"Remind me why she is here again?" Jin sat in the copilot's seat of a mid-sized stealth jet and he rolled his eyes back over his shoulder. He shot an accusatory glare towards the back seat where Ava sat.
She was fully decked out in her fishnets and body armor. She sent Jin back a smug grin and folded her arms. "Because Tae said I could handle it."
"Hmph!" Jin turned back around in the co-pilot's chair where he sat, decked out in his own fighting gear: an all-white leather two piece ensemble with pastel blue accents that made him look a bit like a racecar driver from an anime.
Jin pulled out a metallic cylindrical container from beneath his knees. He unscrewed the cap and started munching noisily, bite by bite, on what looked like soft pink cheese puffs.
"Eh." Jungkook grunted from the pilot's seat as he leaned towards Jin, his hand poised for the mouth of that can while his eyes stayed fixed forward. Jungkook was sporting strappier all-black leather gear, and he let out a whine as his hand failed to reach the open mouth of the can of puffs.
Ava noticed a utility belt on Jungkook's hips with metal studs sticking out of it. That's not kinky at all.
Jin hugged the can of treats to his chest and away from Jungkook, rather pleased with his food-guarding skills.
"Gimme soooome," Jungkook continued to whine.
"Okay, okay...." Jin tilted the canister Jungkook's way, and the pilot began to take a large handful of pink puffs and begin messily shove them into his mouth.
"Hey, eyes on the road up there!" Ava called from the back seat.
"Gha, ah gah ih."
Just then, the back hatch of the ship opened, making Ava shout, "AH!"
Chimin paused, face frozen in apologetic empathy. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
Jin sassed bossily, shifted around in the copilot's seat again, "Hey, hey! Why aren't you below deck? There's an assault laser to man, sir!"
Chimin leaned forward in his silvery combat suit and dove his hand greedily into Jin's tin of puffs with his tongue sticking out of the edge of his mouth. "I smelled snacks. Also, it's cramped down there and smells like feet. And I don't think we're gonna need any blasters. I mean." He shoved a few puffs into his cheeks, a pleased grin on his face at the taste. "We are in stealth mode, after all."
Jin sighed. "But this is Min Yoongi's security system we're talking about. For all we know, he could have already seen past our shields and spotted us coming at this point. AYE! Don't take it all!"
Jungkook have dived in for a second round, his hand sticky with his own saliva.
"Ugh. Double dipping is the worst." Jin curled his lips in disgust.
"Coming in hot, Kookie," Chim said, leaning forward with one hand on the back of both Jungkook and Jin's chairs no, all of his treats eaten.
"I see, I see."
Jungkook managed to sneakily and successfully attach their stealth jet to the belly of Yoongi and Hoseok's much larger ship: like a little invisible tick. No alarms were sounding yet, it seemed.
____
Jungkook and Chimin had crawled through the open hatch of their small stealth ship and were scaling along the belly of their enemy's own ship with expert precision. Their target was a small safeguard hatch that they had parked their craft near to.
Ava was now sitting in the pilot's seat and trying to watch for the two of them out the cockpit window.
"I don't see them."
"Obviously. Because they're wearing temporary invisibility devices." Jin rolled his eyes.
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Hey, asshat?" Ava looked over at where Jin sat in the co-pilot's seat.
"What?"
Jin and Ava stared daggers at each other a moment.
It took all of Ava's self control to speak in a level voice. "You're a doctor. I'm assuming you had to learn a lot about...alien forms and weird stuff like that. So tell me. If you're so smart, how come you don't know what Shae actually is?"
"Ugh. I never said I DIDN'T know what she was!"
Ava wanted to punch him in the face. "Uh, hello? Then why haven't you or anyone else around Noon Mool done any explaining yet? This whole living in the dark thing is getting really old."
Jin gave a huff. "If you MUST know, only Kookie and I are currently...in the know."
Ava was legitimately surprised, and her wide eyes and slightly opened mouth betrayed as much. "Wait. You haven't told anyone else?"
"No."
"What is she then?!"
Jin set his tin of puffs down pointedly on the floor, then proceeded to carefully fold his hands together.
"Miss Ava. As you are obviously 100% dedicated to your friend, I feel no qualms with telling you this very delicate and more than mildly dangerous truth. Among your many obnoxious attributes, you are at least loyal."
Ava's words caught in her throat. Was that a...compliment? No. Can't be.
"Anyhow, I just finished running some tests before this mission set to launch. And I've discovered that Shae is something called a Satoor Ai. I know you've seen Jungkook's weird fainting spell trick, and that was my first clue. He's been turned into something called a Gwangju Ai, and if there's a G hanging around then there's gotta be an S."
"Ooookay, that was a jumble of words that literally mean nothing to me."
"Patience is a virtue."
"Well I ain't no saint. Hurry up."
"Ok, ok. The Satoor Ai are Era's version of demigods, you could say. There's a whole lot of mythology around them, what they are and how they came to be, but the point is that they're powerful magical beings."
"So what, is Shae like the demigod-saint of bad liars and dog lovers?"
Jin shot her a pointed look that made Ava zip her lip--but she was still smirking.
"That's not how this works."
"Ok, ok. I'm listening."
Jin continued, "The Satoori Ai are human-like in every way, except for their endless magic. Well, their endlessly regenerative magic is probably a more accurate way to say it." Jin cleared his throat. "All of our magi-technology, it has a source. It's why our magic runes are only temporary. They use Mysterium as fuel, but when a body's run low, then the runes stop working. The Satoor Ai don't need fuel to accomplish magical tasks. They just...are magical."
"You make her sound like a battery," Ava grumbled.
"That's kind of the idea, yeah."
"Well then what does that mean exactly?"
"A hundred years ago the Satoor Ai were still around. And they were this elite ruling class in Era. They were what all of us are now, Joon and Tae and Chim and myself. They oversaw the fortresses of Noon Mool, of the city of Era, and all the others like it on our planet."
"Ok so what's up with Jungkook then? What does he have to do with any of this?"
"The short version is, Jungkook found a Mysterium pit—which likely was a burial ground for Satoor Ai connected to Shae's family."
"What a coincidence. Or is it?"
Jin gave a sarcastic laugh. "Exactly."
"So why aren't we at this pit, harvesting that Mysterium instead of sneaking onto this dang ship?"
"The short version is that I'm not sure if it's safe or not for Jungkook if we start tearing up the burial ground of the magical beings that have imparted their...essence...inside of him. So I said, let's spare ourselves that science experiment for now and try getting our original goods back first."
"What the hell does that even mean?"
Jin went on, "You gotta understand, there's a lot of weird mystical shit that goes on in Satoor Ai history and mythology. Some of it I would need a scholar to decode, because I can't. But the gist of it is that the Satoor Ai have always been so powerful and IN positions of power throughout our history because of the Gwangju Ai. It's some weird mystical thing that happens...where the magical energy of a Satoor Ai's ancestors becomes embodied in the physical form of a living human being. Any human, really. And that bond of ancestral power kinda makes Gwangju Ai like dogs to Satoor Ai. Super powerful, ridiculously magical, death-resistant dogs. At least, that's always how I understood it as a kid."
"Like dogs? That's a bit degrading."
"Uhhh, yeah, it really was sometimes. There are some awful stories from our history that I could get into but I won't. Because let's say you didn't want to guard someone. Well, sucks to suck, because that person's ancestors might magic-zap you over and over into obedience."
"Wow."
"Yeah. The great irony is that clone drones were created to be the solution to this moral dilemma of making dogs out of people with free wills. Except, SURPRISE, technology is a thing. And some genius figured out a way a hundred years ago to manipulate these clones for themselves. The Great War happened, lots of people died, ALL the Satoor Ai died in our world, and normal folks rose up in place of these demigods to rule. In the case of Noon Mool, and most fortresses, rulers and leaders are chosen now more by demonstrated skills. Merit. Not because you're from some noble Satoor Ai lineage."
"Huh."
"Yeah, so after these drones killed off the Satoor Ai a hundred years ago, people freaked out that the drones existed at all—thought they could do the same to any ruling group alive. So after all the Satoor Ai on our planet were dead, the clone drones were all rounded up and executed. Outlawed for good. Every last one. But I was doing some research yesterday and figured out that the same symbol of the Satoor Ai was used to develop the psychic link used to manipulate these clone drones. THAT'S WHY SHAE HAS THE SAME MARK. Isn't that wild?"
"Wild." Ava leaned back in her chair, a bit stunned as she tried to process all of this information.
"I know. It's a lot."
"Wait, so does this mean that she can boss Jungkook around, and he has to obey her?"
Jin giggled. "I'm not sure, but it'd be fun to see her try."
"But really though!"
Jin and Ava leaned back into their seats and laughed.
Then the nervous tension of everything that Jin had just shared started to hit Ava properly.
"This is probably the point where you want to start panicking about everything," Jin commented, "but there isn't a safer crew for your friend Shae to have landed in than with us. Especially now that she and Joonie are...."
"A thing."
"Yeah."
"What do you think of that?"
"What, Namjoon and Shae?"
Ava shifted in her seat so that one leg was curled up underneath the other. She'd been dying to ask someone, and it was in that moment she realized that Kim Seokjin was the perfect choice.
"I think Shae's too good for him," Jin scoffed.
"Are you being funny or are you being serious, because as Shae's best friend I need to know."
"Both. Ah, poor Joonie. He's just been through a lot. I think he needs time to emotionally recover before...."
"So like he had another girl?"
"No, not like that. But leadership has taken a toll on the guy. He needs to chill the heck out."
"He seems like the uptight sort, if that's what you mean." Ava gave a shudder. "Definitely not my type. Bleh."
"There's a lid for every skillet," Jin shrugged.
"Like you and Lilith. I mean, goodNESS. What an unexpected match."
Jin's hand flew to his chest, offended. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
"I mean, she's so dang badass. And you're...."
Just as Ava was about to elaborate on just what Jin was, Jungkook's voice crackled over their system speakers.
"We've made contact. Chimin and I are goin' in!"
"Roger that," Jin answered back.
Jin started to lean into the controls in front of him, pulling a headset over one ear and tapping into a fleshy pad with his left hand.
It was time to zero in. They had a mission to complete: retrieving some stolen Mysterium from Yoongi and Hoseok's ship.