"Sir, a call came in, supposedly a blue-haired spy got through security detail around the city, breaking into the hazard zone."
A man, Chinese in origin, shuffled his papers in annoyance, as his secretary updated him on the situation. "Didn't we deploy a major security unit?"
The secretariat adjusted her glasses. "Yes, sir, apparently he broke past 3 tier 3 units, each around 27% fused, he apparently wielded 'dust.'
"Do we have any families on record with 'dust'?"
"Well…" She bit her lip, she'd done research, expecting this situation, but the results were not delightful, "there is a family in southern america with sand fusion, and some rock fusion on the peninsulas of europe but.."
"...the dirt here is very different then overseas, we have no registered 'dirt users' in China?"
"....no sir."
"Should we let them know?" Asked the woman in charge of communications, listening in on the conversation.
The older man shook his head. "No need, they will enter the city tonight, have the dignitaries that greet them there update them on the situation when they arrive."
===
"So…did any famous people disappear with the city?" The other was bored, deciding to pick up conversation with one of their guards/guides, assigned by China nation, since the two pilots got stuck in conversation, and Geria was sleeping on her sword again. They were in a jet, crossing over to China, they would attend a 'dinner' spanning 8 hours, which was there to make connections, and head over early the next morning to investigate the city. The man she talked to was older, but still had the suave style, with cropped hair, that made you feel as if he'd look right at home catching blades with his bare hands or doing back flips on roof tops.
"Ah, we don't think so."
"Eh?" She was confused now. "What do you mean by that, don't you know or don't know?"
"Well…that's just it, there are no records in any of our databases of anyone ever existing there, or any communications from the area, there are also no legible ID's found in the area, everything to do with anyone who lived there is gone, as if they never did live there." he explained.
"Wait…if you have no data that anyone existed there, why is it that you know people recently disappeared?"
"Well, the first thing that tipped us off, is a couple fusion warriors returned from patrol, claiming that they had been dispatched earlier to check on a city, but had found a strange ghost town at the coordinates. After investigating further, we concluded that this city not only had people recently living in it from the condition of food and consumables, but that its facilities must have been supplying us with a lot of materials and parts. However, there were no records it did so, despite the record obviously containing these supplies, appearing seemingly out of nowhere. This is what made the situation a nation-wide threat."
This information…the Korean dignitary had not mentioned it to them…was China keeping some details under wraps? Then him…
"I see, so do you need anything?" she asked, leaning back, popping a mint.
He merely smiled, innocently. "I just feel that there are some things the most crucial fusion user should have to help this case."
She smirked back at him, offering a mint. "I like you, you play cards?"
===
"Did you have to bring me along?" Complained Geria, yawning as she sat in the other's personal drone. She had managed to not begin complaining until they were already hovering above the city.
"My bad." Responded the other, "I wanted some company…and some extra firepower, something is suspicious here." It was noon, they'd arrived in China. But after reaching their housing, the other had walked to Lysa's plane, teleported out, and Lysa had taken over Lysa to head to the 'dinner'. The other had gotten into the smuggled-in, two-person drown, and headed over to the city.
Each person with fusion abilities had a percentage of fusion, the maximum fusion quantity signified completely fusing with their object, and determined how much of it they could create out of thin air and keep formed until they lost concentration. The percentage did not apply to those of tier 4 and tier 1, tier 4 warriors were usually very visually obvious if they were more fused, and becoming fully fused as a tier 4 often led to consequences, such as a drop in intelligence or ability to function.
For tier 3 and 2, the supposed 100% fused, was said to only be theoretical, based on mathematical theory, most people lying between 10% and 20%, the supposed 100% fused was to create supposedly the same quantity of atoms of your material as you yourself were made of. Therefore, the larger the human, the better, the quantity of obese fusion warriors was large if they weren't combat focused…She glanced over at Geria's somewhat thin frame, if she didn't constantly try to starve herself to death, with her skills, and 78% fused, her family probably wanted her a lot bigger.
However, the more you had to control, the harder it was to keep control of it, so more wasn't exactly better.
She finally landed the drone, both of them stepping out into the abandoned metal city. It gave out a strange aura, the few windows on the domed housing facilities and square factories were made with reinforced glass, the outside walls easily half a meter thick, and the doors eerily open, as if to remind you the people hadn't left here on purpose. Only…it was also strange, that every door was open. Geria glanced at her in confusion, as she knelt down to get a closer look at the ground, but there were no signs of any footprints. She shook her head, attempting to sense the space around her. Trying to find any rips in it. There was nothing, wait…maybe a trail of something…
"Yo!" Suddenly she was interrupted by Geria's grunt. She looked up in annoyance, to see her pointing. "I think I hear movement over there."
"What?" The other stood back up. "From all the information we got before arriving here, there should be no one around." She narrowed her eyes. What was the Chinese government up to this time? The northern americas always distrusted anything to do with China.
"Wanna go check it out." Geria looked excited for the first time on this excursion. She'd have rather spend the afternoon in her room, scamming through short vids then out here in a ghost town.
The other nodded, following her into a building, it was in a similar direction to where she'd felt a strangeness earlier.
"Siiiiigh, this is exhausting," came a loud grumble as they entered in, to see a man shuffling through a pile of supplies in the corner, moving sacks of granite out of the way. He looked up as they entered, the other's hands went down to her waist where she kept two knives and a gun, and Geria raised up her sword. But the strange man, clothed in a cargo suit with fresh, long blue hair, merely glanced at them before going back to moving sacks out of the way. "Ah, who are y'alls, you also break into here to take a look around?"
Hmmm, it seemed he wasn't with the Chinese government, he didn't even look Chinese, more Laos tbh. But before she let her guard down she had to ask.
"What are you doing down here?"
He glanced up, spitting out some dirt that had caught in his mouth, annoyed. He already hated that he had to put on safety gear to move some of the equipment around, searching far and wide, he was onto his 5th attempt to find the exit, only for two hot chicks to disturb him.
"Shuffling dirt, you?" he couldn't be bothered to talk to more humans.
The other sighed in annoyance. "It's obvious neither of us have any intent to tell the other our business, but you are searching for something here, which means you must know something…please," she drew her gun, flicking off the safety, "be a dear, and tell us?"
Geria, seeing what was going on, suddenly, lifted her sword up, and flung it into a wall, it imbedded at least 30 cm into solid steel, she sighed, pushing her long white locks out of her face lazily, glancing at him like he was an annoying itch.
"I," responded the man, before lifting up the sack he was currently holding, slamming it into the wall, so it split open, dust flew into the air. "I don't care to be your dear." He snarled, arrogantly, as the dust shot out from himself.
However, Geria simply thought, and then metal enshrouded her from head to foot, the dust unable to penetrate it with just their momentum, two blades appeared out of the air, appearing right where he was standing, forcing him to leap backwards…this control, to cause their fused power to appear in any shape, at any place…this was not normal! However, as he stepped, back, his eyes were also tracking the other lady with red hair, who, to his surprise, just straight up shot her bullet, disappearing from where she was standing, the bullet appeared in front of his forehead, with the same momentum it'd left the barrel with, distracted by the metal shards earlier, he didn't even have time to think a response and just slung some dust at it to mask his movement, as he pushed it out of the way, the bullet grazing the side of his forehead, nipping a couple hairs off and flying all the way through the opposite wall, it was a high caliber bullet, he surmised, as he fell backwards, into the dirt. Ugh! His hair! How could they! He'd only kept this body this long because of that hair!!! The cruelty! But more than that…
"Wait!" He suddenly shouted, as metal formed over his arms. "I changed my mind! I want to work with you!" The metal stopped and he found the space around him stopped restricting his movements. Since the battle had started, the space around him had distorted so that when he moved, although he felt he was moving great distances, he barely shuffled a couple inches.
However, although these things had disappeared, two metal rings encased his hands. He glanced down, in annoyance.
"Ok, you want to tell us why you're here?" the other placed her gun on her shoulder, a little shocked by how he'd managed to survive her bullet with minimal injury, she narrowed her eyes. He wasn't to be underestimated.
He glanced down at his cuffs. "Remove these and I'll talk." he gnashed back.
The other rolled her eyes at him, they had a standoff, she pointed her gun at him, he shrugged his arms. Finally,
"Ok, look, Geria, I can't be bothered, I'm too bored, and don't have the time or the mental gymnastics for this…" she glanced over to see Geria flipping through images on her phone, giggling every now and then. If only she was addicted to social media too... "...just let him go, I don't think he means to trick us."
"Yes! You're the one who started the fight!" He reasoned.
"Ah," nodded Geria. "He's right, we started the fight, he was only defending himself…I'm sorry, gay guy."
He looked at her annoyed, as his cuffs disappeared, standing up. "I'm not 'gay'."
She shrugged. "You look gay."
The other interrupted. "Thanks for working with us, I know we're not exactly the best acquaintances, but it seems you know something about this place, you know what caused what happened here?"
He smirked, "follow me." leading them towards a resting room, grabbing a paper cup and filling it at the water filling station, he sat down at a table. The two ladies also pulled up seats. Geria had regrabbed her longsword, holding it gently on her lap.
"Look, girl, you got spacial powers?" He asked, curiously, quickly finishing his small cup of water, setting it down, a little miffed that it finished so quickly.
The other got up again, grabbing the cup to refill it. "Yes, I fused with space, but don't you think you owe us some information already?"
"Hahaha." He was in a better mood already, happily accepting the water back. He pointed. "You are perfect then…" he downed the water. "You see, what we like to call it, is the Gateway of Fates, but basically it is just a one-way road that higher beings like to ride, to pass between worlds once they get bored of their own one. Sometimes, even beings so great they have the power to erase existence, itself, which, you may have already guessed," he smirked, holding out his empty cup to her, which she accepted to refill. "Happened here, however, for some reason, it stopped it's trail, which probably means the gate is locked currently for some reason, however, if you enter it, you should be able to still go on to the next world, it is simply blocking the way for any monster currently on the path…"
he took a moment to drink his water, both of them stared at him like he was a lunatic, talking fantasies. "This isn't the only gate in this world obviously, there is a second one that happens to have an exit here, but that one is currently indisposed, which is why I headed over here. Soon, others, like me will have heard the news, and this place will be flooded with them…as soon as tomorrow," but luckily, unlike the others, I still staked out on this side of the world despite the discomfort, so imma here early. He winked.
"Anyway." he held out his empty glass again. The other rolled her eyes, standing up without taking it and walking back to the water filler tank. "I saw that you have spacial abilities, this is perfect to directly hop into the gateway!" She returned with the entire tank of water, lifting it up to pour into his cup. She didn't use spacial powers to bring the water, since it took a lot of concentration, and real body energy to use them. She was thin enough as is, and the morning had been rather busy.
"So…you want me to use my power to enter into this gate?"
"Wait, before we continue this conversation," Suddenly Geria interrupted. They both turned to her. "Could you please stop that blood, it's very distracting…" She pointed at the trail of blood that flowed down one side of his face from the bullet wound.
"Oh, right, my bad." The other quickly focused for a long moment, the longer the distance, the harder the mental work. Suddenly a medical kit appeared in her hand, from her drone. She took out some bandages, but to her surprise he instantly resisted.
"No way, I'm going to wear that ugly stuff!" he snarled, making distance. He absolutely hated the way bandages looked on skin, and he didn't really need it...but, he glanced at them, they were human, they would attempt to kill him if they knew what he was.
Even if he killed them in response, he'd just lose a rare spacial user and have to directly open the gate himself. The danger of that wasn't worth it.
"Give me some gauze!" he demanded, the other handed it to him, shrugging at his overreaction. He patted his forehead for a bit, blocked off the bleeding internally, and washed his face. He came back. "There, fine? Not bleeding!"
Geria shrugged. "The queer guy looks good to me."
"I'm not queer!" he gnashed.
"Whatever you say."
The other just glanced at his forehead suspiciously, before also letting it be, putting away the medkit. She didn't bother sending it back, just looping it over one shoulder.
"I just have one problem with your 'plan', why on earth would I want to open that gate?" She wasn't an idiot. What was hidden behind that gate was dangerous beyond measure.
The guy suddenly smirked. He knew how to work these humans. "Because, my 'dear', those humans that used to live here, don't you wanna see where they all went?"
The other sat down again, considering. "Alright, say we believe you about all this gate stuff, say we jump into it, shouldn't we bring forces in to watch the entrance," she glanced up at him, danger flashing in her eyes. "Why has none of your earlier plans mentioned any armies?"
He chucked, also leaning forward, matching her stare with a fierce, playful one. "And what makes you think your little space exchange you do can carry what's beyond that wall into here?"
She suddenly sat back, considering. The fact she knew nothing about this place until this stranger explained it, was already strange enough. He continued. "Believe me when I say that it's better you see what's beyond before you let the world know about it, and it's not like you can teleport your 'armies' into it, especially at your strength, so…how about it? Want to go in there with me? I'll show you the way…"