(37) ALMOST HELL

It was Kris’ turn to lead practice for the day, so he decides on waking everyone up early and dragging them out into the yard for stretches. He warned them that they should warm up before beginning what he has planned. Most agreed with stiff bodies, trying to spread out amongst the weeds and dirt, but it wasn’t necessarily taken seriously. Others, like Luhan and Baekhyun, found comfort in hiding on the front porch. They curled up against the hardwood flooring to catch a few more precious moments of sleep.

Since Tao was technically still recovering, he was situated in a chair not too far away from everyone else. Despite his constant bickers to be let in on the activities, his head dipped backwards every few minutes as drifted off to sleep. The boy refused to stay indoors when everyone else was outside, and Kris let him watch from the sidelines if he promised to be good.

Kris went out to the forest after making sure everyone (with the exception of Tao) were at least trying to warm up their bodies. While leaving the remaining members at the house, he only took Kyungsoo and Luhan along with him. They were gone for about thirty minutes before Kris had came back first, though following him were an extremely exhausted Kyungsoo and Luhan.

Luhan’s eyes flickered with its purplish flecks around his irises, burning intensely with each heave of his body. Kyungsoo on the other hand returned with bloody fists stamped with dirt. He was lead over to Lay by Kris to be healed, but it only ends up with Kyungsoo collapsing onto Lay’s legs.

“Everyone besides those that can’t stand, come here!” Kris called out, leaving Kyungsoo in Lay’s care as the latter struggled to lift Kyungsoo’s almost unconscious body off him.

There were a total of ten large boulders that Luhan and Kyungsoo worked together to drag back, the sizes amazing the others that just those two would be able to bring those on their own. The smaller rocks went up to Kris’ waist, short and stubby in scale. The biggest rock was narrow, but it almost reached up to Kris’ shoulders, towering high over a few of the shorter members.

“Pick a rock and grab a rope.” Kris instructed, tossing a bundle of thick ropes to the other boys.

He left with a stick in his hand, trailing backwards and digging into the dirt until he made a large circle. He explains, stick in hand, that it would serve as a sort of track for the activity.

Some members were smart enough to not grab any rocks that looked like it could crush them, while others got into a fight just for the biggest rock. Eventually Baekhyun, who was wide awake now, pushed everyone else away so he could claim b the biggest rock for himself. His tiny stature was small in comparison for the rock and Kyungsoo rolled his eyes before shoving him aside and taking over the boy’s spot.

“Get your own rock, Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun huffed, having a hard time shoving the younger away as Kyungsoo stayed put in his spot.

“Baekhyun! Hurry up!” Kris yelled. He chucks a stick at him impatiently, to which the other gurgles a little  as he dodges fairly unskillfully.

“He took my rock!” Baekhyun screamed back.

Kris rolled his eyes at the two boys fighting, heading over to where the two crowded the rock before yanking Kyungsoo over to a new, much smaller rock. He gave the both of them their ropes and left, unaware of the triumphant smirk on Baekhyun’s face and the much more irritated glare that was being directed at the back of his head by Kyungsoo.

“Okay, so tie one side of the rope around your rocks and the other end around your waists.” Kris stepped back up to his spot under the porch roof and stood in front of Tao who was still asleep.

It didn’t take long for the boys to get themselves in place, waiting for Kris who just made a circular motion with his wrist. “Well? What are you all waiting for?”

“Your instructions?” Sehun said all too snarkily.

Kris could sense the younger was irritable, but kept his own emotions in check.

“Uh, isn’t it obvious? Run.”

Some of the boys didn’t understand why Kris would do this, breaking out into confused looks as they tried to figure out if he was trying to say something else or if he really meant for them to actually run.

Suho and Lay looked at one another before sighing, using as much force as they could to run with rocks lugging them down. One by one, all of the other boys followed suit, though some more strongly than others. Sehun and Kai had no real problem running with their long legs and youthful spirits. Xiumin was the first to actually do one full lap with pure strength, and as it turns out, his training in faction A proves useful for this sort of intense physical training.

Twenty minutes had passed and there were only a few handful of boys that were somehow still running. The others had given up or were trying their best, their rocks only moving a fraction of an inch with every desperate tug and pull.

“You can’t expect us to run with these giant things pulling us down!” Chen screamed, flopping down into the dirt and coughing as it went into his mouth.

Kris had agreed that it might’ve been a bit much, but he did give them the option to choose their own poison. Seeing that Baekhyun hadn’t even moved from the starting line, he thought it was too much for those that had no physical training done on them before, standing up and making his way back down to the track.

“Kyungsoo!” He called, motioning for the boy to come back. “Come here for a bit!”

Kyungsoo cut across the center in order to meet up with Kris, his rock trailing behind as he ran. “Yeah?”

“Can you break anyone’s rocks that look like they’re having a hard time?” Kris’ eyes trailed over to Baekhyun whose face was red and sticky with sweat and dirt.

Kyungsoo nodded his head and walked over to where Baekhyun was sulking next to his rock, body being propped up by the heavy thing. Baekhyun looked up to find a shadow looming over him and was only able to see the whites of Kyungsoo’s smile before a loud, bone crunching noise had him crouching down in fear.

He’d stayed down for another few moments before the shadow had passed over him, looking down the track to see Kyungsoo doing the same for Suho and Lay’s rocks. Baekhyun turned to see what happened to his rock and saw that Kyungsoo had cut it even smaller than Kris instructed. As if he were trying to just piss Baekhyun off.

“Damnit, Kyungsoo…” He grumbled, only now able to start running with the lighter boulder weighing him down.

Kyungsoo had made a full circle and eventually smashed everyone’s rocks a fraction smaller, especially helping out those like Chen, Chanyeol and Kai. Luhan and Sehun seemed fine on their own and Kyungsoo still smashed a bit of their rocks off to make things fair, but he was surprised to see them still running as if they weren’t tired at all.

Sehun was one of the boys that kept up with his constant speed. He ran in full force, though it appeared as though he hadn’t had a rock tied to him at all. Luhan was curious as to how he’d have so much strength. Even Kai was beginning to slow down while he ran.

Whenever Sehun would run around the track, Luhan would watch him, searching for something that looked out of ordinary. He thought it was strange that wherever Sehun went, there would be a lot of dirt flying around, as if there were a strong breeze wherever he went. It technically was possible since he did have the power of wind after all, but it was still strange. The wind hadn’t been as nice to the rest of the members in the sweltering heat.

Then he’d seen it. It was faint and almost unrecognizable under Sehun’s palm as he shielded his eyes from the blinding rays of the sun. Luhan saw it as Sehun wiped his hands on his shirt, momentarily exposing his eyes-

That were glowing brightly in the palest tone of white.

“No way.” He breathed out, watching as Sehun continued to run as if he weren’t practically cheating. “That brat.”

If Sehun could cheat, then so could he.

Closing his eyes for a bit, he began to lug the rock while keeping his eyes closed, bringing his hands up to cover his eyes as they burned brightly with its violet hue. It was much easier for Luhan to run after that. He’d gotten used to using his powers for long periods of time after remembering how miserably he’d suffer back when he was a kid. There was no way in hell he’d want a repeat of that. Since then, he’s found the energy to build up his stamina in order to avoid anything like the sort.

Running around was ten times easier now, and it hadn’t taken the others quite much longer to figure out why. Xiumin had been observing Luhan’s sudden happy mood as he jogged around the track, seeing his rock almost levitate too high to the point where it looked obvious.

“Keep it under control, yeah?” Xiumin muttered before running past him, heading over to Chanyeol next as the boy continued to run.

Chanyeol looked pretty exhausted as well, but he had a good amount of stamina and hadn’t been using his ability to run like what Sehun and Luhan were doing. His long lasting energy could be the fact that he wasn’t sweating at all in the heat, or maybe that he himself was absorbing the heat as energy for his own benefit. Xiumin wasn’t sure, though the second was highly likely.

Making his way over, he tapped the boy’s shoulder and saw him jump up in shock.

“Wanna make our training a little easier?” Xiumin asked, seeing Chanyeol’s ears perk up at the sound of taking the easy way out.

“But how?”

Since Chanyeol was on board, all Xiumin needed to do was get Lay and Suho to join his little team. He beckoned Chanyeol to follow and the two of them kept running until coming closer to the other two boys.

“Aren’t you guys tired?” Xiumin huffed a bit.

Suho was quick to agree, though his worried eyes wouldn’t stray away from Lay, who had a hard time talking. “He’s been using his ability to give me more energy to run, but I don’t know how long it’ll be until he runs out of energy on his own…”

“I have a plan though.” Xiumin grinned, “And I wanted to know if you guys wanted in.”

Suho and Lay slowed down to look at one another, their eyes curiously making its way back to Xiumin as he began to explain.

First things first, he’d pointed out that Sehun and Luhan were practically cheating their way through the course by using their powers. Suho and Lay could kind of tell, while Chanyeol was completely caught off guard at the sudden discovery.

That’s when Xiumin had gotten the idea.

Since he had a frost ability, that meant he had the power of ice at his wake, even in this hot weather. He’d first freeze the ground where they ran to make it easier for the rocks to slide around during the training.

It would be pretty obvious to see the track turning into an ice rink if Kris bothered to check up on them enough, but just in case, they’d need to melt away the ice- which is when Chanyeol came in.

The latter looked mortified to be included in such a plan and shook his head furiously.

“I-I don’t think I can do this. I mean… My ability is kind of strong and I’m tired, so-”

“Chanyeol… You know it’s now or never, right?” Xiumin said with a frown, watching as his brother’s shoulder shrunk. “And I can trust you to do this.”

Chanyeol looked up at him with a frown of his own. “Yeah… Last time you said that, I burned your eyebrows off…”

Xiumin laughed before patting him on the back assuringly.

“Yes, but look at them now. They’re pretty full if you ask me.” He wiggled his eyebrows to prove his point and could see the corners of Chanyeol’s lips turn up slightly as he wanted to smile.

When Xiumin turned back to look at Lay and Suho, both boys were unsure where their part of the plan was to come