Minseok arrived two days after Junmyeon, Yifan one day later. They were as surprised to meet them as Junmyeon had been. With all the leaders back together, the group was visibly stabilized and Luhan, just as he himself, was beyond relieved to have Minseok back. Minseok had lived in an animal shelter and helped taking care of the animals in return. That wasn't much of a surprise, seeing as he was one of the biggest animal friends in their group.

Yifan's story had been a bit surprising. He had woken up near an orphanage that had been short on staff and decided to stay and help in exchange for food and a room for himself. Junmyeon would never have imagined Yifan as a friend of children, but as the tall guy told them about the children he had met, everyone was able to see that happy glow in his eyes.

Most of the others, though, had spent the whole time similar to Junmyeon: in a hospital. And as Tao had told Junmyeon in the beginning, some of them were still not completely healed. Junmyeon tried to keep his injured ankle a secret, but he knew that at least Yixing and Luhan had noticed it. Yixing had tried to heal his friends several times, but to no avail. He was beyond frustrated about not being able to help them, and did his best to treat them with whatever medicine he could get from Jongin.

Jongin was their saviour. He got them food (Junmyeon didn't dare to ask from where) and medicine. He kept training to get all of them back inside safely and Junmyeon admired his dedication. More than once, he was reprimanded by Luhan for exhausting himself too much with the extensive use of his power.

On the day after Yifan's arrival, Junmyeon called Minseok and Luhan to him.

"We need to have a plan once Sehun gets here, I don't think anyone wants to stay any longer."

"Reasonable." Minseok arched his back, a cracking sound made him wince. "It's not exactly comfortable here."

"We need to go back to the tree first." Luhan was sitting on the ground with crossed legs, pushing little stones around. "Power or not, Yixing's father can't protect it on his own, and as soon as the Red Force gives up on searching for us, they will start concentrating on the tree again."

"That's why they know we will want to go back," Minseok reminded him. "They had two months to build up a bunch of nice little traps for us."

But Junmyeon agreed with Luhan. "We have to hope they were too concentrated on finding us to worry about anything else. Remember that it's our job to protect the tree."

"I don't want to question that," Minseok's eyes darted from Junmyeon to Luhan and back. "But I think we all underestimated them. We are unbelievably lucky to have survived all of this. If the Red Force decides to attack the tree, we can delay them by putting up a fight, but we're helpless against their assembled forces."

"I'm not saying we should fight them." Junmyeon ruffled his hair nervously while presenting them with the thoughts that had been occupying his mind. "I guess you've all heard of Chronos?"

"Everyone is talking about them." Minseok frowned. "But I don't think they're even aware of what is happening. The Red Force abuses their power and... let's not think about what they want to achieve with their human experiments."

Luhan laughed dryly. "They're probably planning to overthrow Chronos. With their own little army of brainwashed people with powers..."

"But Chronos isn't a government, it's just an organisation. What would they get from that?" Junmyeon couldn't follow Luhan's train of thoughts.

"The world leading science organisation," Luhan corrected him. "The technology they develop, the knowledge they have... their primary goal is to reduce the impacts of climate change, as far as I know, but imagine the amount of research they are doing for that. They have influence on every single government in this world, and these governments trust them. Chronos has a lot more power than one single country."

"That means that everything we have to do is to show Chronos the danger they are in. They will take over the fight against the Red Force, inform our people about everything that has happened and shut down the testing area."

Luhan frowned at the last part of Junmyeon's idea. "They won't shut it down. It was way too expensive to do that. And, no matter how nice you think Chronos is, even if they don't take advantage of the human research, the Red Force has made huge achievements in the other fields as well. They will replace the Red Force with more loyal people and keep a closer eye on them, but they won't shut down the whole test area."

"But even that would be okay, wouldn't it?" Minseok looked at them hopefully. "We all just want for the terror to end."

"Everything we need to do is to prove to Chronos what's going on in there," Junmyeon mused. "But why would they believe us? We need to find something that makes them at least suspicious enough to take a look for themselves."

"Yixing's father might have an idea how to do that." Luhan leaned forward, listening to something that was probably far away. His concentrated gaze broke into a smile and he visibly relaxed while Minseok and Junmyeon exchanged worried looks. "And now that we're complete, we can just go back and ask him." 

"Sehun," Junmyeon whispered in shock. He was unable to hide the widening smile on his lips.

Luhan nodded. "Go."

He didn't even listen to his friend's encouragement anymore, Junmyeon was already on his feet, heading into the direction in which Luhan had pointed. After a few minutes, the pain in his ankle became too strong for him to ignore it and he had to stop walking out of pain. Just why did it hurt so much? He needed to find Sehun!

"Junmyeon Hyung?"

He froze and lifted his gaze. There he was. His best friend stared at him in complete shock, the map he was holding in his hands fell to the ground.

Junmyeon completely forgot about his ankle. Without hesitation, he rushed towards his best friend and hugged him tightly.

"I was so worried about you... Where have you been the whole time?"

Sehun hesitated before answering. "Where should I have been, Hyung?"

Junmyeon stepped back and grinned at him. "The rest of us is already here. We were only waiting for you."

His best friend gaped at him. "All of us have come here?"

"Let's go back so you can see for yourself."

Everyone was already waiting when they returned. Tao ran up and hugged his friend first, then the others followed. They started asking him about where he had been, but Luhan cleared his throat.

"Now that we are all here, we need to decide what to do quickly. Sehun, I'm sorry to cut your welcoming party short, but we don't have time for this."

"The fact that all of us are here shows that every single one of you has decided to go back home, despite the truth you discovered," Junmyeon explained. "But we all know we stand no chance if we directly fight against the Red Force."

He made a short break to look at them in case Yifan or Jongin wanted to disagree, but they just nodded at his words.

"But during their terrible reign, they have forgotten about something crucial: They are not their own superiors. As soon as Chronos notices how they are abusing their power, they will interfere."

"So, all we need to do is somehow find proof that we can show to Chronos," Kyungsoo finished with wide eyes. "And we might not even have to fight the Red Force to be free. That's an awesome idea!"

"But how do we do that?" Yifan's question had the spreading euphoria falter. "You are aware that the place where we will find the most proof is still the city, aren't you?"

And no one wanted to ever go back there. His argument was reasonable and no one knew what to answer, until Yixing intercepted.

"We don't have enough knowledge about the Red Force to be able to collect that proof. But as far as I remember, my and Luhan's fathers have been spying on them, and they might know a way to do this."

Luhan's father whom they hadn't been able to save. They hadn't even thought about him during their escape.

‘It's alright. We might be able to find him once all of this is over.’ Luhan's words were supposed to be soothing, but why did Junmyeon have a bad feeling about them?

"We will go back home!" Tao punched into the air.

"Don't forget that most of us still don't have their powers back," argued Baekhyun. "We will have to use that time for training, too."

Junmyeon knew what he said was right, but he had to admit that he wasn't really eager to go through all of the training again. And he was sure that he wasn't the only one who had been tortured with his own power. This would be even more difficult than learning it for the first time.

It was important to get home as soon as possible, and now that they were complete, nothing was holding them back anymore. Junmyeon observed a wordless conversation between Jongin and Luhan. Jongin had been training for this moment ever since he had come here, but the only time he had teleported all of them had gone terribly wrong. It was crucial that he was confident enough to do this.

"Alright, guys, get ready to teleport!" Minseok called Baekhyun and Jongdae back, who had wandered away while discussing something. They came back immediately, but as soon as everyone was ready, Yifan stepped back.

"What are you doing?" Jongin shot him a frustrated glare. "You know you still need to hold onto each other for this."

"I know." This had to be the first time Junmyeon had ever heard something like sadness in his voice. "But I won't come with you." He glared at them, as if challenging them to change his mind. But then his gaze softened.

"Yeah, right." Jongdae chuckled. "Come on, hurry up."

"He's being serious." Luhan's clarification made everyone look back at Yifan in exasperation.

"Why did you come here if you want to stay?" Chanyeol's eyes showed pain and betrayal. Baekhyun scoffed.

"I thought you were the one the most eager for confrontation?"

"What are you doing?" Tao's quiet voice almost broke Junmyeon's heart. Tao and Yifan had been best friends ever since they had met. Yifan had given Tao strength after the death of his family, just as Tao had managed to calm Yifan's heart after the betrayal of his former best friend.

"I'm not backing out because of fear," Yifan assured them, his hands raised in defence. "I would rather go back with you. But someone needs to have a look at the other test areas."

"The Red Force is only in ours, though." Yixing frowned.

"You never know. Their own power has managed to corrupt the Red Force. Ours might be the largest experiment, but that doesn't mean the others are like they should be. Chronos doesn't control them regularly, so who knows? I might find a way to prove it earlier than you do. If the other areas are similar to ours, there might even be people with powers!"

He smiled at the last sentence, indicating that it was a joke. The smile disappeared, however, when Tao let go of Baekhyun's wrist and stood next to him.

"I'll come with you."

"Tao, this might take longer than you think-" Yifan started explaining, but Tao interrupted him.

"I won't let you go alone. You need someone who stops you from solving every problem with a fight. I'll do that."

Yifan wanted to contradict his words, but Junmyeon was quicker. "At least Tao might be a lot safer out here with you than back inside with the Red Force."

This made Yifan hesitate. He didn't want Tao to come with him because it was dangerous, but the place where he would go otherwise was even more dangerous than that.

"But how will you come back if Jongin is not with you?"

"You could try to put up a mind link to me," Yifan answered immediately. Luhan scoffed.

"Yeah, so if the Red Force captures me, they will find out about the link and per consequence you, and then they will suppress it. Or track you down. What will you do then?"

"E- excuse me, that won't happen... right?" Sehun was so worried by Luhan's statement that he had started to stutter.

"We will have to learn how to get into those test areas anyways," Yifan argued now. "Don't worry, we will find a way."

"I wasn't worrying about you." Luhan sounded a bit grumpy. "I was being logical."

Tao grinned. "Of course. Now, let's go before I regret my decision."

Everyone, except for Tao and Yifan, went back to Jongin for teleporting, when a terrible thought came to Junmyeon's mind. "Hey, you're not planning to fly inside, are you?"

Yifan winking at him was the last thing he saw before they teleported.

After opening his eyes carefully, Junmyeon sighed in relief. They were at home. That was Luhan's house back there.

"We made it," Chanyeol whispered in amazement.

Someone behind Junmyeon cleared his throat. He turned around.

And was directly met with the curious expression of Kim Namjoon.