Resolving Conflict | Ateez Superhero AU

Red

"Wooyoung, take Seonghwa-hyung somewhere safe. Quick!" Mingi was still whirling around, trying to figure out where the invisible opponent was. His senses were more sharpened and accurate than normal people, but with all the ruckus around him, there was no way he could hear footsteps or see the flying dust on the ground that would suggest someone stepped on the spot.

Besides, he was still overcoming the shock that came from his unexpected opponent. If they had invisible people, what else could they have?

Wooyoung knelt by Seonghwa's crumpled body and cradled it gently. After a brief scan of Seonghwa's wounds, Wooyoung decided it was better to just bring him home.

When Wooyoung returned, things were worse than before. The majority of the men in all-black outfits were already taken out, but they had more opponents. Trickier ones.

The group of 7 stayed close together. As the feel the ground shake under their feet, see balls of flaming objects flying towards them, and hear ear-splitting sounds coming from nowhere, they realize at last who they were dealing with, and why.

The severeness of the situation settled in slowly, like snow flurrying and finally landing on the curb, but none of the eight members - including Seonghwa back at base - let dread or fear distract them.

Knees bent slightly, Jongho had his arms stretched out pointing almost skywards, jaws clenched tightly as he concentrated on all the obstacles (some magical) that were flying towards the group. His jaws were clenched tightly. Perspiration dotted his forehead. He skidded backwards a few times, a sign that his makeshift shield wasn't going to last long.

A woman in bright red hair who seemed to be a pyrokinetic stood in the very center opposite of Alternare, setting objects on fire with one touch of her hand and then using them as fireballs. Yunho tried to deflect the projectiles before they got close enough to burn any of his teammates, but blazing spots kept appearing out of nowhere, like tiny suns that were going to engulf them whole. He wanted to reuse them as their own weapons, but he feared that another obstacle would hit his teammates before he could make his attack. There were just too many.

The heat from the fire was oppressive too, and instead of scalding their skin it baked them as if they were trapped in an oven. Their eyes watered and their awareness blurred as hot air blasted at their faces, but they focused on the fact that their skin was still intact.

A lanky man stood with his feet together to the left of the red-haired woman, his mouth slightly parted. He was the siren. The source of the high-pitched drone that drilled into Yunho, Hongjoong, Jongho, and Wooyoung's ears. The other members were unaffected, but it wasn't clear whether it was because the man's power had a limit to the number of people he could affect at the same time, or because he could only target elite super humans like himself.

"Can we get rid of that guy somehow?" Wooyoung winced, bouncing on one foot as an attempt to shake off the noise. "I go off-track when I teleport with this thing in my head."

Jongho looked at his hands, still stretched above his eye level towards a layer of dense air around his team. He could see the air in its molecular form, the particles trembling with energy, struggling to break free of Jongho's grasp and spread apart like they ought to by nature.

The shield - with very high air resistance - was the only thing that could slow down incoming projectiles enough for people within its protection to dodge in time.

With Yunho deflecting the deadly fireballs and Jongho being responsible for the team's defenses, only Hongjoong had the ability to stop the siren without having to walk out of the safe zone.