Gadiel

May 23, 12:16 pm, Canberra, Australia

Tarik.

For a moment, Gadiel forgot that there were an army of puppets coming after them, that Ai was probably on her way, and that his parents definitely hated who he was. That one, slightly mischievous, genuine smile was enough to wipe all that away for now. Relief flooded through his body, to the point where there were tears in his eyes.

Tarik was here. He was here for him.

That was enough.

He immediately leaped to his feet, and pulled Tarik into a kiss. Tarik immediately kissed him back.

A rush of feelings and sensations blossomed inside Gadiel. Tarik was warm, and soft, and it felt like he was flying. He could feel himself getting lost in Tarik, and Tarik getting lost in him, coming together in passionate harmony.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Two puppets fell to the floor, their knees no longer able to support their weight.

"Not to break up the tender moment," yelled Medina, still shooting as she walked out the elevator. "But if we get out alive, you guys can probably even get to second base!"

Whoops.

They broke apart, a little reluctantly, their gazes lingering for just a moment.

"RRROOOOOOOOOOOOO-"

Tarik turned around and spread out his arms. Twin ropes of fire erupted from his hands, whipping the puppets back. Gadiel simply watched, a little dazed. To be fair, he had lost a lot of blood, and his head felt very light. All he could think about was how broad his back looked, despite how short he was.

As he stared dumbly at Tarik whipping monsters, Medina put away her gun, and rushed towards Gadiel. She gave him a once-over, and placed her hand on his face. That got his attention.

"Do you have to-"

"Yes," said Medina. Then, more quietly:

"Thank you."

Gadiel frowned as Medina's hand began to glow. He closed his eyes, feeling his body slowly restore itself.

"What for?" he asked.

Medina was silent for a beat. Then:

"For reaching out to me," she said. "Well...more like...for believing in me. And just, like...thinking I'm a person."

"You are a person," said Gadiel. "A really annoying one."

"I can use my gun on you and heal that for you too."

"A really lovely, attractive, and amazing person," Gadiel said sweetly. "The second-best person I've ever known."

"Shut up," said Medina. Gadiel grinned. His eyes were closed, but he could tell that Medina was embarrassed, and maybe just a little flattered.

"Incoming!" Tarik yelled.

Instantly, Gadiel stomped on the floor, creating an ice prison around the puppet that had gotten past Tarik's flames. He did it before he even realized it, yet somehow it felt natural, easy.

How had he known where the monster was?

BANG BANG!

Two more puppets lost their ability to walk in front of Gadiel, startling him out of his reverie.

"Can you please focus for two seconds?" Medina glared at Gadiel as he smiled sheepishly. She was right. He needed to focus.

Quickly, he rushed to the elevators, and pressed the button. He saw it light up, and looked over to Tarik and Medina, fighting off the monsters. He looked back at the elevators, and saw that they hadn't moved.

"She broke them!" Medina suddenly yelled, clutching her head. Gadiel immediately threw an ice spear, skewering a puppet's leg to the wall just before it could attack Medina.

He ran over to her side, keeping the monsters at bay by freezing their feet to the floor, and kneeled down beside her.

Medina grunted, grit her teeth, and looked up.

"She broke the elevators," she said through her teeth, reloading her gun and wincing. "She's trapped us on this floor."

Gadiel looked back to the wall; there were no windows there. The closest window was ahead, past the receptionist station, and straight across the hallway.

Past all the puppets jumping through the broken ice wall.

Gadiel sighed and got up. He cracked his fingers, looking at the hoard of puppets heading his way.

Looked like there was only one way out.

He turned to the puppets, and began defending in earnest. Thanks to Medina's healing, Gadiel was back at full strength; his head clear and his body ready to throw some ice spears.

Not that he did. Slowly, they moved forward; Tarik's fire pushing the puppets back, Gadiel freezing them up so they couldn't move, and Medina immobilizing the few that managed to get through Tarik's fire and Gadiel's ice.

Soon, they were back in the reception station, pushing monsters back. The monsters kept coming, one after the other, despite Tarik's dancing flames. Every now and then, Gadiel would look over to him, watching as he manipulated the fire into a exploding blossom of heat and fire, pushing the monsters back. Tarik's brow was slick with sweat, creased into a frown, but he was grinning.

Gadiel couldn't help but feel a little in awe of him.

C-CRACK!

Suddenly, the two ice walls that had been holding the hallways beside them shattered, bringing in a rush of new puppets.

"AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"SKKRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

"RRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!!!"

Immediately, the trio worked overtime. Tarik and Gadiel took on the puppets on the sides, Tarik holding them back with a blast of fire, and Gadiel, splitting up the puppets with consecutive walls between him and them.

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG CLICK!

Medina unloaded the rest of her clip into the knees of all the puppets in front of her, creating a small pile of crawling human bodies, moaning and reaching for her. Gadiel immediately switched as she reloaded, freezing all the prone monsters in place. Medina stated to shoot all the sectioned off monsters, making them less mobile for Gadiel to freeze up.

Instead of attending to them however, Gadiel switched with Tarik instead. Tarik started pushing back the monsters getting too close to Medina, who was then shooting up the ones that were getting across the fire first.

The three of them rotated like this wordlessly, slowly cutting the number of moving puppets. Tarik and Gadiel were able to communicate wordlessly, and Medina knew what her targets were. They worked together with a well-oiled machine, seamlessly blending their skills together to work as one.

Despite their coordination however, the puppets seemed endless. They kept coming one after another, tirelessly leaping, snarling, attacking.

Instinctively, the trio knew that if this kept up, they would be overrun. It was only a matter of time before one of them slipped up and got attacked. And when that happened, it could spell the end.

So Gadiel did the only thing he could think of.

With a nod to Tarik, he closed his eyes, focused, and slammed his hands to the ground. A pillar of ice erupted from the floor, smashing through the ceiling above.

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG-

Medina shot puppets faster and faster, trying to keep up without Gadiel's ice to help slow things down. Tarik threw a fireball her way every now and then, but he was also dealing with an influx of puppets.

Meanwhile, Gadiel crushed the pillar between his hands, recalling the cold. The entire pillar shattered into a fine mist, dropping the temperature of the surrounding area by a couple of degrees. But Gadiel didn't have time to admire his handiwork.

"Medina!" he called out, reaching out for her. Tarik was already moving back, and was almost in range.

Medina looked back, saw Gadiel reaching out to her, then turned back to the puppets.

BANGBANGBANG!

She fired off three final shots, incapacitating two more puppets before turning around and leaping towards Gadiel.

He grabbed Tarik by the waist once he was close enough, pulling him close. With his other hand, he caught Medina's hand, and immediately send cold down his feet.

WOOOOOSHH!

The trio rose up on a pillar of ice, straight through the hole in the ceiling Gadiel had created. He quickly looked down to see that the puppets were already gathering around the pillar, attacking it.

Suddenly, he had a very bad feeling.

"Jump!"

The trio leaped off the ice pillar, straight up. Gadiel and Tarik managed to grab onto the floor above, while Medina-

Her eyes grew wide. Gadiel watched in slow motion as her fingers barely missed the floor above them, her expression slowly morphing into horror.

"NO!"

Tarik yelled as Medina fell, dropping like a stone.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!"

Medina screeched as she...

...hung mid-air?

"Why are you so heavy?" Gadiel grunted. Somehow, he managed to grab onto Medina���s arm as she was falling. He had frozen his other hand onto the floor above to keep from falling, his brow slick with sweat as he tried desperately to pull Medina up with one arm.

"Come on, you gym, don't you?" encouraged Tarik from above.

Gadiel didn't have the energy to shoot Tarik a dirty look, but he knew that Tarik could feel it. Their connection could transmit that sort of thing now.

Slowly, face contorted in concentration, Gadiel pulled Medina up with one arm, until Tarik was able to pull her up. Once she was safe, Gadiel melted the ice on his hand, and pulled himself up.

He lay on the hard, cold linoleum up there for a moment, chest heaving, sweat dripping into his eyes. The lights weren't on up here, so he couldn't see much anyway, but there were a couple of windows at the end of the hall that had some natural light coming in. Aside from that, this floor looked like a clinical, empty hospital hallway.

He turned his head, and found Tarik up there, sitting with his back against the wall, skin shining with sweat. Their eyes locked for a moment, and they smiled in unison.

Gadiel felt his heart grow warm, in the way that only Tarik was able to do. He grunted, pushing himself up off the linoleum, and crawled over to Tarik.

"I really want to kiss you again," he said. "But we have to get out-"

Suddenly, Tarik was on him, their lips locked. Gadiel was surprised, but eventually gave in, allowing Tarik's soft lips to take him.

Touching Tarik was like touching a contained sun; it felt like Gadiel was in contact with something powerful, more powerful that he could imagine, but was holding himself back for his sake. Being so close to Tarik made Gadiel want him more, made him want to release the sun and bask in all its powerful glory.

They broke apart after what felt like hours, but was probably only a few seconds.

"We can get out now," said Tarik, grinning cockily. Gadiel almost bit his lip in frustration, but felt a smile grow on his face as well.

They both turned to Medina, ready to apologize for the shameless PDA.

Only to find that she wasn't even paying attention to them. Instead, she was looking up at something.

But there was nothing there. Just empty air, in an empty hospital hallway.

"Medina?" asked Tarik, an edge of worry creeping into his voice. "What's wrong?"

For a moment, she didn't say anything, eyes wide.

"She's coming," she said finally, slowly turning her head to face the boys. Alarmingly, her nose started to leak blood, flowing rapidly.

"I can't...I can't hold her back..." her eyes welled with red at the corners, making Gadiel gasp as she started crying tears of blood.

The boys stood there, frozen, unable to think.

"...run," Medina whispered, just as the entire building shook.