Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

An undocumented island in the south Pacific.

Once a secluded, exotic paradise, little remained of its former splendor. Heavy storm clouds filled the once blue sky, unleashing a downpour onto the island. The landscape, once made up of rolling hills dotted with trees, had been transformed into a splintered wasteland. Most of the island had crumbled into the ocean, while neon pink flames, unbothered by the pouring rain, engulfed everything still standing.

At the far edge of the island, between a pair of crystalized rocks on a frozen glass beach, a cell phone chirped out a desperate S.O.S. As its battery, drained from a full day of constant use without charging, prepared to give out, an approaching duo of shooting stars answered its call just in time.

Green and blue streaks carved through the storm clouds, a pair of deafening sonic booms following in their wake. A gasp and a cry of “BLOSSOM!” echoed louder than a peel of thunder, followed by another crack of the air exploding when they descended on the island.

Buttercup was the first to touchdown, the ground bursting beneath her feet. Once when she landed and again when she shot over to her fallen sister.

“Bloss! Hey! Hey are you okay? Blossom!” Dropping to her knees, Buttercup reached out a trembling hand toward Blossom’s face. Her breath shook as her gaze drifted across the Powerpuff leader’s broken body.

Her face was unrecognizable, eyes blackened, cheeks covered in gashes and bruises. Glistening, frozen streams of red caked her cheeks, masking the scorched flesh beneath. Even with just a cursory glance, she could see Blossom’s arm shattered in three different places and her crushed fingers. Blood had soaked through her outfit, painting it a mix of crimson and charred patches of black. She was breathing, judging by the barely visible dusting of snowflakes on her lips and the high-pitched moan of pain with every strained rise and fall of her chest.

Buttercup’s fingers curled into fists; trembling, knuckles cracking and turning white. Her pupils dilated and her veins tingled as her blood raced. Her vision blurred, the world becoming a violent green haze. 

“BLOSSY!” A high-pitched shriek dragged the green puff out of the electric numb that had spread through her head and body. She looked up just as Bubbles appeared in a flash of blue and a spray of tears.

“She’s breathing.” Buttercup said in a low growl through clenched teeth. The heat of the flames and chill of the rain felt miles away, smothered beneath the rush of Chemical X pumping through her veins, filling her until it leaked from her skin in emerald waves. Her muscles hardened. The bones in her hands cracked, healed, then cracked again with every squeeze of her fists.

Bubbles touched Blossom’s face, brushing aside her hair and the blood slush on her cheeks. She released a sigh of relief when the pink puff leaned into her touch.

“C’mon Blossy. Let’s get you home.” Bubbles gently scooped Blossom into her arms and rose to her feet. Feeling the prickle of power radiating from her other sister, she turned toward her with pleading eyes. “Buttercup. I need your help. You can’t go crazy on me now.”

“I’m not going crazy.” Buttercup snapped. Her eyes overflowed with green light as she stood upright. “I’m going to find who did this.”

“No, Buttercup. You need to come back with me. Let’s get Blossom home so Dad can patch her up. We’ll worry about what happened once she’s safe and sound.”

“Fuck that, I’m going to kill whoever did this!”

“No, you’re not! You are coming home!” Like a switch flipping, Bubbles’ demeanor changed. Her voice lowered, turning harsh and, like Buttercup, her eyes and body overflowed with Chemical X radiation. But where Buttercup’s power was struggling to break through her control, Bubbles’ exploded outward, dwarfing her sister’s.

Buttercup refused to back down. Sparks crackled around her body and her turbulent aura grew, pushing back against Bubbles’ overwhelming eruption of power. The tingling in her veins intensified, spreading to the surface of her skin. Her vision sharpened until she could see her sister in supernatural definition, while the rest of the world became a blur.

Buttercup took a dangerous step forward, but as soon as her heel hit the ground, Bubbles’ gaze hardened, the light pouring out of them intensifying into a piercing nuclear blue.

“Blossom is hurt, sis. She needs you — I need you — to come home with us. I can’t deal with you losing it and take care of her, too.” While it was clear she wasn’t leaving room for argument, there was a pleading edge in her tone.

Their eyes met in a glare. Buttercup was the first to blink and her power faded.

“This is my fault.” She said, her shoulders slumping.

Bubbles released the breath she had been holding, and her demeanor returned to normal. “No it wasn’t, Buttercup.”

“If I hadn’t yelled at her, she’d have called us if she was in trouble.” Her voice cracked and her head dropped. “I fucked up again. And she got hurt again.”

“It’s not your fault, Buttercup. Let’s get Blossy home and we’ll find out what happened once she wakes up.” Bubbles closed the distance between the two of them, bumping her shoulder against Buttercup’s. “Alright?”

With a heavy sigh, Buttercup nodded.

“Yeah. Okay.”

Without looking back, the girls took to the sky, leaving the island to burn and sink into the ocean while the storm continued raging.

A cool, wet sensation pierced through the foggy thoughts tumbling around in Blossom’s head. The trail of moisture that the slightly coarse material left behind on her forehead and cheeks chilled, hardening into paper-thin strips of ice that clung to her skin. As she dizzily swam to the surface of the darkness engulfing her, the first thing she found waiting on the edge of consciousness was an intense, throbbing pain throughout her entire body. Her toes twitched. A shallow, frigid moan of anguish passed through her dry lips.

“-ssom? Bl…are…ay? Ca…u hear m…?”

The cool cloth brushed her mouth, stirring free another soft gasp. Her left hand clenched into a fist and a sharp sting raced up the length of her arm, turning her sigh into a choked whimper. Someone’s hand slipped into hers, giving it the faintest hint of a squeeze, one that momentarily chased away the pain.

Blossom drew in a full breath. Her throat and lungs burned as arctic air filled her chest, cooling the persistent ache still ravaging her body. With a grunt of exertion, she forced her eyes open.

The world spun around her, twisting and turning in a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors that even her racing mind couldn’t process. A new shape leaned over her. Bright blue eyes, wide with worry, were the only thing she could see clearly. Blossom focused on those eyes, willing the rest of the world into focus. Her cute, sharp little nose. Her lightly tanned skin. The waves of brown hair framing her face.

The breath caught in Blossom’s throat. Her heart fluttered in her frozen chest.

“Hey there…can you hear me?” Robin asked. Her face lit up with a smile when Blossom slowly nodded in response. “Oh, Blossom.” Her smile wavered and tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes. “We’ve been so worried about you. Oh my gosh, I’m so happy you’re finally awake!”

Robin sat back to give Blossom space, wiping away her tears and glancing toward the door. She moved to climb to her feet, but Blossom reached out and caught her hand.

The Powerpuff leader flinched and whimpered as another sharp sting raced up her arm, but refused to let go. Forcing her way through the pain, she asked, “How long was I out?” She scarcely recognized her own voice. Every word was laborious, agitating her scorched throat.

“Three days.” Robin reached for a glass of water, holding it to Blossom’s lips as she drank. She giggled as Blossom ravenously downed it all. Setting the half frozen glass back down, she brushed Blossom’s hair out of her face and dabbed her cheeks with the washcloth from earlier. “We were worried you might never wake up…the shape you were in when Bubbles and Buttercup brought you back. I just…” Biting her lip, Robin shook her head.

A tear broke through her defenses, rolling down her cheek as she smiled again. “I’m just so happy you’re alright, Blossom.”

‘Bubbles? Buttercup? Oh…right. I called them, didn’t I?’ Blossom returned Robin’s smile as best she could, tilting her head to take in her surroundings. She was back in her old room. Bubbles’ bedroom now. Though, judging by how faint the scent of Bubbles’ vanilla shampoo was on the sheets, it wasn’t likely she slept much in it.

Evening light poured in through the three round windows, illuminating the otherwise dark room. The carpet was the same pink shag from her childhood, and countless drawings depicting Bubbles’ entire artistic history still decorated the walls. The vast majority were recent: a smattering of colorful cartoons, one or two impressive realistic pieces, and an overwhelming amount of anime fanart.

Blossom’s gaze came to rest on her old pink vanity. Butterflies stirred in her chest, drawing out a pained whimper. Her eyes fluttered shut, and she leaned into Robin’s touch as she caressed her cheek. ‘Her skin is so soft and warm…’

“What happened to you?” Robin’s voice interrupted Blossom’s drifting thoughts.

Sucking a fresh frigid gale into her lungs, Blossom pressed her elbows into the bed and forced her way into a sitting position. She collapsed against Robin, whose arms snaked around Blossom’s shoulders to steady her ascent, and mumbled a pained thanks.

“I…should probably explain…everything to…everyone.” Blossom’s voice grew strained as every moment scraped and itched her skin. She cracked her eyes open and looked down at her hands. She was completely covered in bandages, dressed in one of Bubbles’ oversized sleep shirts. As she grew accustomed to the pain and her thoughts cleared, a far more pressing matter was making its presence known.

“I need…” Blossom trembled and scratched at her arms. Her breath quickened, her head swam .Scraping. Rubbing. Itching. “I need out…where…where’s my?” With every panicked breath, icicles filled her head and frost formed along the sheets. Ignoring the pain in her fingers, she fumbled with her bandages, desperate to get free.

Robin caught her hands and pulled them apart. “Don’t worry! It’s okay! I’ve got one of your suits right here.” She pointed to the nightstand, where a bodysuit lay in an uneven fold. “Let me just get these bandages off, okay? Don’t worry! I’ll be quick and gentle. I’ve been practicing.”

“O-Okay…okay. Thank you, Robin.” Blossom screwed her lips shut and watched with bated breath as Robin found the edge of the bandages on her arm in no time and began unraveling them. Desperate for something — anything — to distract her from the growing irritation on her skin, Blossom pressed her eyes shut and tried to let her other senses take over.

Down the stairs, into the kitchen. She heard shuffling feet, the rhythmic chopping of a knife against a cutting board, sizzling meat, and Bubbles’ singing along to some j-rock song on her phone. Sniffing the air, she could make out cumin, chili, garlic, and onion powder, paprika, fresh lettuce, cheese, beef, and flour.

‘It must be Tuesday,’ Blossom thought with a smile. In response, her stomach growled, earning her a giggle from Robin and lighting her cheeks up a faint shade of pink. ‘I haven’t had tacos in such a long time…’

Traveling through the living room, into the Professor’s former study, she could hear Buttercup’s rambunctious rock music blasting through her headphones. Once their secondary powers manifested, Buttercup needed a room closer to the Danger Grid, and the study had been the casualty of her desperate need for space. A lighter flicked. A pipe bubbled. The scent of marijuana assaulted Blossom’s nose, followed by Buttercup’s hacking coughs.

“Alright, there we go. That’s both arms. Let’s work on your legs. Oh!” Robin laid a gentle hand on Blossom’s left arm. “Be careful with this one. It was…in pieces…when the girls brought you home.”

Blossom nodded, keeping her eyes shut. Her arms were bare, which provided her immediate relief from the scratchy bandages. But now she was more aware of just how severe Berserk’s fire breath had burned her. Even if the wounds themselves had completely healed, the pain lingered as a constant throb. It took all of her effort to keep her breathing under control as the heat kicked on and hot air from the vent overhead hit her arms.

‘Just a little longer. It’s okay. You can make it. Oh god, it hurts. It hurts. It hurts…’ Shaking out those thoughts, she forced her attention downstairs, past the hidden door and into the lab. The Professor was at his desk in the middle, surrounded by the soft buzzing of the lights and the whir of machinery. His chair squeaked as he leaned back, then again as he leaned forward. His pen skittered across the paper. A heavy sigh left his lips.

His pipe was lit, ruining the otherwise sterile scent of the lab with burned tobacco. As much as she hated to see him smoke, the smell was familiar and comforting. Almost enough to ignore her growing discomfort as more and more skin was exposed to the blowing hot air.

“Almost there. Can you lift your arms?” The weight on the bed shifted, Robin slipping into the space behind Blossom. Her hand brushed the small of Blossom’s back, causing the Powerpuff leader to shiver and shoot upright. “Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry! Did that hurt?”

Blossom shook her head, “N-no. I-I’m okay.” She lifted her arms and stretched her legs, flexing her toes and trying to ignore the way the brunette’s soft touches were making her feel. It had been years since they’d been this close. As her hands traveled the length of Blossom’s waist, the butterflies ravaged her chest. Mouth dry. Heart racing.

Her nose twitched, catching a whiff of vanilla from Robin’s hair.

The butterflies turned to ice and dropped into the pit of her stomach. Blossom’s eyes opened halfway, shimmering with unshed crystals as she bit her lip to endure the weight now threatening to crush her. When the last bandage came off, she quickly wiped away the icicles from the corners of her eyes and forced herself to smile.

“Thanks, Robin.”

“Let’s get you into your suit. I know Bubbles is going to be thrilled to see you. So will Buttercup, but you know she’ll never say it.” Robin said with a laugh. Jumping up from the bed, she picked up the garment in question. “There’s not a zipper or anything, huh? Do you want me to just…hold it open? Will that stretch it out?”

Blossom shook her head. “No, it’s designed to hold its shape no matter how much its stretched. Just open the neck. Yeah, like that.”

Much as she wanted to crawl into a hole and die, Blossom was thankful for Robin’s help. Her entire body ached, bones popping and joints flaring up as she maneuvered her way into the comfort of her bodysuit. It took longer than she would have wanted, almost two minutes, but once she found safety within the miraculous fabric, she breathed her first full sigh of relief.

She got her fingers and toes aligned just right before floating off the bed. Blossom looked down at her chest, frowned, then turned to grab and slip on Bubbles’ sleep shirt before following Robin to the door.

“Alright, let’s go surprise everyone!” Robin said in an excited whisper.

Blossom felt the faint return of the flutter in her heart at the sight of her smile. So bright and so warm that she found the courage to match it with her own. “Yeah. I’ve…got a lot to explain.”

Floating down the stairs in a lazy, half-hearted hover, Blossom ran into the full force of the delicious smell of dinner, coming to an abrupt halt with a mouth-watering sigh. Her hands crept to her stomach to smother its greedy, rumbling response. Her starvation induced paralysis only lasted until Robin poked her head into the kitchen, calling out in a sing-song tone.

“Look who finally woke up!” She turned and held her arms out to present the Powerpuff leader to her audience. Picking up on the hint, Blossom hovered to the entryway.

“Morning. Erm…” Blossom looked out the window and laughed. “Well, evening, I guess.”

Before the hypersonic screech of “BLOSSY!” could reach her ears, a blue streak crashed into Blossom with the surprising gentleness of a thrown pillow. Bubbles’ arms slipped around her shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug that somehow chased away the lingering dregs of pain still throbbing in her battered body.

A lump formed in Blossom’s throat and tears welled up in her eyes. Without a word, her arms slipped around Bubbles’ waist and her body went limp, sinking into her sister’s embrace. Pangs of isolation and guilt gnawed at her stomach as crystal tears leaked down her face.

Two years.

Two long, lonely, miserable years since she last felt this warm and safe. Their cheeks pressed together, thin, frozen tears mixing with fat, hot ones.

As they aged, Blossom had taken on the inevitable role of the oldest sister, forcing herself to be strong, to be mature, and to be responsible for the others. Bubbles had, just as naturally, started identifying as the baby sister. As familiarity dwindled and her world turned to a still winter wasteland, she remembered their roles, but forgot how that was all they were: roles, identities they assumed to make sense of their unnatural existence.

In Bubbles’ warm, powerful embrace, Blossom felt the smallest she’d ever been. In that smallness — the reversal of everything they agreed was natural and right — she found something she hadn’t even realized was missing.

“I’m sorry.” The words came without warning. Her voice cracked. Her shoulders shook as she began to sob. Blossom’s powers failed her, but Bubbles’ held her aloft as if she were weightless.

“It’s okay, Blossy.” Bubbles said, her voice thick with tears. “You’re safe now. I’ve got you.”

The rest of the world faded into gentle static as Blossom cried and apologized, while Bubbles held her and reassured her each and every time. It wasn’t until she heard a rough, quiet voice behind her that Blossom realized the world was still spinning.

“Hey Red.” 

Blossom pulled away from Bubbles, rubbing away her tears with the back of her arm. Buttercup was standing at the doorway, her eyes bloodshot and half-lidded, her lips curled into an unreadable expression.

“Hey, Buttercup.” She sniffled and apologized one last time as she steadied herself in the air.

“I’ll go get Dad!” Bubbles shot out of the kitchen, leaving the two estranged sisters alone, save for the sound of Robin putting the finishing touches on dinner where the blue puff had left off.

The sisters stood awkwardly, refusing to look one another in the eye. Buttercup crossed her arms. Blossom hovered with her hands folded in front of her, reaching up to brush away a stray tear. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed before she could summon the courage to say the first word.

Her breath picked up and her head felt numb. A chill spread through her body, but the lingering warmth of Bubbles’ hug kept it from overwhelming her. This wasn’t how things should be.

“I…” Blossom lost some altitude, dropping until her toes touched the floor. She wanted to reach out and hug her, to say she was sorry for everything. But whenever she tried to find the words, her throat twisted shut with the memory of a hundred misunderstandings and even more arguments. She wanted to say something, anything, but all her intelligence could put any series of words together that could capture how she felt.

Buttercup finally looked up and met her gaze. The sparkle of unshed tears in her eyes cracked the ice around Blossom’s heart and unwound the knot in her throat.

“I miss you.” Blossom’s body went limp, fatigue, pain, and sorrow in equal parts robbing her of flight. “I miss you so much.” Before her legs could give out, the distance between them disappeared. Bubbles’ arms were safe, but Buttercup’s were strong.

Strong enough to shoulder the years of guilt and shame that had been crushing them both.

“I miss you too, Red.” Buttercup’s voice cracked. Neither said another word, instead clinging to each other as if the slightest release might tear them apart again forever.

The reality of just how alone and miserable the last two years were only fully dawned on Blossom when she took the first bite of an overstuffed taco Bubbles had prepared for her. For her work in Neighborsfield, she’d been treated to the best food and restaurants the city had to offer and then some. She’d traveled out of the country to resolve some crisis or another and been rewarded with meals she could never have been able to afford on her own.

But in all the world, in that first bite, she knew with absolute certainty that nothing could ever compare to a homemade meal by her little sister. Even something as straightforward as a regular Taco Tuesday was an indescribable experience for her enhanced taste and smell.

Before she was aware of what she was doing, she was on her fourth taco and only just registered the sound of laughter around her. Blossom blinked her eyes and felt heat rising in her salsa-covered cheeks.

“I think she was hungry.” Robin teased. “It’s okay, Blossy. I don’t blame you. There’s a reason I eat here, like, every night, too!”

The Professor chuckled and gave her arm a tender squeeze. “It’s hardly a wonder. You’ve spent the last three days with your healing factor working overtime. I’d be more concerned if you weren’t starving.”

Blossom bit her lip and replied with a slight nod. “Yeah. It just hit me all at once.” Laughing softly, she brushed her hair back from her face and cleaned her cheeks. “Sorry. I um…” Lifting her head, she smiled at Bubbles. “I also missed your cooking. You really are the best in the whole world, sis.”

“Aw, shucks.” Bubbles blushed and giggled. “I don’t know about that. I just get a lot of practice.” She returned Blossom’s smile with a beaming grin of her own. “But, still, thanks, Blossy!”

Reaching for another tortilla, Buttercup packed it full to bursting before addressing the elephant in the room. “So, what happened?” She asked as she wolfed her food down with the same fervor and zeal as her red-haired sister. “Who hurt you?”

The image of Berserk’s grinning face filled her mind and a touch of pink reached her cheeks. One hand crept to her chest to mask the pitter-pattering of her heart. Drawing a look of utter disbelief from everyone else at the table, her smile widened.

“I…lost. I lost a fight and I didn’t,” Blossom licked her lips,” I didn’t even stand a chance.”

Robin took a moment to look back and forth between the Powerpuff Girls before clearing her throat and asking, “And that’s…a good thing?”

Blossom laughed. “Um…yeah. I guess it is.”

“Why, exactly? Um, if it’s okay to ask?”

“I haven’t lost a fight since the Final Hazard,” Blossom explained. She noted how Buttercup flinched and buried her face in a handful of chips, but continued without drawing attention to it. “I know it’s selfish of me to say it, but…the truth is, I’ve been going crazy in Neighborsfield. My classes were interesting at first, but now it’s just.” she closed her eyes and sighed. “It’s just like high school. Everything is so slow and I just go through the material too fast.”

“You’re bored.” Buttercup said, simplifying her answer. When Blossom nodded, Buttercup averted her gaze and reached for another tortilla. She cursed under her breath when Bubbles slapped her hand.

The blue puff gestured toward Blossom, then shook her head.

Rolling her eyes, Buttercup settled for a handful of chips. “What about your interviews and shit?”

“Buttercup. Language.”

“They’re just.” Blossom took the last tortilla and laid it on her plate, staring at it as she tried to figure out how to say what she needed to say. “It’s all so…” Filling it almost as full as Buttercup had, she took a bite and chewed with a deliberate slowness. Swallowing, she breathed a puff of arctic air into her glass to chill her water and chased it down with a long drink.

She settled on saying, “It’s not the same.”

“From what I’ve read, you seem to be everywhere in Neighborsfield. I saw a story the other day about you renegotiating rent prices across the city.” The Professor pointed out. “Not to mention the overall drop in crime since you moved in.”

“And the alien!” Bubbles said with a grin. “I saw the whole thing when I was up the other night! You made it look so easy!”

“It was easy. Everything that calls for a superhero feels so easy. But, everything else…it’s not the same. It’s impossible. The more I help, the more everyone wants me to help. The more I give, the more they take. It never gets any better.” Blossom felt her temperature dropping and noticed the frost spreading on the table. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and settled her breathing. “I want, I need, something more. I need…”

“A fight.” Buttercup said, finishing for her. Laying back in her seat, Buttercup let her head roll back and stared unblinking at the ceiling. “I get it. Even the monsters we get twice a week are boring now. Yeah, they’re stronger than they were when we were kids. But, it’s like…what’s the point?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills. After glaring at it, and trading a glance with the Professor, she popped it open and took two, chasing them down with an entire glass of water. “I don’t even get to cut loose before it’s over.”

Bubbles sat forward, resting her chin on her fists. “Me too. Sometimes when it’s really late and I’m the only one still up, I wish it was like it was when we were kids, you know? When we were staying out all night saving the city and then falling asleep in class the next day.”

The Professor laughed and lit up his pipe. “I can’t say I miss those days. Ms. Keane was ready to clobber me for letting you stay up that late, even if it was for a good cause.” He flicked out his match and blew a ring into the air. “But, at the same time, I think I understand how you girls are feeling. You had a, shall we say, eventful childhood.” The girls laughed, and the Professor continued, careful to blow the smoke away from Blossom. “Your Chemical X bodies adapted to constant life-or-death stimulation. It’s why you developed your secondary powers. It was an evolutionary adaptation necessary to survive your formative years.”

“Fighting has been a part of your lives from the very beginning. Your bodies evolved to deal with that stress and now that you’ve grown too powerful for anyone to challenge you, you have all this power and a very real psychological and biological need to use it, but no threat to use it against.” The Professor puffed his pipe and tapped his fingers on the table. “Fascinating. I don’t know why I never thought about this being a possibility.”

As the Professor got lost in his thoughts, the others turned their attention back to Blossom.

“So…who was it?” Buttercup asked, making no attempt whatsoever to hide the excitement in her voice or to cover the grin spreading across her face.

On the other side of the table, Blossom heard Bubbles hold her breath and her heart racing.

Her own heart was pumping furiously in her chest; her stomach doing flips and twists.

“Berserk.” Blossom bit her lip and closed her eyes. Her grin flashed in her mind again. All the pain, her muscles aching, her skin melted and charred as fire filled her throat and lungs, rushed back to her at once. She bit down into her lip until it bled, fighting the urge to match the Powerpunk leader’s expression.

“Bers…you mean the Powerpunk Girls? They were here?” Buttercup’s voice and hands shook with excitement, adrenaline peaking and pushing through her medication.

Robin, who had been silently eating her food through most of the exchange, cleared her throat and nudged Bubbles with her elbow. “Who are the Powerpunk Girls? You never told me about them.”

Bubbles blinked and turned to her girlfriend with a gasp. “I didn’t?! Oh my gosh, I am so sorry, Bobbi! I guess I totally forgot because-”

“Because we won so easily-.”

“It wasn’t easy. We didn’t actually fight them,” Blossom said with a stern, serious expression. “We couldn’t even hurt them. They would have beaten us if we didn’t trick them into going back through the portal to Viletown. That…that was the reason Berserk came looking for me. She wanted a real fight. She wanted to prove that she was the better Blossom.”

“The better…Blossom?” Robin asked with a raised eyebrow.

“They’re our counterparts from a mirror universe of our own. In that world, Dad became a supervillain called Oppressor Plutonium. He created the Powerpunk Girls to help him take over the world and, from what we saw, he was successful in taking over their city, Viletown.”

“So they’re like…evil versions of the three of you?” Robin’s eyes widened when the girls nodded. Her head tilted to the side and a smirk spread across her face. “Do you think there’s an evil version of me?”

“Oooh, I bet there is! And I bet she and Brat are like their universe’s Team Rocket! I’m sure Oppressor Plutonium built her a super suit so she could help them fight!” Bubbles giggled and leaned closer to Robin, resting her head on her shoulder. “Maybe they have a cooking show, too?”

Robin laughed and rested her head against Bubbles’. “I bet that’s it! Brat and Brandi’s Super Evil Cooking Conquest! I bet they make stuff like devil’s food cake and monster cookies!”

“I don’t think so.” Blossom’s voice cut through the jovial banter like a knife. “Berserk…she wasn’t happy. No, that’s insulting.” She narrowed her eyes. “Berserk was suffering. Even her outfit was designed to make her miserable. She came to Townsville alone, without her powers, and drove across the state to beat me and…”

She almost told them about Berserk’s tearful confession, but decided against it.

“I think beating me was the first happy moment she’s had in the last thirteen years.”

“Without her powers?” The Professor snapped out of his own thoughts to chime in. “How do you know she…oh my lord. That wasn’t you, was it?”

“What do you mean, Dad?” Bubbles asked.

“A few days ago, Blossom was here. At least, I thought it was her. She was acting a bit off and wearing a strange outfit, but she looked and sounded exactly like you.” He reached out to Blossom, touching her cheek. When she leaned into his touch, his mouth fell open. “It was Berserk, wasn’t it?”

Blossom nodded. “Oppressor Plutonium took her powers away, so she came here to get the Chemical X Boosters from the lab.”

Bubbles gasped, and a crackle of energy ran across Buttercup’s skin.

“She didn’t hurt you, did she?” The green puff asked, a sudden sharpness to her voice. The sisters relaxed almost immediately when the Professor shook his head.

“Heavens, no. She didn’t lay a hand on me. In fact, it was almost like she was trying to avoid touching me at all.” The Professor gazed into his coffee. A frown tugged at his lips. “She was…fidgety and nervous. It had been so long since you’d come home, and after everything that’s happened, I guess I just chalked it up to you not wanting to see me.”

“Dad…” Blossom swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and reached out to grab his hand. “I’m sorry for not coming home sooner. I really did miss you. I just…figured things would be better if I stayed away and I kept myself busy all the time.”

“You can always come home, Blossom.” The Professor turned her hand over and squeezed it. Moisture shimmered at the corners of his eyes, but he quickly wiped it away and rose to his feet.

“I’ll start cleaning up so you girls can discuss how to handle this situation.” He took a moment to gather up the empty plates from around the table, then excused himself to the sink.

Blossom noticed a change in his posture: his shoulders slouched, his gaze lowered, and the faint heaviness to his breathing. She wanted to ask more, to say something, to relieve whatever unspoken concern was weighing him down. But before she could muster up the courage to say anything at all, a voice to her right dragged her headfirst into a conversation she’d been delaying for as long as possible.

“So why didn’t you call us?” Buttercup asked. Despite the effort she was putting into looking nonchalant — one leg crossed at the knee, leaning back in her chair with an arm draped over the back as she glared a hole into the next room — there were hints of equal parts concern and disappointment in her voice.

“I thought I could beat her.” Blossom said simply. ‘No, that’s not the truth,’ she acknowledged with a heavy sigh and a shake of her head. “No…I knew I couldn’t win before the fight even started. But…I wanted to fight her for real this time…and I wanted to be the one who beat her.”

“Why, Blossy? That’s really dangerous. She could have killed you.”

“She wouldn’t kill me.” Berserk told her as much herself. But, to be fair to her sisters, there was no way for her to know that until it was too late.

“How do you know that?” Buttercup finally turned toward her. There was a haunted look in her bloodshot eyes. Her knuckles were grinding as she clenched her fists.

“Buttercup, I-”

“Was it because of what happened the other day with Mojo? Is that why you didn’t call?”

Blossom shook her head and reached out, resting a hand on Buttercup’s trembling fist. “It wasn’t your fault, Buttercup.” When her sister tried to pull away, Blossom caught her hand in both of hers, holding it tight.

“The last time you were beat up like that, it was my fault. I just…if it was my fault it happened again, just tell me. Even if you wanted to try fighting her alone, as soon as it went south, you could have-” She shuddered when Blossom cut her off with a tiny shake of her head.

“It wouldn’t have mattered, Buttercup.”

The room fell dead silent. Even the Professor paused scrubbing the dishes, leaving the sound of the running water deafening over the din of four pounding hearts. Bubbles was the one to break the silence.

“What do you mean, Blossy?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if I called you two. Berserk would have beaten all three of us, even if you both went hardcore.”

“Bullshit,” Buttercup muttered. Her look of disbelief morphed into a grimace when Blossom’s expression remained unwavering.

“When she showed up in Neighborsfield, she only had about half of her power back, based on the time when she took the boosters. Even then, she was confident she’d be able to beat me by herself.” Her eyes slid shut, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “I…suggested that we wait until her powers fully recovered. I gave her some of my dinner and we napped for a few hours.”

“What?!” A chorus of four voices rang out — the dishes forgotten for a second time.

Blossom tucked her hair behind her ear and shrugged. “It was only fair. The only reason she came here was to fight me. I know it was stupid of me, but I wanted to see how strong she’d gotten. And when it was time for us to fight, I startled her when I was trying to wake her. She threw a punch at me…and I knew right away that I couldn’t beat her.”

“Would you have won if you fought her earlier?” Robin asked.

“I, um, I don’t think so.” Blossom stared down at her upturned palms. “No. I would have still lost. Even at that point, she was still certain she could beat the three of us together. How did she put it?” She brought a hand to her chin and tilted her head. Without intending to, she changed her inflection to a perfect mirror of Berserk’s sardonic tone. “A fight I might have to actually try to win.”

Hearing a snort and a snicker from the others, Blossom cracked her eyes open and raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You changed your voice.” Robin giggled. “It was cute.”

Blossom’s lips screwed shut and a hot flush raced to her cheeks. She tilted her head forward so that she could hide behind her hair and ignore them, laughing in earnest now.

“She was really that strong?” Buttercup’s voice brimmed with excitement. Her leg bounced with enough force to shake the room, but for once the Professor didn’t chastise her.

“Stronger.” Blossom said in a breathless voice. Her frown twisted into a smile. Her cheeks grew hotter. “She wasn’t even trying and I couldn’t even hurt her. I hit her with Breath of the Dying at point blank and she just…” Blossom bit her lip and shook her head. “She overpowered it with her fire breath so easily I don’t even think the ice touched her.”

“So…” Bubbles’ voice was low and gave away the giant grin on her face.

“What’s the plan, Leader Girl?”

Blossom cleared her throat and sat upright. With a dramatic flourish, she brushed her hair back and smirked. “We need to start training. We don’t know if the other Powerpunk Girls are going to come to Townsville. But, we should assume that if Berserk could come back, the others will eventually, too. And if they showed up right now, we’d lose even if we got the boys, every villain in Townsville, and every superhero on Earth to help us.”

“Oh! Oh, oh, oh!” Robin shot to her feet, pumping her fists and beaming. “I can help! I’m on the volleyball team, I can help with your exercise plan!”

Buttercup scoffed and stuck her tongue out at Robin. “You’re not on the volleyball team. You’re a team manager, Robin.”

“And that makes me the perfect person to MANAGE you three! I help Coach Weaver design drills and personalized workout routines for all of the girls.” Robin said, putting her hands on her hips, leaning forward, and sticking her tongue out at Buttercup.

“Well, I, um…I had a few ideas already based on my conversation with Berserk…” Blossom’s voice cracked when she and Robin made eye contact. She averted her gaze, once more taking refuge behind a protective veil of hair.

“That’s even better!” Robin leaned forward on the table with a giant grin. “That’ll just give us an excuse to spend some time together! We haven’t hung out in years. You don’t mind, right, Bubbles?”

Bubbles shook her head. “Of course not! I’ve seen the impact you made to the volleyball team, I think this is a great job for you and Blossy!” She slid to her feet, wrapping her arms around Robin and planting a peck on her cheek. “This is gonna be so much fun! All of us hanging out again!”

Robin twisted closer to return Bubbles’ embrace, pressing her lips against the blue puff’s. Her arms snaked around her neck, drawing her into a deeper kiss that drew a groan and a cry of “Get a room!” from Buttercup. She pulled away just long enough to giggle and say, “We can call it Blossy and Bobbi’s All-Star Superhero Super Strength Strategy!”

“Bobbi!” Bubbles giggled and kissed her again. “You always come up with the best names! Is that okay with you, Blossy?”

Despite the veil of orange obscuring her view, Blossom watched the couple with unblinking eyes. Beneath the table, her hands grasped at Bubbles’ sleep shirt, balling it up in her trembling fists. Her head grew more numb with every subtle, shallow breath she sucked into her aching lungs, and her stomach twisted into a knot as dense as a supermassive black hole.

 But she forced a smile to her face and a laugh from her mouth.

“Sounds great.”

Chapter Text

Despite promising that she would try to take it easy, Blossom’s racing thoughts refused to settle throughout the night. Lying awake in her old room, drifting between bouts of manic strategizing and the persistent tug of depression realizing how much had changed while she was gone, she spent most of the evening staring at the digital clock on the nightstand. Watching the minutes and hours tick by until she could safely leave without invoking her overprotective little sister’s wrath.

She made it until six before deciding she was too restless to keep up the act. Zipping down the stairs, she set up camp at the dining room table with a stack of notebooks and a collection of Bubbles’ glitter gel pens. As her pen flew across the page, she faintly noticed the shift in the air as someone joined her, only looking up when she heard a throat clear.

“Did you get any sleep at all?” Bubbles asked with a wry grin. She giggled when Blossom shook her head.

“Not a wink. I just woke up after three days, I’m not in a hurry to go back to bed.” She flipped through one of her old notebooks — a collection of training plans she’d developed in middle school.

Bubbles sighed and leaned to the side, resting her cheek on her fist. “Sometimes I miss sleeping.”

“When’s the last time you slept? Are you still taking your Hypnos injection?” Blossom frowned when her sister laughed again.

“Yes, mom. Every two weeks so I don’t get too cranky. My last nap was a week and a half ago. I’ll probably be taking another one this weekend once Bobbi gets off work.” Bubbles folded her arms on the table and laid her head down, a dreamy smile on her lips and a faint blush on her cheeks. “I don’t really miss sleeping that much. I miss dreaming so much more. Last time, Bobbi and I had the best dream. So like, we were-”

The tightness forming in Blossom’s chest released when someone else shuffled into the dining room, cutting off her sister’s story. Feeling a heavy hand on her shoulder, she smiled up at the Professor.

“Morning, Dad.” The girls said in unison. 

A mumbled grunt of a response met their overly cheerful greeting. Without looking up, the Professor fumbled his way to filling the coffeemaker and flipping it on. Then he joined them at the table, collapsing into a chair and scratching the prickly layer of hair on his chin.

“Morning, girls.”

“Did you sleep okay?”

The Professor met Blossom’s gaze with a sleepy smile. He reached across the table to give her hand a squeeze. “Best in a while. I’m glad you’re alright, sweetie.”

Blossom returned his smile with one of her own and resumed her frantic scribbling. As her focus sharpened, the surrounding room faded away. She could faintly make out the Professor and Bubbles discussing breakfast, but soon, even that drowned beneath her memory of Berserk.

It wasn’t enough to train. They had spent countless hours training as children. But all their best efforts had amounted to almost nothing when faced with the overwhelming strength of the Powerpunk Girls in that first encounter. Given their identical biologies, it was unlikely that it was some kind of fundamental difference between them. But if their bodies were the same, the only plausible answer was the quality and frequency of their exercises.

Berserk wasn’t dismayed to be powerless. In fact, she navigated Townsville with relative ease and knew what to look for to get them back. Something about the way she described the situation implied, at least to Blossom, that it wasn’t the first time. Having their powers removed was always a traumatic experience for the Powerpuff Girls. It stood to reason that someone like Oppressor Plutonium would employ that as a regular punishment for the Powerpunk Girls.

‘They’re used to fighting without their powers. Maybe they’re used to training without them, too?’ She pondered, tapping her pen against her lips. Professor Utonium was an overprotective parent. He had the best of intentions, but at the slightest inclination that the girls might get hurt, he’d constructed the Dynamo — a giant fighting robot with so much power that it had taken the puffs until almost middle school to defeat it in a direct encounter, and until high school for any of them to go toe-to-toe with it.

The evil reflection of the Professor would be someone who didn’t care for his daughters at all. ‘No.’ It wasn’t apathy the Oppressor felt for the Powerpunk Girls, it was malice. They were weapons to be wielded against his enemies. The best way to stress test them would be to push them to the breaking point over and over and over.

‘Trying to overthrow me again. That’s what he said when we fought him, right?’ 

He had made them invincible. He had to know that, which is why threatening them with the removal of their powers, and following through with that threat regularly, was the key to keeping them under control.

“Dad, can you get the door on your way to the lab? It’s probably Bobbi!” Bubbles’ voice pierced through Blossom’s thoughts and brought her crashing back to the present.

The scent and sound of crackling bacon was in the air, along with a hint of vanilla and melted butter. Bubbles hummed to herself, shifting her weight back and forth to the rhythm of her own singing. She glanced up and grinned, “Morning Bobbi! You’re just in time for breakfast!”

“Morning! Sorry I’m late!”

Blossom’s heart skipped a beat before leaping into her throat when Robin’s hand touched her arm. Taking a deep, icy breath to keep her cheeks from burning, she forced a smile to her face. Her attempts to settle her nerves failed miserably when Robin slid into the seat next to her and their legs touched.

“Wow! I knew you’d be getting a head start, but this is awesome, Blossom! Okay, tell me what you’ve got and we’ll get this plan started.”

‘She’s so close.’ A nervous part of Blossom’s brain whispered in her ear. Snowflakes tumbled out in a silent gasp as her mouth fell open. ‘You’re probably freezing her. You need to get your nonsense under control!’

“Uh, um…yeah!” Blossom winced, but settled her breath enough for some of her body heat to return. She shook the mist from her thoughts and cleared her throat. All she had to do was focus on talking about the plan. “So, as silly as it might sound, I think the bulk of our joint training needs to be focused on strength and endurance exercises. It’s no secret that we’re physically outmatched and no amount of tactics are going to overcome that deficit.”

Robin nodded, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“That makes sense…but where are we gonna get weights for you three? We can’t exactly put a mountain on two ends of a barbell.” She pointed out with a laugh.

Blossom giggled. “You’re right, but we won’t need to resort to that. See, here…” She reached for another notebook and flipped through several pages. “This is a diary I kept of all our training routines. I’ve got group and individual drills, sparring, everything. If you look here, can you tell me what you notice?”

She passed the notebook to Robin, who took it and began skimming through the pages upon pages of logs. The uncommon intensity on her face — baby blue eyes narrowed and light red lips pursed — was mesmerizing. Blossom moved to rest her cheek on her hand, mirroring Bubbles’ pose from earlier, but caught herself. Suddenly painfully aware of her hands, she ran a few thousand possibilities through her mind in less than a second, settling on tucking them between her knees.

“It’s all combat scenarios.” Robin said after a few minutes. She flipped through the last few pages, then looked up at Blossom with a quirked eyebrow. “You’ve never done any strength training? Not even, like, basic exercises?”

“Nope!” Bubbles chirped, setting a pair of plates next to the two. The one near Blossom was stacked with French toast, slathered in syrup and topped with four big juicy strawberries. Robin’s was shaped like a heart, with bacon arranged in the shape of an arrow piercing through it. “We never had a reason to. We were already the strongest.”

“That’s right. With how versatile and potent our powers were, the Professor decided that the best use of our training time would be refining them and learning how to properly utilize them in practical scenarios.” Blossom’s stomach roared, still angry with her for the time she’d spent recovering. She plucked one strawberry from the plate, biting into it with a soft, airy, “Mmm.”

“That makes sense,” Robin said, munching on a piece of bacon. “But, it also explains why the Powerpunk Girls might be so much stronger than you are.”

“Right.” Blossom nodded. She tried to resist the urge to tear into her breakfast, but another grumble from her stomach settled the debate. After sliding aside her notes, she grabbed her fork and took the first bite of the French toast. A rush of sweet, sugary decadence coursed through her, shrugging off her inhibitions. “Bubbles, I love you.”

“Aw, I love you, too, Blossy!” Bubbles giggled and slid into her seat. Spearing a piece of toast, she popped into her mouth. “Mmm, I make artificial sweetener taste good.”

After another bite, Robin asked, “Why don’t you use sugar, anyway? You’ve never told me.”

“Even moderate concentrations of sugar cause our chemicals to become unbalanced and put us into a euphoric state of reduced inhibitions and mental processing.”

“It gets us really drunk, really easily.”

“Oooh…” Robin took another bite. A grin slowly spread across her face. “So…why don’t you use sugar?” She and Bubbles made eye contact, causing the puff to blush furiously.

“I’ll go get Buttercup!” Bubbles said, abruptly shooting out of her chair and disappearing from the room in a streak of blue.

Robin giggled and turned to Blossom. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. She’s just so cute!”

“Yeah. She really is.” Blossom pushed the last strawberry around in the syrup on her plate. Her heart was still racing. Although if it had been from the side, Robin’s expression had sent her insides into a panic. She couldn’t even imagine how it must have felt for Bubbles to endure its full force. “Um, so…about the plan.”

“Right! I’m so sorry.” Robin wiped her mouth and hands, then picked up the training log again. “So, you’re going to be focusing on strength exercises. But, doesn’t that go back to what I mentioned? Where to get equipment that you girls can train with?”

“We’ll be able to use normal equipment.” Blossom explained, finding the notebook she’d been writing in and showing it to Robin. “My theory is that the Powerpunk Girls primarily train either without the powers at all, or with their powers being suppressed, forcing them to strain their bodies.”

“Does that really work? I always assumed that without your powers you girls would still be, like, Olympic athletes at least.”

Blossom shook her head.

“Actually, if you were to take our powers away, I’d be willing to bet you could probably over power one of us. We’re pushed so little that most of our strength comes from how much we’ve refined our ability to utilize our Chemical X. Think of it as a multiplier. We’ve grown stronger since we were kids because our Chemical X output has increased, raising the multiplier. But, because we so rarely have to strain our bodies, the amount that’s being multiplied isn’t as high as it could be.” Blossom began drawing in the notebook.

“If the perfect utilization of our Chemical X increases all our abilities by…let’s say ten thousand times. But the base value that’s being increased is only ten. This means that while the resulting number of one hundred thousand is higher than anything else on the planet, it’s nothing compared to someone who has a base value of one hundred.” She turned to Robin with a frown. “Does that make sense?”

Robin nodded. She crossed her arms and furrowed her brow. “Yeah, I get it. You’ve got a low power level, but you’re always a Super Saiyan 3, so it doesn’t matter.”

Blossom blinked. ‘There’s a three? I didn’t even know there was a two…’ She quickly gathered her thoughts, saying, “Y-yeah! Yeah, exactly. So we won’t need to find superhero training equipment because the best way for us to try to bridge the gap is to take away our powers completely and train in a depowered state.”

“That’s perfect! I can definitely help you with that! I’ll see if I can borrow some equipment from the school. Then we’ll have to find out where we’re starting from so we can set a reasonable schedule for improvement. Oh!” Robin perked up, hitting her fist against her palm. “But, since you’ll be getting your powers back every day, you’ll recover way faster. So, you can probably push really, really hard, right?”

“Yes, exactly! Most people have to rest between intense workout sessions, but our bodies will recover almost instantly. Theoretically, we could go from waking up until Buttercup and I have to sleep. Maybe a day or two on, then a nap, then we-” Blossom’s phone, which she’d been ignoring all morning, suddenly buzzed. A chiptune rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” rang out loud and proud, causing the Powerpuff leader’s cheeks to glow pink.

“Oh my gosh, I love this song!”

At the sound of Robin’s voice, Blossom’s face turned a shade of red, darker than her bow. She snatched up her phone and silenced it. Her eyes widened at the wall of unread messages and missed calls from the last few days. Most of them were various people or classmates from Neighborsfield, but the most recent call was one she couldn’t ignore.

“Crap…”

“Is everything okay?” Robin asked while leaning in to glance over Blossom’s shoulder.

“Yeah, it’s just…the Dean. I’ve missed three days of classes. Crap, crap, crap! He’s probably going to kick me out. I have never missed a class, not even the time where there was a kaiju attack!” Before she could spiral further, Blossom felt a warm embrace.

“Relax, Blossy! You almost died, I’m sure if you go talk to him about it, he’ll understand.” Robin gave her another squeeze, then pulled away and started collecting the notebooks. “I’ll work on the exercise plan between classes, see if I can get some equipment, and we can start Blossy and Bobbi’s All-Star Superhero Super Strength Strategy tomorrow after school. Don’t worry, you can trust me! Okay?”

For once, Blossom was acutely aware of how cold she felt as Robin’s arms left her shoulders. Shoving that feeling as far down as it could go, she put on her best smile and nodded.

“Sounds good. I’ll use today to deal with…” She glanced down at her phone and sighed. “All of this. I should be back tonight.”

“Good luck! You’ve got this!”

Blossom took a deep breath and slowly let it out, floating out of her chair. She paused, looked down at herself, and dropped to the ground to walk to the door. ‘Might as well start practicing now.’ She went all the way to the sidewalk, closed her eyes, and, with a bend of her knees, leaped into the air toward Neighborsfield.

When Blossom Utonium, leader of the Powerpuff Girls and one of the greatest superheroines in human history, applied for Another School University, Dean Winchester was certain that he’d seen the greatest shock of his life. Just the rumor of her attendance caused applications to skyrocket and funding to come pouring in from parties who were desperate to get close to the girl who saved the world from the event dubbed the “Final Hazard.” And while her attendance had caused a certain degree of…disruption to both ASU and Neighborsfield, no one could deny that the city and school were seeing a level of fame and attention unprecedented.

‘Surely that’s the last great surprise I’ll ever know,’ he recalled thinking after sending her acceptance letter. For two years, that theory held. Now, as he sat across from the town’s resident celebrity, feeling the frozen fingers of fear and uncertainty clutching his breast, he longed to return to the halcyon days where that belief still rang true.

“The reason I’ve been absent is that I was nearly killed four days ago.” There was no hint of a smile, no kindness in Blossom’s voice. She looked him in the eye, hands folded neatly on her crossed legs, speaking in a low, but clear tone.

“My god. Are you, um, are you…well?” Dean Winchester wasn’t sure what exactly to say. He couldn’t see any injuries on her, nor did she carry herself as if she were.

Blossom nodded. “I am. Thank you for asking. I was unconscious for three days while my body stitched itself back together.”

The Dean nodded and swallowed the grapefruit-sized lump in his throat. His hands shook as he reached for a handkerchief to mop up the cold sweat on his brow.

“That’s good, that’s good.” He repeated it three more times before finally getting a grip on his nerves. But when he spoke, his voice still cracked. “What about the culprit?”

His heart nearly stopped when Blossom slowly shook her head.

“She got away without a scratch on her. I won’t mince words, Dean Winchester, it is only my opponent’s circumstances and single-minded determination that saved the day. Had she wanted to, she could have torn the world apart and my sisters and I would have been powerless to stop her.” Blossom’s pupils flickered. She drew in a deep breath and let it out, dropping the temperature in the room several degrees. “That’s why I am grateful that you agreed to see me today. I need to ask you for a favor.”

“Yes! Y-yes of course, but I’m…I-I-I’m not sure what I can do.”

“I need a leave of absence. I would like to test out of my current classes, today if at all possible, so that I can focus entirely on eliminating this threat. We don’t know when the villain will be returning, but if she does return, she will likely return with teammates who are just as strong as she is.” Blossom reached for her phone and began searching for something. “Dean Winchester, are you familiar with the Global Threat Level System?”

The Dean shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I’ve heard of the term, but you know firsthand how quiet Neighborsfield is. The last time we were impacted at all by a global threat was-”

“The Final Hazard.” Blossom rose to her feet, placed her phone on the desk, and slid it across so he could get a closer look. “The Global Threat Level System was implemented after the Matromax invasion ten years ago to quickly identify how serious any given Super Class threat might be. It was based on the Doomsday Clock, with six Threat Levels: Dawn, Day, High Noon, Dusk, Nightfall, and Midnight, listed from least to most severe.”

Blossom crossed her arms and, after giving the Dean time to review the screen, spoke in what she hoped was a calm tone. “The Final Hazard was a Threat Level: Nightfall event, an event that threatened the entire world with no way to avoid mass destruction. You remember how many years it took for things to go back to normal after that, I’m sure.”

In all honesty, the world never really went back to what it previously considered “Normal” after the Final Hazard. While the death toll had been kept shockingly low thanks to the efforts of the Powerpuff Girls acting in tandem with every other superhero, and several supervillains, the economic and geographical devastation had left the world irreversibly changed.

“What…would you classify this new enemy as?” The Dean asked, though the tremble in his voice and the color draining from his cheeks betrayed that he already knew the answer.

“Threat Level: Midnight. Unavoidable global annihilation, societal collapse, or subjugation. If my sisters and I fail, there will be no hope at all of stopping a second attack by this threat.”

Blossom’s words hung in the air for several minutes over the sound of the Dean’s panicked breathing and pounding heart. Once he collected himself, he rose from his seat on shaking legs and walked to a mini-fridge in the corner. Nearly falling to his knees, he pulled it open and returned with a bottle of chilled seltzer water.

Dropping into his chair, he unscrewed the cap and took a long drink.

“How long do you think you’ll be gone?” He asked after draining half the bottle.

“At least three months based on my projections. I won’t know until we start training, and even that is just based on my estimate of the enemy’s full strength.”

The Dean nodded slowly. “And you’re prepared to take your final exams today?”

Blossom smirked, her hands moving to rest on her hips. “Of course I am.”

Finishing the rest of his water, the Dean climbed to his feet and reached for his cell phone. “Well, let’s get a move on then. We’ve a lot of ground to cover and I don’t think I’ve got it in me to fly today.”

“I’m home!” Blossom called as she stepped into the Utonium Household. Slipping out of her shoes, she quietly muttered, “Finally…”

It was half-past ten and Blossom was beyond exhausted. The longest part of her finals had been waiting for the professors to get them together so that she could finish them in a few minutes each. In total, her exams took up a little over two hours of her day. The rest of the time she spent responding to calls and text messages and trying to clean up every loose end before disappearing for the next several months.

Her nose scrunched, and a profound chill spread through her entire body. A lot of the people she’d been helping understood. As soon as they heard about her injuries and the threat that Berserk posed, they were quick to wish her well and offer their support. But so many of them — more than she had anticipated — didn’t.

Berserk’s words tickled the back of her mind, whispering, ‘They wouldn’t do the same for you.’

“Blossy! We’re in the lab! Come on down!”

Thankful for a distraction from the frost filling her skull, Blossom walked to the lab door. She leaned forward, opening her eye for the retinal scanner. She couldn’t resist a tiny laugh when she thought about how Berserk had broken into the lab the same way not even a week ago. Taking the steps two at a time, she descended into the lab where everyone was waiting for her. Bubbles and Buttercup sat in chairs taken from the kitchen, while the Professor stood at a dry erase board. They all looked up at her as she entered.

“There she is! You’re just in time. Take a seat, hon.” The Professor pushed a rolling table in front of the board, a large metal case resting on its surface.

Blossom took her seat with a heavy sigh. The emotional exhaustion from the day, and the lack of sleep, hit her all at once, nearly knocking her out the moment she was off her feet.

“You alright, Red?” Buttercup asked, a lit joint hanging from her lips.

“Yeah! Yeah, I’m just…ugh. Today was a lot.”

“That bad, huh?” Buttercup plucked the joint from her lips, blew a cloud of white smoke away from her sister, then held it out to her. “You wanna hit? You look like you could use it.”

For the briefest moment, Blossom considered taking her sister’s generous offer. But when the smell hit her nose, her entire body tensed, hand flying to her face to cover her nose.

“Urp…um, not tonight. Maybe some other time.”

At the sight of her intense reaction, Buttercup frowned and pinched the burning tip, smothering the flame and tucking it away in her pocket. She murmured a soft “my bad”, blowing away the lingering smoke.

“Thanks, Buttercup.”

“Sorry for the delay.” The Professor cleared his throat. “Ahem. So, it’s been brought to my attention that the training regiment that I developed for you girls was insufficient in helping you reach your full potential. After reviewing Blossom’s notes, and with some input from Robin and help from Bubbles, I’ve developed something that should make the All-Star Superhero Super Strength Strategy more effective and, more importantly, less resource intensive.”

Blossom perked up, shaking herself free from the clawing grip of sleep. “What do you mean?”

“Cut to the chase, Old Man. Blossy here’s about to pass out.” Buttercup grinned in response to the glare Blossom shot in her direction. Sticking her tongue out, she lifted her middle finger. She nearly bit her tongue, laughing when Blossom turned away, raised her hand, and slowly extended hers in response.

“Fair enough,” The Professor chuckled and unlatched the case. Lifting the lid revealed a set of duranium bracelets. Taking one from the case, he held it up so that the girls could see it clearly. It was wide, but thin, with a glass tube running along the perimeter filled with orange liquid. On one end was a control panel with a few buttons: three round buttons, an upward arrow, and a downward arrow. “Presenting the latest in superhero super training technology: the X-Limiter Training Cuff! While wearing one of these babies, you won’t have to constantly ingest Antidote X or take Chemical X boosters to remove and restore your powers. Bubbles, if you don’t mind?”

Jumping up from her seat, Bubbles flew to the Professor’s side and held out her left wrist. As he fastened it to her arm, he resumed his explanation.

“By utilizing radiation given off by the constantly circulating Antidote X in the cuff, the X-Limiter can simulate the effects of the chemical, at varying intensities, without actually removing the subject’s powers. Now, since I was pressed for time, there are only a handful of functions.” He gave the bracelet a tug to ensure it was secure, then he pushed aside the table. “Are you ready for the demonstration, assistant?”

Bubbles brought her hand to her brow in a salute. “Yes, sir, Mr. Professor Dad, sir!”

“Alright, then. This is the Full Suppression Mode.” The Professor pushed the first button.

The Antidote X circling the bracelet began to glow. Bubbles’ eyes dimmed, and a shudder ran through her body, dropping her out of the sky and onto her bottom.

“Oof! Make sure you’re not flying when they turn on.” Bubbles giggled and accepted the Professor’s help climbing to her feet. To demonstrate that her powers were gone, she took a deep breath and then screamed as loud as she could. And while the sound was anything but pleasant, it wasn’t the degree of devastation such a scream would normally bring with it.

“Fuck, Bubbles. Really?”

“Ugh…why a sonic scream?” Blossom asked, holding her ears. “Couldn’t you have just tried moving something or using your heat rays?”

“Oh yeah, I guess that would work, too.” Bubbles shrugged. “But, I wanted to make sure it was something I couldn’t fake.”

“We’d have just believed you! Fuck, I believed you when you fell out of the air.”

“Stop complaining!” Bubbles snapped, stomping her foot and raising her voice. “I spent all evening helping Dad test this while you two were out. My butt is sore and I wanted to scream!”

“Girls, let’s not fight.” The Professor took Bubbles’ wrist in his hand and pressed the third button. The Antidote X stopped glowing, and the light returned to the blue puff’s eyes. “This button is a deactivation switch. It will immediately remove the Antidote X radiation and return your powers within a few seconds. If you’re ever in danger, remember that it’s the red button, got it?”

The trio nodded.

“Now, this middle button is Time Release Mode. This will simulate the effects of taking a Chemical X booster, slowly restoring your powers based on the release timer, which you set with the arrow keys. It can be as little as one hour, up to eight hours at most.”

After demonstrating how to unlatch the bracelet, the Professor put it back in the case and closed the lid. He turned to Blossom and Buttercup with a hopeful grin.

“So, what do you think?”

Blossom felt tears prickling in the corners of her eyes. She quickly wiped them away and rose from her seat to throw her arms around the Professor.

“You’re amazing, Dad. They’re perfect!” She rose from the ground, planting a kiss on his cheek.

“So, I guess I’m out of the loop. Why do we want something that takes our powers away?” Buttercup asked, retrieving her joint and lighting it with a quick glance of heat vision. She popped it into her mouth and took a drag.

“Bobbi told me some of the plan when we were moving weights and stuff to the Danger Grid, but she said you’d be able to explain it better, Blossy.” Bubbles floated through the air to her dark-haired sister’s side.

 Suddenly, the fatigue that had seemed all-encompassing was the furthest thing from Blossom’s mind. Instead, she felt an ember in her chest burning brighter.

“Okay, so the plan is…”

First, we’ll focus on training our bodies without Chemical X.

A flash of lightning lit the dark morning, followed shortly after by a rolling growl of thunder. Undisturbed by the heavy curtain of cold November rain, Blossom swept her soaked hair away from her face and picked up the pace, making her way around the neighborhood with the orange glow of the X-Limiter on her wrist as her only guiding light. Her muscles were already aching after just two laps, but she welcomed the pain. It was a reminder of just how far she had to go.

The others were at school, and the Professor at work, leaving her with the mornings to herself. Despite her sisters’ insisting that she use her alone time to relax, she knew she didn’t have that luxury. The fitness assessment the previous day had made three things painfully clear.

First, the girls were much weaker than they had expected. Robin pulled their fitness exam from some obscure web comic she and Bubbles were reading, thinking that it would be a fun way to see how the girls stacked up against the lead character. What should have been a simple enough set of situps, pushups, squats, and a quick jog had turned into an embarrassing display. When even Buttercup could only complete fifteen of the one hundred situps required, the girls knew they were in for a long journey.

Second, Blossom was much further behind than she wanted to believe. She knew that her work in Neighborsfield had done little to challenge her, but seeing the disparity between herself and her sisters stung, to say the least.

No. It didn’t sting. It hurt deeply and profoundly. The semi-frequent monster fights in Townsville did little to press her sisters, but not participating in them had left Blossom woefully out of shape. By her own estimates, she might even be weaker than herself from two years ago.

The final thing that Blossom realized last night was that no one else was taking this seriously. Bubbles and Buttercup were clearly excited at the prospect of getting stronger and facing a challenging opponent, but even after seeing the damage that Berserk had inflicted on her, neither seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation.

But, then again, how could they? They hadn’t felt the weight of Berserk’s fists, or the smothering heat radiating from every inch of her body. To them, the strength of the Powerpunk Girls was some abstract concept, something to aspire to overcome.

They didn’t have Berserk’s eyes and grin waiting for them every time they closed their eyes. Neither knew what it felt like to be utterly helpless in the face of not just overwhelming power, but one wielded by a better version of themself.

“Oof!” Blossom stumbled, taking a turn a bit too quickly. Her feet tangled and her legs gave out, sending her headfirst into a large puddle. Lying face down in the water, she sputtered and climbed to her hands and knees. “Ow…” Her arms trembled; her shoulders shook. Darkness gathered at the corner of her vision.

Her eyes drifted to the X-Limiter. To the red release button.

Fiery pink eyes flashed in her mind. The memory of her flames, hotter than Hell itself, caressing her skin chased away the cold..

Screwing her eyes shut, Blossom fought to a knee. ‘Breathe all the way in…breathe all the way out.’ She drowned it all — the memory, the pain, the feelings of weakness and helplessness — behind that mantra. Filling her lungs with chilly air, then breathing it back out again. Breathing deeper and letting it fill her up to her fingertips, then out. Deeper still, all the way to her toes, then out again.

Filled with fresh determination, Blossom rose to her feet and continued her run. She’d flown to the sun and back. A ten kilometer run wouldn’t beat her.

After exercising until we can’t move, we’ll heal with our powers and then put our X-Limiters into slow release mode so that we can train in the Danger Grid.

“Look out!” Bubbles’ voice rang out across the dimly lit room, barely heard over the blast of the robot’s laser carving through the air.

With a grunt, Blossom dove behind an upturned table, clutching her seared arm and cursing her slow reaction. As the robot’s heavy footsteps approached her hiding place, she fought to keep her breathing steady. ‘Breathe all the way in, then all the way out.’ Clenching her eyes shut, she inched her way to the edge of her hiding place, her head pounding with every call of the machine’s cold, electronic voice.

“Bzzt! I’m gonna get ya! Bzzt! I’m gonna get ya!”

“Psst! Red, this way!”

Blossom looked up, spotting Buttercup down the hall. With a glance back over her shoulder, she grabbed the edge of the table, rose to her feet, and tossed it toward the two foot tall mechanical menace. Without waiting to see if her distraction was successful, she charged down the hall and ducked around the corner where her sisters were waiting.

Peering out from their hiding place, they watched the table knock the little robot back a step. Its eyes lit up and unleashed another laser, reducing the table to dust.

“This is fucking embarrassing.” Buttercup said with a growl. She was still sporting several bruises from the hour they spent on Danger Level 1 without their powers, as well as more than a handful of burns from Level 2’s laser attack. “This isn’t even a real danger level!”

At the other side of the hall, Bubbles narrowed her eyes. “Yeah…sucks doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be a baby. Christ, that was years ago.”

“Not now!” Blossom hissed, bringing a finger to her lips to shush her sisters. She tried to peek her head out, but Level 2 fired its laser again, singing the tips of her bangs. After several seconds, its steady march started up once again.

The hallway they’d hidden away in didn’t go very far. The house was vaguely based on their own, but lacked an upstairs and had only a few doors leading to empty rooms. There was a closet at the end of the hall, but after seeing the robot delete the kitchen table, Blossom knew that they’d only be cornering themselves if they tried hiding inside.

Worse still, her head was spinning as her powers trickled in and her senses slowly ramped up. Her sisters’ voices and the robot’s footsteps were like hammers pounding against her frozen brain. ‘Breathe all the way in. Breathe all the way out.’ After two deep breaths, Blossom opened her eyes.

“Bubbles, how do we beat it?”

“Why are you asking me? I always just kicked it! Why are you both treating me like a baby again?”

Blossom grabbed her head, massaging her temples. “I’m not! You’ve fought this thing more than we have! Didn’t you ever notice anything that we could use?”

“Bzzt! I’m gonna get ya!”

The girls shuffled down the hall, huddling near the closet door. Level 2 was just around the corner. They had seconds left until a direct encounter became their only option. Bubbles bit her lip and screwed her eyes shut.

“Uh…um…okay, okay, okay. There’s…I think there’s an off switch?”

“Where is it?”

“Somewhere on the back, I think. I never had to use it. I just kicked it!”

Blossom opened her eyes all the way. Her perception intensified, but after only an hour of slow release, her powers were nowhere near their usual strength. Time slowed, but only slightly. She could see the robot’s foot peeking out around the corner and could smell the heat of its eyes powering up for another laser.

“It can only fire one laser at a time. We’ll split up and approach in a staggered formation. Buttercup and I will focus on keeping its attention, you go for the switch, Bubbles.” The words flew out of Blossom’s mouth, running together at a mile a minute. As soon as the last direction passed her lips, Level 2 turned the corner and faced them. “Go!”

Without waiting for a response, Blossom dove out in front. The robot’s eyes lit up brighter and the sound of its humming energy grew a pitch louder. A second later, the laser shot from its eyes, scorching the spot on the floor where the Powerpuff leader had been moments before. As she came out of her roll, she called over her shoulder.

“Buttercup! Go left! Bubbles, wait for the next shot and then follow behind me!” Rising to her knees, Blossom watched Buttercup charge past her. The robot’s eyes lit up again. Its head turned to the left. “Now!” The laser released and Blossom sprinted forward, Bubbles close on her heels.

They closed most of the distance, but when it turned back toward them — laser already charged and an instant from firing — Blossom dropped to the ground and crossed her arms in front of her.

“Go over me!” Sucking in as much cold air as her body could hold, Blossom imagined herself pushing it into her forearms. Frost slushing through her veins. Ice coating her bones and spilling into her muscles. Her skin crystalizing. With that image in her head, she breathed out and drew in one last breath as the robot fired.

The robot fired. Bubbles’ foot hit her back, followed by her full weight as she pressed off and soared over the beam. And Blossom’s thoughts went blank as white hot pain engulfed her body and sent her flying backward.

She didn’t feel herself hit the floor. She felt little anything at all after the initial impact. There was pain, but it was distant, detached from where she was lying. It hurt, but compared to the memory of Berserk’s flames, it was like touching a porcelain bowl that had been microwaved a minute too long.

“Blossy!”

“Yo, Red, you okay?” Buttercup was beside her first. “Oh shit, that looks like it hurts.”

“I’m fine. Did we get it?” Blossom sat up, wincing and finally looking at herself. Her arms had been badly burned, blistered skin leaving red stains on the simulated carpet.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh! We need to turn off your bracelet.” Bubbles tossed aside the deactivated robot and rushed over the Blossom, sliding onto her knees and reaching for her X-Limiter. She blinked and raised an eyebrow when the pink puff pulled away and shook her head.

“No. No, I’m fine. We should…” A wave of nausea crashed into Blossom when she tried to stand up. “We gotta keep going. This was only…only Level 2. We should be doing 3 by now at least.” Despite her protests, the encroaching dizziness mixed with the throbbing pain cost her the struggle with her sister, who grasped her wrist and deactivated the power suppression. Power flooded her body and, along with it, an overwhelming rush of perception.

The scent of blood and sweat. The hum of fluorescent lights and whirring gears of the Danger Grid’s hard light simulation engine. Thoughts — hundreds of thousands of thoughts — racing through her mind all at once. She pressed her palms into her eyes and rocked back and forth as she struggled to adjust to returning to normal.

“It’s only been three days, Blossy. We’ve got plenty of time.”

“No we don’t! I’m still, I mean, we’re still too weak!” Blossom accepted Buttercup’s help in returning to her feet. But when the simulation faded and the Danger Grid powered down, she tugged her hand away and turned to the observation window with her arms held out. “What are you doing? We’re not done yet!”

“I think Bubbles is right.” Robin answered from the command console. She had a notebook in front of her and was finishing up the last of her notes from the simulation. “You made a lot of great progress today! We’re already ahead of schedule.”

Blossom turned to Buttercup, looking for backup. But, to her dismay, the green puff simply shrugged her shoulders.

“We still haven’t had dinner and it’s almost ten. Let’s call it quits tonight, we’ll beat Level 3 tomorrow.” Though there was a twinge of disappointment in her voice, Buttercup’s stomach growling removed any doubt of her sincerity.

The door to the Danger Grid slid open and Robin hurried in, notebook clutched in her hand and a bright smile on her face.

“You girls are really doing amazing! I’ve been taking notes and even compared to yesterday, the improvements you’ve made are just incredible.” When Blossom turned away, she moved closer and held the notebook out to her. “C’mon, I want to go over my notes with you. If you really think things aren’t progressing at the right pace, I’m sure we can come up with something that doesn’t put you in danger.”

Danger. 

But wasn’t that the entire point? They were already in danger. There was no telling how soon the Powerpunk Girls would return. They couldn’t play it safe or take it easy. They needed to get stronger.

She needed to get stronger. If there was enough danger, if things were desperate enough, then maybe she could finally…

Robin’s hand touched her arm, sending a shiver down her spine.

“Alright.” Blossom turned just in time to see the last glimpse of Robin’s smile, before Bubbles scooped her up into a twirling hug. Watching them kiss and immediately launch into planning what they were going to make for a late night dinner brought a knot back to her stomach. Biting her lip and falling into step behind Buttercup, she focused on breathing.

Chapter Text

The sound of rushing water filled the guest bathroom, echoing off the tile in a steady drone while thick billows of steam muffled the near silent sigh of discontent of the room’s sole occupant. Twin pinpricks of red lit up behind the curtain, beams of gentle heat warming the shower head and bringing the water to a boil. As the droplets hit her pale, frigid skin, they burst into vapor with a shrill hiss. The persistent white noise and mingling sensations didn’t do much to impede Blossom’s racing thoughts, but what little they did brought her some relief.

“Down to an hour fifty today…my stamina is improving, but I’m still not even at a beginner level.” She said with another weary sigh. Shaving ten minutes off her run time in just five days would have been a cause for celebration for anyone else, but Blossom felt nothing but frustration and disappointment. It didn’t matter that her improvement exceeded anything possible for a normal person, she didn’t have the luxury of a human timeframe.

She needed to be better. She needed to be stronger.

Turning her gaze back to the shower head, she heated it again and reached for a bottle of shampoo. Squeezing out a handful, she set to work lathering her long hair. The scent of vanilla joined the assault on her enhanced senses, dragging her into a trance as her fingers worked their way through her sweat-stricken mane — another sensation, one that drew a deep purr from her throat. Her expression softened; her lips parted in a frosty sigh.

Her sisters didn’t understand, or maybe they didn’t want to understand. But Robin did. Or at least, she seemed to. The one compromise Blossom had been willing to make after having her urgency to push their training harder, faster, shot down night after night was an arrangement to review their progress and adjust the next day’s activities to always keep them ahead of the curve. Getting to spend every evening staying up late and discussing strategy with Robin almost made the anxiety gnawing at Blossom’s core worth it.

Almost.

While the accidental brushes of Robin’s hand or thigh against hers set her nerves afire and the effortlessly beautiful way she pursed her soft lips and furrowed her brow when contemplating caused her heart to flutter, they were fleeting and far and few between. Every scandalous stray thought they encouraged brought a sneering voice with it pointing out that an accident was all these moments were. And if she ever dared to believe it could be something more, her restless sister was always there with a passing kiss or a sensual shoulder rub to bring her back to reality.

It was a kindness. A kindness that she didn’t even deserve. She was an intruder to a life she’d willingly chosen to leave behind. A life that had moved on without her. Sisters who had moved on without her. A friend — just a friend; never anything more — who had moved on without her.

Blossom lowered her head. Hidden behind a suffocating curtain of hair, she watched, unblinking and unseeing, the pitiful hailstones falling from her eyes and into the soap suds swirling at her feet.

When she finally came downstairs, Blossom was surprised by how quiet the house was. Even on the laziest Saturdays, she distinctly remembered Buttercup crawling from her cave by nine in a smoky haze to devour whatever was on the table before slinking back to her headphones and pipe. But as she stepped into the dining room, no one greeted her except for a still warm breakfast sandwich — sausage, egg and cheese on a fluffy croissant — and a note written in glitter pen on a piece of Sailor Moon stationary.

Blossom slipped into her seat, picking up the note in one hand and taking a bite of her breakfast with the other.

Still chewing, Blossom laid the note back down and sat back in her chair, rolling her head to stare at the ceiling. She knew Bubbles meant well, but rest was the absolute last thing she needed. Her gaze flitted toward the lab. No one at home meant no one to train with. But it also meant there was no one to stop her from pushing herself, either.

She took another bite and glanced down at the note.

“Sorry, Bubs. But, I can’t do that.” After a moment, she sighed and added, with a tiny smile, “But…hanging out does sound fun. I’ll make sure I’m done before you get home.”

Blossom wolfed down the rest of her breakfast, washing it down with a glass of orange juice. Feeling rejuvenated, she hopped out of her seat and hurried to the lab. But when she leaned forward for the retinal scan, it beeped back at her with an unpleasant squelch.

“That’s weird…” She leaned in again. The door rejected her again. “What in the world is going on?” Taking the steps two at a time, she retreated to her room to find her cell, intent on calling the Professor to ask him about the anomaly. But, when she picked up her phone, a message waiting on the lock screen saved her the effort.

Bubbles: sry i forgot 2 tell u in my note but i locked the lab 2 make sure u rest! mwahaha! >:3 no xtra training ms sneaky! u need 2 rest! <3 luv u!

A numb haze crept into Blossom’s thoughts, squeezing her brain with frozen claws that grew sharper with every rapid, shallow breath she sucked in through her flared nostrils. Her jaw clenched and eyes slowly narrowed as she re-read the message again, hoping against hope that it was just a prank. But when no follow-up appeared from the digital ether to assuage her worries, the cold that she’d been fighting to hold back swept through her like a blizzard, chilling her to her core.

The screen cracked beneath her thumb as she unlocked the phone. Her fingers moved at subsonic speeds, typing out paragraph after paragraph after paragraph of increasingly frustrated responses, just to delete them and start over again. After five hundred rough drafts — it may have been more, but she stopped counting around two hundred twenty-three — she settled on a single letter.

Blossom: K

Blossom collapsed into the guest room bed, dropping her phone and cradling her head. Dark, angry thoughts raced beneath a thick layer of ice that was steadily squeezing her brain tighter and tighter. Jaw aching, skull pounding, she clawed at her X-Limiter, stripping herself of her powers just in time to bury her face in her hands and scream as hard as she could.

When she ran out of breath, she sucked another storm into her lungs and screamed again, and again, until her throat turned raw and her voice gave out.

‘There has to be something I can do. I can’t just waste an entire morning!’ Her anger spent, reduced to a prickling numbness in her skull, Blossom retreated to the living room couch. She considered — for longer than she cared to admit — simply breaking into the lab and training, anyway. If she explained herself to the Professor, she was certain he’d understand and maybe even eventually forgive her. But moments before her fist hit the door, she imagined the disappointment she’d find in his eyes when she told him and relented.

‘I could exercise…’ She thought with a defeated sigh. The weights were locked in the lab, limiting her options to calisthenics and more jogging, unless she wanted to leverage her reputation for access to a gym. Tempting as the idea was, the thought of anyone seeing her in a depowered state filled her with a rush of shame and discomfort. ‘I can already read the headlines… Pitiful Pink Puff’s Pathetic Practice Places Perturbed Populace in a Panic: How Can She Save Us if She Can’t Even Do a Pull Up ?’

With a sigh and a shake of her head, Blossom did the only thing she could to take her mind off her worries. She opened FriendSpace and started scrolling. Contrary to her tendency to place herself in the spotlight in the real world, Blossom’s online presence was shockingly sparse. Her tendency to over-analyze every toneless response led to a paralyzing anxiety about posting something that someone could misinterpret, so she just avoided doing anything at all.

Instead, she scrolled and stalked and sighed, growing further and further apart from everyone she once considered a friend.

Blossom sighed, thumb frozen on the screen, covering up half of the banner announcing Bubbles and Robin’s previous cooking stream. Biting her lip, she shook her head and closed her eyes. ‘Maybe I really do need to rest…wait what?’ Her eyes snapped back open. Just beneath her thumb, in the next post, was a familiar trio on a dark stage in a dive bar she recognized from Neighborsfield.

She scrolled down and her eyebrow raised. 

“Harry?” Harry Pitt, one of her best friends since Ms. Keane’s class, stood in front of the stage, taking a selfie and flashing the camera devil horns. Dressed in a giant, baggy black tank top with the band’s name, Puppy Dog Tail, etched across the front in an almost unreadable, scratchy font, with a grin filling his face, he seemed to have had the time of his life. But it wasn’t Harry’s appearance that struck her — though she had to admit, his matching black nails and eyeliner looked amazing on him — it was the caption posted with the selfie.

The guys put on the best fucking show of their lives and showed Neighborsfield how to rowdyrock! So fucking proud of them!

“Harry knows the Rowdyruff Boys?” As the thought percolated in Blossom’s brain, her slack-jawed bewilderment gave way to a quickly spreading grin. “Harry knows the Rowdyruff Boys!”

If her sisters couldn’t, or wouldn’t, train with her, then what if?

‘This is a terrible idea. I haven’t even seen the boys since the Hazard…’ Even if it was a bad idea; it was a better alternative than wasting her time on situps. She needed something drastic, something dangerous, something hardcore.

“The worst thing that can happen is they’ll refuse to help,” she said as she slid to her feet and made her way to the door. 

‘No,’ a sighing, impatient voice argued back, ‘the worst thing that can happen is they’ll kill you.’

“Even better.” Blossom was grinning as she took off from the front porch, leaving so fast she left behind a crater “If they try, then I’ll really get a workout!”

As Blossom arrived in Harry’s neighborhood, she couldn’t help but notice how much it had changed in the years since she last visited.

Situated on the outskirts of town, Pokey Oaks West was the oldest part of the suburb. The Professor told her that, once upon a time, it had been a nice place. But in the rapid expansion outward caused by a chemical accident from the power plant and the recurring monster attacks in the city proper, it had been left behind with worn down infrastructure that no one in power seemed to be in a hurry to replace, or even repair. The proximity to Townsville’s Eastside, and by extension, the prison, meant that most of the newer residents were the ex-cons who scrounged together enough money to afford a cheap house, but never enough to put back into the community.

But, as she landed in front of Harry’s house, Blossom found herself amazed at the improvements that had occurred in only a few years. The streets were clean, lawns mowed and cleared of scrap. People walked down the sidewalks — freshly paved sidewalks at that — without clutching their purses or reaching for a concealed firearm.

Whatever happened, it had undeniably changed this part of town for the better.

‘I’ll have to ask Harry about that.’ She thought with a smile, reaching out to knock on the door. Despite her ulterior motive for reconnecting, Blossom felt a twinge of excitement about seeing him again. Though they’d drifted apart the last few years, because of her, she and Harry had gotten along great in elementary and middle school. He may have been rough around the edges, with dirt, and later paint, on his cheeks and under his nails, but he listened and always had something encouraging to say whenever he saw her.

The doorknob turned. Her ears perked up and her smile became a grin. But when the door creaked open, her jaw dropped and her head tilted. Standing in the doorway, arms crossed with a dark scowl etched onto his face, was Brick.

“Ho-ly shit. What the fuck are you doing here?” The leader of the Rowdyruff Boys had changed a lot in the four years since she last saw him. He wasn’t any taller or buffer, his lithe build near identical to hers, but the knots and split ends were gone from his fiery mane of hair. He wore his cap facing forward, bangs swept to the right, with the rest of his hair pulled into a braid and threaded through the back of his cap. The braid, sporting a fresh, glossy sheen, hung over his shoulder with a little red bow, tying it off near the end. Black eyeliner made his crimson glare pop even more than usual.

Most surprising of all, though, was his outfit. Not the black muscle shirt clinging to his firm torso, showing off his slender, powerful arms, but what completed the outfit. A scarlet mini skirt and black silk stockings with frilly lace that matched his skirt.

Though it couldn’t have been more than a microsecond of her staring, Brick’s brow furrowed and a growl rumbled behind his bared teeth. “The fuck are you staring at?”

“I wasn’t!” Blossom replied with a bit too much urgency. She cleared her throat and moved her hands to her hips, assuming her usual power stance with what she hoped was a friendly smile. “I’m just surprised to see you here. I was actually looking for you.”

“That right? Well, you found me. So fuck off, I’m busy.” Brick moved to slam the door in her face, but Blossom shot forward, catching it.

“I’m sorry, Brick. For staring, I mean. That was rude of me.” Blossom’s arm shook slightly as he continued to push the door. “But I really do need your help.” The wood creaked; the hinges groaned. But before it could break, the two relented in unison.

Brick turned away from her. “I ain’t helping you with shit, get lost or I’ll make you leave.”

Her smile curled into a smirk. Narrowing her eyes, Blossom’s stance finally felt natural as she stood upright and looked down her nose at him.

“I think we both know how that would go.” Though she maintained her sneer, Blossom’s pupils dilated, and the world slowed down in front of her. She could see Brick’s muscles tensing, hear his knuckles cracking and blood rushing. A hint of red dusted his face and his scowl pulled back into a snarl. Breathing in a deep breath, she filled her body with ice and braced herself for the inevitable impact.

“Woah! Hey, Bloss! It’s been a minute.” Before the first blow could land, a chipper voice called out from within the house and, within a moment, appeared next to Brick. Harry draped his arms around Brick’s shoulders, wearing a broad smile on his face.

He had also changed a lot since she last saw him. The weight he gained in middle school was still present, though now redistributed through his bulky frame as muscles. More splatters than Blossom could identify at a glance stained his clothes, but none of them were more interesting than the bright pink bonnet with a yellow rubber duck pattern he wore. And even that was only half as interesting as the way he squeezed Brick’s shoulder and rested his chin atop the fuming Rowdyruff boy’s head.

“Wassup? Anything we can help with?” Harry’s voice snapped her out of her hyper-focus.

“She was just leav-”

“Yes, actually! I was hoping you could tell me where to find the Rowdyruff Boys. And I guess I was right.” Blossom added with a giggle. She relaxed her shoulders and let the aggressive look fade from her face. “Can I come in? I’m certain you’ll enjoy what I’m proposing.”

“No.”

“Yeah! Come on in. We were just cleaning up, so the place is a bit of a wreck, but make yourself at home.” Harry moved Brick aside, despite the ruff’s brief reluctance. He flashed Blossom another grin and shrugged his shoulders as she stepped inside.

“Thank you! Now, I am in a bit of a time crunch, so let me just get right into it.”

By the end of Blossom’s explanation, contrasting looks of bewilderment had settled onto the faces of her hosts. On Brick’s face, a wild grin of disbelief and excitement; on Harry’s, a slack-jawed gape of horror. Standing across from them, Blossom wore a hopeful smirk and crossed her arms.

“Well? What do you think?” She asked with a twinge of desperation behind her confident tone.

“Are you serious?”

“Are you serious ?! Bloss, I’m sorry, but that plan is fucking insane.” Harry collapsed backward onto the couch, tugging off his bonnet and digging his fingers into his shaggy hair.

Brick shrugged his shoulders and leaned forward, resting his chin on his knuckles. “I dunno, I think it sounds like a great idea. When can we start?”

“No! No, we’re talking about this first!” Harry pushed Brick’s cap down over his eyes and addressed Blossom with a serious stare. “Do your sisters know about this? I heard from Buttercup you’ve been acting strange, but this is, like, what’s the phrase? Beyond the pale?”

Hearing her sister’s name mentioned brought a frown to Blossom’s face. Her grip on her arms tightened. “No they don’t, and I’d rather keep it that way.” Pausing when she heard the harsh chill in her voice, Blossom resumed her measured deep breathing and offered Harry a reassuring smile. “I understand why you’re concerned, but I’ve thought this through, Harry.” She tapped her head and laughed. “Super brain, remember? I went through this plan over ten thousand times on the way here.”

“She’s done the math, babe. You’re always gushing about how smart Bloss is.” Brick sneered and shrugged his shoulders. “What’s the problem now?”

“The problem is the plan is fucking psychotic! And don’t pull that shit. We both know you don’t care about the reason.” Before he could delve deeper into his rebuttal, an overly cheerful electronic rendition of The Trout sang out from the other room. Harry sighed, his head dropping.

“Listen, just…let me put the clothes in the drier and then we can talk about this more when I get back. Don’t do anything rash, Bloss. And you.” Harry thrust an accusatory finger in Brick’s face. “Behave yourself and don’t give her any bad ideas.” He bopped Brick’s nose, earning him a grimace and a blush from the Rowdyruff leader. With a chuckle, he climbed to his feet and disappeared around the corner.

As she watched the exchange, the tension in Blossom’s body loosened, and her shoulders relaxed. The confident, forced public smile she’d worn earlier gave way to something softer, more sincere, growing when she and Brick made eye contact.

“What? Something funny?” The former villain’s blush darkened, the scowl returning when Blossom giggled.

“Absolutely not. I just am having trouble getting used to seeing you like this.” Brick opened his mouth to argue, but Blossom powered through and continued. “The last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me…but, it wasn’t like when we were kids. I got the feeling your heart really wasn’t in it. So, it’s nice seeing you actually happy.”

“Whatever.” Brick growled and tore his glare away from her.

“Are you happy, Brick?” 

Before the words could even finish leaving her mouth, he cut her off with a burning glare.

“I was. Until you showed up in front of my house.” He laughed. “You know how great things have been? I don’t have to see you on TV every night, or run into you at Malph’s, or see that stupid fucking pink streak in the sky every day. The only time I have to hear about the Great and Perfect Blossom is when Harry’s doing his fanboy shit because you saved a cat from a tree or threw an alien into space in Boringsfield.” Although venom dripped from his words, whenever Brick mentioned Harry, his expression changed. The corners of his mouth curled into a grin, his pulse raced, and there was an undeniable excitement in his voice.

Blossom’s eyes opened wider, taking in the room in a fraction of an instant. Harry’s house was small — cozy, not cramped — with water stains on the ceiling, obscured behind the lazily swirling blades of a beat-up old fan. The shag carpet, a faded shade of blue-gray, was ancient, but the walls appeared recently repaired, sporting a coat of tan paint that couldn’t be more than a year old.

Decorating the walls were various posters — most of them for the boys’ band: Puppy Dog Tail — as well as a few framed photos: the most prominent among them being a photo of Harry with his aunt and uncle, one of Harry and the Rowdyruff Boys as kids posing in a vacant lot littered with shoulder deep holes, and lastly one of Brick and Harry cradling a hairless orange Sphynx kitten covered in glowing green eyes. That photo struck a chord with Blossom, bringing a lump of emotion to her throat. She’d never seen Brick look so happy and innocent.

“Where’s your cat?” She blurted out, worried that she’d been quiet for too long. She hadn’t noticed the telltale signs of cat ownership in the house. No kitty litter, no dander, no scratch marks, not even the scent of cat food. The only smell that did stand out was a cinnamon apple scented oil plugin wafting out of the kitchen.

“He’s here, just doesn’t like strangers seeing him.” Brick sat back and reached for the back of the couch. A distortion of glitching green light appeared by his hand alongside a sound like garbled static and several differently pitched cat meows, yowls, and hisses, revealing the cat from the photo, now fully grown. It nuzzled Brick’s palm, purring and closing its primary eyes, while the other eleven dotting its body glared at Blossom.

Despite the otherwise chilly reception, Blossom couldn’t help giggling.

“Aw, he’s so cute. What’s his name?”

“Bingus.” The cat hopped down, melting the ruff’s scowl into a content smile as he scratched his chin and massaged his pointed ears. “Chill, bro. If she tries anything, I’ll deal with her.”

Satisfied with his owner’s reassurance, Bingus closed all of his eyes and curled up into a purring bundle on his lap. And just like that, the tension in the room evaporated. An uneasy but noticeable comfort settled between them, soothed by the cat’s rumbling purrs.

Blossom leaned back, resting against the large, wooden television console — probably the most expensive item in the room. Watching Brick play with his cat, hearing Harry fussing over missing socks and whether to use bleach with the next load, she couldn’t help but sigh.

“What?”

“You’ve really changed. This entire neighborhood has. It’s nice now.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t wanna live in a shithole. This is our turf, so we take care of it. Not like you ever gave enough of a shit to do something about it.” There it was again, the venom in Brick’s voice.

She couldn’t argue with his point, even if it wasn’t true. After learning about the condition of Pokey Oaks West from Harry in middle school, Blossom wanted to turn the area around. During some of her more manic episodes in high school, she’d sent plans to Town Hall, but the constant monster attacks and supervillain plots ate up most of the city’s budget on reconstruction. Reallocation to improve the neighborhood was always on the docket. The funds were just never available. All her efforts had amounted to nothing more than lip service, regardless of her best intentions.

Not knowing what to say, she tried changing the subject. “How long have you and Harry been-” but before she could go any further, Harry returned to the room with a heavy sigh.

“Sorry for taking so long! I ran into a, uh, thing I had to deal with.” He flopped back onto the couch and joined Brick in petting Bingus, who stretched out his back legs to lie across both laps and open up his belly for rubs. “I see you met our little man. He’s a mischievous little fucker, just like his daddy, but he’s a good cat.” Harry grinned up at Brick, who rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Did you find the socks?” Blossom asked with a knowing grin.

Harry laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Nah, I’ll probably make Mr. X-Rays look for them later.” His smile faded with another heavy sigh. “Okay, so…I was thinking about your plan and I just…are you sure? Is it really a good idea?”

Blossom nodded. “Yes, one thousand percent certain.”

“It’s really fucking dangerous, Bloss.”

She nodded again. “I know. That’s the point.”

“I’m still down.” Brick chimed in with a snicker. “I really can’t pass up the opportunity. But, convincing this guy?” He thrust his thumb in Harry’s direction. “Not the biggest problem you’re gonna run into. He ain’t the final boss; he’s barely a goon.”

“Hey! I am at least an elite enemy. Maybe a mid-stage boss.”

Brick shook his head and grinned, saying, “Babe, you’re a fucking Goomba.” He laughed out loud when Harry pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes again.

Glancing at the clock, Blossom drew an arctic breath through her whole body to settle her nerves. Thirty minutes. While she’d hoped to have convinced Brick sooner, if they rounded up his brothers in a hurry, that would give her at least two to four hours of training time.

“Where are your brothers? I need all three of you to get the most out of this.”

“I’ll handle Boomer. He’s probably crashing at Julie’s place. You’re gonna have to deal with Butch’s boss if you want him to come out to play.” Brick looked up at her and smirked.

Harry’s face fell. “Oh shit, I completely forgot about her.”

Blossom raised an eyebrow and placed one hand on her hip. “Butch has a job? Who’s his boss?” Her curiosity — and dread — grew when Brick tossed his head back in a wicked laugh. She turned to Harry, who looked back at her with a sheepish grin, scratching his hair.

“You have got to be kidding me.” Blossom stared at the golden placard on the door with an eyebrow craned and a frown tugging on her lips.

Princess Morbucks
Director of Social Media Engagement and Super Development

‘What kind of job could Butch possibly be doing for Princess?’ Blossom wondered as she observed the door from top to bottom. Made of mahogany with a shiny, dark finish, the door alone was likely more expensive than Harry’s entire living room. The doorknob was made of crystal, attached to a solid gold plate, polished so often that she could clearly read the calendar on the far wall of the room at the other end of the hallway.

A lifetime of crime had done absolutely nothing to impede Princess’s inevitable rise to power within her father’s company. The only solace Blossom could take in that was reminding herself that the heiress had stayed out of trouble for going on four years now. She had to concede that if the alternative to city-wide destruction every other week was a spoiled brat heading the social media team of an international corporation worth trillions; it was a price she’d pay willingly.

‘Alright, let’s get this over with.’ Blossom took a deep breath and reached for the doorknob. As soon as her fingers grazed the handle, a gruff voice inside called out to her.

“Knock first.”

She closed her eyes. Drawing her hand back, she clenched her knuckles into a fist, and rapped them against the wood. Almost a full minute of silence followed, then the voice inside responded.

“Come in.”

Blossom pushed the door open and stepped into the office. Her pupils dilated, slowing the world around her to a crawl and taking in everything at once. Like the rest of the Morbucks Industries central office, the style was a paradoxical mix of both gaudy and sleek corporate efficiency. A perfect white square, lined with strips of gold and maroon that formed the company logo — an angular, stylized MB framing a dollar sign — and a thin, meticulously vacuumed black carpet. Framed photographs of an older teen Princess meeting with various power brokers, other billionaires, CEOs, world leaders, and people Blossom didn’t recognize covered the walls. A strip of scarlet led from the entrance to another, even more grandiose double door marked with Princess’s personal logo — a capital P in a hollow oval that she’d always thought resembled a pineapple.

To the left of the door was a desk carved from the same dark-finish mahogany, its surface clear save for a telephone and a computer. Sitting behind the desk was one of the elusive arch-nemeses she’d come looking for.

Like Brick, Butch’s build had changed little in the last four years. He was still six feet tall and built like a refrigerator, with broad shoulders and thick arms. His hair remained shaggy, but pulled into a bun, and he’d grown out a surprisingly well-trimmed beard. Short, but dense. Just like his brother, the most surprising thing about him was his outfit. A button-up white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a dark green vest, and a matching green plaid tie with a perfect square knot.

He looked up at Blossom when she entered, and his bored expression quickly morphed into a shocked, wild grin. Clearing his throat, he forced it back to neutral and sat upright in his chair.

“What the f…mm, sorry. What can I help you with?” Despite his careful tone, there was a tremor of excitement bubbling just behind his words. His muscles were tensed, stretching against his sleeves, and the corner of his left eye twitched slightly.

Blossom came to a halt in front of his desk, glancing at the nameplate:

Butch Morningstar
Assistant to the Director of Soc-Sup

She looked back up at him and smirked. “You’ve really moved up in the world, haven’t you?”

“I guess so.” Butch shrugged. “I like my job and Prinny, erm, Director Morbucks says I’m good at it, so I don’t have any complaints.” He gestured to the chair in front of his desk and sat back, crossing his arms. “What do you want, Blossom?”

“I want you.” Blossom said bluntly as she slid into the seat and crossed her legs. “But, Brick told me I’d need to get Princess’s permission first, and now I can see why. Is she busy?”

“She’s always busy.” His eye twitched and his arms tensed, fingers digging into his sleeves. “Wh-what do you mean you need me? Like, is it a superhero thing? Cuz I haven’t done shit in years. Not since your sister beat my ass.” Butch screwed his lips shut and took a deep breath. When he released it, he tried to settle the growing tremor in his arms, but his eye twitched hard enough to make his head jerk. “You lookin’ for a fight?”

“Something like that, yeah. I already have Brick on board, and he said he’d find Boomer. We just need you, and then we can get started. I’m actually in a bit of a hurry, so could you ask her to pencil me in? It’ll only take a moment.” Blossom watched the Rowdyruff boy fight against his better judgment, eyes drifting between his computer and a pocket planner on the desk in front of him. She focused and zoomed in as he began flipping through the pages, reading them in the microseconds between.

‘She really is busy. For all her faults, I’ll give her credit: she’s not lazy. Her schedule is almost as busy as mine and she doesn’t even have super speed to manage it.’ When he reached today, Blossom noted Princess was, indeed, completely booked through the rest of the afternoon. In fact, she had a meeting every half hour until nine in the evening.

“I only need you. And I only need five minutes of her time. Two minutes if she’s willing to listen to reason.” Blossom added, hoping to bridge the last of Butch’s apprehension.

Butch scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Just me? Like I’m not important…” With a heavy sigh, he snatched his phone and held it up to his ear. “Director Morbucks?” He said after a brief wait. “There’s a…government official who is requesting a brief meeting with you.”

Blossom narrowed her eyes and enhanced her hearing.

“Ugh! What does Bellum want now? Doesn’t she have a city to run? I told her, we’re still on for Saturdays, but I don’t have time for random ‘Making Up for Lost Time’ meetings. I don’t see how she does either.”

Butch glanced at Blossom. Clearing his throat, he continued. “It’s not your mom.”

“Bio-mom.”

“Heh, right. Sorry. No, it’s uh…” He trailed off, leaning back when Blossom bent over his desk and spoke into the receiver.

“Princess. I need to borrow Butch for a couple hours. You’re busy; so am I. Let’s just talk this out and I’ll be out of your hair.” Blossom heard the muffled cursing on the other side of the door despite the phone being muted. She lifted her head and gazed through the door, straight into Princess Morbucks’ hateful glare. “You’ve got five minutes until your next call, I don’t need that much time.”

Knuckles turning white, Princess growled. “Fine, come in.” She slammed the receiver down and rose from her seat.

The door came back into focus, and Blossom turned her attention back to Butch with a smirk.

He shrugged his shoulders and hung the phone up, jerking his thumb toward the door. “You heard the director. You’ve got five minutes. If she wants you gone, leave, or I’ll throw you out.”

“Of course. Thank you, Butch. I look forward to working with you soon.” Blossom stood upright and strode through the heavy double doors and into the next room.

Princess stood at the far side of the room, hands folded behind her back, glaring through a wall-sized window down at the courtyard in front of the building. Her shoulders shook with the slightest hint of frustration, but when she turned to face Blossom, there was a controlled anger on her face. It quivered, threatening to burst into fury when their eyes met.

“Five minutes. What do you want, Blossom?”

The years had been kind to Princess. She towered almost half a head over Blossom, her once curly red locks straightened into a majestic, slightly wild mane. A rich purple office dress clung to her thick, feminine curves, accented by the golden hoops on her ears and wrists, crowned with a matching tiara. An oddly familiar pink pearl necklace that didn’t quite match the rest of her attire — one that stirred fuzzy, hateful memories in the back of Blossom’s mind — hung from her neck.

Her pupils shrunk and time came back into focus from the sound of Princess’s manicured, golden nail tapping on her desk.

“I need to borrow Butch for a training exercise with the Rowdyruff Boys. He won’t be harmed, arrested, or otherwise inconvenienced other than being occupied for a couple hours.” Blossom’s hands instinctively moved to her hips, matching the ferocity and confidence in her former rival’s stance.

“Why would I do that? He’s my assistant, I need him here.”

“There’s a threat coming, one that beat me already. I need to get stronger, or the entire world will be subjugated or destroyed. Training with the Rowdyruff Boys is the best path forward to close the gap between myself and my opponent.”

“None of that is my problem.”

“It will be when you don’t have a market left to sell your products to because the world is enslaved or destroyed by an evil version of my sisters and myself.” Blossom raised her chin, looking down her nose at the taller girl. “Think about how much you and I hate each other, then imagine a version of me who isn’t restrained from acting on those feelings by the law or her own personal convictions. That’s who is coming.”

Princess stood upright and crossed her arms. “I’ll be fine. You’re the one who’s in danger. Why don’t you go running to your sisters like last time?”

“Berserk is stronger than all three of us put together. She’s stronger than all six of us put together.” Blossom lowered her chin and her eyes narrowed. “Butch won’t be able to save you from her, he couldn’t even save you from Buttercup.”

Princess moved to the front of her desk and leaned back against it. She sneered down at Blossom, though it was clear from the near imperceptible hitch in her breath that Blossom’s threat had shaken her.

“What kind of training is it? And what do I get out of this? And no, saving the world or stopping the evil Blossom isn’t good enough.”

Blossom’s scowl disappeared, replaced with a relaxed smirk. She’d forced her way through Princess’s defenses. There was no way she’d be able to resist the actual pitch. 

She’d won.

“There is no possible way for me to match my counterpart’s strength. She has access to abilities I don’t, and she’s spent much longer training much harder. Instead, I’m focusing my efforts on a new technique: a defensive technique. To improve my toughness and ensure this technique can work against an unrelenting force, I need the Rowdyruff Boys to attack me at full strength until I can’t get back up again.”

Princess blinked, and her mouth fell open. Whatever she imagined the pink puff’s plan was going to be, clearly, she hadn’t imagined this.

“Wait, let me get this straight. You just want the ruffs to beat the shit out of you for like, two hours, and that’s it? You’re not even going to fight back?”

“I’m going to defend myself, but I’m not going to strike back. The only person who will be in any danger whatsoever will be me.” Blossom sauntered closer, floating off the ground until she was eye level with Princess. “And to sweeten the deal: I’m going to have Harry record the session so that I can review it after. I’ll make sure he sends you a copy so that you can watch me getting the crap beat out of me as many times as you want.”

She held out her hand. “Do we have a deal?” Her smirk grew, hearing Princess’s heart race and feeling her body temperature rise.

After a few seconds of consideration, she reached for Blossom’s hand, but didn’t grab it yet.

“On one condition. I don’t want to just watch after, I want a front row seat.” Princess’s nervous smile turned into a wicked sneer when their hands clasped.

“Deal.”

Princess gave her hand a firm shake and raised her voice. “You hear that Butch? Get my coat and clear my afternoon. We’re leaving!” Reaching beneath her desk, she activated a switch and the skylight on the ceiling pulled open to reveal the clear blue sky above.

“FUCK YES! YOU’RE THE BEST PRINNY!”

“Let’s get going. I only have a few hours before Bubbles gets home.” She didn’t bother waiting for them to follow her, disappearing through the skylight in a streak of pink

“Eat shit! ”

Brick’s fist came crashing into Blossom’s quickly crossed arms, the force sending her careening backward, heels digging fresh tracks through the reinforced tungsten floor of the Morbucks Industries weapon testing facility. Before her momentum ended, a spinning roundhouse kick crashed into the back of her head. Momentarily dazed, Blossom lurched forward. Her eyes widened and the rapidly approaching floor slid to a crawl, revealing another fist soaring toward her from below. Slamming her foot down, she threw her head backward, narrowly avoiding a direct hit from Butch’s uppercut, her chin still splitting from the cutting pressure created by his attack.

‘Close. Eyes still working. Breathing steady, but muscles locking up.’ Blossom sucked frigid air into her lungs and pushed it outward to the rest of her body. She felt heavy and stiff, having to fight through a full body ache with every movement she made.

Her veins were frozen; her blood chugged like slush through a thin straw. As if her limbs were breaking, she felt a sharp snap beneath her skin whenever she moved her arms to intercept another strike.

“You don’t look so hot, Pinky.” Boomer said with a sneer, taking another swing at her. Then another, and another. His punches grew in ferocity and frequency, slipping around his brothers when they joined him in attacking her from three angles at once. “Ready to give up yet?”

Blossom’s pupils lit up in a flash of red, releasing the briefest burst of heat to thaw her frozen eyes. The sizzling streams of water ran down her face, just to freeze into clear crystal streaks interlaced with a spiderweb of matching crimson stains.

‘Brick to the left. No, behind. Butch throwing a sweep, lift right leg. Done. Now stomp and twist. Brace for impact. Breathe !’ Spinning at her hips, Blossom raised one arm just in time to stop her counterpart’s devastating haymaker. At the same time, the other moved in jerky swipes to fend off Boomer’s relentless strikes.

The years of mundane normalcy had done nothing to dull the viciousness of the Rowdyruff Boys. It felt as if no time at all had passed. Whether that cemented the painful reality that Blossom hadn’t grown at all in four years, or meant that they’d secretly kept up with their training despite giving up on villainy, either answer meant the same thing: if this were a real fight, she’d surely lose.

A nasty blow landed in her middle, nearly knocking the air out of her. Blossom allowed herself to fly into a backward flip, followed by a heavy landing, and sucking air through clenched teeth. Her lungs weren’t just frozen, they were screaming at her for relief. Steadying her breathing once more, she forced her eyes open and melted another coat of frost.

‘Can’t move. Not fast enough. It’s not from pain, though.’ She clenched her fists; the ice inside her fingers crackled. ‘They’re coming. Focus! Breathe! ’

As the dark tri-colored rainbow of fists and fury crashed into the statuesque pink Powerpuff again, Harry hissed and ran his hand through his hair. He couldn’t help but wince at the persistent sound of shattering ice with every blow against her body. Beside him, Blossom’s phone was attached to a tripod, recording the action as it unfolded. He learned over to check the recording, cringing again when shards of blood sprayed from Blossom’s mouth. 

“Is this really a good idea? She’s been bleeding for a while, maybe they should take a break?” He turned to the other spectators and frowned.

“C’mon, Butch! I know you can do better than that!”

“Yeah! Fuck her up, Boom Baby! Punch her perfect teeth in!” Julie squealed, shaking with glee when Boomer landed a particularly devastated heel kick straight at Blossom’s chin. She’d come straight from work and there was something unhinged about her wearing both a bloodthirsty grin and a WcDonald’s uniform.

Harry sighed. “Why do you hate her again?” He took an instinctive step back, raising his hands in defense, when Julie spun on him with a glare.

“She sent my dad to prison! Then, she sent my whole family to prison!”

“He tried to kill her dad! You tried to run her over with a minivan!”

“Oh please.” Princess scoffed. She crossed her arms and tore her eyes from the fight to face Harry with an incredulous stare. “Who in Townsville hasn’t tried to kill the Powerpuff Girls?”

“I haven’t!”

Julie snickered and elbowed Harry in the ribs. “Yeah right, Cootie King.”

“Ugh…” Harry’s face turned crimson, and he pulled his beanie down over his eyes. “That was different. I was just messing around.”

“Oooh yeah, just messing around. Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!” Julie made kissing sounds and rose on her tiptoes to reach Harry’s shoulder. She laughed when he turned away from her with a quiet, whiny “Stoooop…”

A deafening thunderclap of broken metal and concrete brought their playful bickering to an abrupt close. At the other side of the training facility, the Rowdyruff Boys backed away from the crater Butch’s last attack had driven Blossom into.

“Dude, that was sick.” Boomer laughed, lacing his fingers behind his head and glancing back toward the others. “Hey Jules, you see me kickin’ ass?”

“You’re amazing, Baby! Kill that bitch!”

“Is she okay?”

Brick leaned over the edge of the crater and shrugged his shoulders. “She’s breathing. We’re probably done though.”

“Aw man, really? I was just getting warmed up.” Butch rolled his shoulder and cracked his knuckles. “She seem really tough to you guys? Like punching a block of ice.”

“Yo, I noticed that, too. Is it, like, fuckin cold in here?” Boomer gestured to his visible breath.

“Who…said…we were done?” Blossom rose to a knee and then climbed to her feet, shaking off the frost and debris from her shoulders. Her breathing was unsteady, escaping her lips in quick bursts of snowflakes.

“C’mon, Bloss ,” Brick put extra emphasis on Harry’s nickname for her, “you can barely stand. You’re gonna give Harry a stroke if we keep going.”

Blossom spat out a mouthful of blood that shattered when it hit the floor. “I’m still standing, aren’t I? And you losers are still holding back.” That got their attention, creating an immediate shift in the air. Forcing a smirk to her lips, she stood upright and moved a trembling hand to her throbbing hip. “I thought I remembered you guys being tough. But, I guess you’re just too domesticated to be a threat anymore.”

Brick narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice. “Watch it, Bloss .”

“Or what?” She tilted her head and her smirk faded. “It takes a lot more than a couple of cheap shots to make me cry.”

“Heh…” Brick chuckled and shook his head. Reaching up, he adjusted his hat. “I know you’re playing me, but you know what? It’s working.” He shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Butch, then at Boomer. “I guess we’ll just have to serve it up.” 

‘Here it comes. For real this time.’ Blossom thought with a deep breath as the Rowdyruff Boys released the full extent of their power. Wrapped in overflowing Chemical X radiation, she could feel the sting of their power even from several meters away.

Wisps of green smoke wrapped around Butch. His grin grew until it became too wide for his face, filled with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, like a shark. His skin darkened to a red tan, body growing to twice his normal size. Blazing green flames replaced his eyes and his ears grew into hornlike points. The bun he’d once worn his hair in came loose, creating a wild, gravity-defying mane of ink black spikes.

Boomer held out his hand, gathering a sparking ball of electricity. He closed his fist around it, shaping it into the rough imitation of a baseball bat. Rolling his tongue around his mouth, he spat a searing stream of pale blue onto the floor, then laid the bat on his shoulder.

And Brick wasted no more time, charging toward Blossom, fist drawn back for a devastating haymaker.

She braced her feet and brought her better arm up to defend herself. But before the blow could land, the charging red ruff melted into a cloud of fluffy scarlet smoke. It whipped around her ankles to disorient her, solidifying behind her. What started as a punch changed to a kick, his heel careening toward her temple.

‘Those powers. These are new!’ Blossom tightened her focus to its limit, twisting around just in time to block the kick. As she turned, she smelled burning ozone and heard the crackle of approaching electricity. Moving with the momentum of Brick’s attack, she stepped back and ducked backward beneath Boomer’s swing.

That was as far as she made it before Butch’s colossal fist crashed into her body and sent her spiraling into the air. ‘Breathe ! Breathe ! You’re going to lose, so just focus on breathing!’ Forcing her lungs back into action, Blossom sucked in a breath that was promptly forced from her in a silent scream. Electrical burns raced along her skin with every impact from Boomer’s bat. By the time she finally managed another breath, she was crashing into the ground.

Her back hit the ground; the ice on her muscles shattered, reducing the pain to a dull buzz. Blossom breathed in. She opened her eyes and saw a familiar sight heading straight for her. Memories of the Beat-Alls’ reign of terror flashed through her mind in the instant Boomer’s acid spit collided with her body and enveloped her in the sensation of her skin melting and being torn apart.

‘Breathe. Just breathe. Just…breathe…’ The scent of brimstone assaulted her nose. Brick’s knuckles crashed into her face and sent her flying. Butch caught her and smashed her into the ground again. 

And again. 

And again.

Her perception faded to a single thought on repeat: Breathe . There was no defending herself. No fighting back. No outmaneuvering them in her near-frozen, broken state.

All she could do was keep breathing until it ended.

“That’s enough, guys! Back off!” After an eternity of concussive force, shocks, and burns, the world came back into focus for the briefest moment. Someone was beside her, cradling her head.

Her thoughts were numb. Somewhere in the depths of her mind, she knew her body was screaming at her, but she couldn’t feel any pain. She couldn’t feel anything at all except the cold. Pure, absolute cold wrapped around every inch of her, holding her together even as it kept her from moving to defend herself.

She was utterly broken.

She was completely frozen.

She was still breathing.

“Bloss, you okay? Hey, can you hear me?” Harry’s voice was close by. His rough hands were surprisingly soft.

Through glassy eyes, she looked past him, searching for her scowling counterpart. Blossom spit up another block of crimson ice and reached her hand out to him. Brick raised an eyebrow; the frost on her mouth chipped and broke as her lips curled into a smile.

“H-Heal m-me…”

The Rowdyruff Leader’s secret power. One that had only manifested a few days prior to their final showdown. One that had turned an already desperate struggle into a fight of attrition they only won by the skin of their teeth and the untold devastation of the planet.

Brick scowled. “Why should I?” 

His eyes widened. His expression changed into an incredulous grin.

“S-so we c-can…k-keep g-going…”

Hours later, after turning the testing facility into an icicle covered, cratered wasteland, Blossom sat off to the side, watching the recording of the session with a look of intense concentration. Pink eyes narrowed, lips pursed, she silently cursed herself for thinking that a cell phone camera could properly capture the level of detail she’d been expecting. Still, although most of the footage was a shaky, blurred mess, there were enough moments over the course of nearly six hours where she was in focus to make it worth reviewing.

‘I’d have lost either way…’ She thought, cringing at the sight of her arm breaking for the fifth time blocking one of Butch’s attacks. The handicap of not fighting back had drastically limited her defensive options, but the reveal of the Rowdyruff Boys’ demonic powers stripped away any hope that it was a fight she could have won at all.

Worse than that knowledge was also knowing that she had a higher chance of defeating the Rowdyruff Boys alone than she and her sisters had of defeating Berserk together.

“Ughhhh, I am so sorry, guys, but Boomer and me’ve gotta go. My stupid brother just got out of prison again, and mom wants to do a big dinner.” Julie’s whining voice caught Blossom’s attention, drawing her attention to the group’s boisterous conversation.

“Bud was in jail again? What did he do this time?” Harry asked with a chuckle. The tone in his voice wasn’t shocked, instead resembling someone discussing a TV show they were watching.

Julie giggled. “Tried to steal a lottery ticket from a gas station. Get this, the idiot didn’t even notice the other person in line was Elmer. Like, hello? That’s Buttercup’s BFF, dumbshit, of course she’s gonna show up before you even get out the door.” She groaned, a machine gun fire of ticks and boops rattling in the air as she replied to a text.

“Christ, that is an impressive fail.” Brick said, chiming in with a harsh laugh.

“Yeah dude. And you guys think I’m the dumb one.”

“You are the dumb one, bro.”

“Yeah, but I’m still not as dumb as Bud.”

“What a loser.” Princess snorted. “Next time he gets arrested, text me. I’ll pay off the judge to give him a real sentence.”

“Oh my gawd, you are the best, Prinny!”

Blossom glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Julie throw her arms around Princess, hugging her so tight her feet came off the ground. She raised an eyebrow, noticing that the heiress didn’t budge at all under the added weight hanging from her neck. The briefest glimpse of x-ray vision revealed no hidden power armor, only piquing the puff’s curiosity even further.

“Yeah, I am. About time someone notices.” Princess threw a glare in Blossom’s direction. “Well, if you’re leaving, then we are, too. C’mon, Morningstar, we need to start rescheduling meetings.” Without a hint of hesitation, she tossed a card key to Harry. “Close up when you’re done and shoot me or Butch a text. I’ll have my people clean this place up.”

“Sure thing, Prinny.”

Julie hopped into Boomer’s arms. “Let’s do this again, sometime!”

“Later dudes!” 

The blue ruff took off into the air, crashing through the ceiling and raining debris down on the others. Butch, seeing it coming, took a deep breath and blew it to the other side of the room.

“Dumbass.” Brick shook his head. “We still on for tonight?” He asked, lifting his fist.

“Sure thing, man. I’ll hit you up when me and Prinny are leaving the office.” Butch returned the fist bump and fell into step behind Princess, helping her into her jacket. The two paused at the door, Princess looking him up and down with a critical eye. She gestured for Butch to bend over and he compiled without question.

She gathered his wild mane and folded it back into a bun. Satisfied once it was secure, she kissed the top of his head.

“There we go. Alright, let’s go. Have a good night, boys.” Princess settled into Butch’s arms and sneered at Blossom. “If you want to get your ass kicked again, get in touch with my assistant. I’ll be thrilled to pencil you in.”

Blossom returned her attention to the recording. A chill prickled in the back of her mind, and her muscles tensed.

“How about tomorrow, ten to two? Or at least ten to noon?”

“I can move some stuff around.” Butch said with a hopeful lilt in his voice.

“I’ll have my people get in touch. No promises, Utonium. Let’s go, Morningstar.” The door slid shut behind the two as they disappeared. A sonic boom shook the facility, and then everything fell silent.

“You know,” Harry said as he strolled over to Blossom, “this was kind of insane.” Plopping down next to her, he leaned closer to look at her phone. “Are you sure this is okay?”

“Absolutely.” Blossom answered without missing a beat. She rewound the video, replaying an especially gruesome moment where she’d gotten caught in a loop of attacks that ended one round. While it was a more brutal beating than any she’d taken prior, a smile tugged at her lips when she timed how long it took for her to go down. “It was actually even more effective than my most optimistic estimates.”

“How?” Harry leaned back on his hands, watching her with a frown. “You just let them kick the shit out of you for hours.”

“It’s defense training, babe.” Brick dropped to the floor next to Harry and laid back, lacing his arms beneath his head. “I dunno what you’re doing specifically, but that’s it, right?”

Blossom nodded. “That’s correct.”

“So why not just spar with Buttercup or Bubbles?”

Her eyes narrowed, and her smile became a frown. “They aren’t taking this — aren’t taking me — seriously enough. If I tried to get their help, they’d hold back and it would take me four or five times as long to make as much progress as I made today.”

“Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t want to hurt you. I can’t imagine they would either. Especially not after-”

“That’s exactly why I can’t ask them for help. Bubbles locked me out of the lab so that I couldn’t train without them, they’re constantly telling me we need to slow down, and they keep treating this like it’s a game!” The temperature in the room dropped several noticeable degrees as Blossom’s breaths grew shorter and more forceful.

Brick glanced in her direction. “The Powerpunk Girls really that strong?”

“If all six of us teamed up, we wouldn’t be able to beat even one of them. Against all three, it would make the Final Hazard look like a picnic.” Icicles spread across the ground beneath Blossom, pushing Harry to scoot closer to Brick. She clenched her eyes shut and took one long breath after another until she’d regained control of the cold.

“You can’t know that, Bloss.”

“I’m the only person who can know that! I’m the only person who’s actually fought one of them!” Teeth grinding, she sat her phone down and held her head. “I know how strong my sisters are, and I know that Berserk is stronger than both of them without even trying.”

Harry nodded and wisely kept his mouth shut. When the silence dragged on for several minutes, he turned to Brick for help. It took his best set of puppy dog eyes, but after enough pouting, the Rowdyruff leader groaned and sat up.

“So how does having us kick your ass help? Getting better at taking a punch isn’t gonna make you stronger than someone like that.”

“In this case, it will actually.” Blossom drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Taking a deep breath, she blew out a cloud of snowflakes. “I’ve tried to make the most of my Ice Breath my entire life. It’s always been my trump card, but its also always been limiting. I have to avoid breathing too deep or too often to avoid freezing things around me. Berserk doesn’t have Ice Breath, but she does have Fire Breath. And the way she uses it is…it’s brilliant, honestly. It’s something I’d never have considered without seeing it in action.”

She paused for a moment, expecting an interruption. When none came, she released her inhibitions and went into her explanation.

“Berserk constantly utilizes her Fire Breath, not just as an attack, but as an internal combustion engine. Instead of using shallow breaths for normal activities and deep breathing when she needs to breathe fire, she stores all of that heat in her body. It keeps her muscles super-heated and flexible, and creates this heat corona around her that overwhelms and disorients her opponents. It’s like standing next to the sun when you’re fighting her, it makes breathing harder, tires you out faster, and causes you to make mistakes because within seconds you’re sweating and exhausted.”

“Shit…that sounds scary.”

“But that’s just the passive application!” Blossom’s voice raised in pitch and speed. Despite her nerves, there was a smile growing on her face. “She can actively manipulate that stored heat to improve her offensive power. I noticed it when we were fighting, but at the time there was nothing I could do about it. When she takes off, she ignites the heat stored in her legs to create an explosive release to improve her speed. If she throws a punch, she can ignite the heat in her fists or arms to practically double the speed and force of her attacks. Even though I could see her attacks coming, the unpredictability of her explosive bursts meant that I had to react twice as fast as normal just to keep up.”

“And she doesn’t have to do it! It creates a constant guessing game where you never know how strong or fast any individual attack is going to be.” Blossom reached up, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “The constant thermonuclear explosions beneath her skin have had a reinforcing effect on her durability. She’s not just fast and strong, she’s impossibly tough. Even if I could hit her, I wouldn’t be able to hurt her with my current level of strength.”

Brick blinked. “So…you’re tryin’ to do something like that with your Ice Breath?”

“That explains why it’s so cold…”

“Yes. Except…” Blossom sighed and tilted her head. “I can’t recreate the explosive bursts, and storing that much cold air in my body stifles my blood flow, stiffens my muscles, and makes me heavier and slower. At extremely low temperatures, my blood can actually freeze and it gets harder to move. But…that’s where this training comes into play.” Lifting her arm, she breathed deep and flexed her muscles.

Harry and Brick watched in amazement and intrigue as her arm expanded slightly. The visible skin beneath the torn sleeve of her bodysuit turned glossy and coated in a thin sheet of frost.

“I’m not going to be able to rely on overwhelming power the way Berserk does because my version of our breathing ability isn’t tailored for that. So, instead, I want to focus on adapting to the freezing temperature to improve my defense. By creating layers of ice around my veins, skeleton, muscles, and skin, I can, theoretically, increase my defense by orders of magnitude. And, additionally, this increases the density of my body, which will make my attacks land harder, make my body harder to move, and the cold dulls my pain receptors so that I can fight through damage that would otherwise be crippling. Plus, by freezing my skeleton, I can effectively ignore any broken bones until after the fight is over.”

She relaxed her arm and shook the numbness from her fingers. “For Berserk, specifically, this will also improve my resistance to her Fire Breath. The biggest problem is that I need to adapt to this ultra super-cooled state so that my blood isn’t freezing and I’m able to move my body freely. I also need to maintain it even while taking a beating. Keeping my breathing under control is the most important part.”

“Which is why you need a serious fight.” Harry relented with a nod and a sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. It all makes sense now. Still, I don’t like it, it’s too dangerous.”

Blossom focused her half-lidded gaze on a spot in the distance. “That’s the point.” She licked her lips and glanced at Brick from the corner of her eye. “Will you keep helping me? Even if it’s just the two of us. I need someone who won’t go easy on me. Someone who will fight to kill.”

A cheerful, computerized beep distracted Blossom from his response. She looked down at her phone and her face fell. “Oh no…”

Buttercup is typing…

“What the actual FUCK were you thinking!?” The house shook from the force of Buttercup’s voice, windows rattling on the verge of cracking. Volatile emerald energy radiated from her body in pulsating waves, just barely constrained by the gentle, but firm, hand gripping her shoulder.

“Buttercup, please don’t yell.” Bubbles said in a low voice. Her gaze fixated on Blossom, overflowing with concern and a desire to understand, but there was no mistaking that her attention was primarily focused on Buttercup. “Why didn’t you tell us what you were doing, Blossom?”

Behind them, Robin sat at the kitchen table. Whether because of disappointment, confusion, or out of fear at her sister’s rampage, she’d been silent since Blossom returned.

Somehow, the sad look in her eyes hurt more than Buttercup’s fury. She half considered lying, but immediately tossed the idea. She’d never been a good liar, and trying to be one now would only make things worse.

“I didn’t want you to worry about me.” Then, without waiting for either of her sister’s rebuttal, she quickly continued. “And I didn’t want you to stop me. You locked me out of the lab and I needed someone to help me with something I’ve been working on.”

“You’re damn right I’d have stopped you! That was fucking STUPID!” Buttercup shrugged off Bubbles’ warning grip and stormed closer to Blossom. Despite her trembling fury, she forced her radiation down until it was a brimming outline along her skin. “You could have trained with us! With me! Not those fucking losers! What if you got seriously hurt? What if you got killed?!”

“That’s exactly why I couldn’t ask you!” Blossom clenched her fists and held her breath, hoping to ease the frost building in her brain. “I need someone who isn’t going to hold back because they’re afraid of hurting me! I can’t get stronger with you treating me with kid gloves!”

“Kid gloves?! Bloss, they almost killed you. Like eight times! They were getting off on hurting you! So were Princess and fucking Julie Smith!”

“I was perfectly safe! Brick healed me every single time, as I’m sure you noticed.” Blossom spat back, her voice colder than her body felt. Intellectually, she understood why Harry forwarded the recording to her sisters. He was worried about her, just like they were. But emotionally, she was furious with him.

“Oh, right. Brick Morningstar, the most trustworthy and caring dude on the fucking planet and not someone who fucking hates you . He could have left you to die!”

Blossom crossed her arms and turned away. “Harry was there. He’d have made sure Brick healed me.”

“Yeah, cuz Harry Pitt can definitely deal with the three Rowdyruff Boys, Julie, and Princess by himself if they decide to off you.” Buttercup snarled and screwed her eyes shut. Blood seeped between her clenched fingers, nails puncturing her palms and knuckles, loudly cracking. “This is so fucking stupid, Blossom. I can’t protect you if you keep running off and doing stupid shit like this!”

The chill that had been building beneath the surface escalated into a blizzard, piercing Blossom’s mind and soul with icicle spears, hardening her body and heart. Her vision turned glassy and the numb that once prickled in her brain consumed her.

“ I don’t need you to protect me! ” Her supersonic voice exploded from her lips, driving her sisters back a step and sending the kitchen table crashing into the counter. “I know I’m the weakest Powerpuff Girl and I thought I was okay with that, but I’m not! I can’t be now that I know there’s a version of me who isn’t a helpless damsel who needs her sisters to save her!”

“Blossy, no one said you were weak.” Bubbles pushed her way between the two, reaching out and taking Blossom’s hand. She flinched when the redhead pulled away.

“You don’t have to say it! We all know it’s true.” Screwing her eyes shut, Blossom fought to hold back the crystal tears pricking her eyelids. “You haven’t needed me in years.”

“What the fuck, of course we need you!”

“You’re our leader, Blossy!”

“Then why haven’t you called me even one time since I left?” Her words hung with the snowflakes in the air. Her muscles tensed and the room grew even colder, frost spreading across the carpet beneath her feet, strips of ice forming along the walls. Forcing down the sharp lump in her throat, Blossom opened her eyes and walked to the lab entrance. “I have to get stronger. And I need danger. Actual danger. If my life is at risk, then maybe…I’ll finally be able to do it, too.” Her voice softened. “Then I won’t be useless anymore.”

She leaned forward to open the door, but the retinal scanner rejected her still.

“Bubbles…open this door or I’m going to break it down.” When her threat went unanswered, Blossom’s fists clenched and her muscles swelled. A jagged pink aura outlined her skin; the floor shook.

She felt the gentle brush of her sister’s hand on her back. Then, the cheerful ding of the security lock releasing. “Welcome back, Bubbles!” Without looking back, she descended into the lab, activating the X-Limiter on her wrist.

Blossom grunted, arms shaking as she struggled to lower the dumbbell. Sweat streamed down her face, stinging her eyes and loosening her grip on the bar. Her hands ached and arms throbbed, breath catching in her throat when the weight landed on her chest. With a grunt, she ground her hips into the bench and shoved with all her remaining strength.

The bar made it a few inches before her arms gave out and it came tumbling toward her face. It stopped an inch away from her nose.

“Woah! Careful, honey! You know, you should really have a spotter.” The Professor said with a sigh, lifting the dumbbell back to the rack and handing Blossom a towel.

“Th-thanks, Dad.” Blossom groaned, sitting up and immediately doubling over. Her arms hung limp at her sides, mouth hanging open in gasping breaths. With some effort, she brought her hand to her arm, deactivating her X-Limiter. Immediate relief flooded her body. Her breathing settled and her aches faded in a flood of Chemical X.

“Is everything okay, Blossom?”

“I’m fine…” She insisted between greedy gulps from her water bottle. Discomforted groans melted into satisfied moans as she breathed in, chilling the water to arctic temperatures as it flowed down her throat.

The Professor took a seat beside her. “I heard your argument with your sisters upstairs.” He said nothing else, letting his admission sink into the growing silence between them.

Blossom lowered her water bottle. “Oh…you did?”

He nodded. She sighed.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

“Don’t be, sweetie. It’s only been a week since you suffered a deeply traumatic near death experience. I can’t begin to imagine the sort of stress you must be feeling. But…” He paused. Reaching for her hand, he gave it a firm squeeze. “Your sisters mean well. They’re just worried about you. We all are. And we want the best for you.”

“...I know.”

“Then tell me what’s going on. Buttercup is right, you aren’t acting like yourself. You’re never this reckless or self-destructive. I understand your need to get stronger, but this doesn’t feel like training, Blossom. This feels like you’re punishing yourself.”

Blossom brushed her hair behind her ear, but kept her eyes on her feet. “That’s not it at all, Professor.” From the corner of her eye, she noticed him wince. “Dad, I’m tired of being useless.”

“Why do you feel useless, Blossom? Look at all the good you’ve been doing in Neighborsfield. Think about all that you’ve accomplished in just thirteen years. You’re the leader of the greatest superhero team in the world.” The Professor squeezed her hand and smiled. “You’re so many things, Blossom, but you have never once been useless.”

“We haven’t had an actual fight since that day. But…I’ve known since then, even if I buried it in the back of my mind. I haven’t been useful since then. I ran away to Neighborsfield so I could try to ignore it, but it was always there. Fighting Berserk just dragged the truth out into the open.” Blossom bit her lip and shook her head. “She helped me see that I’d been lying to myself all these years. Saying it wasn’t my fault, that I just couldn’t keep up anymore. That I was just meant to be weak because I wasn’t capable of being as strong as them.”

The Professor frowned. “So that’s why…you’re trying to force the Hardcore state?”

After a moment of hesitation, Blossom nodded. “Remember when we thought it was just a special power that only Bubbles had? She used it so early; we weren’t even a year old. Then when Matromax invaded, she figured out how to turn it on and off whenever she wanted. Suddenly, our baby sister was stronger than both of us put together.”

“But, it was okay because at least Buttercup and I were still equal...then the Final Hazard happened and ever since…” Blossom trailed off, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands. “They don’t need me anymore.”

The screech of the Professor’s chair scraping the floor blocked out Blossom’s soft sobs for a moment. Pulling her into his arms, he held her as tight as his painfully human arms could manage. Her body was like a block of ice. He still hoped his embrace could warm her somehow.

“I’m so sorry, Blossom. I…I never realized you felt this way.” He kissed her head, burying his face in her hair. Her temperature dropped again; his arms wrapped around her tighter. “But, I should have…I spent so much time and attention on your sisters, and I never once stopped to think about what you might be feeling even if you never said anything.”

“It’s not your fault, Dad.”

“No, it is. I should have been a better father to you. I think I’m so used to you being unshakeable, and clever, and independent, that I forget you’re still just a girl. I’m sorry, Blossom.” He kissed her again. “Don’t ever think you’re useless, sweetie. You’ll figure this out and you’ll stop Berserk, just like you did on that day. But, you don’t have to do it alone. We’re all here to help you this time.”

Blossom frowned, wanting to pull away, but unable to find the strength to untangle herself from his hold. “I didn’t do anything. Bubbles saved the world from the Final Hazard, Professor.”

“I think if you asked her, Bubbles would agree with me.”

Much as she wanted to argue, all the fatigue from the day swept over Blossom like a suffocating blanket. Fighting against the pull of sleep, she settled for just shaking her head. Her struggle lasted one, maybe two, minutes. Her eyelids finally fell shut, and her mind raced backward in time.

Back to the day that changed the world.

Back to their greatest challenge.

Back to the Final Hazard.

Chapter Text

PROFESSOR UTONIUM — PERSONAL NOTES
Date: September 3rd, 2005

The Impact of Emotions and Chemical X

After extensive research and testing, it has been determined that the previously unexplained fluctuations in power demonstrated by the Powerpuff Girls—and subsequently all other derivative Chemical X lifeforms—are a result of their emotional state.

These emotional impacts can be separated into three distinct energy categories, as follows:

Dampened
Chemical X Level: 1% to 89%
Associated Emotions:

• Sorrow
• Fear
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Euphoria

In this state, Chemical X production is lowered considerably, resulting in a lower power level with a floor nearing total powerlessness. Some factors, such as healing capabilities, remain at normal levels, but all other powers are reduced.

Neutral
Chemical X Level: 90% to 124%
Associated Emotions:

• Contentment
• Happiness
• Excitement

The standard state for Chemical X lifeforms. At this level, powers operate within normal limitations, with minimal fluctuations.

Heightened
Chemical X Level: 125% to 250%
Associated Emotions:

• Determination
• Anger

An extreme state that results in moderate to colossal increase in Chemical X production. In a Heightened state, all powers are enhanced as much as double their Neutral state maximum. Anger is the stronger of the two triggers, resulting in a higher Chemical X production, but also a lowered cognitive capability.

The Hardcore State — A New Phenomenon

Following the Danger Level 11 Breach (the "Bubblevicious Incident"), a fourth state was discovered:

H.A.R.D.C.O.R.E
Hyper Aggressive Response to Danger Causing an Overwhelming Release of Energy
Chemical X Level: 251% to 500%

Caused by excessive stress, this fourth state is more than just a boost in Chemical X production. It is a complete overload of Chemical X, resulting in increased power levels reaching double the maximum output of the Heightened State. While the Hardcore State provides the maximum amount of potential power, the excessive Chemical X production results in a warped cognition, amplifying negative personality traits such as aggression, impatience, and violence.

Recorded Observations

Bubbles was the first Powerpuff Girl to enter the Hardcore State, doing so during the Danger Level 11 Breach. She later gained enough control to enter and exit the state at will during the Matromax Invasion of 2001.

While Blossom and Buttercup have both demonstrated reaching the upper limit of the Heightened State on multiple occasions, neither has shown the necessary emotional overload needed to trigger "going Hardcore."

Conclusion

As of this report, the Hardcore State is theorized to be a power unique to Bubbles.

— Professor Utonium

Sunday, April 15th, 2006

The city of Townsville, its skyline darkened by an encroaching metal monstrosity. A fortress of impossible size and construction blotted out the sun, casting a mighty shadow upon the world below. But before hope could fade, a light shone in the darkness: a tri-colored rainbow of pink, green, and blue, cutting through the clouds to intercept it.

“Woah, Mojo’s been real fuckin’ busy, huh?” Buttercup said, her words slurring together slightly. She crossed her arms and whistled, tilting her head to try to take in the entire floating fortress.

“Buttercup! Language!” Blossom shook her head and sighed. Truth be told, she was legitimately impressed with their nemesis’s ingenuity this time around. Neither the alien invader from eight years ago, nor Matromax’s armada, could compare.

The fortress was larger than the city, forged from silver-blue duranium that shone darkly in the sunlight. Three towers stood at the North, East, and West ends, with an even grander spiral pillar in the center. An enormous number of cannons — she calculated at least seven hundred forty-two at a glance — lined the perimeter, with the most imposing among them, each the size of one of the simian scientist’s volcano top observatory, attached to the trio of towers. Along the outer edge were numerous thrusters keeping the fortress afloat, emitting pulses of unfamiliar blue energy being fed by a series of glowing wires spreading out from each of the towers.

“Did you see anything down there?” Blossom asked as Bubbles returned from scouting the underside of the fortress.

Her eyes wide, the blue puff nodded furiously. “Like, the entire bottom side is a giant gun! There’s all kinds of glowy, wiry things connected to it. I think he might be charging it.”

“Well, let’s just smash this piece of shit, already.” Buttercup shrugged and prepared to charge at the fortress. A lightning-fast hand stopped her, snatching her ankle and pulling her back.

“No! We’d likely be playing into his trap.” Blossom released Buttercup and scanned the fortress with a closer glance. There were no visible entrances, save for the open gateway on the spiral pillar. True to Bubbles’ description, she could perceive an immense amount of energy gathering in the bottom center of the fortress. She surmised it still wasn’t at full power, but if Mojo felt threatened, he could fire it and still devastate the city below.

“The front door is open. You think he wants to talk it out?” Bubbles asked.

“Not likely. I do agree that he expects us to go inside, though.”

Buttercup laughed. “Seriously? All he does is talk. There’s no way he doesn’t have a big evil speech planned for us.”

“You think he practices in front of a mirror?” Bubbles asked, giggling. She lowered her voice and gesticulated with her hands. “Welcome Powerpuff Girls to the Instrument of your doom! An instrument designed specifically to doom you, and in doing so dooming the world you protect. You shall fall and therefore not be able to save it from certain doom, that is to say, doom that is certain because you shall not stop it!”

Blossom bit her lip to keep from laughing and shook her head. But once glance at the goofy expression on Bubbles’ face was enough to crack her facade. “I think it would be more accurate to say he wants to talk at us, not with us.” She pointed out with a giggle.

“So, we doing this then? Walking right into a trap sounds like a better way to spend the afternoon than writing an essay.” Buttercup fished around in her pocket, taking out a pen and bringing it to her lips. She paused when Blossom stopped her, shaking her head. She raised an eyebrow, but only received another head shake in response. With a shrug, Buttercup slid the pen back in her pocket.

“You know I’ll help you if you just ask.” Blossom took her phone from her hip holster. The lock screen displayed a picture of the three of them and Robin from two weeks ago. Blossom was grinning from ear-to-ear, tears in her eyes as she held up her new bodysuit for the camera. Gazing at Robin’s laughing face, Blossom bit her lip and smiled.

“Blossom? Are we going in?”

“Yeah, just making one last preparation.” Blossom watched the analogue display on her phone closely. The instant the second hand reached the next minute, she nodded and put her phone away. 

12:15:00

12:15:01

12:15:02

“Alright girls, let’s roll!”

The tower itself had little of interest within — the walls sparkled with countless glowing wires that fed from the top of the pillar down to the base, forming a spiderweb beneath their feet that Blossom surmised was feeding into the cannon below — save for three distinct paths leading to each of the heavily fortified towers. 

‘It must be gathering solar power and using it to charge the primary weapon.’ Blossom walked to the center of the room. Her eyes lit up pink, peering through the floor. ‘That is a lot of energy. If he were to fire it now, destroying Townsville would be a best case scenario…once it reaches full power…’

“Where to?” Buttercup rapped her knuckles on the wall. A dull, metallic knock echoed around them. “This shit’s really solid. I was serious about just busting it up before, but this thing would probably take forever to tear apart.”

“Yeah! How in the world did Mojo get this much duranium? Isn’t it supposed to be super rare?” Bubbles floated to the ceiling, slowly twirling, with a grin on her face. “Wow, it’s so pretty!”

“Pretty dangerous, Bubbles. If we give him a chance, or a reason, to fire this thing, stopping it would probably hurt worse than that solar flare.” Blossom walked to the north end of the room and looked back. “I’ll head this way. Bubbles, you go west. Buttercup, east. On my signal, converge on my location and we’ll figure out what to do next.”

“Are you sure we should be splitting up? This place is so big…we’ll be miles apart if something goes wrong.” Bubbles pursed her lips and glanced away. After some consideration, she turned back to Blossom. “Hey Blossy, do you think I should go Hard-”

Blossom shook her head. “No need, Bubbles. We’ll be fine. The fortress being this big just means we won’t have to hold back as much as usual.”

“Wait, seriously?” Buttercup whipped around with a grin on her face. “We can cut loose?”

“We’re going to need to if we’re going to tear through this much duranium. Just keep it confined to the fortress and we should be fine. And try not to damage the structural integrity. If this thing falls out of the sky, it’s more than big enough to crush all of Townsville.” Blossom looked Buttercup in the eye and brought her fingers to her lips as if she were holding a pen. Then she subtly shook her head.

Buttercup’s eyes and grin widened.

“Be careful.” Blossom mouthed silently. Then, she smirked and shrugged her shoulders and added, “Have fun.” Clearing her throat, she turned to address Bubbles and raised her voice. “Alright, girls. Let’s remind Mojo that this airspace is strictly a no parking zone. Be prepared for anything and remember: converge on my location at my signal.”

With a nod, her sisters disappeared down their respective halls. Blossom took a deep breath and took off into hers, leaving behind a pink streak.

12:18:37

12:18:38

12:18:39

‘Bubbles was right, how DID Mojo get this much duranium?’ Blossom wondered as she rocketed down the hall. The entire fortress, every inch, was made of duranium, more than should have even existed on Earth. 

Impossibly durable — capable of withstanding prolonged blows from a Powerpuff girl.

Supernaturally sharp — able to slice through their skin with enough force.

Immensely heat resistant — able to defend against a Starburst Formation without melting.

Duranium was the only material in the world they couldn’t immediately tear through, but as far as Blossom was aware, the Professor had a monopoly on most of the world’s supply. What Mojo normally resorted to was a polyduranium alloy, which was weaker than the pure element when used against the Powerpuff Girls. A duranium mine on this scale couldn’t exist, not on Earth at least.

Despite the fortress’s immense size, there seemed to be no traps or protections beyond the mounted cannons on the outer perimeter. The insides were barren hallways, all lined with the same glowing wires as the spiral pillar.

‘The entire fortress is designed to gather energy and funnel it into the primary cannon. Given the level of energy its already managed to accumulate and the size of the fortress, it’s possible Mojo intends to gather enough energy to threaten the entire planet.’ Blossom steeled her gaze and picked up the pace, breaking the sound barrier and clearing the remaining distance to the Northern Tower.

“Ah, Powerpuff Blossom! So you have at last arrived. I have been expecting you and now you are here, at the place in which you were expected after a prolonged period of waiting for you to arrive! I hope you have-”

She couldn’t resist giggling at Mojo’s voice booming around her the instant she stepped into the tower. The room was massive, and the lights were out, save for the spiderweb of glowing wires that lined the tower. Rather than feeding toward the central pillar, these wires converged on the far wall, forming what resembled a glowing eye. Adjusting her eyes to see in the dark, Blossom spied a nearly identical figure floating across from her.

Brick glared and drifted down to the floor. She followed suit and soon the two were facing each other wordlessly — her hands on her hips; his arms crossed — while Mojo droned on around them.

“-atest invention! The Panic Station! Do you feel it? The anxiety, the fear, the panic settling in your core? Consuming you whole? Does it not make you tremble? Knowing that there is nothing you can do to stop the inevitable? It is unstoppable! It cannot be stopped! Soon, once the station has gathered enough power, I, Mojo Jojo, will lay waste to the entire country, and from the ruins build a new empire! An empire ruled by me, Mojo Jojo, in which there is no Townsville, no resistance, and, certainly, no Powerpuff Girls! Then, shortly thereafter, the display of my absolute might will cow the rest of the nations into subservience. They will-”

Brick pulled his lips back in a snarl. “C’mon, Pops, wrap it up! Are we fighting her or not?”

Mojo paused. Then, with a heavy sigh, continued. “Very well. But, I remind you to watch your tone, young man! There is no need to be rude. It is uncalled for and unnecessary.”

Blossom laughed again and tilted her head. “Really? That’s your plan? Blow up the city-”

“Country.”

“Sorry. Blow up the country and then threaten the rest of the world? I mean, I’ll give you points for execution, but you’re not winning any awards for originality, Mojo.” Blossom turned to Brick. “How exactly did he rope you into this, young man ?” She smirked when Brick glowered back at her.

“Like I need an excuse to beat your ass.” Brick unfolded his arms and took up a fighting stance.

“Brick, language!” Mojo’s voice boomed around them.

The Rowdyruff leader flushed and rolled his eyes, growling when Blossom laughed again. “Keep laughing, Pinky. We’re gonna beat that snotty smirk right off your ugly face.”

“Is that right?” Blossom lowered into a defensive stance, her expression unchanging. “We’ll see about that, young man .”

“Enough chatter! Prepare for your doom, Powerpuff Blossom!”

A mechanical whir joined the hum of the electrical wires, growing in volume to become a low roar that shook the chamber. Fluorescent lights flipped on overhead, flooding the room with sterile light and revealing the form of Mojo’s latest machine. No, not a machine, Blossom realized with a muted flinch. The entire chamber was Mojo’s weapon.

A backlit red glass panel, mounted at the upper center of the back wall and resembling a visor, glared down at her. Behind it, she could make out Mojo’s silhouette at the controls. What she’d formerly described to herself as an eye — the place where the glowing wires converged — was just below the window, centered between a pair of massive mechanical arms with hands large enough to topple buildings. Their malicious fingers clawed at the air, more glowing wires extending from the walls and stretching down the arms.

Quickly scanning the rest of the room, but careful to not let her gaze drift away from Brick for more than a second at a time, she took stock of several laser cannons and rocket launchers mounted along the walls.The chamber alone would have been a challenge, but there was no avoiding the uncomfortable truth of her predicament, especially when it came careening toward her with no warning.

Blossom’s eyes snapped open wide. Her perception accelerated and Brick’s fist slowed to a crawl as it approached her. Ducking to the side, she swung back with a jab that sailed into his open palm. Arm trembling in his grasp, she lunged forward with a flying knee, forcing him to release her hand to block the strike.

But the moment her feet left the ground, Mojo’s machine roared into action. One fist came flying at her, smashing into the floor where she’d once been with a deafening crash. The dust it kicked up had no time to settle before Brick was on her again, driving her into the waiting arms of a barrage of laser blasts fired from the other hand’s fingertips.

‘So that’s their strategy.’ Blossom’s pupils flicked around the room as she bobbed and weaved through Brick’s attacks, throwing back her own while avoiding Mojo’s suppressing fire. Despite the monstrous size of the machine, the father and son duo had either practiced coordinating their attacks or had somehow found themselves on the same wavelength.

Every missile salvo swerved around Brick to zero in on her. Every laser weaved past him at the last minute to nearly strike her dead on. And his assault refused to slow, chasing hot on her heels.

‘Missile strike incoming, right side: 3…2…1…dodge! Left fist, lasers at 10:30. Spin, land, strike! Here he comes.’ Relentless as the machine’s attacks were, Mojo himself lacked the speed or reaction time to mix up his attacks too much. As annoying as he was — and he was exceptionally annoying today — Brick was the real threat.

Their fists met with a thunderous clash. The shockwave released from their collision knocked the incoming rocket salvo out of the air, filling it with a cacophony of blinding explosions. Blossom’s eyes lit up; Brick’s followed suit. Their heat rays met, the combined force sending the pair skidding backward to either side of the room.

‘Almost all of the wires are feeding into the same spot. The centralized location probably means it’s the power core for the entire machine. But…’ Blossom ducked around a kick from her counterpart and fired her heat rays straight into the giant mechanical eye. They slammed into the duranium plating with a fierce explosion, but when the light faded, the metal didn’t seem fazed at all. ‘I might be able to smash it with my fists, but it would take a lot of my strength and a pretty relentless assault to get through. Neither of them are going to give me that opening.’

As if proving her point, Brick raced down the length of one of the massive arms, catching her as she dodged a backhand swipe. His fist narrowly missed her cheek; her heel met its mark on his, sending him flying away, buying her maybe a second of reprieve.

Still moving with the momentum of her kick, Blossom drew in a deep breath, pursed her lips tightly together, and breathed out a condensed beam of ice, spraying the center of the electric eye. Brick refused to give her even a second to layer on the ice, but after driving him back with another clash, she turned and fired another, aiming at the same spot.

“You are wasting your breath, Powerpuff Blossom! You should know well and GOOD!” Mojo punctuated his lecture, clapping the massive hands together where Blossom had just been. He growled after pulling them apart to reveal he’d missed. “Duranium is highly resistant to extreme temperatures! And even if you were to break through it!” Another rocket salvo drowned out the sound of Mojo’s booming voice in a series of explosions. “Do not be so foolish as to think I would leave the core vulnerable. It is capable of holding more energy than the sun itself! You cannot freeze it nor overheat it with your puny powers!”

‘Mojo knows about my ice breath and our heat rays. Of course he’d include a contingency plan against them.’ Blossom shot backward at full speed, arms blurring to deflect a ballistic barrage of punches from the Rowdyruff leader. ‘Rocket salvo, 6:30. 3…2…1…one-half…one-fourth…now!’

Parrying Brick’s fist, Blossom grabbed his shirtsleeve and jerked him forward. At the same time, she leapt into the air, back flipping over an incoming missile. It crashed into Brick; the explosion sent him flying backward. Not enough to hurt, she noted, but just enough to knock him off balance and make him even angrier.

“Quick fucking running, you pathetic pink pussy!” Brick tore through the air with a full-speed punch, so fast he outpaced his own sonic boom, igniting the air around his fist. His eyes widened and his snarl deepened when the back of her hand hit the side of his, knocking it aside and opening him up to a retaliatory punch straight to his face.

“Alliteration! I’m almost proud of you, Brick! Did you stay up all night writing that one?” Blossom shot forward through a shower of laser fire. Twisting her body around, she brought her heel into his chest, striking him like a flying arrow, sending them both flying into the open palm of the machine’s approaching hand. The combined force from the duo was enough to overpower the mechanical arm, smashing it, and Brick into the far wall. “Maybe if you keep at it, you’ll be able to successfully summon a series of serious sentences sans slurs and swears someday.”

“Shut up already!” Brick ripped his way out of the wall.

‘Lasers, circular pattern — clockwise. Incoming overhead smash. Heat rays. Opening in 3..2..1…’ Feet moving as soon as they touched the ground, Blossom danced around the laser fire raining down around her. Kneeling down, she shot into the air, knocking away the machine’s incoming fist and avoiding Brick’s heat rays in the same movement. As she turned to fire another ice beam at the electric eye, she started rubbing her fingers on her right hand together.

Brick met her in the air with another furious assault. Her brow furrowed and, hiding her right hand behind her back, she focused all of her effort on fending him off with her legs. But no matter how many kicks she landed on his head, he kept coming at her with the same intensity as before. What he lacked in skill, he more than made up for with sheer tenacity, she thought with a grimace.

12:38:42

12:38:43

12:38:44

‘I’m never going to get a chance by myself.’ She jumped onto the swinging fist as it came by and used the momentary distraction to spray the eye with more ice. ‘I need to signal the others, but there’s no way they’re going to give me a chance to get through these walls.’ Ducking past Brick, Blossom rushed to the western wall, where she’d smashed the arm previously. To her relief, Brick took the bait and, with a reflexive pirouette, she dodged his attack.

His fist slammed into the wall, shaking the tower. The dent left behind by the arm deepened, darkening as she led a missile salvo into the same spot. Pressing her back up against the wall, she bobbed and weaved between another barrage from Brick.

“Brick! Get her away from the wall! Don’t you see what she’s doing?” Mojo brought one of his massive fists down on the duo, forcing them apart.

‘Of course he’d notice.’ Blossom thought, spraying the eye with another beam of ice. The temperature of the duranium had dropped considerably from repeat focus fire, but not nearly as fast as she’d hoped. Her eyes were hurting from keeping them open; blinking at this point would be disastrous. ‘I just need a second. Maybe if I scream? They’d hear, right?’

Brick was coming toward her from one side. Mojo’s hand was firing its finger lasers from the other, pinning her between them. There was a rocket salvo approaching overhead in a figure-eight pattern. Her tired eyes trembled, visualizing the space between the attacks and searching for an opening.

His fist rapidly approached her face.

Lasers close enough to feel their heat on her skin.

The first missile would reach her in 3…2…1…

Her left hand rose to meet Brick’s fist, but before the blow could land, an earth-shattering wall of sound smashed into the tower. The western wall shattered, explosive sound waves spilling into the room, detonating the airborne missiles.

Despite the pain piercing her brain, Blossom used the distraction to kick Brick aside and duck out of the laser cage. She blinked her eyes several times, peering around the room with blurry vision to find the source of the sound. Bubbles, her clothes singed and skin burning, lay on the ground writhing beneath the combined fury of Him’s acid breath and an assault from Boomer’s electric bat.

“And stay down you dumb bi-” Boomer’s voice cut off in a high-pitched gurgle as Blossom’s fist collided with his throat.

She turned and unleashed an arctic gale of ice breath at Him and the Rowdyruff Boys, forcing them back and giving her a chance to pick Bubbles up from the ground and retreat to the far side of the room.

“You okay, Bubs?” She asked, without taking her eyes off their opponents.

Bubbles nodded and clambered to her feet, wiping a stream of blood from her mouth. “Yeah, I’m fine. Guess I wasn’t expecting Him to be here.”

“Yeah…that definitely complicates things.” Blossom muttered. She turned her attention to the demon and stood up straight. Resting her left hand on her hip — keeping her right hand, fingers still rubbing together, hidden behind her back — she laughed. “You know, Him. If you wanted to set up a play date for the boys, all you had to do was ask. I know you’ve got the Professor’s number.”

Him threw his head back, covering his mouth with a claw and laughing uproariously. “Oh Blossom, sweetie, it’s so cute the way you try to feign confidence. But, you know what they say?” He lowered his voice, eyes glowing venomous green. ”The family who slays together, stays together!”

“Really? That’s the best you can come up with?” Blossom shook her head. “That’s what the newspaper was saying about us when the Professor went through his Powerprof phase. You need new material. You’re getting…” She narrowed her eyes and smirked. “Predictable.”

“And you’re getting on my last nerve!” Brick shouted back. He glanced at Boomer, looking at the bruises and cuts left behind from his fight with Bubbles. Lifting his hand, the two fist bumped and a surge of red energy outlined the blue ruff’s body, instantly healing his wounds. “But hey, if you wanna drag your little crybaby sister into this, we can take out both of you and save us some time.”

“Do not underestimate them, boys. Do not let your guard down, for these pesky Powerpuffs can be particularly persistent when pushed into peril. We must not take them lightly.” Mojo raised the fists of his machine, the palms of the hands pulsing with energy.

“Oh, so that’s where he learned it from.” Blossom remarked with a chuckle.

Him took up a place between the two boys, snapping his claws and glowing with demonic green fire. “It’s cute, right? I hope hearing our harmonious household’s wicked way with wacky words prepares you pitiful, pathetic puffs to perish in pain!”

Blossom blinked and cocked her head. “Wow, he’s really good.”

“Blossom, what are we gonna do? I was having a hard enough time with Him and Boomer. How bad is that thing?” Bubbles asked, gesturing toward Mojo’s machine. She swallowed a nervous lump. “Should…should I go Hardcore, now?”

12:49:45

“I told you before, Bubbles. There’s no need for that.” Blossom flashed her a grin. “Everything is going according to plan. We just need to wait a little bit longer.”

12:49:50

“Oh yeah?” Boomer laid his bat on his shoulder and leaned forward, sneering. “What’re you waiting for, huh? You gotta ‘Win the Fight Now’ package coming from Amazing?”

12:49:58

12:49:49

Blossom’s grin turned dangerous. “Something like that.”

12:50:00

The eastern wall suddenly exploded, duranium shrapnel spraying throughout the chamber. A shimmering sphere of emerald light flew into the room and bounced around like a ping-pong ball. Him shifted into a cloud of red smoke, but the Rowdyruff Boys weren’t so lucky, taking a direct hit when it came crashing into them. The orb popped, dumping Butch and a disheveled Princess Morbucks, her golden armor dented and sparking in several spots, onto the others.

“Am I late?” A boisterous, laughing voice called out through the smoke.

“Actually, your timing could not have been more perfect.” Blossom turned to Buttercup with a knowing glance. The green puff had a crazed, feral look in her eyes and a barely contained manic grin on her face. “Feeling better, Bud?”

“I’m fucking amazing, Red!” Buttercup flew to her sister’s side. “What’s the plan? I wanna start hitting something!”

Hunched over in a fighting position, her knuckles cracking as she clenched and unclenched her fists, Blossom felt a swell of pride that she hadn’t simply charged straight into the fray. Not even a month ago, missing her afternoon dosage would have sent her into an adrenaline frenzy intense enough to level a city block. ‘She’s gotten so much better at controlling her impulses.’

Blossom turned her attention back to the villains. Her expression faltered, changing into a frown as she watched Brick heal Butch and Princess’s wounds. Just one touch and both of them were back in peak fighting form. Glancing at either of her sisters, she noticed Bubbles covered in bruises and burns that, while healing, were severe enough to leave her wincing. Buttercup’s injuries were even more severe, but Blossom could see them healing even more quickly, her healing factor boosted by her adrenaline rush.

‘Overall, they’re in better shape than we are even with Bubbles and Buttercups’ specialized powers. If it were just the Rowdyruff Boys, or just the other three, we’d probably win a war of attrition. But with that much firepower on their side, that new healing power Brick has is going to be problematic.’

“Ooooh, hey! Is this some kind of Beat Alls reunion?” Bubbles asked with a gasp. Her excitement faded as she looked over at the enemy group again. “Aw, but where’s Fuzzy? Didn’t you guys ask him to join you?”

Princess rolled her eyes and sneered. “We don’t need that classless bumpkin’s help. We’ve got something way better than throwing rocks this time.” As she spoke, her hand slid to Butch’s arm, squeezing his massive biceps. The green ruff turned to her with a lopsided grin, one that quickly disappeared when his brother elbowed him in the ribs.

“Focus.”

Bubbles frowned. “Aw, that’s not fair. You still should have invited him. He didn’t leave you for a girl he just met like Mojo.”

“Shut it! That’s enough! Silence! Desist from bringing up that very painful memory!” Mojo’s voice cracked, his voice audible from both the speakers on the machine and from the control room at the top.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! What’s the plan, Red? What’s the plan? I need to hit something. Pleeease let me hit something!” Buttercup clenched her fists until her nails pierced her palms, growing even more wild as blood seeped through her fingers.

Blossom closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them wide. The room came into perfect focus. Her vision sharpened until she could see every particle of dust floating in the air; her hearing intensified until she could hear the blood pumping in their veins and the electricity flowing through Mojo’s machine.

She lowered her voice to a subsonic tone that only her sisters knew to listen for, her lips barely moving when she spoke. “We need to deal with Mojo’s machine first. The amount of weapons it has will prevent us from being able to focus on any of them individually. The two of you engage the others and keep them away from me. I’ll fight Brick until I find my opening. When I give the signal, Bubbles, you lay down a Sonic Suppressor and Buttercup, you keep Butch occupied so he doesn’t stop my attack. I’ll likely only get one shot. Once the machine goes down, I’ll keep the boys busy while you two deal with Him and Princess.”

“Are you sure? I could always just-”

Blossom shook her head. “I can handle them. Him is the biggest threat here, but with the two of you working together, I know you can beat him.”

“...Okey dokey. Got it, Blossy!”

“Alright, let’s do this!” Buttercup threw her head back and roared. Powerful bolts of green energy outlined her body. Lurching forward, she leveled her shining emerald gaze on her counterpart, then rocketed forward with enough speed and strength to leave a small dent in the floor. Her fist came crashing into Butch’s waiting shield, the shockwave caused by their collision sending the debris around them flying.

“You’ve got this, Bubs!”

Bubbles nodded her head, her body glowing just like Buttercup’s, rolling waves of blue energy flowing around her. With one last glance back at Blossom — flashing her a quick grin and a thumbs up — Bubbles charged into the fray, immediately generating a ball of sparkling blue energy in her hand and chucking it at the father-son duo. Boomer knocked it aside with his bat, but the distraction worked well enough for her to get in close and force him back with a powerful sonic clap.

The lines drawn, and the team divided, Blossom turned to Brick for another confrontation. He glared at her and nodded toward her hidden right hand.

“What’re you planning? Calling for backup?”

“No, I just realized I only need one hand to deal with you. It was too easy with both and I was getting bored.” Blossom kept rubbing her fingers together, sparks gathering between them. Lifting her other hand, she gestured for him to come closer. “Don’t tell me that was the best you can do. I thought you were supposed to be a tough guy.”

Brick snarled, steam rising from his head and crimson energy radiating from his body.

“Quick fucking acting like you’re better than me!” Shooting forward at full speed, Brick’s fist sailed past Blossom’s face. His continuing assault came faster and fiercer than before, but much to her relief, his attacks had grown sloppy as his temper got the better of him.

‘Perfect! Just a bit more and we’ll be in business.’ Blossom continued charging her hidden attack, laying into Brick with a flurry of kicks to drive him back. Her knee hit his raised arms, giving her an opportunity to fire another beam of ice at the electric eye.

“You missed again, you dumb bitch!”

“Oops! I guess you’re just such a cute little guy I can’t get my aim right!” Outwardly, Blossom wore her usual cocky smirk, goading Brick toward one of the other groups. Inside, though, she’d realized just how close his attacks were coming to connecting. Even with her enhanced perception, his pace was continuing to increase with every strike.

The suppressing fire from Mojo had, thankfully, become too spread out to pose nearly as much of a threat. Buttercup knocking Butch and Princess around had the added benefit of not only disrupting Mojo’s aim, but also producing a constant onslaught of sonic booms and shockwaves that had rendered the missiles little more than glorified fireworks. He only made the mistake of trying to catch her with one of his giant hands once, losing all of his fingers for the trouble.

“Bubbles! Hypersonic High Five!” Blossom ducked beneath Brick’s heat rays, spraying the eye with more ice, then charged forward at full speed toward her sister. The distance between them disappeared in a fraction of a second, the blue puff turning and swinging her open palm toward her at full strength.

Hers and Blossom’s hands collided with so much force that the air surrounding them burst outward in a devastating explosion. Boomer and Brick were both sent flying from the force, but a quick shift into smoke saved Him from a similar fate. He reformed just in time to see Blossom’s feet coming toward him, swung by Blossom like a club.

After sending the demon flying, the pink puff landed, planted her feet, and gripped her sister’s hand tight. Moving with the momentum she still had, she picked Bubbles up off the ground. With no need to be told, Bubbles curled into a ball to be thrown at full strength into her oncoming counterpart.

“Oh yeah? How bout a homeRUN?” Boomer swung his bat, slicing the air apart with a terrible roar. To his utter disbelief, Bubbles immediately uncurled, twisted around the swing and clobbered him with a flying uppercut that knocked him into Him.

‘Nice, Bubs!’ Blossom pumped her free fist and attacked the eye with another ice beam. When she turned back, she felt a twinge of panic seeing that Brick had healed Boomer and Him, and that the Rowdyruff leader’s fist was a hair’s breadth away from her nose.

Without a second thought, Blossom bent over backwards, her upper body becoming completely parallel with Brick’s. The two traded a glance — his bewilderment clashing with her practiced arrogance. The pink puff continued moving backward, landing on her free hand and throwing a slicing kick that caught Brick in the back and sent him flying straight into Buttercup’s waiting fist.

“Aw yeah! Bring everybody over! Now it’s really getting good!” One punch turned into two, then into six, the green glow on her arms darkening and blurring with every application of her Acceleration power — every hit twice as fast as the one before it. An assault that only ended when Butch dove into its path, holding it back with his straining green shield.

Princess rose from the floor, half her armor missing, and raised a cannon on her arm. “Die already, you freak!” The barrel of her hand cannon sparked, but a stream of ice froze her arm and halted the blast before it could release. She whipped around to face Blossom, her face red with streaks of blood and overwhelming fury. “Look at you acting all high and mighty after turning your psycho sister loose! Who’s the real monster here?”

“Uh, you?” Blossom closed in on Princess, bringing her hand down to slice the cannon from her arm. Her eyes widened, catching sight of something approaching from the corner of her eye. She dove backward, narrowly avoiding Butch’s massive fist encased in a miniature jade energy shell.

The shell quickly expanded, covering his and Princess’s bodies, holding back a storm of attacks from Buttercup, her frenzied laughter drowning out the chaos unfolding around them.

“These punks are mine, Red!” She spat, knocking Butch backward with a monstrous kick. She reached out and grabbed Blossom’s wrist. Tingling heat shot up her arm, accelerating her entire body. “You deal with that loser!” Then, with a grunt, she spun Blossom around and hurled her at Brick.

Blossom’s knee crashed into Brick’s chin several seconds before the sonic boom in her wake caught up to them. Driving him into the ground, she sat up and fired a prolonged stream of ice at the electric eye. As the frost thickened, she glimpsed what she’d been waiting for: a thin crack, barely wider than a strand of hair, forming in the center.

‘Finally! Now I just need to — woah!’ Blossom leaped backward, her bangs fraying as Brick’s hand sliced through them. Time slowed as their eyes met. Blossom’s pupils flickered left and right. Her sisters were in the proper positions. She just needed to create the opening. ‘Gotta bait him into not stopping me.’

Spreading her feet, Blossom clenched her fist and began pouring heat into her eyes, pupils burning until the world around her turned a fearsome shade of crimson. Hyperactive sparkles of rose light radiated along her skin, outlining her body and shaking the chamber. Deeper, deeper, and deeper still, she drew on all the power she could muster, pouring it into her glare.

‘C’mon…c’mon…’ Her snarl became a toothy grin when she saw Brick following suit. She tightened every muscle in her body, digging her heels into the ground, and summoned even more strength. The crimson tint turned pink, super-heating until she could feel her eyes boiling and skin burning. Drawing in a shallow breath, she screamed and unleashed her heat rays at their absolute zenith.

Brick roared back and unleashed his beams at the same time. The room darkened with clashing shades of pink and red, their sheer force scorching the floor and incinerating the debris and shrapnel in their path. Then, just as they were about to clash, Blossom tilted her head.

The red rays blew past her head, searing her skin and igniting a few stray hairs. But, more importantly, the pink rays zoomed past Brick and collided with the super chilled center of the electric eye. When the frozen surface met the blazing light, the air ignited, releasing an explosion that shook the entire fortress and sent everyone — friend and foe — tumbling.

“SONIC SUPPRESSOR!” Blossom’s voice rang out over the ringing in everyone’s ears and the fading roar of the explosion. Before the words could even finish leaving her lips, Bubbles’ mouth fell open and an outburst that could only be described as absolute sound came screaming from within her. So loud, so shrill that the fortress — perhaps the entire world — shook as if it were coming apart. Endless shockwaves, so intense that they tore up the duranium plating from the floor and turned it to dust, erupted from the blue puff in an endless deluge. 

And through the pain and unbearable ringing in her head, Buttercup sprang into action, concentrating all the jagged, volatile energy in her body into her fists and laying into Butch’s trembling shield with all of her fury. Her relentless assault, a machine-gun burst fire of intercontinental warheads, cranked the cacophony up to eleven.

The Panic Station was shaking, tearing apart at the seams, from the combined efforts of the Powerpuff Girls. So great was their wrath that no one noticed Blossom moving until it was already too late. Brick lifted his head, hands cupped over his bleeding ears, eyes widening at the sight of her passing over him.

Her right arm outstretched. Lightning crackling around her pointed fingers.

For a single instant, the room went silent with a blinding flash of light. Then came a clap of thunder that silenced the chaos. When the light faded, the chamber fell silent. The arms of Mojo’s machine hung limp on the floor; the glass panel lie shattered. And most of the back wall was now gone, reduced to a gaping hole large enough to fly a plane through.

But before the dust could settle, a pink streak burst through the wreckage, fist slamming into Boomer’s face as he struggled to climb to his feet. Blossom followed through with the punch, grabbing Boomer’s head, bringing her knee crashing into his nose.

“AH! What the hell!? Why are you attacking me?” The blue ruff shook the cobwebs from his brain and swung back with a sloppy hook.

Blossom easily deflected his attack, striking him in the throat again. “We’re fighting, aren’t we? Or are you too stupid to remember the last five minutes?” She spun on her heel, kicking him aside and using the momentum to turn around. Sprinting at full speed — light and sound struggling to keep pace with her — she slipped past Buttercup and clashed against Butch’s shield with a series of rapid-fire kicks.

‘Incoming 4:21. Brick is back up. Boomer inbound. Shield dropping in 3…2…’ Blossom jumped back, unleashing a gale of ice as soon as Butch lowered his shield to strike back. He quickly hid behind his impenetrable defense once again, but her trap succeeded.

As her sisters raced off to put down the devil himself, his unheavenly creations gathered around the Powerpuff leader. 

Pissed off. 

Ready to fight.

Right where she wanted them.

“I dunno what sort of B.S. you’ve got planned, Pinky, but it ain’t gonna work out for you.” Brick growled, socking Boomer in the shoulder and healing him back to full.

Blossom closed her eyes for a second, filled her lungs with a refreshing, arctic breeze, and opened them for the final showdown. She used her enhanced perception to take quick stock of the situation. Mojo was nowhere to be seen. Princess lay unconscious behind Butch, her armor devastated from her fight with Buttercup. Her sisters forced Him onto the defensive, his body twisting into a more sinister shape to combat their combined assault. Striking her typical, arrogant pose — hands on her hips, glaring down her nose at the three of them as they circled her — she laughed at him.

“I’m not so sure. So far everything has worked out exactly how I wanted.”

“You really think you can take all of us?” Butch asked. He lowered his shield and cracked his knuckles. The bruises Buttercup left on him vanished in a pulse of red when Brick’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“And she says I’m the dumb one.” Boomer said with a laugh. “You’re, like, the weakest Powerpuff Girl. We ain’t scared of you.”

Blossom’s gaze sharpened, the corner of her smirk twitching. The once refreshing cold in her lungs dropped several degrees, filling her with frosty determination.

“Last I checked, your brother hasn’t managed to land a single hit on me yet. None of you have.” Clenching her fists, her body erupted with hyperactive, sparkling rose energy. “I’d say I’m more than enough to beat a bunch of losers like you. Or do you need Daddy to come help you with his magic again?”

Boomer snarled; Butch glared. The two turned to Brick, their brother’s cheeks red and face steaming. His fists trembled at his sides, eyes unblinking, staring into her unwavering gaze.

“Let’s crush this bitch, boys.” Like a switch flipping, the Rowdyruff Boys erupted with violent Chemical X light. Then, with a unified battle cry, they charged.

Blossom’s eyes opened wide, her stance widening and her arms moving into a defensive stance. Time slowed, dust particles froze in the air, light reflecting off the fractured duranium crawled toward her eyes. Every muscle twitch, every shift of weight, every flicker of their eyes. 

She could see everything.

The first blow slid past her tilted head. The next crashed into her upraised knee. Moving with the momentum from the second, she dodged the third, arm launching forward to catch Butch in the chin and drive him back a step. The air crackled. Ozone reached her nose. Shifting her foot back, she turned to avoid a downward swipe of Boomer’s bat, retaliating with a spinning roundhouse kick that caught his shoulder and stopped Brick’s charge at the same time.

‘Downward slam. Pivot left, bounce right. Swing: once, twice, thrice, dodge and strike. Heat rays charging — counter and lose the beam struggle to build distance.’

It wasn’t enough to see their incoming attacks, not when every movement continuously pushed further and further beyond the speed of sound, then past the speed of lightning. Her thoughts raced ahead even faster, outlining every possible outcome, sculpting a visual she followed with absolute confidence.

Butch favored big, heavy swings, while prioritizing using his shield to deflect and defend against retaliatory strikes. Fast, but not as fast as the others. She needed to be aggressive, ducking inside his range and striking before he could.

Conversely, Boomer had neither rhyme nor reason to his attacks. But, what he clearly lacked in creativity, he more than made up for with skill. His bat was the biggest threat: quicker than quick, striking with irritating precision, and never from an angle that made sense. The best option was to counterattack: he always left himself wide open after every hit.

The others were still in peak form, but Brick already showed signs of wear and tear. His healing power only affected others — likely drawing on his own energy to replenish theirs. He knew her better than they did, so he kept his distance, peppering her with heat rays and only striking when he thought he could catch her off guard.

He needed to be her primary target. As long as he kept healing, she had no win condition.

Blossom bent backward to avoid a horizontal swipe from Boomer and came up breathing a hurricane of ice breath straight into his face. Heat rays separated the two of them; a heavy fist whizzed over her head. Rising from her duck, she landed a fierce uppercut that knocked Butch off his feet, following with a sonic scream to bring Brick screeching to a halt.

While he stood staggered, she launched at him with a three hit-rush. She meant to press the attack, but sensing Butch coming up behind to intercept, she held her arms out, melting into a puddle of water and passing safely through the charging green ruff.

“What the—oof!”

“Watch it dumbshit!” Brick shoved his brother out of the way, watching with wide-eyed bewilderment as Blossom’s body reformed. “What the hell!?” He shouted, charging at her with a brutal straight.

Blossom’s feet hit the ground. Her ears perked up, hearing a whistling sound approaching from behind. Raising her hand, she knocked aside Brick’s fist, then — using a move the girls called the Penny Pincher — her hand flew backward to catch Boomer’s. She wasted no time, using his hand as leverage to lift off the ground and spin around, landing another heel to the side of his head.

‘They’re already recovering. Need to slow them down.’ Blossom clenched her fist, gathering a handful of blazing red energy. Her feet hit the ground, followed by her fist. A shockwave raced through the floor, splitting it into a jagged line of splintered duranium spikes. 

The attack stopped Butch and Brick’s charge, but not their attack. The pair thrust their hands out, unleashing beams of their respective energy signatures. From the corner of her eye, she noticed Boomer firing one as well.

Blossom tumbled backward, drawing in her knees and spinning around at full speed. A sparkling sphere of pink energy encased her body just in time to deflect the incoming energy beams. While maintaining her spin, her body vibrated, vanishing entirely within a second.

“Where’d she GAH!”

Blossom reappeared next to Boomer with a haymaker already in motion. Then, with a snort, she fired an Atomic Snot Rocket at Butch and Brick. The explosion shook the broken chamber and drove the boys apart, giving her an opening.

‘Focus on Brick. Boomer’ll be back soon, but has to regenerate his bat. Butch has a delay when lowering his shield. Three hits? Maybe four. Make it count!’ Tearing through the smoke, Blossom brought her fist down on Brick’s head, following up with another pair of strikes. She felt the air crackling nearby and shrunk down, reducing herself to a microscopic size for a split second to avoid Boomer’s attack, before growing back to her full height and using the momentum to land a crushing blow on the Rowdyruff leader’s middle.

‘Gotta get some distance. Time to-’ Her thoughts cut off abruptly as Brick’s hand came crashing down on her wrist, gripping it until she felt her bones crunch. Despite looking dazed, he wore a malicious grin.

“Gotcha! Get her boys!”

“Copycat!”

“Copywhat?! What the FU-” Blossom’s free fist crashed into Brick’s face, knocking his hat from his head. At the same time, another Blossom raced to the left, ducking under Boomer’s bat and landing yet another heel to the side of his head. To her right, a third Blossom ducked beneath Butch’s attempt to grapple the original, pummeling his torso with a quick series of jabs, falling back to shoot forward with a raised heel kick that sent him flying.

‘I didn’t want to do this. But I don’t have a choice! I need to deal with Brick now!’

Copycat. One of the girl’s most powerful techniques, but also one of the most difficult to use properly. While the clones maintained their full strength and speed, they lacked durability and fell to any sufficient amount of force. Even Bubbles, with her endless supply of energy, could only stomach maintaining a single clone for minutes at a time.

But minutes were all Blossom had left, and, hopefully, all she needed.

“Where the hell are all of these powers coming from!?” Brick snarled, arms pumping like pistons, trying to land a single blow on his counterpart. With every hit he missed, another landed on his left side. One turned to two, then four, then eight. But, no matter how many times she struck him, Brick refused to slow down in the slightest.

‘Just need to hold out a little longer. Bubbles and Buttercup can win this.’ The world around Blossom lurched, her body jerking as the toll to maintain Copycat weighed on her. Ducking backward, she avoided getting hit, but knew her time had run out. ‘Need something big, something crazy. What would Buttercup do here?’

Blossom’s face lit up with a grin. She clenched her fists, briefly engulfing her body in pink flames to drive Brick back a step. Then she shot backward. At the same time, her Copycats did the same to drive off his brothers. The trio of Blossom’s reunited in the air and, with the last of their strength, thrust their hands out and shouted in unison: “STARBURST FORMATION!”

Pink beams erupted from their palms, converged into a single point, and erupted as a massive ray of light aimed right at the Rowdyruff leader. True to her prediction, Butch was quick to dive in and defend his brother, his jade shield struggling to hold back the combined might of the three Blossoms. 

‘Just a bit more!’ With one last battle cry, Blossom unleashed all the energy she could muster. Cracks formed in Butch’s shield; its shining surface dimmed, and then…with a silent explosion, it popped and the ray of light consumed him.

“Did I get them?” Blossom muttered, gasping to catch her breath. She scanned the battleground for the fallen Rowdyruff Boys, but with the brief lapse in the chaos, she noticed a sound that sent a chill down her spine.

Turning, she saw her sisters pinned to the ground, screaming and writhing in pain beneath a combined assault of Him’s acid breath, a recently recovered Princess firing a familiar orange blast from her remaining hand cannon, and a crimson beam from a death ray wielded by Mojo, perched atop one of the fallen mechanical arms.

“Girls! Don’t worry, I can-” Her vision turned blinding white, electricity coursing through her back. Falling, a knee caught her chin and knocked her backward. Another electric crash hit her side. Then, her vision cleared just long enough to see a massive, jade-encased fist careening toward her. All she could do was watch helplessly as it hit her chest and splattered her against the ground.

Pain. 

Throbbing. Blistering. Electric. Crushing.

From every angle. Hitting every inch of her body. She couldn’t dodge, she couldn’t fight back. Even struggling with all her might, the best she could do was bring her arms in to protect her face, leaving her body completely open to their ballistic barrage.

Over. Pain

And Over. Pain!

And Over. Pain!!

Again. Pain!!!

Again. Pain!!!!

And Again. PAIN!!!!

Faintly, through the suffocating haze threatening to drag her into the darkness, Blossom heard a sound. Not a scream, nor a shout. Not even a roar.

Something fiercer. 

Stronger.

Harder.

Her ears still ringing from the overwhelming sound, Blossom’s eyes cracked open. Vision blurred, bloodied, barely in focus. Someone touched her, and she flinched. But they weren’t the heavy hands that had put her in her current state. They were soft and soothing, massaging her bruised arm and side.

“-ssy…ear me? Blos…ake up! Please…up! Wake up, Blossy!”

Blossom sat up with a gasp, immediately doubling over to cough up blood. Her body ached, bones grinding with every move she made. She could feel them snapping back into place, burning as the fractures and splinters sewed together. Wiping the blood from her face, she raised her head toward her savior.

“Bubbles?”

Her sister greeted her with a relieved sigh and a smile — one that Blossom immediately noticed was trembling and uncertain. Bubbles was shaking.

“What’s…” Her words trailed off, her vision coming into focus. Just over the blue puff’s shoulder, she could see the wreckage of her fight with the Beat Alls. 

Princess lay halfway buried in a pile of her own armor and shattered duranium. Her hand cannon was crushed like a soda can; the arm that wielded it had been similarly broken. Far more surprising was the sight of Him lying unmoving nearby. Broken. Beaten. Limbs twisted into angles that were impossible even for his flexibility.

“Bubbles, what’s going—” Something crashed into the ground next to Blossom, startling a scream from both Utonium sisters. The Powerpuff leader’s eyes grew wide, trembling with fear at the gaping hole left in the floor of the Panic Station. Leaning forward, her breath caught in her throat. The hole tore all the way through. Miles and miles of duranium, ripped apart by the disappearing red sparkle that was Brick’s body. It sailed through the clouds and crashed into the city below, tearing through every building in his path and leaving behind a trail of dust and smoke they could see even without their super vision.

Another Rowdyuff comet, this one navy blue, crashed into what remained of the western wall, tearing through it like paper mache. Following the lingering blue streak to its source, Blossom’s heart dropped into her stomach.

Floating high above the chamber, a storm of volatile green energy swirled around the fading remains of a formerly impenetrable jade shell. The figure within glanced back over her shoulder. 

Her eyes and Blossom’s met. 

A smile stretched across the length of her face.

The blazing emerald star came crashing into the ground, shaking the fortress and kicking up a cloud of silver-blue metal dust. A chillingly familiar laugh rang out and the jagged energy roared to life, blowing it away. There, at the heart of the storm, was Buttercup.

Her eyes wild, overflowing with power.

Her grin devoid of the last threads of control.

Beyond manic. Beyond feral.

She was  H a r d c o r e  now.

“There you are! You’re finally awake!” Buttercup threw her head back and laughed, tossing Butch to the ground and dusting the blood off her hands. “I knew these worthless losers couldn’t actually beat you!”

“B-Buttercup? Wh-what are you…you’re…” Blossom flinched as the crackling energy around Buttercup swelled, threatening to push her back. Bubbles’ arm around her shoulders was the only thing keeping her steady.

“Isn’t this fucked? All of this power, but nothing to use it on!” The green puff spat toward the fallen Beat Alls. “Those chumps were all talk. Evilest of Evil, my ass! He was just another punching bag. And these losers…heh.” Buttercup kicked Butch in the side, but the fallen ruff was too battered to even react. “Can you believe we used to be like: Oh no! It’s the Rowdyruff Boys! They’re just as strong as we are!” She laughed again and stomped on Butch’s back, driving him deeper into the floor. “What a joke. You know what I figured out just now?”

She turned to face Blossom; her grin pulling back even wider, burning eyes locked with hers.

Blossom climbed to her feet, holding Buttercup’s gaze and shrugging off Bubbles’ help. Her fists clenched and unclenched, willing her bones to mend quicker.

“What is it, Bud?”

“No one is as strong as we are. ” Standing upright, Buttercup thrust her finger toward them. “I need action. I need to punch. I need a real fight. And that’s why it’s gotta be you. It was always gonna be you, Red. No one else in the world is even half as fun to fight as you are.”

“Buttercup, we need to go after Mojo. He’s going to fire the-”

“Stay out of this, Bubbles! I ain’t talking to you!” Buttercup brushed the blood from her face with the back of her hand. “Who gives a shit about Mojo or the city? He’s boring; they’re boring. You told me to cut loose, said I could have fun. So fight me, Bloss. Give me something no one else in the entire world can!”

“This isn’t you, Buttercup! I know what it feels like going Hardcore for the first time! You’ve got all these feelings pumping through your brain and they’re all so dark, and strong, and heavy, and it just feels like you have to listen. But, you don’t! Let’s stop Mojo and then you and Blossom can-” A stream of searing heat raced past Bubbles’ face, grazing her cheek and turning the wall behind her into slag.

“Boring! I don’t give a shit about stopping Mojo! I’ve never felt this alive, this free! This isn’t some fucked up version, this is the real me! And I’m not giving it up. Not without a real, honest to fuck, fight!” She turned back to Blossom with something resembling hopefulness behind her crazed expression. “You get it, don’t you, Red? You understand what it’s like to be so fucking bored all the time. Like you’re always holding back, always standing still because no one can keep up. Like everyone and everything else is just so fucking slow, and weak, and normal, and BORING!”

Blossom frowned and averted her gaze. Her racing thoughts. Her overwhelming senses. How every pattern, every movement, every bit of conversation played out in her head before it could complete. The awful truth was that she truly knew how Buttercup felt.

She’d never felt more alone than she had in the last year. More restless. More…Not until today, when the opportunity to orchestrate a solo fight against the Rowdyruff Boys appeared before her. It wasn’t the plan with the best chance of victory. It wasn’t the best she could come up with.

She chose it because it sounded fun. Because she wanted to see if she could do it.

Because any other plan — any better plan — would have just been so…

“Bubbles, go after Mojo.”

“What?! Blossy, you can’t be serious! Let me go Hardcore. I can keep her busy while you save the world! Then we’ll stop her together.” Bubbles recoiled when Blossom shook her head.

“I…” Blossom licked her lips and released a frozen breath. “I need this, Bubbles. I need to fight her, even more than she needs to fight me.”

“Blossom…”

The pink puff’s arm tensed when her sister touched it with her gentle hands. It shook even more — excitement? Dread? Did it even matter? — when she pulled away.

“Okay. I trust you, Blossy.” Bubbles raised her fist and offered Blossom a tiny smile. “Give her one for me, okay?”

Blossom nodded and watched Bubbles race off toward the central spiral. Then, satisfied that they have any more interruptions, she turned back to Buttercup with eyes narrowed and a smirk on her face.

“I’m not going to make it easy for you, you know.” She said, sinking into an airtight stance.

Buttercup’s grin somehow grew even wider as she lowered into a matching pose. “Oh, you better fucking not. I told you, I want a real fight. The type of fight ONLY YOU CAN GIVE ME!”

The first hit came faster than sight or sound. By pure instinct alone, Blossom knew to lean to the right and bring up her fist to deflect the incoming attack. But when her hand struck Buttercup’s arm, it took far more effort than she ever thought possible to inch it to the side, just enough to graze her cheek. Green eyes met pink. Neither blinked, and both were gone.

Mojo’s duranium labyrinth melted into a blur. Walls, floors, and ceilings turning to shrapnel in the wake of the Utonium sisters’ struggle. Before Blossom caught her first breath, they were miles away from where the fight started. Dipping, diving, and ducking around an increasingly frantic barrage of blows through a graveyard of razors and busted machinery that had once been the Eastern Tower.

Every missed blow brought a shockwave with it, twisting unbreakable metal structures into scrap metal. A spinning roundhouse kick cleaved a cannon the size of Mojo’s observatory in half. Their bodies, moving at speeds that defied classification, were like meteors, ripping and tearing through anything and everything in their path. By her second breath, they’d reduced the Western Tower to slag with the repeated clashing of their fists.

‘She’s too fast, I can’t do anything except defend myself!’ In the back of her mind, Blossom searched frantically for a strategy of any kind that could overcome her sister’s overwhelming force. Her thoughts outpaced their bodies, drawing on the intimate knowledge she had of Buttercup’s fighting style to stay on even ground.

But they weren’t fighting on even ground, she realized as Buttercup’s storm of power caused the sweat near her eyes to sizzle. Each punch Buttercup threw was faster and heavier than the last. With every second that passed, she grew stronger and faster, while Blossom’s body, still reeling from nearly an hour of continuously pushing her limits, fought to keep up.

She had no energy left for any fancy maneuvers. No time to whip out any esoteric techniques to buy herself breathing room. Even if she tried, Buttercup knew her just as well as the reverse. She’d expect Blossom to try something clever and shut it down with a display of absolute power.

Distantly, she felt the fortress shaking around them. More duranium than the world could have ever produced, and in just a few short minutes, they’d reduced most of it to debris.

“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon! I know that’s not all you’ve got! Hit me! Hit me!” Buttercup wound back for a haymaker, leaving herself open.

Blossom seized the opportunity and ducked forward beneath her sloppy strike, landing a hit with every ounce of her weight and strength put into it. The blow rang out like a nuclear detonation, incinerating the space surrounding them and sending Buttercup flying backward. The Powerpuff lead gave chase, winding up for a follow-through, but immediately found herself staring into her reflection in the depths of a pair of wild emerald eyes.

“Now that’s what I’m talkin about!” Buttercup shouted, tanking another blow to her chin and coming back for more. Her knuckles sliced Blossom’s other cheek open, leaving her vulnerable to a third strike. “Keep it coming! Harder! Harder! Make me work for it!”

‘Gah! It doesn’t matter how hard I hit her, she can’t feel any of it!’ Blossom refused to lose her advantage, flying over a brutal swing and retaliating with a combination of kicks to Buttercup’s head. She’d broken out of her Acceleration Flurry, forcing Buttercup to build speed again. But she knew, as yet another clean strike failed to slow her down, that her advantage was fleeting at best.

Powered Fury: Buttercup’s biological specialization. 

The double-edged ability she developed after going through puberty, and the counterpart to Blossom’s Hyper Thoughts and Bubbles’ Rolling Battery. Her adrenaline evolved, amplified to ultra-super proportions by Chemical X. It caused her to grow stronger, faster, and made her virtually impervious to pain, while also robbing her of control and reasoning as she slipped deeper and deeper into an adrenaline frenzy at the slightest bit of stimulation. An effect so easily triggered she had to take a special medicine every three hours to suppress the effect.

‘This is all my fault.’ Blossom raised her arm to deflect another blow, but the mere impact of it grazing her arm caused her bones to grind and skin to bruise and rip. Just a glancing blow, but the pain it sent surging through her body slowed her just enough to nearly eat another. A shockwave sliced the corner of her eye, spilling blood into her vision. Despite the burning sting, she refused to blink.

Blinking now, losing her enhanced perception, would mean certain defeat.

‘I just wanted her to have some fun. This is all my fault. All of this is my fault! Why am I so stupid?!’ Every stray thought, any thought at all except her next move, slowed her down, bringing Buttercup’s earth-shattering fists a micrometer closer to finishing her.

She couldn’t survive a direct hit, but neither could she win if she stayed on defense.

All of this destruction, her sister’s insanity, was her fault. If she didn’t take the risk necessary to stop it, who would? Buttercup said it herself: it had to be her.

She had to be her sister’s keeper.

Blossom brought both hands to her chest and swung them outward, batting aside Buttercup’s fists. She felt her bones crack and white-hot pain engulf her arms, but forced her eyes open all the way and focused her thoughts into a single point.

Sound, light, and time itself stood still.

For one endless moment, the world stopped revolving. 

‘Bruising most severe near her right temple. Swelling along her collarbone. Knuckles busted on both, but healing quickly. Eyes bloodshot, not blinking. Right eye is mostly swollen shut. Minuscule twitches coming from her left side, possible fractured hip or punctured lung. She’s going to lead with a left hook, followed by a right knee, then try to start another flurry once I’m pushed back.’ Buttercup may not have been able to feel pain, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be hurt. Enough focus-fire, enough pressure…

‘Won’t get another chance. Need to end this now.’ Blossom’s eyes trembled. She ran through every possibility, every sparring match, every pattern in Buttercup’s fighting history, mapping out the exact sequence of events that would follow. Like phantoms surrounding her, she saw every move as it would most likely play out.

She drew in a deep breath.

Then blinked and forced her eyes open again.

Dodging the incoming left hook and rising knee, her fist magnetized to Buttercup’s right temple. She tilted her head and spun her body, bringing her knee up into her left hip, then flew back to avoid the incoming flurry.

Again, and again, and again, she moved with purpose and determination, striking those two spots between every incoming hypersonic strike. Weaving between phantoms, mapping out more in the back of her mind. Pressing harder, faster, over, and over again.

A heel to the temple staggered the green puff for half a second. 

A vicious jab to her hip caused her to cough out a stream of blood.

Another hit drove her back an inch. Buttercup’s attacks grew faster, but sloppier. Her breathing hitched. The storm of energy rampaging around her flickered.

The phantoms were thinning.

Blossom’s heart raced, her blood pumped as though she were the one filled with electricity. All of her pain, her stress, her anxiety felt miles away. All there was, all that existed, were their clashing fists and the faint spark of victory growing brighter with every blow that met its mark.

A dizzying haymaker soared past her face, splitting the tip of her nose, and the sea of duranium beneath them, but otherwise missing. Blossom drew her arm back, concentrating all that remained of her sparkling rose energy into her fist. Her eyes and Buttercup’s met. She knew — they both knew — that she had won.

Lunging forward for her final attack…Blossom’s breath ran out and her broken body gave in. 

Her attack missed. 

Buttercup’s didn’t, and the world went black.

“...ssom? Blossom? Wake up! Blossom, wake up!”

With a gasp, Blossom’s eyes snapped open. Boiling rain poured down from heavy dark clouds overhead, sizzling as they hit her. Every inch of her body ached, her skin ripped apart by the duranium wreckage in which she’d landed. A breathless scream caught in her throat when she tried to sit up. Her vision clouded by red, she turned toward the voice.

“Agent…Honeydew? What are you…what’s going on?” Realization came crashing into her, smashing through the fog clouding her brain like a runaway train, tires screeching, trying in vain to brake before it ran off the tracks. “Where…where’s Buttercup?”

“Blossom, what happened here? Why is Buttercup fighting Bubbles?”

Fighting…Bubbles?

“No…no, no, no, no, no…” Blossom struggled to her feet, her voice cracking with every gasping breath she forced down. Her surroundings were a blur, a watercolor painting of running shades of red. But through the stream of blood and clouded darkness, she could make out the destruction left in the wake of her failure.

The Panic Station had crashed just off the south-western coast of Townsville. Half of its monstrous form lie sinking beneath Townsville Bay, while what remained formed a crumbling metal crag, twisted pillars rising above the churning waves like fangs. Nothing remained of its colossal towers, their mounted cannons, or the central pillar. 

To the east, she saw the city itself, battered and bruised like its heroines, but somehow still standing. Smoke wafted through their air, whipped into a swirling cloud by the shrieking winds of the storm raging overhead. Peering further east, across the Citiesville bridge, she saw with growing horror that the destruction hadn’t been contained to Townsville.

A mile-deep scar ran down the main street of Citiesville, cleaving the metropolis in half as if struck by a massive blade from above. To her meager relief, it was the only direct damage the city sustained, but that alone had Townsville’s seedy neighbor in a panic, first responders racing through the broken streets to minimize the damage as buildings along the stretch collapsed and spilled into the newly carved canyon.

“How long have I been out?” She asked no one in particular, startled when Honeydew answered.

“This has been going on for over an hour now. It’s not just Townsville, Blossom.” She slid to her feet and laid a firm, but comforting, hand on her shoulder. “Global Security normally stays out of your affairs here in Townsville. We’re frankly not equipped to deal with the sort of threats you girls are, but we couldn’t just ignore this.”

She lowered her voice. The hint of comfort she’d offered mere moments ago gave way to chilly professionalism. “Blossom, what is going on? Your sisters are fighting and it’s…the effect is catastrophic. We’ve only been able to stem the bleeding, but if this continues-”

“I’ll fix this.” The words flew from her mouth. Her body shook; her eyes refused to blink. “I’ll…I’ll fix this. I promise, I’ll fix this.” She offered no further reassurance, nor did she waste any more time waiting for a response. With a slight bend of her knees, Blossom shot into the sky, shooting through the heavy black clouds and into the sunlight above.

Her heart sank. A nightmare played out in every direction she looked.

Storms, some of them even bigger than the one above Townsville, raged at every corner of the globe, spitting lightning and pouring down boiling rain. Above the roar of thunder, an endless symphony of destruction shook the very planet like an infinite number of bombs, all going off at once, a booming chorus that could be felt and heard without superpowered senses. It took several seconds for her to spot them, their bodies clashing at speeds that redefined the very concept of speed.

Like stars pulled down from the heavens, a duo of bursting emerald and flowing sapphire lights circled the Earth. With every collision, their fists detonated with the force of a thermonuclear bomb, unleashing shockwaves that sent towering tsunamis in every direction, crashing into every shore. The air, super-heated by their constant motion, formed fiery contrails in their wake, whipped into blazing green and blue tornadoes.

While she’d slept, the world sped towards total annihilation. And all of it was her fault.

“I can fix this. I c-can…I can fix this.”

Blossom sucked in a chestful of cold air and held her breath. Her vision focused and locked onto her sisters. Bubbles had unleashed her full power, rolling waves of blinding blue light pouring off her like an endless ocean. Her once soft and gentle eyes turned harsh and vicious, her lips pulled back in a wholly uncharacteristic growl. Blood, dirt, and bruises caked her skin, but not even broken bones slowed her assault. While she lacked that skill or finesse to overcome Buttercup’s undefeatable force, she met her sister’s fury with limitless tenacity.

Rolling Battery. An evolution of her body’s natural sugar storage, activating every ounce all at once, all the time, and supercharging it with Chemical X to grant her endless amounts of energy. There was no pain or injury too great to force her to stop. As long as she needed to keep fighting, Bubbles would never back down.

Not until the both of them were…

Buttercup no longer wore a crazed smile. All the manic joy and chaotic delight from earlier had vanished. No quips. No taunts. No devious encouragement. Just silent, snarling rage.

‘She’s mad at me for losing. She wanted a fight and I couldn’t give it to her. I couldn’t…I couldn’t save her…’ Icicles prickled in the corner of Blossom’s eyes, turning to steam as they crawled down her cheeks. Trembling, she wiped them away. “I’ll fix this. I promise, Bud. I’ll fix this. I’m going to stop you. I’m going…I’m going to save you!”

Brushing away the last of her tears, Blossom raced toward the fight. She stayed low to avoid detection. If Buttercup saw her, she’d surely attack. And in her current state, Blossom would be no help at all to Bubbles in a real fight. She needed to stop Buttercup, but doing so would require something other than fists.

Though she wasn’t known for her strategic genius, Bubbles was a clever girl. After the Matromax incident, the girls trained diligently on how to minimize collateral damage when dealing with global threats. While the destruction caused by their fight was catastrophic, they’d still avoided the worst possible outcome, thanks to Bubbles’ quick thinking.

With every trade, she forced Buttercup away from the mainland. Every grapple, every toss, every sonic scream aimed in such a way to drive her back to the ocean. And as the fight carried on, the duo had slowly been making their way north.

‘I just need Bubbles to notice me. If she sees, she’ll know to follow!’ Racing between the crashing waves of the ocean, Blossom skirted along the edge of the fight. She needed the right moment to reveal herself so that only Bubbles would notice. The moment came when Buttercup landed a devastating hook straight to their baby sister’s cheek.

At the moment that her head was reeling back, Bubbles’ eye cracked open.

Blossom rose just above the waves and released what little power she had left, hoping that she would see the flicker in the chaos. With nothing left but faith in her sister, she shot forward at full speed, reaching the North Pole and shooting upward at a ninety-degree angle. Higher, higher, and higher still until she reached the edge of the sky.

There, she waited and breathed. Sucking air into her lungs, her stomach, her entire body, filling it with a blizzard that she hoped could quell her sister’s storm. Jagged shards of crimson ice grew from the still bleeding gashes that littered her body, tearing open her wounds and freezing them again. Icicles punctured her lungs from the inside out. Blood turned to slush in her veins. Frost spread across the surface of her eyes.

Deep, deeper, and deeper still, she breathed.

Her heartbeat slowed.

The world crept to a halt. Her vision dimmed.

Then, as darkness reached out from the depths of oblivion to claim her, a brilliant blue star shone on the horizon. Her arms shattered, her body broken, Bubbles fought through pain and death to drive Buttercup back. Across icy waters. Through snow-covered peaks. To the very end of the Earth.

Beneath the fading light of a dwindling pink spark, she dodged one last punch and caught Buttercup from behind, locking her in a Full Nelson.

“DO IT, BLOSSOM!” 

Blossom’s opened, and the Breath of the Dying came pouring out.

A scream so loud it could be heard from space.

A towering pillar of ice and snow, so grand it could be seen from beyond the moon.

Winter winds, so powerful they consumed the world-ending storm summoned by the Utonium sisters’ battle, crowned the planet with pale blue and white. For two minutes and thirty-seven seconds, the Earth stood still, holding its breath until hers ran out.

The storm ended and the silent world began revolving once more because, once again, the day had been saved thanks to the Powerpuff Girls.

PROFESSOR UTONIUM — PERSONAL NOTES
Date: April 22nd, 2006

The Aftermath of April 15th

In the week following the battle at the Panic Station, the world has struggled to regain its footing. Even now, the impact has yet to be fully calculated, but conservative estimates place the cost of the recovery at trillions of dollars. Though most of the damage was averted, the natural disasters caused as a result of the fight were unavoidable. It was only thanks to the combined efforts of AWSM and Global Security, as well as an unprecedented level of collaboration between nations and even supervillains, that the loss of life was kept as low as it was.

Given my proximity to the source of the devastation, I have offered the DYNAMO, as well as the recalibrated nanobots from the “Carbon Storm” incident to aid in the recovery.

Incident Report: What Really Happened

The catalyst for the catastrophic outcome of April 15th was Buttercup triggering her Hardcore State. My interview with the girls after their return indicates that this was caused by skipping her afternoon adrenaline suppressant — at Blossom’s direct orders, she insists on me including — combined with the excitement of facing a life-threatening challenge. Upon triggering her Hardcore State, Buttercup states she was overcome with a desire for thrill and excitement that could only be achieved through combat.

This is fascinating, as it is contrary to the effect that the Hardcore State has on Bubbles. My original hypothesis that the Hardcore State is a reaction to stress may need revisited. The loss of inhibitions held true, but rather than violent aggression or self-assured isolation, Buttercup’s mental state was more like  a child refusing to quit a game. According to the girls, after dealing with the immediate threat, her only desire was to fight — or rather, to play — with her sister. 

The Final Hazard

The true nature of the incident, as listed above, is not a matter of public record. Upon returning from the North Pole, the story Blossom provided to Global Security and the public at large was that Him and Mojo Jojo combined their magic and technology to construct a device that took control of Buttercup. Using this device, they pit her against her sisters, with the controls being destroyed in the carnage.

Blossom’s claim was that the goal of the villains was to take control of all three of the Powerpuff Girls, but Buttercup’s defense of her sisters led to her being the only one controlled. None of the villains could be reached for comment — Him, Mojo Jojo, and the Rowdyruff Boys have gone missing. Princess Morbucks is in intensive care and has yet to wake — so the story was accepted at face value.

The incident was changed from the “Panic Station Incident” and dubbed “The Final Hazard” in all official documentation. When asked about why he chose this naming convention, Global Security’s Commander had this to say: 

“Despite how it may sound, the name is meant to represent hope for the future. To any villain who seeks to disrupt this reconstruction, and the peace that will surely follow, know that all you can ever aspire to be is a footnote in our story’s epilogue. Earth has faced her greatest threat, and her greatest defenders have shown us their unfathomable strength. We can rest assured that, no matter what comes next, the day will be saved thanks to the Powerpuff Girls.”

The Girls

Following the Final Hazard, things have been tense at home. 

Buttercup has recused herself from superhero activity. She spends her time smoking marijuana in her room and obsessively timing her suppressant doses. It’s always been difficult to get her to open up, but now it has become nigh impossible. She responds to questions with shrugs and grunts, fleeing to her room as soon as her sisters enter the room. After speaking with the school, they’ve agreed to give her some time off to recover, but I worry I may not get her to return at all.

Bubbles has become Townsville’s primary protector in response to Blossom’s extra responsibilities and Buttercup’s self-imposed imprisonment. After thawing, she refused my offer to put her to sleep so that she could recover. As of this writing, it’s been three weeks since her last nap and she has become especially grumpy. She and Robin are spending more time together, though, which has been good for her. The two of them are talking about starting some kind of cooking show.

Blossom has become the face of the reconstruction effort. Though, outwardly, she seems to be thriving; I get the sense that she feels an immense amount of responsibility for what happened. She is especially protective of Buttercup in interviews, quick to insist that it was a failure of her leadership that caused the Final Hazard, and Buttercup’s heroic actions that averted the worst outcome. 

Because of her role in helping with the reconstruction, Blossom is rarely home. I think we’re all missing her, but no one says anything. It’s clear this is what she needs right now.

The Hardcore State: An Update

My new theory is that the Hardcore State may not be a stress response at all, but a sort of Jungian Shadow. A repressed self that originates from the girls’ nature as beings made of pure Chemical X. In all other tests, the impact that Chemical X has on subjects follows a pattern: aggression, violent, monstrous. The girls are the sole exception, perhaps by their nature as Perfect Little Girls.

But, perhaps that “true nature” of Chemical X is still present within them, but simply suppressed by their kinder natures? If so, then perhaps the Hardcore State isn’t a transformation or alteration in cognition, but a reflection of their “primal” — for lack of a better term — self? 

While I would love to further study this phenomenon, I’m forced to recognize the potential danger may far outweigh the benefits of such research.

— Professor Utonium

Chapter Text

Robin watched in amazement from the Danger Grid command console as the girls clashed against Danger Level 3: a group of bank robbers with heavy weaponry. Just a week ago, Level 2 seemed impossible without a fragment of their powers, but tonight it had only taken them about thirty minutes to get past the adorable little death machine. Glancing down at her notes with the slightest flicker of her eyes, a broad smile spread across Robin’s face.

‘They’re so incredible! They’re going to finish Level 3 without their powers tonight! Gosh, we’re so far ahead of schedule!’ Robin pumped her fist, but her smile faltered as an altercation played out within the room. Blossom and Buttercup bumped into one another, sharing a brief but visibly venomous exchange, before diving back into the fray.

As optimistic as she felt about their progress, Robin couldn’t ignore the elephant in the room. After the argument on Saturday, the tension between the sisters had risen to a boiling point. Meals were silent when they didn’t escalate to snipping and, eventually, shouting at each other. Blossom refused to workout with the others after the second argument about her meetings with the Rowdyruff Boys broke out. 

Even Bubbles, she noted with pursed lips and a frown, had lost her sunny disposition. 

“But what can I do about it?” Robin asked aloud with a heavy sigh. Her eyes snapped open to the sound of an explosion and the sudden shutdown of the simulation. “Crap!” She jumped to her feet and raced to the door.

“What the FUCK is wrong with you!? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Buttercup’s voice broke, her sub-supersonic scream causing the floor to tremble. She slapped her wrist, deactivating the power dampener, and crossed the room in the blink of an eye, standing over her battered sister.

Blossom spat out a tooth and deactivated her X-Limiter. Rising to her feet — the third-degree burns on her face healing in the time it took her to stand — she glared at Buttercup with arctic fury frosting over her eyes. “What the…the FRICK is wrong with you!? You had him dead to rights and you missed on purpose!”

“What?! No I didn’t!”

“YES YOU DID!” Blossom screamed, thrusting an accusatory finger into her sister’s chest. “I know how good your aim is now. There is no excuse for you to miss such an easy shot unless you were TRYING to miss!” She clenched her eyes shut, breathing out a cloud of snowflakes with a growl. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?! Why aren’t EITHER of you taking this seriously?!”

Bubbles gawked, her mouth falling open. She looked left and right, as if to find who Blossom was speaking about, then pointed at herself. “Me!? What did I do?”

“Instead of focusing on the fight and listening to my calls, you keep stopping to check on me! I’m fine! I’d be doing even better if you could just stick to the plan!”

“Don’t take your shitty mood out on Bubbles!” Buttercup moved to stand between the two, slapping Blossom’s hand away. “She’s worried about you because you still aren’t at a hundred after spending all morning letting those Rowdyruff shits beat you to death!”

“I wouldn’t have to rely on them if you’d start fighting for real! You still won’t spar me without going easy on me!”

“Oh so it’s my fault?! I’m just a shitty, awful sister because I don’t want to fucking hurt you!”

Blossom breathed in, speeding her perception for a microsecond. Just long enough to take in the faint emerald energy crackling along the surface of Buttercup’s skin and sparks glittering in the depths of her eyes. Based on when they entered the Danger Grid, she surmised Buttercup was a minute or two away from needing the next dosage of her suppressant, or, if she was early on her last dose, overdue. Knowing Buttercup — and she liked to think that despite the time apart, she still knew her sister — the latter was far more likely.

She only needed to prod just a little more.

“You’re still doing it! Quit being so fricking boring and just fight me already!” As soon as the word left her lips, Blossom knew she’d struck pay dirt. The light in Buttercup’s eyes burst into brilliance and the energy thrumming beneath her skin erupted. Her pupils dilated, teeth ground, and heart began to beat like an engine in her chest. Knuckles cracked as she clenched her fists, muscles expanding as power flooded her body.

Blossom narrowed her eyes. Breathing in, she filled her body with ice and cold, her own muscles expanding ever so slightly as frost coated her insides. From the corner of her eye, she saw Buttercup’s heel digging into the ground. She saw her fist move to draw back. Her pulse quickened; she focused on her breathing.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!”

Before the first blow flew, a tsunami of sound crashed into the pair, driving them both to the ground. Lying face down against the duranium plated tile, the vibrations caused by the scream rattled Blossom’s skull until she couldn’t think. That mental silence lasted for several minutes after the scream finally ended.

The first thing she noticed as her brain started to work again was the sound of heavy breathing. A voice cracking, high-pitched, on the verge of throwing up. As more came into focus, she heard a second voice, shushing the first. Crying. Her sister was crying.

Blossom sat up, holding her head and looking toward Bubbles. Her heart clenched in her chest, frost filling in the gaps left in her head once the sound was gone.

The blue puff’s face was red, tears streaking down her cheeks. Waves of energy billowed from her body, tinting her unruly hair with streaks of nuclear blue. Her eyes were equally overflowing with streams of power: her normally soft form hardened like diamond, the nigh unbreakable floor beneath her feet painted with a spiderweb of cracks.

“ENOUGH! ENOUGH! ENOUGH! I can’t TAKE THIS ANYMORE! ” Bubbles dug her fingers into her hair and bit her lip to hold back another scream. Blood sprayed down her chin, but the missing chunk of flesh knitted itself back together just as quickly. “This isn’t how this was supposed to go! You’re not supposed to be fighting each other! We’re supposed to be working together! We’re supposed to be having fun, and hanging out, and getting stronger TOGETHER! LIKE WE USED TO!”

“Bubbles, shhh…it’s okay, sugar. Deep breaths.” Robin, unfazed by the Chemical X storm radiating from her girlfriend, wrapped her arms around her unmoving, unbreakable body and held her tight, whispering soft and sweet words of reassurance in her ear. Slowly, the energy faded, like a river receding after a flood, until all that remained were Bubbles’ breathless sobs.

“I don’t want you two to fight…I can’t keep doing this…I’m so, so, so tired.”

“Tired?” Blossom’s voice came out in a choked whisper. She cleared her throat before continuing. “How are you tired? I thought you just slept a week ago.”

“She was supposed to.” Robin explained with a sigh. “But that was the day we got your distress call. Then she didn’t want to sleep while you were recovering, in case you woke up and needed her.”

Bubbles sniffled and rubbed her eyes. She was still Hardcore, her hair flowing like golden-sapphire water in the waves of unseen radiation still washing off her tense body. “Af-after you woke up…when you said we were gonna be together again, I just…I know I lied, but I lied because I didn’t want to miss any time with you. I was worried that if…” Her voice cracked and her lips trembled. “If I went to sleep, you’d run away again.”

Pangs of guilt, sharper than any blade, tore into Blossom’s heart. The pent-up whirlwind of frost and ice in her lungs spilled the holes left behind and chilled her until she lost the strength to speak, breathe, or even think. 

Run away again. That was how Bubbles saw it.

Somehow, even without Blossom needing to say it, she knew the truth. But if that were the case, just how much more did she know? The pangs curled into a knot dense as a neutron star, pushing her frozen heart into her stomach and pinning her to the floor.

“But I can’t…I’m so sorry, I just can’t. My brain is so overstimificated and you two fighting is DRIVING ME CRAZY!” Bubbles sucked in a deep breath and brought her hands to her head.

“Overstimulated.” Robin whispered, kissing her head.

“Thanks, Bobbi.” Bubbles returned the kiss before continuing with a shaky sigh. “I know we need to get stronger, Blossom. I know how important it is. And I want to. But…I can’t do this anymore if it’s going to be like this. So…so I’m…” Bubbles took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, then turned to the pair with a stern glare. “I’m going to take a nap. And when I wake up in four hours, you two better have your shit figured out. C’mon, Bobbi.”

Bubbles slipped her hand into Robin’s and stormed off, dragging her close behind. Robin glanced back over her shoulder, flashing the pair a sad, yet hopeful smile, before disappearing.

Still pinned to the ground by guilt and shame, Blossom drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight. She knew Bubbles was right, but even with every logical synapse telling her to turn to Buttercup and apologize, she found herself utterly frozen. The chill she’d nursed for over a week had grown too cold, too paralyzing to let go. She didn’t remember how to breathe normally, so with every inhale, she grew colder. Her heart turned harder. And the words swelled like a block of ice, catching in her throat and refusing to reach her lips.

Buttercup’s voice, soft but sincere, saved her from saying anything at all.

“I’m sorry, Bloss.”

Back against the wall, Buttercup gazed at a distant point in the corner. A trickle of blood remained on her cheeks, dripping from her ears, but if she felt any pain, she showed no sign of it. She licked her lips and reached for a pocket she didn’t have.

“Shit. Hang on, let me get-” But before she could finish asking, Blossom disappeared in a flash of pink, returning before the light faded with an inhaler in one hand and a blunt in the other. Buttercup chuckled, taking a hit from the first and lighting the second with a quick blast from her eyes. She leaned back, sucking down a long drag.

Blossom settled against the wall just out of arm’s reach away. Pulling her knees in again, she rested her chin on them and found a spot on the other side of the room to scrutinize. A thin haze of white smoke filled the air, but strong as the smell was, she found it comforting.

It reminded her of how things used to be. When the girls still hung out in their old room, talking about their plans for the weekend, knowing that the Hotline buzzing would surely ruin them. Listening to Bubbles gush about her new favorite anime — speaking way too fast and constantly slipping between English and Japanese much to their shared frustration — or talking about Buttercup’s latest antics at the skate park, how many times Mitch fell on his face or what new excuses Mike came up with for why he still hadn’t bought his own skateboard.

Sometimes they talked about Blossom’s classes, the one-sided rivalry she shared with Princess, or her aspiration to run for student council — a race she’d have won handily if not for a Code Red Kaiju showing up the day of the election, disqualifying her by being absent. She thought about sleepovers with Robin, the four of them staying up way too late, watching C-list horror movies or playing Pokemon until the early hours of the morning. How she always regretted it the next morning, but would do it all again the very next week without an ounce of hesitation.

Blossom didn’t hate the scent of Buttercup’s smoke. As sensitive as her nose was, it wasn’t the smell that bothered her. It was the memory of everything she had thrown away when sticking around became too hard to bear.

What she lost when she ran away.

“You’re right.” Yet again, Buttercup’s voice dragged Blossom out of a daze. “I mean…it’s not that I’m not taking things seriously, it’s just…” She sighed and delayed her answer behind another pull. “I’m not trying as hard as I could be.”

“Why?”

“Cuz if I did, then we’d be done sooner. And as soon as we’re done…you’ll get bored of Townsville, get bored of us. And then you’ll leave, again…and this time you’ll never come back.”

“Buttercup, I-”

Buttercup laughed, a short, bitter laugh, and shook her head. “Also, I’m just so fucking jealous of those pricks and I hate it.”

“Those…wait, the Rowdyruff Boys?” Blossom raised an eyebrow, finally turning to look at her. “Why on Earth would you be jealous of them?”

“They get to spend time with you while I’m stuck at school.” Finishing the last of her blunt, Buttercup breathed out a heavy cloud and turned to look at Blossom with bloodshot eyes. “And they get to fight you, but I don’t.”

Blossom frowned. “Buttercup, you can fight me. I want you to fight me.”

“But, I don’t want to hurt you! Not like last time…I want to fight you the way you want me to, but I’m just so fuckin’ scared that I’m going to go psycho again.” Buttercup glared down at the remains of her blunt. Pinching it off between her fingers, she flicked it across the room and crossed her arms. “And I know that makes me boring now, but like…I completely fucked up your life — all our lives — and I’m just scared I’m gonna do it again.”

“...You didn’t screw up anything, Buttercup.” Biting her lip, Blossom felt icicles pricking the corners of her eyes and shook them away. “And I’m sorry I ever called you boring. I know it’s triggering, and that’s why I did it. But that was wrong and I shouldn’t have pushed you like that. Not now, and not back then either. You’ve never once, in your entire life, been boring to me, Bud. And you didn’t ruin my life.”

“...Then why did you leave? And why won’t you come back?” Buttercup’s voice cracked, and with it the ice around Blossom’s heart.

Even in the aftermath of the Final Hazard, she’d never seen her sister this way. Hot, angry tears spilling down her cheeks, head in her hands and shoulders shaking as she tried to maintain her usual facade. Without a second thought, Blossom closed the distance between them, sliding into place beside Buttercup and wrapping her arms around her shoulders.

“It wasn’t your fault. None of this was your fault, Buttercup.” She whispered, squeezing her tighter when she made a token attempt to pull away.

“I fucked everything up, Bloss. I hurt you. I hurt Bubbles. I hurt the Powerpuff Girls. And then I hid in my room and made you go around on TV, lyin’ to everyone to protect me even though it was all my fault.”

“No it wasn’t.” Blossom swallowed the lump in her throat. “I should have stopped you. If I wasn’t so weak, I could have brought you back and none of it would have happened. I was supposed to look after you, and I couldn’t. Everything that happened was my fault, Buttercup. For being arrogant enough to think I could take you on by myself, and then for being too weak to do it.”

“What are you talking about?” Buttercup sat up, with an incredulous half-smile in her voice. “Bloss, what the fuck? You weren’t weak at all. You won the fight. If you hadn’t just got done soloing the Rowdyruff Boys, you’d have caved my skull in.” Her smile disappeared behind a bitter growl. “The best fight of my entire goddamn life, ruined by those fucking assholes!”

Blossom giggled, settling into the space next to Buttercup. She released her embrace, but her sister wasted no time in reclaiming the distance between them, resting her head on her shoulder.

“Is that why you hate them so much?”

“I mean, that’s like at the top of the list, but it’s a freaking long list.”

Blossom laughed again. After a few moments of silence, her gaze softened. “Do you really mean that? That it was…”

“The best fight in the history of the universe? Yeah, one hundred percent. That’s the whole reason I went apeshit. I was just so fucking disappointed and angry because I didn’t deserve the win. Fighting Bubbles wasn’t fun. I mean, it would be now, but back then? I didn’t enjoy it at all. All I remember was just being so mad there wasn’t a thought in my head except just ahhhhh! ”

Buttercup pursed her lips. She tucked her hands between her knees and raised her head with a hopeful glance up at Blossom. “Was…was it fun for you, too?”

Blossom grinned — her expression growing even brighter when she heard Buttercup’s heart flutter in response. “It was the most fun I've ever had in my entire life. At a certain point, I stopped thinking about things like how much damage we were doing, or if Bubbles managed to stop Mojo, or anything that wasn’t winning that fight.”

“Fuck yes! Me too!” Her smile fading, Buttercup pursed her lips again and furrowed her brow. “So why did you leave then? Why don’t you ever come around? It’s been two years, Bloss, and every time you promised, you cancelled the very next day. I thought…I spent this whole time thinking it was because you hated me.”

A chill swept through Blossom’s body, racing to her fingertips and her toes, hardening her muscles, but not quite reaching her heart for the first time in forever. Terrified as she was to say it aloud, after hearing Buttercup pour her soul out to her, there was no way she could get around finally being honest.

She was tired of running away.

“It wasn’t your fault that I left.” Blossom paused and glanced up, toward Bubbles’ room. Peering through the ceiling, she held her breath until confirming that her little sister and best friend were safely nestled away beneath the sheets. Bubbles was snoring loudly, with a used injector needle lying on the nightstand next to her.

Her eyes lingered on Robin’s sleeping form, guilt and shame rushing to her pink-dusted cheeks as she peered through the sheets at her tanned, slender form, dressed in nothing but the same nightshirt Blossom, herself, had woken up in after her fight with Berserk.

“So…whose was it?”

“Just mine.” Blossom said with a heavy sigh. Her eyes stopped glowing, and her head fell. Screwing them shut, she fought through the layers of ice and snow she’d built around the answer, chiseling away until she forced the words out. “I…I’ve been…since sixth grade, I’ve…”

Beside her, she felt Buttercup shift, her head tilting toward the ceiling. Then, an airy, “Aw shit…” followed by her arms snaking their way around Blossom’s waist and holding her tight. “I’m sorry, Bloss…”

“I wanted to tell her how I felt…that I was in l-love with her. But, I was so afraid she wouldn’t feel the same and that it would ruin our friendship. I kept getting lost in all of these what-ifs and what-thens and eventually…Bubbles beat me to it. And.” Blossom screwed her eyes shut, icicles sliding down her cheeks. “She said yes. And that. That’s what made it impossible to stay. I wasn’t just envious of Bubbles for being stronger than me, for saving the world when I couldn’t. Now, I had to watch her be the perfect girlfriend to the girl I was in love with. And they were so cute, and so happy, and so perfect for each other, and I hated the way it made me feel.”

“After moving out, every time I thought about visiting, I’d see a photo of them together. Or when they started their show, I’d see them post a clip or a link. And then I’d just start spiraling again and again and again. But I couldn’t ever say anything because I knew it would break Bubbles’ heart to know how much it was hurting me. None of it was her fault, or Robin’s fault. All of it, these bitter, stupid, childish feelings are my fault…”

Blossom wiped her eyes and choked back a sob. “I’m the reason I left and the reason I couldn’t ever come back.”

“Fuck.” Buttercup hugged her even tighter, tight enough to force a breathy, cold gasp from her. “I’m so sorry, Bloss. I mean, I knew something was up. You’ve been acting weird around Bobbi, I just thought it was because you’ve been gone so long. But, holy shit, it’s so obvious now.”

“Oh my gosh, I hope not!” Blossom shook her head. “I can’t…I don’t know what I’d do if Bubbles found out. I hate feeling this way and I don’t want to take anything away from her. They’re perfect for each other, and I don’t want to do or say anything that might ruin that, too.”

With a small, bitter laugh, she continued. “Fighting with you was so much easier than hurting her. So I just kept lying more and more, and saying things I didn’t mean. If everyone thought it was because of the Final Hazard, then they’d stop trying to figure it out. And I know that hurt you, but…I guess, I just…I thought you could take it. You’ve always been able to take everything I’ve ever thrown at you.”

Buttercup shifted beside her, moving her arms from Blossom’s waist to her shoulders. She squeezed her with one arm while brushing her fist against her cheek. “You shoulda just told me, Red. I’m not like Blabbermouth up there. I know how to keep a secret. And, like…you know you can count on me for more than just taking a punch, right? I…” Buttercup swallowed and chuckled. “I love you, sis. I want you to rely on me just as much as I rely on you.”

Blossom hung her head and nodded. “I know, Bud…I’m sorry. I’m really, really, really sorry for how much I’ve been hurting you, and Bubbles, all this time by running away from everything.”

The two sat in silence, leaning on each other and enjoying having their walls down for the first time in years. Blossom’s hands crept around Buttercup’s waist to return her embrace, sinking into her arms and allowing herself to feel small and vulnerable.

But eventually curiosity got the better of the green puff.

“So what changed? Was getting your ass kicked really all it took?”

“Ha ha.” Blossom smirked. “Something like that. Ever since I left, I’ve felt like I was slowly freezing to death. I felt so weak and worthless, thinking that’s all I’d ever be. And then…Berserk showed up. And it was like seeing a glimpse of what I could be. Even without her powers, she was certain she could beat us, and I think she could. She wasn’t the weakest Powerpunk Girl…she was the strongest Blossom, stronger than all of the Powerpuff Girls combined. And…if she could become that strong, then, surely, I could, too.”

Sitting up, Blossom wiped the frost from her face and pushed her hair behind her ears. “When she comes back, I’m not afraid that we’ll lose to the Powerpunk Girls. The reason I want to get stronger, the reason I have to get stronger, is so that the next time we fight, she’s impressed by me. I want…I want to show her that I can be strong, too.”

“Fine.” Buttercup said with an exaggerated, heavy sigh. “Fine, you win. I’ll quit sandbagging during training. Wouldn’t want your evil other self to be disappointed in you.” Scratching her head, she looked away and chuckled. “Just…just promise me you won’t run away after you become the strongest puff. I really missed having you around.”

“I promise,” Blossom said with a grin, lacing her fingers through Buttercup’s and giving her hand a superpowered squeeze. “Even after I go back to school, I’ll make sure I visit every weekend. I missed you too, Bud. You, and Bubbles, and Bobbi, and Dad.” Rising to her feet, she stretched her arms over her head with a satisfying moan when her lower back loudly cracked. “Mmm, you three should come visit me sometimes, too. Especially if you’ll be joining me next year.”

Buttercup’s face fell. Averting her gaze, she coughed. “Um…yeah, probably not happening. There’s no way I’m gonna graduate with my grades the way they are right now.”

“What!?” Blossom’s hands fell to her hips and her eyebrow raised. “You’re failing?” When Buttercup nodded, she sighed. “Bud, why didn’t you just ask me for help? Even if I wasn’t…comfortable coming here, we could have met in Neighborsfield, or we could have spoken over the phone.”

“I know! I know, you love doing the whole nerdy big sister tutor routine, I remember sixth grade, Bloss. I just…” Buttercup sighed. “I know you’re super busy in Neighborsfield, helping people, like, literally all day. I dunno. I guess I just didn’t wanna bother you and waste your time when you had more important things to do.”

Blossom frowned. 

The image of her phone screen, covered in fifty unread messages from people she barely knew, flashed in the back of her mind. One by one, she saw the faces of every person she’d helped, reaching out their hands and grasping at the hem of her dress.

In the sea of faces, she saw people she helped time and time and time again, who always came back with a new problem, or the same problem with a fresh coat of paint. She saw the list of unread messages getting longer; she heard her phone beeping and buzzing all day and through the night. She felt her head spinning and the weight on her shoulders getting heavier.

Then, she heard a voice cut through the cacophony: 

Stop wasting your time on a fucking human. They wouldn’t do the same for you.

And it all went silent. The phone screen went dark, the buzzing stopped, and the weight on her shoulders melted away.

There, in the silence, a single message popped up on the screen.

Blossom smiled and reached out, taking Buttercup’s hand in hers.

“Helping you is never a waste of my time…because I know you’d do the same for me.” She gave Buttercup’s arm a tug and pulled her into a tight, warm hug. “So, which class is it?”

Buttercup laughed, melting into Blossom’s arms with a sheepish smile. “Uh, all of them?”

One Week Later

“Later, losers! I’ma go rob a bank!”

“Hell yeah, we are! Let’s get ‘em, Boom Baby!”

Blossom raised an eyebrow, lowering the water bottle from her lips while resisting the urge to turn around. ‘Well…that’s a new one.’ Behind her, she heard Julie’s gleeful squeal, then a sonic boom as she and Boomer took off.

Almost instantly, a second boom followed, bringing them to a halt in the sky. The Powerpuff leader continued to towel off her hair while listening in on the hushed conversation closely.

“Dude, what the hell?” Brick’s voice was soft and sharp. He was furious.

“What?”

“Yeah, what’s the problem, Bricky?”

Brick growled. “Don’t call me that. And you fucking know what. You can’t rob a goddamn bank, you morons. Are you trying to-” He paused, and Blossom felt his fiery glare on her back. She made a point of focusing on combing her hair, adding a nonchalant whistle to try to sell the act.

He clearly wasn’t buying it.

“You can’t just say shit like that. Blossom is literally right there .”

“Ugh, bro, who gives a shit? She’s weak now. Besides, I was joking. We aren’t gonna rob a bank, jeez.” Boomer’s exasperated tone carried just the hint of a little brother’s whine, knowing he’d been called out.

“It was a joke, Bricky .” Julie, on the other hand, was sneering and indignant. She’d been spending too much time around Princess. “We’re not stupid. Prinny told us robbing banks is too much heat. Obviously we’re not going to rob a bank!”

“Obviously, dude! God, you’re so lame around her.”

Blossom’s eyes opened wide, feeling the intense pressure and prickle of a roaring Chemical X aura.

“Both of you are goddamn fucking idiots! Blossom is standing right the FUCK there and you should know she’s listening. We are not villains anymore. We don’t do evil shit, like robbing banks, now.”

“Uh, so what do you call-”

“ARGH! I told you! We’re anti-heroes! We do morally gray shit for morally right reasons! That’s the entire point of Prinny’s…okay, you know what? Fuck it, I don’t care. Go do whatever, but if you do something stupid, I’m gonna show up to throw your ass in jail myself. Harry! Babe! We’re leaving!”

“Huh? Okay, sure! Let me just grab my AHHH!” In a swoop so strong it cracked the reinforced glass windows of the training facility, Brick snatched up Harry and disappeared through the open sky hatch. Boomer and Julie followed close behind, talking amongst themselves as if she couldn’t hear them.

Blossom shook her head and polished off the last of her water. “Just ignore it, Blossom. You’ve got more important things to worry about.” She bent over to pick up her bag, only to notice the sound of someone cursing nearby. Curiosity winning out over productivity, she slung her bag over her shoulder and flew over to the muttering.

“C’mon, c’mon, ugh! Why am I so bad at this!” Just around the corner, in front of an out of the way mirror, Butch was struggling to get his hair to look presentable. He’d changed out of his workout clothes back into his office outfit, but his tie still dangled around his neck in a knot resembling a noose, and his hair was an unruly mess.

“Need some help?” Blossom asked with a wry smirk. Much to her surprise, Butch immediately turned to her with an expression better suited for a starving puppy.

“Yes, please! Prinny will kill me if I show up at the office looking like this!”

Blossom giggled and dropped her bag, floating behind him and combing his hair. Both the shampoo and conditioner smelled expensive, and the two scents mingled in a way that was undeniably magnetizing. For all her faults, Princess occasionally had good taste.

“How long have the two of you been together?” She asked, straightening his hair and carefully gathering it in her hands.

“Me and Prinny? Oh man, it’s been forever. Like…seven years now? It was before the Neon Genesis Silver Beat-Alls-Eon plan.”

Blossom raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you guys called it? And also how did that happen?”

“Heh, yeah, it was Dad’s idea. Said it was based on some old cartoon, but I dunno, I never really watched it. The big robots were cool, but the main guy was such a crybaby I couldn’t get through it.” Butch tilted his head back, both in thought and to give Blossom a bit more room to work. “So like, one day when we were hanging out with Harry, she pulled up and offered to give us a ride back to Pop’s place cuz it was raining. After that, we saw her around more. And one day she just like, came up to me and said ‘Just so you know, you’re my boyfriend now.’ and I was like, okay, sure?”

“Hah, that sounds just like her.” Blossom finished folding his hair into the perfect bun and secured it. Satisfied with how it looked, she flew in front of him and began working on his tie. “She doesn’t really care about what anyone else thinks, just what she wants.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome right? She doesn’t take sh, I mean, crap from anyone. She’s so cool.” Butch’s corporate persona slipped for a moment. His heart racing, cheeks lightly flushed, and an unguarded grin tugging on his lips. Though he was looking forward, he averted his gaze, peering into the distance, toward the Morbucks Industries’ main office. She was certain that if she followed his gaze all the way to its conclusion, she’d be staring into Princess’s office.

“She’s certainly headstrong, I’ll give her that.” With a resolute tug, Blossom straightened his knot and pulled back with a beaming smile. “There you go. How does that look?”

Butch snapped back to the present and took a glance at his reflection. His grin grew even bigger. “Haha! That’s perfect, thanks!” He picked up the rest of his things, checking his phone as he slipped back into Assistant Mode. “I better get going, the Director’s got a meeting in fifteen and we can’t reschedule this one.”

“Do you mind if I fly with you? I wanted to ask you a few questions about your shield power.” The two took off into the sky, pausing only long enough for Butch to close the sky hatch.

“Yeah? Oh right, you’re working on, like, some kind of ice armor or something, right?”

“That’s right! I noticed that you seem to be able to localize your shields pretty effectively now. Even on parts of your body that you aren’t directly looking at. How did you learn to do that? And how do you keep track of where attacks are coming from if you can’t see them?”

Butch grinned and rolled over onto his back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “That was all Prinny’s idea. Putting up my shield everywhere slows me down, uses more energy, and if I turn it up too much, it blocks light and sound, so I can’t see, or hear, or even breathe with it up for too long.”

Blossom nodded. “Right, I noticed that when we were younger. You always had to stop to put it up, and most of the time it didn’t do anything against a supersonic scream.”

“Right, so Prinny had me start training against these drones that shoot lasers and shi-, uh, stuff so that I can practice focusing the shield in smaller places around my body. That way I can block just about anything without wearing myself out or, y’know, suffocating.”

“How long did it take to learn how to focus the energy? Right now, my Ice Body is at full strength all the time, and it really slows me down.” A smile crept onto her face when Butch laughed.

“Yeah it does! You’re way slower nowadays than you used to be. Uh…” Butch scratched his cheek. “Probably a few months. The hardest part was learning how to sense changes in the air around me so I could project the shield in places I couldn’t see. She used to have me hold it over my fist for like fifteen to twenty minutes, then she’d slap me in the head or kick me in the shin without any warning to help me learn how to change my focus.”

Blossom paused above the Morbucks Industries central office, bringing her fingers to her chin. “Air disturbances? So it’s not sound?”

“Nah, sound is too slow. Can’t even stop a bullet if you’re waiting until you hear it.” Butch turned to Blossom and raised a hand to fix his hair. His eyes widened when, without a word, she crossed the distance and tucked away the few strands of hair that had come loose. With a grin, he continued. “You’ve got like, super touch, right? That’s why you wear that thing? You’ll probably figure it out in no time. Prinny’s always complaining about how fast you catch onto new things.”

Resting her hands on her hips, Blossom tilted her head with a smirk. “You’ve been really helpful, Butch. Thank you.”

Butch offered her one last wave, then disappeared into the skylight to Princess’s office. Left alone in the sky, Blossom pursed her lips. “Air disturbances…why didn’t I think of that?”

“Hey, hey, hey everyone! It’s finally time for a brand new episode in…”

BUBBLES AND BOBBI’S SUPER COOKING ADVENTURES!

“I’m Bubbles!”

“And I’m Bobbi! What are we making tonight, Bubs?”

“Oooh, we’ve got something extra super special tonight, Bobbi! I was really, really, really deep into BooTube this morning and found a video with a recipe for crispy dark chocolate fudge brownies with a creamy white chocolate peanut butter filling and peppermint candy sprinkles and I knew we had to make it! So big shout out to…um…where is it?”

“Hm? Oh, Bubs, you turned off your cloud notes again. Here, let me see…there we go!”

“Thanks, Bobbi! Ahem, so like I was saying, big shout out to BananaJamma Lambsauce! Oooh, that’s super fun to say out loud. Your video may have only had like eight views, but you deserve eight million. So everyone please check out the original video. It’s linked in the stream description!”

“Um…I think we forgot to link it.”

“Wait, really? Oh man, not again. Can you figure out how to add it?”

“Uhh…I’m trying but it’s not updating. I’ll call Mike.”

“Thanks! I’m sorry everyone. I’m really bubble-brained lately because my big sister is home! That’s the reason we haven’t streamed in a while. Come say hi, Blossy!”

Hearing her name being called, Blossom blinked her eyes and raised her head. Bubbles was peeking out from the dining room, puppy-dog eyes sparkling and an eager grin on her face. Her neutral expression slowly changed to a sheepish smile.

“Oh. Oh wow, um, gee, Bubs, I’d love to! It’s just…well, Buttercup has a lot of homework to get through so — gosh, I hate this — I’m just too busy right now. I’m so, so, so sorry! Next time, I promise!” Blossom’s smile wavered under the silent intensity radiating from Bubbles’ pleading expression. But after nearly a minute of weathering the storm, she breathed a sigh of relief when her sister shrugged her shoulders.

“Okie dokie! But if you change your mind, I’d love to have you and Buttercup help with the taste testing!” Bubbles brought her fists to her chin and kicked her feet in the air, turning back to float into the kitchen. “This is gonna be amazing!”

“Sure! Sounds great!” Blossom called after her. 

Beside her, Buttercup snickered and shook her head. “She’s gonna hold you to that, you know.”

“Well, you know me…I can’t lie to save my life. I really did mean it.” Blossom leaned back, stretching her legs out beneath the coffee table. “So, were you able to figure it out?”

Sitting on the floor beside her, legs crossed and bent over a math assignment with a look of intense concentration etched into her features, Buttercup clicked her tongue and shook her head. “Nah, I’m sorry, Bloss. I dunno if I’m just dumb or something, but the numbers don’t make sense to me.” Buttercup dropped her pencil and sat back with a heavy sigh. “I’m never gonna pass this class.”

“Yes, you are.” Blossom moved closer and picked up the pencil. She began writing the problem a different way, splitting the numbers apart to make them easier to read. Numbers had always been one of her sister’s weaknesses. “You’re the toughest fighter, Bud. You can’t give up this easily. We just need to break it down a bit more.”

But, noticing Buttercup’s furrowed brow and the faint emerald buzz behind her half-lidded eyes, Blossom set the pencil back down and pushed the paper aside. “That’s okay, we can take a break and come back to it. You’ve been really locked in for the last couple hours, so I’d say you’ve more than earned some time off.”

Buttercup laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Hearing you say locked in.”

Blossom felt a bit of heat in her cheeks and started twirling a strand of hair around her finger. “What? Did I use it wrong?”

“Nah, you got it. It’s just kinda cute. Hearing you try to be cool, I mean.” 

“I am cool!” Blossom insisted as her face grew darker.

Buttercup laughed again. Pulling a plastic bag from her pocket, she started rolling a joint, and her grin softened. “Yeah, you are pretty cool, Red.” She licked the paper and glanced at Blossom from the corner of her eye with a smirk. “You’ve been pretty locked in today, too. Have fun with the assholes?”

“I’ll have you know, today was an exceptionally productive training session with the Rowdyruff Boys. Brick only had to revive me five times, and I think I might have made a breakthrough on my Ice Body technique.” Beside her, Buttercup grew still and silent, waiting for her to continue. Knowing what she wanted, but longing to hear her say it, Blossom kept her mouth shut and waited.

“Yeah? What kind?”

A haughty grin spread across Blossom’s face. She turned to Buttercup with a leer. “That’s my little secret. If you want to know, you’ll just have to knock it out of me the next time we spar.”

“Oh, that’s how it is now?” Buttercup chuckled. Her pupils shrank and her mouth fell open just a little when Blossom lit her joint with a quick blast of heat vision. “Alright, that’s two promises you’ve gotta keep now, Red.” She said before taking a long pull.

Blossom returned her attention to Buttercup’s assignment. After taking a minute-long-microsecond to reevaluate the problem, she erased her original notes and began writing it out a different way. Then, she moved on to the rest of the problems, applying the same strategy to better tailor them for her sister.

Two promises.

Embarrassing herself in front of Robin and Bubbles’ six thousand viewers. Letting Buttercup beat the snot out of her as an exercise routine. A month ago, the thought would have filled her with dread and left her curled up beneath a blanket of ice and snow. Now, though, both filled her with excitement.

They weren’t obligations she needed to uphold because of her sense of responsibility. No, both were exciting adventures she yearned to go on. In fact, thinking back on it now, she realized she hadn’t had a single panic attack in over a week. No spontaneous snowstorms or frost-covered freakouts.

For the first time in a long time, she could relax. Even with the looming threat of a rematch with Berserk hanging over her, Blossom was happy. She was content.

The only regret she had left was that she had given all this up in the first place.

‘After I beat her…after I show Berserk I’m just as strong as she is, everything is going to get better. I won’t ever let things go back to how they were. I won’t ever run away again.’

Handing the pencil over to Buttercup, Blossom leaned against the table and watched her try again. Joint hanging from her lips, a smile crept to Buttercup’s face, bringing a beaming grin to Blossom’s, and her pencil started to move.

‘I’ll be here from now on. I promise.’

Chapter Text

Tick

Mornings in the sleepy suburb of Pokey Oaks seldom came with any fanfare. Due to the presence of the city’s stalwart defenders, most criminals and villains stayed far away. It was for that reason that no one was awake yet to hear the slapping of rapid-fire footfalls coming down the sidewalk just as the sun finished peeking out from the horizon.

“Oh wow.” Blossom exclaimed, looking down at her X-Limiter. “We made really good time today. I think that might be a new PB.”

Buttercup laughed. Water spilled from her bottle down her chin; she made no effort to wipe it away. “God, it’s so cute hearing you try to be cool.”

“I am cool!” Blossom insisted with a playful glare. She snatched the water bottle away from her sister and took a long gulp before offering it to the last of the trio. “Right, Bubbles?”

“The coolest! Mmm…” Bubbles paused at the door, lips still wrapped around the nozzle of the bottle. “I wonder if Bobbi had time to finish making breakfast?”

The girls deactivated their X-Limiters and stepped into the house. Warmth from the fireplace immediately chased away the January chill, the smell of rich burning maple mingling with the mouthwatering scent of crackling bacon wafting from the kitchen. 

Bubbles wasted no time. Stepping out of her shoes, she leaped across the living room and to the kitchen doorway in a single bound. 

“We’re back!”

A tiny scream from the kitchen caused Blossom’s ears to perk up. She traded a glance with Buttercup, then rushed to the doorway.

“Is something wrong, Bobbi?”

“You’re back?!” Robin stood at the stove, the Professor’s pink apron draped over a knee-length white dress with green apple patterns. Her eyes wide, her mouth agape, she returned Bubbles’ kiss without taking her eyes off them. “You just left, how are you back already?”

“What’re you talkin’ about? We finished the run, that’s all.” Buttercup dropped into her seat at the table and took a long, exaggerated sniff of the air. “Damn, Bobbi! That smells awesome. You almost done?”

Mouth moving soundlessly, Robin spun around, her fuzzy purple slippers sliding on the tile, nearly knocking her off her feet, and returned to her cooking.

“Um…almost? You’re back really, really early. I wasn’t expecting you for at least another…” As she checked the clock, the spatula fell from Robin’s hand and her voice shot up several octaves. “HOLY SHIT! YOU FINISHED A 10K IN SIXTEEN MINUTES?!”

“We did! Pretty cool, right?” Blossom took her seat next to Buttercup. She reached for Robin’s training journal and began thumbing through the pages. “I actually think we could have done it faster if we sprinted part of the way.”

She glanced up, noticing the tremor in Robin’s breathing. And the way she repeatedly flipped the same egg for the sixth time.

“You were using your powers, right?” She asked with a nervous laugh in her voice.

Bubbles joined her sisters at the table, and the three traded a glance. Then, in perfect unison, they all replied with the same confusion. “No?”

“Holy shit.”

After several minutes of nothing else, Bubbles spoke up. “Bobbi, did you want some help?”

“No thanks, sweetie. I told you earlier, it’s my turn today. Just a few more minutes, I’m almost done.” True to her word, it only took Robin a couple more minutes to finish. Hands shaking as she set out five plates and took her seat beside Bubbles, Robin immediately took a massive bite out of a biscuit.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, you look spooked, Bobbi. Wassup?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just…” Robin washed her mouthful down with a swig of orange juice before continuing. “You’re sure you didn’t have your powers?”

“Definitely.”

“Totally.”

“Yuppers!”

Robin giggled. “You girls are crazy, did you know that? The world record for a 10K is just under twenty-seven minutes. Running it in just sixteen is literally impossible.” She looked up at the trio with a beaming grin. “You three are amazing. Even without your powers, you’re super now!”

Bubbles squealed, and Buttercup gave a loud “Hell yeah!” Meanwhile, Blossom felt a warmth swelling in her chest like a campfire in the middle of a blizzard. Eyes narrowed, gleeful grin giving way to raw determination, she held onto that warmth and licked her lips.

The last three months raced through her head: countless broken bones, full-body bruises, blood, sweat, tears, and vomit. Clawing and scraping their way through Danger Level 7 while powerless, ripping and tearing their way through Danger Level 25 with powers. Heights they never imagined possible; a summit they never saw a reason to scale.

Only one thing remained. Then, after all this time, she’d finally be ready.

“Today’s the day.” Blossom’s voice, clear and strong, cut through the chatter and brought the room to a deafening silence.

“Are…are you sure, Blossy?”

“One hundred percent certain. That is,” she looked at her sisters, “if you’re ready.”

All eyes fell on Buttercup, who suddenly found the syrup stains on her plate the most interesting thing in the room. In an act of uncharacteristic nervousness, she ripped off a piece of her biscuit, swabbed up the syrup with it, and then popped it in her mouth.

Slowly, she nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I am.”

Blossom reached over, taking Buttercup’s hand and squeezing it beneath the table. The green puff finally looked up, flashing her a grin.

A loud yawn interrupted their moment. The Professor, still dressed in his pajamas and unshaven, walked in stretching. He yawned a second time and shook his head.

“Morning girls. Big plans today?”

“Today’s the day, Dad.”

Like a switch being flipped, the Professor’s eyes snapped open, and he stood up straight. He scanned their faces to make sure he had heard correctly. Met with four nods, his tired expression sharpened to a look of matching certainty.

“Groovy.” The Professor chuckled. “Should we start after breakfast?”

Maximum Containment Protocol — Initialized

Chemical X Shielding set to 300% Overdrive

The Danger Grid’s mechanized voice gave way to an electric hum as the simulation kicked into gear. With all of its processing power focused on safety, the arena that appeared was little more than an infinitely expanding gray floor, floating in an endless black void. At the center of the platform, Blossom finished drawing the last line of a three-foot by three-foot square in red chalk.

She rose to her feet, tossed the chalk aside and dusted off her hands on her shorts.

“That should do it.” Her hands move to rest on her hips, her gaze rising to look at her sisters. “So, just so everyone remembers. The rule is that you have to get me to step out of this square.”

“And you have to get both of us on the ground.” Buttercup finished for her. “Yeah, we got it, Red. It’s super simple, we don’t have to keep going over it.” Despite her outward irritation, it was clear how she really felt from the way her hands clenched restlessly, and the way she shifted from one foot to the other.

Bubbles laid a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder and smiled. “You can do this, Bud. This is what we’ve been training for. And if things get out of hand,” she stuck her tongue out and hit her with a playful punch, “that’s why I’m here!”

“Heh. Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve kicked my ass. Alright. Time to finally do this.”

A speaker within the void came to life. “Are you girls sure about this?” The Professor asked.

Buttercup nodded and turned to Bubbles. The blue puff flashed her a grin and a thumbs up, then the duo turned their attention across the arena to Blossom. The Powerpuff Leader’s hands were still firmly on her hips, a smirk of cold confidence on her face.

“Alright then!” Robin’s voice replaced the Professor’s. “Mission: Begin!”

The air snapped, crackled, and then filled with brilliant light. Pouring from her body in waves, her hair — awash with glowing sky blue highlights — rippling in its embrace, Bubbles’ Hardcore power shone brighter than it ever had before. Beneath her feet, the textureless ground cracked and crumbled; above her, a nuclear gradient swirled and filled the formless void. The soft, sweetness in her eyes were gone, now as fierce as the light overflowing from her eyes.

Bubbles turned to her right, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“Okay…alright, time to do this for real.” Buttercup took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her fists clenched at her sides, tighter and tighter, muscles swelling and body bursting with barely restrained emerald electricity.

“You can do this, Buttercup.” Blossom’s voice carried over the whistling wind around her. 

Her jaw clenched until her teeth hurt, and a growl rumbled in her throat. 

“Fight me.” 

Buttercup lurched backward; her eyes snapped open, and what started as a growl erupted from her as a roar. A pillar of green light pierced the void, mixing with the blue to cast the simulation in an otherworldly light. Cracks formed by Bubbles’ transformation deepened until the floor broke, flinging dense shards of gray into the air to be splintered and reduced to ash by the lightning storm raging around her.

When she opened her eyes, jagged streaks of energy poured out of them. Her now green-tinted hair rose, as if flooded with static electricity. The tightness and restraint that had held her in a vice-like grip just moments ago were gone. And with it, the nervous frown on her lips, replaced by a wide, manic grin.

“Oooooh FUCK yes!” Buttercup doubled over, gathering even more power, before throwing her head back with a loud, booming laugh. The Chemical X aura surrounding her exploded outward, driving back everything around it, save for the insurmountable torrent of blue beside her. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, sis! Show us what you got! I’m so fucking ready!” 

“Alright…my turn.” Blossom let her eyes fall shut and drew in a full breath. The temperature within her body, already hovering at just below freezing from three months of concentrated breathing exercises, plummeted in an instant. Ice spread outward from her chest, coating her veins, hardening her bones, and seeping into her muscles. The silken material of her bodysuit crystallized. Her muscles expanded; even her once flowing hair sharpened to a diamond’s edge.

Frost spread from her feet; snowflakes and glittering shards danced in the air surrounding her.

Opening her eyes, she peered at them through a layer of clear crystal. Pristine pink shards of ice reached up from beneath the neck of her bodysuit, covering her cheeks like armor. Beneath the skin-tight material, she could feel it stretching to her toes. Thin enough to move without feeling restricted, but dense enough to, hopefully, defend her.

“Woah, that’s sick!”

“You look beautiful, Blossy!”

Her breathing steady, Blossom tested her mobility, hopping from one foot to the other, throwing a few practice punches. Satisfied, she slid into a defensive stance the moment both feet touched the ground again. 

“Alright girls…let’s roll.” Blossom’s eyes snapped open, slowing the world just enough to see Buttercup’s fist appearing in front of her face. A punch thrown faster than any her sister had ever thrown in her life, crossing the distance between them before the ground knew to explode or the air to burst. So fast that Buttercup’s body was little more than a white outline as light struggled to catch up to her.

Her lips curled into a grin, and her fist raised. The fastest punch her sister had ever thrown was just slow enough for her to see it coming and throw her own. Their fists clashed several times, each one driving Blossom back fractions of an inch, her heels digging in to avoid being sent flying.

A brush of displaced air just to her side served as the only warning Blossom had that something else was coming. Parrying Buttercup’s last hit, she raised her arm to block a spinning heel kick from Bubbles. The ice on her arm hardened a microsecond before the hit landed, cracking at the impact, but dulling the force. Quick as her perception had become, the two were only just a hair slower than her mind could process.

But that hair was all she needed to find a rhythm. As the sonic booms from their takeoffs started going off, and the ground where they’d once stood began breaking apart, the Powerpuff Girls’ deadly dance began in earnest.

From the command console of the Danger Grid, Robin watched with mouth agape and wide eyes just barely capable of comprehending the screen in front of her. Even with the machine doing the heavy lifting to translate the action into something the human mind could understand, its best efforts amounted to little more than a kaleidoscope of thin, scratchy colored outlines. Her trembling eyes reluctantly pulled away from the swirling shapes to observe the stationary camera focused on the square drawn around Blossom’s feet.

Shards of ice appeared and shattered, skid marks darkening and disappearing as the redhead moved about the area. At times she came dangerously close to the edge, only for her feet to come into perfect focus, the crystalline shroud around them hardening to bring her to a complete stop just inside the lines.

Robin had obviously not been present for the Final Hazard. Nor had she been in any position to observe the legendary clash between the Powerpuff Girls. There was no video footage, no camcorder footage or security recording at the time capable of capturing that battle. But she’d heard the stories, from Bubbles and Buttercup, and, now, from Blossom as well.

Even their own recollections were little more than shapes and colors, feelings and instincts that formed an imperfect portrait of something bigger than the sum of its parts. But sitting in the lab and observing the girls truly going all-out against one another, even if it was a glorified sparring match, was humbling in a way that she’d never considered in all the years she’d been their closest friend.

She’d always known they were strong. Even if it took until middle school for her to see it up close, thanks to the girls sheltering her from the worst their world offered. But never like this. She’d always known the Powerpuff Girls were the strongest heroes in the entire world, so then…what did that make them now?

They’d put themselves through Hell and more, battering their unbreakable bodies until they lay broken on the floor, so exhausted they couldn’t bring themselves to fly. Night after night, having to rely on Robin and the Professor to carry them out of the lab one at a time because they were so badly damaged they’d still need over an hour for their bodies to heal. 

Evenings spent stitching Buttercup back together, setting her bones and getting high together as she helped her choke down food when she couldn’t feed herself. Countless nights spent on the couch, cradling Bubbles through her sleepless nights, watching anime as she writhed and moaned in pain. Tucking Blossom into bed, staying with her until she drifted off to sleep mumbling about how none of this was enough.

She’d watched them suffer, doing anything and everything she could from the sidelines to ease the weight of the universe resting on her shoulders. And now, seeing it all come together after so long, all she could do was hold back tears.

“This is unbelievable…it shouldn’t even be possible.” The Professor mumbled.

“I know, right? I can’t believe how strong they are. I mean, how much stronger they are!”

“Well, yes. It’s frankly astonishing to a degree I can’t put into words. But,” the Professor adjusted a dial on the console and tapped a third display, “that wasn’t what I meant. Look here, Robin.”

Robin wiped her eyes and leaned in closer to the Professor. On this new display were a frantically updating series of calculations and fluctuating numbers. Though most of it seemed gibberish to her — even after three months behind the wheel of the Danger Grid, Robin still didn’t fully understand all of its features — she could make out the general purpose of the report.

“It’s the dampening shield, right? It looks like it’s close to maxing out, but it doesn’t seem like it’s in danger.”

The Professor nodded. “That’s exactly it. See? This here,” the Professor clicked a button and a new window came up, “is a history report from the last few months. You’ll note that even as recently as Sunday, the Dampening Field was struggling to contain the Chemical X overflow just from Bubbles and Buttercup practicing to control her Hardcore state.” He pressed another button, and the history tab disappeared, showing the current readout.

Although the shields were being pushed to the same level of maximum overdrive, the current energy levels were comfortably below the limit.

“It’s not struggling at all.” Robin noted with a quirked eyebrow. “But, why? If it had trouble just holding Buttercup and Bubbles, should it be breaking with them fighting Blossom?”

The readout changed again, now showing an outline of the three girls. Bubbles and Buttercup had “Hardcore State” in red letters with a black background next to them, while Blossom had a “Heightened State” label in orange and black. But despite that, the Chemical X levels for all three of the girls were roughly equal, though Blossom’s were fluctuating at a far more volatile rate than her sisters.

“How is that possible? Blossom can’t go Hardcore, right?”

“As far as we know…which means that the only way both the shield’s unexpected stability and Blossom’s unusual Chemical X readings could be true would be if she’s absorbing the brunt of Bubbles and Buttercup’s attacks.” The Professor stroked his chin. “It must be a combination of factors. She’s actively resisting the full force of their attacks, instead of softening their impact by moving with their momentum. She most likely wants to ensure minimal collateral damage so the session doesn’t end early. The amount of stress that must be putting on her body…frankly, I don’t see how she’s able to keep going.”

Robin just grinned and shook her head. “Sure you do, Professor. It’s because she’s Blossom.”

In the eye of the sapphire-emerald hurricane, Blossom felt herself approaching her limit. Her body screamed with every movement she made, bones cracking and muscles tearing, struggling to keep up with the duo’s unrelenting force. Were it not for the constant layers of ice and frost holding her together, she’d surely have come apart. Even more threatening was the ever-rising heat as their combined Chemical X poured into her body.

Throughout their lives, the girls had learned not to immediately and completely resist attacks from their own weight class. Allowing themselves to be thrown around a bit helped minimize the damage their bodies caused to whatever ran into them and lessened the impact from things that could legitimately harm them. Similarly, their attacks normally flew with enough strength to send whatever they hit flying. Even Code Black Kaiju could be knocked around with enough effort.

But that learned behavior created a vulnerability, one that she hoped she could exploit. Just as striking the Giant Fish Balloon had hurt the girls more than the monster itself could, Blossom hoped she could make herself an immovable wall for her counterpart to break against.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t quite reached that level. While she could tank Bubbles and Buttercup’s attacks, the excess energy from their strikes had to go somewhere. And with her intentionally rising to meet every blow with her own, her body was the only place for it to go. Thankfully, her internal frost engine could suppress the energy for quite some time, but even that was failing with time.

Blossom wasn’t just breaking; she was slowly melting from the inside out.

‘Gotta end this now if I’m gonna win!’ She thought, her foot sliding back to the edge of the square. ‘Bait them in, then strike!’ Forcing her eyes open to their limit, the world slowed and brought Bubbles’ fist and Buttercup’s foot into focus. Blossom’s hands flew up, parrying them less than a moment before impact. Then, instead of striking back, she flipped her hands around, grasping wrist and ankle with all her might. Frost spread outward from her frozen fingers, icicle spears growing from her palms to pierce their skin.

The ice in her eyes shattered, evaporated by crystalline streaks of rose-pink energy.

Unleashing a battle cry, Blossom slammed her forward foot down with all of her might, swung her hips, and her sisters, around her body, to bring them both crashing into the ground. A thunderclap rang out; the textureless gray floor exploding into a thousand broken blocks. Still holding on with a death grip, the pink puff stared down at them, breathing heavy clouds of snowflakes.

Bubbles’ eyes were wide.

Buttercup’s mouth hung open. Her lips started moving, but the words failed to reach Blossom’s ears over the ringing in her head.

The rose-tinted hue on the world faded; her body went slack and her arms fell limp at her sides, but her frozen hips and legs kept her standing upright. The simulation faded, replacing the void with a sterile white room with cracked floors and walls.

“Blossom!” Someone, she couldn’t tell who, called out from a million miles away.

Pain, once a faint, buzzing hum buried beneath the cold, came pouring back into her. A moan spilled from her lips, the closest approximation her voice could make to matching the screaming of the rest of her body.

Footsteps. Hands touching her face. Her eyes twitched in their direction, meeting a pair of kind, blue eyes and a smile so warm it could even thaw her.

“D-did I w-win?” Blossom asked in a barely audible voice.

Robin grinned and nodded. “You won!”

One sluggish trip up the stairs later, Blossom collapsed against the bathroom sink. The face looking back at her in the mirror had wide, trembling eyes surrounded by a blanket of still-fading blue and yellow bruises. Despite the constant, agonizing throbbing permeating her body, there was a smile on her busted, chapped lips. A warm hand touched her broken arm, causing her to jerk from a surge of pain that nearly took her legs out from under her.

“Oh my gosh! Blossy, I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” Robin pulled her hand back. Her fingers twitched, as if wanting to reach out to comfort her, but terrified of hurting her again.

Blossom nodded. She didn’t need to force the smile she wore when she turned to look up at Robin. “I’m fine, Bobbi. That arm is just…a little broken. I’ll be fine though!” Standing up straight, Blossom flexed her arm with only a slight flinch. “I can feel the bones knitting back together already.”

“That has to be so weird. I mean, it’s weird to feel it from the outside, but I can’t imagine what it must feel like inside.” Robin laughed sheepishly, settling for folding her hands behind her back and leaning against the door frame. “Are you going to be okay on your own? I can help, you know. We used to take baths together all the time.” She added, leaning forward with a grin that sent shivers racing down Blossom’s spine.

“Hah, I think I’ll be alright,” Blossom laughed. She reached up to remove her bow, but as soon as she lifted her arms, her smile turned to a whimper that sent her scrambling for the sink to keep her balance. “Um, but…maybe I could use a little help getting ready?”

“Of course!” Robin stepped into the room and immediately set to work, combing the lingering shards of ice and frost from Blossom’s hair and undoing her bow.

Blossom’s eyes fell shut, and she lost herself in the sensation of the soft hands and warm body pressed up against her with a shameless familiarity she couldn’t help but feel she didn’t deserve. Her mind went quiet, satisfied to drift along with the current, until an unconscious moan brushed past her lips.

Robin giggled, but before Blossom’s anxiety could run away with her, she spoke in a gentle voice. “You were really something today. All three of you were, but…you especially, Blossom.”

Her bow fell to the floor. Those wonderful hands pulled her hair back over her shoulders, then slid down her sides to grip the edge of her sports bra. Blossom offered no resistance as Robin helped peel it off, followed by her shorts, leaving her in just her bodysuit. But before returning to her shoulders to continue helping, her arms snaked around Blossom’s waist, embracing her with a firm, but careful squeeze.

“I’m sorry if I wasn’t much help this whole time. Not just with the training,” Robin quickly added before Blossom could protest, “but, with everything you’ve been going through. I…I should have reached out while you were gone. You’re my best friend, and I didn’t notice how much you were hurting. I’m really, really sorry for not being there when you needed me, Blossy.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“It didn’t have to be. It wasn’t your fault when Ginger died, but you still went out of your way to do my homework when I couldn’t focus in class, and even made that notebook that summarized everything for me.” Her arms tightened; her cheek pressed against the one spot on Blossom’s back that wasn’t sore. “You always do so many thoughtful things for everyone, Blossom. For me. For Bubbles and Buttercup. Even for people you only just met. You always worry about everyone except yourself.”

There was a pause. And then, “It’s not fair that no one ever worries about you.”

Blossom’s throat tightened. One hand moved to her stomach, touching Robin’s arms. The other’s grip dug into the edge of the sink until the porcelain cracked. Berserk’s words came bubbling up from the back of her mind.

Everyone seems to want you to fix their lives. They don’t give a shit about what you’re going through.

Robin’s voice shook, thick with emotion as she continued. “But I should have. Even if you didn’t want me to. Because I’m…I was your best friend. Because it’s what you would have done for me. I should have been better, but I was just the same as everyone else. Thinking you were invincible. That you’d never need help because you’d always swoop in and save the day.”

“No, Bobbi. You…” 

You were different. 

You were everything to me. 

I loved you. 

I love you.

I just wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t because I was afraid . Afraid I wasn’t good enough .

Then I was jealous . So jealous because you loved her more than me .

I’m the problem. I’m the reason.

I’m the one who ran away …I’m the one who abandoned you.

It’s my fault. Everything is my fault. Please don’t cry. Please…

There were a hundred million things she thought she wanted to say. That she felt like she needed to say. But forcing down the lump in her throat and bringing her lips to move, all she could say — the only thing she knew for sure. The only thing that still mattered. The only thing she needed Robin to know — was:

“Y-You’re s-still my b-best friend.” Blossom bit her lip, screwing her eyes shut tighter to ward off the icicles threatening to fall. “Am…am I still?”

“Of course you are, silly!” Robin gave her another squeeze and finally pulled away. “Nothing is ever going to change that. But from now on, I’m going to worry about you. Even if no one else will, I will. So if something is wrong, you better tell me. Okay?”

Blossom stood upright and turned around, just in time to see Robin brush away the tears from her cheeks. Even with her eyes red and puffy, they took the pink puff’s breath away and brought a smile to her face.

“Okay. I promise I will.”

Robin beamed. “Great! Now, let’s get you out of that so you can shower.” She reached for Blossom’s collar, but paused when she shook her head.

“N-no, that’s okay, Bobbi. I can handle it from here.” To prove her point, Blossom flexed her arms and reached up over her head. Her back popped in several places, but other than a slight flinch, she maintained her cheerful grin. 

“See? I’m helping already!” Robin said, sticking out her tongue in an expression that Blossom had seen Bubbles make a thousand times.

But instead of pangs of longing, she felt a lightness in her chest and laughed.

“You are…you did. None of this would have been possible without you, Bobbi.” Blossom’s hands slid to rest on her hips in her usual hero pose, her voice taking on the authoritative, professional timbre of the Powerpuff Leader. ”When we beat the Powerpunk Girls, I’ll make sure every newspaper in town knows it’s all because of Blossy and Bobbi’s All-Star Super Hero Super Strength Strategy.”

“Yes!” Robin pumped her fists. “Maybe saving the world will be enough to finally get me that scholarship I’ve been eying for the last three years!”

The two laughed. Robin leaned in and gave Blossom one last hug before returning to the door. “I’m gonna help Bubbles get to the other bathroom. But, if you need me, just hollar, okay?”

“I will!” Blossom hesitated, then added, “And, Bobbi? Thanks…for worrying about me.”

“Someone has to!” Robin chirped, closing the door behind her as she left.

Blossom stared at the door — at it, not through it — after she’d gone. Then, she released a happy sigh and began peeling off her bodysuit.

After her shower, Blossom retreated to the guest room and began the tedious process of putting herself back together. While she could have easily used her super speed to spin dry, she never liked the way it left her hair tangled and frizzy, so she preferred the slow, considerate approach. Multiple towels, combing, brushing, and gently heating it with glowing hands and hairbreadth streams of heat rays. It took longer than she’d have liked, longer than her schedule usually allowed, but after so many years, it had become one of the very few rituals she'd developed that was purely for herself.

Her hair dealt with, she slipped on a new bodysuit and stood at the closet, pondering what to wear. With their goal achieved, the family planned to take the rest of the day off to celebrate. And as she was still equal parts wired and worn out from her achievement, for once Blossom had no objections to taking it easy.

“But…if we get a call, I’d hate to get one of Bubbles’ outfits messed up…” She murmured, pushing aside a colorful graphic tee for some anime she’d never heard of. Behind it, she noticed an old dress of hers. Nothing fancy, just a yellow sundress that she bought for a charity event in sophomore year. The event ended up being cancelled by a kaiju attack, and shortly after she fled for Neighborsfield, so it had gone forgotten and unworn for two years now.

“This could be cute…”

“Oh, I concur! You’re such a cold little snow angel, a little warmth would do wonders for your complexion.”

Blossom’s eyes snapped open, and her body tensed. Flickers of hyperactive pink energy danced in her irises as she turned toward the owner of the teasing voice.

Floating in the corner of her room, lounging as if it were a perfectly normal place to be, was Him. Though he still wore the same sneering goblin grin on his black-painted lips, his attire had changed in a way that Blossom found almost disarming. He’d traded his red jacket for a buttoned-up white blazer — a bright purple MojoTech logo stitched over the left breast — and a matching pencil skirt secured with a thinner black belt than normal. His boots were gone, replaced with white heels and sheer, thigh-high black stockings with a more-subdued-than-normal pink fluff lining the welt.

A pair of lensless, thin-framed glasses rested on his nose, just low enough for him to peer over them at her. The moment his eyes met hers, they narrowed and his grin grew wider.

“What are you doing here?” Despite the menacing aura that followed the demon wherever he went, Blossom’s tone was more exasperated than concerned. “We haven’t seen you in…remind me, when was the last time you tried to fight us?” She asked, turning to face him completely, with a smirk.

Him stroked his beard and continued to grin. “I do believe it was that fun little incident you oh-so-creatively called the Final Hazard . Rather presumptuous, don’t you think? After all…you seem to have found yourself a finaler hazard now, haven’t you?”

Blossom’s smile vanished. “You know about that?”

“Know about it? Why Blossom, I watched it happen in high definition!” Him tossed his head back and cackled. “Such a pitiful showing against that you from the other world! And after you talked such a big game, tsk, tsk, tsk.” Him shook his head and wagged a claw. “I have to admit, I was quite disappointed in you, Blossom.”

Downstairs, Blossom heard Bubbles and Robin singing the opening to some show in the living room — Buttercup’s voice was low and unenthusiastic, but her near-perfect Japanese pronunciation made it clear she was just as much of a fan — and the Professor fussing over something in his lab. No one had yet noticed the intruder, and she hoped to keep it that way. They’d all worked so hard, they deserved a break.

Blossom turned away from Him and settled on changing into her hero uniform, just in case. She zipped up her dress and grabbed her boots and gloves, sitting on the edge of the bed to put them on. Though she averted her eyes to dress, every other sense kept Him in perfect focus.

“If you’re so well-informed, then I have to wonder why you’re here. It can’t be that you’re looking for a rematch. Not after how badly Buttercup beat you last time. And especially after seeing how strong we are now.” Ready for anything, Blossom rose to her feet and flexed her power slightly, a faint pink aura forming around her body.

“Me? Fight you? Oh, Blossom, don’t be ridiculous!” Him exclaimed, falling backward and raising his claw to his face in mock surprise. “You’re quite right! Not even I could hope to defeat you girls now. No, no…if we were to revisit my plans for Rebuild of Beat-Allseon , it would surely fail before your now unstoppable power. Such a shame…” Him trailed off with what seemed like a genuine sigh. His disappointment only lasted a moment, though, before he suddenly appeared in front of her with a gleeful grin.

“But, I know someone who is a match for you.” He sang, holding onto the last word, arm slipping around Blossom’s shoulders. Raising his claw, he gestured at the mirror across from them. Blossom was alone in its reflection. But then, for a split second, Berserk stared back at her.  “You want to see her again, don’t you?” He asked in a low, scandalous whisper.

Blossom’s eyes widened.

The demon flicked his wrist, and a jagged chunk of glass broke free from the center of the mirror. When it reached Him’s claw, it crackled and glowed with crimson light, black and red mist swirling within its depths.

“My other half gave yours an opportunity to face you. I only thought it fair to grant you the same courtesy, my dear Blossom.” He brought the shard close to her, holding it in front of her chest. Lowering his voice, he continued. “Take it and you can see her again.”

Her fingers twitched, but she resisted the temptation. Her body was cold enough to give off steam where his skin came into contact with her suit, but she was sweating, and her mouth was bone dry.

“What…” Blossom cleared her throat. Her eyes stayed locked on the shard, unblinking. “What’s the catch? Wh-what do you want from me?”

He pulled away from her, vanishing in a cloud of smoke and reforming in front of her.

“Why, nothing at all, Blossom! All I want is for you to fight Berserk. If you insist I simply must have an ulterior motive, then you can think of it as helping me settle a bet. That’s all!”

A moment of hesitation.

“What are the rules?”

His grin sharpened. “The same as Her’s, of course. You’ll have twenty-four hours, and you simply mustn’t harm anyone but your hotheaded counterpart. It wouldn’t be fair at all to have such a mighty heroine disrupting the status quo of a world that isn’t her own, now would it?”

For once, her thoughts weren’t racing. At least not in any productive direction. Blossom knew from a lifetime of experience that nothing Him did was for anyone’s benefit but his own. This wasn’t charity, and this wasn’t out of the kindness of his heart. There was no reason at all to believe that this was anything but a trap.

There was surely a nefarious reason behind offering her a way to Viletown.

But even knowing that she was playing right into his claws, there was no denying the way her heart was pounding or her blood raced like lightning in her frozen veins. All of this effort, every second of the last three months, had been for this, had it not? The underlying reason behind all of her agony and strife had been in service of seeing her — of facing her — again.

If she turned down his offer, what chance was there that she’d ever get another chance? She’d spent so long running from what she truly wanted, and she’d promised herself that things were going to change. That she was done running away.

Was…was it really so wrong to do something… selfish …one time?

She wanted to fight her.

She wanted to impress her.

A smile that filled her face and reached her eyes.

But more than anything, she wanted to see that pure, perfect smile again.

“Do we have a deal?” Him’s voice hung in the air around her like a humid fog, smothering her fear and doubts until all that remained was the memory of Berserk’s smile shining like the sun.

“Deal.” Throwing caution to the wind, Blossom reached out and took the shard from him. The moment her fingers wrapped around it, a silent scream boomed throughout the room. Pink-black mist spilled out of the shard and whipped into a tornado around her. A sound, like a poorly tuned violin, rang out in a long, groaning drone. Then, the mist closed in, leaving behind nothing where she once stood.

The room fell silent. No displacement on the carpet, no rustling of the curtains. Even the closet was now closed, as if no one had entered at all.

A knock sounded at the door.

“Blossom? Are you okay? Did you wanna come watch the show with us? I think you’ll really like it! It’s about these girls who make a wish with an alien to fight witches! We’re about to watch episode three, so you haven’t missed a lot.”

Another knock with no response.

“Blossom?”

The doorknob twisted, and the door opened to an empty room.

Tock

Continued in:

Another Shade of Red

Part 4: Midnight