It took Aron a few seconds to realize why he was so angry.

He was angry at himself. He had never felt so useless. And he didn’t know where to put his frustration.

Ren had sunken to the floor next to Junior, whispering things Aron couldn’t hear over the blood rushing through his ears.

Minhyun knelt down next to the dying boy and took his hand. “I’ll link with you. If there is anything you’d like to say, I’ll pass it on. We’ll stay by your side. Can we do anything to- What?!“

The two standing boys and Ren jumped at the shout. Minhyun was having a conversation but they only got to hear one half, since Junior spoke telepathically.

“… But what did I do to cause that? Oh! … What are the chances? … Still better than nothing … Of course I’ll try … Can you tell me how?”

Carefully Minhyun laid the leader down from the sitting position and placed his hands over the bleeding wound.

Incredibly bright light filled the area, oozing out of Minhyun’s hands. There was a sound both too high and too deep to hear properly. Warmth radiated from Minhyun. But not through the air. It developed directly on the skin.

Aron fell to the ground with a squeal as his broken leg snapped back into its proper place.

The light ceased.

Junior sat up, coughing but healed.

Ren slapped him. “Don’t ever scare me like this.”

In turn Junior smiled at the group, rubbing his reddening cheek. “Our dear Minhyun doesn’t just connect minds, he connects people. And thus also, well, a single body to itself on a cellular level. This was close. And it hurt. Dying kind of . Let’s try not to rely on my ability to magically conjure knowledge from who knows where.”

Aron raised his hand. “Minhyun accidentally healed my leg, too.”

A gray shimmering orb showed up in Baekho’s hand. “While we’re on the topic of developing new powers. I got one, too.”

Junior and Ren pulled each other up. The bloody boy looked down on his shirt. “I shouldn’t have worn my good one to a mission.”

Ren slapped him again. “You almost died. Don’t joke about that.”

“What if I just like it when you hit me?”

The next slap didn’t come as Ren’s hand froze in midair. “Well played.”

Finally the operatives from around the block arrived. There was a lot of damage to hide. Aron was told to collapse the building once everybody was outside. Easier to blame it all on shoddy construction.

***

“They know practically everything,” the computer scientist said.

All of Nuest sank back into their chairs simultaneously. This was going to be a lengthy explanation.

The sun was setting outside, so Junior the lights of the common room while the scientist drew up files on the screen. The engineers of the organization had worked overnight and the whole following day to decrypt the hard drives and filter relevant content from them.

“It’s obvious that they have an insider amongst us,” the man continued. “They have all the files on you boys. Including the blood tests we ran only one day before your mission yesterday. There are detailed discussions on how to engage each of you. The thing that reflected Aron’s power is called APR which stands for, well… Aron’s Powers Reflector. There is no mention of what it is and how it works but there are strict rules never to describe it in case of information breach. So they were even prepared for loosing. The thing that blocked Baekho’s powers was another such item but we know even less about that.”

Aron had been told that the building that contained CS was to be left alone – explicitly. As if he just went around leveling things he didn’t like. It made sense to leave it be since it was easy to compromise in the chaos. If the agents of the void wanted to retrieve anything they would open themselves up for spying.

The scientist sighed. “However we can now say with great confidence that the event that will occur on March 27^th is connected to them. They have a series of items that they ‘retrieved’ from locations around the planet. Only one is described in detail, the rest seems to be under the same ‘need to know’ ban as the APR.”

The boys were shown a schematic of something eldritch. It wasn’t clearly organic or technological. Its geometry had several symmetries, slightly broken by odd twists in its form. The numbers indicated it was small and light enough to be carried by a very strong person.

“They have been running tests for years and finally feel able to turn it on soon.”

“Except,” Junior said, “it’s a doomsday device and they don’t even know it. Where does it come from?”

“We don’t know because they don’t know. But there are logs of its activities.”

The boys read the file in silence. It became clear why the scientist hadn’t summarized the content. What they read was wholly unbelievable. The device caused disruptions in time. Plants close to it grew faster of slower than logically possible depending on where in its cycle the device was.  It swung between accelerating and delaying time in its immediate vicinity.

Long logs detailed the many ways in which the agents of the void had poked the gadget to make it do anything different. The logs didn’t plan any further into the future than the 26^th. They knew they were going to do something too big to make plans for how it turned out.

Aron was done reading last – his Korean wasn’t up to all the technical language.

“So… We have to find them, obviously.”

Junior sighed. “I hope the interrogators are successful with the one’s you captured. Or I have a random insight. Would be really helpful now. But until we have more information, let’s pass the time with gaming.”

Ren face-palmed. “You’re impossible.”

“I knew you would say that with ninety-five percent probability.”

A/N: Arc one over. Will they prevent the end of the world? Will Ren reciprocate Junior’s feelings? Will Baekho take his shirt off again? Tune in next time.