Jongdae all but fell to the ground, wiping roughly at the rivulets of sweat forming on his forehead, and exhaled a single, liberating breath. He glanced momentarily on the man to his left— Lay seemed out of it, staring into space like three-quarters of his brain were occupied with an issue outside of what was playing out in the Huangs’ training room. Turning to his right, he leaned over slightly, to address the young seer who currently wallowed in a pensive silence, like he always did when he thought the others couldn't see.

“What would you rate us?” he asked, nudging the guy gently. Zitao blinked, looking over in surprise, before fractionally relaxing.

“I’m sorry?” Up until a week ago, Zitao was a bit elusive for Jongdae, a figurehead that he followed without establishing familiarity. Then he’d been cornered one night, when nobody was around, and sat down for a rather stern talking to regarding “deliberately trying to get JinJu in trouble.” 

Jongdae had had to quickly explain those were never his intentions. Really, they weren’t. She just panicked easily (which, admittedly, was the reaction he sought)— he’d never actually put either of them at risk of being exposed.

“Out of ten. What would you rate us?”

Zitao had looked doubtful, but had shaken it off promptly, then challenging Jongdae to a game of chess. A friendly understanding, of sorts, had blossomed (after Jongdae had won, of course). 

Zitao squinted as he looked across the floor, eyes lingering on JinJu as she slashed brutally at a dummy, almost too enthusiastic. She loved hacking at those things. It would’ve been worrying, except all the practice was paying off— she was a machine. Getting scary was the whole point of them being in Athe.

He shrugged. “All over… maybe seven?”

Jongdae scoffed indignantly, “Seven?” They’d been taught how to pop out a man’s neck with a single jab from a knife in the right place, and they were only a seven? “Bull.”

“You’re right,” Zitao conceded. “Seven and a half.” Jongdae made a small noise of disgust, at which Zitao laughed. “Fine. I wont put a number on it, but you guys are definitely proficient.”

He supposed that was better. Marginally.

Two weeks were up, and just secretly, Jongdae thought they were more than proficient. Receiving the rings a week ago had boosted the Shifters up to everybody else’s levels; now they were all parts in one, well-oiled machine. Incredibly dangerous parts, each armed with their own unique ways with which to kill and maim, but parts nonetheless. As vehement as Sehun and Jongin’s ban on making peace with anybody outside of their own stupid little circle was, they were apart of a team, and were unwittingly becoming closer day by day.

Take Kris, for example. They’d spent so much time with Kris that it was almost second nature. They didn't put any effort into hating him; despite themselves, they'd become friendly with the Walker. It didn't register to them he wasn't a Shifter anymore.

Even they had made progress. It was inevitable, this coming together. Jongdae could see it happening, however slowly, right before his eyes.

“You guys were born to do this,” Zitao told him, almost in aside, before refocusing his gaze on those scattered about the gym. 

This was a worrying thought. Jongdae frowned; all this talk of preordination made him second-guess his free-will. Did he really want to be doing this? he'd ask as he, say, chose to eat cereal for breakfast, Or is this fate pulling the strings?

And if fate was manipulating the smaller things, like mealtimes, then its influence over the big stuff was even more troubling.

What was worse had been lingering in the back of his mind for weeks. Sure, they were born to do this. That, he bought. Their leap in skills over a mere fortnight proved as much. But were they born to die for the cause?

It was a slightly depressing thought; he turned to make smalltalk with Lay, forcing the man out of his reverie, needing something to divert his attention. 

That night, Zitao lugged out the codex. It was the first public appearance the weathered stack of scripture had made in weeks, so naturally, Jongdae’s interest was piqued. Jongin, too, joined him; he’d put aside his discomfort with Zitao long ago, and while he wasn't exactly cheerful, he was pleasant. Quiet, but pleasant nonetheless.

Jongin had been uncommonly happy since he’d received his amulet, the one that stored his clothes in the nether while he shifted and made changing shape simplistic, enabling a fluidity and indeed, ferocity, that hadn't been possibly beforehand. 

Jongdae was glad for his friend’s good mood, sure, but honestly he preferred seeing Jongin outside of the training gym. When Jongin fought now, he was downright scary. Not in the bloodthirsty, hell-bent on winning, kind of deranged way that JinJu got sometimes; no, Jongin was too calculating, cruel— but swift, a predator that blurred between forms like some fierce protector-apparition summoned straight out of the very pits from which their enemies hailed.

Human and beast meshed together, flickering in an out of forms with a fluidity the likes of which Jongdae hadn't seen in anybody else in their party. Going off mutterings he'd overheard from Yong and Kris, they hadn't seen anything quite like it either.

Like Zitao had said, they were born for this.

“You here to help?”

Jongdae nodded at Zitao, pulling out the knife he kept at his hip and fiddling with the hilt, a habit he’d picked up for two reasons. There was a groove the leather, shaped like a swirl of sorts, and tracing it was oddly relaxing; also, he figured it was menacing. It always looked that way in movies. Big, bad guy plays with knife, scares daylights out of others before raising a hand. Soon he’d start cutting up apples, eat the chunks with the knife, just for the hell of it.

He’d never admit that motive, though.

Zitao instructed them to wait while he reshuffled his papers, and Jongin settled in his seat, pulling a book from seemingly nowhere and immediately immersing himself. The Huangs, of course, had a library. Jongin was taking full advantage of said fact— when he wasn't scaring the living daylights out of everybody in training, he had his nose in a book. There was something comforting about it, Jongdae found, like maybe his friend wasn't that far from reach after all.

At that moment, JinJu ambled in, her hair up in a messy bun. She was eating an apple, biting into it with ferocity, as though it'd murdered her first-born or something. Jongdae knew the others had scattered around the house— it was large enough that people could do their own thing, split up— and he was willing to bet she was on her way to the snooker game going down on the other side of the house. He’d heard Baekhyun challenge Suho, all in good humour, and then heard Chanyeol step in with a little more hostility. He expected it to be a showdown of epic proportions; alas, not so much so that he was tempted into going.

Jongdae glanced about covertly, before catching JinJu’s gaze as she strolled past, and winking. She froze mid-step, blinked, then looked away, feigning sudden, undivided interest in the patterns of the bland wallpaper. 

Jongdae suppressed a snicker, schooling his features into a familiar poker-face and looking back down at his knife. How she fell for the same tricks every time was beyond him— not that he was complaining. It was endlessly amusing, even when he’d be chastised for it later on. 

“JinJu?” She all but jumped, looking at Zitao as though she’d seen a ghost. Jongin made a great show of not noticing her, pushing his book further towards his face and frowning in concentration. “Did you want to help?”

“Help?” JinJu looked down at the codex, before a lightbulb went off, so transparently that Jongdae had to repress another smile. “I, uh, sure. Yes. I would.” Robotically, she slid into he chair opposite Jongin’s; Zitao shuffled a few more papers, shooting her a kindly smile as he did so.

Then, for the first time as it would sem, JinJu noticed Jongin. Her eyes narrowed and she opened and then closed rhythmically, as though about to tell him to move or something, before catching herself with the reminder that technically, he’d been there first.

Finally, she decided to ignore him, though she wasn't seeming overly happy about it. Curiosity, it appeared, won out. Jongdae was with her. The codex was much too mysterious for his liking— and he wanted that fixed.

Curiosity was one of Jongdae’s greatest downfalls. He craved knowledge, wanted to solve mysteries. If he was being honest, that was why he’d initially befriended JinJu.

JinJu was different to anybody he’d ever actively interacted with before— and he meant that not in the overused, ‘not like other girls’ cliche sense of the word, plucked straight out of teen romance novels everywhere. He was sure there were multitudes of girls like her in Indion. Bitter, hostile, resourceful, practical… Her temper was awful, though, so that probably set her apart. 

But for Jongdae, she was unlike anybody he’d ever interacted with before. 

Her experiences were different, the ways that she saw and reacted to things were different— and she was scared, terrified, of his type at first, yet openly scorned them. She was brave to the point of stupidity. 

Jongdae was at an age where he’d begun questioning everything he’d been spoon-fed— admittedly, he probably thought about the classism more than his friends because of his stint in Athe as a child. Meeting JinJu had accelerated these thoughts, of whether the way things were was right, or just (obviously not, as he’d quickly realised).

They weren't incredibly close (yet— Jongdae liked to tack on the end of that sentence); their relationship was new and thus, light, consisting of friendly teasing, and the odd discussion. Even still, Jongdae was feeling stirrings of something— a desire to help. How, he wasn't sure. But the fact was that there were many more JinJu’s back in his country, each one as frightened of those they coexisted with, simply due to a national, centuries-old oppression. The more Jongdae thought of the inequity, the more he wanted something done.

“Right,” Zitao said, breaking the silence, and getting the attention of all three of them. Jongin looked mildly uncomfortable having put his book away, shifting in his seat and leaning back, as though putting distance between himself and the Defective might ease his disquiet. Evidently, it didn’t. Good riddance, too.

He pushed a pen and a blank sheet of paper over to JinJu. “What..?”

“Write stuff down for me,” he instructed, and she nodded. Jongin wrinkled his nose.

“Right. So, what do we have… Child of Light?” She looked over at Zitao.

“Undecided.”

“Horse King—“ she snorted, pen scratching against paper as she wrote because she knew exactly who this one was. 

“Sehun,” Zitao finished, pressing a fist to his lips and willing down a smirk of his own. 

“What did you people just call me?” Came an outraged yell from another room, and while Zitao hurriedly talked him down, Jongdae and Jongin exchanged looks. Poor kid. Jongdae knew Jongin agreed. He was so uncomfortable in his other skin, he’d barely shifted when they'd learnt how to use the amulet. He only did so when it was absolutely necessary.

“Uh… Guardian?”

Zitao sighed. “…Undecided.”

Jongin was looking more and more confused as time passed. “Wait, what…” He frowned, deliberately avoiding looking at JinJu, focusing his gaze on the Walker at the head of the table. “What do these mean again?”

JinJu rolled her eyes; Jongdae thanked his lucky stars Jongin didn't see. “In the Codex, we all have code names, of sorts,” Zitao explained patiently, lacing his fingers together atop the table. “It’s unsure as to who is who— they're vague for a reason, the ramblings of the insane are never really coherent— but if we can figure out who is who, then perhaps the sequence of events that we must face will become clearer.”

Jongin raised an eyebrow. “What’s my name?”

“We don’t know.” Zitao sighed again, looking in a l