Elisa disappeared without making a sound.
One morning, she was simply gone.
She hadn't returned to her apartment, the laboratory, or any of the research centers. She hadn't even left behind an energy trace that could be tracked. The only thing they found was her probation tracking device, deactivated and sitting on a table.
Only the bare essentials had disappeared along with her: tools, devices, blueprints, and a couple of personal belongings.
Not a final word.
Not a note.
Not a goodbye.
Only absence.
When Isabella found out, her heart sank.
She ran all over the city, asking those who had been Elisa's colleagues, checking the alternative laboratories, searching shelters, industrial areas, gardens, and forests—even the places where Elisa used to hide during her childhood.
She found no sign of her anywhere.
Elisa's energy signature was completely outside standard tracking parameters.
Only someone like her could manage to disappear like that.
"Eli... where are you?" Isabella whispered as she searched through an abandoned laboratory filled with dust and the remains of old components.
Guilt began to weigh her down with unbearable heaviness.
Had she been too harsh?
Had she failed to support her?
Should she have stood up to the council more firmly?
Isabella returned home with trembling hands.
She collapsed onto the sofa and covered her face, crying silently.
I couldn't help her. Again.
That was the sentence she repeated over and over and over again.
That night, with trembling hands and eyes swollen from crying so much, Isabella made a risky decision: she would speak to the entire planet.
The message was broadcast across every audiovisual network, from the public holograms in the city squares to the orbital communication channels.
Isabella stood behind a podium, looking vulnerable and sincere.
"My name is Isabella Solarium of Aetheris... and I want to speak to Elisa Holdstar," she began, taking a deep breath. "I don't know where you are. I don't know if you can hear me. I don't know if you're safe. But please... I want you to come back."
Silence filled the broadcast.
Thousands of people watched her.
No one said a word.
"If you're watching this," she said, struggling to breathe, "I want to apologize."
"I want to say I'm sorry," she continued. "For not listening to you enough. For not understanding you when you needed it most. For not supporting you the way I promised I always would."
Her eyes began to fill with tears.
"I'm not going to make excuses. I know I failed you. I know I wasn't by your side when you needed me most. I know I should have believed in you more than I did, and..." She swallowed, trying to compose herself. "...I'm sorry."
At the end, she lowered her gaze.
"Please, Eli... come back."
The entire planet stood still.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"I don't know where you are. I don't know if you're safe. But if you can hear me... come back. Come home. I promise I'll put everything else aside so we can make things right together. Just... come back."
Many of those watching the broadcast felt a knot tighten in their chests.
But somewhere far away—so far away that it didn't even appear on Aetheris's maps—Elisa was watching the screen of a worn-out device.
Her expression was unreadable.
She simply turned off the broadcast and went back to work.
Elisa was in a region of Aetheris that very few people knew about: a desolate desert where even the sun seemed to lose itself in the sheer unfamiliarity of the place.
It was the emptiest place on the planet.
No one went there or even knew it existed.
Except her.
She had built a workshop using transmuted materials, concealing it among quantum dunes that reflected light in random patterns.
Inside, the silence was almost absolute.
And within that silence, Elisa worked.
She worked there for months.
Months without rest.
Months without speaking to anyone.
Months spent ignoring the guilt, the pain, and the constant feeling that the entire world had betrayed her.
She had no desire to cry.
She had no strength left to regret anything.
The pain had transformed into a single purpose:
Prove that they were wrong.
That they had always been wrong.
Every time she assembled a new component, she would mutter:
"They'll see what I'm capable of... Someday, they'll see... If they don't want to accept my inventions... I'll force them to see what they can do."
Her face was gaunt.
Her hands trembled constantly due to stress and lack of rest.
Her notes piled up in chaotic heaps.
But her eyes...
Her eyes burned with a new determination, one that was harsh and desperate.
She designed impossible machines:
Weapons that absorbed stellar energy.
Weather-control antennas capable of creating colossal storms.
Indestructible containment fields.
Advanced teleportation systems.
Dimensional storage structures capable of encapsulating entire cities.
Every invention was an evolutionary leap.
And each one of them was born from pain.
Time continued to pass.
Months of obsession.
Months of loneliness.
Months of creating, and creating, and creating without stopping.
Elisa's appearance had even begun to change because of the inventions she created. Her hair, which had once been blonde, was now brown after a failed experiment caused a pulse that distorted reality inside her laboratory for a few seconds, leaving her hair that way.
Her eyes had also changed, going from blue to violet after radiation from an object affected her vision for a few moments, nearly leaving her blind in the process.
When Elisa looked in the mirror and saw her changed appearance, she was surprised and felt melancholy for a few moments. However, she also found her new appearance strangely familiar, as if something similar had happened to her before. For a moment, she almost felt as though she could see and sense herself as more powerful than ever, as if the way she looked now belonged to a stronger, better version of herself—or at least, that was what she believed.
She even began to think she liked this appearance more than her previous one, which motivated her even further.
Until the day finally arrived.
The day she decided that all of Aetheris would see her again.
Elisa knew she was crossing boundaries.
But it was all she had left.
She would make everyone understand her.
Or, if necessary... fear her.
One bright afternoon, when the sky was clear and the city's floating platforms shimmered with a bluish light, a portal opened in the middle of the square, expanding into a circle.
Elisa emerged from the portal.
She floated above a platform generated by one of her own devices.
Her eyes carried a mixture of feverish brilliance and ancient pride.
Her hair, more disheveled than ever, seemed to move with the static generated by her own inventions.
Around her, holographic drones broadcast her presence throughout the entire city.
And across the entire planet.
"Listen to me," she said in a firm voice, amplified by a wave modulator. "I've come to show you what I've accomplished. What you refused to see. What your future could be... if you stopped holding me back."
She raised a small device with a brilliant white core.
"This generator absorbs stellar energy and transforms it into renewable power."
The camera focused on the sky.
A nearby star—one of the system's energy sources—began to darken.
As if someone were slowly extinguishing its flame.
Alarms began sounding throughout the city.
"This," Elisa said, "is only a demonstration of the potential of my inventions."
She then placed a compact antenna on the ground.
She activated a panel.
And on the horizon, a monstrous hurricane formed in a matter of seconds.
Minutes later, she disintegrated it with a movement of her hand.
The guards arrived in large numbers, but Elisa activated another one of her devices:
A spherical energy field enclosed them as if they were insects trapped in amber.
And then, amid all the chaos, a figure appeared in the crowd:
Isabella.
Sweating.
Out of breath.
"ELISA!"
Her voice pierced through the noise like lightning.
Isabella ran toward her, pushing aside anyone who got in her way.
When she finally reached Elisa, she was gasping for air, her eyes red and her expression a mixture of desperation and relief.
"Eli..." she said, barely able to breathe. "Thank God you're alive... but... what happened to you? Your hair and your eyes..."
Elisa looked at her with unnatural serenity.
"I'm alive because I left," she replied. "And because I had nothing left to lose. The way I look now is just proof of that."
Isabella swallowed.
"What are you doing? This... this is too much. You're putting the entire planet at risk!"
"At risk?" Elisa raised an eyebrow. "Saving it is putting it at risk? I'm simply showing you what you always refused to see."
"But not like this!" Isabella shouted, her voice trembling. "You're terrifying everyone. You're attacking the guards. You're tampering with a star, Eli... That could destroy us!"
"You always exaggerate things," Elisa replied. "You said you would always think the best of me, but now it seems like all you can see is the worst in me, too."
"That's not true!"
Elisa took a step forward.
"Oh, really? When I was dismissed... whose idea was it? Who decided that my mistakes were unforgivable? Who decided I was out?"
"The council made that decision, not me!" Isabella replied, tears in her eyes.
"And did you try to stop them?" Elisa asked, a new sharpness entering her voice. "Did you really try?"
Isabella opened her mouth, but no words came out.
And that was enough for Elisa.
What does it matter if the planet suffers a little damage while I'm teaching it a lesson? Did they ever care about what happened to me?
Isabella felt her stomach tighten.
"Don't say that..."
But Elisa continued speaking, each word more bitter than the last.
"All my life, I've been treated like an anomaly. Like a threat. Like a mistake. And you..." She pointed at her, her finger trembling. "...you were the only exception. But even you... even you left me alone when I needed you most."
"That's not fair!" Isabella shouted, her voice breaking. "I tried to help you! I did everything I could!"
"It wasn't enough," Elisa said quietly. "And now you're standing in my way. Just like everyone else."
A heavy silence fell between them.
"Eli... I just want to help," Isabella said in a broken voice. "You know I tried."
"You tried to protect your own image!" Elisa exploded. "That's what you did! Because when everyone was watching you, you couldn't afford to be seen standing on the side of the planet's anomaly!"
Isabella took a step back.
"That's not how it is..."
"Isn't it?" Elisa moved closer. "You were always at the center of everything, Isabella. Always loved. Always respected. Always listened to. You had everything. Everything."
"I only had my ideas. And when I needed them most... you rejected them, too."
Isabella's eyes filled with tears.
"Eli... I never wanted to abandon you..."
"But you did," Elisa interrupted her. "Just like everyone else."
Elisa raised another device: a capsule capable of absorbing an entire planet.
"I'm going to fix Aetheris. I'm going to rebuild it. And this time, you won't be able to ignore what I'm capable of creating."
"No!" Isabella reached out toward her. "I know you're hurt, but your attempt to save us could destroy the entire system! I swear I understand you, but you don't know how matter will react when compressed at that level! Eli, please!"
"You're shouting the same things everyone else has said to me," Elisa said, lowering her gaze for a moment. "It's sad to hear that from you."
"I'm asking you as your friend..." Isabella murmured. "Please... give up your inventions."
"Stop saying you're my friend," Elisa replied. "Because if you were... you wouldn't be here trying to stop me."
"If they won't let me fix Aetheris... then I'll have to fix it myself."
Isabella extended her hand, trembling. She took a deep breath, feeling as though her heart were breaking.
"Elisa... if you go through with this... you'll leave me no choice but to stop you."
Elisa blinked, surprised.
"Are you threatening me?"
"I don't want to," Isabella answered with brutal honesty. "But if you don't stop... I'll have to. Please, Eli... this is your last chance. Stop, or I'll have to stop you myself."
Elisa slowly raised a capsule.
The light from the device illuminated her tense, wounded, exhausted face.
"Then..." she whispered. "You're against me, too. Just like everyone else. Just like always."
Isabella didn't answer.
Her tears answered for her.
"Fine. If you're going to stand in my way..." Elisa said, her voice broken, fractured by years of pain. "...then I'll have to force you to understand me."
The air trembled.
The crowd held its breath.
The drones focused on the moment as if it were the climax of an inevitable tragedy.
The entire city held its breath.
The council watched in horror.
The guards remained trapped.
The wind seemed to have stopped above them.
And then, with no more words left that could save them...
Elisa and Isabella, friends since childhood, prepared to face each other as enemies.