SURPRISE UPDATE! i feel so proud :') consider this the first of many apologies for the slow updates <3

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"Now, who are all these people?" Kai questioned.

The three kind-of returnees sat in the now-crowded meeting room, all baffled. Lucas was baffled, too, even though he didn't show it. Taeyong had suspected the presence of other Supers, especially since he had been the one to specifically instruct to get some replacements for the empty spots on their team, but he hadn't expected there to be this many. There had to be a dozen, at least, of varying sizes and colors.

"I think they raided the larder while we were gone," Lucas observed, giving no indication of being amused by his own little analogy.

The new trainees—let's call them that for the sake of clarity—were equally baffled, but a little more respectful and curious. One didn't always get to meet people who had saved the city on multiple occasions.

They were all seated around the main table, some having dragged in mismatched chairs for themselves for seats. There was even a particularly heavy-looking armchair that looked suspiciously like the one in the rooftop bar, which at least told them there was someone with super strength in the assembly.

Right next to Taeyong sat a pink-haired man around his age, awkwardly fiddling with his thumbs. He seemed to be eyeing the blue-haired male at intervals, apparently gathering the courage to speak, but as much as Taeyong waited there was never any result. So when the next sideways glance came his way, Taeyong made sure to meet it with his own, as a caught-ya.

"Uh, hi," the pink-haired male said by way of greeting, smiling nervously. His hair wasn't the same color as Jaemin's—more watermelon pink than bubblegum, but nevertheless, seeing a familiar variation of an equally familiar shade set Taeyong at a strange ease. "I'm Jaehyun. I fly."

"Hello, Jaehyun Who Flies," Taeyong acknowledged. "I'm Taeyong. I clone."

"Oh, I know." Jaehyun nodded vigorously. "We know all about you guys."

Taeyong stared at him, feeling oddly touched.

"Hey, what did you do with that little bro of yours?" Ten asked from across the table, where he was squeezed between a dark-haired silent type and a very pissed-looking redhead. "Didn't you quit on us because of him?"

Even though the decision to leave had been made by him, Taeyong couldn't help but feel a flush of embarrassment at that, especially since his self-declared fan—kind of—was sitting right beside him. "I did what I always do," he said. "I left him over at Jeno's. A friend of his; the kid's mom is pretty stern so I know he'll stay put."

"You should never trust a teenager to mind their own business," Kai interjected wisely. "I should know, I was one myself once."

"Thanks," Taeyong said shortly.

"Ah, the prodigals return," said a warm voice, and the group looked up as a smiling Baekhyun walked into the room, followed by Taemin. The tittering fell instantly silent, like a moderately well-behaved classroom upon the entry of a beloved teacher. He looked at said prodigals over his glasses, a rather narrow gaze that made them squirm in their seats like troublemakers with yet another mishap to hide. "Nice to see you, too."

"You added a bunch of people," Kai said bravely.

"While you three were out there shirking your duties, I got our backups running," Baekhyun said, before turning to the rest. Taemin sat beside him, silent as always, although this time his silence had more to do with embarrassment than to add to his enigmatic image. "As all of you are already briefed about the operation, and we have an emergency on our hands, I won't be wasting much of your time. According to your varying levels of control over your abilities, I've divided you up into different squads: A, B and C. A is our first line of defense, and will answer to me. B, for evacuation, under Lucas, and C is a last resort and will be staying at the outskirts until and unless needed."

"Missed a lot, huh?" Taeyong murmured. Ten shushed him.

"You already know your assigned squads, but the others may not, so familiarize yourselves with each other," Baekhyun continued. "Mark is missing, and we have no choice but to send out search parties, but thankfully we've narrowed down the possible locations. Jungwoo, how long?"

"A few more minutes," a boy—Jungwoo—answered.

"Okay," Baekhyun said. "Everybody, pack up. It's go time."

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"What time is it?"

The Ice Angel glanced at Mark through the bars of the cage, as if surprised he had spoken. It hadn't been long since Mark had woken up behind the bars—which divided the room into two, with one half apparently only to keep a prisoner—but before that, he didn't know how much time had passed since he had fainted and been brought here. It was just the two of them for now, but Mark had a feeling they were about to be joined by someone soon.

"About six in the evening," the Angel replied. "Why?"

"Not sure, actually," Mark confessed, as the doors swung open and sure enough, Irene walked in.

She looked exactly like she had in the pictures—breathtakingly beautiful, with eyes that were a little brighter than usual, fixing on everything for a few seconds before coming to rest on him. Mark stared as she smiled at him in greeting, before smoothing down the front of her skirt and coming up to the bars.

"Well, hello there," she said, calmly as if he wasn't behind a prison and she standing in front of him as if he were a dangerous animal at a zoo. "Do you know why you're here, Mark?"

Mark knew he should have been scared. And scared, he was, but not as much as he was confused. He remembered seeing the purple chart paper turning up in front of his house, the very horror-movie-esque scenario that had made his knees turn to jelly and him running back to Nova Tower for help. He had wondered many times after, why just him? His first guess had been that Shao had disclosed the information, but nothing had come to the others. And if Taemin was right and Irene didn't intend to hurt anyone, then why was he here? Why was only he here?

"I don't know," he said, frowning. "Did I, like, personally piss you off? Was it something I said?"

He sounded braver than he felt, but he wasn't as frightened as he had thought he'd be. In fact, he felt almost calm—worried, of course, about the plan and himself, but Irene's presence itself didn't seem to make him want to pee his pants or anything. Even the stoic, taciturn Ice Angel didn't scare him as much, even though he had almost ended up killing his friend.

"It might come as a surprise to you, Mark, but your being here has nothing to do with your little band of Supers," Irene said, and Mark's brow furrowed. "I would say it's nothing personal, but it is. You see, honey, your father killed my parents."

Mark stared at her. What was she saying? His father hadn't been any kind of murderer or bigshot gangster, he'd just been a simple man, far from the luxury that Irene's family seemed to have lived in. "What do you mean?"

Irene looked disappointed, but sighed and moved on. "You should know that almost everyone has a Super gene that stays locked," she said. "It's completely random whether the powers pass on to their offspring or not, though it is possible to access and unlock those genes."

"I know," he said. "But what does that have to do with my dad?"

"Your father was a Super," she said, shocking him into silence. "A fire user at that, the most volatile. And as most Supers aren't born with complete control over their abilities, he wasn't, either. He caused the fire that resulted in my parents' death—and the fire in Shao's circus, too. How does that make you feel?"

Mark blinked, curling his fingers around the bar, unsure that anything would come out of his mouth even if he tried. "Honestly?" he murmured. "I don't know. I didn't really know my dad."

Something in Irene's eyes flickered at that. "I'm aware."

It was surprising, of course, shocking even, but not totally unexpected the way some news was. In a way, he felt as if the clues had always been there, little bits of information that could have been connected to complete the web. You have a fire in you, he remembered his grandpa saying. Of course, now he knew what the words really meant.

"But I didn't inherit his powers," he said, frowning. "I've never been able to summon fire, or anything else—and it's not like I haven't tried, I—"

"I know," Irene interrupted patiently. "That's not why you're here."

"Then is this because of some revenge plot?" he mumbled cluelessly. That should have scared him even more, but for some reason, it didn't. Irene did seem unhinged, but not violent. She certainly didn't seem like she was going to exact her revenge on him for something he had nothing to do with. He had been treated pretty well, too—he was wearing all his clothes, and there were no injuries on him except the crick in his neck from being unconscious for long. But then, he could be wrong, and maybe she was warming him up only to freeze him out. Perhaps literally. "Are you going to...kill me?"

"Of course not." Irene tutted, straightening. "I just want your blood."

"My blood?" Mark exclaimed. "Wait—for the serum? But I already told you, I didn't inherit the powers—"

"Seems like you figured out a lot more than I thought," she cut in, narrowing her eyes. "Mark, your father was a fire user. And what's more, so was your mother. Two fire users! Do you know how hard it is not to inherit even the gene even from one parent? Fire is the most uncommon yet the most passable power, so I won't even have to prep you before extracting a sample from you. It's shocking that you are a non-Super, but even then, I'm confident your blood will do wonders to help us."

Mark felt like he was growing dizzier with every passing second. The Ice Angel seemed to be looking at him with something like pity, but didn't say anything.

"Don't try to escape—even if you get past these bars, you won't be able to fight your way through a hospital full of people. I'll be back very soon," Irene promised. "Don't worry, Mark, chérie. You're in good hands."

Saying this, she left the room, and the Angel followed. The door shut with a hollow thud, and Mark collapsed. He leaned against the bars, feeling the cool floor under his palms. It felt stupidly like one of the cliché superhero movies he watched, with the villainess revealing her plans to a prepared superhero in captive, but Mark felt neither prepared nor like a superhero.

Two fire users, he thought, mind whirring towards a solution his consciousness hadn't yet caught up with. Now they were going to use his blood for their own work, and he was just a sitting duck. He couldn't even sacrifice himself or anything, or plan a daring escape. So much had been dumped on him in such a short time that he could barely formulate any new ideas.

He sat down heavily, and almost jumped when something clunked against his thigh. Mark frowned, patting down the side of his trousers, and realized there was something in a hidden pocket he had made on the inside of its lining. He reached in, closing his hand around the small cylinder they hadn't removed.

A syringe.

His heart clenched inside his chest. He had found three syringes full of the serum, and had turned two over to Baekhyun, but had apparently forgotten about the third. Mark didn't have antiseptics, and he felt pretty dirty, but he figured there was nothing worse that could happen. Breathing turning shallow, he rolled up his sleeve.

He plunged the tip of the needle into a vein along the inside of his elbow, pressing down the plunger, and waited. Slowly, he reached over, and clamped his hands around the metal bars. For a few moments, he felt nothing. Not even a little twinge indicating something had changed.

You have a fire inside you, his grandpa had promised.

A vein stood out against the side of his neck from the effort. As he waited, a slow pressure began to build between his skin and the metal, his palms coming to life with pins and needles.

The bars began to glow.