The sky was empty. That was the first coherent thought to surface through the ringing in his ears. The Red Force vessel, a jagged tear in the fabric of their reality only moments ago, was now nothing more than a malevolent memory shrinking to a pinprick of hostile light. Gone. Wu Yifan, Luhan, Z-TAO… spirited away by some higher, crueler power. They had failed to stop it.
Kyungsoo’s lungs burned, each breath a fresh taste of ozone and scorched earth. He could feel the thrum of his own power receding, leaving behind a hollow ache in his bones. It was a relief, like a fever breaking, but the coolness that followed was terrifying. A vacuum. During the fight, for a fractured second, he’d felt it slip its leash. His own strength, a terrible, brutal force, had surged in a way that wasn’t his own. He’d seen the fear in a retreating enemy’s eyes, a fear that mirrored the one now clawing its way up his own throat. He hadn't been wielding a power; he had been a conduit for something vicious.
His hands, hanging at his sides, felt alien. Heavy and foreign. What had they done in the moments his mind couldn't—or wouldn't—recall?
“Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol’s voice, rough with exhaustion, broke through the static. “You with us?”
He was standing beside him, a looming, singed silhouette against the bruised twilight. All of them were there, scattered across the battlefield like broken chess pieces after a scouring game. Junmyeon, holding his right side, was already trying to do a headcount. Across the cratered ground, Minseok was helping Jongdae to his feet.
Kyungsoo wanted to answer, to give a nod, to offer some sign that he was still here. But the thread holding him upright was unraveling. The noise of the world began to warp, the concerned voices of his brothers pitching down into a thick, syrupy drone. Black crept in at the edges of his vision. He tried to lock his knees, to plant his feet—his own small, defiant action against the coming darkness. He would not fall. He would not be the one to break.
But his body betrayed him. The ground rushed up. The last thing he saw was Chanyeol’s face, the playful fire in his eyes extinguished, replaced by sheer, naked panic.
Then, nothing.
***
The hum was the first thing to penetrate the void. A low, clinical drone. Not the familiar thrum of the base’s living quarters, but the sterile, insistent sound of the medbay. Antiseptic sharp in the air.
Kyungsoo was a still form on the central bio-bed, looking smaller than he was amidst the white sheets and flickering monitors. The others were dotted around the room, a constellation of the walking wounded. Jongin nursed a sprained wrist. Baekhyun had a long, shallow cut along his jaw that he kept touching as if to make sure it was real. Yixing moved between them with an unnerving calm, his healing light flaring in soft, controlled pulses as he sealed wounds and soothed battered nerves. He was the anchor in their swirling sea of adrenaline and fear.
After stabilizing Minseok’s shoulder, Yixing turned his attention to Kyungsoo. The group’s weary banter died. All eyes followed him.
“Physical readings are… depleted. Extreme energy expenditure, cellular exhaustion,” Yixing murmured, his fingers flying across the console of the bio-scanner. The machine passed a pale blue light over Kyungsoo’s body. “That’s to be expected.”
“But?” Junmyeon prompted, his voice steady, the voice of a leader who knew bad news didn't get better with waiting.
Yixing didn’t answer immediately. He stared at the screen, his brow furrowed. Numbers and waveforms scrolled past, but one display held his attention. It was a jagged, chaotic graph, spiking violently in shades of crimson and black.
“His psychic resonance is unstable,” Yixing said, his voice dropping. “The readings are showing signs of… fragmentation. There’s a feedback loop, a conflict in his neural pathways. It’s not just trauma, Junmyeon. It’s like his mind is actively at war with itself.”
A chill, colder than the post-battle air, settled in the room. This was worse than a broken bone ora torn muscle. This was damage they couldn't see, a wound they didn’t know how to heal. Chanyeol, who had been leaning against the far wall, pushed off it and took a step closer, his hands clenched into fists. He looked at Kyungsoo’s pale face, the complete stillness of him, and a low growl rumbled in his chest.
“They broke him,” Sehun whispered, the words barely audible. They landed in the quiet room with the force of a physical blow.
Yixing’s gaze was fixed on the IV stand next to the bed. He made a minute adjustment to the drip rate. As his hand moved away, Kyungsoo’s own twitched on the sheet. It was a barely perceptible movement, a flicker of muscle memory. His fingers curled slightly, brushing against the bed linen as if trying to grasp something. As if trying to turn the label on the IV bag so it faced perfectly forward. A desperate, unconscious plea for order in the midst of his internal chaos.
Minseok, standing closest, saw the tiny, futile gesture. He said nothing, but his expression hardened, a deep line forming between his brows.
“He can’t stay here,” Yixing finally said, his voice leaving no room for argument. “The ambient energy, the activity… he needs absolute quiet.” He looked drained, sweat beading on his temples. Chanyeol was instantly at his side, a steadying hand on his elbow, guiding him toward a chair.
“Minseok-hyung, help me,” Junmyeon commanded, already moving to the side of the gurney. Together, the two oldest members began the careful process of transferring Kyungsoo, wheeling him out of the bustling medbay and down the quiet corridor.
They settled him in a private observation room, one with a floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the stark, beautiful expanse of the planet’s surface. It was a room designed for recovery, for peace. The irony was a bitter pill. Minseok stood over the bed, his gaze tracing the lines of exhaustion on his younger brother’s face. The anger he felt wasn’t hot and explosive like Chanyeol’s; it was a cold, dense mass solidifying in his gut. A promise of future retribution.
When they closed the door, the rest of the members were waiting in the hall. They were a study in silent fury. Sehun stared at the closed door as if he could will Kyungsoo awake through it. Baekhyun leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the wall, his usual light extinguished.
“We get him back,” Chanyeol said, his voice low and dangerous. It wasn't a question. “Whatever it takes.”
Junmyeon looked at each of them, his exhausted eyes meeting theirs. “Yixing will monitor him. We’ll set a rotation. He won’t be alone again.” He took a breath, the leader in him pushing past the worried brother. “But we are no good to him like this. Get treated. Get rest. The fight isn’t over. It’s just changed.”
His words were a command, but also a plea. One by one, they nodded and dispersed, a fractured family held together by a shared purpose. But Chanyeol lingered. He stepped up to the small pane of reinforced glass in the door, peering into the dim room. Inside, Kyungsoo was a silhouette against the starlight, small and frighteningly still in the sterile white bed. The sight twisted something in Chanyeol’s chest. They had won the battle, but looking at his friend, it felt terrifyingly like they were already losing the war.