Area One

24

"Guys... they sent soldiers to the Tree again!"

Everyone stopped what they were doing. Jongin had volunteered to regularly teleport to the few villages he knew to keep watch over what the Red Force was doing.

"I thought they don't know we are here?" The disbelief in Kyungsoo's voice was obvious.

"They don't. They must know we were transported outside and they didn't catch us coming in, so why would they search for us here? No... Now that we're gone, they're coming for the Tree." While speaking, Junmyeon realised how lucky they were to not have been caught outside.

Sehun's voice was shaking when he turned towards the teleporter. "When will they arrive?"

"Two days maximum."

Everyone looked at Luhan. How could the Tree not have told him about something as important as this?

"It tends to focus on showing me only what it thinks is important. And that every day." Luhan's voice indicated what Junmyeon had been suspecting for a few weeks now: What he kept seeing was nothing nice. But whatever he did to convince Luhan to tell him - it failed.

Chanyeol didn't comment on (or maybe didn't notice) Luhan's frustration. "We need to get away before they arrive! We can't let them know we are here."

"Our only task is to protect the Tree. And now that they are attacking it, you want to go?"

Minseok's argument made Junmyeon realise that he had actually really forgotten about this task. The only way to make sure it would never be harmed was to bring down the Red Force, which had slowly turned into the main goal.

"If they don't suspect us to be here, there won't be many Patrol members." Kyungsoo frowned. "There might be more scientists than soldiers."

"Which means they won't be hard to defeat," Jimin added with a relieved smile.

"But if we consider this as a first try to examine the situation... They won't be expected to stay here for long, either. We will only have a few days afterwards. And as soon as the people in the City feel like something seems fishy, their guard will be up. We need to be quick. And we're actually not ready yet."

The reactions to Junmyeon's argument were mixed. The younger ones started arguing that they were, in fact, more than prepared for a fight. But Minseok and Namjoon agreed with him, as did Yixing and his father.

"This means we need to attack them quickly and quietly," Yixing concluded. "No one can escape. And I think it would be the best to have Jongin teleport us in, too."

While everyone agreed on the first part, Jongin himself had arguments against his plan. "Guys... teleporting into the City is too dangerous. They know my power, most likely better than I do. And you know how getting out of there ended last time. We're even more people now."

"There is another reason for not teleporting," Namjoon interjected. "We didn't talk about this at all... But the Patrols between the villages have lessened a lot. They were the reason why we couldn't form a proper resistance until now. That there are that many rumours about us proves that it's a lot better now. It might be too dangerous, but I think we should stop by a few villages and show that we actually exist. If something in our plan goes wrong, we might need as much support from the people as we can get."

Junmyeon threw a glance at Luhan. He remembered their discussion about the public's opinion concerning them. But his second leader was surprisingly silent today.

"If there are no other objections, we will do what Namjoon said," Junmyeon concluded, looking at the others.

Waiting for the Patrol to arrive must have been the most unnerving thing Junmyeon had ever done. He started thinking that he would have rather rushed to the City right away, thinking of a plan on the way. Everyone was tense and arguments kept coming up.