Sorry we've been kinda lazy about updating. We're trying to come up with a good way to get in a groove and establish character relationships and all that jazz..... yeah I'll let you read the slightly more interesting words now.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” you heard a voice ask from behind you.

Everybody turned to see two Hunters whom you recognized to be Kai and Lay entering through the huge cathedral doors carrying grocery bags.

“Oh,” Chanyeol sighed, still sounding very distressed. “You know, just…” He ran a hand through his hair.

“Who are all these people?” asked Lay.

“They’re Mary Sue’s friends,” Chanyeol answered for you, giving Lay a look.

“Dude,” Kai laughed, walking up to him and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “What’s got you all stressed?”

Chanyeol heaved a sigh and turned Kai away from the rest of you to talk quietly with him, but you could still hear.

“She told all her friends,” Chanyeol muttered.

Kai glanced over his shoulder at all of you. “Told them what?” he asked.

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yes.”

Kai considered this for a moment. “When you say everything…”

“Kai, I mean everything!” Chanyeol burst out, not bothering to hush himself anymore.

Kai turned back to the rest of you. “Well, .” Then he raised his eyebrows in a noncommittal way. “Welp.” With that, he took a step toward the door behind the podium, only to disappear in a flash of smoke a second later.

Your friends erupted in a chorus of “Woah!” “Did he just…?” and “What the just happened?!”

Lay started chuckling beside you, still holding his grocery bags.

“I don’t see what’s so funny about this,” Chanyeol snapped at him.

“Relax,” Lay said. “If Mary Sue trusts them enough to tell them about us, then I think we can trust them too.” He sent a friendly wink your way.

Chanyeol exhaled out his nose, trying to calm himself. “Fine. But they are not joining us.”

“Oh, come on.” Lay stood next to Chanyeol and scrutinized the rest of you. “We could at least see what they’ve got,” he said.

You grinned, grateful to Lay for helping you out. Lay left Chanyeol standing there, looking flustered, and strode leisurely to the door. “We bought peanut butter,” he threw over his shoulder as an afterthought.

The four of you looked to Chanyeol with varying degrees of persuading looks. All he could do was sigh and beckon you inside as he turned and walked to the door Lay just disappeared through.

Suho was in the kitchen, putting away the groceries Kai and Lay just brought in, when Chanyeol strolled in with you and the other three in tow.

“So you all want to join us?” he asked the newcomers when he was caught up on the situation.

Jonghyun nodded eagerly. “We’d like to help somehow,” Amber said, while at the same time Key admitted, “Honestly, I’m just waiting for the hallucinations to stop.”

“Well,” Suho started, eyeing the four of you. “Do any of you have any combat experience?”

You all looked around sheepishly and shook your heads.

Suho raised his eyebrows, looking just slightly worried. “Any martial arts training?”

You shook your heads again. You started to feel a little embarrassed for bringing your friends. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.

“Anything at all?” Suho asked.

Amber finally spoke up. “I know archery,” she said meekly.

Suho’s eyes lit up at this. “Really?” He scrutinized her for a moment. “You any good?”

She smirked. “I’ve been doing it since I was eight,” she said.

“Alright,” Suho said. “We can work with that.” He looked at Key and Jonghyun. “Anybody else?”

Jonghyun shook his head while Key just shrugged.

“That’s alright,” Suho said. “Let’s just see how you fare against my guys for now.”

A mischievous glint appeared in his eye. You wondered what he meant by that.

Jonghyun found himself standing in the middle of the Hunters’ training room with the eyes of about a dozen people he hadn’t met before today on him.

“We’re just going to do some really basic sparring, to test your reflexes and natural ability,” Suho explained. “We want to see what kind of potential you and your friend have, before we decide to train you.”

Jonghyun nodded. “So I’m taking on all of you?” he asked, picturing trials of epic martial arts as he fought his way through twelve advanced masters.

Suho smiled widely. A few of the other Hunters snickered.

“That won’t be necessary,” Suho replied. “You’ll be going against one of our younger members.”

The guy Jonghyun saw in the chapel earlier who disappeared into thin air stepped forward and grinned cheekily. “Kai,” he introduced himself, offering his hand, which Jonghyun shook.

“What about all of you?” Jonghyun asked, wondering why they were all even here if they weren’t going to take part.

A tall Hunter with blond hair and killer eyebrows sighed and said, “We’re just here for the show.” He grinned deviously. “It’s not every day a crop of fresh meat just shows up here asking to be trained.”

Jonghyun gulped, feeling slightly under pressure now. He hoped he wouldn’t embarrass himself. It wasn’t just the Hunters that were watching him. Mary Sue and Amber were watching too. And Key.

Kai smirked at Jonghyun when they were the only two in the sparring area. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Jonghyun breathed.

Without any further warning, Kai came at Jonghyun. His strike landed across his face, and Jonghyun fell to the floor, a bit stunned.

“Kai!” cried one of the Hunters from the sidelines. Jonghyun couldn’t tell who, his ears were kind of ringing and he was too busy staring at the floor to look up and see who it was.

“A face shot right away? Really?” someone else scolded.

“Go easier on him, Kai!” That one was Suho, Jonghyun was almost sure.

There was a hand in his face. He looked up to see Kai, eyebrows raised in amusement and smiling at him. “Sorry,” Kai said. Despite his amusement, he seemed nice enough to mean it. Jonghyun allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

“Try to defend yourself this time,” Kai said as they began again.

Jonghyun thought that was probably good advice.

“I’m coming,” Kai warned, and he came at Jonghyun a second time.

This time, Jonghyun was able to somewhat predict Kai’s movements. He managed to block the first attack and push away the second and clumsily dodge the third. When Kai swung an arm at him, Jonghyun ducked beneath it, stumbling through and shoving Kai from behind.

“Not bad,” Kai commended as he quickly recovered, and he continued to attack.

Jonghyun was able to predict his movements quicker now and had even started attacking. It was clumsy, but he was holding his own.

It ended when the two of them were pressed together, hanging onto each other’s arms after having each blocked a blow, and Kai had wrapped a foot around Jonghyun’s ankles as he was shuffling backward, causing him to land on his back at the other boy’s feet.

Kai smiled and offered Jonghyun a hand, helping him up. “You have pretty good natural instincts,” he commended, which made Jonghyun feel like this whole venture might not have been wasted on him. He smiled, proud.

When Jonghyun had sat down beside Mary Sue, Kai pointed straight at Key, like a champion fighter singling out a challenger from the crowd. “You next,” he said simply.

Key immediately raised his eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

“Come on, Key,” Suho said. “We want to see your fighting skills too.”

Key just laughed in disbelief. “You’re kidding me, right?” He looked around. No one seemed to be kidding. “This is the most absurd—“

“Key!” Mary Sue interrupted his grumbling. “Do you want to help me stop a vampire apocalypse or do you need to wait around for a vampire to actually kidnap and bite you and your nonbelieving diva blood for you to believe me?”

Key gaped at her.

“What?!”