The last thing Chen remembered before the explosion was the doors of the meeting hall closing and everyone taking their seats. He recalled that Kai was to his left and Heesun was on his right as they made their way to the balcony area overlooking the tables where the council members were sitting. He recalled spotting Xiumin already up there with some of his vampire friends.

Xiumin had been laughing along with them, but Chen could tell he was also watching everything carefully. The pair locked eyes and nodded ever so slightly, hoping that their movements were subtle enough that no one would notice anything. That was about the time Chen got close to the top of the staircase a heard the very faint beeping.

Before he could even process anything, the explosions went off.

Chen felt something crash into him and felt himself falling.

Then there was pain in his back and skull and everything went black.

When he woke up, there was smoke in the air and he could make out bodies not too far away. How many there were was a mystery because Chen was pretty sure he was seeing at least three of everything.

Even as his head started to clear, his vision still wasn’t the best. Everything was blurry around the edges and when he focused enough he could feel blood running down the side of his head. When he focused even harder, he could hear people screaming and people laughing.

He found himself wondering why was someone laughing at his pain. His pain hurt. His back was in pain and so where his arms and legs. Dear god, was he happy he could feel the pain in all his limbs. That was a hack of a load off his mind that he could feel that pain. Or was it? Chen for the life of him could not recall if feeling pain in everything was a good sign or a bad after a back injury.

“Chen!” he heard someone whisper, slightly panicked, “Chen!”

He turned his head and found himself looking at Xiumin’s bloody face.

“What?” he blinked, “what……..happened?”

“ blew up,” Xiumin explained, “mostly seemed to be focused on the staircase and balcony, but there was a pretty nice blast or two in the center of the room.”

“Oh,” Chen said, brain still not totally clear on what those words actually meant.

“And you seem to have a serious head injury and can’t understand crap right now,” Xiumin sighed, “look just……where did you last see Heesun and Kai?”

“Right and left of me,” Chen replied once his brain finally supplied him with the requested information, “Why are you bloody? And crawling? And whispering?”

“I’m bloody ‘cuz of the explosions,” Xiumin sighed, “and my back is in the middle of heading after falling from the second floor to the first. And I’m whispering so those gun shots in the distance don’t get closer.”

“Oh,” was all Chen could say, darkness creeping back into his vision.

“,” Xiumin sighed as Chen passed out again, “ y .”

--

“What’s going on?” Hongbin demanded, eyes frantically searching the feeds for any of his friends but only finding static.

“I have no idea,” Jihu admitted, “I heard blasts, but that’s all I know. The radios are useless now, I’m getting no signal from anyone.”

“Everyone is screaming,” Yuri whimpered, hands covering her ears in a desperate attempt to block everything out, “and scared. There are people with guns and knives and other weapons. They look like the people who attacked Jaesun’s gang. Some……some are already dead.”

“I’m going,” Jaesun said, already out the door before anyone could react.

“I’m going with him,” Luhan decided, following the nymph.

“Is anyone hurt?” Hongbin asked Yuri as Jihu started getting all his guns and knives ready.

“Chen,” Yuri said, “Tao. Xiumin. Hyuk –.”

Hongbin was out the door before anyone could say anything else.

“Lock the door,” Jihu instructed, “do not leave here. Got it?”

Yuri nodded and Jihu was gone, racing after the healer fae.

--

Chanyeol and Lina burst through a window on the second floor of the south half of the left wing, holding onto Taeyeon and Ken. The four had all of two seconds to take in their surroundings before four more people rushed in, slamming the door shut behind them.

“Barricade it!” Hyoyeon ordered Ravi as she grabbed the nearest desk and pushed it against the door.

“Already doing,” Ravi said as he pushed a bookcase over to join the desk.

“Jessica!” Lina cried, rushing to the shifter’s side and helping Sooyoung carry her to a far corner, “what happened?”

“Fire nymph,” Jessica hissed, trying to keep everything and anything from touching her burned side, “I didn’t expect him to drop the gun and make with the fire.”

“At least we know we’re defiantly fighting supernaturals,” Chanyeol spoke up as he helped the other two shifters block the door, “that does help, right?”

“Hell if I know,” Hyoyeon sighed, “sure doesn’t help us out of this room.”

“So we’re stuck here?” Sooyoung asked, “that……..”

“We’ll die in here if we don’t get out now,” Hyoyeon nodded before turning to Chanyeol and Lina, “think you can hover outside and catch us as we jump out?”

“Too much time,” Chanyeol argued, “we have to jump out ourselves, get airborne, get to window level, catch someone, put them down and do it all again.”

“And we have another way,” Ken grinned, rushing to one of the far walls and running his hands along it, “Jihu gave us blueprints of this place, remember? Well, I made sure to review mine really well.”

“Point?” Ravi asked, hoping that the other didn’t think he was trying to be mean or anything. Ravi just really wanted to live and things didn’t look to be in favor if that right at that moment.

“Secret passages,” Ken said just as he found what he’d been looking for.

Part of the wall opened and Ken waved everyone through. Without a thought, everyone did as told. A few seconds later, once everyone was through, the wall slid shut. Moments after that, the bad guys broke in. finding none of their targets, they fanned out to search. None of them could find the passage way and left, thinking that the group had escaped out the window.

A/N: note how I’m not looking at those with Kris and Hyuna this chapter? Yeah, I’m trying to piss ya all off with not getting to that right away