Missing in Action

11: Consolidated

U-Kwon dropped P.O. outside the meeting area and left. P.O. told his hyung that he will just hitch a ride with his childhood friend Mino's group. P.O. bashfully entered the meeting area.

"Uhm, excuse me?" P.O. shyly entered the meeting room.

"Oh, P.O.-hyung, you're here. How's the invasion?" Mino noticed his best friend.

"Well, that's why I am here – to report some useful information," P.O. addressed the whole body.

"Very well, please report, seonbaenim" Nayoung allowed P.O. to proceed.

"So according to the status of things when we arrived, QK Province was attacked by a general named Sirk and his underlings called 'scabbars'," P.O. delivered. "From our fight, we have learned three crucial information."

"Which are?" Jay probed.

"First, Sirk fired some bolts of lightning and threw Energy Balls, Thermal Balls and Fireballs and also had a force field," P.O. started to list down. "Thus, this meant that Sirk had at least five powers including his teleportation power. From this, we can assume that the enemies, unlike us, could possess more than one power."

"Ok. That's a very good information for our part," JB mentioned.

"Interestingly, it took both ours and Atease's X-Con techniques to finish him off. However, what stood out was his last words," P.O. continued.

"Last words?" Hoony asked.

"Before he was defeated, he said and I quote: 'What is this power? Why was I not informed of this? This was not in the book! I had no counter for this. NOOOOOOO!'," P.O. shyly quoted Sirk's last words verbatim. "By this, Zico-hyung concluded two other things. First, the enemy has thoroughly read Light. Second, the enemy has no idea of our X-Con techniques aside from six."

"How can you say so?" Hui asked.

"Because of his statement 'this was not in the book', Zico-hyung concluded that they indeed have read the book from cover to cover. Additionally, his statement 'why was I not informed of this' and 'I had no counter for this' while our X-Con was slowly finishing him off and the fact that he remarked 'futile effort' when Atease activated their X-Con technique, only to be surprised later on about its effects tells us that they studied X-Cons in particular but only prepared countermeasures for six," P.O. logically elaborated.

"Which six X-Cons are you referring to?" Jay inquired.

"The six X-Cons specifically mentioned on the book, Light," P.O. mentioned. "IOI's Chrysalis, Plackbink's Boombayah, Bulletproof Scout's Fire, X-O's second version of Exoplanet, Velvety Red's Peek-a-Boo and Ex-Monster's Trespass."

"I see. Since they assumed that only these six X-Cons exist, Sirk failed to anticipate your X-Cons to be used against him," Jinu summarized.

"Must be the reason why Shax was also taken aback when he got hit by our Dream sub-unit's X-Con," Taeyong connected the two events.

"Okay. This is good," Somi muttered. "Including B-Block seonbaenim's report, we can now disseminate three important facts: that the enemies are not human, that they may possess more than one power and that X-Con techniques can be utilized against them."

"Unfortunately though, Ex-Monster seonbaenim's and our X-Con techniques are now ineffective against them," Sejeong noted.

"It may still work, if we use it at the right moment," Shownu was optimistic.

"I just had a thought and it's very concerning," Mina sharply inhaled.

"What thought?" Kihyun and the rest faced her.

"What if Light was duplicated? What if the enemy had a copy of the book and they just burned the original in front of us to mislead us?" Mina shared her thought.

"Well, there is no one who knows Light better than BoA-seonbaenim," Taeil commented. "I guess we should call her."

A few In-City members went and called BoA from the Seer Suite next door.

"What is it?" BoA entered with a smile.

"Mina thought that Light could have been duplicated by the enemy. What can you say about this, seonbaenim?" Hyungwon fired the question.

"Ok, I see," BoA giggled. "Although I did not enchant it to be resistant to damage, Light did have some magical protection. When I first created the eleven copies of the book, I enchanted it with a spell with a specific effect."

"What are the effects of the spell?" Wooseok asked.

"Well, the book and its contents could not be duplicated, replicated, copied, rectified or be written upon in any way, physical or magical, except by me and Wanna One. Thus, your theory about the book being duplicated is impossible. Through this spell, if one tries to clone the book magically, the clone's pages would end up blank. If someone tried to photocopy, snap a photo, or copy to another piece of paper or material the contents of the book, they will also be magically deleted. The only people who could do this are me and Wanna One. The only way for other people to know its contents was to memorize the entries by actually reading them."

"That is true. We heard from SVT that Daniel was able to scribble on their entry when he corrected 'Super Violent Troop' to 'Super Valiant Troop'," Jooheoney remembered.

"Well, that book did have many mistakes. I just thought of it in the last minute and created it haphazardly at the spur of the moment," BoA scratched her nape. "Despite this, I was really hurt when ten of the original Light was destroyed during the Fandom War. I was really hoping each of Wanna One will receive one. Oh well, if I will make a second edition, I will make sure it is indestructible, in addition to other protective spells just like the first one."

"Thus, with BoA-seonbaenim's reassurance, we are now sure that the last copy of the original Light was indeed destroyed, no duplicates could be in the enemy's hands and that the enemy may have memorized the contents to some degree for him to burn the book, otherwise he should have kept it," Chaeyeon summed up.

The conversation halted for a while. BoA returned to the Seer Suite after the interrogation.

"Goodness," Jimin of Angels Ace gasped.

"What is it?" JR noticed.

"I just received information from Hyebin of Landomom that Emildy was also attacked this morning. She said it was just a bunch of creatures with the ability to spit acid. Nancy and Ahin were seriously injured but they are now fine," Jimin summarized.

"Those creatures who spit acid are the scabbar underlings." P.O. clarified.

"So, they attacked two provinces today," Kun stated. "Good thing every single magical squad is on high alert."

"Very well. Let us adjourn the meeting for today," Nayoung told the body. "Each one of us here will be responsible for delivering the crucial information we were able to collate to every single magical squad in any way possible except the media. Chances are the enemy are also watching the news."

"Understood."

The nine members of the interim Supreme Six and Twilight Triad began to leave one by one.

"Mino-ya, can your group drop me off in my province?" P.O. asked Mino.

"Nope," Mino laughed. "We will hold you in captive and ask your groupmates to pay some ransom."

"Well, too bad. My hyungs won't pay the ransom or rescue me anyway. I will be a freeloader in INNERCIRCLE everyday-day, every-everyday," P.O. flashed his tongue to Mino in a playful manner.

"Let's just drop him off," Hoony just shook his head on the two childhood friends' bickering.