Vectors, Shadows, and Origins (Patreon)

Vectors, Shadows, and Origins
Commissioned by frostcz
Written by HarmonyMotion with Au Goose
Shard-Strike Universe created by Au Goose

Chapter 1

Two guards dressed in black covered the main entrance to the grand ballroom of the Azure Hotel in Houston, Texas. A stand featured a black sign which would normally feature stenciled lettering… but it was completely blank.

A large congregation of well-dressed older people sat at their white linen tables, eating their prepared portions of a small multicourse meal. The sound of clinking silverware, background murmurs, and other manner of sleazy, self-righteous mumblings and self-important congratulation filled the air.

Some screechy feedback reverberated through the speakers, followed by the tines of a fork clinking on a champagne glass. A throat clearing. The murmurs died down as all eyes landed on Representative Fuller standing at a podium.

“Good evening, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the meal, courtesy of our chef,” a coiffured, gray-haired older gentleman spoke to slight applause. “I thought the chicken apple sausage was especially delicious. I’m told they’re the best of the wurst!”

Scattered chuckles and a few groans dotted the ballroom.

“Alright, alright, I’ll stick to my day job and try not to be a stand-up comedian. Thank you to all of you who came to this fundraising dinner… as I’m sure all of you are aware, I am looking to serve another term on my platform—a platform dedicated to the safety of all humanity against the most dangerous threat we face today. And that, of course, are paranaturals.

“Now, now, I am not saying that paras are not human. But, that doesn’t mean they are not dangerous, to us, or even themselves. You wouldn’t blame fire for being fire, but surely you wouldn’t suggest that without control, fire is a dangerous, destructive threat, wouldn’t you?”

Applause and murmurs of approval. Soft nodding.

“So I am looking to run for another term with your support. We have done well to push OPUS through the House, and now I seek to amend the bill for all of our sakes. Senator Garcia stands with me, and he is a good ally to have on our side. Together, our voices for a safer, stronger America will emerge…”

One of the bodyguards in a black suit and sunglasses far behind the podium began twitching strangely. His colleague gave him a side eye, as if to chastise him to stop goofing around.

But he didn’t stop. His left arm twitched unnaturally. His sunglasses began to shake and rattle on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

His colleague was the only one to notice. Everyone else’s eyes were on Congressman Fuller.

“Hey, knock it off!” he hissed.

“Grrrrk!” was the only sound the afflicted man could make before a distinctly female figure emerged from inside of his body. She stepped out of his body, one leg and arm at a time. If anyone were looking, it would appear as if he had a pair of well-formed breasts for a brief moment as she phased through.

Finally, she was fully through. She looked like nothing but an inky blob of smoke, tendrils and wisps constantly shifting inside the outline of a womanly silhouette.

The bodyguard began to sink to the floor, but the shadowy figure reached out with an arm and straightened her fingers like a razor’s edge. The black mist flashed across the bodyguard’s throat. A spray of blood erupted from his neck as his sunglasses fell to the ground. Eyes wide in shock, he brought his hands up to his gushing artery and tried to clasp. Soon, the life faded from his eyes as he struggled for breath before finally expiring.

Suddenly, a black lance impaled the other bodyguard from behind. He clutched at the strangely solid pillar of smoke that had run him through, his arms struggling weakly as the life drained out of him.

“It looks like OPUS is going to be your Opus Magnum, isn’t it? You should be proud!” the female smoke purred as it held up its second victim.

The audience started to scream.

“Oh come now, that wasn’t any worse than his wurst joke!” she chuckled to herself.

“No! Don’t come closer! Don’t you… you… para freak! You’re a threat to us all!” Fuller backed off with his hands up.

“Ha! Why don’t you ‘look in a mirror first?’” she taunted, clearly quoting something.

The smoke disappeared. The bodyguard slumped to the ground in an expanding pool of his own blood. A moment later, her “arms” had impaled him through the chest and out the other end from behind as well.

“Hey! Stop!” The guards screamed as they came running in. A hail of bullets peppered the stage, but the assassin had already vanished into nothingness.

The attack replayed on a projector screen in a dark room. A congregation of people sat around a rectangular table and studied the footage at all angles available, combing through it carefully in slow motion. One person with the remote control was dressed in a suit with a rather conspicuous badge that proudly displayed a white bishop chess piece and nothing else.

A hand shot up in the darkness.

“Excuse me, I have a question. Do we think this assassination is political?” Ashley asked.

The two bishops raised an eyebrow and more or less ignored her. Ashley retreated her hand back into shadow for her apparently idiotic question.

Janice leaned in to her.

“Are you kidding? Nobody cares about the political parties anymore. It’s not about being part of the Stupid Party or the Evil Party. The lightning lottery changed everything. Pure fucking luck now.”

“He was a leading proponent for registration and mandatory civil or military service. And then a bullet-proof Para dissected him in public. We’re not hard up for a motive here,” one of the bishops deigned to respond.

“There were no nulls? Did the Congressman decline or something?” another voice asked.

“Despite his anti-para views, Representative Fuller always welcomed nulls as a source of stability. Fact is, we just don’t have enough to cover the higher profile Senators, much less all  Representatives making waves. The event was supposed to be largely private and unannounced. In fact, the FBI is looking into how the assassin even knew he’d be there, but that suspect list is still intimidatingly long.”

Third voice in the shadows. “Did she say ‘look in a mirror first’?”

“Yes. Obvious reference to early Para-rights activist Kate VanCourt. Her famous speech on the steps of the Capitol building in DC, ‘if you are so eager to find monsters, look in a mirror first.’ She’s also now one of the ‘waiting’ allowed to maintain residence at the Temple of the Phoenix.”

The other bishop cleared his throat loudly and ostentatiously. “We’re getting sidetracked. The issue is we cannot allow it to become open season on Congressmen. The FBI is all over this. But they aren’t equipped to handle their success if they do find this killer. We are. You are some of OPUS’s top eliminators. Those unique powers are as good as a fingerprint, DNA match… a flat out confession if we can find this killer. And Para-lover or Para-hater, all of Capitol Hill is on the same page: an example must be made. We’ve been expecting high level terrorism since the first strike. That we’ve had two years is a miracle. Every team in this room has taken down at least three other Paras in the field. Live kills. You’re the best we have.”

After a bit more speculation on this female para’s power worked, or if she even was female or if that was just a smokescreen (some laughter), the meeting disbanded. The lights came back on. Everyone flowed back into the main building of OPUS.

“So how’s the training going?” Janice asked.

“Surely you must know,” Ashley replied curtly.

“I do. But I want to hear it from you. It’s my job.”

Ashley shook her head. “Sorry, of course. It’s good. I have no problems with it. They’re helping me to develop my power well.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah. Just have some stuff on my mind lately.”

“Show me.”

“Show you? What’s on my mind?”

“No, what you’ve learned lately. …Without destroying the building or hurting anyone, of course.”

“They taught me some… pretty brutal stuff recently. Suffocating someone just by reversing the flow of air. And forcing their limbs back away from me by controlling the flow of blood. Let me see if I can do something tamer…”

Ashley reached out and touched the wall of the hallway that she and Janice were walking down. The entire wall and then building began to crack and rumble ominously.

“Hey! I said without bringing the building down!” Janice yelled.

“Eep! Haha, sorry. I thought I could try to make a conveyor belt under our feet,” Ashley giggled.

“You… lordy!” Janice facepalmed.

After a brief moment of silence, both women erupted into full-bodied laughter.

“So is that what’s been eating at you? Some brutality stuff? It may seem rough, but this is nothing worse than the self defense we were taught before the goddamn Shard Strikes happened and people manifested powers. If we were facing down a hostile threat, we were taught to strike all of the sensitive parts of the human body without prejudice. Breaking fingers, gouging eyes, crushing testicles… It’s you or them. Same with a gun. Shoot to kill, always. Double tap. No second chances,” the older woman explained sagely without a hint of hesitation.

“No no no, it’s not that,” Ashley corrected. “I mean, yes, it’s nasty. And you helped me through my first kills. Those were pretty vanilla… I basically fired rocks as bullets but way stronger. And yes, this stuff is pretty… I’d rather not think about it. It’s good to have last ditch options. But at the end of the day, considering all the stuff we see covered in the news, I get why it’s important. It’s good I’m training to be a Knight.”

“A Knight in shining armor,” Janice laughed.

“Yeah! Imagine me galloping to Ethan’s rescue…” Ashley began, but her mirthful expression immediately turned sour.

“Ah.”

“What?” Ashley asked, fixing her face.

“You still need to work on your poker face, m’lady. Maybe a nice face shield like the knight of old would do you good.”

Ashley sighed.

“So, tell me about the trouble in paradise.”

“There’s definitely a little distance growing between us. He’s not comfortable with my powers and how quickly I’m developing them. It was fun at first, but I think he’s scared.” She neglected to mention how much she liked to dominate him in bed. And when he grew uncomfortable with the depth of her fantasies, she took over for real. Not that she’d done anything that frightening. He was just a wimp.

“Sorry to hear that,” Janice comforted.

“Just.. considering I’m in OPUS, what if someone came after him? He can’t protect himself. And what if they came after him because of me?”

“I understand. That’s… there’s no easy answers to that. I hope you two can come to some sort of amicable understanding.”

“Thanks Janice.”

All of OPUS’s agents rolled out per their assignments. Without any leads on the perp, they had to cover every conceivable major transport hub. In standard teams of four (three paras and one null), the rolled out to IAH airport and the Port of Houston Authority. And then smaller teams of two (one para, one null) to the representative’s office and home. The fact that the relatively private meeting information had somehow been leaked pointed to an insider within his camp. Agent Janice headed to Fuller’s home.

Ashley and Terri, her assigned null partner, escorted two other agents to one of Fuller’s office buildings.

Chapter 2

The two junior pair of OPUS knights hid in the corner of one of Representative Cameron Fuller’s office buildings in some Houston strip mall. She watched as their two lead investigators exchanged annoyed grunts with other FBI investigators on the scene. Tensions had been high since… well, since the inception of OPUS. And naturally, it had only gotten worse as they stepped into each other’s jurisdictions. Political infighting at its best, clutching for government money.

“Think they’ll find anything?” Ashley asked.

“Jerome and Bill are good. If there’s anything here, he’ll sense it,” Terri replied.

Aside from their white knight badges, they didn’t look like official government agents at all. Ashley was still dressed in her college uniform, a grey skirt, knee high socks, and black flats. On top was a button down blouse and a black dress tie, all covered by a black sweater bearing Houston Reform Christian College with a hollow golden cross emblazoned on her breast.

Considering Ashley’s luck in the Shard Strike lottery in addition to her already natural, attractive pre-strike transformation looks, she looked anything but chaste.

The lightning lottery had done her wonders, as it did all its lucky recipients who survived the engulfing ethereal flames. She had surged in height, growing almost a foot to stand four inches over six feet, and an inexplicable amount of it went to her legs. It had taken a while to get used to them, a process that had been handicapped by Ashley’s insistence to see how hard she could kick. Seeing people like the famous Marathon perform incredible feats of strength, she just had to know. So she went to a junkyard and found out.

The wreckage of an old car had bounced violently as she fired her shin at it in full force. But she didn’t have time to rejoice. No, she was screaming and crying tears of pain as a deep bruise developed on her leg.

Thanks to her para-enhanced healing, she recovered quite quickly. But she clearly wasn’t some sort of bruiser.

Of course, no one paid much mind to her little hobble. Not when there was so much more of her luscious femininity on display now.

Her already attractive torso notched it up three levels. She’d already had quite a nice hourglass figure that women dreamed of and idealized, but when the shards had hit her, the translucent ghostly flames immediately went to work by stretching out her hips further, creating a wide, smooth curve that provided a lovely gap for her new, toned, longer thighs. And as she floated there, frozen in midair from the lashing flames of the unpredictable cataclysm, her formerly soft belly tightened into a beautiful wall of abdominal muscle. All of her fat melted away, leaving that cobbled brick wall on full display.

Though maybe it wasn’t fair to say that the fat had melted away. Maybe it just got transferred somewhere else. Somewhere more desirable.

Her already full breasts began to swell, growing impossibly perky despite the constant outward expansion of her most feminine flesh! Lying on her back in midair, her original already prodigious size firmed up first, flattering them as if she were wearing a push up bra. But against the force of gravity.

Then they began to expand, perfect teardrop shapes of lust-inducing femininity growing higher, rounded, fuller. They spilled to just above her ribcage which was healthily visible with her supple, writhing movements, and broke the frames set out by the boundary of her svelte torso. She was a goddess of beauty come to life, sculpted by the uncaring flames that had consumed the world.

And despite their irrepressible shape (which was on full display, molding their form on her Christian sweater), that wasn’t even the most remarkable thing about Ashley’s appearance. Her golden blonde hair which she had gone to great lengths to color and maintain had become platinum. An ethereal, shining, silky blend between silver and gold, expanding over a foot as it spilled down her torso, past her tight, firm, lusciously shaped rear end, stopping right below her uniform’s skirt.

She was sex on legs.

Anyone who tried to remain polite would inevitably become utterly entranced with the perfect porcelain skin of her heart-shaped face. Her ruby red lips looked so firm and kissible in their subtle cupid bow shape—not too thin, but not too thick to look like plastic surgery. Her nose, cute and strong. And her eyes…

Her pink and aquamarine eyes looked positively otherworldly, mesmerizing not only in its beautiful, alien color, but also in their incredible luminescence. They looked as if someone had plucked precious stones out of a jewelry display, carved them perfectly into large, round irises, and decided that that would be suitable for the most sensitive part of the human body. And they would have been right. Ashley’s eyes competed with the rest of her super-enhanced body in their beautiful, irresistible attraction. But it was no contest. Her eyes won easily, hands down.

So there she stood, a towering beauty in the shade of a poorly air conditioned office building in a Houston strip mall, bored out of her mind and trying to stay cool. She no longer seemed to perspire since the tepid near 100F degree heat didn’t actually bother her, but she could still feel it. Knowing how she would have reacted to the heat before her transformation was hard to overcome.

The much shorter Terri stood by her side, more experienced and far more patient. But it was quickly becoming clear that there would not be much for the two of them to do. This was something even the FBI idiots could have taken care of.

She cast her violet gaze up to Ashley’s hypnotic eyes. Terri wasn’t nearly as tall, but beauty came in several forms. And with her even larger bust and dark maroon lips, she could hardly be considered a loser.

No, she didn’t feel like a loser at all. And she was glad that Ashley was a winner. A big winner. Now if she could only capitalize on those winnings…

“How’s school?” Terri tried to strike up a conversation.

“It’s good. Fine. Too bad my powers don’t help in that regard!” Ashley laughed.

Terri laughed too. That universe seemed a world away. But Ashley had much more experience that her youth would suggest. That was a secret that Ashley had shared with Terri, and only Terri.

“You doing okay? I mean, about…”

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s okay.

One Year Ago

“You piece of shit. You, you… motherfucking motherfucker!” Ashley screamed.

“Whoo-whee. Little sister sure is big. You want some of what I gave your big sis? If I had to say… I’d say I picked the wrong one to rape!” a dark, unhinged, remorseless paranatural sneered.

“I’m. Going. To…”

“What, darling? What exactly are you going to do? I bet you fight like a girl. A very, very, very pretty one,” he mimed the outline of her breasts. “I like it when they fight. Adds a little spice, don’t you think? And you brought me your little friend too!”

“Ashley!” Terri hissed. “Cool it! Let’s take him down and…”

But the serial rapist had begun his assault already. He threw his hands forward, emitting a stream of irregular, sharp crystalline shards from the palms of his hands.

Ashley would have been ill-suited for this, but her extensive training with OPUS came into play. She placed her arms out, letting the jagged edges barely prick her skin. Her enhanced toughness (despite her bruising from playing junkyard soccer) allowed her to feel the razor sharp edges for just an infinitesimal moment without getting injured. And in that moment, Ashley brought her power into play, redirecting the vector of their extreme velocities and sending them showering around them, leaving her and Terri unharmed.

The rapist gasped as he saw all his crystals miss. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but the goth-looking short girl and the statuesque blonde were completely unharmed.

“Raaaaaa!” he screamed, really getting serious now. He drew back one arm and flung it forward, then copied the motion with his other. Left, right, left, right; he threw small and large chunks alike with each fling of his arms, every projectile far more deadly than before.

“Ashley! We need to coordinate! What are you planning to do?” Terri screamed over the sound of shattering glass and chipping concrete in the dusky alleyway.

Ashley shielded her null counterpart by throwing her body in the way. As his crystals shredded her skirt and sweater, she felt them dimple into her enhanced flesh and sent it veering back to their assailant. She was even experienced enough to know that her breasts and thighs would be hit before her abdomen, controlling those crystal shards’ trajectories all in the right moment.

Her clothes were ragged from the assault, exposing her beautiful skin and the ultra-feminine shapes underneath it that had protected Terri from imminent death.

“Ashley!” Terri tried once more.

“Move!” Ashley tapped Teri’s crouching form with her toe and shunted her out of the way and behind a large dumpster with a tiny application of her power.

“What’s wrong, girly? Can’t keep up!?” the rapist joked. “You can’t hurt me with my own crystals, don’t you know? But oh my, you are strong! They’re coming at me so fast!” He licked his lips lasciviously as he ogled her staggeringly sexy shape as he continued to fling his deadly projectiles.

It was true. His projectiles absorbed into his skin and seemed to recycle into his assault, increasing in both count and intensity.

Ashley was becoming overwhelmed. Her precise power, while terrifying in its potential and magnitude, required intense concentration. Concentration that exactly this kind of opponent taxed.

“Terri! I need you!”

Terri didn’t hesitate even a moment.

“Whenever you’re ready, Ashley,” she spoke evenly and coldly.

The blonde OPUS agent in training covered her face with her arms and inched toward the garbage dumpster, trusting her training and reflexes to cover her long enough. As soon as she bumped into it, she directed its course right at their assailant.

He panicked for just a moment as the foreign object careened toward him at nearly the speed of sound. His last fling of crystals was way off mark, and he brought his arms up to shield his body from Ashley’s impromptu attack.

And just as he covered his face, Ashley brought her arms down, focused her concentration, and took the final brunt of his assault.

Her body was fully exposed now. Every multicolored crystal headed her way, that pinged off the sides of her breasts, her face, her wide hips or her toned arms… all of it was sent flying back with deadly precision toward the rapist. The crystals exceeded the speed of the garbage dumpster, piercing right through the metal container. A deadly wall of daggers approached her target from every angle that Ashley could manifest.

Terri didn’t miss a beat. She had sight of Mr. Violent’s lower body.

She nulled him just as Ashley’s redirected attack pierced him. He fell like a target dummy made of paper, pierced into a bloody pulp across his entire body.

A sturdy Terri caught a shaken, drained Ashley and helped carry her back to their vehicle. The blonde supermodel was no worse for wear physically, but emotionally…

A mostly nude Ashley cried into Terri’s lap as the goth-styled girl drove them back to Houston Reform.

Terri stayed with Ashley for the next few days. She called into OPUS sick, while Ashley swallowed her emotions as told them that she was busy with school. The two spent the whole time in Ashley’s dorm room, leaving only for some brisk walks and mediocre to poor private college commons food.

Terri watched after Ashley in all of her despair, all of her rage. When Ashley had first exerted her power in full grief, Terri had to null her to prevent the blonde from turning the building into a nuclear holocaust from a simple bedframed launched by a full-powered Ashley touch. Instead, Ashley’s fist merely thudded against the wooden plank. Even her mild super strength had been nullified, and she withdrew her now bruised hand in shock.

She bit her lip as tears of physical and emotional pain rolled down her cheeks. She advanced aggressively on Terri, but Terri knew she could hold her own in physical combat. The shorter girl prepared a stance in self defense, prepared to subdue but not injure Ashley. Maybe Terri would take a few hits, but she was tough. She could take a few hits if that’s what Ashley needed.

Instead, the closer Ashley got, the more her red and blue eyes wavered. By the time they stood in front of each other, the far taller girl collapsed onto Terri. Terri’s prophylactic stance was the only reason she remained standing, supporting Ashley’s sexy bulk.

She backed Ashley back to the bed and pushed gently. Ashley fell to the bed with a soft whoomp. The blonde looked up at Terri’s sympathetic red eyes. That pale complexion and those dark lips. And a pair of breasts that rivaled her own. Terri had been nothing but kind to her for her entire duration at OPUS. And she now held—and was planning to keep secret—the darkest moment of Ashley’s life.

She leaned forward, closed those marvelous multi-colored irises, and planted her ruby lips against Terri’s.

Terri gasped in shock as the salty taste of Ashley’s tears mingled between their lips. But Ashley continued to kiss insistently, pressing the soft folds of their lips together.

Terri didn’t fight back. She closed her eyes as well and returned the kiss.

Lips massaging, tongues darting, the two only broke their embrace to take off their clothes. Simultaneously, they saw each other’s nude bodies, both gasping in the same moment as they laid eyes on each other’s breasts. Both thought the other’s were the largest, perkiest, most perfect pair they’d ever seen.

Terri even began to drool a little as she admired Ashley’s unbelievable size. At which point Ashley laughed. And then Terri laughed too.

“Wanna touch?” Ashley sniffled as she wiped the tears from her cheeks. A bright, genuine smile appeared on her forlorn face.

“Only if you touch mine,” Terri counter offered.

Ashley acted first. She approached the seated girl and placed her long, long legs on either side of Terri’s thighs as Terri scooted backwards to make room for both of them on the bed. She brought her dainty hands and graceful long fingers up, tracing the outer lines of Terri’s torso, sending tickling tingles through her body before cupping and hefting Terri’s outrageously large bosom.

Cupping the bottom of their impressive weight, Ashley brought her fingers into play, swishing them against the impressive slopes of Terri’s soft and warm flesh. She massaged them softly and gently while her index fingers slid upwards to swipe against the short girl’s upstanding nipples.

Terri gasped in shock.

“I’m… really… sensitive there…” she moaned with her eyes closed.

Terri luxuriated in the soft yet shocking sensations that Ashley was delivering. Her body flushed with lusty heat as she involuntarily began to buck her hips and wriggle her thighs together to stimulate the heat that was growing within her core. Terri’s movement rubbed against Ashley’s inner thighs and her nether lips, teasing dripping nectar from Ashley’s own flower.

The tall blonde inched her way forward. The light grinding contact against her sex felt nice, but the lingering arousal left her wanting more. As she continued her erotic ministrations against Terri’s breasts, the girl squirmed more fiercely as Ashley’s stronger body began to overpower her. The urgent brush of Terri’s thighs regularly pressing into Ashley’s welcoming folds elicited a lusty gasp from the dominant girl as well.

Before Terri could suck in another much needed lungful of air, Ashley pressed them both down. They flopped onto the bed, one on top of each other. Due to Ashley’s height, the cleavage formed by the massive shelf of her breasts swallowed up Terri’s head entirely, suffocating the purple-haired beauty in the glorious canyon of her proud, feminine flesh. Ashley began to hump, grinding up and down Terri’s conquered body. Her breasts caressed Terri’s face while her torso rubbed roughly against Terri’s apparently insatiable nipples. And with Terri’s leg bent upward, she clenched her supple thighs around Terri’s own limb, rubbing her dripping pussy and electrified clit along Terri’s leg.

“Ha… ha… ha…” Ashley panted as she continued her assault. Oh, this was so much better than being with Ethan! He always complained about being on the bottom, but Terri… Terri was humping and grinding along, rubbing her thigh left and right to give more erotic friction to Ashley’s movements.

Ashley was supporting herself with both arms outstretched next to Terri’s head to give the poor girl space to breathe. Otherwise, she knew that her enormous melons really would have suffocated the girl. Thanks to her strength (most of which was still being nulled), she spared one arm and slid it in between their bodies. With her erotic prison over Terri’s face, the grinding of her strong, well-defined torso against Terri’s perky and protruding peaks, the poor girl was almost on the verge of orgasm. Just from a few minutes of humping!

Without ceremony, Ashley quickly slid her arm down through Terri’s soft, smooth, and perfectly hairless pubic mound. She found the goth girl’s engorged clit quickly, pressed her middle finger against it, and merely held down with tight pressure.

Terri’s wail of ecstasy was muffled by Ashley’s engulfing breasts. Her humping provided all of the massaging necessary against Ashley’s firm touch, grinding and rubbing in circles as her hips moved fluidly, taking herself over the edge of ecstatic climax by rubbing herself exactly the way she liked it.

Ashley held tight as Terri rode through her intense orgasm, quivering and shaking against Ashley’s perfect flesh. She gushed her sweet fragrance over Ashley’s welcoming hand. She felt the pangs of her own arousal as Terri’s resonant cries and mewls of pleasure rolled through Ashley, leaving her wanting.

After a few seconds of girl-induced ecstasy that seemed to last a lifetime, Terri’s body relaxed and slumped onto Ashley’s soaked bed sheets. Ashley rolled to Terri’s side, kissing Terri’s cheek and nuzzling her earlobe while she continued to hump against the shorter girl’s devilish body.

“Ashley… have you ever been with a girl?” Terri purred.

“No,” she managed to answer between hot lashes of her tongue.

“I have,” Terri continued with a promise of dark intent. “Let me do something for you…”

Terri pushed Ashley onto her back. The taller, stronger girl obliged, lying back and holding back her desperate desire for a quick orgasm. If Terri had experience, then Ashley wanted to experience it.

Terri started at the top, turning Ashley’s head to face her. They looked into each other’s luminescent eyes before closing them and pressing their moist lips together into a deep kiss. Their tongues danced as they pressed into each others’ lips, flitted into each other’s mouths briefly before darting back out. Terri nibbled on Ashley’s lower lip, eliciting a nice gasp from the blonde girl.

Breaking their tender liplock, Terri brushed her hands through Ashley’s supernatural, ghostly golden hair.

“God, it’s so beautiful…” Terri marveled, running her fingers languidly up and down through Ashley’s silk.

“Yours is too,” Ashley replied lustily.

“Nothing like yours. Sorry if I’m taking advantage of you when you’re vulnerable, but I can’t stand it. I’ve wanted you forever!”

“Please do,” Ashley smiled as Terri continued to stroke her exquisite hair.

Terri leaned back in for a quick peck. Ashley tried to re-engage into long, deep kisses, but Terri pulled away and began to climb down all of Ashley’s magnificent flesh. And there was so much of her to explore.

She sucked Ashley’s tight flesh into her mouth and nuzzled, causing the flowing blonde to squirm. Wanting to leave a bruise as a sign of her love, she decided better of it considering Ashley’s existing relationship with Ethan. Instead, Terri trailed kisses down Ashley’s elegant neck, kissing and sucking down along Ashley’s collarbone.

She brought her hands into play, massaging Ashley’s even more impressive mounds. She could hardly believe how firm they were, considering that she was lying flat on her back! Those perfume pink nipples stood out proudly, crowning the feminine glory of her amazing bust. Terri couldn’t resist giving those thick nipples a lusty lick… her skin was so soft and satin, her flesh so sweet and fragrant. Her pride was rewarded when Ashley moaned and thrust her hips upward as her long legs tensed and twitched.

After giving Ashley’s breasts some more deserving love, Terri buried her face in that smothering cleavage that had helped bring her to orgasm just minutes ago. Inhaling deeply, she thanked her lucky stars that she could experience Ashley so carnally before trailing kisses down the girl’s impressively strong core. Her hands led the way downward, causing Ashley to giggle as Terri tickled her bellybutton with her tender, puckered lips.

Extending her legs off the bed, Terri knelt on the floor in between Ashley’s legs. The girl was neat and hairless as well, those coltish legs extending far over the edge of the bed. Terri caressed those inner thighs, tantalizingly tracing all around Ashley’s needy sex without ever touching it. She marveled as Ashley’s lips pulsed and flexed, trying to grip something that wasn’t there.

“Terri… touch me, please!” she begged.

“Hmm…” Terri breathed hotly onto Ashley’s burning furnace of desire, giggling as she tortured the tall goddess even more.

She planned to drag it out, but Ashley’s legs landed on her shoulders and clamped tight around Terri’s ears. They bent at the knee and down Terri’s back, pushing the poor girl inward into Ashley’s waiting loins.

Terri yelped and laughed, taking the forceful movement as a compliment. Then, she began to work in earnest.

Extending her tongue and using her lower lip to provide power, Terri lapped up Ashley’s musky nectar as she traveled from the bottom of the blonde’s perfect labia up to the top. Her clit was engorged and visible, desperate for attention thanks to Terri’s teasing. A few soft licks, and Ashley’s legs clamped harder, slamming Terri’s face with her sweet heat.

Terri went at it, inserting one finger deep into Ashley’s hungry love canal, then another. She turned her fingers upwards and curled, searching for just the way Ashley liked it. Soon, her inner massage and her tongue forcefully working against Ashley’s throbbing erogenous zones were to much for the blonde girl to take. She screamed like a banshee as she came, her long, flowing hair swishing on the bed as her body clenched hard. She gripped the blankets under her hands and involuntarily exerted her power, exploding the fabric under her fingers as she each point of contact from her fingertips sent the covers traveling in different directions.

A muffled moan struggled between her supple thighs. Ashley finally relaxed in a cloud of goose down. Terri emerged from underneath Ashley’s long legs, slightly bruised and asphyxiated, but nothing outside the realm of normalcy for sex with a paranatural. What was shocking was how powerful Ashley had detonated even when Terri had been nulling her the whole time!

“Oh god, Terri. That was so good. Ethan has never made me feel that way before…” Ashley gasped at her confession that she had been sexually unsatisfied with Ethan. She had always suspected it, but she hadn’t known it, hadn’t dared to give it voice. Until now.

Terri climbed back to lie next to her powerful lover. She marveled at just how long Ashley was as they cuddled side by side. There was just so much of her; sculpted out of warm marble, limbs so lithe, breasts so large and firm, legs so luscious. They intertwined around each other as they breathed in the scent of each others’ bodies.

“Terri…”

“Yes, Ashley?”

“I’m still horny.”

Terri chuckled.

“I have a request. Can you… can you stop nulling me?” Ashley almost begged.

“Are you sure? You’re not going to go ballistic?” Terri asked cautiously.

“Ballistic with orgasms, maybe. I… I have a lot of practice with this one. Trust me.”

“Okay… but as soon as I think anything is going wrong, I’m putting the lid back on.”

“Deal.”

Ashley felt her power surge deep within her. It bubbled fiercely as her body almost began to glow with energy. All of her nerves, all of her extremities supercharged with impossible force that could redirect force.

Still cuddling Terri, she controlled her own body with perfect precision. It was something she’d done frequently for years since the first Shard-Strike. Her extravagant hair began to rise of its own accord as her nipples vibrated wildly under her own mental ministrations. Terri couldn’t see it, but she could feel them boring into her own breasts.

“Ashley? What are you…”

What she couldn’t see was a cylinder of air thrusting in and out of Ashley’s hungry pussy. Her clit vibrated in perfect sync with her nipples, her clitoral sheathe pumping back and forth over that female bundle of erotic nerves as her pussy lips gripped and pulsed the solid phantom dildo with crushing force.

Ashley bit her lip before her entire body shuddered in another release. Terri felt her body beginning to vibrate uncontrollably in Ashley’s arms as the blonde’s face turned into a grimace of pure carnal pleasure. In fear, Terri nulled Ashley back down.

“Oh fuck! That was good!” Ashley panted. “But you didn’t let me finish properly! Nnng, I’m still so horny!”

“Geezus, woman! I always wondered how you masturbated, but I never thought it’d be that intense!”

Ashley continued to grind her legs together as she humped Terri’s leg.

“That… wasn’t… intense,” Ashley moaned. “Let me do it to you. I’ll be gentle…”

Terri gulped. But there was no way she was going to pass up a chance at an Ashley para-powered orgasm.

Ashley felt the power return. Locking her blue and pink eyes onto Terri’s, she started slowly at first. Terri felt a powerful force gripping and twisting at her nipples as her breasts were cradled by invisible hands, squeezing and kneading, lifting and relaxing.

“That’s… weird…” Terri gasped.

“Good weird?” Ashley asked intensely.

“Mmm… yesssss,” Terri hissed.

Terri then felt a pair of invisible hands grip her butt. They squeezed firmly, eliciting a gasp of pain and lust out of the goth girl.

“Ouch! Too rough!” Terri chastized.

Ashley responded to her complaint with a fierce slap on Terri’s asscheek with another easy application of her power.

“Ow! Hey!!!” Terri squirmed uncomfortably. But her heart raced even faster, which of course Ashley picked up.

“You want another?” Ashley inquired while never breaking her eye contact with her lover.

“Yes…” Terri whispered after a long pause.

Another loud smack.

“Oh fuck! Not much harder than that please!” Terri whined.

Ashley hit her again, even harder.

“Fuuuuuuck! Really, no more harder than that! I mean it!” Terri bit her lip as her cheeks turned red while her pussy grew hotter. Ashley could feel the heat building in her lover’s body, the blood pumping in her ears, in her lower back, in her sternum…

“Okay, okay, my little pet,” Ashley whispered. She’d always wanted to do this with Ethan, but he was so selfish! Her heart raced with excitement. “Want to come?” Ashley exhaled hotly.

“God, you’re hot, Ashley, but you can’t just…”

Ashley’s hair blew backward as she exerted her whole, expert, perverted power upon Terri. She airfucked her partner while grinding against her clit, exercising the violet-haired girl in ways she didn’t know possible.

“Whooooaaaa—hhhhh—uooooooooo!” Terri’s teeth chattered as she lost control of her body. She’d never been filled and rammed so precisely! Even the blood in her veins seemed to turn molten and overheat as it filled her most sensitive areas, trying to process the impossibly erotic sensations that Ashley was forcing into her.

Her nipples tingled as they were tugged. She felt an invisible force in her mouth, sucking on and carressing her tongue expertly. Her punished asscheeks were being squeezed and carressed, and the phallic object inserted inside of her while her clit was simultaneously being pumped and tweaked…

Terri shrieked in orgasm. The sensation was so intense she wasn’t sure if she would survive! In desperation, she tried to open her eyes to null Ashley, but she found that she couldn’t open her eyelids! Whether that was due to Ashley’s control or the force of her own orgasm, she didn’t know.

All she knew was that she had to ride the wave of this orgasm for as long as Ashley forced her to.

“Good?” Ashley asked as she continued to hold Terri tight against her body. She herself wasn’t moving at all. It was only Terri who was spasming, her back wracked into a dramatic arch as she continued to orgasm.

When Terri was almost broken, Ashley finally let up. A long trail of drool was dripping down the edge of Terri’s lip. It was minutes before she could speak again. She just felt Ashley’s impossibly firm body pressed into hers, those breasts not giving at all as Ashley nearly squashed Terri in her embrace.

“Oh god, oh god Ashley… wow,” Terri whispered reverently with tears in her eyes.

“Can we try something?” Ashley asked.

“Is it less intense? If you do that to me again, I think I’ll die!”

“Yeah. Less intense.”

A minute later, Ashley sat on the edge of the bed with one lasvicious leg crossed over the other. Kneeling on the floor was Terri, the edge of her chin resting on Ashley’s toes. She was quivering and trembling as the domme forced pleasure into her little slave as she rubbed her own nipples and massaged the heavenly junction atop her legs, getting turned on from her lover’s submissive pleasure.

When Ashley and Terri finally returned to the real world, they never spoke of the revenge murder or the sexual tryst that had taken place. It was their secret.

The FBI and OPUS knights not named Ashley or Terri were poring over some documents. After some photos, the two government bodies went their separate ways.

“Found something?” Terri asked as Jerome and Bill approached.

“Financial documents from the Congressman’s campaign. Some clear funneling going on. Money being sent to a front. We’ll need to trace it,” Jerome explained. “Might be nothing, just usual corruption. But might be something.”

“The man has a way with words,” Bill chuckled.

Ashley’s phone rang. It was an emergency.

“She’s here! She’s here!” came Janice’s voice through the speakerphone. It relayed her location as well.

Then the line went dead.

“JANICE!” Ashley screamed.

She bolted for the exit, preparing to make her way across town on her own. At the last moment, she glanced back at Terri, Jerome, and Bill.

“Go, girl! We’ll be right behind you! You can handle it!” Bill yelled.

Ashley tapped the door and sent it flying off its hinges with her telekinetic touch, then pushed off the concrete sidewalk and launched herself across town with her power.

Chapter 3

The wind would have whipped across Ashley’s face uncomfortably, even with her Shard-Strike enhanced toughness. But she redirected the airflow as it touched her skin, giving her a comfortable breeze to breathe in.

She didn’t have to aim her jump. If she were on a crash course with a building, she reached out and touched it with her arm, redirecting herself like a missile onto the next convenient target. Sometimes this meant leaping along the sides of buildings, flying hundreds of feet at a time. Sometimes it meant heading toward the ground, softening her landing as soon as her feet touched ground before rocketing diagonally into the sky once more.

Ashley checked the coordinates on her phone as she continued to perform her graceful jumps across the city. She was getting close. Making shorter leaps, the dense urban city petered out into a rich Houston suburb. Ashley began to leap from one end of the street to another since she had no buildings to redirect against.

Soon, she arrived. It was a large, lone mansion atop a small hill. Ashley drew a few deep breaths to refocus her concentration. Her very life could depend on it.

As she approached, the sounds of screams echoed in her ears. The front door was ajar. She could smell the waft of human blood in the air. Resolving not to redirect that stench, she breathed deep, clenched her jaw, and stepped inside the mansion.

Several OPUS knights were down. For good. Torn apart like Representative Fuller’s bodyguards. Ashley stopped to examine the bodies in cold, calculating terms. Their blood soaked their black and white knight designations. The emotional grief of their deaths would come later.

Suddenly, she heard a scream from somewhere upstairs in the Congressman’s mansion. It wasn’t Janice’s voice. Was that good? Or was Janice among the dead already…

No time to dilly-dally. She’d already spent too long just standing there. Ashley pushed off the polished hardwood floor with her toes, launching herself straight into the ceiling with extreme velocity before harmlessly and precisely ping-ponging herself onto the second floor balcony. It was long and lined with doors.

What a frustrating labyrinth!

Sprinting forward, every gentle stride launching Ashley meters ahead, she pumped like an Olympic sprinter, except dozens of times more effectively. She reached the end of the hallway which split left and right. With her training, even the sound vectors were clear to her. They were left.

She stamped down with her right foot at that junction, side-jumping left and turning her body in midair as if she were flying. Some feminine sobbing echoed through the corridors. She was getting close.

There!

Ashley slapped her right hand against the wall and shunted herself left, bursting through the closed door. Before her stood Janice, unharmed. She found Fuller’s wife begging for her life at the other end of the room as a shadowy, smoky figure had its claws at the elderly woman’s throat.

“You don’t have to do this!” Janice implored.

“An example must be made!” hissed the shadow.

She sliced open the older woman’s throat just as she had the bodyguard and then lunged for Janice.

Janice kept her eyes peeled, standing perfectly still without a hint of fear the shadow stabbed her. She didn’t even gurgle as the black lance went through her abdomen, drawing blood. With icy cold determination, Janice reached forward and hugged the shadow tight.

“Ashley!” she yelled, her voice commanding but quavering in pain.

Without missing a beat, Ashley reached into the pocket of her skirt and touched a handful of rocks—her ammunition. They tore through her clothing at multiple times the speed of any bullet, slicing through the smoky assassin and puncturing the walls of the room.

They tore through the smoky figure, but it clearly wasn’t incorporeal. There was resistance as Ashley’s deadly projectiles ripped through the not-quite-smoke, not-quite-flesh being.

The smoke roared in pain, its analogous humanoid muscle groups bulging unnaturally and deflating flatter than before. Its “head” formed a face of pure agony, mouth agape, liquid black eyes open wide before it uncontrollably melted into nothingness. A flicker caught Ashley’s eye. The shadow’s disappearance was reflected from a surface outside that seemed to peek around a corner.

Somewhere else in the building, an identical female scream of female pain echoed through the hallways. The soundwaves hit Ashley’s ears after a few reflections. She sent the waves back the direction they came, sensing the path it had taken as it veered through the house. It wasn’t precise, but it gave her a rough location.

“Did you locate it!?” Janice asked, now clutching her stomach in considerable pain.

“Roughly! Janice, Janice, are you okay!?” Ashley placed a hand on Janice to help stop the flow of blood. But she was far too inexperienced to do any sort of paranatural surgery.

“Nnng… go! Follow her!”

“I can’t leave you!” Ashley panicked as she placed both hands on the bloody wound.

Footsteps approached. Terri, Jerome, and Bill arrived on the scene. Ashley’s phone lit up. She tapped it to give them her exact location. Janice saw it.

“Go! Go go go! Your team is here! They’ll watch over me! I may not be as powerful as you, but I’m a knight of OPUS too! I’ll survive!”

Ashley looked Janice in the eye. The wise older woman gave her an affirming nod.

Ashley let go to another gush of blood from Janice’s midsection. Bouncing through the harrow hallways like a ping pong ball, she passed her team in the grand entrance.

“Ashley! You’re okay!”

“Jerome, Bill, Terri! Did you see anyone fleeing the scene?!”

“Yes! An injured woman! She looked bad. We were coming east, so she was going west!”

“Let’s go! Jerome, Bill, look after Janice on the second floor! She’s bleeding out…”

Ashley jumped down the second floor, tapped her feet on the ground as she landed, grabbed Terri, and zipped both of them back out to their car before Jerome or Bill could object.

Chapter 4

Ashley drove the black OPUS SUV while Terri talked with the Houston police department. They were tracking the perp’s black sedan via street cameras installed along some major intersections. Ashley was prepared to perform some complex maneuvers with their car (without the use of the steering wheel) lest they get into some sort of serious scuffle.

But when they’d lost track of the car, they found themselves deep in the suburbs. A windy turn up a hill that, as far as all of them knew, dead ended at a large mansion on a road lined with mansions.

“This can’t be the right way,” Terri commented. “A para rights group, up here? Not underground, not some sort of guerilla group… up here in Yuppieville?”

“We follow where the trail left by Janice’s attacker,” Ashley scowled.

They didn’t have much further to go…

Marie Coronet parked her car and staggered out into the angry Houston sun. She stood at the top of a cluster of small mansions built on a hill overlooking Houston’s scenery and some of their main waterways.

She’d never been here during the day. Or while grievously injured. First time for both things.

The hobbling French assassin buzzed the front door. It clicked open. She went inside, hit a few keys on a grand piano which caused a false wall to scrape open. Standing in the narrow shaft, she rode the elevator down into the mansion’s secret depths.

“I told you never to come here during the day, and probably not at night either,” an ominous yet calm deep voice rumbled. His bass tones were awfully soothing despite the terrifying implication.

“Government spooks. I’m hurt. You want your best assassin to keep working for you, then help me. I know you have medical treatment and private doctors here.”

“Best assassin? Coming back like this during the day? Pathetic!”

“These weren’t injuries dealt against my physical body!” Marie shot back. “They had a para that struck my shadow so hard, it… echoed back through to me! I’ve never felt anything like it! You think you could have found anyone who could have done better? They would have been dead on the spot!”

“Hmph.”

“I know you have doctors here. Treat me,” Marie demanded.

“You owe me.”

“Deal.”

“And that goes double for your botched killings. You framed it as anti-para activity and activism, but I specified that I wanted the feds to stop investigating him for his involvement with the underworld.”

Marie grimaced, and not from her injuries. She really had fucked that up.

“So you will finish the job,” Oliver remained seated at his large desk. He crossed his large, black hands. “When you are healed up, I need you to retrieve some important documents from the Congressman’s offices and mansions. There must be no trace of-”

Ashley and Terri crashed down from above on a perfectly cut circular disk made of the mastermind’s polished marble floor. Terri was kneeled on one knee and one hand with the other arm outstretched behind her. Ashley merely stood with perfect poise, unaffected by the violent jostling.

“That’s her!” Terri identified Marie. “The one we saw fleeing the scene in the sedan!”

An unsteady shadow began to stir and rise from between Ashley and Terri. Terri flinched and began to scrabble away, but Ashley was on top of it.

“Terri! Null her! NOW!”

The deadly shadow that was rising between Terri and Ashley dissipated into nothing but the lingering scent of sulfur.

Ashley reached into her innocuous looking pocket and fingered her deadly pebbles. Marie’s face morphed into an expression of pure terror. She’d already experienced those projectiles via her projection. If they hit her… if they hit her directly, there would be nothing left of her.

It all unraveled in slow motion. The shadowy assassin closed her eyes as Ashley’s index finger rolled in her pocket, every pebble zipping forward from her briefest caress.

As Marie prepared to be torn to shreds while Ashley stared at her with murderous intent, Oliver flipped his desk over with a single meaty hand. His steps thundered as he rushed forward at speeds belying his unbelievable bulk. He stood significantly taller than Ashley, and was thrice her girth as well. But he moved like a lightweight speedster.

When it all unfolded, Oliver stood in front of Marie with his arms and legs outstretched like a human shield. Marie Coronet was barely visible behind him.

In the blink of an eye, all of Ashley’s projectiles lay motionless on the floor. Their fierce velocity, completely drained. Oliver stood before all of it, a thin white aura surrounding his enormous body.

“Very, very powerful…” Oliver inhaled deeply. “It takes many more live rounds to power me up this far. Young lady, your potential is incredible! Imagine if you weren’t just flinging pebbles…”

“WHAT!?” Ashley screamed. Terri was paralyzed with fear and indecision. What was she supposed to do now!? She couldn’t keep her precise control over Ashley’s seemingly unlimited power while trying to fully null two others! And Marie was known to be lethal… what exactly could Oliver do!?

Ashley stomped the circular marble disk they’d arrived on. Her super strength was enough to send deep, spiderweb cracks into the expensive stone. With a second stomp, she flung those pieces into the air, large and small, and indiscriminately waved her arm over her new impromptu projectiles with far more focus than she’d done with her pebbles.

All of the dense, artisan shards froze in midair as Oliver’s glow intensified. The blocks fell straight down to the floor just like Ashley’s pebbles had.

“Power, but no creativity… you could do so much,” Oliver continued to comment. His voice was silky smooth. “Your telekinesis needs training. I could give you that.”

He approached her while still covering his paid assassin. Ashley changed tack and launched herself off the floor with another push of her toes, trying to tackle the enormous beast of a man. As she got close, Ashley’s acceleration dissipated into nothing. She stumbled forward on slow, normal steps. Oliver reached for her, but his untrained movements and natural physicality were no match for Ashley’s enhanced body.

“You’re… you’re not that strong!” Ashley exclaimed.

“I may be no match for you in a brawl, but…”

Oliver’s eyes blazed as he finally processed all of the energy Ashley threw at him. Consuming it greedily, he looked the heterochromic OPUS knight right in her beautiful eyes.

Ashley sucked in a deep gasp as she felt a foreign presence invade her mind, riffling through all of her memories like a burglar looting drawers in a house.

She was forced to recall events through a blur… as if she were seeing it in third person from a fish-eye lens. Ethan sat next to her on the first day of their humanities college lecture. The two exchanged shy, curious glances. They walked out of the lecture hall together. Shared a meal at the common dining hall. Flirting over pie.

They hit it off. Ethan hangs a sock on the handle outside his door to indicate that there is tomfoolery happening. Ashley and Ethan have slow, awkward, happy sex.

The Shard-Strike happens over a week when Ashley went back home. A populated area of San Antonio downtown is hit. Ashley comes out alive—not just a survivor, but a victor of the empowerment. Tall, beautiful, and powerful. Everything changes.

She gets back to school. Ethan can’t believe his eyes. Nor can her friends. Her power is so immense, she has trouble controlling it. For a few days, everything she touches gets sent flying or blown apart.

She experiments with her physical abilities. Lifting heavy boulders, running as hard as she can. Stronger than non-paras, but not exceeding what had famously been televised from other paras. Tough and durable, but not invulnerable.

Para crime is up. Ashley stops a convenience store robbery from the sidelines by knocking out a para with a metal bucket launched from a little tap of her foot. The criminal is knocked out cold. She feels… really good about it.

Starts to patrol the campus and its surrounding areas at night. Her power allows her to work from a distance. Almost no one can see it coming. Any regular object becomes a knockout projectile from her little tap.

After a few patrols, she’s so incredibly pleased with herself. And horny. She throws herself at Ethan who can’t say no to a walking 6’4 wet dream. Sex in her new improved body is unbelievable. But Ashley has become so dominant. Ethan gets used like a little toy. Shorter than her, weaker than her, finishes far too fast for her. He can’t help it. Ashley is just too sexy.

She forces him to satisfy her. Even against his will. Ethan doesn’t like it. Starts to grow distant.

She receives a group family text from her older sister Amber. Devastated. Raped. Didn’t talk about it for weeks. In therapy now. Authorities do nothing. Ashley pries the information out of her.

OPUS has taken notice of Ashley. They take her under her wing as a trainee. The paid internship is extremely generous, and she learns how to control, and even maximize, her powers. In fact, they are so strong, she gets a null partner who is constantly putting a lid on Ashley. Terri and Ashley become quick friends.

She becomes well-known around campus for her extraordinary beauty. Hard to miss. Ashley stands heads taller than everyone else. Other boys begin to flirt and do her favors for nothing. Girls jealously mock her behind her back. Ethan grows even more distant as Ashley becomes the envy of everyone’s eye. Can’t handle the insecurity. Ashley tries to deny it, but the rift is growing.

With Terri’s help, Ashley brutally murders her sister’s rapist. The two spend a week in Ashley’s room having sex, finally acting on the forbidden desires that consumed them both. Both are uncertain after the week is over. Ashley was vulnerable. Still needs to grieve and come to terms with what she’s done.

They don’t tell anyone. They don’t talk about it. Ashley and Ethan break up in a big fight.

Ashley buries herself in training. Terri is there. Terri is always there. When they eat. On the phone. Sometimes just to hang out. They are always smiling.

“Ink! Kill her! The short one! She’s important!”

The voice is from the present. Ashley is still paralyzed along with Oliver. Marie emerges from behind the white-collar criminal mastermind like a wounded animal, staggering and dripping blood. But she is still the predator.

“Ashley! Help!” Terri cried out.

“Keep… her… nulled!” Ashley uttered through gritted teeth. “I can’t… break… free!”

A terrified Terri kept her focus on a snarling Marie who continued her steady advance. A shadow flickered to her right. Terri gasped in panic and turned to face it.

It was nothing. Just a figment of her stressed, adrenaline-fueled imagination.

When she turned back, Marie had closed the distance and tackled Terri to the ground. She wrapped her bloody hands over Terri’s throat.

“Pathetic!” Marie’s spittle splattered all over Terri’s face. “Weak! Weak weak weak! I would never lose to the likes of you two! You stupid little girl! You thought you hurt me!?” Marie was looking at Terri, but speaking to Ashley.

Terri’s struggles were fading. She was gripping Terri’s wrists, trying to pry the assassin’s hands off, but her strength waned. Her eyes began to flutter, her hands relaxing and falling to the floor.

“Friends only make you weak!” Marie cackled. She continued to crush an unconscious Terri’s windpipe.

Ashley felt Terri’s lock dissipate. Her paralyzed body surged with 100% of her full power. Her entire body began to thrum and vibrate, sending terrifying wind blasts through the secret underground cavern.

Marie felt the blast of power against her back. She looked back upon Ashley who was floating into the air, unrestrained, powerful, and beautiful. A woman transformed. The walls of the building began to rattle, save for the area behind Oliver. He continued to absorb Ashley’s kinetic forces, radiating an ever ascending brilliant opaque white light.

“What… how is she…?” Marie gasped.

“You’re right,” Ashley sneered. “Terri was making me weaker. For all your sakes, not mine. And now....”

Her power clicked to its fullest. Ashley poked the empty space in front of her with an outstretched index finger, directing the very air at Marie. The French assassin began to conjure her shadow body now that Terri was unconscious, but she knew as well as Ashley that death was upon her. Pinpoint, invisible spikes of destruction pierced right through Marie’s still-forming smoky outline before stabbing clean through her physical body.

Marie’s shadow voice and real voice echoed in tandem as her blood spurted out of her mouth. She had been impaled clean through five times through her torso. As sticky crimson blood stained her dark suit while simultaneously dribbling down her chin, Ashley pushed her palm at the falling corpse, pushing another gush of violent air and sent Marie’s carcass flying off of Terri’s unconscious body.

Ashley’s feet left the ground as she flew over to her friend or lover or confidante, or whatever Terri had become. Placing her hands on Terri’s body, she undid the damage to Terri’s windpipe that Marie had so brutally inflicted. Pumping air into her null partner’s lungs to her satisfaction, Ashley then turned her focus onto Oliver.

Repeating her fatal attack, Ashley extended all ten fingers and shunted them toward Oliver. His flesh actually responded by denting inward this time, but still all of those powerful energies absorbed into him.

He turned his mind-trawling, clairvoyant vision upon Ashley once more. Once again, she became a passenger on his journey, seeing into her own past, her own future. It was a kaleidoscopic swirl of images and sounds, all jumbled, none of it logical or sensical.

But with all of her power unlocked, Ashley ignored the visions and continued her assault. She approached Oliver, one steady step after another. The walls shook as she flung her arms at him, ripping apart plaster and drywall, furniture and floorboards, all launching at him at supersonic speeds.

He staggered back from Ashley’s slow, unstoppable approach as the ceiling started to cave from having its foundational walls being torn down. A twist of Ashley’s head, a quick movement of her eyes, and everything zipped on a deadly path toward Oliver. Her long, platinum tresses flowed behind her like an action star in slow motion.

Another burst of insight and clairvoyance. Both of them witnessed the fateful transformation that had resulted in Leila Electric, now de facto ruler of New Ireland. The birth of Marathon. Of Titaness. The first fateful meeting of the members of the Golden Guard. Some… indiscretions from some of their members.

Oliver licked his lips. This would be quite the useful tidbit to extort later.

Ashley dropped down and stomped the floor from her hovering position, shattering the concrete foundation. Steel rivulets and bits of stone coalesced into the air to form an enormous spear, sharpened by Ashley’s telekinetic swipe. With another tap of her index finger, she sent its deadly tip right toward Oliver’s heart.

Its pointed edge slowed down as it struck the gleaming white barrier surrounding Oliver just like everything else Ashley had thrown. But this time, it punctured the outer shell.

More images. A very attractive Asian woman with glowing Violet eyes practicing witchcraft in her basement. A sexual incident with… Marathon? And she transformed and seemed to take on his powers?

Ashley’s spear burst through Oliver’s shell.

Further flashes back in time. The very, very first Shard-Strike. A particle accelerator. Masked cultists. Satanic rituals. People around the globe, all going on with their lives, unaware of the world-changing cataclysm that would rock their reality forever more.

Oliver gasped and coughed up blood. Ashley’s spear had impaled him in the chest. Its arrowhead was plunged in deep, its handle sticking out straight and rigid.

“I see it!” Oliver choked. “The very first… it was… it was them…!”

He fell over and succumbed to his eternal slumber.

Ashley flew back toward the circular disc and protective shield that she’d erected around Terri. Standing on it and wrapping her perfect form over Terri’s deep and steady breathing, she pushed them both back out into the open sky to the welcome vision of OPUS vehicles arriving on the scene.