Yayz, first chapter of my first fic! ^-^ Not that it means anything.... *shifty eyes* This chapter and the next few are a tad slow, but it should pick up by about the midway mark chapter-wise (background info, what can I say? xD).

Seit, Shael, Mehin, and Toright are mine, the rest belongs to Naughty Dog. Reviews=love!


Seit dropped his laptop bag against his bedroom doorframe and put his handbag in front of the small table next to the door, making sure he did not almost knock the brown and white lamp off of it again. He pulled the black- and purple-striped arm warmer on his left forearm more towards his elbow and collapsed on on his bed with his back to the ceiling out of sheer boredom. After some thought as to what he wanted to do for the rest of the afternoon, he proceeded to look for the television remote on the messier side of his bed. He pushed a few strands of his long, black hair out of his dark brown eyes as his large hands pushed his, at that moment, unnecessary belongings aside.

"Let's see here...wireless mouse for my laptop, duplicate Chuck the Griffin pin, my silver PlayCenter Pocket plus charger cable, my portable music player that has a crappy amount of memory, DAMNIT! Shael, did you take my TV remote again?" he called out to his slightly younger sister as he continued searching for the remote.

"To be honest, I haven t gone into your room to get anything for a little over a week now," Shael replied. "Mehin might've, though. She s been running around like a little nut-case all day and getting into anything she possibly can. I think she's pretending to be a Coon today; she's already taken some of my stuffed animals and hidden them in a place where she most likely knows I can't find them. Trust me, I've checked every place that I considered an obvious hiding spot except for a few places in your room and haven t found any of my stuff yet."

"That would explain why this little, green dragon of yours is in my room," Seit said as he tossed the stuffed creature out his bedroom door.

"Hey, don t throw it so hard! The last thing I want is for it to fall down the stairs and be completely obliterated by Pell's jaws," Shael said, walking over and picking up the small dragon before it started tumbling down the stairs. She put it on the wooden chest next to Seit's bedroom door and put her shoulder-length, jet-black hair into a ponytail. "While you're looking for your stupid television remote again, do both of us a favor and look around in your room for Mehin. I haven't seen her anywhere for almost an hour now. I m absolutely sure she hasn t gotten outside, unless she quietly snuck out when I wasn t paying attention."

"Fine, sheesh. She's probably hiding in her huge pile of stuffed animals again for all we know, anyway. If she's outside, she knows not to go too far away from the house nor get too close to the edge of the walkways. Mom's told her that more times than I can even count, which hopefully means that it s definitely gotten into her brain by now," Seit said as he moved the cushions at the head of his couch-bed to see if the remote had fallen down there.

Seit didn't even have time to start yelling, "HOLY CRAP!" as Mehin suddenly popped out of the small gap between the back of the couch and the head of his bed, the toddler's bright orange-red hair in slight disarray from her typical playing antics.

"Hide and seek, yay! I win, I win, I win!" Mehin happily cried as her older brother did a back-roll that made him land with his back on the bed and his head almost knock against the bookshelf. Shael started breaking out in a fit of laughter as Mehin crawled out onto Seit s bed, ran out his bedroom door, and headed downstairs to do who-knows-what.

"I think...I found Mehin," Seit said, hoisting himself into a sitting position and rubbing the back of his head. "Hey, what s so funny?!"

"You, getting the crap scared out of you by a five-and-a-half-year-old kid!" Shael answered when she managed to stop laughing. "By the way, your friend Toright called this morning just after you left for English class. He said he wants you to call him back; he mentioned something about wanting to know if you wanted to go on a small road trip to the western bazaar to pick up a birthday present for his cousin."

"Oh, really? Damn, he keeps forgetting that my English class is at one in the afternoon, not two! Where's the communicator?" Seit asked, brushing past his sister as he headed downstairs.

"I put it on the charger. Feed Pell while you re down there for me, would you? That Croca-dog was starting to chew up my last good pair of slippers when I found him while looking for Mehin in my room. I'm pretty sure it s his way of telling me he's hungry again. I promise I'll take him out for a walk later for you so Mom won't get mad," Shael said.

"Thanks a lot, sis! I'll try to remember the mutt this time, don't worry," Seit exclaimed as he grabbed the communicator and called Toright.

"Hey, Seit, buddy! Whassup!" Toright exclaimed when he picked up the phone. This is Seit, right? Last time I called, it was the bitch, er, I mean Shael."

"Yeah, Tor, it s me. Shael said you called. Of course I m in for the road trip. When should I be at your house?" Seit asked. He then lowered the volume of his voice to almost a whisper so his sisters could not hear. "By the way, nice fake story to make my sister unaware of what we're really doing."

"No problem, dude. Get to my house at around four or five so it looks like we really are going out shopping for my cousin's birthday. Lucky for us, my sister s birthday really is soon, so there's little to no way our parents are going to suspect us. My parents are going to another one of their friend s parties, and they said that they don't plan on coming home until sometime tomorrow morning. I'm ordering pizzas, and feel free to tell your folks that you'll either be back late or you ll be spending the night at my pad so they won t freak out and crap when you re not home by curfew," Toright explained.

"That's good. In case I forget to tell you to later, tell your cousin that I said happy birthday, would you? Want me to bring some of my games and my guitar controller so we have something to actually do other than sit and watch television?" Seit asked in his normal tone of voice.

"Perfect, dude! Totally bring 'em, especially that one game you got for your birthday. I've been dying to play the non-crappy-store-demo version ever since I saw it!" Toright exclaimed. "Maybe bring one of your real guitars, too, in case we decide to have ourselves a little jam session or something."

"I'll be sure to. I'll see you at around four," Seit said, hanging up the communicator right after. He glanced at the time on the microwave on the counter next to the refrigerator, and noticed that it was about three-thirty. He had plenty of time to get his stuff together.

"What was that all about?" Shael asked.

"Oh, nothing. Toright just wants me to stay over at his place for a while after our road trip for some pizza. I might be sleeping over at his house tonight if it gets too late, so pass it along to Mom when she gets home," Seit explained as he walked back upstairs to put his belongings together with Shael following close behind.

"Pizza, video games, and guitars; what a study session," Shael said sarcastically as she rolled her eyes. "You know you re grounded, Seit. You're lucky you can still go hang out with your friends every so often as long as you tell Mom that you re out studying at least most of the time instead of doing anything but."

"Oh, shut the hell up. Just tell mom that Toright's just helping me study for my biology test on Monday, and the stuff is for between cramming sessions so our brains don't get fried. That excuse should cover me tonight, right?" Seit asked.

"You two? Studying on a Friday?" Shael asked while giving Seit her "You have got to be kidding me!" look. "Toright's lucky he's an honor roll and dean's list type of kid, so Mom doesn't mind you hanging out with him to study while you re grounded. If Mom knew how much you really study, then you definitely wouldn't be going anywhere. I know you never actually study for anything. You're so lucky I don t tell mom the truth."

"Maybe I am!" Seit cried as he took his set of keys off of the shelf next to the front door.

"You know, Mom's never going to believe your excuse if you don't take your binder!" Shael stated as she ran back upstairs to Seit's room.

"Forget it; just tell her that Toright s notes are, like, ten times better than mine, so we'll be studying off of them," Seit called as he put his bags on his shoulder and fiddled with his keys, looking for the key to his Zoomer bike.

"Fine, just go, and keep Pell from getting out if he's begging at the door. I don't want to go through what happened the last time he got out again," Shael said as she came back down the stairs.

"Ok. Wait, crap! I forgot to feed the mutt!" Seit said just as he opened the front door.

"Don't worry about...DAMNIT! PELL! Don't chew up the couch pillows again! Bad dog!" Shael cried as she caught Pell red-pawed on the family room couch.

Seit simply chuckled as he walked out the door and walked down the small set of wooden stairs that led to the platform that the family's Zoomers were parked next to after use. He hopped on the old, light blue and yellow Zoomer bike that his grandparents had once owned and started its engine. From the small opening in the slightly ajar door and just above the sound of the softly humming engine, he could hear Mehin cheering about something, as always.

Not wanting to stay around to figure out what Mehin was so cheerful about, Seit flew the Zoomer in the direction of his friend s house and joined the appropriate line of traffic. He looked down at the streets below on occasion like he always did, just to see what kinds of people were out at the time. As he did so, he couldn't help but notice the increased amounts of Krimzon Guards patrolling the streets, especially the ones in the new, bright-yellow uniforms.

Geez, I thought they were supposed to be the Krimzon Guard, not the Sun Guard, he thought. Either way, Tor and I better not screw anything up tonight. We can't have the guards coming after our asses tonight if they catch us getting out of the city without a damn good reason and a pass to go with it. They did it the first time we tried going out to Haven Forest, and we can't let them do it now, especially with Dad back in the guard. Who knows what would happen to him, more or less me, if that happened.