"Sagi, please call Aries back," Aquarius commanded. He was annoyed and angry. "There's something you all aren't telling me and I absolutely hate it. Comrades aren't supposed to hide things from each other like this." 

Quickly, Sagittarius moved from the couch to the hall. The Zodiacs could hear her knocking and saying something before they both came back to the living room. 

Every person in their group, including Virgo who left to talk with the pilot, had gathered in the living room. The ten of them felt quite awkward around the fuming male vice-captain, except Aries who had just entered the room and didn't know a thing. 

"Well?" Aquarius asked impatiently. He had known from the start that his four teammates were hiding something, but he didn't say anything because he was hoping they would tell the truth. Guess not. 

Aries raised an eyebrow in confusion, having just reentered the room. "Oh, this is about this morning, isn't it?" he asked. "Well, simply, we went to the rooftop to find organs floating inside a tube." 

His expression was so dull that it took some time for his words to register into some of the Zodiacs' minds. It sounded like he wasn't serious, whatsoever. Aquarius brain was one of the slow ones. It took some time before his frown deepened again. 

After helping Gemini sit down on the couch because her legs suddenly gave out, Taurus stood up straight and sighed. "Then, this man told us that those arms and legs and fingers are for the Ophiuchus project, so we figured these THIRTEEN people are gonna cut off the princess' organs, too." 

Aquarius raised an eyebrow, still frowning. If they knew all that, why hadn't they told the group already? He never liked liars and gossipers, even though this technically isn't a gossip. It just didn't amuse him when his teammates started acting all weird and suspicious. 

"He said he was kind of only looking for the royal family's organs, but I'm pretty sure all of them are still alive, right?" Pisces asked. During that time, Gemini didn't say a word. She looked the most uneasy out of them all, like she was traumatized. 

Well, at the moment, all twelve of them looked pretty much uneasy. Most of them looked shocked. Aquarius sighed deeply. 

"I don't enjoy hearing people lie in front of my face. It's not entertaining at all. More importantly, I don't think liars such as you guys deserve to be in my group; the Royal J254," Aquarius said with so much venom and annoyance in his voice. It wasn't hate, no. 

After that, the tension in the air got so palpable that you could probably cut it with a knife--though that would probably do you no good. Those four people glared at Aquarius with so much anger. 

The first one who spoke up was the captain himself. "Excuse me? Your group? Mind you, I'm the captain here," Aries reminded. The vice-captain wasn't the only one who was annoyed out of his brain. 

Aquarius chuckled. "Right. You are such a great leader, so great that you decided ditching class on your second day is tolerable. Especially bringing these other three people with you," he mocked with a roll of his eyes. 

Obviously, Aries showed absolute anger compared to Aquarius. Feeling pressed, the man kept trying to defend himself. "Right, I'm not the one who got the idea to ditch class at first. I'm not the one who said not to tell you guys about this-" 

"Aren't you the captain? Then, why are you letting someone else command you?" Aquarius mocked him again. He already knew Aries' weakness; he was easily overwhelmed with emotions, especially if his opponent didn't show any negative emotions. 

Once again, Aries was about to fire some more words when a girl shouted, "Shut up!" 

Gemini, the one who exploded, gave the two boys a glare that somehow sent a chill down their spines. "Look, we didn't tell you because there were cameras everywhere. And if it ain't obvious enough, they also record sounds. That Thirteen person, he might have access to the cameras. I don't want to risk that, but they already know. If you were such a great leader, Aquarius, you would've realized that. That's why that pilot imposter tried to deceive us! And besides, who were the one that suggested us lazy off this afternoon and then have a meeting later? Maybe you should reflect on yourself before you go around shouting other people are liars." 

Aquarius' eyes widened comically. He didn't expect that ourburst from someone who looked very scared a few minutes ago. Moreover, he also regretted what he said now--it was written all over his face. 

She took a deep breath, for she had said all that in just one breath. Gemini suddenly stood up, hissing when the unexpected pain shot up from her leg. She had forgotten about that because of her anger. "And I guess all you can do is blaming your teammates, Aries. What a great captain. If we didn't go to the rooftop earlier, the princess' body might have been cut into several pieces by next week." 

After that, she went to her dorm room and slammed the door. 

Taurus stroked his chin thoughtfully. He spoke, "You two might wanna apologize to her. Ditched class or not, I think we all believe she deserves more respect than you two do." 

Obviously, he gained two pairs of glares for saying those words, but the owners of those eyes didn't dare say another thing regarding that matter. 

Later in the evening, all the Zodiacs of Royal J254 gathered in the living room. Some of them were sitting on the loveseats, some brought their chair while the rest decided to stay standing. Taurus had moved the table in his room to the living room specifically for this meeting. 

"Apparently, that cursed being of an imposter had also cut off our connections to the higherups and other ships," Leo started. He figured they didn't need some kind of annoying starters like 'good evening' and stuff, so he just got to the point. Their Zodiacs group was an odd one, after all. 

Virgo coughed, trying to gain the attention of others. "Meaning, we cannot contact anyone else that the princess isn't being held in Earthland until our connection is reestablished. That would take around two days and we're gonna arrive in Marsland in a few," he said in that little voice of his. 

We don't have that much time, Aquarius thought. They couldn't just sit around doing nothing while waiting for the higherups to come. 

"Well, Pixle isn't that big of a town, but it isn't something that we can explore in a span of one day unless we split up," Libra suggested. She was standing up as she looked at her note, too uneasy to sit down. "Splitting up recklessly will also cause more troubles, though." 

Taurus nodded. He was one of those that were sitting down on the precious loveseat. "I actually found some good stuff from that imposter guy," he said, showing the a few papers they found inside the imposter's belongings. "And according to these, THIRTEEN's base is split up into two areas. One on the north of Pixle and one on the south." 

He put the papers down on the table, letting the others see. It was quite difficult reading those though, because most of the letters were somehow already erased or ripped. 

"Where is the base, though? A building? Underground?" Leo asked, trying to decipher the words in the paper. 

Taurus shrugged. "I figured they would be in buildings, but here are the addresses," he answered, pointing at another few impossible-to-read letters. "I'll write it down to make it clearer." 

Libra gave him two pieces of paper and let him borrow her pen. 

Marsland was a simple city with three towns; Vernas, Pixle and Tamlat. Pixle was inbetween those two towns and it also was the capital town of Marsland, making it one of the nine main capital towns. 

Capricorn stroked her chin and hummed. "Why don't we split into two groups? Six people each, easy right?" she suggested. 

Speaking of, Aries and Aquarius hadn't said a single word in this meeting. They were having chills run up and down their whole bodies because Gemini was still giving them the glare. The other members finally looked at them three, waiting for their judgement. 

Aries shrugged. "I guess that would be the easiest way, but how do we decide the groups?" he stated out another problem for the members. 

Gemini grinned and it was creepy, mind you. "How about we decide it by this?" she asked, putting a small glass filled with twelve folded papers. "Those who get number one can go to south, while number two goes to north." 

Even though it was such a random and unbalanced way of choosing their fate, everyone was either too scared to disagree or didn't have any other suggestion. 

"I'll pick first, then," Aquarius announced and took a single piece of folded paper from the glass. He opened it. "Two. Am going north." Luckily, he knew the area around because he had been there a few times. 

The rest of the group followed his lead, going along with this terrible method. The first group contained Gemini, Taurus, Pisces, Cancer, Scorpio and Virgo. They were going to the South Pixle while the rest of the group were going north. 

"We are going to arrive in thirty minutes," said the pilot using the ship's speaker. It was a very fortunate thing that Marsland is close to ZODIACS by ship. After they arrive, the pilot said he would go straight to repairing their communication system and is going to contact the school immediately. 

All of them suddenly felt chills running down their spines when they heard the pilot speam. Aquarius noticed Sagittarius knocking the table, probably a habit she had. "By the way, I found two maps about Marsland--one for each group, I guess." 

He gave the map to Aries and Gemini. The girl then passed it on to Taurus. "You can save it for now. I'll probably lose it if I were the one to keep it." 

Aquarius looked at his notebook. "A map, food, money, crystals, weapons. What else do we need?" he asked the others. 

All of them were actually clueless. They didn't know what to expect, seeing as it was their first mission and Ms. Lenate was too lazy to teach them a single actual thing about missions. 

Aquarius stepped outside the ship. In every city, there was always at least one large field specifically for battleships to park on; it was called the Zodiac airport, or for short Z-airport. Pretty simple. 

Each Zodiac airport must be able to contain at least twelve large battleships. By 'large battleships', it meant twice the size of Royal J254. 

The male vice-captain was really familiar about the north area of Pixle because his father used to bring him there a few times. He always told his child to not go south because apparently, it wasn't a very safe land. 

Since his family was quite fortunate, Aquarius and Pisces constantly got the chance to visit other cities. 

"You're familiar with this town, right? Lead the way," Aries said with a bored expressions. He had never been to Marsland before. 

Furthermore, the Zodiac airport they were in right now was actually located at the northern side of Pixle, which made it easier for the second group. 

"Alright, we're leaving, then," Aquarius announced. After rechecking if his things were inside his bag again, he led them outside the Z-airport and they started to walk along the roads of Pixle. 

Aquarius held the piece of paper containing the precious address in his hand. He thought about it carefully. 

"THIRTEEN" 

13, Boulevard rd., 

Springfield,

South Pixle. 

It wasn't that specific, but at least Aquarius knew where Springfield was. From there on, they could always ask someone. Well, that was the plan... 

Until everyone decided that the town was much more important than their mission and somehow split up without Aquarius noticing. 

It was when he was asking an old lady about directions. He asked, "Excuse me, ma'am, my friends and I need to get to this place-"  

She had unintentionally cut him off, the words slipped out of her mouth because of curiousity. "Where are your friends?" 

And then he looked behind him and realized his friends were all gone. Aquarius panickedly apologized and thanked the old lady and went in search for his cursed friends. He so badly wanted to scream his lungs out, but there was the possibility of them being kidnapped by those Thirteen guys. 

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Yola! Is everyone liking the story so far?
-J. x