Note: Same as last time. Halilintar, Duri, Blaze are females. Everyone else is male.

Summary: After Retakka's defeat, the galaxy returns into a state of peace, and it's all thanks to the five elementals who risked their own lives to face the tyrant.

...

...

...

Wait a minute.

●・○・●・○・●

Thinking back, Gempa should have gone with them.

The others didn't say it, but he knew from their faces alone, that they were thinking the exact same thing.

If any of them told him outright, he'd pat their backs and say, "There's nothing you could have done." He'd get some hot chocolate with them if they felt like it, and maybe even spend the day outside to clear their minds in attempt to make them feel better.

He was right. There was nothing that they could have done.

Gempa would tell the others that the fault didn't lie with them. That they were just as helpless as everyone else when it came to the decisive moment. He repeated the same sentence over and over again until it felt like a mantra. There's nothing that you could've done, said on loop to a point where it became a prayer of forgiveness.

He never blamed anyone else for their helplessness. They didn't blame him either. They parroted his comforts back to him, word for word, but dragging a knife down a blackboard wound sound less jarring.

He didn't deserve their forgiveness. He didn't deserve anyone's kindness. He wasn't like them. He was supposed to be better. They trusted him to rise above them, because he was their goddamned leader.

It may be Retakka's fault for stealing Solar and Halilintar, but Gempa deserved half the blame for failing to protect them. What was he, if not a shield for his friends? His family?

Learning from mistakes was easy, but the same couldn't be said with tragedies. He was incapable of practicing what he preached.

God, he's such a hypocrite.

It's been two months since Solar and Halilintar went MIA, bodies yet to be found.

Some part of Gempa wished that they would stay missing. That way, he'd never have to come face-to-face with his own failures, so he could cling onto that false hope that they'd walk through the front door once more. He and the rest of the team could live in a fake paradise, ignorant from the horrific fate two of their own had met.

The other part of him had resigned himself to the truth. The earlier they were found, the sooner that he could kneel upon their graves and grovel for forgiveness. All the unsaid apologies, regrets and what-ifs kept sealed in his head, he could finally break that dam and let them be known to the world. There was no use in grieving people who could still be alive.

If they were still alive.

If there was still a corpse left to bury.

When he'd broken the news to his team, the reactions had been mixed. He knew each of his friends had eccentric personalities and traits, and he saw with great clarity of how they handled the fallout.

The sight would haunt him for the rest of his days.

Taufan, who'd grown up with both Halilintar and Gempa, had his eyes blown wide in disbelief. He was the first to break the silence, imploring to Gempa that he must be joking, and this is poor timing for a joke, even for him.

Duri followed soon after, backing Taufan up and claiming that Solar couldn't be dead. Her younger brother is still alive and out there, just taking his sweet time getting a coffee on the way before contacting them...

Blaze was uncharacteristically silent, as if she were living in a slower place than the rest of the world. Her gaze wasn't on Gempa, but on her twin, Ais, like she was almost thankful that her brother wasn't the one who was taken away, but also guilty that she was prioritizing him over the others.

(Gempa couldn't find it in himself to be angry, because he knew deep down in his shoes, he'd feel the same way if happened to anyone other than Halilintar and Taufan.)

Ais' entire body was stiff, jaw clenched tight as he ground his teeth. His arms were crossed over his chest, shoulders squared as if he were preparing for a fight. Like Blaze, he was also glancing at her, perhaps equally grateful as his sister that she wasn't the casualty.

Gempa didn't remember much of what happened after that.

All he knew was that they split up looking for them. Taufan with Gempa, Blaze with Ais, and Duri forged on alone. They called their names, dug up rubble and debris, searching for a familiar shade of black and white, but it was all in vain.

Not even a scrap of fabric remained of them.

It was easily the most terrifying moment of Gempa's night, when their search proved to be fruitless.

None of it felt real. That day felt like a distant dream.

If it really is one, he'd never waken up since.

It's been five months. Things have changed, somewhat.

The team still fought crime, still looked out for any potential threats, but rarely did they do it as a team. There was no situation at hand that could possibly require all their attention at once.

Not that anything could be more dangerous than a 100-year-old alien who had successfully drained seven plants of their life force and killed two of their teammates.

To the team's surprise, Duri had taken up the mantle of their technician. She'd always been as intelligent as her younger sibling, though her skills were inferior to his for her inexperience.

She slaved away in Solar's laboratory, dusting off plans and worked tirelessly to complete the half-baked projects he never got around to continue. Anyone could see that she was trying come to terms with her brother's death, and the complexity of her newfound responsibility allowed her just enough busywork to do just that.

Taufan, on the other hand, lost all the carefreeness he once had. It took him a significantly longer time than the others to bounce back to some semblance of functionality, but even now he was still visibly quieter than before.

He still smiled, made dry jokes that elicited equally dry laughs, but it was so easy to tell that his heart just wasn't in it. He was also snappier nowadays – losing his temper at the drop of a hat and driving those who got too close to him.

Everyone always knew that he and Halilintar were more alike than they thought, and he'd just proven how true their suspicions had been. Neither he, Halilintar nor Gempa were related, but the scowl on his expression was unmistakable.

If only it could have happened under better circumstances.

Seven months later, they got a call. Taufan was the one to pick it up.

Gempa was out at the time, so he wasn't there to receive the initial fallout. All he knew was when he returned home, he was jumped by the twins, informing him that both Taufan and Duri had gone off-planet minutes after they received that call.

They don't know where they had gone. They hadn't bothered to explain it. All the twins knew was that Taufan had knocked several furniture over whilst running to Solar—no, Duri's lab, dropped a bombshell and they were both seen running out the house door immediately after.

Whatever it was, it had to be urgent.

Taufan may be irritable now, but Duri had Solar's rationality. If it was enough to drive Duri up a wall, it should be serious enough to warrant their panic.

Regardless, Gempa wasn't keen on finding out what had happened. Something told him that it wasn't just a casual check in.

Several hours later, they were back.

Gempa was at the front door when the ship landed in their front yard. The hatch opened to reveal Taufan and Duri, who both looked like they've seen a ghost.

Behind them trailed a foreign but familiar face.

A face who belonged to the dead.

"I can explain," was Taufan's first words when he saw Gempa.

He clammed up and shot to Duri for help, clearly unable to explain.

Duri shook her head and sighed. She craned her neck towards the androgynous stranger behind her, clamped her fingers around their shoulder, and pushed them forward.

The stranger tensed up, red-gold irises darting around in fear.

They were a whole head shorter than Gempa, only slightly taller than Duri.

They were wearing casual clothes, but he could recognize those faces anywhere, even if they were merged into one. The characteristics may have cojoined, but the individual traits were tell-tale enough of who they were.

Gempa felt as if a glacier had crashed into him.

"Explain," he said breathlessly.

Duri and Taufan exchanged glances.

Neither of them knew how to.

They knew who Supra was. The fusion was burned into their memory.

They were the last they saw of Halilintar and Solar before they disappeared for good.

Fusions weren't a new concept to them. Gempa and Blaze could fuse with Ais. It was something they learned out of desperation when Retakka had cornered the twins.

It enhanced their powers tremendously, but fusions weren't easy to maintain.

They were a delicate balance. One wrong thought, one wrong move and they'd be split apart.

They were never easy to maintain. It had taken all of their concentration and every last bit of their strength to hold Glacier and Frostfire together, mutual adrenaline and the need to survive keeping them from breaking apart.

They were not meant to last long. They were a temporary power up at best, a last resort at worst.

Yet Supra was here, sitting in their living room, clearly distressed and confused but showed no signs of unfusing.

That was already a huge red flag by itself.

Then there's the fact that they don't seem to recognize anyone or anything.

Gempa knew the look in Supra's eyes. He saw it in the children who's been separated from their parents, distrustful of their savior. He saw it in veteran warriors who've been met with unconditioned kindness by a planet they never visited.

That was how Supra saw them.

Foreign, unknown strangers. Uncharted territory they didn't account for. Unsure if they were trustworthy people.

Or, they knew too much. They had too much information from different sources, not knowing if any of them were true. Like there was danger awaiting them from every corner.

"They were found at the dam, where TAPOPS' new base is located," Duri started, adjusting her reading glasses. "Some poor cadet was dared to wander outside of camp and found them floating downstream."

She made a point to avoid looking at them, only keeping her gaze on those she knew were alive and well.

Duri crossed her arms. "Even in their comatose state, they displayed signs of elemental energy." She drummed her fingers on her elbow. "That's when they decided to contact us, seeing that this falls into our specialty."

Everyone's eyes fell onto the sleek device on their wrists, colored a mixture of their former selves.

They shirked and hid their hand into their pocket, unsettled by the attention.

Gempa ran a hand down his face.

"How are they so sure that this isn't... isn't a fake?" His voice cracked at the end. "It wouldn't be the first time that our enemies have tried to take advantage of our likeliness."

Duri shook her head. "This is Supra. I can confirm that."

"How?" Blaze spoke up. "We tore the place up and down looking for them. How are they only found now?"

Ais also gave his two cents, skeptical. "Why haven't they unfused into Hali and Solar?" he demanded, eyes fixed on the fusion unrelentingly. "There's too many missing variables. If they are Supra, they should have already unfused."

"I don't know," Duri snapped at the twins. "All I can tell you is that they are Supra. They are Halilintar and Solar. They—" She paused. "They—just don't know that they are."

It was Gempa's turn to gawk at her.

"What?" His voice was almost a scream. "Even if they don't know—they should unfuse! Fusions break apart when both of us lose concentration or get knocked out. I think being in a coma constitutes that!"

"We don't know much about fusions, even now!" Duri shot back. "For all we know, this is Solar who just inherited Halilintar's powers after she died, or vice versa. Maybe one of them is dead and gone and the surviving one hit their head too hard! Maybe this is a fake, and whoever's made this sick game is playing us like a fiddle. Or maybe, Solar and Halilintar are both dead, and this is the culmination of their combined gripe coming back to haunt us as a bloody ghost!

"I don't know, Gempa! We don't know anything!"

Duri panted hard, face red and expression crinkled into one of frustration.

Gempa saw the exact same expression on her on her worst nights, refusing to come to terms that her baby brother was truly gone.

Her wails and screams still lingered in the halls in their memories.

Now that Solar (and Halilintar) was possibly right before them, Gempa wondered whether if accepting them as dead would have been a better fate.

For all of them.

After Duri's outburst, no one else spoke.

The tension was so thick that you could've sliced it with a knife, cleaving through chilled butter.

Until Supra raised their hand, hunching in on themselves.

Everyone turned to them, waiting for them to speak.

"Halilintar... Solar... asleep." They pointed to their head. "In here."

"Asleep?" Blaze quizzed, careful to keep her voice low to not scare the fusion. "In there?"

Supra nodded timidly. "Asleep," they agreed. "Too much power... too tired. Can't wake up."

"If both Halilintar and Solar are 'asleep,'" Gempa said, "then who are you?"

"Me?" Supra pointed to themselves, hesitant. "I'm... Supra. I have their memories... but I'm not them."

The more they spoke, the more literate they became.

It should be expected, if what Duri told them was true. That they only woke up a couple hours ago completely disorientated.

"Do you know when they will wake up?"

Supra shook their head. "They are very... tired," they confessed. "I don't know."

Duri pursed her lip. "Can you tell us our names?"

Supra nodded, pointing to each one of them and listing off what they knew, starting with Duri and Taufan. "Duri, Air-headed Idiot." They turned to Blaze and Ais. "Blaze, Ais." Then they turned to Gempa last. "Blockhead."

The group stared at Supra like they'd grown a second head.

Eventually, Taufan broke the stupor.

"Those are the names Halilintar called me and Gempa since we were children," he revealed, face a mixture between surprise and grief. "They weren't lying. Those are Halilintar's memories."

Blaze rolled her eyes. "What a surprise."

"What about Duri?" Ais pressed. "Do you remember who she is to you? To Solar?"

To their surprise (or not), Supra nodded. "Older sister," they said. "Completely unreliable, and her... cooking tastes like shit."

"Dear god." Ais grimaced. "They're pulling no punches."

Duri grunted. "That's Solar," she agreed, voice tight. "He hates everything I make. Especially salads."

"They're a bowl filled with uncooked vegetables and manufactured dressing," Supra quoted Solar, word-for-word. Then, in Halilintar's fashion, "It takes no skill to make, but somehow you still managed to make it completely inedible."

The fact that Supra was a perfect combination of Halilintar and Solar should be comforting.

It was not.

Taufan asked, "Do you remembered what happened, after they fused?"

"... yes," they said hesitantly, but didn't elaborate further.

The memory was disturbing, it seems.

Taufan didn't relent. "What happened?"

Supra didn't look comfortable.

But neither were the rest of them.

They were ripping off a scab over their freshly healed wound, blood spurting from the gaping hole in their chests.

Supra's presence alone had already forced them to step outside their comfort zone. Knowing the truth was simply yanking them from the ground and throwing them into space.

"A face, and their names," they wisped, eerily craning their neck towards Gempa's direction.

The fogginess in their eyes had completely vanished, replaced by the clearest look that Gempa had ever seen on them.

They were the most awake they had ever been, as they stared straight into Gempa's eyes.

"You wanted to save us, didn't you?" Both voices chorused in unison, Halilintar and Solar speaking as one.

"Didn't you?"