-Prelude-

   Sunlight found it’s way through the sides of a pair of old, beige curtains to land on the pillow of a now just awakening, fourteen year-old girl. She rolled over and groped with one hand for her alarm clock, hoping to turn it off before it came on.

   EEEEEEE-!

   There was a thunderous thunk as she slammed her hand down on it, and the obnoxious noise was abruptly halted. With a sigh, she finally opened her pale blue eyes and rolled out of bed.

   "Trish!" Cried a voice in the hallway, "are you up?"

   "Yeah," the pale girl called back blearily as she pulled apart the curtains, letting in the full sunlight.

   "First day of school," she muttered to herself as she grabbed a comb to quickly brush out her shoulder length, pale blonde hair. "Joy."

   Trish ignored the snickers from the back of the room as she took her seat. Their teacher started the class, but she still heard the snide comments which were made.

   "Stupid American," whispered one girl directly behind Trish to her neighbor. "And she has a nasty accent!"

   Trish sighed inaudibly, sinking back down into her chair as she thought to herself, ‘Too bad they don’t know I understand more then I can speak...’

   Suddenly, the door opened, and a blonde haired girl came stumbling in, shutting the door behind her. Before their teacher could comment, though, she had sped across the room and plopped down into a desk next to Trish’s.

   "Tsukino Usagi," the teacher stated, narrowing her eyes at the newcomer. "You’re late."

   "Sorry," the blonde returned, sinking into her chair a bit.

   "Usagi," she shook her head, "ninth time since the beginning of this school year. Detention after class."

   Even though it was Trish’s first day of school, the other students had started two weeks prior. It made for a tougher adjustment, but the pale blonde girl was up to it. As the teacher started class again, Trish looked over at the blonde next to her, who had quite a...different hairstyle. It was pulled up into two balls on top of her head, with hair coming out of them like pigtails.

   "Who are you?" Usagi asked, noticing Trish’s gaze.

   The pale girl blushed, slightly embarrassed, and replied, "I am Conti Trish. You are Tsukino Usagi, right?"

   Usagi giggled and grinned, "I guess you found out. You must be new here...from America?"

   "Accent, right?" Trish returned with a smile, "I am an exchange student. Only for the year."

   "Tsukino!" Barked the teacher, who was glaring at both of them, "And Conti, too! Stop talking in class! Or you will be joining Usagi in detention!"

   Usagi winked, "I’ll meet you after class."

   "Tsukino!"

   Suddenly, the light grew brighter, coalescing into an orb which floated out of the hand. Now could be seen a pale, tightly drawn face where the two eyes were placed, an expression of concentration written across its masculine features. The light became more intense, leaving his hand to float dead center in the room. The orb then seemed to explode, bits of it flying to the walls of the room.

   There the lights found torches, held in sconces on the walls, and the room was thrown into flickering light as the torches flared into life. Another loud cracking sound preceded a small explosion from the man’s area, shards of crystal flying every which way. The man stood free of his crystal confinement, looking at the center of the room where another crystal case lay.

   What could be seen were the blurred features of a women, her hair long and bright orange. No air stirred as the man walked stiffly over to her, stretching out long unused muscles. His skin was pale and grim from lack of sun, and he looked even more ghostly as the moonlight coming through the hole hit him.

   "Kaisha," a whisper, which came out more as a croak, issued from his lips. "You are still so beautiful..."

   He stood there for a moment later before abruptly turning around and staring into the shadows. A single orange eye opened to meet his gaze, and a second later, a shadowy figure with the shape of a lady stepped out of the darkness.

   "Massster," it hissed in a distinctly feminine voice. "You have finally reawakened."

   "Of course," the man returned, as if this was something that should’ve been expected.

   "Massster, it hasss been a long time," the shadow continued. "Many, many moonsss have passsed. Over a thousssand yearsss, in Earth termsss."

   "Earth, moon," the man said with an obvious note of disgust. "Those damn kingdoms. We shall exact our revenge on them..."

   "The Moon Kingdom isss no more," the shadow butted in. "And the Earth Kingdom isss not asss it wasss."

   "But that is not our main priority at the moment," he went on, as if the shadow had not interrupted. He looked down at the crystal encasing, "Kaisha is."

   "Massster," the shadow began, but was cut off with a wave of his hand.

   The man gave the crystal a hard kick, accompanied shortly by a loud yelp of pain. He hopped around with his foot in one hand for a few seconds before he calmed down enough to gently place it back down.

   As he stumbled over to a large, black chair at the end of the room to plop down into and rub his foot, the shadow hissed, "That cryssstal isss sssomehow different then what you were in, Massster. We will need a large amount of energy to break it apart and free her."

   "Energy?" He looked up, "Atra, gather energy then. Get a generator or something--"

   "Generator?" Atra blanched, "Not that kind of energy! We need a much stronger type. The type that comesss from living creaturesss."

   The shadow looked pointedly up through the hole in the ceiling at that point. The Earth was just coming into view again as the small mound of rock the room was situated on rotated around.

   "Ah," the man stated, following her gaze. He looked back over towards the corner and stated, "Umbra."

   "Yesss, Massster?" Came the reply as another shadow detached herself from the wall, both icy blue eyes opened.

   "I want you to go down to Earth and collect energy from the creatures there," the man ordered. "Preferably the humans. Report back quickly."

   "Yesss, Massster," Umbra bowed curtly, then proceeded to the middle of the room, beneath the hole. She sprang upwards out of it a moment later, a streak of black against the black oblivion beyond.

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