Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kris never tells anyone his real name. He's a sword for hire, working for anyone who can pay his fees - his clients need to know his skills, but they don't need to know his name. He tells himself it's because it's safer that way, and it probably is, in these troubled times. Sounds a lot better than admitting he's not even sure which name's real, if any of them truly are.

It gives him distance, too. His two companions, Lay and Kai, aren't using their real names either - they say they're not, that they don't actually know them, and he has no reason to doubt them. The less they know about each other, the less it will hurt when one of them dies - at least, that's the plan, not that any of them are planning on dying any time soon. Not before they get paid. That's what this little arrangement is all about, as far as he's concerned: the money. Cold, hard cash, as much of it as they can get before the weird red veil that's creeping over the sky covers the entire planet and it's every man for himself against who knows what.

The sky's been tainted red like that for as long as he can remember, though it used to be more blue. The red encroaches further each day; Kris thinks he's probably imagining things, but he's sure the red recedes a little sometimes, like the day he found a Summon materia at the Great Glacier and it turned out to be an eyeliner-wearing imp with the power of Light. It doesn't matter. In the end, nothing will matter, but Kris intends to be as prepared as he can before that end comes.

"I heard something interesting this evening," Lay says, as Kris emerges from the bathroom of the tiny room the three of them are sharing for the night.

Kai snickers: generally, unless they're in a fight, Lay's awareness of his surroundings is less than optimal. In fact, if no one else keeps an eye on him, he tends to get sidetracked and wander off alone. It's a minor miracle he hasn't gotten himself killed yet. They have a vested interest in keeping him alive, however, because when it comes to healing Lay's the only one with the right materia, and Kai manages to acquire injuries on a regular basis.

Besides, Kris kind of likes the guy - even if Lay does have a way of getting him into trouble sometimes. He hopes this isn't going to be one of them. "Interesting?"

"You remember asking me about resurrection, and I said that even the most powerful Magic materia can't bring you back to life?" Lay carefully sets his staff next to his side of the bed, where he can grab it instantly in the event of intruders. "There might be something that can."

Kris lies down on the other side of the bed, next to Kai; when the three of them have to share, he and Lay insist on Kai sleeping in the middle - firstly because he's the youngest and they feel obliged to look after him, and secondly because when he's wearing his gauntlets he can teleport, and can therefore escape without clambering over them. "A magical item?"

Lay shakes his head. "A particular Summon materia. The soldiers I overheard were talking about it at the bar - I don't know who it summons but apparently you can use it to bring back the dead."

"Is there someone you want to bring back to life?" Kai asks Kris.

"Yeah." Kris doesn't elaborate. He's not quite sure how to say that the person he wants to bring back is himself. They talk, Kai and Lay, about being alive before, and those are conversations he wants no part of, not when he's not even certain about his own past. "Did they give any details?"

"I only caught the end of the conversation," Lay says. "I wasn't really paying attention until someone dropped a glass behind me."

No surprise there. Kris elbows Kai to make him stop rolling his eyes and makes encouraging noises until Lay continues. "They were talking about someone who died - got crushed - at Fort Condor last week and disappeared the next day. A giant phoenix appeared over the fort that night and by morning, the body and all traces of its death had vanished."

"A disappearing body isn't anything unusual," Kris points out.

"The body wasn't the only thing to go. The soldier telling the story said the fort's entire materia stash went too, including a Summon materia they hadn't managed to identify yet, and the scientist who was working on it."

"So the scientist stole the body." Kai sounds half-asleep already, burrowing into his pillow before Lay has even hit the light switch.

"And restored all the blood and crushed bone fragments to the corpse? Even I can't repair a body like that," Lay says.

Kris has seen the limits of what Lay can do with Restore materia - they're high, but not without gaps. In any case if the body was that badly damaged, why take it at all, much less clean up afterwards? It's weird enough that he's interested in following it up - it's not the first time he's heard rumours about a phoenix, and even if it's not much to go on, it's all he's got right now.

They got paid this morning, money hard-earned on a rescue job for a guy whose daughter had been snatched. They could go.

"You want to go up there, don't you?" Lay says. "We could. We don't have anything else lined up yet."

"I just love a wild phoenix chase." Kai's grumble is more sleepy than petulant. He's looking for pieces of his past too, Kris knows. He won't find them by standing still - and that's why he'll keep going, following wherever Kris chooses to lead them.

"I don't expect you to come with me." Kris feels obliged to say it every time, as if the others hadn't already made their choice, as if they hadn't been the ones to approach him. He doesn't want to take anyone down with him who hasn't signed up to be there. "There's nothing in it for you."

"If there really is materia in this world that can revive the dead, I'd like to find it myself. I...I had someone too." Lay reaches over and pats Kris's hand under the blankets, fingers comforting in the dark. It's a healer's touch, nothing more.

Kris swallows down a question. This isn't his business; he doesn't need to know.

Lay answers him anyway."It's probably too late for her, but it might not be too late for someone else."

Lay's lost lady might be a sister, a mother, a friend...but sadness has its own range of colours, and Kris understands the spectrum well. A girlfriend, then; perhaps something more, one day, but no longer. He returns the pat, long arm stretching easily over Kai, then holds his hands flat against his thighs. He's painfully aware that he takes up more than his fair share of the bed.

"If you guys are going to make out, at least let me get out of the way first," Kai says.

"Should we invite you to join in?" Lay says, sounding almost considerate. "It would be rude not to."

Kai shudders so hard Kris can actually feel the mattress shaking. "Please go right ahead and be rude."

"Get some sleep." Kris has to interrupt them because if Kai doesn't get enough rest, he's going to be useless tomorrow. "I'm leaving for Fort Condor in the morning. Anyone who wants to join me is free to do so."

He leaves it up to them, but he knows that come morning, he won't be riding alone.

-----

Morning's a long way off when everything's red. Red and dying from it. Kris dreams of a great tree, standing tall and proud through a scarlet swarm while eleven shadowy figures try to dispel it. He's the twelfth, he knows - there, he looks down at his own silhouette, a gleaming ring on his hand the only detail he can see. Silver dragon wings stretch along his finger, a ring he's worn for years yet has never seen except in his dreams.

Nightmares, more like. Every time, the red forces engulf the tree and Kris loses sight of the others. There's nothing more to see, nothing left to feel except the pain of separation, of being torn apart from his comrades.

Kris doesn't dream every night, only the bad ones. Unfortunately, most nights are bad.

-----

After a light workout (more to wake up Kai than to loosen them up) and a hasty breakfast, the three of them go down to the stables, where their transport awaits. Kris ties a dark blue kerchief around the neck of his trusty white chocobo, Ace, who greets him with an affectionate headbutt to the chin. Lay and Kai ride the same yellow chocobos they acquired before they met him - caught or bought, he has no idea - but Ace is one of a kind, having met Kris by tripping over him while he was sleeping rough in the woods and settling down to nap beside him. Travelling by chocobo, Kris finds, is not exactly the height of luxury, but it sure beats walking.

It's a quiet ride at first, hazy blue skies at their back and red up ahead; a cool, calm morning.

Until the group of Capparwires appear out of nowhere and try to electrocute them.

Ace screeches to a halt and tries to turn, dumping Kris unceremoniously on the ground. (He still hasn't managed to train Ace out of spooking yet.) Lay comes to a more dignified halt, which lasts only as long as it takes for him to be hit by a Grand Spark attack, thin ropes of lightning lashing him across the arm he flings out to defend himself. Kai blinks in and out of sight, teleporting out of range - minus his chocobo. The unfortunate creature screams out a "Wark!" and makes a run for it.

Kris untangles his legs just in time to roll away from a series of sparks, propelling himself up and onto his feet. His sword stays sheathed, protected from the electrical attacks, but that doesn't leave him with much in the way of offense. None of them are equipped for range - Kai's body is his weapon; lithe, muscled limbs striking out with deadly precision - and Lay's staff only reaches so far. It'll have to be a Summon.

The glowing red materia's in the uppermost slot in the hilt of his sword, out of sight, but Kris doesn't need to see it to invoke the power within. The name alone is enough.

"Baekhyun!"

For a moment the Cappawires are hidden behind a curtain of blinding white light, their electrified tendrils worn and faded in comparison. Baekhyun's radiance outshines them all. Kris has to squint against the glare until it dims to a more manageable glow, surrounding a slender young man with dark hair and darker eyes. Baekhyun offers Kris a sly smile before turning his full attention to the Cappawires. They don't stand a chance, not when he has narrowed eyes and a face full of disdain.

He pronounces a single word: "Judgement". There's another wave of cold, brilliant light, and then the tree-like Cappawires are shrivelling up, shrinking into the ground until not even a single tendril can be seen. They're dangerous but not strong, and being judged by Baekhyun is usually fatal to lesser beings.

Sometimes he stays out to talk a little, but not this time; Kris imagines he can feel his sword grow heavier as Baekhyun returns to his orb to rest and recharge.

"Everyone okay?" Kris turns around to check on his party. "Lay? Kai?"

Kai's wayward chocobo is being firmly sat on by Ace, who looks about as smug as a chocobo possibly can. Lay's chocobo - being as placid and unflappable as the man himself - is still carrying his master, completely unperturbed by either the Cappawires or the luminous green light from the Restore spell Lay is casting to heal his wounds.

Kai's peering through the trees, keeping an eye out for anything else that might fancy a piece of them. "Okay!" he calls back.

"In a moment." Lay shakes his head at the set of charred stripes now ornamenting his sleeve - healing magic does nothing to restore damaged clothing - and rolls back the cloth to reveal smooth, unscarred skin, pale green glow just beginning to fade. "I'm ready to move."

Kris retrieves a very self-satisfied Ace so Kai can mount his chocobo again, and pets his feathery head. "Good boy, Ace, catching him like that. Who's a good boy? You are. Yes you are."

"Please stop making kissy faces at your chocobo." Kai pretends to gag. "He's obviously part sheepdog." But he gives Ace a good ruffle behind the wing, anyway.

It's not safe to linger in the woods. The trees are thick enough in some parts to keep them riding in single file; in others, burned out clearings bear marks of battles previously fought. None of the trees are anything like the one Kris sees in his dreams. He hopes it's still alive somewhere, though he suspects otherwise.

Their next encounter with Cappawires runs far smoother: there are only two, and Kris slices one in half before it can even think about generating a spark. The other one tries to run away - straight into Kai's fist. It's a very short fight.

Not so, the next one. A sudden flare of overwhelming heat turns the forest into a furnace, sending them all staggering back. Ace tries to turn around again but this time Kris is ready for him with hands and knees, and avoids taking a tumble.

Kai tugs at the neck of his already low-cut shirt, trying to cool himself. He's not fond of high temperatures. "I don't see any flames."

"That's because there's no fire," Lay says calmly. "We're being attacked by Nerosuferoths, I think."

The vicious, lizard-like creatures will roast them all alive if they don't manage to get clear. Another blast of heat has Kris's head reeling, feverish and dizzy to the point where all he wants to do is collapse in a heap on the dirt track and sleep - forever. There's no room to ride around, no gap large enough for them to slip through, even on foot.

It hasn't been long enough for him to recharge but Kris tries to call Baekhyun anyway. Before he can finish, Lay calls a Summon of his own.

"Minseok!"

A chill hits them so fast Kris feels like he's just had a glacier dropped on him. Freezing wind blows through the trees, leaving icicles in its wake, and in the middle of it all is a moonfaced young man, dressed in pale blue and frosted white. Minseok looks far too amiable to wield such wintry powers, yet he is as ruthless as Baekhyun when summoned to attack.

He draws raised arms down to his chest and extends them towards the Nerosuferoths, their green tails barely visible between the trees, with a cry of "Diamond Dust!" Icy shards sharper than swords slice trees and enemies alike to ribbons, littering the ground with a fine white powder. It's not even winter.

Minseok turns to beam at them all before vanishing back into the uppermost materia slot in Lay's staff. Kris resolves to acquire suitable attack Magic materia as soon as possible - none of them have Summons strong enough to use more than a few times per day, and he doesn't anticipate their journey becoming any easier. It's not often they have items containing offensive magic, either; they need a more readily available alternative to physical attacks.

Even after Minseok's disappearance the air remains chilled for another twenty minutes, keeping them cool as they ride. Nothing else makes a move on them, but Kris thinks it won't be long before whatever else is lurking in the woods decides that they look like targets. He spurs them on, pushing the chocobos as hard as they'll go through the narrow, treacherous path.

"It's getting worse, isn't it?" Kai asks when they take a water break. "The monsters, I mean. I know it's never been good, but I don't remember there being so many running around outside the towns."

"It's that red...stuff." Kris has no better word for it. 'Presence', maybe. 'Evil'. 'Terror'. Lay's told him what happened in Kalm, about how more monsters started appearing as the skies gradually turned red. He jerks a thumb up at the sky. "The further it spreads, the more monsters are on the loose."

"Looks like there won't be much of a world left, soon." Kai smiles bitterly, tucking his water bottle back in his bag. "You sure you want to be bringing people back from the dead? They might be better off where they are."

"I have to try," Kris says. He doesn't have much of a choice. "There's-" He cuts himself off; he's not sure if he wants to have this conversation or not but if he does, it's not going to be when they're on the road and at the mercy of whatever's creeping up on them.

Their next adversaries have no use for stealth, however, and introduce themselves with a steady stream of bullets. One strikes Kris high in the chest before he can seek cover; it's only thanks to Ace's speed that he avoids taking one in the head. (Being the tallest in the party has its disadvantages.)

Lay has him off Ace and flat on the grass before the pain even really registers. The three chocobos disappear from his field of vision; he hopes they haven't run too far. Not that there's anywhere to run, for now. The bullets are covering too much ground.

Kai crawls over beside them, keeping himself low. "How bad is it?"

"He's not dead?" Lay offers. "Yet. Can you handle whatever's shooting at us? I have to get these fragments out before I heal him, or he's going to end up with pieces of cloth embedded in his chest."

Kris would be reassured by how calm Lay sounds, except that Lay always sounds calm. Kris could be dying and the first he'd know about it would be on the other side. Lay rips his bloodstained green jacket open; the shirt beneath follows, laying his chest bare. Kris jerks at the tug on the wound, biting his lip to keep from crying out. It's not as bad as that gut shot last month but although his body's seen a lot of wear and tear lately, familiarity doesn't lessen the pain.

"Machines!" Kai has to shout over the noise, the rat-a-tat-tat of bullets and rumble of engines coming ever closer. "I can see them!" The Summon materia in his left gauntlet glows a bright, violent red - brighter than the blood that refuses to stop spilling over Kris's skin. There's a limit to how much he can spare before magic can no longer restore him to health.

Kai raises his gauntlet, calling, "Lu Han!"

An almighty crash drowns out the sound of gunfire: the armour of the elegant swordsman, Lu Han, sounds many times heavier than it looks when its owner wants to make a point. Appearances are deceiving, especially in Lu Han's case. Someone so slight, so seemingly harmless, should have no business carrying a curved blue scimitar longer than Kris's arm, much less using it to cleave his enemies in half.

If Baekhyun's disdainful face is terrifying when he passes judgement, Lu Han's smile is even worse - death hidden behind a mask of warmth and innocence, topped off with fluffy blond hair and packaged up in one slim, graceful young man whose eyes betray nothing of his true intentions. He has no magic - he needs none.

Bullets never reach him as he strides forwards, deftly turning each one aside with his blade until he stands before a quintet of Death Machines. Kris barely hears him say "Zantetsuken" before he leaps into action. The machines might as well be made of butter, for all the resistance they offer to Lu Han's scimitar; the blade slices easily through solid metal, chopping them first in halves, then in quarters, till there is nothing left to fire and the bullets have ceased. Lu Han dances between them, cape following like a shadow behind. He receives not a single scratch.

When the deadly dance comes to a close, Lu Han skips nimbly over the wreckage to rejoin Kai. He's still smiling but the smile's changed - now, it reaches his eyes, though only for Kai, who appears flustered by the sudden attention. He holds out his gauntlet; Lu Han gently clasps his gloved hand over it for a moment and disappears, returning to his inert state.

Kai frowns when he notices Kris watching and turns away. There's something there, and Kris tries to keep his mind on it because he needs it to distract him from the pain - and from the heat that's spreading from the wound in his chest, starting fires throughout his body that he's not at all sure he can extinguish.

"It's burning," he gasps out; Lay regards him curiously as he holds his staff over the entry wound.

"Burning?"

"Too...hot." Kris wishes Minseok was still around; the warmth coursing through him makes him feel nauseated. Perhaps if he can push himself up enough to turn over, even a little, and open his mouth...let it all out, this sweet, sickly burst of bitter caramel and burnt leaves. He's too weak to claw at his skin and scrape it out with his fingers. Heat twists strings of nausea around the pain, twining the two until Kris can barely feel where his real body ends and this mass of soft, candy-sweet agony begins.

"What's wrong with him?" Kai's there, kneeling beside him, anxiety written all over his face.

"He's been shot," Lay says.

"I know that! But doesn't he look...um...kind of..."

Lay nods. "I don't think it's his best look."

Kris has no idea what he looks like and thinks this is probably for the best, because if it's anything like how he feels, he has to be as monstrous a sight as some of the things they've been fighting. He can't even raise his head to look down at himself and check. Lay's staff is glowing now but the Restore spell doesn't appear to be having much effect. Maybe it's slow because of the blood loss. Maybe it's too late. Maybe he's going to throw up everything he's eaten for the past week and then his stomach won't feel like it's taking up too much space in his body.

Or maybe he's going to die.

"You're not going to die," Lay says, and Kris realises his internal monologue wasn't strictly internal. "But please don't be sick on me."

"How does a bullet give someone a black tongue?" Kai asks.

"When the bullet's poisoned." Lay's still calm, but there's a hard edge to his voice as he drops down to face Kris. "Restore materia doesn't cure poison and we're out of Antidotes. I can take care of the bullet wound but you're still going to feel ill until I can get to a pharmacy."

Kris grits his teeth and tries to will the Restore spell to work its magic on his damaged body. It sort of succeeds, in that the particularly agonising knots of pain where the bullet came and went are no longer the areas that hurt most, only the areas that began hurting first. He thinks he's stopped bleeding, though. He should feel strength returning to his body, the magic returning to him everything he's lost, but he only feels more drained. There's not much left, and what there is feels wrong. Tainted. Warped. Twisted.

Fear's an emotion Kris ignores by daylight, reserving it for his nightmares. By day he's a leader and whether the others like it or not, he feels responsible for them, like he has to keep up a brave front for their sake. He wants to do no less now. They mustn't see him crack.

So much for that plan. How can he be strong when his lifeforce is leaving him faster than Lay can replenish it? How can he be their fearless leader when he's not even sure who he is?

The fire inside flares up in his stomach, scorching its way through his nausea. Something's determined to burst out of him and he doesn't think it's breakfast. Despite his best efforts to keep his mouth shut he hiccups, accidentally shooting a small fireball which Lay has to dodge.

"What kind of poison has someone breathing fire?" Kai says, startled.

"I don't think that's an effect of the poison." Lay holds up Kris's arm. "Something else is changing his body."

Kris's vision is decidedly blurry but even he can see there's something not quite right with his hand. He doesn't normally keep his nails that long, nor that sharp. The skin peeking out from the ends of his fingerless gloves is no longer the colour of healthy flesh but nearly as black as the leather covering it - black and scaled. Feebly, he rubs his fingertips together. Those scales are hard.

"Claws." Kai's voice is a mix of fascination and horror. "Kris has claws."

Kris has a great deal more than claws, he discovers when stabbing pains in his back force him to roll over. For a moment everything between his shoulderblades goes numb and he's grateful for the sudden respite. That's before two large black wings punch through skin and shirt alike. They droop down his sides, cocooning his face. He hears one of the others fall back - can't see if it's Lay or Kai - and tries to reassure him, if such a thing can be done. This is not normal by any means, but he can handle it. The Restore materia will work and everything will be fine, they just have to hang on.

That's what he'd like to say, if only he could speak.

A low roar emerges when he opens his mouth, gravel scraping the inside of his throat until he releases it as harsh, wordless noise. This isn't helping his resolve not to panic.

Kris struggles to his hands and knees, sinking talons into the ground as his clothing crackles along his skin and morphs into scales. It doesn't hurt, precisely, although he can feel his outer layer becoming hard and dry, tougher than the most durable armour he's ever worn. The dragon ring from his dreams flashes before his eyes and he knows.

This is what he is, inside. Not who, because he still doesn't have a grasp on that, but what.

A dragon.

Kris is taller than the other two anyway but as he sits back on his haunches, he notices Lay and Kai on the ground, their chocobos cowering in a huddle behind them, all of them shrinking by the second. There's not enough room for him between the trees anymore; his body is thickening, his wings expanding until they curl painfully against the trunks.

He's not the only monster remaining in the area. From his now-higher vantage point, Kris spies a group of Capparwires attempting to sneak up on them. He's too hemmed in to do anything about it and he can't speak to warn the others - but perhaps roaring's not the only thing he can do with his mouth. He did cough up a fireball earlier, after all.

Careful to aim past the rest of his party, Kris stretches his neck, tilts his head, and tries to channel some of the fire rolling around in his belly out through his mouth. It burns on the way up - hot, but not painful, not like he expects. Breathing fire might be weird for a human but it's natural for a dragon, and there's nothing physical left to remind Kris of his humanity, not now.

"Your aim could use some work," Kai shouts up at him afterwards, when Lay's called Minseok out to ice the burning trees.

Kris growls at him. He got the Capparwires eventually, but there were a few casualties along the way. Mid-growl he feels a sudden tightness all over, as though he's been doused in cold water; it's not Minseok's fault, he can tell, because the ice-wielding Summon is already back in his orb when Kris begins to shrink back down to his normal size and shape. He's left crouching on the ground, marvelling at how not only have his clothes repaired themselves, but he feels completely cured. No poison, no bullet wounds, no blood loss.

The feeling of being amazing lasts only as long as it takes for Ace to run over and give him an enthusiastic headbutt, sending him sprawling in a most undignified fashion.

"You can stop laughing now," Kris tells Kai as he dusts himself off. "I can't help it if my boy has a violent way of showing his love."

A puzzled Lay's shaking his staff, studying the materia slots. "I didn't do that, did I?"

"Turn me into a dragon?" Kris shakes his head. "I...I think that's what I am? Or what I was, before."

"You were a dragon before?" Lay says, and Kris can only shrug at him. He doesn't know the answers himself.

"Whatever you are, or were, or will be - can we get moving before it happens again?" Kai says.

Kris nods. "The poison's gone now; so has everything else. I'm good to travel."

So travel they do, easily disposing of the handful of monsters that try to stand in their way. Kris picks up a few scratches but no more bullets, Kai manages to catch a nap when the path smoothes out for a while, and Lay tunes out until he's needed. It's night by the time they reach Fort Condor. In the dark the red veil tinting the edges of the sky scarcely shows, lending the blackness an eerie maroon glow.

They ride straight up to the fort unchallenged, reaching the foot of the rope ladder without encountering a single person.

Kris doesn't like it. "Someone should've stopped us by now."

"Maybe they're all asleep?" Kai suggests.

"Not everyone needs as much sleep as you. There should be a look-out."

They play rock-paper-scissors to ascend the ladder. Kai normally wins; this time it's Kris, so he leaves the others keeping watch below while he climbs up inside the fort, holding a torch between his teeth because there's a worrying lack of light shining down.

Light's not all that's missing. Kris flips the switch at the top of the ladder to find the situation no brighter than before - the lights are on, but nobody's home. Nobody living, at least.

He immediately draws his sword, though he doesn't need it to defend himself against the withered husk on the floor. It used to be human once - probably. It's hard to tell once every last drop of moisture has been drained from the body, leaving it papery-dry and feather-light. He doesn't recognise the face but he's glad the eyelids, sunken and wrinkled as they are, are closed. Dead monsters, he's accustomed to. Dead men are another matter entirely.

There are more of them through the door - women too, though he can only tell from their clothes. Hanks of hair lie beneath them, no longer attached to their heads, and their bodies, whatever shape they might have been once, have lost their gentle curves. Bones are all the form they have, now.

No signs of a struggle. No wounds, no weapons, no wreckage. These people weren't attacked by monsters, nor did they turn on each other. Kris pokes the nearest body with the flat of his blade and the woman's arm crumbles into dust, her sleeve hanging empty from the shoulder.

"Are they all dead?"

Kris turns around to find Lay behind him. "You're supposed to be waiting down the ladder."

"I thought you might need some help. Or they might." Lay tilts his staff at the woman with the missing arm, then sets it down. "But it looks like there's nothing I can do for them."

Together they do a fast sweep of the fort, hoping for signs of life but expecting none. Their expectations are met, so Kris calls down to Kai to tether the chocobos and join them above. Under the circumstances, spending the night seems somewhat ghoulish, but better a roof over their heads than risk sleeping outdoors tonight when they've had so many encounters during the day. Lay confirms that whatever killed the fort's residents, it wasn't any illness he can detect, nor does it appear to be poison. It's not exactly a safe place to rest but it'll have to do.

Kai keeps watch at the top of the ladder while the others perform a more thorough inspection of the building. It's puzzling, the condition of the former inhabitants. Some of them lie prone on the floor in various states of collapse; others appear to have been interrupted in their day-to-day activities. There's a shopkeeper propped up on a stool behind the counter, with his erstwhile customer huddled face-down over the other side, her would-be purchases crumpled beneath her. There's no evidence of robbery or invasion.

"They just dried up and died," Lay says as they approach the kitchens. "Without warning."

"I hope the same thing's not going to happen to us," Kris says darkly. Sleeping in a building of corpses isn't high on his list of pleasurable activities as it is, never mind the possibility that he might share their fate.

"My scans haven't picked up anything." The Restore materia in Lay's staff is glowing as healthy a green as ever - there's no tint of poison or corruption, which is the only reason why they're still there and not riding away as fast as their chocobos can carry them. "Whatever happened here took place within the last week but it wasn't today." Lay produces a receipt from his pocket. "I picked this up from the counter in the grocery store. The date is from three days ago. Nothing's changed here since then."

Nothing but the body count, now heavily skewed in favour of those no longer alive. Even the animals haven't been spared - there are a couple of dead dogs in one of the lower rooms, and the remains of a cat on an office chair. Kris doesn't want to look in the office's fishtank.

It's a tragedy for the people in the fort, of course, but it's also a problem for Kris. With no one alive to answer questions about the disappearing corpse and materia, he's at a dead end. There's nowhere for them to go from here.

"We'll worry about it in the morning." Lay squeezes Kris's shoulder with his free hand. "It's been a long day and someone needs his beauty sleep. Turning into a dragon's probably bad for your complexion."

Kris tries - and fails - to give his face a discreet pat for scales without Lay noticing. His lifestyle's hard enough on his skin already without adding transformation to it, and he's not sure he's got anything in his pack of sufficient strength to help with the scales. But then, he figures, dragons probably don't think about exfoliation and moisturising much. It's not like he'd know, being new to the experience and all. He's both surprised and grateful that the others haven't asked him any further questions; he thinks he's made it clear this is as much a mystery to him as it is to them. A mystery, but somehow right, too, and that's the most disturbing thing of all.

There are empty rooms in the sleeping quarters, free from dessicated bodies, so after a quick meal consisting only of supplies from their packs - this can't be food-related, Lay says, but it never hurts to be careful - the three of them set out their bedrolls, none of them comfortable with sleeping in the beds of the dead. They share a room, Lay taking first watch from the doorway, lights on in all the corridors.

It'll be Kris's turn next. He watches Kai sink into sleep, one hand clutching at the purple-black leather collar he always wears, with a deer sewn on the one side in silver thread and twin buckles on the other. It doesn't have any materia slots, unlike his gauntlets, but Kai treats it with reverence anyway. Kris closes his eyes with the image of fingers curled around leather playing out against his eyelids, and then there's The Dream.

It's the same as always, and yet it isn't. There is no hope. Kris watches the red forces descend on the tree, watches the strong brown wood turn grey, watches the leaves wither and curl into nothingness. He knows that inside the trunk, the heart is sickening - dying. Soon it will be over and there's nothing he can do about it. His eleven companions remain in the shadows. Kris wants to shout at them, tell them to attack now before it's too late to save the tree, but when he opens his mouth he cannot speak, only roar. He looks down at himself, expecting to see the dragon ring, but scales greet his eyes instead. Hard, dark scales, all along his arms - along his forelegs, for legs they are and legs they will remain till he wakes. The dragon wears no silver ring, needs neither ornaments nor clothes when he takes to the skies.

His flame sears the air as he swoops down in a dive, momentarily erasing the tainted red and allowing him a clear view of one of his companions. It's Lay.

It's Lay...shaking him awake, pressing a trembling finger to his lips and beckoning him out to the hallway where they can speak without disturbing Kai.

"It's time already?" Kris murmurs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. "It feels like I just lay down."

Lay shakes his head. "It's early. I...I fell asleep too."

It's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, because in all likelihood whatever happened to these people isn't something early warning would help with, so Kris tries to wave it away. "That's okay. Do you want me to take my turn now, since I'm awake anyway?"

"No, I...I don't want to go back to sleep. Not yet. I saw you!"

Lay doesn't often look or sound excited, or indeed exhibit any form of strong emotion - even his brightest, happiest smile barely changes his face - but he's agitated now, and Kris wants to know why. "Saw me where?"

"In my dream." Lay corrects himself. "My nightmare. You were there, trying to protect a giant tree. You spoke to me."

Kris's breath catches in his throat. The tree. The same tree? "Did I...did I say something?" he croaks out, words half-strangled by apprehension.

"You told me to heal the tree, that the twelve of us had to protect it at all costs but it was dying and it needed help. I tried. I tried, duizhang!"

Lay calling him 'leader' feels familiar, a memory Kris thinks he has, locked somewhere inside his mind where daylight will never touch it. He was their leader once, and a good leader should know when to offer reassurance. Kris doesn't think of himself - his current self - as the right man for the job, but Lay's looking up at him for a response so he does his best.

"I know. It's okay, I don't...I don't think there's anything you could've done." Kris leans against the wall, sliding down until he reaches the floor; Lay slides down next to him, still looking mildly perturbed, which means he's probably freaking out. "I think the tree is supposed to die...that it's already died, maybe, I don't know."

"You've seen it too, haven't you?" Lay says quietly. "You talk in your sleep sometimes, you know? The words don't make any sense to me, but you do, and sometimes there are names. One of them was Yixing - and that's what you called me in my dream, right before you changed into a dragon and took off."

"Yixing." Kris rolls it around on his tongue. The shapes of the syllables are no strangers to him, though he doesn't recall ever meeting anyone by that name. "That's you? What about 'Lay'?"

"That's what the people who adopted me decided to call me." Lay's mouth quirks slightly, sharing the joke. "I was abandoned in a henhouse as a baby; when the farmer came out to collect the eggs, he found me instead. But I wouldn't fit in an eggbox for sale so he and his wife decided to raise me themselves."

"You told me you were using a false name," Kris tells him, "but I'd expected you to know your real one!"

"Now we both do. You didn't...you didn't know it before?" Lay - no, Yixing - says.

Kris shrugs, awkwardly knocking into Yixing. "Not that I remember. But kind of...it's like it's there in my head somewhere, only I'm keeping it a secret from myself? When I go to sleep and dream about that tree, sometimes I see new things? Like me being a dragon. I didn't know about that until it happened today, and then I just dreamed about it."

Yixing casts a glance towards the bedroom where Kai lies sleeping. "I wonder what kind of dreams he's having?"

"He was clutching his collar again when he fell asleep."

"Ah." Yixing nods. "Dreaming about Lu Han again, then."

"What's Lu Han got to do with it?"

"He gave Kai that collar - it's made from the skin of something he killed, I think."

Kris thinks back on some of the sounds he's heard coming from Kai's bedroom on nights the three of them have their own rooms - sounds that definitely came from more than one person - and decides it's none of his business what Kai and his Summon get up to. Baekhyun's teased him on occasion but shown no serious interest in him, much less in bedding him. Lu Han, however, tends to be a law unto himself.

"Never mind Kai," Kris says. "I didn't see him in my dream. There were twelve of us and the only person I could see clearly was you."

"Mine was the same. Do you know who the others are?"

"No idea." Kris wonders if the remaining ten exist in the world somewhere, not knowing who they really are, always searching for answers. Perhaps they're all looking for someone to be. "Sometimes I'm not even sure I know who I am," he admits. It's not news to Yixing, who'd approached him on that very basis, but it still feels like a confession.

Yixing tries to encourage him. "You'll find out. Go back to sleep for a while and maybe you'll learn something else. It's not your turn for watch yet."

Kris returns to his bedroll, feeling that there's more to be said but lacking the words to do it. There's a puzzle here and too many pieces are still missing. He thinks about it until he falls asleep; when Yixing wakes him for a second time, he doesn't remember dreaming.

His own time on watch passes peacefully enough. Fortunately, there are no bodies haunting this particular corridor, though it's hard to keep them from doing the same to his mind. Something has been here, sucking the life from all these people, and without knowing the cause it's only too easy for his thoughts to turn to the possibility of it happening again. He knows there's nothing he could do.

When it's time, he creeps back into the bedroom to wake Kai for his shift. It's a tricky business - while Kai occasionally welcomes the touch of others, more often than not he spooks easily enough to teleport at so much as a hand laid on his arm. In any case, it's best not to surprise him.

Kris crouches down by Kai's bedroll and gently shakes his shoulder, large fingers accidentally brushing the bare skin just below the collar and eliciting a low, sleepy moan from Kai that sounds vaguely like 'Lu Han'. At least it means he's not too alarmed by finding Kris leaning over him when he finally opens his eyes, though he is embarrassed enough to cover his face with his hands until it becomes obvious that Kris is not going to mention it.

The middle shift is the worst. Kris feels obliged to take it because he's the oldest and therefore if anyone is going to be inconvenienced, it should probably be him. That doesn't make it any easier to fall asleep again, however, and Kris lies awake until morning, trying to decide what to do next. They have no leads, and no one left alive to give them any. Maybe they're wasting their time, chasing rumours across the land.

No. Whatever happened at Fort Condor wasn't a rumour. This is real - and fatal.

When Yixing wakes, he and Kris have a hasty discussion on whether either of them had had the dream again that night. Neither did. Over another quick meal of food from their packs, they lay it out for Kai - trees, dragons, Yixing's name and all.

"I've never had any dreams like that," Kai says when they're finished.

"We know what you dream about," Yixing says. "It's a good thing you don't summon Lu Han every time you moan his name."

Kai scrunches up his reddening face, hiding it behind his hands again. Yixing does have a way of casually inducing total mortification. "I can't help what I do when I'm asleep," he mumbles.

Kris waves all that aside. "And now that we're all awake, I want to go over the fort one more time."

"If we don't find anything useful here?" Yixing asks.

"Then we go to Junon. If that scientist took all the materia in the fort, they'd be looking for him. Junon's the closest place he could go to ground. He could sell the materia there, or he could board a boat and sail across to Costa del Sol. If he takes the boat, I don't expect either of you to come with me."

"You can stop saying that now." Kai uncovers his face, embarrassment passed. "What else are we supposed to do? Wait around for the whole sky to turn red and let ourselves get killed by the first monster that catches us off-guard? At least if we're with you on your quest, we're doing something."

Yixing agrees with him, so Kris vows to try not to make the offer again. He's used to being alone. What little he remembers of his childhood involves an absent father and a mother who had to work constantly to keep them fed and clothed, with few friends to ease the loneliness. Growing taller and stronger had aided him against the boys who'd bullied him for being different - he'd never quite been able to blend in - but hadn't won him much more in the way of company. Having two young men actually volunteer to travel and fight by his side still feels like a novelty, someone else's whim, an offer that could be retracted at any moment. Kris has to remind himself that it's best not to get too invested.

They retrace their steps all over the fort, leaving no stone unturned. The lab at least gives them an indication of what they're looking for - there's a logbook of all materia formerly stored in the safes, with details of when they were checked out and who by. Lots of Magic materia, a few Support, and some familiar Summons: Baekhyun, Minseok - and two Kris hasn't met yet, Zitao and Kyungsoo. The last entry on the list is an unknown Summon materia with nothing but question marks beside it.

"How can they not know its name?" Yixing wonders. "All materia show their names inside, if you look at them under direct light."

Kris is familiar with this; it's the only way he'd been able to name Baekhyun after finding the abandoned Summon materia in the snow. "Maybe they couldn't find a bright enough light. That red veil makes the days a lot darker now."

No one comes up with a better explanation. Kris hopes that's the case, and it's not that the Summon's name is nowhere to be found. If he can't name it, he can't call it, and he doesn't think he's likely to be lucky enough for it to emerge unsummoned, the way Lu Han sometimes does.

All the entries in the logbook are countersigned by a Professor Suho - the missing scientist, Kris presumes. An old ID badge tucked away in the desk drawer gives them a face to go with the name, and there's a hideous black, green and yellow jumper draped over the chair that suggests his taste in clothing is questionable. Nothing, alas, gives them an indication of where he might be now.

The last place they check is the roof, which they'd opted not to explore at night.

"There's a helipad!" Kai exclaims.

"With nothing on it." Kris walks in a circle around the landing pad where open, empty fuel cans are scattered across the ground. "Looks like someone refuelled in a hurry and didn't plan on coming back."

"Would you want to fly in that more than you had to?" Yixing points up at the sky with his staff. They're much further from the ground than usual, all the way up here, and the red skies seem particularly ominous.

"Junon has a helipad," Kai says. "If this is how Suho left..."

It's not hard evidence, Kris appreciates that. It does, however, add to the case for Junon. There are few helipads around and that's the closest, meaning it's Suho's best bet if he wants a clear landing.

"I could check?" Kai offers. "I can't take you with me but I can teleport to Junon and see if he landed there. There has to be a record if he landed officially, right?"

"You can travel that far?" Kris says.

"I can only teleport to places I can picture myself in, which means somewhere I can see, or somewhere I've been before." Kai licks his lips and gives them an awkward smile. "Or somewhere Lu Han's been. I lived in Junon for a while, so..."

Kris is curious as to how that works, because this sounds like Lu Han can actually get in Kai's head, or vice versa. It would explain a lot about how Kai recovered from that Malboro attack. He hadn't talked much about it afterwards, except to tell them about how Lu Han and his Summon friends run a bookshop together in another world - all of which had sounded more like a Confusion-induced fantasy than any kind of sensible reality. But if it had come directly from Lu Han's mind...

Kris can't do anything of the sort with Baekhyun, and Yixing's never given any sign of being able to communicate with Minseok that way. It's useful to know about, though. "If you can, that would help."

"I'll go right now."

Kai blinks out of sight in an instant, leaving Kris and Yixing with nothing to do but wait. Kris continues his circuit of the roof in case they've overlooked anything. Yixing wanders off in the opposite direction, staring out over the edge of the railings; he's still there when Kai returns, not even noticing until the third time Kris calls his name. He's ambling back towards the helipad when he suddenly switches direction, heading for the door containing the staircase. When he reaches it, he bends down to retrieve something from the floor.

"Did we miss something?" Kris calls out to him.

Yixing beckons them over, calling back, "Summon materia. Our missing scientist must've dropped it on his way out; I didn't notice it in the corner from inside."

"Which one is it?" Kai asks as he pulls up by the door.

"Let's have a look." Yixing holds the glowing red orb in his palm, turning it this way and that to make out the name inside. It's not even evening yet and the light's already failing outside. "Looks like...Kyungsoo?"

Kai recognises it immediately. "He's a good cook and he uses Earth magic. That's about all I know."

"You know a lot about Summons, don't you?" Yixing says. "Did Lu Han tell you?"

"It's not like he tells me everything!" Kai's getting flustered. "Not the things I really want to know, anyway. But yeah, he's the one who mentioned the cooking. I told you before that they all live together; I don't get how it all works out but..." He cuts himself off with a shrug.

"Would you like him?" Yixing holds out the materia. "I don't think his former master's going to need him back."

Kai casts a glance up at Kris, who nods his assent. They generally divide any booty three ways - anything that's not the property of whoever's paying their bills - but there's only one item up for grabs here. It can go to Kai, if Yixing doesn't want it. There's only one Summon Kris is interested in finding now.

"Thanks." Kai accepts the materia, setting it in the upper slot in his right gauntlet. "Kyungsoo!"

The rooftop quakes beneath their feet, sending Yixing stumbling through the door with Kris falling after him, narrowly missing the stairs. Kai manages to keep his feet, if only because he's the one doing the summoning.

Kyungsoo turns out to be a short, dark-haired young man with large, startled eyes, as though he's just been volunteered without warning for something unpleasant. Which would be the case, under normal circumstances, but they just want to talk to him. He looks around the rooftop for something to attack, expression turning puzzled when he doesn't find anything.

"We don't want you to kill anyone!" Kai holds up his hands. "Um...hi?"

When he realises there's no immediate threat, Kyungsoo stands down, slouching in the doorway with hands tucked into the pockets of his short silver-trimmed jacket. He's clad completely in black, from the jacket all the way down to scuffed, sturdy boots. Now he's out of his orb for no good reason, he looks a trifle annoyed.

It's not, Kris thinks, as though they can have interrupted him doing something important. Baekhyun's explained to him how it works, how each Summon in this world is a splinter version of the original one in their own, and that they act independently. This Kyungsoo has nothing better to do right now than talk to them, though one would never infer that from his eyes, which are clearly saying: You're lucky I even bothered to show up.

Nevertheless, there's a round of introductions - inside, because it's starting to rain. That's unusual, though, because in areas where the red veil has taken over the sky, there's little to no rain at all, much less a downpour like the one that's beginning to develop. Kris looks up before he closes the door. It nets him a faceful of rain but also a most interesting and unexpected sight: the redness has receded. Not all of it, yet enough to make a noticeable difference to the skies, at least in the vicinity of Fort Condor. It's not the first time he's seen it.

Kyungsoo's appalled by the state of the fort - there's no easy way to prepare him for the sight of dessicated corpses, so they don't even try - but when Kai confirms that yes, the fort's helicopter did land in Junon and has been there ever since, he's able to fill in some of the gaps.

"The professor definitely couldn't have caused this - he's too conscientious," Kyungsoo says. He seems slightly less fed up once they start him talking. "That's why he was working all the way out here, you know. He was trying to keep his weird projects away from other people, in case something went wrong. He's very responsible like that."

"What kind of projects?" Kris asks.

"He was studying materia - Summon materia in particular. He thought we might be connected to that red veil over the skies. In our dreams-" Kyungsoo checks himself, jumping like he's just been bitten. "Dreams are only dreams."

The Summon materia in Kai's left gauntlet is flashing; Kris wonders if Kyungsoo's sudden clamming up has anything to do with Lu Han.

Yixing takes a turn. "Do you know what happened the night the professor left? Or anything about some unnamed Summon materia?"

"I doubt he's unnamed." Kyungsoo turns unimpressed eyes on Yixing. "We all have names, so he has to have one too. We just don't know who he is yet. None of us have met him."

"Can he bring back the dead?" Yixing asks. "Can you tell us that, at least?"

Kris holds his breath until Kyungsoo slowly nods his head. This is what he's been waiting for, confirmation that it's possible.

"I'm sorry," Kyungsoo says. "I can't tell you much. I don't have much awareness when I haven't been summoned, and the professor didn't call us out that often. We only really got summoned when other people signed us out for expeditions."

"Anything you can tell us. Please," Kris says.

"The professor;" Kyungsoo turns to smile at Kris, "he's very hardworking, very dedicated. He thinks that the reason this world's falling to pieces is the red stuff in the sky. It stops the rain from falling and makes everything dry; it provides cover for the monsters who come out to play in the dark."

Makes everything dry... It makes sense, in a sinister sort of way. There's no rain in a red sky, which has been giving the farmers no end of trouble. The news broadcasts document its spread. Where the skies are stained scarlet, Kris finds the air tastes different. Drier, as if all the moisture has been sucked out of it and there's barely enough left to maintain life. Yixing's talked about it briefly too, how things had soured in Kalm before he'd come south and met Kai.

"Could it...could it dry out people too, like the ones here?" he asks Kyungsoo.

"You'd have to ask the professor. He's the one with the theories. None of us," Kris assumes that by 'us', Kyungsoo means 'the Summons', "have encountered it before."

"Then why aren't we already dead?" Kai asks. "The skies are red here too."

"Not anymore," Kris corrects him. "It was dark when we arrived, it didn't show much - and it's gone now. You saw the rain when we came inside. It's like we chased it away."

Kai smirks and pumps a fist in the air. "Can we do that? Go, us."

"If we ever find Professor Suho, we can ask him. Go on," Kris says.

Kyungsoo continues. "I was equipped by the night guards when they found a man who'd been badly crushed by the fort's automated defence systems - he must've been trying to sneak in the back way. What was left of him was still alive, barely. They took him to the clinic. No one's allowed to carry unauthorised materia here and he had some, so the professor was called to take custody of it while the doctors worked.

"One was Final Attack materia, but he couldn't identify the Summon, so when the professor was told the man was on the verge of death, he set them both back in the man's giant shuriken to see what would happen when he passed away."

"I thought you said he was responsible?" Kris says. "That sounds dangerous to me."

"How many Summons have you met now?" Kyungsoo asks him. "And how many have tried to kill you?" Kris has no answer to that; Kyungsoo shakes his head and says, "Exactly. The professor called out three of us to deal with whatever was summoned, and had the intruder brought up to the roof where he wouldn't put anyone else at risk. He really is a good man."

"If Suho's such a good man, why did he run?" Kai wants to know.

"The professor-"

"And you haven't called him by name once," Kris adds.

"Minseok won't use mine, either," Yixing says.

"He might do it now," Kai says quietly. "If Yixing is your real name. Lu Han says he won't call me 'Kai' because that's not my name, but he won't tell me what it is."

Kris wonders what will happen the next time he has the dream. Will Kai's face be the next one he sees? The chances are looking good. That Professor Suho too, or whoever he really is. Maybe he's one of them too, whoever they are. Guardians of the tree? Shapeshifters against the veil? Failures united? Mostly, what he thinks they are is just plain screwed up and lost.

"'Kris' isn't yours, is it?" Kai asks. "Or the Summons would use it."

Kyungsoo nods enthusiastic agreement, and Kris figures he has nothing to lose by giving them the name he thinks is his. Or was his. Or might be his, in some shape or form. The only way they're going to unravel any of this is by sharing the little information they have, because it's obvious he's not going to be able to piece any of it together by himself.

"Baekhyun did, when I first found him," he says. "I've used a lot of names. But the first one I remember is 'Wu Yifan'."

Now Kyungsoo's shaking his head just as vigorously, so Kris knows that can't be him either. It's probably the one he knows best, though.

"I can understand Yixing not knowing his real name," he says, "but I grew up with my birth parents." To start with, anyway, but he sees no point in talking about his dad.

"You would've had another name before you were born to them, though none of us know it yet," Kyungsoo says. "And that's all I can tell you. I don't remember it all clearly myself."

"You were there?"

"We can't talk about this." Kyungsoo's voice hardens, and Kris knows they've reached the limit on that particular subject. He doesn't press. There are more urgent questions they need answering before Kyungsoo disappears, and he has no idea how long the Summon can maintain his manifestation.

"Then let's go back to that night," Yixing suggests calmly. "On the roof. What happened?"

"Death and rebirth," Kyungsoo says. "The cycle of life. When the intruder died, the Summon was automatically triggered by the Final Attack materia. We watched a firebird fly over the roof and the crushed bones knit themselves back together. When the phoenix disappeared, he took death with him."

"And Suho took the dead man with him?" Kris finishes for him. "In the helicopter?"

"The professor dismissed us after we escorted them back to the lab. The next thing I recall was being pulled out of storage again and moving upwards - up here. He must have dropped me on his way out."

"Good thing for us." Kai smiles kindly at Kyungsoo, and before Kris can ask if there's anything else to tell, the Summon vanishes back into his materia.

"Looks like we're going to Junon," Yixing says. "How hard can it be to find a dead man with a giant shuriken and a scientist with a thing for hideous jumpers?"

Kris holds his head in his hands and hopes Ace won't mind running in the rain.

-----

The rain's stopped by the time they set out for Junon. At first the ride west is peaceful, but the closer they get to the city, the more encounters they have, and the more red the sky becomes. That's never a good sign. When they reach the lift there's no one on duty. Kai teleports up top to check, returning with the news that there are no guards in sight in the upper city, either.

Chocobos aren't supposed to ride in the lift, but since there's no one to stop them the entire party, save Kai who is keeping watch upstairs, crams inside for the journey up. Junon's a major military installation, yet there's not a soldier in sight. Their blue uniforms are normally everywhere, especially when you don't want to see them.

"Not that I'm looking for company," Kai says, "but this is weird. There were people around when I came here this morning."

"It does seem a little quiet, now that you mention it," Yixing says vaguely. "Do you suppose everyone ran away from that Zemzelett?"

"Huh?" Kai turns around just in time to take a Thunderbolt to the chest, leaving him sprawled in a shaking mess on the floor.

Kris lunges with his sword but the Zemzelett flies out of reach, toying with him until he manages to scratch it with the tip of his blade, at which point it flies out the window.

"What's it doing all the way up here?" Kai says when he's able to talk again. "I thought they hung out in the grasslands."

"I don't know." Kris rubs his shoulder. "Watch yourself. I doubt that's the only one."

It's not, as they discover soon enough. At least there aren't any dessicated corpses, though they do pass a few people who appear to have been killed by monsters. Something is dreadfully, dreadfully amiss in Junon. Doors of houses, shops and offices alike stand open, some with glass shattered from the force of the occupants' rush to leave. Even now there are a few stragglers clutching their bags, racing along the empty streets without looking back. They're all running in the same direction - towards the port.

Equipped with chocobos, it doesn't take Kris's party long to reach the same destination themselves. The entire city is sailing away, one ship at a time, and there aren't many left.

"Run for your lives!" an old man shrieks as Kris brings Ace to a halt beside him.

"What's everyone running from?" Kris asks, as if he can't guess.

The old man points to the skies, now an angry red. "It keeps getting darker! It was pale this morning, then by midday the monsters started to creep in. Haven't you seen them? Formulas and Hell Riders and those pesky Zemzeletts! They keep coming in from outside. There's too many of them!"

"But we've only seen one," Kris says, puzzled.

The old man ignores him. "If you want to save yourselves, take the next ship west before it's too late. It's only going to get worse here."

Kris calls a quick huddle. "If everyone else has left, Professor Suho and his undead intruder have probably gone too."

"There would be no sense in them staying here," Yixing agrees. "We should join the queue before all the ships leave, duizhang. We won't be able to travel across the sea, otherwise."

The decision is unanimous - what other choice do they have? "What about you?" Kai asks the old man. "Shouldn't you join the queue? Do you need help to get there? I can-"

"Hush, boy." The old man shakes his head. "I'm not long for this world anyway. My doctor's standing in that queue and she'd tell you the same. Now go, before something comes along that decides you'd make a good snack."

"But-"

"Come on." Kris catches Kai's arm, urging the stricken young man to keep moving onwards. "We need to get going."

They ride till they reach the end of the queue, then dismount to slowly lead their chocobos towards the water. The second-to-last ship departs while they're still waiting; Kris hopes they'll fit on the final one. There aren't too many people left to join the queue behind them. Everyone else is either dead or dying, or perhaps they've given up. Kris can't.

There's room on the final ship, which takes everyone remaining in the queue and the handful of officials still manning the port. Of course the other passengers grumble about the chocobos, but it's a cargo ship, not a passenger ship, and they're told there's space in the hold. Kai and Yixing take them down; Kris remains on the deck to watch the land as they set sail. Watch the land...and watch the sky, which appears to be moving.

The woman beside him lets out a scream so loud they can probably hear it in the hold." There's something coming!"

"What is it?" the man behind her shouts. "More monsters?"

Kris has one hand on the hilt of his broadsword when he realises it's futile. This isn't something he can fight, not physically and not with a Summon: the swirling red storm in the skies is straight out of his nightmares and he couldn't fight it then, either. He's so tense he's trembling with the wait. Will the storm come for them? Will it kill them all, like the tree in his dreams?

It doesn't. Kris elbows his way through to the telescope fixed to the railings. As he and the other passengers up on deck watch in horror, the storm descends on Junon, hiding the big, heavily-armed city from sight, even the large canon that dominates the landscape. It's utterly silent. There are no crashes of buildings ripped from their foundations, nor screams of the handful of people left as they perish.The cargo ship has yet to get underway, so when the giant red cloud lifts, they're still close enough for Kris to see the old man sitting on the dock.

What's left of him.

It's Fort Condor all over again. The telescope's not that powerful but it's more than strong enough to show the dry, papery skin stretched over worn out bones, barely sturdy enough to keep the hunched back and drooping neck from collapsing completely. It's a wonder the old man's still sitting up at all.

There's a cry from behind him and then they're away, leaving Junon in the distance as they make for the western continent and the port at Costa del Sol. Kris is still shaking when he joins the others down in the hold. Another five minutes...

"Those poor people." The hold lighting is dim and Kai's bangs are hiding his eyes, but the sadness on his face is visible as Kris relates the tale.

"We couldn't have helped them," Yixing says. "But maybe when we catch up to the professor, he'll be able to tell us what's happening."

The noise level in the hold rises for a while as the frantic passengers discuss their narrow escape, but then it all goes quiet as they settle down to sleep. They won't reach Costa del Sol until dawn. The chocobos doze off first, tethered in a corner by themselves, and their humans soon follow, Kris in the middle with one companion asleep against each shoulder.

-----

He's back in the dream. Once more, the tree suffers and once more, Kris soars through the sky, seeking to turn back the red forces with fierce flames and the beats of a dragon's wings. Down below him, the shades of the others work to save the tree. One figure stands out against the trunk - a unicorn, graceful and proud, touching its horn to the dying wood to return it to life. Kris swoops down for a closer look. The unicorn morphs into Yixing, exhausted but determined to continue with his task, while the shape beside him reveals itself to be Minseok, frantically freezing the red motes before they can reach the tree.

It's not enough. Kris knows that no matter what they do, it can never be enough. This battle is already over.

Puffs of red explode into nothingness around the other side of the tree, so Kris drops down into a landing and almost collides with Kai. He's teleporting in a chain, each rapid burst displacing red clouds with his body as he works to clear a circle around the tree. There's another familiar figure working the same circle - Lu Han, no sword in sight but seemingly with no need of one. Every gesture he makes with his empty hands pushes the red force further away, scattering it until the sunset peeks through. Kris hadn't realised it wasn't yet night.

Kai jumps back to avoid crashing into Kris's hind legs and halts, panting from exertion, not moving until Lu Han catches up to him and extends an arm for him to duck under. He does, flashing a tired smile up at Kris that Kris tries to return, hoping his misshapen mouth doesn't make him appear too grotesque.

"Jongin," Lu Han says to Kai, and that's all Kris hears as he wakes up.

-----

"It's Jongin." Yixing's no longer leaning against Kris's shoulder, though from the sound of things he's not fully awake yet. Kris wonders how long they've been asleep. "Kai's real name. It's Jongin. You said it in my dream."

"And Lu Han said it in mine," Kris says. "We're seeing the same things but in different ways."

Jongin's still a dead weight against Kris's shoulder, if a rather lively one. His body continually contracts and relaxes, muscles spasming with irregular, jerky motions.

"A nightmare?" Kris suggests.

Yixing studies Jongin carefully. "I think he's teleporting in his dream. He was doing it to protect the tree."

"Yeah, I saw him too."

Kris debates for a moment whether or not to rouse Jongin - his shoulder's starting to hurt - but Jongin renders the question void by snapping violently awake, breath coming in little hiccups. The Summon materia in his left gauntlet - Lu Han - flashes, easily the brightest light in the cargo hold, and before Kris can say anything, Jongin gives a breathless laugh and says, "You never meant it anyway."

"Lu Han?" Yixing says.

"Yeah." Jongin wriggles until he's sitting up straight, takes a couple of deep breaths. "He said now he could stop calling me 'Master'."

"Who told you?" Yixing asks him.

"You did...I think." Jongin rubs the sleep from his eyes. "It was hard to see. Everything was red."

"It's always like that." Kris describes his latest dream; Yixing and Jongin chip in with their sides, the only new information being that Yixing also saw Baekhyun in his. This comes as no surprise to Kris, after seeing Minseok and Lu Han.

"You'll probably see Kyungsoo next," Yixing tells him.

"Maybe I'll get lucky and our mystery Summon will put in an appearance," Kris says.

"Lu Han has dreams like this as well," Jongin says, hesitantly. "The other Summons too, probably. It's how they know who we are. I guess this is what he meant when he said I had to find out who I was for myself, and he couldn't just tell me."

"If he's known your real name for so long, he's obviously been having these dreams a lot longer than we have," Yixing says. "And I suppose he knew about Kris being a dragon."

"I'm not the only one who looks a little different in the dreams," Kris says. "I think you're a unicorn."

"That makes sense," Jongin says. "Lu Han kept referring to him as a unicorn to me, never by name."

"Hmm." Yixing tries it on for size. "I'm a unicorn. Okay."

"That's it?" Kris says, somewhat incredulous at how unruffled Yixing sounds about this.

Yixing shrugs. "You got badly injured and transformed into a dragon. I'll try not to get shot by poisoned bullets, but if it happens, it happens."

Kris thinks Yixing is accepting his potential transformation with exceptional good grace, but that's Yixing all over. He'll probably have forgotten all about it in another hour.

At least Jongin doesn't appear to change into anything. And he's happy for Jongin. Really. It must be a relief to at least have a clue to his own identity, even if a name's all he's got. Perhaps this will help set his mind at rest.

It has to be Kris's turn next, doesn't it? But he's certain it's not going to be that easy. Knowing his name would be great. Knowing who he is - or rather, who he was - would be better. Kris has scrambled fragments of memories, hidden in dreams and lingering just beyond his grasp. Even a mighty dragon can't reach that far.

It's still night out there, he discovers when he gets up to check. Most of the passengers are still asleep; those already awake move around like ghosts, speaking in hushed voices. When he returns to their patch of wall, Jongin's drifting off again and Kris hopes, and then mentally kicks himself for it, that Jongin will have the dream again, that he'll see something more. It's not fair to wish that on anyone but himself, he knows, but he's starved for information and this weird, dying dreamworld appears to be the best place to get it.

They make landfall just after dawn. Kris makes a point of getting them and their chocobos up and ready to disembark so that they're at the front when the time comes. There's a lot of lost time to be made up. Assuming Professor Suho has made it to Costa del Sol, there's nothing to say he's still here.

This time of morning, the beaches of Costa del Sol are normally quiet, with the only people around being the joggers, the dog-walkers, and the beach hogs who like to get their towels in position early. Not today, however. Now the sands are covered with refugees from Junon, milling around in confused droves, looking for somewhere to go and someone to tell them what to do.

It's a gift for the shopkeepers, who have wasted no time in throwing open their doors early and setting out signs to welcome in these misplaced "tourists" and their money. Kris's party is unfortunately as susceptible as anyone else. Jongin says he needs tea, and they know from previous experience that he'll sulk until he gets it. In any case, it's been a while since they've eaten or drunk something not from their own stores, which could do with replenishing, so after a hasty shopping trip, the three of them visit a café for breakfast, leaving the chocobos in the stable by the port.

"You think we'll find the professor sunbathing on the beach somewhere?" Jongin says hopefully, nursing his precious cup of tea. "I could go look?"

"You're welcome to stay and work on your tan," Kris says, "but if the professor's on the run I don't think he's going to take time out to hit the beach."

Jongin grudgingly concedes the wisdom of this.

"There wouldn't be much space anyway," Yixing says. "Everywhere's packed."

The café is filled to the point at which customers are actually having to queue out the door - and the food's not even that good. People keep knocking over Yixing's staff as they squeeze past.

A harried-looking waitress picks it off the floor after she deposits another plate in front of Jongin. "Sorry," she mutters, and Yixing apologises in turn for the nuisance he's causing. Twice.

The waitress gives him a tired smile. "At least yours isn't sharp."

Kris checks, but his broadsword is safely stashed away, not at risk of impaling anyone. "Is my-"

"Not you, dear," the waitress interrupts. "There was one who came in last night, on the first ship. Giant shuriken, he had. Stuck out at all angles. Nearly sliced my leg open on it."

A giant shuriken? Kris has to ask. "Did he have anyone with him? This man, perhaps?" He takes the professor's ID from his pocket and shows it to her.

"Hmm." The waitress purses her mouth, studying the photo carefully. At last she says, "He wasn't wearing a labcoat, and he looked awful tired, but I'm sure it was him."

Kris's heart leaps in his chest, thrilled to have picked up the trail again. "So they were here!"

"Don't suppose you know where they went?" Jongin asks, not sounding terribly optimistic.

The waitress barks a laugh. "Out in the desert! Can you beat that? The man in the photo said something about it being safer out there."

She walks off still laughing about how anyone who thought the Corel Desert was safer for anything deserved exactly what they got. Not the best recommendation for going there, but Kris won't be deterred.

Despite the Junon refugees littering the streets, life in the little seaside town remains more or less business as usual for the locals, save those run off their feet by the excess of customers. The skies are clear blue here, with the sun brighter than Kris remembers seeing it for a long time, and that fills them all with optimism. Hope, even, that they'll catch up to the professor and the mysterious Summon materia, and perhaps receive the answers they're seeking. Gaia's western continent seems full of promise.

But Kris knows it can't be long before the red skies spread across the sea from the East.

-----

To reach the Corel Desert, so the waitress tells them, they have to trek through the mountains. They're not exactly equipped for mountain-climbing; fortunately, it looks like no actual climbing is involved as all they're doing is leading their chocobos along old, decrepit railroad tracks - occasionally at weird angles, but never steep enough to warrant them leaving the beasts behind. It's still an unpleasant experience, however. Sections of track have broken away, leaving gaping holes, and where there's no ground directly beneath they have to jump across. The chocobos aren't thrilled by that. Jongin has to teleport across first and hold out a handful of greens to entice them over.

"It's a good thing Lu Han's not out right now," Jongin says after the third such occasion. "He hates heights."

The ground's a long way down, the golden sands of Costa del Sol turned to hard, dry, dirt paths through bare brown mountains.

"Kris could turn into a dragon again and fly us all over," Yixing suggests with a wry smile.

Kris gives Yixing his best unimpressed glare, slightly spoiled by a stumble on the tracks. "Or accidentally set the whole area on fire."

"Or that," Yixing says mildly. "It's very dry out here."

"But not like it was at Kalm, right?" Jongin asks.

Yixing shakes his head. "This is natural. The dryness that comes with the red clouds...isn't. I don't think we need to worry about being desiccated just yet."

The skies are still bright and clear, without even a hint of red. If Kris didn't know better he'd say the world was at peace, not under threat from a mysterious force that dries up all life it encounters and leaves nothing but dust in its wake. There's no red here, but that doesn't mean the monsters haven't already begun to creep in. Yixing bats a Cokatolis from the sky with his staff and Kris marvels at how easily he keeps his balance on the rickety tracks. Both Yixing and Jongin move with a natural, casual grace which Kris can only dream of imitating. He can't even blame it on the length of his limbs; there's not a great deal of difference between himself and Jongin.

He takes frequent sips from his water bottle as they pick their way carefully across the tracks. The twists and turns don't allow him a clear view through the mountains and don't do much to offer them shade from the bright morning sun, either. They're not even in the desert proper yet and he thinks Professor Suho must be mad, wanting to come all the way out here. There's nothing but piles of rubble and empty birds' nests.

The tracks eventually lead them across a long bridge, and out of the mountains at last. There's a small village - not even a hamlet, really, only a few buildings that appear to be held up with tape and string. The slums in Midgar were bad, but this is far worse, and Kris doubts anyone can still live here.

"Doesn't look like the professor's here," Jongin says, casting a look around. "Or anyone else."

"We should still check the buildings," Kris says. "Just in case. Maybe they stopped to rest here."

"I'll help you look." Yixing leads his chocobo over to Jongin, who finds himself left in charge of the three chocobos while Kris and Yixing investigate the huts.

There's not much of interest. The first building they check appears to have been a shop in a former life, but the shelves are bare now, the register lying open and empty on a dusty counter. It's obvious no one's shopped here for quite some time. At least there are no dried-out husks of the former owners, which already makes this settlement - 'North Corel', according to the sign - an improvement on Fort Condor.

The next place they check is obviously an inn, with dirty sheets and a dead mouse caught in a trap by the beds. It's probable that even in its heyday, the décor wasn't much better.

"I don't think Professor Suho stopped to rest here," Yixing says, "but we may have to, if we can't find anywhere better soon. It's been a bad couple of nights and we've been pushing it today."

"Can't you just use your Restore materia?" Kris asks.

"I'd rather not. We're not sick or injured; start using it when you're just tired and you run the risk of getting addicted. You start needing the materia to pep you up during the day, and then you're using it to get out of bed. I've seen it happen before." Yixing looks sad but sounds determined, and Kris knows there will be no changing his mind on this. "I don't want it to happen to us. We need a decent night's sleep somewhere safe - especially Jongin."

"I'm not sure I want to risk mice nibbling on me while I sleep."

"Then don't stay here, but we need to find shelter for tonight. We're far too exposed if we sleep out in the open."

It's mid-afternoon now and they haven't stopped for more than a few minutes since leaving Costa del Sol. If they lose the professor's trail out here, there's no one to clue them in. The remaining buildings are enough to tell them that. No one lives in North Corel now, and from the state of things, it's been empty for quite some time. The only footprints disturbing the layer of dust that coats all the floors belong to Kris and Yixing. No one's dead, only missing. Maybe they all packed up and left a long time ago. No good reason to stay.

"This place is creepy," Jongin says when they return to him. "It's too quiet."

Kris ruffles Ace's feathers. The chocobos are uneasy too, kicking up clouds of sand with their feet, and he hopes none of them try to bolt. "The only remaining resident is one dead mouse, so yeah, not much activity taking place. It doesn't look like the professor came this way."

"Someone obviously did." Jongin points to an empty water bottle a few feet away. "I had a look at it while you were exploring. There's still a few drops of water inside. That has to be recent."

The bottle, when Kris crouches down to look at it, turns out to have developed a crack, presumably the reason for its abandonment. It's definitely not one of theirs. It's sitting in the shadow of a sign reading 'Gold Saucer', which marks a path leading a little way into the distance. Kris gestures to the others to remain where they are, and follows the path.

At the end of the path is a short flight of stairs, and at the top of the stairs...

"How can there be a cable car?" Jongin says when Kris reports back. "This place doesn't even count as civilisation."

Kris shrugs. "It has to lead somewhere, and anywhere's better than here. It's big enough to get the chocobos in, too."

No one disputes that anywhere would be an improvement over North Corel, and although the cable car station is entirely unmanned, the controls appear to be functioning normally. The cable extends too far for them to see the end, which lies out across the desert.

"I'll go first," Jongin volunteers, somewhat hesitantly. "If anything goes wrong, I can just teleport down to you guys."

Kris starts to object, then thinks better of it. He's their leader, he's supposed to be the one taking the risks, but the plan makes sense and part of being a good leader is knowing when to trust others, right?

He settles for giving Jongin an approving nod, and takes up a position by the control panel. Once Jongin is safely shut inside the long blue cable car, his head visible through the windows, Kris flips the switch to send the car across the wire. He hopes he's not sending him to his death. Jongin's reflexes are excellent; if anything happens, Kris is confident in his ability to teleport out before it's too late, but he can't help being apprehensive when he has no idea where the cable leads.

It's a long, anxious twenty minutes, which Yixing spends digging in his bag for snacks, and Kris spends trying not to fret. It's ridiculous, he thinks. He barely knows Jongin and Yixing, really. He has no idea about Jongin's favourite colour, or how long Yixing's been playing guitar. He doesn't have a clue why Jongin's so reluctant to take jobs that will take him anywhere near Midgar's Wall Market, or how Yixing lost the girl he loved.

But he knows all about how Jongin will exhaust himself to the very last ounce of his strength to defend them, and how Yixing spends his spare moments busily creating Potions for them to use, so that they can heal themselves even without his Restore materia. They have a shared past they can't remember, and they're together in the present thanks to the manipulations of their Summons - and somehow Kris can't see them parting in the future. That's good enough for now. The rest will come in time, assuming they have any time left.

Of the twelve shadowy figures in their dreams, they have seven - since they've already found Kyungsoo - and Lu Han assures them that as soon as they get anywhere near one of Zitao's materia orbs, he'll let them know. That leaves Professor Suho...and three strangers, people even Lu Han knows nothing about. Kris wonders who they'll meet next. If the revived intruder from Fort Condor and his mysterious Summon account for another two, who's the remaining one?

It feels like hours before the cable car comes back into view, and it's a relief when Jongin steps out, right as rain and wearing an incredulous smile. Kris taps Yixing on the ankle to rouse him from his post-snack doze.

"You're never going to believe what's on the other end!" Jongin says, clearly excited.

"It's a theme park, isn't it?" Yixing says.

"Huh?" Confusion interferes with Jongin's excitement. "How did you know?"

Yixing points to the sign. "I finally remembered where I'd heard of the 'Gold Saucer' before. She...we were thinking about it as a potential honeymoon destination. I forgot all about it, afterwards." Though his voice is as calm as ever, sadness darkens his eyes for a moment.

"It's still open?" Kris enquires.

Jongin nods. "I didn't go in, but they had music playing, and bright lights, and people all over the place. The guy at the cable car station looked really surprised to see me. He said apart from me and the two men who showed up yesterday, no one else has come in on this car for months. He asked if North Corel had opened for business again."

"Two men yesterday?"

"That's right." Jongin grins. "I didn't have the professor's picture with me but one of them had a giant shuriken. They definitely went that way."

It makes no sense to Kris. "If they were heading out into the desert, why go to a theme park?"

"The same reason we're going to," Yixing says. "To stay in the hotel - and find transport, if they really are heading out into the Corel Desert proper. They'd die, going out there on foot, and even on chocobos we wouldn't be much better off. There are things in the sands that don't care for metal and rubber but will surface for flesh."

These are all very good reasons for taking the cable car. Kris nudges the chocobos inside first, ruthlessly ignoring all the cries of "Wark!", and leaves it to Jongin to activate the controls before he teleports himself into the car. Yixing's chocobo, ever-placid, drops into a huddle in the corner and takes a nap. Kris would like to do the same - he's not at all sure he likes watching their journey across the sands - but duty keeps his eyes open, alert for any signs of trouble.

At the other end they're met by a uniformed station-master, who points them in the direction of the chocobo stables. The stables turn out to be part of the park itself, with stalls set aside for visitors, and a young stableboy who quickly loses his heart to Ace and wants to know if Kris plans to race him. Kris has no such plans. The stableboy assures him they have all the best equipment, should he change his mind, and thinks that the park's visitors would love to wager on such a beautiful bird.

They leave an exceedingly smug-looking Ace and his companions - for a small fee - and make their way to the entrance, where a cute girl standing next to a fat chocobo statue is only too pleased to relieve them of the admission price. Kris hopes the accommodation isn't extra, given what they're charging just to get in the door.

The entrance takes them to a bright yellow room dotted with rainbow rings, each one a portal leading to a different area of the park, with labels like "WONDER SQUARE' and 'SPEED SQUARE' that don't actually do much to tell them where to go. There's an interactive map and information panel mounted on the wall; they gather around it to work out their next move.

"If the professor arrived here yesterday he probably stayed overnight," Yixing says, manipulating the screen with his finger to reveal that the hotel can be found through the portal marked 'GHOST SQUARE'. "Unless he'd already had transport arranged, he'd have had to find some, and that takes time. Either he left earlier today, or he's still here. I'll go to the hotel and ask around."

It surprises Kris, sometimes, how sharp Yixing can be when he's not spacing out. He might leave his staff under the bed by mistake, or become so lost in thought that he doesn't hear anything said to him, but he's all there when it counts. "I guess I'll see if there's a rental agency or something around here. I doubt they could've had anything arranged in advance - I don't imagine he planned on being evacuated from Junon."

"Neither did we." Jongin rubs his eyes, lack of proper sleep catching up with him. He looks like such a little kid when he's sleepy, Kris thinks, that sometimes it's hard to remember just how dangerous he really is. "Should I start checking out some of these other squares? If I find the professor, Lu Han can probably track you down from your Summons."

"He's probably already left, if he was in such a rush to get away from populated areas," Yixing says, exchanging a covert glance with Kris. "Come with me to the hotel instead and we can check ourselves in; I could use a hand with the bags."

Kris turns his head to hide a smile. No doubt Yixing will manage to persuade Jongin that his task should be to try out the beds and ensure that they're comfortable enough, or something like that, and before long Jongin will have his head on the pillow, dead to the world. They should all rest while they can. Going out into the desert...well, Kris doesn't even want to think about where they might end up next.

Yixing leads Jongin away towards the hotel, and Kris figures the portal labelled 'SPEED SQUARE' is as good a place as any to start looking for a car rental agency. As it turns out, the area has nothing to do with vehicles at all, much less fast ones, and is, in fact, more of a shooting gallery. More accustomed to blades, Kris doesn't bother to have a go and moves onto the next zone. He's fairly certain their missing scientist wouldn't have stopped to win shooting prizes while on the run.

The Event Square is currently closed off with signs advertising a play to be performed in the evening; being taller than the signs, Kris ascertains that there's only a theatre behind them, and therefore nothing of interest to him.

Battle Square looks more interesting, if not terribly relevant to the task at hand. It's filled with ambitious fighters, all eager to do battle with captive monsters for fame and fortune. It's an odd use for the monsters roaming the wilderness but Kris supposes it's better than letting them rampage free. He makes a note to come back later and ask what sort of fees one could collect for providing monsters for the arena. They must go through thousands - assuming the fighters are any good, and some of them have the scars to prove their prowess - which means there must be quite a demand for monsters. If he ends up stuck on this continent for any length of time (and it's not likely ships will be returning to Junon any time soon) it could be a useful source of income.

Still, that's a concern for later. He moves on quickly, passing through to the Chocobo Square, which smells faintly of wet feathers and sweat once he makes it up the stairs, under the bright pink sign advertising chocobo racing. There's a line waiting to place bets on the races, and live coverage on the giant screens above, but Kris isn't here to throw away his money on someone else's skill - or lack thereof.

It doesn't look like they have chocobos for rent here, and Yixing's probably right - crossing the desert on one likely isn't on the professor's agenda. There's nothing for him to do here.

Yet he remains, lingering before the big screens to watch the end of the current race. It's a tough course: the chocobos run full-speed up flights of stairs, and traverse rocky ground, and even dash through water. There are half a dozen of them and for the most part, they're nothing exceptional. They fall further and further behind as the camera focuses on the leader - a sleek black chocobo named 'Emperor', according to the display at the side of the screen.

Emperor glides through the water with ease, ignoring the splashing and sliding of the chocobos behind him. He's focused solely on the finish line, eyes fixed straight ahead. No less focused is his rider, a young man around Kris's own age with messy dark hair and eyes narrowed so much from the race that they're practically slits. He's clearly no novice, and it's definitely not his first time on this particular course.

Kris has to stay and watch. Just until the end of the race, to make sure Emperor and his rider come in first - as if there's any doubt. The nearest competition trips on a rock and goes down in a heap, the poor jockey flung over his head. The camera moves beyond him so swiftly Kris can't see what becomes of him, if anyone goes to help him up, or if he has to roll himself out of the way as the other chocobos stream past him. The crowd standing beneath the screens don't care. They just want to find out who wins, so they know if they're walking out richer or poorer than they came in.

The conclusion is inevitable. Leading by a considerable margin, Emperor breaks through the bright green finish line and struts off, victorious, his smirking rider throwing a triumphant glance up at the camera.

An old man standing nearby suddenly cackles, startling Kris. "That's another five thousand gil in my pocket! He never fails, that boy."

"The guy who just won?" Kris asks. The screen's switched from the race to stats, now, and Emperor looks to be number one in everything. He's not sure how the numbers for stamina match up, but that's an impressive top speed.

"Yep." The old man nods. "That's Chen. Isn't he something? I heard Emperor used to be the wildest ride in the stables, wouldn't let anyone stay on him long enough to finish a race. Then along came this kid from Rocket Town, and I don't know what he did to charm Emperor, but he had him eating out of his hand, sweet as you please. We've got people coming from all over the world to try to beat him now."

"Anyone managed it yet?"

"You think I'd lay down that much money on a bird that wasn't a sure thing?"

Kris assumes not. Here, possibly, is another source of income, assuming Chen's winning streak continues. Based on the number of people crowing over his latest victory, that seems likely.

"You thinking about going up against him?" the old man asks. "You got a cunning glint in your eye. Got a bird yourself?"

Kris tries to picture Ace after winning a race against five other chocobos. He'd be unbearable. "Hadn't really thought about it," he hedges. "I've got one, but-"

"Good money in it too, if you're lucky. Big prizes - and sponsorship too, if you can get it. Tall, handsome fella like you? No problem. You saw Chen's outfit? All of it sponsored, right down to the crop. I heard he's even made enough to get himself some wheels. Not bad for a nobody, eh?"

At the word 'wheels', Kris's ears immediately prick up and he remembers why he came here in the first place. "Say," he begins, "is there a car rental place or anything here? I was hoping I could take a drive out into the desert."

The old man cackles at him again, shaking with full-bodied mirth. "Here? Only wheels we got are in simulator games, over in Wonder Square. You want to drive away from the Saucer, you either find someone who's got transport and persuade them to give you a ride, or you take the cable car out of here and start again somewhere else."

So much for that plan. Kris wonders what the professor did - or is still trying to do, possibly. He hopes Yixing's having better luck at the hotel.

"Thanks."

He turns away, thinking to head to the hotel to meet the others, but finds his way blocked by a small crowd that's sprung up behind him. At the centre is the chocobo jockey, Chen. He's half-hidden by adoring fans and happy gamblers, still short even though he's no longer hunched down in the saddle, bag slung over his leather-jacketed shoulders, hair wet from the shower. Kris can only wait for them to disperse; they're barring the entire doorway. He steps back to avoid being crushed. What a pain.

There are even people asking for autographs: gorgeous women with glossy photos and marker pens; small boys with notebooks; race junkies with betting slips. One enterprising girl even has Chen sign her bra - while she's wearing it.

"Fame, fortune, and pretty girls," the old man sighs enviously. "Some guys have all the luck."

"It's about skill, not luck," says an unfamiliar voice, and Kris realises that Chen has made his way across to them. Damned if he doesn't look like he's just won the entire planet, not just a chocobo race. "But a little luck never hurt anyone. How about you? You feel lucky?"

He's addressing Kris. Kris smiles awkwardly and tries not to seem like he's talking down to the other man, though Chen is a good few inches shorter than him and now standing close enough for that to be noticeable. "I'm not here to race."

"No?" Chen says. "If you were here to bet, you wouldn't look so much like you're trying not to deck me. Unless you're betting on another rider?"

Kris shakes his head. "Neither. I'm not risking any money on someone else's skill, and my bird's not for racing."

"All birds are for racing." Chen grins; for a second he's not the cocksure golden boy of the race circuit, merely an ordinary young man who can think of nothing better than indulging in his favourite hobby and wants to share his love of it with the world. "If you treat them right. Emperor didn't want anything to do with it until I came along."

There's a branded crop sticking out the top of Chen's bag. Kris stares pointedly at it until Chen catches his gaze, understanding creeping into his face. "That how you broke him?" Kris asks, disapproving.

"I'm being sponsored to carry it," Chen says. "Never needed to hit anyone to have them eating out of my hand."

"I'm sure."

Kris nods politely and slopes off before Chen can explain further. He's not planning on entering the races. There's neither time nor need for him to stick around when he's got people to find, and that's got nothing to do with Chen. He's learned what he set out to discover, that there are no motor vehicles to be rented in the park and no way to leave across the desert if he can't find someone willing to sell, loan or drive theirs. He has to let the others know.

Ghost Square doesn't immediately seem like an obvious location to spend the night. Kris has to walk through a graveyard to reach the hotel, picking his way carefully between the headstones and open graves, hoping the whole thing is just part of the entertainment and there are no real bodies buried beneath the bumpy, uneven ground. Failed combatants from the Battle Square, perhaps. He tries not to give it too much thought, though the dim lighting and muted, haunting melodies emanating from speakers hidden in the stones don't make the area any less spooky.

He finds Yixing in the foyer, watching a pair of 'ghost' girls trail fake ectoplasm along the edges of the tables while a surprisingly spry 'zombie' drapes cobwebs artfully across the bar. The hotel obviously takes its location very seriously, the interior as dark and gloomy as the exterior, and staffed by all manner of creepy creatures. Jongin is nowhere in sight.

Kris drops down on the chair next to Yixing. "Any luck?"

"I healed the desk clerk's backache and he gave us a discount," Yixing says.

"I meant with the professor?"

"Ah, the professor." Yixing nods. "It seems he did stay here last night. He paid for a twin room for himself and the guy with the giant shuriken; the booking was in his name only. They checked out early this morning."

Kris winces. There goes his lead. "I guess they weren't helpful enough to say where they were going? I checked; there's nowhere here you can rent a vehicle."

"They didn't have to. The night clerk sold them his buggy. It turns out that the professor pays quite well when he's desperate enough."

"Great. They're already out in the desert somewhere and we don't even have a way to follow." Kris adds hopefully, "I don't suppose the night clerk had two buggies?"

Yixing recaps his chats with the hotel staff, explaining that there aren't too many people who have private vehicles at the Gold Saucer. Parking, it seems, is very expensive. The staff live on-site and leave by cable car; the patrons mostly come in by cable car too, leaving their vehicles at home. The night clerk had inherited his from a dead uncle and had been planning to sell it anyway; the professor had merely provided the opportunity.

"I think we're going to have to leave via cable car and see where that gets us," he finishes. "We might have better luck in a town. Any town that isn't North Corel, anyway."

Kris doesn't like it. That'll only set them further behind. What if the professor finishes whatever he's doing in the desert in the meantime and leaves? What Yixing's suggesting makes sense, but it'll take too long.

Yet, what alternative do they have? It's not like they can drive out there themselves. They don't even know anyone who has-

Oh. Oh. Perhaps they do.

"What's with the smile?" Yixing asks. "Did you suddenly remember you owned a car?"

"No, but I think I might know someone who does." Kris rises from his seat. "I'm going back to Chocobo Square. Where's Jongin?"

"Upstairs, asleep. We've got the twin room next door to him." Yixing smiles indulgently. "I promised to wake him when we get dinner."

They're not going to eat right this second. Jongin can stay asleep. "Want to go for a walk?"

They leave a message with the desk clerk in case Jongin wakes up and asks for them - not that he couldn't find them anyway, thanks to Lu Han - and head back to Chocobo Square. The jockeys on the screen this time are unfamiliar, and when Kris asks after Chen, he's told that because of his record Chen's only allowed to participate in a certain number of races per day, else it defeats the point of setting odds. (His occasional loss is the only reason they haven't limited him to a single race per day, evidently.) He's already raced his quota today.

"Any idea where I can find him now?" Kris asks the bookie, who only laughs at him.

Where to find a chocobo jockey when he's not riding? In the stables, of course.

Ace's stall is near the entrance, so Kris swings by there first. Much to his surprise, his chocobo isn't alone. Chen's standing by the door, crooning softly and reaching over to give Ace a good scratch above the beak.

"Traitor," Kris mutters under his breath when Ace squawks happily and tries to nip Chen's earlobe. Chen executes a neat dodge.

"Is he yours?" Chen asks, and Kris nods. "I don't see too many white chocobos around. He's beautiful."

"And he knows it," Kris says. "Don't encourage him. He's vain enough already."

"Like his owner," Yixing says, earning himself a scowl from Kris and a laugh from Chen.

Yixing's crack, much as it irks Kris, provides enough of an icebreaker to allow them to introduce themselves. Chen asks more questions about Ace than about Kris and Yixing, which is probably for the best. They'd rather not have to explain too much about themselves, and it's much easier for Kris to answer questions about Ace's stamina, gait and temperament than about his own background. He lets Chen run on until they've just about exhausted the subject of Ace, then takes the opportunity to interject a question of his own.

"I heard racing gets you good money, as long as you win?"

"Changed your mind?" Chen says. "If your technique's any good and you go up against someone other than me, you might make out okay. You've got a good bird here."

"He's very fast." Yixing taps Ace on the beak. "You should see the way he dashed away from a group of Death Machines a few days ago."

"Death Machines?" Chen echoes. "Around here?" His voice is part-curiosity, part-amazement, and Kris wonders if there's something here he can use.

"Across the sea," Kris says. "We haven't seen nearly as much action since we came over."

There's no mistaking the interest in Chen's eyes now. "Are you guys hunters? Are you here to sign up at the Battle Square?"

"We're hunting," Kris isn't isn't lying, strictly speaking, "but not for the Battle Square. We were hoping to go out in the Corel Desert next."

Chen shakes his head with a knowing smile. "Not on chocobos. You'd all be eaten alive."

"We know," Kris says. "Which is why we're interested in acquiring some wheels. Did you really win a car by racing?"

"I bought it," Chen corrects him. "Ordered it from Rocket Town with a combination of prize money and sponsor money. And it's a van. It's impossible to get Emperor in a car."

"Room for chocobos," Yixing says. "Even better for us."

"For you? Oh no. You're not-"

"How much for the van?" Kris asks, cutting off Chen's protests. "Just to borrow it. Ace can stay here as a guarantee if you want."

"Forget it." Chen steps away from the stall; Kris moves to block his exit. "I don't trust anyone else to drive it - and especially not a couple of strangers. Try the hotel; the night clerk's got the parking space next to mine. He might be more open to a bribe."

"Too late," Yixing says. "The people we're hunting already got it from him."

Kris mentally kicks himself for not reminding Yixing on the way over that explaining that they're chasing people might not be the best idea. Now Chen probably thinks they're bounty hunters - which is sometimes true, but not at the moment - and he's looking wary, his earlier interest locked down behind his eyes. They can threaten him, maybe, but it seems he won't part with his van willingly, even if they had enough to pay him its full worth in cash. (Which they don't, Kris is fairly certain.)

"I wouldn't bother following anyone into the desert to kill them," Chen says. "There are plenty of things out there that can save you the trouble."

"We're not here to kill anyone." Anyone else, at least, though Kris isn't ruling out himself as a likely victim. "One of the men we're looking for is already dead."

"You're chasing a corpse?" Chen's expression is an unflattering cross between disgust and bewilderment.

"An ex-corpse," Yixing corrects.

"Is that supposed to be better?" Chen says. "How is that even possible?"

Yixing's gaze flickers questioningly to Kris, who nods an 'okay' at him. "Materia."

"I know materia," Chen scoffs. "I used to work in a materia shop back in Rocket Town. There isn't one that can bring back the dead."

"That's what we thought last week," Kris says. "You know much about Summon materia?"

"A bit. Why?"

"Ever hear of one that summons a phoenix?"

"To kill monsters?"

Kris shrugs. "Maybe? All we know is that it brought someone back to life about a week ago, and we've been on his trail since we found out."

Chen leans back against the wall, avoiding Ace's attempts to peck his shoulder over the stall door, and looks up at Kris. "Materia hunters?"

It's not the first time Kris has heard mention of such a thing: people who travel around the world in search of rare materia, desperate for the accolades of being the first to equip a new type. His own father had been one, always off on the hunt, tracking down even the tiniest, most obscure rumour to its source in the hopes of finding glory. He'd never found any, as far as Kris knows, and it's strange to be mistaken for one in his father's profession. There haven't been any new materia for years - not even Magic, which is by far the most prevalent - and Baekhyun's the most recent Summon to be discovered. Who can this phoenix be, that none of the other Summons know him?

"Not exactly. I'm only interested in this one." Kris takes out the professor's ID card to show Chen. They've already told him half the story; he might as well hear the rest. "And this man."

"Ex-boyfriend revives corpse and runs off into the desert for a life of sand and necrophilia?"

Kris turns the full force of his disapproving eyebrows on Chen. "I've never met either of them before. They're out there, somewhere, and I can't reach them without your help."

"Without my van."

"Yeah, without your van." Kris can't gauge whether or not anything he's said has managed to sway Chen's decision, but he's not giving up. "So what would it take to change your mind?"

Chen's silent for a minute, slowly killing Kris's hopes, but then the cocky, confident chocobo jockey strides right back in, and maybe hope's not so dead after all. "Two things," he says. "And Ace stays here as collateral."

"Fair enough," Kris says. "How much?"

"No money - although you're paying for any damage. First thing, you tell me what you want with this materia. You said you're not a materia hunter, so it's not the prestige."

A chill passes over Kris's skin; dread and despair swamping any heat embarrassment might generate. He's never told anyone exactly who it is that he wants to bring back from the dead. "And the second thing?"

Chen shakes his head, smirking. "Uh uh. Answer me first, then I'll tell you."

"It's Kris's private business," Yixing says. "I don't think it's fair to ask him that."

"And I don't think it's fair to ask me to lend you my very expensive van without knowing exactly why you want it," Chen says simply. "That's life, sorry."

"It's okay." Kris gives Yixing an awkward smile in thanks. "I'd probably ask that too."

He'd really rather not answer. This is going to sound crazy enough to Yixing, who already knows he's part of the strange, mostly-forgotten world they only see in dreams. Chen knows nothing about it, has no idea what it's like to fight for the life of a dying tree by soaring through the skies as a dragon. How can he explain what he wants to do without making himself out to be insane?

"I'm not suicidal." He thinks it's probably a good idea to get that straight from the outset. "I'm not interested in killing myself. Not for good."

"I'd ask if there's any other kind," Chen says, "but you've just told me about materia that revives the dead."

"I hope it can revive the living too," Kris says. "Do you ever feel like...like you don't belong in your own life, like there's someone else you're supposed to be? Maybe someone you were, once?"

Yixing's nodding, but this bit isn't news to him. It's Chen's reaction Kris is interested in, and Chen's face gives away nothing but his curiosity. He's waiting patiently for the rest.

"I've always felt like that," Kris continues slowly. "There was always something...off. And then I started having these crazy dreams, where I was trying to protect this giant tree, only the tree was dying and there wasn't anything I could do to save it. There were these people there, and I couldn't really see them, but I felt like I knew them. Not now, but before. Weird, right?"

"You can't help what you dream," Chen says. "It doesn't have to mean anything."

"It does when it starts coming true." Kris doesn't feel inclined to mention the part where he actually transforms into a dragon. Sure, he's only done it once, but who's to say it won't happen again? "I know that what I am now isn't all of me. So I..." It sounds ridiculous, even as he tries to put it into words. This is not a sane, rational plan.

Then again, there's nothing sane and rational about turning into a dragon, and that's real enough. He's got witnesses.

"So you...?" Chen prompts.

"So I thought I could start over. Like, reset myself. Kind of like...burn away what I am now, and be who I was before?"

"Can we go back to the part where you said you're not suicidal?" Chen says. "Because I don't think I could've heard you right."

"I'm not planning to crash your van into a cactus," Kris assures him. "But if that Summon materia can revive the dead, maybe that's how I can do it; I've been looking for a long time, but this is the first time I've heard of anything that works."

"And if it doesn't work for you?"

Kris shifts uncomfortably, aware that he's not about to give the answer of a man to whom you'd entrust your van. "Then I won't be any worse off than I am now."

"I wouldn't say that," Yixing says. "Look at what you've gained in the past few months. You're not alone anymore - none of us are. Do you really think you wouldn't be leaving anything behind?"

"No, but-"

Yixing doesn't let him finish his protest. "We'd miss you. Maybe none of us remember who we were, but we're slowly finding out together, all of us. Please give this life a chance before you throw it away for one that might not be any better."

Kris's resolutions to not get invested began crumbling quite a few days back, somewhere between turning into a dragon and that awful night in Fort Condor, with its collection of dried-up husks. Yixing's earnest plea isn't helping him keep a safe, comfortable distance. Truth be told, that started to erode the moment he picked up Baekhyun - the moment the lone wolf began to form a pack. He's their leader now. He's their...friend?

He's not entirely certain how to define what they all share, except perhaps a certain common lunacy, a nightmarish past in a dying world. Ultimately, it won't matter who they are, or what bonds lie between them. Dead is dead, except maybe when it isn't.

"I'm not saying I'm definitely going to try it," Kris says, stumbling over his words. "But I do want to find that materia." He locks eyes with Chen. "Is that enough? Is that what you were expecting?"

"That was nothing like what I was expecting," Chen says frankly. "And I have no idea what to make of it, so yeah, that's enough."

"What's the second thing?" It can't, Kris thinks, be worse than the first. Naturally, he's wrong.

Chen reaches over the stall door to give Ace a final scratch above the beak, and grins back over his shoulder at Kris. "Beat me in a race."

-----

Kris has never raced a chocobo in his life. Ridden one really, really fast in order to escape danger, but never with five other chocobos racing alongside him, all determined to be first over the finish line. Before leaving Chen says he'll arrange for Kris to participate in the first race of the morning - he even offers to let them do the short course - and tells him where he needs to take Ace.

"Moping around the stables isn't going to win you that race," Yixing says after Kris has spent ten minutes petting Ace and staring blankly into the straw. "Can we at least get dinner while you think about it?"

"Nothing to think about," Kris says glumly. "You didn't see this guy race. His chocobo's like an extension of his body."

"Ace loves you very much," Yixing points out. "Don't discount him yet. Chen said the tracks will be free in an hour; you can go in and practise then."

"I don't think practice is going to help much..."

Kris lets Yixing persuade him that food would be an excellent idea (and to be fair, he's starving, only anxiety about the race is doing a good job of helping him ignore it) and the two of them return to the hotel, where a slightly more awake Jongin is waiting for them in the lobby.

"Lu Han told me you were on your way back," he says. "And also that Baekhyun wants you to call him out later. Something about chocobos?"

"It's a long story," Kris says. "You can hear it over dinner."

The hotel dining room is more than adequate for their needs, though the servers dressed as ghosts are somewhat disconcerting. Kris doesn't call Baekhyun out yet, because even though the Summons tend not to eat around their masters, Baekhyun is more prone to snacking than most and Kris refuses to buy food for a man who's eating perfectly well in another world anyway. Jongin giggles when they explain about the challenge, though his face falls when Kris enlightens him about Chen's success rate and skill level.

It falls further still when Kris tries to explain to him why he wants to revive the dead. Yixing's being considerate enough not to mention it, but Kris knows better than to think he won't somehow let it slip out in an unguarded moment. And Jongin deserves to hear it too, the reason they're on this quest in the first place. He listens quietly while Kris talks; the confusion spreading across his face makes him look like a bewildered child and Kris feels a twinge of guilt for dragging the others into this.

But if he hadn't... What if they'd still been in Junon, where they'd been staying before coming to find him in Midgar? Would they have escaped across the sea when the red clouds descended, or perished in their beds? There's no way to know. Kris is grateful to have them here - still alive, still fighting alongside him, whether there's something in it for them or not.

Jongin waits for the end of Kris's explanation, chopsticks dangling unused from his fingers, noodles cooling before him as the confusion begins to clear. He's not wearing his gauntlets at the table; they're clipped to his belt, twin materia orbs half-visible at his waist. Kris doesn't know if Jongin actually has to be wearing them in order for Lu Han to speak to him inside his head, but he doesn't have that slightly distracted, faraway look he sometimes gets when he says he's carrying on a conversation no one else can hear. He's too focused on Kris for that.

It's that intense focus that reminds Kris that although he's the youngest, Jongin's no child.

"I think I get it?" Jongin licks his lips, everything a question. There's no certainty here. How can there be, when even Kris has no real idea what he's doing? "Feeling like...you shouldn't be here. Like there are things you should remember, but they happened to someone else."

"Things with Lu Han?" Yixing suggests, and Jongin flushes, pretending to stab Yixing with his chopsticks.

"I don't have any memories with him, except that dream I had on the ship. I wish I did. He does."

"Give it time," Kris says. He's not sure how sensible it is to fall for someone who doesn't even have a physical presence in this world most of the time, but it seems to make them both happy, and if Kris would really rather not think about it in too much detail, it costs him nothing to be supportive. "You've only had the one dream. It's been over a decade for me. It must've been a long time for Lu Han, too."

Jongin nods solemnly, then remembers his rapidly-cooling food and attacks with great gusto, talking in between (and occasionally during) mouthfuls. "Are you really going to do this? Do you have to?"

"I'll worry about that after we find that materia." Kris takes a sip from his water glass. "If we ever get out there."

"You might win," Yixing says. "It's not impossible."

"It's not," Kris acknowledges with a rueful grin, "but that doesn't make it likely. I'll go try out the course in a bit and see how much trouble I'm in. Anybody want a practice race?"

"I would, but apparently I have plans," Jongin says. "Lu Han won't tell me what they are, though."

"This is why I got you a room to yourself," Yixing says, and Jongin chokes on his food. "I'm going to sit in the room and make up some more Potions while we have the time. There's nothing further we can do before morning anyway."

Kris doesn't push. If Yixing had been planning to come here for his honeymoon, exploring Gold Saucer might not be the most enjoyable of activities for him. Best to leave him to his own devices. They can always use the Potions.

Yixing disappears upstairs after dinner. Jongin hovers for a moment, probably waiting for Lu Han to show up, and Kris takes him aside to the least dusty corner of the foyer to ask, "Are you okay with this?"

"With what?"

"With..." Kris waves his hand vaguely over his chest. "With what I'm doing. What I'm thinking of doing."

"Oh." Jongin takes a few minutes to think about it; Kris can practically see him turning his answer over and over in his mind. The gauntlets are still off, so Jongin's probably alone in his head right now, and not talking it over with Lu Han. At last he says: "I'm not okay with you killing yourself. I don't...I've never had many people I could trust. I don't really want to lose one."

"You trust me?" Kris is flattered. Jongin's relaxed considerably since they first met, but he's still wary and for all that they've been through together, they've never explicitly discussed this. "Even after what I said?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. There has to be a better way to find yourself. Take up meditation or something?"

"I'm not going to do anything without thinking it through first," Kris assures him. "I want to talk to the guy who has the materia, too. He got crushed to death before he came back; I don't plan on doing anything like that to myself. Probably bad for my skin."

That, Jongin does agree with, and the joke seems to work better as reassurance than any serious discussion of how Kris is not intending to jump right into anything without considering the consequences. "I understand why you want to do it," he says. "I mean that. And we're all in this together, finding that materia. But I don't want to think about what happens afterwards."

"Then don't," Lu Han says as he appears at Jongin's side. "Focus on what you have right now." He turns to Kris. "Baekhyun's waiting for you to call him out. Keep him away from the bar, will you? He threw up all over my bed the last time he got drunk here."

Kris raises an eyebrow, laughing. "Unless there's one on the racetrack, he's not getting anywhere near alcohol this evening."

"Good." Lu Han grins, clearly satisfied, and grabs Jongin's hand to lead him out the front door. "Good luck on the track, and don't wait up."

Maybe Lu Han and Jongin have time to see the sights, but Kris has work to do. "Baekhyun," he whispers, and in a flash of light, his Summon appears, dressed more casually than usual in jeans and a plain navy T-shirt. He's still wearing the eyeliner, though there are no monsters to intimidate here. Not unless he fancies a turn in the Battle Square, and that's not going to happen.

"Lu Han said you wanted to talk about chocobos?" Kris asks. "Do you even have them where you're from?"

Baekhyun smirks, heading for the front door. "Sure we do. I used to ride them all the time in middle school."

"That was what, like, three years ago?"

"Very funny. Are we going to check out the track or not?"

Kris doesn't bother to ask how Baekhyun knows what's going on. He's getting used to the idea of Summons being able to hear things through their orbs, but he tries to make a point of never taking his sword to the bathroom with him. "Going to be my cheerleader?"

Baekhyun waves one small, elegant hand with an imaginary and very sarcastic pompom. "Rah rah."

Chocobo Square is largely deserted when they reach it, all the races over for the day, everyone gone to seek their pleasures elsewhere. Everyone, that is, except a pair of security guards on the door and a young lady in a pink dress, who introduces herself as 'Ester', and informs them that Chen had asked her to help Kris out.

"I'm his manager," she adds, and Kris doesn't know whether to be heartened that his racing rival is being so helpful, or suspicious of his motives. Still, it's not like Ester can take him down to the track and kill him with all the cameras watching, and he's pretty sure he can take on one lone, unarmed woman.

Or Baekhyun can, though he seems more interested in complimenting Ester on her hair, in which she's stuck a jaunty chocobo feather.

"We don't have time for that," Kris mutters, pitching his voice for Baekhyun's ears alone as Ester moves to unlock the door through to the stables.

"Why's Lu Han the only one allowed to get some in this world?" Baekhyun says. He's actually pouting. Kris wonders if it's too late to swap him for Kyungsoo. "Did you see the way she smiled at me? Tell me that wasn't interest."

"If she's Chen's manager she's probably in love with him too. Everyone else I saw in here today was."

"Even the old men? Gross." Baekhyun looks thoroughly disgusted. "That guy should have some restraint."

Kris tries to convey the hypocrisy of this in one withering glance, but quickly has to school his face back into something friendlier when Ester invites them into the stables. This is the entrance the jockeys and staff use, and they pass by the chocobos regularly berthed there en route to Ace. He points out Emperor on the way. Chen's prizewinning chocobo is wide awake, peering curiously over the door of his stall. Baekhyun looks him over with an appraising eye but doesn't offer an opinion, which can't be good news.

"How's my boy?" Kris croons to Ace when they reach his stall. "Did you miss me?"

Ace joyfully headbutts his master's hand in response; Ester's eyes light up. "That's so cute!"

"But not as cute as me," Baekhyun says, worming his way between Ester and Kris, and Kris groans inwardly. His Summon does have a kind of impish cuteness about him, but their combined good looks are not going to win them this race. Charming Chen's manager is probably a waste of time.

Not that Baekhyun's succeeding, anyway. "I just love chocobos," Ester says, completely focused on Ace. "And this one's a beauty!"

"How does he compare with Emperor?" Kris asks.

"I can't answer that without giving one of them a swelled head. Chocobos are very sensitive, you know."

"Exactly," Baekhyun interjects in a knowing tone, puffing out his chest. "That's why you have to give them just the right kind of stimulation."

Ester smiles at him, brighter than the stable lights, and Baekhyun blossoms under the force of her attention. "Do you know much about chocobos?"

"Enough to have them eating out of my hand." Baekhyun's self-satisfied grin really is becoming unbearable.

"Chocobos will eat out of anyone's hand," Kris points out. "It's stopping them eating your hand afterwards that takes skill."

Baekhyun shoots him a dirty look; Ester merely laughs. "Emperor nearly cost a few jockeys their hands," she says. "Their necks too. He simply wouldn't behave until Chen came along. We all thought he was amazing."

"He does seem pretty good," Kris has to admit. "I guess he's really got a way with chocobos."

"I hear that's not all he's got a way with," Baekhyun says snidely, but no one pays him any heed.

Ester nods. "You'll see for yourself tomorrow morning. Let's get Ace ready to go, and I'll take you through to the track. You can practise as much as you like tonight; they don't come in to do maintenance until six tomorrow morning."

Ace is thrilled to escape his stall. It's all Kris can do to prevent him hurtling off the second they reach the track. It's so peculiar, standing there without the hustle and bustle of the race, without the flashing lights and frantic music. The course trails off into the distance, marked out by coloured lights, and Kris has no idea what lies in wait for him up ahead. He hopes he and Ace can handle it.

"I'll be watching from the office," Ester says. "Come find me when you're done. Good luck!"

She leaves them alone to explore, and Kris considers where to start. Walk Ace through the course to get an idea of the layout? Or hop into the saddle and just go for it?

"The key to winning this race," Baekhyun says, "is the relationship you have with your chocobo."

Kris hopes Baekhyun isn't implying things he doesn't want to think about. "He's like a son to me."

"A son? That's good, we can work with that. But I bet your "son" has never had his daddy sing him to sleep, has he?"

"We don't have time for sleep!" Kris says. "And no, I've never sung to him. Why would I?"

Baekhyun looks at him like he's five years old and completely clueless. "Because chocobos love music. Not as much as they love food, but if you win their hearts with food all the time they get too fat to run. When I used to ride, I'd make them fall for me with my voice." He moves to stand opposite Ace and begins to sing. "Baby don't cry, tonight..."

He sings beautifully, Kris thinks, beginning to lose himself in the warm, rich sounds bringing life to the deserted track. It's no wonder Ace looks spellbound. The usually excitable chocobo has forgotten all about Kris and is edging towards Baekhyun, beak gaping open and eyes blissfully glazed. Kris has never been able to make Ace look at him like that. It's stupid to feel jealous of of your own Summon, right?

By the time Baekhyun's finished the song, Ace is nuzzling him happily, taking playful nips at his ear and allowing himself to be petted and fussed over. Kris might as well be invisible.

"He'll do anything I like now," Baekhyun says smugly. "He'll win the race or die trying."

"I don't want him to die," Kris says. "And you're not the one riding."

"That's not the point. You can do this too."

"I don't know..." Kris hasn't sung much in his life. Mostly, there hasn't been anyone around he'd want to hear him. He's definitely no match for Baekhyun's voice, and if that's what Ace likes...

"Give it a try," Baekhyun says, impatient now. "If your rival can do it, so can you."

"You think Chen sings to his chocobo?"

"He was crooning to Ace. I could hear it even from my orb. He's got a good voice." Baekhyun adds, "If that's what you're into. His chocobo probably is."

If Chen's voice can tame an untameable chocobo, Kris doesn't fancy his own chances. He searches his memory for song fragments, any snatch of melody stuck in the back of his mind. There's not much, and the few songs he's heard lately have come from Yixing and Minseok, who do the occasional double act. Minseok keeps Yixing's guitar in his world and brings it across on request; more than a couple of dull evenings have been livened in such a way. Sometimes Jongin even dances for them - he's so confident when performing, yet so shy when accepting praise, and he clearly misses having opportunities to dance. Kris doesn't contribute much on those occasions, save some amateur percussion...and, sometimes, a little rap.

"Selected VIP wouldn't it be mind-blowingly awesome-"

Ace screeches "Wark!" and tries to hide behind Baekhyun. Kris stops immediately, frowning at his laughing Summon. The further Ace retreats from Kris, the more Baekhyun doubles over with laughter. Kris hopes Ester can't see them on the cameras.

"Maybe this isn't a technique that's going to work for you," Baekhyun says when he finally calms down. "You probably have other talents...right?"

"Right," Kris says dryly. "They mostly involve chopping things that annoy me in half. I could demonstrate?"

"You could, but then you wouldn't have anyone to stand here guarding your sword while you take Ace around the track. I'm sure you'll go much faster without that weighing you down."

Baekhyun can't move Kris's sword, not while his own materia's equipped in it, but he can certainly stand still next to it. Maybe it'll keep him out of trouble. "Okay," Kris agrees. "Now can you stop cuddling up to my chocobo so he remembers me again?"

"He remembers you, he just doesn't like you rapping. Go on, Ace." Baekhyun gives the chocobo a little nudge. "It's okay to go back. The weird sounds have stopped. There's a good boy."

Kris is less than amused by Baekhyun's opinions of his musical efforts, but he can't complain when Ace slowly inches his way back to be met by Kris's large, gentle hand with an always-welcome ruffle behind the wing. A few smiles and encouraging words, and Ace is headbutting him with as much love as ever, almost bowling him over with the strength of his affection.

"See?" Kris says. "Ace loves me anyway, even if I don't sing to him. Maybe chocobos in your world are different."

"They're not," Baekhyun says. "Some of them just have better taste than others. The one I always rode in middle school, he wouldn't respond to anyone's voice but mine after the first time I rode him." He sounds a little nostalgic. "I was so sad when his owners moved and took him away with them. None of the others will ever be as special to me."

"What was his name, this special chocobo?" The Summons don't talk that much about themselves, so Kris figures the polite thing to do would be to show an interest.

Baekhyun gives him an embarrassed smile. "Ah, I was quite young when they let me name him..."

"His name?" Kris presses, curious now.

"Beakhyun."

Kris settles for raising judging eyebrows at his Summon and tossing his sheathed sword down at the edge of the track, before climbing astride Ace. "You want me to pretend I didn't hear that?"

"I stand by my choices," Baekhyun says.

"I don't care if you stand by your choices as long as you stand by my sword."

Kris leaves Baekhyun by the starting line and hopes he won't disappear before they get back. Not that he's worried about anyone sneaking in and stealing his sword, but even so, he doesn't like being unarmed for longer than he can help. He won't be allowed to carry any weapons in the race tomorrow anyway, and he could do without the extra weight.

Ace behaves himself moderately well, only turning his head a few times to give Kris a bewildered look; Kris gently nudges him to continue. They walk the course through once, then three times at varying speeds so Kris can get the hang of where he wants to be for rounding corners, and where it's best to approach the stairs. There's a lot riding on this - more than he really wants to take responsibility for, but it's not as if he can ask someone else to do it. He made a bargain and now he's committed to holding up his end.

By the end of the fourth lap, Kris feels they know the course as well as can be reasonably expected - given his head, Ace now makes the turns himself - and without any opponents to measure them against, he can't tell how well they match up in terms of speed. They'll just have to wait until morning and hope for the best. Baekhyun stays long enough to wish them luck before disappearing back into his materia orb, and Kris takes Ace back to the stables with Ester.

"See you at ten," she says, showing him out the front entrance. "You should go enjoy the Saucer tonight. The fireworks are beautiful."

"Thanks, but I think I'll just head back to the hotel. Tomorrow's going to be rough."

Kris's attempts to spend a quiet night in don't go quite as planned, as Lu Han - alone, and dressed differently to earlier - intercepts him on his way back and persuades him to go to Event Square. Kris proceeds to regret agreeing to this for the rest of the evening.

At least when he finally returns to the hotel, he's knocked out enough that sleep comes easily. This time, he doesn't dream.

-----

Neither of the others have dreamt, either, when he checks at breakfast. Yixing, who'd been back in the hotel making Potions by the time Kris had returned, is his usual amiable self. Jongin's sleepy, of course, but he seems happy after his date with Lu Han. Kris finds it easier to ignore his impending race and force down food when he's talking to the others, and if they're apprehensive about his chances, they don't let on.

"You can drive, right?" Jongin asks, rubbing sleep from his eyes as he looks at Kris. "I don't have much practice."

"I've never tried," Yixing says. "How hard can it be in the middle of a desert?"

Kris sighs. "Okay, you're definitely not driving. We have to bring back this van in one piece, remember? I'll do it." He's fairly certain he's got more driving experience than Jongin, and if they let Yixing do it, the odds are that he'll space out and run them into a cactus - even if it's the only thing out there. "I used to work as a courier out of Midgar for a while, before the company went bust and had to sell off their cars."

"Is that when you started selling your sword?" Yixing asks.

"I did a little freelance translating in between," Kris says. It's not like he has any reason to keep his past a secret. Not anymore. The others have already heard far more embarrassing things about him. "I grew up in Wutai, so..."

Yixing smiles. "So that's why you sleeptalk in multiple languages!"

"I do?" This isn't the first time Yixing has told Kris he talks in his sleep, but he's never found out if any of it makes any sense.

"Not all the time," Jongin assures him through a mouthful of toast. "I just thought you were mumbling gibberish."

Kris smacks him lightly on the arm with a rolled up serviette and concentrates on not spilling juice down himself before the big race. He's definitely going to have an audience.

When they get to Chocobo Square, they find a long line of people placing bets - most of them, on Chen. Word has spread, but there aren't too many people willing to risk their money on the unknown newcomer. Jongin and Yixing find a corner from which to watch the race on the big screens. They don't bet on Kris either - at least, not with money. The stakes are much higher for them.

Ester pops up to greet them and take Kris through to the stables again. Chen's already there, petting Emperor in his stall. He turns when Kris bids him a good morning and Kris is surprised by the lack of colour in his face. Chen looks like he rolled out of his sickbed for the occasion, face pale and downcast, eyes haunted and wary. This isn't what Kris expects from the number one chocobo jockey in the Gold Saucer. Where's that easy confidence, that love of the race?

Perhaps he didn't sleep well. "Bad night?" Kris asks sympathetically. It wouldn't do to crow over anything that might give him an edge in the race.

"You could say that." Chen offers him a weary smile, so lacking in energy that Kris wants to suggest they call the whole thing off until tomorrow - but there's no time for that. "Don't think I'll be easier to beat because of it, okay?"

Kris returns the smile. "Okay."

The stableboy appears then, to assure Kris that Ace has received nothing but the best care since his stabling, and Kris leaves his exhausted opponent behind. Ace is waiting for him.

"We can do this," Kris murmurs to Ace as he leads him out to the track. "Just you and me, boy. You know you're the best one out there, right?"

Ace smashes his head affectionately into Kris's chin. Kris thinks himself lucky it wasn't beak-first.

There's a tense atmosphere out on the track, despite the cheerful music blaring from the speakers. Chen and Emperor are there, of course, and the other four jockeys seem far more worried about them than they are about Kris and Ace. Two of the other chocobos are yellow; another is pink, and the last is green. Three of the jockeys appear to be female; Kris can't tell about the fourth. What they do all have in common is their determination to win, and the more Chen's subdued mien registers with them, the more confident they appear to grow. Chen ignores them all, save a nod in Kris's direction as they take their positions.

Kris has time for a quick nod back and then with a fanfare they're off, dashing through a rainbow tunnel with Chen in the lead. Ace is at least moving in the right direction, clearly remembering last night's drills, and Kris doesn't have to do much steering with his knees. They're not first. They're not even second. But although this is the short track, it's long enough that Kris reckons that with Ace's speed, they can make a comeback from fifth place. It's still early.

They pass through the rainbow tunnel to a lighter area filled with greenery. An arrow pinned to a giant tree advises them to run right; the jockey in fourth place notices too late, and Kris takes advantage of the moment's hesitation to overtake. A yellow tunnel takes them to a multicoloured chessboard, spiralling around a pillar of pink light, leading them up in a loop. It's not a steep incline but it's steady, and Kris hears one of the birds behind him take a tumble. He doesn't turn to look. Chen's still in the lead, and that's where Kris needs to be.

The purple and white checks open out in a dark, forested area, where trees dot the track and low-hanging branches must be dodged, lest the jockeys be swept from their saddles. Kris remembers how to avoid them, knows how to weave between the trees. The jockey in third place isn't so lucky. She doesn't fall out of the saddle, not completely, but the blow slows her down and like that, Kris is in third.

Big yellow pillars bracket the course on either side as they leave the forest, passing a large, foreboding-looking ship in a pool of water on the left. The pillars give way to a crystal cave, stalactites of blue, green and pink hanging down from above, icy crags lining the track. Any slips here could mean the race, and that's exactly what happens to the rider in second. Ace is surefooted, even on ice, and the terrain doesn't faze him at all. Kris ducks the lowest stalactites and hangs on, content to let his chocobo pick his way through the best way he knows how.

In second place now, Kris follows Chen into a green and brown garden, full of flowers and the scents of spring. The rider in third is hot on his heels, but her chocobo stops to eat the flowers and there's just no coming back from that. Kris can't see the other three. He has to trust that they're too far behind now to matter. This is all about catching Chen, only a little way ahead and flying up the set of stairs at the end of the garden.

Ace leaps up the first three steps in one bound, jarring Kris horribly on the landing but it's worth it. That's not something they tried last night. Ace is striving on his own, making all the right moves to take them into first place, and Kris spares a moment from his adrenaline rush to feel all warm and fuzzy about it. Win or lose, somebody's getting his feathers ruffled later.

Emperor is faster on the stairs, the natural result of so much practice, but Ace catches up rapidly. Kris wills all his energy, all his drive, into the hand he rests on Ace's neck, in an effort to boost his chocobo's resources. They're in this together; he knows Ace can tell how important this is to him. It's silly, he accepts, trying to augment his chocobo like that, but it's a harmless fantasy, that Ace will borrow his strength to win the race.

Chen's still ahead at the top of the stairs, crouched low over the saddle, ready to make the final dash to the finish line. That's when everything changes. Emperor stumbles over the top step, and in the few seconds it takes for him to regain his balance, Ace sprints past him, hurtling into a tunnel as dark as the night sky, with large, brightly coloured planets looming over the path and marking the way to the gaping mouth of a giant moogle. Emperor's fast, and now he's desperate too. Kris is only too aware of the sleek black chocobo barely a second behind him as they chase through the moogle's mouth to the finish line.

It's close. It's painfully close. Emperor could take a bite from Kris's shoulder, he's so near. Kris needs this victory. They have to win.

And with one final surge, they do.

Ace has to be pulled back after the finish line - he wants to keep running - and Kris isn't even certain he's won until he sees Chen dismount. The other four chocobos show up within a minute, too late to see the end, but the cameras will show the winner. Everyone watching on the screens will know the result by now.

"Congratulations." Chen holds out his hand; Kris shakes it. Chen looks much brighter now, perhaps from the thrill of the race. He's still clearly tired, but much more aware of himself and his surroundings. "I told you that you had a good bird."

"He's the best," Kris agrees, and Ace presents his head for a good scratch. "Please look after him well until I return."

Chen seems startled for a moment, like he's forgotten all about their agreement, but recovers his equilibrium fast. "Ace will be in safe hands," he promises. "You've got nothing to worry about."

They arrange to meet in the car park in an hour; as Chen says he needs to get the van fuelled up, and Kris needs to round up the others. They've already made arrangements for their chocobos to remain in the stables as well, to give Ace some company, and because Kris figures they're not going to get far riding them in the desert anyway. They've already checked out; all their gear is with Jongin and Yixing, waiting for Kris in the lobby.

Along with a whole crowd of people who want to congratulate him. Kris can see Jongin over the herd (Yixing is below his line of sight) but it takes ten minutes to reach him, beset, as he is, by his newly-acquired fans. Anyone who beats Chen, it seems, automatically acquires 'legend' status and must make themselves available for autographs and random acts of worship.

"You won!" Jongin greets him when he finally makes it through. "That was so close, at the end!"

Jongin's grinning madly, eyes crinkling up in the way he does when he's truly happy about something, and Kris thinks it may only be propriety that's keeping him from flinging his arms around Kris in celebration. They do have something to celebrate, after all. Kris decides to make it easy for him. He extends an arm and Jongin ducks under it, letting himself be enfolded as Kris tugs him close. Yixing's far more serene about it but accepts Kris's other arm, joining them in a group hug.

It's warm, this three-way embrace. Kris isn't used to it, to feeling close enough to anyone that he'd want to hold them and be held by them like this. They're an odd little family, the three of them, but that's what they've become, isn't it? He's pretty sure he reeks of chocobo but they stick by him anyway, sharing the victory between them until he lets go, insisting that he has to go get Ace settled before they leave and then clean himself up.

The hour passes quickly. Kris leads the way to the car park, where but a handful of vehicles are parked. (The exorbitant fees listed on the wall presumably have something to do with it.) Chen's is the only van, black as Emperor's feathers and easily long and wide enough to carry several chocobos. Kris can tell, because when he walks around the back to talk to Chen, he can see all four of their chocobos inside - including Ace, last seen in the stables no more than half an hour ago. Emperor doesn't look overly thrilled to be sharing his space with three strangers, but they fit readily enough, and if the stalls are not designed for long-term habitation they do at least look comfortable.

Chen himself has a bag slung over one shoulder, and is carrying a lance with a pair of materia slots on the end. One is occupied with a glowing green Magic materia - Bolt, Kris sees when he takes a closer look. There's a crate of large water bottles on the ground, waiting to be loaded into the van, and another crate underneath that he assumes also contains supplies.

"What's going on?" Kris asks, confused. This isn't what they'd agreed on.

"You didn't think I was really going to let a bunch of strangers drive away with my van, did you?" Chen says. "Nobody drives it but me. Therefore, I have to go with you."

"I suppose I'll have to wait to try driving another time," Yixing says, and Kris groans.

"You weren't going to drive anyway," he says.

"Does that mean you lost on purpose?" Jongin asks from behind the rear door. "So you could come with?"

Kris quickly introduces Jongin and Chen, who have yet to meet, and when Chen's mouth gapes open upon seeing Jongin he suspects there's more at work here than Jongin's natural cuteness claiming another victim. When Chen admits that yes, he deliberately came in second, Kris tries not to feel too disappointed about the outcome of the race.

"Don't feel bad about it," Chen advises. "I thought I'd have to sabotage myself a lot more to lose to you. You very nearly won under your own power."

That helps, a little, but it still doesn't make much sense. "I don't get it. You could've said you'd drive us yesterday, instead of challenging me to a race you were going to throw anyway."

"But yesterday, I planned to win," Chen says. "I had no intention of letting you drive away in my van, much less being your driver. I just thought it would be fun to race against you."

"I did enjoy it." Kris hadn't planned to admit that, but it slips out regardless.

"Me too." Chen's eyes brighten as he smiles at Kris, an expression far too kind to belong to the cocksure chocobo jockey with his hundreds of adoring fans.

"So what changed your mind?"

Chen's smile fades. "Your dream about a giant tree. I think that's what I saw last night. All of you were there - even Jongin, though I didn't even know what he looked like until now. We were all fighting. I was...firing bolts of lightning at some red clouds? Lightning from my hands? Not with Bolt materia?"

Kris's gaze flicks across to Yixing and Jongin. He's sure they're all thinking the same thing. Chen is one of them?

"I'm sure Lu Han didn't know," Jongin says. "He would've said something."

Privately, Kris isn't so sure, but he keeps that opinion to himself. What Lu Han knows and what he's willing to tell tend to be two different things. "We all have those dreams," he explains to Chen. "It's...a long story. Really long."

"Tell me while we drive," Chen says, tossing his keys in the air and catching them again. "And then maybe you can explain to me why you transformed into a dragon in the dream."

"I wish I knew." Kris gives a final wave to Ace and closes the door on the chocobos, after Jongin loads the crates inside. "You'll think it's all crazy."

"I think it's crazy already," Chen says. "But I knew that from talking to you yesterday. If it gets too weird I can just abandon you all in the middle of the desert and forget about it."

The flippant comment eases the tension in the air, prompting a round of awkward laughter. Kris wasn't expecting this. He doesn't have definite plans as it is, and now he has to factor in a person he only met yesterday? Someone who...could've chalked up the dream to strange coincidence and left it at that. Someone who could've decided he wanted no part of it, who could've refused to help.

And Chen hasn't done any of those things. Kris knows nothing about him, but maybe they'll find out on the way.

"We definitely haven't met before, have we?" Chen asks.

"Not in this life," Kris says. "At least, not that I know of."

"So that dream was from another life?"

"Yeah." Kris has no idea where to start explaining, especially when there are so many gaps in his knowledge. "We were different people, but...not?"

"With different names?"

"Some of us, yeah. Why?"

"Because in the dream, you called me Jongdae," Chen says, and Kris knows this explanation's going to take a while.

There's a double row of seats in the front; Chen sits behind the wheel and Kris swings himself up into the adjacent seat, leaving Jongin and Yixing to strap themselves into the back. Chen's lance, Yixing's staff and Kris's sword all have to be tucked down the side. They look like they're driving off to fight a battle.

Maybe they are. There's no telling what they'll find in the desert.

But at least now they have the chance to look.