Chapter 1

"Cherry! You have a call."

I looked up from my work. "Thanks, dad." I said, even though I heard it myself, seeing as the pager was two feet in front of my face. I picked up the receiver and turned on the videoscreen, and a video feed of Commander Ekuro popped up, along with an "accept" and "deny" button. I touched the "accept button" and heard Commander Ekuro's voice.

"Hi, Cherry. I know it's kind of late, but I'd like you to go to Renko Forest. Our monitors say that a large clove of Myst flowers has sprouted, and as I'm sure you know, they only come up after light rains and only stay around for a few hours. They're great for various elixers, so I want you to go get some. I've asked Juniper and Kyroh to come as well. It'll look great on your City Activity Log~" Ekuro chimed, trying to persuade me that going into a rain-soaked forest at six-thirty PM was fun. Not that I minded anyway.

"Sure. It's better than this." I replied, plopping down my keypad.

"Great, thanks." The auburn-haired chief smiled, then hung up the call. I turned off the keypad, screen, and videoscreen and walked out to the kitchen. On the way, I grabbed my bag hanging from the wall. "Dad, I'm going on a CA." My dad turned from the stove.

"Okay, be careful. Love you." I nodded towards him.

"Love you too, dad." I stepped onto the portal pad, swiped my City Member card, and selected "terminal." I was instantly transported to the bustling Seki City Terminal. Glancing around, I saw neither Juniper nor Kyroh. My boots made a soft clack as I walked over to the wall beside a store and propped myself against it. Not one minute later, I hear Juniper's familiar voice shout, "Cherry!!" Turning my head towards the direction the voice came from, I saw June running towards me, arms outstretched as always. Her light orange hair was in two pigtails, down to her shoulders. Dressed in a white tank top with some pretty orange design on it and a turquoise skirt, she didn't seem to have dressed for the occasion. As Juniper got to me, she jumped on me in a hug as always.

"Cherry, hey!" Junie said in her happy voice.

"Haha, hey, Junie. Um, you do know we're going to Renko Forest after a rain, right?"

"Of course I know. Why?" Junie cluelessly responded.

I laugh. "Well, it's gonna be cold and wet and you are in summer clothing."

After a thoughtful pause, Junie replied; "Eh… I'll be okay."

"Oh, June." I say. "So, we're just waiting for Kyroh, right?"

"Not anymore." June said, pointing to Kyroh, looking lost in the crowd. She waved her arms in the air and shouted, "Kyroh!! Over here!!" He looked around wildly and, finally spotting us, came over. The fifteen year old boy had reddish brown hair that, if straightened, would've come down to his ears. But it wasn't straight; it kind of stuck out everywhere, but in a neat fashion.

"Phew. You guys ready?" Kyroh asked.

I gave him a thumbs up and June gave a cheery "Yep!"

"Great. Then let's go!" The three of us walked over to a portal big enough for the three of us, swiped all of our cards, typed in Renko Forest, to which we were transported.

"Okay, Commander Ekuro downloaded the position of the flowers to my PED." Kyroh pulled up the map with the location on his Personal Electronic Device. As we started to walk towards our destination, Junie said, "Hey, I didn't get the location downloaded to mine!"

"Ekuro said it really didn't matter, June. She just gave it to me cuz she remembered it at the time." Kyroh nicely replied.

"Oh, well, ok." June shrugged.

Thankfully, the trek to the Myst flowers was pretty peaceful. The destination, though, wasn't. As the area barely came into view, I stopped.

"Do you guys hear that??" I whispered. The other two stopped and listened as well.

"Voices!" June whispered.

"But who? We're the only ones Ekuro sent out, right?" Kyroh said.

"Let's sneak up and find out." I say. We creep forward until three humans are visible, talking to each other. June gasped.

"Hey! They're picking the Myst flower! That's ours!" June whispered, agitated.

"We can't just sit here. The cities are at peace right now; they can't object to half being ours." Kyroh pointed out, not waiting for a response as he walked out into the clearing.

Oh, yes they can… I sighed to myself. June and I followed. As soon as the three of us set foot in the clearing, the other three turned and looked at us, startled.

"Um, what are you doing here? Who are you?" Asked a girl with brown hair that faded to blonde at the tips. She had on a Capri purple shirt with slits in the sleeves, a denim miniskirt, and dark purple Capri shorts underneath. Her hazel eyes stared inquisitively, and one foot tapped the ground, that leg behind the other.

"We…" I started, hoping that we wouldn't get into a fight. These three were obviously from Niko City. Of course, Kyroh took over for me.

"…could ask you the same thing. Commander Ekuro sent us to collect Myst flower."

"Hey, Commander Kopen sent us to do the same thing!" The girl stated.

"Well, we'll take half and you take half." June suggested.

"No, no. We got here first, so we get three fourths." The girl said, taking a step forward. She wasn't hostile, or even angry. Just casual, but still holding her ground. I really didn't want us to get in a fight.

"Two thirds is more like it." I said.

"What? Half is fairer!" June exclaimed, shocked that I would go with giving the Niko's more.

"Well, we got here first, proving that Niko are better once and for all." Chimed the girl.

Oh boy. I thought, rolling my eyes.

"Pfft, yeah right! Never!" Kyroh retorted.

"Then how do you explain us getting here first? We're more observant, we're faster, and we're just better." The girl said, with a smug expression. Gritting my teeth, I whispered to June. "Let's just get out of here before we start a fight!" June glanced at me, but turned back to the Nikos. It was true that they got here first, so what did we have on our side?

"Only this once, Nikos, you were first. We…" Kyroh started, but another, taller girl interrupted.

"Look. We got here first. That's true. This forest is anyone's territory. We'll take two thirds of the Myst flowers and you take one third. I'd call that fair with our current situation." This girl had a soft but commanding voice. Her long black hair had purple streaks, and her dark brown eyes were deep. She wore a purple T-shirt, short black fingerless gloves, black Capri cargo pants, and high purple boots. What intrigued me the most, though, was that she had the same exact hat! It was purple, with the general shape of cat ears, but not defined, just like mine. The only difference was that mine was pink. And her face looked more than a bit like… mine.

The sound of Kyroh's voice brought me back from my thoughts.

"Urgh… Fine." Kyroh mumbled. He had bent down to pick the herb, but the first girl to talk's voice made him stop.

"Hey. Nothing like a good introduction to finish settling a matter. I'm Hyachi." He looked up to see that she had walked up and was directly in front of him. She held out her hand.

After a split second hesitation, Kyroh shook it. "I'm Kyroh." He stated, and went back to picking Myst. Hyachi took two steps and held her hand out to Juniper.

"Hyachi." She said. June shook her hand.

"Juniper." June replied, acting like they had had no squabble, which, I guess is a good thing. Hyachi then took a few steps more and was right in front of me.

"Hyachi." She repeated, holding out her hand. I shook it.

"Cherry." I said.

"Cool, now I have to introduce you all to my friends." Hyachi requested. She turned around and motioned for us three to follow. We awkwardly walked over with her to her two companions.

"This is Momo." Hyachi held her hand out to show us who she was talking about. "And this," motioning toward the guy, "is Tate." Tate had blonde hair, spiked in the front. He had silver sunglasses on top of his head, a blue and white shirt, and tan Capri cargo pants. His facial expression looked as if he didn't want to be here. That, or he just didn't like us being there, which I could understand. I mean, we weren't exactly super duper friendly. Oh, one more thing. Tate was cute. I'm not one to moon over guys. But he was cute. That doesn't mean I liked him, because it's what's inside that counts. Just saying.

"So, there you have it." Hyachi chirped. "Now, we'll just be on our way with our Myst." The three of them, with bags of the pale blue flower, turned and walked off in the other direction, toward the Niko Portal. Our trio did the same.

"So, where are we supposed to take these?" Juniper asked as we were teleported back to Seki City.

"Let's try the medical branch? Maybe they're expecting it." I suggested.

"Sounds good." Kyroh commented as we turned from the terminal to the medical branch of the city.

"Umm… let's try the elixir room?" I said, as we stood looking at numerous doors. Turning to our right, we opened the door. The white-clad nurses stopped mixing oddly-colored liquids and looked up.

"Yes?" One of them asked.

Kyroh stepped forward. "Um, we have some Myst flowers and, um…"

"Ah, yes. Ekuro let us know. You can just set it right here. Thanks a lot." The nurse said as she pointed to a bare spot on a silver table.

"No problem." Kyroh said as the three of us walked up and set our bags on the table. I looked at my PED; it was seven forty five already and I still had a paper on the history of the War of Division to do. We turned and headed out the door, to the portal at the end of this branch. One by one we swiped our City cards and were transported to our homes. I walked into the kitchen, my boots making more soft clacking. Looking around, I called, "Dad?"

"Cherry? I'm in here." I heard him call from his bedroom. "How'd the mission go?"

"Good. We ran into some Nikos, but nothing big happened. We each got about the same amount." I lied. It's just that I really didn't feel like going into a bunch of detail and stuff and I still had homework to do. Of course, that didn't work out because as soon as I sat down to get started again, the phone rang. It was Commander Ekuro, and she wanted to see the three of us in her office. I sighed, got up, and headed to the portal. "Dad, I'm going to brief Commander Ekuro on the mission. Be right back."

"Okay." He replied.

I transported to the office and met Kyroh and June. We walked up in an orderly fashion to Ekuro. We stopped; she saluted us and we did the same back.

"Well, I see that you've got the Myst flowers back safely. How did everything go? It seems like a little less than what our radars said."

"It is, because the Niko were there first, and they took two thirds. What we got was only one third of the entire amount." Juniper replied.

"Oh, really? As you know, I would like a detailed briefing, please." Commander Ekuro said.

"Well, we had a peaceful trek to the location. We heard voices, so we creeped ahead and saw three Niko people." I started, then stepped back so that Kyroh could take over.

"We entered the clearing and a Niko girl named Hyachi asked us who we were and what we were doing. We said we were there to get some Myst flowers, and they said that they were there first and they get them. She also said that Niko are better than Seki."

Ekuro raised her eyebrows. "Really? And what happened?"

Kyroh stepped back and let June talk a little bit. "Well, we were casually arguing about which City was better when a Niko girl named Momo interrupted and said that we should be fair and that they did get there first. I suggested half and half, but that wasn't gonna fly, so Hyachi suggested three fourth to one. We didn't like that, so Cherry suggested two thirds to one third and Momo seconded that. So we collected it and went on our way."

"Hmm, okay. Sounds like you guys worked it out well. What were the names of the three Nikos?" Ekuro asked.

I stepped forward. "Hyachi, Momo, and Tate."

"How did you figure out their names?" Ekuro inquired, curiously.

"Hyachi insisted that we all be introduced, starting with Kyroh." I told her.

"Alright, thanks. You guys did great." Ekuro nodded. "Bye."

All three of us nodded back, swiveled, and walked to the portal.

"Well, that went fairly well, right?" Kyroh asked.

"Yeah. Bye guys." I said as I took the liberty of stepping onto the portal first. I wanted to finish that report.

"Bye!" June said.

"See ya." Kyroh replied.

I walked into the house for the second time, sat down at my desk, and stared blankly at the pad screen. I wanted to finish this, but Momo was stuck in my head. We looked so much alike! I suppose it could be some freak coincidence, or our great-great-great-great-great grandparents were related and the same gene popped up, or, of course, we could have the same parents that met under illegal circumstances and had us. Pfft, yeah right. My dad wouldn't do that. But, whenever I asked about mom… he would say that she loved me and him very much, but they couldn't be together. That was all he would say, besides that I must never tell anyone that he couldn't be with her. If anyone asks about her, I have to say that I don't know, which, I don't. Me and June had a conversation like that once.

"Hey, Cherry. How come I never ever meet your mom?"

"She doesn't live with us."

"Oh, really? Where does she live, then?"

"I don't know."

"You… don't know?!"

"Yeah, I don't know. Dad won't tell me, and I'm not supposed to talk about it."

"But, shouldn't you know? I mean, it was your mom. You kind of deserve to know."

"Tell me about it, June. I've told him that before. But I've kind of gotten used to it… not knowing."

"Wow, I couldn't do that."

I sat back in my chair. That's not possible. It's just not possible that me and that girl are related.