Chapter 71. - The Three Who Hunt

On the dark ocean surface, Lustbane is racing across the ocean surface. Causing pink lighting to arc across her body and the ocean surface for a mile wide radius all around her.

Marine life floating to the surface, burnt and cooked. She races onwards smiling delightfully. Waters spraying from her legs and feet moving at impossible speeds.

In the distance a ship comes into view, a massive freighter shipping goods. She smiles as she licks her lips saying "Hmmm just what I needed, a snack before the main course."

One of the sailors spots her moving towards them, as he whispers "What the hell?...." squinting his eyes as Lustbane closes in, by the time he sees her figure it's too late.

He starts panting and breathing heavily, his mind going foggy as he stares at her slack jawed, her purple suit actuating her curvy figure, a sleek suit made of latex with a deep plunging and open neckline, her round and bountiful chest bouncing as she jumps and lands, her toned midriff exposed with hip high boots on. It looks like little more than a slingshot bikini with boots too tall, a collar and sleeves with no shirt attached around her arms and neck. All in a matching dark purple latex that shines in the light.

Lustbane leaps up gracefully landing on the ships desk on the stern. The pink lightning arcing across and frying the man standing there slack jawed, the look of bliss never leaving his face.

She simply looks at him with a seductive and amused grin. Walking across the deck slowly as her hair is whipping around in the wind, eyes glowing pink, hunger radiating from her like a palpable force.

She inhales as she walks across the deck slowly, her wide hips swaying back and forth as if she knows the world is watching, and she likes it, savoring the scent on the air as she says "Closer....getting so close I can taste it almost."

The sailors around her erupting into chaos as they begin to fight each other over her, turning their weapons on each other, looks of mad obsession in their eyes. Gunfire erupting across the ship as a pink mist spreads from her body all over.

When she passes people fall over, overwhelmed by desire, their emotions and desire drained from them leaving them empty eyed on the deck like vegetables. Aware, alive, but empty inside. Utterly devoid of emotion, thought, their very selves drained and fed on.

Even the marine life is going wild, dolphins attacking sharks and each other, sharks eating everything, entire schools of small fish cannibalizing themselves, swarming larger fish. Great whites leaping up into the side of the massive freighter trying and failing to get on the ship.

Steel warping as she passes by, paint melting, Lustbane simply smiles widely, licking her lips as she says "Mmmm not bad, but not the delicious meal waiting for me." She reaches out languidly with her arm, delicate fingers tracing along a shipping container that melts into a puddle of pink goo on the deck.

In a deep underground bunker, a technician stares horrified at a screen. A satellite captures the images of the horror happening on the ship deck and a technician says "Sir....whatever that is...it's heading straight for North America." The gruff military supervisor man behind him asks "Is it hostile? Dangerous?" The technician swallows too loudly, too deeply, as he says "Sir...every person on the ship dropped as she passed by, empty eyed and in a vegetable like state AFTER turning on each other with their weapons. She MELTED a steel shipping container. So....yes?" The supervisor pinches the bridge of nose.

The supervisor snatches the bottle of tums and pops one into his mouth.

Lustbane leaps off the front of the eerily quiet ship now, except for the few surviving sharks circling the waters. She begins to race across the ocean surface again, pink lightning arcing across her body even further than before. Pink light can be seen for miles racing across the ocean surface at impossible speed.

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In a small rural town, somewhere in the Midwest U.S. a woman wearing a black form fitting bodysuit, with red accents along the shoulders, around her thin waist accentuating her surprisingly thick hips, plump thighs jiggling in the light material only offering coverage of her very pale skin, more red accents along the open cleavage, large pale breasts bouncing exaggeratedly as she skips along holding a two dimensional shadows hand.

The shadow standing upright is singing "Ring around the rosy, pocketful of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down!" a mouth opening and closing in time with the shadows singing, forming a mouth shape that is just a hole in the shadows physics breaking form.

As the singing is heard birds and insect fall from the sky bursting into ash before they touch the ground, behind the two forms skipping along is a wide trail of dark drifting ash all down the road for miles and miles.

The Laughing Shadow is smiling happily, too widely, skipping merrily like a child in an amusement park. Stopping suddenly as she spots someone looking at her horrified from a small town bar, a man holding a cigarette between shaky fingers.

She smiles even wider, mouth stretching too far on her face as she asks "Hi! Don't mind me, good sir. Just looking for a man who shouldn't exist. Or some such nonsense the basement-god titled him." She keeps skipping down the road even as the huge burly man rubs his eyes in disbelief and horror dawning across his face when what he sees isn't going away.

She stops at a building with large letters "Police" across the front and she snaps her fingers as if having a sudden idea, "Hey, the boys in blue will help! That's like their whole schtick." She hops up the steps and opens the double doors with a flourish.

Stepping into the front entrance shouting "I have arrived! Commence with the screaming. No photo-ops, hold your questions until the end."

She looks up at the ceiling saying "Watch this basement-god! Ten bucks says the first guy faints."

She skips up to the front desk clerk staring at her with his head tilted in curiosity as she holds her shadows hand, her shadow waves at the front desk clerk as if meeting an old friend. The Laughing Shadow keeps grinning widely as she asks "Have you seen a boy? He breaks stuff without meaning to. About yay high, kinda sad looking."

Her shadow steps forward leaning over and waving it's two dimensional hand in the officers face before he faints, falling over and her shadow says "Called it. Creepy basement-god owes you ten bucks."

She turns around skipping out happily as she says to her shadow "Well, it was worth a shot." her shadow replies "No it wasn't, you're just insane." The Laughing Shadow says, offense written on her face as she says "What!? Look who's talking! You're missing a whole dimension, you can't talk."

Every shadow in the town then turns on their owners, people running out screaming being chased by two dimensional shadows chasing them looking absurd, but when caught the shadows strangle, beat, and cause a lot of mayhem. One particularly chaotic one blows up an entire gas station intentionally. Another seems to have gotten it's hand on an automatic assault rifle inside the police station.

Meanwhile in the underground bunker another technician says "Uh sir, can you come here a second?" the gruff military uniformed supervisor rubs his temples as he pops a tums into his mouth, saying with a sigh "What is it now?" walking over from the screen showing the pink glowing ocean.

The technician says "Uh....a small town in Idaho, is uh...well I'm not sure how to explain it sir. Just look." The technician points to the screen where a town is in utter chaos, explosions, gunfire, people running and screaming from two dimension shadow's, some shadows holding weapons, others just dancing in the street or laughing in place.

The gruff supervisor drops his cigar from his lip and the half-empty bottle of tums in his hands to the floor, slack jawed in equal parts horror and disbelief.

The Laughing Shadow is seen on the screen in what appears to be a very heated argument with her own shadow? Arms making wild gestures as she animatedly argues with her shadows who shakes it's head in exasperation pointing behind them at the chaos.

Back on the street leaving the small Idaho town, The Laughing Shadow is arguing with… herself?

She freezes mid‑stride.

Her head snaps upward.

She glares directly at the sky — at you.

“Oh, excuse you,” she says, offended. “I am not arguing with myself. I am arguing with my shadow. Totally different thing. Keep up, creepy basement‑god.”

Her shadow crosses its arms, shaking its head.

She huffs dramatically.

“See? This is why I don’t bring you anywhere. Everyone keeps acting like I’m the crazy one.”

Then she mutters as she walks:

“Don’t you start too! Stupid creepy basement‑god. This dumb shadow thinks I’m ‘being too violent.’ I’ll do what I want before I get to the new plaything.”

She stomps off, still arguing with both her shadow and the sky.

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Back in Europe, just before Supremia met with Rowan in Denver.

A military fort catches something on their sensors and long-range radar coming at them fast, too fast. The man with a thick French accent says "Sir, we have an unknown aircraft coming in fast!" Another man says in a thick French accent with a commanding tone "Standard procedure, fire!"

Mistaken for an enemy aircraft invading military airspace, they fire upon Supremia, massive anti-aircraft guns fire rounds designed to take down fighter jets streak through the air straight at her with the precision only modern weaponry can provide.

But the bullets curve harmlessly around her hitting the ground in a hail of bullets.

She doesn't even spare a glance as she says in an annoyed tone "Weak." without slowing down she reaches out one hand and simply closes it into a fist and the entire military fort is crushed, screams ring out for a second, one very brief second.

Then utter silence as she opens her hand and the debris scatters as if a giant hand opened.

Supremia flights straight through the falling debris that used to be an entire military base, personnel, entire aircrafts including massive carrier planes, entire buildings. All reduced to nothing more than rubble.

Debris curving around her form as she manipulates gravity, her body as dense as neutron star. Falling towards Denver, unstoppable.

"Hmph. Weak, all so fucking weak. This entire planet is weak." she says softly.

She punches out and a mountain in front of her is suddenly blown away, the entire peak explodes as if it's a dormant volcano.

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Back in the underground bunker, the supervisor is stomping down a hallway. Popping tums into his mouth like candy, chewing them loudly as he mutters to himself "Fucking freaks. Above my goddamn paygrade. Nope. Just nope."

He throws a door open after getting to the end of the hallway, slapping down three files on the desk of a woman with tired eyes and red-orange hair. She looks over at the files titled "classified - dangerous anomalous individuals" each has a picture of a woman on the front.

One with a woman wearing a half-domino mask over faintly glowing pure blue eyes with no iris' or pupils. An arrogant, annoyed look on her face. Walking through a what seems to be an industrial zone.

Another with a woman with purple hair, purple eyes, and a confident, sultry look on her standing aboard a freighter ship.

A third with what looks like a female clown but the face is wrong, make up painted on like it's a mime gone wrong. White face paint with jagged lines under her eyes, not symmetrical in the least. Skipping down the road holding a two dimensional shadow's hand somehow standing upright.

"We've got a problem."

On the desk of the woman is a fourth file open in front of her. It contains a telescope shot of deep space—a jagged, black “void” that flickers at the edges like a dying monitor, surrounded by spiral whirlpools of light that look like liquid. Red ink circles the distortions with a blunt, handwritten note in the margin: “The fabric isn’t just bending; it’s snapping. We are looking at a structural failure of the vacuum.”

Beneath the photo, a typed summary simplifies the terror: “Reality in this sector has become physically inconsistent. For all intents and purposes, the universe is broken here.”

A final line has been added in fresh ink, underlined twice: “Timestamp matches the Denver gravitational spike exactly.”