(Strong language warning!)

This was as terrifying as it looked. I looked at the broken window glass and knitted my eyebrows so hard the frown almost left wrinkle lines had it continued a little bit longer. The distance between each compartment was only inches apart, not that it was too hard to jump in-between. I merely needed to be agile and careful. “Let me go first,” I decided after much contemplation. The sky was still clear, and the sun was still peeking behind the clouds – all signs that nobody started the attack yet. “I know the man who created this Shield. If he detects my presence before yours, it will be easier to invade later. After all, he won’t rat us out so easily.”

Kai’s eyes narrowed, now that his anger had cooled down a little, he was more careful with his speech, perhaps feeling a little guilty after his outburst, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? You’re scared of the moving train, aren’t you? Without my guide in the front, you’re more likely to die falling off, y’know.”

“Now you’re second-guessing,” I teased, but my smile froze halfway. As Kai cleaned up the sharp shards of the glasses left on the window, I pondered on what was happening right now – what was really happening now. It was a strange mix of excitement and thrill for the adrenaline rush, and also fear that if I fell of the train, I would be worse off than the minced meat on a hamburger dish. “You should keep a distant away from me, Kai. Just for precaution, in case they decide to shoot me anyway. That’s the thing with soldiers – they love guns and grenades.”

Kai lowered his head and muttered softly something along the line of “I would have handled them better anyway”. My eyes lingered on him for a while longer before I prepared myself to climb out of the compartment’s window and onto the wilderness. I wasn’t specifically trained for combat or sneak-attack, so my speed was particularly slow, and for someone like Kai, who had lived his life by fighting and clawing for survival, this must have been frustrating. I glanced back and tried to be steady, but my voice trembled a little when I spoke, “Bear with me for a while.”

His grin was the brightest I had seen of him, but also the one I found most annoying. He was rejoicing in my misery, and understandably so. I had just left him hanging an hour ago and this was only a payback on his part. My whole body shook as I tried to cling onto something solid. The train was moving at an average of 65 mph, and although it wasn’t considered fast, it was difficult to keep the balance. I almost fell five to six times trying before I could actually climb onto the top of this train. Cold sweats fell onto my neck.

“It’s not too shabby for a first-timer with no prior experience,” Kai complimented, and stood up effortlessly. He offered his hands, but I shook my head with a pale face. Too much touching in one day truly got on the end of my nerves. I simply couldn’t stand it, especially after the incident in the Rebel. Maybe it was the trauma that stayed after, or something else. What I knew was that I could only tolerate skinship to a certain extent now. Sometimes not at all. He shot me a look and retrieved his hands, “Just saying. But climbing’s the easy part, Pretty. The hard part is getting down and going in. Are you going to do this one as well?”

Feeling ashamed that I was still kneeling on all fours, I tried to stand up and grunted, “I will check first. You have to stay here. If there are soldiers in the next compartment, you will go down. But if it’s a Transcendental, I will.” He smirked and folded his hands, sounding like he was questioning, but he was, in actuality, trying to measure the rationality of my action. Perhaps he suspected that I had yet to severe the ties with the Rebel, “So you’re saying that the Rebel won’t hold a gun against you? How confident are you in their fighting habits that you discard the safety precautions?”

“You know, Kai,” I shook my head at him and turned my back against him, “It would have been better if you put at least half the effort you used in thinking of all these great comebacks into your actual combat skills. You would have been able to avoid that scratch on your elbows, then.”

“Is that sarcasm?” He actually shouted and I wanted to slap my hand onto his mouth so he would know the situation we were in. Had it been someone like Sehun, whose ability was wind, he would be able to pick up Kai’s presence easily just by the sound of his voice. Kai actually shut his mouth begrudgingly when he realised that he had unconsciously screamed. Then he folded his hands and humph-ed like a young boy, watching as I carefully made my way over to the top of the next compartment, “You know you really are a cold-hearted . I saved your asses off countless times and I don’t even get a ‘thanks’?”

I sighed and decided to ignore his preaching to concentrate on far more important things. In a way, my ability worked like a tracker as long as the other parties are conscious. I didn’t sense presence, I simply read their thoughts. Sometimes, they were a string of words, or a series of pictures – it differed from moment to moment, and also on each person’s conscious responsive capability. I counted ten in this compartment. They hadn’t realised there was an intruder yet. I signalled Kai to invade first, “Kill in silence. Leave no witnesses alive. Don’t alert the enemy. I’m going to the next compartment.”

“Gotchu,” Kai wanted to fist-bumped me, but I shook my head and walked off quickly. With his playful temperament, he really was no different from Tao at all. He snorted – and the sound was so loud I heard it meters away. I didn’t want to waste any more seconds chastising him, so I continued walking carefully to the third compartment from the front. This was where the Generals were supposed to be. But instead I found three Transcendentals – all of them were the core members of the Rebel, but two were the Knights – the Guardians that protected the Leader. Which meant that he really put in efforts to sabotage us in this mission.

With much difficulty, I tried to climb back in, slipping a few times and almost got my feet stepped on by the rail, but thankfully, right at the last moment, a hand pulled me up and took me inside by force. I was suddenly face-to-face with Daniel, whose eyes narrowed in worry. He didn’t seem well. Behind him, I came to see two familiar faces that belonged to a pair of young man and woman. Suga and Irene. I heaved a sigh. The world was a small place, after all. It would be hard to try and avoid them for the rest of my life. I had to come to term with the demons from my past.

Suga was a pink-haired man with evil in his smirk. His oriental-shaped eyes seemed adorable at first glance, but this man was a demon in disguise. He was the biggest bully I had ever seen in the entire batch of the Rebel’s recruit back then, and also one of the most useful given his ability. I didn’t like him that much, nor was I on an enemy basis with this man. We were simply strangers with a little history behind. Those hands had killed more people indirectly with his words than he did with his hands, driving them to depression, mental disorder, and worst, committing suicide when they couldn’t take it anymore.

No one knew where he really came from. Rumours pointed at North of America or East of Europe as his origins, but there was no evidence to support it. Some people called him the ‘pheromone man’, for he created euphoric state on all victims, inducing heightened senses for happiness so that they would forget all. Thankfully, the two of us knew better to avoid each other every time than screwed over. Otherwise, I would have had more than one reason to claw up on his pretty face. The Leader appreciated his talent and his knack for violence and fight, and thus invited Suga to join his Inner Circle of Knights. The man never failed to flaunt it to people every single day he was alive.

“Capitan,” He purposefully emphasised on the title with a certain accent, and dragged it on longer than he should. “Wow! You actually look better than you should. Not the least bit guilty for betraying us, I s’pose?” And for once, I actually kept my mouth shut in the face of an argument, too tired to deal with Suga’s attempt to rail me up. It was pointless fighting. He was the type of person to fire back no matter how unreasonable he sounded. Daniel shot dagger with his glare, and Suga clicked his tongue and looked away. He dared not step out of propriety when dealing with the younger man because he knew of the consequences of doing so. No one wanted their power stripped away in the battlefield.

“Captain,” Irene nodded at me.

“What’s a Seer like you doing here? What is he thinking about?” I furrowed my eyebrows and stared at all of them. “Are you actually here to fight or to negotiate? Because the combination in this team is pretty… off-balanced.”

Irene’s purplish-black eyes blinked. Twice. She looked at me, but her gaze was distant, just as she always was. She was a slender young woman with very thick Japanese accent. Born half-blood and raised in Japan, Irene was abandoned by the temple she hailed from, deemed unworthy to be the successor priestess due to her “dirty” bloodline. Seemingly innocent and harmless, this young woman had the wisdom she obtained from her Third Eye, the all-seeing, all-knowing ability to foretell the future and oversee the past. Although she wasn’t chosen to enter the inner Knighthood, the Leader valued her ability and trusted her so. Once, she told me the outcome of my relationship with the Leader, though it was only vague at that time. I never really understood it until recently when some things she said began to shed clarity.

“I am fine, Captain. The Leader sent me here for a purpose,” was her soft-spoken reply. Because of her childhood, Irene learnt to be obedient and submissive, as well as shy and kind-hearted, sometimes to a fault. We didn’t interact much, but Irene’s words were trustworthy. Whatever she predicted would always come true. She was honest and reliable. She looked like she had more to say, but Suga, ignoring the fact that Daniel was supposed to be the leader for his party, started speaking mockingly, “What do you think you are doing, Sera? You left the Circle, and you still expect us to listen to you? What right do you have to question us like that?”

I snorted and folded my hands defensively. I knew when to bite back when attacked. After all, my mother never raised me to be vegetarian. “Impressive, Suga. So you’ve learnt to grow a backbone in the time I was gone. So much for a loyal lapdog for the Leader, huh?” Then I turned to Daniel, “And you! Daniel Kang!” I didn’t even have the heart to be mad at him when he looked at me with the same warm eyes with his endless silent support, “What do you think you’re doing here? What about holiday? Aren’t you supposed to take your time off somewhere else?”

“Listen, Woman,” Suga intervened before Daniel even had the chance to talk and gritted his teeth in anger, “I only tolerated you in the presence of the Leader. Now that you’re out of the organisation, I can finally put my hands on you!”

“Oh, really?” I raised my eyebrow to challenge him, and as expected, he was fuming. His eyes narrowed to slits and he took a step forward, being only inches taller than I was. I didn’t even need to look up to stare at him eye-to-eye. Irene went to hide behind Daniel, who tried to get between us. But I never backed down from an argument, especially one that I knew I could win easily. “Why don’t you fight me, then? I have long imagined a day would come when I could finally make you kneel and suffer!”

“You –“

“Step back, Suga.”

Daniel’s voice was soft, but in the unwavering calmness was danger. He might look meek and agreeable but Daniel had never been one for too much word and instead, preferred to strike down his opponent instantly. All of us knew this trait very well, and for this particular reason, he was feared across the organisation. ‘The Silent Killer’, they called him, one whose cold-blooded hands murdered in complete void of emotion, ruthlessly, without leaving so much as the sound of blood splattering. He pushed Irene further to the back as he stood between Suga and I, his grip on Suga’s shoulder tightened such that the later flinched from the painful squeeze.

“Step back. There will be no third time,” He warned. Suga actually trembled a little under his gaze, but hid it well and stepped back with a dissatisfied growl. I smirked and muttered ‘coward’ loudly enough to be heard by all. It was apparent that I had pissed off more than just one person. Daniel was, understandably, unimpressed and unhappy about my exchange with Suga. After all, one was his comrade and the other his best friend. “And you, Sera, for God’s sake, stop provoking other people this once. Just because you have the ability does not mean that you’re completely invincible.”

“Preach all you want, Dan, but I don’t get into fights unless they ask for it. That’s what happens most times, anyways. You know how hard it is to fight the urge to claw at people’s faces when they’re being annoying. And you, Suga,” I wet my lips and chuckled, then swept my eyes coldly at his figure in the corner. This man pissed me off the more I looked at his pretentious act and violent banter. “If I hear you calling out ‘woman’ one more time like it’s a derogatory term, I will make sure you cut off that smart-talking tongue with your own hands. It will be fun for us both, won’t it?”

Daniel opened his mouth to say something, but realised that it was not in his place to lecture someone out of his jurisdiction. We were no longer in the same team. Suga, however, swore that he almost went insane with rage just to deliver a solid, earth-shattering punch to my face. He was frightened, but then refused to let it show. At least he knew when to back down when needed. Irene tugged onto Daniel’s sleeve and urged him to talk – all of which did not escape my eyes.

“What are you doing here, Dan? This is our territory, not yours. Do not put your hands where they don’t belong!” I narrowed my eyes and scowled at him. He wasn’t angry, just a bit perplexed, but before he could say anything in reply, Suga, whose mouth could not stop shooting, spoke up in his stead, “Whoa there. Your territory? When had we ever divided ourselves so clearly, Capitan? What about yourself? What are you doing here? I’m guessing that the out there don’t satisfy you anymore, so you want to beg us to take you back to the Rebel because you could…”

Daniel held him by the neck with one hand. It was at this time that Kai chose to jump inside, still unarmed by his teleportation ability. My anger turned to shame as I stomped forward and looked coldly at both Daniel and Suga. “Leave him to me,” I said. But Daniel only tightened his hand around Suga until the later choked and turned blue. Kai was alerted by the presence of others, but still approached me cautiously, completely unaware of anything that happened prior to this. Still, he had heard Suga’s insulting words before he came in, “Is everything alright, Sera? Which one do I need to finish off first?”

I snickered, “No need. I want to handle him myself.”

Then I turned to Daniel, who was caught in between this fight, looking a little helpless. “You know, Dan, he is starting to turn blue. Squeeze him tighter and he’ll soon die by your hand.” My friend frowned and shook his head, but loosened his hold on Suga’s neck, “If I let him go, you’ll kill him immediately. Sera, the Leader wouldn’t want you to kill off one of his Knights. Suga was once under you. Have a little compassion and let this one pass. For me, at the very least. Heaven knows I’ll suffer the consequences most from that man if anything happens to you.”

“Tempting, but I’ll only think about it if you lower down the Shield around this train,” I negotiated. Kai saw the look I gave him and clenched his fists together. Fighting without his ability had brought much inconvenience to him. Daniel thought it over and relented. He had his own agenda and the Leader had given him a very precise Order. He was only seeking for death if he tried to betray him the second time after that incident five years ago. “Fine. I will lower down the Shield now, but you have to give me your words. Don’t kill Suga. He still has his use for the organisation.”

Kai gritted his teeth, feeling the injustice of the situation. Suga’s words were degrading and disgusting, even for someone like him. Kai had his fair share of leeching off to women, but he would not go so far as to call them ‘s’, and people who insulted his friends were ones he ought to kill, whoever it was. Hence, it was with much difficulty that he held back the dissatisfaction he suppressed for the sake of ‘the greater good’. I understood his thoughts and smiled at Daniel, “You have my word, Dan. I promise you I will not kill Suga today. He will be able to walk away with his life.”

Daniel sighed and let Suga go as he lowered down the Shield at my request. The later coughed onto the solid ground and tried to regain his breathing, but I was not in the mood to be kind and benevolent. As soon as Kai was able to teleport himself into the next compartment to inform the others, I would have my own ways of dealing with Suga. He looked scared when I approached him slowly, still not strong enough to be on his own footing. It was difficult for him to breathe, let alone speak, “You… promised…” And even Daniel called out to me in alarm, hoping that I would back off to my promise.

I grinned, “I won’t kill you, Suga. What do you take me for? A Samaritan? Killing you off is too easy. I want you to suffer from running your loose mouth around. It’s called ‘teaching you a lesson’, in case you’re not smart enough to figure it out.” Then I glared at Daniel who tried to persuade me otherwise, “Are you on my side or his?” To which he quickly backed off and kept silent. I smiled approvingly and turned my attention back to Suga, “Have you forgotten what the Rebel’s motto is? Ah, forgive me, I must have not been a good leader to you before because I forgot to teach you something so simple. Well, I’m fixing that mistake now. Listen to me and remember it,” I stared at him face-to-face and I could see the horror in his eyes, “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a deed for a deed.”

“Captain, please,” Irene whimpered from the back, speaking for the first time since her greeting. I glanced at her and chuckled, “Don’t worry, Darling. Your cold-hearted Leader only needs Suga’s ability. He doesn’t need this mouth that only knows how to speak ill of others. I’m sure he will thank me later. Now, Suga,” I held the man’s chin with my left hand and stared straight into his green orbs, “Cut out half of your tongue for me to see, will you? I want to know how this pretty little mouth spew out such vicious words to others. We’ll see if you will be able to speak so vulgarly later after this.”

"Please..." Suga screamed in fear when he reached for something to cut his tongue with. His eyes soon settled on the dagger that rested on Daniel's hip. "Please, Capitan, please! Not my tongue! I'll do anything...!" Just as he took off the knife from Daniel forcefully – who was in a daze that he didn't have time to retrieve his own knife – and opened his mouth to listen to my command, I chuckled and raised my hand, "Stop. I think I have a better idea, Suga." And he looked so pale and frightened that his face twisted from a handsome one to a pitiful-looking man who left little to be desired. "You mentioned something about , yes? Should I give you a choice? Hm? Is that a better punishment? To cut off your tongue or your . It's entirely up to you. But I certainly want to see you losing a body part today. How else will you make it up for me?"

"Sera, I think you've gone far enough," Daniel warned. 

"Your or your tongue. Pick," My eyes flashed with all the anger I felt earlier.

And although tears fell down from Suga's eyes, his mind had subconsciously made the choice for him. He might cry out my name over and over again in hopes for redemption, but his hand steadily held the knife and pointed it at his own tongue. It appeared that he cherished his Suga Jr. more than he did to his mouth. In my amusement, I smiled widely when the knife touched the tip of his tongue, "Stop there." And he did. The dagger fell from his hand in that second and he fell backwards loudly. I must have frightened him really badly because he now looked at me like I was some kind of demoness, "Come on, Suga. Do you really think that lowly of me? Do you think I would have let you cut off your own tongue?"

I chuckled, "Today is just a lesson. If you dare speak up against me like that, or that I happen to hear you saying something similar to other people again, you best believe it won't be just your tongue missing from your body."

A/N: Being a vegetarian means being a push-over. I'm not entirely sure it's an internationally-known term. Also, NOT ALL OF BTS are going to be antagonist. Some will be MAJOR protagonists as well, but be patient ;) All will be explained in future chapters.