This is a serial tale, the start is here: Part 1

Chapter 11: Jojo and Ruin are Inseparable

Have you ever stood between to mirrors and seen the sight to see there? A feeling quite like that came over Ruin and Jojo, for as they looked at each other with each others eyes… they discovered they could each look with both bodies. They could feel each thing that each body felt.

“What…” Jojo began.

“Is…” Ruin continued.

“Going…”

“On…?”

Their voices came from both bodies, and they were both trapped in the reflection in each other’s eyes, in their own eyes. Everything was overlapping. Two were one but two. Can such a state be comprehended by beings that only have one body, that only have one person dwelling within flesh.

As the two girls trembled in place, the boys finally noticed something was amiss. Their calls to Ruin and Jojo did not improve their condition. Rather, Ruin and Jojo heard with four earholes on two different bodies. A trickle of blood flowed from the noses of the girls, and seeing this, Gaddy pulled Jojo’s body towards himself. In doing this, he broke between the eyes that had trapped each other. At the same time, Ruin and Jojo adapted somewhat to their new state.

“Jojo? Jojo! Speak to me!”

“I’m Ruin though/S-stop fussing brother!” Ruin&Jojo said from the same mouth.

Gaddy stared bemused at Jojo’s body. Moments later, Ruin and Jojo had their bodies sit before the boys. Massaging his forehead was of course Gaddy.

“Let me go over this again, you both have full control of your own bodies and each others?”

“That’s right bro, watch this brother! Ruin, do it!” Jojo cried.

Jojo’s body’s eyes began to roam independently of each other, Jojo controlling the right eye and Ruin controlling the left. Their eyes crazily rolled around.

-ahahaha the look on their faces! Look Ruin, look!-

-Aren’t you enjoying yourself a bit much Jojo?-

Picky’s spiral arm twitched.

“You two can talk to each other without speaking?” He asked.

“Uuuu How did you tell?/Amazing that’s right” the girls said.

Waving his noodly arm at the girls he sniggered. Jojo and Ruin tried to hide behind each other but as they shared their bodies, it wasn’t much use.

“I sensed it through my arm!” Picky declared.

Luca gave Picky a light tap on his head.

“Ow”

“Huh, how far apart can you go?” Gaddy wondered.

Ruin’s body got up.

“Luca, if you’ll follow us!/Protect us while we go out!”

“Which…” Luca began to ask.

Gaddy kneaded his forehead a bit harder.

“There’s no separating them now”

Luca pounded after Ruin’s body as the girls made it skip away. Back in the cottage, Ruin and Jojo reported no issues as their other body grew further an further away.

“Right, come back now, We’d don’t have much time. I’ve already got an idea of a plan”

Outside the ruined cottage, in the swamp of many colours, Jojo and Ruin relayed Gaddy’s words to Luca, who in the interim had picked up a sturdy log to use as a weapon. Luca was trying hard not the think about the log looked vaguely like some manner of beast.

“Let’s head back then” He said.

“Sure thing!/Ok!” the girls said.

Then, before Luca’s horrified eyes, Ruin’s body began to… molt.

Yes, it was as if the body was molting not just the skin, but the clothes with the skin! But as it molted, what was revealed was not shiny fresh scales, but nothing at all. The husk of skin was empty! Luca lunged for the body, but the molting finished in moments and the husk broke apart into the air. Not even the clothes remained. He roared in sorrow and rage, and then charged back to the cottage.

When he got there he saw a shocked Gaddy, Picky had fallen on the floor, and there was the two bodies of the girls. Luca fell to his knees weeping.

“You’re fine, you’re alright. Good. Oh Praise Zhulougr!” he prayed, circling himself with a hand.

“Sorry Luca, we just wanted to return/And then we instinctively did that” Jojo&Ruin said.

“T-that was both amazing and terrifying!” Picky said.

“Yes, don’t do something like that without warning me!” Luca pleaded.

“With this, that’ll be a huge aid rescuing everyone” Gaddy said.

What he and Picky had seen was a little bit different from what Luca had seen. Instead of a body vanishing, what they saw was the body before them opening like the petals of a flower breaking away in dust-like scales, and springing forth from that humanoid flower was a pair of lizard-girl bodies, Jojo and Ruin’s bodies.

The Drakeling Prince gathered his subjects to him, as he now knew how they should brave the tower of the sleeping world.

Distraction was the key that would save everyone.