The Gymnast, Part 4 (Patreon)

Superior Chapter 8 is coming Wednesday!

Commissioned by eJm

Written by HikerAngel

King Kelley sat atop his grand throne of bejeweled gold. He gazed upon massive monitors before him, all displaying the various slave planets he owned. Unpaid workers harvesting only the finest food, the most precious gems and the most dangerous sources of energy. A twisted grin grew upon his face. Life was good.

But it wasn’t perfect.

At the back of his mind, behind the front of superiority, was a sense of abject terror. He had heard stories, Tales of a woman who, at just 24 years of age, had held the entire multiverse in her palm. Kelley loved control. He loved the idea that every planet within his galaxy was under his titanic rule. But that sounded like someone he couldn’t control. Someone who, if she desired, could flick his entire continent-spanning castle into the sun without a second thought.

No one should have that kind of power. He thought. Nobody but me.

Patrick, his most loyal butler, noticed his king’s distressed face. “Sir, if I must inquire, are you dreading over that Simone Biles individual again?”

“I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NEVER TO UTTER THAT NAME IN THIS KINGDOM AGAIN!?” he shouted in furious rage. Flicking a lever on his throne, a trap door under Patrick’s feet opened, sending the “most loyal butler” of 35 years into the planet’s flaming core below. He was quickly replaced with the second most loyal butler, also named Patrick.

As Patrick 1’s screams faded, the king sighed. He could count more than one gray hair on his head from all the stress she caused him. At any moment, she could hear of what some may call his “misdeeds” and come to take control of his kingdom. Kelley was sure this woman must have a weakness of some kind, everyone did! Even himself! Coincidentally, this very singular weakness was Biles herself.

Sure, she may have been impossibly fast, impossibly strong, impossibly… everything. But she was also very kind. He had heard of her generosity, her inability to resist charity events and  Perhaps he could exploit such a fact?

Yes… if he were to set up a false charity, she’d show. She couldn’t resist such a publicity stunt. He could also sweeten the deal by inviting the second and third strongest people in the multiverse to the event. It had been seven months without a word on Simone’s wearabouts—not even a public appearance on her 25th birthday—surely, this would be the carrot that would lure her out of hiding.

King Kelley snapped his fingers expectantly. “Patrick, tell my best scientists to work around the clock. I want devices that could bring armageddon to the sun! Doomsday to the universe! Ones that’ll finally put a stop to that… that… gymnast…”

~

The king sat upon a smaller throne in the middle of the town square. Surrounding his lavish seating arrangement were thousands of children gymnasts, every single one he could find within the grasp of his kingdom. They had all been promised Simone Biles, with their pleas being echoed throughout the multiverse to ensure that she would hear their cries.

The message was clear and simple: Meet on the main square of planet Kelley at exactly 10:00 am. It was currently 9:59 and she was nowhere to be seen. King Kelley sighed, she hadn’t been seen or heard at any other events, why would this one be any different?

He desperately checked the massive town clock, watching as the hour hand struck ten. Kelley sighed in resigned disappointed, but when his gaze drifted back to the square before him, Simone Biles was standing right in front of him, only a few feet away.

It was like being jumpscared by a ghost. Kelley nearly jumped out of his seat. “Ack! What the hell! Where did you come from?” He demanded, all the fanfare from the children gymnasts upon seeing Biles ceasing immediately out of fear.

“Uh, from earth?” Biles responded as if the king’s question had a painfully obvious answer.

“Wh-uh!?” The king sputtered in response. “B-but how!?”

“How else? I simply lifted the 92 trillion lightyears between me and this dimension up and walked underneath it!” When everyone looked at her like she was insane, she threw up defensive hands. “Don’t worry, guys, I put the lightyears back.”

“Sir! The… person who shall not be named is here! On this very planet!” one of the King’s informants ran up in a huff, pausing afterwards to catch his breath.

“I’m very well aware, idiot.” Kelley responded, rolling his eyes.

“Hey now, that’s no way to talk to someone, even if he is your informant, you shouldn’t be so mean to him.” Simone responded. If it were anyone else, Kelley would’ve found a trapdoor to relinquish them from his sight as soon as possible. But this woman was not just anyone.

“Oh, sorry, miss Biles, please forgive my haughtiness, I was simply…” he quickly racked his brain for a good excuse. “…surprised that you showed up! You’ve been gone for quite a few months. I was afraid you had quit!”

“Gone? I was training!” she replied with that same tone as if it was obvious. “I had found my limit, so I trained harder and now it’s not my limit anymore! Nothing really is.”

All the children “ooo’d” and “ahh’d,” but King Kelley could not bring himself to even fake one. Not only was Biles here, she was somehow stronger than she was last time, as if it even mattered. The King’s confidence in his plan, which was already very little, had fallen to asymptotically small.

Still, his feeble human mind was not immune to the sunk-cost fallacy. His brilliant five-step plan to stop Biles was already two steps too deep to quit.

“Well then, w-without further ado, let the ceremonial meet n’ greet begin!” announced the king to much fanfare, hiding his terror under the veneer of shock as best he could. “Uh, children, go, uh, do your thing!” He exclaimed, waving his hands dismissively so that he could make a retreat from his throne to the sidelines.

The wave of wide-eyed kids and teens ran towards Biles, knowing that she couldn’t be overwhelmed by them through sheer numbers. They kept asking to be lifted by her, to make their cartoonish dreams of her lifting them all by the bleachers they once sat on come true.

Simone was just wondering if any of them had questions about her acrobatics routine.

Meanwhile, from behind the scenes, Kelley was talking in hushed tones towards his top scientist.

“Are you sure these will work?” asked the king through his secret code language that only he and his scientists knew to speak.

“Yes, the tests have proved successful on test subjects one and two,” the scientist responded, holding up a device that resembled a wristband of some kind. “As you know, running a test on Biles herself is impossible, though based on what we know, I do hypothesize this should yield results.”

A smile had returned to the king’s face. Even in anomalous situations such as this, his top scientists had never let him down. This was going to work, he was sure of it.

“Of course, you aren’t just here to sign a big ol’ check for these kids,” the king announced, putting on his cheerful facade as he stepped out from behind the curtains. “I come bearing gifts, from one titan of power to another!”

“I mean, I’d hardly call myself a ‘titan of power’ or anything, Mr. King…” Simone spoke bashfully, scratching the back of her head. “But, if you’ve got a gift, I certainly won’t deny it!”

Wow, this is going even better than I had planned! Kelley thought to himself. She doesn’t even suspect that I have a secret agenda or anything!

A renewed level of confidence in his plan, he opted for a slight deviation.

Reaching into his regal coat pocket, he activated a walkie-talkie. “Put it down Hans and come up here!”

The ground suddenly shifted beneath everyone’s feet as the entire town appeared to sink slightly, roughly a meter, before then sporadically dropping another meter. Everyone except for Kelly—who had planned this—and Biles—who immediately figured out what was happening due to her being quite versed in the technique.

The entire square was deathly quiet as they waited for the culprit to present themselves. Then, all attention was drawn to a manhole cover as it sputtered briefly before being blasted off, never to be seen again.

Exiting the hole was an absolute titan of musculature. Simone immediately recognized him as the third strongest known entity in the multiverse, which his bulging musculature certainly did not betray. King Kelley introduced him accordingly.

“Hans, could you tell the people what you just did?”

“Of course, King Kelley. While you all were cheering and awaiting the arrival of Simone Biles, I was underneath the entire city the entire time! Holding it all about my head with just a single hand!”

He did a sweeping wave to the cheering crowd, but quickly diverted his gaze over to his fellow top three powerlifter.

“Hey, pretty lady,” Hans spoke to Simone, winking cockily once her gaze met his. “What do ya say we ditch these weaklings and you can put those gymnastics to good use.” He extended his hand to hers.

But Biles rescinded her hand. “I have a boyfriend. And he’s probably what you’d call a ‘weakling,’ jerk.”

Hans put his hands up defensively, as if on impulse. “Hey, not my fault! Being this strong really gets to your head sometimes.” He then turned his defensive gesture into an opportunity to flex his massive biceps.

Simone just rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a you problem. I’m stronger and I don’t fantasize about crushing those weaker than me.”

“Well now, I never said anything like that,” Hans replied, raising an eyebrow at what appeared to be a Freudian slip of sorts. But before the argument could progress any farther, Kelley interjected.

“Hey now, let’s not tear each other apart here just yet. Hans, you know why you’re here.”

“That’s true, Kelley. I didn’t go through all that Guinea-Piggin’ for nothing.”

Kelley handed over the wristband-like device, and Hans attached it to his body accordingly. It didn’t appear to have any effect at first, but Biles noticed Hans bracing for something.

“Tell me, Hans, your strength may be mighty, impossibly so. Therefore, it must be quite annoying to have to constantly apply only the tiniest amount of strength to most situations, correct?” Asked King Kelley, as if pitching an infomercial to the masses.

“That’s correct, King. It can be quite annoying,” Hans replied. Muscular as he may be, acting was not his strong suit.

“Then what if I told you that this wristband—which is easily concealable and very fashionable—could help you out in this department?”

“I’d say I’m certainly interested!” Hans responded flatly.

“Patrick, bring out the weighted device!”

The sequeled butler practically appeared out of nowhere, carrying a strange chrome ball. It was handed off to the king, which was then handed off to Hans.

“Tell me, O’ great strongman, do you feel anything?”

Likely realizing that his acting was bad, Hans simply responded with a head shake.

“Well, that’s because it’s only weighing the equivalent of a bowling ball. Let’s increase the intensity and see what happens!”

Patrick activated a device on his arm, inputting a sequence into the number pad. The chrome ball whirred in response, though Hans didn’t seem to react either way.

Kelley glanced at the ball briefly. “Wow, now that ball’s the weight of a bus! Sure you’re still not feeling anything, big guy?”

“Feeling anything? You shittin’ me, Kelley? I could flick a bus to the edge of the multiverse with my big toe!” Out of everything Hans had said during his time with the bracelet, that response was the only one with any emotion behind it.

“Is that so?” Kelley replied with an arched eyebrow. “Very well… Patrick, activate the bracelet this time.”

Flicking a switch on his other arm, the bracelet on Hans activated, a red light shining from his wrist. Almost immediately, his face twisted into an expression of discomfort.

Simone watched in awe as Hans struggled to maintain his pose. He caved thrice—switching from one hand two two hands, his knees giving in as he fell to a kneel and eventually, giving up altogether and dropping the chrome sphere to the ground.

“As you can see, the brace has reduced his powers to nothing!” King Kelley exclaimed with excitement. “He is no more powerful than the average man!”

Biles’ eyes widened in enticement, of which Kelley took notice. “Ah, this appears to be a device that interests you, no?”

She caved, her posture relaxing. “Yeah… it really does. I’ve spent so many years holding back my strength, you probably have no idea how hard it can be when you wake up in the middle of the night half-asleep only to forget your own strength and accidentally create the biggest crater on the moon by opening the fridge door a little too hard.”

That was the best news Kelley had heard all day.

“Patrick! What are we waiting for? This was her gift after all! Test it out on Simone at once!”

The butler did as he was told without comment, flicking off the switch. The cuff fell off of Hans with a hiss, the muscular man huffing and groaning as his body readjusted to its insane power.

“Phew, I’m gonna feel that one in the morning,” the third-strongest person in the entire multiverse exclaimed, as if encountering an exercise routine that could finally tire him out. But no one was focused on him anymore, all eyes were on Simone.

She delicately held the brace within her hands as if cradling a tender child. This could be a game changer… no more fear over her darker impulses.

Biles clipped the bracelet around her wrist, stretching her arm forward to admire its fashion potential from a distance. It looked rather bulky on her skinnier arm, but she appreciated that.

“Ooh, reminds me of one of those bangle bracelets! Paint this is gold and I might need to buy a whole four pack!”

The King almost couldn’t believe how well this was working out for him. He didn’t even have to help set up the experiment, Simone retrieved the chrome sphere from the cracked cement beneath her, twirling it on her finger briefly as if it were no more than a ball of air, despite still containing the mass of an entire bus.

Patrick reset the ball, then activated the brace. Simone stared intently at the ball held firm in her hand, waiting for it to become too heavy for her to lift.

“Patrick, increase it,” Simone demanded before the King could.

The butler started small, adding a zero behind the one kilogram the chrome sphere’s mass was currently sitting at.

“Feel anything yet, Simone?” Kelley asked with bated breath.

“Hmm, not yet.”

Patrick added another zero. Still nothing.

This slow, call-and-response format went for a while before the king made his boredom known in the most dangerous way. He yanked his butler’s hand towards him, rapidly inputting zero after zero into the console. But even though he was at it for quite a while, Simone still felt nothing.

“Huh, I think I might be feeling something? What’s the current mass of the ball right now?”

“According to the calculator, the sphere is now one hundred times the weight of the entire known multiverse, Ms. Biles.”

“Oh yeah, that’s nothing,” Simone replied casually. “I lifted that a week ago.”

“Ugh, clearly the ball must be broken or something!” Kelley lamented, storming over and attempting to take the chrome sphere from Simone. He almost threw his back out trying to budge it.

Simone then spun the ball on her finger once more, shrugging her shoulders as she did so. “I dunno, it still feels weightless to me.”

“B-but how!?” came the voices of both the King and Hans.

“I mean, maybe it’s because I trained a lot so it’s not an actual ‘power’, per say? There’s nothing for the bracelet to actually drain?”

“That sounds silly. There’s simply no way you could train to be as strong as you are.” Hans dismissively replied.

“You’re right,” she replied sarcastically, rolling her eyes. “Maybe a power limiting mask or power limiting spandex might be the thing that does it.”

“Ugh, I bet it’s not even that heavy!” Hans shouted in anger, trying his hand at lifting the sphere.

But even he could not make it budge. Even as sweat poured down his face and his massive muscles bulged with effort, the chrome device simply would not stir from Simone’s open-palmed hold.

Hans quickly gave up before he too threw his back out.

The children cheered at the sight of their idol overcoming all odds, Biles smiled at the crowd, indulging them—but deep down, Biles was unsatisfied.

If there was something that could make the world around her safer, she’d want it more than anything. Even though she was a master of articulating her strength, she yearned for the ability to not constantly have to make little adjustments for every tiny movement of her body.

She recalled the time she had created a hurricane by punching the air in victory too fast.

Simone ran up to the king, who was dejectedly walking away, thinking he had failed.

“Wait, Mr. Kelley!” Simone exclaimed, catching his nervous attention.

“Y-yes?” He replied, afraid to turn his head.

“I wanna help you!” she said eagerly, flashing her perfect, white teeth in a genuine smile.

“You… want to help me?” Kelley repeated, confused at what he was hearing?

“Yep! I see a ton of potential in your device-thingy! Besides, I want to be there when it finally works!”

The king had to physically hold his jaw to keep it from dropping. He might just defeat his greatest foe yet.

~

“Welcome to the lab, Ms. Biles!” Kelley said with an inviting tone. “Would you like some complimentary water?”

“Why, thank you Mr. Kelley!” Simone responded cheerfully, downing the entire bottle in seconds. “Nice place you got here! Really, uh, tech-y!”

“Yes indeed it is!” replied the king, restraining his excitement. Simone had just ingested drugged water, which should cause her to fall asleep. By then, she’ll be nice and weak from all the power limiters, which would make for an easy kill. It was almost too easy.

Biles walked down to the lower lab deck, introducing herself to all of the scientists and stepping into the chamber where experiments were conducted, with her being the test subject.

“Please remove your clothes, Ms. Biles. Fabric can be known to interfere with the power limiters,” spoke one of the scientists back at Kelley’s lab.

Simone did as she was told without objection, stripping herself nude as several scientists assisted in replacing it with her new, golden (her suggestion) “outfit.”

They started with four power limiters on her wrists and ankles—nothing. They added one to her neck, as well as custom large, thick ones to cover her waist and breasts, as she was becoming uncomfortable being naked for so long—still nothing. They added tiny, thin power limiters to each of her fingers and toes—once again, still nothing.

The scientists, and especially King Kelley, were starting to worry. Biles was already wearing 27 power limiters without feeling anything different and they were running out of places to apply new ones that wouldn’t be accidentally destroyed by an absent-minded flex.

“Heehee, look at me! I feel like an Egyptian Goddess!” Simone remarked at her unusual attire, twirling in place.

“The Goddesses wish they were you…” said one particularly giddy scientist.

“Aww, thank you!” replied Biles sweetly as she casually held two chrome spheres that weighed more than existence itself 100 times over.

Meanwhile, Kelley watched from the balcony, his fingernails reduced to stress-chewed nubs. Nothing was seemingly working. He prayed that someone would provide him with some good news soon. He watched with bated breath as the head scientist ran back up from the lab floor to speak with him.

“There’s no easy way to say this, king…” said the head scientist, nervously double-checking all of his readings. “But those bracelets aren’t having a detrimental effect on her infinite strength. If anything, she’s only gotten stronger.”

The king’s jaw dropped. The scientist started listing off the theory as to why any attempt to drain her power would only increase it, but it all registered as white noise over the dread that dominated Kelley’s eardrums. He gazed over to Biles, who now had upwards of 31 power limiters adorned all over her body.

“B-Biles!” Kelley shouted desperately, running down to the lab floor. “Take off those power limiters, t-the test is over!”

“Mmm, I don’t think I want to,” she replied dismissively, her eyes admiring the rings on her fingers as she curled them all individually, enjoying the sound of them clacking amongst each other. “These are so comfy, I feel like I could sleep in them!”

She yawned long and hard. “Speaking of which, do you guys have a place for me to sleep around here? I guess I’m still a bit jet-lagged from traveling across 92 million dimensions earlier today.”

A friendly scientist pointed to a side room where she could pass out, of which she quickly made her way to, falling into the bed and immediately falling asleep, the swinging door closing behind her.

Once she was out of earshot, Kelley practically ripped the front of his head scientist’s lab coat as his shaky hands attempted to grip ahold of something.

“Please… tell me that while the power limiters may have increased her strength somehow, her skin is vulnerable! If I were to walk in there with a knife, I could pierce her skin with it!”

“I mean, hypothetically—“

The king immediately retrieved a ceremonial dagger and rushed to the room Simone was sleeping in. As long as there was a possibility, he had to take it. He was tired of the specter that was Simone Biles’ continued existence haunting his thoughts.

But as he bursted through the door, she wasn’t in her bed. Had the drugs not worked?

Kelley's attention was immediately drawn to his left as a loud, yet brief, screech sounded off. There was Simone, in the corner of the room. Despite the fact that she was standing and in motion, the drugs were still a success. There was just one caveat—she was a sleepwalker.

Biles had torn a human-sized hole into the metal wall, revealing the sight of Kelley’s grand castle off in the distance. The king’s pupils shrunk to pinpricks as the realization of what he had just done was donned upon him in full force.

She leapt from the torn wall to the street below, landing with the unparalleled grace of a gymnast, even in slumber.

Meanwhile, within Simone’s dream, she was back at the Olympics. There was a lot of pressure on her to make this balance beam jump count. Other than the strange 400 foot drop to the colosseum itself, everything was going according to plan.

Kelley watched as a half-asleep, half-naked Biles did random gymnastics in the street. He was silently thankful that her movements seemed rather peaceful. He wanted to run to the stairwell, but that would require him losing sight of her, which was the last thing he wanted to do. She was like a ticking time bomb, as long as she was unaware of her actions, there was no way she’d be able to regulate her strength properly to avoid massive collateral damage.

All Kelley could do was watch.

Simone was in the middle of her artistic gymnastics routine, occasionally nervously glancing at the judges, who, for some reason, seemed unimpressed. That was new. She had always blown them out of the water with her performance. Something must’ve been wrong. She looked down at her body…

Oh no! She was naked! During the performance of her career no less!

But that would quickly become the least of her problems. Suddenly, alien ships entered the atmosphere. They landed around Simone like massive buildings, hooking themselves into the earth. These strange UFOs were troop transports of sorts, hundreds of soldiers spilling out of them like cockroaches, mindlessly running towards Simone in an attempt to stop her flawless execution of a signature triple-twisting double tucked-back somersault!

Readying her body to fight, she immediately started wailing on the endless hoard of aliens closing in on her. From Kelley’s perspective, she had already taken out half of his peacekeepers—powerful, unstoppable (thought to be) machines made of cooled neutron star material. One of them was even Hans, attempting to reason with her. He didn’t survive long within her vicinity.

The King anxiously tugged on his hair, ready to rip it from the very follicles. This was bad. Real bad. All of his greatest fears suddenly realized before him. And it was all his fault. He had brought this curse to his planet, given her more power and then set her loose.

But while Simone was turning the dream of hers around to her favor, this nightmare for the King was only about to get much worse.

As Simone did battle with the hoard, she noticed a particularly interesting detail within the waxed armor of the aliens before they became drenched in gore—her reflection. More accurately, her lack of one. She had read somewhere a while ago that your mirror image within dreams reflected your own life. Her reflection appeared blurry and unfocused, like her duplicate was drenched in vaseline. As she recalled, such a surreal visual symbolized she was hiding something from herself, a desire she had bottled up within.

But for her, this realization only meant one thing.

“So… this is a dream, huh?” Simone verbalized, a smile coming to her face. “That means I can do whatever I want… that means I don’t have to hold back…”

Immediately eager to show off, she stomped her foot onto the ground, applying a bit more pressure than she would’ve ideally needed to otherwise. Immediately, the earth around her quaked and shattered, tectonic plates struggled to maintain their position. Aliens who were not evaporated from the resulting sonic boom of sound were thrown off-balance, likely into massive, city-sized chasms that opened up all around the world.

“Oh, no you don’t!” Simone exclaimed as she noticed some Aliens fleeing back to their ships. She casually strutted over to the nearest troop transport, ripping the monolith of a transport vessel out of the ground like a root vegetable, far past caring as to whether or not any innocent people were hurt in the conflict. She swung the ship around her head like a wet t-shirt, knocking over all nearby transports and creating a domino effect outward.

The endless blocks of Alien transport vessels were all reduced to useless scrap. The once-thriving earth she had lived upon resembling more of an endless junkyard with the extra layer of machine bits that coated the entire crust of the earth like a fine seasoning.

But Biles’ lustful conquest did not end there. There was still one more assailant. The mothership herself.

It stood taller than the rest, taunting Simone with its mighty size, practically begging to be toppled like all of its children. A monument to the narcissism of this alien race, one that thought it could stop the mighty Simone Biles with any amount of force, any amount of technology. A fool’s errand. She would show these nameless, faceless, thankfully imaginary creatures a gruesome end as she pummeled them to death with their own sculptures.

There was no use returning to the perspective of Kelley, nor anyone else. They had all gone the way of Ozymandias, buried under the rubble of their own kingdoms and hubris after attempting to control their own destiny, only for the rudderless nature of true power to strike them head on, almost karmically serving as the very downfall of their empires.

~

Simone awoke with a yawn, smacking her lips as she deciphered her blurry surroundings. She couldn’t remember anything about what had just transpired in the last 12 hours.

Was she still dreaming?

What she saw before her was a strange sight. There were grateful people, hundreds of them—no—thousands of them, bowing to her in eternal gratitude.

Beside her was a mirror, it showed a perfect reflection of a perfect woman. Not murky or unfocused at all. She was certainly awake now, though she found herself more interested by the outfit she found herself within. More accurately, the lack of an outfit.

It was something only a goddess would wear. Skimpy, gilded, most of all strange. It was different, but she liked it. It certainly accentuated her toned, athletic body far better than that skimpy leotard, not like she actually needed that clothing to improve her performance or anything.

“Our goddess has awoken!” one of the peasants at her feet spoke. Once she looked the man’s way, he immediately returned to bowing out of respect.

“O’ goddess who defeated such an evil king, we are in your eternal debt!” came another man. “Yes! She has vanquished the evil! Thrown its machinations into the sun! Clearly some sort of sun goddess!”

Simone arched an eyebrow in confusion, she wasn’t sure what to say. But then, a thought occurred to her: don’t say anything. Just bask in the hedonistic pleasure of being a goddess. You’re better than all these people, just for once, quit pretending and own it.

She crossed one leg over the other and straightened her back, finally recognizing she was sitting in a throne and adjusting her posture accordingly. Perhaps she could get used to this. But just for a little bit, then it’s back to being friendly and competitive, Simone told herself, hoping that this would quell her… greater desires.

The adrenaline rush her heart felt in that moment said otherwise.