Summary : How will the team handle when a monster attacks and Ryan gets hurt?
"Where's Ryan and Mark? They should be here by now," Harris asked, looking to Spyder.
"Don't look at me," Spyder said, raising his hands, "I haven't seen 'em."
It was at that moment that the elevator whooshed open and out stepped Ryan, looking tired and mildly irked.
"Whoa, man, you look terrible," Spyder commented, turning around.
"Yeah, you would too if you spent all night taking over your sick brother while your mom's out of town."
"Rough, man," Spyder said, turning back to the front of the Mech as Harris gave Ryan a sympathetic look.
"That sucks, hope he feels better."
"Me too, if a monster shows up that's hard to beat we're screwed," Spyder added.
Ryan and Harris looked at him, "What? It's true."
They rolled their eyes and got into position to train.
It was going to be a long night.
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Four hours, two monsters, and a night of homework later and Ryan was back at school, minus one Mark and with Harris and Spyder.
After Principal Gray's death, they'd all assumed the monsters would stop, they were wrong.
Ryan had barely greeted Harris and Spyder before the Harris' monster alert went off.
The three ran to the Mech, Ryan having flashes of the whole adoption debacle when Spyder had mentioned piloting the Mech with three people instead of four. Guess they'd have to try it.
The monster, a mix of a human and a cobra that looked a heck of a lot like Medusa, came slithering up to and towering over the robot, its eyes closed.
"Oh no," Ryan muttered as its eyes opened and fired some lava like substance at them.
Ryan recoiled, the Mech following, as the lava melted the metal and left burn marks on Ryan's body.
Ryan cried out in pain, but continued to fight. He punched the creature in its human face and grabbed the snakes that made its hair, pulling it off of the ground and tossing if over his shoulder.
The monster flew back into the nearby forest and was impaled by the trees as it turned to ooze.
Harris and Spyder cheered, not noticing their leaders groan as he quickly unlocked himself and ran to the bathroom to vomit. His friends quickly followed.
Once Ryan finished, Harris helped him onto the medical table and began a scan.
Harris looked at Spyder, the two equally worried about their friend, "I'll stay and monitor him tonight. Tomorrow's Saturday, so come as soon as you can and bring Mark."
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The next day, as instructed, Spyder and a weakened Mark entered the lab to find Harris passed out in a chair with Ryan missing from the table.
"Harris," Spyder's eyes widened as he yelled his friend's name, running to check his pulse and sighing when he found a steady, if a bit slow, heart beat.
"Where's Ryan?" A pale Mark asked as he walked out of the room, calling his brother's name.
Spyder shook Harris in an attempt to wake him up. Seeing it wasn't working, he moved to help look for Ryan.
They found him curled into a ball in a corner of the hallway, seemingly asleep.
As the two approached they felt themselves becoming more and more tired until Spyder suddenly stopped, "Mark wait!"
But it was too late, Mark had touched Ryan's shoulder and was out like a light.
Spyder muttered a not so nice word before backing away from Ryan until he reached the end of the hallway where he turned on his heel and ran back to the lab.
When he reached the lab, he muttered and "Okay," while rubbing his hands on his pants trying to think of a plan.
He began talking to himself out loud, "Harris was with Ryan last night and now he's here, not waking up, and Ryan moved. When Mark touched Ryan, he passed out too. When we were getting closer to Ryan, we became sleepier. So the catalyst must be Ryan! That's right, I know stuff!"
He looked around, realizing he just defended himself to no one, "Alright then." He moved to pick up Harris, wanting to test to see if getting him away from Ryan would cause him to wake up.
He carried Harris down through the robot, careful to avoid Ryan, before he reached his bike. Choosing to walk, he carried Harris into the abandoned trailer and sat him down.
"Come on, Harris, wake up!" He shouted, shaking his friend violently.
With a sputter, Harris awoke, startled, "What happened?!"
Spyder explained the events that had transpired as Harris began coming up with a solution.
"You said Mark passed out when he touched Ryan?"
"Yeah... So?" Spyder questioned.
"So, if Ryan's the catalyst, then he must be emitting some electrical frequency that's causing us to fall asleep!" Harris explained with an 'Yreka, by George I think he's got it!' Tone.
"But why would Ryan do that?" Spyder asked.
"The lava! That must be it. It must've overheated him, causing his powers to go haywire. You know, like when your phone gets too hot and stops working right and flashes that 'overheated' symbol. This must be how his body portrays it," Harris continued, "So what do you do when a machine is overheated? You cool it down."
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They had a plan. Key word, 'had'.
They were in the process of cooling off the Mech when a monster attacked.
"Not the time, not the time!" Harris shouted at the monster, "Keep cooling!"
"What about Mark and Ryan? They're still human, won't this hurt them?"
Harris was panicking, "I don't know! Just... just keep cooling and hope for the best!"
The monster was gaining speed.
"Hurry!"
Finally, the Mech reached a level of coolness that was safe for them to enter and the two ran to find Mark awake and shaking Ryan. He turned when he heard footsteps, "He's not breathing!"
Harris ran forward and began doing CPR while Spyder ran to his station and began firing off shots in an attempt to slow the monster.
"Any luck?" Mark asked.
Harris paused long enough to give him a slightly irked, 'Does it look like it's working?!' Look before continuing CPR.
"Come on, Ryan, come on!"
The monster was approaching and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
The monster lunged and knocked the Mech down and the trio flew into a nearby wall, knocking the two awake unconscious and the one unconscious awake.
"Guys?! Guys, are you okay?" Spyder cried, worried for his friends safety.
Ryan groaned, looking around to his brother and friends, "I-I don't know?"
"Ryan?" Spyder asked, disbelief clear in his voice, "Thank gosh, we've got a monster at five o'clock, and he seems to be hungry!"
Ryan's brows furrowed in confusion as he forced himself and the robot to stand as he ran to the Technopath pad where he buckled up, burns still fresh on his body.
"Let's get this over with. Mech, execute!"
He made short work of the beast, a mix of a rhino and a bat, using the plasma punch and cannon seeing as almost everything else was fried or frozen.
Once the monster was defeated, the Ryan lowered the Mech back into the ferry which it had barely left for battle, before he and Spyder ran to check on Mark and Harris.
By the time they got there, Harris was already awake while Mark was still unconscious.
With one brother to each friend, the four made their way to the lab where Mark was out on a cot and Ryan the exams table.
"Well, you'll be feeling everything for awhile, but at the end of the day it could've been worse," Harris commented.
"Yeah, nothing says 'could've been worse' like freezer burns and the flu!" Spyder said with cheerful sarcasm at which Ryan groaned.
With time, both Ryan and Mark would recover. But until then, well that's a story for another time.
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Yeah, it's short. Yeah, it sucks. And yeah, I'll probably edit it later.
Until then, sorry about the ending, let me know if I should continue this with a 'what happened during recovery?' story, and live long and love PINEAPPLES!!!