A beautiful garden with swaying willow trees that Willow immediately cooed at, standing up from their thrones, the 14 children stood, and looked around. The sun beat down, radiating joy and happiness, and everything was so incredibly beautiful. Jerome was a little rattled by it all, and stepped forward first. The grass soft under his school shoes, he inhaled once, deeply, and the scent of honeysuckle and daffodils dazedly invaded his senses. "Eden?" He asked curiously "Like that place...in the bible? With Eve? And the rib?"

"I hated that rib, Story," Amber stated matter-of-factly "Like...how can a woman be made of someone's rib? It doesn't even make any sense." She flicked her long blonde hair over her shoulder, turning to Alfie "Like...can he even survive with...wait, how many ribs would he have? Fabian?"

"Nine," the brunette nodded, swallowing thickly "Guys," he murmured "It could just be me, but could you do me a favour and check your powers?"

They did.

Only they didn't. Because they couldn't. Alfie and Amber shot each other worried glances, Mara rubbed her elbows, confused, but not too scared, and Jerome merely bit the inside of his mouth in mild irritation. Weirder things, after all, had happened. Mick, in a strange array of emotions, wondered whether this would mean his scholarship for the sports school would be revoked, since he could no longer run as fast as light, and the other part was disappointed that this power was gone. Yet, the disappointment didn't fit with the relief, and he felt himself twist his stomach into knots. Poppy instantly felt at a disadvantage, not that she read peoples minds all the time, only she had a small blanket of security around her with her power, and now that had been ripped away, leaving her cold and bare. Tristan didn't seem to care, nothing in this perfect garden would need to grow, none of the water needed manipulating. Patricia was far too absorbed in the gentle passing of clouds, the utter relaxation that this place seemed to provide. KT and Willow wrung their hands, Nina seemed utterly confused, and Fabian seemed calculating, still twisting his hands a little, to see if his powers would come back.

"It doesn't make any sense." Nina mumbled, brown locks being pushed out of her face gently with the guiding breeze "Why were we given more powers if they were just going to strip us of them?"

"They?" Patricia echoed with a frown.

Nina looked up. "Hm?"

"You said..." Jerome cocked his head to the side a little, nodding as though just to be sure "Yeah, you definitely said 'they'. What aren't you telling us, Nina?" His voice took on his curious, perhaps even slightly teasing tone, though there was no hint of an Alfie and Jerome prank anywhere in sight. "See something else in that dream that you weren't telling us?"

"Of course she's not." Fabian snapped, irritated, still flicking his wrist. It seemed as though he, more than anyone else, had felt the loss of his power. Of course, he had used his telekinesis as though it were a third hand. He had used it for near to everything ever since he was a child. He felt as though a limb had been removed, only with none of the pain, and it frightened him. Frightened the great genius a lot. But then, wit the hollow loss of his third hand, he turned to his girlfriend "You're not, are you?"

"No." Nina closed her eyes "Yes- I mean, no, I don't know!" She groaned, her American accent strained, and everyone bowed their heads in a small sign of respect because it wasn't fair. Not really. That all of this responsibility was on her. That she was the one with the dreams and the visions, and she was the first chosen once, and she was the first one to get an amulet, and everything started when she arrived. She was the most important piece of the puzzle, the last piece, only not everything was perfectly aligned without her, and she may as well have been the very first piece in a set of puzzles. "I mean, in the dream, it felt as though...as though people, mighty people, divine people, with more powers than we could ever dream of having was doing this. But they didn't feel evil. They felt...good?"

"Wait-" KT made a small disbelieving sound, curls bouncing around her shoulders, and Eddie nodded with her, as though he knew what she was about to say. "So, they're good, divine, with loads of powers. You telling us that this is God? Or lots of gods? How did you know this place was Eden anyway?"

"It's not God. It's just something...else. I think..." she lowered her voice a little "What if it's someone, who's power is...everything."

"That's impossible." Mara whispered quietly, hands tightly laced with Jerome's as he stroked a thumb over her palm, to encourage her while she spoke. "That's impossible, you can't have the genes for that sort of thing. It would be a complete mess of DNA, they couldn't be human."

"Or, they couldn't look human." Fabian corrected, and Poppy looked up.

"You know," said the dirty blonde haired girl quietly "I read this book once, that said we share 99.9% of our DNA with gorillas, and we share 91% of our DNA with Dolphins."

Fabian swallowed thickly "So...these things with powers, share parts of our DNA, but they're a whole new species of creature? Why are they here? Why are they even on earth?"

Tristan shut them off with a small gasp. He had his hand outstretched, and with a great deal of effort, he started to make a daffodil grow, slowly, slowly it grew to a ridiculous size, till it's stalk was as thick as the trunk of five trees encircled together, and still it grew. And as he made it grow, he whispered "We'll be given our powers back, one by one, you see, its a puzzle, and whoever gets their powers back next, their power is a hint as to what we have to do."

Joy took an irritated step back as the daffodil towered over them "Why are you making it so big? Is this a part of the next step? Mick!"

Mike wrapped his arm around her slim waist and pulled her further back. Despite himself, Jerome nodded approvingly at the action.

"Haven't you always wondered," Tristan whispered "Where the story of Jack and the Beanstalk came from?", and with a low creak from the ground, from the rocks, from the core of the apparent earth, the daffodil stopped growing, reaching up into the clouds.

Alfie groaned "You're telling me we have to climb that? That's gonna take forever! Why couldn't Joy have got her powers back, then she could have just flown us up there one by one. Come great mighty thing that we share DNA with, why didn't you do that?" He waited, and predictably, there was no reply, Jerome clapped him on the back, a bright smile on his face.

"Come on Alf, this is one sort of adventure you don't really want to cheat at."

And so they set about it, further, gathering rope, which there was in great abundance in an old rowing boat in a nearby lake, Fabian stored that piece of information for later, and they all tied their waists together with this long great rope, so that they all supported each other, and if someone fell, someone else would be there to catch them. It was Willow at the front, why? They didn't know, but Willow had always been a naturalistic girl, and if anyone could climb trees, let it be her. And so they started the slow and steady climb.

"99.9% of DNA with Gorillas, my ass." Eddie hissed, as he caught his leg on a branch again, and Patricia laughed from beneath him, calling him a girl and a slowpoke, and to hurry it up over here, because he was aging very badly. Behind Patricia, KT struggled to hold on, because she was laughing so much. "This is insane. Mara, how you finding this?" he called, two people up.

"She's fine, Eddison." Jerome responded for her "I've got her."

"Jerome, I'm ahead of you." Mara rolled her eyes, but the fondness leaked into her voice despite herself. She had to admit, she was having fun. it felt good, to be away from Vera and Victor, they couldn't control her here. She felt at one, she felt safe and she felt happy, because Victor and Vera hadn't been accepted into Eden, only they had. Only they had done all of these things. Mara suddenly felt very light, very carefree, very happy, betrayal wasn't something that set well with her, so as she hauled herself up branches, she thanked whatever thing had done this, that they had given her at least, a day off. She didn't want to pretend anymore.

"Of course you are, Jaffray dear, just so I can catch you if you happen to tumble."

"Happen to tumble? Cut it out, Clarke. You're not Shakespearian."

"To be honest Campbell, I'm surprised you even know the Bard."

"The what?" Amber called up, perched happily on Alfie's back as the lanky boy struggled to hoist himself up, and was mostly relying on Mike's strength to move ever slowly upwards. "I thought we were talking about Shakespeare."

"Talking about Shakespeare?" Came Fabian's, happy and surprised voice from further up into the branches that they couldn't quite make it out "Oh good, my favourite play is the Midsummer's Night Dream."

Alfie groaned. This was supposed to be a day off from school. Wait- was it even day? Was it still night? He blinked, worried, it had been night when they came through here, but as soon as they came through, the sun had been shining. Had it gone from day to night like that? Were they even still on earth? The thought made him queasy, he didn't like thinking about aliens and the sorts, but with Amber kneading his shoulders comfortingly, he decided he better get some of that stiff upper lip and not think about it till later. Maybe ask Mara. She was always good at comforting him.

Alfie, Amber, Jerome, Mara, Mick, Joy, Poppy, Tristan, Patricia, Eddie, KT, Willow, Nina, Fabian