"Puff Most Epic"
Written by RuffDraft
Concept, Direction, and Editing by BeeAre
"Powerpuff Girls" Created by Craig McCracken

Chapter One – The City Of Townsville

Part One – A Storm Of Strength And Steel

It was a slow, dark, dank day in the city. It was nearly silent except for the sound of rustling garbage in the alleys, the military aircraft in the distance, and the occasional mugging a couple streets over. This time of day on a Sunday, hardly anyone was in the city that didn't need to be. Crime being what it was in the city—especially now that the Girls were out of commission, Robin no longer felt safe staying too long. Her hurried gait carried her away from the grocery store, leading her along the sidewalk to her house. She slowed as she got close and followed the pathway up to her front door. She went inside, greeted her mother absently and trudged to her room. She dropped her backpack lazily to the floor and fell back onto her bed. She took a deep breath, trying to relax, staring up at the white ceiling, not even bothering to count the rough little bumps in her field of vision. She rolled her head back and pointed her eyes out the window, peering into the somber, overcast sky. Her eyes relaxed back to the ceiling with a sigh. Dark skies always made her sad. They made her remember that day, that horrible day, so long ago.

How many years had it been since they met? She had met them in Kindergarten. They were going to be in high school now. She did the math. It had been eight, almost nine. She sighed bitterly at the thought. If only she were still here. For one, Robin would never had been this lonely. She and the girls used to play all the time. That had all changed very suddenly. The longer they spent apart, the further apart they grew.

Now they just weren't the same. Robin had tried to hang out with them, but they were never in the mood. Either too angry or too sad. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't distract them long enough to make them forget.

And somehow, it had gotten worse. No more trails of light in the sky. It was horrible. Even to her. Still, she loved them all. Losing your best friends didn't come close to what they'd been through, even if it still hurt.

She sat up, staring at her feet, dangling with her calves over the edge of the bed. She rolled her ankles idly, staring at the pink-died leather of her shoes. She nudged off the left shoe with her right shoe, and then her right shoe with her left foot as they hit the floor one after another with a dull thud. She wiggled her toes and turned to stare out the window overlooking Townsville. If she looked hard enough, she could just barely make out the hospital where—

Her eyes went wide and she ran to the window, pushing herself up on her toes to get a better look. That trail of light...!

She gulped against her dry throat as she stared out her window at the city, looking for more flashes of light. She was seriously torn between being happy or worried.

Mark snapped his gaze skyward, his breath still with dread. This city never saw darker days, he realized as he scanned the skyline with his eyes. The years had gone by and time had done its number on the once-fair city. Now, it swelled with chaos, boiled with anger, and flooded with evil. Half the city was destroyed, and what wasn't was filled with crime and debauchery.

This city was broken. Of that, he was certain. It wasn't just the abandoned buildings, or the condemned ones... it was everything. The streets were cracked and uneven, some even looked like there had been an Earthquake, and Townsville didn't have any fault lines running through it. Some apartment complexes no longer even had running water. People in the street had figured out how to get the hydrants to begin spraying water, and at night, everyone crowded around them to fill up their bottles and jugs. All over the city, the city would spray water into the streets, the homeless would crowd around, and just as quickly, they would disperse, the now-shut hydrants freshly dripping.

There weren't any police anymore—at least not here in the broken streets—but the military had set up a blockade at the far end of the city—the part that had been torn down in order to save the rest. Mark hadn't dared venture to take a look, but news spread fairly quickly, even in the underground. Within minutes of something happening, news would already be passed from one end of the city to the other, and if you were close enough, you could hear them talking. They always gathered in small groups, and then dispersed just as quickly after. Any of the other hobos that heard clearly enough would tell the rest of the group.

If he listened real hard most of the time he was sure he could hear the sounds of the military shouting or drilling or whatever the Hell they were doing now. But even with them there, watching over the city, still no one was safe. All the times he listened in to conversations on the street, the voices he heard echoed his own thoughts. Between the Girls and the military, I'm not sure which is worse. All the fighting, the destruction... just staying alive had been a day-to-day struggle. Over the past few hours, Mark could have sworn he had heard sounds he hoped never to hear ever again. A quick pulse here, another several minutes later, each no more than a few seconds at a time. But the sounds were unmistakable. It was the flight of a Powerpuff Girl.

And that was what made Mark feel so afraid right now. He had just heard it, no more than a second, and he watched the sky warily, listening for more, but the direction had been lost.

Even now, he was sure he could hear someone talking about it in the streets behind him, and he strained to listen more closely.

"...you hear? …is back ... seeking revenge..."

"...not safe here... you ... tell the boss ..."

He realized with a pang of misery that his fears were confirmed. He needed to move quickly. For the moment, he set the terrifying thought aside and tapped his wristwatch carefully, and held it to his ear. It was ticking. Was the time right? A little bit after five o'clock? He glanced up at the sky, this time gauging the relative light. It was really too cloudy to tell, but he was sure it was much later in the day. But the watch worked. And it looked gold-plated. Maybe he could sell it. But before that, he needed to find food. His family was starving, and so was he.

He pulled the ratty coat tighter around him and stared out into the street. He turned his eyes around the corner, looking into the empty street, looking one way, and then the other. He started across, heading for the alley between Carl's Sporting Goods and Frank's Meat Market.

There was a loud clanking sound, like someone had hit a baseball with a steel bat, and it had come from the park. He turned his eyes skyward, and his jaw dropped. A teenage brunette dressed in a green one-piece with a black horizontal stripe sailed across the sky, and the familiar piqued whine of energy and effervescent peridot trail of light followed in tune with her. Mark stared at her in horror and sprinted into the alleyway across the street, hidden from sight.

Buttercup growled in her throat as she struggled against her pain. She finally rolled her shoulders forward, swinging her feet the other way. She breathed deep as she steadied herself, and then shot back at the robot before her. It was gigantic, its eye glowing red, a spherical, polished metal body, and four large, smooth tree-trunk-thick tendrils that whipped around it with speed that didn't match its overwhelming size. When they did, it appeared to take on four more arms; it became a metal octopus, its deadly appendages making wide arcs in a blur. It lurched towards her, swinging at her with amazing speed.

But she was faster...when she needed to be. She shot towards the robot, dodging its swings, spiraling in and latching on to its body, staring fiercely, glaring into its one eye. The force of her tackle brought it to the ground, and it seemed to be looking up at her as it pushed itself up to stand on all fours.

"WHERE IS SHE? GIVE HER BACK!" She reared and swung, her fist glancing off the glassy eye, not even so much as marring its surface.

In reply, the metallic thing simply swung its two hind legs up and knocked her simultaneously on both sides of her head. She clutched her temples in pain and it flipped backwards, batting her once more up into the air. The sound of bells and whistles in her ears and the way her temples throbbed made her eyes blur and vision shake. She might not have thought it was possible to have both sensations at once, but she was in too much pain.

She eventually blinked her eyes clear as she finally regained her balance, and rolled out of the way at the last second as the robot swung hard at empty air. It swung again and she blocked it with both arms, holding on to keep from being thrown back, and stopped its movement. She grit her teeth and threw the metal limb aside, then threw herself at the robot's body, and with a feeling of victory, she connected. The air around her punch rippled outwards and the robot was shot like a huge cannonball into a small row of buildings near the edge of the city. It crashed through the first building, glanced off the second, and tumbled with the its own gravity to land safely to the street below. A few vagrants fled hastily in an attempt to get away from the destruction.

In the time it took the thing to get to its feet, she had already hidden herself. She flew to the next street, and watched it from the alley, as it turned away from her, staring into the sky. It hadn't seen her. Now was the time to end it.

She burst forth from her hiding spot, and swung hard, but this time, she missed as it pulled back with just an inch of empty space between her fist and its hull. She turned and was greeted by a solid uppercut, sending her rolling once more into the air.

She reeled from the pain, and as her ascent began to slow, opened her eyes.

She watched it get closer to her, and watched it start to spin in midair, its legs moving as fast as a helicopter as it shot past her and stopped right in her path.

Move, dammit, she shouted at her body, but she couldn't put forth the energy. She flexed her muscles and clenched her teeth harder, feeling it come back little by little.

It was charging, and she knew that attack. It had used it once before. Her eyes wide, she finally burst sideways, just out of the beam of molten plasma that missed her by nearly an inch. She darted under the wave, flying along an empty street of ruined buildings, instinctively avoiding contact with the fire. She knew the damage it would do to her and was desperate to get away.

The robot fell though the plasma that still lingered in the air unharmed, and landed in the street right in front of her. She realized too late what it was doing, as it landed with three of its legs, the fourth aimed right at her. Without warning, from the extended leg, it fired a steel ball attached to a great wire. The plasma had her trapped where she was, and she thought she had no other option. She took the brunt of the attack, and caught the steel ball in her arms.

She didn't realize the mistake before she had made it; as soon as it was in her arms, she was bathed in a terrible, blinding light.

It seemed to her as if it were coming in slow-motion, as if time had nearly stopped as the scarlet light enveloped her. She could feel the intense heat of the blast, even as it crept over her, and with it came an intense pain. For a moment, she couldn't move. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out, and her eyes went wide, then shut tight as the pain was too much for her. The air that was trapped in her lungs came out then, as a roar, an agonized scream, and she couldn't think of anything else. The pain erased all other sensations, even thought, as it tore through her mind. And then, following the pain, came the only other sensation that she associated with pain:

Rage.

Her eyes ripped open, and she saw her enemy before her. In that instant, with the robot still on the attack, she tore upwards, striking the ball away, which threw the machine off-balance and stopped its discharge even as it readied another strike. The pain stopped, and she could clearly see her target as it retracted the sphere to its leg and came back down on her. Her anger, still blazing, burned hotter than the plasma still lingering on her skin, and her body gave off an emerald hue as she surged forward, hellbent on destruction.

She dodged its swing and kicked it into the air, like she were punting a football. Flying after it, it flailed wildly, but none of its attacks connected. She wove around them, and hit it again, climbing higher as it was launched further into the sky.

Danger levels were rising, and the robot plotted its next move.

It spun forward in a wide arc, trying to spike her like a volleyball, but in that instant, its movements stopped. Buttercup was holding on to its leg, and kept it there for a brief moment before letting it drop. It seemed to hover in midair for an instant before falling, and she moved on top of it before it could even think.

It saw her, and searched futilely for an escape. It recognized that the danger was too great, and by that time, it had already lost.

Buttercup delivered a flurry of punches as if she were a living jackhammer. She darted to the other side, repeating her attack, and again at another angle, changing its momentum in different directions on instinct several times before she raised her leg over her head and brought it down directly on its body. And as it plummeted, she raced with it, her fists flying.

Shockwave after shockwave tore into the air around her as the robot's metal frame cracked, fractured, and shattered, leaving a trail of shrapnel around her as the burning rage took control of her body and ripped her enemy to shreds.

Again she reared. She felt it give. Her fist embedded in the robot's eye. The feeling of slow-motion returned, and she watched herself shatter it like a beautiful crimson firework. The red glass glittered in the air as the rest of the robot plummeted to the ground like a twisted meteor. She landed a moment later, only feet away, breathing hard, staring at the oversized broken toy with fading anger.

All was silent except for the occasional sound of sparking electrical circuits.