Namjoon sat down in the falling-apart swivel chair in front of an ancient-looking computer, and his pet dragon clambered up to perch on the young man’s shoulder. Jimin watched in awe as the reptile’s decorative frills changed from an emerald green to light purple - almost matching its owner’s eccentric hair as the rest of the creature’s body stayed the same drab brown.

“Monnie!” exclaimed Taehyung as he reached out to pat the scaly lizard.

The creature hissed ferociously when Taehyung got close to it, causing the startled young man to recoil quickly before Monnie had a chance to warm up his flamethrowing mechanism.

“Still don’t like me, I see,” murmured Taehyung, brushing off his hand even though it hadn’t been singed.

“Alright. Here we go,” anticipated Namjoon as the computer started up.

There was a horrible whirring noise as the machine sputtered to life, casting a harsh blue glow over the faces of the seven assembled men as all of them huddled around the computer. Jimin glanced over at Jin, but the older man’s face was as calm and unreadable as always, and the younger man suddenly found the characteristic infuriating.

“This is what the worldwide database of thousands of monster tracking superhumans is stored on?” blurted Jungkook in disbelief.

“It used to be a lot less user-friendly,” Namjoon defended. “A lot of this information is thousands of years old, and it was all in a bunch of big, dusty books until my father transferred it to this computer. That was his project when I was a kid. I remember him talking about how all the dust made him cough after work every day.”

“And nobody’s updated it since then?!” questioned Jungkook.

“That’s kind of been my job for the past couple of years,” admitted Namjoon. “I, um… haven’t gotten around to it…”

“I’ll say,” scoffed Jungkook.

“A lot of this stuff is a lot less glamorous than you’ve probably imagined,” cautioned Hoseok from his position beside Namjoon.

“Yeah; but I expected the fancy database you guys are always talkin’ about to be more than a geriatric computer in a messy apartment…”

“Okay; so I’ve been slacking on a lot of things,” murmured Namjoon. “Let’s focus on looking you up though, eh?”

Jungkook agreed as he gave his name and date of birth, and Jimin watched the purple-haired man type them into the computer. A blocky error message came up on-screen, and Namjoon spun around to face the other men as he moved his pet dragon into his lap, Monnie’s color-changing frills.

“You really aren’t in there,” marveled Namjoon. “Taehyung was right.”

“For once,” muttered Hoseok.

“Hey!”

✧✧✧

“Do me next!” pleaded Jimin, engrossed by the outdated glow of the gray plastic box.

“There’s no time for that,” objected Taehyung. “We have to figure out why Kookie’s not in the system, what kind of creature Jin really is, and why Jungkook thinks he knows him.”

Indeed, there were many unsolved mysteries to be looked into, and Jimin hung his head as he accepted that it wasn’t the time to play detective with his own Sensor profile.

“Hang on,” ordered Hoseok. “Looking up Jimin might be helpful. He’s the one Jin is following, after all - if Jin really is a Guardian.”

“Does anyone care what we have to say about this?” growled Yoongi as he straightened up, trying to look intimidating despite his short height.

“No,” answered Taehyung. “I’m getting to the bottom of this whether you like it or not. Secret identities be damned; if there’s a Guardian following one of my friends, then I wanna know about it.”

“Listen, you punk. If you don’t let us out of here right the now, then I swear on your grave, I will-”

“Yoongi, that’s enough,” soothed Jin gently. “There’s no need for threats. We can work this out another way.”

Jimin assumed that Jin meant by talking things through, but he caught a small glimmer in the older man’s eye that suggested the eldest might’ve had something different in mind. The young man’s thoughts flashed back to how effortlessly Jin had slipped out of Taehyung’s restraints, and he suddenly feared for the safety of himself and his friends. What if Jin wasn’t the protective Guardian that Taehyung had just described? Or - if he was - what if Jin determined that everyone else there was a threat, and eliminated them in order to save Jimin? Whatever the other had been trying to convey with his look, it seemed to comfort Yoongi, who calmed reluctantly down, crossing his arms in displeasure as he remained quiet.

“I thought you said you’d help me help Jimin,” provoked Taehyung, frowning down at Yoongi.

“That didn’t mean it was okay for you to shove me in a truck and drive me to Seoul, you ing lunati-”

“Yoongi!” chastized Jin, a look of fear and embarrassment on his otherwise composed face.

“Jeez. I said I was sorry,” grumbled Taehyung.

“Can you go a day without pissing off at least seven different people, Tae?” teased Hoseok. “’Cause sometimes? I really, really doubt it.”

✧✧✧

“Guys, focus,” ordered Namjoon, snapping his fingers. “Let’s look up Jimin, and then we can worry about ripping each other’s throats out.”

Jimin gave Namjoon his full name and birthday, and the older man swiftly entered them both into the computer. After a moment of ear-splitting whistles and beeps, a photo of Jimin popped up on the screen.

“Where the do you get pictures of everyone?” Jimin wondered aloud, and Namjoon laughed at his worrying.

“Various places,” the older man explained casually. “I’m pretty sure this one’s a photocopy from your high school yearbook.”

Upon closer examination, Jimin realized that he did indeed recognize the photo as one that had been taken not too long ago, near the time of his graduation as he sat awkwardly in front of a mottled, gray backdrop. He recalled that the photographer had smelled faintly of cheese, which Jimin found odd considering the picture was taken at nine in the morning.

Namjoon clicked on Jimin’s profile, which was the only one that had turned up in the search results, and a page full of details about the latter’s age, street address, and defining physical characteristics popped up on the screen. Some information was missing in places, but as Jimin scanned through the details compiled on his personal life, he discovered that they were alarmingly accurate. Except for one thing.

“Those aren’t my parents,” stated Jimin. “Their names are both wrong.”

“What?” asked Namjoon, scrolling to get a better look at the section on the young man’s family members. “That’s impossible; parental identity is confirmed at birth. It’s how everyone gets entered into the system in the first place.”

“Well, you made a mistake with mine,” maintained Jimin confidently. “It’s the right family name, but their given names aren’t right at all.”

Jimin reread the words on-screen, confirming that the names of his supposed parents were incorrect in the system. The “Park” was accurate, but the two names that followed were wholly unfamiliar. Namjoon scrunched his brow as he placed the lizard that lounged in his lap on the floor, and scooted his chair closer to squint at the text.

“Hang on,” mumbled Namjoon. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

He moused over the name of Jimin’s father, which had a thin underline to signify that it was a link to the man’s profile. Namjoon clicked on it, and everyone was shocked by what came up on-screen.

Error 205: Credentials Not Matched

Namjoon read the strange message aloud as the other six men listened in various states of confusion. It was the same notice that had been returned when they’d entered Jungkook’s information, but it made even less sense to encounter the error this time, as the link on Jimin’s profile suggested that this person should have been in the system. Namjoon leaned back in his chair as he exhaled heavily.

✧✧✧

“Well, well,” muttered Taehyung. “This is a pickle."

Jimin had to agree, as his head was currently spinning wildly from trying to keep up with everything in a situation that made precious little sense to begin with. Those people were not his parents; Jimin was certain of that despite the fact that the mother and father he knew had never so much as accidentally mentioned anything about Sensors or Guardians or monsters.

“Those aren’t my parents,” Jimin insisted. “Your database is wrong; I don’t know those people.”

“It isn’t wrong, Jimin,” contended Namjoon. “You wouldn’t be in here if those weren’t your parents - or at least your father. You wouldn’t be a Sensor.”

Jimin swooned slightly, and had to support himself on the back of Namjoon’s rickety chair. Jungkook had said that he himself was adopted, and Taehyung seemed to consider that a likely explanation for why the younger man had escaped entrance into Namjoon’s system. Could the same be true for Jimin? But if so, then why was he showing up in the database while his birth father was not? Jimin desperately wanted to phone his mom and dad, but he knew it was too early to do that without raising all kinds of suspicion.

“Why are you calling us at five in the morning, Son?”

“Oh, I just recently discovered I’m some kind of freak who can see and track both visible and non-visible monsters, and Jin, Yoongi, and I are currently in Seoul with my insane partner who kidnapped us all in the middle of the night. Also, Jin’s not human and there’s a pretty strong chance I’m not really your son. How’s the weather, Not-Dad?”

“Hang on; I can try to search for him in a different program.”

Namjoon pulled another window up, this one slightly different in that it had several text boxes to enter search criteria into. Sensors could be looked up by area, age, and even bloodline - which was the box Namjoon typed in as he tapped the keys noisily.

“Error 205,” read Namjoon when the window popped up. “Let me try one more thing.”

He backed up to the page with the search boxes, and clicked on a drop-down menu labeled “Power Level.” A series of options showed up on-screen, and Namjoon scrolled down the list until he got to the last one.

“Ultimate Power,” read Jimin aloud. “That’s what my bloodline is?”

The man in the chair nodded.

“Jungkook’s, too, it sounds like,” said Namjoon. “The highest of all orders.”

“Pretty overdramatic name, if you ask me,” commented Hoseok.

“I don’t come up with ’em” replied Namjoon tiredly. “And I don’t take label-change requests from a Medium Power.”

Hoseok was about to protest, but thought better of it, and crossed his arms as he grunted roughly.

“Better than Negligible Power,” offered Taehyung, but the older man brushed him off.

✧✧✧

With no other qualifiers besides level of power, Namjoon explained, they should get results from all over the world - consisting of Ultimate Sensors both living and dead. Taehyung had requested a Sensor in Jimin’s geographical region when he’d recruited Namjoon’s help to hunt for the hellhounds, so it made sense that Jimin had been the only one to show up when the boy set out looking for someone to hire.

Jimin held his breath as the computer slowly loaded, a wheel spinning on-screen as it scanned its decades-old hard drive.

That can’t be right.

Jimin’s profile was the only one on the entire results page. Of the untold hundreds of other Sensors who should have shown up, the one, solitary entry belonged to Jimin himself - and it made the young man feel unbearably confused and alone.

“What the hell’s going on here?”

Taehyung’s query was cut off by Yoongi, who rushed to the door in a sudden burst of movement that took everyone by surprise.

“It’s been fun,” announced the older man as he grabbed the handle. “But I don’t wanna be here, and I really have no business being involved in this, so…”

He pulled on the door, but the metal wouldn’t budge. Yoongi tugged again before realizing it was locked, and he began searching the surface for some kind of bolt.

“No way out except with this key,” revealed Namjoon, twirling the ring before quickly stuffing it back in his pocket. “Telling you you’re trapped sounds so wrong and nefarious, but…”

“But that’s exactly what we are,” finished Yoongi. “Kidnapped and held captive like a couple of animals. How could you do this to us, Jimin? We’re your friends. Did you even know any of these ing weirdos before a couple of days ago?”

Jimin was confused. He didn’t know who was his friend anymore, as the old ones had apparently been lying to him for years - or at least months, in Yoongi’s case - and the new ones had failed to include him in plans to kidnap the old ones. He struggled to answer the older man as Yoongi glared at him from behind misty eyes. Yoongi himself turned to Jin to beg for help, fully focused on leaving as quickly as possible.

“You can’t get us out of here?” whined Yoongi.

Jin shook his head.

“I’m really am sorry to keep you here,” said Namjoon empathetically, “but there is somewhere else where we can all go.”

Jimin’s ears perked up at the mention of getting out of the horribly overcrowded - not to mention messy - apartment.

“I think a trip to the Vault might be in order.”