The four kidnapped boys had been sitting in silence in the cell, they were all huddled up, half asleep, in one heap against the wall farthest away from the door. They all jumped awake as there was a click and the door began to open. Seungcheol and Jeonghan did their bests to protect their dongsaengs by quickly moving in front.

The room was quickly filled with three large guards and then soon after the small form of Lady Hana walked through the door. The woman smirked at the sight in front of her. 

“Well I must admit, all four of you are very charming in your own ways. I also almost get soft at the whole ‘hyungs protecting their dongsaengs’ thing. Too bad I can’t see all of poor Seungkwan’s face. Must be the price of having such a dangerous power.”

“What do you want?” Seungcheol asked fiercely. “I have a feeling you came here to do more than chat about our looks?”

“Well, you would be right ‘Cheolie.” The leader glared harder at the use of the nickname. The lady ignored the glare and snapped her fingers. The guards quickly walked up and snatched Jeonghan and Seungkwan up, Hansol and Seungcheol not being able to fight much with Seungcheol having a hurt leg and Hansol having his hands cuffed together. “I need to do more testing. I now have more test subjects and I also have a job to do.”

“Be quiet and let us go!” Jeonghan hissed.

Everyone in the room froze under a daze and the grips on the two loosened. “Stay exactly where you are and allow us to exit the room.” The daze continued. Jeonghan quickly ran up to Seungcheol and got him on his back. They all quickly ran out of the cell into a huge room filled with different machines and pieces of lab equipment. As they ran out, Seungkwan had the idea to turn around and lock the cell door locking Lady Hana and the three guards inside still in a daze.

They ran out into the hallway, they had no idea where they were or how they were supposed to get out of the building, but they knew they had to figure it out fast. It was only a matter of time before the daze wore off.

“I think I remember this hallway from coming in!” Hansol spoke up as they looked at the long hallway from side to side. The youngest rapper took the lead and quickly lead them through a few twists and turns before they made it to a lobby looking area. They saw a glass door to the outside.

As they made their way towards the door an alarm started to sound and Lady Hana’s voice came over the intercom. “The test subjects are loose! I repeat the test subjects are loose!” 

Right as they made it to the door a lock sounded. Hansol kicked the door and Seungkwan kept hitting at it. Jeonghan helped to the best of his ability without dropping Seungcheol. It wasn’t budging. They had to do something quick. Hansol backed up and ran into the door at full force trying to break the glass. Only ending up hitting it hard and knocking himself backwards, not falling over completely as Seungkwan quickly caught him.

“Did you four really think you were going to get far?” Lady Hana was heard again. “You all have only made this so much worse for yourselves.”

The guards rushed at all four of them. The one that grabbed Jeonghan put his hand over his mouth to keep the singer quiet. They were all dragged back into the lab and thrown onto lab tables. The guards placed a machine, similar to Seungkwan’s, on Jeonghan’s mouth. They then attached wires to Jeonghan and they shocked him.

The singer’s muffled screams could be heard through his closed mouth and through the machine. They kept shocking him until eventually he passed out. The other three watched everything in horror from their tables. Seungkwan was silently crying. They all just wanted to go home.

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The group glanced at the building they were about to enter. The guard lived in a run down eight story apartment building that appeared to be falling apart. They agreed to try and remain as inconspicuous as possible, which was a little hard considering nine filthy young men were entering into an apartment building they had never been in before.

“Okay guys, stick together.” Soonyoung instructed as he opened the front door. 

According to the address Wonwoo had found in the records, the man lived on the fifth floor. If something were to happen they wouldn’t be able to get out too quickly.

On the way up they were lucky to not run into anyone. They made it to the apartment with little problems. They paused outside the door. Soonyoung glanced at the others as if asking if they were really about to walk right to the man who could capture them and take them to the crazy woman who had started all this. Jihoon nodded in confirmation at the dancer.

Soonyoung raised his hand and knocked on the door. They waited with their breaths held as they waited to see what would happen. After a moment, there was no answer. Soonyoung knocked once more and again was met with the same response.

Jihoon placed his hand on the door as if focusing. “I don’t hear anything. He’s not here.”

“What do we do now?” Jisoo asked aggravated.

All of a sudden the lock on the door sounded, startling them all. The door quickly opened to reveal Myungho who was ushering them in.

Hesitantly, they all made their way out of the hallway. Once the door was closed, they all looked at each other for a moment.

“Did we really just break into someone’s apartment?” Seokmin asked.

“Don’t think of it like that.” Jihoon calmed the younger. “We need to do this. If we don’t we may never get back to our lives, and we may never get the others back. Now, I’ll keep guard and alert if I hear anything out of place. You all try and find anything. Also, let’s do this fast. Literally anything could happen at this point.”

Everyone agreed with Jihoon and set to work trying to find any indication as to where their friends could be. 

They were almost done searching the apartment when Jun called out. “Guys! I may have something!” They rushed to the back bedroom and saw what Jun was referencing. He was holding up an ID badge. The picture on it was that of Park Hyungbin, the same man that had been in charge of all the guards during every run in they had had with the guards. Mingyu even identified him as the one to take away the other three. The ID had an address on the back of it that was most certainly not the address of the main lab building.

“This is definitely a lead.” Soonyoung smiled. He quickly memorized the address and had Jun put the ID back where he had found it. 

They were getting ready to leave when Jihoon let out a warning. “Guys, someone is coming down the hall. His sound waves look an awful like the guard’s.”

“We have to find another way out!” Jisoo said, frantically searching around.

“There was a fire escape in the bedroom.” Jun recalled seeing it out the window as he was searching.

They all ran to the bedroom and one by one started exiting. Somehow Seokmin was the last one to start exiting, right as he started out the window a huge hand roughly grabbed his bicep, yanking him back in. The singer was pulled into the bedroom only to come face to face with Park Hyungbin.

“So, you es decided to come after me? I thought you would’ve known better. Well, I might as well take Lady Hana another prize.” Hyungbin tightened his grip making Seokmin wince in pain. He then started pushing him towards the front door. Seokmin knew he couldn’t let himself be captured and started to draw in electricity, stealing it from the building. The lights flashed on and off before completely going out. Before the man could then do anything to the smaller, Seokmin had basically become a human taser. The man was shocked so hard he was thrown back and ended up throwing Seokmin hard against the wall. The singer was only dazed for a moment before he ran back towards the fire escape. 

Seokmin ran out so fast he didn’t even notice the sparks that kept coming out of him. He also didn’t seem to feel any effects from stealing an entire building’s power. He ran to the end of the alleyway, catching up with the others. They all breathed sighs of relief when Seokmin came running out. They wanted to attack him in hugs but refrained upon seeing the sparks of electricity running along his body.

“Seokmin-hyung,” Chan started, “you might want to get rid of some electricity before you do anything else. You’ve got so much electricity in you. You’ve got lightning in your eyes.”

Seokmin looked down at his hands as he chuckled in surprise. “Huh, I didn’t even notice I had taken that much. Who knew stealing electricity from a whole building would give me so much energy.” Seokmin concentrated and everyone observed as a yellowish energy went from the singer’s fingertips back towards the apartment building. A few moments later Seokmin seemed to be back to normal. 

They ran away from the building distancing themselves even more from the potential threat of being captured. It became clear to all of them that they were going to have to find a new hideout soon. It was getting dark and the temperature was quickly dropping, which Jun said he didn’t even notice. It was then that they decided they would have to contact someone, not just about finding shelter, but also to make sure the police weren’t after them. Everything would get a whole lot more difficult if they had to explain to the police that a crazy woman had kidnapped their friends to use them as lab rats to examine their new powers.

They found themselves at a payphone, they had found some change on the ground along the way. Soonyoung found himself to be the one dialling the phone number to their manager. The phone rang a few times before the man’s voice answered. “Hello? Who is this and how did you get this number?”

“Manager-nim?” The dance leader said quietly.

“Soonyoung-ie? Are you okay? Where are you?” The manager sounded frantic. “We’ve been worried sick about all of you. Yesterday when we came to the building and found the bullet holes and the guards dead, we thought the worst. Are the others with you?”

“Manager-nim, I can’t fully tell you about the situation we’re in right now. It’s too dangerous. Right now all I can say is, please don’t make a big deal of this. If you’ve contacted the police about all this call them off. Also, the members that are with me are okay. We just… hyung, we need shelter for the night that is discreet.”

“Soonyoung, what is all this? And what do you mean members that are with you?”

“Hyung, please I can’t talk for much longer on here. Just expect for there to be nine of us. Meet us at the train station closest to the company as soon as you can.” Soonyoung then hung up the phone and turned to the others who were looking at him in anticipation. “I take it you heard my side of the conversation.”

They all nodded. “I didn’t want to disclose too much information over the phone just in case.”

They started to work their way towards the train station, hoping that nothing would happen on their way there.

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They made it to the train station and within half an hour they had been reunited with their manager who had quickly ushered them to a small, nondescript hotel down the street. The manager had gotten them three rooms and after he had seen them he quickly ran out and got them all new clothes and things to use for their hygiene. 

After everyone was now in clean clothes and they had showered and shaved, they were meeting in the room that was going to be shared between Jun, Myungho, and Jisoo’s room. The manager looked expectantly at all of the members, questions filling his mind. Why had they disappeared so suddenly? Why had they been so dirty? Where were the other four members?

While the manager had been out all the members had agreed that they would only tell him about their powers if they absolutely needed to. They weren’t a hundred percent sure how he would react.

“Hyung,” Soonyoung spoke up, “I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I’m not so sure about how many we can answer without getting you fully involved in all of this. We only called you tonight because we didn’t want the police on our tails and because we were desperate for shelter.”

“If you guys are in danger, wouldn’t it be better to get the police involved though?” The manager stressed his point, however, he saw the looks on everyone’s faces and figured he better listen to the explanation they were about to give.

“In this situation, no, the police would make things worse and that starts on the edge of why we can’t give you all the details.” Soonyoung took a deep breath and cast a look at the others before turning back to the manager. “Seungcheol-hyung, Jeonghan-hyung, Seungkwan-ie, and Hansol-ie have been kidnapped. Please, do not contact the police. Trust us, it will not end well for anyone if they are brought in. The people that kidnapped them are the same people who took Jihoon. These people are insane and will stop at nothing to get what they want.”

Soonyoung stopped to make sure the manager was getting everything. The manager looked as if he were about to speak up, but Soonyoung started again.

“The day the company was attacked was the day Seungcheol was taken. Everyone except for Hansol, Seungcheol, and I had already gotten out. As the three of us were running away he was shot in the leg. He yelled at me to get Hansol out and even though I wanted to go back for him I couldn’t because Hansol got shot in the arm. I had to follow what Seungcheol wanted me to do because Hansol needed to get out as well. He sacrificed himself so the rest of us could escape.” Soonyoung took a deep breath before continuing. “Earlier today, we had split up to try and get more information about where they could be holding ‘Cheol-ie. Jeonghan, Seungkwan, Hansol, and Mingyu stayed at what was our hideout while the rest of us went out. They were attacked and the building ended up collapsing, they barely escaped before it did. The people responsible, however, were waiting outside and ended up taking Jeonghan, Seungkwan, and Hansol. They left Mingyu to let us know what had happened.”

The manager was horrified at the news. What had these poor boys gotten into that had dragged them into all this mess? The manager looked over at Mingyu, a thought occurred to him. “Wait can’t Mingyu give a description of whoever took them? We could give the description to the police. Why can’t the police get involved?” The manager even stood up and started pacing the room before turning to Mingyu. “You’re the tallest one. Aren’t you supposed to be better at standing up for the others? You must be a lot weaker than you look if they left you behind instead of one of the others. If they were trying to leave an easier catch behind wouldn’t Jeonghan or Seungkwan be better?” The manager stopped talking when he heard a sniff come from the tall idol.

Mingyu was looking down. All day he had been thinking about what would have happened if he were stronger. He felt like he had disappointed the others by being the one left behind. He didn’t even have that cool of a power. All he could do was be the group’s nurse now. He couldn’t defend himself like the others could. The manager’s words made him feel worse about the whole situation. He didn’t know how to respond, but thankfully he didn’t have to.

“No,” Jihoon spoke up, “Just no. Mingyu has gotten threatened at gunpoint several times, and has survived a building falling down around him, but just because he’s taller means he should’ve been stronger? I’m the shortest one in this room, does that mean I’m just supposed to rely on everyone around me to do everything since I’m supposed to be weak? Height doesn’t mean about how strong or weak a person is. However,” Jihoon glanced back at Mingyu, “Mingyu is still amazingly strong. He’s still going and still fighting despite everything that’s happened. He managed to push forward even through all the bad stuff that’s happening. He watched three of his closest friends be dragged away, but he’s doing everything in his power to help get them back. Mingyu is still incredibly strong, just because he wasn’t able to stop the men with huge guns from taking his friends doesn’t mean anything.”

All of the members agreed with Jihoon. They were angry at their manager for suggesting that Mingyu was responsible for the other three in his group being taken. The manager also didn’t know the full extent of what had happened. He had no right to even suggest Mingyu should’ve been stronger.

“If you’re going to talk about Mingyu like that, we will leave right here right now.” Jisoo growled at the manager.

The manager sighed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m just upset hearing about all that has happened to you guys. Mingyu, I’m sorry, I’m glad you were at least allowed to be let go. I guess I’m just struggling to understand why all of this is happening. Why are they after you? This seems bigger than just you all being idols, especially if we can’t get the police involved.”

“Trust us, hyung,” Chan spoke up, “It’s safer if you don’t know all the details of what’s happening.”

“Chan’s right.” Soonyoung cut back in. “In fact it’s dangerous for you to even be with us. We appreciate you getting us these rooms for the night, and getting us things to clean up with, but you should get out of here before they see you with us. If they think you know anything they will come after you. We’ll be leaving here early in the morning as we have a lead as to where the others are being kept”

The manager nodded slowly. “If there’s anything more I can do to help, just let me know.” They said their goodbyes to the manager and then headed to bed needing to regain some energy for the next day.