Hello, world of fanfiction!

All right, as of the second this was published, the general consensus is that Bree now gets The Sight. Note, it may take a while to show up, but I already know how it does. ;)

We'd like to thank you all for your help and your interaction. :3

Meanwhile, your reviews are still making warm, fuzzy feels occur. :D

Vampire Girl: …strangely, I want to see the end of that….

DisneyXDGirl: Yes; Douglas, though infinitely awesome, does deserve the occasional "behave yourself" smack upside the head.

AllAmericanSlurp: O_o Calm down there… *Backs away slowly*

This chapter time skips. It is complete filler. Totally. Sad day, right? Anyways, let's just do it. Miss Tasha?

"Zara doesn't own Lab Rats or anything you recognize. If you don't recognize it, it's probably hers."

"Who are you trying to impress, steadily creating a mess?"

Jose Gonzalez, "Far Away"

"The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice."

Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Chapter Nineteen - Decisions, Decisions

Chase

"It's fucking unbelievable," I hissed loudly, pacing at the foot of Douglas' bed with my ears pinned. "After the crap we spent the past several days going through, how could they do this?"

"I'm surprised they didn't do something sooner," Douglas responded quietly. He was sitting at his desk, leaning back in the chair with a strained expression. "What did you honestly expect?"

I froze mid stride and turned to face him fully, gesturing broadly with my arms. "I..." I trailed off suddenly, my arms dropping to my sides. Because what had I expected? Everything to just be perfect immediately? That we'd all just be one big, happy family? After several seconds, I sat on the floor beside him with a heavy sigh, my legs crossed as I ran a hand down my face. "I don't know," I finally groaned. "I don't know what I expected." With a heavy sigh, I asked, "How do we get out of this?"

"Right now," Douglas answered, "we pretend that we don't know. They said that they're going to hold off until the threat passed, right? That gives us about a week."

"Then what?" I asked cautiously.

"Then, we run," Oly piped up. She was sitting on the bed, licking rhinestones from Bree's possessions and placing them meticulously on her wings. "What else is there to do?"

"But no one should have to run," I protested, standing up and pacing again. I couldn't hold still.

"No one should have to send their sons off to war, either," Douglas reasoned as he watched me. "Life isn't always fair."

Which is why you should rule it, my voice put in. Raise hell, destroy everything, and force the mortals to acknowledge you as their master. Then see how unfair life is when people are doing your bidding.

I ignored this…tempting offer. "I know, but..." I was at a loss for words again as I responded to Douglas. Finally, I just pointed at him. "You know, if you hadn't pulled all of that Triton App bullshit -"

"I know, smartass," Douglas interrupted, actually smiling a bit at my bold statement. "I know how we got into this situation. But there's nothing I can do about it now."

I let out an inhuman growl of frustration and sat down again, this time on the bed next to Oly, who licked a rhinestone and stuck it to my nose with a smirk. As I swatted it off, she said, "Listen: We can either stick around and let Master get arrested, or we can run." She stuck another rhinestone on her left wing. "I don't know about you, but I don't want to be stuck here forever. And if Master's arrested, he can't Dismiss us."

There it was: The problem of the day. Tasha and Davenport were planning on calling the police and having Douglas arrested as soon as his presence wasn't necessary. Something about him being a bad influence ("The man belongs in a prison cell. You saw what Chase did out there! What else did that maniac teach him?"). Honestly, he didn't teach me anything about criminal activities. I just figured those out. It wasn't all that hard. And, when it came right down to it, he wasn't really that bad of a guy. But that didn't matter to them. Why?

Because Douglas was…well, Douglas.

So he had to go. Apparently, it was for my own good.

It wasn't like I was robbing banks or anything.

Although I could see where they were coming from, I wasn't inclined to agree with their decision.

"So…that's it?" I finally asked, feeling utterly helpless. "You just vanish off into the sunset while everyone still hates you like none of this happened?"

"Don't look so upset," Douglas responded. "It was going to happen sometime."

"I'll be upset if I want to," I muttered, pinning my ears. I gestured at him. "Where will you even go?"

"Europe seems nice," Oly answered.

I shoved her off the bed with a growl. Ignoring her indignant protests, I stood up again. "I'm serious. Your house just burned down and the city will be crawling with policemen looking for you."

"What?" Douglas asked as I started pacing once more. "You don't think I could get to Europe?"

"Fine," I sighed. "How?"

He leaned forward in his chair and caught my arms gently. "First off, sit. You're fidgeting is driving me up a wall." I glared at him for a second before I sat down on the floor in front of him. "Second," he continued, "you know I have my ways."

Right; international criminal, at your service. Of course he had ways.

"I can get out of this," he reassured me quietly.

We left the million-dollar question unspoken, though: What about me? What would I do? On one hand, I really didn't want to leave again. On the other, I couldn't just leave Douglas to his fate. Not after everything he went through to protect us from Krane. It wouldn't be right.

Hey, thanks for saving our lives, second Dad. Bye now!

See? Harsh, right?

Besides, I'd have more of an advantage working with someone who moved constantly. It would make us hard to track down, since that was probably what Krane was working on at the moment. He knew about the house. It was constant. It didn't change.

But if Douglas and I were to be, say…elsewhere…then we could strike from the shadows.

But would my family even let me leave with Douglas? Probably not. And there was the comfort and security of home and family here.

Hell-and-a-half; I didn't know what to do. It felt disgusting.

I was snapped from these thoughts by Oly, who punched my shoulder for pushing her off the bed. "You coming with us?" she asked while she started gathering up her scattered rhinestones.

"I…." I looked from her to Douglas before finally closing my eyes and covering them with my hand, my head hanging down a bit. "I don't know," I admitted.

"It's not that hard of a decision," Oly growled. "It's a 'yes – or – no' type of question."

"Don't bother him, Oly," Douglas sighed. She winced, but didn't say anything else. He turned his gaze on me. It was unreadable. "You don't have to decide right now. You have a week. But we're leaving right after whatever this thing is goes down. Whether or not you're with us."

I nodded sadly. Did I mention how unfair life is?

Life is unfair.

The week that followed was filled with speculation and safety plans. Yahn had obtained a copy of the building's blueprints from the city's courthouse through questionable means, so we were able to map out several escape routes. The problem was that we couldn't save everyone that would be in that place without telling them what was going on.

That just wasn't going to happen. We had criminals and bionic people among us. We couldn't exactly walk up to someone and just explain what would go down. We'd be arrested.

So, with grim determination, we debated action plans, including the inevitable option of just not showing up at all.

Douglas was all for it. Who cared if a bunch of people we never met died?

Mr. Davenport shut it down. If we could save them, we had to do it.

So the planning went on.

Sometimes, it was just the two of them working together at night, when everyone else was supposed to be resting. It would've been a nice bonding experience, had no one known about the plan to get Douglas arrested. Of course, no one knew that Douglas and I knew, so we maintained an oblivious façade before the family. In fact, not even Bree, Adam, and Leo were aware of the plot. It was surprising how well this secret was being kept.

Bree and Leo had more creative ideas. They tried to come up with ways to outfox Lovett before anything could happen. We ran into a problem with Jasper, though. Oly had reported that Jasper clung to Lovett's side now, as the summoner had taken to wearing Azazel's Bane around his neck.

Adam just wanted to go in and yell that everyone should leave because they were in danger. It was beautiful in its simplicity, really, but it wouldn't work. We might as well have marched in with signs that read, "The End is Nigh!" No one would believe us.

Douglas and Mr. Davenport – in a rare moment of agreement – wanted this to stay a rather covert mission. With two imps and myself at their disposal, we could stay well hidden among the crowd. It was likely the best idea out of all proposed, even if it was vague. Who would suspect that little gnats or puffs of smoke were sneaking in to stop an evil plot? It would get us close enough to Lovett to possibly discover his full plan before it was put into action.

Then the Jasper thing popped up again.

There was no good answer here.

Unable to come up with any plan that hadn't been covered by the previous three, I had cast my vote in for the third. Oly had wanted to go with Adam's idea – the chaos that would ensue if people actually did try to leave appealed to her greatly. Yahn had agreed with Bree and Leo; strike first because it would be unexpected.

On top of all of that, as days went on, I still didn't know what to do. Did I leave? Did I stay? Or did I try to convince them that they shouldn't have Douglas arrested?

I was at a total loss. It sucked.

The day before the event, a half-baked plan fell into place, modelling Mr. Davenport's and Douglas' proposed structure. It was shoddy at best, but it was all we could do. It would allow us the most flexibility if the wild card that was Krane put in an appearance.

That night, I couldn't sleep. We might have had a plan, but I still didn't. And, like everything we had been working all week for, this all went down the next day. My time was basically up. I stared at the ceiling for hours, a tempest of indecision tying knots in my stomach. The smartest man alive didn't know what to do. It was a horrifying thought. The stupid thunderstorm outside wasn't helping me at all, either. It was noisy and hurt my ears, making it hard for me to think. It was like the atmosphere was trying to illustrate my mood for me.

Thanks, environment.

My alarm clock had read 3:59 A.M. in the brightest green before I finally drifted into an uneasy slumber, my dreams filled with all the what-ifs that could go wrong when everything would come together in the morning.

Very short. Very transitional. Actually quite a boring chapter, to be honest.

But that's okay, because shit's going down in the next one!

At least we know what Chase heard in the last chapter, right?

So feel free to review. Or don't. :3 Whatever.

And enjoy.

*Bows and exits*