The three girls ascend the long corridor back to the storage closet. Amanda leads the way, once again using her hand as a guidelight.

“Pretty nifty that you can do that,” Adele muses. “It’s honestly pretty cool!”

“Oh! Err… thanks…”

“I can do it too!” Andrea pipes in, letting a small fire light from her palm.

Adele rolls her eyes, but not for long as Amanda responds, “Just be careful with it, Andrea. We don’t want to light something on fire by accident, alright?” Amanda says calmly.

“Hmm… I guess so…” Andrea says as the fire vanishes.

Emerging from the safe, the storage closet remains largely abandoned, and is just as they had left it. They shuffle back into the mall, which remains dimly lit.

“Anything that you see, Alexa?” Amanda asks into the walkie-talkie.

“No. Proceed as per usual to the convenience store. I don’t have Scorn on screen based on the route we planned. Keep caution, though. I’ll radio you when I see something.”

The three slowly trek through the barren halls, eventually making their way to the convenience store. As planned, it’s the same as the one they had listened in to earlier. Noticing no one aside from the clerk, they walk in.

“Oh! You three are unescorted! Tell me how you came here,” the clerk says. It’s the same one as from the earlier conversation.

“Unescorted?” Adele asks. “What do you mean?”

“All hos- err… passengers have to be escorted to food stores. It’s the protocol that those weird hooded men established,” the clerk responds. Then she takes a closer look at the three girls.

“Well… we didn’t know…” Amanda says.

“…you must be those girls I heard about,” the clerk says as she cuts off Amanda. The three girls flinch, glancing at each other. They’ve been caught.

Or so they thought.

“I’ll keep this a secret. If you guys come back, I won’t even mention it. I’ll find a way to help you guys out.”

“…really?” Adele asks, eyes widening.

“Yea. Grab what you need. I’ll keep watch for you.”

“Oh, thank you!” Amanda exclaims. “What do we call you?”

“You can call me Woori.”

“Thank you, Woori-unnie!” Andrea and Adele say in unison.

“Now, quick! Before the hooded men come back!”

The three girls scrambled to find the things that the four in the hideout requested before grabbing their own goodies. Amanda then fumbles for her wallet, but Woori waves her off.

“I’m being serious, just take what you need for free!”

“Oh my goodness, thank you so much!” Amanda says, bowing to Woori several times.

“Ok, the coast is clear. If you need anything, you can come back anytime!”

“Thank you so much for your help, Woori-unnie!” Adele says.

-

“So! It looks like we have a friend who can help us!” Aisha calls.

“Yea, that Woori-unnie is pretty cool!” Adele says.

Ariel scans the screen that has Woori’s convenience store. Hooded men have visited her store with several other hostages. Everything seems to be “normal”.

“What are you looking at, Ariel?” Adele asks.

“Oh, I was just seeing what Woori-unnie is up to. It looks like she has some visitors.”

Adele sees what Ariel saw. Nothing to suggest that they were there before. “I guess Woori-unnie was really telling the truth… we can trust her to keep us a secret.”

Adele fumbles through her bag and finds her snacks and drinks and sets them at the table where Andrea and Aisha are eating.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” Aisha asks while she munches away at her snacks.

“Hey, your mouth is full!” Adele exclaims with a raised eyebrow. “Anyways, I still have other snacks here that aren’t mine!”

Adele finds the box of spicy rice cakes and apple juice that Ariel wanted. “Here you go, Ariel. Just what you wanted.”

“Thank you, Adele-unnie!”

Adele then looks through to find that what was left was indeed what Ashley wanted: bread and strawberry jam, plus some Yakult. She and Alexa were going to share a small loaf of bread, but Ashley specifically wanted strawberry jam. Alexa, on the other hand, wanted some cheese, which Amanda was responsible for.

“Here, Ashley. I got you the strawberry jam and Yakult. Amanda-unnie picked out the jam for you."

“Thank you unnie!” Ashley says, smiling softly at Adele. The latter is happy to see the former in a bright mood.

“Here’s your cheese, Alexa. You sure you want all of this cheese? This was all I could find…” Amanda says.

“Oh, don’t worry!” Alexa says. “We can save what I don’t use in the fridge. You found the milk tea, right?”

“Oh, of course!” Amanda says, handing Alexa her drink.

Meanwhile, Adele returns to Andrea and Aisha, who continue to munch away at their food. They got way more than the others. She can’t help but put her palm on her face. “I still can’t believe you two had to splurge…” She mutters.

“What? We were super hungry!” Andrea retorts.

“Plus, we got the best combo!” Aisha chimes in.

“Yea, I guess…” sighs Adele as she sits down to eat her share of food.

As the girls finished their food, Alexa and Ariel continued to monitor the cameras, listening into the conversations between the many hooded men in order to gain clues about what they were onto and information regarding their families. However, their efforts were stagnant.

“Nothing…” Alexa sighs. “We just can’t get a hint…”

“We’ll get something, right Alexa-unnie?” Ariel asks.

“I hope so, Ariel. I hope so.”

“By the way, unnie, what is special about the armor?”

“Yea…” Amanda interjects. “It somehow never crossed my mind to ask about that…”

“Hmm… there are tons of rumors, fables, myths, etcetera… but here is what is actually known...” Alexa says. “There was a society at least a millennium ago known as Judai, and they were made of elite Adepts. Most notable amongst them was Stratos, who sought to develop armor to channel the elements, and it would be designed with an Eagle motif. The armor was purportedly unfinished before he sealed it. This is where all known knowledge ends.”

“What about the myths?” Ashley asks.

“Well, folks had to speculate on just what he put in there. Most suggest he was able to place the primary four elements, but channeling earth in the form of armor is difficult to conceptualize. Others suggested he placed an ability to channel Light and Dark, but I find it hard to believe. The other is that the armor was meant to be a prototype and that he planned on developing five more, each with a different bird motif.”

“So… this armor… the government wanted to find it?” Aisha asks.

“Not just the current one. In fact, pretty much anyone who held power over the world tried looking for it. Nobody came close without common knowledge or agreeing on what was true from the fables and everything.”

“I see…” Adele says.

“Well, that’s all I know. We’ll just have to see as the days go. Again, the primary objective is to find our families, at least of those who we know are here. Judging by the situation, it’s possible that the military may be needed, but then again, no one can be completely sure.”

-

Days pass.

The girls continue to make use of Chamber Beta as their hideout, and they developed a routine schedule: Amanda, Andrea, and Adele would go out every morning at 9:00 AM and every evening at 7:00 PM to visit Woori at the convenience store. Alexa would direct the three on different routes each time to ensure their safety and avoid detection from Scorn, who elevated security with each passing day. Woori took a liking to Adele, who often chatted with her briefly and asked about her life outside of the store.

While in the hideout, Ashley usually would find some spare scrap paper to draw on with the various pencils Amanda had in her duffel bag. The girls often marveled at her skill, although Ashley was very shy about it. Slowly but surely, Ashley would talk a little more each day, emerging from the shell that she had put up out of fear.

Andrea, Adele, and Aisha would chat non-stop about their school life, their discussions evolving and continuing from the previous one whenever they have to stop. They also ate together for meals, with Adele often admonishing Andrea and Aisha’s messy habits and inability to save food.

Amanda used the time to meditate and practice her own innate abilities as a Light Adept. What frustrated her was her inability to turn completely invisible, with only small, isolated sections of her body vanishing. Additionally, as the oldest of the girls, she felt a deep responsibility to look after the girls, especially Ashley and Ariel.

Ariel and Alexa continued to monitor the cameras. They simply could not find anything about Ashley’s, Aisha’s, and Ariel’s families. Alexa, however, used her emergency-only government pager to contact her father, and learned that her mother had barely managed to escape. Ariel would sometimes read books that she asks Adele to get for her on breaks, satiating her love of literature.

One day, Alexa watches a screen that’s standing out as it’s a bunch of hooded men talking near the stairs to Track 12. She decides to listen in to see what the buzz is.

“Listen… based on our research and mappings, we believe that the armor is somewhere buried below this area.”

Alexa suspects that Scorn is also after the armor that the government couldn’t find. She brings up the screen and amplifies the sound.

“Listen… the boss wants us to find that armor so we can aid the war. We’ve already set up our perimeter here at the station and reinforcements from our allies are on their way. You’ve already seen that the military is already fighting at a stalemate elsewhere. There’s no way they can send forces here. The police are helpless… they still can’t even break in!”

“What will the boss do if the armor doesn’t work? We don’t even know what it does!”

“Look, I don’t even know if the armor does as what the boss says, but the boss will do whatever it takes, and we have to obey orders! Remember, our lives depend on it as well, lest we end up beheaded like those who don’t!”

“Exactly. Scramble now and find anything suspicious. We need to pick prudently here and find a spot to drill.”

Alexa finds the government pager and leaves the following message:

Name of mystery hangar?

Within minutes, she gets a response from her father:

Hangar 18

She then replies:

Suspected areas?

The response is much quicker this time around:

Track 12 Storage Closet

“Bingo.” Alexa mutters.

Realizing they might have a chance to find the hangar before Scorn, she begins devising a plan to enter, although she needed to gain intel on the space. Her father’s response felt fishy. Of all places… a storage closet?! She thought. How could a closet be what stands in the way of an ancient armor?!

Alexa scrambles to come up with a cleverly coded question.

What stopped them?

The response was quick.

Unknown. Mystery.

Even if the response was not optimal, at least they had something to work off of now. “Hey… guys? I may have come across a breakthrough…” Alexa announces.

She soon gives the low-down on everything that has just transpired. The conversation amongst the Scorn members. What her father has told her. A very bleak light at the end of the tunnel.

“Did… we just go through an exposition dump?” Aisha asks. Andrea and Adele can’t help but facepalm, trying to hold their laughter while Amanda and Ashley stare blankly trying to process what just happened.

“Unnie! What gives?” Aisha cries. Ariel goes to grab Aisha’s hand, resting her head on her arm. Aisha can only sigh now.

Amanda, now seeing the situation ease, decides to speak. “Well, whatever the case, we must figure out a way to break in and figure out a way to acquire that armor, all under Scorn’s noses.”

“I’m going to devise a route for you to take. It will take a bit of time,” Alexa says.

Ashley looks at the three eldest in the room. “I suggest that the three unnies that get us our food go. We should let them do this, because we shouldn’t break up a winning team.”

Aisha puckers up. “Although I’d like to go out again, maybe Ashley-unnie is right here. I think it’s best if I go out for tonight’s food run for a change. Ashley-unnie should come along too, with Ariel.”

“I think it’s settled, then,” Amanda announces.

-

4:00 PM.

Scorn is in the midst of changing shifts. Troops moving from station to station. Track 12 is no different, now that it is an area of focus. The armor is afoot.

Amanda, Andrea, and Adele struggle to make their way to Track 12. They have had many close calls on their trek. With Scorn adding extra members during the shift change, Alexa has had to help them navigate a minefield.

At last, they arrive. The entrance is dimly lit but wide open. They look at the clock. Something does not feel right. They quickly find cover.

“Alexa, give us a sitrep. Nobody is here on shift. We were expecting company,” Amanda radios.

“There’s supposed to be two men. Everything is correct on every other screen. Proceed with caution.”

“There has to be someone. Is there anyone on screen, Alexa?”

“Negative. You better check those corners.”

“What do we do now?” Andrea asks.

“Are the cameras bugged?” Adele asks.

“They can’t be bugged. We have the edge here. It’s best if you check for yourself to make sure.”

Adele decides to crawl out. Amanda quickly gives her a tap. “Be safe out there. Give us a signal when it’s clear.”

Andrea follows her. The two viciously search every inch. Nothing. Adele decides to creep towards the entrance to look. She stands several meters from it and gives a signal.

Amanda looks up at the clock. By now, someone has to be here.

“Where do you think you’re going?” a mysterious voice growls in an oily voice.

Amanda’s heart sinks. It’s not coming from the PA system. Andrea and Adele shiver. They recognize the voice.

A cloaked figure rises from the ground at the entrance, as if by magic. Standing there is a tall, imposing woman, arms crossed. “I’m guessing you’re the ones causing trouble around here.”

Adele trembles. “Y-y-you must be…”

“I-it’s her! ADELE GET OUT OF THERE!” Andrea yells.

The woman begins to grin. “Yes. Corey Cunningham. Leader of Scorn. You’ve become a thorn in my side. One that needs to be plucked away.” She raises her hand out towards Adele but reacts to a stream of fire coming right at her. She quickly throws her cloak, allowing Adele to escape. “Fools. You really think you can lay a hand on me?”

Andrea is dashing towards her, conjuring and throwing fire at every chance she gets. But then, a dark void comes from the shadows and binds her body. Andrea falls to the ground. “RUN, ADELE!”

Meanwhile, Amanda remains behind cover clenching her fists. “Come on!” Her body is shaking. Her arms slowly begin to fade, then torso, then her legs. But her hands and feet remain visible. Why can’t I do it yet when I need to use it the most?!

Adele runs back to where they came from, attempting to escape. But then, she makes the mistake of running towards shadows. Out pops the Scorn Leader, hand raised.

“I have you now.”

-

What kind of predicament have the girls landed themselves in? What is Adele going to do now? What is Amanda trying to do with her invisibility attempts? Find out next chapter!

-

A/N: OK. There's quite a bit to digest again. If you caught wind of my teaser on Twitter, then you might know where this is going...
Also, I hope someone understands my reference to Hangar 18.
The use of "oily voice" also comes from my childhood. If you've watched Season 2 of Thomas & Friends, you know that Diesel was characterized as having an oily voice. Diesel terrified me as a kid, but as I've grown older, I've come to realize that he's honestly the trolliest character in the show and is hilarious (at least through the Classic series) to watch fail.
Hope y'all enjoyed reading another chapter!

Playlist - Jordan by Buckethead