"I can't believe you, out of all people, forgot to put gas in the car!" Ryan snapped at his older brother as the two hobbled inside the house, both soaking wet from head to toe. "We're drenched and mom is going to freak!"

"You bet I am," Grace replied as she stood up from her spot on the couch and glared at her two sons. She'd been reading when they came in. "Where were you two?! It's eleven o'clock on a school night and you were supposed to be home two hours ago! Do you know how scary it is not knowing where your children are when there could be raccoons and coyotes outside waiting to eat them?!"

"We live in the city," Mark pointed out, clearly confused.

"I don't care! You're two hours late past curfew! Start talking!"

Before Mark could even open his mouth, Ryan cut in. "It's my fault," he interrupted, "I suggested we go to the skate park and ended up losing track of time. I ended up spraining my ankle while we were there too."

Grace's eyes immediately softened upon hearing of her son's injury and she sighed. "It's fine," she stated, "I'm sorry for yelling. Go upstairs and get ready for bed; I don't care if you two stayed out late tonight, you're still going to school tomorrow."

"What about my ankle?" Ryan asked, confused.

"We'll deal with it tomorrow after I get home from work," Grace answered, "For now, just elevate it and ice it before you go to sleep."

"Got it," the technopath replied before he turned on his heels and followed his older brother upstairs, limping as he went.

The next day…

"I can't believe you made us miss the bus," Ryan complained as the two boys walked to school in the freezing rain. It was coming down awfully fast too—they hadn't even walked halfway and yet they were already soaking wet.

"Hey, it's not my fault," Mark shot back.

"Yes it is!" Ryan exclaimed, bewildered. "If you hadn't been so busy styling your hair, we would've been at school already! You say you wanna get good grades, but how are you gonna get them if you can't even be on time?!"

"Stop acting like mom," Mark demanded, "You're annoying me."

"And I wasn't earlier?" Ryan questioned. In response, Mark groaned and the two boys continued to walk (or if you were Ryan, limp) to school.

Hours later, the school day was finally over and the four were currently headed to the giant robot. They didn't really have anything to plan out, but they didn't feel like going home either, so they settled for hanging out inside the giant robotic contraption.

"You know," Ryan said as they entered the robot's lounging area, "We've never really came here for fun."

"Well," Harris stated, "This robot is not a toy. It is to be taken seriously, after all."

"Stop sucking the fun out of everything!" Spyder exclaimed as he looked over at Harris, only to see him rearranging everything in alphabetical order.

"Okay," Harris argued, "First of all, that's not even a good comeback, and second of all, I'm not a fun-killer, I'm just being responsible."

"Responsibly annoying," Spyder retorted.

"Dude, that doesn't even make sense," Mark responded as he used his wrench to fix something on the side of the robot.

"You don't make sense," Spyder shot back, unsuccessfully.

"Guys, can we please stop—"

Suddenly a shake shook the robot, making Ryan groan annoyed, while Harris and Mark held on to something to stop themselves from toppling over. While this was happening, a wide smile spread across Spyder's face while his fists clenched in excitement.

"Yes!" The hat wearing boy exclaimed. He always looked forward to these moments.

"No," Ryan, on the other hand, groaned. Why did this have to happen now of all times?

"A monster should be up any minute now," Harris stated as he stopped what he was doing, "We should be ready for it." He had then walked over and threw Ryan's arm over his shoulder, as to try and help his friend walk with his injury.

"Wait, wait, wait, what about my ankle?" Ryan asked, nervously, "What are we gonna do if I can't fight?"

"We'll figure it out when we get there!" Harris answered, his words coming out in a rush. They had no time to figure out what they were going to do; they had a monster to fight.

Before I get on to my author's note, I feel like I should explain some things in this chapter so that there's no confusion.

- Grace (Mark and Ryan's mom), in this story, leaves for work super early in the morning and gets home sometime in the mid-late (say, five or six or so) afternoon. So, if you're asking yourself, "What?! Why the heck doesn't Grace get Ryan to get his ankle checked out before or after school?!", that's why.

- The 'I can't believe you forgot to put gas in the car thing' is actually something that happened to me. My mother and I were driving back from a place—I don't remember where—and she forgot to put gas in the car, so we were stranded on the side of the road until my dad came and helped us. (I was mixing lip gloss flavours the entire time 'cause I didn't have a phone yet)

- My siblings take forever in the morning to style their hair, which is where the entire 'If you hadn't been fixing your hair, we would've been at school already!' thing came from.

- Now, I don't think I need to mention this, but I want to anyway. During the time I was writing this over winter break, I had to bring my dog for a walk and totally tripped on the driveway (hurt my knee and my wrist, but I'm fine now, so no worries). So, yeah, Ryan jinxed me.

And now for the actual AN. Now, I apologize for making this so short, but on the bright side, I finally got it done after two weeks! Yay! High five!

The main reason I decided to update is because I'm actually working on the fifth chapter as we speak and I thought, 'well, why not give you guys another one?' There should be about one more chapter after that one or so, and then the story will be done. (My first completed story since 2015! Woo hoo!)

So, on a totally unrelated note, how's everyone's return to school going? Or if you're not back at school yet, how's the first week of 2017 going? Hopefully it'll be just as good as last year, if not better.

Anyway, I think that's just about everything. Happy 2017 Week and let me know what you think in the reviews!

~Star :)