Let it be known to all of you that I do not tolerate any form of flaming whatsoever. If you wish to give a word of advice to better my writing (AKA "Contructive Criticism") please tell me what to do to improve, rather than only tell me what I am doing wrong. A select few of you have truly impeded on my morale, and it is highly possible that after I update this moderately lengthed chapter that this entire story will be place under hiatus, and I will refuse to write for a while. As I said, due to a few of you, and hopefully you know who you are and feel as bad as I do rather than smug, about making me have to place this common, and widely accepted policy onto the front of my newest addition to this story.

BEcause of those select few, I am no longer allowing anonymus reviews. If you truly wish to send a review to this story, use an account, don't be lazy, and don't be afraid of getting an account, as it is perfectly free, as far as I know.

Now, with that out of the way.

Enjoy.

Kill the Rose Family… Kill the Rose Family…

Sarah was underneath him, inside him. Sarah was his prey. She was the sole thing in this world that could exist with him. She had to be eliminated. He slowly uncoiled himself from her easy-to-break body, and glared at her.

"Kill the rose family…" He muttered. His arms began turning into sword like whips, hardening, and preparing for the final blow.

They made an X over her neck, ready to snip it in half like scissors.

"DIE SARAH!" He breathed loudly, pulling the arms together.

Then his eyes opened.

"Oh my gosh!" Stephen gasped.

Though, he wasn't gasping because of the dream, he was gasping because he was kneeling over Sarah with his bladed arms millimeters away from decapitating her, stopped dead in their tracks.

"No…"

Stephen kissed Sarah's lips, reawakening him immediately. He sat by her side, too frightened to sleep.

"I'm a monster…" he moaned, hopping out of Sarah's bed, and wedging his way under and out of the door to do something to distract himself.

He found everyone else, talking quietly in the little living room Tails had erected over the few days that they had moved in. Stephen stayed out of sight, in fear of being interrogated.

It couldn't have been more than an hour after midnight, and no one seemed to be tiring quite yet. Strange robots stood at attention, XT being one of them, and Ms. Q being the only one belted down to a floating table, prevented from moving at all. Brunis and Daisy sat together on a single chair, but Mr. and Mrs. Rose, and Mr. and Mrs. Prower sat on a couch, facing away from Stephen. One other person, knocked unconscious, was in a heap underneath another robot that looked like a green version of XT.

They were talking about two things, a boy named Richard, and the wedding.

"Mom, we're not going to kill him, or hurt him. That would make us just as bad as he is. He deserves a trial, at the very least."

The robots, except Quasar, nodded their heads in unison. They all looked at Daisy with a set of curious stares. I think a bit of that oxytocin got to her head. They all appeared to be thinking similar thoughts.

"Ok," they all said in perfect synchronization, forming a sort of a chorus.

"Daisy," her mother began to reason, holding her hand out as if to visually describe her mental processes. Her hand recoiled.

"Sadly, I know exactly what you mean Daisy…" Tails sighed, wishing he could hurt Richard, but fearing for his family.

They all knew the predicament. And what was worse was that Richard knew they knew; it was how he got away with it. If they were to strike Richard, hurt Richard, speak roughly to Richard, he could sue them for everything they had. He could fabricate a story like a spider wove a web, and that story would make him look like a beautiful angel to the world outside, and make the real victims look like horrible, despicable people whom deserved to rot in a prison for the rest of their days. And, what was worse, he would be believed as if he were a religious prophet.

Even having him in their house, captured was a huge risk. And they knew this too.

Daisy, being the selfless person she was, was still overly tempted to just let him take her, just to save her family, but she knew it wouldn't be fair on Brunis, who was her family. And, by now, she had come to realize that Richard would not only abuse her until she was a broken slave, but that he would also probably go back on any promise he'd make to exact revenge on her family, thwarting all attempted to appease him.

At Daisy's thoughts, XT chuckled. It reminded him of a military general on his most frequently visited planet who donned a small, black, yet iconic moustache, who also couldn't be fully appeased with his desire of total domination. The link was rather comical to XT.

As the group shifted topics from the pervert in the middle of the room to the merry planning of the wedding, Stephen alienated himself from the group. Minutes later, he found himself walking around the empty, quiet halls, purring gently with the mechanical buzz of machines. All dimly lit, Stephen didn't realize he was being followed.

At the same time however, Brian had no idea he was following someone. Awake and feeding his shaken mind, he was out to get a midnight snack. Tiptoeing quickly, he was gaining on Stephen, and had no way of distinguishing him from the floor, as they were about the same color.

"OOF!"

Stephen twisted his head like an owl to see what had assaulted him.

"Brian? What in the world are you doing up so late?"

"What are you doing?"

"I asked first!" Stephen pouted.

"I'm going to eat, why are you here?" The conversation seemed slightly immature to Stephen, though he was hardly 10.

"I'm kind of afraid… I think a bit of food might be good though…" Stephen sighed.

"Ok, follow me!" Brian exclaimed excitedly, leading the sleepless experiment to the kitchen.

Daisy and Brunis, both agreeing to THEA's offer for only helping with their wedding, began to doze off on the couch. They were exhausted, and no one blamed them. Sonic and Amy had already trudged off to their room, leaving Cosmo and Tails to stare at Richard.

"Ok, what's up?" Tails questioned harshly.

THEA's members looked at him with hurt eyes.

"What did we do?" Anna asked sincerely, like she was being victimized.

"I know when you nuts are planning something big, and I have a feeling it goes further than the wedding." Tails looked primarily at Richard, in the center of all of them, slowly waking up.

"Oh, we have plans alright." Lance smirked widely.

"Huh? What's going on?" Richard questioned with slurred voice.

The room was instantly pin-drop silent.

As if worsening his nightmare, the first thing he saw was Cosmo's eyes, fiery compared to her daughter's. Expecting words of hatred and vengeance, Richard was morbidly surprised when Cosmo only tightened her glare and shook her head; it was worse than getting beaten.

"How could you?" Tails broke the stillness of the air.

Richard said nothing. James pushed a finger sharply into his spine.

"When a man of higher status asks you a question, thou shalt respond!" James's eyes glowed a brighter shade of blue, icy to the core. (A/N: You're all gonig to find that James is one of my favorite guys on THEA, other than XT himself. I have a strange feeling I already said this.)

"He is not higher than me. Nor are you."

"Answer the question nonetheless. You have committed crimes I so vilely dislike that I am finding it hard to speak." James grit his teeth bitterly, a chill formed around him, causing thermostats in the area to drop.

"Why wouldn't I have? She's a girl, she was pretty, we were made for each other, and it was easy." Richard spat back.

"WHY DON'T YOU GET IT?! Why can't you understand that raping women is wrong? You don't do that, status or not!" Julie had her own outburst. "I've had my share of being abused, prior to meeting XT, and it is horrible, the feelings of being overpowered and defiled. Why can't guys like you leave us alone? Men like you don't deserve to live." Julie sobbed a bit, and shrunk back to XT, her courage diminished.

Richard was silent, it was his best defense.

"You weren't made for each other. She was not even supposed to have been born, especially here. So why do you abuse her?"

Richard said nothing. They could question him all they wanted, and they'd get the same unresponsiveness. He had no reason. He was the most powerful person in the world, and he wanted to show it off. That was the final, absolute answer. And he figured there was no reason explaining it.

Cosmo grabbed Tails hand and stormed off, not letting herself cry in front of Richard. That would've let him win.

XT and Julie were gone, leaving Anna, James, Lily, Xenophon, Gannon and Lance to tend to Richard. Richard looked up and stared at the mechanical faces, unwavering as they glared at him.

"What are you going to do to me?"

"Well, I know we could turn you into a helpless girl and force you around into similar ways."

"Me? A girl?"

"All we'd have to do is give you to Lance, he's got an axe small enough for the job, but all of us have small knives that would do the same process." Richard's eyes burst to an enormous size. (A/N: You have to admit, that is a horrible, horrible threat. Yes, they were speaking of chopping his stuff off.)

"I will do no such thing. I don't believe in violence." Anna declared.

"I know of a way to punish him." James snarled as he picked Richard up by the throat and led the group upstairs to the ruins of the house above.

"Now watch this," Brian smiled as he tapped in a ridiculously long code into a glowing green pad attached to a massive metal door. The moment he was done, a wave of cold overcame them, and condensed water clouded their vision briefly. A bright light cleared the water vapor, and when that subsided, and their eyes became adjusted to it, Stephen gasped.

Before him was the widest selection of food he had ever seen outside of a store. From fruits to veggies to processed junk, this fridge had it all, and in a nice and neat order too.

"You have to admit, my dad is pretty cool." Brian sighed, and shivered thinking how close he had come to death. "Well, dig in, but don't make too much of a mess, we can't leave anything behind."

"Hey, um…" Stephen began before he lunged into the food, "do you have a library down here?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I want to do some reading…"

"Ok… I'll take you there, if you want me to."

"I'd be very grateful." Stephen sighed, worried for his future.

Richard was placed in the middle forest, that's where he regained consciousness. He was alone, but he found it hard to move. His eyes were strong in the darkness, and he soon found out that he wasn't completely alone.

One figure was in a tree, laying down on a branch, looking at him angrily. Another was peering at him through a bush. A third was staring from behind a tree, half concealed. The fourth was hanging in some vines from above, leering at him from above. The fifth was halfway buried in front of him. But the sixth stood, cloaked in a dark veil attached at his shoulders.

Richard was up against a tree, but that didn't stop him from running.

Or, that didn't stop him from trying to run.

Massive arms latched onto his shoulders and pulled him back into the middle of a newly formed circle. Once cornered, Richard looked pleadingly into all of their eyes.

Please don't kill me! Was his only plea for safety.

"Why should we save you? You hurt an innocent girl! We're vigilantes, we act when the law doesn't. You have broken our moral code, so we'll break you."

"NO! I don't deserve to die!" He cried like a baby in the grand fear of the massive robots looming over him.

"You're right," The blue one, James, murmured. "You don't deserve to die. We won't kill you, because then you'll get away unpunished. I am going to break you though, and you're never going to forget me." James growled.

Lance knew when his forced brother was getting pissed off. He'd seen it before. Normally a shy and kind person, James was unthreatening in almost all ways other than his appearance. But, go against what he believed was right, and you'd face the wrath of what James had convinced everyone on THEA was hell.

Everyone backed away as James made his approach. Throwing his hands out forwards, a blue aura came from them, clasping onto Richard's head. Richard squealed on the ground, trying to get away, but was incapable of moving.

What was going on inside his head, however, was even worse.

He was screaming. Feelings of violation, hurt, pain, discomfort, uneasiness, and sadness overwhelmed him. He could see James in his head perfectly, standing over him how he was in real life, but other things occurred that couldn't have in real life. He saw Daisy, crying as he felt sad, being raped by himself as he felt violation, feeling a gut twisting feeling of uneasiness as he shot her a smirk. He was being forced into empathy with her.

"STOP!" He screamed, the feelings James had collected from Daisy's interactions with Richard overwhelming the poor cat.

James' hands only grew wider, allowing more blue light to come from them into Richard's head.

Every little action Richard had ever done to her was being absorbed into his head, in a completely different perspective. He felt horrible, and he swore he was about to vomit.

Needless to say, he got no sleep.

Stephen and Brian munched on cake as they searched for books in the library.

"So what are you searching for again?"

"I want to know something about myself… and I'm not sure what it is."

"Why?" Brian was fairly confused.

"I… can you keep a secret?" Stephen asked seriously.

"Yeah."

"I mean, so secret no one in the whole world, not even Sarah or your parents or the teachers, or any policeman can know?"

"Absolutely."

"I woke up about to kill Sarah. I was mumbling that phrase I mumbled in that monster form, and I had my arms in a sword mode aimed to slice Sarah's head off. I don't want to hurt her, and I think, that if I find out what's wrong with me, I'll be able to treat it."

Brian looked at Stephen horrified.

"You, but you wouldn't hurt her, would you?"

"I don't want to."

"But you can't, can you?"

"Listen Brian, I beat the crap out of your father, Sarah's father, Sarah's mom, your mom, and Sarah all at the same time, I didn't kill them, but I really hurt them, you weren't there, thank heavens, but, I could seriously hurt them…"

"But you haven't yet have you?"

"Another secret?" Stephen pleaded.

"Yes, I can keep another."

"A robot didn't take Sarah's arm off."

Brian looked at Stephen curiously, perplexed and failing to see the point.

"I did."

"You… you… you took her arm off? HOW?!"

Stephen's arm elongated, and sharpened.

"Feel that." Brian poked the end of his arm, and his finger started bleeding a little bit.

"OW! That stings!"

"I still remember what it felt like…" Stephen fell to the floor, shaking a bit, "what it was like for my arm to so easily slice through her fragile arm… it was like cutting butter with a knife! She's so easy to break… and I'm too strong… I'm a monster, and I don't want to be."

"You don't have to be…" Brian said assuredly, keeping his distance nonetheless. "If you don't want to be a bad guy, you don't have to. You just have to try to be good."

"But what if this voice inside my head tells me otherwise? Eh? What if it demands I hurt her? And it takes control? What if I can't stop it?"

"Then we keep quiet about all of this, and read for a solution." Brian shrugged, hinting that they were being too loud.

"Fine…" Stephen sighed, picking up a book, and wiping away his fearful tears.

In about ten minutes, Brian had fallen asleep, and left Stephen all alone to his research.

And in around one hour, two hours away from the start of school the next day, Stephen never found what he was looking for. But thought he was on to something when he read "Dissociative Identity Disorder," and "Schizophrenia," however, none of them fit perfectly. He vowed to find out his problem, but only after a quick nap.

That nap happened to take him until the next morning.

Another reason, other than the aforementioned issue, for my sluggishness to write is due to my new sport, Track. If any of you care, I do the Long Jump, and possible the shortest possible sprint there is.

I'm not gonig to promise much, but...

More coming sooon...