Part 3
"La la la... la la la, la la..."
Unwavering in her gleeful skips, Numbah Three threw back the hood of her cloak once in the safety of Hero Square. Nonchalantly, she grabbed onto one of the cables hooked up to their floating tree house and rode it upwards, her long hair and loose clothes trailing along in the wind.
"Weeeeeee...!"
Goodness, did she love her job.
She hit the ground in a nimble walk, resuming in her bopping little steps as she entered KND headquarters. At the hub of the grand structure, she found her leader situated at the main monitors, ever diligent in keeping up with agent activity.
"Hiya, Numbah One!"
He turned away, however, at her loud and cheerful greeting. He had been expecting her return.
"Welcome back, Numbah Three," he replied, meeting her halfway through the grand chamber. "Were you successful?"
"You bet!" Numbah Three grinned brighter than the sun, removing the camera strap around her neck and handing it to him. "I got good shots of her too!"
"I'm sure you did." Inspecting the camera's readings, he paused as the reel began, raising a thick brow. "...and just what is this?" he questioned, showing her a pointless photo of the sky.
"Ohhh..." She giggled. "That's not her, Numbah One! That's a picture of a cloud shaped like a Rainbow Monkey! Couldn't miss THAT shot!"
Numbah One sighed, then continued skimming through the photos.
Soon, he found the shots he was looking for; multiple still frames focused on a punker girl, singing onstage, lounging over a drink, or punching members of the Gangreen Gang backstage. The angles ranged from full body shots to close-ups. And looking over her face intently, Numbah One knew the rumors were true.
"...it must be her. There's no mistaking it."
His teammate cocked her head cluelessly. "Huh?"
"Good work, Numbah Three," he replied, already moving to pack essential equipment for travel. "We're taking this information to Dexlabs for definite clarification. Contact our main officers, plus Blossom, Bubbles, and Mojo Jojo. Tell them meet us there to plan a course of action."
"Yes, SIR!" Numbah Three saluted gleefully. Among countless other things, praise for a good job always made her happy.
--Dexlabs--
"Match Confirmed."
A gentle hush fell over the projection room after the computer had finished its analytical comparison between the mysterious girl in the photographs and the profile shots of the missing Powerpuff Girl. It seemed too crazy to believe, but scientific analysis turned it into doubtless reality.
Looking the statistics over one more time, Dexter stood back almost in awe.
"...it must be her. There's no mistaking it."
Mojo gaped in disbelief. Bubbles had lightly gasped, covering her dainty mouth. Professor Utonium could only smile in pure paternal relief, his hopes finally confirmed. He had his hand gently placed on a stunned Blossom's shoulder, stiff in her effort to hold back her tears.
"...Buttercup..."
"Yeesh. SHE certainly cleaned up pretty wel...OW!" Bloo's sarcastic comment was interrupted by a sharp elbow nudge from Mac. The boy had to constantly remind his imaginary friend to be more polite in their frequent visits.
"We were tracking the tales of the Gangreen Gang's latest addition for security reasons," Numbah One briefed, Numbah Three still beaming beside him. "They call her Belladonna, but... the resemblance is uncanny."
Numbah Five made a face. "Seriously? Out of all the B names for them to pick..."
"But... why?" Bubbles asked.
"She has amnesia, doesn't she?" Ben brought forward another one of the facts presented in the stories. "She must've lost her memory after being knocked into the ocean. The Gangreen Gang probably found her washed up on the shore and took her in."
Mojo snorted in disgust. "I despise those hooligans. They're too small-time. They give evil-doers a bad name."
"As if you do any better," Bloo snidely commented, gaining a dangerous growl in return.
"So now that we know she's okay..." Pulling Bloo a few feet away from the irate monkey, Mac changed the subject. "What do we do now?"
"...we get her back," Blossom heavily replied.
"At least it's only amnesia," Dexter reminded. "That's an easy fix."
"Easy!?" Numbah Five gave him a look. "You got some magic formula that restores memory?"
The boy genius replied with an identical smirk. Witty retorts between these two was not uncommon. "I'm working on it."
"I'm sure he means she's otherwise unharmed," the Professor spoke up. "Memory loss can be reversed simply with either hypnosis, a strong shock, or certain triggers."
"Certain triggers, huh?" Ben glanced at Blossom. She nodded, thinking the same thing.
Already, an uneasy feeling began to brew in the pit of Mojo's stomach as the Powerpuff leader approached him levelly, crossing her arms.
"Don't think I don't know how you feel about this," she spoke sternly, making eye contact with her arch-nemesis. "Are you willing to help us get Buttercup back?"
Mojo averted his gaze, then grumbled lowly in acceptance. After she turned away, he subtly gulped, sensing traces of the bruising he was expecting in the near future.
"It's settled then," Blossom concluded with a shot of confidence. "Bubbles, Mojo and I will stage a mock fight within her range. That'll be bound to catch her attention."
Ben nodded in agreement. "Knowing Buttercup, that's sounds about right. I'll get a team together to keep the Fusion out of your way."
"It's a long shot, but..." Numbah Five nodded. "...yeah, that's our best bet. We gotta get her back on the Fusion front line ASAP. It's only gettin' rougher out there."
"We've got her general location." Way ahead of them, Dexter was already back at the computer, an area of the city's map highlighted on the screen above. "Multiple agents have reported her moving about the Bravo Beach Skate Park area."
"Alright. Let's get moving," Blossom was already on her way out the door.
"Right behind you, Blossom!" Bubbles delightfully called, tugging a groaning Mojo behind by the arm.
"Good luck, you guys!" Mac waved to them as the entirety of the team began to leave. Him and Bloo were the last to depart, right behind Numbah Three as she resumed her delighted skipping.
However, they almost walked right into her when she suddenly stopped short.
"...Hmm..." she hummed in thought, turning back to the pair with a wistful smile. "Ever get the feeling like you've forgotten something?"
"Huh?" Mac blinked.
"All the time," Bloo casually replied. "I don't let it bug me, though."
--
The Bravo Beach Skate Park was a frequent visit for many a training agent. Maneuvering all the multi-platform structures was quite the workout, after all. The park was littered with them: polished skate ramps, rusted bleachers, concrete representations of modern art, and chords of twisted metal all in between. The addition of Fusion matter was a bonus; it was like playing the classic game of 'the ground is made of lava; how long can you stay out of it?'
As the sun was setting that day, however, a general quiet washed over the seaside park, which had nothing to do with the tumbling waves. The entire area had been declared off-limits for now, much to the disappointment of many groaning agents, especially those who had a mission to complete here. Ben took these disgruntled fighters and positioned them outside the boundaries, fighting off any Fusion that tried to approach.
Unaware of any of this, Belladonna made her way through the park, wondering to herself why it was so empty. However, the thought left her once she had found who she was looking for, leaned against the wall in the shadow of one of the grand skateboard ramps. He had a fixed gaze on the heavens, only the flapping of his coat tail in the sea breezes proving that he wasn't just a statue.
At her scuffing footsteps on the concrete, however, he turned his gaze her way, giving her that by-now trademark smirk of his.
"'Meet me at the Skate Park. DDD.'" Belladonna held the note with the same message between her fingers. "Not very discreet."
He shrugged typically. "Whatever got you here."
"If Ace found me here, with YOU, he'd kill you."
Triple D snorted. "Unlikely." He changed his leaning position, resting his arm and shoulder against the wall, so that he faced her fully as she approached. "If you were so worried about me, why'd you come?"
Belladonna narrowed her eyes. "Because I wanna know what the hell your deal is. What right have YOU got, parading around and beating up random people?"
Triple D gave that question some thought, lifting a hand to inspect it as he clenched it into a loose fist. "Just... testing myself out, I guess."
"What a load of crap."
"Nah, I'm serious!" He frowned, offended. "I'm new around here, and I wanted to see if I was up to par around here."
"Well, obviously you are, so cut it out." She finished off with a small growl, "And another thing. You KNOW I'm taken, so what do you want from me?"
He smiled, leaning closer to her, to the point where she could see the shape of his slanted eyes past the glasses. "Because I wanted to see you again. You're not half as bad looking as most of the other ogres I meet."
She retched a little. "Nice. You should write greeting cards."
"Also..." He continued on, ignoring the other comment. "...you remind me of someone I knew."
She raised a brow. "Oh?"
"Yeah. Looked just like you, she did. Although..." He snickered at a memory. "...she looked like a total dork, if you asked me." His grin grew. "..not like you, though. You cleaned up quite nicely."
Belladonna's internal radar was going off the charts. This guy was way too sketchy.
"...alright, enough with the sweet talk," she stopped him, catching him off guard. "Obviously you know something about me. So just tell me who the heck I am already, because I'm tired of the games."
It looked like he didn't expect her to be so forward, but it didn't deter him for long. He shrugged admittedly.
"Alright, you got me. I'll tell it to you straight up."
Her heart began to pound in anticipation... or was it because of the creepiness in the way his grin twisted?
"You..." he whispered close to her. "...are a part of the Fusio..."
CRASH!!!/b
Both of them jumped at the sudden tremor that shook the foundations of the skate park. He almost intentionally landed on top of her, but she shoved him away quite forcefully.
"...the hell was that!?" Triple D grunted, readjusting his skewed glasses as he turned away. Behind them, a column of smoke rose up from the nearby explosion site. Rubble briefly rained down from the heavens.
There then came a cackle, loud and sharp and maniacal as can be. It was that evil laughter that made Belladonna's heart nearly stop, but not out of fear.
"...huh?? Hey! Hey, where're you goin'!?" Triple D watched her dumbly as she suddenly took off towards the site of interest. Judging by the look on her face before, a look of disbelief, it appeared that she had remembered something.
Which is exactly what he DIDN'T want from her.
"...shit," he cursed to himself, following right behind her, even though he figured it was already too late.
The sight that greeted Belladonna as she made it past the buildings in between made her freeze on the spot. It looked straight out of a comic book panel; among the torn rock and metal stood a massive fighting robot, slightly dented and scratched from use and abuse. Above the giant combat machine hovered two superpowered girls, one in pink and another in powdered blue, who flawlessly dodged the robot's swinging arms and missiles launched from its chest compartment.
"Weee...!" The blonde one avoided the attacks with carefree ease.
"Give it up, Mojo!"
Oddly enough, Belladonna did not find this scene strange in the least. In fact... it looked so familiar...
"Foolish Powerpuff Girls!! This day will end with MOJO JOJO as the victor!!!"
Briefly, the cockpit opened, revealing the green, furry face of the most evil super-genius simian around, finishing off with his trademark cackle.
Like the winds of a hurricane, it all came rushing back to her at once.
The laboratory...
The crime fighting...
The epic battle...
The ocean approaching fast in her dazed eyes...
...those girls were her sisters. She was one of them.
And she had a buried urge to punch that monkey in the face. Multiple times.
"Ugh..." came a grunt beside her, where Triple D had finally caught up to her, wheezing. "...aw, GREAT," he groaned at the scene before him. "It's those Powderpuff freaks again."
He was surprised to face a firm glare on her face. The look in her eyes had changed dramatically since he last looked at them.
"That's Powerpuff," she corrected irately. "There's nothing powdery about us. Now if you excuse me, there's a monkey up there who's got a beating that's long overdue."
Fully satisfied by his unbelieving gawk, she took off from the ground with practiced ease, a trail of green following her.
"MooooooooojooooOOOO...!!!"
Hearing the approaching growl of rage, the simian had one second to put on a face of dread before...
BAM!/b
...contact. WOW, did that feel good.
Right hook to his face. Uppercut to his chin. Forward kick to his stomach. Drop kick to his head, shattering his helmet and exposing his gynormous brain.
THIS is what she lived for. Filled with purpose once more, she beat Mojo Jojo within an inch of his life. Just like always.
"Buttercup...!"
Holding the limp, disoriented monkey up by his cape, a fist in position to deliver another punch, she looked up.
There they were. Blossom and Bubbles, hovering just before her. The hope glittering in their big bright eyes was quite the sight to behold.
"...is..." Blossom breathed. "...is that really you?"
"...psht," Buttercup scoffed typically, dropping Mojo back into his cockpit. He was too dizzy to operate it anyway. "What's up with you, little miss perfect? Bubbles I'd expect to be blubbering, but not you."
"...oh, Buttercup!"
Despite her initial protests, she was embraced from either side, caught in the middle of torrent of hugs and tears of joy. She didn't know when she joined her sisters in the act; she was too emotional to notice.
Below them, a crowd of agents cheered in massive triumph. Among them were faces she knew, Ben Tennyson, throwing her a wave and grin, and Numbah Five of the KND, in the kind of calm and composed stance she was known for.
And elsewhere, this same scene was broadcasted in the projection room of Dexlabs. Mac and Bloo cheered, Dexter smirked in satisfaction, and Professor Utonium smiled deeply in immeasurable relief.
After a year and a half... Buttercup was back.
"So... you ready to head back to base, sis?" Blossom finally managed to choke out.
Buttercup nodded, making a face at her reflection in a nearby window. "...yyyyeah, let's. I gotta get cleaned up... I look like a total dork."