Chapter 15: Complications

As Kyo continued decimating the star system, a great warbling of space and time came into view. Kyo braced herself.

A giant ship appeared, big as a planet, and tugging via dense metal beams something much, much larger and roughly the size of Kyo herself. She couldn’t tell what it was at first, as it was completely covered in a spherical enclosure of metal.

Then, the alien driving the truck told her--albeit indirectly.

“Black hole coming through! Delivery to Klepdarian Intergalactic Curiosity Museum. This is the place right? Should be a planet around here somewhere, but I don’t see it. Did I take a wrong turn at Andromeda? Let me check my map.”

The four-armed alien bent down to fetch the map from the floor of his spaceship-truck. Without his eyes on the wheel, and with Kyo too bewildered to move, he crashed right into her chest, and his ship exploded.

Unfortunately, the way the tugging system was designed meant that once the spaceship-truck was destroyed, its cargo containment container popped open. That was for insurance reasons, as clients still wanted their goods retrieved even if the truck was obliterated by an asteroid or something en-route.

Kyo stared at the cargo as it revealed itself and saw a big black ball. It warped space around it and was roughly half the size of the Sun: the star she used to live in the light of, and eventually ate.

“Hold on, I know what that is and I’m not touching it.”

She crossed her arms and looked away from it.

“Well, maybe just a poke.”

Kyo gave the black hole a tap, and it started to try and suck in her in. However, due to Kyo’s vague space powers and undeniable scale, she found her body sucking in the black hole instead. It just dissolved into her skin like a very thin cream. She immediately felt a heaviness in her body as it worked to process the actually massive black hole, which was very much different than the mini-black holes she ate back on Earth.

“Ok then.”, she said as she felt her body surge up, and up and up.

Power surged within Kyo. Warmth traveled her body and pulsed as the process continued. What was left of the Klepdarian and Insectoid fleets tried in vain to scatter away from the expanding flesh, but their warp engines would take a too much time to fire up, and she grew faster than they could travel otherwise.

Kyo’s eyes were shut through the process as the thrill of growth once more rocked her form. It seems the bigger she got, the more she could enjoy the process. She let out a wispy sigh once she felt the tingles settle.

“Wew, fun but... aaargh I destroyed most the star system!”

Kyo could tell from a simple look around that the fast majority of the system was obliterated. She lifted her foot and compared it to the scant few planets remaining below her feet.

“Geez, you could all fit in my pores now, one per at least. Oh well.”

She curled her toes and destroyed their worlds. A bit of warmth tickled her right foot as the geothermal energy flooded into her.

“War’s over I suppose.”

She floated over to the star-energy-construct: the complex machine built around their super-sized star that harvested much of the big fiery ball’s energy.

Gazing at its reflective surface, she was quick to notice another change. The whites sclera of her eyes were now black, though her green irises still persisted.

“Huh, that’s new. Whatever. I guess that big black hole was way different than the little ones.”

Her fingers curled around the machine-wrapped star. She sighed.

“I guess it wasn’t the worst rampage, even if cut shorter than I’d like. Besides, I get this shiny star thing to enjoy.”

She took a bite out of it as though it was a fruit.

Countless tons of advanced alien metal crunched nosily as shew chewed. Her swallowed wasn’t exactly quiet either: then again, no one in the star system was around to hear it but her.

Kyo’s body started to glow green again. She wiped a bit of plasma from her lips, then took another bite, and then again and again. Pretty soon, she had finished the whole thing and slurped up some spilled star-stuff off her fingers.

“Who knows, if I’m lucky maybe I’ll get even more powers.”

Kyo’s body grew much as she expected. It also seemed luck was on her size, as another grand evolution of power came along with that of size. She felt even more keenly in touch with her senses.

Travel through space seemed even easier now, which she proved to herself by jumping quickly to the solar system. There, her massive form, which dwarfed star systems in general several times over, quickly destroyed every planet left in her home system: as well as Pluto and the moons too.

She then blinked right back to the space she was in.

“Instant teleportation huh? Neat!”

Focusing, she felt she could very easily channel that plasma-breath of hers, and easily controlled the heat in her chest which built to do so. She fired a gout of it in front of her, short and controlled, to confirm her suspicions.

Sadly, her attempts to conjure snacks bore no fruit: literal or metaphorical.

“Darn.”, she muttered.

Kyo was still pretty pleased though. But, she had some stuff to think about.

‘Where should I go?’, she thought.

‘Should I destroy another star system? Too easy. Maybe several? Maybe I could take a small break and try to find a quasar to dip my feet in: whatever a quasar is.’

‘Hmmm what to do what to do...’.

‘Greetings!’, came a voice in her head: not her voice, but another’s.

‘What the.’, she thought.

‘Greetings.’

‘Hello.’

‘Please don’t destroy our star system!’

‘How curious.’

Her mind heard more voices, bypassing the ear completely to come into an awareness directly.

She paused, then thought very loud and hard.

‘Uh hello? This is Kyo who is this?’

Immediately she was swarmed with many billions of new voices. Somehow, she found herself able to comprehend most of them, even as they overlapped many times over in her head. Some of them included:

‘Did you hear that?’

‘It’s happening, the prophecy!’

‘Yeah that is the space goddess from our people’s prophecy, it must be.’

‘Our unique prophecy mentions a space goddess’

‘The space goddess has arrived!’

‘It’s the voice of the divine on our minds.’

‘Step on us please space goddess... as our planet’s prophecy dictates of course’

‘Hey who’s da lady voice in muh head?’

‘Hi how’s it going, Kyo?.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Space deity Kyo, how can I serve you.’

‘It must be the star lady of legend!’

Kyo could tell the voices were coming from all over the Milky Way Galaxy, though she wasn’t quite sure how. She thought about it a bit more.

‘Wait a minute, this is telepathy or something. I must have developed psychic powers when I ate that wrapped-up star.’, she thought to herself.

Another slew of mental messages were received, whether Kyo liked it or not, including but not limited to:

‘She eats stars? Definitely the space goddess. I can’t wait to tell the rest of the people on planet Fizurelep if they don’t already know, from also hearing her mental projections.’

‘Oh geez I gotta tell everyone on my non-space-fairing planet of Tutubagalogden about these mental messages I’m receiving.’

‘A star eating god lady, just as the prophecy mentioned.’

‘Dammit, can you all hear everything I’m thinking?’, she thought.

More messages rolled in, including:

‘Yes’

‘Yes’

‘Yes’

‘I gotta figure out how to turn this off.’, she thought. ‘Maybe if I find more stars to eat.’

More unsolicited replies of course came in, such as:

‘She’s coming in search of stars, you can have ours!’

‘Please eat our star.’

‘Swallow me whole!’

‘Come on down and bless our star system please! I beseech thee.’

‘Ah she must mean some metaphorical type of eating, as the space goddess of our legends is benevolent.’

‘Argh I gotta try to stop this now!’, she thought.

‘Good luck!’, came many messages from across the cosmos.

Kyo thought very very hard, trying to control this new power of hers. She wanted to limit her broadcasting of her thoughts.

‘Test’, she thought.

No reply.

“Wew”, she sighed.

‘I stopped broadcasting my thoughts there. That’s good.’, she thought.

Indeed she did, but it wasn’t long till more mental messages came in.

‘I must coordinate a welcome party for the space goddess.’

‘Hey where’d your voice go, space lady?’

‘Space lady, *please* be my GF we had such a connection.’

‘Hey where’d you go?’

‘I wonder what’s for dinner?’

‘Where’d I put the remote.’

‘Hey space lady I know you aren’t saying anything, but can you mess up my neighbor’s car a bit? He’s a jerk.’

“Dammit!”, she said aloud.

‘It seems I’m still picking up thoughts telepathically.’

Kyo strained quite hard to block them out, and she did, but only for a moment before they came back. Billions and billions of inane thoughts. It was giving her a headache dealing with it all.

“Alright.”, she said. “I guess I need to get powered up again, and asap. Let’s see, I bet there’s something good for that at the center of the galaxy. Probably something really powerful there.”

Kyo spun in a circle and used her superior senses to spot the center of the galaxy once she happened to face it. From there, she surged forward at faster than light speeds, even though she could have simply teleported.

Kyo noticed, but didn’t much care that she was traveling towards the center along one of the galaxy’s arms. This meant there was a slew of star systems in her path. Entire planets and no few interstellar empires burst against her body as she zoomed by faster than they could process.

Many planets were of course hard at work already worshiping their new deity. Planets filled with signs that read “Welcome, Space Goddess” or “Kyo, please grant us your blessing!”. Some planets kind of done with the whole civilization thing even displayed large signs, often made with crop circles or giant neon displays which read more than just “Welcome” to say things like “Please take our star!” and “We trust you with our solar system.”

The only thing she blessed any of them with was death. Kyo was also traveling in a near full upright position as she zoomed. This meant she maximized the amount of stars she bumped into on the way. Of course, every star system she destroyed had all its energies absorbed into her body, making her bigger, meaning she broke more and more as she traveled along her path, getting even bigger, breaking even more and so on.

By the time Kyo reached the center of the Milky Way galaxy, she was more than big enough to loom over that super-massive black-hole before her. In fact, her body had started encroaching into the surrounding galactic arms as well, albeit just a bit, but still enough to add a few hundred thousand more star systems’ worth of energy to her form.

Kyo eyed the shiny shimmering glowing black-hole, and didn’t question much why a black-hole would glow like that. There was probably some science reason to it, but all she could think about was the power and size surge it’d offer her.

Plus, if her hopes were on point, it’d let her tune out those annoying thoughts and prayers nagging her mind. Even now, after thinning the numbers of thinkers in the Milky Way quite a bit on her travel, she still heard the endless praises, and the numerous requests for everything from helping to fight a rival star system to helping them decide what shoes to wear.

She couldn’t wait any longer to try and fix her latest issue.

Kyo reached in and yanked the galaxy’s center up and shoveled it into her mouth. It was a bit heavy on her tongue, but she gulped it down without too much trouble. Her throat squeezed it down nicely, and her stomach got to work fast.

Kyo’s body glowed with a shimmering white light. The tingling was intense. The warmth and bliss surged within her. She could already feel her powers expanding. She gave it a try: tuning out the myriad mental messages all the idiot sapients were spewing out.

“Yes!!!” she shouted in voice that boomed across the galaxy. “It worked!!!”

She exploded in size. Her body rocketed up to super-galaxy scales. The rest of the Milky Way galaxy broke against her fore as it tore through it. Every single bit of energy the star-systems had to offer was absorbed. Her body was efficient enough to sup on the body-heat of the billions upon billions of sapients in the stars now as well, though it was a very piddling amount of size and power in comparison.

Kyo’s growth slowed in tune with the delightful tingling spasms wracking her form. She let out a sigh which vibrated space nearby around her with its sheer might.

When the growth stopped, Kyo let out a very pleased sigh. She lifted her hand up and studied it. She snapped her fingers and conjured out a ball of infernal fire in her hand, bigger than galaxy in size. Grinning, she focused and tried to conjure up a snack.

Unfortunately, she only managed to summon up more fire.

“Oh well, at least it’s a start. Usually I had to breathe that stuff out.”

Kyo had a jubilant laugh.

“And anyways, this power. It’s amazing! It’s sublime. It’s godlike. Deity like. It’s...”