Chapter Text
“When Zico and Block B died two years ago protecting the Earth from emmonos, this threw the governments of the world in for a loop.” Professor Yoo explained as she gestured towards the picture of Block B displayed on the screen. “Superheroes used to be considered a childish, naïve concept. But Block B proved them wrong. This is no longer a question of a child. This is a matter of national security. The governments trusted Block B to protect the Earth. The question now is, who’s next?”
Yeosang scrunched up his nose in confusion. Why was Professor Yoo talking about superheroes right now? Wasn’t she a professor of nuclear physics?
Frankly speaking, Yeosang hadn’t been paying attention throughout the lesson. He was essentially a genius, having graduated high school one year early and starting university at seventeen. He excelled in all his classes. He was usually smart enough to be able to figure out what the topic was just by listening to Professor Yoo speak a few words, but unfortunately it looked like he had run out of luck today.
“Hongjoong. Hongjoong. Hongjoooong.” Yeosang reached over the space between the two tables and nudged his best friend’s foot.
Hongjoong sighed as he turned to the irritating younger boy. “Yes?” He asked patiently. Yeosang tilted his head in Professor Yoo’s direction. “What is she talking about? I -”
“- wasn’t listening, yeah, I noticed,” Hongjoong grumbled, rolling his eyes. “Seriously, you need to start paying attention in class.” Sneaking a glance at Professor Yoo to make sure she wasn’t watching them, Hongjoong picked up a few papers on his desk and discreetly handed them to Yeosang. “She’s talking about fusion energy and Zico’s creation of the first successful and effective nuclear fusion reactor.”
“Ah.” Yeosang nodded, familiar with the topic. Everyone had heard of the legendary Woo Jiho, more commonly known by the acronym Zico. He had started off as the CEO and founder of the biggest tech conglomerate in the world, ZICO TECHNOLOGIES. One day, however, a nuclear accident had destroyed his hometown in Korea while he was visiting, killing everything within a 500-kilometre range. His entire family died of radioactive-exposure illness and the doctors had all told Zico that he did not have long to live. However, instead of dying, Zico became enhanced. The radioactivity had taken a reverse turn, giving him supernatural abilities and enhanced strength. Suddenly, Zico could blast buildings apart with a flick of his fingers, electrocute anyone just by pointing at them, and create electromagnetic shields just by stretching his hands.
Zico had returned to America and continued to develop ZICO TECHNOLOGIES. His abilities allowed him to push the boundaries of nuclear physics, and within a year he had developed a sustainable and efficient fusion energy reactor. His discovery revolutionised the energy industry. He distributed the reactors all over the world for low prices, essentially eliminating the demand for fossil fuels and nuclear fission energy. The year after that, he received the Nobel Prize for Physics at an incredibly young age of twenty-eight.
But Zico’s creation of fusion reactors wasn’t what he was remembered most for. Rather, the powers he had received had turned him into Earth’s very own superhero. Joining forces with P.O., Taeil and Park Kyung (three exceptionally skilled spy agents), U-Kwon, Jaehyo and B-Bomb (genetically enhanced soldiers), they formed a formidable team of superheroes, calling themselves ‘Block B’.
Block B had saved the world several times over the course of the past four years. Their deeds ranged from low-scale feats such as taking down the Russian Mafia to huge-level achievements like preventing a tech supervillain from acquiring a weapon that could wipe out cities in seconds. Their biggest win was defeating the emmonos, a race of dark aliens who tried to invade the Earth and transform all humans into their race. However, Block B died to destroy the emmonos, effectively wiping out the entire race. The Earth was saved, but Block B was gone.
Block B were legendary. Everywhere Yeosang went, he kept seeing pictures of Block B, he kept hearing people talk about them. It wasn’t that he hated Block B, but Yeosang got really sick of hearing about them all the time. They were dead, weren’t they? They had been dead for almost two years. It was about time the world moved on.
Of course, there was still the question of who would inherit ZICO TECHNOLOGIES. Zico died with no children and without naming a successor, so his company was left heirless. Currently, the company’s headquarters had been locked down by the NYPD, and access was completely blocked until a new CEO had been decided. The designs for Zico’s nuclear fusion reactors had been taken by the government and the business for fusion energy became less of a monopoly. The government ensured that the reactors being produced were effective and efficient, but other than that, fusion energy was anyone’s game.
And it was all thanks to the world’s greatest superhero, Woo Jiho.
Okay, Yeosang didn’t hate Woo Jiho. Not really, at least. It wasn’t Zico’s fault. It wasn’t Block B’s fault. But the fact that people kept glorifying them as the world’s eternal protectors made Yeosang’s blood boil.
“Yeosang, is something wrong?” Hongjoong, who was sitting behind Yeosang, tapped his best friend on the shoulder with a worried look on his face. Yeosang saw him a little too late.
“Fuck!” Hongjoong cursed loudly as he immediately retracted his hand, shaking it as he tended to the bits of frostbite growing on his fingers
Shit. Yeosang’s eyes widened when he realised what had happened. Damn his abilities and his emotions. He could control them to some extent, sure, but when he got riled up it was hopeless.
“Kim Hongjoong, I must insist that you refrain from using such language in my class!” Professor Yoo walked over to their side of the classroom and rapped her fingers sharply against Hongjoong ’s desk. “If you have any disagreements with something or someone, please handle that outside my classroom.”
Hongjoong flushed, though he was still gripping his hand in pain. “Sorry, Professor,” He mumbled, and his face looked so adorably apologetic that Professor Yoo had no choice but to let it slide. As soon as Professor Yoo was out of earshot, Yeosang felt a sharp pain in his head and he scowled lowly, turning around to glare at Hongjoong.
“I’m sorry, okay? I wasn’t focusing,” Yeosang muttered under his breath. Hongjoong rolled his eyes as silver sparkles danced around between his fingertips. “Serves you right.”
Yeosang mentally slapped himself for being so distracted. His abilities were in no way a gift to him. Rather, they posed as a danger to anyone around him. Even if Hongjoong knew about his abilities (after all, Hongjoong was a psychokinetic himself), he was still in danger of being harmed by Yeosang.
Yeosang had been born with the ability to control water and ice. Where he had gotten it from, nobody knew. All he knew was that he could create water, move and shape water, freeze anything in his sight. As a baby, he hadn’t had enough strength to cause any severe damage, but there were the occasional times when a little snowflakes flew out of his fingertips, and so and so forth. As he got older however, his powers got worse.
The first time Yeosang’s powers had gotten the better of him were during second grade. Some cruel kid had been pushing him around, beating him up, laughing at him for his scrawny figure and introverted attitude. Yeosang had given into the bullying, not even bothering to stand up for himself anymore. He had gotten so used to it, so what was the point?
Then the bully had knocked Yeosang’s friend, right across the jaw. And Yeosang had seen red.
Suddenly, the whole room was covered head to toe in sharp icicles and frost, which quickly spread across the floor, then across the whole building. Yeosang had been terrified, begging, praying, screaming for the freezing to stop, but he had no control over his abilities. The ice crushed everything in its path. Yeosang could only watch helplessly as his friend reached out for him before he was turned into a statue of ice.
The school didn’t even suspect him. After all, how could you blame an eight-year-old kid who walked out of the scene crying with his best friend’s frozen body in his arms?
It didn’t matter if the school didn’t blame him. Yeosang blamed himself. That was enough.
Yeosang clenched his fists at the memory, taking deep breaths to calm himself down. He forced himself to think of other things, to get his mind off worse memories that haunted his nightmares.
Thankfully, that distraction came in the form of a text pinging on Yeosang’s phone.
You and Kim. Meet at HQ. 20 min max. Don’t make me wait.
- E
Yeosang groaned. After several of his ice-fiascos, he had been approached by Eden, a tall man who claimed to be running what he called the SEVEN SEASONS Agency, a secret underground organisation that monitored global threats and recruited spies and intelligence agents to help keep peace and prevent violence. He had been called there as a potential threat, but after Eden had convinced him to work for them, he was now a SEVEN SEASONS agent. The agents there had helped Yeosang control his powers better, although he was still a bit rusty. He had worked together with Hongjoong to hone their enhanced skills - Hongjoong improved his telepathic and telekinetic abilities while Yeosang improved his hydrokinetic ones. In return, Yeosang and Hongjoong agreed to fight some of SEVEN SEASONS’s bigger battles, and they had both become what the world liked to call ‘superheroes’. They fought crime. They wore secretive suits. They hid in plain sight. Often, this required them to leave school abruptly in the middle of nowhere. No one knew about this nor his powers yet, and Yeosang planned to keep it that way.
SEVEN SEASONS had created an alias for him, by the name of ‘Kang’. Of course, it was Yeosang’s last name, but there were thousands of Kang’s in the city. It would be impossible to narrow it down to him. Hongjoong had it even better - ‘Kim’ was the most common surname in the city, so he had his identity hidden perfectly.
Kang and Kim were new fledgling superheroes that the world admired. They would never be like Block B, not even half as popular or trusted, but that didn’t hurt Yeosang. Rather, it reassured him. He was glad that he’d never end up like them.
Hiding his identity was a bit of an issue, however. Yeosang had to figure out some new shit in order to get him bailed out of class.
“We have to go,” Yeosang murmured under his breath to Hongjoong. Immediately, the older perked up attentively, nodding as he raised his hand, silver sparkles swirling around it.
Professor Yoo seemed to stop in the middle of her lecture, her eyes glazing out of focus ever so slightly. Anyone else would think she had just remembered something important. Yeosang and Hongjoong knew better.
“Ah, Yeosang, Hongjoong, don’t you two need to leave right now? You told me you had an important meeting with the Head of the department to go to. Go on!” Professor Yoo said kindly.
“Thank you, Professor.” Yeosang stood up and grabbed his bags, he and Hongjoong quickly exiting the classroom before any of their classmates could get suspicious. As soon as they were outside the building, they made a dash for the parking lot, running as fast as they could so they wouldn’t be late.
A sleek black car was waiting for Yeosang and Hongjoong in the parking lot. The car window rolled down to reveal Maddox, Eden’s second in command, sitting at the driver’s seat.
“Hey, Kang, Kim,” Maddox said cheerfully. “Get in. Commander’s got something big for us.”
-----
Jung Wooyoung approached the eight-inch thick steel door, quickly typing in the hexadecimal passcode, then cutting his finger and letting blood spill upon the DNA sensor in order to allow him in. One might argue that his security measures were overkill, but considering that Wooyoung was no ordinary college student, it was quite fitting.
As soon as Wooyoung’s password and DNA were cleared, a metal arm poked out from the wall and held a knife to Wooyoung’s throat. “Password?” A voice hissed in a robotic tone.
“ Mars ,” Wooyoung whispered, his voice tainted with hatred. He loathed that name, but it was the only password Wooyoung knew no one who didn’t know him well would ever be able to guess. The robotic arm quickly retracted, and the robotic voice hissed: “Welcome, Wooyoung.”
Then the door opened and the loud sounds of electronic music and screaming party-goers filled his ears, causing Wooyoung to wince as he stepped inside.
The bar was meant to be ‘private’, but there were many people who knew about it. It was one of the few bars where the police had yet to regulate, mainly because of the security measures around it. And yet, the passwords and security checks were not over for Wooyoung.
He walked quickly over to a booth in the far back, sliding into the velvet seats with ease. Making sure no one was watching him, Wooyoung dragged his sharp nail across the table in a special pattern - to anyone else, it would seem as if he were merely tapping his fingers impatiently.
A click sounded and a curtain of reflective panels appeared around the booth, disguising it. Then, a shaft opened and the entire booth was dragged down into the floor, pulling Wooyoung along with it.
After a few seconds, the booth reached a dimly-lit basement, with a few black leather couches and plain black tables scattered around the room. To the right, there was a big bulletin board with several faces, newspaper articles and other bits of information pinned onto it. In the centre of the room, a miniature holographic image of New York City had been set up, with moving figures representing every movement that every person in the city made. On the walls around them, weapons of a thousand shapes and sizes hung there, their sharp metal glinting despite the dark light.
“Hey, you’re back!” Wooyoung’s friend (and partner-in-crime) San was lying calmly across a sofa, a laid-back grin on his face. “How was class?”
Wooyoung made a face, rolling his eyes as he dumped his bag on a table beside them. A knife skittered out of it, and San raised an eyebrow judgingly.
“Don’t ask,” Wooyoung replied smoothly, but San was already at his side, observing the knife (and the blood stains on it). He squinted at it for a few seconds before handing it back to the elder boy.
“Looks like whoever you fought put up quite a fight. An offensive on our side, I assume?” San asked suspiciously. “You didn’t tell me we had a new target.”
“We didn’t,” Wooyoung used his jacket sleeve to clean the blood off the blade. “It wasn’t a target.”
San frowned, his eyes widening in concern. “Is it him?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, San,” Wooyoung laughed in disbelief. “He’s infinitely more capable than me. And you’ve seen the footage. Though I dream of the day when I can run my knife through his heart and spit on his murderous blood, it has yet to come.”
“Is Wooyoung being dramatic again?” Another voice called out from the hallway and Mingi, the third member of their little group and also their top technician, walked out from it. “Don’t tell me you’ve been ranting about flooding the streets with your brother’s blood again. I don’t want to hear it.”
San visibly lit up when Mingi entered the room, and he quickly walked over to the younger boy, letting Mingi drape his arms around him and press a soft kiss into his hair. Wooyoung scrunched his nose at their domestic displays of affection. They had been dating for almost a year now, but Wooyoung still found it uncomfortable to watch them.
He wasn’t sure if it was something wrong with him, or just the fact that watching your best friends make out on your couch was pretty horrific in general.
“Didn’t I tell you two to tone it down with the PDA?” Wooyoung muttered grimly, although he knew it was of no use. He had asked them to tone it down countless times before. They had ignored him just the same.
“Where’s Yunho?” Wooyoung asked calmly. Yunho was the last member of their little group. Unlike San, who was a top-of-the-line spy and Wooyoung’s second-in-command, and Mingi, who could probably hack into the Pentagon’s firewall within a day, Yunho didn’t specialise in any field, but he was good to have during missions. Besides, he made really good life decisions, some of which had saved the four of them from being caught by the police, or worse, SEVEN SEASONS.
The four of them were one faction of Journey, an underground operation that was involved in espionage, intelligence and assasination. Their faction was called ATZ’99, but there were other factions as well - NCT DREAM and TXT, both male factions, and Everglow and IZ*ONE, female factions. They worked outside of the law, and the factions all had different goals and priorities. Some factions’ members were just there to do their job and earn money. Some factions’ members were already criminals, and worked there for protection from the law. And some factions’ members, such as Wooyoung, were determined to see the downfall of powerful organisations such as SEVEN SEASONS - or even the downfall of governments.
It was members such as Wooyoung that were the most dangerous. And it didn’t help that Wooyoung had pyrokinesis. That made him both willing and capable of unspeakable amounts of destruction.
“Yunho is in the study hall. See, unlike us, his studies take priority over the destruction of SEVEN SEASONS,” Mingi replied quickly, his tone rather accusatory.
Wooyoung walked over to the miniature holographic 3-D map of New York that Mingi had set up in the centre of the room. He ran his finger over the large building that had ZICO TECHNOLOGIES written across it.
“SEVEN SEASONS knows,” Wooyoung said in a drawled voice. “They know about us.”
San and Mingi froze, San detaching himself away from Mingi to stand next to Wooyoung. “Are you certain?”
Wooyoung sighed. “Yes, I’m certain. That’s who I was dealing with today. Some low-class agents who were trying to spy on us. I caught them easily, don’t worry.”
Mingi frowned. “How much do they know?”
“Not much. Thankfully, not enough.” Wooyoung jabbed a finger at the image, and quickly, a search engine popped up, allowing him to type in a few keywords to access the files he needed. He quickly found the file labelled ‘KANG’, tapping it and opening it to reveal its details.
“This is Kang, as you are all aware of. A new superhero for the world to devour.” Wooyoung’s eyes scanned over the file. In the image, a guy in a black-and-dark blue suit and a dark blue mask stood on a street, fighting off a gang with sharp blasts of ice flying from his hands. His hair was covered by the hood of his suit, and only his big brown eyes were visible through all his protective clothing.
“God, he looks like a walking blueberry,” Wooyoung muttered as he looked at the image. “Superhero suits have gotten so ugly lately. So unflattering.”
“Is the first thing you noticed about Kang his fashion sense ?” San asked skeptically. Wooyoung merely shrugged in return. “Just because you’re a hero, doesn’t exempt you from dressing decently. Or fashionably, for that matter.”
San rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Is SEVEN SEASONS going to put him on our trail?”
Wooyoung pursed his lips. “That is the most likely outcome. Nevertheless, we’ll keep him off our scent.”
“What does Yeonjun have to say about this?” San asked cautiously. Choi Yeonjun was an informant from TXT that the group trusted - he was pretty young, but he was an espionage ace and knew almost everything about every underground operation that occurred in the city.
Wooyoung gestured lazily to his phone. “I called Yeonjun earlier and told him to come here. He’s on his way, so you’ll find out soon.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rang and a voice from the other side called out: “Guys? It’s me.”
Mingi immediately rushed over to the door, pulling it open ever so slightly so he could speak to the visitor. “Password?” Mingi muttered under his breath, and Yeonjun whispered the password back softly. Then Mingi smiled and allowed the younger boy in, making sure to disable the knife-swinging arm as they walked in.
“Hey, Wooyoung,” Yeonjun said cheerfully as he collapsed onto the couch. “How’s it going?”
“Not well,” Wooyoung muttered as he sat down just as casually. “Talk.”
“Jeez, you’re not in a good mood,” Yeonjun raised an eyebrow, but he spoke anyway. “SEVEN SEASONS knows that you are enhanced. They’ve been tracking enhanced for a while now. That’s how they discovered Kang and Kim. Rumour has it that SEVEN SEASONS’s got more - at least one or two more, but no one’s sure about who they are. Some people think Kim Hongjoong might be ‘Kim’.”
San frowned at that. “I know that name. I’ve met him before, during an exchange field trip between our university and KQ.”
“Why do they suspect Hongjoong?” Wooyoung asked sharply. Yeonjun sighed, before he reached over to the screen and pressed a few buttons. A file appeared, labelled ‘Kim Hongjoong’, and he quickly scrolled through it.
“There have been… incidents,” Yeonjun said carefully. “There’s security footage from Hongjoong’s old schools that I’ve seen. It’s difficult to tell, because he’s a manipulator.”
Wooyoung tensed. “What do you mean, a manipulator?”
Yeonjun rolled his eyes. “Duh, Hongjoong has psychokinesis. Those are most likely his attributes. Here, look.” The informant opened a video of a rather short but well-built boy flicking his fingers towards someone. That someone seemed to wince in pain, grabbing their head in agony. Then Hongjoong closed his fist, and the victim stopped wincing.
Another video showed a younger boy being mocked by a couple of large kids in the playground. Hongjoong walked up to them and waved his hands quickly, like he was casting a spell. The bullies’ eyes seemed to glaze over, then they walked away, leaving Hongjoong to comfort the younger boy.
Wooyoung’s eyes widened. “That’s some high-level enhancement he’s got.”
“Yeah, which is why I’ve also got a suspicion as to who Kang might be.” Yeonjun grinned as he typed a few more things into the screen. A few seconds later, a picture of a boy with chestnut brown hair, big brown eyes and a sharp jawline appeared on the screen.
“This is Kang Yeosang. He’s a close friend of Hongjoong’s. Since we’re pretty sure Hongjoong is ‘Kim’, Yeosang might be the ‘Kang’ that we’re looking for. SEVEN SEASONS’s infamous for trying to group their superheroes together in one city,” Yeonjun explained. Wooyoung watched the picture carefully, observing the boy.
Yeosang didn’t look much older than nineteen. With a dull face on, it was impossible to tell his personality. Wooyoung could certainly see the boy being cold, emotionless and heartless, but he could also see the fire in his eyes that hid a world of hatred. Was this the same Kang? It was impossible to tell.
“Oh, and…” Yeonjun lowered his voice, as if he was letting the others in on a secret. “No one else knows this, but since y’all are friends, I’ll tell you. It’s something I figured out on my own.”
“Shoot,” Wooyoung demanded.
“Well, around ten or eleven years ago, this school in Busan became completely covered in ice. Like, everyone became an icicle. Frost all over the place No one knew how it started, and all security footage had been lost in the accident. No one survived except this one kid, Kang Yeosang,” Yeonjun said quietly. “Nobody thought he had caused it, but I highly suspect that Yeosang was the one who started the freeze. He came out almost unscathed. People say there was blood on him, but I’ve seen the footage from outside the school. That blood wasn’t his blood.”
Wooyoung took a deep breath. “If you’re right, Yeonjun,” He began slowly, “Then this could confirm that Yeosang is SEVEN SEASONS’s ‘Kang’. Is that all?”
“Wait, there’s more, related to you guys,” Yeonjun protested. “SEVEN SEASONS knows you’re enhanced, like I said. They think you’re a threat - anyone who supposedly isn’t under their supervision is a threat. They’re going to try to find you - they’ll probably send Kang and Kim after you. My sources tell me they’ve been trying to recruit you, but you’ve been ignoring them.”
Wooyoung laughed, patting his phone fondly. “Yes, I’ve ignored the majority of their calls and messages. I only answer them to tell them to fuck off.”
Yeonjun grinned. “Well, that’s swell for you. But SEVEN SEASONS has marked you as a security threat because of that. The good thing is, SEVEN SEASONS doesn’t know what you’ve been planning.” He tapped the hologram, which changed to show SEVEN SEASONS headquarters in Washington D.C. up in flames that Wooyoung’s powers had conjured up. Then, of course, there was Eden, the leader of SEVEN SEASONS, and Wooyoung’s brother lying on the ground dead at Wooyoung’s feet.
“I don’t care if we overthrow SEVEN SEASONS and wreak havoc on Washington, frankly,” Wooyoung said angrily. “I just want Eden and my brother dead . So as long as SEVEN SEASONS doesn’t know about those intentions, we’re safe.”
“You’re safe, maybe,” Yeonjun commented snidely. “It doesn’t change the fact that you’re planning to overthrow SEVEN SEASONS. If SEVEN SEASONS finds out what we’ve been doing, we’re all dead.”
“Relax, Yeonjun. SEVEN SEASONS won’t find out anything.” Wooyoung toyed with the bloody knife he’d used to eliminate some SEVEN SEASONS officers that had been stalking him. “If that’s all, then we’ll bade you goodbye.”
Yeonjun smiled, standing up from the couch with an air of satisfaction. “Alright then. See you around, guys. Remember, TXT ’s door is always open if you need it.”
“Thank you, Yeonjun,” Wooyoung said graciously, figuring that he might as well be nice to their main informant. Yeonjun smirked triumphantly, then left the room, slamming the door behind him.
San sighed worriedly as he tapped his fingers against the table. “Well, that was comforting.”
“What do we do?” Mingi asked. Wooyoung laced his fingers together, placing his chin on his interlocked hands as he thought. After a moment, he came to a decision.
“I don’t want to wait for SEVEN SEASONS to make the first move. We should act on the information that we have. I say we find Kang Yeosang and Kim Hongjoong. Attack them first,” Wooyoung suggested.
“Are you sure?” San looked skeptical. “If we do that, SEVEN SEASONS will have every right to hunt us down like wolves.”
“Attacked or not, they will hunt us,” Wooyoung replied calmly. “And I don’t want to be caught off-guard. We should move fast, one-up them before they even get the chance to narrow down on us.”
Mingi folded his arms over his chest. “Do we trust Yeonjun enough on this? What if Yeosang and Hongjoong aren’t enhanced?”
“Then whoever is enhanced will come to us,” Wooyoung explained. “We strike first, they’ll be drawn there. Then we figure things out from there.”
For a few seconds, San and Mingi looked at each other doubtfully, but they eventually caved. “Alright,” San said. “We’ll attack Yeosang and Hongjoong first. Mingi, find where they’re going to be tomorrow afternoon.”
“On it.” Mingi quickly left to the tech room, ready to track down the two suspected enhanced. Wooyoung then turned to San. “Time to train. We have to beat their asses, take hostages if we can, leave no leads to us. Tomorrow, everything has to go perfectly.”