Ella sat on a flat piece of rock situated on a hill overlooking the quarry nearby. Her legs were crossed, both hands resting in her lap, and her back completely straight. There was an air of poshness to her presence and posture, which could be interpreted as a bit strange considering her company. A man lay half-beaten to death by Ella’s feet. She had been trying to gain information from him concerning the mining operations, and whom all of them worked for. Alas, the man had told her nothing of value. All he knew was that they were drilling for important resources, and that he had never heard anything about a Vault. Ella was quickly losing her patience with her captive, and the blistering desert did not do any favors.

Her attention was stolen by a terrible ruckus emanating from the encampment at the base of the mine. Ella could make out a vehicle with the plain eye, but not much else. She grabbed a set of binoculars from her backpack sitting next to her. It was a high-tech gadget that identified individuals by motion and outlined them with a framework. She could see the vehicle up close now, which resembled a bandit design of some sort, or perhaps it just appeared that way because of the dried out patches of blood. The binoculars identified the driver, who had lavishly exited the vehicle and engaged the personnel.

“That’s her, what’s her name?—Bubblegum,” Ella said to herself. The Siren had heard of the pseudo-psychotic woman driver by hearsay. She was practically a celebrity to some people on Iflides. However, there was no doubt that the Star Psycho was skilled. Her fame had definitely not come to her by doing nothing. Ella had to give the woman praise for that, and the fact that she was quite attractive despite her affiliations. The carnage caused by Bubblegum unfolded fast and whoever resisted her met a swift end by means of the woman’s car, which ran everyone over. Not to mention the massive explosion that provided a satisfying climax to the scene.

The sand cloud eventually reached Ella’s position further away, but with less intensity. She covered her mouth and nose with the scarf she was wearing. Her white t-shirt, although already a bit dirty, turned into a muddy-yellowish coloration. Ella’s cargo pants were unaffected, however, being perfectly suited for the harsh conditions. But, a few grains of sand were the least of her problems. If that notorious psycho-bitch had found out about this place, there was bound to be something of value in the mine. Was Bubblegum also looking for the Vault? Ella could not be sure, but she was not about to risk something like that. She desperately wanted to find out more about her ‘kind’, Sirens, and the Vault was her only lead at this point.

The man half-beaten to death met his demise by means of Ella’s boot heel. His skull was crushed in an instant, propelled by intense Siren energies, and blood splattered all over the sand around them. It was a satisfying noise, however, and Ella chuckled to herself. She then slid down the dunes of the hill and into the other side of the encampment from where Bubblegum had so violently entered. Ella had no intention of making her presence known to the workers or guards in the mine, or the psycho for that matter—the last thing she wanted to do was to fight a psycho, least of all Bubblegum. However, things never go according to plan.

Ella snuck around the corner of a metallic building and accidentally ran into several individuals armed to the teeth. They had obviously been alerted by the psycho’s entrance and were gearing up for a fight. Upon seeing Ella, they were nearly as startled as she was and a moment of clam before the storm erupted. The men could not possibly know that they were in a stand-off with a Siren, but it would certainly be known to them a second later or in the afterlife. Ella quickly extended her arm and released a massive, spherical barrier of force that traveled towards the men at an incredible speed. As it hit them, they were launched backwards and swept away as if struck by a tidal wave.

“Shit,” Ella exclaimed after the spectacle she had just caused. The energy from her phase ability was quite visible from afar, so the chances of Bubblegum noticing it were high. However, some of the men did not die and were somewhat recovering. Ella took the opportunity of confusion to slip behind another building. She began to scale the structure in order to reach the roof and get a better view of things, and maybe locate Bubblegum. Ella wanted to stay undetected for as long as possible, as she was not entirely sure what would happen if the two women clashed.