battery powered robot with a note saying "You got to start again from somewhere".
"Oh I almost forgot. The neighbors dropped off a couple of cards and a gift for you Dexter." Dad says getting up from the couch and walking over to the table by the door.
"Here you go Dexter, Dee Dee why don't you read us the card." Dad says handing Dexter a small package wrapped in red wrapping paper with a card and the other card to Dee Dee.
"It says: Merry Christmas from the Utonium's and a happy new year." Dee Dee says reading the inside of the card.
"That's nice of them, what did they write in your card Dexter?" Mom asks looking over to Dexter who had opened his card.
"It just says the same but it's from Blossom and her sisters." Dexter says closing the card.
"Aww, it's nice to see you making friends with the neighbors." Mom says as he slid the card and package behind himself.
"Would you excuse me I need to use the restroom." He says standing up and walking out the room backwards to keep the present hidden.
He goes straight up to his room and after he closes the door he sits down on his bed and reread the card.
He was only half right when he said the card was from Blossom and her sister, but it didn't say the same as the one Dee Dee had read. The girls had each written a personal message to him.
"Thanks for the Tech Dexter, but think you could make one in black?" Buttercup had written in green ink.
"Have a wonderful holiday Dexter, may you get a lot of cool gifts and eat a lot of good food." Bubbles wrote in blue ink with a smiley face made from the double B's in her name
"Thank you for being our friend Dexter. You've been a fun person to get to know and are proof that not all teenagers are all the same, I hope we can always be friends and can keep getting to know each other more and more. Also merry Christmas." Blossom wrote in pink ink.
Blossom had also added to the bottom of the card: "PS, might not want your parents to see the gift, to avoid unwanted questions."
Dexter had a smile on his face as he read the card and even let out a little laugh at Bubbles and Buttercups notes but enjoyed Blossom's the most even though he didn't laugh.
He sets the card down on his bed and starts to open the package and his smile grows when he sees what the girls had given him.
'I need to remember to thank them the next time I see them.' He thinks as he looks at the handmade painted plaque that read: "Dexter McPherson, Official Tech Provider to The Powerpuff Girls".
"I guess this is my first step on my way to becoming a professional inventor." He says as he picked up the plaque.
He wanted to hang the plaque up somewhere, but was worried that his parents would see it and ask what it meant.
So after telling computer about it and taking a picture of it with his phone he wraps the plaque back up and hides it along with the card in his sock drawer thinking that he will find a place to hang it up when he can figure out the best way to keep it hidden.
*Knock knock* "Hey Dexter, you in their?" He hears Dee Dee ask through his door.
"Yes I am." He says back to her as he closed the drawer.
"Mom is getting lunch ready and she told me to come get you." Dee Dee says.
"Ok, I will be right down." Dexter says as he hears her walk away.
A few days later Dexter was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast with Dee Dee when there was a knock on the front door.
"I'll get it." Dee Dee says jumping up from the table.
Dexter wondered who it could be but didn't bother to get up to see for himself, he just kept eating his bowl of cereal.
"Hey Dexter, your friends are here to see you." Dee Dee yelled at him from the doorway.
Knowing that he had only three friends in all of Townsville he got up off his chair to see why Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup have come over to see him.
"Good morning ladies." He says when he sees them. All three of them were wearing winter jackets, snow hats and scarfs, all of which was of their favorite color along with jeans.
"Hey Dexter, were going sledding and we were wondering if you wanted to go with us?" Blossom asks.
Dexter was not a fan of sledding and was about to decline the girls invite when Dee Dee answered for him.
"He'd love to go with you." Dee Dee says crossing her arms on top of his head and smiling.
Dexter was about to correct his sister but stopped when he saw the looks of happiness the girls had, even Buttercup had a smile on.
"Yay." Bubbles says grinning. "Do want to come with Dee Dee?" She asks almost jumping for joy.
"Sure, come on Dexter lets go get our show clothes on." Dee Dee says turning to run up the stairs excited to go sledding.
"You can come inside and wait if you'd like." Dexter says standing to the side to let the girls into the house accepting the fact he is going sledding with the girls and his sister.
"Thanks, it was starting to get cold out here." Blossom says as her and her sisters walk into the house.
"Nice place you got here Dexter." Buttercup says looking around as he closed the front door.
"Did you never visit with your former neighbors?" He asks as they walked into the living room.
"They were a pair of boring people with boring little kids. They never cared to socialize with a couple of superhero teenage girls or there scientist of a dad." Buttercup says dropping onto the couch.
"And you would scare their children." Bubbles adds sitting down next to her sister on the couch.
"There is that too." Buttercup says leaning back on the couch.
"Come on Dexter, go get your stuff." Dee Dee says walking into the room zipping up her pink snow jacket, she had also put on a pair of blue jeans and a dark purple snow hat to help keep her warm.
"Ok Dee Dee." Dexter says turning to her. "I'll be right back." He says turning to the girls before leaving the room to get his winter clothing on.
A few minutes later Dexter walked down the stairs carrying a pair of red snow gloves and a blue ski hat as he zipped up his red winter jacket.
"Took you long enough." Dee Dee says from the armchair as he walked into the living room.
"Sorry, I still had my gloves and hat packed away." He says putting the gloves into one of his pockets.
"It's ok let's get going before the snow starts to melt." Blossom says standing up from the couch her and her sisters were sitting on.
Outside a dilemma arose between the five of them.
"How were you planning on getting to where you wanted to go sledding?" Dee Dee asks as Dexter closed the front door.
The girls stop simultaneously. "We were just going to fly." Buttercup says as her and her sisters relies the error in their plan.
"Well unless you were planning on carrying us, which I am not a fan of the idea by the way, we are going to need a different plan." Dee Dee says as the sister look at each other with a look of confusion on their face.
"I guess we could take the city bus." Blossom says making a suggestion for a means of transportation.
"That wouldn't be fun. Let me go ask Mom if I can borrow the station wagon." Dee Dee says turning to walk into the house.
"Thank you Dee Dee." Bubbles says her usual smile appearing on her face.
"So how safe if your sisters driving?" Buttercup asks after Dee Dee had closed the door to the house.
"Buttercup." Blossom says scolding her sister.
"It's actually probably the one think she is best at, besides dancing." Dexter says as he pulled on his ski hat.
"Good, not that a car wreck could seriously hurt us. I just don't want to have to save you two on my day off." Buttercup says as the front door opens.
"Mom said I can borrow the station wagon." Dee Dee says spinning the key ring to the station wagon around her finger.
"Yay let's go let's go!" Bubbles says getting excited about sledding.
The five of them walked over to the parked green station wagon in the driveway and Blossom follows Dexter around to the passenger side of the car.
It's an older car so Dee Dee had to unlock the driver's door, get in to unlock Dexter's door and then reach around to unlock the door for Buttercup and Bubbles to get in. Dexter opened his door reaches back to unlocked Blossoms and then not thinking about it opened the door for her.
"Thank you Dexter." Blossom says smiling at him as she got into the back seat next to Bubbles who was sitting in the middle seat.
"You welcome." He says closing the door before getting into his own seat in the front.
Dee Dee saw him open the door for her and a grin crossed her face as she watched them and thought that they looked cute together.
"Ok girls, where to?" Dee Dee asks as she started up the engine.
"If you get onto Parker Way and head west you should come up to the outskirts of town and there should be a big hill with a tree on it." Blossom says as Dee Dee checked the mirrors of the car before turning around to look out the back window to back out of the driveway.
"Ok, got it, Dexter you play GPS and keep an eye out for Parker Way." Dee Dee says as the car slowly rolled out of the driveway.
Dexter was right when he had said that Dee Dee was a good driver. Despite her almost chaotic personality and spontaneousness she is known for she obeyed all the tragic laws. Coming to a full stop at every red light or stop sign, maintaining the listed speed limit and she didn't even turn on the radio so she wouldn't have any distractions as she drove.
After twenty minutes of driving the five of them arrived at the big hill with a single pine tree at the top.
"Wow, that's a big hill." Dee Dee says as she pulled up to the side of the road and parked the car.
"It sure is, and look not a single other person around." Buttercup says getting out of the car.
"Wait I just realized something, we don't have anything to sled on." Dexter says opening his own door.
"We never use sleds." Blossom says as she got out of the car.
"Then how are we supposed to slide down the hill?" He asks confused about how her and her sisters sled.
"Care to show them Buttercup?" Blossom says as her and Bubbles closed their doors.
"Sure." Buttercup says before she jumped into the air and flew over the hill.
When she was just above the tree she looked down at the hill and then dove down and started firing lasers from her eyes as she flew down the hill a foot off the ground the whole way.
"Well that's definitely one way to do it." Dexter says looking at the path of ice Buttercup had made in the snow.
"You didn't tell me they had laser eyes Dexter." Dee Dee says her own eyes growing wide.
"I didn't? Oh well Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup can fire lasers from their eyes." He says not nearly as surprised by what Buttercup did as his sister.
"I can see that, I really need to remember to stay on your good sides." Dee Dee says looking over to the girls as Buttercup landed next to her sisters.
"You're our friend's sister, you automatically get put on the good sides list." Bubbles says before running up the hill to be the first to slide down the path.
The ice path worked great for them to slide on. All they needed to do was to sit down on the ice, hold their legs up to their chest and then nudge themselves until they slid down the hill. All four girls would laugh as they slid down the hill and even Dexter, who didn't like the idea in the beginning, was having fun and laughing along with them.
Even after almost two hours of sledding they were still having fun and laughing. As Dexter started another tip down the hill he started to spin and ended up on his back at the end of the path, his left glove had come off when he had attempted to stop spinning. Even though the spinning scared him a little he still laughed it off as he got up. But as he got up his hat had fallen off and not thinking about where he was standing he bent down to pick it up and as he stood up he heard Blossom yell.
"Dexter! Look out." Blossom yelled, but it was too late. Just as he looked at where her yelling was come from she crashed into him knocking him down into the snow on to his back and she fell on top of him.
Their faces were inches away from each other. "Hi." Blossom says smiling as her face turned red.
"Hello." Dexter says smiling back as his face turned red too.
"Sorry about that." She says pushing herself up off of him and then offering him a hand to help him up.
"It's ok, nothings broken." He says as took her hand with his left.
As Blossom helped him up she felt his scar on the back of his hand and noticed the big difference in the texture of his skin between the scar and the rest.
She instinctively started to run her thumb across the back of his hand felling the different skin textures.
As she did this Dexter got the feeling like a burp was brewing inside his stomach, and he didn't want to let that out in front of her. So he slowly pulled his hand away from hers saying; "Thank you for the help, but have you seen my other glove?" He asks looking away from her.
"Oh, yes." She says snapping out of her day dream. "It's about half way up the hill."
Dee Dee had been standing at the top of the hill watching Dexter and Blossom her grin from earlier appearing on her face. She could tell that there was some chemistry between her brother and Blossom. 'Oh Dexter, you are growing up so fast.' She thinks as he starts to climb the hill to fetch his lost glove.
About an hour later Dee Dee pulled the green station wagon back up into the driveway where they had taken it from. "Thanks for inviting us." She says turning off the engine.
"Thank you for coming, we had a lot of fun today right girls?" Blossom asks as all four car doors opened.
"I certainly did." Bubbles says as she followed Buttercup out of the car.
"Yeah it was fun." Buttercup says as she pushed in the lock of the door before closing it.
"We should get together more often, it's fun hanging out with you kids." Dee Dee says as Dexter and Blossom walked around the car.
"You're not that much older than us." Dexter says defending himself and the girls from Dee Dee calling them kids.
"Still being in highschool still marks you as kids." Dee Dee says patting Dexter on the head causing Bubbles to laugh.
"Hey." Dexter says pushing her hand away from his head.
When school started up again after the New Year everything was just like it was before the winter break.
"So did you like your gift Dexter?" Blossom asks as the city bus pulled up to their stop.
"Oh yes I loved it, it was great thank you all." Dexter says following Blossom into the bus.
"Glad you liked it Dexter." Bubbles says from behind him.
"Did you hang it up?" Buttercup asks from behind Bubbles.
"I wanted to but I didn't want my parents to ask about it, so I put it away somewhere safe until I can work out where to hang it." He says as they walked down the aisle to a set of empty seats.
"That makes sense, wouldn't want to freak your parents out." Blossom says sitting down in an empty seat.
"I feel like I should get you guys something in return." He says sitting down next to Blossom.
"You gave us our communicators, that was a great gift to begin with." Bubbles says leaning over the back of Dexter and Blossoms seat to talk to them.
"Yeah man, these are probably better than anything you could get us." Buttercup says leaning over the seat with her sister.
"If anything, we owe you something more." Blossom says as the bus starts to move.
A few days later Dexter and the girls were waiting for the bus, it had started snowing and none of them were happy about it.
"This sucks." Buttercup says annoyed by the weather. "Can't we just fly to school?" She asks looking over at Blossom.
"You know The Professor doesn't want us to." Blossom says dusting away some snow off her shoulder.
"We do it all the time anyways." Buttercup says arguing with her sister.
"When we need to get somewhere fast to help people." Blossom says getting annoyed with her sister.
"Oh please, we both know we bend that rule all the time, why can't we do it today?" Buttercup asks crossing her arms.
Blossom was about to break into a full blow argument with Buttercup, but Bubbles chimed in on the conversation.
"We don't fly everywhere because The Professor wants us to appreciate what we have, and to try and have a close as we can to a normal outlook on life so we can understand non-powered people. Also we can't leave Dexter alone in the snow." Bubbles says breaking the tension between her sisters. "And let's not forget that the more we show our powers, the more our enemies can learn from us." She adds.
Both Blossom and Buttercup realized how right their little sister was.
"She does have a point." Blossom says as her anger at Buttercup leaves her.
"Yeah, and it would be mean to leave Dext here in the snow." Buttercup says uncrossing her arms as her anger leaves.
"Er, Dexter Buttercup. You wouldn't want someone to call you just Butter." Blossom says correcting Buttercup.
Buttercup thought it was odd that she defended Dexter like she did, but couldn't comment on it because a familiar green station wagon pulled up next to them.
"Hey guys want a ride?" Dee Dee asks rolling down the passenger window.
"Yes please." Buttercup says pulling open the back door and climbing in.
"Thank you Dee Dee." Blossom says following Bubbles into the car.
"Yes, thank you Dee Dee. The snow was starting to get annoying." Dexter says closing his own door after climbing in.
"No problem, Mom wanted me to run some errands for her anyways." Dee Dee says as she shifts the car into gear.
"Do you not have class today?" Dexter asks as they drove down the road.
"Nope, free day today." Dee Dee says not looking away from the road.
"What are you studying?" Bubbles asks leaning forward from her seat between her sisters.
"Right now it's just the remedial for now, but this fall I'm going to start studying theatre and dance." Dee Dee says answering the question.
"That sounds like it would be a lot of fun." Bubbles says as they pulled up to a stop sign.
"It will be. I love dancing more than anything and I can't wait to learn everything I can." Dee Dee says as the car starts to move again.
When they pulled up to the front of Townsville High Dee Dee sees a short redheaded girl with three muscular looking boys with her.
"That's that girl you told me about, isn't Dexter?" Dee Dee asks pointing at the girl as the passenger in the car unbuckle their seat belts.
"Yeah that is the self-proclaimed Queen of Townsville High." Dexter says looking over to where his sister was pointing.
"She looks evil, like I can see and feel her negative aura." Dee Dee says as feeling a shiver run down her spine.
"She has a heart of black ice." Buttercup says getting out of the car.
"And those three boys with her, they look just as bad." Dee Dee adds to her observation of the group of four kids.
"That is Brick, Boomer, and Butch. Her boyfriends." Buttercup says closing the car door.
"Yuck, they look nasty, you be careful around them Dexter." Dee Dee says rolling her window down.
"Those past four brains can't do jack with us around." Buttercup says as Dexter and Blossom walk around the car.
"Oh If it's snowing when three o'clock comes, I'll come get you guys." Dee Dee says waving at the four of them.
"Thanks Dee Dee" Dexter says to his sister then turns to Blossom and says; "She's not normally this helpful and friendly without something crazy planned."
"She could just being nice you know." Blossom says as they walked towards the school.
"You don't know Dee Dee." He says back.
The snow never did let up and when the end of the school day came Dexter spots his sister waiting for him and the girls.
"Hey guys, how was school?" Dee Dee asks as Dexter and the girls get into the car.
"It was uneventful." Blossom says as she pulled her seat belt on.
"Thank you for giving us a ride home Dee Dee." Dexter says putting his seatbelt on.
"It's the least I could do for my favorite little brother and his friends." Dee Dee says grinning.
"Hey Dexter, do you work tonight?" Dee Dee asks as they drove down the road.
"No I have tonight off." He says glad that he wouldn't have to work and then walk home with it snowing.
"Cool, so I was thinking. Why don't we get some ice cream?" Dee Dee says suggesting something for them five of them to do.
"Ice cream? On a day like today?" Dexter says looking at his sister with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, it's always a good day for ice cream." Dee Dee says.
"I'm up for some." Bubbles says from the back seat.
"I wouldn't mind some." Blossom says.
"Well that settles it then." Dee Dee says smiling.
'What are you planning Dee Dee?' Dexter thinks looking at his sister not trusting the grin on her face.
Later after ice cream was eaten, that Dee Dee had gotten Dexter to buy of course, they were driving back to their neighborhood.
"Thank you again for the ice cream Dexter." Blossom says thanking Dexter again for buying.
"You're welcome Blossom." Dexter says turning his head to look back at Blossom.
When he turned his head he caught a glimpse of a tall thin figure standing on the side of the road with a cape and hood on pulled over his head so his face couldn't be seen.
Dexter didn't think anything of it, people do strange thing all the time all over the world.
But suddenly the car came to a sudden stop.
"Dee Dee, what's going on?" Dexter asks shocked by the sudden stop.
"I didn't do anything, the car just stopped on its own." She says with confused look on her face. She tries pushing down the accelerator revving the engine but the car doesn't move.
"What the heck is going on?" Dee Dee says looking down at the gas petal.
Dexter looks over at the console of the car and sees that everything looks normal.
"Dexter what's wrong with your car?" Buttercup asks leaning forward.
He was about to tell her he didn't know what was wrong then he heard a laugh that sent a chill down his spine. "HA HAHA HA HAHAHAHA."
"No…" Dexter says as he looked at his sister as the color runs from both of their faces and their eyes grow wide.
"Who the heck is that?" Buttercup asks looking out the back window.
"It… it can't be him, can it Dexter?" Dee Dee asks wrapping her arms around herself in fear.
"Who? Who do you think it is?" Blossom says looking out the window at the figure.
"It's Mandark." Dexter says unbuckling his seat belt.
"What? But I thought you said he was dead." Blossom says turning back to look at Dexter.
"I said they presumed him dead, but I guess they were wrong." Dexter says as he opened his door. "Dee Dee, stay in here and lock the door." He adds looking over at his sister.
Dee Dee just nods and him, her fear rising.
Over the years Mandark's obsession over Dee Dee had grown to a level of crazy that only a stalker would know. And when Dexter had told her that Mandark was suspected to be dead she finally thought she would be free of him. But now that she knows he isn't all the memories of past attempts of "wooing" her came back to her.
Dexter steps out of the car and closes the door. "Mandark." He shouts at the hooded figure.
"Hello Dexter, it's been a while." The figure says pulling the hood off of his head revealing his face. Mandark look just like he always had, black hair cut into a bowl cut and thick rimmed black glasses much like Dexter's.
"Not nearly long enough." Dexter says adjusting his gloves. "What do you want?"
"I want my revenge for you destroying my life." Mandark says sweeping his cloak behind him revealing a worn brown shirt and black dress pants equally worn.
"Destroying your life? It was you who created that monster and it was you who couldn't keep it contained." Dexter says pointing at Mandark.
"But it was you who made it bigger." Mandark says pointing back.
"I was trying to clean up after YOUR mess." Dexter says his anger growing.
"You know nothing of messes Dexter, because of you I was forced to go live with my grandparents on their farm. I had to get up at five in the morning every day to milk damn cows." Mandark says glaring at Dexter. "And now you will pay!" Mandark yells pulling what looked like a squirt gun from behind his back.
Dexter was scared at first but when he saw that it was a squirt gun he laughed at Mandark.
"A squirt gun? What do you plan on doing with that? Give me a cold?" Dexter says a smirk crossing his face.
"It may just be a squirt gun, but it's the acid inside it that you should worry about." Mandark says pointing the gun at Dexter.
'crud.' Dexter thinks as Mandark aims at him.
"Dee Dee my love, I know you are in there. Come out and join me and I will let your brother live." Mandark yells past Dexter.
Dexter hears the sound of one of the car doors open. "Dee Dee, stay back." He says looking behind him.
But it wasn't the driver's side door that had opened, it was the back passenger side door.
Dexter looks back at Mandark just in time to see Blossom appear in front of Mandark.
"I have a message for you." Blossom says glaring at Mandark. "Dee Dee says to get lost creep." She says before punching the hand Mandark was holding the gun with with her left breaking his hand and cracking the gun.
"Who the heck are you?" Mandark asks holding his broken hand with the other the pain not setting in yet.
"The names Blossom Utonium, leader of the Powerpuf Girls and I am only going to say this once. Stand down." Blossom says shaking her left hand.
"You stupid girl. You will pay for breaking my hand." Mandark says reaching behind his back with his unbroken hand and pulls out a remote control.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Blossom says picking up Mandark by the collar of his shirt and throwing him into the air.
Mandark screams as he flies into the air dropping the remote which Blossom catches.
Just as Mandark started to fall back to the ground Buttercup flies by grabbing him by the leg.
"I demand you put me down!" Mandark yells up at Buttercup.
"Ok." She says and throws him into the air with all her strength.
"Ahhhhhh you will pay for this, all of you!" Mandark yells as he goes tumbling through the air.
"Buttercup, make sure you catch him before he hits the ground." Blossom says to her sister as she picked up the remains of the squirt gun.
"On it." Buttercup says as she flew after Mandark but not at top speed.
"Thank you Blossom, once again you saved my butt." Dexter says as Blossom turned around to face him.
"You're welcome Dexter, oh no." She says looking down at her left hand. Some of the acid had spilled onto her hand and while her powers kept it from doing anything more then make her skin a little red, a drop had fallen onto her communicator breaking the strap almost completely off on one side of the face of the device.
"I'm sorry Dexter, I broke my communicator." She says looking at him frowning.
"Here let me see it." He says walking over to her and taking the device from her. "It's just the strap and a small part of the disk, I can easily fix this." He says after he looked over the communicator.
"That's good to hear. What do you make of this?" She asks handing him the remote she took from Mandark.
"Hummm." Dexter says looking it over. It looked as if it had once been an old TV remote that Mandark had made some modifications to.
"It looks like a TV remote." He says turning it over and popping the battery cover off. When he pulls the batteries out of it the station wagon lurched forward. And a strange device fell off the back axle and rolled out from under the car.
"Well we know how he stopped the car." Dexter says as Blossom took the remote from him.
"Yeah." She says snapping the remote in half as they walked over to the device.
The device looked to be made mostly out of old tractor parts and trash. "Mandark must not have had access to anything from after nineteen fifty." Dexter says as he examined the device.
"I hope Buttercup caught him." Blossom says looking up into the sky.
"Is it safe to come out?" Bubbles asks poking her head out the open door.
"Yes, you and Dee Dee can come out." Blossom says to her sister.
"Come on Dee Dee it's safe to come out, I told you Dexter would keep you safe." Bubbles says to Dee Dee inside the car.
"I told Bubbles to look after Dee Dee, and to be ready to get her out of here if things went south." Blossom says looking away from the sky.
"Thank you for thinking ahead." Dexter says and Dee Dee opened her door.
"Why did he have to come back?" Dee Dee asks walking around to the back of the car the color returning back to her face.
"I don't know, but Buttercup should have him and we can turn him over to the Feds and never see him again." Dexter says to his sister.
"Don't count on it Dexter." Buttercup says landing next to her sisters.
"What do you mean Buttercup, you couldn't find him?" Blossom asks.
"I found the snow bank he landed in, but he wasn't in it and there was no foot prints walking away from it." Buttercup says.
"Could he have used some kind of teleporting system?" Bubbles asks.
"I doubt it, judging by this stuff he had with him, I'd say he lost his lab and all of his Tech too." Dexter says rolling the device that was attached to the car with his foot.
"Still we should look for him. Bubbles, take that thing and these and destroy them however you want to." Blossom says pointing at the device on the ground and handing the two pieces of the remote and the broken squirt gun to her. "Buttercup you come with me and we are going to look around for him before we tell The Mayor about Mandark." She adds pointing to Buttercup.
"K." Bubbles and Buttercup says together.
"Can I help in anyway?" Dexter asks wanting to help the girls.
"Make sure you and your sister get home safely. Call The Mayor if you see Mandark again tonight." Blossom tells him.
"We are going straight home." Dee Dee says before she grabbed all three of the girls and hugged them.
"Thank you, all of you. You probably saved Dexter's and my life from that mega creep." She says when she let go of them.
"You're welcome Dee Dee. See you later Dexter." Blossom says smiling at Dexter before saying to her sisters; "Let's go girls." And they take off flying into the sky.
As Dexter and Dee Dee get back into the station wagon across town in a secret base deep underground Mandark lies on the ground unconscious.
"Ah!" He screams as he wakes up. "Where am I?" He asks sitting up and looking around. The underground base looked as if it was a large cave but was painted cotton candy pink.
"Why you are in my home." A high pitch voice says from the shadows.
"Who are you, and why have you brought me here?" Mandark asks looking at the group of shadows the voice came from.
"I brought you here to keep you away from those Powerpuff Girls, and I have a proposition for you that I'm sure you would just die for." The voice says drawing closed to Mandark.
"That still doesn't explain who you are." Mandark says standing up.
"Oh I'm sorry, where are my manners. You can call me HIM." A red skinned man with short black hair says stepping out of the shadows.
For the rest of the car ride home both Dee Dee and Dexter stayed quiet. Dee Dee was still a little shaken up about the run in with Mandark, but she thought it was a small price to pay to see that her guess about Dexter and Blossom was right. After their literal run-in when they were sledding during the winter break Dee Dee had suspected that there was something between the two, or that it was still in the process of growing.
Dexter was being quite on the ride home because he wanted to keep his eyes peeled for Mandark, but his mind kept going back to early in the morning when he had wondered if Dee Dee had some alternative reasons for giving them a ride to and from school.
When they get inside the house Dexter decides to confront Dee Dee about her motives.
"So what was you plan about today?" He asks her as he closed the front door.
"I don't know what you're talking about Dexter." Dee Dee says lying to Dexter.
"You've had the capability to drive for three years, this is the first time you ever offered to take me to school." He says crossing his arms.
"What can't I give my little brother, his friends and his girlfriend a ride to school?" She asks making sure not to drop any names.
"What? Blossom is not my girlfriend. She's just a friend, who happens to be a girl." He says naming Blossom as one he thought she was talking about.
"Who you spend an awful lot of time with." She says grinning that Dexter had named Blossom like she thought he would.
"I spend an awful lot of time with you too." He says trying to defend himself.
"Yeah well I'm your sister, she's a cute girl in your class who you made jewelry for." She says her grin growing.
"It was a communicator! And I made one for all three." He says holding up Blossoms broken one in front of her.
"It's ok little brother, you don't have to admit to it now. In time you will grow up." She says walking up the stairs.
"You are so annoying." He says annoyed at her, but happy to see that the thing with Mandark hadn't messed with her so much she couldn't pick on him.
"It's part of my job." She says turning and smiling at him.
After dinner Dexter was working on Blossoms communicator. "She is crazy." He says as he detached the broken band.
"Who is crazy Dexter?" A voice asks coming from the speakers on his laptop.
Dexter had upgraded COMPUTER's set up so she could now talk to him like she did back at his old lab.
"Dee Dee, she thinks there is something going on between me and Blossom." He says pulling one of the draws on his desk open.
"Well Dexter, does really matter what she thinks?" COMPUTER asks as Dexter pulled a spare pink strap out of the draw.
"No, but it's still annoying." He says as he starts to examine the spot the acid had hit the disk.
"And more importantly, you need to finish that E-mail to Honeydew about Mandark Dexter." COMPUTER says reminding him of the E-mail he had started writing on his phone before he went down for dinner.
"I know, it's mostly done. I just need to punch in her E-mail address." He says putting down the communicator glad that the acid had only eaten the steel Brushed paint off.
He opens a different draw pulls out the card Agent Honeydew had given him the night she was in his room. He had cut a hole out of it where there had been a surveillance device hidden in it. When he had found the small disk inside the card it made him a little mad, so he attached it to the collar of a dog with a note saying "do you think I'm that stupid? -Dexter, Boy Genius".
He reads over the E-mail making sure he hadn't left anything out, and once he was satisfied with it he typed in her E-mail address.
"There sent. Let's hope that that is the last we will ever hear or see of Mandark." Dexter says setting his phone back down to continue his work on fixing Blossoms communicator.
AN: Sorry this one is so long, I didn't plan it to be it just kind of happened. But the rest shouldn't be this long, no promises though. Also I'm trying a different format for my stories in hopes it makes it easier to read, if it made it harder please say so.