“Crap,” Kris cursed as he hung up the phone. What Chen had told him wasn’t good. Not at all.

Kris had met Chen and Kai’s father once. Their dad was not someone you wanted to be enemies with. The dragon was not looking forewords to going toe to toe with the werewolf who had gotten his position on the werewolf council thanks to his strength. Just like Sori was considered to be one of the five strongest of her kind, Yongsun was one of the strongest of his kind.

“What happened?” Sori questioned, looking up from her lunch as Kris made his way over.

“Chen and Kai’s dad is with them,” Kris hissed, taking his seat and slamming his phone down so hard he might very well have broken it.

“,” Hyoyeon cursed, as did everyone else who’d had the misfortune of meeting Kim Yongsun.

“What’s so bad about that?” N asked, “I mean, other than the fact that he’s Chen and Kai’s dad.”

“Their dad, Yongsun, is really strong,” Sehun explained, “like, he’s Sori level strong.”

“And he has a lot of close friends on the council,” Sori reminded everyone, “It stands to reason that he isn’t the only werewolf council member we’re going to need to fight.”

“You’re right,” Suho sighed, “and pretty much every person on that council got their position on strength.”

“We’re boned,” Ken summarized going by the troubled looked on the faces of those who knew all about the werewolf council, “basically.”

“With our current numbers?” Sori nodded, “and our current skill level? Yes, we are boned.”

“So what do we do?” N asked, “I mean, we can’t give up.”

“We can’t,” Kris nodded, “but we’re going to have to accept that we probably aren’t going to get out of this fight alive.”

“Exactly,” Suho nodded, “we need to fight, we can’t just stand by and watch the bad guy win.”

“Better to die fighting,” Leo nodded, “then to not do anything at all.”

“We should let the others know,” Hyuk spoke up, “they should know what we now know.”

“Before that,” Sori spoke up as Suho started to get up, “I have something to say.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” Ravi frowned slightly, “and I still want to fight.”

“Same,” N nodded.

“Even if the chances of winning are low,” Sehun smiled slightly, “and even if I am probably going to die, I still want to die fighting.”

“We’ll probably die no matter what we do,” Hyuna shrugged, “so, yeah. Better to die fighting and knowing I tried to save people, tried to do the right thing, then to die knowing I didn’t save a single person.”

“Maybe,” Hongbin smiled slightly, “if we fight, we’ll inspire others to fight. We might not win ourselves, but others might.”

“He’s got a point,” Kris nodded, looking over at Sori.

“Yeah,” Sori nodded, “I just want to avoid seeing any of you die.”

“I know,” Suho smiled at her, “we all feel the same. We’re fine with dying ourselves, but we don’t want our friends to die.”

“I don’t think any of you guys are going to die,” they all turned to find Jihu making his way over, “you have a lot of powerful allies, too.”

“Not really,” Ken sighed, “we’re kind of on the low side when it comes to allies.”

“He’s right,” Hyoyeon nodded, “between us and everyone at home, I don’t think we have more than…….twenty nine.”

“You have me,” Jihu pointed out, “and Haruhi. And we have some allies within the ISBIP as well.”

“So still less than fifty,” Kris sighed.

“I think I know something that might cheer you up,” Jihu smiled, trying his best to make everyone feel better.

“What’s up?” Sori asked, deciding to help the agent with his attempt to make everyone feel better.

“We’ve got some allies coming in tomorrow on a bus,” Jihu explained, “I want you guys to greet them.”

“Alright,” Kris sighed, “just tell us where you want us to meet them and we’ll be there.”

“Tomorrow morning,” Jihu smiled, “same training room. I’ll bring them there.”

--

The next morning, the group was in the training room. They didn’t feel much like doing anything, not after everything they had learned the day before. Sure, they knew that they had to fight no matter what the outcome, but their current mental and emotional state made that hard to do.

“We really should train a little,” Suho spoke up, deciding to take a shot at motivating everyone.

“We will do something,” Hyuna said, “just…….not today.”

“Yeah,” Ken nodded, “give us a day or so to just…..get inspired to try again.”

“We don’t really have time, though,” Suho frowned slightly.

“He’s right,” Sori nodded, “every day we wait is another day our enemy gets stronger.”

“Well,” they all turned to find Jihu just entering the room, “I think I have something to inspire you guys.”

He tossed open the door to reveal Lay, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Lina smiling at them.

“Lina,” Sori grinned, rushing to hug her friend. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed the shy girl until she saw her again.

“Hey, Lay,” Suho grinned, overjoyed to see his roommate and friend again, “how have you been?”

“Better then you,” Lay smiled slightly, poking the dragon in the ribs playfully.

“You guys look depressed,” Baekhyun said, looking over everyone with a small scowl.

“Is this because of the whole Chen and Kai’s dad thing?” Chanyeol asked, “I mean, yeah it’s bad but we can beat them.”

“Yeah!” Baekhyun nodded, “Chanyeol, Lina, and I have news!”

“We picked up some allies,” Lina smiled, “a lot of them are from school, but there are also a lot who didn’t attend Dark Lake.”

“There’s about……fifty or so of them,” Chanyeol said, smile growing as he took in the reactions of the others.

“Fifty?” Kris repeated, making sure that he wasn’t hearing things.

“That many?” Hyoyeon gasped.

“Yeah,” a new voice spoke up, “they aren’t lying.”

“Yuri,” Hyuna whispered, fighting back tears before running to hug the girl.

“You’re better?” Sori asked, rushing to hug Yuri as well, Kris only a few steps behind.

“I’m much better,” she smiled, “and now I’m ready to help fight.”

“You heard her,” Jihu laughed, “get training.”

“Ok,” Kris called after hugging Yuri himself, “Lay, work with Ravi. Leo, you’re with Hyuk. Ken and Baekhyun. Chanyeol --.”

“I wanna work with Lina,” Chanyeol interrupted, “we’ve been working on an awesome attack and I wanna work some more on it.”

“Alright,” Sori said, “why don’t we start with you showing us this attack and then we’ll assign training partners.”

Jihu smiled to himself as he watched everyone. The mood of the room had picked up so much with the arrival of the others. Now, he just needed to find a way to bring the rest of the group. They were still with their parents, but not for long if Jihu had his way.

A/N: welcome back to Lay, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, and Lina!!