Yixing was curious. When Yixing became curious, the other eleven mages tended to make faces and do their best to stay out of his way. That's just the way things were, and Yixing didn't mind at all.

In fact, Yixing was glad that the others decided to stay out of his way; none of them knew science like he did, and none of them thought the situation of Joonmyun's mother still being alive to be too convenient to be true. It had started on the day Sehun went out and comforted Minseok. It was then that the reality of the situation hit Yixing; how much time they were spending in one place, and how easy it was for the twelve of them to trust a woman they hadn't known.

Yixing didn't want to doubt anything at first, since the Queen was kind and wonderful and treated them all like her own sons, but it was all too good to be true. The biggest issue about remaining there was that the mages other than Yixing seemed to be completely fooled and not motivated enough to move on.

He had already been confronted by Yifan and Minseok - the fact that he was the only one who seemed completely unimpressed by the things around him. Joonmyun was absolutely fooled by the woman who was his mother and the younger mages missed their families so much that she was a perfect addition to it.

Perhaps that's what angered Yixing the most about the situation. If it wasn't the way they thought it was, it meant they were being played; and they were tired of being played. Yixing couldn't stop his brothers from getting hurt once, he wouldn't make that same mistake again.

That's why when everyone went for dinner with the Queen again three weeks after their arrival at the town, Yixing pretended he wasn't feeling well and ignored everything his brothers said to him in order to change his mind. Instead, Yixing took it upon himself to get a thorough tour of the castle. They had already been shown around by the Queen, but certain rooms were locked and others were simply ignored.

The first room Yixing came across was the Queen's chambers. The servants weren't around, thankfully, since Yixing didn't want to be arrested for being suspicious, but the door was locked. With a sigh, Yixing looked around him carefully before using his magic to unlock the door. If he was wrong about this, he wouldn't know how to deal with it or how to act around Joonmyun, but he was tired of pretending to be clueless.

At first, the room was completely normal. Well, as normal as a Queen's room could be. There was a beautiful red velvet carpet under his feet and a fantastic bed pushed into the center of the room. There were vases of flowers and several antic decorations as well, and Yixing actually almost backed out of the room.

That was until he reached out for one of the vases and felt the strange looking flowers sitting in it. There were vases like that all over the castle, though no one had actually been able to get close to them due to the servants buzzing about. Now that he was close enough to touch one, Yixing couldn't resist.

And then he gasped, because those flowers were made from dark magic. The kind of dark magic used to curse him and his brothers. He only knew that for sure because when he touched the petals of one of the flowers, it crumbled into dust and smoke flew into the air before disappearing. As the smoke faded away, so did the beautiful room he was standing in, leaving a crumbling old room filled with dust and cobwebs behind. His eyes filled, then, because it really was a trick after all.

A moment later, something had struck Yixing on the top of his head, and the world went black. When he awoke again, he was in what seemed to be a dungeon, and he worried about how he had gotten there and if his brothers were going to be okay. His hands and feet were bound by rusted chains that pulled him against the wall and left red marks on his skin from how tight they were.

"Look what we have here." When he heard a female voice, Yixing's head snapped up to look at the Queen. She had a beautiful gentle smile, but that was also fake. Now that Yixing knew better, he knew that the beautiful smile was actually a smirk that hid the Queen's true intentions. "Do your brothers know you're here, beloved Yixing?"

Shaking in anger, he pounced at the Queen, only to be stopped by his chains as well as the metal bars of a cell. His restraints, however, didn't stop the snarl that escaped his lips as he muttered a spell - any spell. Unfortunately for himself, his spells didn't work and instead, the chains wound tighter around him and started slithering higher on his arms as if to reach his neck and choke him.

As he stood there in horror, trying to fight the pain his body was going through with whatever magic he could, out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Queen transform into Yunso herself. Her smirk had widened and her eyes twinkled in amusement like his pain provided entertainment to her; and it probably did, since she was a sadist.

"What happened? Did this beautiful boy get tired of our hospitality so quickly?" Her sneer mocked him and he was frustrated knowing he couldn't do anything to stop her.

"You tricked us." He wasn't sure why his tone sounded so betrayed, since the sorceress sisters were known for their mind games, but it was.

"Don't blame me. I merely took advantage of your gullible leader." She snickered as she spoke and opened the door to the cell, walking towards him with her arms crossed over her chest, "Drawing you here, draining your powers, getting your idiotic brothers to trust me- it was much easier than it was the first time!"

"You witch!" Yixing was now so angry that he thrashed about in his chains and hurled himself at her, but with a snap of her fingers, Yixing was pulled back to the wall with force and a couple of snaps were heard as bones in his skeleton broke.

As he thought of Joonmyun and how betrayed he would be if he were to find out, his eyes started to droop closed and he swore that her eyes flashed pity as she took his state in. "Boy, I am much greater than a witch. Now if you excuse me, eleven boys are waiting for the Queen of these lands."

Slowly, Yunso started to turn around, but was slammed into a wall by a strong burst of wind. Beyond where she had been standing was Sehun, with fire dancing in his eyes and the rest of the mages behind him ready for battle. Within moments, Yixing had been freed and held in Jongin's arms and a furious Joonmyun strode towards her.

"Where is my mother?"

She snickered as a result and her eyes flickered red. The magic that had been hiding the castle's true form disappeared and instead of the finely constructed but old dungeon, they were in what seemed to be a rat infested, dusty basement.

"Did you really think we'd allow for the place where you came from to remain?" Even though she had been on the floor just moments later, she pulled herself to her feet and waved her arms around. "While you remained here tricked and sedated by magic, my sister has gathered an army much stronger than the twelve of you could ever handle!"

Yixing knew his brothers wanted to fight her; it was obvious by the way they stood, but none of them could. Those flowers Yixing had seen earlier seemingly worked to drain their powers, and although small things like bursts of wind were plausible, a battle while she had the advantage would do no good for the twelve mages.

After Joonmyun turned his head to share a nod with Yifan and Minseok, the second leader crossed over to the remaining mages. "Joonmyun's going to buy us some time. Let's go."

Despite Yixing's protests, the other mages turned and ran out of the basement with Jongin teleporting ahead of them with Yixing. As hisses filled his ears, he and Jongin looked around in alarm to find that all the servants and townspeople that had originally been in the castle had suddenly tranformed into them.

"What do we do? We're surrounded!" Jongdae called out, and the others refrained from reminding the mage of lightning that he was merely stating the obvious.

"You think we can handle it?" Baekhyun wasn't really paying attention to anyone in particular but it was obvious he was talking to the trouble making duo, since the three of them could probably cause up enough of a ruckus.

"Let's, so we can go back and watch Joonmyun beat Yunso's !" The danger that sparked in Chanyeol's eyes had made even Yixing cringe, and the three mages disappeared from their view without another word.

"Yifan." Minseok called, and when Yifan turned to the elder, he noticed Minseok's gaze was on Sehun and Zitao in particular. They had grown especially attached to the Queen and their expressions had changed dramatically as they remained with the other ten.

Seeing the exchange in glances between the eldest mage and Yifan, a small and calculating smile lit Luhan's face and he reached forward to put his hands on either of the youngest mages. "You're with me, kids. Let's make them pay for what they did to us."

"You don't have to ask me twice." Zitao nodded without hesitance and then he had charged his way through them without glancing back.

"Don't have all the fun without me, now!" Sehun called after the mage of time, then taking Luhan by the hand and dragging the mage of telekinesis with him in the direction Zitao had gone.

"Jongin, you should go with me." Kyungsoo looked over at Jongin and then at the frail Yixing that was leaning against the mage of teleportation weakly.

Jongin looked as if he were going to protest, so Yixing pulled himself away and stumbled closer to where Yifan was. "Go. I'll only be in the way."

"Stay safe, Yixing." After a moment of hesitance, Jongin and Kyungsoo started pummeling their way through them, and then Yixing glanced at the remaining mages.

"I know what you're thinking, Yixing." Minseok sighed and then turned back to the battle as the three of them hid close to the shadows. "But it's too dangerous, and you can hardly stand as it is."

"I can't leave him, Min. He's my best friend." And it was because he was so slow to uncover the truth about the Queen that they had gotten to such a point, anyway. He had to save Joonmyun somehow.

"Go. Make sure both of you come back alive." Yifan didn't leave room for any debate and had started fighting his own way through them. After he stared at the second leader's back for a few moments, he nodded gratefully and then limped as quickly as he could to the basement he had seen the others arrive out of.

When he found Joonmyun, the leader was on the ground and bleeding, and Yunso was standing over him with a sharpened dagger in her hands. His eyes flickering once more in rage, he leapt between them and saved his leader.

"Yixing?! Yixing!" Joonmyun cried out for him frantically but Yixing had already let his body collapse onto the ground, bleeding and tired. He was far from dead, but sadly, so was Yunso. Joonmyun had already arrived at his side and was cradling him, his head then snapping up to the sorceress and his gaze void of any emotion. A moment later, the sound of water filled his ears, and Yixing strained to watch the basement flood before the world faded for the second time.

He didn't die, of course, being the mage of healing. It just so happened that because of those flowers, their powers were slowed down and thus it took much longer for Yixing's body to heal than it normally would have. He was disappointed at first, but when he felt warmth around him, he didn't mind too much.

When his eyes opened again for the second time after being unconscious, he found that he and the other eleven mages had made camp somewhere far from the town they had been in, and a fire was burning brightly in the center of the camp with Chanyeol heating wood with his own power.

He shifted for a moment and then pulled himself up, noticing that the others had already made and started dinner without him. They stopped at once as they saw him move, but before they could say a thing, he had gotten off the ground and slowly stumbled away.

A pair of footsteps followed him for a while, possibly to make sure he was okay, but also possibly to ask him questions to which he had no answers. It proved to be the former, though, when Yixing tripped over something and fell forward only to have a pair of arms wrap around his shoulders and pull him back into an embrace.

"Thank you for finding out the truth." It was Joonmyun, and even though Yixing knew Joonmyun was the one most affected and most betrayed by Yunso, he also knew how grateful Joonmyun was that no one had gotten hurt. Well, other than Yixing, of course. "Something in the aura of the castle shifted and then my mo- Yunso had a sudden change of expression. It caught us all by surprise but when your presence faded, we knew something had gone wrong and we followed her."

"I'm sorry, Joonmyun. I know how much being home meant to you." Yixing trembled as he held on to his leader, his best friend.

With a gentle chuckle that held both admiration and guilt, Joonmyun ruffled his hair and pulled back. "The eleven of you mean so much more to me."

"EXO is my home now."

When the first leader led them back to the camp, food had been given to Yixing and he sat and enjoyed the company of his brothers who had been hurt too many times yet did their best to continue and change how things were for others. To Yixing, EXO was more than his home, but his life. For before them, and before all that he had gone through with them, he might have just been an empty shell.

And this time, without a doubt, he knew that EXO had to remain as one.

A partially late update but nonetheless it has arrived! Tadaa! And woah, at least it hasn't been a month since the last update, right? This note will be short since it's 2 AM and I have class later in the morning, but I want to thank everyone who wished me luck in the writing contest. I am not close to winning the prize of publishing, but I'd really appreciate it if you guys could just sign up and vote for me. Sorry for such shameless advertising and pressuring, but I really love writing this story and would like for others to read it as well.

I have no questions today, mostly because my brain is too tired to function, so I'll end with thanking you all for your support and asking that you continue to support this piece. Oh, and have a wonderful day~!