Now regrouped at a cave in the mountains far from the remains of the first shield they broke through, the girls assessed their situation. Their scuffle with the dark goo creatures caused them to have minor injuries of cuts and burns, the goo rain did as much to their clothes and skin, nothing of which Yuju couldn’t handle with her skill. The issue was, did they want Yuju to spend her energy on healing them, or did they need her as backup.

“Please! I swear I won’t be too tired to defend myself! I can’t stand see you guys in pain.”

“Unnie, your water wall is very important to our defenses.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t take too much energy to keep up, come on, even Eunha knows how to do it!”

Yuju was wrestling with Yerin over her water bottle, she was already drained enough to not desperately draw water from the airs around her.

“Fine, let’s compromise then.”

“A compromise?”

“Let me heal two ounces worth of water.”

“No deal.”

“But-“

“We know how it works, you heal through energy passing through your water as an extension of yourself, the water won’t diminish and you thought we wouldn’t notice.”

Yuju sat defeated by Umji’s analysis, SinB sighed and went to the opening of the cave, on the lookout for any movements, good or bad. The good being Sowon and Soeun, the bad being more creatures and that crazy girl.

“Guys, I don’t think they’ll be coming to us.”

“Did you see the last direction Sowon unnie took off in?”

“North, directly perpendicular to the city.”

Yerin sighed and got up, wincing as her skin tugged painfully on the burns, still she made an effort to maintain a smile for Yuju’s sake. Hooking the water bottle to her waist, Yerin offered her hand to her partner, who took it dejectedly. It was time to move.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Soeun ah, you said you were my daughter, Eunha called you our daughter, and that liar also called you my daughter. Don’t lie to me and look me in the eyes. Are you really my child?”

Soeun was being held up by her armpits, her nearly four-foot body dangling uselessly in the air as Sowon held her. Biting her lip, Soeun wondered how much she had to explain, perhaps everything all over again, just like before. Only, she was worried that if Sowon slept and the next day came, she would lose her memories again.

“My name is Kim Soeun, you are my mom, Eunha mama is my mama. You told me this when we were getting to know each other better.”

“Know each other better?”

“I was born an experiment using your DNA, some sort of project to make sure that Brian could keep your own body and mind for himself, but the cloning didn’t work, instead they tried to use some of that weird dark goo, and extracted some parts from some of them to bring me to life. You saw me when Brian was trying to tell me to do something, but I didn’t know what or how. At that time, you were a little hazy on what happened to you but played dumb in front of Brian.”

“Hey, Brian?”

He looked away from Soeun, and upon setting his eyes on her, he smiled at her politely.

“What can I do for you dear?”

“I…don’t remember what happened. Was the school really using the students as fodder for their magic defense system?”

“Why of course honey, I broke in and saved you at least.”

Eventually, Brian left and Sowon hurried to Soeun’s side, whom had been sat int eh corner facing a wall since the beginning.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Soeun looked up at Sowon with curious eyes.

“You look a lot like me actually…what’s your name?”

“Name? Experiment number 127-“

“Auh that’s not cute at all, here, let me give you a new name. A secret one.”

Soeun watched as Sowon tapped her chin, the idea of a new secret name intrigued her, but not as much as this human in front of her.

“Mom.”

“Huh? No, I’m not- well I guess I could be. You have my DNA after all.”

“Mom!”

Hugging Sowon with her smaller arms, Soeun snuggled against her as Sowon chuckled softly.

“I think I’ll name you Soeunnie, a mix of my name and my partner’s name.”

“Partner?”

“Her name is Eunha, if you want to, she is also in a way your mama.”

“But I don’t have her DNA.”

“You don’t always have to have the same DNA in order to be family little one. The love and care is all that matters.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then shortly after, you broke me out of there. The wall you looked at when you woke up a few days ago? You dug that tunnel for me.”

“Then you mean, I should go to Eunha and ask for my past?”

“Well, yea.”

Soeun was now sitting on Sowon’s lap, snuggling against her once more.

“But then the lie detector girl, she was the one who…”

“She did give me your cellphone to call Eunha mama, but that’s all.”

“She also told me to kill her.”

“What?”

Soeun looked Sowon in her blue eyes carefully.

“She wanted you to kill Eunha mama?”

Sowon nodded, like a kid, she was unsure of everything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“She does have Soeun.”

“Your point is?”

Eunha huffed angrily she marched across the tops of the mountains, the rocky and uneven surface making her knees and muscles scream in protest as they continued to climb up and down along the ridge towards North.

“Soeun could tell her that we were nice.”

“Sowon unnie didn’t see us as nice at all.”

“But she was fed lies.”

Yerin grabbed Eunha’s shoulders, forcing her to look her in the eyes.

“Hey, whether she’s been fed lies or not, Sowon unnie is our Sowon unnie, you said that you’d go get her whether it was a trap or not. How is this different?”

“It’s not.”

Umji halted in her steps at the front as a cold icicle feeling stabbed at her heart suddenly. Quickly turning around to see exactly who and where, all she could manage before everything exploded was

“LOOK OU-“