Hey y'all! A 3,000-word chapter coming right up!
Alright, I'm tired of this KickandBelli flaming to the point where I didn't want to update. But you all don't want that to happen, do you? I will not waste any more time ranting about KAB flaming; all she wants is attention. Apparently, she began flaming on daphrose's stories just because daphrose stuck up for me. One final note-shut your flapping a***, no one cares that you're famous, where you ARE or AREN'T.
Anyways, thank you all SO MUCH for your support! I would like to give shout-outs (for supporting me during those flames) to the following:
daphrose, for being a wonderfully passionate reviewer and virtually squealing to the point where it's creeping me out
dreamer4evera, for emphasizing to KAB that we are all human and we all have feelings
DisneyXDGirl, for being complimentary and standing up to KAB in a way I could never do
RazaratheFirst, for being ever so deliciously sarcastic to that no-good KAB and standing up for me to the point where it's a fault
ilovebreedavenport, for complimenting me on my writing skills
Vampire Girl, (thought about getting a membership? That would be cool :-D) for being a faithful reviewer and reviewing on every chapter AND forgiving me for the ranting
Keha H8r (did you mean Ke$ha?), for being very complimentary
BTRlover1122, for using a cuss word in a such a damn good way that it made me feel all sparkly and bubbly inside
XxXIamaroleplayingfangirlXxX, for being excited about me updating :-)
And to everyone else who stood up for me/liked this story!
Anyways, since shout-outs are now done, I'm back from a boring, filler Chapter 9 with an awesome, fight-filled, action-packed Chapter 10 that I promised you! Since you all reviewed a LOT, I'm giving you this now! Not very, very long, but it's certainly longer than my others. So enjoy the chapter and please review!
Disclaimer: I do not own Lab Rats.
"Oh, don't worry, princess! I'm not going to destroy anything."
They all relaxed slightly, until they heard what Marcus said next.
"But I am going to harm someone."
The three bionic teenagers slowly rounded on Marcus, who leaned against the tower of faded white bricks.
"What do you want this time, Marcus?"
"I don't want anything," he said in an emotionless, gravelly tone of voice. "I want something else entirely."
Bree said just as coldly, "You'll never get what you want. We'll make sure of that." She resumed a fighting stance.
Marcus beckoned with his good and bad arm, as if inviting them to come and join in with a fight. "Go ahead! Give it your best shot."
Chase smirked. "Gladly." He motioned, with his arm, a downward spiral, in which a loose beam above came crashing down, only to bounce right back upwards and go sailing out through the hole in the roof.
Marcus deactivated his invisible force field. "I'm not impressed."
Bree sped over to him and began jabbing him in the ribs, crotch area, and elbows with her super-fast attacks, but he dodged them with an ease that made her envious, which only fueled her to hit him even harder and faster, but to no avail.
With one fluid motion, he blocked her running into him with his arm and flung her upwards, and then threw her back at Adam and Chase, sending her tumbling into them.
They all fell down, with a comical "Oof!" before getting back up, although, Marcus noted, it took Adam, Bree, and Chase longer to recover.
Adam was silent, but Marcus poked at him. "Let's see what you can do, big boy."
Adam began drawing energy from surrounding electric sources, which then flowed into his clenched fists. He released the blast-wave, but Marcus was still standing, upright and perfectly still. What?
Marcus smiled. "Oh, you three just don't get it! I absorbed the blast-wave. It's a wonderful ability, being able to suck up all the energy from an attack, so good luck trying to use any elements against me!"
Adam charged towards Marcus, with his head down like a bull's, and sent Marcus ramming into the wall, but he shoved his hand out and caught Adam molecular-kinetically by the collar, keeping him hovering three feet off the ground, just barely out of kicking range.
Marcus laughed. "Anyone up for a piñata crashing?" He focused, as hard as he could, to get the saws to pop out, and to his surprise, as well as everyone else's, they did.
"Time to cut it open!" He toyed with Adam by bringing it towards his torso very slowly, while Chase and Bree were still with shock with what Marcus was about to do.
But one of the two did make a move. Bree sped towards Marcus and pushed him down, causing his focus on activating the saws dissipate, and they disappeared. Chase fought fire with fire, or, in this case, molecular-kinesis with molecular-kinesis. He cupped his hand around Adam's "scruff" and tried yanking it towards him.
Unfortunately, Marcus' focus on the molecular-kinetic grip on Adam was not broken and he strained to keep Adam in his molecular-kinetic grasp.
Bree watched with horror, yet fascination, as the two boys, the same age, struggled for control for another boy, much older, floating in the air.
Now there was something she didn't see every day.
It seemed as if it was at a draw when suddenly, beads of sweat began pouring down Chase's face. "I can't hold much longer, Adam! Bree! You have to help me!"
Marcus sneered. "That was pitiful. You can't hold on to your older brother with a molecular-kinetic grip for less than a minute!"
Now, even though Marcus and Chase were not actually touching Adam, the forces of physics still apply. (And as Chase was a genius, he knew the forces of physics-from acceleration to... well, everything!) It was like there was an imaginary rope connecting Adam to Marcus one way, and Chase another. If Chase let go, Marcus would go flying backwards with the unexpected weight of Adam.
And that is exactly what Chase did. He opened his hand like a flowering bud, so quickly Marcus didn't have time to prepare, before Marcus went flying.
Bree sped over, so fast she appeared to have teleported, towards Adam, and yanked him back towards the other end of the room where Chase was standing, tenderly massaging his neck where is his chip was, where he most likely had stressed the system.
Marcus groaned, in pain, and slowly picked himself up, concealing himself in a cloak of shadows. "You've trained hard," he commented, dusting himself off.
Chase grinned. "I certainly have, haven't I—whoa!" Before he was done bragging, Marcus, who had super-sped over to Chase and shoved him, had pushed him down.
Chase winced painfully, and Adam offered his arm. "You okay, Chasey?"
Chase glowered at Adam. "Really? Now?"
Adam smiled goofily. "I can't help it!" He cheerfully pulled Chase up and onto his feet, where they all resumed their fighting stances against Marcus, who had sped back over to the other side of the room.
Marcus waited for them to move. He was calibrating their moves when they had fought earlier, at the park, using his super smarts, and he anticipated Bree's next move perfectly.
She began creating a huge cyclone, stirring up the bricks and broken wooden boards and all of the other dust particles, creating such a thick, dense, barrier-like tornado that Marcus almost couldn't see.
Almost.
Super-sight engaged, green letters flashed in his head. His vision cleared and he could see everything distinctly, down to the red rings on Bree's mission suit while dust and dirt surrounded her in a foot-wide perimeter.
He activated his force field and began advancing on Bree, who was unaware he had his force field with him, since it was completely invisible unless something touched its boundaries.
She began advancing on him, with the brown mass of whirling objects swirling around her, she the eye of the "hurricane," faster and faster, until he sped towards her.
Almost immovable force met almost impenetrable force, and when they clashed together, neither of them could push each other.
Instead they found themselves pushing against each other, willing the other force to collapse.
Marcus was ready to try the same trick on Bree that Chase had done on him, but Bree was smarter than he thought. Just as he was about to lower his force field, she disappeared in the swirling tornado.
Marcus strained, even with his super-sight, to see through the howling winds of bricks and red dust. Where was she?
And then he heard a voice. It was his! What had Bree done?
"Nice try, cupcake!" Bree said, in a perfect imitation of Marcus' voice. How had she done that?
Chase grasped Adam tightly. "Bree lost! That was Marcus!"
Bree switched back to her voice in her invisible hiding place, wherever she was. "No one calls me cupcake!"
The real Marcus yelled, "Bree, what are you doing!?"
Unfortunately, it made perfect sense with the fake conversation-the real Marcus was confused, and the fake Marcus could have been startled at how Bree was fake-attacking him. So, Chase and Adam continued cowering and watching the unmoving shadows behind the bricks, wondering who would win the fight.
Bree answered, in her real voice, "I'm winning this fight, Marcus, that's what I'm doing! She then once again switched to Marcus' voice. "Oh, really, princess? Let's make this fun, shall we?" She suddenly stopped spinning and the winds disappeared, only to be replaced with her moving super-fast, in circles, around Marcus, surprising him. His hair whipped around.
Adam gasped. "Marcus is playing Duck, Duck, Goose with Bree! Look at him go!" He pumped his arms and began cheering an inaudible cheer. Who he was cheering for, Chase never knew.
Chase rolled his eyes. "No, he's using his speed to stun her!"
For Bree was running so fast Chase and Adam couldn't actually see who was running around and who was the person being ran around. They mistook Bree for Marcus, and Marcus for Bree.
The both watched Bree run around Marcus so fast their hair blew back and there was a shift in air temperature, and it gradually began to get cooler, and cooler, and cooler, almost to the point where it was freezing in the warehouse.
Marcus thought bitterly, "Oh, she's a clever one all right." Douglas had never given him vocal manipulation, although he had heard of it. Although—
Marcus was jerked out of his thoughts when Bree, who had been running in concentric circles around him, tighter and tighter, until she was practically touching him, yanked him by the left arm, the good arm, and threw him, with her speedy momentum, towards the wall, where he crashed into it.
Chase yelled, "Bree!" He was about to start running towards Marcus when Bree sped over to him. "Don't bother," she said.
Chase gaped. "But—but… that—that was you!"
"No," Bree corrected playfully. "You thought that was me. Who knew vocal manipulation was so handy?"
Chase's confused frown broke into a grin, and he shoved Bree in the shoulder just as playfully. "You tricky she-demon!*"
"You're cleverer than I thought, Bree," Marcus spat as he stood up, back hunched, startling them all. "But you'll never beat me."
Bree smiled cockily. "Seems like I just did," she remarked.
Marcus smiled a slow smile. "Not in the long run," he replied. "I'm not going to spend the next twenty-four hours fighting with you. I have better things to do with my time," she said.
Adam broke in, challenging Marcus. "Like what, cry to the Apple employees that your pitiful little hard-drive crashed?"
Marcus scowled at Adam. "You three never let me finish!" His wires sparked, as though the angrier he got the louder they sparked, but they quieted as Adam, Bree, and Chase recoiled, and Marcus continued. "I need you all to come with me."
Chase interrupted once more. "We'll never go with you, not in a million years."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I phrased that wrong," Marcus smirked. "I meant to say, you will come with me, or else…*" he sped over to Bree and grabbed her with him, speeding back over to the side of the room he had "claimed" in the fight, before she could cry out, "…your little princess will die, right here, right now." He held the three spinning saws to Bree's throat, where they barely made contact with her skin, enough to bruise but not to bleed.
Bree's eyes widened as she begged, silently, for Chase and Adam to do something, anything-but to not save her! Don't risk your lives by going with this monster, her eyes said inaudibly. Save yourselves while you can. Go to Mr. Davenport and escape now! Don't come back for me. Mr. Davenport will know what to do. I can protect myself. I'll be fine in Marcus' captivity.
Adam stared at Marcus as if he were a murderer, which, in fact, he practically was, brown eyes icy. Chase was looking at Marcus with a mixture of horror and shock that he would do such a thing; go to so far extremes.
After a minute stare-down, Chase consented.
"Fine," he said, his voice hard. "We'll go with you."
"Just don't hurt Bree," Adam negotiated, where Chase nodded, until Adam added, "She owes me five dollars from that bet during Bionic Brother Toss."
The intense staring evaporated. "Really, Adam?"
Adam shrugged. "I want my money's worth."
Chase sighed in annoyance and whispered to Adam, "This is our chance to take back Bree. We have to make Marcus believe that we're going along with his plan. And then, we stab him in the back."
Adam nodded furiously. "And then, we show Marcus our best nonexistent friend Bobo the monkey and he'll teach him how to love!"
"Honestly?" Chase looked daggers at Adam.
Adam smiled. "Monkey fantasies are popular now! Go with the flow, Chase! It'll get you a girlfriend!" He winked.
Chase groaned. He really would have to come up with a bionic comeback, such as briefly lifting Adam in the air with his molecular-kinesis, the next time Adam made a short joke about girlfriends. "Just go along with what Marcus wants for the time being and then follow what I do when I say do it."
Adam slid his hand over his face, and said, to accompany his actions, "Going into subtle mode."
(Page break.)
Donald Davenport paced, around and around and around the lab, wondering where Adam, Bree, and Chase were now. He was relieved that Chase had called, so now he could stop worrying that Chase, and Adam and Bree, were in danger—
"Stop it, Donald!" He yelled at himself. He struggled to keep his calm. Where were the kids? Even without Bree's speed, they should have been home by now…
He opened up a GPS signal map, and to his relief once more, he saw their GPS signals—one pink, one blue, one green.
"They're okay," he sighed, evidently reassured. "They're okay," he repeated, just to hear it once more.
He called to Leo, "Adam, Bree, and Chase are okay!"
Leo poked his head around the doors to the lab. "Yeah, Big D, I noticed! But why haven't they come home, yet? They could have just climbed on Bree and she could've sped them home... no, too many people would be around them if someone had bumped into Chase... hm..."
The small boy was in deep thought on why Adam, Bree, and Chase hadn't arrived home yet, but Donald was so giddy with relief he said once more, with laughter, "They're okay!"
Leo stared at Donald as if he was crazy. Which, in fact, he probably was. Crazy with relief, that is. "Yeah, okay, Big D, you're freaking me out now..." He edged out of the room and then stuck his head around once more. "By the way, Mom says it's time for dinner. She'll drag you up personally if you don't get up from that awful computer screen!" Near the end he imitated his mother's voice, though nowhere close to Bree's pitch-perfect vocal manipulation. He then pushed the button to the elevator and rode up.
Donald whispered it one last time, just savoring it on his tongue. "They're okay..."
But were they, really?
(Page break.)
Marcus leered in the darkness. He had set his trap. He had what he wanted. And now—he could prove those three things that he wanted. Those three things that he needed.
Respect.
Independence.
And—
Ha! Slight cliffie; can anyone guess what that oh-so-mysterious third thing is? Shout-out in the next chapter if ya can! Did you like it? Did you hate it? Tell me what you think; constructive criticism is more than welcome :-)
Since this was such a relatively longer chapter than others and had some major fight scenes, I'm upping the amount of reviews I want for Chapter 11-I require ten. So tell everyone you know who likes Lab Rats about this story! ;-) So review, review, review! And also, an important note: this story will be placed on a minor hiatus for about two to three weeks, maybe a month at most, because I would really like to finish Thoughts of the Truth, as I haven't updated the epilogue for that in over two weeks. And there's the sequel I've started writing for that, Clandestine Covers (portmanteau title), and I'd like to get that up as soon as possible. So! This will not be updated, at a minimum, until two weeks later. I'm sorry, but there are some desperate Thoughts of the Truth fans that would like to see the final chapter.
Also, I noticed something ironic. It seems like KickandBelli WANTS to be yelled at because he/she always reviews under the same name! Crazy, right? Again, this is the last time I will mention KAB because all she/he wants is attention. I will warn other authors: she/he will, no doubt, begin flaming your stories if you stand up for me. If you are very passionate, (ahem, I'm talking to YOU, Rosie!) thank you very much! If not, that's fine. You don't have to stand up for me if you don't want to. Sending a PM is enough, though, as I have a very strong feeling she/he is reading the reviews that I have accumulated on this story. How do I know she'll flame on your stories? Because she/he's already flamed on poor daphrose's stories. That's why. And who knows who else she/he'll flame on?
Footnote #1: One of my friends on this site is a full-time she-demon-so that's where I got the idea to mention it! (That's right, Miss I-have-a-name-that-means-reborn, I'm talkin' to you!)
Footnote #2: This phrase (I changed it slightly) came from an author/friend of mine, KrisKat, from her story, At Gun Point! Check it out, as well as ALL of her other stories. They are worth your time and you will NOT regret it :-)
(I apologize for any spelling/grammatical errors and for the ranting, long, boring Author's Notes.)