A few people have been asking me where Boomer is, and I have to admit, I don't know; he's probably been playing Portal 2 or something. I just don't seem to know what I want to do with him really. That said, he will be making a couple more appearances before this is through, don't worry.

22

Having got up and ready for school before clicking that school probably wouldn't be happening, Blossom found herself at a bit of a loose end. She finally ended up sitting in the kitchen idly swirling a spoon in her cup of coffee and staring at the far wall.

What had happened yesterday had scared her. As much as she had tried to push it down when they got Buttercup back to the house, it hadn't really worked. Brick had stopped her before she even managed to get her violin out of the case, her hands were shaking that badly. Buttercup's decision to stay down in the lab and have the Professor sedate her while her wounds were healing hadn't made her feel any better either.

As she turned the thoughts over in her head, the Professor entered the kitchen, face pale and eyes bleary.

"Good morning," he managed, before breaking into a massive yawn. She returned the greeting, and then resumed staring at the wall. The Professor looked at her for a long moment, and then pulled a chair out and sat across the table from her.

"She'll be alright Blossom. She's already healed up, good as new."

"But she's not alright Professor. This has just been getting worse and worse ever since she got her new power. I'm scared for her; I think there's going to be a day where she's really not going to be able to stop it. And worse, I think she knows that." The Professor sighed, and rubbed a hand through his already decidedly ruffled hair.

"I've been looking into it. Initially I thought it might be another imbalance in the Chemical X, but it's stabilised again. I don't think there's anything that can be done except to try and support her and help her get a better handle on her powers."

"That's not good enough!" Blossom was vaguely aware that she'd probably just burnt her hand with the way she'd crushed her coffee cup, but she didn't care. "I want to fix it. I don't want to have to just sit around and hope I'm helping her! There has to be something we can do." The Professor fixed her with a suddenly stony look.

"The only other solution I can see would be to dose her with Antidote X and leave her stripped of all of her powers. She'd probably be perfectly stable again, but then what happens when that boy turns up looking for another fight?"

Blossom stared at him. If that happened, Butch would probably kill her outright. She'd be useless to him; he wouldn't think anything of it.

"I-" She was cut off as the phone rang. Rushing to answer it rather than continue the discussion with the Professor, she shot a guilty look back towards the kitchen door as she picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Blossom? It's Miss Bellum. Could you come over to the Mayor's office this afternoon please? We have things to discuss."

xxx

Miss Bellum was pacing. Miss Bellum never paced. She sat behind her desk and shuffled paper and was generally very relaxed and in control. She didn't pace irritably up and down in front of the bookcases like this. It was making Blossom uncomfortable as she watched.

"The problem we have, as you may already be aware," she was saying, consulting the sheaf of papers she was holding. "Is that, while we of course want to restore the school buildings, the cost of the building work, all the rewiring and restocking the library is, quite frankly, beyond reasonable funding costs."

"But we need the school," Blossom blurted, somewhat uselessly. She immediately felt somewhat embarassed by the statement; she was here to try and come up with something useful, not to state the obvious.

"I know Blossom, but unfortunately, we just can't do everything. The building work is obviously the priority here, but unfortunately, we can't afford to rebuild the music rooms or the library as well as repairing all of the other damage."

"But-"

"Our funds are not bottomless, and most of our money goes to repairing collateral damage to the city. I don't think I need to tell you what causes that." Blossom fell silent. That was a low blow, if an entirely accurate one.

At that moment, a secretary popped her head around the door.

"Oh good, send her in please." Miss Bellum said, before the woman had even opened her mouth. Dutifully, the secretary disappeared, and a moment later, the door opened to reveal Princess, dressed in a very nicely tailored suit, which would have been much more sophisticated if she hadn't clumsily fabric-glued dozens of rhinestones around the edges of the jacket collar. The fact that her eyebrows still hadn't quite grown back in yet didn't help much either.

"Miss Morbucks, please have a seat," Miss Bellum said, not even looking at the girl. "I understand your father has an offer for us." A sacchirinely sweet smile slid itself onto Princess' face as she pulled out some kind of smartphone (Blossom had never liked the things, and knew nothing about them) and tapped the screen a few times.

"Given that the school is an invaluable part of the Townsville community, and is clearly important to our future, Morbucks Industries would, of course, be delighted to supply the funding to repair the arts facilities."

"I assume there are conditions?" Princess' smile grew wider.

"Nothing too outrageous. We simply request that the new library and music department carry the Morbucks name, and that we are given a more prominent place on the school board. Also-" She turned that catlike smile to Blossom. "Mr Morbucks politely requests that Blossom here, and her sisters, star in the advertising campaign for out latest product."

Blossom stared at her dumbly for a few seconds.

"Blossom?" Miss Bellum was looking at her expectantly.

"No." Princess raised her approximations of eyebrows.

"But Blossom, my father was ever so insistent about it. He says you and your sisters would be perfect for-"

"I said no. He can find someone else. We won't do it."

"Well maybe you won't-"

"None of us, Princess. We do our part to keep the city safe, we are not celebrities to be trotted out and exploited." Miss Bellum coughed politely as Princess tried to draw herself up to her full height, which was an inch shorter than Blossom and none too impressive.

"Girls, please, we have more important things to worry about than arguing right now. Blossom, unless you can come up with a suitable alternative, I urge you to reconsider if you want the arts department of the school restored. Take some time to think about it, alright?"

"Yes Miss Bellum..."

xxx

"You rang?"

"Brick, I don't have your phone number, and even if I did, I wouldn't use it. What do you want?" He shrugged, shoved his hands into his pockets and lightly dropped to the ground beside her, easily matching her walking pace.

"You know what's happening with the school? You were just at the Mayor's office, right?" Blossom sighed, and then gave him a brief run-down of what had happened.

"I know it would be the easiest way to get the school back, but it feels wrong. We don't need any more public exposure than we already have." Brick hummed thoughtfully.

"I guess it makes sense. Besides, I don't want anyone else ogling my girl." That got him a punch in the ribs and a loud retort of 'not your girl.'

"All joking aside, I guess we'd better come up with something else, huh?" Blossom nodded, absently fiddling with a strand of her hair that had come loose. She caught Brick looking at her oddly as she did so.

"What?"

"Your hair's not-" He was interrupted by Boomer almost crashing into him as he practically fell out of the sky. Clearly he still hadn't got the hang of landings.

"Brick, he's gone. Got away from me. Don't know where he's gone." Brick paled.

"He what? I told you to watch him!" Boomer held his hands up.

"Hey, you know what he's like. I tried to keep up with him, but he ditched me. Nearly knocked half my teeth out too." He started fumbling in one of his pockets and produced a pack of cigarettes. "Do I ever need a smoke after that one." Brick snatched it out his hand and crushed it.

"You are coming with me. We have to find him, now. You know how he's been lately." Boomer's eyes had flashed angrily as Brick destroyed the cigarettes and now he just shrugged, his expression hovering on the line between annoyance and feigned indifference.

"Don't think it's my problem really. Not yours either, except you've gone soft since you started chasing after her." He gestured in Blossom's direction. "I still don't get it man. Yeah, she's pretty hot, but-" He fell silent as Brick shot him a glare that could have peeled paint off a wall.

"You are going to help me find him Boomer, or I'll do worse than knock your teeth out, believe me." His eyes had taken on a sickly red glow, one that Blossom recognised and that made her stomach twist unpleasantly. Boomer apparently had the same reaction, as he immediately lowered his eyes to the pavement and muttered something that sounded more or less compliant.

However, it wasn't just Brick's temper flaring that was making Blossom nervous. Butch was clearly on the warpath, and the most likely target for that was currently at home, unconscious in the basement and utterly defenceless.

And despite the fact that neither she nor Bubbles could take on an enraged Butch and win, she was not going to sit by and let him get to her sister. Not without one hell of a fight.

"I'm going home. I need to get to Buttercup. Brick, Boomer, please, find him."

xxx

When she got home, she wasn't greeted by smoking ruins, or any horrific fight scenes taking place. Instead, she burst into the house to find Buttercup ambling to the living room with a mug of hot chocolate and a big bag of marshmallows.

"Woah, what's up with you?" she said, seeing the slightly wild look on Blossom's face.

"I... Uh, no, I mean, nothing. I mean, how are you feeling?" Buttercup cocked her head to one side and looked at her in confusion.

"I'm... alright I guess. All healed up, head's feeling clearer. Are you really okay? Your hair's a mess." Blossom unconsciously put a hand up to her head. It was true; quite a few clumps of hair had sprung loose from her ponytail in her mad dash to get home.

"It... it was just kind of windy out, that's all. I flew home." Naturally, Buttercup wasn't convinced, as even without her empathy powers, Blossom was clearly lying, but she let it slide and continued on to the living room, setting down her mug and flinging herself onto a sofa.

"Professor's out; said he had to go talk to one of his buddies over at the big labs. Might not be back 'til late, but he left money for us to get take-out." Blossom nodded, not really taking any of it in. The situation was just striking her as really, really odd. Yesterday, Buttercup had looked like she was about to take a running jump over the line to utter insanity, while now she was just her regular self, slobby tracksuit bottoms and all, stuffing her face with marshmallows and moaning about the low standard of reality shows while she channel-hopped.

"Don't worry about it," Buttercup mumbled, her eyes never leaving the TV screen. "I'm working on it." Blossom sighed and sat down.

"I want to help. I just want to be able to do something."

"S'okay. I know you and Bubbles have my back. I'll be alright. And... I'm sorry I hit you yesterday. I didn't really mean to, I just lost it really badly, but I'll do better next time; I won't let him get to me."

"I... I don't want there to be a next time Buttercup." Her sister smiled wryly.

"No can do Bloss. Me and him pretty much have to fight, otherwise, we'd be totally crazy all the time. 'Mallow?"

Sometimes, Blossom felt like Buttercup didn't realise how serious her situation was, but now she was starting to understand that maybe Buttercup did realise, far more than anyone else did. And maybe the only way to really deal with it was to leave her to her own devices; maybe there really was nothing she could do except to try and keep her sister's home life as normal as possible.

She took the marshmallow.