In which Ben, Nick and Joe break things, one more successful then the other.

He swung the unconscious body of the young Lucas boy over his shoulder, locking his elbows behind his knees, for the teen was heavier then he seemed.
When he was sure his latest assignment was secure on his back, he crouched down, next to her body, her golden hair fanned out over the dark rug, surrounding her head like a twisted halo. Her pale arms sprawled out on the ground.

His muscles strained beneath the supple tan skin of his arms as he rose, whispering a silent apology she would never hear. A lie made of only truths.

He turned his head, feeling the Lucas boy's limbs twitch; he had to go, but allowed himself one more look back at the girl he betrayed. It had always been the plan, but it felt wrong.
His jaw set. She didn't deserve this; she was a nice girl.

He shook his head as he made his way to the door, left open by those unsuspecting innocents. He hated his job, he absolutely hated it, but he promised.

The kid had told the girl, foolish as he was and so he had written his own fate.
Ben Coler once again concluded that his victim had no restraint whatsoever, as he threw Joseph Lucas into the back of his car.
He wasn't exactly the smartest and worked on impulse, more then anything. He didn't see why Stella liked him so much; he didn't deserve her.

But nothing of it mattered. She wouldn't see him again.

He'd seen Joe talk to her though— heard him, even, but his father didn't need to know that and he would convince her it was a dream or a hallucination. That the Malone's had been robbed, that they took Joe, who was with her when it happened.
Robot humans didn't exist, after all. Not yet. He would protect her, as a proper apology.

He shook his head. He apparently inherited the tendency towards idiotic plans.

His fingers clenched around the steering wheel, they turned white from the force he used. He wished he could just walk away. He wished everything was the way it used to be.
But he promised her, he promised her to take care of their father.

"Oh Penny," he sighed, turning the corner, "I wish you were still here."

-~~ SCENE CHANGE ~~-

He couldn't find any trail of warmth left in the darkness, no indication of pressed ground, no dander. There was no trail left of Joe. He'd lost him.
How was that possible!

The young Humanoid's fist connected with the concrete wall beside him with a sickening crunch, leaving the grey stone dented and crumbling as he stalked away from it, crouching shortly before his joints stretched and he jumped upwards into the air and bounced off the concrete wall three, four times before he landed on top of the building silently, the mechanisms in his legs and lower back resembling those of a great cat, rather then the human he was made to reflect.

His mind worked in overdrive as it processed all that had happened, quickly calculating the possibilities, all the outcomes that were only slightly relevant.

Everything had been fine, according to plan; he had been at Joe's house. He had met his source, Joe's brother.

Joe's other brother, he told himself. Or at least, he hoped that was still true, for the obvious shock on Joe's face, the fear in his eyes and the cold disconnection he'd initiated had made it clear to Nick that seeing him in the middle of his defence-mode had made Joe realise that Nick was indeed stronger, better, more advanced then he'd made those idiotic scientists believe.

His feet moved beneath him, in a stride that no human would ever hope to match as he leaped over the rooftops, but his thoughts weren't with the run.

He was almost as bad as those scientists; he was mere. He hadn't been able to stop himself when he felt Joe's hand on his shoulder. He had lost control completely trying to protect the only thing that he couldn't loose and had scared him away.
Of course, he had immediately known it was Joe when he touched him, but he hadn't been able to shut his programs down fast enough, so he had attacked the one person that cared for him.

Other then mother Macy, of course.

Her too, he had disappointed. He hadn't been able to protect Joe, to finish what had been started a very long time ago and for the first time, Nick was angry with himself.
He should've immediately taken action when he sensed them following them.

He hadn't thought they would take action though, they never did. He was too valuable, Joe was too valuable, his source was too valuable. Macy had explained that very carefully to him.

He jumped down a four story building, backing away into the shadows and rapidly moved back towards the firehouse.

What could be more important then they were? What was something Coler wanted even more then him? He questioned his mind.

The answer came quickly as his databases provided him with all the data he needed, coming to one off-putting conclusion.
He nearly moaned as he realised what he'd left behind when he made the decision to follow Joe.

Not only his source, out in the open and unprotected, though he'd hidden him well.

The key, his key, the one Joe activated him with, must still have been in the house. That is why they came in and broke through all of their own set boundaries.
The attack wasn't for them. It had been a distraction! Coler had outsmarted them.

Then, his hearing sensors piped up, warning him they'd picked up a very familiar breathing pattern. Joe, unconscious in a car.
Immediately, his eyes focussed on all the details in his broad view, searching for the source of this sound as a sleek, black Audi passed him.

There, in the backseat, was the pale face of Joe, resting against the glass, his mouth half-open and a small trickle of blood running over his temple.
His first instinct was to stop the car and rip off the door that held his brother hostage.
A more rational side though noticed the face behind the steering-wheel.
A quick search attached a name to the face; Benson Edmund Coler, 19 years of age; son to Robert Lincoln Coler and Sara-Elise Coler.

There were no alarm-bells ringing in his head; not even a red-light, but he knew going after Joe now was a bad idea.
Not because he couldn't take Ben or the car, but because harming the boy might set off Coler in a way that would hurt Joe greatly.

So he waited, passively and unmoving, a steel gaze resting on the car that seemed to pass by in slow-motion.
When it turned the corner, Nick immediately stalked away, fury like boiling oil raging through him as he fell into an inhuman stride, covering the remaining distance to the house in a mere twenty seven second flash of strength.

He opened the door and it hadn't fully closed yet before he reached the stairs, shooting up and darting across the room, over unconscious bodies and towards the bathroom.
It wasn't very creative, efficient or full-proof, but it had served to be sufficient.

He had only had several seconds to hide his source and his observing skills had come in handy; he had pressed the nerve-endings he knew would knock his source off his feet for at least three hours and had pushed him into the bathroom after a gurgling scream on the older boy's part, which had summoned Joe back up after he stormed after the young blonde he obviously fancied.

He would've protected Joe, like he was supposed to, but there simply hadn't been more time.
He had that figured out long before the moment they broke the windows and started shooting at him, but he still felt horrible about the whole ordeal.
Now Joe was gone and at the full mercy of Robert Lincoln Coler and his minions. Without a Nick to protect him.

He opened the bathroom-door, peeking through curiously; surprised to see his source was already half-way awake, even though it had only been two hours and thirty two minutes, sixteen seconds, since he paralyzed him. Then again it was his source he was talking about.

"B-Blimp?" Kevin asked quizzically, squinting at him from his position beneath the sink.

Nick opened the door further, "Nick, my name is Nick, remember?"
He crouched down next to the older man, who looked up at him with bleary eyes and a half-open mouth.

"Joe?" he now muttered. It was clear he meant 'where is' though Nick would've understood if he were confused for Joe, after the way they'd reacted to one another.

"Kevin, I must tell you something. Listen to me very carefully."

-~~ SCENE CHANGE ~~-

Joe woke to the blurry vision of a shadow moving above him and a scorching pain in both the left side of his head and the inside of his elbow.
The figure atop of him was supporting his upper back, his feet folded uncomfortably beneath him on a cold, hard surface and he had no idea where he was or how he'd come here.
Where was Stella?

A penetrating smell of something rusty, an expensive perfume and burning chemicals hit his nose, making him crunch his face up in discomfort.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" the figure whispered gleefully, as if his obviously female companion enjoyed what she was seeing as her slender hands pushed something sharp painfully deep into his skin.

"Penny?" He guessed, forcing himself to focus on her heart-shaped face and darkening eyes. Maybe it was the light, but it almost seemed like she had fangs.

"Have you finally been paying attention then? Next time, remember the orders my father gives you too," she told him hatefully, withdrawing the knife from his arm, gleaming with his blood, "you're lucky you're still valuable to us."

She held a small tube up into the air, smiling as a spilled drop of Joe's blood made its way down her wrist.

"Especially now that we have the precious Key," she grinned, sliding fingers through his greasy hair and yanking his head closer, "now that we have that, there is nothing that can stop us."

Joe grimaced in pain, her nails digging painfully into his skin as she hissed a menacing 'thank you, Joseph' into his ear

"Thank you for being such a mess-up," she whispered finally, as she threw him back on the ground.
He hit the surface with a blow that knocked all the air out of his lungs and his head spun for a few seconds.

However he refused to accept her insults any longer, he'd taken them, swallowed them and he was sick of it. He was done with playing obedient. He wasn't a godforsaken dog!
And he couldn't possibly get any deeper into trouble then he already was, now could he?

So he gritted his teeth and lashed out, kicking the young Coler-girl in her face with all the force he could find in him.
Desperate times leave a human with powers they might not have had before, so the blow was really damn hard.

To Joe's utter horror, the girl's body didn't move an inch; it was just her head that moved with a sickening crack, stilling at an awkward –heck, deadly— angle.
His eyes widened as the girl in front of him merely raised her hands and folded them around her own jaw, pulling.

One unhealthy crunch later and her head was back in place, blue eyes staring at him with amusement.

"Don't mess with things stronger then you, Lucas-boy, don't try to be funny, my body is very expensive."

With a cackling laugh, she walked out of his… cell? And closed the heavy door behind her, her heels clicking while she walked away.

There was only a soft dripping sound left as he heard her walk down what he imagined to be a hallway, though he couldn't see. The thick, white bars were too far away.
Slowly, he realised the dripping sound was the blood welling from the wound in his arm, his head pounding from the hits he'd taken in the last…
He didn't even want to know what time it was.

He looked around his cell, letting his eyes rest on the fake-innocent white walls and the sterile white floor, darkened because there was no light to illuminate its colour.
There was some sort of a modern bed that resembled a bunk-bed, like one would encounter in the tour bus of a famous rock band. There was a sink and a toilet and even a not-quite-comfortable-looking chair.
At least it wasn't some sort of torture chamber or dungeon and it was relatively clean, safe for his blood on the ground.
It was probably the first time he was grateful for Coler's pompousness.

He sighed, sending a silent apology to Stella as he pulled his shirt over his head and started to carefully rip it at the seams.
Nick had been so curious when he'd told him about his time with the scouts. His mother had thought it would be good for him.
Because of his clumsiness or lack of interest in mother nature –he love her, he just wasn't really fond of the bugs— he wasn't sure, but he'd learned a thing or two about first aid.

Nick.

Don't, he told himself, first things first; you can feel pathetic and horrible later.

And so he settled back against a wall, the farthest away from the door and started to wrap a part of his shirt around his wounded arm, attempting to clean the wound on his head with another piece of cloth and a little water, trying not to think of the wounded look on his brother's face— on the Humanoid's face.

On Nick's face.

He couldn't believe what he'd done. He'd positively deserved that blow to the head.

He groaned in frustration as he realised Nick was all alone now, if they hadn't gotten to him already, though he doubted that last part. Nick was smart, smarter then he'd let on. Stronger then he had seemed. There was little chance they would catch him.

He could only hope his two brothers would take care of each other and Stella, if he was lucky, while he rotted away here.
Maybe he'd deserved it. He'd been such a prick to all of them.
First to Kevin, abandoning him; then to Stella, forgetting about her; then to Nick, having betrayed him.

He rested his head on his knees, feeling positively miserable, his hair blocking the last remaining light from his face.

Then a voice called to him, softly and cautiously, as if the familiar voice was scared of breaking.

"Joe?"

He immediately crawled towards the bars, an incredible joy rising in his chest.

"Macy?"