It was the mild tremors on the floor and the faint screams, completely inaudible to those without super hearing, that alerted the two of them.
Blossom's glittery pink pen stopped writing at the same time as red eyes narrowed dangerously.
"That better not be what I think it is…" Blossom spoke warningly.
"That better not be what you think it is either…" Brick looked angrier than Blossom.
From their peripheral view, the two redheads saw on the large glass windows to their left two trails of quickly fading green light zigzagging out of Pokey Oaks High and straight into Townsville, leaving behind a path of chaos and wild destruction.
"That dick-for-brains…" Brick growled underneath his breath even as the rest of the students stood up and rushed to crowd against the windows to gawk at the trail of debris, uprooted trees, upturned grounds, broken buildings and structures and trembling wide-eyed unfortunate bystanders.
Blossom closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her head throbbed painfully.
The classroom door suddenly banged open and Brick's blond brother came rushing inside.
"Brick, Butch's fighting Buttercup–!" The blue ruff did a double take, blinking at his 'eldest' brother's furious face and Blossom's pained expression. And the boisterous crowd of honor students surrounding the large glass windows, many of whom had their phones out and camera application running. "–But I see you already know that…" He trailed off, standing awkwardly a short distance from the door. Privately, he wondered why he even bothered as he tried not to too obviously look useless. Judging by the way everyone, even the teacher, was too occupied with the growing trail of expensive destruction the green puff and ruff left behind, he was mostly succeeding.
Brick stood up and shot darkly to his counterpart, "If your sister doesn't kill my brother, I will."
He strode towards the opened windows, the students fearfully parting for him like the red sea at his leaking furious vibe, and shot off into the sky.
Blossom sighed in frustration, also standing up and followed her counterpart, Boomer silently following behind her.
The two of them quickly caught up to the Rowdyruff leader, Bubbles meeting them a few seconds later in the sky as they followed the trail of destruction carelessly left behind by their brawling black-haired siblings.
Rose pink eyes silently watched as Brick's face became more and more pissed off with every uprooted tree, upturned ground, broken infrastructure and traumatized unlucky bystander the four of them passed by.
Despite the current situation, Blossom found herself actually preferring seeing her counterpart like this. No, not angry, but… open. The red ruff was quick to anger when they were young and now, seeing Brick like this, with a lack of lack of anger management and control, all cold and indifferent and detached…
It was alarming.
M ∙ I ∙ A ∙ S ∙ M ∙ A
"Some of our important choices have a time line. If we delay a decision, the opportunity is gone forever. Sometimes our doubts keep us from making a choice that involves change. Thus an opportunity may be missed."
- James E. Faust
"This sucks…" Boomer sighed, picking up yet another fallen tree. "Why do we have to be the ones to clean up afterwards?" The blue ruff complained, "We weren't the ones fighting…"
"It's because we're the only ones currently available." His counterpart chirped to him, clearing away a huge mess of rubble by generating a light blue tornado.
Currently, both Bubbles and Boomer were out helping with the clean up of the aftermath of their black-haired siblings' rampage from Pokey Oaks High to the city of Townsville.
"Talking to me now?" Boomer said casually with a sunny smile on his face.
Bubbles, though still not quite used to it, mentally batted away the (-fakefakefakefake-) feel she got from him. "That should be my line!" She cheerily replied to him with a cute grin on her face.
Ocean blue eyes glanced at her briefly before returning to his work.
"Mm…" Her counterpart righted an uprooted tree. "Should be."
'Still uncooperative…' The blue puff mentally pouted.
Bubbles didn't notice that her pout wasn't just mentally.
'I just ended up encouraging her…' Boomer inwardly sighed to himself.
"Well now, I wasn't aware of having used reverse psychology…" The blond turned his head away as he replied with a blasé voice.
Bubbles frowned. "I'm naïve, not stupid."
Boomer pointedly did not say anything in reply.
Bubbles huffed and directly strode over towards her counterpart and forcefully shoved a huge uprooted tree into his hands. "I'm sorry for being too cowardly to give you a chance at first..." She sincerely said to him, looking at him directly in the eyes.
"…" Ocean blue eyes locked gazes with sky blue ones for a moment. "…At first?"
The blue puff scowled and opened her mouth, about to speak, when she noticed an unfortunate bystander, an old man, having trouble getting up after falling down backwards in shock when the two greens had earlier suddenly flown by past him.
"Are you alright, sir?" Bubbles asked, zipping over towards him and extending a helping hand with a gentle smile. "Here, let me help you-"
The old man slapped her hand away as he shakily stood up by himself.
"Get away from me, you freak!"
Bubbles froze.
Boomer's head whirled around towards them.
"Just because you look normal now doesn't mean you are!" The old man harshly spat, sending a scathing glare at both counterparts as he desperately hobbled away, "I don't know what the Mayor was thinking allowing you… you demons here in Townsville!"
Ocean blue eyes sharpened for a quick second, cracks appearing from where he was gripping the uprooted tree he was righting. His face was unreadable.
Bubbles was silent.
Boomer's eyes went to his counterpart's back.
"Bubbles…?"
"..." The blue puff very slowly stood up from her crouching position and did not turn around.
"You're not the only ones well acquainted with fear…"
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Blossom pinched the bridge of her nose, mentally counting to ten in time with the ticking of the wall clock, forcefully shaking away another forming migraine. Rose pink eyes glanced up at scowling red ones.
The two leaders sat on opposite armchairs facing each other, left alone inside the principal's office and forced to spend the last few minutes in tense silence after having the vice principal yell at the two of them for an hour straight. Not even the pink puff's attempts at a diplomatic placation could stop the aforementioned old hag's tirade.
'We weren't even the ones who fought…' Blossom thought, lips thinned in annoyance. She continued mentally counting to a hundred. She's more tired than angry at this point anyway.
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
Tick…
"'Not interested in a fight', huh…" Blossom delivered scathingly, leaning back onto her armchair.
Brick, arms crossed against his chest, was unaffected.
"You and I both know the blame for that lies on your side."
Blossom withheld a wince at that. Buttercup was the one who threw the first punch, no matter how badly Butch was provoking her.
"Butch wasn't at the infirmary." Blossom stared pointedly at Brick.
"Why would he be there?"
Brick emphasized two words: 'he', Butch as a superbeing has no real need for the school infirmary, and 'there', Butch as a superbeing would not go to somewhere as lowly as a school infirmary should he ever be in need of medical treatment, which was obviously unlikely.
The pink puff settled for matching her counterpart's scowl.
"Tell your brother to stop goading my sister."
"Tell your sister to stop being goaded by my brother."
Blossom frowned.
"-'s looks." Brick added, deliberately belatedly.
Blossom scowled.
"Then tell him to stop looking so goading."
"He's only goading to your sister."
The pink puff took one look at her counterpart's face and scoffed. "Apparently she's not the only one…"
Brick scowled. "It's disastrous letting you run around with wrong ideas. Thanks to that fucktard, I now have to fill you in before you decide to act on your half-assed notions…"
"Are they half-assed though?" Blossom quipped challengingly.
"I can't believe you actually said half-assed."
"I can't believe you actually believe what you said will distract me."
"Worth a try."
"A half-assed try."
"You're only persistent because you saw."
"I'm only persistent because I care!"
"Yeah, about Townsville."
"In case you forgot, you and your brothers are part of Townsville now too." Blossom spoke, irritated.
Brick frowned, also irritated, before arranging his face back to that of cold indifference. Blossom's dislike of that face was growing more and more.
Brick stubbornly stayed silent.
The ticking of the clock inside the office sounded more and more like a ticking time bomb by the second.
Blossom sighed.
"We need to talk."
Half-lidded red eyes flickered.
"Yes, we do." Brick drawled indifferently, as if Blossom had merely asked him for the time.
The aforementioned pink puff twitched.
Blossom narrowed her eyes and sat up straight into an intimidating commanding posture.
"We will talk."
Brick's mouth slightly lifted up into a small sneer.
"Yes, we will."
Rose pink eyes narrowed further.
"Time-wise," Blossom leaned forward, hands clutching her chair's armrests, "You do mean for that talk to be ASAP, don't you?" It wasn't a question.
"Tomorrow good enough for you?" Brick spoke with a sneering undertone, also leaning towards his counterpart.
The pink puff was smart enough not to delude herself into thinking that the red ruff had acquiesced because of her. Brick knew as well as she did that they needed to talk, more specifically that he needed to talk. The Rowdyruff leader could feel it too. She and Brick would end up fighting, what they were trying so hard to prevent. Not prolong, but prevent.
Their faces only inches away from each other, Blossom pulled her lips up into a satisfied smile that didn't reach her narrowed eyes.
"It's a date."
Dark pink heels followed closely behind by a pair of blue wedges swiftly made their way towards the school infirmary. Furious narrowed pink eyes immediately focused on the sole occupant inside the room, sitting cross-legged atop one of the infirmary's pristine white beds and looking oddly pensive.
"Buttercup." Blossom's gaze was piercing. "It's only been a week."
Buttercup had the decency to flinch and look away in shame.
Blossom sighed and shook her head. "You two really couldn't leave each other alone for more than a week…?"
A light giggle escaped Bubbles' lips at that.
Buttercup glared, her eye twitching once. The way her red-haired sister worded it, it sounded like she and Butch…
The green puff shivered.
"Seven classrooms, four hallways, twenty-nine thankfully unoccupied lockers, the school's front yard, the football field and the gymnasium. And that's just Pokey Oaks High, nevermind the damages to Townsville." Blossom listed off with an unreadable face. "The school's cutting off the rest of the day and had to rearrange things so that schedules don't fall behind too much and classes can continue tomorrow." Pink eyes flashed dangerously.
Buttercup flinched. No, she was not cowering in front of her seriously pissed off 'eldest' sister.
"Buttercup, you shouldn't have been so quick to anger. I am not in the mood for this. It's stressful and just plain hard enough with the boys' unexpected return…" Blossom sighed, massaging her temples. "I don't need you adding to it."
Buttercup winced. Ouch. Busted…
"So what's my punishment?" The black-haired puff bit her lip nervously, "Detention for the rest of the year? Permanent grounding? Lifetime imprisonment in maximum security? Burning my blanket…?"
Blossom's slightly glowing pink eyes narrowed, unamused.
"Consider yourself lucky that the new principal's rather lenient. It's only fitting that you spend at least three hours after school from now on until you finish fixing the damages you brought to the school and then to the city. As the other one to blame for this mess, Butch will also be joining you, of course."
A wide-eyed Buttercup shot up at that. "What!? But-!"
"Don't even think about complaining, much less escaping." Blossom's voice was cold. "The vice-principal directly called both Brick and I just to make sure that you and Butch actually do your punishment."
Rose pink eyes narrowed further and glowed even more, and Buttercup couldn't help but shiver, and not just because the temperature inside the room dropped. Unlike her, when Blossom got angry, she didn't yell. Just the opposite, the pink puff kept cool, calm and cold. The madder she was, the colder she turned, more chilling she spoke and more glacial the surrounding temperature became. Blossom spoke in a piercing icy voice that made her yelling much more preferable.
"I had to endure all of my classes seated right next to my counterpart, multiplied by the fact that I have to bear with this for a whole year. I was looking forward to going home, the only time I could be free of said counterpart. To my surprise, I found myself forcibly summoned to the principal's office with none other than Brick, only to be yelled at by the old hag of a vice-principal for an hour straight. So Buttercup, deal with it, just like I did." A silently observing Bubbles flinched and she couldn't blame her black-haired sister for cowering away from Blossom. "You should be thankful that I'm not forcing you to drink Antidote X while you fix the school and the city."
"But then I wouldn't be able to fix anything…" Buttercup forced herself to not slap a hand to her mouth as Blossom's expression worsened even more.
"Buttercup," The Powerpuff leader's face and tone was petrifying. "There's a reason why Brick and I try so hard not to fight each other. You have no goddamn idea how much effort we exert to not let loose…" Like you and Butch carelessly did.
At that moment, very fortunate for Buttercup, the school doctor entered the room. With the return of the boys, the girls (most especially Buttercup) felt that they would be seeing more of him throughout the year.
"Well, aside from a lot of cuts and bruises, there's nothing really wrong with Buttercup here." The school doctor smiled at the three of them. "The more serious injuries had already started healing themselves, no doubt because of the Chemical X in her blood. I see no real reason to keep her here any longer…"
"Finally!" Buttercup cheered and immediately jumped off the white bed she was sitting on and made a mad dash out the door, much to the amusement of the school doctor and Bubbles. Blossom merely sighed and offered a small apology to the school doctor for the inconvenience and quickly left, followed by her blonde sister.
As the three walked through an empty hallway, Blossom thought back to the day's previous events and suppressed a wince as she felt another headache started blooming. "At this rate, I'm afraid Pokey Oaks High, let alone Townsville, won't survive…"
All the lights in the Rowdyruff house were currently turned off, though with the three occupants' enhanced eyesight and night vision, they may as well be on.
"You fucked up." Brick said flatly to Butch, who was silent, sitting cross-legged atop his bed. The black-haired ruff's head was bowed, bangs shadowing his eyes, mouth a flat unreadable line. His limbs were wrapped in bandages, courtesy of the beatdown the red ruff gave him earlier.
Brick was standing outside Butch's bedroom, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, talking to Butch through the open door. His back was turned towards the still and silent form of Butch. Brick knew his black-haired brother wouldn't want him to see him when he's in that state, just like Brick wouldn't want Butch to see him if their situations were reversed.
Boomer was standing quietly in front of Brick, eyes closed and frowning as he stayed silently spectating.
Without looking back, Brick threw a small bottle of pills at Butch's direction, landing perfectly atop the bed and in front of the green ruff. The half-empty bottle rolled a little, the pills inside making a light tinkling noise as it did so.
"Tell me the truth." Brick spoke after a long moment of tense silence. "Did you forget or not?"
"…"
"Well…?" The red ruff's tone was an even mix of inquiring and warning.
Butch's fists clenched.
"…I didn't."
The green ruff's voice was small and subdued, yet his two brothers heard it loud and clear.
"Didn't what, didn't forget or didn't-"
"I forgot, alright!" Butch suddenly shouted at Brick, "I fucking forgot-"
"Liar."
Brick's draconian voice was cutting and Butch and Boomer resisted the urge to flinch.
"Tch…" Butch turned his head towards the glass balcony doors to his right, away from his bedroom door.
"Double the dose." Brick ordered his black-haired brother.
"I'm already taking double…" Butch scowled. Those meds fucking tasted like Antidote-X.
"Then double it again." Brick ordered in a final tone, narrowed eyes starting to glow. Boomer silently winced.
Butch irritably cursed.
Brick let him vent. "Just so you know, I'm telling tomorrow." He casually said, as if talking about the weather.
Both Butch and Boomer froze. Forest green eyes shot up towards his blond brother.
Boomer lowered his head, hiding his face. "…"
The green ruff gritted his teeth and turned his head away once more.
"Let them know…" Butch scoffed dismissively.
"…" Half-lidded red eyes watched as the blue ruff in front of him kept quiet. "You okay with them knowing?"
"Are you?" The green ruff angrily shot back to his 'eldest' brother.
"Moron."
Butch stubbornly stayed silent.
Brick closed his eyes and let out a tired sigh.
"Just remember, it wasn't your fucking fault." The red ruff said at last before straightening and walking away, leaving Butch to wallow in silence in his bedroom.
The blue ruff gave one last glance at his black-haired brother before quietly closing the bedroom door and following Brick downstairs.
"…Are you okay with telling?" The blond finally spoke after the two of them reached the kitchen.
"Doesn't matter if I am or not." Brick simply answered, immediately heading towards the coffeemaker. "We need them knowing and we hate it."
"…" Boomer quietly watched his red-haired brother's back as he worked. "Brick… couldn't we just move…?"
"Hmph." The red ruff sneered, "Do you really think we would be here if we could?"
Boomer's face was carefully blank. "Yes."
Brick scowled. He couldn't really refute since it was true. "Tch…"
"And it's not really because of 'that' either…" Boomer added, unnecessarily speaking what all three brothers knew what to be true.
Brick scowled further. Red eyes started glowing and the mug of coffee he was holding in his hand started to boil.
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
IV. The Inevitable
(or in which the Greens are dead, if not by each other's hands, then via enraged 'eldest' siblings)
Author End Notes
The Reds' dialogue at the principal's office was fun to write.
Blossom actually swore, wow…
Oh, so Brick's not allowed to see Butch like that but apparently Boomer is? And what is 'that'…?