I. KAI

“To your left!”

“Dammit Chen!”

“Ow! That’s my toe!”

“Can we just kill this thing so I can get back to my calculus homework?”

Kai never wanted to kill his brothers more. They scrambled over their own two feet, guns firing in every direction except in the direction of their enemy, a mundane robot with large, craning arm and blaring red eye. They fought these time and time again, each one larger and stronger than the one before it. Kai assumed the repetitive enemies would fail to challenge the team, but again, he assumed too much of them. They panicked each time, the rookie, Kyungsoo, scrambling over his feet and firing at him instead of the egg-shaped robot. With a set jaw, Kai shoved him back and stepped forward, gun raised. He took shot after shot, but as expected, the bullets only ricocheted, heavy lead cylinders embedding into brick-sided buildings and crumbling pavement.

The robot focused its blaring, red eye on him, its crimson light bearing down onto his skin, basking him in a disturbing warmth. He shut his eyes, the red burning through his eyelids. Bit by bit, he lost feeling in his legs, then his knees, then his waist. The sensation- the numbness- trickled up his body as he felt himself disappear from the current universe, stuck in a wisp limbo where he lingered for what felt like hours, the black void cushioning his body in zero-gravity. He traveled through a fold in space in time, the blackness forming and bending all around him, him deeply inside only to spit him right back out. He flinched forward, now behind the robot, his breath returning to his lungs in a jolting rattle and his feet skidding against the floor as he landed. The robot spiraled, obviously confused, unable to do anything as Kai rushed up behind it, ripping away the control panel and shooting at all the complex wiring. He had done this method before to vanquish the enemy, but as the robot’s reflexes became quicker and quicker, and as it adapted to his techniques, it became harder to beat.

It whipped around and sent Kai flying with his claw arm, the metal crashing into his ribs and ramming him into brick. A curt cry tore from his throat as he crumbled against the ground. His gun skidded several feet away, too far from his reach.

“Kai!” He heard someone cry. His ears rang too harshly to tell who.

Through bleary eyes, he could see the robot turn its attention to him once more, its sharp, agile legs racing as it barreled towards him. He struggled to summon the familiar and comfortable sensation of numbness to his toes and fingers, but the void refused to listen to his plea, refusing him access to his limbo. He lifted his arms to cover his face. His heart hammered in his throat.

The blow never came, but a strangled cry not from his own lips did. He looked up, vision returning in blurry and spinning glimpses. Xiumin stood before him, hands outstretched as a shield of ice held back the large metal claw, its sharp talons plucking and digging at the ice, but the more it dug away, the more Xiumin summoned into his shield, the arctic blue up to his elbows. His feet slid as the robot pushed him back, now just over Kai’s body.

“Why didn’t you teleport?” He was panting. Sweat gathered on his crinkled brow.

“I can’t.”
 

“What do you mean you can’t!?”

Xiumin cried out. The robot’s claw drilled through his ice shield, and his knees gave him, collapsing nearly on top of Kai’s crumpled body. His hands trembled, Kai noticed, his fingertips an unusually bright tint of blue. Kai tried summoning the void once more. It continued to ignore him.

Kai felt his nerve-endings spark with a sudden jolt through his body, and with the way Xiumin tensed up against him, he could tell the shudder tore through him as well. The buzz never left, trailing at the tips of his fingers and curves of his lips until he saw Chen round the corner of an alleyway, cheek bloody and caked with soot. The robot failed to see him. In Chen’s hands was a plug- two ends of one. What was he up to?

“Woo-hoo! Robot!” Chen said. “Over here! Nice, powerful orb for you over here! Come ‘n get it!”

The talons inches from Kai’s nose, its cool metal snarling and baring its ugly teeth, tore from him and turned its attention to Chen, who stood now across the street, jumping wildly up and down, the white cord flopping on the ground beside him.

Kai felt the pounding of his heart freeze as the robot swiveled on its axis, charing Chen’s direction. He begged the void to come back, the numbness teasing at his limbs for seconds only to disintegrate and leaving Kai crumpled against the wall, riddled with pain, completely helpless.

Xiumin lunged forward, eyes locked onto Chen as the robot turned its deadly stare to him. Kai weakly grabbed his wrist. “Don’t. He’ll be fine.” His hands were so cold.

Chen ran, a slight smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He ducked behind walls of cement, gun clutched close to his chest with one hand, the other wrapped around the power cords. Kai lost visual on him.

“I’m going after him,” Xiumin said. Kai didn’t let go.

“Something’s wrong with our powers,” he said. “We don’t know how to control them yet. If you go after him, you die.”
 

Xiumin’s mouth stitched shut, his eyes b with indecision and frustration in the form of clear crystals forming at the edges of his eyes. Kai squeezed his hand.

Several seconds past in silence, the distant whirring of the robot sputtering to a sharp whine, followed by a shocking explosion. Kai grabbed onto the brick wall, feeling in his body beginning to return to him, as the entire ground beneath him shook. The explosion’s aftershocks rippled through the cement of the road and alleyways. The sky spiraled to a bright array of gold and scarlet, clouds of ash and soot lowering from the sky, embers sprinkling down like a cruel snow. Embers grazed and nicked at his bare shoulders. Xiumin panted beside him, eyes wide, crystals now tucked away and hidden.

Minutes passed as the air cleared of ash, and the explosion’s shocks fell to muted white noise. Xiumin shakily rose to his feet, and practically crawled from the alleyway, hands still tinted blue and shaking- shivering. Kai had never seen him shiver. Not since he gained his orb.

“Chen? Jongdae?”

A cough sounded from behind a crumbled wall heavily charred and seared. Chen stood from behind it, cheeks caked with more soot and ash, the edges of his unruly hair singed.

“Oh, thank God,” Xiumin gasped. Chen offered a shaky smile.

“Ta-da.”

Xiumin rushed forward, and while Chen stretched his arms out for a hug, he groaned as Xiumin sent a fist plummeting into his gut. He fell to his knees.

“What was that for?!”
 

“For scaring me to death, idiot.”

Kai forced himself to stand, his torso screaming with protest as he staggered out to meet his two teammates, his own eyes heavy. He was sure he broke a rib or two, each breath he took shocking his entire spine and sternum in agony. Something was wrong. But they were short a healer.

“Where are the others?”

As if on cue, Suho, their damn leader, came rushing from around a corner, barrage of hand-guns in hand. As soon as he saw the scene before him, Chen perched on the ground, cradling a bruised abdomen, he sighed.

“I missed it again?” He pouted. “We never defeat it that quickly. I wanted to try out my new gun.”

Kyungsoo sheepishly followed him, goggles placed over his eyes, making him appear bug-eyed. Kai scowled.

“Take those off,” he said. “We could’ve died! And you all were off collecting handguns?”

Suho’s face scrunched, his nerdy grin falling to a scowl. “I was getting back up. Our guns were doing nothing.”

“That’s what your power is for!”

“You know more than anyone that we’re not in control yet!”
 

“Will you guys stop it?”

Kai, Suho, and the others turned to face Chanyeol, his hair and eye bright as ever, tearing disturbingly through the ashen darkness of the evening. Kai felt his jaw set, his entire body tensing.

“I could say the same to you Chanyeol,” Kai began. “You have one of the strongest powers of all of us. Where the hell were you?”
 

Chanyeol scoffed, his breath light and husky. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, looking down at Kyungsoo as he walked closer, a slight smirk hinting at his features as Kyungsoo averted his gaze.  

“You seemed to handle it just fine without me,” he scowled. “I’m not wasting my powers on some stupid robot that we always manage to defeat.”

Kai forgot his pain, rage surging deeply in his veins like ten-story tsunami waves. “We are a team, Chanyeol. Not because we want to be, but because we were chosen.” He grit his teeth, fists balling up as he grasped at the front of Chanyeol’s hoodie, the latter unbothered by the threat. “We need you and you need us. This solo act won’t go anymore.”

“You’re not the leader,” Chanyeol said, pushing Kai by his shoulders. He shot a pointed look at Suho. “He is. Some team we are.”

This time, Suho stepped forward before Kai lost control of his tongue, his teeth instead gnawing at his bottom lip as he struggled to bite back his words.

“Chanyeol, please,” Suho said, voice soft. “We don’t need-”

“Hey, we killed it!” Sehun announced, running to the group, his ridiculous makeshift walkie-talkie tucked in his palm, its antenna nearly whacking Xiumin in the head. “I was trying to contact Baekhyun-”

At the mention of the name, all seven of them seized up, Kai looking directly to Chanyeol. He remained stoic, the only indication he had even heard the name a small flare in the redness of his eye.

Suho put a hand on Sehun’s shoulder. “Any luck?”
 

“Well, no,” he said.

Chanyeol turned to walk away.

“Hold up,” Kai called.

He looked out at the members of his team: a nerdy, soft-spoken leader who needed to prove himself and a bumbling mechanic following the leader like a lost puppy, a sullen, angry victim of grief who held the power of destruction at his fingertips and a young kid who was way in over his head, an image of power and strength, and a spark who brought happiness and confidence. Kai was a force of sincerity- someone who knew and understood the weight of their responsibility- something the others lacked.

They were ragtag, sure, with the way Xiumin expressed his feelings of gratefulness or adoration through bouts of violence, and the varying levels of education and experience in all of them. With these new powers, the surge of adrenaline shaky and new in their veins, they struggled to keep up, their bodies spiraling out of control as they pushed themselves, past their studies, past their physical boundaries, to fight these robots that endlessly pursued them.

Kai wasn’t sure why they kept going after them. But he was sure it had something to do with their orbs- orbs Baekhyun fought for- orbs they were in constant danger of losing.

“Let’s get back to the dorm, guys,” Suho said. “We’ve had a long day.”

“Is no one gonna acknowledge how I took that robot down by myself?” Chen whined.

“Yes,” Kai laughed, feeling his sides ache. Sure, his team was irritating beyond belief and inexperienced, but at times, so was he. But, these boys were now his brothers- his family through thick and thin. “Great job, Chen. Let’s go celebrate.”