Felix stood around the huge room awkwardly while his ‘sister’ fussed around her cabinets, taking her time to pick out a suitable wine for their ‘reunion’. Not like he was exactly feeling uncomfortable around her, though. It was the fact that they were not alone.

Various animals prowled around lazily as they kept a wary berth from Felix. Others were fast asleep, huddling with each other. The rest of the bedroom was covered in intricate but plain coloured patterns, presumably to keep the animals calm. A leopard leaned up lazily against Felix, but he resisted the urge to pet it. He didn’t want to risk having his fingers bitten off.

“So, you came from a different universe, didn’t you?” A cup of dark-coloured wine was thrust towards Felix. He downed it in a single gulp, and promptly used every fibre of his being to stop his face from scrunching up with the bitterness.

“How’d you know that?” Felix asked, letting his mouth hang open in surprise instead.

“I saw my brother die eighteen years ago. With my own eyes, might I add,” Marcia replied simply, taking a small sip of her alcohol. “Plus, we’ve always been aware of the existence of other worlds. We just never figured out how to travel there.”

“Yes, I am from another world. And in my world, you… you died.” Felix pursed his lips. “Afterwards, we all died. We died in war, fighting an invincible alien army— No, sorry. It wasn’t even a war. I’ve been in a lot of fights, but this… This was no fight. It was a slaughter, and we were the pigs.”

Marcia leaned forward, staring at him intently. “Pray continue.”

Felix took a moment to sigh. He had contemplated coming up with some story to get what he wanted, but there was a strong compulsion in his gut to simply tell Marcia the truth. Perhaps it was because she was quite literally his sister from another mother.

“I died. Or rather, I was on the verge of death when a god finally decided to take pity on me. Or perhaps he just wanted to toy with me. God Janus.”

“God of beginnings and endings?”

“Entrances and exits, gateways and archways. Yes, the very same god our kind worships.” Felix nodded. “He gave me a second chance. An impossible mission, to be precise. To search for the source of his power lost across the multiverse— The Summer Solstice and The Winter Solstice. With that, I’ll have the power to reset my universe; to give it a second chance so that none of that ever happened. My sister, my parents, everyone I have lost… They can come back to me.”

Marcia tilted her head. “And you believe him?”

“It’s either that or I die.” Felix shrugged. “So yes. Yes, I do.”

“You didn’t ask how he lost his books?”

“No.”

“You didn’t ask why he chose you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t ask why his powers are vested in the books instead of himself?”

“No— I was busy trying not to die, okay? I wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

The woman leaned back against her sofa, crossing her legs elegantly. Her eyebrows remained creased as she stared out of the window, deep in thought.

“Let’s just say… For the sake of— Let’s just say Janus was telling the truth.” Marcia gestured absentmindedly. “What makes you so sure things aren’t just going to play out the exact same way in your world? Some things are destined to happen. It’s only natural. We need to move forward.”

“I don’t, because I’ll never know for sure.” Felix’s voice softened. “I never expected to see my sister again, but here we are.”

Marcia inhaled sharply, before blinking her eyes a few times.

“Anyway, I heard from your men that you’re sort of the authority around here when it comes to dealing with spellcrafts,” Felix continued. “Ever heard of those two books?”

The woman shook her head. “I only peddle corrupted spellcrafts. So unless those two books have the ability to get a Magi euphoric, I doubt I know anything about it. I’ve been doing this for ten years. If one of my spellcrafts matched that description, I’d be the first to know.”

“Say, how old are you?” Felix asked eagerly.

“Twenty-eight.”

The man chuckled. “I’m thirty-six. Our ages are still the same number of years apart. And it’s fortunate we shared the same childhood.”

Marcia smiled wryly. “Not all of it.”

“H— How did I die in your world?” Felix asked hesitantly. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“You really want to know?” The smile slipped off Marcia’s face as she held a hand out. “See for yourself.”

Felix declined the gesture.

“It’s been eighteen years, dear sister. My powers have grown considerably since then. I no longer need to make physical contact to access your mind,” he said. “All I need is your permission.”

“Then come right in, big brother.”

~ ~ ~

“Felix!”

The little girl broke away from her captors and ran towards her brother, holding him tightly. Warm hands wrapped around her as she sobbed into his shoulders. It was over; he was here. She was safe now.

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“Titus Angelo, I gave you what you wanted.” The eighteen-year-old boy let go of her, turning around to glare at her kidnapper. “Let my sister go. I’ll take her place instead.”

The mobster boss rolled his eyes to the side, pretending to think deeply. “No. No, I don’t think I will. She has essence to spare, even if you have an entire ocean of it. I still need her just in case yours isn’t enough, so I think I’ll be keeping both of you.”

“You lying shit!” Felix roared, pink coating his eyes.

Titus held up a remote, and the fuming boy ceased his aggression immediately. Marcia trembled in fear, now acutely aware of the power syphoning device around her neck.

“That’s what I thought, boy.” The green-haired man grinned, before signalling to his men to hook a similar device on Felix’s neck as well.

They took them away.

Marcia spent the next few weeks in a hellish routine of being thrown into an arcane circle and getting her Meta essence syphoned out. Her powers were never fully depleted each time, but she was getting weaker by the day. To make matters worse, her brother was kept in a separate room. She presumed he was going through the same ordeal as her, although she never got to see it for herself.

But Felix was already hatching a plan.

At first, it was bits of paper in her food tray. And then it turned into pieces of wood with instructions engraved on them. Wherever Felix was held, he was obviously having his meals before her. It did not take long for Marcia to start communicating with her brother via telepathically controlled rats.

And the fateful day, too, did not take long to arrive.

The laboratory doors swung open, presenting the dreaded arcane circle to Marcia for the umpteenth time. She stood abnormally still for a moment, praying that her guards would not notice the shadow lurking in the corner. Marcia stumbled forward as they pushed her roughly—

Her captors collapsed to the ground without further sound.

The girl turned back at her brother, who was now stuffing their bodies into a cupboard along with the other guards. Felix fished out a remote from one of their pockets and pressed a button.

Marcia quickly pulled the collar from her neck as it deactivated with a soft hum, tossing it to the floor in disgust.

“Be quiet, Marcia.” Felix raised a finger to his lips, before pointing it at a nearby computer. “See the screen? I want you to press the ‘Abort’ button once it turns blue. Can you do that for me?”

Marcia nodded meekly, climbing onto the desk.

“Good girl.” Felix cracked a warm smile despite how pale his face was and put his hands on the magic barrier surrounding the arcane circle. He traced its outer edge for a brief moment before stopping abruptly.

A faint pink glowed in his fist as he drove it through the barrier and shattered it. The boy collapsed to the ground in exhaustion.

Every fibre of Marcia’s body wanted her to rush to his aid, but she willed herself to stay put. Tears welled up in her eyes in worry. If her brother had been at full power, he would’ve broken through the barrier without a sweat. Felix must have been left with less than one per cent of his power by now. Whatever sick experiment Titus Angelo was performing, it was clearly killing his own kind. Not like that gangster gave a shit, though.

Felix Pagonis forced his body up again and trudged towards the bloodstained tome sitting in the middle of the arcane circle.

“Ready, Marcia?” His voice was barely audible now.

Marcia’s heart raced as she nodded. Felix took a deep breath and put his hands on the book—

A deafening alarm blared through the building as the magic barrier reactivated itself, trapping Felix inside the circle. The computer screen blacked out as well, fizzling dangerously with energy. Marcia climbed down from the table just in case the computer exploded.

“What’s happening?” she cried out in confusion, pounding her small fists helplessly against the barrier.

“The Guardian Council is at our doorstep!” Titus’ voice blared in the loudspeakers, as if on cue with her question. “Brothers and sisters, gather at The Vanguard! These Magis will not take away our freedom again!”

“Crap, we can’t cancel the spell using the system now!” Felix yelled as he struggled to pull the book away. He looked around frantically for a few seconds, before closing his eyes in resolve.

“Marcia, find a way out of this place,” he said calmly. “No matter what happens from now on, remember that I will always love you.”

“W— What? No, I won’t leave without you!” Marcia clawed at the barrier futilely. “Felix, come home with me!”

Her brother shook her head, smiling at her for one last time before placing his hands on the tome. “I have to destroy the spellcraft. I can’t let anyone use it to hurt people anymore.”

Pink energy gushed out of his body and flooded into the book, overloading it with arcani. Felix screamed with effort.

“What are you doing?!” Marcia screamed. “Brother! NO!”

“No, Marcia!” Felix yelled as red light engulfed his body. “Don’t look! AAARGH!”

A flash of white seared Marcia’s retinas, before the shockwave blasted her into the wall. Corrupted Arcani seeped into her body as the explosion tore through the room and disintegrated all its equipment.

The girl crawled on the floor painfully. The corrupted magic was still ravaging through her whole body, but she was miraculously unharmed otherwise. Her laboured breathing slowly steadied as she looked at the now inert arcane circle.

Her brother’s lifeless eyes stared back at her.

~ ~ ~

Felix shook his head at the abrupt ending of the memory. It was almost as if Marcia put up a mind block on purpose. He blinked a few times, trying to process what he had just seen. After all, witnessing the death of someone who looked exactly like him was a little unnerving, to say the least.

“That’s all you need to know.” Marcia curved her lips upwards without emotion.

“What, that’s it? So, I died destroying the spellcraft and you managed to escape.”

“That sums it up, yes.” She nodded. “Except I didn’t. The Guardian Council saved me after dispatching Titus Angelo. Or what was left of them, anyway. Angelo wiped out more than eighty per cent of them by himself.”

Felix smiled grimly. “He isn’t a Tier Five Meta for nothing, after all.”

“As are we both—”

The woman wheezed without warning, clutching her chest in pain. White clouded her eyes as she collapsed to the ground and began convulsing. Felix leapt out of his seat in shock.

“Marcia! Marcia!”