FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Switzerland, December 2012. Three years before the end of everything.

The freezing mountain air extinguishes the scorching embers living within Phoenix. The burly lion fights against the frost, but a lonely fire can't survive at the top of the world. At his side, Indigo leaps off the Cepheus, holding his hand tightly as they dive waist-deep into an ocean of snow.

"Feeling cold there, big guy?" Indigo asks as Phoenix buries gloved hands in his armpits. As far as they can see, sharp pillars of black rock jut from fields of blinding white. It's impossible to tell what lies beyond as the cold stings their eyes, ice crystals clinging to their thick eyelashes.

"Very. I'm surprised you haven't frozen solid yet, little bunny."

"Why do you think I'm sticking so close to you?" Indigo asks, their large front teeth chattering against their glossy lip.

"Because you like me?" Phoenix asks, smiling through sharp chattering teeth as the others make their own leap into the deep snow beside them.

"You're a walking fireplace, and I like you," Indigo says, winking.

Wading through the snow to hide behind one of the pillars of sharp, exposed rock, Zephyr observes the entrance on the smooth wall masking the mountains rugged face. Two crimson wolves, clad in camouflaging white, patrol the lifeless peak.

"Kyran and Kamala come with me. You two, get back on the Cepheus and wait for my command."

"Really? You could've told us that before we jumped out into a pile of slush," Phoenix says, but Zephyr disregards him and focuses on what little he can see before him through binoculars.

"Whatever gets us off this mountain quickest," Indigo says sagely, shaking snow off their long azure coat to board the sleek onyx aircraft with Phoenix's help, the lion gripping their narrow waist to push them up.

Zephyr turns to Kamala, the only one who isn't shivering in the thin, frozen air.

"You know the plan. We do this quietly until he gives us no other choice. Even if I have to turn."

"When has anyone ever given you the choice? I know what you're feeling, and I'll be right there by your side," Kamala says, gripping his gloved hand and brushing off the ice sticking to the thick coat of fur on his cheek.

To Zephyr's right, Kyran's sharp teeth chatter, puncturing his lip. He spits warm blood onto the slush before pressing his muzzle into the heavy sleeve of a black coat.

"I promise we'll go somewhere warm next time," Zephyr tells his adoptive brother, patting his back gently.

"I'll hold you to that promise," Kyran says, running his coarse tongue over the wound.

Indigo's soft voice rings through a storm of static in their inner ears.

"Zenith 1, copy," Zephyr says, his pointed ears trying to flick away the sudden sound emanating from the earpiece.

"Zenith 3, copy," Kamala says, stretching her flexible body in preparation for the fight they're about to teleport into.

"I'm here," Kyran says, snow sliding off his trembling body.

"Ready when you are," Kamala says, extending her warm hand to him. Kyran clutches it to become the frozen silence, reappearing instantly beside the pack of red wolves. Before they have a chance to act, Zephyr tosses one of the wolves aside, sending him plummeting down the jagged rock path leading up to the bunker. Kyran handles the other, re-materializing beside them without the wolf.

"It sure is a long way down," Kyran whistles, gripping the icy railing as he peers down into a frozen canyon with bloated blue walls.

"Let's get in there before the others hear something or notice they're gone. Kamala?" Zephyr asks, standing close to her while forcing cold air through his long nose to catch the scent of other wolves.

The panther removes her gloves to press her bare palms onto the metal door, channeling her energy outward until the steel sears white hot. She pushes, launching the door into a dark, constricted passageway.

"Well, they definitely heard that," Zephyr says.

"I can't see anything," Kamala says, peering inside with squinted eyes.

"That doesn't matter. What's important is if Indigo can see," Kyran says, handing them each a stack of small, black pucks from his coat pockets.

They place the transmitters on the walls as they abandon the blinding light of the peak behind them for the ink black darkness before them. Indigo's voice grows clearer in their ears as the frequency travels deep into the mountain bunker.

Inside the cozy cockpit of the Cepheus, Indigo hands Phoenix a boiling cup of tea. The lion drinks deeply, reviving the fire deep inside him as he leans back into Kyran's seat, purring.

The reverberations of three heartbeats ring around them from a series of monitors, two beating steady, one racing. Indigo observes the teams' vitals, guiding them through what they can't see.

"You're outnumbered at least ten to one," they say, slipping on a headset over their tall ears as they prepare another cup of strong tea.

"Only ten to one?" Zephyr's gruff voice responds in their ear.

"Just let me know if you need any help handling that," Indigo says. Outside the frosted windows of the jet, a new color paints the once blue sky.

"That can't be good," Indigo says, observing the approaching obsidian storm-front.

Somewhere deep within the labyrinth-like structure carved into the black mountain, Zephyr, Kyran, and Kamala reach a door at the end of a tapering tunnel.

"Do you feel that?" Kamala asks, only able to see their eyes in the dim red glow of artificial light, her own vision taking the longest to adjust to the near darkness.

Zephyr, however, sees everything, even Kamala's pink radiance in the darkest depths. Inherently, her fur is as snowy as the peak they stand on, but the part of the Zenith Crown living within her emanates a dazzling pink energy that shines through her skin and paints her in the image of the sacred lotus flower she was named after.

Kamala is energy incarnate, and her power knows no bounds. Zephyr has always admired that about her, even if he won't admit she can often be intimidating.

"So, do you want me to knock, or do I need your permission to handle things my way?" Kamala asks, the heavy black pencil lining her eyes causing her already intense glare to sear right through him.

"What do you mean?" Zephyr asks, averting her gaze.

"Well, you seemed to take an issue with how I opened the door back at the entrance. I'm sure they all know were here, so do I politely knock, or can I blast this door apart too?"

"Kamala, I never said--

The sound of screeching gears fills the passageway. As the steel door hisses open, warm, tropical air spills into the passageway, melting their frozen faces. Above them, the first rays of sun to kiss the earth shine into their eyes from the octagonal glass ceiling of a silo-like room with clear views to the deep canyon. The humidity clings to them like dread, fogging up Kyran's glasses, but the cold shivers taking hold of his body don't stop when he crosses the barrier.

Dietrich Ziegler gazes directly into the identical red eyes before him as he smiles, presenting a menacing row of sharp fangs. The passage of time has not been kind to the cunning wolf, as his body shows clear signs of an arduous life of fighting, with scar tissue breaking apart his sleek black fur into patches.

"Hello, Zephyr," he growls, a German accent swimming somewhere in his deep voice.

"Where is he!?" Zephyr demands, knowing Ziegler can sense the fear in the sticky air.

The wolf pushes aside a curtain of silky crimson hair that runs down to what's left of his tail.

"That doesn't matter right now, he's of no use to anyone at the moment, especially in the state he forced me to put him in. I can imagine a million better things Thaddeus Axton may have you die for, but here we are."

"Just tell us where he is. If he's so useless to you, we can take him off your hands and be on our way. He has no part in this. Please don't make me hurt you."

Ziegler crosses his long, slender legs, growling.

"Does that sound like something a hero would say? You come here, threaten me, and then spend every second of your lives working only to discredit my half of the work that made you who you are. Who are the aggressors here?" Ziegler asks.

"Cut the lesson Ziegler, you kidnap and kill," Kamala says.

Ziegler refocuses his piercing glare at the panther, licking his muzzle with his long tongue as he eyes her up and down.

"My dearest Kamala, you are as naïve as you are beautiful. Did you not just toss two of my wolves off the edge of my mountain? I kill those who are in our way, those who let their hearts lie to them and tell them they're the hero against their better judgment. You kill because you've been told your entire lives you're the heroes, and heroes get to look down on wolves like me from your marble castle as you throw them off the mountains they fought so hard to climb," Ziegler says, marching toward them from his seat at the communications center of the abandoned missile bunker. Kamala steps forward until every weapon in the room is aimed directly at her chest. More of Ziegler's guards spill in from passageways leading deep into the mountain, aiming down at them from the railings high above.

"I'm not afraid to finish this once and for all for them," Kamala says, stepping forward.

A thunderous hiss shakes the tall windows as Ziegler's most devoted guard makes his presence known, stepping forward between the older wolf and the rose panther, daring her to go any further.

Kamala matches the intensity of the gaze of the enormous reptile as he devours her with his eyes before he retreats to the sunniest corner of the room.

"I wonder how different things would be if we could step back in time. Maybe you wouldn't have broken so many lives so recklessly, maybe I could've spared Elio Xavier when I came looking for his boy. But we're destined to live with the consequences of our actions here, in the present. We have to face our mistakes eye to eye," Ziegler says, his sharp nose hovering over Zephyr's as he pushes Kamala aside.

The beast urges Zephyr to attack, to bury his teeth into Ziegler's thin neck, to silence him and prevent him from manipulating his heart to know anything but the anger he's been taught to feel for him.

Ziegler runs his sharp, painted nails through Zephyr's crimson hair.

"Have you reconsidered my proposal?" He asks, placing his coarse hands on his muzzle, "or have you come all this way to die?"

"I'll never become you," Zephyr says, unsure if the cold is what's causing him to shiver.

Something within Ziegler's eyes fades away. He leans down to whisper softly into Zephyr's ear.

"I'll start with the girl, and end with you. That's what you've just asked me to do."

The rage burns him like an untamed wildfire. Zephyr uses the last moments of his fading soundness to give the signal to Kyran.

Black smoke fills what little air is left between them. When it clears, Kyran is nowhere to be found.

"Very well. Go after him!" Ziegler commands, his gaze unbroken from Zephyr's. His soldiers run through the vein-like passageways leading from the heart of the mountain in an impossible effort to catch living smoke.

Dazzling pink light blinds every unshielded eye as Kamala launches her fury at the enemies around her, blasting apart the railing on the second level, causing some of the guards to crash down onto the computers on the lowest floor, bathing the room in sparks and glass. The lizard leaps forward, tossing her into the concrete wall with a strength that tells her Ziegler is getting closer to creating his own personal Zenith.

Zephyr races to help her, but a powerful hand crushes his windpipe as his feet abandon the ground. All he can see in his gradually fading vision is Ziegler's long muzzle, a chronicle of his survival with deep scars running across it in every direction. It's the only thing making Zephyr see his biological father as the unrelated enemy, the only part of him he doesn't have to see when he's forced to gaze into reflection.

"Things could've ended much differently than this!" Ziegler snarls, spitting onto his face with every word he barks.

But it's too late. Zephyr surrenders to the beast within.

***

Somewhere deep within the dark mountain, Kyran races blindly, his eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness as voices shout from somewhere far behind him.

"Indigo, I need you!" He speaks into his earpiece through heavy breaths as he tries to push thin air into his burning lungs. The rabbit's voice rings clear through the silence.

"I've heard that one before, but they never really mean it, do they? You're close, in about thirty feet, leap forward, there's plenty of space in that room for error."

"I don't have time for error," Kyran says, nearly slipping on a patch of ice.

"Then you're going to have to rely on luck," Indigo says.

"Or a rabbit's foot."

"Don't tell me you're one of those guys."

Kyran follows Indigo's instruction and his boots crash onto damp stone, the voices now too far away to hear.

"Okay, what now?"

Static hisses in his ears. Kyran reaches into his pocket and grips the last smooth metal puck. He throws it against the wall and listens to the tail end of Indigo's message.

"Got it."

He rematerializes, sliding on a frozen floor. Kyran's eyes adjust to the claustrophobia-inducing darkness. There, in a cramped cell surrounded by metal bars carved straight into the jagged rock, a small red panda shudders in the corner, his bright green eyes staring fear back at him from behind his long, bushy tail.

"I think I found him," Kyran tells Indigo, catching his breath and readjusting his glasses.

The panther fails to find any light switch in the room as he feels around, sharp rock the only thing grazing his fingertips. He calls out gently into a darkness only he can see through.

"It's going to be okay; we're here to rescue you," Kyran says.

There's no response, only panicked breathing. Kyran stops, not wanting to frighten him any further.

"My name is Kyran. What's your name?"

In the darkness, a frail voice responds. "Aarden."

"It's nice to meet you Aarden, but I need you to come with me, this is a very dangerous situation, and we're here to get you out of it."

Kyran edges closer, cautious not to slip on the ice. He coughs, the oxygen deprived air causing him to rely on his tail for balance.

"I have nowhere else to go," the timid voice calls out.

Kyran brushes away at the strands of silky hair that spill over his eyes as the room begins to spin.

"Yes, you do. We're here to protect you and get you someplace safe. Aarden, you have to trust me."

In the everlasting silence, the red panda reaches out. The very darkness grips his lonely fingertips as they become smoke together.

***

In the tall glass room, the lizards' sharp teeth nearly bite into Kamala's arm. She pushes him away with her remaining strength, tossing him backward against the clear divide between safety and a free-fall into a frozen canyon. His glossy red eyes focus intensely on the spiderweb-like fractures running up the shattering glass, giving Kamala a chance to crawl away from the commotion.

Rage sears deep inside Zephyr, painfully running through every vein in his body like liquid silver. The muscles in his growing body twist and tear viciously under fur growing darker, and denser. In his mind, the bloodlust demands for sharper claws to rip the life away from everyone in the chamber and for longer teeth to savor flesh taken in raw terror. Agonizing pain floods Zephyr until there's nothing left of him to feel.

His howls raise the fur on Kamala's arms as she shields herself under a sturdy desk. Zephyr gazes down at her, his eyes shining like Mars against a starry sky. Strands of saliva fall at her feet like rain as he tastes the air. She holds her trembling hand up before her. What was once Zephyr snarls until he catches her flowery fragrance in the air. Knowing exactly who the beast still is inside, Kamala steps away from the desk, allowing the werewolf to brush his hefty head against her hand to allow the warmth to flow into the space between his wild eyes.

Kamala's breaths of relief are taken from her in an instant when Ziegler buries his claws deep into the werewolf's back. Zephyr howls and swipes with his claws to fight his aggressor, pushing Kamala away delicately as if she were a flower in his garden.

Bullets bury themselves in the stone above Kamala's head as she leaps for cover. She blindly fires bursts of energy at them and misses, tearing apart the metal piping running the length of the walls, causing vapor to fill the air with a loud hiss.

"That can't be good," Kamala says, wringing her wrists from the force of the blast.

A louder hiss rings in her ear from the opposite side. She runs, but the lizard slashes at her leg with his claws. Searing pain assaults Kamala's mind as she struggles to stifle her scream. The lizard pulls her closer, his iridescent scales shining in the cold sun. The panther slashes with her own claws, cutting through his scales.

The giant lizard holds his face as cold blood meanders down the riverbeds between his scales. Suddenly, the blood stops, and when the lizard looks back down at Kamala, he sees his wounds heal in the reflection of her eyes.

"Thorne!" Ziegler's voice echoes.

The Komodo dragon heeds his master's call, running toward the sound of wild barking and the alluring smell of freshly spilled blood, indistinguishable from one another as he tastes the air with his forked tongue.

***

Somewhere between the worsening storm outside and the commotion within, Indigo struggles to keep up with Phoenix as they run deep into the mountain bunker to assist the others. As the air grows warmer, Phoenix's mane ignites into living fire, lighting their way.

"Try to keep up, cottontail!" Phoenix calls out, running faster toward the nourishing warmth.

"What have I told you about calling me that? Besides, all I need to do is follow the candle at the end of all that lemon cake," Indigo says as they begin to fall behind, not noticing the pair of eyes glaring at them from the steam beside a burst pipe.

Phoenix's fire becomes a dull glow as the lion turns a sudden corner.

Indigo is thrown against the wall by a shadow who presses his cold hands firm against the rabbit, covering their whole muzzle. The light from Phoenix's flame fades as he runs further away, not realizing that behind him, Indigo has been snatched like prey in the night.

Indigo's violet eyes shine through the darkness surrounding them. The rabbits heart thumps heavily against the coyotes considerably larger body. He silences Indigo by suffocation, pressing harder on their short muzzle and looking deeply into terrified eyes, craving to see the life escape from them. He doesn't realize the deadly mistake he made by looking into the rabbit's alluring indigo eyes, as that's the source of their nightmarish adaptation.

The concrete walls melt like candle-wax, and the sturdy mountain floor gives way beneath them as if made of glass. Reality is abandoned as the coyote's brain pumps fear into his senses like poison, convincing him he's seeing, feeling, hearing, and even tasting his deepest fears. Rotting arms with familiar patterns of fur reach through the walls to grab any part of his body they can, jagged white bone tearing at his clothes and fur to silence him forever as everything fades to oblivion. The stench of decay fills the coyote's nose, making his eyes water as he curls into a ball, screaming in terror.

Indigo peers down at him through radiant eyes as they orchestrate the illusion to his biggest fears. The coyote's screams are then muffled as the hands pull him deep into a nightmare he can't awake from.

What's left is the nothingness of a shattered mind.

The illusion breaks when Phoenix grabs Indigo's arm. They blink, looking straight into Phoenix's concerned face and calming eyes.

The coyote feels his way sightlessly down the tunnel, unable to recover from the terror.

"What are you making him see?" Phoenix asks apprehensively, the screams growing louder.

"Old friends," Indigo answers, wiping blood off their short muzzle.

"You're scary sometimes, do you know that?"

"You just noticed?"

***

A bed of freshly fallen snow breaks Kyran's fall. He clings to Aarden, but the red panda rolls far into the haze of the strengthening snowstorm. Kyran leaps into the unknown, helping Aarden rise as he shakes the flurry off his freezing blond hair.

"Most vomit the first time," Kyran says with a small smile, brushing snow off Aarden's shoulders. He's no older than fifteen, not at all the powerful replacement his mind had envisioned. Pangs of guilt flood him, having expected the new mysterious Zenith to be something they're not. The red panda shivers, his only protection from the bitter freeze a thin green letterman's jacket with a torn sleeve.

"How did you do that?" Aarden asks over the soft purr of a jet unseen in the whiteout. His thick coat of copper fur keeps his inquisitiveness warm enough to ask the hundreds of questions in his head.

"Well, you know," Kyran explains when a loud explosion shakes the entire peak. Blazing sections of the stone walls crash around them like meteorites as gray smoke travels along the roaring gusts of frigid wind.

A large hunk of burning metal barrels toward Aarden. Acting instantly, Kyran teleports him away from its path, reappearing with the red panda beside the jet as the thud of metal colliding with ice echoes through the glacial valley.

"No," Kyran says softly, trudging through snow towards the glow at the peak until he's close enough to jump into the blaze.

Aarden's head spins in the thin air. He turns toward the hum of the Cepheus, the cold beginning to break its way through his fur and onto his skin.

***

Kyran's sharp claws stop his momentum as he buries them deep into the concrete floor of Ziegler's lair. His long, slender tail keeps him balanced as he tries to make sense of the chaos around him. The octagonal room isn't as he left it. Cold air bites at his ankles from missing sections of the wall, and somewhere even further, a fire rages, causing alarms to blare through the chamber.

A pile of Ziegler's guards lay in the center of the room. Indigo emerges from the gaps, gasping for air and coughing as smoke burns their small lungs.

"Let's face it, this isn't the first time you've found me under a pile of guys," they say, a pain shooting up their leg from a broken foot as they push their long blue hair aside.

"So much for good luck," Indigo says, biting their lip as Kyran pulls them from the pack of wolves.

"What happened?" Kyran asks.

"I did."

Phoenix calmly walks through a wall of fire, the flames caressing his fur but never scorching it.

"There must've been a leak somewhere, the air caught fire at the same time I did then--

He imitates an explosion with his hands.

"And these gentlemen volunteered to shield me from the explosion," Indigo says, rubbing the singed fur at the end of their long ears.

Icy air whistles into the room as the glass windows shatter. The walls closest to the windows begin to crystallize, and an intense vacuum claims anything it can into the clutches of a frozen canyon as the warm and cold airs clash. Their odds of survival drop faster than the temperature with each passing moment. They need to escape now if they have any hope of piercing through the storm raging outside without the Cepheus falling apart, but they're still two Zenith short.

"Where's Kamala?" Kyran asks through fits of coughing from the dark smoke and thin air.

"Over here."

Kamala holds her bleeding sides as she hobbles toward them from behind a toppled desk. She's uninjured by the fire, but an unfamiliar burning sensation invades her bloodstream, making the room spin as she makes her way from the heat and toward the three blurs before her.

"Who's the new guy?" Kyran asks at the lizard who hungrily gasps for the last breaths of warm air as his body fails to generate any heat of its own.

"Thorne," she says, moving her long hair out of her face as she tries to keep her balance to not alarm the others.

"Talk about a cold-blooded killer," Kyran says.

"Did you just make a joke?" Kamala asks, surprised.

"Well, they did always say we were capable of incredible things," Kyran responds, relieved she's alive.

Kamala flinches as the pain robs her of the ability to enjoy the strange levity. She staggers forward and falls into Kyran's arms, every sound fading away to nothingness.

"What's happening?" Kyran asks, catching her full weight to prevent her from falling to the ground.

"She's been bit," Indigo says, their eyes shining, but it's no use, the venom is rapidly running its course, drowning her mind and filling it with a fog they can't see through.

The entire chamber shifts violently toward the canyon, nearly causing them all to fall over sideways. Heavy bookcases and desks crash over the place they once stood as Kyran leaps them back into the jet.

Aboard the Cepheus, Aarden jolts back into one of the seats as the cozy cockpit becomes overcrowded when four figures materialize from black smoke. Kyran lets go of Phoenix's tight grip and leaps back, alone.

Phoenix curses and tries to run after him in the torrent of snow, but Indigo clutches his arm, pulling with all their strength.

"You can't. I need you to help Kamala while I get this thing off the ground," they say, calmly flipping switches from memory.

"You do know what you're doing, right?" Phoenix asks, lifting Kamala gently as she stirs in his arms, her sapphire eyes opening without seeing.

"I have no idea what I'm doing, darling," Indigo says, flipping a switch that causes a loud ringing before promptly shutting it off.

"Please be careful, or you'll activate the missiles!" Phoenix shouts from the rear of the jet as he unzips Kamala's black and pink uniform to press cardiac monitors against her short coat of fur.

"Don't worry, this thing doesn't have missiles," Indigo assures Aarden, whose bright green eyes stare back at them in disbelief.

"At least I think it doesn't," the rabbit whispers, their fingers gliding over the panel full of unfamiliar controls.

***

Kyran smells gore and burning iron as heat from wild flames begs to burn him. What's left of the tall room he teleported the others away from is now smoldering rubble at the bottom of the canyon. As the mountain above him threatens to collapse in on the cave-like structure, he leaps through solid concrete, reappearing in a room with a stunning view of the serene valley beyond the storm.

Dietrich Ziegler admires the sight before him, hacking blood into the sleeves of his long coat. Zephyr lays at his feet, staring blankly at the ceiling, his hefty chest heaving slowly, struggling to push air into lungs drowning in hot blood.

"My father relocated my brother and I here when we were young. He felt the mountains would pacify me. I met your father not far from here and he once told me he believed you'd change the world, Kyran," Ziegler's voice resonates around him, "he said what we accomplished was only worth it if we reached the zenith and created something that's never been done before. Your father taught me that valleys only ever look this picturesque when you're standing on the peaks."

Kyran's greatest fear turns to look deep into his misty amber eyes. Ziegler paces the room, maintaining his balance as more of the steel and glass hangar falls into the canyon. His long hair, drenched in blood from a wound on his head, begins to freeze stiff. Fear unlike any he's ever felt floods Kyran's brain.

"I always wanted my son by my side, but not like this. Zephyr Ziegler's demise won't be your fault, but your own could be."

Kyran's legs are feeble on unsteady ground. Hot tears blur his vision, gliding off silken fur. In his mind, he screams at himself to act, but he's frozen.

"He's still alive," Kyran finds the courage to say, but Zephyr's panting is growing faint.

The menacing wolf sneers, adjusting his long, tattered coat.

"Do you enjoy being Thaddeus's spare? I don't even have to know you to understand you crave more. You want to be the leader your father knew you'd be, right? Thaddeus doesn't see it, and the way things are unfolding, your purpose is now to step up and claim your place as first, but not under Thaddeus and his Zenith, but under myself in a new dawn. Perhaps you can convince the others of the same. I can tell by the hungry look in your eyes you're giving this serious consideration. I always knew you were the intelligent one."

Kyran's instincts urge him to leap and push Ziegler into the valley, but he desperately clings to every word, part of him knowing he may be right.

He opens his mouth to respond, but only the valley speaks.

"Maybe Thaddeus will want to see his own son lead instead. I hope he'll learn his lesson and stop sacrificing his friends' children like this," Ziegler says, planting the seeds of doubt in Kyran's mind.

Time runs out. The ground cracks beneath their feet, forcing Kyran to act. Leaping, his boots land on the ground far before him. He slashes with all his strength at Ziegler, rage guiding him to kill the ghost who haunts him with a truth he'd rather let die than consume him.

But Ziegler is fast enough to catch smoke. He stops Kyran's momentum, crushing his neck with his grip before throwing him backward onto the cold stone floor as the walls around them splinter, exposing them both to the bitter freeze

"You'll die for nothing, you all will", Ziegler promises, the loudness terrifying as the entire structure plunges into the glacial valley.

Zephyr slides motionlessly into the clouds of white ice and black smolder, falling toward the unseen valley floor. Kyran reaches desperately for him, but his fingertips only brush gently against jagged, blood-soaked fur.

Dietrich Ziegler's hands grip steel cable and he escapes through the veil of the tempest toward the sky. As the whiteout clears, a helicopter breaks loudly through the snow, nearly crashing into Kyran as he leans over the edge of the structure.

There's nothing left for him on the lifeless ledge. Death is the only escape.

Kyran yells Zephyr's name in his mind, but no sound escapes his lips as an immeasurable pain makes him run thoughtlessly into the nothingness. Once there's no more ground, either stone or steel to rely on, he jumps, slicing through the thin air, closing his eyes in the bleak familiarity.

He remembers how this felt the last time. Maybe the secret isn't seeing the rapidly approaching ground. Kyran suspends all thought, willing to die than to face the others in failure. But he's saved by the instinct of survival within him, his claws digging deep into the icy walls of the glacier.

His eyes open as he screams a lifetime of agony, his throat tearing as his own pain echoes back to him in the howl of the still crashing canyon.

There's nothing but white below him, nothing but white above him. Everything is indistinguishably cold, and it will remain that way for Kyran long after he escapes this low that's the tallest peak he's ever faced.

He doesn't remember how he made it back to the Cepheus, or how he found the helplessness to weep into Phoenix's chest as the steady tone of a heart no longer beating rings in his ear.

Phoenix embraces Kyran closely for the first time since they were children. The lion's fire melts his frozen body exactly the way he remembered it did the last time he was pulled from the cold depths by his younger brother.

Their bodies sway as Indigo fights the storm to guide the jet through the turbulent tempest, finally breaking the surface of the sea of clouds. Golden sunlight bathes them in a stunning radiance defeating all of the darkness remaining except for the one consuming Kyran from within.

"What happened?" Phoenix asks through tears.

"Zephyr's dead," Kyran says, his voice quivering.

Everything grows silent until only the hum of the struggling jet engine remains.

"Did you see it happen?" Indigo asks, their dry eyes trying to see through the tears in Kyran's.

"He fell into the canyon; I saw him slip away. No one except me could've survived a fall like that, and I couldn't reach him in time."

"And Ziegler?" Phoenix asks.

"He got away."

Kyran limps toward the back of the jet, placing a warm hand on Kamala's, who sleeps deeply as the venom running in her veins gradually disappears, but she still has long to go as she fights nightmarish hallucinations.

"I'm sorry," he tells her, knowing what's coming next.

Kyran hobbles to the pilots seat, sitting silently as he takes over from Indigo to get the rest of them home, knowing he failed.

Sometime later, Aarden stares out of the window as they soar over bright fields of colorful tulips.

He wonders why he was abducted and why a stranger would die to rescue him. The pain of the truth stabs him in the heart.

He can't control fire or disappear into thin air. He's unable to do the extraordinary things they can do.

His emerald eyes overflow with tears as the weight of his burden sinks him.