PROLOUGE

The year was now 2013. Blossom, now a teenager, was lying in bed. As the sound of the Powerpuff's hotline phone rang, she steadily opened her eyes. Noticing the teenaged Buttercup was laid out next to her, she elbowed her sister to get her attention.

"Phone. Get it" she requested.

Buttercup mumbled a couple of unpronounceable words as she rose out of bed, picked up the phone, and just as quickly slammed it back down.

She noticed Bubbles was on the floor, looking a little dishevelled, one of her pig tail ribbons had come loose, and so one side of her hair was longer than the other.

"Where were you last night?" Buttercup asked her sister.

"I was at the Zoo" Bubbles replied.

"You broke in again?" Buttercup said, reacting with alarm.

"There was the cutest little Orang-utan family that looked like they needed any other home but there" Bubbles explained

"Bubbles, you can't keep springing every animal you qualify as a sob story out of their cages. Besides, haven't you learned from experience what a handful monkeys can be?"

By this point Blossom had climbed out of bed and had slipped out of her pink nightgown. She hastily moved over to the girls' wardrobe where she took out the pink dress she had worn since her childhood days fighting crime.

"Come on guys, let's suit up and get through this"

"Do we have to wear the dresses? I'd sooner deal with whatever's coming in my PJs, seeing as right after we avert the crisis I'm going straight back to bed. I didn't get back here 'till 3 AM last night fighting a snare-beast"

"It's not just a dress, its standard dress code" Blossom replied.

"Well I say the code is cracked" argued Buttercup.

Ultimately, time was of the essence and there was little time for debate, so Buttercup put aside her issues, slipped out of her pyjamas, and begrudgingly put on the dress.

Bubbles quickly fixed up her hair, and together, the three girls shuffled out of the front door.

"What's the situation?" asked Buttercup as the three of them took flight

"Swampy's causing a ruckus over at the harbour" Blossom said

"He's usually due twice every year, this'll be his third rampage, something must have disturbed his hibernation' Blossom theorized.

"Poor Swampy" Bubbles lamented.


As they departed, their minds scarcely took into account whether or not they should have told the Professor where they were going, but he himself was otherwise preoccupied in the recesses of his laboratory, woven into a web of his own personal drama with Sara Bellum.

"Nine years" Sara said, her arms folded.

"Seven, not counting exclusives" The Professor spoke, Sara took umbrage to the notion he was answering this only to correct her on something she was so sure she'd gotten right.

"Don't you mean the opposite?"

"I don't follow" The Professor replied.

"We've been 'exclusive' for seven years"

"Yes, but I'm referring to the fact we haven't had an exclusive about us for seven years" The Professor elaborated.

Sara was soundly triggered by this. Her temper fierily rode; she suddenly seemed even taller now.

Taller, and fiercer.

"You're prioritising two years of press coverage over a decade of us being together?"

"The one thing I won't stand for is anyone in this family becoming yesterday's news Sara" The Professor insisted.

"You talk about 'yesterday', when I'd give anything to have yesterday back Drake." Sara replied, her temper steadily flaring, "When I left the Mayor's service, I was lost for so long, I thought all I needed was myself, but I missed the city, I missed the girls. When I reached out to them, they held my hand and put it in yours. I owe the best decade of my life to them-I want to have so much more, but I don't think I can do it, not with you, not as it is"

"And what am I to do without you Sarah? Try my luck with Keene again?"

"Well her cat's long since dead; you don't have that to worry about"

"I don't worry about anyone but my girls"

"That's why I love you, but that isn't always going to be enough. It's one thing to love the people in your life, it's another to understand them" Sarah answered.

The Professor could interpret this only one way.

"Are you saying you don't 'get' me?"

Sara sighed. The Professor was being stubbornly one tracked in his mindset.

"I 'get' you, I just don't think I can have you, not with the way you are, and if you're not careful, the girls won't know who to turn to anymore when the hold all parents have over their children inevitably loosens"

There was a pause, Sara's words were sharp, and had cut deep.

"Are we clear?" Sara asked, wanting to know if she'd gotten through to him

"As glass Sarah. As glass" The Professor, saddened, remarked.


Elsewhere, Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup were doing battle with Swampy near the docks of Townsville harbour. The fight was way more effortful than it had any other right to be.

Suddenly, a passing eye beam struck Swampy, grazing him. Blossom was also hit, but had swerved out of the way just in the nick of time.

The girls were confronted with a large mechanical squid, operated by Mojo Jo Jo. Huddled below were a group of loud and boisterous anti-PPG protestors.

Mojo Jo spoke loudly through a megaphone, which was patched through to the exterior loudspeakers that also passed for the squid's tentacles.

"Stop the Powerpuff Girls! Halt their advances! Derail them! Cool their jets! They're behind all this! They are the cause! The ring leaders! The criminals! Beware. Be warned!"

In Mojo's observatory, a teenaged Joe Junior, co-piloted his father, communicating with him via a video monitor, he clutched a Blossom action figure tightly in his hands.

"Ease off on Blossom Pa" he requested.

"I got this junior, I'm through playing with your dolls" Mojo remarked.

The girls tried their best to subdue Swampy before dealing with Mojo, one of the anti-PPG protestors tossed a slurpe, which smacked Buttercup on the head. Now incensed, Buttercup flew down and directly looked the protestor in the eye.

"Try a second time and it will end you" she warned.

The people cowered in fear as Mojo's squid took another shot at Blossom.

"Guys, a little help?" she asked

"Working on it sis" assured Bubbles, only to become distracted by the cries of the Orang-utan she had liberated from the Zoo the night before, as the pest control unit had been called in and were in the midst of intercepting her. Bubbles swiftly prioritised helping one monkey over stopping another.

Another laser blast hit Swampy right in the arm, the beam also cut through a building behind him.

Blossom looked on in horror as Mojo prepared to cut down Bubbles with the same precise 'rounds of firepower available to him, taking aim at her while she flew in and scooped up the Orang-utan, keeping it safely out of the hands of its pursuers.

As concrete debris rained down, Blossom caught the pieces in both of her arms, seeing another slab of debris hurtling towards an evacuated section of street, Blossom used her right leg to kick away another at the debris, only to see it ricochet off a lamp post, and shatter into tinier fragments of shrapnel, which tore directly into Mojo's robot squid, and directly into its occupant.

Watching the tragedy unfold in Mojo's lab was Joe Junior. He was speechless, his eyes moist as tears watered down his face.

"D-dad?" he cried.

Blossom flew down to survey the damage, her face awash with fear and concern; she noticed a stain of blood on the insider panel. Blossom and Buttercup joined up with her, having seen what she had done, and had their own opinions about it.

"Blossom-did you do that on purpose?" Bubbles asked.

Blossom began to hyperventilate, a full blown panic attack manifested.


Before long, the press media and their trashy type of press had pounced, the girls retreated back home, but even then, they weren't safe as the Pufferazzi were waiting in the wings, hiding in the shrubs of their house garden, even hiding themselves under sofas in their home, eager to get a shot of the girls at their lowest.

A newscaster on television read out a report, the banner reading 'Splitsville: A Town Divided'

"In the wake of the shocking demise of Mojo Jo Jo, seemingly at Blossom Utonium's hands, what had began as a fringe group has gained considerable reach across Townsville, prompting a debate on whether or not the Powerpuff Girls should be allowed to serve as this city's protectors, a debate that will be settled today through a decree by our own Mayor"

The news footage then cut to a live link to Townsville city hall, where The Mayor was holding a press conference, he was flanked by some of the anti-Powerpuff protestors.

"Not one 'Puff is above the law of the land, and as I count the cost this latest battle has inflicted on our fair city, I've come to realise the steps we have taken to protect ourselves have allowed us to be stepped on. From here on in, the Powerpuff Girls are to no longer assist in the handling of criminal or monster activity in Townsville"

There was a roar of deafening approval from the gathered crowd.

Bubbles and Buttercup, watching the drama unfold on television, wrapped warmly under a blanket. Bubbles, ever the emotional one, was close to welling up, Buttercup kept her close, gently stroking the pigtail locks with her right hand.

"Should we check in on Blossom?" Bubbles asked.

"I don't think she wants to see anybody just now" Buttercup admitted.

"Hasn't dad stopped by her room yet?"

"Nah, he's mowing the lawn outside" Buttercup replied. "He's kind of in a bad place of his own, best not to bother him"

"Do you think he and Sara will patch things up?" Bubbles, determined to prompt some kind of hopeful response from her sister, continued.

"Nothing's for sure anymore Bubbles; we just have to deal with whatever reality has in store for us. At least things can't get much worse"

"Blossom, wait" cried out the Professor, apparently from outside. Bubbles and Buttercup swiftly scrambled, discarding their blanket and headed towards the front door.

There, they found Blossom, suspended in mid-air, looking at a concerned Professor dead in the eye, a telling expression on her face, one of an utterly spent and shattered individual, unwilling to listen to anyone that would wish to sway her from her intentions.

Blossom, in tears, flew as fast as she could through an overcast sky, a suitcase of belongings and personal effects strapped to her back.

Once she was but a speck in the distance, the full realisation of what this entailed washed over Bubbles; she was more vulnerable now than ever.

"Are-are we done?" she asked.

"Yeah" Buttercup replied, throwing an arm over Bubbles' shoulder to comfort her, "Yeah, we're done"

Behind the two, a member of the Pufferazzi slowly crept up behind them and took a snapshot of the pair.

"What a scoop" he said.

Buttercup, without even turning her head, quickly smashed the lens of the man's camera with a mean right hook.