[CONTENTID1]

fifty-six: first round

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[“All that matters now is which side falls first.”]

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Juyeon didn’t even have time to scream before she was knocked off her feet—not by the sound (which she would later learn, after a few days, was a gunshot as the GTA blasted out the lock on the kitchen’s back doors), but by Kai swinging his arm and catching her in the chest and teleporting her away.

He was panicking too, she knew, so she didn’t hold it against him when the crook of his elbow caught her in what felt like the very center of her solar plexus and knocked all the air out of her lungs. Coupled together with the terrifyingly confusing disorientation as he teleported her to safety, and she was fighting back retching noises and choking for air, vision spotty and swimming.

”, . Juyeon? Yeonie, look at me.”

The room stopped spinning, and the tendrils of black smoke cleared away. Kai was gazing at her, hair in unstyled disarray, eyes hard with worry.

She was sitting on her in a corner of the dark cafeteria. PCs were running every which way around her: several of the messengers had been dispatched, racing out of the cafeteria and down the hallways to deliver news to other outposts. Many more were vaulting the hole in the cafeteria’s wall and into the kitchen, hopefully to help. The rest were scrambling behind their barricades, nervously readjusting a twisted metal desk leg here or fixing the splintered section of a door over there, praying the shoddy barriers would hold.

No one was screaming, or crying. But they were afraid. Juyeon could see it in the way their jaws were locked, their lips tight, as if they were physically holding back their fear from clawing up their throats.

”What’s—” she choked out, finally getting a good long gasp of air. The air smelled like smoke. She felt lightheaded.

”Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Kai babbled, hauling her to her feet and grabbing her waist when she swayed. “We’ve got everything under control, Suho’s here, that fire’ll be out in a moment—”

”What?” Juyeon snapped to attention and tried turning around, the smoky air now more prevalent than ever. “Fire?”

”No—wait, , no, don’t worry,” Kai yelped, digging his fingers into her arms and forcing her to stay in place. “Listen, you have to get out of here, alright? Go back to Outpost E, Sehun’ll protect you.”

”Bull, Kai, you can’t expect me to run to the sidelines when they’re right here, I gotta stay so I know what’s happening—”

”No.” Kai frowned at her with so much force she felt herself physically still, staring up at him in disbelief. “Juyeon, it’s dangerous right now. We need you, where you’re safe, not on the front lines. I’m here, and Suho’s here, and we’ll keep everyone alive. But you—you need to leave. Okay?”

Juyeon could see an orange glow flickering in her peripherals, her hair already drying up and cracking in their braids as moisture slowly drained out of the air. She nodded, dumbly. When Kai spoke that persuasively, it was rather difficult for her to find reasons to argue.

”Good. Go on, okay? I promise, nothing’s gonna happen. We’ll keep them back, they won’t even step a foot through that door.”

And with that, he gave her one last gentle push towards the direction of the cafeteria doors, before teleporting back to the kitchen.

Something was on fire, although she didn’t know what—yellow-orange flames flickered somewhere in the kitchen, although they were being quickly doused out, most likely with Suho’s powers. The smoke trickling out into the cafeteria gradually grew thicker as the flames dimmed, until Juyeon had to hold back coughs and escape.

While the hallways were dark and spooky and tense before the fight began, they were even creepier now, with the added smoke having nowhere to go, due to all windows being hidden firmly behind thick, ugly curtains or boarded up.

PCs were running to and fro, sometimes accidentally bumping into her and murmuring hurried apologies. She could hear shouts behind her, more loud bursts of noise that sounded like muffled gunshots, and she forced herself not to turn around. If she turned around to look, she wouldn’t be able to move forward.

She hated to admit it, but Kai was right. She would be useless over there in the thick of it; facing teenagers with superpowers nearly made her lose her mind, and she did not want to know what would happen to her if she faced adults with guns. She would just end up getting in the way, paralyzed with both her powerlessness and panic.

She gripped her hands into balls of fists, so hard that her nails d