"I still can't believe he did that," Taeyong muttered, leaning against a table, a dark frown on his face. "What's the point of recruiting Supers if you don't want them to use their powers?"

"There's more to Taemin's plan than you know," Lucas said, raising an eyebrow. "And we did get something out of it. Stop acting like we're just wasting our time."

To his credit, that was true. At least to some extent. The group (minus Baekhyun and Taemin) had reassembled in front of the laboratory as soon as their training sessions had ended—

"Which was three hours ago," Kai said tiredly, pulling a towel off his shoulder and wiping his hands with it. "Even my palms are getting sweaty with nervousness. I don't understand why we have to train for so long—well, why I have to train for so long. You guys have stick-figure bodies. Except Lucas."

"Thank you," Lucas muttered, looking a little confused.

Ten let out a breath he'd been holding in for some time, turning it into a sigh. "I admit I'm getting a little tired with all the waiting we have to do."

Taeyong spread his arms victoriously, as if displaying the results of a successful experiment. Ten couldn't help but recall his enthusiasm the time he'd made his best painting, only for it to end up unappreciated. "Even Ten agrees," Taeyong said. "You know when that happens, it's serious."

Mark spoke up before Lucas's eyes could complete their roll, cutting in somewhat nervously. "I think what Taeyong means is like, we don't have much to do," he said. Ever the peacemaker, though rarely successful.

Ten had to admit he kind of agreed with Taeyong's idea. The rest of the Super-team, or whatever their name was supposed to be, seemed to agree too—except Lucas, who still seemed to him a little too blind to Taemin's faults. He had wanted to feel like he was actually doing something with life, but he had gotten only as far as eavesdropping on a not-so-private conversation among two criminals.

He could almost feel the tension in the room, and knew that he was one of the biggest contributors to it, if not the. Everyone was secretly dying to know what he had overheard, but Ten felt uncomfortable even thinking about it. The experience had been...disturbing, to say the least. And he didn't have permission from 'team leader' yet. Despite Taeyong's biting comments, Ten knew that he too was intimidated by Taemin, like everyone else.

"Yes." Taeyong nodded vigorously. "The casino raid yesterday, or whatever that was? That could have been carried out by a group of well-trained civilians. Look, I get that we have to be careful when dealing with this supervillain stuff, but this is more like being unproductive and impractical."

Lucas's eyebrow inched a little higher. "I'd like to see you explain one 'practical' thing about your plan."

Taeyong's eyes narrowed. Ten winced as he saw him opening his mouth to retaliate, but the door of the lab swung open and Baekhyun walked in, saving the day from yet another argument.

Mark sat up excitedly, looking at the orange-haired man with wide, eager eyes. "So? What did you get?"

"Nothing promising," Baekhyun answered, shrugging. Ten watched as he walked into the center, the goggles around his neck swinging rhythmically with each step. He looked tired, and somewhat quieter than usual. He sat up with a frown, wondering what he had found. "Traces of hallucinogen in her bloodstream."

"Hallucinogen?" Kai asked.

"Oh," Baekhyun frowned. "D-lysergic acid diethylamide."

Ten tilted his head to the side. "You do realize that's not helping, right?"

"It's a drug used for recreational purposes," Mark intervened, looking way too excited for something that was probably illegal. "You must have seen it in like, a movie or something. It makes you, like, see—um, weird stuff. Hallucinations? Yeah, hallucinations."

"Oh, right," Kai nodded in understanding. "Mellow yellow."

Ten raised his eyebrows.

"You know." Kai made some strange hand gestures, which did not help his confusion. "Dots. Blotter acid."

"LSD," Baekhyun said before Kai could say anything else. His eyes were guarded, Ten realized, and the exhaustion in them didn't have anything to do with the dark circles under his eyes.

"You should've just said that to start with," Ten muttered.

Lucas rolled his eyes. Ten glared at him discreetly. He hated being looked down upon, and that was exactly why he couldn't seem to get along with Lucas. He respected Baekhyun, but still questioned why he had put Ten and Lucas in a pair to investigate earlier. The two got along about as well as Coke and Pepsi.

"Where's the girl?" Taeyong asked. He had refused to call Shao by her name, and Ten kind of understood. Out of all the reasons Taeyong had to call the superhero project a failure, the girl was the biggest one, representing the team's apparent lack of guardedness. Ten himself didn't appreciate her presence too much.

"Her name is Shao," Baekhyun said sternly. "She is a human, Taeyong—it's genetically proved now—and we're going to treat her as one. She adds to the team."

"The only thing she adds to is our collective stupidity."

"And bad jokes," Mark added, then smiled embarrassedly. "Sorry, not helpful."

"She's our one source for information," Baekhyun reminded him, flipping a page in his notepad.

"Not if you wipe her memory." Taeyong shrugged.

"We're not wiping her."

"What?" The man stared at him, aghast. "You do realize that could be a threat to our identities, right? What if she's one of the bad guys? She could have a tracking device embedded in her, for all we know."

"She doesn't. I checked," Baekhyun replied dryly. "And the one major threat to our secret identities is the media, who now knows about us thanks to you and Mark. Oh, don't try to look innocent now. You really think we wouldn't have found out?"

Mark raised his shoulder slowly to the level of his ears, then let them drop. "Does that mean we get superhero names?"

The orange-haired man sighed. "We could try, if you want them so bad."

"Really?" Mark looked surprised. "I didn't actually think you'd agree." For a second, he made a thoughtful face, pressing his hands between his thighs. "Now that you've allowed it, I can't, like, actually decide on one."

Ten watched his gestures, trying not to smile. He wasn't even that older than Mark, but the eighteen-year-old had an aura that made him seem more like a highschooler than a freshman in college.

But for now, there were more pressing matters at hand. "Does she remember anything from last night?" he asked Baekhyun, touching the fringe of his dark hair worriedly. "Maybe the hallucinogen would have messed with her memories."

"And we don't know how long she's been there," Taeyong added. "And we're ignoring the possibility that she might not want to help us."

"You don't need to worry about that. We have our methods." Ten almost jumped out of his skin as Taemin spoke up from behind him. Judging from the looks on the others' faces, they were just as disturbed by the silent entry.

Mark placed a hand on his chest as Taemin walked up to Baekhyun, adjusting the cuff of his shirt. "You're fast."

"That's what I do." Taemin smiled at him. Ten noticed that the millionaire was warmer towards Mark than the rest of the recruits, but he put it down to the boy's natural tendency to attract protectiveness. He himself would be ready to dive into cold water for him.

He watched Taemin warily, hoping that he wouldn't ask him to describe the conversation. One way or another, though, Ten knew he would have to face the music soon. Yet another thing to not look forward to.

"Mission report?" Taemin asked, and Baekhyun's lips lifted into a small smile, like it was a shared joke between the two.

"Shao's asleep," he said, flipping his notepad shut. "I found hallucinogen in her, and it's been in her bloodstream for a few days, at the very least. I tried questioning her, but she still seemed a bit out of it, so the effects haven't worn off." He rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand, and exhaled. "Which means she'd been drugged again not a long time before we found her."

"Are you gonna, like, torture her? Like Geronimo?"

Everyone's eyes turned to Mark, who had asked the question. He shrunk visibly.

"We didn't torture him," Lucas said, looking offended.

"Ah, yes," Taeyong said. "Because Gerry's an old friend."

"Well, he practically is." Lucas shrugged, not even bothering to defend his answer. "He's been in a holding cell for days now."

"You have holding cells in this place?" Mark exclaimed. "I thought this was like, a workplace building or something!"

"Workplace building," Ten echoed, amused.

"Well, what did you expect?" Taeyong said. "They have a whole training center. Not something you'd normally find in a place like this."

From inside the forensic lab, someone screeched. No—it was the sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor, the noise making Ten feel like covering his ears. The gathering fell completely silent as something crashed against a hard surface, and Baekhyun sighed another long sigh.

"And that would be Shao," he muttered, dragging a hand over his forehead. "I'll go get her." He looked at Taemin, a meaningful look that Ten couldn't quiet decipher, and then turned to him. The ravenet got a distinctive feeling of impending doom. "Meanwhile, Ten, gather your notes. You'll be briefing us on the conversation in a few minutes."

|

i lied (i'm sorry)

god that was so much dialogue, my brain hurts. i know there was a lot to process here, and this involves both team dynamics and actual plot so it's like, REALLY hard to get both of these things to progress at the same time, i'm so sorry for being a lazy ass author. this book is just so hard to write (sad lol)

but !! shao has a lot in store for you so watch out for her. and so does manx.

love,
Manx.