AUTHOR'S NOTE:

GO CHECK OUT THE CO-AUTHOR WHO I COULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT: u/2287410/Cat-Archives

THANK YOU, AND ENJOY!

"Hey, bitchbaby," Courtney said as she spotted Brian and Cat walking over to her table. "And mom." She added, waving at the two. The older girl, wearing her usual green hoodie, waved back with a smile, her sketchbook clutched tightly in her other hand.

"Don't call me that…" Brian mumbled as he dropped off his backpack under the ivory table, and looked up at his 'sister.' "Ready to get some food?"

The redhead nodded vigorously, taking her upper class man's arm and leaving Brian behind, like she usually did. The boy sighed, and trudged after the other two, catching up within a matter of seconds.

"So, I ate french fries with a fork yesterday." He said, sparking up a conversation.

Cat looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Why? It's called finger food for a reason…"

The teenager shrugged. "I dunno. It was served to me with a fork sticking out of it, so I just did as it suggested. Duh." Brian looked around, seeing if anyone else was in the line before them as they reached their destination.

As usual, the lunch line was jam-packed with kids. All three of the students sighed, wondering how long it would actually take them to get their food this time…The youngest male leaned up against a huge metal pole that stretched to the ceiling. It was most likely there for architectural purposes. "This is gonna take forever" He whined, trying to move around upperclassmen's heads, looking at the selection of food that they had today. Which, unfortunately, was nothing appetizing.

Cat looked at Brian. "You always stand in the same spot…" she mumbled…

"And…?" He inquired.

Time for character descriptions because every story needs that. In this group of friends was the youngest, Brian. Although the youngest by age, he was the tallest of the three, and absolutely loved being sarcastic. He wore long pants whenever he could, and tried to make his clothes look remotely nice, which was a hard thing to do at 6:20 in the morning. Anyways, he loved to eat and draw. He rivals Cat in her artwork, and tries his best whenever he can to piss her off about it, which he doesn't really get the chance to do. Whenever bored, annoyed, reading, drawing, or otherwise, he tends to curl strands of his dark, curly hair around his fingers, a habit he developed long ago. He prefers not to talk to people he doesn't know, as being antisocial is his strong suit. The second oldest was Courtney, she was the energetic otaku friend. She had short red hair and mainly wore somewhat fancy/mismatched clothes like dresses and skirts. She always talked about anime and what she was watching, or what she recommended. She also wore a pair of multicolored glasses over a ton of makeup, which she wasn't seen without. At all. Ever.

The oldest was Catherine, or Cat as everyone called her. She had long brown/blonde hair and wore ONLY her green hoodie and a pair of jeans or slacks. People rarely ever saw her without the hoodie or her black sketch book which always accompanied her. She drew in it all the time rather than her school work and she loved showing off her skills to her friends and "rival" Brian. She doesn't talk to most people, but when she gets excited about something she typically doesn't shut up about it. She almost always had headphones in, too, whether music played or not, so its hard to tell if she's actually listening to you or ignoring you.

Artwork and Anime was practically the glue that held this whole group together. There were two more amongst them but didn't seem to be around right now, Kasi: the motherly short senior friend, and Kadin: the Skater kid who doesn't take shit from anyone. They were either with someone else, or taking some test because most of the teachers were assholes…

"What're you guys gonna get? None of this stuff looks actually good today." Brian asked them.

Courtney shrugged. "I'm thinking of jumping to another line. I see some chicken and rice over there."

"I'm just getting Pizza." Cat hummed, playing with the buttons hanging off of her Headphone cord. "I really dont care, I'm not that hungry."

"Oh, okay. I'll probably give my food to Al-" He caught himself, "Garrett. If he's here today."

Cats body visibly jerked at the mention of Garret, and Courtney glanced to Brian, sympathy written on her face. The younger boy used to be in a relationship with his ex-best friend, named Alan, but due to the latter being...immature about the whole thing, Brian ended it. There are no regrets, although he'd think about him occasionally. And regret that, of course, but you get the idea.

"Alan is an ass" Courtney said simply and without hesitation. The boy chuckled, and nodded in agreement. The redhead glanced over to her other friend, and noticed that Cat had tuned them both out, her head twitching to whatever music she had playing in her ears now. Brian followed Courtney's gaze, and upon realizing that Cat was not in 'their world' at the moment, he waved a hand in front of her face, trying to catch her attention. "...Mom?"

The girl jerked backwards in surprise when she saw the sudden object waving her face. "Wha-?" She stepped back, but lost her footing in the crowded area, most likely stepping on someone's foot and fell backwards.

"Courtney, grab her!" Brian half-yelled, trying not to turn heads. Courtney did as she was told, and grabbed her, stumbling a little herself.

"You mean like this?" She said happily. The other boy sighed.

"Yeah."

Courtney's hand grabbed Cat's and she began to pull her back up, but in the midst of it Courtney's eyes widened and she yanked her hand back, promptly dropping Cat to the floor. "Hot, hot!" She yelped, shaking her hand and blowing on it. When she looked down, the skin on her palm was red from too much contact to a heated surface. It wasn't burned as much as it was irritated. Cat lay sprawled out on her back, looking at the hand Courtney had originally grabbed, her eyebrows were knit together in confusion over her green eyes.

"...Courtney, I didn't say to drop her." Brian drawled sarcastically, as he looked down at Cat. "You might want to get up; you don't know how much shit you're lying in there."

Courtney gave him an 'I hate you' look as Cat slowly stood up, still looking at her hand. "Well I'm sorry, I did grab her and I was gonna pull her up. but…." She trailed off before speaking again. "Her skin was too hot… I couldn't hold on, I thought I was going to burn myself…."

Brian blinked, and tilted his head a little in confusion. "What are you talking about?" He looked to Cat, then back at Courtney. "She doesn't look like she's gonna catch fire or something."

Cat touched her own hand and shrugged. "It's not hot anymore… If it was at all. I didn't feel anything."

Courtney pouted and showed them her red and irritated hand. "And I'm sure this just happened out of no where?" The other boy blinked, and stared at her hand.

"Well, erm, yes." He concluded. "Her body temperature wouldn't be that hot, that's just crazy."

"I dont think its possible for the human body to reach a hot enough temperature to burn someone. I'd be dead." Cat concluded. Courtney huffed and turned around to get her lunch, seeing as it was her turn to order. She knew what happened, she felt it! The moment her hand grabbed Cat's, she felt an intense heat and had to let go. As the lunch man was getting her food Courtney oh-so-stealthy "bumped" into Cat. Their hands brushing together, and the brunette was right, her body temperature was normal now. Like it didn't even happen. Courtney huffed again and grabbed her food before going and checking out. The other two did the same, and as Brian grabbed his carton of chocolate milk, his fingers hissed, rising with steam, and he threw his hand backwards and stared at it, shocked. He looked to Cat. "Did you just see that!?"

The girl looked back at him and blinked, she pulled a headphone out and asked. "What?"

"Look!" He pointed his fingers at her as the remains of the evaporating dew from the carton of milk sizzled off. "It's steam, for God's sake! My fingers aren't supposed to do that!"

Cat looked closer at his fingers, she saw the last of it leave his digits, then stood up straight. "That's weird…" Was all she said before the lunch lady impatiently told her to put her number in and pay for the food. The other boy glared at her for a second before looking back at his hand, and hesitantly grabbing the chocolate milk again. Nothing happened. He shook his head, and placed the milk on his plastic tray before moving forward.

Courtney was already at the table eating when the other two friends got out of the lunch room, they sat down across from her and she looked up at them. "What took you so long?"

"I scorched my milk." Brian said flatly before picking at his food, and remembered that he didn't even want it in the first place. He looked around, searching for Garrett's face. The older, brown-haired boy wasn't in sight, but his backpack sat on the floor next to their table, so he would obviously be back eventually. Cat had put her headphone back in and was tuning the world out again. Courtney stared at Brian in disbelief.

"You did what?" She asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah, I burned my milk carton with my fingers." Brian repeated. He said this as though he did it every day. He sighed, and sat back down, waiting for the other boy to return. Garrett was in the same grade as Cat, in fact, the two of them were childhood friends. He always followed her around whenever he could, even when she didn't notice him. This earned him the nickname 'Creeper' from everyone. He didn't seem to object to it. The dude was a pretty laid-back guy; he was smart and voiced his opinion, but usually stayed quiet whenever one else talked. He had short, light brown hair and blue eyes. And everyone had noticed the obvious crush he had on his childhood friend, everyone but the crush herself.

Brian rested his chin on the rough surface of the table, and stared at a few crows as they passed.

"Today feels really boring." He mumbled, staring at the sky. "We did, like, nothing in any of my classes."

"Same here." Courtney said around a mouthful of food, she swallowed then continued to talk. "But it is the end of the year, so what do you expect?"

"Well, I mean, nobody actually talked or anything. It's like something big is gonna happen or something." He shrugged, and locked eyes with a cloud as it rolled on by. "But, how can something big just happen? It feels so...Normal."

"You're just being crazy." Courtney said opening her milk. She looked over to Cat, who had laid her head down on the table, half of her food eaten, then back to Brian. "You are right though. Today is so boring. I might take a nap too in my next class."

"Yeah, I probably need some sleep, too…" He sighed as his eyes fell to the ground. A blackbird was pecking at a crumb at the end of the eating area. A cool breeze blew by, and the bird looked up quickly, before going back to its lunch. Everyone was quiet for a while, eating or napping. A few moments into it though, a voice popped up. "Hey guys, what's up?" Courtney popped her head up and smiled widely. "Hey, Gare-bear!"

Garrett sat down next to her with a smile. "Miss me? You guys look bored."

Brian looked up at Garrett, and smiled a little. "Oh, hey. Take my food." He slided his tray over to the other boy. Garrett didn't look surprised and he took it, the boy could eat a ton. He probably already had his own lunch. Then again, the school lunch always sucked. He took it and started eating. Brian's gaze shifted back to the bird, who was forced to fly away with the rest of its food to finish for a later time, as a few crows had intruded on his eating session. The boy sighed.

"Why is this so boring!?" He shouted to the concrete.

"When is school not boring?" Garret asked, then his eyes looked to Cat, who still had her head down and had yet to touch her food again. "Is she okay?"

Brian looked to Cat, and poked her.

"I have no idea. My stomach hurts." He complained. When Cat still made no effort at replying, Brian poked her again. "...Mom?"

Courtney reached over and shoved her a little. Cat still didn't move. "Kitty..?" The redhead asked worriedly, she shoved again slightly harder this time. Cat's body fell off the seat and tumbled sideways to the ground. Brian's eyes widened, and he jumped off his seat, his mind racing. First, Cat scorches Courtney's hand. THEN, I end up almost setting my milk on fire. And now Cat's unconscious?! What's going on here?! The boy bent down over Cat's limp body, and slapped her face lightly. "Cat?!"

Garret and Courtney quickly joined, kids from other tables were glancing over as well, wondering if something was wrong and if there was, if it was worth watching. Courtney touched Cat's forehead and pulled away just like in the lunchroom. "She's hot again!"

The Brunette's face was twisted, like she was having some bad dream, her face was flushed and she looked like she had a fever. Any attempts to wake her up, though, proved useless. No matter what they did, she wouldn't wake. All of a sudden, a jolt of pain flew through Brian's body, the end result manifesting in his gut. "O-ouch!" He yelped, clutching his stomach with his arms.

Today sucked.

"Brian?" Courtney reached her hand over to him worriedly. "What's wrong? Are you okay?!"

Garret remained concentrating on Cat, he wanted to touch her, wake her, but nothing was working...her skin was too hot to do anything… was she sick?

"I-I'm fine." The other boy mumbled, and brushed her hand away with his right arm, the end result being another burn to Courtney's hand. She reeled her arm away in pain.

"Hey!" She yelled in protest. Brian swallowed a small lump in his throat, and looked at his arm. It looked fine...Wait, no it didn't. His face, his entire body began to feel hot. His vision began to grow blurry as his body tried to resist the pain. He looked down at his hands at the intervals when his eyesight would focus. They were beginning to glow with heat. He looked up at Courtney, fear etched into his face.

Courtney was staring at him in horror. She could see his face glow, the veins, bones, and muscle beginning to become visible through the lit-up skin. "Brian… What-"

"Cat!" Garrett's voice cried out and many students yelled suddenly, the two teens heads turned, Brian's more slowly, to see that Cat's jacket had set fire. Along with her pants. Garret was ripping his own jacket off and starting to beat at the flames with it, but they wouldn't go out. Instead they spread even more, to her feet, her hands, her face. Her body was turning to ash before their very eyes. Brian slowly looked back down at his hands again. His eyes ached, and his body had indeed caught fire as well. He sighed weakly, smoke billowing out of his mouth like a dragon, before he fell to the earth beside his friend, semi-unconscious. A few crows flew away in the distance, squawking to each other in irritation.

Voices echoed and blurred together, people shouting for 911 or a teacher. Cat and Brian's names were being screamed, it was all abruptly cut off when everything just went black.

"Cat."

"Cat…?"

"Cat!" Brian screamed, seeing as the girl had begun to gain her consciousness. "Cat, we're not dead!" The boy exclaimed in semi-happiness.

The brunette's body jerked and her eyes flew open. "Hot!" she said loudly then quickly shut her mouth in surprise. Was her voice… lighter? Higher pitched? Her eyes looked around and spotted a small, dark brown-haired boy tied up across from her. Seeing him tied up, she tried moving her hands, which were also tied up, along with her feet.

"...What?" He gave her a confused look. Hot? Was that supposed to mean something? He looked around quickly, then back to her. "Do you recognize this place at all? I can't see very well…"

Cat looked back to the boy. She stared at him silently for a while, he looked uncomfortable when she finally spoke. "Who are you?"

The other's expression blanked. He was not expecting that question. "...Who am I? I'm Brian! Come on, from school! Don't say that you don't remember me! We caught fire, remember!?"

"BRIAN?!" Cat's jaw dropped. "THAT'S YOU!? You're so…so...small...and young… what the hell happened…"

The other boy blinked, and looked down. She was right. His age must've reversed; he didn't remember his legs being so hairless. He looked back up at Cat. "What the hell are we supposed to do!?" He blinked. His voice had risen to its annoying tone from when he was younger. Something was wrong here.

Cat was busy looking over her own body, so small and short. Her now short hair was fully blonde, like it used to be when she was little. "I dunno… but I hope it's a dream…"

The other boy sighed, and tried to move his arms. No use. Whoever tied them up knew what they were doing.

Suddenly, the door on the other side of the "room" opened, letting light in to show the two children that they were in a warehouse, laying against boxes of who-knows-what. A man walked in and after their eyes adjusted to the sudden light both of them could see he wore and old fashion suit, he had scruffy brown hair and a goatee that made his smirk look sinister. He walked in, messing with his white gloves and looked down at the two children.

"Well, two brats in one haul, today's special." he said with a deep husky voice, maybe he smoked? Brian gritted his teeth as the man spoke, his voice sent chills down his back.

"What the hell do you want with us!?" He snarled to the newcomer.

The man instantly walked over in a few strides of his long legs, and kicked Brian across the face. Cat cried out in shock. "Brian!"

"Speak with respect or don't speak at all." the man said. There was no malice in his voice, no anger. Mostly giddiness. Like he was excited for this. The boy slowly brought his head back to face the other man, blood dripping from his nose and down his chin. He stared up at him in anger, but did as he was told and shut up.

"Good boy." the man said, then pat Brian on the head like he was some kind of pet. He stood up straight and looked from him to Cat, the smirk still there. "You two might be promising." He reached behind Brian and grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar, both he and Cat now wore plain white clothes, long pants, and a normal shirt. Once the man threw Brian over his shoulder, he walked the short distance across the room to Cat and grabbed her under his arm. "Let's go, Kiddies~"

"Nngh-" Brian grunted against the man's shoulder, which was digging into his stomach. He refused to speak to this man, and instead sat perfectly still. He tightened whatever abdominal muscles he had, so that this wasn't as painful as it already was.

"Uh..." Cat started to speak up as he carried them outside. The warehouse was in the middle of a forest and looked abandoned in all honesty. The man was carrying them towards a truck where a few other men waited. These people were burly though. The heavy lifters. "What, exactly, are you going to do with us..? Sir?"

She made sure to add the sir and ask as politely as she could manage. She didn't want the man to "accidentally" drop her on her head.

"We're going to take you, and train you. Then use you. That's all. No mercy and no niceties."

"What!?" Brian yelled over the man's shoulder. "We have lives, you know! We can't just run off like we never had a life before now!" His eyes shifted to the back of the male who was holding them captive. He bounced Brian slightly on his shoulder, driving it into his stomach.

"Well, now you belong to Mirror, any life you had before is gone now."

"Like hell it is!" The boy's eyes lit with rage, and he proceeded to kick the man in the chest. Although it wouldn't do much with the amount of muscle in his legs, he knew it would at least stun him temporarily. Maybe. The man bounced him again, this time harder, then threw both of them into the back of the truck. Brian gasped for breath as his body was tossed around, winded. He looked to Cat, concerned, as they were thrown into the back of the vehicle.

"What are we going to do?!" He looked to her.

"Not much we can do…" Her voice had gotten quieter. She was obviously upset about this, but too timid and scared to do anything about it. She sat up and laid against the truck as it started up and moved. The back was closed by a big man before he jumped onto the side of it. Brian sighed as he regained the function of his lungs, and closed his eyes, leaning against the back of the truck, and thinking. The truck bounced uncomfortably up and down, Cat looked up at Brian. "Hey…. what do you think our friends are thinking right now…?"

"Probably to teach them that magic trick as soon as we got back." He looked to Cat, and smiled at her in the semi-darkness.

Cat chuckled. "Yeah, Courtney's going to be pissed. We probably scared the shit out of her and Garrett."

The other boy nodded. "Mm-hm. Most likely, they're probably trying to explain this whole thing to the police or something."

"That's a funny mental image." Cat chuckled to herself then closed her eyes. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Brian nodded in agreement. "Yep. Not anymore…" He mumbled to himself.

Cat looked back at him. "Where do you think we are?" the truck hit a pothole in the dirt road and they bounced around violently."

"I don't know-!" He curled up into a ball as the truck jumped around, wincing. Once they successfully passed through the small hole in the road, he looked around. Light was pouring in through small holes in the white fabric. "It looks like a forest. It also looks untouched…" He squinted, trying to see through the white fabric. The sun was setting, and their sources of light were beginning to dwindle. The rest of the ride went on in silence. The kids were both too tired and stressed to say anything, or just wanted the time to think. Soon, it was pitch black outside, and the truck had come to a complete stop.

"Haul them out of there." someone said and the doors were pulled open. Brian woke up as the truck slowed to a stop; he didn't remember when he fell asleep. Two people reached their arms in and pulled both children out to the ground, their ropes were cut and they were placed in front of the same man as before. Behind him was a big house, around it was lots of open land with trees here and there. "Welcome home, kids. "They looked around as the waves of grass glinted silver against the moonlight.

The man walked closer to them. "Now, for the explanation. We are a group called Mirror. We are from Earth. We're a secret organization created by the government to find new weapons to use whenever America decides to go to war again. As of recently, we have discovered we can….jump universes. You see, everything is an alternate universe. Every idea, every story, movie, comic book, and thought. This is all because of one of the many laws of the universe: An idea is a reality. A perfect example is this," He bent down, and yanked a few blades of grass out of the ground. "You see this grass? In an alternate universe, I ripped out one less blade of grass. In another, I didn't rip out any. Do you see what I'm getting at here? Every single option has an alternate, where the anti happens. That's how a universe is created." The two kids blinked in understanding, but still confusion. How were they involved in something as complex as this? The man held up a hand. "I'm not done. You see, when we found out we could jump between these universes, picking them specifically instead of randomly...we looked towards the authors of the world… they make universes real every day. The things they write about, the fiction, it's all real somewhere. Imagine having a power from….let's say, Harry Potter? What if you could use magic? Life would be more exciting, huh? There are many stories out there with lots of power. And it's Mirror's job to go and get that power. We're spread out, of course, I'm just a branch assigned to this particular universe."

Cat spoke up. "You mean...we're not "on Earth" anymore? We're somewhere else?"

"You got that right." Brian and Cat had been right. They really weren't home anymore…But on a much deeper level than either of them anticipated. Brian looked to Cat quickly, and she returned the stare.

"So, then...Where are we?" Brian asked, looking back up to the stranger. He gave them his now typical smirk.

"You've heard of Attack on Titan, right?"