Synergy 4 (Patreon)

[At long last, it's finally here! The fourth and Final part! I definitely recommend reading the first three parts if you haven't yet.]
Part 1 - https://www.deviantart.com/hikerangel/art/Synergy-866613570 

Part 2 - https://www.deviantart.com/hikerangel/art/Synergy-2-872152750 

Part 3 - https://www.deviantart.com/hikerangel/art/Synergy-3-884805701

Story

Commissioned by Koopa16

Written by HikerAngel, with help from Kingbobman

An inharmonious, conflicted breath fled Laura’s mouth as she watched the color slowly drain out of her father’s familiar face. Never in her life had she been presented with such a tough choice. She desperately desired answers and the thought of her loving father being returned to her after ten years of absence was eating away at her.

But then there was the other side of the proverbial coin. Power. Lots of it. A triumvirate of untapped potential at her perfect, glossy fingertips—of which she now possessed full jurisdiction.

But she knew deep down that this coin flip would only end one way. It could not be reduced to the same level of randomness. As much as it went against everything she stood for, it would be the only way to truly satisfy the need of that wide-eyed girl left in the prison waiting room without as much as a solitary sense of closure.

The hints of desperation in her voice spilled into a cacophony of sniffles and twitches as she tried to bring her perfected lips to make out the next words. It was as if the symbiotes within her, even with their binary way of thinking, understood just how gray of a choice this was and were frozen with indecisiveness, waiting for Laura’s input.

Her eyes darted from alien to alien, her posture unsure of itself for the first time in a decade.

A heavy sigh passed through clenched teeth.

“Very well. I’ll give up two of my symbiotes. May I just…hug my father one last time? I just want him to see the woman I’ve become before it’s all taken away from me.”

“How polite.” Lortia replied, trilling the start of a chuckle from within her shut jaw. She then released the half-dead man from her grasp, a quick outstretch of one of Laura’s wispy tendrils being the only saving grace between himself and the concrete ground of the decimated base.

“We can read your mind should we choose, so, no funny business, understand?” the purple-skinned alien woman spoke with a snarl.

Laura brought her father into a loving embrace, her breath quieting as she felt his familiar itchy sweater. The last time she had seen him, he had been a full head taller than her. But now, her height was almost equal to his, her chin finally able to make the trek over his shoulder that she was never quite able to accomplish as a younger woman. Not only was he somewhat shorter in his older age, but her blossoming figure had more than made up for the difference.

Zmonq inspected her mind as she hugged her father, checking if any nascent thoughts were floating about. There was nothing to see but genuine love for her father, overwhelming all other feelings and thoughts.

But little did the aliens know, Laura had already made her move. As soon as her sinuous black and white excess limb caught her father earlier, it did a quick read of his mind to peer at anything important. Laura had to hide her amazement as a particularly crucial detail of something he had worked on in secret was revealed to her. Unfortunately, she had to quickly truncate such thoughts so suspicion from the gang of surrounding aliens would not be raised.

With the tentacle transitioning back into the smooth tan color of her exposed shoulder, she had managed to evade suspicion. But now, her fun is over.

As promised, the symbiotes were slowly stripped from her body. She gritted her teeth, a dull ripping sensation pulsating throughout her entire body as even the alien goo themselves attempted to resist the inevitable. She felt her breasts deplete in volume, her musculature and silkiness following suit.

Grunts begot further grunting as her flawless body returned to its state of above average. She felt her limbs convulse and cry as they struggled to adapt with her faltering form. This wasn’t physical pain, this feeling was what she could only describe as the opposite of sexual pleasure. It was the worst feeling in the whole world to her.

Pain was familiar. Pain was less humiliating than this.

The once-chiseled attributes of her body were disappearing, her skeletal structure uncomfortably thinning as every bit of her symbiotic relationship was stripped from her very DNA. Her once otherworldly sex drive—brimming with desire 24/7—almost seemed to leave with the passing symbiotes. An overwhelming sense of numbness, like a phantom limb spread across her entire body, was the only dominant feeling left behind for her to grasp ahold of.

Her body felt loose and incomplete, like nutrient-deprived dirt after a healthy plant had been ripped out from the roots. A once-vibrant puzzle missing most of its pieces, displaying the picture of a broken woman without the support she had come to rely on.

The world was so… cold now. While she still possessed a body that would make even the most reserved supermodels cry out in agony, she couldn’t even bring herself to recall what she had been before her life-changing alien makeover. She was once extraterrestrially beautiful, no amount of narcissism could cloud that fact.

Then, to make a bad situation worse, one of the aliens reached forward and snatched up her father.

“N-no!” She cried out, trying to take a step forward only to receive a painful reminder about how weak she now was with a face to the pavement. Without the girth that the symbiotes had been giving her legs, the entire bottom half of Laura’s body felt more alien to her then the actual extraterrestrials that had once resided within it.

“G-give him back!” Laura demanded uselessly, raising a trembling hand a few inches off the ground in protest only for it to immediately falter.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you going to try and sue us now?” one of the aliens spat with sarcastic vitriol. “Never forget, you did this to yourself. It was your greed; Your selfishness; Your lust for power.”

Each accusation struck her bruised ego like a bullet.

“You are like most humans, an arrogant failure. Unworthy of even a single symbiote to call your own.”

She couldn’t even muster up the strength to respond. There were simply too many thoughts racing through her head. All she could accomplish was to lay there in the dust, once-shining hair now dull and splayed over her head and the ground like a wet mop.

“We can confirm that there are no other symbiotes currently on earth, Zmonq,” one of the affiliated aliens spoke up, “Once we exit the atmosphere with these three in our possession, this planet will be completely symbiote-free.”

“Good work, then let us make haste. Master would be displeased if we left him waiting longer than absolutely necessary.”

With that, Laura was left alone and crushed, the aliens fleeing with her keys to power just as soon as they had arrived.

***

The slow, meandering walk back to Laura’s beach house was a painful, humiliating one. Without the symbiote, each step felt like trudging through molasses. When even just merging with one felt like walking on air, having to put in the physical effort of each footfall was tiring and tedious. It didn’t help that she had forgone traditional shoes in favor of the symbiotes—after all, they provided far stylish mobility to whatever designer brand she had been wearing prior.

Meandering into her Santorini villa, it was hard for her to will any motivation for, well, anything. Her headspace was a staticky haze, unable to focus on the world around her. Maybe that was for the best, as the usual gapes and gazes from her all-male staff were replaced with looks of worry. It wasn’t just her nerfed beauty, her posture was less uppity, her stride less regal from walking on asphalt with bare feet. If she wasn’t one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, she would’ve likely been mistaken for a common beggar.

She was afraid to look in the passing mirror, fearful of the failure she might see if she were to gaze upon its reflective surface.

The infinite azure before her went unappreciated as she sulked in a beach chair. Without her mind constantly being reminded of the pain from walking, it began to drift into the depths of depravity.

Mutiny…

Betrayal…

Once those barbaric fools she had spent so long throwing around found out that she no longer possessed the devastating physical prowess that made her such a threat, they’d likely try their hand at getting back at her for how she humiliated them. It was only a matter of time before they discovered she was just as vulnerable as they, yet the ticking clock only brought about anxiety within. She simply didn’t have the energy to sit up.

She was reminded of that young child in the courtroom, weeping softly as her father was taken away from her alongside all prospects of an assured future. She had made it her personal mission to never cry like that ever again, yet all she wanted to do was bawl her eyes out as she lay basking in the pleasures of one of the fanciest resorts in the world.

She was a mere child back then, when her father was taken away it was for something out of her control. But he was right there mere hours ago and she was certain she had the power to take him back. It was her fault that he was gone, her fault that her powers were gone and it would be her fault when her empire began to crumble around her.

Laura had fallen back to the childish mentality, one that had only kneecapped her over and over again. She was like the very history she had been weaved into, doomed to repeat herself.

But then, as her breathing began to quicken, all the anxiety within her converted itself into a silent rage. It was those damn aliens. They had tricked her! Her narcissism reminded her that, at the end of the day, it wasn’t really her fault. They had been playing to her weakness, using her father as a last-resort pawn to uphold their own stupid, hypocritical rules about the universe.

She was Laura, she didn’t bend to anyone’s rules! She bent the rules around her sinuous thighs until they buckled under the weight! Unlike her child self—even without the symbiotes—she was still the most powerful woman in the world! She just needed to use that power to get the symbiotes back!

But then, a large dose of reality smacked her in the face. How was she even supposed to get the symbiotes back?

Space travel was a risky endeavor, one prone to failure and nowhere near advanced enough to take Laura where she needed to go. Not to mention, she wasn’t even sure exactly where these aliens that had stolen her precious symbiotes had run off to. If she had struggled to find George on earth, there was no chance in hell she’d be able to locate the symbiotes or her father in the vast directionless expanse of the cosmos.

Great. She thought. Back to square one.

Depressive thoughts crept back into her mind: she’d likely never be super again, doomed to a life of mere social and monetary superiority over others. She’d never be able to get her revenge unless some sort of miracle was dropped upon her lap.

She wasn’t sure how long she sulked after that, letting the bright, midday sun burn her skin somewhat unconsciously, forgetting how the symbiotes often acted as sunscreen protection to her delicate skin.

“L-Laura, is that you?” came a concerned, meek voice from behind her on the balcony of the rear patio, breaking her from the malaise. Laura recognized it immediately, conflicted as to whether or not she actually wanted to see this person. Regardless, the crunching sound of boots on sand approaching her was inevitable.

Laura jerked her head upwards, her eyes meeting those of Synergy as he came into view from behind her lounge chair. One look at his face confirmed everything about Laura was true. She was still a wreck. Like a mother who had just lost her children, tiredness and despondency rang true upon her face.

“Did… did the symbiotes hide from you or something?” Synergy asked with a worried tone to his voice. It was if he couldn’t even fathom the idea that Laura could be tricked into losing them. Laura herself was scared to admit the truth, her front teeth peeking out from their cherry-red enclosure and biting down subtly on her bottom lip.

He’s going to find out eventually. If you keep an air of confidence about you, he might not try to flee from the sinking ship the first chance he gets.

Laura stared at Synergy’s face, a furious debate raging in her head as to whether or not to clue him in on everything. But the longer she gazed deep into his face, another train of thought began to construct itself in her mind. One that probably wouldn’t have formed if she wasn’t suddenly forced to care about anyone other than herself via literal de-powerment.

“Wait… I know you.”

Synergy was taken aback, a small smirk growing upon his face at the slight absurdity of her comment.

“I mean, I sure hope you know who I am. We’ve slept together, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“No, I mean… I’ve known you…” she spoke, squinting her eyes in mental confusion. “before all this ‘Synergy’ stuff.”

“I’m… not sure what you mean?”

“Ten years ago… god, I hadn’t really thought about it until just now. That boy. That was you!”

Laura leaped up from her chair, her body stumbling as she hastily ran to the shore. Dropping to her knees, she began to compile her thoughts using the wet sand.

“Laura, a-are you alright?”

“What do you know about Ron Kingsford?” she shot back, only briefly establishing eye contact with him to ensure that the question reached him before returning to her work.

“W-what are you talking about?”

She continued scribbling out a bunch of words in the sand like a madwoman, drawing little arrows to connect the statements and creating a web of fractured information.

“Ten years ago, my father was sent to prison for unethical practices before disappearing entirely. Outside the very courtroom where he was being sentenced, a kid around my age gave me a little flower as what I assume was a gift to make me feel better. That guy was definitely you. Blond hair and blue eyes match as well as the awkward gesture of affection.”

“Hey!” Synergy shot back, somewhat insulted. “But also, the girl I gave the flower to was you? I never even made that connection!”

“When I looked inside my father’s mind briefly, I saw a memory from his eyes, he was in a lab with two other men and a kid. The one outside the courtroom was that very same kid.”

With that, she stopped writing in the sand and looked Synergy dead in the eyes.

“So, I ask you once more, what do you know about my father, Ron Kingsford?”

He seemed hesitant to answer. But Laura could no longer threaten him like she used to.

The foamy waves washed away everything she had planned, as if the universe itself collaborated the struggle of the situation. But she did not give up. Laura knew that Synergy’s adoration could never be washed away, and within his mind and heart she would carve her power anew.

“We’re going home. Close your eyes.”

Something was off about Laura, even more than usual. But to Synergy, she was still the woman he loved. He complied with terror, arousal, and hope as he was commanded to close his eyes, and the gag entered his mouth.

***

“Open your eyes.”

He obeyed, beholding his own bare chest tied to a folding chair, and his arms over a keyboard which masked suspicious wires that he dared not seek the ends of.

Without her symbiotic powers, she’d have to revert to exerting a domineering force the old-fashioned way.

“What is my name? Type it. Now.”

He obeyed, and as an L appeared on the screen his body jumped, as far as one restrained could. “LAUR” was all that had been written when his will was finally shattered, and semen flew across the room, though Laura had anticipated and desired this outcome and was as such careful to use waterproof electronics. Laura chucked as her name was finally completed on the screen.

“Good boy.” Laura ran her fingers slowly down his spine “What was the first gift you gave to me? Remind me. Now.”

He obeyed, as a cogent thought attempted to flee the gag, but all that escaped was a desperate grunt. “FLOWER” appeared on the screen without a second orgasm, which elicited a sigh of genuine relief out of the gag, until it was replaced by terrified murmurs as Laura turned a dial to the right.

“What’s wrong?” Laura’s tone remained a gentle whisper, as she continued to caress him sweetly. He could not take that, and came for a second time.

“You’re doing so well… Do you love me?” Laura turned the dial a second time, as her voice became even softer. She turned the dial once more, pretending it wouldn’t go any further by mocking a turning motion without pressing it in, a feature she prepared for precisely this situation. He nodded vigorously, and ‘YES’ appeared on the screen over and over, his body writhing with escalating pain and pleasure as everything released into her hand, which now calmly stroked his violently shaking erection.

“What would you do… For love?” Laura removed the gag, placing her lips onto his before he could say a word, secretly turning the dial to its actual limit. and as Laura finally penetrated his mind for good, she pulled back and sat down on the keyboard, pressing every key at once. He screamed in agony and bliss, but his brain only had room for pleasure…The chair itself began shaking, and as he thought she might relent she whispered one last question.

“Final time asking: what do you know about Ron Kingsford’s project?”

“He…worked…with my father…” Synergy came again, moaning before continuing “They…lured them here…using a…dead symbiote…something about…a certain sound wave…in a journal…I’m not sure…where they are now…” Laura stood up, and Synergy collapsed.

“Oh well…He told me more than enough.” Laura grinned, talking to the walls around her. “In fact, that should be plenty.”

One of dad’s old journals. Now, she had a place to start.

***

“You shouldn’t underestimate her, you know.”

That was the first time anyone had talked since they left Earth.

“I didn’t know you were suddenly so fond of speaking out of turn, Kingsford,” Lortia replied, an annoyance in her tone.

“Look, I’m merely saying my piece. That’s all.”

“There was already peace before you spoke, human,” Zmonq shot back, briefly proud of his own wordplay. “Are you seriously suggesting that your daughter is going to find a way to fire back at us? That, I highly doubt.”

“I think you underestimate humans.”

“No, I think I estimate them quite well, if I must say. Don’t forget, you’re only here because you got close to understanding what a symbiotic bond was truly capable of. That’s it. We’ve got earth under our watchful eye, step out of line, we’ll intervene.”

Ron didn’t say anything in response, but Zmonq didn’t feel as if he was finished.

“Humans are not all they’re cracked up to be. Motivators like greed can only get an individual as far as the sum of their parts, yet your whole species seems to be motivated by it.”

The alien continued to ramble on with platitudes about the human race, but Ron was no longer listening. He knew in his heart that Laura had a chance.

Zmonq said they had a watchful eye over earth, but the aliens had only intervened after Ron’s daughter had broken the “rule of one” twice.

If they really had a watchful eye that never blinked, they would have stopped Laura as soon as she acquired her second symbiote, but it appeared she had three when they arrived.

Laura has some leeway, Ron could only pray that it would be used effectively. But if he knew anything about his daughter, he was sure it would be.

***

“God damn it… fuck... where is it…?” came Laura’s distant voice as Synergy’s consciousness recovered. The mansion was vast, yet he immediately pieced together where she had to be.

Still possessing enhanced strength, he broke free of his restraints and hobbled over to where the sound of her melodious vocals had been. His body ached, intuitively stretching several limbs out of their stupor and back into comfortable functionality.

The room he walked into was a mess. Papers were scattered about, desk drawers ripped out of their sockets without care and wallpaper ripped at the seams as if someone was searching for a secret entrance.

Laura was knelt in the dead middle of the floor, facing away from the entrance as if to hide her distress as best as possible.

Synergy knew exactly what Laura was searching for and even knew the exact hiding spot for it. But he was hesitant to spill its location. Laura wanted power—driven to madness by its enticing allure. That book gave Laura the potential to obtain a lot more than just three symbiotes if utilized correctly. Laura could approach god hood, or worse. He wasn’t even sure there was something worse, but he didn’t doubt Laura’s ability to prove him wrong on that front.

But Laura seemed...different now. A sense of insecurity that would only unveil itself through a great personal tragedy had unfolded. She was cornered and desperate. Now, Synergy thought, would be the best time to squeeze an honest answer out of her.

“Laura, you lost the Symbiotes, didn’t you?” Synergy asked once more, hoping this time she wouldn’t dodge the question.

Laura choked back tears, the sound of sharp breaths could be heard as she continued to hide her face from Synergy. She couldn’t hide her feelings anymore.

“It’s true. I lost the symbiotes. Some aliens tricked me. All I’m trying to do is get the ones I deserve back. That’s all. Why must the world be so cruel to me?”

Synergy’s eyebrows raised into those of worry. For as long as he had known Laura Kingsford, there was only one other moment when she had allowed herself to act vulnerable before him—ten years ago outside the courtroom. A moment he now realized was the first time he had ever fallen in love with a girl.

There was resignation in his mind, but none in his heart. Before him was a megalomaniacal woman, yet also before him was the woman he loved, desperate to retrieve only what she had prior and nothing more.

He felt his hand almost instinctively reach for the key in his pocket. Even his gut seemed to be in his corner on this one. The piece of metal hadn’t left his side since his father had passed, partially because Synergy didn’t understand the significance of it until just yesterday when Laura laid everything out in the sand.

But now, it all made sense. As if fate had connected all the dots for him.

“Um, Laura?”

“What is it?” she snapped back, more out of distress than anger.

“I…might know where that journal you’re looking for is.”

***

“S-so, what’s this project all about?” spoke the only scientist brave enough to make his voice heard within a sea of equally confused scientists, engineers and language professors. Top researchers from all around the world, flown out in secret to an undisclosed location just yesterday. before Laura.

“Something for you to know and for the shareholders to never find out, my dear,” her voice spoke eloquently, yet hints of desperation snuck through her teeth.

After conducting a rather careless headcount of everyone in the room—merely to regain everyone’s attention—she retrieved a small clicker from the table beside her. The dim room was suddenly lit up as a bright white projector slide displayed a mere two words.

Project UNITY.

The scientists weren’t all convinced immediately. Laura was a mess. Her posture was disheveled, her blonde hair was frazzled and her eyes were baggy and bloodshot after two nights of only coffee. If the personal email delivered to each of the scientists hadn’t included the generous amount of green they would be receiving, they would have likely all turned heel and walked out the room.

But as Laura explained the finer details of the operation, heads started to nod. She was nothing if not thorough, spending every waking hour since Synergy’s big reveal working tirelessly to create a mockup for the world’s top scientists and engineers that would obscure the finer details while still presenting an attainable goal.

She would then give this supposed “one-time” presentation to another group of scientists tomorrow, as she had conducted the day prior and as she would be conducting three days in a row afterwards. None of these five meticulously selected groups would even interact with each other, nor spoke the same general languages if they were should they ever be in a position to communicate.

The plan was bearing fruit almost immediately. By the time she had convened with team five, team one was already producing worthwhile results. The only ones in the know being Laura and Synergy and the latter was as tightly wrapped around the former’s finger as one could hope.

However, in just a single day, outside problems were beginning to arise. It appeared as though her symbiotic mind control of the EU decision makers remained intact, yet their subservience was fading. A call forwarded to her from her secretary seemed to suggest as much. While they were still sending her untraceable phone calls from Brussels as she had requested, their voices were not as loopy and hollow as she had come to expect.

They seemed to be confused, able to tell unconsciously that the situation was unnatural but unable to properly question it. Like children who knew nothing other than what they had been told by an abusive parent that fed them lies. They did as they were told, but there was a tone of regret and sadness that pierced through. Their pesky human nature was reminding them of how unnatural their state of mind was. Her dreamy sense of warmth that she had instilled within was fading, and not at a rate with which she could confidently calculate.

If she couldn’t hold on to their drunken love for her, it wouldn’t be long before they found out about her multiple counts of tax fraud and offshore banking accounts. That was money she couldn’t afford to liquidate, not right now, not on the brink of her final ascension.

As the nights went by and the toil of her scientists produced more and more results, she could not help but fantasize about the exclusive goddesshood that could be brought to her should the project be a success.

Her longing for power was becoming frantic. She was tempted to accept Vlady’s neverending proposals as he edged himself on the thought of what she had been, hoping that he would still fear her like he once had upon seeing her face before his own.

Perhaps Mr. Lin would be interested in a visit as well? Though she consciously admitted a trip to Hong Kong was a mere excuse to see the duet of girls who were once by his side. Now the mere arm candy sidelined him themselves as they ran his Triad.

She listened tentatively, her breathing quickening as they spoke in a dulcet duet over the speakerphone. Even though she no longer understood their language without the symbiotes to translate—an equally-aroused interpreter now required in the informational transaction—their expertly-sculpted voices mirrored the sweet harmonies of the most beautiful piece Broadway had to offer.

With these women not as sycophantically dedicated to her as Synergy was, Laura found herself upstaged by two girls she helped enhance mere weeks ago. Their voices were enough to raise the hairs on the back of her neck and lead Laura to struggle in her composition of complete sentences.

She couldn’t even see their breathtaking bodies, forced to lap at the hazy memories of her time enhancing them in the hot tub. Jealousy hammered at her mind, yet a roundabout reminder of narcissism—that she was the one to enhance them—canceled it out. She was left only with the longing for power once more, enhanced to an unhealthy degree.

Synergy had begun to take notice of this longing—it was hard not too. There wasn’t a sentence that passed her lips that didn’t segue into her desire for power. It was becoming distracting.

Somewhat thankfully, a myriad of problems kept appearing to put her back on track.

“T-there’s another issue we’ve got to handle!” said a panicked assistant to an impatient Laura.  “It’s the U.N!”

“The U.N? Seriously, Martin? I thought I had those bastards under my foot? I elected half of them!”

“It’s… becoming commonplace to doubt you amongst the populace.”

“And since when were politicians supposed to listen to the people? What is this, bizarro world?”

“E-excellent point, Ms. Kingsford,” his fear manifesting as overcompensated compliments, yet ones that Laura drank up all the same. “W-while they appreciate your rapid advancements to humanity, there’s an uptick in grassroots campaigns that want honesty from your projects.”

Laura paused from the back-and-forth to arch a perfectly manicured brow. Then, a dark chuckle grew from the depths of her throat.

“Honesty… these people want honesty?” she swirled the ice cubes in her empty glass. “When this project is complete, ‘honesty’ will be an archaic concept—gone the way of the dinosaurs and the gas cars that superseded them. There will be no honesty because I will no longer need to obfuscate the truth about my plans, do you understand?”

The man did not, yet nodded along anyways.

“Once I become unstoppable and I bathe the cosmos in my loving allure, they will know no suffering, only pleasure. And I will be grateful enough to forgive them for their grave misunderstanding about my path forward for humanity.”

“Y-you think you can do that with just three symbiotes?”

“Who said I was going to stop at three?”

The assistant’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks.

“I told those closest to me that I merely want to retrieve the symbiotes I deserve. And I deserve all of them.”

Lightheaded laughter seemed to briefly breach her calculated demeanor as she ruminated upon the concept. Synergy however, did not laugh along. He had accidentally caught wind of her true intentions as he walked by the room, something he couldn’t just let go.

Laura had to be stopped. The U.N’s bureaucratic process would be too slow to roadblock her plans, so Synergy would have to call upon the one force who knew could put a stop to her once and for all.

***

Without George, there were several aspects of the project that were still indecipherable. Him, alongside Synergy’s father and Laura’s father, had been three men leagues ahead of their colleagues when it came to symbiote research. Now, two of them were dead and one was out of orbit.

But that hadn’t stopped Laura. Here the two of them were, Laura and Synergy, on a private plane to an uncharted location.

For almost the entire flight so far Laura had been focused, rather stressfully, on adding some sort of component to her clicker device that she frequently used in meetings with the scientists and engineers. He had offered help, but she shooed him away like she always had. It was a self-flying plane with no one else aboard out of sheer secrecy, so she couldn’t rely upon the help of a serviceboy as she often did.

Synergy was surprised that he was even invited onto such an exclusive trip. Whatever this reveal was, it was so important that Laura deemed him the only person important enough to accompany her to it. She genuinely seemed to trust in him more, especially after he had revealed the location of her father’s journal to her.

It was just the two of them on the plane together.

Her back was turned to him.

All he’d have to do was walk up and snap her…

No.

He couldn’t.

Laura was the woman he loved. He knew she was desperate to regain her power, so she’d have to learn it the hard way. He was a superhero! He didn’t kill people. Besides, Laura wasn’t finished with the machine. He wasn’t sure exactly which component was missing—Laura was sure to keep him in the dark about that much—but he was sure that it wasn’t going to accomplish her goal anytime soon.

It had been three days since he had overheard her true intentions, as had it been three days since he had sent a message out to whoever in the cosmos would listen. His father had mentioned in his studies about a godlike entity, one that could read minds and control one’s very thoughts with its power. Such a force, he suspected, likely commanded the very aliens that had retrieved the Symbiotes Laura had stolen earlier. Hopefully, once this all-observing creature relayed his message, it would put a stop to Laura’s antics once and for all. Ideally something that wouldn’t result in her death.

But his thoughts were quickly dashed once the plane landed. A scenic vista awaited him outside the plane’s window. Perhaps a reward for his supposed loyalty? Maybe a brief reprieve from her obsession with power?

Wishful thinking, as he’d soon find out.

The private jet didn’t stop on the beach as he had expected. Instead, it continued past the tree line and into a cave within a vast expanse of mountains.

Synergy’s jaw dropped as they entered the enclave. Massive didn’t even begin to describe the man-made machine before the two of them. An overwhelming entanglement of pipes and circuits, beset on all sides by active volcanoes that powered it. Like a massive multi-leveled maze made out of McDonalds playplace slides.

“Is that…”

“Yes, Synergy” confirmed Laura, answering his question with a certain subdued giddiness before it was asked. “Project UNITY, in the flesh. The magnum opus of the Kingsford bloodline. And you, my beloved Synergy, are the first person to witness it in its completion. In no time I’ll be the empress of this earth once more, with you by my side.”

“H-how does it work?” Synergy asked in a slight panic, desperately trying to change the subject so he wouldn’t risk accidentally blurting out the truth about his planned betrayal.

“Why don’t I take it for a little test run and we can find out, hmm?” Laura responded, side-eyeing Synergy in a way he couldn’t refuse. One service elevator ride later and they were atop the massive conglomeration of pipes and machinery. On the other side of the steel mesh platform sat a large, glowing lever. On its sheath read both “On” and “Off” of which it currently shifted towards the latter.

“It’s still missing that one crucial piece, keeping it from truly being finished finished, but you should just hear this baby purr! The sound of beauty! An orchestra of power!”

“Oh shit, she’s closer to completion than I assumed!” Synergy thought. “I hope they arrive soon!”

But, much to Synergy’s luck, a nascent shadow of a figure cast itself impossibly from above, like a thick stormcloud somehow separated from the pack. One that stopped Laura in her tracks.

A voice boomed outward, a tone she had become all too familiar with.

“Your old man just couldn’t keep his yap shut about you, so we thought we’d pay you a visit. Looks like it was a good call, you’ve made quite a stir I see.”

It was Lortita, accompanied by Zmonq and Laura’s father—the three of them descending from the sky to where the billionaire and the former superhero stood. Ron has some sort of strange gel pasted around his mouth that kept it sealed, though a great sense of fear evident on his face told all.

Even further above them all was a swirling mass. It looked as if God had forgotten to give light to a dwarf star. Laura seemed to recognize it instantly, her lip quivering with its tantalizing presence to her.

They landed before Laura, equidistant between their adversary and the lever that would ensure her victory. The aliens didn’t even have to take a threatening stance, their sheer presence—accompanying symbiotes slithering about their bodies in unity—conveyed everything. It seemed as though they somehow knew what the machine was capable of and they weren’t about to let Laura accomplish the final step of the process.

But Laura didn’t back down. She stood her ground, eyeing both the switch beyond the aliens and the strange asteroid above. Her hyper focused state even surpassed the desire to gaze longingly at her father.

“Unity,” she whispered, finding her line of sight drifting more commonly to the strange sphere in the sky.

“Very observant, I see you really did your research,” came a rather sarcastic compliment from Lortita. When Synergy displayed a look of confusion, “That is Unity. A self-sustaining biomass of symbiotes. Don’t get any crazy ideas, Kingsford, they aren’t for you. They’re only for those who have proved themselves worthy to own one.”

Project Unity, thought Synergy, putting two and two together in his head. This had been Laura’s object of desire all along!

“A bit slow to the party, eh?” chided Lortita as she scanned Synergy’s mind. His cheeks reddened in embarrassment.

“Enough, Lortita, I wish to make haste with this process. The master is demanding our presence back at home,” spoke Zmonq with a sense of authority. “Quickly, let us feed Laura to Unity. Her body should be fully decomposed by the time we return to the high council.”

“H-hey! That wasn’t part of the deal!” shouted Synergy, drawing the gaze of everyone present as well as the ire of Laura. “I specifically asked in the message not to kill her!”

“Our master thinks otherwise,” Zmonq responded frankly. “She’s committed multiple felonies towards the high council and her fate is sealed as such.”

Lortita was not so sympathetic to Synergy’s pleas. “Aww, you really wanted to try and spare your tyrannical girlfriend. Well, too bad. You should have messaged anyone but us.”

The less-radiant blue of Laura’s eyes shifted back and forth between Synergy and the aliens, but she said not a word in response, a battle of emotions between betrayal and steadfast determination brewing within her. She had no time to ruminate on Synergy’s frustrating betrayal, all her focus dedicated to the task at hand.

“Give up, Kingsford. You operate a broken machine as your last line of defense.”

But that presumptive statement brought an unexpected smile to Laura’s face.

“Who said this machine was broken? I'd say that, by being right before me, you’ve fixed its only flaw.”

“What do you mean?”

“The machine’s singular problem was range,” her gaze was now fully transfixed on Synergy, a borderline evil smile shifting into existence upon her face. “The replicated symbiote signal was too weak, it couldn’t even break the earth’s atmosphere. But thanks to Synergy, it looks like that won’t be a problem anymore. After all, you brought me every symbiote I could ever ask for.”

Zmonq and Lortita were taken aback in fear, backing up to better guard the lever in a panic. In their dishevelment, they failed to notice Laura reach into her pocket to retrieve an item.

“Lortita, guard this lever while I find a way to dismantle the machine.”

His compatriot agreed, but their strategizing was too little, too late.

She flicked a button on her clicker and the machine activated, a low rumble crescendoing into a mighty roar as thousands of chemical reactions went off at once.

“As if I’d really be so stupid to leave the only activation method to a single giant, glowing lever.”

The aliens were frozen in fear, but their inaction did not last long. As if a great magnetic force were pulling upon them, they found themselves resisting an invisible hand attempting to yank the very symbiotes out of their bonded bodies.

The machine was replicating the sounds of a distressed symbiote, calling upon the simplistic thoughts of its brethren to flee to its location, the location in question being Laura.

While Zmonq and Lortita had wills strong enough to resist, the conglomerate of symbiotes floating in the sky were not so fortunate.

The mass blocked out the sun as it swarmed towards Laura. Anyone who wanted to was powerless to stop it.

The sphere transformed into a cone-like shape, the thousands of symbiotes crawling over each other like a savage hoard of beasts to be the first ones to be graced by Laura’s presence.

“There’s no possible way you could win the symbiotes over,” Zmonq panicked, voice desperate as he continued to battle the very symbiotic nature he had nurtured throughout his entire life. “Your will is that of a mere human!”

But the sound of his words were quickly swallowed as the multicolored mass of mire overcame all Laura’s senses.

Going from zero symbiotes to an incalculable amount was like nothing before, yet still somewhat reminiscent of her first encounter with that very first marble-white associate of hers.

This process was anything but gradual. Her entire body was instantly engulfed by the torrent of weaved consciousnesses, her attire ripped to shreds as tens of hundreds of symbiotes clawed at her, all in an attempt to make contact with her supple flesh. They encircled her, not like a mob of savage zombies, resembling more a gathering of starved, desperate villagers holding up who they believed to be their god and savior.

Laura cradled herself into the fetal position, gripping her naked body tightly as a galaxy’s worth of sheer energy was absorbed into her flawless skin.

Her abs were once again imbued with incredible strength. A myriad of symbiotes spilled into her womb, going greater lengths than any man ever had to pleasure her.

Her libidio, which had been reduced to petering embers in the past weeks, reignited into a roaring flame. The arousing feeling was back, consuming all desire and thoughts as she found her body shuddering, unable to properly withstand the aggressive pleasure that the thunderstorm of symbiotic love thrust upon her.

Nothing could top how turned on she was, but nothing needed to. Her arousal was endless, a perfectly repeating feedback loop of indulgence. As soon as one symbiote flowed through her body, another one was quick to replace its caressive gestures. An endless, luxurious melted chocolate and pillowy vortex of unconstrained love.

They wanted her. They wanted a strong will that could lead them, out of an evolutionary desire to be commanded. And Laura wanted to command them all the same.

This was beyond sensual.

This was beyond erotic.

This was even beyond divine.

Voices of all caliber, human and alien, cried out in faint echoes. But all calls were lost to the overwhelming haze of writhing, erogenous pleasure. Her senses were amplified 100-fold, yet she willfully dulled them. It was all she could do if she wanted to survive the constant flood of ecstasy that blasted her body with its coiling sensualities.

After reaching a level of stability, all the noise… ceased. It was as if she were truly at peace, floating through a bubble bath of comfort yet immune to the mortal follies that often interrupted such an act. There was no uncomfortable ceramic digging into her back after remaining in place for too long. No pruned skin as punishment for wishing to never leave. No interruptions from foolish business partners who did not know their place. No need for oxygen if she were to dip her head lower into the water.

But the pleasure was rising in intensity, her body convulsing and throbbing—nerve endings tensing and untensing—as the miles-long radius of thick, gooey symbiotes surrounding all took their turns sculpting her body into a masterpiece.

Powerful, sinuous muscles flexed in tandem with her moans, sending ripples through reality as her feminine physique effortlessly contained the universe-erupting power within it. Hundreds of symbiotes hungrily raced to be the first to please her engorging nipples, while another group knew almost instinctively how to properly stimulate her clitoris.

Laura screamed, her passionate cry breaching the wall of symbiotes that nothing else had the power to pass through. She was on the verge of an orgasm, one that had been denied to her for far too long. But the longing had made it all the more worth it, adding layers upon the already mind-blowing pleasure she was being surrounded with.

As the air fled her lungs, it was replaced with the thick, overwhelming presence of symbiotic fluid. But this too furthered her descent into orgasmic madness. The pleasure was now not only around her, rubbing up against her, but now inside her, vigorously reworking every atom within her body.

She thought she could mentally withstand the power of the symbiotes, but even the human with definitively the most prior symbiotic exposure could not handle the shimmering tour de force large enough to swallow the earth.

A chain of mind-achingly powerful orgasms fired off with the intensity of a machine gun, each corresponding to a new superhuman addition to her burgeoning body. Orgasm one; Laura bit her bottom lip as it swallowed her teeth whole. Orgasm two; magnificent curves blossomed on her lower half, flowing sinuously up from her calf to peak at her shockingly sexy thighs. Orgasm three; hyperfeminine muscle rippled upon her arms, enhancing her biceps and triceps into everests of mesmerizing power. Orgasm four; her breasts swelled outwards, snowballing in pulses until they formed powerful globes that expanded below her ribcage. Orgasm five; her opalescent eyes and perfectly ridged nose grew wider and smaller respectively, fitting perfectly upon her diamond shaped face. Orgasm six; her hair danced within the silky sinews, its golden lock becoming as radiant as the valuable element which shared its color.

“Ahhhhhh,” came a relieved sigh from deep within Laura’s throat. The tears of joy pouring from her luminescent eyes flowing like the great natural waterfalls. Her emotions could be free. There was no more fretting over appearances.

That sense of pillowy comfort returned with no strings attached. This was better than heaven. God himself would kill for everlasting pleasure such as this.

She was finally free, relieved of every obligation. Fists and extraterrestrial weaponry collided with the fortified mass of tentacles that protected her, yet the outside aggression blended in seamlessly with the concupiscent indulgence from within.

Then, the tentacles began to fold in on themselves, their mass compressing impossibly into her new and improved form.

Infinitely long legs sprouted outwards from the bottom of her multi-colored designer dress. While she had an endless spectrum of colors and combinations to choose from, she settled upon a subtle mint green peplum that transitioned into a darker bodice, all while displaying a limited leopard pattern of sand reds that complimented the look of a free woman well. She no longer cared about keeping appearances, ones that would fit her ‘brand.’

She no longer had to care about what mattered in the world, to lie to herself about what was important. All that mattered now was her.

Her toes curled as she rose higher and higher into the air, gravity no longer a burden to her. Her foot eloquently rose to curl around the opposite leg around the knee, forming a tree pose as all laws in the universe bent around her like an event horizon.

No amount of synonyms for power could properly describe just how powerful she felt now.

All the muscles within her body clenched simultaneously, releasing a shockwave from the sheer force that toppled all the aliens off of their feet.

But that was the meekest display of her power. She felt unstoppable. No. She knew she was unstoppable. She could feel reality itself bending to her whims, as if she was looking through a window into physicality from a dimension beyond human understanding. The only limitation to what she could accomplish was her imagination, which was already teeming with fresh ideas.

The veil had been lifted for her, and she needed more.

Her mind refocused her sight, double vision of the deconstructed universe realigning to return her to the world of the living. Before her were Zmonq and Lortita, as well as the tantalizing liquid-like symbiotes actively slithering over their purple skin.

Extending a flawless finger forward, she beckoned upon the aliens before her. Their symbiotes came rocketing out of them at unseen speeds, taking several chunks of their body parts with them as they fled to the clear alpha of the pack. The two greenish symbiotes wriggled their way in between Laura’s cleavage, discovering the perfect resting place within the underside of her perfect semispheres, bolstering them in size ever so slightly, adding themselves to her like two droplets into an entire pool of symbiotic perfection.

Half of Zmonq’s face lit up in a mile-long stare, likely because the other half had been ripped off of it. Lortita, on the other hand, kept her face intact, though the same could not be said for several of her limbs and a good portion of her chest. The two of them collapsed into splatters of their own viscera, deactivating the futuristic cufflinks that kept Laura’s father tied up.

“Laura! Y-you did it! You saved me!” exclaimed Ron, eager to remove the strange gel from his mouth yet hesitant to rush up to hug his own daughter. Even though he was relieved to be out of the clutches of the aliens that had kidnapped him for over ten years, he was admittedly terrified of Laura now. He, more than anyone else still alive, understood the danger she now posed to the universe.

But Laura was going to get that hug either way. Multicolored tentacles shot out from every-which-way, hooking themselves within her father before he could react and bringing him close, as if inspecting a diamond.

“Sorry, daddy. I really thought you would be the one thing missing in my life. The piece that would fill the hole inside my heart. But that wasn’t true. The missing piece was this power. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure the rest of your days are spent making up for lost time with your daughter.”

Ron Kingsford’s final emotion would have been fear, were it not for the truckload of endorphins that soothingly spilled into his body—enough to paralyze an elephant. His face was left twisted into a smile as his overworked heart finally stopped, Laura’s tentacles gently resting him onto the ground as his consciousness overdosed on pure happiness—happiness for her.

And then, her head turned a subtle 45 degrees, radiant blonde hair shuffling out of the way for a single piercing, silver eye to come into view. One that stared Synergy straight into his soul.

“Synergy, Synergy, Synergy… what am I going to do with you?” Laura spoke as if talking down to a misbehaving child, her new impossibly sexy form floating forward until she was mere inches away from his body. At three feet above the ground, she was able to look down upon the former superhero like the mere mortal that he now was. “Your attempted coup will not go forgotten. I must admit, you were always quite the thorn in my side. A worthless thorn, but a thorn all the same.” As she spoke, the very meaning of “Synergy” retroactively became ‘worthless annoyance’ across any language in which it existed across every universe, no matter what the word meant previously.

“You could have been the second-in-command of my infinite army,” she remarked, eager to vent her frustrations through snide remarks. A lesson was in order for the coward before her. “I foolishly believed that I was capable of love. You almost had me convinced, but I know better now. Love is not earned, it is forced… and I will make this universe love me whether it wants to or not.”

Synergy wanted to respond, but he simply could not find the ability to. The goddess before him decided that his talking privileges were to be put indefinitely on hold.

“Now, you will watch as all that you fought for crumbles to dust, and the ashes of your foibles shall be used to construct a grand, galaxy spanning empire…”

***

Vasily awoke to the sound of several phones ringing, all reserved exclusively for emergencies only. Had World War 3 started during his slumber? He still had a migraine from a long night drinking, was all this chatter really necessary?

His hand didn’t even have the time to reach the nearest receiver before his ears received the news first hand.

“Здравствуйте, Vladie,” came a smooth, familiar voice from the unlit corner of his room. But this familiar voice had never shown an affinity for Russian before, much less a clever juxtaposition of the very formal Russian greeting contrasted with the very informal nickname he had been often dubbed.

Laura’s barely-human composition slithered from the shadows, hips swaying impossibly as her smooth silhouette hypnotized him with its allure. He tried to speak, but sputters and grunts were all he could manage. Just a cursory glance at his vitals revealed that her presence mixed with his alcoholism was a deadly combo.

“I was in the neighborhood and I just thought I’d drop by. Catch up on an old business partner of mine. After all, I’ve moved on to greater ambitions, but I’m already feeling nostalgic for our little encounters of yesteryears.”

Her chiding nature further aroused the man, his erection practically giving him a heart attack as it worked overtime to generate arousal for the magnificent specimen of feminine beauty that stood before him.

“As you might be aware, I’ve recently found a better distributor for my fashion accessories. One who’s reliable and never engages in shady dealings behind my back. And the best part? I never had to pay him a cent to begin with. He’s been working for free this entire time…”

She bent her elbow in an L-curve and raised it to her side, as if to advertise an invisible product. But then, the product suddenly became quite visible, a handbag manifesting itself out of thin air.

“His name is reality, and I can bend and stretch him as much as I want, isn’t that right?”

As if his vision were nothing more than a TV with a bad signal, the picture before Vasily began to distort, amalgamations of incomprehensible horror seeping through the cracks only to immediately be dissipated.

“Of course, even though reality is my new go to, I didn’t forget that you still hold a special place in my heart, Vlady.”

With that, she leaned forward and placed a kiss on his lips. His insides, rather literally, melted before Laura from her heartwarming gesture. Vasily’s scorched mouth attempted to inhale from lungs that were no longer there, he didn’t last much longer after that.

She stepped outside, basking in the cool Russian air. Negative 5.6 degrees Fahrenheit resembled more of a pleasant breeze, evident in her clothing choice of a summer dress even as snow fell around her.

Now, it was time to—

“I am afraid that this is where your ascension ends, Laura.”

It was more than a voice, like a presence in her mind. Much like how the aliens invaded her thoughts earlier. But this was different. A vigorous vibration that fed into her mind, pouring over every Neuron in her brain for information. But there was nothing useful to find.

“You must have a death sentence if you wish to speak to me like that,” Laura replied, eyes scanning the immediate area for any sense of this mysterious entity. “Who are you? An alien like the ones who kidnapped my father?”

“Most don’t live long enough to hear my true name, you may call me Ruler for now.”

“Well, for a supposed ruler, you’re quite the coward,” Laura snapped back. “Hiding from me, invading my mindscape to communicate. No worthy ruler hides behind such craven methods, a real leader would confront me head-on.”

“I will deal with you when the time is right,” the dark, booming voice assured. “It will be a silent strike, one that will restore balance to the universe. Until then, may your days be filled with dread awaiting that fateful moment.”

But Laura wasn’t having any of that.

“No… you’ll deal with me right now!”

Closing her eyes and concentrating, she lit up every single synapse within her mind. The presence attempted a quick retreat, but the sheer symbiotic nature of her body meant that even something believed to be as defenseless as her thoughts were not safe for the Ruler.

She forced the presence to latch on to more thoughts, pinning its tendril within her mind. The memories became increasingly disturbed, altered by the symbiotes to transition from good times of Laura and her father to events that had not even transpired, depicting Laura ripping the Ruler apart piece by piece.

With a portion of it trapped within her head, it could not flee from its current position somewhere in this universe. Leaving a B-Team of symbiotes to keep tabs on the mind-limb, she shot up out of the atmosphere of Earth to track anything resembling it.

Her senses stretched lightyears, functioning even within the vacuum of space. It took Laura mere seconds to track its physical presence and even less time to travel to the location.

Arriving at the Ruler’s spot, she wasted no time dispatching the creature. She didn’t even get a good look at its face nor considered if the attack in question would cause a chain-effect of damage. Summoning the force of every symbiote to her hands, she clapped them together with enough concentrated energy that a black hole was generated. The hungering beast of nothingness quickly consumed the Ruler alongside its entire empire and the galaxy surrounding it. Laura, despite being at ground zero of the hole’s creation, was able to exit the event horizon without any issue, dusting off her hands as she did.

There was no one left to stand in her way now. No grand army, no sacred rule, no pesky humans left to convince.

She could now focus all of her infinite energy on what was truly important in life.

***

Synergy has always been an accurate, if cruel name, he thought as he laid helpless once again before his Goddess Laura.

Pain.

She reminded him of exactly what he was each morning, a ‘Synergy’ in everything she ever did, by branding his chest with a massive tattoo bearing his own name. He screamed louder than usual, and tried to stop himself but couldn’t help it before Laura turned around with a scowl.

“That’s enough screaming for one lifetime, Synergy darling…” Laura raised a flexible leg, its spiked heel piercing his throat, rupturing his vocal cords and stopping him from breathing entirely. “Synergies don’t deserve my precious oxygen…not that I’ll need it anyway.”

Her hand then phased through Synergy’s body, expertly removing his lungs with surgical precision and replacing his breathing with an insanely painful sensation in his chest. He wanted to shout, but she had just deemed such an action impossible for him.

This was what life had become for poor Synergy. Laura, reveling in her status as goddess, felt the need to constantly one-up her creative cruelty. Synergy would be killed, only to awaken the next day and do it all over again. He thought he was finally numb to the pain, but Laura always managed to outdo herself.

“Wait…” Laura had a realization as she was branding her Synergy one morning. “Are you… enjoying this?”

With the subtlest twitch of her finger, tentacles removed his pants to reveal that, sure enough, he was harder than obsidian. though she had long since denied him the privilege of release without permission.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk...” she clicked her tongue, sending rhythmic reverberations throughout the cosmos. “When will you understand that you do not deserve pleasure, Synergy? It’s a privilege that I’ve allowed you to keep your member for this long, but I did not expect you to stoop to such depravity!”

Laura, of course, had totally expected him to stoop to such depravity.

Symbiotes manifested surgical gloves and a mask as with surgical precision she removed his dick, balls and all, placing them on a shelf as a memoir of things that were.

Synergy wouldn’t be needing it for much longer anyway.

With her business confidants tasked with keeping earth under her rule, stripped of all that pesky, unreliable free will, Laura was free to explore the cosmos to her heart’s content. Although this time she wasn’t looking for her father—she was taxing over as many civilizations as she could find.

The galaxy was hers.

The milky way was hers.

The universe was hers.

The multiverse was hers.

All she could do was thank the memory of her father. She had finally fulfilled what she believed to be his ideal legacy. Power. More of it than anyone could even conceive. Enabled only by him.

Everything was hers. All hers.