A/N: Hello, hello, hello, my lovely readers! :D Welcome to my new fanfic! As some of you may have heard already, this is a companion fic to The Changing Destinies Series, so your three favorite girls will be returning for another crazy adventure. ;) Before we get started, though, there are a couple things I want to point out to you guys. These things should be kept in mind throughout the entire story to help you maybe understand everything a bit better.

~This is NOT to be treated as a sequel/prequel/whatever the frick else-quel to Changing Destinies. As in, pretend that whole series never happened. Our trio has no memory of it happening, so it won't be anything like that (though I'll probably reference it a couple times here and there for giggles).

~This story will be split into two fanfics, Part 1 and Part 2.

~It's my intention to make this story a LOT less romance-centered than Changing Destinies. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very proud of that fic, but I'd like to take this one in a different direction and focus on strengthening other areas. There will be some, but not a ton of romance in here.

~And, as always, I guarantee you that this story will be another crazy, plot-twisting, wild, totally unpredictable adventure that (hopefully) you'll fall in love with. :3

~*As a final word: This fanfiction is dedicated to the wonderfully amazing Kathryn, who I'm lucky enough to call my best friend. Happy birthday, bbz. ;)*~

Chaos Unleashed: Part 1

...Oh! Well, hello there! Have you come to hear the story as well? Ahh, of course you have. All the visitors I have come for the very same reason, as you might've guessed. Not that I could blame them...it is most certainly a tale worth telling. You may take your coat and hat off and leave them by the door, if you'd like, and take a seat! It will be awhile before we're finished here.

So...how much do you want to know? Or, I suppose a better question is...how much are you prepared to hear? Because believe me, young one, there are far too many times in this world where people ask for the truth, the whole of it, even when it is kept hidden from them for good reason. And then when they can't get it, they go hunting and searching and digging around to get as much truth as they can...but when they find out the entirety of it, they regret ever sticking their noses into anything at all. They know things that they should never have known, and it spoils some (or all) of the innocence and naivete they once had.

Is that something you are willing to risk?

If the answer is no, then perhaps you should keep your coat and hat on and be on your merry way. I will not judge you, if that is your choice. You may return any time you like, and I will be here to tell you the truth. All of it.

...But I see that yours have not moved from where they've been hung, now have they? Is that your choice, then? To hear the tale in its full, honest glory? Then I will keep you waiting no longer. Ahem!

"Our story begins in a way one would not expect at all. In fact, the adventure itself was started by complete accident..."

Chapter One

Kaia's POV

"OH MY GOD, NO! YOU BASTARD! YOU JUST TEAM KILLED ME!" I furiously brushed my bangs out of my eyes and mashed the hard plastic button furiously. "Respawn! For the love of God, just GET UP!" I screamed, feeling moisture gathering on my palms from how intensely I'd been focused.

"Jesus, Kaia!" I heard another voice shout at me from the kitchen. "Calm down! It's only another game of Halo!"

"It's not 'only another game of Halo,' Kathryn!" I shot back, still incredibly pissed that I'd gotten the idiot players lumped onto my team again. "I've gotta get revenge on this prick! He needs to be put in his place!" Thankfully, I was brought back at full health onto the battlefield a second later, and wasted no time in making a beeline for the flag that was being held by the other team. "Come on...No! Holy mother of Hayley, how the hell do they keep dodging that?" I set my jaw and then switched to a more strategic way to recapture the flag in order to get the points back that our team needed. It was working for awhile...until I got distracted and some idiot hit me with a grenade...again. "GOD DAMN!"

"What now?" Kathryn's voice was right above me, so I figured she was watching the gameplay over my shoulder. "Oh, why'd you die? You had the perfect chance to get the flag back!"

"I know!" I groaned, exasperated. As I waited for the short, yet agonizingly long handful of seconds it would take for me to respawn once more, I tipped my head back to see Kathryn shooting me a look. "What?"

"Gimme the controller," she said, "and let me take over for a second."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. It's not like I've never played before. And besides, you still gotta put the trash out anyway."

"Ugh. Fine." I shoved the smooth controller into Kathryn's pale hands as she jumped over the back of the couch and plopped down onto it, then got up and went through the next-door dining room which connected to the kitchen. I quickly managed to haul the filled garbage bag by the back door out of its trash can and around the side of our shared townhouse, setting it out front for the garbagemen to pick up the next morning. Before heading back inside, I glanced up and down the street, frowning when I saw no cars approaching. Where is she? She's never usually this late. Not thinking much else of it, I turned and ran back up the front sidewalk, onto the porch, and through the front door, my bare feet softly padding against the ground as I went.

"YES!" I stepped into the game room to find Kathryn throwing her head back and throwing both fists in the air repeatedly.

I walked up behind her, looked at the TV screen, and then flipped an invisible table when I saw that our team had won, thanks to her. "How the hell did you do that?"

She laughed, winking one of her dark brown eyes at me. "I was just born with the skills."

"But I play Halo more than you ever have!"

"Sucks to suck."

We both laughed at that, and though I was sorely tempted to punch her at the insult, I let it slide. "Hey, when's dinner gonna be done?"

"It is done," she said. "It's sitting on the stove to keep it warm until Erin gets home."

"I thought she would've wanted to get home early today. Isn't she supposed to finally hear back from that one college she wanted to go to really badly?"

Kathryn nodded and shut off the console, along with the TV. "Asbury, right? Yeah, a letter did come from there addressed to her this afternoon." She left the room and went back into the kitchen, and I proceeded to ungracefully throw my body across the plush couch again and whip out my iPod. Between the three of us girls each having steady jobs and enough extra money in all our bank accounts, we'd managed to rent out both sides of a fairly big townhouse, which gave us almost the same amount of space to live in that you'd get out of any regular two-story house. On the side that Kathryn and I shared, we had our kitchen, a small dining room, a living room that we'd devoted entirely to the storage of all our video games and other nerdy merchandise (the game room), a very small foyer, and a small bathroom. Erin's side was symmetrical to ours, only the living room in her half was actually a normal living room, and the kitchen and dining area over there was rarely (if ever) used. Upstairs, Kathryn and I had both of our bedrooms, a small storage closet, a slightly larger bathroom with a shower, and the spare guest room that I'd converted into my own personal music room. On Erin's upper half, she had her room, a guest room that hadn't been renovated, a bathroom with a shower, the same storage closet, and the second small bedroom that she'd transformed into an art studio.

We'd managed to snag the place right before the three of us graduated high school last year, and since I'd fulfilled my high school dream of becoming the lead singer of a rock band and had no desire to go to college yet, I'd been living here happily with my two best friends ever since. Kathryn still had no clue what she even wanted to do for a career yet, so she was also unschooled. Erin was the only one of us who'd been trying to get into a good college from the beginning, but for whatever reason, it wasn't happening. It was weird, too. Erin had always been a straight-A student in school and was a good kid, so none of us could really figure out why she hadn't gotten accepted into any colleges. Or at least, Kat and I were clueless. If Erin knew anything, she hadn't told us.

But in any event, this is how our lives were. I was employed at Spencer's in our local mall, as well as the money I got from my band's gigs. Erin wasn't too far away from me, as she worked at the Gamestop in the same mall. She was also an artist as a side job, and was often doing commissions for various people. Kathryn worked at a nice little family owned restaurant in another part of town, but she also babysat for some extra money, too. We'd all managed to live on our own here just fine for about a year now, so money wasn't really a worry of ours.

Suddenly, my phone beeped loudly from where it was shoved in my pocket, and I pulled it out to find a text from Trent, the bassist of my band. I was just about to read it when the front door banged open, and I lifted my eyes from the glowing screen to see Erin walk into the game room, clad in her black Gamestop uniform shirt and dark blue skinny jeans. She kicked off her low-top black Converse and nodded at me. "Hey."

"Hey," I replied, my deep brown eyes sliding back to my phone. "You're home late."

"Yeah, sorry about that," she said. I could hear her come over and plop down on her favorite purple beanbag chair in the Nintendo-themed corner of the room. "Jared had to stop at the general store and grab something." Jared was a friend of Erin's that worked with her at Gamestop and took her to and from work when Kathryn and I weren't able to. Erin had never felt the desire to get her driver's license, but obviously she could still get around perfectly fine.

"Ahh." I frowned a bit as I stared at Trent's text. "Hey, do you think the band could come over tomorrow afternoon for a meeting? Apparently Trent wants to discuss some stuff."

"I don't care." I looked up at Erin as she shrugged.

Just then, Kathryn stuck her head in the doorway. "Were you guys planning on eating sometime this year? This spaghetti's not gonna be warm forever."

At the sound of food, Erin and I both immediately got up and went to claim our rewards. Kathryn had already gotten hers and was sitting at the table, and Erin and I waited until she'd said grace before moving to fill our plates.

"So," Erin said from behind me, "any plans for tonight?"

"Not really." I plopped some noodles onto the paper plate. "I figured we'd all just hang out. I don't have anything to do."

"Same here," Kathryn called back to us. "Maybe we could watch a movie?"

"Maybe," Erin said nonchalantly. The two of us quickly got our dinner and sat with Kathryn, silence filling the room for a few minutes as we ate.

Kathryn was the one who broke it when we were about halfway finished. "Oh! Erin, your letter from Asbury came in the mail today."

Erin's green eyes lit up with interest. "Asbury? It came today?" Kathryn nodded as she reached behind her to grab the envelope off of the counter, and Erin shoveled another large bite of pasta into her mouth before ripping it open and scanning the paper quickly. We all waited in silence, holding our breath in anticipation. Erin read through the letter, frowned a bit halfway through, then groaned in exasperation and threw it down onto the table. "I give up."

Kathryn and I shared similar expressions. "You didn't get in?" I asked.

"No," she said dejectedly. "And I don't understand why! It can't be this hard to get into college. Seriously!" She propped her head up with her fist and absentmindedly twirled her noodles with her fork.

"Hey, don't worry about it," Kathryn said in an effort to comfort her. "You'll find the right school eventually."

"That's what we said a year ago," Erin pointed out.

Now I spoke up. "Erin, it's not a big deal. Just keep doing what you've been doing so far and keep applying. If colleges aren't smart enough to accept you, then that's their loss."

Erin sighed and looked at me briefly, as if she was about to say something more, but she remained silent. Her eyes dropped to the letter laying on the table, then flicked to her plate, then to the letter again before she got up from the table and grabbed her unfinished spaghetti, taking the letter and crumpling it up a bit before dropping it in her saucy leftovers. "It is a big deal to me, though. You guys know that."

I glanced at Kathryn as Erin walked over and dumped it all into the trash. Even after a year, her reaction was the same. Slightly pissed and not wanting to talk about it any more. Without another word, she left the kitchen, and a few seconds later we heard the front door open and shut as she went over to her side of the house.

Now Kathryn exhaled as she finished the last of her meal. "You'd think that by now she'd know not to get her hopes up."

I sent a mild glare her way. "It's not her fault that she can't get accepted anywhere."

"But she's applied to so many by now!"

My gaze softened. "...I know," I said quietly. I looked at her empty chair as I continued to pick at my own food. "Hopefully we can figure out what's going on soon enough."

A/N: Well, that's the end of the first chapter! ^^ I actually wasn't planning on ending things off here, but...I need to sleep. XD Sorry if this one bores you, guys. D: This first chapter was just a lot of introductions and explaining things, I know. But I want you guys to have a good idea of where the girls are at in this story and how they live together and all that. Speaking of which...if any of you are confused about that part, let me know and I can try and explain it a bit better. :) Sorry if I sucked at doing it in this chapter. XD Hope ya like it anyway! If I don't have any homework, I should be able to upload the next chapter tomorrow night, so...until then? *shrugs*

Don't forget to review!

~Erin