???, ???, March 30 (Late afternoon)

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While Tao quickly tries to explain a situation that never happened (at least from the perspectives of everyone else), Chen takes a quick side-glance at Luhan and Xiumin.

Ever since Luhan and Kris came back, Luhan's been clinging to Xiumin like glue. And Chen gets it partly--the two of them are best friends just like how he is with Xiumin. But, what he doesn't really get is how Luhan's not shivering to death in his boxer-briefs from the wind and rain falling. Especially when Xiumin, a frost-maker, has a naturally colder body temperature than the others.

Maybe it's the power of love or some like that, he muses.

He then turns to pay attention to Tao again when the latter says not to hurt the first stranger, because in the time-path that he was just in, that person apparently almost died. Everyone's eyes widen at that and they look at the first stranger, who looks back at Tao with an incredulous look on their face. Tao then mentions a woman that he knew from their home-planet, someone named Qian, and Luhan repeats the name in a surprised tone--causing everyone to look at him.

"Wait, you know her?" Tao asks.

"Not...not really?" Luhan says, bashfully. "She--uh--well, she worked for your father, right?"

Tao nods a bit in surprise. "Yeah. And she's working with whoever kidnapped you and Kris, right?"

Luhan looks at the ground and bites his bottom lip. "It's...kinda more complicated than that..."

"I know 'cause there has to be a reason why she--" Tao says before he gets cut off.

"Wait, so you're the time-manipulator?"

At the interruption, they all turn to look at the stranger who's slowly pushing themself up from the ground. Sehun immediately gets ready to summon another gust of wind to blow the stranger back down while Kyungsoo threatens to unleash another ground-wave with a foot lifting in the air. Tao tells them to stop, and after a sigh and a glare--they reluctantly stand down (though Kyungsoo crinkles his nose in displeasure).

The stranger smirks at that and quickly gets up to a sitting position before they point an index finger towards Kris this time. Xiumin instantly reacts and shoots a hand out, despite Tao protesting again, and the stranger and the others watch in awe as dozens of raindrops swiftly turn into snowflakes and get guided by Xiumin towards the stranger's feet. The snowflakes quickly pile onto each other and everyone's awe quickly turns into confusion when the snow forms a ball around their feet.

The stranger struggles to break free, but with his hands slightly trembling, Xiumin grits his teeth and clenches his hands into fists--causing the snow to rapidly freeze into ice. The stranger's face then scrunches up at the feeling and a few of the others (including Chen) compliment a grinning Xiumin while Tao frowns at the situation with his arms crossed over his chest.

The snow continues to fall on all of them now and Chen watches as Chanyeol briskly digs through his knapsack to grab a tiny black umbrella before quickly opening it and sighing in relief as he lifts it above his head. Baekhyun huddles closer to him and they end up sharing the small space underneath the umbrella while almost everyone else shivers and huddles closer for warmth. (And Chen smirks a bit when he notices a practically vibrating Luhan give a longing look at Chanyeol's umbrella just as the snowflakes turn back into rain again.)

Suho then crosses his arms over his chest and asks the stranger, "Now...how do you know what Tao can do?"

The stranger rolls their eyes at him. "Well, he just said he rewinded time--the ."

"Don't play dumb," Suho retorts in an offended tone. He clears his throat before continuing. "You said 'you're the time-manipulator' like you knew that one of us can even control time. Why is that?"

The stranger doesn't answer.

"And were you the one who shot that dart at me earlier?" Kai asks.

The stranger ignores Kai as well, leading to him narrowing his eyes at the stranger and Kyungsoo looking one second away from punching them in their face. (Lay reaches out a hand to stop him while shaking his head.)

Suddenly, Sehun warns of two figures that are coming towards them from inside the force field and Chen's and the other's eyes widen when they do indeed see two figures running towards them all. A few go into defensive stances while Kris and Luhan take a glance at each other as they come closer. Tao's the only one who doesn't look surprised by the two figures though and gives a quick nod when Chen lifts his eyebrows questioningly at him.

The two figures seem to be two women; one grimacing when they both slow to a stop next to the first stranger while the other's eyes are wide as she looks back-and-forth between the twelve of them and the first person.

The frowning one ignores the first stranger and looks at them all, snorting when she sees Kai's red forehead before blinking in surprise when her eyes land on Tao's face. While she continues to look at Tao, the second woman looks down at the first stranger and asks if they're alright. They just grumble something back in response, not keeping eye contact, and the second woman's lips tug to the side before she looks back up to peer at the twelve of them.

The first woman then asks if Tao remembers her name, calling him by his birth-name, Zitao, and Tao nods and then gently asks why she's here on Earth. And this makes Chen realize that she must be the Qian person that Tao knew back on their home-planet (mainly because Tao just said her name).

Everyone looks between the two of them, and her eyebrows furrow in confusion before she turns to Kris and Luhan and asks, "You two never told them?"

"What?" Xiumin says, looking at Luhan. "Told us what?"

"Um...well..." Luhan starts to say.

He gives an awkward smile and Kris answers for him. "EXO-planet's safe...apparently."

Chen's and his friends' eyes widen.

"W-what do you mean--it--what?" Baekhyun asks, swiveling his head to look at the strangers. "How?"

Luhan looks at Xiumin who's gaping at him and says, "We were gonna tell you! Heck we tried to tell Kai, but he wanted us out of the room first!"

Kai gives him an incredulous look. "Was I not supposed to want to get you two out first?"

"Nah, man, it's just...what could we have done, eh? Shouted 'wait, it's not the red force this time'?" Kris responds.

"Yes?!"

Lay rolls his eyes at them. "This is not the time to argue."

Inevitably, some of them start arguing though and Qian watches them argue for a good moment before she looks at Tao again an