As Lucas left the trench, he lost the creepy sensation he had been feeling. Relieved, he wondered if the cousin of the Challenger deep, the Sirena deep also had what had been making him uneasy here. The world really demanded respect with all its mysteries.
With his heartstrings now relaxed, he had the opportunity to more closely examine Estrella. She seemed perfectly fine, with the pressure of the dark sea seeming inconsequential. It was just that while her heart was steadily beating and she seemed to have just lost consciousness or was sleeping deeply even, she was not breathing.
This unnerved him and it took him more than a moment to notice that he was fine too even without his oxygen bottle that he had discarded previously on the ocean floor. Even then, however, his body was functioning just fine and with the more than probable success in his third baptism, he was enjoying new perks. Remembering that he woke up to find her kissing him just as he had instructed, he could conclude that she must have enjoyed some benefits too and should not be in any danger.
Enjoying the calm of the deep sea, he slowed his ascent. It was like he was in a warm embrace, with the woes of life far from him. If only he could keep this peace. As he arrived at the depth where light had not been defeated yet, having left the darkness behind, he could finally get a better look at Estrella. After all, while he managed to avoid total blindness in the dark, it was just that. He was still far from an absolute night vision.
With his left hand around Estrella's waist, he observed her while feeling her supple skin. With the subtle and gentle rays of light, it was like he had an angel-like piece of the concept of beauty in his arms. It was entrancing.
'She didn't change much but she seems even more beautiful than before. Her skin lost the trace of rigidity it used to have and she radiate a certain softness. Like the soft water cushioned the influence of the hard ice. And her hair are longer, from chin length to beneath the shoulders.'
He couldn't help becoming lost in her beauty, her temperament even while unconscious. It was not a matter of desire or vulgarity. Just awe at how his heart was reacting.
Unknowingly, they kept closing in to the surface, with the light changing as if playing a game of giving different perspectives to the beauty's beauty. And Lucas was so focused that he didn't notice that he had been shortening the distance between his lips and Estrella's.
Just as he felt a stirring and was about to be jolted awake, he negated the last few centimeters. His opened eyes hazily met Estrella's before they both closed their eyes as if they were dancing a coordinated tango.
They gently savored each other, comfortable in the water as if they have never been land creatures. Unlike the all-devouring bestial passion, theirs was like a gently spreading fire, emblazing a vast prairie under a beautiful sky.
They lost perception of their surroundings, uncaring of the spectating marine lives. To get herself comfortable, Estrella moved her hands behind Luca's head, allowing the latter to free his hands and put them to contribution.
He started by the closest soft protrusions on the backside that he took parameters of, whether their size, their elasticity or their interesting points. He then left his left hand there as support and to continue the demographic study.
The right one crawled up till the front to take stock of the next point of interest while Estrella's own right hand left its post and made to feel Lucas' body, tracing his muscles from the back to the front. They were so into it that neither of them knew when the Estrella's upper clothes had been pushed to the side, allowing a more direct exchange between their skin.
With the lessened pressure, their more powerful than normal body chased away the water they had previously swallowed in spite of themselves, making the tongues' battle more worry free and exciting.
It took their head abruptly leaving the water for Estrella to notice the well deserved superhuman rigidity and hardness poking her just below the abdomen. Unknowingly, Lucas' formerly slow heartbeat had changed its tempo, facilitating a certain physiological reaction. Estrella opened her eyes wide and pushed Lucas away, jolting the latter to his senses too.
They both coughed in embarrassment before turning away from each other. Not knowing what to do, Lucas tentatively spoke:
"Well, don't get me wrong. You were not breathing and I panicked so I tried to give you some oxygen."
Estrella replied indifferently after schooling her expression, pushing her longer hair behind her ear with her left hand:
"I know."
With a common accord on the sh*tty excuse, Lucas now had the opportunity to look around but his gaze was attracted by the previously freed breast:
'It's bigger than before.'
Indeed, not as big as Christina's but still she left the range of lower mid-size for the higher or even peak mid-size. A throbbing down there made Lucas lower his head to a shocking sight: he was naked.
"Fuck, my short."
He raised his head to see Estrella adjusting her attire as if it was nothing while her lips were twitching as if to suppress a reaction.
"Laugh if you want."
The corner of Lucas' eye twitched as he saw her brightly before immediately reverting back to her default expression.
After being disgruntled at being the only one dealing with that particular embarrassment, he nevertheless understood what happened after some thoughts.
'My figure experienced some big changes and by being in a hurry to run away from the ocean floor, I didn't help my then loosened diving shorts fight against the overpowering pressure.'
And with things happening between then and now, the accident had been overlooked.
Lucas looked at the sky to use the sun to get his bearings only to discover that the earlier clouds that had welcomed them in this part of the ocean had exploded in number and considerably darkened. Without a watch or a compass, he couldn't find out how long they had been gone nor where they were actually. He could only decide on one way to get back: by swimming. As for the boat, he would have to call its captain later and wire him the rest of the payment. Till then, the coming tempest shouldn't have killed him, hopefully.
And swimming they did. They went back down without going into the Challenger deep and used the geography to orient themselves. The Mariana Trench is located in the western Pacific Ocean, about 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Islands. Extrapolating the surrounding map from there, they set out to do what no normal human ever could.
A few days later, in the evening, Lucas stood before the floor to ceiling window of his loft in Tokyo, looking at the tears of the sky doing their best at suppressing the night life of this metropolitan city but failing somewhat.
He had a phone raised to his right ear and seemed to be waiting for a call to connect. His face was hidden by some shadow, accentuating his long white hair behind him. With the little bit of light in the apartment, the gym equipment could be seen with traces of sufferings, as if an apocalyptic storm had taken upon itself to pass through.
Five destroyed punching bags were thrown around with two human shaped dummies lacking heads and sporting holes whose shape was strangely reminiscent to that of fists. Some weightlifting bars were snapped in the middle and the treadmill seemed to have fallen apart after having been pushed too far.
'When strength and speed meet, you get power.'
At that moment, Lucas' call got an answer:
"Jack Schneider listening. Who is it?"
"It's Ghost. I need something from you."
The sudden flash of lightning accompanied by the booming thunder almost seemed to be heralding what was coming: a pandemonium.