Showtime (Ryan and Lucas)

New York notwithstanding, LA was the new center of crime in the United States. Not just any crime, either. Super crime. Vigilante crime. Couple that with the strange happenings in the area, police were on their back leg. Some precincts even reached out to some of the more obviously benevolent vigilantes for help, but even that was not enough to quell the uprising. Since the attempted revolution in the city, things had not been the same. They were chaotic, and that chaos attracted even more. Something had to be done. Unlike New York and other major cities, LA did not have an obvious champion—not anymore.

That was why Lucas and Ryan had decided to come here. They'd even rented a penthouse apartment. This didn't mean Lucas expected they would become the city's new champions, or even that they would stay for long, but it did mean him and his brother were committed to solving some problems. They fully intended to right the wrongs of their father and upend Rise, but for now that would have to wait. People in need were more important then ideological differences between family.

Lucas sipped on a juice box as they walked in a rather shady part of town. The rundown buildings and tough looking residents didn't seem to bother Lucas much, as he smiled just as easily as he would have anywhere else. He even got some smiles in return. Ryan was likely characteristically more cautious, but Lucas made every effort to reassure him. He laid a hand on his brother's shoulder, trying to ease the tension.

"It's alright, Ryan. People only look mean here because people are mean to them. It's a cycle, you see, that can only be stopped if we accept them," Lucas said, removing his hand from Ryan and getting back into his rhythmic pace. They were heading to a specific building Lucas had triangulated as the most likely base of operations for a string of seemingly senseless crimes in the area, all perpetrated by apparently unrelated individuals but in the same sort of style. They'd show up, show the ones reasonable what they could do, and then peacefully haul them off to jail. Or at least, that was how Lucas imagined it would go down.

"Now would you look at that. What could be more stereotypical than a warehouse? A volcano lair? I swear, no creativity." Lucas said with a laugh, whimsically heading towards the entrance without a care in the world.

________________________


"Yeah, yeah, isn't it great?! They just got off the plane two weeks ago. This is so exciting! Also pretty sure the little Lucius figured out where I am already. Smart kid," a young man, around drinking age, said into a phone. This elicited screaming from the other end of the line. The young man just smiled and held the phone away from his ear as his partner got it all out of his system.

"Oh jeez, give me a break. They'll be fun to play with, OK? I promise I won't fuck up your plans or whatever. I've been dying of boredom since Solus decided to stop returning my messages. Just sit tight while I let off some steam," the young man said into the phone. Again, this sparked rage from the other end, but it was interrupted by the abrupt hanging up of the phone. He didn't have time to debate, as fun as that could be. It seemed his timetable just got pushed forward a bit. The young man smiled as he saw the Masters-Alba boys appear on his security feed.

"Showtime."

LA was a cocktail if mixed info that Ryan gathered from his various siblings. Aaron and Robert said it was a pretty shitty place with an annoying hero that tended to punch his brothers and sisters in the face. Going without saying, he didn’t like being ht in the face so he would have avoided any female hero who raised her fist at him. The fact that it was rife with crime and vigilantes doing what they wanted was something that also caught his intrigue. Going along with Lucas was a bonus really because he always felt lost without his sibling. A fact he was sure Alpha would have told him was definitely unhealthy.

Ryan sipped on an overly expensive coffee drink as the two of them walking through on of the crumbier looking parts of town. Often the older portions of their family told him not to go to these sections of a city but then again, they weren’t the kindest towards humans to begin with. Something about them being inherently better than them in every way. What the internet told him, humans didn’t have much going on with them anyway. It just made sense they were better right?

Harsh questioning eyes looked them over and Ryan hovered as close as he could to Lucas, internally threatening retaliation to anyone that might think attacking them was smart. ”Maybe but they better not try anything funny,” Ryan grumbled, slurping audibly on his drink and scanning the streets. How could people let their buildings get this bad looking? Someone had to live in them or work out of them right? It just didn’t make sense to let them go down like this. Times like this he wondered if Alpha were right about the people around them. Even still, the steady hand of his brother was enough to push these darkening thoughts away.

Chewing on his lip and now sizing up the abandoned warehouse they were standing before. Rusted metal and the feeling of imminent collapse being the only impression he got from it. ”Wouldn’t a cliché be perfect. No one expects it anymore with so many people trying to be original,” Ryan added, hands buried in his pockets and allowing his mind to run over all the things that could go wrong.

Was there anything a normal human could do that would threaten them? Not many things came to mind and what did was the product of someone inhuman. ”a volcano lair would be pretty cool though,” He added, a small pout working into his tone as the two entered through the door without a care in the world or so it seemed. His mind was already working up multiple ways he could react in case danger showed up.

-----------------------------------------------
”Are you  stupid? Anything associated with Lucius Alba is not something you want to go around messing with,” He yelled into the phone, angered tones filling the dimly lit hotel room. ”his sons are probably as big of freaks of nature of he is and I don’t want Rise kicking down our door!” His teeth ground together and he glared into the air as if that would somehow injure the person on the other end.

A few deep breaths promised him relaxing until the other man spoke again and woke a new rage. ”I don’t care if your boytoy isn’t playing with you anymore. I don’t need your scatterbrained…he hung up on me,” He looked younger than the other male, just on the cusp of accepted adulthood with two mismatched eyes. Swiping away the loose strands of hair from his forehead, the male dialed a new number.

Seconds passed.

”I need a few guys. We might have us a problem here,”

The boys would realize that this was what it looked like—an abandoned warehouse. There seemed to be nothing abnormal about it's interior. Lucas walked through the paths created by the rickety metal shelves that reached all the way up the twenty foot ceilings. Everything on them was old and rusty. Tools, papers, old cleaning products. There wasn't a valuable thing in sight, just trash. There wasn't a criminal headquarters either, just garbage. Lucas sighed. It seemed he was wrong about this place.

His calculations were perfect, though. Sven even looked them over. The density of the crimes in this area combined with the speed they were carried out and many other considerations created an algorithm that should have been foolproof. This should have been the lair, but it looked like nobody had been in there for years.

After about five minutes, Lucas was about to call it quits. However, a voice rang out into the room, apparently coming from a loud speaker on the ceiling. The voice was youthful and slightly amused. It was shocking to be sure, but Lucas was more just satisfied that he was correct.

"As much as I would love to see you smartasses leave with defeated little looks on your faces cuz you couldn't find our secret entrance, I've been waiting a bit too long for you just to see you go. Come on in. Tickets are on sale. Formerly $19.99, attendance costs only your unbearable pain and misery!" the villainous young man said, a laugh in his voice even as he made terrible jokes. Lucas was intrigued, but slightly disturbed, gravitating back towards Ryan as one of the tall shelves seemed to move on rails to the side. This automated movement revealed what should have been the floor underneath the shelf, but in it's place was an old staircase.

"See, me and my friend decided to occupy this part of the old subway system. This building had been used before by criminals to get down here, but not like this! We put walls in! Floors! Rooms! It's like a little mansion down here, silk sheets and all. But just for you, I've turned it into a little gameshow. One room at a time, one puzzle, problem, or fight. Once you're done, you get me. Not usually into guys so young, but I'll make an exception for the Alba boys," the young man said with a pronounced chuckle. Lucas was cringing hard at everything he said. Was this guy for real?

"Who the heck are you anyways? And what makes you think we're just gonna play your Saw game? Seems pretty stupid to me," Lucas asked, his brow furrowed. His usual cheerful demeanor had shifted to his more serious inner self.

"I am eloquence itself! Have you not heard of me? Gosh, you'll need some education then. Come and see. You're strong, I'm sure. I'm just a damsel in comparison, in fact. Even got a knight on the way to prove it," the embodiment of ADD said. Lucas gritted his teeth in irritation. He wanted to go down there just so he could seal this guy's mouth closed.

"OH MY GOD WILL YOU SHUT UP! YOU AREN'T FUNNY!" Lucas yelled. The young man just laughed hysterically at the reaction he was getting.

"Eat my ass, Alba."

For all the expectations mounting within him, to see a boring warehouse managed to deflate them all instantly. Something tells me this is going to be stupid, The mental voice cut through the hive mind, a personal connection these days he only shared with Lucas. Twin telepathy modern pop culture could have called it. Even if all the shelves in this building collapsed on him, Ryan felt they wouldn’t even leave the tiniest of bruises. Which in the end only made the whole thing even more disappointing but then again that was common for humans. Slow minds and lacking capabilities.

Minutes passed with the two of them looking through the room for anything that might hint at something more. No luck. This eventually began to wear away at his patience, sucking away the rest of his coffee drink and tossing the emptied plastic cup into a corner as a grating voice began to intone over a loudspeaker. The void was manic almost in its nonsense, leaving him digging through each phrase for something that could have meant more than what was being said. All it led to was his mind working too hard and even aching with how much he was overthinking.

”This guy sure loves to hear himself talk.” Ryan mused, lips curling downwards into an aggravated frown. His last line held a manner of innuendo though he tried to ignore that as best he could, instead focusing on the screech of rusted hinges as one of the massive shelves began moving from place to reveal an aged stairwell. So there was a secret passage? Still, the fact they didn’t manage to find it without the bad guy just pointing it out made him uncomfortable.  Looked like they were dealing with someone that wanted to play a game with them. Ryan hated being treated like a game.

”I’ll just have to show you how strong we are once we meet then,” Ryan managed through his jaw in a vice grip, blue energy sparking through his eyes. His outburst wasn’t as noticeable as Lucas’, though it brewed beneath the surface like a calm before the storm. Meta or not, it felt like their time was being wasted specifically and that meant he would have to respond in kind.

How much could he laugh when they were face to face?

”I’m going to break his jaw,” He muttered upon hearing the rather crude retort to Lucas telling him he wasn’t funny, hands now gripped into white knuckled fists. Without saying anything more he appeared to decide to descend the revealed stairway, enveloping himself in a thin film of telekinetic force as if expecting something. Lucas might not have been interested in dealing with this guy but Ryan still felt he needed to do something about him. What if he actually hurt someone that wasn’t amazing like them?

The images were clear now. Cicero could see them. Moreover, he knew just what to say and do to effect them in just the way he wanted. A word or a phrase and the application of his ability could bring out whatever quality or trigger whatever psychological mechanism he pleased once he understood the subject enough. The more he learned about someone, the more he could use his ability to influence them, and the more he could predict their actions. He could interact with the mental domain as if it were physical. To him, it was as simple as reaching out and changing things around.

The blonde one. His mental image had manifested in Cicero's mind as a calm, temperate body of water, which Cicero was swimming deep within. Everywhere he looked, there seemed no end to the vast blue expanse. Cicero cocked an eyebrow, swimming downward. Nobody had this little in their head. There must have been something at the bottom.

The little Lucius. His mental image was more immediately striking. A vast greenery, filled with flowers and trees and rivers as far as the eye could see. Quite beautiful, Cicero mused. What was so interesting about these minds was the scale. Normally someone's mental image was a room, or even just a trinket, such as a watch or necklace. These two had entire realms, apparently. There was simply no telling how far they went on just yet, but Cicero was eager to explore.

_____________________________


The boys would find that at the end of the stairs was a room. Cicero was not lying when he said the subway had been renovated. It showed no resemblance to a subway system, with hardwood floors and walls of probably about a hundred works of art all crammed together tightly. There was even a couch and TV. The current room was about thirty by twenty, and there was a door at the opposite end from the boys, apparently leading to the next room in this tunnel turned mansion. Lucas approached the door, but it was locked. His hand charged with energy a moment, but before he could strike, the TV turned on.

On it was a silver haired young man with mischievous honey brown eyes and a smile plastered on his face. He was dressed in a burgundy and black silk button up and vest, the top bottoms undone. He held a golden 45 in his hand, and behind him were perhaps a dozen people along a red wall, tied by their hands to the ceiling and blindfolded. Cicero laughed at the shock on Lucas' face.

"Not what you imagined you'd be dealing with today, huh boys? Well, I can't have you breaking the rules, so I needed some leverage. This place is just one big long strip of rooms, one after the other, all about the same size. If you break down the walls or the doors or otherwise cheat, I blow someone's brains out. So, like an escape room, you're gonna do the tasks, and then I let you into the next room. Sound fair?" Cicero said. Lucas looked at the TV in disgust, which only seemed to amuse Cicero further.

"Before I buzz you into the next room, I want you both to pick a piece of art that you relate to the most. Now remember, do not try to catch me out. I'll know and consider it cheating. That's it. Simple enough, right? .......Oh, and by the way, just to let you know I'm serious," Cicero said, turning around and pointing his gun at one of the hostages. He was a man in about his forties, plain clothing and balding. He had no idea what was about to happen.

"No, Cicero, please, do-!" Lucas yelled, but he was too late. Cicero shot the man in the head, killing him instantly and causing the rest of the hostages to writhe around futilely in panic.

"You monster!" Lucas said, his eyes turning bright red. Cicero laughed, playing with his tongue nonchalantly.

"So you do have a little bit of Lucius in you..... Interesting," Cicero said. The TV then turned off, the comment only enraging Lucas even more.

Ryan descended the stairway, feeling this was perhaps not the best idea but doing so anyway. The stairs creaked with each step, giving the feel of an old place as they went into the supposedly renovated subway beneath. Upon reaching the bottom it was apparent that there were renovations going on, though for what end he could not tell. How much money did this guy have kicking around to be able to do this? Money was what allowed someone to do this kind of thing, right?

The room they walked into was cramped, akin to one of those office breakrooms he saw on tv. This only brought about a manner of caginess within Ryan, despite knowing little could personally threaten him. Well, he had to believe there was little this man could do to personally threaten him but that might not extend to Lucas. His brother looked ready to bash a door down when a tv flickered on. A man with strange silver hair with 12 people arrayed before them, tied up in the way a villain likely would do with their hostages.

He laid out what was planned with this scenario, the people being there just to make sure they didn’t “cheat” whatever that meant. He didn’t really expect kidnappers and murders to care much for how fair things were done. That was when he made good on his threat without any cheating being done.

Something lanced through him. A sort of cold, like ice in his veins that sparked blue within his eyes. Don’t do it. Don’t let himself snap and destroy this entire plan the bastard had, regardless of whether people died or not. ”A monster already lying, isn’t that interesting,” His jaw was hard set, though the ice flowing through him kept any explosive reactions from coming forth. He had to be strong for Lucas, make sure no one else would die. Not that he expected any fair play.

The tv being turned off just managed to stoke that fury even more, though all he did was bunch his fists up until the knuckles went white and began looking over the various paintings hanging on the wall. Looking at them would have been a lie however. He looked beyond them, as nothing more than colorful squares and rectangles on the wall. They were just all part of the sick joke of a psychopath and he knew this man would just kill those people whenever it suited him.

Images of the harm he would inflict on him flashed through his mind, much akin to when he first hurt someone. Bent and broken bones splintered through flesh, blood and so many other things. ”We can’t let him hurt any other people, we should get through these tests of his as quickly as possible,” That was all he said, tone clipped but in control enough as he tried to focus on the paintings and failed mostly. Even he couldn’t deny his anger, towards the man or the senseless killing he had performed for no reason.