Can Meteor's next job not be melee?

[Kohashi]

For 8.0, Eden's story showed that we can restore balance to an aetherially-imbalanced world, by summoning a Primal, destroying it, and letting its aether be re-circulated back into the world. So, SMN summons a big Fire entity (Ifrit, Phoenix, or some bastardized versions of them ala Eden Story itself), we destroy it in the 4th, the Fire Aether starts to mend the world a bit. If Fire+Ice is still imbalanced, SMN can also summon a Wind entity of some kind, defeat that, and then the Fire/Wind from the Summons, plus the ambient Ice of the world, all neutralize each other entirely, and the Shard returns to equilibrium

For 9.0, we literally have zero idea what it's going to be about, so SMN could fit, or it could not. However, due to Eden again, we have been shown that SMN would be incredibly easy to fit into any story that involves an aetherially imbalanced world, which appears to be the 'overarching problem' for the new story arc we have to deal with now (as compared to 'Ascians' being the previous story arc's 'overarching problem' to solve). IE, if we go a Shard they decide is tilted towards Water (because they want to do FFX references everywhere), then SMN A: can fix that by summoning something of the element that is strongest against Water (unfortunately, that's Lightning, so Ixion or Ramuh fight, again), and perhaps an Earth entity to have the full triangle and keep the Lightning under control (so, another Titan fight probably), and B: would be in itself, a reference to FFX because Yuna


Still not seeing how Reaper fits Evercold, besides maybe 'it's Garle-cold in Garlemald and that's where Reaper is from', but we learned it in Uldah so I don't think that counts

Why would he summon Ifrit in the first place? It's not just any aether that it needs to be infused there, but Light specifically, which is why they extract and divert it from the First.

Light and Darkness counter/balance eachother.

Also, what do you mean you don't see how Reaper fits in there when it was very clearly explained how things work in the 13-th? It's very obvious that the 13th will play a major part in the next story since WoL already found a way to travel there by using the key. Now they have to find ways to further expand and allow the rest to travel.

Now, the question is, who will form a contract with WoL? Will it be Golbez or Malphas, or somebody new altogether? But that discussion is for another topic.