Intro: Hi again! I know this may seem a little long til you get to the story, but I was reading thru this recently, and thought many times, 'What if..." Anyway, to make I long story short, I re-edited my stories, and hope you like them. ^_^

Previous Intro: This takes place after "Message". I know there are other stories that have the Troopers learning different abilities, like teleporting (in fact, Shin apparently teleports in "Kikoutei Densetsu"), but I was wondering what the new armors could do and what effect it would have on them. As mentioned before, Samurai Troopers and corresponding characters are copyrighted by their respective (and certainly respected!) owners. Any others are mine....

"New Beginnings"

By Toma-chan

Chapter One - A New Beginning

Touma Hashiba looked up at the sky as he walked out of the science hall of Shinsha University. He'd just finished a mythology class taught by his friend, Nasti Yagiu, and had no more classes for the day. Pushing his blue forelocks out of his eyes to look at his watch, he saw he still had fifteen minutes before meeting Seiji at the library. As he sat down on a park bench near the building, he thought back to the conversation he'd had with Nasti earlier.

"So has anything been happening?" she asked him.

"No, ever since we were," he frowned "forced into them, there's been no sign of any effects to us or the world." Well, almost nothing...., the thought rose in his mind before he continued. "Why? Have you found something in your legends research?"

"Well, when you told me what happened a few months ago that you were given the armor, I was stumped. I had a feeling...." Then her face brightened. "So that's what those files are!"

"What files?" Touma asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I found some files when I was trying to find Ryo and Seiji a year ago, but since the armors didn't match yours, I left them alone." She glanced at the clock. "I'll look into it tonight, but it's almost time for class."

"I wonder what they could do," he now mused at he looked at his watch. "Kuso! Seiji's waiting!" As he took off towards the library, a dark shadow moved away from the tree he had been sitting near.

I almost had it... The whisper floated through the leaves, tossing them suddenly.

* * * * * *

"Well, you took your sweet time getting here, " Seiji Date smiled as Touma ran to where he was leaning against the wall of the library. "I was beginning to think you were oversleeping again."

"Hey, come on you know I outgrew that," but Touma was grinning at the joke. When he was younger, he had slept in just about everyday. But ever since starting college, he had stopped. In fact, he was sometimes studying or watching television when Seiji woke up.

They started to walk towards the dorm room they shared. "Nasti said she would look into it", said Touma after a while.

Seiji stopped and looked at him. "Are you sure we should? I mean, it hasn't really been needed."

Touma continued walking a few more steps before he turned his head to face Seiji. "I'm just saying that if something happens, we should know what our resources are. It's not like we have our previous armor where we knew exactly what they could do. I don't like it either, but since we have it...."

"Perhaps you're right..." Seiji raised his head, glancing about. His lavender eyes searched everywhere.

"What is it?" Touma looked around himself, used to Seiji now to understand the gesture, but didn't see anything except the usual students rushing by or lying on the grass reading. "Is there something wrong?"

Seiji didn't answer at first. Then he tossed his head, blond hair flipping over his head and settling back over his right eye. "No, but for a moment, I felt weird. It seemed like evil was surrounding us. Didn't you sense it too?"

"I don't know," Touma closed his eyes. "No, I can't." However, when he opened his eyes, the distortion he had experienced briefly a few days ago was back. As he glimpsed about, objects had different colors and there were neon-colored lines running underneath the ground. Seiji was a blinding green next to him. Dizzy, he stumbled backwards towards his friend.

"Hey are you all right?" Seiji caught him. Touma put his head in his hands, wishing everything would go back to normal. There was an odd whoosh, and he opened his eyes to find it was.

"Touma?" Seiji asked, concerned.

Touma looked at him, dark blue eyes filled with bewilderment. "Yes... I think so. But before it felt like I was seeing the world through new eyes. It's happened before- for a few minutes a couple days ago in advanced calculus. That's really why I went to see Nasti this morning." His face took on a worried expression. "We had better call the others and see if anything's been happening to them."

As they entered the dorm, a dark shape formed inside the shadow. He realized he had better be more careful. These Troopers were gaining Talent without knowing it and had almost discovered him when he wasn't up to full power. He opened a gate, and withdrew to his domain to make new plans.

* * * * * *

That night, Touma was on the phone and Seiji was half-studying, half-listening to the conversation. "Nothing?" Pause "Um, well it's just that Seiji and I were wondering if anything strange was going on?" Another pause. "I asked Nasti to look into it, and so far she hasn't called yet. Could you get in touch with the others and we'll meet this weekend? Sure, Ja ne." He hung up the phone and sat on his bed. "Ryo said nothing has occurred or they would have contacted us or Nasti. We're going to meet the others in Yokahama at Shu's parents' restaurant."

"Sounds good. I miss Shin's cooking," Seiji grinned. "And yours hasn't gotten any better!"

"Okay that's it!" Touma threw a pillow at Seiji. It hit him in the head, but didn't mess up his hair. "What, do you have gallons of hair spray in there again?" he playfully jeered.

"You're toast," Seiji started throwing pillows back. The fight lasted til the phone rang. Touma reached for it. "Hello?" he panted.

"Are you all right?" a female voice asked.

"Yes, we're--" Wham! A pillow hit him from behind. "Seiji, knock it off! Yes, we're fine. Just having a bit of fun is all."

"Well, I cracked the code and need your help. Could you and Seiji come over here?"

"Sure, we'll be waiting outside the dorm, all right?" They waited the half hour that it took for her to arrive, and, as they traveled back to her house in the woods, Nastie told of some of the details but said she could show them better then describe it.

"What did you find out?" Seiji asked as Nasti led them to her den filled with ancient armor and weapons. She turned on the computer and typed in the filenames. Some words flickered across the screen, and the new armors were pictured. "I don't know what those words are, because they are gone before I have a chance to translate them. In fact, this is in a very unusual dialect I've never seen before, so I had to translate and adapt it to modern Japanese the best I could. Even my friends in Linguistics didn't know what it could be. But what I think this sentence below the armors says they have various abilities just about like your previous armor." She selected one and letters appeared under the armor Touma realized was his. "This one marked Tenku seems to be able to fly on its own." At this, Touma nodded.

"Yes, I certainly found that out when I woke up from the spell I was under."

"Well, it also says there's a 'magic use' of it, but they don't explain further." She hit some more buttons. "Yours, Seiji, has the same healing capabilities as before, but now it has a way of banishing evil. I don't think that's all though."

"Wait, I'm going to call Ryo. This is too important to wait. Can I use your phone?" Touma interrupted her. She nodded and he dialed Ryo's number. "Ryo, it's me again."

"Hi, didn't we talk before? I don't want to run up your phone bill," the husky voice replied.

"Well, we found something at Nasti's and it couldn't wait." Touma said.

"Oh, wow! That's amazing!" Nasti suddenly exclaimed as she highlighted something on the screen.

"What?" Ryo and Touma both said at the same time. Seiji looked just as bewildered.

"You're gonna love this," Nasti smiled mysteriously. "Touma, tell him to visualize my den."

As Touma hung up the phone, there abruptly was a red flash in the room. They stared as Ryo Sanada appeared near the window, wearing only a t-shirt and shorts.

"Wow, how was I able to do that?" he asked, amazed. He shook his head, black hair falling to his shoulders.

"It seems to be a new ability you all share," she told him what she had told Seiji and Touma.

"So things have been happening to you?" They nodded, and he turned to Nasti. "What does mine do, then?"

"So far, all I've been able to figure out about the Rekka armor is that you have a better control of fire. Wait-what's this?" She selected a paragraph, and tried to translate the old language. "All I can make out is 'use time to your needs'. I wonder what that means?"

"I don't know but," Seiji looked at the others. "Should we tell Shin and Shu? Especially Shin? I mean, you know what he's been like since Africa, and being faked out by that ghost didn't help."

"I know," Touma sighed. "But remember what happened this afternoon. These powers are unconsciously occurring to us and we don't know a thing about them."

"Yeah," Ryo agreed. "Besides, I'm hoping this never happens again, but what if we need them?"

"You're right," Seiji gave in, then yawned. The clock read eleven p.m. "If you don't mind, Touma and I had better get going." He glanced at Ryo. "Are you going to call them?"

"Yes, I'll do it tonight and show them how to get here," Ryo said. "Still meeting us this weekend in Yokahama?"

"Of course," Touma yawned as well. "How do we do this, visualize our room and--" He sort of had the feeling of jumping as white light surrounded him. It cleared, and he found himself in the middle of the room. A second later, a green ball of light appeared, and Seiji was there, too. He fell on the bed and was fast asleep. Touma was tired, too, but he had to make sure his homework was finished. As he got out his books, he thought about what had happened.

"Wow, that was kinda cool. I wonder if we'll find out anything else. " He had a feeling he was going to find out sooner then he thought, however.

End Of Chapter 1...

Please do not copy this story without first contacting the author Toma-chan