The first drone attack came without warning.
In the early morning cycle of the Ardinan system, the sky fractured while sunlight filtered through translucent crystalline trees and children played in the gravity gardens of Sector 4. A shimmer tore through the clouds, not light nor shadow but absence—a ripple of silence so absolute it devoured birdsong, wind, even thought. The first Harmony Eater Drone descended like a specter, faceless, with an outer shell that looked like a melted tuning fork crossed with a spider's carapace.
People froze. A woman dropped her infant. A vendor fell to his knees, clutching his ears, though there was no sound. A boy playing with a lev-ball screamed once, then crumpled without another word. The drone hovered, pulsing in slow, terrifying rhythm, and everything it touched ceased to feel.
When BTS and the Echoes received the emergency beacon, twelve planetary systems had gone dark.
"They're calling it Emotional Shutdown Syndrome," Seokjin murmured, staring at the footage looping on the central console of the Luminary. "Not even brain-death. It's like… the soul is in hibernation."
Namjoon's jaw was tight. "Twelve systems. Twelve. And we only intercepted one drone's frequency last time."
Yoongi sat on the floor cross-legged, headphones clamped over his ears as he tried to isolate the pulse. "It's not music, not even structured anti-harmony. It's erasure. These aren't just weapons. They're soul-level suppression tools."
Taehyung shuddered. "They're removing what makes people… people."
Hoseok clenched his fists. His Harmonic Channel vibrated inside him, a physical ache now. "We can't just sit here."
"You're not going out there alone," Jungkook said sharply. He glanced at the readout on Hoseok's vitals. "Your Channel's already unstable after the Core mission."
"Then come with me," Hoseok shot back. "Someone has to intercept the drone over Malthea. It's headed for a children's hospital orbit."
Jimin touched Hoseok's arm. "You know what it could cost you."
"I know what it'll cost if we do nothing."
They departed within the hour, splitting into pairs across systems to try to stall the drones. Hoseok and Namjoon descended over Malthea like sparks riding a meteor storm, using an old cloaked glider to weave through the broken defense satellites.
As they reached the hospital's outer perimeter, the Harmony Eater descended.
Its energy aura pulsed violet and void-black, resonating with a frequency that bent reality. Children in the upper wards began collapsing. The power grid flickered. Security bots sparked out and fell lifeless to the floor.
Hoseok jumped from the glider mid-air, channeling frequency into motion. His body became a streak of color, vibrating faster than the eye could register. He landed on the rooftop, knees bent, arms open wide as if embracing the drone's song. But he wasn't absorbing it. He was syncing.
"Hobi, don't—" Namjoon's voice crackled through the comm, but Hoseok had already closed his eyes.
"I can do this," he whispered.
The drone adjusted, reacting to the counter-vibration. It screeched in silence. Hoseok's body started to shimmer as if he were being unmade. He twisted, kicked, spun—each movement a note, each breath a countermeasure. He redirected the energy outward in a bloom of golden arcs.
Down below, a little girl who had collapsed mid-step began to stir. A boy lifted his head, blinking. The pulse shifted. The drone's frequency stuttered.
"It's working!" Namjoon shouted, guiding the glider in tighter circles. "You're disrupting its field!"
But Hoseok's legs buckled.
Something inside his chest cracked—not a bone, but a deeper tether. His Harmonic Channel throbbed wildly, then sputtered.
He fell to one knee, vision darkening. The drone hissed as it recoiled from the redirected energy, sparking wildly, then retreated into the clouds with a sonic shriek. Its departure left real silence, but this time it wasn't empty. The children were waking.
Namjoon landed and rushed to him.
"Hoseok! Hobi, talk to me!"
"I felt… everything," Hoseok gasped, clutching his ribs. "All of their fear. The drone... it wasn't just erasing. It was feeding."
Namjoon's face went pale. "Feeding on what?"
"On emotions. On rhythm. On meaning."
Back on the Luminary, Hoseok lay in the med pod, hooked to harmonic stabilizers. Jin monitored the waveform readings with a furrowed brow.
"It's like trying to repair a torn song sheet with static," Jin muttered. "His Channel isn't just strained. It's cracked. If he pushes it again, he may lose it entirely."
Jungkook paced nearby, fists clenched. "We should've destroyed the drone instead of redirecting it."
"No," Jimin said quietly. "He saved those children. You saw what happened."
Hoseok stirred, eyes fluttering open. "How many systems?"
Namjoon looked at him. "Eighteen now. The drones are replicating. And the Federation's calling them… peacekeepers."
Hoseok exhaled, voice rough. "Then peace is a lie."
Yoongi entered the room, holding a small device. "I've been working on something. A counterwave, built from Hobi's redirection patterns. But it'll need a carrier."
"Another song?" Taehyung asked.
Yoongi nodded. "One that vibrates at a higher emotional density. We'll need all of us for this."
Namjoon's gaze swept the room. "Then it's time. We take the fight to them. Not just with weapons. With everything we are."
Jin looked at Hoseok. "Can you still feel it? The rhythm?"
Hoseok hesitated. "It's faint. Like a whisper in static."
Jimin knelt beside him. "We'll help you find it again."
Outside, the stars spun slowly, unaware of the war stirring in their shadows. But deep within the silent void, new songs were being written—not of despair, not of fear, but of rebellion, of memory, of rhythm that could not be erased.
Even as one member faltered, the harmony held strong.