Chapter Text
Slipping away from a still-sleeping Baekhyun turns out to be easier than Kris had anticipated, though only because Chanyeol's already left the cabin and that gives him the space to slowly sidle away and over the edge of the bed. Baekhyun's curled up on the far side and making the same puppy noises Kris recalls from a lifetime ago; they make him want to stop to ruffle Baekhyun's hair.
But that might wake him up, and he could probably do with the sleep. Kris pads softly out of the cabin before donning his boots and goes to find out why they're in the air again.
Chanyeol's on the bridge with Jongdae, who appears to be giving him flying lessons. Both of them look up from the controls as Kris approaches.
"I see our saviour is finally awake," Jongdae says with a grin. "I'm going to be nice and forgive you for the damage your tail did to my airship, seeing as you were knocking the monsters overboard at the time."
"Very gracious of you," Kris deadpans in response. "I thought we'd landed, or was I dreaming that?"
"I landed us to make repairs, which we've done, and was going to get some rest but..." Jongdae shrugs. "Couldn't sleep. There's still some daylight left; I want to take us as far as I can before we have to land for the night."
The light pouring in through the large curved window behind them is fading gently now, night beginning to announce itself, and Kris wonders how long they've been aloft. Easy to lose track of time sandwiched between Baekhyun and Chanyeol, warm and sleepy; no words required, only the comfort of their familiar presence. As safe as it's possible to be these days, at least for a little while. Baekhyun had fallen asleep almost immediately following their brief conversation. Kris had followed him easily. Much to his relief, there had been no dreams.
"Did you sleep?" he asks Chanyeol.
"Ah, maybe just a little?" Chanyeol says, eyes bright and ridiculously full of life for someone who'd been on the verge of death only hours earlier. "I didn't really need it after Yixing healed me. But it was nice being there, you know?"
Kris knows only too well, as he shares a small, secretive smile with Chanyeol.
Not secretive enough to escape Jongdae's notice, however. "I suppose your other snugglebunny's still asleep?"
"Snugglebunny?" Kris almost chokes on the word. "Don't let him hear you say that. He'll be impossible."
"He already is," Jongdae says. "And for some reason you both adore him anyway. It's one of the many mysteries of the universe we don't have time to solve right now."
Kris wonders if Chanyeol has learned enough about how to pilot the Highwind for them to drop Jongdae off over the side somewhere, preferably in a nice deserted valley where no one will ever hear from him again. Probably not. "Yes, he's still sleeping. Is everyone else doing the same?"
"As far as I know," Jongdae says, and Chanyeol nods in agreement. "If they're up and about, they're being very quiet about it. My take-offs must be getting smoother if Jongin's not the only one who can sleep through them."
"They'll all get up when they're hungry enough." Kris could do with a bite himself. He might not be dragon-sized anymore but his stomach doesn't seem to have gotten the message. "Are our food supplies going to last with twice as many of us on the airship now?"
"As long as it doesn't take us more than a week to find the Tree of Life—and if it does, food's going to be the least of our worries. But"—Jongdae waves a piece of paper, which Kris vaguely recognises as the map Yixing had copied in Nibelheim—"we might be able to eat out tonight, if I can get us to the Icicle Inn before we lose the last of the daylight. The sky up ahead looks clear, so it's probably still habitable."
"Back to the snow. Great." Kris sighs. He remembers just how cold it was in the small tourist town that had sprung up around the inn. All that time spent in the freezing outdoors, chasing rumours of an item that could revive the dead, all for nothing.
Well, almost nothing. He'd found Baekhyun there, after all, and meeting Baekhyun had ultimately led to them finding Chanyeol. It had just been a far longer and wilder search than he could ever have anticipated, and involving a great many more people than he'd planned on when he'd first hitched a ride north with a boat of tourists.
"Snow?" Chanyeol sounds alarmed. "I don't think I packed anything for snow. It never gets that cold in Winhill."
"It's a tourist town," Kris assures him. "They'll be falling all over themselves to sell us winter gear."
"Tell them we're on our way to save the world and maybe they'll let us have it for free?" Jongdae suggests.
"If they don't think we're a load of con artists."
Kris doesn't intend for that to come out so bleak, but as he speaks, there's a coldness spreading through his chest that has nothing to do with the gradual decrease in air temperature. This is the last town they'll hit before they reach the tree. The last sign of civilisation. There might be the odd isolated hermit out there, but basically, there's no one living further north. They'll fly, and they'll fly, and if they travel far enough they'll return to the south, where the red force has already devastated the towns.
For all intents and purposes, they're heading for the end of the world.
He jumps when he feels a hand on his back. He hadn't even noticed Chanyeol leaving the controls. "Let's go up on the deck," Chanyeol says, palm warm through the fabric of Kris's shirt.
"You don't want to stay and learn how to take us down for a landing?" Jongdae asks. "Of course you'd have to pry the controls out of my cold, dead hands before I'd actually let you do it, but you could still learn."
"We might only land once more," Chanyeol says, "and I wouldn't take that away from you. Anyway, I want to see what snow looks like from above. I've never seen it in person before."
Jongdae's expression suggests that he thinks Chanyeol must be crazy to want to see snow instead of learning to fly, though he refrains from saying so aloud. "Suit yourself."
"Thanks for the lesson, though," Chanyeol says, and then they're moving, Kris's legs taking step after step towards the stairs, propelled by Chanyeol's guiding hand.
Outside, the air is cold and crisp, a noticeable drop in temperature from the valley they'd been parked in earlier. Kris regrets leaving his jacket in the cabin. Both of them are in T-shirts; goosebumps are already prickling their way up his bare arms. They won't be able to stay out for long.
Chanyeol rests his hands on the railing, then hastily withdraws them to rub together. He's begun to shiver, but it doesn't dampen his excitement at the blanket of white rolling across the land beneath them. Here and there, trees break up the snow, or tracks from skis cut narrow paths where the tourists staying at the Icicle Inn have ventured out to test their skills. They must be nearing the town.
There are precious few reasons to smile these days, though the one Chanyeol's wearing suggests that they're approaching a land full of new life, rather than one waiting to die. He sweeps his gaze side-to-side, taking in the snowfields and the white-clothed mountains up ahead, almost crashing into Kris when he leans too far.
Kris doesn't mind. He knows a whole lot more about Chanyeol—about Baekhyun, about all of them—than he did when he woke up this morning, and even if so much of it is scrambled and hard to piece together, none of it changes how he feels. He catches Chanyeol around the waist, pulling him close, as much just to have him near as for the warmth. Both of them could be so much warmer, of course, but on a wooden deck, that would be dangerous...
"What?" Chanyeol asks when Kris turns away to laugh.
"Here we are, two creatures of fire, and we're absolutely freezing out here."
"It's not that bad," Chanyeol says, though that doesn't keep him from snuggling closer.
"You say that now, but when you're so covered in ice that you look like you lost a fight with Minseok..."
"All right, maybe it's a little bad." Chanyeol gives an exaggerated full-body shiver. "Five minutes and we can go in, I promise."
"When you've seen enough snow?"
"The snow's pretty—and I really haven't seen it before—but that's not why I wanted to come up here."
"Oh?" Kris turns before he remembers just how close he's standing to Chanyeol; sideways on, the lack of distance between their faces is somewhat unsettling for conversation. He turns back, awkwardly, to stare out at the snow.
"I know what you're thinking—"
"You don't," Kris interrupts. "We're not Jongin and Lu Han."
"Good thing too, because Jongin and Lu Han do things I have no interest in doing with you." Sex has never been part of what Kris shares with Baekhyun and Chanyeol, but neither has telepathy, and really, Kris thinks it's for the best that he can't see inside Baekhyun's head. "And yeah, maybe I don't know exactly what you're thinking, but I can make a good guess. I saw your face when we were on the bridge. This isn't going to be the end for us."
"You can't know that. We failed last time."
"And we came back to give it another shot," Chanyeol says patiently. "Who's to say there won't be a third round if the same thing happens here?"
"And who's to say there will? Being reborn didn't work out so well for us this time, did it?" Kris clenches his fists, frustrated enough to dig his nails into his palms from the tension. "If we weren't strong enough before, we're not going to do any better with broken magic."
"It's not 'broken', just different." Chanyeol grabs the hand clenched at his waist and covers it with his own. "Don't give up on us yet, okay?
Kris could've given up before, seeing his own death on the walls of the temple. But he'd pulled them forward regardless, even knowing how it would end. He can do no less when he has no idea what the outcome might be.
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Good." Chanyeol squeezes him tighter. "Dream of other things instead, like what we're going to do once we save the world."
That's not a future Kris knows how to imagine. He can't even remember a time when he hadn't had to fight to survive, one way or another. What sort of life could be out there for him if they all make it through this? What could he do? Who could he be?
"We're going to start a band, that's what," Baekhyun breaks in. Kris hadn't even heard him approaching, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. "You can play guitar, and we'll sing, and Kris can be our manager or something."
Kris scowls at him. "Manager?"
"Or groupie," Baekhyun says, cheerfully. "Either one works for me."
Sleep seems to have restored his usual liveliness. He's no better dressed for the weather than they are, though, so he wastes no time in pushing himself between them for warmth. Chanyeol laughs at the sudden interruption and shuffles to the side to let him in, relinquishing his hold on Kris's hand.
"You guys left a nice warm bed to come up here and freeze." Baekhyun's tone suggests that he thinks they've both taken leave of their senses. "The view had better be amazing."
Kris spies a familiar sight in the distance: a small cluster of buildings standing out against the snow. The sloping brown roofs are powdered with white, and lights are slowly starting to flicker on through the windows. Someone's switching on the lights, which means there must still be people down there. That's good enough news that Kris is prepared to forgive Baekhyun's implied criticism of his musical talents.
"Maybe it's not amazing," he says, pointing towards the buildings, "but it's one you should recognise. Take a look and see."
"Hmm?" Baekhyun follows Kris's finger to the town. "Oh, it's that place where you fainted in my arms."
"Fainted while leaning on your arm." Kris tries to smack Chanyeol on the hip to stop him laughing, but Baekhyun's in the way and he ends up flailing uselessly while Chanyeol doubles over with the giggles. "After almost dying in the snowfields. And you disappeared on me!"
"My work there was done," Baekhyun says. Kris gives up on reaching Chanyeol and elbows Baekhyun instead. It's more satisfying that way.
Baekhyun's still spluttering when Jongdae's voice rings out over the airship's intercom, telling them all that they'll be landing shortly by the Icicle Inn, and that anyone who wants to pick up warmer clothing had better get out of bed and prepare to disembark because he's not guessing sizes.
"You can buy me a nice warm jacket to make up for attacking me with your pointy elbows," Baekhyun says when he recovers his breath. "Would you believe I left my wallet in another world?"
"But you bought a train ticket from Dollet—" is as far as Chanyeol gets before Baekhyun claps a hand over his mouth.
The end of the world is no time to be a miser. "You can have your jacket," Kris says. "As long as you don't want one made of solid gold."
"I was thinking fur would be warmer."
"Anything would be warmer than this." Chanyeol sounds less enamoured of the snowy scene below now he's had his five minutes. "I'm ready to go back in."
He's not alone. Kris brings up the rear as the three of them retreat inside, where they find the others gathering on the bridge and preparing to venture out into the snow—some awake, some not so much. The former Summons are wearing an odd assortment of borrowed clothing, being mostly lacking in luggage, and only some of them were fortunate enough to have been wearing outerwear when they'd crossed over for good from their own world. Zitao's half-asleep in one corner, still wrapped in a blanket and leaning against Joonmyun's legs. Sehun, on his other side, is already wearing gloves, though Kris suspects that in his case, they're more to avoid leaving fingerprints than to keep his hands warm.
Lu Han and Jongin are holding Jongin's jacket between them, both trying to push it towards the other as they argue.
"I'm not wearing it," Lu Han states flatly. "I know you're always too warm but that doesn't mean you're not going to freeze out there. It's your jacket, so you wear it."
Jongin shoves the jacket towards Lu Han and promptly teleports a few feet to the left, leaving Lu Han holding it. "I'll be fine."
Lu Han huffs and tosses it back at him. Jongin catches it before it hits the floor, though he doesn't look happy about it.
"No throwing things on my bridge," Jongdae says. "And Lu Han can borrow my jacket."
"Aren't you going?" Lu Han asks. "Your threats over the intercom made it sound like you were."
"Changed my mind, after what happened the last time we left the airship alone. You guys go; I'm going to stay and keep an eye on things here."
Baekhyun leans against one of the instrument panels; Jongdae swats him away immediately. "In case we get attacked by tourists?"
"I don't know what's out there, but neither do you." Jongdae folds his arms over his chest. "I'm staying."
"There's no point in you staying alone." Kris holds up his hand to ward off Jongdae's protests. "Let me finish. If something attacks the ship and you're here by yourself, there's not much you can do alone. Lu Han should stay with you, and Jongin should go. That way, they can keep in touch, and if there's any trouble Jongin can teleport us all back here instantly to deal with it."
"It's a sensible plan," Joonmyun pipes up, drowning out Lu Han's grumbles about being separated from Jongin. "I will also stay, in case it's necessary to shoot anyone from a distance." He reaches down to ruffle Zitao's hair. "And the snoozing kitten here could use the extra sleep."
"I'll pick up gloves and stuff for you guys," Sehun volunteers, and there's a muffled sound of thanks from beneath the blanket.
"Give me your shopping list and I'll take care of it," Minseok says to Jongdae. "I have to pick up a hat for Yixing anyway."
"Yixing?" Kris scans the bridge, but their resident healer is nowhere to be seen. "Where is he?"
"I left him resting." Minseok's tone dares anyone to challenge him over it.
Wisely, Kris doesn't. "Okay. Anyone else staying?"
No one else speaks up. They finish getting ready while Jongdae takes them down, parking the airship as close to the town as he can get without flattening anything more than snow. It's not a long walk, but Jongin kindly saves them trudging through the snow and teleports them from up on the deck to just outside the inn, the clearest landing site visible from the Highwind.
The lights are even brighter up close, and so very, very welcome. Silhouettes move behind closed curtains; Kris can make out the faint crash of a door being shut, the grating crush of footsteps in the snow somewhere behind the inn. There are people here. As much as it seems to him like there's no one left alive in this world save themselves and the monsters, that's not true.
Not yet.
-----
Shopping in a group of seven while trying to keep each other in sight proves to be awkward, especially when one of the shoppers happens to be Baekhyun, who continually floats from rack to rack, picking out his own personal suggestions for everyone else. Kris has to drag him away from a collection of chocobo-print jackets before they all wind up in matching outfits.
Between them, they manage to put together sufficient winter clothing for the entire group. Neither the staff nor the handful of other shoppers seem alarmed in any way; no one asks them if they're fleeing from the south, or if they have any news, or what their plans are. Kris does have to fend off an offer for snowboard rentals, but after that they're left to shop in peace. It must be nice, he thinks, not to know what's coming, to have the luxury of living your life without a cloud of impending doom hanging over your head.
Jongin delivers their purchases for the others back to the airship, returning alone after a few minutes. "Jongdae thinks you have terrible taste in hats and shouldn't be allowed to shop unsupervised," he tells Baekhyun, who only grins at him and tugs his own bright blue hat further down over his ears.
"I did try to keep an eye on him," Kris says. "It's not easy."
Sehun has a solution. "Put a leash on him. Lu Han must have one you can borrow."
Everyone turns to stare at Jongin, who looks hot and bothered enough to melt the snow at his feet. "We...don't..."
"Rapping Baekhyun on the nose with a newspaper works for me," Kyungsoo deadpans over Jongin's embarrassed mumbling. "Or a hardback book, I'm not fussy."
"Don't break Baekhyun's nose, that's more work for Yixing," Chanyeol says. His new padded jacket easily protects him from Baekhyun's offended smack to his arm.
"Nobody is touching my nose." Baekhyun wraps his scarf over it, just in case, obscuring the lower half of his face behind blue wool. His next words are slightly muffled as a consequence. "What now?"
It's full dark already; they're not travelling any further tonight. "Now I suppose we see if the food at the Icicle Inn has improved since I was last here," Kris says. He's not optimistic.
The taproom of the inn is relatively full when they enter, and the sign at the front with the number of available rooms says zero, so it's just as well that they don't require accommodation. Kris doesn't fancy their chances of getting a table, either, but luckily the inn does food to go, so they join the line at the bar.
The woman at the end of the queue half turns around as Kris lines up behind her. "Some crowd, huh?" she says. "I come here same time every year to ski and I don't think I've ever seen the place this packed."
Kris doesn't know what to say to that. He can hardly suggest that it might be because people have fled from other continents to avoid being mauled by monsters and then desiccated. He tries for a lighthearted tone, isn't quite convinced he manages it. "Maybe it's the lure of discounted snowboard rentals?"
That earns him a laugh. "More likely the lack of ships," the woman says. "It must be what, three days now? I'm booked through to next week, myself, but the couple in the room next to mine were supposed to leave yesterday and they're still stuck here." She pauses, tilting her head to give him a quizzical look. "Hey, I don't remember seeing you guys around before. Are you staying here too?"
"Us?" Kris waves a hand vaguely at the rest of his group. "Uh... we've been camping, not really coming into town much. Just fancied a change tonight, that's all."
"We're real outdoors types," Baekhyun chimes in from his other side, looking like nothing of the kind in his obviously brand-new winter gear. "Rough and tough, that's us."
The woman looks him up and down, casts an eye over the rest of the group, who look equally unlikely to have spent the last week toughing it out in the snow, and raises her eyebrows. "If you say so."
Much to Kris's relief, she doesn't press him further, turning away to chat to the woman in front of her instead. He takes the opportunity to murmur quietly to the others that once they get their food, they should leave. Better that no one else has the chance to realise that they're newcomers, and to ask them how they got there.
"I'll send us all back as soon as we're out of sight," Jongin whispers.
"Leave me behind?" Sehun asks, surprising everyone. "I need to find out what my new materia does, and I can't do that inside. It should be safe enough if I go out into the snowfields."
"You want to spend time outside in the snow?" Baekhyun sounds horrified.
"Yes, Mr. Rough and Tough," Sehun deadpans. "Since you're such a big fan of the outdoors, maybe you'd like to come and watch?"
"I'm sure you'll manage fine without my supervision," Baekhyun says, and Sehun only smirks at him in response.
"Good idea." Kris nods to Sehun. "I don't know when we'll next have to fight anything, but I'd much rather we didn't have to find out what your mystery materia does in the middle of a battle."
"I'll stay too," Jongin says quietly. "Sehun might need to get away in a hurry."
"Thanks." Sehun's smirk softens into a genuine smile. "I'll try not to destroy too much of the landscape."
"Probably too late for that to matter," Kyungsoo says, and then they're at the front of the queue.
Jongin sends them all back with food, leaving himself and Sehun out in the snow. They hand over the bags to the rest of the group; once Jongdae hears what Sehun's up to, he wants to go try out his own new materia. Lu Han has to let Jongin know, and then Jongdae disappears, leaving Chanyeol in charge of the Highwind—which Kris thinks is enormously unfair, but since he knows nothing about how to fly except with his own wings, he accepts that it's probably for the best.
"Don't get jealous," Chanyeol tells him when they're all sitting around the bridge, eating. "You know Jongdae would have a fit if anyone else tried to fly her, including me. I think he mostly said that so Baekhyun couldn't declare himself captain."
Baekhyun's insistence that he would make a great captain is promptly buried by Lu Han, Minseok and Kyungsoo discussing his many failings as a bookshop employee. Zitao, apparently now awake, is eating in his cabin with Joonmyun, but Yixing has joined them, still sleepy, eating quietly by Minseok's side and staying out of the conversation. They're all keeping half an eye on the large window at the front, watching for any signs of materia use. It's full dark now and no one knows if they'll even be able to see anything, but Kyungsoo points out that a materia with the name 'Comet' is unlikely to produce anything subtle.
He proves to be right. It's hard to spot at first, almost invisible in the night sky, but there are few stars over the northern continent and none of them are moving. This one, this tiny bright dot, is coming closer. The comet—for what else can it be?—is trailed by a luminous blue tail, and coming in fast.
"Looks like we don't have to wait for the world to end," Kyungsoo says. "Jongdae's taking care of it for us tonight."
"It might not be that big," Lu Han says.
"It might also be bigger than this entire planet." Minseok finishes off his toasted sandwich and brushes himself down. "I hope Jongdae's got some control over it, either way."
Kris has only seen a comet once before, as a child in Wutai, lying up on the roof and watching it streak across the sky. Most of the village had been watching that night, expecting disaster to follow in the comet's wake. Nothing had happened that Kris can recall; he doesn't know whether there's any basis for his village's belief that they herald catastrophe but looking at this one hurtling towards the ground now... Yeah, maybe that's not so far off the mark.
"Do you think maybe we should..." Chanyeol doesn't finish his sentence, only nods in the direction of the airship's controls.
Kris keeps his eyes fixed on the incoming comet. "Jongin would've brought them back if Jongdae had thought he needed to move the airship. Let's wait and see."
"Too bad we can't tell how far away it is," Baekhyun says. "Want to fly up and take a better look?"
"If you think I'm going to—" Kris begins, turning to Baekhyun to protest about how he wouldn't be able to breathe so high up, but Lu Han cuts him off with a startled shout.
"Look!"
A column of fire splits the night sky, spiralling up in a whirl of flames. Higher and higher, until it's no longer tethered to the ground, a blazing tornado soaring freely towards the comet.
"Sehun...?" Kris wonders aloud, incredulous. Even before, he can't recall Sehun ever using his power in such a way, but that's no natural weather phenomenon. It has to be magic.
"I'm going to take a closer look," Chanyeol says, and before anyone can stop him, he's up and running for the deck. Moments later, the phoenix is visible through the window, headed straight for the tornado.
"Now do I get to be captain?" Baekhyun jokes nervously. No one laughs.
Chanyeol's immune to fire, in that state, but that doesn't mean he can't be hurt if he's caught up in the whirlwind - or worse yet, in its imminent collision with the comet. Kris hopes he remembers that and plays it safe. He knows from experience how easy it is to get sucked in when transformed, how simple it is to fall into the thought patterns of an inhuman creature. As Yixing's unicorn focusses on healing, so Kris's dragon focusses on destroying, and as for Chanyeol's phoenix...
The phoenix is immortal, always rising from the ashes. Such a life does not lend itself to caution.
Fire blazes higher and higher, lightening the sky to a dark orange, muting the comet's white and blue streak. Chanyeol's faster than any normal bird—faster, and more fearless. He gains on the tornado, following it on its journey upwards. Kris holds his breath, as if Chanyeol's safety is dependent on his keeping perfectly still; beside him, Baekhyun's fingers find his, slipping between them to hold tight. The bridge is silent around them, no more rustling of greaseproof paper, no crunching of food, no licking of lips. No words, save the ones running through Kris's head, wishing for Chanyeol to be safe.
The comet can't be any more natural than the tornado, Kris decides. Not with an orbit like this, putting it on a collision course with the planet.
It never reaches the ground.
The fire tornado sucks it in, dragging it inside the swirling column of flame, and Kris can no longer follow it with his eyes.
"That ought to melt the ice, maybe," Minseok murmurs, breaking the silence. "I don't know about the rest."
At his words, Kris dares a breath, if only so he can ask a question. "I don't know much about comets," he admits. "What else?"
Minseok shrugs. "Rocks? Dust? Gas? I'm pretty sure I was zoned out on a summoning when we covered comets in class."
"Don't look at me," Lu Han says. "If you were zoned out, I was probably trying to get you out of there."
"I didn't go to your fancy high school in Esthar," Kyungsoo says, "but you do realise that gas and fire are not a safe combination?"
Baekhyun's fingers tighten their grip, and Kris squeezes back, waiting for an explosion to shred the sky. Chanyeol's still out there, hovering far enough from the tornado to avoid being drawn in, but too close to escape if...
No explosion is forthcoming, though the tornado does undergo a startling transformation. Sehun's new materia has different flavours, it seems.
"You were saying something about ice?" Kris says to Minseok, figuring he's their resident expert on the subject.
Minseok gives up, shaking his head wearily. "And comets. Not tornadoes."
The formerly-burning funnel of ice begins its descent, a slow, controlled spiral down to the ground. It's like nothing Kris has ever seen before: a frozen cone of dirty white and blue, tail end sharpened to a fearsome point. It looks ready to stab its way through to the planet's core. He's not sure if that's an improvement or not, but at least Chanyeol no longer appears to be in any danger of being caught in an explosion.
Fire and ice don't mix. A few moments later, a thump from above signals Chanyeol dropping down to the deck in human form, and he reappears on the bridge shortly afterwards to be greeted by a flurry of questions. His attempts to answer them all simultaneously don't get him anywhere, so Kris shuts everyone up with a: "Hey!"
They all turn to look at him expectantly, including Chanyeol. Kris sighs. "Not you. Keep talking."
"It's incredible!" Chanyeol starts again. "I didn't go low enough to see exactly what Sehun was doing, but that's him, all the"—he swirls his fingers next to his face in a mock-tornado—"twister stuff. It's slowing down the comet."
True, the ice funnel does seem to be descending a lot slower than Kris would expect for something that looks like it should be crashing straight down to the ground.
"How big is it?" he asks. "It's hard to tell from in here."
"Not that big? Maybe half the size of the shop we were in earlier? I couldn't see how much of it burned up, though."
"I hope enough for it not to take out the entire town when it hits," Kris says darkly. "Maybe Jongin can teleport it somewhere else."
"I'll ask him," Lu Han says. He closes his eyes, and Kris can tell the instant he makes contact with Jongin by the smile that brightens his face. After a few moments he opens his eyes again. "Jongin says Sehun has it all under control."
"Jongin says or Sehun says?" Baekhyun asks, pointedly giving voice to the question Kris is willing to bet they're all thinking.
Lu Han has no trouble being indignant on his partner's behalf. "Jongin says, and if he thought otherwise he'd have done something about it by now. He showed me some images of Sehun using his new materia before Jongdae called the comet; apparently it has four different modes, and we've just seen two of them."
"Four?" Chanyeol drops to his knees by the window, peering out with eager curiosity.
Lu Han counts them off on his fingers. "The first one's a regular tornado, then there's the fire one, the ice one, and—"
"And the earth one," Kyungsoo says, filling in the final item on the list, and sure enough, the column of ice is transforming again, darkening shards shattering into dun-coloured clumps that circle what remains of the comet, barely visible in the middle of the maelstrom.
The light from the town is too faint for them to see much; more flickers of movement than anything else. Still, as far as Kris can make out, it's even slower now, all its propulsion sacrificed to Sehun's control. Lower, lower, lower. It sinks beneath the tops of the tallest trees at barely a crawl, and then...nothing.
"Anticlimactic," Lu Han says when Sehun, Jongin and Jongdae materialise on the bridge seconds later, Sehun looking extraordinarily pleased with himself, Jongdae looking worried, and Jongin looking like he's about ready for bed.
"Better anticlimactic than calamitous," Sehun retorts, and settles down with his delayed dinner. "There's a nice pile of earth sitting in the clearing over there that'll probably mystify the locals, but we didn't break anything. Much."
Jongin elaborates for him. "Sehun's first few attempts took out a couple of trees."
"His gardening skills always were terrible," Lu Han says.
"Better than I would've done if that comet had landed." Jongdae leans heavily against the wall, sliding down until he reaches the floor. "I found the smallest piece of debris I could to pull down, but I don't have any control over the speed." His voice is tight, more subdued than usual. He accepts the bottle of water Chanyeol hands him with a grateful smile and takes a long swallow before continuing. "That materia, it let me... It was like I finally..."
"Finally?" Kris prompts.
Jongdae's expression of worry is momentarily overshadowed by one of sheer wonder. "I finally got to go into space. Not all of me, just enough to feel what's out there, and pull down a tiny piece of it. But once it's in motion, that's it—it was on a course straight for me. I tried to direct it somewhere else, but it's hard to move."
"Maybe you if you had more practice?"
Jongdae only shakes his head at Chanyeol's suggestion. "Probably, but I'm not in a rush to make myself a target again tonight. Sehun was able to divert it, but honestly? It's going to be too slow to use in a fight, anyway. I'll stick to electrocuting things."
He shrugs off questions from the others, keeping to himself as he eats, gaze fixed on the night sky. Kris wants... Well, Kris wants a lot of things. For the world to be safe. For his friends not to die trying to save it. For answers. None of which he's going to get tonight. He stands up, squeezing Jongdae's shoulder in passing, and tries to sound like he knows what he's doing.
"It's been a long day," he begins, and the blatant understatement earns him a chorus of laughter. "Tomorrow's going to be worse. We're leaving as soon as it's light enough to fly, and we're all going to have to be ready for..." He sighs, not knowing what they'll have to face, if it'll be better or worse this time around. "For anything. We've all got our memories back, even if they're still sort of scrambled, and we know what we can do with the abilities and weapons we have now. It ended badly for us last time, so let's try to figure out what we can do differently this time, maybe get ourselves a happy ending for once."
"Please tell me you're not going to go around the room and make us offer suggestions," Lu Han says.
"I'm not," Kris says, and Jongin, now wedged in next to Lu Han, looks relieved that none of them will be put on the spot. "But I want everyone to think about this, and if anyone has any ideas at all—even if you think they're stupid—to share them. There has to be some way we can win this."
"We didn't travel all this way to lose again," comes a voice from the doorway. It's Joonmyun, with Zitao at his side. Kris has no idea how long they've been standing there listening but he appreciates the encouragement. "I can probably do more to shield all of us now."
"I could maybe teleport monsters away from us?" Jongin offers. "If they stay still long enough. They probably won't, but—"
"But I can make them stop for you," Zitao says.
"And it looks like I can now barbecue them while I blow them away," says Sehun. "That should stop them from coming back."
Always helpful, Kris thinks, but lack of fire's never been their problem. "We've got some different offensive and defensive capabilities this time around," he agrees, "but our task is to save the Tree of Life. We could kill every monster in the vicinity and it'd still be dying. Let's assume we manage to fight our way through to it and can keep the monsters off our backs long enough to help—how do we do that?"
Yixing still looks like he's not really registering the conversation when he speaks up, which doesn't necessarily mean he isn't; he sounds sad rather than distracted. "I tried to heal it last time. It wasn't enough; the damage was too great."
"So we have to hope the tree's not too far gone when we get there?" Zitao asks.
"Or you could just hope that my new Fullcure materia lives up to its name?" Yixing says. "It worked on Chanyeol. He's not as big as a tree, of course..."
That sparks off a fit of giggles in Baekhyun; Kris fixes him with a glare before any comments about climbing Chanyeol can emerge from his mischievous mouth and derail the discussion. They might be getting somewhere here.
"It's stronger than your Restore materia?" he checks with Yixing.
Yixing nods. "Much stronger. It feels like having a piece of myself back."
All of Yixing hadn't been enough before, but he'd been dividing his time between healing the Tree of Life and healing the wounded, and perhaps things will be different if they can buy him space to focus. Kris certainly doesn't have any better options to bring to the table. "Then we go with that," he says. "We'll get you there and keep the monsters off your back while you work."
Same as last time, really, even if the mechanics are different. Kris hopes for a better result second go around. Between them, they toss around a few more ideas for possible tactics, and spend a while poring over the map. They'll definitely reach the tree tomorrow, Jongdae confirms—short of any further airship problems or surprise attacks, anyway—and that, Kris realises when he finally calls the meeting to a close, means this is most likely the last night of their lives.
One way or another. Even if they survive, everything will change. With so much damage inflicted on their world, it has to.
He picks up his empty cartons and prods Baekhyun and Chanyeol into helping him clear up the detritus from dinner, leaving the others to make their own way out in a slow, sombre trickle. Lu Han leaves with Jongin, of course; Kris assumes the other former Summons will manage to find themselves cabins for the night if they haven't already.
Of course, it helps that two of them appear to have moved in with him.
"I thought you said this bed wasn't big enough for the three of us to stay in all night?" he says to Chanyeol later, when they're back in his cabin.
"I changed my mind," Chanyeol says, perched on the edge of the bed while he waits for Kris to decide where he wants to lie. "It's big enough as long as none of us move around much."
"Or breathe," Baekhyun adds. Not bothering to wait for the others, he flops himself down on the right side of the bed, and deliberately swings his legs diagonally across it. "But we wouldn't want you to be alone the night before the end of the world."
Kris smirks down at him, knowing full well that as usual, Baekhyun's using the guise of doing someone else a favour to conceal the fact that he's serving his own purposes. "You're so considerate."
"Aren't I?" Baekhyun says archly.
"If you were that considerate you'd stop taking up all the space." Chanyeol grabs Baekhyun's ankles and drags them across the mattress to clear enough room for himself and Kris. He takes the middle, leaving the left side for Kris. "At least we'll be too penned-in to accidentally kick each other."
Kris winces at an old memory of bruised shins and takes his place on the left. Chanyeol's warmth soaks into him almost immediately, the tight quarters giving their cabin a temperature advantage over the airship at large, and there's definitely no need for any of the winter gear they've acquired. They're down to T-shirts and underwear and it's comfortable, none of the expectations or complications that Kris has encountered a time or two in this life with other people, back when he'd thought he was... Well, he'd thought he was someone else, and he'd turned out to be right, just possibly not in the way he'd been thinking of.
"What do you think happens afterwards?" Chanyeol asks, voice low and soft, like if he's quiet enough about it they'll never have to deal with it.
"Told you," Baekhyun says. "We start a band. Yixing can play with us too, and Jongin can dance at our concerts."
"I'm not sure concerts are really going to be everyone's first priority." Kris rolls onto his side and reaches across Chanyeol to tap Baekhyun's arm. He means to roll back, but ends up staying, curled protectively around them both, as far as he can stretch. He's missed this—missed being able to remember there's anything to miss. "More like rebuilding towns, planting crops... burying the dead."
"Fine," Baekhyun concedes. "But after that. Then we can go on a world tour and I can see all the places where I was never summoned."
"You don't want to try to find a way back to your own world?"
"And go back to having Lu Han and Minseok as bosses?" Baekhyun gives an exaggerated shudder. "I don't think I'll miss that. I'm not Minseok—I don't have much of a reason to return."
"Neither do I, I guess," Chanyeol says.
Kris has no idea how they'd even begin to go about travelling to another world—that's more Jongdae's department, being from Rocket Town—but that doesn't mean he wouldn't be willing to try for them. "You didn't even get to leave your village and explore your own world before you got stuck here."
"Everyone who's important to me is here." Chanyeol rubs his head against Kris's shoulder, there not being room for much else. "So now this is my world too."
"Sap," is Baekhyun's fond retort, like he's not just as invested in the twelve of them staying together as anyone else in the group.
"Yeah, but you like it," Chanyeol fires back.
And maybe it's finally Kris's world too.
This ruined, chaotic mess of a world that's never quite been his home, where he's lived a dozen lives under a dozen names in search of the one that feels like him. He's found that now, with the name he's chosen to keep and the friends he's recovered from a lifetime ago, with the surfeit of memories swimming around inside his mind and the knowledge of everyone he's ever been. He's tried to ignore life, with little success, and to court death, with even less; only now, with the world dying around him, does he feel like this is who and where he's supposed to be.
"You're both saps," Kris says, then squeezes them in as tight a one-armed hug as he can manage without cracking anyone's ribs.
Baekhyun puts up with it for all of a few seconds before wriggling free, complaining about Kris's fingers leaving bruises on his side. Kris eases off. He's made his point, even if he's not always very good at doing so with words. It's embarrassing to say that kind of thing to Baekhyun, especially now he's been effectively toting Baekhyun around in his sword for months. Chanyeol on his own... Well, that's a little easier, or it used to be, but it's never been about Kris and Chanyeol, or Kris and Baekhyun, or Chanyeol and Baekhyun. This, whatever it is, is about all three of them. They've shared life and death together once already—quite literally, after all being killed by the same monster—and they'll do the same again with whatever time remains to them.
After all, there's no mural on a temple wall in this life to tell them how things will play out, no elders to give them cryptic hints about securing their future. Who's to say history will repeat itself? Maybe last time had been a battle they'd never been intended to win, and this, now, is the real thing. One last go to get it right, where the only way to secure their future is to fight for it with everything they have.
But if history does repeat itself?
"If we die tomorrow," Kris says, and almost stops when he sees Chanyeol's face fall, "do you think you can bring us back again?"
"You want a third go at this?" Baekhyun asks, incredulous.
Kris sighs, not even wanting a second go. "No, but Chanyeol brought us back last time. I don't see any reason why it couldn't happen again."
"Years later, in two different worlds, without our memories," Chanyeol says unhappily. "I'd leave that out of the battle plan."
"I am." Any battle plan predicated on the possibility of resurrection is doomed from the start, Kris thinks. "Just... You've got your power back now. You don't need someone to summon you to use it. So you could do it, if you had to."
"If I had to."
They're pressed close enough together that Kris can feel the tension mounting in Chanyeol's body, limbs stiff against his skin. To be sure, it's an unpleasant subject, and Kris can't blame him for not wanting to discuss it. They should be resting, preparing for the no-doubt trying day to come, not upsetting each other with worst case scenarios. Kris has heard what he needed to hear. He can afford to drop the subject.
"So, about this band you want us to form?" he says to Baekhyun. "What kind of music did you have in mind?"
"What makes you think you get to join?" Baekhyun says, but he's grinning, and when he launches into an impression of Kris rapping, Chanyeol's laughter fills the cabin.
-----
It's early afternoon when they find the Tree of Life. The flight is mostly quiet, long spells of subdued worry occasionally interrupted by someone suggesting battle tactics or speculating on what kind of monsters they might face. Kris spends some time down in the stables with Ace, giving him a good ruffle behind the wings while murmuring affectionate nonsense at him, earning some peculiar looks from a passing Kyungsoo. There's only so much preparation they can do; distracting himself with his feathered friend is far more pleasant than driving himself into the ground dreaming up hypothetical battle scenarios.
He's up on the deck with most of the others when they reach their destination, Jongdae's announcement over the intercom that they're almost there coming only moments before Chanyeol spots the Tree of Life.
Joonmyun's holding his copy of the map traced from Nibelheim's basement library, looking thoughtfully at their route, which he's been marking out as they go. "The map seems to have been accurate about the geographical features so far," he says. "Pity it missed out such a major one."
The tree itself is much as it appears on the map, with one crucial difference: on the ground below, it's growing in the middle of a giant crater.
Lu Han takes one peek at the tree, and promptly sits down on the deck with his back against the rails and his arms folded. "I'm not climbing down that."
"I can get you there," Jongin offers. "If I can see somewhere to set you down."
"I think you're going to have to do that for all of us," Kris says. "We can't land in that crater."
Only the top of the tree is visible, twisted branches smeared with red dust and dotted with dry, crumpled leaves. It's almost as wide as the crater, spanning most of the gap between the walls and leaving little room for the Highwind to venture in. They'll have to land nearby and make their way down—indeed, Jongdae appears to be doing just that, as the airship begins a gradual descent, slowly approaching the crater.
That descent comes to an abrupt halt when a wave of monsters emerge over the lip of the crater. They're still too high up for Kris to discern details, but he doesn't need a closer to look to confirm the fury of the beasts below. They charge away from the crater, some running, some flying, all of them intent on destruction.
Jongdae calls for Jongin over the intercom and Jongin teleports to the bridge, returning a few moments later to explain. "Jongdae wants to park us somewhere we're less likely to be overrun, and then I can take us to the crater now that I've seen where it is. In case... you know."
In case they survive and need the airship to get away, Kris surmises, but no one wants to say it. Even if he'd been a betting man, he wouldn't put money on their chances. The monsters are mostly going north, so the Highwind flies south, retracing their path enough to make them less of an obvious target and landing behind a small hill. Once they're down, everyone gathers on the deck, weapons at the ready, faces a mix of fear and determination.
Kris rubs the back of his neck, grinning awkwardly at the rest of the group when they turn to look at him. "We had enough speeches last night and I don't want to waste any more time on words, so let's just go."
"You all know what you can do," Joonmyun adds with an encouraging smile. "Remember why you're here, and that you're not alone in this fight. If we work together, we can accomplish anything, so let's stick to the plan we discussed and see this through to the end."
"Just like old times," Kris mutters as the speech elicits a quick round of applause—some of it sarcastic—and Joonmyun's smile only widens.
Not so much like old times is being teleported to the lip of a crater. Chanyeol overbalances upon landing, saved from falling by Zitao's quick reflexes, and an unsteady Lu Han drops to a crouch.
Kris scans the vicinity for monsters and sees none, but his relief only lasts until he looks into the crater itself. "There's another wave coming up! Jongin, can you see the ground to get us down?"
Jongin shakes his head, regarding the monsters with alarm as he leans over the edge. "Too many of them in the way."
Some of them are flying straight up; others seem to be working their way along a rough path that winds around the inside, and the more dexterous are settling for climbing the walls. It's impossible to get a clear view through the horde of monsters.
Kris unsheathes his sword, weirdly barren without the Summon materia he's carried so long. "Okay, then let's make some space!"
"Already on it," Sehun says. A small whirlwind appears at the start of the path and knocks aside every creature it encounters, sending them flying—sometimes into each other, mostly down to the floor.
"How is that helping?" Jongin asks him. "Now I can't see the ground at all!"
Sehun shrugs. "No, but you can see most of the path. It'll be easier to get rid of these guys on the ground than from up here."
He has a point. Kris stabs a Formula missed by the whirlwind and gestures towards the path. "Everyone, get in line. Jongin, get us as far down as you can."
Jongin does, a few at a time since the path isn't that wide, and they end up about ten feet above the floor of the crater with a seething mass of monsters below them. Jongdae fries those nearest them with bolts of lightning, making them easy pickings for Jongin to teleport out of the way, along with those Minseok freezes.
Lu Han blanches upon seeing he's still not at ground level. "Try not to hit me!" he calls out, then races, magic sword in hand, straight down the path. Chunks of gore fall in his wake, leaving the rest of them to pick their way down more cautiously.
Baekhyun glares after him, face twisting at the mess. "That's revolting."
"No judging yet," Kris cautions him. "Save your strength for the next wave. I think this one's covered."
Joonmyun uses some of the spilt blood to create another one of those creepy shields and ushers Yixing behind it. This time, the Water Ring is on his left hand, held straight out before him with the gelatinous purple sheet emanating from its centre. The pistol in his right hand, with the Shield materia equipped, he uses to target monsters that Lu Han can't reach.
Kris meets his eyes and nods. They'll keep Yixing in the middle, protected between them. Not because Yixing can't fight, but because if they can't get him to the Tree of Life in one piece, they might as well give up right now.
"Path's as clear as it's going to get!" Kris waves the others forward. "Let's head for the tree and defend from there!"
Progress is slow, hampered by a stream of attacks from anything still standing, until Kyungsoo picks up a giant slab of earth and slams it, plus all the monsters standing on it at the time, into a wall. That leaves them with an uneven floor, but fewer adversaries. Jongin tries to peer over the remainder to get a good look at the space around the tree. Even though he's one of the taller members of the group, he doesn't get anywhere with it. Not until Chanyeol picks him up, letting Jongin ride on his shoulders, and that's it, Yixing and Joonmyun wink out, reappearing at the base of the tree's enormous trunk.
Kris reaches them seconds later. Up close, the damage is even more disturbing: rotting bark full of holes where red dust leaks out and littered with leaf fragments. The air feels sick and putrid and wrong; Kris wants to hold his breath and keep it as far away from himself as possible, like if he breathes it in, he'll be the one shedding diseased skin and hair, flaking away inch by contaminated inch while his body rots.
Yixing crouches down at the base of the trunk, staff in hand, and gets to work with Joonmyun covering him from the front, Jongdae on one side and Lu Han on the other. Lightning flashes from Jongdae's lance; Lu Han's sword is equally bright, the blood dripping from the blade by no means dulling the shining blue scimitar.
The others slowly join them, forming a loose circle around the Tree of Life. Kris counts them in as he sees them, checking to ensure everyone's still present and in one piece. He's not leaving anyone behind.
Chanyeol's the last to arrive, temporarily hidden behind a wall of blinding light from Baekhyun, who sets everything in their path withering back into the ground. Even though he knows there's nothing he can do to keep them safe, Kris feels better for knowing where they are, at least, and when Chanyeol transforms and shoots up into the sky, there's no missing him, nor the fierce, fiery rays he sweeps across the crater.
It's an ugly battle, full of the scent of burning flesh, and the brittle snap of bones. There's no time to feel tired, or scared, even when Kris's muscles are screaming at him and every human cry has him fearing for his friends. They take out one wave of monsters, then the next, then the next. In the brief respite between waves, Kris looks back at Yixing. It's hard to tell if the healing magic is having any effect. One moment, it looks like the holes in the trunk are closing up. The next, they're just as bad as before. There's so much red dust swirling in the air that between that and all the debris created by their powers, it's becoming increasingly impossible to see clearly.
"Any luck?" Kris calls over his shoulder when the noise dies down between waves.
"Not much!" Yixing calls back. "The materia starts working, and the tree looks better, and then it has a relapse!"
Chanyeol, who's back on the ground again, overhears. "It worked for me!"
"You weren't being slowly poisoned over a period of months," Kris points out, and that's when it clicks for him.
Poison.
Yixing couldn't heal him with Restore materia when he was shot with a poisoned bullet—he could heal the bullet wound itself, but the effects of the poison had remained, at least until Kris had transformed into a dragon. The Tree of Life can't transform, but maybe...
Kris takes advantage of the momentary lull in the battle to drop back to the tree. He crouches down besides Yixing, looking hopefully at the item pouch hanging at his side. "You have any Antidotes left?"
"Antidotes?" Yixing turns away from the tree to give Kris a confused look. "Are you poisoned?"
"Not me." Kris taps the trunk with the tip of his sword. "The Tree of Life. Restore materia doesn't help with poison, right? Maybe Fullcure's the same. It seems like you're healing some of the damage, but you can't cure it for good because it's being poisoned by the red dust. That make sense?"
"A surprising amount." Yixing lowers his staff and reaches for his pouch. "I only have one left. We haven't really had much of an opportunity to restock."
He sprinkles the Antidote around the trunk, eking it out a few drops at a time to cover as much as he can. The bark glows where the liquid lands, and when it fades, the awful red dust has receded.
"It's going!" Kris allows himself to hope that maybe, this is what they were missing last time, a form of magic that had never existed in his previous life. He grins at Yixing in excitement, only to feel his blood turn to ice when Yixing fails to share his elation. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure." Yixing squints at the tree. "It might just be slow to act."
Kris divides his attention between the tree and the circle of friends around them. Everyone looks tired and battered, but by no means ready to admit defeat, and he's not seeing any serious wounds. They're surviving. There's still time.
The rot doesn't appear to be worsening, but neither does it appear to be healing. The tree looks no healthier. The longer Kris watches, the less he thinks it ever will. Perhaps they're too late, and the damage is already beyond repair.
The noise of boots wading through monster guts startles him. He looks up to find Chanyeol approaching, expression pensive.
"It's still dying, isn't it?"
Kris shrugs. "Maybe. It sure isn't looking any better." He calls out to the others, to check if anyone else has any Antidotes they've been keeping to themselves, but no one does. "It's not enough," he says, finally, heart heavy in his chest. "If we can't cure the poison, we can't heal the tree."
"I tried the Restore materia as well," Yixing says. "Just in case. But Restore can only return the patient to the condition they were in before—not eliminate the poison. The tree could be in perfect health and the poison would continue to drain it of life."
"We can't restore it to the state it was in before"—Kris waves a hand, gesturing at the red spores clinging to the tree—"all this, can we?"
"Zitao can stop time, but unless things have radically changed since our previous incarnation, he can't turn it back," Yixing says. "I don't know how else you'd even begin to accomplish that."
A fresh wave of enemies puts paid to their discussion for the moment, leaves falling from the tree and morphing into monsters before they can so much as blink. Kris loses himself in battle while Yixing continues his efforts with the Tree of Life. His movements are almost automatic now, however, and in the back of his mind, he mulls over a tiny spark of an idea, grasping at the concepts he needs to flesh it out into a plan.
By the time the monsters have been dealt with, he thinks he's more or less there—but it's not something he can decide alone. Not when it's more likely to kill them all than save the world.
Kris calls everyone in close and quickly sums up the situation for everyone not near enough to see Yixing's attempts with the Antidote.
"So now what?" Baekhyun asks. "We keep fighting for eternity while Yixing keeps the tree just on the edge of death? Great plan."
"That's not the plan." Kris sighs, and beckons Chanyeol to his side. "This is the plan."
"Me?" Chanyeol touches a hand to his chest. "I'm the plan?"
"You are if you agree to it. New plan is: we don't save the tree. We kill it instead." It takes a moment for Kris to silence the resulting clamour, and he glares at them all before continuing: "And then we save it."
"Chanyeol saves it," Joonmyun states, and Kris nods.
"Yeah. Like... Like he saved Sehun."
"But I had Final Attack materia equipped," Sehun points out. "That's what called Chanyeol out."
Lu Han, who probably knows more than any of them about what Summons—or former Summons—can do, gives Chanyeol a speculative look. "But Chanyeol can transform into the phoenix any time he likes now he's got his memories back. In the past, it seems like he saved us all that way—even if it ended up with us being reborn. Who's to say he can't do the same for the Tree of Life? It's a living thing, isn't it?"
"How do we even go about killing something that big?" Jongin says, looking up at the massive expanse of branches above them. "It's way too wide for us to cut it down."
Kris spreads his hands. "I'm open to suggestions."
Kyungsoo offers to uproot it, but there's not really enough room in the crater for him to do it without endangering them all, and setting it on fire is discounted for the same reason. Jongin says he can't get a lock on it to try to teleport it anywhere more convenient. As they work through their powers, rejecting each one in turn, Kris wonders if maybe they will have to resort to cutting it down, if he and Lu Han will have to try to saw through it with their swords, or if Jongin can maybe teleport somewhere to fetch some axes.
And then Jongdae speaks up. "You know what I did last night, with the Comet materia? I could maybe try that again, without Sehun slowing it down. It's risky, but it ought to be big enough to do the job. We should kill it in one blow, right? Not do something that takes a while, in case Chanyeol does his thing too early by mistake."
Chanyeol agrees. "It sounds like the only way. I don't know if I can time it that precisely on purpose, though!"
Baekhyun slaps him on the back in cheerful encouragement. "You'll be great. And if you miss, we won't even know about it!"
"He's not going to miss," Kris says firmly. "He's going to time it exactly right, and the Tree of Life will be reborn, and..." He trails off, having no idea what could possibly come after that. The end of the world? The beginning of a new one?
"And we'll worry about the rest later," Minseok finishes for him. "If there is a later."
"That's not exactly encouraging." Jongdae twirls his lance until the Comet materia is closest to the sky. "I'm going to need everyone to get out of the way. I don't know what I'll find up there to pull down, or how big it'll be, but if I can get something large enough to pulverise the tree in one go, it'll be too dangerous for anyone to be down in the crater. I'll have to stay; I couldn't do much to change the comet's course last night and there's definitely no time to practise."
"I'll get everyone else out," Jongin says. "But if you have to stay down here, I'll stay too and teleport us out before it hits."
Lu Han looks like he's about to protest, but Kris beats him to it. "The branches might be skeletal but they're still too dense for you to see anything through them—you won't be able to tell when the comet's close. We'll have to do this from above. I can fly us out in time."
Sehun frowns at him. "Something that big, by the time it's near enough to the ground that it won't change course to follow Jongdae, you won't be able to control your flight, and you'll be moving, so Jongin can't teleport you."
"I'm not that great at hovering in place," Kris admits. "I'll have to move at least a little. Can you divert the comet like you did last night?"
"Probably not if it's something big enough to take out the entire tree in one go." Sehun brightens. "I'm pretty sure I can grab you, though. I can't promise an easy ride, but none of you get airsick, right?"
"I don't get airsick," Jongdae says, "but I don't really have much experience riding a dragon, either, much less in the middle of a tornado."
Baekhyun has a solution. "Then hold on to me. Kris has never been able to shake me off."
"Not for lack of trying," Kris mutters, but he doesn't mean it, and Baekhyun's cocky grin says he's well aware of that.
"Then it's a plan," Joonmyun says. "Does everyone agree?"
They do, because it's not as if there are any alternatives. Jongin teleports out of the crater, taking most of the others with him and with strict instructions to get them all out of range when it becomes necessary. Jongdae stands as close to the trunk as he can before using his materia. It's a little unsettling, watching his eyes unfocus as his mind reaches out to the stars, searching for something to be their salvation. He doesn't speak until he finds it, when he blinks once and comes back to them.
"I—I found it," he says, relieved and sad all at once.
Baekhyun inspects him closely. "Are you crying?"
Jongdae wipes a hand over his eyes. "I found it," he says again, firmer this time, but the tears don't stop, and Chanyeol hugs him until they do.
"We should get going," Kris says. "Chanyeol, are you coming up with us or on your own?"
"With you," Chanyeol says. "For as long as I can."
And then Kris is the one being hugged, with Chanyeol on one side of him and Baekhyun on the other, and it's desperate and frantic and all kinds of wonderful because nothing adds intensity quite like knowing you're probably all about to die, and knowing that if it happens, at least you'll be together, and not left to carry on alone.
Kris hugs them back, twice as fierce. "We'll get through this," he murmurs. "We're going to survive, and then you're going to form that band of yours and we'll rebuild the world with your music."
"Our music," Baekhyun says. "I've been thinking it wouldn't be so bad to have a rapper in the group."
"You might've figured out how to save the world," Chanyeol adds, laughing. "The least we can do is let you be in our band."
It'll never happen, of course, and Kris knows that, but... "I'd like that."
Jongdae gives a deliberately loud cough. "I'd love to stay and talk about this project of yours but if we're going to go up, we should do it soon. I don't know how much time we have."
They separate so Kris can transform. He knows how to do it now, how to make the Transform materia work for him, and he lies down to let them climb on his back: Baekhyun first, then Jongdae, then Chanyeol behind them where it'll be easier for him to take off on his own. It's a relief to be in the air again, squeezing past the tree and out of the crater into the open space above where the bulk of the carnage is hidden from sight. Kris tries to keep above the trunk as much as he can, flying in tight circles that have Baekhyun whooping in enjoyment.
Even though Jongdae's more accustomed to mechanical flying methods than organic ones, he acquits himself well, not digging in with his heels too much as he rides, and he doesn't complain. When he does stiffen up, though, Kris notices immediately, and Baekhyun lets out a yelp. The comet must have arrived.
Kris risks a look above, only to find that the comet isn't anything like what he'd been expecting. It isn't a comet at all, in fact.
It's a rocket.
It's still a long way off, but it's coming in fast, nose first. This rocket is nothing like the rusted hulk that stands at the entrance to Rocket Town. It's all sleek, dark metal, a deadly dart aimed at the heart of the Tree of Life. Its trajectory wavers as they continue to circle, never straying too far from the target, and Kris tries to keep one eye on the sky. He hopes Sehun is doing the same.
"I'm going up," Chanyeol says, before the rocket has come much closer. "And I have an idea for what our band's first song should be about."
"Tell us when we're all together!" Baekhyun calls back to him, and then Chanyeol's weight is gone from Kris's back, with the phoenix streaming brightly away.
Closer, closer, closer... There's no good way to judge how close is too close. Not from the air. All Kris can see above is the rocket racing towards them, now grey and red, with letters emblazoned down one side. S...H...E...R...A SHERA?
He can't spare the concentration to wonder about it. It's as much as he can do to fight the disruption of the air currents. Another minute? Is that too long? How much time can they afford to wait?
It seems like an eternity before Jongdae yells "Go!" and Kris is slow to react, too caught up in his own worries about timing. He pulls away, trying to dive straight on a path to land them away from the crater, but he's at the wrong angle, buffeted by the winds and dizzy from the constant circling. Baekhyun's screaming at him to right himself and he does, eventually. Jongdae's screaming too, even though they're not flying sideways anymore. Kris wishes he could speak in dragon form. He roars into the wind, letting it steal the sound, and that's when Sehun catches them.
It's no less dizzying being snatched up by a cyclone, even one moving at a fraction of its regular speed. Sehun whirls them away but they're still in the air when the rocket collides with the Tree of Life.
Kris knows the exact moment of the collision because it's the same time they fall from the sky, limbs growing numb and thoughts becoming sluggish. He can't draw breath, but it doesn't seem to matter to his lazy, hazy brain, any more than the fading of his heartbeat. Is he still a dragon? He's not sure. If he has a body, he can barely feel it, much less the presence of anyone who might've been riding on his back. He'll fall, and he'll fall, and he'll fall, and when he lands, there will be nothing left of him to care.
The world grows dark, but one thing remains bright in his blurred vision: a streak of light, diving into the remains of the Tree of Life and then soaring towards the stars.
The phoenix rises again.