From the Secret Files of Charles Xavier

Results of the Last Danger Room Simulation
EXO
BTS
B1A4
Block B
BTOB
VIXX

Sometimes they come here because they have nowhere else to go. Some have lived idyllic lives - loving parents, two-and-a-half kids, family dog, white picket fence - a perfect dream shattered by a flare of hormones that brings another gift as well. Sometimes their powers manifest in ways that set them apart from everyone around them and they no longer fit into that perfect world. Others come from the streets, their worlds so far from perfect that they jump at the chance to escape, even if it means that they now glow in the dark or sprout wings with their first wet dream. We’ve taken in scores of young mutants over the past few decades, each with their own story and running from one end of the spectrum to the other.

Unfortunately sometimes even the misfits are misfits.

“Watch out, it’s Team Dead Last. Get too close and their bad luck will rub off on you.”

Ah, and so it continues.

Snickers filled the hallway and I could feel Wonshik hold himself in check, his thoughts in turmoil. I knew I shouldn’t interfere but the boy was steps away from the proverbial edge and it wouldn’t take much to tip him over, fists flying. Fortunately before I could step in - and thereby isolate him further (after all, having a teacher interrupt was no doubt akin social suicide at that age) I could hear another voice, barely above a whisper and actually surprising given the lips from which the words passed.

“Isn’t worth it.”

Ah, Jung Taekwoon. I think those few words were the longest string of syllables I’ve heard the boy speak out loud in something more than a whisper after the incident in the library. One of those from a background best left unspoken, Taekwoon’s power was ripped from him at an age younger than the rest. He’d been found in the basement of a nearly abandoned apartment building with little more than a bedbug-ridden mattress and a few moth-eaten blankets. Every window in the building - all 6 stories - had been shattered and when the man with the key to the basement was found later he stared at the police blankly, the blood coming from his ears the only sign of his blown eardrums and permanent deafness.

When Taekwoon first arrived I tried to gently pry into his mind - hoping to gain insight into what happened and perhaps help - only to find a block stronger than I’d ever felt, a wall built around the boy from within, his warning a simple word -

“Don’t.”

I didn’t.

Taekwoon’s silence seemed to be one of the only things that kept his power in control (and the windows in the library intact). The other was Cha Hakyeon. If you had told me at the onset of their meeting that the two would become so close I would have had suggested that you go through a few psychiatric tests of my choosing. One was a siren who wouldn’t sing, the other a vampire drawn to the sun. While it is true that Hakyeon wasn’t a vampire in the Draculean sense his gift was shadow manipulation and over the past few years his body had begun to crave the darkness. This was a stark contrast to his bubbly personality - the boy had grown up in that idyllic setting that someone like Taekwoon could only dream of - and it was unsettling to see him playing with puppies one moment, talking about what happened on the latest episode of Pretty Little Liars, and slipping into the shadows the next. What I did know was that whenever I saw the faintest of those rare smiles touch Taekwoon’s lips it was certain that Hakyeon was nearby. Inversely, the siren seemed to keep Hakyeon from vanishing into those shadows he so hated but was learning to accept as a part of himself.

Perhaps it was how different each member of Hakyeon’s team’s powers were that made the Danger Room such a challenge for them. EXO’s mutations - at least those on the offensive team - were all of the elemental variety - lightning, ice, water, fire, wind. B1A4’s were all mental and they gelled together as if they were one entity (which even I admit is a bit unsettling at times to ask Jinyoung a question and have Shinwoo answer). VIXX’s were stark contrasts - vampire and siren, cyborg and what Jaehwan called his ‘spooky ghosty self.’ Lee Jaehwan was a phase shifter, his ability to shift his physical state unpredictable at best, disastrous at worst - and the boy admitted good-naturedly that he was ‘never at his best’. If phase shifting was an artform then Jaehwan was more Dali than DaVinci. He said it was an accident when he phased through the walls of the gym and into the girls’ lockerroom but Storm didn’t think it was so funny and the boy had weeks of detention to prove it.

“Don’t worry, Professor X,” the boy had told me not long after, slight smirk on his face (of course, when did Lee Jaehwan not have a smirk on his face?). “I’m not interested in their parts anyways.”

What he was interested in was his teammate Kim Wonshik - and at the moment Taekwoon told him that their classmate’s teasing wasn’t worth it a hand had slipped into Wonshik’s and squeezed his fingers gently. Jaehwan was a jokester but there was no one he was more serious about than Wonshik and the glare he directed at the other’s tormentors was proof positive of that. Instead of directing his next words at the one who had teased Wonshik he addressed them to his friend. “Hey, shorty - keep Chenchen on a leash and tell him to back off.”

I knew that Jaehwan’s comment wouldn’t make Kyungsoo particularly happy - the boy was sensitive about his height - but I let it play out. The ground shifted slightly around Kyungsoo’s feet but he managed to keep his reaction no stronger than that, an act impressive in and of itself given Jaehwan’s ability to get under one’s skin. He nudged a now scowling Chen. “Come on..let’s just let the losers be. We’ll beat them again next time. We always do. Actions speak louder than words.”

I knew that Jaehwan did it to distract the others but it also gave Wonshik a chance to pull himself together. I could feel his thoughts settling and his power coming back into line, the metallic sheen of his skin now dissolving into the warm tan of his normal human skin tone. I did note that when his power was threatening to break through the metal looked more like steel than aluminum, which was a definite improvement. After all, it was one thing to have super strength and the ability to change into a metallic form, another if that metal was something as vulnerable as a soda can. He spent several episodes in the infirmary when he first arrived and thought his mutation meant he would be strong no matter what. Jaehwan still about being unable to open a pickle jar. His unintentional source of humor actually seemed to bond the team even closer together.

“I dunno. Words are kind of fun too.”

That was definitely Sanghyuk, his lazy drawl unmistakable even when I eavesdropped mentally. Logan called him the wildcard of the team and I can’t say that I disagree. His power manifested itself years before anyone else’s, the earliest of any mutant I had come across who hadn’t been born with their gift. A 5 year old Hyuk started speaking Polish to his kindergarten teacher which was all well and good - except that he was Korean and had been nowhere near Warsaw or any place in Europe for that matter. This was followed by an ability to translate any language placed in front of him by the time he was 8. That, combined with an intelligence that was frankly intimidating, brought him to the school at an age younger than any other student, his parents no longer able to deal with a son who quickly outpaced them mentally. Hyuk could swear in 32 living languages and 6 dead ones but still felt helpless in the Danger Room.

“Someone has to be the man behind the curtain,” he told me once but there was still a wistfullness in the boy’s voice, a desire to be ‘useful’ that had moved him from one team to the next, finally landing with VIXX. Hakyeon had taken one look at the defensive boy and smiled. “He’ll fit in fine.” And he had, a misfit in amongst the rest of the misfits.

His comment had made Wonshik smile and the last member of their team laugh. Hongbin was goodnatured and never took the other teams’ words to heart, even if they were directed at him. And they often were, other students thinking he was the weakest link of the six. At first impression they might be right - the boy was simple and sweet and thought the best of everyone, something that might be taken as a weakness. His mutation was also relatively benign, his ability to bend light to create a shower of fireworks much like Jubilee’s. Unfortunately he hadn’t yet found a way to use this gift in the offensive sense. It was all style, no substance. Or in Jaehwan’s words it “should be ‘a rocket’s red glare but is more like Twinkle twinkle little star.” It wasn’t his power, however, that was his greatest strength. No, it was his encouraging smile (much like the one he turned to Wonshik) and buoyant spirit that was the cornerstone of the team and no weakness at all.

“Let’s go practice some more, Wonshik. We’ll beat them next time.”

So there they were, the misfits of misfits. The weakest link. Team Dead Last…

But were they really?

EXO may have had the greater strength, B1A4 the stronger mind, but in my opinion - take it as you will - VIXX had the heart that I wish for in the young mutants who come here.

Last at giving up on those around them, last at stepping away when they were needed most.

Years later when Jiyong went rogue it wasn’t EXO who brought him in. No, their elemental powers were useless against the dragon-shifter (and not a dragon illusion like Wufan’s). It was Team Dead Last - their siren’s song deafening, their lightbender’s ‘twinkle’ now blinding, steel arms holding him long enough for their phase shifter to take hold and pull Jiyong into the shadows that quickly overwhelmed him - all under the direction of a mastermind who orchestrated everything (and swore in 32 living languages and 6 dead ones).

Dead Last, indeed.


Written in red ink at the bottom of the file

Caught Jaehwan and Wonshik making out in the closet - well, if by catching them you mean being present when Jaehwan phased them through the wall half and with his hand down Wonshik’s pants.

Jaehwan’s first words when confronted: “No aluminum there - all steel.”

Logan always said they were ‘interesting’ kids

Indeed.