‘I can’t… breathe!’ Suho heard D.O say mentally. He looked around and saw that his friends were slowly losing their breath. He immediately commanded the water around them to disperse, giving them room to breathe.

Everyone started gulping in large amounts of air but Suho knew they only had a limited supply of oxygen.

He looked at the mermaid, dancing in the water in front of him, flashing her shark teeth. Suho decided he’d finish this by himself. Letting the others exert energy may tire them out faster.

He sped forward with ease. Being in his home element will help a lot, but he still doesn’t know what the mermaid is capable of doing.

When he was meters away from the mermaid, he fired a jet of pressurized water at the creature. The mermaid merely swam to the left, avoiding the attack. Suho fired another, which the mermaid, again, evaded.

He stopped moving forward and watched the mermaid float in place. It wasn’t trying to attack him at all.

“You’re waiting it out!” Suho said, finding he can talk underwater.

“Smart boy.” The mermaid said. Her voice was melodious. “Soon, they will all die from suffocation. I’ll worry about you last.”

“You…!!” Suho released water spears that attacked the mermaid in different directions. The mermaid just swayed gracefully, avoiding the sharp points of the spears.

“Let’s dance more!” she laughed melodiously.  Suho continued to assault her with different attacks but none hit their target.

‘Suho!’ Luhan’s voice came into his head. ‘It’s… useless… We’ll have to defeat her… the same way she’s trying… to take us down.’

‘How?’ Suho asked, still attacking the mermaid so as not to let her know he was conversing with Luhan.

‘You’ll have to take out the water around her. As far as I know… Mermaids need water to breathe, like we need air. I’ll trap her inside a mental… barrier… so she can’t escape.’

‘That’s brilliant!’

‘One more thing. Get Lay next to me. I’m going to need his support if we want to keep the mermaid inside the barrier.’

‘Gotcha.’ With one last attack, Suho turned around and used the water around Lay to push him towards Luhan. Once they were together, he turned to face the mermaid and concentrated hard.

The mermaid watched and tensed, preparing to evade. But then she felt something else. The water around her was separating. She looked left and right, watching as the water was retreating away from her. She tried to move towards the water but an invisible wall prevented her from doing so.

“What is this!?” she bared her teeth at Suho, her voice no longer calm and beautiful but filled with rage. “Let me out of here!”

“We’ll see who lasts longer!” Suho declared, floating in front of her mental prison.

“You don't seriously think you can keep me in here!” The mermaid snarled. She put a hand on the invisible wall and her nails extended outward, razor-like. Then she began hacking away at the wall.

‘Luhan!’ Suho said.

‘I know. If Lay stays with me, I can hold her in. She’s strong. I suggest… you keep your distance from her.’

‘Luhan… I don’t think I can… keep this up…’ Lay said, his mental voice was weak. Then he collapses.

“Lay!” Suho swam towards his fallen comrade.

Luhan struggled to keep his barrier intact, but the scarcity of air made it difficult to concentrate and in seconds, the barrier was broken.

“You will pay for that!” The mermaid swam towards Suho in breakneck speed. “I’ve got you!” She extended her arm forward and almost grabbed Suho’s leg when they all heard a scream.

Tiffany was screaming. The water around them disappeared. The mermaid disappeared. They all dropped on their hands and knees and gulped massive amounts of air at a time.

“Seo….Seohyun …” they heard Tiffany say. When they all recovered, except Lay, they stood up and looked at the robot lady. “Impossible…”

“Did she say.. Seohyun?” Xiumin said. “That’s the robot Tao was fighting.”

“He must have finished her off.” Kris said.

“No… Impossible…”came Tiffany’s voice. “She was… the ultimate battle robot. It can’t be!”

“Well, Tao is a wushu master. Plus, King is with him.” Kris said in a loud voice. Tiffany looked up and stared at him hard.

“No more… games.” Tiffany said grimly.

“That’s right. No more games!” Luhan stepped forward. “We know your weakness!”

“We do?” Xiumin asked, looking at Luhan.

“Yes. We do.” Chen answered.

“Did you guys have some mental conversation without us?” Xiumin asked.

“Yeah.. we kind of did.” Luhan said.

“Fool.” Tiffany disturbed their conversation. “In this room, I have no weakness!” Large spikes appeared out of nowhere around the boys, the points all directed at them.

Suho carried the unconscious Lay and moved closer to the others after the spikes appeared.

“You’re right. In this room you have no weakness.” Luhan said. Chen raised a hand and produced a ball of lightning. “But…”

Chen sent a strong current of electricity towards the ceiling. As soon as the charge of power hit the ceiling, the spikes around them began blinking on and off, like a broken hologram.

“What!?” Tiffany backed away as the room around them started changing rapidly; from a forest, to an icy tundra, to a desert, to ruins, to a modern city. Then it stopped. The spikes were also gone.

Chen stopped his attack.

“Whoa.” Xiumin breathed out. “So that's what it was.”

“This room creates realities that you can control completely. They may not be totally real but whatever happens while the room is working is real. You were kind enough not to have killed us all on the spot.” Luhan said.

“You little brat. And to think I went easy on you. Taeyon won’t like this but I’m going to have to kill you all!” she snarled and ran forward to attack. A sword appeared in each of her hand. The group tensed and prepared to evade but someone met her attack midway.

“Tao!” Everyone exclaimed in unison.

[A/N]

Here's another chapter guys!! I hope you like it!

Anyways, about my own life.... I went to the company for that teaching job earlier... I was prepared for the interview.. but what I wasn't prepared for was the demo.. I had to teach english to staff members and pretend they don't know english. GAH!! They didn't even give me anything to work with!! I think I totally bombed. Sigh... And I'm guessing they're not going to contact me. TAT

Oh well, charging that to experience and moving on.