[EXO] [PD8] Driving Force 2/3
Title: Driving Force 2/3
Fandom: EXO (sort of fused with Final Fantasy VII)
Series: Phoenix Down (#8)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, crossover (sort of)
Word count: 22,666
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Part 1
Driving Force 2/3
Grass gives way to a brown, rocky path bordered by mountains. There are no burned monsters here, but there's nothing else, either, and Kris wonders why anyone would build a town in such a remote location. Even the chocobos in the back seem subdued. They outdrive a couple of lumbering Golems, and Jongdae leans out the window and zaps a Grand Horn with Bolt materia before he can destroy the van.
The skies are slowly turning pink from the setting sun, not that sinister red - not yet - as they follow the tracks to a town built into the side of a mountain. "Cosmo Canyon," Jongdae says, pulling up as close as he can to the set of steps leading up to the entrance, where a large sign says the same thing. There are windmills blowing gaily in the breeze, and ladders leading up to odd, rocky buildings hollowed out of the mountain itself. At the summit of the town, up on an enormous plateau, a large, spherical building houses a giant telescope.
It's a far cry from the glitz and glamour of the Gold Saucer, or the grim and murky industry of Midgar. Cosmo Canyon has none of their towers of plastic and metal, a town hollowed lovingly from nature, warm and earthy and welcoming.
But nature aside, they do appear to have a garage, and the first thing Jongdae does upon arriving is refuel the van. Kris eases himself out the door, grateful to stretch his legs. He examines the buggy's tracks. Theirs is not the only vehicle to have passed this way, but the tyre treads are pretty distinctive and there's no mistaking them, even in the fading light.
"Looks like they stopped here, then continued on through the mountains," he says to Yixing, who's come up beside him.
"I hope you're not suggesting we do the same," Yixing says. "Not tonight. We're roughly a day behind them, given when they started out, so they probably spent last night here."
Roughly a day means they could go a long way towards closing that gap if they drive through the night, but it's too dangerous to do that out here, with only the van's headlights for illumination and the possibility of monster encounters in the dark. Kris sighs and resigns himself to halting the chase for now. At least if the professor's still behind the wheel, he'll probably stop soon too.
"We're leaving at first light," he says.
Jongin, when told, reluctantly agrees to this on the understanding that someone will steer him out of bed and into the van, as he'll be walking in his sleep.
"You're already asleep," Yixing says, and Jongin laughs and makes a great show of being awake.
Now they've refuelled, the first order of business is to locate rooms for the night. Jongdae enquires at the garage to check that the Shildra Inn is still the only one in town, located above the Starlet pub, near the greengrocer's stall and directly opposite a raised mound housing a brightly burning fire - the Cosmo Candle, as he calls it. A group of children sit near the flames, toasting marshmallows on sticks and laughing amongst themselves. It's quite a homey affair, and despite the trials of the past few days Kris begins to feel at peace. No one is afraid here. No one's in a rush; no one's too busy to stop and talk.
"Cosmo Canyon's a very, very small town," Jongdae says once they've made stabling arrangements for the chocobos. "My parents used to bring me here when I was a kid, back when my grandfather still lived here. Everyone knows everyone else's business and strangers are big news."
"So we'll have people staring at us?" Jongin says glumly.
"Probably," Jongdae says, "but what I was getting at is: the guys we're looking for couldn't have done anything without half a dozen people knowing about it. It couldn't hurt to ask while we're here."
"Did you check with the mechanic?" Kris asks.
Jongdae nods. "Yeah, he knew who I meant, immediately. We're not going to miss this buggy when we see it. He said it's bright red and stands out a mile, and that they refuelled too - before they left this morning."
"Early?"
"About mid-morning? Maybe they're not in a hurry now."
Kris hopes not. There's a limit to how long this chase can continue before they run out of land to drive on, and he'd be a lot happier if he had some idea of their final destination. The buggy tracks head north, which means that if they keep going they'll eventually end up back where they started, only on the opposite side of the continent, with a large mountain range cutting them off from Costa del Sol.
Jongdae leads them into the pub and quickly checks that they're okay sharing rooms in pairs before he goes up to speak to the proprietor about accommodation for the night. With the arrangements made, he and Yixing take their gear upstairs while Kris and Jongin take a seat downstairs at one of the long wooden tables.
If the exterior of the town is homey, the interior is even more so, all warm brown earth and wood, the walls curving unevenly around the well-worn dirt floors. A single light hangs over the bar in the corner of the pub, but most of the illumination in the room comes from the candles set on the tables. Wooden barrels are piled up next to the stairs and in the corners, filled with alcohol that Kris knows better than to drink while they're travelling. He can see a door leading back to the kitchen; a sign above the bar describes the possible food options and if the choice is somewhat limited, Kris can't quite bring himself to care. It's just nice not to be in a moving vehicle.
What's not so nice is the staring. Every stool at the bar is occupied, and most of the other tables too, and Kris keeps catching glimpses of heads turning away from them. He gets it: they're strangers. It's not unexpected. He stretches out his legs under the table and leans back, trying to look casual to make up for the fact that Jongin looks so distant, his natural shyness leaving him with a dark, wary countenance when confronted by people he doesn't know.
"Anything new from Lu Han?"
That shakes Jongin out of himself, a little. "Not since we picked up that Baekhyun materia in the desert. I guess if he knew anything about where we're going, we'd know too by now."
"The professor has other Summon materia with him," Kris says, thinking it over. "Can't any of them tell enough about where they are to give us a clue?"
"They don't pick up so much through the orbs. Mostly sensation things, Lu Han says." Jongin scratches his neck, just below the collar. Lu Han's collar, a most unsubtle mark of ownership, drawing a line they all know better than to cross. "Unless one of them gets summoned, we won't know."
Kris silently hopes for a summoning. He'd go up to the bar and get drinks, but that would mean leaving Jongin to face the stares alone, so he doesn't get up until Yixing and Jongdae reappear.
"Sit," Jongdae says. "Give me the orders and I'll go up. I might be able to get us a discount, assuming the bartender remembers me being a cute six year old."
It's slightly disconcerting, the way Jongdae's inserted himself so neatly into the group since morning, but he has the advantage here and they'd be foolish not to benefit from his local knowledge. He's the only one who knows what lies ahead on the road, he's successfully saved Kris from becoming a frog, and it's his van they're using to pursue the professor. He's an integral part of the team, now.
Which is great, only...Kris feels a little cast aside. When he'd started working regularly with Yixing and Jongin, they'd all agreed that he would be the leader. He doesn't feel like he's leading much today.
"Let him have his moment," Yixing murmurs once Jongdae's left for the bar. "We've just walked into his life and stolen him away from everything he knows. We've had months to get used to the idea piece by piece. He got hit with it all at once."
"I know," Kris says. "And I'm grateful he knows the area. Really."
"Then stop looking like he just walked off with your chocobo," Jongin says bluntly. "He seems really nice."
"I'm glad you think so," Yixing says, "because you're sharing a room with him tonight."
It's hard to tell what Jongin thinks about this because he gets up to give Jongdae a hand at the bar, after being waved over to help carry drinks.
"Food will be out in about fifteen minutes," Jongdae says. "The good news is: the bartender remembers me. The bad news is: he remembers me breaking the bottle of two hundred year old whisky he was saving for a special occasion. So no discount."
"We'll live." Kris shrugs philosophically. "Did you get a chance to ask him about Suho?"
Jongdae smiles awkwardly. "That...might be better coming from someone else."
Kris can't help but laugh. Drink in hand, he leaves the others at the table to wait for the food and ascends the curved wooden staircase to the next floor. Upstairs, a bored-looking young woman leans on her elbows on a desk, the register laid out in front of her (and far too close to a candle). The wall lamp doesn't do much to dispel the shadows up here. It's relatively bare, with a door leading to the rooms at the back, further into the mountains, and only a rickety wooden railing keeping weary travellers from falling into the pub below.
It's the only inn in town. The professor must've stayed over, if he and his formerly dead companion had only left that morning. This is as good a chance as any to try to learn something about them.
Smoothing back his hair with his free hand, Kris shoots the girl at the desk what he hopes is a killer smile, and tries to look like the most exciting thing to cross her path all year. He reckons that shouldn't be too hard, in a place like this.
"Hey," he says casually. "It must be pretty lonely up here all by yourself."
The girl rolls her eyes. "Tell you what. How about I go down and have a drink, and you can stay up here and see for yourself how lonely it is?"
Okay, so he's not going to win her over with a line. He's out of practice anyway - can't remember the last time he even tried to make a move on somebody. (Don Corneo so doesn't count.) Moving from town to town and keeping to himself are not terribly conducive to forming relationships, and one-night stands tend to leave him feeling empty and alone afterwards. It's not as if there have been many of those, either. Most people take one look at the sword on his back and keep their distance.
"How about I go down and buy you a drink?" he tries, aiming for more sincere and less slick.
Still no luck. "They only serve my favourite drink at the Gold Saucer," the girl says sweetly. "If you hurry you might make it before the bar closes."
Kris grimaces at the obvious put-down, which at least earns him a laugh. "Do I get points for trying?"
"None, but you get one if I can steal a sip of your beer."
"Better than nothing." Kris approaches the desk, holding out his glass to the girl, whose nametag reads 'Rosa'. (The name gives him horrible flashbacks to the previous night, when he'd agreed to take the part of the Evil Dragon King on the stage in the Gold Saucer's Event Square. He hopes this Rosa isn't going to turn out to be Lu Han.)
Rosa takes the beer, stealing considerably more than just a sip before handing it back. "Thanks. You're staying here tonight, right?" When Kris's mouth falls open in surprise, she scoffs: "C'mon, your friends said there were four of you, and I've never seen you before in my life. We don't get many strangers around here."
"You had some staying last night, though, right?"
"Yeah..." Rosa looks up at Kris curiously, pushing her headband up to keep her soft brown bangs out of her eyes. "How'd you know? Friends of yours?"
How to play this, Kris wonders? There's no chance he can bluff his way into claiming to be friends. He only knows the name of one of the men they're chasing, and nothing at all about the other one, not even what he looks like. At least he has a picture of Suho. He pulls out the professor's ID badge, holding it up for inspection. "Not exactly," he says. "We've been looking for this man for the past few days. To..." To what? Talk him into parting with his Summon materia? "To ask him some questions about materia. He's a scientist."
"He's boring, that's what he is," Rosa says, shooing the badge away with one hand. "Kept asking me if I'd read any good books lately. You see a library built into these mountains?"
Kris smothers a laugh. "What about the guy he was with?"
"Sehun? Well," Rosa's expression turns sly, "that's another story altogether. Is he a scientist too?"
"Probably not," Kris says, "but you know his name, which already means you know more about him than I do." He opts not to mention that Sehun, if that's his real name, had managed to get himself crushed to death and resurrected at Fort Condor.
"He's too cute to be a scientist," Rosa decides. "Not that Suho wasn't, but he had that kind of parental air, you know? Reminded me of my grandfather. A tiny, cheerful bundle of responsibilities. Sehun was a little younger, a lot taller, and much more laidback."
She makes grabby hands for Kris's glass again; he figures if it'll get her to keep talking, she's more than welcome to the whole thing. He sets it down on the desk. Rosa actually favours him with a smile as she picks up the beer.
"So you can take hints after all."
"Only the ones that don't mean I have to leave," Kris says. "Did either of them say anything about where they were going?"
"What's it to you?"
Life or death. Well, perhaps not quite in that order. But if Kris explains why they're really chasing Suho, the girl's going to think he's insane and not tell him anything at all. "I was serious about asking him some questions about materia. We've got a Summon acting really weird, and since he's the expert, we're trying to track him down before anyone gets hurt."
"Oh!" Rosa's eyes widen. "Should you even be in here? Is it safe?"
Kris backpedals frantically. He doesn't want to be responsible for them all having to sleep in the van tonight. "It's only when he's summoned," he assures her. "No one's going to be calling him out while we're in town, don't worry."
Rosa visibly relaxes, arms slumping back down on the desk. "Don't scare me like that. Just for that, I'm finishing your drink." And she does. "I couldn't tell you where they're going anyway - they don't even know themselves. They're just looking for some giant tree or something."
Some giant tree. Of course. But the tree has to be dead by now, if it even existed here to start with, and Kris has his doubts. Suho must be having the same dreams, but what could he have seen to lead him to believe there's any chance of finding the tree here, in this world?
"Do you have any idea where they were going to look for the tree?" Kris asks. They can follow the buggy tracks again in the morning, but if they reach a point where the tracks are no longer visible, they're completely lost.
"They went up to old Bugenhagen's observatory, at the top of town, to have a look through his telescope. Don't know if they found anything but when they came back they were asking about maps. Like a single tree is going to be important enough to be marked on a map!"
"It might be...if it's the right tree," Kris says slowly, not quite believing it himself. But if Suho has a reason for thinking it's here, maybe it's true.
"Not on any maps here," Rosa says. "We only have star charts, thanks to Bugenhagen. But Bughe - he's probably still downstairs having a drink - told them to check out the old library in the next town over. Said if the map's not in Nibelheim, it doesn't exist."
Nibelheim. Kris wonders if Jongdae knows how to get there. Probably.
Yixing calls his name from the bottom of the stairs, saying the food's ready, so he thanks Rosa and reaches for the empty glass to take it back down. Rosa picks it up, but as she hands it over she adds: "When you catch up to Sehun, tell him to come back anytime!"
"The resurrected guy with the giant shuriken's named Sehun," Kris informs the others as he sits down to a plate of fried chicken. "Apparently he's tall, cute and a hit with the ladies."
"Probably because he doesn't tell them he was crushed to death," Jongin says - at least, that's what it sounds like, but he's talking around a drumstick so it's hard to tell.
Jongdae is more polite, waiting until his mouth is empty before saying, "I guess if his face was still all mashed up it wouldn't do much for his social life."
"What social life?" Yixing points out. "All he's done all week is flee one continent and drive halfway across another."
"At least we know something of what they did when they were here." Kris explains what he's learned from Rosa. "And we know where they're headed."
"I can get us to Nibelheim," Jongdae says. "It's the only spot of civilisation between here and Rocket Town."
He doesn't elaborate, delving into his food with relish; Kris suspects he's contemplating what will happen if Suho and Sehun end up leading them all the way back to his hometown. Hopefully, they'll have no reason to.
It's a subdued meal, all of them exhausted after the latest in a series of long days, and keen to stretch out full length on a bed. They speculate a little about the tree, and where it might be if it exists here at all; Jongdae, who's only glimpsed it in a single dream so far, shrugs and shakes his head when the others suggest possible locations. What if the tree's back across the sea somewhere, clinging to life as the dead, red skies steal its moisture drop by drop? What then?
They can't go back. Not yet, not after what happened in Fort Condor and Junon. What if it's spreading westwards, and even now the residents and refugees at Costa del Sol are turning into paper shells of their former selves? Kris wishes he knew for certain.
Maybe there's a way to find out...
"Do you know anything about the observatory here?" he asks Jongdae. "Would I be able to go up and look through the telescope?"
"Anyone can." Jongdae wipes his mouth on a serviette. "Go up to the Tiger Lily Arms Shop, take a left, and head up the stairs. There's a ladder in the materia shop - or there was, last time I was here. That brings you out up top, and you can go inside from there. There should be someone around to let you in."
"Going to stargaze?" Yixing asks.
"If I'm lucky." If Kris is unlucky, the stars will be hidden by a dark red haze, creeping across the sky. "I'll see you guys later."
He leaves the others behind in the pub, neither inviting company nor shunning it, but it makes him feel more comfortable to see them warm and at ease around the table, quiet but tranquil by candlelight. He'll rejoin them later, maybe at the bar, maybe only in their dreams. Perhaps he'll see Sehun fighting alongside them tonight.
He won't see him on the other end of the telescope, that's for sure. He follows Jongdae's directions, first past the arms shop, then the materia shop (both closed). Like the pub, they're hollowed out from the mountains, but both are deserted and shutters have been pulled down over the wares. Lanterns hanging from the walls give him enough light to find the ladder, and ascend safely to the plateau.
The very peak of Cosmo Canyon has several wooden houses, the only ones of their kind in town, and an enormous circular building with a domed roof. The gold-rimmed telescope sticks out against the night sky, showing Kris just which door he needs to knock on. When he does, a solemn, grey-haired man in a pale uniform answers, beckoning him in with a slight smile.
"Uh...hi," Kris says, trying to remember the name Rosa had mentioned. "Are you...Bugenhagen?"
"I'm Hargo," the man says, inclining his head. "Bugenhagen passed away many years ago. Elder Bughe and I maintain this place in his stead. Please come in."
He leads Kris inside. The main room looks like that of any other house, with kitchen and living quarters giving way to another door, probably a bedroom. There's a ladder in here, too, though he can't tell where it goes. The whole town seems to be made up of caverns and ladders.
"I'm really sorry to disturb your dinner," Kris says, spying the plate and mug on the kitchen table, still very much in use. "I could come back in the morning?"
Hargo chuckles gently. "You'll not get much stargazing done then."
"Ah. Right..."
"It's part of my job to assist anyone who comes seeking knowledge," Hargo explains. "That's usually why people come up here."
Kris doesn't admit that he's not exactly sure what he's seeking. Confirmation that the rest of the world still exists, beyond the buggy tracks they've been following all day? Hargo seems a gentle sort; Kris would rather not alarm him with concerns of doom and gloom.
The ladder turns out to lead up to the bedroom - the door, Hargo explains, leads to the planetarium, which is pretty but not what Kris is here for - and another ladder still takes them up to the telescope. They're in the heart of the dome here, surrounded by wheels and valves, pipes and switches. A computer screen over on the left displays a screensaver of dancing chocobos. There's so much gadgetry Kris doesn't even know where to start. He stares at the telescope, which looks even more enormous up close and he can only see the section that's actually inside the building.
"You look like you could use the Idiot's Guide," Hargo says, handing him a laminated sheet of paper with a series of pictures on it. "Have some simple instructions, and call me if you need any help. I'll come see how you're getting on once I've finished my stew."
He disappears back down the ladder, leaving Kris with a set of illustrated directions and an overwhelming array of controls to explore. The drawings are not terribly complicated, mostly involving simple geometric representations of the control panel and lots of pointy arrows. How hard can it be? It's not like he's trying to find something in particular. Right now, he'd just settle for being able to glimpse the world beyond Cosmo Canyon.
After a few false starts and much turning of dials, Kris manages to get the screen to display the view through the telescope, and thinks about where best to point it. Geography's never been his strongest suit. Junon's massive canon would be an excellent landmark, but will he able to find it in the dark?
"You okay up there?" Hargo calls from below.
"Fine, thanks!" Kris calls back. If he gets really stuck, he'll go down and seek help, but he'd rather not admit he's not sure what he's doing until after he's made a decent stab at it. Plus, if he's going to have company up here, he'd rather it was of his own choosing. It's a good thing he's still carrying his sword.
"Baekhyun!"
"You say something?" Hargo calls up.
Kris drops down beside the ladder, ignoring a giggling Baekhyun, who's leaning against the control panel. "Just summoning a friend!" he shouts down. "We'll try not to make too much noise."
"He probably thinks you're insane," Baekhyun says as Kris gets to his feet. "But I'm not surprised; this does look kind of like my idea of a mad scientist's lair."
"We're in an observatory in Cosmo Canyon." Kris waves his hand to make Baekhyun move away from the controls. They probably don't respond well to people sitting on them, especially people who enjoy playing with anything that's not nailed down. Jongin's terrible for fidgeting, but Baekhyun's worse. "Careful. I don't think we can afford for you to break this telescope."
"Oh, is that what it is?" Baekhyun stands back so he can see it properly, tilting his head as far as it will go to follow the long, metallic curves leading outside the dome. "If anything happens, I can just disappear."
Kris glares at him. "But I can't."
"Then you'd better be careful, hadn't you?" Baekhyun edges forward, approaching the screen, which is currently showing a segment of the night sky. "Are we going to stargaze together? How romantic," he coos, clasping his hands under his chin and smirking to prove his thoughts are turning to anything but romance.
"It's not exactly the stars I'm interested in," Kris says. "Do you know where your other orbs are?"
"Some of them?" Baekhyun shrugs. "If I get summoned and I can identify the area, then I know, but if my masters move on..."
"So you don't know where your orb with the professor is, for instance?" Kris says, disappointed.
"Even if I did, you wouldn't find him through that thing. He's probably indoors somewhere, resting for the night. You didn't come up here just to look for two men and a buggy, did you?"
"Of course not," Kris scoffs, brushing a hand casually through his hair. "I came up to see if there's still a world left behind us."
"Before? Because I don't know where that world was, but I don't think you're going to see it anywhere except in your dreams." Baekhyun sighs. "I could do with seeing a little less of it, actually. I'd like to sleep through the night without watching you flying around inside my head with dragon wings."
"I'm not apologising for something I have no control over," Kris says. "And I didn't mean that world. I meant, like, Junon, and Midgar, and all the other places we've been back on the eastern continent. I'm not sure how much we'll see at night, but I guess if the cities don't have any lights..." He stops, suddenly sick to his stomach. Everyone in Junon had either left on the ships, or perished in a storm of red dust. He'd watched it himself. There won't be any lights.
"You won't know if you don't look."
Baekhyun's being flippant, but it's a fair point. Kris studies the instructions again. It looks like there's only so far he can manoeuvre the telescope anyway, so he's not sure he can even scan the land in the direction he wants. It's hard to get the focus right too, and at first he ends up with nothing but dark, blurred blobs on the screen. When he aims higher, the stars that fill his vision reassure him that however far the red cloud may have spread, it's not yet conquered the whole sky.
"I wonder if the stars are the same?" Baekhyun says. "If I can look up at the sky at home and see the same stars you do here?"
"Maybe?" Kris hasn't given the location of Baekhyun's home too much thought, because it's somewhere he knows he can never go. It's better to concentrate on where he has to go next, on places he can reach, and not distract himself with things that can never be. "Maybe your world's out there, turning next to mine, and we see the same stars but from different angles?"
"That would mean we're moving from planet to planet using materia orbs." Baekhyun grins. "Teleportation? That was Jongin's power before. I wouldn't mind picking up other people's powers too."
"Being a judgemental pocket torch isn't enough for you anymore?"
"Just because I'm not freakishly tall-" Baekhyun begins in protest, but Kris tunes him out, alarmed when the stars disappear from the screen in a swirl of red.
They're not gone, just...fading. Kris turns knobs and dials on the panel, seeking a better angle so he can identify the patch he's looking at, but all he gets is red dust motes streaking furiously through the night sky.
"Where's that?" Baekhyun's noticed now too, all his attention now focused on the screen. "Junon?"
"I don't know!"
Kris's hands start to shake, unsteady on the controls, so he tightens his grip to compensate. He takes the telescope lower, sweeping down until he finds something beneath the red storm. It's the sea. He can only tell because the water's choppy, waves rising and falling at random, tranquility stirred to breaking point. Following the waves takes Kris towards land. Land he knows, with beaches and bad breakfasts brought by helpful waitresses. A thriving tourist town, now filled to the brim with Junon's refugees.
"It's Costa del Sol," he says, each word a boulder scraping his throat on the way up. "We were only there yesterday morning..."
The lights of the town, of houses and tourist villas, of shops and restaurants, flicker in and out of view, white and yellow turning to red, then to nothing at all. Other lights, closer to the ground, move in broken lines away from the coast - vehicles, being driven to safety, if anywhere is safe. Kris doesn't know how far they'd have to drive. The threat has crossed the sea: what was a sanctuary yesterday will be tomorrow's graveyard. There's not enough lights, anyway. Not enough for everyone to leave.
Perhaps if he moves it out of focus, the disappearing lights will be less painful. He turns the dial, but Baekhyun's hand - smaller than his, but with long, elegant fingers - closes over his, and when he looks up, his Summon's shaking his head and pointing to a corner of the screen with his other hand.
"Can you turn it to the left a little more?"
"I'll try." Baekhyun releases his hand, so Kris nudges the scope just a trifle, hoping not to overshoot whatever it is that Baekhyun's concerned about. "What do you see?"
"Those lights." Baekhyun taps the screen. "Do they look higher to you? And they're moving, but slowly."
"Hold on; let me see if I can make it clearer."
There's not much illumination to work with but the reflections of light on metal tell a story, and it's one that might, just possibly, have a happy ending.
"Ships," Kris breathes. "They're sailing away."
"Where can they go?"
"North?" Kris suggests. "Or north-west, and sail around to Wutai?"
He doesn't even want to consider trying to find Wutai with the telescope. He's not sure he's ready to see his birthplace reduced to dust while he watches, helpless to protect his mother and the life he left behind. North...well, that would take them to where he first met Baekhyun, when he was lying half-dead in the snow, a victim of his own desire to find himself. All he's seen of the northern continent is iced over and perilous, but perhaps it's a less certain death than staying in the south.
"It'll be okay," Baekhyun says, with evident false confidence. "Probably."
"If they had enough ships," Kris says. "If they started evacuating in time. When the red storm hit Junon, most people had already left because of the monsters - and the monsters were mostly gone by the time we got there."
"If there are any in Costa del Sol now, we're not going to see them."
"We're not going to see much of anything."
But Kris is wrong. Because when the storm finally lifts, and the tinted skies are still once more, the lights are left behind. Oh, not the moving ones - anything with an engine has already gone, either by land or by sea. But in the houses, the shops, the offices...the lights remain, because there's no one left to switch them off.
The lights had been off in Fort Condor, where the attack had come during the day, or so they'd surmised from the remains of the residents. But in Costa del Sol they'll shine until the bulbs burn out, or the power fails completely. Kris makes the mistake of zooming in on a streetlamp. There's more life left in the lamp than in the dried-out husk lying haphazardly beneath it.
"I think I've seen enough," Kris says, turning away from the horrors on the screen. He doesn't need to look at another dessicated corpse to know what's befallen Costa del Sol. The question is: where will it hit next?
"Definitely," Baekhyun agrees. "I should let the others know things are escalating. If the professor actually calls any of us out, we can tell him - ask him to wait for you to catch up, even - but he hasn't so far. We're not even equipped right now."
"What a waste." The Summons would be the perfect way to communicate across the mountains with Suho, wherever he is now, but if he never calls them out, that road's closed to them. "He doesn't have one of Lu Han's orbs, right?"
"I wish he did," Baekhyun says. "We could've avoided all this driving across the desert stuff."
"Good thing for you we didn't," Kris points out, "or your other orb would still be sitting out there, buried in the sand."
"Yeah, that..." Baekhyun licks his lips. "Thanks for the rescue, I guess?"
"Thank Yixing; he's the one who went out to pick you up. Jongdae's got the orb now," Kris feels obliged to add, since Baekhyun's got a clear view of his sword and it's obvious that there's only one materia equipped.
"Two of me's probably more than you could handle anyway."
"One of you's bad enough," Kris says. "If we both called you out at the same time, would you be identical?"
"Depends on my mood. But whichever 'me' it is, it's always the same person - and I'll always know you."
There's something reassuring about that. Kris can summon Baekhyun from any of his orbs, anywhere in the world, and they'll always know each other. That's a given, a constant of the kind Kris has rarely had in his life - of the positive sort, anyway. Meeting Baekhyun had been just the start of it, and now he can count on more people - more friends - than he'd ever thought he'd have. Even if some of those friends live in another world.
"You think we can see into girls' bedrooms with this thing?" Baekhyun asks hopefully, and there, that's another constant, albeit one Kris wouldn't normally bother to encourage.
But despite the cheeky question, Baekhyun's been shaken up too, and they could both do with taking a stab at normality. Kris hands him the instruction sheet. "Knock yourself out."
Baekhyun never does find a girl to spy on, of course, and he's not really looking, only trying to lighten the mood with his own imitable brand of levity. He avoids the towns altogether, pointing the telescope up towards the stars and tracing their patterns on the screen with his fingers. Kris watches his own fingers until the tremors have completely faded and that cold, empty feeling inside begins to be replaced by a sort of fondness. Baekhyun will vanish soon, but even when he does, Kris won't be alone. He never has to be alone again.
Hargo eventually sticks his head up the ladder and doesn't even blink when the first thing he sees is Baekhyun disappearing. "I see you weren't joking about summoning a friend," he says. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"In a way," Kris says grimly. "But I wish I hadn't."
"That's what one of the young men who came up here last night said when I asked him the same thing." Hargo gives him a sympathetic smile. "Come down and have a cup of tea with me. Kettle's just boiled."
Kris follows him back down to the kitchen and takes a seat on one of the stools next to the table, silent until he's had his first few reviving sips. He has an opportunity here; he might as well make the most of it. "The two visitors who came up here last night - do you know what they saw? The girl at the inn said they were looking for a tree."
"They didn't find a tree," Hargo says. "There wasn't enough light, so they came back in the morning for another look, but still didn't find the one they were searching for. What they did find last night, I couldn't say, but the older one, he didn't look any too happy about it. He was so sad when he came back down, and I didn't have the heart to ask him about it."
It's entirely possible Suho's seen the same sort of thing as Kris. Not Costa del Sol, but perhaps he looked back to check on Junon, and saw the handful of bodies crumbling to dust at the port, or lights burning in the windows of empty buildings, a day after the storm's been and gone. Or perhaps it comes back, and Kris wouldn't know, because he's never waited around to find out.
He does know that he doesn't want to be caught up in it, now that the danger has spread across the sea. They'll move on in the morning and hope for the best.
Hargo tells him more about Cosmo Canyon while they drink their tea. Though friendly, he retains his serious air, and Kris assumes that must be normal for an Elder - whatever it is that Elders do in this town. "It's a very special place," he says. "We do not receive many visitors, but mostly, those who come here do so to study the world around us - and what lies beyond it. That is why we have this observatory."
"Do you know anything about other worlds?" It's worth a try, Kris thinks. Hargo might believe him if he explains why he's asking, but he'd prefer to avoid that when it's not his risk alone to take.
"Nobody knows anything for certain." Hargo takes a sip from his teacup, smiling when he lowers it again. "Because no one has ever been. Although Rocket Town got its name from some bright spark who built himself a rocket and tried to fly up there to see, and he's not the only one who's tried. I hear a young lad went up a few years ago, too, and... Well, let's not dwell on that. If you go into the planetarium you'll see a holographic model of the only other planet we've found, so far, after years of searching the night skies."
Another planet. Kris's heart beats a little faster, thinking back to his conversation with Baekhyun. Perhaps this is it, where the Summons live. He leans forward across the table. "Does anyone live there?"
"Possibly." Hargo flicks the air with his fingers, indicating that Kris should consider sitting down again. "There are land masses, but the planet's too far away for us to tell much more than that. I believe it to be inhabited, though, and I can see by your face that you, too, entertain that idea."
"I think it might be where the Summons live," Kris says. "Is that what you think?"
"It's not so much what I think, as what I've been told. The Elders of Cosmo Canyon have handed down a prophecy for over a thousand years, each one relating it to their successors in the hope that one day, we will have an explanation." Hargo clears his throat. "When the skies and the ground were one of legends, through their twelve forces, nurtured the Tree of Life. An eye of red forces created the evil which covered the heart of Tree of Life and the heart slowly grew dry. To attend to an embrace the heart of Tree of Life, the legends hereby divide the tree in half and hide each side. Hence, time is overturned and space turns askew. The twelve forces divide into two and create two suns that look alike. Into two world that seem alike, the legends travel apart. The legends shall now see the same sky but will stand on different ground. Shall stand on the same ground but shall see different sky. The day the ground beget a single file before one sky in two worlds that seem alike, the legends will greet each other. The day the red forces purify and the twelve forces reunite into one perfect root, a new world shall open up!"
"'Embrace the heart of Tree of Life'?"
"It's a very old prophecy," Hargo says apologetically. "I think a few words were lost over time, and possibly some of the meaning..."
Kris starts to make a joking retort, but stops himself when he realises that the prophecy, though oddly-worded, does seem to hold some relevance. Twelve of them, battling to save a tree from a mysterious red force. Twelve divided into two, living in worlds that seem alike. The last part is particularly muddy, but appears to suggest that if the twelve of them reunite, something spectacular should occur; whether the "new world" is literal or figurative is up for debate but if the world has already split once, it's not so farfetched to imagine it being reborn.
He wonders if Lu Han has any idea about the prophecy, since the drive to find each other seems to have originated with him. They definitely need to talk.
"I believe the two worlds are twinned," Hargo says. "That one day, the six foreordained people from each will come together, and when they do..."
"When they do?" Kris prompts.
Hargo shrugs slightly. "It's hard to say. Even here, we've noticed that the world is failing, being slowly overrun with poison. Through the telescope, and through the tales of visitors, we learn about the redness in the sky that steals the life from the air, and the increase in hostile, monstrous creatures that precedes it. Perhaps the time is approaching for a change."
"The professor who was here last night - Suho? Did you tell him about the prophecy too?"
"The subject did not arise. Should I have done so?"
"I think the tree he's looking for is the Tree of Life," Kris says, feeling awkward that he's sitting here discussing the veracity of an old, barely comprehensible prophecy with a complete stranger. He hardly even discusses it with Yixing and Jongin.
"Which would, in all probability, make him one of its twelve defenders." Hargo doesn't sound in the least surprised, but if he's accepted this as reality all his life... "And you?"
"Me?"
"Were you looking for the tree too?"
"That wasn't what I came up here to find," Kris says, "but I get the feeling that I will, if I keep following Suho."
That's...kind of intimidating, if he thinks of it in the context of the prophecy. The idea of finding the professor, his resurrected companion and the Summon responsible, is one he's become accustomed to over the course of the chase, and if he's not entirely certain what he plans to say to them, at least he doesn't anticipate anything too overwhelming. (As far as intense experiences go, he reckons not much can compete with transforming into a dragon.)
But if the twelve of them are together...what happens then? Will space 'turn askew'? Will everything simply end, or will everything begin? Kris wishes the others were sitting beside him now. This isn't all down to him, but he's the only one here - save Baekhyun, who probably can't hear what's going on, from his orb - and the weight of it sits heavily on his shoulders.
"You will, if it's your destiny to do so," Hargo says. "Don't be afraid. Change doesn't have to be a bad thing."
Change can be a good thing. Kris knows that. But all he'd set out to do was find himself, not save the world. Not build a family piece by piece and lead them into the unknown. Jongin, Yixing, Jongdae, Baekhyun, Lu Han, Minseok, Kyungsoo, Suho, the mystery Summon, Sehun (Kris would bet any money he's one of them) and...Zitao. Hmm. Zitao's with the other Summons in their world, but none of them have one of his orbs. The prophecy is far from clear, but Kris gets the impression they all have to be in the same place at the same time for anything to happen, which means that even if they catch up to Suho first thing in the morning, the world won't be turning itself inside out yet.
Or so he hopes.
Hargo leaves him in peace to finish his tea; Kris is grateful he doesn't push, doesn't pry. Perhaps it's because he knows that there's nothing he can do that will affect the outcome. He's shared what he knows: the rest is up to them.
When Kris returns to the pub, he finds his companions have already retired to their rooms for the night. Rosa has to tell him which one's his. Yixing's in bed when he enters, though not yet asleep, using the lamp on the nightstand to write in his lyrics notebook. It's a cosy, warming room, with cheerful plaid comforters on the twin beds, matching cushions on the small couch, plastic flowers in a vase and a painting of the sun setting over the mountains. Although there are no windows and the whole thing's hollowed out from the landscape, it doesn't feel any more claustrophobic than any other bedroom - and considerably less creepy than last night's residence, in the Gold Saucer's Ghost Square.
Kris would like nothing more than to stretch out and sleep, but this can't wait until they're on the road again. "Do you know if the others are asleep?" he asks when Yixing finally realises he's there.
"We only came up ten minutes ago," Yixing says. "So Jongdae might not be. Jongin was asleep walking up the stairs."
"Then I'm going to have to wake him. You all need to hear this."
It's another ten minutes before everyone's crammed in Kris and Yixing's room - minus Zitao - and every available space is occupied, if not by bodies then by the weapons in which they've equipped their Summon materia. There's only one Baekhyun out; from Jongdae's orb, not Kris's, though it makes no practical difference. Kyungsoo's sitting by himself on the couch, unimpressed as always, eyes daring anyone to join him. Jongin's half-asleep on Yixing's bed, mostly lying in Lu Han's lap, with Minseok and Yixing at either end. Jongdae and Baekhyun have taken over Kris's bed between them, which leaves Kris perched precariously on the couch arm and towering over the rest like a schoolteacher.
"So I just heard about this prophecy..."
Kris watches Lu Han closely as he explains what he's learned from Hargo. While everyone else expresses various flavours of surprise - even Jongin wakes up a little for it - Lu Han merely nods, silently agreeing with Kris's reasoned conclusions regarding the contents of their shared dreams. No two ways about it: he has to know.
But there's no need for Kris to ask the question himself. Jongin does it for him.
"Did you know?" Jongin twists in Lu Han's lap so he's looking up at him. "You've always known more about this than any of us. Is that why?" He still sounds sleepy, but there's hurt there too and Kris really doesn't want to get in the middle if they're going to fight. He had enough of that with his parents.
Lu Han reaches down to stroke Jongin's hair, though the petting does little to dispel his pout. "It's not the first time I've heard it, but it was a long time before I had any idea what it meant."
"Lu Han," Jongin growls; Baekhyun laughs at him and Lu Han only grins.
"I found it tucked away in a book on lepidopterology I'd ordered for the shop. A piece of paper with those words on the front, and twelve symbols on the back. None of it made any sense, and the drawings were...like something Zitao would come up with. Art is not one of his gifts."
"You should see Kris try," Yixing says, and Kris winces. "What kind of symbols?"
"I think they're ours," Lu Han says. "The only one I could really identify to start with was a unicorn - that's you. When you guys have the dreams, do you ever look at your hands?"
"I did," Kris says. "I'm wearing a silver dragon ring."
"I've seen it too. Zitao has an egg-timer on his, and mine is..." Lu Han's face contorts itself into an expression of exaggerated disbelief. "It's a bunch of circles sort of linked together - I guess it's somehow supposed to represent telekinesis. Anyway, I didn't have anything to tie the symbols to back then, and the wording was just so much gibberish. I thought a page from a fantasy book had been left between the butterfly articles by mistake."
"I wonder how mine looks?" Jongdae says. "A lightning ring would be pretty cool."
"I've seen it," Baekhyun says. "It's kind of like a disco-dancing squid."
"Let him have his illusions." Lu Han's hopeless at hiding his amusement. "I'd only met Minseok, then, and I hadn't seen anything to suggest that we were connected to people in your world. It was just the two of us for a while, and even though we kept being summoned across to fight monsters, that didn't seem to have anything to do with the dreams we were having about these twelve shadowy figures trying to save a tree."
"Or with the two of us trying to inject new life into a struggling bookshop," Minseok says, with a glance across at Lu Han, who nods his thanks for the support. "Our day jobs kept us busy enough."
"Did you know too?" Jongin asks him, and Minseok shakes his head.
"I kept it to myself," Lu Han says. "First because I didn't know what it was, and then...I wasn't sure. The first time we saw Yixing in person and worked out that he wasn't being summoned was the first time I had any inkling that some of us were living in your world - that we were twelve, but split across two worlds. It started making more sense then."
Jongin pulls himself up into a sitting position, fully awake now, and the level of tension in the room increases by more notches than Kris cares to think about. "And you didn't tell me?" He bats Lu Han's hand away. "You were going to be honest with me, and you didn't think to mention something this big?"
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes as Lu Han freezes, feebly attempting to justify himself to an angry Jongin. "I said I'd tell you if I wasn't sure about something. But I didn't even know if we'd find everybody, and I thought if I told you all that coming together might bring about the end of the world, it would only complicate things. Or scare you off, maybe. I didn't want to say anything without knowing for certain." Lu Han sighs. "But for the first time in years, there's a new Summon."
"I hope he's a considerate roommate," Baekhyun says. "Wherever he is. It's been nice, having the room to myself since I moved in."
"You could still have said something." Jongin looks down at the bed, biting his lip, and Kris hopes they manage to work it out soon. He's not best pleased, himself, but he's always accepted that Lu Han knows more than he tells, and it's true that in this case, the knowledge would've done them no good. Not yet, when they're still missing four people.
Lu Han's quiet too, watching Jongin with anxious eyes. Jongdae takes up the conversation instead. "I'm going to pretend that everything that's happened to me since yesterday makes sense," he says. "Because if the twelve of us are supposed to get together and somehow save the world, what happens if we're too late?"
That's a sobering thought. Hargo's comment on how the world is failing echoes in Kris's mind. The monsters, and the red skies that follow them. What if they spread all across the world before the twelve of them find each other and there's nowhere left to run? Will they die for good, this time?
"Everything dies," Kyungsoo says flatly. "Maybe just here, maybe both our worlds, I don't know. We don't have the same problems over there."
Baekhyun frowns at him. "You really know how to brighten up a room."
"Let's try to be optimistic," Yixing says. "Who's to say we'll be too late? We're working together on this."
"With three people who know nothing about us and one who does but can't be here with us because we haven't found one of his orbs yet," Kris says. "Anyone know where we can find a Zitao orb?"
"If there was one anywhere near, we'd let you know," Lu Han says. "It's more important to find the professor for now, since we have no way of keeping track of him. Knowing he's looking for the Tree of Life won't tell us where he's going after Nibelheim, if anywhere."
Jongin looks up when Lu Han speaks, but won't look directly at him. "The prophecy said something about dividing the tree in half, right? So maybe there's...half a Tree of Life out there somewhere?" He's hesitant, clearly worried he'll be laughed at for the suggestion, but visibly relaxes when Jongdae smiles at him.
Yixing muses aloud on how half a tree would probably look like one of Kris's drawings; Kris ignores him and tries to figure out what that would mean for them. A tree is either a tree, or it isn't. One with only half a trunk would surely have made a name for itself by now as some sort of marvel, and even if the half is just an ordinary stump, what would that mean for the remainder?
"The legends hereby divide the tree in half and hide each side," Kris says slowly. "Hide where?"
"Half in your world and half in ours, obviously." Kyungsoo doesn't outright say it, but his expression implies that there's a 'do I have to do all the thinking around here?' that should be tacked onto the end.
"I don't think we're finding a tree - half or whole - any time soon, in either world," Minseok says. "We should focus on finding the others. They might have information that we don't about how this is all supposed to work. After all, they must have learned about the tree somehow. Having weird dreams wouldn't be enough to start them looking."
"Don't underestimate weird dreams," Jongdae says. "One day you're living a normal life and the next you're driving across the desert with three strangers because they turned up in your dreams."
"Technically more than three," Kris points out, tapping the materia equipped in his sword. That's right, there's eight of them now - nine, counting the absent Zitao - and they need to stay focused. Everyone has to agree on what they do next. He gets to his feet. "In the morning we go to Nibelheim, and if the professor's moved on already we keep following him as best we can. If anyone disagrees and thinks we should look for the tree or do something else altogether, now's your chance to say it."
Silence. Kris scans the room, attempting to gauge the mood. This isn't going to work if there's conflict within the group, and he's not good at coaxing people into agreement. To his relief there are no open mouths, no raised hands, no signs of disagreement. He lets a full minute go by before saying, "Then we're all agreed. Let's get some sleep; we've got more driving to do tomorrow."
Lu Han's the last Summon to leave. He and Jongin stare uneasily at each other; Kris just wants to shake them and tell them to get over it because they could do without this. "Go talk it out elsewhere," he says, ushering them both towards the door. Jongdae looks relieved when the two of them head for the stairs, not the room he and Jongin are sharing tonight.
Yixing's already prepared for bed, settling himself back under the covers now the other occupants have departed. Kris busies himself in the bathroom for a while, returning to find Yixing mostly asleep and the nightlight still shining. He reaches across from his own bed to switch it off and hopes the mountain air won't do too much of a number on his skin while he sleeps.
Tonight's dream brings him little he doesn't already know. One of the shadowy figures becomes Jongdae, lightning crackling from his fingertips as he calls on his power to protect the tree. Baekhyun's description of his ring is quite accurate, Kris notes. His own is still the same shining silver dragon.
Another shadow becomes Kyungsoo, throwing up giant walls of earth around the tree. Those without faces number only four now. The red clouds swirl, infiltrating every crevice in the bark...and then stop. All motion comes to a halt. Time itself is standing still.
Zitao, Kris thinks as his aborted dream fades into true sleep.
Part 3
Fandom: EXO (sort of fused with Final Fantasy VII)
Series: Phoenix Down (#8)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, crossover (sort of)
Word count: 22,666
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Part 1
Driving Force 2/3
Grass gives way to a brown, rocky path bordered by mountains. There are no burned monsters here, but there's nothing else, either, and Kris wonders why anyone would build a town in such a remote location. Even the chocobos in the back seem subdued. They outdrive a couple of lumbering Golems, and Jongdae leans out the window and zaps a Grand Horn with Bolt materia before he can destroy the van.
The skies are slowly turning pink from the setting sun, not that sinister red - not yet - as they follow the tracks to a town built into the side of a mountain. "Cosmo Canyon," Jongdae says, pulling up as close as he can to the set of steps leading up to the entrance, where a large sign says the same thing. There are windmills blowing gaily in the breeze, and ladders leading up to odd, rocky buildings hollowed out of the mountain itself. At the summit of the town, up on an enormous plateau, a large, spherical building houses a giant telescope.
It's a far cry from the glitz and glamour of the Gold Saucer, or the grim and murky industry of Midgar. Cosmo Canyon has none of their towers of plastic and metal, a town hollowed lovingly from nature, warm and earthy and welcoming.
But nature aside, they do appear to have a garage, and the first thing Jongdae does upon arriving is refuel the van. Kris eases himself out the door, grateful to stretch his legs. He examines the buggy's tracks. Theirs is not the only vehicle to have passed this way, but the tyre treads are pretty distinctive and there's no mistaking them, even in the fading light.
"Looks like they stopped here, then continued on through the mountains," he says to Yixing, who's come up beside him.
"I hope you're not suggesting we do the same," Yixing says. "Not tonight. We're roughly a day behind them, given when they started out, so they probably spent last night here."
Roughly a day means they could go a long way towards closing that gap if they drive through the night, but it's too dangerous to do that out here, with only the van's headlights for illumination and the possibility of monster encounters in the dark. Kris sighs and resigns himself to halting the chase for now. At least if the professor's still behind the wheel, he'll probably stop soon too.
"We're leaving at first light," he says.
Jongin, when told, reluctantly agrees to this on the understanding that someone will steer him out of bed and into the van, as he'll be walking in his sleep.
"You're already asleep," Yixing says, and Jongin laughs and makes a great show of being awake.
Now they've refuelled, the first order of business is to locate rooms for the night. Jongdae enquires at the garage to check that the Shildra Inn is still the only one in town, located above the Starlet pub, near the greengrocer's stall and directly opposite a raised mound housing a brightly burning fire - the Cosmo Candle, as he calls it. A group of children sit near the flames, toasting marshmallows on sticks and laughing amongst themselves. It's quite a homey affair, and despite the trials of the past few days Kris begins to feel at peace. No one is afraid here. No one's in a rush; no one's too busy to stop and talk.
"Cosmo Canyon's a very, very small town," Jongdae says once they've made stabling arrangements for the chocobos. "My parents used to bring me here when I was a kid, back when my grandfather still lived here. Everyone knows everyone else's business and strangers are big news."
"So we'll have people staring at us?" Jongin says glumly.
"Probably," Jongdae says, "but what I was getting at is: the guys we're looking for couldn't have done anything without half a dozen people knowing about it. It couldn't hurt to ask while we're here."
"Did you check with the mechanic?" Kris asks.
Jongdae nods. "Yeah, he knew who I meant, immediately. We're not going to miss this buggy when we see it. He said it's bright red and stands out a mile, and that they refuelled too - before they left this morning."
"Early?"
"About mid-morning? Maybe they're not in a hurry now."
Kris hopes not. There's a limit to how long this chase can continue before they run out of land to drive on, and he'd be a lot happier if he had some idea of their final destination. The buggy tracks head north, which means that if they keep going they'll eventually end up back where they started, only on the opposite side of the continent, with a large mountain range cutting them off from Costa del Sol.
Jongdae leads them into the pub and quickly checks that they're okay sharing rooms in pairs before he goes up to speak to the proprietor about accommodation for the night. With the arrangements made, he and Yixing take their gear upstairs while Kris and Jongin take a seat downstairs at one of the long wooden tables.
If the exterior of the town is homey, the interior is even more so, all warm brown earth and wood, the walls curving unevenly around the well-worn dirt floors. A single light hangs over the bar in the corner of the pub, but most of the illumination in the room comes from the candles set on the tables. Wooden barrels are piled up next to the stairs and in the corners, filled with alcohol that Kris knows better than to drink while they're travelling. He can see a door leading back to the kitchen; a sign above the bar describes the possible food options and if the choice is somewhat limited, Kris can't quite bring himself to care. It's just nice not to be in a moving vehicle.
What's not so nice is the staring. Every stool at the bar is occupied, and most of the other tables too, and Kris keeps catching glimpses of heads turning away from them. He gets it: they're strangers. It's not unexpected. He stretches out his legs under the table and leans back, trying to look casual to make up for the fact that Jongin looks so distant, his natural shyness leaving him with a dark, wary countenance when confronted by people he doesn't know.
"Anything new from Lu Han?"
That shakes Jongin out of himself, a little. "Not since we picked up that Baekhyun materia in the desert. I guess if he knew anything about where we're going, we'd know too by now."
"The professor has other Summon materia with him," Kris says, thinking it over. "Can't any of them tell enough about where they are to give us a clue?"
"They don't pick up so much through the orbs. Mostly sensation things, Lu Han says." Jongin scratches his neck, just below the collar. Lu Han's collar, a most unsubtle mark of ownership, drawing a line they all know better than to cross. "Unless one of them gets summoned, we won't know."
Kris silently hopes for a summoning. He'd go up to the bar and get drinks, but that would mean leaving Jongin to face the stares alone, so he doesn't get up until Yixing and Jongdae reappear.
"Sit," Jongdae says. "Give me the orders and I'll go up. I might be able to get us a discount, assuming the bartender remembers me being a cute six year old."
It's slightly disconcerting, the way Jongdae's inserted himself so neatly into the group since morning, but he has the advantage here and they'd be foolish not to benefit from his local knowledge. He's the only one who knows what lies ahead on the road, he's successfully saved Kris from becoming a frog, and it's his van they're using to pursue the professor. He's an integral part of the team, now.
Which is great, only...Kris feels a little cast aside. When he'd started working regularly with Yixing and Jongin, they'd all agreed that he would be the leader. He doesn't feel like he's leading much today.
"Let him have his moment," Yixing murmurs once Jongdae's left for the bar. "We've just walked into his life and stolen him away from everything he knows. We've had months to get used to the idea piece by piece. He got hit with it all at once."
"I know," Kris says. "And I'm grateful he knows the area. Really."
"Then stop looking like he just walked off with your chocobo," Jongin says bluntly. "He seems really nice."
"I'm glad you think so," Yixing says, "because you're sharing a room with him tonight."
It's hard to tell what Jongin thinks about this because he gets up to give Jongdae a hand at the bar, after being waved over to help carry drinks.
"Food will be out in about fifteen minutes," Jongdae says. "The good news is: the bartender remembers me. The bad news is: he remembers me breaking the bottle of two hundred year old whisky he was saving for a special occasion. So no discount."
"We'll live." Kris shrugs philosophically. "Did you get a chance to ask him about Suho?"
Jongdae smiles awkwardly. "That...might be better coming from someone else."
Kris can't help but laugh. Drink in hand, he leaves the others at the table to wait for the food and ascends the curved wooden staircase to the next floor. Upstairs, a bored-looking young woman leans on her elbows on a desk, the register laid out in front of her (and far too close to a candle). The wall lamp doesn't do much to dispel the shadows up here. It's relatively bare, with a door leading to the rooms at the back, further into the mountains, and only a rickety wooden railing keeping weary travellers from falling into the pub below.
It's the only inn in town. The professor must've stayed over, if he and his formerly dead companion had only left that morning. This is as good a chance as any to try to learn something about them.
Smoothing back his hair with his free hand, Kris shoots the girl at the desk what he hopes is a killer smile, and tries to look like the most exciting thing to cross her path all year. He reckons that shouldn't be too hard, in a place like this.
"Hey," he says casually. "It must be pretty lonely up here all by yourself."
The girl rolls her eyes. "Tell you what. How about I go down and have a drink, and you can stay up here and see for yourself how lonely it is?"
Okay, so he's not going to win her over with a line. He's out of practice anyway - can't remember the last time he even tried to make a move on somebody. (Don Corneo so doesn't count.) Moving from town to town and keeping to himself are not terribly conducive to forming relationships, and one-night stands tend to leave him feeling empty and alone afterwards. It's not as if there have been many of those, either. Most people take one look at the sword on his back and keep their distance.
"How about I go down and buy you a drink?" he tries, aiming for more sincere and less slick.
Still no luck. "They only serve my favourite drink at the Gold Saucer," the girl says sweetly. "If you hurry you might make it before the bar closes."
Kris grimaces at the obvious put-down, which at least earns him a laugh. "Do I get points for trying?"
"None, but you get one if I can steal a sip of your beer."
"Better than nothing." Kris approaches the desk, holding out his glass to the girl, whose nametag reads 'Rosa'. (The name gives him horrible flashbacks to the previous night, when he'd agreed to take the part of the Evil Dragon King on the stage in the Gold Saucer's Event Square. He hopes this Rosa isn't going to turn out to be Lu Han.)
Rosa takes the beer, stealing considerably more than just a sip before handing it back. "Thanks. You're staying here tonight, right?" When Kris's mouth falls open in surprise, she scoffs: "C'mon, your friends said there were four of you, and I've never seen you before in my life. We don't get many strangers around here."
"You had some staying last night, though, right?"
"Yeah..." Rosa looks up at Kris curiously, pushing her headband up to keep her soft brown bangs out of her eyes. "How'd you know? Friends of yours?"
How to play this, Kris wonders? There's no chance he can bluff his way into claiming to be friends. He only knows the name of one of the men they're chasing, and nothing at all about the other one, not even what he looks like. At least he has a picture of Suho. He pulls out the professor's ID badge, holding it up for inspection. "Not exactly," he says. "We've been looking for this man for the past few days. To..." To what? Talk him into parting with his Summon materia? "To ask him some questions about materia. He's a scientist."
"He's boring, that's what he is," Rosa says, shooing the badge away with one hand. "Kept asking me if I'd read any good books lately. You see a library built into these mountains?"
Kris smothers a laugh. "What about the guy he was with?"
"Sehun? Well," Rosa's expression turns sly, "that's another story altogether. Is he a scientist too?"
"Probably not," Kris says, "but you know his name, which already means you know more about him than I do." He opts not to mention that Sehun, if that's his real name, had managed to get himself crushed to death and resurrected at Fort Condor.
"He's too cute to be a scientist," Rosa decides. "Not that Suho wasn't, but he had that kind of parental air, you know? Reminded me of my grandfather. A tiny, cheerful bundle of responsibilities. Sehun was a little younger, a lot taller, and much more laidback."
She makes grabby hands for Kris's glass again; he figures if it'll get her to keep talking, she's more than welcome to the whole thing. He sets it down on the desk. Rosa actually favours him with a smile as she picks up the beer.
"So you can take hints after all."
"Only the ones that don't mean I have to leave," Kris says. "Did either of them say anything about where they were going?"
"What's it to you?"
Life or death. Well, perhaps not quite in that order. But if Kris explains why they're really chasing Suho, the girl's going to think he's insane and not tell him anything at all. "I was serious about asking him some questions about materia. We've got a Summon acting really weird, and since he's the expert, we're trying to track him down before anyone gets hurt."
"Oh!" Rosa's eyes widen. "Should you even be in here? Is it safe?"
Kris backpedals frantically. He doesn't want to be responsible for them all having to sleep in the van tonight. "It's only when he's summoned," he assures her. "No one's going to be calling him out while we're in town, don't worry."
Rosa visibly relaxes, arms slumping back down on the desk. "Don't scare me like that. Just for that, I'm finishing your drink." And she does. "I couldn't tell you where they're going anyway - they don't even know themselves. They're just looking for some giant tree or something."
Some giant tree. Of course. But the tree has to be dead by now, if it even existed here to start with, and Kris has his doubts. Suho must be having the same dreams, but what could he have seen to lead him to believe there's any chance of finding the tree here, in this world?
"Do you have any idea where they were going to look for the tree?" Kris asks. They can follow the buggy tracks again in the morning, but if they reach a point where the tracks are no longer visible, they're completely lost.
"They went up to old Bugenhagen's observatory, at the top of town, to have a look through his telescope. Don't know if they found anything but when they came back they were asking about maps. Like a single tree is going to be important enough to be marked on a map!"
"It might be...if it's the right tree," Kris says slowly, not quite believing it himself. But if Suho has a reason for thinking it's here, maybe it's true.
"Not on any maps here," Rosa says. "We only have star charts, thanks to Bugenhagen. But Bughe - he's probably still downstairs having a drink - told them to check out the old library in the next town over. Said if the map's not in Nibelheim, it doesn't exist."
Nibelheim. Kris wonders if Jongdae knows how to get there. Probably.
Yixing calls his name from the bottom of the stairs, saying the food's ready, so he thanks Rosa and reaches for the empty glass to take it back down. Rosa picks it up, but as she hands it over she adds: "When you catch up to Sehun, tell him to come back anytime!"
"The resurrected guy with the giant shuriken's named Sehun," Kris informs the others as he sits down to a plate of fried chicken. "Apparently he's tall, cute and a hit with the ladies."
"Probably because he doesn't tell them he was crushed to death," Jongin says - at least, that's what it sounds like, but he's talking around a drumstick so it's hard to tell.
Jongdae is more polite, waiting until his mouth is empty before saying, "I guess if his face was still all mashed up it wouldn't do much for his social life."
"What social life?" Yixing points out. "All he's done all week is flee one continent and drive halfway across another."
"At least we know something of what they did when they were here." Kris explains what he's learned from Rosa. "And we know where they're headed."
"I can get us to Nibelheim," Jongdae says. "It's the only spot of civilisation between here and Rocket Town."
He doesn't elaborate, delving into his food with relish; Kris suspects he's contemplating what will happen if Suho and Sehun end up leading them all the way back to his hometown. Hopefully, they'll have no reason to.
It's a subdued meal, all of them exhausted after the latest in a series of long days, and keen to stretch out full length on a bed. They speculate a little about the tree, and where it might be if it exists here at all; Jongdae, who's only glimpsed it in a single dream so far, shrugs and shakes his head when the others suggest possible locations. What if the tree's back across the sea somewhere, clinging to life as the dead, red skies steal its moisture drop by drop? What then?
They can't go back. Not yet, not after what happened in Fort Condor and Junon. What if it's spreading westwards, and even now the residents and refugees at Costa del Sol are turning into paper shells of their former selves? Kris wishes he knew for certain.
Maybe there's a way to find out...
"Do you know anything about the observatory here?" he asks Jongdae. "Would I be able to go up and look through the telescope?"
"Anyone can." Jongdae wipes his mouth on a serviette. "Go up to the Tiger Lily Arms Shop, take a left, and head up the stairs. There's a ladder in the materia shop - or there was, last time I was here. That brings you out up top, and you can go inside from there. There should be someone around to let you in."
"Going to stargaze?" Yixing asks.
"If I'm lucky." If Kris is unlucky, the stars will be hidden by a dark red haze, creeping across the sky. "I'll see you guys later."
He leaves the others behind in the pub, neither inviting company nor shunning it, but it makes him feel more comfortable to see them warm and at ease around the table, quiet but tranquil by candlelight. He'll rejoin them later, maybe at the bar, maybe only in their dreams. Perhaps he'll see Sehun fighting alongside them tonight.
He won't see him on the other end of the telescope, that's for sure. He follows Jongdae's directions, first past the arms shop, then the materia shop (both closed). Like the pub, they're hollowed out from the mountains, but both are deserted and shutters have been pulled down over the wares. Lanterns hanging from the walls give him enough light to find the ladder, and ascend safely to the plateau.
The very peak of Cosmo Canyon has several wooden houses, the only ones of their kind in town, and an enormous circular building with a domed roof. The gold-rimmed telescope sticks out against the night sky, showing Kris just which door he needs to knock on. When he does, a solemn, grey-haired man in a pale uniform answers, beckoning him in with a slight smile.
"Uh...hi," Kris says, trying to remember the name Rosa had mentioned. "Are you...Bugenhagen?"
"I'm Hargo," the man says, inclining his head. "Bugenhagen passed away many years ago. Elder Bughe and I maintain this place in his stead. Please come in."
He leads Kris inside. The main room looks like that of any other house, with kitchen and living quarters giving way to another door, probably a bedroom. There's a ladder in here, too, though he can't tell where it goes. The whole town seems to be made up of caverns and ladders.
"I'm really sorry to disturb your dinner," Kris says, spying the plate and mug on the kitchen table, still very much in use. "I could come back in the morning?"
Hargo chuckles gently. "You'll not get much stargazing done then."
"Ah. Right..."
"It's part of my job to assist anyone who comes seeking knowledge," Hargo explains. "That's usually why people come up here."
Kris doesn't admit that he's not exactly sure what he's seeking. Confirmation that the rest of the world still exists, beyond the buggy tracks they've been following all day? Hargo seems a gentle sort; Kris would rather not alarm him with concerns of doom and gloom.
The ladder turns out to lead up to the bedroom - the door, Hargo explains, leads to the planetarium, which is pretty but not what Kris is here for - and another ladder still takes them up to the telescope. They're in the heart of the dome here, surrounded by wheels and valves, pipes and switches. A computer screen over on the left displays a screensaver of dancing chocobos. There's so much gadgetry Kris doesn't even know where to start. He stares at the telescope, which looks even more enormous up close and he can only see the section that's actually inside the building.
"You look like you could use the Idiot's Guide," Hargo says, handing him a laminated sheet of paper with a series of pictures on it. "Have some simple instructions, and call me if you need any help. I'll come see how you're getting on once I've finished my stew."
He disappears back down the ladder, leaving Kris with a set of illustrated directions and an overwhelming array of controls to explore. The drawings are not terribly complicated, mostly involving simple geometric representations of the control panel and lots of pointy arrows. How hard can it be? It's not like he's trying to find something in particular. Right now, he'd just settle for being able to glimpse the world beyond Cosmo Canyon.
After a few false starts and much turning of dials, Kris manages to get the screen to display the view through the telescope, and thinks about where best to point it. Geography's never been his strongest suit. Junon's massive canon would be an excellent landmark, but will he able to find it in the dark?
"You okay up there?" Hargo calls from below.
"Fine, thanks!" Kris calls back. If he gets really stuck, he'll go down and seek help, but he'd rather not admit he's not sure what he's doing until after he's made a decent stab at it. Plus, if he's going to have company up here, he'd rather it was of his own choosing. It's a good thing he's still carrying his sword.
"Baekhyun!"
"You say something?" Hargo calls up.
Kris drops down beside the ladder, ignoring a giggling Baekhyun, who's leaning against the control panel. "Just summoning a friend!" he shouts down. "We'll try not to make too much noise."
"He probably thinks you're insane," Baekhyun says as Kris gets to his feet. "But I'm not surprised; this does look kind of like my idea of a mad scientist's lair."
"We're in an observatory in Cosmo Canyon." Kris waves his hand to make Baekhyun move away from the controls. They probably don't respond well to people sitting on them, especially people who enjoy playing with anything that's not nailed down. Jongin's terrible for fidgeting, but Baekhyun's worse. "Careful. I don't think we can afford for you to break this telescope."
"Oh, is that what it is?" Baekhyun stands back so he can see it properly, tilting his head as far as it will go to follow the long, metallic curves leading outside the dome. "If anything happens, I can just disappear."
Kris glares at him. "But I can't."
"Then you'd better be careful, hadn't you?" Baekhyun edges forward, approaching the screen, which is currently showing a segment of the night sky. "Are we going to stargaze together? How romantic," he coos, clasping his hands under his chin and smirking to prove his thoughts are turning to anything but romance.
"It's not exactly the stars I'm interested in," Kris says. "Do you know where your other orbs are?"
"Some of them?" Baekhyun shrugs. "If I get summoned and I can identify the area, then I know, but if my masters move on..."
"So you don't know where your orb with the professor is, for instance?" Kris says, disappointed.
"Even if I did, you wouldn't find him through that thing. He's probably indoors somewhere, resting for the night. You didn't come up here just to look for two men and a buggy, did you?"
"Of course not," Kris scoffs, brushing a hand casually through his hair. "I came up to see if there's still a world left behind us."
"Before? Because I don't know where that world was, but I don't think you're going to see it anywhere except in your dreams." Baekhyun sighs. "I could do with seeing a little less of it, actually. I'd like to sleep through the night without watching you flying around inside my head with dragon wings."
"I'm not apologising for something I have no control over," Kris says. "And I didn't mean that world. I meant, like, Junon, and Midgar, and all the other places we've been back on the eastern continent. I'm not sure how much we'll see at night, but I guess if the cities don't have any lights..." He stops, suddenly sick to his stomach. Everyone in Junon had either left on the ships, or perished in a storm of red dust. He'd watched it himself. There won't be any lights.
"You won't know if you don't look."
Baekhyun's being flippant, but it's a fair point. Kris studies the instructions again. It looks like there's only so far he can manoeuvre the telescope anyway, so he's not sure he can even scan the land in the direction he wants. It's hard to get the focus right too, and at first he ends up with nothing but dark, blurred blobs on the screen. When he aims higher, the stars that fill his vision reassure him that however far the red cloud may have spread, it's not yet conquered the whole sky.
"I wonder if the stars are the same?" Baekhyun says. "If I can look up at the sky at home and see the same stars you do here?"
"Maybe?" Kris hasn't given the location of Baekhyun's home too much thought, because it's somewhere he knows he can never go. It's better to concentrate on where he has to go next, on places he can reach, and not distract himself with things that can never be. "Maybe your world's out there, turning next to mine, and we see the same stars but from different angles?"
"That would mean we're moving from planet to planet using materia orbs." Baekhyun grins. "Teleportation? That was Jongin's power before. I wouldn't mind picking up other people's powers too."
"Being a judgemental pocket torch isn't enough for you anymore?"
"Just because I'm not freakishly tall-" Baekhyun begins in protest, but Kris tunes him out, alarmed when the stars disappear from the screen in a swirl of red.
They're not gone, just...fading. Kris turns knobs and dials on the panel, seeking a better angle so he can identify the patch he's looking at, but all he gets is red dust motes streaking furiously through the night sky.
"Where's that?" Baekhyun's noticed now too, all his attention now focused on the screen. "Junon?"
"I don't know!"
Kris's hands start to shake, unsteady on the controls, so he tightens his grip to compensate. He takes the telescope lower, sweeping down until he finds something beneath the red storm. It's the sea. He can only tell because the water's choppy, waves rising and falling at random, tranquility stirred to breaking point. Following the waves takes Kris towards land. Land he knows, with beaches and bad breakfasts brought by helpful waitresses. A thriving tourist town, now filled to the brim with Junon's refugees.
"It's Costa del Sol," he says, each word a boulder scraping his throat on the way up. "We were only there yesterday morning..."
The lights of the town, of houses and tourist villas, of shops and restaurants, flicker in and out of view, white and yellow turning to red, then to nothing at all. Other lights, closer to the ground, move in broken lines away from the coast - vehicles, being driven to safety, if anywhere is safe. Kris doesn't know how far they'd have to drive. The threat has crossed the sea: what was a sanctuary yesterday will be tomorrow's graveyard. There's not enough lights, anyway. Not enough for everyone to leave.
Perhaps if he moves it out of focus, the disappearing lights will be less painful. He turns the dial, but Baekhyun's hand - smaller than his, but with long, elegant fingers - closes over his, and when he looks up, his Summon's shaking his head and pointing to a corner of the screen with his other hand.
"Can you turn it to the left a little more?"
"I'll try." Baekhyun releases his hand, so Kris nudges the scope just a trifle, hoping not to overshoot whatever it is that Baekhyun's concerned about. "What do you see?"
"Those lights." Baekhyun taps the screen. "Do they look higher to you? And they're moving, but slowly."
"Hold on; let me see if I can make it clearer."
There's not much illumination to work with but the reflections of light on metal tell a story, and it's one that might, just possibly, have a happy ending.
"Ships," Kris breathes. "They're sailing away."
"Where can they go?"
"North?" Kris suggests. "Or north-west, and sail around to Wutai?"
He doesn't even want to consider trying to find Wutai with the telescope. He's not sure he's ready to see his birthplace reduced to dust while he watches, helpless to protect his mother and the life he left behind. North...well, that would take them to where he first met Baekhyun, when he was lying half-dead in the snow, a victim of his own desire to find himself. All he's seen of the northern continent is iced over and perilous, but perhaps it's a less certain death than staying in the south.
"It'll be okay," Baekhyun says, with evident false confidence. "Probably."
"If they had enough ships," Kris says. "If they started evacuating in time. When the red storm hit Junon, most people had already left because of the monsters - and the monsters were mostly gone by the time we got there."
"If there are any in Costa del Sol now, we're not going to see them."
"We're not going to see much of anything."
But Kris is wrong. Because when the storm finally lifts, and the tinted skies are still once more, the lights are left behind. Oh, not the moving ones - anything with an engine has already gone, either by land or by sea. But in the houses, the shops, the offices...the lights remain, because there's no one left to switch them off.
The lights had been off in Fort Condor, where the attack had come during the day, or so they'd surmised from the remains of the residents. But in Costa del Sol they'll shine until the bulbs burn out, or the power fails completely. Kris makes the mistake of zooming in on a streetlamp. There's more life left in the lamp than in the dried-out husk lying haphazardly beneath it.
"I think I've seen enough," Kris says, turning away from the horrors on the screen. He doesn't need to look at another dessicated corpse to know what's befallen Costa del Sol. The question is: where will it hit next?
"Definitely," Baekhyun agrees. "I should let the others know things are escalating. If the professor actually calls any of us out, we can tell him - ask him to wait for you to catch up, even - but he hasn't so far. We're not even equipped right now."
"What a waste." The Summons would be the perfect way to communicate across the mountains with Suho, wherever he is now, but if he never calls them out, that road's closed to them. "He doesn't have one of Lu Han's orbs, right?"
"I wish he did," Baekhyun says. "We could've avoided all this driving across the desert stuff."
"Good thing for you we didn't," Kris points out, "or your other orb would still be sitting out there, buried in the sand."
"Yeah, that..." Baekhyun licks his lips. "Thanks for the rescue, I guess?"
"Thank Yixing; he's the one who went out to pick you up. Jongdae's got the orb now," Kris feels obliged to add, since Baekhyun's got a clear view of his sword and it's obvious that there's only one materia equipped.
"Two of me's probably more than you could handle anyway."
"One of you's bad enough," Kris says. "If we both called you out at the same time, would you be identical?"
"Depends on my mood. But whichever 'me' it is, it's always the same person - and I'll always know you."
There's something reassuring about that. Kris can summon Baekhyun from any of his orbs, anywhere in the world, and they'll always know each other. That's a given, a constant of the kind Kris has rarely had in his life - of the positive sort, anyway. Meeting Baekhyun had been just the start of it, and now he can count on more people - more friends - than he'd ever thought he'd have. Even if some of those friends live in another world.
"You think we can see into girls' bedrooms with this thing?" Baekhyun asks hopefully, and there, that's another constant, albeit one Kris wouldn't normally bother to encourage.
But despite the cheeky question, Baekhyun's been shaken up too, and they could both do with taking a stab at normality. Kris hands him the instruction sheet. "Knock yourself out."
Baekhyun never does find a girl to spy on, of course, and he's not really looking, only trying to lighten the mood with his own imitable brand of levity. He avoids the towns altogether, pointing the telescope up towards the stars and tracing their patterns on the screen with his fingers. Kris watches his own fingers until the tremors have completely faded and that cold, empty feeling inside begins to be replaced by a sort of fondness. Baekhyun will vanish soon, but even when he does, Kris won't be alone. He never has to be alone again.
Hargo eventually sticks his head up the ladder and doesn't even blink when the first thing he sees is Baekhyun disappearing. "I see you weren't joking about summoning a friend," he says. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"In a way," Kris says grimly. "But I wish I hadn't."
"That's what one of the young men who came up here last night said when I asked him the same thing." Hargo gives him a sympathetic smile. "Come down and have a cup of tea with me. Kettle's just boiled."
Kris follows him back down to the kitchen and takes a seat on one of the stools next to the table, silent until he's had his first few reviving sips. He has an opportunity here; he might as well make the most of it. "The two visitors who came up here last night - do you know what they saw? The girl at the inn said they were looking for a tree."
"They didn't find a tree," Hargo says. "There wasn't enough light, so they came back in the morning for another look, but still didn't find the one they were searching for. What they did find last night, I couldn't say, but the older one, he didn't look any too happy about it. He was so sad when he came back down, and I didn't have the heart to ask him about it."
It's entirely possible Suho's seen the same sort of thing as Kris. Not Costa del Sol, but perhaps he looked back to check on Junon, and saw the handful of bodies crumbling to dust at the port, or lights burning in the windows of empty buildings, a day after the storm's been and gone. Or perhaps it comes back, and Kris wouldn't know, because he's never waited around to find out.
He does know that he doesn't want to be caught up in it, now that the danger has spread across the sea. They'll move on in the morning and hope for the best.
Hargo tells him more about Cosmo Canyon while they drink their tea. Though friendly, he retains his serious air, and Kris assumes that must be normal for an Elder - whatever it is that Elders do in this town. "It's a very special place," he says. "We do not receive many visitors, but mostly, those who come here do so to study the world around us - and what lies beyond it. That is why we have this observatory."
"Do you know anything about other worlds?" It's worth a try, Kris thinks. Hargo might believe him if he explains why he's asking, but he'd prefer to avoid that when it's not his risk alone to take.
"Nobody knows anything for certain." Hargo takes a sip from his teacup, smiling when he lowers it again. "Because no one has ever been. Although Rocket Town got its name from some bright spark who built himself a rocket and tried to fly up there to see, and he's not the only one who's tried. I hear a young lad went up a few years ago, too, and... Well, let's not dwell on that. If you go into the planetarium you'll see a holographic model of the only other planet we've found, so far, after years of searching the night skies."
Another planet. Kris's heart beats a little faster, thinking back to his conversation with Baekhyun. Perhaps this is it, where the Summons live. He leans forward across the table. "Does anyone live there?"
"Possibly." Hargo flicks the air with his fingers, indicating that Kris should consider sitting down again. "There are land masses, but the planet's too far away for us to tell much more than that. I believe it to be inhabited, though, and I can see by your face that you, too, entertain that idea."
"I think it might be where the Summons live," Kris says. "Is that what you think?"
"It's not so much what I think, as what I've been told. The Elders of Cosmo Canyon have handed down a prophecy for over a thousand years, each one relating it to their successors in the hope that one day, we will have an explanation." Hargo clears his throat. "When the skies and the ground were one of legends, through their twelve forces, nurtured the Tree of Life. An eye of red forces created the evil which covered the heart of Tree of Life and the heart slowly grew dry. To attend to an embrace the heart of Tree of Life, the legends hereby divide the tree in half and hide each side. Hence, time is overturned and space turns askew. The twelve forces divide into two and create two suns that look alike. Into two world that seem alike, the legends travel apart. The legends shall now see the same sky but will stand on different ground. Shall stand on the same ground but shall see different sky. The day the ground beget a single file before one sky in two worlds that seem alike, the legends will greet each other. The day the red forces purify and the twelve forces reunite into one perfect root, a new world shall open up!"
"'Embrace the heart of Tree of Life'?"
"It's a very old prophecy," Hargo says apologetically. "I think a few words were lost over time, and possibly some of the meaning..."
Kris starts to make a joking retort, but stops himself when he realises that the prophecy, though oddly-worded, does seem to hold some relevance. Twelve of them, battling to save a tree from a mysterious red force. Twelve divided into two, living in worlds that seem alike. The last part is particularly muddy, but appears to suggest that if the twelve of them reunite, something spectacular should occur; whether the "new world" is literal or figurative is up for debate but if the world has already split once, it's not so farfetched to imagine it being reborn.
He wonders if Lu Han has any idea about the prophecy, since the drive to find each other seems to have originated with him. They definitely need to talk.
"I believe the two worlds are twinned," Hargo says. "That one day, the six foreordained people from each will come together, and when they do..."
"When they do?" Kris prompts.
Hargo shrugs slightly. "It's hard to say. Even here, we've noticed that the world is failing, being slowly overrun with poison. Through the telescope, and through the tales of visitors, we learn about the redness in the sky that steals the life from the air, and the increase in hostile, monstrous creatures that precedes it. Perhaps the time is approaching for a change."
"The professor who was here last night - Suho? Did you tell him about the prophecy too?"
"The subject did not arise. Should I have done so?"
"I think the tree he's looking for is the Tree of Life," Kris says, feeling awkward that he's sitting here discussing the veracity of an old, barely comprehensible prophecy with a complete stranger. He hardly even discusses it with Yixing and Jongin.
"Which would, in all probability, make him one of its twelve defenders." Hargo doesn't sound in the least surprised, but if he's accepted this as reality all his life... "And you?"
"Me?"
"Were you looking for the tree too?"
"That wasn't what I came up here to find," Kris says, "but I get the feeling that I will, if I keep following Suho."
That's...kind of intimidating, if he thinks of it in the context of the prophecy. The idea of finding the professor, his resurrected companion and the Summon responsible, is one he's become accustomed to over the course of the chase, and if he's not entirely certain what he plans to say to them, at least he doesn't anticipate anything too overwhelming. (As far as intense experiences go, he reckons not much can compete with transforming into a dragon.)
But if the twelve of them are together...what happens then? Will space 'turn askew'? Will everything simply end, or will everything begin? Kris wishes the others were sitting beside him now. This isn't all down to him, but he's the only one here - save Baekhyun, who probably can't hear what's going on, from his orb - and the weight of it sits heavily on his shoulders.
"You will, if it's your destiny to do so," Hargo says. "Don't be afraid. Change doesn't have to be a bad thing."
Change can be a good thing. Kris knows that. But all he'd set out to do was find himself, not save the world. Not build a family piece by piece and lead them into the unknown. Jongin, Yixing, Jongdae, Baekhyun, Lu Han, Minseok, Kyungsoo, Suho, the mystery Summon, Sehun (Kris would bet any money he's one of them) and...Zitao. Hmm. Zitao's with the other Summons in their world, but none of them have one of his orbs. The prophecy is far from clear, but Kris gets the impression they all have to be in the same place at the same time for anything to happen, which means that even if they catch up to Suho first thing in the morning, the world won't be turning itself inside out yet.
Or so he hopes.
Hargo leaves him in peace to finish his tea; Kris is grateful he doesn't push, doesn't pry. Perhaps it's because he knows that there's nothing he can do that will affect the outcome. He's shared what he knows: the rest is up to them.
When Kris returns to the pub, he finds his companions have already retired to their rooms for the night. Rosa has to tell him which one's his. Yixing's in bed when he enters, though not yet asleep, using the lamp on the nightstand to write in his lyrics notebook. It's a cosy, warming room, with cheerful plaid comforters on the twin beds, matching cushions on the small couch, plastic flowers in a vase and a painting of the sun setting over the mountains. Although there are no windows and the whole thing's hollowed out from the landscape, it doesn't feel any more claustrophobic than any other bedroom - and considerably less creepy than last night's residence, in the Gold Saucer's Ghost Square.
Kris would like nothing more than to stretch out and sleep, but this can't wait until they're on the road again. "Do you know if the others are asleep?" he asks when Yixing finally realises he's there.
"We only came up ten minutes ago," Yixing says. "So Jongdae might not be. Jongin was asleep walking up the stairs."
"Then I'm going to have to wake him. You all need to hear this."
It's another ten minutes before everyone's crammed in Kris and Yixing's room - minus Zitao - and every available space is occupied, if not by bodies then by the weapons in which they've equipped their Summon materia. There's only one Baekhyun out; from Jongdae's orb, not Kris's, though it makes no practical difference. Kyungsoo's sitting by himself on the couch, unimpressed as always, eyes daring anyone to join him. Jongin's half-asleep on Yixing's bed, mostly lying in Lu Han's lap, with Minseok and Yixing at either end. Jongdae and Baekhyun have taken over Kris's bed between them, which leaves Kris perched precariously on the couch arm and towering over the rest like a schoolteacher.
"So I just heard about this prophecy..."
Kris watches Lu Han closely as he explains what he's learned from Hargo. While everyone else expresses various flavours of surprise - even Jongin wakes up a little for it - Lu Han merely nods, silently agreeing with Kris's reasoned conclusions regarding the contents of their shared dreams. No two ways about it: he has to know.
But there's no need for Kris to ask the question himself. Jongin does it for him.
"Did you know?" Jongin twists in Lu Han's lap so he's looking up at him. "You've always known more about this than any of us. Is that why?" He still sounds sleepy, but there's hurt there too and Kris really doesn't want to get in the middle if they're going to fight. He had enough of that with his parents.
Lu Han reaches down to stroke Jongin's hair, though the petting does little to dispel his pout. "It's not the first time I've heard it, but it was a long time before I had any idea what it meant."
"Lu Han," Jongin growls; Baekhyun laughs at him and Lu Han only grins.
"I found it tucked away in a book on lepidopterology I'd ordered for the shop. A piece of paper with those words on the front, and twelve symbols on the back. None of it made any sense, and the drawings were...like something Zitao would come up with. Art is not one of his gifts."
"You should see Kris try," Yixing says, and Kris winces. "What kind of symbols?"
"I think they're ours," Lu Han says. "The only one I could really identify to start with was a unicorn - that's you. When you guys have the dreams, do you ever look at your hands?"
"I did," Kris says. "I'm wearing a silver dragon ring."
"I've seen it too. Zitao has an egg-timer on his, and mine is..." Lu Han's face contorts itself into an expression of exaggerated disbelief. "It's a bunch of circles sort of linked together - I guess it's somehow supposed to represent telekinesis. Anyway, I didn't have anything to tie the symbols to back then, and the wording was just so much gibberish. I thought a page from a fantasy book had been left between the butterfly articles by mistake."
"I wonder how mine looks?" Jongdae says. "A lightning ring would be pretty cool."
"I've seen it," Baekhyun says. "It's kind of like a disco-dancing squid."
"Let him have his illusions." Lu Han's hopeless at hiding his amusement. "I'd only met Minseok, then, and I hadn't seen anything to suggest that we were connected to people in your world. It was just the two of us for a while, and even though we kept being summoned across to fight monsters, that didn't seem to have anything to do with the dreams we were having about these twelve shadowy figures trying to save a tree."
"Or with the two of us trying to inject new life into a struggling bookshop," Minseok says, with a glance across at Lu Han, who nods his thanks for the support. "Our day jobs kept us busy enough."
"Did you know too?" Jongin asks him, and Minseok shakes his head.
"I kept it to myself," Lu Han says. "First because I didn't know what it was, and then...I wasn't sure. The first time we saw Yixing in person and worked out that he wasn't being summoned was the first time I had any inkling that some of us were living in your world - that we were twelve, but split across two worlds. It started making more sense then."
Jongin pulls himself up into a sitting position, fully awake now, and the level of tension in the room increases by more notches than Kris cares to think about. "And you didn't tell me?" He bats Lu Han's hand away. "You were going to be honest with me, and you didn't think to mention something this big?"
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes as Lu Han freezes, feebly attempting to justify himself to an angry Jongin. "I said I'd tell you if I wasn't sure about something. But I didn't even know if we'd find everybody, and I thought if I told you all that coming together might bring about the end of the world, it would only complicate things. Or scare you off, maybe. I didn't want to say anything without knowing for certain." Lu Han sighs. "But for the first time in years, there's a new Summon."
"I hope he's a considerate roommate," Baekhyun says. "Wherever he is. It's been nice, having the room to myself since I moved in."
"You could still have said something." Jongin looks down at the bed, biting his lip, and Kris hopes they manage to work it out soon. He's not best pleased, himself, but he's always accepted that Lu Han knows more than he tells, and it's true that in this case, the knowledge would've done them no good. Not yet, when they're still missing four people.
Lu Han's quiet too, watching Jongin with anxious eyes. Jongdae takes up the conversation instead. "I'm going to pretend that everything that's happened to me since yesterday makes sense," he says. "Because if the twelve of us are supposed to get together and somehow save the world, what happens if we're too late?"
That's a sobering thought. Hargo's comment on how the world is failing echoes in Kris's mind. The monsters, and the red skies that follow them. What if they spread all across the world before the twelve of them find each other and there's nowhere left to run? Will they die for good, this time?
"Everything dies," Kyungsoo says flatly. "Maybe just here, maybe both our worlds, I don't know. We don't have the same problems over there."
Baekhyun frowns at him. "You really know how to brighten up a room."
"Let's try to be optimistic," Yixing says. "Who's to say we'll be too late? We're working together on this."
"With three people who know nothing about us and one who does but can't be here with us because we haven't found one of his orbs yet," Kris says. "Anyone know where we can find a Zitao orb?"
"If there was one anywhere near, we'd let you know," Lu Han says. "It's more important to find the professor for now, since we have no way of keeping track of him. Knowing he's looking for the Tree of Life won't tell us where he's going after Nibelheim, if anywhere."
Jongin looks up when Lu Han speaks, but won't look directly at him. "The prophecy said something about dividing the tree in half, right? So maybe there's...half a Tree of Life out there somewhere?" He's hesitant, clearly worried he'll be laughed at for the suggestion, but visibly relaxes when Jongdae smiles at him.
Yixing muses aloud on how half a tree would probably look like one of Kris's drawings; Kris ignores him and tries to figure out what that would mean for them. A tree is either a tree, or it isn't. One with only half a trunk would surely have made a name for itself by now as some sort of marvel, and even if the half is just an ordinary stump, what would that mean for the remainder?
"The legends hereby divide the tree in half and hide each side," Kris says slowly. "Hide where?"
"Half in your world and half in ours, obviously." Kyungsoo doesn't outright say it, but his expression implies that there's a 'do I have to do all the thinking around here?' that should be tacked onto the end.
"I don't think we're finding a tree - half or whole - any time soon, in either world," Minseok says. "We should focus on finding the others. They might have information that we don't about how this is all supposed to work. After all, they must have learned about the tree somehow. Having weird dreams wouldn't be enough to start them looking."
"Don't underestimate weird dreams," Jongdae says. "One day you're living a normal life and the next you're driving across the desert with three strangers because they turned up in your dreams."
"Technically more than three," Kris points out, tapping the materia equipped in his sword. That's right, there's eight of them now - nine, counting the absent Zitao - and they need to stay focused. Everyone has to agree on what they do next. He gets to his feet. "In the morning we go to Nibelheim, and if the professor's moved on already we keep following him as best we can. If anyone disagrees and thinks we should look for the tree or do something else altogether, now's your chance to say it."
Silence. Kris scans the room, attempting to gauge the mood. This isn't going to work if there's conflict within the group, and he's not good at coaxing people into agreement. To his relief there are no open mouths, no raised hands, no signs of disagreement. He lets a full minute go by before saying, "Then we're all agreed. Let's get some sleep; we've got more driving to do tomorrow."
Lu Han's the last Summon to leave. He and Jongin stare uneasily at each other; Kris just wants to shake them and tell them to get over it because they could do without this. "Go talk it out elsewhere," he says, ushering them both towards the door. Jongdae looks relieved when the two of them head for the stairs, not the room he and Jongin are sharing tonight.
Yixing's already prepared for bed, settling himself back under the covers now the other occupants have departed. Kris busies himself in the bathroom for a while, returning to find Yixing mostly asleep and the nightlight still shining. He reaches across from his own bed to switch it off and hopes the mountain air won't do too much of a number on his skin while he sleeps.
Tonight's dream brings him little he doesn't already know. One of the shadowy figures becomes Jongdae, lightning crackling from his fingertips as he calls on his power to protect the tree. Baekhyun's description of his ring is quite accurate, Kris notes. His own is still the same shining silver dragon.
Another shadow becomes Kyungsoo, throwing up giant walls of earth around the tree. Those without faces number only four now. The red clouds swirl, infiltrating every crevice in the bark...and then stop. All motion comes to a halt. Time itself is standing still.
Zitao, Kris thinks as his aborted dream fades into true sleep.
Part 3