King Endymione sat on his bed, his arms tightly around Queen Terra as she wept uncontrollably. Endymione (and this will be the King, Prince Endymione will just be Endy most of the time : P) pulled her even closer to him as he began to rock back and forth and whispering in her ear to try to calm her down. He began cursing in his head. 'Where is Endymione, he should have been here already. What's holding him up' He let out a sigh as he once again concentrated on calming down his wife.

Suddenly the doors to their room opened. He turned to see his son walking in with his four generals in tow. They took one look at their clearly distraught Queen before taking seats in front of their King and Queen.

Finally when the Queen had calmed down somewhat, Endymione turned his attention to the five in front of him. "We obviously have to treat this as a threat to Terra. So we are going to have to do something about that. She needs protection, someone who can go with her anywhere. Preferably female, but we will have no choice but to have a male seen as how warrior women are extremely rare to come across. So either way I want to hold a competition, for any and all above the age of 18. It will be held in two weeks and will be held over a period of three days. Now before that time I want the five of you go and spread the word quickly so that we can get a wide variety of men willing to fight. Is that understood?"

The four generals nodded immediately, but Endy seemed to be in thought. "Father, why would not one of my generals be able to protect mother" He raised his dark blue eyes to those of his fathers. If you looked between the two of them you could see immediately where he got his looks. He had the form, physique and hair the colour of the blackest wings of a raven from his father, and yet he had the dark blue eyes of his mother.

"Because the four of them are needed to train with the men. . . I expect there will be a fight or even a war soon."

The five men before him let out gasps as they looked incredulously back at their King.

"Father, you can't possibly be serious. We can't afford to have a war any time soon. We just don't have the resources available right now for something of that scale."

The King looked at them before turning sad eyes to Terra who had fallen asleep in his arms. He gently laid her back on the pillows before rising to leave the room. He didn't get very far as Terra's hand had come up unconsciously and grabbed the sleeve of his shirt. A small smile graced his lips before he once again took a seat on the bed. When he turned his gaze from his wife, the smile disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"I am well aware of that Endy, but the fact still remains. If someone would go to the trouble of sending out a threat like that instead of waiting until she was alone to kill her. They obviously have ulterior motives behind them. They are waiting for us to do something, but what that is I do not know. Because for all I know, they could already have forces set up far from our castle just waiting for the opportune chance to attack when we are at our weakest. That is why I need the four generals to prepare the men. We must be ready for anything they are going to throw at us."

The room lapsed into silence as they all thought about what had happened and what would need to be done.

"Father, what about our men who have gone to the Galean territory for training? Would we not be able to bring them back?"

King Endymione seemed to be shocked by this revelation. "Yes, yes. That would be a marvelous idea. It will take 5 days to get there, but then we need some time for the men to gather their things and the situation to be told to Lord Daemon. So I will send the five of you to do just that. If you leave in 2 days time, you should be returning a little after 2 weeks. And by that time we should have someone to watch over Terra."

"Majesty, so if we leave say tomorrow, we should just be getting back and the tournament will be over if my estimates are correct. And will I be so bold as to presume that the day we will be returning home, that there will be a ball of sorts to officiate the man who will be protecting the Queen?"

King Endymione looked into the bold blue eyes of the normally quiet generals eyes. (Are they blue? Please tell me what colour his eyes are and those of the other generals pls.)

"No Zoisite, you are correct in you presumption." A smile came to his face. "And I would like to that you for the idea of having a ball. It will lift everyone spirits in the face of such a dark turn of events."

Endy groaned and punched Zoicite in the arm and he ducked his head.

"Now Endy, enough of that, there will be time enough to punch your generals but right now Terra needs to rest"

The five men bowed before turning and leaving the room.

As soon as the door closed behind them Zoicite was slapped upside the head.

"Thanks a lot Zoi. Now to top off my grand day, I get to look forward to a ball coming up. Oh yay" A frown marred Endy's handsome face as he thought of all the simpering women to be clinging onto him and trying to get him to dance. "Another night of pure and utter torture, I just wish that I could find ONE woman who didn't bat her eyes lashes at me and vie for my attention every second of the day. Women and their weird ways, stupid girls, all wanting the same thing..."

The four generals watched with amusement as he walked away from them grumbling as he went. They shook their heads as he cursed loudly and then punched a wall before continuing on his way.

"The poor Prince, but I have a feeling this ball will be much different from the others."

Zoisite, Jedite, and Malachite all turned to look at Nephlite who was smiling mysteriously at the retreating back of their charge. His long, wavy rust coloured hair that reached his shoulders giving him and air of deep knowledge as his green (???) eyes danced merrily.

"What do you know that we do not Oh Wise One?" This earned Jedite a punch to the arm. He was still rubbing it when Nephlite turned away from the three.

"That my dear companions, is for me to know and you to find out."

The three remaining generals watched him in silence before Jedite snapped out of it and ran after the taller man. "But Neph, I want to know. Can't you tell me now? Pplleeaassee?" Their voices fading down the hall before turning a corner.

Malachite and Zoisite looked to each other and smiled in mirth at their two companions before heading off to follow Nephlite and Jedite.

Unknown to them, five pairs of eyes watched them from the shadows.

"It has begun. . ."