TALKING TO A WALL

Joo

I ran towards the main field after receiving a call from Seulgi.

Earlier, I was walking around the city of Aurelia; trying to decide what kind of food I should take away for the members but then I received the phone call.

It didn’t take me long; I find myself automatically sprinting towards where they’re currently at.

She told me something that made my heart dropped.

No, that can’t be.

How long has it been since it got tended?

I dodged every people, carefully running in between them. ”Sorry, coming through!”, I tried to warn them loudly and they immediately stay out of my way.

Soon enough, I could see the main field— where the leaders of Elyxion used to train and do their work

Also, where the tree of life is located. I went pass the gates easily and immediately noticed a small crowd around it.

I halted into a stop and my eyes widened. “Oh no..”

It is true

"The tree is wilting", Wendy said in horror from behind. She just arrived as well, same goes to the rest of my most trusted members. They were following closely behind her.

The golden tree from before has now began to droop and lose its tremendous glow, the leaves turning brown one by one.

My eyebrows furrowed in worry, I stare at the tree with heavy heart before shifting my gaze to the rest of our members. "Has anyone tried to use their powers today?" I ask

A few hands shot upwards and I immediately asked the nearest one, "How was it, Key?"

"I tried duplicating myself and noticed that it's starting to drain a little bit faster than usual", he answered and I let out a sigh.

Time is ticking. We have to make our move before it gets worse.

"Joy, have you seen anything yet?", I ask her and she nods. I was referring to her vision since we have no other way in tracking the apprentices' future plans; she's our only hope for now.

"Just earlier, I saw the light apprentice crossing the barrier alone. I'm not sure why the rest of them is not with him but he will be bringing a faerie with him"

I blinked in confusion because why would he do that? That's basically wishing for death, even though he might be the strongest one out of all of them but he is still outnumbered.

Why did I say that he's the strongest?

I could feel his aura through my power, as I could identify powers; all their strengths and weaknesses. He is someone that we should take extra caution of.

My eyes went back to the tree as I turn more serious, "When can we expect him?"

"Today's evening, I assume. I saw you wearing this exact same outfit"

I gave her a flabbergasted look, "Why didn't you tell this sooner?"

"I just saw it during breakfast", she replied monotonously and I groaned.

"Will we be fighting?", Yeri then asked innocently and Joy rolled her eyes, "No, we will be talking and make peace", she sarcastically answered.

My heart starts beating in an abnormal pace as my stomach churn, none of us expected it to be today but it is safe to say that we're ready.

We always are, we have to be in order to survive in the cruel system from before.

I then stare at the few members who is pure, Awa blooded.

I could see that they're as nervous as I am but unlike myself, theirs are more noticeable. I can't show my weakness as I am their leader. Despite their nervousness, I could also see a glimpse of determination and hope; their wants in clearing up Awa's name.

To cleanse our bad reputation; we're innocent, wronged, blamed, abandoned.

I proceed to stare at the people who chose to believe in us despite the horrible stories that they heard from the fake histories.

Truth to be told, if you compare the numbers between the people who are pure blooded and recruited; the latter won with large number.

There's a lot of recruits than the pure blooded and that's what makes my heart swells.

These people chose to fight for the Awa's right even though they're from other continents. They're willing to risk their lives just so that the rest of the world can see the truth.

The Awa's gave the recruits a choice before they recruit (even though they use kidnapping as a method), first step is that they'll be shown the truth like how we did to Kang Yina and yes; they will deny it at first but sooner or later they will believe as it will make sense as each session with Yeri is over.

Then when they start to believe in us, we gave them a choice whether to just help us with or without joining in battles. Most decided to join because they feel like they should at least help in that.

The loss of our kinds is too big, they said. They decided that they're willing to fight for what is right.

However, for those who wish to not join in any battles, they decided to live quietly with us.

How did we obtained the memories that Yeri usually transfers you may ask?

Yeri is a mind manipulator from Odana; she adds the memories we gain from our Awa ancestors.

Our kinds, the Awa(s) are known to meddle with souls, the last princess of Elyxion has reached to us before for help even though it's very rare. She showed us snippets of the memories, told us a part of history that was untold.

It took years for us to collect the memories from her, for it to make sense. And when it starts to make sense, that is when we started recruiting people and made our move.

There are still many things she has yet to tell us, I have a feeling that she missed out some parts. She couldn't tell us the whole thing because her time to reach us is very limited, it only happens during eclipse.

That is when her soul can break free to the world from wherever she is and when the eclipse is gone, she'll be stuck there again.

Or maybe because she’s restricted to tell some parts of the story, there has to be a spell because there are timea when it blurs out some of her sentences so we couldn’t listen to the full story.

But whatever it was, we can safely assume that the apprentices are trying to prevent us from finding her.

And that is how we managed to make the memories as our core evidence.

But for some reason, the princess didn't appear during the last eclipse which was 5 months ago. Yunho, our necromancer was expecting to see her and already listed out a few questions to fill in the gaps but she didn't appear like the usual.

It threw us off, did the apprentices manage to tie her soul up somewhere now that they have a necromancer on their side as well?

It couldn't be a coincidence, they met the necromancer 5 months ago as well.

Suddenly, my trail of thoughts got interrupted by Seulgi. She placed her hand on my shoulder and I lifted my head to look at her.

”You okay?”, she asked me with a frown. Her question made everyone stare at me and I can’t help but mask my real emotion with a stoic one.

I bit my inner cheek and nod once. I pat her hands and forced a smile.

Taking a deep breath, I face the group with and start talking.

”Get the weapons ready”, I said and it caused murmurs of confusion among the people.

“When you feel like you can’t use your powers anymore, use the weapons. With the tree wilting, our powers will drain a lot faster but we should not stop”, I said sternly and was about to continue but I hesitated.

My heart once again, felt a slight pang. I try to shake the feeling off to continue without shaking

“We have to get the 12 powers back and tend the tree. Most importantly, we have to find the princess. It’s now or never, we can’t afford to lose them again. Our powers will ger weaker each day and if we don’t get them soon, we won’t stand a chance anymore”

Mark then stepped to the front and asked, “How many people do we need?”

”As much as you can gather today”

The spellcaster nods and ran off to where the rest of our members are training to notify them.

”If I call an army of soldiers from the past, will that work?” Yunho asked me and I shook my head quickly

”That won’t be necessary but..”, I trailed off and starts to think twice. Since the Apprentices’ powers won’t be affected by the tree, that means that they’re still stronger than them even though they’ll be outnumbered.

But then again, it’s too risky. I can’t make him do that.

”You’ll tire yourself, if you get too tired you can get killed by exhaustion”, I warned him, my tone filled with worry but he simply replied with a smile

”It’s worth it. If it’s for our people, I’m willing to risk it”

I opened my mouth to disagree but then he held his finger up, “I’ll be careful, don’t worry. Stop nagging, I’m older than you”, he said cheekily.

He then left before I could further decline. I watch his retreating back and can’t help but let out a small smile.

Just like me, he’s one of us who came from Awa. I can’t help but feel a bit biased towards him, you can’t blame me.

I feel the need to protect our people from extinction. There’s only a few of us left in this world. We can’t afford to lose the ones that we have left.

”We’ll get going now, notify us when we’re leaving”, the duplicator excused himself and I nodded. 

Key then went away to get the weapons ready, along with Seulgi, Irene and Yeri.

I sighed again and turned to face the wilting tree from a far, alone now.

”Hold on there”, I whispered to the air as I watch the leaves from the tree starts to fall one by one.

This is really bad, once the tree starts to die, Elyxion will crumble with it.

There will be no water and no crops, soon enough; no living things. We can’t let that happen

The princess needs to return.

The sound of twigs snapping near me pulls me out from my reverie, I look to the side and saw Joy sitting on the ground, trying to see the future outcome of what is going to happen.

Her hands holding onto a twig as she blankly snaps it bit by bit. I watch the change in her expression; it looks like she could catch a glimpse of it since she’s frowning and fidgeting too much.

”This is really happening is it”, a voice startled me once again and I turned my head to the side just to realise that Wendy hasn’t left and was watching me.

“Why aren’t you getting ready?”, I asked and she shrugged her shoulders.

“Because someone needs to let her worries out before the battle”, she simply said and I chuckled.

Funny how she can see through me despite my mask. After all, she is the closest person that I have as a friend among all of them.

”Our second chance and probably the final”, I said and took out my favourite dagger and play around with it distractingly.

“No more mistakes this time”, Wendy added and I nodded. “We can’t.. but what if it goes wrong again? We never them coming. We thought we won but the powers got back to them in a split second”

“We were all too busy trying to find the princess, no one knew it was coming”

“It’s my fault. I should’ve kill them earlier”

By the mention of killing, Wendy winced and made a face. She’s never a fan of killing people, she’s not used to it. After all, she’s only needed to transfer the powers out of the apprentices’ bodies.

Not to mention that the apprentices are her people.

Aurelians.

Wendy has the power to exchange abilities and there’s only three of them that has that. She belongs in the rare category, joining second in the list. The first being the 12 powers.

It’s a shock that she decided to help fight against her own people.

I gave her an apologetic smile, “Sorry, I have to.. sooner or later”

She in her breath and folded her arms together, “Well, even though it feels weird to go fight your own kinds but they made your people suffer”

I then wonder what will happen if we do win this, will the people believe us? The enemy of all?

Although we now live in Aurelia, it took years for the Aurelians to stop being scared of us.

We tried to be friendly and help them with what they need but they will always result in their fear.

It did spark confusion among them however, they start to wonder why we’re all nice but they dismissed it as trying to win their hearts.

All we wanted is to be accepted again.

So we didn’t even bother trying to reveal the secret yet, maybe after we find the princess.

I once again fell into my own trail of thoughts and is quickly snapped out of it when Wendy snatched my dagger away; the one that I’m playing around with absentmindedly.

”You’re going to hurt yourself”, Wendy rolled her eyes and gave my dagger back.

“You know that’s not true”

I know my dagger pretty well, I’ve been training with it since I was 5 years old. I took the dagger back and stare at its intricate details. It's an ancient one, passed down from generations to generations and now to me.

If the rumors are true, it used to belong to one of the royals with the initial GH. I trace the initial on the hilt with my finger, wondering who's dagger it initially belongs to.

Wendy then shrugged her shoulder and replied honestly, ”Just wanted to snap you out of your trance. We have to get ready, the light apprentice might already be on his way”

”Right”, I murmur under my breath and starts walking towards the main house to gear up.

Second chance, let’s not have a third one.

"Where is he now?", Suho ask them as they try to pack everything that is necessary; as much as possible. They're all in the main room as Boa prepares everything they need, from food to clothes and also introducing them to every weapons that they have.

Everyone is there except Yixing and Chen who is probably still trying to convince Subin to come with them. Fingers cross, they really hope she will come because they need her in order to find the princess by searching what happened in the past.

"Still heading towards the port but he's going faster now. Seems like he has a car", Chanyeol replied as his eyes still on the screen.

"He bought it?", Yeseul asked and approached Chanyeol to stare at Baekhyun's location as well.

Yeseul went pass them with a bundle of clothes and said, "Less likely, Boa has been monitoring his gold card to see what he bought but no cars. Recently, it's sleeping pills"

Sehun sighed when he realized that Baekhyun drugged Haneul. Knowing the hot-headed faerie, he surely knows that she won't let that go easily

Yeseul place the clothes on the table and told everyone to get what they need.

Boa then claps her hands to grab their attention, "Now, we have different types of weapons here. You can choose which ever you like, I heard that you would like to harm no one hence these weapons are tailored to your liking. There's a button that can turn the edges sharp and blunt"

"Neat", Kai said before picking up a hand gun. "But what about these? Won't there be bullets?"

"Electric bullets. They will paralyze them for a while instead of killing"

"Okay, then these are mine", he declared as he took two of them. He then held the guns up and pretends to shoot Sehun, making noises of gunshots.

Sehun ignores him and raises his hand to ask, "Are we going to use these weapons instead of our powers?"

Suho nods, "We might accidentally kill someone if we do use our powers, most of us are still no confident about using it and we might miss our target"

Sehun then proceeds to pick up a hilt, just because he doesn't know what it is but once he places it in his hand it turns into a sword. His eyes widen, he found his.

"Can we use it to defend ourselves then?", Chanyeol ask and the leader nod once again. Then, he noticed that the girl beside him has been staying still for a while; drowning in her own thoughts.

Yeseul could feel her stomach churn and heart drop when she realizes that she possesses one of the 12 powers now. What is she supposed to do? She hasn’t train herself with it yet and now they’re going on to a battle?

Chanyeol realizes that the girl is quietly panicking judging from her pale face so he bends down to her eye level and g