NOVEL NEXT Chapter 295: All-Perfect Pill
The darkness wrapped around me like expensive silk, heavy and suffocating. Miami's skyline bled from black to bruised purple, but I hadn't slept. Couldn't. Not with seven billion dollars of stolen money sitting in accounts that shouldn't exist and plans spreading across three time zones like spilled wine.
"I am spontaneous," I said to no one, testing the word like foreign currency.
Monday had crawled into Tuesday while I sat here doing math that would make economists weep. Seven billion liberated. Meridian Club membership purchased. CIA deals that went sideways into better territory. Five companies about to fall into my lap like ripe fruit.
The irony burned — three weeks ago, Jack Morrison's fists used to introduce my face to cafeteria tile. Now I was puppet-mastering the destruction of men who bought senators like trading cards.
My reflection caught in the window — not the enhanced Eros form now, just Peter Carter with bags under his eyes and the kind of exhaustion that came from carrying other people's futures. Charlotte's company. My family's stability. Madison's trust. Amanda's rebellion. Ava's dangerous curiosity.
A fucking harem. The word tasted ridiculous at 4 AM.
"ARIA," I said to the empty room. "Pull up the totals."
The holographic display materialized like a ghost made of mathematics:
Current Holdings:
Liquid Assets: $30 million
Hidden Crypto: $7 billion
Pending: Quantum Tech control
Pending: Five companies ($2 billion acquisition)
I laughed — sharp, bitter. Not at the numbers but at the speed. Three weeks from virgin to this. At this rate, I'd make King Solomon look like an amateur before graduation.
Time to end the vultures. Today, Vincent and Dmitri would discover what happened when you hunted the wrong prey. Tomorrow, Antonio would self-destruct via his own blackmail files. Clean. Efficient. Devastating.
Then I could focus on what mattered: Building Quantum Tech into something that would make Apple look quaint. Moving into that estate Charlotte kept promising. Pursuing liberation without corporate warfare as foreplay.
"I kinda miss school."
The absurdity made me laugh again. Missing the place where I'd been nobody, worth less than the gum under desks. But there was something clean about that simplicity. Show up, take tests, dodge bullies. Not orchestrate international financial crimes while managing a portfolio of increasingly complex women.
Wednesday. Maybe Thursday. After the auction that would make Tommy rich enough to stop his mom from working three jobs. Had to handle that. Had to handle everything.
There were now also the thirty million dollars just sitting there, waiting for purpose.
"Money was never hard to get," I murmured. "Just needed the right spiritual alignment. Get that right and money comes at you—" I paused, grinning at the ceiling. "Swiftly."
The word Swiftly triggered something stupid. "Come to think of it... I have never fucked a musician." And that was some incomplete harem portfolio. What was conquering and liberation of women without some musicians, actresses, politicians?
Focus. Tonight — technically today now — the Appreciation Society would converge at Celeste's gallery. Eight women (Plus Amanda and Madison) who thought they knew what they wanted. Maybe they did. Maybe it would end in elegant chaos or way better than I expect for my first orgy.
The system interface flickered:
[DING! Liberation Progress Update Ava Voss - Partial Liberation: 470 SP]
Ten women. Not even a full month. The math was insane.
I stood, muscles protesting from hours of stillness. The bathroom marble bit cold against bare feet. In the mirror, Peter Carter looked back — not Eros, not the Dark Lord, just the kid from Lincoln Heights with supernatural problems.
"System," I said. "Give me the pill."
[DING! Inventory Item Available All-Perfect Pill - Permanent Physical Enhancement
Warning: Process irreversible
Consume? Y/N]
I'd been sitting on this since day one. Some part of me had been saving it, like a kid hoarding Halloween candy. But waiting for the perfect moment was just fear wearing a patient mask.
The pill materialized — pearl-white, humming with something that wasn't quite light. It felt warm, alive, like holding condensed possibility.
I dropped into the marble tub, still in base Peter form.
"Bottom's up," I said, and swallowed.
The pill dissolved instantly, not on my tongue but somewhere deeper. Heat bloomed from my core — not painful, but overwhelming, like my DNA was being rewritten in real-time.
[DING! Optimization Beginning]
Time to Completion: 2 hours
Warning: Do not attempt transformation during process]
Two hours. Two hours to become whatever "perfect" meant to a system powered by female sexual frustration.
I sank deeper into the tub, watching my skin shimmer and shift like water refusing to hold still. Every cell screaming as it rebuilt itself into something better.
"ARIA," I managed through gritted teeth. "Monitor the situation. Wake me if—"
"If the world ends?" she suggested. "Master, you're genetically rebuilding yourself in a hotel bathtub. The world can wait two hours."
She was right. For once, everything could wait.
The vultures could enjoy their last morning of thinking they mattered.
Charlotte could sleep without knowing her empire was about to be born.
The Appreciation Society could anticipate tonight without knowing their liberator was becoming something beyond even their fantasies.
I closed my eyes and let the transformation take me.
The first wave hit like swallowing molten glass.
Fire spread from my stomach outward, racing through veins like someone had replaced my blood with gasoline and lit a match. I bit down hard, tasting copper as my teeth drew blood from my tongue. The marble tub creaked under my grip.
Then came the purge.
Black sludge began seeping from my pores — thick, tar-like, reeking of rot and metal. Years of accumulated toxins, junk food residue, every impurity my body had stored since birth. It poured out like my skin had become a sieve, staining the pristine white marble with streaks of biological waste.
My stomach convulsed. I barely turned my head before vomiting a stream of the same black substance. More toxins, more waste, more evidence of every poor dietary choice I'd ever made. The smell was overwhelming — decay mixed with chemicals mixed with something acidic that burned my nostrils.
Fat cells literally melted. I could feel them liquefying under my skin, joining the river of sludge pouring into the tub. The small pudge I'd carried since childhood dissolved, revealing muscle I didn't know existed underneath. My body was burning away everything unnecessary, everything inefficient.
Bones ached as they condensed, becoming denser without changing size. The baby fat in my face melted away, revealing cheekbones I'd never seen before. My jawline sharpened from soft to defined. Not the supernatural perfection of Eros — just the clean, lean look of someone who'd never eaten processed food in their life.
More sludge. From my ears, my nose, even my tear ducts. Every infection I'd ever fought, every virus that had left traces, every microscopic parasite — all expelled in streams of black waste. The bathtub was becoming a toxic soup of everything wrong my body had ever carried.