A/N: Wow, I had so much trouble trying to come up with this chapter it isn't even funny. Not only that, but I have like, three other story ideas racing through my brain at the same time. Ever have that happen to you? I will be typing those ideas after this chapter since two of the ideas are one shots. The other one is a bit longer and will wait until after this story.
Anyway, here's chapter two!
~*Under a Falling Star*~
The Powerpuff Girls glared at the boys. The Rowdyruff Boys glared right back at the girls. It was a tense moment in the classroom as everyone gazed at the glaring contest between the super children. Everyone was shifting eyes between the two groups until the silence was broken.
"Okay, that is enough!" Ms. Keane shouted, startling every child in the room out of their own little world. The attention was then shifted to the educator as she walked over to her desk to grab some math worksheets. "Boys, grab the extra table in the back and place it where you want to sit then take your seats. I will warn you that I will be keeping my eyes on you for today. I will fill you in on the rules of this classroom later, but for now, sit down and get some writing utensils and start on the math assignment. Since you are new, you may ask for some help from the other students if you wish." With that, she walked back over and handed the boys the papers.
Grumbling amidst the snickers of the other children, they floated to the back of the room and grabbed the only extra table the school had, glaring at everyone in the process.
"So, where are we setting this thing?" Butch asked his two brothers. "I dunno," Brick shrugged, "As long as we aren't sitting near any girls, any place is fine."
Boomer got a strange look on his face when Brick said that, but then he smiled with a sly look on his face. "Hey, why don't we sit behind the..." He struggled to say the next part, as if the idea of saying the name hurt. "Powerpuke Girls?" The blonde boy grimaced when he said that, though his brothers thought it was because of his idea. "That way, we can throw like, spitwads and stuff at them, ya know?" Brick and Butch both glared at him with their arms crossed, not comprehending what he suggested fully at first.
"Boomer, that has got to be the dumbe-" Brick started, but the glare fell off of his face and he got a contemplative look instead. The red-head's face then took on an evil smile. "Actually, I take that back Boomer. That has got to be your best idea yet!" He rubbed his hands together in a typical evil villain way. Butch copied his gesture after he got what his brother was thinking, but Boomer looked both relieved and worried for some reason. His brothers didn't notice since they were lost in a fantasy world of some sort.
"Right. Butch, you set the table up, Boomer and I will get chairs." With that, the three Ruffs got to work. 'Maybe this school thing won't be so bad after all!' All three thought, though Boomer thought it for a different reason. When he looked toward the Powerpuff Girl's table, he locked eyes with his counterpart's. He gave a small smile and a nearly impossible to notice nod towards her.
~*Break*~
"Ugh, who invited those bozos?" Buttercup complained and turned to glare at the boys who were in the midst of their conversation. She missed the looks that crossed Brick's and Butch's faces when she turned back around to look at her sisters.
Blossom was leaning on her left hand with a bored look on her face and half lidded eyes. She shifted her eyes in Buttercup's direction to look at her. "My guess is that truant officer. The same one that forced the Gangrene Gang to attend." She replied to Buttercup's questioning look.
"Oh, him. What was his name anyway?" The brunette asked. Blossom just shrugged and answered, "Don't know, don't care."
During her sister's exchange of words, Bubbles had kept an inconspicuous glance on the three Rowdyruffs. She rolled her blue eyes when she saw the looks on her sister's counterparts, but her main focus was on the blonde Ruff, Boomer. She locked her eyes with his when he turned around and smiled back at him when the blonde Ruff smiled and nodded toward her. By this time, she was feeling fully awake for the first time since she was forced out of bed this morning.
~*Break*~
Bubbles returned her attention to her sisters when she heard them groan in disgust. They had apparently noticed that the boys had set up their table directly behind their own.
"Great, now we'll have to put up with their stink too. It's not enough that they have to be in the same room as us!" Buttercup griped when she saw Butch set the table down behind them.
"I know Buttercup, but we'll just have to put up with it. Even villains deserve an education." Blossom said. She thought of what she said for a moment and corrected herself with "Well, they aren't necessarily villains now, just a bunch of miscreants."
"Maybe we outta give them a chance?" Buttercup glared over at Bubbles when she stated her question. "Give them a chance? Are you nuts? They're our enemy Bubbles! Don't you remember all the times we gave our enemies the benefit of the doubt? Huh? They stabbed us in the back! Nuh uh, no way am I giving those blowhards a chance!" She slammed her fist down on the table (gently so as not to break it) when she said her last sentence.
Bubbles glared right back at Buttercup and told her "You are so stubborn Buttercup!" Blossom, in between both of her sisters as they started another argument, just sighed. 'If it isn't me and Buttercup fighting, it's Buttercup and Bubbles.' The red-head thought. "All right, the both of you stop! You both have equally valid points, so we'll just keep an eye on them for now." Blossom told them. Bubbles and Buttercup gave an "Okay" and a "Yeah, whatever" in agreement.
Luckily for the superpowered kids, every other kid in the classroom was chatting up a storm; discussing their newest classmates. This drowned out their respective conversations in the sea of noise that waved through the classroom.
After the Ruffs had set up their table and sat down, Ms. Keane called for silence. "Okay class, go ahead and finish working on your math worksheet for the next thirty minutes." The whole room collectively groaned in unison when the command was issued, but their teacher continued, "If you finish it within the time limit, you may bring it up to me and set it on my desk. After that will be a bathroom break then we'll start on art class." When she finished, the room cheered this time, though some still looked rather put out at having to do math for a further thirty minutes.
~*Break*~
The class grabbed their worksheets and began on them, wanting to finish them as soon as possible. Though two boys refused to even begin working.
"I ain't working on this crap, math is lame!" Butch snorted as he eyed the piece of paper with distaste, as though it were a cute butterfly flying underneath him.
"Word, dude." Brick agreed and started tearing up his paper into smaller pieces. He pulled a straw seemingly out of nowhere (he actually got it from the trash and hid it under his shirt) and was about to start wading the pieces of paper when he noticed that Boomer was actually working on his worksheet.
"Dude, why are you working on that?" Brick asked in honest confusion. Boomer looked up from his paper and turned his head to look at his cap-cladded brother.
"Uh, because the teacher told us to?" He stated in false stupidity. Brick just looked at him and nearly busted a lung from trying to hold his laughter in.
"Dude, that is so lame!" He taunted and Butch pitched in with "Lamer than lame!"
Bubbles, who was already half way through her assignment heard what the two Ruffs said and had to stop herself from laughing silly. They said the exact same thing to her when she was posing as Boomer!
The blue-eyed Ruff just rolled his eyes. "Look, we're forced to be here," 'Sorta,' "and I am going to make the best of it, whether you like it or not." With that, Boomer turned back to his math paper and ignored his brothers.
Brick just shook his head. "Whatever dude." He turned back to what he was doing beforehand and finished wading the paper pieces. He reached over and took Butch's paper and did the same thing after tearing it up, then split the pile between them. Butch giddily took his pile and chose a paper ball and popped it into his mouth, swishing it around for a few seconds. He looked toward the front of the room to make sure Ms. Keane was at her desk and busy with something. Satisfied that she was, he turned toward his target- Buttercup.
~*Break*~
'Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes. Why only thirty minutes?' Buttercup thought as she gnawed on the eraser of her pencil and staring down at the math problems on her paper. 'I hate math!' The brunette finally put her pencil to the paper and answered the first one- a simple addition problem. 'That one was easy, but the rest won't be.'
A few minutes in and Buttercup was feeling more confident in her abilities to finish the problems in time. 'Hey, these aren't too bad after all!' She thought to herself. Her concentration was broken though when a huge sounding splat and the feeling of a small wet ball hit her so hard in the back of the head that it almost had her head slamming into the paper in front of her.
The entire class looked up from their worksheets and stared wide eyed at Buttercup who was rubbing the back of her head and growling at an innocent looking Butch.
"What?" He said. "I didn't do it."
"You didn't do it my a-" She was interrupted by Ms. Keane saying "Buttercup!" The green-eyed Puff mumbled and apology while still glaring at the Ruff smirking at her. 'Oh just wait until recess pal!'
Ms. Keane got up and walked over to stand in front of the boys' table. She put her hands on her hips and glared at them, sans Boomer who she looked at approvingly. He had miraculously ignored all the noise going on and continued to work on his math problems.
"Boys, I do not tolerate this foolishness in my classroom, do you understand me?" She scolded them. Brick and Butch adopted a fake chastised look and apologized. Beside them, Boomer just shook his head at their act. 'As if the teacher is going to fall for that one.'
Indeed he was right, Ms. Keane gave them a disbelieving look, but was going to give them another chance when she noticed that their math assignment was nowhere in sight and in place of their worksheets were two piles of paper balls.
"Brick, Butch... What happened to your worksheets?" She questioned them. The two of them looked at one another before looking up at Ms. Keane. Brick was the one to answer her. He shrugged and said "Our dog ate it?" Every child in the room burst out laughing at his obvious lie, even Boomer. 'Man, and they call me stupid!' He thought.
Ms. Keane felt like taking the leader Ruff and whacking him hard over the head with a ruler or something harder. Instead, she settled for pointing at the front of the classroom and told them in a hard voice "Corner, the both of you. NOW!" Both boys just sneered but did as she asked and floated over to the left corner in the front of the classroom. Snickers from their classmates followed them as they did so.
~*Break*~
The kindergarten teacher rubbed a hand down her face and sighed. She turned toward the class. "Alright, settle down and finish your work, you still have 15 minutes left." With that, she walked back up to her desk and sat down to continue what she was doing earlier.
At the Powerpuff table, Buttercup was still rubbing the back of her head and grimacing. Blossom looked at her with concern. "Buttercup, are you alright?" She asked her. "Yeah yeah, I'm fine." The brunette replied. "It barely stung, but it was gross feeling." She shuddered with disgust. "Ugh, I'll never get rid of the feeling!"
Blossom just smirked at her. "Well then, guess you'll have to take an extra long bath tonight then, won't you?" To her utter surprise, her tomboy sister nodded in agreement.
"I may like being dirty, but being covered in that jerk's spit is not on the top of my priorities list thank you." She stopped rubbing her head and tried to ignore the cold, slimy feeling residing at the back of her head. It was difficult, but she managed to.
Blossom just sighed and turned to look at Bubbles and noticed that she was now coloring. "Hey Bubbles, you're supposed to be working right now, not coloring!" The red-head scolded her blonde sister. Bubbles put down the dark blue crayon she had in her hand and looked at Blossom.
"Well, unlike you two, I didn't get distracted by all the fuss and finished my assignment early. So there!" She stuck her tongue out at Blossom, picked her crayon back up, and continued coloring without a care in the world at that moment.
Blossom looked at her slack jawed for a few seconds before pulling herself together. 'I didn't even notice her getting up to turn in her paper. I guess I was distracted.' With that thought, she turned back to her work and finished it within the next few minutes.
~*Break*~
'I hope he likes this picture I'm making for him!' The blonde Puff thought as she chose a red crayon next. 'I'm working extra hard on it just for him.' Bubbles was indeed working hard on her latest 'masterpiece'. She had drawn the outline with a pencil and inked it with a thick black pen. The technique was learned from an art book that was gifted from him. She was afraid that he had stolen it, but her fears were abated when he handed her a receipt from the store he got it from. She nearly choked on her own spit when she had seen the price of the book. 'I can't believe he paid 40 dollars for the thing!' Of course that just made her worry about where he got the money. She needn't have worried about that either since he explained that the money came from small favors and whatnot he had been doing around the city to earn money. Secretly of course; he didn't want his brothers to know he was doing good deeds for people. Yet.
Hiding the book from her sisters had been a real pain in the behind, but the Puff had finally found a decent hiding place in their room. Oh she knew it would be discovered at some point in time, and she was hoping it wouldn't be any time soon. Bubbles just didn't fancy sharing her expensive gift with her sisters at all. Especially Buttercup. From experience, Bubbles knew that anything personal of hers that landed in the hands of Buttercup was either broken, ripped, or used as a weapon against her. Just the image of her gift shredded into tiny little pieces or going up in flame had her near tears.
The book itself was nearly the size of an encyclopedia volume and filled to the brim with all sorts of art styles, tips, techniques, examples, and step-by-step directions on all things art. When she first flipped through the book with astonished eyes, she even noted there were several sections dedicated to the art of photography! Bubbles didn't even consider photography as an art form before she got the book, but glancing at some of the rules and techniques that were used, she quickly changed her mind. There was a certain beauty in the art that just couldn't be captured with drawing materials. The blonde Puff promised herself that she would give it a shot sometime in the future if she could acquire a decent camera. Though trying to sweet talk her dad into buying an expensive camera didn't seem all that appealing. Maybe taking a page out of his book and earning some money around the city would be a good idea. After all, it's not like she could get a part-time job at her age (1).
Her musings were cut short when Ms. Keane finally called for a bathroom break.
~*Break*~
The rest of the time spent before recess was in art class. Ms. Keane had let Brick and Butch out of the corner when she called for the bathroom break. They were now sitting back at their table with Boomer and drawing some rather... Gory and inappropriate things. Boomer tried to warn them that they would get in trouble for it when he saw what they had drawn, but it was no good.
"Dude, mind yer own business ya teacher's pet!" Brick had told him. Butch had just plain ignored him.
Boomer sighed and went back to his own work. He wasn't a good artist in any way, but he did enjoy drawing and coloring. It was one of many things he had in common with her. Her artistic talent far outstripped his in every way though. He would bet all of his candy that she was going to be a famous artist in the future.
Art class ended an hour later and it was time for recess. Brick and Butch had somehow hidden their... Er... Artwork from Ms. Keane. Where they stuffed it Boomer had no idea and he didn't want to know either.
The bell rang and every kid in the classroom practically stampeded out the door and onto the playground. Boomer, however, didn't. He stood by the door that led outside and waited there. He had his head tilted downward toward the carpet of the classroom, but the blonde Ruff looked up when he felt someone else's hand grab his own. There, in front of him, was the blonde Powerpuff Girl Bubbles, smiling at him.
He smiled back.
~*Under a Falling Star*~
Oh my god, I worked on this chapter for two days now. The next chapter is going to be a flashback of sorts, but I'm not going to spoil it.
I wrote this chapter on the fly since I had such a hard time coming up with anything for it. Oh, and I purposely don't include descriptions of some things. I like to let you draw your own conclusions and to use your imagination on some things.
(1) Yes I know Blossom got a job in A Not So Awesome Blossom, but that was a one time thing and never happened again in the show. Five year old children, even if they have superpowers, shouldn't be allowed (legally) to even have a job at their age.