The sound of a fist punching into a thick, nearly indestructible punching bag resonated in the basement of the Stray Kids house. Changbin was working with the punching bag while Chan and Minho were on the side sparring. It was a fierce fight, with both of them landing successful ‘attacks’ on each other. They tapped each other instead of carrying out the full attack, which made them focus even harder to control their power right before they hit each other. 

Jisung, Seungmin, and Felix were out on a blood run again. It had been weeks since their private blood donor was killed by NCT. It had been an absolute hassle having to go out often to grab enough blood for the 8 of them. 

“We need to find a new blood donor.” Jisung growled annoyed by the heightened security. 

“We’ll look into it when we get back.” Seungmin replied, shoving blood in his duffle bags. 

Back at the house, Changbin was drinking water in the basement when he realized his sparring partner, Hyunjin, never came downstairs. 

“Where’s Hyunjin?” 

Minho and Chan, who were completely drained from the sparring, mumbled out an answer.

“What?”

“Out on a run.” Chan replied after taking a drink from his water. Changbin nodded, realizing he forgot about what Hyunjin said that morning. 

“Want to spar?” Chan offered Changbin, knowing that he wanted to spar with someone. Changbin stood up, ready to spar.

“Give me 5 more minutes though.” Chan laughed at Changbin’s readiness. 

Once the 5 minutes passed, they all got up. Minho went over to the punching bag, getting ready to continue the workout. 

Changbin threw the first punch when they heard Jeongin scramble down the stairs. They could tell that he was in a rush to get down to the basement, and paused their workout to look at him.

“What’s going on?” Chan asked, starting to worry about the other members that were out. 

“Are they okay?” Minho was thinking the same as Chan, worried about the members that were out. 

“Oh, we’re okay. But uh.. remember Jinah?” Jeongin’s confidence decreased and by the time he said Jinah, he was nearly muttering.

The three of them were relieved that their group was okay. 

“Yea, what about her?” 

“She’s being chased by a gang.”

“I’m sure she’ll be able to fight them off. She’s not in YG without a reason.” Changbin replied, seemingly uninterested until he realized that Jeongin was still standing at the staircase fidgeting with his fingers. 

“...Jeongin. Who’s the gang?” Changbin asked, realizing that there was a reason Jeongin came to tell them.

“It’s Seventeen.” 

“Oh, .”

They all knew how powerful Seventeen was, especially because there were so many members. It was scary that each and every one of them were skilled in whatever they specialized in.

“Who’s after her? Seungkwan’s section? S.coup’s section? Hoshi’s section?” Minho asked, hoping that it would only be one section after her.

“All of them. They’re all after her.” Jeongin replied, his eyes wide with fright. 

The other three groaned, knowing that Jeongin came downstairs to tell them for a reason. 

“It’s dangerous. Especially because half of us are missing and I don’t want you fighting for someone that’s not our clan.” Chan tried to convince Jeongin. Seventeen wasn’t going to go down easily.

“But hyung, she saved my life. And she saved Hyunjin, Jisung, and Felix hyung that one time they went to the blood bank.” Jeongin knew that Chan didn’t want to endanger their group trying to save someone external. 

Changbin took one look at Chan and knew that his resolve saying no was crumbling. Minho sighed, knowing the outcome of the conversation. 

“Where is she right now?” 

“She’s downtown. I tracked everyone and the one closest to her is Hyunjin. And she’s completely surrounded by them.” Jeongin rattled off the information.

“Hyung, is it worth it? If one of our members get hurt… then what?” Changbin brought up the point that they all had in their minds.

“She saved his life.” Chan used the excuse Jeongin came up with, knowing that although they were grateful, this was a danger that he didn’t really want to take.

“Call Hyunjin. Get him there and we can go as backup.” Chan ordered Jeongin, going upstairs to throw on actual clothes so he could go out as backup.

“There’s something weird though. There’s only 12 there. I don’t know where D.K is.” Jeongin was in his computer room, yelling at the rest of the three that were changing into clothes they could run out in.

“We’ll figure it out later. Did you contact Hyunjin?” Minho yelled out, Chan too preoccupied with fishing out his t-shirt from the washing machine.

“Yea, he’s almost there.”

Jinah was terrified. She was trained not to have fear in situations like this, but she couldn’t help but feel it. She counted them quickly in her head and only counted up to 12 members. 

“12 huh? I guess you’re missing a member.” She let out a teasing smile, her eyes empty and she scanned them for their reactions.

“I wouldn’t worry about that. 12 is enough to destroy you.” Jeonghan growled out, riled up with what Jinah told him.

Jinah was trying to keep them from physically attacking her as long as she could. And if it meant getting them angry and still keeping a conversation with her, she would take that risk. 

“Is it? How can you be so sure?” She kept eyeing  possible exits where she could go to a bigger street. 

Before she even saw the attack, her body was already curving away because of muscle memory. She avoided the first fist and ducked to avoid the next. She could see their eyes change collectively. They already knew that she would be hard to defeat without teaming up against her.

“12 against a tiny girl?  Isn’t that unfair?” Jinah grinned, trying to pout. When she saw a few of them roll their eyes, she laughed and went in for a swift attack. Whipping out a knife, she held Dino in front of her while she shot at Seventeen. 

She was successful in wounding at least 4 of the clan members when Dino managed to struggle out of her grasp. Turning, he punched her in the ribs. Jinah knew her rib fractured and had a concussion when she hit the wall with her head. Not allowing herself to feel pain, she pushed herself off and twisted to avoid another attack.

She found herself positioned near the entrance of the alleyway, and tried to move even closer while keeping herself safe as possible. Taking attacks from all sides, she could see lumps on the floor that were unmoving.

“Seungkwan? He’s not moving!” The cry renewed the anger and ferocity in the attacks. Ducking to avoid a punch from the front, her weight was moved downwards. She was kicked down from behind, and before she could move out of the way, she was pinned down. Trying to defend her head, she created a defense with her arms. This didn’t stop the member on top of her from punching around to the sides of her heads and on her arms. She realized it was Vernon, and thanked whatever deity was looking over her for giving her Vernon and not S.Coups. Still, this was a dangerous position, and if she couldn’t get out of it, she wouldn’t be able to last any longer than a few seconds.

Whipping out a knife she hid in her upper sleeve, she stabbed Vernon’s leg. This bought her the split-second pause she was looking for, and she pushed him off before scrambling up and away from any of the other clan members. 

Her body was healing, but it wasn’t healing fast enough to be able to avoid more attacks. Taking out another spare gun she knew had silver bullets, she shot at another 3, trying to give herself more time to heal. It wouldn’t kill them effectively, but it would wound them and take even slower to heal than regular bullets.

She was limping towards the entrance of the alleyway when S.Coups caught on.

“Stop her from getting out!” 

With alarming speed, Woozi caught up to her and flung her to the nearby wall. His speed was the scariest part, along with his flexibility. He was already punching her stomach when she blinked away the stars in her eyes. 

Her body was slowly beginning to stop healing itself, seemingly giving up. Still, her training instincts kicked in and she braced for a hit and the moment he pulled his arm back, she punched him in his solar plexus. This completely knocked out the breath in him, and she peeled herself off the wall only to find herself eye-to-eye with a gun barrel. 

“Not so tough when it comes to gun huh?” S.Coups was standing in front of her, lips curled in hate and anger. 

Maintaining steady eye contact with him, she saw him click off the safety. She knew the bullet would end her life if she didn’t do something. Snapping her arms up, she timed the moment he pulled the trigger with an upward blow to the gun and ducked at the same time. She swept her legs under him after the bullet hit the wall right above her and threw him to the ground. 

S.Coups wasn’t the leader of Seventeen for nothing though, and he shot at her again and hit her stomach and left leg. Woozi, who recovered from his earlier hit, was next to her and he pushed down on her bullet wounds and punched her head, trying to knock her out. 

Jinah fought back, trying to get away from him until S.Coups joined Woozi in using her as a punching bag. As she saw more black dots in her vision and had less control of her limbs, she found herself giving in to the hits. 

“Holy .” She heard a new pair of footsteps at the scene. She heard gun fires go off, and heard bodies drop to the floor. S.coups nodded at Woozi, and he left to see who the person was. 

“What the fu-” There was another thud as the body dropped to the ground, this time without gunfire.

  It was only then they realized that S.Coups was the only one still actively conscious. Taking a glance at Jinah, he ruled that she wouldn’t be able to do any damage. He took out his gun, and watched for movement. He didn’t hear anything until it was too late; his body his the ground.

“Hey, you oka- No. No, you are not okay. What the hell, Jinah?” 

Jinah was struggling to sit up, just in case the stranger was another threat to her. 

“Hyunjin?” Jinah identified his voice quickly. She reached out for him, unable to see due to her black eyes and concussion. She found his arm, and grasped onto it.

“Get me up. We have to go before they recover.” 

Hyunjin was confused until he realized that they really were stirring. Pulling Jinah up slowly, he felt her lean on him for support. Once on her feet, she tried to stand upright without depending on him to carry half of her weight. They both didn’t realize the extent of her injuries until she crumbled the moment she was off of him.

The entire world was spinning in Jinah’s eyes, and she didn’t even know she was on the floor until she felt someone grab her arm to yank her up in a sitting position. Light-headed, adrenaline decreasing, and pain blinding her, she let out a small laugh.

“Didn’t think our third meeting was going to end like this.”