Lay knew something was strange right away. He could feel it in every fiber of his being, because his power was life.

Lay had been sick lately. The life of the world had been getting lesser and lesser each time making his condition worse by the year but recently by the month, by the day… but today he felt fine. He would dare to say that he even felt good, strong.

What was it? What was it that made it different? He touched the wall, particularly the painting he had of a unicorn (because it symbolized eternal youth, like the one he and the legends had and it was also his legend symbol) but found no answer. He would need to ask Kris, when he came back from his morning flight.

“What are you doing, Lay?” asked Xiumin from his chair. Lay had forgotten that he was there in the room.

Since Lay didn’t exactly know what was going on, he couldn’t really tell Xiumin so he just said “Nothing” without looking away from the painting but suddenly it froze, just like everything else on the room.

Now he turned to look at him and Xiumin smirked, knowing that now he had his attention.

“Hey, now that I look at you you’re not as pale as you were before. You actually have some color on your face today…” he said, squinting his eyes to get a better view.

Lay dismissed Xiumin and sat again on his chair, looking at what used to be a flower but was now a dead, frozen plant. He sighed.

“You killed my flower” he said and then started moving his fingers subtly as the flower rose and took back it’s white color in the petals and dark green in the leaves.

“I didn’t mean to freeze everything.” Said Xiumin looking around, he had only meant to freeze the wall where Lay was but ended up freezing the whole room “You can bring it back to life anyway…” he finished, standing up to wipe the mirror.

“That doesn’t mean you can go killing—“

But he was interrupted with Xiumin’s scream. Lay was really surprised; Xiumin was always composed and fearless to some extent so he had almost never heard him raise his voice like that.

“What happened?” he asked, alarmed as he stood up.

“I… I thought…” he stuttered without looking away from the mirror. He then cleared his throat and calmed down, examining the mirror to get a better view. “I thought I saw somebody here, I mean, somebody else’s reflection…”

“Anyone you know?” asked Lay, also examining the mirror, curious. If it was little Luhan he would have thought that it was just part of his imagination, but this was Xiumin we were talking about.

“Yes, well no…” he organized his thoughts. “It felt like I knew him… he was familiar but I had never seen before, I don’t think so.”

Just then, Kris arrived. He stormed through the front door and he looked like he was in a hurry so Lay and Xiumin walked up to him, ready to take orders if necessary.

“We’ll need the others, quickly. Looking at your faces I know that you know it too, something’s happening…” said and Xiumin didn’t notice it but Lay was quite aware that the bracelet with his legend symbol that Kris always wore was burning red. Like it was on fire…

Lay and Xiumin prepared the head quarters for everyone while Kris got on top of the highest building of the city with ease flying at top speed to give out the signal that they should come. Immediately.

He closed his eyes and touched that bracelet that he wore, somehow his power seemed stronger now that the bracelet was glowing with such a blinding fire. It was easier than before to call the fire dragon forth, the one he called only for special emergencies like this one.

The dragon appeared, strong, majestic, big and full of fire. Bright so that all of the legends could see it and come back. Kris opened his arms, taking in the new power that he felt.

So the day was finally coming… it was about damn time, he thought. Kris was always power-hungry because he wanted to crush the evil forces; punish them like they deserved for destroying the beautiful world they lived in.

He has witnessed so many deaths in his life, so many ruins… he couldn’t bear it. If the situation had lasted another fifty years or so, he would have gone insane; just like the world…

But now, he felt more alive than ever.

====

Chen, on the other hand, was different from him.

He saw the signal from far away in the beach where he was peacefully resting. He was sitting on a dead branch that the ocean had forgotten there long ago but he created a thunder storm almost instantly to block the dragon from his view.

Chen had always felt, always known that they would never be able to match the evil forces. They had become so strong with the passing of time and they needed more than their strength doubled to beat them. They needed to triple it, quadruple it even!

Chen knew that the day they found their other halves and fought, they would die.

He stood up and felt static run all over him, which was unusual… he leaned down and tried to touch the ground but electricity connected his hand and the sand before he could even touch it, like something was calling him. He took his hand back, surprised.

He… he needed to at least give it a shot. He couldn’t live forever like a coward, someone afraid of dying; especially after he had lived far longer than any human could have ever hoped for. He could be anything, but he would never be a coward, he wouldn’t die without a fight.

With those thoughts in mind, he walked away towards the head quarters, not minding the deafening thunderstorm that followed him.

====

Tao and Luhan were on the training grounds practicing both of their powers but at a long distance from each other, to avoid getting distracted or interfering with each other’s powers.

Luhan kept experimenting with his telekinesis; moving heavy objects or a lot of objects at a time in different directions but Tao did it for pure pleasure because he had already mastered his power a long time ago.

Petals were falling around Tao as he held his sword tight, looking at them. He could make them fall as slow as he wanted them but that was the thing about his power: he could only slow time down; he couldn’t make it go faster. But he could stop it.

Time stopped and the petals stayed in their places as Tao threw a flower up in the air with the tip of his sword, where it stayed motionless. He jumped up and kicked it, making use of his martial arts that he had learned the right way and not by some inborn power. He was proud of knowing them through hard work.

When he fell to the ground, he let the petals fall too but something caught his attention.

A butterfly… he caught it with his hand, without the need of time control, which was weird because most animals despised him; they knew he was different, not normal… powers like Lay’s or Chen’ actually attracted animals because they were natural things: life, thunder… but Luhan and him had things that weren’t supposed to exist in the world: telekinesis, time control… animals usually tried to stay away from them, but not that butterfly.

Tao was wondering about the meaning of it when he suddenly saw the sky ignite with Kris’ dragon in the sky. He knew he had to get back, immediately. He looked at Luhan but he seemed too focused to even see the signal.

“Hyung!” he called him but he didn’t answer. “Luhan!”

 Luhan dropped the metal balls he was practicing with and they cracked the floor. Tao was surprised, he didn’t know that Luhan could handle so much weight and besides, those balls didn’t look that heavy.

Tao thought that Luhan had heard him but he actually looked in the opposite way, looking for something.

“Yah, Luhan!” he finally yelled when he got close enough.

“Tao!” he said looking back at him with his big, innocent eyes. It was a wonder how he was older than Tao. “Weren’t you over here just a while ago?” he asked pointing at the place where he was looking before. “Did you use time control?”

“I was here all along” he said but Luhan didn’t seem to believe it as he squinted his eyes in suspicion. “I swear I was here!”

“Well, somebody was here just now and he broke my concentration…” said Luhan still looking around. “He had black hair so I thought it was you but now that you mention it, he was different" he said thinking back to remember the dark messy hair but then he shook his head "but there shouldn’t be anyone around here… this is training grounds, it’s hidden from the humans.”