After about an hour, the transport that Eunbi had called in arrived to pick up everyone. The new plane did feel pretty cramped though as there were now nineteen of them in the plane plus Dr. Park.

“Home free, finally.” Yunjin says with a sigh.

“Don’t speak too soon...” Eunbi warns while giving an ominous look. She didn’t elaborate, but the group that had gone on the initial trip remembered the Gaeun-clone that managed to take down their plane. Needless to say, they wouldn’t feel safe until they landed, every bit of turbulence causing them jitters.

“You find anything useful on that laptop?” Chaeyeon asks Sakura who was staring into the screen intently.

“So far just stuff about the clones. The plans they had were pretty scary. They wanted to use our clones to coerce our friends and other mutants into surrendering themselves.” She responds. Chaeyeon grits her teeth at just thinking about how evil that would’ve been. If that mutant registration act pushed through, the syndicate would be able to track down any mutant they wanted, and who knows what that could lead to.

“How about Ahn Joon-young? Any information on his whereabouts?” Chaeyeon queries.

“It appears he’s already gotten wind of us shutting down the Jeju Island labs. He’s gone into hiding; his company branches have been sending out notices on him taking an extended leave.”

“But you know where he is, right?” At this, Sakura smirks.

“Of course. He’s on his way to Incheon airport to board his private jet and get out of the country.”

“You hear that, unnie? We have another stop.” Chaeyeon relays to Eunbi who nods and talks to the pilot.

“One more mission to go…” Minju says with an exasperated sigh. Chaewon looks at her girlfriend empathetically knowing the mental toll these missions have been taking not on just her but everyone on the team.

“After this is done, I hope they don’t send us on any more missions for a while.” She says, but Minjoo shakes her head.

“It’s not up to us when we’re done, Chae. If there’s a call, it’s our responsibility to answer it.” She replies which surprised the older girl. Minjoo had matured a lot from the timid girl she met months ago.

~~~~

“Alright, girls. We’re heading to Incheon where Seunggi-sunbaenim has called in two buses for us. One is for those heading back to PD campus, and the other is for us to beat Ahn Joon-young to the airport.” Eunbi announces as they head into their final descent.

“Who’s going? I imagine it’d be a bit overkill to send all of us to capture the guy.” Yena says, trying to spare Yuri from another ordeal when she was already injured. The younger girl picked up on this though and spoke up.

“Yah, this is the last-last mission already. We’re the ones who started it, so we should all be there to end it, don’t you think?” She says.

“Are you sure, Yul? We don’t know if the guy has any tricks left up his sleeve.” Yena whispers.

“All the more reason to bring me along, right? Don’t worry too much. I’ll be fine. Besides, I know you’ll be there to protect me if I need it.” Yuri replies with a reassuring smile.

“I guess it’s settled. One last IZ*ONE mission.” Yena says. The others nod as the plane starts to begin its descent.

~~~~

“Everyone in position?” Eunbi comms to her friends through the mental link. The group had made their way to Incheon airport after making sure Gaeun and the others got onto their transport safely. Now they were all surrounding Ahn Joon-young’s private jet, awaiting his arrival.

“Yes, unnie!” They all respond.

“Sakura, Yuri, you setup already?” The leader then asks to the tech-girl.

“Yes, time to expose him once and for all.” Sakura replies from the roof of the control tower. She and Yuri had gotten up there with Wonyoung’s help, and were the group’s eyes in the sky. Sakura had another plan though that they needed to wait for to execute.

“There he is…” Yuri announces when she sees a convoy of black SUVs rumbling down a private road towards the tarmac. After a couple minutes, Ahn steps out of the largest vehicle with armed men flanking him.

Showtime. Sakura thinks before placing her hand on the control tower.

“I can’t believe those mutants destroyed the Jeju base.” Ahn mutters as he walks over to his jet.

“You haven’t even seen the worst of it yet!” A voice shouts.

“Yah, who’s there?” The middle-aged man responds, looking around him. The guards grip their guns a little bit more tightly and scan the surrounding area until their eyes land on a girl sitting atop the jet cross-legged.

“Principal Ahn, I’m disappointed. I would’ve thought you’d remember your star trainee.” Yena says with a laugh as she gets up and continues.

“Give it up now. I’d hate for anyone else to get hurt.”

“The only ones who’ll get hurt for their insolence are you and your friends, child.” He says before turning around.

“Step out now. I know you’re all hiding here somewhere. I applaud your efforts to stop the cloning projects, but you only delay the inevitable. You and your kind will be under my control sooner or later.” Silence engulfs the hangar, and no response comes other than Yena charging up her hands with electricity.

“Fine, if you won’t come out, your friend here will be made an example. Guards!” He orders, and the henchmen line up their guns and shoot in Yena’s direction. The blonde girl jumps out of the way and uses the jet as cover. Every few seconds, she’d peek out and shoot a burst of electricity from her hands like a finger gun, knocking out soldier after soldier.

“Girls, now!” Yena relays, and the rest of the group springs into action. First, Wonyoung levitates soldiers around and shakes them up. Eunbi, Nako, Chaeyeon and Chaewon drop from one of the catwalks and jump into the fray, the latter three easily bulldozing their way through Ahn’s forces for Eunbi to get over to him. Yujin and Hyewon use their signature combo attack from behind some crates, the former bursting pipes to make the floor slippery and the latter freezing the soldiers in place. Finally, Minjoo goes invisible and sneaks in a few jabs, and Hitomi grows more seeds from the ground, giant roots bursting out of the concrete to snag onto soldiers.

“We got him right where we want him.” Yuri says while watching from the laptop screen that Sakura had linked to the airports surveillance system. As much as she wanted to be down there kicking with her friends, her role was here with Sakura. Every time it looked like airport security was moving in towards the commotion, Yuri would put on a headset and convince them to ignore it.

“No, look at Ahn’s face. It seems like he isn’t fazed at all.” Sakura replies, noticing how the principal was just standing in place, observing the chaos around him. The older girl clicks a button and focuses the cameras in towards him harder.

“What a mess…hand me the serum now.” Ahn says to his assistant who gives him a briefcase that had a syringe in it.

“Ahn Joon-young!” Eunbi’s voice yells as she arrives in front of him.

“The non-mutant. From what I’ve been told, it doesn’t appear you will ever join our side no matter what we offer you. Pity, you would’ve been able to prevent so many mutants from resisting and getting hurt. I am done being patient with you.”

“Your guards are all preoccupied, and I know you can’t fight me one on one. It’s time to surrender and turn yourself in.” Eunbi says with a sneer.

“You’re right. I can’t fight you one on one…unless I use this.” Ahn then brings out the syringe from his briefcase and injects himself in the shoulder. At first, nothing happens, but after a few seconds, the man groans and doubles over in pain.

“What have you done…?” Eunbi asks cautiously as she approaches. Suddenly, Ahn screams, his eyes turning pure red and his muscles beginning to enlarge.

“If you can’t beat them…join them.” He says, swiftly grabbing a hold of Eunbi’s arm and yanking her up and tossing her towards a pile of crates.

“Unnie!” Nako shouts and charges towards Ahn, but is smacked away easily.

“What was in that serum!” The leader continues to ask, despite her ribs being in pain

“The key to our next evolution!” He replies with an evil laugh.

“Dr. Park said this experiment would be unstable, and that our focus should be on the cloning project, but I saw differently. The only way to control mutants is through power and dominance.”

“You’re crazy! You talk about how much you hate us, and yet, here you are trying to replicate us?” Chaeyeon says before speeding towards him.

“Replicate? No. That was the clone project. I aimed to surpass even your abilities.” He says as he easily dodges Chaeyeon’s lightning quick strike, and hitting her with a counter punch before she could even react. The others try and jump in as well, but they are also swatted aside like flies.

“Kkura, you seeing what we’re seeing?” Eunbi mumbles as she tries to get up.

“Yes, unnie. I’m already looking into it. Just don’t let him get away.” Sakura replies.

“At this point, I don’t think he’s even trying to get away anymore. The problem right now is probably staying alive.” Eunbi says as she dodges a flying forklift.

“Yah, what the hell did he do to himself?” Yuri asks worriedly from Sakura’s side.

“Like I said, I’m looking into it. I don’t know how I missed that file in Park’s laptop.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to find it soon!” The younger girl says, seeing Ahn break out of Hyewon’s ice and ripping through Hitomi’s roots. Sakura scans through every file again until she comes across one labeled “Project Darwin” that was hidden behind triple the security all the other files had.

“This has to be it.” She thinks to herself as she skims through. From what was put in the report, it was a top-secret formula that awakened any recessive mutant genes a person might have. It was kept under wraps, even below the cloning project, because it was more unstable, with test subjects reportedly even passing away from the injections. Sakura then recalls some of Chaewon’s stories from the lab in Daegu. The two-headed pig…the fire-breathing parrot. It all makes sense now. There were even more implications that this experiment brought up, but Sakura decided those questions would be better answered some other time. Right now, she needed a way to beat this guy.

“Subjects were reported to have extreme aggression swings and a lack of empathy…” Sakura shakes her head as she continued reading the report that wasn’t yielding any useful information until she got to the last paragraph.

“Guys! Stop fighting!” Sakura comms to her friends who reply in confused tones.

“What do you mean? We almost have him. I can feel it!” Nako responds.

“Just trust me! The report said subjects fell into a more containable and docile state when less aggression was shown towards them.”

“Alright, Kkura-chan. If you say so.” Chaeyeon says, doing something she didn’t normally do- stand still. The others, though hesitant, begin to follow her example.

“Who’s next?!?” Principal Ahn asks with a maniacal laugh, but when no one steps up to challenge him, he becomes confused.

“Yah, what’s wrong? Are you all scared now?” For the first time, he takes the offense, but all the group does is dodge and block him. The more swings missed, the more frustrated and careless Ahn became with his attacks. Eventually, he began to tire, his speed and strength depleting.

“Okay, this is your chance, but you have to make sure to knock him out in one hit or we’ll be right back to square one.” Sakura relays as she notices the symptoms of exhaustion the report described test subjects exhibiting. Yujin nods at this and tries a distraction.

“Yah, Ahn Joon-young! Over here!” She shouts, positioning herself like a matador and taunting him.

“That mutant serum definitely seemed to work because you look twice as ugly as before. I feel ashamed to even have the same last name as you!” She says while sticking her tongue out. The principal’s eyes fume at this, and he begins to charge without thinking. At the last second, Yujin jumps out of the way just in time for Ahn Joon-young to run into the ice path Hyewon and Yujin had made earlier. The principal slips and slides down the path until the end where Nako was waiting with a strong right hook.

“Strike!” Yena cheers jokingly with the Principal knocked out cold.

“We got him, Kkura. How do we make sure he doesn’t overpower us when he wakes up though?” Chaeyeon asks. She could only imagine that the new vines Hitomi had used to wrap the Principal up wouldn’t last.

“There should be another syringe in the briefcase he had that has the antidote. They had it in case anything went wrong with the tests. It has blue liquid instead of the red one that causes the mutation.” Sakura replies. The group scans the hangar that was now littered with unconscious bodies in search for the briefcase in question.

“I found it!” Wonyoung calls over as she picks up a black case. It appeared that some of the vials had been crushed, but the group was relieved to find a couple blue vials and one red vial still intact.

“Uh…guys, I think he’s starting to wake up.” Chaewon says when she sees Ahn begin to stir.

“Yah, Chaeyeon, inject him with the antidote right now!” Eunbi shouts as she hands her the syringe. Just as the Principal began ripping through the vines, Chaeyeon arrives in time and strikes him in the neck. Ahn feels the spot where the empty syringe was now stuck in and groans before falling to the ground unconcious again.

“Phew…that was a close one.” She says with a relieved sigh.

“Well, we have one of each vial left. What do we do with them?” Minjoo asks. The group looks at Eunbi expectantly, but in that moment, even she was unsure.

“I could be more useful to the team if I had powers like the others…” She thinks. For the entire time she’s known her friends, she’s doubted her utility outside of her leadership, and though they reassured her every time that she was integral to the team, Eunbi was faced with a big decision. She didn’t know what she would’ve chosen to do if she was alone, but at that moment, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s not worth the risk…” Hyewon whispers as if reading the leader’s mind. Eunbi nods and hands the vials over to her.

“Alright, everyone…let’s go home.” Eunbi says calmly. Media members and police were already on the way, but by the time they got to the hangar, all that was left were unconcious soldiers and Ahn Joon-young tied up with vines to a post.

~~~~

“Where the hell am I…” Ahn Joon-young mumbles as he wakes up. He tries to get up, but realizes his hand was cuffed to his bed. He could’ve sworn that with his powers, he would be able to break free, but he felt nothing.

“Hello, Principal Ahn. Glad to have you with us again.” A man in a police uniform greets.

“Yah, let me out right now. Don’t you know who I am?” He yells.

“Yes, I do. You’ve been put under arrest for human rights violations, illegal business practices, kidnapping, and several other citations.” The detective replies. Ahn looks at him incredulously, not knowing what to say until the detective grabs a remote and turns on the T.V. that was in the room.

“Breaking news today as Yujeonja Tech Solutions CEO, Ahn Joon-young, was taken into police custody for several violations of the law, most notably kidnapping and experimenting on minors. The following video was anonymously released onlin4 as well documenting Ahn’s underground labs and illegal business dealings. Information will be updated as time goes by…” The news anchor reports. Ahn’s face goes white as he faces the detective again who was taking out a notebook.

“Now…let’s start from the beginning.” He says.

A/N: Hii, it's been a while. I announced that I might split the last chapter into two, but I decided to finish the whole thing first. The holidays have been pretty busy with family visiting and all. Don't worry though, I'm posting the final chapter in a couple hours where I'll leave the final Author's note. Thank you all for your patience!