THE PLAN

“There’s two things that keeps on bothering me.” Suho stated seriously, a pencil on his right-hand scribbling circles across their mind map.

They were all gathered, again at the dining table that day in the afternoon with an exception of 4 people who is out to get groceries.

They have already started brainstorming for a plan without them, pretty sure they won’t miss anything as they have already wasted hours on trying to figure out what happened to their powers.

Suho circled the word Tree of life.

“First of all, it has been 5 years since the red force has taken over, but do you guys notice that there has not been any destruction of some sort?” He asked and the rest went silent for awhile, trying to think whether there has or has not been chaos right after the war 5 years ago.

“No evil doings, the tree of life seems pretty fine since Elyxion is still intact. As much as I don’t want to say it, the robot did a good job taking care of the tree even with the absence of Baekhyun’s light.” Yixing replied and gained murmurs of agreement.

The robot is probably built to take their role as a guardian of the tree, all in one.

“That’s my second point, they didn’t even try to find Baekhyun to get his powers” Suho continued off after Yixing’s last statement.

“Could it be that they have replaced his light with those machines around the tree of life?” Kyungsoo suggested. “It’s possible”

“The people in Elyxion also carried on with their lives normally, even with the system gone. There has to be something big that is going to happen soon, maybe the red force are just being secretive about it” Kyungsoo added on, as he took the pencil out of Suho’s hands. Adding the word “chaos soon(?)” to the paper.

The red force has surely taken over Elyxion, it was all over the television but there has not been any major event happening after that. Not even a leader or leaders was appointed to rule Elyxion.

What the hell is going on? If they aren’t going to rule Elyxion or make the people bow down to their orders, what is the point of the war that happened 5 years ago?

“The fact that the enemy spared us from death that time is another question.” Xiumin said with a finger on his chin.

“I thought I’ve told you before? I heard that they thought we were useless without our powers because we are just mere apprentices so they decided to just leave us be” Yixing told them again, recalling the exact words coming out from the enemy when they left him at the library after stealing his powers.

They had torture him to the point that it was hard to breathe, just to get some information on the whereabouts of the last apprentice, Baekhyun. They did so much damage to his body that it took him years to fully recover.

“Then why did they.. the 3 apprentices...” Kyungsoo only manage to stutter fractions of his sentence, pain lingering in his tone.

“Maybe it’s because they were the only ones who fought back when we didn’t” Suho answered quietly.

“But for sure, they will be after us soon enough to get the powers back to their hands. The tree of life depends on our powers, no machines can ever replace it no matter how high quality it is. It may help to tend it when we’re gone, but I’m assuming that it won’t last long”

Xiumin stole the pencil from Kyungsoo’s hand and added, “changing powers”. He then continued, “Ok, let’s talk about this. Any idea how this happened? Could it be that it’s one of their back up plan?”

“No no, how can they think of changing our powers? They didn’t even know that we were going after them yesterday” Kyungsoo argued, cancelling out the “changing” part of the sentence then circled only “power”, the pencil now in his grip.

“Why not? It could be a back up plan, in which they are right about” Xiumin argued back, stealing the pencil back to re-add the words back-up plan” and re-circled the whole thing.

“What back-up plan.. thats bullsh*t, they could be just acting that they didn’t see it coming. Why would they carelessly let a robot, containing our powers roam around Aurelia with just a bit of their people guarding it?” Chanyeol stated out loudly, the pencil now in his hands.

“And why would they do that? So that they could chase us around to get the powers back in their hands? What is this, a game of cat and mouse?”

“Okay, you’re right. Then maybe- wait what the hell” Chanyeol wanted to start writing again but couldn’t.

The dry paper is now wet.

“Xiumin seriously?” Chanyeol called out his name in a monotonous voice and he gave him a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I swear I didn’t do it on purpose” He claimed but his eyes full of mischief.

The brainstorm map is now ruined, not that it isn’t ruined before with cancels and circles in the first place but it could be saved still.

Suho who has been silently sitting in his seat suddenly slam the table with his hand and shouted, “I got it!” but quickly retracted his now red hands earning snickers across the table.

“Anyways..” He pulled out a new paper and took back the pencil from the person who’s holding it, writing “Aurelia” and “new powers”.

He got everyone’s attention instantly.

“Let’s start with the capital, any news about what happened there after we attacked?” He asked the rest and they all shook their head except for one.

“I heard Aurelia has cut off all contacts with the rest of the continents. Any forms of transportation from other continents aren’t allowed to get in anymore except for their own”

Before, they had allowed transportations from other continents to come in, restricted to only exports such as foods and other products needed to feed the needs of a population.

In which through that, they have deduced that all families living in Aurelia are still alive.. but their condition is still unknown.

There’s no doubt that they are the reason why the red force decided to have tighter security. The apprentices had sneaked in through Satia’s airplane that is used to export their foods and crops, and left successfully using a stolen private express boat (in which they destroyed afterwards to not leave any traces).

“Security wasn’t tight when we attacked but I’m guessing it is now” Yixing stated his opinion and the rest agreed.

“Kai texted me that they saw one of the enemy’s members roaming the streets here. They’re searching for us” Suho told them and Chanyeol quickly added, “Does that mean we have to move? We can’t stay at the same spot it will be too dangerous”

Suho nodded and continued, “Which leads us to the next question, our new powers.” He suddenly stood up to get something from the bookshelf of the living room.

“What I am about to propose here may sound crazy but try to keep your mind open and don’t interrupt before I get to finish” He said strictly before starting. He pulled out a piece of paper before coming back to the table.

A full map of Elyxion. He placed it on the table, right next to the new brainstorm map.

“We will have to get moving as soon as possible and our new powers are out of control, its either we practice to control it or find a way to get change it back”

“There is a way to change it but we need Yixing for that” Chanyeol said and Suho gave him a look. “I thought I said interrupting? but thank you for pointing that out”

Chanyeol rolled his eyes and Suho snapped his finger to continue his point.

“Which left us with no other choice than to learn to control it. Chen won’t be able to do it in a short amount of time, so until we find another way to exchange it