Chanyeol

The transition from nightclub to dark streets in the middle of the night is like walking into a black curtain. The bright lights and flashing strobes from indoors already make your eyes strain to keep up with the different colours, brightness and speed. Walking outside, the only light you have is the flickering neon sign above the door and a weak streetlight. Your pupils dilate majorly, and all you want to do is conjure a fire to light your way. But you can’t; you have company.

“So, which way is your place?” I ask my newfound friends.

One of the girls speaks in English and I can barely catch on to a few words as she points in a few directions. I really need to catch up on my English.

“We’re a few blocks away, a pretty cheap hotel that way.” The Korean boy translates.

“No way! I’m in that direction too.” I lied “I think I know the hotel, even. I’ll walk with you guys back home.”

The people I’ve latched onto today are mostly foreigners. The two girls are American, and one of them just recently turned eighteen and is unable to hold her alcohol well. They are travelling with their muscly Australian friend, his accent so thick I can barely understand, and their Korean-american friend, who apparently had the idea of a Korean holiday to show his friends his country, and is acting as a translator and guide for the other three.

I caught Chen’s eye as I walk out the door, giving a few hand signals to tell him ‘I’m going to walk these people home, I’ll be back shortly.’

I’ve been doing this for about three months, and it makes me feel so important. Walking drunken kids home after a night out doesn’t seem like a big feat, but after turning over fifty muggers, rapists and attackers to the police with burn stains on their arses, you start to feel pretty darn heroic.

Besides, you also get to visit nightclubs and party most of the night. If I could put the ‘dream job’ sticker on any job, this would have to be it.

“Hey I know a shortcut, behind these apartment blocks.” The Korean guy said, then repeated in English.

There would be a time when I would convince the people to stick to the main roads, no matter how deserted they seem, but now the itch of a potential chance to show off my secret powers entices me to follow them into the darker lane.

To my luck, near the end of the laneway, somewhere between a giant rubbish bin and an amateur graffiti mural, a single man walked from the shadows, silhouetted in the light at the end of the laneway.

In the silhouetted lighting, I could see that his hair is a dark brown, almost black, and while he was skinny his upper body showed a formidable strength if he was in a fist fight. His arm shifted, and the silhouette changed to show the long knife in his fist.

Not that I’d need any of this information. Not that he’d even get close enough to swing a fist or a blade.  

“.” The Australian boy said. That English I understood.

I walk in front of my foreign friends protectively, taking my lighter out of my pocket and igniting it in front of me. My other hand stopped the others from walking forward and sacrificing their wallets and phones to stop a mugging.

“Look, you’re going to walk away… or I’ll… I’ll… I’ll burn you!”

I’ve done this countless times before. The stuttering, the small cheap lighter versus the knife, it was all part of my plan. It’s Theatricality; just a few lines and tricks to make myself more impressive. Basically I wanted to be talking all those quips and one-liners like in comic books.  

“You don’t scare me” the man says, his voice showing little emotion.

I hold the flame out in front of me like a beacon “Let us go.” I state, the stutter gone from my voice, and my face illuminated by the fire.

“You don’t scare me.” He repeats, the grip on his knife shifting.

This is where I change to the second part of my plan. If the attacker is easily scared, they usually run now.

“I’m not even holding a lighter” I say. It’s true; I dropped it in a puddle a few seconds ago. The fire still dances above my fingers, growing larger until it reaches the same height as my head. I kick the lighter at my feet and it goes scattering across the cracked cement, resting at the attacker’s feet.

“And I’m not holding a knife.” The man replies with.

Wait, what?

The knife in his hands begins to shift, and I see the metal twist in his hands, growing longer and sharper.

Run.

“Run.” I say to the others.

“Run!” I scream as they don’t move. I turn around as the fire escape to my right starts to rattle, creaking and groaning. Bolts fly from the wall, and the fire escape jolts and convulses, smashing into the opposite wall.

I start to run, shooting fire back behind me like a space shuttle. The heavy metal crashes behind me, and I duck to avoid chunks of debris and metal flying at me. A dustbin rolls into me and pushes me into a side street.

Separated from the foreigners, I diminish my fire until it no longer exists, taking out another lighter, just in case. I find myself hiding in a sunken doorway as footsteps come closer.  The attacker walks past, and I notice other things about him. He walks stiffly, and his limbs and torso are covered with black, shiny armour. When I’m certain he won’t see me, I creep out of the doorway and start to run in the opposite direction.

I’m stopped as pain rips through my ankle, and barbed wire starts to snake up my leg. I scream in pain as the little barbs sink into my skin, but I heat up my body and melt through the thin wire.

Enveloping my body in fire, I release a thick blast of flames down the alley, aimed towards the metal controller. As the flames dissipate, I see a black metal wall shielding the man from my attack. The metal moves like fluid, and wraps itself around the man once again, reforming to become his armour.

I release fireball after fireball, attacking from the sides, top and bottom, but I can’t get through. He whips out at me with barbed wire and other metal objects in the vicinity, but nothing stings more than the wire connecting with one of my limbs.

I’m certain I’m going to lose. This man is way too strong for me. He raises his metal whips, the barbs glinting in the orange glow of my fire, preparing to strike downwards. As the wire shoots downwards, I feel another body standing over me, receiving the attack instead of me.

Chen.

The wire wraps around Chen’s arms, one near his hand and the other closer to his neck, around his shoulder. With  scream of pain, Chen bursts with electricity, volts of electric power radiating off him and shooting down the barbed wire. The electricity connects with the attacker, and he convulses like being zapped with a Taser.

Chen continues screaming, the wires fizzling and glowing a hot orange as they overload with electricity. I can feel the adrenaline and pain whooshing off Chen’s body, and the fear is shown in his eyes. He doesn’t stop shooting electricity down the wire until the wires overheat and snap, the metal no longer conducting the current.

The man drops down, his body jolting and on the ground. I stagger to my feet and melt through the wires around Chen’s shoulder and hand. He winces in pain as the sharp barbs are pulled from his skin, and dots of blood appear throughout his white shirt.

“We have to run.” He pants, his energy drained from the heavy attack.

We do.

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We arrive at the warehouse at almost midnight, stepping out of the taxi on sore muscles and bloodied shirts.

The first thing we notice when we step inside the door is that we aren’t the most damaged ones inside.

Kyungsoo sits on the couch as Kai wraps his hand in a thick bandage, wincing in pain as his blood bleeds through the gauze. Suho holds a large icepack to an unconscious Baekhyun’s head, Kris lifting his feet up in the air to increase blood flow to Baekhyun’s head. Sehun’s face is blotched with the red stains of a bloody nose.

“What happened here?” Chen asks, walking towards Sehun to check his nose.

“Not here, out there.” Kai gestures outside, “Kyungsoo and I were attacked at our apartment in Daejeon. A few guys with guns and knives.”

“I think the guys who attacked me were military.” Sehun says, his nose blocked with clotting blood. “They had badges and uniform, and guns, so many guns.”

“Ouch” Baekhyun croaked, lifting his hand to feel the bruise on his head.

“Take it easy, Baekhyun,” Suho murmured. I walk over to him and take his hand in mine. “You passed out in the living room.”

“I was attacked in the studio” Baekhyun said, his voice a mere mumble. “The man, he walked right in. He didn’t open the door, he went through it. Like a ghost.”

“I saved Chanyeol from another guy with powers.” Chen says, and Suho looks over Baekhyun’s body to my bloodstained chest and bruised arms. He guides me over to the couch and takes off my shirt, examining my cuts.

“He had metal powers.” I say, “Almost crushed me with a fire escape. And a rubbish bin. Barbed wire really hurts.”

Tao walks over with a bottle of disinfectant and Suho starts dabbing it on the deepest cuts.

The door opens once again and Xiumin staggers inside. His white button down shirt is stained with dots of red, and Luhan walks in after him, opting to be shirtless to not stain his shirt.

“, you guys too?” Suho asks.

Xiumin nods, while Luhan lifts his arms to something outside the door. A wave of cold whooshes inside, and a person frozen in ice.

“We caught him too.” Xiumin says, and Tao rushes over to look through the ice at the guys face.

“He had a power, over plants.” Luhan says.

“Same with these guys,” Suho says, “It sounds like Chanyeol was attacked by a metal controller, and the guy who attacked Baekhyun could walk through walls.”

Kai limps over to the person frozen in ice.

“Kai, you’re limping. Is your leg okay?” I ask, still lying down on the couch.

“I must’ve pulled a muscle or rolled my ankle when I teleported.” He says, “Don’t worry, I’ll get Yixing to heal it when he gets back.”

“Kai, Yixing won’t be able to-“ I’m cut off as Yixing’s limo pulls up in front of the building.

Yixing walks in the room, heavy rings under his eyes and his hair in disarray. “I don’t care, I can’t go on like this” he talks loudly into his phone “You have to get me a break, a rest! I won’t be of any use in this state. He barely stood out of his wheelchair! Come on! A day at least!” He looks around the room, finally noticing the injuries and the frozen man in the middle of the room. “Look, I have to call you back.” He hangs up.

“What happened?” He asks, feeling Sehun’s nose for any broken cartilage.

“We were attacked,” Kyungsoo says, “Some of us. Some of them had powers.”

“And we got one of them!” Luhan exclaims excitedly, wincing as some of his cuts reopen.

Yixing walks over to Luhan and a glowing hand over his torso, the cuts sealing up under his command. Luhan closes his eyes as the pain diminishes. Yixing walks over to Xiumin and starts to his shirt sleepily. Xiumin stops him with a firm hand.

“No, you’re exhausted, Yixing. You have to rest. I’ll heal on my own.”

Yixing waves Xiumin’s hand away. “I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine.”

Xiumin gives up easily, and allows Yixing to continue ing his shirt, sighing in relief as his cuts close up.

“How far down do the cuts go?” Yixing motions down Xiumin’s body.

“Everywhere… I was, I was .”

Sehun spurts out his water in surprise.

“What exactly were you doing when you were attacked?” He asks.

“Just a massage Sehun,” Luhan says, and Sehun rolls his eyes.

“Right, a massage.” Sehun mimes a ual motion with his hands.

Luhan ignores him, and Xiumin is too busy being healed to notice.

“I’ll heal you down there later,” Yixing says, pointed towards Xiumin’s crotch. “I should fix up the others too.”

We sit in silence for a while, listing to the clock tick by as Yixing repairs Kyungsoo’s hand, Kai’s leg, Chen’s arms and Baekhyun’s head. Xiumin and I are taken to a separate room to strip down so Yixing could heal our entire bodies in private. I’m just glad the pain finally stops, but the memories of being pounded by barbed wire is still imprinted on my brain.

Tao turns on the TV.

“Woah, stop it there, that’s the iced guy.” Sehun says. Tao stops channel flicking, the TV stopped on the news. Six boys in a black military uniform are lined up before a sea of media; cameras, microphones, interviewers and reporters. I recognised the metal guy, and Baekhyun points out the man who attacked him.

A muscly man with black spiked hair walks to the podium, and begins to talk. The room falls quiet as we listen to the man’s speech.

“I understand that you have all been experiencing hard times. The mysterious attacks four months ago resulting in the destruction of an entire neighbourhood devastated our people, and justice has not yet been found. We have discovered that many of these attacks have been all connected to a group of terrorists. Superhuman terrorists.”

His voice is low and deep, the bass of our TV rumbles with his speech. At the bottom corner of the screen, a slideshow shows photos of the crater left when the Dark formed the giant blob, and more photos follow it, the destroyed mall where Baekhyun fought terrorists, the school bus Chen electrocuted to kill the construction worker slimers, the crashed truck where Tao first fought the slimers, my apartment, blown apart by fire, and Xiumin’s house in Japan. Accompanying these images were some that had nothing to do with us, murders, robberies, bank heists. These were not us.

“I understand that this will be all new to you. These twelve superhuman beings are terrorising our world, and putting us all in danger. They are members of an unknown terrorist group.

I am here to announce to you that there is hope, hope of justice, and peace. I am a superpowered being. I was visited by a great being, and trusted with the task of the elimination of these horrors. I personally will work with the Korean military to take these terrorists down. I would now like to introduce to you the team which will make all of this possible.”

The camera pans out to the other five members, standing to attention in their dark uniforms.

“Geez Tao, that one can’t be older than you!”  Baekhyun points to a teenager standing in the ranks.

“the B.A.P Squad, a highly trained squad of elite warriors who were, like me, chosen by a god, to fulfil this task to establish order. We will work diligently and efficiently to bring justice to the world.”

The screen pans through their ranks, their names scrolling through the little bar at the bottom. Himchan I think to myself as the metal controller receives a name. And Daehyun, the man who is currently frozen in the centre of the room. The leaders name is shown last, Yongguk.

“This was a repeat of the news from this morning,” Tao says, turning off the monitor as the news continues with a story of a petty robbery at a service station.

“They work fast,” I say.

“They have the military at their side.” Kris says

“And the media.” Yixing states.

We’re being hunted.

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Hi guys :) what are all your thoughts on these turn of events? Do you like military BAP?

Also, thankyou for everyone who applied for being my beta reader, I chose Akirayuyuya but you are welcome to point out any major grammar mistakes that slip past us, just message me and if I have the time I'll go back and fix them

see you all soon ^-^