One-Shots [Boboiboy]

Isolation

Fusion. One of the most powerful move in the realm of the elements, and the newest breakthrough. Only few have managed to conquer such a field, but even so, there were unforeseen consequences that would cost them everything. There was a reason why no one attempted this before. Something unexpected, something so dire that would happen so no one would ever thread into the topic itself, but the newer generations did not heed the warnings, fusing with their fellow elementals instead.

Combining their unique strength and traits magnified their powers by hundredfold, but so are their flaws. As long as both parties are willing and their compatibility is smooth, then the fusion would be stable. Forced fusion comes with a price. Neither of the elementals would be able to regain a proper mind, because messing with someone else's head could leave a definite scar.

Even without anything coming between them, fusion had serious consequences. If one fused for too long, they would be naturally dependant towards the other fuser. They wouldn't be able to function regularly like they used to.  They had no idea how to be a single person, after being another entity with someone else.

Not every elemental was capable of fusion, but the ones who are, never were the same again.

***

Cyclone knew something was very wrong. Everyone was acting differently, especially after the ultimate showdown against Retakka. (Which he and Thorn that missed due to their comas.) Blaze and Ice rarely talked to each other, avoiding each other and so much as escaping the room with some random, effortless excuse. Blaze randomly came up with the case of the flu. Ice claimed he needed more exercise, which was obviously a ruse, as his figure was already as slender as a stick. Blaze said he had stomachache and skipped dinner. Ice announced that the kitchen's heat bothered him and locked himself in his room.

Quake wasn't affected much, but his fingers seemed to drum along his knuckles, while clumps of earth formed on his arm, his fingers going tap, tap, tap. His eyes would fall on Ice's frosty hands longer than Solar would stare at his books, his golden gaze following every trace of movement from those icy fingers. With every movement, followed a twitch of his own finger, or a flinch from his throat.

Solar and Thunderstorm... were the most hectic. Solar had rarely talked to Thunderstorm before, but now he was hiding from Thunderstorm in broad daylight. If Thunderstorm was in the room he wanted to go in, he would wait until he was out of earshot. If Thunderstorm was in the kitchen having dinner with the others, Solar would leave and eat outside instead. Unlike Blaze and Ice, Solar didn't bother to mask his fear whenever the second-half of his fusion walked past him, going so far as attacking blindly when they brushed shoulders.

Whatever you are facing, you are not facing it alone, Quake would say to them. The attempts of fusion had shown them a new world of power, but also possibility to emotional trauma and invaded privacies. Secrets that no one were to ever know were exposed bare and raw to another's eyes. Fear and pain were shared between both sides, but they felt distress that only the other would feel.

Perhaps it was a reason why it was almost seen as forbidden. Retakka had more knowledge of this power than they do, and yet he seemed surprised when they had attempted this act of desperation. They had been granted power beyond their imagination, but also many more consequences that will bear no limit.

When they fused, they could see everything. Every single memory would be exchanged, the emotions raw and new to the other party. Every childhood party, every nursery rhyme you sang would be displayed to your other half. They would feel as if they were you, and you would feel as they do. A decade's worth of remembrances would be unfolded to you within mere seconds. Every turmoil you would experience, with agony as the other has felt.

Being fairly attached to one another since birth, Blaze and Ice did not harbor many concerns. They were aware of what the other had experienced. Solar and Thunderstorm however, did not. They were diverse as night as day, with differences surpassing Blaze and Ice. They had come from different households, lived vastly different lives, and their goals to strive had not met any similarities. Yet there was a factor holding them together, as a stable fusion and the strongest. It was the desire to protect those who can't, those who had tried and fallen in battle. They would be there to catch those who had fell.

In time, the others had began to return to their regular lives, with the trauma of fusion strengthening their bond and mind. But they still remained. They never improved once.

Not many knew of what occurred to those two after they broke apart from their fusion. Only both of them truly knew. Solar had stumbled away from Thunderstorm, gasping and shrieking in pain and fear. There was no one to hear him, no one to see him. He clawed at his throat as he relived the memories that were implanted to his mind, the images not his but Thunderstorm's.

Thunderstorm was barely affected, but he felt guilt on Solar, who was forced to endure every memory he possessed. Those screaming nights whenever he was afraid another alien might take him; the night sky filled with fire as bombs exploded around him when he was a toddler; the desperation to become the fighter than everyone that told tales about.

Solar's memories were vast, yet they were dull. Endless rooms of gray, endless sights of blank and silence; the patronizing words of his parents, telling him that he could be nothing but the utmost perfect; the limitless control everyone had over him, a tormenting cycle that would crumple an innocent mind. But Thunderstorm wasn't innocent. He wasn't the golden apple in the tree. Solar's pain was distant to him, yet the elements amongst them were so familiar.

Thunderstorm had offered his hand, reaching out to Solar as he sat on the ground, shaking with horror, his eyes dilating. With no emotion, he said, "They're waiting for us," and pulled him up without asking for his permission, nor his emotional condition. He hadn't asked about it then, and he hasn't asked about it now. Solar would not approach him, much less talk to him. Perhaps he could send someone to talk to him... but there was no point. Those memories Solar experienced belonged to him only, and him solely can solve the problem.

Solar would talk to the others about it, trying to relieve everything, but it never worked. Maybe it became worse, and everyone was starting to gain a new perspective on the person that Thunderstorm is. Just this morning, Thorn had walked up to him and asked, "Is that why you're so afraid of balloons?" then provided a vivid description of the memory that haunted Thunderstorm ever since he was a child. The moment where the world had burned around him, and the sky fell upon him with cinders and ash. He left out no detail. The color of the stalls in front of him; the shape of the moon; and the curve of the pavement's stone.

"You should go talk to Solar," Quake had advised him, but even he knew it was futile. Locking them both in an obsidian prison seemed to be the only way for them to look face to face, but it wasn't a guarantee either. Solar was terrified of Thunderstorm, and he would rather blind himself than look at the black and red. No one could blame him. They would have done the same.

If there was anything good that came out of this, was that the others were more understanding of his temper and strange fears. Blaze apologized for the pranks he had done, while expressing his guilt for laughing at Thunderstorm's unexplained distress against the harmless rubber. They didn't thread on gentle ground anymore, now understanding that Thunderstorm just needed a simple friend, someone that would nod at him or wave a hello.

These came at the price for the sanity of Solar. Thunderstorm could hear him crying in his room; clawing at his room's walls with his nails until they bled; screaming for invisible monsters on his bed until Thorn would calm him down, holding his hand and telling him you're safe, I'm here over and over again.

Thunderstorm knew what Solar was experiencing. It was indeed his personal memories, after all. They were personal for a reason. He was crying because he was afraid that everyone would abandon him. He would claw at the walls was because he dreamt that he was trapped, taken hostage and tortured for another being's uses. The monsters were the demons that he would face every waking second, with the names Fear, Insanity, and Anger.

He wished he could do something, to take it all away from Solar. But he couldn't even save himself. So the best he could do was cope. Cope the best he can. Maybe if he pretended hard enough that he was okay, everything would be okay, too.