Crush, Chop and Burn Part 2

Today was a sad day. Why was it sad? It was sad because my three best friends were leaving to who knows where for who knows how long. And it really wasn't fair.

We were all sitting in the lab, just the four of us. Calla had promised to come by as soon as she could, but she hadn't arrived yet. Adam was snacking on something, Bree and I were sitting on one of the counters, and Chase was stealing office supplies. I finally gave in after about ten minutes of watching him pack up pencils, erasers and staplers.

"What are you doing?" I questioned.

"If Davenport is going to ship us off to some remote facility, then the office supplies are going with us." Chase announced. I thought about that for a moment.

"Okay then." Bree sighed next to me.

"I can't believe this! We JUST got our first taste of normal life." She complained. "I was THIS close to getting a curfew that I was TOTALLY gonna break!"

"Ooh!" Adam exclaimed suddenly. "But maybe when we'll get to wherever we're going, we'll meet a sassy chimpanzee named Bobo that will take us on adventures and teach us how to love!" we all stared at him. Seriously, where did this guy get his ideas?

"Or maybe you'll make him angry and he'll maul you, then snack on your fingers." Chase suggested as he hopped up onto the counter next to me.

"HEY!" Adam stood up. "I create the monkey fantasies around here!"

Eddie popped up on a screen behind us. "Well kids, I hope you enjoyed your stay at Casa Davenport. I know I haven't. Sayonara!" I was tempted to have Adam rip out more of that Crappy A.I system's wires, but I knew that it wouldn't solve anything.

Bree sighed again. "Eddie, I know we've never been the best of friends…but we're really going to miss you."

"Aww, really?" Eddie seemed touched. Then the bionic siblings had to ruin the moment.

"No!" "We hate you!" "You're evil!" I chuckled at them.

"Hey, where is this 'training facility' anyway?" I asked, turning around so I could see Eddie's screen.

"Facility X? Oh, it's all the rage." Eddie changed his screen so that it showed off a beautiful tropical island. I was almost jealous.

"Lucky!" I whined.

"Yeah, that's pretty nice." Chase agreed.

"Oops, sorry!" Eddie changed back. "That's my screen saver! THIS is Facility X." he then changed his screen to show a government facility in the middle of a snow covered tundra.

"I take my previous comment back." I said, staring at the screen.

"Forget about office supplies." Chase said. "We should be gathering wood."

"Man!" I complained. "I wish Calla and I hadn't thrown that party! I can't help but feel this is all my fault."

"Oh, that's because it is." Adam agreed, patting me on the shoulder.

"Adam!" Calla scolded, walking into the room. "We didn't mean for this to happen! We were only trying to help you."

"It's funny how you enter the room almost as soon as Leo said your name." Chase pointed out. Calla shrugged.

"And I know you were only trying to help us, but you did the opposite, which is not help us. The not makes it the opposite." Calla looked at Adam then at Chase.

"Good luck with him." She said. Adam groaned.

"Sorry, I'm just so bummed. This is the only place we've ever known."

"Yeah." Chase agreed. "Just think about all the memories we shared here."

They all looked up into the distant, having some kind of flashback. Calla and I exchanged glances.

"Uh, guys?" I said. "You know we can't see your flashback, right?"

"Yeah, we know." Bree agreed. Calla cleared her throat.

"Anyway guys, you should go upstairs. Mr. Davenport has something very creepy that he wants to show Leo."

"What is it?" I asked, following her to the stairs. She shook her head.

"Creepy." Was all she would say. When we got upstairs, we figured out why.

"See?" I said. "Creepy."

In front of us were three robots duplicates of Adam, Bree, and Chase. They looked a lot alike, except they seemed paler, colder to me. Maybe that's because I'd already decided to hate them.

"So, what do you think?" Mr. Davenport asked. "Is this great or what? It'll be like they never left!"

Leo knocked on Robo-Adam's chest, a hollow echo coming from the metal doppelganger. Robo-Adam turned to Leo and flicked him in the head, hard.

"Well?" Mr. Davenport asked.

"I think the excitement of having a billionaire dad just wore off." Leo replied, rubbing his forehead.

"Yeah Donald, I don't know about this." Mrs. Davenport even seemed to dislike the robots. "I kind of prefer Leo to have friends that can't malfunction and tear him limb from limb."

"Calla? You at least like them, right?" Mr. Davenport asked, certain that I'd think they were cool.

"Let's see…what word did I use before?" I wondered aloud. "Oh yeah, creepy."

"Well you haven't seen how they work yet!" Mr. Davenport pressed a button on his watch and Robo-Adam stepped forward.

"Good morning." It said in a cold, heartless voice. "The time is 7:22 and the temperature is currently 68 degrees."

Adam looked at the duplicate, then at Mr. Davenport. "You built a robot of me that just stands around telling people the time and the temperature?" he asked. Mr. Davenport nodded and Adam's face lit up. "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen!"

He raised his hand for a high five that he never got. Bree then took a look at hers.

"Does my nose really look like that?" she asked.

The Robo-Bree replied "No, yours has a faint moustache underneath."

"Ooh!" we all tried not to laugh, but then Robo-Chase started to speak.

"Hey everybody, I'm Chase. Let's do ma-ma-ma-" it started to malfunction until Mr. Davenport hit it in the chest. "math."

We didn't even bother trying to stop laughing. "That's not funny!" Chase whined.

"You're right, It's fu-fu-fu-" Adam pretended to malfunction. "Funny."

We weren't laughing for long though, because the doorbell rang a second later and reality hit us like a bus. Mr. Davenport walked up to the door, letting Mr. Fitz (one of his workers) in.

"Hey Fitz, how's it going?" silence. "How's life?...How's Trix?" silence again. Mr. Fitz wasn't really a talker. "You should have seen him at the company Christmas party; he's a karaoke master."

"Well, I guess this is it." Bree said what none of us were able to. I held out my arms and we did one really big, really emotional group hug. I was really going to miss those guys and I could tell Leo was too.

"Thanks for everything guys." Bree said, pulling away.

"Yeah, you're the bets friends we've ever had." Chase agreed.

"They're the only friends we've ever had." Adam reminded him.

"Well," Mrs. Davenport cut in, hugging the lab rats. "Don't forget to bundle up on your deadly missions."

They started to walk away, but Davenport stopped them to tell them one last thing. "Remember this is a good thing. Without any distractions, you might finish your training early."

"Yeah, right." Chase muttered as they walked away, giving Leo and I one last wave before they left. Then we were stuck in a room with only Leo's mom and Mr. Davenport. I sighed, the tension in the air bothering me.

"Come on Leo, we're going to be late for school." We left without another word to Mr. Davenport. Make that another word at all; it was silent on our way to school. I guess we didn't really feel like speaking at all.

Even my friends seemed to realize something was wrong. Rebeccka offered to do my homework, Jessica bought me ice cream, and Kaitlin told me I could borrow her brand new, limited edition designer bag. But I was still in a bad mood when Leo and I walked back to his house after school.

I considered blowing off work, but something in my gut told me that I should go. Maybe I was worried about Leo, because he seemed to be taking it pretty hard and it wasn't like kids were lining up at school to make him feel better.

"So, you want to talk?" I asked as we walked into the lab. It was strangely quiet. Maybe because no one was in there except the three freaky robots.

"Don't you have work to do?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Yeah, but I have all night and plus; I don't think Mr. Davenport's gonna be to hard on me today." I replied. Robo-Adam walked up to us.

"Hello, insert name here and insert other name here. Would you like to engage in silly happy fun time?" it asked in a metallic voice. I tried to ignore them.

"Get lost, you can't replace my real friends." Leo snapped at it. "I really loved those guys."

"Same here." I murmured, sitting down on the far counter, by their old capsules. Leo followed me.

"Don't be sad Mr. Leo and Miss. Calla. Friends come and go, but robots are forever." Robo-Chase said, walking stiffly over to us. "Dibbly-dibbly. That is my version of a laugh. Dibbly-dibbly."

"Okay, those things are getting creepier every second I'm near them." I muttered to myself.

"Will you tin-heads get out of here?" Leo demanded, looking down at his comic book as I grabbed my work tablet and began to fill out reports.

"Sensing human hostility." Robo-Chase's voice made me look up.

"Must exterminate." Robo-Bree continued as me and Leo looked at each other, fear in our eyes.

"Robots attack." Robo-Adam began to chant. Eddie started cheering them on as they got closer to me and Leo. We looked at each other for a second, then screamed.

"AHHH!" we tried to get away from them, but Robo-Bree trapped Leo in her arms while Robo-Chase wouldn't let me go.

"AHHH!" we screamed again…as they burst out laughing.

"Leo, Calla, it's okay." Chase laughed.

"Yeah, we're not robots, it's really us." Bree said as we were released. We stared at them.

"Huh?" Leo was as confused as I was.

"We told the robots we forgot something and then we swapped the robots in our place." Chase explained. Adam got this big grin on his face.

"You said you loved us. You said you loved us. " He chanted, until Leo slapped him across the face. "OW!"

"It really is you guys!" Leo hugged the four of us, although I'd never gone anywhere. When we pulled away, I looked Chase in the eye, the smacked him.

"What was that for?" he demanded. I crossed my arms.

"You know I watch way too many robot movies!" I exclaimed. "Did you have to do that pretend let's all kill Calla and Leo thing?"

"Yes." He replied cheekily. I rolled my eyes at him.

'Wait, what about Mr. Davenport?" I asked.

"We'll just pretend to be robots whenever he's around." Chase replied as if was as simple as riding a bike.

"Hey Calla, hey Leo." Mr. Davenport chose that moment to enter the room. Adam, Bree, and Chase went rigid, holding poses that a robot might.

"Uh hi Mr. Davenport." I tried not to sound too guilty. I was usually a horrible liar, but he didn't notice anything was up.

"What are you guys doing?" he asked. Me and Leo exchanged looks.

"We are hanging with our robo fake people friends." Leo replied. Robo fake people friends? Looks like we both need a lesson in lying. Mr. Davenport looked at us.

"Really?" he asked, sounding surprised. I nodded quickly.

"Yeah, there ain't no part like a robot party 'cause a robot party don't stop." I sang. Mr. Davenport seemed to buy it.

"See I told you that you would like them. You just had to get usedto them." He said happily.

"Like them, we love them." Leo replied, just to get more teasing from Adam behind Mr. Davenport's back.

"Hey, do you know what's the greatest thing about having robots is?" Mr. Davenport asked, pulling out a device that he'd worked on a couple of weeks prior. Oh crap. I thought.

"What?" Leo didn't see where this was going.

"The yare virtually indestructible." Mr. Davenport replied. Leo's face fell slightly, finally catching on. "Just watch!"

He poked Adam with the taser ray and electrocuted him where he stood. Adam, being a very good actor, stood absolutely still, but obviously in pain.

"Quit it!" Leo exclaimed. I had my hand over my mouth, staring at Adam, Bree and Chase.

"It's alright Leo," Mr. Davenport assured him "they can't feel a thing. Watch!"

He electrocuted Chase twice, and then tried to electrocute Bree, but she stopped him.

"Don't even try it." She said in a robot voice.

"Oh, you're a feisty robot you." Mr. Davenport said before turning to Leo. I looked at Adam and Chase.

"*Are you okay?"* I mouthed worriedly. They couldn't reply, but Chase faked a small smile for me.

"Your turn." Mr. Davenport announced, placing the taser ray in my hands. I looked at Leo, then Adam, Bree, and Chase, then Mr. Davenport.

"Uh, no thanks." I stuttered, but he was insistent.

"Come on do it. It's a lot of fun." He urged as I tried to protest. Leo sighed.

"Fine!" he grabbed the taser ray and electrocuted Mr. Davenport with it. He fell to the ground in a spasm.

"You're right, it is fun!" Leo exclaimed, making me, Adam, Bree, and Chase laugh.

**Leo's POV**

It was a couple of mornings after Adam, Bree, and Chase began their charade and so far, we'd managed to fool everyone. Calla was worried that Bid D would find out, but he was clueless as far as we knew.

"Alright, let's make this quick so we can get out of here and meet Calla." I said, holding up the food. "Adam for breakfast, you get wheat bread and a side of sugar packets."

"My favourite!" Adam cheered, digging in. I turned to Bree.

"Bree, you get tow old wings and a drumstick form the Chicken Shack." I gave her the box , then handed a banana peel to Chase.

"And Chase, you can have the peel to my banana." I said, grinning. "Enjoy."

Chase looked at me. "I'm not eating a banana peel." He said. I stared at him.

"You don't eat it. You just chew it until all the flavour's gone." I said. What, did this guy think I was crazy or something?

"Leo!" My mom greeted as she walked into the kitchen. Adam, Bree, and Chase dropped their food. "What's going on?"

"Mom!" I exclaimed. "Look at you, in the kitchen." Okay, Calla's right. I am horrible at hiding things. "We are just having a healthy breakfast."

"Honey, they're robots." My mom reminded me. "They don't eat."

The second she turned around they shoved so much food into their mouths, they looked like chipmunks.

"ANYWAY," I tried to distract my mom so she wouldn't see. "I was thinking today might be a good day to take them to school with me."

"YES!" Bree screamed, then remember that she was supposed to be a robot. "I mean, bee-dee-bee-beep. Bee-dee-bee-beep. Beep."

"Leo, you're not taking robots to school." My mom chose to ignore Bree's massive screw up. "Your teachers already think you're a little weird."

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Because on your last report card it said 'we think Leo's a little weird.'"

"Mom…" I complained. She gave me a look. "Fine."

I stopped before leaving and looked at Adam, Bree, and Chase. "You guys stay out of trouble until I get back home. Alright?" They nodded stiffly, knowing my mom was watching. I ignored her and held out my arms. "Hug it out."

They gave me a hug and I jogged down to the bus station where Calla and I decided to meet. She frowned when I got there.

"I thought you were bringing Adam, Bree, and Chase." She looked at me with an alarmed expression. "They didn't get caught, did they?"

"No, don't worry. But my mom wouldn't let me leave the house with them." I replied. Calla gave me a sympathetic look.

"Yeah, that might be a good idea. The teachers already think you're a little weird."

"How do you know about that?!" I demanded. She smirked, the shrugged.

"I have my sources. Did you know that Mr. Corn wears a toupee?"

"Leo! Wait up dude!" Calla ran after me as I bolted up the stairs to my house. "Man you can fly when you want to."

"Yeah, well, I wanted to hang out with Adam, Bree, and Chase." I defended myself as she gasped for breath. I was too, but I didn't care. That usually twenty minute walk had become a ten minute run. I guess I missed my new siblings. "Come on."

Calla followed me, still panting, into the house. Big D and my mom were waiting for us at the kitchen counter.

"Hey, where are the robots? I ran all the way home and this time I wasn't being chased by angry/hungry dogs!" I exclaimed. My mom gave Big D a look, then turned to me. Big D handed me and Calla each a glass of water.

"Leo…" my mom hesitated with a look to Big D. "The robots are gone. We just dropped them off at the recycling facility."

I did a spit-take while Calla just froze, the glass still held to her lips. "YOU WHAT?" I demanded.

"Yep, they're being melted down as we speak." Big D replied. Calla stared at him, wide eyed.

"Melted down?" her voice was shaking a little.

"Yeah, but don't tell anybody; they're probably toxic." He found this funny. How could he find this funny?

"No, we have to go get them!" I exclaimed. "They're not robots, they're real!"

"Okay, see? This is why I didn't want those things around!" my mom told Big D. 'He's delusional!"

"No, he's telling the truth. They really are Adam, Bree, and Chase!" Calla told my mom in a panicky voice. "You have to believe us!"

"Calla, don't encourage him." Big D told her, then he looked at me. "Leo, when I was your age, I had to say goodbye to a lot of my friends. There was Lavaman and Stretchlegstrong, and Jo-Jo Bigs, and all his friends in the space cantina."

"Those are action figures!" Calla exclaimed.

"More like fully posable pieces of my heart." Bid D teared up a little. She stared at him in disbelief, then grabbed my arm.

"Come on Leo." She pulled me down to the lab. I argued with her the entire way.

"What? We can't just let them die! Calla, are you listening to me? They going to die! This is life or death!" I yelled at her. She shook her head as she headed over to a wall near the capsules. She hit a couple of buttons on a garage door opener and the wall slid open, revealing a driveway. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"WE are going to go save their sorry asses." Calla replied, pulling out her cell phone and hitting a speed dial number.

"Hey Jay! Yeah, I need a ride…a recycling plant…long story, but lives are in danger…Okay, Leo's got neglectful parents who did something really stupid…I'll shut up if you give me and Leo a drive. Thanks bro. We'll meet you at the bus station." she looked at me.

"You coming or what short-stuff?" I grinned and followed her out the hidden door.

**Calla's POV**

This was probably the worst idea I'd ever had. And I'd had a lot of bad ideas in the past fifteen years. Jaden had dropped us off outside the center and Leo and I'd climbed into a garbage truck. We hoped it would take us to Adam, Bree, and Chase.

"AHHH!" I screamed as I fell out of the truck and into a large machine. I was surrounded by garbage and stinky things and all I wanted to do was get out of there. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option.

I got to my feet and stared at Adam, Bree, and Chase, who were standing right at the exit door.

"Oh come on!" I complained loudly. All that work for nothing. And then I realized something. The wall behind us? Yeah, it was moving. Moving towards a giant crusher, then another crusher, and finally a wall of fire. I was going to die in a recycling plant. "Funny." I muttered nervously. "This is what I get for recycling."

"Leo? Calla?" Adam gasped. Leo glared at them.

"No, it's Itchy and Scratchy!" he yelled. I smirked at the Simpsons reference. "Get us out of here!"

Just then Mr. Davenport and Tasha came through the door on the other side.

"Mr. Davenport!" Bree exclaimed. Adam started to pretend he was a robot.

"Hello we are robots." He said. Chase glared at him.

"Dude, I think he knows." He said coldly.

"Well, he does now." Adam retorted. Hot steam started blowing on either side of us. Leo and I looked at each other, then screamed, reminding them that we were still about to die.

We started pushing on the wall, trying to stop it. It was useless and I think we both knew that, but fear makes you do irrational things.

"Leo!" Tasha exclaimed.

"I'm here too!" I screamed back.

"I'll find someone to shut it down!" Mr. Davenport started to run out, but Bree stopped him.

"There isn't enough time!" she told him. Chase looked at Leo and I, then at his siblings.

"Guys, I have an idea!" he lit up. Three minutes later, Leo and I still pushing against the wall, another load of screaming garbage fell in front of us. Wait, screaming garbage?

Adam, Bree, and Chase stood up and I looked at them. "Oh, great. Now we can all die. Yippee." I muttered.

"That never gets old!" Adam grinned, standing up.

"What are you doing here?" Chase demanded, looking at both me and Leo.

"Saving you?" I suggested.

"Aww, thanks. We're good." At least Adam seemed to appreciate our efforts. "Sweet kids."

"Come on, let's just do this!" Bree hurried them along. Chase nodded.

"Okay. Leo, Calla, hold onto Adam. We're going to surround you and then we're all going to go through it together. Okay?"

I nodded and grabbed Adam tightly. We were about to run through when Leo stopped us.

"Hey, what's that?" he asked, walking up to a red button and pressing it. Suddenly, the machine shut down. I hit the wall behind me, weak with relief.

"That would be the off button." Chase replied. Leo grinned widely.

"Yeah…" Adam was smiling as well. "Oh, you guys didn't see that?"

I stared at him in utter disbelief, and then sighed. "Oh, screw this!" I muttered, storing out of that hellhole.

**One hour later**

We walked in the door and Eddie appeared, ready to make some smart-alec remark. I glared at him. "Not one word."

"I don't know what you kids were thinking, pulling a stunt like that. You could have been seriously injured." Mr. Davenport scolded. I sat down on the couch next to Chase. He, along with his super-siblings, looked worn out.

"Yeah, but you have to admit, my robot accent was dead on." Of course Adam thought it was all a joke. At that moment, I sort of envied his small minded perception.

"Can we please take him back to the recycling center?" Chase asked hopefully. Adam smiled, liking the idea.

"Chase…" I warned under my breathe, just loud enough for him to hear.

"And Calla, Leo, why didn't you tell us Adam, Bree, and Chase were still here?" Tasha asked us.

"Because we were trying to protect our friends." Leo replied. I nodded.

"Yeah. Mr. Davenport was going to send them away and we couldn't stand the thought of losing them." I looked at said bionic teenagers and smiled.

"And we're still going to protect our friends." Leo walked up to Mr. Davenport with an angry look on his face. I stood up as well.

"Yeah, that's right. If you want to send them away, you have to go through us first." I said, crossing my arms.

"It's go time little man!" Leo exclaimed, readying for a fight. "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. There's a lot of fight in this little doggie."

Mr. Davenport gave Tasha a look as Leo said this. I was just trying to keep a straight face, but it wasn't easy. I mean the kid was jumping around like a squirrel on a sugar rush! Finally, Mr. Davenport had had enough. "Leo! Calm down! They're not going anywhere!"

"Oh, don't you…wait, what?" I think Leo understood what he'd said at the same time as the rest of us. Adam, Bree, Chase, and I exchanged looks.

"Watching you guys risk your lives for each other made me realize something. Maybe I've been focusing too much on training the super-human side of you and I forgot all about the human part." We all stared at him.

"Aww…" Adam read my mind, then. "I don't get it." I shook my hand at him.

"You're teenagers and bionic or not you deserve to experience teenager things, like school, and classes and cell phones-"

"YES! A cell phone! I'm living the dream!" Bree exclaimed, jumping up.

"You're not getting a cell phone." Mr. Davenport said quickly, disappointing her. I grinned, knowing full well that he was going to get them cell phones before the week was over. "But what I can give you is another chance. Maybe there's a way that you can live here, go to school, and still go on missions."

"Are you serious?" Chase sounded shocked.

"They can stay?" I asked. Mr. Davenport nodded.

"On one condition. No one can EVER find out about your bionics. Ever. And you have to control your emotions so you don't glitch out in public."

"Done." "Okay." Absolutely." They agreed in a nano-second.

"Alright then." Mr. Davenport hugged Leo and Tasha. 'Welcome home!"

They all cheered, but as they did Adam's hand blasted out a large plasma grenade towards the ceiling. We all hit the floor as the room shook and the chandelier fell and the kitchen was destroyed. "Uhh, whoops?"

"He has plasma grenades? My life just got a whole lot more awesome." Leo grinned as Chase helped me up. He's right about that, I thought. These guys were going to make life a little more interesting.