Miss Sara Bellum, the very competent and dutiful assistant of the Mayor of Townsville, could only mentally sigh and shake her head as the Mayor happily and thoughtlessly signed off on the various paperwork detailing the simultaneous completions of a new grand hotel and mega casino in Townsville as part of his plan for improving the city (and his image and reputation).
A series of deafening explosions suddenly sounded somewhere in the city, and the Mayor's office subsequently shook as if experiencing an earthquake.
Both the Mayor and Miss Bellum steadied themselves and turned towards the office's large glass windows to find yet another machine of mass destruction built by none other than Mojo Jojo, who was trying to take over Townsville (again).
"Mojo Jojo again!?" The Mayor yelped, jumping in his oversized office chair, and hurriedly started phoning the Powerpuff Girls.
Miss Bellum sighed in dismay and exasperation. "Oh dear, not again... for a genius, he never seems to learn..."
From two separate places within Townsville, six others shared similar sentiments in varying degrees, ranging from annoyance and exasperation to irritation and contemplation of unacknowledged patricide.
Miss Bellum took out her phone and quickly started typing. "We might as well use this as an opportunity..."
-M-I-A-S-M-A-
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
- John F. Kennedy
Bubbles lightly rocked back and forth on her feet while Blossom stood with her arms crossed, idly tapping well-manicured fingers against her upper right arm. The smoking carcass of Mojo Jojo's newest machine of mass destruction, this one resembling a cliché UFO, lay a few feet in front of them. They had been watching their black-haired sister violently beat up the monkey villain to a pulp (again) for quite a while now.
"Buttercup's really taking her time..." Blossom hummed after a while of sounds of bone-breaking punches and Mojo's loud cries clearly heard from the background.
"Stress?" Bubbles offered. Blossom turned her head towards her.
"Let me guess," The red-haired puff rolled her eyes, "She didn't study for that test today in math, which coincidentally should be her class right now."
"Really? What a coincidence..." The blonde chirped, smiling at her 'eldest' sister.
Said 'eldest' sister stared pointedly at her. "Come to think of it, that's also your class right now..."
Bubbles kept smiling.
The redhead felt a headache forming and sighed, "You also didn't study, did you..."
"Not on purpose!" Bubbles lightly blushed and had the decency to look contrite. "It's just that I spent all night chatting with my friends and catching up on gossip and I kinda, um, well, sorta, um, maybe... forgot...?"
"...I'm letting you two off since it's just the first week of school. But we're third years now, so you two should really take your studies more seriously." Blossom shook her head at her blonde sister's sheepish face before turning around to face her other sister. "Quit stalling for time, Buttercup, and throw him to jail already. Math just ended."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Buttercup blithely and blatantly denied, while picking up the severely beaten Mojo Jojo and sending him soaring straight towards Townsville jail (again).
A few meters into the sky, a single hand suddenly shot out and grabbed hold of the monkey villain by the end of his long purple cape. Mojo made a choking noise as he was abruptly snatched out of the air and pulled back down towards the ground. The hand belonged to a blond guy who looked to be around the same age as the three Powerpuff Girls standing a short distance away.
Rose pink, lime green, and especially sky blue eyes flashed with recognition. All three pairs of wide eyes were fixated on the familiar blond in front of them, who stood relaxed with one hand tucked inside the pocket of his blue jeans and the other currently holding Mojo Jojo up by his purple cape.
A flabbergasted Mojo was coughing loudly and indignantly spluttering, "W-What is the meaning of this, this as in referring to the fact about how you so crudely, and not carefully as you should have but instead did not for reasons that I, Mojo Jojo, have yet to determine, take a sudden grip of my evidently and profoundly bruised and beaten flying form from high in the air and-"
"We've talked about this, remember?" The blond interrupted, a sunny smile on his handsome face. "Do we have to send you off to speech therapy again..."
Mojo Jojo immediately quieted, his eyes flashing in absolute horror at the aforementioned threat.
Hearing her counterpart's soft and mature voice after not seeing him and his brothers since their sudden disappearance six years ago, Bubbles was finally convinced that this was real and not just a dream. Or was it a nightmare...? Her counterpart was really standing right in front of her, just meters away, and looking rather cute too...
"Boomer..." A whisper escaped Bubbles' lips at that moment, one that any normal person would not have heard. Too bad they were all far from normal.
Boomer looked up, and Bubbles froze when his half-lidded twin pools of deep ocean blue connected with her sky blue ones for a second before redirecting his eyes to all three girls' shocked forms. Bubbles felt a twinge of disappointment at that.
The smile on Boomer's face froze for a split second, and, to untrained eyes, it looked the same and as sunlit as ever. The girls' bodies tensed.
"Hello, Bubbles." The Boomer casually greeted.
Bubbles blinked in surprise.
She saw her red-haired sister's meaningful glance directed towards her out of the corner of her eye and the blonde puff immediately straightened herself. Boomer was her counterpart to deal with after all. She inwardly took a deep breath. "W-What are you doing here...?"
Beside her, Bubbles noticed Buttercup discreetly getting into a defensive stance.
In contrast to his smiling face, Boomer's voice was lackadaisical. "Don't worry, I'm only here to fetch Mojo. I'm not interested in a fight, haven't been for years, so you can tell your sisters to relax."
Bubbles could tell that her counterpart was speaking the truth, experience and instinct born from their encounters back when they were young (though was it still reliable? It had been six years after all...), and she relaxed. Seeing that, Buttercup also eased her stance, albeit slowly and hesitantly. She still kept a close guarded eye on Boomer though. However, it was a different case with Blossom. If anything, what her 'youngest' sister's counterpart said only made the pink puff more suspicious.
"What for?" Blossom spoke with an authoritative tone, crossing her arms over her chest. "Mojo was already headed straight for jail. Where are you taking him?"
"Right back here." Boomer replied with a light shrug. "Why? Wait and you'll see."
Buttercup narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Blossom frowned. In her mind, there was one question above all that the redhead wanted to ask Boomer. If he was here, then where was...
"Don't even think about it, Mojo." The blue ruff suddenly turned towards the startled monkey villain he was holding up. He and the girls had clearly caught Mojo's whispered ramblings of immediate new evil plans to himself after hearing the previous conversation. "You're not off the hook. After this, you're doing your time in jail." Boomer cheerily spoke. Before the surprised Buttercup, Blossom, or Bubbles could say anything, Mojo abruptly screeched.
"But-But what about my machine, the deadly attack automaton which I, Mojo Jojo, had designed and created by myself as a weapon with the intention and objective of destroying the Powerpuff Girls, allowing me, Mojo Jojo, to finally take over Townsville as its sole and rightful ruler-" Mojo was abruptly cut-off when the gigantic carcass of the UFO that the girls (Buttercup) destroyed earlier was suddenly picked up from the ground.
"This piece of junk? I got it."
All attention was drawn to the new arrival, a handsome guy with spiky jet-black hair, who effortlessly lifted and lazily spun atop a single finger the massive UFO carcass above his head as if it weighed no more than a frisbee.
Bubbles felt her black-haired sister stiffen beside her.
Buttercup clenched her fists. She felt her temper rising at the mere sight of those intense forest green eyes that just seemed to always stir something within her, and she couldn't help the fierce glare that crossed her gorgeous face.
"Butch..." The green puff growled from where she stood, gritting her teeth.
Butch smirked, ferocious green eyes narrowing. "Well, well, well... Long-time no see, Powderpuffs."
"It's Powerpuff, you fucking retard!" Buttercup spat, her scowl deepening. She had forgotten how easily Butch could rile her up.
Butch merely sneered, "Newsflash, Butterbitch. You're a retard too if you think that, since we're fucking counterparts." Buttercup also forgot about how easily she could rile Butch up. Counterparts indeed...
Buttercup's responding growl was loud and feral. She immediately moved into an offensive stance and was just about to attack, when her red-haired sister held up a single hand in front of her face, blocking and halting her.
"Buttercup," Blossom spoke firmly, keeping her pink eyes locked straight at the two Rowdyruff brothers. "Not before them." They will be the ones to initiate the fight, not us.
Buttercup gritted her teeth, hesitating for a single tense moment, but otherwise stayed put and reluctantly eased out of her attacking stance. "Tch..."
Blossom retracted her arm. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Bubbles' uneasy look.
Boomer turned back towards the troublesome monkey he was holding up. He sighed, "Really, Mojo, you should stop playing villain and just retire already. Stop being such a bother." Mojo spluttered indignantly at that, the blond ruff's words raising the Powerpuffs' interest. "What will Brick do when he sees all the trouble you caused again..."
"Throw him back to that island of monkeys*1."
Mojo's new babbling was immediately silenced by a low, powerful voice.
Blossom suppressed a shiver.
All heads turned to find another familiar guy with long red hair tied in a low ponytail, coolly making his way over towards them.
Blossom narrowed her eyes. "Brick..."
Brick stopped right between where his two brothers stood, his arms crossed, his handsome face apathetic.
Mojo squirmed uneasily in Boomer's inescapable hold, feeling a single bead of sweat slowly trickle down the side of his face.
All six super-powered beings in the world were reunited.
All of them sixteen years of age, and much much more powerful.
The two sides engaged in a stare down. The air surrounding them was undeniably tense and thick with apprehension, especially more so on the girls' part. As if to stress, mock, and annoyingly add to the cliché, an ominous breeze started swirling around them, their hair lightly dancing to the wind.
Brick's half-lidded eyes stared down at his surroundings. The 'eldest' ruff's spine-chilling red pupils could now only be directly looked at and held in gaze by his counterpart's defiant rose pink ones. Buttercup and Bubbles secretly admired their red-haired sister for that. Blossom undeniably had the scariest counterpart out of the three of them, especially now that they were all sixteen, stronger, and so different from when they were kids.
Eyes the color of fresh blood narrowed.
"Butch." The bored black-haired ruff looked up at his 'eldest' brother at the low utterance of his name.
"That piece of junk you're holding..." Brick drawled lowly. "Get rid of it."
"What!? No, wait-!" Mojo loudly protested as Butch grinned darkly.
"Whatever you say!"
The green ruff tossed the UFO carcass up high in the sky with ease, like a flying disc, while rapidly condensing a small ball of dark green energy in his free hand. The electric green sphere sparked and crackled with raw power, and Butch gleefully shot it up at the descending UFO carcass headed straight down above him. The quick collision generated a large, deafening explosion of smoky black, gray, and dark green, blowing away the surrounding air with the tremendous force of the blast, which ruffled the hairs of the seven standing nearby. A light rain of ashes descended upon them, resembling falling gray snow, disintegrating melodramatically into the air and swept by the winds before they could touch the rubble-caked ground.
Mojo pitifully froze, weeping in Boomer's hold at the loss of his precious machine of mass destruction that he had been planning to rebuild into a new and better model to hopefully defeat the Powerpuff Girls (again) and subsequently passed out while a still crazily grinning Butch flicked off excess green sparks from his fingers.
Bubbles' eyes wideed while Buttercup just rolled hers and scoffed under her breath. "Fucking showoff..."
It was a rather flimsy demonstration, but Blossom easily recognized it for what it really was. A warning of the boys' stronger power that they wouldn't hesitate to use on them if needed.
Blossom's eyes narrowed.
"Brick." She spoke, gathering all attention towards her. Her two sisters inwardly commended her for not buckling under the pressure radiating from five pairs of superbeing*2 eyes, including her own counterpart's rather bloodcurdling red ones. "Why are you here?" Why did you three come back? Why did you three come back now?
Butch and Boomer glanced at their 'eldest' brother.
Half-lidded red eyes blinked indifferently. "Wait and see."
A frown crossed Blossom's beautiful face as Buttercup scowled from where she stood beside her.
Blossom opened her mouth and, just as she was about to speak again, a white limousine suddenly arrived, bearing the official insignia of the mayor of Townsville. Six pairs of eyes darted towards it as the passenger door opened. Out came Miss Bellum, followed by none other than the Mayor himself.
"We can explain that, girls." Miss Bellum spoke, walking with the Mayor in tow towards the middle of where the two groups of super-powered siblings stood.
"Hi, girls!" The Mayor cheerfully greeted, happily waving at them, blissfully ignorant of the tension in the air.
"Miss Bellum?! Mayor?!" Bubbles exchanged a quick glance with her equally surprised sisters. "What are you two doing here...?!"
Blossom, who had kept an eye on their counterparts, narrowed her eyes at the fact that none of the guys looked surprised or confused. Instead, it appeared as if they were actually expecting the appearance of the Mayor and his assistant.
"Good, you're all here." Miss Bellum turned towards the Rowdyruffs and nodded at them. "Boys, we're leaving Mojo Jojo to you after he serves his jail time. Please make sure he doesn't cause trouble for at least another month." Every single one of them knew that Mojo Jojo wouldn't be willingly retiring from playing villain any time soon and therefore resigned themselves to just limiting the amount of damage the monkey villain would cause to Townsville instead.
"Eh, we'll try," Butch shrugged. "No promises though."
"Alright, what the hell is going on here!" Buttercup demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.
It was the Mayor who explained. "You see, girls, the Rowdyruff Boys are now neutral!"
"WHAT?!"
The Powerpuff Girls exclaimed in surprise, their heads simultaneously snapping towards their counterparts. Butch had an amused smirk, his forest green eyes smug, Boomer's face was smiling yet as unreadable as ever, and Brick looked stoic, his eyes closed.
Before the girls could find their voices, Miss Bellum spoke.
"Last month," The Girls' wide eyes widened further, "The Rowdyruff Boys came to us claiming neutrality and seeking to live freely in Townsville. A fresh start, so to speak. As part of the conditions, they agreed to undergo a one year probationary period to assess and assist them and see if their claims were true." Miss Bellum's eyes flickered to the Rowdyruff Boys. "Boys, please tell the girls what you told us."
Eyes the shade of fire and blood slowly opened.
"...We came back to live our lives in peace. That's it. " Brick looked at all three of the girls directly in the eyes, stopping on Blossom's the last and the longest. "My brothers and I don't care whether you believe it or not, just don't bother us. We're not looking for nor interested in a fight." (Butch's mouth playfully opened and quickly closed after a swift leg kick from Boomer.) "Watch us for every single second every single day, we don't care. You'd just be wasting your time in useless paranoia."
"Not caring?" Blossom narrowed her eyes. "My, how generous, Brick. Is it useless though...?"
Brick just tilted his head down at her in a condescending manner. "Like I said, it's your time that's wasted. Don't expect anything from us." Intense red eyes directly pierced through light pink ones. "Contrary to how much you three seem to believe, we don't care about terrorizing Townsville nor do we enjoy antagonizing you girls anymore, even if we had the spare time to do so. You Powerpuffs aren't the center of everyone's attention." Brick spoke patronizingly, "I'm sure both of us have better things to do than get hung up on the past. It's narcissistic and just plain dumb."
Blossom tried not to show that she was taken aback, ignoring Butch's not-so-quiet snicker and Boomer's sigh. Bubbles and Buttercup looked incredulous. All three Powerpuffs were stunned into silence.
The pink puff's lips thinned. "I see..."
"Do you?" Her counterpart challenged gruffly.
Blossom's eyes flashed defiantly. "We'll find out."
Fiery red eyes bore into rose pink ones for a moment before Brick smirked. Blossom did not want to admit how nostalgic it was nor would she admit that her heart skipped a beat at seeing how attractively roguish he just looked right then.
"See, girls?" The Mayor cheered, "Isn't it great!"
"You can't be fucking serious, Mayor!" Buttercup yelled, ignoring her 'eldest' sister's reprimanding "Language!" and glared fiercely at her counterpart. "You actually believe them?!"
"No, we don't." Miss Bellum was the one who answered, stepping forward and regaining all attention. "And that is precisely why we need you girls to act as the boys' guides and watchers during the one-year probationary period."
"WHAT!?!"
"Are you fucking kidding me!" Buttercup roared, glaring harder at her jeering counterpart. This time, Blossom did not chastise her for her language.
"I'm afraid not, girls." Miss Bellum sighed. "Don't worry, the boys will be wearing monitoring and tracking devices for the entire duration of their probation. You are to watch the boys in public areas and need not monitor them at home or in private." Guides, watchers, guards, wardens.
As Miss Bellum spoke, all three girls eyed Brick's left cartilage cuff earring, Boomer's matching pendant and Butch's...
"Where the fuck's your tracker?" Buttercup demanded, her lime green eyes narrowing as she kept scanning her counterpart's body up and down. It was definitely not one of the green ruff's multiple ear piercings, nor the two silver rings on his fingers.
"Down, girl. I'm wearing it, just not showing it." Butch smirked, a wicked glint in his eyes. "Wanna see?"
Buttercup's face reddened, and her indignant squawk mixed with the green ruff's boisterous laughter.
Bubbles was speechless, shocked disbelief and uncertainty the most prominent among the mix of emotions in her sky blue eyes. Even so, the Powerpuff Girls did not ask why.
Why them?
They did not need to ask.
Only they could do the job of being the watchers of the Rowdyruff Boys, the only other three superbeings in the world aside from them. The Association of World Super Men and other supers like them don't count. They were nowhere near the girls' (and thus the boys') league when the girls were young, much less now that the girls are sixteen. The AWSM may be supers, but they were still men. Human.
"Trust us, girls. This is for the good of everyone." Miss Bellum spoke seriously. If the Rowdyruff Boys were truly neutral, then there was less to worry about, for everyone. For Townsville, for the Powerpuff Girls, and for the Rowdyruff Boys themselves.
"It's not as if we have a choice in the first place..." Blossom finally sighed. She narrowed her eyes, glancing at her and her sisters' counterparts. "And they actually agreed to this?"
Butch scoffed and rolled his eyes, "What, you think we had a choice when you don't?" We, the Rowdyruff Boys, the reviled bad guys. You, the Powerpuff Girls, Townsville's heroes and guardians, beloved by all...
Blossom's warning look and Bubbles' nervous one forced Buttercup to bite her tongue. She scowled and glared fiercely instead.
"There's no problem then!" The Mayor clapped his hands rather childishly, a jovial smile on his face.
All six super-powered beings couldn't help giving Miss Bellum a commiserating look. Miss Bellum merely sighed in accustomedness.
Brick clicked his tongue irritably. "If that's all, we'll be taking our leave."
He waved a hand, and both Butch and Boomer started hovering above the ground. Brick turned around, about to follow.
"Wait."
The Rowdyruff leader paused when he heard his counterpart's call. He hesitated, silently debating with himself for a second, before finally deciding to let his fellow redhead speak with a small, barely noticeable tilt of his head.
Blossom quietly regarded her and her sister's counterparts with a serious look on her beautiful face. ""A bad past is no excuse for a bad present"." Watch yourselves.
Bubbles and Buttercup's eyes darted towards their red-haired sister. Blossom merely stood straight with her hands on her hips, completely straight-faced as she stared at the back of her counterpart's head.
Brick, with his back to the girls, sneered. "Pareidolia and Apophenia." You watch yourselves.
The red ruff joined his two brothers in the air as his black-haired brother turned towards Buttercup.
"See you tomorrow, Butterbabe." Butch winked at his counterpart just before all three Rowdyruffs flew off with an unconscious Mojo Jojo in tow towards the direction of Townsville jail, leaving behind three quickly fading streaks of their signature dark colors and the Powerpuff Girls standing there, confused. Well, mostly confused.
Bubbles was trying and failing to calm down Buttercup, who was yelling out loud definite blush-inducing obscenities and curses directed towards her cocky counterpart ("Oh my!" The Mayor blushed in the background, hands onhi cheeks). Blossom, however, was more focused on what her black-haired sister's counterpart's words meant.
The pink puff furrowed her brows. "What did he mean by that...?"
"What was that, Blossom?" Bubbles turned to her 'eldest' sister. Buttercup was still clearly fuming but also directed her attention to her red-haired sister.
"Butch." Blossom glanced at Buttercup to see her black-haired sister's gorgeous face twist into a scowl before redirecting her calculating eyes to Miss Bellum's apologetic yet expectant face. "His parting words were 'see you tomorrow'. What did he mean?"
Buttercup scoffed, rolling her eyes and waving a hand dismissively. "Please, the idiot probably just said it to mess with me!"
"Buttercup..." Bubbles sighed at her sister.
"Tomorrow..." Blossom's narrowed pink eyes slowly widened. "No... he can't possibly mean..." The Mayor's assistant's solemn nod killed the tiny bit of naive hope left in her.
"What?" Bubbles asked, stepping closer. "What is it?" Even Buttercup noticed the look on their red-haired sister's face.
Blossom turned to face her two sisters with a serious look in her eyes. "Girls, be prepared for tomorrow."
"Why?" Buttercup frowned, her eyebrows furrowing in concern, "What's with tomorrow?"
Blossom spoke with a frown on her beautiful face. "...The Rowdyruff Boys transferred to our school."
"Finding good players is easy. Getting them to play as a team is another story."
- Casey Stengel
I. Reunion
(or in which Miss Bellum plots and the Powerpuff Girls involuntarily become babysitters)
Author End Notes
*1: Island of monkeys - from the episode 'Save Mojo'
*2: Due to their not-so-normal birth (creation) and experiences growing up, which may or may not show up in future chapters, both the PPG and the RRB don't view themselves as human. They're different and terrifyingly more powerful and durable than humans, even superhumans such as Major Man (can he be counted as a super?), the AWSM, and villains such as Sedusa and others. Make no mistake, they do not have a god complex and are well aware of their weaknesses (such as Antidote-X and still being subject to death). That's just part of the reason why they can never refer to themselves and each other as 'human', but instead as 'beings'. Plus, there are others who also see and treat them as non-human, especially for different and wrong reasons...
Buttercup was so checking Butch out when she was trying to find where and what his tracker was. And Butch knows.
And yes, Buttercup will find out what Butch's tracker is. It'll be fun to write, I can't wait...
Miss Bellum has another, truer reason for assigning the PPG as the RRB's watchers. Otherwise, why would Miss Bellum bother to make the girls waste everyone's time and watch the boys in public places only? Obviously, besides avoiding a breach of privacy, among other reasons. Especially when the boys could just make "evil plots" in private (like their eternally unacknowledged father). So, yes, Miss Bellum actually believes the RRB are neutral even without the probation period.