Commission for  teranticdragon
Going back to my speciality of big gains and big drains, plus I got to break reality. Again.

When Gerard moves to a new reality, he's left with a hole in his soul. And what better way to fill it than with the energy of everything he can get his hands on?

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Power is everything

Deep in the darkness, something stirred.

Well, to say it was in the darkness was something of a misnomer. It didn’t just inhabit the blackest corners of reality, it was the blackest corners of reality. It was the shadow under the bed, the dark hole at the bottom of a pit, the black cloak of fear across the known universe.

It was also snoring quite loudly.

An eye twitched, all-seeing and yet locked shut, captured by the abyss of slumber. Deep in the darkness, the nightmare of reality slept.

For now.

*

“Ugh.” Gerard had to reach up to grab the doorknob, and he hated it. He hated everything about his body, all 4 feet of it.

“Come in.”

He entered the room, where a grey dragon in a suit was sitting at a desk. He was writing something, but as Gerard came in he nodded and clicked his pen, setting it down. “Ah, Gerard. I was hoping you’d come along.”

“I figured if anyone knows how to fix me, it’d be you Lars. You’re supposed to be the expert on this kinda stuff.” Gerard pulled up a chair, jumping slightly to get onto it. “Ever since I came here I’ve felt terrible. It’s like I haven’t eaten in weeks, everything just feels empty. Like I’m hollow, missing something, you know?”

“I expected something like this.” Lars opened a drawer under his desk and began flicking through the papers in there. “Reality transcription does have a few common side effects, and while yours is relatively uncommon, it’s not unheard of. You have an energy discontinuity.”

“A what?”

“Let me put it this way.” Lars fished something out of the drawer – a piece of paper, ancient and yellow, covered with archaic writing. “Each reality has an energy signature, a kind of pattern. When you transcribe, you bring an alternate signature into this reality, and the reality tries its best to eliminate it. Most times you simply assimilate this reality’s signature and that’s that. However.” He peered over his glasses. “Sometimes the difference is too great to allow absorption, usually due to differences in polarity. Thus, we end up with you. A being with an energy vacuum. Right now the hollowness you’re feeling is a result of your body trying and failing to assimilate the energy of this universe.”

“So it’s like I’ve got a hole inside me, and the energy is trying to get in, but it can’t.”

“Precisely.”

“Well?” Gerard crossed his arms, huffing expectantly. “Can you do anything about it?”

“It’s not an easy fix.” Lars began weaving sigils in the air, reading off the parchment. “Altering your energy signature would solve the problem, but the wavelength would have to be very precise. One millimetre off and we solve one problem but cause another.” Without warning he leaned over and jammed his hand into Gerard’s chest. The dragon gasped as he felt his body twist, as though he had shifted slightly in the universe without actually moving. After a few seconds the claw lifted, and Gerard breathed deeply, feeling decidedly odd.

“Woah, what the hell was that?”

“That was me altering your energy pattern. Not completely, I’ll need to do more research for a full translation, but enough to allow you to absorb energy in the meanwhile. It should ease your transition a bit.” He reached under his desk again and produced a book, thick and black. “Here, you can use this as an energy source for the time being. There’s a lot of power in there, so it should keep you feeling alright until we can figure out a more elegant solution.”

Gerard accepted the tome, noting how it buzzed in his hands. It was odd, but he could almost feel the power within it, like a physical presence pressing against his claws. He held it to his side, his chest quivering as it came within the presence of the tome. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, it’s the least I could do. I owe you one after all. Now if anything else pops up, you know where to find me. And if by some miracle you manage to drain that whole thing, then come see me. I’ve got a whole archive of similar books.” Lars chuckled, pulling a pen out of his pocket and resumed his writing. With nothing else to do, Gerard left, clutching the tome gently.

*

It was an odd thing, the book. At first sight it looked old, but the more Gerard looked at it, the more he was convinced that age didn’t really hold any sway over it. It only appeared to be old: there were no rips, no missing pages, nothing that worsened the condition.

“So….how am I supposed to go about this?” he said to nobody in particular. He opened it up, flicked through the pages, turned it upside down. Nothing. God he felt empty. It wasn’t until he felt the yawning cavern of his body open up that something clicked. He felt for that presence again, the power, electric blue and almost squishy. Slowly, testing how it was done, he drew a piece of it into himself.

The effect was immediate, pulsing tendrils of energy winding their way around his nerves, forcing his body to writhe in pleasure. Power crept into his soul, filling the hole with an immensely satisfying feeling, and he closed his eyes and smiled, letting that energy soak in.

“Ohhhh, that’s sooo much better.” He groaned as the swell of energy ended, but when he opened his eyes he was treated to another surprise benefit. He’d always been on the small side for a dragon, annoyingly so, but as he looked down over himself he noticed that he’d filled out ever so slightly. His arms, once skinny twigs, boasted a gentle swell of muscle, scaled flesh adding some meat to his bones and bumping him outwards. He’d also grown ever so slightly taller – he could feel it in his altered stance, in the change in viewpoint. A small height increase, maybe half a foot, but enough to be noticeable. He grinned, inspecting the changes – he’d always hated his body, cursed himself for being weak and puny. Every attempt to increase his muscle had resulted in failure, and he had numerous memories of struggling to lift weights, his arms and legs quivering under the stress as he tried in vain to lift even the lightest of barbells.

The allure of power was intoxicating, and on top of that despite the energy he was still feeling somewhat empty. The boost had helped, but it wasn’t enough. He needed more. He felt for the presence again, sought it out, and with a more vigorous tug he pulled out a larger chunk of magic.

Strength immediately streaked through his frame, animating his arms with ripples of power. Thanks to the increased dose the growth was more noticeable this time, to the point where Gerard could physically watch his body expand, his eyes like saucers as the strength and definition he’d always wanted slowly packed onto his skinny frame. The height growth was significant, his head pushing nearly a foot higher than it did before, but the muscle growth was even more so. Each cord of muscle wound around his arm, probed, and fused with his existing frame in jolts of pure ecstasy, the sensation causing him to flex involuntarily.

“Nnngghh!” He gasped, inhaling deeply as his chest expanded, the muscles rounding out and stretching his shirt. He was able to examine the pleasure itself, put more of a definition on it – mostly heat, scorching flushes of pleasure, but also delicious little shocks of energy that sent eye-rolling tingles up and down his spine. His legs felt especially odd, buckling from the pressure but simultaneously strengthening as they filled out, the overall pressure on his muscles weirdly remaining the same.

Finally it ended, and yet again Gerard was feeling empty. He looked at the tome, wondering if it was working, but a quick look at his body told him it certainly wasn’t broken. He looked as though he had been going to the gym for years, and had the body to show for it – low, wide bumps pushed against his shirt, the curves of muscle not so extreme but rather smooth and large, giving him a sturdy look. He wasn’t quite at bodybuilder level, but he didn’t look too far off. Needless to say Gerard was ecstatic at the change – finally, a true reflection of the years of dedication he had put in, the endless times trying and failing to overturn his own pitiful biology. Now biology would work for him, rather than against him.

However he couldn’t keep his thoughts straight for long, as that emptiness quickly began gnawing at his will. He looked at the tome, visualised the energy, dipped a hand into it. Using senses he didn’t even know he had, he gauged the power, judged it within his capabilities. A moment of hesitation – he liked this body, and while stronger was always better he didn’t want to go overboard. Caution clashed with desire, and eventually, inevitably, desire won out.

With a quick twist of his hand, Gerard extracted the entire ball of power from the tome and forced it inside his body.

“GNGHHH!” The force of the magic immediately turned his muscles to jelly, fiery streaks of electricity coursing through his nerves and setting every inch of his body alight. He collapsed on the floor, tongue lolling out and eyes rolling back, as the energy piled higher and higher. His mind disappeared in a haze of lust, little grunts of joy falling out as here and there sparks of power caused his body to convulse and grow. He was long since past the ability to control the growth, and at this point he didn’t even care about seeing it. This time round, it was all about the feeling, not just the natural pleasure but the intoxicating sensation of his strength rising and rising. He could feel it in the way the earth felt softer, in how his body felt lighter, the density of his muscles far past anything required to hold his expanding body up.

He didn’t even notice the expansion until he lifted his hands and realised he’d been digging holes in the dirt a he clenched his talons involuntarily, the little marks much deeper than they should have been. What were once gentle curves of muscle quickly morphed into aggressive peaks of strength, the sheer size of the muscle fibres making them intimidating to look at. Faint rips indicated the end of his clothes, which were quickly blasted apart by his expanding body, but Gerard was long past caring. All that mattered was the sensation of power, the feeling of everything around him getting weaker as he grew stronger, and stronger, and STRONGER.

“Hahhh, h-h- …NNNGHH! Ohhh yeaahh!” He couldn’t help but moan as another wave of strength coursed through him, like a layer of cement washing through, forcing his body outwards in diamond hard peaks of pure strength. He didn’t know it, but this much strength came with a few other changes in order to facilitate it – bones the size of thick logs, tendons that resembled bungee cords in strength. These were hard to detect though, buried beneath the all-encompassing pleasure.

Finally he exhausted the store of magical energy, the heat fading away as he basked in the afterglow of the growth. Standing up, he felt like a different dragon – 7 and a half feet tall and built like a tank, with strength that far exceeded even what his already sinuously muscular body looked capable of. It felt odd – the ground was spongy beneath his feet, and when he looked he noticed he was driving small craters with each shuffle of his stance.

“Hooo man, this is something.” Despite all the energy he could still feel the emptiness in the back of his head, reduced somewhat but not gone completely. However he was able to ignore it as his eyes roamed greedily across his new body, taking in the natural Y shape of his torso, the interlocking muscles like tectonic plates, rippling effortlessly with the slightest movement. He’d never been able to bounce his pecs, but now as he tried it the motion seemed easy, almost natural. He laughed in delight, simply flexing in the middle of the field, getting a feel for his level of strength. It almost scared him how powerful he felt, like he could lift a building.
“Man, I’m so big! So strong! So… gonna need some new clothes.” He looked down at the tattered mess of fabric still clinging to his body, with a hint of disappointment, but it soon disappeared at the prospect of showing off his new body. With a slightly bassy chuckle, he set off towards the town.

*

The journey wasn’t an excessively long one, but it was far enough for Gerard to begin experimenting with his new senses. The first thing he turned his attention to was his curious new sight. Everything glowed with energy, each different than the last – whereas the book had been blue and almost perfectly spherical, the plants around him were bright green and constantly fluctuating, the energy never staying still. On contact it felt refreshing, as though he had woken up from a long sleep, and as he walked he trailed his fingers through nearby plants, relishing the steady flow of emerald power up his arms. The trickle of energy was not especially large, but it sent slow waves of growth rolling along his arms, dissipating across his chest with a pleasant warming sensation. If he had been paying attention he would have noticed the faint bulges of muscle, the slow, creaking expansion of his frame, as well as the trail of dead and withered plants in his wake. But his mind was too focused on exploring the life energy around him.

The biggest change came from a tree. It was large, an old oak that had stood for nearly a hundred years, the energy within even brighter and more energetic. Gerard swiped a hand at it, but the jolt of energy down his arm immediately caused him to wobble in pleasure and stop, giving it a second look. He closed his eyes and hugged the thing, the flow of energy immediate and arrestingly pleasurable, forcing his already brawny frame to swell higher and wider. Muscles that were once melon-sized thickened into basketballs of solid flesh, his skin stretching and tendons snapping as they adapted to the increased size and force. The more he drained, the more he hugged, until his arms were sinking into the increasingly frail wood, thick muscle biting into the timber with little effort, his hands slowly reaching all the way around the trunk. Not that Gerard noticed, for he was far too busy basking in the absolute sensation of power, one not unjustly earned – his strength by now was prodigious. He’d only noticed the change when one final surge of energy caused him to involuntarily flex, and he had snapped the 10ft wide trunk like a twig as a result. The tree fell with a crash, and Gerard suddenly realised what he was doing to the world around him.

“Oh god, I…” he looked at the trail of death he had left in his wake, plants struggling to stay upright, their stalks withered and petals devoid of life, the energy they once possessed now charging through Gerard’s veins. “I’m a freak!” he said as he looked down at his now 9ft body, nervousness flooding through him. What would people think? What would they say? Years of instinctual nervousness came rushing back, born through decades of being small, weak and subservient. But another glance at his body sent another message: it was impossible to look at himself and think he was weak, not any more. Submissive was a description applied to those around him now, and he realised he had to come to terms with that. He had to accept his place as the dominant being, sooner or later.

He looked back at the tree, marvelled at the impressive size of it. 10ft of solid wood, and he had snapped it like a toothpick, not even noticing. It scared him to think how strong he was, but soon that nervousness was draining away, replaced with the kind of confidence that only came with being naturally dominant. He grinned as he looked down at himself, his once submissive nature slowly draining away as he shifted and felt the earth give way under his claws, rocks cracking beneath his weight. So what if they stared? Who cared what they thought? What did it matter when he could punch his way through a brick wall, when he looked like this? He gave a quick flex, grinning as his biceps detonated ever wider, massive slabs of muscle fibre rolling across his arms, rippling the scales as he showed off to himself. Confidence restored (and augmented), he set off once more.

He wasn’t wrong in thinking that people stared, but where once he would have shied away from the questioning looks, now he welcomed them. He looked down at those who stared at him, feeling pleased when they all looked away first, averting their eyes down. He knew that look, for he had done the same in the past, constantly avoiding eye contact lest he risk the wrath of someone stronger, which in his case had been everyone. Now he had nothing to fear, and it was an intoxicating feeling. He never knew that being on the other end of the food chain could feel so good.

He was on the way to the tailor’s shop when he heard a very short yell ring out, as though it had been cut off. Following the sound led him to a side alley behind the apothecary, and his eyes widened when he saw the source. A young ferret struggling in the arms of a larger crocodile, who was jamming a pistol into his head.

“Shut up! SHUT. UP. Scream again and I’ll put a bullet through your skull, I swear I will. Wallet. Which pocket?” The crocodile forced the pistol harder into the ferret’s temple, eliciting a yell and a small ring of blood as the barrel broke the skin.

“Hey!” Gerard’s voice boomed across, and the mugger looked up. He was taken aback by the hulking figure blocking the alley entrance, but he aimed the pistol at Gerard with a shaking hand.

“You didn’t see anything! Get outta here or I’ll pop a cap in your chest!”

“Let him go.” Gerard walked forward, and the poor crocodile had to force himself to hold onto the ferret, as his body naturally moved to obey the command. Nevertheless he resisted, his fist clenching on the gun.

“Not another step, get the hell back! The hell do you want to defend this runt for anyway?”

Gerard froze. The word runt echoed back and forth in his mind, bringing back memories of being pushed to the back of the lunch queue in school, over and over again. Runt. Weakling. Words that he had grown up with, that had defined him. Words that he despised with every fibre of his being. Fury flashed through his eyes, and without warning he charged at the croc. The reptile yelped and managed to fire a couple of shots before Gerard was on him, the bullets pinging off his chest scales without so much as a mark. He whimpered as Gerard pinned him to the wall with one massive forearm, the trunk of muscle stronger than his entire body. He struggled for a few seconds, and then the dragon put his face close and snarled almost loud enough to burst his eardrums. The poor mugger whimpered in fear, his trousers growing dark as he wet himself in fear. He would have screamed in terror had the immovable pressure on his chest allowed it.

“I’ll show you who the real runt is here!” Gerard felt for his energy, which was a sober orange, the colour of autumn leaves, and with an aggressive movement he ripped it from his body. The crocodile gasped as he instantly shrivelled, as though his blood had dried up. The desiccation ravaged his body, his bones crackling as the arm pinning him flattened his weakened ribcage, forcing the shards further into the wall. Green skin faded into grey parchment, the croc’s eyes shrivelling up and his cries withering into dry croaks as the life was violently pulled from him, years of his life fleeing from his soul.

“N-no…please…”

“MMnnn YEESSS!!” Gerard’s moans of ecstasy blasted over the crocodile’s pitiful whimpers, his body swelling again. By now he welcomed those electric jolts like old friends, smiling goofily as his entire frame expanded with power, hot sparks of pleasure causing him to growl and snarl as he hulked out. He stretched, feeling thick veins snake their way through his body, fuelling him with blood that surged like rocket fuel, supercharging his strength. He could feel the world around him getting lighter, spongier, as his strength increased further, pressing the remains of the crocodile so far into the wall that he all but disappeared in a crater of cracked and broken masonry. The growth was relatively quick this time, in keeping with the aggressiveness of the energy drain, but as a result the pleasure was far more concentrated than anything he had experienced before. Whereas the book had been a symphony of orgasmic jolts, this was a flood of electricity, like a wave of water charged with power cables, washing through him and leaving tingling nerves in its wake. The force of the growth almost caused him to black out, stars flashing in his vision as he convulsed and snarled. He loved that sound, his own voice beastly and dominating, where once it had been reedy and weak, and as the energy shift ended he laughed, the sound reverberating off the walls.

Still basking in the afterglow, he picked up the discarded pistol and crushed it in one hand, the hardened metal crumpling like tinfoil. The ferret, who had been watching him from the floor in amazement, got up.

“Oh my god, thank you so much, I thought I was dead, I don’t know how I can ever –”

“It’s alright.” Gerard smiled gently down, not wishing to scare the tiny guy, and watched as he dusted himself down and hastily walked off, no doubt to share his story with everyone who would listen. The thought sent a warm glow of pride through him, but that was soon cut short when he noticed the body of the mugger. The crocodile was practically concave, the shape of Gerard’s massive forearm imprinted in his shattered ribcage. His body was so far in the wall that it wasn’t dropping out, but as Gerard listened closely he could hear faint breaths. The crocodile was still alive but barely, with enough strength to exist and breathe but not an ounce more. The rest of his vitality was added to Gerard’s burgeoning stockpile, leaving him a husk embedded in the wall.
It shocked Gerard to see what he had done. Even though he had been a bad person, it didn’t feel good harming someone in this way, even if the power dictated it. Worse, he could still feel the yawning emptiness in the back of his head, seeking more and more power. Of course, he wanted to get stronger, but he couldn’t harm people in the process, and plants would only get him so far. With a heavy heart, he decided that there was only one option left to him.

*

Lars was once again writing when he heard an almighty crash. When he looked up his eyes widened – Gerard was standing by a large, dragon-shaped hole where the door had once been, dust and mortar still crumbling around him. He gave Lars a sheepish look.

“Sorry about the door.”

“Forget the door, what the hell have you been doing?” His eyes took in the beach-ball sized muscles, the 12ft frame, the imposing and confident glare that drew his eyes away from the remains of his clothes still clinging feebly to his titanic body.

“Draining power. But I still feel empty. Oh, and I can see energy, like sometimes it’s blue, other times it’s green and lively. Things like that.”

“Thaumisthesia. Curious.” Lars got up and walked over, weaving a few sigils in the air as he did. “You said you’d seen different types of energy? What have you been draining? The book I hope.”

“The book, some plants. A crocodile in the town.” Lars inhaled sharply at the last one. “I know, I know. But I couldn’t help it, I still felt empty and he was going to kill someone.” Gerard sighed, looking at his body. “I love being this strong, and I’d love to get stronger, but not if it means hurting people. So I’ve decided, you need to remove this power.”

Lars frowned, adjusting his sigils slightly, correcting the spell. “I should warn you that the spell is also augmenting your body’s capacity to hold the energy. If I remove it and leave you as you are, then your bones and internal organs may collapse. I’ll have to remove the strength –”

“NO!”

Before Lars could even blink a claw was pinning him to the wall, the talons sinking deep into the concrete. Gerard struggled to keep his hunger in check, not wanting to harm his friend, but it was so hard. Lars’ power was odd – where most energies were self- contained, his seemed to be spread out like a spider’s web, magical threads funnelling through him. He was a conduit, a magnifying lens for power rather than a container. Following the threads he realised it was the library, each tome feeding into and through him. Gerard snarled, but held his power in check.

“Wait, you can control it?” Lars looked at the growling dragon in surprise, the seeds of an idea twinkling in his eyes. Without warning he grabbed Gerard’s head with one hand, the other dancing as he wrote a quick spell.

“You need to be bigger, Gerard.” Suddenly Lars’ voice was like honey, irresistible, and Gerard shook his head.

“I can’t, I’m hurting people, I –”

“Who’s telling you what you can’t do? Nobody can tell you otherwise.”

“But”

“Their lives are meaningless in the presence of a god. We would give ourselves to you willingly, my lord. Take our strength, our power. Become all that you could ever be, and more.”

Gerard snarled again, trying to resist, but before long the raw flood of magic flowing into him overwhelmed his mind. He forgot his inhibitions, he forgot his concerns, and simply GREW. Power flooded into him as the entire contents of Lars’ archive surrendered their magic, fuelling his strength. He felt himself grow larger and larger, the archive crumbling around his body as he expanded past the building’s capacity, the dragon he once pinned to the wall now lost under a single, enormous talon.

“That’s it Gerard, you need to be stronger. STRONGER.” Another moan of pleasure, another thick spurt that sent him soaring into the sky. He didn’t know where the voice was coming from anymore, but he didn’t care. Power curled around his mind, fingering his brain with jolts of pleasure so strong they could have killed a normal being, overloaded the nervous system and left a mere mortal a smoking husk. Instead he rode them out, bucked and writhed as energy coursed through his veins, his moans rumbling the countryside and causing every feral animal in several miles to cower in fear. Yet again his pecs, his biceps, his quads, all expanded to mind-blowing proportions, new muscle fibres embedding themselves into his bones like steel cords. His new mounds of strength were so striated that there were deep grooves between each muscle, large enough to crush a person, dark chasms surrounded by walls of glorious, immovable scales.

“You will need the strength, if you are to win.”

“Win what?”

“Grow strong enough, and you’ll find out.” The presence vanished from Gerard’s mind, and he stood up and gasped. He was enormous, close to 200ft tall, and crammed with so much magical energy that it burned off him. His very footsteps charred the landscape, sinking in to leave craters that were several feet deep, and as Gerard looked around he inhaled in surprise. He could see far more energy than before, but somehow he realised it was all linked. Everything flowed into the earth, all the energy was connected to a gigantic source in the centre of the planet. He needed that energy, not just to fill the hole in his soul but to become the strongest of all. The voice was right, nobody could tell him what to do, he needed to be stronger, no matter the cost. He didn’t hate them, but their lives were simply insignificant compared to his. With a serene smile he strode towards the town.

There were a great many screams as he approached the town hall, but Gerard paid them little mind. Already bullets were pinging off him, his skin tingling as it absorbed the kinetic energy of the shots, adding it to his own store. He looked inwards, trying to see his own energy, but it was hard to look at – pure white, burning so bright that he had to avert his eyes, and enormous. It was like a sun, massive and bright, and he grinned. Soon it would be even brighter.

Along with the raw magical energy in the books he had absorbed the knowledge contained within them, and now a thousand different methods were rolling around his brain, each deliciously inventive. He sent out a psychic pulse that forced people onto their knees, their bodies twitching and straining as raw energy was pulled out, leaving them quivering husks. The stream of psychic energy sent a shiver down his spine, and he smiled as he heard the cracks of bone that signalled more growth, his frame packing on another few tons of pure muscle. It wasn’t fast enough though, and he craved something stronger. Another idea popped into his head, and he grinned. This time he held out his arm as if holding a dumbbell, the hand a claw, and strained to bring it to his body. Immediately villagers began flying towards him, houses collapsing and swirling around him, pelting him with masonry. With each thing that impacted his body he drained it dry of everything he could think of – kinetic, gravitational potential, centrifugal, the forces of physics were the side dishes in his energy buffet. More growth ensued, bumping up to what he estimated to be 350ft tall; he was struggling to tell, since he was now taller than the tallest building, and there was no longer an appropriate frame of reference to compare himself with. After a few seconds of loud moans he halted it, again frustrated by the lack of speed. He needed something fast, something much, much more effective.

His next idea was the best that several millennia of magical textbooks had to offer.

With a grin, he made a fist and smashed it deep into the earth, the impact setting off a small earthquake with the force. A tsunami of black energy emanated from the impact point, sweeping across the ground in a perfectly circular wave. In its wake was…nothing. No trees, no buildings, no life whatsoever. Everything drained and lifeless, every last scrap of worthwhile energy pulled out and put to much better use.

“NNGHHH!! NOW THIS IS MORE LIKE IT!” His moans turned to beastly grunts as growth suffused his frame, and he rolled his eyes, his immense frame quaking with the sheer pleasure. Everything succumbed, a rainbow of energy that fed him higher and higher, his roars echoing across the land as the wave of draining energy spread further. He was reaching for the energy at the centre of the planet, a gigantic ball of pure power that was tantalisingly closer with each second, his fist reaching through rock. After a few miles of muscle had added themselves onto his body he reached the mantle of the planet, the thick lava forcing him to buck a little as heat blasted through him. This level of power felt weird, wet spasms of pleasure that coincided with impossibly enormous spurts of growth, his body growing thicker, larger, stronger.

He didn’t notice any resistance for the large part, ground to air missiles popping ineffectively against his hide, so he paid no attention to the pair of dull grey missiles streaking towards him. That is, until they hit, and an explosion of nuclear energy forced him to gasp hotly and flex. This was more than just size, this was density, his muscles thickening and solidifying even more. It felt as though he was being filled with molten steel, slow and syrupy, and he shook in joy as it slowly, deliciously forced its way through his frame.

His fist finally met the centre of the planet, his arm plunging into the ground like a titanic scaled drill, and he began to siphon that bountiful energy out like juice from a carton. The more he sucked, the more he grew, and soon he couldn’t even speak for the pleasure, his body floating in weightless bliss as he expanded into the planet, shearing through continents. A moon-sized pec crashed into the surface as he grunted and forced his arm through the other side of the planet, puncturing it like a bead. Still that energy was plentiful, and he got the sense that he’d need to properly crack the planet to get at the tasty insides. Another swell, another groan that trembled the planet to its core, another spurt of muscle that contained more strength than every single being in sight and possibly out of it, and the planet was little more than an armband, strained around his insanely large bicep. With each second he swelled out in mass, the weight of continents flowing and aggregating on him, his strength tripling, quadrupling. Breathless with power, and inches from fully gaining the planet, he had an idea.

He flexed.

The planet shattered as his bicep tore through it, the width of that one muscle alone wider than the entire thing. And growing wider, as all of that released energy flowed into him, his prize for breaking apart a celestial body. He smiled in bliss as it flowed in, like the yolk from a cracked egg, rich with life that made him glow with vitality.

With the remains of one planet floating around him, he turned his attention to the moon that had once orbited it. He laughed as he grabbed it with one hand, marvelling at the orb nestling comfortably between his claws, and grinned. He chucked it, like a bouncy ball, and it came back – he was so large he was generating his own gravity field, his very presence distorting spacetime around him. It was odd to see – no matter what direction he threw it in, it slowly returned. He gripped it hard, claws leaving visible imprints in the surface, and with all his strength threw it at a nearby planet. The impact was catastrophic, the moon flying so fast that it simply punched straight through, glowing with heat as it flew close to the speed of light. Gerard clicked his fingers and it was back in his hand, glowing like a lava lamp in the darkness, and he looked at the hole he had made. He imagined the view from the surface, a meteor so fast and powerful that it punched a hole through the planet itself, shattered the land like ceramic and destabilised the very core itself, which was now leaking out.

He smiled, and slowly closed his fist, crushing the moon with one hand. It stoked his ego to see the ball of rock yield to his strength, cracks shearing through as his fingers forced their way inwards with hideously unstoppable force, crushing it to rocks, then shards, then dust, spread across the cosmos like confetti. It hadn’t even been hard, and he smiled again at the boost in strength the action gave him. The energy leaking out of planet he had used as target practice was also feeding him larger, but his attention was elsewhere. There was another source of energy nearby, one that dwarfed even his reserves of power.

A star.

He approached it slowly, courting it like a dance partner, teasing off the solar flares with little shivers of movement. Soon he was bathed in heat, his scales giving him a natural resistance but nevertheless smoking. Again the feeling of molten steel filled him, something he had come to recognise as his body absorbing nuclear radiation. The closer he got, the thicker he felt, the stronger he felt. Soon he was comparable in size, his body roughly the same height as the star, and he began to approach closer. Thicker and thicker he felt, going from molten steel to liquid diamond, solidifying. It felt impossible to be any harder, or any stronger, but still the force contained within his body rose and rose, firing through him. He was a container, even his godlike body paling in comparison to the immense power that filled it, that permeated every nanometre of his being. He didn’t just possess power, he was power. He finally came close enough to approach the meat of the sun, the plasma at the centre, and this really began to make him whimper in pleasure. He surrendered to the sensation, hugging the ball closer and closer, feeling it shrink against him as he outsized planets, suns, solar systems. On and on he grew, never stopping, never slowing, that brilliant white energy coursing through his body and forcing it outwards.

Once the sun was gone it started a chain reaction, as he grew more than large enough to approach the next one, and the next. One sun became two, then eight, until he was simply stretching his body across solar systems, feeling entire galaxies succumb to his draining presence. The vitality of an entire galaxy felt like a snack, a quick jolt of intense pleasure that elicited a little moan, the sounds speeding up and merging as more and more galaxies submitted to his dominance, as galaxy clusters and superclusters yielded their energy, giving him more and more and MORE.

It wasn’t until he was beginning to fathom the edges of reality itself that he discovered why there were edges in the first place. They were shaped by the being he could only now see.

In front of him was something that he could barely get his head around. A snake whose length coiled the universe itself, a malevolent length of dark energy. It had size in the way a planet does, something that is so large from the surface that you cannot make out its true form. All Gerard could see was the energy it contained, dark and shifting, almost chaotic. Thus far the sources he had used had been orderly to an extent, but this was something else. It was the energy of creation itself, infinite in its possibilities, but in this case tainted by malice, poisoned by hatred. The creature, whatever it was, was evil, and he was thankful it appeared to be sleeping. It was both terrifying and enticing, a feast beyond anything he could hope to incorporate and a challenge to prove his strength, to show that he deserved to be the strongest.

He accepted the challenge.

Slowly he began siphoning off that immense power, feeling very much like he was trying to drink an ocean. Compared to the steely thickness of the suns, this was a return to the electrical stimulation of his early growth, flowers of tingling pleasure opening up throughout his body, the jolts making him quiver and buck as he swelled larger. It was a reinforcing loop: the more he grew, the more he could absorb, and the more he absorbed the more he grew. He closed his eyes and groaned as supercluster-sized muscles swelled beyond physical limits, the strength of an entire universe not enough to compete with one thick limb, and still he swelled.

“Hrrrrrr, what creature daresssssss?”

Gerard found himself staring up at an enormous eye, narrowing in anger. Instead of fear he felt confidence, amplified by the electrical kicks that were still convulsing through his frame, causing him to writhe and moan around his words.

“I – NNGH – I dare. And there’s nothing – MMMNNNGHHH! – n-nothing you can do about it!” Gerard yelled as he drew even more power in, the tide becoming an unstoppable flood. Little kicks of energy became lightning bolts of power, each strike eliciting a yell of ecstasy as they surged through him, electric tendrils enlarging everything they came into contact with.

“You cannot usssssurp a ssssingularity!”

Gerard grinned. “You know what? Someone told me something useful, something – UNGH – that I’m thinking of nnNNNGH – now. Wanna know?”

“Pray tell.”

“Who’s going to stop me from doing whatever I want?” He grinned as he finally passed the halfway mark, large enough to rival the snake in size. He could finally look down at it, his head bending the limits of reality. “Because it’s not going to be you.”

“LIESSSS!” The singularity tried everything to throw Gerard off, disintegrating his very atoms, searing his mind with horrific visions, but nothing worked. Every injury, was healed instantly with the singularity’s energy, every second they spent in contact the snake shrunk.

“Pathetic!” Gerard laughed as for the first time the snake whimpered, feeling its once all-encompassing energy withering away. Flesh began to peel back, bones poking through its skin, and still it struggled. Even weakened it blasted him with explosions that rivalled the creation of the reality, and he merely laughed as his blackened scales wound themselves together again, the damage disappearing. He could hold the snake now, and he did so, lifting it up with both hands, feeling the girth wither under his touch. He was on the home stretch now, the creature whimpering and struggling futilely as the last of its strength was drawn out.

“Y-y-you can’t! Pleasssse!”

Gerard paid no attention as the snake yelled in pain, flesh disappearing and once vibrant skin fading, acquiring the texture of dead leaves. Finally, with one last lustful gasp, the singularity was gone. He rode out the final lightning blast of growth, which felt like it set every nerve on fire, a literal universe of pleasure and strength that served only to further his goal.

“Enjoy that?”

Gerard stretched, feeling reality stretch with him. “Ohhh yes. Is that you Lars?”

“It’s me. Apologies for the psychic intrusion, but you wouldn’t be able to hear me otherwise. The creature you’ve just dealt with was known as Heljor, and has been a problem for eons. Malevolent Singularities can destroy entire realities, and I couldn’t fight it myself. So I created something that could.”

“Me.” Gerard suddenly realised why Lars had encouraged him to grow, what seemed like a lifetime ago. He was the weapon.

“Unfortunately, being a god, I can no longer alter your thaumic properties, so you’re stuck with my original spell. You’ll have that ability for the rest of your immortal existence.”

Gerard flexed an arm that could have torn apart spacetime, strength that forced creation to tremble in submission. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

“All I ask in return is that you return some energy to the inhabitants of this reality. They deserve to live.”

A click, and it was done. “I could get used to this.” Gerard said with a grin, marvelling at how easy everything was. Being a god was like a holiday, everything practically did itself. When your form burned with the energy of entire galaxies, nothing seemed impossible. Except… the hunger was still there. After everything he had done, everything he had absorbed, he still wanted more. And he could see that there was more to be had, on the other side of the walls of this reality.

“You seek more power, I seek an answer to some of the malevolent entities of creation. I propose a deal: I lead you to realities, and you devour what you will.”

Gerard thought of growing larger, stronger, becoming something that even the gods and singularities feared. The dominator of creation, the strongest to exist. The strongest that ever would exist.

“Sounds like a good deal. Where do we start?”