Huang Zitao remembers dreaming about two forgotten friends and shattered glass bells as his eyes violently open to the real sound of broken windows he realizes are not a mere component of his dream. Across the hall, Kim Minseok dreams of Antarctica and icebergs cracking into the frozen sea and jolts up, slipping into consciousness and perching his ears at the loud noise upstairs. Taeyeon and Baekhyun dream of giant fish bowls touched by children's hands which get zapped by emperor Xia, eathquakes separating their outstretched hands. In a matter of seconds, all the guests of Sehun's Victorian mansion get woken up and run upstairs in a panic.

Zitao is the first one to reach Sehun's door, jumping on the staircase railing and kicking down the door. He stumbles upon a confusing sight. Sehun is pinned down by two children which can't be older than eleven or twelve. It doesn't take long for him to realize these are no regular children when the dark haired one raises angry golden eyes at him and leaps faster than anyone he has ever seen and pushes him into the wall. The air is stolen from his lungs from the shock and the painful blow.

"What in the.....?

"Zitao, run!" Sehun tries to scream, the light haired child still atop him holding him by the collar and pinning him down with superhuman strength.

"Ahhh, Tao! Remember me?" the dark haired child screams devilishly delivering punch after punch to Tao's stomach.

Junmyeon reaches the room and summons a wave he throws at the child, finally knocking him off Zitao. Kyungsoo and Jongin follow, while Minseok freezes at the door, his gaze stuck on the blonde child before him.

"Luhan?" his voice trembles as his knuckles whiten gripping the door from sheer shock. The boy in front of him looks like Luhan did when they were growing up together, many years ago, back when they were best friends on a now very distant home planet.

"Hi, Minseok...Yeah it's me..."

Minseok runs to his childhood friend but stops short, wanting to hug him but also wanting to get him off Sehun that looks like he is in pain. He gets knocked off by the other child that is now soaking wet because of Junmyeon's summoned wave.

"Get away from him! All of you, stop acting like you care about us or like you are happy we are alive! If you can call this being alive!"

"Yifan?" Tao asks with a shaky voice, rubbing the pieces of plaster attached to him from the collision with the wall, off his clothes. "No, it can't be....you're alive? Why are you like this?"

Yifan seems to not care much for talking as he flies across the room, this time targetting Kyungsoo who has also frozen from the shock. Jongin teleports behind his back as Jongdae electocutes him, causing him to fall on the ground twitching.

"You may not want to talk, but I am a man of reason, I believe words are better at solving things than violence. Clearly there is a misunderstanding here and you will sit and listen. We are all confused and in shock, can we stop fighting now and talk?", Jongdae calmly speaks after immobilizing him.

Kyungsoo is still frozen, his face muscles twitching and making him appear, in turn, shocked, scared and then unbelievably sad. Jongin can read the guilt in his eyes before his lips even move to speak.

"Luhan, Yifan, I am so sorry....this is all my fault. If you want to take your anger out on anyone, take it out on me. I am happy you are alive. I don't know why you look the way you do and how you ended up here, I can tell it hasn't been easy for you and it's all my fault..."

Luhan stares at Kyungsoo calmly after letting go of Sehun's collar and joining Yifan's side. Yifan looks like a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth and growing angrier by the second, hating being momentarily rendered immobile.

"Kyungsoo, this is not your fault, stop. We don't even know anything yet!" Yixing is quick to jump in and defend him.

"I doubt that Wu can be reasoned with right now, he hates you all too much", Luhan speaks with a resigned, bitter tone. We have been by ourselves for four lonely years and cursed to be weak. It wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that none of you cared enough about us. First, we thought you left us for dead. Then we thought maybe you knew we were alive and you would look for us. But we saw no sign of that. You all got so lucky, it's easy to survive in this world as you are. But we have been trapped in child bodies. And here on Earth, if you are a lonely child they take you to orphanages, they throw you from family to family. We have had to constantly be on the run and to fight to survive all alone. We didn't have our powers until recently and when we used them and humans saw, we always got in even more trouble. I am not one for hurting people, but Yifan doesn't mind. And since I didn't want to be alone I kind of followed his ways. Plus, I agree with him. You guys didn't care enough...."

"But we do care! We thought you were dead!" Minseok shouts full of sorrow. He doesn't cry, he is never one to cry but this is the closest anyone has ever seen him to tears. His knuckles are still white, as he has been squeezing his fists the whole time trying to keep himself together. He had made himself believe there was little hope their two missing friends were alive after what had happened and now here they were. Only they weren't as they should be. They were children. His emotions run rampant, making it hard to control his powers, as an icy mist envelops the room.

"Minseok, calm down...." Taeyeon finally speaks. I will explain everything to him.

"I don't need your stupid explanations and apologies!" Yifan springs up from the floor, Jongdae's restraints wearing off, and throws himself at Taeyeon, grasping between his palms.

"I am sure you knew we were alive, Taeyeon, you are an Oracle, you know everything, so Minseok telling Luhan you thought we were dead is a lie!"

Baekhyun's eyes light up, as he sheds so much pure radiant white light, focusing a beam upon the attacker's eyes, that Yifan temporarily loses his sight as he lets go of Taeyeon.

"Should we just tranquilize him or something? How dare he attack Taeyeon? He is getting on my nerves! Angel, are you okay?" Baekhyun asks concerned.

"Listen to me, Yifan. I was not with them all these years, they did not know you were alive. And yes, I can see the future but I can't see everything. I am not an all-knowing God. I thought you were dead when the labyrinth was destroyed by Xia. I have a lot to tell you. I rescued the others from the prison, I was about to rescue you too, but Xia stopped me. He murdered the now former emperor Yan Wang and assumed the throne. He also blamed all of you for the murder. That was the reason why he convinced everyone to let you all die. He destroyed the prison and I thought you died. I don't know how you escaped. I had a vision that you were alive but I couldn't track you. I also knew that one of you felt hatred towards us. I now know it is you... But you should hate Xia and our people who have come back to Earth to hunt you all down. Please tell me what happened...how did you escape and why are you like this?"

"We would not have gotten in that situation to begin with if Kyungsoo didn't meddle with Earth, if he didn't talk us into telling people about it and telling people the truth about our planet. If we all minded our business, we would still be on our planet. We don't belong here! We are not like these idiotic, weak humans. But the old man made sure to make Luhan and I as weak and powerless as they are! I hate you all and I hate him and Luhan and I are going back to our planet and joining Xia and I don't care if we have to kill every single one of you! Isn't that right, Lu?"

"I don't want to kill anyone...I just want to be myself again and to go back to our planet...." Luhan says melancholically and fearfully, knowing his words would anger his vengeful friend.

"God, why are you so afraid and why are you so weak? If you are not on my side then you are against me! All I need is one of you so that I can grow faster and break this stupid spell!"

"What are you talking about? And who is this old man you speak of?" Chanyeol finally asks. He had been silently observing everything, trying to wrap his mind around these recent developments, the image of the forgotten parchment he found in that cabin, the prophecy that talked about twelve powers reuniting obsessively returning to his mind. Uniting twelve forces seemed like an impossible dream when two of the forces wanted to go against them.

Before Yifan could attack again with his sharp words or his supernatural strength, Luhan rushed to reply in his place:

"When the maze collapsed, I had recently managed to find Wu. There was no hope in finding the exit, I had learned that soon enough and whatever toxic gas or invisible forcefield that place contained was not allowing us to use our powers. But when the walls started collapsing, there was oxygen, whatever silenced our powers vanished and I was able to use telekinesis to shield us from the falling stones. Everything happened in a flash, I don't even know how I did it. I couldn't see anything and my ears were ringing, I could hear a loud siren or air horn, the kind that makes your skin crawl, the kind my grandfather used to describe when he talked about war. I panicked and laid low, making sure Yifan was shielded and unharmed. We laid there quietly, I heard screams and I saw a tornado throw even more rubble around and then I heard people running away. Nobody came to look for us. We sat there shaking. After enough time passed, I pushed the stones away with my power and we started walking, not knowing where to go. There seemed to be riots on the streets, we heard something about the emperor but there was too much chaos. We were just looking for you. We knew we couldn't just go back to our houses, not when we had been convicted and sentenced to death. Not knowing where to go, we eventually summoned our courage and headed towards the Observatory."

"And that's where that stupid old man was!" Yifan snarls, grinding his teeth, losing patience throughout Luhan's story time. Yixing scans his body quickly for any harm, since he has been receiving quite a beating from everyone. There is no internal damage but he is alarmed when he sees how fast his cells are regenerating and how his body is growing at an alarming rate. He swears Wu Yifan is starting to look taller, morfing from a pre-teen to a teenager under his own eyes. He has never seen anything like this, in his entire life as a Healer. Yifan notices Yixing staring and eyes him down, deciding to let Luhan continue first.

"Yes, that is where the old man was. I vaguely remembered seeing him before, he had always been kind of scary and mysterious. All I knew about him was that he was an astronomy teacher and that he could wield several elements but was most well-known for his teleportation skills. He was wearing a long, black robe and staring through the telescope when we walked in, all bruised up and bleeding, me barely supporting Wu. I asked him where you were. He didn't even seem shocked to know that we were alive".  As Luhan tells the others the story, the cobwebs and fog of his memory dissipate and he can see everything plain as day, he can hear the old man's words so clearly as if he were uttering them in the present.

"They are not on this planet anymore. They do not belong here. And you should be dead. Consider yourselves lucky, children", the old man had spoken.

"Where are they? Take me to where they are, old man, or I will kill you!" Yifan was anything but a patient person.

"I would advise you walk away from this before you return to a maze, this time to a sure death. Our Emperor has spoken. I have no desire of sending you where I sent them. You should have died back there. I owe you nothing. I owed Taeyeon's father. My debt is paid. Begone now, pests!" The old man's skin showed iridescent blue cracks, his eyes glowing crimson red. It was impossible to know his age. Something about him made Luhan's skin crawl.

"They are on Earth, aren't they? Isn't that what you are looking at through the telescope? Take us to them!" Luhan had shouted.

Yifan was never a patient man. He threatened the old man and even convinced Luhan to attack him, pieces of the observatory's study being ripped apart and invisible forces tossing them towards the old man's feet, controlled by Luhan's mind, as his robe rustled with each backward step he took.

"Fine, pests, I will take you there... And I will also lay this curse upon you. You will be alone and afraid. You will not have their love or their company. And you will become the children that you are acting as. Only when they find you or you find them and only when you learn to relinquish your childish anger will you grow. I pray to God you become wiser, if not the fate you deserve shall beget you".

With these words, the old man rendered Luhan and Yifan paralyzed, made them levitate and used his time control to reverse the growth of their bodies. An hourglass sitting atop the bookcase started hovering, its dust seeping upwards. That is the last thing Luhan remembered before the sensation of falling, limbs stretching, then shrinking and then violently crashing. When they awoke, they were children who faintly resembled what they looked like in their childhood but were also oddly unfamiliar. He remembers feeling like a square peg in a round hole. His mind and thoughts were his own, he was trapped inside an odd body and just wanted to cry.

Luhan chooses to end his story here, though everyone can tell there is so much more he wishes to get off his chest. Four years is a long time to always be on the run, to always be afraid, to never fit in. Luhan looks sad, whereas Yifan seems to have grown angrier, his nails carving into the floorboard at the mention of the one who cursed them and doomed them to such a pitiful existence.

"The old man helped you get to Earth, therefore I shall assume he is on your side. He is my enemy, therefore you are my enemy! Enough talk, I am done with talking, time to end this and go back to our planet!" In one final, superhuman effort, Wu Yifan grabs Zitao faster than anyone can react and with rabid movements, jumps out the shattered window, flying off into the night breeze.

""Let's get him!" Junmyeon shouts, beckoning the others and readying his power.

"No....let him go", Taeyeon says softly, causing a lot of blank, confused stares and silence.

"What....what do you mean, let him go? He took Zitao!" Baekhyun protests.

"He won't harm him.... I am sure of it. Maybe talking to Zitao will help a bit. Plus, if things get out of hand, Tao can use his ability. And from what I understand, Yifan needs his presence so he can return to his former self. I am more worried about the old man...he isn't what I thought he was. He is not a friend... My family and I put our trust in him. He even helped me come back to Earth so I could keep my eyes on you and help you. But now I fear he has ulterior motives...." Taeyeon sighs, feeling betrayed.

"Do you think he is working for Xia? But why would he help us escape in the first place?" Jongin asks.

Kyungsoo's head is down, having been quietly crying throughout Luhan's speech. Tears are falling off his chin, his eyelashes sticking to his swollen eyelids. Jongin knows he continues to feel guilty over the pain his friends have experienced as a cause of his actions. His nightmares are coming true. Two worlds will be at war.

"Luhan....are you going to leave too?" Minseok asks, his voice cracking. "Are you going to go after Yifan?" Minseok can't help but get choked up, he has missed his friend so much.

"No, I think some time away from him will do me some good. I am not as spiteful and I don't carry as much anger as him. But I do want to go home. Nothing good has come from us being on this planet. We are not welcome here. And even if we were, our mere presence is putting this planet at risk. If we don't leave soon, Xia will kill all Earthlings and steal all their resources. But maybe if we just surrender and go back, everything will be okay".

Minseok finally summons the courage to run to his friend and hug him tightly. Luhan is starting to look more like himself now, though he seems too quiet and resigned.

Sehun finally speaks:

"I am sorry, I should have told you guys about them, I discovered them a few days ago....I managed to escape...I....I was going to tell you in the morning, I swear....Please don't hate me. Also...Luhan, it is not true that we are not welcome on this planet, Kyungsoo was right, this is a wonderful place to live and all of us have found success and Earth people have become attached to us and even showed us love. We are welcome here! We can make this place our home and protect it from Xia and his blind followers!" Sehun's eyes shine brightly with hope that seems to fuel the others into mustering a smile.

Minseok sighs, knowing he must finally speak another truth that has been hidden from his friends, another secret festering between them, perhaps even more damaging than Sehun's.

Four hundred and seventy light years away, on a small rocky planet, an old man is gazing at a pale blue dot from a distance, an army of shadows around him. The corners of his lips form a wicked smile.

"Project Exodus can now commence! Prepare for war!" he speaks this not as a general but as a wise scholar, calm and reserved, a raspy voice echoing across metal halls.

Back on the pale blue dot, unaware of being observed, another army awaits its command. White coats and rubber gloves rustle and stretch and sharp metal instruments are neatly set into place next to a row of operaring tables.