FusionFall: Invasion

Chapter Six: Weight of the World

Whoooosh!

The blinding white light faded and I stepped off with the other three guys. I saw our group off to the side, some of which cheered when they saw us. I smiled and took a quick headcount; Daniel, Blake, Davey, Hailey, Sherylann, Ali, Aiden, Ashton, Jackson, Luke, Niko, Chris, Rebecca, Jayven, Brandon...15. Good, we're all here.

I joined the others and some idle conversation. I tried to remember the last time all of my friends were together like this...

The bonfire at my house last year. Every year, at the end of the school year, I had started holding parties at my house. We would set up a huge fire in the backyard and burn the few papers we had; assignments, homework, notes. There was food and ice cream and loud music. We all made fools of ourselves dancing. Everyone here had been there. I remember that we had those sparkler thingies, and I thought it was a great idea to hold five in each hand and light them all simultaneously...ha ha ha...I was such a fool. Of course, they burned me and I ended up dropping them on a nearby camp chair, burning holes right through it. My dad got so pissed...

My friends...I swore right there that I would never let any one of them die. Not while I still breathed. I moved next to Ali and gripped her hand, which squeezed mine in response.

An alarm sounded somewhere nearby. We looked up at the giant facility of Dexter's Laboratory. Up at the top, rather comically, was perched a small house exactly like the one we were at only moments before. The huge crowd of teenagers were packed in large courtyard. Along the edges were bushes and trees, a massive fountain stood spewing water in the center.

The alarm sounded once. Twice. Three times, and then ended. A giant thump sounded from under our feet and the massive doors to the labs opened. From within, a circular floating platform zoomed out. Atop were Dexter himself, accompanied my Computress. The crowd slowly grew into cheers. Dexter basked in the glory for a few minutes, then got over his big-headedness.

"Alright, alright, that's enough." He said in that funny accent of his. "You all must be very curious as to what is going on, and what we are going to do."

"As you may have heard, Planet Fusion above us has threatened our peaceful world. It began by sending meteorites filled with Fusion Matter. But of course, you all already knew that. From this Matter grew the Terrafusers. These spawn the larval stage of Fusions. These larvae take in their surroundings, analyze, and then begin to mutate. They use anything they can become compatible with, for you see, there seem to be three distinct types of Fusion DNA. I have named them Adaptium, Blastons, and Cosmix."

He paused for a moment. "After much experimentation, I have found that each kind is both vulnerable to and effective against another kind. Thus, we have been able to create weaponry specialized for eliminating these creatures." Cheers spread throughout the congregation.

"We can fight back!"

"Down with Fusions!"

"Destroy them!"

Dexter gestured with his hands. "Now now people. Settle down. Next point; the reason we have chosen you." He said pointedly. "Why choose teenagers? We...or most, rather, tend to be lazy and...erm...Well, anyway, why would we choose teenagers over adults? They are smarter, stronger, more suited to this sort of occurrence. War is a man's game, not a child's'."

Boos sounded throughout the crowd, mostly from KND members I noticed.

"Well, the reason for having teenagers fight this battle, is I have found that teenagers have an extended awareness for understanding many different perspectives. They also can adapt very easily. Their youth allows them to be in much better physical shape than adults, whose age causes them to be rather...slow and weaker as they become older. Overall, a very undesirable situation. But the most important fact is that you still have the capacity for channeling Imaginary Energy." Murmurs abounded.