change my mind - rini au

seven

"attacking our home and killing our people weren't enough?! they're psychos, especially adrian!"

"making our life miserable once isn't enough for them?!"

"i don't know about you, but i really wanna win if the stones are going to attack us again."

bradley didn't want to admit it, but deep down he was scared and anxious about what their rival would do. the stones ruined basically the whole place and made them cost lots of money to renovate everything. the stones also ruined their health and mentality, making them traumatized, and it's hard to regain their energy and happiness back, especially nini.

his thoughts were interrupted when two soft palms touched one of his, making his attention turned towards the person.

he was standing in the center with both of his hands on the table, head facing the ground. he tilted his head, seeing nini sitting on the chair while giving him a weak smile. then, nini showed her notebook to him.

"it's gonna be okay."

he smiled seeing those words, especially when those words came from nini, his own little sister, plus, the one who took the incident the worst. he was glad that she matured in this, knowing that the incident was hard for her.

he leaned down to give her head a quick kiss, then he cleared his throat to start speaking, calming everyone down.

"silence." he said, loud and clear

everyone, as instructed, started to stop speaking one by one, turning their attention towards the leader.

"i know, we are all worried about this, after what happened a few years back. but i know that we can go through this, again. we've fought them for years and we know their strengths and weaknesses. for now, let's focus on training and practicing. we don't know when this will happen again, but i know we can all do this, and now with four new members, i'm sure we can still be strong just like we used to. do i make myself clear?"

"yes, bradley." everyone said in unison

"good, good..." he muttered, "why don't we all just prepare ourselves for early dinner so we can all have a good sleep? we can start another training next morning."

one by one, everyone started to leave the main room where everyone usually gathered before or after a mission. worries and anxieties filled their minds, scared if their rival might attack them at any second, but they trusted bradley, the stones are not easy to guess, they won't attack this soon.

"do you want us to stay?" ej asked to bradley

"if that's okay," bradley answered, "and maybe the four of you should too." he said, referring to the new members

the four members nodded and went back to their seat, joined by ej, carlos, big red, and kourtney.

now the main room is just the tenth of them.

"so...." big red started, "should we be scared?"

"i wanna say no but y'all know we are all scared!" kourtney exclaimed, "can't you see everyone's faces? even after bradley calmed them down, not many of them were a bit okay."

"at least we should not be scared." carlos stated

"can i ask you guys something?" ricky said as he suddenly interrupted

bradley nodded in response, "go ahead."

"okay so... how awful was the attack three years ago? i mean, aside from him killing your members?"

"if there's any word that describes more than awful, then that's my answer." ej replied with a sigh, "they literally destroyed everything that we have to spend lots of money for our home. i remembered we didn't have proper food for six months just to make this place feel like our home again."