o20: Fight or Flight

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o20

 

 

Fight or Flight


 

Running was apparently not an option when Baekhyun shoved open the door at the top of the stairway, because he’d barely gone one step out before someone quite literally swung a blade at him.

 

Baekhyun was prepared enough to dodge the blade, draw one of the numerous ones from Yifan that he had strapped onto his belt and lash out at the guard. Jinqiong moved into action as quickly as he had, darting out the door to help Baekhyun. She could hear footsteps behind them and she remembered briefly that Hei was still down there, but there was much more to take care of a second later because there hadn’t been just two guards at the door—there was at least five, which was much more than there had been when they had first entered. Either Yifan had expected something like that or managed to summon more.

 

Either way, it wasn’t ideal. Baekhyun took down two without a struggling, threw one of the extra blades at a third, and ended up locked in combat with the fourth. She managed to catch the man off guard, and before long, there were five bodies.

 

The door slammed behind Hei when she stumbled out. “Yifan has a whole group of guards,” she managed breathlessly. “I froze a couple of them in the time pause so they should be… well, they can’t move for at least another thirty seconds, but we need to get out of here.”

 

Baekhyun scowled. “I shouldn’t have trusted him.”

 

Jinqiong frowned. “Wait, didn’t we technically trick him first?”

 

He paused, then shook his head, moving forward at a brisk pace. Hei jogged to catch up to him, and after a second of hesitation and glancing at the closed door (she had no idea what Hei had done with her power), followed. “We did,” Baekhyun mused. “But given the fact that he had more guards stationed up there means that he was prepared to stop us before the gem even disappeared. He probably wants his stuff back.”

 

She glanced towards the things he were carrying. “Some weird toolkit, two canvases and a couple rusty swords?”

 

Hei gave a small laugh, though Baekhyun looked slightly offended. “It’s not some weird toolkit,” he snapped. “It’s actually going to be useful when we get our asses kicked in Hell’s Gate again. Because that’s probably going to happen.”

 

“Okay, this really isn’t the time to talk about this,” Hei interrupted as Baekhyun turned down another street. “Let’s just focus on getting out of Chaoyun, because we’ve pissed off one person already with an extremely last minute plan, and the last thing we need going into Hell’s Gate is more injuries.”

 

Surprisingly, he listened. It wasn’t before Jinqiong got another glare thrown in her direction before Baekhyun started off again, but it was better than if he were to continue talking, so she took it without more of a protest.

 

One way or another, Baekhyun’s incessant weaving through the streets actually managed to land them near where the ship was docked. They had gone through too many alleys for Jinqiong to count at that point, and while Chaoyun wasn’t exactly a small town, she was certain that they had walked much more than they needed too. Perhaps Baekhyun was taking precautions about Yifan’s men, but even then, it seemed overboard.

 

Jinqiong was nearly about to walk into the open when he grabbed her arm, grip tight. She halted, turning around to frown at him. “What?”

 

Baekhyun didn’t look at her. “There are men up ahead.”

 

“How do you—”

 

“Shh,” he hissed. “Trust me. And they have arrows.”

 

A bit reluctant, Jinqiong stepped back into the shadows of the alley. She had no idea how Baekhyun knew—then again, he was perceptive and his power seemed to have a lot of uses—but however he figured out, getting plugged full of arrows was slightly less nicer than Baekhyun.

 

“I can time stop,” Hei murmured. “The ship’s not that far away.”

 

Baekhyun faltered slightly. “That might work.”

 

“It will work,” Hei replied, slightly louder. “Just… just give me a second to—”

 

Jinqiong heard the whistle of the arrow through the air before she saw it. Baekhyun shouted at her to move, Hei threw up to arm in an attempt to shield herself and then the arrow that had been sailing directly at them stopped.

 

Jinqiong gaped. It hit a standstill in midair, somehow, before clattering to the ground.

 

Baekhyun lowered his hand shakily. “We need to get out of here,” he grit out. “I can hold up a barrier of air if I concentrate on one part, but once they start shooting at us, I can’t hold the full thing. Yifan has at least… twenty men out there.”
 

Beside Baekhyun, Hei winced. “You can’t possibly kill them all.”

 

“If—”

 

“No, I mean, there are twenty people out there.” Hei’s voice had gotten slightly smaller. “What if you—what if you knocked them out instead?”

 

Baekhyun opened his mouth to reply, but before he could, another arrow whizzed by. It struck, a little way from its mark, and hit a wall with a loud clang. Jinqiong turned in the direction of the shooter and threw her dagger as hard as she could.

 

He was near enough for her to hit her target. She heard the body land with a thud, and beside her, Hei winced.

 

“Just leave this to me,” she told them sharply. “Cover me for five seconds. And try not to kill them if you don’t have to.”

 

Before neither she nor Baekhyun could move, Hei had stepped right into the open. Jinqiong had half the mind to figure her sister had gone suicidal or this was some insane plan that would never work before the first arrow flew straight towards her.

 

Just like before, it seemed to hit an invisible barrier before dropping to the ground. In succession, three more arrows fired at Hei.

 

She ignored it, raising her hands in a summoning motion Jinqiong was familiar with. She could see one of the men, blade drawn and moving towards Hei a couple paces behind her, but before he could move, she brought her arms down.

 

For a long time, Jinqiong had trained to sense magic. It worked well with her power, for some reason, and her family had trained to track opponents’ magic to make it easier for her to subdue or kill. She’d been able to sense patterns in Luhan’s magic too, but Hei’s—it was on a completely different level, and she wasn’t sure if magic even begun to cover it. She hadn’t seen her sister’s power in action before, at least not to this extent.

 

Her only thought was that it was an ancient sort of magic, unlike anything Jinqiong could remember experiencing. Perhaps it had to do with its correlation to Lee Taeyong; from what Jongdae had told her about his power, it was definitely something that wasn’t on the same level as the rest of them. Even Byun Baekhyun—he was powerful, no doubt, but it wasn’t the same. Hei’s power wasn’t something physical like the rest of them, but similar to Jongdae’s in a sense. It was there. Couldn’t be seen, but the magnitude and the way it felt was so distinct that she couldn’t ignore it.

 

Quietness seemed to settle a couple of seconds later. Hei stood still in her spot, taking deep breaths, although otherwise unmoving. Jinqiong had no idea what she had done exactly, but the effects seemed to have blanketed their surroundings in a strange layer of silence, so still that her breathing felt painfully loud.

 

Baekhyun was staring at his wife with a look of half confusion and half awe. Finally, he shook his head and snapped into action, jogging into the clearly too with nothing but a short, “Hurry,” over his shoulder. “This won’t stop them forever.”

 

***

 

Hei genuinely had no idea it would actually work, but given that she hadn’t been shot yet she figured that it somehow had. Wherever Yifan’s men had been hiding wasn’t obvious, but the fact that they hadn’t been able to move out meant that she’d gotten most, if not all, into the sphere of her power.

 

Baekhyun joined her a couple of seconds later. “What the hell is this?” he demanded.

 

“Yeah, I actually second that. Why is it so quiet?”

 

She looked back at Jinqiong. “A skill I’ve been working on for a while,” she replied. “It takes less energy than having to pull everyone into a timestop, and it’s actually more convenient. It wears off quickly, though, so we have… another minute or so at the most. Try to stick close to me. I don’t know where the barrier ends, so if you step too far, you might get caught in…” She pointed at the line of trees, all of which were unmoving. She was pretty sure some of Yifan’s men were behind them. “That.”

 

Jinqiong frowned in the direction in the direction she was pointing at. “That?” she echoed. “What do you—oh my God, what is this?”

 

If it were any other time, Hei would’ve been amused by the rare shock in her voice. It just made her nervous, then. Getting out was top priority, and she didn’t know how long it would last. And if it did, Baekhyun would be the one to take care of it, which would most likely raise the body count from five to thirty. “Selective time stop?” she tried, hurrying her pace a bit more. “I thought about it when, uh, Baekhyun and I were in Regiis. Family leaders’ meeting place. “When I killed his father, I managed to keep just him in my power which meant I didn’t have to stop time quite literally everywhere, which always took a lot of energy. And Baekhyun. When I brought him back, I reversed time only on him. I figured I could do something like this.”

 

Baekhyun gaped. “Sweetheart, you never told me.”

 

She managed a smile at that. “I did, actually, last night. You fell asleep before you could hear it.”

 

He had it in him to at least look slightly embarrassed before shaking it off. “Yifan will probably send more men.”

 

“The docks aren’t far,” she shot back immediately. “We can fix the canvas when we’re on sea again. Yifan wouldn’t follow out there. Let’s just get out of Chaoyun.”

 

If Baekhyun had any objections, he didn’t speak up again. Hei had a feeling he was going to ask her a lot more when they got back to the ship, but for the moment, she was thankful that he didn’t question any longer.

 

They were nearing the sandy stretch of beach when she felt her power start wearing off behind them. It was likely Yifan had dispatched more men—if he had more—and unless they were on sea before that happened, there was nothing more she could do to stop Baekhyun from killing anyone else. Hei wondered briefly in the back of her head she’d gotten so sensitive to it—but she brushed the thought from her head.

 

It wasn’t long that they were half running down the beach to where the small rowboat had been dragged ashore that someone joined them. Baekhyun whirled around, his cutlass once again drawn in his hand, pointed deadly accurate at the man’s throat.

 

Luhan threw up his hands. “Hey!” he managed, flinching back. “Calm down. We need to get out of here.”

 

Baekhyun lowered his arm. “No ,” he bit back. “Yifan has men everywhere.”

 

“Nobody would take it nicely after they got tricked.”

 

“It wasn’t just that. Long story. Where’s the boat?”

 

“Five minutes walk from here?”

 

There was another string of profanities before he gestured behind them. “Hei did something with her power, but there were around twenty men back there.”

 

“And they’re…”

 

“All alive.” Baekhyun’s voice was terse.

 

“It worked, then?”

 

“Yeah.” She grinned at him. “Thanks for teaching me. Although I couldn’t hold it for nearly as long as I wanted. We’re gone, though, so that should cause some confusion and buy us a bit of time.”

 

“Wait, so this—”

 

“I taught her,” Luhan interrupted, laughing. “Hei and I both figured there had to be more to do with her power, especially when she was telling me about what happened back in Regiis, and we’ve been practicing that when you’ve been gone.”

 

Baekhyun gave her a look of mock hurt. “Going behind my back?”

 

“You fell asleep,” she grinned, temporarily forgetting about the problem at hand. “Besides, I had to find some way to entertain myself.”

 

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Emilieee
hello im a fkn LIAR. i was supposed to update today but i underestimated my ability to procrastinate and overestimated how fast i could write, so chapter 53 shall be up tomorrow instead. im sorry AHFKSJHF

Comments

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baekhyunnie_92
#1
Chapter 61: This was such a heartwarming and beautiful ending 💕 i can understand what Hei feels about goodbye bcz I also don't like them and Jinqiong and Hei now finally being real sisters was so heartwarming ❤ i can't believe this has ended I really loved this!!
baekhyunnie_92
#2
Chapter 60: Aaaww loved this chapter all crew members eating together, Baekhyun telling Jinqiong that he trusted Hei with her all of this was so overwhelming 💕 and now it's reaching end... *sobs sobs sobs
baekhyunnie_92
#3
Chapter 59: Oh my god I feel like crying now T.T
The ending of this chapter felt so unreal and finally they are out. I'm not ready to let go of this fic ^-^
baekhyunnie_92
#4
Chapter 55: Aaghhh what s a satisfying ending this is. From Hell's gate being just a mythical quest to killing a family leader, getting rid of gem and saving a elven hundred years old man from a curse. They have came so far. And finally everything is over now. Now I can't wait for some fluff 💞☺
baekhyunnie_92
#5
Chapter 52: This was crazy, how Jinqiong still has so much energy to fight junsoo with all the injuries is out of my head. But is Kim Jongdae really going to fight here. Wow that would be like a historical moment of this whole Cutlass series.
baekhyunnie_92
#6
Chapter 51: Agghhh why didn't Jungwoo decided of helping them first when he was going to at last. Idk how they are going to handle all of this.
baekhyunnie_92
#7
Chapter 48: This was really brave of Hei. Even in such a tight situation she was able to come with this great plan. Well now everything lies on Jungwoo.
baekhyunnie_92
#8
Chapter 43: I really appreciate them saving Taeyeong and i feel so happy for him but seeing Junsu in Central island is scary, it's like they can't get rid of him even though they went through hell.
baekhyunnie_92
#9
Chapter 36: Thank God they finally made up. WTF Jongdae and Jinqiong just kissed hahahaha.
baekhyunnie_92
#10
Chapter 27: Oh myyy she's really pregnant! can't believe they have came so far. I still remember them talking about kids and Baek wanted a girl first, I hope the baby is girl too. Can't guess what his and whole crew's reaction will be but hell I'm really excited about next chapters.