ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. White letters on a black background flashed across Luhan’s eyes. Clearly, there was an error. “Contact Court House of Records for more information at,” and the line continued with a convoluted number — when, cross-referenced, didn’t exist. A concentric loop of holding to jazz music here and the sounds of funky town there, only for saxophones to serenade you to sleep at the 12th hour. 

The question, however, remained. Why? It was nearing midnight now on level B2. No soul could share in his confusion. The Council granted Luhan access to everything except this: blueprints for a botanical garden to be installed at Court in the coming year. Why? Left baffled by the unheard of secrecy shrouding potted plants, Luhan asked the who. The what. The when. The where.

ERROR. ERROR. ERROR. Another number. Another set of dead ends. Clearly, there was an error. Prone to poke and prod at the most abstruse of notions, Luhan set out to discern the origin of said error. 

The who: the Moon Guardians Lay and Tao. The what: rapidly self-regenerating cells capable of subsistence. The when: every night at the 12th hour. The where: B1. The why: mere speculation.

Drowning in debris sent flying by a rocket-propolled grenade, Suho shouted incoherently to his brothers. Take up arms! Stand your ground! Running is a sign of strength! 

D.O took up arms, heel advancing to send Luna Snarr — enemy of the moment — smacking into marble. Wrenching his hands forward and back, jaws of rock engulfed her whole. Screeching howls echoed from inside her cage, orders gone unheard by her subordinates. 

Sehun stood his ground, a flurry of jet streams pummeling against advancing soldiers. The whiplash knocked out three. Others pushed through to replace the fallen. Guns fired. Bullets ripped through Sehun’s winds. Three tore through muscle. 

Baekhyun ran from the raining metal. Several men attempted to follow. Each twist and turn down the passageways of the Hall of the Guardians led them further from their company. One by one the party grew smaller, until but a single Councilman clawed helplessly at whiting pupils. Blind men tell no tales; blind men wail as an entire planet is stolen right before their very eyes.

Kai removed Sehun from danger, teleporting him to the depths of the training room. Told to stay put and out of sight, the aerokinetic Guardian didn’t appreciate being babied. Given the task of contacting his favorite brother, Sehun complained no further. 

Chanyeol replaced Sehun on the front lines, hot flames at bootstraps enough to startle the bravest of men. Kai took advantage of the momentary confusion. His blow-delivering presence appearing, disappearing, and reappearing behind enemy lines propelled the Councilmen into hysteria.

“Leave!” 

Suho’s voice bellowed like a lion’s roar from the depths of the hollow Hall. 

Water rushed from the nearby kitchen, tap left purposely open, slapping like stinging whips against exposed flesh. Sparks continued to fly from Chanyeol’s fire plumes tossed at the blacks of the Soldier's bodysuits. A call for backup was made in the panic. 

D.O took a knife to the shoulder from a woman charging in for Luna Snarr’s sake. Kai, cornered despite his efforts, ended up with a broken rib. No one could get close to Chanyeol, but his own heat burnt away at his skin, leaving it red and raw. Suho wore his bullet wound, lodged above his heart, piercing through his Sun-given birthmark, like a badge of honor. 

“What’s all the hubbub about?”

Golden bangles jingling, silken pink clothing wrapped tight, raven-dyed tresses braided tighter, the 70th Seeress of Exo stepped onto the battlefield. A collective hush washed over every Exotian and Guardian. Who, what, when, where, why didn’t matter. 

“And here I thought I could sleep in for once.” She joked, wading water towards the imprisoned Luna Snarr, “Good morning, Miss Snarr.”

Garbled noises sounded through six inches of marble. Her highness smiled, patting the cool surface twice for good measure, before turning to those men and women who so impolitely interrupted her “beauty sleep.” 

“Headline: the Day the Sun Burned Too Bright!” The exclamation took them aback, flinching at her animated statement. “Protectors of the Sun attacked after pleading to push back a conference scheduled between the Seeress of Exo and a Council Delegate. Righteous in their cause as they were, the Seeress’s journey from Alberos to the Capital not without its pitfalls, the Council’s forces refused to wait in the comfort of the Protectors’ Grand Hall as her highness rested in peace.” 

Pausing to give comment, she added, “A play on words to highlight the Council’s hand in causing me to ‘rest in peace' in the first place,” before continuing. 

“Is the Council looking to smote the authority of the Protectors once more? Is another rebellion on the horizon? Food riots throughout Sectors C, D, and E continue to shake at the government’s foundation: the Rank system. What lies in store for us if we, everyday Exotians, begin to burn too bright?”

The 70th Seeress of Exo stood at Suho’s side, hand upon a reluctant shoulder: a demonstration of strength. Intelligence. Power stemming from both. All hiding her shortness of breath. A result of sprinting from the second entrance beneath the ruins of the People’s Court; a secret left buried there.

“Miss Snarr and I will retire to the library,” she shot another admiring look at D.O’s handiwork, "after she regains the composure to be released from her enclosure.”

Whatever conversation passed, the pressumed dead, ex-Board Luna Snarr left the war-scarred Hall only slightly perturbed with a minute case of claustrophobia. Arrangements were clearly made to settle the unfortunate dispute. Her highness divulged nothing as she asked the Sun Guardians to follow her to Sector C. 

Suho counseled his brothers. Take up arms! Stand your ground! Running is a sign of strength! Wise men are rarely fooled twice.

An explosion of color assaulted their senses as the door to a new world opened up. Women yelped and giggled, hands quickly wrapping delicate satin around smooth shoulders, legs swiftly carrying lithe bodies across corridors. Men hooped and hollered, voices loudly echoing down hallways, cheers joyously resounding after each clinking of glass upon glass. Children stopped and stared, games no longer as enthralling as the six Guardians heading up the narrow staircase of this cement palace — an outwardly standard Capital apartment complex more extraordinary than originally thought. 

“I’ve aligned myself with the people.” The 70th Seeress of Exo announced on the third floor; a phrase holding no meaning at the current point in time.

The Exotians of this eccentric Circus Troupe knew her highness by name, calling it with such frequency it seemed the Sun itself cast soft light through the moonlit windowpanes. A few young women attempted to drag her away into a room draped in multiple hues of pink; an offer she declined though expressed interest in accepting after her “business” ended. The Guardians of Exo were now “business.”

A bitter taste settled on the back of Suho’s tongue. Misconstrued as her words may have been, as doubtful of her intent he may have been, the sentiment rang a painful pang against his heart. No amount of color could bring his countenance back from over the pale.

“This door’s for you.” She stopped at the 8th floor, cheeks flying high enough to make heaven appear within arms’ length. 

Fingers tightened around brass, wood creaked in tune with cackling children, six pairs of eyes laid sight upon their predecessors. Walter, Patric, Franklin, Gaben, Tellius, and Arvo: the 69th generation Sun Guardians of Exo Planet. Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O, Kai, and Sehun: the successors who then displayed a myriad of emotions in response to the congregation of their mentors. Of their fathers, twelve years much too long a distance. 

An assault on the senses, indeed. 

Caught up in the heartwarming family reunion, not a soul noticed there was no door for her. Her world ended two decades prior.

The reunion at Court paled in comparison. No back-breaking hugs or sincere talks were exchanged. Fletcher, Colt, Kane, Hector, Lyon, and Teddie — 69th generation Moon Guardians — left their mentees in a state worse for wear. An oppressive silence filled the white-walled halls of B2, reminiscence anything but fond.

Within seconds of Kris learning how to go to the bathroom without wetting himself, Fletcher set out to travel the world. Postcards of fantastically wondrous sights with fantastically awful one-liners hurriedly scrawled on the back rarely struck a cord. Ready and willing to dump the burden of half a million souls the minute Luhan comprehended the command “no,” Kane’s pleas of compromise fell deaf on his ears. The subject of the “Return,” the ominous book from his childhood returning to his possession, seemed just another way to streamline their long-awaited heart-to-heart.

Born to nag without cause, Lyon scrutinized every fiber of Chen’s living quarters. Forever seeking the next physical threat on the horizon, he deemed frying lightbulbs in a confined space the last hobby Chen should be picking up. Meanwhile, two guards engaged in a heated discussion with Hector and Teddie regarding the error-blaring B1. Eventually the pair boarded the elevator to visit Lay and Tao respectively, failing to return in the hours that followed.

Colt stood over Xiumin all the while, wordlessly hovering. At a loss of how to begin, he cleared his throat. Multiple times. Not on purpose. Lemon-scented cleaning supplies burned at the blood vessels in his nose and the lining of his throat. Bleeding fingertips scrubbing at the floor with wire mesh, Xiumin ignored his mentor’s plight. Metal scratching rock filled the silence for a handful of minutes. 

Seeking to poke and prod his way through the icy wall before him, Colt pressed on, questioning the stain Xiumin rubbed insistently at, “Self-portrait?” Gone wrong, he added. Xiumin heard only the beginning of his attempt at humor. Upon closer inspection, the stubborn drawing appeared to be just that.

Twelve figures, standing as one in a lopsided circle, cloaked in inky shrouds. Faces indistinguishable against messy of black. “Eight years.” An epiphany struck Xiumin at this inopportune moment; when knowing the details changed nothing and, yet, everything. “She waited eight years.”

For eight years, the 70th Seeress of Exo fell off the face of the planet. A Council-related cover-up had been hypothesized. Her highness herself blamed the Council for her lack of a loving family. In the excitement of the present, everyone forgot about her past. For eight years, the 70th Seeress of Exo was imprisoned at Court.

Tiny hands scrapped charcoal into cement. Over and over and over. Tracing each figure with equal weight; all deemed of equal importance. Until she gave up on waiting, embraced her Tree-given gift as an abnormal side effect of life, and existed in stale normalcy unfit for a woman of her stature. Eight years in a white box filled with black figures. Confusion was the half of it. 

Melancholic at mere speculation, yet back for more after escaping it — twice over now. The 70th Seeress of Exo held a track record for doing the unimaginably wrong for all the unthinkably right reasons. Who, what, when, where, why did trust have a limit? Like a ruler ending at 12 inches, the 12th hour was upon them and they couldn’t bare to stretch any further. Clearly, therein lied an error in judgment. 

A/N: More on Luna and Luhan's discovery in the next chapter. I'm happy to say I've finished outlining this story. It saddens me to say there will only be 11 chapters after this one. This may seem impossible, closing everything in the next 11 chapters, but I assure you it all works itself out. Stick with me until the end, won't you?