Jin's screech echoed around the cockpit: "HOLY FUCKING CHRIST."

Jin pivoted around from the pilot's seat, gaped, then swiveled back around to stare through the ship's glass at the swirling white cloud coasting around them as they soared through sky.

Jin's hands tightened on the steering wheel.

"Y'all, Tae was dead. Right? Was he not dead? Wait..." Jin got a faraway look in his eye, "are we ALL dead now? Is this some kinda--GAH!"

"Eyes on the road, bro," Taehyung said through a starlight smirk as he draped himself dreamily over the edge of Jin's chair.

Jin jerked away from Tae's face, one of the good doctor's hands flopping into his own chest, as if Tae had a 'crazy person' disease that Jin was afraid to catch.

Then the he muttered under his breath, "Holy hell."

He was only saying what everyone else was thinking. But with so many questions swirling, so much tension yet to unravel--and no one knew where to begin.

Yoongi came forward and gripped his hands around the back of the pilot's seat. Tae shirked out of Yoongi's way.

"Lemme take over, Jin-hyung," Yoongi said.

"I'm having a mental breakdown and you're interrupting me," Jin said scathingly.

Yoongi shrugged. "I mean, it's not like you know where the hell we're actually going. Unless you just wanna fly us in circles until we run outta fuel."

Jin pursed his lips. "Touché."

Yoongi slid into the pilot's seat just as Jin stood up and slumped himself into the empty co-pilot's seat next to it.

Jin folded his arms and jerked his black hair out of his face. Then the good doctor pivoted the copilot's chair around to stare into the crowded cockpit where the whole of Noon Mool's crew was now clustered together.

Lilith squeezed her small form between the pilot and co-pilot's seat. She leaned into the side of Jin's chair as she wiped her bloodied hands into a grease rag she'd plucked up from one of the backseats. Jin sent a scathing look up into Lilith's dark eyes. Her face that was speckled with so much blood and grime. The sight of the blood made Jin give a huff, but Lilith simply looked down at him with warm eyes.

Then Jin shifted his attention onto the whole cockpit again. "Alright. Now someone better tell me what the hell is going on around here, because DAMN." He flailed an arm in Taehyung's direction, as if that were enough to make his point. Then Jin stretched his hands wearily over his face and said, "This stress is gonna give me wrinkles."

Everyone seemed to be gathering their thoughts, unsure where to begin.

____

Joon sat in one of the three back seats with Shae in his lap, his arms wrapped tightly around her stomach and his chin tucked into her shoulder. He had one of the most content, innocent expressions on his face that Jin thought he'd ever seen the man wear.

Meanwhile, Jin saw that Shae was staring at Jeon Jungkook--who was staring back at her--and if Jin didn't know any better he'd have thought something weird was going on between them.

Jungkook was leaning into the wall to Jin's left with one arm latched around Tae's neck in a friendly and somewhat protective gesture.

Tae seemed to be finding the lines in his own hands fascinating and wasn't paying anyone else any attention.

Hoseok was crammed into the middle backseat between Joon and Ava, and he kept sending annoyed looks at Joon's arms that were tucked around Shae. Hoseok made himself busy peeling back a temporary medical adhesive. He stuck it across Ava's injured shoulder, making her scowl and ball one of her hands into a fist--as if she might turn punch Hobi with it.

Chimin stood along the wall to Jin's right. Chim's piercing eyes were seizing up the sight of both Tae and Jungkook  standing there so casually, alive and well. The golden man's lips were a thin line and he was deep in thought.

In Jin's opinion, Ava seemed to be the only sane human among them. Post-adhesive, she simply let her mouth hang slightly open and her gaze fixed on Jeon Jungkook and Kim Taehyung's now-living-and-breathing-and-standing bodies in their midst.

____

Lilith cleared her throat. "Well. I guess this is where we gotta come clean about this whole thing, huh?"

Ava snapped her attention from Tae and Kookie onto Lil. "YES. I, for one, would like a full explanation as to why you all decided to just LOCK UP Jin and me FOR NO REASON. And I had to pee like a racehorse at the Kentucky Derby and, y'all, there was NOT a restroom in there."

Jin said, "Well, you kinda drank a lot of--"

Ava glared at him and Jin's voice trailed off.

Lilith sighed, and everyone's eyes turned onto her. "Well, we kinda needed you guys somewhere safe and out of sight, to be honest." Lil's lungs felt tight when she sensed Jin's eyes bearing into the side of her face. She went on, "But maybe a big picture explanation would help clarify things best."

"Chimin was the mastermind behind this whole thing, to be honest. He let me on board in his plan first. And then we clued Yoongi and Hoseok in on what was really going on with it all after they'd turned rogue and left Noon Mool..and we just added some input here and there to flesh things out in Chim's original plans. Chimin was responsible for the main things, though. He discovered Shae in some random Satoor Ai book of lineages and managed to track her all the way into another dimension. He also discovered how Gwangju Ai are made at Satoor Ai burial sites, and a little bit about their symptoms and specific skills. And the Ganche Games plans, he came up with in the first place."

Hoseok shook his head and muttered, "Tactical genius."

Lilith explained on, "Then he managed to play innocent for all of you so that you wouldn't suspect a thing from him."

"I suspected," Jin boasted proudly.

"Yes, you did." Lilith said, patting his shoulder with approval.

As Lilith spoke, Chimin's sharp eyes remained intensely fixed on Taehyung and Jungkook, and he didn't say anything.

Shae wanted to know. Her voice cracked a little as she asked, "But how did you even know that Petra was a Satoor Ai? And why wouldn't you share something like that with the rest of us?"

There was honest hurt in her voice and her swimming blue eyes as Shae looked around the cockpit space for an answer. Joon nuzzled the side of his face lightly into her ear and the edge of her cheek, while his arms tightened around her slightly.

Yoongi barked over his shoulder from the pilot's seat, "I figured it out. It was an accident. Honestly, I was testing some new scanning software that I made at a diplomat's party Joon dragged my ass to. The software program was for helmet visors and goggles, seeing inside of certain materials and...you don't need to hear the details, but let's just say it told me what I needed to know."

Jin rolled his eyes. "Why do I get the feeling that whatever you were actually doing was mildly inappropriate."

Yoongi grumbled, "Oh, fuck off."

Ava noticed that Yoongi wasn't outright denying Jin. The thought made her laugh, a nice relief in the midst of all the tension.

Hoseok finally interjected into the conversation, "As to why we didn't share all of this information with you from the beginning...." He looked to his right at Kim Namjoon, accusation in his eyes. Everyone else followed his gaze.

Yoongi growled, "Let's get through one part of this story before we go on to the next, alright Hobi?"

Jin couldn't help but notice that Joon still had that innocent, perfectly happy look on his face, as if holding Shae in his lap and tucking his chin into her shoulder were some kind of shield to whatever it was that Hoseok was getting at.

Hoseok went on again, "Anyway, Chim sorted out that the best way to make a statement for all the leaders of Noon Mool to see would be at the games, and he was right. We had to make them believe without a shadow of a doubt that there were still living Satoor Ai. Something people haven't seen in a hundred years, mind you. We had to make them see that not only do they still exist, but that Petra is one. Seeing it with their own eyes was the only way they'd be fully convinced. Heck, I wasn't fully convinced for a while without proof, either. And my best friend was the one telling me it was true."

"You're welcome," Yoongi barked.

Shae still didn't see it. She asked, "Surely there was some other way to get her to reveal herself publicly like that than...all of this."

Hoseok scowled. "Maybe there was, but we were running out of time and this is what we came up with, alright? I'm glad Chim had the guts to think this up in the first place. Because tactically it worked."

Hoseok and Shae frowned at each other, practically elbow to elbow where they sat.

Jungkook was sending a strong glare across the cockpit at Chimin, who stood his ground silently beneath Kookie's gaze.

Chimin finally spoke up, "I'd seen enough of Petra to know that her pride wouldn't stop her from showing off if we presented the right...opportunity. Petra's so damn vain. It's what blinds her cunning. How do you mess with someone's vanity? You make them feel like they're not as special as they think they are." Chimin's eyes flickered from holding Jungkook's dark gaze, to looking down at Shae. "So putting another Satoor Ai and her Gwangju Ai on display was the perfect way to taunt her into showing off. And making her show her true colors for everyone to see. Including showing off her dog army."

Yoongi barked, "The bitch that wouldn't quit."

Chimin went on, "I was counting on that--because then none of Era's fortress leaders could bury their heads in the sand or pretend it was all just talk. They'd see that Petra wasn't just powerful, but that she's quite literally been trying to conquer all of Era for herself. All of our world, even. And if they saw it for themselves, they'd know without a shadow of a doubt that it was true. Which was the only way we were ever going to make true allies out of any of them. If they knew the threat was real."

"Yeah." Hoseok interrupted to say, "The plan was to expose her for what she is as a Satoor Ai, but Chimin was sharp enough to point out that showing Petra off as a true monster, not just as something powerful, was the cherry on top to draw a line in the sand for people between us and between Petra."

Jungkook said bitterly, "You mean, the part where she killed me. That was your cherry on top."

Hoseok swallowed. "Correct."

Jungkook turned his sharp eyes back onto Chimin. "You knew she was going to kill me if you made me a Gwangju Ai in all of this, didn't you? And you did it anyway."

Chim's nostrils flared. His beautiful face curled into ugly grief and regret. "Yes. I'm sorry Kookie. I'm so, so sorry. But yes."

Jungkook's lip curled like he was holding back his own grief, and the two young men stared at each other across the cockpit. Neither of them moved.

Chimin said, "I can tell you a million times how desperate we were. How scared we were that we'd never think of anything. That Petra was gonna keep on her rampage of conquering every fortress she could sink her claws into and turning those people's lives into hell. But I know that none of that is gonna make up for the fact that we made you the sacrificial lamb in this whole thing. That... that I did. But I am sorry." Chim's bright voice was breaking, like stained glass scattering. "I'll never stop being sorry for it."

Jin started coughing on his own spit. "Excuse me, am I missing something here? Was Kookie ALSO dead?"

Everyone exchanged looks.

Jin practically screamed, "WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?"

Lilith's hand reached out and gripped Jin's shoulder comfortingly as his nostrils flared and he gaped at them all.

Chimin sighed. "I'd read hints of this kind of thing happening in old texts I came across. Resurrections. We had the faint hope that Kookie would come out the other side again--but I had no idea how these resurrections worked. I still don't. You're both just... here. You coming back, and then Tae being a Gwangju Ai TOO and also coming back... Words can't express how thankful I am, but...it was the one thing I didn't plan for. I couldn't."

"None of us did," Hoseok grumbled.

Jin muttered under his breath, "Tae... also a Gwangju.... Why did I even get out of bed today? This is just too much."

Chimin sighed and went on, "As much as I know it was awful for you both at the time... Kookie and Shae, you were the perfect leverage to put on display against Petra."

Jungkook snapped, "I'll show you leverage...."

Tae pushed his harm back into Jungkook's chest, bracing the young pilot against the wall to keep him from launching himself straight into Park Chimin at full force. Then Jungkook asked through gritted teeth, "I'd sure like to know how your sick mind landed on all of this in the first place, you bastard."

Grief peeled across Chim's face once again. He'd said his apologies for now. He held his tongue, for fear he'd only break down into sobs. And there was too much left to say right now for that.

Yoongi barked over his shoulder, the sharpness of his voice breaking the tension: "Y'all are so mad that it was you and Shae under the knife. Well, guess what? Shae wasn't the only Gwangju Ai Chim tracked down into another dimension. Kookie wasn't the only Noon Mool operative we were considering. But y'all both won this lottery of fate, and we helped Chim land on the both of you for the job so fuckin' don't just piss and moan at him. But we picked you because you're both good. And that makes a kinda statement that no amount of magical bodies running around in a pit blasting people left and right ever can."

Yoongi's words hung heavily over them all for a moment.

There were tears at the corners of Lilith's eyes as she spoke up again. Words seemed to have become hard for her, the more everyone else spoke. "You showed that goodness in how you fought and protected and defended, Kookie. In how you grieved and defended your friends, Shae. Petra only sees that as weakness, but it's your strength. You both care. Petra draws people into her army through threats and through fear. But we wanted to put on display your goodness--and hope that it would draw others to join our cause who don't just want power. But who believe in people."

"Cause?" Ava had been keeping silent, taking all of this in. But with this comment, they'd lost her.

"Yeah. We've got our own anti-establishment rebel alliance, and you guys are now members," Yoongi said, smirking into his rearview mirror. "Welcome aboard."

Shae couldn't help it. After all that was said, she just snapped. "If you'd have worked with us instead of just used us, then, oh I don't know, maybe your message about being the better player in the game would have come across even clearer to those people you want joining your ranks." The sarcasm was biting in her voice. "But battle tactics and strategy and deceit aren't really my strong suit, so what the heck do I know?"

Chim, Lilith and Hoseok exchanges sober looks with each other.

Lilith offered, her voice careful, "We knew you two were trustworthy. But we also knew that not everyone in Noon Mool was. We suspected Petra had a mole but we weren't positive. Discerning who we could really trust...we just weren't sure. So we figured that the safest bet in protecting the plan was silence."

"Protecting the plan. But not protecting us," Jungkook grumbled.

No one knew what to say to that.

Guilt hung over Yoongi, Chim, Hoseok and Lilith for the weight of what they had done. Guilt. Mingled with the strange relief that the mission was finished, the lies were over with, and that they'd somehow succeeded in what they'd set out to do: throw Era's order into chaos, expose their city's greatest enemy, and hopefully spark a revolution that could end up saving lives... and preserving the hope and determination in others of a better world for everyone than what Petra had had in mind.