The other Sylph stories:
Ch 1 "Morning Routine": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5548.0/
Ch 2 "Moving Day": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5573.0/
Ch 3 "Meet and Greet": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5586.0/
Ch 4 "Slumber Party": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5641.0/
Ch 4.5 “I Am Not Clumsy!” by Ad_Meyer: http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5806.0/
And this pic by Cowprobe goes with it: http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/2117/slyphrl4.gif
Ch 5 "Student Orientation": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5678.0/
Ch 6 "Assisted Compositions": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5689.0/
Ch 7 "All-Nighter": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5711.0/
Ch 8 "Rat Race": http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5753.0/
Ch 9 “Strong Drinks”: http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5796.0/
Ch 10 “Brand New Day”: http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5890.0/
Ch 11 “Metal Fatigue”: http://stmercy2020.deviantart.com/art/Sylph-Chapter-11-67104367
A drawing of the muscular muse, the hypertrophied Hecate, by the incomparable Satsurou:
http://amaz0ns.com/option,com_smf/Itemid,135/topic,5843.0/
Also by Satsurou, this idea was inspired by a little poll I had trying to figure out how Sylph should pay for the rather significant financial liabilities she incurs…
http://satsurou.deviantart.com/art/Kiriban-for-StMercy2020-Muscle-73647819
The Crazy Crew did some pix of a few of my favorite ladies, and Black Kusanagi did this one of Sylph: http://blackkusanagi.deviantart.com/art/St-Mercy-s-Sylph-84064559
Sylph and Tetsuko Breckinridge in “Pressing Flesh”
(Tetsuko, Sonya, and Slade are all (c) Dave C. Matthews and Ralf is a fictitious character based on Refaal and used with permission.)
“hih…hih…
“Th-thirty… s-s-se-seven!”
{clnk!}
“Gyah! Aaah!”
{skrch…kerrnk}
{SKREEEE!}
{ksh-hssss…BANG!}
{shthiiip! BAM! Fmp!}
{spshhhh…}
“Oh…ick! Sylph!”
Sylph sat up quickly from her bench- really just a slightly irregularly shaped lump of scrap metal she’d salvaged from her work at Boglyn- and looked over to see her friend Khalida covered from forelocks to feet in hydraulic fluid.
“Sorry,” Sylph apologized sincerely, “it’s just getting harder to find any equipment that can stand up to a serious workout.”
Khalida rolled her eyes and looked at the ruin that had been Sylph’s ad hoc workout room. An enormous hydraulic press had withdrawn almost completely into the ceiling after the pylons had bent and the tubes had cracked. Khalida tried to catalogue the damages. Sylph had been pressing against a thick steel bar joining two twenty-ton presses. That bar had bent slightly in the center- probably metal fatigue from the enormous pressure Sylph’s grip exerted- and the presses had twisted fractionally in towards the center. Sylph had then tried to force the bar back up, in the process shearing part of the hydraulic piston as she drove the housing back up into the ceiling against the hydraulic pressure. The return lines for the hydraulic fluid must have been blocked when the presses were torqued the wrong way. That explained the pressure buildup, which had culminated in the sides of both pistons first bulging, and then exploding like overfilled balloons. Released from the hydraulic pressure, Sylph’s arms had literally shot up with the force of a cannon, slamming the assemblage into the ceiling and spraying hydraulic fluid all over the room just as Khalida had come in.
Khalida wiped her face, smearing the viscous fluid across her forehead. “Should you really be pressing yourself so hard?” she asked. “I was there when Doctor Maxwell told you to take it easy, remember…”
Sylph grimaced. “So was I,” she agreed, “but that was almost a month ago… and my shoulders feel fine, honest!”
“You’re just lucky she was able to track down someone with practical experience in dealing with industrial-strength-girl-sized injuries.” Khalida snorted.
“You mean Dr. Gannon? Yeah, that was lucky. I wonder how she ever got into that field in the first place… I mean, it’s not exactly a high-saturation market.”
Khalida nodded. “Beats me,” she admitted. “Oh- I almost forgot, what with all the slime, but you got a letter!” She reached into her purse, withdrew a business envelope, and handed it to Sylph.
“Good thing it wasn’t caught in the spray,” Sylph mused wryly and Khalida grimaced. “FOY Media Venture? Who the heck are they?”
Khalida looked curiously over Sylph’s massive shoulder. “Fountain of Youth Media, isn’t it? A subsidiary of HS Industries, I think. What do they want?”
Sylph tore open the letter and slipped out a sheet of expensive fabric paper. She scanned it, shook her head, and then read it again. “They want me to be on Intranational Vindicators- as a competitor!”
Khalida’s eyes bulged. “They’re in charge of that travesty?” She shook her head. “You should do it,” she snorted, “show ‘em what a real athlete can do with their party games!”
The younger, bigger girl smiled lightly at her friends derision, then frowned as she actually considered the idea. “I’ve seen that show a couple of times,” she mused, “and those Vindicators really are good athletes. I mean, they’re not just big- they’re quick and tough, too. I think they just sell the show based on the fact that most of ‘em are strength athletes.”
Khalida looked skeptical. “You don’t seriously think any of them could beat you, do you?”
“Not really,” Sylph admitted easily, “certainly not in any sport where strength was an issue, anyways.
“Hm. Well, maybe I’ll give it a shot- I mean, after all, it says here…
*****
“It’s a benefit event?!” Sonya looked horrified at the prospect. “Hamilton Slade is hosting a benefit? I don’t believe it.”
Tetsuko held the letter out to her friend, letting her scan it. “It’s FOY media,” Tetsuko offered, “Slade probably doesn’t even remember that he owns them.”
Dr. Gannon glanced at the proffered missive, and then rolled her eyes. “Oh, that’s good,” she muttered sarcastically, “and who’s it benefit- the starving children of third-world emperors? I don’t think it’s a good idea, Tet-chan.”
Tetsuko smiled a little at Sonya’s suspicion. Hamilton Slade had been a thorn- a very dangerous thorn- in their sides for as long as they’d known him. He’d nearly killed Tetsuko even before he ever met her, all as a part of an attempt to get Dr. Gannon’s experimental anti-aging serum. In the end, both he and Tetsuko had ended up getting much more than either had bargained for. His goons used the serum first on Tetsuko, then, believing they’d killed her, took Dr. Gannon to their master to force her to work for him.
Sonya insisted that they all return to her lab, though, where they discovered that the serum had not, in fact, killed Tetsuko- it had transformed her. Ecstatic with the prospect, Slade managed to secure a syringe full of the serum while Tetsuko squared off with his guards. Taking the serum, it had not only stripped away the years from his aging body, it had also endowed him with massive, superhumanly powerful muscles, and it was only through Tetsuko’s and Sonya’s combined efforts that he was thwarted in his initial power-mad bid for world domination.
Tetsuko shivered a little at the thought, but examined the entry form more closely. “No, Sonya, look- we get to select a charity organization for all the proceeds to go to- and FOY Media will contribute matching funds to the winner. I think I should do it.”
Sonya grimaced. “Well, if you really want to,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. She adjusted her round glasses on her face and sighed. “Well, it says we have six months to prepare. I’ll do some research and see about setting up some new training programs for you…”
“Thanks, Sonya- you’re the greatest!”
*****
Ralf surveyed the meager crowd stepping off the plane from Miami. He held a large cardboard sign labeled “Breckenridge” in big black letters and he scanned the crowd for any sign of the woman he was supposed to meet. He’d been lucky to land this job, he thought, as it was a little outside his main areas of expertise, but his advisor thought that it might be worthwhile for him to work inside the corporate world for a bit while he learned the labyrinthine twists and turns of their legal practices.
A result of his advisor’s string pulling was that he was now in Las Vegas working as an intern for FOY Media. He glanced down at his gray suit and the uncomfortable red tie he wore. At least the tie gave him an air of respectability, he supposed, although he would have preferred the t-shirt he’d regretfully left in his suitcase in the hotel. He started to get worried as he realized that he hadn’t seen- or been seen- by the woman he was supposed to meet, yet. He had no idea how he was supposed to recognize her. Apart from athletic- which was a word that could have been applied to any number of women in the airport, including some of the stewardesses- and her last name, he was completely in the dark. He sincerely hoped she would notice him, although with all the trouble he’d had pushing his relatively slight body through the press of largely obese American tourists, he thought she might have already missed him.
“Um, sir?” came a voice from just in front of him, “Are you looking for me?” Ralf focused on the origin of the voice and was annoyed to realize that he was trying to look through the skull of a balding fat man who’d stepped directly in front of him. Just beyond the fat man, however, he thought he saw a corn-silk yellow plume rising into the air. Must be her hat, he thought sardonically, of all the gorgeous athletic women in the world, I get one with a fetish for tall…hats…
His thoughts ground to a halt as the fat man moved aside and he finally saw Ms. Breckenridge. She stood nearly a foot taller than he did- maybe six-two, six-three? - and was easily the biggest woman he’d ever actually seen. The tall plume that he’d mistaken for a hat was, in fact, a bouncy rooster-tail of hair that hung down over the right side of her face, nearly covering one of her large, green eyes. Her face was cute and round and led down to a long neck surrounded by thick, powerful traps and deltoids. She wore a tight-fitting tank-top that struggled to contain her considerable bust and failed utterly to hide the wing-like lats that pressed her arms out slightly from her sides.
And her arms- Ralf found he was torn between wanting to stare at her boobs and wanting to stare at her arms- were nothing short of massive. They looked, in his estimation, to be as large around as his thighs, and much, much harder. Her slacks struggled to conceal the dimensions of her butt and legs, but Ralf was certain they were at least as well-chiseled as her upper body. He felt his throat go dry as he tried to formulate a response, an opening of any sort with which to greet this woman.
“Ah…” he croaked, “er…”
She giggled, then reached out and gently tilted his chin until he was looking up at her face again. “Hi,” she smiled, “I’m Tetsuko!”
Who am I? he thought in a panic. I had a name a minute ago… What was it? Oh yeah… “Ralf?”
“A-hem!” said another woman’s voice. Ralf managed, with difficulty, to pull his eyes away from the vision in front of him, only to find himself staring at another world-class beauty. At least he recognized this lady, if only barely, from having seen her picture in the newspaper. Dr. Sonya Gannon, owner and head scientist at Gannon Laboratories, stood maybe an inch or two shorter than Ralf, but must’ve weighed at least as much as him. Not that she was fat- far from it, with two notable exceptions- rather that she was somewhat… generously… endowed. Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders in loose waves, while her brown eyes were made to seem even larger behind the round frames of her spectacles.
“Ah, forgive me, Tetsuko, Dr. Gannon- I’m from FOY; I’m supposed to help you find your way around” pull your eyes up, Ralf, you can do it. “So, if you’d care to follow me, we’ve just got one more stop and then I can take you to your hotel…” and now would probably be a good time to wipe the drool off your chin, too…
Dr. Gannon looked at Tetsuko and shrugged. Whatever, her expression seemed to say. Tetsuko shrugged in return. “Lead on,” she smiled.
Ralf swallowed and turned on his heel, leading the two young women through the bewildering maze of McCarron International Airport to an area somewhat off the beaten path. Tetsuko and Sonya glanced at each other, but Ralf seemed certain, if a little bit flustered. Finally, they approached a small terminal on the ground floor used for passengers arriving on private jets.
They were just on time.
As they strode into the greeting area, Ralf caught sight of a young man and a young woman flanking a girl who obviously had to be the other competitor. The taller of the two girls was the sort of Mediterranean beauty that caused heads to turn, hearts to race, and men to walk into lampposts. She was curvy in all the right ways and every graceful movement made things move in ways that would have gotten a rise out of a dead man. Her dark eyes scanned the crowded airport and a playful half-smile teased her lips as she saw Ralf and his associates.
Next to her, the young man looked almost plain by comparison. He was taller than Ralf, with the sort of studied nonchalance that one associated with American Midwesterners. His sandy hair and blue eyes were surprisingly vibrant against his pale skin. He stood talking to the first girl, shoulders slightly slouched, hands in his pockets, while the other girl adjusted the straps of her obviously custom-made backpack.
It was this last girl who caught and trapped Ralf’s attention, though, even more than the amazing dusky beauty of the first girl. Ralf knew he was a little strange, particularly in his attraction to muscular women, but this woman was simply beyond what he had imagined possible. She was, in a word, freakish. Her face was pretty enough- a strong chin, high cheekbones and an aquiline nose made her look almost elfish, although her rich brown hair gave the lie to that even before Ralf’s gaze struggled to take in the rest of her body.
Ralf had difficulty even conceiving the words to describe the rest of her body. Muscular was too weak, huge was too small- she was, as clichéd as the expression seemed, a mountain of steel and muscle and bone. Ralf tried to estimate how much she had to weigh- she was short, but so wide that her skeleton had to be unusually proportioned to support her- and he thought of pro-wrestlers who gave their weights as anything from two-fifty to three hundred pounds. Based on that, he estimated her weight at close to six hundred. Her shoulders looked like large pumpkins; her biceps were so large that Ralf didn’t doubt that they measured farther around than his own waist. He’d heard people describe forearms as ‘pins’ before, referring to the tiny-hand-on-beefy-forearm phenomenon, but this woman seemed to redefine the concept with her tiny, long-fingered hands attached to arms that seemed so comically large that they must have gotten in the way of everyday tasks like writing or even drumming her fingers on a table. Her chest was both wide and deep, with actual breasts adding to what must have been at least six inches of cavernous pectoral cleavage. This amazing superstructure was supported by a waist that, at first glance, appeared tiny, almost too small to support the bulk resting on top of it. It was only as his eyes and mind adjusted to the scope and size of the woman in front of him that he realized her waist was easily double, maybe even triple his own. And if her waist is ninety inches, just how big does that make her chest? He wondered in awe.
She wore a wrap- out of convenience, Ralf guessed, because her dimensions were simply too unusual for her to buy clothes off-the-rack. He’d always thought that the description ‘tree-trunk thighs’ was a kind of silly exaggeration, but this woman’s legs gave the lie to that supposition. She lacked the definition of a professional bodybuilder, but it hardly mattered- her thighs were so large that they pressed the massive veins through the subcutaneous fat and made them stand out against her pale skin. The knees, like her waist, seemed almost too small until Ralf made the mental adjustment necessary to see them without comparing them to her massive quadriceps. In actuality, her knees were at least three times thicker than his own and supported by the industrial strength tendons and ligaments that must have run throughout her entire skeletal system. Below her knees, her calves flared out again into the stylized heart shape that was so typical of world-class sprinters- and just about no one else- only so ridiculously exaggerated that they belonged in a cartoon instead of on a young girl. For a moment, Ralf didn’t know whether he should be horrified or turned on.
“Ah, excuse me,” said the boy, “are you from FOY medi…”
“SONYA!” the bigger girl yelped, her voice sounding for all the world like a bubbly teen’s joyous whoop. She bounded the rest of the way down the gangplank, her footfalls literally causing the floor to shake as her incredible mass maneuvered to the acclaimed doctor, and scooped the woman up in her arms, hugging her tightly for an instant before setting her back on the ground. The momentary seismic event was enough to knock Ralf completely off his feet, although Tetsuko and the others all seemed to have managed to maintain their balance. Little cracks spider webbed out from each place her feet had touched down.
“Well, hello, Sylph,” Dr. Gannon laughed, “it’s good to see you’re feeling better. Are these your friends?”
Sylph nodded vigorously. “You’ve met Khalida before, I think,” she said, gesturing to the Mediterranean beauty, “and the long, tall drink of water is my other best friend, Wade. Are you and your friend here for the Vindicators benefit?”
“We are,” Sonya smiled. “I don’t believe you’ve met Tetsuko, before. Sylph, this is Tetsuko Breckenridge. Tet-chan, this is Sylph Young.”
Sylph and Tetsuko shook hands, eyeing each other curiously. “So,” Tetsuko said wryly, “you must be my competition…”
Sylph chuckled, “I guess so- I wonder what the events are going to be… mud wrestling? It’s funny, but you’re not really what I expected,” she trailed off.
“Yeah? You either,” Tetsuko admitted. “Not that I really knew what to expect.”
Ralf finally found his voice. “And now that you all know each other,” he quipped, “welcome to Fantasy Island! I’ll be your host, Ralf, and-”
“Ralf,” Sonya’s quiet voice cut through his chatter, “you’re babbling.”
“Right- I do that, sometimes. Um,” he cast about, looking for something to say, “Can I take your bags and show you to your hotel?”
Sylph and Tetsuko looked at each other and giggled. Khalida stepped in and smoothly answered the question. “Why don’t you just show us to our hotel? I think we can handle our own luggage.”
Ralf reddened slightly, but rallied gamely. “Right you are. Well, Mr. Benchley has authorized four suites at the Four Seasons for you. We’ve rented a pair of limousines, and the drivers are waiting for us.”
*****
The Four Seasons was quite close at hand, barely five minutes once the limousines had cleared the airport, despite the notoriously heavy Las Vegas traffic. Not immense by any stretch of the imagination, it was still a considerably larger hotel than anything Sylph had stayed in previously, and she looked on the neat, quiet façade with no small degree of trepidation. Ralf, Tetsuko, and Dr. Gannon had all taken one limo, while Sylph and her friends had taken the somewhat larger vehicle- a stretch Hummer, a huge vehicle that Khalida had found hilarious. That vehicle now rode low on its axles, the wheels scraping whenever they hit a bump or took a turn too quickly. Sylph sincerely hoped that her weight in the back seat hadn’t caused any permanent damage to the luxuriously appointed car.
Khalida and Wade bounced out of the car almost before the car rolled to a stop, nearly colliding with Ralf, Tetsuko, and Sonya. The doorman greeted them cordially and a bellhop arrived with a trolley to take their bags. A moment later, Sylph managed to pull herself out of the hummer without actually removing the door or widening the frame- no mean feat- and grabbed her own bag before the driver could hurt himself trying to heft it over to the curb. “Thanks,” she smiled graciously, “but I’d prefer to carry my own bags.”
The doorman, turning to face the newcomer, froze momentarily, his deeply tanned, angular face going nearly white with shock before he managed to recover and close his mouth. “W-welcome to th-th-the F-f-four Seasons!” he stammered, his brain trying to keep pace with his mouth and obviously failing.
Sylph felt almost at home. It had been a long time since her freakish appearance had achieved quite that level of shock, the momentary, involuntary twitch of horror that the doorman was valiantly trying to conceal. She’d been living on campus in New York for so long that nearly everybody took her for granted- or at least, they didn’t try to hide their sons and daughters from her, anymore. She sighed and made her way to join her friends at the doors.
Ralf watched this little interplay and scowled slightly, but Sylph pressed forward before he had time to raise an objection. The doorman opened the doors and held them, his face turned inwards in a petrified mask so as not to display any further unprofessional disapproval of the guests now entering the hotel lobby. No matter what they looked like, men and women who were renting rooms that cost upwards of a thousand dollars a night had to be treated with respect.
Ralf handled the check-in at the main desk; Sonya, Tetsuko, Sylph, and Khalida were all provided with one bedroom suites, while Ralf and Wade shared a so-called deluxe room with two double beds. Leading them upstairs, Ralf first saw the ladies to their rooms, and then guided Wade back to their room on the floor below. Kicking his shoes off, Ralf pulled out a ball pen and a pad of drawing paper while Wade started unpacking.
“She’s really something, huh?” Wade offered conversationally.
Distracted, Ralf muttered “uh-huh” before his brain fully rolled over. “Uh- who’re we talking about?” he asked. Wade chuckled, glancing over a t-shirt he was folding at the half-formed figure on Ralf’s sketch-pad. Ralf had, with just a few strokes, created a suggestion of awesome size and power.
“You ought to ask her out,” Wade continued without answering. “She doesn’t get a lot of invites- I think guys tend to be intimidated by her.” He shuffled his shirts into a drawer, noticed one of Ralf’s t-shirts close at hand and picked it up curiously. Against a textured green background was a picture of a blue-eyed monkey outlined in gold, a steaming brown pile held in its hand and a wide smile on its face. Wade raised an eyebrow inquiringly and it was Ralf’s turn to chuckle.
“It’s one of my internet nicknames,” he explained, “I’m the Ref-monkey…”
Wade nodded. “Anyway, like I was saying- you should ask her out if you’re interested. Go have a good time before you’re both too busy to have any free time, y’know?”
Ralf nodded. “What about Khalida?” he asked. “I got the impression that they stuck together like they were glued.”
The lanky boy grinned. “Leave that to me,” he replied confidently.
*****
Having put their bags down, Sonya and Tetsuko started examining their room. It was almost intimidatingly large, filled with tasteful and expensive furnishings. Tetsuko wandered to the window and stared out at the strip, a bustling row of shops, casinos, taverns, and restaurants even now, before true darkness fell and the lights came up.
“You know, Sonya,” Tetsuko mused, “we’re in Vegas- we ought to go out on the town- at least a little, right?”
Sonya laughed. “I’m still pretty done-in from the time difference, actually. Maybe we could just grab a bite to eat and maybe wander up and down the strip, tonight?”
Sonya thought for a moment, then added, “Why don’t you invite Sylph along, too; she seems like good folks, and you guys might find that you have a lot in common…”
Tetsuko wrinkled her nose. “Like being able to shot-put a bowling ball to the moon? Not exactly the basis for a great friendship, doc,” she began, but then saw Sonya’s face and sighed. “Fine, I’ll invite her along. Maybe we can go out and get ice cream or something.”
A few minutes later, Sonya ambled along the wide sidewalk between her Amazonian friends. Tetsuko walked along in an uncharacteristically surly funk, at first, but couldn’t maintain her bad humor for long. As they progressed, she began noticing the wild displays, the lights, the street-theater, and, before long, she had her phone out and was taking pictures and chattering happily to Sonya at a mile a minute. Sylph, on the other hand, seemed to nearly withdraw into herself and, as the sidewalk became more crowded, pulled in as if she was trying to disappear.
Sonya contented herself with pointing out the one or two displays that Tetsuko seemed about to miss, finally pointing at a discreet restaurant hidden behind a patio with covered tables. A neat, hand-written sign named it ‘Vincenzo’s’ and declared it to be the home of ‘Vinnie’s World Famous 3-lb Cilantro Porterhouse and Rosemary Potatoes.” Another, smaller sign also mentioned that they brewed their own beer and served fresh ice cream, made on the immediate premises. A number of people had already started filling in the empty seats both inside the restaurant and on the patio, and a surprising number of heavyset men in black trousers and t-shirts seemed to be involved in moving a variety of electrical devices around what appeared to be a makeshift stage near the entrance. “There,” Sonya declared, “that’s dinner. I’m paying and I’m hungry. Let’s go eat.”
“I want to see you try and get through one of those!” Tetsuko grinned, pointing at the special on the sign.
Sonya laughed. “You’ll be helping, Tet-chan,” she declared, steering the taller woman into the entrance. Sylph trailed behind, self-consciously squeezing her shoulders to fit through the doorframe and struggling to avoid bashing aside tables and chairs purely by her casual passage in the crowded restaurant.
After seating themselves- Sylph crouched over a wrought-iron chair, taking most of her weight on her knees to prevent herself from smashing the seat flat- Sonya signaled the waiter. They ordered two plates of the special, an iced tea for Sonya, a Sprite for Tetsuko, and a diet Dr. Pepper for Sylph. Tetsuko raised an eyebrow, looking at the gigantic woman. “Diet?” she teased, “do you really think it’ll make a difference?”
“Well, it probably won’t help for weight loss,” Sylph admitted, “but then, I probably don’t have to worry about that as much as you do.”
Sonya’s hand and worried expression were the only things that kept Tetsuko from launching herself across the table. Instead, she settled on commenting with brittle cheerfulness, “I suppose there’s no point in someone like you trying to control your weight, huh? It’s not like you’ll ever fit in to normal clothes.”
Sonya grimaced and spoke up before either of her companions could continue. “Tetsuko. That was unkind.” Sylph subsided without rejoinder, while Tetsuko looked only slightly abashed at the gentle reproach. The waiter approached their table with their trays and, with the assistance of another minion pressed into immediate service, laid the feast in front of the women.
They passed the meal in strained civility, both Tetsuko and Sylph maintaining their good manners only out of their mutual respect for Sonya. Finally, Sonya had enough. She rose from her place and smiled demurely at the girls. “I have to use the ladies room,” she explained, “Tet-chan- will you come with me?”
Sylph started in on her rosemary potatoes as the two friends departed for the back of the restaurant. As they stepped into the ladies room, Sonya stepped to the side and crossed her arms under her buxom chest. “All right, Tetsuko, explain it to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so venomous to another person. I'd have thought you two would hit it off, sharing so much in common. Why are you so angry with Sylph?”
Tetsuko bristled; addressing her by her full name instead of the affectionate "Tet-chan" usually meant Sonya was upset with her. “Isn’t it obvious, Sonya? She’s not natural! She’s got to be working for Slade. You were right- he’s setting us up!”
Sonya shook her head. “I met her months ago- before any of this was even on the horizon, and she was huge even then. She’d just rescued a whole bunch of people from being injured in a potentially disastrous construction accident. It isn’t that I don’t think Slade could be manipulating things from behind the scenes,” she mused, “I just don’t think that Sylph is in on it.”
Tetsuko pursed her lips thoughtfully. “So you think I ought to give her a chance to prove she’s not malicious, just stupid?”
Sonya rolled her eyes. Something about Sylph obviously rubbed her younger friend the wrong way. This hostility was unusual for her and she began to wonder if maybe Tetsuko wasn’t feeling a little insecure in the larger girl’s presence. “Say ‘misguided,’” she advised. “Remember, we had no reason to suspect Slade’s involvement except for his prior involvement with us. Why don’t you try taking her to the gym or something- you can do a little training with her, get a feeling for who she is and what she’s capable of?”
The blonde girl snorted, flaring her nostrils slightly, but considered the idea. “I’ll think about it,” she said at last, nodding curtly.
“That’s all I ask,” Sonya sighed.
*****
At first Sylph didn’t really know what to make of the gigantic weight room and gymnasium that Ralf drove them to. FOY Media had purchased a warehouse in downtown Vegas and spent considerable time and money in restoring and refurbishing it. They’d toughened load-bearing walls with metal beams and reinforced concrete; the floor, although padded and carpeted, imparted that sense of immense weight and density that Sylph had learned to recognize in the very few extremely well-crafted buildings that she’d encountered in her life. Most things that she stood on gave slightly under her weight- even cement sidewalks, cobbled paths and concrete roads; the building materials all compressed slightly under her densely-packed weight. The floor underneath the padding, however, did not. Sylph’s eyebrows shot up appreciatively and she began looking around the room.
She was surprised to see so many familiar devices. Free weights, certainly, and those in denominations that any normal bodybuilder would have deemed preposterous- the smallest weight was one hundred pounds and the plates only went up from there- but also machines that simply were not to be found in normal weight rooms. She recognized several as variants- improvements, really- on designs her father and mother had created years ago. She wondered idly how much her parents were being paid for their designs, if anything. A small touchpad at each station connected the machines through a series of industrial cables and computers to huge diesel engines designed to produce the load. Sylph guessed that each engine could easily produce fifty tons of force even before you took into account the multiplying effects of the block-and-tackle contraptions.
It was quite obvious to her that this room, although new, saw regular use. Several of the weight stations still had their loads on the machines- moderately heavy loads for a normal person, although not even enough weight for Sylph to really register- and the laundry basket in the corner had several white towels in it waiting to be laundered. Glancing about idly, Sylph noticed that the bench bar had been loaded up until the bar was bending slightly under the weight. Looking closer, she realized that the plates were not the usual forty-five pounders that she often saw; these looked nearly twice as thick and appeared to be covered with some sort of durable ceramic shell. The numbers on the sides of the smallest plates were simply 1k. The larger plates- there were six on each side- read 2k. Sylph wandered over to the station and gently tested the heavily laden bar. The weight was enormous. She turned to Ralf. “How?” she muttered, gesturing.
Ralf grinned hugely. “HSI has spent quite a bit on the research and development of new space-age metals. The super dense core of those plates is highly radioactive, but it is covered in a thin layer of lead. That, in turn, is encased in specially hardened ceramic to prevent the coating from getting weak or wearing away. The end result is that you have plates weighing half a ton or more”
Tetsuko snorted. “That’s got to cost a pretty penny,” she commented.
“Oh, it does,” Ralf conceded. “FOY Media would probably not be able to afford even one of these plates if HSI hadn’t helped both to develop them and then donated the results to this project. This weight room is donated entirely by the bigwigs at the top of HS Industries.”
“How… generous,” Tetsuko murmured. She looked suspiciously at the thicker, more muscular girl standing next to her. “Well, since we’re here, we might as well see about a workout, right? Why don’t you set up and Ralf and I can be your spotters.”
Sylph nodded absently and ambled over to the bench. It had been a long time since she’d actually used a real weight bench- most benches collapsed under her weight. Even so, she remembered the techniques and she lay herself down gingerly under the massive bar. She figured it to be loaded with close to twenty tons- assuming the numbers on the plates were actually genuine- but the way her strength had been increasing lately, this barely qualified as a warm up weight.
She wrapped her fingers gently around the bar and slowly, steadily, pressed up against the weight. It came off the rests smoothly, supported entirely by Sylph’s powerful arms. “They weren’t lying,” she hissed as she lowered it to her chest, “this really feels like about twenty tons.”
Ralf started to move closer, fascinated by the symphony of gigantic muscles dancing just underneath Sylph’s pale skin, but Tetsuko held out an arm, as immovable as a steel girder, and pushed him gently back. “That’s a lot of weight, Ralf- if she drops it, it’d probably squash you flat.”
Sylph almost giggled at that. “I’m not going to drop it- it’s not really that much…” After a dozen reps or so, she racked the weight and sat up. “Your turn, Tetsuko- can you handle this much? Or should I take a couple plates off for you?”
The tall blonde raised an eyebrow and curled her lip in a curious half-smile. “I think I’ll try it with your load, if you don’t mind,” she answered. In truth, this weight was ridiculously light to her, but she wasn’t about to let this other girl- this strange, unbelievably hypertrophied woman- know the true extent of her power.
Trading places with Sylph, Tetsuko placed her hands on the bar. She was surprised at how thick the bar actually was- it was deceptive because of the size of the plates loaded on either side. Her hands couldn’t wrap all the way around the bar and she had to resist the urge to crush the bar in her grip to make it fit more comfortably in the palms of her hands. If what Ralf had told them was true, damaging the equipment could have truly disastrous consequences.
*****
Wade found Khalida just getting out of the Olympic-sized swimming pool on the ground floor. Not unusually, she had drawn a crowd of observers, both men and women, who were staring as surreptitiously as they knew how. She tossed her hair back and strode over to the beach chair where she’d left her towel. Wade beat her to it and picked up the towel- a white Warner Bros towel featuring Marvin the Martian- and held it open for her. She dimpled when she spotted him and fairly melted into the thick terrycloth, letting him enfold her sleekly muscled physique with the towel and his long, wiry arms.
“Hiya, Wade,” Kali grinned at the older boy, “I thought you were heading out with Ralf and the girls.”
“Nah,” he demurred, “I thought I’d take the opportunity to see if you wanted to get some dinner and maybe check out the strip a bit before bedtime…”
Khalida had had a crush on Wade since they’d attended school together growing up as children in the same small Nebraskan town. Despite that, it had taken them until they were both in school at NYU and a chance meeting in Sylph’s dorm room in the basement of Kensington Hall for them to really become friends. “Mm,” she purred, “that sounds good.”
“Great- why don’t you grab a quick change and I’ll pick you up in, say…”
“Fifteen minutes,” she answered decisively. And don’t plan on getting back for an early evening, either, pretty boy!
Khalida dashed back to her room and rummaged quickly through her drawers. She had been planning on saving her gold dress for sitting in the audience at Sylph’s show, but she wasn’t about to let this opportunity get away. She shimmied into the gown, the shiny fabric clinging to her curves like a perfectly radiant sunset, her dark hair bound into a loose braid that hung over her shoulder. She was stunning and she knew it- she just hoped that Wade knew it too.
Just shy of fifteen minutes, she opened the door. Wade was standing there, fist upraised to knock. As she opened the door, he let his hand fall. He stood there for a moment, swallowing. He wore a black tuxedo with a vest. Recovering quickly, he held out his hand. His blue eyes danced. “Well, then,” he said, “shall we?”
Kali nodded and took his arm and he led them out into the warm Vegas night. Wade glanced up and down the street, then held up his hand. Almost immediately, a black sedan pulled up next to them. A grizzled black man in a jacket and tie got out of the drivers seat and hustled around to the side of the car. “Thomas party, right? Pleased to meet you- I’ll be your driver this evening. I’m Francis.” He opened the door and allowed them to get into the car. Kali glanced at Wade and saw that he was beaming from ear to ear.
Francis closed the door after them and hurried back around to the driver’s side. “Mr. Thomas, Miss Matsoukis- please relax and enjoy the ride. Mr. Slade heard of your plans from the maître d’ and left instructions that I was to make certain that you had a truly memorable evening. Please be sure to let me know if there is anything- anything at all- that you desire.”
“Thank you, Francis,” Wade answered cheerfully, “just dinner for now- The Tillerman, if you would.”
“An excellent choice, sir. I’ll have you there directly.”
*****
Tetsuko was impressed with how much the girl could lift- she didn’t appear to be as strong as Tetsuko, herself, but she was still lifting weights far in excess of what any normal human could have achieved. More worrying, though, was the way she moved. Tetsuko had been vaguely aware of it from the moment she saw her, but here, in the gym, it was suddenly clear. Sylph moved with the poise and grace of a trained athlete- a dancer and a martial artist, someone who knew how her body worked and was comfortable and at home in her own skin. Tetsuko knew that walk, that grace- she had it herself- but Sylph seemed to almost radiate control from every pore of her body. It was, in a word, unsettling.
Sylph stepped away from the strange machine she’d been using- some sort of cable-fly device using thick, braided-metal cables hooked up to a pair of powerful diesel engines- and gestured to Tetsuko. She was panting slightly and her pale skin was covered in a light sheen of sweat. Tetsuko glanced at the readout on the resistance display. It read one hundred sixty tons. “Your… turn…” Sylph gasped when she found her voice.
Tetsuko nodded and ran a finger lightly over the grips. She looked around the room. Ralf was lounging in a corner; he’d been watching with fascination as the two girls lifted heavier and heavier weights throughout the evening, but it was getting close to two solid hours now, and he was clearly starting to feel fatigued. One more test, she thought.
“Nah,” Tetsuko said, “I’ll let you have that one. There is one ‘exercise’ station we haven’t hit, though…” She pointed.
The table she pointed to seemed to have been grown directly from the floor. There was no seam, just a solid-looking pillar that connected the low, flat top of the table to the only part of the floor barren of carpeting. Thick metal stirrups were positioned on either side of the table, clearly intended for the girls to secure their feet with. The chairs- stools, really- were of the same odd construction as the floor and included a thick metal seat belt. Sylph raised an eyebrow at Tetsuko.
“Armwrestling,” the blonde explained. “Come on- you oughtta be good at it.”
“Yeah,” Sylph said doubtfully, “sure.”
They sat down opposite each other and Ralf came over to officiate. “Well, ladies, let me say how happy I am that I can help you with this match. As I’m sure you both know, I used to be the ultra-super flyweight armwrestling champion of the world…” he held his arms and cocked them into a double biceps pose, then shifted quickly to a side chest pose, his slender arms and body looking absurdly frail next to the enormous mass of the women in front of him. Tetsuko giggled, but Ralf quickly continued. “Unfortunately, my career was cut tragically short by an accident involving an angry bull, Eric Bana, an elastic hair-tie and my pinkie.
“Anyways, it gives me great pleasure to stand in as your referee this evening; I want a good clean match. No eye-gouging, no biting, no snide remarks about each other’s hair. As this is an upper body competition, I, ah, encourage you to remove your shirts to avoid any potential damage…” Sylph snorted at that, but neither girl moved to strip down, much to Ralf’s disappointment.
Tetsuko had expected Sylph to be strong, but the girl’s grip was still nearly breathtaking. She wondered if even Sylph truly realized how strong she was. She matched the grip, then let off a little bit- no sense showing my cards just yet, she decided.
“Get ready.” Tetsuko felt Sylph’s grip tighten slightly, then relax.
“Get set.” She took a deep breath, preparing herself mentally.
“Go!” Tetsuko almost wasn’t ready for the enormous pressure Sylph brought to bear. The crushing force was as much as she could remember ever feeling with one exception. She leaned into it and brought their arms to a halt. The air seemed almost to shimmer between the two girls, the energy they were expending so great that the air was literally heating up by degrees. The blood rushed into Sylph’s pale arm, turning her nearly-white skin pink as it brought much-needed oxygen to her starving muscles.
Tetsuko stared at Sylph’s face. Sylph’s eyes were shut and her teeth were ground together in determination. The strain on her arm kept increasing, although Tetsuko had been sure that the big woman was giving her utmost when she started. She was sure, in fact, that Sylph had been doing her absolute best earlier when she was benching, curling, and squatting literally hundreds of tons of weight. Now she was putting more power into this single arm than she had managed all day previously, and her power seemed to be growing.
Sylph’s face was turning red as she strained harder than she ever had before. The blood pounded in her forehead and sweat broke out anew on her forehead. Thick veins made their presence know on the split heads of her biceps and ran over her chest, up her neck and along her face.
“Give…up…” Tetsuko gritted. She knew she could put far more strength into this contest, but Sylph, finally, appeared to be reaching her limit. She hoped.
“N-n-never!” Sylph cried. Tears of pain and frustration dripped down her cheeks onto the table. She’d never fought this hard before- not even when she’d defeated Stack Martenson- but she thought she felt herself gaining a slight advantage. She bore down and felt the smaller woman’s wrist turn slightly underneath her grip.
Tetsuko could feel that Sylph’s grip was actually starting to weaken now. She could beat her, she was certain, but it wasn’t necessary. Instead, without releasing much force, she allowed her wrist to be bent back slightly, giving Sylph the advantage. Come on, girl, she was surprised to hear herself thinking, just a little more. You can do it!
When the break finally came, it wasn’t gentle like it had been with Stack. Sylph felt the arm suddenly go limp and, before she could stop it, her arm had powered down with all of her considerable strength and weight behind it. The sound of Tetsuko’s arm hitting the table was almost absurdly quiet, all things considered- a soft, sharp crack and a sound of pottery bouncing on concrete as the end of the table snapped off in accordance to immutable laws of physics. She let go of Tetsuko’s hand instantly, shock draining the color from her face.
“Oh my God! Are you okay?” she asked.
Tetsuko grimaced and shook out her arm. “I’m fine,” she said shortly. “Nothing broken, anyways.” She’d let the girl win. At the last moment, she’d decided that she wanted to see how she reacted if she won, not if she lost. Now she wasn’t sure what to think.
“Ah, the heck with it,” she said finally, “I’m tired. Let’s go home.”
*****
Ralf and Sylph left Tetsuko back at her room in the Four Seasons, then took the stairs to Sylph’s suite. Opening the door, it was immediately apparent that Khalida was elsewhere- a note taped to the television advised Sylph not to wait up for her. Ralf noticed the big girl looking hesitantly- apprehensively- into the large room. It took him a moment to recognize the signs, and he was deeply surprised when he did; Sylph actually appeared to be scared.
“Is everything okay?” he asked solicitously. He couldn’t imagine what she was seeing that had her on edge. What he could see of the room around her massive bulk appeared perfectly innocuous.
She glanced at him shyly over one rock-hard shoulder and twitched her lips in a faint smile. “I- ah- I don’t like being alone in strange places,” she murmured.
Ralf digested that slowly for a moment. “Well,” he offered slowly, “I could sit up with you till your friend gets back if you like. Maybe I can find a way to take your mind off your uneasiness for a while.”
She grinned her relief. “Sure,” she agreed happily. “Actually, I could really use a backrub after that workout…”
Ralf laughed and cracked his long fingers. “Whatever milady desires.”
Sylph glanced around the large room and quickly shoved the sofa out of the way so that she had an unobstructed piece of the floor to stretch out on. She glanced at Ralf again and hesitantly peeled off her straining shirt. Underneath she wore a custom-made bra, the satin material expertly stitched together and then joined through the sides with a soft leather cord to give her massive chest room to expand. She lay down on the floor and stretched her arms up over her head.
Ralf swallowed. She was significantly shorter than him, but he doubted that he would be able to comfortably straddle her waist in order to get into a good position to massage her even so. She apparently guessed his apprehension, because she giggled and told him to just kneel on her back. “It’s not like you’re in any danger of hurting me, really.”
Ralf had to admit that was true and so he knelt down and began probing her delts, starting on one side and slowly working his way across the vast expanse of her back to the other side. He was surprised as his fingers were able to find purchase and press into the densely packed fibers. It was as if, relaxed, her shoulders were hard, but not the nearly steel-like consistency that he was certain she could attain with the slightest flex of her body.
He pressed harder into her back, leaning his full weight into his arms and fingers and eliciting a purr of contentment from the girl he knelt upon. “That feels really good,” she grunted muzzily. Ralf chuckled and continued to apply push as hard as he could against her. A slight shift of her neck resulted in tectonic activity that nearly dislodged the young man, but Sylph quickly settled again.
“I don’t know how long I can keep this up,” Ralf admitted; his forearms were already starting to cramp up from the unaccustomed strain he was putting on them. Sylph’s breath lifted Ralf several inches before she answered.
“Mm. S’okay. I feel pr-pretty…” she yawned hugely at this point, then blushed as she continued, “pretty good, really. Just tired.”
“Oh. Ah, sorry,” Ralf excused himself, slightly alarmed, “ah, should I go?”
“N-no,” Sylph replied, “please don’t. Just… just stay close, okay?
“Snuggle.”
*****
Ralf woke up to discover that his head was propped- wedged, really- between Sylph’s enormous chest and the swell of her biceps. Her other arm reached over his body and very gently propped her body up so that her weight didn’t crush him. The gentle rhythm of her breathing slowly lifted and lowered Ralf’s body, not unlike being aboard a boat on gentle seas. With a start he realized that she was still sleeping.
Ralf carefully slid from under Sylph’s massive arm- fortunately there was sufficient room for him to duck out, because her arm was far too heavy for him to shift by himself- as he heard the sound of a key in the lock. He hadn’t intended to stay so long, he realized; he had planned to leave as soon as Khalida returned. He went to the door and slid it open, yawning. Khalida stood in the doorway, keys in hand.
She pursed her lips in mild disapproval. “And what exactly are you doing here at this time of night?”
Ralf shrugged. “Morning, actually,” he corrected. He went over and tried to shake Sylph gently to wake her up. He might as well have tried to uproot an oak with his fingertips for all the good it did. “Sylph,” he whispered gently, “Kali’s back.”
She grunted lightly and turned her head, her eyes still tightly closed.
Kali watched the byplay with mild amusement until she finally got impatient and strode over. “Here,” she said, gently but firmly shoving Ralf to one side, “let me try.”
She positioned herself next to Sylph’s broad shoulder and roughly shook her hard enough that the transferred force caused the floor to creak as the joists underneath them were put under enormous strain. “Sylph!” she barked, and was rewarded with a low moan and a light fluttering of pale green eyes.
“Whuh?” the giant girl muttered, then seemed to come fully awake. “Oh, hi Kali. How was your date?”
Kali wrinkled her nose. “We got rained out and ended up sitting in a Denny’s drinking coffee until they kicked us out,” she explained. “Not so great, really.”
Sylph cooed sympathetically. “That sucks.”
Kali shrugged. “Eh. I think Wade’s more into you, anyway. I had to try, though, right?”
Ralf saw the color rise to Sylph’s cheeks. Apparently those feelings were more than a little bit mutual, he guessed. Damn, he thought, my loss.
*****
Hamilton Slade turned on his television to watch the events unfolding in his studio. If all went well, by the end of the day he’d know the limitations of Dr. Sato’s new formula. He might even have eliminated a rival or two from his stable of enemies. He turned up the sound on his monitor so that he could hear the commentary.
“…ph Young was born in Cleveland, Ohio but now lives in New York, New York where she studies art, photography, and modern dance. While Sylph has been involved in athletics in some capacity or other for as long as she can remember, she hasn’t played competitively for well over a decade. Recent events have brought Sylph and her amazing physique into the public eye, although she still tries to maintain as normal a lifestyle as she is able.
“Miss Young- can you tell the studio audience what first stimulated your interest in bodybuilding?”
“Sure Mr. Brogan-“
“-Bulk, please-“
“-Bulk, then,” Sylph dimpled. Slade snorted. The ex-wrestler’s nickname had seemed appropriate when he was discovered, but next to Sylph maybe a better appellation would be ‘Tiny.’ Sylph was still talking and Slade focused again on what she was saying. “…after seeing that first show, I talked with my folks about it and found out my Mom had been competitive before I was born. I guess it just seemed natural after that.”
“But you never did compete, right? Why was that?”
“Two reasons, really- first is that I put on so much mass, so quickly that I would have required an entirely new weight class long before I was old enough to compete. Despite what fan-sites will tell you, no one really wants to see a bodybuilding competition where one of the girls on stage looks like an advertisement for Myostatin-Blockers-‘R’-Us.”
“I’m not too sure of that,” Bulk chuckled, “but you said you had two reasons. The other would be?”
“Food,” Sylph laughed. Slade had to admit she had a genuinely pretty laugh, girlish and light in almost direct contrast to her imposing physique. “I have no willpower when it comes to food. I was never able to maintain the diet for more than a month, let alone the six weeks minimum that most girls have to do.”
Bulk nodded sympathetically. “I guess that makes sense. How does your weightlifting affect your life, otherwise?”
“Well, it’s hell on the love life, that’s for sure. I mean, no one wants to date a girl that might accidentally squash him flat during a moment of intimacy…”
“Why stick with it, then?”
“Are you kidding? I love being strong- it’s a rush to really push myself and do something that nobody else can do.”
“On that note- you’ll be facing off against Miss Tetsuko Breckinridge today, a woman that is definitely the odds-on favorite. You’re supporting the Agape Foundation, a charity supporting nonviolent social change. Miss Breckenridge is supporting the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America. Anything you’d like to say to your competition?”
“Good luck, Tetsuko? ‘Cause I’m not gonna go easy, today…”
“You heard it, folks- sounds like Tetsuko’d better watch out! It’s about time for our first event- let’s check in with the Vindicators to find out what to expect…”
The camera switched to Bulk’s co-host, one-time professional boxer Jacki Frazer.
“Thanks, Bulk,” Jacki smiled, “I’m here with four of our Vindicators. Normally, Intranational Vindicators features contests of men versus men and women versus women. Today, as part of a special treat, FOY decided that the competitors are powerful enough to warrant the full stable of Vindicators. As a result, you will see both male and female Vindicators challenging our competitors.
“Before we set up today’s exhibition, the competitors were each allowed to choose several events and the Vindicators chose a couple of events. The result is that we will be seeing six events before the Eliminator Gauntlet, two chosen by each competitor and two chosen by the Vindicators themselves.
“Our first event will be the Titanorb, one of Sylph’s picks. The competitors will each get into one of the giant hamster balls behind me and attempt to roll over the scoring plates set into the arena. Each successful score is worth two points. To make things a little more difficult, though, the Vindicators will also be in spheres of their own and actively trying to prevent the challengers from scoring. The Vindicators in today’s match will be Glacier, Rockslide, Ursula, and Harpy.
“Glacier- this is really your main event; any words for the competitors?”
The camera panned over and up to the tremendous slab of meat known as Glacier. Even before his steroid treatments and the added boosts that Slade had provided him with he had been a large man- an amateur wrestler and a college football star until his drug use had gotten him booted from the team. His tagline was that he was big as a mountain and as cold as ice, and Slade believed it. Glacier nodded his thick neck, his Eskimo features making him look almost sinister. “We’ve been gearing up for this match for almost a year, now. No girl- I don’t care how strong- is going to make us look like fools on our home court. This game is about more than just strength- it’s also about skill and positioning and maneuver. My teammates and me- we’re gonna keep the rookies out of the scoring rings for the full two minutes, no doubt.”
*****
Tetsuko took a deep breath as they locked her into the ball and shook her blond hair. She’d debated tying it back into a pony tail today but ultimately left it alone. She stretched her arms and realized that she could touch both the top and bottom of the sphere easily. She grinned- Sylph, much shorter than her, probably couldn’t and that would put her at a bit of a disadvantage in manipulating the quarter-ton spheres.
The buzzer sounded and Tetsuko leaned into the sphere allowing her weight to overbalance the sphere and get it rolling. It moved surprisingly slowly, although the Vindicator’s spheres weren’t moving very quickly either. She angled herself towards an open plate and felt the wheel shift direction ponderously as she picked up momentum.
Sylph was already nearly on top of a plate- how had she gotten herself moving so quickly?- but it looked like one of the Vindicators was nearly on top of her. The Vindicator’s ball smashed into Sylph’s with a deafening crash, but not before Tetsuko heard the raucous blare of the point buzzer. She frowned as she watched Sylph’s ball shift off the plate, using the momentum transferred by her impact with- who was it, Harpy?-to change direction and roll back towards the center of the arena.
Concentrating, Tetsuko saw that her path was clear and she pistoned her arms and legs to drive herself even faster. She was barely a foot from the plate when she felt the bone-jarring impact on her back left. Desperately, she threw herself to the right, but it was too late- her momentum carried her over the left side and around the plate without quite setting off the sensor.
“Not happening, Blondie,” Rockslide grinned through the bars of his cage. Behind him she saw another wheel- the woman called Ursula- rolling around to flank her. She flexed her arms and threw herself against the back of her sphere as hard as she could, causing the ball to nearly stop on a dime. The two of them together could just about drive her wherever they wanted.
She heard the scoring buzzer again and glanced over to see one of the Titanorbs actually bouncing backwards over the arena. Apparently Glacier had attempted to block Sylph directly and she had rammed him at full speed. Tetsuko shook her head- that must have been like getting hit by a truck- how much had Sylph said she weighed? Sylph had been nearly stopped by the impact, but had managed to roll onto the platform anyway. In the meantime, Rockslide and Ursula kept coming around Tetsuko to force her angle just enough off so that she couldn’t land squarely on a pad and she was starting to get frustrated.
Another buzz. Damn, the girl was just unstoppable. Tetsuko looked at the clock and saw that she had about ten seconds more. She grit her teeth and rolled for another platform, watching Ursula’s approach. Just before Ursula could hit her, Tetsuko reached through the bars of the cage, tearing open the wire-mesh holding her in, and grabbed Ursula’s orb. With a sharp tug and flex of her forearms, she hurled Ursula into Rockslide’s ball, effectively stopping both of them. At the same time, the momentum of the swing spun her like a top and Tetsuko began to feel a little dizzy as the crowd seemed to flash by in a whirling phantasmagoria of light and color and sound. The scoring buzzer sounded almost simultaneously with the time buzzer. As her orb slowed, Tetsuko finally managed to look again at the scoreboard.
In two minutes she had scored once; Sylph had scored three times. She grunted in disgust and waited for the referee to come unlock the cages. The next event will be different, she vowed to herself.
*****
The next event was different- Sylph eyed the hanging rings with a degree of trepidation. Rings hung suspended from the ceiling by thick chains and the competitors were supposed to swing from the starting platform to the finishing platform all the while avoiding the Vindicators who would attempt to grapple them and ultimately pull them from their tenuous purchase into the deep water below. Sylph wasn’t particularly worried about the physical challenge of supporting herself on the rings-she could hold her weight up with one arm all day long, she knew, and so could Tetsuko-but she was short and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to reach over to the next ring.
The whistle sounded and she watched as Tetsuko swung gracefully from ring to ring, powerfully switching her position with speed and agility that left Flair hanging bemusedly behind her, trying to change directions so that she could catch up with the girl. It was over almost before it began and Tetsuko waved to the wildly cheering audience.
Sylph held her ring and her breath and waited for the whistle. As soon as it went off, she launched herself into the air. She was pleased to discover that, with only a little stretch, she could in fact reach the next ring. Angling herself towards the finishing platform, Sylph swung hard and grabbed the next ring. Her opponent, the powerfully built Whippet, seemed to flit between the rings in an aerial display that Sylph purely envied.
Before she knew it, the taller girl had wrapped her legs around Sylph as she hung suspended between two rings. Sylph grinned and shrugged her massive shoulders as Whippet released her grip on her own ring so that she could put all of her weight onto Sylph. Sylph laughed. The girl’s weight wouldn’t even slow her down.
She released her grip on the back ring and let their weight carry them both towards the finishing platform.
{sh-cr-r-r-k!}
“Oh, sh-!”
{Splash!}
At the nadir of her swing, still pulling forward, the bolt holding the chain from which Sylph and Whippet were both swinging tore free of the ceiling and both women plummeted twenty feet into the deep pool. Whippet through herself away from Sylph as they fell, and broke the surface an instant later, grinning and holding up her hands in a victory salute.
After a moment, Tetsuko realized that Sylph hadn’t yet resurfaced and went to the edge of the pool to see Sylph running- running- along the bottom of the pool, her eyes tightly closed against the stinging chlorine of the pool. As she hit the wall, she squatted and jumped, but couldn’t quite get the momentum to escape the water. Tetsuko reached down without even considering and grabbed Sylph’s arm. Holding onto a pole at the side of the pool, her grip dimpling the steel, Tetsuko gave a hard jerk and literally flung Sylph onto the deck.
Sylph coughed and sputtered for a moment before opening her eyes. “Thanks,” she managed in a still slightly panicked voice, “I think you won that one…”
*****
The next event was the Pugil, one of the events Tetsuko had chosen. Slade smiled thinly at the idea. No doubt she had believed that her martial arts skill would give her the advantage here. Unfortunately for her, Sylph had pretty extensive martial training as well through her father, and the aiki that she practiced was likely to be of more use than Tetsuko’s karate, if anything was likely to make a difference.
Actually, the contest had little to do with form, generally, and much more to do with the ability to project your mass against your opponent. Since Sylph had nearly five times Tetsuko’s weight, he expected the art student to win this event easily.
“Mr. Slade,” a voice interrupted his reverie and he turned to see a rather severe young lady, her dark hair pulled back tightly and oiled down so that it gave her face the impression of some sort of deadly, predatory bird. When she had his full attention, she handed him a thick folder. He glanced at the contents, then back at the woman.
“Very good, Miss Lim. Were there any difficulties?”
“None, sir. You can proceed in good faith.”
“Excellent.”
Looking back at the television he saw that Sylph had easily won the Pugil event, having launched her opponent off his platform with a single stroke. Sylph now had a clear advantage going into the Eliminator Gauntlet- nearly a twenty second lead, in fact. He wondered if the next few events would change that.
*****
GunRun was an event that Tetsuko had figured would give her the edge. Five weapons had been arranged at various stations on a gymnasium floor. First Tetsuko and, now, Sylph had to run from station to station, grabbing each weapon in turn and attempting to hit a bull’s-eye before the Vindicator at the end of the course, Rapture, managed to nail her with a tennis ball fired from a pneumatic air gun.
Tetsuko grinned happily. She had scored the full ten points on the GunRun, blasting the bull’s-eye from the second station with the slingshot. Sylph was just getting ready for her run, but Tetsuko didn’t rate her chances as very high. Although she hadn’t chosen this event, she was happy to have it- Sylph’s enormous bulk would make an easy target for the Vindicator on the podium. She didn’t think Sylph could even completely hide behind any of the stations.
The buzzer went, starting the countdown and Sylph sprinted to the first station. Tetsuko was shocked at the acceleration the girl achieved, getting to the first station while the first ball was still in the air and yanking the nerf crossbow into position. She pulled the trigger, but the bolt flew wide as she jerked out of the way of another incoming tennis ball, then charged from behind her cover to the next station.
The Vindicator couldn’t target her fast enough while she ran, couldn’t even lead her by enough to make a difference, so he settled for pelting at her behind the barrier. Sylph grabbed the slingshot and hauled bank on the thong. As it turned out, she yanked back a little too hard and both titanium forks twisted and bent in just before the industrial strength rubber cup ripped in two. Staring at the twisted wreckage in her hands, Sylph only barely managed to dodge the next shot with a twist of her hips that just about halved the target area she offered. Tossing the slingshot aside in disgust, she rocketed off to the next station.
At the next station, Sylph grabbed the weapon and looked at it, trying to puzzle out how to make it work. Holding the tubelike device in one hand, she examined it until she saw the button on the side. One end was closed off, but the ammunition was saboted. Quickly dropping the nerf rocket into the tube, she raised the device to her shoulder, batting the attached bipod out of her way, and depressed the button. With a massive, juddering ‘whump,’ the missile soared away, completely missing both Vindicator and target as the recoil jerked the end up and to the side. Growling in frustration, Sylph jogged to the next station, easily dodging two balls the Vindicator sent at her in desperation.
The next weapon was a mock assault rifle. The intention was that the competitor hold it with both hands and aim with the scope. Unfortunately for Sylph, it was clearly designed for someone with more natural proportions, as Sylph couldn’t achieve the correct grip no matter how she attempted to contort her self. Instead, she held the rifle in one hand and fired from her hip as she dashed to the last station.
Finally, she thought, something she was actually good at. The final stage was simply three soft rubber balls- one shaped like a small football, another like a tennis ball, and the last one like a basketball. Grabbing the tennis ball, she hauled back, and let fly, but had to twist to dodge the incoming tennis ball at the last instant, throwing her aim off so that she threw high and the ball fell somewhere in the audience. Without pausing, she grabbed the basketball and lofted it lightly at the target, but the Vindicator actually managed to shoot the ball in the air. Amazingly, the tennis ball was fired with enough force to deflect the larger ball. Sylph stared in amazement while the Vindicator readjusted his aim. In frustration, Sylph grabbed the last ball and prepared to hurl it at the target just as her opponent, grinning wildly at her distraction, pegged her in the center of the chest.
“Ow!” she yelled. That stung! Growling, she spiked the football into the arena floor so hard that it burst and stalked off the stage rubbing her chest.
.
*****
Miss Lim nodded at her monitor. Very good. It was a shame they hadn’t managed to stick Tetsuko as well, but the one girl would do nicely for their purposes. The competitors were taking a brief rest, now, and the Vindicators were in the back being prepped for their next events. Now they would test the effects of their new program- both the one for the Vindicators and the one Mr. Slade was advocating for use on his rival.
She glanced at her watch, then pressed a button on her phone and waited for the person on the other end of the signal to pick up. “We’re ready, Professor,” she said without preamble, “begin phase two.”
Shutting off her phone, she looked back at the monitors. She hoped this worked. She really did. Maybe then Mr. Slade would pay more attention to her…
*****
Sylph and Tetsuko stood on the platform as the technicians fastened the steel harnesses to their abdomens. These machines had been refitted, they were informed, the mechanical ripcords replaced with electromagnetic pull-switches that would cause their harnesses to release them from the overhead track and drop them into the deep water underneath them. Sylph shuddered at the idea. She had fallen in the water once already and the feeling of being submerged panicked her. She realized she was already hyperventilating as Tetsuko looked over at her.
“Relax, Sylph. You fall in and I’ll pull you out, I promise- just get to a side, okay?”
Sylph snorted. “Sure,” she said with more confidence than she felt, “but I’m not falling in this time.”
Tetsuko beamed at her. “That’s the spirit! Let’s put on a show, huh?”
Sylph nodded as the whistle blew and the huge winch wrenched them up into place. Grabbing hold of the hand-pedals, Sylph began pumping her arms as quickly as she could. Not fast enough- not nearly, she thought. The relatively narrow handles were incredibly awkward for her and Tetsuko shot ahead easily as her more normally proportioned shoulders allowed her long arms to achieve a more natural and effective grip.
Sylph shook her head in frustration. This was not an event she would ever have chosen- it was stacked heavily against her. She kept going, though, determined at least to finish the course. Looking back through her legs as she turned the crank she thought she could just about see one of the Vindicators rapidly closing the distance between them. Her own chest largely obscured her view and she grunted as she redoubled her efforts, but she was fairly certain that Harpy really wanted to get to her after the embarrassment she had delivered to the Vindicators in the first event…
Looking at the other side, she saw Flair rocketing by her, her lips pulled back in a rictus of concentration as she tried to close the gap with the blonde goddess who seemed to be effortlessly floating towards the finish. Tetsuko was pulling away from Flair and would finish seconds ahead of Sylph easily.
Sylph felt a sharp tug at the small of her back and felt her eyes widen and she gripped the handles with sufficient force to warp the stainless steel grips.
“Swimming time, chum,” Harpy hissed malevolently and Sylph felt the harness release, leaving her dangling by the now bent and ruined handles. Harpy looked distinctly nonplussed as Sylph pulled herself up to the actual track and quickly pulled herself hand-over-hand to the finishing platform.
“Crap,” she spat as she stepped onto the platform with Tetsuko’s assistance, “guess that one’s yours, then.”
Tetsuko nodded. “Gives me a little lead, but not much- and the next event is one you chose, isn’t it?”
Sylph nodded. “The WarRunner. I think I’ve got the advantage on that one.”
The blonde grimaced. “We’ll see,” she said tightly.
*****
Glacier hunkered down behind his padded barrier. The new formula that Dr. Sato had given them during the break was already making him feel a little strange, almost like he was on fire. He felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead and suppressed a convulsive shudder down his oversized frame. He looked down the eighty-foot track, past his fellow Vindicators, Ursula, Toro, and Valkyrie, and examined the young woman stretching at the starting line.
As big as the ladies on his team were, these competitors were even bigger. The blonde in front of him was as tall as he was and even more densely muscled. He had faced her during Pugil and, while he had slowed her considerably, she had eventually managed to snake her Q-tip under his arm and literally hoisted all two hundred and sixty pounds of him into to the air and five feet off of his platform. He’d barely managed to go limp before hitting the water and just avoided having more than the wind knocked out of him by that hit…
Get your head in the game, he thought to himself. She might be bigger and stronger, but he and his teammates had numbers and teamwork on their side. He dropped into his crouch as the buzzer sounded and the timer started.
Ursula charged in and met the competitor as they had practiced, but allowed herself to be driven back until she was parallel with Toro. Dropping her weight, she lifted under the blonde woman’s hips and was shocked as she was almost absently shrugged off until Toro slammed into her as well. Just like that, her momentum was stopped dead and the look in her green eyes was one of pure shock. Rolling around to the side, Tetsuko ducked under Toro and with a negligent shrug tossed the fifteen stone prop forward fully over her head so that he landed flat on his back behind her with his breath rushing out of him in a violent explosion.
Valkyrie managed to slam her shield into the blonde woman’s shoulder, staggering her as Glacier charged forward, once again catching the tall woman at waist level and lifting with all his considerable strength. He was surprised first to feel his arms go numb with the shock of the impact. Moments later he felt considerable pain as his arms seemed to bend in on themselves, the bones compressing in an unstoppable crush as his muscles drove against her immovable abdomen. Almost as quickly as the pain started, it was gone. Her considerable weight was now supported by his arms as he started to push her back up the side of the wall. It was easy- it was incredible!
Just as he got her up to the very edge of the pipe, she slammed both her feet hard into the side of the course and, once again, brought them both to a complete standstill. With a roar, she bore down on him, driving him down to his knees. She leaned into his body, bending him back on himself until he collapsed under her and she literally rolled over him and back to her feet in the middle of a now open path to the finish line.
Catching his breath, he looked down at his arms. A huge purplish bruise ran the length of his forearms but was already fading. Compression fracture? he wondered in shock, watching the bruise fade impossibly quickly. He shook his head and slowly returned to his place on the course.
*****
Sonya leapt to her feet, cheering- it had looked like Glacier would actually manage to push Tetsuko out of the event, but then Tetsuko had turned it around at the last second. While she liked Sylph, she didn’t think the huge girl had a chance of matching the athletic prowess Tetsuko had just displayed, and her heart filled with a certain primal glee. Sylph was, quite simply, too big to maneuver around the Vindicators; she’d have all four of them on her in no time and they’d pick her up and drive her out of the pipe.
Sonya glanced over to where Sylph’s friends were sitting and saw that similar thoughts had obviously occurred to them as they leaned forward in their seats, watching the drama in the arena unfolding beneath them.
*****
Sylph had watched the previous match with mixed feelings. The Vindicators had slowed Tetsuko considerably, and that was good as far as she was concerned. It was weird, though. Towards the end, Glacier had literally lifted Tetsuko off the ground and carried her bodily up a steep slope and nearly a dead run. Sylph knew he was strong, but that was just patently ridiculous. Tetsuko was nearly four hundred pounds- the size of an adult male lion.
She shook her head. It didn’t matter. He could carry a bull elephant on his back, for all she knew- it didn’t matter because he was never going to be in a position to get his legs under her. As the whistle blew, Sylph darted off the line and dropped her shoulder just as Ursula hit her. The impact was harder than she expected. Definitely beyond the capacity of a normal human, she thought. I wonder what they’ve been feeding them…
Ursula managed to swing herself over and around Sylph so that she was still holding onto the massive girl, but couldn’t manage to trap both of her monolithic legs at the same time and Sylph continued virtually unencumbered to meet Toro. As he lowered his head and charged like his namesake, Sylph reached out and casually caught the large man by his shield, easily hoisting him bodily up over her head. She didn’t even slow down as Valkyrie moved in, instead flicking Toro at the incoming amazon. The impact was sufficient to knock both of them off their feet and Sylph continued on with only Glacier still standing between her and the goal.
Glacier had played football, but Sylph was like the Fridge travelling under full steam. She plowed into his barrier and twisted her hips savagely bouncing him off the wall of the half-pipe so hard that he actually bounced nearly back to her, staggering and only barely managing to keep his feet as she passed him with a girlish grin. Ducking low, she sprinted through to the end of the course nearly seven seconds ahead of Tetsuko’s time.
*****
Slade chuckled. The formula appeared to be working- different than the one that he and Tetsuko had, but effective even so. Dr. Sato reported that the Vindicators all seemed to be displaying both increased strength and aggression and, as a side bonus, apparently also a capacity to rapidly regenerate damaged tissue as evidenced from the multiple injuries that Glacier had sustained in his foolish attempts to stop both Tetsuko and Sylph in The WarRunner event.
He glanced down at the gate figures he’d been given. This show had turned out to be a surprisingly good draw. If his Vindicators could manage to injure either girl he was fairly sure that he could draw an enormous profit off DVD sales. He turned to Miss Lim and gave the order, than went back to watching his television.
*****
Bulk turned to the camera and flashed his roguish smile directly at it. “Welcome back after the break, ladies and gentlemen. As we prepare the arena for the final event, let’s take a look at the show so far-“
“And what a show it’s been,” Jacki chimed in on cue. “Underdog Sylph Young took an early lead over odds-on favorite Tetsuko during a decisive game of TitanOrb during which it seemed that the taller woman just couldn’t maneuver around Vindicators Rockslide and Ursula. Tetsuko just barely avoided a shutout in this event through the highly unorthodox maneuver of actually throwing one opponent’s orb into another, thus clearing the way for this, her only score in the match.
“The next event- the Iron Jungle- was a decisive win for the taller Tetsuko, but not enough to fully offset Sylph’s devastating domination in the Pugil, where the younger girl managed to pick up a full seventeen seconds, giving her a massive advantage of fourteen seconds going into the GunRun.
“Tetsuko once again demonstrated what a finely tuned instrument her body really is by scoring against Rapture at the second station, while Sylph managed to successfully complete four stations before Rapture’s deadly accuracy finally put her down- ouch, folks, let’s see that again!
“After assault, Sylph still had a decent lead- eight seconds advantage over her rival- but the tables finally turned during the Skyline, when Tetsuko successfully raced to the finishing platform a full ten seconds ahead of Sylph. Although Harpy successfully disengaged Sylph’s harness, judges ruled that Sylph’s finish could be considered legal because she did not, in fact, fall in the water at any time.
“With a two second lead going into the WarRunner, Tetsuko pulled out all the stops in one of the most powerful and acrobatic displays we’ve seen on this program to date, finishing in eleven point seven seconds despite a powerful and coordinated attack by Vindicators Glacier, Ursula, Toro and Valkyrie. All that hardly mattered, though as Sylph plowed directly through the course like the unstoppable juggernaut she’s seemed to be, finishing in a record-breaking four point eight seconds.”
Bulk nodded as the camera refocused on him. “So Sylph goes into the final event, the Elimination Gauntlet, with a four point nine second advantage. We want to take a moment to point out to our watchers at home something that our studio audience has already noticed- this event has been significantly reworked from its previous incarnations. As before, competitors start by racing up the conveyor belts. At the top, however, we’ve eliminated the zip lines and, instead, have an incline balance beam that the competitors have to negotiate to get to the cargo net. From the top of the cargo net, competitors fling themselves onto the flexible poles over our own version of the Laurentian Abyss- competitors that fall in have to race through the water to reach the slowly descending ladder and scale up the sides to get back in the game. From there it’s a short sprint to the next obstacle- a four-foot deep mud pit with Vindicators Valkyrie and Flair waiting for anybody to slip on the waxed planks spanning the gap- and given that Rapture and Rockslide are poised overhead to help tip competitors into the pit, they usually don’t have to wait long. Once they break free of the pit, it’s a simple matter of sprinting down the slip-n-slide to the final barrier. Simple, that is, except for the added obstacle of having to force their way against the pressure of the water cannons being brought to bear by Ursula and Harpy.”
“Simple, he says,” Jacki smirked. “Miss Breckenridge- you were favored by bookies going into this match, but it seems as if you’ve only managed to break even. Could you speculate how that happened?”
Tetsuko shook her head. “Honestly? Sylph’s proven to be a better athlete than I expected- I expected her to be strong; I didn’t really expect her to be fast or smart, and that made a huge difference.”
“How do you hope to counter her advantage in the upcoming event?”
“Well, the Elimination lets her start with an advantage, but the first few obstacles are really more my forte than hers- they depend more on speed and agility than mass and power, and I think I have a clear advantage there. If I can overtake her, I’m confident that I can maintain my advantage even through the more strength-related challenges.”
“Well, there you have it, folks- Tetsuko is behind, but far from out. Good luck, Tetsuko Breckenridge- we’re looking forward to seeing you in action again.”
“Thanks, Jacki- I can’t wait.”
*****
Ralf craned his neck, trying to see around the large, sweaty man in front of him. Wade sat next to him, but his view was significantly less obscured by the troglodytic woman in front of him. Kali sat on his other side, although saying that she sat was, perhaps, an over-exaggeration as she seemed to spend more time standing up and cheering than she did warming her chair.
The whistle blew and Ralf saw Sylph bolt off the starting line to the conveyer belt. Her momentum carried her three quarters of the way up before the belt started to slow her, but she still made it up to the top just as the whistle went off for Tetsuko. The taller girl bounded up the ramp like a gazelle, her considerable weight barely touching down twice from the bottom of the belt to the top.
Sylph was still in the lead as she made her way across the balance beam- they must’ve been wider than he had thought, because Sylph was managing to stay upright as she climbed up, however precariously. Just before reaching the net, Sylph slipped and flailed to grab the net before falling all the way down. Tetsuko had no such difficulty and landed on the net a full body length above Sylph.
Capitalizing on her lead, Tetsuko wasted no time scrambling to the platform and throwing herself at the flexible pole. Surprisingly, the pole bent but did not flex quite far enough to get Tetsuko over the dry platform. As she clung to her pole, Sylph finally attained the platform and hurled herself against her own pole. Her considerably more substantial weight easily bent the pole until her feet touched down on the platform.
Twisting, Tetsuko managed to launch her body into the air as if she were throwing herself from a pole vault, landing just behind Sylph as the bigger girl set foot on the plank. Sylph was nearly halfway across the mudhole when the inevitable occurred and Tetsuko smiled grimly as the plank snapped under Sylph’s prodigious weight, depositing both Sylph and the substantially surprised Rapture in the pit. Sylph lost no time getting to her feet and starting for the other wall, but both Rapture and Ursula were on her before she could make any real progress.
Ralf was getting into the show when Wade nudged his arm and pointed at the large-screen monitors above the arena. The monitors were showing a close-up view of Rockslide’s face as Tetsuko approached him. His eyes were red. And glowing.
*****
Tetsuko looked up from where she was balanced just as Rockslide lunged for her. She dropped her weight and raised her guard, planning to redirect him off the plank, but the slippery surface of the warm wax provided no traction and she tumbled off the other side as Rockslide twisted and fell between Sylph and her opponents. Rockslide was on his feet again even faster than Tetsuko and he dove for her, grabbing her wrists and pressing against her hands in a classic Greco-Roman test of strength and leverage, trying to force her to her knees by dint of his superior positioning.
Tetsuko couldn’t find her footing in the slippery mud and was shocked when Rockslide actually managed to drive her head completely under the surface of the warm goo. She managed a slight gasp just as she went under, then felt the pressure on her arms increase as she was forced deeper into the pit. Something grabbed her ankles and she felt her body inverted, her head still submerged. She was beginning to feel desperate, now, as her inadequate air supply quickly exhausted itself as she struggled against her tormentors.
She tried lashing out, hoping to catch Rockslide or whoever it was that was holding her legs, but their grips remained firm and she wasn’t able to buck them. Bright spots appeared in front of her eyes and her mouth opened in involuntary reflex, warm mud filling her mouth. She felt a tremendous, silent BOOM, like an explosion in space, and the hands holding her arms released. Her body, weak from exhaustion, tried to curl up towards the surface, but she had already lost her sense of direction and she couldn’t be sure where she was.
Strong fingers wrapped themselves in her hair and, with a painful jerk, yanked her head free of the mud with an audible POP! She gasped, the warm, slightly sulfurous air instantly filling her lungs with blessed oxygen and struggled to get the mud out of her eyes. Coming into blurry focus, Tetsuko saw Sylph’s arm suspending her head above the roiling surface even as Flair and Rapture tried futilely to topple the giant girl. Rapture was actually drooling slightly, and Ursula’s bloodshot eyes appeared feral as she scrabbled to acquire a handhold on Sylph. Sprawled against the far wall, Tetsuko saw Rockslide, one side of his face swollen as if it had been hit by a wrecking ball.
“Are you okay?” Sylph asked, anxiety etched on her pretty face.
Tetsuko spat mud. “Fine,” she sputtered. “What happened to him?” she jerked her thumb at the supine form of Rockslide.
“I, uh, I hit him,” Sylph admitted, cheeks reddening. “He was holding you under and… and, well, it’s like they just lost it.” She was still holding Tetsuko up with one arm, completely ignoring the savage Vindicators draped over her body.
Tetsuko nodded, feeling the mud slowly oozing down her back. “Yeah- something’s definitely weird. Come on- let’s finish this.”
Sylph nodded and waited until Tetsuko managed to shake off Valkyrie’s grip on her feet before letting go herself. The competitors looked at each other, than back at the Vindicators. Tetsuko grinned and cracked her knuckles in a display of pure, wicked dominance that, even in their adrenaline-fueled insanity the Vindicators could not fail to recognize.
“Come on!” Sylph urged, nodding towards the ladders set in the wall of the pit.
“Go ahead,” Tetsuko growled, “I’ll catch up.”
With her feet firmly planted on the ground, Tetsuko felt supremely powerful and she swiftly moved to catch both Flair and Valkyrie in her powerful arms. Sylph shook her head and waded to the ladder, pulling herself up out of the pit hand-over-hand. Tetsuko slammed the two women together with tooth-rattling force, crushing their chests so that the air whooshed out of them, leaving them bruised and dazed. Without slowing, she hurled both women through the air to land just beyond the mud on the floor of the arena.
Turning, she saw Sylph reaching the top of the pit just as Rapture lunged out of the mud and grabbed onto the collar of her uniform. As tough as the uniforms were, designed to withstand the prodigious growth either woman could achieve in full flex, they still couldn’t hold up against the punishment Rapture was now inflicting. With a loud r-r-r-rip, the entire back yanked free, the stitching in the sides of the one-piece unitard giving way, leaving Sylph stripped to her homemade bra and panties as Rapture tumbled over backwards back into the mud.
Tetsuko leapt, her powerful quads propelling her fully out of the mud to land fully on the unbalanced Rapture and drive him hard into the mud. As he struggled to gain purchase, Tetsuko reached down and grabbed him around the waist, wrenching his gut hard enough to make him retch as he struggled to get a breath. Almost as an afterthought, Tetsuko tossed the large man backwards over head hard enough that he landed flat on his back on the far side of the pit, his eyes open and staring as he gasped and wheezed. She refocused on Sylph as the girl made her way toward the finishing line and, ultimately, victory.
Tetsuko giggled at the nearly nude amazon sprinting just ahead of her towards the finish as she pulled herself free of the pit. Obviously, Sylph had forgotten about the-
{Spssssh!}
-water cannons. The blast was powerful, like being caught in the torrent directed from an open hydrant, and it managed to slow Sylph’s progress to a crawl as she twisted and tried to escape the relentless pressure.
Gaining her feet, Tetsuko jogged up, keeping an eye on Ursula as she tracked her with her own cannon. Jinking first to the left, then to the right, she barely managed to see as Sylph finally managed to roll out of the direct line of fire of Harpy’s cannon, the jet of water still pouring out with enough force to catch the cup of her bra and blast it from her body.
Sylph gasped in shock and brought her hands up in a vastly inadequate attempt to maintain her modesty as she lowered her head and charged through the finishing paper a hair’s breadth ahead of Tetsuko.
*****
“Unbelievable!” Ralf crowed. “She did it! She won!”
He turned to Wade’s seat to pull up his companion only to discover the seat was empty. Turning back to the stage, he saw Wade fighting his way through the crowds to meet his friend at the finish line.
How did he know? Ralf wondered.
As Wade reached the finish line, he handed her an enormous sweatshirt which the girl accepted gratefully. Tetsuko strode up behind them a moment later and Sylph turned around to grab the taller woman in a crushing bearhug.
“Whoa, Sylph,” Tetsuko laughed as the girl swung her around, “We aren’t quite done yet.”
“Huh?” Sylph asked, looking baffled.
“Slade,” Sonya growled coming up behind them, as if that one name explained everything. Sylph still looked confused. “He tried to sabotage the event- that’s why those Vindicators were acting so strangely…”
Indeed, contrary to the usual custom, the Vindicators had all been hustled out of the arena immediately after Sylph had crashed through the paper at the end of the event. While Bulk and Jacki were even now approaching the competitors for comments, the Vindicators were nowhere to be seen.
“What do we do now?” Sylph asked, slightly alarmed.
“Put on a nice face, girl,” Tetsuko whispered fiercely, “you won!”
“I’ll try and find out where Slade’s gone- meet me as soon as you two can tear free of the crowds,” Sonya added, ducking back into the audience.
*****
Ralf drove Sylph, Tetsuko, Sonya, Wade and Khalida up to the same warehouse that FOY had purchased to use as a heavy duty gymnasium for the girls. He brought the van in close to the front doors and hopped out.
“Be extra cautious,” Sonya warned them, “Slade’s certain to know we’re coming for him by now, and he’ll have had time to get ready.”
Sylph nodded soberly. “After seeing what he did to the show, I don’t wanna know what he’d do when he wasn’t trying to be subtle.”
“It’s like a comic book,” Ralf joked nervously, “To Hell with subtle. Let’s get ‘im!”
Tetsuko stepped in front, clearly marking her place in front of the group, raising a small protest from Sylph. “Uh-uh, Sylph,” she answered quietly. “I know Slade already and, no offence, but I’m pretty sure I’m tougher than you. I can take a bullet- can you?”
Sylph subsided uneasily, but made certain to position her body so that the rest of her friends were well sheltered behind her broad shoulders.
Tetsuko flashed an edged grin at Sylph. “It’s kind of late…”
“Think we should come back?” Sylph teased.
“Nah- let’s just knock…”
Tetsuko braced herself and slammed her hands into the top of the door with a thunderous boom. The door tore free of its hinges and collapsed in a shower of loose splinters as the shockwave broke the panels, the steel core, and the reinforced frame.
“Well, whaddaya know?” Tetsuko blinked in mock surprise, “I guess they want us to come in.”
As they entered the huge building, they interrupted a slim young woman as she snapped shut a leather briefcase. She turned and smiled thinly at Tetsuko. “Ah, good evening. I am Mr. Slade’s personal assistant, Miss Lim. I should warn you, Miss Breckenridge, that you are trespassing on private property. Mr. Slade has given orders that you and your friends should be detained- and my employees stand ready to do just that.”
“That’s funny,” Tetsuko grated, looking around the vast space and noting the Vindicators filing in through the back doors, “but Sylph and I kicked your employees’ collective asses earlier when we weren’t fighting together- what makes you think you’ve got a chance now?”
Miss Lim held up a small plastic box in her left hand and pressed a button, the smile never leaving her face. “Our Vindicators have been somewhat… enhanced… since you last faced them.”
*****
As fast as Sonya had seen these girls move, it was still breathtaking to observe when they- and the Vindicators- truly shifted into high gear. She barely had time to register the presence of the Vindicators on her right before the tall, red-haired woman- Flair?- exploded into motion. The others were barely an instant behind them, crossing the space to surround them before Sonya, the boys, or Kalida had time to react. Flair reached out and grabbed Sonya’s arm as Glacier’s hands flashed out in quick jabs at Tetsuko’s abdomen.
The grip was tight and painful and Sonya couldn’t help but gasp at the sudden pain. Wade stepped up behind her and smashed his fist into the side of the girl’s head. She seemed not even to notice as she started dragging Dr. Gannon across the floor away from the rest of the group. Tetsuko had staggered slightly when Glacier pounded her, but recovered her balance easily and swiped the mountainous ex-linebacker with a wicked backhand that lifted and spun him fully ten feet through the air before he crashed to earth. To Sonya’s shock and horror, he seemed to practically spring back to his feet, barely slowed by the tremendous impact.
She heard a roar and a pair of impacts and realized that Sylph had actually snatched Ursula and Rapture fully out of the air in one hand each. As Sonya watched, Sylph drew her arms back and hurled both Vindicators away with bone-crushing force, smashing them through a pec-deck and the huge naval engine that powered it on their ballistic trajectory to the far wall. They both impacted that wall fully eight feet in the air and dropped to their feet in a dazed crouch, shaking their heads but not yet ready to give up. Sylph roared again and Sonya thought it sounded more the primal bellow of an angry animal than a sound that ought to be produced in any human throat.
“Sylph?” she called in confusion, but the girl seemed not to hear her. Ralf darted around Toro and barely avoided a swipe by Harpy’s long-nailed hands. He sprinted to the armwrestling station and grabbed the chunk of table that Tetsuko and Sylph had broken off previously- apparently no one had bothered to clean the room since that night- struggling, he hefted the thick piece of ceramic.
“Tetsuko- catch!” he hollered, heaving the chunk underhand, followed immediately by, “Ow! Sharp!” as the razor-like edge sliced his fingers as the object left his hands. Tetsuko fielded the chunk with her left hand and, without pausing, spun and slashed Flair across the face. The impact coupled with the sharp edge snapped the woman’s head back and broke her grip and Sonya staggered back against the wall. Flair looked up, a river of blood pouring out over her right eye, and growled.
There was a momentary pause as the combatants seemed to take stock of each other.
“The formula that we used to enhance the Vindicators,” Miss Lim’s voice cut across the sudden stillness, “Miss Young is also operating under its effects. It’s very good, don’t you think? It’s a derivative of the formula you used on Mr. Slade, in fact- Dr. Sato was never quite able to exactly replicate it, but he did well, considering.”
Sylph roared again and started stalking towards Miss Lim. “I’d put a leash on her, if I were you,” she caroled. “While the formula greatly increases all of your physical abilities, we also noticed some rather unfortunate side effects in laboratory animals.”
Flair started howling- a sound that was both high-pitched and oddly throaty, almost a keening that hurt the ears.
“It tends to greatly increase aggression,” Miss Lim continued easily, “but, worse,” she nodded at the still moaning Flair as the woman clutched at her chest and began gasping, “it also places an inordinate amount of strain on the vascular system and the more stress placed on the metabolism, the faster we see signs of failure. Tragically, without the antidote, Miss Young will probably die within hours- possibly minutes- as she will succumb to a heart attack or an aneurism.”
Sylph paused in her advance, her chest rising and falling violently. “What…do you…want?” she growled.
Miss Lim raised her eyebrows. “I’m impressed- I had thought you too overwhelmed by your adrenaline to remain coherent.” Sylph growled low in her throat. “It’s really quite simple, Miss Young. Mr. Slade has a certain score to settle with Dr. Gannon and Miss Breckenridge. Help us to bring them under control and I will administer the antidote to you personally. Further, you and your friends will be let go with our thanks.”
Miss Lim cocked her head to the side to await Sylph’s answer. Looking around, Sonya saw that all of the Vindicators had regained their feet and were slowly closing the circle around them again. Even Flair, pale and still bleeding profusely, was on her feet and moving.
Sylph spat on the floor and her saliva seemed to smoke as it impacted wetly with the floor. “Get stuffed,” she snarled angrily.
“Tet-chan, Sylph,” Sonya called, “you have to knock them out- otherwise this fight will kill them!”
Tetsuko, watching the advancing Vindicators, nodded her understanding. Sylph seemed not to hear as she advanced on Miss Lim, the set of her shoulders violent and bloodthirsty. Lim grabbed her briefcase and, with barely a flicker of a smile, grabbed her briefcase and darted through the metal door behind her.
Furious, Sylph pounded on the steel door, digging her fingers into it and tearing at it and the wall.
“The bag!” Sonya shouted, making the connection, “We need to get Lim’s briefcase, Tetsuko!”
Valkyrie and Harpy had closed with her and were circling her, smashing into her with powerful kicks and punches which appeared to be taking a toll even on her. Toro set himself and lowered his shoulder as he prepared to charge the muscular blonde. “That’s nice, sensei, but I’m a little busy at the moment,” she gritted between impacts.
“Keep ‘em busy,” Khalida called as she squared off with Rockslide.
“Kali- no!” Wade shouted as Rockslide lunged for the smaller girl. Kali leapt high in the air and planted her hands on the athlete’s head, shoving off with all her weight and launching herself into an aerial somersault just past their line. Rockslide couldn’t reverse and his momentum carried him fully into Wade, lifting the star basketball player into the air and throwing him like a rag doll across the room to lie still.
“Wade!” Sylph shrieked, grabbing Glacier from behind. The muscles in her forearm tensed as she lifted the man by his head, but before she could do more damage, Flair grabbed a loaded weight bar (twenty tons, Sonya realized numbly) and swung it at Sylph like a baseball bat. The momentum of the swing and the impact at the end blasted all three combatants apart and twisted the bar slightly, but Sylph landed on both her feet and one arm and her head snapped around to seek another opponent, her eyes a burning red and spittle flecking from her lips.
Khalida reached the door at the same time as Ralf and the pale young man gave her a boost through the hole Sylph had torn. “Go get her!” he called as she brushed a hand against his cheek in thanks.
*****
Out in the corridor, Miss Lim paused a moment to compose herself. She thanked her foresight in having the entire building constructed of titanium-reinforced concrete- it was strong enough to withstand anything short of a direct hit by a bomb. Not that it was so strong that she felt entirely secure in any case- Sylph had literally torn apart the wall and the door behind her like tissue paper- but the Vindicators, fully in the grips of Sato’s performance enhancer, had distracted her.
As she caught her breath, one Sylph’s friends- the Mediterranean, Khalida- tumbled through the opening in the wall. Miss Lim snarled a curse and grabbed her bag, preparing to flee down the hall when the girl spotted her and charged after her.
If she could just make it to Mr. Slade, she’d be in the clear. Khalida was a bit bigger than her, taller and undoubtedly stronger, but Miss Lim still figured she had the advantage if she was forced to fight.
She felt a hand snag her jacket and her feet went out from under her. Khalida lost no time in trying to straddle the prone woman. “Give me that,” she yelled, grabbing for Miss Lim’s briefcase.
Miss Lim smiled.
*****
The blood seemed to sing in Sylph’s ears, all of her senses incredibly acute. She saw Rockslide moving as if through tar as he turned from where Wade had dropped and focused on Sonya. Her vision went red and she let the beast in her roar as she dove at the Vindicator.
Powerful hands grabbed her feet and she dropped in a tangle of limbs as Rapture and Ursula seemed to materialize from out of nowhere. She lashed out without any technique, clipping Rapture on the side of the head. She felt something give under her fist and he dropped like his strings had been cut. She howled her triumph as she turned on the smaller woman.
Her hand whooshed out and grabbed her opponent by the throat, crushing the cartilaginous rings of her throat in her grip so the woman gagged. Ursula panicked and tried prying off Sylph’s arm with both hands, but couldn’t gain purchase in the harder-than-steel muscle that supported her.
Sylph was starting to lose focus; everything was distracting her, now. She glanced around the room and saw Tetsuko still holding her own against three Vindicators. Sonya, nearby, was being menaced by Rockslide and Sylph had an instant flash of hatred for the man who had hurt her man. She prepared to stalk over to him, ready to crush him to paste.
“Sylph!” Ralf cried from the far wall. She turned and saw Flair bearing down on him, her red hair darkened and streaked by the blood coursing from her open wound. Sylph had a moment of confusion- Ralf worked for a Bad Man, a part of her mind seemed to protest, but another part felt-
“Sylph!” he cried again as Flair’s knuckles brushed against his chest, slamming him into the wall. He slumped down, barely supporting himself and Flair padded closer, hands flexing like a specter of grim death. Sylph growled her frustration and threw Ursula overhand at the woman so that they both crashed into the wall hard enough to leave a dent.
Her lips peeled back in a grimace of fury, Sylph turned towards the fallen women and began to charge in their direction when black spots seemed to pop in front of her eyes.
*****
Tetsuko finally managed to get her arms under Toro’s mass and she jacked the large man hard under his ribs, feeling them collapse and separate from his sternum as the force from her blow lifted him fifteen feet in the air. Before he had time to collapse, she spun and drove a fist into Harpy’s face, pancaking the woman’s nose almost flat against her skull.
“Sensei,” she yelled, “they won’t go down! It’s like they don’t feel pain!”
Sonya was busily trying to avoid Rockslide. “Too much adrenaline,” Sonya gasped. “Tet-chan, you’ve got to restrain them before they do themselves permanent harm.”
Over in the middle of the room, Sylph stumbled as she ran towards Ralf and the prone Vindicators surrounding him. Tetsuko saw Glacier getting slowly to his feet, his head purpling from the crushing grip Sylph had exerted on him.
Tetsuko grabbed Harpy’s blindly flailing arms and swung her in a short arc into both Valkyrie and Rockslide, knocking the former off balance and folding her makeshift weapon around Rockslide as she continued her swing by lifting and hurling the two combatants through the air and into the bench she and Sylph had used earlier. The impact rocked the heavy structure and the bar actually rolled out of its holders with an earthshaking crash.
*****
“If you want it so bad,” Miss Lim smiled, “take it!” She shoved the bag hard into Khalida’s face and Kali fell backwards to avoid having her nose broken. Miss Lim bucked her hips and flipped Kali onto her side, then sprawled on top of her.
She drew back her perfectly manicured fingers and slashed across Kali’s face leaving three ragged cuts where her fingers bit deeply enough to cut the skin. “You’ve never had any formal training, have you?” Lim went on, conversationally, “whereas I was trained by the finest sensei’s my father’s fortune could procure.” Kali gasped and twisted, lifting both her weight and Miss Lim’s not inconsiderable mass on one arm as she flailed with her other hand.
Lim was impressed- Kali was much stronger than she looked- but she blocked the wild attack easily and was about to punch Kali in the face when she realized that Kali hadn’t actually been trying to hit her at all. Kali had snagged her ponytail and used it to wrench around Miss Lim’s head as she yanked her arm back.
Miss Lim cried in alarm as she released her grip on her bag, bringing her arms up to protect her vulnerable face, but Khalida was ready for her. Khalida slammed her knee into the smaller woman’s groin.
“Twelve years of field hockey, bitch,” Kali spat, grabbing the woman by the ears and headbutting her.
Miss Lim collapsed in a heap and Khalida reached down and grabbed the briefcase. “If any of my friends are really hurt because of you,” she growled, “I will find you and I will mess you up.”
She turned and raced back down the hallway, leaving Miss Lim to get painfully to her feet and stagger away to Slade’s waiting helicopter.
*****
Khalida tumbled through the ruined door clutching the bag in front of her. Ralf helped pull her through and got her on her feet. She hugged him quickly and glanced around the room.
Sylph bellowed and clutched at her chest as Glacier struggled to his feet and staggered after her. Valkyrie spun and delivered a powerful side kick to the small of Tetsuko’s back, launching her through the air and over Sonya’s head. Dr. Gannon ducked and dashed out of the way, trying to figure out how to get past the much taller, stronger woman.
“Ouch,” Tetsuko muttered, peeling herself off the wall and turning around. Valkyrie was already focused on Sonya, which was exactly where Tetsuko didn’t want her attention.
“Sonya,” Khalida yelled, “I’ve got the bag! Meet me by Sylph!” Valkyrie turned wildly towards the shout and Tetsuko shoved Sonya to the side.
“Hey there, Blondie,” Tetsuko sang out cheerfully as Valkyrie glanced wildly at the sudden movement. The Amazonian woman seemed to lock on as Tetsuko cocked back her fist. “Remember me?”
Valkyrie’s eyes widened momentarily until Tetsuko’s fist collided with the side of her jaw, switching her off as effectively as snuffing out a candle. Sonya scrambled to her feet and looked at Tetsuko who winced and grabbed at her lower back.
“Get going, Sensei,” Tetsuko called, “I’ll be right behind you.” Sonya nodded and ran over to Sylph and Khalida.
Glacier stood over Sylph, howling triumphantly. As Sylph tried to get to her feet, Glacier stomped hard on her back, smashing her into the floor. Sylph tried to get her hands under her, but her arms wouldn’t support her weight and she subsided with a groan.
“It’s heavy, Doc,” Khalida said handing the bag to Sonya.
Sonya snapped open the bag and quickly rifled through it. “Papers, pens, lipstick… it’s like the purse for the Wicked Witch of the West,” she muttered, still searching. “Ah- here we are- ampoules, labeled for our convenience.”
Glacier roared again, then seemed to notice the girls near his feet. Lips peeled back, he bent over and hoisted Sylph’s twitching body up over his head, preparing to slam her down on top of the smaller women. Tetsuko sprang through the air and took Glacier over in a flying tackle that knocked them both down with Sylph on top of them. The blonde shrugged the huge woman off and turned to Glacier only to receive an elbow to her temple. She rolled off, blinking away tears as Sylph seized on the floor, her fingers tearing furrows in the padded floor beneath her.
“He keeps getting stronger,” Tetsuko gasped.
“Not for much longer,” Sonya muttered in reply. She quickly scanned through the syringes until she found the right one. She tossed the syringe to Khalida. “You’ve got to get this into a muscle,” she shouted.
Khalida boggled at her. “Really not a problem,” she said, jogging up to her friend. Another massive tremor rocked Sylph’s body and the resultant shockwave bounced Khalida into the air. She lost her grip on the syringe and it sailed in an almost perfect arc for Glacier’s massive chest, but he batted it aside with one hand. He was flailing blindly, now, and Sonya saw that his eyes had turned an even darker red as tiny blood vessels in his eyes began to fail.
“We’ve got to hurry, Tet-chan, or they won’t make it,” Sonya cried as she scrambled across the floor looking for the fallen needle. Glacier snagged Tetsuko by her shirt and flung her around in a circle, releasing her like an oddly shaped giant Frisbee. Tetsuko slammed into the wall and crashed to the ground.
“No problem,” she groaned, getting back to her feet. “Where’s that antidote?”
“I’ve got it!” Khalida shouted. “Tetsuko- catch!”
Tetsuko grabbed the needle out of the air as she stomped back over to Glacier and the fallen Sylph. Glacier was clutching his head and staggering around, so Tetsuko simply ducked him and slammed the needle home. Sylph shuddered again and Tetsuko jerked the needle free.
Glacier stumbled into Tetsuko, and reached out clumsily with both hands and Tetsuko pounded him in the gut with two quick, hard jabs. As he staggered back, she came up with a blindingly fast uppercut that lifted him off his feet and deposited him on his back. “Sensei- how long until that stuff works?”
Sylph gasped, then coughed. “Ow,” she moaned quietly.
Sonya shrugged. “About that long?”
Sylph slowly pulled herself to her feet. “Thanks,” she said weakly. “What now?”
Khalida spat. “I think we can safely assume Slade and Miss Lim have gotten away clean,” she said disgustedly. “How’s Wade?”
“Good, steady pulse,” Ralf reported. “I think he’ll be fine. What about them?” he asked, indicating the various fallen Vindicators.
*****
“There was only enough antidote for one dose,” Sonya explained, “but I was able to synthesize more once we got them to the hospital. The D.A. says that they can’t be held accountable for their actions under the influence of the serum- which is a good thing, because if also means Sylph’s in the clear- but we have nothing on Slade or Miss Lim.”
The friends were all standing in the lounge just outside the terminals to McCarron International. A television was playing highlights of the weekend news on the scrolling bar at the bottom while an announcer called out flights over the loudspeakers.
“Ralf- you did us a good turn back there,” Wade said, shaking the young man’s hand, “I’m sorry it turned out so badly for you.”
“Ah, it was only a job,” Ralf laughed it off. “Maybe my application to one of your American universities will be accepted, right? Then I don’t have to move back in with my folks…”
“Good luck,” Tetsuko said, shaking him by the hand.
Sylph hugged him. “Really. And give me a call if you ever find yourself in New York, okay?”
Ralf nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat just as Khalida walked up and kissed him on the cheek.
“Well, you guys be good, too, okay? And no wild monkey sex parties unless you send me an invite and a paid ticket three weeks in advance!”
Tetsuko laughed. “Go on, Ralf- have a good flight. We’ll be sure to write.”
She turned to Sylph. “I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you when we met. I know how hard it can be to look like we do, and I should never have let my suspicions get the better of me the way I did.”
Sylph smiled shyly. “Don’t worry about it- I gave as good as I got. I’m just glad we got it straightened out when we did.”
“Yeah,” Tetsuko agreed, then added, “Hey- we should do this again, sometime!”
Wade raised an eyebrow and Sylph chuckled. “Sounds great,’ she said wryly, “but maybe next time we can do it without the blood, broken bones, and near-death experiences, right?”
Sonya laughed. “Maybe next time you can visit us in Florida and we can have a more relaxing vacation, hm?”
The announcer called Ralf’s flight. He turned to the terminal gates, than turned back. See you around, guys,” he called. He turned, waved, and walked off.