|Chase's POV|
"Hey guy, I'm back," I said as I stepped into our house. Bree's home thankfully was not too far from where we lived, so I could get there easily of anything would ever happened to her.'
Not that Bree was in any danger or anything.
"Hey, Chase! Glad that you're back," Adam called out from the kitchen. "I was teasing you about the fact that you could actually get a girlfriend."
"Adam, I was not here," I said, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, I figured. That's why I decided to tease Leo!"
I simply rolled my eyes. "Whatever. Have you seen Mr Davenport?"
"Yeah, he's at the lab. I don't think you should go down there, though. He says he's busy with something."
"Well, there's something I need to talk to him about and it's urgent," I said and headed down to the lab.
*****
"Mr Davenport?" I called out as I exited the elevator.
"I wasn't watching Bambi!" I heard Mr Davenport yell as he immediately turned off the television and hid the remote behind his back.
"You were watching Bambi?" I asked.
"Didn't you hear me? I said I didn't," Mr Davenport denied.
"I'm not even going to ask anymore," I said. "I was just going to tell you that I'm sorry for causing any trouble for bringing Bree over.
"Oh, it's okay, Chase. I was kinda expecting this day to come anyway," said Mr Davenport.
"What do you mean by that?" I asked.
"Well, between you and me, you're the only one in this house that's been listening to me all this time," he explained. "I won't be surprised if a day like this comes when you have to go against the rules."
"Oh. Well, I'm glad we cleared that out then."
"As long as you don't develop feelings for her, I'm perfectly fine with that."
"Develop feelings for who?" said Adam who just entered the lab.
"We were just talking about Chase's friend."
"Nice. Hey, Chase, are you going to ask her out anytime soon? Cause if you're not then I totally will," said Adam.
"What? You can't ask her out! She's my friend!" I exclaimed.
"Friend. Not girlfriend, right?"
"Guys!" Mr Davenport shouted. "No one is asking anyone out! Did you forget the reason why I restrict you from making such relationships with people outside of family?"
"No!" said Adam with a frown. He looked down onto the floor, as if in deep thought and said, "Wait, what did you say about relationships again?"
Mr Davenport groaned in frustration.
"I don't want you guys to develop relationships with others because you could potentially put them in danger. What do you think is going to happen if the bad guy sees you with someone you care so much about? They're going to use the people you love as an advantage to get what they want. I wouldn't want a situation like that to ever happen to you."
"Mr Davenport's right. Putting other people in danger would just make our missions even harder. It's best if we just keep to ourselves," I said seriously.
Something in me felt weird when I said those words. Why did I feel so uneasy? Wasn't Mr Davenport right? I wasn't so sure at the time. I was so used to following his rules, I never actually considered what would happen if I were to actually go against them.
"Speaking of missions, Adam. Go upstairs and call Leo. There's something important I need to discuss," Mr Davenport instructed.
"Yes, sir," said Adam before leaving the lab.
"Chase, before I put the subject aside, I have to ask," said Mr Davenport.
"What is it, Mr Davenport?"
"I don't have to be worried about you and your friend, right? I just don't want you to be hurt emotionally, or else your missions will be affected."
I paused for a moment before answering. "Yeah, sure. There's nothing for you to be worried about. We both agreed to just be friends and nothing else."
"Good," said Mr Davenport, heaving a sigh of relief.
"We're all present, Mr Davenport," Adam called out from the entrance of the lab, with Leo following behind him.
"What's up, Big D?" asked Leo.
"Well, I was just going to show you Adam and Chase your current health and bionic statistics. I realised that we haven't been updating your database so I'll be running some tests to see if there's anything that needs improvement," Mr Davenport explained. "You, Leo, will be helping me. I could use an extra pair of hands."
"It's not every day when you ask for my help, but okay," agreed Leo.
Leo pressed a couple of buttons to turn on the large screen. Instead of our statistics appearing on screen, an animated deer, skunk and rabbit came up instead. Mr Davenport's eyes widened and screamed while attempting to cover the screen with his arms.
"How do you turn this off?" Mr Davenport questioned.
"Why don't you try pressing that yellow button over there?" Adam suggested.
Mr Davenport listened and pressed the yellow button that was on the control panel. Instead of turning the screen off, the movie began to play on the other screens in the lab, creating an unbelievably cool surround sound.
Mr Davenport screamed even louder. "Why did you tell me to press that?"
"I don't know. Why did you listen to me? You know how I like to press random buttons," argued Adam.
I went to the control panel and manually turned off the rest of the screens. With a press of a few other buttons, I managed to present our statistics on the larger screen.
"Thank you, Chase," said Mr Davenport, sounding calmer.
"Don't thank me yet. Wait till Tasha hears about this," I joked.
Mr Davenport glared at me with disapproval before rolling his eyes, realising that there was no point in arguing.
"Okay, let's get started then."
As soon as Mr Davenport was about to take over the control panel, the screen flickered and turned static.
"Hey, what gives?"
We tried our best to get rid of the static. Eventually, the screen was automatically turned off. A few seconds later, it went back on, but a familiar face appeared.
"Hello? Anybody home?"
"Douglas?"
"He hacked you again?" said Leo. "Would it kill you to spend 40 bucks on some security software?"
"Love the new lab, Donny," said Douglas, looking around our recently furnished lab through the screen.
Douglas was Donald's younger brother. Previously, he tried to kidnap and use us as weapons by taking control of us by using a Triton App. Long story short, he didn't succeed and escaped.
"Take a hint, ex-brother," said Mr Davenport furiously. "There's a reason why none of us accepted your buddy request."
"Oh, I accepted it," said Adam. All of us scowled at him. "What? His updates are hilarious: Looking forward to a weekend of evil, winky face."
"Listen, I don't have a lot of time," Douglas interrupted. "Krane will be back soon. He went out to get his head waxed."
"Fascinating. You know, it might sound like I'm hanging up."
"Wait! This isn't another trick. You're in danger. Krane has completely lost it."
"Oh, wow! So the guy who keeps implanting himself bionics is unstable? Who could've seen that coming?" I said sarcastically.
"I'm serious. Krane is using my technology to give himself new abilities I didn't even know were possible. He's a ticking timebomb, and he sees you two as a threat."
"Hey! What about me?" asked Leo. "I'm dangerous."
"Yeah. There's always a chance you might faint on somebody," said Douglas.
"Look, Adam and Chase... And Leo can handle anything. And after all you've done to this family, why should we trust you?" Mr Davenport questioned his younger brother.
"Well," Douglas thought. "Give me a minute."
"Take all the time you want."
"Oh, thanks."
Before Douglas could answer, Mr Davenport immediately turned off the screen.
"Douglas is up to something," he said with a frown. "He's obviously trying to distract us from this Krane guy."
"Well, maybe so but what if he's telling the truth?" I wondered. "I mean, we've seen that guy face to face. That guy is a total creep."
"Yeah, nice eyes, though," thought Adam.
"Trust me, this is exactly what Douglas wants. Don't fall for his trap. My brother is the real threat."
"So what are we going to do now?" asked Leo.
"The first thing I'm going to do is to get that security software," said Mr Davenport. "I honestly don't know what my brother is up to. But I suggest all of you prepare yourselves for the worst."
*****
|Bree's POV|
I opened the door to my apartment and tossed my bag somewhere on the floor before lunging myself onto my purple bean bag chair.
"Man, math sure is tiring," I said to myself.
I stared at the ceiling above me. My thoughts somehow went to Chase. Lately, I've been thinking about him and I can't really explain why. As more and more days went by, I got even more curious about him. I kept wondering why he never made any other friends and chose to be all by himself in school. I guess Chase had his own fair share of secrets too, just like me. Back in middle school, I did something pretty unforgivable for an 11-year-old. It had something to do with Victoria too, which explained why she and I were not in good terms. No one in Mission Creek High knew about my secret except for Vicky. Ever since we found out that we went to the same high school, she had been saving my secret for the perfect moment to blackmail me. For the past three years, I had a couple of close calls, but none enough to let Victoria reveal my secret to the rest of the school. I was just extremely thankful that I managed to survive those years with my dignity still intact.
Knowing that it was getting late, I reluctantly got up from my bean bag chair and went to the bathroom to shower. I had been living alone in this tiny apartment for almost a year now. My aunt had two homes and this was her second one. Ever since my parents died in a car crash three years ago, I had nowhere else to go. I stayed with my aunt the first two years since I wasn't ready to live on my own yet. When I was old enough and ready to be independent, my aunt allowed me to move into her second apartment. Since she rarely used it, she allowed me to do anything I wished with it. Although it was pretty lonely, I enjoyed the feeling of doing things on my own. Of course, I had to pay the bills on my own too, so while I studied on weekends, I worked at a mini-mart on alternate weekends. Since it was only a part-time job, the pay wasn't much so my aunt did help me.
After I was done with showering, I got into my pyjamas and headed went to bed. Before I faded off into my slumber, I remembered Chase being the last thing that was on my mind. Although it had been only a few weeks since I had met him, I felt really comfortable around him. He just seemed like a really easy person to talk to, which is ironic because he didn't really talk much. I had a feeling that this year was going to be an interesting year indeed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey, guys! Sorry for the slightly short chapter! I've been struggling with writer's block. Although I know the flow of the story, I haven't exactly found the perfect flow yet. I hope you can forgive me! ><
As you may have noticed, this chapter is partly inspired my the episode, Taken from season 3. Now that I'm free from school and studying, I decided to binge on Lab Rats! I actually completed season 3 and 4 in 2 days! XD
As usual, do remember to vote and leave your comments! If you have any suggestions or anything you hope to see in the future chapters, please let me know!!!
See you soon!!!