--------------------------------------------------------------

SUB-LEVEL. RESTRICTED.

Jeongmin felt like his body just passed through a puff of very thick smoke. His body’s passing through the wall just like a ghost, entering a room.

As the guy released him, Jeongmin exclaimed, “Hooaahh Baro-hyung, you shocked me!”

“Seeessshhh! we’re on a mission, call me by my alias!”

Jeongmin stretched his lips, “Yeah.. Bar.. uh Walker-hyung, you just..”

“And without ‘hyung’, jebal! It just sounds weird with the alias!”

“Geez.. arasso…What’s the matter?”

“Susssssshhh!!!” Baro put his finger on his mouth, “Pipe down, they may hear us!”

Jeongmin half-closed his eyes, “Yah, you’re the one who kept speaking loudly.”

“Geez.. whatever..” Baro stretched his lips, and then said, “I just saw few trespassers around. … Thanks to my ability, right before they see me, I just hide myself, running through these walls.”

“I know. I saw their shades.. what are they up to?”

“I don’t know, Speed. But whatever it is, we gotta protect the sub-level.”

“Hooo wait a minute, just the TWO of us? W-where are the others?”

“Yeah, weird. I didn’t see anybody around. Just you and I here.” Baro said.

“…………”

“Gwenchana, Speedy.. I’m sure the two of us can take ’em..” he said optimistically as he patted Jeongmin’s shoulder.

Jeongmin remained silent for a while.

“Hoo come on, where is the super-confident-Jeongminnie Speed I used to know??”

Jeongmin inhaled deeply, calming his own heart, telling himself, ‘Nae! I’m confident!’ He then exhaled and nodded, “Nae. Thanks hyung.”

“Nae--a-aaahh! We’re on a mission!”

“Ah.. nae nae... Thanks, Walker.”

Suddenly, they heard footsteps coming. Getting closer.

Baro and Jeongmin looked at each other.

Baro smirked and said, “Let’s meet our guests, Speed.”

………..………..………..………

--------------------------------------------------------------

UNNAMED ISLAND, AREA UNKNOWN.

X-Men and GX were now entering the location Mr L. had directed them.

It’s a huge island. Some tall old buildings seen around.

“Whoa..” one of the GXs mumbled.

The island was unseen by radar, so to find it Mr. L used his power to rearranged the radar device, linked it with his own self-made devices.

The place was weirdly quiet and peaceful, contradicted to what Mr L. informed.

“It’s weird, my device indicated a huge radioactive energies here. I expected huge populations of mutants or at least humans around… but…”

“You sure it’s the right place?” Donghyun asked.

“Yeah, the exact coordinate. My private tracking device has never made a mistake before...” Mr L said.

Donghyun read Mr. L’s mind, and yeah.. he’s totally serious about what he said.

Mr. L, as the captain of the day, ordered everyone to split up into teams. Because many of  X-Men become teacher and are doing their teaching at the time, more GX members are involved in the mission. So Mr. L decided that each team consist of 5 mutants, 2 of X-Men and the rest are GX. Mr L himself goes with Donghyun, and 3 young GX boys.

“Let’s take a look at the whole area we got.” Mr. L commanded.

“Wait a minute.”

Everyone looked at the person who just spoke.

“Jinyoung..” Donghyun mumbled.

“What’s wrong, Wild?” Mr L asked.

“I smell something.” Jinyoung turned his head everywhere, sniffing. Suddenly he turned his head facing a building, widening his eyes.

Donghyun noticed, “What a…”

“CRAP!” Jinyoung yelled, as he crawled. He then impulsively ran towards the building. He used both feet and hands—animal typical style of running. Everyone’s just shocked by his actions.

Donghyun, read a slight part of Jinyoung’s mind, and said, “He wants us to follow him.”

Mr L called, “Let’s just follow him then.”

……………………….

Jinyoung aggressively jumped and climbed the building up, just like a fierce cat chasing its prey. He then stopped right in front of a window, the top-most one. He roughly crashed it with his fist, and rushed inside.

Donghyun looked up and said, “Let’s just get in, the ordinary way.”

They ran towards the building's worn out door. Mr. L tried to push it open, but the door just won’t move.

“Ah, it’s jammed..” He complained.

“Excuse me,” Donghyun said. Mr L. took few steps away, and Donghyun lifted his right hand against the door.

And with a nice 'click!', the door opened. Dusts suddenly flew everywhere, causing everyone to cough.

After they were able to stop coughing, without much thinking, Donghyun, Mr. L, and the two remaining GX boys rushed into the building. It’s so dirty, with pile of dusts and ashes everywhere, as no one ever lived in there.

One of the GX boys commented, “Whoa hyung, whoever lived here, they really have bad sense of cleaning!”

“Sshh.. be quiet. We’re on a serious mission here, Sandeul-ah.” His friend who wears glasses, replied.

Sandeul lowered his voice, “Oh.. ah, mianhae…”

They ran up the stairs, getting to the top of the building where Jinyoung had rushed in. The stairs seemed like it has no ending, for everybody’s curious of what Jinyoung had sensed.

They finally reached the top-most floor.

“Well, that’s the window,” Mr. L pointed on a crushed window with glasses shattered in front of it.

“For … GOD SAKE…”

“..But where’s Wild?” Mr. L muttered.

“There!” Donghyun pointed on his left, as he ran there, followed by everyone. “I just heard his thought!”

Donghyun ran to where he was pointing at, followed by everyone. And as expected, the stopped in front of a wide-opened door. They rushed in, and there, they saw Jinyoung. He froze in shock with his eyes widened, showing a horror gaze. Donghyun instantly glanced at the ‘what’ Jinyoung’s looking at...

Donghyun scorned in disgust. He saw a man. A dead man, a total burned out corpse. The body was ‘sitting’ on a worn out chair, leaning on the table, in front of a laptop.

It was a dreadful thing to see ever.

“We need to identify him.” Mr L said, trying to control the situations. “…How this happened, and who did. Let’s start with the dead man first. Can you..?”

Donghyun sighed and muttered, “I can’t read a corpses’ minds.”

The glasses-guy took a step forward, "May I try?"

“But how? He’s dead, and… totally burned.” Donghyun said.

“Yes, but perhaps  that man’s brain still have memories in it, at least the latest memory he encoded. Perhaps I can still see it..”

Mr L and Donghyun looked at each other, and then Mr. L said, “Okay.. go ahead..”

That glasses-guy walked towards the corpse. He scorned in disgust as he gently put his hand on the corpse’s head. He then closed his eyes.

A moment later, he suddenly gasped and opened his eyes. He was so shocked, and nearly fell down, but Sandeul caught his body and supported him to stand, “Shinwoo-hyung!”

Shinwoo—CNU’s glasses nearly fell off, but he managed to catch and fix it.

“What did you see?” Mr L. asked him.

--------------------------------------------------------------

SUB-LEVEL. RESTRICTED.

Three unknown people.

“Tsk! Can you explain me why are we here?”

“Why do you always demand for explanations? Shut up and just do what she said.”

“Geez, she’s sure an overconfident type. We, sneakin’ around here in the afternoon, where there are still a bunch of students swarming right above this floor..”

“You doubted me, Asvald?”

They looked at the source of the voice. A red skinned woman arrogantly walked towards them with two silent mysterious-looking big men. One of them’s wearing a black-glasses. They both look creepy with their black tuxedos.

“You doubted me?” she said it again. “I, who had fooled the fearful X-Men for five months, (smirks) .. deserve your doubts?”

"Oh I'm sorry. I'm afraid you have forgotten something, Your Highness," The Asvald guy sarcastically said, "It's not you who fooled them. It was me. My ability!"

"Tsk! Yeah, but theoretically, I'm the brain of the job." She replied, putting her hand on her head.

“Look. Why don’t we just keep playing around? Why do we have to come here? Ooh, (smirks) did you give up already on that boy?”

She smirked, “Surely no. I’ve threatened him. He won’t be able to avoid us. Well, in fact, I’ve even got… you know, some relevant support.”

“Tsk, no matter how hard you push him, I’m sure he won’t join us to his death.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here.” She patted the Asvald guy, “With your ability baby, we can just ‘do’  that cerebra thing. With it we can perhaps define that boy’s weakness.”

“...Or other available mutants to take.”

“No.” She muttered, “I want the boy only.”

--------------------------------------------------------------

LIBRARY, GROUND LEVEL, CENTER TOWER.

You passed few book pages and you felt bored. You then looked at the sleeping Youngmin.

Geez, this guy is indeed so pretty. He’s a lot prettier than me.

You then noticed, some tiny ripped papers still stuck in his hair. You chuckled, and then put your hand on his hair. Warm.

You gently ruffled his hair, getting rid of the ripped papers.

Is it just me, or the whole atmosphere’s really becoming hotter and hotter?

....................

--------------------------------------------------------------

It’s so dark.

“Hello again, Jo Youngmin.”

Youngmin startled. That freaking voice again. The low pitched voice which had terrorized his life as hell.

A woman just come out from the dark, like a ghost coming out of blinding fog.

“What do you want?” Youngmin forced himself to be brave. Flames slowly bursting out of his hand, getting ready to be thrown out.

"Ow, have you forgotten your promise?"

"...................."

"Ah, you forgot .. you promised to... follow me."

"I've never, promised you anything..." He muttered in anger, his flames grew bigger.

She smirked as she looked at Youngmin's hand, "Woo scary... You forgot to much, baby... I’m fireproof.”’

Youngmin swallowed his saliva. He felt himself shivering in fear.

“I.. don’t care. I’m warning you.”

She smirked, “Ah, you look even hotter that way.”

Youngmin scorned.

“I'm not taking no for an answer baby.. or.. (smirks again) let’s see what I would do to your friends.”

Youngmin gulped, “You.. you won’t dare.”

Suddenly, Kwangmin’s face flashed on his scared mind. Youngmin surprised and widened his eyes. Flames grew much bigger and burst brutally on his hand.

Somehow, Kwangmin’s face changed into the woman’s face, and she scarily smirked wide, “And what about your little brother?”

With all his might, Youngmin roughly her with his flaming hand.

“SHUT UP!”

--------------------------------------------------------------

....................

Youngmin’s head suddenly felt as hot as an Iron and just before you reflexively release your hand because of the heat, Youngmin woke up screaming and slapped your face with his burning hand. So hard that you fell off your seat.

....................

--------------------------------------------------------------

....................

“Kwangmin!”

Kwangmin startled by Hyunseong’s yell.

He then realized that he had frozen half of the table along with the orange he was holding.

Unconsciously.

Again.

………..………..………..………………..………..………..………………..………..………..………………..………..………..………

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