NOT ON OUR WATCH
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"yeosang you're a genius."
thankfully, before yeosang's powers had gotten completely cut off, he had the foresight to get at least one other person out of their shackles. ones who had at least an inkling of yeosang's plan and weren't going to royally fuck everything up. (so basically anyone but san, who was still hanging his head down and staring at the concrete floors, blood now dripping slowly onto the ground because his tear ducts had been sucked completely dry.)
"can anyone do anything even remotely useful now?" hongjoong groans once wooyoung was safely a far distance away and beginning the apocalypse as they spoke. he figured that since he didn't have any powers, surely the others would be the same. but after seeing yeosang's little flits of energy that allowed him to just barely escape from the zip ties, he had hope that at least one other person had a bit of access to their abilities.
at that moment, yunho lets himself stand up with a grin, enjoying the little one and freedom from the plastic that held him to the chair. "i'm free, let me try and get the rest of you guys out."
everyone ends up untied rather quickly when yunho finds a sharp rock on the floor some distance away, except for san. who, for one, had cursed tears all around him that no one wanted to even come remotely close to. and two, was still unable to look at his cluster mates in the eyes.
"nothing from me." yunho frowns, his attempt to read wooyoung's mind earlier was completely pointless as was his tries to get into the minds of everyone else. he looks on the shoulders to the see blue veins completely retracted to his back.
considering how the cut on san's cheek was still bleeding out was an automatic signal that his powers also weren't working. thankfully too. they had a feeling they wouldn't be able to get a word out of san's mouth for a while anyways.
"i-i think i have something." mingi stutters out as he tries to conjure little sparks but they fizzle away before he could do something with them.
they all stood around each other confused, they have already gotten so used to their powers, they felt useless without them. frankly, most of them were merely average without their abilities. yunho, hongjoong and san could all fight but that was useless when their opponent was as powerful as wooyoung. a simple flick of the wrist was all that was needed to kill all 7 of them just like that.
they needed to be powerful, smart, cunning, everything but the kitchen sink to beat him and stop the apocalypse. and without their powers, they were severely underprepared.
"hey!" they hear a voice shout out from the entrance to the large room, everyone turning around to see yeonjun barrelling into the room, looking like he was about to collapse. considering his lanky frame, that didn't seem to surprise anyone as they go to help him up.
"wait! no it might not be yeonjun." hongjoong calls from behind as mingi and yunho carry the necromancer by his noodle arms and towards the center of the room. they rather aggressively push him into one of the, now empty, metal chairs and watch as his body crumples into a seated position. he looks up with fearful eyes at the 6 standing over him, lips in a pout, begging to them to listen to him.
"i helped you bring back wooyoung. those memories of you and him, fighting in the gym!" he's desperately making his case towards seonghwa, the only other person in the room to know the memory he used to bring back wooyoung because it was his memory after all.
the silence was deafening as they all stare at the stranger sitting in front of them, contemplating what their next move should be. they all looked at each other to see if anyone had some iota of a plan but each state was as blank as the next and yeonjun's face was getting more and more pleading. "you don't have much time, you have to trust me."
no one moves an inch.
if anything they just got even more suspicious of him.
"how did you know we were even here?"
"the energy signal was very concentrated in this part of seoul. all i had to do was sneak out of the elite." his answers were rushed, frantic, pleading. he really did want to help before shit hit the fan.
"didn't yeonjun know wooyoung back f—"
he falls onto his knees, head hung low, jet black hair tumbling in waves over his glassy eyes. "please. i need to fix this."
hongjoong purses his lips. if no one was going to make any decisions, it was only fitting that he have the first say. "do whatever it is on san first. he's still shackled and unstable, then the rest of us will follow suite."
he looks up, eyes sparkling with gratitude.
a moments later, a dark mist wraps around san like the tentacles of some strange sea creatures. twisting around his body, a swirling vortex that seemed to be controlled by the necromancer.
and once the blackness dissipates, the blood spilling wound on san's cheek immediately clears up. even san himself was surprised at how quickly he felt.. normal.
he didn't want to admit it but san could feel himself get stronger again, power and energy surging through his entire body once again. and he rips himself out of the plastic zip ties with ease, producing a satisfying, crack.
"you can bring our powers back..."
"people aren't the only things i can bring back from the dead." he gently stands and faces everyone else. wiping the dust from the fabric of his pants, a small smile settles itself in his face when san inches his way back to the group. "may i..?"
a few moments later and 6 especially heavy dark clouds begin to fabricate around everyone, the air suffocatingly cold and harsh on their skin. and despite that, they could feel the energy, the life re-enter their body. they all take in deep breaths, inhaling the strength that yeonjun was putting right back where it belonged.
they were all so obsessed over the return of their superpowers, even though they weren't even gone for that long, that they didn't see yeonjun start slowly bucking down towards the floor. admittedly the ever thicken cloud of darkness shrouded a good portion of their vision, so they had an excuse to not see yeonjun fall back onto his knees, then the hip bones that jutted out of his torso crashes onto the floor. his already pale skin seems to lose even more colour, to the point that he was basically translucent. the blue veins on his arms becoming more visibly by the second, pulsing at slower and slower rates and yeonjun's heart kept slowing and slowing down.
then it stops.
everything stops.
the black smoke diffuses throughout the room and when it clears, they see yeonjun dead in front of them. covered in those strange runes once again, yunho tries to see if there was any sort of activity but no. complete radio silence, he had died bringing back their powers.
"may your soul rest in peace." hongjoong, who knew yeonjun best of the whole group, kneels down and matters a soft incantation under his breath, at least providing a blessing before his body truly left to the afterlife.
he notices a piece of paper by the body.
he goes to pick it up when the dead corpse starts to weep jet black blood.
"is that... a note?" mingi must've been paying a particularly high terrified of moving closer in fear of touching the black goo that oozed out of yeonjun's every crevice, the elementalist uses his air manipulation to blow the paper into his hands.
i'm not going to go easy on you next time. enjoy your powers whilst you have them.
- woo xoxo
"of fucking course it was him."
with his abilities back, hongjoong so desperately wanted to turn back the clock and stop it from happening but that was a can of worms he will never be ready to open. so yeonjun just remains on the floor, body already cold, black still seeping into the puddle on the ground, joining the rest of his cluster mates who had perished well before him and to the world that felt like his second home.
thinking about it that way made it easier for hongjoong to not cry. "your sacrifice will not go in vein."
the other group members were discussing their next move, brain storming possible ideas that could help them now that they had their superpowers back.
hongjoong shuffles towards seonghwa, wrapping his arms around the taller's torso from behind and placing a head on his shoulder. he watches as seonghwa's eyes flash a dazzling blue before nuzzling his nose into the firm muscle in his neck and tunes his hearing to listen to their possible ideas.
"i know somewhere we can go, it's right here, about a 5 minute walk if i remember correctly." yeosang suggests, thinking of the place he had once called a home and hoping it would either be empty or the tenants were willing to take them in for a day. "it was my old workplace, it'll at least give us a space that we can rest at and use as a base."
"i'm telling you that my studio is better. it's a bit farther but it's completely safe with locks that'll keep people out. even if wooyoung could get in, at least there isn't the possibility of random people coming in.
"did you fail to remember that you're a fucking celebrity? i bet you have paparazzi outside your studio. that'll completely blow our cover." they both had equally valid reasons to use, or to not use, their spaces. the two of them turn to the rest of the group for their opinion.
"look it's your call. we trust you." hongjoong says defensively, a little too preoccupied with the person in his arms. the stress and pressure of this whole apocalypse was causing his brain to shut down. it didn't help that there was a massive glass window showing them the destruction that continued on outside as though they were watching some sick horror movie. except it wasn't a horror movie, and it wasn't just sick, it was utterly stomach wrenching.
a building that was once there is suddenly sinking, lower and lower, collapsing down from their field of view and into a giant pile of rubble with a smug looking wooyoung perched proudly atop. "he's gone mental."
"alright. we'll go to your place and use mine as a back up." jongho confirms, trusting yeosang and his confidence that this place would be just right for them.
they go to convince san to join them but he seemed to have other plans, aggressively storming in the direction of the exit.
"san where are you going?" he doesn't respond, continuing to walk with determination burning in his gaze.
"san you can't just leave," yunho goes to grasp his arm but he shoves it off, a sneer forming in his tongue. "we need you. we need to stay a team to get through this."
yunho admittedly didn't mean to use his abilities on san, and it almost works for a split second. but san was much better than that and easily snaps out of the brainwashing trance. he scowls at yunho, disappointed that the taller had to resort to manipulating him into staying.
the fact that san had enough resolve to break the trance terrified yunho now. that meant he had no doubts about what he was going to do, dead set on this place on his head. there wasn't an inkling of fear in him that yunho could exploit.
"no. now let me go and make things right." equipped with his abilities again, san soars out of the penthouse through the same door that wooyoung had left from earlier, not sparing one last glance back. going god knows where, yunho notices that the pile of blood red diamonds on the floor had seemingly decreased.
"did he just override your powers?"
"he has mind powers too. he knows how i get in his head and knows how to block me out. i should've never told him that in hindsight."
hongjoong emotes an almost bratty whine, because just as they had taken one step forward, they were shoved ten steps back. "i thought i was the emotionally unstable one."
"so you've come to join me sweet sannie." wooyoung had those weird runes littering his whole chest. his torso on full display, and of course the wings that were on his back. the ones that san found so unbelievably beautiful, never left either.
"of course. i meant what i said earlier." san surges forward to grab the other's arms but there was very suddenly an invisible barrier built between them. "wooyoung, i love you."
"and that is precisely why we cannot work together."
san wasn't quite sure how.
but it finally clicked in his idiotic brain.
wooyoung was gone. his wooyoung was gone.
the person in front of him was nothing but a monster and he was delusional to have thought otherwise.
if he could punch himself in the face he would've. but the person in front of him was pure evil with the face of his angel.
"you fucking son of a bitch." san grabs the diamonds from his pocket and hurls them at wooyoung, the diamonds crashing through the barrier.
then without even flinching.
he raises a hand slowly, let's them stop, midway through the air, spins the diamonds around and implants them into any open skin on san's body.
usually, the tears had no effect on him, he was after all the creator of them.
but the agonising pain that tore his whole body apart, limb from limb, as though peeling the skin off of his bones, slowly shredding each muscle into thick fibrous strands. one by one, piece by piece, his body gets torn apart form the inside out. blood gushed out of his eyes, his ears, all the cuts on his open skin. an inferno burned in his joints, an incapacitating level of utter pain. his scream was like that of a banshee, every painful moment san had ever felt in his life suddenly accumulated into that one moment. then dialed up to 100.
the more emotions he felt.
the more cursed the tears were.
his knees gave out on him, his legs felt like they were melting under the scorching heat of the sun. he was starting to pass out from the pain but sudden bursts of agonising torture kept him wide awake.
all the while, wooyoung watched with a grin. "goodbye san. you'll get to meet your true love in the afterlife. this was for your own good."