Minseok was seven again. He was sitting in the fall leaves, crying because he had just fallen into the fountain. The birds were chirping. 

“Being dramatic again, are we?” 

Minseok looked up. Wide clear eyes were staring down at him, framed by blonde hair and a smiling, elfin face. The boy sat down, rustling the crunchy leaves with white gauzy robes. “I can’t help you this time,” he said, and he sounded sad. 

“I fell,” Minseok told him. 

“I know,” said Luhan. He turned to meet Minseok’s eyes, gaze open and blue. “We both did. But you can still get back up.” 

Minseok felt his jaw tighten. The birds were silent. For a minute they simply sat, staring at each other, the world a blushing pink. He could see, could see everything, and his heart ached with a dull yawning fire. 

“I’m sorry,” Luhan said, his pink lips trembling. 

“You don’t have to apologize,” Minseok said, and he meant it. “I can’t force you to love me.” 

“But I do love you,” Luhan whispered, blinking away tears. “I do, Minseok. And I’m sorry it wasn’t in the way you wanted.” 

MInseok said nothing for a moment. It didn’t matter, not anymore. “I forgive you.” The pink air began to grow cold. “I need to go soon.” 

“Yes,” Luhan agreed. “You do.” He stood, offering his hand to help Minseok off the ground. “You’re different now, Minseok. Don’t be afraid. The others are going to need your help.” 

Minseok nodded, and Luhan turned to walk away as the world began to fade. 

“Lu,” Minseok stopped him, a pang in his chest. “Will I see you again?” 

The Telepath smiled. “Baozi. We’re together now. Of course you will.” 

-

Tao understood first. “It was him,” he said, and slowly unfolded from his crouch. “It was Minseok.” 

“What?” Jongin gasped, still not willing to move. His ears were ringing from the crashing glass, and his head felt heavy. They had injected him with something before they put him in the cell. It had made him woozy and tired, and it also ensured his powers were incapacitated. And, despite everything that had just happened, it made him want to sleep.

“The ice,” Tao said, stepping carefully over the mountain of glass separating him from the KAE student. “It came from him.” 

“That makes no sense.” Jongin said, shaking his head. 

“They wanted to give him powers, didn’t they?” Tao was talking fast now. “Clearly it didn’t go to plan, but it looks like they did something right.” He was approaching Minseok, gaze hungry. 

“What are you doing?” Jongin demanded, trying to get himself to stand properly. “Tao!” 

Tao had his Cuffed hand raised in a fist over the unconscious KAE student, eyes narrowed to slits. “No way,” he whispered softly. “No ing way.” 

“Tao, stop,” Jongin insisted, panic rising in his throat, and he stumbled across his  destroyed cell, toes catching on shards of glass. 

But Tao didn’t strike, as Jongin had feared. Instead he simply unfolded his fingers. “Look,” Tao breathed out in awe, and rotated the Cuff so Jongin could see. Ice crystals had begun to bloom across the painted metal. 

Jongin stopped in his tracks, utterly confused at what he was looking at, and then Minseok let out a loud gasp. 

Both the Guarders jumped, instinctively cowering away from the cot. There was a pause, and then Minseok opened his eyes and turned to look at Tao, gaze focused and clear. “Did it work?” he asked, and Jongin couldn’t help but jump again at the sound of his voice. 

“What?” Tao stared, openmouthed. 

“Your Cuff,” Minseok said, and he sat himself up in the cot without a hint of drowsiness, extending a hand to Tao. “Let me see.” 

Tao obeyed without another word. 

Minseok took the frosty Cuffed hand in his, frowning slightly, and then closed his eyes. A silent pause. Then a sharp snap! and the Cuff fell to the ground in two halves. 

Jongin and Tao were at a loss for words, dumbfounded as they both gazed at the KAE student. 

And then the alarm started. 

-

Though his body was humming with adrenaline, Tao was calm. He helped remove the white pads from Minseok’s body, freeing the boy from the cot with fingers strong and swift. Then he went to Jongin. The Teleporter looked like he was about to pass out, which was the last thing they needed right now. “Come on,” he shouted, needing to raise his voice over the alarm, and grabbed Jongin’s arm to lead him forward. “We need to move.” 

“Where?” Jongin asked blearily, feet stumbling. 

“Away from here,” Tao replied. 

“Out of this wing,” said Minseok without hesitation, and reached for Jongin’s other arm. “But it’s heavily guarded. They’ll be waiting for us, outside the cells and probably also outside the wing. Tao, I can’t do it alone.” 

Tao looked at him, surprised. He supposed that somewhere, vaguely, he had been thinking the same thing- that they should try to get out somehow- but here Minseok’s words were intentional. He wasn’t just talking about leaving the cells. He wanted to fight. 

Fight what, exactly? Tao clenched his bare hand, trying to fit the pieces together. This was insane. Whatever Minseok stood in front of him now was not the Minseok he had known yesterday. Tao didn’t even know what this Minseok was capable of. 

But for some reason, his first instinct was to trust the KAE student. “I’ve got it,” he said firmly, flexing his un-Cuffed hand. Fighting didn’t scare him. He had trained for that for years. And it wouldn’t be his first time going up against the Academy either. “Just cover me.” 

Minseok nodded, taking Jongin’s full weight, and Tao closed his eyes, letting himself melt, allowing the liquid power beneath his veins bubble to the surface. A moment’s - pause- and then Tao reopened his gaze. “We need to move, now.” 

They picked their way through the glass to the end of the cell room, which was shuttered by a pair of large black doors. 

“Why are we leaving?” Jongin asked. Though he was getting groggier by the second, Tao could hear the fear in his voice, even over the squealing alarm. 

“Luhan’s dead, Jongin. And they imprisoned us. We’re breaking out,” Minseok answered him, and shot a glance at Tao, as if trying to gauge his thoughts on this explanation. 

Sure, Tao thought dully. We’ll break out of this wing. And then what? They would run around the Academy playing hide and seek with the supervisors? 

“We can’t do that,” Jongin protested, voicing his thoughts. “It’s impossible, they’ll just punish us worse when we’re caught.” 

At this Tao stopped, feeling an anger rise through his blood. No way they were putting him back in a cage after this, whatever this was.  it, maybe we’ll break out of the damn building. He turned, grabbing Jongin by the shoulders. “We live in a world where anything is possible,” he hissed, feeling the heated lava of power in his fingertips where they made contact with the Teleporter’s skin. “Look at us! How dare they try to contain us?” 

Jongin gazed dumbly back at him, his eyes scared. 

Minseok had broken away, now standing calmly in front of the doors. Usually these required a keycard and facial ID, but Minseok simply placed a hand over the locks and waited. A snap came not ten seconds later. The KAE student glanced back at him, eyes hard with an expression that didn’t really seem to be his. “Keep him behind me,” he said, glancing at Jongin. 

Tao nodded. 

Minseok had been right about the guards. The darts were flying towards them as soon as he pushed the doors open. But Tao had -slowed- them down, slow enough for Minseok to raise his hands and freeze them all to icy crystals before they made contact. Tao forced Jongin to duck anyways, because although he knew the supervisors weren’t shooting to kill- the darts were designed to only just break the skin, knocking them out with anaesthesia- the last thing he needed was for the Teleporter to actually go unconscious. 

The supervisors were - paused- in place, so once the cloud of darts had crashed to the ground in glittering shards, the three boys simply stepped past them. There were only four by this door; Tao guessed the rest were waiting in the gallery at the entrance to the wing. He avoided looking at their faces. He had never liked the look of still, unblinking eyes. 

“Do you know the way out of this wing?” Minseok asked from in front of him. They had reached a spot where the hall split off in two directions. Tao nodded to the left, pulling a groaning Jongin beside him. 

“What’s our plan when we get out?” Tao asked, thankful that his powers had also -paused- the alarm and he no longer needed to shout. Well, until they stepped out of the wing, that was. 

“Find the others,” Minseok said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Maybe they can help.” 

-

“,” Jongdae breathed, ducking at Junmyeon’s command behind the large columns of the gallery. Until this moment they had encountered no one, and now Jongdae saw why. What appeared to be nearly the entire staff of supervisors were surrounding the entrance to the detention wing, weapons raised towards the door. 

They were expecting something. Something dangerous. 

Junmyeon was signalling at them all not to move, his face shiny with sweat. The tense air, the buzzing adrenaline. A focus necessary to prepare for battle, to fight off whatever the simulation might throw at them. 

But this was not a simulation. It was real. They were sweating in their own flesh, clenching their own jaws. This was happening, and it was happening now. 

Junmyeon held up his hands, flashing both open palms twice, and then a three with his right hand. Twenty-three supervisors. Against three Guarders and two unarmed civilians, which was what Jongdae had unconsciously started calling Baekhyun and Kris. 

“What are they waiting for?” Jongdae mouthed, peeking out at the unmoving circle of white uniforms. 

Junmyeon shrugged his shoulders in response, eyebrows knit into a deep frown. 

-

It was Minseok who threw the doors open. Tao had made it as clear as he could that he didn’t want to use his powers outside of the wing. Projecting a time warp outside in another space was one thing. “But if we’re in the same room as the supervisors when I do it, you and Jongin will be affected too.” 

Minseok nodded, understanding, and so they had quickly agreed that he would do as much damage as he could on his own. Tao would have to fight best he could hand-to-hand, and in his condition, Jongin would just have to try and stay back. 

It was already a shoddy plan to begin with, and it was made much worse when almost two dozen raised guns met them on the other side of the door. 

Chaos ensued at once. Minseok had his hands raised, ice shards flying in piercing bits through the air. But the supervisors had been waiting, and the sound of twenty guns firing erupted through the gallery. Tao dropped to the floor, out of the path of the darts, and then reached for the nearest supervisor, tackling him down to wrestle the gun from his hands. 

All around there was shouting, another supervisor dropping beside him with a shard of ice buried into his shoulder. 

Jongin screamed. Tao turned, for a brief second, to see that a dart had found the Teleporter’s neck. . 

He turned back but that quick distraction had been enough; a supervisor had lunged for him from behind and was wrapping a hand around his throat. Raising the dart gun with his other hand, he fixed it over Tao’s forehead. 

And then his body seized in a freakish spasm. Right before he fired his body dropped to the ground, revealing Jongdae just behind, hand outstretched and fingers sizzling with electricity. Tao had only a moment to process this before he was dodging another dart. 

Scrambling to his feet, he realized Junmyeon and Chanyeol had also somehow materialized, a supervisor screaming as a jet of water found its way down . Well then. 

Without hesitation Tao threw himself back into combat, and the four fell into a rhythmic tandem, shielding each other as they dodged the darts. Tao couldn’t really tell if they were gaining ground, he could only focus on what was happening in front of him; disarm this supervisor, knock out that one. 

“Help me!” cried Minseok, and Tao turned, but the KAE student wasn’t talking to him. Dragging Jongin’s body, he headed for the pillars, where Tao could just barely make out Kris and Baekhyun’s faces in the shadows. 

Huh. 

Through it all the alarm was still blaring, and so Tao almost didn’t hear when Chanyeol shouted “Tao, duck!” managing to do so just in time as a spray of fire exploded into the air. 

“Go!” Junmyeon was shouting, holding off the last of the supervisors with an impressive wall of water. “We need to get out of here!” 

“And go where?” Chanyeol shouted back, retreating as he shot out another blanket of flames. 

“The dorms,” Tao said without thinking. “We need to get Jongin somewhere safe.”

“Go, go!” Junmyeon shouted, struggling to move backwards while keeping the spurting water steady, and Tao scrambled towards the pillars, reaching cover just as the KAE students were making it back with Jongin a few feet away. 

Chanyeol and Jongdae slid onto the ground beside him, both still firing blind shots behind, and Tao helped them clamber to their feet. 

“I don’t know if the dorms is the best move. The others are still in their rooms,” Junmyeon shouted as he ran to them. “Kyungsoo, Sehun, Yixing.” 

“Well hopefully we make it to them before they do,” Tao said grimly. 

“They’re in more danger while they’re alone,” Jondae agreed with him. 

Junmyeon’s face paled, realizing they were right. “Quickest route is through the cafeteria,” he said. “Let’s move.”