I sat cross-legged on the floor, my brow furrowed in concentration. Black smoke pooled in the space between my palms, and a flickering golden flame burned within the heart of the inky ball. It measured just a bit longer than a candle’s flame, nothing very dangerous or impressive, but it was a beautiful sight to me nonetheless.

I had gotten much better since my first time, but it was still a difficult thing to keep up. I’d asked Leonard if the way he’d taught me to do it was the way everyone did it, because it seemed very inefficient and challenging to me.

“No, that’s actually not how you’re supposed to use it when you’re fighting,” he’d said. “But it’s the way everyone starts out. In the beginning, you need to first train your body to convert the Flux into your element. Once you can make the small bit in the middle of your palms big enough to touch your hands, then you’ll understand. A kind of transformation occurs suddenly, and your body becomes much more efficient at converting the Flux. It should be even easier for you since your body’s already done that once. After that, you should be able to fight with your element on command.”

I forced my hands closer and closer as I remembered his words, straining against the thick Flux. The smoke was deceptively dense. It resisted being compressed with greater force than should’ve been possible for something that wasn’t even solid. No matter how hard I struggled and pushed, my palms hardly moved a centimetre closer.

Still, the flame within shone brighter as I got closer, and I was sure it wouldn’t be long before I could make the flame and my palms touch.

Time trickled slowly that day, and I decided to call it quits just after the three-hour mark. I’d tried and stopped and tried again more times than I cared to count, and while I’d made some progress, I could tell I wasn’t in the right state to continue training. I knew I wouldn’t be making any more progress, even if I spent the rest of the day working. Leonard’s words had left me rattled more than I cared to admit. I’d blown the warning off, but the more I thought about his words, the scarier they seemed.

I’d always known I was driven, more so than most of the people around me, but I’d never thought of the dangers that passion could carry. I liked to think I was a good person, a fact I was all the more proud of considering the places I’d grown up and the people I’d spent my childhood around. But, scarily enough, I could see myself falling onto the path that Leonard warned me of. The fire that burned within me did not care for such notions as morals and values – it had no greater purpose than to push me further in strength. And while I had a tight rein on it at the moment, who could say that of the future?

I shook my head to clear it, picking myself up off the ground and heading out of the training hall. There were no windows to get fresh air from, but I figured a walk and a change of scenery would still help.

Would I kill someone to make myself stronger? I asked myself as I stepped out of the hall. My immediate response was no; in fact, that was my response to the notion of killing anyone at all.

But I forced myself to think beyond that reaction. I had been given this second chance when all should have been over for me, and I wasn’t likely to get a third. Which meant that I could not squander this on an ideal as childish as thinking I could gain strength while maintaining my pacifism. Just as Ren had said, I needed a ruthlessness within me if I wanted to achieve greatness. And that meant, whether I liked it or not, I would have to kill if it became necessary.

And therein lay the problem. Where did I draw that line? At what point would I consider it necessary to kill someone? If they were going to kill me? Or hurt one of my own?

In my rumination, I had idly walked my way over to the dining hall without even realizing it. I only noticed when the sound of the doors pulling away brought me out of my thoughts, showing me the now-familiar scene of the empty hall and its long tables.

Deciding that I wasn’t really that hungry, I turned away from the door and returned to my aimless walking, only for Ren to turn the nearest corner in front of me a second later.

“Ah, Ruby,” he said, that customary smile lighting up his face. “Just the person I was looking for.”

“Huh, why?” I asked. “What’s up?”

Ren grinned at me. “Come on, we’re going up.” Almost before he finished speaking, he vanished back into the hallway he had just come from, an obvious excitement in his movement.

I turned the corner after him, beyond confused, but having known Ren long enough, I knew that it was better to follow him first and ask questions later.

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He waited until I caught up to him before explaining with an excited smile. “We’re being attacked,” he said, his voice so cheery it took me a second to process his ominous words.

“What?!” I asked, almost yelling in surprise.

“We’re being attacked,” Ren repeated. “I overheard two maids talking about it. They’re trying to keep it quiet because they don’t want to scare the people, but apparently, there are some kind of space pirates who’ve set their eyes on our ship.”

I couldn’t help but break into laughter at the news. It was so bizarre I would have suspected Ren of lying if I hadn’t known him so well. Not to mention, bizarre was becoming a very common theme in my life, and at this point, there was little Ren could tell me that I wouldn't believe.

“So where are we going?” I asked as my surprised laughter subsided.

“Up,” Ren said. “There are floors to this ship, and I figured the highest one would probably be the one that gives us the best view of the fighting.”

"Makes sense," I nodded, deciding to simply go along with everything instead of trying to understand any of it. That was the only way to deal with situations like these – or at least, the only way I knew how to.

I followed Ren since I had no idea where to go. He strode with purpose, with no hesitation in his footsteps. He didn't stop once at any of the turns we took, almost as if he knew the exact way to the elevator – a place I didn’t even know existed.

Within a few minutes, we arrived. Two metal doors, exactly the same as any of the others, greeted the both of us. Big yellow letters spelled out ‘ELEVATOR’ on the door, painting a streak through the middle.

“Huh,” I said. “I really should’ve spent more time exploring the place.”

Ren laughed. “You really didn’t need to. I only did ‘cause it's basically habit for me. It’s almost instinct to gather as much information as I can about new places.”

“Still, it seems like a good idea,” I said as we stepped forward, through the doors and into the confined space. Instantly, the doors shut, and, as Ren punched the highest button on the panel, the metal room began to shift, groaning as it picked up speed.

Ren shrugged. “It’s good to be prepared, but the whole preparation part of it is annoying. It’s a lot of work.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I don’t see myself doing all that, honestly. It just seems like the kind of thing that I should do.”

Ren laughed again, shaking his head. But before he could say anything, the room came to a lurching stop, the doors pulling apart again to reveal a starkly different place.

Instead of a dead gray hallway, lit only by soft white lighting, the place Ren and I were greeted with was an expansive room. The room bustled with people, all of them running about in a hurry. There was a clamour that dominated the room, loud enough that no one even batted an eye to the new arrivals. Rows of tables lined the center of the room, their surfaces glowing with screens. Most of the people crowded around the tables, discussing something with fervour.

The most peculiar part of the room, however, was undoubtedly its ceiling. Right above where I stood, it was dozens of meters above, but it curved down and eventually came down and touched the ground at the other end of the room. It didn’t take a genius to figure that the room was right against the nose of the blimp-shaped ship.

The interesting part of the ceiling was not its shape, however, but the fact that the entire thing was transparent. Like glass, it was completely see-through, revealing the inky expanse of space that we sailed through. Sparkling points of white were dusted across the void, with only one star that shone apart from the rest. Just a bit off the nose of the ship, there shone a star far bigger and brighter than the rest. From the looks of it, I assumed that we would be passing quite close to the star. Or perhaps it was a planet.

Wordlessly, Ren and I stepped into the hubbub of the room, walking aimlessly through the crowds. Even though we were total outsiders, no one even gave us a second glance, most of them too busy with their screens and jobs to even notice us at all. Just to be safe, though, I tried to emulate Ren’s movements, since he had already blended into the environment so well it was hard for me to tell if he was an outsider. Something about the ease and confidence with which he moved simply exuded an air of belonging, enough that almost no one would question his being there.

Thankfully, Ren and I had already adopted the clothing of the people, so we fit in perfectly on that end as well.

I searched the faces of the people as the two of us toured the place, strolling through the crowd unhurriedly. I wasn’t looking for anyone I would recognize – I wasn’t expecting there to be any – but it didn’t take long before my eyes caught onto the face of someone I did know.

With a subtle nudge and tilt of my head, I wordlessly signalled Ren to look where I was pointing: a table to our left where Leonard stood. He was leaning on the table, speaking earnestly with the others who stood around the table.

I glanced at Ren, and he simply nodded at me, instantly understanding the question. Striding forward with purpose, I pushed through the crowd and began to make my way to the table where Leonard stood, only for a voice to call out suddenly from behind me. A voice dripping with malice and a certain smugness that instantly rubbed me the wrong way.

“Well, well, well. That’s a face I didn’t think I’d ever again,” the voice said. “To think you survived both the bugs and the wrath of an entire first-rate gang. I really underestimated you, Ruby. Or rather, I should say I underestimated your luck.”

I didn’t turn around immediately, at first because I couldn’t quite place where I recognized the voice from, and then because I finally did, and I had to suck in a deep breath to keep myself from exploding right then and there.