AN: For those of you who liked the original version before the revision, I'm sorry. But as far as I'm concerned, that version was a complete and total mess. Having Mr. Wednesday blow a total gasket like that? Flying off the handle like some dumb Law & Order episode? God it was so dumb and full of such melodrama. So here, his attitude is different and Blossom and Bubbles aren't so melodramatic. They still get teary, but it's not so overwrought. Anyway, Wednesday is more understanding and realizes that Blossom and Bubbles made a mistake just like how Buttercup made a mistake. It doesn't have to be the end of the world. I don't know why I tried to make it so much more sinister. Anyway, enjoy this updated version.

Chapter 10

Let's Have a Chat in My Office

Buttercup was back in the kitchen, sitting in a chair at the dining room table as she watched her current caretaker take a gallon of whole milk out of the fridge. She saw him reach for the cabinets after that, taking out a blank, clear white coffee mug along with a plastic microwave-safe container.

Snow Balls was there with her too. The puppy had apparently picked up on her distress and nestled herself in Buttercup's lap, the Puff stroking her affectionately as she did so.

"How does your father usually prepare your warm milk?" Wednesday asked as he poured a bit of the milk into the mug.

"He usually uses the microwave." Buttercup readily answered, remembering her father performing this ritual for her every night she found herself unable to sleep. "Says it's the fastest way."

"Do you like it done that way?" He asked her.

"Yes sir." She answered.

"Then we'll do it that way then."

Just like that?

"Anything else special he does for you?"

Buttercup blushed red in the cheeks. "He fixes me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into the shape of triangles with the crusts cut off too." Feeling a little self-conscious at this personal admittance, she tried to save her pride a little by adding, "I know it sounds a little childish but... that's what he does."

"And you like it done that way?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds accomplishable then."

That was all he seemed concerned about, never bothering to tease her for this childish, special preference. It wasn't anything new or special for a kid, but it was an intimate, private thing, only shared between her and the Professor. Now though, she could apparently share it with Wednesday too.

She watched him curiously as he did everything she said. Setting the microwave to a medium-high power setting before putting the microwave-safe container inside and programming the cook length for about 15 seconds before taking it out to stir, and then repeating the process again for about 60 seconds until he could see steam rise to the top.

Buttercup liked her peanut butter extra chunky and crunchy so that was the kind he took out of the fridge to spread over her sandwich. She felt the same way when it came to her jam. She liked tasting the actual pieces of fruit with jam, instead of the solid sticky-sweet gelatin of store bought jelly. And while most people preferred their PB&J on white bread, Buttercup preferred the grain of wheat bread. Wednesday did this all swimmingly and he cut her crusts flawlessly too. When her milk was finally steaming and foamy at the top, he took it out of his microwave, and poured the contents of the container into a proper cup.

Putting her hand to her cheek at the table, Buttercup mused, "I've never had warm milk in the middle of the day before."

"There's always a first time for everything." Wednesday replied, handing her the clear mug of milk without judgment. There was steam wafting off of it and Buttercup took a moment to simply absorb the warmth of the mug in her hands, allowing it to soothe her.

"It was about my sisters." She finally decided to share, and since Wednesday already had a good idea as to what she was talking about, he didn't press for any details. He simply allowed her to continue.

"How they were watching me... in the museum, while all those bad guys were beating me up. It hurt. I almost thought I was gonna die. But even though I was bleeding and screaming and pleading for them to help me... they n-never did. Not until I learned my lesson."

This was finally the breakthrough he was looking for and he nodded his head in understanding. "That sounds pretty scary. I can see why that would upset you."

"It doesn't matter." Buttercup plainly dismissed. "I deserved what I got."

"I don't think any child deserves to be used as a punching bag just to get across a lesson."

"You weren't there." Buttercup said, shaking her head at what she thought was his ignorance. She felt shame all over again. "You don't know what I did. I was so out-of-control; I needed to get some sense beaten into me."

"Well I don't know if you had some 'sense' beaten into you, but I do know that you definitely had some trauma beaten into you."

Buttercup's head snapped up for her to look at him with a glare. The man expressed no fear at this and invited her to say anything different.

"Am I wrong?" He challenged. "Are you not barely functional right about now?"

"I'm not barely functional!"

"And yet you're having nightmares and zoning out in examination rooms."

This astute assessment of her deteriorating mental state had Buttercup shooting a sharp glare at him. She opened her mouth for a retort, but found that nothing really came to her. What could she say as a possible rebuttal to the truth?

"Was it worth all that? Was it worth you being barely functional?"

"I'm not barely functional!" She snapped, hating how that made her sound like some cripple.

"You're not all that happy either."

"It's my own fault."

"Buttercup, come here for a second." Wednesday requested.

Fearing the worst for her previous attitude, Buttercup began to whine, "But I wasn't-"

"You're not in trouble." He assured her calmly. "I just need you to come here."

She was doubtful about his intentions and skeptical about the idea that she hadn't messed up somehow but did as she was told anyway, figuring she should best get it out of the way now. He pulled up a chair at the table and sat down with the little girl on his lap near it, making sure she was paying him a good amount of attention and looking him in the eyes.

"Buttercup, I know all about what you did. I know all about your obsessive greed and how you went around knocking out everybody else's teeth for money. I know about how you started assaulting villains who were simply sitting in their own homes and I know how out of hand everything got."

How could he possibly know about all that? Maybe it was because something like that didn't really stay a secret in Townsville for long. The disgrace of a local Powerpuff, punished by those she would usually be punishing herself, all for her own petty greed.

"I knew what you did even before you even told me. That never changed anything about how I felt about it."

"So that means-"

"When you were beat up, I knew why you were." And yet, he never looked at her with disgust or disapproval. He didn't give her a smug look of righteous satisfaction or a cold look of blatant disappointment. That was definitely something to think about.

"What you did was wrong, Buttercup. But I think you already know that."

She did know that. She'd gotten it painfully drilled into her head as every evil-doer and criminal took turns smashing her teeth all the way down to her gums.

He tipped her chin up though and told her something important. "What you did was wrong—but what your family did in response was despicable. Out of all the ways they could've dealt with your bad behavior, this was by far the absolute worst."

Before Buttercup could respond, he put a gentle finger to her lips. "You've been telling me about 'an eye for an eye', but did you ever hear the rest of it? That an eye for an eye tends to make the whole world blind?"

Buttercup's own eyes widened with a newfound realization. She had never really thought of things like that before. As she contemplated this, Wednesday went on. "They answered your cruelty with cruelty of their own and all that resulted in was a much bigger mess."

"Now I want you to listen to me and listen to me good. No child, regardless of what they've done deserves to be mistreated or abused. No child deserves to be treated like they're nothing." He pointed to her heart to emphasize his next point. "It only makes whatever's wrong inside even worse, do you understand?"

She did. For once, throughout this whole thing, she really did. But even though she now knew that what happened to her was wrong, she also knew that she wanted to improve.

"I still think I need to be better though. For my family and for myself. So something like that never needs to happen again."

"There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's the best thing. But don't deny yourself your own form of self-love."

Self-love. That was the thing she had been lacking this entire time. Now that she had more of a proper backbone, she was ready to take that final step. "Mr. Wednesday? I think I'm ready to face my family now."

The meeting would be held in his office. The Children's Division Office. Townsville's Department of Social Services. Wednesday planned on having a chat with the Professor's daughters first, Blossom and Bubbles, before he moved on to their main caretaker, Professor Utonium himself.

The time was 4pm when the man finally called the blue and pink-clad Puff from the waiting room into his office as they sat sheepishly with their father. Their body language held guilt and remorse even without a single word being spoken between them and that was at least a good sign as far as their potential relationship with their aggrieved sister.

The girls weren't being led into an interrogation room, but it sure felt like it with the sense of isolation, dull white walls, and a single table with three chairs between them.

"Hey, girls." Wednesday said neutrally to Blossom and Bubbles, both of them sitting across from him with their mouths pulled down into frowns and their heads bowed down, the shame and discomfort clear in their body language.

"Hello sir." They both greeted timidly, neither of them in sync or sounding all that chipper. Instead, they both looked like they would rather melt through the floor.

Not wanting to waste time going through the common pleasantries, Wednesday skipped straight to the main reason why they were all here. "Judging by those looks on your faces and the way you're carrying yourselves today, it seems like you already know what this little talk of ours will be about."

"Yes sir." Blossom answered quietly, Bubbles otherwise remaining silent.

"About your sister?"

Both of the girls silently nodded, Bubbles making a little sniffle.

"Alright then." The truant officer interlaced his fingers on top of the table. "Why don't you girls start by telling me exactly what happened that day and what exactly your role was in the things that happened?"

Once again, Blossom took over with the explanations. "W-Well," Blossom began, wetting her dry mouth before she started. "It all started after the Professor left the house to go run some errands. Me and Bubbles were left alone and Buttercup wasn't there either. It was just the two of us... by ourselves."

So far, so good. Wednesday was following along so far. Just for clarification though, he asked, "So your father left you alone that day? Was this the first time he did so or were there other times before that?"

Something like that sounded potentially worrying. Again, sure, the girls were superheroes, and their maturity exceeded most kids their same age, but that still didn't lessen the impact of leaving such vulnerably young girls home alone.

Blossom looked at Bubbles first before answering his question. "He only does it sometimes, and only when he doesn't have any other options. Every other time, he assigns us a babysitter."

"Got it." Wednesday answered, figuring he could let this one instance slide then. He couldn't help but think though, how different would things have been if there had been at least one other person more adult and more reasonable in the house with them?

He could guess what happened next, but for narrative's sake, he asked, "So after you were left home alone, what happened then?"

"So then we heard a knock on the door, and when we answered it... it was Mojo. Mojo, Fuzzy, Him and the Gang. We were surprised to see them of course and when they came to our house, they demanded to know where our sister was. They said they were here to talk to us about Buttercup's little-" Blossom swallowed. "-'problem'."

Mr. Wednesday's mouth drew itself tightly into a line, but he kept his face neutral for the sake of this info-gathering.

Meanwhile, Blossom continued. "They told us everything. How Buttercup had busted in and assaulted them all in their own homes, bashing their faces and knocking out as many of their teeth as she could before taking off with them. It all started to made sense after they got finished explaining it. Why Buttercup seemed to be kicking it into high gear those past few days, why she made that 'another day, another dollar' comment just before we all went to bed, and why she seemed to have this obsession with checking underneath her bed for something every single day."

Yes, he could see how all the pieces could come together for her. The issue was what she decided to do with this unexpected new development.

"So after that, then what happened?"

"Well once they explained things, we came up with a plan to take care of Buttercup and discourage her from any future episodes."

At the time, Blossom even felt excited about the plan. She looked forward to teaching her sister a lesson and she thought that it would be perfectly acceptable if Buttercup got a taste of how she made her victims feel by enduring the pain of having her own teeth shattered and destroyed herself. Bubbles was very happy about it too, mostly because she was still sore about Buttercup going out of her way to try to bash out her teeth before and wanted a feeling of revenge and vindication herself.

"And that plan was?" Wednesday prodded, putting pressure on the Powerpuff Girl.

Blossom swallowed again, visibly starting to tremble throughout her entire body. "T-To fake a crime going on at the Townsville's Prehistoric Museum where there were supposed to be a whole bunch of 'priceless pearly whites' and as soon as Buttercup got there, they could bash out all her teeth that they wanted, as long as they stuck mainly to her teeth."

Now that she was recounting it in front of an officer, Blossom realized just how potentially illegal their own actions had been in setting all of this up. Faking a crime like theft was almost as bad as yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Granted, there was no one else there in the museum who could've gotten hurt from the villains assembling there besides Buttercup, but the Mayor certainly hadn't been in on it when he had his office broken into by Mojo of all people. The poor man was old too. He could've potentially had a heart attack with this scare, fake or not.

"And you found this acceptable?"

"Yes sir."

"Both of you?" Wednesday prodded, looking now to Bubbles.

"Yes sir." Bubbles meekly said, she too carrying none of the same glee that she'd held before at the time of the incident.

"And your father knew nothing about this?"

"No sir."

That was good at least. If their own father, the Professor had been complicit in any of this, that would've made him look so much worse for allowing such flagrant harm to come to one of his own daughter's.

One of the more pertinent questions was, "Do you think your father would've approved of your actions if he did?"

Blossom dropped her head for this one. She already knew the answer to this because she'd already confessed to the man she had let so badly down before. Her voice was soft, laden with shame. "No."

Wednesday folded his hands on top of the table they were currently sitting at. "Girls," He spoke clearly, "Are you aware that what happened to your sister was a crime? That regardless of whether or not you personally condoned it that this kind of group assault would be considered a felony assault of a child?"

"Y-Yes sir." Blossom answered, though in truth she really didn't. Or even if she did, she didn't give much thought to it. Since the Powerpuff Girls could take so much more punishment than the average person, Blossom dismissed any amount of pain or fear that Buttercup could be put through, figuring that she was tough enough to shake it off.

How wrong she had utterly been.

"In Buttercup's case, this would at least be an assault in the second if not the first degree due to the nature of her injuries. Now luckily she didn't suffer any grievous bodily harm beyond the damage done to her teeth, but what if that had not been the case, girls? Do you understand how reckless and dangerous your actions towards your sister were?"

"N-No sir." The girl answered with shame. "We didn't back then... but we do now."

"We thought it would be fair." Bubbles now spoke up. "An eye for an eye. And a tooth for a tooth."

"How would you feel if that had been you down there?"

"Scared." Bubbles whimpered. "I would've wanted someone to help me."

"That's what Buttercup wanted too. But you didn't help her, did you? You didn't show her any form of mercy."

"We just wanted her to learn her lesson. We didn't want her to get really hurt. That's why we were watching-"

"And what would you consider her getting 'really hurt'?" The man harshly parroted. "Buttercup ending up in the hospital after her beating? Breaking her bones? Or would those villains have needed to kill her first before you would've considered it too far?"

Before Bubbles could give a reply, the middle-aged man decided to drive the point in further. "Is it not enough that she has a fever? Is it not enough that she endured such horrible, unnecessary pain? Is it not enough that she practically has to eat food through a straw and she's suffering from nightmares as well as possibly PTSD?"

The girls gasped at this, unaware that they had caused that.

"Do those facts concern you or are they irrelevant to you because you value your own sense of 'justice' more than you do your sister's health and safety?"

Now he could see true fear in the blonde's eyes especially, along with tears, and she whimpered fearfully, "We didn't mean to make her sick!"

Blossom's voice turned into a cracking mess as well as she nearly sobbed out, "Is she okay?"

The man sighed. He got his answer at least; the girls did seem to genuinely care, at least when the facts were spelled out straight in front of them. He also realized he could stand to take it down a notch with the genuine fear he saw in their faces and heard in their trembling voices. These were only children after all. Little girls who were still learning about morality. If anything, their father was more to blame for not stepping in to deal with this whole matter in a more appropriate fashion as well.

He gave them both a tissue for them to wipe their eyes and spoke to them now gently. "She's alright, girls. Her fever isn't serious and she's thankfully not in any kind of hospital setting right now."

He then ran a hand through his hair and decided to instill a lesson into them. "Look, I understand what you were trying to do, but I don't think it was your place to even attempt something like this. Discipline is an area that should strictly be reserved for your father and there's a reason why that is. It's because he's the adult in the family and he has a better sense as to what should be done to educate his daughter than you two do, however well-intentioned your efforts might be."

The girls nodded their heads to this, now properly listening, but just to kill any dread, Wednesday asked them if this was common. "This isn't something you girls are used to doing a lot, is it? Dishing out punishments on your own for your sister?"

"No sir," Blossom answered with a tremor. "It was s-stupid for us to try and you were right about it being wrong."

"We'll never do it again!" Bubbles cried.

"Is there any other reason besides a lesson that you wanted to do this for?"

"Revenge." Bubbles answered, so quietly that he almost didn't catch it. "I wanted..." She repeated, tears seen in her eyes, "revenge."

The words coming out of her mouth felt foreign to her. She was usually a sweet and forgiving child; never one to hold a grudge and never one to want payback on a person just for happening to treat her badly. That is, as long as they hadn't meant it. But with Buttercup, things had been building up for a long time. She'd been bullied by her sister nearly since the time of her very creation. And to have Buttercup constantly hurt her for no reason, no regard, or care for her well-being during that day before the Professor reprimanded her made her finally want to direct some of that meanness back.

"Why did you want revenge, Bubbles?"

"B-Because of the way Buttercup bullied me! I k-knew it was wrong, but I just hated being hurt! She didn't even care that she was hurting me either! She threw a baseball at my teeth, slammed my head on a table, made me smash into a door, launched a hockey puck at my face, and threw a vase of flowers at my head! And she did all that just to make my teeth fall out! She said sorry every time she did it, but she didn't really mean it."

So now it was all starting to add up. A cycle of retaliatory violence. "So Buttercup's actions were just as thoughtless as your own. That's why you didn't really care about the prospect of hurting each other."

"Buttercup went too far," Blossom said. "But so did we. If we take it all back Mr. Wednesday, we would!"

The Professor actually had built a time machine for this sort of thing. He presented it in front of the class on "Parent's Day" at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. But for this sort of thing, reconciliation was more important than simple erasure.

"Well you can't take it back, but you can try to make it better. The only person you have left to speak to now is your sister and I truly hope you have some convincing words for her when the times comes for you to see her again."