Eris ran over the rooftop, legs Augmented as she bounded onto a railing and leapt off it, aiming herself at the next building, about ten meters up.

As she pushed off the railing, it buckled beneath her with a metallic creak. Shit. She felt the familiar lurch in her stomach and the spike of adrenaline of a jump gone awry, her trajectory much lower than planned.

She waited the uncomfortably long second that it took to sail to the apex of her jump, intentionally not looking down into the alley far beneath her as she sent Mana to her foot. At the highest point, she channeled that Mana into a small platform made of static air armor. Her Mana reserves dropped significantly as the platform absorbed the force of her kicking off the platform, putting her back on course.

Eris armored both hands as she reached for the lip of the apartment she was jumping onto, vaulting over it to land in a crouch on the roof. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief, her pounding heart starting to slow. She was very experienced at making recoveries like that, but it was never exactly comfortable.

She glanced to the side as Valie came soaring up beside her, cresting the roof’s lip nicely to land on her feet. Valie was panting hard and smiling as she looked back at Eris.

“You know, Valie, if I didn’t know how awful you feel about all this law-breaking, I’d think you’re actually starting to enjoy this,” Eris said.

Valie chuckled. “Oh shut up.” But her smile let Eris know she didn’t mean it.

Eris giggled, meeting Valie’s eyes for a moment. Valie was often so nervous about everything, and seeing her come out of her shell like this, pushing past her comfort zone and actually enjoying herself for it… It was kinda beautiful.

It was also impressive. They’d only been working together a bit more than two weeks now, but Eris had seen her older sister make really good progress in everything she’d been teaching her. The hours they’d spent training parkour at the university had evidently paid off. And she’d managed to unblock four Ley Lines without accidentally entering a Perfect Resonance. Eris felt a swell of pride. That was her protégé. Her sister, doing all that.

And… her crush. More than a crush, if Eris was being honest with herself. Her feelings for Valie had only been growing during the time they’d spent together. The time they’d spent working as a team. And through Valie supporting her, and her supporting Valie.

Eris sighed as a conflicting frustration collided with her love for Valie. It was kinda bullshit that they were sisters. Not that Eris thought there was anything wrong with falling in love with her sister. She’d worked past that already. In a relationship between consenting adults, she didn’t think there was anything to judge. It was just that… She couldn’t tell Valie. Because Valie wouldn’t accept it. It could cause a serious rift between them. And that would be truly awful. Worse than pining after this unrequited love was losing that love entirely.

Eris slumped, looking down and shaking her head.

“Hey. You alright?” Valie asked, crouching down beside her.

Dammit. It was a messed up irony that Valie understood her so well, and could support her so well, when it came to everything, except for this one thing. “Yeah… Fine.”

“That jump looked kinda sketchy. Need a minute?”

“It wasn’t that bad. But a short rest couldn’t hurt.”

Valie nodded. “You know. I’d really rather you didn’t fall to your death jumping between buildings like this.”

Eris snorted. “Oh, come on. I was the one who taught you how to survive a fall like that. I mean, it would take all my Mana, but I’d be fine.”

“Yeah,” chuckled Valie. Then she grew more somber. “I do worry sometimes, though. I wouldn’t wanna lose you.”

Gods, the amount of care Valie showed her made Eris’s heart sing.

“I know,” Eris said, standing up and taking Valie’s hands in hers, looking up into her face. “I’ll take care of myself. I promise.”

Eris couldn’t fully read Valie’s face in the dark, but she felt her older sister give her hands a squeeze. “Thanks,” Valie said.

“You also promised you wouldn’t abandon me. So I think that means you’re not allowed to die either.”

“Hah! Fair enough.” Valie pulled Eris into a hug. Eris leaned happily into the hug, her earlier frustrations fading somewhat, giving way to determination. She’d love Valie as much as she would let her, dammit.

As they hugged, Eris thought she heard something, her ears perking up and twitching back and forth.

“Hear something?”

“Eh… Probably nothing.” They were in a busy city, after all. It was difficult to pick out sounds from the constant noise of cars from below. And besides, Michael had assured them that this Ley Line, like all the others they’d unblocked so far, was in uncontested territory. There shouldn’t be any danger of them being intercepted by another organization. But, for good measure, she added, “Keep a lookout, though.”

“Which way is the Ley Line, anyway?”

Eris nodded towards where she knew it to be. “Probably two or three buildings that way.”

“I still don’t get how you do that.”

Eris just shrugged. She didn’t really know either. She could tell the direction, and, based on the strength of Mana emanating from it and how that direction had shifted as they’d gotten closer, she knew about how far it was, too.

“Well. Let’s get going?” Valie suggested.

Eris nodded, but gave Valie a squeeze before letting go.

Valerie landed right behind her sister, armoring her feet to cushion her fall, then dropping into a roll as Eris had taught her. It was excessive for the jump she’d just made, but good practice. She still had a decent amount of Mana left, despite all their leaping around. She looked around at the dark apartment roof.

“I think we’re here,” Eris said, pointing. “Should be right there.”

It became obvious that Eris was correct as they headed toward the center of the roof. Valerie could feel the Ley Line quite strongly now. The two walked up to it together.

“Alright,” Valerie said. “Shall I?”

“Actually… Let me handle it this time. I don’t wanna get rusty. Plus, I think you’ve got it figured out by this point.”

“Oh. Alright.” Valerie stood a few feet from her sister as Eris reached out towards the Ley Line, preparing to unblock it.

Not five seconds later, Valerie heard the clanging sound of feet on metal. She whirled around to see a figure running at her. No—more likely, running at Eris.

Valerie had little time to assess the person. They wore a mask and hood that obscured their identity. And they were dressed all in baggy black clothes, which made it difficult to determine anything about their gender.

Shit. This was supposed to be uncontested territory. A shock of panicked adrenaline coursed through her.

“Eris!” she called. But Eris was already unblocking the Ley Line. She didn’t seem to hear, and pulling her out of it at this point would be a bad idea. It wasn’t a process you should mess with, as Valerie had learned.

Valerie fell into a boxing stance, placing herself between the assailant and Eris. As they got closer, she armored and Augmented her entire body, as Eris had taught her. That wasn’t efficient—it drained her Mana quickly as the air distorted around her. But the Mana only had to last until Eris was done the unblocking process. That shouldn’t take more than a minute.

The attacker sprinted towards her, then attempted to dodge around her at the last second. Valerie braced herself as she repositioned to block, feeling the weight of their body crash into her armor. She stumbled back, a large chunk of Mana drained from her, though she was otherwise unharmed.

The other person grunted, backing up, before lunging at her with a right hook. She had little choice but to tank it with her arms. Another dent to her Mana. Dodging risked letting them get at Eris.

Valerie returned with a jab towards the torso, though her fist met armor, deflecting her blow. She could see that her opponent had armored only the part of their body that she had aimed at. As she reset herself, the armor dissipated almost immediately.

That wasn’t good. Those were techniques meant to preserve Mana. Valerie wasn’t close to being able to do that on reaction yet, and that meant that her opponent was much more skilled than she was. Shit.

While distracted, she took a jab to her armored face. Her armor compressed toward her to absorb the brunt of the impact, but she still felt her head lurch back, disorienting her.

She shook it off. Get it together, Valerie, she told herself. You gotta protect Eris. Not too much longer.

She danced back and forth with the attacker, body-checking their every attempt to dodge around her, doing her best to deflect their punches with her arms.

Valerie had the wherewithal to realize that all their punches had been thrown from the right hand, and their stance was unusual. Glancing down at their left hand, which they held closer to their chest, she realized they were holding something. It was a metal band split in two semicircles, almost like a half of a set of handcuffs, and it was edged with small crystals that glowed softly with the bluish-magenta color of Mana. Resonant crystals.

Before her mind could rabbit-trail on that device, she ate another punch to the face. Still armored, thankfully, but fuck, that hurt. And her Mana was running dangerously low. She needed to freaking pay attention.

Breathing raggedly, she squared back up. Gods, what the hell was she doing? If her sister wasn’t right behind her, she probably would have run and hid.

Her opponent was growing more aggressive, and their punches came faster, harder, and more frequently. Then they jumped, high in the air, over Valerie’s head.

Straight at Eris.

Shit.

Valerie summoned Mana into her legs, jumping after them, aiming to tackle them out of the air. As they collided, she felt her Mana drain—entirely. Her armor dissipated. She went tumbling towards the rooftop. She screamed.

Someone caught her with strong arms the instant before she hit. She felt herself turned upright, and placed on her feet. She looked to her side. It was Eris. Thank fuck.

The person in black had landed on their feet in a crouch, ten meters away. They looked at the two sisters briefly, then turned and leapt into the night.

Valerie had half an instinct to follow them. Figure out who the hell they were. But she needed to recover. And it seemed doubtful she could keep up with them anyway.

Instead, she let out a large sigh, panting heavily.

“Shit, Valie. Are you okay?” Eris asked, one arm still tightly around Valerie’s waist.

Valerie started to feel exhaustion as the adrenaline left her. “I… I guess so. Thanks to your training, heh… Fuck.”

“It’ll be okay. You should replenish your Mana if you haven’t already.”

Right. She’d forgotten. Now that the Ley Line was unblocked, she could attune towards its Resonance, refilling herself. She Augmented herself, pushing away the physical fatigue. But the mental fatigue was definitely still there.

The touch of her sister’s arm felt stabilizing and warm. Valerie put her hand on her sister’s. They interlaced their fingers. Valerie felt a tinge of butterflies in her stomach. Probably just wooziness from being knocked around.

“You should be proud. From what I saw, that person was very skilled. But you held them off,” Eris said.

“Hah… Yeah, fucking barely.”

“Seriously. I’m proud,” Eris said as she squeezed Valerie’s waist tighter. She continued, “Are you able to tell me what happened?”

Valerie shrugged. “I mean. I dunno. That person appeared. They ran at us. Looked like they were running at you, actually. So I blocked them.”

“And you protected me.” Eris’s voice became slightly smaller, almost a whisper, as she said that. Eris looked into Valerie’s eyes, smiling softly. The purple specks in her irises almost glowed in the low light.

Butterflies again. “I mean, yeah. I guess I did. What else was I gonna do?” Valerie smiled back.

“That’s pretty badass, not gonna lie.” Eris chuckled, and Valerie did as well. “Anything else happen?”

“Uh… They were carrying an unusual device. It kinda looked like a Mana receiver, but the design was wrong. And they weren’t wearing it. Just holding it in their left hand.”

“Huh. Weird.”

“You’ve never seen anything like that before?”

Eris shrugged. “Mana receivers aren’t too uncommon in this line of work, especially if you’re going into hostile territory. Apart from that, I dunno. Of course… this wasn’t supposed to be contested territory.” Eris frowned for a moment, then kissed Valeries cheek and squeezed her hand. The butterflies intensified. “We should get you home. We’ll have to tell Michael about this tomorrow.”

Valerie nodded, “Alright. Let’s go.”