Chapter Text
40
Seungcheol
The rift opens like the fanged maw of a great and terrible beast, edges jagged as if it had been violently torn at the seams.
It’s different from all of the rifts Seungcheol has seen before, and it fills the room with an uncanny static that he hears in his mind more than in his ears.
Inside the glass cylinder, Wonwoo collapses.
Seungcheol’s body moves automatically despite the weakness that lingers in his muscles. His hands press against the cold glass, straining. Nothing happens.
“A rift,” Jeonghan’s father says, his voice thin with ecstasy. “We’ve done it.”
“You’ve done nothing except prove that you’re a psychopath,” Jeonghan seethes. In one quick motion, he draws a throwing knife and lets it fly. It veers away sharply, embedding in one of the screens on the control panel.
Jeonghan stares, eyes wide.
It’s only then that Seungcheol notices what the man has on his hands, Wonwoo’s metal gloves.
“Amazing what a bit of reprogramming can do, hmm? This is why the Association shouldn’t make anything on its own.”
Jeonghan lets loose another knife, but again it misses as his father simply lifts a hand, unconcerned, unhurried.
The man arches an eyebrow as the subsequent arc of electricity also curves around him, rendered completely harmless.
“Though, maybe they do deserve some credit. The built in surge protection was a nice touch—”
“Enough of this! You have what you want. Let Wonwoo go.”
Jeonghan’s father lowers his hand slowly. The silence lasts a beat too long.
“This, Jeonghan, is why you’re a fool. You’ve always let empathy get in the way of your intelligence. Think of what you could have had, governments, nations, the world at your feet,” the man says, derisive, almost disgusted. “But instead you choose people like this. People who are worthless.”
His gaze slides to Seungcheol and Wonwoo, and Jeonghan breaks.
He pulls a knife from his pocket and charges at his father, slashing wildly, lightning shattering the air around them.
The older man with the scar on his jaw ducks away to avoid the electricity, and Seungcheol shifts further around the glass cylinder. Jeonghan can handle his father. Seungcheol needs to help Wonwoo, who is still on the ground, though he’s managed to curl into a fetal position.
He’s alive, but I have to get him out of there.
“Wonwoo!” He shouts, trying to rouse his friend to no avail.
Seungcheol slams his fist against the smooth barrier. It doesn’t even crack, only leaves his bones aching. Even with the inhibitor out of his arm, whatever the older man had done to him has left Seungcheol temporarily powerless again.
He doesn’t have days to recover this time.
He needs his strength now.
Amidst the score of lightning, thunder, and otherworldly static, Seungcheol sets his jaw, rolls his shoulders, and demands that his powers work. He’s spent years training, years learning to control himself and his strength. If he can’t use it to save his friend, what is it all for? He pushes against the cylinder with everything he’s worth, and something metallic starts to groan.
I can do this. I will do this–
Muffled gunfire yanks Seungcheol’s attention away as the lab door bursts open. Seokmin, Vernon, and Joshua sprint across the threshold, soaking wet and panting hard. The robots that are chasing them aren’t far behind.
The spiders spill into the lab, mindless creatures with a single programmed order: capture. With their sharp arachnid limbs, they begin to scale the walls.
“Seungcheol!” Seokmin shouts, relieved, but he stops short, his eyes wide with shock and terror.
Seungcheol follows his gaze.
The rift has gotten bigger. That doesn’t bode well.
What’s worse, Jeonghan and his father have gotten closer to it too, either uncaring or unaware of their proximity to danger.
“Vernon, take care of the robots. Joshua, cover him. Seokmin, see if you can figure out how to shut this machine off,” Seungcheol orders in quick succession, then turns back to Wonwoo.
The fastest way to deescalate this situation will be to close the rift, and breaking Wonwoo out of this tube should do just that. Hopefully. Seungcheol braces himself against the glass as a wave of heat washes over his back, glazing the massive room in fiery orange. Shots ring out, lightning crackles, and the rift’s static gets louder.
As Seungcheol pushes against the barrier trapping Wonwoo, he notices something out of the corner of his eye. The older man with the scar along his jaw has crept over to the large control panel, just out of Seokmin’s view. He presses a button and immediately, panels in the ceiling begin to open, spider-like robots dropping down on thick, metal cords attached to harpoon-tipped grappling hooks.
He’s calling reinforcements.
Vernon will inevitably be overwhelmed.
The man presses another button, then looks up toward the second floor viewing platform, as if he expects something or someone to appear.
Seungcheol grits his teeth and pushes away from the glass cylinder.
Hang on just a bit longer, Wonwoo.
He charges at the older man, who quickly abandons the control panel to flee. The spear-like tips of grappling hooks pummel the ground around Seungcheol, chipping the concrete. As the cords begin to retract, they twist like vines, meant to snare and coil around careless limbs. This slows him down as he’s forced to dodge and weave. Still, he gives chase, fully aware of what this man is capable of and ready to endure the pain, ready to subdue him with or without superhuman strength.
What Seungcheol doesn’t expect is for him to grab Joshua.
His friend had been focused on shielding Vernon and himself from the onslaught of bullets and webs of metal cords. He couldn’t have anticipated this.
Seungcheol isn’t fast enough.
The man puts his hand on Joshua’s head, thumb between his eyebrows, and Joshua freezes.
Joshua
The world is painted in a subtle, rainbow sheen, highlighted by bright flames like pyrotechnics and brilliant sparks like fireworks.
There’s something beautiful about it, even in the midst of the chaos.
Joshua knew what to expect the instant he was grabbed, but the physical pain Seungcheol warned him about never comes.
It’s a different kind of agony, something Joshua feels pierce through the very center of his being, letting the most vulnerable parts of him spill out like melted candle wax.
He can see his white-masked duplicates dissipating around him.
It’s not real, he tells himself, knowing that his duplicates have long since gone, replaced by his shield. And yet there they are, vanishing one by one, a study in existential dread.
Where are my friends? I need help.
Joshua searches his mind, reaching for them, begging, but he…can’t remember them. He can’t remember their names or faces as they, too, are ripped away from him until he is so profoundly alone.
It’s not real.
It’s not real.
It’s not real…
He gasps his next breath, air filling his starving lungs, eyes opening as someone tugs hard on his hair, causing him to stumble. Joshua turns around just in time to see Seokmin roughly throw the older man who attacked him to the floor, then club him over the head with a staff. He lifts the weapon victoriously.
“You know, you’re totally right. These things are pretty great,” Seokmin says with a bright smile, but it fades as he sees the look on Joshua’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“I…”
It’s a good question. Loneliness has settled over Joshua, velvety in its emptiness and suffocatingly heavy. As the sharpness of it fades, though, he’s acutely aware that it’s not a new feeling. Joshua is intimately familiar with it and strangely enough, he feels okay. It’s not that the loneliness diminishes, but rather, as he looks at Seokmin, it feels as if Joshua can carry this burden.
Because even if I don’t have my duplicates anymore, it wasn’t real. I’m not alone.
Movement catches Joshua’s attention and he sees Seungcheol stoop to the ground, picking up a set of discarded handcuffs and locking the older man’s wrists behind his back. He might be prone, but who knows if he’ll get up? It’s a smart move, one that Joshua appreciates.
“I’m okay,” he tells his friends as they glance at him worriedly, expectantly. “We can talk about it later.”
“Joshua!” Vernon’s raspy yell cuts through the din.
The spiders have surrounded him. For what it’s worth, Joshua’s shield had closed around him, but Vernon is trapped in an impenetrable sphere, unable to fight back as the robots claw at the force field.
“You’re sure you’re alright?” Seungcheol asks.
Joshua speaks over his shoulder, “I’m fine, save Wonwoo!”
He catches a nod from Seokmin before he returns to the control panel and Seungcheol ducks around rapidly retracting metal cords.
Joshua turns his focus to Vernon.
The closer Joshua gets, the stronger his shield becomes, no longer in danger of stretching thin. He envelops himself in the protective sphere and shouts above the sound of scraping metal and gunshots, “Get ready.”
Vernon nods, his eyebrows pinched in concentration, and lets loose a wave of flame. In the few moments that it takes for the shield to reshape, the intensity of the radiant heat hits Joshua like something solid.
Fire momentarily envelops the shield, leaving him confused when it clears and reveals a dense cloud of steam creeping across the floor.
He ignores it, shifting his force field to block a bullet as Vernon bathes another robot in flame. Taking advantage of the opening, the steam surrounds Joshua’s ankles and is oddly…cold.
Joshua looks up, searching for a new threat as the door to the lab opens. The dense fog swirls before releasing Chan, Soonyoung, and Jihoon like a sigh.
Frost-crusted robots come pouring out after them.
“Are you kidding?” Vernon wails, almost comically, equal parts astonished and exasperated. “This is like, at least twenty more robots than necessary—“
“Oh hi Vernon nice to see you too,” Soonyoung cackles.
Jihoon yanks him back by the collar of his shirt as a net flies past him.
“Not again, asshole!” Soonyoung roars. He leaps at the robot that shot it.
Joshua glances between him and Vernon, torn between who to protect as Jihoon steps forward.
“Chan, get Soonyoung off of that thing.”
“You got it,” Chan winces and hurries after their friend, who is now clawing at the sensors of the robot and riding it like some terrifying spider-horse.
Jihoon grimaces, “I’ll need to stay by the door if I’m going to help since it’s where the sprinklers are.”
“Joshua, think your shield could keep water off of me?” Vernon asks, sweat beading at his hairline, an idea glinting in his eyes.
Joshua nods.
“Great.”
The ball of fire explodes against the ceiling and sets off the automatic sprinklers in the lab.
Jihoon glances up as water sprays across the room, pattering loudly against metal and concrete, plastering damp hair against foreheads, cheeks, and necks.
Joshua’s next exhale fogs in front of his face.
Jihoon takes a deep breath and lifts his hands, frost glittering across his skin.
A harpoon-tipped grappling hook fires, but it stops short, embedded in the thick wall of ice summoned from the water pooling on the floor.
“Perfect,” Vernon says, triumphant.
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” Jihoon says, looking up at the ceiling as more robots descend from the panels. “We have a lot of work ahead of us.”
Joshua continues deflecting projectiles, and columns of fire and spears of ice begin to melt and freeze their way through the army of robots.
It isn’t a stretch to make a comparison between this and the factory. At least this time, they’re better prepared. They know what they’re facing, and they know how to counter it.
But Joshua can feel himself tiring, his shield starting to spread itself thin.
Jeonghan
Electricity crackles around them, wild white fissures that sear jagged scorch marks across the concrete floor. Jeonghan can’t direct it or control it amidst the barbed pain and gouging anger that threaten to drown him.
With every slash of his knife, Jeonghan is no closer to striking his father. He uses Wonwoo’s gloves to effortlessly push the weapon away, and it’s only through muscle memory, good balance, and luck that Jeonghan doesn’t stumble.
But it’s during one of these moments, as Jeonghan spins with the momentum, that his father grabs him, clamping down on his arm with the crushing weight of robotic joints. Jeonghan cries out and loses his grip on the knife.
He’s released, but the metal glove rakes across his face in a ruthless backhand. Jeonghan tastes blood on his lips as his father throws him to the ground.
“You said I desire power,” he says with quiet anger, slowly backing away. “You were given powers and you wasted them. I won’t make the same mistake.”
It’s only then that Jeonghan realizes the gravity of what his father had accomplished.
Of course the man could use the rifts to control people, governments, corporations–even the Association–but what if he had been trying to guarantee powers that he’d desired for himself? Powers that he had time to plan and perfect?
What if he knew how to manipulate the rifts, not just open them? What if he’d learned how to control them?
The tendrils of the fabricated rift seem to gravitate toward Jeonghan’s father, reaching, pulling, and then he’s swallowed whole.
Panting, Jeonghan stares at the tear in reality, unsure what to expect. It’s not a real rift, so dissimilar in appearance to the one Joshua fell into and almost painful to look at.
Will the results be the same? Or will his father’s gamble pay off?
Jeonghan winces at a touch of cold water and glances up to find the sprinkler system had activated. His awareness widens to the lab as a whole as his emotions begin to settle, the lightning around him dispersing with a final shuddering crackle.
Seungcheol is still trying to free Wonwoo from the glass cylinder. Joshua, Soonyoung, Jihoon, Vernon, and Chan are fighting the spider-like robots. Seokmin is sprinting straight toward him.
“Move! Get away from the rift!”
Jeonghan’s attention returns to the rift. It’s expanding.
He pushes himself to his feet, movements clumsy with pain and exhaustion. Seokmin ducks to put Jeonghan’s arm over his shoulders and begins to guide him back toward the control panel, back toward their friends.
“Is everyone free?”
“Seungkwan is looking for Mingyu,” Seokmin replies, pausing to roughly yank Jeonghan sideways, dodging a shot from one of the robots.
“And Minghao?”
“Jun’s still searching for him.”
A deep, strained sound groans beneath the chaos of the surrounding battle. Jeonghan and Seokmin return to the relative safety of the control panel just as Seungcheol rends the metal base of Wonwoo’s enclosure from the large bolts that held it in place on the concrete. All ten feet of it tilts, the thick glass pushing against the ceiling, throwing sparks as the metallic tiles crumple. At Seungcheol’s feet, wires begin to snap. The glass shivers, then evaporates.
Seungcheol lowers the metal platform gently and Jeonghan gives Seokmin’s back a grateful pat before hurrying over to Wonwoo. He meets Seungcheol over their friend’s prone body.
“Wonwoo?” Jeonghan says softly, crouching down to touch the pulse point on his neck. Relief washes through him when he feels the flutter of a frantic heartbeat, too fast, but still strong. “Okay, we need to get him out of here.”
Seungcheol nods and starts to lift Wonwoo, but pauses as something big rushes haphazardly past them. Jeonghan looks up to see Soonyoung and Chan dangling dangerously from one of the human-sized spider robots. It’s at full gallop trying to throw them off as Soonyoung loops the grappling hook cord around its body and Chan digs around frantically in the gun hatch on its abdomen.
“They’ll be okay, right?” Jeonghan asks.
“They can handle themselves.”
Suddenly, the room flashes white. A crack of thunder that resonates in Jeonghan’s chest and leaves his ears ringing causes them to look up. Because he certainly hadn’t caused it, Jeonghan’s first instinct is to look at Chan and search for storm clouds. He finds none.
Something ominous whispers in Jeonghan’s mind, tingling across his skin like an electrical charge.
He slowly turns toward the rift.
Lightning erupts from the void like a serrated sunburst and Jeonghan’s father steps back onto the concrete floor of the lab.
His calculating gaze sweeps across the chaos before settling on Jeonghan, and then on Seungcheol.
Like an instinct, a separate sense beyond the intuition of touch, Jeonghan feels the charge change in the air, feels it split and polarize. In one motion, exhaustion forgotten, he leaps to his feet and catches the bolt of lightning, sending it careening away until it rakes erratically across the viewing platform, shattering a large observation window.
“Now this is bullshit,” Seokmin says from beside the control panel. “Sorry Jeonghan, I think this is all you.”
“Seokmin, forget the machine. Protect Wonwoo,” Seungcheol says, standing, fists clenched. “This ends now.”
He starts toward the threat and the still-expanding rift, but Jeonghan stops him, pulling out his last knife and offering it to him. Even if Seungcheol’s body can handle being electrocuted, Jeonghan won’t take any chances.
Seungcheol accepts the offered weapon and nods.
Surrounded by the swirling mix of fire and ice, the roaring static of the open, aching rift, and the crackle of unrestrained electricity, Jeonghan rushes forward first, taking the next lightning bolt and casting it aside. It leaves his body tingling, almost numb, a strange metallic taste on his tongue.
This lightning is different from mine.
He throws an electrical arc at his father, who takes the hit without even flinching, walking forward, pace eerily unhurried, a smile twisting his lips.
What is this? It’s like he has my powers except…better.
Beside Jeonghan, Seungcheol dodges a grappling hook, grabs the cord, and tears it from the abdomen of the robot that shot it. He adjusts his grip and swings the makeshift weapon at Jeonghan’s father like a whip.
The man deftly pushes the grappling hook aside with Wonwoo’s gloves.
Then he grabs the metal cord.
The sparks seem to jump from its surface in slow motion, traveling up the cable, headed for Seungcheol’s hands.
Jeonghan doesn’t have the strength to push him out of the way, so he grabs the cord instead.
Electricity flows through him, pinpricks of pain beneath his skin as Jeonghan’s body tries to redirect the charge. It only lasts for a moment, but it leaves him breathless and shaking as he staggers back, ears ringing, vision blurred.
It’s through this disorienting lens that Jeonghan watches Seungcheol charge at his father, knife poised to strike. Maybe he expects to take the man by surprise. Maybe he expects he’ll be able to overpower the magnetic force of the gloves. Maybe he isn’t thinking about a strategy at all, swept up in the reactive rage of watching someone you love get hurt.
Whatever Seungcheol predicted, it couldn’t be this.
Jeonghan’s father doesn’t use the gloves, he simply grabs Seungcheol’s wrist and stops him.
Bathed in the warmth of intermittent fire and the sterile water-dappled laboratory light, Seungcheol’s eyebrows knit, and his arm begins to shake with effort. He quickly changes strategies, striking with his free hand, but that blow is easily blocked too, stopped against the palm of a metal-gloved hand. Seungcheol strains, his muscles tensing, and then ever so slightly, his shoes skid backward.
With a belittling tilt of his head, Jeonghan’s father pushes him back, then strikes.
And Seungcheol, who rips apart wrought iron fences–Seungcheol, who crumples impenetrable lockboxes–Seungcheol, who carries the weight of the world on his capable shoulders–is thrown off his feet. He smashes bodily through one of the many abandoned machines, spraying metal and rubber components across the floor.
How could he do that? Does he have multiple powers? How is that possible? And why is he stronger than us?
Jeonghan stares at the man, trying to piece it together amidst his jumbled thoughts, but fear flashes through him as his father meets his gaze.
With a stomp that leaves the concrete cracked, the man leaps at Jeonghan.
If he could throw Seungcheol, Jeonghan doesn’t want to find out what this strength could do to his own body.
Jeonghan ducks and rolls, then pushes himself to his feet, backing away from both his father and the rift while trying to give his friends battling the robots a wide berth.
Without missing a beat, his father opens a gloved hand toward one of the spider-like robots. Its legs scramble against the floor, almost as if it knows it’s about to face certain doom. The man punches straight through the abdomen and the creature crumples. He then tears off a sharp metal leg and readies it like a spear.
Jeonghan’s eyes go wide.
With inhuman strength behind it, the weapon slices through the air at an immeasurable speed, and Jeonghan only just manages to avoid getting skewered.
Why isn’t he using electricity anymore?
His father tears off another of the robot’s legs.
Unless…he can’t.
This time, Jeonghan expects the speed, and he shifts out of the way, letting the projectile embed itself in the concrete behind him.
Nearby, Seungcheol emerges from the wreckage of the machine, scratched and limping.
“He’s switching powers,” Jeonghan yells above the static of the rift and sporadic gunshots.
Jeonghan’s father narrows his eyes, “What a surprise, you can be intelligent after all.”
He rips another leg from the robot but this time aims at Seungcheol.
Jeonghan doesn’t hesitate. Mind racing, heart pounding, he charges at his father in a burst of electricity. If he’s right about his father’s new abilities, then everything will be fine. If he isn’t…well, Jeonghan might not have to worry about it anymore.
The metal gloves disperse the lightning until Jeonghan is right on top of him, grabbing for his father’s throat but catching his shoulder, then his arm. The man suddenly stumbles with the weight of the robot’s heavy limb, the throw falling embarrassingly short, metal skittering across the floor.
Jeonghan releases him, quickly stepping back to avoid a strike.
A strange electrical charge tingles across Jeonghan’s skin.
One power at a time, stronger than the person those abilities originated from…
He understands the rules of the game now.
And all they need to do is find a way to defeat Jeonghan’s father without letting him get close–and without letting him steal powers that could destroy them all.
Vernon
Vernon smothers the column of flames as fast as he can. He’d seen the glare off of the metal legs of a robot and had been ready to melt it, but he’s definitely not trying to roast Soonyoung and Chan alive. They’re dangling off the robot’s abdomen as it frantically sprints around the lab, and one of them is yelling. Or maybe both of them at each other. Vernon can’t tell.
He takes a quick glance around the expansive room, noting with dismay that there seem to be just as many robots as there were before, if not more, despite the metallic spider corpses that litter the ground–
A droplet of water lands on Vernon’s cheek. At first, he thinks it’s sweat, but then he feels another. And another. Cold, like the water from the sprinklers.
“Vernon!” Joshua’s voice, ragged with exhaustion and sudden desperation, reaches him through the thunder and strange static that feels like spiky cotton in his ears. “I can’t…”
His message is clear. As dampness seeps into Vernon’s hair and clothes, it’s obvious that Joshua can’t take much more of this. His powers are new, and no doubt difficult to control with this level of precision and this high of demand. Vernon understands completely.
“Catch your breath! I’ve got this,” he shouts, then immediately regrets it.
A metal cord coils around his waist and yanks him off his feet, dragging Vernon across the floor until another cable wraps around his legs, whisking him up toward one of the hatches in the much-too-high ceiling. Vernon manages to grab onto one of the cords, but as he’s rapidly dragged higher and higher, he knows that it would be a mistake to melt his way free.
And yet…he really doesn’t want to get shot again.
Staring down the barrel of the gun that lowers from one of the robot’s abdomens, Vernon makes a poor decision.
Blue flames erupt from his hands, sizzling against the spray of the sprinklers, and turn the metal of the cable Vernon is holding bright orange until it snaps with his weight. His stomach swoops as he’s spun around, swinging wildly, suspended by only his legs. The grappling hook digs painfully into his thigh, pinching, as the spider robot struggles to keep its footing in the opened ceiling hatch.
Vernon tries to bend at his hips, reaching for the second cable as shots ring out around him, but he can’t fight physics well enough to grab it. He’s running out of time. The pinching against his thigh gets worse and Vernon can hardly breathe.
Here goes nothing.
Vernon unleashes a volatile torrent of fire, not so much aiming as he is hoping.
And then he’s falling.
Below him, Joshua is shouting. It sounds like he says Seungkwan’s name.
Oh god. Seungkwan is gonna kill me.
“You’re such an idiot!”
The shout starts off distant, but then something slams into Vernon and he instinctively clings to the familiar warmth and the scent of an ocean breeze. Wind roars in his ears and they land roughly, half-stumbling, half-falling over one another until Vernon props himself up on his arms over Seungkwan, who stares up at him with shocked disgust.
“You could’ve died!”
“But I didn’t,” Vernon says, unable to help his smile.
“You’re such an idiot!”
“You already said that.”
“I’ll say it a third time. You’re such an idiot!”
“But I’m your–”
Seungkwan grabs Vernon’s jaw and kisses him summer-sun fiercely, leaving Vernon surprised and intensely pleased. With no small amount of flustered roughness, Seungkwan pulls away and rolls Vernon off of him. He pushes himself up with a breeze and scrunches his nose before offering a hand.
“I missed you,” Vernon says, a searing blush on his cheeks, taking the offered hand and getting to his feet.
“Later,” Seungkwan replies sharply and a gust of wind roars past them, knocking a grappling hook off course. But then he pauses, conflicted, and continues softly, “I missed you too.”
Vernon gives him a small smile of understanding and they share a quick nod before turning to face the remaining robots.
Wonwoo
Everything aches.
Even parts of him that he didn’t know could hurt.
Wonwoo opens his eyes to find Mingyu staring down at him, concern written across his expression, angel wings giving a few small flaps of discontent. He’s kneeling beside Wonwoo, hands hovering, unsure.
Something about this is familiar.
“Hi,” Wonwoo says hoarsely, relieved in spite of his injuries because if Mingyu is here, this close, it means Wonwoo has been freed of his glass prison.
“Hi,” Mingyu says with a tight smile. “I’m gonna lift you up. Tell me if it hurts, okay?”
“Everything hurts.”
Mingyu winces, his voice soft, trying to soothe, “Just hang on tight.”
“Wait, we can’t leave. What about everyone else?”
“They’re taking care of it,” Seokmin pops in from nearby at the control panel. “You’re in no position to fight. Mingyu’s gonna make sure you’re safe.”
Wonwoo nods, taking an unsteady breath as Mingyu carefully scoops him up.
He’s trying to be gentle, Wonwoo can tell, so he doesn’t complain as he’s jostled.
Cracked glasses aside, the world has taken on a fuzzy quality, sounds and sensations distant as Mingyu begins to jog–not fly.
He ascends the staircase that will take them to the second-story viewing platform. Are they underground? Or is Mingyu going to try to fly from a higher vantage point?
Wonwoo’s thoughts swim, but even so he tries to strategize, wanting to help.
They leave the robots and the still-open rift behind with the fire, wind, ice, and lightning.
Once they reach the platform, Mingyu slows to a stop, his eyebrows knitting.
Wonwoo glances toward the door.
Their exit is blocked by a mix of large black and white crystals, sharp and jagged, luster lost and at odd angles.
Even the shattered adjacent viewing window is impassable.
Vaguely, Wonwoo registers that Minghao and Jun must be nearby for the crystals to have formed, but what could have made them look like that?
Without waiting for an explanation, Mingyu shifts Wonwoo’s weight and pivots, rushing to the bannister. His wings beat hard, almost causing him to stumble as each step gets lighter. He hurdles the rail, pushing off of it and soaring into the air.
Wonwoo tucks himself as close to Mingyu as he can and they climb higher and higher, up through an open hatch in the paneled ceiling. Here, it’s dark but dry, long catwalks criss-crossing between thick iron beams, the skeletons of inactive spider-like robots hanging from conveyor belts. Every so often, a few hum to life, bright spotlights grazing across the industrial landscape before they drop down on metal cords and disappear through the hatches.
Mingyu dips around the searchlights until he lands on one of the grated walkways. He sets Wonwoo down gently, helping him sit.
“This doesn’t seem much better,” Wonwoo observes, somewhat teasing.
Mingyu chuckles nervously, “Sorry, Air Mingyu can only fly so far when we’re inside a building. Let me try to find another way out–”
Wonwoo catches his wrist, “Don’t go.”
“But…” Mingyu trails off, searching Wonwoo’s eyes.
“If something happens, I can’t get down from here and I can’t defend myself,” Wonwoo reasons. “So stay with me, please?”
I’m afraid.
Mingyu nods, “Okay. I’ll stay.”
His hands move to his belt, probably automatically, but drop when he finds that his swords are missing. Mingyu sighs and sits down beside Wonwoo, their backs against the cold railing.
“We’ll be fine,” he whispers, finding Wonwoo’s hand again in the relative darkness and lacing their fingers.
“I just need a second to catch my breath. Then we can figure out what we’re doing.”
Mingyu snorts, amused, “I’m the one that flew us up here and you’re tired?”
“My brain just got squeezed like toothpaste. Would you rather trade?”
“No.”
Wonwoo huffs a chuckle, “Thought so.”
It takes a minute for the haziness to settle in Wonwoo’s brain and for the idea to surface from the fog.
“Actually, do you think these walkways cross the whole building?”
Mingyu looks at him warily, “Maybe, why?”
“We can’t help fight Jeonghan’s father directly, and I don’t think I’d survive connecting to the rift machine again.”
“Yeah the, ah, robots would be a problem too.”
“Right. But I saw something earlier, when I was being brought to and from the lab. It looked like a server room.”
“A server room? For the robots?”
“I’m not sure, but there was a lot of biotech in it. And if experience tells me anything, I think it would be worth paying a visit while the guards are distracted.”
Jun
The softness in Minghao’s expression dissipates after a few moments of static-quiet silence slip by. It’s replaced with a look of deadpan, chilling calculation. Whoever or whatever is controlling him must have determined that the charade is over.
Jun knows.
But how could Jun not know?
Minghao is the only person he knows better than himself, and the only person who could probably say the same about Jun.
This isn’t Minghao, not really, and it’s almost an insult that he would even pretend.
In the unbalanced stillness of the dim hallway, they slowly slip into a fighting stance, like mirrored images, like push and pull.
Focus on the breath.
The light ripples. Their shadows flicker.
Jun lunges through the light at Minghao, but his fingers only brush cloth as he manifests before Minghao melts into the half-darkness. Obsidian shards sprout in his wake, a distraction for his escape, but Jun is quicker.
He leaps forward in another flash of light that disintegrates the shadows and throws Minghao to the floor. Jun manifests and grabs the back of Minghao’s long coat, trying in vain to subdue him.
“Let go!” Minghao shouts, spinning in Jun’s grip and aiming for his throat.
Jun dodges his grasp but stumbles with the momentum as Minghao vanishes again. This time, instead of running, he manifests behind Jun and kicks him.
Pain slices through Jun’s forearm and knee before he manages to phase into the light and right himself, escaping the sharp bramble of obsidian shards.
A few of them turn to dust as Minghao walks forward, careful, eyes narrowed.
His voice is objective, unfeeling, “You won’t hurt me.”
Jun doesn’t reply.
“It puts you at a severe disadvantage.”
Above them, the lights flicker, momentarily drawing their attention.
Dread prickles across Jun’s skin.
Minghao’s shadow begins to swirl around his feet like an oozing, dark liquid, obsidian shards rising from the growing pool, ominously silent. Minghao lifts his hand. The lightbulb at the end of the hallway shatters.
Jun can feel a subtle ebb in his powers, and he slips a hand into his pocket to find what he had taken from the crate at the Association, his fingers brushing cool round glass.
More black crystals form along the walls, growing like sharp, vicious thorns that multiply from their own shadows as the lights flicker again.
Another bulb shatters, then a third.
Unnaturally complete darkness floods the hallway, closer and closer, punctured only by the glints of diminishing light on obsidian.
With each source of illumination that vanishes in a rain of glass, the balance between them slips further, precarious, the claustrophobic darkness closing with black shards like massive, reaching claws until Jun stands in the last puddle of dim light.
The shadowy crystals crawl forward, up around Minghao, growing on his skin like scales, then like horns. His eyes turn black. Against the obsidian shards behind him, he looks…monstrous.
Jun meets Minghao’s gaze, unafraid.
Focus on the breath.
The glass of the marble-sized flare shatters on the floor, dousing the hallway in blinding white. Jun launches himself forward as opalescent crystals cascade from the ceiling and rise up from the floor, shattering obsidian, strangling the darkness.
Jun grabs for Minghao, but even in the brightness he slips backward into the splintered shadows beyond the reach of the flare and vanishes. The opalescent crystals press forward as Jun throws down another small glass sphere further along the hallway, giving chase in bits and pieces, creating light where Minghao destroys it, clashing in violent swirls of black and white.
Whether he is fleeing the fight or has a destination in mind, Minghao leads them back to the large observation window, which has since been shattered. Jun manifests, shifting and condensing the light in the hallway, forcing Minghao into his human form. Opalescent crystals begin to form around them, twinkling like frost, gnarled with Jun’s instability.
Minghao shields his eyes against the brightness, obsidian shards shooting up from the shadows to break or block any sources of light.
“You want to fight me?” Minghao scowls, voice low. “Fine.”
Jun throws down his final flare to fend off the encroaching darkness, but this time Minghao is ready.
As intense light floods the hallway, Minghao shrugs off his coat and throws it over the flare, smothering it instantly. He leaps forward through the shadows, slamming into Jun and sending them both to the ground. Minghao’s weight knocks the breath from his lungs and gravel-like shards dig into Jun’s back.
He gasps for air, tries to phase into the thin strands of light that have managed to leak through the cracks between obsidian crystals, but there isn’t enough. The dark shards begin to creep over Jun’s arms as Minghao’s fingers dig into his throat.
Jun struggles beneath him, bucking under Minghao’s weight, kicking, trying to free his hands–anything that will break his restraints, anything that will mean he doesn’t have to hurt Minghao.
But Minghao’s grip tightens and a terrifying fuzzy grayness begins to seep into Jun’s vision.
The scant slivers of light that weave across the hallway shiver.
Minghao had once called the vast darkness of his shadows empty, consuming, forever pulling.
Jun’s light, however, consumes in a different way, filling the emptiness, expanding, forever pushing.
The light surges within him, protective but unbalanced, ravenous, ready to devour.
And this time, Jun doesn’t stop it.
The obsidian shards that restrain his arms begin to glow, faint at first, then brighter. Above him, Minghao’s eyebrows pinch in alarm. He releases Jun to scramble back, but it’s too late.
Like a stone cast into a still-surfaced pond, the sleek black surfaces of the crystals that surround them ripple until a blue-tinted glow fills the entire hallway.
It’s almost like midday sky, and Jun feels power flow into him.
Coughing, Jun shatters the crystals that bind him, then leaps through the light at Minghao.
Jun wraps his arms around him, heedless of the shadowy armor that cuts at his skin. Minghao freezes, light begins to rush into the darkness, and Jun can feel the agony in Minghao’s body, not physical pain but something that pierces through the very core of his being.
Jun doesn’t let go.
“I love you, Hao,” he whispers.
When you’re yourself again, I know you’ll forgive me.
The shadows fight, then lose ground, then flee. The black crystals that encase Minghao turn deep purple, then brilliant blue.
The power inside Jun surges again, demanding, threatening to turn the blue to blinding white.
But Jun resists.
This isn’t a battle he wants to win. It’s a scale he wants to balance.
Focus on the breath.
The light abates, his power weakens, and Jun dissipates the thorny armor in a sigh of glittering dust, leaving only Minghao.
Jun pulls the Echo device free, casting it aside before hugging Minghao close.
For a moment, he stands completely still, but then slowly, almost hesitantly, Minghao’s hands brush past Jun’s waist and he loops his arms around Jun, loosely at first, then tighter, returning the embrace.
Something blossoms within Jun, quiet and dark, a silken layer of protection between who he is and the light that tries to engulf him.
Something shaded blue.
Something safe.
“My shadow,” Jun murmurs softly. “I’ve missed you.”
Minghao’s next breath is sharp, unsteady, and Jun pulls away gently, his heart aching at the tears in Minghao’s eyes.
“I always hurt you,” Minghao whispers.
Only then does Jun notice his stinging skin and the ache in his throat. He shakes his head.
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing hurts more than losing you.”
He cups Minghao’s cheek, wiping a tear but leaving a small smear of blood.
Jun sighs and stoops to pick up Minghao’s coat. Beneath it, the flare has already started to die.
“I’m sorry to rush you, but I suspect we’re not out of danger yet,” Jun says, glancing toward the obscured observation window and listening to the sounds of a fight beyond it. “Our friends probably need our help.”
Minghao slips his coat on, then uses the tattered sleeves to wipe at his eyes.
“Don’t they always?”
There’s the barest hint of humor in Minghao’s voice, so Jun smiles, “Seems like it.”
With a brisk wave of his hand, the half-light, half-shadow crystals evaporate from the window, allowing them a rather daunting view of a laboratory below.
“Jun?”
“Hmm?”
“I love you too.”
Minghao takes Jun’s hand, gives it a small squeeze, and they vanish in an eclipse of shadow and light.
Jeonghan
I need time to think.
Jeonghan ducks behind one of the many machines, panting, lungs aching, as a lightning bolt cracks through the air, the electrical arc missing him by a few scant feet.
What they need is a power they can mitigate, a set of abilities that can cancel each other out long enough to find a permanent solution.
Jeonghan glances at his friends.
Fire and ice?
With the lab covered in a thin layer of water, it could be devastating to give his father Jihoon’s powers. But what about fire? That would be a much more imminent threat, and if his father’s flames would be more potent than Vernon’s, it could be deadly. And yet…
Jeonghan’s gaze finds Seungkwan.
“Vernon!”
“Busy!”
“Please,” Jeonghan shouts, then scrambles around the machine, back out into the open as his father rounds the corner and finds him. “I need you and Seungkwan over here now.”
A rush of wind announces their arrival just as something whips over Jeonghan’s head. The machine he’d been using for cover spews shrapnel across the concrete as an object rends through it.
Jeonghan follows the trajectory and finds Seungcheol readying another projectile.
“Yknow, I was kind of hoping to not fight your dad,” Vernon winces.
“Good, because you won’t be fighting him. I just need you to get close enough to touch him–”
“Touch him?”
“Then get out of there as quickly as possible. He’s going to take on your powers, but he’ll be much, much stronger.”
“And we want to do that, why?”
Seungkwan’s eyes widen with realization, “Because I can put out fire.”
Jeonghan nods, “Exactly.”
Vernon lets out an indecisive sound, but after meeting Seungkwan’s gaze, he nods too, then starts toward Jeonghan’s father.
More industrial shrapnel skitters across the ground, followed by the sound of an electrical arc. Jeonghan reaches for the charge, absorbing it, redirecting it, and letting it permeate through his body to leave him shaking in its wake.
He doesn’t know how much more of that he can take.
Seungkwan puts a hand on his back, a fleeting gesture of comfort as the world is suddenly bathed in orange. Jeonghan looks up just in time to see Vernon sprinting away from a rapidly expanding sphere of fire. Hot steam washes over them first as the water from the sprinklers boils on impact.
Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.
But then wind tears past them like a wave, pushing back the flames and dispersing the steam. The fire splashes against the wall and damaged machines, leaving them scorched or smoldering.
The acrid smell of burning plastic fills the air.
Jeonghan glances at Seungkwan, trying to gauge his reaction and his ability to deal with the threat.
Seungkwan looks determined, but he also looks scared.
Vernon stops beside him, his breathing heavy, his stance poised to intercept any errant flames, and Jeonghan backs away, trying to give himself room to think away from the superheated air.
Seungcheol jogs toward him.
“What’s the plan?”
As fire and wind collide, sending bright ribbons of flame lashing, Jeonghan shakes his head, “We need to find a way to stop my father without getting close.”
He quickly explains what he knows of the man’s new abilities, grasping at theories and possible solutions, but none of them seem adequate when placed against the totality of the problem.
Another torrent of wind sweeps across the lab, causing both of them to stagger.
The rift continues to gape ominously nearby.
It’s as Seungcheol is searching for a response that a bright flash of white light heralds Jun’s arrival. Minghao appears beside him, manifesting from his shadow.
“What can we do to help?” Jun asks.
“You’re bleeding,” Seungcheol observes.
Jun waves the concern away.
Jeonghan trusts him enough to believe him, “Help Jihoon and Joshua with the robots. Stay away from my father. He’ll use your powers against you.”
Minghao nods, then looks up to the hatches in the ceiling, “That’s where the robots are coming from. Think you could get me up there?”
Jun simply hums.
The lights of the lab, flickering in the artificial rain, begin to condense. A swirling spire of elegant opalescent crystal lifts them skyward.
Satisfied that his friends will be safe, Jeonghan turns his attention back to his father.
Seungkwan and Vernon seem to be holding their ground, smoke, steam, and flames swirling around them like a hellish storm, but Jeonghan has fought this battle too. He knows they won’t be able to keep up the pace for long.
I need to think of something.
As if keeping the threat at bay weren’t difficult enough, even if, against all odds, they manage to defeat Jeonghan’s father now, they’ll be facing the same problem that they did with Mr. Kim but worse.
Jeonghan’s father isn’t the type of person to yield against threats, especially not from someone he believes is beneath him. Not only that, but with the powers he currently has, all it would take is one mistake, one loophole, one moment of weakness and this man could escape, could rebuild his empire, and could seek revenge.
The consequences would be deadly.
Jeonghan doesn’t think his father would let him go a second time.
“What are our options?”
Seungcheol grimaces, “We run?”
“He’ll chase us,” Jeonghan replies, watching the man fight. He throws walls of fire at Seungkwan, manipulating the flames with his hands. “What if we took the gloves off?”
“He wouldn’t be able to deflect weapons anymore.”
“And I might be able to incapacitate him with my lightning. The only question is how do we remove them?”
The building trembles.
“Literally what else?” Seungkwan yells, exasperated.
The ceiling begins to glitter with misty purple crystals, and the sounds of rending metal and shattering glass cascade over the lab. Jeonghan almost sighs in relief. The robots shouldn’t be a problem for much longer.
“I’ll get the gloves off,” Seungcheol says. “I just need to get close enough.”
“Absolutely not. He’ll burn you.”
“Not if we switch powers again.”
“To what?”
“To wind.”
They both look at Seungkwan.
“You tell him, I’ll distract your father.”
As Seungcheol begins to rip apart the half-dismantled robot, ready to use Jeonghan’s father’s own improvised weapon against him, Jeonghan hurries back to Vernon and Seungkwan.
“You want me to do what?”
The fire ceases momentarily as one of the robot’s legs flies through the air like a spear at Jeonghan’s father. He manages to dodge it, but only just.
Jeonghan urges, “We need to get Wonwoo’s gloves off of him.”
“Fine. Okay. Just give me a second.”
Hot wind rushes past them and Jeonghan chokes on the smoke in the air. Eyes stinging, he can only cough and watch as Seungkwan propels himself forward, so fast that Jeonghan’s father can do nothing but take the hit. They land mere feet away from the maw of the rift.
Seungkwan deftly rolls off of him but is thrown to the ground by the raging funnel cloud that throws dust, dying embers, and debris into the air. Jeonghan’s father pushes himself to his feet, then turns to Seungkwan with cruel anger in his eyes.
“I’m done playing games,” the man says, the funnel cloud tightening.
Seungkwan manages to get to his knees, fighting the wind that tears at his clothes, but he begins to panic, a hand coming to rest on his throat.
He can’t breathe.
Flames roar to life beside Jeonghan, but he reaches out a hand to stop Vernon.
“Let go,” Vernon shrugs him away, but Jeonghan bodily blocks his path. “What are you doing–?”
Seungcheol sprints past them, launching himself at Jeonghan’s father and ripping the gloves off. The wind dissipates and Seungkwan gasps, coughing violently. Jeonghan steps aside to let Vernon pass.
He then turns to his father.
Lightning rakes across the space between them, avoiding Seungcheol while he holds the metal gloves and striking the man beside him, causing him to flinch. With Seungcheol’s mimicked strength, it won’t be effective, but it definitely slows him down.
Jeonghan casts another electrical arc, then a third.
His father staggers a few steps before his gaze shifts to Seungcheol, then the rift.
Cold dread pinches Jeonghan’s heart.
Maybe it had always been Association propaganda to subtly control the distribution of superhuman abilities. Maybe it was a fear of the unknown as, despite years of research, no one seemed to be able to provide an exact account of what happened inside–not even Minghao, Jun, and Joshua. Or maybe it’s just this rift, sickly and monstrous, artificial, and already claimed by Jeonghan’s father.
Whatever it is, Jeonghan can’t let Seungcheol be thrown into it because what if he never comes back out?
Time seems to slow as lightning cracks through the air, a jagged line of light in a race against the actions of an unforgiving, selfish man.
It strikes, he flinches, and he reaches for Seungcheol anyway.
But then a gunshot rings out, closer than any of them have been before, and Jeonghan’s father pauses.
“Fucking got ‘im!” Soonyoung cheers from atop the spider robot, holding the grappling hook cord like reigns. Chan is sitting in front of him, a small device plugged into the abdominal weapon hatch.
An inhibitor bullet. He’ll temporarily lose his powers, he’ll pass out, he’ll…
Jeonghan’s father sways on his feet, tipping toward the rift, and Jeonghan suddenly knows what he has to do.
No more chances. No more games.
With one last look at Seungcheol to give himself strength, Jeonghan rushes forward, wrapping his arms around his father and sending them both careening into the rift.
Chaos.
Lightning, fire, and wind ravage the darkness as Jeonghan falls, clutching to his father, not knowing whether letting go will help him or hurt him.
It ultimately doesn’t matter. He loses his grip as they land roughly but painlessly amidst murky nothingness.
Lightning cracks in the immeasurable distance. The ghosts of flames flicker in his periphery. Wind lashes his hair across his face.
A strange static surrounds him, almost tangible as a tingling along his skin.
Jeonghan props himself up on an elbow, glancing around.
Another flash of lightning catches on something, a glint in the nothingness. Jeonghan pushes himself to his feet, wary of his father’s prone form in the darkness nearby.
It’s because of this awareness that Jeonghan startles when he sees the man watching him, but after a moment, he realizes it’s only an image, and a fragmented one at that.
Terrifyingly life-like, those cruel, dismissive eyes stare back, trapped in what seems to be a cracked pane of glass. Almost like a window.
Or a mirror.
But of course it couldn’t be, for it’s not his own image that Jeonghan sees. And yet, somehow, it feels just as real as any other reflection would be.
“Jeonghan,” it says to him in his father’s voice, full of chilling, familiar contempt. “You’ve brought us here to…what? Try to stop me?”
“Yes,” Jeonghan answers carefully, trying and failing to settle his nervous heartbeat. “This rift never should have been opened. You never should have gotten these powers.”
His gaze lowers to his father’s body, still unmoving, still eerily harmless.
When Jeonghan lifts his gaze again, phantom flames reflect in more mirror-like shards, cracked, sharp and jagged at the edges, his father’s visage trapped in each one.
“And who are you to make these kinds of statements?” the images ask, the voice emanating from everywhere and nowhere. “You say that I crave power, yet here you are, claiming a moral high ground, as if you are the all-knowing judge, jury, and executioner who is fit to pass judgment. Bitter hypocrisy, is it not?”
“It’s the intentions that matter,” Jeonghan says, and he believes his words. Really, he does, but they sound hollow even to his own ears. They sound afraid. “I’m trying to save people, not control them.”
“Are you? Or do you just want to pretend you’re better than me?”
Lightning rakes across the void, and the mirror fragments shine with the momentary glare. There are more than there were before.
Eerily, no thunder follows.
“I think you use altruism as a coping mechanism, trying to distance yourself from me, trying so desperately to prove to yourself that you aren’t a villain.”
“I’m not,” Jeonghan replies softly, wanting to believe his words. But the pinprick of doubt that always rests inside of him begins to burn.
“Legally, no. Seungcheol took care of that,” the reflection sneers, “but inside, you’re still afraid. Just look at what you wanted to do to Mr. Kim.”
I wanted to murder him.
A chill sweeps through Jeonghan as another gust of wind stirs the air.
No. I didn’t want to. I thought we had to. It’s different. That man is a monster, and I had to protect my friends.
“You know there is evil in you, Jeonghan. No matter how much you try to hide it.”
Jeonghan doesn’t respond. Instead, he tries to turn away from the ruthless image of his father, but he can’t. He’s surrounded.
“How selfish. Helping others to save you from yourself. Collecting little lost misfits that rely on you and put you up on a pedestal.”
Jeonghan shakes his head, his voice wavering, “They’re my friends, they need me as much as I need them—“
“Yes, you do need them don’t you. They make you feel powerful.”
The word strikes Jeonghan like a slap.
He backs away, shutting his eyes tightly to protect himself from the accusations, from the doubt and the fear and the guilt. Jeonghan feels so, so small.
Is this who I am? After everything…
Jeonghan takes a slow, unsteady breath.
Even if it is, I want to do the right thing. I need to protect my friends.
“I am afraid,” Jeonghan admits quietly. “I’m afraid of you, and of myself. But I’m trying to undo the harm we’ve done. I’m trying to be a good person.”
He opens his eyes, expecting to meet the callous gaze of his father, but Jeonghan sees only himself.
His reflection watches him from the countless shards of mirror.
Thunder rumbles, low, deep, resonating in Jeonghan’s chest.
“Is this who you are?” his reflection asks in his voice, soft, almost sad.
“Maybe I am like him,” Jeonghan says, finding it more difficult to admit this to himself than to his father. “I try to plan. I try to control things, and isn’t that what I accuse him of? I want to be powerful too, but…I wouldn’t want power if it didn’t help people.”
“You wouldn’t?”
“No,” Jeonghan says, and something comforting settles over him at the honesty in his statement. “In fact, I would give all of it up if it meant keeping my friends safe.”
“That’s what you really came here for, isn’t it,” Jeonghan’s reflection responds quietly.
“It is.”
“And it’s what you want, despite knowing the consequences?”
Jeonghan looks down at his father, who is still lying motionless. It’s odd, seeing someone who has caused so much fear, pain, and harm be reduced to this.
“Power doesn’t make me who I am,” Jeonghan says.
He lifts his gaze to find only one mirror, uncracked, now waiting for him in the gentle darkness.
Jeonghan lifts his hand, delicate threads of electricity weaving between his fingers.
“Take it. I don’t need it anymore.”