“Why do we have to go this early?” I heard Emily complained behind me. We were walking through the streets of Yunan Citybase. Everything was quite but there were surprisingly some people already up and about, wheeling around fresh vegetables and fruits. One old man even had a cart of pigs.

“We don’t want to draw too much attention.” Ho replied patiently; he was walking in the front while the blond hair lady, Elizabeth was walking at the rear of the group. I stole a glance back and saw Tom drifting in the midsection of the group all by himself. He had obviously made no effort to befriend anyone. Not that I was surprise. That guy doesn’t warm up to people quickly.

Although I would probably count a group of hooded people walking in the middle of morning as weird, no one actually paid the slightest attention to us. Bemused I extended my mind around me and immediately felt a distortion around us. Someone in the group was either disguising us or covering us as we went.

Shrinking back before that person noticed me I looked around our group, curious to know who was sustaining the illusion. As I looked around I found a man in the other group looking around with a frown on his face too. Feigning interest in the old man that happened to walk past us with a carter of apples I observed him with the corner of my eyes.

He looked younger than I would expect for a ‘graduate guard’, probably in his early twenties. He was Caucasians with tawny dark hair and bright blue eyes. He was also very handsome, surprisingly so. A few girls in our group (including Emily) kept shooting him furtive glances. This was good, so he wouldn’t noticed me staring.  

We kept walking forward at a brisk pace, avoiding the people on the increasingly crowded street as much as we could. There were the occasional bristles past however they usually just shrugged it off as if they were used to it. They probably were.

It didn’t take us all that long to get out of the City gates. The guards simply let us past through when they saw Ho at the front. We were instructed to keep the hood of our jacket up to cover our faces so the guards couldn’t see our faces.

Outside the gate, the forest was exactly as I remembered it. The tall dark bamboo loomed over the sky like a never ending veil caging us in. Insect noises resonated around us and memories of infamous insect Legres flashed through my mind. I was sincerely glad we never had a run in with those things. They were most abundant in the old Africa.

After bashing through the vegetation for an hour we arrived at a clearing. Looking around I saw that this wasn’t a natural clearing. Although the marks were not recent, but you could see stumps of bamboos littered around sparesly, most of them burnt. A few groups were already in the clearing, including the Hunters.

The leaders exchanged nods and I saw Maria smiling brightly at the handsome illusionist in Tom’s group. The illusionist gave her a crooked smile in return before frowning back at our group, probably still trying to find me. I mentally made a note that those two had a thing going on; the dynamics of a family guard was just complicated.

It took another hour before everyone arrived at the clearing. Meanwhile the leaders set with each other, in a deep discussion of the plan ahead whilst the rest of us milled around like headless flies. I wasn’t sure if we were meant to do something together or what; but everyone were either too nervous or too excited to try.

“Hey.” A quite voice said too close behind me making me jumped. I whipped around to see Tom standing right behind me but facing to the right, making it appeared as if we were just standing nearby. I automatically elbowed him out of annoyance and he quickly turned to me and gave me an impatient look.

“We are not supposed to be seen talking to each other.” I hissed, making sure nobody was watching our exchange. Tom rolled his eyes without looking at me.

“I am not stupid.” He said, before continuing. “What is with you and blondie boy.”

Blondie boy? Did he mean Jeremy? I stifled a laugh at his use of words and he gave me another annoyed look. Okay…what had I done to piss him off?

“Nothing, he just likes to stick close to me ever since we found out our powers can work together.” I gave him a brief rundown of what happened at my group’s power showing.

After my explanation his frown seemed to have softened. He gave Jeremy an appraising look before telling me to be careful and sulked off.

Bemused I shook my head. Boys were weird.

When everyone had arrived in the clearing there were barely any spaced left to move around. We were packed tightly against each other and you couldn’t raise an arm without elbowing at least two people.

“Hello everyone.” Trevor’s voice bellowed across the clearing silencing the conversations. He must have used some sort of power because his shout left my ears ringing.

“Please group back into your designated team right now.” He called out; I looked around trying to find my teammates. The closest to me were John, I waved at him and thankfully he saw me.

It was like trying to move against the current, with people moving around trying to get to their group as well. I was making virtually no progress at all when someone grabbed my forearm and started tugging me forward with him.

Blinking I realized it was Vladimir, who was moving with surprising ease for a guy his size. People seemed to part way for him, with me trailing behind him. He had a firm grip on my shirt sleeve now instead and basically dragged me along his wake.

Luckily John had actually started moving our way too so we met each other midway. I could see the rest of our team making their way toward us. I noted that Kaily and Jeremy had stayed together during the whole fiasco.

“God, couldn’t they make a bigger field or something?” Jeremy complained when he finally reached us, slightly out of breath from all the pushing. Kailey huffed next to him in agreement and brushed back a loose strand of hair stuck to her face due to sweat.

By the time Emily reached us almost everybody had segregated. I looked up and saw the leaders’ faces were passive and stony, a wave of unapproval emitting off them. Kailey was looking uncomfortable as well, possible sensing the same thing. If this was a test for all of us, I was pretty sure we failed.

“Silent please.” Trevor shouted and conversations died again. He had a slight frown on his face mirroring the expression of his group. “I don’t know if everyone is aware of this, but we are outside the bound of a Citybase now.”

He paused, as if waiting for the information to sink in. “This isn’t some survival game you play in a simulation room anymore. Everything you do, every moment you waste in the wild can affect your chances of surviving. Here, there is no escape from danger, the only thing that is keeping you alive are your teammates and yourselves.”

Unease spread through me as Trevor talked, bringing back the memories of the three months we spent in the forest alone. I knew first-hand how hard it was surviving out here; I also knew that if not for Evanna’s power, we would be dead within the first day. The fact that the Hunters had been through what we had without it without any casualties was really quite an achievement.

“If you are all going to behave the way you did for the past hour, making noises and taking so much time to reorganized yourself, the chances are we are all going to be dead by tomorrow. If you are having second thoughts about becoming a guard, you can step out now; otherwise you would have to obey every command given by your leader and work as a team.” Trevor ended his speech and surveyed the crowd, a solemn look on his face. Silence descended on the clearing as everybody seemed to be too scared or intimidated to say anything. However no one stepped out and Trevor nodded contently.

“Good. Now let’s get back to business. We will start ascending the mountain on the west, this path is well used and there will be minimal danger. I want group 1 in the front, 2 and 4 in the middle, 3 and 8 in the left flank, 6 and 9 in the right flank, 5 and 7 in the back.” Trevor baked out orders and this time, everybody started moving swiftly.

Not entirely sure which left he meant, I followed my group as we marched in a single file moving in silent towards the what I assumed was the left flank.

“He’s so scary.” Emily whispered to Vladimir, who didn’t give any respond at all. I saw Kailey shuddered in agreement, Jeremy was nodding slightly and even John seemed a little put off. Before anybody had a chance to elaborate, Ho and Steven had joined us.

“How is everyone doing?” Ho asked, smiling at all of us. However I could tell he didn’t really care. Sometimes when people say something that they didn’t mean I can detect a funky signal from them, a little bit like a blipping sound.

Steven looked at us as well, his expressionless face giving nothing away. Emily smiled and declared loudly that she was never better. Everyone else just nodded.

“Good.” Ho commented and gestured for us to continue walking. “We will be in the inner left flank. There is not much to do for now except walking. But you will get to see how large scale mission works.”

Ho proceeded to give us a brief safety rundown of what to do when a Legre, or a group of Legre attack us. The key was to stay calm and form a circle facing out and try to keep the Legres back. And if they begin to overpower, then we must fall back in an orderly fashion and ask for help.

We were given three red flares each to use when in an emergency. It works like a match but you need to shoot it to the sky. “It’s not very common.” He added, “And if the Legre group is lead by anything higher than a Class B we are dead anyway.”

That’s comforting to know.

I fidgeted with the flare. They were about the size of a thumb, strongly resembling a rolled up red cardboard filled in with a candle-like appearance. I stuffed one in my trousers pocket for easy access and the rest in my backpack.

As Ho began to instruct us on the different formations we could form when traveling, I saw Tom’s group drew up next to us. My eyes widened in disbelief. Of all the dumb luck in the world they had to put him next to me. Why couldn’t it be Owen and Evanna? However I actually felt relieved that I had someone I knew close by; and Tom was really a softy under his tough boy exterior.

Our eyes connected as Tom recognized my group and he gave me a sullen look. I shrugged at him when no one was looking. Guess we were stuck with each other. My stomach twisted nervously as I stood on the right edge of the group, next to Kailey who was in the middle. If everything went as plan, we could be back to POE Academy in a few months’ time.

Briefly I thought about getting straight back to London, to my family. But almost as quickly as it came up I dismissed the idea; it would be impossible to cross ocean not to mention the how much further away it was. I sighed inwardly; the only way now was to take things as they came.

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Hey everyone :) sorry the chapter isn't that long :( but i couldn't find a better place to end. I realised I had been doing a lot of filler chapters lately...I should probably just get on the the main part of the story....damn my stupid carry-on-with-where-you -left-it writing habit.

Anyway hope you are all having a good summer! Hopefully I will upload again next week ;)

It's been super rainy where I am, let me know what you think about this chapter! Don't forget to vote ;D