Discoveries:

Smugglers hideout, Rapture: 5:00 A.M.

It was very early, he knew that, nobody in the Rapture family was awake. despite how tired he was Ryan knew he had to explore. He needed more then anything to know the terrain so he wouldn't get caught off guard, so he would be ready for any attack.

Using his new found ability he was jumping from place to place, a bag held securely in his right hand. It was a messenger bag, made out of leather. (or maybe pleather? He could never tell the difference) It was empty now, but who knew? Maybe he could find something useful here.

Back when he was a Little Brother he often saw people coming in and out with crates in their hands. One time in particular one of the crates broke while being moved. The adults argued over it for hours until the bell rang announcing the end of their shift.

Once they were gone Ryan decided to peek inside of the crate to see what the adults were arguing about. Inside he found a bunch of neat things he had never seen before, like round things that you play in a projector... movies, he remembered they were called. Books, were also prominent in the crate. Looking over them he found they were different, some were fairy tales, called The Brother's Grim Collection, the other books were of math, biology and geography.

Ryan took them, and in his time off he read them, learning, finding out how things worked in the real world. Thanks to that knowledge, and a generous dash of common sense, Ryan learned how to survive Rapture, but it also made him a prime target.

When Andrew Ryan found out about Ryan's knowledge he sent people after him, offered huge rewards for the Little Brother's head, but that crack pot Irishman never got his hands on Ryan, no matter how many Splicers Andrew sent his way, he always got away.

Sometimes just barely.

Pushing away the horrible memories he made his way through the smugglers hideout. Finding various crates he pried them open easily and looked inside. Books were the most common thing in this crate, taking one Ryan opened it and looked inside. It was filled with beautiful paintings of places with grass, flowers, trees, and a round orb of light.

Touching the page with an armored hand he touched the ball of light, the book was written in a language he couldn't understand, but somehow he still knew what the ball was. "The Sun..." he muttered to himself. Closing the book Ryan decided to take it, searching through more of it he found a few dolls.

They were different then any doll he had ever seen, no bigger than seven inches these dolls had weird dresses on with huge sleeves, big extravagant hairstyles and their skin was as white as snow.

It didn't matter to him though, a doll was a doll, whether plastic or clothe. So Ryan stuffed them into his bag, perhaps the Sisters would enjoy them.

Ryan continued to look and take things, the things he took were a few records of music...for Gracie whom he found out that she was the one who found him and everything that could be classified as a child's toy. Any and all playthings the Sisters had were made by their own hand, usually Big Daddy dolls.

Looking in the very bottom of the crate Ryan even found a box with a tea set inside it. The set actually looked rather manly, the kettle and four additional cups were gun metal Grey. There were at least thirty different kinds of tea in a box next to the kettle also.

Unfortunately giving caffeine to Little Sisters was a very bad idea. He didn't even want to think about the one time a Little Sister got her hands on some drink the adults called 'coffee'. Plus, this was ordered by Lamb, so if he gave this to the Sisters, even without the tea, she would know he stole this stuff, as opposed to a passing Splicer thinking there may be a bit of Adam within them.

Looking around he saw an ancient looking crate, deciding this was the last one for the day he walked over to it. Prying it open Ryan looked inside, trying to see past the dust that was kicked up when he opened it, there was nothing inside but a bunch of old knickknacks. Moving them around he found what looked to be a small journal from before audio logs were invented.

Picking it up gently he opened the cover and read the small bit at the top on the first page. printed at the top were the words This journal belongs to _, in the space provided for a name the words Johnny Topside could be made out.

He looked at the hand writing for some time, his vision began to grow blurry as he stared. Ryan shook his head a few times but that didn't help. His vision began to grow even more blurry. He tried to stand from his kneeling position, only to fall down face first onto the ground.

Ryan tried to fight the darkness that overcame the haziness but he stopped when another vision started.

Flashback:

"Ryan... RYAN! COME BACK HERE!" He heard somebody shout, Ryan spared a glance back but he kept pushing his way through the crowd. It was his chance to see him, the hero of Rapture.

Ryan made a final push and he was in front of the crowd of adults. Looking upwards he saw his idol. A man, in his late twenties or early thirties. He was well built, his brown hair was shaggy, and his eyes were blue.

But none of that mattered, Ryan was more interested in seeing and hearing the hero of Rapture tell his stories, "Did you face the Kraken Mister Johnny?" asked one of the other children around him, Johnny laughed and said, "No, there's no such thing." The adults muttered and whispered to one another.

Ryan stared at his hero until he felt a hand grab his shoulder.

End of flashback:

The vision faded away. His eye sight back to normal Ryan slowly got to his feet. Grabbing the journal he had dropped when he fell he slipped it into the leather bag and looked around.

Down the hill in the port he saw a bit of bronze colored metal sticking out from the water. A few jumps later and he saw that the bit of metal was what looked like a bathysphere, but it wasn't round, it was more of an oval, like an egg tipped on it's side.

Curios about why it was mostly submerged Ryan jumped into the water. The water level wasn't too deep, probably fifteen, maybe twenty, feet. The diving suit look his armor had wasn't just for show and Ryan could easily adjust to being underwater.

Falling like a rock he was soon at the sea floor, walking over to the large circular door he pried it open. Once inside it was fairly easy to see exactly why this bathysphere was left to rust, it had a large hole blown out of the back. With the right equipment he could easily fix it though.

Looking around he came to the conclusion that this was either Andrew Ryan or maybe even Lamb's personal bathysphere. These things weren't cheap to make and this one was enormous, easily able to hold maybe fifty adults comfortably.

With that though a plan hatched in Ryan's mind. He could use this, it would take time and equipment to fix, but he had woken up extremely early and he still had about an hour before anyone was even awake, and even more time before he had to report in for Little Sister duty.

Deciding to see if the crane he had seen still worked Ryan got out of the bronze egg and crouched down before jumping as high as he could. Unfortunately he didn't know his own strength and came shooting out of the water, straight into the cement ceiling.

The loud *Clang!* of his helmet hitting the ceiling disoriented him enough that he didn't notice he was falling. Hitting the ground with all the grace of an armor covered coma patient he spent the nice five minutes enjoying the pretty, pretty stars before he got up and marched over to the crane controls.

Ryan's luck held and it appeared the crane worked just fine, the battery had long since died but there was a lever for emergency back up power located just a few feet away. "Bingo!" He cheered aloud as he pulled the switch down to turn on the energy system, the machinery sparked, and then nothing. "Oh come on!" He shouted at the sparking circuits.

He closed his eyes and threw his fist forward, hitting the panel, if for no other reason then to make himself feel better. Unnoticed by him the sparks shooting out of the machine all seemed to change direction, some even in mid-air, and flowed into his arm.

So a few seconds later when Ryan opened his eyes he was rather surprised to find his arm, from elbow to fingertips, was covered in electricity. Focusing on his hand as he felt it going numb he looked at it.

Seemingly with a mind of it's own his fist uncurled and his hand became locked in position. With the fingers slightly bent. Bringing the hand closer to his face he narrowed his eyes and tried to move it. The numbness went away instantly so he flexed his fingers straight and thrust his palm upward, which just happened to be pointing at his face.

In the next 1.2 seconds Ryan learned three things. One, he could now shoot lightning out of his hands. The second thing he learned was how to shoot said lightning. The third and most important was that shooting yourself in the face with a beam of pure lightning hurts. A lot.

"SON OF A BITCH THAT HURTS!"

See?

After he got up from the twitching fetal position he had worked his way into on the ground he pointed his hand at the machine and did the same motion with his hand. Flexing his fingers straight and thrusting his palm out. Blue-ish white lightning shot from his palm and the crane controls suddenly came to life. Even the lights above him turned on!

Smiling at his success he got to work, Running over he used the controls, which moved the crane, and got a good grip on the metal oval in the water. Lifting it up he tipped it sideways to empty the water out of it before bringing it right side up and setting it on the ground.

Turning off the crane he jumped down and got a good look at it. It was rust free, surprisingly, but the hole in the back was a bit larger the it had looked underwater.

"I'm gonna need some help with this." Ryan said to himself.

Fort Frolic, Rapture: 6:00 A.M.

Fort frolic was a very popular spot for Big Daddies to go, as it was very big and offered little cover for potential Splicer ambushes. Ryan wasn't aware of this however, he just knew he saw a lot of Big Daddies here whenever he passed through. It took a bit of walking but he eventually found a Daddy that wasn't guarding a little sister and therefore was safe to approach if he was a brother..which thank god he is.

Since he was a floor above the Big Daddy, a Rosie, he had to yell, "HEY!" to get it's attention. 'Why do I even bother, Big Daddies only follow Lamb's orders these days.' he mused to himself, it was worth a try though.

The Rosie stopped dead in his tracks and looked around as if looking for who was calling for him. Raising his eyebrows in surprise Ryan shouted down, "UP HERE!" and raised his harvester, the glow from the bit of Adam he had harvested on the way here acting as a beacon.

The Rosie did it's best to look up, with a little difficulty it moaned and thumped it's rivet gun against it's chest and stood still, awaiting orders.

Ryan was in a state of mild shock, a Daddy hitting it's chest with it's weapon was a sign of respect amongst fellow Big Daddies. He knew with his new abilities he was quite powerful but worthy of a Rosie's respect? Wow.

Shaking his head he took a step back, sprinted forward, and jumped off the balcony, both his new found strength and the shock absorbers in his suit easily made sure he didn't become floor pizza.

Turning to the Rosie he said, "I need your help with something..." Before adding, "Follow me." and began to walk away.

Looking behind himself as he walked back to the Smuggler's Hideout he half expected the Big Daddy to have ignored his request and continued on to wherever he was going before, but he was mildly surprise to find the rivet gun wielding Daddy lumbering behind him.

'Sweet.' He thought with a concealed grin as he walked. He felt pretty powerful right now.

Smuggler's Hideout, Rapture: 8:00 A.M.

"Alright, that looks good." Ryan commented as he welded the last metal slab in place.

The Rosie used it's trusty rivet gun to secure it even further. They had secured two giant square pieces of metal on either side of the hole, filling in the middle with molten metal (which used to be just scrap, but was melted down by a continuous use of Ryan's new fire ability) before they double secured the metal squares. Re-welding and using more rivets, respectively.

Once done welding Ryan took a step back and admired their work, looking beside him at the Rosie he told him truthfully, "Thanks for your help Hero, couldn't have done it without you." The big Daddy thumped it's chest once again and lumbered off.

Watching it head back the Fort Frolic Ryan wonder why the Big Daddy obeyed him. They were programed to protect Little Sisters and obey orders from their superiors, which in this case was Sophia. Yet this one obeyed him.

Since he just had to fancy the inside of the bathysphere up a bit before he was done he was about to do that before he glanced at the watch that was built into his suit. He had Little Sister Duty in half an hour! Deciding to finish up later he sprinted to where he was supposed to meet Alice, the sister he was escorting today.

Persephone, Rapture: 2:00 P.M.

Eleanor sat propped up against the head board of her bed, lately it was getting harder and harder to move.

She looked across her room, it was filled with Little Sisters. Well, the term Little Sister barely applied to them, they were all around eleven or twelve. There were eight in total, their names were Miley, Hana, Kristy, Krystal, Annabelle, Alexandra, Isabella and Jade.

Miley was turning into a hopeless romantic, she had found several fairy tale books on her daily Adam hunts and had grown to love the happy endings. Especially the ones involving a dashing prince meeting and falling in love with a beautiful princess, even more so if the prince saved the princess from a horrible fate, like being married off to a fat ugly old man, or being locked in a tower for eternity. She wore a pink dress with a matching bow. Her hair was also slightly longer then the other Sisters.

Hana was the shyest Little Sister there was. She was shy around everyone, even her Daddy, she simply preferred to be left alone in a corner with a few crayons and some paper. She only talked more then one sentence to Eleanor, who she liked a lot. Her dress was a nice lavender color and her bow was blue. She was also the smallest of the Sisters,but she wasn't that short, just skinny.

Kristy and Krystal were the most unique Little Sisters because they were the only Little Sisters that were twins, identical twins, in fact. They both wore blue flower dresses with matching bows. Telling them apart was made even more difficult as they were never further then ten feet apart.

Annabelle and Alexandra are also sisters. Annabelle was the youngest while Alexandra was the oldest by one year. Alexandra wore a blue stripped dress with a pink bow. Annabelle wore the opposite, a pink striped dress with a blue bow.

Finally there was Isabella and Jade. They were both from foreign countries, Isabella from Italian, and Jade from China. Seeing as how Jade only knew Chinese and Spanish while Isabella knew Italian and Spanish it was no real wonder that they were friends. Jade wore a yellow dress and bow while Isabella wore a red and blue dress and bow.

Eleanor's musings were cut off as the self proclaimed Pretty Pink Princess of the group jumped on the bed and thrust a picture in her face with a cry of, "Look at my art Big Sister!"

Reaching up to grab the picture and pull it a few inches away so she could see more then just herself in it she saw it contained her and a slim armored teen boy holding hands. Looking up she gave Miley a flat look. "Miley..."

"What? Oh come on. Admit it, you two look great together." The pink clad girl reasoned.

The other girls all agreed, giving a chorused "Yeah." of agreement, not even looking up from their drawings.

"That is so not true, besides I already have someone I like." It was a long awkward second before Eleanor realized she probably should have added that last part.

It was two seconds after this realization that every one of the little sisters were clamped onto various parts of her looking at her with big curious eyes.

"Who is he? How old is he? Is he cute?" They asked almost to quickly for her to make out each question.

"When did you meet him?" Even Hana was exited enough to ask.

Trying to answer one at a time Eleanor answered, "Well, his name is Ryan, I met him when I was little, I think he's about a year older then me, and uhhh, yeah I think he's... cute." She finished with a reluctant tone, not of admitting her attraction but of what the sisters response would be.

Hearing this the Little Sisters started giggling. Getting up they started dancing while singing, "Eleanor an' Ryan sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. Kissing, kissing, then they got married, then they got a baby, an' all the baby did was cry, cry, cry."

"No, shut up, that is not true!" shouted Eleanor, fighting the blush that threatened to overtake her face.

She heard a chuckle, looking up she saw the Big Brother from before. Seeing him shake in silent laughter she knew he was enjoying the fact that the little sisters were torturing her. Angrily she stomped over and began to scream curses at him. All he did in return was lean forward just an inch, turn his head to the side, and cup his hand by where his ear would be in the mocking gesture for 'I regret to inform you that I can not hear what you are telling me, please speak in a louder volume.' before she heard another chuckle as he turned and walked away.

She swore she was going to get even with him somehow.

Sophia's office, Rapture: 4:30 P.M.

"You called for me?" asked Ryan as he sat down on one of the chairs as he wondered what the whole thing was about.

Sofia looked up from her work and told him, "I need you to go to Gil's. He will run another scan test on you, its... something that we do to everybody to make sure nothing is wrong." Ryan noticed the slight hesitation and couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious.

Ignoring the feeling Ryan answered, "Okay." A second later he heard a *Beep!* come from her desk as she hit a button. A security bot flew in almost instantly.

"This bot will take you back there, make sure you get there in one piece." She said, as she got back to work.

Fontaine futuristics, Rapture: 5:00 P.m.

The security bot zapped the door of the building open.

'No wonder there's no splicers here, this place is packed with enough defense systems to bring down a Brute Splicer in seconds.' thought Ryan as he looked around at all the defenses the building had to offer.

The bot took him back to the office section, which he was fairly familiar with. The bot stopped and motioned at Gil's office with it's gun before flying away. Opening the door he walked in and closed it behind himself. Gil seemed to have gained a thin mechanical arm in his absence.

"Good to see you again Ryan." Gil greeted, looking up from his paperwork.

"Its good to see you too." replied Ryan civilly, being suspicious of Lamb was no reason to be rude, as he took a seat across from the flying doctor. "Sophia sent me here for some kind of scan."

"Oh yes, she already informed me, come on over here." Gil hummed as he hovered away, Ryan followed. The security bot opened a door on the far corner of the room to reveal a Vita-chamber, although he noted that this one looked far more high tech, and that was saying something considering Vita-chambers were normally cutting edge stuff.

So stepping into the chamber Ryan stood still as the ring of light traveled up and down his body, scanning him. There were three beeps in a row as the result came up on the screen outside the chamber. Gil looked over the results, "Oh my God..." he said in shock, Ryan got the impression that if he had a jaw it would have hit the floor rather comically.

"What? What's wrong?" He asked, getting nervous.

"Nothing, nothing, its just you learned Incinerate far faster then I predicted." Gil placated him.

"Incinerate? you mean that Plasmid that enables you to use fire?" Ryan asked hesitantly he knew about plasmids, many of the adults talked about them, but how could he use it he'd never went anywhere near a gatherers garden? He had stayed as far from using plasmids as possible because of his... wait, why did he stay away from plasmids? That area of his memory was just a blur.

"Its no big deal... many of the Big Sisters have developed it as well." Gil said dismissively.

"Alright that's cool." Ryan muttered in relief before he truly thought about what Gil said, "Wait... Big Sisters?"

"Oh you don't have to worry, you'll meet them soon enough." Gil said mysteriously as he tapped a button and opened the door letting Ryan out of the chamber. "Now head to your room and get some rest, yell if you need anything."

Ryan nodded and followed the bot out of the small room, splitting off as Gil continued his work he exited the office and started walking. Since he already knew where the room he stayed in the last time was it was fairly easy to plot out how to get there.

A couple hallways away from his room however he noticed that the room he was standing in front of now had his name written all over it... literally, it had his name on it in shiny gold letters. Entering, he found it was without a doubt the most luxurious room he has ever seen. Much less stayed in.

The bed was huge, with many extra pillows and frilly extra covering. The wall on his left was completely covered with bookcases, There were two armchairs and a small sofa on the other side of the room with a door leading to the largest bathroom he'd ever seen behind it. The bed was straight in front of him when he came in the door, right next to the bed there was a desk.

What caught his attention more then anything was the hidey hole right above the desk. Looking at it curiously Ryan wondered which Little Sister lived inside it. Walking over he put his head right next to the hole and said in a louder the usual voice, "Hello-llo? Is anybody in there-ere?" His voice echoed through the empty tunnel. And the most likely empty room within.

Shrugging his shoulders he started taking off his armor. As he took off his helmet he expected to see warped metal or even a scorch mark where he'd zapped himself, but he saw none.

Getting an idea he took off all his armor and set it on the bed before he pulled all the furniture to the opposite side of the room. Leaving a bare wall, sans the bathroom door, and set the small nightstand by his bed right up against the wall about four feet from both the wall and the bathroom door. Picking up his helmet from the bed he set it on the stand before he made his way back to the furniture.

He was about twenty feet from his helmet when he was standing in front of the book shelves. Extending his arm he tried to will the Electo-bolt to work again. Without the armor on he could see the physical effect 'equipping' the plasmid did to his arm.

Every vein on his arm down till about mid forearm was glowing blue, the occasional spark would pass between his fingers.

Switching to incinerate wasn't any less creepy, in fact it was even more so. His veins were now glowing molten red and his fingers tips were glowing red enough he could see the tips of the bones through the skin.

Suppressing the shudder he switched back to Electro-bolt. Pointing his arm forward he flexed his hand, firing a mighty bolt of electricity that streaked through the air and... completely missed his helmet...

"crap..."

"This is gonna take some work."

Persephone, Rapture: 5:15P.m.

Gil had just told Sophia about the scans result, "He what?" Yelled the normally calm Sophia Lamb in surprise.

"He... somehow the boy seems to be rejecting the mental alteration. He is starting to remember, slowly. Among other things the Adam is acting differently on him... evolving him into a powerful being without causing any of the negative physical or mental side effects." Gil explained, as they both found out about one fourth of all little sisters would not age past fifteen. Normally this would be a good thing, but it was predicted that those sisters wouldn't live past twenty three.

"Don't you see? In such a short time the boy has become very powerful. You know how much your daughter meant to him. No matter how many Big Sisters you throw at him, if he remembers... he will kill you, the whole army of Big sister's won't stand a chance against him." Gil finished grimly.

Sophia she was scared. Scared like she'd never before been in her life, but she had to think. "Ryan still remembers nothing right?" she asked.

"I can't say for certain, he may remember bits and pieces. But not enough to form anything concrete. Like a one hundred piece puzzle with only twenty pieces." He answered.

"Good. Keep him that way, if the worst comes... I'll deal with it personally." Sophia said as calmly as she could.

Curious, Gil had to ask, "How?"

Looking at the monitor on her desk Sophia saw the sleeping form of her daughter, "Its for me to know, and you to find out." she said evilly.

"*sigh* You and your secrets..." Gil muttered to himself as he shut off the two way video chat on his computer and got back to work.

To be continued...