Relationship recap (been 2 years after all): Buttercup and Mitch are on good terms. Buttercup and Bubbles are on better terms than they've been in their whole lives. Buttercup and Blossom are feeling the tension. And Butch? Well... you'll see in the next chapter.

Plot recap (kinda. Not my strong point): Having regained her confidence, Buttercup re-enters the superhero life and goes on her first mission with the puffs. She tries to stop Sedusa from stealing a ton of money, but fails. Blossom is pissed off but Buttercup eventually moves on. She ends up spending more time with Butch and mysteriously acquires his super strength through the counterpart connection.

Butch is now butthurt, powerless and way too scared to leave Townsville, despite the fact that Blossom has given him total freedom - on Buttercup's insistence. After breaking all the furniture in the house, Buttercup is shooed away and decides to tag along on Mitch and Bubbles' date. They talk about Princess' upcoming ball; the same ball that's being held in honour of Princess' mysterious saviour, Butch Jojo.

A few days later the girls have their first team training session in almost six months...

"Jump and roll. Remember to always bend your knees girls." Blossom leapt across the roof and hit the one opposite about 20 feet below. It sounded like a fresh slab of meat had just been smacked onto a cutting board.

Blossom called it a 'team building' workout. So far, all Buttercup was seeing was a flashy form of free-running. But it didn't bother her either way - even Blossom couldn't suck the excitement out of an extreme sport.

A flash of fluorescent pink caught Buttercup's eye and the pink puff rolled into view. Blossom's battle suit must have dampened the impact; guess she was alive.

Buttercup stretched out her limbs and nudged Bubbles towards the edge. "You heard the ice queen. Jump and roll."

The expression on Bubble's face was pure gold. A mix between horror and confusion, as if she didn't quite understand why she was being asked to throw herself off a tall building.

Buttercup just shrugged. "Protect your head."

Bubbles had been grinning all week. She'd had the goofiest smile, and the only thing she'd talked about was her recent mall date with Mitch. Buttercup had been there for about an hour – it really wasn't anything special.

Where was all that excess excitement now?

"Don't you do this with Blossom all the time? You two always train together, so this shouldn't be a big deal right?"

Bubbles was slowly inching away from the ledge. "Uh… we… we've actually never done this."

Buttercup raised an eyebrow. "Never?" Did Blossom organise this just to get her involved in team training? "Well… start with a strong take off." They were puffs; their healing ability was still faster than the average person and they were all wearing their battle suits, which were mostly invulnerable to blunt force trauma. She'd be fine.

She nudged Bubbles forward, but the blue puff stumbled all the way to the edge.

Buttercup snatched her hand away. She had a flashback to her blue arm cast after the mall incident. "Did I..?"

Bubbles nodded. She was peering over the edge now – that was the worst thing you could do.

"My bad." Most of the time, she could control her new-found super strength. She'd practiced on her own over the last few days since she'd been shooed out of the house and Butch was basically sulking in the lab. But the more delicate motions were still difficult.

"Bubbles, you're next!" Blossom yelled.

Buttercup was beginning to wonder if she'd ever get her chance to jump. "Look, she's not going to back off. So just get it over with."

Buttercup heard a low hum from above; it was a large grey device fitted with a laser canon. In past battles, the Professor had used them as backup if the girls were ever in serious trouble. It looked like one of his inventions.

Buttercup groaned; this was an 'avoid the drone' exercise, which meant there were more to come. The slight whirl of an engine could be heard over Bubble's frantic chatter and Buttercup could tell the drone's cannon was building up to a blast.

She put her hand on Bubble's shoulder. "Don't tell Mitch. And bend your damn knees."

"What?"

She shoved Bubbles off the roof and vaulted over the gap. The wind slapped her in the face as she fell, and she skidded to halt a few meters away from Blossom and a blubbering Bubbles.

Behind them a bang cut through the silence of the early morning. "Thanks for the warning," she shot at the pink puff.

"You've taken part in a drone exercise in the past. This was intended to be a similar workout." She crouched beside Bubbles, who was dry heaving in a corner, and patted her on the back. "But Bubbles clearly can't continue and she need's someone to look out for her, so I'll make some adjustments to the exercise." She met Buttercup's eyes. "You will avoid the drones alone."

"What?" If there was no team, then there was no point. Did she knock some of her sense out during the fall? "What's the point in that?"

She turned her back to Buttercup. "Who knows?"

The drone hovered closer and Buttercup was forced to pounce sideways to avoid its next blast. Blossom ushered Bubbles further away from the action and that was when everything clicked. The drone had been targeting her right from the start; this was never a team building exercise. It was a punishment.

Just like the pinch technique Blossom used when they were kids.

She liked to act like she was above violence but she certainly had her moments. There was something sly and cruel about her methods of regaining control.

"This is about the Medusa fight." Buttercup darted sideways. Her super strength made her movements more fluid and effortless. "You've been holding a grudge for that long?"

The roof top was scorched in the spots where the beams had hit. Blossom hadn't even toned down the firing force; was she counting on Buttercup's super strength to protect her from the brunt of the burn? She wasn't eager to test out her so-called durability.

Buttercup flipped away from the next beam. She wanted to end this before the other drones arrived; while things were still simple. "I did what I did to save your ass."

"We both know that's not entirely true." Blossom sat a few meters away, cross-legged with the controller in the space between. "This isn't a punishment Buttercup – it's merely a team building exercise."

Bullshit.

"See what you can accomplish alone. And then I will teach you what we can accomplish together."

"…Right." Blossom didn't like to lose. She wouldn't admit it in so many words, but she was fiercely competitive. Maybe Blossom honestly cared about teamwork and cooperation, but at her core, she was just pissed that she'd lost.

Buttercup had fought alone and sent someone to save Blossom. It must have made her feel inadequate – she could tell from experience. This was clearly payback for showing her up.

"No need Bloss." She didn't need to be pushed back down to her 'place'; the ice queen should try taking a step up.

Buttercup lifted her foot and drilled it an inch into the thick roof tiles. A crack rippled around their feet and shards of concrete began to chip away from the structure. She raised a large shard, reeled her arm back, and hurled it.

"Buttercup, don't –!" Bubbles screamed and hunched over as the shard hurtled towards them.

Blossom didn't move.

The shard struck the controller with an audible thunk and slowly tipped sideways into her lap. "Nothing against teamwork Bloss… but I can handle myself."

Blossom had turned pale.

Slowly, she unravelled her legs from around the concrete shard and stood up. They both knew Buttercup wouldn't have hit her, that wasn't the issue – it was the challenge to her authority as leader.

She'd undermined Blossom. Except this time she'd done it on purpose, at a point in time when Blossom was trying to set their ranks back to 'normal'.

Blossom's pace was even and controlled. Above them, the gentle hum of the drone powered down and it drifted to a landing a few feet away.

Buttercup didn't want to be anyone's leader but she was sick of being controlled. Honestly, now that she had powers of her own, she probably had no need for the pink puff in field missions anyway. "It looks like I do fine without you."

Long red strands had loosened from Blossom's ponytail. Her eyes were crinkled in annoyance and she clenched her hands into fists. Her fingers and hips were sprinkled with grey dust. In the morning sunrise it seemed like the ever eerie pink of her eyes were as bright as her fluorescent strips. She exhaled, heavy enough to splay her fringe apart. "I see."

Was it just Buttercup's imagination, or had she seen a wisp of cold vapour?

Weekly updates (unless it's a particularly tough action scene). Thanks ginkudaranai *massive hugs*