Author's Note: The song recommendation for this chapter; Paper Mache by Iris Lune


Monday, Feb. 01

It wasn't often that the Puffs and 'Ruffs got into spats anymore. In fact, it was so rare that it happened on an individual basis- and the others (namely Bubbles) would come in to help mediate the fight and stop it from getting too bad. Buttercup and Butch fought the most, but theirs was an odd siblingship that rarely necessitated mediation. Usually, they'd just slug it out and come out on the other side with smiles. It wasn't often that Blossom had a spat with anyone, either, but it did happen regularly enough for it to not be uncommon. Brick was usually level-headed enough to stop fights rather than participate in them- but not always.

This was no normal day, though.

Especially not when a usually sickly sweet voice shouted "What did you just say?!"

It felt like they'd all been dropped into an ice bath, colder than the early February air.

Brick looked between the two Puffs who'd frozen in place. His surprise was there, yes, but it was nothing on just how wide their eyes had gotten. Buttercup turned abruptly, her lime eyes looking frantically in the direction of the angry blonde that usually played mediator. She was nowhere to be seen after the monster attack, but she should be showing face anytime.

Blossom's hands reached down to grab at the nonexistent hem of her dress only to pause in their movements and clench tightly. A force of habit, he knew, that showed face when her nerves began acting up. Unfortunately for her- or, maybe fortunately- it was only barely February and, thus, she had no dress to clench at or fiddle with.

The Puffs were in their full bodysuits, turtleneck and long sleeved and down to their ankles, covering most of their skin beneath the black fabrics. Usually, on patrol or in battle, they'd have their purses and maybe a skirt over it, but not always. Their boots, the accents on their suits, their accessories and their purses were color coded, though, and usually they looked badass when suited up. In the dead of winter, though, they had thick coats over their suits and while they were color coded still, it was obvious they were function over fashion.

The Ruffs had long sleeved undershirts of the same material their bodysuits were made from, but otherwise, were unarmored- their own thick coats just what they wore during the day.

The Ruffs weren't the heroes, heralded by the town.

The townsfolk didn't even know they helped the Puffs sometimes- and that's the way they preferred it. Not a single one of the three wanted the level of responsibility that the girls had taken on, not one of the three boys wanted that level of pressure on their shoulders, and the town didn't trust them the way they trusted the Puffs regardless.

The two Puffs standing alert before the redheaded Ruff were already very worse for wear. Blossom was roughed up worse than Buttercup, but that only made him more concerned about and for the screaming blonde.

They always all met just behind Town Square after attacks to assess the situation, damage and any injuries. The snow in this area of town was mostly untouched on the sides of the street but absent from any and all walkways and streets. Icicles clung to the rooftops of the various buildings around them, the darkness of the night only countered by the reflection of moonlight from the blankets of white all around them. This was the physical center of town- and if they did their jobs right, it would be battle scar free.

A giant ox monster had attacked Townsville and was a little more of a problem than anticipated. Then, more monsters started to crawl from whatever holes they were hidden in, and the two on patrol- Bubbles and Blossom- were soon overwhelmed. Bubbles was the one who called the Ruffs. Buttercup's showing up helped tremendously- as the toughest fighter, it always would. But the blonde knew they'd need more hands on deck and had called Brick.

Yet Bubbles still hadn't shown, and it sounded like she was pissed at-

"Just what I said- you can't!" came Boomer's returned yell, sounding just as angry as the screeching blonde had been.

Okay, that got Brick's eyes just as wide as his counterpart's.

Bubbles was pissed at Boomer?

A quick glance behind him told him that Butch was just as surprised as well. Not only was Bubbles very, very hard to truly anger or rile up enough to scream, but the Blues in general just never fought anymore. They were the first of the six to refuse to fight back in middle school, the first of the six to become friends… Boomer, himself, had also calmed down a lot as he reached adulthood. He'd found his own groove that didn't rely too heavily on others and it had taken him a good long while to get there- but he made it. And he followed Bubbles' path of pacifism wherever possible.

"You know I can and I will! We need to-" her voice shouted back.

"Not with that fuckin' thing you can't, Bubs!"

"I'm going to go get-"

"You're NOT!"

"GET OUT OF MY WAY, BOOM!"

"NO!"

"What fucking universe did we step into," Butch asked rhetorically as they all seemed to gear up to go find the loudly arguing blondes.

"Apparently, not a very nice one," Blossom's retort was shortened by Bubbles' absolutely eardrum shattering screech, only amplified by the blonde's natural high pitched voice and supersonic screaming abilities. Everyone hunkered over in that moment, clutching their ears just seconds before a massive blue tinted explosion near the docks blew everyone's hair into the wind with the snow and debris kicked up.

Blue lightning, stronger than they had ever seen used before, struck down somewhere in that direction from the sky itself. Bright, blinding, and impeding their vision with how white everything got. The thunder crack that followed could deafen just as badly as Bubbles' screech could have, shook the windows of the buildings, and caused the lights still on to flicker- and yet another blue explosion sounded off. Thankfully this one was much, much smaller but no less powerful. Blue electrical currents rippled outward from the initial strike and none of them could tell which of the blues had set it off or if it was a collision of their power.

Whatever it was, it was too much.

"Fuck," Buttercup cursed, wincing as she wiped at her eyes- trying to be able to see anything as fast as she could. The static in the air kept rising and kept crawling along her skin and beneath the specialized fabric of the bodysuit like insects- not enough to hurt, but more than enough to feel the disgusting tingles- and she hated it. "Bloss, we need to calm her down!"

"I know, I can't see right now, give me a second!" the redhead shouted back, also rubbing her eyes and trying not to freak out about the bug-like sensations.

"We need to get-"

Brick was cut off by the sudden meteor-like arrival of a fat mass of flesh and bone- grotesque enough to get the Ruff's stomach to churn. He wasn't sure what was worse: the burned and charred bits of muscle flaking off of the blob, the sickeningly wet slimy bits that smelled like it had sat at the bottom of the sewers for the last three months, or the acid that seemed to come from it like blood.

It was the same thing that the smaller monsters that had come out were- whatever it was. An amalgamation of animal parts lobbed off and placed together haphazardly with the most disgusting and grotesque means of reforming. The head (if you could call it that- it was just the lumpy flesh limb that had it's bloody eyes and what looked like three deer ears) had all but turned to ash from whatever attack the blues had hit it with prior.

This was the tenth time they'd seen these things, yet it was still just as revolting as the first.

Blossom, Buttercup and Butch managed to regain vision just in time to see it, too.

"Ugh," the youngest sister scoffed, her green eyes still worried despite the cringe on her face. "Those things fuckin' suck."

"Yeah they do," Butch fully agreed.

"Let's get over to the docks," Brick grumbled, his red eyes looking skyward in that direction. "This doesn't sit right with me."

Butch chuckled weakly- the sound was unsure but an attempt to remain normal. "I wonder what Boom did to piss her off…"

"We need to go get her before she gets too mad," Blossom rushed out. "The only thing tougher than Buttercup-"

"Is a pissed off Bubbles," the black haired puff finished, her eyes following Brick's in direction as she lifted up off the ground, green trailing lazily at her feet. "Come-"

The theme of the night seemed to be cut offs, as Bubbles came streaking across the skies after having been hit by a sparking cobalt energy ball. Though attacked, she managed to readjust herself midair. Her feet touched the side of a steakhouse building only about sixty feet away from the rest of the group with surprising gentleness. That gentleness was gone when Boomer followed after her in a ball of cobalt electricity, prompting her to use the wall as a springboard to rocket off of and causing the icicles clinging to the gutters to crack and fall.

The sneer Bubbles wore looked so… Wrong on her features.

She met him in the middle, mid-air, her fist blocked by his hands just as his fists were blocked by hers. A flurry of rapidfire movement that was hard to keep track of and all it took was for Boomer to slip up once- managing to get decked so hard in the cheek that he went flying backwards for a moment. She followed him back, right up on him, nearly decapitating him with her energy balls in a move that finally sent Blossom into action. Bubbles had forced Boomer back, her shrieks of rage piercing the air as she bombarded him with a storm of energy balls. One of them grazed against Blossom's cheek as she searched for an opening, leaving a bloody, deep cut in its wake. "Bubbles!"

A cobalt baseball bat made of energy that they hadn't seen in ages formed in Boomer's hand just in time to swing and break the barrage by sending it right back at his counterpart. A few of her energy balls exploded on impact with his bat, burning through his long sleeved blue shirt and exposing his under armor to the frigid night air.

She was hit with two of her own attacks- thinking briefly that her energy shouldn't hurt her. His power, when it hit the balls, did just enough to shock and burn her where they hit on her sides. Though her bodysuit was undamaged, she knew it would end up bruising at least.

"Stay out of it, Blossom!" she screeched, her eyes bleeding a furious red while she dodged the rest of her own attacks as they were sent back at her. Boomer dodged her laser eyes, prompting another frustrated scream and another round of four energy balls. He sent all four back with his bat. In her fury, she didn't quite realize that she'd managed to catch her own attack with her right hand regardless of the pain, the energy flattening against her palm and being reformed into a whip. It refused to leave her skin, curling around the ends of her index and middle fingers. It snapped like a whip as she aimed it at Boomer again and again and again, the sky blue lightning filling the air and leaving smoke in its wake.

His eyes were wide when he dodged it- barely able to move out of the way.

She tried to hit him with it again- and he dodged again. Instead of trying for a third, she whipped it out and caught his bat, catching him off guard as she used the whip to rip it from his hand. It disappeared into the ether, gone from existence, when it got too far away from him, but Bubbles didn't pay it any mind. She couldn't because he sped up on her after it was pulled from his hands.

"Get it out of your head," he growled out when he got close enough to punch out. "I'm not letting you endanger yourself so damn recklessly!"

His fist connected with her stomach and she doubled over. The whip disappeared and both of her hands grabbed his wrist tightly, held it against her gut and her eyes started to glow red once again. "Pot, meet kettle! If you made me lose our possible only chance-"

"You're too fucked up to follow it!" he argued loudly.

"I don't have the time to argue with you, Boomer!" The laser left her eyes but he ducked low, barely able to dodge. Her hands clutched at his wrist tighter, not letting him go, meaning he couldn't get too far. He looked up at her and summoned another energy shot of his own to his captured hand, forcing her to let go and back away or be blasted at point-blank range.

"I barely set your leg back in place and you're trying to follow that fucking thing?! Are you stupid?!"

"It's the only time we've ever gotten them to retreat!" she screamed back.

"And if it turned around and tried to fight you again?!"

"I would have come back!"

"And led it back into Townsville?!"

She screamed in frustration, not wanting to admit that he had a point. He'd sparked a long hidden fuse in her and, much like a stick of dynamite, once it was lit it was near impossible to put out. Unfortunately, as they were about to take notice of was something her sisters already knew; Bubbles wasn't dynamite- she was a full bomb. Water wouldn't douse the fuse- a wire needed to be clipped. And just the right one.

The lightning crackling off of her person went from its usual sky blue to a darkening, blood red hue and, maybe for the first time ever, Boomer looked at his counterpart with genuine fear. He wasn't sure if he was more scared of her or scared for her- but that heavy, heavy dose of fear sat like concrete in his gut all the same.

"Bubbles! Stop!" Blossom shouted just before Buttercup tackled the pig tailed blonde out of the skies.

The green Puff grunted in pain when the lightning licked at her skin, completely bypassing their suits. Unlike Bubbles and Boomer, she didn't use such a volatile element to channel her energy. It was not in Buttercup's norms, and was still incredibly painful and hot against her skin. She bounced back after Bubbles was on the ground, taking a minute to compose herself before she tried anything else. "Bubbles, he has a point-"

"Shut UP, Buttercup!" she screamed, the red lightning snapping outward and leaving gouges in the concrete. The injured blonde Puff didn't put any of her weight on her left leg, instead using her right almost solely to hold her up. "We could have tracked it further! I wasn't stupid enough to follow it all the way! I wasn't stupid enough to chase blindly! I asked for his help!"

"After you asked me to set your broken fucking leg!" he shouted from his spot.

Brick quickly jumped in front of his brother, a steady arm across his collar bones. His hand squeezed the blond's shoulder tightly. "Back it off. Now."

Blue lightning sparked from him from annoyance- not enough to hurt Brick but more than enough to get his still simmering frustration across. Black eye, bloody nose, several scrapes and scratches- he looked like shit.

Bubbles, though arguably worse looking and more beaten down, wasn't so easy to handle. Buttercup ended up having to step even further away from her sister for a minute, trying to keep herself from getting hurt further while her sister stood in a blind rage.

"I'm tired of you all acting like I'm a toddler! I'm not! Stop undermining me, my ability and my intelligence! I'm not stupid, I wasn't going to be rash, and I'm not going to sit here and keep letting you guys act like I'm an infant that can't handle herself!" Her eyes were bright, furious, as if they were made of the sharpest steel. "I'm not an idiot- I asked for help, I knew the dangers, I thought about what we were doing, I HAD A PLAN, I WANTED TO COME ASK FOR SOMEONE TO COME WITH ME, AND I WASN'T BEING THAT RECKLESS!"

Blossom inhaled deeply, something like a puzzle piece slipping into place in her mind. "We didn't say you were, Bubb-"

"Oh, we didn't," she scoffed, her eyes narrowing dangerously on her counterpart.

He had the decency to look mildly ashamed. "I didn't call you stupid, I said going in without backup is stupid!"

There looked like there was something more that was said- between her accusing eyes and his almost sheepish indignance. If there was, she dropped it there and just pressed on. "You made me lose our only lead on these stupid things!"

"You were STILL BLEEDING when you tried to take off after it!" Boomer argued in his defense again. He tried to take a step closer to her, but Brick's arm kept him in place, not budging an inch.

Out of habit, the blonde lass grabbed her pigtails and pulled down on them, letting out a massive growl of anger. "Any lead on what is killing all these animals to create these gross abominations is better than nothing! And yet here we are, back at square one!"

"It's better to be at square one with you than it is to be here without you!"

The red lightning crackled and snapped again, but Bubbles paid it no mind as her eyes honed in on the blond man who just didn't know when to shut up. "You're acting like it was some suicide mission but I just wanted to follow it out to know where to come back and look later! I wanted someone to come with me!" The crackling of the outermost edges of blood red lightning left scorch marks against anything they touched- prompting Buttercup to jump back almost entirely.

All the while, the short blonde didn't pay it any mind, completely drowning in her frustrations.

She had broken one of the bones in her left calf, had a cut clean through the back of her jacket and the back of her bodysuit where she'd been hit with one of the frankensteined creatures' talon lined tails. She was paler than usual, making them think she'd maybe lost a little too much blood before the wound finally stopped. She had at least two welts on her left leg from being hit that could be made out… Yet despite the literal hell she looked like, the anger and hurt and frustration in her eyes was strong enough to give her this second wind.

Her frustrations were so strong that they held her up when she should have collapsed already.

Her hurt hardened her eyes when they should have wept from the pain.

Her fury was so blinding that she refused to look at and acknowledge hardly anything other than the man who had become the target for her wrath.

Until, finally, a hand grabbed her wrist.

The touch startled her out of her enraged reverie.

Blue eyes widened as she turned, noticing the glow of green surrounding Butch's body. It wasn't his skin touching hers but his shield, made just physical enough to work for him. It kept him from the lightning- though he didn't need to keep it up too much longer. The surprise of his touch was enough to make the blood red hue of her eyes fade slowly back to its usual sky blue. The lightning relaxed, easing off just a little.

His green eyes were steady when they sought hers out.

Those emeralds felt like landing on solid ground after being in the air for too long, and the sky blue energy-lightning receded even further.

"We ain't trying to fight you, Sugar."

She wanted to continue to be mad- but the energy left her body so, so quickly after that.

Butch had cut the right wire.

"Catch her!" Buttercup managed to call out just seconds before Bubbles' world faded to black.