Inspired by "Jungle" by Emma Louise and Wankelmut - Highly suggest listening to the song before reading to get the feels - When Blossom begins to have recurring nightmares of her sisters being killed in a fight, she wonders if it's a sign… or perhaps a curse?

AUTHORS NOTE: There will be graphic descriptions of violence and death, please read with caution if you are easily triggered by those things.


Chapter 1 - Stabbed

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

"In a dark room we fight, make up for our love.

I've been thinking, thinking 'bout you, about us.

And we're moving slow, our hearts beat so fast.

I've been dreaming, dreaming 'bout you, about us."

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Everything happened in slow motion. Both Blossom and Bubbles had been knocked unconscious leaving Buttercup to fight Him alone. Buttercup was furious, she hated Him for hurting her sisters, and was determined to send Him back to Hell. But no matter how hard she fought, nothing seemed to phase the demon- it was like he was taking every hit with no damage. Him just smiled and laughed as he basically tortured the young super heroes.

Just as Blossom began to stir awake, she could hear her sister's pained cry as she was thrown against the wall. She slowly lifted her head just in time to watch Him approach the green hero. Him then pushed Buttercup up the wall with his powers so that he was at eye level with the girl. Blossom began to stand, ready to save her sister seeing as Buttercup was gritting her teeth in pain as she was being smashed into the wall. But before she could stand completely, she watched in horror as Him whispered something into Buttercup's ear and then stabbed a magic sharp dagger into the girl's abdomen. The world seemed to become oddly quiet as Blossom gasped. All she could hear was the echoing sounds of Buttercup's pain and Him's sinister laughter.

Blossom grew red hot with anger. She then bolted towards the demon and tackled him, causing Buttercup to fall to the found unconscious. Blossom beat on Him over and over again. Him's head was pounded into the segment so many times that it began to crack beneath him. Blood trickled from the demon's mouth and eyes as Blossom screamed in anger. Before her last fatal blow, Blossom flew upwards then darted down towards Him and sent him about nine feet down into the earth. She stood over the crater and heaved as she watched the demon's body slowly shrink and then disappear into a smoke of pink and red. And just like that, her anger turned into sorrow as she remembered her sister. She turned around and flew right to Buttercup's side.

"Buttercup!" she said as she fell to her knees beside the girl's body. "Hey, hey, you ok?" Buttercup's eyes fluttered open as she heard her sister's voice. Blossom then began to try to move her into a more comfortable position, but immediately stopped as Buttercup let out a gut-wrenching cry. "What?! What's wrong?" just as she spoke she watched as Buttercup's eyes fell to her stomach. She too glanced down and was horrified as Buttercup removed her hands from the site to reveal the handle of the dagger Him had stabbed her with. "Oh my gosh," Blossom mumbled. While Blossom spoke, Bubble's suddenly appeared.

"What the heck ju-" she then was cut off by her own gasp as she spotted Buttercup's wound. She put her hands over her mouth as tears formed in her eyes. Buttercup laid her head back on the crumbled concrete forming a perfect pillow as she began to struggle. She returned her hand to the handle and gripped it tightly as if she was trying to distract herself from the pain.

"You're gonna be ok, you're gonna be ok." Blossom said in a panicky tone, "you just need to breathe."

"Bloss-" Buttercup tried to say but was cut off by her pink sister.

"Try not to move too much and focus on your breathing, alright?"

"Blossom!" Buttercup said loud enough to stop her sister from speaking. Blossom shut her mouth immediately and stared at her sister. The two locked eyes and Blossom knew what she was about to say.

"No." she choked.

"I'm- not" Buttercup gasped, "there's not-hing you can- do."

"No, no! Buttercup, don't say that! The professor will get here and he will fix this! Just hold on for a little bit longer.-" Blossom gasped a sob as tears streamed down her face. There was a silence between the sisters for a moment… all except for Buttercup's ragged breathing. But Buttercup broke the silence as she glanced over at her pig-tailed sister.

"He-y Bubbles." She heaved, "you- kno-w I love y-you, right?" Bubbles just nodded, "and- and I kn-ow I shou-ld have tol-d you th-at mor-e. I'm s-so sorr-y tha-t I wasn't th-the greatest si-ster." Tears began to stream down Buttercup's face as she paused. "Don-'t let- let anythi-ng happ-en to the c-ity, alright? A-nd look out f-for your sis-ter for- for me?"

"Please don't go!" Bubbles then said as she threw herself beside her sister and clung to her arm. Buttercup closed her eyes for a second before moving her gaze over to her other sisters. Right as she made eye contact with her, she began to sob.

"I-I'm so so-rry Bloss-om. Fo-r everyth-in-g." Buttercup said as her voice broke. Blossom tried to stop her and tell her that everything was going to be fine, but she once again glanced down at the wound and stopped herself once she saw how much blood she had lost. "And- *gasp* and I- I shou-ld have re-spect-ed you m-more. You- hav-e alway-s kep-t B-Bu-Bubbles an-d I i-n lin-e-" Buttercup then stopped suddenly, realizing that it hurt too much to speak. After a few seconds, Buttercup reached out to Blossom and the pink hero melted into her sister's arms. Both Bubbles and Blossom clung to their sister as she fought to keep breathing.

"Please don't go, please don't go!" Bubbles cried over and over to her sister. "No, no, no-" Blossom said too as she held onto Buttercup.

"I love you guys," Buttercup whispered as she held onto her sisters for the last time, then fell limp- her head slightly falling to the side. Blossom hadn't noticed, but townspeople surrounded the three superheroes. But she couldn't hear any of them over Bubbles and her own sobbing. There the three sisters layed, cuddled all together for the last time…

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

"Hey, hey, hey, hey

My head is a jungle, jungle

My head is a jungle, jungle

My head is a jungle, jungle

My head, oh"

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

Blossom shot up in bed. She breathed hard, clutching onto her chest, and felt her speeding heart rate. As she calmed herself down, only one thing came to mind… Buttercup! Another wave of panic went over her as she looked to her left where Buttercup usually slept, but was relieved when she saw her sister in green sleeping quietly. She was sprawled out, comfortably lying slightly on her side facing Blossom. One hand rested lightly beside her as the other one clung to the green blanket that was draped on top of her. She was pretty far from the edge because, no matter how much she hated to admit it, she was the cuddliest sleeper out of the three.

There Blossom sat for a few minutes, just staring at her sister. Sure, she and Buttercup fought with each other almost every day, but she couldn't imagine her life any other way. Just having a dream about losing Buttercup made her realize how dangerous their lives were. They were constantly risking their own lives for an entire city. She knew it was the right thing to do, plus it was the sole being of their existence, but fighting crime was a risky business. And out of all three of them, Buttercup usually left the fight with the most injuries.

Everyone in Townsville knew Buttercup to be the fiercest fighter out of the three Powerpuff Girls- heck, she was even called the "tough one." But that didn't mean she never got hurt. She thought about the countless times she and Bubbles had cried Buttercup's name after something had crushed or eaten her. She also thought of all the times she would watch her sister being thrown into a building and being beaten into the ground. Sure all three of them had their fair shares of near-death moments in fights, but for Buttercup it seemed like every fight she would leave with a significant bruise.

Not many people knew what happened after an intense fight. The girls would usually have to hold in their pain or hide their injuries for the pictures and interviews needed for the paper or news article. Blossom remembered one time in particular after one of their longest fights, all three had to hold each other up and fight just to stay awake. When they would get home they would go straight to the professor. He would usually already have the bandages and painkillers all ready to tend to the girls, but sometimes all the girls would need was to just sleep in the warmth of their father's embrace.

Blossom's thoughts then were interrupted as Bubbles coughed in her sleep. She jumped slightly and glanced back at her blue sister and smiled. As usual, Bubbles was sleeping softly, cuddling her stuffed octopus, Octi. After watching her for a second, she returned her gaze to her other sister. The thing she watched now was Buttercup's breathing. She watched her sister's body move up and then down over and over again. Soon, just seeing Buttercup sleeping, she yawned and decided it was time to go back to sleep.

As she adjusted herself, she grabbed Buttercup's free hand and snuggled in close. Buttercup then unconsciously held her sister's hand and also moved in closer to Blossom, now leaving her blanket behind and rolling onto her side so she could be snug with her sister. Blossom smiled a bit as she stared at the ceiling. She then began to close her eyes, feeling much better than she did a few minutes ago. Both of her sisters were safely sleeping next to her… breathing and alive.

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

The next morning, Blossom awoke still cuddled in with Buttercup and, as usual, Bubbles had also joined the pile. As carefully as she could without waking her sisters, Blossom snuck out of bed and headed downstairs to help the professor with breakfast since it was her week. It was Saturday so her week of preparing every meal was almost over and it was Bubbles next. When she got into the kitchen, she was greeted by the warm smile of her father.

"Good morning, Blossom!" the professor said as she closed the refrigerator, "sleep well?" Blossom hesitated a bit before speaking but played it off as if she was yawning.

"yeah, I woke up once and it took me a minute to go back to sleep, but it's alright," Blossom said as she followed the professor to the stove. He let her take over making breakfast and moved on to washing the dishes leftover from the night before (usually they were done immediately after dinner but the girls were called into a bank robbery).

"Oh yeah? Got a lot on your mind?" he said as he bent down to put a dish in the dishwasher. Blossom bit her lip as she thought about her nightmare, but decided not to tell the professor. She didn't want to worry him over one nightmare.

"I guess," she said convincingly. The two stayed in the kitchen for almost a half an hour, prepping breakfast and talking about various things before Buttercup floated into the kitchen. Blossom almost dropped the plate she had just gotten out of the cover when she saw her sister.

"Morning'" Buttercup mumbled as she opened the refrigerator to get something to drink.

"Sleep ok?" the professor said, slightly chuckling at his daughter's messy hair.

"Yeah, best I've slept in a while!" Buttercup laughed as she poured some milk into a glass, "that fight last night really drained me, right Blossom?" she looked up at her pink sister to see her basically hugging the plate just staring at her. Buttercup squinted a bit as she studied her sister's expression. "you ok Blossom?" she said, "you look a little… off?"

"Huh, oh yeah-" Blossom said as she snapped back into reality, "I'm fine, I'm just still waking up!" she laughed. Buttercup shrugged and went back to pouring her milk. The professor, however, kept his eyes on his pink-eyed daughter. Even when she was putting the food on the plates, she kept glancing over at Buttercup who had now moved over to the couch.

"Buttercup?" he yelled, "Can you go wake your sister? Breakfast is ready!" Without hesitation, Buttercup flew up the stairs and did as she was told. When she was in their room, the Professor returned his attention back to Blossom, who was now setting the table. He watched as his daughter worked slowly, still with a worried look on her face. When she had finished, she flew next to the professor to admire her work. Right as he was about to say something to Blossom about her sudden mood switch when she saw her sister, his two other daughters came floating down the stairs.

He again kept his eyes on Blossom to see if she would react the same way she did before, but this time, she did nothing. She just sat in her seat, barely touching her food or speaking, but was still engaged in the conversation. The professor really didn't know what to make out of this sudden behavior but decided to just put his worries to the side and enjoy breakfast with his three perfect girls. Besides, maybe Blossom was just exhausted from the fight they had last night or was going through some sort of "girl moment" (as they called it).

The rest of the day seemed completely normal. The girls - even Buttercup - helped clean up the kitchen and tidy up the living room so that the family could spend their Saturday together in a clean, calming environment. Of course, the cleanliness of the house didn't last long when an intense game of tag broke out. Nothing was broken, but papers from when the girls bolted past them had scattered and pillows that had been thrown as a defense mechanism were all over. This kind of mess on a Saturday, or any day really, was completely normal for the Utoniums. The professor learned that, when it got messy this quickly, it was also cleaned up just as fast once their game was over.

Utonium sat on the couch quietly sipping his coffee with a stack of unread newspapers in his lap. Of course - as with every newspaper lately - the girls were featured on the front page. So, even when he had heard every detail of their battle from their perspective already, he always liked reading about what had happened from the outside. His peace while reading was then suddenly disturbed when Bubbles shot next to him, pressing her back against him. She giggled uncontrollably as she kicked her legs.

"Professor, hide me!" she squealed in a happy panicked tone, "I don't want to be it again-"

"Gotcha!" Buttercup said as she too suddenly appeared on top of her blue sister. Bubbles, being startled, let out a scream that soon turned into her contagious laughter. Buttercup too began to fall into the giggle fit, laughing at her sister's cute giggle. All of a sudden, Blossom appeared, purposefully scaring the other two. Again, two twin screams came from the blue and green heroes then again they began laughing. Blossom too melted on top of her sisters after finding that it was hard to fly since she was laughing so hard.

After a few seconds of laughing, Blossom began to slip off the edge of the couch. In an attempt to save herself, she grabbed onto Buttercup's leg. However, instead of pulling herself up, Buttercup also began to fall with her. Out of instinct, Buttercup grabbed onto Bubble's arm, but she too began to fall. The three heroes all fell off the couch, and just when the professor thought their laughter couldn't get louder, it did. He leaned forward to see his three girls once again in a pile, laughing too hard to speak.

But just when they were about to hop up and go another round, the sound of the hotline began filling the house. Triplet "awes" followed before Blossom solemnly floated to the phone.

"Hello?" Blossom said, sounding slightly disappointed. "A robbery? Where? Alright, mayor, we'll get there as soon as we can!" she slammed the phone down and turned to her sisters, "come on girls!" Blossom and Buttercup shot out of the house and towards town, but Bubbles hesitated.

"We'll help you clean this mess when we get home, Professor. I promise." She said feeling guilty about leaving the house in such a wreck from their game of tag.

"I know, Bubbles." the Professor said with a smile on his face, "Don't you worry about it. Now go catch up with your sisters!" Bubbles giggled as she kissed him on the cheek before darting out to reach her sisters.

ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

The girls finally got home a couple of hours later. By the time they had gotten to the scene, the robbers had escaped. Instead of bursting into the bank and catching them right then and there like it always was, they had to chase the multiple robbers across town… and the girls were exhausted.

The men had four different getaway vehicles, two of which being phonies with no loot. The three had split up, not knowing that only two of the cars were genuinely filled with the stolen cash. Blossom took the one that was north of the bank. From what she could tell, there was only one man driving this vehicle. She tried her best to stop the car without using force, but the man driving predicted every one of her moves and avoided her. So instead she used her laser eyes to slice the car in half, leaving the driver with no backseat to skid to a stop. The man tried to hop out and run, but she swooped down and caught him before he could get far. Still holding onto the man, she inspected the car and found that it was empty.

She growled as she grabbed the man tighter by the collar and shot towards where the police were gathered. She dropped him off there and flew straight up into the sky. She looked over the town, searching for any other getaway vehicles but gasped as she heard the sounds of rapid gunshots. She instantly looked in the direction of the sounds and felt her heart sink. Although she was completely fine and bulletproof from any "man-made weapons," she was the one being shot at. Blossom knew that her sister was fine, but just the sight of seeing her in danger made her remember her dream. She looked straight down to see the exact place everything had happened in her nightmare. For a moment, she almost felt sick– but then she just felt the anger take over.

Blossom bolted in Buttercup's direction. She managed to line herself up perfectly with the window and crashed through it, taking the gunman through it. The two crashed into a building and the man instantly fell unconscious. Buttercup, who had only seen a sudden streak of pink stopped mid-air and stared at the smoke from the building the two had crashed into.

"Woah, Blossom," Buttercup said in shock. Blossom was heaving as she held a now bloodied-up man against the wall. Just as she spoke, the gun fell out of the man's hand and crashed onto the ground. "Blossom?"

"Go." Blossom said, turning around.

"What?"

"Go get the driver!"

"Oh, right!" and with that, Buttercup took off. Just as the green streak of light disappeared, Blossom sank to her knees and sobbed. What did I just do? She thought to herself. Fortunately for her, the man was only severely injured and if she got him to a hospital in time, he would live.

Bubbles and Buttercup had successfully caught the rest of the robbers before they could get away. The three met at the bank to once again speak to the police, but Buttercup kept her eyes on Blossom. She had never seen her sister have such a violent outburst. After the men were all put into custody, the girls headed home. The trip was short and no one spoke.

When they got home, Bubbles finished up what was left of the mess in the living room, Blossom snuck up to her room to change out of her dress that had now been stained with a splatter of blood, and Buttercup went with the Professor to treat some nasty bruises from the bullets. She may have been bulletproof, but bullets always left behind some pretty painful welts.

That night, Blossom stared at the ceiling, wide awake even an hour after the Professor had tucked them in. The scene of her sister dying in her dream the night before played over and over in her head. She tried her best to think of something else, but nothing was helping.

"Blossom?" a voice said, snapping her out of her thoughts. It was Buttercup.

"Yeah?" Blossom replied, trying her best to sound as if she had just been woken up.

"Are you ok?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well you've been kinda– I don't know, off today. You know, with the whole gunman situation." the room fell silent once again as Blossom thought about what Buttercup was saying. She knew that she went pretty overkill with that hit, but the fact Buttercup realized too made her wonder how much this one nightmare was affecting her.

"Yeah, I guess I did go a little too hard on him. But I'm ok, I just didn't want the robbers to get away, you know?" Buttercup replied with a half-asleep "mhmm" and was out like a light. Blossom smiled a bit before shutting her own eyes, praying that the nightmare was just a one-time deal.