Chapter 1

Blossom Utonium had to restrain herself from putting her fist through the wall.

From the perspective of an outsider, they probably would have assumed that she was angry with her sisters, and their almost biological need to throw her schedule completely off. That wasn't the case though, most people would probably be surprised to find that she had long accepted the fact that she was on the odd man out with the girls. No, contrary to the image that people had of her as the leader of the Powerpuff Girls and as the smart one of the group, that wasn't what was bothering her. What was driving her completely insane was right on top of her head and it had been sitting on top of her head since the moment she was created.

Her bow.

Not just any bow.

Her bow.

The bow.

The bow that was on statues, in portraits, videos and the one that was generally associated with everything related to the Powerpuff Girls. It wasn't as if she hadn't tried to take it off before, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. It was such a small thing, insignificant in the long run, but it reminded her of the past and reminded her of things that would always be. In as much as saving Townsville had become a part of her identity, the bow that she had worn in her hair since her creation, in various places throughout the years, had become a part of it as well.

Now, with only an hour to go before the start of her final year at Pokey Oaks High School, seventeen year old Blossom was ready to do something that would have driven five year old Blossom to the very verge of tears and probably to a manic fit.

She was ready to take the bow off of her head.

And not just take it off, she was ready to vaporize it with her heat vision.

For the past six years or so, Bubbles and Buttercup had been almost begging her to take it off and change her look. She had always ignored them though and pressed on and perhaps that determination to stay the same was what contributed to her reputation as an ice queen. There were plenty of boys at their school that would want to date her and it wasn't as if she was unattractive, but most were completely intimidated by the fact that she was who she was, Blossom of the Powerpuff Girls.

Bubbles and Buttercup had made it a point to slowly distance themselves from the reputation that they had garnered as children. She hadn't choose to do that, and had ultimately choose to continue her service to the City of Townsville, and because of that, she was viewed as something of an unattainable figure at their High School.

Or for lack of a better explanation, Bubbles and Buttercup became human.

She became a snob to many people.

For those that knew her best, they knew that she was not fond of change, and any change that she was forced to accept was better off coming in slower increments than anything else. If too much change was forced upon her, she closed up on herself and stubbornly refused to accept it. Maybe that was why she had forgone getting rid of the trappings of childhood and separating herself from her reputation, she was entirely sure. All she knew was that she had definitely suffered for all of it.

Her relationship with her sisters was the greatest victim.

When the three of them first arrived in High School, they were intent on never letting themselves drift apart – and always remaining as close as they always were before, even in the midst of peer pressure and growing up. What could tear them apart? They were the Powerpuff Girls. She and her sisters had been fighting evil and crime for their whole lives, what was peer pressure going to be able to do? Blossom was darkly amused at the thought. She didn't know how wrong she was.

That was three years ago.

Since then, she and her sisters had been leading three separate lives, characterized by their nature since they were five years old. Buttercup had slowly drifted into the more athletic crowd and was mostly friends with boys – like anyone expected otherwise of her. Bubbles, as expected, drifted into the crowd of the popular girls of the school. Maintaining cheerleading, she also served on the Student Council, though Blossom was always sure that she had no conception of what it really meant to serve and be elected. She had turned out to what the objective person would have frankly expected her to turn into. It was safe, comfortable and disappointing.

As for Blossom, she was the smartest girl in school.

She was the President of the Student Council.

She was the favorite of every teacher and the spokesman for her entire class.

She was also one of the most intimidating people in her entire class.

Not that it prevented her from having relationships, but generally, she was considered too "stuck up" to have the social life of Bubbles and Buttercup. She spent most of her free time studying or working at the Mayor's office.

And that was her life.

It wasn't a great life by any means, and if she had a choice, would she go back in time and do certain things differently, she would. She did not have that luxury unfortunately, and contrary to the Professor's hopes, she did not seriously think that she and her sisters would ever be as close as they were as kids, ever again.

"So you've finally decided to take it off?" Bubbles's soft voice came from her doorway and when Blossom turned, she was almost take aback by the hesitant smile that came from her sister's face. "You should keep it like that, it's pretty."

Blossom smiled slightly and turned back to the mirror, it was very rare that she got to see her hair when it was down and she supposed that Bubbles was right. Her hair, which was almost absurdly long, drifted nicely down her back and shoulders.

It was so strange to see the bow out of her hair.

And while it did feel a little strange, it felt… liberating.

"Bubbles! Buttercup! I'm leaving in three minutes and if you're not down here in that time, I'm leaving without you," Blossom shouted as she arrived at the bottom of the stairs and adjusted the light lavender skirt she was wearing. On normal days, Blossom would drive them all to school in her car, which led to the inevitable complaining by Buttercup about how she should have her own. That would lead to her sharply replying that she worked for it, unlike the other two who were content to have the Professor continue to take care of them, which of course led to a fight.

While she and Buttercup were busy arguing with each other on the merits of earning a living and enjoying the rewards, Bubbles would have her head in the clouds. Her ear buds would typically be turned up to full volume and popping gum in her mouth. Despite the fact that it irritated her to no end to see her nicest sister completely tune them out, Blossom couldn't blame her. She and Buttercup had been prone to arguing their entire lives and Bubbles had never been fond of it.

When Blossom put her hands on her hips and prepared to shout at them again, a very familiar beeping hit the periphery of her hearing, very, very faintly. It wasn't so much the beeping that roused her curiosity, it was the source of the beeping.

Over the years, most of the villains that they had faced in their childhood were either dead, retired, or off to torment other parts of the world. Since then, Townsville had gained the distinction of being a city with one of the lowest crime rates in the industrialized world, and what little crime did happen was handled by police. The issues that she and her sisters handled were mostly limited to the occasional beast that lumbered from Monster Isle, or came from outer space.

That usually resulted in a call from the Miss Bellum to their cell phones.

That beeping was from old hotline though, the one that had been retired when Mojo Jojo left town. Blossom could still remember the day when Buttercup had ended up beating the monkey so badly that in his typical fit of ranting afterwards, he ended up moving to Citiesville and vowed to never, ever return to Townsville in his life.

She could remember it like yesterday, it was one of the best days of her life.

Afterwards, she, her sisters, and the Mayor's office, agreed that the old hotline would only be used for the strictest emergencies. not even an enormous monster destroying downtown would warrant a phone call on that phone. Only a direct threat to the Mayor himself would warrant a call from the hotline and it would have to be one that only she and her sisters could handle. Blossom felt that familiar urge to rush to the hotline swell up in her from the moment that beeping hit her eardrums, she'd only heard it every day of her childhood. In a way, that hotline had trained them to rush off towards City Hall, sort of how like Pavlov trained his dog.

"Is that the hotline I hear?" Buttercup's incredulous voice came from above her.

Blossom looked up towards her sister at the top of the stairs and nodded, "Yes."

And before Buttercup could formulate a response, Blossom shot off towards the kitchen where they kept the hotline, leaving a trail of light pink behind her. When they had pretty much eliminated all villainy in the city four years ago, being able to be late for school and rushing out in the middle of a class had become dramatically harder. As much as Blossom loathed the idea of missing school, if that hotline was ringing, and the Mayor was in trouble, the teachers would just have to accept it.

Picking up the phone and grimacing slightly at the ridiculously childish beeping red nose on the front of it, Blossom steeled herself and took a deep breath in, "Yes?"

"Girls?" Miss Bellum's calm voice unnerved her slightly.

That wasn't to say that Miss Bellum wasn't calm most of the time. Townsville had seen its share of dire predicaments in its existence and in all of that time, most people, save for the Mayor himself, had learned to be calm about them. There was something about her tone that made Blossom painfully aware that it was a false calm. Something bad had happened or was happening and it was frightening even Miss. Bellum, logically, Blossom knew that whatever it was needed their attention.

"It's Blossom," Blossom replied and looked behind her as Bubbles and Buttercup raced into the room. Blossom felt a trickle of nostalgia enter her mind, although at the worst possible time, as she noticed her two sisters hovering off of the ground.

It had been a long time since she had seen either of them do that outside of a battle with a massive monster.

"Good," Bellum replied, lowering her voice – she sounded as if she was purposely concealing her location, which roused Blossom's instincts even higher then they were at the moment. "I need you girls to get down here fast, they've broken into the City Hall and they're threatening to kill the Mayor unless he brings you gi-…"

Despite the flaw in Miss Bellum's logic, she knew that they had no other choice.

"We'll be down there," Blossom promised to the Mayor's longtime aide and turned to her sisters and nodded. "Can you tell us who it is? I don't want to go into this-…"

Buttercup and Bubbles watched as Blossom's face melted into a mask of shock, outrage, horror and determination – and as quickly as that happened, they were further shocked to witness Blossom drop the phone. Before either of them could possibly ask their sister what was happening, the leader of the Powerpuff Girls shot past them. Blasting out of the kitchen and out of the open sliding door that lead to the backyard, Bubbles and Buttercup followed the trail of pink as fast as they could.

Feeling Bubbles and Buttercup land to flank her on the steps of City Hall, Blossom determinedly walked forward and promptly blasted the doors off of the front of the building with her heat vision. If she was getting strange looks from her sisters, she really couldn't bring herself at this moment. In hindsight, she probably should have told them what Miss Bellum had told them, it would explain her current actions.

The fact of the matter was that she was rightly irritated and unnerved, and a little something like talking about have delayed their arrival.

Marching through the corridors of City Hall – Blossom felt the fists at her side clench progressively tighter as they neared the Mayor's office. It had been a very long time since anyone had seen them. The last time that they had fought, they nearly destroyed half of the city and killed each other. After that, the next morning, they were gone, and no matter how hard she and her sisters looked for them, they could not find them. They searched a one hundred mile radius around the City, and there had been no sign of them. It had led Blossom to conclude that they had moved onto greener pastures – and that it was probably the last time that they would ever see them. If only it had been that easy, if only they had stayed away.

For the past ten years, they were considered a non-factor.

Watching as Bubbles and Buttercup slammed open the doors to the Mayor's office, Blossom silently tried to come to grips with the fact that they were back. They had been their only enemy that had a surefire, and totally genuine, chance of destroying them. At one time, Blossom considered them only second to Him in the pecking order of enemies that presented a serious threat to them and their city.

"Well, well, well, look at what we have here boys," His voice grated on her neves.

Hearing Bubbles gasp from beside her, and Buttercup growl, even as a glowing green light began to form in the palm of her hand, Blossom remained calm.

Because where the Rowdyruff Boys were concerned, she had to be calm.

Anything less would lead to disorder.

And disorder would almost certainly ensure the undesired outcome.

Authors Note: Just a little thing that would not stop bothering me, let me know if you like it, I'd like to continue it :)