Yet_One_More_Idiot
2nd Level Orange Feather
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2004
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Sorry it's been so long since the last part. I've been busy with training at work the last few days (I've been promoted, yay me! 😀), so I lost track of where I'd got up to. Here's the next part.
in association with
Scotty Boyo-PPGTKL Productions
is proud to present
The Powerpuff Girls
in
Laughter in Townsville:
Tickled Pink, Green and Blue
Chapter 5A: Buttercup - Revenge is Sweet, Justice is Sweeter
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As her alarm clock went off with flashing red, yellow, and green disco-style lighting that would put some nightclubs to shame, Buttercup brought her hand down flat on the "off" button. The shell of the clock was made of duranium, and it was this fact alone that prevented it from shattering under the force.
Buttercup lay in bed, thinking that it was far too late and she was far too tired to go down to the training room on her own. Then, images of indulging in some clean tickling fun, using the Danger Grid, and knowing that neither of her sisters would ever find out and humiliate her for it, came unbidden into her mind. She decided she'd do it again after all.
Buttercup had often pretended that she didn't get as much enjoyment out of tickling and tormenting Bubbles as their redhead sister clearly seemed to; in a way, she knew that Blossom's liking of tickling was...nearly obsessive, to say the least, and didn't want to think of herself as a similarly tickle-obsessed freak. However, the very fact that she was now going down to the Danger Grid - again, and at night, no less - to engage in both the act of tickling, and being tickled by, others contested that fact.
Buttercup was far more prepared for this than Bubbles, who had gone down before her, as she had done this many times before, more nights than not since the nights had become a comfortable temperature again.
She slipped quietly out of her bed, taking her time to let her eyes adjust to the very low intensity light around her, and careful not to make any noise or knock anything - the very last thing she wanted was to wake anyone.
Dressed in jeans, a plain forest green T-shirt and an old pair of Mary-Jane shoes that were two sizes too small, Buttercup floated silently over to the door and pulled it open. Earlier that evening she had taken the liberty of borrowing the Professor's lubricant, to make sure that all the door hinges were properly oiled and wouldn't squeak when moved - no point in doing something sloppily, after all.
Just as she was about to head across the landing and down the stairs, she saw Bubbles, still dressed but barefoot, holding a pair of shoes in one hand and looking exhausted yet content. Buttercup dove back behind her bedroom door and pushed it to, then waited until she heard Bubbles close her own bedroom door behind her. Once she was fairly sure that Bubbles wasn't coming back out again, Buttercup moved across to the stairs and floated down into the lounge.
Unlike Bubbles before her that night, Buttercup floated near the ceiling as she crossed the lounge, to avoid accidentally bumping into anything and subsequently creating noise. Unlike when Bubbles had gone to the Danger Grid, someone else woke up.
Buttercup heard the Professor coming down the staircase before she could actually make out his form in the darkness. The light came on moments later, and Buttercup pressed herself against the nearest wall, right above an ornamental stuffed peacock, trying to look invisible.
She watched as the Professor walked 7 times clockwise around the couch, followed by 7 times anti-clockwise, and then another 7 times clockwise again. Then he went back up the stairs and into his bedroom, turning off the lounge light along the way. To Buttercup's knowledge, this had never happened before - in fact, it was a nightly occurrence, she just usually wasn't in the lounge when he came down (at the same time every night - she came down at a slightly different time each time).
Now that the immediate risk of exposure had been lifted, Buttercup had time and solitude to notice that some of the upright feathers on the peacock were wafting against the backs of her knees in a slight breeze. The sensations that it produced felt really nice, but Buttercup knew that if she stayed there much longer, she would soon start to laugh and might be found by the Professor - or worse, one of her sisters (especially if it was Blossom).
Quickly, she moved down into the Professor's lab and went straight into the Danger Grid, locking the door behind her and putting a time lock of 2 hours on it. Buttercup didn't feel like programming a new scenario tonight (it would take too long; she was never too great at programming - Blossom had the computer knowledge and Bubbles was as good with computer languages as she was with spoken ones), so she thought briefly about which of her already games she most felt like playing tonight, and quickly came to a choice.
"Computer," she called, receiving a beep from the minicomputer to show it was ready for her command, "activate scenario Buttercup private double-oh six and a half."
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It was a lovely hot, sunny day, as it had been all week long; even longer, in fact. Which was what made it all the more dull for Buttercup, being stuck in her least favourite of all lessons for the last period of the day - Maths.
"Now class," said the teacher, striking the blackboard with her pointer - Her voice is so annoying; all high-pitched and scratchy. And she's really horrible too; it's not my fault I don't understand averages. Why ARE there three different types of average, anyway? But Blossom always sucks up to her 'cos she lurrrrrrrrrves math - urgh thought Buttercup, staring briefly out through the window. She watched as the kids in the year below them played basketball on the playground, and...
"Buttercup, young lady. What is the answer to this next question?" asked the teacher, pointing to the appropriate question on the board.
What is the mean of: 5, 6, 1, 8, 10, 98, 10, 5, 10, 11, 1?
"Ummm....Which one is the mean? O crap, just pick one....my feet are killing me...8?"
Blossom shook her head in disdain, and on her other side, Bubbles chewed the end of her pencil in deep concentration. The teacher tutted loudly in disapproval. "Wrong, Miss Utonium, that's the median. Here you have to take the sum and divide by the number of numbers, so that makes the correct answer...." she pointed to Blossom, who had her had so high in the air that she was floating just above her seat.
"15, Miss." The teacher simply beamed with pride at Blossom.
"For the rest of the class, I want you to turn to the chapter on averages in your textbooks and answer questions number 51 through 8. Don't worry Blossom, I'll bring you some work in just a moment, I think I have something here on Poisson distributions for you to do." Blossom almost lit up at that statement.
As the class settled down to their work, Buttercup let herself drift away from averages and just stared at the clock, willing the 45 minutes of maths to pass more quickly. Then her attention moved to the pain in her feet.
Blast these shoes she thought, and bent down to unbuckle her right Mary Jane, careful not to disturb the boy sitting at the desk to her right. At once, she felt a loosening of pressure around the foot, and sat back up as the tension began to ease. Ooooooooh, that feels sooooo much better. She wriggled her toes in contentment and then flexed and curled them until the shoe dropped lightly to the floor. Ohhhhhhh yeah. Then, rather than risk being noticed again, she undid the buckle of her other shoe using her toes - really, very dextrous - and jiggled the foot until that shoe fell off as well. Crossing her legs at the ankles under her seat and letting her tired feet relax, she rested her head on her desk and started to doze off in the hot and drowsy summer weather, now that the noise had died down and her feet weren't hurting her so much.
What was that?
Her eyes snapped open at the first faint touch against her toes, and she slowly sat up again, remembering that the teacher might look in her direction. Buttercup had just decided she might as well start the class work, and had begun on the first problem, when she felt another slight touch against her foot. Her leg involuntarily tensed up for just a moment.
Buttercup glanced quickly behind her, but neither the boy in the seat immediately behind her, nor the girls to either side of that boy, was anywhere near her feet - indeed, all three of them were working away feverishly on the set problems. Buttercup passed it off as hallucinations, or an itch caused by the heat, and got back to work.
The itch came back, stronger and now on Buttercup's left sole, causing her to scrunch her toes and try to ignore it.
The mean of 8 unknown numbers is 72. If you include the number 169 in the set, what is the new mean?
How on earth can I do that?! thought Buttercup. Then she saw that she had read question 151 instead of 51, and flipped back 6 pages to the correct work.
As she started reading again, the itch grew in intensity on the sole of her foot, and her whole foot started to twitch from side to side as she continued to pay the feeling no heed. It soon grew and spread across the sole of her left foot and between her toes, and Buttercup couldn't disregard it any longer - she scratched all over her other sole using her sharp toenails.
She almost gasped at the relieving contact of one cool foot pressed against the other, and then almost immediately had to fight back the urge to giggle - the sensation built up much more rapidly now, and spread to the toes she was scratching with, as though something was spreading across her feet. She could not, however, force the smile off her face that had suddenly appeared there.
"Are you alright?" asked Blossom, and Buttercup just grinned back at her.
"Sure, no probs sis", she said, and began rubbing both feet hard against the linoleum floor.
Buttercup no idea what was going on, except that the tickling now covered all of both her feet, and finally seemed to have stopped spreading, although it did not recede. She looked around again, but everyone else was still immersed in their work. What she failed to notice was the small, empty packet of itching powder on the desk of Mitch Mitchellson, the boy directly behind her. He watched as she fought to remain in control, and seemed to be slowly winning.
Undeterred, he reached out to the desk on his right, and snatched up one of the girls' spare pens with some pink fluff sticking out of its' end, and, leaning forward in his seat, began to waft it over Buttercup's bare feet, which were facing him soles-up at the moment.
Buttercup had finally completed the first 2 questions and was celebrating in her mind when the tickling, which had almost faded into background noise, became more noticeable and erratic again. She scratched each foot with the other and tried to pretend it wasn't happening, but couldn't. Finally, Mitch managed to get the pink fluff between her big and second toe - her second most ticklish area, after her stomach - and her entire body convulsed, throwing her sideways off her chair and knocking her desk against the one in front. In a flash, she was on the floor, seemingly writing in massive pain but laughing manically at the same time, thereby utterly destroying her image as toughness incarnate.
"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! I CAN'T TAKE ANYMOHOHOHOHOHOHORE!!!!"
The teachers' head instantly jerked away from her paperwork toward this chaotic scene, Mitch having already pulled himself upright, and given the girl her pen back. Buttercup hauled herself off the floor, straightened her jeans and righted her seat before taking it again, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.
"BUTTERCUP UTONIUM! GET UP HERE NOOOOOOOOOW!" yelled the teacher, furious at the disruption to her class, and by a Powerpuff Girl no less.
Buttercup, downcast, got up from her seat and walked to the front of the class. She, and her sisters, respected authority, and behaved as any other students at school would, especially when in trouble.
"Buttercup, what on earth did you think you were...where are your shoes, young lady?" the teacher asked, amazement evident in her voice.
"I took them off, Miss", Buttercup stated simply, not wanting to get in further trouble.
"And why did you do that, Buttercup?"
Buttercup, acutely aware that the whole class was watching this exchange, answered truthfully, "they felt uncomfortable, Miss."
"Well tough. Put them back on, now." As Buttercup returned to her seat and put her shoes back on, the teacher added, "and you're in detention this evening too, for causing all that ruckus." Buttercup felt like saying something, but realised that it would only make matters worse in the long run. She slipped her shoes back on but didn't buckle them up, figuring they were tight enough to stay on regardless. As she did this, the hotline phone, on the teachers' desk, rang. Blossom ran from her seat to the front of the class - the Powerpuffs having been told that flying was allowed in the school in NO circumstances whatsoever.
"Hello Mayor, what's the problem?" asked Blossom, getting straight to the point as usual. Then, with a stunned looked on her face at what was said to her, turned to Buttercup and said "it's for you, BC".
"Huh?" Buttercup just gave her a blank look. "Why would the Mayor want to talk to me?"
"It isn't the Mayor. Some villain wants to challenge you to a fight, one-on-one."
"Tell them we're in school."
"They'll smash all the schools in Townsville if you don't turn up" replied Blossom.
Buttercup made up her mind. "Just tell me when and where then, and I'll go sort 'em out." She was already halfway to the door when Blossom responded, "Now, and right above city hall."
The teacher just stared through all of this, gob-smacked, and then waved Buttercup off, reluctant to get in the way of crime fighting. Buttercup ran from the school building and pushed off the asphalt, soaring high into the air and heading straight for the city centre.
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Buttercup arrived at Townsville's City Hall a couple of minutes later, and just floated above the domed roof for a moment, looking around for the one who dared challenge her. When nobody materialized, she yelled out to catch their attention.
"Yo, you there? You challenge me to a fight, and then don't bother to show up - man, this is lame!"
At this point, a figure emerged from the cover of the clouds above. The figure was human; a couple of inches shorter, and thinner, than Buttercup; sported long, thick, wavy red hair; had a light sprinkling of speckles on her face; and a beautiful, melodic voice. In all fairness, she had blossomed into a teen-aged vision of beauty and grace.
"Patience is a virtue, Buttercup. But I wouldn't expect YOU to know that."
"So Princess, this is what you've been planning for ages. Call me out on my own and then overpower me, eh? It's been done."
"No it hasn't," replied Princess Morebucks, "because you and your annoying sisters are still here. But that will soon change, as I will torture you until I find a weakness that I can exploit against you and your sisters."
"Yeah? You and whose army?" "No army necessary." Princess smiled, smugly, before gesturing to her new and highly improved super suit. "This suit is more than powerful enough to take on a Powerpuff in one-on-one combat. Duranium plated, treated with Antidote X and sporting enough physical strength enhancements and weaponry to take down the entire US military."
Buttercup considered her options; flight- but she didn't know how fast Princess could fly; fistfight - the suit was duranium, impervious to Powerpuff super-strength; ranged fight - it was also impervious to their other powers. What did that leave her?
Then Buttercup noticed an important fact - the suit, due to its weight and the amount of armour plating on it, was jointed, and it had obviously been done in a hurry, for the joints left great gaping gaps when Princess flexed her arms and legs. Buttercup figured that there was just enough space for her to get her fingers between those cracks, but it should be enough...
Whilst Buttercup planned her first move - something she was not, by all accounts, accustomed to doing - Princess just launched herself straight at the larger girl and began pounding her viciously in the side of the head.
Buttercup quickly became lost in the pain, and the anger, and the hatred she felt towards Princess - Who actually calls they're daughter "Princess" anyway?" - and threw her off in a fit of blind rage. She shook her head to clear the pain slightly - her head was throbbing from the blows, and she appeared to be bleeding slightly from her left ear - and charged after Princess across the sky.
As Buttercup neared Princess, the redhead swung her whole body to the side a mere nanosecond before impact, so quickly that not even Buttercup could actually see her move. As Buttercup stared behind her in awe of Princess' physical feat, she didn't notice the clock tower looming up ahead until she smacked into it headfirst.
DONG!!!
When Buttercup came around just moments later, Princess was holding her at arms length around her chest, thereby rendering her unable to use her arms, and began to squeeze her painfully hard. Buttercup could hear her ribs beginning to give under the pressure. She attempted to wriggle out of Princess' grasp, but only managed to shift position a little. As she did so, however, Princess' duranium-coated gloves - flexible, unlike the rest of the suit, which included the helmet she had donned earlier on in the fight, and also very smoothly honed - brushed against her ribcage, causing Buttercup to bite her lip and kick her legs uselessly.
"MMMmmppppph!......Heh...aaaaaah!"
Buttercup tried to kick Princess away from her, but only managed to kick her shoes off, which she still hadn't buckled back up, leaving her feet now bare and a look of realisation dawning on Princess Morebuck's face. She may have been beautiful, but even SHE didn't look beautiful when she grinned evilly.
"So the little puff is ticklish, is she?" she asked Buttercup, who couldn't answer as Princess was still holding her; no longer squeezing, just holding. Unfortunately, the grip tickled ever so slightly and so Buttercup dared not answer in case more giggles slipped out. Princess glanced down and chanced to find that Buttercup's feet were bare - her shoes having dropped to the pavement some two hundred feet below them. Buttercup took the opportunity that this action afforded her and swung her entire body in Princess' grip, bringing her legs up between them and fairly cracking Princess in the jaw with her bare foot. It hurt her foot like hell, but also dazed Princess temporarily and knocked her back several yards.
Buttercup shot forward first, easily closing the distance between them and started tickling Princess under the arms. At first, there was simply no response, and Princess said, in a bored sounding voice, "Please - trying to tickle me through my state of the art super-suit? Were you born dumb, or do you have to practice on a daily basis?"
Buttercup ignored the jibe and continued with what she was doing, which was to seek out the join between the upper arm and the torso of the suit. Finally, her fingers found the vital crack and she wormed them through it.
"That'll clearly....heh....never work......hahaha......" Princess said, trying to retain control and her dignity. Then, with her other fist, she simply smashed Buttercup on the head, knocking her downwards.
Buttercup didn't fall very far, mostly because she grabbed hold of the shoe part of Princess' suit as she fell, and managed to stop her descent while at the same time pulling both shoe-like armour sections loose. Throwing them to the ground, she discovered something useful; under the suit, Princess wasn't wearing clothing.
Well, obviously she was wearing underwear, but the suit was too tight and hot for clothing to be comfortably worn - the user would quickly faint from heatstroke. The important fact remained, nevertheless, that Princess' feet were now bare and right in front of her.
Alas, Buttercup reacted too slowly, and Princess kicked her in the face with a fluid motion, knocking her through a nearby office block and out of the other side. She quickly flew after the receding Buttercup, brought her to a stop, still dazed, and started kneading the flesh of Buttercup's stomach as though it was dough.
Buttercup tried to fight through the tickling sensations and strike back at her nemesis, but found she had spontaneously lost control of her arms and legs, and now felt much heavier than normal - Princess appeared to be holding her up; she couldn't fly!
Princess was amazed by how easily tickling Buttercup seemed to disable her, when she gave a sudden lurch and had to correct for Buttercup becoming noticeably more dense in her hands. Why had the girl stopped flying...Unless she couldn't? That would make sense - she had lost control of her body, including her powers - of course.
Princess kept up on the offensive, prodding and squeezing Buttercup's stomach, forcing her to laugh even though she had little air to laugh with. Just when she thought she had subdued the Powerpuff and was finally victorious, she felt something at her own waist, and it too was prodding and stroking her own stomach.
Buttercup had, somehow, managed to twist herself in Princess' grasp while Princess was gloating over her triumph, and had been able to slip her big toe in the crack between the legs and torso of the armour at the waist, and had begun tickling Princess there with her foot. Princess twitched at the touch, and tried sucking her stomach in to move out of Buttercup's reach. But the toe kept coming, and Buttercup even managed to fit all five toes in the gap and force it apart. Even while Buttercup was laughing her head off at Princess tickling her most sensitive ticklish spot of all, and writhing and squirming in the redhead's clutches, she in turn tickled Princess' stomach and was able to entirely dislodge the front half of the chest plating, resulting in more ticklish skin for her to explore and overpower Princess with.
Princess couldn't stop twitching - How did she manage it? I've got to get out of here - and was becoming much weaker with laughter than Buttercup, but enough presence of mind remained within her to grab Buttercup's foot from where it was tickling her stomach and begin to draw patterns across the wrinkled sole.
Buttercup's stomach may normally have been more ticklish than her feet but, just freed from an afternoon cramped in too-small shoes in the hottest weather of the year had made Buttercup's feet soft and smooth with sweat, and therefore much more sensitive to being tickled than usual, even more so than her stomach. The restrictiveness of the shoes had made her feet tense, and tension also results in more ticklishness. Finally, there was the Antidote X on the gloves, which helped to soften up any physical defences she could muster.
The reaction was instantaneous and immense - the tickly feeling seemed to travel up - or rather down, as she was being held upside down by her feet - Buttercup's body to her brain in slow motion, where they burst and released a far greater ticklish reaction than Buttercup had ever imagined was possible. Her foot, and the rest of her body, didn't even move a millimetre; she simply collapsed in Princess' arms, incapable of any motion at all except the heaving of her chest as she laughed, continuously, uproariously, and seemingly without taking a single breath.
Her arms hung limp beneath her, all locomotive power gone from her body as Princess drove her mad with laughter by tickling her sore and tired feet. Those feet were the only part of Buttercup that was moving at all - the toes were wriggling, scrunching tight and then spreading wide invitingly, as Princess danced her gloved fingers smoothly all over, tickling Buttercup's arches, her heels, her soles, her toes, between her toes...
As Princess' fingers moved between Buttercup's toes, all sensations seemed to double and the tickling sensation in her mind seemed to grow and encompass her feet in their entirety. Buttercup tried to fight back, but her arms and her legs wouldn't do anything she told them to. All she could do was laugh, and she didn't have any choice about that at all - she just laughed and laughed and laughed.
The intensity of the sensations was such that her vision was blurring with tears and her laughter was becoming raspy from lack of oxygen. Her toes finally seemed completely immobilised, clenched tight with Princess' fingers clasped between them, but soon all remaining strength in them too gave out as Buttercup lost consciousness and the spaces between her toes became an open target.
Princess, realising she had successfully tickled her enemy into unconsciousness, scooped Buttercup up in her arms and carried her back to her mansion, tickling Buttercup's ribs all the way through the journey.
Buttercup may now have been nearly comatose, but could still feel the tickling, even in her sleep. She squirmed lightly in the cradle of Princess' arms, and giggled in her sleep, obviously dreaming that someone she liked - probably a friend - was playfully tickling her, and murmured in a sleepy voice "Stop that - it tee hee hee heehee-hickles.....hehehehehehehehehehe........."
Princess grinned evilly to herself once more, and headed for the torture chamber she had had custom built for her in her wing of the Morebucks' mansion. She also radioed ahead to her little sister to prepare a few things for their imminent arrival.
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To be continued....
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 5A: Buttercup - Revenge is Sweet, Justice is Sweeter
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As her alarm clock went off with flashing red, yellow, and green disco-style lighting that would put some nightclubs to shame, Buttercup brought her hand down flat on the "off" button. The shell of the clock was made of duranium, and it was this fact alone that prevented it from shattering under the force.
Buttercup lay in bed, thinking that it was far too late and she was far too tired to go down to the training room on her own. Then, images of indulging in some clean tickling fun, using the Danger Grid, and knowing that neither of her sisters would ever find out and humiliate her for it, came unbidden into her mind. She decided she'd do it again after all.
Buttercup had often pretended that she didn't get as much enjoyment out of tickling and tormenting Bubbles as their redhead sister clearly seemed to; in a way, she knew that Blossom's liking of tickling was...nearly obsessive, to say the least, and didn't want to think of herself as a similarly tickle-obsessed freak. However, the very fact that she was now going down to the Danger Grid - again, and at night, no less - to engage in both the act of tickling, and being tickled by, others contested that fact.
Buttercup was far more prepared for this than Bubbles, who had gone down before her, as she had done this many times before, more nights than not since the nights had become a comfortable temperature again.
She slipped quietly out of her bed, taking her time to let her eyes adjust to the very low intensity light around her, and careful not to make any noise or knock anything - the very last thing she wanted was to wake anyone.
Dressed in jeans, a plain forest green T-shirt and an old pair of Mary-Jane shoes that were two sizes too small, Buttercup floated silently over to the door and pulled it open. Earlier that evening she had taken the liberty of borrowing the Professor's lubricant, to make sure that all the door hinges were properly oiled and wouldn't squeak when moved - no point in doing something sloppily, after all.
Just as she was about to head across the landing and down the stairs, she saw Bubbles, still dressed but barefoot, holding a pair of shoes in one hand and looking exhausted yet content. Buttercup dove back behind her bedroom door and pushed it to, then waited until she heard Bubbles close her own bedroom door behind her. Once she was fairly sure that Bubbles wasn't coming back out again, Buttercup moved across to the stairs and floated down into the lounge.
Unlike Bubbles before her that night, Buttercup floated near the ceiling as she crossed the lounge, to avoid accidentally bumping into anything and subsequently creating noise. Unlike when Bubbles had gone to the Danger Grid, someone else woke up.
Buttercup heard the Professor coming down the staircase before she could actually make out his form in the darkness. The light came on moments later, and Buttercup pressed herself against the nearest wall, right above an ornamental stuffed peacock, trying to look invisible.
She watched as the Professor walked 7 times clockwise around the couch, followed by 7 times anti-clockwise, and then another 7 times clockwise again. Then he went back up the stairs and into his bedroom, turning off the lounge light along the way. To Buttercup's knowledge, this had never happened before - in fact, it was a nightly occurrence, she just usually wasn't in the lounge when he came down (at the same time every night - she came down at a slightly different time each time).
Now that the immediate risk of exposure had been lifted, Buttercup had time and solitude to notice that some of the upright feathers on the peacock were wafting against the backs of her knees in a slight breeze. The sensations that it produced felt really nice, but Buttercup knew that if she stayed there much longer, she would soon start to laugh and might be found by the Professor - or worse, one of her sisters (especially if it was Blossom).
Quickly, she moved down into the Professor's lab and went straight into the Danger Grid, locking the door behind her and putting a time lock of 2 hours on it. Buttercup didn't feel like programming a new scenario tonight (it would take too long; she was never too great at programming - Blossom had the computer knowledge and Bubbles was as good with computer languages as she was with spoken ones), so she thought briefly about which of her already games she most felt like playing tonight, and quickly came to a choice.
"Computer," she called, receiving a beep from the minicomputer to show it was ready for her command, "activate scenario Buttercup private double-oh six and a half."
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It was a lovely hot, sunny day, as it had been all week long; even longer, in fact. Which was what made it all the more dull for Buttercup, being stuck in her least favourite of all lessons for the last period of the day - Maths.
"Now class," said the teacher, striking the blackboard with her pointer - Her voice is so annoying; all high-pitched and scratchy. And she's really horrible too; it's not my fault I don't understand averages. Why ARE there three different types of average, anyway? But Blossom always sucks up to her 'cos she lurrrrrrrrrves math - urgh thought Buttercup, staring briefly out through the window. She watched as the kids in the year below them played basketball on the playground, and...
"Buttercup, young lady. What is the answer to this next question?" asked the teacher, pointing to the appropriate question on the board.
What is the mean of: 5, 6, 1, 8, 10, 98, 10, 5, 10, 11, 1?
"Ummm....Which one is the mean? O crap, just pick one....my feet are killing me...8?"
Blossom shook her head in disdain, and on her other side, Bubbles chewed the end of her pencil in deep concentration. The teacher tutted loudly in disapproval. "Wrong, Miss Utonium, that's the median. Here you have to take the sum and divide by the number of numbers, so that makes the correct answer...." she pointed to Blossom, who had her had so high in the air that she was floating just above her seat.
"15, Miss." The teacher simply beamed with pride at Blossom.
"For the rest of the class, I want you to turn to the chapter on averages in your textbooks and answer questions number 51 through 8. Don't worry Blossom, I'll bring you some work in just a moment, I think I have something here on Poisson distributions for you to do." Blossom almost lit up at that statement.
As the class settled down to their work, Buttercup let herself drift away from averages and just stared at the clock, willing the 45 minutes of maths to pass more quickly. Then her attention moved to the pain in her feet.
Blast these shoes she thought, and bent down to unbuckle her right Mary Jane, careful not to disturb the boy sitting at the desk to her right. At once, she felt a loosening of pressure around the foot, and sat back up as the tension began to ease. Ooooooooh, that feels sooooo much better. She wriggled her toes in contentment and then flexed and curled them until the shoe dropped lightly to the floor. Ohhhhhhh yeah. Then, rather than risk being noticed again, she undid the buckle of her other shoe using her toes - really, very dextrous - and jiggled the foot until that shoe fell off as well. Crossing her legs at the ankles under her seat and letting her tired feet relax, she rested her head on her desk and started to doze off in the hot and drowsy summer weather, now that the noise had died down and her feet weren't hurting her so much.
What was that?
Her eyes snapped open at the first faint touch against her toes, and she slowly sat up again, remembering that the teacher might look in her direction. Buttercup had just decided she might as well start the class work, and had begun on the first problem, when she felt another slight touch against her foot. Her leg involuntarily tensed up for just a moment.
Buttercup glanced quickly behind her, but neither the boy in the seat immediately behind her, nor the girls to either side of that boy, was anywhere near her feet - indeed, all three of them were working away feverishly on the set problems. Buttercup passed it off as hallucinations, or an itch caused by the heat, and got back to work.
The itch came back, stronger and now on Buttercup's left sole, causing her to scrunch her toes and try to ignore it.
The mean of 8 unknown numbers is 72. If you include the number 169 in the set, what is the new mean?
How on earth can I do that?! thought Buttercup. Then she saw that she had read question 151 instead of 51, and flipped back 6 pages to the correct work.
As she started reading again, the itch grew in intensity on the sole of her foot, and her whole foot started to twitch from side to side as she continued to pay the feeling no heed. It soon grew and spread across the sole of her left foot and between her toes, and Buttercup couldn't disregard it any longer - she scratched all over her other sole using her sharp toenails.
She almost gasped at the relieving contact of one cool foot pressed against the other, and then almost immediately had to fight back the urge to giggle - the sensation built up much more rapidly now, and spread to the toes she was scratching with, as though something was spreading across her feet. She could not, however, force the smile off her face that had suddenly appeared there.
"Are you alright?" asked Blossom, and Buttercup just grinned back at her.
"Sure, no probs sis", she said, and began rubbing both feet hard against the linoleum floor.
Buttercup no idea what was going on, except that the tickling now covered all of both her feet, and finally seemed to have stopped spreading, although it did not recede. She looked around again, but everyone else was still immersed in their work. What she failed to notice was the small, empty packet of itching powder on the desk of Mitch Mitchellson, the boy directly behind her. He watched as she fought to remain in control, and seemed to be slowly winning.
Undeterred, he reached out to the desk on his right, and snatched up one of the girls' spare pens with some pink fluff sticking out of its' end, and, leaning forward in his seat, began to waft it over Buttercup's bare feet, which were facing him soles-up at the moment.
Buttercup had finally completed the first 2 questions and was celebrating in her mind when the tickling, which had almost faded into background noise, became more noticeable and erratic again. She scratched each foot with the other and tried to pretend it wasn't happening, but couldn't. Finally, Mitch managed to get the pink fluff between her big and second toe - her second most ticklish area, after her stomach - and her entire body convulsed, throwing her sideways off her chair and knocking her desk against the one in front. In a flash, she was on the floor, seemingly writing in massive pain but laughing manically at the same time, thereby utterly destroying her image as toughness incarnate.
"HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA! I CAN'T TAKE ANYMOHOHOHOHOHOHORE!!!!"
The teachers' head instantly jerked away from her paperwork toward this chaotic scene, Mitch having already pulled himself upright, and given the girl her pen back. Buttercup hauled herself off the floor, straightened her jeans and righted her seat before taking it again, trying to look as nonchalant as possible.
"BUTTERCUP UTONIUM! GET UP HERE NOOOOOOOOOW!" yelled the teacher, furious at the disruption to her class, and by a Powerpuff Girl no less.
Buttercup, downcast, got up from her seat and walked to the front of the class. She, and her sisters, respected authority, and behaved as any other students at school would, especially when in trouble.
"Buttercup, what on earth did you think you were...where are your shoes, young lady?" the teacher asked, amazement evident in her voice.
"I took them off, Miss", Buttercup stated simply, not wanting to get in further trouble.
"And why did you do that, Buttercup?"
Buttercup, acutely aware that the whole class was watching this exchange, answered truthfully, "they felt uncomfortable, Miss."
"Well tough. Put them back on, now." As Buttercup returned to her seat and put her shoes back on, the teacher added, "and you're in detention this evening too, for causing all that ruckus." Buttercup felt like saying something, but realised that it would only make matters worse in the long run. She slipped her shoes back on but didn't buckle them up, figuring they were tight enough to stay on regardless. As she did this, the hotline phone, on the teachers' desk, rang. Blossom ran from her seat to the front of the class - the Powerpuffs having been told that flying was allowed in the school in NO circumstances whatsoever.
"Hello Mayor, what's the problem?" asked Blossom, getting straight to the point as usual. Then, with a stunned looked on her face at what was said to her, turned to Buttercup and said "it's for you, BC".
"Huh?" Buttercup just gave her a blank look. "Why would the Mayor want to talk to me?"
"It isn't the Mayor. Some villain wants to challenge you to a fight, one-on-one."
"Tell them we're in school."
"They'll smash all the schools in Townsville if you don't turn up" replied Blossom.
Buttercup made up her mind. "Just tell me when and where then, and I'll go sort 'em out." She was already halfway to the door when Blossom responded, "Now, and right above city hall."
The teacher just stared through all of this, gob-smacked, and then waved Buttercup off, reluctant to get in the way of crime fighting. Buttercup ran from the school building and pushed off the asphalt, soaring high into the air and heading straight for the city centre.
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Buttercup arrived at Townsville's City Hall a couple of minutes later, and just floated above the domed roof for a moment, looking around for the one who dared challenge her. When nobody materialized, she yelled out to catch their attention.
"Yo, you there? You challenge me to a fight, and then don't bother to show up - man, this is lame!"
At this point, a figure emerged from the cover of the clouds above. The figure was human; a couple of inches shorter, and thinner, than Buttercup; sported long, thick, wavy red hair; had a light sprinkling of speckles on her face; and a beautiful, melodic voice. In all fairness, she had blossomed into a teen-aged vision of beauty and grace.
"Patience is a virtue, Buttercup. But I wouldn't expect YOU to know that."
"So Princess, this is what you've been planning for ages. Call me out on my own and then overpower me, eh? It's been done."
"No it hasn't," replied Princess Morebucks, "because you and your annoying sisters are still here. But that will soon change, as I will torture you until I find a weakness that I can exploit against you and your sisters."
"Yeah? You and whose army?" "No army necessary." Princess smiled, smugly, before gesturing to her new and highly improved super suit. "This suit is more than powerful enough to take on a Powerpuff in one-on-one combat. Duranium plated, treated with Antidote X and sporting enough physical strength enhancements and weaponry to take down the entire US military."
Buttercup considered her options; flight- but she didn't know how fast Princess could fly; fistfight - the suit was duranium, impervious to Powerpuff super-strength; ranged fight - it was also impervious to their other powers. What did that leave her?
Then Buttercup noticed an important fact - the suit, due to its weight and the amount of armour plating on it, was jointed, and it had obviously been done in a hurry, for the joints left great gaping gaps when Princess flexed her arms and legs. Buttercup figured that there was just enough space for her to get her fingers between those cracks, but it should be enough...
Whilst Buttercup planned her first move - something she was not, by all accounts, accustomed to doing - Princess just launched herself straight at the larger girl and began pounding her viciously in the side of the head.
Buttercup quickly became lost in the pain, and the anger, and the hatred she felt towards Princess - Who actually calls they're daughter "Princess" anyway?" - and threw her off in a fit of blind rage. She shook her head to clear the pain slightly - her head was throbbing from the blows, and she appeared to be bleeding slightly from her left ear - and charged after Princess across the sky.
As Buttercup neared Princess, the redhead swung her whole body to the side a mere nanosecond before impact, so quickly that not even Buttercup could actually see her move. As Buttercup stared behind her in awe of Princess' physical feat, she didn't notice the clock tower looming up ahead until she smacked into it headfirst.
DONG!!!
When Buttercup came around just moments later, Princess was holding her at arms length around her chest, thereby rendering her unable to use her arms, and began to squeeze her painfully hard. Buttercup could hear her ribs beginning to give under the pressure. She attempted to wriggle out of Princess' grasp, but only managed to shift position a little. As she did so, however, Princess' duranium-coated gloves - flexible, unlike the rest of the suit, which included the helmet she had donned earlier on in the fight, and also very smoothly honed - brushed against her ribcage, causing Buttercup to bite her lip and kick her legs uselessly.
"MMMmmppppph!......Heh...aaaaaah!"
Buttercup tried to kick Princess away from her, but only managed to kick her shoes off, which she still hadn't buckled back up, leaving her feet now bare and a look of realisation dawning on Princess Morebuck's face. She may have been beautiful, but even SHE didn't look beautiful when she grinned evilly.
"So the little puff is ticklish, is she?" she asked Buttercup, who couldn't answer as Princess was still holding her; no longer squeezing, just holding. Unfortunately, the grip tickled ever so slightly and so Buttercup dared not answer in case more giggles slipped out. Princess glanced down and chanced to find that Buttercup's feet were bare - her shoes having dropped to the pavement some two hundred feet below them. Buttercup took the opportunity that this action afforded her and swung her entire body in Princess' grip, bringing her legs up between them and fairly cracking Princess in the jaw with her bare foot. It hurt her foot like hell, but also dazed Princess temporarily and knocked her back several yards.
Buttercup shot forward first, easily closing the distance between them and started tickling Princess under the arms. At first, there was simply no response, and Princess said, in a bored sounding voice, "Please - trying to tickle me through my state of the art super-suit? Were you born dumb, or do you have to practice on a daily basis?"
Buttercup ignored the jibe and continued with what she was doing, which was to seek out the join between the upper arm and the torso of the suit. Finally, her fingers found the vital crack and she wormed them through it.
"That'll clearly....heh....never work......hahaha......" Princess said, trying to retain control and her dignity. Then, with her other fist, she simply smashed Buttercup on the head, knocking her downwards.
Buttercup didn't fall very far, mostly because she grabbed hold of the shoe part of Princess' suit as she fell, and managed to stop her descent while at the same time pulling both shoe-like armour sections loose. Throwing them to the ground, she discovered something useful; under the suit, Princess wasn't wearing clothing.
Well, obviously she was wearing underwear, but the suit was too tight and hot for clothing to be comfortably worn - the user would quickly faint from heatstroke. The important fact remained, nevertheless, that Princess' feet were now bare and right in front of her.
Alas, Buttercup reacted too slowly, and Princess kicked her in the face with a fluid motion, knocking her through a nearby office block and out of the other side. She quickly flew after the receding Buttercup, brought her to a stop, still dazed, and started kneading the flesh of Buttercup's stomach as though it was dough.
Buttercup tried to fight through the tickling sensations and strike back at her nemesis, but found she had spontaneously lost control of her arms and legs, and now felt much heavier than normal - Princess appeared to be holding her up; she couldn't fly!
Princess was amazed by how easily tickling Buttercup seemed to disable her, when she gave a sudden lurch and had to correct for Buttercup becoming noticeably more dense in her hands. Why had the girl stopped flying...Unless she couldn't? That would make sense - she had lost control of her body, including her powers - of course.
Princess kept up on the offensive, prodding and squeezing Buttercup's stomach, forcing her to laugh even though she had little air to laugh with. Just when she thought she had subdued the Powerpuff and was finally victorious, she felt something at her own waist, and it too was prodding and stroking her own stomach.
Buttercup had, somehow, managed to twist herself in Princess' grasp while Princess was gloating over her triumph, and had been able to slip her big toe in the crack between the legs and torso of the armour at the waist, and had begun tickling Princess there with her foot. Princess twitched at the touch, and tried sucking her stomach in to move out of Buttercup's reach. But the toe kept coming, and Buttercup even managed to fit all five toes in the gap and force it apart. Even while Buttercup was laughing her head off at Princess tickling her most sensitive ticklish spot of all, and writhing and squirming in the redhead's clutches, she in turn tickled Princess' stomach and was able to entirely dislodge the front half of the chest plating, resulting in more ticklish skin for her to explore and overpower Princess with.
Princess couldn't stop twitching - How did she manage it? I've got to get out of here - and was becoming much weaker with laughter than Buttercup, but enough presence of mind remained within her to grab Buttercup's foot from where it was tickling her stomach and begin to draw patterns across the wrinkled sole.
Buttercup's stomach may normally have been more ticklish than her feet but, just freed from an afternoon cramped in too-small shoes in the hottest weather of the year had made Buttercup's feet soft and smooth with sweat, and therefore much more sensitive to being tickled than usual, even more so than her stomach. The restrictiveness of the shoes had made her feet tense, and tension also results in more ticklishness. Finally, there was the Antidote X on the gloves, which helped to soften up any physical defences she could muster.
The reaction was instantaneous and immense - the tickly feeling seemed to travel up - or rather down, as she was being held upside down by her feet - Buttercup's body to her brain in slow motion, where they burst and released a far greater ticklish reaction than Buttercup had ever imagined was possible. Her foot, and the rest of her body, didn't even move a millimetre; she simply collapsed in Princess' arms, incapable of any motion at all except the heaving of her chest as she laughed, continuously, uproariously, and seemingly without taking a single breath.
Her arms hung limp beneath her, all locomotive power gone from her body as Princess drove her mad with laughter by tickling her sore and tired feet. Those feet were the only part of Buttercup that was moving at all - the toes were wriggling, scrunching tight and then spreading wide invitingly, as Princess danced her gloved fingers smoothly all over, tickling Buttercup's arches, her heels, her soles, her toes, between her toes...
As Princess' fingers moved between Buttercup's toes, all sensations seemed to double and the tickling sensation in her mind seemed to grow and encompass her feet in their entirety. Buttercup tried to fight back, but her arms and her legs wouldn't do anything she told them to. All she could do was laugh, and she didn't have any choice about that at all - she just laughed and laughed and laughed.
The intensity of the sensations was such that her vision was blurring with tears and her laughter was becoming raspy from lack of oxygen. Her toes finally seemed completely immobilised, clenched tight with Princess' fingers clasped between them, but soon all remaining strength in them too gave out as Buttercup lost consciousness and the spaces between her toes became an open target.
Princess, realising she had successfully tickled her enemy into unconsciousness, scooped Buttercup up in her arms and carried her back to her mansion, tickling Buttercup's ribs all the way through the journey.
Buttercup may now have been nearly comatose, but could still feel the tickling, even in her sleep. She squirmed lightly in the cradle of Princess' arms, and giggled in her sleep, obviously dreaming that someone she liked - probably a friend - was playfully tickling her, and murmured in a sleepy voice "Stop that - it tee hee hee heehee-hickles.....hehehehehehehehehehe........."
Princess grinned evilly to herself once more, and headed for the torture chamber she had had custom built for her in her wing of the Morebucks' mansion. She also radioed ahead to her little sister to prepare a few things for their imminent arrival.
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To be continued....
