The Ultimate Multitudity

Description: Each of them possessed a supernatural skill.  They were assigned into a team to work together.  But, a member was so secretive and when a death happened, everything started to make sense.

Rating: PG-13 (for foul language?)

Characters: Choi Seunghyun (BigBang), Choi Sooyoung (SNSD), Kim Jonghyun (SHINee), Luna (f(x)), Park Gyuri (Kara), Yang Yoseob (Beast)

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in the fiction.  The story is only a narrative and does not involve any real life situation.  The whole plot of the story is written originally by myself.  If there's any similarity to other fictions, it is totally a coincidence.

“It started with a shooting incident.  I was six, at a bank with my mother when a group of armed robbers just crashed in and shot around,” Seunghyun explained.

“That must be scary,” Luna cringed.

“Hell, it was.  I cried, okay, I was small at that time, so it’s legal to cry.  Someone must have thought that I was annoying and tried to shoot me dead,” Seunghyun continued.

“But, clearly that someone failed,” Gyuri said.

“Well, yeah.  The bullet shattered before it could reach me.  The whole gang then shot me but the same happened.  They failed to kill me because the bullets shattered before it could even reach my skin,” Seunghyun smiled.

“Damn.  They must have chickened out,” Luna laughed.

“I would too, trust me.  Like you can’t be killed.  So over powerful,” Gyuri shrugged.

It was normal that the students of the school asked questions about each other’s ability when they were put into team.  It was the school’s curriculum.  During their first year, they will be trained one-to-one with their teachers, to control their supernatural skills before they could be put into teams to learn with other students.  The lack of control of self-power can be destructive to other students.  Hence, only after they mastered their skills the teacher will assigned them into team with peers who had also mastered their own skills.

When Gyuri, Luna and Seunghyun met in class that morning, for their first day of in-group learning session, they asked each other about their skills and when they started to realize them.  Now, they knew that Seunghyun possessed the Earth bending skill.  Just name it, gold, soil, sand, iron and even the radioactive elements will obey him.

“What about you?” Gyuri asked Luna.

“Are you kidding me, Gyuri?  She’s the girl who saved the whole school from fire that occurred last year.  It is impossible not to know her,” Seunghyun stated.  Gyuri covered her mouth in surprised while Luna looked everywhere but them, because she didn’t really know how to accept compliments from people.

“You can control fire,” Gyuri muttered.

“Fire and heat.  And you can transfigure into animals.  You can fly, can be venomous, can be tame and can be dangerous,” Luna complimented Gyuri.

“My skill is lame compared to yours,” Gyuri shook her head.

“Right.  Wait until you transfigure into a snake, or a lion or a dragon maybe,” said Seunghyun.

“Oh.  Are mythical animals included in your transform-into list?  Like unicorn or dragon?”

“Yes.  I’ve tried mermaid before.  But, mermaid’s easy.  Unicorn and dragon need a lot of practice though.  I might end up be a centaur, which is disgusting,” Gyuri spoke and Luna was amazed.

“You are so cool!  I like your skill.  If we can trade, I would trade,” Luna giggled.

“I wonder who the other three students in our team are,” Seunghyun went.

They were six in their team, just like the other teams.  They were classified by the teachers based on their skills.  Each group was assigned members that can help each other, and that was not a simple task since each student came with different skills.

“Am I late?” a boy, munching a bar of dark chocolate, walked to his seat.

“No.   We were just excited to come early to know our teammates,” Gyuri said.

“Good.  Then, I have time to finish my chocolate bar.  I’m Yoseob by the way,” he introduced himself and the others did the same.

“What’s your power?” Luna asked.

“Psychokinesis in Quantum Tunnelling and Telepathic Projection.  I might have another psychokinesis scope, Teleportation.  The teacher is experimenting on me,” Yoseob stated.

“That sounds complicated.  Mind explaining it?” Seunghyun asked.

“Telepathic projection means that I can project what is in my mind for people to look at and quantum tunnelling means that I can move through barriers.  This quantum tunnelling thing makes the teacher think that I might able to teleport,” Yoseob explained.

“And all those happen with your small brain?” Gyuri asked.

“Alright.  Technically, it is not small.  It weighs as normal, like yours.  It is just that I have a larger brain capacity to be able to control things around me by emitting high-energy brain wave, okay?” Yoseob rolled his eyes.

“Chill, dude.  We’re just joking.  Your brain is powerful, of course.  And that dark chocolate helps a lot I think,” Luna said and Yoseob nodded to that.

“I made it in time,” a tall girl, came in without anybody noticing it.

“Wow!  Look!  The fastest girl in the world came later than me to class,” Yoseob said, tone very sarcastic.

“Oh yeah, Yoseob.  I woke up like three minutes ago.  What say you to that?” Sooyoung rolled her eyes.

“Okay.  You’re fast,” Yoseob gave up arguing with Sooyoung.

The whole campus knew Sooyoung.  She moved very fast, a hundred kilometres per second, literally, so fast that she’s not allowed joining the track and field athletes.  That was because even Usain Bolt will never win.

They started introducing themselves to each other again.  As usual, they talked about their skills and how they are trained to control those skills.  They talked about the other students they saw on first year and how powerful their skills are or how lame their skills are.  They talked about a student everyone always talked about, a student who was rumoured to not have any special skill at all, and who was in that school only because his uncle was the President of the School Board.  Although that student was inarguably smart, that he seems to know every single scope of knowledge in the world, the other students thought he could just go to some school for genius normal people, not the school of students with supernatural skills.

“All five are here?” that was the voice of the teacher.

“Yeah.  The other one seems missing the first lesson of in-group training,” Luna said.

“I wonder who the other one is,” Sooyoung muttered.

“It’s okay.  We will begin our lesson today,” the teacher started, “I am sure you already know each other’s skill?”

Suddenly, the door of the classroom was yanked open, revealing a male student, looking like he had not sleep for a week, and holding a bottle of energy drink and also five packets of energy bar.  The moment Seunghyun saw the student, he knew that their team will have problems.  Of course, every team will have problems sometimes because lack of team work, but seems like their group had to take care of a powerless student.  Luna’s face dropped after knowing that this boy will join the team, because most of the days he will look like that, over-tired.  Gyuri had hoped for better because she thought they will have this one student with power of controlling other’s mind.  Sooyoung thought she could just push this guy off the school’s roof and he will just drop dead.

“I am Jonghyun,” the guy introduced himself.

“And your skill is?  Looking tired every day?  Eating a lot of energy bars?  Know-it-all?  Or your skill might be being a nephew of the school’s President?” Yoseob asked sarcastically.

Jonghyun undoubtedly looked very surprised by the treatment he got from his teammates in the first day of his second year.  He swallowed and took a seat at the back of the classroom, since he thought the other students did not like the idea of him being their teammate.

“Class, be nice to your teammate,” the teacher said and continued the lesson. What annoyed them so much was the fact that the teacher did not even angry when Jonghyun was late.  Was it because he was the President’s nephew?

+++++

The fire from Gyuri was so big that Luna had to quickly weaken it, so that it won’t hurt Yoseob and Jonghyun.  Then, Seunghyun tried to throw a huge boulder to Luna, so that it will knock her off.  Yoseob quickly conjured his power towards the boulder, so that it could just quantum tunnelling through Luna and won’t hurt her.  Sooyoung, who were also in the same sub-group of Gyuri and Seunghyun moved very fast towards Jonghyun and tried to knock him down.  It was a surprised to them that Jonghyun could move very fast too, although not really as fast as Sooyoung.  His martial arts skill could be praised too, because he managed to block some of Sooyoung’s attacks.  However, the skill of martial arts is something that a normal human could have.  Finally, Sooyoung choked him down.

“Is that all you have?!” Sooyoung shouted.

“Sooyoung, let him go,” Luna pulled her off him before she could kill Jonghyun.

“Do you think I can kill him?” Sooyoung asked angrily, “He looked so pitiful, so tired all the time and the teachers seem to be very protective of him.  Do you think I could possibly kill him?”

“Chill, Sooyoung,” Seunghyun held her hand.

“I hate him in this team,” Gyuri said as she transformed into her normal human shape after being a Chinese dragon just now.

“He made my sub-group lose this training,” Yoseob said.

“Truth is, whoever in the same sub-group as him will always lose, because he will always be knocked off first,” Seunghyun let his anger lose.

“Alright, I am still here in case you don’t notice,” Jonghyun said.

“And we talked bad about you.  So what can you do to us?  We have our own power and you have nothing, Jonghyun.  If it was not because of me protecting you from Gyuri’s dragon fire, you will be dead by now.  You can’t even do anything when Seunghyun threw that boulder to me.  I was lucky I have Yoseob,” Luna said.

“That is what you want, isn’t it?  To kill me?  To see me dead?  Why don’t you just kill me?  Sooyoung almost did it just now.  So?  Just do it.  Do it now.  Then only you can see my real power,” Jonghyun sighed.

“Don’t tempt me,” Yoseob said, “I can turn you into pieces of atoms in seconds and you won’t be you anymore.”

“Don’t dare me too,” Gyuri went, with the sound of a snake hissing after that.

“Sound like all of you have plans on killing me,” Jonghyun voiced.  He sounded disappointed.

“Oh, hell.  We all do.  But, you can go on killing yourself too, rather than tempt us on doing it, because by tempting us on doing it is already a suicide for you,” Seunghyun raised his voice.

“Believe me.  I have killed myself and watched myself being killed a lot of times before.  And I am never scared of that,” Jonghyun said and he fled, leaving them in confusion.

+++++

“Maybe he has the power of reincarnating himself right on the point of his death,” Seunghyun suggested.

“How can we find out if he really has that power?” Luna asked.

“We have to kill him to find out,” Yoseob said matter-of-factly.

“What if he doesn’t have any power and we kill him?  He will die and we will become murderers.  I don’t want to live my life as a murderer,” Gyuri argued.

“Right?  But, all of you seem so tempted to kill him.  All of you said that in front him.  This is so wrong guys.  I saw his eyes.  He didn’t lie when he said he had killed himself before.  He didn’t lie when he said he had watched himself being killed,” Sooyoung sighed.  She felt guilty to her bone.

“Let’s not talk about this.  We’re having lunch,” Luna drank her cold water.  She had to eat and drink something cold at least once a day to deal with her power.  Every student in the school had their own diet to maintain their skills.

“You developed a soft spot for him, Sooyoung.  That’s it,” Seunghyun said, voice deep and dark.  He gulped his glass of isotonic drink.

Right a second after, Jonghyun joined them at the table.  It was the school’s rule number 148: Students have to eat in their team when they are assigned to one.  Yoseob pretended like he saw nothing while Gyuri and Luna pretended to talk to each other.  Seunghyun fished his phone out of his pocket and played with it.  Sooyoung hesitated for a while before she talked to him.

“Jonghyun, I’m really sorry for what happened yesterday,” Sooyoung said, “I have no intention at all to kill you.  It’s just that…it seems unfair to me that you have to go through the harsh trainings.  It could kill you if you don’t use whatever skill you possessed.”

“It’s okay.  I know you guys don’t like me.  I will ask the teacher to assign me another team or the worst case scenario, I will just not train in teams.  I don’t think the students here like me that much,” Jonghyun munched on his second energy bar.

“I’m just worried if you get killed on training.  That would be so unfortunate,” Sooyoung did not really know what to say actually.  She just felt really guilty.

“Don’t worry about me.  I don’t mind dying actually,” he said.

+++++

It was one of the training sessions where the school wanted the students to showcase their skills and at the same time work in a team.  Each team will be attacked spontaneously when they were in the arena and the key was to think fast and act fast.  If any of the team members could not protect himself or herself, the other team members ought to help.

That day, their team made the biggest mistake in the history of the school.

It was fast though.  They were in the arena, ready for whatever task that will be given to them.  It was the sound of a gun that they heard and Sooyoung already made her swift movements in avoiding those bullets from hitting her.  Yoseob worked in quantum tunnelling himself and the bullet passed through him like nothing.  Seunghyun shattered the bullets before they even came in contact with him.  Luna melted the bullets with her heat.

Gyuri should turn into an ant and hide under the ground or turn into a dragon and fire away the bullet.  But, the panic stopped her from focusing and she knew by right it was the time for her to die, except that she didn’t.  A pair of strong arms held her protectively and the owner was standing in front of her received all the shots.  She opened her eyes wide enough to know that person was Jonghyun.

When the shooting stopped, the whole team realized that Jonghyun was hit, with God knows how many bullets.  Gyuri shouted when Jonghyun slid down, his breath was heavy.

“Shit!” Yoseob muttered.

“Somebody do something!” Sooyoung shouted.

Jonghyun caught Luna’s hand before she could call for help.  Seunghyun looked more frustrated when the teachers did nothing at all, as if it was okay for Jonghyun to die right in front of their eyes.

“Don’t,” Jonghyun had said with very much difficulty, “I will die anyway,” blood gushed out of his mouth.  Jonghyun looked deeply into Yoseob’s eyes, pleading to just let him die in peace.

Tears rolled down Gyuri’s cheek.  She felt like a total fail.  She felt dumb.  All this while she had the thought of killing Jonghyun, but that guy were willing to get himself killed to save her life.  The other members felt like an idiot too.  They should have defended Jonghyun and Gyuri.  That was supposed to be teamwork.  But, they ignored that aspect of the test.  Their group failed the moment they tried to only defend themselves.  The one who they thought was powerless tried to save a powerful member.

Jonghyun made his last eye contact with Seunghyun, and Seunghyun felt like he was going to pass out the moment Jonghyun closed his eyes and stopped breathing.  The teacher called them into their homeroom class, where they had lessons together, although Jonghyun technically will sit at the far end of the class, since they ‘out-casted’ him on the first day of class.  They felt guilty of not protecting him.  They felt guilty of leaving his body behind.  They felt guilty not to at least be kind to Jonghyun even once.

“What do we do?” Sooyoung asked.  The whole classroom fell into silent again after that.

“Fuck this shit!” Yoseob pulled his hair, “I don’t want this to happen this way!”

“Nobody wants this to happen,” Luna weakly offered, as if that would help.

“I feel like a total fail.  He defended us, guys.  He did,” Gyuri sobbed.

“We lost our team member, that is our ultimate failure,” Seunghyun pressed his palm on his eye, feeling a mild headache coming.

While they were grieving, the door of the classroom was burst open, revealing something that was really hard for them to believe.  Jonghyun, all clean without blood, dressed in army uniform, walked into the classroom, while heatedly arguing with their teacher.  Yoseob at first thought it was his telephatic projection, but he knew he couldn’t focus to do anything like that right now.

“You are not supposed to tell them,” the teacher said.

“Then, what do you expect me to do?  Let them grieve over me?  They are my teammates, sir.  They have the right to know who I am actually, okay?” Jonghyun replied.

“But, your uncle won’t be so fond of the idea-”

“They are my teammates.  And you have my word, only they know about this, nobody else,” Jonghyun said.

The teacher looked at the grief-stricken and confused faces of the students.  Then, he looked back at Jonghyun.  He nodded.

“Do what you think is necessary,” the teacher said.

“Alright.  Now, could you please leave us?  I have a lot of explanation to do,” Jonghyun asked politely, if not sarcastically.  The teacher left immediately.  All eyes were on him after that.

“I swear I saw you looking at me right before you died,” Seunghyun said.

“Yeah, right.  I remember looking at you before I died too,” Jonghyun said.

“This is nuts,” Luna shook he head, “You were dead, Jonghyun!  I swear!” Luna felt tears coming out of happiness because Jonghyun was right in front of her, although she had no idea how.

“I’m sorry that you guys have to face all this shit.  But, trust me.  I saw myself dying all the time.  It was never a good experience, but I sort of used to it.  So, I hope you will get used to this too,” he explained like nothing just happened.

“And how is that even possible?” Sooyoung asked weakly.

Jonghyun sighed.  They noticed that Jonghyun looked more exhausted than ever compared to the other days.  But still, they wanted an explanation.

“I’m too tired for this.  But, I think you guys can just follow me to my office and see what I have there,” he gestured them to follow him.

“You have an office?” Yoseob asked, just to make out some conversation, because he wanted to be sure that he talked to the real Jonghyun, alive.

“Sort of have to have it,” he replied.

Their heads were no doubt full of question marks.  But, with the amount of energy he had left, it was impossible to show them what he got.  His final decision was to take them to his office, so isolated at the school’s basement.  He scanned his palm and retinas before the written-in-fluorescent-green ‘Access Permitted’ appeared and the door was unlocked for him.

“Jonghyun, I brought back my body.  It was a total mess, countless bullets,” Jonghyun was greeted with that information and his friends gave him a questioning look.

“Jonghyun, I brought my teammates here,” Jonghyun spoke and his friends were confused again.  Jonghyun was speaking to another Jonghyun?

As they entered the office, they saw another nine Jonghyuns, all dressed up differently, with the one that was dead just now.

“What the hell?!” Seunghyun muttered.  Jonghyun would want to explain, but Gyuri shouted when she saw the dead Jonghyun on the metal table.

“He’s dead!  He’s dead!” she shouted.

Jonghyun quickly pulled her into his arm and tried to calm her down.  She cried into his chest, knees so weak that Jonghyun had to support her weight.  His eyes bore into hers, but his are all calm and convincing.

“Hey, Gyuri.  I’m here, alive.  Okay, yeah.  I am…dead, that’s for sure.  But, I am here, alive.  That’s enough.  And there are another 8 Jonghyuns alive here.  If you want to see more, well…yeah…you can, but I sort of need to replenish my energy to do that,” Jonghyun explained.

“What?” Luna was confused.

“Okay, that is my skill.  I can replicate myself into two, three, or infinity if I want to, provided I have adequate amount of energy.  It started when I was four.  I played piano and suddenly another ten fingers just came out of nowhere and my piano skill got better, if not creepier.  When I was bigger, like ten years old, I managed to replicate my ‘another’ self.  Since that day, my uncle had been training me to replicate more of myself, with minimum amount of energy used,” Jonghyun provided.

“Bloody hell!  You mean these are all you, including that body?” Sooyoung asked.

“Yes, it’s me,” Jonghyun nodded.

“How many Jonghyun can you make yourself into?” Seunghyun asked and he thought the idea was just ridiculous.

“For now, I can replicate into a hundred of me without feeling tired to death, two hundreds of me and will be completely exhausted that I could die,” Jonghyun replied as if it was some sort of a joke to him.  The other Jonghyuns laugh though.

“God!  You have tried a hundred Jonghyuns before?” Yoseob looked like he was about to collapsed.

“Two hundred, yes,” Jonghyun nodded.

“Where are the other…well, Jonghyuns then?” Luna asked.

“Well, here’s the thing.  I can replicate myself into any number and then diffuse myself into one again.  I usually replicate myself a lot in my self-training session, to achieve the maximum number of me possible with minimum amount of energy.  But, on daily basis I usually keep the maximum number of only ten Jonghyuns including me,” Jonghyun said.

“So, is it possible for you to diffuse that Jonghyun into you so that it is out of my sight?” asked Gyuri while pointing towards the dead Jonghyun.  Jonghyun looked at the other Jonghyun and they just shrugged.

“Alright, if that would make you feel better,” Jonghyun said and he looked at the dead Jonghyun, focusing on it.

In a blink of eye, that Jonghyun was gone, leaving a number of bullets and they looked again at the Jonghyun who were explaining just now.  He looked pale on his feet and was about to fell on the floor before the other Jonghyun in a formal suit caught him and led him to a nearby couch to sit.  Another Jonghyun in a Taekwondo uniform passed to Jonghyun in suit a bottle of energy drink and that Jonghyun helped who supposed to be the main Jonghyun to drink.

“You see, for Jonghyun to diffuse back together, it also consumed energy, although a lot less than it takes to replicate.  But, he just tried replicating another 200 of us just now so he is pretty exhausted,” Jonghyun in suit said.

“Well, I am sorry about that,” the main Jonghyun said, “You have to watch me all weak and tired.”

“Hell, this is amazing.  Although the idea is still hard for me to accept but you are so powerful,” Seunghyun finally admitted.

“Why are all the Jonghyuns dressed differently?” Gyuri asked.

“You know, each Jonghyun is assigned to do different task by me,” the main Jonghyun spoke again, “The one in suit is a law student.  He is a Taekwondo student.  I am joining the school for army and so on.  We rotate our task.  So, if today I am an army student, tomorrow I will be a medical student.”

“What is the purpose of assigning different tasks to each Jonghyun?” Seunghyun asked.

“We have one brain.  What the other Jonghyun did or learned, the other Jonghyun will have the same knowledge.  That way, I and the other Jonghyun are able to have more knowledge than everyone else in the world do.  It is a large capacity for a brain.  Sounds complicated, I know, but you guys just have to get familiar with this,” Jonghyun explained.

“No wonder you know so much,” Yoseob shrugged.

“So, which of you were with us on the first day of class?” Sooyoung asked.

“It was me, the main Jonghyun,” the tired-looking, army Jonghyun said.

“If you are tired to death, and can’t replicate anymore for the day, will the other Jonghyun able to do it?” asked Gyuri.

“I can.  But, we sort of know that he is the leader and we are the replication of him, so we respect his right on doing that.  We won’t do it.  It is the matter of self-control,” the Jonghyun in suit said while referring to the army Jonghyun.

“What if he was the one that died just now?  You won’t replicate anymore?” Luna raised another question.

“If the main Jonghyun die, the job of leading will be passed to the second in rank, which is me right now,” Jonghyun in suit said.

“How do you know who is the leader and who is the second-in-chief?” asked Seunghyun.

“The leader is of course the one who replicate.  But, the others’ ranks are sorted out in our brain, you know, since we shared the same brain,” the main Jonghyun said.

The whole team nodded a few times, indicating that they understand Jonghyun’s power and why he kept it secret all the time.  If the other people knew it, people will keep looking for him and kill him until there’s no more Jonghyun standing, because they are just stupidly curious how many Jonghyuns were there.

“When the other Jonghyun was shot, were you, Jonghyuns, feeling the same pain?” Yosoeb asked.

“You have no idea how it hurt.  I wished I could just die and feel no more.  But, it will be unfair for the leader to stay alive and replicate again.  The idea seems bizarre, but we share our pain,” Jonghyun the medic student, in a long white coat said.

“If the main Jonghyun die, and is replaced by the second-in-chief, will they still be the same?  I mean same characteristics?” Gyuri asked.

“We are who I am and I am who we are.  All the same, I am still me,” all Jonghyuns answered synchronously.

“Alright, Jonghyun.  I know that you had one hell of a day, us too, I mean seeing you dying and all.  But, one last question.  What is the name of your skill?”  Sooyoung asked.

“Seriously, I don’t know.    But, the teacher registered it as The Ultimate Multitudity,” the lead Jonghyun shrugged.

__________

heaDeVil^23

Mood: Lazy

Song: Titanium by David Guetta