Prolog
A beautiful woman with long green hair sits in a small cyber-café in Japan. Seated in the farthest corner of the room, she watches the café as she warms her hands on her teacup. In front of her, screen hidden from the rest of the café, a laptop computer sits churning through vast amounts of data, the numbers flashing by almost to quick to see. A chime from the computer draws the woman's eyes back to her laptop, a cheery voice exclaiming, "You've got mail!" The woman brings her teacup up to her lips and takes a sip as she taps the flashing icon.
Incoming mail from queenserenitymoonkingdom.gov Read now? Y/N
The woman sprays a fine mist of tea all over her computer, and begins to cough. Gasping for breath, the woman waves away the waitress who had come to her aid, gesturing instead for her to bring a fresh cup of tea. Wiping her computer screen clean with a napkin, the green haired woman uses one slim, well-manicured finger to hit "y". Immediately a small window pops up with an image of the Queen, so lifelike, that Setuana has to fight the urge to bow. Accepting the new cup of tea from the waitress, Setuana could have sworn she saw the image giggle out of the corner of her eye. This was of course impossible; the Queen has been dead for over a thousand years, living on only in legends and stories. Even if the Queen were alive, she would never giggle. Queens don't giggle. Especially not thousand-year-old-recorded-message-automatically-sent-over-email queens. New cup of tea firmly on the table, Setuana clicked the icon to begin playing the recorded message. The little digital queen bowed and a flowing script began scrolling along the bottom of the little window. The script was the Queen's own handwriting and Setuana felt she could hear the Queen's voice as she read the message.
"Pu, it's great to see you again old friend. I'm afraid I bring grave tidings. A new threat has entered the solar system and seems to be heading straight for earth. Please inform the Inners to be on their guard. My calculations have the object entering Earth's atmosphere by the end of the week. Teleport them yourself if you must, but do not let them go into this battle half-exhausted. I have a feeling all their strength and more will be needed. Hopefully the Black Moon Family will give you the breathing room we need to defeat this new evil. If they do not, old friend, I'm afraid that you will have to hold them off on your own. Call the outers if you must, but I do not believe they will be needed yet."
Setuana nodded. The Queen was right, they couldn't let the Prince Diamond run amok. She started to formulate a plan in her head before realizing that the Queen had mentioned their current enemy. If this was an automatic recording then how did it know what was going on? If this wasn't a recorded message then that meant...
Setuana looked back at the image on her computer trying to tell if it was a recording or not. The little queen just stood there smiling. Then she winked, and the window closed itself and disappeared as if it had never existed. Setuana grabbed her mouse and began clicking furiously, but to no avail, the image was gone. Setuana leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea; the Queen always had tended to tell you what she thought you needed to know and not much else. Closing her laptop and dropping some money on the table, Setuana hurried out the door. Suddenly her day had gotten much busier.
End Prolog
Author's Notes:
An apology to anyone who gets spam because your email is close to the one in my story.