- fifty eight -

Taeyong couldn't stop from rising up from his seat in front of the laptop.

"What do you mean, things?" his tone was dead serious,looking at the smaller, an intimidating aura surrounding him.

"I found it out after cracking the codes from earlier. Those tests on us were strictly experimental. Since they didn't work, or so how they thought, Abigail had taken it into her own hands to do the research," Renjun answered. He was glad that it was in front of everyone, so he wouldn't have to explain to the others as well.

"When they were saving less and less Defects they had captured, she had to take things into her own hands in preserving the powers that would die with the Defects. She had found a technique to do it, but the only way to do it, was to store the power into a matching DNA that would be somewhat similar to the human side of the DNA in a Defect."

He paused and let everyone catch up.

"What do you mean by human side of the DNA of a Defect?" Mark asked, asking a question that was echoing through most of their minds.

"You know how some Defects had features that change?" Renjun asked, continuing when he received nods, "well, that's triggered from the different 'sides' of the DNA. One trigger can lead to your DNA from shifting into one side or the other. Just like Jeno and his white features that are most definitely prominent in his Defect side, but not his human side."

He seemed to get looks of comprehension from the others.

"She had found that her blood, as well as a few others that worked under her, had similar blood in the same sense. That lead to her 'preserving' the powers. By injecting them into herself. At this moment, I don't have a specific amount as to how she has, but we can't think about that, we need to be prepared for this war she speaks of."

"Why?" Taeyong asked, thoughts flying rampant almost distracting him from focusing on Renjun's words.

"The device I read from, it wasn't a communication device that I thought it had been. It was only meant to slow us down, nothing more, nothing less. The codes," he paused looking at Taeyong, "they weren't messages from Abigail directly."

"What were they then?" This time Jaehyun spoke up.

"The blocks were built out of an old database that Abigail had thought she had deleted everything from, and used the spares to assemble the new device. She hadn't erased what was engraved into the device. I know what she's going to do."

"And what's that?" Johnny jumped into the debate.

"War," Renjun paused, looking at all of their faces, "that's the codeword. It's so blatant and in your face, but it means that they're going to attack soon. That's how painfully obvious Abigail likes to be."

Taeyong nodded, swallowing his saliva.

He didn't think it'd so soon, but he had faith in his boys.

They are going to make it together, whether Abigail liked it or not. It wasn't her land to rule.

Taeyong dismissed the boys, telling them that they'll need the good night's sleep as he went to his bedroom as well.

He couldn't help but sweep his hand through his hair in frustration at the new stress added from what Abigail had been doing.

. . .

Renjun lie awake, staring at the moon outside the window, wondering about the future and how much doom they were to head through.

Jeno turned, seeing Renjun off into his own world, looking at the night sky.

"We'll be O.K." he told the older, wrapping his arm around the smaller's body, trying to use his warmth as comfort.

"I promise."

But will we really be O.K.?

Abigail is strong. Stronger than we originally thought.

Will this change things?

Renjun wasn't sure what to do with the newfound information that Abigail had unintentionally released.

As if Jeno could hear his thoughts, the younger brought his hand to Renjun's hair and started to pet it,

The feeling of fingers dragging on his scalp was lulling him to sleep, but the thoughts seemed to drag longer.

Wouldn't the Defect DNA inside of her cause repercussions?

A being as seemingly powerful as she seemed to turn out, she had to have a weakness. Nature wouldn't allow it.

She would be a synthetic copy of the abnormalcy of a Defect. They had their power, but multiple ones would corrupt the brain overtime, she would become an imperfection, one that nature wouldn't agree with.

I guess she doesn't know the basic meaning of 'power comes with a price.'

Or she was simply that reckless to take such a risk.

At her,

full power,

His thoughts seemed to stagger at the feeling of Jeno's fingers,

she would

only

deteriorate.

Renjun's eyes turned heavy, until he was fully asleep.

Jeno looked at the older, stopping his motions as he heard soft noises leaving the smaller.

He was listening to the deep analysis of Abigail's predicament, aweing at Renjun's deep thought process.

Sighing to himself, he was glad that they had met Renjun.

With a mind as bright and thoughtful as the older's, they could make it through any situation they were caught in.

He finally felt like they could actually defeat this oncoming war between the Inside and the Outside.

Nothing could stop them, not even Abigail.

He felt like his previous words were full of truth now.

They truly were going to be just fine.

We're going to be O.K.