Ellie was having a very confusing day.She was planning on enjoying another peaceful afternoon with her aunt in the park while shooting tin cans with her crossbow.
This was Ellie"s favorite way of pa.s.sing time.
Her aunt was one of the coolest persons she knew. She was always joyful, always giving good advice, always letting her play with dangerous toys, always spoiling her, and on top of all that, she was just so freaking weird.
The first time Ellie ever met her aunt she just knocked on her door looking like a total mess appearance-wise while bringing some weird lady dressed in a white blanket with her. She had black hair just like Ellie, but her hair was much shorter and looked like an absolute disaster.
Ellie had heard about her aunt from her mother. How she one day simply vanished without saying a single word and completely scared both her mother and her grandmother to death with worry.
They both looked all over the place for her but never even got a clue as to where she had gone.
Ellie was just a baby when this all happened so she didn"t fully grasp why this was such a big deal.
But then the missing aunt finally showed up one day. Wearing some weird clothes and carrying some weird wooden object while also bringing a weird woman with her. Everything about Ellie"s aunt was weird.
Ellie didn"t want to get too close to her at first, but her mother insisted that she was a good person and needed support now more than ever.
"Do I have to…?"
"She"s your family too Ellie. You two need to learn to get along. She"s been through a lot and needs our help right now."
"Fiiiine..."
Been thought a lot. What exactly did happen to her aunt? Every time they asked her story she simply turned her face and went "It"s too much pain...", or at least that"s what her mother would hear, but for Ellie, it felt like she was saying "Sigh… Too much of a pain to explain...".
Not once did Ellie ever feel like her aunt needed help. In fact, her aunt at times felt like she didn"t need anything at all.
She was crazy strong for her age, always helping her grandmother clean the house by carrying some heavy objects that would give trouble even to her dad. She had a really easy time handling people during difficult situations. And always smiled no matter how bad things looked.
One time Ellie, her mother, and her aunt went shopping together and they saw a rob in progress. Her aunt somehow predicted where the robbers were going to go as if she had dealt with it on a daily basis and went to chase after them on foot. She actually found their hiding spot and managed to lure them into a trap by making them chase after her and delivered all to the police.
How did she figure out where the robbers were going? How did she trick them? How did she not turn into swiss cheese by being shot by the robbers? How did she look so calm during all that? Ellie had no idea.
After she was done she simply walked towards the girl and her mother and smiled with peace. She then released a very bizarre line towards the two while thinking out loud.
"Oh, man… It"s so much easier when they don"t have silver metal..."
Ellie"s mother smacked her aunt for almost giving her a heart attack and started to lecture her.
"Have you lost your mind??"
"Wha… What?? What did I do??"
But Ellie was feeling something else. She felt like she was looking at a superhero. She didn"t know what the deal with her aunt was, but she was sure of one thing...
"Aunt Evie… You"re sooooo coooool!!!!"
"!!!" x2
Ellie"s mom smacked her aunt again after seeing that reaction.
"See what you did?? Now she thinks doing dangerous things is fun!!"
"She needed me here to find that out? How exactly have you been raising he- Ouch!!! Stop smacking me!!!"
After that, Ellie stuck to her aunt like a flea to a dog.
She wanted to know everything about her. How she thinks, how she acts, how she became so weird, where did she get that crossbow, what the h.e.l.l even was silver metal.
The young girl would often try to sneak out from her mother"s sight and go visit her aunt in secrecy to hang out with her.
They would play in the park, watch action movies, buy video-games, and pretty much, do a ton of things that would make her mother ground her forever if she ever found out about it.
But her favorite thing to do was to listen to Evlin"s stories.
Just like everything else about her, her stories were so weird. Tales about some warrior girl who would go around punching people in the face carrying a crossbow and tried to run away from some knife boy alongside a group of friends with different powers and abilities, which resulted in all of them fighting on top of a mountain against a giant dragon.
There were some things Ellie didn"t fully get though. Why did the girl used a crossbow if she attacked with her fists? Why was there only one mountain with a giant dragon while all the other mountains were normal? Why didn"t the girl just let the dragon and the knife kid fight each other?
But Evlin would always say something to try and convince the girl to not think too much about it.
"It"s just a story Ellie… It"s not meant to make sense, it"s meant to be fun and engaging while teaching some life lessons."
"You can be fun while making sense, can"t you?"
"Well… I guess..."
Evlin and Ellie were on her aunt"s bed while discussing the story and eating a slice of pepperoni pizza. Her aunt was obsessed with pizza. It seemed that the place she had vanished into didn"t have any kind of junk food.
Ellie then started to question the logic on her aunt"s stories.
She was commenting about one time where the hero of the story simply allowed her sister to turn herself into a dryad.
"I still don"t know why the girl let her sister fuse with a monster plant… That was kinda dumb of her..."
"Y- Yeah… A bit..."
"I mean… It"s her sister!! How could she just let her fuse her with a monster? It was so obvious that the monster would try to take over her mind."
"... Right… Obvious, yeah..."
"And also… I feel that the final battle was kinda weak..."
"Eh…!!??"
"I mean… All the girl did was basically shoot the dragon and punch him really hard… Doesn"t she kinda already do that all the time??"
"I… I guess..."
"That"s boring… If she was a real mage, she should have tried to make a bigger spectacle!!"
"... A spectacle…?"
"Yeah!! Mom once took me to a circus with dad, and we saw how the magician would use tons of tricks to make us go "Whoa!!!", you know?"
She would move her arms while making sound effects with her mouth as if trying to replicate the emotions she felt at the circus.
"I see… You would have liked something more epic..."
"Yeah!! Yeah!!! What if the dragon actually had nine heads instead of three like a hydra?? What if he was so big that he actually could swallow the whole mountain?? What if the mage had a catchphrase like "It"s showtime!!!" or had more than three powers to fight him??"
"More powers…?"
"Yeah!!! You said the mage used three kinds of powers to beat the dragon. What if she had a ton of different magics and used one after another to make the dragon go "Boom!!!". Wouldn"t that be cool??"
"... … … Yeah… It would..."
"Can you tell me a story like this next time aunt Evie??"
"Sure, Ellie… Next time... But it seems like you have a lot of ideas yourself... Wanna try telling your own story one day?"
"Me?? My own story?? That would be so cool!!!"
And so their days continued. Day after day, the small child would play with her aunt, listen to the adventures of the aggressive crossbow mage, and become closer and closer to her.
Until that fateful day came when everything changed.
Ellie is nine-years-old currently and was enjoying a peaceful afternoon at her favorite playground while her aunt watched over from a bench.
She was setting up a line of tin cans to shoot with her crossbow, or rather, her aunt"s crossbow that she had received as a present during the day they first met. She wanted it for herself because it looked like a plane and she loved the concept of flying, but her aunt then said that she would never play with anything related to leaving the ground. It appeared she was afraid of heights.
But just as she was about to shoot them, a strange girl with twin ponytails approached her.
"Hi!!"
"Oh, hi!"
She seemed to be twelve-years-old and was wearing a short-sleeved purple s.h.i.+rt and looking at Ellie with a weird smile. The reason it was so weird was because one of her eyes had a weird glowing green color.
"You must be stick-girl"s daughter..."
"Huh… What…?"
"That crossbow… It belongs to stick-girl, right?"
"Stick what....? No, that"s from my aunt Evlin… She"s over there..."
"Oh, her niece… I see… All the same in the end..."
"...??"
"Say… Do you know how to really use this?"
"Huh, yeah… My aunt taught me..."
"Did she now? Can you show me?"
"Sure!!"
Ellie wasn"t really feeling ok talking with this girl with weird eyes, but she couldn"t resist the idea of showing off her skills with a crossbow. She felt like she was the hero from her aunt"s story whenever she used that thing.
She aimed at the tin cans and managed to blow off every single one with her plastic arrows.
"Not bad!"
"Thanks!"
Maybe this girl wasn"t so bad, is what Ellie was thinking. No one who liked crossbows could be bad.
"But is that all?"
"Huh…?"
"I mean… You can do much more than that right?"
"More... ?"
"Here… Try with this!"
The girl gave Ellie some kind of red crystal from her back pocket. Ellie was mesmerized looking at the small object.
"What is this…?"
"It"s a special arrow called absorbing crystal… Try shooting with this, and something really cool will happen!!"
"Something cool? Something… Weird?"
"Maybe… You curious?"
"..."
Ellie didn"t answer and simply grabbed the crystal. She was feeling very attracted to the red object for some reason.
"Thanks!!"
Ellie was about to shoot the tin cans again when the girl suddenly stopped her.
"Wait!!"
"!!??"
"Why not show your aunt your amazing skills?"
"My aunt…?"
"I"m sure she will love it!!"
"Really??"
She could impress her aunt if she managed to shoot with that crystal? That"s all Ellie could possibly want. Her aunt always showed her so many amazing things, this could finally be her time to do the same. She couldn"t wait to try this weird red arrow.
"Ah!! Thank you… Errr..."
"Mia… Call me Mia!"
"Thanks, Mia!! I can"t wait to use this!! Aunt Evie will be so surprised!!"
"Oh… I have no doubt..."
The young girl started to rush towards her aunt to show her new present from the creepy green-eyed girl.
"Aunt Evie!! Aunt Evie!! You"ll never guess what I just got!!"
Her aunt seemed to have been lost in her own mind for a bit. Ellie would see her being like that sometimes. Dozing off while looking at nothing as if she was trying to remember some kind of long math formula.
"What is it, Ellie?"
"Tdah!!!"
Ellie showed her hand and revealed the small object to her. She couldn"t wait to show her favorite aunt how good she had become with the present she received from her.
"E- Ellie... What is this...?"
"A girl with twin ponytails gave it to me! She said it was called... Mmmm... What was the name again...?"
The girl was so excited that she didn"t even look at Evlin"s face. When she finally did, she realized that the woman was shaking for some reason.
"...??"
"Ellie... Did you say the girl that gave it to you had twin ponytails??"
Ellie started to prepare to shoot her new arrow.
"Yeah!! She also said that I was using the crossbow wrong! If I place the crystal in it something cool will happen! Watch!!"
Her aunt started to scream something but Ellie had already launched the crystal at her target, and before she noticed, a huge explosion of fire started to take over the scenery.
"Aaaahhh!!"
"Ellie!!!"
The crystal that weird girl gave to Ellie just started to catch on fire and completely blew the wall the tin cans were standing on into to pieces.
Her ears were ringing because of the explosion. She looked at her aunt holding her and screaming something she couldn"t hear. Was she mad at her? She couldn"t understand what she was saying but the last thing she wanted was her aunt to be angry at her.
"I"m- I"m sorry!!! I didn"t... I didn"t mean to..."
She then started to hear small bits of her voice again.
"... ... ... Ponytail ... ... ...Her name... ... ...?"
"...??"
"Ellie... This ponytail girl... Did she say what her name was?"
"Wha... What...?"
Her aunt looked scared. She wasn"t worried about the crystal. She was worried about the girl. Why? Why would her aunt that never got scared with anything suddenly act so terrified of one girl?
"Ellie!!"
"Mi- Mia... She said her name was Mia..."
Something was wrong. Very wrong. Evlin wasn"t just terrified, she was acting like the world was about to end. Who was that girl?
"Did you like my present?"
The two heard a voice coming from the bench her aunt was sitting on and stared at the cause of all this chaos. The weird-eyed girl was acting like she was having fun observing their distress.
"Mia!!!?? What are you doing here??"
Ellie looked around and noticed all the parents and their kids running around in panic completely lost on what to do. So many people got hurt because of that explosion, because of Ellie"s mistake.
"Long time no see... Stick-girl!"
She looked at the girl that gave her the crystal that caused all this and noticed that her aunt was glaring at her as if she wanted to snap her neck. Ellie had seen her aunt almost every day, but today was the first time she ever saw her so scared and so angry.
That was when she realized, this girl was really not normal. She was dangerous, very dangerous, and the two of them had a story together.
"Aunt Evie...? Who is this girl...?"
"... Elaine... Stay behind me... Ok?"
"O- Ok..."
Evlin called her niece with her full name. She never did that before. Ellie was becoming more and more worried by the second.
Evlin stood up while continuing to glare at the ponytail girl.
"You are not welcome here... Either of you... Go back now!!"
Either of them? What was Evlin talking about? Ellie continued to look but she only saw one girl in front of them.
"Sorry stick-girl, can"t be helped... You took both of our favorite toys from us and left us with nothing to play... So now, we will be playing with you!!"
"I said to return... NOW!!!"
The weird-eyed girl grinned and extended her arm showing her open hand. It looked like she was trying to ask for a high-five but between each of fingers, something that made Evlin shake even more. Four red crystals.
"You didn"t say please!"
"!!!"
Four red crystals. A single one was enough to blow up a portion of the playground. How much damage could four of these things cause?
Evlin tried to calm herself down and tried to talk again.
"... What do you want...?"
The girl lowered her arm and placed her crystals in her pocket.
"How would you like to have dinner with me?"