Previously on Seoul Idol Academy….

“Next up is Bae Joohyun.”

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Everyone watched as a small figure waded through the crowd to the front. She stopped in front of the gym instructor and bowed before heading into the glass chamber. Jessi raised an eyebrow but just watched as the young girl passed her. As the student reached the middle of the chamber, Jessi read off her clipboard.

“Bae Joohyun. Your power is Darkness Manipulation. I guess I’ll have to figure out what it is through the chamber simulation. Oh yeah. After you guys are done with the evaluations, you can pick up your full analysis from the wall over there.” She pointed to the left of her facing the chamber. “You don’t have to but I highly recommend you study up on what you can do and your limitations and things as such. It will help you so much during the academy. Okay, with that being said. Let’s begin Joohyun here’s test.” She walked forward and pressed the button.

The glass room beeped once before flashing green. Stage lights ascended from the ground in the corners of the room. A three headed light pole lowered from the middle of the ceiling and situated straight above the stoic girl. All at once the lights shined brightly in their respective spots. The four lights in the corners shined on the ground up to about 2 feet in front of Joohyun, creating a circle of shadow around the girl. There were four blind spots the lights didn’t reach, to the front, the sides and the back of her. Meanwhile the lights above her only worked above her head and rotated.

As soon as she was about to use her power, the weird solid holographic alien figures appeared again. The expression on her face never changed as they immediately charged at her. She rolled behind them into the back right corner light. She had two dark spots next to her to utilize as she stood in the light. She extended both her arms to the sides of her and pulled the darkness to her. She manipulated it, turning it into a force field around herself to stop the oncoming shots being fired at her.

When the aliens stopped to reload she let the force field drop and used her ability to consume two of the aliens into nothingness. She looked at the two remaining and held up both hands in a choking position. Two hands raised up from the darkness and enveloped the aliens necks. She picked them up and threw one into the wall near the students, making them flinch. She held the last one up in the air and walked up to him. She watched as the shadow arm constricted until its neck cracked and the alien vanished. All the while keeping the same expression on her face.

The rooms simulation ended and took away all the props used. Bae Joohyun walked out to the gym instructor. “Wow. That was dark. No pun intended.” The students chuckled.

“But amazing nonetheless. The chamber has updated your power log and can I say, it’s a pretty terrifying ability. You can control whatever darkness that you see. It says something on here about shadows, and-okay, okay. You will find out once you go look at your log on the wall over there. Again, nice job.” The room clapped as Joohyun headed back to her spot.

The attention of the people was natural as she made it back. She thought it normal for them to watch her. What was unusual was the pair of eyes that she felt staring even as she settled and the professor had long called another name. She looked to where the attention came from and locked eyes with a brunette woman. The woman’s eyes widened in shock as she was caught looking. She quickly turned back to the front, with a reddened face. Joohyun also turned back to the front as her indifferent expression remained. Though, if anyone were to claim she thought the girl’s monolid eyes were the cutest thing in the world, she would deny it to the moon and back.

“Did you just get caught staring at that girl?” Wendy asked the girl next to her.

“What? No! I just-I was looking near her and she thought I was looking but I totally was not. I wasn’t-uh wasn’t looking.” The girl ended lamely.

“She was looking.” Yeri answered simply, shaking her head.

The monolid girl huffed.

“It’s okay you were looking. Plus, y’know, you can’t really lie to me.” Wendy looked at her sincerely.

“Hey, you said you didn’t use your little freaky emotion reader thing on us.” Yeri whisper yelled. Joy nodded in agreeance, half listening, half watching the people in the chamber.

“Pff. First of all, it’s called empathy and second of all, I don’t try to use it on you guys. It just happens. It’s getting harder to control.” Wendy explained quietly.

“That girl. She was really pretty.” The brunette girl giggled out.

“Seulgi-”

“But, she has the same powers as me.” Seulgi finished, looking at the girls.

Yeri looked at her friend like she was the most precious thing in the world. “Sweety. You control light.” She said slowly with her hand on her shoulder.

Seulgi slapped the hand off of her and whisper yelled back. “I know that smart . I’m saying, those two go hand in hand. You got water, fire. Up, down. Black, white. Darkness, light.” She pointed to herself at light.

“Don’t look too deep into it. It’s just powers.” Wendy said plainly. “I guess.” Seulgi sighed before going back to paying attention to the front.

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“Alright, who’s next? We’re at H right? Hwang Eunbi.” The said girl groaned before dragging herself up to the chamber.

“Get a move on. I don’t have all day.” The teacher spat. She decided to ignore the grumbles she heard come from the stubborn student entering the simulation room.

The girl stood in the middle of the room with a look of boredom. She scratched her face before the chamber finally pinged and the lights flashed green again.

There was silence as the girl waited for whatever challenge was to come. Before she knew it, the walls fizzled out and the room changed scenery. Like Ahn Hyejin’s, the environment was completely different and she couldn’t see out to the people watching anymore. The room was now completely snowy. There were piles of snow all on the floor and flake after flake continued to fall. On top of that, the room was cold. She could see her breath. Ahh, she knew what the room wanted.

She looked around and saw it. It was a medium sized puddle on the ground hardened by the ice. She kneeled down and laid a palm to it, watching as her arm transformed. She stopped it to check out her arm in full glory. She smirked at how cool she looked with a frozen arm. Before she could even think, a thud behind her made her jump. She turned and was faced with one single alien enemy. She tried to get back to the ice but was jumped on before she could.

She flipped him off of her and swung her arm at him. Turns out, this was a smarter alien as it ducked and leg swiped her feet from under her. Her back hit the icy ground with a thud. She would be rolling in pain if she wasn’t fuming. She got back up angrily and stomped up to the alien guy. She faked him out by swinging her unfrozen arm and catching him try to dodge it with her frozen one. She pushed him away and quickly stepped forward to punch him into the wall, making him disappear.

She thought that was the end of it before the environment changed again. This time, it looked like she was in a warehouse. There were crates and boxes all around. She looked to her frozen arm and turned it normal again. There was no indication of what to do next, so she walked up to a crate and sat on it. Maybe the system is glitching and she’s in someone else’s room. She swung her legs back and forth with a displeased look on her face.

“I’m hungry!” She yelled out to no one in particular. “And bored.” All the while her tallest friend was facepalming on the outside of the chamber.

She stopped swinging her legs when her eyes caught sight of the writings on one of the boxes. She squinted to look closer and saw it read ‘Break me’. After a careful analysis, she found out all of the boxes say that. Even the crate she’s sitting on. She hopped off and looked for something to hit it with. She must have looked for minutes before she gave up. At least, to her it was minutes. She only looked for about 30 seconds before groaning and kicking the box out of frustration. The box immediately crumbled when her foot made contact. It was a miracle she didn’t fall straight through when she sat on it.

When she looked through the rubble and wood pieces, she found a piece of scrap metal. It was clean and shiny. She held it up in confusion. What was she supposed to do with this? As if on cue, another monster appeared. It let out a shrill scream before going to attack her. Hwang Eunbi was slow but not stupid. She realized what the sheet of metal was for and went into action. She held it with both hands and let it absorb her body. Soon, her body was nothing more than shiny metal. She dropped the sheet metal and charged at the alien. A powerful shoulder punt had it flying through the air and into the boxes on the far side of the room.

More and more had spawned in and Eunbi could only guess she was supposed to break more boxes. She ran behind some crates stacked on top one another and hid as she tried to break more. She kicked another one and a bowl of water was left. She stuck her hand in the water and became fully liquid. The boxes she hid behind shattered as the aliens shot at them. She was out in the open now, with five laser guns pointed at her.

She didn’t know how water was supposed to help this situation. She stood completely off guard unable to think of what to do next. The aliens shot at her all at once and Eunbi cowered in fear. She stayed in that position for a few more seconds before realizing she was still alive. She looked down at herself and saw water holes reforming. So she was bullet proof in liquid form. Good to know. She gained some semblance of confidence back and stormed towards the enemies. She kicked two of them to the ground, took their weapon and shot them dead. The other two remained. She turned to shoot them as well but was too late as one of them slapped the gun from her. She dodged their oncoming punches and kicks. Finally she used her strength to swipe them away. She remembered that she was water in this moment. She quickly ran to them and put her hands over their face. They tried to claw her arms off of them but their efforts were futile. Soon, the struggle ended and they vanished like the rest.

The chamber simulation returned to normal and Eunbi walked out exhausted.

“Sinb, Sinb, Sinb. Out of all the personalities I’ve met today, yours is the most prominent.” Jessi shook her head.

“Hey, how do you know my nickname?” Sinb asked with her hands on her hips. From sass or exhaustion, we will never know.

“It says it on my student information log. This school knows more about you than you do at times. It’s scary. Anyway, I’m gonna call you Sinb since there is another Eunbi here. Sinb, you gave up in there when you got that water to transform into.” Jessi sta