Cosmic Military Police. Barrack A-12. 05:21 AM. 

Soobin couldn't believe she almost took Seola seriously, that she had a great and such well-thought of idea regarding keeping the sudden disappearance of their seven roommates a secret from the training camp officials. She decided to take a breather outside of their barrack, trying to forget she ever felt such enthusiasm towards Seola. 
 

"Hmpf! I can't believe I fell for it. For a second, I actually thought that dense girl had something in her more than her good looks." Soobin pauses after realizing what she just said in her thoughts. "What the am I saying? Am I actually losing my mind right now? Get your head together, Park Soobin. We're here to make the Rear Guard, not to make friends."

Soobin crosses her arms and leans towards the galvanized sheet that makes up the walls of their barrack; she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes and lets out a heavy sigh. Her few seconds of Zen have been interrupted when a truck pulls over just a few meters away from Soobin. The doors swing open and Soobin is surprised to see a Xuan Yi escorting a still weakened Bona who has yet to be removed of the bandages wrapped around her lower body step out of the truck. 

"Xuan Yi-unnie and Bona-unnie!" Soobin exclaims and throws a question towards the two girls who are making their way towards Soobin and the entrance to their barracks. "I thought Bona-unnie had to stay a week at least in the camp hospital for her to recover fully? Did something come up?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that." Xuan Yi utters to Soobin before entering their quarters and tilts her head sideways as to tell Soobin to look back at the vehicle they stepped out from. Soobin does so and sees Lt. Gen. Yoon Bora step out of the truck and makes her way towards the entrance of their barracks as well. She takes off her cap and greets Soobin. 

"Good morning, cadet Park Soobin. Do you mind if I come in?" The General politely asks Soobin and Soobin couldn't even begin to think of what the general intends to do with them and the rest of the girls when she enters the room and discovers her seven roommates are not just out of their beds, but out of this planet. 

"Oh... uh... yes, ma'am. Go right ahead." Soobin was an excellent scout let's give her that, but one thing Park Soobin is really bad at is lying on the spot. She couldn't even make a simple excuse to as why the general couldn't enter, nevertheless just lets her walk straight in. 

"Thank you." The general responds and places her hand on the doorknob of their barrack. But before she turns the knob and enters their quarters, the general makes one last remark to Soobin. "I was highly impressed watching you and Cheng Xiao sneak into my office and tamper with the camp's security feed. When you have the time in the future, I'd like to show you the novice mistakes you two committed." The general smirks at Soobin and enters the girl's barrack.

Soobin is left dumbfounded. She thought of the plan to sneak in the officer's office very thoroughly, something she thought would be full-proof. But here she is being told that all she did was just a bunch of rookie mistakes and is being made to believe that the General was watching her play-out her 'brilliant' plan and she didn't do a single thing about it and she just, in a way, let it go on?

"B-but... How'd she...? I thought...? ...What!?" 

Planet Monsta. MX Research Facility. 07:19 AM. 

It's been fifteen minutes since Eunseo, Cheng Xiao and Yeoreum snuck inside the facility and Yeonjung begins to grow impatient as she scopes the east side of the facility from one of the dozens of tall trees on the hillside, and a long ranged rifle on hand. She decides to radio in the girls to get a situation report on how they're mission is going. 

"Ya. You three have been quiet for the past fifteen minutes now. Would love to calm my nerves and get some updates on how you three are doing."

Yeoreum replies with a question directed towards Cheng Xiao. "Unnie, have you made it to Luda's room yet? Eunseo-unnie and I are about to enter the main building of the eastern side of the facility. We'll set off a mini EMP to disable the security cameras for a short amount of time and we'll make our way to the receiving area of the doctor's laboratory and we'll initiate the plan from there. But we need to make sure you get inside Luda's room first. Copy?"

"Copy!" Cheng Xiao responds to Yeoreum and her plan and gives the girls a quick status update. "Judging from the plans you sent me, I should be right below Luda-unnie's room right now." 

"Do you see her?" Yeonjung asks from her radio. 

"Yup. I see her. She's directly below me." Cheng Xiao replies with a sense of relief in her voice. She unscrews the bolts that secure the vent window and follows to remove the window itself.  She gets a clearer view of her unnie right below her.

"Luda-unnie!" Cheng Xiao whispers quite loudly to the girl under her. Luda recognizes her friend's voice and looks up from where she heard it, her eyes expand and she holds back a tear from falling as even if she and Xiao haven't really been that close before, she's relieved to see a familiar face.

Cheng Xiao drops quietly from the vents and assesses the situation Luda's in. She notices Luda's frame get a little skinnier, her face a little thinner, and her eyes look just as weak as the small girl. Cheng Xiao couldn't even begin to imagine what these people did to her friend these past five days that resulted to her current state so quickly. 

"Unnie, what did they do to you?" Xiao asks concerningly asks.

"They placed me in a low pressurized chamber for four days. The insufficient amount of oxygen in the room probably beat my insides to a crisp. They didn't feed me or anything. I stayed up for the entire duration I was inside, not allowing myself to fall asleep or I would risk dying..."

Luda explains to the girl standing up beside her, Xiao's hand cupping her much thinner face, deeply concerned for the girl's well-being. "We'll get you out of here, and we'll bring you back home." Xiao utters to her. 

Xiao looks at the metal braces keeping Luda attached to her sofa bed and brings out the diamond cutter Yeoreum lent her. In a matter of seconds, she is able to break the steel keeping Luda grounded. Luda doesn't have the strength to fight alongside Xiao let alone get out of bed. She's too weakened that her legs can't even support herself. 

Xiao decides to put the much smaller and lighter girl on her back and prepares to call the two other girls. "Yeoreum-ah, I have Luda unnie with me. I've attached the explosive to her door as well, I'm waiting for your go signal!"

"Good job, Xiao! Eunseo-unnie and I have reached the door that leads to the hallway just outside of that office." Yeoreum replies.

"But we have a problem. I'm carrying Luda-unnie with me. She doesn't have the strength to fight nor even run. With our current situation, I wouldn't be able to fight my way through the hall." Xiao reiterates to Yeoreum. 

". We won't be able to reach them in time if we try to make it down the hall while getting rid of the rest of security. Xiao and Luda-unnie will be overwhelmed by then and the plan will be a fail." Yeoreum thinks to herself. 

"Yeoreum-ah!" Yeonjung exclaims from the other end of the radio frequency. "I have a good vantage point from the hallway you're currently about to enter. I also already called Dawon, Mei-Qi and Soojin-unnie to rally at my position. The walls of the hallway aren't that thick, right?" 

"Not compared to the laboratory, no. Why? What the heck are you planning?" Yeoreum criticizes. 

"I'm thinking you use all your explosives to blow up the walls on the east side of the hallway. From there, the four of us will give you sniper cover from the eastern hills. This will mean that you guys need to head back towards this direction here for exfil as well. We're all here anyway." Yeonjung suggests. 

"That's ridiculous! For us to even get the explosives on the walls, that means we're going to have to lose the element of surprise and basically just walk right in that hallway, take on the guards, and throw three explosives on the walls? Are you crazy, Yoo Yeonjung!?"

"It's stupid I know but what other choice do you have? You stick with your plan and it's practically you and Eunseo-unnie versus all those guards. Like what Cheng Xiao-unnie said, she's now incapable of combat with Luda-unnie on her back.  I'm giving you the option of making this a six-man fight." 

Yeoreum holds her breath, thinking of a more better solution than what Yeonjung is suggesting when Eunseo grabs the younger girl and makes Yeoreum look towards her. "Yereoum, we don't have time to think anymore. The facility is already on high alert and it'll just be a matter of minutes before we're all caught. I saw we do it."

Yeoreum doesn't want to admit Eunseo's right but with every moment they don't take to make a move, they risk getting caught and failing the mission.  "Fine!" Yeoreum exclaims.

"Yeonjung your cue to start giving us firing cover will definitely be when you see the explosion. Focus your fire on the middle and the rear. Give as much cover as you can to Cheng Xiao and Luda-unnie. Got it?"

"Got it!" Yeonjung replies. 

Yeoreum now directs her radio frequency to Cheng Xiao. "Cheng Xiao-unnie, you heard all of that right? I need you to detach the explosive from the door and put Luda-unnie down first. On my go, open the door and take out as much security as you can but don't take too long. When you see the opportunity, throw your sticky bomb to the left side of the hallway, head back to Luda-unnie and immediately detonate the bomb. Understood?" 

"Understood!" Cheng Xiao replies to Yeoreum and tells Luda of the plan and that she has to put her down somewhere safe first. She decides to put Luda behind one of the desks and heads back towards the door. "I'm in position. On your go, Yeoreum."

Luda glances at Cheng Xiao who takes position behind the door of the doctor's office. She notices the folder the doctor showed her moments ago and decides to take a look herself. Aside from the picture of her parents which she already saw earlier she tries to skim through the files and discovers an address which she assumes to be the address of the hospital that picture was taken from. 

"This is the hospital I was born in..." Luda tells herself, remembering her mother telling her stories of her birth. "I'm positive this is the address of the hospital I was born in." Luda looks through the files and she finds streaks of black bars. She realizes that there was some information that was left confidential, judging by the streak of black bars covering up what appear to be phrases and sentences. 

"But why would there be confidential information inside my birth-files, though? Were the things the man telling me earlier true? That I'm some sort of experiment?" Luda digs through the files even more and she discovers an image of a facility. The address seems to be confidential too but the coordinates of the location doesn't seem to be.

Luda tries to understand more what these files could possibly mean but before she could even turn to the next page, an explosion goes off and an ecstatic Cheng Xiao comes barging through the door and rushes towards Luda. "Unnie come on! We have to go now!" Cheng Xiao places Luda on her back and makes her way out of the office, surrounded by clouds of black smoke and gunshots from the distance. 

"Yeoreum! I have Luda-unnie with me, time to head out! It looks like we even made our own exit with that explosion!" Cheng Xiao shouts at her earpiece and, looks down to what seems to be a three-storey drop. "Alright! Hold on, Luda-unnie!" Cheng Xiao jumps and lands on her feet like a cat even with a person on her back.

Luda always knew how agile Cheng Xiao was, but dropping from a three-storey with her on Cheng Xiao's back was now making Luda suspicious. Luda remembers the man earlier did say there were others just like her. What if Cheng Xiao was one of them? A 'coordinate' as he called it.

Cheng Xiao looks to her right to see Yeoreum and Eunseo follow lead and jump from the building and land just a few meters away from her. They look at each other and give a nod of recognition that it was now time to go. 

"Ya! You guys better start moving, we got more company." Yeonjung frantically radios the three girls. 

"What are you talking about? We took out all the security on that floor. The rest of security will be coming from the west side, that's going to give us enough time to make a run for it." Eunseo replies to Yeonjung. 

"That's not the case from what I'm seeing. Seven men on the rooftops heading your way. Fast. It's them. The same men from two years ago." Yeonjung scopes out the seven men from her rifle. "They're awfully quick..." Yeonjung thinks to herself waiting for the right opportunity to take a shot at one of them. She places her finger on the trigger and aims directly at the face of one of the men when suddenly the young man takes notice and looks at Yeonjung straight in the eyes and follows by alerting his friends.

Yeonjung takes the shot but misses, she couldn't believe what she just saw. That guy just looked at her as if she was just a few feet away from her. "How was that possible?He saw me three-hundred meters out as if I was just next to him!?" Yeonjung thinks to herse