Jongin awoke. His hip ached and so did his head. There was a chill in the room but it wasn't extremely cold. And his gaze fell on Kyungsoo. From that moment he realized he was as well. And looking over all the others he could see that they were not wearing clothes either. Kyungsoo's round eyes opened to stare into his. At first frightened but quickly turning to annoyance.

 
"Where are we?" A voice broke the silence from behind him. Yixing pushed his dark bangs from his eyes and stood. Seemingly unashamed. 

"It looks like a ship." Another voice stated dumbly from behind him. It was Suho who also stood. Anyone with eyes could tell it was. All blinking lights and monitors relaying images of star-travel navigation. There was a huge wall of windows that displayed black with white pinpricks of what appeared to be stars. Jongin had seen it in the few television shows he'd watched as a kid. 

"She... was a ship the whole time." Xiumin said quietly. Understanding tinting his voice.

 
Jongin looked around for Jongdae. The one he cared about most now. His boyfriend was sitting up along with Luhan, and Yifan. It was unnerving to see them all, together like that. He strode over to grab Jongdae from between them and pulled him off to the side. 
Jongdae smiled after their heated kiss and snuggled into Jongin's arms. He mumbled something into Jongin's chest about the last time he'd seen him . He just held Jongdae close. It had seemed too final the last time they'd said goodbye and now being here. Holding Jongdae in his arms was like a dream that had finally come true. Even though it had been only a short time, it had felt like ages. 

"We have to be going somewhere." Suho spoke. 

"Yeah, but where?" Answered Chanyeol/Yifan as he looked around. 

An alert flashed a glowing blue-green on one of the monitors. Something that MAMA needed them to see. So Suho strode forward with Tao and Baekhyun on his heels. 

They all stared in awe and confusion. Jongin wondered too which oblongs they had to touch in order to make the light stop blinking away. He didn't know how to read the old language very well and he knew for a fact that the others didn't either. 

Yixing pushed past, gripping Xiumin's hand in his. "The four of us know more about this language than the others. I think we should all try to figure this out while the rest of you,"

Jongin was waiting for Yixing to tell them to put on clothes. That was the first place his mind went. But, "explore the rest of the ship." Was his soft command. 

Kyungsoo protested for a moment but a quick look and arm grab from Chanyeol that no one could have missed, shut him right up.

Jongin himself was glad to finally be resting with Jongdae. Fingers interlaced. Others joined them and  then drifted off into other corridors  and the whole time, he began to feel more and more at peace. 

Whatever this journey was. Wherever they were going. All this would be exactly the way it was always meant to be. They just needed to trust eachother. And trust the ship. It had never steered them wrong before. 

***

Arthur was a fool to have come to the palace. He realized that as he sat with his wrists tied with heavy rope down in the locked room in the basement. They'd captured him, the brothers and their robots, and instead of killing him like he would have wanted, they'd tied him up here. 

He'd completely forgotten that once MAMA was activated, the artificials would begin to work with each other. Becoming the most powerful source on the planets. Only with them would they be able to communicate with the other side. They knew what was best for everyone. 

As he sat there, he contemplated every mistake he had made. But he thought harder about all the mistakes he'd let everyone else make. It should never have come to this. It never would have if he'd been stronger. Less lenient. But they'd all grown softer in their old age.

Now those kids were all alone. No, not kids, young men as they had all been at one time.

The red force had been with them the whole time. He knew that now. And it was only at the last place that it had manifested itself into an almost tangible entity. Which they'd contained by dividing the heart of the corruption and severing the connection that would allow MAMA to work at full capacity. 

Now, without the old ones and without the robots, the red force could begin to manifest again. Maybe never corporeal, but always there. Testing, tempting and feeding ideas into those who guarded her. A vicious who was also the companion and true mother to them all.

——————

A. N: The first half of this is rough but I need to post this chapter in order to get myself writing the next story...im hoping. Thank you to anyone who has read this from the start and is waiting for what might not happen. And thank you to any new readers for giving this a shot. I have a motivation issue but I'm slowly getting out of it these days. I'm going to start working on "History" and maybe have some content this century. Haha.