[EXO] [PD6] On the Road (Where You Don't Look Back) 2/3
Title: On the Road (Where You Don't Look Back) 2/3
Fandom: EXO (sort of fused with Final Fantasy VII)
Series: Phoenix Down (#6)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, crossover (sort of)
Word count: 27,046
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Warnings: There are a lot of corpses in this fic. However, none of them are characters.
Part 1
On the Road (Where You Don't Look Back) 2/3
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."
Part 3
Fandom: EXO (sort of fused with Final Fantasy VII)
Series: Phoenix Down (#6)
Rating: PG-13
Genre: AU, crossover (sort of)
Word count: 27,046
Disclaimer: Not mine, damnit.
Warnings: There are a lot of corpses in this fic. However, none of them are characters.
Part 1
On the Road (Where You Don't Look Back) 2/3
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."
Part 3