DISCLAIMER: I don't own any CCS characters, they belong to CLAMP or (very unfortunately) Nelvana, so don't sue me.




Two of a Kind



"One day, the Child of Light will come, and I will be with her, then you will pay," Jadis had whispered as she died, and those words had haunted Concha ever since. If Sobek was back, that meant Jadis and the Child of Light would come....soon.

Her first reaction was to hide in the nearby mountains or go off world, except that if Jadis really was with the Child, he or she would be able to track Concha down easily. She paced back and forth in her bare room. Although the rest of her house was lavishly decorated, Concha only kept the necessities in her own room. Severity of her room helped her think, and the heptagon shape was for luck. Today, she was having no luck with her thinking.

"Why don't you make a fake?" Concha turned around and sighed. Sobek's habit of popping up in rooms, unwelcome, was always irritating.

"Why don't you leave?" Sobek shrugged and disappeared in his usual ring of fire. She shuddered.

Unfortunately, today, Sobek actually had a good idea. A fake with enough of her magic in it to convince people that it was real. Except, if the Child of Light had a way of telling fakes apart from authentics, then the plan forming in her mind wouldn't work. There was also no way of telling the magnitude of power the Child would have. She obviously would have some degree of magic, since she was after her talisman, but how much would be another issue.

Oh well, there was no reason to get bent out of shape over possibilities, Concha thought to herself, after all, if I didn't take risks ever once in a while, I wouldn't be where I am today.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sakura looked at her cards. She hadn't needed to use them since they were in elementary school and since then, she used them to help her when she was doing chores or when Tomoyo wanted to make a movie with really cool "special effects". She wondered if they would grow "rusty" from disuse, but then again, she had used all of them multiple times in the past few years.

After Clow made the cards, did he just leave them there and use them only occasionally? That would be a good question for Kero and Yue. Sakura would just have to remind herself to ask when they were around. Then she remembered. Maybe something would come up on this trip and she would have to use the Sakura Cards again. But then again, she had never done battle against an actual evil opponent before. Capturing the Clow cards was hardly called defeating bad guys, and even though Eriol's creations did try to kill her, they weren't exactally bad guys too. And the madoushi in Hong Kong wasn't really bad, she had only misunderstood.

No, Sakura really hadn't ever fought against a real "bad guy" before. The possibility of having to fight for her life sometime in the near future was frightening and thrilling at the same time. She lay back in her bed, wondering what it would be like to actually have to fight for her life using her magic or defend those she loved.

A vision of a battle between the deepest dark and the brightest light flashed before her eyes. Pain flooded her heart and body and the salty, iron taste of blood filled her mouth. When the vision left, Sakura hugged herself and touched herself, making sure that she was whole. The heavy taste of blood was gone, and she was perfectly fine, but she had been shown the future, and she did not like it at all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sobek chuckled to himself and his bauble quaked with silent mirth. Concha would be there to do his dirty work for him, so he wouldn't be blamed. He could stay in the shadows this time and plan all he wanted. The only thing he had to do right was plant the right ideas at the right time in Concha's pretty little head.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Concha's smooth hands carefully fingered the reigns of the horse. It had been a long time since she had hitched a horse to a wagon. Too long, but her fingers still knew the moves. She had left an illusion of her in her room, too fool any chance intruders and found and old scraggly wool cloak with which to hide herself.

The day was only just befinning; the sky was a lazy bronze and the air was still hilly. As she set off down a little used road to a nearby city, the muffled clink of metal could be heard through a lumpy cotton cover.

When she reached the city, sounds of the market place being set up and smells of food vendors getting ready for a new day permeated the air. She thought she had come too late for a good spot when she saw it; an empty space near a large plaza. If this city is anything like most others, she thought to herself, then this plaza will get a lot of attention. A running fountain in the center was surrounded by a ring of trees a few feet away from the fountain. All along the edge of the courtyard, other vendors were setting up their wares.

Getting off her cart, Concha circled around to the back and lifted the cotton cover revealing a beautiful silk cloth tied around something. She moved her horse and cart to a safe place and took out the silk bundle. The knot easily slid apart and necklaces, each with a silver chain and a pendant, fell into veiw. She just finished arranging the jewelry when the shoppers started venturing out.

"These are beautiful," a passerby commented.

Concha looked up. "Yes. Are they not? They have magic in them to bring luck."

"But these are all the same!" Another exclaimed while squatting to have a closer look.

"Nonetheless, they do bring luck to the wearer," Concha replied.

"Well, the snake is the symbol of our patron god," someone said hesitantly.

"Prove to us that there's magic in them," another shouted out.

Concha smiled and chose a talisman from the cloth. The one she picked up was special. The one she picked up was her bait. The one she picked up was the only one in the batch she had power over. She had poured her own magic into this one then altered it to make it feel like the same power her talisman emitted, just in case the Child of Light had magic. Jun in case. "All right, does anyone here have any Sawol powder?" she asked, naming a very expensive, very accurate magic-revealing powder.

"Do you think anyone here actually carries something like that around?"

"I do," Concha retorted, "But since it is mine, you might not believe me if I used it."

"Use it then," a different woman prompted.

Concha shrugged and brought out a small brown pouch containing a fine grey powder. She dipped her finger into the pouch and brought it out. The bery tip of her finger was barely covered. She touched it to the medallion and the jewelry immediately started glowing.

"So there is magic!" the woman exclaimed and promptly bought one.

Business was excellent the rest of the day. And when the sun departed from the plaza, so did Concha.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Ahhh...Finally! Fresh air!" Nakuru exclaimed, jumping off the ship. They had been traveling for almost a month and a half.

"This place...it almost seems as if there's no one here," Syaoran commented, and it was true. They had landed in a grass field that was not very green. Everything around them was an earth color - deep greens and varied browns - the only exception was the sky, a dull, depressing blue.

"Not a very encouraging landscape," Eriol observed.

"Indeed," Yue commented.

"Can you sense anything Rika?" Kero asked from his perch on her shoulder.

She shrugged. "I can feel it coming from two different directions for some reason."

"Is there one that's stronger?" Sakura inquired.

She pointed in the direction she sensed magic coming from. "I don't get it though. We're supposed to land close to the key. The magic I'm feeling is rather far away."

"What about the other one?"

"That one's far away too and in the oposite direction."

"As if the ship didn't know where to go," Spinel mused.

"Well, which way should we plow ahead on?" Ruby enthusiastically exclaimed.

"We would have to go to both placed anyways," Syaoran started, "So I guess it doesn't matter."

Sakura looked around and the silent circle. "Are we just going to stand here forever?"

Yue looked at his mistress. "What about the ship?"

"Oh, I forgot about that," she said, lowering her eyes in thought.

"Is there away you or Eriol could make it invisible?" Syaoran asked.

Eriol shook his head. "Too much energy. We shouldn't waste our magic like that."

"Maybe some of us could stay behind?" Kero suggested.

"We might need everyone," Yue said.

As the argued, Rika slipped into the ship and called up the hologram of Rowan. "How do we make the ship safe?" she asked.

"She has a mechanism for invisability. She also has a mechanism to guard against intruders."

"So how do we activate these things?"

"The invisability has a switch. The intruder defense is atutomatically activated whenever you or your friends aren't on the ship."

"Turn on the invisibility."

"Of course."

Outside, the remainder of the group was absorbed in arguing about the ship when Nakuru looked up, "Um...guys, you might want to take a look at this..."
"It...It's...gone," Yue stuttered.

The air on the side of the ship wavered a little as an opening appeared and out stepped Rika. She looked up at the ship when she was out. "Oh, It worked."

"What did you do?" Syaoran asked.

"Well, I remembered that Rowan has said there was another copy of her on board. I figured she would know." Her voice trailed off when she realized that she was the center of attention.

"Well then," Eriol started after realizing that Rika was uncomfortable, "now that that's settled, let's go!"