Chapter 1

A Regular Day… or so I Thought.


In Haven City down in the slums there were only two happy faces as many others were sad. Those two faces were my sister's, and mine. My name is Loray or "Coco", and my sister is Carol-Anne or "CJ". We are both from Haven City. CJ has browny red hair and light teal blue eyes while I have honey blonde hair, with a few natural light and dark blonde streaks, and dark teal green eye's. CJ and I are both 16 years old, except she has a boyfriend and I'm still single! "So how are you and Corry?" I asked. "Well you know! He's just…AWESOME!" Carol-Anne flew her arms in the air, then fell backwards on my bed to which we were both sitting on the end of. I rolled my eyes as I smirked. "Oh? And how awesome is awesome?"

"Well, it's just…um" she trailed off. "I don't know how to describe it!" she placed her index finger on her bottom lip with confusion. "Awe man! You gotta be kidding me!" I softly cried with disappointment as I looked at the time. "It's ok Coco." Carol-Anne was grabbing her stuff and packing up. "I gotta go on that mission Torn sent me or he will sure as heck kill me if I stay any later!" we smiled. "Yeah! You know I almost forgot about all that. See you at school tomorrow?" I asked as we headed for the front door. "Sure…Loray!" my sister said evilly. "Carol-Anne!" I said back in an equal tone. We stood there smirking, until I broke the silence, "Meep!" I said with a funny face and tone. We tried to sustain our laughter, that didn't work though. We laughed so hard that you would think the whole world would hear us!

We were both one of those random people you find in the world and that's how we got along so well.

Later that night, after I was in my pj's and said good night to CJ, I was dreaming of some type of event that was both of a nightmare and a dream. It wasn't a very pleasant one either.

Dream Sequence:

I was in Haven City, near the power station. For some reason everything was so cold, and none of the people had faces. "LORAY!" I heard a small but loud enough female voice cry out my name. "HELP ME!" I turned around to where the voice was coming from to see nothing but ashes. My dark teal green eye's flickered with fear. 'what the hell? There's no one there, am I seeing things' I thought.

I turned to walk away when something grabbed my ankle. "What the?" I said in utter confusion. There was nothing there yet I felt the grip from what ever was holding me become more intense with every passing second. "Ahh!" I cried as I dropped to the ground in pain.

I closed my eye's as if they would protect me from all the pain, strangely to which they did. I opened them to see I was some where's else, somewhere warm and grassy. It felt good to feel and see the suns rays. "Heyy!" I heard an all to familiar voice. I turned around and saw my sister. "Carol-Anne!" I shouted. That's when the strangest thing happened. As we ran to give each other a hug, she was fading away. I stopped dead in my tracks on the now sandy beach. "CJ!" I cried with a hand out stretched as an attempt to reach my sister. That was all I could do, my legs didn't work, nothing worked anymore…..

Dream sequence ended .

The next day at school I waited for CJ at the 'refuge area' (it's an actual sign in our school upstairs.) which just happened to be by her locker. "Hey, uh, Carol-Anne," I looked at her with a sign of worry. "did anything strange happen to you last night ?" She blinked wildly at the question. "Did you have a crazy dream too?" CJ asked while hugging her text books. I nodded. Later during lunch we discussed what our dreams were about, strangely they were pretty much the same with only a few differences.

"What should we do?" I asked. "I don't know! Its all so weird!" my sister replied simply. "I doubt any of it will happen anyway." she said reassuringly. "Yeah your right!" I playfully punched her in the arm. "Oh no!" she cried dramatically. "It was just a dream so we shouldn't let this eat away at our minds!" I finished as I picked up my back pack. "So what block is it?" I asked as we walked down the large pale hallway while bumping into people. To be honest it was more like rush hour on a Saturday or Sunday in a standard Zoomer. "Double block of cooking." she looked at me with a mocking smile. "Oh joy!" I waved my arms in the air sarcastically.

After 2 hours of a boring class normally people would be drained and in a crappy mood. Your probably asking what about us? Well we were not drained at all! CJ asked if I could help her with some home work and so we did more homework in my room again. When we were done we decided to go out for a small drive from my house to around the fortress walls. We actually don't own a zoomer so we just borrowed one. About half way to our destination the city's alarm system went off. Carol-Anne hit the breaks hard. We looked around and found the KG were passing us instead off chasing us. Yes I have to admit I'm a good girl and so is Carol-Anne, but we also have a bit of a history with the KG. They always let us off easy cause we are so young.

Curiosity got the better of us two master minds. We cautiously followed the Krimzon Guards to were they were heading to find a young man with an orange animal on his shoulder. CJ parked the Zoomer quietly and we hid against a wall to ease drop on the conversation. "By order of his eminence, the Grand Protector of Haven City, Baron Praxis, everyone in this section is hereby under arrest for suspicion of harboring underground fugitives. Surrender and die!" one of the guards said angrily. 'Sounds like somebody has personal life issues!' I thought.

The small orange animal walked over to the guard that spoke earlier. "Aaah, excuse me sir," he said with his ears flat. "don't you mean surrender, OR DIE!" he yelled karate chopping his hand.

An all to familiar elderly man spoke up, "Not in this city! Protect us from these guards, and I'll introduce you to someone who could help you!" CJ and I looked at each other and whispered simultaneously "Kor!" we then focused our attention back to the young man and the guards. The young man started to attack the guards but just as the fight got interesting both of us were grabbed from behind. "What the hell do you two think your doing!" a gruff and pissed off voice scolded quietly. I only sighed, "Torn, come on give two girls a break would ya?" he was still holding the back of the collars on our shirts. "How can I, when you are getting in trouble, the whole city wants you two dead or captured and your skipping many days of school?" Torn gave us one of his 'death glairs'. My eyes narrowed in sarcasm. "OH! I'm so sorry…mother!" Torn only shook his head while looking down at the ground at my childish remark. "Hey!" I snapped. "At least we actually went to school today!" I crossed my arms under my chest. Torn only rolled his eye's.

"Come on, I'll do you two a favor in your part by taking you out of that twisted school," he paused seeing us grin ear to ear. "but that means you have to do a bit of extra training since you no longer will be going to school." We looked at each other then at Torn. "THANK YOU!" CJ and I said in unison. "Your welcome." the older man said with a smirk. "I sometimes don't know how I get myself into this." he said under his breath. "Ok! I need to breath you two. Now lets report back to HQ and I'll send you on another mission." Carol-Anne sighed. "Aww, but we-" I put a cupped hand over her mouth "..but we…were hopping to instruct or help any new rookies!" I finished her sentence for her knowing that wasn't going to be what she was going to say. "Alright." Torn sighed, "I'll let you instruct any new rookies we have on hand."

All three of us drove our own separate Zoomer's splitting up and taking a different way to the HQ. Torn thought it was better that way so no one had any rising suspicions. Carol-Anne and I went inside after saying "hi" to Tess and giving her a hug. "Do you think there are any new rookies?" I asked worried. "Coco I highly doubt it!" she said not to pleased. "I mean come on are you serious? 'were hopping to instruct or help any new rookies!' Pllleeease!" she gave her version of a 'death glair' to me. "What did you think I was supposed to do? Tell him that we were gonna catch some leprocauns and find their pot of gold, or tell him-" I cut my self off as we both heard a male voice coming from outside. We slowly walked up to the stone door and pressed our long ears against the cold door. We heard the voice say, "We're looking for a guy named Torn. Kor sent us... um…" the voice paused "Are you... Torn?" it questioned.

Another voice was heard, but it was much higher than the first one.

"Maybe this guy's a mute, like you used to be…"

"New faces make me nervous." I looked at CJ "Oh no! not the 'I'm tougher than you'll ever be' attitude." she snickered and we heard Torn continue. "Word is you're out to join the fight for the city. You know, picking the wrong side could be... Unhealthy." The deeper male voice piped up, "We want to see the Shadow." I gulped. "Huh, huh, huh. Not likely. If you want to join something, why don't you and your pet go join the circus? Heh. Unless you got the fur for a really tough task?" At that point we realized this was our gift sent by the Precursors. "A ROOKIE!" both of us whispered in excitement. CJ and I waited for Torn to stop talking and walked in on the conversation acting as if we had heard nothing.

"Oh, hey Torn!" I waved to him cheerfully. "..um…who are these two?" I gestured behind myself and Carol-Anne. "Those two, my two girls, are our newest recruits." wow, Torn was actually smiling a happy smile. Just to let you know, Torn and Tess adopted us, well scratch that.

Tess adopted us since we were out on the cold and rainy streets begging for food but no one would give us any food. We were only 5 years old, Tess talked to us, gave us food and told us she had a nice warm home we could stay in. Torn argued with her for the longest time but eventually opened up. Tess was like a mother and an older sister to us while Torn was like a father and older brother. I know…weird. But whatever.

"So does that mean we can go.." CJ looked at me as she spoke. "..and help the two newbie's?" I finished looking back at her. "Well no, they have to prove themselves first by stealing the Baron's banner at the old ruined tower in Dead Town." Torn said as if imaging them fail. The boy and the animal left as we resided back inside. Torn looked at his maps, like usual, as CJ and I started acting well silly, but mostly like ourselves, as we sat on the top bunk bed closest to the heating system. I saw Tess come inside from her room from my peripheral vision. "Hey um, Tess…." I trailed. "Yes?" The blonde woman asked bubbly. "Well I was wondering if I could ask you something." I said almost shyly as CJ and I hopped down from the bunk bed. "Aww. Come on now Coco, you know you two can ask me any thing, you know I don't mind." her tone had gone from cheerful to worry right away as she hugged us. "Well, you know those rookies?" I asked as we went to her room, it was perfect and everything was put away and in order. It always blew me away when we entered her room. "It's kinda strange, but, well it's either I'm worried or something weird is going on." I stated sheepishly as we sat at the end of her bed. "It's kinda like I've known them all my life, and even Coco can feel that bond too!" CJ said with worry flooding her beautiful crystal-like light teal eyes. I nodded at her statement.

I looked at Tess with anger and confusion now clouding my vision. "Is there something you and Torn aren't telling us?" my voice was coldly stern. I am easily ticked off and so is CJ, but I bite first before I speak normally. CJ uses words and if that doesn't work well, then she bites. Tess looked at me scared. "Coco, when I found you and Carol-Anne, you both weren't alone."