Disclaimer: I don't own anything but Gent. There, short and sweet.

Hi. I'm Gent. That stands for Generation, not gentleman. Yeah, I know. I love to invent and, as it turns out, there's a good reason for that. But I'm getting ahead of myself there. Let me start from the beginning…

I was with my mom, and she was looking awfully chesty today. Chesty is a word I made up to describe how my mom looks like, which is like she always wants to get something off her chest. I've learned to deal with it.

So, my mom's looking really chesty today, and I looked over at the book sitting on the passenger seat of the car. How to Learn Aincient Greek: for Dummies. We were driving to Long Island which, considering I live in Philadelphia, is a pretty long drive. I'm an only child, so at least I didn't have to worry about obnoxious poking, whining, bathroom breaks, etcetera, and etcetera, just a long quiet drive to Long Island for unknown reasons.

"Mom, why are driving to Long Island?" I asked for what probably was the tenth time in the past five minutes.

"I told you, Gent, I'm taking you to a place where you do stuff." Even though it was cool my mom said modern things and wasn't stuck in some other era of cool, it still drove me crazy how she answered me so generally to dodge the question, like she does all the time about dad.

Dad was a guy who did good, liked things, and built cool stuff, according to my mom. He "died" when I was a little Swiss. (The Swiss Army Knife is my favorite tool. So many little tools in one! I get giddy just thinking about it.) Ever since then I've been living with my mom, training my self in the arts of Kwon-Make-something-cool-and-have-it-not-blow-up-in-my-face-Jitsu.

So, with nothing to do, no books to read, and nothing to tinker with (which is extremely rare), I lie down and fell asleep.

Want to know how I slept?

I woke up to my mom's dying screams, bathed in fire.