Yet_One_More_Idiot
2nd Level Orange Feather
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Hairy Gregory Studios
in association with
Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions
is proud to present
The Powerpuff Girls
in
Laughter in Townsville:
Tickled Pink, Green and Blue
Chapter 4A: Bubbles - Fun with Robyn
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It was some time later that same night when Bubbles was awoken by her alarm clock going off. Rather than one with an alarm - because of her, and her sisters' superhearing - the clock lit up the room with a small strobe light when activated.
Bubbles sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes to clear her vision, and then hit the "off" button on the alarm, plunging the room back into relative darkness. After waiting for a minute for her eyes to adjust to the low intensity light being cast into her room from the full moon outside the window, she glanced at the clock's display.
11:32 AM.
Ugh, I hope no-one's up for a midnight snack, 'specially BC, thought Bubbles. She floated out of bed and over to the door, being careful not to knock into anything, as even the smallest sound might accidentally wake one of her sisters from their own slumbers.
Wearing the day-clothes that she had gone to bed in an hour and a half earlier - a light blue "Angel" t-shirt with a stylised picture of an angel underneath, a sleeveless yellow dress, and a pair of Mary-Jane shoes - she hovered slowly across the landing and down the stairs, not noticing that she had incorrectly buckled her shoes in the dark and that her left shoe was dangerously close to dropping two feet to the ground. As she reached the bottom of the staircase, the item of footwear finally fell free and landed with a loud *CLUNK* that sounded through the entire house.
Bubbles quickly flew to hide behind the TV, in case either of her sisters or their father should wake up and come down to check on what caused the noise. When it quickly became apparent that nobody had been woken up, she retrieved her shoe, quickly buckled it up tight, zipped across the room to the laboratory entrance, and slipped inside, pulling the door closed behind her and heading down to the Danger Grid.
A few years earlier, the Professor had given all three girls a lesson in how to program simulations into the Danger Grid, so that he need not be present to oversee their training sessions; with all the safety protocols activated, it was impossible for the holographic attacks to cause them any serious, lasting harm anyway. Within the confines of the Danger Grid, anything that could be conceived could also be programmed to occur; either by setting up a situation and behavioural parameters and letting it run it's own course from thereon, or by scripting all the events down to the smallest detail (for training until specific actions became second nature).
Bubbles, strangely enough, had shown amazing skill when it came to programming; she was, after all, very linguistically inclined, and computer programming languages are just like any other kinds; in only a matter of minutes, she had set up a scenario which would allow her to explore the phenomenon of tickling at her own rate, locked the doors and the shutdown codes out on a 90-minute timer, and gone down into the actual simulator, ready to start at her voice command.
"Computer: activate scenario 'Bubbles One'."
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It was another beautiful and sunny day in the Pokey Oaks district of the City of Townsville. Buttercup had flown off to the park early in the morning to meet up with the rest of the girl scout troop to play little-league baseball against another local youth club; Blossom had gone with her to watch the match and cheer her on; the Professor had unfortunately been called into work that Saturday, otherwise he too would've been at the match - instead, he'd asked Blossom to video the entire game for him to watch the moment he got home.
Bubbles, meanwhile, had not gone; at the last match, she'd been bored the entire time - aside from anything else, she didn't know the rules, and kept confusing it with rounders - and also overcompensated by cheering so loudly for Buttercup's team, The Super Girls, that she managed to knock most of the team unconscious and caused Buttercup herself to trip and fall just short of home base, where she was then run out by the 3 girls following in behind her, losing all 4 runs and losing the game by a grand total of 3. Needless to say, Bubbles hadn't been a very popular girl with the team THAT night...
"So, what do you want to do then, Bubbles, as we've missed most of the baseball match?" asked Robyn, one of the Powerpuff Girls very best friends and next-door neighbour practically since the girls' creation. She had also been unable to go as she had just finished her weekly violin lesson; it wasn't her idea, it was her mother's, who felt that young Robyn needed to have a bit of culture instilled into her before she became one of the "unwashed teenaged masses". What she seemed pluralularly unaware of was that her daughter found learning the violin to be a desperately dull exercise in futility, and that she was already also taking guitar lessons from Blossom twice a week after school.
"Well, as it's just the two of us, why not play a game?" asked Bubbles. "But I don't mean chess," she quickly added, anticipating what Robyn was about to suggest, "I'm nowhere near as good as you and Bloss."
"Actually," said Robyn, with a big grin on her face, "I wasn't even gonna bother - I know you don't really like playing it anyway." Bubbles heaved a sigh of relief. "Plus it's such a great day today, it'd be a shame to waste it on board games." Bubbles was a little confused - after all, "What else is there for only two people to play?"
"Well," said Robyn, thinking hard about this question, "how's about a wrestling match?" Bubbles was stunned by that proposal - if the average teen's strength is rated 1 on a scale of 0 to 1infinity, then Bubbles and her sisters would clearly be into the low triple digits, at least. "What?! Wrestling? You wouldn't stand a chance! Plus, well, I wouldn't want to be responsible for putting you in hospital."
"Pfft!"
"'Pfft' nothing, Robyn. If we wrestled, you'd be flattened in a matter of seconds. You've seen us fighting monsters and supervillains, and they're way more powerful and stonger than you - no offence."
"None taken, Bubbles. But it's not just about strength - it also majorly about weakness. And I know yours. And that's why it won't be as one sided as you think."
"Well, if you're sure you wanna do this, I'll go easy on you then", said Bubbles, seriously worried about hurting her best friend.
"No, don't; if I wrestle with you, I wanna know you're gonna give it everything. Just one promise though - you use all your strength, but none of your other powers. 'Kay?"
"Okay", said Bubbles, not sure how that would make things even. Even without her ability to fly, her speed, eyebeams, or sonic scream power, a fight between them (even in play) still seemed about as one-sided a straight line. Little did she know that Robyn really DID have a few tricks up her sleeve.
They quickly adjourned to the back garden where, hidden from the neighbours' sight by tall fences, they prepared to wrestle.
Now, clothing can have an impact in this sort of sport, so neither had a clear advantage here based on this fact alone; Bubbles was wearing her t-shirt and summer dress, which may potentially restrict her freedom of movement and as it was a fairly breezy day, could get in the way. On the other hand, she wore buckled Mary-Jane shoes, which meant that she wouldn't be at risk of tripping over her own footwear, as it wouldn't come loose of its' own accord.
Robyn, however, was wearing her usual t-shirt with the picture of a half-eaten apple on it's front, and a pair of denim shorts - more freedom of movement. On the flip-side though, she was also wearing a pair of flip-flop sandals, which might slip off and cause her to lose her balance more easily. So, as previously stated, there was no clear edge here. Bubbles had a clear theoretical lead in strength and agility (even though Robyn was on the school gymnastics team - Bubbles had been banned for improper use of her powers during rehearsals one day), so nobody would say that Robyn could win.
And nobody would be absolutely right.
The girls circled each other, looking for the best opportunity - thereby both losing the element of surprise; then, they both lunged forward at the very same moment, and banged heads. Bubbles was almost completely unfazed by this because of her preternatural strength (even though she wasn't consciously using her strength, she was still naturally super-resistant to injury), but Robyn was momentarily stunned by the impact; Bubbles immediately picked Robyn up by the waist and flipped her over on her back. Robyn recovered to find Bubbles sprawled across her stomach, pinning her to the ground and counting to 10.
"1...2...3..."
Robyn found both her arms were trapped under Bubbles - undeterred, she simply wiggled her fingers into whatever of Bubbles' flesh she was currently in contact with. It turned out to be Bubbles' stomach, causing her to arch her back away from the tickling hands and break into a fit of giggles.
"...4...hahahaha!!...5...hahahahAHAHAHAHA!"
At once, Robyn pushed off the ground, knocking Bubbles sideways with the suddenness of the movement, and rolled over to stand up before Bubbles could resume her pin.
Bubbles swung forward at thin air, trying to grab Robyn but instead felt Robyn's smaller hands as they headed straight into Bubbles' underarms and began scrabbling around as fast as they could. Bubbles managed to maintain her composure for all of about 2 seconds under this new unexpected assault from her friend before the laughter that was welling up inside of her burst free.
"What the...? That's not fahahahair, Roby........heheheheheheeheeheehee...... hahahahahaha...ohohohoho nooooo, it tickles toohoohoo much.....pleasestop!"
As Robyn slid her hands down Bubbles' ribcage, still tickling at the same furious rate, now more just below the waist though, Bubbles was trying so desperately to back away from the tickling that she was unable to properly defend herself against - too weak from heavy laughter to do anything - that she didn't notice until after the event that she had tripped on the uneven ground and had landed flat on her back, with Robyn fallen on top of her and tickling all around her waist to keep her almost begging for mercy.
"Pleheeheeheeheease Robyn, I cahahahahan't, hahahahahaahaa...."
"You can't what, Bubbly?" asked Robyn, using her pet nickname for her friend in a teasing tone of voice, and suppressing a giggle at the helplessness evident in her long-time superpowered buddy.
Bubbles kept squirming uselessly under Robyn's weight, but was unable to move more than a couple of inches in any direction. She tried to throw Robyn off of her by using her super-strength, only to find it wasn't there to be used; it was like all those times when they were younger and some various villain would nullify their powers with a dose of Antidote X; all the same feelings of vulnerability came hurtling back to her across the gulf of time, except this time they were accompanied by fits of irresistible laughter and wriggling, not sadness and despair.
Similarly, all of her other powers seemed to have been temporarily short-circuited by the feelings shooting through her body from her super-ticklish ribcage. For the first time in this wrestling game, Bubbles realised that she was well and truly at Robyn's mercy; that she couldn't simply get out of this all whenever she wanted to. That made her all the more ticklish.
Somewhere along the line, Bubbles noticed that she must have stopped laughing, because Robyn's weight no longer pressed down on her stomach and upper legs, and because she was merely panting hard to catch her breath.
Wait a minute - if Robyn's not tickling my ribs anymore, then where is she?
That thought shot through her mind, striking a renewed feeling of apprehension in the puff, as she saw Robyn kneeling a little way off, right by her still-shod feet. And she was playing with the buckles on Bubbles' Mary-Janes.
"You know what Bubbles?" she asked, a look of total innocence on her lightly suntanned face.
"No, what?" asked Bubbles, thinking Run!!! Regrettably, at that moment, her body felt frozen, tensed as rigid as could be, and yet at the same time she was shivering at the sensation of Robyn caressing the tops of her feet through the shoes' open tops.
"These shoes of yours look so cute. Where d'ya buy 'em from?"
Bubbles visibly relaxed at that comment, although her feet continued to twitch ever so slightly under Robyn's slow, gentle stroking. "Err...Clarks. Why?"
Robyn shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh, no reason." An impish grin crossed her face as she continued, "but I bet your feet look even cuter bare."
At this last comment, she quickly and deftly unbuckled both shoes and pulled the straps loose, leaving Bubbles in a now incredibly loose pair of shoes that she could not hope to hold on her feet if Robyn decided to play some more; which she did. Bubbles pressed her feet as hard as she could against the turf in a hopeless attempt to dissuade Robyn from her next action, which was to try to slide the shoes off Bubbles' feet. When Bubbles resisted, though, she didn't appear at all surprised; in fact, she had rather expected that reaction. So, reaching into the shoes, she started to stroke gently all over the tops and sides of Bubbles' feet. Bubbles squeezed her eyes tightly shut and started chanting her 13 times tables out loud to help her ignore the already maddening feelings coursing up her legs.
"One thirteen is thirteen....heh....two thirteens are t-t-twenty-six....hehe....three t-t-t-thirteens ahahare uh...thirty-nine....heh HA!"
Bubbles laughed unrestrained for just a second as Robyn's fingers brushed against both arches simultaneously; the tickling was just too strong for her to ignore. She could already feel her willpower crumbling. Still, something in her told her to fight with every little of her remaining inner strength.
Her feet and legs were shaking almost as though someone had attached electrodes to them, like they had a life of their own, as Robyn continued the slow circular motion over the tops of Bubbles' feet, following her feet as they jumped about on the grass. And with each small jumping movement, the shoes slipped further off her heels. Over the knuckles of the toes, around the outer edge of the foot, running briefly over the ankles before trailing back across the top of the foot itself and then down the arch back to the knuckles of the big toes again. Around and around and around and around...
Bubbles wanted to scream; she wanted to laugh, to cry, to flail around like some madwoman on the ground, but she did none of these; however much the slow tickling was driving her crazy with the need to beg for release, for Robyn to stop and let her go, there was a larger part of her that enjoyed being out of control, that liked the fact that all her nerves were dancing with the electric sensations moving through her which made her finally start to laugh even though she was still holding it back as hard as she could.
"Four thirteens are four hahahaha.....are heheheheheeheeheehee.......fifty f......hahahahahahahahahaahaa..........mmph!....f-f-f-four HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Her legs jerked violently all of a sudden, totally out of Bubbles', and Robyn's, control, and both shoes went flying through the air, sailing clear over the hedge and the fence, and continued on, out into space, where they bounced off a space shuttle and drifted off into deep space. Bubbles eyes went wide in surprise at that - Robyn had been facing Bubbles, so had not seen what happened to the shoes. However, Bubbles eyes seemed to grow even wider at the look on Robyn's face just before she turned around, kneeling astride Bubbles' thighs and putting her back to Bubbles, effectively blocking Bubbles' view of what was happening at her feet. Then, she started the tickling all over again, except now on Bubbles' even more sensitive (if that's possible) soles.
Bubbles had had a brief reprieve, giving her time enough to get her breath back, but not much of anything else. Even as she felt her strength, and other powers, starting to return to her, she also felt Robyn's nimble fingers running all over her soles and under her toes, and her powers rapidly started to ebb again as she futilely bucked once more under Robyn's weight, and quickly bubbled over once more with helpless giggles.
"What's the matter, Bubbly? Can't the super-heroine take an 'ickle tickling?" asked Robyn, reverting to baby talk to humiliate Bubbles into laughing even harder. "I thought you said I wouldn't stand a chance in a wrestling match, so what went wrong? Underestimated your weaknesses, eh?" She grinned manically as she tickled Bubbles' feet still faster, forcing all the air out of the poor girls' lungs.
So, here's the picture at the moment; Bubbles, lying flat on her back, feet bare and laughing like a hyena on happy pills, with Robyn kneeling astride her thighs and tickling her bare soles, so facing away from Bubbles. Bubbles, desperate to stop this any way she could - it was fun, but very tiring, and why shouldn't Robyn share the fun as well? - took advantage of the fact that Robyn was facing her feet to pull herself up to a half-sitting position, resting on her elbows, still laughing to much to pull herself up all the way. Timing her movements in between her laughter (as well as she could concentrate, anyway), she lunged forwards and grabbed Robyn around her ribcage, tickling as gently as possible to weaken Robyn in return.
"Yes, widdle Bubbly is just too ticklish, isn't shEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! O GOOOOOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOOHOD!" Robyn was caught utterly unawares, and the rapidity with which the tickling sensations exploded through her body caused her to fall forwards onto the ground between Bubbles feet. She didn't stop her own tickling though, and Bubbles' own laughter made her fall back to lying on the ground, as her stomach muscles couldn't hold her up any longer.
Now, both girls had their faces and hands next to the other one's feet. Bubbles feet were bare, while Robyn's still had her flip-flop sandals covering them, and were soles-up at the moment, so they were partially protected from Bubbles' tickling probing fingers. She tried to pull the flip-flops off between peals of laughter, but Robyn curled her toes around the thong straps, making the task of pulling off the flimsy footwear quite difficult for Bubbles in her currently weakened condition. Summoning all of her concentration, Bubbles pulled back the rubber sole of the sandal with one hand and tickled Robyn's sole with the other.
Robyn nearly screeched with laughter as she was startled out of her world that centred around tickling Bubbles' feet by the feeling of something soft scampering over the bared skin of her right sole. Right away, Robyn's toes started to wiggle of their own accord, and Bubbles was able to easily remove the flip-flop and begin tickling between the toes with her one hand while still tickling the sole and arch with the other.
"Hahahahahaha! O god, it tihihihihihihickles sohohohoho......please, ahahahahaha NOT THERE! NO, NOT BETWEEN THE TOES HAHAHAHAHAHA.....HAHAHAHAHAHA.....TEEHEEHEEHEE...HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE HEE HEE...no, ANYWHERE BUT HAHAHAHA THEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHERE!!"
Finally, after several minutes of the two girls fairly simultaneously tickling each other's bared feet - Bubbles repeated her tactic with Robyn's other foot to again remove the sandal - both of them had progressed to silent laughter, then became too tired to even squirm under the others' continued tickling assault, and finally were so completely worn out that they couldn't even summon the energy to tickle each other any more.
Robyn rolled off of Bubbles and, exhausted, stumbled indoor still barefoot, heading straight for the fridge and a refreshing drink, followed closely by Bubbles, also barefoot, after she had wiped off most of the grass stains.
After pouring two glasses of fruit juice out, Robyn and Bubbles sat at the dining table opposite each other, sipping their drinks in partially awkward and partially tired-out silence. Finally, Bubbles felt that she just had to break the almost deafening quietness by saying, "well, that was fun, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, it was", said Robyn, breaking into a broad grin. "Tiring but fun. And I betcha never thought you'd see the day when I could overpower ya, hey?"
"True. But that doesn't mean that I didn't like it," said Bubbles, swinging her feet under the table. Her right foot bumped against something that felt fleshy, but Robyn didn't show any reaction on her face. Bubbles just shifted position slightly and kept swinging her feet.
"What, you're saying you really liked feeling out of control when I was tickling you?" asked Robyn.
"Of course. I just felt that I...that I could trust you, completely. And you were gentle; well, kinda." Bubbles smiled. Her foot knocked against that fleshy object again, but when she tried to move away from it, it seemed to follow her, and then she felt it rubbing against her calf; it was Robyn's foot! Bubbles tried to remain calm in spite of this revelation, but could hear her heart begin to pound in her ears and feel as Robyn's toes curled and flexed around her calf. Bubbles' own foot started to twitch absent-mindedly, though not as in a ticklish reaction.
"Completely?"
"Of course. Why, shouldn't I?" asked Bubbles, giving a slight nervous giggle. Robyn's foot reached higher now, rubbing back and forth around her knee and flicking her toenails lightly against the back of Bubbles' thigh. Bubbles barely stifled a gasp of surprise by chewing on her lower lip, whereas she was unable to prevent her leg from shaking slightly under Robyn's tender ministrations, and the goose-bumps that rose all over her skin at the titillating touch.
What the...? I'm flirting with a simulation of Robyn, my bestest friend in the world, and I'm LIKING it! What's wrong with this picture, Bubbles, hey? Well, for one thing, she's a GIRL, and I'm a girl, and this is just.....ewww, wrong wrong wrong wrong....but then why does it feel so good?
Bubbles was startled out of her reverie by the feel of Robyn's other foot resting on top of her own foot, curling and stretching her toes against the top and arch of the foot. Bubbles again tried to withdraw, but Robyn was gently pressing her weight down onto Bubbles foot. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem; Bubbles would still simply be able to move away, but she couldn't for some reason. Not because of her conflicted emotions shorting out her motor functions, but she just could not stop shivering from Robyn's game of footsie, and all of her strength had given out again.
"Robyn...." Bubbles whispered, "we shouldn't..."
"Why not?"
"It's just too fast, isn't it?" Bubbles asked, thinking definitely too fast but also FAST? YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDIN' ME! at the same time. At once, she felt Robyn's feet withdraw, and her breathing began to return slowly to normal.
"Oh, sorry" said Robyn, blushing a deep red and looking out over the garden to avoid looking in Bubbles' eyes. "I must've...I mean...y'know, misread..."
"No, no you didn't", said Bubbles, thinking stupid, now you've made her feel like an idiot. "You really didn't - I'd just...like to go slower?"
Robyn sighed with relief. "OK. Slow, I can deal with. It's just, I felt that our friendship was...growing, and I really wanted it to, and I hoped that you did too but I couldn't be sure, so I thought that I'd go with my gut feeling and pray for the best..."
"You don't have to explain Robyn", said Bubbles, wishing not for the first time since stepping in to the Danger Grid that this wasn't only a holographic simulation.
Once more, a silence settled over the pair, although this time it was broken by Robyn, and much sooner too. Also, it didn't lead to anywhere as near an awkward conversation as the previous icebreaker had.
"So I was thinking Bubbles," she said, and Bubbles' focused her attention fully back on her pretty brunette companion, "as you like tickling and being tickled so much, why don't we see just how good you are?" Bubbles expression showed she didn't quite understand. "You tie me down and tickle me properly, all over, and then we switch places; but only until mum and dad get back, mmm'kay?"
Bubbles developed a slightly evil grin at this idea - being able to tickle her girl...best friend all over without fear of the tables being unexpectedly turned on her. "Okay; but tie you down with what; and where?"
"Well," said Robyn, thinking about this briefly, "the best place would be my bed, and I've got some old jump-ropes that we could use."
"Jump-ropes? That wouldn't hold me", said Bubbles, puffing up her chest to look tougher. Robyn giggled at that remark.
"Really?" she said. "Remember outside just now?" and quickly ducked under the table, grabbed Bubbles' left foot firmly by the ankle, and gave her a quick tickle under the toes.
"AhhhhhhHHHHHHAHAHAHAHA! OK, OK, enouhahahahahahahough!" Bubbles shouted with undisguised laughter. She tried to pull away, but Robyn tugged hard on her ankle and Bubbles landed with a bump on her bottom on the floor next to Robyn, with Robyn still holding her ankle loosely.
"See? I think those jump-ropes will be enough to hold you if they can hold me down. Let's get going - we've only got about an hour and a half before mum and dad get back." Robyn stood up, pulled Bubbles off the floor, and led Bubbles quickly up to her bedroom.
