wc: 2043

"Grian," someone whispered, shaking him awake. "Wake up, idiot."

He blearily squinted at the ceiling, whacking whoever it was on the wrist. Further inspection showed that the culprit had been Joel, and Grian groaned. A glance around the room at all the sleeping hermits meant that it was probably early morning.

"Whaddya want?" he mumbled, sitting up on the mat he had slept on and stretching.

"We're about to send off all the copies of the thing you wrote," Joel whispered. "I was checking the papers and stuff, and it seems like the info that you escaped has been pretty widespread." He smirked. "The Listeners that work here are very good at their jobs."

Grian straightened, black spilling into the roots with a quick brush of his hand over his head. "What time is it?"

"Right before sunrise," Joel replied, standing with Grian as they moved out the door. "Once the sun rises, it'll be morning grocery runs and going to work, so that's when we plan to distribute it." He handed Grian a strange, heavy cloak. Grian took it with a confused face, tugging it on over his wrinkled shirt.

"What's this for?" he asked, feeling the heavy fabric weighing down on his shoulders. He was surprised to realize that there were no wing holes.

"It's for veterans of war," Joel told him. "A lot of soldiers lose their wings, since they're the most vulnerable parts of our bodies. These cloaks are pretty well known."

Grian thanked him with a nod, throat tight. "Does this mean I'm going out into the city?"

Joel nodded. "Here's the plan. We're going to spread out over the city." Joel opened his hand, a stack of flyers appearing in it. "Fly over, and then drop it and let 'em fly." He grinned.

"How are you guys going to get in the air?" Grian asked. It would be suspicious for them to fly any higher than normal air traffic height, and they definitely couldn't do it from there.

Joel looked surprised for a moment. "Oh, you didn't know? Since you've escaped, there's been a ban on flying. Everyone has to get everywhere on foot. If we go from the back of the mountain, then we can lift off without anyone noticing, probably." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "Worst case scenario, your friends brought some incredibly helpful and illegal potions over, so we'll be fine if we borrow some of those."

"Nice plan," Grian said. They made their way into the conference room.

A group of Listeners stood in the room, talking quietly. Stacks of flyers littered the table. There were a couple bottles of invisibility potions, but other than that, their seemed to be no other equipment. Grian noticed out of the corner of his eye that a stack of books that Stress hadn't put back was sitting at the edge of the table.

The group hushed when Grian walked in. There was a moment of awkward silence.

"Um, hi," Grian said, giving a little wave.

A couple people waved back, surprisingly friendly. A couple came up, wanting to shake hands; the rest of the group followed, and Grian hoped his face wasn't too red as his arm was enthusiastically pumped by a rather excited Listener. "No, no, the- the honor's all mine," he kept repeating, as more and more people gushed their admiration.

Joel elbowed him once the crowd had dispersed. "Quite the celebrity," he teased, laughing at Grian's red complexion. He received a slap on the arm in return.

"Here's the plan," Joel said, raising his voice over the group. "Grian here and three others will spread out in the city to see how well the notes are received. The rest of us will go out with stacks of paper and drop them from the sky all over the city." His smile was huge. "Xerion told me to do something more lowkey, but who cares what he thinks!"

Someone whooped in response. Grian sighed.

"The flyers will head out of the mountain through the back," Joel explained. "Lift off to higher than eye sight. You each were given an invisibility potion as back up. Use as needed. People on the floor, all you have to do is tell the guards you've been called to help with a work emergency. Here's some notes." He handed them out. "The guards here are very lax, so don't worry about it."

There were some murmurs of agreement, and after handing out supplies, the group was off.

Grian and three others made their way to the exit of the base. He let them show him how to get out, and after pushing slightly on a wall, he appeared next to the cracked stone again.

"This way," said a Listener, securing a mask on his face. Grian made sure his own was attached correctly, and the group made their way.

Like Joel had told them while they were prepping, the guards now were different. They didn't bat an eye as the group showed them the fake note, and before Grian knew it, he was alone, walking with the pack of Watchers down the streets of the city.

With air traffic completely closed, everyone was forced to walk in lines down the streets in orderly fashion. The few that owned carriage cars had to give them up to be used as taxis and transportation for soldiers, Grian had heard.

Guards holding heavy spears directed the traffic, pushing people who stepped out of line back into place. Grian saw a line of children going to school holding onto each other's shoulder so as not to step out of place; one child released a hand to look at a leaf blowing through the air and was given a smack across the wrist.

This is terrible, Grian thought, trying to keep his face straight as he slowly followed the lines. He noticed some people staring at him, and for a moment he wondered if his disguise was lacking, until he remembered that he was wearing a veteran's cloak. A lady on the line to his left bowed her head, but most others seemed wary of him.

That's a good thing, though, he reminded himself, squaring his shoulders. It means they don't like that I was a soldier. They don't like the war.

The lines were incredibly slow; Grian struggled not to yawn as he took synchronized steps with everyone else. He glanced up at the sky, wondering whether the others had made it into the air without too much struggle. The work location on his paper was somewhere on the opposite side of the city so that he'd have plenty of time, and if the plan worked, then he would have plenty of time to quickly switch lines in the chaos and make it back.

About fifteen minutes later, Grian saw the first paper tumble through the air. It fell onto the cobblestones, quickly getting trampled afoot.

And then, a flood. Flyers whooshed in from above, swirling papers forming whirlwinds; people gasped in surprise, and some reached out to nab one. Guards flared their wings, shooting into the air, but there were too many to just simple destroy at once.

The people began to murmur, and the air suddenly filled with noise compared to the silent footsteps from before. Rustles of paper and quiet conversations involved into excited talking. Grian himself took one out of the air, pretending to read its contents as if he didn't already know.

"Oh my gods," an elderly lady behind him said excitedly. "It's happening. They're going to save us."

"And how would you know that?" a gruff man behind her said, tossing his own paper away.

"They have the Leader!" the elderly lady said. "We're going to be free from this misery, just you wait." She placed a hand on Grian's shoulder, and he almost jumped. "You hear that, young man?"

"How do you know that's the Leader? I just want to get to work," the man muttered.

"You young people don't understand," she said passionately. "We used to be much better than this. We used to have freedom, and we didn't take innocent lives for no reason." Her eyes sparkled as she looked down at the paper. "Whoever this is, I hope they win."

The chaos seemed to filter out of Grian's ears as he gazed up at the sky, watching the papers flutter down and the people rejoice. Guards roared for them to move along, and they obeyed, but not quietly.

As Grian slipped into the line going the other way and made his way back towards the base, he thought about the situation.

He was currently in the Watcher world after literal years of running away, blending into the population. The Listeners were finally going to fight back. People saw him as a symbol of hope.

He almost wished that there would be a battle where he could settle everything once and for all, but he knew that there was a lot more to a resistance than that; the political aspect was something he had nearly no clue on how to go about. Am I a figurehead? Just like the Leader before me? He wondered to himself, then shrugged. If he was, at least this time the government would be one he could trust.

No, Grian was supposed to lead the battles, he remembered. He would train the resistance, somehow, and lead them to fight, and win. I wonder if I could singlehandedly take an army, he thought, staring down at one hand. It still throbbed. Probably not. They'll have much more, and I couldn't handle those soldiers from the main base. His hand curled into a fist.

When Grian had made it back to the base and shared what he'd seen, the others who'd stayed on the ground quickly agreed.

"I don't think we need to worry about convincing any of them," Joel decided, eyes alight. "We didn't have any problems when dropping any of the papers. Good job everyone!" Grian hadn't seen him this excited yet, and it was pretty amusing to see him high fiving everyone, a more relaxed grin splitting his face.

"Joel," Grian said once the group had calmed down a bit, putting a hand on his shoulder. "How many people do we have that are capable of fighting?"

Joel gave him a weird look. "That's a rather negative statistic to be sharing on such a joyous occasion, don't you think so?"

Grian's hand slid off of Joel and he crossed his arms. "There's not much time to be celebrating at the moment," he muttered. "We have to keep moving, you know."

Joel sighed. "I honestly have no idea. You'll have to ask Xerion for that." He eyed Grian. "What are you planning in that dark shadowy head of yours?" He knocked on Grian's skull, and Grian swatted his hand away with a small smile.

"I have to prepare them somehow," he said quietly, smile fading.

"The bases we have all have leaders who were in the military," Joel pointed out as the two left the room. "Can't they train us?"

Grian shrugged. "Of course, but, we can't be equal to the Watchers. We have to surpass him."

"Him?" Joel echoed.

"Xeluph," Grian said. "When the Leader trained me, he taught me a lot about how the Watchers train and fight." He smiled. "He also taught me how to beat them, and it works. So I have to find a way to teach everyone."

"Hold on," Joel said, stopping in his tracks. "The Leader-"

"Yes, it was Xeluph's biggest mistake. Anyway," Grian pulled him to sit down next to him at a table, "I need everyone to know."

"How about you just teach the people who train everyone?" Joel asked.

"There's going to be variation though," Grian said with a frown. "I trust them, but I want to make sure everyone hears what's coming out of my mouth."

Joel sighed. "You're very stubborn."

Grian smiled. "It's my greatest trait."

"I don't know about that one," Joel retorted, standing up. "Anyway, how do you want to go about this?"

Grian shrugged, standing as well. "I'll go find Xerion first."

"I think he's talking to X, or whatever that guy's name is," Joel told him. Oh right, they're brothers. Come to think of it, Grian couldn't think of any moment where the two had been able to just sit down and have a conversation.

"When they're done, we'll find a way to make sure we can all fight," Grian said.

training montage?????

THANK YOU GUYS for 50k reads, this is actually insaneee! its easy to lose momentum when writing stories like this is and when you guys support me it gives me so much more motivation to keep going! ive grown a lot through this story, and i can't wait to see this to the end!

thank you for reading! have a good day or night, wherever you are!

-Ete