Disclaimer: Thank Craig Mccraken. I don't - nor will I ever - own the Powerpuff Girls.


- CHAPTER 4 -

Boys


"So Blossom, I heard you're getting married to Prince Brick, Son of King Him the first," Buttercup wriggled her eyebrows at her sister. Even though she did not enjoy making conversation with little miss Goody Two Shoes, it was quite fun to tease her. "Also know as The Power Hungry Beast of Gadrea, who everyone except his girlfriend Berserk despises."

Blossom continued writing notes, her quill moving quickly across the paper,"Who told you that? Besides they do not call Prince Brick "The Power Hungry Beast of Gadrea!" Her lips formed a thin, disapproving line."How are you even getting this kind of information?"

Buttercup shrugged and twirled the piece of charcoal she had been using to doodle pictures of Professor Hendrix,"Mitch. And the palace guards. And all my friends outside of the "the castle". It's not fault that you don't know what people think about us royals."

Buttercup prided herself on knowing the most people out of all her sisters. Sure, Bubbles was the cute and nice one, everyone loved her, and all that. But all her friends were... well, too innocent. The shoe shop girl. The seamstress's daughter. They were only interested in puppies and clothes. Buttercup's best friend since as long as she could remember, Mitch Mitchelson, was now a hunter that provided meat for the castle and the townsfolk. And all his friends, who were all her friends, were part of his hunting group. They weren't the most popular people in town, but they did know a lot of gossip and information about everyone.

Blossom huffed indignantly, " What? I know what people think of us!" Buttercup folded her arms and raised and eyebrow. Blossom sighed,"Fine. I don't. By the way, what do they think of the sons of King Him?"

The raven haired girl smirked, "Everyone knows that Prince Brick and his brothers lived on the streets with some mysterious man name Mojo Jojo before King Him adopted them." Blossom leaned forward, urging her to continue.

"They say that those boys used to be troublemakers. Stealing from shops, bullying younger children, causing mischief everywhere they went. And Brick Him was the ringleader. He was a bad apple. Worse than bad, he was rotten. Even though they aren't real brothers - they only grew up together - Prince Boomer and Prince Butch are said to fear him, too. I don't know what happened, but something made him…ruthless. You should be careful, Blossom, you do not want to make Brick angry." Buttercup whispered to her sister, actually worried about her for once.

Blossom stared at her sister for a second, her mouth forming a wide O."I-I had no idea. Maybe marrying him wasn't such a good idea after all..." She muttered, tugging at her braid, unsure of herself.

"Princess Blossom! Please pay attention! Did you hear my question?" Professor Hendix tapped his ruler on the chalkboard, his eyebrows furrowed. Buttercup turned her head and focused on her doodles once again, leaving her sister to deal with their tutor. Blossom blinked, then slowly shook her head, embarrassed.

The old man sighed and placed his ruler back on the table,"I asked you if you remember who founded the four kingdoms, and their relationship with each other. Do you know the answer?"

The girl smiled and smoothed out her pink dress,"Of course. Aleton, Gadrea, Cador, and Harenth were the four men who built our four kingdoms, each one naming it after themselves, except for Harenth, who named after his deceased wife, Selodia. They were brothers, and came from The Kingdom of Kuhnem, searching for a new place to settle. Unfortunately, they did not want to share a throne, so they created each of their own kingdoms, then together destroyed their previous home, for they were originally banished from it and still held a grudge."

The Professor nodded and turned back towards the chalkboard, satisfied with her answer. "Very good, now do you remember how the war between our kingdoms began?" he asked, flipping his book to a new page.

"Well, it started two years ago-"

"Little Miss Know-it-All,"Buttercup muttered, turning back to her regular self. "Always the perfect student...so good at everything.. hmfp."

Ignoring her grumbles, Blossom continued,"When the drought began in the west, where Aleton was, they sought help from Gadrea and Selodia, the nearest kingdoms. Both of us agreed to help. Then the drought spread further, to the north and south, engulfing our kingdoms. Only Cador had enough water. But they refused to help, and wouldn't spare a single drop. The rest of us turned on them, and were about to take to water by force, when they surrendered and shared it with us. But after that Cador held a grudge. Then one day a Aleton hunter mistook a subject of theirs as prey and killed him by accident. Cador immediately declared war on them, stating that they had wanted to take over their kingdom all this time, and sent the first wave of soldiers to the kingdom of Aleton, officially starting the battle. Aleton begged for us to help them, and we did, but in turn made Cador even more furious, so they started attacking Gadrea and Selodia, too. We stopped helping Aleton, in hopes that Cador would stop, but it unfortunately that just made Aleton think we were betraying them. Gadrea and Selodia were the only kingdoms not at war with each other, until um.."

Professor Hendrix raised his eyebrow, disappointed that Blossom had forgotten the rest. He shook his head and tapped his ruler on Buttercup's table, drawing her attention,"Buttercup, do you remember the rest?"

She stopped twirling her black hair and blinked,"Oh, the part about the sons? Ha! You always forget that part, sister!" She sneered at Blossom, earning an eye-roll from the girl. "So, those sons of his thought it'd be fun to join in on the war or something, and faked injuries, the told his father the children in our kingdom were bullying them. King Him was extremely mad and sent us a warning that if we didn't leave them alone, he would attack. Hearing this, those sons of his were filled with glee and challenged Tobias Etherson, who was actually my friend, to shoot a bag of flour from two hundred feet away, which inside actually held Sir Lumpkins, Him's knight. That's why we are caught in a four-way war."

Their professor flipped through a few pages in his book and scratched his head,"I'm sorry Princess Buttercup, but that's not what's in the book. They declared war because Tobias Etherson, who is now an outlaw, killed King Him's faithful knight, Sir Lumpkins because he thought the knight had cheated at a game of cards and stole his money. Wherever did you hear that ridiculous story?"

Buttercup sighed dramatically and rolled her eyes,"That's what they want you to think! I trust Mitch, he's a reliable source." While her sister and their professor were bickering over who was right, Blossom was deep in thought.

Brick can't be that bad, can he? She gazed out the window, at the faraway kingdom of Gadrea.


"Finally!" Buttercup let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding. Turing her head around, she blew a raspberry to the guards by the palace gates. As her subjects, they couldn't do anything back, but as her friends...

"Aw, BC! You're too mean, you little brat! I thought we were buddies!" One of them yelled, rolling his eyes. His brother Floyd, who was standing guard next to him, flipped the princess off. She snorted and waved her bow above her head, facing front again.

"See you boys later at seven! Hope you're still up for a game of cards!" She hollered, grinning at the lush green mountains in front of her. It felt good to be treated like just another subject, and not a royal. Like she was the same as them, like she was part of the group. Especially the 'BC' thing. It made her smile hearing them call her that instead of 'Princess Buttercup'.

Today she had decided to go hunting instead of target practice. It wasn't like they were running out of meat or anything, but hey, you could never have enough meat. Besides, she kind of wanted to see that mysterious guy again and needed an excuse.

"Hey BC! Wait up!"

She tugged on the reins and turned around. Mitch Mitchelson was behind her, mounting his horse. He shook the reins and quickly caught up with her.

"Hello Mitch! So, what are you doing out here? I thought you went hunting yesterday?" She paced Midnight at a slow trot, and raised an eyebrow at her friend.

"Well, yes. But I came here to ask if you wanted to help me with a mission," He ran his fingers through his messy brown hair, straightening it. Buttercup's eyes immediately lit up. It wasn't often that Mitch invited her on one of his missions. "I heard The Night Owls will be occupied with getting rid of those Aleton people tonight, so I was thinking maybe we could go try to scout out Gadrea while they're busy."

Buttercup frowned and looked at her friend, confused,"But I thought we're working with Gadrea now. My sister is getting married to their prince." Mitch shook his head and sighed.

"Sometimes you really are naïve. Do you seriously think they'll work with us? We're talking about the kingdom of The Demon Offspring. Those three boys probably have something up their sleeve, and once we let our guard down, they'll stab us in the back. We cannot trust them," He glared at the faraway kingdom, his the corners of his mouth turned up in a nasty sneer.

"But the guy I..." Buttercup began, then quickly shut her mouth. If Mitch found out she was talking to a Gadrean, then he would never look at her the same way again. It was best she kept this to herself.

"Anyway, will you do it?"

She didn't want to say no, but she didn't want to get in trouble for betraying the king of Gadrea. If he found out, he would take back his offer and their kingdoms would be at war again. On the other hand...

"Sure. I love sneaking around in dark clothes in the middle of the night. Besides, it's not like they're going to find out anyway," Buttercup shrugged. "We're too good." Mitch grinned and turned his horse around, ready to go back to Selodia.

"Great. Meet me at Gadrea's west gates at eleven. We'll sneak in together." He waved and rode off, leaving her in the forest by herself, still a little unsure of herself. But she ignored it and proceeded to go further into the mountains, where she last saw the boy.

Unfortunately, when she arrived no one was there. Absolutely no sign of him. She sighed and started to get back on her horse, disappointed. She had wasted her time.

"Looking for me?" a voice said from behind her. She spun around, but saw nobody. Slowly, she turned back to Midnight, thinking it was just her imagination, and saw a pair of dark green eyes staring back at her.

"Gaaaaaah!" Buttercup stumbled backwards and fell into the shallow water, getting soaked completely. Travis snorted and jumped off the tree, an amused glint in his eye.

She tucked her wet hair behind her ear and stood up, "What is it with you and trees? Honestly, both times you've jumped off one. Can't you be original and I don't know, lurk in the shadows for once?" She squeezed some water out of her shirt and donned the cloak that was on her horse's back.

"Hmm... or I could not be bossed around by some silly little girl from Selodia, and do as I please. Which is hiding in trees and scaring people." He smirked and rolled his eyes at "Selodia".

"Hey! What's wrong with Selodia?! You're not so great either, you Gadrean!" Buttercup balled her fists and clenched her teeth, prepared to punch him in there face. Nobody got away with insulting her kingdom.

"Oh, nothing. Except for the fact that Prince Brick is getting married to your utterly revolting precious Princess Pinky, just so we wouldn't have to fight each other. What a joke. I can't believe the king would be so foolish as to agree to such a stupid thing!" He said, his face contorted into a nasty sneer.

"Hey! Blossom is not revolting! Besides, you want there to be war? What kind of sick person are you?" She spat, disgusted by his sudden change of personality.

"Well, if you think I'm so sickening then why did you come here to meet me? Huh?" He challenged her, leaning against the tree with his arms folded and chin raised.

Buttercup wrinkled her nose and mounted Midnight,"I thought you were a decent person, but apparently I was wrong. Maybe you are right though, maybe we should fight. It's not like you have anything to lose anyway, you lowlife." She really had wasted her time coming here. Travis just sneered again and turned away from her, toward Gadrea.

"So long Travis Storme, see you never."