3

  Three grabbed a chair and sat backwards on it, facing the captured mafioso who was bound to a different chair across from her, a gag in his mouth while he stared at her in fear. This was personal to her, considering the fact that this case just so happened to originate from Casablanca, Morocco, her very own birthplace and home to her beloved family mansion. You think you get the right to mess with MY turf, you damn amateur? I’d laugh if it wasn’t so pathetic. Three stared the mafioso in the face, the edges of her lips pursing upwards slightly, similar to how a cat’s face would look, the linchpin grunting in fear. Three’s eyes playfully flowed between pink and light purple, the two colors ebbing into each other and sloshing about in her irises much like a lava lamp, glowing dimly. “Soooo, big guy~ We can either do this the easy way…” she started, finally growing tired of merely watching the idiot bathe in his own panic. She stood up from her chair, placing her hands delicately on the table and dragging her nails across it while she walked slowly, swinging her hips from side to side confidently while her eyes glinted and she continued to semi-smirk. The criminal’s eyes bulged in panic, drool shooting from the sides of his mouth through the gag while screaming muffledly, struggling against the restraints wildly and making his chair shake. When she was standing right in front of the criminal she gently and almost reassuringly placed a hand on the chair, instantly and effortlessly making it remain perfectly still despite the unpredictable movements of the captured man in a terrifying feat of strength. She leaned down sensually, drawing her face close to his own until their eyes were mere centimeters apart, the man sweating uncontrollably. “Or we can do this the hard way,” she hissed, placing a threatening hand on his chin while closing her eyes innocently. She put her other hand behind the man’s head and ripped the gag off his face, throwing it to the side to let him speak.

  “THE EASY WAY!!! THE EASY WAY PLEASE!!!” the supposedly tough drug lord screamed in fear, making Three chuckle sultrily as she straightened her back again and returned to her chair. She grinned, “Good. Now tell me ‘Big Boss’… What’s this I hear about a meeting?” She giggled, the cartel head taking a deep breath as he told her everything he knew without any hesitation, not a single doubt in his mind that the possible revenge the criminal underworld could enact against him would be absolutely nothing compared to what Three was capable of. The hero nodded along to the story, checking out her newly painted nails with a bit of dull dread. Seems like today’s gonna be a busy one. Shame, I’m gonna have to repaint my nails all over again for the Celestial meeting tomorrow… She turned to look at the man as he panted, finally done explaining the situation while staring at the hero with desperation and hope that he’d be let go now. Three stood up with a yawn, walking over to the man once more and producing a knife out of her pocket - despite the no weapons rule of the prison. She gingerly placed the knife in front of the man and with a swipe of her claws cut apart the ropes binding him to the chair. “Fine, as agreed you can go now. Here’s a knife, though, big man. I got a feeling you’ll need it with all the enemies you just made for yourself, huhuhu~” She shook her head and walked out, stretching her arms in anticipation for the long night ahead of her.

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  Three yawned again as she made her way outside, stepping into the opulent limousine that was waiting for her, her driver looking at her through the rearview mirror. “I take it that the interrogation went well,” he noted as he noticed the tiny drop of drool on Three’s blouse from when the captured criminal was desperately explaining the situation. The hero rolled her eyes, chuckling while putting a hand over her lips, “Mmm~ And so well, in fact, that I may just get to crush a LOT more than only the Moroccan cartel today, Charles. It’s been a loooong time since I last worked overtime, anyway~” Charles raised an eyebrow, his gaze leaving the mirror and looking out at the road, starting the car. “I see. Where to, miss?” Three stared out the window, a sadistic grin spreading across her face while putting a leg over the other, yawning for the third time, “Fez. And if we’re fast, I can get home by breakfast… So let's be fast, shall we?” Charles nodded solemnly, slamming down on the pedal. Three looked down at her blouse, noticing the speck of drool with disdain. Those drugged up bastards, who do they think they are?? And now what dress am I supposed to wear tomorrow?! Ridiculous, I should have killed that guy for this! Whatever, I guess lifelong PTSD was punishment enough after all… Fine, it’s about time I got on with Eight’s task and wiped out the Mediterranean mafias for good anyway. She groaned softly and stared up at the ceiling. She had wasted the last few months lazily going after the mafia without much drive, taking her sweet time with it so as to not make Eight give her any further missions. Three was a busy gal after all, so the more free time she got, the better. But truth be told, she was starting to get personally irritated with the rampant gang problem by now, so she finally decided to take it seriously.

  It only took a few hours thanks to Charles’ insane driving skills, as well as her aiding along the way by upping the alertness of everyone in a hundred meter radius by a couple of multipliers - making sure people would get the hell out of their way even when driving on the wrong lane. Whatever the case, the two of them were now parked on the outskirts of Fez, with Three furiously scrubbing at the drool stain with some new tech Five had given her to test out. This one’s a dud. Ugh. Of the few times one of her ideas DOESN’T work and it just so happens to be the one invention I actually wanted?? They were near the slums of the city, and as such Three quickly took notice of the many pairs of eyes watching the car from outside with interest. Of course, such a fancy vehicle was bound to bring unwanted attention. She sighed and gave up on the dress, stepping out of the car and immediately hitting everyone in a sufficiently large radius with a blast of indifference, her eyes sparking vividly with color for a split second before they dimmed back down, quickly drawing attention away from the car as everyone nearby simply didn’t care anymore. Charles gave her a curt nod and a tip of his conductor hat while he reached out and closed the door from the inside of the vehicle. Three winked playfully and blew him a kiss as soon as he rolled his window down, making him roll his eyes in amusement. The heroine looked around to get her bearings, trying to spot the place the head honcho of the entire Moroccan cartel system had told her the meeting would take place. This is finally it. The hero realized in amusement, scratching her chin while pursing her lips in what little excitement she allowed herself to show. Every single head of every single mafia network of importance in the entire Western Mediterranean space. The one in a lifetime chance to eliminate all of them in one go. She stretched her hand towards Charles lazily, causing the latter to gingerly place a metallic theater mask on her palm. Missions where she had to hide her identity were few and far between, but she didn’t mind the change in pace every now and then. Not like it’ll stop people from ogling me. She placed the mask on her face, snapping the elastic behind her head while waving goodbye to her driver and getting a move on.

  After a few minutes of walking through the streets, she finally stopped once she recognised the entrance to the fated place from the descriptions the drug lord from earlier had given her. She smirked, her eyes beginning to glow almost imperceptibly while looking around aloofly, sensing the heartbeat of multiple people hidden nearby spying on her, counting exactly seven of them. This must be their security. So few? Mmm, they must really be confident in the secrecy of this place. She looked up and directly at one of their hiding spots unimpressed, snapping her fingers and causing a blast of imperceptible energy to emanate from her, once more her eyes lighting up like candles before dimming back down. All seven of them instantly fell desperately and hopelessly in love with her, like a teenagers’ first crush. “Oi! I know you’re up there!!” she called out to the enchanted people, pointing a finger at her palm, looking around with an innocent wide-eyed stare in her eyes. “Is this ANY way to treat the heir apparent to the Tunisian cartels?! I demand you help me!! Someone?? Please…?” Her voice was intoxicatingly feminine and delicate, irresistible to any wannabe ‘tough guy’ gangster worth their salt.

  It didn’t take long at all for all seven of the people gathered to surround her, talking amongst themselves as they decided if they should consult their bosses first or if they should trust this woman who claimed to be the daughter of the Tunisian mafia boss. “We’ll call your dad, alright? It won’t take long, and I’m sure that he’ll just tell us to bring you in…” one of the men, clearly the most responsible one, told her with a respectful bow. Three’s eyes narrowed and began to glow almost imperceptibly, the man suddenly feeling as if he had been stabbed in the heart by cupid’s arrow, except it was laced with copious amounts of dulling drugs. “O-Oh no!! Please don’t call him!! He’ll get soooo mad!! Please, I-I… I’d be forever grateful to all of you!” she begged them adorably, clasping her hands together. Come on already!! I guess they really set up their elite squad for security, their mental resilience is such a bore. They all looked at her as if enchanted and then at each other, resolving that they should help the poor stranded girl. “...Fine. I’ll escort y-” one of them began to say, when suddenly the other six spoke up in tandem, offering their services to her rather excitedly. Three pursed her lips, already knowing where this was going as their tones of voice quickly got much louder than necessary and the conversation devolved into a shouting match over who would get to take her to the meeting. She raised a hand, making them all shut up, barely able to hide her disgust as she smiled sweetly again. “All of you can escort me, if that's okay! I’ll be just as grateful to each and every one~”

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  She sighed as she finally entered the underground top secret bunker of the mafia, having to seduce her way past at least another fifteen people before they finally let her through. How ridiculously tedious. If I could just kill them all… ughh, but that’s for later. She muttered to herself as she thanked the bouncer and she finally entered the incredibly large underground mansion. She stood at the entrance, looking around unimpressed as she mentally compared it to her own luxurious abode - which this place didn’t even hold a candle to. She stretched her fingers slowly, closing her eyes for a moment in concentration as she felt every single heartbeat in the bunker complex. Thousands. Almost over three thousand. 2861, to be exact. Interesting. All of the highest ranking members of the mafias of western north africa and western southern europe had all gathered in this one place, ripe for the picking. She opened her eyes once more, walking down the golden hall. But instead of heading towards the ball room where the majority of the high value targets were located, she instead made her way to the security office with a smile on her lips. On the way she was of course stopped by a heavily armed guard, who raised a hand at her. “Sorry miss, but this area of the complex is strictly a no-go zone for anyone except for-” he wasn’t even able to finish his sentence, his eyes suddenly bulging grotesquely as he gagged on seemingly nothing, frothing at the mouth as he got on his knees and wrapped his hands around his throat, panicking but unable to make a sound. His heart thumped and adrenaline coursed through his veins, so confused and overcome with sheer terror that he couldn’t even force himself to breathe. Three smiled softly as she looked down at the writhing man, not having even moved a muscle, her eyes shining. She simply stepped right over him and continued on her way, letting the man slowly choke to death on his own fear. She looked up at the camera that had just watched what happened without a care in the world, since every other guard down this particular hallway as well as the people manning the security room were all suffering a similar fate at that very moment. She sighed and rubbed her temple, feeling a bit of sweat on her forehead with a frown, her head aching just a little. Egh… Using my power on people when there are multiple walls between us has never been my forte anyway.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Three frowned even deeper once she finally reached the door to the surveillance room, having to step quietly over a few other guards on her way there. But now as she looked at the steel door with a face scanner attached to it, she pursed her lips. I could probably pry this thing open with raw strength, but I can’t begin to imagine the amount of alarms that would fire… Dammit, if only I had gotten more time to prepare a proper strategy. Hmph, I’ll have to chastise Eight on her subpar intelligence network!! Or maybe I should just go to Two directly for that? Three turned around in annoyance and walked down the hall once more, approaching the closest guard and with a clean swipe of her hand decapitated him. She grunted in displeasure as she picked up the disembodied head by the hair, keeping it far from the rest of her body so as to not stain herself with blood, her face wrinkling in disgust. I should have brought gloves… The smell is awful, too. She once more approached the door and raised the decapitated head towards the camera. A satisfying clicking sound later, and Three opened the door to the surveillance room, looking around at the corpses uninterested. She looked up at the incredibly complex control panel and tilted her head, looking to her left and at the only survivor she had purposefully kept scared enough to not move, yet not so scared he would choke to death unlike the others. She smiled sweetly at him, letting her pink and light purple eyes glow violently as she finally took off her mask and crumpled it in one of her hands, folding the metal like it was nothing. “You. Tell me how to operate this, will you?~”

  A minute later, the last survivor was choking to death on the floor while Three gingerly went over the controls in her head. She smirked and pressed on the microphone button, speaking into it - her voice reverberating across the entire facility while her eyes glowed potently, the swirling purple and pink in her irises flowing into each other erratically. “Welcome one and all of our esteemed guests to our humble bunker!” she called out in a friendly yet stern voice, her influence spreading across to everyone in the complex, making all those within the bunker feel tremendous respect and obedience for the unknown voice coming out of the speakers. Sweat ran down her face, making her purse her lips and hurry up with the announcement. “We will now be closing the bunker doors until the meeting is over, to ensure that no undesirables appear. Meanwhile, we urge the guards to evacuate the ballroom to make room for all of our esteemed guests, which we very eagerly hope will gather to hear our long awaited announcement.” She finished her speech by letting go of the microphone button, giggling to herself as her cheeks became pink from blush and she leaned back on the chair, staring up at the ceiling as she felt the heartbeats of everyone in the complex begin to move around, the guards spreading out as the people of importance all funneled into the ballroom. “Well, I guess that’s my cue to go and wipe some filth off the face of this planet, innit?~” she asked no one in particular, pulling down a lever that effectively locked the front door of the complex. She jumped off the chair and hastily began to make her way towards the big centerpiece of the underground complex, all while smirking to herself. If anyone noticed her, she’d just silence them quickly, but just in case she made sure to avoid people if at all possible while making her way there.

  Three yawned as she stood right outside the door to the ballroom, taking mental note that she should probably take a nap after this in preparation for the Celestial meeting. She rubbed her eyes a bit and fluffed up her hair, her fluorescent eyes flowing between light purple to hot pink even more aggressively, showing her excitement. It was those eyes, the signature of the Demiurgos lineage, that made the “Dreamstress” such an easily recognisable person. She was the most popular of the Celestials; she was stunningly beautiful, she knew it, publicly reveled in it, and privately despised it. But alas, it was moments like these that made her genuinely happy to have copious amounts of merchandise and posters with her face plastered on them. She opened the door politely, keeping her gaze low as she slowly made her way past the muttering and excited guests and towards the podium. She sneakily drugged everyone in the room, making their reaction time and thought processes more dull and non-aggressive. She didn’t want to get blasted by the powers of nearly three thousand people the moment she showed her face, after all. Nobody took notice of her presence because of this until she was standing on the podium with a microphone in her hand, all of them too busy talking about business prospects. She tapped on the microphone lightly, creating an irritating high pitch noise which made everyone turn to her. “Ahem ahem!! Is this on? Lovely~” she called out with a sweet smile. It didn’t take long for the ripples of recognition to ignite within the minds of every last person gathered; the sight of her eyes and all too famous face causing all of their stomachs to drop as the entire ballroom fell silent instantly in utter shock. Some people even dropped the glasses they had in their hands, paralyzed by the sudden appearance of Three standing up on the podium. Their expressions are so amusing~ What, afraid of little old me?~ Good.

  Three grinned, “Hello! It's a pleasure to meet you all…” she began shyly, playing with her hair as she chuckled sadistically. The people in the ballroom began to look at each other in fear, a few of them beginning to shuffle away, afraid to stay there and yet even more afraid of drawing her attention. Three took notice, of course, so she decided that watching their terrified expressions, while fun, was unnecessary and she should get on with it. “I’m not going to waste any more of your time, seeing as you’re all very busy people and I am a pretty busy gal myself. So, let’s make this quick!! All of you… die please~” she asked in a low and almost cute tone of voice, putting a hand to her lips and blowing a kiss to the crowd, her eyes flashing blindingly bright for a split second. The room was nearly instantly flooded in blood; every single person in the room being filled with a simply overwhelming rush of adrenaline combined with every single intense emotion that humans are capable of simultaneously, so much so that their hearts couldn’t take it. Literally. Every single person in that room collapsed to the floor unceremoniously, their eyes turning lifeless and glazed over while blood poured out of their mouths, eyes, ears, and noses. Three dropped the smile as she watched the lifeless corpses now littering the room, a drop of her own blood running down from one of her nostrils as well. She squinted her eyes and leaned down, picking up a still intact napkin from one of the guests’ breast pockets, using it to wipe the blood off her face with a frown. That was a bit harder than I was expecting. I could have just made them all tear each other to shreds… Ah, but I couldn’t afford to accidentally leave behind a survivor. “What an awful sight,” she muttered to no one in particular, scrunching up her nose, “Ugh, I’ll never understand how anyone can get used to seeing dead people, seriously.”

  She was nearly all powerful, being number Three of the Celestials… but still, making hearts literally explode was a rather extreme measure. Sure, she could terrify a few people to death without any problem, or enamor a small crowd. But two thousand people at the same time? A bit more of a nuisance. She looked at her sweaty and shaking hand and then at the rest of the auditorium, the ocean of blood steadily rising the more time passed, already beginning to look like a red flood. She scratched her chin apprehensively. Hmm… Maybe I exaggerated a little. No big deal. She looked around the place and stepped down from the podium, carefully stepping on one of the bodies with her high heels while making sure no part of her body or clothes touched the blood. She then looked to the next person in line and gingerly hopped over, wobbling slightly and nearly falling with a distressed squeal. Eventually, she managed to reach the door and walk out without getting any of that awful substance stuck to her. Whew. That was close. She thought, shuddering.

  As for all the guards scattered around the bunker complex and the many others still outside it; she felt nothing but contempt. A dog without a master is nothing but a wild animal. What’s a guard dog gonna do if the house burns down? Nothing, that’s what. She didn’t care about them, just let the police deal with the rogue bastards if need be. Maybe a part of her let them live on purpose, to artificially create more problems she’d “fix” instead of doing whatever new mission Eight had for her. A more humane side of her argued that maybe she felt relieved to not have to kill them, but that voice was quickly snuffed out. Whatever the case, she made her escape swiftly; knocking down the front door of the bunker complex with a swift kick that broke the hinges on the reinforced steel door, yawning as she quickly decapitated the two men at either side of the door with a clean swipe of her hands. She began to gingerly make her way back to where she had left Charles waiting.

  She lazily reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone to give Eight the good news and ask for a week off, but quickly raised an eyebrow at the sight of the MANY missed calls from almost all the other Celestials flooding into her phone now that she had access to signal again. Hell, what’s got them all so riled up? Hmph, and they’re all calling me so carelessly… Really, I shouldn’t even be on the same level as some of them! Idiots. The Ten oughta be split, seriously! Just me, Two and One being called the “Godly Three” or something. She sighed, dialing Eight and putting the phone to her ear, “Hey hey, missed me much?~” she called out in a teaseful tone of voice, her face twisting into a grin. “THREE!!” Eight’s voice suddenly yowled out, making Three pull away from the phone in surprise for a second, her ears ringing and her grin dropping. What in the world could have Eight this emotive?! “Thank goodness you answered. There’s been a change in plans, the Celestial’s meeting has been postponed - or rather its happening earlier than anticipated. Something big has happened, and it seems Number One is involved. Head to your nearest airport; I’ll have Six open a portal for you there so you can get to New York as fast as humanly possible. We’re nearly done rounding up the rest of the Celestials, too.” At the mention of One, Three’s pupils dilated fully and she gripped the phone so tightly the veins on her hand and face popped, gritting her teeth so hard it was audible. “One?! That FUCKING bastard?! What the hell has that son of a bitch- UGH!! I’ll be right there!!!” She hung up right as her grip had become so tight the phone screen was beginning to crack, already rushing to the meeting spot where Charles was waiting for her. ONE!!! Oh, I CANNOT wait to see you~