Chapter 2

What Was

This is fucking stupid.

"Where would be the best place for a lengthy discussion: out here, or somewhere else?" the stranger asked.

Bubbles, suddenly so helpful, led her to the kitchen. "The kitchen will be the best. So, where are you from? How did you get to be the boys' guardian? You can't be more than twenty-five."

Buttercup and Blossom watched them enter the other room.

As soon as they left, Buttercup exploded. "Are we seriously going to act okay with this? Bubbles is in the kitchen with some rando, and the professor is in the lab with three known criminals. They have to be planning something."

"I agree," Blossom nodded. "But what is it? Maybe they're trying to lull us into a false sense of security?"

"Oh, girls," the stranger, Kendra, called. "I telling Bubbles all my nefarious plots, and if you want to know, you'd better get in here."

They heard a giggle.

With a sigh, Buttercup moved to the other room. Blossom shot one more look at the door to the lab before following her sister.

She really didn't need to worry, the professor was better off than his three patients.

An evil grin spread across the scientist's face as what he just said registered.

"You've got to be fucking joking!" Brick clearly didn't believe his request was honest. Boomer and Butch looked less sure.

"Oh," he retorted, not bothering to mask his glee. "I'm completely serious. Several of the tests I'll be running will require a sperm sample. I've given you the containers and shown you where you can go for some privacy, so if you could get that done we can move on to the other evaluations."

That seemed to convince them of the validity of his statement, which seemed to upset two of them. Boomer just shrugged, grabbed his beaker, and went to go get the job done; his brothers on the other hand, decided to argue.

"Why is this necessary? What could you possibly find out from our sperm?" Brick asked cooly.

Butch went for a less couth approach. "Are you some kind of pervert or something? That's a creepy ass smile you've got going."

"Hardly," the smile dropped from his face. "The reason I'm smiling is because I'm finally getting a little revenge."

"Revenge? What did we ever do to you?"

"We tried to kill his daughters, you dumbasses," Boomer informed, walking back into the room. His face was rather red as he handed the professor his sample.

"Damn, that was fast," Butch snickered.

"Exactly." He handed boy another container. "Urine next, please."

Boomer took it without a word, and went to get that done too. He never noticed his brothers' glares.

Figuring he wasn't getting out of it, Brick grabbed a beaker. "I still think this is unnecessary."

It seemed Butch wasn't ready to give up the fight, but his older brother wanted to get this all done now, so they could get home and he could start getting ready for school the next day. He grabbed his arm and pushed him to one of the empty rooms. Shoving the beaker into the black haired boy's hand, he slammed the door shut.

"Could I at least get a copy of that magazine where Blossom and Bubbles were in those bikinis?"

Brick ignored him as he walked back to grab the last container. He heard Boomer behind him.

He turned to his youngest brother. "Why are you giving in so easy? Why aren't you fighting a little?"

There was a sadness in the blue eyes staring back at him. "I don't want to be a bad guy anymore, and this is the first step to making amends."

With that, he walked over to the professor and handed him the cup.

"Thank you for being so helpful, Boomer," the older man gave him a genuine smile. "I just need a quick blood sample, then you can head back upstairs."

He glanced at Brick. "Do you need something?"

"No."

Buttercup really wanted to hit something. She was sitting as far away from the brunette as possible, up on the counter and tucked in a corner.

"So what do you want to know first," she asked as Blossom sat down.

The red head didn't hesitate. "Why are you here? Why did you bring them back?"

"There are a couple of reasons," she admitted, looking Blossom directly in the eye. "First, the professor. He's the only person who has any real knowledge about the effects of Chemical X, so if anything's wrong with my boys, he's the person I want around."

She glanced at Bubbles. "Second is Boomer. He's grown a lot in the last few years, and he really regrets their actions. I want him to be able to prove to this town, to you, and most importantly to himself that he is good."

There wasn't a trace of deceit in her tone, but Buttercup had a feeling she was hiding something. "And number three?"

"Number three?"

"The third thing. There's always a third thing."

They watched as a deep red flush crawl up her neck and face. "Nope, no other reason. None at all. I have no-"

"She's running from a dude that likes her," Boomer interrupted as he entered the room.

Kendra turned to give him a withering glare. "Shut. up. Blondie."

Bubbles got her "good gosip" look. "Really? Do tell."

Boomer smiled and pulled out a chair. "His name is Hades-"

"Jason," she was pouting big time.

"He prefers Hades. He's twenty-seven or eight, and they've known each other about eight or nine years. They spent most of that time fighting. Something happened about two years ago and he made a complete personality swap. He goes out of his way to make her life as mellow as possible, which she hates."

"Fine," she interrupted, not wanting him to spill anything actually embarrassing. "That was a very nice perk, but that wasn't the biggest reason. For some unknown reason, I happen to like these three assholes, and I really don't want anything to happen to them."

"Aww, she loves us," Brick said as he came up behind her.

"Shut up, punk." She reached under her chair and pulled out her purse. After digging around for a couple seconds, she pulled out a couple pieces of paper. She passed one to Brick, one to Boomer, and the other to Bubbles. "These are your schedules. We worked it out so that there will at least one of the girls in all of your classes. I tried to get to where no counterparts were alone in a class, but unfortunately, Brick refused to take his dumb pills."

"So, Pinky's gonna be in all my classes?" Brick sounded ridiculously put out.

Blossom ripped the paper out of his hand. "Are you serious? Even my college placement courses?" Brick moved to grab it back, but she dodged. "The only class we don't have together is art."

"He's with Bubbles," Kendra informed.

"Is this Butch's schedule?" Bubbles asked.

"Yup."

"You do know who he's sharing his last class with?"

"I do indeed. Oh, and speaking of Butch, I have to warn you," there was a mischievous glint in her eye. "He's got his eyes set on all of you."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Buttercup growled.

"Two minutes before we left our place he said, and I quote, 'Blossom's fucking hot and Bubbles is totally bangable.' And that he'd be willing to fuck Buttercup to get the hat trick."

A huge guffaw escaped from Buttercup's chest. "Seriously? What a fucking asshole."

"Who's an asshole?" Butch asked as he walked into the room.

"You," came the response from every person in the house.

He shrugged, " Fair enough."

The professor walked in behind him. "Let's move this into the living room so we can all be comfortable as Kendra and I lay down the rules."

Blossom and Bubbles shared the couch with Boomer and Butch, while Buttercup and Brick sat in the two chairs.

Standing before them, the professor motioned for Kendra to start. She gave him a smile and a nod.

"Okay, so the beginning the best place to start, yeah?" when she got multiple nods, she continued. "Super. So about ten years ago, I was snooping around my hometown, as fourteen year olds are like to do. I heard some loud noises coming from an old warehouse. When I snuck in, I came across another kid, he was about seventeen."

We started fighting, loudly, and caught by some very bad people. They dragged us down the main experiment. They were trying to recreate Chemical X, so they could make more people like you. Apparently, we interrupted them trying to find "volunteers," so we got drafted. They strapped us down to inject something, but whatever they were working on was unstable. As they were bringing it over, something happened, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital, lucky to be alive."

She let out a deep sigh, "We first realized something was off when injuries that should have taken weeks or months to heal were gone overnight. Once I was released, some strange things started happening. I thought I was going crazy until I got a call from a man claiming that he was an expert when it came to Chemical X, and that he could help me get through that difficult process."

"I'd seen the story on the national news," the professor took over. "I knew there were certain risks that she had, and I had to make sure that she was going to be okay."

"Where were we when this was happening? I honestly have zero memory of this," Blossom sounded truly confused.

"You wouldn't, you were only seven, and you were busy trying to find out where the boys disappeared to," the professor explained gently.

"Plus," Kendra added. "This is our first time meeting, all our communications happened over the phone or through email up until now. We were kinda secretive because I was young, and scared of being drawn into something I was completely unprepared for."

Buttercup felt a twinge of pity. Sure she and her sisters had been through similar, but they were born like this. It was their normal. She couldn't imagine waking up one day with crazy powers and even crazier people being after you for them.

"No offense," Butch drawled from the other chair. "But why are you expositing all over us? We already know all of this."

Everyone rolled their eyes.

"Dipshit, the story was for the girls benefit," Brick explained in his trademarked condescending tone.

The dark haired teen sent his brother a middle finger.

Brick started to stand, when Bubbles asked, "How did you guys meet?" She knew the start of a fight when she saw it, and she was in no mood.

"Well," Kendra began, only to be cut off by seven phones blaring out a familiar sound. Bubbles was a little surprised to see the newcomers pull out identical hotline phones as theirs, but there was no time to question it.

"Fifty foot monster attacking downtown," both Blossom and Brick called at the same time. They glared at each other.

"This is our fight, stay out of it," Blossom commanded.

Brick sneered. "It's our responsibility now, too. So deal with it, princess."

She bristled visibly and got right in his face. "Never call me that again."

"Alright, children." Kendra pushed her way between them. "That's enough. We all have a job to do, and you need to get used to it. The boys and I will be getting all the calls you get, so all of you will have to learn to work together."

Both Blossom and Brick exclaimed loudly at her statement.

Bubbles ignored the argument and flew upstairs to get into something she could fight in; she just bought that new dress and there was no way she would risk something happening to it.