[i]An ant can hardly say that the ground is changing when it walks upon playing cards being rearranged.[/i]

	This thought occurred to her when she was inexplicably moving away from Barrusom -- not because of the blast, for its center was gaining distance on her as well. No, Barrusom had reeled his arms back as if to attack, but just before they hit, they lost momentum, and in tandem did she gain momentum. Only then had she put two and two together:

	He was creating shockwaves in the very fabric of the universe.

	Barrusom and the explosion fell away from her point of view. She checked for her belt and found that, on the left side, its metal-cloth alloy had melded with her left hip, like a road succumbing to wind-mailed sand. That same side's shoulder pad and the breast curtain below had evaporated; That side of her face and chest, and her shoulder, were smattered in grayish specks and streaks of their materials. But the belt and its items were safe.

	She'd thought the apparent shockwaves only a gravitational effect on light. Now it was clear to her that, by being so embedded in the universe as to be connected to matter, she had a blindspot -- in each wave, [i]matter curved with spacetime[/i]. It was an illusion affecting [color=00aeef]only her[/color]. She was, and had been unwittingly, flying on a wave of spacetime curvature -- the very same that had been detected by techies across the galaxy and for which she was sent to neutralize the beast. [i]How did I not realize this sooner?[/i]

	Regardless, Barrusom was now catching up. With the supernova absorbed into his coat, the sight of a flaming blackhole tumbling her way unsettled her. She was caught in a wave of unknown size and shape like a fly in the maze of a cobweb. How to deduce the extent of this shockwave...

	[i]Like a scientist[/i], she figured, [i]I should do some experimenting[/i]. Even as the living planetoid hurtled towards her, she splayed her limbs out as though bathing in a sensory deprivation chamber -- the sense of the proportions and nature of this shockwave was certainly counted as a deprived sense -- and closed her eyes, concentrating on the one source of matter she could trust to be stable: The center of the galaxy. Using her telekinesis, she attempted to accelerate herself up, then down, then left and right, followed by slowing and then increasing her incongruous backwards movement. It only took about four seconds. The feedback was instantaneous, and thus so were the results. She had a rough idea of its shape, size, and the fact that she was "sliding" along the wave [i]a la[/i] a surfer riding a tsunami.

	Like an apocalypse, Barrusom approached. His flesh was a shore she did not want to land on. She sped herself up and penetrated the "surface" of this wave, sinking away and ahead from its influence. From there, she zoomed the opposite direction.

	She felt a presence growing. A cosmic affluence that registered as an invasion, whether witting or otherwise; Upon the sludge made in the acid's wake were many creatures. Were they growing from it? Were they utilizing Barrusom the way a police or military unit uses canines to sniff out explosives? Were they truly using him as a vector for an invasion? Did he even take notice of their presence?

	She hadn't the time to seek or reason her way into answers to these questions. Barrusom was heading for a planet near the core of this system, the closest world there was. She wasn't sure if there were sapient lifeforms on it, but waiting for the potential cosmic cries of millions being extinguished didn't appeal to her at all.

	Her sword Disconception was still out there. She curved Disconception and took it on a long-way-round trip to Barrusom. Meanwhile, she fell back into and through the shockwave. Once past its push and pull, she accelerated freely towards the legion.

	E=mc[sup]2[/sup]. That equation was taught as-is to many students across many galaxies. The speed of light would not, after all, be amended any time soon.

	But Exeter wasn't bound by that universal speed limit one bit. For her, [i]c[/i] was a variable that increased with experience and power, yet was not so much an increasing limit as it was a flexible power ramp; A measure of limitlessness. And, even when not traveling FTL, the altered equation held true. She stuck her leg out, bracing her rotation so she wouldn't "trip" over the warriors, then dipped her foot into the chitinous waters. She was blurring by so fast that their exoskeletons [i]splashed[/i] outwards, thanks in part to that alteration in equation which had also helped her to power through the waves with ease. In her own wake did she leave two rows of viscera diverging. A hundred or more would be slain by the time she reached the beginning of this other-verse takeover -- [color=ffe9e7]and[/color] [color=ffe7e5]she[/color] [color=ffe5e3]was[/color] [color=ffe3e1]raring[/color] [color=ffe1df]for[/color] [color=ffdfdd]round[/color] [color=ffdddb]two.[/color]


	Having been itself accelerating this whole time ever since it left her hand, Disconception was now on its way to puncture Barrusom like a ballista bolt, and it was halfway to him, chasing him down as he headed towards that distant planet, ideally before he could reach it. It was traveling at nearly the speed of light. Like many katanas used by superhuman warriors, it boasted obscene durability; It would not squash itself against his hide like a mosquito. But would it do any more damage to him than a mosquito would to a human?

Exeter thought so.