Sabrina's hand stroked his cheek, her eyes locked with his. "You will always be my hero. You're so brave and strong; Adam can never compare."
"But Adam's the strong one. He's always been the one to look out for me, even if he gives me a hard time. Of course he can compare."
"He's a selfish jerk."
"He was jealous – he's actually a goofball and can be nice, even if he's generally not very smart. I'm the one who can be really mean sometimes. That's just what we do, I guess."
"But he doesn't matter… all that matters is you. I'm already starting to forget him."
"No! Adam's my brother! He matters!"
"Who's Adam…?"
"No!" Chase shouted, choking as cold water doused him and splashed all throughout his capsule. Spluttering, he pressed his hands on the glass, shaking the water from his tightly shut eyes. "Ugh! What was that?!" he coughed.
"There's a mission alert, and we need you! It was the only way we were able to wake you up," he heard Bree explain through the glass. He wiped his eyes, opening them to blearily see Bree, Mr. Davenport, Tasha, and Leo standing there.
"Are you alright, sweetie?" Tasha asked before throwing Donald a glare.
"Please tell us you can remember again," Leo pleaded.
"Um, yeah," Chase forced out, giving them a reassuring smile.
"What did you give Mr. Davenport and Tasha for their anniversary a week ago?" Bree asked suspiciously.
Chase gulped. "A clock…?"
"Eh, wrong!" Bree said with frustration. Worry painted the expressions of the others.
"I don't know if we should let you go on this mission if you aren't… feeling well," Mr. Davenport said carefully.
"You still think that I've lost my marbles," Chase deadpanned.
"We were trying to be nice," Leo sighed.
"Mr. Davenport, I don't know if I can succeed with this mission all by myself – we need super-strength," Bree said nervously.
"I could help," Leo pressed hopefully. His eagerness was obvious.
"No, you don't have any idea how to use your bionic arm yet – you'd probably destroy the rest of my facility," Mr. Davenport shot him down immediately.
"What's the mission?" Chase asked.
Mr. Davenport and Bree looked at each other before the billionaire turned to Chase, saying "There was an explosion in the chemical lab in one of my facilities, and part of the roof caved in. We need to evacuate my workers and keep the rest of the roof from coming down."
"Let me help, I can do it!" Chase said urgently. "We need to go now!"
"Yes, we do – but you think that you have an older brother who doesn't exist!" Bree said with exasperation. "So I think the best thing for you, crazy, is rest!"
"I'm not crazy!" Chase shouted. He hated that they thought that he was mentally unstable – he was the most stable of them all! This was an insult to his intelligence, he was sure of it. "I don't know why everything is so weird and what happened to Adam, but if super-strength is all you need to complete the mission, I don't see why I can't do the mission! I swear that I'm not insane!"
"Chase, calm down," Mr. Davenport sighed, giving him a wary look. "There's no need to yell – you can go."
"Good," Chase grunted, stepping back into the center of his capsule to allow it to dress him in his mission suit. It felt strange for him to be this angry – Spike would have normally activated by then.
As soon as he had stepped out of his capsule, Bree grabbed him and they were gone in a whoosh! Mere seconds later they stood outside of a lazily smoking building, a crowd of people chaotically milling around it.
"Okay, scattered-brains, do you have any idea of what to do, or should I do the problem-solving for today?" Bree asked sarcastically. Her mood had grown foul since Chase had yelled at her.
"I'm not an incompetent idiot," he snapped at his older sister, shaking his arm from hers. He focused his attention on the building, letting his super-intelligence analyze it. "It doesn't seem as unstable as Mr. Davenport made it out to be – if we can get everyone out and I hold up the rest of the roof until we can reinstate new supports, we should be fine."
"Okay," Bree said simply, taking him again and whizzing them to the third and top floor where the soot-blasted lab was. Dust hung in the air, sunlight streaming through the demolished roof above.
"Check the other levels and get the rest of the people out," Chase commanded Bree, stepping away and studying everything closer. Bree nodded before she was gone in a breeze.
"Okay, now what?" Chase muttered to himself, looking around. He paused as his super-senses picked up a sound – the sound of life. Breathing, a heartbeat.
"Hello?" he called, but there was no response. He looked around, and seeing no one, he activated his heat-sensors. Scanning the room, he froze as he saw warmth underneath a cold slab of the ceiling piled with other debris.
"Okay, okay, okay, I need to lift these," Chase said to himself anxiously, rushing over to the fallen ceiling as he deactivated his heat-sensors. He hadn't had any experience with the bionic ability of super-strength since he and his siblings had switched chips, and that had been a disaster.
Don't think about that, just do what Adam does – just do, he told himself. He grabbed the first chunk, heaving it up. Grossly misjudging his own strength, he sent it flying upwards and crashing into the wall behind him with an explosion of bits of rock. He winced.
"Okay then," Chase said shakily, blinking several times. Putting the experience behind him, he grabbed the next chunk, and the next after, making sure to be far more careful this time. The work was amazingly easy for the bionic, and he couldn't help a grin at being so strong.
"You're slow," Bree laughed suddenly from behind him, and Chase jumped. Rolling his eyes, he threw the chunk he was holding to the side, grabbing the next one in line.
"You could help me," Chase suggested casually.
"I don't have the super-strength."
"What do you have?" Chase scoffed jokingly, but he was actually curious. If he had super-strength, then what did Bree have besides her normal abilities, if she happened to have anything else?
"What do you think I've been doing since we got here?" Bree asked, mock-offended. "You don't remember my abilities either?"
"Humor me."
"I have super-speed, super-agility, vocal manipulation, heat vision, blast-wave, invisibility, wind-tunnel, and breathing underwater," Bree listed proudly.
"Alright then," Chase replied distractedly, his thoughts processing this new development. He had Adam's strength, and Bree had all of his other abilities. "Say, do you think you could use your laser vision to break up this larger piece?"
"Since when aren't you strong enough to lift it on your own?"
Chase shot her a look. "Fine, if that's what you want," he grumbled, not about to back down from an obvious challenge. After clearing away the rest of the debris, he paused to assess the situation; the person – a man in a once-white lab coat – was mostly free from the fallen ceiling, but his legs were still trapped. Chase would have to lift the giant slab off of him.
Sucking in a large breath in preparation, he crouched down, sliding his hands underneath it. Lifting it up a little, he slipped himself underneath and heaved the entire thing upwards and over his head, holding it high.
Bree darted forward to grab the unconscious man before retreating to safety, turning to face her brother. "You didn't have to pick it up all the way off the ground," she said, putting her hands on her hips.
"But isn't this what you wanted?" Chase asked, stumbling briefly as the weight seemed to dramatically increase.
"No - Chase, put it down! You'll hurt yourself!" Bree exclaimed as she saw this.
"Too late," Chase responded, sounding severely overwrought even to his own ears. He slowly sunk to the ground as the weight grew heavier by tenfold. His teeth clenched and his eyes squeezed shut, he could feel that his face was burning red with blood as his heart worked in overdrive. He knew that it was only a matter of time before, in the effort to keep him from being crushed, his heart would explode.
Distantly he heard Bree screaming his name, but even that faded away as the darkness began sucking him in. This is my time of dying, he realized dimly.
"Not if I can help it," he heard whispered beside him. It was a voice he knew all too well and had missed far too much.
With a gasp, Chase felt life flood back within him as the unbearable weight was lifted from his shoulders. As the slab gradually rose, he found his own strength again and slowly stood with the ascending chunk of ceiling.
Chase looked up to see Bree's shocked features. "Oh my gosh…" she breathed. "Adam…."
Adam grinned down at Chase, saying "Don't you know that I'm the strong one? I'm your big brother – I'm the one supposed to bear this weight and look out for you."
"I know," Chase replied through his gasps. "Adam… you really hurt… me… yesterday."
Adam's expression grew sad. "I know… I'm sorry. I let the weight crush you."
"You tend to… do that a lot," Chase pointed out with a half-hearted smirk.
"I never said I was the best big brother ever," Adam paused, swallowing "but I try to be the best that I can be. I'm not perfect, but I'll try harder."
Chase nodded numbly, looking down.
"I'm sorry, Chase."
"I'm sorry too…." Everything faded to a dull gray, and Chase blinked his eyes open. His breath caught, and he looked around.
He was standing in his capsule and coated with sweat, with Bree to his left and Adam to his right. Both were soundly asleep.
Chase stared at his older brother, studying his features slack with sleep. He was there, surely there. This was no longer a dream, but real life.
Would Adam apologize in real life as he did in my dream? Chase wondered.
Only time will tell. Let him come around on his own, a small voice gently told him. He had a feeling that Adam would; despite how maddening his older brother could be, Chase knew that he meant well and never intended to truly hurt him. He knew that his brother cared about him.
Chase looked away, swiping at his nose once. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he turned back to his unconscious brother. "All the popularity and power in the world, a girlfriend – it doesn't mean a thing if you're not my brother. I love you Adam, and even if you aren't sorry for hurting me, I'll forgive you anyways. Because that's just what brothers do, I guess."
AN: And that's a wrap! This was incredibly fun to write (while writing this, I discovered another thing I have in common with Chase: snot cannons are legit), and I hope you, Lea Ootori, really enjoyed this! As part of the gift, I give Lea special access to this idea to write this as a much larger, more dramatic story if she so chooses - have fun, girl ;) I know that you, Lea, have a lot of projects on your plate already, but if ever you need a break and just want to have fun with this plot line, by all means go for it - it's yours, after all. If you end up sharing it with us, wonderful! If not, we as your readers will surely understand.
Anyways, I would like to give a special thanks to everyone who favorited/followed this story! And those of you who reviewed, you're incredibly awesome! Thank you Anonlabratslover, Dirtkid123, girlface187, Lea Ootori, LovelyInspiration, PurpleNicole531, Sodaluv8, Stardust16, Susz, tennisgirl77, Unknowndiva, and all guests for reviewing!
Before I go, I have a huge Spike story update: I have a rock-solid release date that I will not compromise on, whether I am done or not. Reasoning will be posted on my profile under Upcoming Stories the day that I post the story, so if you are wondering why, you can find out then. The official day is the one-year anniversary of my re-involvement on FanFiction and my one-year anniversary of joining this wonderful fandom! A one-shot (NOT the one-shot Sandwich - you'll know what I mean when the time comes) will go out that day celebrating my anniversary and also subsequently announcing that it is the big day, and later that day I will post the first chapter of the Spike story. The only way I will miss it is if I lose all of my work somehow, tragedy strikes in my life, or I die. So keep your eyes peeled because that will be coming up soon (not my death, or tragedy, or anything like that [I hope] - I meant the anniversary)!
Anywho, that's all for now - Asori out.