Disclaimer: The Powerpuff Girls character names belong to Craig McCracken and Cartoon Newtwork unless stated an OC which in case belong to the author, Quarter 'till Class. No copyright infringement is intended. Plagiarism is theft so is prohibited. Do not copy or create a reproduction of this work in any language without express written authorization of the author, Quarter 'till Class. Thank you...Please enjoy.

Some Buttercup x Ace

A/N: This is strictly in Buttercup's perspective, with the assumption that by fifteen and nineteen she's matured. We look into the changed environment of Townsville, which has recently become Gotham's equivalent with the escalating crime rate. Buttercup departs from Townsville at fifteen, going from city to city as a sort of wandering hero with direct and valiant intentions. Returning years later, Buttercup realizes that everything's a little worse off than she'd anticipated. Despite her sister's efforts, HIM maintains a religious cult following, The Gang Green Gang has expanded and invalidates local law enforcement, and Princess Morebucks governs the town as a corporatocracy. Mojo is serving a life-sentence, the Mayor disappeared a year prior, and Townsville is left to defend itself without help from the outside.

Chapter 1: Patience

There's this way Blossom and Bubbles handle things, to avoid direct confrontation and skim past the excessive assault. They talk or cry their way out of what's going on, avoiding eye contact when uncomfortable and easing their way slowly out of tight situations.

It's annoying, to be blunt. I like the direct route. I appreciate straight-forward conversation. I like ending it quickly...no matter how much of their blood is caked on my knuckles or how many broken bones they limp away with. I'm a fighter, I have grit.

I stand over Sedusa, her hair yanked from the roots of her skull, wound around my fingers, dangling limp and dead. She lay unconscious, breathing uneven against the multiple broken ribs. Her complexion is spotted by the immediate bruises left by my fist, green and purple on white. I'd like to freely laugh at her misfortune, but the expressions of horror pointed at my hand are enough to keep me idle.

Blossom wanted to negotiate. Bubbles wanted to talk her into submission. I wanted to smash in her skull for the years of pointless deception that'd wasted our time. For what she'd done to Professor, wearing a facade and manipulating his emotions. Ms. Bellum. The Mayor.

She's a grade-A bitch, she had it coming.

For once my irritation had coiled into an itch, an intolerable urge that had been instigated when she'd spoken profanities towards Bubbles. And it worsened with every superior blow, slapping us around as we held back to avoid disaster. We're always careful, we don't know our strength - we're just little girls. We tip-toe over our foes to avoid physical ramifications. We go easy despite how often we're thrown into walls, smashed beneath debris, slapped around by hair (of all things). I wanted to beat her nearly to death.

So I did.

She can choke on her own blood, quiver in agony and fear. I don't care. I want her off the streets. I'd think everyone would want a manipulative, self-obsessed delinquent either behind bars or six feet under. I guess my opinions aren't as common as I'd initially figured.

But now I'm the criminal. I'm abusing my power, going too far, neglecting the law because 'even a villain has rights'. I'm not fit to maintain superior abilities, I'm a menace to society and all hero-kind. I embarrass the Powerpuff namesake, taint the definition of heroism.

"Buttercup, what's wrong with you?" She asks it in a way that expresses superiority, to show off her intellect. It's the usual tone Blossom saves specifically for me.

"Nothing." I don't know any other way to say it. There's nothing wrong.

"You seriously need to pull your act together." She points an accusing finger in my direction, angry. She barres her teeth when talking, as Blossom is known to do, before shaking her head to express impatient disappointment as though she were my mother. The last few years have taught me how to tolerate my sister. It's very difficult. In kind words: we don't get along.

"Blossom." The Professor intervenes, stern and genuinely troubled.

"Buttercup," He starts with such a familiar and repetitive tone. I have a headache. "I know that it's...difficult...to control your strength, but Blossom is right. You need to start holding back."

I'm offended. He implies that I'm incapable and weak, that I'm unreliable and excessively violent. My own father looks at me indifferently, with a creased brow and unsteady hands and this face of hidden disappointment. He tells me how to fight, how to look a murderer in the eye and admit that they deserve three square meals and a bed to sleep on in prison. After all these years he still has no idea, but he still talks like he understands. Like any normal parent would, like we're failing a test and not defending the public. I see where Blossom and Bubbles get it from, where they've learned to simplify the important things and strain themselves over smaller issues. I wonder how I avoided that learned behavior.

"It's not difficult. They deserve it." I leave the conversation at that. Maybe he'd see it my way.

Mojo feigns innocence. He holds this desperate look on his paled, green face, sputtering inaudible pleas as though he were harmless. All of the evidence points to him. Every source and informant, even witnesses tell us he's guilty. But Bubbles believes him, and to appease my more incapable sister Blossom follows suite.

"It was not I, no, I did not do this." He rambles on, gloved hands held high in surrender and expression sheepish and off. "I was not present, making me incapable of the act. I was not there so there for I did not do it."

I connect my fist to his face, feeling his teeth chip against my knuckles.

"You're under arrest." I tell him, and before I act rashly Blossom informs him of his rights with a bitter expression and a disbelieving glare. I knock him unconscious, snarling towards the hypothetical blood dripping from his hands. The fire he'd caused (as an indirect attempt to kill us, no less) managed to burn six buildings and an unidentified amount of people. He's responsible for the dead and their children, yet due to a poor alibi we let him walk. Because he said he didn't do it, we're just going to let him scamper back to his tower, laughing all the way.

That's not how it should work.

It's the reason they all keep coming back and killing more. Escaping and committing the same crimes over and over again. Destroying the town, taking lives and forcing the residents of this pathetically defended town to live in fear.

I wonder why we keep them breathing. Why we only put them behind bars, why we don't send them to an early grave and end Townsville's issues in a more reasonable and efficient manner. Why do we have to show them humanity when they lack morals and virtues entirely? An eye for an eye leaves the world blind, with exception to the last man with a single eye. There's no other way to resolve society's issues, so I'd like to be that last man.

I'm a monster to think that way, Blossom says. I'm wrong.

Yea, well...I'm always wrong.

"Hey Bubbles..." I inspect the loose stitching on Octi's hat, predicting our conversation even before it's begun. I recall how often I used to slap her with Octi. Then the day that HIM had possessed it with foul intentions and nearly ruined my sister. The corrupt bastard.

"Yea?" She's braiding her hair on the bed, sitting on one leg and grinning politely. She's so gullible, rarely aggressive anymore. She's still kind. Nothing like Blossom.

The question hangs on by tongue. I wonder if I should even reiterate what I've been obsessing over. I wonder if it's even possible anymore. She nudges me with her toes, free leg hanging off the bed beside me, tapping to the music blaring from her earphones. She's wearing those ugly blue pajamas I hate.

"How would you feel...if I left Townsville?" It's a common question in this household. Specifically from myself. I often wonder this city's outcome without the three of us as defenders. Now, so much stronger than the years prior, would only one of us be enough to keep it safe? How would it fair under a single, watchful eye?

"Not this again, Buttercup." Blossom rolls her eyes, pink and sharp like always. She glances over the textbook she's buried in, scanning the room and my visual response before looking back to her studies. I've learned to spite her, seeing how she's grown so well into the role of a pompous, hypocritical leader. More strict than before. As I've said: we don't get along anymore.

"I'd be sad." Bubbles frowns, tying up her braids and taking Octi as I hand him back. She doesn't think literally or of the physical repercussions; she thinks more emotionally than anything. How would she feel? Not what would happen, or how the city's moral would be affected; she'd be sad, she says. Sad.

"But how would you manage?"

"Bubbles, don't feed a fire." Blossom sits at her desk and broods, hunched over her book and tapping a pencil on the arm of the chair. She has her hair twisted in a sloppy bun, wound like a roll of bread at the base of her skull. It looks heavy and uncomfortable...and I'd still like to grow mine out.

"I think we'd be okay. But you're not really leaving, are you Buttercup?" She widens her eyes, pouting and looking distressed. I'm relieved to hear an honest answer, though I figure I'd prodded at the topic long enough to force on what I'd wanted to hear. I'm stubborn like that, Ms. Kean once told me.

I open my mouth, watching her inspect Octi's stitching and scroll through her MP3. I reassure her falsely. "Course not."

I leave that night. I escape as soon as Blossom passes out from her compulsive studying and energy-drink high. I pack a bag and go.

Townsville doesn't need a third wheel. It can't handle direct aggression. Townsville lacks tolerance for people like me; it's too soft.

I can protect another city.

I though it'd been a good idea at the time.

Leaving, I see something odd. Odd enough to force me to land. I couldn't dismiss my curiosity, nor that 'tainted' heroism Blossom so often reminds me of. There's a kid, just some random teenager...my age maybe. Sixteen, at the most. He's out late, tagging a wall as though it were some kind of commendable accomplishment. Grinning almost painfully and looking sort of ill-minded.

So I stop rather than flying away. Because something is always going to hold me back in this stupid city.

And I look at the untalented graffiti work of a juvenile delinquent, who's chuckling at some incoherent joke he'd made under his breath. It says 'TG' in sharp letters, colored black and green. TG. I don't recall, and I doubt I'll ever be aware of its actual meaning. Maybe the kid's name? His favorite video game, or movie? I don;t care, either way.

He's suddenly aware of my presence, stunned silent and briefly engrossed in panic. He throws his spray paint can in my direction, running and huffing clumsily. I make it quick to grab him by the collar and demand an explanation, hissing threats to break his fingers for vandalism.

"You have no idea, Puff. No clue wha's comin'." He tells me, swallowing twice and scratching at my grip. He looks like he's on something, either bathsalts or acid. I'm not familiar with drugs.

"Isn't tagging a Gang Green thing?" I ask him impatiently, wasting time. I'm loosing moonlight, and the sun rises early in Townsville...it always has.

"Like I says, you've got no clue." He laughs mockingly through his unease, and that alone earned him a busted nose. I drop him off, unconscious, on the police station's steps. If not for justice then strictly for purposes of humiliation. The cops don't question criminals ending up on their doorstep anymore. I'll genuinely miss that norm, where they trust us enough to step over certain rules. Exceptions in the name of proper justice, Commissioner White would say. Just read them their rights, first.

Despite the graffiti set-back I continue out of town. But it's a situation that still bothers me, even as I fly over the last of the suburbs and follow the freeway towards Citiesville. I still hear that guy's disturbed laughter and accusations. I think on what he'd said...how I have no idea, not a clue. It seems ominous, uncomfortably so.

I should have listened...I should have never left.

A/N: Thank you for reading! The next chapter will skip three years, though Buttercup's experiences outside of Townsville will be told and referenced to. Ace will also make his initial appearance, I believe, and Townsville will have degraded into something unrecognizable.

Please review! I'd be most grateful!