Petra's army fell onto the Noon Mool crew with full-force.

All the members of Noon Mool were circled up with their backs to Shae, who stood in her pale blue combat spandex over Jeon Jungkook's limp frame. She kept looking about for a place in the fight, trying to figure out some way to help, but all she could feel was blankness. She felt utterly overwhelmed.

Then Shae looked down at her feet again: at Kookie's lifeless, empty eyes. They were all that she could see.

It was a good thing the rest of the Noon Mool crew were so good at taking the heat.

Hoseok's longsword kept sweeping at the approaching mob, sending wave after wave of green flames-and-steel flickering into the fray. Suits and eyebrows were singed, and the mass of figures twitching with black magic clouds were kept at bay. All the while, a sadistic smile played about Hoseok's lips as he enjoyed the thrill of the battle. He lived for this shit.

At Hoseok's elbow, Kim Namjoon was leaning full-force into his hand-to-hand combat skills. Except he had a trick up his sleeve. Every time he pinched his fingers into the neck of an opponent--his fingers and hands still flickering with electric white power--it would send a full-body shock through his opponent. Which would then send them fainting into the dust.

Next to Joon, Lilith's electric pink visor that flashed over her face did more than just protect her face. It helped her lock onto targets as she coordinated her strikes--sending her blade tearing through one shoulder, sending one man toppling into three more. Her fierce concentration and level precision in the fray were unwavering with each swing of her blade.

Min Yoongi completed the circle. His voice was a regular series of sadistic cackles. Shae realized that the blaster in Yoongi's hands had automatic capabilities--so in short bursts, Min Yoongi was scattering a rain of blasts here, there, again, and again. As a result, he kept sending massive wave after wave of approaching enemies toppling into the dust. He cackled delightedly and shouted between blasts something along the lines of, "That's right, yah shits! On yah knees! Bow before this greatness!" He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Then a figure stumbled through the Noon Mool line.

They raised a sword over Shae's head and poised to strike.

Just as she was sure the blade would fall, electric white light coursed over the enemy figure's body--and he toppled into dust. Kim Namjoon didn't have time to pause, merely twisted himself back into the messy fray as three fresh fighters approached him in tandem.

The moment shook Shae out of her stunned shock.

Shae crouched down over Jungkook's frame. She held his face between both of her hands for a brief moment, and her fingertips seemed to scatter a faint blue into his skin. "Thank you for protecting me, Jeon Jungkook." She sighed heavily. "But I am so, so sorry that this happened to you. This is my fault. And I'm sorry."

Then Shae sighed again and set to work searching Jungkook's body armor. Perhaps he has an extra weapon somewhere that would be useful...? Aha!

Shae plucked a dagger up from out of Jungkook's utility belt, still crouched down into the sand over his body.

"Well aren't you pretty." An odd, drawling voice washed over Shae. She looked up to see the orange peeled-hair and slightly drunken grin of Sehun of Essem fortress standing over her. Shae stood up, clutching the small knife in her hands tightly as Sehun took a step closer. His lanky frame towered over her.

Once again, no one seemed to notice that Sehun had slipped through their ranks.

The drawling Sehun snapped one of his fingers, and a heavy black form like a rock appeared and hovered over his now-open palm.

"It won't even hurt," he said through his dopey grin. "Or maybe it will." He started to hurl his hand back, preparing for the throw.

Shae braced her forearms in front of her chest, tense and waiting.

"HEY."

A black booted heel collided with Sehun's face, sending the black magic rock scattering to the ground. Then a feminine fist cracked against Sehun in the jaw.

"AVA?!"

Ava scowled at Sehun as he held his wounded cheek.

Ava scoffed, "And to think that I was nice to you."

Amidst that swell of chaos, Ava was sporting her full maroon-and-black combat gear. And for the first time, she felt just-right wearing it.

Shae realized that Ava had just dropped down from the wide open gut of a fighter jet that was now hovering over their heads in the middle of that sandy arena pit.

Shae saw Chimin standing upon the lowered hatch, and watched as that golden haired man dropped, rolled and righted himself with graceful finesse to stand just next to Ava in the sand.

At the sight of Chimin, Sehun's dopey expression was replaced with a look of pure loathing. "You again."

Chim flickered a bright smile, while his eyes became piercing and dangerous. "Ah yes. The pretty boy with rocks for brains."

"GHHHA!"

Sehun forgot all about Shae and Ava. He flung himself in full-tipsy force at Park Chimin, and the hand-to-hand combat dance was on.

Sehun was much taller, but Chimin was far more graceful. Every awkward jab and dive that Sehun made was smoothly avoided. Chimin was simple and strategic in driving a jab to Sehun's throat, his ankles, and all the while Noon Mool's treasure hunter-turned-mastermind was flashing his dazzling golden grin. He was enjoying being the better dancer.

"Shae, help me with his feet." Ava leaned down and started plucking Kookie's lifeless body up by the wrists. "We gotta get them up into the shuttle. Jin's ready to blast us outta here as soon as we're all on board."

"Okay." Shae was still overwhelmed by everything happened around them. She said a mental thanks for Ava's clarity and direction amidst the chaos.

The two young women managed to hoist Jungkook's limp frame up onto the open mouth of the hovering fighter jet's open hatch.

"One down," Ava muttered.

Then their eyes scanned the crowd for Tae's body.

"He's between Hoseok and Joon," Shae said, pointing.

"Yeah, but he's outside of the safe zone." Ava sighed, gesturing in a circle with her hands and referring to the back-to-back Noon Moolites in full fight mode.

Shae said, "We can make it. They've got our backs."

Then Shae ran through the fray. Ava reluctantly rushed after her.

They braced themselves, one at Tae's head and the other standing at his feet. The best friends looked sternly at each other, nodded, then reached down start plucking up Tae's limbs.

"GHA."

Ava gave a sharp intake of breath, her shoulders suddenly twitching forwards and to the far right--out of the range of a short sword that had just sliced through her left side.

Shae muttered in recognition at the sight of that short, yet very intimidating man with buzzed hair, "Dee-Oh."

Ava jumped into a fighting stance in his direction, fists up and defensive. She was ready. Ava jumped out of the way of the blade in his hand as Dee-Oh lunged again, then she wrapped her hands around his elbow, pulled him in to knee him hard in gut, and twisted him by the arm to push-and-kick him face-down into the sand.

Dee-Oh'd managed to drop his short sword in the process near Ava's feet. He braced his palms unsteadily into the sand, spitting grains out of his mouth as he glared up at Ava with terrifying eyes and raised himself up again.

Ava wasn't scared, though. She laughed and jumped back into her fighting stance: hands up, knees bent, feet springy. She was ready.

It happened faster than Shae could blink.

A man with orange-peel hair plucked that blade up from the sand at Ava's feet.

Chimin was nowhere in sight.

Sehun kicked Ava hard in the back. Ava fell to her knees.

As Sehun raised that blade in both hands over his head, preparing for the blow, Shae ran forward and raised her arms over her head, standing between Sehun's blade and her best friend who'd fallen into the sand.

Just as Shae was certain the glinting blade was going to collide with flesh and bone, Sehun's body went stiff.

His eyes went wide.

He sputtered blood.

Shae saw the end of a long, sharp blade growing out of Sehun's stomach. Then the blade shrank away and disappeared.

Sehun collapsed, blank faced and fading, into the sand at Shae's feet.

And there stood Jung Hoseok with a dark, satisfied smile on his face as he looked down at Sehun's dying body. That dark smile remained as he looked up at Shae, and their eyes locked in a single breathless moment.

Then Hoseok pivoted--just as Dee-Oh was reaching for Ava's throat with his black-electric coated hands.

"Bitch, you thought," Hobi growled.

Hoseok's blade swung. Dee-Oh caught the blade mid-swing in his bare-electric hands--and they didn't even bleed.

Dee-Oh smirked.

Hoseok snarled, his teeth glinting through the heat.

Ava scrambled out of the path of their duel. Shae could see that there was a streak of blood trailing down Ava's left shoulder from Dee-Oh's blade, but her friend didn't even flinch.

Ava shouted, "C'mon, let's hurry!"

The two of them reached down over Tae's body again, Ava at his heels and Shae brushing the hair from Tae's lifeless face before reaching for his hands.

As Shae's fingers laced around Tae's wrists, a faint blue light flickering between her palms and his skin. Then something unfathomable happened: time quite literally stuttered to a halt.

____

Jungkook sat up. He braced his hands beneath him, which found themselves pressing into the ridges of a metallic flooring. His eyes swept over the salt-and-iron smelling scene before him and he marveled at what he saw.

Frozen perfectly into place, there were more figures crackling with black magic than he could count, and all of them were swarming towards the encircled figures of Joon, Lilith, Yoongi and Hobi. Just off to one side was Chimin on the ground with three figures bearing down over him. Just off to another were Shae and Ava frozen into a crouch.

Jungkook also saw Tae.

Taehyung was yanking his last wrist from Shae's frozen grasp. Then one leg, and the next, he yanked from Ava's even sturdier grip. Tae rubbed slightly at one of his wrists, and the now-grey haired young man turned to where Jungkook had dropped down from the open hatch of the fighter jet and was strolling casually in his direction.

Tae giggled.

Jungkook was slightly more sober. "What do you make of this, Tae Tae?"

Taehyung's starlight smile still gleamed about his face as he rose to his feet. He spoke as if observing a video game that'd been frozen onscreen, "It appears that our friends are grossly outnumbered."

"This is so weird," Jungkook muttered. "This." He stretched out his hands to stare into them, back and palm as he stretched the skin. "This is so, so weird."

Curious, Tae lifted up the giant white linen shirt-dress he'd been put into. His hand stretched over a smoothed stomach--but there were lines in his skin where the skin had been torn. It was like his body was a vase that'd been broken, the pieces put together again. He dropped his tunic and gave a shrug.

Jeon Jungkook was eyeing his friend with careful sympathy.

Meanwhile, Kim Taehyung crept up next to an enemy combatant with a trickster grin on his face. He proceeded to take the man's necktie off of him and then start wrapping it around the man's forehead, covering the eyes. Tae tied it at the end with a heavy knot.

Jungkook snorted.

Tae shot a mischievous look back at Kookie.

Then...at the sight of the oddity of the true Kim Taehyung at work for the first time in a long time, an idea struck Jeon Jungkook.

"I don't think this freeze frame is gonna last. But why don't we make it count?"

"Count?"

"Ties, suit jackets, whatever works best."

Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jungkook proceeded to blindfold men with their neck ties, lace one random human and the next together using people's random belts, or to tie one dude's suit jacket over another lady's face.

Then the two of them jumped up onto the open hanger of fighter jet to scan the crowd and admire their work.

"The elegant simplicity," Tae said with delicate joy in his voice.

Jungkook, on the other hand, cackled boisterously, "This is gonna be freakin' hilarious."

____

Shae and Ava had no idea what happened to Tae. Somehow, in a blink, where his skin had been between their hands there was suddenly nothing but air.

The girls looked up at each other's stunned faces. Then they looked around as they heard the sudden grunting and groaning of at least a hundred adult human beings running into each other, knocking their heads together, being yanked randomly into each other's direction, and toppling clumsily into the sand.

The collective falling of an enemy crowd gone blind, all at once, only cleared the view. Everyone in the Noon Mool crew turned to see Jungkook and Taehyung standing at the bottom of the open fighter jet hatch. The two tricksters took a bow, ridiculous grins plastered to their faces.

"Y-you...." Chimin scrambled to his feet from the ground, a bruise shining under his left eye and his lip bloodied.

Jungkook said rather boastfully, "Beg your pardon, folks, but it'd be best if you crammed your butts onto this craft ASAP because Jin's probably wondering what's taking so long. And I ain't gonna be the one to tell him that you guys just decided to stand around and stare at our beautiful faces forever."

Taehyung's expression was of delicate awe as he looked over the dumbfounded faces of his friends. He felt very shy with them all staring, and he shrank away next to Jungkook's side to make room for everyone else to climb their way aboard.

There was a rush of leather and limbs. Chimin was the first person to scramble aboard and rushed to lock Jungkook and Tae into a reckless embrace.

Tae was shocked that Chimin's had included him in that embrace.

Chim put a hand on both Tae and Jungkook's cheeks, his eyes sparkling with wonder. "You're...." Tears started to drip their way down Chimin's cheeks as he looked between the two resurrected young men. He pulled them again into a hard embrace. Jungkook heard Chim whisper into his chest, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry...."

"Hurry up, folks, let's take advantage of this before it's over," Hoseok said a rush, waving everyone forward as he jumped next up onto that open jet hatch.

He reached a hand down for both Ava and Shae to take, hoisting them hurriedly onboard at once.

Lilith was a small rush through the sand. Hoseok offered a hand down to her, but she didn't even need it as she hopped aboard.

The three girls rushed at Jungkook and Tae in unison in an avalanche of girlish squeals and bells of laughter. The two young men felt their cheeks flushing as they looked at each other, though they were both smiling.

Hoseok avoided eye contact with Jungkook and Tae...not really sure what to think or to say.

Joon's electric arms had flickered to normal as he stared from down in the arena. He didn't think much of miracles. But as he watched the girls swarm Tae and Jungkook's very-much-alive bodies, he swallowed back a lump in his throat and wondered.

Yoongi started barking orders at Joon, not wanting to waste time. The swarm were getting to their feet and starting to close in again. "This bitch is heavier than she looks. Help me out."

Joon rushed toward Yoongi, and they both began pushing Petra along inside of that massive red ball-prison at rapid pace.

"Get back, everyone, we need some room," Hoseok said flatly to everyone on the platform, just as Yoongi and Joon were closing in with Petra-in-a-ball.

Black bursts of magic started to fly towards the open hatch. The swarm was coming.

The ladies, Tae and Kookie and Chim, all scrambled hurriedly up the hatch and into the hull of that fighter jet.

Then Hoseok helped guide the red spherical prison up onto the hatch, while Joon grunted and heaved up with all of his might.

Yoongi has swiveled on his feet and started sending wave after wave of blaster rounds into the recovered, incoming swarm.

Joon grunted after his final heave and the red ball rolled up onto the open hatch. "We should just end the bitch and be done with it."

"I'd gladly do the honors," Hoseok grumbled.

Hoseok reached out a hand and pulled Joon onto the hatch, and the two of them hurried to push her up the sloped metallic surface and into the belly of the fighter jet.

Yoongi kept letting out short bursts of blasts, but the swarm crept closer and closer. "Hurry your asses up!"

Yoongi jumped up onto the lower part of the hatch just as Joon and Hoseok pushed that red ball prison and a silently screaming Petra fully inside the jet's hull. One last spray of blasts ("Bye, bitches."), one last series of humans falling onto their knees in the dust, and then Yoongi jumped into the hatch and let it close shut behind them.

Without waiting for so much as a roll call, the jet jerked unceremoniously forward--and it launched it's way out of the stadium's orbit at rapid speed.

"Dammit, this is why I never let Jin drive," Yoongi grumbled from somewhere on the floor, where he'd fallen from the sudden jerking motion of the jet's takeoff. He pushed himself out of a hard box of ammunition. Then the tech specialist rushed deeper into the hull of the jet.

Joon and Hoseok were there, more carefully pushing Petra's orb prison now, trying to guide it into place between two massive claws--one that hung from the ceiling, and one that was anchored into the floor.

Yoongi rushed forward to help them guide the orb.

It made a satisfying CLICK and fell securely into place, the ball sturdy and unmoving.

Joon looked at Yoongi with approving eyes, knowing he was behind the contraption.

Yoongi shrugged. "One of my better inventions. Traps out magic. Locks up assholes. Anywhere, any time."

The three men looked approvingly into the orb, particularly enjoying that no matter how emphatically Petra seemed to scream inside of the bubble or pound her hand into the sides, no dose of sound escaped.

"But seriously. Why don't you just kill her?" Joon asked. His fists tightened at the thought of being the one to do the honors.

Yoongi answered, "She's more useful alive than dead. Unfortunately."

"Sucks to be the tiny little cog in someone else's machine, doesn't it?" Hoseok grinned into the orb at Petra. He started making mocking faces at her through the translucent red material--but Yoongi shoved him in the shoulder to make him stop.

"C'mon. I think it's time for a family meeting, after all this random shit that's happened." Yoongi looked over at Joon and jerked his head towards the cockpit bay. There was a command in Yoongi's small dark his eyes and in his gesture.

Joon walked through the doorway first.

Hoseok muttered icily under his breath to Min Yoongi, "But he's...."

Yoongi slapped a reassuring hand onto Hoseok's shoulder, his hand tightening a moment before sliding away again. "We'll save the trial for Kim Namjoon for later. Let's just make it outta this place alive first, alright?"

"Fine." Hoseok wasn't about to let Kim Namjoon off the hook so easily, though, no matter what Yoongi or anyone else said.