There was once a time when our planet was beginning to die.
This was long before my current time, of course-I was only born fifteen years ago. No, the time I'm talking about was your time, in the turn of the second millenium. Well, it was for you, at least. Earthquakes and tsunamis, erupting volcanoes and blistering winter storms lashed the lands, turning once perfect lands into wastelands. Of course, this wasn't entirely your fault, either-we all know that it was the fault of several generations of humans before you, destroying the planet in order to further their own plans for boundless wealth. Not that it did them any good, in the end.
Anyway, it got to the point where people began to actually notice. Only by then, it was too late-or so they'd thought, because something completely unexpected happened. A Goddess appeared, one who was real, tangible and touchable, directly in front of you. Oh, not you personally, dear reader-this was a little bit after your time. Maybe you lived to see it, I don't know, but it's likely you didn't.
Now, the Goddess was very upset at how the planet She had created had been treated by Her children, but She was still willing to give us another chance. However, that doesn't mean She completely healed the planet and brought back all the dead animals and plants-no, what she did was to take six hundred girls and six hundred boys, then combined each one of them with a particular cat. These cats were the Cheetah, Black Panther, Lion, Tiger, Snow Leopard or Iriomote Wildcat. Once She had finished with these chosen children, she chose two more, a boy and a girl, to be combined with one more very special cat-the Jaguar.
At first, it was thought that the only changes in these children were their appearances, for each gained the distinctive eyes of the cats they'd been combined with, but it was soon discovered that there was more to it than that. Each child had gained control of an element, and once this was discovered, governments across the world began trying to gain control of the children.
The children had seen this coming, however, for the children that had been combined with the Tigers, Snow Leopards and Jaguars had seen glimpses of the future within their elements. Working together, they had created an island floating in the air, where they could live in peace and tranquility while they worked to repair what had been done to our planet. There were many attempts to capture the island, of course, and the children soon learned to fight in order to protect themselves from those who sought to control them. The two Jaguar children rose to the forefront of their kind, and announced that they needed to take action in order to prevent further needless deaths and injuries.
With this in mind, the children came forth from their island, revealing their true strength as the fighter jets and battle ships of your time were all proved to be worthless when it was the elements themselves being wielded against them. However, not one person was harmed in the battle, the children point blank refusing to kill the people that had come to fight them and instead worked to save the lives of everyone they could.
They entered hospitals and homes, healing regular people of their afflictions and addictions alike, sending them out into the world healthier than they ever had been in their lives. Wind farms found that they were being filled with more air than they should have been, and nuclear and coal power plants were shut down and carefully dismantled, quickly returning to their natural states without even a single meltdown. Finally, the Jaguar children themselves spoke to the governments of the world, their voices clearly heard for the first time, as the people running them had realised that there was nothing they could do to keep the children from doing as they liked.
"We are the Jaguars. You have seen the Cheetahs wield Light, and the Black Panthers use Shadow. You have seen the Tigers swim as if they were fish, and the Lions burn their own bodies without harm. You have seen the Snow Leopards fly, and the Iriomote Wildcats produce forests and mould mountains with their bare hands. We say to you now, that we can do all that and more. We are the Goddess's Voice on this planet, and we are the only ones other than She who is capable of wielding the six elements, though we are not as strong as She. Hear us now, for we speak true: You will not continue to treat the planet as you have! We will tear down your nuclear reaction plants the instant they are completely built, we will destroy the weaponry you seek to build. You cut down our forests, and we shall retrieve the wood and begin anew after destroying your tools. You seek to hunt every last fish in the sea, and we shall take your boats high into the mountains and leave them there to rust. We will not stand for the stupidity that you have allowed!"
Their voices were loud and terrible as they spoke, and the governments, in their shock that mere children could be so powerful, tried to laugh at them. The Jaguar children reacted to their laughter by taking the leader of one country, who had been told that he had only a short amount of time to live due to the lung cancer ravaging his body, and used light to remove every last bit of the disease from him. On seeing this, the governments were silenced, the eyes of everyone there wide in amazement. Finally, they began to accept that they were no longer the ones in control, that the Goddess had chosen their leaders for them, and that these children, who had healed and improved the world, would likely do a far better job than they ever had.
And the children did do exactly that, though it was soon discovered that the children they had with each other were all normal humans. However, some children who had been brought up on the land below began to change with puberty, their eyes changing colour and developing cat-like pupils and the powers that went with them. With this discovery, the Jaguars decreed that all children born on the floating island would be fostered on the ground below, and that it would be all children, not just their own, that would be fostered from the age of five. While this caused a great uproar at first, it was soon accepted that this would likely be best for the children, as it meant that should their powers emerge and they have to leave for the island that the emotional ties that they would have formed with their natural parents would not be destroyed at an age that they would easily remember. However, to alleviate this decision, the Jaguars also decreed that if both the child and his or her parents wished it, that they could once again meet on the child's sixteenth birthday, as it had quickly been found that if a child's gift did not emerge before then that it never would.
The world has become better since then, of course, what with how we now have enough natural energy to power our homes without the need for nuclear plants or anything like that. Everyone plays games online, and that's how they also monitor whether or not you have powers growing inside you-something to do with how the helmet is set up, I hear. Supposedly it measures your pupils, and the instant it finds them elongating it sets off an alarm on the island. Oh yeah, I almost forgot-they have a school up there for the newbies to attend, and as you can imagine with six hundred girls and six hundred boys going through it at various ages, it can make for some pretty funky events. Still, the most we ever hear of it down here is the occasional explosion from some Lion or Iriomote Wildcat dueling it out. Anyways, the alarm goes off, and one of the Guardians-which is what we landies call them-comes with their partner to take you off to school.
