The zodiacs were all in the living room. Everyone except for Libra and Virgo.

"They gathered us all here for "training". I wonder what we're going to do," said Gemini.

Gem shrugged. "If I were to guess, I'd say something related to training."

Gemini sighed. "Thanks smartass."

Cancer kicked Pisces off the couch. "Oops."

"That wasn't nice." Pisces hauled Cancer off the couch. That's when the couch wars begun. Virgo and Libra came back to see everyone except Aquarius sitting on the floor.

"Why does this always happen?" asked Libra.

Scorpio shrugged. "Cancer started it."

"No Pisces did!" protested Cancer. "He provoked me with his face."

Pisces fake laughed loudly. "Ahaha a joke about my face that's so funny."

"Anyway," interrupted Virgo. "Libra and I decided that-"

Everyone who was seated on the floor started talking loudly to drown out Virgo's voice.

"Excuse me!" shouted Libra. Complete silence followed. Everyone looked at Libra, waiting patiently for her instructions.

Virgo rolled his eyes.

Libra smirked at Virgo before continuing. "So, half of us are going downstairs in the training room to practice simulation training. Leo will lead this group and show them how to use the simulations. The other half will be led by me. We'll practice our powers outside. After a while, we'll switch up. After a few days of training, we'll use the simulation room to fight each other. There's an option called "battle mode" so try your hardest if you don't want to get your ass kicked by everyone else in a few days."

Virgo nodded. "So in the simulation training we have Leo, Taurus, Gem, Cancer, me and Capricorn. In the power training we have Aries, Gemini, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius and Pisces. Now everyone get in your groups and let's begin."

***

The simulation group entered the training room in the basement. Leo explained how to use it the same way Scorpio taught her.

"So I already entered the team so now you just enter the team member names into the computer like this." Leo added the names Taurus, Gem, Virgo, Cancer, and Capricorn in the computer as her team members. "See how there's a coloured border around your name?" Leo opened a drawer in the little cylinder shaped stand that the computer sat on. Multiple coloured bands sat in the drawer. "Take the band that matches the colour around your name. These bands track your progress as you train."

Everyone reached for a band and put it around their wrist. Leo held her hand up to the screen for it to be activated. The others held their wrists up to the screen to activate their bands one at a time.

Leo continued. "So now you just press the green button here. What type of training did we select again?"

"Running for your life," replied Taurus.

Leo nodded. "Right. The simulation will start when I press this green button. The simulations can't hurt you. If you get hit by something, your band will just turn grey. That means you're out of the game. It will show your scores afterwards and it keeps track of your scores to map your progress. Everyone ready?"

"Yes," replied everyone.

"No," replied Gem who was trying to be funny.

"Alright," then Leo pressed the button. The computer sank into the floor.

Everyone looked around in anticipation.

"How are we going to run for our lives?" asked Capricorn.

"Wait," replied Leo.

Suddenly a voice spoke over the speakers. "Level... One."

"Oh yeah," added Leo. "For this one there's different levels. It gets harder at each level."

Suddenly, a ball of light appeared in the centre of the room. Leo moved back, motioning for everyone else to do the same. The light disappeared, revealing a small simulation dog in the centre of the room.

"Run away from it," ordered Leo.

"Nah I planned to run and give it a hug," replied Capricorn.

"Three... two... one... start!" The dog chased after the others at a slow pace. It was quite easy to outrun it. Everyone ran around while Leo did cool tricks like jumping over the dog.

"Oh yeah, doing tricks and stuff gives you a better score," added Leo.

"Anything else you forgot to tell us?" asked Virgo.

Leo shook her head. "I think that's it."

After a few minutes of the the dog ran to the center of the room and a ball of light glowed around it again.

"It's evolving," joked Cancer.

"Level... Two."

The light disappeared to reveal a small shark. It swam along the floor at a faster pace than the dog, but still not too fast to outrun. When the zodiacs got tired, they led the shark over to someone else to they could catch their breath before it chased them again. Gem, Cancer and Capricorn tried to keep leading the shark over to Virgo so he'd eventually become too tired to outrun the shark. It somewhat worked.

Cancer sang the baby shark song at the top of his lungs the entire time. It annoyed everyone.

After the shark, a wolf appeared. It was harder to outrun. Virgo got hit by the wolf due to him barely catching his breath before someone led the wolf over to him. Virgo sat along the wall, panting as his band turned grey. Now he could watch the others.

Eventually everyone except Leo got hit. Leo managed to get a high score before she got hit.

Everyone's scored appeared on the computer screen.

"See, you can check your progress," Leo tapped on her name. It brought her to a screen that displayed lots of data, including a line graph that displayed her activity over the last week. She pointed to some more stats. "It shows how much you've improved at each type of training here. See, it shows what ones you're best at and which ones you need to work on too."

"You're best at target hitting? What's that one?" asked Taurus.

Leo smiled. "We'll do that one next. I'll let you guys catch your breath before we start the next one."

***

Aries, Gemini, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Aquarius and Pisces were in the backyard.

"So, What exactly do we do?" asked Aquarius.

Libra made a small air tornado. "The point is to use your powers to strengthen them and to increase your control over your powers. For example, creating a small tornado like this won't help me much. But if I do this," all of the sudden before anyone could react, they were all knocked over by a powerful blast of wind. "It causes a greater strain on my powers. Make sure it causes a strain on you when you make powerful things with your powers. Eventually your powers will get stronger and you'll be able to use them for longer. For now, we'll do a competition by elements to see who can use their powers the best."

"I bet I can make the coolest stuff with my water powers," challenged Pisces.

Scorpio smirked. "I've been training for a long time. That's not likely."

Aries looked around. "There's no earth signs here."

Sagittarius also looked around. "You're right."

Pisces started off small by making waves in the outdoor pool.

Scorpio smirked and made the water make the shape of a giant wave before lowering it all gently back into the pool.

Pisces made a giant water bubble using a quarter of the water in the pool. The water bubble floated around a bit before plummeting back into the pool. Pisces seemed a little out of breath.

Scorpio made all the water rise out of the pool, then she made it all fall, but the water curved around everyone so nobody got wet.

Gemini sighed. "Scorpio. You just drained our entire pool!"

"I'm not finished." Then Scorpio raised her arms and pulled all the water from the earth and made it all go back in the pool.

"Well, nobody is going to beat her, that's for sure," scoffed Pisces.

"How are you that powerful?" asked Sagittarius.

Scorpio shrugged. "Training was mandatory in Ingenio. Since I made my people train, I also trained a lot. That's why Ingenio is the most powerful out of every country."

"Let's go next," suggested Aries.

"Alright." Sagittarius started by making fire swirl around her.

Aries made a fire bubble form around her. Then it exploded, turning into ashes.

Sagittarius who was growing impatient, shot a fire blast at Aries. Aries made a fire shield. They both put all their power into their blast/shield until they were both panting and stopped at the same time.

"So they're both about equal in strength," noted Aquarius.

"We... used to... have little battles... with our... fire," panted Sagittarius. "We were always... about equal... in strength."

Aries nodded in agreement. "I'm... sweating."

"Now I guess it's us air signs." Gemini cracked his knuckles.

"Let's all just push wind at each other until someone gets knocked over," suggested Libra.

Aquarius nodded. "Alright."

The air signs aligned themselves in the formation of a triangle. Then they started blowing wind at both other air signs. Aquarius was the first one to get knocked over. Now it was just Libra and Gemini. Eventually Libra got too tired and got knocked over by Gemini's powers.

"So, what's next?" asked Aquarius.

"We need to keep training against each other to become stronger," explained Libra. "Next we're going to fight one on one."

***

Leo selected target hitting on the screen. "For this one, you just hit targets when they appear. The band will calculate how quickly you hit the target, and how accurately. So basically try to hit it as close to the middle as you can." She pressed the green button.

"Three... two... one... start!"

Simulation targets appeared around the room.

"You can use your powers since it's just simulation targets." Leo made a fire spear and threw it at a target, hitting the bullseye.

"She obviously trains a lot," muttered Gem.

Virgo launched a rock at a target. The target broke in half. The others were having trouble hitting the targets.

Virgo laughed. "You guys got me out first during the first simulation, now you can't even hit a target." Suddenly a bunch of wind attacked Virgo's hair.

Being petty, Virgo slyly used his powers to mess up Cancer, Gem and Capricorn so that they wouldn't hit very many targets. Taurus hit quite a few. Leo sat back to let everyone else try without interfering.

"Capricorn, stop throwing rocks. They keep bursting my water bubbles," demanded Cancer.

"I'm not aiming my rocks at your bubbles. I don't know how they keep going towards you."

Gem crossed her arms. "He keeps wrapping vines around the targets before my air currents can slash through them."

"It's not me!"

"Well, Taurus is too busy minding her own business and it's not Leo either," argued Cancer.

Gem slowly turned to look at Virgo. "Wait. There's also him."

"I'm not doing anything," Virgo smiled innocently.

Capricorn squinted his eyes. "Get him!"

Virgo ran out of the room with Gem, Capricorn, and Cancer chasing him.

Taurus shrugged. "More targets for me." Then she made a giant stone spike impale a target.

***

Scorpio watched as everyone fought with weapons made from their powers. She had to sit out because apparently she's already too strong.

Aries and Sagittarius fought with fire swords. Since air powers can't really form weapons, Libra and Gemini just kept making wind blow each other around. Meanwhile, Pisces couldn't do much because Aquarius used air currents to keep him suspended in the air.

"Let me down! This isn't fair!" protested Pisces.

Aquarius smirked. "But it's fun."

Pisces tried to use his powers but the air around him was too strong for him to shoot water anywhere.

"That's cheating," chuckled Scorpio.

Aquarius shrugged. Then all of the sudden a bubble formed around him. The bubble wasn't filled with water, so he could still breathe.

"Hahahahahaha," laughed Pisces.

Aquarius tried to get out of the bubble but it was too strong. "Well played, Pisces."

Scorpio was getting bored just watching everyone else. That's why she carefully watched the snow that was melting around Sagittarius and Aries. The fire swords were giving off enough heat that the ground below them became damp. They were also training awfully close to the pool...

Scorpio made all the water in the ground build up to form a wave. Her wave knocked Aries and Sagittarius into the pool which was ice cold during winter. Aries and Sagittarius screamed and quickly climbed out of the pool. They huddled together and caught themselves on fire for warmth.

"Isn't it cool how their hair and clothes don't burn when they're on fire?" asked Scorpio. "It's like the fire refuses to hurt them where they're fire signs and all."

The water soon evaporated off of Aries and Sagittarius. When they were completely dry, they chased after Scorpio. Scorpio ran away, laughing at them.

Gemini sighed. "I guess they don't want to get much practice in."

***

Gemini was in the study room. Since nobody ever used this room to study, he turned it into his own little office. Gemini was in the middle of pinning pictures to a wall, when the door opened.

"What are you doing?" Scorpio looked at Gemini suspiciously.

"I'm trying to figure things out," replied Gemini. "Why are you here?"

"I was in the training room but when I left I noticed the light on in here, so I came to investigate." Scorpio gestured to the wall with a bunch of pictures pinned everywhere. "What's that?"

"That's my way of organizing everything." A web of pictures of every zodiac was displayed on the wall with a little explanation of key points about them in under their picture. There was even a rough sketch of Pinky on the wall. "So that's all of us and the alternates."

"But... what are you doing with all those pictures? Trying to catch Pinky?"

Gemini closed the door before whispering to Scorpio. "I'll tell you what I know since you're the most trustable. Gina appeared in my dreams again. She told me that Pinky was this guy!" Gemini picked a photo of Leon off the wall. It was an old photo of him with a blond mullet for hair, and brown eyes. He had soft features and looked kind of... delicate. "Apparently he's been wearing a wig, make up and girls clothes to fool us into thinking our stalker is a girl, when it's actually him."

Scorpio took the picture. "You couldn't find any recent photos of the alternates?"

Gemini shook his head. "Only Pie and Gina. The others have always kept a low profile in public. They try to keep their identities a secret so there's no clear pictures of their faces. Most of their people haven't even seen them in a while."

"Interesting. Why didn't you tell us this earlier?"

"Because Gina also told me that Ophiuchus was going to infiltrate our friend group by pretending to be a new student, but she didn't do that. So I don't know how reliable she is."

Scorpio nodded. "So, what's that board behind us?"

Gemini turned around and walked to the other side of the room. "I'm trying to plot out the sequence of events." A piece of paper that read zodiacs created was the first piece of paper and each paper had an arrow pointing to the next piece of paper until the last one read end of war. "Something about the order of events doesn't seem right."

"What do you mean?" asked Scorpio.

"Ophiuchus tried to lie to us at first when she told us when the alternate zodiacs were created. Then she said they were created after we started ruling our kingdoms, to replace us. But remember, Gina and Gem attended all the coronations together from Capricorn onward. Since Gina was there, the alternates had to be created BEFORE we even started ruling, since Gina is the alternate Gemini. But that's not all! Gem said Ophiuchus threw her in the classes with the alternates for ruling kingdoms! Gem is an original zodiac that had a delay being created. Since I was already ruling over a kingdom by the time she was created, why was she put in classes with the alternates if she was never supposed to rule a kingdom? And since Gem was created after us but just a little bit before the alternates, that means the alternates must of been created not too long after we were! Which further proves the point that the alternates were created for another purpose than to replace us!"

Scorpio nodded. "That's true."

"See, something weird is going on involving Gem and Gina. Gem has a secret that got Gina killed. Gina is the only dead alternate zodiac. My theory is that Gem was put in the classes because they were training her to rule a kingdom in case something happened to Gina. Makes sense right? She would be an original zodiac covering for a dead alternate zodiac. But see, she's the only twin. No other original zodiac has a twin except for me and Gem. That could be because we're the twin sign... BUT somehow there's three Gemini, and one went to classes on how to rule a kingdom incase the alternate version of me and her died or something. But Gina DID die and she was the only one to do so, which is somehow Gem's fault! It's all related somehow, we're just missing one piece of information that's going to make everything snap into place!"

Scorpio kept a straight face as she took it all in. "You've really thought this through."

"We're missing something. But that's where THIS NOTE comes into place." Gemini took a photo off the desk. It was a picture of a note. "So remember way back when Pie was pretending to kill everyone to distract us or something? Well one of her "victims" had a note in her pocket. So I printed a picture of that note but as you can see, it's in a completely different language with an alphabet that our foreign language expert Aries can't even recognize. So back when we first started living in the mansion Aquarius and I searched in the library and online but we couldn't even find the language it's written in, let alone what it says. So Gina also told me where she left an important note. My spies checked it out but the note wasn't where she left it. I suspect THIS is the note she was talking about."

Scorpio sighed. "But isn't that just a guess?'

"Maybe, but it makes sense. Wait, so next time I see Gina I should ask if this is her note and if so, how would I find the language it's written in! Aha!"

"So that's all?"

"Nope! Gina said I was poisoned or whatever by Pinky because I was getting close to the truth or whatever. So... maybe I was starting to catch onto their plan? I did figure out that the whole Pie killing other royals was just a distraction. But what I want to know is how Leon is related to Ophiuchus if she's in no way involved in their plan, yet she knows why he's here. Also Ophiuchus is leaving the neutral continent soon. Leon may leave with her so this is all time sensitive."

Scorpio nodded. "Anything else?"

"Nope. But it feels good to share all that with somebody."

"What we should do now is plan a trap for Leon and try to get information out of him."

"I agree. We'll do it tomorrow."

"So here's what I was thinking." Scorpio whispered her plan to Gemini. Then they continued discussing the plan until they knew exactly what to do.