“So, what now?” Xiu Min finally broke the silence. We all just watched Suho’s group leave, not knowing what to think. Now that they were gone the reality of the situation was sinking in.

“We practice,” Kris stood up from the dusty ground. “What else can we do?”

We all began standing up, but I noticed Luhan didn’t budge. He had been sitting off to the side facing away from us the whole time. I carefully made my way over to him. Sure enough I heard him sniffle; an obvious sign that he was crying.

“Luhan?” I placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Oh,” he slightly turned to see who it was. “Hey.”

“You okay?’ I sat down next to him and brought my knees to my chest.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he answered then, after wiping at his damped eyes, turned to face me.

“You missed one.” I wiped away one last tear on his cheek with my thumb.

“Oh I um, I just got a little dust in my eye,” he looked away.

“It’s okay to cry.”

He shook his head and I could see he was struggling to hold back the rest of his tears. “It’s all my fault,” his voice squeaked.

“How is it your fault?”

“If I had just listened to Kris and not gone exploring then we never would’ve found out and started this mess!”

“Hey, it was bound to happen,” I put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s not your fault.”

“Well I could’ve at least listened to you and told Kris. We should’ve gone to him separately and told him rather than in front of everyone.”

“Luhan, listen to me,” I looked him right in the eyes. “You can’t blame yourself. What’s done is done and there’s no undoing it. Sehun will be just fine. He’s got five other guys with him. They’d never let anything happen to him.”

“I hope you’re right,” he stared off into the distance.

“I know I’m right. Now come on, we have to practice.” I stood up and offered him a hand up as well.

When we joined the others, Kris was informing them on the practice task and had divided them into teams. Tao, Lay and Kris were on a team while Xiu Min and Chen were on another.

“Luhan and Phoebe, the two of you will be on Xiu Min and Chen’s team. We will be battling for each other’s bandanas,” he handed our team an orange piece of cloth. “Whoever retrieves the other’s first wins. You’ll need to decide offense and defense. Teams have five minutes to work out there plans. You can go ahead.”

“So, any have any ideas?” Xiu Min asked as we huddled in a circle.

“Nah,” Luhan shook his head, still not looking himself.

“Cheer up bud,” Chen patted him on the back. “They’ll come back. We have to focus right now though. Xiu Min, why don’t you and Phoebe take offense?”

“Me on offense?” I looked at him in surprise.

“Sure; you’re great at hand-to-hand combat, and you can work together with Xiu Min if you need to.”

“You can use my power,” Luhan offered. “I doubt I’ll need it much on defense. There’s really nothing to levitate.”

“No, that’s okay,” I shook my head. “It’ll probably come in handy for you at some point. Plus, I can always steal one of the opposing powers if I get a good hold on them.”

“That’s our girl,” Chen smiled. “Always thinking ahead.”

I rolled my eyes and gave him a friendly push. “Alright now Xiu Min, we have to work out an offensive plan.”

“Well they’ll probably put Lay on defense with Tao and Kris as offense. You’d be better off taking Tao while I work on Kris. We can work around them and meet on either side of the bandana, not giving Lay a chance,” he suggested.

“But what if they split up the middle?” I questioned.

“Five minutes is up,” Kris announced, not giving us a chance to make a plan B.

“Let’s hope this works,” I sighed and headed to my position in the arena.

Once we were all settled and had our poles with our bandanas tied to them securely in the ground, Kris gave the signal and the game began. As soon as he said “go” I sprinted toward Tao. They obviously anticipated the two of us fighting each other because he did the same. He met me with a punch which I ducked to avoid, replying with a high kick which he equally deflected.

“You’re good,” he countered while we continued to fight. “But not good enough!”

“You underestimate me,” I smirked. “I’ve learned a lot in the past month.”

We worked equally, throwing punches and kicks while the other deflected them. I was starting to get worried that we’d never stop. With a quick roll I dodged his high kick and popped up behind him. As he turned I kicked out my foot, throwing him slightly off balance. Using this advantage, I managed to send him to the ground with a punch.

Immediately I ran toward the opposing team’s flag. Tao would recover quickly, so a foot race and quick challenge with the defense would determine the winner. I glanced over at Xiu Min and Kris. The leader was flying around our bandana while Xiu Min shot at him with blocks of ice.

As I neared Lay and the flag my hopes increased. Lay would be an easy defeat thanks to my training from Tao. Once I got past him there was nothing stopping me. I was about twelve yards away when suddenly my feet began to drag. A sluggish feeling came over me and everything else. When I looked back Tao was moving at normal speed, so confident that he was simply walking.

What am I supposed to do now?!

“Luhan, Chen; you better be ready!” I shouted back over my shoulder toward our two person defense. When I looked up and saw Kris flying in slow speed and Xiu Min’s ice blocks taking their time to reach him I had to stifle a laugh. It honestly looked pretty funny.

Chen sent out a lightning bolt toward Tao, but it moved so slowly that Tao simply stepped to the side with a smile on his face. He was dangerously close to our flag by this time and it was obvious that nobody would be able to keep up with him.

Great.

Just then I noticed our flag begin to move. The whole pole was beginning to float upwards. I glanced at Luhan to see him steadily working his powers. Tao hurried toward the flag with desperation, but when he jumped, it was just a tad too high. Kris flew down toward it, but Luhan dogged the pole away before he could grab it.

“Phoebe!” he shouted and I noticed he had his other hand up.

I turned around to see the other team’s pole floating toward me. Lay was ‘running’ after it, but he wasn’t moving too quickly. Suddenly it was like a switch got turned and everything returned to normal speed. I ran toward the flying pole and leapt at it, just as Lay did. We went crashing to the ground together, but not before I ripped the bandana from the stick.

“I got it!” I shouted, holding up the piece of fabric.

“Good game,” Lay offered me a hand up. The others hurried over toward us.

“You did a good job,” Xiu Min patted me on the back.

“Psh, like I did it alone! We did a good job!” I corrected him.

“Good teamwork,” Kris acknowledged both our teams. “And Tao, you should use your time control more often. It’s really effective.”

I was surprised at Kris’s compliment toward Tao. It wasn’t like him to do that, but I guess considering the circumstances he figured good team morale would be beneficial.

“Let’s set up and do it again,” he directed and we set to work.

“That was quick thinking,” I mentioned to Luhan as we returned our flag back to its spot.

“Thanks,” he smiled, looking a little happier.

“Ready to whip their butts again?”

“You bet!”