Here is chapter 4! I think this is an appropriate time to give the readers a guide to the chapters of this story. So, here are the chapter names through most of the rest of the story:
4: Hurricane
5: This May Come as a Shock
6: Love Conquers All
7: The Hallway
8: The Truth Behind the Symbols
9: The Other Six
10: The Objective
11: Nightshade
12: School's Out
13: Onyx's Gem
14: When Jeopardy Puts Your Family in Jeopardy
15: Sibling Rivalry
16: The Randsom
17: A Traitor in out Midst
18: Taking Leopold By Storm (Actually by Fire, Electricity, and Strength)
19: The Labyrinth
20: Ophidiornithophant
21: TBD by a poll that I'll post after chapter 11 (hint: it's a ship name)
22: TBD
23: TBD
24: TBD
I hope that gave you a little incentive to stay with this story! Enough rambling from me, here's chapter 4!
Disclaimer: I do not own Lab Rats
Chapter 4: Hurricane (Leo's POV)
Leo knew that the fourteen new kids were a bit odd, but he didn't realize just how strange they really were. During first and second period, he would soon find out.
Leo's first class of the day was science. Not particularly interesting, but not as boring as mathor English. That morning, Leo discovered that two of the new kids would be joining his class. Their teacher, Mr. Grick, introduced them as Windsor and Tempest, and directed them to sit near Leo. Compared to some of their siblings that Leo had seen in the hall, these two looked almost normal. Windsor had blonde hair, nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact that it seemed to be billowing in a breeze that wasn't there. The only thing really odd about him was his eyes, they were so light they almost blended in with the white of his eye.
Tempest looked a bit more emo. She had stormy gray eyes and very short, gray hair. Yes her hair was gray, but not old person gray. It resembled the color of a dark storm cloud, and it had a single streak of silver like a lightning bolt. Her name, Tempest, fit with her appearance perfectly.
Windsor and Tempest walked across the room to join Leo and John Abraham at their lab table.
"Hi, I'm Leo," Leo said in a friendly manner.
"Windsor," he replied, extending his hand to shake.
As Windsor held out his hand, Leo felt a breeze as if someone were holding a fan to his face. Despite this odd wind, Leo acted normally and shook his hand.
"This is my sister, Tempest," Windsor introduced.
"Hey," Tempest said gruffly.
"Have you met any of my other brothers and sisters?" Windsor asked.
"I've seen them ,but you're the only ones I've talked to. How can there even be so many of you in one grade?" Leo asked.
"To be honest with you, I have no idea." Windsor replied.
"Class, hurry up, we have work to do. Please proceed in reading chapter three of the textbook," Mr. Grick instructed.
The entire class pulled out their textbooks and Leo noticed the unique covers on both Windsor and Tempest's books. Windsor's was off-white and had a small picture of a cloud blowing a breeze on the front, and Tempest's was storm-cloud gray with a thundercloud on the front.
"Nice book covers," Leo commented.
"Oh, yeah. Every kid in our family has a kind of symbol that all of their belongings are marked with. It helps distinguish between all of the school stuff we have around the house between fourteen kids," Windsor explained.
"Cool. Our family isn't organized enough to do anything like that."
"Would a system like this benefit your family? It's only worthwhile with multiple children."
"Maybe, there are four of us. And we're in the same grade just like you guys."
"Really? You have sibling in this grade? Who are they?"
"Adam, Bree, and Chase Davenport."
Windsor and Tempest nearly dropped their textbooks upon hearing this.
"You mean the Adam, Bree, and Chase Davenport?" Tempest questioned surprisedly.
"Yeah, are there others?" Leo joked. "Why does that shock you?"
"We just didn't know the Davenports had a fourth child," Windsor said.
"I'm their stepbrother," Leo explained.
"Oh, okay."
"Wait, how do you know so much about the Davenports? Didn't you just move here?"
"Um, we heard about them through a mutual friend."
"Mr. Dapetvorn, please stop talking and read your assigned text," Mr. Grick scolded.
"Yes sir," Windsor replied and buried his face in his book.
For the rest of class, Leo pondered Windsor's interest in Adam, Bree, and Chase. How could they possibly have mutual friends? Adam, Bree, and, Chase hardly knew anybody outside of Mission Creek. For fifteen years, they only people they knew were each other and Big D. Something wasn't right, and Leo would get to the bottom of it.
~0~
By the end of science, Leo hadn't unraveled any mysteries behind Windsor's odd behavior, so he said a joshed goodbye to him and Tempest, then sped off to history. History class proved to be just as eventful as science, now that Leo found himself seated with another pair of new kids: Brooks an Crystal. Brooks had bright blue eyes the color of a clean river, and straight, brown hair that appeared to be damp. Crystal was a bit stranger in appearance, her eyes were iridescent and seemed almost see-through. Her hair, too, was almost translucent and it was straight as a ruler, falling in a perfect sheet to about three inches below her shoulders. Her skin looked like it was made of glass, it was un-humanly pale.
Leo noticed that they followed the notebook system Windsor had described, Brooks's was blue with an image of a raging river, and the cover of Crystal's was clear with a picture of a wine glass.
"Just out of curiosity," Leo said. "How do you guys choose who get which symbol on your notebooks and textbooks?"
"Huh?" Brooks asked. "How's you know about that?"
"Your brother, Windsor, told me about it in first period."
"Oh, I'm not really sure how the symbols got decided. We've been using the same ones since we were born. I guess our dad chose them for us."
"Interesting. Your dad? Did you mom have any input? I would think that deciding a symbol that would represent you in the family for almost your entire life at home would be important enough for both parents."
"Oh, I've never known my mom. We were all raised by our dad by himself," Brooks explained.
"Oh, I'm sorry. My step-siblings were raised by a single father too. Until my mom married their dad, of course."
"Who are your step-siblings? Do they go to this school?"
"Yeah, they're actually in the same grade as us. Do you know Adam, Bree, and Chase Davenport?"
"Um, yeah I think I've seen them around. They might be in my homeroom class."
"Brooks, don't you remember? Adam, Bree, and Chase Davenport are the people-" Crystal began, only to be cut off by Brooks.
"Crystal, no! Don't say that!" Brooks shouted.
"Why not?" Crystal asked, her iridescent eyes glittering on the verge of tears. Leo decided she was the type not to take scolding or criticism very well.
"If he knows that we know about them, he'll be suspicious. We're not ready for phase three yet," Brooks whispered, too quietly for Leo to hear.
"How is it a crime if he knows?"
"Crystal, wouldn't it be weird if we knew Adam, Bree, and Chase on our first day in town, when they've lived in an underground lab for fifteen years of their life?"
"But it's not our first day in town, we've lived here our whole lives."
"He, and everyone else in the school, thinks that we just moved here last weekend."
"Oh, I'm sorry Brooks. I forgot, I could've compromised everything," Crystal cried.
"It's okay, nothing happened."
"Um, are you guys done?" Leo asked. Brooks hadn't realized it, but he had turned his back to Leo and was hunched over in conversation with Crystal.
"Yeah, we're done," Brooks replied.
"Windsor said that he knew Adam, Bree, and Chase through a mutual friend."
"Curse Windsor! That's so like him!" Brooks whispered to himself.
"Hey! We are starting class now, pay attention!" Mr. Valdez scolded.
Leo, Brooks, and Crystal hastily opened their notebooks and began to take notes as Mr. Valdez began his daily lecture.
So, Brooks doesn't want to admit that he knows Adam, Bree, and Chase? Who could this mutual friend possibly be? Who is the man who raised these fourteen kids by himself? Hopefully, Chase could help Leo figure this out at lunchtime. It was a great thing to have a bionically-intelligent brother to help solve problems.