Epilogue
DEEP STATE
"The court finds you guilty of crimes against the public for at least one thousand years. Your accusers have decided against capital punishment, so your sentence is life imprisonment in a maximum security men's correctional facility without bail and without parole, until the state is satisfied you are rehabilitated. I have been informed that you have not aged since your adult life, so we will not apply a conventional life sentence to you," the judge said, slamming his gavel. I smirked. I had successfully corrupted life sentences to the point where an unregistered sex offender could get 15 years for each of nine counts and ten years for each of two counts, for a total of 155 years, yet get out in a few years for "good behavior". But the courts actually knew what they were doing this time. Despite numerous pleas from bleeding heart types that said my punishment was cruel and unusual, there was a class-action lawsuit against me personally for what I had done to people's lives. It was signed by over a billion people.
The bailiff came and hauled me away to Alcatraz. While for a time, it had been a tourist attraction, and later a national recreation area thanks to Native American activism, this same massive list of signatures authorized that I be placed somewhere that I could never escape, and money was donated toward the reopening of this facility. I and around 500 other people who said they reformed, yet kept doing terrible things, were shipped over here, and then the prison was leased to a private organization owned by the state of Texas (since California had gone soft on crime). While I didn't understand mercy, I admired ruthlessness, and they had me dead to rights.
The first night, they discovered during the usual hazing that I wasn't a man like everyone else. The prison warden wanted me to live past the first night, so I was allowed a roll of quarters and some cloth to mind my breasts. All was well until I wouldn't bathe at the same time as everyone else. "What, you think you're too good for the rest of us?!?" a burly man said, "Get in there, and take a shower like a real man!" When I refused, they tore off my clothing, revealing my well-endowed breasts, which I had kept hidden even from my underlings for multiple centuries. They called in other prisoners on making the discovery, a more than half the prison (turns out, most prisoners aren't gay, they're just love-starved; given the choice between a guy, a feminine guy, and an actual girl, they choose the last one, and the next to the last if the last is unavailable) shoved their dick in my face, entered into me, or just pawed at me. It was so bad that the prison guards had to intervene. Rape is never painless, so some part of the body always goes into stress, and the potential to die from shock or cardiac arrest is fairly high. "Easy! Easy! You don't wanna kill her!" the guards said to the other prisoners, as they put me in solitary for a few days to get things under control. I felt better adjusted to the sudden change, after the first few nights. Despite the rough treatment, some part of my mind shut off that day, and I actually decided I liked being raped. No, that's not some ringing endorsement of the virtues of rape, or that women secretly like that sort of thing. It's just, after being touched like that, I realized that nobody had really touched me in ages. I was seen as a political figure. Or they were afraid of me. Or they were frightened of my powers. But here, nobody had any power, except for me. And that was leftover powers from my minions. When they died, they left a use of their power that wasn't constrained by the cuffs everyone else had to wear. I discovered this when I was cold when first entering the prison, and I summoned a bit of fire. Afterwards, I couldn't use that power. I used Ungorr's immortality ability to recover from the first night. I was considering using the power over disasters to make an earthquake collapse the place and kill me and everyone else. But I stopped myself when I realized that I didn't mind.
No, I wanted to be raped, because I wanted to be touched. While I had imposed "social distancing" on the public, the truth was that I had imposed it on myself in my rush to dominate other people. And now, I was really really enjoying being dominated for a change.
And so, I'd go to the showers, and drop the soap by "accident". Four burly guys would bend me over, and one would jam it in my ass, while another used his tongue to suck on my clit, calling it "the cutest penis he had ever seen." A third pushed the second out of the way, and licked my vagina like one might lick an ice cream cone and took off if pants and forced himself into me once he was satisfied with the way it tasted. The last of them massaged my breasts as I moaned, feeling filled up by the affections of four men.
I used my aura power the last time to spread love (lust?) to a particular prisoner named Damien. Lacking any real skill at conversation, I just wanted him to like me. My hope was that by the time this wore off, his feelings would be real. At the library, he assaulted me while I was between shelves. We stripped off our prison clothes, leaving only our manacles (there were no need for chains or cuffs, as our manacles suppressed our powers, which were more dangerous to guards than our bare fists). And he pounced on me, slamming his dick into me over and over. "More..." I gasped, as he rubbed my breasts. The musty scent of books similarly assaulted my nose, before this Phillistine came all over an entire shelf. Then he stood me up and proceeded to take me from behind. At the dining hall, the two of us went separately to the bathroom and locked the door. When doing work outdoors, we'd occasionally go into the woods together when the guards weren't looking. And so on. This didn't mean that the others didn't still rape me. But I tuned that out, because I liked being assaulted by Damien. He was handsome, and he was... well, very very good at it.
But not all was ummmm fun and games in prison life. I quickly realized that I hated unpaid labor. I also found out from the other prisoners that most of them got out, and tried to do jobs in the very companies they worked for in prison, only to find out that these companies had "morals" about hiring ex-prisoners. Bullshit! They had no qualms about enslaving current prisoners, but once it came time to pay people, they suddenly were too good to get our help?!? This injustice would not stand! Of the powers inherited by the others, the weakest was probably the immortality one (after all, it only affected me). The strongest by far, though, was probably hypnosis, as I could broacast it over television. And so, as my last use of my borrowed power, I got the public to reform the prison system to forbid unpaid labor and nonhiring of ex-convicts. This was my good deed for this lifetime, I guess.
GEMINI
December 24
Nerissa and I had started seriously dating. It was tough for awhile after the whole war between superheroes, but gradually the world became peaceful again. I still wasn't fully over Bookworm (it had been about half a year, but much of that was Nerissa deciding to be considerate and take things slow), so it was pretty reserved and gradual. Tonight however, was a big date, she said. If things went well, we were gonna take our relationship to the next level.
And so, we got dressed (Nerissa, seeing me all made up, and dressed if a cute white dress and coat, wanted to rip my clothes off before the date) and headed to a fine restaurant. There, they served roast duck with green bean casserole, herbed roasted potatoes smothered in gravy, and a wild rice dish with mushrooms and green onions. Nerissa, dressed in a purple wool coat with fleece trim and tight pants, unzipped her jacket revealing the lean body in a white blouse beneath. At that point, I wanted to rip off all her clothes. But we were in a fine restaurant.
We left the restaurant to go to other Christmas festivities, and were struck by how different things seemed this year than previous years. Before, there was all this shopping blitz and Santa stuff, but this year besides decorations (which seemed to include more natural flora and fauna and less plastic), there was sense that the festivities had become themed more sacred. There were no Christmas parades, no tree lighting contests, and all the Christmas rush had abruptly ended around December 18th. Instead, people went in droves to their churches, their temples, their shrines, and so on. It was as if all of society realized what they stood to lose with their slow march toward commercializing holidays, and it was time to reclaim the 'holy' in holiday. But oddly, it didn't seem to be geared toward a particular religion, there was simply a resurgence in piety. And so, rather than attending any shopping events or the like, we found ourselves also walking into a church. For years, the church had talked about the seasons of Advent and lit the candles, but there was something strange this year. There was just the white Christmas candle. The Advent candles had all been taken down around it. I had attended church with Emily, so I knew that three purple Advent candles and one pink candle marked each week before Christmas. Even the day of Christmas, the Advent candles were all lit before the Christmas candle. "What gives?" I asked a person in front of me, "Where are all the Advent candles?" The guy and his wife and kids explained, "Last Sunday, the priest said to take down all the Advent candles. I don't understand either, but he said he'd explain it."
The service was… weird. After the first song, they read three passages. One was an Old Testament prediction of the coming of Christ, the second was about five hundred people seeing Jesus raised from the dead, and the third was the Nativity. The first and third were normal, but I found the second one better suited for Easter. The priest stood up and said, "Perhaps you are wondering why we have no Advent candles. Or perhaps you're wondering why I chose a passage concerning Jesus appearing to numerous people. Let me explain. At roughly 8pm on December 17th, people around the world reported Jesus appearing to them and speaking in their native language. In particular, several priests I had talked to all said that they encountered him starting at the exact same time, and that he continued talking until midnight. A few nights later, a woman appeared to the public, also claiming to be Jesus, and continued preaching to several crowds of people. In China, the Taoists have written online that someone talking about the Way gave very long and interesting lessons, while Buddhists and Hindus alike also encountered a similar figure. This figure didn't tell anything specific to Christianity, but rather discussed history. In particular, he talked about how for several centuries the priesthood has been led by those in power to preach against the Gospel, to preach about some coming end times. But the resurrection of Jesus is for everyone, not just Christians. I initially thought it was some sort of false Jesus, because I had read all sorts of dire warnings about the Antichrist. But then this man (and this woman) systematically picked apart Revelation, showing how the signs described there were in direct contradiction with with a God who died on the cross for our sins, and the prophecy actually read more like a playbook for evil men. For instance, 'But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!' This is in direct contradiction not only to Joseph Smith of the Mormons and Muhammad of Islam, but the so-called Revelation of Patmos. He showed that if as Romans 8 says that nothing can separate us from the love of God, then there is no way that all these creepy prophecies can either. He showed us how 'perfect love drives out fear' and how each of these prophecies were in order to spread fear and distrust. And he said how the very premise of what we had always believed was a lie spread by Deep State and the enemies of Christ, because if we believed John 3:16, then the very next verse says that God sent his Son not to condemn the world but to save it, how then can this same Son return to condemn the world? I believe I have seen the Savior with my own eyes! I believe Jesus now rules this Earth, and I believe his rule is different from the tyranny of previous kings. Each of these religions I read about online viewed Jesus from the lens of their own religion. He didn't ask them to abandon their religion and become Christians, but rather each religion told how Jesus explained their own faith and its purpose. 'I have other sheep, too, that are not in this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They will listen to my voice, and there will be one flock with one shepherd,' he said. This year, today, all religions are one, not through some creepy one-world religion or government, but because there are many beliefs but one Truth. And so, I invite everyone outside. We're going to process from the church and do caroling." All of the songs sung were sacred in nature, but not all of them were typical carols for Christmas. I sang two that I remember, the first was "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day":
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play;
In music sweet the tones repeat,
"There’s peace on earth, good will to men."
I thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along th’ unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor does He sleep,
For Christ is here; His Spirit near
Brings peace on earth, good will to men."
This at least was a Christmas song. The second was attributed to Martin Luther, and was known as a Protestant reform song. The funny thing was, I had never heard this song before this year. It was as though it didn't exist. In fact, looking carefully at the church, I realized that all the churches I had ever known had been Catholic, Anglican, or Orthodox (or Calvinist). Yet this was a Lutheran church I was looking at as we marched out. Was I in a parallel universe? I sang the verses out while all this ran through my mind:
A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing;
Our helper He, amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and pow’r are great, and, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing,
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us;
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
That word above all earthly pow’rs, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth;
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.
And I thought of my powers of truth, and the attempts I made to fight others, and how irrelevant it seemed now. This was the truth that I wanted most of all.
We marched along for a few hours singing carols to everyone in town. We passed a few carolers from other churches. A synagogue was talking loudly about something, and I was curious, so we left the group and went inside. Normally, Christmas Eve was dead quiet for Jewish places of worship, but here two rabbis were debating with each other. "But what does it all mean?" said the one I later found out was Rabbi Shmuel. "Sorry, we aren't Jews, but we were caroling and overheard. Can we ask what happened?" The exasperated rabbi said, "Well, do you know anything our history?" I knew more than most, "At around 70 AD, Rome sacked your temple. You've been scattered for centuries, until recently when you built a nation of Israel after the Holocaust… After the Holocaust…?" I then realized what was going on. While most things were relatively okay, certain events in history, rippling from the Protestant Reformation all the way up to the results of the Holocaust had been changed. There had been no Jews in our town before. Now there was a synagogue. "So anyway, what's up?" I asked. The other rabbi, Rabbi Michah responded, "So, you understand that we have a Wailing Wall, and Eastern Gate where the Messiah is supposed to come through? Well, starting on the 22nd of Kislev and ending on the 28th right before Sabbath, Israel was rocked by what was apparently a massive earthquake. The area of Israel where all the Palestinian Arabs occupy, such as Gaza, West Bank, and near the Golan Heights were lifted as though by the hand of God, and moved to Islamic territory. The land is still there, but it's about 40 feet lower. As for the area of the Temple Mount… the Dome of the Rock is gone. Vines and trees seemingly swallowed it up, and ground it to dust. And the land around the Temple Mount is surrounded with a weird perfectly flat plateau, almost as if it's being walled from the rest of the world." I thought about this, "So basically, for six days this whole land upheaval happens, and the seventh day there's sort of courtyard area. And lemme guess, no buildings are left standing?" The two said in unison, "Even weirder!" Rabbi Shmuel explained, "Since some people were left homeless by the upheaval, construction equipment run by Gentile Christians attempted to put prefabricated houses up. The ground sank around the structures, while leaving people and their machines unharmed. Turns out the only buildings that don't try to sink into the ground are tents. We even asked them if they'd help us build our temple. Not even one stone goes up before it sinks! Yet large groups of people have been able to walk on this land." I had a pretty good idea of what was going on here, "It could be Ezekiel's Temple. I think they describe that one as even bigger than the Temple Mount, right? But I don't think they even mention the height. So maybe, this courtyard is your new temple grounds." Their stunned looks remained on their faces as we left to rejoin the other carolers. But they were gone.
So we went home. While originally we though about just having sex, the two of us thought about raising a family now, inspired by current events. The world seemed to be a good place to live in, and I wanted to bring a child into the world. And so we got busy. I went to her place since she her own place, while I had a mom and a sister, and we had thin walls. She owned her own place on the waterfront as a result of a combination of her military career and her job in marine biology, so she could basically have as noisy sex as she wanted. It started out with a kiss, then she really did follow up with her desire to rip my clothes off. This night had been weird but nice, and all I wanted was to be with her always. But I wondered, did she feel the same way? I didn't even have to ask. "I… love… you… so… much…" she said, alternating between kisses. We held each other tight as I came into her, bodies entwined as one, her red hair brushing against mine as I caught a faint whiff of her musk. Nerissa didn't do sweet floral scents, she was all sweat and a vague smell of the ocean. I touched her and she moaned in pleasure, oddly at contrast with her tough gal personality. She hadn't been touched much, you see. I pulled in and out slowly, testing her sensitivity down there. I wasn't sure whether she was a virgin, and to be honest, I wasn't all that experienced. I didn't want to be too rough.
NERISSA
Gemini was cute and sweet, like having sex with another woman. I had actually dated other men while in the military or while on job, but I also admired how the other two made things work. Yes, I had been touched, but half of the men I tried to have sex with were just too rough. But Gemini was so gentle and considerate. Her bulging jade stalk expanded inside me, but yet nothing rubbed or bled. It didn't hurt. She felt nice… Feeling how soft and gentle she was made me excited, and I upped the pace a bit, comfort giving way to passion. I slid up and down her glorious virile member (yeah, I'm really struggling with euphemisms here), and until at last she climaxed inside of me. But she could see my disappointment and not having finished with her. So she kept going. The others all stopped when they satisfied themselves. I loved her so much.
GEMINI
December 25
It was midnight, according to the watch, but we still weren't done. I let her go in and out of me, pollinating her flower, and listened as she moaned, "Ahhh ahh aaaahhh ahhhhhhh aaaaaaaahhhhhh… aahhh-aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!" She was pretty loud alright, but I was insecure about whether she might faking, so I decided to keep going, stimulating her by hand, being careful to keep my nails from accidentally sensitive areas. This time, her moaning was followed by gasps and involuntary jerking. At last, the two of us lay back, completely exhausted.
NERISSA
I wasn't faking. But at the moment she massaged near my clit, I literally got hard. She was my woman and I was her man, or so it felt for a moment or two, before please took over and I lost my senses.
DEEP STATE
December 25 (Five Years Later)
I had been in prison for five years now, and I had developed a routine. Get up, get fucked in my own cell by Damien (I had sweet-talked a guard into switching my cell to the same as his), eat breakfast, take a shower and get raped by a gang of prisoners, do some work and be paid, lunch break, finish work for the day, head to the library and further mess up the shelves with Damien, eat dinner, and then go to bed. It was funny to think that I had spent all of this energy trying to oppress others, when actually I liked the whole prison system. While other people found prison isolating, this was more human contact than I had in centuries.
But holidays tended to break the routine. The guards took us to a chapel for worship (some of them just stared at the ceiling though), the lunch was an actual meal involving cornish game hen, cranberry sauce, and stuffing, then afterwards, there were presents from the guards (usually small gifts like candy), and a recent tradition with the visible return of Jesus had been a wish card. That is, Jesus sent a card to each of us, asking «What would you wish for Christmas?» Unlike the secular wish to Santa (which was done away with), whatever you wrote was granted the moment you wrote it (Jesus also granted prayers other days, but this was a blank check to practically anything).
Years ago, I might have used that wish to dominate others or destroy the world. But I thought for a second, and then wrote my wish. Running my fingers through my hair (five years ago, it had been cut short like a man's, now I accepted and liked being a woman), I noticed one of my hairs was turning gray. I smiled. I would grow old and die in this prison. And I was happy about it!
THE WORLD
There was a lot less oppression of one person over other, and people's wishes and dreams were coming true. In other words, society was in many ways the same as before Deep State's economic changes, but things like canceled shows like Kyle XY and Men in Trees, or shows that went all cursed like Magical Princess Minky Momo were able to become a reality again. Even theoretical shows like Pony Metal U-Gaim have become a thing.
Buildings sprang up from the ground that were modeled after people's wildest fantasies, and the only real restriction was that Jesus did not grant desired that interfered with other people. You can't make someone love you, you can't kill people, and Jesus drew the line at trying to enslave another person. In a sense, while society was like it was in the 1980s onward, it continued with the trend that heroes and villains got their powers as blessings as an extension of the love of God. No matter how the rest of the world saw them, they didn't lose their powers. In the same way, the desires and prayers of the people were now being granted, so long as nobody else was hurt of course.
GEMINI
The world had changed a bit from five years ago. Jesus being in power didn't demand any "new normal" like the world made by tyrants where people installed technology you didn't want or made things obsolete that you liked. Instead society had developed into a sort of city-state style with people living according to their wishes. Somehow the computers and cellphones all communicated with each other, even though some were 5G and others were old 1990s brick phones.
Life went on. And so did ours. Summer and Emily were still lovers, but now had had made their jobs into careers. But more importantly, they didn't put work first, and their jobs allowed them to stay together. Our little anime group still met together, but now we had a larger group of friends, some of which had been our enemies at one point. I guess there really weren't any heroes or villains when you got right down to it. It was just a label.
As for us, we had a daughter. We named her Shinichi ("first"), because this was a new beginning for us, and because her name also meant truth. In this world, our child grew up at peace. There were no hidden governments, no major villains, only the problems of the everyday world. She opened her eyes and ran downstairs. She came down not to open presents but to see us. "Merry Christmas!" we said, giving her a hug. Would this year also be a good year?
MERRY CHRISTMAS
