As in yogurt, stuff on the bottom!

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Chapter Two: Jarod

	I had not always fought for the light.  I too was once in darkness.

	Ever since I was born, I was alone.  I was immediately given up for adoption, and was adopted by General Phoenix of the king's continental army.  Why he adopted me, I don't know.  Maybe he felt power in my aura, only he knows.

	I never really had a family; my life consisted of training.  Right from the start, I was in training.  I was taught sign language before I could walk or talk.  Then, when I was able to walk, I was taught command signals, and how to carry out orders.  On my fourth birthday I was being trained the skills of a swordsmen, and by my fifth birthday I was already in pre-algebra.  They trained me to be the perfect killing machine.  When they told me to eat, I ate.  When they told me to sleep, I slept.  And when they told me to fight, I fought.  By the age of seven, I out mastered the swords master, and by the age of ten, I had learned all of the skills of magic that they had to teach me. They had nothing left to teach me.

	There weren't any mirrors in the facility where I lived.  I never saw my own face, I never knew who I really was.  I didn't even know my own hair color because it was buzzed and didn't have even the slightest clue as to what my eye color was.  That didn't bother me though, my life was filled with work deploying mock missions for the adults all around me.  I craved approval and would do anything to get it.  I would even have walked to the moon without a suit on if it would please them.

	 I thought that I knew everything there was to life, I thought that I was even smarter than the teachers themselves were.  But they tripped me up, threw in an element I did not understand.
Friendship.
	I had just turned ten recently, and I was lying on my bed doing my usual sit-ups when someone slipped a small piece of paper under my door.  I looked up at the clock, 10:30 a.m.  Too early for training to begin.  Curiously, I got up and went over to pick up the paper.

	It read:
	My office, NOW!
	-General Phoenix

	"What did HE want?" I scoffed to myself as I started heading towards his office.
	Quietly I opened his door and stepped in.  There in front of me stood a small creature.  It resembled a man, but it was too small.  Was it some freak experiment or something?  I didn't know, and didn't want to wait around for it to attack me to find out.  I immediately jumped into a fighting stance, ready to attack it if it moved a nano-meter closer.  I didn't know what the hell it was!

	Apparently it didn't know what the heck I was either, for it jumped into the same fighting stance.

	While standing there, I sized it up, and it sized me up.  It was about my size, and semi built up.  It had short brown hair, same dull, gray uniform as me, and dark brown eyes that flashed dangerously at me.  Funny, I knew more about it than me.
	"What the hell is *that*?!" I called out to my commander.
	The creature heard that, and it and my commander just burst out laughing.  I found it to be very UN-amusing.
	"What is so DAMN funny?!" I yelled to the two of them.
	You see, I had never seen a child in my life before in my life, even though I was one.  I didn't know exactly * who * or * what * I was, they seemed to leave that part out on me.
	When they had finished laughing, General Phoenix reached in his drawer and pulled out something shiny.  Turning it towards me, he explained, " This is a mirror, and you and this little guy over here are *boys *."
	I walked up to the mirror, seeing my face for the first time in my entire life.  I stared at my reflection, shocked.  I had light blond hair, and hazel, almost tan, eyes.  My face was rather oval, but I knew at least that already.  I stared at myself, I had an identity.
	I glanced over at the boy behind me and then back at myself.  We seemed so alike, yet so different.  I had light hair and eyes; he had dark hair and eyes.  We seemed like day and night.  What did Phoenix want with me?

	Clearing his throat, General Phoenix continued, "Jarod, meet Damion.  He will be your sparing partner from now on."
I sized Damion up once again, "Hmph...this will be easy."
Damion called back, "Yeah right!  I may be a prince, but I will not be beaten easily."

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	No kidding when he said it wouldn't be easy.  We began practice right away.  At first he was toying with me, making random jabs towards me that were easily thwarted by my sword.  He was testing for my weak points.  Satisfied in not finding many, he began jabbing for my heart and stomach, slicing for my arms and head, trying to trip my feat from beneath me, and I blocked each and every blow.  For once, I was actually met with a challenge, and though profusely perspiring, I loved it.


Several hours later...

	"Snoooaaxxxx!...Snoaaaaaaxxxxx!!!"
	From within the darkness, I could hear some strange noise.  It sort of sounded like a pig, but somewhat human.  Either way, the noise was so repulsive it brought me out of my semi-conscious state after I had presumably collapsed on the floor.
	Slowly my eyes drifted open, revealing me to be in another gray room of sorts. <Jeez, don't these people ever use any color other than gray?!>   Above me levitated a charcoal gray crystal, glowing in its own color, emitting an energy I knew all too well.  I knew I wouldn't be getting up for a while, so I turned my head to the source of that awful noise...Damion.

	I never heard snoring before, lord knows I never snored. *Hears Damion's voice in the back of his head, "Yeah...right..."*  Anyhow, there he was, just laying there lazily on his stomach, drool oozing out of his mouth while he grinned happily.  What was so damn funny that he was dreaming about?  Being the now for some reason jealous sort over matters like this, I turned my now feeling heavy head over towards Damion yelling, "Hey twinkle toes! Wake up!"  He mumbled something in his sleep that sounded like 'Five more minutes mommy, just five more minutes,' and rolled right back over.  The nerve of him!  I yelled at him again.  "Yo!  Momma's boy, wake up!"  And with that he looked up and glared at me. How could he move so easily with this energy being pored into us?  Perhaps he some how had this treatment longer than I...I don't know.

	Anyhow, that is how our days went from then on, until we were 16.  We would fight all day long, learning new techniques, new spells, getting better every day.  Then we'd collapse on the floor and receive energy from the crystal of souls.

	Soon, I was to discover that Damion had not completed his mission and had joined the other side.  I was told to take his place and finish off the senshi, and as the assassin I was, I could not refuse.  

	First I was to take care of the Outers as they called them.  I took care of Pluto first; I was to attack her at the gates of time.  I came up behind her, intending on getting her with the dagger in hand, but seemingly sensing my presence, she swung around, using her time staff to knock me to the floor.

	She glared down at me amongst the mists.  "Who dares to threaten the life of the Keeper of Time?!"
	"I do!" I yelled back at her.
	"Ah, Jarod, don't you know it is stupid to take on the ageless senshi of time?"
	She mocked me!  She actually mocked ME! But I was in such a shock that she knew who I was, that all I could do was sputter back at her, "How do you know my name?!"
	"I know all and see all, and you had better not mess with me unless you wish to die."
	Now this affected my ego, so I decided to have at it with her. A staff-like spear formed in my hand as we had basically a duel of the sticks.  A swipe at my head...misses...A swipe at my feet...jump!  Many jabs and swipes were made between us, until she decided on a swipe at my feet, and a deadly scream, which I barely avoided by leaping through the air above the attack, landing behind Pluto, thrusting the spear into her heart through her back.  The ageless senshi of time died at my hands.  Later I did regret it.

	Next up was to get the other 3 outers.  I thought to myself, <this'll be easy, they all live together! >
	I caught them at dinner.  Perhaps it was their anniversary, or something, but the table was set up with candles and fancy china.  Uranus was balking at using china, but Neptune was saying it was for a special occasion as she grasped Uranus's hand.  If I didn't want to see more than I paid for, I'd have to attack now.  I snuck up behind Uranus, preparing to strike.  Fear flashed through Neptune's eyes causing Uranus to turn around, sending my blade right into her stomach.  She immediately fell to the floor as Neptune rushed to her fallen lover, yelling, "Hakura!"  This gave me the chance to get her as well.  I called out an incantation forming an ice shard above the stricken girl, hurtling it into the aqua haired girl.  Hakura shrieked, "Michelle!" just before it hit, slicing through both of them.

	Now time to find Saturn.  I heard a baby's cry from the other room.  I thought to myself, <Surely that can't be her! >
	Going into the other room, surely enough, I found baby Saturn.  Or should I say baby Hotaru from the bunny stuffed animal with her name sewn on it.  I am supposed to kill this...this child!  She is so defenseless, so young!  I shake my head.  "I can't do it!" I yell to no one in general.  I guess that was the first time I heard my conscious.  
	I cradled the babe in my arms as I carried her to the nearest adoption clinic, leaving her bundled up in a blanket, cradled in a basket with the name Hotaru Tomoe pinned to the blanket.  Quickly knocking on the door, I played an emergency version of ding-dong ditch as I ran away, glancing behind my shoulder as a bewildered staff member took her in.

	That was the one kind thing I did for the senshi.  Later I would fight them day in and day out in a war of arbitration, but everyone was being worn out, even Damion and I.  When Alsessaly decided to lure in the senshi by kidnapping Greg and Molly, I drew the line.  More innocents being drug into the war of the mystical.  I couldn't stand it, and so I decided to fight for the good, in secret if I had to, but I never got the chance.  When I finally got to warn Damion, Greg was already taken and I was thrown into a battle that we couldn't win.

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	Sorry that the chapter was so short, but I don't have much to say on Jarod's behalf, and the plot line of his past is kind of explained in the other two chapters. >_<; Sorry.  Oh well, there is another chapter ahead, one that, I believe, is much better than this one.  So read on.

~ Lady Hiko