It didn’t take long for Stephanie, Taeya, and Kyuhyun to return to the apartment, but by the time they had arrived, Kyuhyun had lost a significant amount of blood. His lack of blood forced him into unconsciousness and all they could do was lay him carefully down on the kitchen benchtop. “Eww, I eat my sandwiches there.” Jessica stated with disgust.

“Really Jess? A man’s dying and you can only think about your sandwiches?” Stephanie questioned.

“Neither thing is less important than the other. Sandwiches are my favourite food after all.” Jessica justified. “Besides, you’ll figure this out. I have faith.” Jessica smiled. Her faith in Stephanie was heartwarming, but it didn’t stop the fact that she had no ability to heal the wounded. “So, what’s the plan…” Sooyoung asked anxiously.  “We already established hospital isn’t an option and unless any of you are a doctor…” Sooyoung suggested as she turned to Taeya.

“I have a lot of skills, but being a paramedic isn’t one of them, sorry.” Taeya sadly admitted.

“That leaves us with one option,” Stephanie stated sternly.

“I can see where you’re going Steph, but Sunny already said we couldn’t call.” Jessica reminded.

“No, not Sunny. Hyoyeon, I know Sunny is too busy with other superhero stuff in New York, but Hyoyeon never said we couldn’t call for her help. After all, she’s the one who can teleport and fixed that broken hand of yours when you punched me in the face.” Stephanie explained. Jessica grabbed her phone and found Hyoyeon’s number in her contacts and called it in immediately. Seconds passed and Hyoyeon appeared through a bright orange rune in their living room. She rushed over to the bench top and immediately began her healing runes upon Kyuhyun. “Thank you so much Hyoyeon, I’m sorry if you were busy, but we really needed your help,” Stephanie said.

“No, please, you have nothing to apologize for. This man needed immediate attention and I’m always happy to help.” Hyoyeon smiled.

“How long will it take until he’s fully recovered?” Stephanie asked.

“Hmm, judging from the extent of his wounds and his loss of blood, even with the magic it's going to take him a day or two to fully recover,” Hyoyeon answered sadly.

“You’re doing the best you can Hyo, no need to feel down about it. Besides, he’s our greatest lead. We’re getting so close to finding out what the hell is going on in L.A. We’ve been investigating this for months now, waiting a day or two for him to help us close this case isn’t going to hurt at all.” Stephanie smiled.

“That’s good to hear, Sunny would be so proud of you Stephanie. In fact, I’ve told the others about you, my friends Yoona and Seohyun, they think the whole alien origin story is so cool. Well, besides the fact you lost your planet, of course.” Hyoyeon chuckled.

“They think I’m cool?” Stephanie smirked.

“Yeah, they both said they’d love to spar with you one day. See who’s stronger, man or Novian.” Hyoyeon laughed.

“That would be interesting to find out. I’m sure it would be fun, but the answers fairly obvious, don’t you think?” Stephanie laughed.

“Yeah, man would win. Sorry Steph, but magic is greater than sheer strength alone.” Hyoyeon teased.

“Need I remind you I’m the General’s daughter? I’m much stronger than just my muscles.” Stephanie stated.

“I’m sure we’ll see for real who wins between your skills and magic. But until then, I should get back to New York, wouldn’t want everyone to worry about me.” Hyoyeon explained.

“Wait, you can’t go back yet. What about the rune?” Stephanie questioned.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ve written the rune with extreme precision and care, as long as you don’t scratch the markings off, the rune should stay around him until he’s fully recovered.” Hyoyeon assured.

“Guess it was a mistake putting him on the kitchen benchtop then…” Stephanie sighed. With a quick flick of her orange wand, she summoned an orange rune beneath Kyuhyun and her previous rune work and teleported it to the dining room table. Thankfully the blood was cleaned up and his wounds we already beginning to seal, but the internal damage was in much greater need of attention. “Well, that’s my part done, if you ever need my services again, don’t hesitate to call.” Hyoyeon smiled.

“Thanks again, Hyo.” Stephanie thanked. They waved their goodbyes and Stephanie took one last look over to Kyuhyun before going to her room. “I’m going to find out who abducted you, I’m going to find them and destroy them and everything they’ve worked for. I swear.” She stated firmly while staring at Kyuhyun’s motionless body.

Everyone had an extremely exhausting day. First Seohyun was abducted because Jessica and Stephanie were too late to save her, Stephanie fought with a man armored in an exo suit whom she later believed to be a Blazer, but actually ended up being Kyuhyun, she reunited with Taeya, they returned to the apartment and finally found a new lead and rescued Kyuhyun from the captivity of a gang-owned nightclub. Even for Stephanie, all of this happening in a day was hard to process. It was already 3 am, and she was fully ready to just jump into bed and destroy the legs of her bedframe to get the best sleep that she could possibly have. But when she opened her room door, she was met with a pleasant surprise. Since Taeya’s “welcome home” was extremely rushed, there wasn’t any time for formal arrangements about where she would sleep. Since Jessica and Sooyoung were now in her old room, she took it upon herself to make herself comfortable within Stephanie’s quarters. “Well, don’t look too happy.” Taeya teased at Stephanie’s shocked expression.

“Sorry, was just so tired, I forgot to sort out where you should sleep. Sorry for the mess too…” Stephanie embarrassingly admitted.

“I can’t take my old room back, so I guess it means I have to room with you.” Taeya smiled.
“I can just take my pillow and go to the couch. Someone should look after Kyuhyun after all.” Stephanie made her way to her pillow, but before she could reach it, Taeya pulled it away playfully. “That’s not funny.” Stephanie sighed.

“Oh, come on Stephie, there’s no need to be a stranger. We can share a bed, it's not like we’ve never done that before.” Taeya lifted the bed cover revealing the empty space beside her that she gently caressed to tempt Stephanie to comply. However, the empty space wasn’t what Stephanie noticed, her eyes were drawn, magnetized to the flawless, milky white skin of Taeya’s legs that were exposed all the way to her lower cheek. Stephanie stared for a brief second and in the next covered her eyes in shame. “Taeya, where the hell are your pants?” Stephanie questioned.

“It’s summer Stephie, how am I supposed to sleep with a cover while wearing pants,” Taeya answered.

“Umm, maybe just not use the cover???” Stephanie suggested.

“Well, if you insist.” Taeya completely removed the cover from the bed but stayed exactly where she was.

“Aren’t you going to get pants??” Stephanie asked.

“Nope, much more comfortable this way. Plus, the summer breeze feels so good over my skin.” Taeya laughed. “Stephie, stop overreacting and just come here.” Taeya pulled Stephanie into her embrace. She was a tiny human, her strength was well above average, but realistically, Stephanie could have resisted if she wanted to. Emphasis on “if”. Once she felt Taeya’s tender hand against hers she melted into Taeya’s grasp and gave up her resistance. Taeya always had that effect on her, probably why giving up on her was never an option. Stephanie and Taeya lied there, quiet and peaceful. It had been so long since they were truly together and it felt surreal. Stephanie moved her hand over to Taeya’s thigh, she twitched at the sudden touch, be relaxed as she felt her soft hand trace against her skin. It felt great until Stephanie pinched her flawless skin out of the blue. “OUCH, what the hell was that for?” Taeya asked.

“Well, in a dream you hurt yourself to establish if its real or not. And I can’t get hurt, so naturally, I pinched you to confirm this wasn’t a dream.” Stephanie smiled.
“Of course this isn’t a dream dummy, you haven’t even slept since we last saw each other. How could it possibly be a dream?” Taeya reminded.

“True, but for all I know, when I landed earlier this morning when you pretended to be part of the FBI, I could have actually knocked myself out on impact and could have been dreaming this whole time. You can’t blame me for thinking this isn’t real, I mean you’re here, we got the guy who abducted you arrested and on top of all that, we saved one of the hostages who will no doubt tell us all the missing info that we need to end this thing once and for all. For all that to happen in a single day… it’s impossible… I’ve had the worst luck since I was little… My entire planet exploded for sake, why would my luck change now?” Stephanie asked.

“It’s called karma Stephanie. After all, the terrible things you’ve experienced, isn’t about time that luck balanced that out for you?” Taeya suggested.

“I don’t believe in karma, in divine intervention, they’re the whole reason my life has been so terrible in the first place. Those stupid Creators believed my people messed with the balance of nature… According to them, my home was blown up because of karma…” Stephanie sighed.

“There’s no point thinking about those guys anymore. They destroyed your planet, they got what they wanted, they couldn’t possibly be trying to hunt you down.” Taeya reasoned.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m just one Novian, I don’t even know much about the technology that they wanted to destroy. It would be a waste of their time to come after me.” Stephanie agreed. “I know this luck isn’t divinity or cosmic powers, then what is it?” Stephanie asked. “Maybe, it's you? maybe having you around is my lucky charm.” Stephanie smiled as she glanced upwards towards Taeya’s beautiful jawline.

“Best not to jinx yourself or me.” Taeya laughed. “Just enjoy the moment. Enjoy the fact that for once, life is on your side. Who knows what will happen in the next few days, months or whatever, just enjoy right now.” Taeya smiled.

“Speaking of luck, you never explained how you got out of the club without a scratch. Not to mention the bodies dropped on the floor surrounding you.” Stephanie mentioned.

“Oh, that. It was nothing really, I saw Kyuhyun running, but the other Blazers who were mingling in the main hall weren’t gonna let him escape. So, I dropped down from my post and took care of it.” Taeya explained.

“You said they weren’t dead, right?” Stephanie questioned.

“No Stephie, if I wanted them dead, they would be. All my gunshots were directly on their shoulders, there were eight, maybe ten of them and I have two handguns with six tranquilizing rounds in each. I had plenty to take care of it.” Taeya smiled.

“They didn’t shoot back?” Stephanie asked.

“They didn’t have the chance to. When I reached the door into the main room, I used my thermal lens to have a look at my targets. At that point, I already knew exactly where to shoot and in what order, once I went through the doorway, they had no chance.” Taeya smirked.

“Wow, I leave for three years and Dean trains you to be some sort of super assassin. I don’t know whether to be happy or scared.” Stephanie teased.

“Yeah… I know what you mean…” Taeya said slowly.

“I was just kidding Taeya, I’m happy that you can protect yourself, not just with self-defense or martial arts, but truly handle yourself in dangerous situations,” Stephanie assured.

“No… that’s not what I’m thinking about…” Taeya replied thoughtlessly. “It just… seems strange that Dean trained me so…”

“So, what?” Stephanie asked.

“So professionally… if he wanted to keep me safe, teaching me how to use a gun may have been one thing, but to teach me to use a sniper rifle, to keep myself concealed and stealthy at all times, to teach me how to keep calm in the most dangerous situations… it just feels like… he was training me for something.” Taeya answered.

“It could explain why he seemed so weird when he visited before. Saying this was all part of his plan or whatever?” Stephanie suggested.

“Maybe… you don’t think he knows anything about the Blazers, do you?” Taeya asked.

“If he did, he probably would have told us,” Stephanie suggested.

“Or, maybe he thinks it’s still too dangerous to talk to us about it.” Taeya retorted. “Well, whatever the case is, he’s not going to tell us anything until he wants us to know,” Taeya concluded.

“Yeah, besides, we don’t need him. With Kyuhyun safe with us, we can learn everything about what’s really going on under the façade of gang violence. Hyo said he should be fully healed in the next few days, so until then let’s just keep an eye on him and make sure no Blazer tried to abduct him again.” Stephanie stated sternly. The two girls continued to talk about smaller things for the night or morning, whatever you would prefer. After a few hours of light chat and sunlight beginning to peer through the curtains, they finally drifted off to sleep, with Taeya’s arms still firmly wrapped around Stephanie’s well-toned body.

Taeya and Stephanie would have continued their sound slumber if it wasn’t for a distressed scream coming from the living room. Stephanie immediately arose and rushed to the living room as fast as she could possibly do. Taeya on the other had retrieved her gun and was ready to have Stephanie’s back in case a fight began. Once they had reached the living room it was apparent that there was no intruder, but Hyori was truly distressed. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Stephanie questioned. Her glanced moved from Hyori to the couch and noticed the glowing green veil had faded and Kyuhyun was nowhere to be found. “What the happened here!?” Stephanie yelled.

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