Cardcaptor Sakura: The New Adventures

Chapter 6: Dreams and Secrets Hi guys! I'm finally done with chapter 6! I'd really like to thank Umi-chan for her nice long review. It really went a long way to inspire me to continue writing this series. Now, if only more then one of you would write a review longer then just several words.....

Disclaimer: Cardcaptor Sakura is a copyright of CLAMP. I do not any of the characters in the story except those of my own creation. MageKnight and MageKnight figure names are copyrighted trademarks of WizKids Games.

"these" means speech.

'these' mean thought

[these] mean sounds

{these} mean author's note

*****these***** means elasped time or change of location

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Meiling stared blankly at her lunch, a typical Chinese meal of rice and a few choice selections of dim sum and stir-fried vegetables. It had been a couple of days since the incident where Dalong had announced that they were a couple. They were now sitting under the shade of some trees, the same grove that Dalong had emerged from when Sakura had first met the giant. She and Dalong where sitting with the rest of their friends, including the single girls of the group, Rika and Naoko. Meling had sinced decided to change hairstyles, though she still wore them in buns sometimes.

This day she had gone for a simple look, letting her hair loose like how Tomoyo usually wore her hair, letting it flow in the wind gracefully. Her hair, let down as it was, was only slightly longer then Tomoyo's. Dalong looked at her in all deep concentration, wanting to burn the image into his mind. At the same time he had was worried as to why she wasn't eating, and it clearly showed on her face. Meiling caught him looking at her and smiled at him, reassuring him that nothing was the matter.

She was still kinda dazed at what had happened. 'I'd forgotten how .......truthful Dalong can be,' she thought, as she was at a loss of words to describe the kind of bravado that Dalong had, 'It could get him kil...'

The dream came rushing back to her, the dark, sinister laugh. The black fireball headed towards her and Dalong jumping in front of her to save her life. She lowered her head over her bento box, putting her hands on her head. 'No..not again!' she mentally screamed. Dalong noticed this and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close in a comforting manner. "The dream again?," he whispered.

She nodded. He sighed. This wasn't the first time. During the past two days Meiling had been having flash backs of the dream, mainly the part where Dalong appeared to die. "I think it's time we talked to our mystical friends," he said quietly, referring to the children of Clow and Clow's reincarnation. Meiling nodded in silent agreement. She didn't know how much longer she could bare the pain of seeing the one she loved most dying over and over again.

Sakura looked at the new couple, a worried frown knitting her face. Syaoran too, was worried. 'What could be going on that could cause Meiling so much pain?,' he thought, as he had recalled that for the past two nights she had not slept well due to some reoccuring nightmare. Faint dark rings could be seen around her eyes, and the eyes her self were redder then usual. He had a faint idea what is was, hearing Dalong's name when ever she cried out. He had told Sakura, and she had firmly said, "I'm worried about them, but when their ready, they'll come to us."

Syaoran agreed with her. Whatever was happening was between Dalong and Meiling. It would not have been right to intrude in their private lives. Sakura looked over at Tomoyo and Eriol. She could see that Tomoyo was visibly worried about their good friend, while Eriol didn't seem worried one bit, or was he putting that worry behind a mask, the way he had hid his true nature when he had been testing Sakura? Sakura shook her head. 'You never could tell with Eriol-kun', she thought.

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It was after school, and the S-team had gathered around Penguin Park. It was a Friday, so Sakura and Tomoyo had had to go to their after-school activities. The sun was setting and most of the children had gone home, leaving the park relatively deserted. The settled in a clearing among some trees, out of ear shot of any passerby. Meiling retold her story of the dream that night, and the flashbacks she'd been having. Tomoyo, Syaoran and Sakura sweatdropped, realising they'd have to tell Meiling what really happened that night. Eriol, cool as a cucumber, just smiled the during the whole story.

"Ano...Meiling-chan..." she began sheepishly, afraid of the reaction she might get from the fiery-tempered Meiling. "We kind of have something to do with your dream," and she recounted how they had used the Dream card and a carefully planned arrangement of rooms to get Dalong and Meiling together. Meiling's face started to turn red. "You did WHAT!?," she screamed at Sakura, taking one slow step at a time.

Sakura started to back away. "Now Meiling-chan, you should be thanking us. You wouldn't be where you were right now if it weren't for us," she said, trying to defend herself. Meiling was almost upon her now. Sakura could see her breath as the water vapour condensed in the cold air. "Thank you!?," she yelled, throwing up her hands into the air, "You're the cause of my torment for the past few days! Do you know what it's like to see the one you love most die over and over again!? No! Of course you don't, because you've never had the Dream give you a nightmare!" She felt angry at Sakura for having done such a thing, but seeing her scared face, a face she had only seen when she had first come to Tomeda, it just didn't seem to help being angry at her.

So Meiling, the head-strong member of the team, sank to her knees, covered her eyes, and wept. Dalong came over to comfort her, wrapping his arms around her. "Hush, don't cry my little angel," he said softly, rockling her in his arms. "Go...gomenasai, Sakura-chan," she sobbed out, "I was just... just so angry." Sakura got up and lifted Meiling to her feet and hugged one of the dearest friends she had ever had. "I'm the one who should be sorry, Meiling." Dalong got to his feet. "Now that we're all tomodachis again, how about we solve Meiling's problem?"

Sakura released Meiling from her embrace, and they sat down in the circle again. Syaoran looked at Eriol, an eyebrow raised. Eriol sighed. "Just because I have all the memorys of Clow Read does not mean that I know everything," They all 'hmm'ed and 'hahh'ed for the next half an hour, pondering on how to solve Meiling's problem. Then, Syaoran snapped his fingers. "I got it!" Five pairs off eyes looked at Syaoran expectantly. "Remember that time we first caught the Dream?" Those who had remembered the capture nodded "Keroberos said that the Dream sometimes gives prophetic dreams," his voice turned grave, "Which might mean that Dalong is going to....."

His trailed off, not wanting to complete the sentence. But all present knew what he would have said anyway. The brightness in Meling's terracotta eyes which had returned so recently dissappeared as what Syaoran had said sank in. Tears once again welled up into her eyes, and she buried her face in Dalong's chest, wrapping her arms around him in such a manner that in seemed she would never let him go. "NO! It can't be true! Why, Kami-sama, why!?," she cried out, her voice cracking.

Dalong tried to comfort her, stroking her long, dark hair as she cried into his shirt. "I won't die, Meiling. No matter what, I always be here." She looked up at his face. "Promise?," she said, putting out her pinky. Dalong laughed softly, 'Afterall these years, she still uses the pinky-promise,' "I promise," he said as he wrapped his own pinky around hers. Then, Meiling slowly brought her head up and her lips touched Dalong and for a moment, it was just the two of them.

That is, until Tomoyo brought them back to reality. "KAWAII!!!" she almost screamed, holding the camera near their faces. Meiling nearly jumped away from Dalong. Sakura giggled uncontrollably whilst Syaoran and Eriol had huge grins on their faces. "You...you should have seen your faces..HaHaHaHa," was all Sakura managed to say before bursting out in full blown laughter. Meiling was trying hard not to laugh, but gave up in the end. After their bout of laughter, they setteled down again.

"Meiling-san, did you ever actually see Dalong-san die?" Eriol asked. "No. The dream usually ended when the fireball hit him." "Hmm...it might mean something," he glanced sideways at Dalong and noticed he was getting kind of fidgety, as though he wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. To Eriol's keen eye and high intelluct, it was obvious Dalong was hiding something. But their was too little evidence to deduce what he was hiding.

Syaoran looked at his watch. "I think we had better go back. It's nearly six o'clock and I don't think we'd want anybody to worry about us." "Souda! Otaa-san will be worried. Syaoran-kun, help me up." Syaoran got up and help Sakura to her feet. Eriol and Dalong, ever the gentlemen, did the same with Tomoyo and Meiling. "Let's talk about it tommorrow at Syaoran-kun's house. I'm sure Wei-san wouldn't mind. Besides, he already knows about the Sakura Cards, so it's safer if we talked there." "But..." Sakura just smiled at him, doing her thing [which is to make him melt ^_^], and all he could do was nod his head.

As they walked towards along the lake, Eriol suddenly noticed something. "You know," he said, addressing the others, "Ashura has been very quiet lately since that first time he attacked us." Syaoran pondered on this new piece of news. "You're right, Hiragizawa-kun. Which means that he could attack us at anytime now. I mean, it's nearly been a week. We had better be on our toes if we don't want Ashura to catch us by surprise."

"Sakura, I'll walk you home," Syaoran volunteered as they were about to part ways. "Arigatou, Syaoran-kun. Always my knight in shining armour, ne?" Syaoran blushed as the others laughed at him. Dalong offered to walk Meiling home and Eriol would, of course, walk Tomoyo home. Dalong laughed inwardly about the 'knight in shining armour' comment that Sakura had made. 'If only they knew,' he thought, a grin plastered on his face.

Meiling noticed this and was a little puzzled. "Nani? What's so funny?" Dalong sweatdropped. "Nandemo nai mon. Nothing's the matter." Suddenly, a thick fog rolled in from the lake, limiting visibility to only a few feet. An evil laugh echoed through the fog, and three fimilar figures emerged from it's depths. Eriol narrowed his eyes, his muscles tense. He whispered a name, "Ashura".

His eyes clearly shone true the darkness. In another time, long ago, those eyes would have been another color, but now they only reflected the dark magic their master held within himself. "So, all the Children of Clow are here." He looked at Dalong and Meiling, who were standing battle ready in their fighting stances. Eclipse growled at them. "I smell Clow's blood on them, master, but I can sense no magic." Dark Moon tap his fingers. "All the same, they'll make for good practice."

Dalong growled at them. "We won't be as easy a prey as you think." Dark Moon just smiled at him, licking his lips. "And you'll make for a tasty treat," he said, baring his long, vampire-like canines. This time it was Meiling's turn to growl. Syaoran looked at the both of them. "Dalong, get Meiling out of here." Dalong glanced at Syaoran with a raised eyebrow, but the Syaoran's stern look remained unchanged and he shrugged in defeat.

Dalong grabbed a protesting Meiling as they beat a hasty retreat from the battle field, giving Ashura no time to cast a binding spell. He got Meiling as far away from the park as he could, sitting her down in front of the Twin Bells store. Meiling crossed her arms in front of her and glared at Dalong, causing him to back off. "Come on Meiling, we wouldn't have stood a chance against Ashura and his minions." She shot up from her sitting postion and got as close as she could to Dalong's face.

"So what!?" she literally screamed, "I could have helped them!" This got the attention of everyone in the store. Dalong sweatdropped and pulled Meiling to a place where there were less people. "Meiling, I need to go back there." Meiling glared at him, "You're not suppose to be there in the first place!" Dalong held her shoulders and, looking down, just shook his head. "I knew it would come to this." He stood up and took out something from his shirt.

It was a white crystalline gem. It was shaped liked a diamond, except both ends were pointed. A special cap griped one point of the gem and a simple chain was strung through the loop on the cap. Inside she saw another gem which was spherical and green in color. It was about as big as the head on Sakura's key. As Dalong then started an incantation, a near-blinding white light enveloped his body

"Tenshi Metura. The Man who wears the Armour of God. I summon thee. Lend me thy powers to protect the innocent and banish the darkness from this world. Release!" White energy swirled from the gem and engulfed Dalong. Meiling gasped as she witnessed what was happening right before her eyes. As the white energy subsided, where was once a boy now was a man standing in pure white armour.

"Now you know, Meiling". The voice was Dalong's, yet it was not. There was another voice there as well, deeper, more aged. "I am the Metal Angel reborn".

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Haha! Never expected did you? Probably because I gave as few hints as possible! We'll see how long it will take our other friends to clue in. And BTW, Dalong really doesn't have any powers. All his powers are derived from the indestructible Heaven's Gem, as I have named it. Next chapter will be another 2 weeks as I need to work, study and have an overall life. Till the next chapter, Long Live Card Captor Sakura!