4 4. Rebirth

'Hello again, strange world… The egg feels tighter than before…', was my first thought as I roused from my restful dreamless sleep, my body still inhuman. The movement of my tail around my face was enough proof, the hope it was just an acid trip long since squashed.

This was one of the rare moments when I was awake. It was a never-ending cycle of slumber and awakeness that came where I would wake up at seemingly random intervals as my body slowly developed within the viscous confine of my egg, it wasn't a pod of glass or anything like this I first guessed.

I was no expert in alien hyper-advanced psychic biotechnology but I didn't need to, if it was a pod it wouldn't be ovoid and feel more and more cramped as I grew. It was all semantic at the end.

How much time had exactly gone by since my 'transmigration' I wasn't certain but it was at the bare minimum several years if not decades, not that it was of great importance since I remained awake only for very brief periods for all those years.

For me the one thousand two hundred and seventy-three times now plus one since I have awakened by either myself or due to the fault of the only outside psychic influence I was familiar with, the lizard bitch, my 'Creator' and 'Mother'. Those times cumulated together would be equal to seventy-six days, seven hours, thirty-three minutes, and an ever-passing amount of seconds.

I didn't keep count specifically, I was simply aware of how much time passed when I was conscious. Two and half a month for me wasn't the same as two and half a month with the perception of time for a human, it was far longer for me yet also not.

I used this time with care even when I was awake things were… Very insightful and intense to say the least. I didn't, couldn't shake off what was done and a portion of my mind was always in tumultuous emotions, it didn't matter that they were far less fiery than the first awakening but they were still brazing ready to start a blazing fire anew. I will neither forgive nor forget.

But it was only one part of my mind I used to work on my cranked-up emotions while the rest of my supercomputer-like brain held the free reign to work unimpeded and so I focused on learning and exploring what would be needed for this new life as much as I could in my little prison world.

First and foremost was my body which I have fully acclimated to, it was mine and mine alone to the very last cells and it felt right to be in it. It fitted me beyond perfection, it was crafted to be. It felt even better than my old body in all aspects… It was me and physically I felt better than I ever did.

I couldn't deny these points as much as they displeased me and another one in the same vein that annoyed me was acknowledging that my human from an objective point of view was factually inferior in every imaginable way to a comically high level.

I was greater now, I was molded from all angles of my being to be. The term lesser being used by her as much as I despised it was correct for what I was before.

But nothing was natural and born of evolution or from my effort and choices, every detail was chosen, fine-tuned, and optimized to build me against my will as such there was no pride in being the creature that I now was, only a sense of loss and acceptance… And power.

To think once upon a time I would have felt immense excitement at the prospect of being a super-powered individual… Heh, how the tables have turned.

The reality of things was often disappointing and very painful. But saying I was apathetic to my new capacities would be the greatest lie, I was euphoric even if it was drowned amidst the rest. I just wish I had a choice in the matter.

I could barely move my body aside from some of my limbs and I was in an egg so what I could do remained very vague but I was intuitively aware of what my general physical prowess would be and had innate control of it.

By using this instinctual understanding, and my already existing if limited knowledge of physics from high school that was brute forced through by using my powerful mind I could do advanced mental calculations to give me an estimate of what I could do in theory.

I was beyond human and anything living I knew of. One flick of my tail with a modicum of force and intent behind would be able to send an object the weight of a tank flying kilometers in the sky if the object didn't shatter or explode on impact. But that was at best wild if educated guess.

Then my psychic power, or magic… I studied the finite world outside of my bottle that was accessible to my third eye to the best of my abilities, the flow of energy in and out, the runes, their meaning, patterns, and the hows and whys they were used to the bottle itself.

The successes were few and far between but they were there and tangible aside from the bottle in question and my body which still completely eluded me. I didn't need to be told for the hundredth time by the lizard bitch to understand that everything here was the epitome of her species' crafts and I was beyond, the bottle connected to me almost like a body part following the same rules.

Still, for the rest the fact I wasn't completely lost and could forge a modicum understanding of my world in so little time with essentially no knowledge was beyond madness and reasoning, but I was her 'very best' creation. Being mediocre was something I was forbidden to be and this aspect of the arcane seemed to be one I was naturally wired to.

As for the more practical side of things… I was very limited in my freedom. It pissed me off, I felt restrained, caged like a beast but it made sense. If I fucked around with something I barely understood and controlled during the most important phases of my development I could and would cripple myself if not straight-up die.

And so the little I could do was what I was doing right now, slowly shifting the hot and thick liquid around with my mind around my body, and it was as easy as breathing. This was a crude and pitifully weak form of telekinesis useless by itself but crucial for the understanding of this keystone aspect of my being.

All of the two dozen highly detailed 3D figures of fictional characters containing notably but not only a duo of cat and mouse pursuing the others dissipated back into the viscous liquid with the psychic energy that animated them flowing back to me.

Something in the deepest most primal part of my being clicked together, the awaited day has come. I was going to be officially reborn, I… There was so much emotion that had been kept at bay now raged in equal amounts be they black, white, and grey in tones.

It was the most important part of my existence, my birth… Or rebirth.

My mind was focused on my current state to such a point I barely noted the sudden apparition of her, the pure white sun that was 'Mother', now not scarring as my power had never stopped growing to the point we were of equal raw psychic power.

Joy, delight, excitement, jubilation, and pride were radiating from her in potent psychic waves that rolled in the entirety of the chamber.

-The time has finally come, Hoopa, my Child! The time has come for you to be born anew in body, mind, and soul!-, her telepathic voice full of ecstasy was crystal clear yet muffled by what was happening to me.

The pure psychic energy of the rune matrix that had been since my first awakening lit brighter than ever, the energy that was continually transferred to me amplified by two times, then three, then four, and this seemed to never end as all of it was siphoned by me, adding little by little to my soul.

The feeling of ever-increasing strength was one I would never forget, it was intoxicating beyond words; the rush, the sensation of growth and bliss that came with it, my mind abuzz with the sheer volume of it.

But that was only a part of it, the 'locks' placed on me to limit my power almost in its entirety to avoid me killing myself during the gestation period were snapping one by one, each giving a tiny bit more of the sweet taste of freedom I wanted so much. They dissipated to be absorbed into me making me realize those were made of myself.

But that wasn't all… The rapidly increasing feeling of absolute control over my body thrumming with energy gave me a sense of freedom and elation of equal potency, strength, reflex, and speed beyond mortal that was for me to wield as I may so desire.

The sharp spikes at the end of my forearms that replaced my nonexistent elbow poked at the egg as the six of them exited their socket for the first time, the feeling akin to not having stretched for a long time. And it felt fucking goooood…

The 'shell' all around me under this new pressure began to break, holes forming where the six spikes pushed at the same time my body unfolded from the position it had been in for years, my heart hammering in my chest as muscles I never used all brimming with power flexed and unflexed.

Pure and potent psychic energy from the chamber continued to be siphoned by me, the nebulae of black and two shaded purple that was my soul as if a gravitational singularity was in its center began to compress.

It continued to compress, the density and intensity increasing by the second it didn't stop when I had siphoned all of the energy in the chamber but the one who destroyed me. Her joy only reached new heights but I cared little for her at that moment.

The compression reached a critical, the nebulous clouds no more as the small hyper-dense sphere that had been formed exploded and a star formed, one of mass, power, and size superior to that of her, but killing her would not still be possible.

My soul was of pure obsidian with bright flashes of dark and light purple lighting within the corona that repulsed and attracted the world around me in a never-ending cycle. It was beyond words and it was me…

My mind could barely keep up, the change affecting me on a conceptual level as new instincts and knowledge poured down in my brain about my birthright, the authority to fold a part of creation, the fabrics of the space-time continuum to my will via golden rings made of my essence.

With it came a new sense that gave me the ability to feel this very same field of reality letting me know this 'bottle' was a separate dimension, no, miniaturized universe working with its own strict rules.

One of such that rendered escaping with this authority an impossibility for reasons beyond my present understanding. Nothing had happened by luck, this was to contain me, this power… It was to be, it was created for this purpose.

But yet again I noted this and could but care little for the moment for the egg that encapsulated my body had broken and then burned by the dark energy snaking around my form, absorbing the viscous liquid and fragment of egg over my skin and fur.

I had hatched and obeying a primal part of me, I couldn't help but emit my throat and jaws a long howl encompassing all that I had kept under wrap enhanced by my psychic might. It had no meaning but to announce my rebirth.

Once it ended I kept my eyes still closed so I appreciated the feeling of my body free of all physical restraint. I remarked that I was rising against my will but I let it be, encouraged it even. I understood that it was for me to leave this artificial universe, the cork of the bottle having been opened for me to do so.

The soles of my feet shifted naturally to be one against the other forming a pseudo lotus position that felt right, my tail undulating behind me as if it had a mind of its own while all of my six claws shifted into various firm, all clenching and unclenching with the immense power behind them.

A fanged smile formed on my face as I opened my eyes for the first time. What I saw was a hole in reality above me breaking the endless starless void, my oddly melodious voice smooth, deep, yet gravelly and made of emotions into words resonated into the surrounding nothingness as I spoke, "The exit to my prison toward another one."

The moment I passed through the tear in reality, my body automatically shifted to smoke and pure energy, a very strange experience if very short-lived as I was back to flesh, blood, and bone once I had exited my confine.

My body reformed to its original state in front of her, she was holding in one of her pair two-thumbed hands a staff of pure white crystal and in the other the prison bottle I had incubated.

I towered well over her even without levitating, our gazes locked, her pleased and proud face one I despised but could see every disgusting detail of with my inhuman eyes of which I could see every specter of light and the individual cells that made her with the psychic energy imbued into every last one of them.

I glowered at her, my earlier smile gone replaced by a thin snarl showing hints of my many fangs while an almost imperceptible growl rumbled in my throat like the engine of an airplane, my eyes locked into her reptilian one filled with the same emotions she kept on showing, joy but with a hint of rapidly disappearing tiredness.

Through the reflection, I could see my new visage and it gave the color to what I already knew was present, verifying for good that what I was now with all that I knew was the image of the fictional mythical monster that played with reality to its breaking point.

No humanity could be seen... My skin was of a bluish grey, while my 'beard', fur, and the wild mane of hair behind were of a deep purple, as for my eyes… My pupils were a deep mauve and red in the middle were the purest gold rings. Speaking of I materialized three more of such rings, one ending around each of my horns while the last shifted size to hold my hair together behind my head in something akin to a top knot

I suddenly ceased this useless glaring little game that I was playing alone as my rage only amused her but it wasn't for this I stopped and or why my eyes had widened as I felt something that now my sense to feel creation was not limited to the bottle.

Something in the local space was wrong, oh so incredibly wrong. It felt like the soulless incarnation of death and sadistic destruction were given physical form as little sense as it made.

I lacked in all manner of experiences but it was unmistakable I knew that reality was actively being bent, no, violated beyond limits to the whims and the presence of an impossibly powerful being. One that wanted had the goal of my death and all within this strange spaceship and beyond, it wanted the death of that was and wasn't.

An alarm blared off everywhere all at once in the spaceship at the same time that a deep feeling of primal dread washed over me, trying to crush my will into submission and instill the despair that death was inevitable, but I knew it was only very convincing lies and so I didn't falter, still fear bloomed in my heart at what was happening but it was no hindrance.

But if I faltered then the lies would become reality.

And before any further useless thought came to be such as the terror on the lizard bitch face that vanished as soon as it appeared, replaced by thinly veiled hate equal to mine for her it was followed by her speaking in a language that molded reality. I acknowledged this but didn't feel on it instead I acted with instinct and knowledge driving me in this completely unfamiliar action.

By my will, the golden ring of my middle left hand shot out, its diameter increasing by a hundred and time in a fraction of a nanosecond a portal made of a liquid-like flowing constellation came into existence.

Then at speed outstripping that of light in the void by many folds a never-ending negative grey beam of malevolent eldritch energy reeking of mindless agony, excessive death, and pointless destruction sucking all light blasted through the wall of the chamber and flew into the portal generated by my loop right in front of me.