EDEN 7/??
Title: Eden
Author: tikibuddy91
Characters: EXO, SHINee, mention of a surprise returning guest
Word Count for Chapter 7: 3800
Genre: AU, adventure
Rating: PG
Summary: Joonmyeon and Yifan, co-captains of Angel and Dawn, are sky pirates of the New World. With their crew, they go on series of adventures of searching for their pendants before they find themselves deep into a chase for their lives. A chase that involves a new Eden, their Tree of Life, and a Time Machine and its portals.
Author Note: It is inspired from one of my classic favorite fics from SHINee, Stranded, years back written by the wonderful pikagyu and then I came across these fanarts by Adamasto. I loved the concepts of the Old/New Worlds and sky pirates, so I decided to do something about it. :)
The boomerang clatters at Chen’s feet.
“Alright, try again.”
Chen groans, rubbing his shoulder and giving it a stretch. It has been only a week since the Lucifer met up with the Angel crew. Onew had already sent the letters thanks to Luhan’s eagles, and at one point, a question was raised about Lucifer’s concealment due to its assistance with Angel. Key had explained to Chen about the illusion spell he placed on the ship, and the whole crew of Angel was in awe. It also prompted Onew to summon a pseudo-cumulus congestus cloud to surround both ships, leaving a bubble of clear visibility for both crews on the Angel to work with.
Hidden in the clouds, the Lucifer crew had been training with the Angel crew on some days, often relaxing on other days. This day has been quite productive for everyone, and they have shown signs of improvement. Well, at least some of them have.
“This is the twentieth time already today…and my boomerang hasn’t returned to me at all. What am I doing wrong?”
Chen has received his wooden boomerang that was made by Key a few days ago, and has been practicing with it whenever the chance he gets. He read so much about the basic techniques of handling a boomerang and the applications, but when it came to doing it, his attempts were futile.
“What about those five times it did?” Luhan pipes up from the helm. Chen glares at him.
“You sabotaged it! Just like you did yesterday and the day before!”
“Me? Nooo,” the pilot of Angel guffaws. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not!”
“Calm down, don’t get your panties got in a twist. You know your throw is becoming very weak today…or maybe it’s actually your mind.”
“Shut it!”
“Chen, I really do think your arm is telling you it needs a break…” Jonghyun murmurs softly, standing next to the navigator. “You need to keep your emotions and distractions at bay, and keep focusing on the boomerang as the extension of your arm.”
“Extension of my arm?” Chen stoops to pick it up and rises back on his feet, scowling at the boomerang. “Well…My arm does feel like it’s already ripped off, sewn back, and the process repeat itself all over again.” He looks up to see Luhan happily sitting on the railings. “And Luhan, why don’t you freaking help me out here for a change, instead of sabotaging it?”
“Nope.” The pilot of the Angel shakes his head. “I’m only here to keep your boomerang at bay, if it ever goes awry out there.”
“Awry, my ass. You almost cost my boomerang a few times earlier today!”
“That was just for good fun, Chen…” Luhan chuckles.
Chen growls. He closes one eye, aiming for an invisible target in the sky, and hurls the boomerang. What happens next shocks the three of them, as the boomerang finally makes a come back. The three of them gape for a moment before Luhan yells at Chen to get ready to grab the boomerang. Chen braces himself as it nears toward him at an accelerating speed.
“OW!”
There is a noise of a clatter as the wooden boomerang falls to the floor several feet away from Chen, its momentum broken from colliding with Chen’s hand. Cursing, the navigator is shaking his hand to ease off the pain, while Jonghyun watches on flabbergasted.
“How could you miss that chance to catch it?!” Luhan yells. “You only had one out of two chances, two easy chances by the way, and you failed to catch it??”
“Easy for you to say, you can just stop it with your mind…you mind freak,” Chen growls under his breath as he walks toward his boomerang.
“I heard that!” Chen whirls around and looks up, startled.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“No, but your voice was being annoying in my head,” Luhan smirks. “Seriously, Chen, even if you whisper or not say a word, no matter how much your brain tries to shut off its voice, I will still hear it.”
- - -
Meanwhile, Jinki is mentoring Xiumin on his sword techniques and sparring with bamboo sticks. Minho is also sparring with Chanyeol, giving him pep talks throughout their practice. Neither of them has broken a sweat yet, a little breathless. The intermittent clack-clack sounds of the clashing poles offset the swoosh sounds of the scabbards and Minho’s voice. They go at each other every other day, while in other days, Jinki and Taemin would practice with Angel’s four eldest members.
But today is sparring day for Xiumin and Chanyeol. Baekhyun and Lay are watching nearby, with Lay’s archery equipment standing between them.
“Would you look at these guys? They’re crazy good. No, not even good, they’re amazing…” Baekhyun murmurs in awe, complimenting the two Lucifer crewmembers. Lay nods as he watches the scene. “But I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve been around for so long, training in combat with the enemies and monsters.”
Baekhyun fiddles with one of Lay’s arrows grouped in a case. “Why didn’t you ever put your archery skills into good use ever since Luhan turned twenty-one, twenty-one and he got his pendant? We knew by now he’s a telepath, but ever since he revealed to us that he is one, you stopped using your bow and arrows at all. You haven’t even been practicing the past few days…“
Lay shrugs as he runs a finger along the string of his bow. “I figured since he was going to be a telepath, what with communicating almost all beings, and I usually hunt for game, I wouldn’t dare harm them, except for those in water. It’s hard not to feel guilty if I did something unto an animal that Luhan might find helpful. So I stay away from them unless Luhan tells me it is alright.”
“Well, okay but you are also helping D.O with his cooking supply of food, think about that. I mean, no offense, we’ve had delicious seafood meals in the last few months with a few meat dishes here and there that were not of your own doing, but…couldn’t you just go ahead and hunt anyway? I’m sure most of us have already noticed by now, the shift in our eating lifestyle…”
“I suppose…” Lay mutters as the line fades into the air.
“But even if it isn’t about the food, you still have that exceptional skill. You’re quite an odd person of contrasting abilities, Lay…you know that? Being a healer as well. Archer and Healer never go in the same sentence.” Baekhyun and Lay chuckle at the last line.
“It's like I control life and death…” Lay notes. “And that’s a very strange thing…”
Aboard the Lucifer’s deck, Key is teaching Sehun how to work the crossbow, lending him one of his old training crossbows that he made, as the co-captains of Angel watch on.
“Keep your eye on the target but line your vision up with that hole on the bow. It’ll help you fire with accuracy, got that? You’re aiming for the chest unless you wanna make him drown in his blood by the throat.”
Sehun nods, and Key smiles proudly. The kid’s learned fast, Key thinks to himself, as he looks at the large canvas of an outline of a dummy placed at the pole of the mast. He sees some arrows right on the spot, the chest of the outline, and then a lot around the neck area. There are only a couple of arrows that are on the head, but these had been Sehun’s first few attempts.
“Key, you’ve been training with our youngest for the past forty-five minutes. Let him have a break; we need training, too,” Suho negotiates with the mechanic.
“I don’t need to train with you two lovebirds,” Key says with a sass thrown in the captains’ direction. “The first fifteen minutes of the hour, the both of you kept making gooey eyes and it made me sick watching little hearts float around your heads. Why did I get stuck with you two, I don’t even know…” He shudders, as he turns around again to work with Sehun. “Such annoying lovebirds…”
“How is that any different from you with Minho and Taemin?” Kris smirks as he notices Key tensing up. The taller captain recoils a bit under the light slap on his chest from Suho’s hand, despite the shorter captain having a half-amused, half-shocked expression.
“Yifan…” Suho mouths silently, his awed expression still on his face. Kris shrugs slightly, his smirk still on his face.
“For your information, Kris…” Key whips his head around to glare at the taller captain. “Between you and me, I’m not the one getting owned and whipped by my lovers.”
That wipes off the smirk off Kris’ face, and earns a chuckle from Sehun.
At the railings of the Angel’s side, not facing Lucifer, four young men are looking out to the cloudy horizon. D.O and Kai are in their little world, standing far away from Taemin and Zitao. Taemin does not mind, and so he takes his chance to learn a little bit about the priest next to him.
“So Zitao, you’re a priest… what’s your take on the prophecy?”
Zitao eyes Taemin warily. “What do you mean?”
“Don't you have some sort of…I don’t know, issue of conflict over this?” Taemin shrugs.
“Well, no, not really? I mean, in my time, being a priest didn’t mean it was all about faith. Being a priest was being a member of faith and reality. I could pray to the saints for miracles and divine intervention via angels, but I do happen to know that the different faiths tend to come from the same source of how it all began.
“It began with nothing. And from nothing, there was something. That something, led to many things. And the multiplication goes on from there. That ‘nothing’ was the very source of the different faiths we had…or have.”
Taemin’s brow creases in confusion. “So you believe in nothing?”
“No…” Zitao says sharply, “It takes a miracle for that ‘nothing’ to become ‘something’. We all believe what we want to believe, but the idea is that we came up with different foundations for our faiths from the same source of ‘nothing’.”
Taemin’s frown deepens. “So…with this prophecy… You’re saying that regardless of the faith in your time, these prophecies hold themselves to be beyond the reasoning of faith? Beyond the shamans’ understandings, the priests’, the monks’, all those religious figures’?”
“Yes. These prophecies do not specify for any religious faith. They are merely instruments of a time that once existed for a time that is yet to begin.”
“Instruments of time?”
“Mhm. Time is what we can also believe in. In time, everything has a purpose.”
- - -
“Joonmyeon, you wanna give it another go?” Jinki asks his younger friend, for Suho and Xiumin has been practicing on manipulating with water from the clouds below. Luhan, Kris, and Jonghyun are watching at a distance, and Taemin is with Key, Minho, and the rest of the Angel crew. It is the first day of elemental training after the training session the day before, and it is Suho’s sixth attempt to create fog. A few times in the first hour, he had succeeded in causing deluge and floods out of clouds; however, to control the floods and deluges in directions he wants them to move, that has been futile. This time in the second hour, they are practicing with a couple of puddles that are hovering above the deck by a few inches, thanks to Onew’s water manipulation.
Suho nods, staring at the puddles that were a few feet away from him, picturing the fog he wants to create. He recites the line in his head, “Vita aquæ, I call upon thee,” and begins to make the action of cupping water separately and raising both hands.
Two streams of water follow suit from the puddle, before they pluck themselves off, forming two small balls of water.
Suho groans and lowers his hands hastily. The water spheres drop down into the puddle a second later. “It’s not working, how else can I picture the fog in my head?”
“That’s what you’ve been doing?” Xiumin asks, his eyebrows shot up in surprise; Suho had never mentioned his technique when it comes to manipulating water. Xiumin has assumed that Suho knew what he was doing, until now when he sees Suho nodding with a confused look. He then sighs. “Remember what Luhan said in the Cordius, with the air molecules? And what we read in the books about molecules and energy?” Suho repeats a nod.
“In your head, try picturing the water molecules. Actually, always think about the water molecules. That’s what I do. Now, you want to will those molecules to move quickly, to bounce off each other. For me, I have to will these molecules to join together and push against each other, in order to get frost…ice, snow, whatever. It’s like contracting a muscle. When I want it to revert back to water, I release them and let them flow. If it also helps, your gestures should somewhat mimic that concept, as if you’re guiding the molecules to do what you will. Watch.”
Xiumin turns his attention to the puddles, thinking about the water molecules in them. He then balls up his hands into fists, and immediately both puddles freeze up.
When Xiumin relaxes his hands, the frozen puddles still remain intact. “See?” Suho nods in understanding before he catches sight of Xiumin’s hands. “But your hands…how are you keeping them frozen?”
“Because I willed them to stay like that. My hands are merely guides; they’re not the ones controlling the water. Now watch what I do next.”
Xiumin takes a deep breath as he moves his hands upwards against his chest. In a second, he lets out his breath while flipping over his hands and moves them downwards, as though he is pushing something down. The frozen puddles melt in time with Xiumin’s actions.
“Ohh…”
“Now, think of an action that is similar to controlling hyperactive molecules, and go from there.”
Suho turns his attention back to the puddles and this time, imagines the water molecules in them. Following Xiumin’s advice, with his mind, he wills the molecules to move in certain directions and bounce off each other in a controlled area. With his hands, he gradually stretches out vertically the space in between, as if playing an invisible accordion, wiggling his fingers while doing so.
It doesn’t take long before wisps of vapors emit from the puddles and, suddenly, fog is produced. As they watch on with looks of excitement, Onew, Xiumin, Kris and Luhan would not dare to make any sound; for fear that Suho’s focus may be interrupted. Eyes widening in gleeful surprise, Suho continues to stretch it further before he rotates his vertical space into a horizontal space.
The fog continues to float above the deck, the leftover puddles looking small.
“I did it…” The captain is awestruck, looking to Onew and Xiumin, before he turns his gaze to Yifan, beaming with pride. “I made a fog!” He sees Yifan smiling and nodding in return.
A thought appears in Suho’s mind, and the captain decides to try it out, glancing at he fog. He turns around full circle.
Nothing happens, because the fog still remains in its spot. The others are watching him curiously, wondering what is going on in his head.
Suho sighs before another thought takes over. Worth a try, he thinks. He then awkwardly moves his arms around himself in a circle a few times.
To everyone’s surprise, the fog starts to follow Suho’s movements, and in less than a minute, as Suho continues to motion with his arms, he finds himself walled in fog.
“Well, how about that, mates? Joonmyeon, you’ve done quite an amazing feat!” Onew praises his younger friend. “Quite a useful move you’ve learned to conceal yourself, and maybe more than one person,” he shrugs with a smile, “who knows?”
After a couple of hours have passed training with the ‘Water Team’ (courtesy of Onew), it is now the ‘Flight Team’ (also courtesy of Onew) to take up practice. Jonghyun goes below to summon Taemin for the training, and once Taemin joins the group, the session is underway, with Onew and the Water Team watching.
“Alright, so I’ve been told that I’ll be working with you guys, but uh…I can’t think of anything that I can do to help you out with your training. Jonghyun is probably more suited for this than I am, but I’ll watch and help when I can.” Luhan and Kris nod at Taemin’s words.
“How about we do some target practices?” Jonghyun suggests as he approaches them with medium-sized concave disks. “Luhan, you can toss these and control them in the air, while Kris, you fly up there and with your guns, fire at them.”
Before the training session starts, it has not occurred to the three Angel crewmembers that Jonghyun can fly, until Jonghyun sheds his coat that hides his wings and takes off into the sky like a bird. For the next half hour, the three men practiced with the targets, and Jonghyun gives Kris some tips while being up in the air as well.
Suho watches Kris with admiration for his agility in the air, the thrill rushing through him when he watches his partner perform dives and execute the targets without any struggles. Though he has no wings like Jonghyun does, Kris is able to control his body movements freely without any worries of external factors.
The sounds of Luhan’s “Go!”, the blank shots being fired, and the targets being blasted to pieces create a soothing rhythm that causes Suho to appreciate the moment, and just forget for a few moments that they are being chased.
Just then, an alarm sounds out in the air, a double pinging sound.
Suho thinks he is imagining it at first, but he soon realizes with a start that the alarm is actually happening, and he has an expression of amazement and glee on his face.
“What’s that noise about?” Taemin’s voice grabs Suho’s attention.
“Oh, that’s when the pendant call for one of us.” Suho shares a look with Xiumin, who is mirroring the same expression.
“Gentlemen, please report to the Cordius. The next pendant has sounded out the call.” Chen’s voice rings out from the mast.
He turns his gaze to Luhan and Kris who has just landed, and he feels relieved.
“Let’s go!”
- - -
As Suho enters the Cordius, he sees that almost everyone is there, gathered around the table with the holographic topography on it, while the others are following behind him.
“So where is this pendant, Chen??”
“It’s at a remote floating island, but the red dot is situated on a river in a jungle…” Chen studies the topography on the table, and he scrutinizes for a name. “Huh, would you look at that? The area near the jungle is called Weefyr. River, Weefyr. Gee…someone couldn’t come up with a better name than th-?”
“Hang on a moment…”
The crew of Angel looks to Captain Onew who is walking slowly to the table, glancing between the holographic globe suspended in the air and topography. His eyes finally rest on the topography and they hurriedly scan the area.
“This looks so familiar…”
“Uhm…” Chen’s eyes wander from Captain Onew to the map, uncertain with what part of the map is familiar to the captain. “There’s a temple nearby that’s said to house The Chalice of Ravyns.”
Captain Onew jerks his head upwards to look at Chen, and so does the rest of the Lucifer crew.
“The Chalice of Ravyns?” The five members voice out at the same time, startling the whole Angel crew.
“Y-yeah…the chalice that’s said to contain the…”
“The intelligence of the gods,” Taemin finishes. “We know. I mean, well, we have it.”
Chen’s eyes widen in surprise. “You have it?”
“We…went there once…”
“You have it??” Chen repeats, looking shocked.
“Yes…”
“Wait, what’s the big deal with the chalice?” Chanyeol asks.
“It’s one of the most heavily protected treasures from the Old World. No one dares to get the chalice because no one ever gets out of the temple alive. Surely, you have heard of it, Chanyeol. It belonged to one of the ancient clans, the Veylsh. That temple’s been around in our time, too.” The navigator gives Chanyeol a pointed look.
“We came from a small town…” The quartermaster shrugs, as if it is an excuse enough.
“Well, you should’ve known your history prope-“
“Guys.” Kris’ voice booms in the room. “Lay’s pendant…where is it?”
“Near the jungle, I said!” Chen reiterates. “It’s right on top of a river…”
“…Right on top?”
“Yeah, the temple is supposed to house some kind of …underground…” - Chen looks puzzled because the land is obviously a floating mass according to the holographic globe - “lake…somewhere under the earth… It’s a freaking huge temple, though…”
“Okay, so how far is it and where?”
Chen studies the globe. “It’s about a three days’ trip…”
Kris sighs. “Even at the fastest speed?”
“Even at the fastest speed…we’re going against the winds, captain.”
“This kind of gives us some time to practice, though…” Suho reasons with his partner. “I would need the practice, at least.” Kris looks at Suho, and he doesn’t challenge it, knowing that Suho is slowly but surely making his way to mastering the water element.
“Uhm, I would need to agree with the captain on this. There’re some monsters, and dinosaurs with nerve-stunning bites.”
“ROO!” Jonghyun exclaims, looking like an excited puppy. “We’ll finally get to see Roo!”
“…”
“Who the bl-“ Chen begins to curse.
“Ahem,” Suho clears his throat.
“…blooming feathers is Roo?”
“One of the dinosaurs you mentioned!”
Key snorts. “You mean, his baby reptilian child… I see no difference between these two,” he states.
“But you can’t deny that he had grown on you, Key…” Jonghyun says smugly.
Key does not retort back upon that line, instead he ignores it and asks Chen.
“Do we have a name of that temple, or the deity, as I recall a week ago or so?”
“Mhm, Temple of Te’zeen, said to be the god of healing, which makes sense since Yixing’s a healer.”
“And Lay, did…Mama,” Key sounds skeptical as he directs the question to the said male, “tell you the name of your pendant?”
“Yes, she did, a few moments before Chen sent out the alarm. It’s Qi’Lin.”
Key hums thoughtfully.
Author: tikibuddy91
Characters: EXO, SHINee, mention of a surprise returning guest
Word Count for Chapter 7: 3800
Genre: AU, adventure
Rating: PG
Summary: Joonmyeon and Yifan, co-captains of Angel and Dawn, are sky pirates of the New World. With their crew, they go on series of adventures of searching for their pendants before they find themselves deep into a chase for their lives. A chase that involves a new Eden, their Tree of Life, and a Time Machine and its portals.
Author Note: It is inspired from one of my classic favorite fics from SHINee, Stranded, years back written by the wonderful pikagyu and then I came across these fanarts by Adamasto. I loved the concepts of the Old/New Worlds and sky pirates, so I decided to do something about it. :)
The boomerang clatters at Chen’s feet.
“Alright, try again.”
Chen groans, rubbing his shoulder and giving it a stretch. It has been only a week since the Lucifer met up with the Angel crew. Onew had already sent the letters thanks to Luhan’s eagles, and at one point, a question was raised about Lucifer’s concealment due to its assistance with Angel. Key had explained to Chen about the illusion spell he placed on the ship, and the whole crew of Angel was in awe. It also prompted Onew to summon a pseudo-cumulus congestus cloud to surround both ships, leaving a bubble of clear visibility for both crews on the Angel to work with.
Hidden in the clouds, the Lucifer crew had been training with the Angel crew on some days, often relaxing on other days. This day has been quite productive for everyone, and they have shown signs of improvement. Well, at least some of them have.
“This is the twentieth time already today…and my boomerang hasn’t returned to me at all. What am I doing wrong?”
Chen has received his wooden boomerang that was made by Key a few days ago, and has been practicing with it whenever the chance he gets. He read so much about the basic techniques of handling a boomerang and the applications, but when it came to doing it, his attempts were futile.
“What about those five times it did?” Luhan pipes up from the helm. Chen glares at him.
“You sabotaged it! Just like you did yesterday and the day before!”
“Me? Nooo,” the pilot of Angel guffaws. “Don’t be silly.”
“I’m not!”
“Calm down, don’t get your panties got in a twist. You know your throw is becoming very weak today…or maybe it’s actually your mind.”
“Shut it!”
“Chen, I really do think your arm is telling you it needs a break…” Jonghyun murmurs softly, standing next to the navigator. “You need to keep your emotions and distractions at bay, and keep focusing on the boomerang as the extension of your arm.”
“Extension of my arm?” Chen stoops to pick it up and rises back on his feet, scowling at the boomerang. “Well…My arm does feel like it’s already ripped off, sewn back, and the process repeat itself all over again.” He looks up to see Luhan happily sitting on the railings. “And Luhan, why don’t you freaking help me out here for a change, instead of sabotaging it?”
“Nope.” The pilot of the Angel shakes his head. “I’m only here to keep your boomerang at bay, if it ever goes awry out there.”
“Awry, my ass. You almost cost my boomerang a few times earlier today!”
“That was just for good fun, Chen…” Luhan chuckles.
Chen growls. He closes one eye, aiming for an invisible target in the sky, and hurls the boomerang. What happens next shocks the three of them, as the boomerang finally makes a come back. The three of them gape for a moment before Luhan yells at Chen to get ready to grab the boomerang. Chen braces himself as it nears toward him at an accelerating speed.
“OW!”
There is a noise of a clatter as the wooden boomerang falls to the floor several feet away from Chen, its momentum broken from colliding with Chen’s hand. Cursing, the navigator is shaking his hand to ease off the pain, while Jonghyun watches on flabbergasted.
“How could you miss that chance to catch it?!” Luhan yells. “You only had one out of two chances, two easy chances by the way, and you failed to catch it??”
“Easy for you to say, you can just stop it with your mind…you mind freak,” Chen growls under his breath as he walks toward his boomerang.
“I heard that!” Chen whirls around and looks up, startled.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“No, but your voice was being annoying in my head,” Luhan smirks. “Seriously, Chen, even if you whisper or not say a word, no matter how much your brain tries to shut off its voice, I will still hear it.”
- - -
Meanwhile, Jinki is mentoring Xiumin on his sword techniques and sparring with bamboo sticks. Minho is also sparring with Chanyeol, giving him pep talks throughout their practice. Neither of them has broken a sweat yet, a little breathless. The intermittent clack-clack sounds of the clashing poles offset the swoosh sounds of the scabbards and Minho’s voice. They go at each other every other day, while in other days, Jinki and Taemin would practice with Angel’s four eldest members.
But today is sparring day for Xiumin and Chanyeol. Baekhyun and Lay are watching nearby, with Lay’s archery equipment standing between them.
“Would you look at these guys? They’re crazy good. No, not even good, they’re amazing…” Baekhyun murmurs in awe, complimenting the two Lucifer crewmembers. Lay nods as he watches the scene. “But I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve been around for so long, training in combat with the enemies and monsters.”
Baekhyun fiddles with one of Lay’s arrows grouped in a case. “Why didn’t you ever put your archery skills into good use ever since Luhan turned twenty-one, twenty-one and he got his pendant? We knew by now he’s a telepath, but ever since he revealed to us that he is one, you stopped using your bow and arrows at all. You haven’t even been practicing the past few days…“
Lay shrugs as he runs a finger along the string of his bow. “I figured since he was going to be a telepath, what with communicating almost all beings, and I usually hunt for game, I wouldn’t dare harm them, except for those in water. It’s hard not to feel guilty if I did something unto an animal that Luhan might find helpful. So I stay away from them unless Luhan tells me it is alright.”
“Well, okay but you are also helping D.O with his cooking supply of food, think about that. I mean, no offense, we’ve had delicious seafood meals in the last few months with a few meat dishes here and there that were not of your own doing, but…couldn’t you just go ahead and hunt anyway? I’m sure most of us have already noticed by now, the shift in our eating lifestyle…”
“I suppose…” Lay mutters as the line fades into the air.
“But even if it isn’t about the food, you still have that exceptional skill. You’re quite an odd person of contrasting abilities, Lay…you know that? Being a healer as well. Archer and Healer never go in the same sentence.” Baekhyun and Lay chuckle at the last line.
“It's like I control life and death…” Lay notes. “And that’s a very strange thing…”
Aboard the Lucifer’s deck, Key is teaching Sehun how to work the crossbow, lending him one of his old training crossbows that he made, as the co-captains of Angel watch on.
“Keep your eye on the target but line your vision up with that hole on the bow. It’ll help you fire with accuracy, got that? You’re aiming for the chest unless you wanna make him drown in his blood by the throat.”
Sehun nods, and Key smiles proudly. The kid’s learned fast, Key thinks to himself, as he looks at the large canvas of an outline of a dummy placed at the pole of the mast. He sees some arrows right on the spot, the chest of the outline, and then a lot around the neck area. There are only a couple of arrows that are on the head, but these had been Sehun’s first few attempts.
“Key, you’ve been training with our youngest for the past forty-five minutes. Let him have a break; we need training, too,” Suho negotiates with the mechanic.
“I don’t need to train with you two lovebirds,” Key says with a sass thrown in the captains’ direction. “The first fifteen minutes of the hour, the both of you kept making gooey eyes and it made me sick watching little hearts float around your heads. Why did I get stuck with you two, I don’t even know…” He shudders, as he turns around again to work with Sehun. “Such annoying lovebirds…”
“How is that any different from you with Minho and Taemin?” Kris smirks as he notices Key tensing up. The taller captain recoils a bit under the light slap on his chest from Suho’s hand, despite the shorter captain having a half-amused, half-shocked expression.
“Yifan…” Suho mouths silently, his awed expression still on his face. Kris shrugs slightly, his smirk still on his face.
“For your information, Kris…” Key whips his head around to glare at the taller captain. “Between you and me, I’m not the one getting owned and whipped by my lovers.”
That wipes off the smirk off Kris’ face, and earns a chuckle from Sehun.
At the railings of the Angel’s side, not facing Lucifer, four young men are looking out to the cloudy horizon. D.O and Kai are in their little world, standing far away from Taemin and Zitao. Taemin does not mind, and so he takes his chance to learn a little bit about the priest next to him.
“So Zitao, you’re a priest… what’s your take on the prophecy?”
Zitao eyes Taemin warily. “What do you mean?”
“Don't you have some sort of…I don’t know, issue of conflict over this?” Taemin shrugs.
“Well, no, not really? I mean, in my time, being a priest didn’t mean it was all about faith. Being a priest was being a member of faith and reality. I could pray to the saints for miracles and divine intervention via angels, but I do happen to know that the different faiths tend to come from the same source of how it all began.
“It began with nothing. And from nothing, there was something. That something, led to many things. And the multiplication goes on from there. That ‘nothing’ was the very source of the different faiths we had…or have.”
Taemin’s brow creases in confusion. “So you believe in nothing?”
“No…” Zitao says sharply, “It takes a miracle for that ‘nothing’ to become ‘something’. We all believe what we want to believe, but the idea is that we came up with different foundations for our faiths from the same source of ‘nothing’.”
Taemin’s frown deepens. “So…with this prophecy… You’re saying that regardless of the faith in your time, these prophecies hold themselves to be beyond the reasoning of faith? Beyond the shamans’ understandings, the priests’, the monks’, all those religious figures’?”
“Yes. These prophecies do not specify for any religious faith. They are merely instruments of a time that once existed for a time that is yet to begin.”
“Instruments of time?”
“Mhm. Time is what we can also believe in. In time, everything has a purpose.”
- - -
“Joonmyeon, you wanna give it another go?” Jinki asks his younger friend, for Suho and Xiumin has been practicing on manipulating with water from the clouds below. Luhan, Kris, and Jonghyun are watching at a distance, and Taemin is with Key, Minho, and the rest of the Angel crew. It is the first day of elemental training after the training session the day before, and it is Suho’s sixth attempt to create fog. A few times in the first hour, he had succeeded in causing deluge and floods out of clouds; however, to control the floods and deluges in directions he wants them to move, that has been futile. This time in the second hour, they are practicing with a couple of puddles that are hovering above the deck by a few inches, thanks to Onew’s water manipulation.
Suho nods, staring at the puddles that were a few feet away from him, picturing the fog he wants to create. He recites the line in his head, “Vita aquæ, I call upon thee,” and begins to make the action of cupping water separately and raising both hands.
Two streams of water follow suit from the puddle, before they pluck themselves off, forming two small balls of water.
Suho groans and lowers his hands hastily. The water spheres drop down into the puddle a second later. “It’s not working, how else can I picture the fog in my head?”
“That’s what you’ve been doing?” Xiumin asks, his eyebrows shot up in surprise; Suho had never mentioned his technique when it comes to manipulating water. Xiumin has assumed that Suho knew what he was doing, until now when he sees Suho nodding with a confused look. He then sighs. “Remember what Luhan said in the Cordius, with the air molecules? And what we read in the books about molecules and energy?” Suho repeats a nod.
“In your head, try picturing the water molecules. Actually, always think about the water molecules. That’s what I do. Now, you want to will those molecules to move quickly, to bounce off each other. For me, I have to will these molecules to join together and push against each other, in order to get frost…ice, snow, whatever. It’s like contracting a muscle. When I want it to revert back to water, I release them and let them flow. If it also helps, your gestures should somewhat mimic that concept, as if you’re guiding the molecules to do what you will. Watch.”
Xiumin turns his attention to the puddles, thinking about the water molecules in them. He then balls up his hands into fists, and immediately both puddles freeze up.
When Xiumin relaxes his hands, the frozen puddles still remain intact. “See?” Suho nods in understanding before he catches sight of Xiumin’s hands. “But your hands…how are you keeping them frozen?”
“Because I willed them to stay like that. My hands are merely guides; they’re not the ones controlling the water. Now watch what I do next.”
Xiumin takes a deep breath as he moves his hands upwards against his chest. In a second, he lets out his breath while flipping over his hands and moves them downwards, as though he is pushing something down. The frozen puddles melt in time with Xiumin’s actions.
“Ohh…”
“Now, think of an action that is similar to controlling hyperactive molecules, and go from there.”
Suho turns his attention back to the puddles and this time, imagines the water molecules in them. Following Xiumin’s advice, with his mind, he wills the molecules to move in certain directions and bounce off each other in a controlled area. With his hands, he gradually stretches out vertically the space in between, as if playing an invisible accordion, wiggling his fingers while doing so.
It doesn’t take long before wisps of vapors emit from the puddles and, suddenly, fog is produced. As they watch on with looks of excitement, Onew, Xiumin, Kris and Luhan would not dare to make any sound; for fear that Suho’s focus may be interrupted. Eyes widening in gleeful surprise, Suho continues to stretch it further before he rotates his vertical space into a horizontal space.
The fog continues to float above the deck, the leftover puddles looking small.
“I did it…” The captain is awestruck, looking to Onew and Xiumin, before he turns his gaze to Yifan, beaming with pride. “I made a fog!” He sees Yifan smiling and nodding in return.
A thought appears in Suho’s mind, and the captain decides to try it out, glancing at he fog. He turns around full circle.
Nothing happens, because the fog still remains in its spot. The others are watching him curiously, wondering what is going on in his head.
Suho sighs before another thought takes over. Worth a try, he thinks. He then awkwardly moves his arms around himself in a circle a few times.
To everyone’s surprise, the fog starts to follow Suho’s movements, and in less than a minute, as Suho continues to motion with his arms, he finds himself walled in fog.
“Well, how about that, mates? Joonmyeon, you’ve done quite an amazing feat!” Onew praises his younger friend. “Quite a useful move you’ve learned to conceal yourself, and maybe more than one person,” he shrugs with a smile, “who knows?”
After a couple of hours have passed training with the ‘Water Team’ (courtesy of Onew), it is now the ‘Flight Team’ (also courtesy of Onew) to take up practice. Jonghyun goes below to summon Taemin for the training, and once Taemin joins the group, the session is underway, with Onew and the Water Team watching.
“Alright, so I’ve been told that I’ll be working with you guys, but uh…I can’t think of anything that I can do to help you out with your training. Jonghyun is probably more suited for this than I am, but I’ll watch and help when I can.” Luhan and Kris nod at Taemin’s words.
“How about we do some target practices?” Jonghyun suggests as he approaches them with medium-sized concave disks. “Luhan, you can toss these and control them in the air, while Kris, you fly up there and with your guns, fire at them.”
Before the training session starts, it has not occurred to the three Angel crewmembers that Jonghyun can fly, until Jonghyun sheds his coat that hides his wings and takes off into the sky like a bird. For the next half hour, the three men practiced with the targets, and Jonghyun gives Kris some tips while being up in the air as well.
Suho watches Kris with admiration for his agility in the air, the thrill rushing through him when he watches his partner perform dives and execute the targets without any struggles. Though he has no wings like Jonghyun does, Kris is able to control his body movements freely without any worries of external factors.
The sounds of Luhan’s “Go!”, the blank shots being fired, and the targets being blasted to pieces create a soothing rhythm that causes Suho to appreciate the moment, and just forget for a few moments that they are being chased.
Just then, an alarm sounds out in the air, a double pinging sound.
Suho thinks he is imagining it at first, but he soon realizes with a start that the alarm is actually happening, and he has an expression of amazement and glee on his face.
“What’s that noise about?” Taemin’s voice grabs Suho’s attention.
“Oh, that’s when the pendant call for one of us.” Suho shares a look with Xiumin, who is mirroring the same expression.
“Gentlemen, please report to the Cordius. The next pendant has sounded out the call.” Chen’s voice rings out from the mast.
He turns his gaze to Luhan and Kris who has just landed, and he feels relieved.
“Let’s go!”
- - -
As Suho enters the Cordius, he sees that almost everyone is there, gathered around the table with the holographic topography on it, while the others are following behind him.
“So where is this pendant, Chen??”
“It’s at a remote floating island, but the red dot is situated on a river in a jungle…” Chen studies the topography on the table, and he scrutinizes for a name. “Huh, would you look at that? The area near the jungle is called Weefyr. River, Weefyr. Gee…someone couldn’t come up with a better name than th-?”
“Hang on a moment…”
The crew of Angel looks to Captain Onew who is walking slowly to the table, glancing between the holographic globe suspended in the air and topography. His eyes finally rest on the topography and they hurriedly scan the area.
“This looks so familiar…”
“Uhm…” Chen’s eyes wander from Captain Onew to the map, uncertain with what part of the map is familiar to the captain. “There’s a temple nearby that’s said to house The Chalice of Ravyns.”
Captain Onew jerks his head upwards to look at Chen, and so does the rest of the Lucifer crew.
“The Chalice of Ravyns?” The five members voice out at the same time, startling the whole Angel crew.
“Y-yeah…the chalice that’s said to contain the…”
“The intelligence of the gods,” Taemin finishes. “We know. I mean, well, we have it.”
Chen’s eyes widen in surprise. “You have it?”
“We…went there once…”
“You have it??” Chen repeats, looking shocked.
“Yes…”
“Wait, what’s the big deal with the chalice?” Chanyeol asks.
“It’s one of the most heavily protected treasures from the Old World. No one dares to get the chalice because no one ever gets out of the temple alive. Surely, you have heard of it, Chanyeol. It belonged to one of the ancient clans, the Veylsh. That temple’s been around in our time, too.” The navigator gives Chanyeol a pointed look.
“We came from a small town…” The quartermaster shrugs, as if it is an excuse enough.
“Well, you should’ve known your history prope-“
“Guys.” Kris’ voice booms in the room. “Lay’s pendant…where is it?”
“Near the jungle, I said!” Chen reiterates. “It’s right on top of a river…”
“…Right on top?”
“Yeah, the temple is supposed to house some kind of …underground…” - Chen looks puzzled because the land is obviously a floating mass according to the holographic globe - “lake…somewhere under the earth… It’s a freaking huge temple, though…”
“Okay, so how far is it and where?”
Chen studies the globe. “It’s about a three days’ trip…”
Kris sighs. “Even at the fastest speed?”
“Even at the fastest speed…we’re going against the winds, captain.”
“This kind of gives us some time to practice, though…” Suho reasons with his partner. “I would need the practice, at least.” Kris looks at Suho, and he doesn’t challenge it, knowing that Suho is slowly but surely making his way to mastering the water element.
“Uhm, I would need to agree with the captain on this. There’re some monsters, and dinosaurs with nerve-stunning bites.”
“ROO!” Jonghyun exclaims, looking like an excited puppy. “We’ll finally get to see Roo!”
“…”
“Who the bl-“ Chen begins to curse.
“Ahem,” Suho clears his throat.
“…blooming feathers is Roo?”
“One of the dinosaurs you mentioned!”
Key snorts. “You mean, his baby reptilian child… I see no difference between these two,” he states.
“But you can’t deny that he had grown on you, Key…” Jonghyun says smugly.
Key does not retort back upon that line, instead he ignores it and asks Chen.
“Do we have a name of that temple, or the deity, as I recall a week ago or so?”
“Mhm, Temple of Te’zeen, said to be the god of healing, which makes sense since Yixing’s a healer.”
“And Lay, did…Mama,” Key sounds skeptical as he directs the question to the said male, “tell you the name of your pendant?”
“Yes, she did, a few moments before Chen sent out the alarm. It’s Qi’Lin.”
Key hums thoughtfully.