Project: ROWDY 1
It started the way it always did.
Wind screaming past, clouds slashing overhead, three streaks of color carving through the sky—red, blue, green. Townsville sprawled beneath them, all rooftops and flashing billboards and streets too narrow to matter. The city wasn’t important. Winning was.
Brick surged ahead, jaw clenched, shoulders locked, every muscle pulling taut against the air. His brothers flanked him, close but not close enough, and behind them—too close, too fucking close—three more streaks. Pink, a softer blue, a lighter green.
The Girls.
His red eyes narrowed as he glanced over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of Blossom’s determined face, her long copper hair snapping behind her like a battle flag. She’d tied it back with that stupid red bow, the one she’d been wearing since they were five. Brick had yanked it off once, held it over her head while she jumped for it. That was back when he could still get away with that kind of thing. Before she got faster. Before she got stronger.
The pressure in his chest had nothing to do with how fast they were flying and everything to do with the fact that they were losing. Again. Always losing lately.
Three years ago, the Rowdyruffs had been unstoppable. Three years ago, they’d had the Powerpuffs running scared. But things changed. Maybe it was training, or discipline, or focus, Brick Mojo didn’t really know what the hell it was.
But somehow the Girls kept getting stronger.
And somewhere along the way, they’d pulled ahead.
The concrete towers of Townsville blurred underneath them, just smudges of gray against green. They’d already blasted through downtown, set off at least sixteen car alarms, cracked another two dozen windows, and made some old lady drop her groceries. Not that any of that had been the plan. That part was just for the fun of it, honestly.
It was supposed to be a simple bank job. Quick in, quick out, rubbing their victory in the Girls’ faces while they counted their cash. But then the Girls had shown up, and everything had gone sideways.
Like it always did lately.
Buttercup was laughing now. She wasn’t even trying to hide it. “Damn, is this seriously your top speed?” Her black hair was cropped short, practical, nothing to grab in a fight. Smart. Her green eyes glittered with the thrill of the chase, lips curled back to expose teeth in what might have been a smile but looked more like something a predator would do before it struck. “Maybe we should go chase some Go-Karts for a workout, girls.”
Her voice hit Brick like a slap but he ignored it as best he could, even as he could hear Butch growling to his right, knuckles cracking as his fists clenched tighter.
“Buttercup,” Blossom warned. Cool, calm, always trying to pretend she was the responsible one. “We’re over the city—”
“So what? They started it!”” Buttercup shot back, accelerating with an effortless burst that made Brick’s jaw clench. “Also, not like they care about collateral damage. We’d just be cleaning up their mess anyway.”
Brick barely heard them. Didn’t matter. Didn’t fucking matter. What mattered was the last three years. Every fight. Every chase. Every time they got knocked down and didn’t get back up fast enough.
They were made to be stronger. Mojo’s perfect weapons.
Better than the Girls. And for a while, they had been.
Even after the girls beat them.
Killed them, he meant.
When their second dad brought them back, he made them perfectly imperfect like the Girls, refined the raw Chemical X in their systems with his power the way only someone like His Infernal Majesty could.
Made them real hellspawn to defeat Townsville’s perfect little angels.
More than that, he made them stronger than the Girls.
They’d slammed them into the pavement, laughed in their faces, sent them crawling back to their dumb Professor in tears. But that was before.
Before the Girls started catching up. Before they started winning.
Three years.
Three whole years of infuriating, maddening, unrelenting beatdowns.
Each one easier than the last for the Girls, and every single one more humiliating for him and his Boys.
Now? Now Brick was sick and tired of being a loser.
They weren’t Fuzzy Lumpkins. They weren’t the Gangreen Gang. And they weren’t some dumb run-of-the-mill kaiju either.
They were the Rowdyruff Boys.
His red cap nearly tore off his head from the speed. He reached up, jammed it down harder on his head, his super-long mullet trailing behind him and merging with his light trail. A crimson comet trailing red in the sky like raw fire. Power surged through his veins, hot and electric as his hands curled into tighter fists, knuckles straining white against skin as he flew with one arm in front of him . The red jacket and black t-shirt he wore flapped around his torso, the friction of his raw speed flapping it against his chest.
“Watch it!” Butch snarled from his right, green eyes wild as he narrowly avoided a collision with a passing flock of birds. The birds scattered, panicked squawks lost in the wake of their passage. He had that look in his eyes, Brick could tell. That twitchy, manic gleam that meant he was about to definitely do something catastrophically stupid. Especially with the way his hands kept clenching and unclenching, knuckles almost glowing with stored energy wanting to be unleashed. The collar of his green shirt was ripped, probably from one of Buttercup’s wilder grabs earlier.
Butch’s black hair stood on end, not from the wind but just naturally. Brick knew Butch would never ever try to tame it in the slightest, but he doubted even trying to work on Butch’s spiky head would do a thing. If he had to make a guess, it probably stayed up like that from the constant current of energy that ran through him, never letting him stay still. “Stupid birds!”
“Aww, they’re just trying to fly!” Boomer shot back from Brick’s left, his voice carrying that earnest edge that made Brick want to smack him sometimes. His blond hair was as soft as usual, but still had the habit of sticking up at a few odd angles, sometimes different ones weirdly enough. Boomer’s blue eyes darted everywhere, as if trying to take in the entire sky at once.
He was allways distracted, allways noticing the wrong things.
“I’m bored,” Butch announced, voice thrumming with that barely contained energy that never seemed to let him rest. “Let’s ditch these chumps and find something worth breaking.”
They’re still on our tail, dumbass,” Brick snapped, eyes forward. Always forward. Never looking back because looking back meant admitting how close the Girls always were.
“Um, guys?” Boomer broke in, voice higher than usual. His blond hair whipped around his face, making him look younger than twelve. “I think that’s Ms. Keane’s car down there. You know, the nice teacher lady?”
“Who cares?” Butch snarled, even as his eyes darted down to check. “You gonna cry for some stupid civilian, Boom-Boom?”
“No! I just—”
“Race to Africa,” Brick snapped at their feminine doppelgangers, voice sharp as it carried over the wind. “And back.”
Boomer blinked, clearly confused. “But—”
“But what?” Brick’s eyes flashed. “Scared?”
“No!” His head snapped over to Brick. “But we’re supposed to be robbing the bank, remember? Mojo said—”
Brick didn’t stop as he returned his attention to the girls. “You catch us, you can take us in, no fighting.”
Butch angled in closer, iris twitching in that way that meant his blood was up. His smile stretched too wide across his face. “What, afraid you’re gonna lose again, Butterbitch?”
Buttercup’s laughter cut off as her eyes narrowed to tight green slits, body tensing visibly as she accelerated. “You’re on.”
“Buttercup, wait—” Bubbles started, pigtails whipping in the gale-force winds they were creating.
Blossom’s eyebrows pinched together, pink eyes darting toward the ocean in the distance, then back to the Boys, as her hair whipped behind her in a copper stream. “This isn’t necessary—”
“What’s wrong?” Brick locked eyes with her, slowing just enough to make her think she was catching up. “Scared?”
The spark ignited in those pink eyes. Every time. So easy, so predictable. “Fine. To the coast of Africa and back. Then you surrender.”
“Then we surrender,” Brick agreed, voice cool.
I’d rather die again.
Bubbles hung back, biting on her her lower lip, those big blue eyes darting between her sisters and the boys like she was watching a baking soda volcano about to explode in the biggest way all over her and couldn’t decide whether to watch or run. “Wait, guys, maybe we shouldn’t-“
“THREE!” Buttercup roared at the top of her lung, shaking so hard like she couldn’t wait to launch her green ass forward like someone had lit it on fire.
“TWO!” Butch countered, vibrating in place just like his green girl-version, that weird twitch in his eye speeding up until it looked like he might actually explode if they didn’t start moving RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
“ONEGOOOOO!” Boomer shrieked, his voice shattering halfway through like glass hitting concrete, that stupid excitement that always screwed them over.
They tore into the sky, air shredding behind them.
Brick didn’t waste breath on counting. He just flew, pulling ahead of his brothers, leaning into the air pressure like it was something solid he could push against. The sound barrier cracked around him, air compressing, then decompressing instantly as he punched through it. Butch and Boomer followed in tight formation with him, green and blue streaks visible only because his eyes were designed to track at these speeds.
The sky darkened as they climbed higher, blue giving way to a deeper indigo. Air thinned, his breath unbothered by the lack of it but something he noticed anyway. They hadn’t gone this high in a while; space was boring, after all.
And aliens were too far away to have any fun with them, too.
The Girls matched them. Of course they did.
Buttercup shot past them in a green blur, fucking taunting them even as he tried to shut out her words. Brick’s teeth ground together. “C’mon!” His brothers flanked him again, matching speed. Faster. Faster. Faster.
“They’re passing us!” Boomer’s voice pitched high with panic. “We gotta go faster! We can’t lose again!” Boomer didn’t even notice how hard they weren’t trying. Sometimes Brick wished he could be as dense as either of them, but someone needed to be the brains of this outfit.
“Shut up and fly!” Butch snarled, his body vibrating with that barely-contained energy that always made it seem like he was about to explode. His eyes were bright, almost feverish. “I’m not getting beat by those sissies again!”
Brick couldn’t see anything but pink. Fucking pink. The same pink that had been beating them for years now. The same pink that always seemed half a step ahead, no matter what he tried. Blossom glanced over her shoulder, red hair streaming behind her like some shampoo commercial. Her expression shifted – that brief flicker where confidence buckled under uncertainty.
There it is.
Her eyes widened just enough to know she’d finally caught on that something wasn’t right. That this time would be different. That she should be scared.
The numbers ticked up in his head – Mach 250, 300, 350, force multiplying exponentially, air molecules incinerating on contact with their bodies.
Not enough. Not even close.
The wind bent around them, no longer resisting but being forced aside. The air became a solid thing, a wall they crashed through with each movement. Molecules split apart in their wake, unable to maintain cohesion at these speeds. The familiar tingle of Chemical X burned through Brick’s system, pushing him beyond what should have been possible.
Brick pushed harder, feeling his brothers struggling to keep up. Something in his chest tightened, a pressure building there that he knew from experience meant they were approaching their limits. The Boys had never been able to reach this speed safely in atmosphere, not until recently. Not like the Girls who got this fast months ago. Another reminder of how things were slipping away.
“What’s the matter, Boys? Can’t keep up?” Blossom’s voice carried over the rush of air, breaking physics in the way that came naturally to the instinctive aspects of Chemical X. Always in control. Always one step ahead.
Brick’s jaw clenched so hard something in his temple throbbed painfully. The scenery blurred beneath them, mountains and valleys and forests all bleeding together into a smear of color.
That voice. That fucking know-it-all, I’m-so-perfect voice with the unspoken “I’m disappointed in you” lurking underneath everything she said. Like she was some teacher and he was some dumbass student who couldn’t keep up. His cells burned from the inside out, Chemical X pushing his body past what Mojo had designed it for, past what HIM had enhanced it to withstand. Way the fuck beyond what they’d trained for.
He didn’t give a shit. Winning would make it worth it.
The Atlantic vanished beneath them, replaced by the sudden sprawl of Africa, yellow-brown landmass stretching to the curve of the planet. The coastline jutted and twisted like some jagged wound where land met sea, details weirdly hyper-focused from the adrenaline and speed. Blossom reached the turning point first, banking hard over the water, arms flung wide like she was making sure everyone could see her perfect form. The ocean erupted behind her, surface tension obliterated by her wake, creating a wall of water that would probably show up on tsunami warnings.
“There they go! THERE THEY GO AGAIN!” Boomer’s voice cracked and splintered, pitching up into ranges only dogs should have to suffer through. He always did that, his voice breaking down right along with his confidence. “They’re getting ahead! Brick, do something!”
Butch didn’t bother turning his head, just unleashed a sound somewhere between a growl and a burp, teeth grinding loud enough that Brick could hear it over the air-splitting roar of their passage. His right eye twitched double-time, the little tic that always meant the crazy bastard was about to do something catastrophically stupid if they didn’t win soon. “Nnnggrffkk… NOT TODAY… NOT THESE GIRLS!”
Brick’s molars ground together, familiar and aggravating patterns playing out.
Every. Single. Time.
The Girls weren’t even trying, just instinctively moving together like some three-headed beast. Buttercup surged ahead, all compact aggression and forward momentum. Bubbles and Blossom slid into perfect flanking positions, effortlessly keeping pace.
No fighting over who got to lead. No random course deviations because someone thought they saw a cool bird. Just three parts of a precision instrument built specifically to make Brick feel like complete shit.
“Oopsie-daisy, you guys are getting soooo slowww!” Bubbles chirped as she blasted past them on the return trajectory, trailing a comet-tail of ocean spray that her blue energy faded into. She wasn’t even trying to be a bitch about it – that sugary smile somehow cutting deeper than if she’d just laughed in their faces like Blossom or flipped them off like Buttercup. At least that would give him something clean to hate, not this mix of humiliation and grudging acknowledgment that she was just… better than them.
The world blurred. Cities and countries and oceans bleeding together as space itself got squashed under the force of their passage. Normal people would’ve died just being near them at this speed. Normal people would’ve died from a lot of things the Boys had survived.
“Guys? Hello?” Bubbles’ voice swam through the wall of compressed air surrounding them. “The air’s doing something super weird! It feels like static but… inside out?”
Mach 600 now. Edge of the safe zone. Beyond what Mojo had said was advisable in atmosphere. Way beyond what their second dad had warned them about before they’d jammed his head into a toilet and told him to fuck off back to hell.
Brick felt the warnings pulsing through his body. Chemical X pushing against the natural limits of physics. The air around them was more plasma than gas now, electrons stripped from atoms by the sheer friction of their passage.
He did not give a single solitary fuck.
“We’re falling behind!” Boomer wailed, voice stretched wire-thin, barely audible over the roar of superheated air. “They’re gonna win again!”
“Shut up and FLY!” Butch barked, spittle flying from his mouth only to evaporate instantly in the heat-cone surrounding him. His black hair stood straight up, either from the electricity arcing between them or from how badly he was losing his shit.
“BOTH OF YOU SHUT IT!” Brick snapped, the force of his voice actually creating a visible ripple in the plasma surrounding them. “Form up on me! NOW!”
He banked hard, shooting upward. His brothers followed, muscle memory from thousands of fights overriding their bickering. Years of training, fighting, bleeding together had hardwired their bodies to move as one even when their minds couldn’t. The Girls scrambled after them, but there was that split-second where they weren’t perfectly in sync. Blossom’s eyes registered something was off. Confusion. Uncertainty.
Finally.
“Spiral!” Brick shouted, not bothering to explain. They’d drilled this for weeks, him dragging his brothers out to the middle of nowhere, forcing them through the same maneuver again and again while they bitched and moaned. Butch calling it pointless. Boomer whining that he was hungry. Brick making them do it again anyway, because he knew—he KNEW—it would work.
The Boys twisted into a corkscrew formation, their bodies generating a vortex that warped the air itself. The Girls got caught in the turbulence, pulled forward by the vacuum behind the Boys while simultaneously being pushed back by the wall of compressed air in front.
“HOLY FUCK!” Butch’s voice cracked with genuine shocked glee, like he couldn’t believe what was happening. “IT’S ACTUALLY WORKING!”
“Don’t get cocky,” Brick snapped, even as something hot and electric surged through his chest. Pride maybe, or the closest thing to it he’d ever felt. They were pulling ahead. Actually leaving the Girls behind for the first time in years.
Townsville reappeared, toy buildings and ant-sized cars. Everything too sharp, too focused, like reality itself was struggling to render properly at these speeds. Brick could feel the formation starting to break down, their bodies refusing to maintain the precise angles needed. But it didn’t matter now. They had the lead. They were WINNING.
Something popped in the air around them.
Not a sound. More like reality hiccuping.
Tendrils of energy—red, blue, green—arced between them, connecting the Boys in a triangle of crackling power, three identical frequencies layering on top of each other, amplifying the way they did when they were working perfectly together.
“Something’s happening!” Blossom’s distant voice hit Brick’s ears, her tone edging toward panic—and that was it. That’s what made him know he had a chance.
Brick didn’t slow down.
Didn’t even consider it.
He pushed harder, crushing down that little voice screaming that they were reaching a point of no return. Past the fire in his muscles, past the pressure building in his skull, past anything resembling common sense or self-preservation.
“B-Brick!” Boomer’s voice barely reached him, thin and scared. “I can’t feel my hands! Something’s wrong!”
“YOU STOP AND I’LL PUNCH YOU!” Brick roared, creeping into the edges of his vision like corrupted camera footage. He had to keep moving, even as the logical part of his brain, the part that had created and planned the spiral maneuver, was screaming warnings.
He stomped it down. Hard.
“WOOOOO!” Butch howled, completely off his nut now, eyes blown wide like he was having the time of his life. “THIS IS IT! WE’RE GONNA CRUSH ‘EM!”
The Girls fell farther behind, pink-blue-green streaks fading in the distance. Almost gone now. Victory burned in Brick’s throat like acid reflux, sharp and bitter and perfect. Three years of humiliation about to be wiped away in one glorious moment of triumph.
“BOYS! STOP!” Blossom’s voice was thin, desperate, genuine fear coloring her words. “SOMETHING… SOMETHING IS WRONG!”
Yeah, nice try. Like he’d fall for that shit. Like he’d give up right when they were finally, FINALLY winning.
Mach 750.
900.
The sound was gone. They had long been moving faster than sound could travel but now their bodies couldn’t keep up with the sound it normally kept around them. Hell, the air molecules in front of them couldn’t move out of the way fast enough, creating a wall of compressed particles that they crashed through.
Energy crackled around them, red and blue and green lightning connecting them in a triangular grid as the air itself began to shudder apart and split, the horizon seeming to bend under the impossible stress of their passage in atmosphere.
“B-Brick!” Blossom’s voice was distant, distorted. “SLOW DOWN!”
He wasn’t.
He would never.
Not that he could if he wanted to. He was moving too fast.
Either way, it was too late.
The world tore open and the sky bled.
A blinding rip of light, sound shredding into silence.
For half a second, they were weightless.
And then—
Nothing.