Guilt:

Sarah Bolger Elementary: 2:00 pm

"Oh what a curious world it is." said Sophie as loud as she could without sounding awkward or loud.

She wore a sky blue dress, a white apron on top of it and a black bow on top of her hair. Her make up, which consisted of white powers and red round circles on her cheeks, made her look like a doll. Under the spotlight of the stage she looked cute, radiant even, like a little star.

The scene she was playing was when she met the green caterpillar that smoked. Meanwhile, in the audience, Eleanor and Ryan sat. They were seated in the middle row where they could see better. Ryan was impatient, his foot tapping the ground rapidly, he kept looking at his watch every few minutes.

Eleanor noticed and asked "Your in a hurry?" Looking over at her Ryan lied. "No, I'm in no hurry." She gave him The Look. "Okay fine... ever since we left the house I've been feeling guilty about breaking my promise to Jacob." Ryan admitted, Eleanor always knew how to get the truth out of him.

"I know how you feel" she said, lowering her head. "Maybe he's right, maybe we have been paying too much attention to Sophie?"

"Maybe." Ryan admitted, just a little uncomfortable, before adding. "I wonder how we can make it up to him?" An idea hit him a second later. Getting up from his seat Ryan told Eleanor, "When Sophie finishes her play tell her that I am proud of her." With that he left in a hurry. Smiling, Eleanor had to hand it to Ryan, he was a good father.

Getting into his car Ryan turned the key, put it in reverse and backed out of his spot before he threw it into drive and sped off, nearly crashing against the paper sign with the advertisement for the play. But couldn't care less at the moment.

He just hoped it wasn't too late to make amends with his son.

Andrew Household: 2:00 pm

Delta, Daniel, Sophia, and Gracey just got to the front door of the Andrew residence. Delta looked at Gracey, she was carrying a huge bowl filled with chocolate chip cookies.

"Mmmm" He hummed, reaching his hand towards the bowl he was blind sighted as another hand pinched the skin between his thumb and index finger. Giving a squeak of pain he yanked his hand back faster then a speeding bullet.

"Why did you do that for?" snapped Delta as he nursed his hand.

"Tin daddy you know as well as I do you have to watch your cholesterol or else you'll have an early funeral." Gracey answered not even bothering to look at him.

"My cholesterol is fine" snapped Delta.

"No it isn't." Gracey said calmly.

"Yes. It is. Now gimme a cookie!" Delta whined.

"Stop arguing you two, things are already bad enough. We don't want them to get worse." Daniel snapped, that shut them up. Taking the spare key he had had Daniel opened the door before stepping aside and letting the other two in before entering himself.

"Jacob, we're here!" shouted Daniel.

"And we brought cookies!" Gracey added. Shouting they brought cookies was the same as shouting to splicers they had free Adam. Jacob always came running in every time. But this time was different, Jacob never came.

"Huh... that's strange. Jacob always made a huge fuss over my cookies." Gracey spoke up as they entered the kitchen. She set the bowl down on a table. "Maybe he is too upset to eat and doesn't feel like eating cookies?" Sophia pondered as they began to look around the house. He wasn't in the living room, the bathroom, or his room. The more they looked the more alarmed they got.

Jacob wasn't in the house,

"Call the police, we'll search around town and see what we can find." Daniel told to Sophia and Gracey before they headed out the door in a big hurry.

Neither of them wanted to know the worst thing that could happen to Jacob.

Central Park, New york: 3:00 pm

Central Park, one of the most popular spots for tired workers, picnickers, and kids to play in the whole city. The only place that connected the people of the city with the country and more natural life. Sitting in a park bench was Jacob. He was too upset to do anything.

Tearing the picture of his sister apart and setting it on fire on the stove didn't help much, although it was Totally Awesome, it didn't make the pain go away. He supposed going to the park wasn't his best idea. Seeing happy dads spending time with their sons playing ball didn't help his situation much. As long as he closed his eyes and closed of the outside world it was nice though. It gave him time to think.

He was jealous. He was a good kid, why couldn't he get some time to play with his dad? Just the two of them... but no, his sister always has to hog everything.

"Hey look, it's the mutant." He heard somebody call out a little ways away.

"Oh no..." Jacob groaned as he looked to the source of the voice and saw a gang of boys coming over towards him. All of them were his age. Their names were Butch, Gerald, Harold, and Stretch. Jacob knew them for two reasons. One, they were in the same class as he was and Two, they loved to pick on him.

"You know little boys like you shouldn't be in the park all by themselves." Sneered Butch. He was the gang leader, specializes in hitting and punching, nobody in Jacob's class has had the guts to stand up to him. He was bigger and tougher than they were so he always tended to get away with whatever he wanted.

"Yeah mutant." Snickered Stretch. Stretch was the goof ball and comedy relief guy in the gang. Nobody really even knew why he was part of the gang. Skinny, pale, and buck-toothed did not an intimidating figure make...

Gerald and Harold were both brothers, they were the hit and run specialists. They loved picking on other kids and stealing their stuff. Like money and lunch, they always get away with it too. And don't even get Jacob started on the name calling...

"Yeah, you know this is our territory." Harold said.

"The park belongs to everybody" Jacob declared. Glancing around he calculated the odds didn't look good, he was surrounded. He had an escape plan ready if it came to that though.

"'Everyone' doesn't involve the likes of you." Butch said as he grabbed Jacob and hoisted him up in the air like he weighted less than a feather.

"Pay us five bucks and we let you leave with your face intact." Gerald bargained.

"I don't have any money." Jacob said calmly. His plan of jumping off the back of the bench and over them before sprinting towards the nearest group of people went flying out the window when Butch latched onto him.

An evil smile spread through Butch's face, "Then this won't hurt a bit... just a lot!" He called, ready to punch him square in the nose.

"Hope your mom knows a good doctor." Stretch snickered.

Suddenly a shadow loomed over Butch.

"Hey is it getting cloudy ou-..." Gerald's voice trailed off as he looked behind them.

Behind them was a person, whether it was male or female he didn't knew, she/he was wearing a suit of armor, her/his face was covered by a round helmet with a green light coming out of its round visor. on her/his back she/he had a round metal cage. But what worried and scared Gerald most was a huge long needle she/he had strapped on her left arm. She/he was staring at them.

Gerald gulped and began to poke Butch, "Butch... Butch, w-we have to get out of here." he stuttered in fear. "Why? We're just getting started." Butch answered, not bothering to look behind him.

"There's a person staring at us. He's pretty scary." Stammered Gerald.

"Please, Jacob is no match for us." said Butch in annoyance. All he wanted to do was hit the freak. Was that so much to ask?

"Not him, the Metal Man." Gerald said, his face getting paler.

"Metal Man? Have you lost your mind?" Butch yelled angrily and looked at Gerald. Gerald simply pointed behind him.

Looking behind they all freaked out at the sight of the armored person, the light turned from calming green to red and a low growling noise could be heard echoing from within the helmet.

"METAL MAN!" They screamed. Letting go of Jacob they ran away as fast as they could. Jacob opened his eyes, wondering what was going on. There he came face to face with the armored person.

Seeing he was okay the armored persons light changed to calming green again, before lowering himself/herself to Jacob's eye level.

Jacob looked at the figure. Tilting his head to the side he looked it up and down, letting out a long "Coooool..." before he should his head and asked "Hello... what's your name?" He/She didn't answer, "Are you a Big Brother, or a Big Sister?" He asked another question. Extending it's arm it opened it's hand, letting an unusual doll fall into Jacob's lap.

Picking it up Jacob looked at it curiously. The doll sort of look like a Big Daddy...

"JACOB!" A shout interrupted his inspection, looking up he saw the Big Sister/Brother was gone, "Hey, where'd you go?" shouted Jacob. No sooner then he shouted that Daniel, Delta, and Ryan ran to the spot where he was sitting.

"Jacob... We were worried." Ryan said as he grabbed his son, giving him a tight squeeze. "I'm fine, I'm fine." Jacob assured his dad as he tried to breath.

"Don't you dare to pull a stunt like this again young man" Delta scolded.

"You nearly gave us a heart attack." Daniel added.

"Sorry." Jacob muttered before he added, "But what are you doing here dad? I thought you were too busy with Sophie to do anything." The last part was a little bit mean but Jacob was still mad about Sophie.

"True... but I felt sorry that I broke my promise. So I decided to pick you up and take you to play baseball, just us and the guys." Ryan offered.

"I don't feel like it, I just want to go home." Jacob admitted, all three of them looked at Jacob in shock. He always wanted to play baseball.

"Are you sure?" Ryan asked.

"Yep." Jacob answered simply, walking in the direction of his home already.

"Okay, I'll drive you all home." Ryan said, causing Jacob to stop and follow the rest of the guys back to the car.

Taking a look at the doll he received Ryan placed it on the bench in case the armored person came back to get it.

To be continued...

BETA'D by: Slicerness