Title: Drenched, Drownded

pg-13, adventure, hurt/comfort
(MAMA!AU) After a mission on earth gone horribly wrong, EXO-K is missing and feared dead. EXO-M is tasked with the impossible; to bring the 12 back together and come out of Earth alive. What makes it worse - EXO-K's powers are now corrupted, and they would stop at nothing to kill EXO-M. 

Chapter 3

Run away, disappear far away

Why did I have to walk on this long path?

Becoming this covered by wounds

-          KARA Seungyeon, Guilty

Red paint dripped silkily from the tip of the pianist fingers. Exposed skin was dark pink, like a rash scrubbed raw. Russet was sprayed in all directions, meandering from the explosion point.  A toasted scent wafted in the air. Were those clothes, or rags? The sickly yellow faded into dull amber, before the withered black edges. Splotches of crimson stained them in blooming patches.

The magnificent bird shrieked suddenly, breaking the sudden silence. It swooped down, and latched itself on the plastic rod of the surveillance camera to rest. It cocked its head to the side, eyeing the mess on the floor.

The prey wasn’t moving anymore. Good.

Losing interest the phoenix lifted a wing, and began to preen.

XXX

There was a side to Chanyeol that he kept apart from others. He didn’t like the responsibility that came with being a Guardian; the constant training, seeing each other fall down and grit their teeth as they picked themselves up with skinned, bleeding knees- and for what? Research, until their Trainers have retired and they took over the cruel job.

But there was no other path in life for them; Chanyeol could barely remember how the outside of the facility looked. Tao would sometimes wistfully mention his old seaside walks – the East facility was located near the oceans – but even he did not mingle with the common people. The Guardians only had each other, the Trainers, and the cool, cold-hearted scientists.

So Chanyeol became the master of his emotions, if he couldn’t yet fully control his flames yet. He pushed aside unhappiness with quiet aggressiveness, replacing the frowns with full-fledged smiles that put Suho’s plastic ones to shame. In the South facility, he only had Jongin and Kris to play with. It became second nature to be the eternal sunshine, beside the temperamental teleporter and the mildly serious dragon. He got under their skin many times, but over the years they shrugged it off as a Chanyeol-thing.

 See, the thing about being the master of anything meant that people assumed it was easy for him to be happy all the time.

XXX

“Get out of the phoenix form, Fire Guardian.”

The bird gave a startled squawk at the booming voice from the loudspeaker that reverberated along the plastic rod. It took to the air in indignation. The bored tone angered the phoenix, for some reason it couldn’t quite fathom.

If Chanyeol had been in control, he would have shrugged. Might as well, he would think, and changed back no matter how reluctantly.

The phoenix was different. It was raw emotion; unsuppressed, passionate. In response to the burst of anger, it opened its golden beak and cried out shrilly. It was like a siren call; the scientists in the control room subconsciously straightened their shoulders to pay attention. Then, the phoenix tucked its wings in and flew straight down to the loudspeaker. Barely a foot away, the bird took out its claws. The brutal force of the collision had the speaker in bits and pieces. An ear-splitting screech from the broken static echoed in the gymnasium. The phoenix screeched even louder in response, adding to the cacophony of nail-scratching sound. Yet, Baekhyun did not stir.

XXX

“Brilliant,” groaned the head scientist, massaging his nose bridge. “Now both speakers are out.”

The door banged open, startling the occupants within somewhat. Lay walked briskly towards the plexiglass, pressing his hands flat against the transparent barrier. His face was stricken when he turned back almost immediately towards the head scientist. “We need to pull Baekhyun out,” he pointed out desperately, “look at him!” The unspoken words were clear. Why haven’t you pulled him out already?

The head scientist folded his arms, raising his chin in a challenging manner. “There’s no way to communicate with the phoenix, how do you propose going inside without being attacked as well?”

Lay stared at him, as if he had grown two more heads. “What, you provoked Chanyeol deliberately, without pre-emptive measures?” His nostrils flared. Then, he pushed himself away from the glass, stalking out.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The head scientist had to shout after the healer. The sensitive microphones placed around the gymnasiums picked up the low rattle of noises the phoenix was making at the back of its throat. Lay spared a second to throw a worried glance over his shoulder.

The door clicked sharply. It could only have been a demi-second of sound, inaudible underneath the incessant shrieks of the phoenix and the buzz of static from the broken loudspeaker. Yet, the shrieks died down instantly, and the phoenix turned its intense gaze onto the healer.

Lay raised both of his hands in the universal surrender position. It was a misconception that birds do not have a sense of smell. Given the size of the brain centre to process odours, he knew that the phoenix could acutely smell the dragon off him, as if someone had dumped a bottle of fragrance on him. The phoenix had grown up thinking that the dragon was his challenge. Fear prickled at the back of Lay’s neck, though he fought the urge to panic blindly. He was now the phoenix’s target.

Suddenly, the phoenix flared its wings at its perch, red flames the tips of its feathers.

“Chanyeol!” Lay shouted, his heart drumming wildly inside. “It’s me, Lay!”

The flames flickered, and then turned copper blue. The air in front of Lay started to shimmer in the heat. Before he knew it, sweat droplets started rolling down the side of his pale face.

It’s too late, Lay thought, his eyes narrowing in concentration. He had expected that. It had been too long since Chanyeol had transformed to his phoenix form. With the stress from Project Earth, Chanyeol would have been exhausted. He couldn’t keep up with his carefully-construed performance any longer; pretending to be alright, pretending to be happy. His rational mind shut down as the animal mind gleefully took over.

“Under the second light panel!” Lay cried out. “NOW, JONGIN!”

Like an inkblot splattering in the air, black exploded where Baekhyun was. Lay could barely see the hands reaching for the body, before the black in to the focal point.

Behind the black, red flared out like a flashlight blocked by an object. The phoenix was crying out in alarm, cycling overhead in agitated circles. Lay kept his eye on the ground, breathing hard and fast. Distantly in his mind, he recognised the symptoms of hyperventilation. The healer was a passive creature by nature, woefully afraid of violence. It didn’t help that Lay’s calculating mind could envision the various ways he could die by fire burns, if Jongin didn’t come back in time to save him.

Jongin had needed to know where he was going, if he wanted to teleport accurately. Without Lay in the room to shout directions, he could have teleported directly in front of the phoenix. That would have been the end of him.

A burst of pain exploded behind his eyes. Lay gave a strangled cry of pain as his right knee buckled. He hunched over his left leg, where his white pants had burnt off, revealing a red patch with a thin film of clear liquid. The liquid dribbled down in a single line.

Light already was forming underneath Lay’s fingers; its warmth spreading. Distracted by the pain and his own healing, the phoenix took the opportunity to swoop down onto its prey and rake its talons down Lay’s back.

“Chanyeol,” gasped Lay, in pained disbelief. “Stop it.”

The phoenix was a mythical creature, associated with light. They say that when the phoenix burst into flames at the end of its life cycle, before it was reborn from its ashes, there would be an explosion of brilliant white light that could heal everything within its exposure radius as its last ‘good’ deed. That was why the phoenix was attracted to light. The Guardians joked that it was why Baekhyun and Chanyeol clicked so well together.

For the first time, Lay wished it wasn’t so that the phoenix was attracted to light. He couldn’t help the light forming in patches on himself, as his body instinctively tried to heal.

Whack, whack.

Thump.

Outside the gymnasium, Jongin looked stricken at the apparent silence inside. “He didn’t call me again,” he faltered, bouncing up and down the balls of his feet. “Should I go in?”

Suho looked up at the question, but his chin dipped down a second later, anxious for Baekhyun. There was only one healer in the entire of Exoplanet; the rest were normal doctors with medical instruments and herbal medicines. Lay only had time to look for Jongin, who wheedled for a break from training with his Trainer. Suho happened to chance by. He had been waiting outside the gymnasium for his turn with Xiu Min – who was preoccupied with Kyungsoo at the moment.

“You’re asking me to make the call?” Suho hesitated, examining the extent of Baekhyun’s wounds and trying hard to recall his books. It would appear that Baekhyun had been protecting his face with his hands. Baekhyun’s forearm bore the brunt of the burns, while his face remained relatively untouched. There were splotches of stiff, white burns like mosquito patches. It was tinged seaweed green, running down the length of his thin arms. Suho cringed a little, as liquid came off onto his fingertips as he brushed against Baekhyun’s arm.

Jongin just looked at Suho, lost. That happened sometimes. They were so used to schedules, being treated like machines, that they couldn’t bear the weight of making impromptu decisions. Suho had been stunned by this, until he realised he was like that too, just to a lesser extent. Unexpectedly, Sehun’s stubbornness had forced Suho to think creatively; make decisions and try to wheedle the younger boy into following instructions.

“These look painful,” murmured Jongin apprehensively.

“He’s beyond pain, he can’t feel anything,” counted Suho with deceptive calmness. “These stiff burns are third degree. He needs a doctor.”

“What should I do?”

Lay was not the only one with a strategic mind. “Lay’s probably injured too. If Chanyeol is hurting Baekhyun like this, he doesn’t stand a chance. You go in, and teleport him straight to the infirmary. He’ll heal himself there, and if you get hurt too, he’ll heal you. Then come back for Baekhyun straight away.”

Jongin nodded. Wisps of black smoke leaped up from nowhere and enveloped him.

XXX

Chen pointed to the wall in front of them. They were in a less-visited wing of the building, nearer to where the scientists did their research. As always, the corridors were empty apart from the four of them. “This is where they’re keeping the spaceship,” he said shortly.

Kris tactfully ignored the way Chen was leaning back subtly onto Tao’s arm, fatigued. They were standing close enough to each other. Tao winced once or twice at the electric static upon contact but did not comment. “How are we going in?” Kris asked.

“Why?” Chen asked, his eyebrows drawing up.

Luhan had buried his head in the papers. He had studied building engineering, by force rather than choice – but nevertheless, he knew his way around the design blue-prints. The pencil hovered in the air, slashing downwards to scribble whenever he thought of something. “We can do something,” he said earnestly, without looking up.

There was legitimate surprise written on Chen’s face. “Have you figured out what?”

“No.”

Chen squinted at Luhan, and for a moment it looked like he was trying hard not to roll his eyes. Whether he was trying to suppress his mirth or was being polite, Kris never knew. Either way, it was more friendly emotion that Chen usually did not care to display. Kris wondered exactly how tired Chen was. The boy had been draped over the table like a wilted flower, amending the blue-print lethargically when the dragon had entered the room. Chen only straightened up to a more respectful position so that he would not draw the dragon’s attention by angering him.

At the silent response, Luhan looked up sheepishly and gave a shy grin. “It would be much better if we could see the spaceship,” he suggested.

“I went in with Jongin,” Chen noted. “But there is one way. Tao-” He looked back towards the older boy and whispered. Then, Chen held his hand against the hidden panel on the wall. For security measures, the entry scan panel looked exactly the same as the rest of the panels; Chen counted the third panel from the bottom and one to the left of the frosted glass door. White electricity cackled in the air, and the door slid open slightly. Tao curled his fingers in the air elegantly, stopping time.

“It’ll look like a minor glitch in the system,” Chen explained, walking sideways through the space in the door. “If the door opens a bit, and then closes almost a second later.”

“Brilliant,” approved Kris. “They’ll still catch us though.”

Chen silently corrected the statement. They’ll catch me. His power was the only one which effects were recognisable. Still, he was too weary to think of the consequences right then. He led the way down the catwalk, dimly lighted by white lights blinking eerily spaced out at the edges. There was a scientist frozen in mid-step. Chen recognized him from the morning, and he fisted his hand.

“Chen?”

His head snapped back. “What?”

Kris glanced at his face, and then at his hand. “Nothing,” he said in the end, walking forwards with his hands in his trousers pockets.

Tch.

“You know…” Luhan pondered thoughtfully, “I have a crazy idea to resort to, if all else fails.”

“The kind of idea Jongin would like?” Tao looked for confirmation.

“And Kyungsoo wouldn’t?” Kris added.

Luhan nodded solemnly.

Chen just wanted to know one thing. “Will it work?”

XXX

The hormone for sleep is melatonin, which is made by the pineal gland located just above the middle of the brain. Lay pushed away hair that was plastered onto his forehead by sweat, and glanced at his fingers. Quick thinking had prompted him to grab hold Chanyeol and force him to sleep. His fingers on his right hand had practically been shredded in his efforts, but they were not in vain.

“I’ll knock you out,” offered Jongin, holding out a fist playfully. “You look like you need sleep too.”

“No thanks,” Lay sighed, though the corner of his mouth quirked upwards at the suggestion. “I’m healing fine as it is. It looks like I can’t complete my assignment tomorrow though.”

Jongin had sharp ears. “What assignment?”

There was split-second surprise before Lay pulled a blur face. “What?” he asked back smiling pleasantly. Jongin scowled, and gave up his probing. There were secrets for everyone.

“I said, why can’t you complete ‘whatever’?” Jongin mimed quotation marks in the air, to rib it in.

“I should stay here to heal Baekhyun and Chanyeol once his body fully shows the damage he got. It’s not like I’m all-powerful, I can only heal a little at a time.” Lay shrugged. He was sitting down on the edge of the bed, dangling his legs in the air. The horrific burns had already faded away to a pink tinge. “Thanks for getting me. It was probably later than I’d like, but it was in the nick of time.”

“You specifically said ‘come when I holler’,” Jongin pointed out, folding his arms. Again, it showed how trained they were to following instructions down to the hilt. Even their wild card had to hesitate before breaking the rules.

“I was rather preoccupied,” Lay excused himself haughtily. He snuck a sideways glance at Jongin. The younger boy stuck out his tongue.

“Very mature,” Lay noted in amusement.

Jongin bent down in front of the medicine cabinets that lined the walls of the infirmary room. Only Kyungsoo and Suho were reasonably trained in medicine, apart from Lay. The complicated labels just made Jongin dizzy. “The assignment sounds important, if you’d be skipped over EXO-K for it,” Jongin began. “Who is going to replace you, to carry out the assignment?”

Lay stared at Jongin’s back, his mouth shaping into an ‘O’. Very mature, he thought again in amazement, but this time he meant it.

“I- I have to think about it.”

“Think quickly,” Jongin said quietly. “I heard my Trainer say that EXO-K is leaving tomorrow morning as soon as they know who they are. Whoever you ask, you should ask him to do it tonight. I don’t think anyone would be in any condition to do anything after EXO-K…” Dies. Jongin was still in denial about it, which explained his forced calm exterior.

Lay wrung his hands, looking dazed. “It’s not a dangerous assignment,” he admitted, more to himself than to Jongin. “But there will be dangerous consequences if it’s not handled properly. Jongin, who will be careful enough?”

The teleporter stood in front of the table top, and then lifted himself up with his forearms to sit on it. “I don’t want to do it,” he said, scrunching his face. “It’s too much responsibility. What about Kris?”

“Are you kidding? He has huge hands. They aren’t delicate for this work.”

“So no huge hands, right. You know, you aren’t giving me enough job description to work with.” Jongin drummed his fingers on the table top. “What about Suho? He’s careful, and he’s… small.”

“You volunteered me for what?” demanded Suho, wrapping himself with a fluffy white towel. He was drenched from head to toe in a thin layer of melting ice that dripping everywhere, leaving a trail of water behind him. He had to tilt his head upwards to glare at Jongin, who inwardly groaned ‘uh-oh’. “And why?”

“Don’t make this hard,” begged Jongin, waving his hands to placate him. “I can’t find Chen, Luhan, Tao or Kris – and Xiu Min is exhausted. Kyungsoo is busy with Project Earth since EXO-K is leaving tomorrow. You’re the only one left!”

Suho’s teeth chattered audibly. It didn’t help that the centralised air-conditioning in the building was leaving him with a headache and goose pimples from the wet cold. “I’m not really in any condition to do any specialised work now,” he said tiredly, resisting the impulse to snap at Jongin.

Jongin averted his gaze. “I guess I’ll have to ask Sehun then. He has thin fingers, if not small hands.”

“What?” Suho shook his head violently, to clear out any water from his ears.

“Eh…”

“Wait. Sehun is in even worse condition than I am.” Suho let loose a sigh, a long grandfather sigh, to release his pent-up frustration. “Let’s go, I’ll do it.”

For someone who had just spent three hours getting ice hurled at him and trying to do the impossible by controlling movement in frozen water, Suho walked briskly down the corridor to the infirmary wing. Jongin could only keep up because of his longer legs.

“Just a question,” Jongin said, shrugging, “are you doing it for practicality’s sake, or because you care for Sehun?”

“Sehun is Luhan’s,” Suho replied incredulously. “I don’t–”

“Not in that way. You kind of hold yourself apart from the rest of us. Do you notice that?”

“Don’t be silly, Jongin, I treat all of you the same.”

That’s the point, Jongin thought sadly. Aloud, he said, “Ignore what I said, I was just curious. Since tomorrow EXO-K… well.”

To his surprise, there was a contemplative silence instead of Suho giving him a brush-off reply to end the conversation again. “If I know anybody a bit more than the rest,” Suho murmured slowly, his grip on the edge of his towel tightening, “I think Chen is trying to think of a way to stop the spaceship from crashing. That’s probably why the four of them are missing.”

“Chen?” Jongin repeated in surprise.

“He doesn’t like failing,” Suho disclosed simply. “Letting the matter go would be like him failing us, since he could at least try to find an answer.”

“Why would he care much about us?” Jongin burst out, his astonishment remaining.

“Who said he didn’t?”

Jongin stopped short. Then, he jogged forwards to keep up with Suho. “You North facility Guardians are the weirdest.”

“That’s not true!” In response, there was a laugh, a carefree laugh that made Suho’s chest tighten. When was the last time he laughed like that too?

“Then why are you walking, when you’re right beside a teleporter?”

There was a grab of a sleeve, and they disappeared in a poof of black smoke.

XXX

All Suho wanted was his warm bed, with the thermostat turned all the way up, a cup of Kyungsoo’s tea and one of his favourite books. It was a far cry from standing ankle deep in sewer filth, in a narrow tunnel several floors underneath the first level basement. He was equipped with a torchlight, which served as a mere pinprick of harsh blue light in the darkness. Suho made a face as he lifted his feet with a wet plod each time.

Suho adjusted the radio piece in his ear, wincing at the static. “I can’t read the instructions,” he said bluntly. “You have to talk me through it.”

“Why not?” Jongin asked in surprise, talking through the radio that he and Lay were sharing. His voice was rustled, and slightly disjointed because of the lagged response. “My handwriting isn’t as bad as Kris’s.”

“In hindsight, it’s not wise for ink to be put on the Water Guardian’s hands,” Suho mentioned wryly. “The ink is running.”

Suho could imagine Jongin’s sulking pout. “You could have told me that earlier. Now I look stupid.”

“You always looked stupid,” Suho and Lay said simultaneously. Lay gave a light laugh.

“Where am I, Lay?” Suho asked in a whisper. His voice reverberated throughout the tunnel nevertheless, its unrecognisable ghostly echoes giving a creepy atmosphere in the pitch black. He could hear dirty water leaking drip by drip from the rusty piping overhead. He didn’t even know there could be such a rundown part of the facility.

There was a pause. “There are experiments the scientists do, that are classified as highly experimental or dangerous. They seal it, and keep it down in that basement until they can be used again or- as in this case- it’s to be destroyed.” Lay sounded anxious. “Usually these experiments are illegal. Word mustn’t get out; the Central facility’s repute mustn’t get tarnished.”

“Why are you in charge of this?” Suho mused, trudging along. He was following the metal railing bridge he was on closely, careful not to slip or touch anything. His skin, that made contact with the sewer water on the ground level, was already starting to feel itchy.

“As I said, the experiments are dangerous.” Lay didn’t elaborate, but Suho could hear Jongin probing the older boy.

Suho understood. No matter how hurt Lay would get, handling these experiments, he could always heal himself without leaving a trace of evidence. He was a very convenient tool. Suho scratched his neck uncomfortably, wondering how many times Lay got hurt without them any wiser. The Guardians had always joked how he was lucky, never getting into battle one-on-one with them in training. How little they knew about each other.

“I’m here.” Suho reached a dead end, with long black rubber tubing hanging vertically from the low ceiling. They were heavy, and he had to push them away with some huffing using his shoulder. There was a black cabinet in front of him, with little drawers as slim and narrow as CD openings. There must have been at least a hundred of these rows, with red lights blinking on thumbnails an eighth of a fingernail. “I see what you mean about having small fingers.”

“Yes, you need to press on the thumbnail to eject the petri dish,” Lay agreed. “There should be a red thumbnail.”

“Huh?” Suho scrunched his face in confusion, too tired to hide his emotions. Anyway, there was nobody there to see him. “They’re all red.”

“That’s not possible!” Lay fired back at once.

“I’m telling you what I see, Lay – all of the thumbnails are blinking red. What does that mean?”

“Don’t panic.”

“Well, I wasn’t panicking until you said that,” droned Suho. He blinked tiredly, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Does that mean the experiments are all destroyed? Can I go back?”

“It means that they are all in terminal stage,” Lay explained. There was a smack of a tongue lips. “They all need to be destroyed. But I don’t understand. Most of them ought to be dormant now.”

Suho looked down at the container in his hand. The said petri dish was supposed to be put inside it, where a combination of chemicals would be released and suppress the life form. “I can’t destroy all of them.”

“Get out of there, and we’ll spray you down,” decided Lay, the worry still not out of his voice. “I’ll ask the white coat to activate the emergency plan. In case of an emergency, like on-site contamination, the basement will flood with chemicals.”

Suddenly, the itch on Suho’s skin made more sense. It wasn’t sewer filth. The first rule of any laboratory would be to wear protective gloves, in case of skin contact with unknown chemicals. One of the symptoms that would occur consequently was skin irritation. “I think the basement has already been flooded, Lay. Most of the chemicals have drained out; it’s just ankle-deep here. Someone has been feeding you old information.”

There was silence, and then distantly, Suho heard Jongin yell, “Lay, sit down, you look like you’re going to fall over any second for goodness sake!”

“That’s bad,” Lay sputtered, his cool exterior breaking. “Oh Suho, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how- I checked this morning-”

“Why are you saying sorry?” interrupted Suho, dropping the container onto the floor. It splashed chemicals onto him, and fell with a resounding thud.

“I have to do tests on you,” Lay apologised, his voice veering a little higher. “I don’t know what effects this exposure to these deceased experiments has on us. I don’t understand why the lights are still switched on if the basement has been flooded- but oh, come back now!”

“What about the experiments? They won’t explode on us or something?”

Lay’s laugh sounded borderline hysteric, which could explain the frightened hushing sounds from Jongin over the radio receiver.  “That would be the least of your worries, Suho.”

XXX

The announcement came earlier than they expected, and the scientists didn’t even have the decency to tell them face-to-face. Baekhyun was unconscious on his infirmary bed, with a nurse wrapping a fresh bandage over his pus-filled burns. Chanyeol was nearly hanging off his own bed, in deep, disturbed sleep. Chen, Kris and Tao were running down the corridor back to their rooms before they got caught. Xiu Min was watching some videos on his laptop to distress. Kyungsoo was sitting in an empty conference room with Luhan, who was quietly discussing something in regards to Project Earth with him. Suho was sitting on the ground of the infirmary, behind glass again as Lay apologised yet again. Jongin was keeping them company. And Sehun- nobody knew where he was.

“Can I have your attention?” the loudspeakers around the facility boomed. “The Guardians chosen for EXO-K are as follows. Kyungsoo, Jongin, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Suho and Sehun. That’s all. Have a good night.”

XXX To Be Continued XXX