Title: Drenched, Drownded

pg-13, adventure, hurt/comfort
(MAMA!AU) After a mission on earth gone horribly wrong, EXO-K is missing and feared dead. EXO-M is tasked with the impossible; to bring the 12 back together and come out of Earth alive. What makes it worse - EXO-K's powers are now corrupted, and they would stop at nothing to kill EXO-M. 

Chapter 2

I’m sorry

But I think you’ll understand this eventually

Still, bloodless lips and a fragile body

-          Nell, Act 5

“The origins of Guardians–” Kyungsoo began. Then, all seriousness dissipated from his voice when he interjected, annoyed, “Tao, what did you just do.”

Tao looked up, alarmed, in the middle of gesturing rudely in mid-air. He was leaning his back against Kris’s shoulder, with a tiny brown common moth hovering near his fingers. He had acquired it from that day’s training with specimen. The problem was; the moth was frozen, impossibly still in the air.

“I stopped time?” he confessed sheepishly.

“We’re never going to have this meeting proper,” Xiu Min sighed, and looked around for something to preoccupy him in the meantime. He poked Chen on the shoulder. “Don’t you think you’d have raised suspicion with the continuous lightning flashes just now?”

Chen narrowed his eyes at the touch, but Xiu Min just smiled at him. There were perks to being the oldest Guardian; no matter how insufferable Xiu Min might be, which was not often though, the others wouldn’t show him too much disrespect. “Food for thought.”

“Everyone is used to it,” Chen disregarded flippantly.

“Tao, can the scientists track what you just did?” Kyungsoo emphasized sharply. “Baekhyun wasn’t exaggerating his concerns, you know.”

Tao shook his head.

“Go on,” prompted Kris, this time his voice hardening. “Let Tao be; we need all the time we can get if you want to explain this properly.”

Kyungsoo wiped his face with his hand. With a look from Kris, he dropped his bombshell without preamble. “Our generation has a significantly larger pool of Guardians,” he pointed out, “because some of us are genetically-modified humans.”

Humans.

Some of them were humans.

XXX

“That’s not possible,” countered Xiu Min matter-of-factly, cutting through the shocked silence. At this, Kyungsoo exchanged another glance with Lay, and gave a slight nod. The two of them were expecting the interruption, Xiu Min realised, his eyes never leaving the two of them since Kyungsoo had begun talking. Furthermore, they had expected the interruption from him. Nevertheless, he continued. “The East facility is dedicated to researching Guardians. We know that there is a specific genetic pattern that Guardians have. But specifically, all Guardians recorded in history are from Exoplanet. Not Earth.”

“Apparently, the East facility is passive in their research,” Kyungsoo said bluntly, bowing his head in apology to Xiu Min, Luhan and Tao. “The Central facility is not satisfied. They told me – the scientists want to send a team of us to Earth and study us for ‘research purposes’.”

“That’s all?” Kris asked critically, propping up his elbow on the dining table and leaning his chin on his hand.

 Kyungsoo continued. “This is where past information starts to become relevant. We think this team will be a mix of human and Guardian. Some of us will be in our natural environment then, and the scientists predicted a tenfold increase in the magnitude of our power. For the naturally-born Guardians, our powers may be weakened or may hold steady.”

“We already know who the humans are,” Sehun said in a slow voice. Wonderful hierarchy, lower castes keep getting added. Guardians, Experiments… Humans. He sought for Chen.

“That’s against the law,” Xiu Min exclaimed. “Who is They, Kyungsoo?”

“Not the East facility,” Tao said firmly, with fierce pride in his district. “Experimenting on people; Exoplanetarians or humans, is abominable.”

“We’re not in the East facility anymore,” Suho reminded them all quietly. “Not everywhere is a bed of roses. In fact, how is experimenting on people different from what Kyungsoo is telling us? Project Earth is an entire experiment on us. We’re not in training anymore – we’re lab rats.”

Learn from our diagnostics, thought Chen, eyeing Sehun, whose pallid complexion seemed to waxen as the conversation progressed. Then, he spoke up for the first time. “What kind of set-ups on Earth can we expect?”

The matter-of-fact exterior finally broke. “Don’t know,” Lay shrugged, spreading his hands out in a useless gesture. “All known information, given or learnt, stops here.”

“Why would they want to study us on Earth?” Luhan spoke up, his expression settled into a thoughtful gaze. He used his forefinger to swirl the water contents in his glass. “We’ve been in training together as twelve for five years already. Why only now?”

There was a pause. Then; “Our generation awakened prematurely,” said Baekhyun clearly.

Eleven voices resounded as one. “What?”

“I found this out. Guardians become Trainers, and help with the different facilities. Our existence is supposed to protect the heart of Exoplanet. But the previous Trainers are still here. They’re aging, but they can still train the next batch of Guardians, who are just starting to awaken this year.”

“We are expendables,” Kris summarised, his face clouding over darkly.

“Huh?” Chanyeol, predictably, voiced.

Baekhyun tightened his grip on Chanyeol’s arm. “They’re killing us.”

“They wouldn’t do that to the Guardians,” Tao denied again, shaking his head. Suho looked pitifully at each of the three East facility Guardians. They alone seem to be pointing out the flaws in Kyungsoo’s theory, unwilling to believe anything bad of the facility. He spoke up.

“The research material; they can use it on the new generation of Guardians. We know that test-tube Guardians can live.” He smiled tiredly at the irony. “The possibilities of the North facility’s technology are endless.”

“They’re trying to create better versions of us,” Kris said slowly, the words leaving a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. As a Guardian from the South facility, he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the bizarre words that left Kyungsoo’s mouth. The South facility fiercely prided in their powerful naturally-born Guardians. They were considered the best already. “Why not get rid of the old ones, while at the same time benefitting in research?”

“It’s about politics too,” realised Baekhyun, “if they kill us on Earth, we would have died ‘by accident’, and not at their hands per se.”

“Wait,” Xiu Min said, raising both his hands for attention. Inadvertedly, the temperatures around him began fluctuating slightly. The dormitories became extremely uncomfortable, with the heat leaping up aggressively from Chanyeol’s side of the room and the cold permeating smoothly from Xiu Min’s side. “Where’s the backing proof that this Project Earth is a suicide mission?”

“Me,” Lay said simply. “Project Earth involves six people in its first phase. I’m not going for the first round. I know I have an assignment. I can’t heal anybody then.”

Xiu Min considered it, but remained indecisive. “Any other evidence?”

Kyungsoo nodded. “I asked Chen to check some things, as soon as I came out from the Project Earth debriefing.”

Chen did not cower from the gazes that fell on him. “I’m good with electricity and technology, given my power and that I’m from the North facility. I went to find the spaceship that they’re building for EXO-K – the first round of Guardians.” He added for Suho’s sake, who was frowning in puzzlement. “The communication systems are useless; their projected wireless range falls laughably short within the perimeters of Earth, yet alone to reach Exoplanet. And the ship? It’s made so haphazardly, it’s a confirmed one-way trip.”

XXX

Next Day

Three black cats floated, petrified, in single cylinder filled with yellow liquid that was meant to preserve their bodies. Baekhyun bent down to study the smallest cat’s face. It was barely a kitten; with its eyes burnt off so that black sockets stared blankly back at him. Baekhyun shivered, and straightened up.

“Chanyeol,” he asked in a small voice, looking over his shoulder. “Do you ever- ever feel like we’re using our powers wrongly sometimes, during training?”

“Hmm?” Chanyeol looked up and put both hands behind the back of his head, intertwining his fingers together. He was examining a scorched black animal, its feathers burnt to a toasty crisp and crumbling to light grey ashes by the edges. “No. Not really.”

“Of course not,” Baekhyun commented, in light dismay. “The South facility’s training is intense, isn’t it? You are probably used to even weirder methods to test your abilities.” He glanced back down at the blinded cat, and then at his own hands.

Chanyeol grinned, but did not respond. Baekhyun did not expect one – the South facility was fiercely protective of their training regime, as it was claimed to bring out the full potential and better of any Guardian. It was the only advantage that the South facility had. Without their brute force in their Guardian’s abilities, they were useless compared to the technology the North facility wielded and the research the East facility contributed.

It was startling how fast Chanyeol got from one end of the room to the other. “Don’t grow soft!” Chanyeol sang in mock warning into his ear. Baekhyun whirled around, startled, and was greeted by an index finger shaking from left to right like a pendulum in his face.

“I’m not,” exclaimed Baekhyun, raising his chin in faux haughtiness. To prove his point, he slammed Chanyeol’s hand down onto the display, so hard that the cylinder shook slightly.

Chanyeol blinked at the unexpected force and turned to the shorter man, the smile erased from his face. “What’s the matter, Baekhyun? Are you worried about Project Earth?” They had their final testing, before they left, in two hours. “You’ll be fine!”

“No- I mean yes, but that’s not what’s on my mind right now.”

There was a pause. Then, “Um, you certainly explained that so well.”

Baekhyun gave Chanyeol a Look, and the latter shrugged his shoulders mischievously. “These things we test our powers on,” he said clearly, gesturing towards the paralysed kitten. “I don’t even know what this- this thing is called, but it was moving and breathing and creating these sounds as if it were sentient. When I blinded it and the light grew hotter in my hands… the sounds just stopped. Is it cruel?”

“No, it means you passed your test,” Chanyeol answered in confusion.

“It was like it died,” Baekhyun insisted, “because of me.”

“The scientists told us they created these things,” Chanyeol recalled, looking around the entire room at large. There was barely enough space to walk; cages, cylinders, tanks occupied every crook and cranny. The Specimen Room. “They don’t exist in real life, Baekhyun; they’re a figment of the scientists’ imagination.”

“I think I’ve seen these things before,” refuted Baekhyun stubbornly. Chanyeol simply looked at Baekhyun with big, worried eyes. All at once, Baekhyun knew that he was frightening the younger man with his talk on having experimented on – if Baekhyun was right – living things.

It reminded him too much of Kyungsoo’s revelation.

XXX

There was already a predetermined list of names of those assigned to Project Earth. It was buried deep within the thick brown folder that was gathering dust in the shadows underneath Kyungsoo’s bed; a small crumpled scrap of paper that fit the palm of his hand, names penned down in chicken scratch handwriting. It was left by accident, but Kyungsoo didn’t notice it anyway. There were too many other things to think about and read up on.

Nobody knew about its existence, yet. To the Guardians’ knowledge, their picking for EXO-K would be based on the tests to be carried out in the two days before take-off.

XXX

Like Sehun, Xiu Min consciously never used his power in front of others. Unlike Sehun, it wasn’t because of sheer stubbornness, but rather his changed appearance frightened the other party even more than his power did. Xiu Min preferred his role as teasing older brother, not resident bogeyman.

A naturally-born guardian did not die to awaken his power, but rather the power manifested itself in everyday life. Tao had always been playing with time to his knowledge, not remembering a period he couldn’t. To him, time was like a panel of icons displayed in front of him in the air that only he could decipher. It was the oddest game of tap-tap; poking his hands to go to other time plane, making stretching motions to elongate time, chopping down sharply to zoom forward. He took intense pleasure in his power, a trait not many of the others shared.

Xiu Min and Chanyeol were unique to the naturally-born guardians, because they both had essentially died because of their element. Chanyeol refused to talk about it to anyone, but they all knew how Xiu Min had kicked the bucket. It showed in horrifying clarity and detail, once he let his fingertips be covered with thin sheets of ice and started breathing out white mist.

Sehun shivered in the cold, his eyes never leaving Xiu Min. At least, this was an excuse not to use his power yet – the icy wind would simply slap himself across his face, since Xiu Min was immune to the cold.

The two of them were in the training gymnasium, in a court sectioned off by a thin cemented wall on one side, and plexiglass on the opposite side. White coat scientists hovered by their machines, geared up to receive data.

“Ice Guardian, aim for zero temperature,” intoned a bored voice over the intercom, echoing disjointedly in the enclosed training space. “Wind Guardian, protect yourself.”

Xiu Min tried to look apologetic, but his face had already taken a plastic sheen, like a fresh burn scar. Dark blue and black colouring bruised parts of his face. His skin was akin to a corpse, white, pallid, devoid of blood flow. Dotted patches around his mouth were black, rotted. The side of his nose caved in, and his left cheekbone was sunken and shrivelled.

Frostbite killed Xiu Min.

“We’re reporting 10 degrees Celsius.”

Sehun sank to his knees. The white floors skated with cracked ice, as layers were created above existing ones. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to conserve body heat.

The intercom clicked again. “You , use your powers to create a warm updraft,” a rough voice ordered. In spite of the cold, Sehun still manage to scowl at the familiar voice of his Trainer.

Xiu Min glanced towards the tinted plexiglass. If it weren’t for Sehun’s presence, he would have been already bored with the passive exercise. This test was meant for Sehun, not himself. “He isn’t reacting well,” he stated, “can I sto–”

“He isn’t reacting at all!” Sehun’s Trainer bellowed. “Don’t stop until something comes out from him. I don’t care what he does, just anything. I’m at the end of my patience.”

“We’re reporting 4 degrees Celsius.” The maknae had stopped moving. “Wind Guardian, you need to show how you may adapt to extreme cold environments on Earth.”

“Is this how you do your testing for Project Earth?” the bored voice came back. “If you still show no signs of power, we will be forced to put another member in consideration over you in priority. Perhaps the Telekinetic.”

It was the wrong – right? – thing to say. Sehun’s scowl deepened. He flexed his fingers, which were trembling in the cold. Without looking up, or otherwise moving from his curled up position, he began swirling his index finger on the ground, tracing a perfect circle on the chipped ice.

“We’re reporting 2 degrees Celsius.”

Xiu Min ignored the mechanical voice, studying Sehun. His dark brown hair was flecked with white, as the moisture in the air slowly solidified. Sehun wasn’t trying to protect himself, but he was doing something to the cold. If Xiu Min’s power was compared to a mould of dough, Sehun was slowly wrapping his hand around Xiu Min’s power, influencing it, shaping it.

“We’re reporting –”

A blast of icy wind suddenly concentrated on the single speaker attached near the top of the gymnasium wall. There was a sharp sound, like a sword slicing the air fast, and the voice got cut off. There was an angry howl of wind, and blast after blast targeted the small square area of the plastic rod that attached the speaker to the wall. In less than a minute, a tell-tale crack echoed and the square speaker dropped. Sehun made a sweeping movement with his index and middle finger, and the speaker suddenly veered off-course from its free fall to smash onto the plexiglass.

XXX

Sehun’s Trainer didn’t move an inch, despite having the plastic object hurled directly into his face. He recognised the momentary disappointment that clouded the boy’s face, when the glass didn’t break.

He elbowed aside an intern, who still had his finger on the blue intercom button. “Switch on the other speaker,” he commanded, and slammed his palm down on the button. “SEHUN! You just broke expensive equipment!”

They waited for his response, but all they got was the cackling of ice breaking. Xiu Min was pulling back in his power.

“You should answer them,” they heard Xiu Min advice Sehun in reasonable tones. “You promised Luhan that you’d behave.”

Sehun turned his back to the plexiglass, but there were hidden cameras placed around the gymnasium. A close-up of Sehun’s pouting face was projected on the four screens in the left wall of the control room. It was the friendliest emotion Sehun ever displayed in front of his Trainer.

“You didn’t do as your Trainer instructed, but you did something,” the head scientist said. He rubbed the side of his nose in irritation. “If you pull another stunt like that, we will take action. Other than that… that was interesting to watch. You utilised another’s power with your own. The North facility is not slacking, I see. I wonder how compatible you will be with the Fire Guardian.”

Sehun’s face fell. None of them liked to battle with the intense heat from the flickering flames. Chanyeol’s apologetic smile after training made it impossible to hate on him, so the Guardians were simply left with a gaping feeling of inadequacy.

“Sehun, we’re having training. Now. The other one; you stay, you’ll be testing others today.”

XXX

“Whoever is chosen for EXO-K, we need to help them,” Tao insisted. There were nine members called away for training or testing, leaving behind Luhan, Tao and Lay. They were willing away time in the dormitories, savouring the rare leisure hours. “We can’t just let them… go.”

“How?” Lay asked in genuine interest, looking up from his guitar. He was perched on the armchair of the sofa. “The EXO-K flight takes off tomorrow.” The meeting had adjourned for the rest of the members to take in the information learned properly. No plan was made yet.

Tao pointed to Luhan. “You’re powerful,” he said simply. The older boy had a blank look on his face. The Rubik’s cube clicked into position. Luhan then held his hands together in a clapping position, and swept his right palm over his left as if he was dealing cards. The faces of the colourful cube shifted immediately, disorganizing it.

Lay ducked his head to hide a smile. It was just like the young boy to place his trust so whole-heartedly on the older Guardians. “When I was talking to Kyungsoo yesterday, we agreed that the best bet for survival is to repair the spaceship. We can’t realistically do anything more than that.” Options like running away hardly crossed their minds; what other home did the Guardians have apart from the facility? “EXO-K will have to improvise on Earth, but with the spaceship ready, they can return anytime.”

“’Realistically’,” echoed Luhan, crossing his arms.

Tao ignored the sarcasm, and sat up straight in his chair. “The North facility Guardians can do that.”

“Chen did look at the spaceship,” Lay pointed out.

“He did,” Tao said, his voice becoming louder in agitated excitement, “but he didn’t say he couldn’t fix it.”

The Rubik’s cube fell onto the ceramic tiles with a clatter. Luhan exchanged wide-eyed glances with Lay.

“It’s just like Chen not to go beyond his duty,” Lay murmured thoughtfully.

“I could strangle him!” Luhan exclaimed, and shot up from his seat at the dining table. “Let’s go find him!”

XXX

If there was one person who could make being fresh out of training look cool, it was Kris. He was sitting in the small cafeteria reserved for the Guardians, tucked away in the corner of the first level near the study room. He grasped the steaming cup of coffee with both hands, inhaling the rich scent. At the far end, they could see Chen hunched over a piece of paper. He looked up once, when the three other Guardians came in. There was an indescribable look on his face, at the way he glanced from Kris to Lay, and then back to Kris.

“You don’t drink coffee,” Tao greeted in surprise, putting both hands on the table and leaning his weight on them.  

Kris didn’t look up.

Lay stood behind Kris’s chair, smiling lightly. He flexed his hands in the air in front of him, and without warning, dug his fingers into the tense neck muscles. Stifling a cry of pain, Kris arched his back, lifting his neck. There were white lashes in thin strips on his throat. His eyes were opened, and blank. There were only the whites of his eyes.

“Get Tao out!” Lay quickly ordered to Luhan, his smile disappearing. Then, Kris gripped Lay’s hands from behind.

“I’m fine,” Kris said. His voice was raspy to hear, as it always was after his transformation to his dragon form. “Kris won’t hurt him.”

Luhan had grabbed Tao and forced him back, so that Kris wouldn’t be able to reach him from arm’s length. He tried blocking Tao from view, as far as his willowy figure could allow him to. At the way Kris spoke of himself in third person, Luhan looked at Lay, fearful for him to still stand in such close proximity to the dragon. Kris hadn’t completely phased back yet.

“Why did you turn into dragon form?” Lay asked calmly, continuing to knead Kris’s shoulders. He met Luhan’s gaze, and slowly shook his head. No, don’t leave. That would be defying the dragon’s orders, and anger him. Right now, Lay was trying to get Kris to think rationally with his question, like a man.

“Phoenix was forced to change too,” Kris growled, and he curled his fingers. Tao noticed that his fingernails were still long, grey and dirty. They were claws. Tao kept quiet, but looked up to Luhan’s focused gaze. Tao followed Luhan’s gaze to the half-opened door, which led to the kitchen that Kyungsoo sometimes used, to the knife cabinet.

“’Forced’?” repeated Lay.

Kris made a sound of frustration at the back of his throat, unable to piece together words coherently yet. He turned his head. Tao felt as though someone was looking at him, and turned back to Kris. It was strange to look at Kris, because the white eyes made it impossible to guess to what Kris was looking back at. Tao had never seen Kris in his half-form; only as a man, and a fully-turned dragon from behind thick, protective glass. From the way the older two were acting, evidently they had.

“The boy,” Kris elaborated with effort. “Light.”

“Baekhyun!” exclaimed Tao, before Luhan slapped a hand over his mouth.

“Baekhyun?” Kris lowered his head back to the coffee. He hated coffee. He knew that.

He remembered that. Finally.

From his corner, Chen could see the scowl play on Kris’s face, as he pushed back the cup of coffee away from himself. Chen studied Kris thoughtfully. He had seen the latter pour himself the coffee shakily about half an hour ago, and sit still by himself. So the coffee was his homemade litmus test, to see whether his dragon had retreated completely.

Interesting, he thought, before shifting his focus back to his work.

“There were the three of us in the gymnasium,” Kris said, and when he looked up again, his eyes were back to normal. Luhan visibly relaxed his shoulders, and he made a sweeping motion with his hands. There was a decided click from the kitchen, as the cabinet locked back again. He pulled up a chair in the table, and patted the seat next to him for Tao.

Lay did not stop his massage. “That’s not usual.”

“No it isn’t,” Kris agreed. “Chanyeol was upset, obviously. It wasn’t me vs. Chanyeol this time. They wanted Baekhyun to blind the both of us, in our other forms.”

“Baekhyun isn’t strong enough,” Luhan said in a hushed voice. He took the cup of coffee from Kris, and lifted the half-opened lid completely to drink.

“Chanyeol actually yelled at Baekhyun’s Trainer,” Kris admitted, still sounding astonished by the fact. “He nearly gave us away too, but Baekhyun stopped him. He was playing with his lights, shining it into Chanyeol’s eyes. Then he did it to me too. It hurt like goddamned. There was prickling heat, and he kept switching it on and off. It made the dragon angry.”

“He shouldn’t have done that,” Luhan groaned, his voice muffled in the cup. “They shouldn’t have asked him to do that.”

“Is Baekhyun alright?” Lay asked worriedly.

Kris looked away. The screams from the boy still resounded in his head. It made him sick, because the dragon had been satisfied by the sound; pleased that the boy causing pain was hurt. “I don’t know. He blinded me first. A dragon’s eyes aren’t their strong point, and he knew it. Baekhyun’s smarter than we give him credit for. They pulled me out, and they left the two of them in.” Kris scowled even deeper. “I don’t even know if Chanyeol can pull out from phoenix form voluntarily now. The phoenix likes the dragon; he’s fascinated by it and they’ve grown up side by side. Our trainings together are like a game to the phoenix. I’ve never seen the phoenix angry before, because Chanyeol is never angry during training, until today.”

“I’ll go,” mused Lay, looking at the exit door. “I need to go.”

“The white-coats have nothing left to lose,” Chen said quietly, as they watched Lay quickly leave. He had gotten up, and was standing near the table, clutching the piece of paper in his hands. “Baekhyun was never ready to battle the phoenix before, not in the previous years. Today is their last chance to see if he can do it.”

“Are you defending them?” Kris kept the anger from his voice, but it was evident in his glare.

Chen stared back, but looked back down after a brief moment. There was something off about him. Exhaustion was evident in the way he held himself. Luhan felt a squeeze of pity surge through him. Sehun had exuded the same aura the night before, after his punishment. That was when Luhan realised that he inexplicably knew where Chen had been in the morning.

“They won’t dare to kill Baekhyun in his own facility,” Chen said instead, with underlying steady confidence. “He’ll live.”

The atmosphere in the cafeteria had turned awkward, and tense. “We were looking for you,” Tao jumped in, kicking back the legs of the chair beside him for Chen. “Last night, you said that something was wrong with ‘it’.”

It took a moment for Chen to connect the dots, they could all see that. Anger vanished even from Kris, as he asked in genuine concern, “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Chen brushed away brusquely. “I- This isn’t a good place to talk.”

“We just want to know, can you fix it?” Tao insisted.

Chen offered the paper he was holding to Tao. His right hand was trembling as he did. Upon closer inspection, there were bruises already starting to discolour his skin in patches.

“You’re really stupid,” Luhan told him suddenly, unable to keep quiet. “You should have asked Lay to heal you while he was here.”

Tao unrolled the paper underneath the table. There was the drawing of the space ship, with detailed pencil sketches beside the squared boxes that Chen had highlighted. Writing was scribbled in miniscule spidery handwriting in the margins. He had been working on the improvements the entire night, and into the morning.

Awed, Tao asked again. “Does it work?” Kris and Luhan exchanged glances, realising without looking what Tao was holding.

“It won’t work, not without major changes.” Chen rubbed his eyes blearily. “We can’t stop it from crashing.”

XXX To Be Continued XXX

A/N: Long chapter. Project Earth is EXO-K's termination, being sent to Earth to die. Sehun hates using his power. Xiu Min uses his power. Baekhyun thinks Earth animals should be treated better, without knowing why he thinks so. EXO-M tries to think of a way to save EXO-K. Kris in semi-transformation. Note the foreshadowing of the predetermined list - who put it there? Urgh guys, this is so hard to write. Are you picturing the depressing training centre that EXO is living in like I am? I'm trying to write character dynamics as well as I can. If you notice, EXO is already violent to each other no matter how close they are, because they've grown up to train to reach full power potential e.g. Suho and Luhan in Ch1, and now Baekhyun and Chanyeol in Ch2. So how violent do you think they will be when they have reason to?