Chapter 5: The Calm before the storm

Minjun felt soft touches trailing upwards from his spine to the back of his head, circling around his head to his temples, then back down the same path, as he gradually came to consciousness. Wherever the touch landed, soothing heat followed.

"Finally!" Wooyoung exclaimed when he noticed Minjun's eyes moving behind his lids before slowly blinking open.

Minjun groaned before painstakingly pushing himself up from his prone position on the sofa. Wooyoung's hands, which were previously on his back, fell away. Immediately a raging headache assaulted Minjun as if his brain was receiving the pounding of a lifetime.

"I thought we lost you for good!" Wooyoung joked but his breath hitched at the end, betraying his fear.

Minjun glanced towards him. Amidst the blackness at the corners of his vision that threatened to fully engulf him, he noticed fatigue evident in the lines on Wooyoung's face, the chapped lips and slumped shoulders.

"Are you burning out?" Minjun asked.

No matter what horrible names they were called, they were still humans with limitations. Using too much of their psychic abilities would result in a burn out - a state where their psychic "reserves" were completely drained, rendering them incapable of using said ability until they "recharged". How deep each person's psychic reserves were and how long they would need to recharge after burning out, depended on the strength of their abilities.

"No, I still have some left in me," Wooyoung answered, though a little deadpanned.

"The kids?" Minjun asked again, this time directing his question towards the dark figure standing by the main door.

Chansung just pointed his chin in the direction of Minjun's back where the only bedroom in the cabin was located. They both knew the layout of the cabin even before entering it. It was a summer cabin owned by a family friend of one of the guards whose memories Minjun had dry before squashing his brain into mush. He had telepathed the images to Chansung as they fled the laboratory so that Chansung could use those images to teleport them to the cabin.

Minjun sighed as he messaged his temples. A hand replaced his and soothing warmth followed, temporarily chasing away the growing ache.

Minjun looked up gratefully at Wooyoung who nodded in acknowledgement. He rubbed the back of his nape to release a kink when he felt a familiar object pressing down into the bundle of nerves there. His headache returned at the speed of light despite Wooyoung's administrations.

"Please," he gritted out between clenched jaws, "please, tell me that you've at least taken out the trackers from the kids."

Silence met his statement and he felt irritation gnawing at the ends of his already frayed nerves. He slapped Wooyoung's hand away from his temple causing Wooyoung to gasp and the headache to return tenfold.

"Well, sorry for trying to keep you alive first!" Wooyoung retorted in obvious anger and a little hurt.

"I have stressed so many times," Minjun's voice trembled as he struggled to keep himself from shouting, "that whatever happens, the kids COME FIRST!" He stabbed a finger into the coffee table in front of the couch as he glared first at Wooyoung then Chansung, eventually failing to keep his voice leveled.

"Ungrateful son of a b*itch!" Wooyoung huffed before pushing off the couch and stomping in the direction of the bedroom where the kids were.

"I've fortified- " Chansung started.

"I know," Minjun cut in before he could finish his explanation.

He rubbed a hand down his face as he breathed out, trying to calm himself. The headache was making him run on a short fuse.

"No matter what, those trackers are still a risk. I have absolute trust in your abilities, but I also want to eliminate all risk as soon as possible," he explained in a somewhat stable voice.

Chansung grunted in acknowledgment almost at the same time as something landed on the back of Minjun's hand. Minjun sighed as he looked at the drop of red that had dripped from his nose. It was quickly followed by another, and then a couple more, even before Minjun could lift his hand up to cover his nose. A wooden bowl suddenly materialized on his lap and Minjun let go of his hold on his nose to let the blood drip down freely. He felt liquid running down the side of his face and knew he was bleeding from his ears too.

"No ice in the fridge since it has not been used," Chansung reported, "you should – "

"I know," Minjun interrupted again.

"Quickly release the connections," he continued, undeterred.

Minjun sighed again.

"You burned out longer than the last time and even lost consciousness," he went on.

Minjun raised an eyebrow at that. Chansung was a man of very little words. Minjun was already surprised that he went on despite being interrupted but he has more to say?

"Are you..." Minjun looked at him as if scandalous, "nagging at me?"

Chansung scoffed, "Your cranial nerves were shriveling one by one from the strain of keeping too many dead connections. If not for Wooyoung, you'd have been brain dead before all your organs follow suit. And now you're just sitting there, letting all his hard work go to waste with every second. If you really wanna die, I have faster ways for you to do it AND without troubling others."

Minjun just blinked at him, dumbfounded. It was such a sight, with blood covering almost his whole face.

"Close your mouth, you look stupid."

Minjun's lips smacked close as if by reflex and he swallowed, tasting blood. Shaking his head, which caused a few drops of blood to land outside the bowl, he closed his eyes and went into his mental plane.

Chansung sighed as he pushed off the wall that he had been leaning on since the time Wooyoung had started repairing Minjun's damaged nerves, cell by cell. He made his way towards Minjun, only stopping when he was directly in front on him. Using the back of his legs, he pushed the wooden coffee table back just enough so he could sit down on it. 

His hands clenched into fists on his thighs.Again, he could only watch, just like how he had watched when Wooyoung did his work.  He, like Minjun and the rest of their comrades, were incapable of feelings but at the thought of losing Minjun, he had felt a sharp prick at the center of his chest and his palm had turned sweaty. He hated this feeling of helplessness, of not being able to do anything except watching. But it was all he knew to do, in fact, the only thing he ever did throughout his life. Watching over Minjun as he took brunt after brunt, then waiting - hoping - for him to open his eyes again when it was over. Like now. He hated it, but he could do nothing about it.

He watched as Minjun's brows furrowed and he bit his lips so hard it started bleeding too. His hold on the wooden bowl slipped as he crumbled into himself and dropped forward. Chansung teleported the bowl safely onto the table before the contents could slip out as he caught Minjun in his arms. He promptly pushed Minjun to lie on his side on the couch so that he would not choke on his own blood then pressed Minjun's cheeks together to force his jaws open. Keeping them open with one hand, he placed the side of the wrist of his other hand between them. He winced when he let go and Minjun immediately clamped on his wrist. Trying to distract himself, he caught every drip of blood coming from his own wrist and Minjun's nose and ears and teleported them into the bowl. He also picked up the stray blood that landed on the carpet and couch when Minjun had shaken his head before.

Minjun stepped into his mental plane expecting the worst. Still, what he saw was beyond his expectations. His mental plane was dark as night and looked akin to the driest of deserts with deep cracks on the ground and holes in some places, some big enough that he could see a drop into an endless dark abyss. At the core, was the connections "tree". He called it for what it looked like, a tree - the connections coming from different directions above his head like thick tree branches, intertwining as they reached the plane's core until they united to form the tree's bark, before going down into the ground and branching out again like roots. Near the bark was a black vortex that everything into it, including parts of the ground. His barriers around the perimeter of the plane too had cracks and was threatening to crumble inwards from the suction force of the vortex.

Analyzing all the damage at a glance, his immediate concern was the barriers because if they crumble, his mind would be open and vulnerable to even the weakest telepathic attacks. With that in mind, he made his way towards the barriers to inspect them. He had built three layers of barriers, two more than any normal telepath could do. The first and innermost barrier bore the worst hit with cracks covering almost every surface and appeared seconds from crumbling. The second barrier had a few cracks while the third and outermost barrier was still smooth with no cracks visible. Minjun started repairing his first barrier but soon thought better of it since the vortex was causing damage faster than his repairing speed. He just had to hope that his barriers would hold until he could get rid of the vortex.

Decision made, he stepped away from the barriers to where the vortex was. He had never seen one before in his plane, but it was everything in except for him. Hence, he felt safe to go near it. Tracing it to its origin, he realized that the vortex was the result of a multiplying effect from all the dead connections. A single dead connection would try to drain his living essence, which was concentrated around the plane, in order to keep it "alive". Since right now there were too many dead connections compared to the living ones, the combined force was able to undermine the living connections, thus creating the vortex for maximum suction force. Which also explained why it was located at the center of the bark, where the most number of the dead connections were.

Minjun considered his options. Cutting down the whole tree would be the fastest and easiest way to stop the vortex, but that would mean cutting off the living connections too. It would mean losing connections to all his comrades that were still alive hence having no way of contacting them again since they have no other means of communication other than telepathy. Moreover, it would cause a mental blow to both ends of the connections, meaning his comrades would also bear the brunt from the separation. Even worse, for those of low telepathic abilities, the blow might cause their brains to explode, literally. Since the cons outweighed the pros, Minjun rejected the idea almost immediately. That left him with his only other option - to uproot the connections one by one.

Bracing himself, Minjun got to work.

~ " ~

It felt like a lifetime as Minjun dug his elbows into the ground, dragging his body to the last connection. His legs could no longer hold himself up by the thirtieth connection, causing him to fall to his knees and crawl. He had no idea how many he had uprooted since then as he had lost count shortly after. Now, he was lying on his front, on the ground, trying to get to the last connection by sheer force of will.

Minjun's body jerked as he spurt out more blood. The droplets of blood suspended in the air before disappearing and reappearing in a metal pot on the table. Without opening his eyes, he moved to lay on his back and released his death bite on Chansung's wrist. He swallowed a couple of times before finally attempting to speak.

"How long was I out?" his words came out as a groan and his voice sounded rough as if his throat had been scrapped.

"15 minutes, give or take."

"Huh. Felt longer."

Chansung grunted.

"F*uck," Minjun breathed out as he tried to open his eyes, "who the spotlights?"

"Just keep them closed," Chansung said softly as he cleared the last of the blood stains on Minjun's face.

The curtains were drawn the moment they teleported into the cabin to avoid prying eyes, which should be a rare occurrence since the cabin was in the middle of a dense forest out of nowhere, while the lights were off to avoid further suspicions. Nothing should hint to there being anyone in the cabin. Flowing water and electricity would definitely cause suspicions when the cabin was supposed to be uninhabited.

"I still have to repair my barriers," Minjun complained under his breath.

Immediately, he felt a nudge at his mental barriers.

"They're holding," Chansung declared, "take a rest first."

Minjun just hummed in agreement as he felt sleep taking him.

"Guys," a worn-out voice caught their attention, coming from the direction of the bedroom. Heavy footsteps followed as if dragged down by massive weights.

"Can you guys make it clear to those imbeciles that I'm not trying to kill them?" Wooyoung grumbled as he slumped into a chair across from Minjun. "I've been trying since just now, but they won't let me even go past the doorway."

"Useless," Chansung muttered under his breath but Wooyoung still caught it.

"Rude!" Wooyoung huffed. "Then why don't YOU try," he challenged about the same time they heard softer footsteps coming towards them.

Guessing who they belong to, Minjun voiced out with eyes still closed, "Jinyoung-ah, we need to get the tracking chips out of your body. Chansung had already surrounded this cabin with a barrier that would interrupt with the signal so that they can't track us. But it's still a risk to have them in your body. Besides, Chansung will have to put down the barrier soon because if they scan this area, they will experience a disruption in their signal in this spot and will guess that we're here."

"Okay," came Jinyoung's answer in a quiet voice.

"That's it?!" Wooyoung exclaimed, feeling unfair. "I said the same ing thing!"

"Just do it, Wooyoung-ah," Minjun ordered in a tired voice as he tried to push himself up into a sitting position. Every part of his body hurt like a .

Wooyoung sighed and gave Jinyoung the stink-eye. He motioned for the boy to stand in front of him. Jinyoung hesitated, making Wooyoung roll his eyes. He ignored him and looked towards Minjun who was rubbing his face with his hands. Only when he got Minjun's attention and a nod from him did he step towards Wooyoung.

Wooyoung sneered at him as he placed both hands on Jinyoung's shoulders.

"Annoying brat!" He complained under his breath before taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly so that he could focus on his task instead of his irritation.

Jinyoung watched as Wooyoung gazed sharply at him then involuntarily shuddered when Wooyoung's eyes turned completely black. He tried to wriggle free but Wooyoung tightened his hold on his shoulders.

"Relax," Minjun's soft voice broke through his fears just as he was about to release a blast of telekinetic energy towards Wooyoung.

"He's close to burning out and is using his maximum reserves," Minjun explained.

Jinyoung tried to relax even as he felt goosebumps along his spine. He'd seen several people burning out, but never with black eyes.

"It's behind his ear," Wooyoung announced as he turned the boy around so that he could see the back of his ear better. Then he got to work.

To outsiders, it might look funny as Wooyoung seemed to just be staring at the back of Jinyoung's ears. What Wooyoung was doing however, was separating the layers of skin, cell by cell, before doing the same to the veins, nerves and muscles until he could get to the chip. He then healed the scar tissue under and around the chip until it was naturally pushed out before replacing the muscle and skin he had displaced, cell by cell. He breathed out when he was done, stretching his neck left and right to loosen the kinks there due to the strain. It was not even five minutes and was not the hardest thing he had done but he had already used up a lot of his reserves on Minjun. He dropped the chip, which is the size of a small coin, into Chansung's palm and watched as it melted and produced some smoke.

"Now, the baby," Wooyoung said to Jinyoung.

Jinyoung touched the back of his ear as he walked back into the bedroom, feeling the skin there to be a little tender. Picking up the baby, he retraced his steps to Wooyoung and placed the baby on Wooyoung's lap. Reluctant to leave the baby, he stayed in place. Wooyoung raised a brow at him, eyes still black. Jinyoung decided to ignore him and instead stared pointedly at the baby. Wooyoung tsked before directing his gaze towards the baby too.

"F*uck!" he cursed softly not even three seconds later.

"What is it?" Jinyoung asked, worrying his bottom lip with his teeth.

A bark and the sound of soft paws hitting a wooden surface followed immediately after as the mutt bounded into the room to stop beside Jinyoung. A low growl came from its throat as it bared its teeth at Wooyoung.

Wooyoung seemed too preoccupied to give the mutt even a glance.

"Why the hell would they put two trackers in a baby?" he muttered under his breath.

"Where did they put them?" Minjun interjected his thoughts.

"Hmmm?" he said distractedly, "oh, one at the back of his ear and the other... at the base of his brain..." he trailed off, a hint of doubt in his voice and a frown marring his face.

"Can you do it?" Minjun asked, zeroing in on the source of his doubt.

"Hmmm... Maybe I'll retract the one behind his ear first, then do the mutt, recharge, then do the one in his brain. I don't want to burn out in the middle of extracting the one in his brain, it would be deadly for him," Wooyoung voiced out his plan.

"The mutt is tagged too?" Chansung asked in surprise, or as close to surprise as their kind could get.

"Uhmmm... Yeah? You don't know?" Wooyoung asked as he glanced at Minjun, unsure if he was supposed to disclose that information.

Minjun's attention, however, was on Jinyoung. They shared a look that was unreadable to Wooyoung.

"No, I don't," Chansung declared, distracting Wooyoung from analyzing the interaction between Minjun and Jinyoung.

"Well yeah, he is. I have not checked how many though since I didn't think they would tag more than once like this baby here. I might have missed it too if I hadn't done a full body scan just to check how he's doing through all this." Wooyoung explained at length then glanced thoughtfully at Jinyoung. "Let me scan you again."

Jinyoung shuddered as those eerie eyes landed on him again.

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Heyya guys!!

I know I've abandoned this fic for far too long. 😔 But it's cause I'm studying (or trying to study) for my MCAT, which is an entrance exam for medical school. It's less than a month away now and my anxiety level is through the roof! 😭😭So I thought I should continue writing (and procrastinating) to calm myself a bit. See what I did there? (calm before the storm? no?) hahaha...

Anyway, hope this chapter is not too draggy since I thought it's about time to explain some stuff. I know it's a filler chapter and not satisfying after the long wait. But still, for those who are still reading this, THANK YOU AND I LOVE YOU! ❤️❤️❤️