Super

43. raven feathers

"What do you mean, they're not working?" Taeyong hissed, crouching closer to Baekhyun, who had recovered enough to support himself, but still looked physically and mentally drain.

"I mean," Baekhyun said patiently, "that they're not working."

Taeyong stared at him incredulously. Baekhyun began to rise to his feet, and Taeyong got to his feet to help him up. "Are you sure?" he asked again.

There was something so fundamentally wrong with the idea of their powers not working that Taeyong could scarcely believe it. Their entire plan of attack was based on the fact that they could pull it off, do it in a way normal people couldn't, because they had superpowers. The whole city depended on them having powers.

"Yes, I'm sure," Baekhyun answered haggardly. He didn't look completely robbed of energy, the way he sometimes did when he used his lightning, but the sudden stark despair in his usually hopeful eyes made him look like he's just got out of a hospital bed. "I'm trying right now. It just won't come."

Taeyong looked down at his own hands, the person they'd been trying to catch long forgotten. Not like it was much use thinking about him, he had probably escaped a long time ago. He had just been struck by an awful thought—what if Baekhyun's loss of powers wasn't a personal thing? What if it was affecting him, too?

His fingers curled into his palm. Suddenly, he was afraid. Afraid that if he tried to summon a clone, it wouldn't work, and then it would be all too real.

"You try," Baekhyun said, obviously having the same thoughts. His eyes were sympathetic, but layered beneath was a grim resolve so like a leader making the team do something he knew was difficult, simply because there was no other way. "Try cloning yourself."

Taeyong closed his eyes, pushing his fear aside, and concentrated. He visualized his personality as if it were a tangible structure, like an onion with layers atop each other, so you needed to peel away parts to get to the core. I contain multitudes.

He opened his eyes. Baekhyun stood in front of him, mouth half open, but even before he spoke, Taeyong knew. He physically felt the lack of division, the lack of free space between his thoughts. He felt complete.

"It's not working," he whispered.

Someone gasped behind him, and he turned just in time to see Shao fall to her knees, face pale. "Shao," he said, the word ripping itself from his mouth like he couldn't help it, and went towards her. Her expression looked strained, the livid white scar standing out like a silver streak against her face, like someone had sucked the oxygen out of her lungs.

Baekhyun stood next to them, looking at her in horror. "If whatever it is took our powers..."

He didn't complete his sentence, but he didn't need to. How would it affect a non-Super?

Taeyong glanced down at Shao, who was on her hands and knees, gasping as if she had been drowning seconds earlier. His hands hovered around her shoulders, unsure what he was supposed to do. Both he and Baekhyun couldn't use their powers, that was true, but Shao looked like she was in pain.

"It must have something to do with this area," Taeyong said. His brain was working at full speed, considering and discarding theories, and the most obvious fact was that all this had started happening the moment they'd stepped into the balcony. "There could be another reason, but we have to consider every possibility—"

"Right." Baekhyun didn't waste a second before lifting Shao up. Taeyong watched them, unable to move, until he caught a glance of the concern on Baekhyun's face and slapped himself out of his reverie.