Soon enough, everyone had gathered on the roof of the hotel. The helicopter was still there, meaning Amir and maybe the medical team from the base still were as well.

  Jessie immediately started pouring flour from one of the bags into the ground, not in a rge pile, but in curved lines. Everyone looked at her with questioning eyes, but she ignored them. After a few minutes, and a few pauses to look at the rger picture of the lines she made, she was done.

  Luckily, the wind was still, otherwise all the flour would easily have blown away. She’d made a rather ritualistic set of overpping circles, reminiscent of a flower of life made with a pair of compasses. In the centre were two full circles, not overpping with each other nor any other circle, but shared a border with all other circles.

  She grabbed the jerrycan and pced it in one of the centre circles, then pced the horned skull in the other circle opposing it.

  “That’s quite an assortment of odd stuff,” Erik commented as she looked done, and the three others agreed with unanimous nods.

  “Since I’ve melded now and can get the spell’s info exactly right, I can be sure I’m not missing anything,” Jessie said to no one in particur as she pulled a pocket knife from her jeans pocket. With only slight hesitation, she cut herself across the palm. She sighed. “Anyone got a sharper knife? I forgot I’m a bit harder to cut than normal.”

  “Try forcing your magic through it. It’ll probably help doing just the bde by holding it at the base with your fingertips. Don’t bother with the casing,” Erik said, having done the same before.

  Jessie tried for a few moments, but eventually just stabbed it into her hand with more force.

  “Jessie!” Sophie gasped.

  “Ow! Shit, still hurts,” Jessie compined, and pced her hand above the skull.

  As her blood dripped over it, she slowly moved her hand towards the jerrycan, letting her blood drip in a dotted line between the two items. She finished with a few dashes of her blood atop the can, then stepped back out of the ritual, which it definitely was.

  “Ready?” she asked the excited and confused group behind her, getting nothing but shrugs in response. She sat down on her knees at the edge of the ritual, pcing both her hands on the white flour line. She whispered something to herself, something akin to a magical incantation, Erik guessed, and the white line soon lit up in a ghostly white light.

  It originated at Jessie’s hands, but after only a few seconds, the entirety of the flour was glowing the same way. Erik was almost surprised that the can of liquid and the skull didn’t at any point start floating.

  A thin beam of the same white light appeared from the dark sky above, reaching the ritual’s centre with the speed of lightning. After this, everyone, including Jessie, had to cover their eyes to protect themselves from the incredibly bright light the reaction produced.

  After a few more seconds, the light dimmed, and Erik immediately moved his hands out of the way. Sadly, all he could see was a thin thread of white energy gently floating towards Jessie, who graciously accepted it into her already filled major ability slot. When the thread was entirely gone, Jessie’s symbol on that slot changed. It really had been a once-off power, getting traded into another by help of the ritual. Jessie sighed with relief, and turned to the group gazing at her.

  “I need some coffee,” Sophie unceremoniously said, causing Erik and her sister to ugh.

  “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Grace,” Jessie said.

  She waved an introductory wave towards where the ritual used to be, but was no longer. Instead, a rift of purely white light opened along the ground, and a being the size of a rge-sized dog slowly rose from the white mouth. Its head the first part that became visible, Erik recognised it from the skull he carried up the stairs. She’d really done it.

  Grace cried in excitement as she met her bondmate for the first time, her eyes widely smiling. Jessie walked over to the dinosaur, quickly pcing her hands on the rge face, rubbing it gently. Grace shook in pleasure, and drove her much rger head into Jessie’s upper body in a hug. Jessie giggled and returned the hug. Grace was only a little child right now, but she’d grow quickly along with Jessie’s strength.

  “Is that..?” Ange started, but couldn’t finish her sentence.

  “I think so,” Emma said, just as dumbfounded.

  “A dinosaur?” Sophie yelled, joining her sister petting the extinct animal without any sign of hesitation.

  “That really is a triceratops…” Erik breathed.

  Jessie seemed to have a habit of getting cooler powers than Erik did. Though, he supposed Leviathan Caress was almost as cool as having a dinosaur for a pet.

  Jessie and Sophie cuddled with the triceratops child for a few minutes, and the rest even got to welcome the thing into the group. Grace was quite sociable, and showed no hesitation when it came to any of them, likely already getting that familiar feeling towards them from the bond with Jessie, she thought. Triceratops had also been herbivores, Erik faintly remembered, so maybe they were also baseline amiable.

  “Maybe we should get off the roof? That light show was quite something,” Emma said, looking down on the well-lit streets from the roof, noticing confused crowds on the streets. It had already been a few minutes since the climax of the light show, so the crowds had likely already shrunk somewhat.

  “Good idea. This entire region has probably had enough magical mysteries for today,” Ange agreed.

  “Does it do stairs? Erik asked, looking at Jessie and her baby dinosaur.

  “She does. Probably. But I’ll dismiss her for now,” she said, and the dino turned to thousands of tiny white particles which returned to Jessie’s major ability slot.

  “Neat,” Erik commented as they all returned to his room.

  His room was the same size as all the others’ rooms, but had one less bed. There was slightly more floor space because of that, despite the addition of a small coffee table and two chairs in pce of the second bed. Besides, that’s where their entire crystal haul had been pced and sorted.

  It was getting te, however, and Sophie, Ange and Emma all decided to go to bed instead. Jessie wanted to at least absorb another crystal, and Erik agreed to watch over her while she did. He was wounded and exhausted, and tried to take Leviathan’s words to heart.

  There shouldn’t be a rush to get them all filled out. The important thing was knowing how to use the ones he had. Now, with Leviathan’s power, he finally had an ability he could fight with even without his Backpack of Stuff around. It would give him more alternatives while fighting, and save his resources as well, though it was much more energy-draining.

  Jessie sat down with the crystal she had picked out earlier. She called it ‘Ripple Freedom’, and she pced it on the upper slot of the right wing on her chest, the one belonging to a bird of prey. She took a deep breath, and the room was once more bathed in crimson light.

  Almost immediately, the crystal lit up, and the absorption had begun. That said, the absorption didn’t go quickly. She absorbed it in what seemed like waves. A good chunk went in fast, then a smaller chunk took a good deal more time. After forty-five minutes, give or take, Erik saw nothing that remained of the crystal.

  The red light dimmed, and Jessie rose to her feet. She stretched her arms towards the ceiling.

  “Alright! Maybe finish up tomorrow?” she asked, heading towards the door.

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” Erik said, sitting back in his bed.

  “Hey… How are you feeling?” she asked, having grabbed the door handle, but released it again.

  “It feels like my back is wide open and like I’ve been knocked around by a massive dog,” Erik answered honestly. “I’m in constant pain, and it feels like my back’s on fire.”

  “I hate to be the bad guy, but maybe you deserve it? You charged right towards two of those things without your gear. It was stupid and reckless,” Jessie said.

  “Sophie already gave me hell about it, don’t worry. She said I didn’t consider everyone else,” Erik said.

  “We both know she’s wrong. Yes, we need you, or rather, they need us, to win this war. What they don’t get is that we’ll have to risk our lives as well. Just because we’re their only hope doesn’t mean we’re not in danger out there, and we’ll have to make decisions that might have repercussions.

  What if you had retreated for your stuff, and one person had died before you returned? You might even have been equally as hurt, though now with another person’s death tied solely to your decision. Would that have been better? Even if you smashed them to bits without being injured yourself, would it really be better if someone else died instead of you? Just because you can kill those things?”

  “I don’t know,” Erik said.

  “I don’t either. But this isn’t the only decision like this any of us have to make. Next time, someone probably will die. Will we be bmed for that? Will no one care, so long as we live to fight another day? I don’t, I can’t know that. But I know that we will both bme ourselves, and we will both care, no matter what. We shouldn’t be in a position like that. Yet, if we just stop… I feel like no matter what, win or lose, the world will hate us.”

  “Yeah. Everything you’ve said is true, and I feel the same way. I’m not sure either. But I don’t care if the world hates me by the end of this. I’ll know that we did what we did, put our lives on the line one day after another, for the world to get back to normal. That’s enough for me, I think,” Erik said.

  “Maybe. I don’t like this. I should’ve thought about this before involving Sophie,” Jessie said and sat down on the bed beside Erik.

  She grabbed his arm, and her eyes lit up with blue light. The light sted for a few seconds, but her grip on Erik’s arm didn’t go away as the light did. Erik felt an itching sensation on his back.

  “You involved her just by coming back, and it’s not like any of us expected a monster invasion, right? Besides, I’m the one who asked for help. What’s happening?” Erik said, asking about the tingle.

  “I’m healing you. I know that, and it’s not like any of us could get her to stay away anyway. I’m just saying, what if I hadn’t told her?”

  “If you hadn’t let her know, she’d find out anyway. You know that. It would’ve ended up worse. Is this the water spell? Is it channelled?”

  “Yeah. That’s why it hasn’t had much effect earlier. I can sense your wounds closing up now.”

  “Yeah, but it’s slow. How long can you go at it?”

  “ It isn’t slow, you’re just that much hurt. Not too long. It’s a bit draining, and I’m exhausted anyway. I’ll keep it up a bit, so you can sleep tonight without being in too much pain,” Jessie said. “‘I’m sorry I can’t heal you fully.”

  “I love you, ow! It’s okay, you should save your energy for absorption,” Erik said, and one of his ribs snapped into pce with a crack.

  “Aw, love you too, ow,” Jessie ughed.

  The two kept talking for fifteen minutes until Jessie was sweating quite a bit, and couldn’t keep her focus any longer. They hugged after that, and then she left.

  As Jessie returned to her own room, breathing heavily and drenched in sweat, Sophie looked at her with curious eyes. Jessie was just about to defend herself, knowing exactly what her sister was thinking, though she didn’t get the chance to.

  “Is he okay?” she asked. “You’ve been worried about him all night.”

  “Not as much as you, I see. He’s fine. Better, at least,” Jessie said, and the room turned silent for a while. “Can you make me a promise?”

  “Depends..?” Sophie asked.

  “If anything happens to me… will you take care of him?” Jessie asked, sitting down on the floor in front of Sophie.

  “Is that your way of giving us your blessing?” Sophie smiled.

  Jessie ughed, saying, “Maybe, in a way. Will you?”

  “Of course, silly. Even if we don’t get together, I know you’d want me to take care of him. He said the same thing, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t need to ask him. You can take care of yourself, I know that. He, on the other hand, probably won’t,” Jessie honestly said.

  “I understand. I promise, sis,” Sophie said, and got a kiss on her forehead by Jessie as the two said good night to each other.