“Am I the only one getting a bit of deja vu here?” Gaeul asks when their group arrives at KYB Mechanic Repair. Unlike the corporate center buildings that KYB Holdings owned, the repair company was a warehouse looking structure that was located on the edge of Seoul. According to their research, this place was where a lot of KYB branded cars and appliances were sent to be fixed up for customers. What a little more digging did tell them though was that behind the warehouse was a scrap yard where all the broken machines were kept for repurposing.

“Yeah… it’s like the mission simulation we had a couple days ago.” Yujin replies, peeking from the bushes they were hiding in for any security.

“Let’s hope it goes better than the practice then.” Wonyoung quips before moving forward. The group opted to move as a unit this time around so they’d all have a point of reference on where to meet later on.

“No guards patrolling, but I do see a few cameras. I’ll tell you when you’re clear to go in.” Leeseo says through her comm device. The maknae was once again floating high in the sky to scout, but Yujin had assured her that she’d be allowed to join in once they secured the entrance.

When the camera swivels off to another angle, Leeseo gives the signal. Yujin and the others now slowly tiptoe over to the entrance that had been locked. Gaeul reached out her hand to age the doorknob, but Yujin stopped her.

“Rei, try to open it without breaking it off. We can’t let them know we were here.” The leader says. The Japanese girl nods then focuses on controlling the door mechanism.

“Unnies, the camera is swinging back.” Leeseo warns. Just as they were about to be caught, a satisfying click signaled that the door had finally unlocked. The five girls quickly rush in and close the entrance again.

“Alright, according to the map Kkura-unnie gave us, the surveillance room should be located here.” Wonyoung says, pointing at an encircled area on printed out piece of paper

“Okay, we need to go for that first before we can move around freely.” Without Yena and Sakura around to handle surveillance, the group had to get creative.

~~~~

“This place feels really creepy…” Liz whispers as the members duck and crawl past stacks of broken cars. This building was certainly a lot more machine than it was human right now.

“Just keep a cool head, Jiwon. We’re almost there.” Rei replies, using the blonde girl’s legal name. This along with the Japanese girl taking hold of her hand made Liz feel a bit lighter. Aside from their very first mission to the lab where they found Leeseo, the only other experience they’ve had has been through training on campus. There just haven’t been any big problems popping up until recently. On one hand, not having any crises should be ideal, but on the other, now that there was a very real threat, the rookies really felt like rookies.

“She does have a point though. There’s zero guards just like the simulation.” Wonyoung says while glancing at the automobiles surrounding them, wondering if there were any androids hiding in the trunks.

“Quiet down, girls. We’re here.” Yujin announces. A couple meters away was the security room. The only problem now was that the cameras situated on the wall were stationary and looking at the door.

“Don’t worry, I got this.” Rei says before using her powers to forcefully redirect them away, allowing the group to make their way over without issue. As they got closer though, a sound was heard from within.

“There’s someone here.” The puppy mouths before slowly opening the door and peering in to see a security guard busy on his phone. Yujin puts a finger to her nose to tell everyone to be quiet as she sneaks up behind him.

“Ugh, I hate being on the night shift. Nothing ever happens- wait, who forgot to lock the door?” He says when he glances up and sees the entrance open. Before he could get up though, Yujin hits him from behind with a metal pipe she’d picked up.

“Sorry, very impolite of us to close it after we entered.” Yujin says as she pushes his unconscious body off the chair. After studying the control panel for a couple seconds, the puppy finally finds the off button that shuts down all the cameras.

“Alright, Leeseo, you’re free to enter now.” The leader comms, but all that came back was static. “Huh, that can’t be right.”

Yujin takes out her earpiece and shakes it in an attempt to fix it, but the device continued to return static.

“Liz, Wonyoung, can you go check on her? Something feels off.” The two girls nod and make their way out quickly.

“What do we do now?” Gaeul asks.

“We go deeper into the warehouse.” Yujin replies.

~~~~

“Leeseo-ya, where are you?” Liz asks up to the sky where they last saw the younger girl.

“Where could she have gone?” Wonyoung worries. When it came to the youngest member of IVE, the bunny was always the one who tried to take care of Leeseo the most. Wonyoung felt a responsibility to be a good unnie to her just like Eunbi and the others did for her in IZ*ONE.

After a couple more minutes of fruitless searching, Wonyoung was officially in red alert mode. She decides to go back to where Liz was to ask if she’d had any luck, but all of a sudden, the blonde girl had also gone missing.

“Yah! Who’s out here?” The bunny asks out loud. Wonyoung was conflicted between staying out here and looking for her friends and going back inside to alert Yujin of what was happening. Before she could make a decision though, she heard a humming noise.She couldn’t make out the song, but there was something alluring about it. Without Wonyoung realizing, her body slowly began walking on its own into the forest.

“Come home…” A voice whispered in her ear.

“Wait… there’s something I need to do.” Wonyoung thinks subconsciously. Though her thoughts were muddled and her vision was blurred, she could feel something off, like she was being controlled. That’s when the bunny recalls the trick she always used against Yuri. If you knew someone was charming you, it made it easier to resist.

“You’re not needed here…” The voice sings, but this time, Wonyoung spoke back louder.

“No… you’re wrong. My friends need me.” The bunny says with conviction before letting out a force wave outwards. When Wonyoung opens her eyes, she sees a masked woman collapsed under a tree. She recognized her from one of Yuri’s stories- Yoo Eun-kyung, the masked singer. Next to her were her friends who had been gagged and tied up. When she moved closer though, she was relieved to find out they were just asleep.

“Yah, aren’t you supposed to be in jail?” The bunny asks the masked woman who had started to recover.

“Well, only voice powered mutants should be able to resist my voice, so we must both be mistaken.” She responds sarcastically only to suddenly start grabbing at her neck, losing breath.

“I don’t want any funny business, lady. Why are you here?” Wonyoung asks in a serious tone, her hand floating the woman up and squeezing .

“If-if you crush my windpipe… y-you won’t be able to save your other friends.” Eun-kyung manages to say. Wonyoung was snapped back to reality by those words, letting her go.

“What am I doing…” The bunny thinks to herself while looking at her hands which were shaking. The last time she lost composure like this was two years ago in Busan.

“Listen-” Wonyoung turns back to where Eun-kyung was, but the masked woman had already disappeared.

“This isn’t the right place… and you’re already too late.” The woman’s voice whispers in a sing-song tone before fading. As much as she wanted to chase her down, the bunny had more important things to attend to- her friends.

“Girls, wake up. Are you okay?” She says while untying their restraints.

“Unnie…? What happened? I was just on lookout when-”

“It’s fine, Leeseo. I took care of it. Are you fit enough to move?”

“Y-yeah. Are Yujin-unnie and the others okay?” The maknae replies, Liz also slowly beginning to stir next to her. Wonyoung looks back at the warehouse where the sound of fighting had begun.

“I’m not sure, but we have to go to them now.”

~~~~

“It’s all just cars and appliances, Yujin. I couldn’t find anything.” Gaeul reports.

“Me neither. I tried scanning the scrapyard, but there’s just too much metal around.” Rei adds.The three girls had split up to search the warehouse for several minutes to no avail.

“There has to be something useful here.” The puppy says, hitting one of the support pillars in frustration.

“Wait, what’s that sound?” Gaeul asks, looking up towards the tarp-covered ceiling where she had heard something shake. Yujin smacks the pillar again, and this time, a screw falls down from one of the uncovered areas.

“Hmm… I did sense a lot of metal up there, but I thought it was just the frame supporting the roof.” Rei says before lifting a piece of scrap metal from the ground and using it to cut through the tarp.

“Oh my god…” Yujin says when she sees what was hanging on the ceiling… androids… rows and rows of androids.

“They have a whole army of those things already built up. Is this what they’ve been preparing all this time?” Gaeul mumbles, in awe of what they were looking at.

“They don’t look activated yet. Can you bring one down so I can take a look, Rei? I have an idea.” Yujin requests.

“Wait, wasn’t the mission to just see what they were doing? We have proof of KYB’s involvement, so shouldn’t we head back and report it?’ The older girl interjects.

“If we leave now without doing anything, it might be too late. The mission is what the mission becomes.” Yujin argues, repeating her request to Rei who complies, detaching one of the androids from its hook and lowering it down to them. Gaeul still didn’t like it, but the leader did have a point. These machines could be distributed across the country by the time they got back here.

“Yeah, this looks like what Nako and Hii-chan described. Rei, open the latch where its core is supposed to be.” The puppy says as she examines the robot. It was pretty chilling how similar it looked to a real person, the only noticeable difference being the hardness of its metal plating.

“These things could be walking around in public without anyone knowing.” Rei mutters while picking out the battery from the android’s back.

“I remember Kkura-unnie saying this could be set to overcharge and explode.” Yujin says, taking the battery and pressing some buttons on it while looking through the schematic they were given.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” Gaeul asks while looking over the android herself for other weaknesses.

“I’m a lot smarter than I look, unnie.” The puppy responds with a chuckle before flipping a switch that causes the battery to glow red. “According to the blueprint, this is what powers their energy blasts which means we can use it to blow up the other androids.”

Yujin was just about to ask Rei to bring down another android until a beeping noise began playing from above.

“There must’ve been a security warning if an android was removed without permission.” Gaeul realizes.

“But we’ve already had it down here for a while. It should’ve triggered earlier.” Rei replies over the sound of the alarm before dodging an energy blast.

Suddenly, the whole row where they got the android was activated, nine of them now hovering over the trio, cannons drawn. Yujin feels around for any water, but for some reason, she couldn’t find anything. It was as if someone had shut the water flow going to the pipes in the building.

“Yujin-unnie! What do we do?” Rei asks while throwing sheets of metal that cut right through the robots’ arms. They would try and reattach back just like the variation they’d fought, but Gaeul was decomposing every part that had fallen near her.

Yujin thinks hard, still not feeling any water around her. She wanted to throw the bomb at their attackers now, but ran that risk of activating the others if it wasn’t big enough. Doubts now began to fill her mind telling her she’d made a mistake.

“You could’ve just left and reported to Eunbi-unnie…” One voice whispers.

“You wanted to play the hero and now your team is at risk…” Said another.

“Yah, Yujin!” Gaeul says, running up to her leader who was frozen on the spot and shaking her shoulders. “Get a grip! Rei can’t do this alone!”

Those words wake the puppy up. She looks over to the Japanese girl who was lifting cars and swinging them towards the androids. Though she was doing a good job holding them off, it was clear that the effort was taking its toll. As the leader of IVE, she needed to protect her team.

Yujin digs deeper within herself. There had to be water somewhere… and that’s when she felt it, the slight tug of liquid. The puppy turned to where she was being directed and her eyes landed on barrels of engine oil. That has water in it too. She realizes.

“Gaeul, you get Rei out of here. I’ll stop this.” Yujin says.

“What??? I can’t just leave you here.” The older girl replies.

“Just trust me. It’s going to be alright, and if it doesn’t… tell Wonyoung I love her.” At this, Rei screams in pain as she gets hit by an energy attack from behind.

“GO!” Yujin yells as she forces the oil out of their barrels, lathering all of the androids in the yellowish liquid, even the ones hanging on the roof. Gaeul picks up Rei before placing her free hand on the closest wall to age it and create an opening. When Yujin sees that she is alone again, she activates the bomb and throws it to the closest robot who makes the mistake of shooting it…

~~~~

“Wonyoung-ah! Don’t go in there!” Gaeul shouts to her teammates who were just about to enter the warehouse.

“Gaeul-unnie? What happened to Rei? Wait, where’s Yujin?” Wonyoung asks, but before the older girl could answer, a huge explosion detonates behind them.

~~~~

“Wonyoung! Wonyoung wake up!” A muffled sounding voice calls. The bunny slowly opens her eyes to see Liz’ face. The blonde girl had managed to phase into the ground just as the explosion went off, which saved her from the brunt of the damage.

Wonyoung tried to get up, but immediately regretted it as her head began to ache. She then looks around and notices her other friends in a similar shape. After a couple seconds though, she finally realized someone important was missing.

“Yujin…Yujin…no, no, no. Where is she?” Wonyoung mutters, forcing herself to get up and limp towards the building that had been reduced to rubble. Fire was burning everywhere, the mushroom cloud created by the bomb still visible high in the sky.

“Wonyoung… we have to go.” Gaeul’s voice says weakly from behind.

“Not until we find Yujinnie!” Wonyoung was now screaming, lifting up bricks and metals using her mind to find her puppy until the Gaeul’s hand was on her shoulder.

“We can’t mess with the debris too much because it might cause another explosion.” Gaeul says, pointing at the oil puddles still spread on the floor. She then clears for the hard part.

“Wonyoung… Yujin wanted me to tell you-”

“NO! I know what you’re going to say! She can tell me herself!” The bunny shouts back, not wanting to hear it.

“I’m sorry…” Gaeul says, voice now broken seeing how distraught Wonyoung was.

“Girls, the police are coming. We have to go.” Liz interjects, the sound of sirens ringing through the streets towards them.

Wonyoung now looks back at the team. Leeseo and Rei were in tears, and the group as a whole all had injuries that needed to be treated on campus.

The bunny gives one more glance back at the rubble.

“I know you’re alive, Yujin… please make your way back to me.” And with that, the five girls hobble their way over to cover where they could call for a pickup.

 

A/N: Okay... i will start by apologizing for what just happened there. even i was hurt while writing that scene. All i'm going to say is that if you've read up until here, you know my writing style which means you gotta trust me lol. 

Aaanyway... there's really not much to say about this chapter. this is the final story, so you gotta expect things are dialed up to eleven by now. just trust it's gonna work out.

That being said, y'all might want to prepare your hearts for the next chapter too. It ain't gonna be super happy either.

Nevertheless, thank you to everyone's who's read the story so far! I appreciate you giving it a chance.

Have a relaxing day, and I'll see y'all in the next one!