Of course, it had to be the other council members that we ran into, Xelqua thought to himself as he looked at the five faces in front of him. Flying in the middle was Gryff, he looked the same, Blaze was to Gryff's left, and his hair was longer than its usual length and looked more poofy than before, though it wasn't dyed which surprised Xelqua. Neferus was to his left, she seemed to have a few more scars on her face. To Gryff's right was Zyrex, who looked pretty much the same, his clothes just seemed more worn out than usual, and to his right was Kelin, who had shorter hair. They were decently far away to a point where he could still tell who they were but he wasn't able to see their expressions, and he didn't know what they would be like in this reality.

The five watchers each sent a fireball towards Xelqua and Astaria but Astaria was quickly able to pull up a shield. Behind the shield they waited as more and more fireballs were sent their way, they didn't know how long they would have to wait before they stopped attacking, and they also didn't know how much longer they could hold the shield. Astaria, having formed many shields in the past few hours as well as fighting with more magic, was running out of energy. Xelqua took upholding a shield instead, he had only done one so far and had more energy than Astaria obviously did. Xelqua really just wished he could talk to them, hopefully before they contacted any other watchers because then it would become much harder for the two watchers to get out of the situation.

The fireballs slowly trickled off and Xelqua looked up to see what was there, he couldn't see them anymore. He looked towards Astaria to see if she was able to tell where they were. However before he could ask she pulled him up into the sky, he was confused about why she did that until he looked down and saw a giant explosion happen beneath them. "How did you know that they would do that?" Xelqua asked the white-haired watcher.

"Occasionally I am able to access the 'unknown sight'. It depends on how much I am concentrating and it does take a bit out of me but I can do it," She replied.
Xelqua didn't actually know that she could do that, her ability of magic kept on impressing him since she kept doing things that he had rarely known watchers to do before. He then asked, "Do you know where the others are now? I can't see them anywhere,"

"Yes, I assume if you can't see them they might be using some illusion magic, which would make the thin magic barrier make more sense. You should enter your watcher vision," Astaria said, Xelqua did just that and soon he was able to see the outline of the watchers as well as the illusion magic.

Astaria seemed to intently focus on something and Xelqua didn't know what, he stayed quiet and prepared for whatever attack could happen next, but it seemed as though the others were just flying stationary discussing something, sometimes he wished that watchers could have some sort of magic hearing as well. It was when the others looked like they were done talking that Astaria spoke again, "I don't think that they are on the side of the other watchers?"

"What do you mean?" Xelqua asked.

"They were discussing how they were worried that we were going to call in the watchers as reinforcements," she explained.

"How did get that from here?" Xelqua asked, was there some sort of listening ability and did she actually hear them he wondered.

"I watched their lips, being in watcher vision all the time made me realise I could zoom in on others' conversations and see the way their lips moved, it's similar to normal lip reading. It's an easy ability to pick up if you actually try," she replied.
Maybe that's something he could try and learn if he had time to after everything that kept happening that is.

"Should we try and tell them that we are not on the watchers' side?" Xelqua asked.

"Yes, and you should do it," Astaria replied.
"Why me exactly, it's not like they know me anymore," Xelqua questioned.
"They would still know of you though, in this reality, you were the first watcher to leave. They should know who you are because they most likely left after you, because of you," Astaria explained.

It made sense to Xelqua so he called out to them, "We don't want to fight my name is Xelqua Carolus,"
Xelqua could see the change in their body language, surprise was evident based on their movement, they said something and Xelqua tried to see if he could make out any of the words. He couldn't though and hoped that Astaria would tell him what they said. He could tell that they stopped so he turned to Astaria to see if she saw what they said. Having seen the lips moving Astaria said, "They don't know if they believe you and they are about to offer a truce,"

"We would like to see if what you claim is true," The voice of Gryff called out.

"Okay, as we said we don't want to attack and will hold true to our word," Xelqua replied.

It was only a few seconds later when illusion magic disappeared and Xelqua switched back to his normal vision. He was now able to see his friends' faces, their eyes seemed so much duller in this reality. Yet it also seemed the like the other council members also retained some of their free wills as they weren't on the side of the watchers anymore, just like him. He and Astaria came closer, trying their best to not look as though they were going to attack. The five watchers looking at them all looked as though they could attack at any second but they weren't going to, at least not yet anyways. He could tell by the way that their posture changed once again that they recognised him, which actually Astaria said would happen but he didn't really believe it until now.

"So Xelqua Carolus what are you doing just outside of watcher territory?" Gryff asked.

Xelqua felt weird having his friend call him by his full name but he knew that he needed to persist onwards, he could feel that they were nearing close to where they needed to be. "We are going to face some specific watchers that are hiding past watcher territory," he explained.

"Which watchers do you think are hiding past the watcher territory?" Blaze asked, it was weird seeing him so serious compared to the fun-loving watcher he was.

This time Astaria answered, "Watchers who should have passed long ago,"

"And who are you?" Kelin asked turning towards Astaria.

"A watcher who is here to fix everything," she replied.

"What do you mean fix everything? Isn't your goal to defeat the so-called watchers you were talking about," Gryff asked.

Xelqua thought that Astaria had slipped up but she didn't seem to be fazed by what was said. She then honestly replied, "This isn't the right reality, things here are different,"

"Do you have any proof?" Neferus asked, which was a logical question to ask, but Xelqua knew that he couldn't just say their names since they might have thought that he knew them.
Xelqua didn't know how to reply so he hoped that Astaria would for the both of them, luckily she did, "We came from Hermitcraft," She started, Xelqua could see Zyrex's ear perk up at that, "And if you check Zyrex you'll notice that you were unbanned a few months ago but at a time where the memory doesn't match,"
Xelqua remembered him getting unbanned in the right reality and he didn't know that things like that would carry over, but it would make sense since the spell wouldn't have focused on that.

He waited patiently as the watchers crowded around Zyrex to see if what Astaria said was true. It gave him some time to think and think about how he was glad that he hadn't had to hold a shield against the power of the High Leader since he knew that she would be able to get the upper hand. He wondered where she could be, his best theory was that she retained freer will than the others and got away at some point, at least he hoped that's what happened. He didn't know if the ones who made an alternate reality might have killed her to stop her from trying to out.

"Okay, we believe you," Zyrex said as the five watchers spread out once again.

"Is there anything that we can help you with?" Blaze asked, he seemed more like his normal self, less rigid.

"We just need to get past watcher territory, specifically to the Lyciris Isle, so if it wouldn't be too much to ask could you set a distraction on the opposite side," Astaria replied.

"We do that a lot anyway, and it sounds fun," Blaze said with a grin growing on his face, which reminded him more of the watcher that he knew.

Zyrex also seemed to share the sentiment because a smirk started to form on his face as well. Xelqua decided to add on, "There will most likely be different watchers attacking because the admins have a lot of them captured with power-damping cuffs,"

"Admins? Interesting. You mentioned a different reality, are we friends with admins there?" Gryff asked, curious to know if what watchers viewed as enemies were actually allies.
"Yeah, you five, six of the admins and Xelqua here are a part of a council that looks after all kinds of people," Astaria replied.

"Not to mention that one of them is Blaze's twin," Xelqua said.
"Wait I have a twin?!!?!" Blaze said, he seemed like he was so shocked his soul left his body.

"I suppose you do but let's get that distraction started so we can get back to that right reality," Gryff said, the watchers all nodded.

A flurry of byes sounded as they flew off in two different directions. 

WC~ 1703

A/N: Is it bad that I don't remember writing a chapter this long? I mean it has been a few months but still. Sidenote got really good results in my exams which I'm super happy about! Hope you are all having a great day :)