Hi guys! I'm back again! I'm sorry, this delay took longer than expected. But the good news is, I've finished exams and school forever! I'm also finally back home from my travels, and I juuuust bought a new computer today, so i can finally write and post this :) I'm super sorry to all my readers who felt me leave without much warning... but i swear I'm here for a while, not going anywhere.

Heres the summary of whats been going on, because i dont expect you all to remember:

- The protectors fleed the "Dark protectors" (BAP) to Cambodia but got followed and Chen got captured. 

- in the rescue process, they all got split up

- Sehun almost died, then Yixing found him in a village and saved him, they both got captured but Yixing discovered he could create a healing aura to make Chen invulnerable from the torture. They were escaping when they both disappeared.

- Kris and Tao took down Zelo in the forest and the Dark managed to give Kris back his power but also possessed him

- Suho and Xiumin stayed in a hotel while Xiumin was in a coma and they both escaped without running into any BAP member, Suho also managed to bloodbend

- Chanyeol and Baekhyun were kicking in the forest ziplining and then they were attacked, Youngjae took their powers and they exploded a car to get away from Jonggup

Yongguk - lava       Himchan - metal      Daehyun - plants      Zelo - flight      Jonggup - intangibility      Youngjae - takes away powers

so yeah, here's Luhan's chapter :)

--------------- 

Luhan

“Can you stop trying to break my hand? I still need it to move the dirt.”

I silently look back at where I think Kyungsoo’s voice is coming from and loosen my grip. My fingers come away wet, and I’m not sure if it’s sweat or blood. Kyungsoo jolts his arm suddenly and there’s an echoing tremor of rocks moving. My arm is no longer touching his. I start to fumble around in the darkness, swinging my arms wildly to find him.

“Kyungsoo! I can’t find you. Where are you?”

My hand strikes something sharp and solid with a heavy slap, the jarring pain driving up to my elbow. I yell out in shock, patting gently in the same direction to confirm that I just backhanded the tunnel wall.

“Kyungsoo! Where did you go?! Please come back!”

I fall too my knees and start sliding my hands across the uneven floor, trying to grasp onto something other than rock. I’m vaguely aware of smaller stones starting to jiggle up and down from the floor as I become more and more agitated. Eventually, I hear the sound of something fabric settling down in front of me, and I can make out Kyungsoo’s slower, calmer breathing. Warm grimy hands grasp my cheeks and force me to look straight ahead. I blink in the dark, but with complete lack of light I cannot see a thing.

“Luhan, you need to calm down.” Kyungsoo says to me, barely raising his voice. “I’m right here. I’m not leaving you. Look at me.” He wipes away the tears from my cheek with his thumb, leaving a grainy dirt texture underneath my eye.

“I can’t look at you!” I yell back, my eyes panning back and forth across the void. “I can’t see a thing! Am I blind?”

My blabbering is drowned out by a lengthy shushing sound from Kyungsoo. Slowly, the sounds of jittering loose rocks start to cease.

“You’re not blind. It’s just dark. No light. We’ve only got a little bit more to walk then we can be out in the sunshine, I promise. Just focus on following me, and maybe not shaking up the place.”

I’m pulled up by my underarms until I’m standing again. This time, it’s Kyungsoo who grabs onto my own arm just above the wrist, and slowly drags me further down the tunnel. He guides my wrist towards his hip and I link my fingers into his belt loop so I don’t lose him. I start to slow my breathing down, focusing on the stale air that fills my lungs.

As I calm down, I notice that Kyungsoo has the whole process down to a steady rhythm. His tunnel only lasts about fifty meters, then we hit the end of the tunnel wall. We stop walking at this point, and while I wait patiently at his side, Kyungsoo would push the tunnel further into the dirt, and we would continue on. 

Eventually, we reach a point where Kyungsoo stops and places his palm on the wall. His breath sounds loud, almost like a sigh echoing through our underground cavern.

“What’s happening? Kyungsoo, are we in trouble?”

Kyungsoo wipes his hand across the wall, feeling the bumps and the rocks.

“I just need a break. We’re going to go up to the surface now.”

The words elicit a feeling of security in me. We’re going to see the light. I let go of Kyungsoo’s arm to give him more freedom of movement. He steps forward and the floor underneath us starts to rumble.

The floor starts ascending, keeping up with the roof as it creeps higher and higher above us. There’s a brief moment where the earth above us seems to glow, the sunlight slowly leaking through the tiny rocks before we burst out into daylight.

As soon as I feel the warmth of the sunlight, I find myself crawling over Kyungsoo to get to the fresh air. I’m selfish, I know, but he wasn’t as blind as I was down there. The sun is brighter than I remembered; at least during the night time there are the stars and the moon to make a faint glow. Down there, there is nothing. 

Kyungsoo crawls up beside me, the hole in the ground closing up behind him. He lies down near me, feeling the warm grass reheat our backs. I take in massive gulps of fresh air. I taste a bit of pollution and humidity, but it’s a welcome change from the stale air of the underground tunnel.

A loud honking sound screams into the peace and I jump up startled. There’s the sound of gravel being crunched into the ground, and Kyungsoo throws himself over me. We go rolling down a hill, feeling rocks dig into my shoulder blades.

We eventually come to a stop, and I crack open an eye and look up the hill. A dusty old car races into the distance, the driver waving a fist in the air and blasting the horn.

“It’s a road.” Kyungsoo mumbles, almost talking to himself. I notice the sweat dripping down his face, his eyelids flickering with fatigue. In the dark of the tunnel, I didn’t notice how much he exerted himself to get us this far from B.A.P. He must be exhausted. 

“We can’t stay here” I say, pushing Kyungsoo off my chest.

I stand up and take a look of our surroundings. There isn’t much around us; just a lot of farms and roads. In the distance I can see the forest where we must’ve come out of, and beyond my sight must be the lake and where Chen was being held captive.

There are people here too. It isn’t as densely populated as a city or a village, but there are a lot of farmers in the fields, or women walking down the road with large containers balanced on their heads. While the road isn’t a major city road, there always seems to be a bike in sight, or a truck or a car. 

“I… I don’t know what to do now.” Kyungsoo stammers, looking around at all the people who could see us and call the military. “Maybe I can dig another tunnel, or we can wait for darkness in a mound of dirt, or-“

“You’re forgetting who you’re partnered with,” I cut in, pulling Kyungsoo up off the ground and brushing off the dirt from his shirt. “Look around you, what do you see?”

Kyungsoo looks at our surroundings. He rubs a grimy finger on his cheek, trying to clean his face.

“I don’t know… I see farms and a road.” He snorts loudly to counter his running nose, wiping his face with the back of his wrist. 

“Be more precise.” I instruct him, turning him around by the shoulders to look again. “Pretend I’m blind. What do you see?”

Kyungsoo lets out a sigh that says ‘this is pointless’. And shrugs his shoulders.

“So we’re in the middle of a farm. There’s heaps of rice fields, and large expanses of water with little green shoots sprouting out of them. There’s a long dirt road nearby, and there’s too many cars going along it for it to be a safe place to walk. There’s a bike, and a few cars coming up in a few seconds.”

“What else? Be specific.” I urge him on.

“We don’t have time for this. You can see it all for yourself, Luhan. I should dig a tunnel parallel to the road and then we can keep going for a few more kilometers and then-“

I give Kyungsoo a light slap on the back of his head.

“You’ll kill yourself doing that. Look at you; your eyes are bloodshot from all the work you’ve put in. Shut up and tell me what you see.”

Kyungsoo’s fingers twitch, still feeling the need to move some rocks and get out of here. He complies, continuing to describe everything around us. 

“There’s a few trees every now and then. In between a few there is a couple of clothes lines, and a lady is hanging up sheets on one of them. Beside the road over there, there’s an empty water cooler, and heaps of piles of rubbish everywhere. The road is falling apart, and there are chunks of asphalt on the side of the road. There’s also a little shack down the road a little bit, although it doesn’t look like it’ll stay up for much longer. It’s pretty badly made. There’s too many people. There are a lot of women carrying trays of things on their heads, and their kids are playing around here too with a half deflated basketball. Not to mention the farmers; there has to be at least five of them in the closest rice field.”

“Do you know what these things are?” I say, my voice laced with light hearted suspense.

“What is it, Lu. We don’t have the time for games.” Kyungsoo replies, not amused. 

“These things are my specialty: loose objects.”

I step forward before Kyungsoo can reply and I let my power flow through me, exiting from my body and locking onto the objects that he described. I slowly walk towards the road as our surroundings come to life as if possessed by a poltergeist.

I start by making a distraction. With my eyes unfocused straight ahead, I feel the empty water cooler spring to life and start to roll down the bumpy road, bouncing across the rocks. The thick plastic echoes loudly, the sounds reverberating across the rice fields. Other piles of rubbish come to life; flying through the air in different directions as if they were each pushed by different gusts of wind. I divert my attention, reaching out with arms of telekinesis towards the old shack which Kyungsoo described.

He was right, the shack is on the verge of falling down. Probably used to store farming tools or as a shade during work break, it is mostly held together with decaying ropes wound around the bamboo poles at the edges. I only needed to give the construction a forceful push for it to come crumpling down in a pile of sticks and planks of wood. I hear a man yelp from inside the shack; his midday nap rudely interrupted by the roof caving in. 

My distractions succeed; the farmers’ attention is drawn towards the new sounds and events. The lady hanging up sheets turns around to see the commotion, and a few little girls playing beside the road run over to the shack to try to free the man inside. I unclip the laundry hanging up on the wire, guiding the clothes in the air as they start to float across the road.

Upon noticing her runaway laundry, the lady yelps and scrambles to pick her clothes out of the air. Floating a large purple sheet over to us, I quickly roll it up and tuck it underneath my arm.

By now I had reached the road. Approaching from our right is a pickup truck, travelling at a slow speed so the driver could peer out through the side window and watch the chaos.

With my telekinesis, I reach out again and slap the tray off of a passing lady’s head. The pile of embroidered cloths that were neatly stacked on her head go sprawling across the road. Her friend turns to see the commotion, and I knock over her tray too; allowing the small round fruits that were on her head to start rolling across the cracked road.

The ladies run onto the road, calling out for the passing truck to stop. With a blaring horn, the driver stops in time, narrowly missing the dropped merchandise. The ladies bend down and scamper about on their arms and legs; trying to collect their fruits and cloths as quickly as possible. 

I grab Kyungsoo’s hand and walk hurriedly now, guiding him to the back of the pickup truck while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. It’s an easy feat to reach inside with my power and unclip the back wall of the vehicle, allowing us to step into the tray easily. There’s not much room inside, but I push aside sacks of grains and trays of bottles of water and make enough room for Kyungsoo and I to lie down. I unfold the purple sheet that I stole from the commotion, covering our bodies with the faded cloth.

Peering out of a gap in the sheet, I watch as the ladies finish collecting their fruits and their fabrics, allowing the driver to restart his truck and keep driving down the road. The fallen shack and the lady chasing her laundry become small figures in the distance. I rip into the packages of water bottles to my side and hand a bottle to Kyungsoo, who thirstily crumples his bottle as he empties it, letting the rubbish drop to his side.

“I know you’re all independent and you usually work alone when you’re a policeman,” I say, leaning into Kyungsoo’s ear to speak over the sound of the engine. “But you can’t forget that we have just as many abilities as you do. You don’t have to do everything. The Tree picked all of us to help her, not just you.”

Kyungsoo nods sleepily, closing his eyes and leaning against my shoulder for comfort. I raise a hand and push his sweaty fringe off his face.

“Get some sleep. We’ll be safe for a while, especially since we’re moving.”

The car rocks on the uneven road, but slowly, I find myself falling asleep underneath Kyungsoo.

-----------------

There’s a harsh stinging on the side of my cheek as I wake up. I sit up abruptly, my face getting caught on the purple sheet draped over us. I fumble with my arms, trying to make a tent-shape to free myself from the tangle of material. I come face to face with an angry looking Kyungsoo, raising his hand to slap me again.

“You fell asleep!” He hisses in a hushed tone. I flinch when his arm twitches, but the slap didn’t come again. “We could’ve died! I trusted you!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to fall asleep!” I whisper back, raising my arms in a surrender position.

I ignore Kyungsoo as he starts to rant about all of the things that could’ve happened; the driver finding us, the military finding us, B.A.P and so on. Instead I peer out a gap in our hiding place and look at our surroundings.

It has grown dark; the sun just disappearing below the horizon. We’d been asleep for most of the daylight. The scenery hadn’t changed much; there wasn’t much civilization blurring past us, only small trees and long grass. Just ahead of us, the driver has his arm sticking out of the window, occasionally tapping the ash of the short stub of a cigarette. His radio is blasting some American music, something generic and overplayed.

I duck back under the covers to face Kyungsoo. He is still furious, but he has stopped talking now that he realizes that his attempts are futile.

“It’s dark. We should get out and find a way back to the meeting place while there isn’t a village nearby that could see us. There’s a pretty thick bunch of trees coming up we can jump out and-"

Kyungsoo pushes me over in order to get closer to the front of the truck, his bony elbows jutting into my stomach. He covers my mouth with his hand, looking forward towards the cabin of the truck as if he could see through the material.

“Shut up Luhan, listen.”

I prick up my ears and try to focus on what he is listening to. I ignore that Kyungsoo’s completely disregarded the fact that he is squashing his chest into my face, and that he is only a few inches away from kneeing me in the balls.

“They’re talking about the B.A.P” He mumbles to me.

I tune into the sound of the radio. The music has stopped playing, instead the crackly sounds of English news reporters comes through the distorted speakers. 

“…the hunt has moved into the country of Cambodia,” The reporter’s voice states “While no progress has been made into the whereabouts of the terrorists, there have been numerous reports of sightings and super powered battles. We tried to get a word with the leader of the B.A.P, Yongguk, who has successfully captured one young boy before his attempt to assassinate Korean angel, Zhang Yixing. The only statement that has been released is that ‘the perpetrator is under maximum security and will be shortly joined by the others’.”

“Lies,” Kyungsoo hisses. “They haven’t got him anymore.”

“On a related note,” The reporter continues “A member of the B.A.P has been found in the forests near the outskirts of the Tonle Sap Lake, close to Siem Reap. The youngest member was found by some farmers but was quickly taken into a nearby hospital. No word yet of his current state as he is under maximum security, but on finding the boy, the farmers describe him as in a bad mental state, tied up and left for dead. The soldier is soon to be transferred back to Seoul to receive specialized treatment in hopes that he can return quickly to the field. This serves as a reminder that these terrorists are brutally dangerous and must be skirted with extra care. If you have any knowledge of their whereabouts, please-“

The driver changes the channel, searching for some more music.

Kyungsoo looks down at me and goes back to his regular sitting position. I rub my stomach where Kyungsoo’s elbows have almost definitely pressed bruises into my skin.

“That must’ve been Zelo, he was the youngest. He was the one who could fly. We can beat these guys, it’s possible.”

He reaches behind me and starts to pull out bottles of water, tucking them into his belt.

“Come on, we have to keep moving if we want to catch up with the others. By the sounds of it, they’re all on their way to the meeting place. We have a long way to travel.”

We jump out of the truck silently, dropping to the ground slowly on soft feet, our descent reduced by my powers. Quickly we run into the bushes, the tall grass hiding most of our bodies.

“Look at that. This is .” Kyungsoo points behind me towards a nearby city. Skyscrapers just poke out of the top of the tall grass. “We’re about a kilometer away from a city. We could’ve been stuck in there. You shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”

I’m silent, guilty to his accusations. If I had stayed awake, we would’ve been out of the truck a lot earlier, and probably only have had to walk a few kilometers to make our way to the meeting area.

Kyungsoo runs back to the road to check for any road signs. I wait in the bushes, crouched down and trying to be as hidden as possible. Kyungsoo stomps back through the grasses, so angry that I swear I can see the steam coming out of his ears. His little face is screwed up in frustration, and a shiver runs up my back.

I stand up to ask him if he’s okay, but the ground shifts underneath me and I go sprawling onto the ground. The slap comes next, unseen in the darkness. I hold my cheek in my hands, feeling the stinging pain blossom on my cheek with redness. 

“We’re in ing Battambang!” Kyungsoo yells out, punching out in frustration. A large trench of dirt splits the earth to the side, venting out Kyungsoo’s anger. “Do you have any idea where Battambang is?!”

I shake my head.

“Please, be quiet, Soo, someone may hear you-“

“It’s on the other side of the ing Tonle Sap Lake! It’s going to take hours to drive back, let alone walk!”

Kyungsoo kicks at the dirt at his feet, loosening a hefty clump of clay and lobbing it into the distance.

I let him vent by tearing apart the dirt around us. The ground shakes with every motion as cracks spread out from his body like dark fingers. Eventually he stands with his fists at his sides, his shoulders tensed. His chest puffs in and out rapidly, gasping for breath. He doesn’t acknowledge me, looking straight ahead through the fringe which has fallen over his eyes. The muscles in his jaw tense up and down as he clenches his teeth together.

“Maybe we should-“

“Shut up!” He yells at me, and I flinch as I anticipate some sort of earth-related attack, but nothing comes. “Just shut up! You have no right to speak! From now on you say nothing! Nothing! It’s your fault we’re stuck here, while the others could be getting killed for all we know!“ In hushed tones, he mutters to himself “This is why I work alone, I’ve never needed a partner out in the field.”

Kyungsoo spins on his heels and starts to march back towards the road, stomping down his feet with every step.

“We’re going back to the road to catch a car going in the other direction. You are going to shut the up and not speak the entire ride back.”

I trudge along behind him with slumped shoulders. Kyungsoo tramps through the long grass towards the road until I hear the sound of a boot connecting with something metal.

“!” Kyungsoo screams out. He reaches down to grab onto his injured toe and falls into the long grass, disappearing from view. “WHAT THE WAS THAT?”

I run closer, making sure I don’t kick the same object that Kyungsoo did. I find him rolling around in the grass, squashing the foliage near him into a flat clearing. He’s writhing in pain, although I’m not sure how much of his outburst it due to his frustration and rage.

I dip into my power and latch onto Kyungsoo’s body. I lock onto his arms and legs, stopping him from using his power recklessly again.

“Let me the go, Luhan, or I swear I’m going to kill someone and the only person around here seems to be yo-“

I close his mouth, leaving him making muffled sounds of anger and protest.

“You need to shut up. You’re not helping anyone.” I say, my quiet voice inaudible compared to his previous screaming.

I release my lock on his injured foot.

“Move your toes.”

I feel Kyungsoo fighting my hold on his body to crane his neck forward to see what I’m doing. Eventually he gives up, and the top of his boot starts to wriggle.

“It’s just bruised, I think. Are you going to attack me again?” I release Kyungsoo’s jaw, allowing him to speak.

“I’m going to ing murder you Luhan. I don’t care that you’re one of the good guys, I’m going to tear you apart for ing this up. I’m going to-“

I lock his jaw again, stopping him from talking.

“You’re going to do some deep breathing in silence for a while.” I say, holding my hand out above him to keep my power focused on his position. With my other hand I fish around in the tall grass for the cause of Kyungsoo’s foot pain. Latching onto the object, I pull it closer to see it fully.

My first thought is ‘Who leaves a dumbbell in the middle of nowhere?’ Because it certainly looks like one. There is a thick metal pole about two meters long, and two thick metal circles the size of dinner plates fixed to the end. On closer inspection, I find that the ‘weights’ are welded onto the pole, fixed in place.

“What is this…” I say to myself, letting my thoughts trail off into the air.

I lift my free hand and push aside the tall grasses around us, searching for any more clues. The grasses bend down like I’m blowing them away with a giant hairdryer, revealing a second metal dumbbell. Resting beside this one is a bamboo rectangular platform with some mechanics protruding from the top.

I lift the three pieces into the air where Kyungsoo can see them. I feel him calm down and stop trying to muscle his way out of my telekinetic hold. I release him, allowing him to sit up and inspect the objects.

“Those metal parts look like wheels.” He says, motioning towards the dumbbells. “See if they fit onto the wooden part.”

I float the objects closer to Kyungsoo, allowing him to push them into position as if they were weightless. After a couple of tries, he finds that the two dumbbells act as both axles and wheels, the bamboo platform resting on top.

“What is it?” I ask, “It looks like a giant food tray on wheels.”

“I think it’s supposed to be some sort of vehicle.” Kyungsoo mutters, poking at the mechanics on top of the tray which seem to be a motor. 

“No way that thing is going anywhere. The wheels don’t even turn!”

Kyungsoo stands for a moment, inspecting the wheels with a questioning expression. Suddenly, he stomps his foot on the ground, creating a small tremor. Unlike the stomps he was doing before, this one wasn’t out of anger.

“That way.” Kyungsoo points off into the grass, and starts walking. “Bring the cart.”

I float the cart between us, following my partner into the grass. About twenty meters from where we found the pieces of the wheels there is a clearing where the grass had been worn down to a shorter length.

Kyungsoo points to two metal ridges sticking out of the ground.

“It’s a track, like a train.”

Kyungsoo helps me to guide the cart onto the tracks, the wheels fitting into the metal ridges perfectly. As a test, he gives a weighty push to the cart. The axles start turning, and the cart smoothly slides away from us.

“Which way do we go?” He points up and down the track.

I look left and right. One path head towards the city, whereas the other leads off into the farmlands and darkness. 

“If we go towards the city we could find another car to hide in, however, we could ride the track to the other end and find what’s there.”

Kyungsoo bends down and runs his fingers across the metal track.

“This track seems pretty basic. I could make more tracks in the earth if we run out.”

“It would be less trouble than digging a tunnel all the way back.” I pitch in.

Kyungsoo jumps onto the platform and starts fiddling with the motor.

“Into the unknown then. If we’re smart we can take this cart all the way back to the meeting place.” He pulls on a cord and a loud rumbling splutters out from the machinery.

“What about when we run out of petrol?” I question, crawling onto the platform.

“You’ll push it.” Kyungsoo says, testing the levers of the motor to find which one makes it go forward. “With your mind thingy.”

I cross my legs and sit at the front of the bamboo platform, hoping that the petrol lasts for a long time. 

Once Kyungoo masters the basic controls on the back of the wooden platform, he sits cross legged, one hand on the brakes. Although we’re probably only going at 40 kilometers per hour, it feels so much faster travelling so close to the ground. The grass blurs underneath me, and if I hold my hand out to the side I feel longer grass and branches of trees slap my palm as they pass. The wind combs through my hair, blowing it out of my face and forcing my eyes to squint as I look ahead. The breeze escapes into the folds of my singlet, cooling down my body.

I turn around to look at Kyungsoo. He’s got his hands on his lap, looking downwards in an attempt to ignore the wind blowing his hair everywhere. Occasionally he wriggles his injured toe, just to make sure it still works.

“I miss your cooking.” I say, my mouth working faster than my brain. Why did I just talk? It has been obvious that Kyungsoo is in a dangerous mood.

Kyungsoo looks up at me and points to his ear, mouthing a ‘what?’. It’s too late for me to pretend that I never spoke. I raise my voice to be heard over the engine.

“I said I miss your cooking!”

Kyungsoo nods in thanks and looks back down at his lap. Although I’m happy he doesn’t continue the conversation, I feel awkward that I didn’t get a proper response. Besides, Kyungsoo looks too forlorn staring at his muddy shoes.

“What was that last one you made? The one with the white chocolate on top?” I say, not willing to give up on the one-sided conversation I’ve started.

“It was a black forest cake” He smiles back up at me “Sehun had requested it, he wanted to learn to make one.”

“And how did he go?” I ask, scooting closer to be heard.

“He was texting the entire way through, he just drank bubbletea and put the cherries on the top. He ate a lot of it though.”

I laugh as I imagine Sehun attempting to bake a cake. I wouldn’t think he’d even know how to crack open an egg.

I lean forward and switch off the motor, letting the sound of the engine trail off into the darkness.

“I’ll push for a while,” I say, allowing us to travel in a bit more silence. “We can use the petrol later, while we’re not talking. So what do you miss?”

He takes a few moments to think about his response. I start pushing the cart along the track with my mind. The wheels glide surprisingly smoothly along the rails, I barely need to do any work to keep us at a constant speed. 

“I miss Xiumin the most,” I say, trying to get the ball rolling “I know that its cliché, saying I miss my fiancé, but I really do. You know, before all this drama happened, we went to almost every restaurant in Seoul, trying to get free food or drinks by saying we were recently engaged? It’s been some of the best months of my life, being engaged to him. Like, we never get tired of each other’s company. We were trying to find each other’s spirit animals just before. I was a deer, naturally, and he was a charsui bao, because he’s so squishy. And Kai was a toy poodle, and Yixing was a unicorn, of course. We just couldn’t figure out what Sehun was. Although, I was going to tell Xiu that Sehun was obviously a parrot, ever since he had his hair mashed up with all those colors. I just never got around to telling him…”

We’re plunged again into awkward silence, both of us thinking of the next time we’re going to see the others. We have no idea of where they are, if they’re safe and healthy, if they’re even still in Cambodia.

“I miss my cat.” Kyungsoo replies, breaking the silence.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise.

“You have a cat?”

“Yeah, she’s orange and brown. I named her Tractor. Its not a very flattering name but she's called that because as a kitten she used to purr in my ear while I was trying to sleep, as loud as a tractor engine. She used to curl up on my bed with me, and wake me up at about six every morning to get some early breakfast. My favorite thing I used to do was wrap her across my shoulders like a living scarf. She’d just sit there and watch whatever I was doing, whether I was cooking or studying or reading. She must be about seven now.”

I let Kyungsoo keep talking about his cat, but something still bothers me.

“Kai never mentioned you guys share a cat.”

“We don’t. I haven’t seen Tractor for years. She lives with my family.”

I realize now that I know nothing about Kyungsoo.

“Oh… I didn’t realize any of us had a family. I mean, I thought the Tree picked all of us because we were alone. Personally, the closest thing I’ve ever had to parents were the matrons at the youth center, which was just a fancy name for an adoption agency for kids who weren’t going to be adopted. But I thought that made sense; If we were to die, there wouldn’t be a family to miss us. Like, Kris was a runaway, and I know that Chen’s parents left him as a kid, and Baekhyun was disowned and someone’s parents died, maybe it was Chan-“

“They aren’t my family, technically.” Kyungsoo butts in. “It’s confusing.” When he sees my silence he starts to explain. “My dad died before I was born. Well, he may have left us, but my mum never told me the truth. She was always trying to keep my mind innocent.

“When I was seven my mum married another guy. He was fine; he was never my friend, but I didn’t hate him either. I was happy when it was just us three. We had Tractor, and it felt like I lived with regular parents. But when I was eleven my mum got in a car accident. Some criminal crashed a getaway car into her taxi. She was the only casualty.

“After the accident I lived with my step father, he’d been my dad for about four years. When I was older, about fifteen or sixteen, he remarried again. I guess this woman was my step-step mother? She wasn’t very nice. She didn’t see the reason why he kept looking after me if I technically wasn’t his son. But my step-dad kept me around. He didn’t mind. 

“One day the step-step-mother caught me moving the backyard garden around with my mind. I was fairly new to having a power, and I was naïve with the lust for practicing. She freaked out. She thought I could kill someone. She forced me to run away or else she’d turn me into the police. My step-dad still thinks I ran away from him. He doesn’t know I was blackmailed. But it doesn’t matter; he has a different life now. There was no point in me sticking around.”

Kyungsoo looks back down at his lap, picking the dried mud off his boots.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Kyungsoo, I didn’t realize your family was so complex.” I stutter, unsure of what to say.

Kyungsoo looks up at me and puts on a painfully forced smile.

“It’s okay, all of us protectors are in the same boat. Plus, they look after Tractor for me.”

I laugh awkwardly along with him.

“Yeah,” I add “Besides, I have Xiumin and you have Kai!”

Kyungsoo’s face drops again, this time in confusion.

“I… I don’t think your engagement with Xiumin is the same as my friendship with Kai.” He mumbles, his forehead creasing into a frown where his eyebrows meet.

“Sure they are,” I say, “You guys aren’t engaged but you’re basically the same, right? Like Chanyeol and Baekhyun, or Kris and Tao.”

“I’m not gay, Luhan.” Kyungsoo’s face darkens.

“But… I thought you and Kai were…” I trail my sentence off, unsure of how to finish.

“You thought wrong.” He says abruptly. “I’m not gay, I never was.”

“So, you’re biual? That’s fine, you know that Chanyeol is the same, he once dated this girl who-“

“No you don’t understand, Luhan! I don’t like guys!” Kyungsoo yells at me. He switches on the engine and lets the putter of the motor cut into the silence between us, cutting me off from saying more. He looks back down at his lap and starts picking slivers of wood out of the bamboo platform.

I reach forward and switch the motor off again. Kyungsoo flinches, but he doesn’t turn it back on.

“You know that Kai doesn’t feel that way.” I murmur. “He loves you.”

Kyungsoo exhales abruptly as if he doesn’t believe me.

“Everyone has seen you two kiss! You share a ing bed! Do you expect Kai to believe that you don’t love him?” Kyungsoo flinches at my sudden outburst.

“I… I don’t… I don’t not love him.” He mumbles. “But I’m not gay.”

“Kyungsoo,” I sigh, my patience wearing thin “what makes you think that you aren’t gay when you are clearly in a relationship with a guy? Do you or do you not love Kai?”

“I’m not gay! Gay people are-“

“Gross?” I cut in, finishing Kyungsoo’s sentence for him “Gay people are wrong?”

Kyungsoo doesn’t respond. I don’t press any further, I can see that I have stepped over the line. I don’t know what confusion this kid fights inside him. I don’t really know his past. Eventually he looks up at me from behind his fringe.

“Kyungsoo, let me show you something.” He tilts his chin upwards and looks at me again, unable to raise his eyes to meet mine. I start to pull off my left boot, undoing the laces slowly. “How do you feel about moths?”

Kyungsoo tilts his head to the side, confused at my seemingly random question “I dunno, I guess they’re kind of like brown butterflies.”

“I love moths,” I say, pulling my boot off by the ankle and pinning it underneath my leg so it won’t fall off the cart. “I think they’re beautiful. They’re like origami butterflies, and they have the most amazing camouflages. They mostly come out at night. Did you know that they use the light of the moon to navigate the world? That’s why they are always bumbling about lights. They confuse the light for the moon.”

“They always hit me when I’m camping.” Kyungsoo mentions, mumbling like a little kid.

“Well, maybe they’re confusing the light of the moon with the light inside you.” I add.

Kyungsoo manages to raise his eyes and make contact with mine. “Kai likes lights. He always sits at Namsam tower at night and watches the city lights below.”

I roll off my sock and show Kyungsoo my ankle. Under the light of the moon the small tattoo of a moth shines through. “I got this a while before I met Suho. It was the first thing I did when I was old enough.”

“Why a moth?” Kyungsoo asks, reaching out to ghost over the wings with gentle fingertips

“Have you ever seen an insect cocoon?” Kyungsoo shakes his head. “They’re like little seed-pods. Except everyone knows that in a few days, it will open up and there will be a beautiful butterfly. Then that butterfly will fly away and everyone will marvel at its colors. But sometimes, a cocoon doesn’t have a butterfly inside, instead there’s a moth. A moth doesn’t have beautiful colors, it doesn’t wake up with the sunset. It flies around lights and gets in the way. Most people think moths aren’t as beautiful as butterflies.”

“I don’t get it.” Kyungsoo says, his finger still tracing the moth tattoo absentmindedly.

“Moths are beautiful. I love how they are patterned like forest wood, and they have a romantically beautiful relationship with the moon. It only takes a few second glances to realize that a moth is just as beautiful as a butterfly.

“When I was little everyone expected I was going to marry a beautiful girl and have a big family. Adults were always saying my female friends were my girlfriends, even as a toddler. When I realized I was gay I hated myself for it. I wasn’t right, I didn’t think I’d ever be happy. I never really grew up in a gay-friendly environment. I thought being gay made me worthless, but after I accepted my uality I realized how important I can be.”

Kyungsoo waits for a moment, then his eyebrows raise and he understands. “You’re a moth. You expected to be a butterfly, but instead, you realized you were a moth.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a moth. They’re beautiful.” I say.

Kyungsoo pauses again and takes another moment of reflection. I take the time to roll my sock back up and start to tie up my laces.

“Am… Am I?” He asks me tentatively.

“Am I what?”

“Am I a moth? Am I gay?”

“I think you know the answer to that yourself.” I say, leaning back on my two arms.

“So… that’s a yes?”

I nod my head slowly, watching as Kyungsoo’s eyes widen in realization.

“I’m ing gay.”

“What a surprise.” I say with mock astonishment.

“But I don’t really want to be.”

“You don’t really have a choice.”

“And Kai?”

“Hella moth-y.” I confirm

He goes silent again as he lets the revelation sink in. 

“.”

I start to laugh. The whole situation is just too ridiculous.

“What? Why are you laughing at me?” Kyungsoo questions, slumping his shoulders down with attitude.

“This is just so messed up. You’re a ing superhero. You’ve got one of the strongest controls over your powers; you could move a ing mountain if you wanted. Yet, you didn’t even know you were gay.”

“If I had the entire week, I still couldn’t be able to tell you how many things would make it impossible to move a mountain, Lu.” He responds “Besides, you have just as much power as I do.”

There’s yet another moment of awkward silence. We both know why we have some of the most developed powers than the others. We were both possessed by the Dark, even longer than Baekhyun.

Not being in control of your own body is hell. It’s the ultimate sacrifice of freedom. During my time possessed by the Dark, I was unable to speak, to move my own fingers, scratch my nose or blink. I had no way of blocking out the horrible things the Dark whispered in my head, when he taunted Xiumin and when he forced me to kiss Baekhyun. I remember reading a book series when I was a little boy, about a group of kids fighting aliens that would crawl into your ear holes and control your body from the inside. The entire time that I was controlled by the Dark, all I could think of was ‘Oh god, the books are true’. 

“This enlightenment that Suho is always talking about,” Kyungsoo says, and I’m glad there’s a change in the conversation. “Do you think it’s actually possible? Can the others unlock these hidden parts of their powers without the help of the Dark?”

“I believe they can do it.” I say, “I’m sure of it. I already think that Xiumin is halfway there. You’ve seen him when it’s cold outside and he can freeze the entire lake, or when he makes it snow, and what about when he fought the Dark and took down the terraforming thing?”

“You know, come to think of it,” Kyungsoo adds “When we were saving Chen from the military base, Kai did this very peculiar thing. We had run into Yongguk, just before we all met up together. Kai and Baekhyun got to safety but I was trapped by lava, I had nowhere to go. Then suddenly, I was in Kai’s arms. It was as if he teleported me to him. I didn’t know he could do that.”

“Do you think?...” I started trailing off.

“I think he might be on his way to getting unlocking his power.” Kyungsoo confirms.

“Woah.” I say “That’s amazing. What do you think the other’s will unlock?”

Kyungsoo gives it a moment to think.

“I think Suho will be a bit like ours. We just became stronger. I can move more earth at once, faster and further than before. It makes sense that he would be able to do the same with water.”

“But then again, what if he could do something weird? Like, control all liquids, like lemonades and chocolate milk!”

“And vodka!”

“I’m excited to see what Yixing will be able to do.” I add in, “Maybe he’ll be able to grow entire limbs from people who are missing their legs. Or maybe he’ll be able to transfer injuries onto his enemies!”

“I don’t think his power will be that violent.” Kyungsoo says, “But what about Tao? What if he could turn back time, and make it so the Dark never came back to begin with? He’d be unstoppable!”

“Imagine the tornadoes and hurricanes from Sehun!”

“Xiumin will be like a male Elsa! He could create an ice castle!”

“Imagine if one day Chanyeol could be like the human torch and fly!“

Kyungsoo looks back at me with happy half-lidded eyes and chuckles, stifling a yawn.

“Get some sleep.” I tell him “I promise I’ll stay awake this time.”

Kyungsoo curls up with his knees tucked into his chest and lies down near the front of the platform, letting the wind hit his back. 

“Thank you Luhan,” He says “I wouldn’t be able to do all this by myself.”

He yawns again, his eyes closed as he stretches his shirt over his knees. 

“I’m not getting a moth tattoo though. I have enough marks already.”

He sleeps for only a few hours while I sit at the back, occasionally using the motor or my power to propel us whenever I felt like it. He seems much more peaceful than before, the creases of frowning and worry gone from his face and replaced with the harmony of sleep.

Hours pass and Kyungsoo eventually sits up, rubbing the sleep out of the corners of his eyes. Pulling his arms into his sleeves, he looks ahead into the darkness. I follow his gaze, on the horizon I can see the faint glow of city lights. We’re reaching the next city; quickly closing the gap to the meeting place. 

“When do you think the tracks will run out?” Kyungsoo asks, looking ahead onto the ground in front of us. The metal glint is faint, creeping out of the darkness to run underneath our wheels. “I didn’t expect them to travel so far from Battambang.”

Kyungsoo leans forward suddenly and pushes his finger to my lips, signaling me to shut up. With his face so close to mine, I can see his pupils dilate, the whites of his eyes shining through the moonlight. He pauses for a while, and my Adam’s apple bobs up and down as I swallow. I can see the nervous sweat break out on his forehead, slightly shining under the moon.

“Make us quicker. Please.” He says, and from his terrified tone, I instantly abide.

Kyungsoo reaches down and drags his fingers over the rocks rushing past us, feeling the ground for something.

“They’re speeding up too.” He says, “We’re in trouble.”

“What?” I reply, confused. “Who is speeding up?”

“There’s another cart on the track.” Kyungsoo points down behind us, and in the distance I think I can make out the slightest shadow shift down the track. “It’s catching up. Quickly.”

I push out with both of my arms, propelling our cart faster along the track. Kyungsoo holds on tightly to the engine protruding from the bamboo platform, making sure he doesn’t fly off.

We speed up as the sun starts to rise above the horizon, slowly illuminating the landscape in a dark blue wash. Behind us I can see the platform chasing us, one man standing on his cart like a surfboard.

“Look at the tracks!”

I look ahead to where Kyungsoo is pointing. The metal tracks curl away into the distance, then they take a terrifying turn, both lines curving away from each other and back behind us, creating a loop that is always crawling forward.

“It’s the metal controller, Himchan!” Kyungsoo exclaims “He’s been creating the track underneath us! How long has he been doing this for?”

“He’s leading us into a trap.” I solemnly say. “We have to get off these rails.”

“I’m going to create a new path to the side, can you lift us off the track?” Kyungsoo says over the rushing wind, preparing to create grooves into the earth like a makeshift track.

I prepare myself for the transition from track to earth, but as Kyungsoo releases his hold on the engine to create tracks, our cart shakes dangerously.

“Careful!” Kyungsoo hisses, holding back onto the edges of the platform.

“That wasn’t me!” I yell back, as the cart wobbles again. 

I watch in dread as the two metal railings underneath our wheels start to levitate, lifting off the ground. Like two identical snakes, waking up, they ripple through the earth, until our cart is driving along two metal tracks, twenty meters above the ground.

“I can’t lift us!” I yell back, “The wheels are made of metal! I can’t move them!”

I turn to Kyungsoo to look for help, yet he has just as many ideas as I do. With a sharp ring of metal, a thin blade slashes into our motor, totaling the machine. I look back and see Himchan surfing his own cart, surrounded by wide ribbons of metal. Another blade twitches and rushes towards us. I reach out and pull Kyungsoo closer to me as the metal lodges into the bamboo platform, splintering the wood and showing the rushing rocks below us.

The tracks keep growing upwards, leading us further away from the ground.

“He’s trying to separate us from the ground!” Kyungsoo yells, his primary weapon of dirt slowly falling out of reach. He then points out to the distance where the new morning light is beginning to reflect off the roofs of black military vehicles. “and he’s leading us towards them! It’s a trap!”

Kyungsoo heaves with his power, reaching down to the earth and ripping rocks from the ground, yet Himchan’s metal armor and weapons protect him well.

The bamboo platform starts to splinter again under the torment of rapid-fire bullets. I look over the edge of our cart and see the large guns mounted on top of the military trucks, their nozzles blaring with gunfire. I quickly lift my arm and stop the bullets before us like a scene from The Matrix. The bullets keep shaking, longing to rip through my hold. I chance a glimpse behind us, and I see Himchan with his hand motioning towards the bullets, using his own power to force them forward.

“He’s too strong! I’m going to lose the bullets!” I say, the bullets slowly inching through my grasp. “Quick, Kyungsoo, come to me!”

Kyungsoo runs towards me and I hold him close into my chest. I release my hold on the bullets, only slightly directing them so that they swerve around our bodies. I instead blast downwards into the bamboo with telekinetic force, crumbling the cart into pieces. Kyungsoo and I fall down towards the ground. The flying railway tracks are left up above us with Himchan and his cart as we tumble, holding on to each other for safety.

I spy a ribbon of metal come flashing downwards, snaking through the air like a missile. Latching onto a shard of the bamboo platform, I fling out viciously, sending the wood chip in Himchan’s direction. The ribbon of metal falters as my projectile hits its mark.

As we hit the ground, I watch around me as the earth starts to billow around us as if we were falling into a parachute. Under control of Kyungsoo, the earth sinks in with us, slowing down our descent. My breath is taking out of my chest as we jolt to a halt, but I close my eyes and thank the Tree of Life that I’m still alive. The earth starts to reform, pushing us back upwards and into the sky. I change our course of direction and we go flinging out into the air on a different trajectory, flying away from the trucks and bullets.

I watch through squinted eyes as Himchan disappears into the horizon behind us, the guns on the trucks turning too late to fire again at us. Himchan quickly starts to descend towards the trucks, but we’re too far gone by the time he is inside a cabin.

In a sudden change of scenery, we are no longer flying over the rocks and grass of the bamboo train tracks. Instead the ground is replaced with winding asphalt roads, dirty cars and piss-stained walkways. We had reached the city. 

“Luhan how are we going to land?” Kyungsoo yells at us as we reach the peak of our trajectory, starting our descent.

“I’ve got this” I yell over the rushing wind, but I’m unsure if my words make it to Kyungsoo’s ears. 

I release one hand from around Kyungsoo’s back and try to guide us towards the roof of a nearby building, one of the taller ones with many stories. We wobble under my control, and our descent isn’t as slow as I would prefer. We let go of each other as we hit the roof, rolling around in loose gravel. I feel the rocks rip through my shirt and skin and tear apart my back, and dust flies up into my mouth and eyes. Coughing I stand up and search for Kyungsoo.

He remains lying down on the roof closer to the further edge, coughing up blood. The entirety of his right side is left bloody from the landing, the severe graze running from his shoulder down to his wrist, as well as down his leg.

“Kyungsoo are you okay?” I rush over to him, wincing as I kneel into the gravel to discover my grazed knees.

He groans and uses a raw palm to roll himself onto his back. “What happened…” he winces.

“I don’t know. I should’ve been able to land us. I ed up, but we have to keep moving, especially now that we know we’re being chased. Himchan is probably already half way here.”

“What do you mean you should’ve been able to land us?” Kyungsoo says as he sits up, gingerly brushing the gravel out of his leg.

“It should’ve been a simple landing. I could’ve done it I swear. I must be tired. Or overworked.”

Kyungsoo limps over to the edge of the roof and looks down, wiping his hands on his shorts. “I have another theory,” He looks down at the street “the Tree Of Life is getting weaker.” 

Down in the street, there’s an obvious change to the usual happenings of an early morning. The air smelt thick of smoke, but not the regular smog of city life. People yell and argue below us, and down on the footpath an old woman screams abuse at a fish merchant while a small girl nabs a hefty fish from the window. A few blocks away there’s an ambulance pulling a mangled man from the front windscreen of his crashed car, sirens echoing through the tall streets.

“The balance isn’t right. There’s too much bad things happening.” Kyungsoo says as he watches a group of thugs walk down the street, not even attempting to conceal their guns. “That must mean that the Dark is getting stronger. And the Tree is weakening. That must be why our powers aren’t as strong. They come from the Tree’s power.”

“What happens if the Tree dies?” I ask cautiously.

“I don’t think losing our powers will be the biggest problem if the world is ruled by the Dark” came the solemn reply.

The sound of tires screeching alert our attention to the edge of the city. Three black trucks drive into the throng of cars, pushing the smaller vehicles onto the sidewalk as they clear a path. For a moment they’re headed towards our building, but they eventually turn off and head towards a river cutting through the town.

“There’s our B.A.P friend.” Kyungsoo says. “At least he’s going in the wrong direction. Let’s get moving, not far to go to the meeting place.”

He takes a step away from the edge of the roof and falls onto one knee, clutching his thigh in silent pain.

“Kyungsoo!” I yell, running to his side. “Talk to me!”

He pulls away his hands, bright red and  sticky with blood.

“I’ll be fine, really.”

“No you won’t be.” I say, pulling down his shorts, ignoring the weak protests from Kyungsoo. 

His grey underwear is stuck to his right thigh with blood, running down his leg and into the shorts pooled at his ankles. He gasps as I run my fingers over the long slice across the leg, as wide as all four of my fingers together.

“That dickhead must’ve gotten me with one of those blades.” Kyungsoo says, his head tilted up into the sky and his fists bunched on the edge of his shirt, lifting it above his belly button so it’s out of my way. “What’s the damage, doctor?”

“How deep does this go?” I ask, rolling up the pants of his boxers to prevent the cotton fusing into the injury. 

“I have no idea. I can barely feel it really. It’s kind of numb.”

I pull a knife from my belt and tear a strip of cloth from the bottom of my shirt, leaving the hem messy and just above the waist of my shorts. Wrapping it around his leg, I pull the cloth tight and tie a messy knot on the front.

“Can you make the knot smaller?” Kyungsoo asks, looking down at his new bandage. “Its gonna stick out when I put my pants on and look like I have a massive-“

“Focus, Kyungsoo.” I say, cutting him off. I start to pull his pants back up, trying to make sure they don’t touch his grazed leg. “Make sure you keep pressure on it. Tell me if it falls or anything. We can’t have you losing any more blood.”

As I pull the corners of his shorts together to fasten the button, I notice more trickles of blood falling down his right abdomen. Lifting up his shirt, I see an even more horrifying sight.

“Kyungsoo you’ve been shot.”

“Really? I can’t even feel it. Please tell me it’s just a graze?”

“No, Soo, there’s multiple. I can count four.”

“.” Kyungsoo says, his shirt still lifted above his face.

“I think there’s a bullet still in there. I’m going to try to pull it out.”

Telekinetically I try to latch onto the end of the silver projectile, slowly extracting it from the bloody hole in my friend’s side. Moving something like this feels squishy, as if it wasn’t supposed to be making squelching noises. 

“Careful Luhan,” Kyungsoo warns me “I’m very attached to my abs.”

“What abs.” I mutter to myself, trying to focus on my impromptu surgery. When I get half of the bullet out, I pull the smaller end out quickly.

“AHHH!” Kyungsoo screams, doubling over and pushing hard onto his abdomen. “!”

I grin back holding up the shiny metal object like a toddler losing his first tooth. Still blood stained, the bullet looks innocently harmless, just a small metallic shape that was moments ago lodged inside my friend with the intent to kill. Kyungsoo stumbles over, still bent over and clutching his stomach. Squinting he looks at the bullet.

“That was just inside me?” He pants, and I nod in reply. “Are there any more?” He lifts up his shirt and has look at the bullet holes. It’s obvious which one I just tampered with; its bleeding profusely compared to the others, and it looks wider and darker.

“I can’t tell. They’re too far in if they are. I think we should just bandage you up and wait until we find Yixing. We’re honestly very lucky you’re not dead right now.”

We end up using Kyungsoo’s shirt to bandage him up this time. We rip even more off the bottom of his shirt, leaving him with a misshapen, blood-stained crop top. The blood quickly seeps through the bandages and leaves his entire right side very dark and wet.

The sudden sound of rapid gunfire rings above the city soundscape. Kyungsoo flinches and I pull myself between him and the gunshots, raising my arms to stop any bullets. ‘I cannot deal with pulling out another bullet’ goes through my mind as I squeeze my eyes shut. 

There’s a gentle tap on my shoulder.

“I don’t think they’re firing at us.”

I open my eyes and follow Kyungsoo’s pointed finger. The military vehicles are all conglomerated around the river, most of them parked around one of the bridges. Underneath the grey-brown water sloshed with agitation, rubbish gathering at the edges of the banks. More gunshots echo through the tall buildings, followed by the collective sounds of women screaming. 

“Look! It’s Xiumin!”

My heart increases pace as I search for my fiancé, sighing with relief as I discover that he is still alive.

A small figure skates across the water, bursts of water flying upwards as the bullets miss. Xiumin crouches down and pushes out with his legs, the bottom of his boots shining with ice. The river freezes as he speeds along its length to create a solid, wavy brown surface.

Watching Xiumin skate through gunfire is exhilarating, my heart on edge as the bullets narrowly miss his skin.

”Xiumin is the best ice skater I know. He basically invented it.” I say to Kyungsoo, mostly to reassure myself. “He’ll survive.”

My heart drop again when I hear Kyungsoo’s reply.

“Wasn’t Suho with him?”

I scan the river for signs of our leader but I find nothing. The water in front of Xiumin churns with bullets, and the brown is too murky to see through. Soldiers jump down onto the ice and fire horizontally down the length of the water, trying to knock Xiumin down. A larger vehicle parks on top of a nearby bridge, its turret-gun swiveling down to face the ice controller.

Xiumin skids to a halt and reaches down behind him, ice growing out of his surface to meet the bullets with a thick wall. Soldiers slow down their approach, their thick rubber boots gripping into the ice.

Xiumin punches out blindly from behind his ice-wall, and a portion of the ice-floor shatters and crumbles in on itself, engulfing two soldiers. The other assailants pick up their pace, firing every now and then to keep Xiumin behind his wall.

“Come on, we have to find a way to get down there.” Kyungsoo says, limping around the roof. He looks down the length of the building. We’re at least six stories high. “Is there an elevator or some stairs? It’s not that I don’t trust you to lower us down safely, but… I just don’t trust you to lower us down safely.”

“I saw a doorway into the building just before. We can search for an elevator inside.”

---------------

Once we make it onto the floor, we limp together towards the battle. I allow Kyungsoo to lean on me as we walk, careful not to brace him by his injured flank.

We hide behind a parked car on the side of the river. Peering through the side windows we can see the battle raging on the ice. There’s a new figure on the ice now, clad mostly in black and exuding arrogance. His dark brown hair was pushed up out his face, but the recent physical activity had allowed his fringe to change its mind and curl back into his eyes. At first I found it weird that he didn’t have a gun, walking onto the ice without a weapon. It was obvious he was from B.A.P.

“So that’s where Himchan went. It feels weird to actually see his face in daylight. He looks just as violent as he acts.” Kyungsoo says to me. “I just really want to bury my fist in his smug little face.”

The man waves his hands and the black panels strapped to his forearms stretch out and chisel into Xiumin’s ice wall. The metal armor on his legs and torso also ribbons out into weapons, slicing into the ice. I hear Xiumin cry out in pain from behind his wall.

Himchan’s boots change, metal blades forming underneath his soles to create ice skates. With as much dexterity as Xiumin, he starts to curve around the river, quickly closing the gap between him and his target. 

The river takes a new turn and starts churning with renewed ferocity. Under the ice I spy a dark streak shooting towards Himchan like a torpedo. It covers the length of about one hundred meters in less than three seconds, so fast that the water becomes clearer in the center. As it reaches Himchan the ice opens up like a trapdoor, and water billows out of the hole like a giant balloon. The water forms thick tentacles, some as stocky and as wide as cars, twisting in on itself with Himchan in the center. 

Suho leaps out of the water mound, sliding across the ice on two legs and an arm. The water suddenly becomes a frenzy whirlwind of blades as Himchan struggles to free himself. Metal edges protrude from the water, hooking into the ice in attempts to pull himself out. 

Xiumin skates out from his cover, bolts of freezing energy running across the surface of the ice and towards Himchan. The bubble of water starts to freeze with Himchan inside, thin layers of ice growing up from the ground.

Xiumin and Suho dash to take cover as the truck with the turret starts firing down at them again, allowing Himchan to start to whirl his blades against the growing ice. 

“Stay here,” I warn Kyungsoo, using my power to pop open the car door we are leaning against. “You’re too injured at the moment. I’m going to take out that turret. ”

I help Kyungsoo crawl inside the cabin of the car, instructing him to stay down where nobody can see him. 

Once I’m alone I start to run along the length of the river, aiming for the bridge with the turret. The truck itself is guarded by two soldiers, not counting the man sitting behind the gun. 

“You’re weak Luhan,” I say to myself. “Don’t try to do anything you can’t currently do.”

I catch the first guard by surprise. I attack him with a simple punch, backed up with a little bit of my telekinetic power. He goes flying into the cement with a loud thud, gaining the attention of the second guard.

I quickly levitate the unconscious guard’s gun and fire it towards the second. I hit him in the shoulder, making him drop his own weapon. I drop my weapon with the recoil, unprepared for the vicious kick back. With a quick punch to the injured man’s stomach he goes flying over the edge of the bridge, his body slapping grossly into the ice.

By now the man behind the big gun has noticed me and recognized me as a major threat. Leaning back he starts to turn the gun to face me.

Shooting my own knife out towards the car, I slash the two closest tires to me, along the left side of the truck. The thick wheels deflate quickly, forcing the gun to tip its end down into the ground.

Mustering my strength, I push the gunner out of the vehicle, allowing the backs of his knees to get caught on the side of the truck and fall onto the road. I levitate a grenade out of his belt and pull the pin, letting the bomb drop into the truck.

The truck explodes in a blast bigger than I expected. Pieces of truck go flying off into the river, quickly picked up by Himchan who is now mostly escaped out of his icy trap.

Suho looks up onto the bridge at the explosion, squinting his eyes to see me waving.

“Luhan?” He mouths, not believing what he is seeing.

I scream out as a pointed blade stabs into Suho’s stomach, Himchan’s grin widening as he twists the blade. Suho’s smile drops, bent over to clutch at the blade sticking into him.

I yell out and push Himchan across the ice, the blade exciting Suho’s stomach with a bloody spurt as he grows further away. Himchan falls into the water, his blades sinking after him like a metal octopus entering the water.

The surface of the ice freezes over on top of Himchan, trapping him underneath. Blades of metal stick out suddenly as if they were zombie hands rising out of graves. Xiumin skates over to Suho and says something quiet in his ear. Suho nods, pulling down his shirt to cover his bleeding torso.

“Run!” Xiumin yells at me, motioning towards a platoon of soldiers making their way across the bridge from the other side. “We’ll be fine!”

Xiumin and Suho run up the bank of the river and back into the city. Sprinting behind them, I weave through the abandoned cars until I make it to Kyungsoo’s. The wet blood stain on the seat tells me that Kyungsoo was lying down on the back seat, but the bullet holes in the car door and the absence of a protector shows me that Kyungsoo is no longer there.

Head down to follow the trail of blood stains, I track Kyungsoo back into the city. There’s a lack of presence of people, all of them run away to escape the gunshots and explosions. I run through the alleys, searching for Kyungsoo, once ducking behind a crepe stall to hide from a few soldiers.

My turn a corner and come across two soldiers firing into a side alleyway, facing in the wrong direction to have noticed me. I yank their guns from their hands, letting them rattle on the floor. Running towards the first one, I knee him in the stomach, sending him flying into a brick wall. A whip of water lashes out at the other from the darkness, wrapping around the soldier’s neck and pulling him forcefully into the ground. 

Suho runs out from the shadows, one hand across his stomach, the other floating a puddle of water behind him. His face looks deathly pale. 

“Suho quick we need to bandage you up before you lose too much blood.” I say, pulling him back into the shadows.

“No I’ll be fine we need to find the others.” Suho says, shrugging me off.

“No you won’t be, I saw that blade go through you, you should be nearly dead.” I lift up his shirt to get to the injury and come across a bizarre sight.

There was blood running out of his stomach, it was evident. But the blood was not flowing out normally. As it exited his body it rolled back, as if some unseen force was holding his blood inside his own body.

“Suho are you…”

Suho yanks down his shirt to cover the cut before I can inspect it further. “Not now,” he says sternly, “We need to get to Xiumin and Kyungsoo.”

Together we run through the streets, feet unevenly hitting the pavement with our limps. Occasionally I’d stop to wait for Suho to catch up, still holding his abdomen together with his arm, yet he’s never far behind.

Of all the people I’d trained with, Suho’s been my most common sparring partner. I guess it’s mostly because he knows that I’m a good match for him, and that I’m always prepared to go a few rounds on the training mats. I’m grateful for the hours I’ve spent with Suho in the gym, getting to know his styles, his methods, his power.

The next time we come across some soldiers, we charge them head on. 

“Go up and draw!” Suho yells to me, leading our attack. “I’ve got primary.”

Primary is our code for the closest man. Drawing means to act as the most threatening person, in an attempt to ‘draw’ their attentions and attacks. These are all terms that Kris made up to make us more efficient, printing the words on a big laminated poster in the bathroom for us to memorize as we shower. 

Using my power I push myself up the wall as I run, the nozzles of three guns following me up above the soldiers.

Suho makes the first attack, blasting his stockpile of water up into the closest soldier’s helmet. The man stumbles backwards, his gun ricocheting bullets of the walls as it accidentally discharges.

I jump down between the remaining two soldiers and crouch down to the floor to absorb the landing. Reaching into a nearby belt I steal out two knives to replace the one I lost on the bridge. I twirl around, allowing the knives to swarm around me and cut into the legs of the two soldiers. As I stand up I stretch a high kick into the face of one of the men, latching onto the other’s shoulders with my power and shoving him face first into the bricks.

I turn back to watch Suho as he sends a spinning kick into a disorientated soldier’s jaw, the man already down on his knees. A silent nod is exchanged between us, then we continue on our path. 

At the next intersection five soldiers cautiously tip toe across our vision, guns pointed in all directions to cover their backs. I sprint ahead, leaving Suho back in the shadows. Reaching out above me I latch my power onto any nearby pipes, snapping them from their brackets and releasing sprays of water into the area. I duck and roll out of the way as the water comes to life, forming tendrils of jets that push the soldiers back into walls and cars.

The sound of splashing footprints echoes through the alleyways and a boy comes into view, running towards us with the sounds of bullets behind him.  

“Suho!” Xiumin yells cautiously as the puddles we created start to freeze, creating a slippery surface for me to stand on.

Suho lifts up a wall of water behind Xiumin, blocking off the path which he just came from. Xiumin turns on his heels, his boots digging impossibly into the ice underneath his feet. With a blast of freezing energy, the wall solidifies and becomes an opaque white color, the sound of angry soldier’s grumbling just meters away from us.

“Xiu!” I squeal, sliding my way over to him.

“Lu?” He raises his eyebrows with surprise, lifting me up as I come crashing into him. He gives me a quick pat down to search for any injuries, his eyes darting over my grazed knees and arm.

I lean in to kiss him with a rushed embrace, tasting the thick coppery trace of blood. Suho pulls at my arm, breaking up the kiss with his urgency.

“We have to go,” He starts pulling me into another alleyway, Xiumin trailing behind us. “Xiumin, do you know where Kyungsoo is?”

“Soo is here?” Xiumin asks, and all I can think is ‘Jeez I missed that voice.’

We continue along as a group of three protectors now, searching for our missing comrade. After a few corners we find ourselves attacked in an intersection from two directions. Suho quickly starts taking out soldiers with more blasts of water while I focus on blocking bullets behind us.

A chunk of ice flies over my head and knocks out one of the shooters. Xiumin stands at my side, punching out like a boxer to send frozen puddles flying through the air at the attackers.

“Wall!” Suho calls from behind us, needing Xiumin’s powers to make an ice wall. Xiumin hesitates, noticing me shift position to catch another wave of bullets.

“Go!” I yell, gritting my teeth. I feel blood start to drip down my lip, signifying that I have been using too much of my power recently.

There’s a heavy motor sound and a big car drives into the middle of the intersection, cutting me off from Xiumin and Suho. Men lean out of the tray with automatic weapons in both directions, preparing to fire.

Almost immediately half of the car is engulfed in water and ice. Sadly for me this is not my side of the car. I raise my hands, prepared to block the bullets, unsure if I have enough telekinetic ability left in me to stop so many guns from so close. 

The cement underneath me shifts, pulling me backwards, and the walls close in in front of me, fitting together to create a perfect brick wall. I’m left staring at perfect brickwork only a few centimeters from my nose. 

Kyungsoo limps into view, stepping on the hand of an unconscious soldier. A leaking pipe sprays down onto his face, washing off the many spots of blood that speckle his nose. In his hands he grips onto a loose brick, looking as if he just bludgeoned someone to death with it.

“Come on!” he urges, waving me over. “I found our way out!”

He leads me not far, to a small motorbike with a run-down engine that is almost comical. Attached to the back is a two-wheeled trailer, lined with rickety seats for passengers and a flowery sunshade. A little sign hangs off the bannister ‘$2USD rides’

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I say, eyeing the peeling pink and green paint.

Kyungsoo limps into the trailer, half lying down on one of the tiny benches. “I can’t ride a proper motorbike in this state. This is mobile.”

I sit down on the seat and kick the motor to life. It splutters, almost dying but still alive. “I half expect this to start singing nursery rhymes as we ride.” I yell over my shoulder.

“Just go as fast as you can! Out of this city!” Kyungsoo yells back.

I start to drive, slowly picking up speed until we travel at a surprisingly powerful velocity. With the smaller bike I weave between the cars on the road, most of them abandoned in an attempt to get away from the superpowered terrorist attack. I reach the bridge and stop at the peak, looking back at Kyungsoo to see how he is faring

He’s looking as pale as Suho was, blood loss affecting him heavily. He gives me a cracked smile from the back seat, raising a shaky thumb to signal ‘all good’.

“Only a few blocks until we’re in the jungle.” I reassure him. 

I take a chance to look down the river to where we left Himchan frozen in the ice. There’s an obvious circle cut out where he once was, cleanly cut as if by an ice saw, which I guess is entirely possible with Himchan’s power.

In the background I notice a bigger truck start to drive towards the bridge, the black tinted windscreen like menacing sunglasses watching us. My worried expression gives it away, and Kyungsoo turns back to see the vehicle.

“Go!” he yells, shifting in his seat.

I accelerate ferociously, urging the bike to speed us away. I hear a loud cracking sound behind us as we leave the bridge, and I turn around to watch the road fall down into the frozen river. Kyungsoo had stopped the truck from following us. As we drive out of the city we leave cracked, spiky roads in our wake, impassable to any chasing military.

“Where do we go now?” Kyungsoo yells in my ear, and I jump as I didn’t notice him lean out of the carriage to speak to me.

I point up in the sky, to a phenomenon a few kilometers away. Dark clouds are gathering in one spot, while the rest of the sky is bright blue and sunshiny. With an ominous crack, multiple bolts of lightning strike the jungle viciously.

“Chen.” Kyungsoo mutters under his breath.

“It’s a beacon.” I speculate 

Or a distress signal

so what did you guys think? happy I'm back? I'll be posting at least once a week hopefully until this fic is done. Please keep recommending this fic anywhere you can! Also comment if you want! comments really make my day and they motivate me heaps to write more :)

Q. Who has the best solo chapter so far? Sehun/Yixing, Kris/Tao, Suho/Xiumin, Chanyeol/Baekhyun or Luhan/Kyungsoo?

Next chapter (i swear it'll come next week its already written) will be from Chens POV!