Nephrite yelled in triumph as he managed to disarm his opponent. The other boy was forced to surrender and duck out of the way before he became minced meat.

"Whoa! It's not like I'm your enemy, you don't have to hit so hard!" the other boy grumbled, ignoring the sting of his hand to retrieve his sword and bring it to a ready stance. Nephrite offered not a syllable of apology, but instead curled a lip in disdain.

"If you can't defend properly, say so! Don't hide behind excuses." The other boy flushed an angry red.

"You're really impossible to work with. Since you think yourself so high and mighty, go find yourself another partner. If anyone agrees to spar with you, he's a masochist!" and with that, he flounced off towards the lockers.

"VeNeer, come here!" a voice barked out, low and commanding, and Nephrite looked up to see his weapons instructor, the Lord General of the Earth's army, standing not a few feet away. His voice was the ultimate authority inside the practice arena, and not even Nephrite dared defy his orders. He walked over to the tall, silver haired man and waited for further instructions.

At a towering 6 foot 4, Lord General Malachite cut an imposing figure, and though his hair was pure silver-white, he was still young, probably in his mid-thirties. His platinum eyes were usually very cool and reserved, and he seldom had an expression his face that said anything other than 'I'm calculating your worth, from the roots of your hair to the tips of your boots, and you better make sure they're polished too, or I'll make sure you go down on all fours and lick them clean.' He was from the Old Kingdom, and not the Crystal Kingdom that the Moon Queen was ruling over as an extension of her Lunar empire. So far, almost the entire Local Neighbourhood was under her rule, save for the Outer planets, Saturn and beyond. The Queen had apparently given those nobles who were still loyal to the Earthen king then two choices - either join her or perish in the war that ensued. Malachite's parents had chosen to follow the Queen, and though Malachite was very angry with the choice, he was under-aged then, and hence unable to protest.

"Yes, sir?" Nephrite asked with a proper degree of politeness and respect. The Lord General had no favourites, slow with his praise and free with his criticism - his tongue could flay a student to ribbons if he thought the person was slacking.

"You have no partner at the moment, I see. Perhaps you would like to pair with Gingetsu for a round." Malachite never asked, he ordered, and this time was no exception. Nephrite bit back a comment. He had never seen Gingetsu fight before, but having had the teenager as his classmate for two years...Gingetsu was ridiculously frail-looking, and Nephrite doubted he was a match for him. Besides, Nephrite had never seen Gingetsu indulge in sports, preferring to bury his nose in a book, or one of the many miniature gardens scattered around the campus. His classmate would have no chance against him, Nephrite concluded smugly, and besides, he would have a chance at returning the humiliation Gingetsu had dealt him in class earlier on. How dare that peasant overtake him in class rankings!

Gingetsu came warily forward when Malachite called his name, and he wrinkled his nose when he saw who his next sparring partner was - the insufferably arrogant Nephrite VeNeer, who thought that money was enough to twine everything and everybody round his little finger. And yet, he was sure that Nephrite's arrogance stemmed from a neglected childhood. Material wealth was nothing compared to parental love, and Gingetsu could swear Nephrite had precious little of that.

They spaced out, circling around each other with all the cautiousness of a tiger in new territory, trying to gauge each other's strengths, and then they attacked. Steel clashed with a dissonant clang, and Nephrite realised that he'd underestimated his partner after all. What Gingetsu lacked in strength, he more than made up for it in terms of agility and speed, and his level of skill wasn't very far below Nephrite.

At first, Gingetsu seemed to spend more time avoiding attacks, his movements seemingly effortless as he flashed his sword up to block an attack, and then dodged away gracefully, making Nephrite change his stance to follow him. But Nephrite was no clumsy oaf, there was a steady rhythm to his attacks, and after a while, it was difficult to say if Gingetsu was leading or being driven, and if Nephrite was chasing or driving.

Finally, the spar ended in a draw of sorts. Waiting for the right moment to present itself, Gingetsu blocked yet another attack and swerved to the left, pricking Nephrite's padded armour with the point of his sword. At that exact moment, Nephrite flashed his sword up to rest on the back of Gingetsu's neck. They froze in that position until Malachite ordered them to disengage a half-second later.

Nephrite sheathed his sword with newfound respect in his eyes, having tasted the mettle of the deceptively fragile teenager. Who'd have thought that this pretty thing was good for something other than scholarly and botanist pursuits?

"That was very good," Malachite allowed, indulging in one of his very rare smiles. He proceeded to point out a few weak areas in both their attacks and defences before dismissing them.

"You fight very well," Nephrite offered as they walked off to the lockers to cool themselves down.

Gingetsu looked at him, a mixture of wariness and surprise in his wide emerald eyes. "Thanks. It's nice to be noticed," he replied dryly. "You're very good yourself. Did you have lessons before this?"

"For a few years, since I was old enough to hold a sword in my hand. I suppose I was lucky in that sense." Nephrite feigned nonchalance.

Gingetsu's jaw nearly dropped. Nephrite was actually trying not to act haughty for once. Had turtles learned to sing? He wondered what had prompted the change of attitude towards himself.

"Where did you come from anyway?"

"A village somewhere to the South. You, ah, wouldn't have heard of it." Nephrite made a polite sound. "I'll see you in class later. Perhaps we could be partners again next practice?"

Gingetsu nodded, and they split off in two different directions.

It had been two years since he'd entered the University, and in those two years, Gingetsu was busier than he had been in the past ten years put together. What with lessons, both weaponry and the core curriculum, alternate weeks of internship at the Court, and botany as an extra-curriculum activity, he barely had an hour a week to visit his father in the city. He remembered the first time he was presented to the Queen of the Moon and the current 'Prince' of the Earth...

Jadeite checked Gingetsu one last time to make sure that he was presentable. The professor was small in size, barely topping Gingetsu by a centimetre, and he had fine features, a sharp nose and metal-rimmed glasses that always slipped off the end of that nose. Pushing up the offending glasses, he nodded more to himself than to Gingetsu.

"You look very good," he observed, letting Gingetsu turn around to look at the full-length mirror. The long sunshine hair had been bound back with a dark green ribbon, and the suit that he wore was the conservative deep blue.

"Thank you, sir."

Jadeite clicked his tongue. "Alright then, if you think you can remember the lengthy speech, you can go in." He smiled to give encouragement, and sent Gingetsu towards the Throne Room with a push.

Ginegtsu drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders and nodded to the two guards standing by the doors. They in turn opened the doors with scarcely a change in their expressions, and announced him.

"Gingetsu Illandi."

The first thought he had when he saw Queen Serenity of the Moon was :Gaia, this is the Queen?: To him, she didn't look like a beneficent ruler, but more like a machaviallen one. There was calculation in those supposed 'serene' blue eyes, and she kept scanning the hall discreetly as if looking for hidden assassins. Gingetsu wondered why she had to fear assassins, if she was reputed to be as kind and generous as all the reports painted her to be, but he supposed that there was a great deal of propaganda mixed in the newspapers.

He barely had time to greet her when he reached the dais, let alone to proceed with the tediously long and ponderous speech he was forced to memorise, before the Queen cut him short.

"Gingetsu Illandi, We are pleased to meet you, and We appoint you to attend Our Court every alternate week." Then, in a softer voice, she murmured. "Gingetsu, silver moon. It is an auspicious name, and relates to the Moon besides." To her left, the Prince of the Earth, who was a young man to Gingetsu's surprise, and the Queen's daughter looked at her in askance. He had been dismissed shortly after that, but not without curious stares from the nobles and defenders of the Empire, the senshi, alike.

As if thinking about the senshi brought them, Gingetsu was interrupted from his reverie by the sound of footsteps. Turning around, he saw that it was the blue-haired one, the Senshi of Mercury, Mizuno Ami. She was older than him by a few years, and never went anywhere without her notebook.

"Good day, Gingetsu," she greeted, and Gingetsu returned the greeting coolly. He didn't like her the first time he set eyes on her, and that feeling had only intensified over the years. Though she looked sweet and altogether unassuming and unimportant, Gingetsu had the feeling that she was keenly aware of every little detail around her, and nothing ever escaped her.

"Looking at the roses again?" Her tone was subtly condescending, and Gingetsu read that clearly.

"Yes, nature can be so much more refreshing than hard plastic and silicon chips sometimes," he retorted, watching in satisfaction as she glanced down involuntarily at the notebook that hung in a bag at her side. The betraying colour in her cheeks that told him his jibe struck home.

"Yes, you could say that, but we must look to where knowledge can be stored. In nature we-" Ami was cut off by a shout as a fellow student came bounding by.

"Lord General Malachite wants you now!" he said breathlessly.

Gingetsu raised one eyebrow and inclined his head towards the senshi. "I have to go. A pleasure to meet you, as always."

Ami stared after him angrily. How dare he mock her? Who was he, that even the Queen noticed him on their first meeting. Her mind took her back to the debrief after that Court session.

"My Queen, what was so interesting about that young man? If he can be counted as one," Serena sniggered. The Queen leveled steady glare in her direction, and her only daughter, heir and senshi of the Moon clamed up immediately. "That child feels very familiar. We should be wary of him. Mercury, find out all you can about him, from the date of his birth to now, and cover all areas, parentage, background, everything. And do not disappoint me. I demand a full report in three days' time."

The young Prince Endymion spoke up. "But Your Majesty, what have you to be wary of? You are well 'received' by the common people, your enemies are all crushed or reduced to servants, and the senshi protect you from all magical harm."

Queen Serenity snapped back, "Lorien's sole heir has not been accounted for." Hino Rei spoke up disbelievingly. "No one could have survived that nuclear explosion, let alone a mere baby. He most certainly perished in that blast that also took out his father."

"How sure are you?" the Supreme Ruler of the Lunar Empire inquired, a dangerous gleam in her cornflower blue eyes.

Rei swallowed, wondering what her big mouth had gotten her into this time. "My predecessor conducted a thorough search of the area, and she found both the signature auras of Lorien and Zoisite."

"Fool!" The Queen's face was flushed to a magnificent red. "Finding the signature auras merely indicate that the person in question has been at the place recently. It does not confirm a person's death!"

"But Gingetsu is so tiny and fragile and gentle, I doubt he can kill an ant without his conscience pricking him," the Senshi of Jupiter, Kino Makoto, snorted. She was one who looked at size more than anything else, since she was first and foremost, a soldier, a 'man' of action, not of reason.

"Small people are generally smarter," Serena retorted acidly. The subject of height was always very touchy for her, since she was at least a head shorter than everybody else, save the Senshi of Venus, Aino Minako.

"I Looked into his heart and read nothing there but a love for flowers and books," Minako spoke up languidly. She was playing with a strand of her golden hair, looking like a vapid airhead for all the world to see.

Queen Serenity was not assured. "Prevention is better than Cure, the palace fool knows that. Mercury, your report in three days' time."

And so Ami had slaved over her computer and the uncountable networks she could hack into, and found that Gingetsu Illandi was the only son of a villager far away in the South. He had left his home village when he was sixteen, and had journey to the Capital in hopes of acing the Examinations. Eventually, he received the third ranking, and was given a scholarship by one of the more prominent professors, Jadeite. His interest lay in flowers of all sorts, and books, and after two years under Lord General Malachite, had developed into a competent swordsman. As far as she was concerned, the teenager was nil for magical abilities, since if he was indeed Lorien's heir, he would have displayed whatever Gifts or powers he had already. But then again, that could be attributed to something else.

"Ami, what are you thinking about?" Makoto asked, walking down the path to meet her. She was very tall, taller than most men even, and she managed to make everybody around her look petite.

"Gingetsu and the enigma he represents. I still don't understand why the Queen demands that we observe him so carefully. He drives me nuts with the word play every time I see him." Ami stomped her foot on the ground in frustration.

The racing car screeched to a halt, and the tall driver stepped gracefully out of the car and peeled off her helmet, waving to the crowds as she did so. "The winner - Tenou Haruka!" the commentator shrilled into the microphone as the huge boards on either side of the stadium flashed the name in neon block letters. Tenou Haruka had become a household name in the planet of Uranus, more so because she was the Only Princess of Uranus. Almost half the population revered her as their idol. She was not the heir to the throne, there were two older brothers waiting in line before her, and as such, she was free to do what she loved most - racing.

The trophy she collected would just sit together with its brethen in a huge showcase reserved especially for racing trophies, and the winner's laureate was tossed casually onto the passenger car seat of her bright gold sports convertible. The trip to the palace took her barely five minutes, given the dangerously reckless speeds she favoured while on the highways, and the fact that other vehicles always peeled off to the sides to let her pass.

The guard at the palace gate greeted her by the name, and grinned knowingly. "The Princess of Neptune is here, Haruka, and she's ordered me to tell you that if you don't get your butt into her rooms in five minutes, she will skin you alive. I repeated that word for word, your Highness."

Haruka grinned back. "Thank you, Fonso, and now I better hurry before I'm late. Can't keep the lady waiting."

The Princess of Neptune was slowly counting the last five seconds on her fingers, ticking them off one by one when Haruka burst into the room, a boyish grin on her face, as she came over and scooped her up into her arms. "Haruka! Put me down! I'm here on official business!" Michiru squealed in outraged delight. Haruka was unrepentant.

"Oh, and I thought you came to see me." Haruka pouted for the effect, but it was lost on Michiru, who grinned even wider.

"That was the added bonus. But seriously now, we have to review our joint defences before the Lunar Empire launches another 'invitation' for us to join them."

Haruka's face was poker straight and grim now, not the racing champion nor even the Princess, but the War leader of Uranus and General of the combined Uranus and Neptune Army.

"I presume that there is yet no word about the Earth heir?" "Damned! Eighteen years and still nothing! I seriously believe that poor King Lorien and Zoisite are truly dead. I hate the Moon Queen. Why can't she just leave us alone? Perhaps we ought to join the Larger Mellaganic Cloud Empire, even if they have a penchant for cannibalism. Anything would be better than having a tyrant and a usurper breathing down our necks! What does Saturn have to say? And Pluto?"

Michiru's blue-green eyes were unfocussed. "Hotaru has yet to send the latest report on Saturn's current situation, but from what I last heard, it hasn't been good. The gravity shields are in serious disintegration, and every able bodied Saturnian is going to have to pitch in to prevent the entire planet from collapsing. As it is, a few of the rings are disappearing. As for Pluto, she's unreachable. Besides, you know that she won't meddle in anything. Setsuna is the neutral one among us four."

"Damnation!" Haruka spat out, together with a sizzling volley of Uranian curse words, that sounded remarkably fluid.

"Umm...my thoughts precisely. Well?" Michiru let the question hang in the air, knowing that her partner and lover would be able to pick up the multiple layers that the word implied.

Haruka worried at a hangnail. "I think that we should go to Earth ourselves instead of sending agents to do the job for us. If you want something done, you've got to do it yourself, remember? And if Zoisite is really dead, we can forget that avenue of help completely, and concentrate on finding some other ally. We can't ask any of the other planets cos' they're apparently dead loyal to their 'oh-so gracious and benevolent Queen'. Bleah!"

Michiru grinned in spite of the gravity of the situation. "I suppose that's possible. I have never been to Earth before, the experience would be nice. Besides, Piresei can take care of things back in Neptune."

Haruka nodded. Piresei, Michiru's oldest sister, was a formidable lady, and she ruled the great planet with a gentle, if strict, hand. No doubt she would be resourceful enough to cope with anything that cropped up, short of a orchestrated attack by all the other five planets. "In that case, how about dinner? I know that you've been dying to hear Atheria play, and I've got two tickets to her performance."

"Atheria? Atheria Cervantes? That famous violinist! Oh Haruka, however did you manage to get tickets to her performance?" Michiru breathed in surprise and delight.

Haruka smirked. "Oh, I have my sources."