“Oh, and by the way,” Jiyoon inspected her nails. “Did I mention that there’s another renegade loose in the area?” She looked up and smirked at CL. “Bleach blonde hair and pointed teeth just like mine.” She tapped her canines, laughing at the expression on CL’s face. “You probably know him, don’t you CL?”

“What do you want, Jiyoon?” Sungkyu growled, his hand still resting on CL’s forearm. He pushed her almost perceptibly behind him, and she found herself staring into his profile as he glared determinedly at Jiyoon. I wish I could protect people like you do.

“Hmm. Good question. I want…” Jiyoon traced the barrel of her gun against her chin. An expression of realization crossed her face and her eyes lit up as she pointed her finger at Sungkyu. “I know! I want you,” she raised her gun, the smile disappearing. “To die.”

“Duck!” Sungkyu shoved CL aside as she pulled the trigger. He rolled to the side, firing rapidly at Jiyoon as she laughed and dodged with catlike ability, boots making no sound on the concrete ground. “Not as on point as you used to be, Gyu!” she cackled, pulling herself up on to a steel beam with superhuman ease. CL threw several shurikens at her, which she simply aimed at and shot down. The shards landed by CL’s hands, and she stared up at Jiyoon, new terror reflected in her eyes.

“CL,” Sungkyu panted, yanking her in. “I want you to run, I want you to go back to the church, get Jepp and Min, and run. Far away, and don’t look back.”

“I’m not leaving you!” CL seethed.

"Get out of here, you rabbit-eared fool!"

"NO!"

“I’m ready when you are Gyu~” Jiyoon sang as she pirouetted on her perch, strutting it as a gymnast would a balance beam. “Saying your last goodbyes? How sweet.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m disappointed you didn’t extend the same courtesy to me!” she ended the sentence in a snarl, and launched herself from the beam, sending a spray of bullets over their heads as they leapt aside. CL skidded to a halt on one knee, producing a knife from the inside of her boot and aiming with deadly accuracy at Jiyoon as she flew over them.

“Gotta try harder than that honey,” Jiyoon stretched out a hand and caught the knife in midair, flipping it around in her fingers and throwing it back. CL scrambled backwards as her own weapon lodged into the ground right where her head had been only a few seconds before. She raised her eyes and spotted Sungkyu running along a beam, both guns aimed at Jiyoon as she landed on the beam opposite.

“Sungkyu…” she whispered warningly, scrambling to her feet and yanking the knife out of the ground before sprinting towards him and running up the beam.

“Now!” he yelled as he spotted her, and she gave out a yell as she launched herself off, knife stretched high above her head. Sungkyu gritted his teeth and opened fire.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion; as the first bullets left the barrel Jiyoon raised an arm, the skin peeling back from her fingers to reveal sleek metal beneath, which began shifting before Sungkyu’s eyes. It all happened in microseconds, parts rearranging into a weapon which greatly resembled a chainsaw, sharp blades glinting in the dim light. As he watched her pupils turned to vertical slits, her irises turning clear and rimmed red. The ebony in her hair faded away until she was left with a white head and indigo tips. Her expression was more than animalistic; it was beastly. “CL!” he bellowed, realizing what was about to happen a microsecond too late. The bullets rebounded off the sleek surface and Jiyoon flashed him a grin before swinging her blade at CL, slashing her across the ribs as she closed in. Blood sprayed from the wound as CL let out a distressed cry, falling to the ground in a cloud of dust, her back arched and eyes wide with pain.

Sungkyu was by her side before Jiyoon could move, heaving her arm over his shoulder and dragging her into the steel and concrete jungle, trying to keep his breathing as silent as possible, a hand over . Finding a spot where the foundations had given way, he dropped in and laid CL gently on her back. “It’s me she wants,” he whispered, watching her skin sew itself back together. She stared wildly back at him, one eye pale blue and the other amber yellow. There was a reason she kept her fringe over one eye – with her rabbit ears she was already a freak. She didn’t need to display the heterochromia as well.

“You. Can’t. Fight. Her,” she wheezed, and Sungkyu clapped a hand over again, a finger to his lips. He pressed himself to the side of the pit, eyes trained on Jiyoon’s boots as she stalked around.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” she sang, and they heard the blades whirring in her mechanical arm. “You can’t run from me Gyu~.”

“Run,” Sungkyu mouthed at CL. She knocked his hand aside and got to her feet, skin tinged pink where her wound had regenerated.

“I’m the one who can heal,” she hissed at him. “She’ll kill you without hesitation; you’re no match for her. Did you see that arm of hers? What do you have to fight her with?” She grabbed his arm and brandished Weiss at him. “That woman is a monster and two measly guns aren’t going to kill her again, Sungkyu.”

“If you die who’s going to protect Jepp?” he retorted in a harsh whisper. “You’re capable enough to get him and run. It’s me she wants and it’s me she’s going to get. Don’t you get it CL? She’ll kill me and then she’ll kill you and if you’re out of the picture there will be no one left to save this god-forsaken place.”

They stared at each other in tense silence, chests heaving with effort before CL realized that Jiyoon had stopped singing. “Where-,” she started, when a mechanical whir behind her had her blood running cold.

“Found you,” Jiyoon smiled.

CL and Sungkyu dived out of the pit, running in separate directions. “GO!” he bellowed at her. “I can handle her!” Jiyoon let out a mocking laugh as she followed him up a flight of stairs, the concrete crumbling beneath their feet.

“Yes, better run CL,” she sing-songed. “Because when precious Gyu here is dead, there’ll be no one left to save you from the Facility.” She ducked to the side as Sungkyu rained bullets upon her, returning her own with full force. CL stopped as she stumbled into the open, staring at the firefight carrying on above her head. She could not stop her hands shaking; she had never experienced fear like this before.

“I’ll come back for you,” she whispered, eyes trained on the figure reloading his bullets. “I’ll definitely come back.”

And she turned and ran.

Sungkyu heaved a sigh of relief as he watched CL disappear, then turned back to find Jiyoon flexing the sleek metallic fingers of her other hand before her. “Pretty, isn’t it?” she crooned. “And oh so powerful. It was almost worth dying to get these babies put in me. I can transform them at will and it only takes a second to do.”

“What are you?” Sungkyu whispered, backing up the stairs. He glanced down to gauge his distance; he was still only a storey above the ground, he could jump that with no problem. “What did they do to you?”

“Me?” Jiyoon blinked at him, the rings around her irises contracting slightly. “They only enhanced me, darling.” She lifted her chainsaw arm and inspected it. “These are one of a kind. And I’m one of a kind. Probably the only Hunter to be brought back from the dead. Even in the Facility it doesn’t happen very often.”

“The Facility?” Sungkyu breathed, eyes widening slightly. Kwon Yuri. The Facility, Deepground.

“Yes,” Jiyoon said quietly. “The Facility. They took me in when you took everything away from me. They took me in when you abandoned me and let me die.”

“Jiyoon, I -.”

The next second he was forced to leap to the floor below as Jiyoon sent a blade spinning at him. “You’re wide open,” she said softly as it grazed him on the cheek, and he rolled away, gasping. “Enough of the chitchat.” She flicked her other hand and it rearranged into an identical chainsaw, before jumping and landing effortlessly on her feet as dust flew up around her. She straightened and took a step toward Sungkyu, blue lights illuminating in her weapons as her blades began whirring.

“Time to die.”

-

“Oh, you’re back,” Jepp called out lazily as CL burst through the front door, her chest heaving from exertion. His legs were propped up on the pew in front, nose buried in a magazine. If CL didn’t know any better she’d have thought that his magazine had women in it but this was Jepp; with Jepp it was always weapons and, a little oddly, music. “So how did the business trip go?”

“Jepp, we can’t stay here,” CL wheezed, bolting the door behind her and practically sprinting up the aisle, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him along behind her.

“What?” he asked, bewildered, trying to free himself from her grasp (it was hard to run when someone nearly 20cm shorter was pulling you by the collar). He stumbled over his own feet and collapsed to his knees, magazine disappearing under a pew. “CL,” his eyes widened as he stared up at her, taking in the blood spattered on the side of her face, the pure terror etched into her expression. “What the hell happened?”

“It’s not safe, we’ve got to go!” CL cried out with a violent shake of her head. “Where’s Min?” She took off without waiting for an answer, leaving him to robotically get to his knees and follow blindly.

“What’s going on?” Min emerged cautiously from her room at the ruckus coming from the stairs. “CL?” she gasped slightly, catching sight of her. “What happened?” She looked around. “Where’s Sungkyu?”

CL shook her head speechlessly, her expression hysterical. Jepp and Min exchanged glances, and then Jepp flew at her, pinning her back to the wall. Min ran to the kitchen to the emergency lolly jar. Her hands shook a little as she unscrewed the top, and she stared at them a little curiously. It was then that it hit her – she was scared. CL’s refusal to reveal Sungkyu’s whereabouts had her blood running cold. Don’t think of the worse, she scolded herself. She’s just having sugar withdrawal, that’s all. “Min!” a deep voice yelled. An accompanying shrill scream snapped her out of her thoughts, and she snatched up a few gummies, running back into the living room and shoving them unceremoniously into CL’s mouth. The latter’s eye widened, and a second later her breathing calmed down. When Jepp released her she slumped to the floor, curling her knees up to her chest.

“CL,” Jepp crouched down beside her. “What happened? Where’s Sungkyu?” he repeated. The unaffected grin that usually graced his features had disappeared. Min stood silently by his side, watching with wary eyes.

“They found us,” CL whispered, raising her eyes to his. “They’re coming.”

“Now you’re starting to sound like one of those weird alien-end-of-the-world books that Min’s always reading,” Jepp deadpanned, and Min dug her sealed scythe into the back of his head. “Those books are brilliant,” she said completely robotically, expression set and grim.

“Yeah, yeah, anyway, who’s coming? And why have they found us?” Jepp rubbed the back of his head where a small lump was beginning to form, and winced slightly. Min knew how to pack a punch when she wanted to.

“The Facility,” CL said very clearly. Jepp stiffened, and Min made a small movement that no one really noticed.

“What?” he managed after a slight pause. He scratched his hair and tried to grin, tried to smile it off, but a memory was burning in his head and he just ended up looking pained. Min looked back and forth between them, slight recognition beginning to show on her face. “What would the Facility want us for?” He shook his head slightly, trying to throw the images back into the long forgotten, dusty box in the back of his mind, trying to pretend that everything was fine. “Wait,” he looked up, “How do you know what the Facility is? And who is us?”

“Jepp,” CL began, but he shoved his arms up against her shoulder and pinned her to the wall. “Answer me, CL,” his eyes narrowed, expression dangerous.

“Us meaning you,” she replied distinctly, gaze boring into his. He twitched slightly, a nerve straining in his neck, eyes imploring her to go on. “And me,” her voice cracked on the last word, and her gaze wavered and dropped.

“You,” he repeated. “You? What do you have to do with the Facility?”

In response, CL pushed his slackened hand off her shoulder and turned around to face her back to them. She pulled off her jacket, gathered her hair to one side and reached back to the collar of her top down to her shoulder blades. Hesitant, she parted the pered sides. “I have everything to do with the Facility,” she said in a low voice as Min and Jepp stared, horrified, at the back of her neck where a chip protruded out from beneath her skin. Tattooed clearly above it were the numbers 1340.

CL slowly faced them. Min’s dark eyes wre widened in horror, but the look on Jepp’s face was unfathomable. “Who are you?” he whispered, a hint of fear on the edge of his rough voice.

“Experiment 40, Batch 13,” CL intoned, expressionless, her visible eye distant. “Experiment name: CL. Hunter. Mission: find Experiment 57, Batch 15 and bring him back to the Facility. Do not kill him. Experiment name -.”

A hand shot out and wrapped itself around , slamming her back against the wall. Min gasped in surprise. “Jepp!” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around his torso and attempting to pull him back as CL gagged silently, hands scrabbling helplessly against his skin. “Jepp, what’s wrong with you?”

“Experiment name,” Jepp growled, his eyes murderous and an expression no one had ever seen before painted over his face. “Yong Guk.”

And he closed his eyes as the beast within his chest gave an almight roar of triumph and ungulfed everything in black.