Chapter 1
* * * *
Rain. Cleansing, peaceful, refreshing, serene and one major pain in the ass to train in. The red iron dust on mars becomes extremely muddy and hard to walk in, the fields of grass become slippery, the grips on the swords are hard to handle, and worst off.. it gets in your eyes. Its MISRABLE. If you can help it, never ever EVER train and/or fight in the rain. Go inside. And that is Endymion's extremely good advice for the day. If you haven't figured it out by now.. yes.. I was training... and yes.. I had managed to escape from my prison.
Although not in the daring dashing exciting heroic way I had planned... you know the one I'm talking about.. where I would stealthily slip out my door and sneak down the hallways towards the transportation rooms, following the two delegates going to Mars, amongst the shadows. Sliding through the doors of the room before they slammed shut and immediately hiding as soon as being transported to the red planet. The plan SHOULD have happened that way.. but I tripped whilst I was following the delegates in the shadows and made a big commotion.. and was immediately taken to the king. He looked confused as to why I would want to go to Mars especially with the pack of fighting clothing on my back. I grudgingly told him I wanted to learn how to fight correctly and become a knight... Who knew if you actually ASKED a parent they might let you go do something you want to!
Arrangements had been made and I was now "Darien" a young boy from a tiny town on Earth, training to be an elite knight of the Planetary Alliance Legions.. Hey the acronym for that is PAL! Cool!! er... back to the story.. Father had thought it was best that I be treated like a normal boy, and not some high and mighty prince of earth. Wow the guy really was with the picture! Who knew?!
Let me explain how the system in entering the knighthood of the Alliance worked. The boys at the age of ten were sent to Mars facilities in order to train in the ways of combat skills as well as survival skills, proper demeanor a knight should uphold, manners and ideals of the code. After eight years of the training the men were given an assignment to one of the planets or moons in service of the kings or queens. Which planet he went to all depended on how well the man had done during his training. The highest service was that of the Earth Moon since that planet was the most powerful. Perhaps I should also go into greater detail about the Planetary Alliance itself.
There are ten major kings or queens (almost all with princesses who I have heard were guardians of the Moon Princess) Those would be from the Nine Planets and the Earth Moon. Then each small moon circulating around a planet were their own separate kingdoms and although they had power, major Solar System changing decisions were made by the ten major powers. The most powerful though, was that of the Earth Moon. The was run by Her Serene Highness Queen Serenity who was the only one who could control this little piece of jewelry called the Silver Imperial Crystal. She had a girl also called Serenity (Jee, talk about obsession with a name) who was supposedly my age. The next is power was yours truly, Earth. Run by my father.
The rest of the planets basically had the same amount of power as each other. Each area's people had special qualities that marked them. The Mercurians were known for their extreme intelligence; the Venusians were known for being overly romantic; Martians were known for their aggressive dispositions; People from Jupiter were very in tune with nature; Those of Saturn were farmers; Uranus people were the artisans, tinkers; Neptunians were famous for their art. Those of Pluto were very few, and were Seers, star readers, divinitists. As for the Earth and her Moon? The people of the Earth and Moon were mixtures of the eight different aspects listened above. Nothing made them stand out when it came to talents. Only power. Thank you Count Dencerle for grinding all of that information into my brain.
So.. back to the story, here I was, two years later, in a training facility on Mars, in the cold wet miserable rain, swinging a sword around at my opponent and pleading to the Gods that one of us slip up so we could leave. My opponent and one of my best friends went by the name Kunzite. Kunzite came from a small moon circling the planet of Saturn. He was very tall, pale, with silver long hair and eyes. He was the strong silent type and didn't laugh much.. come to think of it.. he never laughed at all.
We had been sparring for the past two hours, and were the last pair left without a winner. Also the last pair outside. This was normal for Kunzite and myself, and usually the other boys stood around and watched us as we fought. But that miserable rain... Neither of us wanted to be out in the rain any more, but he was as stubborn as I was and neither of us would back down and do something logical like "Lets stop this nonsense and get out of the wet stinkin' rain and get some grub!" So, we continued to fight, swords sparking amongst the horrible downpour, sliding every once and a while. He nearly took my arm off and I almost slit his throat by accident due to our bad grips and the mud. That is, if what we were fighting with were real swords.
(In reality the 'swords' we were given were dull and couldn't cut through a piece of butter. The academy didn't give out proper swords until the council felt a student could handle one. Then a new set of training began. Usually the age for a sword to be given to someone was when they were sixteen. ! The reason was that the academy had probably dealt with boys who had put themselves through situations like the one Kunzite and I were subjecting ourselves to, except with gorier results. .
Finally a teacher of ours ran out glaring at both of us, screaming that we needed to get inside where we'd get the most horrible lecture of our lives. Usually we had the "most ferocious lecture of our lives" once a week, sometimes twice. It was normal; Jadeite could recite the entire lecture by heart. He was another one of my friends, and was from the planet Venus. He was open, honest and an ingenious prankster. We got along grandly and were considered the monstrous duo of the academy considering all the delicious pranks we played on people. (Not to mention all the times we got in trouble made us famous.) He was shorter than me with blond hair and green eyes.
Finally Kunzite and I trudged back indoors, following the outraged teacher who was muttering under his breath about how stubborn and irresponsible and illogical young boys were. I grinned as we entered our room. Kunzite and I had a room together, that had a joint bathroom with Jadeite, who I already mentioned, Nephrite and Zoycite. See.. normally the rooms had three people, but I guess Kunz and I were just the lucky ones. So we used the extra bed to dump our stuff on.. or at least I did, Kunzite was abnormally neat. I wonder if he would freak out if I put a wrinkle in his immaculately made bed. Anyways I'll tell you about my other two best friends.
Nephrite was from the planet Pluto but with a Jupiterian mother, and seemed well fitted to come Jupiter considering how woodsy and outdoorsy he was. If you looked at him with your head tilted almost completely upside-down, through a blurry pane of glass he almost looked like a tree. He was tall with long brown hair and brown eyes. Sorta quiet around everyone else except us. He was loud and obnoxious if it was just us. Which was great!
The final of my friends, Zoycite was from the Earth Moon, but I think he said he had a Mercurian father which explained his high intelligence. The guy was practically a genius! Many times Jadeite and I had begged him to help us plan evil pranks upon people but he always declined. Neither of us were offended but it was still worth a try to ask! He was small with blond long hair and blue eyes.
I grinned at Kunzite in half pride as we entered our room. I could fight with him now and actually hold my own against him. He was two years older than the rest of us in the group and thus was a much better swordsman. For some reason the tutors thought he and I should fight together. I felt sorry for him though, considering how bad I was in comparison to him, plus it must be an insult to his own training. Kunzite never complained though, but that was just the way he was.
We tossed our swords onto the bed before changing out of the soaking wet clothing and barging into Zoy, Jed and Neph's room. Well, I barged in. Kunzite sorta followed me in politely. Zoycite was reading a very fat difficult complicated looking book, Nephrite was gazing out the window in a daze and Jadeite was on the ground staring at the ceiling looking as if he were about to die from boredom that was ensuing. I fell down next to him, sitting up, and Kunzite walked over to Zoycite to see what he was reading. Jadeite continued to glare at the ceiling.
"I know I look bored to the ignorant people who have just entered this room, but in reality I am using my powers of telekinesis." He said without looking at me. I heard Zoycite snort in annoyance.
"What he means is he's trying to burn the ceiling by staring at it, a common occurrence when our little Venusian is bored. " Zoycite retorted. Jadeite scoffed.
"A mere boy jealous of my infinite and almighty powers! This ceiling shall catch on fire before this night is through!" Jadeite declared. Nephrite snickered.
"At least it keeps him quiet and keeps him from putting poisonous scorpions in our beds."
"I thought you'd keep the scorpion as a pet Neph!" Jadeite said with a feign of innocence and hurt. Kunzite scowled at the prankster so well known for placing slimy squirmy usually deadly creatures in peoples beds, closets, shoes, hair.. etc.
"And what's your excuse for that snake you stuck under my pillow Jed?" our older friend demanded. Jadeite paused thoughtfully.
"I was testing your courage Kunz, you never seem frightened of anything so I wanted to see if a snake was your weakness! Every man has a weakness! We just must find yours! Mine is living in an area filled with people with no sense of humor, Nephrite's is living in a room with no windows for him to peer out of, Zoycites is that he comes across a subject that he doesn't understand and Darien.." here he paused, "Darien.. is afraid someone may discover the great secret of his past which none of us know but we are bound to find out." I scrunched up my nose.
"What makes you think I have a secret?" I asked casually while inside I was a bunch of squirming nerves. Obviously from the way this conversation was going, my greatest friends in the world did not know a very important secret concerning a certain title I held.
"The way you NEVER talk about your childhood-" Jadeite started before Nephrite interrupted.
"Come off it Jed, how could Darien have the chance considering that mouth of yours never closes." Nephrite was officially the greatest guy in the entire cosmos. Zoycite grinned at Jadeite.
"He has a point there Jed.. we can practically recite your entire family history by heart. I know it better than my own, and that's saying something!" Jadeite scowled at him.
"I still say you're hiding something from us Darien!" Jadeite exclaimed as if it were the greatest conspiracy in the world, but this time it was purely in jest. I could see he was teasing me in his eyes. Inwardly I breathed a sigh of relief and was offering a prayer of thanks. This was the way my life went for the next six years, training and playing with my friends, with the underlying stab of a knife knowing that I could not tell them that I was indeed a prince, not until after I had finished my service in the alliance.
* * * * * 6 years later * * * * *
It was finally the day, the day that my friends and I had been pinning away for ever since we reached Mars. No we weren't getting MARRIED. The day past our 18th birthdays when we would finally be told the place of our service.. Nephrite, Jadeite, Zoycite and I stood in strict lines, tall, strong and ready for any kind of battle. We had each been granted a sword that suited us perfectly. All of us had grown into what people would call men. Although Zoycite still lived in a book, Nephrite still daydreamt and Jadeite was as immature as a four year old. Kunzite had been given his service two years ago and was sent to Venus, he still kept in touch but said very little about what had happened in his life. Once though he mentioned that he was the guardian of the Princess of Venus.. He always demanded to know what exactly was going on with us. It was nice to know he still thought of us and we were still his greatest friends. I was handed my service scroll and in a daze opened it slowly, before I'm sure my jaw physically dropped to the ground and my tongue rolled out.
All I could do was stare at my paper blankly, with these words standing out from the rest.
Guardian of the Royal Princess Serenity of the Earth Moon Kingdom.
gaaah bad ending bad ending