Disclaimer: I don't own.

Author Note: Just to clarify, since 9 takes place on a non existent plane, so does this. So, no offence to any American Indians, but in order to avoid the word "America", I have to use the term Native Indian instead, because it applies better here. Apologies if you prefure the first. This also means that every bodies favourite villain is ruling the land with an iron fist.

Oh, I completly forgot to mention last chapter...the vilian ideas are thanks to TheCrazyArtist. So lots of luvins to him for inspireing me. XD

Brace Yourself

Chapter 2

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Caleb smiled tiredly as he sketched madly into his drawing pad. A strand of his long, curly rich brown hair fell in front of his dark almond eyes. He flicked it over his shoulder in annoyance.

He knew he was going to get in trouble with Mr. Anderson, but he couldn't help it. He hated that his provider made him wear that stupid metal headpiece that blinded him from his visions.

If he couldn't see, then he couldn't protect them.

He didn't have anything to worry about for the time being, though, for all he saw was good fortune. His smile widened and stroked the 9 that he had written in the corner. This was a special one, alright. He would do great things for their-

"CALEB! You better be dressed and out of bed! You're going to make us late!"

"Coming!" Caleb quickly stuffed his art notebook into his bag, searched his room franticly for anything he might be forgetting then ran out the door. He ran back a moment later and snatched the metal ring that sat haphazardly on a pile of books near his desk. Caleb placed it on his head, pulled his long hair over it and was out the door again.

He grabbed a sausage and egg biscuit sandwich and a bottle of milk that sat on the counter waiting for him as he ran by and went out front. Balancing his food in one hand, he pulled a key out of his hoodie pocket and locked the front door.

Caleb hopped into the front seat just as his mom finished buckling his baby sister in and started the car. His younger brother laughed as they pulled out of the drive way, "Perfect timing, Ceb!"

"Remember, I'm going to be late tonight so Jamie's mom is going to pick you up, David…" the ten year old cheered happily at that, "and dad's going to get Bailey from day care on his way home."

"You said before that you were going to walk home, Caleb. Are you sure you don't want me to find someone to pick you up? You don't look too well, sweetie."

"Just tired." Mumbled Caleb, he ducked his head and quickly took another bite out of his food so he wouldn't have to talk to his mom. Well, step-mom. His real mother died when he was eight, and his father remarried when he was twelve.

Where he and his father were Native Indians, his step-mother was a typical mixed race. David had his real father's black hair and hazel eyes and Caleb loved him as if he was his real brother. He was a sweet boy and loved watching him draw. But the baby looked too much like his step-mom for his liking, with her dirty blonde hair and round blue eyes.

"Alight, but if you get sick make sure to call, okay?" Caleb grumbled and whipped his hands on the napkin that his breakfast sandwich had been on. He knew his mom meant to call the neighbors or dad, not her.

The car came to a stop in front of the school. The artist quickly snatched up his half empty bottle and bag.

His mom called after him as he jumped out of the car, "Have a good day!"

"Sure, you too." He answered back halfheartedly. He was already searching the clumps of students for a familiar face.

Spotting a familiar hoodie, he walked quickly over to the bench that the others were gathered at. The twins gave him a welcoming hug. There hoods were down, since they weren't allowed to have them on while on school grounds. Izzie, the older sibling by seven minutes, had her short, light brown brown hair pulled into a pony tail on the side of her head. Ian, the younger brother, had shaggy brown hair, but definitely not as long as Caleb's. Matching glasses hid bright hazel eyes.

"Morning, Ceb!" called out Andrew cheerfully, "Rough night?" Andrew was a brown haired, freckled, happy-go-lucky junior, and the best kind of friend to have. He had his eye patch off today, and the tip of his scar could barely be seen from where his hair obscured it from view.

Before he could answer Kelly forced him to sit down and asked worriedly, "You were looking again, weren't you?"

Caleb nodded his head meekly.

"I'm thinking about skipping this Friday; pretend to be sick or something." Announced Andrew, "Between this, Kelly coming back, and what the twins did…Mr. A is going to blow his top off…"

Caleb tilted his head in curiosity, "Ian and Izzie did something?"

The siblings smiled broadly, and pulled up their sleeves to reveal what they did. Their glowing orange bands, and the extra metal one under it, had been drawn over with an array of different colored sharpies. Then the doodles proceeded to crawl down their arms. And it smelt like sharpies. The chances they would get it all off by Friday was slim.

"This is just the minimal of the damage," said Kelly, "You do not want to know what they did to their family dog. We think they got into their dad's liquor cabinet, or inhaled a lot of sugar. We're hoping for the later."

Ian lifted up his shirt to reveal that they hadn't stopped at just their arms, and proceeded with making his belly button talk.

Caleb covered his mouth in an attempt to stop himself from laughing, and Andrew groaned.

"Oh, I just remembered something! More 'bad news' to add to the list; there's—"Kelly was cut off by the first warning bell. "Crap! My first class is all the way on the other side---I'll tell you guys at lunch!" With a wave good bye, she ran off into the building.

The remaining four walked slowly into the building, enjoying their few minutes together. They talked for a few minutes in the hall, until the second bell rang. Caleb walked down to his class at the end of the hall, and took his seat at the back of the class room.

There was a substitute, so they only had a few worksheets and the rest of the class was dedicated to caching up in the book they were supposed to read. Caleb had his note book sitting off to the side, and would lazily doodle something every once in a while.

It was a pretty normal, laid back day, until he noticed a book hovering above someone's desk.

Caleb's eyes went wide with surprise. His visions never happened so soon…no, it had to be coincidence. This was nothing like anything he saw in his dream, and his visions were always accurate.

The boy seemed to be dozing, unaware of the danger he was in. But no one else seemed to have noticed either. He quickly got up and strode to the other side of the class room as if he was going to the pencil sharpener and pushed the book down as he went past it.

The boy startled awake and tried to say something, but Caleb put a finger to his mouth, and walked away.

The minuet class was over, Caleb grabbed the boy before he could run off and dragged him into the nearest bathroom. That particular restroom was hardly ever used because it was in a low traffic area, and most tried to avoid it because one of the stall doors had fallen off and was replaced with a shower curtain. But just to be safe, Caleb locked the door.

The native faced his captive and fidgeted nervously, not sure how to handle the newly found super boy. He had always been rather fidgety around strangers, and much like Kelly, had never introduced another into their hidden world. "You need help," he stuttered nervously, "they'll t-take you away if they find you!"

Ace was confused for a moment until he realized what this other boy was and why he was so upset. "Umm…no, no, sorry for confusing you, but I already have a provider, see?" He pulled up his sleeve to show his band, but its color had faded out. Ace tapped it with a frown, "I think it busted or something. I was going to go see Mr. Anderson after school about it."

Caleb grabbed his shoulder with a shaking hand and yelled, "You need to get out of here now. It's not safe!"

"Its fine—" Ace tried to push him off, but the crazed teen wouldn't let him go.

Caleb shook his head, making his long hair fling around him, "No. You need to get out. You can't get caught. Y-you can't. Go to Mr. Mathews. He'll get you out."

Ace blinked. "Who?"

"Harold! Harold Mr. Mathews! Go, go!" Caleb unlocked the door and shoved him.

"Alright, alright!" Ace waved him off and pulled out the little card the kind old man had given him the other day.

Harold was a cute old man, with a ridiculously large pair of glasses and a smile that never seemed to fade. He usually wore a vest over a button down shirt and often had his trusty cane nearby. He was praised by his students as the best teacher ever and was a grandfather to many.

Ace found the provider's assistant outside of his class room. He was greeted with a warm, "Hello Ace. Is everything alright?"

"…no sir."

In an instant, he was rushed inside and the door was shut quickly. "What seems to be the matter?"

Ace grabbed his arm reflexively, "My band broke and I…I lost control."

"Did anyone see you?" He watched Ace with a measured look as he absently dug something out of his desk.

"Yeah, some crazy black haired boy…he told me to go to you."

Harold sighed in relief, "Caleb. It's alright, he's one of ours. Is there anyone that can come take you home?"

"Yeah, my mom doesn't work…why?" What did his mom have to do with this? It wasn't like he could tell her he was having issues of the super natural sort.

The kind old man shoved a nurse's pass and a plastic gift card at him. "I'm sending you to the nurse's office. When you get home I want you to sneak out and go to Jeb. Hand him the card; he'll understand." Ace raised an eye brow, but didn't comment. Harold seemed to know what he was doing…for the most part.

Ace had started for the door, when he remembered something particularly annoying about their current nurse. "What if the nurse won't let me go? I don't even have fever or anything."

A familiar, mischievous glint fell into Harold's eyes, and held up a round white pill. "I thought you would never ask. Trust me, it can be taken care of."

Jeb stormed down the hall, snarling. He took a quick turn into the office and was about to berate his mentor for demanding his attention at such short notice. He couldn't just drop everything and come running at every beck and call, not with his new responsibilities.

He stopped short though, the words caught in his throat when he saw his old teacher hunched over his desk, sobbing. The room was dark, the bright light from the sunset coming in through the large windows setting everything into shadows and silhouettes.

"They took him away…I can't believe…he was so young! They've never taken such a young child before…" the man's gargle was cut off by a heave of sorrow. Jeb hesitated, unsure of what to do. He wasn't used to comforting people, especially not his mentor. They had never been close; there were times when Jeb couldn't stand him at all.

He was saddened by the announcement, but Jebadiah was a man of reason, not the kind that wore their heart on their shoulder. "He's gone. There's nothing we can do."

His mentor sniffled, and finally looked up, "No, but there is something that you can do for me. Promise me…that you'll do everything within your power to keep children from being taken. No parent disserves to be put through this."

Jeb didn't say a word. He wasn't about to promise something that he couldn't prevent. Yet he knew that something indeed had to be done, or else no child would be safe. So he gave a hesitant nod.

"And one other thing, get rid of THAT," his ex-teacher pointed to a cage sitting at the edge of the desk, "I don't care what you do with it, just get rid of it."

Jeb stepped closer, and peered in at the little mouse behind the bars. It wasn't a normal sort of mouse though. Its body was oddly distorted, as if someone had squeezed its chest in, and its eyes were an unnatural bright red. "He did this?"

The other man nodded, "I told him not to, but he didn't listen and they saw him…I don't think he has a connection to her though."

Jeb bent down and eyed the rodent carefully, "But she can sense him, apparently. I didn't know it was possible to have a one-way connection between a creation and a creator."

"It's possible, but uncommon because most learn how to avoid such issues before they make their first creation."

The young Jeb stood and picked the cage up. "I'll keep her for now. Who knows, She might be of some use —"

DING-DONG!

Jeb startled awake at the sound, and it took him a moment to collect himself and recognize where he was at. He was in his old brown recliner by the window in the din. His pet mouse, Agatha, sat quiet and obediently on his shoulder.

The T.V was off and his son, Blake, was laying stretched out on the floor, working from a math booklet. Jeb had adopted him from one of his ex-clients. The girl in question had disappeared for a year. Jeb didn't worry about it; it was out of his hands.

But then her boyfriend had dragged her out hiding, and the child had been figuratively left on his doorstep. Jebadiah didn't have the heart to get rid of him, especially since he had a high chance of developing an unusual ability considering that both of his parents had powers.

So he raised Blake as his own. When he retired as a teacher, he started home-schooling his adopted son. It made things easier and eliminated the risk of Blake getting caught. He was unusually large for a 15 year old boy (Jeb blamed it on his ability) and as he got older it became increasingly harder to hide the truth. But now with his son out of the school system, it was easier to hide his age and claim that he was older.

Blake had started to get up at the sound of the door, but Jeb shoved his dirty blond head back down and growled, "I can get it…I'm not that old yet." He placed Agatha back in her cage that rested on a little stand by the entrance.

The door rang again, this time two quick ones. Jebadiah narrowed his list of suspects by half just by the door bell ring. It couldn't have been any of his older visitors, they knew to be patient with him and yet it wasn't as impatient a ring as when Kelly or another delinquent was at the door.

Mr. Anderson was expecting anything, from the FBI, to someone announcing that he was invited to their wedding, to the police explaining that Harold died in a boating accident…while at school. Unfortunately, he wasn't expecting his newest adolescent client, painting while holding out a pass.

Passes, usually a gift card from a bar that most providers used as a safe point, meant that Harold had pulled through for him and got one of his kids out of a tight spot. It also meant that they had in fact seen Harold first and didn't strait out run to him out of panic or fear.

Jeb snatched the card out of the teen's hand and motioned for him to come in.

"I didn't get a call. Your parents take the news well?" Jeb cursed under his breath when he nearly lost his footing. He hated those stairs. If it wouldn't look suspicious, he would have them replaced.

"Not really. They didn't believe it at first. It…took some conversing." Ace blushed and tried to look away as the elevator descended.

Jeb gave him an unimpressed look.

Ace managed to mumble, "Umm…I told them a cute girl asked me to join. THAT, they believed."

Jeb had to admit it was somewhat clever, and the truth really, but still…he rolled his eyes. Teenagers…

The old grump waited until Ace was seated before asking, "Alright, what happened then?"

Unsure of how to explain his situation, Ace pulled up his sleeve to reveal his power band.

Jeb screamed at the sight, "WHAT DID YOU DO?! Do you realize how much each of those bands is worth?! We might get to borrow them for free, but any damage done to the equipment has to be paid for!!"

"I…I'm sorry! It was hurting, and when I tried to loosen it, it—it just broke!"

The provider removed the band carefully and examined it. He poked and prodded the band a bit while muttering to himself, "Looks like the power…thing blew out…Harold might be able to fix it…" Mr. Anderson left it on the table and spun around at Ace, "When did it start hurting?"

"Umm…The minute you put it on? I thought that was normal though, so I just ignored it. It was still throbbing this morning though. I tried to loosen it or something and it just…broke."

Old man Anderson frowned in thought. "It's not supposed to throb. Stings something awful when you're not used to it, but it shouldn't last that long. I wonder…"

Jeb pulled out another band, but this one was purple. Ace gowned, he really didn't want to put another one back on, but the provider wasn't going to give him a break. He prepared himself, but he still hissed at the uncomfortable feeling of energy rushing through his body.

"How does this one feel?"

Ace covered his mouth, and concentrated on breathing. He really didn't want to blow his guts for a second time that day. After a moment he managed to get out, "Give me a minuet… I'll let you know when I don't feel like throwing up."

Jeb pulled out a trash can that had been concealed under the table and dropped it beside him. "Don't get any on my floor. I hate having to mop down here," and went back to the bins and boxes and returned with another band. Ace groaned in dismay at the sight.

Jeb rolled his eyes. "This is the last one. If this doesn't work, you're screwed."

"That's nice to know…" Ace grumbled miserably. Jeb removed the purple band and before he could catch his breath, his arm was being straggled by the new one.

Ace waited for the initial rush to fade, and let out a breath of relief at the lack of nausea. "I guess this is better."

Jeb wasn't as relieved as his client and groaned, "Just as I feared."

Turning to look over the back of his chair, Ace asked, "Does this mean I'm super powerful or something?"

"No, it means your control is absolutely atrocious!" the provider barked, "You better not break this one. I hardly have to use bands that strong so I only have two in stock. And I don't plan on ordering more."

"I'll try not to. Does it have to be this tight though?" When he reached to try to adjust the straps, his hand was slapped away.

"Yes. And don't mess with it! Now get. I don't want to see you again until Friday." Ace rushed to do just that, and ran into a pile of boxes in his haste.

Jeb slumped into the abandoned chair and pleaded, "God grant me patience…I'm going to need it to survive this one…"

Author note: Well, hope this wasn't too bad...I'm treading into unknown waters with this whole 6I!Indian thing, but my goal for this is to build the characters in a way that hasn't been done before, and it felt like it fit 6 for some strange reason. On another note, the location is based off of my home town. Since I'm working with so many questionable new ideas, I wanted to use at least one thing familiar. Our school bathroom really did have shower curtains in it. :/ That's how bad funding sucked. And its a small town, so we only had two Jr. highs and one high school. But it was big enough that everyone did not know everyone else...We were all just cramped together.