Bring it Home [Kaitou Joker fic]

Chapter Four [Edited]

"I'm back, Ponytail!" Phoenix swooped in,  fluttering his wings as he landed on a branch. "I scouted the area, lets keep moving!" He waved a hand in a 'come on' motion and Aris glared up at him.

"Why're you staying up there then?" Aris scoffed, Phoenix smiled down.

"I'm watching out for enemies!" Phoenix waves his hand,  "I saw tons of groups wandering around the forest, I'm pretty sure they're hunters so we definitely have to watch out!"

"Why're you being so loud about it?"

"Because," Phoenix hooks his feet around the branch he's on then drops forward to get slightly closer, "The hunters will be fooled into heading to this area, which will give us more time to get around with running into them."

Aris took a moment, then nodded, "For a bird brain, you can actually think."

Phoenix grins, "Keep up, Aris!"

——

Phoenix was right, they didn't run into any other groups or anything at all. Maybe a few creatures would skitter away when they got too close, but nothing necessarily hostile tried to get to them. The bird brain was still up in the trees, he would remind Aris of his presence whenever he flapped with his hard enough to be heard.

Their journey came to a pause when they stumbled across a large fracture in the ground, it totally split up one side away from the other.

Aris tried to estimate the distance of the crack, but decided in the end it would be safer if Phoenix transferred both of them across. "Hey, Phoenix, help me—"

Before Aris even registers what happened, Phoenix is already diving down from the sky and into the fracture, creating a small whirlwind with his wings. He's down there for a while, and Aris manages to barely look over to see if he was eaten by something.

Instead, she looks just in time to see the bird man rise up with gentle beats of his feathery limbs, Aris never knew he could have such control over his arial movements. In his hands was a little ball of fluff that had a small stem sticking out of the bottom. It's looks like it's floating in Phoenix's hands.

"Is that—?"

"Yes." Phoenix says, landing in front of Aris, "This is it. This is what we came here for."

For some reason, Aris found their journey rather lackluster, but she isn't really complaining. "That means we're going back?"

Phoenix nods again, "We should hurry. The sooner we get back, the better."

—x—

They got back to the ship without any issues. Phoenix reverted back into his more human looking form, and then stored the plant inside a tube, which he kept in his field of vision at all times. Aris walked a little closer, wanting to inspect the plant. It looked almost like a weirdly large dandelion, except it's petals were a pink-green gradient.

Akai pulled up a screen and slid it towards Aris, "Call Lark, tell her we're heading home."

Aris repeated the order mockingly, scoffing and rolling her eyes, but doing what she was told anyway. She tapped around, dully amazed at how easily the screen reacted to a mere movement of her hands. She scrolled around a bit, until finding something that remotely looked like a phone.

She found Lark's name in no time and dialed it, patiently waiting for an answer.

"This is Lark."

"And this is Aris, we're going back to Earth right now."

"What?" Lark says in partial disbelief, "It was that easy?"

"Yeah, weird, right?" Aris replies with a shrug, "Bird Shit found the plant a few minutes into walking around a forest and we somehow didn't run into any trouble."

"Weird." Lark remarks, "I could've sworn both of you were like, trouble magnets."

"Maybe we cancelled each other out."

"That doesn't sound unbelievable."

"How's Joker?" Akai inquires, "Is he awake? Can I talk to him?"

"He's asleep right now, sorry. Should I wake him? I'm sure he'll be glad to hear from you."

Akai takes a moment to consider, looking back and forth between options. "Nah, it's okay. Just tell him we're coming back when he wakes up. Everything's going to be okay." He says, then turns away again to fix up a few things before they take off.

"Aris."

"What?" Aris responds, staring distantly at the flower.

"Do you actually think that flower is going to do something?"

Aris falls silent. As much as she wants to trust Akai on this, there still isn't any solid evidence that the plant is going to help. What are they supposed to do if it doesn't work? Where will they find another solution? Will their trip here be useless?

"Maybe." Is the only answer Aris can offer.

Lark falls silent, then nods, not like it was seen by Aris. "Okay, well, I'll go make food or something for you guys."

And just like that, Lark ends the call and the ship is already off the ground. Aris blinks at the flower a few times, before walking away to go get settled down for the trip.

——

:)))

A big change from the original plot so the rest of the story won't be as jam packed and exciting and stuff, it's gonna be like a weird slow burn but like yes

anyways uhhh expect an update in like 27933794 years