FOUR

They got married in December, three weeks before Christmas. It was the happiest day of our lives. It was hard getting used to calling our new stepmother Mom instead of Ms. Keane, but we did. She was always a wonderful teacher, but she made an even better mother; it was like she was MADE for us. We were sailing through first grade and loving every minute of our six-year-old lives. Things were so great that I hardly ever thought back to my first life anymore, and when I did it seemed like a dream. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any more perfect, it did. In June, we had a special dinner to celebrate the anniversary of the night of our parents' first 'date'. They had known for weeks but waited until the party to spring it on us: we were going to have a baby brother!

He would be born in December, and we could hardly wait.

Summer was flying by, it was August already and we would be starting second grade in a few weeks. There hadn't even been that much crime lately, which didn't bother me at all. Even Buttercup liked it; a few times she griped when the hotline rang because it took us away from our fun. So it came as a complete shock when, on that gorgeous early Saturday afternoon the hotline rang and Mayor informed us that our old enemy, Mojo Jojo, was back with a vengeance.

To be honest, Dear Diary, we were a bit rusty and we hadn't kept up with our old training regimen. That was my fault, too; as leader, it was my responsibility to see that we stayed in top form. We hadn't seen anything like this before and we weren't prepared. Mojo's Robo-Jojo had doubled in size and apparent strength. It stood lower to the ground and much wider than his earlier version, and looked like it could take anything we could throw at it. Mojo had obviously changed his tactics, too, having plenty of time to plan his revenge. He usually announced his presence loudly, smashing buildings and figuratively beating his chest with his rants on taking over the world. He was so predictable, really.

Not this time. He had quietly and quickly gone straight for Townsville's jugular and sliced it: the water treatment and pumping station was a smoking ruin. We tracked him down just as he was going for the fatal blow to the heart, the power plant. He saw us coming and fired off a few laser blasts, which were a lot stronger than anything he used to have. Bubbles was knocked off balance but she quickly recovered and I ordered a scrambled formation, one that appeared to be random movement but was actually carefully choreographed. It was one of the few things we'd worked on with any enthusiasm, and it should have taken Mojo's computer at least a minute to solve the pattern and lock in on us. Less than twenty seconds later, we were crawling out from craters in the street. During our short attack, our eye and hand beams bounced harmlessly off the robot. Ignoring us, Mojo unleashed a huge auger from beneath the robot. It drilled far below ground and the whole area shook. We tried to clear our heads, and watched as the auger retracted, and a giant claw went down into the hole. It came back out holding the main cable that fed the whole city. The cable was at least ten feet thick; I was sure there were actually dozens of smaller ones inside and the thing probably carried billions of volts.

Townsville's blood had been drained and now its heartbeat stopped. The claw suddenly closed on the cable, ripping it apart. A massive blue spark shot out and everything went dead. Even though it was the middle of the day, that spark could have been seen for miles.

"What now, Blossom?" Bubbles shouted.

"He's got too much armor!" I shouted back. "Remember how we used to trip up his robots and just push them over? Look at the center of gravity on that thing! I don't think we can do it to this one, but it's all I've got!"

Buttercup called out "I've got something, Blossom, but we need your idea to set it up! See the power still coming out of that cable?"

The huge cable, at least the end that ran inside the power plant, was whipping around like a snake, spitting electric venom. In the darkness and confusion inside the plant, the coal-fired turbines were still churning out electricity and no one had thrown the switch to cut off the juice. The other end of the cable was as dead as the rest of the city.

"I'm gonna go see if I can find some water. But it'll only work if we can get Mojo to open up. Let's all hit together, then I'm outta here!"

She was right, and I was impressed. Tightly sealed, the robot was too tough for even a massive jolt of electricity, but if we could get Mojo to open that bubble a crack...I suddenly had an idea.

"Gotcha, Buttercup! Bubbles, follow my lead! Now!"

We blasted into the side of the thing, but it only wobbled a bit. Mojo spun the robot around and one of its arms knocked us aside. We allowed ourselves to tumble head over heels, landing behind some buildings, out of his sight.

Buttercup said "Okay, guys, get him to open up, I'll take care of the rest!" and she was gone.

"C'mon, Bubbles, let's go make that monkey pay for 'killing' our sister!"

Bubbles understood what I meant and grinned back at me. Dear Diary, I didn't know it at the time, but my sense of irony was the only thing that worked for me that day.

We confused Mojo by floating up to the thick plastic cockpit instead of rushing it, and he reacted by doing nothing but watch us. We looked as angry as possible and started pounding our fists on the bubble, yelling for him to come out of there. The act of futility made him laugh, and the cockpit started to open.

"Crank up your hearing, Bubbles, we need to be ready!" I told her.

When the cockpit stopped moving, we took half swings at his head. We expected there to be a force field in place and there was.

"Come out of there, you murderer!" I screamed at him, pounding the force field harder.

"Muahahahaha! It seems that you are now as powerless as your pathetic city. Speaking of pathetic, where is your weakling sister?"

"She's dead!" Bubbles shrieked. "You killed her!"

We both intensified our pounding, and Mojo had forgotten all about his plans, gloating at our 'tragedy'. His ego was always his worst enemy. We were a lot alike.

"And you shall join her! They say revenge is a dish best served cold, and mine has been chilling forever. But your lifeless bodies will soon be colder yet!"

He shook his fists at us in glee. I could faintly hear Buttercup returning; Bubbles heard her, too. We split. Mojo barely had time to look up and say "Uh, oh". Buttercup had grabbed an empty coal car from a train yard and filled it up, either at the lake in Bonsai Gardens Park or the reservoir, and she threw the whole thing at the robot and sped away. The force of contact rocked it slightly, in the direction of the electricity-spitting cable. The water made contact with the robot and the cable and a huge bolt of power, looking for a ground, zapped the robot. With the cockpit open, the surge shorted out its circuits. It exploded, blowing Mojo high into the sky, and Bubbles went after him. I took off in search of Buttercup, and heard her call out to me.

"Blossom! Look out!"

The force of the explosion had ripped a section of the dead end of the cable out of the ground and it was flying toward me. I tried to swerve, but the stiff strands of steel wire sticking out from the center of one end caught me in the back and impaled me on them. I don't know if it carried me on down to the ground. I don't know what became of Mojo. I didn't know anything.

There was no feeling of 'slow motion' this time, no sense I was dying, no sisters tearfully saying goodbye. Not even time for me to think "No, not again." It was "Th-that's all, folks." Lights out.

Do you know when it happened, Dear Diary? That's right, August 19, 2000. I'd bet my last dime it was 1:17, too.