World 1: The Chef x The Celebrity
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~ Date: 26 June 2422 Interstellar Year ~
~ Location: World 1 – Luna Bellflower Moon ~ Terra Anka PXD2422 ~ The Golden Dragon Star Nexus Intergalactic Empire ~
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🐦🔥 [ Phoenix ☯ POV ] 🐦🔥
-Solaris - 'Mama Phoenix, the original body was born as a rare Dominant Omega. However, now that your soul has entered and stabilized the shell, the body's classification has elevated beyond its original level. You are not merely a Dominant Omega anymore. You are registering as an SSS-Dominant...
'Dominant Alpha, right? Please, heavens, let him say alpha. I do not want to be an omega again. Stop it, Nix. Focus, or you will miss the answer.'
-Solaris - 'Omega, Mama Phoenix. Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan was originally a regular Dominant Omega, which was already rare enough to make him highly coveted and dangerous to expose. But because your soul is so powerful and compatible with this shell, the body has awakened as an SSS-Dominant Omega. That level has no public record in this world's modern history, so we must be very careful. To everyone else, you should still appear to be only a Dominant Omega unless you deliberately release enough pheromones to prove otherwise. If anyone discovers the SSS level too soon, it could make you the center of the empire's obsession before we are ready.'
For a moment, Phoenix heard nothing. The pond, the garden, the distant city, even Solaris's voice faded beneath the single word still ringing in his mind. Omega. Not just omega. SSS-Dominant Omega. His thoughts tried to reject the answer, shove it away, twist it into something else, but the truth settled into the body like a lock clicking shut. Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan had been rare enough to be dangerous. Phoenix had made the shell impossible.
His first instinct was to check the body again. He resisted the urge to move his hands. He had already confirmed the body was male. He had already confirmed the face, the limbs, the breath in his lungs, the pulse beneath his skin. None of that mattered. Secondary classification lived deeper than appearance. It lived in glands, scent, instinct, law, medicine, prejudice, desire, and fear. It lived in the way an entire society looked at a person and decided what they were allowed to become.
Phoenix swallowed hard and forced his breathing to stay even. A regular Dominant Omega would already be a problem. It would mean heat cycles, pheromone management, scent blockers, medical risks, predatory attention, social restrictions, and the constant need to appear controlled in a world that would punish any slip. But SSS-Dominant Omega was not merely a higher grade. It sounded like a myth the powerful would either worship or dissect. Maybe both.
'So Beyol was already a target because he was a Dominant Omega, and I just turned that target into a solar flare.' The thought was unpleasantly accurate. Phoenix wanted to laugh. He wanted to curse. He wanted to ask the universe why it enjoyed making his life increasingly absurd. Instead, he kept his expression still and listened, because panic had never saved him. Information had.
-Solaris - 'An SSS-Dominant Omega is not just a stronger omega. Your pheromones carry soul-level pressure. With careful control, you can calm frightened omegas, suppress hostile pheromones, command attention, and overwhelm secondary-sex instincts without touching anyone. Ordinary alphas and omegas may instinctively lower their guard around you. Even Dominant Alphas could pause, submit, or feel compelled to protect you if they are unprepared.'
-Solaris - 'Your scent should read as a refined Dominant Omega scent as long as you stay controlled. If you release even a fraction of your true level, however, it may spread like a field. It can soothe allies, force unstable alphas out of rut-frenzy, shield weaker bodies from pheromone coercion, and make hostile pheromones collapse before they reach you. If pushed too far, you could make an entire room kneel without saying a word.'
-Solaris - 'That power is also dangerous. Your first heat may be more intense than anything recorded in this world. Suppressants made for normal omegas or even Dominant Omegas may fail or cause backlash. Your body may also produce an instinctive nesting field that makes compatible people want to guard, serve, approach, or remain near you. That could save you in an emergency, but it could also attract obsession if you are careless.'
-Solaris - 'There is one more thing, Mama. Because your soul is what elevated the shell, this SSS classification is tied to you, not to Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan's original records. Medical scans may show unusual anomalies if they are too advanced, but ordinary public records will still list you as a Dominant Omega. That is good for us. It means we can hide it. For now, please treat this like one of your trump cards. Do not reveal it unless you have no other choice.'
Phoenix closed his eyes and catalogued the information as if filing weapons into different drawers. Public records still showed Dominant Omega. Good. Ordinary scans should not expose him. Better. Advanced scans might notice anomalies. Annoying, but workable. Suppressants might fail. Dangerous. First heat could be worse than anything recorded. Extremely dangerous. Pheromone release could calm, crush, command, or attract. Useful, horrifying, and absolutely not something he could treat casually.
He opened his eyes again. 'Can I mask it?'
-Solaris - 'Yes, Mama. I can help you regulate your scent and keep your pheromone output at the level expected of a regular Dominant Omega. Your own control will matter too, but I can monitor your glands, heart rate, hormone spikes, and stress response. If your emotions surge too suddenly, I can warn you before your pheromones leak.'
Phoenix's mouth curved into a humorless smile. 'So I need emotional stability. Wonderful. Truly, the one thing I am famous for.'
Solaris made a tiny, distressed sound through the bond. -Solaris - 'Mama Phoenix, you are far more stable than you think. You are traumatized, not weak. There is a difference.'
That landed somewhere painful. Phoenix looked away first. He hated how easily Solaris could say things that cut clean through the armor Phoenix had spent millennia building. Weakness was a word others had used against him. Trauma was a word Solaris offered like a bandage, not an accusation. Phoenix did not know what to do with that, so he did what he always did. He moved to logistics.
'What about heat?' Phoenix asked. 'How long do we have?'
-Solaris - 'Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan's regular cycle was documented, but your arrival has altered the body. I need more data before I can predict the first SSS-level heat accurately. For now, we should assume it may come earlier, later, or with warning symptoms that do not match this world's medical records. We should secure blockers, safe rooms, emergency supplies, and a plausible excuse for avoiding public medical checks.'
Phoenix nodded once. That was manageable. Terrible, but manageable. He had handled poisons, curses, soul wounds, assassins, arranged marriages, imperial courts, monster tides, and one memorable plague caused by sentient mushrooms with delusions of godhood. He could handle a body with impossible pheromones. He would handle it because the alternative was letting fear decide for him, and he had sworn never to give fear that kind of authority again.
Still, he could not ignore the larger implication. If the SSS awakening came from his soul, then this was not only a body issue. It was another clue. Another sign that whatever Phoenix truly was had been buried beneath stolen memories, forced reincarnations, and the Jailer System's chains. Solaris knew more than he could say. The Nursery knew more. The mysterious voice that called him my love knew more. Even this body, altered by the touch of his soul, knew more than Phoenix did.
That anger steadied him better than breathing exercises ever could. He was tired of being the last person to know the truth about himself. Fine. He would play carefully. He would hide the SSS level, protect Beyol's family, destroy whoever ruined the original timeline, and collect every scrap of information this world offered. If his own soul wanted to leave fingerprints across reality, then Phoenix would follow them until someone finally gave him answers.
-Phoenix - 'All right. We keep the public Dominant Omega identity. We hide the SSS classification. We avoid advanced scans unless absolutely necessary. We prepare for a heat disaster before it becomes one. We treat my pheromones as both weapon and liability. Anything else?'
-Solaris - 'Yes, Mama. Please remember that having power does not make you what hurt you. Your pheromones can influence instincts, but intent matters. Control matters. Consent matters. If you use them to protect, shield, or stop someone from harming others, that is not the same as stealing someone's will for cruelty.'
Phoenix did not answer immediately. Solaris had struck too close again. The idea of influencing another person's body or instincts made his stomach twist. He knew too intimately what it meant to have choice stripped away. The thought of becoming another kind of cage, even accidentally, terrified him more than the political danger. He could fight enemies. He could not easily fight the fear that power itself might corrupt the part of him still trying to remain human.
At last, he released a slow breath. 'Then you watch me. If I start crossing lines, you tell me.'
-Solaris - 'I will, Mama Phoenix. But I believe in you.'
Phoenix wanted to scoff. Instead, he let the words settle. Belief was not a strategy, but coming from Solaris, it felt like a hand at his back. Not pushing. Not controlling. Simply there. He could accept that much. For now.
Solaris was doing all he could to keep his Mama Phoenix from having a full-blown panic attack. He knew this was not only about being an omega again. It was also about the danger of being something even rarer than Beyol Bong Tae-Hwan had been in the original timeline. Beyol's Dominant Omega status had already been enough to make him a target once exposed; Phoenix's SSS-Dominant Omega awakening would make that danger exponentially worse if the wrong people learned of it. If he lost control, his pheromones could calm allies, crush hostile instincts, expose hidden enemies, and draw every ambitious alpha, dominant family, research institute, and criminal syndicate in the empire straight toward him.
Solaris still remembered how violently Phoenix had reacted in one of the worlds after he first escaped the Jailer System's direct control. Phoenix had stumbled across a little omega boy being assaulted by a grown alpha. He saved the child first, got him somewhere safe, and then lost himself in a PTSD-fueled rage. Solaris still remembered the aftermath: Phoenix covered in blood, sweat, tears, and gray matter beside what remained of the perpetrator.
That memory was why Solaris was so careful now. Phoenix could be gentle beneath his cold exterior, but the wrong kind of cruelty could drag something vicious out of him. The next chapter was the wound behind that reaction.
!!!!! A/N: The next update will be dark and triggering. This is your warning: it involves child abuse and SA, as well as a graphic scene where the perpetrator is beaten within a millimeter of his life and justly mutilated/castrated. It is important to the overall development of this story because it is a flashback showing a small picture of what Nix has gone through, his trauma, how he handled it before he was free, and how he may handle something like that if it should ever arise again. !!!!!
That said, though I am working through some of my own trauma, what happened in the flashback is not my experience. It is completely fictional and made up entirely in my mind, so any names, events, or anything that is the same as or similar to anything in real life is completely coincidental.
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