"You girls ready?" Eunbi asks the team through the mental link. The group had spread out and were hiding in bushes with the help of Hitomi moving them around.

"I don't see anyone out there. Maybe they forgot about us." Yena says optimistically. She'd already taken out the cameras in the area, so she figured the coast was clear.

"No, I sense soldiers hiding in the trees. They're waiting for us to approach the wall." Hitomi informs.

"Take them out then." Nako says as if that were an easy task to accomplish. Hitomi rolls her eyes at the short girl before focusing on the disturbances around the forest. The sudden movements in the branches and vines around them tug at her senses like an insect on a spiderweb. The group looks at the peach-cheeked girl expectantly and out of nowhere, the yelps of soldiers begin to echo through forest as they are snared one by one by vines.

"Great job, Hii-chan!" Chaeyeon compliments as she runs over, pinching the younger girl's cheeks.

"Which one of you would be so kind to lend us a hand with this door?" Eunbi asks the soldiers who were now hanging upside down.

"Never! We would never help your kind!" One of them yells in defiance.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way..." Nako threatens, cracking her knuckles which causes the soldiers to flinch.

"Yah, Nako-unnie, it doesn't have to get that messy. Let me handle it." Yuri says with a giggle.

"You're no fun, Yuri." The short girl whines.

"On the contrary, I think my methods are way more fun." The hamster replies before charming one of the soldiers and making him dance like a chicken which causes the group to laugh.

"You monsters...If you think you will succeed in getting your friend out, you are sorely mistaken." Another soldier says.

"Quit your yapping and stay quiet." Yuri commands, leaving them unable to speak. She then leads the charmed soldier to the wall to open the door. Meanwhile, Yena walks up to the other soldiers and glares at them.

"Monsters? That's a bit of a strong word, don't you think? You people try to shoot and kill us all the time while we're just trying to mind our own business. If anything, I think you guys are the real monsters." She says before turning to walk back to the others.

The door was slowly starting to open, but something felt off. One of the men behind the group had a wry smile on his face. The lights inside were turned off as the group tiptoed in. After a few steps, a sudden sound of movement stops everyone in their tracks. Red lasers begin pointing at them from the darkness, and Eunbi realizes then that the soldiers outside were a distraction to make them let their guard down.

"Hands in the air!" A voice yells through the darkness.

"Yena, turn on the lights when I give the signal. Chaeryeong, Chaeyeon, take them out quickly afterwards." The girls agree and get into position.

"And what if we don't?" Eunbi asks aloud and is shocked when a bullet whizzes past her head.

"Then we'll shoot you. Unlike the others, you have no powers and are therefore of no use to us. So, if you mutants value the life of your leader, you'll stand down." The soldier says, all the red lasers now pointing towards Eunbi's chest. The leader takes a deep breath in order to steady herself before giving the order.

"NOW!" She says telepathically. The lights turn on to reveal a platoon of soldiers with guns right in front of them. Before they can even blink, Chaeyeon and Chaeryeong go to work and speed through them, landing punches and kicks on all of them. One soldier manages to fire his weapon, but Chaeryeong manages to chase the bullet down, grab it and place it next the soldier's leg. When she lets it go, the bullet keeps its momentum and hits the man, causing him to fall to the ground and grab at his shin. All of this happened in the span of a few seconds that the others couldn't even comprehend.

"Damn..." Yujin says when the two sisters finish of the last guy and share a hi-five.

"Come on! That was too quick. I wanted to get in on the action!" Nako whines again. Chaeyeon can only look at her and shrug.

"Great work, girls. Now on to phase two." Eunbi says. The group grabs the armor and other gear of the unconscious soldiers to use as disguises before hiding them out in the forest. They then split off into their assigned groups. Sakura, Chaeyeon, Nako, Hitomi, Yujin, Wonyoung and a Chaewon clone go to look for the headquarters while Eunbi, Yena, Yuri, Chaeryeong, Minjoo and Chaewon go look for Hyewon and ITZY.

~~~~

Eunbi's group relied more on stealth and good acting to sneak through the base. Yuri and Yena played as the guards who were transporting their "captives", Chaewon and Chaeryeong, while Minjoo would hide Eunbi using her invisibility. Every time a guard would ask where they were going, Yuri would use her charm speak to deter them. They'd actually made good progress thus far thanks in addition to Sakura and Yena sabotaging the camera system, and according to the map that the tech girl had hastily drawn up for them on a candy wrapper, the testing areas were only a few blocks away. They just had to avoid any more confrontations.

"Halt!" A soldier orders from behind them, causing the group to turn around. This woman had a different uniform from the other guards who were flanking her. Instead of black camouflage, she was wearing a regular black suit. There was a different aura around her that made the others uneasy.

"Yes, ma'am. What seems to be the problem? We were just escorting these two mutants to the testing labs." Yuri says, trying not to let her nervousness show.

"Oh, really? I was told there were twelve of them running around on the perimeter. What happened?" The woman asks.

"Ah, well, you see, they managed to escape. We only managed to capture these two. No need to worry though. We can get the rest after we bring these mutants to the labs." Yuri replies. In their previous encounters, that would've been enough for the guards to walk away, but this woman was a bit more persistent. She seemed a bit more strong-willed compared to the others.

"Fine specimens...I heard a lot about them." She says with a grin as she walks up to Chaewon and Chaeryeong. For the bit to work, the two had to be handcuffed and gagged, but Yena had a button with her that would unlock the chains when needed.

"Yes, yes. I'm sure the boss will be pleased. Now, can we please be on our way now? I heard that we needed to head back and reinforce the entrances again after in case the mutants returned." This time, Yuri puts a lot more emphasis into her words, and it appeared to be working. The woman's eyes shifted for a second as she backed up, but something was up.

"Hmm, that's strange. I think I would've heard that order as chief of security..." She mumbles. Yuri's eyes widen, realizing the magic was about to wear off.

"Eunbi-unnie! You and Minjoo-unnie get behind them. I think we need to take them out." The hamster messages to the two who were invisible.

"It must've just slipped their minds then." Yuri continues to try to convince them, but it seemed like the jig was up.

"No...no. We lost contact with the ones outside earlier. This is a trick!" Yena quickly fires bolts of electricity that incapacitate the woman's two guards, but before she could fire a third, the woman grabs a whistle that was around her neck and blows into it creating a high-pitched noise. Yena recognizes the horrible sound from their earlier missions. They used it on her when she broke into the Myeong-dong base months before, and right now, it was causing the group to fall to their knees...everyone except Eunbi. The leader couldn't hear anything, but once she realized what was happening, she jumped into action. She was positioned behind, just like Yuri had said, so she managed to surprise the chief. Eunbi grabs at the string that was attached to the woman's whistle and yanks it back, causing her to fall to the ground where Eunbi promptly knocked her out cold. She then grabs the whistle, throws it on the ground, and steps on it.

"You girls okay?" Eunbi asks worriedly as she checks in on everyone.

"Just...a little dizzy." Yuri says.

"What was that noise?" Chaeryeong asks, also still groggy from what had just happened. She'd never heard anything like it.

"It was a weapon an anti-mutant group created before that would create a sound that could only affect mutants. It seems like they've salvaged the data for it and recreated it here." Yena replies.

"Wonder what else they're cooking up here." Minjoo mumbles.

"In any case, we have to move again soon. Let's hide the bodies so the next patrol doesn't see it." Eunbi orders.

~~~~

Over on the other side of the base, Chaeyeon's team opted for a more direct approach. They would still try to sneak by when they could, but most of the time, Nako would just knock out any guard they saw.

"How's Eunbi-unnie doing, Chaewon?" Sakura asks. As with past missions, to conserve her focus and energy, Sakura would keep the mental link available for close proximity conversations but would tune out any long-distance ones. This meant that Eunbi's group could still telepathically communicate, but without her hearing everything. The connection would begin to fray though if they moved further away or if Sakura got knocked out.

"Just got out of a sticky situation. Got a mild headache, but things seem fine now. They're almost at the labs. Keep your eyes peeled for those whistles they used back in Myeong-dong though. The ones that made the annoying sound. They might have some over here too." She reports.

"Noted. Good to hear you're alright because we'll have our own problems to deal with soon enough." Sakura replies as they arrive at the door to the headquarters room. She hacks into the camera system again to scope out the other side and doesn't like what she sees. The place was actually huge with computers and lab tables spread out over the place. She saw a bunch of prototype weapons and microscopes studying small specimens too, but what really caught her eye was the security. There were already a ton of guards waiting for them, weapons aimed at the door, and sure enough, Sakura spots a man with a whistle around his neck at the back.

"Listen up, everyone. They're waiting for us on the other side. Be ready to fight, and Chaeyeon, there should be a guy in the back right corner of the room with a whistle. You gotta take him out first." The speedster nods and gets herself into position.

"Ready when you all are." Chaeyeon says to which the others nod. Sakura places her hand against the door and after a satisfying clink, it begins to open. As the tech-girl said, there were plenty of guards with their guns all pointed at them. Chaeyeon takes a deep breath and zips through the crowd until she reaches the man with the whistle who she quickly smacks in the nose. While the soldiers begin to realign themselves, the others jump into the fray as well. Nako bulldozes her way through everyone, knocking away bullets with her fists. Hitomi throws seeds on the ground which grow rapidly to ensnare her adversaries. Wonyoung picked up one soldier with her telekinesis and began tossing him around like a rag doll into other soldiers. Finally, without any convenient bodies of water nearby, Yujin joins Chaewon in beating up the guards the old-fashioned way. The group made quick work of over fifty soldiers.

"Nice work, girls!" Chaeyeon says cheerfully.

"You're up next Kkura-chan!" Sakura nods and wades through the sea of unconscious soldiers towards the room's main computer. It was like any other computer she'd hacked into before, or that's what she thought. She entered the machine with her subconscious and sifted through all the data. So much information was shown about Ahn and his connections to illegal human testing and the previously arrested syndicates. Sakura was in the middle of downloading it until she felt a strong electric shock course through her.

"Kkura!" Chaeyeon screams when she sees her friend suddenly convulse and collapse on the ground. The others rush over to shake her out of it, but Sakura was nonresponsive.

"No...No...No..." Chaeyeon whispers as she holds Sakura close to her.

"Chaewon-unnie! Call Eunbi-unnie and tell her it's an emergency!" Yujin says. The older girl nods, but before she could alert her clone an invisible force smacks her hard across the face. No one could react as Chaewon just fell to the floor unconscious.

"Unnie!" Wonyoung shouts, still not understanding what happened.

"Chaeryeong...?" Nako says aloud when she looks back towards the entrance. In front of them were the members of ITZY including Chaeyeon's sister which stunned them all.

"You really thought you could get away with breaking in again?" A voice says from the loud speakers.

"Wait, I remember that voice...it's that scientist from the first base- Dr. Eunseo!" Hitomi realizes.

"Very perceptive. Sadly, not perceptive enough to not walk into this trap." She says.

"What did you do to my sister? Did you plant a chip in her or something?" Chaeyeon asks in an angry tone.

"Now, where would the fun be in telling you now? Maybe you should try defeating this team first." Dr. Eunseo says with a laugh before cutting off the mic. The ITZY members immediately go on the attack, forcing the group to split into isolated fights.

Nako was matched up with Lia, and just like before, it felt as if her punches weren't doing any damage. Lia would simply absorb the attacks and hit back twice as hard. Not only that, but it felt like she knew every one of Nako's moves and patterns. She was barely holding her own.

Wonyoung was facing Yuna and the younger girl felt a bit of déjà vu. Last time they fought, Wonyoung was beaten fairly easily, and right now was no different. Yuna was always one teleport ahead of Wonyoung's telekinesis and was mopping the floor with her.

As for Yujin, she could get by beating up soldiers without any water, but against someone like Ryujin, it was way more difficult. The shapeshifter was clearly more experienced in hand-to-hand combat and it showed. Yujin couldn't land a single hit, and it felt like Ryujin was reading her mind.

"Not so powerful without any water, huh?" Ryujin says with a smirk after landing another right hook.

Hitomi probably had the worst match up with Yeji. The older girl's flames would singe any vine Hitomi sent to her, and just like the others, a physical fight was no contest. Hitomi couldn't even get close because she kept having to jump away from the flames.

Finally, Chaeyeon was going one-on-one with Chaeryeong, but it was obvious the older sister was hesitating. Their speeds were almost identical normally, but Chaeyeon was holding back which gave Chaeryeong the edge.

"Ryeong! It's me, Chaeyeon!" She tried to reason, but the response was another well- timed hit to the groin.

"Ryeong, please! I don't want to hurt you!" But it was no use. Chaeryeong continued to attack without a conscience meaning all five girls were on the verge of losing their fights. It was as if Eunseo knew which ITZY member would give them the most trouble. All of this was happening while Sakura was still unconscious on the ground fighting her own battle in her mind.

~~~~

"Ugh...my head..." Sakura says when she wakes up. She didn't see the attack coming. It was like the system was prepared for her to try to hack in. The tech-girl looks around to find her friends but realizes she was still the cyberworld.

"What the..." This didn't usually happen when she would go into the machines and databases. When she would be shocked in the way she was just now, she'd wake up back in the real world.

No...this wasn't a normal electric shock. She thinks to herself. Sakura was worried now what might be going on outside. She should've predicted some kind of trap.

Sakura walks around the cyberworld she was in which was mostly whiteness for miles and miles. She needed to find a way to get out of here, but before she could rack her brain more for ideas, the whole area goes black and a screen appears in front of her playing a video. The woman in the recording was a familiar foe she thought they'd left behind in Japan.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sakura, you have been a very disobedient soldier." Dr. Koyama says to her.

"You hacked your way into our system and deleted all our files which is something I hardly appreciate." She continues.

"Dr. Ahn had me whip up this little virus just in case you tried to pull a similar stunt to him. I'm sorry to say but your friends are probably getting slaughtered right now while you will be stuck here forever...or until you die of dehydration and starvation, whichever comes first. Have a good day..." Dr. Koyama laughs as she says the last bit, after which the screen disappears and Sakura was left alone again in the vast empty confines of her own mind.

"There has to be a way out..." She mumbles. It was a virus, so it had to be living somewhere in her head. All she had to do was find it.

"This is my head...and I am in control." She says as she focuses to shift her mind back to the way it usually was, but it didn't work. Whatever virus Koyama created was very complex and powerful. Sakura looks back at her memories trying to find out how they managed to do this until she landed on the answer. When she was new to HKT, they had run tests on her to see how her brain worked. Whenever her subconscious entered a machine to hack it, they realized her cerebellum was way more active than usual. They hypothesized that because the cerebellum was in charge of motor learning and coordinating different body parts, when her brain connected to something like a computer, the cerebellum would be what moved and affected the machines. Dr. Koyama probably created something to shut down or paralyze it. This information was interesting, but didn't actually give Sakura any ideas to break out...or did it.

"If they shut down that part of my brain, I just have to jumpstart it myself." Sakura focuses once more on the emptiness around her and begins thinking of all her memories with all her friends. There were people out there who were counting on her, and she didn't want to let them down. They needed her to move. Slowly but surely, the whiteness begins filling up with color and the memories she was thinking of began feeling more real.

"You can do it, Kkura-chan..." The voice of Chaeyeon whispers to her. On the outside, her body was slowly beginning to twitch and move until she finally regained consciousness. When Sakura opened her eyes, she was back in the real world, but what she was seeing still felt like a nightmare. Her friends were all in their own fights and being beaten badly. She looks around at anything that she could do to help them, but she was normally just the tech girl. Sakura still wasn't the best fighter and she didn't exactly have the physical strength right now even if she wanted to. She was about to just it up and try getting into the action until she saw a glint of metal on the floor...the whistle. It was a long shot, but she didn't have any other options. Sakura crawls towards the whistle and grabs a headset from one of the desks.

"Girls! Cover your ears!" Sakura yells, catching everyone's attention. Her friends turn incredulously at the sound of her voice, but couldn't let their guards down for long as they were still under attack.

"Kkura?!?" Chaeyeon says while still trying to avoid another strike by Chaeryeong.

"Just listen to me!" She orders as she blows into the whistle. The ITZY members all fall over and grab at their ears at the high-pitched sound. The others were affected as well, but not as badly because of Sakura's warning. The older girl then motions for them all to grab a headset from the nearest desk like the one she was wearing, and once they all do, she blows into the whistle again. This second wave gave the group an opportunity to run to the door on the other side of the room while carrying Chaewon's unconscious body with them. Sakura closes it and uses her powers to lock it up once everyone was on the other side.

"Sakura-unnie...are you okay?" Wonyoung asks between breathes as she tried to recover.

"I should be asking you girls the same question." Sakura replies with a weak smile. She would've said more, but was interrupted by Chaeyeon walking up and hugging her tightly.

"I thought you were really gonna die this time." The younger girl says between a few sniffles.

"You told me to stay alive, remember?" Sakura says, hugging her back.

"I'm sorry to interrupt this touching moment, girls, but I think we have to go. They're gonna open that door soon." Nako interjects. Hitomi looks surprised at this as the short girl normally wasn't the first one to shy away from a fight, but it appeared Lia bruised more than just her shoulders.

"I agree, we need to rendezvous with the others and make a new plan." Yujin suggests as a loud bang echoes from the door behind them. The group doesn't wait another second and runs off.

~~~~

"Chaewon-unnie! Are you okay?" Minjoo asks when she sees the older girl grab at her head as if she'd been punched. They'd just arrived at the entrance to the lab areas, and Yena was starting on short-circuiting the door.

"Something's wrong. The others got ambushed." She manages to get out as she steadied herself.

"Do we go back? They might need our help!" Chaeryeong asks Eunbi worriedly. The leader was torn right now as she was worried about her friends too, but they were also so close to saving Hyewon and the others.

"Alright, you can go back and look for them, but the rest of us here have to complete this part of the mission." Eunbi replies after some thought. The younger girl nods and runs off.

"Got it!" Yena exclaims as she sparks the right wire, causing the metal doors to open and reveal a catwalk with large testing tubes lining the room below them.

"What's in those things?" Yuri wonders. The entire aura of the place felt eerie and the hamster was certainly starting to get goosebumps.

"We'll find out soon. Let's find a way down there." Eunbi says.

After a few minutes of trekking, and knocking out guards in their way, they find a stairwell and make their way downwards. When they get to the bottom, Yena knocks out a couple more guards and forces the doors open. Eunbi walks up to one of the test tubes and wipes away the mist that was building up because of the cold.

"What...is that?" She says when she sees what appeared to be a large embryo of some kind. Before she could look around further though, all the lights suddenly go out.

"Uhm, guys? Is that normal?" Minjoo asks aloud as a loud thud is heard around them.

"Everybody, stay calm. Yena, try to jumpstart the lights again." Eunbi orders, but no response comes.

"Yena? Are you there?" The leader asks again worriedly.

This must be a trap. She thinks as she closes her eyes to focus on the movements around her. When she opens them though, she wasn't in the labs anymore.

"What the..." Eunbi finds herself back on campus, but something was off. The buildings were broken and bodies were littered all around her.

"You did this, Kwon." An invisible voice whispers in her ear.

"You thought you could be the bridge that connected them, but you actually just doomed them all."

"Get out of my head!" Eunbi yells as she falls to the ground, covering her ears. She begins to see the faces of all her friends around her, but they were all devoid of life.

"You thought you could understand them? You will never be one of them." The voice says.

"No...No...NO!" Eunbi screams to herself.

This can't be real...it can't...She thinks to herself while above the lab area, a woman in a lab coat laughs to herself. She was observing not only Eunbi, but the whole group wince and grab at their heads in pain as another figure covered by the darkness raised its hands towards them as if it were containing them in a box.

"Out of all the mutants we've captured and enhanced, this one has been the most fun." Dr. Eunseo says before walking away.

A/N: Hi, everyone! Glad to be back. I actually had written a lot of this chapter before school started getting hectic so it was more about polishing it up. In any case, I'm relieved to be done with school for a couple weeks and giving you all another chapter. 

I'm hoping it's making sense so far now that we're hitting the . If you have any questions, I'm always eager to answer them. I'm also always willing to fix any errors if they're brought up to me. This chapter may seem a bit down, but don't worry, the izgirls are gonna fight hard in the final ones. Stream all their songs btw. I personally loved Yuri's comeback!

Anyway, thanks again for always being patient with me despite college making the updates slower. I appreciate all the comments and likes always! See you in the next one!