Disclaimer: I Silver Angel do not own either Card Captor Sakura, or Digimon. They belong to their respective creators, and I get no profit from this story.
Chapter 4 – Introductions
Li bought up his sword, and threw out a paper charm of some sort. "Force know my plight, release the light! Lightning!" A large streak of lightning shot from Li's the sword and charm, causing the statue to pause momentarily, but continue toward them again with no apparent damage.
"I'll try again!" Sakura yelled back to Li. Pausing for a moment in her mad dash form the statue, Sakura called out the releasing spell once more.
"Oh key of Clow, power of magic, power of light, surrender the wand, the force ignite! Release!" Again, to her dismay, nothing happened.
Watching his two friends, TK decided that maybe it was time he stepped in and helped them. He didn't really know much about what was going on, but one thing he knew for certain, was that Sakura and Li could be seriously hurt if he didn't help them. Li's magic didn't seem to affect the animated statue, and for some reason, Sakura couldn't even seem to summon her magic.
"I can't stand around and let them get hurt like Matt and the others did when we faced Piedmon. Not this time when I know that I can do something." Summoning forth his true form, TK's body began to glow with a golden light. Within seconds, he was in his magical form; that of Hope.
As he stepped out from the shadows, Sakura and Li hardly noticed him as they sprinted away from the now running statue. As it gained on the two, it moved its arm up as if to strike at them. "Shield of heaven!" Hope shouted, causing an invisible wall to form between his friends and the statue, and blocking its intended blow.
Sakura looked up at the person who had stepped in to help them. It was...an angel. The person looked strangely familiar, with golden hair reaching to their waist, and large wings like Yue's. It was definitely not Yue though. Their protector was much smaller than Yue for one thing. Something clicked in Sakura's mind. "My dream..." she whispered, remembering the silhouette that she had mistaken for Yue.
He looked down at her, a wise and old seeming look in his eyes for one who appeared no older than them physically. "Why can you not call your magic?" Hearing his voice, Sakura was once again struck by the feeling that she knew this person. She looked down at the key hanging on its chain in her hand. A pink circle with a star in the middle, and a small end made it remind he of a miniature staff. It had changed form after the final judgment with Yue, and Clow Reed had told her that it now drew its power from her own star.
"I – I don't know," she told him. "I can't seem to call forth the wand to release the Clow cards." She knew that maybe she shouldn't trust her mysterious guardian with the secret of the Clow cards, but strangely, she felt as if she could trust him. It wasn't just the fact that he had saved her and Li from the rampaging statue either. It was – his aura for lack of a better word. In a way, it reminded her of the Light card, but not quite. Rather than light, he seemed to radiate a feeling of purity, and hope; just as if he really were the angel he seemed to be.
Her 'guardian angel' frowned as his shield began to weaken under the statue's continuing onslaught. He had the power to shield them, but she wasn't really sure how much strength he had. When his shield went down, would he be able to put it back up? Or would he be able to do anything more against the statue? Maybe he was only able to do protective magic, like the shield card. Sakura knew she had to do something. She had to figure out how to call forth the wand, or staff or whatever it was since it had changed.
Changed... The word rang in her head. The wand had changed. Maybe the words she used to call it forth had changed too. It didn't really look like the Clow key anymore. Now it was a staff. A phrase seemed to pop into her head that she instinctively knew would work.
"I think – I think I know what to do now." She told Li and the angel. Holding the necklace out, she brought forth the magic circle. "Oh key of the star, with powers burning bright, reveal the staff, and shine your light! Release!" This time, when she called out the new words, her key turned into a long staff topped with a pink circle with a gold colored star inside.
'Now which card should I use..." she wondered. "Windy and Water probably won't work well against a statue, but Firey might. Fire melts steel after all.' Bringing out the Clow card, she threw it up into the air.
"Firey, release and dispel!" Instead of coming down on top of her staff to activate though, the card just drifted down to the ground. "Huh? Not again!" 'I have to help Li and that person who saved me.' Glancing to her side, she saw that Li was in fighting stance, his sword raised to strike the moment the shield their protector had raised fell.
'Think Sakura! If the staff changed, maybe the cards need to change too!" She grinned. That had to be it. Holding up the Firey card once more, she threw it up into the air. "I call upon the power of my star, ancient forces near and far, Firey card transform all your might, and draw your power from my light! Firey!"
Hope watched Sakura out of the corner of his eye, dividing his attention between holding the shield up between him and his friends, and seeing what Sakura was doing. He could have dropped the shield and blasted the statue with a spell, but he had the feeling that this was a test of some sort. This was something Sakura needed to do for herself.
People don't have auras like hers for no reason. It always means that 'destiny' has something special in store for them. Look at my brother and me. We didn't know it, but we had powerful auras as well and we turned out to be the digidestined. It was the same way with the others, though I couldn't feel it until I became Hope.
He brushed the memories aside to concentrate on holding the shield erect. Hiding a tiny smile as Sakura finally managed to call forth the staff, he watched as she pulled out a red and gold card with a sun and moon design on one side, and a picture of some sort of fire spirit on the other.
At first, when she tried to call upon the card's power, it too failed. She picked it up and stared hard at it. Hope believed she was trying to figure out what to do. As soon as the grin appeared on her face, he knew that she had found her answer.
He watched with interest as she threw the card up into the air, calling out different words this time. When she struck the card with her staff, there was a burst of light, and the card changed from red and gold, to pink and white, with some gold. As soon as it had changed, a spirit pushed itself out of the card. It looked sort of like a girl, except most of it was made out of fire. A smirk was on its face.
"Firey, stop that statue!" At Sakura's command, the fire spirit moved toward the statue, causing the metal it was made out of to begin to glow with heat. As if it knew when it was beaten, the statue turned around and walked back toward the pedestal across the street, stepping up and becoming immobile once again.
'Well it's a good thing that's over, and she was able to stop it on her own.' Hope thought. 'Now I just have to watch what I say so I don't blow my cover.' He didn't really have to worry though, because almost immediately after the Firey card returned, Sakura swayed and fainted, with Li jumping to catch her just before she hit the pavement.
"Sakura!" Li jumped to catch her just before she hit the ground. 'I don't believe it. Somehow, she managed to transform the cards.' He looked down at her worriedly for a moment. 'That must be why she fainted.' Relief filled him for a moment, before he remembered their 'rescuer' and questions filled his mind. He looked up and gave the new person a suspicious glare. "All right, who are you?"
Worry flickered through Hope for a minute, while possible answers and responses played themselves through his mind. He definitely couldn't tell Li who he really was. He wanted to leave his old life behind and start a new one when he came here. He couldn't do that if his new friends found out who and what he really was.
'I don't want to lie to them – friends are supposed to be able to trust each other after all – but they leave me no choice. Pushing his doubts aside, he made up his mind.
"You can call me Hope." He told the angry looking Li. It wasn't exactly a lie anyway, just not the whole truth. "You don't need to know anything else about me." Li looked as if he wanted to argue, so before he could even open his mouth, Hope spread his wings and took to the air. The night quickly swallowed his retreating form, forestalling any more questions that he might have to lie about.
Three figures stood silhouetted on the rooftop of a nearby building. The crescent moon gave just barely enough light to reveal an outline. "He looks a lot like Yue, don't you think master?" the taller one asked it was a girl. "If it weren't for how long I've known you, I would think that you had made yourself another familiar."
"You're not jealous are you Ruby?" the panther shaped silhouette asked.
"Don't be silly Spinney. How could I be jealous of him? He may be a Yue look-alike, but for all that he is still a child. You did notice his size didn't you?"
"Of course I did. And don't call me Spinney; you know I hate it. My name's Spinnel." A quiet chuckle could be heard at the obvious irritation in the panther's voice. The third figure, which had remained silent until now, spoke up.
"Stop bickering you two. They may not know we're here right now, but I don't want to spend the extra energy to keep us magically hidden because they hear you." Eli was not usually this terse with his familiars. This new person – Hope – who had appeared on the scene to help out Sakura however, had upset his plans, and could cause problems.