“You find anything else while you were in there?” Chaewon asks as they run looking for their friends. It wasn’t rocket science, but the trail of unconscious guards and broken doors was probably a good path for them to follow.

“The corruption goes way more up the ladder than we initially thought. Everything we knew was a lie. I was originally sent here to steal data for HKT, yet that info ended up circling back to the Korean Syndicate anyway. They even let us capture their labs in Myeong-dong and Busan to let our guard down. We were being used as tools the whole time.” She replies frustratedly.

“Well, we can go after them next when this is over, but right now, all we can do is focus on the current mission.” Chaeyeon says.

Eventually, after fighting through a few sets of guards of their own, the group reaches the labs and were now at a crossroads. On the right was a stairwell that led down to the area where the clones were being held while on the left was an open door that led deeper into the labs.

“Which way do we go?” Chaeryeong asks.

“The cameras say that Yujin and the others met up with Eunbi-unnie’s group here and they moved left, but my intel tells me that your friends are in the pods somewhere down the right stairwell.” Sakura replies. This sudden information leaves Chaeryeong torn. Of course, she wanted to help Chaeyeon’s friends, but her team needed her right now too.

“We can split up again if you want. There are multiple stairways up that can lead you back to us.” Sakura offers after sensing the younger girl’s indecisiveness. She knew it wouldn’t be the best option, but she wanted to at least let Chaeryeong make the decision herself.

“I think I’m going to have to take you up on that offer, unnie, but I need to go in alone.” She eventually says leaving her older sister surprised.

“Wait, there’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight again after everything that’s happened.” Chaeyeon interjects.

“Unnie, your team needs you and my team needs me. You’re gonna have to trust me on this. The best you can do is distract them all for me to sneak in.”

“Alright…but if you get hurt, I swear.” Chaeyeon sighs and relents.

~~~~

“This must be it.” Eunbi says when they break through another heavily guarded door to reveal a lab that was twice as large as the others. Everything in it seemed brand new from the computers and monitors to the laboratory tools on the table. If they were running any special experiments, this would be the place.

“If this is it, then why is there no one in here?” Hitomi wonders. The group warily makes their way through the room and examines it.

“Hmm…from what I can feel, it doesn’t seem like these CPUs are connected to any of the other ones we’ve ran into. The frequency they’re giving off is different.” Yena says.

“Then let’s put this virus into it and see what happens.” Yujin replies, taking out the USB Sakura had given her. Before she could though, Nako calls the group’s attention to the observation deck.

“Uh, girls, you might want to come and look at this.” She says. What they see below them were a set of pods similar to the ones they’d seen earlier, but with a glaring difference. The ones in the earlier room were filled with a red liquid while the ones below here were filled with blue liquid.

“Is that…Hyewon-unnie?” Yuri asks, pointing to one of the pods on the right. Eunbi’s eyes widen at this as she leans closer to the windows to get a better look. It was definitely her. Next to her were several other familiar faces like Gaeun, Yunjin and…ITZY.

“Wait, why are they in pods. Didn’t we just fight them?” Wonyoung says.

“You fought who?” Yena replies, not remembering this information being shared earlier.

“Oh, we forgot to mention that in the rush.” Yujin realizes.

“You didn’t think that would be an important thing to mention?” The duck says.

“Yah, no need to start an argument now. What happened with ITZY, Yujin?” Yuri interjects. The younger girl then goes on to explain how they were ambushed and how Chaeryeong was a part of it.

“-and I guess it checks out because you said Chaeryeong left to go find us, and just so happened to end up standing by the enemy.” Yujin concludes.

“No…something’s not matching up. The timing of the attack.” Chaewon mumbles before she checks in with the clone she had with Sakura and getting a breakthrough.

“It wasn’t Chaeryeong! It was-” And just before she could finish her sentence, a loud ear-piercing whistle is projected into the room.

“Not…this again…” Yena mutters as she and the group fall to the ground, grabbing at their heads. Everything was about to go black until a gunshot was heard that caused the noise to stop. There was the faint sound of a struggle as well, but maybe she was just imagining things.

“You girls, okay?” Eunbi asks while the group tries to regain their bearings.

“I’m sorry if it took a while. I was looking for something to break the speaker system.” She continues while showing off a pistol she’d picked up from one of the guards they’d knocked out before they got in the room.

“Yah! This is the second time today I get interrupted before saying something important!” Chaewon whines as she rubs her ears.

“Well spit it out before those scientists do something else!” Nako says, knowing full well that there would be more problems on the way.

“It was a clone…Every mutant we’ve fought since the news broadcast showing Gaeun and ITZY were clones, and it’s my fault.” That statement stuns the group into silence.

“What do you mean your fault?” Minjoo asks.

“Remember when Kkura-unnie said they were gonna be looking for me because of my cloning powers? Well, apparently all they needed was some of my hair to fix their tests. I’m sorry, girls.” She replies in a bitter tone.

“No, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know at the time you went that they were looking for you.” Minjoo says, trying to reassure her.

“Yeah, what matters now is saving our friends and bringing this place down.” Yena adds as she motions towards the computers. Yujin was about to plug in the USB before Eunbi interjected.

“Wait…maybe we should hold off on corrupting everything until Sakura and Chaeyeon get here.” The eldest says suddenly.

“What do you mean, unnie? We were told to just plug it in case we found it before they met back up with us.” Yujin replies confusedly.

“There might be some kind of fail-safe they have installed if we do anything to those computers. Hyewon and the others are still down there. Maybe we should take them out first.” Eunbi tries to reason.

“I could just contact Kkura-unnie through the clone I have with her right now to ask if it’s okay.” Chaewon says.

“Well, like you said, the computer system here isn’t connected to the ones outside, so there might be something she overlooked.”

“Are you okay, unnie? You’re being pretty defensive right now.” Wonyoung asks.

“Yeah, of course! I’m just trying to make sure we don’t make a mistake here.” She says. There was an odd feeling spreading among the group.

“How long did the whistle last for again?” Yena randomly asks out loud.

“About two minutes, why?” Hitomi replies.

“That would’ve been just long enough for them to pull something…”

“Them? Who’s them?” Yuri asks.

“Aish, I guess the jig is up.” Eunbi says with a chuckle that confuses everyone before aiming her gun right at Yuri and firing.

“YURI!!!” Yena screams as she rushes over to her girlfriend. She’d managed to move her body just enough to dodge a critical blow, but the bullet was still lodged in her forearm.

“You all better freeze if you know what’s good for you.” Eunbi says, pointing her gun around at the group.

“Unnie…why?” Wonyoung asks, still in shock.

“That’s not Eunbi-unnie.” Chaewon says.

“How perceptive of you.” She replies as she begins to change form to reveal Ryujin.

“Yah, you know you can’t beat us all on your own, right? Now where is Eunbi-unnie!” Nako says while cracking her knuckles.

“Your precious leader is a bit preoccupied right now, and who said I was going to fight you all alone. I just needed to stall.” As she says that one of the doors at the back of the room begins to open. In front of them now were clone copies of all the captured mutants, and standing in the middle was Hyewon.

“…” Yujin says.

~~~~

“Where the hell am I?” Eunbi mumbles when she wakes up in a white room, handcuffed to a metal chair. The last thing she remembered was shooting the speaker that was projecting the sound the whistles from before made. That’s when it hit her; those ITZY members Ryujin and Yuna teleported out of nowhere and ambushed her. After they pinned her down, Ryujin shapeshifted into her and told Yuna to send her away.

“In a front row seat to witness the culmination of our studies.” A familiar voice responds.

“Not you again…” Eunbi says, recognizing Dr. Park Eunseo’s face.

“This battle will prove as the perfect test to see if the clones we created are truly better than mutants. They are even more powerful than their counterparts and follow orders without question. Soon, South Korea will be able to control the world.” The scientist monologues. All the puzzle pieces finally fell together for Eunbi. The news report with Principal Ahn and ITZY, Gaeun supposedly not having the tell-tale red eyes, Yunjin showing off powers they’d never seen from her…they were all clone creations by the Syndicate.

“You realize that it’s a crazy idea, right? Something will go wrong! You don’t know what kind of power you’re trying to control!” Eunbi argues.

“And I suppose you do? Ironic for that man Lee Seunggi to preach about mutant equality when he put a normal human in charge of the team. Have you no shame for your hypocrisy?” Those words strike Eunbi hard. She had liked to believe that she was family with the members, but was what Dr. Park said true? Was she just another example of a normal human trying to control mutants and their actions?

“I take your silence as a realization of the truth. We humans must do everything we can to control the threat of mutants and what I am trying to do is solve the problem for good. We aren’t so different. You know, you’d be a big help in convincing the rest of the mutants who are in hiding to come out and turn themselves in.”

“No, you’re wrong! You only care about power, not rights! This cloning experiment is opening a can of worms that you don’t fully understand!” Eunbi shouts. Dr. Park could only sigh.

“Well, if you have a change of heart, I’m more than willing to give you another chance to join us. For now, enjoy the last moments of your friends.” She says as she places a tablet on the table in front of Eunbi and leaving the room. Displaying on the tablet a live feed of the lab-room she was just in. Yuri was down, and her friends were barely holding. What shocked her the most thought was the sight of Hyewon, or at least a clone of Hyewon, fighting against Yena.

“Kkura…Chaeyeon…Chaeryeong…please hurry up.” She thinks before taking a look at her surroundings. There was an armed guard by the door, but aside from him, it didn’t appear they thought she was as much as a threat as any of her super-powered friends. It was only her arms that were cuffed while her legs were free. That’s when Eunbi decided to make a move.

“Hey, you.” She calls out to the guard who looks back at her.

“These handcuffs are a little tight. You don’t think you could loosen it up just a bit, could ya?”

“You don’t have the hypnotizing voice of your friend, prisoner. Don’t expect that to work.” He replies with a grunt.

“If I’m that powerless, why don’t you say that to my face?” Eunbi taunts. The guard doesn’t come closer, but he does begin to grip onto his rifle a little tighter. She knew she was starting to get to him.

“Would be a shame to let your colleagues know that you weren’t important enough to be set guarding someone more powerful than me. In a lab full of valuable experiments and ‘dangerous’ mutants, you’re stuck here with me.” Eunbi says with a chuckle which seemed to finally get the reaction she wanted.

“Yah, listen here! I was a top officer during my military time, I’m just following orders. I would definitely be able to beat and capture one of your friends if I wanted. I will not tolerate any disrespect!” The guard says as he walks up to her. Just when he was close enough, Eunbi gives him a strong kick to his groin. Before he could recover, she stands up, bringing the chair in front of her like a shield and charging him.

~~~~

“Chaewon, are you okay? What happened?” Chaeyeon asks when the younger girl suddenly stops and groans.

“That stupid whistle again…I’m gonna smash every single one of those before we get out.” She says.

“We’re a few more rooms away. We just have to keep going.” Chaeyeon responds slinging Chaewon’s arm over her shoulder for support.

“No…something’s wrong…Eunbi-unnie.” She mumbles.

“What do you mean?”

“I think it’d be better if we found out ourselves.” Sakura interjects, wanting Chaewon to conserve her energy. The sudden rumbling echoing throughout the facility wasn’t exactly a good sign either.

Eventually, the three make it to where the commotion was coming from and it was a lot to take in at once. There were fights going on everywhere between what Sakura would assume to be clones and her friends. Just like before, some of her friends were isolated against the people they were weak against like Nako versus Lia, Wonyoung versus Yuna and Hitomi versus Yeji. It looked like Yujin was against Yunjin, Chaewon was going one on one with Ryujin, and Minjoo was dodging attacks from Chaeryeong. Finally, and most concerning, Yena was defending Yuri who looked to be injured from two people, Gaeun and…Hyewon.

All of this processed in Sakura’s head in half a second. She had to figure out a plan quickly, and luckily for her, she had an ace up her sleeve. When she downloaded the files from the database, she also managed to get files on the weaknesses of the syndicate’s clones.

“Chaeyeon, first order of business is knockout Yunjin by sneaking up from behind to set Yujin free from that spell. Chaewon, you go back to other Chaewon and overpower Ryujin. I’ll orchestrate from there.” Sakura orders quickly. Chaeyeon nods and immediately speeds over to the other side of the room without anyone noticing. Yujin wasn’t looking too good. Her expression was blue, and she was holding as if she couldn’t breathe.

“Yah, Yunjin-ah!” The feather girl shouts, and just as Yunjin turned, she was met with a flurry of blows that knock her out in the blink of an eye. Chaeyeon then rushes over to Yujin’s side to check on her.

“Yujin, are you okay? It’s me, Chaeyeon. What happened?” She asks.

“Underwater…couldn’t breathe…everyone drowning…” Yujin replies through coughs. The young girl was clearly in shock, but tries her best shake it off when she hears Sakura’s voice in her head.

“Sorry for the intrusion, Yujin, but I need to tell you the plan. Swap places with Hii-chan and send her over to Nako. You’ll have no problem beating Yeji’s fire.”

“Got it, unnie.” Yujin says, sensing around for liquid. Eventually, she feels water flowing through a faucet next to the test tubes on the lab table and fires a torrent towards Yeji’s direction.

Hitomi, who’s sprouts kept getting burnt up, opted to try fighting the older girl one on one to no avail.

“End of the line…” Yeji says, burning a circle of fire around Hitomi. There was nowhere to run when she conjured a fireball in her hand, preparing to hurl it at the younger girl. Hitomi closes her eyes, but the impact never comes.

“Yah, your fight’s with me now!” Yujin calls after dousing the flames and stepping in front of Hitomi.

“Hii-chan, go help Nako-unnie!” She continued as she began trading blows with Yeji. The peach-cheeked girl nods and runs over to her friend whose punches weren’t having any effect on the elasticity of Lia.

~~~~

“Why can’t you feel pain!” Nako screams while throwing hit after hit.

“It’s not always about brawn.” She replies, countering every attack. Nako was fairly invulnerable to those attacks too, but fatigue was beginning to play a factor. After one misstep, Lia launches one of her arms and wraps it around the shorter girl.

“Let…me…go!” Nako tried her best to break free, but the more she struggled, the tighter the constriction became. Just when she was about to pass out from lack of oxygen, Nako feels the grip loosen.

“Elasticity isn’t going stop a rash.” Hitomi says. She’d taken out another packet of sprouts and threw them over Lia who didn’t initially think much of it. Hitomi then raised her hands forward and forced the seeds to grow wrap around Lia, causing her to itch uncontrollably.

“Poison Ivy?” Nako manages to say after catching her breath.

“Mhm, last batch of it too. Now come on, we have to help the others.” Hitomi says with a smile.

~~~~

On the other side of the room, Chaewon was having trouble with Ryujin. She probably would’ve had an easier time if she split herself into clones, but there was still that bit of hesitation in her to do so despite the moment she’d had earlier.

“What’s wrong? Aren’t you supposed to be the clone girl? Don’t you think you’re being a little overconfident trying to fight me alone?” Ryujin taunts before landing a right hook.

“Yah, Chae, snap out of it!” A familiar voice shouts. Chaewon turns and is surprised to see her clone who’d accompanied Sakura and Chaeyeon run in and give Ryujin a jab to the stomach.

“Well? Don’t just stand there, help ourselves out!” The clone adds when Chaewon didn’t move.

“You have to trust us…you” Her own voice echoes back into her head.

“Yeah, sorry, me. Let’s do this.” Chaewon says before cloning herself into three. With the fight now being four on one, Ryujin now found herself at a disadvantage. Despite this, she let out a chuckle.

“Hmm, let’s see how coordinated you really are.” She says, wiping a bit of blood off her nose, before transforming into a copy of Chaewon as well.

“What the…” The tide began to turn now as Ryujin’s shift caused confusion. Chaewon and her clones kept running into and hitting each other instead. With every wrong hit, Chaewon felt the pain of all her copies which in turn made everyone weaker. She had to end this fight quick.

Chaewon commands all her clones to take a step back, and that action easily isolated Ryujin who was a second late to follow. She then gives another silent order to them all that, though sounded silly, she was completely serious about.

“When you attack, make sure to wink with your left eye and swing with your right hand, so we know you’re not Ryujin.” This time, when the four converge on the shapeshifter, they managed to dodge each other’s attacks when they swung at the wrong Chaewon. Ryujin picked up on this pattern a little too late and was easily overwhelmed.

“That’s for Minjoo.” She murmurs after pinning her to the ground.

Speaking of the aforementioned girl, she had actually been holding her own against Chaeryeong. Every time the copy would go in for a quick jab, Minjoo would turn invisible and avoid it. Frustrated about getting tripped up a couple times, the copy decides to go turbo speed by slowing down her surroundings even more than the original Chaeryeong normally could’ve. Now, she was moving faster than Minjoo could turn invisible and easily landed a few hits.

Minjoo tried to counter by just staying invisible, but that was counterintuitive as they were now in a standoff. If she got too close, Chaeryeong would notice the shift in the air and dodge the attack.

“Minjoo, trade places with Wonyoung. You’d probably have a better chance!” Sakura suddenly whispers in her head. In all the commotion, she hadn’t even noticed the older girl come in. She was trying to work on Yuri’s gunshot wound while Yena fought off Gaeun and Hyewon. Minjoo looks over In Wonyoung’s direction and sees her still having a hard time with Yuna for the third time now.

“Yah, Wonyoung-ah, over here!” She yells. It appeared the younger girl got a similar message from Sakura as she uses her telekinesis to grab Chaeryeong and push her away from Minjoo.

The trade seemed to workout well as Minjoo clearly had the advantage over Yuna. The younger girl couldn’t teleport away from an attack she couldn’t see coming. Minjoo wasn’t normally the confrontational type, but reminding herself that these were just clone copies helped. Meanwhile, though Chaeryeong was still moving faster than she could see, Wonyoung could at least get a sense of the direction she was coming from and used her powers to stop her in her tracks before deflecting her away. Chaeryeong would still get her hits in, but Wonyoung would hit back twice as hard.

~~~~

The last fight going on was Yena’s, and she was slowly starting to get fatigued as well. She wanted to check on Yuri so badly, but if she turned her head for just a split second, Hyewon and Gaeun would strike. Luckily for her, Sakura and the others had managed to make their way in and the tide was starting to turn in their favor. It seemed like the two clones must’ve realized it too because they started to turn up their aggression. In a lapse of focus, Yena is caught by one of Hyewon’s ice rays and was now stuck in place. Gaeun takes this opportunity by flanking around her and beelining straight towards Sakura and Yuri.

“Yah! Your fight’s with me!” Yena yells, firing bolts of electricity in the older girl’s direction, but she’d deflect them easily with gusts of wind. Yena tried to break free, but she was now a sitting duck in the open for Hyewon to continue blasting. The ice slowly begins building up over her until she was completely frozen in place.

“Yena!!!” Sakura screams. She tries to rush towards her, but Gaeun arrives right in her face and lands a swift blow. When Chaeyeon saw this, she quickly sped across the room and landed an uppercut of her own. She was about to lay in a few more hits, until the clone of Hyewon spoke up.

“Everybody freeze!” She commands, calling everyone’s attention to her. No one dared to move when they saw that she had an ice blast aimed directly at Yuri’s face. The group was now in the middle of a standoff, allowing the other clones to recover and gather themselves.

“Surrender if you don’t want your friend to die…” Hyewon says in a loud voice. Yuri, who was still a bit woozy from the shot she took looks up confused to see her friend aiming an attack towards her.

“Unnie…? This is no time for one of our skits…” She mumbles. The situation was looking dire. The group was banged up, Eunbi was captured and Yena was frozen solid.

“What’re we gonna do now, unnie?” Wonyoung asks Sakura through the mental link.

“I…don’t know…” She replies, still sore from Gaeun’s punch. It was one of the few times in her life that she really didn’t know what to do. She was sure if they all attacked Hyewon now, they’d overpower her, but she would probably get that ice blast off on Yuri before that happened.

Just when Sakura was about to suggest surrendering though, a loud noise from the stairwell catches everyone’s attention.

“Great, more bad guys…” Yujin mutters. Whoever was on the other side of the door bangs on it a couple times before breaking through entirely. Before the dust could settle, a beam of ice fires through and freezes the Hyewon clone’s arm onto the wall.

“Jeez, they totally didn’t get my hair done right” A familiar voice says. The group’s eyes light up when they realize it was Hyewon, their Hyewon. Behind her were Chaeryeong and everyone else who had been abducted by the syndicate.

“You always were fashionably late despite the speed.” Chaeyeon says as she looks at her sister with a smile.

“You know it. Now let’s beat these cheap imitations.” ITZY, Gaeun and Yunjin were still a bit too disoriented to help, but their presence helped IZ*ONE fight with newfound energy. Once they managed to unfreeze Yena, it was game over as she was now in a really bad mood. The clones’ built-in knowledge of their moves and patterns were also rendered useless due to Sakura’s superior strategy.

After knocking out Hyewon’s copy, the fight was finally over. Sakura looks over at the main computer and plugs in her virus to clean up all the remaining data. Only one loose end remained- finding Eunbi.

“Wait, what do you mean Eunbi-unnie was captured?” Hyewon asks, still thinking she was stuck in a nightmare.

“Yeah, we’ll look for her, but the rest of have to find your way out of here.” Chaeyeon says.

“No, if it’s Eunbi-unnie, I’m going. She would do the same for me.” She replies. Chaeyeon knew there was no time for arguing and relented. As per Sakura’s plan, Chaeryeong, Yena, Chaewon, Minjoo and Hitomi and Nako would help ITZY, Gaeun, Yunjin and the injured Yuri out of the base while the rest looked for their leader.

“She should be somewhere close to here for that copy of Yuna to have teleported her away so quickly. Let’s fan out and search while the soldiers are spread thin.” Sakura says. The group nods and heads off.

~~~~

After she’d knocked out that guard and uncuffed herself, Eunbi stepped out of the room and realized she didn’t actually know where she was located in the base. She’d just been teleported there after all. Instead of sitting back and waiting for her friends though, Eunbi decided to go out and find them. She snuck through hallways and hid behind storage closets, but couldn’t find her way through this complicated underground labyrinth. She wondered how people could make their way around here with no issue until she happened to come across a directory on one of the walls. Eunbi managed to locate the labs she was in, but something else caught her attention- the head office of Dr. Park.

“The only way to stop a problem is getting to the source.” She says to herself. Apprehending the lead scientist would probably halt the bases’ entire operation.

When Eunbi arrived at the room, she was surprised at how lightly protected it was. Only one guard stood in front of her. They were all probably stationed to prevent her friends from escaping. She quickly knocks him out before entering the office where was now standing face-to-face with Dr. Park who gave her an unimpressed look.

“Oh, you again. I was afraid it was going to be someone dangerous. I’m assuming you aren’t here to join forces either.” She says.

“I’d rather die than join your sick and twisted syndicate.” Eunbi replies.

“That can certainly be arranged, but maybe we can wait till after you watch all your friends suffer. They’ll make wonderful additions to the clone army, and if the current faces of the mutant population can be depicted as obedient soldiers, all the others will come to our side too.”

“Keep dreaming…” Eunbi says, getting into a fighting stance.

“You people really love rushing the fun out of things.” Dr. Park replies before grabbing a pistol from under her desk and firing a shot that Eunbi just manages to dodge. She charges in and before the scientist could reload, Eunbi kicks the gun from out of her hand. Without the weapon, Eunbi easily managed to subdue her.

“You scientists are all bark and no bite. Always hiding behind some guard or lab experiment. Hasn’t anyone ever told you to load up your weapon before keeping it under there?” Eunbi says, applying pressure.

“Yah, if you take me out, someone else will just replace me. There are more people like me out there who will continue my work. Your mutant friends will face the music sooner or later. You should be lucky I only wanted them in pods!” She shouts while Eunbi takes out the handcuffs they’d used on her earlier and attaches them.

“If there’s more people like you, then we’ll arrest them too, starting with your boss, Ahn Joon-young.”

“He won’t take this incursion lightly. What he had in mind before I stepped in was a lot more primitive and violent. You’re going to regret not falling in line.” Dr. Park says.

“We better arrest him before he does that then.” Eunbi says curtly before knocking out the scientist. She wasn’t getting away this time.

~~~~

“Eunbi-unnie! We finally found you. We were looking all over for you!” Chaeyeon says worriedly before giving her friend a hug, checking her up and down for any wounds. The older girl had actually been sifting through Dr. Park’s office for more useful information when her friends had barged in, ready to fight.

“Oh, you found got Dr. Park too. I’m going to have a lot more questions for her when she wakes up.” Sakura adds.

“Yeah, Hyewon’s going to have a field day interrogating her too.” Chaeyeon jokes.

“Hyewon? You girls got them out?”

“Well, Chaeryeong did. She went with the others to find a way out, but Hyewon insisted on going to look for you- oh, here she comes now!” Chaeyeon says and after making her way through the door, Eunbi was now staring eye-to-eye with her girlfriend for the first time in what felt like forever.

“Hey…I’m sorry for leaving. I-” Before she could explain herself more, Eunbi runs at her hugs her tightly.

“I missed you…so much.” Eunbi says while stifling a sniffle.

“I’ll explain everything later. Just know that I’m here right now.” Hyewon replies, hugging her back.

“Hey, I’d hate to be the one to tear up a wonderful moment unnies, but we have to go now. The guards are coming!” Yujin says when she arrives at the scene with Wonyoung, both girls out of breath. Eunbi wipes her tears before grabbing Dr. Park’s laptop and running with the others out of the base. Thanks to Sakura’s hacking, they managed to get out without much issue as the tech-girl hacked the doorways and closed them off whenever she saw guards heading their way through the cameras.

~~~~

“You girls made it! We were worried sick about you all.” Yuri says when her friends arrived at the rendezvous point, the cove they’d hidden in earlier in the day. The sun was already starting to set, and with civilization being on the other side of the island, they had to move before it got too dark. Without the plane, they’d have to find another way back to Seoul.

“Yeah, Yuri was about to go back in there herself and find you all.” Yena says jokingly, earning herself a smack on the shoulder from the hamster.

“Yah, you only have one good arm. Shouldn’t you be resting?” Yuri only gives a sly smirk in return.

Eunbi looks around at the group with pride. They accomplished the mission, saving their friends and taking the data they were looking for. She smiled seeing Chaeryeong talking animatedly with her ITZY members who were finally free from the syndicate’s control after months. It was a relief as well seeing Gaeun and Yunjin catching up with the others. She hoped that this would be the last time they’d be abducted and captured by these types of people. Eunbi knew though that the job still wasn’t finished. They still had to get back to Seoul in one piece to stop and arrest Principal Ahn, but for now, she allowed herself to sit back and enjoy a rare moment of peace with her friends.

A/N: Hello and welcome back, everyone, to another chapter! It's been a busy month for me with classes primarily being back onsite, but I finally managed to finish this chapter. I was debating splitting it into two, but I felt it would've been too short, so enjoy the longer-than usual chapter HAHA

In all honesty, these past couple months have been kind of rough for me mentally, and writing this story has been a good escape from reality. If the quality of the chapters diminished because of this, I apologize, but know I did try my best.

Anyway, I'm sure you can all feel that the end is coming. For me, it's just about deciding whether the finale should be the next chapter or if i should add one more to make it an even 20. I guess we'll all find out about that by the next chapter lol. 

Thank you again for all the kind words and support through all platforms. I'm not really the most confident person, so it's been a real joy for me to see how much people enjoyed both stories. I hope I can meet your expectations for the end of it!