ROSE

He halts abruptly upon seeing the flare, recognising it immediately.

Rose knocks into him, because he's been pulling her along as they run, with her barely keeping up and struggling to keep her footing as she's simply being dragged as he sprints away from the creepy bunch.

"Ouch!" she yells, frustrated, rubbing her head frantically where she bumped into Kai, who is standing as still as a statue before her, not moving a single muscle. "You gripped me so hard I can't even –"

She gasps when she, too, notices the flare as she is just about to attempt to glare at Kai and yell at him for his actions.

"Lloyd."

Just as the word barely escapes the tip of her mouth, Rose feels a familiar drop in temperature, and the moment she does so, she's glad she makes the right decision upon instinct to yank Kai with her downwards towards the ground, ducking several icicles shooting from behind them.

"They're back." Rose nudges Kai hardly. "Snap out of it!"

"We have to get back."

"Obviously! But we wouldn't even survive this phase if you don't help me out with yourself!"

Finally tearing his eyes away from the Kingdom of Theia, Kai looks at Rose in the eye. "What do you do to get rid of these people?" He remains on the ground, as if that is keeping them safe, as if it shelters them without a roof or barrier. Yet they both know they are near, approaching, and dangerous. The two of them, however special, are no match for a bunch of them – they're clearly outnumbered.

"You don't," she replies, still on the ground, feeling the thundering footsteps of the weird bunch vibrating in the ground, as if she's a part of it, as if she's part of the entire earth surface. Rose takes a deep breath, and places both her palms flatly on the grassy ground and closes her eyes as she begins to glow green.

"What –"

The ground rumbles violently, and a huge quake appears before them, right before the odd teens. The crack is seemingly infinitely deep and wide, and it grows wider as if it's alive, creating a crater in the open space probably even visible high above in the air. It grows and expands like a monster's mouth, swallowing the threatening bunch, who are all taken by surprise. Even if some of them narrowly escaped, they are trapped on the other end of the crater, unable to proceed any further. They're safe.

At least, for now, considering they have no other tricks up their sleeves.

When Rose is satisfied, she stands up confidently, dusting her hands of fresh ground dirt. Kai stares at her unbelievingly, and she crosses her arms. "Anytime you care to join me, Flamey?" She offers her hand to the stunned Kai, who is clearly still very dazed and on the ground.

He takes it with his only gloved hand left, eventually finding his footing and standing up. Shrugging, he says, "Well, you sure hit the best of it already."

"I'm not the best at everything, and perhaps not even at all, in fact, anything. There's always someone who's better, more prominent. But I'll take my best shot at everything I'm able to get my hands on."

Kai allows those words to sink in. Slowly, he smiles gently. "However things go and whatever you think, you'll still be the best among the both of us, no doubt about it," he reassures her.

Rose returns the smile. "Shall we? I feel like our friends need us."

But before Kai can answer, he spots something else that lures him into a daze once again. Following his gaze, Rose's eyes come to something horrible her hand flies to her mouth. She doesn't realise up until she turns around that after running a certain distance desperately trying to lose the other teens, they're now already only a few feet away from the grand gates of Theia. But that isn't the worst thing.

The Kingdom of Theia is no longer merely clouded with a thick, dense black haze – in fact, now that they're closer, Rose realises the haze may not actually be black; it seems more translucent up close, which she finds strange. Great flames erupt from the very centre of the kingdom, the smoke adding to the haze, as what seems like cataclysm befalls the kingdom as its fate.

But amidst the chaos, one thing is visible – a giant red banner with a vague image of a Pegasus falling out of nowhere, eventually meeting its doom, too, along with the kingdom gradually as all of them burn to the ground into ashes.

ALAINA

She shouldn't have noticed it, but the haze falling upon her and affecting her physically now that she's outdoors is slowing her down.

When she is tearing through the podium, that's when she sees it: the great red banner with the Pegasus; and that's when it hits her: that it's oddly familiar, and it's from her dreams.

The flames from the large torches on either end of the podium where the giant titan statue still stands amidst the blur are still alive, dancing in their holds. Alaina can see the flames well – the only things that are burning brightly and clearly in the haze.

But those aren't the only things she sees, for other than the falling bodies she passes as the haze also gradually dethrones her lungs, there is a lone black figure by one of the lit torches. It stands tall, proudly, and calmly, as if watching or observing the horrid scene before him like it doesn't faze him at all, like he's expecting it to happen. Staying on the side-lines so casually as catastrophe befalls like a mere bystander, it is as if he's only waiting for it all to end, eagerly awaiting the end product of this chaos.

Alaina finds it preposterous, and she clenches her fists. She ignores her collapsing lungs and tries to hold her breath as best she can in her best bet of surviving the haze, as she begins marching up to the figure. But just before she is about to confront the man and probably slap him hard, her rationale is restored, and she halts.

It's dangerous. She daren't make a move.

But before she can turn her heels and start sprinting for the bell tower – half to find Lloyd and half to escape this deadening haze now – a cold voice bellows, "Asteria shall be reborn! The kingdoms shall all burn, starting from Theia!"

When she snaps her head to the source, she finds the figure finally moving. The next thing she knows, the giant titan statue, the pride of the Kingdom of Theia, is crumbling into pieces. It no longer stands as proudly, as it joins the fate of the people on the ground – what was once so great and almighty is no longer anything but bits and pieces of disposable waste. The worst thing is, Alaina hasn't a clue how it suddenly crumbles out of nothing, just as how the haze rose to its place over the entire kingdom now, all of them sudden but deadly – all it takes is one simple strike.

She knows she'll share similar fates as the people slowly dying off and the statue crumbling to ashes soon, because even if the haze doesn't swallow her, the figure may very well destroy her and squash her to bits just like what he did to the statue, if he was the one behind it all.

Yet right at that moment, her eyes are not fixed on the figure or the bell tower where she should be. Instead, they are fixed on the giant red banner with the Pegasus right above the pieces of the crumbled statue, near the figure.

Something takes over her, like she's possessed – she moves towards it without even thinking twice and without even remembering willing herself to. All she knows is that she has to do it, like it's meant to be.

Weirdly enough, the figure doesn't seem to notice her, but then again Alaina knows it's because of the haze, clouding even the mastermind himself. But what she's about to do, even the haze can't shroud her no longer.

Without hesitation even in her execution of movements, she rips off the red banner, and with all her strength, she sets it free in the air for a moment or two, before cruelly setting it on fire with one of the giant torches' flames, burning it whole.