When all of reality literally revolves around you, or more accurately within you, it can be hard to not let your ego get too out of control. But Astra thinks they can manage well. Having come into existence thirteen billion years ago, the cosmic shark didn’t know how they were born or created, but they simply… did.
The first few billion years were in agonizing silence, not having anyone to communicate with. But once sentient life began to develop around the early universe, Astra finally had something to properly cure their boredom, fastening their scientific and cultural progress to at least have people to talk to.
While it would normally be impossible for a universe to converse with its inhabitants, at least without said inhabitants going mad with the true nature of their form, Astra gave themselves the ability to project a smaller version of themselves to at least make first contact easier.
But even that excitement wouldn’t last. Organics often had pitiful lives of a couple hundred years at best, the blink of an eye to the shark. That’s when they decided to create a persona for themselves to make immortality just that bit more interesting. Taking the form of a shark bounty hunter, they reveled in the thrill of the chase, bringing criminals to justice.
Astra didn’t need to eat, any hunger they may have felt replaced with entropy that wouldn’t affect them for at least a few hundred billion years. But still, if the contract asked for the thieves and murderers to be taken down dead or alive, their shark-like instincts were quick to kick in.
The lack of a stomach was Astra’s biggest issue, yet that didn’t stop them. Their omnipotence gave them the ability to modify every aspect of their body, so connecting the mouth of their projected avatar to a much larger stomach within their main form was a piece of cake, spelling doom for any criminal unfortunate enough to be engulfed through the shark’s jaws.
Given that the stomach itself was inside Astra, making it also inside the universe where the criminals were eaten, there was little that could be done to obscure it from would be adventurers and explorers. Once entering, however, this facade fades away to reveal the cauldron of a stomach in all its gurgly glory.
Despite Astra’s best efforts to hide it in plain sight, giving it the appearance of a nebula in an unassuming part of the universe, people kept showing up. Likely hearing a distress call from a ship being digested, hearing of the rumors of entire planets disappearing within that otherwise empty part of space, or simply happening upon the area out of chance, it was all the same. The stomach indiscriminately digested all who entered, friend or foe.
Astra knew this of course, knowing that all life had curiosity at their core. They couldn’t stop life from exploring their expansive form, and even rewarded their efforts through leaving small gifts littered through their bodies for the especially skilled. But still, the shark wondered at times if the risk was even worth keeping their stomach within them.
But once having tasted the life of a bounty hunter, Astra knew that they couldn’t go back. The feeling of those they caught sliding down their throat gave a pleasure most divine, not to mention the sense of justice being dealt, even if insignificant to the greater things going on within the universe that encompassed them.
Astra in fact got caught up so much in their hobby that they began to neglect their godly duties. New civilizations were left unattended and life unkindled, but who could blame Astra. They were just having so much fun!
The few who Astra shared their true nature to were wary to ask their god to focus a bit less on their vigilante pursuits, especially as the digestive cauldron could easily claim them if the shark chose them as snacks.
After all, the universe is the last person you would want to piss off.
As much as Astra’s general omnipotence came in handy when searching for quick bounties, it tended to make actually searching for the villain of the week rather boring. Not to mention, people would take notice when all the bounties that the shark accepted get erased from existence in impossible ways, so they were unfortunately unable to use some of the more ‘fun’ abilities that came with literally being the universe.
Or at least that was until Astra decided to look outside the system, and that’s when they found out about Xandor the Terrible. A sadistic warlord, Xandor reveled in death and destruction, even going as far as to blowing up the entire Tau Ceti system just to settle a personal grudge against a warring faction. The only reason he hadn’t had a figure placed on his head was because anyone willing to go against him mysteriously went missing.
A fact that would make Astra’s job all the more effortless, or so they thought.
Given that the shark was literally the entire universe, any action that an individual makes no matter how small would be felt by them in some way that would be easy to track. So the destruction of Tau Ceti was especially noticeable, akin to a small tingle just below their starry skin. Xandor had become more than a member of the universal shark’s being, more akin to a parasite that would need purging from their system.
Projecting themselves down into their universe, it didn’t take long for them to meet with the hyena tyrant. A sole ship operated by what was effectively a skeleton crew of followers disciplined by fear, it was hard to believe at first that solely this was able to kill billions and destroy a star. However, the seconds that Astra let their guard down in observation allowed them to be detected by the ship’s sensors giving Xandor the upper hand in his first strike against the intruder.
Astra didn’t expect the impossibly powerful volley of laser blasts and cannon-fire with pinpoint accuracy from such a small craft, and as such they were barely able to escape most of its targeted attack by teleporting back into the ethereal realm in a fit of panic. While the godly shark could simply shrug off any weaponry as though it were nothing, they didn’t want their new designer jacket ruined in its first outing.
If only they were so lucky, as upon closer inspection outside of reality, some of the blasts had managed to scrape the shark, singing the brown leather a dark black. While the deity already despised the pirate hyena’s tumorous activities and genocide within their universe, this was the last straw. For Xandor had made things personal, a fact that would make the hunt just that much more satisfying.
Just as Astra was preparing for their counterattack, Xandor was also preparing his next move. Initially assuming his ships firing to be some false alarm due to faulty hardware of the Albatross’ guidance system, looking over the ships cameras proved that whatever he attacked was no illusion. A few hundred miles from his craft was a shark, unprotected from the vacuum of space with no other ship in sight.
Their appearance should have been an impossibility, so disturbing that the pirate gave the all clear to annihilate the intruder without a second thought. And as the smoke dissipated after a few seconds of directed fire, the shark was gone. Any lesser pirate would have considered their enemy annihilated, but Xandor knew better. Firstly there was no corpse to be seen, the shark vanishing as though they never existed, in addition to all projectiles fired also having vanished into thin air.
A chill ran through Xandor’s spine for the first time in years, and still staring intensely at the empty space once occupied by the shark, instructed his lieutenant Marth to steer the albatross towards the point of impact… Only for no response to follow. Xandors had made sure that his crew knew that the captain had zero tolerance for disobeying direct orders with threat of execution, which made the fact that not a single member of his crew responded, let alone his second in command, all the more eerie.
Finally taking his focus from the cockpit, Xandor quickly looked around the cabin to have his worries confirmed. Apart from himself, it was devoid of all life, something that should have been impossible without the telltale whoosh of the door opening. In fact, given how clean the surroundings were, it was as if the crew had never existed at all. The pirate’s mind was far too aware to justify this bizarre situation as a dream, but that didn’t stop him from instinctively pinching himself just to make sure.
One major benefit to the Albatross was how easy the ship was to pilot, only requiring a single person in addition to the autopilot. The same however was not true for either weaponry or warp navigation, leaving the craft, and its captain, effectively stranded with no way to defend itself, at least without suicidally warping without a destination, in the case that this impossible shark decided to retaliate from wherever they may be hiding.
And so there was nothing that Xandor could do but slowly drift forwards, for the first time ever in fear of his own life. Having learned how best to terrorize the cosmos over the past decade, he knew all too well the feeling of toying with one’s prey, and to be on the other side of the food chain gave an indescribable feeling, one that would give a more empathetic captain a sense of perspective and acknowledgement of the harm he caused throughout the universe.
The worst part was being unable to see or even sense this otherworldly being apart from this first encounter. He knew it too unlikely a coincidence for them to show up just before his crew was seemingly erased from existence, and so as the Albatross aimlessly drifted forwards into the dark, Xandor kept his eyes peeled both on his radar and through the ship’s window, awaiting their return to finish him off.
Even through his fear, he knew that something was wrong both with his ship’s readings, as well as with the view outside. Having spent decades as a pirate, and even longer as a space pilot, instinct kicked in minutes before he realized that the stars were not moving the way they were supposed to. It was impossible for him to describe, but not only was their light not distorted by gravity and the distances between them, but they seemed to be growing at an exponential rate as the Albatross moved, almost as if the sky was projected onto a two-dimensional plane.
Struggling to understand this anomaly, Xandor decided that he needed to escape as quickly as possible, warnings be damned. And so he moved to disable the safeguards prohibiting single manned usage of the warp drive and began powering it up. The likelihood of the Albatross warping into a star or black hole and burning up was a near certainty, but any chance at survival was one that Xandor was willing to take.
However, the pirate’s haste was what doomed him, the engines sputtering out as he attempted forcing the ignition, before dying for good along with most of the ship’s other systems apart from the low-powered life support systems. His cabin now bathed in darkness with the power cut, there was nothing that Xandor could do but stare in horror at the abyss of space in front of his craft.
And then, the abyss shone a toothy grin.
At least, that’s what it would appear as if viewed from a distance. To the captain it was as though the flat landscape of stars ripped open to reveal a blindingly white expanse, with black, jagged outlines separating pillars of what it took him a few seconds to recognize as teeth. Or more specifically, shark teeth. That mysterious shark hadn’t vanished at all, but had instead grown to an incomprehensible degree, large enough to devour the ship in one gulp.
The predator comparison rang frighteningly true at this point, purple eyes many times the size of the ship being conjured from thin air to size up their catch. There seemed to be no barrier between where the shark themselves stopped and the depths of space began, all the stars dotting their visage being in the exact spots they should be. It was almost as if-
“Have you figured it out yet?”
Astra never needed to open their mouth in order to speak, their all-powerful voice appearing to emanate simultaneously from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, loud enough to shape Xandor’s ship to its core. It was only a few seconds before the captain’s ears stopped ringing, giving him time to respond to this now obviously omnipotent being, if they couldn’t already read his thoughts.
Unable to power on the ship’s speakers, Xandor simply spoke in what he hoped was a commanding voice, trying to hide his own pants-shitting fear. ”You’ve made your point very clear. I apologize for my rashness, now can you please cease your illusions and bring my crew back so that we can solve this diplomatically?”
Astra scoffed. “Says the bastard who fired the first shot, who had prior been so merciless to civilizations seen as him by lesser. At least they fought to their end instead of immediately surrendering when encountering something that much more powerful, more ruthless than them.”
Xandor had no retort, nor did he need one. His blank expression and terrified thoughts were more than enough to tell Astra everything they needed to know. “Did my crew at least die a good death?” The shark rolled her planetary eyes at that statement, knowing fully well from the hyena’s thoughts that it was just another attempt to save his pathetic life, feigning empathy so that the shark might forgive him.
But she may as well tell him, a final gesture before Xandor’s erasure from existence.
“When one removes a cancer from their body, It’s usually difficult to spare innocent cells from being similarly excised.” While the analogy was far from perfect, it would have to do. “I at least managed to extract their essence. Reincarnation can be fickle at the best of times, but they didn’t deserve the life you forced them into, and so I’m giving it back.”
Never believing in superstition, it was more clear than ever that Xandor had not only met an actual deity, but had royally pissed them off both through his regular piracy as well as his actions in battle. Yet it was still hard for him to accept how hopeless his situation was, how clearly he was about to die, so he did whatever he could to turn his mind elsewhere.
It instead moved to the prior impossibility of how the space surrounding him appeared flat. At first it seemed as though it was just the face of his captor, but if that was the case, why was the abyss behind him equally static? It was as though he was not staring at the shark’s impossible form, but enclosed within their being.
As if on cue, the illusion of Xandor’s surroundings being empty ceased, the opacity of the walls making themselves clear just as Astra’s projected face faded from view. The barrier wasn’t smooth, but instead covered in constantly moving wrinkles and folds, and somewhere deep in Xandor’s brain, a deep-seated fear began to emerge, an instinct of every animal to not be eaten.
Because Xandor immediately recognized this to be a stomach. Astra’s stomach.
Even with the lack of digestive fluids, the impossible shark’s stomach began to make quick work on the pirate’s ship, paint already peeling from the walls and rusting from the intangible force. A deep rumble echoed through the chamber, audible enough to be discerned as Astra laughing at the hyena’s fate, but Xandor knew that even in defeat, there must still be some way he could beat the sadistic shark.
Much like himself, they seemed to almost thrive off the fear inflicted on others, doubly so through the deity’s telepathic abilities. Even if the motivations were different, them on righting injustices and him on gaining power and notoriety, they were two sides of the same coin. And Xandor knew that death by his hands was rarely a noble one.
He didn’t expect to actually defeat the shark, or even survive this encounter. Even frustrating them would be victory enough, defying the will of an actual god. And so as the metallic hull of the Albatross began to rust and corrode, the hyena pirate closed his eyes and flushed himself of all emotion. He would go out on his own terms, without fear. Even through the excruciating pain once the acids breached the ship and dissolved into both skin and bone, he even smiled.
It didn’t take much for Xandor to be forgotten by the universe. It wasn’t enough for his digestion to erase him from reality, as the scar tissue caused by his universal torment still caused Astra ache. While they rarely wanted to go this far often, erasing the pirate from both time and space wasn’t a hard task, all accomplishments performed by him erased both from existence and the minds of others.
Of course, Astra was a being outside of time, and thus they still remembered their meal. How he churned away, not giving the shark any subsistence, but instead a sense of retribution. The process of erasure wasn’t perfect, the lives the pirate had taken still forever lost, but at least their deaths were not in vain.
Astra of course knew how Xandor tried to shield his pain, his suffering, from them, but the ability to control the very essence of one’s being was too much for even his immense willpower. Every cell burned at once, giving way to internal screams of which the aftertaste still simmered on the shark’s tongue.
Perhaps that was why the echo of Xandor still somewhat existed, hidden deep within Astra’s metaphorical stomach. His very soul was absorbed fully into the shark, a drop in the bucket of Astra’s overwhelming consciousness, ambiently toyed with and tormented by a small portion of the shark’s mind with their larger being entirely unaware, savoring endlessly.
None of this brought back those killed by Xandor, nor those forced into servitude as his crew. But Astra hoped that their actions worked as justice enough. Leaving what was left of the erased pirate to ferment endlessly, they returned to their normal duties as a bounty hunter. After all, Astra pledged that they would protect and bring justice to their universe, no matter the cost.