“Good morning! This is SBS morning news. The divide between mutant rights has always been a hot topic, and with the arrest of Yujeonja Tech Solutions CEO Ahn Joon-young several months ago, many laws and bills have been created to protect said mutants. In recent weeks though, the opposition has been reignited and has begun calling for repeals. Today, we are joined by two voices from both sides, Lee Seunggi of PD Campus and Geun Kangdae of the Anti-Mutant Association. Let’s start off this discussion with why you believe in your current stances.” The newscaster says, introducing the two guests who were sitting across from each other.

“As I’ve mentioned many times in the past, mutants are still people just like everyone else. Even non-mutant humans have differences between each other, so why are their unique abilities any different? It is our job as a society to make sure they feel accepted as we try to do for all humans. The bills pushing to protect and educate mutants will be able to help so many of them who feel like they’ve been outcasted. Less antagonism means less incidents.” Seunggi says succinctly. Hunter Geun scoffs though before giving his take.

“Are you hearing what this guy is saying? Protecting mutants? Shouldn’t it be the public that’s protected from them? We already have laws against firearms yet we have no laws for a person who can freeze or burn up anyone at a given notice. Our taxes should not be going into programs that will only make these freaks stronger. I know your facility gives training to mutants to control their powers. What happens when one of them goes rogue?”

“Behavioral studies will tell you that those raised in a stable and supportive environment end up being more upright citizens than those who aren’t. As for rogues, we have trusted teams that are on standby to bring them in. It’s safer for these operatives to handle those situations precisely because they have the ability to combat them that normal law enforcement doesn’t.”

“But what if we could protect ourselves? What if the public had access to tools that could protect us from mutant attacks?” At those words, Seunggi gives Geun a curious look which causes the burly man to grin.

“I’ve been in contact with some folks about an item that can nullify a mutant’s powers on the spot. If we could mass produce it and sell them in small doses like pepper spray, I think a lot of people would feel safer.” Geun takes out a clear glass vial from his pocket and shows it to the camera. Seunggi is in shock, recognizing the solution.

“Those were Park Eunseo’s, but she’s supposed to be in prison.” He thinks before being snapped out of his thoughts by the newscaster.

“Seunggi-ssi? Do you have a response to that?”

“Ah, of course. While that may sound like a good idea, you have no idea how those items can be abused when put in the wrong hands. I stand by our operatives and their ability to handle situations safely.” He says quickly, but Geun appeared to have an ace up his sleeve.

“Really, you mean these operatives?” Geun says before signaling to play a video. It showed Yena and Yuri at the gas station from months ago where the older girl had zapped the ground right in front of civilians. Next, it showed blurry footage of what appeared to be Chaewon and Minjoo fighting copies of the short-haired girl in a park. Finally, the video played clips taken from Yujin’s incident at the ice cream parlor the day before.

“If I recall, these are supposed to be some of your best mutants, and yet it seems they can’t even control their own emotions and powers. Face it. Your program is a failure and a waste of money.” Seunggi was stunned at this, but before he could respond, the TV blows up.

“Yah! That’s unfair. They were the ones throwing cans at us back then!” Yena yells angrily, her fingers still smoking from the bolt of electricity she’d fired at the flatscreen. Several of the IZ*ONE members had gathered at the cafeteria to eat breakfast while watching the broadcast, but they’d quickly lost their appetite.

“That little outburst isn’t doing anything to prove him wrong.” Yujin sighs.

“Like you were any better. Did you really have to blast the guy with water?” The duck quacks back.

“Unnie, you know he was threatening us right? The clip doesn’t show it, but he was aiming a freaking gun at us!” Wonyoung interjects, trying to stand up for her girlfriend.

“Okay, everyone calm down. It won’t do us any good to start arguing with each other.” Eunbi says with a loud voice to get the group’s attention.

“If we want to get our rep back, we need to find out who Geun is working with and expose them.” The leader continues before giving the floor to Sakura.

“Okay, so from the looks of the vial he was holding and the weapons he’s been shown to have, I’m sure they were the ones Park Eunseo had developed. She’s in prison right now, but a couple of her associates managed to flee. That has to be the source.” The tech-girl says, showing the profiles of two scientists named Dr. Yang and Dr. Jeong.

“Do you know where they are?” Yujin asks, and Sakura gives her a look that says ‘obviously’.

“They tried to use different aliases, but I managed to find out they work at a pharmacy near the high school you visited, no doubt a front for their schemes.”

“Alright, let’s go get them then!” Yena says, but Eunbi shakes her head.

“You have to head back to the city and stay with Yuri. She might become a target while this issue is at large which is also why I don’t want her getting involved in this mission either. Same for Chaewon and Minjoo. Hyewon’s out doing some other missions for 8D right now, and I need to keep coordinating with Seunggi-sunbae about how to address everything.” The duck begrudgingly nods in agreement. While she wanted to kick some right now, keeping Yuri safe was her number one priority.

“That leaves Kkura, Chaeyeon, Yujin, and Wonyoung.” The leader says, looking at the four intently. Yujin was pumped to have such an important role, but Eunbi apparently wasn’t done.

“Kkura and Chaeyeon, I want you two to investigate the pharmacy. Infiltrate it and get rid of all their data.”

“Wait, what about us?” The puppy asks, confused at the sudden exclusion. “Is this Eunbi-unnie being overprotective again?”

“Don’t worry, Yujin. You have an important mission as well. You were looking for some mutants who might be in danger, right? You and Wonyoung will continue with that for the time being and support Kkura and Chaeyeon if anything comes up.”

“Oh, okay unnie! We got this, no problem!” Yujin says with a relieved smile, and with that, the group returned back to their meals.

~~~~

Later that afternoon…

“This should be the place.” Wonyoung says after double checking the address that Sakura gave them. Though there were several students whose legal names were Jiwon, the description Yujin had given was helpful. There was only one Jiwon who had blonde hair.

“The file said she was from Jeju, so it makes sense that she’d be dorming.” Yujin confirms. The duo were currently standing in front of an apartment building a couple blocks by the school that looked no different from the others that were in the area. It felt like a good place to keep a low profile. Wonyoung walks up to the entrance and punches in Liz’ room number into the intercom, 1201. After a few seconds of buzzing, someone finally answers the line, but it wasn’t Liz.

“Hello? Who is this?” A female voice asks. Her Korean was fluent, but there was something about the accent that reminded them of their Japanese friends.

“Is this Liz’ place? We’re from PD Campus, if you’ve heard of that, and we needed to talk to her.” Yujin says. Silence resumes for a moment until Liz’ voice responds.

“How can we trust you?” She asks nervously.

“We’re mutants too. I’m sure you’ve seen that video from the ice cream parlor circulating around recently. That was us. We want to help you find Gaeul.” Wonyoung replies, which seemed to be enough to convince her as they got buzzed in soon after. The duo then head to the elevator and go to the 12th floor.

~~~~

“Liz? We’re here.” Yujin says after ringing the doorbell. The door then opens to reveal the blonde girl who looks around before telling the two to hurry in.

“Sorry about yesterday. I thought you were with that hunter guy.” Liz says, inviting them to take a seat on the room’s couch. The apartment itself didn’t look that fancy, just a couple bedrooms, a small kitchen area, and the main living space where they were taking up most of the area.

“It’s fine. We should’ve made ourselves clearer. We heard you live here with someone. Is she a mutant too?” Wonyoung asks curiously.

“Oh, you mean my classmate, Rei? Yeah, she is. She transferred here for high school and we just happened to both be looking for a place to dorm.” Liz replies before calling her over.

“Rei! We have guests!” At this, a dark-haired girl exits from one of the bedrooms and bows at the two.

“Hello, my name is Naoi Rei. Pleased to meet you!” She greets cheerfully.

“You’re Japanese? We have a few friends from there.” Yujin says while shaking her hand.

“Sorry to be bothering you both right now, but we were trying to look for Kim Gaeul. How do you know her? Also, you mentioned Hunter Geun, right? How did you know he’d be involved?” Wonyoung asks, getting right to the chase.

“Gaeul-unnie is our close friend, or well, our only other friend in Chungnam High. Rei and I thought we were the only mutants there until Gaeul was outed by a few of her classmates. That’s when we reached out to her and became friends.” Liz says before Rei takes over the story.

“We think Hunter Geun might be involved because he was seen around the area a couple times in the past week. We heard he was asking about any mutants, and our schoolmates just couldn’t wait to expose Gaeul-unnie. The night you said she disappeared, she told us to go home early instead of getting dinner with her. I think she knew she was being followed and didn’t want us to get exposed as mutants too.” The Japanese girl says regretfully.

“Maybe if we’d stayed, we could’ve helped her…”

“Hey, it’s alright. We have a couple friends looking into a lead right now. We were just sent here to make sure you weren’t in danger. We heard that Geun and his group have technology that can identify mutants at a glance.” Yujin says to calm the distraught girls down, but a sudden beeping noise catches them all off guard.

“Uh…unnie. We might have a problem.” Wonyoung says worriedly as she takes out and shows a distress beacon Sakura had given them. If she and Chaeyeon got in trouble, it was supposed to go off and call for reinforcements which was exactly what it was doing now. A homing signal was now showing their location at the pharmacy they had discussed earlier.

“Oh no. We need to go to that pharmacy now. Liz, Rei, do you think you’ll be safe here?” Yujin asks.

“If Gaeul-unnie is at that location, we want to help too!” Liz responds determinedly.

“Are you sure? You haven’t had any formal training yet, and this could be really dangerous.” Wonyoung warns, but before they could discuss further, a knock from the front door silences the room.

“Were you expecting any other guests, Liz?” Yujin asks warily.

“No…” The blonde girl replies quietly while approaching the door. When she looks through the peephole, she sees two armed masked men.

“Hello? Is anyone home? We’re just cleaners here to fix up your room.” One of them says. Liz slowly takes a step back, but accidentally knocks over a shoe rack in the process. The two outsiders hear this and begin to knock on the door harder.

“Yah, we know you’re home, Kim Jiwon and Naoi Rei. Come along quietly before we make a mess.” The other man says.

“Liz, Rei, get behind us.” Yujin says, getting into a fighting stance, and after a couple quiet seconds, the front door is blasted off its hinges. The two men enter with guns drawn, and a weird looking grenade on their belts.

“The nullifying gas!” Wonyoung thinks, recalling the campus break-in last year and the vials shown by Geun on TV earlier today.

“We have to get out of here before they throw those grenades!” The bunny says before using her telekinesis to throw their assailants back.

“Jang Wonyoung and Ahn Yujin? The boss will be pleased when we bring you two in as well.” One man says after getting back up.

“That’s fine! We owe him a beating anyway!” Yujin replies, controlling the water from the faucet and sending a stream of it right towards them.

“Okay, you asked for it!” One of the men grabs his grenade, unpins it and hurls it towards the group. Wonyoung was just quick enough to stop it midair and send it flying out the window where it exploded midair.

“We’re going to need some reinforcements here.” The other man says through an earpiece, and that’s when Yujin realized they didn’t have much time.

“Guys, I think our only way out is through the window.” The older girl says much to Rei and Liz’ shock.

“Uh, aren’t we 12 floors up???” Liz replies nervously.

“You said you wanted to help right? Well, you can’t do that if you’re captured too. Wonnie, maneuver 12!” At this, the younger girl nods, understanding what Yujin was referring to. Eunbi had advised them to codify their strategies to call on them quicker, and this was a perfect use for one.

“Okay, I’ll continue to hold off these guys, but I need you to get ready to jump. Wonyoung will catch you.” Yujin urges, but Liz was still frozen in place looking over the edge. At this, Rei steps up and holds the blonde girl’s hand.

“Don’t worry, darling, I got this.” And with a raise of her hands two metal manhole-covers on the ground fly up and float in front of them.

“Get on!” Rei says, jumping on one of the steel discs to prove it was safe. The blonde girl gulps, but reluctantly steps on the other one.

“We’ll meet you on the ground!” Rei says before lowering themselves down. Wonyoung then turns to Yujin who was still blasting a torrent of water at the doorway to keep their attackers at bay. At this rate the floor would flood and Liz and Rei’s water bill would go through the roof, but that didn’t matter as much right now as escaping.

“Yujinnie! They’re down already. Let’s get out of here!” Yujin nods, using her last ounces of energy to form a water wall while Wonyoung floated herself down. When she sees the bunny is gone, she runs right towards the window and jumps through. That would normally be a stupid idea for someone who couldn’t fly, but the puppy trusted in her girlfriend to execute the maneuver. Just as her face was about to hit pavement, she felt herself slow until she came to a complete stop midair.

“Thanks, Wonnie. You’ve gotten better at this.” Yujin says with a smile as the younger girl gently lowers her down to earth, beads of sweat forming on her forehead from the effort.

“Wow, you two are amazing!” Liz says, watching the whole display in amazement.

“More time to talk later. Let’s get out of here and hide!” Yujin tiredly replies, almost out of breath, seeing a couple black vans approaching from a distance. The rest of the girls nod and run into the alleyways.

~~~~

“You two really thought you could sneak in here without getting caught? You mutants really overestimate yourselves these days…” The voice of Hunter Geun says in an amused tone. In front of him there were four cells. Two were taken up by an unconscious Sakura and Chaeyeon, one held a short-haired girl with her hands cuffed together, and the last contained a young girl who couldn’t have been more than 13.

“Everything is falling right into place.”

A/N: Heyya! Here's another chapter for y'all! Idk what came over me but I've gotten really into writing this story. This one's on the longer side, but I hope you enjoy anyway! Next chapter may be the ending of Venator, but it'll depend on if there's room for an epilogue in it.

Thanks again for all the support, likes, and comments! I'll see y'all in the next one!