RECAP: They came back from saving Yangyang from the underground games and then they realize that Huang Yena had finally exposed Na Jaemin and Yahoo (Where CC Control Staff and Players aren’t able to date because it’s against the rules). I also have finally went back to crack writing and is focusing more on Bunny and Jeno because WHY NOT. 

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It was a sinking feeling. The feeling of dread when I realized what was happening. I hugged her, my arms going around her frail body when she sputtered out nonsense.

“It’s my fault,” she began, hiccupping. “It’s my fault, unnie. It was like a domino effect and I was pretty sure… I was pretty sure that I checked the recall area. One of the players got stuck in the recall area. I know it was Hwang Yeji’s responsibility so I confronted her.”

She paused, her bottom lip trembling.

“I shouldn’t have confronted her! She told me to watch out and after that, a video was sent to the council of Nana and I…”

“It’s okay,” I quickly said, not wanting her to say it. I could guess what happened. Yahoo confronted Yeji and in turn, Yeji told Yena. Yena might have seen it as a threat to her sister, so she decided to get rid of Yahoo by exposing her relationship with Jaemin.

Control Center Staff and Players were prohibited to be in a relationship and I just knew that the consequences wouldn’t be pretty.

“What did the council say?”

“They are putting me on pause until further evaluation but since the rules were made clear in the beginning, a council moderate came over and told me to be prepared to not even get my license. My exam is in two weeks…”

I didn’t know how to make her feel better so all I did was try to comfort her. My phone buzzed a few times and when I looked at the screen, I saw that it was a text from Jeno.

Jeno: Is she okay?
Jeno: Jaemin is thinking of going to the council to appeal

I bit down on my lower lip. If Jaemin went to the council to appeal, it would confirm everything that was happening. I wondered how Yuta and Aera could date and why the council did not take any action.

Nabi: don’t

It was obvious that with Yena’s contacts with the Battle of Peril Council, being the daughter of one of the members made a difference. I told Yahoo to get some rest but she refused. It wasn’t long both our phones buzzed.

It was a text from Yuta. It was surprising that it was from Yuta, considering the male hardly got involved in such matters.

Na Yuta created a group. (29 members)
 

Yuta: So how we do we slay the kraken lol
Doyoung: ?
Yuta: I take what she did personally
Aera: Baby, can you not throw a tantrum through chat?
Yuta: lol
Aera: Why are you typing LOL when you are not laughing?

The idea of both of them being together but still conversing through chat was kind of funny. Yahoo sniffled.

Doyoung: Emergency meeting at the creature cage
Bunny: Oooooooh creature cage!
Taeyong: Why the creature cage?
Doyoung: Control Center staff have access to the cameras. We need a place with no cameras.
Tae-il: Fred can guard us

It didn’t take long for Yahoo and I to decide to just go with the flow. In fifteen minutes, we both had walked from our dorms to the creature cage just to see that we had arrived earlier than the rest. Moon Tae-il was standing in front of the creature cage, talking to Fred.

“Fred! If Yena comes, I want you to inform us, okay?” Moon Tae-il was saying, the male throwing worms up to the huge lava-monster. “Hey, Nabi and Yahoo.”

“Nabi unnie!” a voice called. Moon Nabi, Tae-il younger sister with the same name as I was dragging over a huge pail of worms over to her brother. She pointed behind her. “I marked the cage with a yellow sticker and brought over chairs so people don’t have to sit on the ground.”

“Good job, sis,” Tae-il complimented, his sister beaming at him. “Now, let’s get ready for the meeting. Like Yuta said, we need to slay the kraken.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Nakamoto Yuta’s arm was around his girlfriend, the male complaining to Aera that she was too “soft”. Yena was a and he wanted to bring her down. Once he arrived to the designated place, he noticed that all his friends were already waiting for him.

It would be a brainstorming session—a session where everyone would discuss on how to bring Hwang Yena down. She was a constant problem to the players and the control center, always doing what she could to bring other people down.

“Let’s stake her,” Yuta suggested, Aera slapping him on the arm. “We can pretend we don’t know anything when the police arrive.”

“Your suggestion is to murder her?” Kun asked Yuta, an eyebrow in the air. “Good idea.”

“Let’s look at this logically,” one male said, everyone looking at him. The CC staff of WayV, Xiaojun gulped at the sudden attention. “Right now, because of who she is, everyone listens to her. Now, we need to make sure that the council finds a way to not trust Yena.”

“So, we blackmail her?” Bunny asked, squinting at Xiaojun. Xiaojun shook his head.

“No, we expose her. There has to be something that she does that is illegal.”

“Fight fire with fire?” Dana asked, scoffing. “Oh, Jaemin. Can you stop looking like that? It’s not the end of the world.”

Dana pursed her lips before shooting a glare at Jaehyun. “You. Be useful for once. You were her lapdog for the longest time. Do you not have any idea on what we can use to bring this to the council?”

Jaehyun raised two hands in the air. “Yena is smart, okay? Do you think she’d do things and leave traces behind? The control center has access to the cameras, no? Why can’t you monitor her actions—”

“We don’t have time,” Jaemin murmured. Yahoo looked up at him. Both of them were on opposite ends of the creature cage but they couldn’t even look at each other in the eye. “We don’t have time to go through the footage and audit her every move. What makes you think she does not ask her sister to remove the footage?”

“I agree. She’s careful and calculative,” Nabi agreed. “But knowing Yena, she’s confident. When someone is confident, they sometimes make mistakes.”

“Yena does not make mistakes!” Bunny piped up absentmindedly, her hands twirling around her long pigtails. “Maybe, maybe, maybe! Maybe we can think of something and when Yena blackmails us, we report her to Kyungsoo! We record her!”

“That isn’t a bad idea. If Kyungsoo knows what kind of person she is, he might realize that she ain’t as nice as he thinks she is.”

“We’re playing with fire,” Taeyong told everyone. “We’ve got to be a bit more careful. Kyungsoo might not believe us.”

“I think Nabi unnie should pretend to do the nasty with Hansol oppa. When Yena catches them, she might blackmail them!” Bunny nodded enthusiastically, not catching the look on Jaehyun’s face. His eyebrows were scrunched up and his fingers had tightened into a fist.

“Does it have to be Hansol?” Jaehyun asked. “And what happens when she does blackmail them? Nabi and Hansol will get the backlash. Too risky.”

A defeated sigh from Bunny.

“We won’t ever figure this out. She’s too smart. Yena always gets full-marks on all her tests. Sometimes, she even gets the bonus questions right. It’s like she knows all the questions before hand, but we all know that’s impossible.”

Bunny blinked. “It’s not like she’s forking with the TA or something.”

Silence.

“Guys, what’s worse than a CC staff and a player dating?” Yuta asked.

“A teacher and a student dating,” Jisung said. “That’s why I don’t talk to my female teachers at all!”

“Jisung, women scare you,” Nabi said to her brother.

Jaehyun knew where the conversation was going. He knew that everyone thought that Yena had something going on with their TA. Jaehyun too, had brought it up once when they were both dating. Yena brushed it off and told him he was thinking too much.

“Our TA is rather hot,” Dana quipped from the side, nodding. “That bod? Mama Mia. What was his name again? Simon D?”

A glare from Johnny.

“What if… Just what if, she is fu—” Doyoung began when he caught sight of his sister narrowing her eyes at him. “She is forking with the TA. What if Kyungsoo catches her in the act?”

“She gets kicked out of NCT Training Center,” Nabi replies, nodding.  

The creature cage was in complete silence when Xiaojun spoke. Being the CC staff for WayV, he had always kept a close eye on the CCTV’s. He knew the ins and outs of the whole center. Even better than Doyoung since Hendery just loved to break the rules of the center.

“I think that if it is like what you all are saying, she won’t be messing with the TA in the main buildings. She’d use the old buildings. Every room in our main building has a camera.” Xiaojun bit his lip, deep in thought. “Now, if she uses the old building, it’s abandoned but it’s only cleaned out like, once a month.”

“Why can’t we bring Kyungsoo there? Nice and simple. He catches them in the act,” Yuta suggested. He hated complicated things. He did not understand why they couldn’t just stake her.

“We can do that, but then we’d be brought in for questioning. With Yena’s connections, she can somewhat twist the story and turn it on us. We need to make it seem like we have nothing to do with it.”

“Have something to do with her doing it with the TA? Last time I checked; only involves the two people doing it.” Yuta scrunched his face up.

“Look, you know Yena. We can’t take the risk. She’s the type to make herself become the victim and if she spins a tale, she can make it seem like we had everything to do with her doing it with the TA. Trust me, there are more than 23 of us.”

“What exactly can she say?” Yuta snapped back, Xiaojun flickering his eyes over to the older male. He used to be scared of Yuta, but now not anymore.

“That maybe she was bullied into doing it with the TA,” Jaehyun said. “Xiaojun is right. We have to make it seem like we have nothing to do with it. But first—we have to confirm our suspicions.”

Everyone nodded, not knowing when to start when there was a giggle.

There stood Yena by the creature cage entrance, her head to the side and her lips lifted up in an evil smirk. Oh, they were doomed. Really doomed.

“Hey, guys,” she chirped, giving all of them a wink. “What’s the party about?”

Bunny paled. Did she hear what they were talking about?

“I thought Fred would look out for us?” Bunny whispered to Tae-il.

“She probably gave Fred worms,” Tae-il whispered back.

Yena hummed softly, a small empty pail in her hands when she put it down on the ground.

“To make it easier for all of you, I know you hate me,” she began, tugging on her high-ponytail. “and I love it.”  

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“There are more than 23 of us and only one of her!” Bunny whispered aggressively to the rest of her classmates. She turned around; her fingers circled as fake binoculars. “She just went to the old building. It’s time, it’s time!”

So, this was the plan. Xiaojun had went and retrieved all CCTV footage with Kun (despite both of them saying they did not have time). Both of them realized one thing—Hwang Yena would always go to the old building every week. Exactly on the same time, same day. Teacher Assistant Simon D would enter the old building exactly five minutes before she would.

“What? She has a schedule for bedding the dude?” Mark Lee asked. “You okay, bro?”

Jung Jaehyun was sick to his stomach. It was all becoming clear to him now. Every Friday, she would tell him that she had to train but he would never find her in the training arena. It always made him feel uneasy since they were dating but now, it all made sense.

She was cheating on him ever since before and he was too blind to even think of the possibility that she was doing so.

“Look, so this is the plan. Kyungsoo always takes a nap on Fridays, 1 pm. Someone comes to shave his beard and mustache for him. He hates the blade so he puts himself to sleep until it is over.” Haechan gulped. “The plan is to switch on the fire alarm and pretend that there is a fire. Kyungsoo will then wake right up and do what he usually does when there is a fire alarm.”

“He goes and he checks every building,” Jaemin said, a small tinge of hope in his voice. “What if Yena hears it, too? What if she stops what she’s doing?”

“I got that covered. I don’t think the fire alarm in that building is working, and the building is too far away to hear anything.” Doyoung nodded, his eyes falling onto his watch. “It’s almost time.”

“She’s going, going, going,” Bunny chattered, her tongue sticking out the side of her lip. “She entered the building. Repeat, she entered the building!”

Jeno blinked at how excited Bunny sounded. It was like this was the moment she has been waiting her whole life.

“Who’ll start the show?” Dana asked, her long nails scraping the wall as she walked over to the fire alarm.

“Let me do the honors,” Haechan said, bowing to all them and giving a little twirl. “Who shall join me in combat? Jaemin?”

Jaemin was already standing by the door, weirdly silent.

He nodded.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Kyungsoo was laying down on his designated shaving chair. He was deep asleep, the man hovering above him tilting his head to the side to a glade the blade across his skin. Classical music played in the background, Kyungsoo’s snores filling his office.

Then he heard it—a shrill ringing resonating throughout the building. Kyungsoo gasped, waking up. He jolted, the man freezing. The blade was a few inches away from Kyungsoo’s face, narrowly missing it by a bit.

Kyungsoo winced, the man quickly pulling it away. “What’s that sound?” Kyungsoo asked.

Right after his question, a shrill scream from one of his students echoed through the building. Lee Haechan came barreling down the hallway, his face tainted with black soot.

“Fire! Fire!” he yelled out. Kyungsoo was already suspicious. Lee Haechan had a knack of pulling pranks on everyone around him. “Headmaster! Fire!”

Kyungsoo opened his mouth to say something when he turned to see Na Jaemin on the floor, his hands around his neck as he choked.

Well, that looked believable.

“Where?” Kyungsoo demanded. “Where’s the fire?”

“Near the old building,” Jaemin gasped, pointing over to the where the arena was just as smoke began to fill the hallways. Kyungsoo ran out of the main building, Jaemin’s head lolling limply to the side once the man disappeared from sight.

“I thought we were going to “pretend” there was a fire?” Jaemin asked Haechan who wiped his face.

“ing Kim Bunny had to make it believable,” Haechan replied. “Don’t worry, Johnny will back her up.”

Johnny was backing Kim Bunny up.

They had brought his Cyborg suit and wanted to make it seem like they were running a test run. They did run a test run, the gas tank of his cyborg suit exploding. Bunny screamed, a flame beginning to light the grass.

“Control the fire, control the fire,” Doyoung hissed, grabbing his sister by her pigtails and dragging her away. “Headmaster!”

“What is going on?” Kyungsoo demanded. The moment his eyes fell on Bunny, she began to wail. One thought that this would be from the shock of the sudden fire but it was actually because her brother had pulled her hair a little bit too forcefully. “Johnny, why would you bring out your old suit?”

“Reminiscing the olden days as Junkyard Johnny,” Johnny said mildly, staring at the fire that was beginning to grow.

Kyungsoo noticed something weird about his trainees. They all seemed too… calm. It was like they did not understand the severity of the flame that Jaehyun was trying to put out. Kyungsoo shook his head, barking directions at the trainees that were present.

“Nabi, make sure every trainee goes into the study dome. We need to make sure all of them are safe,” Kyungsoo said to her, Nabi nodding and walking away. “All of you, go. Now!”

“I think I saw Yena walk into the old building,” Jaehyun began, the male blinking at Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo drew a breath, nodding before he shooed them one more time. Kyungsoo missed the slight smirk he had on his face, Jaehyun walking away with Nabi, his arm loosely going around her waist.

It didn’t take long for Kyungsoo rush into the old building, taking in the broken-down door. There was a small thought in his mind, wondering to himself what Hwang Yena was doing in such a run-down building.

He stepped over a fallen chair, Kyungsoo looking around to see if there were any signs of the female trainee when he heard it. Oh, he heard it. His face-tinged pink when he realized what they were doing.

“Do you think he’ll catch Yena doing the nasty with TA Simon-D?” Bunny was asking her brother as they walked to the study dome.

“Hundred percent,” Doyoung confirmed to his sister, giving the old building one last look. “And if this does not work out, I’m going to be very disappointed in the Council of the Battle of Peril.”

It was just as Doyoung said.

Because Kyungsoo saw it with his own two eyes, the two bodies that were pressed against each other, unbeknown of the fire that was lit just for Kyungsoo to follow the plan they had planted for him.

Yena and Simon D were doing it.

Kyungsoo was sure of it.

One hundred percent.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The fire was said to be an accident. They all got off without even a warning. Johnny told the Council he had no idea that his cyborg suit would explode! No, he simply wanted to show the players who he used to be.

Nothing is wrong with a little bragging.

Yena, however, was called to Kyungsoo’s office soon after. They all saw it—Simon D, the hot teacher assistant, trailing behin