[ ❉ The Day After in Merehua - October 05th 2016 ]

   On the lower grounds of the Human Liberation Vanguard hospital were the spacious rehabilitation rooms, fully equipped to help those who had been injured in combat. Chanyeol’s physical therapist was a small woman, with large dark eyes, a cute button nose and long dark hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. She held Chanyeol’s shoulder with one hand and slowly raised his elbow with the other. Chanyeol grunted in response and the therapist stopped, lowering his elbow back down. She repeated these steps with his other arm and then continued her list of exercises dedicated to testing his range of motion. Despite the pain, Chanyeol seemed quite happy to be in her company, unable to hide his cheeky grin.

   Baekhyun watched intently from the other side of the room, arms folded and eyebrows furrowed. It was busy today, there were a few other patients with their therapists in this area. He wanted to stand closer to Chanyeol, but he didn’t want to get in the way. Baekhyun couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable each time he saw his partner wince, but it seemed that Chanyeol was recovering fast, faster than anyone had predicted.

The nanomachines in his body had repaired a lot of the tissue damage meaning the mechanics were able to repair the artificial parts of his body. Chanyeol had gone from being unable to sit up without pain, to standing and walking on his own in only two weeks. It was remarkable, really. However, it would still take a while to heal fully, Chanyeol was only human after all.

   Baekhyun looked at his watch and felt unwillingness stir from within. It was almost time to head to the briefing on Nuenamire, but he didn’t want to leave Chanyeol’s side. He coughed and caught his friends attention.

   “I have to go now,” said Baekhyun, shrugging as he put his hands in his pockets.

   Chanyeol beamed at him, “Alright, I’ll see you later.”

   Baekhyun nodded with reluctance, “If you need me, just give me a call, okay?”

   “Stop worrying and go. I’m in the capable hands of the lovely Miss Jina,” Chanyeol said with a wink. The physical therapist hid a shy smile before returning back to her professional self.

   Baekhyun rolled his eyes and left the room, shaking his head. He closed the door behind him with a small click and walked away, trying to clear his mind and focus on work.

The Chief Commander hadn’t given him a lot of details in the voicemail. All Baekhyun knew was that a small district in the Outskirts called Nuenamire, a place that he hadn’t even heard of until yesterday, had been attacked the previous evening. Since the organisation was no longer hiding its military power, the HLV was going to go an investigate allegations of dragon fire - an allegation that had severe consequences. Dragons were a speciality of the demon king, so if it were true, that would mean that he attacked his own people.

Baekhyun felt grim at the idea. He didn’t like that war seemed to be brewing again. He also didn’t like that this would be his first mission since he’d been back and it would also be the first time he’d gone on a mission without Chanyeol. Filled with nerves, Baekhyun started to make his way upstairs, stopping only to politely acknowledge familiar faces on his way there.

   The main conference room was designed to a similar fashion to the hospital rooms on the floors below; wide and spacious with floor to ceiling glass windows. One large oval wooden table filled the room with leather chairs lining the sides. There were already a few members of the HLV present by the time Baekhyun arrived; he recognised a few of them from the Commando Division where he was from and a few others from the other Divisions.

   Five separate primary Divisions within the HLV worked together on any mission; the Mage Division, the Summoner Division, the Support Division, the Commando Division and the Bionic Division. Any new trainee would be assessed and assigned to one of the five departments with the first few months of entry.

   The Mage’s were those humans born with natural magical power and learnt to fight offensively. The Summoner’s were a special class of mage that had the rare ability to summon entities from their soul that would fight alongside them in combat. The Support’s were another class of mage that specialised in healing and defensive magic, they were the backbone of the HLV. The Commando’s were regular humans who had no magical power but had intensive physical training, the frontline of any fight. And finally, the Bionics were those handpicked as the best from the Commando & Mage division to be u