Soonyoung had been starting to get nervous. Jun and Myungho had been gone a little over an hour and they still hadn’t returned. He couldn’t help but think that something was going to go wrong. They had sent two of their members into a place full of people who were trying to kidnap them. Why hadn’t he protested more? He was on the verge of breaking down and trying to come up with a plan to rescue six members now instead of four when several figures appeared in the room.

All of the members stopped and stared at them. All five of them fell to the ground as soon as they had appeared. Relief washed over everyone as they saw the faces of the members that had been previously kidnapped. However, the relief was cut short as they realized Seungkwan and Jeonghan had some weird devices over their mouths, with blood covering Jeonghan’s. Hansol’s hands were in some sort of strange handcuffs. Seungcheol’s leg looked awful. The members also took notice that Jun was on the ground holding his head and ice was surrounding him and was starting to spread. Myungho was also nowhere to be found.

Soonyoung drew in a deep and worried breath as he observed the state of the five. What had happened? As relieved as he was to see the others, and as scared as he was about Myungho, he knew he had to help get Jun’s powers under control. 

“Guys you need to get out of here. Go to one of the other rooms and I’ll call you back when Jun has regained control of his powers. Chan, attend to Hansol. Mingyu and Wonwoo take care of Jeonghan. Jihoon and Seokmin you two take Seungkwan. Jisoo you have Seungcheol. I know that Myungho isn’t here and we’ll address that in a moment. Jun’s powers are obviously out of control though and I need to help him.” Everyone nodded at Soonyoung’s directions and started getting themselves out of the room. The dancer had really taken on the main leadership role through everything that was occurring and everyone was honestly thankful to have someone who wasn’t losing his head in the midst of all the stress.

Soonyoung turned to Jun. Ice had really made an advantage on the floor and was starting to get faster. The ice manipulator was also whimpering and holding his head. Soonyoung was confused at what was causing this. He approached carefully. He knew if anyone could approach his ice, it was probably him as he could use his weather powers to find a way to counterbalance the ice.

He slowly started approaching. “Junhui?” He noticed tears making their way down the other dancer’s cheeks. “Jun? What’s wrong baby? What made you become like this?”

The Chinese member only responded with soft whimpers. Soonyoung continued talking. At some point he was going to need to attempt to step on the ice which was now a patch that was a little over a meter wide and still growing, surrounding Jun. “Does this have anything to do with what happened to Myungho?” The ice accelerated at the name of Myungho. He knew it had a little bit to do with him, but not all the way. 

Soonyoung was now starting to step on the ice. He was trying to produce a sun-like heat to make sure the ice didn’t give him frostbite. It seemed to work as Soonyoung was able to carefully advance. However, he could really feel his heat being strongly rivaled by the ice. The dance leader made it to Jun’s side and lightly touched his side, pulling away quickly as the other jumped at the contact. Jun’s eyes shot open and they were glowing a bright blue that was just a few shades away from being white. The ice had picked up again now starting to climb up the walls. Soonyoung couldn’t help think about how Jun’s list of side effects kept growing the more he used his powers.

“Jun it’s okay. It’ll all be okay. We’ll get through all of this. Right now though you need to regain control of your powers. You can’t help anyone if you allow yourself to lose control.”

“Soonyoung-ie, I keep seeing images of me hurting someone, or me not being able to help any of you. I keep seeing images of people dying because of something I’ve done. I just have so many images and I’m just so… scared!” Jun held onto his head. “I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

Soonyoung seemed to partially understand what this was about. “Jun, you would never purposefully hurt us. We trust you a hundred percent. These powers… they don’t control you.” It hurt Soonyoung to see his friend hurting. Even though they were the same age Soonyoung really couldn’t help but see Jun like one of his dongsaengs. The Chinese member was always so full of energy, and always wanted to help brighten the member’s moods when they were feeling down. He had brought them so many laughs and smiles, that it hurt that he was having trouble. 

“But I couldn’t help Myungho. He’s now stuck with that awful lady and I can’t help defend him like I said that I would and now my powers are starting to lose control. I’m trying so hard to rein them in again. It’s so hard to control them though. Jun tearfully looked around the room. The ice was now on the ceiling. Soonyoung was also having a harder time keeping his heat up. Jun’s ice was going to overpower him soon if he couldn’t help the other. “You should just leave me. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Soonyoung couldn’t help but feel his heart break as he heard the other utter those words. He touched the other’s shoulder, trying to ignore how almost painfully cold he was. “Jun, listen to me,” He waited for the other to look him in the eyes. “You are not a danger to anyone. You’ve been doing an amazing job at keeping your powers under control. Just because you’ve lost control now, doesn’t mean you are dangerous. What happened with Myungho wasn’t your fault either. It’s not like you made him send you and the others back. He was the one responsible for that.”

Tears were full on flowing down Jun’s cheeks. However, Soonyoung noticed that the ice wasn’t advancing anymore. It was actually starting to recede. He kept talking to Jun. “You are so brave to be going through all of this. You probably have it a little bit worse than all of us with side effects. Not only do you have to deal with having powers, you also have to worry about how your hair and skin color have changed to basically the whitest color imaginable.” Soonyoung didn’t dare mention the new blue eyes at this moment. “You also have to worry about how your emotions affect you and your control of your powers. You are so good at always keeping a positive energy about you. Don’t let this take that away from you. We need you. Myungho needs you.” Soonyoung was startled as Jun suddenly hugged him. He wasn’t as cold anymore and Soonyoung couldn’t help but notice that his heat wasn’t needed anymore. The ice had melted away and Jun felt to be back at a somewhat normal temperature, still on the cold side but there wasn’t much that could fix that.

The ice manipulator pulled away his now blue eyes were a sharp contrast from his old almost black eyes. He also had tears in them, an apologetic smile on his face. “I’m so sorry Soonyoung-ie, my emotions were all over the place.” He suddenly got more serious. “Did my ice hurt you? Or any of the others?”

Soonyoung smiled back at the other. “No, all of us are fine. I was producing heat to combat your cold so I’m fine. I’m proud of you for getting your emotions back under control. However, I feel I should mention you have one more side effect.”

Jun looked worried at Soonyoung’s words.

“Your eyes are now blue, like, pale blue.”

Jun rolled his eyes. “Great one more thing that I’m going to have to cover. Why am I the only one that’s having to deal with this? If I get a new side effect every time I lose control of my powers it’s going to start getting even messier than just dealing with the rest of the chaos of having powers.”

Soonyoung felt bad for the other. “It’ll all work itself out, I promise. All of us are going to get through this, no matter what obstacles we’ll face.”

The dance leader’s words worked to calm the other down. Soonyoung continued, “Now, let’s go to the others, I know they’re all worried about you. I would call them back here but…” The two looked around the room and the now melted ice had left everything soaking wet. “I promise you we’ll figure out how to get Myungho back.”

Jun sheepishly nodded. “Okay.”

------------------------------------

Myungo woke up to water being splashed on his face. With the shock that it created he ended up breathing some in and started coughing. 

“You ing nusiances. Can’t I have one moment of peace with you!” Lady Hana fumed to the boy. “Just when I think I’m about to make a breakthrough you ruin my chances! BRING ME BACK MY LAB RATS!!!”

Myungho finished coughing and just silently glared at the woman. He had no intention to try and reason with her, or to bring back the others. He didn’t even know how he had sent them away without making contact with them. In a matter of days his powers had quickly advanced to something much more powerful than he had ever thought they were going to be.

Lady Hana was furious with the boy in front of her. “Fine! Don’t answer!” She suddenly seemed eerily calm. “It’s okay honey, I’ve figured out that your powers are results from a slight DNA change. Now, I know that’s not all it is because otherwise all of you wouldn’t be able to do these amazing things. DNA mutations can only be part of the key. Someone can’t just magically control emotions, or persuade people, or be able to teleport only by genetic mutations otherwise I’m sure many people would have developed powers before my serum.”

“Are you sure our powers can be explained scientifically?” Myungho quietly put out there. “What if there is no real explanation and you are just torturing us for nothing? We were just regular k-pop stars, we didn’t want to be apart of some stupid experiment. I also have a feeling you planned very little of this out. You could have killed us, and for what?”

The scientist walked briskly up to the boy and suddenly slapped him hard across the face. “This is worth more to me than some stupid idols. There IS an explanation, there’s got to be. I will find it even if it takes an eternity. I didn’t ask for some pretentious, bratty, singer to tell me how to live my life.” She turned her back to the other. “You know when I first started this on you guys I did genuinely care about keeping you thirteen alive and well, but suddenly, I’ve stopped caring. Why should I care about people who are constantly insulting me and getting in the way of my goal. I’m done being nice, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my answers.”

With that she stormed out of the room leaving Myungho with the guards she now had stationed in the room to ensure nothing happened. Myungho knew that this was about to get a lot worse for not just him, but for all of them.