Immi had taken a small nap, and all the others were either playing cards or watching the monitors. 

 

"Two Fours" "BS" "Damn..."

Yve took the entire pile of stacked cards and shot a hateful glare at Opal. "I hate you" she spat.

 

Opal smiled and answered, "I know. One Five"

 

Yve and Opal always had a sort of rivalry that dated all the way back to when they were kids. Yve's mother was abandoned by her husband after she gave birth to Yve, who was a girl much to her father's dismay. 

 

Now a single mom, Yve's mother was left to raise Yve on her own. As a defense mechanism, Yve was taught some martial arts by her mother, and when she turned 16, she met Baise and Lumia. They became friends and she joined the Shade Troupe soon after.

 

Opal, on the other hand was born into a wealthy and prosperous family.... full of assassins. Taught at a young age to kill mercilessly, and put through intensive torture training, Opal was raised to be a killing machine. 

 

However, Opal longed for friends. All she wanted was to be a normal kid with a normal childhood. For the first time, she made a friend. Lily was her name. Furious, Opal's father killed Lily as well as Lily's whole family when he found out. "You are an assassin. You aren't allowed to have friends" he said. Trapped in her own household, Opal began to resent and hate her family. She began to hatch a plan.

 

At 14, she escaped by killing the maid who came to change her bed sheets and stabbed her mother in the eye. Her father lashed out, trying to stop her, and cut her arm. With a bloody arm wound, Opal sprinted out the door and was free. She still has the scar on her arm to this day.

 

Found as a wandering child in the streets, Yve's mother took her in. And so, the rivalry was born. The two girls would always challenge each other to fights, and bickered over the smallest things. But deep down, they were like sisters and shared a strong bond. 

 

Yve introduced Opal to Baise and Lumia and got her to join the Shade Troupe. Yve worked as the trainer; she was in charge of training the recruits and teaching them to fight. Opal specialized in disguise and deception due to her assassin roots, so she became the head of the Undercover Unit. The Undercover Unit worked as spies and secret agents.

 

CLANG!!! "Ow...." 

 

Immi rubbed her head. It looked as if she had woken up, but banged her head against the wall. 

 

Immi, prior to joining the Shade Troupe, lived in the woods. Her father had died of a mysterious illness and her mother died soon after. 

 

Living alone on the wild exposed her to the wilderness and   thus, her love for animals was born. She soon discovered that she had the power of animal manipulation and could talk to them as well as healing powers.

 

She was discovered by Sydri who was training in the woods. Immi and Sydri became best friends and each of them helped the other out. Sydri would help control the weather (she had weather manipulation) and in return, Immi would heal her after her grueling training. They both joined the Shade Troupe after coming across Lumia, who had telepathy and plant manipulation powers. 

 

Xena was a special case. She had the rare power of magnetism, the ability to attract and repel at will. She was held captive by a corrupt male nobleman as a slave. Opal was sent to rescue her after the Shade Troupe heard of her rare power. Grateful, Xena willingly joined the Shade Troupe and vowed to bring the corrupt male Therlymian race to their knees.

 

This leaves Baise, Celestia, Thrimmle, the twins Aiden and Aiven, and Falni.

 

Let's begin with the twins. Aiden and Aiven lived with Falni after they ran away from home. The twins had an abusive father who beat their mother and had countless mistresses. Their mom fled home and the twins, sick of their father's behavior, ran away.

 

Falni was the daughter of a baker. Her father was one of those rare men who did not hate the women. In fact, he adored Falni and loved her mother. He generously took in the twins, who were their regular customers. Falni and the twins were great friends and the twins would always feel somewhat indebted to Falni. 

 

Her father agreed with her that the government, run entirely my males, was no good and encouraged her to join the Shade Troupe. The twins followed Falni and also joined. 

 

Celestia came from an entirely different background. She was a shaman's daughter, raised in a traveling nomadic family. She mastered meditation and discovered her forcefield and barrier power at the tender age of five. Her tribe considered it a blessing from the Gods. Taught to remain true to her faith and her morals, she left the tribe upon hearing that there was a group that opposed the corrupt government. She joined the Shade Troupe and became Commander of the Defense Unit.

 

Both Baise and Thrimmle had similar experiences growing up. Thrimmle was a rather introverted kid; she never talked to any of the other kids and they never tried to talk to her either.

 

 Baise was outgoing and bold as a kid. However, her personality often landed her in trouble. "You need to learn to control that rash behavior and big mouth of yours!" her teachers would say. Thus, she was labeled the 'weird kid' that people were either scared of or disliked.

 

Both were outcasts of society and lead tough lives. Lumia however, was the 'popular girl'. She had a good heart and tried her hardest to make friends with everyone. She befriended Thrimmle and Baise too, much to her other friends' dislike. Gradually, Lumia lost friends and also became an outcast. But she didn't care. "True friends stick by each other" she said.

 

The three new buddies grew up together and decided to speak up against oppressive society. They decided to tackle the government and noble class, and founded the Shade Troupe. 

 

As ambitious teens, they sought out other women (and only women, NO MEN ALLOWED) to join. City to city they went, recruiting members and creating a revolution of protestants.

 

Baise, Lumia, Thrimmle, Celestia, Yve, Opal, Xena, Sydri, Immi, Aiden, Aiven, and Falni were all elected as the twelve leaders of the Shade Troupe and continued to create a revolution throughout the whole planet of Therlym. 

 

And that brings us back to the control room, where the leaders rested. EXO was still fiercely fighting each other and time was ticking on the clock.

 

"Hey, should we do it now?" Sydri asked. "Yup, those guys won't know what hit them" Immi said, a creepy smiling forming on her lips.

 

 

 

 *In Training Room 5H*

 

 

 

Sehun was breathing heavily, his chest heaving up and down and sweat coating his face. Chanyeol was also sweating, but not breathing as heavily as Sehun. It was clear who had the upper hand.

 

All of a sudden, a loud BUZZ sounded and EXO froze in place. What was happening? Then there were 4 clicks that seemed to be coming from below EXO's feet.

 

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

 

The first click was the loudest then the clicks started to get softer and softer. For a few moments, all could be heard was silence.

 

Then the floor caved in! All twelve EXO members fell down, down, down. The ceiling above them got smaller and smaller as they plunged into darkness and got knocked out of consciousnes by that all too familiar red cloud of gas.

 

 

 

*FAST FORWARD*

 

 

 

Baekhyun came to his senses first and looked around at the members around him. He formed multiple orbs of light around him to let him get a better view. Was this death? No, probably not. But then why was he and the others alive after falling at that bone crushing height? Where were they exactly? 

 

"Rise and shine!!! I see that only one of you has come to. Baekhyun, I assume?" said an anonymous voice. "Who are you?" Baekhyun asked, but after deciding that his statement was a little too impolite he added, "I mean, yes, I'm Baekhyun. Um....who is the person speaking right now?"

 

The voice laughed. "I see, polite as ever. To answer your question, I need all of your EXO-mates to wake up. Then we'll talk."

 

Baekhyun walked over to each of s and shook them violently to get them awake. "...PONIES!!!! wait, what?" Chanyeol shouted, waking up from his sleepy state. 

 

Now that everyone was somewhat awake, the voice spoke again. "As you may have noticed from my slightly lower voice, I am not Immi. My name is Sydri" it said.

 

Kris looked confused. "Wait, if you aren't Immi, does that mean we're no longer in Phase One?" he asked. "Well, well, Krissy boy, you got it right on the dot. You lucky guys have passed Phase One!!!" Sydri cheerfully announced.

 

Kris spoke again. "So, what was the whole 'loser falls and dies' for?!" "Oh that? Immi decided to make up that rule to make sure you guys wouldn't go easy on each other on purpose. The whole point was to see if any of you had weak minds and couldn't take the pain of losing a friend, as well as test your strength and weaknesses", Sydri responded, "You have passed the S and M in ESMAD!"

 

Cheers and shouts of celebration were yelled into the air. "You guys shouldn't be so happy though. You know you still have three phases left, right?" Sydri stated bluntly. "Way to ruin my mood..." muttered Chen.

 

"Let the Phase Two commence!"

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

So, this time I have you guys a little background on each Shade Troupe leader. I hope that helped you get to know them better! Feel free to leave a comment below telling me who your favorite Shade Troupe character is!!! 

 

On a side note, it's SO HOT HERE IN SF. Normally, in San Francisco there's fog and rain and wind. We do occasionally get really cold days and really hot days.  Today just happens to be a hot day. Luckily, I have short shorts, a tanktop, and yummy watermelon to keep me cool. 

 

Bye, and wait patiently for next chapter!