Raon knew she was right; she only had to wait and save her available reserves to use them at the best moment, since it was clear her agents down there could still deal with those intrusive versions. Seo Jin and Gong Wu alternately launched their attacks against Shadehand, who skillfully blocked and dodged, making cuts in every opening she found in the escort, eventually breaking the spy's knife with a single slash, enhanced with psychic force. Chae Gun, regenerated, only saw how Woobin got back and cut one of his hands before kicking him in the shin, breaking the bone to the point of making jut out, causing the man to lose stability and receive numerous blows, his psychic barrier not being enough defense against the attack.
- You say it sister, and I will make this end once and for all - S-1 stated.
- We will continue waiting, there is no need for you to intervene.
- But Miss Kim - Goo Joon replied - she's down there too, shouldn't we...?
- No not yet.
- But they will kill her if she stays - Ah Ra intervened.
- And why does that matter to you?
- You promised me, the very day I placed myself under your command, you swore that the blood of the innocent would be shed no more.
- I have not broken my promise.
- I took an oath, ma'am, and so I must do something...
- You won't fight, Ah Ra – S-1 ordered – you haven't yet completed training, still far from it.
Suddenly, something happened that got them off balance as Shadehand ducked to avoid a punch from Seo Jin, stabbed his elbow, and with her mind threw him to the railing, knotting the iron tubes around his torso to immobilize him; Gong Wu aimed a kick, but she dodged and cut off her leg. Woobin dodged several of Chae Gun's attempts to stick the sickles on her flesh, managing to get behind him; she jumped on his shoulders and knocked him down, fracturing his neck and snatching the weapons from his limp hands, stabbing them into his lungs and leaving him lying down rigid. Once this was done, she jumped next to Shadehand, and both got to finish off their remaining opponent aiming directly at his neck which, if hit in the brain stem, would mean the instant end of the game for him; aware of this, the guard blocked each attack and counterpunched as possible.
But by not ensuring that Chae Gun died, Woobin had unknowingly doomed herself. He was still breathing but couldn't see, and so applied what he learned by training blindly with S-1, focusing his mind to be able to perceive every shape around him, their auras, the energy emission from the portal, and the electricity running inside the cables. He got on his knees, and after adjusting his neck, he crashed Shadehand to the floor with his mind while drawing Seo Jin's gun towards him; realizing his sickles were stuck in his back, he sucked in a large amount of air through his nose, and tore off the weapons, thus managing to regenerate his lungs in seconds.
Woobin tried to help her ally at first, but Seo Jin freed himself from the irons that imprisoned him, and taking two pieces of metal he launched himself with them to stab her repeatedly, being stopped short by his opponent's mind, thus avoiding a double cranial impalement. She wanted to do the same with him, and it was there she got impacted by a bullet lodging directly in her temple, making her stagger and fall victim to Gong Wu's invisible strangle, which broke her cervicals; the girl fell convulsing, biting her tongue and breaking her teeth from so much pressure. Shadehand got back up, and Chae Gun pulled the trigger again emptying the magazine to land a fatal shot, but she ran towards him up front, not slowing down even with the pain of impacts on her shoulders, hand, and shins; finally her knife swoop with power against te escort's neck, leaving him headless.
Woobin's body remained stiff, and it seemed everything was over for her while Shadehand was stopped by Seo Jin in her new furious attack towards Gong Wu, being tackled an and hit face-first against the platform; as he did so she also bit hard, breaking one of her teeth with all the intent. Gong Wu, regenerated, went to cut off Woobin's fingers as a trophy with her own knife, but as she took her limp hand to perform the macabre act, an invisible force stopped her body completely as well as Seo Jin's, who got paralyzed in the midst of his brutal attack, unable to move a single fiber. Such horrid scene was viewed by Raon with renewed interest, while S-1 felt that they could no longer waste time with games; If there was a time to end this fight, it was now.
Meanwhile, Shadehand broke free by opening Seo Jin's hand with reinvigorated telekinetic power, painfully standing up, and putting her nose back into place; Woobin, after crunching her own bones and flesh into a normal position, stood up again, removing the bullet and drawing back her knives. Gong Wu was terrified, crouched, motionless, watching the supposedly dead woman get up again:
"Ow fuck this isn't good." - she thought
Shadehand was the first to act; extending an open hand, he caused Seo Jin's blood vessels to constrict, causing gigantic pain throughout his being without him being able to scream or ask for help, enduring everything with his eyes half closed and beginning to bleed from every orifice. Woobin, on the other hand, put Gong Wu aside with a slam and headed towards Mari, who had been paralyzed in one place all this time, watching all this carnage unfold; being taken from the jaw and squeezed with increasing force, her attacker's voice growled full of rabid hatred:
- This time it won't get your way Raon, neither your silly friends nor the League will save you now...
- Let her go. Or face me instead - a voice interrupted.
And while Shadehand caused Seo Jin to burst into a spontaneous fireball amidst screams, Woobin turned to whoever had spoken to her; feeling completely terrified and retreating by reflex, she let go of Mari when a murderous glare fixed on her, according to her experience, yet again:
- Sa..Sacred Beast... - she said, stuttering, pointing - you... the League captured you... I saw it... how did you escape?
S-1 did not respond; a powerful shock wave sent Woobin flying, and she was half embedded against the wall, but when the twin thought about jumping towards her to finish her off, Shadehand immediately stood in her way, using her mental power, now at its maximum, to fix her on the floor:
- You're not going anywhere. Very well, I'll show you what happens to Corporate deserters.
She then walked towards the actress, who finally tried to run, but was pushed against the railing, hitting her back; she prepared to stab her, however, in an incredible act of willpower, S-1 slowly began to free herself from the invisible bondage, vibrating every fiber of her body. In such an effort, both physical and mental, she advanced a couple of steps, and Shadehand's nose began to bleed while, astonished, discovered it was her who was unable to push her knife into Mari's heart, and from one moment to the next, the twin had completely broken free to stand alone, shaking her foe with the mind. She burst her inside and broke her skeleton, causing Shadehand to scream in immeasurable pain while being kneed, her body kept on top of S-1's tight for a second before being thrown off the platform, done for.
The twin took her comms and called in a cleaning team while rushing towards the actress:
- This is vice-director. I need you to send someone, level…
That's when she heard someone yell at her; It was Woobin, who was still embedded in the wall:
- You hag... don't underestimate me!
Amidst a field of oscillating psychic energy, she had detached herself from the wall, jumping with force and at very high speed in S-1's direction, who strangely did not react other than looking at her foe head on, that until she got inches from her, receiving then a round kick to the cheekbone. It was Raon, who, bored with watching, had decided to put an end to what she considered a pathetic attempt by her opponents to defeat her sister; Woobin spun in the air before falling on the platform, beaten, as the director gracefully fell on her feet over the railing, descending to tell S-1:
- Call Ah Ra, and tell her to prepare containers...
The twin nodded and walked down the front steps, while Raon approached her counterpart:
- You don't look good at all, Kang Ma-ri. We must fix you soon, no? Today's test is over...
With her remaining life-force, Shadehand slowly crawled around the platform, masking her psychic presence as much as possible, carefully placing herself behind Raon once she descended. When the director put her hand on Mari's shoulder, she decided it was time to attack, jumping from behind; what she didn'd account was that, just out of her instincts, the actress did something unexpected:
- Raon, get away!
Mari stood up in pain and pushed her counterpart aside, taking the latter by complete surprise as Shadehand fell on the actress who, raising her arms, covered herself to no avail, getting stabbed on one hand and then into her side as she tried to stop the second knife from harming her more. Having fallen, Raon reacted late, and S-1 barely turned around when Mari grabbed the enemy's wrist, trying to avoid her next attack, and seeing that she lacked strength, immediately used her other hand; this moment was used for the attacker to stab her in the belly, but without going deep. The twin then raised Shadehand in the air with a single mental push, closing her fist to crush her entire brain and pulling her motionless body back, gathering all the psychic energy he had left to end her; Woobin woke up a last time, breathing heavily, and jumped in for a last desperate strike.
The director got into action then, and taking the gun from the sergeant she fired an accurate and clean shot into the girl's forehead, finishing her instantly; finally the combat had ended, and numerous casualties had occurred as a result, including those of their newly deceased intruders. These two were lifted into the air by Raon, who upon looking at their faces felt nothing but disgust; the operators' leader, who remained in a fetal position as a result of the panic the confrontation produced in him, got up and ran to finish his tasks on the main terminal so as to not arouse her ire. At the same time, S-1 went to the back, finding Soo Young hugging the prisoner, covering him, though it seemed the subordinate was still in a trance, possibly in an attempt to keep him relaxed, and so, while Raon was throwing the bodies back to where they had come from, the twin warned:
- Sister, the prisoner, his shackles...
- I did it director! - engineer Ye interrupted - I can close the portal, but you must stay away, it could be dangerous...!
The rings began to spin at full speed after being unlocked, and in a matter of seconds, the handles, shaking furiously, began to crack, while the remaining cables began to come loose and the portal itself emitted pulses at a very high frequency, shrinking, launching plasma arcs and bluish sparks:
- Take cover, move! – S-1 shouted
A bluish-white shockwave spread like a huge sphere, causing a strong tremor which knocked everyone down, dust and pieces of the concrete ceiling began to fall while the window above bursted and the platform collapsed, portal ring fragments bursting and ejecting into all directions. With her telekinesis, the twin sent Mari, Raon and Gong Wu out of the room, raising a mental barrier with which she protected them from the rings' volatilization and explosion into hundreds of pieces; by the time the resulting cloud of dust settled, all the machine had become unrecognizable. The enormous chamber had been devastated, ruined and its infrastructure severely affected by the destruction and failures that just preceded, but then someone else emerged from the rubble:
- Soo Young! – the twin exclaimed – What happened? Tell me where is the prisoner?
- He is... but, oh no... Elijah, he... he must still be trapped...!
S-1 lifted the pieces of metal and concrete with her mind and corroborated what she had just seen before the explosion, indicating it to her subordinate in a neutral tone:
- Wood has escaped - she said, drawing towards her some crushed pieces of metal - look, his shackles are broken.
- It doesn't matter now - said the director, behind them - he won't tell this "Society" anything they don't already know.
- We'll have to repair the damage and rebuild the machine before an incursion can be made.
- We extracted enough data about the base they came from. They can't know when we will attack.
- Got that - she said,
Then she addressed Soo Young again:
- Go with Ah Ra, and take care of collecting all the bodies.
- Yes, ma'am... - she replied.
The subordinate went up to the observation room, and soon both went down together, the medic asking through comms for bags to be brought, all while Soo Young, Gong Wu and others gathered and lined up the dead near the entrance. In the ratchet that was the access hallway, Raon had once again approached Mari, already almost fainted by everything experienced, and got down silently in front of her, touching her forehead with one hand and feeling she was getting a pretty bad fever.
The director was wondering, still perplexed by the actress's action:
- You...seriously...you really...? Were you going to let yourself be fell in my place? After treating you… as I did? Why?
The actress whispered in a choked and fatigued tone:
- I don't... I don't know... I don't...
- Don't talk anymore - Ah Ra intervened.
She then put her on a portable stretcher brought by her assitants, telling the director:
- Her fractures are serious, and I can perceive she has perforations in both her colon and liver. I don't know if she will survive, director, not even with...
- Do what you can with it. Whether she lives or dies, in the end, will depend on her own strength...
S-1 felt upset upon hearing that; when they met years ago, after her first and final confrontation with Woobin and her team, as far as this timeline was concerned, Raon spoke to her in that same tone, and even now, such a bitter memory hurt her. That day, she lost every chance to be human.