This is mostly a 'Meet the Bad Guys' chapter. Normally I wouldn't give that long of a segment to them but it sets that stage for events to come. Also the part at the end is a cliff hanger to the chapter that might (if I get enough inspirationwinks) come out next weekend (if not it won't take more than two weeks cause I really want that chapter out of my way so I can move on with the real story)

Ready?

Set?

GO!

Rising of the Dragons' Dawn

By Ally Lei

Chapter: The Chink (You'll find out, just read)

Disclaimer: I don't own CardCaptors or the name Avatre (I forgot this last chapter)

Crystalline flakes whipped through the mountain of the north, spreading blindness throughout the lofty northern mountainous land. This part of the world was uninhabitable by any creature that required some kind of warmth such as humans, animals, and other Power beings. Rarely did you see life this far north for it was said among humans that the mountains sucked the life from you. And maybe this wasn't a bad description.

You see, this hard, cold, and unforgiving land was inhabited by the Shadows of the Tainted Power, the beasts that resided in other creatures of the world. They claimed this land since the beginning of their birth because this portion of the world saw virtually no light of the sun for eight months. And during the other four months left they squeezed into the caves, caverns, nicks, and crannies of their black mountains, staying there in a self-induced haze until the warmth left. A hibernation you could call it.

Now, though, the sun had just passed it four months of sun mark and the shadows were climbing out of their little cramped hovels. Their translucent gray shapes converging upon the mountains, calling on enemies of old as if they were best friends. It was their philosophy that you could never have too many enemies. All were out and about creating dissensions amongst the mountains and ice sheets.

All but one.

In the highest cave among all of the others in the tallest and largest peak, resided a lone shadow. The dark cave around him seemed as if it was hit directly with sunlight as its black figure was so dark; its flowing form forever moving, never settling on one shape.

He was the essence of dark, the first one born in the heart of the first being on the planet. And since then this shadow had watched the world with greed and malcontent. It planned from day one to swing the balance to the Shadows side. He did not want to rule but instead provide the perfect habitat for his brethren and himself. A habitat where the races of the world's flesh were their food and the blood was their drink. A world inhabited by the Shadows of Power.

It brooded further of its plans for domination, having succeed in almost all of them since the beginning. Its only failure was the war between the races which had been induced by it; that great and terrible event that put distrust of everything in the instincts of nature. It had hoped that they would weaken themselves and divide up between their own groups. But that had not happened. Instead they made alliances among themselves and tore each other apart. There was neither a winner nor loser at the end but a broken system and death everywhere. But they were still not weak enough for a complete and total domination for the war sparked fierce pride in the hearts of the races and they were unwilling to be tempted.

Its only great failure and flaw: misjudgment.

Its brooding was broken by another presence making it known at the entrance of the cave. A recently made shade floated there, it no doubt bearing unpleasant news for the First Shadow had specifically ordered not to be troubled with meaningless matters.

"First One, we have a bit of trouble" a disembodied voice whispered. The Dark Shadow wondered if the young one thought him so ignorant.

"We cause trouble; we don't get it! Remember that!" the First One barked, hurrying to get rid of the annoying existence.

"Of course, of course" the voice took on a petulant tone.

"Well, get on with it! What did you have to tell me that was so urgent?" the Head Shadow stressed the last word derisively.

The young one hesitated as if considering withholding the information out of spite. The older being, having been used to its minions behavior, gave off an air of warning and the small shadow spoke up quickly.

"It seems the Prince", the cloudy shadow practically spat out the name, "has awoken."

The much older essence of darkness oozed ill contempt and the now transparent shadow quickly tacked on its title. The older being was going to be given the respect it deserved, even from young upstarts.

"Very well, now get out."

"First One?" the smaller shadow sounded startled. He probably wanted an award. Well- surprise, surprise- he wasn't going to get one. How's that for spite, you amateur? The first shadow thought.

"Go before I do something you won't like!" the First One all but shouted.

Backing up, the mirage that was the younger shadow, turned and fled as fast as it could to the edge of the cave, hoping to throw itself out of its elder's chamber and into the gusting winds. It never made it. Instead it was overtaken by threads of darkness that wrapped around the outline's inner core of Power and pulled him back inside the dark, stone cave. Before it met certain extinction it was held up to the presumed front of the first shadow.

"Too late." It spoke sadistically before it engulfed the other much younger shadow. Memories and experiences passed through its mind's eye, accompanied with emotions of fear, joy, hope, and happiness. The man that had borne this shadow had led a relatively good life by human standards. No wonder the shadow was so weak.

Suddenly it sensed it was being watched. Watched by a being that bore him ill will. It seemed to be hanging about in the stalactites in the back of the cave. The Shadow wondered why it had not sensed the other before.

"Now that wasn't a very nice thing to do" the mocking voice was recognized instantly by the First One.

"You, of all shadows, should know that we are not exactly 'nice' beings, Third One." the Powerful shadow couldn't resist adding sarcasm to the comment, making it an insult to the aforementioned shadow. It was still facing the front of the cave, watching as the snow flakes became icy sheets.

"But, Father!" the First One winced at the derogatorily mocking name the other shadow had chosen to call him, "We don't eat our minions! It's in the rules!" the first shadow almost made a snorting noise but held itself in check. The only rules the shadows had were: 'Don't get caught', 'Do your business subtly', and 'Cause as much chaos as possible.'; sometimes contradicting the others but as long as you followed two of the three you were considered quite an upstanding Shadow. And although it was pretty much a given that you had to stay in the physical world for the militia and future plans, most choosing to stay for the plans and not the army, there was no rule stating you couldn't eat your neighbor(s).

"What do you want, Gabriel?" the shadow asked tiredly but mentally shouting in triumph at having thought of the ultimate slight.

There was silence in the cave as both shadows contemplated the others thoughts.

"That was a low blow, Father. A really low blow." The shadow sounded disgusted.

"Well, I try."

"I'm sure you do, Father. I'm sure you do." The younger essence said sardonically. The first Power Shadow shrunk inside at the implication its physical being's son's shadow was making. Long had it tried to outwit its younger shade but the upstart always had an even more belittling slur on the tip of it mind, ready to blow competition out of the figurative waters.

"Now, down to business," the smaller, dark shadow traveled around to the front of the cave, seemingly to look over its jagged edge, "would you mind explaining to me why the Prince is awake? I thought you had assured us that he should be left to you. We trusted you…" the older being sincerely doubted that and suspected that very Powerful shadows had doubled his curses after he was gone,

"…. to take care of him. And where are we now? We are stuck at the start of the metaphorical sailing of our plans, and the one thing that could cause a chink in our chain would be an awake Prince. Which, may I remind you, has just happened!" the flowing outline of the shadow was illuminated by the moon's shimmering light as it turned to face its supposed superior. Small tendrils raised up to form a hand which pointed at the higher shadow, its habits as a human not forgotten after all the years its has been…..alive and dead.

"The only way he could have awoken is the almost touching or contact of his mate. Only a being of that much Power could have let his Power re-habitat its shell." Explained the older tainted Power as if to a younger child.

"That's impossible!" shouted the Third One, letting the small dig slid for more immediate matters.

"We tracked her Power to a village, we watched her to see if she developed her Power, we destroyed her village, and we killed every young girl there, including babies." It raged.

"Well, obviously not. Listen maybe it wasn't your fault. Maybe your little minions didn't do their job thorough enough. Maybe your informants were wrong." Suggested the First One genially.

The younger shadow glared at its superior, quick on the uptake that it was subtly being insulted. Instead of seeing the suggestions as advice for future references, it saw that it was a slight against itself because they were his drones; even if the one giving the 'advice' was right.

"I don't care whose fault it was, even though you did swear that nothing would be able to call the Prince's Power from Valeah. But that doesn't matter. Something needs to be done about it right now! Right this instance!" It snarled, giving up on the subtle (and not so subtle) competition of insults till the next round.

"And what do you suggest?" asked the opposite shadow in a triumphant tone.

"Extermination." Declared the extreme-craving shadow.

"Be reasonable. With that many dragons watching the Prince and his pipsqueak mate, we would never get in the literal front door. And you know, now that the Prince is awake, he will be watching her every step. If she dies now, before he's hatched, he will do everything he can to either send us to Dama after he tortures us or blowing all of our plans that we have had for two million years out of our reach and into NaHavea." Clarified the First One.

"And what do you suggest?" imitated the younger shadow, mocking him for his earlier words.

"We wait, we watch, we plan. She can't stay up there her whole life. Eventually she will crave human contact, though I don't know why, and he will have to bring her down the gods' forsaken mountains." Told the older shadow, already planning the expressions of surprise and fear when its nemesis finally realizes who it was that killed his mate and who was about to kill him.

"And then we kill them?"

"Yes, and then we kill them" sighed the other shadow. The Gods knew that the Minor was obsessed with killing.

"Good." stated the now black silhouette that radiated satisfaction.

"I'm going down to join the festivities" the word was twisted into an untamed laugh, "Don't bother me."

"I wouldn't dream of it." The first Shadow left his cave to spill down the mountain side to join in the 'festivities' as he said.

The shadow named Gabriel watched him go in a thoughtful stare before his attention was given to another shadow that appeared above him.

"Soon, Mother, soon. We met a snag but all will be well." The Third One briefed. 'Mother' gave off an air of agitation, and then hurtled downward, intent on find something.

The Third One watched it go, too; only this time if it had human features it would be baring its teeth in a feral grin. Its plans not broken a bit by the sudden awakening of the Prince. In fact they were still going quite strongly. The First One didn't need to know that the 'upstart's minions had done their mission very thoroughly for their inner cores were practically quaking in their dark aura. They would not hazard to do anything wrong.

Deliberation, determination, and detonation were its plan and it could and will wait for a little bit longer. Nothing was going to stop it. Not even a weak girl and pretty boy of a mate. In fact, if its calculations were correct, one phase of its plans would commence tonight without it having to travel anywhere.

Far away, in the middle of the mountains that split a continent was a cave impossibly long and very important. At least to the dragons.

Avatre stared at the little girl in front of her, trying to pick out every little movement. Today the child had been restless and even the newly hatched Kero, whom the child adored, was snapped at.

And both dragons could bet why.

It was happening tonight. The long-awaited event of the DragonKin was happening tonight.

The girl was now on her right side, curled up into a ball with the long, sinuous, golden-scaled Kero stretched out on top of her fast asleep. His tiny wings flaring out in imitation flight, his little legs moving occasionally while he dreamed; the perfect image of innocence. Sakura, however, was troubled. Frequently she mumbled in her sleep and tossed and turned. In evidence to the fact, was that she fell asleep clear across the cavern with Kero curled up behind her. Both of them had traveled from there to the right, then towards the middle of the cave, crunching over Kero's golden egg shards, and then they angled left a bit. So far they had stopped two hands width from Avatre. Now that was a feat indeed.

Avatre at first wondered how the tiny dragon could stay near the troubled girl but as she watched she noticed that he was asleep the whole time they were moving. She had caught him snoring as he climbed on top of the girl during this particularly last, violent move.

Avatre was stirred out of her thoughts by a vibration filling the air. The vibration was one of Power.

As she watched, Sakura's jeweled eyes snapped open and then glazed over. Muscles trembled as they forced her to stand up. Kero was unceremoniously dumped to the floor but immediately awoke and scrambled on to his spiny feet. He cast a knowing glance at her and then trotted after his dazed friend who was passing through the stone opening.

Avatre watched them go with sadness, glee, and trepidation.

So it began.

One of the greatest events to happen in recent history.

The quickening of the Dragon Prince Syaoran Li.

blinks Wow, I think this is the longest chapter to date. Maybe that says something about me. Hmmmmmmmmmmm…. I hope not.

Anyway what did you guys think? Like it? Hate it? I bet you thought the hatching was going to start but no.

I personally think that it was the worst one of the lot but I didn't really like how I played out the bad guys aka the Power Shadows (snort). I was trying to go for all of the aspects that we consider 'bad': Pettiness, vainness, evil, sadism, etc., but I think they came off childish. Though if you caught the last part at their segment about the Third One, it will get a bit deeper. Also there are so many words you can use in place of 'shadow' so after awhile it got a bit redundant and I can't even type the word any more without cringing.

My point being: please do not get on my case about it because I realize the problem and am searching to fix it (don't know how it will turn out)

The quickening is happening (finally) and that will happen in the next chapter along with the Hatching (or depending on certain things it might be the next chapter), and then we'll be getting into the real story that I have in mind.

Thanks go out to all readers and reviewers (since I can now count how many 'hits' I get. Which is at 324 and that particular feature was started three weeks to a month and two weeks ago, (can't remember and I don't want to understate). You guys have really made my days!

Please continue to read and review, I would greatly appreciate it.

Oh and maybe you can help me. I remember reading a CCS fanfic maybe a year ago that was titled Childhood Promise (I think). I really liked it and want to add it to my favs list but I can't find it because it doesn't show up on search and I can't remember the author.

It was about Sakura, Syaoran, and Tomoyo. Sakura had a crush on whom Syaoran had a crush on Tomoyo who was oblivious. Well Syaoran leaves and tells Tomoyo to keep in contact but she doesn't. It's Sakura who does, only Syaoran thinks its Tomoyo. Then he comes back and Tomoyo falls in love with him. Then he leaves again but sees Sakura in China and well you get the picture. I won't say anymore because if you do find it and you send me an email telling me where I can find it I will add it to my favs list and well it will ruin the whole plot for people who look at my favs list.

Please get back to me on that if you do know who authored it. It will be greatly appreciated.

Please Read and Review (again)

Ally Lei

Dama : Equates to our Hell (Humans and beings lesser then human believe in it) The First one was using it as an expression.

Valeah : In between place of the physical world and NaHavea. Only dragons and elves stay there for they can not go to NaHavea (explained later).

NaHavea: Heaven, Nirvana, etc.