Ken grabbed Hyorin’s arm and dragged her out through the back of the store. Thankfully, there was no one else at the bakery at the hour, so there was no one around to see them. Unfortunately, Jackson and BamBam were already waiting for them when they arrived in the back alley.

“This time I’ll freeze you,” Jackson declared before launching and ice attack at Hyorin.

“Hyorin!” Ken yelled, panicked.

His panic was misplaced, however, because Hyorin easily melted the ice with her fire. She still hated using the flames, but she had nothing else she could use against the ice demon. The serpent had made it very clear that she was by no means ready for the water powers that lay dormant inside of her. She had yet to meet the snow leopard that had resided within Xiumin before taking up residence inside of her, but she figured it would say the same. Any other powers were not well matched in a fight with ice.

Ken made a move to join Hyorin, to help her, but an explosion sent him stumbling back into a wall.

“Nope,” BamBam frowned slightly, “I can’t let you do that. You’re fighting me.”

Ken growled before charging at the other demon. When he was just a few steps away, Ken clapped his hands together. Ken turned the sound into a powerful sound blast, knocking BamBam back to the other end of the alley. The younger demon slowly got up, dusting himself off before turning to glare at Ken. Moments later, several balls of energy formed around Ken. the sound demon quickly realized he had no way to escape them because there were too many, so he ducked down, wrapping his arms around his head, in an attempt to lessen the damage. Seconds later, the energy balls exploded.

“Ken!” Hyorin yelled, unable to look over at him without putting herself in danger.

“I’m good,” he called, slowly getting up and trying to ignore the intense pain in his back.

“You aren’t,” Hyorin said when she chanced a look over at the sound demon, “your back is a mess.” She shivered, “so much blood.”

“Focus on me,” Jackson yelled, launching another attack at Hyorin.

She blocked the blow, however Jackson’s ice was powerful enough to knock her backwards.

Right into the path of BamBam’s attack.

“Hyorin!!” Ken yelled seconds before the energy ball could go off.

Hyorin turned to see the attack and froze. Suddenly, seconds before the energy ball went off, she felt a burst of power and the ball of fire she had in her hands, the one she’d used to block Jackson’s attack, grew. The fire wrapped around her, creating a cocoon of sorts that protected her from most of the blast. As the dust settled, the power faded as did the fire.

“Hyorin,” Ken yelled rushing to her side as Hyorin dropped to her knees, “you’re ok.”

Hyorin looked down at herself to find that Ken was alright. For the most part, Ken was alright. Her cloths were a bit burnt and her hair hadn’t escaped without some charring. Other than that, she was alright.

“Hyung!” BamBam yelled, pointing at something in Hyorin’s lap.

Actually, it was more like he was pointing at her pocket.

“I know,” Jackson sighed sadly, “I know.”

“But,” BamBam looked like he was going to cry, “Your contract!”

“I know,” Jackson sighed again, “it’s burnt.”

“She’s going to be so mad,” BamBam said, actually starting to cry, “You know what she did to Jr hyung when they destroyed JB hyung’s contract.”

“I know,” Jackson sighed again, looking just as upset as BamBam now.

“What are you taking about?” Ken asked, but Hyorin had a bad feeling she knew exactly what they meant.

“You’re master,” she said, “she’ll hurt you for losing the contract, right? Like she did JB after BamBam escaped?”

“Yeah,” Jackson sighed sadly, making his way over to hug the panicking BamBam, “she likes to……beat and torture us. Whether we messed up or not. But if we do mess up her orders…….”

“The beatings are worse,” Ken summarized, feeling awful for the boys.

He and his brothers once had a master like that. Not a day went by without one of the six being beaten within an inch of what would kill a normal human. Hyuk still had scars from those days, as did Ravi and Hongbin – the three favorite targets of that master.

“Please help,” Jackson said, dropping to his knees and bowing, “please help me free BamBam. I can’t let him get hurt again. I just can’t!”

“We don’t even know where his contract is,” Ken pointed how, “if we don’t know that, then we can’t find it.”

“Please,” BamBam begged, joining Jackson in bowing.

“I’ll help you,” Hyorin said.

“Huh?” Ken looked at her, clearly confused as to why she would agree.

“We can’t let BamBam get hurt,” Hyorin said, “we can’t let what happened to JB happen to him.”

“Alright,” Ken sighed, “I’ll call the others. Maybe if we all work together, we can find his contract.”

“Thank you!” Jackson smiled and BamBam rushed forewords to hug Hyorin, still crying slightly.

“Ken?” N said when he answered his phone, “where are you?”

“Long story short,” Ken sighed, “we freed Jackson, but now we need to find BamBam’s contract and free him before his master punishes him. like what happened to JB when he was in the basement.” He gave the older their location and hung up before N could yell at him.

A/N: oh my my my, are they going to find BamBam’s contract? for those interested, i have added profiles for JB, Jackson, BamBam, and Rina to the foreword.