Chapter 17: The Trial Of The Waterfall

  “So, how are we doing this?” Erik asked. Both he and Jessie had returned to Jessie’s hotel room. Sophie was right there with them, looking through all the crystals and gemstones and whatnot. Her sister explained that most of them wouldn’t be used, because there were dozens of crystals that didn’t feel right to either her or Erik.

  “Maybe just put it up there?” Jessie shrugged.

  “Who first?” Erik then asked.

  It didn’t matter much, but both of them were nervous, and eventually, they chose Erik 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 last 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. Her body hadn’t become skinnier like Erik’s had but had grown more toned. She was far from muscular, thank God, but her stomach, breasts, ass, and legs were all firmer. Her new youthful body had her approval. It was like she was sixteen again, though more mature still.

  The red glow from the centre of Erik’s chest reminded Jessie that Erik, and even herself, weren’t 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 had an enormous heart, was always eager to lend a hand, and listened when she spoke. Sophie’s last few boyfriends weren’t that. 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 almost always been popular, much more so than Jessie. She had a thing for the bad boys, who hurt her over and over again. Yet still she 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 with 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 cutesy personality and her general attractiveness, Erik didn’t stand a chance, unless he was crushing on either Angela or Emma by now. Both were strong and dependable women and had joined him without even knowing him.

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

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

  “I can’t ‘just suck it in’, I don’t have lungs in my chest!” Erik complained before he realised his mistake.

  As Sophie laughed flirtatiously, 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 connection to the quartz. The massive waterfall threatened to crush him, or rather, his spirit, seeing that there was no actual pain involved. Erik then focused on his sea, visualising himself between the waterfall and sea, standing in the middle of the dark void between them.

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  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 the waterfall and could feel the links growing tauter and physically present.

  Both sources were linked to his chest in now-visible lines; his sea’s link a deep, swirling black, reminding him of the shape of his Crest. The link to the waterfall was deeply golden, with white and black 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. His focus slipped just a little, and the two entities he tried joining together stopped halfway. The grip on the links loosened, as if the links had 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 slack 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 decent grip once more.

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

  It blinded him, but he also felt a massive surge of his magic envelop him much like the unknown form had done, though with a more familiar feeling. Moments later, he could see the two joined as one. The sea was flat and quiet as far as the eye could see, except where it hugged a monumental cliff that sprayed pristine blue water.

  The waterfall, somehow even larger than it had been moments before, sent water crashing into the sea with enormous violence. Atop the cliff was even greenery in the shape of trees, bushes, and grass. The falls’ meeting with the sea created a stunning, veiled wetness, producing a golden rainbow even without any sunlight. Erik sighed with relief and retreated from his meditation.

  Jessie and Sophie stared daggers 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, 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 later, when the crystal was about half its original size, Erik 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 at the same time.

  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 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 black, with only thin swirls of gold visible in the darkness. The quartz in his hand grew brighter once more, and Erik looked determined once again. His Core didn’t dim back to normal, but it absorbed the quartz much quicker than earlier. After just a few more seconds, it had vanished. He’d done it! He beat it, whatever it was.

  Sophie contained a wide smile and looked at her sister. Jessie was wide-eyed, pale and looked terrified. Her clenched fists had loosened to the point of being slumped on either side of her hips. She fell to her knees, unable to look away, unable to do anything. She heaved for air and didn’t seem to get enough of it.

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

  Jessie convulsed, her entire body tensing off and on without a rest in between. Short gasps turned to throaty gags as her throat didn’t allow any air through. The lighting in the room changed, though Sophie didn’t notice it in her own panic, her sister’s sudden state all she could think about.

  “Help!”