Triple and Six had both warned Mono to stay away from the Tvs. After all they had been through with The Corruption and strange powers, they knew without a doubt that he had a connection to them. A connection which, if allowed to grow, could have disastrous consequences. But Mono didn't listen. Or maybe he couldn't. Perhaps he was just as entranced as The Viewers were, and just couldn't help himself. Or, worse, maybe he had a tinge of The Corruption inside of him; ⠁ curse similar to Six's, a hunger that compelled him to do it.

Whatever the reason, Mono had now [accidentally] done the unthinkable. He had released the entity trapped within the confines of The Transmission. And he was freaky. Although, not in the usual definition of the word. He was freaky because of how incredibly normal he looked.

He wasn't completely average looking, of course. He was tall, thin, and didn't seem to be completely on one plane of existence. But he lacked a lot of the strange proportions and hideous deformities that all other corrupt adults they'd encountered before him had. So, what was with this guy? Was he corrupt or not? If not, what did he want? That was unclear, and by extension, horrifying. Not knowing things was really bad in this world. It meant you were ill prepared and thus, less likely to survive.

The two human children hid behind or underneath furniture in the room, while Triple stuck with her trademark move of sinking into the shadows, completely out of sight. She would stay completely still and silent, waiting for the perfect moment to intervene. As she observed with keen, calculating eyes, it became clear to her that something strange was going on between The Thin Man and Mono. The former's presence seemed to cause the boy physical pain. He curled in on himself, hands gripping tightly to his head, clearly using all his willpower not to moan, or make any other noises that might give away his position. The Thin Man, on the other hand, seemingly couldn't care less about the bag wearing boy. It seemed that he had eyes for no one else but Six.

Triple really didn't like the way he was eying her sister. She wasn't quite sure how she knew, but there was something about the way he looked at her that suggested that this was more than just a simple hunt. ⠠⠭ was almost as though he and Six had met before, and whatever had happened then caused The Thin Man to have a personal vendetta against her. But there was no way that could be possible.

When the moment finally came where Six was mere inches from being taken and dragged away, Triple acted. She burst from the darkness, shoving Six away from The Thin Man and baring her teeth. Her canines were sharper and longer than all of her other teeth, a strange translucent silvery white that glittered menacingly in the low light of their surroundings. As she got into a fighting stance, stretching out her hands so her inner darkness could fill them, she expected The Thin Man not to hesitate in attacking her. She had stolen his prize away from him, after all. But he didn't. Instead he just stood there, seemingly completely taken aback at the shadow girl's presence. At least, that's what she assumed the reason was; it was difficult to see his face given her position on the ground and the shadow of the man's hat shielding his face from curious eyes.

Triple on the other hand had no such problems. She rose into the air, shadows flowing easily from her body, lashing out. The Thin Man was not expecting this at all, and stumbled a good distance away. "LEAVE HER ALONE!" Triple roared, reeling in her shadows for another attack. This time The Thin Man was able to put up a shield of buzzing static in the air which blocked out the blunt of the blow, but not all of it. What was able to get through sunk into his form, blackening him, and seemingly making it a little more difficult for him to move. He stumbled, struggling a little to keep himself upright.

"Leave us all alone!" Triple didn't like how the shadows that managed to hit The Thin Man left her, but if that was what it took to keep her friend and sister safe, then there was no help for it. She would have to find a large shady spot to recharge her power in when this was over.

"If you thought you could just come in here and snatch away my sister like it's nothing," The Thin Man had apparently decided to go on the offense as well now, so Triple had to dodge his attacks while continuing to prepare her own. "You... are... wrong!"

A sudden presence made itself known on her left. She glanced over to see Mono, still looking very uncomfortable but trying even harder to power through it, standing shakily beside her. "Mono what do you think you're doing!" She shouts, creating a blockade of darkness just in time to keep a blast of electricity from hitting them both. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

"I-I think... I think I can help you." His voice starts off quivering and unsure, but ends confident and strong. Triple doesn't even have time to scold the boy for his idiocy before he's scrunching up his face in concentration and holding out his hands. It doesn't take her long to realize what he's trying to do. He's attempting to summon his inner power! But Mono's not a spellcaster. He has no inner power... right?

Apparently he does, because suddenly his body is vibrating with static electricity. He has a really hard time controlling it, as most people do with their first summons, but a lot of it obeys him, and batters The Thin Man's shield until it disperses. Triple takes this chance to send a very large burst of shadow into him, making him even darker than he was before. At this point, The Thin Man is having a really bad time. His knees are buckling under his new weight, and his arms hang limply, dead weight at his sides. But still he advances, and still he fights.

Mono doesn't seem to be faring much better, unfortunately. He had obviously put too much power into one attack, as novice spellcasters are prone to do, and may have even fizzled already. What parts of his paper bag that weren't soaked through with his sweat had been fried with electricity. With a sigh he removes it and tosses it away, watching as it rains down onto the ground in countless tiny gray pieces like the world's saddest confetti. He doesn't waste time grieving its loss now much to Triple's relief, and turns to her, looking exhausted but determined. Triple has to restrain herself from gasping. His eyes! They are as black as, well, her. But they hold a bright and unyielding gleam behind them, the spark of his newly awakened magic. "Come on!" He shouts over the roar of powers colliding in the air. "Let's finish this!"

He then reaches out for Triple's hand. She takes it, firmly, knowing what Mono wanted to do. This was a move she had only read about, a magic circuit if she remembered correctly. Two or more casters would hold hands and use that physical contact to share their strength between one another, merging it. It didn't matter what elemental leaning the casters had; as long as they all had relatively good relationships it would work. The stronger the bond, the stronger their shared magic would be. Triple had no idea how Mono knew to do this, but that was a discussion for another time. For now the living shadow was simply grateful he did know it, because there was no way he could have gone on without some backup mana.

Triple could feel the buzz of Mono's power droning through her body, while he could undoubtedly feel the coolness of her shadows entering his. ⠠⠮⠽ simultaneously raised their hands, and released a huge burst of purple energy (so that's what shadow and electricity look like together huh?) which engulfed The Thin Man completely, bursting out in a gigantic explosion.

Error In Loop xxx:

The Thin Man was destroyed early.

Thus Six wasn't captured.

Thus Mono would not need to go to The Signal Tower to rescue her.

Thus Six would not drop him.

Thus Mono cannot become The Thin Man.

Thus The Thin Man never existed.

Thus he could not be destroyed.

Thus these events are impossible.

Error, error, error, error

01010111 01100001 01101001 01110100 00101100 00100000 01101111 01101000 00100000 01000111 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 00100000 01000101 01111001 01100101 00100001 00100000 01000100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110010 01100101 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101111 01110000 00100000 01111001 01100101 01110100 00100001

Exception detected.

01011001 01100101 01110011 00100001 00100000 01001001 00100111 01101101 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00100001 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01101000 01100101 01101100 01110000 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100011 01101011 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01110100 01110010 01100001 01100011 01101011 00101100 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01101101 01110101 01100011 01101000 00100000 01101101 01101111 01110010 01100101 00100001

Evaluating...

01010011 01101111 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01100100 01101111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01100001 01111001 00111111 00100000 01010111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01101100 01100101 01110100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00111111

...

Exception accepted.

Triple awoke with a gasp, bolting upright. What had happened? Was she unconscious or just asleep? Why would she be asleep? She didn't need to sleep; she could, but she learned it wasn't such a wise idea due to the nightmares about the terrible things she had done to Six in the past. They were usually a lot worse than real life though, for example there was one where instead of just watching it happen, Triple had captured the nome and forced Six to eat it while she begged her to stop. Ah, the delusions of a guilty mind.

Triple shook herself. She would have plenty of time to lament her wrongdoings later. For now she had to figure out where she was, and find Mono and Six! With a start, she realized that they were nowhere to be found! Oh no! They weren't dragged away by some monster while she was out of commission, were they?

"Calm down, Triple." She chided herself aloud. "Panicking will get you nowhere, except dead. If I can actually die, anyway. Can I? Probably... Ugh! I'm getting off track! Okay... okay. What I need to do is stand up, and take a look at my surroundings before planning my next move."

And so she did just that. Clambering to her feet, the first thing the shadow girl noticed was how dark, but also not everything was. Like the house in front of her for example. It was pitch black when she looked straight at it, but when she peered at it from the corner of her eye the colors were there clear as day, only to disappear when she faced it again. Then she looked down at her feet, and gasped. The area where she stood should have contained the shadow of the building, but instead it was as though she was standing on a gigantic photo of the house. Then, it clicked.

I'm in the Shadow Realm! She realized with a burst of excitement, gazing in awe at the shadows of The Pale City which, for her, were tangible threes dimensional buildings and objects. Only extremely advanced spellcasters could linger in this place like this rather than just using it to move from point A to point B in the living plane of existence, so she'd never thought she would ever get to experience it. Then again, since she was a shadow herself, it was probably much easier for this place to accept her.

Eager to explore it further, she swung the door of the house open and headed inside. There she found things that, to the mind of someone who was versed in logic rather than magic, should not have been able to have shadows. There were carpets, furniture, and even a few Viewers. They did not react to Triple's presence, even as she stood between them and their precious shadow TV. This was because they were merely non-living shadows that could only do the things their flesh and blood counterparts did. Not like me, she thought to herself with a giggle, poking at the male Viewer's shadow hand that was resting on the shadow armrest of the shadow couch. His "skin" felt similar to hers, like skin, but also not. Shuttering, she stepped away and left the house.

Before she could think of what to do next, a small sound caught her ear. A sound like this was extremely of out place since the only thing that could be heard in The Shadow Realm was a whooshing rumble, similar to the sound shadow magic makes. It was... humming? But not just any humming, Triple realized with shock and disgust. It was that song. The song that plagued both her and Six's nightmares. The song to activate the Hunger Curse. And even worse, it sounded exactly the way it had when she had hummed it.

That's when it all came rushing back. She and Mono had fought off The Thin Man to save Six, he had presumably been destroyed, and then she was somehow transported to the Shadow Realm where someone was humming the Hunger Song. Whoever it was, Triple had to find that person and stop them, possibly by strangulation or something equally brutal. She couldn't help but imagine that whoever was doing it had replaced The Hunger Curse on Six and was torturing her with it. Maybe Mono was with them too, maybe—

"No!" Triple began to move as fast as she could, racing through the Shadow Realm as it twisted and elongated in strange ways due to the sun's movements on the living plane. The humming grew louder and louder as she raced towards the source, soon realizing that it was coming from the Shadow Signal Tower of all places.

As she approached the dark looming building, the doors swung open automatically, and the humming stopped abruptly. The implications of that kept her going, racing through the weird logic defying maze of shadows and dark reflections. She could only assume that the other version wasn't much better. As much as she tried to keep her advice to herself about panicking, it was really hard to. She cared about both Six and Mono a lot, and the certainty that something horrific had probably just occurred along with her inability to locate them was making her crazy. Please, please, please! She begged inside her mind. Let me be wrong. Let them be okay. Let nothing bad have happened to them!

After countless time of wandering through the tower and probably going in circles, Triple found something out of place. It was an extremely ornate full-length mirror. It wouldn't look out of place in The Lady's quarters on The Maw, but it certainly did here. What was even more weird was Triple's reflection. See, mirrors and reflections don't exactly work in the Shadow Realm since reflections don't have shadows. The mirror does, but it's usually just a large rectangle. That's not what was happening with this one.

Unlike ever before in her life, Triple was reflected perfectly. Ah, so that's what I look like to everyone else. She thought with slight bemusement, gazing at herself. With a slight sadness, she realized that she was quite the unsettling spector. What with her dark ethereal raincoat, her slit-pupiled eyes that couldn't seem to decide whether they wanted to be red or yellow, the way she smirked, revealing her needle sharp fangs. Wait a minute! I'm not doing that!

Triple would later admit to no one the sort of terrified high-pitched scream she had let out when the mirror shattered into nothing, and her reflection burst out at her in a huge burst of darkness.

When the shadows cleared away, her reflection was no where to be found. Triple was about to wonder if she had imagined the whole thing, when she heard it. An unhinged giggle from behind her, which quickly escalated into manic cackling that bounced eerily around the tower. The shadow girl whirled around to find what appeared to be an exact replica of herself, quaking with uncontrollable laughter.

"W-wha?" She stammered, her mind having trouble catching up to the current events.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!" The other her cackled, shadows flailing around her. "Finally! I'm finally able to give you what you deserve!"

"What I deserve?" Triple repeated, dumbfounded. "But aren't you me?" She soon went back to anger. "Wait, it was you singing that cursed song before, wasn't it? I thought it sounded exactly like me, I just didn't know how right I was."

"Indeed!" Other Triple replied with a patronizing smile. "Good to know my counterpart isn't as dumb as I originally thought. Mmm, well I guess I could give you an explanation. It wouldn't be as fun if you didn't know what's going on." With a wave of her hands, Other Triple formed two chairs with her shadows and sat in one, beckoning Triple to do the same. "Here, get comfy. This is gunna be a wild ride."

A/N: I thought about putting the whole confrontation with the mysterious Other Triple in one chapter that I could introduce the OC I've wanted to introduce forever, but this was too good of a cliffhanger to pass up. I'm curious what you guys think is happening here, so feel free to share. Thanks for reading!