The New Rival

One morning on their way to school, Tory and Sakura were arguing, again. "One of these days…" Sakura warned her brother.

"Watch out Tory," Julian advised him, "she might be the one fighting people in the park." Li came to school later than usual, with a troubled expression on his face. Right behind him walked a girl with a light complexion, black hair, and eyes that looked red in the light.

"Li! You promised you'd come to school with me," she frowned. The teacher summoned her to the front of the room.

"Class, we have a new student. Meet Meilin Grey- she's from Li Shoran's hometown."

Sakura turned around in her seat to face Li. "Li, do you know this girl? What's she like?" she asked, curious. Her answer came in the form of Meilin rushing over.

"Listen girl- stay away from Li." At lunch that day, in the yard, Meilin spoke with Li. "Remember when we used to pretend we were card captors?"

"Yes, but now I am a card captor, Meilin."

"But I thought that the Lazen-board said someone else was a card captor."

"Yeah, well, they're not very good at it," he remarked.

"That's because no one's as good as you Li," Meilin smiled.

"She just stumbled into this," he went on.

"I knew it! The new card captor is a girl- that girl right over there- Sakura," Meilin pointed angrily. Sakura shuddered. In gym class, the teacher asked both of them to demonstrate some of their best moves. It turned out to be quite a competition.

"She's on my case," Sakura told Kero that evening, as she lay on her bed staring up at the ceiling. "It's like she's looking for a fight."

"So fight her," he shrugged.

She shook her head as she heard the call for dinner, and got up. "I don't want to fight anyone; I just want to capture the cards. I'll bring you dessert," and she went downstairs to eat. Julian was eating dinner with them that night. They looked at the newspaper.

"I find it strange they haven't caught her yet," Mr. Avalon remarked.

"She hasn't stolen anything, just taking on masters and beating them all. They're too ashamed to come forward," Julian explained.

"It's a test of strength. Tory- you're taking karate- isn't that one of the disciplines?" his father asked.

"Well, sure, you're always looking for worthy opponents."

"Where does this happen?" Sakura asked.

"Well let's see," Julian consulted the article, "in Reedington Park. Authorities are looking for a young girl in an unusual costume."

"Unusual costume?" she laughed nervously. "I really don't want to get caught dressed like this tonight, Madison," she said at the park later, commenting on her friend's latest design, "and I don't think Kero's thrilled about the pink sleeves."

"He isn't?" Madison asked.

"I definitely sense a Clow Card- do you sense it, Sakura?" Kero asked.

"Yeah, I do!"

"A Clow Card that beats people- which one is that?" Madison asked.

"The fight card!" They looked up to see Meilin on top of a lamppost.

"Hi, Meilin!" She jumped down.

"Oh, you must be Li's girlfriend," Kero teased.

"Is this some kind of robotic toy?" Meilin asked.

"This is KeroBeros, the guardian beast…" Sakura introduced him.

"Whatever. You may have your guardian beast, but Li Shoran has me. So you can take a hike, girl!" Meilin told her.

"Meilin!" Li rushed over. "The Lazen-board- hand it over." She did.

"It didn't work anyway," she complained.

"How could you take it out of my house?" he demanded.

"Wei promised he wouldn't tell. I wanted to find out where the card was and I asked him to help me, but even Wei couldn't figure it out. So I just sort of winged it."

"Interesting," Kero said, putting the pieces together.

"What is it?" Sakura asked, clueless as to what this all meant.

"The girl has no magic powers," he informed her.

"Really?"

"Oh she's practiced, but she has no magical lineage." The fight card appeared, dressed in blue.

"That looks like a young girl in a very strange costume alright," Sakura moaned.

"The design is actually very millennium," Madison commented. The card bowed at them, and Sakura bowed back. Then Meilin grabbed the card's attention. "It wants to fight her?"

"Well, let's hope she's as good as she thinks she is," Kero put in. Meilin fought the card for a while, and it seemed she was winning, when the card made a comeback.

"Want to go again?" they fought on, but as Meilin lifted her leg in an attempt to kick the card, she grabbed Meilin and threw her. Li tried to stop the card, but then he was thrown. Meilin got up again, and ran over. "Li! Oh no- he's hurt! That's it," she turned around, "You may be a Clow Card, but I'm Meilin Grey!" She attacked the card.

"Meilin!"

"Li, are you alright?" Sakura asked. He held his arm. "I've got to admit, she's pretty good."

"But fighting…with a Clow Card is…different." When at last Meilin could take no more, Li moved forward to try again.

"Wait Li- let me handle this," Sakura held him back. "Kero, which card should I use?"

"The only way to stop the fight card is to fight," he informed her.

"Fight? Are you sure that's the only way?" she stammered.

"You did it with the power card before," Madison reminded her.

"That's it! Power Card, give your power to this wand, Power!" The fight card came running towards Sakura, who hit her on the head with her wand. She fell over, and once sealed, went to Sakura. Meilin was disappointed that it didn't go to Li. "Excuse me," Sakura tried to comfort her, "it was really a team effort because if you hadn't tired out the card first, I couldn't have-" Meilin wouldn't listen.

"There are bound to be some glitches along the way," Kero shrugged.

"You call her a glitch?" Madison asked.

"Mmmn, I do. Just a minor glitch."

Author's Note: I'd like to thank halliwells for the tip. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the series is available online. This quite probably makes this work obsolete, but in my defense, I wrote this before I'd ever heard of DSL, let alone had it.