Point View City, Washington

Michiko Akasuki

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It was early Saturday morning and, while most other kids were asleep, Michiko had been awake for hours.

Initially she'd been criticizing a summer reading assignment that would be due on the first day of school, but (like always) she'd gotten distracted. What normally hooked her attention were books (*cough*fan-fiction*cough*) or the fantasies of cute guys (*cough*Kenny*coughcough*) however this time it had been something different: the ring upon her right pinkie finger. At first she had simply ignored the strange pull from it - like a tiny magnet tugging at her attention - however over the course of an hour her curiosity had gotten the better of her and she soon found herself tucked into a ball on her chair, knees to her chest and eyes fixated upon the peculiar item.

Straying to the memory of how she'd come into possession of the ring, it was no question as to why she was so fascinated by it.

Just over a week ago she'd agreed to go out with her friends and watch the meteor shower outside Point View City, Washington. It was beautiful and she'd actually been able to sit back and enjoy it (likely because Aria had stolen her notebook to prevent her from taking any notes or do homework). However this simple pleasure had been cut short when Mich realized that a few meteors had not burned up in the atmosphere and seemed to be coming directly towards their little group. They had scattered in fear, regrouping around the smoldering rocks before (against Mich's better judgement) moving closer. Like the first episode of an awesome anime, something like liquid / sentient gemstones leaked out of the space rocks and attached themselves to all of their bodies - assuming the form of rings that could not be removed.

Naturally they'd panicked but these things revealed to them all that they were the only survivors of a brutal war where a great evil (whom they referred to as the "Mistake") had driven the rest of their species insane. But as cool / tragic as that sounded, it got much worse: many more meteors had landed on earth containing the crazed aliens, who would attached themselves to any living creature nearby and proceed to wreak havoc on the world. Of course they all thought they'd gotten hit by the space rocks and were dreaming everything... until out of nowhere (as if to prove the gems' story) a bunch of bedazzled, acid-spitting frogs attacked. In response their "rings" had kind of taken control of them all, and with unfathomable powers, the they'd managed to defeat the monsters before the "rings" warned them that they were now the protectors of their world and becoming almost completely unresponsive.

Starstruck (literally), they had all agreed to take a week and try to understand what had just happened. As far as Mich could tell it was like something out of an anime and she'd just spent almost six hours puzzling over this sentient-gemstone-magical-alien-ring-thing, discovering nothing. She had so many questions. How many were out there? How many of them were still sane? What'd happened to their planet and what was the "Mistake" they so feared? Yet aside from the occasional vague emotion and constant satisfaction to felt to/from the ring, she'd discovered nothing else aside from what they'd been told that fateful night.

But her efforts had not been entirely fruitless; it was almost immediately apparent that her topaz companion had the ability to manipulate air in addition to giving her a protective shield for melee combat, like it had during that first battle. She'd discovered this while playing her violin - needing to turn the paper at a particularly busy section, she'd been surprised by a gentle, source-less gust of wind did the work for her. She'd since been trying to learn more about this ability and discovered that she could create a bow that fired air-rows (yes that was a literal pun) because she was rather... unsuited, for melee.

Michiko was snapped out of her daze by the buzzing of her phone on her desk and she jumped as if she'd been shot before reaching over and picking it up. It was a mass text from Mac to herself and the others, telling them to meet him within the next hour at the place they'd found the gems. Mich felt a wave of excitement and fear as she responded "omw". Had her friends found anything else? Was something wrong? Had they all done their summer assignments? She wouldn't know until she got there, so she quickly threw a few important items into her backpack, pulled her fuzzy salmon sweater over her head and raced downstairs. Her dad was already at work but had left half a pot of coffee for her which she promptly poured into a thermos before hurrying out the door.

Hopping onto her bike, and with the cool wind to her back, Michiko was there perhaps 20 minutes after sending the text. Mac was already there of course and she offered him a warm smile as she leaned her bike against a tree. "Good morning Mac," she chirped happily, her somewhat quiet voice still quite cheerful as she addressed him, "How're you?"