"What happened?" Chase asked in shock as they stopped short of the demolished house at the yellow police tape.
"Whoa, you finally turned the house invisible!" Adam marveled.
"No, Spike blew it up after he took you, Adam," Leo deadpanned.
"What!" Chase exclaimed disbelievingly. "Mr. Davenport, I am so sorry!" he apologized, but the billionaire only held up his hand.
"You didn't do it, Chase, it was Spike. If anyone is to blame, it's actually Douglas for doing that to you," Mr. Davenport assured him.
"Oh, we're playing the blame game now?" Adam asked excitedly. "I blame Leo! It's all Leo's fault!"
Leo only rolled his eyes, choosing not to say anything to that. The Davenport-Dooley family climbed out of the car and began picking their way carefully through the wreckage. It was still dark enough that they wouldn't have to worry about anyone seeing them, so they didn't bother to do it stealthily.
"How do we know that the lab hasn't caved in already?" Chase asked.
"Because we were just down there an hour ago," Leo answered.
"Oh."
They found the place where the elevator was supposed to be, and with the aid of Adam's super strength, they were able to all make it down to the lab with little trouble. As soon as they were down there, Adam brought the still-unconscious Bree to her capsule and put her inside before hopping into his own. Chase grabbed his chip and watched Mr. Davenport prepare everything to put it back into his system before going into his capsule.
"When your chip goes back in, Spike and all his bionics are going to come back," Mr. Davenport warned. "I'm going to secure you're capsule so he can't break out."
"But Mr. Davenport, Spike broke Douglas' capsule, and those were strong enough to withstand me!" Adam pitched in.
"What! You didn't tell us this before?" Leo chastised.
"You're one to talk," Mr. Davenport grunted, shooting Leo a look.
"Mr. Davenport, do you have a knock-out gas you can fill my capsule with? I think that's how Douglas was able to work on me in the first place," Chase said.
Mr. Davenport thought for a moment, nodding. "I think that will work." He started typing out commands, and before hitting the button that would put them in action, he said "For once, I hope Douglas is right."
He hit the button at that, and immediately Chase began glowing green as his chip was reinserted. Chase's facial expression grew dark, and with the characteristic Spike voice, he shouted "Hey! What's going on?"
Before the app could do anything, Mr. Davenport hit another button, and a moment later a dreamy look came over Spike's face, and he fell unconscious.
"And now we wait," Mr. Davenport said mildly.
Chase perked up as he heard the clambering of Mr. Davenport, Tasha, and Leo. A few minutes later he saw them drop down by their rope ladder they had put in, and they walked over to the bionics.
"Hey, how is everyone feeling?" Mr. Davenport asked loudly, waking Adam and Bree as he did so.
"Bree can talk again," Adam volunteered.
"Which is why I can say that myself," she said, rolling her eyes. "I think the worst of our injuries are healed."
"That's great news!" Tasha said.
"Yeah, it's a wonder what fifty-plus hours in a capsule will do for your average bionic teen," Leo stated.
"How about you, Chase?" Mr. Davenport asked.
"I think I'm back to normal," Chase replied truthfully, "but I think I lost my 'cold-shock' ability."
"That sounds about right – if you were truly reset, you shouldn't have kept it," Mr. Davenport said. "You will have to wait a little longer before you get it back."
There was a brief silence before Chase asked "Are you sure you can't remove Spike?"
"Yes, I'm positive," Mr. Davenport answered, looking at the youngest bionic seriously. "I don't want to risk any of this or something similar happening again."
Chase nodded, looking down in disappointment.
"I'm going to have the reconstruction of the house start this morning, so we came to take you three with us back to the hotel we're staying in. We'll bring you back here every night so that you can recharge and heal, and you all will start going to school again next Monday," Mr. Davenport instructed, and the teens groaned (except for Chase, of course).
"It's not like you haven't missed enough school already," Tasha pointed out in support of her husband.
With the conclusion of that conversation, Mr. Davenport went over to the cyber desk and typed in a command, and within seconds the bionics were dressed in ordinary clothes and ready to be seen in public.
"Come on everyone, we should get going before the construction crew arrives," Mr. Davenport said, unlocking the capsules, and the bionics stepped out and followed the others to the elevator shaft.
"Mr. Davenport, if you won't take Spike off my chip, he'll just keep coming back out," Chase said as they were climbing up the ladder.
"I know, and you don't need to worry about that," Mr. Davenport replied over his shoulder.
"Why not? He'll only keep terrorizing people."
"Yes, but if we learned anything from the last week, it's that Spike is not invincible," Mr. Davenport said. "We failed you before because we didn't know how to handle Spike, but I think – I know – we can all promise you that we won't fail you again."
"Really?"
"Yeah." There was a brief silence that followed, but it was broken once more by Chase.
"So, whatever happened to Douglas?" Chase asked.
"Oh, Leo and Tasha blasted him with my cryoblaster," Mr. Davenport answered. He heard snickering below him, and he looked down to see the youngest bionic with a grin on his face.
"Douglas so deserved that – just like last time," Chase chuckled. "What are you going to do with him now?"
"Well, I've actually already done it. I locked him up in another of my top secret, totally secure, offshore facilities," Mr. Davenport said confidently.
"You know he's just going to get out again, right?" Chase deadpanned, looking unimpressed.
Mr. Davenport sighed. "Yes, but we'll at least have a little time before he can cause trouble again."
They climbed out of the nearly unrecognizable elevator shaft, and the Davenport-Dooley's paused, looking at the ruin around them.
"Before you know it, everything will be back to normal," Mr. Davenport said optimistically into the silence, and everyone nodded. After another look around, the family turned away into the rising sun of a new day and new adventures to come, ready for whatever the world threw at them next. Trouble would undoubtedly reappear, but this family would overcome it – together.
AN: And that is the (somewhat abrupt) conclusion to this adventure... I am both relieved and sad. This was a fun story to write, and it was even more fun to share. All the support this story has received has been very heartwarming, I'm so glad you all enjoyed this! A special thanks to AllAmericanSlurp, CutiePie, daphrose, Dirtkid123, eikenbergemily, ereader12, Fanficlove23, frostdragon12, kittehx1, LabRatsFan07, PolarWolf13, ShyMusic, Sparklegirl9569, StarWarsRebelsEzra, tennisgirl77, The-One-And-Only-Gerbil, tiff.n.b36, 8thgradecowgirl, and all the various guests (or just one Guest) for the encouraging comments, good ideas, and immensely helpful critic!
Oh, and if anyone wants to explore some tangents and/or use themes from this story, feel free - I would be honored!
I am going to take the next week off, but then I will begin posting again; I have a couple more finished stories I am excited to share with you all! They are focused on humor, character development, and family bonding, so if you liked those components of this story, I'm pretty sure you'll like these. Oh, and there's action too, I suppose :P
Also, LabRatsFan07's idea for another Spike story is well underway! Thank you thank you thank you for the awesome idea! So far it's pretty cool, and I can't wait to work on it more! If any of you have ideas for this story and/or would like to see certain events and Spike scenes, I am all ears! Feel free to post ideas in the reviews for this or any of my other stories, and/or send me a PM! All *clean* ideas are welcome! All other story ideas are welcome as well!
Okay, so you know how people will joke (or maybe not) with someone by telling them to get a life? Well, my friends frequently tell me to lose a life xD Guess what? Several of them are 'ending' within the next couple weeks, so I can take my FanFiction life seriously now. So instead of struggling to find ten minutes to dedicate to posting the chapters of my stories, I can spend several hours writing, reading, and yes, reviewing stories now. Score!
And that is it for this particularly long author's note from this soon-to-be-more-active author. Asori out.