[ the au warlock strikes again ]

[tinfoiltennis]

if reading self-indulgent, context-less crossover fusion AU snippets of a turn of the millennium JRPG and a 2010s horror podcast is ur bag then like, knock urselves out with what's under the cut, but this is literally me taking advantage of miri being gracious enough to let me rub my grubby hands all over her sandbox


No one can meet anyone else’s eyes for a while; or maybe it’s more like nobody wants to. The ruined antechamber is silent, except for the faint humming of pyreflies and the shrieks of the fiends in the dead city outside. Martin can hear Georgie and Melanie having a furious, whispered conversation in voices too low for him to catch any words, but the others are quiet. The only one making any kind of noise at all is Jon, his boots echoing on the ruined marble floor as he paces in circles.

Martin wants to go to him. He wants to take Jon’s hands and ask him what’s going through his head. He wants to take him as far away from this horrible place as it’s possible to get.

He doesn’t want Jon to die. But if nothing’s made Jon turn back so far, why would this be any different?

A thought strikes him, horrible and sudden and perfect. But before Martin can make any attempt to put it into words, an abrupt shift of movement catches his eye.

“I’ll do it,” says Daisy.

Jon stumbles mid-pace, spinning on his heel to face her.

“What?” he demands.

Daisy rolls her neck and shoulders languidly. She turns from where she’s been staring at the door to Nikola’s chamber, like a hunting dog waiting for its cornered prey to re-emerge, and turns that intense gaze on Jon instead.

“Someone needs to volunteer to be your Final Aeon? Let it be me.”

The silence hangs in the air for a moment, stunned.

Then everyone starts talking at once.

Martin stammers, “Hang, hang on a sec—” his thought from just a moment ago knocked loose and appalling now that somebody else has voiced it. Basira homes in on her partner with a furrowed brow, a carefully steady, “Daisy, are you sure about this?” on her lips, and Jon’s voice rises above them both: “Daisy, no.”

“Shouldn’t we talk about this?” Martin adds, stepping closer to the loosely-knit ring formed by the other three.

Daisy cocks her head, folding her arms. “What’s there to talk about?”

“Every--”

“No, shut up.” Daisy’s gruff voice cuts him off as effectively as a shout. “You mean well, but you’re not from here.” Before Martin can protest, she turns sharply away. “Basira. Jon. This is the job I signed up for. It should be me.”

“You’re not the only one who signed up,” Basira argues. “Martin’s right, we should talk this over first—”

“Basira.” Daisy does it again; Basira falls silent from the look in Daisy’s eyes alone. “Spira needs another Calm,” she says. Like it’s that simple. Maybe for Daisy it is. “If this is how we do that, I’m fine with it.”

Basira looks like she’s wrestling with several thoughts at once. Jon, on the other hand, steps closer to Daisy’s space, hands balled into tight fists at his sides, and practically explodes with his next words:

“I’m not!”

The shout echoes off the walls, the domed roof catching the sound and throwing it, reverberating, back down. The pyreflies hanging thick and heavy in the air higher up gust together in eddies, as if disturbed by a high wind, and then the air flickers.

All around the hall, the pyreflies are coalescing into faint, wisp-like forms. Martin doesn’t know who any of them are, but he doesn’t have to. All of the hazy, half-there memories show the same scene; summoners and their guardians, long-gone, fighting and pleading with each other in the same horrible argument. Martin flinches as one of the ghostly arms passes through his shoulder.

He feels sick.

Jon looks a bit rattled by what his outburst set in motion, but his gaze is otherwise unwavering as he stares Daisy down, his face pinched and tight. Daisy, for her part, looks unmoved.

“Jon,” she says. Martin thinks he sees her expression soften. “I’m your guardian. Not the way I thought it’d happen, but dying on this pilgrimage was always on the table.”

“You’re not his only guardian,” says Basira, her eyes flashing.

“I have seniority.”

“Why can’t it be both of us? The Magus Siblings are three—”

“No!” Jon snaps fiercely, whirling on Basira now. “Neither – you –”

Jon struggles with his words for a moment, fighting himself back under control as the two warrior monks look on impassively. Martin feels a surge of sympathy bubble up in his throat.

“Both of you,” Jon manages eventually, “‘signed on’ to protect me while I journeyed here, not – this wasn’t what we were told!”

“There’s a surprise,” Georgie mutters from her and Melanie’s corner.

“Maybe we weren’t, but if this is how we beat Sin? We do it,” Daisy says, sparing a moment to cast a narrow, withering look in Georgie’s direction – she’s always had the best hearing.

“Typical.”

The venom in the word is enough to make Martin’s breath catch. He’s not the only one, it seems; one by one, all of them turn to look at Melanie, who stands next to Georgie like an overloaded machina, shaking with nervous energy. Out of the corner of his eye, Martin sees Basira and Daisy exchange a look loaded with meaning; Jon grimaces, shifting like he’s bracing himself for some kind of blow to land.

“Melanie…” Martin tries, his voice sliding off into something pleading, trying to head off the storm before it breaks.

“No,” Melanie seethes, brushing Georgie’s hand from her arm. “This is – it’s so typical! This whole journey it’s been, ‘well, guess we have no choice apart from letting Jon die because the comfortable idiots at Yevon say so’—”

“I’m right here,” Jon mutters.

“—and then we get here and we find out that Yevon’s creepy unsent monster puppet wants someone else to die as well, and everyone’s okay with that! Everyone’s fine with that, because it’s easier than having to actually fight.”

“Hey--” Tim says sharply, bristling, but Basira gets there first.

“Mel,” she says in a low, dangerous voice, “Stand down.”

“No! Georgie and I have been saying from the start how awful this is, and it’s even worse than we thought. It’s not right.” Melanie glares at Basira and Daisy in turn; with her goggles slung around her neck, there’s nowhere to hide from the force of her scorn. “Sin needs to die, but not like this.”

“Melanie’s right,” Martin says, surprising himself.

As one, seven pairs of eyes all turn to stare at him.

Martin wants to shrink away, but he forces himself not to, taking a deep breath.

“She is, though,” he says quietly. “You – you’ve all said it yourselves, Sin comes back every time. If – if Nikola turns one of us into Jon’s Final Aeon, and he uses us to defeat Sin – that won’t change anything! Are – are we really ready to just give up, just like that?”

Even as he says it, Martin knows it’s true. Letting Jon go through with this, knowing Sin will come back anyway after a year, maybe even less than that – it would be giving up. It would be giving up, and – and Martin almost let himself do it for a moment back there.

He’s not going to. He won’t.

Georgie looks like she agrees with him, her eyes warm with what might be gratitude. Melanie looks surprised, but gives him a look that seems almost appreciative. Tim has gone back to glowering into somewhere Martin can’t see, but Sasha looks both thoughtful and knowing in a way that Martin doesn’t entirely like. Daisy and Basira are back to shooting meaningful looks at one another, having some kind of silent conversation that Martin doesn’t feel up to trying to unravel.

Jon, though. Jon looks like he wants to say something – maybe a lot of things. There’s so much in his face when he meets Martin’s eyes that Martin can’t even begin to read it all. He has to swallow hard past the sudden lump in his throat.

Then Daisy sighs, short and sharp, and the moment breaks.

“We turn back now? That’s giving up,” she states.

Martin feels a sudden and intense urge to scream at her.

“Daisy,” Basira says, looking troubled. She lets out a long, hesitant breath, pushing her helmet back over her headscarf. “I dunno. After everything we’ve seen on this journey, maybe we should take a step back and consider this before Nikola turns one of us into a fayth.”

“None of you are being turned into anything!” Jon looks like he’s about at his wits’ end. He paces a couple of steps away from Daisy and Basira before coming back on himself, pushing an errant lock of hair behind one ear.

“Now – listen, just. Listen to me. I didn’t – I always knew from the beginning what the end of this journey would mean for me. I knew, alright?” He looks at Martin as he says it. Martin has to bite his tongue before he says something he’ll regret. “But I didn’t –”

Jon falters for a moment, but when he finds his voice again, it’s steady and firm. “I refuse to sacrifice anyone else just to gain the power to defeat Sin. I won’t do it. If that’s what this takes then… I’m stopping right here.”

Martin’s heart swells. He doesn’t know what he’s feeling – relief and joy and so, so much pride warring for space – but he thinks he might cry.

Then he thinks he might want to shake Jon as much as he wants to kiss him, because of course, of course Jon would only think of abandoning the walk to his own death if he was told someone else had to jump in the grave with him.

“Well,” he says in a voice that’s both thick and cold all at once, “I’m glad something could make you reconsider your suicide mission.”

Jon flinches. Martin regrets the words even as much as he meant them. It’s not what he should have said, even if it is true.

He wants to say he’s sorry – to wrap his arms around Jon and tell him he’s proud of him, even if he is an idiot. Anything to break the heavy, awkward silence. The others are very carefully looking at anything that isn’t either of them.

Tim looks up.

“If you think I’m missing a chance to have a crack at the thing that killed my brother, you’ve got another thing coming,” he says darkly.

“Tim--”

“No, Jon, I’m serious!” Tim’s on his feet, using his height to his advantage. “D’you know how – how little there was left of Danny after that attack?”

His voice breaks on his little brother’s name; he has to spend a second or two pulling himself back together with a pair of raw breaths. No one can bring themselves to meet his eyes.

“If we have a chance to take that fucking death whale down now, why wouldn’t we take it?” Tim demands in a rough voice.

“I—” Jon stammers.

Martin has had enough.

“And what about when Sin comes back, hm?” he asks Tim, a lot calmer than he feels. He folds his arms to hide his fists, clenched so tight the knuckles have turned white. “What do the rest of us do then? Wait for another summoner and their guardians to, to come along and die?”

Tim still looks furious. But he at least has the grace to look uncomfortable at the same time.

“I don’t know!” he shouts, throwing his arms up. “But we’d be stupid to just walk away—”

“You’re not saying you agree with Nikola?!”

“No! I hate this, and I hate her. But what choice do we have, Martin?” Tim makes an aborted, disgusted gesture with his arms, before running an agitated hand through his hair. “Even Gertrude Robinson went on a pilgrimage in the end and she tried everything. Literally, everything. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“Maybe she missed something!”

“Would all of you,” says Sasha, “shut up for five seconds?”

Sasha has the same gift as Daisy; when she talks, everyone listens. Tim still has a face like a thundercloud, but even he does nothing except pull his lips into a flat, unhappy line as Sasha gets to her feet and moves towards the centre of the chamber.

“We need to think about this, okay?” she says. “Just – think, instead of yelling at each other.” She shrugs, spreading her hands in front of her. “Melanie and Martin are right, the Final Summoning can’t work anymore, not long term. When was the last time the Calm lasted longer than a year?”

“Thank you,” says Melanie, somehow still managing to make it sound acerbic.

“… But we can’t discount it completely,” Sasha continues, still in that carefully measured voice.

Martin stares at her. “Sorry, what?”

Sasha sighs. “It’s all very well saying ‘we’ll find another way’ and ‘nobody has to die’, and I want that to exist, I really do. But this is still the only way we know for Sin to be defeated, even if it’s only temporary.”

To Sasha’s credit, she looks like she hates that as much as Martin does. That’s apparently lost on Melanie, though, who bristles again, scoffing.

“So you’re saying we should throw Jon and whoever’s stupid enough to be his aeon in the line of fire just to buy the rest of us more time?” she asks, voice dripping with derision.

“No, of course not!” Sasha glares. “I’m saying we should decide who will be the best choice for the Final Aeon now, in case… in case there’s nothing else we can do.”

She pulls a face, as if realising how awful that sounds. Daisy huffs in impatience.

“Why are we still talking? We’re going in circles.”

“No, we aren’t.” Sasha turns to her, arching an eyebrow. “No offence, Daisy, but you aren’t the best choice.”

“What?” Daisy growls.

“You’re too mission-focused. What would that do to your aeon?” Sasha asks, in that same practical tone. Martin spares a moment to marvel at how Sasha must have nerves of steel. He’s not sure he would dare say this stuff to Daisy.

Or well, not as calmly as Sasha is, at any rate. Must be part and parcel of being already dead, Martin thinks, and then feels horribly guilty.

“We could ask Nikola,” Sasha’s saying now, thoughtfully twining a lock of hair around one finger. “She might know something about creating fayth that we don’t. Maybe no one has to die if…”

Martin thinks he can see where Sasha’s going with this and shoots her a sharp look. Is this really how she wants the others to find out her secret? Like this?

“What about me?”

“Georgie?!” Melanie hisses, her eyes wide and panicked.

Georgie rolls her eyes. Martin thinks that’s a little unfair – out of everyone, she’s one of the last people he would have expected to step forward.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, I still think this whole thing is bollocks,” she says without preamble. Someone – probably Tim – snorts mirthlessly at that. “But since we’re talking about it anyway – I’ve spent years learning how to use magic to copy things only fiends should be able to do, so maybe I’d stand a better chance of not going totally off the deep end. Or whatever it is that happens to the Final Aeon after it’s summoned.”

“And you’d be a rock,” Melanie says, slowly, stressing every word. “Forever! How’s that any better?”

“Don’t forget the part where I’d have to answer to Jon forever,” Georgie says, looking faintly amused.

Melanie’s nose wrinkles. “Ugh. You made it worse, how did you manage to make it worse.”

“Ha.” Georgie’s lips quirk up into a ghost of a grin. “Knew that would cheer you up.”

“Would – I’m sorry, can we, can we all just take a minute?” Martin interrupts. This is starting to go on too long. Way too long. Daisy was right about one thing – they’re talking themselves in circles. And besides—

“We’ve literally been saying this whole time that we’d think of a way to do this that didn’t involve Jon killing himself to beat this thing, and that goes for all of you as well! He’s been saying no this whole time and you’ve, you’ve all just been shouting over him because it’s Daisy’s job, or because you’ve all got some kind of reason to hate Sin, and I just—maybe we don’t have to!” Martin throws his arms wide. “Maybe we can turn back right now and think of something else that will actually work, but if Sasha’s right – IF she’s right, and we can’t, IF that’s just how it is, shouldn’t it be someone who isn’t—”

Someone who isn’t real almost spills right off his tongue, he’s so worked up, but he manages to pull back at the last moment. Not now. Not like this. Martin can feel Sasha boring a hole in the side of his head with her eyes, but he ignores it. Sucks in a breath, shrugs, and says in a smaller voice, “Y’know, who doesn’t have a life here already?”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” says Daisy, after a beat. Martin looks at her, surprised. She doesn’t look like she’s lying.

“No,” he nods, voice steadier than he expected. “You shouldn’t. But you were also right.”

Daisy’s eyes narrow like she wants to say something else. At that moment, Basira raises her voice.

“Guys!” Something urgent in her tone makes Martin’s blood run cold. “Where’s Jon?”