AND: Ok, REWRITE! I wasn't satisfied with what I was writing before and decided to go in a whole new direction. Forget everything you've read so far, it's gonna change. As for why it's taken me so long to update, I've gotten a piece in a psychology journal for pediatrics. It deals with the mental state of children and teens and disabilities they may have. Please, feel proud of me. I collaborated with a psychology graduate and her advisor liked the paper she wrote so much, it's going to be published. Due to my work on the thing, I'm getting partial authorship! I'm so happy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Oban Star Racers. I'm merely taking the characters for a spin. If, however, the people who do own Oban Star Racers ever want to use my ideas, I would be supremely honored.

Claimer: The original characters (ie most of the Crogs) are creatures of my own creation. Please do not use them without permission. Thank you.

Beginning or the End

People, humans, milled about on the grounds of New Haven High School. Eva Wei, better known throughout the universe as Princess Shailana Kindolan of the Crog or the Dream Guardian, watched them with carefully hidden disdain. While she had returned to Earth with her biological father, she longed for the comfort of her Crog family. Alas, her family had said she needed to be on Earth with Don Wei, her tanishi.

You need to lighten up or someone's going to get suspicious. We know the Crog are going to attack en masse soon, just be patient. Ave said from deep within her mind. The bloodier side of her personality, the animal within as many Guardians called it, had taken a conscious form long ago, on Etruir. Now Ave, her opposite half, gave her advice and noticed small things that she, Eva, did not.

"Miss Wei," the teacher, Mrs. Rocknam or something like that, banged her ruler against her desk. The ruby eyed girl lazily turned her attention to the math teacher. Reall,y she had learned this basic math when she was in the Academy. Calculus wasn't that hard to understand.

"Is what is out there more important than your math grade, Miss Wei?" the teacher said in her high shrill voice. Eva forced herself not to wince. Being with the Crog for so long had forced her to develop her hearing to a more sensitive level. She sometimes regretted it.

Eva smirked, an action many a human had told her was unnerving, at the teacher. "My grade is perfectly safe, Mrs. Rocknam. I could do this stuff in my sleep."

The teacher's face reddened and she puffed up like an overcooked marshmallow. A low growl emanated from her throat. Before she could open her mouth to tell off the little twerp known simply as Eva Wei, the alarm sirens began to ring.

Students, thinking the sirens were a drill, began to laugh and joke as they walked toward the bomb shelters. Eva could tell this was no drill though. The looks on the teachers faces, no matter how guarded they were, told a much more frightful tale. The Crog had come and the Earth was not doing well.

Eva stole a glance out a nearby window and forcibly held back a gasp. Trident ships filled the air. What king of stupid, idiotic commander would bring a fight close to a school? Children, not matter the race, were sacred and not to be harmed. If any child was harmed, the Codes demanded punishment of the highest kind: the ears chopped off.

Eva began to move faster. She knew the kind of damage Crog artillery could do. While the Crog civilian market only had a few technological advances over the past few decades, the military's power had grown exponentially. That power was what allowed them to conquer the Naurasian forces.

"So, what's going on?" one of the nameless jocks said as the large group of teenagers entered the reinforced shelter. Eva calmly sat down at one of the tables with a group of females. The girls all gave her snide looks as they took in her black clothing and two-tone hair, not to mention the scars she had all over her arms and legs.

"Cutter," one of the mumbled.

"I don't cut," Eva said softly, her attention on the teachers who were all clustered together with grave looks on their faces. "I get into a lot of fights and usually end up on the wrong side of someone's knife."

Another girl snorted. "Yeah, right."

Someone, probably one of the teachers, had turned on a radio. Eva focused in on it and ignored the idiotic teenagers surrounding her. The radio began to go on an on about the Crog attacking in one large swarm. The military was woefully under prepared. The Earth was slowly losing ground to the Crog. By the time the radio announced that little fact, everyone in the bomb shelter was hanging on with baited breath. Eva learned back in her chair with a small smirk on her face.

"This is the end of the world and you're smirking!" Mrs. Rocknam yelled while pointing at her. At this outburst everyone turned their attention to the most deadly person in the room, though the humans would not know that fact until much later.

Eva chuckled, a small amount of Ave's sadism coming through. "It will not be the end."

"What?" another teacher whispered.

"It will be a new beginning for humanity," Eva said, condescending smirk flaring across her face at the astonished look of her peers.