Treasure tales

Jaehyuk #16: Battleground

The moon rose in the sky. Jaehyuk, alone, scrambled across the street, intent on finding only one thing: the source of the unknown magic user. One moment he was completely alone, but the next he felt a hand cover his eyes, and pull him away into the darkness.

Jaehyuk felt his heart rate begin to rise, but he forced himself to stay calm.

"If this was the me in the past, this is where I would have failed and died," he murmured to himself. "But this time..."

Jaehyuk smirked. He had already made preparations. On his way here, he had already crumbled part of an interstellar asteroid into dust and sent into to earth. The asteriod was now resting comfortably in his pocket.

Jaehyuk concentrated his energy into his power, and the next moment, the powder had filled the air. This should be enough to cause a distraction. He smiled knowingly when he heard his captor choke and cough over all the dust.

He took this chance to escape, and after he did so, sent many small rocks hurling at his opponent. Then he pummeled his captor a little more before allowing the dust to clear, allowing him to determine the identity of his captor.

Then he heard a low voice speak. "I've been waiting for you to find me."

I took out my notepad and my pen, and opened my textbook. No sooner had I started reading the first page did my phone start ringing. It was from Yoshi.

"I'm studying," I said bad-temperedly over the phone.

"It's bad," Yoshi panted from the other side of the line. "Jeongwoo suddenly detected huge waves of magic, all concentrated on the same area. We don't know who the source of the magic is. We may all be in danger."

"This was bound to happen," I said exasperatedly. "Seeing as there is possibly somebody from the otherworld in which we have absolutely no intel about."

"We're going to hold a meeting over video call," Yoshi continued. "Get your WhatsApp ready. We're worried that going outside at the moment may be too dangerous."

Calling user Yoon Jaehyuk...Calling user Yoon Jaehyuk

I stared at the computer screen in frustration. Was Jaehyuk never going to pick up the call? Was he too busy at work? But this was an emergency. Every member had answered the phone except him.

"Yoshi, you know what to do," Jihoon ordered over the call. "Do you have a teleportation marker near Jaehyuk's workplace?"

"The nearest one would take ten minutes by bus," Yoshi said, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Doesn't matter. Try your best. We're counting on you."

(Twenty-five minutes later)

"Sorry for the wait," Yoshi panted, clearly breathless. "This is bad. Jaehyuk hasn't been at work all day. He said he was going to go back after that disastrous meeting, but his manager hasn't seen him."

"That man!" Jeongwoo blurted in a rage. "So selfish! What kind of peril has he recklessly thrown himself into?"

"I have to agree with Jeongwoo on this one," Junkyu said, absent-mindedly biting his lip. "He's not picking up any calls, he lied about going to work. In that case, could he have..."

He paused, but he did not need to continue. Everybody had the same thought in mind. Did Jaehyuk attempt to hunt down the enemy on his own?

"Shall we go after him?" Mashiho asked awkwardly. "He may seriously...be lost at this rate. It's too dangerous."

"Even if you all decide not to, I will," Yedam spoke up. "Jaehyuk is an important friend to me. If he is to die I will die with him."

There was a short pause as everybody stayed quiet.

"I will go as well," Jeongwoo said suddenly, much to everybody's surprise. He bowed his head, such that his face was hidden behind his bangs. 

"Jeongwoo..." I said, touched.

"What do you expect me to do?" Jeongwoo yelled, finally showing his face. He seemed hysterical. "I can't lose my big brother twice. Never again. I may have been mad at him, but I never hated him."

"Let's save him," Hyunsuk finally relented. He spoke determinedly."For Jeongwoo's sake too. But Rin...Rin. You stay at home. I'd never want to put you in a situation like back then again, if I don't have to."

"But..." I protested.

"Listen to him," Jihoon implored me. He appealed to me with desperate eyes.

I nodded reluctantly.  "But on one condition."

Jaehyuk coughed. He was covered in blood. Large gashes and wounds appeared everywhere on his body. He did not care. He kept his eyes on his opponent. He would kill his opponent if it was the last thing he did.

He sent another cloud of rocks pummeling towards the earth. It was the remains of another stray asteriod in the solar system. He raised his hands, and sent the rocks hurling at his enemy. His enemy easily dodged, but Jaehyuk smirked. His enemy was falling right into his plan.

His enemy stumbled backwards and slipped on the pile of dust and rocks he had previously easy avoided. Just as he fell, Jaehyuk directed the rocks at his opponent again. One rocked cracked, and hot lava came spilling out.

"One good thing about my power is that it tells me the properties of the things I manipulate so that I can more effectively use it," He said to himself.

He walked towards his opponent. "This cannot be all you had, G Dragon," He said, towering over the Bigbang leader. "You were much more overpowered and brutal back there. Where did your power all go?"

"I'm...not...done yet..." G Dragon coughed.

"Jaehyuk! Watch out!" Jaehyuk heard a voice cry, whom he recognised to be Mashiho. Moments later Mashiho had materialised behind him. "He almost sent you to a space where only he and you exist, but I was able to force close it with my power."

"Jaehyuk did all this?" Haruto asked in disbelief.

"Something's wrong," Asahi commented. "What do you think, Rin?"

"Something is certainly wrong," I said over the phone. "G Dragon was so powerful, even with our powers intact, we couldn't defeat him. But Jaehyuk, still a novice to his power unlike the rest of you who have been training, defeated him so easily? Wait a minute. Let me process everything. Do you trust me?"

"You know that we do," Doyoung said with a smile.

"I'll finish him off," Junghwan said. He stepped forward and pointed a finger at G Dragon. Fire shot out from the tip of his fingers and wrapped itself around the Bigbang leader. "Farewell, G Dragon."

"You all have to live on," G Dragon said as the rest of the flames surrounded him. Junghwan's flames persisted stubbornly, until it had enveloped all of him.

I sat up in horror as the thought suddenly struck me. "Don't kill him. Something is very wrong about it. JUNGHWAN!"