Give it up for Part 3! The chapter in which our greens are responsible for moderate deforestation.

Butch was unsettled by the look on Buttercup's face, or rather the absence of one. In hindsight, he should've guessed something was off by the desperate nature of her text, but god knew he wasn't that observant, and really, he couldn't have known. He'd never seen her quite like this before, eyes downcast with her shoulders slightly tensed as if she was fighting to hold herself together, and that fact moderately terrified him.

Earlier this evening he'd be excited by the ambiguity of her mood—part of the fun, right? Now he wasn't so sure. What if she didn't want to fight and she'd called him out here to talk? That thought aggressively terrified him, and his instincts told him to tread carefully.

He spoke in a cautious tone. "Everything good, B?"

Nothing in her stature changed. Her expression was perfectly guarded, and when she responded only her lips moved. "Less talking. More fighting."

Butch wasn't sure when he'd stopped breathing, but he hoped she couldn't hear his small sigh of relief. It hadn't occurred to him how ill-equipped he was for emotional support until this very moment, but even though Buttercup was decidedly not okay, maybe fighting was what she wanted right now—what she needed. He could tell by the way her fists clenched at her sides, the way her lips pressed into a firm line. She wasn't ready to talk, no, but she was ready to fight. He just had to get her out of this mood…

Nothing a little teasing can't fix.

Butch smirked, eager for the challenge. "I mean, you know I'm game," he said, slowly shrugging off his jacket. "But honestly, why do you look like someone just kicked your puppy and torched your favorite blankie?"

Her eyes flashed. "I'm serious, Butch."

"So am I, sweetheart."

Her expression turned stormy then, and in an instant, her shoulders relaxed. Green light flickered at her fingertips, and she closed her eyes as she dropped her voice low. "Don't call me that."

Bingo. He'd baited her just right.

"Why? 'Cause only Ace gets to call you pet names?" He barked a laugh and took a readying stance, letting the adrenaline seep back in. "His shade of green must really turn you on, huh? Yeah, I bet that chain smoker voice of his gets your panties soaking wet."

"Butch, watch it." She warned, bristling."You picked the wrong night to fuck with me, dude."

"Last time I checked, you're the one who texted me."

He let a beat pass.

"Sweetheart."

Her eyes were murderous. "Eat my ass, Butch!"

"I'd love to, cunt!"

And he was laughing when she slammed into him, his heart galloping in his chest as she tackled him with the force of a bullet train. He dug his feet into the ground, relishing in the subtle buzz that came with his Chemical X rushing to life, racing to heal is straining, fraying muscles. Buttercup made the mistake of burying her face in Butch's torso, attempting to use her full weight for added power and speed. Butch played this to his advantage, and she was late to notice the superpowered fist coming for her side and the sudden change in weightlessness when Butch took to the air.

She spent a fraction of a second recalibrating. It was barely noticeable, but milliseconds were lifetimes in fights like these. The hesitation was long enough for Butch to break her grip, force her down to waist level, and connect his foot with her shoulder, shoving down with enough strength to send her spiraling. It was a glorifying sight. Butch smiled and was reminded of his childhood—of similar fights with the same perfect little girl.

He pursued her wild descent. While Buttercup grew increasingly frustrated with her situation—trying to figure out which way was up while nursing a shattered shoulder—Butch's smile evolved into a chuckle, and then total maniacal laughter. Maybe if he cackled a little louder, teased a little harder, she'd destroy herself by trying to give him the finger—by telling him to "fuck off" instead of catching her fall. But they knew she was smarter than that, and she was inches away from impact when she finally righted herself, abruptly changing course so she could skim just a breath above the ground.

She hugged the terrain, zipping over each crevice and elevation with ease. Butch's blasters tailed her from above, his powers bathing the clearing a brilliant green and carving a jagged gash that traced where she flew. He had the advantage of being airborne, but she'd always been the faster flyer and the one with the quickest instincts. He chased her to the tree line, and just when he thought he had her pinned between the forest and his blasters, she sliced a tree at its base with her eyebeams. It fell at just the right angle—because of course it did—and she caught it by the branches, flinging it back into his blasters' path where it exploded with the deafening CRACK. Bark and pulp rained from above in thick, damp chunks. In the split-second Butch took to shield himself, his blasters had ceased, and Buttercup fled into the woods, taking care to give him the finger and yell, "Fuck off!" over her quickly healing shoulder.

Butch cursed his reflexes. That's the last time he'd listen to those things.

He weaved through the debris, forcing his speed to Mach Jesus to make up the lost ground. He could see her in the distance, ping-ponging between tree trunks and bounding from branch to branch. Like a missile closing its target, he homed in on the light of her green streak with a powerful terminal dive, but she must've sensed him coming, and he must've had tunnel vision because he didn't see the gargantuan boulder hurtling in his direction until it was inches from his face. If he'd been listening to his reflexes, he would've dodged the thing, or powered up his shield to stop it in his tracks. Instead, he braced himself, catching the boulder with his bare hands and swearing under his breath as the impact sent him careening toward the clearing. She'd gotten stronger, that's for sure. He could tell because it took his full strength and flying power to stop the boulder's momentum. He was embarrassed by how he wavered under its weight.

With an irritated grunt, he dug his fingers into the layers of mossy stone and returned it to its sender. Butch raced after the boulder, assessing its path as he flew. Normally his aim was shit, but this time it worked in his favor. He'd overshot the impact point, and rather than flatten Buttercup completely, it struck the ground with enough force to level the trees in her vicinity, perfectly blocking her path. She was still flying low to the forest floor, so when Butch used slices of his shield to collapse the trees around her, her only escape route was skyward, where Butch was waiting with a mischievous grin.

The instant he caught sight of that piercing green stare, he fired his blasters in a long and blinding streak. She swerved, arcing backward over the burst with Olympic form and firing her eyebeams in response.

She wants a dogfight, huh?

They advanced, trading blasts and beams in rapid succession as Buttercup fought to close the distance Butch was determined to maintain. It was an ebb and flow, the advantage shifting from one super to the other like the cycle of the tides. Butch's airborne fighting style was aggressive and wild. He paid little attention to technique and opted for speed and strength over precision—something Brick was constantly scolding him about. Buttercup's flight was pristine in comparison. Though she flew with immense, almost unfettered power, her body control was exquisite, bending and twisting her frame to counter attacks in a way that would put gymnasts to shame—all while midair and at Mach two. Butch couldn't help but think this was a flying style cultivated by her sisters—a bit of Blossom's discipline here, a bit of Bubbles' grace there—but Buttercup's intensity held through and through. In the haze of this wicked fight, he was able to admire how Buttercup could leverage her sisters' differences for her own gain. Butch couldn't say the same for his own siblings, and in that sense he was the slightest bit jealous of the Powerpuff, but his admiration and envy had dire consequences.

Or maybe it was his sloppy flying.

He was exiting a spiral when one of Buttercup's blasters caught his dominant hand, turning the meat of his palm a blistering, angry red and exposing the bone at his fingertips. He bit back a gasp as he gingerly assessed the damage, still clutching his hand when she grabbed him by the neck and forced him into a death spiral toward the earth.

Butch was on the verge of panic. She had no injuries he could exploit. She was too close for him to deploy his shield, and if Butch didn't think fast, Buttercup would bury him in a grave dug by his own body. She sneered at him triumphantly, and a crazed part of her seemed elated that she was sentencing him to his doom—

But that was when Butch's survival instincts kicked in. He vowed to always listen to those.

Ignoring the screaming pain in his left hand, he grabbed Buttercup by the shoulders and squared them to his own. He shoved as if to toss her overhead, but her vice grip on his neck held fast, and instead they spun, orienting headfirst toward the fast-approaching ground. Butch could barely breathe, black shadows creeping at the edges of his vision, but he still managed a knowing smirk.

Kamikaze, bitch.

They locked eyes but didn't blink. Their bodies strained in tension and agony, but they didn't move a muscle. Over the deafening roar of the wind rushing past them, they managed to make out each other's breaths, and there was a distinct absence of panic though they knew what was coming. There were only two options: die or admit defeat.

They had faced this ultimatum before. It was usually at each other's hands and in situations just like this one. Although they didn't fear death—they were superpowered teenagers after all—there was something about life that enticed them just enough to continue living. Maybe it was their siblings, or beating monsters and saving the day, but whatever that something was, it was the reason they never really fought to kill. It was the first and only thing they always understood about each other.

Buttercup rolled her eyes, giving Butch one final crush around the neck before tossing him, parting at the exact moment Butch shoved against her shoulders. Their separation triggered a sonic boom that rid the nearby trees of their leaves and made their eardrums flutter. Amid their hellish dogfight, they'd made it back to their clearing, and now they stood on opposite sides of the chasm Butch had made with his blasters, still smoking. When the breeze came and cleared their field of view, Butch could see Buttercup breathing heavily, hair askew as she watched him flex his half-healed hand.

She offered little reprieve. With the force of a god, she struck the ground, dislodging bedrock the size of small asteroids and suspending them in the air. She was a blur of light as she sent the slabs in his direction, launching them with a calculated precision so they would simultaneously converge on his head. It was a trajectory Butch had seen hundreds of times before. The moment the stones arced into descent, he cast his gaze upwards, widened his stance, and hunched his shoulders under the weight of his massive shield. With splayed fingers and a flick of his writs, he angled his shelter toward the sky as if to create a canopy. That was when Buttercup found her opening.

Butch never noticed how she descended into shadow. Absorbed by the threat from above, he failed to sense the oncoming danger from below, and that unknowingness made her giddy. She skimmed beneath the underside of his shield to deliver an uppercut to the soft part of his jaw, and she must've loved the way his head snapped back as he sailed into the sky, must've adored how his eyes drifted in and out of focus as she grabbed him by the collar. Close enough to feel the warmth of her body on his, Butch was helpless as she dealt blow after blow, his shield sputtering out as the debris embedded in the clearing with a resonating THUD.

Butch couldn't find an opening. Like breaching the surface of a wave only to get buried by another, he never had a chance to breathe. No matter how much he blocked or countered, he found himself a half-step behind her every move. Something like fear began to ice his veins, so he did what his brothers did best—he fought dirty.

Maybe he'd learned something from them, after all.

Butch reached around her agitated frame, much smaller than her powers made her seem, and wove his fingers into her hair. The action was almost loving, and for an instant, he remembered how long her hair had been before she cut it earlier this year, how mature she seemed when she showed up with that strikingly short style. He remembered being mesmerized by the curve of her neck, slightly obscured now as she grew her hair out again, but he was grateful for that, too, because it gave him something to grab onto. He pulled hard and fast, and he couldn't explain why the half gasp, half yelp she let slip stirred something up inside of him. On reflex, she reached for her hair, and Butch took the opportunity to release her, striking her sternum with his good palm. He swore he felt the bones beneath him crack, and that sparked a different something inside of him, too.

For a moment, he imagined her plummeting to the ground and impacting the earth like a fallen star. He pictured her getting swallowed up by the chasm he'd created with his powers, especially for her. Though his face ached and his hand throbbed and his muscles fought to knit themselves back together, he felt none of it. Instead, he was manic, thrilled that he was able to exist in a world with a girl like her as his only worthy opponent. His body seemed to atomize, igniting with a rush of adrenaline and pride, and at once he realized this was the high they were searching for. Just as there were countless unspoken truths between them that were inherently understood, he knew if he recognized this feeling that she felt it, too.

Butch was desperate to see her face. Maybe now she'd show him that look of unwavering determination he'd expected when they met here tonight. Maybe now he'd see the Buttercup he'd come to idolize these past few months. He raced after her, drawing close enough to catch her eye between the strands of hair that whipped violently as she fell, and suddenly there it was—the look that made his heart beat triple time and his body hum.

In her gaze was a perfect mix of rage and euphoria, an expression only Buttercup could master, and her cheeks rose to a lovely flush. In the moonlight, Butch could see the purplish bruise that bloomed beneath the collar of her shirt, and he was captivated by the sight of it—all of it. He was enraptured by the girl who reached for him as if she'd forgotten how to fly, and he found himself slowly reaching back. Butch didn't notice the way their position shifted as they fell. He was too fixated on the electricity that passed between them when Buttercup clasped his hand and drew him close. It wasn't until he hit the ground, his back smashing across the sodden dirt and ash so hard it brought a metallic taste to his mouth, that he realized he'd been fooled—deceived into breaking her fall.

Buttercup had her fist drawn when they came to a stop, an aura of crackling green haze surrounding her fingers as she loomed over him. Her knees pinned him down on either side and she shifted, her free forearm now crushing his windpipe and anchoring him even further. She took shallow, jagged breaths as her eyes filled with wicked glee, her power swelling to deliver the final blow. But as the ash settled around them and her mania reached its peak, she seemed to hesitate, warring with herself. Perhaps she realized she was as fond of Butch as she was desperate to end him, but perhaps she only realized the telltale prick of Butch's shield, now compact and razor-thin between his fingers, drawing blood against her neck.

Butch took in the exasperated look on her face, and despite the fact that he could barely breathe, he grinned.

"You gonna tell me what's got your panties in a twist, now?" He croaked.

She let her fist fly.