Min got heavily to her feet, breathing hard through her nose.  She looked up at the black observatory box embedded in the wall above her, knowing that Yuri was watching her every move. She looked at the collar she held in her hands, the silver spikes glistening with warm, sticky blood. She dropped it, looking back up at the window; it landed at her feet with a dull clang in the bright red ocean she had created.

A door slid open and Yuri appeared. Min only watched as she made her way towards her, her expression tender.

“Oh, Min,” Yuri sighed, enveloping her in a tight hug. Min said nothing, and when Yuri pulled away the front of her white lab coat was stained vermillion.

“Congratulations darling,” Yuri’s cool fingers rounded her chin and rubbed away a streak of blood on her cheek. “You’re a fully-fledged Hunter.”

“Just crawl through the vents, she said,” Jepp muttered to himself, sweat dripping down the side of his face. He scrubbed at his forehead roughly with the back of his hand and sighed. “It’ll be easy, she said.” He motioned to the last Snatcher, who ran at him. Silently, he grabbed it around the head and twisted its neck easily. It fell to the ground and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Jepp looked up at the ceiling, where he had fallen through the vent. Apparently having a shape shifting metal arm made him a lot heavier than CL had anticipated, and the sound he had made was horrendous anyway. It just so happened that he fell into a room full of Snatchers, but disposing of them was no problem; they were predictable.

His biggest problem now was stealing through the Facility without encountering anyone. If there was anyone in their team that was the type to bust through walls instead of using the door, it would be him. He sighed again.

His eyes alighted on a Snatcher that was still writhing on the ground. “I don’t think you’ll be needing clothes where you’re going…”

“CL what the hell -,” Sungkyu started, then stopped when he reached the top of the roof and came face to face with a girl that was definitely not CL. The girl stared stonily back at him, a thin face framed by distinct layers of sleek black hair tipped with a bold blonde stripe. A black rifle was strapped to her back.

“Who the hell are you?” Sungkyu asked, hands already reaching for his guns.

“You don’t need to know,” the girl said, cat-like eyes narrowing even more. She pulled a canister from her belt and threw it on the ground, smoke erupting from it and choking Sungkyu. “Kim Sungkyu,” her voice echoed around him. “Your services are no longer needed by Aboveground. By coming back here you’ve signed your death warrant. I have permission to kill you.”

Sungkyu strained to see through the thick smoke, but he knew that the girl was already gone. Smoke bombs were always made to be a convenient getaway, and judging from her haste in using it as well as announcing her intentions, she was probably a rookie. He shook his head. Zinger really could have trained them better.

The first bullet ricocheted off the concrete beside his foot. The second zipped past his head. Sungkyu jumped out of the way, hiding behind the entrance to the roof. Catching his breath, he dared a peek behind the corner. A bullet took off the bit of wall where his face had been seconds before. He cursed and swiped at the fresh cut on his cheek with the back of his hand. He knew she wasn’t a bad aim; she was just toying with him.

He risked another peek, and was rewarded with another bullet that confirmed his suspicions; she was on the roof of the adjacent building, probably on top of the entrance. She could see all his movements, and the directions of her bullets were a clear indicator of her position. Sungkyu unhooked his own smoke grenade and pulled the trigger, rolling it out behind him. It exploded in a haze of thick smoke, and he took the opportunity to run into the cloud, releasing the catch on another canister and throwing it as hard as he could in her direction. His side of the smoke clearing, he jumped the small distance between rooftops and ran to where he knew the entrance of the rooftop was. He could hear her choking above him, and he climbed the ladder and withdrew a gun, the smoke rapidly clearing.

“You’re good,” he said, as the haze thinned out. She stared up at him, her expression insolent. “But they made a mistake sending a rookie after me.”

“On the contrary,” said a voice below them. “It turned out better than I imagined.” Sungkyu set his jaw as chills ran through him. “Why the do you keep coming back here when I keep telling you to stay away?” Zinger glowered at him as the last of the smoke dissipated.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Sungkyu said. “Listen -.”

“No,” Zinger spat. “I’m done listening.” She motioned slightly. “You’ve run out of lives, Sungkyu. I’ve given you enough chances. I’m tired of having to save your lazy . You’ve been nothing but a whiny pain in my , and clearly you’re never going to get out of your incompetent rut so I might as well finish the job myself. We don’t need you anymore. I should have known; we never needed you. Now get off Krystal, if you don’t mind.”

A soldier appeared behind Sungkyu and grabbed him, pushing him on to the roof where he landed with a thud. Another soldier immediately put a gun to his head. “Don’t move,” he ordered. The girl – Krystal – strapped on her rifle, her expression unreadable.

Sungkyu growled as a soldier pulled Nero from him. “Don’t touch my gun,” he snarled, grabbing the front of the man’s uniform and punching him across the face. Two other soldiers immediately restrained him. “Zinger, what the is wrong with you?” he seethed as his weapons were taken roughly from him. “Do you even know what you’re doing? We’re on the brink of war! Killing me wouldn’t change anything, and you know that.”

“I’m done caring,” Zinger declared, pulling out her own gun. “These are Yunho and Miryo’s orders.” She cocked and locked the weapon. “This ends here.”

Jepp hadn’t really planned on fighting a whole load of people in the Facility, but since he had already established that stealth wasn’t his strongest point and he had no idea how a Snatcher was really supposed to act, it was pretty obvious that he was going to get caught sooner or later.

Still, he hadn’t really planned for that someone to be the Head Hunter herself.

“I’ll ask this one more time,” BoA snapped, eyes flashing dangerously. “What are you doing in my training room? Can’t you lot get it into your heads that this room is for my use and mine alone?”

Jepp said nothing, not knowing if Snatchers actually talked or not. He’d never had a conversation with one before.

“Urgh, I’m done,” BoA groaned, throwing her hands up in the air. “I’ve got enough to deal with, what with that brat becoming Hunter and having to prepare everyone else for war. I don’t need to deal with brainless souls like you not remembering which rooms you’re allowed in and which you’re not. Get out.” She turned away.

Jepp didn’t move. “You’re ing with me.”

BoA froze, and turned back slowly. “Did you just talk?”

Jepp tore off the black mask, staring wildly at her. “Did you just say that Min is a Hunte – whooaaa!” He dodged out of the way as BoA threw a tanto at him, embedding it in the wall where his head had been just seconds before. “Lord, all I did was ask you a question!”

“You’re either very brave or very stupid,” BoA regarded him with a long stare. “But either way you’re a fool.” She drew a naginata from behind her back.

“Actually I agree with you, I’m probably just dumb,” Jepp agreed, dodging backwards as she swiped the weapon at him. “I’ll… just be going now.” He was about to turn tail and run when BoA stabbed him through the chest and lifted him off the ground as he cried out in pain.

“No one leaves the Facility alive,” she said in a tone of absolute finality. “Especially not a second time.”

“That’s funny,” Jepp panted and groaned. He raised his hand and pointed it at her. “And also… kinda wrong. Because… I will.” His eyes glowed red as he charged up, firing a shot that hit her in the chest and threw him backwards through the open doorway and into the corridor wall. An alarm sounded through the hallways, and the door closed in front of him. Wincing, Jepp got to his feet and pulled the blade out of his chest.

“Come on healing magic, work faster,” he groaned, limping down the corridor. After a few steps h began to feel better, and when he peeled back the torn cloth he was relieved to find the wound closed. “Phew. Okay. Min. Where -.” He spun back around when he heard the metallic clang of a door being thrown into the wall. “Oh, .” He took off running, not having any idea where he was going. He passed by several rooms before running into a large circular one similar to BoA’s. “Ah, ,” he groaned. He knew this kind of room very well; it was a training room, an arena.

He had killed a lot of people in a room just like this.

He was about to back out and try another place when he heard the door closing behind him. He turned; BoA had her hands on the touchpad beside the doorway, her hair less pristine than it had been and scorch marks on her face and arms.

“Look lady, this wouldn’t have happened if you had just let me go,” Jepp said as they circled each other, his eyes flitting back and forth for a way out. “I’m not a killing mood today, okay? Lucky for you, so come on, let’s just – hoowerhhh!”

BoA rushed forward, katana in hand. Jepp rolled out of the way, transforming his arm into a machine gun. “You asked for it!” He yelled, firing rapidly. “Huh?” he blinked, as the afterimage of BoA faded away. Cold sweat rolled down his back. Clearly she was not going to hold back in this fight, and he didn’t like the fact that she might still have skills that she hadn’t shown to him previously. “Only cowards run, you know!” he said aloud, his voice echoing in the empty room.

A sudden movement caught his eyes and he turned as people began pouring from the sudden openings in the walls around him, landing silently on their feet. Each person – no, not person. These… things were white, deathly white, and as they straightened, Jepp felt his skin crawl. He knew what exactly these things were; he had fought them before in training. Abandoned test subjects, he thought frantically. She wouldn’t.

“I never said this was going to be fair,” said BoA’s voice from the other side of the room, and as he fended off a test subject, she launched herself at him.

Jepp braced himself for the impact, when a black shadow flitted through the air and knocked BoA aside. She flew backwards and hit the wall, falling to her knees. Min straightened, and looked at Jepp.

She looked less like the Min he knew already. Her hair cropped short around her ears and ressed in a form-fitting black top with cutouts, tight black shorts, and a black cardigan tied around her waist, she looked less like the gothic ghost girl who left and more like a young woman dressed for the kill.

More like a Hunter.

“Min,” Jepp breathed, snapping a test subject’s neck in half. “Min, are you…?”

“I’m sorry Jepp,” Min said, and for a second he almost believed that they were back in the church, that she had a thick braid and was in a black dress, that they were not surrounded by sterile white walls and people hungering for their blood.

“You didn’t have to leave,” Jepp reached out to her, but she took a step back, shaking her head.

“There’s something I have to do,” she said, and her eyes narrowed. “Stay out of this, Jepp!” She turned and began cutting her way through the hordes of test subjects flooding the room.

“Min!” Jepp yelled out, trying to follow her. He watched as BoA got to her feet, glaring hard at Min. He watched as Min launched herself at BoA, katana in hand. “Min!” he roared one more time.

“This is my fight!” Min yelled back, reaching out towards BoA. As soon as her fingers touched the fabric of her collar, both Hunters vanished in a whirl of white ash.

This is the end.

Sungkyu panted, staring down the barrel of Zinger’s gun. Behind it, Zinger’s eyes might as well have been made of steel, her stare hard and unflinching. In the end Zinger – Zinger, who had trained him, drank with him, taught him all she knew, had maybe once been something of a friend – would be the one to kill him.

He hadn’t intended to laugh. It sounded strange and foreign to his ears, hearing a laugh he hadn’t heard for at least two years now. It didn’t even feel natural in his throat. But the irony of it all, the irony of being killed by the person he had begged so hard to help save him, it was just too much.

“What’s so funny?” Zinger asked, but her expression softened slightly.

Sungkyu chuckled. “It’s too twisted for you to understand,” he grinned. “Come on, you’ve given me your word. Now kill me. You can’t back out now.”
 

“Don’t give me orders Kim Sungkyu,” she retorted, raising the gun again. “Are those your last words?”

Sungkyu thought about everything he wanted to say; thanks to CL for not giving up on him, Jepp for being the brother he never had, Min for managing to keep everything sane in the moments when he almost lost it. Sorry to Jiyoon for killing her, to Jonghyun for not being able to watch him grow up. He was glad he’d at least been able to give Soyu some sort of closure. He looked at Zinger.

“Yeah,” he said. “Those are my last words to you.”

And as Zinger pointed the gun at his head, Sungkyu knew that even if he could say all that he wanted, they would never be enough.

He closed his eyes, but the bullet never came.

Instead there was a yell from the soldiers, and his eyes snapped open. Zinger turned to look at the commotion, and was instantly knocked over by a familiar girl with rabbit ears, who jumped from the hoverboard she was riding and kicked the soldiers restraining Sungkyu in the face. “I’d hit you but I don’t think we have time,” she said to Sungkyu, pulling him to his feet. “Run!” She scooped up his guns from the fallen soldier as they ran past a stirring Zinger and on to the next roof.

“CL…” Sungkyu panted as he stumbled along beside her, hearing Zinger yell out angry orders to her men. “How the hell… did you find me…? And where did you get that?” He motioned to the hoverboard strapped to her back.

“I stole it!” CL yelled back. “How do you think I managed to get something like this?! Do you know what a bloody pain it was looking for you?! You never told me how big this place was! And I managed to convince some people that my ears were really a fashion accessory but then this other group of people saw me and started chasing me so I disarmed them and stole the board and I was just getting used to it when I saw you about to get shot…” She turned to him. “Speaking of which, what the hell were you thinking of, coming back here?! Of course they’d try and kill you, you idiot!”

“How… did you know I’d be… in Aboveground?” Sungkyu asked, leaping over a gap between buildings. “I could have been anywhere!”

“Only idiots leave their precious secret confidential files under their mattresses, and you’re the king of idiots!” CL replied, and when he looked at her she didn’t smile. “Min’s gone down to Deepground,” she said.

“W… what?” Sungkyu stopped in his tracks. She ran back, grabbed his hand and pulled him along.

“No time to stop, idiot, can’t you see that both our heads are on the line?”

“Min’s gone down to Deepground?” Sungkyu repeated. “Oh… … I should have seen it coming.”

CL stopped running. “Yeah,” she said to him seriously. “You should have. So now it’s not just our heads on the line right now, but Jepp and Min’s too. You don’t even know the consequences every time you run away, do you?”

Sungkyu swallowed, then reached out a little hesitantly and took her hand. “I was a ing idiot,” he said. “Now let’s hurry up so I can make it right.” CL burst into a huge grin and laughed, throwing her arms around his neck.

“That’s the Skyu I know!” she cried out gleefully.

“Oof, get off me!” Sungkyu reacted immediately, pushing her off him. “Come on, you’re wasting time.”

They ran until Sungkyu spotted the edge where the plate ended and the plunge to Level began. “Uhhh,” CL started, slowing down, but when a bullet zipped past her ear she sped up. “It’s the end of the plate!” she yelled. “We’ll never survive the fall!”

“Just jump,” Sungkyu panted. “I know what to do.”

“What?!” CL stared at him.

“Jump!” he exclaimed, taking her hand, and they both leaped off the edge of the building into the thin air beyond. CL shrieked loudly, arms flailing wildly in the air as they fell. His eyes were watering badly, but Sungkyu managed to unstrap the board with difficulty, activating it and twisting around in the air to place his feet on the designated spots. The board detected his touch and immediately stuck his soles to the board, and Sungkyu caught CL in his arms as the board righted itself and them.

“Whoa!” CL cried out as they flew down to the ground. “Where did you learn to ride this?”

“Let’s just say that machines are my specialty,” Sungkyu said as the wind shrieked past them, the Aboveground plate getting further and further away. “Now where’s the nearest entrance to Deepground?”

“There’s an entrance from Bazz,” she said. “If we’re anywhere near it.”

“We might be,” Sungkyu said grimly, as they swooped down to Level.