"This is…a dream?"

That was my first thought as I looked down upon Tomoeda, the city I called home. I knew it was a dream because I was flying; no…floating, in midair without the use of the FLY or even my wand.

The city was pitch-black. And it wasn't because it was night. There was perpetually no light, no street lights, no cars, even the sun provided no light. Then I noticed why. The sun was completely blacked out, its edges completely snuffed out by an inky black shadow.

"What's going on?" I hugged myself close. This was like no dream I had ever had. It felt like the darkness around me might close in, surrounding me in its cold grip. On the very edge of my vision a light suddenly appeared. A deep purple glow had sprung from the very foot of the Tokyo Tower.

I don't know whether it was by my own power but I was slowly levitating toward the Tower and the strange light. I suddenly heard a repeating monotone chant.

"Zetsuboda. Zetsuboda. Zetsuboda." (Despair)

"What is this?" I gasped as I scanned over the crowd of chanters. I recognized so many people in the crowd. My neighbors, my classmates, my friends even my family. And what frightened me the most…the purple glow was coming from them.

Each one of them stood straight backed, their face completely emotionless but their eyes were filled with an eerie yellow light. But their bodies. Their bodies looked as if they were beginning to shatter. Strange cracks were spreading all across their bodies and from within those fissures was where the purple light was coming from.

The chanters were all looking forward with their expressionless faces, all of them looking ahead toward the leader of their troop.

The supposed leader of their gathering looked toward the gathering instead of straight ahead. They were very small, petite even, their body shrouded by a black coat and hood. They did not join in the chanting but only stared out contently at their vast group of followers, sitting cross legged in a black wooden chair that must have been prepared for them.

The cloaked figure then raised their hand to silence the chanting and immediately the chanter ceased. The figure rose from their chair and turned their attention away from the crowd, toward a road that stemmed from the main road of the city. I was also looking that way because I noticed a new light was heading directly for this exact area, the sound of a low rumble coming with it.

Vrooom!

Pulling up several yards from the crowd a single motorcycle came to a screeching halt, the light coming from its headlight. Its rider nudged the kick stand down and kicked off from his bike, tossing his full face helmet to the side. I still couldn't see his face from the distance I was forced to watch from. I could make out however the strange white buckle in the shape of a hand wrapped around his wrist and the ring with a red gem on his finger.

The leader of the troop of mesmerized people looked at the rider thoughtfully, raising a femininely gloved hand toward the man's direction. Her horde immediately broke from their prone states. What happened next could have only come from a nightmare.

Many fell to a knee, others clutched their chest in apparent pain. I cried out, trying to move toward them, help them in any way I could. But I could not move, helplessly I hung in midair, too far to help anyone.

The fissures covering the pained people began to glow ever brighter and spread ever farther across their bodies. The fissures suddenly seemed to glow to an apex as one person's body instantly exploded, his body seeming to shatter as if it were rock not human flesh. In his place a new body rose up, a body so twisted looking it could never have been mistaken for being human. More people followed the first as their bodies exploded in term as more monsters rose from the debris, each one calling out to the dark sky, flexing their newly formed claws and filling the air with blood curdling shrieks and roars. And once every person had changed and every monster fallen into place, they sprang on the rider as one.

The lone man did not pull back, nor did he make a move for his bike, instead he pulled a new ring from inside his jacket and slid it into place on his finger. He placed the palm of his hand over the handprint buckle on his waist. The buckle instantly sprang to life as light filtered from the ring.

Dragorise!

A red magic circle appeared in the air above him. An ear wrenching bellow came from the circle that caused the army of monsters to stop in their tracks some even pulling back in fear.

A white, horned head rose from the circle first, then a gold clawed talon and then two vast wings allowed the beast to free itself from the magical gateway.

"Dragon! Ike! (attack)" The man commanded, the beast landed on the ground beside him, the ground shaking under its weight. It growled threateningly as smoke filtered from its jaws. It took one loping step before it was practically upon the horde of much smaller monsters.

The horde immediately retreated as the few of them at the front were crushed under the white dragon's huge feet while others were unfortunate enough to be caught in its razor like teeth. The dragon noticed the large group trying to retreat immediately as more smoke billowed from its clenched fangs.

With a mighty roar a gout of flames erupted from its jaws instantly incenarating those at the back of the line. The flames followed the group for several more yards torching those who could not get ahead of the others. The few monsters that were fast enough to escape made a beeline for their master side hoping that in her prescence they would find sanctuary from the monsters snapping jaws and burning flames.

It was not to be. I watched in horror as she lifted a small rectangular card into the air above her.

Crash!

Not even a whimper came from her cowardly followers as they were instantly made a memory by a sudden flash of dark lightning that instantly, and hopefully painlessly, erased them.

The cloaked girl showed no sign of remorse as she walked over the ashes of her once large army of monsters. The dragon growled threateningly once more as she drew closer but on a call from its master it immediately pulled back to his side.

The two stared each other down once more, no words were passed between the two.

"Henshin." The man placed the hand with the red ring on the buckle this time as a new magic circle appeared in front of him. In turn, purple fissures began to spread across the girl like her minions before her. The two immediately dashed toward each other as one. The man's body passed through the red sigil filled circle and his body suddenly became wrapped in flames. The girl's fissures glowed to their apex as her human body exploded away. The two finally crashed into one another as a flash of red and purple filled the dark world with bright harsh light. I covered my face with my arms from the blast.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

BEEP!

"HOE!" Sakura leaped from her position in bed into a sitting position as the buzzer to the alarm clock rang in her ear. She wiped the sleep from her eyes as she took in her surroundings. Not a dark city, no monsters, just her regular bedroom with sunlight filtering through from outside.

"Man you were really out of it." A small, teddy bear like cat flew into her lap his little wings flapping air into her face. "That thing was going off for a full ten minutes, I thought you'd never wake up."

"WHAT! Ten minutes! Kero-chan why didn't you wake me!?" Sakura leaped from her bed, sending the little yellow lion back into the air. She scrambled to her closet to pull out her uniform. "I'm gonna be late!"

"Ah, this brings back memories." Sakura turned to a voice in her doorway and saw her elder brother standing there with a wry grin and pointing to his watch. Kero instinctively went prone trying his best to imitate a stuffed animal. "You're going to be late, Kaiju."

"Would you stop calling me that!" An anger mark formed on Sakura's brow at the tiresome nickname. "I'm in middle school you know."

"You're right." Toya agreed with a shrug. " A Kaiju at least causes destruction on time. So you're more of a baby who sleeps in all the time." He grinned bigger.

"Would you get out of here so I can change!"

"Sure, sure." Toya held up his hands in surrender. "You're breakfast is in a bag in the kitchen so you can eat it on your way to class." Toya chuckled as he closed the door behind him. Sakura grumbled inaudibly as she went about the task of hurrying to pull on her uniform.

"That was close." Kero sighed as he flew back up to his place on the bed. Even years after Sakura's capturing and changing of the Clow Cards Kero still felt it was necessary to lay low around Sakura's family, though often it seemed fairly clear that the elder Kinimoto sibling seemed to be onto him. "You can't blame him for making fun. You were so out of it that even the alarm couldn't wake you. Was it a dream?"

Sakura had just straightened the tie to her red uniform when she paused in thought. "Yeah, I think it was a dream." She pondered to her self.

"Well what was it about?"

"Umm…I can't remember."

"Of course not." Kero sighed at this very common occurrence. "Well it must not of been anything important."

"I'm not sure." Sakura pondered further. She could remember somethings like floating without her magic and a bright flash of light but that was it.

"Yo Kaiju! Daidouji's down stairs waiting for you! Her chaufers with her." Toya called up to her.

"Thank god for you Tomoyo-chan!" Sakura grabbed her bag and flung open the door to run down stairs. "See ya Kero." She whispered back to the clow guardian. He waved back in response.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Sorry for making you wait." Sakura called to her cousin and best friend.

"No problem." The long haired girl assured her as she opened the car door. "I had a feeling you might need a lift is all."

"Thankyou." Sakura slid into the seat beside Tomoyo as she started to hurriedly wolf down her breakfast. "I really can't believe I slept through my alarm buzzer…" The door shut muffling her words from those outside as the car pulled away.

Hovering several stories above the young Card mistress's home was tiny red mechanical bird. The bird chirped thoughtfully as the car retreated into the distance. It flapped its way down to the window at the homes top floor. It peered in, watching the little yellow lion mutter triumphantly to himself as he mashed the buttons on the game controller that practically matched him in size his eyes solely focused on the screen.

"Hmm! What's that?" The little lion's ears twitched as it felt a presence from outside. It flew over to the window looking left and right around the window sill and saw nothing. "Must be my imagination." He surmised. "I wouldn't blame anyone though. They must've wanted to watch my masterful playing of these videogames." Kero went back to his business, switching the game back to play mode and immediately forgetting the presence he felt.

The presence however was very real as the red bird escaped its hiding place in the shrubs beneath Sakura's window. It chirped in thought once more before flying off, to inform its master.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Was the tea to your liking sir?" The young café waitress asked her customer. It wasn't often that many people ordered the European style tea and it was even less often for there to be actual European customer to order it.

The man who ordered it seemed to casually sip the beverage and sigh with content once he was done. He flipped the cup over and placed it on the dish it was served to him on. He then asked for his bill. The woman complied removing the dish and placing the leaflet with his order and the price written on it. He looked over his bill and then pulled out not his wallet but a plain white hankerchief. He placed the cloth over his bill. The waitress looked at him quizzically. He invited her to remove the cloth with a smile and a motion of his hands. She did so.

"Oh my." She gasped. Beneath the hankerchief was his bill paid in full but also a very generous tip for the waitress as well as a single red rose. The waitress scooped up the money and lifted the rose to her nose to sniff. It was real!

"The tea was perfect love. And the service was as well." He winked at the blushing waitress as he exited the café.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Ah nothing quite like good tea in the morning." The foreign man said as he casually waltzed down the nearly empty sidewalks. Many people stopped and stared as the passing brown haired man walked by. He whistled a mellow tune and waved as he passed by so many starring eyes, his own blue eyes showing a pure jolliness for the simple morning.

His eyes then darted to the side when he noticed a red shape darting out of view of the people on the sidewalk. He hooked a right into a more empty street and whistled.

The red mechanical bird lighted onto his shoulder almost immediately. "Garuda, nice work." He softly petted the little bird one the head and it seemed to coo in joy for the remark. "So now we know we're in the right place. This is definitely the Card Misstress's city." The bird nodded and leaped back into the air.

"Well then." He stated, pulling a ring from his jacket pocket. The ring had a silver base with a red gem planted into its center. He flipped down a secondary piece of metal hanging off the side of the base and covered the gem giving the appearance of a face mask over the jewel. "Show Time."

Welp. There we have it. This ladies and gentlemen is an idea I've wanted to do for a long time. Not this specifically at first but it eventually evolved into this. This was a practice chapter I decided to write first as more of an introductory to the theme of the story. So it will be known as Chapter Zero. For now let's keep all speculation to a minimum, I will provide more details in the next chapter, so for now please review and give me your impression.