Midas Touch ➸ Taekook

- Fourth -

At first glance, the Danger Room was a huge circular room with immaculate walls. Of course, it was actually much more than that. Firstly, it was equipped with a holographic system that allowed different intervention situations to be created; coupled with Jin's or Auroro's powers, it easily became very realistic. Then there were the weapons and robots. Everything had been designed entirely by a mutant who had studied here, but now worked for the government. He and Professor Xavier had nevertheless kept in touch.

When Taehyung stepped into the room, the door closed behind him, locking him and the other students in. They had to survive for five minutes, all under Logan's watchful eye and with no adult to support them. It wasn't going to be easy.

The walls suddenly began to tremble, indicating that the session had begun, and some of the walls opened, allowing different types of robots to invade the room. Some, humanoid in appearance, used the holographic system to resemble mercenaries, weapons in hand. Within seconds, fire was coming from all directions, forcing them all to scatter.

Taehyung found himself alone, but he wasn't complaining. He didn't like having to use his powers when someone was nearby. It was rather paradoxical when you knew he'd joined a team. He soon found himself face to face with a dozen or so 'mercenaries', all pointing their weapons in his direction. They quickly opened fire, but Taehyung managed to avoid everything. Of course, they weren't real bullets, but paint balls, which would indicate at the end of the session how many times they had been hit. How many of them were 'dead'.

While dodging the bullets fired in his direction, the boy managed to get close enough to the mercenaries to bring them within striking distance. Taehyung clenched his fist and punched the first face that came his way, striking with such power that the robot crashed into the wall in front of him. Another mercenary took advantage of the situation to come up behind him, suddenly grabbing him by the throat and suffocating him. Taehyung hiccupped in surprise, but didn't let his fear get the better of him: first he let the robot lift him, then he used his legs to swing, moving them methodically to knock the mercenary over in one fell swoop, sending him tumbling a few metres away.

However, this manoeuvre had cost him quite a bit of time, and had distracted him long enough for the rest of the mercenaries to surround him. And all he had to do was glance back to see that his team-mates were just as busy as he was. No one would be able to come and help him, so he'd have to fend for himself. No problem, he was used to it.

"You've got less than a minute." Logan suddenly announced into the microphone. "And there'll be a penalty for those who don't take out the enemies who've targeted them."

Okay, Taehyung panicked a little, because in one minute he clearly couldn't defeat eight enemies. Not with his power. Not without another power. He'd already sucked the powers out of other members of the team when they were out on operations or training. He'd already been authorised to do so, and only in an extreme emergency. But one touch only meant a few minutes of power. He had absolutely nothing left in him. Well, not quite... There was still this...

No, he couldn't use it. He had promised himself to do as little as possible. But the mercenaries who had surrounded him were getting dangerously close, and the seconds were ticking away. He didn't want to have to suffer one of Logan's penalties. He'd probably have to run around the Institute ten times or clean the danger room for a week. No way.

"Oh hell, if I've got it I might as well use it..."

The boy closed his eyes for a moment to concentrate. Suddenly he felt a strange warmth invade all his muscles, which grew stronger as the heat spread. He wouldn't have time to beat the robots one by one, but he could knock them out in another way. Taehyung closed his fist and raised it in the air, holding his breath to build up all his strength in his arm. Then he let it crash to the ground. He crushed the metal, which cracked under the impact, and the ground shook so violently that it sent all the robots around him tumbling. At the same moment, the alarm signalling the end of the exercise sounded, and all the other robots that were still active stopped. Taehyung sighed, glad to have beaten them all in the time allowed, even if it had cost him a lot of energy.

"What was that?"

Taehyung turned round and saw that all eyes were on him, watching him curiously. Particularly Kitty, who had come forward with her arms folded across her chest.

"Sorry?" Taehyung asked, not sure what she was getting at.

She frowned.

"The power you just used. It wasn't yours. And none of ours either. What's more, you didn't touch anyone before or during the training. So where did it come from? You don't have super-strength, it's not your mutation."

Taehyung felt a wave of anxiety sweep over him. He knew he shouldn't have used that power. The others were bound to wonder.

"I-It's..."

"Kitty, come on, it's none of our business." Interjected Hoseok, smiling.

However, Kitty didn't quite agree.

"None of our business? Think about it for a second: we all know that if he touches us for just a few seconds, he can use our powers for five minutes. If he hasn't touched anyone in the last few minutes, and no one in the Institute has a power matching the one he's just used, that means he had it before he joined the Institute! How long do you think he touched that mutant to still have their power?"

A dead silence fell over the room, and Taehyung felt as if he were suffocating. She was insinuating that he must have killed them. That Taehyung was a murderer, and that he'd sucked all the life energy and power out of this person.

"I-I..."

"So what?"

All heads turned backwards. Yoongi stood there, his face blank and his hands nonchalantly in his pockets. He hardly ever spoke, and had never bothered to make friends with the other students at the Institute. Taehyung wasn't even sure he'd ever heard his voice.

"What do you mean, 'so what'?" Kitty asked. "Doesn't it bother you that we might be teaming up with a murderer?"

Yoongi couldn't hold back a condescending sneer.

"Wake up, Kitty, this isn't a rainbowy world. We weren't all lucky enough to discover our powers traversing from the bedroom to the cellar of our parents' house. And we're not all lucky enough to be able to simply walk through walls as a power. Don't forget that you're one of the lucky ones, sweetheart. The rest of us had to fight to survive."

Yoongi had no idea how true his words were for Taehyung. Or maybe he did. Because the look on his face was that of someone who knew. Someone who knew what it was like to be handed a curse and lose everything overnight. Kitty and Taehyung didn't live in the same world. But apparently he and Yoongi did. Maybe he'd just gained a friend.

"Oh, and just so you know," he added, Kitty already red-faced from shame. "You can ask Logan, but he's already killed plenty of people, but you don't mind hiding behind him when you get hurt in a fight."

At the same time, the door to the Danger Room opened and Logan hurried to join them. He frowned, however, when he saw that they were all making strange faces.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

"No. I passed the training, so I'm going to bed." Taehyung replied, before leaving the room without looking back, still in a worse mood than when he arrived.

~🌻~

I hope the action part was clear, it's been a really long time since I wrote some (so tell me if it's confusing).

Also, there's some things in this chapter you may not have completely understood, like this mysterious power. Don't worry, it will come soon.

And you may have guessed, but some BTS members have the role of some real X-Men : Namjoon as Cyclops, Jin as Jean Grey, Hoseok as Iceberg. Only Yoongi is not inspired by anyone. You can go google them to understand better🤗