After a long day, and an even longer night, Erik woke to the sound of Emma’s voice. Emma had had a few drinks herself, and went to bed around 1 a.m. The rest had been up until past 3 a.m, enjoying a small afterparty in the siblings’ room. Their room had been the furthest away from Emma’s and Ange’s room.

  Luckily, the hotel didn’t have a lot of guests in the middle of the week in the midst of a monster invasion. Few were travelling at this time, and most of the hotels around the world were catering for government officials and military personnel, along with some others that were more or less important to the proceedings of the war.

  “Morning!” Erik said, having slept like a rock for a few hours. He felt completely fine. All the tiredness in his muscles and bones had already gone, and his mind was clear. He did feel like the alcohol he’d drunk that night didn’t impact him as much as it normally would, and that might be because of his magical nature.If he was stronger, faster and healed quicker, it was practically a given that alcohol wouldn’t be as bad for him anymore.

  As Emma left to wake Jessie and Sophie, Erik got dressed, brushed his teeth and headed straight down to the lobby. Ange arrived shortly after along with Emma, Ange looking the worse for wear out of the two by a mile. When Jessie and Sophie joined them, the same could be said for Sophie as her tangled hair, baggy and reddened eyes cried out for more rest.

  “I just realised I don’t have to join you guys,” Sophie said in a yawning voice.

  “That’s… actually true,” Emma realised. “Alright, you can go back to sleep.” Without further ado, the ragged girl turned around straight away, and marched back to her room.

  Jessie looked as well-rested as Erik did, so the magical constitution-theory was holding its ground for now.

  After pnning the morning out, the four left the hotel in order for the two Remnants to gain more strength. Emma and Ange entered a taxi they had summoned from the hotel lobby, while Erik and Jessie entered another.

  As there was a war raging, they had to use their resources as effectively as they could, and splitting up made more sense as they could visit more pces in the same amount of time. That said, Erik and Jessie were to visit the closest pces they could find crystals, gemstones and minerals, while Ange and Emma were tasked with pces further away.

  The idea was that they didn’t have to bring back a haul that same day. The Remnants had been told that they would get a sense of what gemstone would fit them well, so they had decided to gather up a rge amount of them, see which ones were the best fit for either, then absorb them.

  As they weren’t able to do this at Afterlife, this had only been described to them, and they didn’t yet know what that feeling was like.

  Erik and Jessie visited their second rock shop for the day. The elderly man who owned the store gdly helped them look around, though the abstract nature of what they could tell him they were looking for didn’t make it easy for him.

  Jessie had discovered a part of her Core power she hadn’t understood until the first shop they visited.

  Along with the four spells, nature could talk to her. She’d thought it to be a description more like a fvour text than anything else, but as she gazed upon an amethyst geode in wonder, it talked to her. This wasn’t like a voice she heard, or a sense of the amethyst’s will, but she got a sense of what it was. It described its own nature to her. ‘Nightglow Harmony’ it said.

  Erik and Jessie didn’t understand what that meant, but a lot of other minerals and crystals gave a simir description. A few didn’t, and the Remnants figured those were either fake, or not powerful enough, for ck of a better word.

  The same ones that didn’t talk to Jessie, didn’t give either of the Remnants any sense of power either. The rest felt either like a small trickle running back and forth between the Remnant and the mineral, a small river or waves from the sea.

  They instinctively knew that the more strength in the push and pull between them, the greater the match. They bought the ones with the greatest bond between each of them, leaving the weaker ones behind. Luckily, Major MacLeod had given them a credit card they could use, meaning everything was bought and paid for by the United Britain Air Force. Even so, they had no reason to buy the ones with a weak link to either of them.

  At the second store, Erik found a gem with the most powerful link he’d sensed yet, Jessie naming it ‘Sovereign Faith’. The owner of the store called it an imperial gold quartz, a quartz crystal coated with iron and titanium. It had an almost rainbow-like sheen of gold, orange and pink.

  The push and pull he felt from the quartz was that of a massive waterfall pushing down on his entire body, quickly retreating back to the crystal before once more pushing him down.

  It was an intense feeling unlike anything he’d felt before, with the possible exception of that first time he reached out to his magic to save the young boy in the forest. He knew he had to have that crystal, and so the owner collected it for them. Jessie didn’t sense more than a slight trickle from the thing, meaning it was definitely his for the taking. He wanted it now.

  Jessie didn’t get a simir sense before their fourth and final stop that day. They had already spent hours and hours travelling from shop to shop, as these stores weren’t to be found just around the corner.

  Hers was a diamond, rough and uncut, but quite rge. It cost a small fortune, but she felt the same as Erik had with the quartz from earlier, though she likened it to being strapped to the front of a submarine as it dolphined under and above the surface of the sea repeatedly at massive speeds.

  As the difference in their perceived links mostly differed, Erik’s trickle was thought to be much like Jessie’s cold breeze; they didn’t know which were the stronger links. Still, the UB military getting the eventual tab, they bought that as well. The diamond gave her the name ‘Brightless Bond’.

  All in all, excluding the two they felt the strongest bond with, they had gathered twelve additional crystals or gems with what they called high affinity to either of them. As the pair had a total of nine major slots to fill, it was barely enough for just those, but seeing that there were even higher affinities out there made them doubt whether or not to fill them all out at once.

  Additionally, if they only got one or two of them filled out immediately, they could start training with their new abilities, getting a sense of what their eventual style of fighting would be like while getting used to their powers. As it was, Jessie had only fired her spell on one actual target, and it was caged.

  Erik had been up close and personal with several beasts by now, but had already stuck to his protective shield and tes bomb-combo most of those fights. It worked in given conditions, sure, but he would definitely end up in situations where sticking to that one tactic would be the end of him.

  They also had to learn how to fight. While Erik wished he would get a magic sword, he still didn’t really know how to use one. Jessie, if purely based on her Core ability, could develop into a mage-type Remnant meaning she had to stand back and throw spells at the enemy from afar. That didn’t mean she could stand still all the time, however.

  They were only just starting out, and needed to train in combat situations. Hopefully the UBAF could help with that as well.

  Things were different with the second group. Ange and Emma had visited only their second pce for the day when they were wrapping up, ending up in a hotel room for the night.

  Emma was lounging around in her pyjamas, sorting their haul on the corner table in their room. Having no idea which mineral was which, she purely sorted them based on looks first, then size. She had a problem with the ones that looked the same, but had slightly different colours.

  Were they different types or not? This was a huge problem, as the pair had procured over two hundred different gems and crystals, some of them costing more than Emma had ever had in her bank account at one time.

  She hummed to herself happily as she sorted through the gems, paying little to no mind about the girl ying in her own single bed across the room. She only looked over at Ange occasionally, immediately getting annoyed at the sight, then turning back to sort some more gems.

  Why did that woman have everything? Ange y on the bed in only a buttoned down shirt and her underwear, listening to music or audiobooks or whatever from her phone and in-ear earbuds.

  Her legs were long and beautiful as she stretched one of them into the air occasionally. Ange was retively tall, not too skinny, and was nicely toned all over. Emma wasn’t interested in women in any way, but if she had been, she would’ve been all over Ange long ago.

  They were about the same age, Ange being a year or two older. Emma didn’t know Ange’s sexual orientation, either. Why would she assume a girl like her even would’ve had a chance? She was short, skinny and without those beautiful curves.

  She’d been told she had a really attractive face, but that sounded more like a thinly veiled negative comment on the rest of her. ‘At least your face is okay’.

  She had never even had a real boyfriend, only a few flings that didn’t amount to much. As soon as she gave them what they wanted, they grew bored. Emma shook her head in an attempt to shake the thought out of her head. She took a quick look over at Ange before refocusing her efforts on getting the gems in order.

  One thing she had always been good at was getting, and keeping, order. She had to keep pying to her strengths. Maybe she’d find someone after the war was over. Her military career might crash after that, but the boys she’d grown up with were all military boys. Maybe she needed something else. Ange noticed Emma’s red face intermittently looking over at her, or more specifically, her legs, whenever she stretched. Emma’s face quickly grew red, and when she turned away again to sort all the stuff they’d bought, the redness would slowly dissipate. Ange wasn’t sure what it was about. Maybe she was mad Ange wasn’t helping out? She had asked before she jumped into bed, but Emma said she wanted to do it alone.

  Ange really believed that, as Emma had always been a very orderly girl. She was super independent, and always cleaned up the messes of everyone around her, both literal messes and otherwise. She was by far the strongest person she’d ever met, including all her superior officers over the years.

  That didn’t mean the girl didn’t have problems, one of them being that same independence. A few of the men at Bridgefort were interested in her, but they didn’t dare to approach her, as her strict personality and ignorance of such things made her practically unapproachable.

  If anyone did approach her, the flirting and wooing would fly straight over Emma’s head. Some thought she might not be interested in men at all, but Ange personally knew one of the girl’s exes. He said the problem was mainly because Emma was too focused on her career, and didn’t show any interest in him, even in private and off-duty.

  Maybe, when this war was over, if they couldn’t return to the military, she’d get her priorities straight. Ange was just as involved in her own military career, but she knew it wasn’t everything, and personal retionships were just as important for your own future, whether that was just friends or something more.

  That said, she wasn’t feeling very lucky in love the past while herself. She was sick of military dogs, everyone wanting to be an alpha. She wanted something else, though she didn’t know what. Still, this wasn’t the time. She was still young, and this war would have to end for other stuff to start mattering. Ange pulled out one of her earbuds as Emma looked over at her once more.

  “You need help, Emma?” she asked with a genuine smile.

  “I got it, don’t worry,” Emma responded, facing back towards the table.

  “Why don’t you take a break? We can see if we find something on the telly to watch?”

  “The TV is on that wall, and my bed is there,” Emma said, pointing to the objects in question. “I wouldn’t be able to see anything.”

  Why the TV was hung on the wall to the side of one bed instead of facing both from the front didn’t make any sense in a two-bed hotel room. Emma huffed and went back to sorting.

  “Come on, we can both watch from here. We’ll cuddle!” Ange tried, patting her hand on her bed, gesturing to the younger girl to come over. Emma’s face flushed a little, but she eventually, after a few more back and forths, gave in.

  Twenty minutes into the boring TV-program they started watching, both had fallen asleep, Ange the big spoon in the narrow bed.

  “So, how are we doing this?” Erik asked, both him and Jessie having returned to Jessie’s hotel room. Sophie was right there with them, looking through all the crystals and gemstones and whatnot. There were dozens of them, though her sister had expined that most of them wouldn’t even be used, as they didn’t feel right to either her or Erik.

  “Maybe just put it up there?” Jessie responded questioningly.

  “Who first?” Erik then asked.

  It didn’t really matter, but both of them were nervous, and eventually, Erik was chosen to be the first to try to absorb his chosen quartz. He removed his shirt and sat down cross-legged on the floor.

  Jessie couldn’t help but notice, just like st time in her own apartment, that he looked healthier and more fit after he returned to Earth. She had noticed it on herself as well. She hadn’t become skinnier like Erik had, but had grown simirly toned. She was far from muscly, thank god, but her stomach, breasts, ass and legs were all firmer. She enjoyed the new youthful body. It was like she was sixteen again, though luckily more matured still.

  The red glow from the centre of Erik’s chest truly reminded Jessie that Erik, and even herself, weren’t technically human anymore. That’s why Jessie didn’t much enjoy the look she saw her sister give Erik in her peripheral vision.

  Erik was a good guy. He was super kind, always wanted to help, and could really listen when you talked to him. Sophie’s st few boyfriends weren’t. Her previous one broke it off with her a few weeks after Jessie died because she didn’t care about him anymore.

  The girl was heartbroken and mourning the loss of her sister, and that jerk went on and broke her heart twice over. Jessie never liked her little sister’s boyfriends, but in her defence, they were always jerks.

  Sophie, being as beautiful as she was, had always been popur, much more so than Jessie. She had a thing for the bad boys, who hurt her over and over again, but still found new ones to crush on, giving her heart to them so they could crush it in their hands and return it to her as soon as they were bored of her.

  Erik would be a massive leap forward for her sister. But he wasn’t human. Was that fair to her sister? Jessie herself wasn’t human anymore. Did that mean she had to stop being her sister? Of course not!

  She decided not to meddle. If they wound up together, they would. Given her sister’s massive attractiveness, Erik probably didn’t stand a chance, unless he was crushing on either Ange or Emma by now. Both were strong and beautiful women, and had decided to join him without even knowing him.

  “So, that didn’t work,” Erik said, forcing Jessie out from her own thoughts. Erik was pcing his quartz against one of the rger hexagonal slots on his Crest.

  “Just, like, suck it in!” Sophie excimed.

  “I can’t ‘just suck it in’, I don’t have lungs in my chest!” Erik compined, quickly realising his mistake. As Sophie ughed flirtingly, Jessie considered a different way. “I mean, I don’t have blowholes or something like that. You know what I mean!”

  “Try holding it there, and focus on the link. Your magic tends to feel like water for you, right? The ‘sea of magic’ inside you, the rivers and streams and waterfalls the gems feel like? Try soaking up that water, letting it inside of you. Drink it, submerge in it, let it pull you with it or maybe try to let the water run into your ‘sea’,” Jessie thought out loud.

  “Okay, I’ll try all those thousands of things you just said,'' Erik joked half-heartedly, rolling his eyes.

  He shut his eyes, focusing on his link with the quartz. The massive waterfall threatened to crush him, or rather, his spirit, seeing that there was no real pain involved. Erik then focused on his sea, visualising himself between the waterfall and the sea, standing in the middle of the dark void between them.

  It somehow worked, though what to do from there, he didn’t know. The waters of the two didn’t join together, as the sea was a self-contained sphere, and the water from the waterfall fell into the nothingness-void he himself was standing in.

  He felt a tug at both. The tug was always there to his sea, but when he felt himself being dragged in both directions, he had an idea. He focused on the tug, rather than the sea and waterfall, and could feel the links growing more taut and physically present.

  Both sources were linked to his chest in now visible lines; his sea’s link a deep, swirling bck, reminding him of the shape of his Crest. The link to the waterfall was deeply golden, with white and bck accents moving across the link both ways. As the links were both connected to his Crest, he didn’t feel the need to move the connection somewhere else. Instead, he pulled as hard as he could with his focus. The separate entities moved closer to each other as he pulled on them. It was working.

  “The Titan is reborn. Carry the Cross. Behold the Titan.”

  Erik heard the familiar voice uttering the same three phrases he’d heard before. He looked around, but couldn’t find the figure anywhere. He felt his focus slip just a little, and the two entities he tried joining together stopped halfway. He felt his grip on the links loosening, as if the links turned slippery.

  The voice talked again, this time louder and deeper than ever before.

  “Join the Titan!”

  The form appeared in front of Erik for just a second, before it approached closer still. The next moment the form had enveloped Erik, the sensation warm, but dangerous. Erik felt himself losing focus and grip on the links, but despite that, the sea and waterfall didn’t fall further apart. The ethereal shape surrounding Erik was taking the sck for him.

  “Join the Titan!” the voice repeated, audibly straining now.

  “No way you’ll join me, whatever you are! I’m doing this myself!” Erik shouted, reaffirming his focus on the links, getting a good grip once more.

  Erik pushed the form away from him at the same time, and it simply vanished. On his second wind, Erik pulled as hard as he could, the two entities moving closer and closer to each other until they, a few seconds ter, turned to a bright white light.

  Erik was blinded by this, but felt a massive surge of his magic envelop him much like the unknown form had done, but with a more familiar feeling. Moments ter, he could see the two joined forces as one. His sea was calm as far as his eyes could see, except at the point the sea met a tall, straight cliff.

  The waterfall, somehow even rger than it had been previously, let water crash into the sea with enormous violence. Atop the cliff was even greenery in the shape of trees, bushes and grass. It was a somewhat beautiful sight. Erik sighed in relief and retreated from his meditation.

  Jessie and Sophie stared intently at Erik from the moment he closed his eyes. The light on his chest grew brighter, as it appeared to do whenever meditating or using its power. In a few seconds, something new started happening, Jessie being the first to notice.

  The quartz in Erik’s hand touching one of his major power slots also started lighting up, and the crystal started merging with Erik’s skin. As the crystal grew smaller in size, the hexagonal symbol on the Remnant’s chest filled in return. It was hard to see the marking as Erik’s hand and the small remains of the quartz were in the way.

  A moment ter, when the crystal was about half its original size, Erik visibly strained and looked to be in pain. He opened his eyes, but was otherwise unresponsive as his skin reddened all over his face and torso. The red light from his Core grew brighter than Jessie had ever seen her own or his, but the light from the quartz started dimming.

  Was he going to fail? Jessie didn’t know that was even possible, as Nana hadn’t said there would be any kind of trial or challenge when absorbing powers.

  “This looks bad, doesn’t it?” Sophie asked, unable to look away from the man bathed in bright red and dim golden light.

  Jessie didn’t respond. The younger sister saw Jessie’s fists clenching tightly. Something was definitely wrong. They hadn’t mentioned this could go wrong! She couldn’t let her sister go through this if it could hurt her, could she? They were both powerful enough to win this war without those stupid extra powers they thought they needed. They didn’t need them if it put them in danger.

  Erik’s eyes, open but unfocused, turned pitch bck, with only thin swirls of gold barely visible in the bck. The quartz in his hand grew brighter once more, and Erik looked determined once again. His Core didn’t dim, but the quartz was suddenly absorbed much quicker than earlier, only taking a few seconds until it was completely gone. He’d done it! He beat it, whatever it was.

  Sophie barely withheld a wide smile and looked to her sister. Jessie was wide-eyed, pale and looked terrified. Her clenched fists had loosened to the point of simply hanging there limply on either side of her hips. She fell to her knees, unable to look away, unable to do anything. She breathed heavily, gasping for air.

  Sophie dashed over to her sister, managing to catch her before she fell from her knees and to the floor. She held her up, yelling at her. She didn’t respond. What was happening?

  Busy with her sister rather than Erik, Sophie didn’t notice the lighting in the room returning to normal in a quick fsh, Erik slowly waking up moments ter. By the time she noticed that, Jessie was also coming back to her senses, though wet from cold sweat and still deathly pale.

  “What’s wrong?” Erik asked, quickly getting up and coming over to help Sophie with her sister, who seemed to have been through something else while Erik meditated. “Did she absorb her diamond as well?”

  Sophie was crying now, but shook her head. Jessie looked at Erik with intense fear in her eyes for a moment, but seemed to realise there was nothing wrong a few seconds ter. She managed to catch her breath over the next couple of minutes, returning to normal after five.

  “What was that, Jess?” Sophie asked, still panicking.

  “It… It was powerful,” was all Jessie could respond.

  She stared at Erik, unable to keep her eyes off him. She had stared at him non-stop for the past five minutes. She looked deeply unsure, but at least she didn’t look terrified anymore.

  Sophie didn’t know why. It was just Erik. Nothing had changed. He was visibly sad at seeing her sister’s reaction to him after his absorption, and Sophie felt warmth inside her chest.

  He was funny, and oddly decisive when it mattered, but she hadn’t seen him this serious. It was clear he cared deeply for her sister. She knew this wasn’t the right time, but she wished someone would look at her the same way. Not as sad, but as caring. It had been a while since anyone, except her sister, did that.

  “It’s… it’s like that feeling you usually give off… but thousands of times more powerful. There’s a tingle, usually. It’s stronger now. It’s fine. But earlier it was… it wasn’t even scary, it was threatening to dominate me, my senses, my… life,” Jessie expined.

  “You feel that tingle as well?” Erik asked, having thought back to when he was alone with Sophie in Jessie’s apartment, feeling that sense of something approaching, his body tingling all over.

  He’d realised it was Jessie when she opened the door, and could sense the feeling coming from her. He hadn’t asked, though. They had been too busy, and it didn’t seem important. That sensation had been there ever since, always pointing to Jessie. Now, he could barely feel it anymore.

  “Yeah, but it isn’t just a tingle anymore. It’s much stronger. It still has that slight sense of dominance, of control. It’s weird, but it doesn’t feel dangerous anymore. I’ll be fine in a few,” Jessie said, now looking at her sister, who was looking back and forth between the two Remnants with an odd expression. She didn’t know what the expression meant, as she hadn’t seen it on her sister’s face before. “I promise,” she smiled at her sister, wiping away her younger sister’s tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Erik said, looking into his best friend’s eyes. Despite him knowing he didn’t do anything on purpose, he felt the need to get it off his chest. Jessie smiled, and sat up.

  “Whoo! Anyway, I need a shower after that. I’m all tense, still. Give me twenty!” Jessie said, getting up to her feet quickly, pulling her own sister up with her. She went into the bathroom immediately after pulling out some new clothes from her bag she had packed from home before they went back to the hotel.

  As Jessie shut the door to the bathroom behind her, Sophie couldn’t help but notice that her sister didn’t lock the door. Again, that intensely hot feeling in her chest grew from out of nowhere. An awkward silence between Sophie and Erik ensued until the sound of running water from the bathroom broke it.

  “I’m sorry,” Erik said to the younger sister this time. She looked at him, wondering what he was apologising for. That moment was it. He looked at her the same way he looked at her sister. He had a serious expression on his face, and his eyes were warm, kind. He wasn’t mad, but genuine. He wasn’t sad, but empathetic.

  “For what?” Sophie smiled.

  “Your sister wasn’t the only one who had to go through something just now. You were frightened as well, though in a whole other way. That’s also because of me,” Erik expined. As he talked, Sophie went to sit on her bed. Her expression told him she didn’t care about all that, especially since everything went fine in the end.

  “You really love her, don’t you?” she asked, her expression unchanging.

  “Of course I do,” Erik said, sitting down on Jessie’s bed in front of Sophie.

  “I probably shouldn’t ask, but what is your retionship with my sister, really?” she asked, looking towards the unlocked bathroom door.

  “She’s my best friend. The st few months, she’s become like family to me. She and I really connected, in a way I haven’t with anyone else in my life," Erik expined, telling the truth about how he felt.

  “You know, she said the same. I just don’t understand-” she started, but stopped herself. She looked flustered, and turned her head down.

  “Don’t understand what?” Erik asked, not sure what she meant.

  “Nothing.”

  “Please? As Jessie’s sister, I consider you my family as well.”

  “You both say the exact same thing. ‘Friends’, ‘family’. There’s obviously more at py between you. She didn’t even lock the door when taking a shower. You’re clearly more intimate than you both say you are. It doesn’t matter to me, but I don’t understand why you’re lying about it," Sophie said, her eyes glistening more and more. Despite how Sophie was obviously feeling, Erik chuckled slightly in response.

  “I’ve seen your sister naked several times, sure. We’ve changed in front of each other, we’ve skinny-dipped. Heck, I’ve walked in on her going at it with Hosu more times than I’d like. I mean, they’re both beautiful, sure, but as I said, she’s family to me. They both are. The fact that she’s into girls probably helps, I guess, but I don’t feel anything more for her than I say I do,” Erik expined, Sophie’s expression changing multiple times over the past twenty seconds or so.

  “Hosu?” Sophie ended up asking. She looked confused and Erik realised Jessie hadn’t told her sister about the love of her life.

  “I shouldn’t say too much. It’s Jessie’s tale to tell, but Jessie is deeply in love, just not with me. There was someone else in Afterlife, and the two of them connected as well, just in other ways,” Erik smiled. “I’d never hurt your sister intentionally, I hope you know that.”

  “I do. I just thought you were… that you were lying, I mean. The way you two…”

  “Behave just like the two of you do?” Erik asked.

  “I guess you kind of do that, yeah,” Sophie said, contempting.

  “I won’t steal her from you,” Erik said, finally realising what Sophie was acting so emotional about. “You’re sisters! I just hope you’ll want to keep me around as well. Consider me your pet dog, if you will,” Erik grinned. Sophie let out a ugh, finally.

  “You’re hard to pinpoint,” she said, now smiling. Erik loved her smile. It really brightened the world around her.

  “Says you. I haven’t forgotten how you teased me outside the apartment building yesterday. But how so?”

  “You’re such a dork at times, but it’s obvious that you’re doing it intentionally. If you act stupid, you’re doing it for a reason. You’re decisive, but pretend you’re not unless it really counts. I’ve seen you stand up to military guys, not even an ounce of nervousness inside you. You force them to do what you want them to, and I don’t know if they even realise,” Sophie expined.

  Erik thought about her words. She wasn’t wrong, but none of this was new to Erik. He knew who he was, and he knew what he was doing. She was wrong about him not being nervous those times, but he was gd he didn’t let it show.

  No, none of those specific things he said needed thinking about from Erik’s view. What he was thinking as he looked at the girl, was how much attention she had paid him, and him not even noticing.

  Jessie opened the door to the bathroom just then, and left the room. Her hair was wet, but not dripping, and she wore nothing but underwear, the bird-like tattoo between her breasts clear as day. She sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the two beds, grabbing the diamond on the table before she did so.

  “Alright, I’m ready,” she said after taking a deep breath. Sophie looked panicked as she watched her sister exit the other room, but looking over at Erik somehow calmed her. The man stared at the mostly naked woman in front of him, but nothing in his eyes showed any sign of lust or wanting. He gazed into her eyes, he was just as determined as Jessie was.

  “You sure?” he asked. Sophie’s face turned from panic to calm the moment she saw his expression. He had told her the truth earlier. There really wasn’t anything else between the two. She could see it now.

  “No. But I’ll never be readier,” Jessie said.

  “For me, I had to focus on both my ‘sea’ and the waterfall, pulling them into each other by their links to my Crest. I don’t know if it’ll be the same for you, but I hope that helps,” Erik expined.

  “Probably won’t, but here’s hoping.” Jessie said, staring at the diamond in her hands. Brightless Bond, she’d called it.

  “Have you decided which wing you’ll put it in?”

  “I feel like neither is the right choice. I’ll do the fifth first,” Jessie said, pcing the diamond beneath the Core of her Crest, in the rge circle not on either wing, but on the lower end between both.

  The smaller circles following that circle weren't even connected to the rest of the Crest with the exception of a curvy line from the bigger circle before them. The smaller circles, her minor power slots, were like fruits on a hanging vine beneath the two wings, though Jessie wasn’t happy about the tattoo-like Crest on her chest going down into her cleavage the way it was.

  Jessie closed her eyes and focused. Erik and Sophie looked at each other in anticipation, and after a few seconds, her Core’s red light grew brighter, just as it had with Erik.

  She was within her magic now. Moments ter, a purely white light started glowing from the diamond. Erik looked questioningly at Sophie, who understood what he was wondering about. She nodded to him, and faced her sister once more. The same had happened with him.

  He hoped she wouldn’t be interrupted like he was, as it nearly made him fail. The diamond started getting absorbed, and after an uneventful ten or so minutes ter, the diamond was completely gone. The rge circle beneath Jessie’s Core had a fully white marking, gently glowing.

  As Jessie opened her eyes, Jessie’s eyes were simirly white in their glow, but that quickly turned to normal. Sophie was happy nothing bad had happened. Uneventful meant everything went fine. Right?

  “That wasn’t as easy as I thought,” Jessie said, standing up, but looked a bit dizzy.

  “I know right? Nana never mentioned it being anything special.”

  “No, she didn’t. Did you feel anything?” Jessie asked Erik, sitting next to him on her bed.

  “No, not really. Certainly nothing like you did,” Erik responded, thinking back to when he exited his meditation earlier, noticing Jessie on the floor, her younger sister panicked.

  “Okay. That’s good. That means it was either the type of power you got, or something else that happened. I hope it won’t be the same for the rest of your powers,” she shuddered. Erik agreed, of course.

  “So, time to see what we got?” Erik asked.

  “You don’t know?” Sophie asked the both of them.

  “No. Just like with the Core power, I can feel it, but the feeling means nothing to me. We have to meditate on it,” Jessie said.

  “Are you sure nothing bad will happen?” Sophie asked nervously, looking more towards Erik than Jessie.

  “Not at all. You didn’t feel anything, so you’ll probably be fine. So long as Jessie’s also meditating, she shouldn’t notice anything either, even if the same does happen again. Her mind will be elsewhere,” Erik expined, though he was only guessing.

  “Just to be careful, let me start first and when I’m under, you can go as well,” Jessie said, immediately closing her eyes. Moments ter, her Core glowed brighter.

  “Take care of her if something happens,” Erik told Sophie before starting his meditation. She determinedly nodded. Erik went inside his magic once again.