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It's a peaceful day at Leblanc. Sojiro has a couple customers in his shop, both sipping coffee, one eating a curry. Mellow music is playing, the lighting is cozy, and the coffee is as good as ever.
He nods a greeting as Akira enters the shop on her way home from school.
"Thank you very much." Joker takes the signed paperwork and inserts it in the slot at the base of the altar.
The altar shifts, growing futher paperwork in the small holder, and conforming precisely to Pixie's proportions.
She looks over at Akira. "There. And Julie is our other volunteer, and we are ready."
"I can't believe you offered yourself up like that... Not to mention giving away my time..."
Akira rubs her face.
"Okay. It's better than the alternatives. But I don't want Julie to go first."
Joker rolls her eyes. "Fine," she says. She snaps her fingers again, and a twin-horned horse appears next to her, its dark mane flowing in the air.
"Mind if I get verbal consent from Bicorn rather than having them sign themselves?"
"Hello," Joker says. "I want you to consent to an experimental fusion process that'll produce a more powerful persona for us to fight with. You'll die, but be retrieved afterward. What do you say?"
"That is fine. Resummon me when you have need of me." It nods.
Joker signs the form for Bicorn and places it in the second altar's holder. It stretches and elongates, becoming lower to the ground as the restraining claws on each side of it lengthen.
"We're ready," Joker says to Akira. "Shall we begin the procedure?" She tugs at her gloves, seating them firmly on her hands.
Julie sits next to Akira, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, and taking her hand with her other hand.
Akira exhales and leans a little into Julie.
It's a familiar position. Echoes of Ryuji...
... Julie really loves her, doesn't she...?
Joker picks up the blood draw equipment from her surgical tray, and steps over to Pixie. "Your arm, please," she says.
Joker pricks her and draws an ampoule of blood from her arm, then goes over to Bicorn with a second needle and takes blood from his shoulder.
"Both of you lay down on the beds, please."
She discards the soiled needles in a container by her computer, and sets the vials of blood in a holder next to the bedside computer. After a moment of mousing, her fingers settle on the enter key.
Joker keys in her input, and the claws all along the altars clamp down and secure both Pixie and Bicorn, rendering them both totally immobile.
Akira flinches as the claws flex and dig in. She doesn't want to watch this, and it's only going to get worse from here...
She has to, though.
She tries to breathe slow and focus.
Julie inhales sharply and bites her lip, then refocuses on Akira, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and squeezing her tenderly.
Akira settles in against Julie and hugs her back.
She sounds scared too...
Joker takes the vial of Bicorn's blood and pours it into the groove around the edge of his table. Scarlet light flares as the blood runs through the grooves to meet at the far end of the table, then settles into a dull crimson glow.
Joker goes to Pixie's table, and pours the vial of her blood out onto her table's inscriptions as well. A similar flare rises, then settles.
Joker rolls the medical tray up next to Pixie's table, its grisly instruments laid out in a neat row.
"Last chance to back out," she says to Akira.
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