Chosen Mage And Cardcaptor
Chapter One: Flying On Adventure

Kara

As usual, I was dreaming. I stood atop a building facing the town's only tall tower: the radio tower, cards floating all around me. I wore a pair of light blue jeans, my favorite black and white sneakers, and a loose powder pink T-shirt under a silver jacket. In my hands I held a pink staff topped with a bird's head and little white wings on either side. Standing next to me was a leopard, except let me say it certainly didn't look like any leopard I'd ever seen before.

Its fur was black and it had silver spots and green eyes, of all things. I could also barely see a pair of wings folded on its back.

I tossed a card up into the air and slammed the staff down onto it. Little wings sprouted from my surprisingly worn sneakers. I jumped . . .

Only to wake up.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes as I sat up. "That same dream again." I complained. "Seriously, that's every night this week!"

"Hey squirt!" My older brother Kyle called. "You up yet or not?"

"Shut up!" I hissed. "Don't call me squirt." I threw on my favorite pink T-shirt, light blue jeans and black and white tennis shoes, grabbed a couple of Nutrigrain bars (blueberry flavored of course) and ran out the door in a hurry. Dad wasn't here this morning because he had a town meeting to attend, and since our mother . . . passed on a few years ago, that meant no breakfast unless it was something already prepared. Nutrigrain bars were good because I had perfected the art of eating them on the way. Granola bars too.

I usually made up for the lack of a decent breakfast with an extra big lunch.

Classes went like they always did: they were boring except history (I was a history geek, plain and simple much to my friends' dismay).

At lunch I decided I wasn't going to sit with my friends because while they were good friends and plenty of the time they had some interesting and useful information, most of the time they talked about three things: boys, shopping, and fashion. Can you say gag?

I didn't even notice I was sitting next to Emily Fletcher, the new girl. Because she helped her mom with the new vet clinic, my friends didn't really like her. Thought she was too geeky or something. As if the poor girl needed any more on her plate than she already had. Moving must have been really stressful, especially since her parents just got divorced. I wouldn't know anything about divorce, but I knew what it was like living with a single parent. Of course, since her parents just got divorced, that feeling was probably all new to her.

She looked at me, startled. "Are you sure you want to sit here?"

I looked up from where I was devouring my lunch and swallowed. "Why wouldn't I?"

"You don't think I'm 'too geeky' or something?" She put a special sarcastic emphasis in the words. "Your friends certainly do."

I rolled my eyes. "I think they've just got sticks up their behinds." I informed the other girl. "While they are good friends and most of the time have useful and interesting information to share, most of the time all they talk about are boys, shopping and clothes. Besides, it's not like you don't have enough on your plate. Moving by itself would normally be stressful, but having your parents get divorced too? That must really suck. I wouldn't know anything about divorce, but my mother passed on several years ago, so I know all about living with a single parent."

Emily looked gob-smacked. "Really? But you're Kara Davies, the mayor's daughter."

I sighed. "Unfortunately. Dad never has time for Kyle and I anymore. Whenever I ask him if he could maybe spend a little time with me, it's always," I formed the Ram seal. "Transform!" I transformed into a perfect copy of my dad and mimicked his voice. "'I'm sorry Kara, but I'm busy. Being mayor comes before everything else. You understand right?'" I dropped the Transformation. "And then he usually pats me on the head and goes on his merry way."

Emily then proceeded to do her best imitation of a fish out of water. "How did you do that?"

I laughed. "It's something from a manga I read, called Naruto." I explained. "It's about a boy named Naruto who has a nine tailed fox demon stuck in his gut. In order to graduate from the Ninja Academy and become ninjas, hopefuls have to perform three techniques: the Transformation, which I just did, the Clone, which allows a person to replicate themselves, and the Substitution, which allows a person to substitute with another object, usually a lot. So far I can only do the Transformation, but I'm working on the other two, even if my Clones stink."

I wasn't sure exactly why my Clones sucked, though I had one idea: like Naruto, I just had too much chakra to be able to use a Clone Jutsu properly.

Emily's question surprised me. "Could you teach me to do that?"

I nodded, grinning. "No problem." I agreed. "If you come over to my house later I'll teach you. And I can even put my cooking skills to use by making an afternoon snack. Normally whenever I even try to make something, my brother starts teasing me and makes me get away. Just because I messed up one time . . ." I shook my head to clear it of thoughts of what to do to my brother in retribution. "But thankfully today, he's going to be at his friend's house."

"You're sure about this?" She asked nervously.

I rolled my eyes. "Emily, I really don't care what my friends think of you. There's this saying from my favorite manga series, called Naruto; a civilian looks at something and sees what's on the surface. A ninja sees the reasons underneath. But a truly splendid ninja must look underneath the underneath. If they never really look at you, how exactly are they supposed to see the real you, not just what's on the surface? You're more than just a 'geek' and I'm definitely not just a typical popular girl or mayor's daughter. Besides, as I mentioned, he barely has time for my brother and I anymore, since our mother . . . well, passed away, I guess."

"I'm sorry." Emily said.

I shrugged. "Don't be." I told her. "She died shortly after I was born. I don't remember her."

Later on, I left Dad a message that I would be having a friend over, because he was either ignoring me again, or he was in one of his important Mayor meetings (I was mentally betting on Option A— he was ignoring me). As soon as I brought Emily home, I started pulling the necessary ingredients for one of my favorite afternoon snacks out of the pantry.

Emily watched, looking confused. "What are you doing?"

I grinned. "Making an afternoon snack." I replied promptly. "I've memorized the recipe by now. I like to make it when my brother isn't around to tease me about my little mishap."

My new friend raised an eyebrow. "Mishap?" She repeated.

I sighed. "About two years ago, I left my first ever cake in too long and it burned. Kyle, my older brother, hasn't stopped teasing me about it since." Ironically, the same recipe I messed up when I first started baking was the one I was making now.

Emily laughed. "That sucks." I set my timer on my watch and then showed Emily the library, where I found an odd red and gold book with a picture of a cat's face on the front.

I took a closer look because it looked familiar and nearly dropped it. On the cover was the same cat's face I saw in my dream last night. But why would I be dreaming about it? Shaking those thoughts out of my head, I looked on the back cover. No synopsis. On the front, in all capital letters from what I could tell, was printed THE CLOW. What an odd name for a book. Now I was really curious, so I opened the book to find it filled with cards. Interesting. "It looks like the first card in here is The Windy, and then it's the Fiery. Now that's a cool card."

"I don't know," Emily piped up. "The Watery's pretty interesting too."

I rolled my eyes. "Shall we just agree to disagree, then?"

She grinned. "Sure Kara." Any further conversation was cut off when all of the cards blew out of the book, even the Windy, which I had set back in the book to examine the Fiery Card more. Then, cat whose face was on the cover appeared.

"Hello," She greeted, stretching herself. "I'm Lyra, and I was supposed to be guarding the book, but I must have drifted off. Which one of you opened the book?"

I raised a hand. "That would be me."

"I see. And what happened to the Clow Cards?"

I blinked. "Clow Cards? You mean like this one?"

Lyra nodded. "Yes, like that one. Where are the others?"

I ducked my head and poked my fingers together. "Well, I kind of read a couple of the names, and then they all blew away." I admitted.

She sighed. "I see. I should have expected this. Well then you'll have to get them back. Go stand over there. First though, tell me your name."

I stood up and did so. "Alright, I guess. My name is Kara, but why?"

"Key of the Seal, you have chosen this girl, Kara. I command you to bestow her with the language of the Staff. O Key, grant her your power!" A key floated up from the book and lengthened so it was about half the size of the staff I saw in my dream last night, and a glowing golden circle of some sort appeared under our feet. A bright light shone, and I had to throw up an arm to cover my eyes. "Grab the staff Kara!"

"Right!" I somehow managed to struggle forward to grab the staff, which then lengthened again into the same one from my dream last night.

"I, Lyra, name you Cardcaptor!"

Not much later, my watch's timer beeped. I invited Lyra to have some of the cake with us and used some string Dad left lying around to make the key into a necklace.

A huge bird swooped overhead. My hand flew to the key. "Lyra, is that what I think it is?"

"If you think it's a Clow Card, then yes, it is." My leopard friend responded. "The Fly Card."

"Great. Now how do I make the Key change into a staff?"

"Just focus." Lyra instructed. "It'll come to you."

I nodded and ran outside to confront it., hand still tightly clutching the key.

"Are you sure about this Kara?" Emily asked worriedly. I didn't respond.

The Key dropped between my outstretched hands. "O Key of Clow, power of magic, power of light. Surrender the wand, the force ignite! Release!" The small key tumbled endlessly over itself before lengthening into the Staff. I grabbed it and twirled it and slammed it down on to the Fiery Card. "Fiery, burn Fly's wings and keep it from flying! Fiery, release and dispel!"

Fiery rose from her card and wrapped herself around Fly's wings, bringing it to the ground.

"Good job. Now seal it, before it gets away." Lyra commanded.

I raised the staff and slammed it down onto a glowing card. "Return to the guise you were meant to be in! Clow Card!" The Fly Card was sucked into the glowing card. Slowly, the glow faded away and the card floated into my hand. I breathed out a huge sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off my forehead. "Glad that's over with."

"You and me both." Emily agreed. "I wish there was something I could do."

Lyra surveyed her for a long moment. "Maybe there is." She said at last. "I can tell that you have magic too. Different from Kara's, but it's there. All you have to do is learn to harness it."

"Then will you teach us?" I asked hopefully. "Both me and Emily?"

"I will." The leopard answered. "But I expect you to work hard."

"We will." Emily and I promised in unison.

"Good. Now Kara, sign your name on the Fly Card and then touch it with the staff." Lyra instructed. "Once you sign your name, it'll start listening to your commands."

I did so, and then touched the staff to the card. I sure was surprised when the staff's wings changed and grew bigger. "Whoa. Now that's pretty damn cool."

"And that's not all it can do. Now you can fly with it." She informed me. "So climb on."

Emily and I climbed on. We took to the skies, Lyra beside us. "From now on, the three of us are a team, flying on a grand adventure." I declared. "And as long as we're together, nothing in this world can trip us up or complicate us."