On the rainiest nights, those deep winters when storms slough off the skyscrapers in neon waves and the air freezes the moment you step outside, I always return home wondering how I was ever blessed to have a sister like mine. When I am at my lowest and most bruised, she waits for me with fires and warm food and disapproving huffs. She picks the shredded tape from my bleeding knuckles. Jerks on my dislocated joints until they straighten. Rails me with numbers and unyielding irritation until I finally learn from my mistakes. And when I return defeated yet again, she is still there, still waiting.

In so many ways, she is the engine that keeps me moving. How she can be so content in the shadow of my spotlight never ceases to amaze me. The stage could be hers if she wanted it. Yet she loves watching from the wings, reciting the lines she wrote with eyes closed and head silently nodding along. I’ve grown so used to her quirks and constant judgement that when I wake without her for the first time in my life, I find myself jerking upright to search for her before my eyes finish opening.

I wake to the acute sensation of every injury across my body splitting open at once, sending me crashing back into the soft embrace of a medical gurney. I groan like a dead tree as I let myself sink back. My arms twitch at my side. So battered by Prazen’s assault that I can barely move them. Broken fingers rub restlessly against the metal railings beneath my hands, only barely moveable. A wooden ceiling over my head. Real wood; it doesn’t shine. Medical equipment beeps with a constant pulse somewhere behind my head. IV drips feed protein and painkillers into my veins.

I try to take in a full breath and only make it halfway. What little I manage shudders out painfully as I release it. My whole body feels like one giant welt. Sore and nettling in every muscle. How I ended up in this bed, in this condition, is no amnesiac memory. I remember every single hit that put me on the floor and the heart attack that almost finished it. The fatal mistake I doomed myself with in a vain attempt to flip the tables. I lay there unmoving, staring at a foreign ceiling while autumn wind drifts past my feet, headed through the depths of an open-air abode. Water gurgles contentedly nearby. Heavy branches shift, draping whispering leaves over a thatched roof. Strange insects click when the wind fades.

Belatedly, I realize I cannot hear the usual sounds of the metropolis I call home. The ever-present hum of electricity, hovering transports, and intermingling humanity. My JOY lies dormant on a small wooden stool placed just beyond my reach. No screens to distract me, no classes to salve my pain. No one comes to the room. I must lay there for half an hour wondering where I am, able to do absolutely nothing but take things slow while I ruminate and remember. The tremor in my sister’s voice as she gambled with her own life. Mori’s conviction when she turned heel to go save Jolie, even when there isn’t a gram of goodwill between them. Ajax, who still fought over my dying body even after I almost got him killed by acting like I always do.

A heavy sigh passes through my nose. I didn’t deserve his grace. I don’t deserve any of their support. I’ve always wanted to be a hero. But now that I finally stop to look back, I wonder if I’ve been letting my drive get to my head. My recklessness pushed us from one fight to the next and dragged my friends down with me. I dove into the undercity fight with Mori on pure reflex. The others might have agreed, but I was the first one to push for going to Shimano’s skyscraper instead of leaving our findings to the authorities. And we all almost paid the price for it.

For their sake, I know I cannot let it happen again. I need to change. Master my impatience, the spirit that’s always fighting to break free of its containers. For so many years that fire has been all of who I am. But I should have recognized its limits long ago. I’ve seen them time and time again while wandering the halls of the Metro Blockhouse, reflected in the histories of our ancient champions. Fires burn bright and die in a flash. Oceans last. And you can still build roaring flames on their shores.

I suspect I know who put my JOY so precisely distant from my reach, but I make a mental note to thank her anyways.

Forced into lethargy by my wounds, I take my time in stretching an arm back, disturbing the scabs as little as possible. Fresh blood already wets the bandages wrapped around my torso. My eyes catch on my bicep. A circuitous scab winds around the muscle before slashing halfway down my forearm. Prazen’s work. I’ll have to repay him for it later.

I ease up into sitting with that special slowness borne from overwhelming soreness. Bite back another pained noise when my head finally rests against the backboard. I didn’t think headaches could get this bad. One by one, I peel the drip-feed tubes from my arms before finally turning to look at my sleeping saint. Not the old man who rescued me from the depths of the Shimano skyscraper, but the woman who summoned him.

She sits in a chair beside me, head bowed, a belovedly dogeared novel turned over in her lap. Strands of rusty red hair drift over her face where they escape her meticulous ponytail. Antibac tape and shrapnel scratches mar her cheeks. Old glasses hang unused from her neck, chest gently rising and falling as she dozes. I look lower to the book in her lap. Gage’s Burden, the cover reads. A centuries-old romance of our Section’s very first champion. Years of markings fill the happier first half of the novel. It’s a surprise to see. I’ve never known my sister to read anything other than press releases.

The back of my hand brushes against her cheek. Jolie wakes with a small, cute snort. Her eyes drift open like a sun-drenched cat, blinking faster as her mind begins to catch up. Then she yawns loudly and turns to see me watching her, rubbing at her eyes all the while.

Carefully, so carefully, her other hand folds the book away and tucks it out of sight.

My first words trail away when she stands. Slowly rising, Jolie draws beside the bed and cups my face in her hands. Her fingers are cold and stern as ice. The touch softens when she leans forward and kisses me suddenly on the brow. Her lips press hard against my hair.

“I thought you were dead,” is the first thing she whispers. Her shoulders shake only once. A pained noise traps itself in her throat before it can escape, but she cannot hold back the heaviness in her voice. “Your heart stopped. I watched it stop.”

“I’m not dead,” I tell her.

“I thought I lost you. I saw you and Ajax arguing. I sent you down there and I almost lost you Mars, I almost lost you…” Again she shakes, only once. “We have to take care of each other,” she mumbles, wiping at the corner of her eyes. “We’re all we have. You forgot that.”

My heart cracks alongside her perfect composure. Jolie is an impassive, distant guiding star who resists attachment however she can. It’s a hard weight to carry. And it’s impossible to hold forever. My arms wrap around her instinctively, holding her close as the brief fit fades.

“I’m not dead yet,” I repeat. I squeeze her tight against my chest for surety. “I’m still here, Jo.”

She swallows hard and nods, sneezing into my medical shift. “I know. I know.”

“It’ll all be fine.”

Again she nods. “I know.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

We hold each other for a long minute before she taps me twice on the arm, then pulls back into her shell. She sniffs and turns away, fixing her composure in a moment of privacy. Uncomfortable even with her own twin seeing her vulnerable. Her old-fashioned glasses slip back over the bridge of her nose, hooks around her ears. Awkward fingers fiddle with her hair until she gives up with a sigh and lets it drop down in a shoulder-length mess.

“You slept in,” she says, awkwardly trying to bridge the gap.

I try to grin and end up almost coughing my lungs out. Settle for a toothy grimace instead. “How long?”

“Three days,” Jolie says. “I think. I might have passed out for one of them. How do you feel?”

“Like I got ran over by a bullet train.”

“Good.” Her tone sours as she scoots her chair around to face me. She starts nervously chewing on a nail. “That’s better than being dead.” Bites loudly.

I reach out and hold her hand to keep her from chewing. She doesn’t resist. “What happened in the penthouse?”

“Not much. I almost pissed myself. Upset a billionaire who’s barely older than I am, then watched a Venter fry half of said billionaire’s security team and carry me to the gunship like a bride. Very embarrassing, by the way. But on the bright side…”

“There’s a bright side?”

“…I did make some cash.” She pulls out her JOY and flicks a projection out with her thumb, leaving it hovering in the air above my knees. The border wavers and loses its edge to fraying particles. The numbers in the center are clear as day, though. A long string of digits and letters marking Jolie’s chaincode, and beside it, an anonymous transfer of ten million credits. Attached is a one-line note from the sender.

You were correct. 1-0.

I don’t need a name to know who sent it. I shake my head at the transfer. It’s more zeroes than I’ve seen before in my life. Even my stipend as a face of the uni leagues doesn’t cover more than a few thousand per month. Ten million is an unbelievable amount. I run my fingers through the projection like it would do something to validate the number.

“Vex kept his word,” I mutter, still caught up in my disbelief. “That’s an expensive declaration of war.”

Jolie waves a hand at the wooden ceiling. “The Shimano family originally came from the villages, before the capital was built. They think differently than we do. Honor and promises mean more to them.” Her shoulders lift in a small shrug. “I don’t think Vex is honorable, but I’m sure he thinks he is. And it’s the ones who think they’re honorable that are the most dangerous.”

I follow her gesture and look around the room more closely, noting the inconsistencies between this place and the home I’m used to. There are no ducts, no metal décor. The walls are made of paper and the floors are made of wood. Ancient lamps rest on shelves near a door to my right. Simple carved bowls fill small tables across the room. Me and my gurney are the foreigners here. Austere and modern in a setting of homely simplicity.

“…How did we get here?” I ask, slowly releasing Jolie’s hand.

“I used one of my widgets from the office to bypass Vex’s jamming tech and send my coordinates to the entire Metro Blockhouse staff mailing list. I don’t know how many people got it, but I assume someone figured it out, because it took all of five minutes for the Champion himself to hit the tower. It was over like that. They didn’t even bother to fight him.” Her fingers snap once, then exhaustedly rub at her cheekbones. “I’m totally getting fired from my internship, by the way.”

“I’m sorry, Jolie.”

“It’s fine,” she lies, glancing away again. “It was always just a backup plan. I can find another once everything quiets down.”

Another pang of hurt shoots through me. Staff internships in the Metro Blockhouse are the most competitive in the Section. Tens of thousands apply every year. Five students, if even that, are brought on.

The projection of Jolie’s bank account shifts and widens into a popular capital news stream. Muted, thankfully. Jolie nods for me to watch it just before a very unflattering image of my face after a workout appears onscreen beside a brutish, evil-looking picture of Champion Fang. A huge question mark bridges the two. Inflammatory banners scroll beneath.

“‘Master and Apprentice: a new legacy of tyranny?’” I read aloud, dumbfounded. “Ignoring what an awful picture that is, what the hell is this?”

Jolie kicks back in her chair, resting her feet on the edge of my gurney. “Since our escapade, our favorite megacorporation has been strongarming their media influence into waging open war against every one of the champion’s agendas. All his reforms, all his work to diminish corporate power and return it to the leagues, all of it is getting blasted to shreds on the streams. They’re throwing his public reputation in the meat grinder for openly defying them at the skyscraper, and we’re the fuel.” The screen cycles to new images of a wrathful Ajax and deranged-looking Mori captured from a security cam the instant before it melted to slag. “We fucked up, Mars.”

I sit up straight and jam a finger at the screen, ignoring the pains that flare across my body. “Why… how can they do this? We saw Bishop down there. We know they’re responsible for kidnapping him now. They could still have him down there in some tank we don’t even know was being used for. Why aren’t the streams talking about that? Why aren’t there mobs trying to break into the skyscraper? Bishop had thousands of fans.”

“They’re not saying anything because it’s part of the fight.” Jolie shuts down the screen before I can get any angrier. Drops her JOY into a bag beneath her chair. It hits the ground with a dull thunk. “Shimano Heavy is the biggest corporate entity in the city. Mori wasn’t wrong when she said they own half of everything. That includes the news streams and the leagues. If Fang announced what we know about Bishop, it wouldn’t just make a mob at SHI’s front door. It would start a city-wide riot.” She shakes her head slowly, holding my gaze until I finally grunt and look away. “Every citizen has the ability to fight, but that doesn’t mean they should. It would be a slaughter on both sides. Like the street war in the Vents all over again. The Champion can’t risk that. He’s a good man. I’m sure he wants to solve this without needless bloodshed. It’s simple politics.”

“Politics that shouldn’t even be in the discussion,” I snort. “The Champion is the strongest, so he should make the rules. That’s how it should be. End of story.” My stomach growls and I crane my head up, looking towards a set of screened doors at the far end of the room. “Where is the old man, by the way?”

“Gone. We’re at his estate now. Burned hard for the villages after that fiasco of an escape.”

I digest the information slowly. Once the hub of our Section, the villages became our rustic outskirts after the capital was founded. Much of our original culture came from them. Most has faded or been absorbed into nonexistence, but you can still see signs of it in certain parts of the city, both high and low. I’ve never had a reason to travel outside the capital myself. Beyond the never-ending metropolis, there’s not much else to see in the Section. The outskirts are mountainous seaside territories filled with rice fields and small, sleepy towns. Good for a vacation, not terribly interesting for much more than that. Ajax came to the capital from one. Like the Vents, fighting talent is rare to see emerging from the villages. It’s a byproduct of their lack of universities and combat schools. Most of their emigrants are actors, artisans, or tradesmiths who specialize in JOYless fabrication.

“…Fang rode here and dropped us off, then took off flying back to the capital without so much as a word,” Jolie continues. “We’ve been locked on the premises by his servants for the foreseeable future. It’s not a bad place to be locked. Especially given your condition,” she mutters. “SHI doubtlessly has eyes on every one of our homes, waiting for us to show.”

“And they can’t reach us here,” I muse, finishing the thought. “Mori?”

One word is enough to convey an entire paragraph of curiosity to my sister. She pantomimes pulling out a handgun and pulling the trigger against her skull. “Off committing petty crime, I’m sure. She’s going stir crazy. Sneaks past the attendants and brings us dinner most nights, though. Usually fast food. But it’s better than eating rice for every meal.”

“I’m sure Ajax would be fine with rice.”

Jolie chuckles. “He is. Says it’s good for his soul to eat simple food, or something even more bourgeoise.” She waves a flippant hand to dismiss the line of inquiry. Too flippantly. Trying to dissuade me from paying attention to the telltale way her heel scoots marginally closer to her hidden book. I release the observation and watch contentedly while she nods towards the paper screen making a wall on the other side of the room. Sunlight streams through its thin margins, printing wooden shadows across the rice mat floor.

“He’s waiting for you, by the way. In the garden.”