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“You two have to fuse it’s the only way!” Zoeya shouted above all the other voices. She was desperately trying to keep up with the rapid pace of the monsters attacks. Even though her weapon fired fast and hit hard, it wasn’t enough to dent the swarm of corrupted gems.
Meanwhile, Rythian and Strife were just trying to keep the gems off them. Strife spared a glance at the fusion a little distance away. However, Rythian didn’t even give a sign of response, he just continued slashing away with his blade. Strife didn’t stop his relentless attacks, but gave Rythian more looks when he had the moment. Which slowed down his fighting considerably.
Rythian gritted his teeth in frustration and pain as a monster sunk its blunt teeth into his arm. He quickly threw the zombie gem off balance and stabbed in straight in the chest. Rythian pulled his sword out of the gem and whipped around just to chop another one their heads off. As the body crumpled to sand below, Rythian met the green haze of his partner’s eyes. The emerald was staring at him, but continued smashing his “atomic dissembler” into the unlucky gems faces.
“Come on guys, I know it’s a little scary, but it’s fun!” Zoeya yelled as she jumped up into the air and raised her weapon to blast the gems into a smoldering crater. “Seriously though, it’s kind of an emergency!” She said before letting loose destruction on the crowd below.
Neither Strife nor Rythian needed to say anything, they knew what had to be done. Reluctantly, Rythian dismissed his weapon and flew into the air, his long black cape billowing behind him. He quickly extended his hands toward Strife.
Strife grimaced as he gave one final blow to a beast. Strife’s weapon dissipated as he hopped into the air and grabbed Rythians spidery hand.
Rythian pulled Strife high into the sky along with him and started speeding over to the side, which was untouched by the battle. Then the purple lolite gem tossed Strife to the sands below. Strife hit the sand rolling, but quickly stopped himself with a hand firmly planted in the ground.
The emerald gave an angry glare as Rythian floated gracefully to ground, untouched. A little ways behind them, the monsters stopped flailing around and instead looked around, confused. The noises they made raised in volume as they tried to figure where their opponents went.
“Alright Will, let’s get this over with.” Strife nodded in agreement, and lifted himself to his feet.
Rythian put his hand out once more. Strife straightened his back and took a step forward. He extended his own arm to place his hand in the mages.
The dance had begun.
Strife was pulled forward off his feet as they rose into the air once again. Rythian took the other gems hand and placed it on his shoulder. Slowly, they began to move around in a classic ballroom fashion. But as their gems glowed brighter, their pace picked up. Finally, Rythian dipped Strife down, his hand left his shoulder and rest on his lower back instead. The partners stared into each other’s eyes.
Then within a blink of an eye, the lolite gem swung around his arms and flung Strife upwards into the air.
Strife rocketed through the sky and then with a twist of his body, he descended back down towards Rythian. Rythian stretched out his arms as Strife fell back down.
Strife collided with Rythian and the two disappeared in a flash. The only visible things were their gems. All the zombies turned their head toward giant rupture of white light. Even Zoeya managed to stop fighting and watch.
After what was an eternity, a tall form began to take shape. The light began melting into the developing figure. Soon, the light was a hooded person.
The fusion had a black vest and tie with a red dress shirt. It was partially hidden by a black cape draped over their shoulders. The hood of the cape casted a shadow over the face, so all that could be seen is the glow of purple and green eyes. They took one shaky step forward with their black boots. And then another. Gradually, the gem picked up its pace and began to dash towards the crowd of creatures.
The savages began to lumber over to the newly made fusion. Zoeya quickly snapped out of it. She summoned her weapon by clapping her hands together and slowly pulled them apart. Her soft arms turned into steel death machines one again, as she began to lift the cannons toward the zombies.
Soon the enemies’ attention was divided. One half was scrambling back over to try their hand at Zoeya and the other at unnamed fusion.
The hooded gem willed Rythian’s weapon from their chest with one hand. While the other hand simply waved itself around to summon Strife’s since his gem was on the back of their hand. The fusion was almost upon the swarm as they smashed the weapons together.
They lift themselves up into the air, and revealed two daggers glowing a bright red. Instead of immediately dropping down to terminate the threat, they stay floating. The daggers rip through the air creating more light. That light steadily turns into words, and those words shrunk down to form a document.
At this point, the corrupted gems are going nuts. Mismatched arms flail around and try to catch the gem in the sky.
But the fusion makes a “tsk tsk” noise and opens its mouth to speak.
“Good afternoon, ladies, gentlemen, and other people not confined into genders, I am Striftian and I have a proposition for you.” Their voice was so smooth and calming the zombie’s arms dropped to their sides. Everyone, even the other fusion, looked at the businessman assassin in silence.
“Good! Now that I have your attention…” Striftian turned the paper around to face the crowd. “This is a document regarding about your struggles. You all need Zoeya’s and my own gems. You all need to get them so you can consume them and we can become one of you. Is that correct?’ The monsters nodded sluggishly.
“This here document promises that you can keep our gems with no big problem. But first all of you must fight each other to death! Only one lucky critter can take our gems home! There is no catch! You don’t even need to sign! Just start assaulting one another!” With a wicked glint of a smile, the zombies bowed to the ground. Once they all rose, all hell broke loose.
“That’s right everyone keep up the good work! You all are doing a fine job of killing each other, really!” Striftian cheered the beasts on as they weaved themselves through the air and towards their friend.
Zoeya was just standing, staring at the battle with a blank expression. She was too strong to follow out any other command then to listen.
Striftian waved a large hand in her face, “Fizo, we have work to complete, stop slacking off.” Zoeya let out a groan and held a hand to her face.
“Ugh… What did you….” She trailed off as she looked into four glowing eyes.
“Hello Zoeya, I’ve almost taken care of our infestation.” Striftian’s eyes crinkled in amusement.
“You…. You’re….. Beautiful!” Zoeya’s face lit up in joy as she pulled the taller gem in for a hug.
Striftian awkwardly shrugs their shoulders as Zoeya clings to their waist.
“Come now, don’t be modest, you’re so great.” Zoeya whispers into the fabric of their clothing.
“Don’t get emotional now. We have a job to do and we must execute it right away.” Zoeya sniffles sadly, and reluctantly pulls away.
Zoeya fixes her curly hair with the brush of metal fingers.
“Okay Striftian, let’s go kick some weird gem thing’s butts!” Striftian nods and the two fusions turn back around to see a small amount of zombies left. Zoeya gives a final proud glance at the gem next to her before dashing off with them towards the battle
After the remaining monsters were wiped out, Rythian and Strife unfused (much to Zoeya’s disappointment).
For a brief moment, the two were locked in each other’s arms, gems still glowing. Gems that still wanted to be reunited. But they did eventually open their eyes and let go of one another. Strife walked close to Rythian on the way back to the warp. Meanwhile, on the walk over Zoeya was chattering away and bending over to pick up gems to bring back.
Finally, when the warp was in sight she stopped. Rythian and Strife didn’t notice she wasn’t behind them until she cleared her throat loudly.
They both turned around to look at her, eyebrows raised.
“So…. Strife… Rythian… How was Striftian for ya?” Zoeya asked cheerily as she squatted to pick up another gem.
Strife turned a slight shade of green as Rythian said, “We were pretty sexy, not going to lie.” Strife shook his head in disbelief as Zoeya doubled over in laughter.
Zoeya wiped a tear forming in her eye.
“Oh boy, yeah you guys did look really good. What about you Strife?” When his name was mentioned, Strife gave a huff of defeat.
“Well… We were very professional… Not to mention powerful.” He shifted his weight a little.
“Surprisingly, you two work really well together. Striftian was very convincing and very fast.” Zoeya began walking forward again. The other two gems strolled along as well. “But the important thing is that you guys were good together. Striftian should come around more often.”
“It’s sort of weird that both of our egos combined into a sort of massive one.” Strife commented quietly, obviously avoiding Zoeya’s statement.
Rythian nodded in agreement and added, “Our insecurities were also shared too.”
Zoeya gave a small sigh. “Yeah, you learn a lot of things about each other in the wonderful dance of fusion. I seriously can’t believe this is your first time!”
Rythian and Strife chuckled as they gave Zoeya a look.
“Wait…” Zoeya narrowed her eyes. “It isn’t your first time?”
They answered with silence.