Alex brought Ayesha directly back to her bedroom as the trembling woman weakly lowered herself to the bed, supporting herself with her hand as she sat down.
"It's over…" She whispered.
[Unless there's another big-bad behind him. Pretty much.] Alex said, merging into her. [How do you feel?]
"I–I don't know," she mumbled. "Exhilarating?"
He observed her teary eyes and erratic breaths silently, concluding that she was definitely not exhilarated.
[I think overwhelmed is a better word. He was your creator. To kill an entity equivalent to a god of your race—]
"Some creator…" she said, losing all her strength and falling on her back as Alex quickly retracted her crown, letting her hair spread around on the bed. "It's finally over, isn't it?"
[It sure is. I believe celebrations are in order, don't you think?]
"After what you've done for me, Master~" Ayesha's voice had an unusual sultry edge to it. "I will do everything in my power to please you tonight~"
[Yeah? Even expose yourself to your people?]
Ayesha immediately stiffened at his words, making him laugh out loud.
[Don't worry, I'm too possessive to dive into hardcore exhibitionism. Using the risk factor as a turn-on is as far as I'll go.]
"Uh…" Ayesha was left speechless at the words, unsure how she should respond.
[Tell me, how would you like for me to take your training to the next level?]
"Next…level?"
[Don't play dumb. I'm talking about sex. I think it's high time I started training your useless pussy into a proper erogenous zone.]
"U-useless?" She sounded affronted.
[What else? You can neither give birth nor feel pleasure. You have a solid reproductive system, but it is essentially useless.]
"There have been cases of natural births in the past…" Ayesha tried to defend herself.
[When was the last one?]
"…"
[I'll refresh your memory. The last recorded case of a natural birth was fifty years ago. The mother died, and the infant that came out was deformed, serving as the final nail in the coffin of natural births, outright outlawing them on this planet. Your reproductive system is already broken and useless.]
"Please stop calling me useless…" Ayesha seemed on the verge of tears for a whole other reason. "It's not my fault, is it?"
[All right, all right, I was being harsh. How about I show you a nice view?]
"From my spot?" She asked.
[You know it.]
"Do I need to…" She trailed off, blushing a little, turning to the window to observe the faint silhouette of a massive ship far in the distance.
[That is not a question, my Queenie. You should understand your duties without me having to outline them regularly.]
"Understood, master…" Ayesha nodded, taking a deep breath as she sat up. Aside from her crown, which had been removed, the rest of her outfit remained, including the gold-plated gown that was regularly worn when she addressed her subjects and the extra accessory, namely, the uncomfortably high heels.
Without much hesitation, she started ridding herself of the intricate outfit, one piece at a time.
Soon, without a scrap of clothing on her body, Ayesha walked over to her private elevator and stepped inside. Within seconds, she found herself at the highest point of her castle and the city in general. Looking up at the sky gave her a far clearer picture of the conflicts that were still raging in the skies above.
"Shouldn't the Sovereign's fleets be retreating?" She asked, seeing no signs of the conflict slowing down. If anything, it seemed to be getting even more intense.
[Why would they retreat when their command ship is telling them to give it everything they've got, even use kamikaze tactics…]
"M-master…" Ayesha seemed flabbergasted. "T-those are billions of entities… if they don't retreat, we won't be able to hold them off."
[Do you really think that, Ayesha?] Alex asked, an amused edge to his tone.
"…Even so," she said with some hesitation. "Wouldn't coercing them to surrender prove more useful, master? Every single member of OrgoCorp's fleet is a genetically enhanced individual. It is a waste to just kill them all."
[Getting soft on me now? Has the Sovereign never brought ruin to any civilizations? Brought forth genocide on a planetary scale…]
"N-never," Ayesha said, shaking a little.
[I guess this can be another kind of first experience for you.]
"Do you truly not wish to integrate them into the Apex Empire, master?" Ayesha asked as her body instinctively took action. Bending her knees, she knelt in the center of the observation deck, her feet parallel to the ground as she spread her knees apart and put her palms on her thighs, facing upward. The entire process was followed without minimal thoughts from her, as if it were already ingrained into her muscle memory.
[Those are broken life forms, Ayesha. Contrary as it may seem, the Sovereign is the final step in the direction of manipulating with true lives that the High Evolutionary went. Beyond your race, the path he took was destined for failure.]
"What does that mean?" She asked, frowning.
[It means that once a species loses the ability to reproduce naturally, whether it be through sexual or asexual means, they are no longer considered as true life in the grand scheme of the universe. After the Sovereign's creation, his research direction simply deviated from the creation of true life.]
"But… what even constitutes true life?" Ayesha asked. "Why does it matter if a species can reproduce or not? As long as they possess the technology to gestate new members, it shouldn't matter."
[You don't understand. When reproduction becomes completely mechanical—done through the direct modification of genes instead of a natural process, we are essentially creating clones. And clones possess incomplete souls.]
"I don't follow…" Ayesha seemed wholly engrossed in the conversation at the moment, not even noticing that multiple airborne vehicles had passed by her tower. Where once, she would have flinched and instinctively covered herself, at the moment, she didn't even notice anything.
[For a technological civilization like yours, the soul is a difficult concept to accept, I know. But it is as real as you can imagine. You can give a person an identical brain and memories through a clone, but they will never be the same person without the soul also transferring over to the new body. Those with incomplete souls will always have limited potential in their lives. Their emotions dulled. Their lives monotonous. They can be smarter, possess greater IQ, or whatever else. But ultimately, their capabilities will be limited by the fact that they don't possess the spark of imagination or inspiration that comprises true life.]
"But—"
[We've gone completely off topic.] Alex interrupted her. [Point is. These creatures will give me no benefit. Their only future is death and devouring to bolster my Bioenergy reserves.]
"It just feels…" Ayesha trailed off. "Needlessly cruel."
[Maybe. But you can look at things from this perspective. If I didn't help you, would they have hesitated before annihilating your planets and civilization?]
"No…" Her response came without hesitation.
[At least you are self-aware. Now, I'll show you some nice fireworks.]
As much of a waste as it was, Alex wanted to play with the Space Stone for a bit. For that, he covered the dome surrounding Ayesha with a minute amount of its authority and projected the view from outer space into the dome. Since it was a simple application—merely sending an image across space—the cost to offset the backlash was almost negligible, ten units of Bioenergy per second.
While it sounded like a lot, it wasn't, considering that his farm had grown to give him roughly a hundred thousand units of Bioenergy every day.
The view suddenly changing to outer space made Ayesha freeze in her place as she tensed instinctively. As a massive explosion blasted a bright light through the dome, she was forced to turn and look at the sheer devastation around her as countless ships were being destroyed every second due to the confrontation between the Sovereign and OrgoCorp's fleets.
"Are we…"
[Just a projected image. I was planning on showing you a nice fireworks show before you started talking to me about showing mercy. While I'm not doing that, I won't make you watch this wanton destruction if you don't want to. Your choice.]
"I…" Ayesha observed the immense devastation around her, feeling uncomfortable despite the years of experience she had commanding interstellar wars. "I would like to return, master… While I don't have any issues with this, to derive enjoyment from seeing this… That's not me."
[Understandable.] Alex agreed as the entire scene was wiped away by a faint blue glow of the Space Stone as if it was an illusion in the first place. [Since you don't want to watch the conclusion of this war, I think we can play with sensory deprivation today.]
Before any words could escape the woman, a blindfold appeared over her eyes, followed by a ball gag and a pair of headphones over her ears. Robbed of her speech, hearing, and sight, she immediately tensed up, moaning through her gag as her fingers twitched. She barely held herself back from trying to yank away the items.
[That's my cute Queenie. I love it when you act so obedient and suppress your pride.]
"Mmf…" She groaned, unconsciously tilting her head a little. She was still tense, waiting for Alex to act, but seconds passed, and nothing happened. Even the voice in her head had stopped responding. "Mftr…" She called out helplessly, feeling tense for an entirely different reason. Her hands were still free to remove the bindings, but she knew better.
Suddenly, she felt something slightly soft, yet firm, race along her skin and flinched. After a few seconds, she realized that it was some kind of rope that was slowly wrapping around her.
"Mafter…" She called out again, only to be met with silence once again as the ropes continued snaking along her skin, intent on restraining her.
I blame Yelena for making me so fond of sensory deprivation stuff and playing an invisible ghost…
***
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