"Us three? How?" said Destan, gaping at his grandfather.

"I need them all to stop fighting so I can have their attention. You," he explained to Keara, "will use your power to build a metal wall between them. In the meantime, you two will levitate the guns from their hands and get rid of them. While most of them are incapacitated, I will draw the attention to me and make them stop."

Destan nodded, glad to see there was an actual plan. That things didn't depend on him anymore. His granddad would fix things. Everything would be alright.

"M-me?" Julia squealed. "I don't even know how I did that!"

"You'll be okay, Julia," said Destan. "Just follow my lead. We know you have it in you, just let it come out. Don't worry, we'll do it together."

Julia hesitated, but nodded.

"Let's do this," said Keara. She pointed her palms at the metal shield behind them and it lifted up, moving it across the stream towards the Inops. It pushed people aside, creating a barrier between the two sides. Destan watched in horror as a few people got stuck on the wrong side of the blockade and immediately became the target of people's wrath. His stomach turned as the amount of people lying motionless on the ground, grew.

"Now, Julia! Lift up as many as you can!"

Destan scanned the area for the right kind of molecules, locking onto them. All at once, dozens of guns levitated up into the air. In their bewilderment, the Inops momentarily stopped trying to get back into the fight. The screams and shouts of battle changed into frightful ones when Inops suddenly found themselves disarmed and defenceless.

"I'm doing it!" came Julia's voice from next to him. "Look, I'm doing it!"

People were so busy with their own misfortune, that nobody noticed their Chief step forward beside them, in full view of both the tribe and the Inops. Before Remus had the chance to speak, someone tore Keara's metal shield down with their own powers, and fire, water, lightning and all other kinds of magic already shot off to their enemies again. With the Inops defenceless, it quickly turned into a massacre.

"They're not stopping!" Destan shouted to his granddad. "What now?"

Julia screamed in terror as people dropped to the ground, one after the other.

With the guns now gone, Destan knew he had to do something. Anything, to put an end to this.

Without thinking, he drew as much power as he could to his atraments, let them glow brighter and brighter, before letting go of it all. One by one, tribers levitated up into the air. Never before had he lifted up something so heavy as dozens of people. He strained to levitate as many as he could, but some inevitably got left behind. Still, it caused enough confusion to stop them from fighting for a while. Frightful screams pierced the air when the tribers found themselves dangling in the sky.

Keara's metal sheet immediately built itself back up between the two small armies.

If possible, the tribers' voices only got louder, as they protested and screamed for the shield to be removed. When a woman spotted Keara and grabbed her arm to stop her, Destan was ready to drop everyone to the ground like stones and help his friend, but it turned out unnecessary. A fire erupted in front of Keara, chasing the woman away.

What is...? Destan searched the crowd to find Elias still balancing in the air, his hands outstretched and all his attention on his best friend. Is he helping us?

"Don't you dare!" he growled at the woman.

"We have a war to finish!"

Elias glanced at Keara, who nodded back. "Well, maybe it's over already."

He stuck out his hand and sent the fire storming towards the metal sheet. He set the shield ablaze, the flames licking at the metal hungrily. With the heat of the fire, Keara stretched it out even further, making sure neither side could see or attack each other.

"Enough!" Remus suddenly shouted in his strongest voice. As the Inops, weakened and vulnerable, stepped back, the tribe quietened.

"Today, you all took up your powers against my will and look what you did." He gestured at the still body of the tribe's beloved trainer on the ground behind him. "You wanted this war so much. Look what it cost us. Every single one of you out here today is to blame for Aruna Asala's death. And not just her. Look around. There's people at your feet, killed by this ridiculous fight. This is your doing, each and every one of you."

Remus paused to let his words sink in. Destan slowly set the people he was carrying down on the ground. They'd finally stopped fighting. A few sank down next to their fallen friends and loved ones.

"No! Don't you see?" Lys, at the very front of the tribe, suddenly spoke up. His face contorted with anger. "This is on them! The Inops killed them. They need to be punished for it!"

"Did you not hear a single word of what the boy just said?" Remus talked over him before any triber had the chance to agree with Lys.

"The boy?" Lys screamed. "He's an outcast, he's banished!"

"That may be so, but he is also right. The Inops aren't so different from us. My granddaughter is the living proof of that!"

He pointed his hand to Julia, who cowered and tried to hide behind Destan's back.

"This girl," Remus continued, "was born as a triber, but grew up as an Inops. Nobody ever suspected her to be anything but an Inops. But today, she proved us all wrong. Because this girl, whose arms are free of atraments, has the power of levitation!"

The tribe gasped and murmured amongst each other.

"Don't be ridiculous!" sneered Lys. "Has the boy tricked into thinking that?"

Destan kneeled down next to his sister. "You have to prove it to them," he whispered to her. "You have to show them what you can do. Are you ready?"

Julia glanced nervously at all the people looking down at her. All the people who had come out here wanting to kill her kind.

She nodded bravely.

Destan took the white-leaved flower out of her hair and held it in his palm. "Go on. Show them how amazing you are."

Julia held out her hand. For a few long seconds, nothing happened. Destan fought against glancing at his grandad over her shoulder. Instead, his gaze stayed fixed on her.

"You can do it, Julia. Don't be afraid."

Suddenly the flower flew. Julia's fingers twitched as she levitated it up into the air. As Destan put his hands behind his back, to prove this wasn't him, she let the flower float through the sky, made it dance around like Destan had done for her all these years.

The murmurs of the tribe got louder. Lys tried to say something, but nobody listened. People pointed and stared, as they told their neighbour the miracle they were witnessing.

"You have been so angry with the Inops that you've lost yourself in blaming them for everything. That you've made them into monsters, into nightmares. But they aren't. They're just like us. They're just people, trying to protect themselves the same way we are."

Remus stepped forward, the crowd parting for him, to stand on the bridge. Keara slowly backed the burning shield away, ready to put it back up if needed. The Chief gestured his hands at both the groups around him. "We are the same. We're all trying to survive. We're all trying to protect our loved ones. And we all make mistakes sometimes. I've made the mistake of sending my granddaughter away. But now I know that we are the same."

"We are the same!" came a female voice from the other side of the stream. Miss Huntley stood at the front of the Inops, her eyes on the tribe Chief. "Twenty years ago a triber took my memories from me. But another triber saved my life and helped me get them back. We all make mistakes, but we can also fix them. I fell in love with a tribe boy, married him, and learned that we are all the same."

"We are the same!" Keara voice shook when she spoke up. "I lost my brother to an Inops. But today, I almost killed someone. That's not justice, that's revenge. My brother fought for peace, yet he was killed out of revenge, and I almost made the same mistake. Because we are the same."

"Today was a mistake that cost us dearly," Remus continued. "But we can move forward from this. We can make this right. I will talk to the Inops mayor for as long as it takes to work things out, to find a way that we can live as neighbours in peace." The stout little mayor pushed himself through the crowd, nodding along with Remus' words. "We will find a way. In the meantime, I need you to lay down your atraments, to lay down your weapons, and stop making this mistake. You have a choice to make."

"No!" Lys screamed again. "After what they've done to us, you think it so easy? You think we can just forgive them for everything they've done? Our people are dead!"

"We need to look at ourselves before we start punishing others," said Remus calmly, gesturing towards an Inops woman kneeling beside an unmoving boy. "We've done things just as terrible as they have. We are, after all, the same."

"This is not over!" shouted the girl who'd led the Inops to battle. "This will never be over, not unless we kill them all! Attack!"

"Oh, shush, you silly girl," said the Mayor. "It's already over, can't you see? This whole nightmare is over as soon as we all agree to work things out another way, that revenge solves nothing. As soon as we can see that we are all the same."

"You have a choice to make," said Remus once more. "Will you keep fighting until there's nothing left of either of us? Or will you lay down your weapons and fix your mistakes?"

Keara immediately made her way to her Chief, showing her loyalty to him. Elias followed suit. The Mayor, too, made his way to the bridge and stood in unison with the tribe. As he watched Miss Huntley make her way over to them, Destan looked down at his sister. He took Julia's hand and together they stood beside Remus.

One by one, they watched people make a choice. A few stood beside Lys or, on the other side of the stream, beside the girl, unwilling to give up the battle. Most, however, abandoned their hatred and joined their Chief and Mayor by the bridge.

Destan almost couldn't believe it. They'd done it. The battle was over.

Remus turned to the Mayor and grabbed his hand in a firm handshake. The Mayor all but jumped at the gesture, but smiled nonetheless. "Thank you, sir," said Remus. "We will speak again soon to negotiate the terms of our coexistence. For now though, I will do my part in making this right and I will heal everyone who has been wounded today, in the hopes that this will make it easier for everyone to put this behind us. Oh, and Lysander Kardos will be punished for his role in all this, of course." Remus glared at his advisor.

"Yes, yes, well, obviously I shall do the same." The Mayor stumbled over his words, gesturing at Nero, who lay in the stream with a metal sheet wrapped tightly around him like a blanket. "The boy who started this, and his girlfriend, they'll be punished as well."

We've done it, Destan thought to himself, almost afraid to believe it. His granddad nodded and said a few more words to the Mayor. We've really done it. It's finally over. I've fixed my mistake.