Most of the stories take place in a city called Townsville in the United States, where The Powerpuff Girls serve as the protectors of the city. Their duties include stopping bank robberies, rescuing people from fires, and preventing monsters from destroying the city. The Powerpuff Girls show no mercy toward criminals and monsters, almost always beating them up fiercely before throwing them into jail or handing them over to the police. The Powerpuff Girls have a dedicated hotline, with extensions set up at City Hall, Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, and Ms. Keane’s home. When a crime occurs, it is usually the Mayor who calls to inform The Powerpuff Girls. The core message of The Powerpuff Girls is that "heroes are not purely good, and villains are not purely evil… because everyone has both good and bad within them—it all depends on the choices you make." The ending scenes and closing lines are also distinctive features of this series, with each story having its own ending scene and closing line. Most ending scenes feature the three Powerpuff Girls, and the closing line is usually, "Another day has been safely saved, thanks to The Powerpuff Girls!" However, neither of these elements remains exactly the same in every episode. More often, the ending scene highlights the person, event, or object that contributed most to resolving the episode’s conflict, and it is not always limited to a single entity (it may also feature multiple ones).