Elis took one final drag of her cigarette, releasing a puff of smoke from her mouth, before putting it out, grinding it against the haul of the car as she threw it to the ground. The fresh banana flavor that entered her mouth replacing the rough, bitter taste of a real cigarette did seem to calm her down, but...
"It's not much, I guess..." She thought to herself. No mater how much the smoking temporarily alleviated her pain, it didn't go away, the unbearable agony of having her body cut open still stinging every cell in her body like lightning. But, it didn't bother her. The agony had numbed her, her senses no longer truly registering the pain as "pain", anymore. It'd simply become natural, akin to a soft breeze, the agony that she'd felt in that moment became one with every fiber of her being. Ironically, constant unimaginable pain had made it so that Elis could... no longer feel pain, the sensation only amounting to what could be described as the feeling of being splashed with warm water.
Elis began to move away from the car, moving to where the SoC's ship was. That ship. It all started on that ship. Everything she'd experienced with the Stars of Cinder, from their first battle to the calamities, to their most recent failure in stopping an Eclipse on Krieg, all tied into that ship. It all tied into that single offer that the Masked Man had made them, a proposition to save lives against a mysterious evil. How could she have known?
That when she'd accepted that proposition, she'd end up feeling so... empty? So hollow?
Well, it didn't matter anymore. She wasn't going to kill herself. Nor was she going to be taking any anti-depressant meds. Elis, at this moment, didn't know what to do. She was lost in a pit of darkness, unable to tell which way was up or down, left or right. Unable to figure out where to go from here, whether or not she should keep fighting, or simply leave the Stars of Cinder all-together. She hated the cults, after all. She couldn't just let them run rampant throughout the universe.
But, in the end... did she? Hate. It was such a strong emotion. Ever since her temporary death and mental breakdown, she'd forgotten how to feel things like Hate. Sure, she knew that the cults were a bad thing, even a child could figure that out. And even if she didn't hate them, it'd be in the best interests of everyone to simply eradicate them. But... did she even have the motivation to keep trying? Should she simply ignore her numbness, and continue fighting?
"Elis..." Timcanpy spoke telepathically to her master, "If you desire... I can arrange that we leave this planet on a separate ship."
Timcanpy offered an easy escape for Elis. Elis no longer truly cared for the cause of fighting against the cult, outside of seeing the benefits of its eradication. Her mind had been broken, shattered to far beyond recognition, leaving her with no real reason to stay with this people barring vague attachment to a few of them. She didn't care about Rex. Nor about Brownie. Nor about Dean. Nor about Adrian, or Seraphina, or Valkiria, or Skarr... The only people left in the Stars of Cinder she could truly say she held attachment to were Olorin and Charlotte...
"Maybe..." Elis murmured.
But, then, Elis remembered something.
The group's first battle. Against the calamities.
It felt so long ago, and yet... It was only really a few months ago that she'd met the group and fought with them for the first time. Put her life on the line for them, for the first time. To this day, she remembered what it felt like to be in the heat of battle with them, to see them move, fight, and grunt. She remembered telling Charlotte that she was a good person. Remembered Kentoria nearly bleeding to death trying to protect her. She remembered what that battle felt like down to the very last minute detail.
What it felt like... to have people cheer for her, after having protected them.
Skoupidia was a dying planet. It was trash. There was nothing there but famine, and death. It's destruction, in the end, meant nothing to the whole of the universe. The existence of such a planet and its people was akin to an ant being placed within the ocean that was the Universe. Snuffing it out, ultimately, wouldn't effect anything. In a way, Neptunia was the same. Sure, it was an important planet to some, but even once it was destroyed, the universe kept existing. There were an uncountable number of planets in the universe, the annihilation of two meant nothing.
And yet...
People lived on those planets. People with lives. People with dreams. People, who, when grateful, would cheer without end, straining their throats to create a vicious sound that lit up an entire world with hope.
People who could feel frightened when captured by calamities, and relieved when saved by a group of mercenaries.
People... who simply wanted to escape hell, and see the galaxy with their sister. People who just wanted to be free.
Elis's knees gave out, the girl immediately falling to the ground, her knees slamming against the ground. She felt something boil within her stomach, vomit erupting from her throat and onto the floor as thoughts flooded her mind without end. She gagged and coughed as vomit shot out from her throat, tears dripping from the corners of her eyes.
"M-Master...!?" Timcanpy shifted into human form, immediately moving to help Elis up.
"N-No... No... No..." Elis whispered to herself, leaning against the dirty, cold walls and gripping her head tightly. Charlotte's sister. What was her name, again? Elis tried to remember desperately, her head pulsating with unfathomable pain. Pain. Pain? She was feeling pain. This was unusual. But that didn't matter, now. Her name. The girl's name. What the hell was her name!?
"Ph-Phoebe..." Elis muttered.
"H-Huh...?" Timcanpy said, her expression shifting into sheer confusion.
"She... she wanted to see the galaxy. The stars. She had a dream..." Elis muttered, looking down at the floor, her eyes wide.
"And... I bet all the other people on Skoupidia had dreams to." She muttered once more. Stop it.
"They were people... Some young, some old... Some male, female, or even transgender... They... they were all people... people who... wh-who wanted to do things with their lives... And they had people they cared about... Just like Charlotte and her sister, Phoebe... Just like Seraphina and her family... her planet... their planets... Everyone on them... was killed...!!" Stop.
Elis suddenly convulsed in pain, gripping her head even tighter. Timcanpy couldn't deduce the cause of this sudden burst of pain within Elis, but regardless, she immediately began trying to heal her master, disregarding all else... And that would've worked, had Elis no shot up. With a loud shout, she placed her hands on the wall, and with a heave of all the strength she could muster, and with her teeth gritted, she violently SLAMMED her own forehead into the wall, leaving a crater on it. Timcanpy's eyes widened.
"M-Master...? E-Elis...?! What the... What are you doing...?" Timcanpy asked, "Y-You..."
Elis breathed out, stumbling backwards. Blood gushed from her head like a waterfall, painting her hair crimson and dripping into her eyes, but... she didn't care about that. Elis breathed out, the white part of her eyes being painted red from the bleed. Her fists clenched, every muscle and cell in her body tightening.
"We aren't leaving, Timcanpy..." Elis said.
"Wh-What...?" Timcanpy said, backing up as Elis began walking once more.
"We're staying with the Stars of Cinder..." Elis said, continuing to walk. Her head didn't hurt. No, she didn't even feel it. Within the chasm of emptiness that was Elis Cinder's heart, there was now one, new feeling that boiled within her heart...
"E-Elis, you need healing-" Timcanpy ignored Elis's statement, immediately beginning to heal her once more. Elis didn't stop her this time, simply continuing to walk toward the ship with her profusely bleeding head. Elis didn't feel it, though. In fact, she didn't even register it.
"Pain..." Elis thought, grunting. She could only imagine the pain that those people went through, being ripped apart. The pain that they went through having their souls ripped out, and their blood drained, praying, begging for death, anything to get rid of the pain. In comparison, this pain, her pain... It was nothing in comparison. She couldn't give up now. Not now.
If nothing else mattered, if there was only one thing Elis Cinder, through her naivety, and her weakness, and her fragility, could devote herself to, it was one thing. The absolute eradication of calamities, and the complete destruction of all calamities in the universe. That was her raison d'etre. Within the chasm of emptiness that was her heart, that purpose, that reason for living, was the only thing that shined brightly, that rage that eclipsed anything she'd ever felt before. She'd toil over it, spend day and night training for it, it didn't matter. All that mattered... All that mattered to Elis Cinder, if she could not think of anything else, if she were to truly give herself a purpose, it'd be...
Avenging those killed by the cultists and the calamities. Phoebe, Seraphina's family, all of them. All of them would die... with no exception. And anybody who got in the way of that, tried to stop her, or hold her back from that goal, was... her enemy.
Timcanpy glanced over at Elis as she walked, her eyes widened. Never in her life had she seen her master, the immature, skittish, and friendly Elis Cinder, so resolute. Her rage was not haphazard. It was cold, calculated, aimed towards a singular goal that she'd never stray from. This was no longer just Elis Cinder, not just a girl, or a mage, or a weapon smith...
This was something beyond all of that.
Something that, within the emptiness of a broken girl's heart, shined brightest.
Something that was determined.
