Chapter 51:The God Gene (part 4)
Kai-Centric

Jongin supposed it was the unfairness of it all that really made him start to think outside the mold of a Good Guardian. In truth, he’d never been happy with the idea that he was supposed to care only about the welfare of the people on his planet—he had no authority within the Generations of Guardians and was not allowed to question them. That, in his mind, had never been right. He didn’t realize what it was that he wanted until Yixing had been allowed to go back home and see his mother. At first Jongin had been unbearably jealous that Yixing even had a mother who wanted him. Jongin had been abandoned when he was a baby, so hungry that at two years old he learned how to use his power so that he could steal food. He knew it was wrong, but he also knew that he had to eat to survive, and his mother wasn’t feeding him. Jongin thought that it was a miracle he learned how to talk and walk and dress himself—nobody showed him how to do any of that. Yixing had even gotten the chance to confront his father, and by the Tree Jongin wanted that opportunity.

When Jongin arrived at the Sanctuary at the age of three, he was all but shoved right at Suho, and it wasn’t until Jongin got older that he realized just how messed up that was. Here was Jongin, an unsociable child who could barely stand the presence of other people and hated being touched. He didn’t know how to express himself, he screamed and cried when people tried to approach him or talk to him, he didn’t know how to use eating utensils or even write his own name. And here was Suho, six years old—barely more than a baby himself—with Jongdae and Chanyeol to care for as well—who was essentially civilizing Jongin all on his own. How screwed up did a person have to be to put all that on a six year old? Never mind that Suho had his own issues, barely just recovering from a speech problem himself and having frequent nightmares about being abandoned in a snowstorm. Minseok had helped out as best he knew how, but Chanyeol was really the only child he could deal with. Jongdae had already latched onto Suho and was reluctant to let go, and Suho said that for Minseok to try to help Jongin—in the beginning at least—would only serve to overload him and make him even more resentful.

He was probably right, Jongin didn’t think he would have like having Minseok on his back at all, as it was he frequently kicked the crap out of Suho. But what got to Jongin the most was that no matter what, no matter how nasty Jongin had been, how many bad things he did or how loudly he screamed, Suho never lost his temper or his faith in Jongin. One thing Jongin would never forget was the night that he asked Suho how he could love a rotten child, and Suho had told Jongin that he wasn’t rotten, and even if he was it didn’t mean that he didn’t deserve love. Suho, who was eight years old at the time, told him that. A child himself, he was the one Jongin credited for bringing him up to be a person instead of a monster. Jongin couldn’t remember an adult ever having such a huge impact on his life, and what kind of a society did he live in where that had to happen? Now that he was older, it disgusted him.

The biggest thing that Jongin wanted was to make sure that no child ever had to go through what Suho went through. He raised three of the biggest problem children a generation of Guardians had ever seen—himself, Jongdae and Sehun. Jongin had no idea how Suho had managed to stay sane, if it had been him…well, it wouldn’t have been him. Kris wasn’t any better off either, he raised Tao all by himself, and in thanks he was nearly killed during the ceremony that made him leader. It was a good thing that Tao had a decent enough grip on his ability to save Kris, otherwise who knew what might have happened. He wanted the people responsible for their messed up childhoods to own up and pay the price.

The second thing that Jongin wanted was to find his mother and talk to her. He didn’t want to hurt her, there was a part of him that realized she did what she did because she felt like he wasn’t her child. Still, he wanted to know why she was so cold—in every other Guardian’s case there seemed to be one person who would care for them, or at least feed them regularly. Jongin’s stomach churned when he thought about how hungry he had been as a child. He wanted to ask her when she started to hate him—was it when he was two? A year old? A few months? Had she hated him from the moment he was born, or had it been even before that?

Jongin knew that it was a slim chance his mother was still alive, but he was the one that had dangled over that pit, he’s felt the presence of that darkness, and he genuinely felt that it had no interest in life or death and would simply cause the world to freeze, sort of like what Tao did. Maybe that was why it had overtaken him and Tao, because they could control time and space and could understand how it functioned. He understood that defeating Mama was a thing that he had a responsibility to do—perhaps nobody understood that more than he did. It was a sinister force, something truly disturbing, but he also wanted what was fair for him. Regardless of whether those people had been under the force of Mama, there was blame to be had.

Jongin started to make a list of everything he wanted people to pay for. His mother had to answer to him. The Masters who tried to kill Kris had to be punished. Those who put Suho in charge of a bunch of children needed to be put on trial for neglect. Whoever had sabotaged their ship…Jongin had a few appealing words for that person, followed by a lifelong jail sentence. As far as he was concerned, that person was solely responsible for Lu Han’s devastating brain injury which left Sehun broken hearted. Jongin was beginning to realize he couldn’t put a name to the pain that incident had caused. He wished he could play his memories for all to see, project them onto a wall so everyone could know what it was like to look into Lu Han’s blank eyes, watch Sehun cry and beg Lu Han to say something, to look at him just once. Jongin wished he could describe what it was like to watch Sehun lose hope and become a shell himself, all while Jongin tried and failed to be enough for Sehun to hold onto.

At first he’d resented Sehun for that, but after he and Jongdae started to fall for each other and Jongin put himself and Jongdae in Lu Han and Sehun’s place…he began to understand. Sometimes there was no substitute for love, sometimes the thought of losing your lover became more unbearable than the thought of losing anyone else in your life. At one point he’d even blamed the other Guardians for it, for not finding them faster, but he came to realize he was wrong about them too. Jongin needed someone to blame, and so he went back, trying to figure out who started all of this, who set it into motion.

In the end, Jongin supposed he blamed the first Generation of Guardians most of all. If they had just done their job right this wouldn’t have been a problem at all. Hell even if they had just kept visiting the Tree, had given it a chance to explain that it wasn’t replacing them with the second Generation, then maybe they wouldn’t have fallen under the influence of this dark force and everything would have been fine! Maybe Jongin and his friends could be back on their home right now, maybe he and Jongdae could have had a proper wedding ceremony…there were so many what ifs.

Of course Jongin realized that if he was going to go about his plan for revenge, or closure, or whatever it was, he needed to be careful. There were so many ways he could slip and become too obsessed, to drunk on his new power. He needed to remind himself that no matter what, he couldn’t take action without evidence. He had plenty of that, but he would need to present it in a logical fashion. He needed to make sure that he didn’t go after anyone innocent, and most of all he needed to distance himself from the other Guardians and make it clear that he was not representative of all of them. That being said, Jongin also knew he couldn’t do it alone. He was powerful, but he wasn’t threatening. As amazing as Teleporation was, it wasn’t nearly as impressive as say, shooting a pillar of flame from his hands.

So far, Jongin only knew of one person he could count on, and that was Jongdae. His sweet Jongdae, who had come so far in these two short months since they had discovered how strong they now were. He was no longer the scared person who jumped at shadows and cried when a bug crawled over his foot. Jongin had always known he could be brave, but apparently Jongdae had only just discovered it.

They had been sitting around a small fire together, watching as Yixing tried to stay as far away from their new kitten as he possibly could. Chanyeol had named her Lucy and had been her primary caretaker, but that kitten had eyes only for Yixing. She trailed after him day in and day out, meowing loudly at him and trying to climb up his pant legs, and he would squirm away from her and shake her off. Jongdae had been so distracted that he hadn’t even noticed the large spider that was crawling up the log next to him. Baekhyun saw it first, and he screamed and stood up, pointing at the creature.

“Holy crap that’s the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in my life!” He shrieked, “Chen, lookout!”

Everyone saw the thing, gasped and backed away; even Jongin had been a little creeped out by it. Jongdae was the only one who remained seated. He smiled coldly at the spider.

“Get the hell away from me,” he said, and he held his hand over it and produced a perfect lightning bolt—about a thousand times smaller than the ones he usually unleashed. The spider was shocked to death immediately, but the log Jongdae was sitting on remained unaffected.

Surprisingly enough, this was how everyone knew that Jongdae’s power had been amplified. Never before had he had enough control to create a lightning bolt that small—even as a child he was only able to generate great bolts, and usually he didn’t even have enough power to control where they struck—or not in the way that he had just demonstrated. That bolt hit only the spider, affected only the spider, and it had been so small that had it hit an ordinary person it wouldn’t have killed them. It was amazing to watch, even more so because it was the first time anyone could remember Jongdae being so calm in the face of one of his biggest fears.

“How are you not freaking out?” Sehun had gasped, echoing everyone’s thoughts.

Jongdae shrugged, his cool smile still on his face. “I guess I know now that it can’t hurt me.”

Jongin had smiled and sat back down, slinging his arm around Jongdae’s shoulders and pulling him in for a kiss. “My brave husband,” he whispered.

Jongdae curled into Jongin’s side and said, softly enough for only Jongin to hear, “Nothing can hurt me ever again, I’ll always be able to hurt it first.”

Jongin had smiled to himself as he laced his fingers with Jongdae’s. Oh yes, he could count on his husband.

But he couldn’t count on Yixing to side with him—he was much too afraid of his power to use it as a weapon. Jongin had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to count on Xiumin either. He also felt the need to count Baekhyun out. That made no sense, Baekhyun should have wanted revenge, but there was a part of Jongin’s brain that stubbornly insisted that if he wanted to get to Baekhyun, he’d have to get Chanyeol first. He’d been shocked at the thought at first, but he finally understood. Chanyeol may have been sunshine and rainbows at one point, but he was starting to understand exactly what had been done wrong to his beloved Baekhyun. Jongin realized that if he presented his case in the right way, he could get Chanyeol to see that he was doing something for the good of others. And he really didn’t think it would take much to get Chanyeol to want to storm Baekhyun’s old village and see them punished for holding a child hostage from his brothers—his real family—in exchange for money.

Then there was Sehun and Lu Han—he felt they could go either way. Sehun could swing Lu Han to his side in a quest for vengeance against the people who nearly killed his husband, or Lu Han could convince Sehun that he didn’t need revenge, neither of them did. Or those two could be reversed, Jongin really couldn’t tell. Kyungsoo was another one that he had a hard time reading, but then again he had been the first to openly question the Tree of Life…yes, perhaps Jongin would be able to count on Kyungsoo’s support.

That left Tao and the Great Leaders in the grey. One thing was for sure, Jongin would have his work cut out for him with them. No doubt they would try to stop him, but if he could get them to see that he didn’t mind being the bad guy, that he didn’t care if they blame fell on him and he became feared…after all, it was better to be feared than to be loved. Jongin truly believed in that, but would either leader believe him? After all that Suho had been through, he seemed to be more likely to throw aside the image of the kind guardian and shake things up, but perhaps it was too drastic a change to expect from their resident good-boy.

Then again Jongin expected it less from Kris, but Kris had always been the one who would listen first and ask questions after he’d heard the whole story. Jongin could just picture Suho’s face when he learned his second youngest was bent on getting some kind of justice, even if he had to use force to do it. His stomach twisted at the thought of disappointing the only person he ever truly thought of as an older brother. That just left him with Kris, and Suho knew he had to talk to a leader before he could talk to anyone else. If Jongin read someone wrong, and they tattled on him…he just wanted at least one of them to know before he said anything to anyone besides Jongdae.

Jongin approached Kris for the first time about three months after the whole fiasco had begun. They were tired from a day of walking, and Jongin knew that they wouldn’t be missed if they disappeared for a while.

“Kris, can I talk to you? Alone?”

Kris looked a little surprised, but stood up anyway. As the two of them walked off he said, “I thought you usually went to Suho when you wanted to talk. Did something happen?”

Jongin shook his head. “No, I just…I think you would understand more.”

Kris put his arm around Jongin’s shoulders, and for a half second Jongin thought he was making a mistake. He loved Kris just as much as he loved Suho, he didn’t want to jeopardize his relationship with either of them, maybe he should forget the whole thing…

But no, he had to do this. He figured they were far enough away where even if Kris yelled, they wouldn’t be overheard, so he squared his shoulders and took a deep breath. “When we go home…if we go home…I want to do things differently. I want answers, I want people to be held responsible for what they did to us when we were kids. I want to punish the Guardians who left us on our own, and the people who tried to kill you, and the people who held Baekhyun hostage, and I don’t plan on hiding it from the others. I want to tell them what I’m going to do and ask if they want to join me.”

Well, that was the short version of it. Jongin tried to read Kris’ response, but he seemed to be hiding his true feelings. “I can’t say I didn’t anticipate this.”

Jongin froze. “Huh?”

Kris sighed and looked down. “With great power comes a whole host of possibilities. I realized it after what happened with Chen and that spider, that soon someone would realize that we could do potentially great things and not so great things.”

Jongin felt the need to explain himself. “It’s not necessarily bad,” he said quickly, and before he knew it he was spilling everything. How horrible it had truly been for him to be neglected as a child, how he loathed what had happened to Suho and Baekhyun, how unfair it all was and how he blamed the Guardians for what happened to all of them, including Sehun and Lu Han. He was close to tears by the end, and he could see that he had indeed shocked Kris.

“I had no idea you felt that way,” Kris said numbly. “Especially about…about Sehun and Lu Han…”

Jongin laughed sadly. “I told you before that it was awful. I can’t just let that go, Kris. I have to blame someone, and I can’t blame you guys or…or even myself. Not anymore, not after what you told me. But…that anger hasn’t gone away, I don’t know if it ever will. I just…I still feel so betrayed and I need some kind of closure.”

“It’s okay,” Kris said. “I understand.”

Jongin gaped at him. “You do?”

Kris smiled, and he looked so much older than his eternal 22 years. “We are human, after all. No matter how strong we are, we’ll always have that need for justice and fairness. I can see that this is something you’re not going to let go of, and I think to hold you back might be worse. The truth is, I would rather watch you do something I don’t agree with than have you go behind my back to do it. This way if something happens, I can help you right away and things hopefully won’t spiral out of control.”

Jongin understood, but he was focused on one part. “So, you don’t agree with me?”

Kris sighed. “I don’t know. I understand, but I don’t know if it’s…what I would do. But I do think you have a right to make your own choice.”

Jongin nodded. “I’m not trying to lash out at anyone who pisses me off. I will go about this the right way.”

“I know you say that now,” Kris said gently, “But I want you to remember this—the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is a situation where you could easily lose control.”

“But I won’t,” Jongin insisted. “And I’ll have you and Suho to keep me in check. I’ll always respect the two of you, nothing will change that.”

Kris looked him over critically and sighed again. “I’m going to have to trust you on that, and just be glad that this confrontation is a long way off.”

“I’m not changing my mind,” Jongin warned.

“Perhaps not,” Kris agreed. “But maybe in that time you’ll have removed yourself from your anger a little more.”

Jongin doubted that, but he didn’t say it. “Will you help me talk to Suho about it?”

“Sure,” Kris said. “I’ll do what I can. But I’m not helping you with the others—this is officially your battle, Kai.”

And Jongin intended to see it to the end, whatever that may be.

This thing is taking on a life of its own, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have made this its own separate story. Oh well, too late now. Anyway, I thought it was important to show you the other side of this argument, especially since I know a lot of people were worried about Kai becoming power hungry. MandeeGee said this in a comment on the last chapter, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” which is funny because that’s really what I was basing this whole thing off of and I think it holds true in this chapter especially. Hopefully this has calmed everyone's fears a little bit. So now the real test begins, who will side where?

Oh and I didn't realize until a while after I posted the last chapter, but the last drabble was chapter 50!!!! My how far we have come!