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Capes and Cuisines: Regirth (NEW CHAPTER ADDED 1/17/2022)


Cyril Figgis

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7 hours ago, ulvrik said:

Awesome!! You really did a good job with this one ❤️
 

I’m little sad that we didn’t get to know what happened to Allison Catt 😁, but that’s life

Thank you!  Unfortunately, there just wasn't any room for Allison this time around, but rest assured, she will return next time we check in with Queen Cuisine.

3 hours ago, ditto said:

Probably my favorite so far; each has been better than the last.

Thank you so much!  I'm always looking to improve and entertain with each new chapter, and hopefully that continues.

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1 hour ago, Batman76 said:

The trough was a great touch, as was the jelly fish descent into pathetic hick.

Thanks.  I wanted Camilla to dish out poetic justice against her former accomplices, and I couldn't think of a better fate for Jellyfish.  Once the richest woman in Arcane City, now waiting tables for the same people she lorded over.

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((Okay, so it's not Wednesday, but in this day and age, New Comics Day ain't what it used to be.  Regardless of what day it is, Yours Truly is keeping his promise to bring you all the superhero and supervillain fattening you can take!  This time, we're taking a look at a rather wondrous, sensational heroine known as the Miracle.  I think you're going to like her, because who doesn't love seeing a muscular, Amazonian woman's figure go to **?  Sit back, put your feet up, and enjoy!))

THE MIRACLE, PART 1

Eons ago, in an age where myth and history were one and the same, lived a girl named Uathach on the Isle of Skye.  She was the daughter of Scathach, ruler of the realm and a fearsome foe that had earned the title of ‘Shadow Maid’, and the two lived in the foreboding fortress known as Dun Scaith, forever cloaked in shadows.  Despite her mother’s reputation and terrific strength, Uathach had bones like glass and skin like paper, and spent much of her days in the safety of the fortress.  All that would change the day that Cu Chulainn arrived at their doors.

Cu Chulainn was a wandering warrior who came to Scathach to learn all that he might in the ways of combat, but while he studied, he fell for Uathach and she for him.  Sadly, their love was fleeting, for when Cu Chulainn took her hand in a moment of passion, he accidentally broke her fingers.  For the wanderlust-filled fighter, it was an unfortunate mistake; for the fragile princess, it was a revelation.  When she realized that she was too weak to enjoy the finer things in life, like the touch of a lover and the thrill of travel, Uathach swore that she would change.  She would become a woman to rival her mother, even Cu Chulainn himself!

Thus, the Daughter of Shadows trained with all of her might, pushing herself past her limits each and every day and working until she was broken and bleeding, only to get back up again the next day.  In time, and with help from her mother, fellow warriors, and benevolent deities, Uathach became stronger, faster, and deadlier than even the fearsome Scathach.  This was proven when mother and daughter grappled for three days and three nights, and on the fourth morning, Scathach finally yielded to Uathach.  After besting her mother, Uathach was given her mother’s blessing to venture out into the world beyond the shadows of Dun Scaith, where she might live her life to its fullest.

 Uathach was taken with all there was to see in the lands outside her fortress home, but it was not long before she came into conflict with her aunt Aife, the Witch Queen.  The wicked woman had broken a treaty with Scathach and led attack after attack on the realm in an effort to draw her sister into battle once again.  Emboldened by her new strength, Uathach stood in her mother’s place and chased her aunt across the Isle of Skye until she finally reached the edge of the island.  When the two went flying over a bluff and into the waters below, they found themselves in a whole other world—the Modern World, right at the start of the New Age of Heroes.

Since that fateful day, Uathach had become a champion known across the world for her strength, combat ability, and unending courage in the face of evil.  Though she was able to find her way home again, she made a life for herself in the Modern World and found companionship among other heroes in the collective Justice United.  She took a position as an instructor at a women’s college in Edinburgh, where she became beloved by the faculty, staff, and students, but she also attracted the forces of darkness—usually dispatched by the Witch Queen.  Beautiful as Cliodhna, wise as Brigid, with the speed of Cissonius and the strength of Lugh, Uathach has become known as the wonderous Miracle!

***

“Honestly, Emma, you don’t think this is a bit much?” Uathach asked the head of the college paper, Emma Taffy.  “I’m flattered, but I really don’t think I deserve that much.”

“Nonsense, Thachy-Baby,” Emma waved off her mentor’s concerns.  “If anything, I’m worried about not giving you enough praise.  Like, are people going to get just how sensational you are with just that much?  I’ll have to get with Kelsie and see about getting a little more here.”

Ever since Uathach had come to St. Margaret’s University, Emma had been by her side through thick and thin—mostly thick, given the stocky girl’s girth.  Born and raised on a farm and farmhand diet, Emma was a pintsized powerhouse who stood just under 5 feet, but what she lacked in height, she made up for with girth.  Plump all over, Uathach’s sidekick was very front-loaded, carrying much of her weight in bowling ball breasts and a thick slab of belly blubber that bounced against the top of her thighs when let loose.  Emma was no weak slob though, as her diminutive stature and sizable width belied firm muscles honed from years of farm work and brutal battles on the rugby pitch.

Of course, she had nothing on Uathach, who towered over her and most other women at the university.  The woman known as the Miracle was an imposing 6’10” and a staggering 200 pounds, all of it muscle; there was not an inch of her body that was not chiseled into athletic perfection.  Arms that tore through sleeves with the slightest movement, thighs that could crush cannonballs, abs that could shred paper—Uathach possessed all these and more.  Having such a hard physique did not hinder her womanly curves; if anything, they enhanced them and firmed them into perfection.  Despite this, Uathach always opted for clothes that downplayed her voluptuous body, which never worked for long, as she always found some way to tear the cheap material in some way or another.

“Emma, you know I don’t like to put on airs,” Uathach insisted to her partner.  “Can you please just change this to something else?”

The point of contention was a newspaper article Emma and her staff of student reporters were putting together to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Miracle’s arrival in the Modern World.  They wanted to do something to celebrate and honor their school’s resident superhero, but the ever humble Uathach did not want to be represented as such.  If they tried to play up her victories over some of her dreaded enemies, she would insist that battle was not something to be celebrated.  If they tried to play up her incredible deeds like saving a village from being flooded, she would say that she did nothing that other people could not have done better.  While it was nice to be humble, it made things extremely difficult for the news paper team, as they were coming up on a deadline and had nothing.

“Look, Uathach, I get it—you don’t want people singing your praises, but you have to give us something.  You’ve been saving our respective keisters for years now—literal years—and we want to do something to celebrate you.  What’s it going to take for you to let us print something like that?” asked Emma, who took out her frustrations on a candy bar by breaking off half in one bite.

“Well, if you really must print something, why not have it be something no one really talks about?” asked Uathach.  “Maybe a ‘day in the life’ piece?”

Emma rolled her eyes at that.  “Please…no disrespect, Thachy, but no one wants to know about what a superhero does on their downtime.  You think people want to hear about how Guardiana watches cartoons or the Wolf does pilates to cool down?”

Uathach wracked her brain for something that the girls could use for the school paper that would not leave her embarrassed and bashful, but nothing came to mind.  She appreciated that they wanted to do something for her, but unlike her physique, she was still very much the quiet girl who stayed in her room and read books all day.  Being heaped with praise and spoken of in the same hushed tones as other fabled heroes made her fidget and blush even to this day, and she was not getting any better at it.

At that moment, there came a rapping at the window of the newsroom.  Both Uathach and Emma glanced over and found the source to be a sparrow pecking at the window and waving with one of its wings.  The Celtic warrior crossed over and threw the window open, allowing the bird to hop inside and wipe its brown brow.

“Sure, and it’s hot out there,” the bird huffed in a tinny old man’s voice.  He glanced to Uathach and offered a bow as it greeted her, “How do, Lady Uathach?  I bid you tidings from Dun Scaith!”

“Home?  Is everything all right with Mother?” asked Uathach.  She made sure to visit the old fortress a few times throughout the year, but that never seemed to be enough for Scathach.  For such a fearsome woman, she fretted over her daughter much more than anyone would expect; Uathach literally had to twist her arm to get her blessing to venture outside the fortress.

The sparrow nodded and answered, “Aye, the good lady Scathach is in good health, though she misses ye terribly.  No, I’m here to invite ye to the Isle Games!”

Uathach’s eyes went wide and she glanced to a nearby calendar on the wall.  With how busy she was between the school, JU duties, and performing Miracle works, she had completely forgotten that the Isle Games were a mere month away.  She ran a hand through her crimson locks and groaned, “Faith…I can’t believe I forgot all about the games!  I’ll have to ask Sister Helene for the time off, make sure someone can cover my monitor duties that week, get an extra hand out in the streets…”

“S’cuse me, but what are the Isle Games?” asked Emma, perplexed by her friend’s fretting.

“Only one of the most exciting times of year on the Isle of Skye,” Uathach answered with anxious excitement.  “We hold them once every two years, and competitors from all over the isle come to Dun Scaith to take part in challenges of strength, speed, and wit.  It lasts for three days, and at the end, there’s a festival to celebrate all who took place and our island itself.  Last time, I was unable to attend after the Kellas poisoned me, so I simply must attend this year’s!”

Emma leaned back against one of the desks and watched as Uathach ran around the newsroom like a chicken with its head cut off, picking things up and putting them down again as if it did any good.  As she mulled over the information given to her, a thought came to the portly brunette—in all the time she had known Uathach, she had never been to the woman’s ancestral home.  There was some explanation or another about how it was extremely difficult to take a mortal to the Otherworld, but that was a load of crock in her eyes.  How hard could it really be to cross the threshold from reality to a fantasy world?

Then, an idea came to her—a brilliant idea that would solve her problem and please Uathach.  She clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “I’m coming with you!”

“You’re what?” asked Uathach as she paused in her pacing.

“I’m going to come with you to the games,” Emma told her friend.  “Think about it: no one has seen what Dun Scaith actually looks like from your point of view; it’s just a bunch of ruins here in the real world.  But if you take me there, you can show me what life was like for you growing up!  We could visit your old training grounds, see what you did for fun in the fort, and chat with your mum!  Oh, it’ll be a grand adventure and a great piece for the paper!”

Uathach sighed and shook her head.  “I already told you, Emma, it’s damned near impossible to get a mortal into the Otherworld.  I don’t want to risk your life for the sake of a story.”

“So, let’s ask one of your magic friends to get us in there!” the headstrong Emma suggested.  “You know a good few people in the community that could do some mumbo-jumbo and make a portal or something.”

“’Tis true, my lady,” the sparrow chirped at the windowsill.  “If ye wish to see the Otherworld, there are ways.”

“Hush, you,” Uathach scowled at the bird, not wanting him to encourage Emma.  When she saw the glee in her friend’s eyes though, she knew there was no talking her way out of this.  She pinched the bridge of her nose and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“More than I’ve ever wanted to in my entire life,” the stout Emma answered, puffing her chest up like a robin.

“Then so be it,” Uathach decided.  She clapped a hand down on her friend’s shoulder and gave a firm squeeze.  “We’ll take this time to find a safe way into the Otherworld for you, and I’ll take you to the Isle Games.  But you must do exactly as I say, understand?”

Emma nodded so hard that her neck ached, but she did not care.  She replied excitedly, “Crystal, ma’am!”

Uathach could not help but smile at her partner’s determination.  She glanced over to the messenger bird and told him, “Then it’s settled.  Tell Mother that I will be back in time for the games, and that I shall bring a friend with me.”

“As ye wish, Lady Uathach,” the sparrow chirped before flying off into the clouds.

Emma took hold of her friend’s hand and gave it a squeeze of her own as she bounced on the balls of her feet.  “Oh, this is so exciting, Thachy!  What shall I wear to the games?  What’s the Otherworld like this time of year?  Your mum, what does she like to eat?  Should I—”

“One thing at a time, Emma,” Uathach chuckled.  “Before we talk about outfits and food, we should focus on finding a way to get you past the dimensional barrier.  Let me check with a few of my friends in the JU and see what I can do for you, okay?”

Emma zipped her lip for the moment, but there was no way she could shake the grin that split her chubby cheeks.  Uathach shared her in glee and was making her own checklist of things that she would need to bring with her when she returned home.  She could not wait to see the old homeland again, especially when everyone was gathered together for the games; it always made for a festive time to rival even the most joyous of holidays.  Maybe she would bring a batch of millionaire shortbread—her mother always seemed to enjoy that whenever she brought some.  She just hoped that she was doing well; with her penchant for fretting, there was no telling how she was handling things.

***

“Some more meat, my lady?”

“Umph…yesh, pleash,” Scathach grunted around a mouthful of crumpet at her serving maid.

The Shadow Maid was in her private chamber, feasting on a platter of ribs slathered in what her daughter had called ‘aioli’, grilled lettuce, and crumpets cooked in lamb fat.  A good meal for sure, but Scathach was working through her third such platter and had eaten two full heads of lettuce, three racks of ribs, and almost a dozen crumpets.  Such meals used to be uncommon, only reserved for when her nerves got the better of her, but they were becoming more and more frequent as the days went on.  As her daughter’s exploits grew greater in number, so did her appetite—and her waistline.

The gut that rolled onto her lap was a pale, blubbery thing that was crammed full of fine cooking and drink, unbecoming of the once mighty warrior woman.  Her aversion to confining dresses and bodies meant more comfort for her, but also that her blobby belly was allowed to grow and grow without her clothes telling her to stop.  It was only when she could not force another bite down her gullet that Scathach put her utensils down, when her stomach was so full and hot that it could be used as a space heater.

If her belly were her only problem, that would not be too bad, but her stress gains had not limited themselves there.  Scathach’s face was full, plump, and ringed by a thick collar of flab—the face of a monarch who spent more time in the dining hall than the battlefield.  Soft shoulders led to weak, pudgy arms that had lost a good deal of muscle and could no longer pick up a dirk, much less a broadsword.  Sagging atop her paunch were a pair of breasts that were as bloated as they had been when carrying her daughter, but as she crept through middle age, there was no milk to release and lighten their load.  A woodworker had to remove the arms from her chair the week prior, lest she get her thick, pendulous hips wedged between them.

Combined with grey hairs speckling her flaming locks and crows feet crinkling her face, Scathach looked far less like a dominating warrior chief and more like a matron past her prime.  Her glorious image had been the envy of many in her realm, but if only they could see her now, those jealous of her beauty would find nothing to pine for.  Not that she cared about her change in appearance—first and foremost was filling her gut and drowning her fears in butter and meat.

“Pardon, my lady, but I almost forgot,” the serving maid remarked as she placed another plate of ribs in front of Scathach, “Finlay returned from his trip, and Lady Uathach will be joining us for the games next month.”

“She will?  Splendid!” Scathach cooed, forgetting her meal for a moment.  “Oh, I hope she is well: I don’t know what possesses her to continue fighting all these horrid foes out there, nor why she doesn’t return here to live in peace.”

“’Tis not my place to say, my lady,” the maid replied, “though I do share your concerns.  Why, I heard that she nearly froze to death last week whilst fighting this foe called the Snowwoman!”

Being reminding her the perils her daughter regularly faced made Scathach’s smile sink and her eyes fill with worry.  She quickly picked up her ribs by the bone and tore off a chunk of meat in an effort to stem the tide of fear that filled her chest again.  Unnoticed by the gorging chieftain, the maid smirked and sauntered out of the room to fetch more for the Shadow Maid; she had not had her dessert yet, after all.

As she waltzed down the halls of Dun Scaith, the maid whispered, “Phase One is nearly complete—wait ‘til the others hear about Phase 2!”

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Guest ratetankmark

This was awesome, I loved the description of Scathach's rib feast and also just the amount of thought that you've clearly put into this and I'm so damn interested in seeing what Phase 2 is! I love seeing how she let herself go, too! Going from a great warrior to a greedy glutton is something that I'm really interested in and I can't wait to see where you go with this?

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1 hour ago, ratetankmark said:

This was awesome, I loved the description of Scathach's rib feast and also just the amount of thought that you've clearly put into this and I'm so damn interested in seeing what Phase 2 is! I love seeing how she let herself go, too! Going from a great warrior to a greedy glutton is something that I'm really interested in and I can't wait to see where you go with this?

Thanks so much!  It was a lot of fun to put this together, between Uathach's backstory and setting and Scathach's plight.  Time will tell what villainy is afoot, but one thing is for certain--something is rotten on the Isle of Skye.

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12 minutes ago, Batman76 said:

Celtic Wonder Woman on its own is an awesome idea, loved the mythical references, but her mom turning into a Butterball milf through stress eating is to good to be true!

Danke schon!  I wanted to do a mythology that doesn't get as much play in comics, and the Celtic mythos seemed perfect for this.

And Hippolyta is going to have a field day with Scathach at the next meeting of Mythological Moms.

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((And we're back with more of the Celtic Crusader, the Miracle!  Emma and she embark on her trip home to Dun Scaith, but all is not as it seems.  Something is rotten on the Isle of Skye, but what could it be?  One thing's for certain--it won't be good for our heroine's waistline!  Sit back and enjoy, dear readers!))

THE MIRACLE, PART 2

It took a fortnight and a trip to the Kingdom of the Dead with Professor Infinity, but Uathach managed to craft together a charm that would allow Emma Taffy access to the Dun Scaith in the Otherworld.  The charm took the form of a tiny pin no bigger than a penny, yet that little charm had the power over life and death.  When she presented it to the giddy, jiggling girl, Emma was so excited that she leapt into the air and clicked her heels together.

“Now, remember what I told you: do not take that pin off for anything, do not fiddle with it, and do not let it get damaged,” Uathach reminded her friend as she slid it into Emma’s chocolate locks.

“Yes, yes, I heard you the first time,” Emma retorted with a roll of her eyes.  “God, you sound just like me mum, Thachy.”

“If I really was your mum, I wouldn’t let you be doing this in the first place,” the heroine chided her longtime companion.  “The Otherworld isn’t just some place you go to for a fun holiday; it’s a dangerous place with beasts the likes of which you can’t possible imagine.”

Emma crossed her arms over her plump chest and scoffed, “Please—I watched you go toe to toe with the Headless Horseman last week, and some tart dressed like the Cat Sith tries to kill you no less than three times a year.”

Uathach knew that she did not have to fear quite so much for Emma as she would other girls at St. Margaret’s, but she could not deny the concern that welled up inside her.  It would be the first time she took any living person from the Modern World to Dun Scaith, and she did not want to risk losing anyone, much less the girl who had taught her so much since arriving in Edinburgh.  They had been through so many adventures together that Emma had earned herself the nickname ‘Miracle Girl’, though the bodacious brunette insisted she was a little too old for the role.  After all the time they had spent together, Uathach worried that this trip would be the one to end it all, and reminding herself that they would be safe in Dun Scaith’s walls did little to help.

“That’s as may be, but I still want you to stick close to me,” the warrior woman told Emma.  “The last thing I need is for you to wander off and get dragged down to the depths by a kelpie.”

“That only happened twice!” contested the hotheaded girl.

As the two finished packing and preparing for their trip, Uathach turned her thoughts to home and the events of the Isle Games to distract herself from her anxiety.  She always enjoyed the games as a child, especially the camaraderie that came with them, but she only really fell in love with the festivities when she was able to compete.  Part of her training had seen her compete in three different games, performing better at each until she took first prize in all trials at her final outing.  There was a small part of her that wanted to compete again, to feel the thrill of contest, but she knew that it would not be fair at this point.  As the Miracle, she had become far stronger and faster than even the mightiest on the Isle of Skye; it would not be fun to deprive the competition of a sporting chance.

“Hey, what sort of food do they make for the games?” asked Emma, shaking her mentor’s meditation.  “Is it just Ren Faire stuff?  Because I could go for a giant, Henry the Eighth-style turkey leg.”

“Oh, there is so much, my dear Emma,” Uathach chuckled.  No matter what, Emma’s thoughts always turned back to food in some way or another.  “There are succulent meats, sweet fruits and nuts, and rich desserts to simply die for.  You could watch the caber toss with a leg of mutton in one hand and a caramel apple in the other, and then move onto a minced meat pie and a piece of honeycomb as big as your hand for the maide-leisg!”

Emma wiped the drool from her lips and snickered, “Then what are we waiting for?  Let’s away!  Shall we take your invisible rocket, or will we have giant froggies waiting for us?”

“The invisible rocket—much faster and less bumpy,” Uathach answered with a smile.

The duo that made their way off campus could not have looked any different if they had tried.  Emma was wearing her finest football jersey and jeans, though both clearly needed to be sized up, given how tight they were on her.  The denim creaked and groaned around her basketball booty, and she needed to tug her jersey down time and again lest she expose some of her belly blubber.  Despite the protestations of her clothes, the portly girl scarfed down a bag of trail mix (with an unhealthy amount of chocolate mixed in) on the way to her ride.

Uathach, on the other hand, was adorned in her Miracle garb: a black cuirass with a white and gold bodice about her waist, a matching kilt, black boots that ran to her knees, a pair of emerald bracers, and a tiara with a pair of wings in the center.  Where her companion was thick and doughy, the heroine was firm and muscular, which was part of the reason why she wore her ‘costume’ (loathe as she was to call it such).  Her arms and legs were so thick with muscle that one errant twitch would shred any sleeves or leggings the redhead dared to wear, and she did not want to spend her entire trip ruining her clothes.  Thus, her powerful limbs were bared for all to see as they basked in the sun.

At last, they came to the hiding place of the invisible rocket—a gift from the god Lugh once upon a time.  It was invisible to the naked eye; only those that Uathach deemed worthy were able to view it in its full glory.  What those chosen few could see was an ovoid craft as big as a bus that tapered into points at both ends and had four fins at the base.  The cockpit was near the tip of the rocket and had a large, round window, while smaller windows adorned the sides.  It ran on solar energy, had more power than anything man could develop, and could breach the barrier between dimensions with ease.  It was science-fiction made real, and Uathach was blessed to be its owner.

After climbing aboard the mystical machine, Emma stowed their bags away while Uathach made her way up to the cockpit to get the engines going.  Starting the rocket was as easy as starting a car, but she wanted to wait until Emma was sitting down, as takeoff could be a little bumpy.  Once her plump pal was buckled in, the heroine asked, “Ready, partner?”

“Always,” Emma replied with a thumbs up.  “Punch it!”

A flip of a switch, a press of a button, and the rocket rose off the ground; another button pressed, it careened off into the sky.  The school and town of Edinburgh vanished beneath them as they disappeared into the clouds, but the strangest part was when the world turned a hazy purple for a brief moment.  Once the color faded, Emma glanced out the window and saw that while the land below was geographically familiar, everything else was new and foreign to her.  She caught brief glimpses of bizarre birds flying through the sky and thought she saw a sea serpent in the waters below, and that was only a taste of things to come.

“Woo woo, Thachy, this is something else,” Emma whistled at the landscape below.

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, Emma,” Uathach replied with a grin.

The rocket ride was over in a matter of moments—a fraction of the time it would take to get there otherwise.  When Dun Scaith came into view, Emma all but pressed her face against the glass to get a better look at the home of her hero.  The Dun Scaith she knew was little more than ruins, with just a single wall and bridge remaining, but the castle that sat out before her was like something from a fairy tale.  The fortress was large and imposing, a mass of stone and steel that was surrounded by a town easily the size of a football pitch and bustling with activity.  It certainly lived up to its name, as the dark rocks that made up its foundation gave it a gloomy atmosphere, and if Emma did not know any better, she would have thought it to be the home of the Witch Queen.

“And you grew up there?  How in the blue hell are you so chipper?” the bewildered brunette asked her companion, who guffawed in response.

“It’s a far more inviting place than it looks,” Uathach explained as she guided the rocket to the ground on the outskirts of town.  “Believe me, everyone is going to love you.”

“Right—you just jinxed it.  That’s how it always goes in these sorts of stories: the hero comes back home, talking about how cheery and happy-dappy everything is, and then they find out the entire place is hostile because all the townsfolk are replaced by pod people,” Emma explained, though she sounded no less thrilled.

Uathach chortled at her friend’s crazy theory, “I don’t think we need to worry about pod people here, Emma.  Just sit back and enjoy your holiday, okay?”

“Famous last words, kid,” Emma retorted, “famous last words.”

***

Despite her attempt at lampshading, Emma found that Uathach’s words were true; everyone they came across in town was as cordial as could be.  Part of the reason was because they were welcoming their chieftain’s daughter home, but not a single person gave the mortal girl so much as a sideways glance.  The guards at the gate welcomed her in with open arms, vendors on the street offered her this and that, and they were offered a ride up to the main part of the castle every few minutes.  Uathach politely declined each time, wanting to reacclimate herself as much as possible, and nothing did that like a walk through town.

“What did I tell you?  Everyone loves you,” the miraculous heroine told her friend.  “We’re going to have a wonderful time here, just you wait.”

“Maybe, but now I’m concerned that everyone’s been brainwashed and made to act way too nice,” Emma replied, though her tone was far more jocular than her words.

As Uathach showed her chunky companion around, she heard a sing-song voice call out to her, “Sister!”

Uathach spun around and found herself on the receiving end of a flying hug, courtesy of a tall, well fed Chinese woman.  When the woman looked to her with beaming eyes and pearly teeth, the redhead stammered, “S-Serica?  Is that really you?”

“Well, how many other sisters do you have, dummy?” asked the woman with a giggle as she let go of Uathach, allowing the visiting heroine the chance to look her over.

The Serica that she knew and had left after her last visit could have passed as her body double: same muscles, same height, and same fashion problems; all she needed to do was throw on a red wig, and from a passing glance, none would be the wiser.  The woman that stood before her, however, was much, much thicker and looked as if she had never worked out a day in her life.  She had a full belly that hung low from her waist and jiggled with the slightest movement, pumpkin breasts that were forced up and out by her bodice, and hips that could hold beer mugs.  Despite this new weight, there was no denying it was the same Serica that Uathach had known for years.

“Only one, and you’re it,” Uathach replied with a smile once her shock had passed.  She opened her ropy arms for another hug and told her, “Get in here, you.”

Emma, confuzzled, asked, “She’s your sister?  No offense, Thachy, but, um…how?”

After Serica released her, Uathach answered, “Long story short, my aunt stole my shadow when I was a child, made her flesh and bone, and trained her to be a warrior so she could take my mother—and eventually, me.”

“I met Uathach, she saved me, and before you know it, she invited me to stay here,” Serica finished the story.  She gave her sister another pillowy hug as she added, “And I’ve loved it every day since then!”

“Are you busy, Serica?” asked Uathach.  “We were on our way to the palace to see Mother.  Care to join us?  I’m dying to catch up!”

“It’d be my pleasure!  I was just getting some candies for Mother—be back in just a moment,” Serica told her sister before waddling back to a nearby stall.

Once the bubbly woman was out of earshot, Emma prodded Uathach with her elbow and whispered, “Hey, Thachy, she wasn’t that big when you saw her last, right?”

“Not by a longshot,” Uathach answered in a hushed voice.  “Barring a few cosmetic differences, she and I could have been clones; she even won our last arm wrestling contest, and that was just a few months ago!”

“Looks like we found out what’s wrong at home,” Emma grumbled.

The taller woman rolled her eyes and replied, “I hardly think that my sister putting on some weight is worth any investigation, Emma.  Maybe she’s been ill and couldn’t exercise like normal, or maybe she decided to take things easy—it happens.”

“What happens?” asked a curious Serica as she trundled back over with a satchel full of candy.

“Oh, I was just telling Emma here that there used to be a restaurant down the street that served the most amazing soup, but it closed some time ago,” Uathach covered.  “Just reminding her that things change, and that’s not always a bad thing.”

Emma shot a withering glare at her friend before grinning at Serica and adding, “Yeah, sure—nothing wrong with a little change, right?”

“You said it, missy,” Serica replied with a giggle.  She looked back at Uathach and said, “Come on, let’s take a carriage back home; it’ll be faster, and I’m sure Mother can’t wait to see you!”

“Or we could race up there like old times,” Uathach suggested.  Much to her surprise though, Serica slumped her shoulders and groaned.

“Come on, Sis—it’s so far away!  Can’t we just catch a ride?” Serica whined.

Uathach glanced down to Emma, who gave a stoic nod to the redhead.  She told her sister, “Why don’t you go on ahead, Serica?  You’re the one with food, after all.  Tell mother I’ll be right there.”

“Well, all right,” Serica hummed, bemused at not spending more time with her sister but glad to not walk, much less run the distance to the castle.  “Just don’t be too long!  You know that Mom can be such a worrywart.”

Once she had seen Serica off after she struggled to heave her bulk into a carriage, Uathach turned to her companion and told Emma, “Okay, you might be onto something.  I’ve never known Serica to turn down a contest before, much less running; she’s even faster than I am, and loves to rub it in.”

“Told ya,” Emma retorted with a shrug.  “Looks like we’ve flown right into a mystery, Thachy.”

“Maybe,” the heroine groused.  “For now, let’s just get up to the castle—I need to make sure my mother is all right.”

***

The Shadow Maid was most certainly not okay.  Her serving maid had just informed her that Uathach had been delayed after running into some trouble outside of town.  The idea that her precious daughter could be in danger and so close to home made Scathach’s nerves fray, and when she got anxious, she ate whatever she could get her hands on.  In this case, it was a lemon meringue tart with raspberry jelly as wide as a record and as thick as a bicycle tire.

“Any word, Madeline?” asked the nervous woman when her maid entered her chamber.

“Not yet, my lady, but Lady Serica has returned from town,” Madeline answered.  “Might I suggest taking a bath, Lady Scathach?  Perhaps that might calm you down.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t,” Scathach whimpered around a mouthful of tart.  “What if my baby comes back and I’m not there to greet her?  She might be worried that something’s happened, and then she’ll run out and try to find me, and then she might get hurt, and—”

Madeline sighed, walked up to the Shadow Maid, and turned her around.  The confused Scathach stared into Madeline’s eyes, which crackled with blue energy, and she felt herself grow drowsy—something she felt quite often these days.

“Go take a bath, you pathetic cow,” Madeline commanded Scathach.  “I will bring you food, and you will eat every last bite.  If you understand, then hop to it.”

Scathach nodded dumbly and waddled out of her bedchamber, leaving her devious maid alone for a moment.  The young woman ran a hand through her black hair and grumbled, “Bloody hell, I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up, Your Grace.”

“It is only for another few weeks, my dear Mesmera,” a sinister voice hissed in her ear.  “We will continue to weaken this land’s mightiest warriors, and then Dun Scaith shall be mine!”

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((Time for a brand new installment of Uathach's hefty homecoming, boys and girls!  What sort of sorcery has befallen Dun Scaith?  What can our miraculous heroine do to combat it?  I won't give anything away, but I'll give you a hint--it involves a lot of eating and a lot of weight being gained.  Stick around and find out!))

THE MIRACLE, PART 3

By the time Uathach and Emma had reached the castle at the heart of Dun Scaith, they had not found anything else outside the ordinary, save for the training grounds being empty and larger than normal quantities of food going to the palace.  The Daughter of Shadows tried to assure herself that it was just for the Isle Games and the athletes were resting, but she could not shake this nagging feeling that something was wrong.  The feeling only got worse when she entered the castle proper, and grew and grew until she had a splitting headache and had to steady herself against the wall.

“Thachy, you okay?  You look like you’re in a bad way,” Emma remarked as she moved to keep her friend stable.

“Something is very, very wrong in here, Emma,” Uathach explained through gritted teeth.  “I can feel something pushing in my head and giving me the mother of all migraines.  Someone or something here is trying to take control of my mind!”

Emma’s eyes went wide as jawbreakers and she whispered, “Sweet onion chutney, it’s a trap.  I knew it!  But why can’t I feel anything?  Not to say I’m emptyheaded, but I’m normally the first to get zapped when something like this happens.”

Uathach wracked her brain for possibilities, but the pain of fighting the attempted mental hijacking made it impossible to think straight.  Ever since her first encounter with the devious Professor Plasma, she had searched for ways to combat mind control in all its forms, and the closest she had come to was fusing a rose quartz gem into her tiara.  It was not a perfect cure though, as someone with enough strength could break through the mental barrier, and anything less gave Uathach an intense headache.  If the pain she was feeling was any indication, someone mighty powerful was mucking about in Dun Scaith and doing Dagda knows what to her people.

Fighting through the pain, Uathach told her portly pal, “Emma, I’m not sure what’s keeping you safe, but we can use that to our advantage.  Whatever’s going on here, we need to get to the bottom of it, but we can’t do it together.  I’m going to go along with this mental pull and see just what’s happened to my people, and I need you to search the castle and see what you can find.”

“You can count on me, Thachy baby,” Emma told her bosom friend.  “I’ll catch up with you at the end of the day and swap information, just like in the movies!”

“Atta girl,” Uathach replied with the best smile she could manage. 

Mustering all the willpower she had, the warrior woman pushed back the pain by opening the mental floodgates and allow whatever was out there to do its work.  Instantly, she could feel soothing emotions fill her body and mind, as if she were resting in a bubbly, warm hot tub.  If this feeling was being radiated throughout the palace, Uathach feared for what might have happened to her sister, mother, and all who resided in its walls.

At that moment, Scathach’s serving girl rounded the corner and smiled at the two new arrivals, and something about her seemed terribly familiar to the heroines.  She was taller than Emma, though not by much, and had hazel brown skin, black hair tied back into a hefty bun, and a lean physique emphasized by her tight dress.  Most striking of all were her piercing blue eyes, which Uathach swore had sparks flying in them.

“Lady Uathach!  So good to finally meet you,” the maid greeted the heroine.

“The pleasure is mine,” Uathach replied with a bow of her head.  “You are new to Dun Scaith?”

The maid answered, “Indeed: I came here from the badlands not two months ago, and Lady Scathach was gracious enough to take me in.  I am Madeline, and it is my greatest wish to see you as comfortable as can be!”

“And my moniker’s Emma, thank ya kindly,” the boisterous brunette added with a cheeky grin.

There was the slightest hint of disdain on Madeline’s face when she glanced to Emma—a faint curl of the lip—but it was noticeable enough for Uathach.  She could not shake the feeling of recognition that the maid was giving off, but she could not place her no matter how much she tried.  The problem was that she had far too many foes to keep track of, between her personal rogues gallery to the menaces she encountered with Justice United.  Then again, she might always be someone new, as there was always another menace crawling out of the woodwork to battle against all that was good.

“Is my mother available?” asked Uathach.  “I’d very much like to see her.”

Madeline shook her head and curtly replied, “Forgive me, but the lady is currently bathing.  I will let her know that you have arrived though, and when she is ready, I will bring you to her.  Perhaps you would like something to eat while you wait?”

Emma answered for the two of them by clapping her hands together.  “Ooh, yes!  I’ve been dying to sample some of Dun Scaith’s cooking!”

“Then follow me to the dining hall, if you’d be so kind,” Madeline told the duo, her lips curling ever so before turning away and waltzing down the cavernous hallway.

As Uathach and Emma were led to the dining hall, they picked up on the sounds of forks hitting plates, mugs hitting tables, and chewing from a few particularly loud eaters.  Madeline looked over her shoulder and explained, “The competitors for the Isle Games just got through training and are having their lunch.  Apologies, but you know how athletes can be—terrible table manners, you know.”

“Speak for yourself, love,” Emma huffed.  A glutton she might have been, but she still had some grace when it came to common etiquette.

On entering the dining hall, Uathach discovered there was an even greater problem that loud, boorish diners.  Everywhere she looked were fat, rotund butterballs, man and woman alike; not a single one looked fit for anything besides pie eating contests.  The men had balloon bellies that jutted out from the torsos like an expectant mother’s baby bump and flabby arms that lifted forkfuls of meat to greedy lips, while the women had flabby as full as a cow’s udder and broad backsides that spilled over the back and sides of their chairs.  Their clothes were quite literally popping at the seams, as evidenced by torn threads at their sides and various buttons scattered on the floor and tables.  If these were Dun Scaith’s finest athletes, then something was frightfully wrong in the Fortress of Shadows.

“Man alive, what is this?” a bewildered Uathach asked Madeline.  “You say these are the competitors for this year’s games?  Some of them look like they couldn’t pick up a branch, much less a caber—how are they supposed to compete like this?”

“I could not say, my lady,” the maid answered with a shrug.  “Perhaps they are ‘bulking up’, I believe the phrase is?”

“Not bloody likely,” Emma remarked with disgust when a particularly slobby man belched after quaffing a flagon of mead.  “The only mass they’re cultivating is blubber, and that don’t win games.”

Madeline seemed indifferent to the remarks of the two visitors as she replied, “Perhaps you might ask them over a plate?  You must be famished from your trip here, after all.”

Uathach was ready to reply in the negative, but she felt that familiar tug in her head pulling her in the other direction.  It was a desire to feast, to gorge herself on good home cooking until she could not fit another bite down her throat.  This must have been why the athletes of Dun Scaith had eaten themselves into elephantine proportions; while they normally had a powerful appetite, there was no way they would willingly feed until they were more blubber than muscle.  The puzzle pieces were starting to come together, but the miraculous heroine still had no idea what was going on.  To that end, she would have to do something she was going to regret—join in.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Emma replied to Madeline.  “Seeing this, I’ve kind of lost my app—”

Her remark was cut off by Uathach gently prodding her in the side and talking over her.  “We would love to.  I do hope there’s still room for us?”

“Of course,” Madeline hummed, her blue eyes flickering with delight.  She gestured to the head table, where Serica was plowing through beef stew served in what looked like a salad bowl.  “You may join Lady Serica, and I shall have the servers bring you a plate.”

“Thank you, Madeline,” Uathach told the maid as she walked over to the table.  Seeing Serica so enraptured with her meal explained a lot about her state in the market square, and it only made Uathach more determined than ever to stop whatever was going on.

Emma, however, was nonplussed about being dragged into the affair and sulked along behind her companion like a petulant child.  “Really, Thachy?  I mean, I like a good glut as much as the next girl, but all this is turning my stomach something fierce.  I’m pretty sure I just saw a woman pick a piece of shepherd’s pie from her cleavage and eat it!”

“Right, and that’s why you’re not going to eat,” Uathach explained to her friend.  “It’s this mind control that’s making people eat themselves enormous!  And since you’re not affected, it’ll make your job that much easier.”

Putting two and two together, Emma clapped her fist into her hand and replied, “Gotcha!  So, while you’re eating, I’m going to snoop around and see what’s going on.  Brilliant!”

Uathach nodded and patted her friend on the shoulder.  “Good luck, Emma, and may the Morrigan protect you.”

“Same for you, Thachy baby,” Emma retorted with a thumbs up before speedily walking away and disappearing amongst the serving maids and diners.  The rugby player was not normally one for stealth operations, but desperate times called for desperate measures and Emma was ready and willing to help when duty called.

Once she had lost sight of Emma, Uathach returned her attention to her sister, who tipped her massive bowl to her lips and chugged a good half-gallon of broth.  Stew trickled down her thick double chin and into her cavernous bosom, but Serica paid it no mind as she drank until the bowl was empty.  The shadowy woman slammed the bowl back down and lapped up the remnants of broth around her lips before noticing her sister beside her.

“Uathach, you made it!” Serica gleefully exclaimed.  “Sorry I started without you, but I’ve been training all day and I was simply famished.”

That was a bold-faced lie, as Uathach had bumped into Serica while she was shopping not an hour prior, but she had to believe it was the mind control talking.  The warrior woman sat down beside her sister and hummed, “Think nothing of it, Sister; I know how training can work up the old appetite.  Shall I join you for the next course?”

“I would love that!  I think they’re bringing out some rumbledethumps next,” Serica gleefully remarked as if she had not just finished a tureen’s worth of beef stew.

Sure enough, a server approached the sisters with a large platter piled with food: a portion of rumblethumps as thick as a brick, four hearty haddock fillets, and six crumpets cooked in lamb fat.  All this was placed in front of Uathach, and just as she was about to divvy up the portions with Serica, another server arrived with a similar amount.  Serica squealed with delight, took a large forkful of the smoked haddock, and greedily shoveled it in her mouth with reckless abandon.  It might have disgusted Uathach, but the heroine was distracted by just how delicious everything smelled.  Part of her desperately wanted to dig in, but she remembered that she had a job to do, regardless of how much she was hankering for home cooking.

“Serica, have you noticed anything unusual around here lately?” asked Uathach as she pushed her fish around on the plate.  “Something has felt off ever since I got here.”

Her sister rolled her eyes and swallowed her large mouthful before replying, “Sister, you’ve been fighting for so long, you see threats everywhere you go.  This is Dun Scaith: it’s one of the safest places in the whole Otherworld; between me, Mother, and our guard, no one would dare try to invade.  Now, eat before your fish gets cold!”

Uathach let out an exasperated sigh and refrained from asking any other questions, as her sister was clearly in no mood to answer.  Her attention returned to the family-sized meal in front of her, and the longer she stared at it, the more it seemed to beckon her.  There had to be something going on with the food to make everyone so wildly fat, which meant she would need to exercise extreme caution while she was eating.  Though her mind wavered, the warrior woman knew in her heart of hearts that she had the strength to resist any temptation, no matter how insidious.

And then she took her first bite.  Instantly, her taste buds sang as a wave of flavors washed over them, from the cheesy potatoes to the smoky fish to the buttery crumpets.  Uathach could not help the hum that escaped her lips, and she tore into the dishes with all the voracity of a ravenous wolf.  She matched her butterball sister bite for bite, forkful for forkful, as she cleaned each of her plates with such speed that even her quickest teammates would be hard-pressed to match.  The rational part of her mind took a backseat to the impulsive, gluttonous desire that was being beamed directly into her brain, and it was steering her like a madman.

“By the Dagda, I had forgotten how good the cooking here was,” Uathach grunted around a mouthful of crumpet.  “I could eat like this all day long!”

“You’re telling me,” Serica chuckled. “I thought the chefs were good before, but ever since we got this new girl, every meal has been better than the last!”

Despite having a clue practically spoon-fed to her, Uathach ignored it completely in favor of eating as much as she could.  A small portion of her mind tried to scream out for control and moderation, but it was drowned out by her pleasure centers demanding more and more of the delicious delicacies.  She might have had a reprieve to think and come down from this food-induced high, but as soon as she cleaned one plate, another took its place.  Fried veggies were replaced with grilled meat, which were replaced with seafood stew, which was replaced with millionaire’s shortbread, and the warrior woman barely stopped to breathe, much less think.

Her only hope was that Emma would come up with something that would clue her into what was going on, lest she wind up as big as her sister, who had just split a seam in her bodice…

***

Emma, for her part, was doing everything she could to remain as inconspicuous as possible, which did not come naturally to the pint-sized powerhouse.  It was practically second-nature for her to hog the spotlight and be the loudest voice in the room, so being stealthy did not come naturally to her.  If that was what the Miracle needed though, then that was what she would do, even if she could go for something sweet to perk her up.

In time, she worked her way up to the higher reaches of the palace, and it was while creeping down an empty hall that she heard voices on the other side of a thick, oaken door.  Emma knelt down and looked through the keyhole to see what was going on, and when she did, her skin went pale as snow.  Standing in the room were five of the Miracle’s deadliest foes: Ogress, a demented doctor who could grow to the size of a skyscraper; the Cat Sith, a model who wore the pelt of her name sake and was blessed with its powers; Queen Danu, an aquamancer with a god complex; Lady Jinn, a dancer whose soul was bound to a demon; and none other than the Witch Queen herself at the heart of it all.

“When shall we make our move, Queen Aife?” asked Ogress as she leaned against a wall.  “I grow bored with all this waiting.”

“Patience, good doctor.  We shall strike when the time is right,” the Witch Queen answered with a devious grin.  “When Dun Scaith’s finest are nothing but fattened hogs, then shall we attack!”

“So long as you save the Miracle for me, I won’t complain,” Cat Sith purred.  “I have been trying to bring her to her knees for years, and now, I’ll finally have the chance.”

Aife nodded to her feline accomplice and told her, “You shall get all you desire and more, my dear.  I promised you all that Vile Corp. would tear down all that the Miracle holds dear, and I always keep my promises!”

A shiver of fear ran down Emma’s spine.  If these villainesses had invaded Dun Scaith, then Uathach was in deep trouble.  She needed to get her friend to safety, but just as she turned to retreat, she was stopped by the maid, Madeline, who glared at her with eyes crackling like a thunderstorm.

“Looks like someone’s in big trouble,” the disguised criminal hummed wickedly.  “Let Mesmera show you just what we do to rats around here…”

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  • 2 weeks later...

THE MIRACLE, PART 4

Emma Taffy had never been particularly good at hide and seek as a kid.  If she was not picking the most obvious places to hide, she was making too much noise by shuffling around or snickering about how clever she thought she was.  This lack of stealth followed her throughout her whole life, which made things rather difficult when she became the Miracle’s sidekick.  She always seemed to be caught by the villains while snooping around, but at least she always had her musclebound friend to get her out of a sticky wicket.  At least, that was the case on a normal day, which this was very decidedly not.

Glowering down at her was the hypnotic villain known as Mesmera, who was posing as a common maid.  Emma might have recognized her sooner, but the witchy woman was a master of disguise and, if she was honest, Emma was not always the quickest to catch on.  The most she could do was put up her dukes and defend herself from whatever the mentalist might try.

“Don’t know what you’re doing here, Mezzy, but you’re not taking me alive,” Emma spat as she danced about on her feet like a professional boxer.  “I’ll give you a shiner to match the one I gave you last time we tussled!”

Mesmera scowled down at the co-ed and rubbed under the eye Emma had blackened during her last caper.  With a serpentine voice, she hissed, “Oh, I remember quite well, you little trollop, but you’re not getting another shot at my beautiful visage.  Unlike last time, I have back-up.”

The deathly diva looked up at the door, cupped a hand around her mouth and called out, “Oh, Ogress!  We have a little pest problem out here!”

Before Emma could make a move, two arms the size of tree trunks burst through the oaken door, grabbed her at the waist, and yanked her into the room.  The blow from the door stunned the chubby co-ed for a moment, and when she recovered, she found herself in the grip of the gorgeous giantess, the Ogress.

“’Little pest’ is right,” the size-changing woman scoffed.  She blew a lock of green hair from her face and asked, “What’re you doing here, Taffy?  This ain’t no candy convention.”

“I could be asking you the same thing, you big brute,” Emma retorted, crossing her arms defiantly in the face of the ten-foot titan.  “You’re no team player.”

“Depends on the price,” Ogress retorted.

They could have gone back and forth forever, but the Witch Queen banged her scepter on the ground and silenced the pair.  The dusky woman told the Ogress, “Bring the fat thing to me, Ogress: she is an accomplice of my niece, and I would have words with her.”

The giantess shrugged and delivered the plump woman right to her employer before quietly standing off to the side.  Emma looked up at Queen Aife with dread, for she knew all too well the power that the nefarious woman held.  On a normal day, she could tear a city apart before lunch; at her most powerful, she could tear reality apart like a sheet.  Even if she was not one of the most powerful beings in existence, her very visage was frightful to take in, as she was literally flesh and bone.  Her pale skin was pulled so tight across her body that her teeth could be seen through her lips and every single ** became pronounced.  Inky black hair cascaded all the way to her waist and became lost in her dress made from the very darkness itself.  To behold her was to behold death itself.

“So,” the Witch Queen started in a raspy voice that sent shivers down Emma’s spine, “you were trying to play the spy, were you?  I do not take kindly to trespassers, much less ones that work for my ne’er-do-ill niece.”

Somehow, Emma managed to find the nerve to speak and rebutted, “I-I-If anyone’s trespassing, it’s you!  I know all about you—you’ve been trying to take this place for years!”

“Because it is my birthright!” Aife roared in a voice that shook the walls.  She towered over Emma and seethed, “My fool of a father turned his back on me when I took to witchcraft, and he gave Dun Scaith to my halfwit sister!  I will strike at Scathach, Uathach, and anyone foolish enough to stand in my way—whatever it takes to seize the throne.”

The Witch Queen reared back and commanded Ogress, “Take her down to the dungeon; I’ll not have her interfering with my plans.”

“Why not just kill her and be done with it?” asked Cait Sith, who was curled atop a chair like a precocious feline.  “That way, you can be sure that she doesn’t get in your way at all.”

Lady Jinn shook her head and replied, “Too risky.  If the Miracle should find out we did her best friend in, who knows what she might do in return.”

“Precisely, Hell-bound One,” Aife affirmed to her soldiers. 

She snapped her bony fingers, and Ogress responded by scooping up Emma like a sack of potatoes.  All her thoughts were on how to conquer Dun Scaith—she would figure out what to do with her niece’s sidekick another time.  That said, the little butterball did present a conundrum to the Witch Queen, one that did not bode well in her black heart.

Aife glanced to Mesmera and asked, “How is it that she is the only one to be free from your hypnotic powers?  I have given you enough power to mesmerize the whole fortress!”

The enchantress shrugged and answered, “Otherworlders’ minds function differently from a human’s; I was prepared for an army of folk like yourself, but not a mortal.”

“Could you spellbind her like all the others?  The fat one has an affinity for sweets if I recall correctly,” the Witch Queen mused.

“Couldn’t risk it,” Mesmera replied with a shake of the head.  “It’s taking all of my power to keep the whole of Dun Scaith ensorcelled—if I take even a sliver of that power, it could give the Miracle the opening she needs to break free.”

Aife scowled and ground her teeth together as she told Mesmera, “Worthless cretin!  If you cannot manage this, then get Madame Hood out of the kitchen and make up something that will keep that human occupied until we have dealt with my niece.”

“As you wish,” the hypnotist grumbled.  She did not take orders lightly, but she also knew better than to pick fights with someone as powerful as the Witch Queen.  Forcing a smile back on her lips, she exited the room to deliver the order and check on Uathach’s progress.  At least she could take some comfort in knowing that her hated rival would soon be too fat and weak to stop her…

***

Uathach had no idea how long she had been eating for: every time she finished a plate, another was set in front of her in an instant, ad nauseum; because she was so absorbed in consumption, she missed the sun going down and the servants lighting the candles.  All of her attention was on each new dish that was passed to her, dulling her senses with a symphony of flavors that made her taste buds sing in bliss.  It was only when her fork gouged at an empty table that the Miracle realized that there was no food left—only her mother’s new handmaiden, who had a Cheshire grin on her face.

“My, my, that’s quite the appetite you have, Lady Uathach,” Madeline chuckled.  “Dare I say that you enjoyed a little taste of home?”

Now that Uathach had gorging herself, her brain caught up with the rest of her body and she realized how utterly exhausted she was.  Her arms felt like lead weights and hung uselessly by her side after hours of lifting food and drink to her mouth, and her stomach felt like it would explode if she had even one more bite.  A sluggish glance down revealed that her once firm abdomen had bloated out into not just a food baby, but food triplets—a gut that was rock solid to the touch and sat heavily halfway down her lap.  It was packed so full and stretched so taut that Uathach felt short of breath and struggled to find the words to respond.

When she finally managed to speak, the warrior woman gurgled, “What…what time?”

The maid giggled in reply, “A little after midnight.  You must have been quite hungry!”

“That…imposs’ble,” Uathach grunted while she slouched back in her chair, feeling too bloated and sluggish to think, much less move.

“Hardly, for a woman as wondrous as you,” Madeline told the redhead.

The sensational heroine let out a low, rumbling belch, too far gone to care about manners or etiquette.  She rolled her head to the side and noticed that Serica was no longer there, nor were any of the other eaters that filled the dining hall earlier.  Had she truly been so out of sorts that she missed her sister and dozens of men and women leaving?

“If you’re looking for the Lady Serica, she has already retired to her chambers for the night,” Madeline explained to the confuzzled Uathach.  “Shall I show you the way to yours?”

“Nuh…can’t…geddup,” the heroine burbled.  Even her eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds, and she struggled to keep them open for even a moment more.

The disguised Mesmera cackled on the inside, tickled pink to see the woman she hated most so heavy with food that even standing up was a Sisyphean task.  It would have been so easy to kill her right then and there, but such a death would be too good for the Miracle, who had bested her time and time again.  No, if the Miracle were to die, it would be after she had been thoroughly humiliated and broken—when she would beg for her torment to end.

“Not a problem!  I’ll have a couple of guards help you up to your room,” Madeline told the heroine before clapping her hands.

A moment later, two guards answered her summons, but they did not belong to the Dun Scaith army.  They were clad in dark armor forged from hellfire and coagulated sin, had skin the color and scent of charcoal, and horns that glowed red as magma.  These two were constructs of Lady Jinn, and as the forces of Dun Scaith grew weaker under the guiding hand of Vile Corps, they worked behind the scenes to keep the populace none the wiser.

“Please see Lady Uathach to her chambers,” commanded Mesmera, pointing to the beached whale of a heroine that was the Miracle.

The hellish minions grunted in reply and walked to either side of Uathach before lifting her from her seat as though she was light as a feather.  She groaned in protest, each movement sending a stabbing pain through her stomach, but she could do nothing as the guards carried her off.  Better that she focus on keeping her feast down rather than complaining about the guards’ lack of care.  It was while she was hefted along that she rested her hands on her belly and moaned in pain and frustration.

“Never again,” Uathach muttered.  With everything that was going on, she could not afford to lose herself like that again.  If only she knew how little control she truly had, then she might never have risked allowing Mesmera’s voice inside her head.

Elsewhere, the hypnotic villainess slumped against one of the tables and let out a world-weary sigh.  She despised being made to wait hand and foot on anyone, much less the family of her nemesis, but it was what needed to happen.  Besides, it was not as though she was alone in suffering such humiliations, as she was soon joined by another of her accomplices.

“I swear, I will never set foot in another kitchen after this job,” Madame Hood groaned as she walked out of the kitchen and collapsed into a chair beside Mesmera.

While not Uathach’s greatest enemy, Madame Hood was the first villain she faced when she reached the Modern World and, as such, held a distinguished place in her rogues gallery.  The woman had been a doctor who experimented on her patients, leading to dozens of deaths and hundreds of disfigurements, all in the name of science.  The Miracle put a stop to her wicked research, but the battle had left the bad doctor scarred on the left side of her face, forcing her to cover up with a prosthetic that did nothing to hide the permanent sneer in her lips.  She despised the heroine since that encounter and had struck at her time and again in the name of revenge, but this was the most personal attack yet.

“Tell me about it,” Mesmera agreed as she sat down beside the madame and patted her on the back.  “When we finish this, I’m going to apologize to everyone I ever forced to clean my penthouse.”

Madame Hood propped her head up in her hand and smirked.  “At least we can take some small comfort in knowing that those despicable demigods will pay dearly.”

“Indeed they will, old friend; indeed they will,” the hypnotist hummed.  “Your drug worked like a charm on the Miracle—the second she started eating, she was hooked.  If she keeps up this rate, she’s going to be a whale by the week’s end.”

“And all of this will have been worth it,” the devilish doctor chortled in fiendish mirth.

***

Uathach awoke the next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs, and despite how bloated she still felt from the day prior, her stomach grumbled greedily.  The heroine shifted around in her bed and spotted Madeline at her doorway, a beaming smile on her lips and a tray full to the brim in hand.  A quick glance to the platter revealed it carried a full Scottish breakfast: poached eggs, bacon, sausage, fried bread, and baked beans on one plate; both black and white pudding, tattie scones, fried tomatoes, haggis, and porridge.  It was the same sort of meal that the warrior woman might have had on a holiday, but never on a random day of the week.

“Good morning, Lady Uathach,” the maid chirped happily as she waltzed into the room.  “I hope I did not disturb you, but it is breakfast time!”

Uathach yawned and stretched her arms over her head, popping her joints in the process.  “No, no, that’s quite all right.  I should be up and about anyway; sleeping in is a dreadful habit.”

“Well, nothing a little fry-up won’t cure!  The Lady Scathach told me that you liked a full Scottish, and when they heard you were back, the chefs couldn’t wait to make this up for you,” Madeline hummed while sauntering over to Uathach.

When the tray of food was set down in her lap, the heroine bit her lip as she debated what to do.  She normally began her mornings before the sun had risen and exercised until it had just slipped past the horizon before sitting down to a modest breakfast; here, she had slept until the sun was high in the sky and a breakfast that could feed a family sat in front of her.  Uathach was tempted to send it away, but she did not want to disappoint the chefs—and it did smell absolutely delectable after all.

“Perhaps just a bit before I go for a swim,” the warrior assured herself as she scooped up her first forkful.  Just like the day before though, one bite was all it took; her eyes lit up and she shoveled in food as fast as she could.

Uathach should have asked about her sister, her mother, and especially Emma, but all thoughts besides food went out the window.  It was a mixed blessing, as being ignorant to all but what lay on her plate meant she was oblivious to the effect all this rich, greasy food was doing to her physique.  The sheer amount of tainted food, combined with powerful drugs prepared specially for the heroine, meant that fat was building up on her body far faster than it might normally.  Though she was not aware of it, still bundled up by blankets, the Miracle had thickened up considerably from her day-long feast, and each new bite only added to the damage.

Firm, hard muscles developed over years of strenuous exercise and battle had been buried under a thick layer of pudge in only a matter of hours.  When Uathach had stretched her arms over her head, she missed the slight jiggle that rippled through her puffy biceps, nor did she pick up on the double chin that touched her chest when she glanced down at her plate.  Her ample bosom had swollen even further, straining their confines as they fought for air, and they perched atop the slope of a pudgy stomach that sat on her lap like a ball of dough.  That lap itself was wider and softer, with thighs that touched halfway to her knees and saddlebags that spread out beneath the sheets.  If only she could take her mind off her breakfast, Uathach would be horrified by the damage done to her perfect body.

Yet none of that processed in the heroine’s mind.  The only thing she struggled with was satisfying a gnawing hunger in her stomach, and that meant eating every last scrap of food on her plate.  Little did she know that as she approached the end of her hearty breakfast, the disguised Mesmera had already refilled the tray and would continue to do so until she passed out.

“I’m going to make you so fat, they’ll never recognize you in the real world,” Mesmera hissed like a deadly snake.  “Soon, very soon, the Miracle will be no more!”

((As Geoff Chaucer once said, "Better late than never," and Yours Truly lives by that mantra.  I hope that you've enjoyed this look at the Miracle's world, because, full disclosure, I'm not quite happy with how this turned out.  Way too much build-up with not enough pay-off if you ask me.  Fret not though, because I have something in mind that will rectify that!  It's still a ways out, but in the meantime, tune in this Saturday for the start of the next arc--the Agents of F.E.E.D!))

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53 minutes ago, Batman76 said:

I loved this whole section and the build up was worth it in my opinion. The build up is really my favorite part and you did a great job with characterization.

Thanks! I worry sometimes that I don't focus on the fats enough, but I can't help it--I want these characters to really pop.

Not that there will be any actual popping or bursting here. No sir, not in this story.

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((And here we go, True Believers--the next chapter in the ever expanding world of Capes and Cuisines!  It was only time before we got to one of the obligatory paramilitary organizations that pops up in superhero universes, and I'm proud to introduce you to F.E.E.D.  If you're wondering what makes someone a good F.E.E.D. candidate, take a look below and find out!))

AGENTS OF F.E.E.D., PART 1

When the age of heroes and villains began, the world was not prepared for a new and rapidly changing landscape.  Battles were fought across multiple planes of existence, parallel Earths regularly interacted with each other, and doomsday devices found their way into the hands of even the lowliest pickpocket.  The first few years were a time of chaos as the world governments struggled to keep up with daily developments in this new climate, but they were finally forced to take action when dozens of major metropolises were stolen by an alien thief for auction.  Something needed to be done to combat the threats that plagued mankind: they needed something more reliable than a group of charismatic vigilantes who operated without jurisdiction or regulation.

Thus was born Foreign Enforcement and Extranormal Defense—or F.E.E.D. for short—an agency that worked under the direction of the Higher United Nations to investigate and combat extraordinary problems across the globe.  Its agents came from all walks of life, and it boasted world-renowned specialists in combat, science, engineering, and more, all with the common goal of protecting mankind.  Due to the reach and influence of the organization, several superheroes had allied with them at one point or another, with some even remaining on their payroll.  To have powerful friends around the world would have been enough for most people, but for the heads of F.E.E.D., it was not.

They could not depend on the mercurial temperament of the common superhero, for today’s ally might be tomorrow’s enemy, and then they would one cape poorer.  No, what they needed to do was make their own in-house heroes—people who would be loyal to the agency and march in lockstep with its policies.  While F.E.E.D. had countless experts in espionage and field combat, they were looking for more than just super-spies: someone strong enough to go toe to toe with Defensor, outrun the Speed Demon, or design a better mech than the Black Turtle. 

Their hero could not afford to be dimwitted jocks or egotistical prats though, as they would serve as the face of not only F.E.E.D., but also the United Nations as a whole.  Enhancing a human was simple enough, but it would do no good to make the average person off the street a super-human.  They needed to be cut from a different cloth if they wanted to compete with members of Justice United or the Protectors.  Thankfully, one such person was applying for a job in the New York branch as the H.U.N. began their search.

***

Gal Carter had been in actual battlefields and survived explosions, but sitting in front of an interview committee had her more nervous than she ever was before.  A former corporal, she had seen five tours of duty before her luck finally ran out and a piece of shrapnel damaged her right eye.  The 32-year-old had been given glowing recommendations for a position with F.E.E.D.’s logistics division, and while she was grateful for the opportunity to serve once more, she would have felt more comfortable out in the field.  Ever since she had enlisted in the Army straight out of high school, Gal had known nothing but combat; she itched for action, doctor’s orders be damned.

The source of her anxiety was her appearance—specifically, the way her clothes fit on her.  Gal was ashamed to admit that she had put on a few pounds since she was discharged, partly from listlessness and partly from being free of a rigid, controlled environment for the first time in over a decade.  As such, she had to suck in the slight pooch in her belly lest it strain the buttons on her jacket; her plump arms were already doing a good job on her sleeves.  Unfortunately, she had no such control over her plush hips, which were aching for release from her navy slacks.  It was humiliating to be in the most important interview of her career and practically bursting out of her clothes.  She said a silent prayer for a meteor to crush her if she should pop a stitch then and there.

Gal would not have been so concerned about her weight if she were a bombshell like some of the women that worked in F.E.E.D., but she did not even have that going for her.  She kept her chestnut hair trimmed to where it just touched the tips of her ears, and her caramel skin was littered with freckles, especially in the face.  Her height was a constant source of consternation for her, as being a hair over six feet tall made her feel awkward and ungainly.  She had big, rough hands, feet that only seemed to fit shoes meant for the Big Top, and a head too big for anything but custom hats.  The eyepatch and scars she sported on the right side of her face were just sprinkles on her dysmorphic cake.

That was why it was such a surprise when one of the members of the committee looked to her and told her, “Corporal Carter, we would be honored to have someone of your caliber in F.E.E.D.!”

“Th-Thank you, sir,” Gal replied, a small grin sprouting on her lips.  “You have no idea how much this means to me”

“We might say the same for you,” the bespectacled Sergeant Poole told Gal.  “Your military history speaks for itself; any agency would be proud to count you in its roster.”

The white-haired Mrs. Rothstein asked, “I feel I must ask though, what made you choose clerical work rather than something in the field?”

Gal glanced down at her hands, twitching and fiddling in her lap until she clasped them together.  She answered softly, “The doctors told me that it was for my health that I stay out of active duty, plus my eye doesn’t help much.  I just felt it would be better if I tried something quieter, more normal, you know?”

“We can appreciate that—we’ve all been there ourselves,” remarked the bulky Mr. Thorne, whose suit fit him even worse than Gal’s, “but we need to know if you’d be satisfied with something so mundane.  Do you miss being out there, getting into the thick of it, and giving it your all?”

“Honestly?  With all my heart,” the former corporal replied, head bowed solemnly.  “All I’ve ever wanted to do was fight for and protect the people that can’t protect themselves.  I want to do my part in making the world a better place, and I just don’t feel like I can do that from behind a desk.”

The members of the committee shared a knowing nod between each other before Poole asked Gal, “What if we told you that there’s a place for you in special forces that would be perfect for you?”

The question made Gal sit up ram-rod straight in her chair, which she swore caused a stich to pop in her blouse.  If the trio in front of her noticed, they said nothing, as Thorne continued, “F.E.E.D. is looking for men and women to join together as a special forces unit to combat superpowered threats that something stronger than the average agent could handle.  While you would still need to pass some tests, this could be a better place for you than logistics.  Would you like that, corporal?”

It was a question Gal never thought she would hear again.  After the explosion, she was told that she would never be able to go into the field again, but she refused to believe that.  Now, she had a chance to do what she was made to do—there was no way she could pass it up now, after coming so far.

“I would like that very, very much, Mr. Thorne,” Gal answered as tears filled her good eye.

“Then we’ll see you bright and early tomorrow,” Rothstein told Gal with a grin.  “Make sure to bring a comfortable change of clothes for your physical examination, okay?”

That put a damper on the new recruit’s spirits.  The logistics position would have required her to get a normal physical, but if they were going to test her for the special forces position, she had to imagine they would be checking her prowess.  A shiver ran down her spine as she realized that she was in the worst shape she had ever been since joining the military, and she now had to push herself after a year off.  If she wanted to be a part of that special forces team, she needed to work off the pounds that had crept onto her figure and fast.

She shook the committee members’ hands, walked out of the room, and made it to her car before she let out the dejected sigh she had been holding in all morning.  Her stomach bulged out just a smidge, but it was a smidgeon too far for her blouse, as one of the pearl buttons tore free and bounced onto the floor.  Gal glanced down at the flesh that poked free from the ruined shirt and poked it disdainfully with a sharp nail.

“You are going away if it’s the last thing I do,” the former corporal sneered.  “Starting tonight, I’m getting my body back to the shape it used to be!”

***

Unfortunately, that proved more difficult than she imagined, as she ran into problems almost right out of the gate.  When she got back to her condo, Gal immediately changed out of her painfully constricting business clothes for some workout clothes that had been gathering dust ever since she bought them.  The black training bra and leggings should have been snug, but when Gal tried to squeeze into them, they bit into supple body like wild animals.  Her leggings strained around her thighs and backside, and their wearer swore she could feel her circulation cutting off.  Likewise, the bra dug tight into her shoulders and the cups proved too small for her larger chest, which some women might have considered a silver lining, but not the image-conscious Gal.

The former corporal looked in the mirror and winced when she saw what a year of inactivity had done to her once iron-hard body.  A thick roll of belly jelly oozed over the waistband of her leggings, and the unsightly fupa that formed beneath was just insult to the injury.  Her thighs looked like sausages ready to pop from their casings, and she swore that they actually creaked around her booty, where the material was stretched to the point of opaqueness.  There were hints of pudge overflowing around her bra, specifically by her arms, and Gal shuddered when she saw the backfat forming around the straps.

“If ever there was a wake-up call,” the battle-hardened woman sighed as she sat back down on her bed, where her tights ripped up the back.  “Time for Plan B.”

Plan B, in this case, was a hockey jersey that she had gotten from an ex and a pair of sweatpants, both of which she remembered being a lot baggier once upon a time.  At least Gal could take some comfort in knowing that her running shoes still fit, even though they did have cobwebs growing on them.  Finally, after outfitting herself in the only workout clothes she had and pushing down her self-pity, Gal got around to her mission for the day—actually working out.

That was when she ran into her second snag of the day.  As soon as she started to jog down her block, she realized that something felt off: she felt sluggish, like she was running underwater, and her side ached as she took in a series of deep breaths.  Gal only managed to make it about half a mile before she had to prop herself up against a lamppost, else she would keel over.  The cramp in her side felt like someone had taken a knife to her, which almost sounded more pleasant than what she was currently dealing with.  For someone who used to do at least five times the distance on a daily basis, Gal felt like she had never gone for a jog in her life.

“God damn me,” she gasped as she wiped her arm over her brow and coming away beaded with sweat.  “How did I ever used to do this?”

Once she recovered enough to stand on her own, Gal guzzled down a quarter of her water bottle and set her sights further down the street.  She had survived in war zones and been through experiences that would kill lesser men; she could survive jogging a little further.  Thus, she pushed herself to keep going, no matter how much her body frustratingly jiggled or how her underused muscles burned.  F.E.E.D. had offered her a once in a lifetime opportunity, and she was not going to disappoint them by giving in on the first go.

***

Elsewhere, deep in the halls of F.E.E.D. Research and Development, Dr. Rick Harland walked down an empty hall with butterflies in his stomach and an incredible weight on his shoulders.  He stopped in front of a door with a sign that read “Dr. Marjorie Corrigan”—his mentor and partner, one of the most brilliant scientists on the planet.  His fingers grasped the handle, but he could not find the strength to turn it, knowing the incredible responsibility that fell on him.

“Ricky, I know you’re out there,” a deep voice huffed from the other side of the glass.  “Come on in, dear boy—don’t keep me waiting.”

Since he could not put it off any longer, Rick begrudgingly opened the door to Marjorie’s office/hospital room and stood before the woman he admired most.  Marjorie had always been rather heavyset, born with a predilection to focus more on her research than her health, but once she joined F.E.E.D., her poor eating went into overdrive.  While she created technology years ahead of its time, she allowed herself to slide further and further into obesity until it was too late to reverse course.  Not that she would have wanted to; it would have meant less time building the future.

It started when she resorted to using a scooter to get around the facility.  No one really batted an eyelid, since the halls of F.E.E.D.’s New Greenwich division were vast and sprawling; countless people moved around on golf carts and Segways.  When she started using an oxygen tank at the age of 42, people became concerned, but no one found the will to speak out.  Left unchecked, Marjorie expanded more and more each year until this, her fifteenth year with F.E.E.D. and her fifty-fourth in this world, when she could no longer get up from bed without support.

The mountain of a woman that sat (or lay—it was impossible to tell, given her sheer girth) in the modified bed was about 80% flab, 20% human.  Marjorie’s cheeks were the size of softballs, and they nearly squished her eyes shut while forcing her lips into a permanent pucker.  So much flab crowded around her neck that there was no distinction between it and her shoulders.  Her arms had grown as thick as a normal woman’s waist, but they were lumpy and splotched up and down their lengths.  Their blubber encased her elbows, and her forearms did the same for her meatball hands.  Those same hands, which had crafted miraculous machines, were so plump that she had difficulty merely closing.

Two sacks of goo that were once modest breasts had become misshapen from time and gravity, with so much fat accumulating in around her teats while there was a good arm’s length of useless, floppy skin connecting the medicine ball-sized globes to her body.  The only boost they got was from sitting atop the pile of pale, pasty flab that was her stomach, which was almost too immense for words.  It was wider than Marjorie was tall; if she were standing, the monstrous thing would graze the floor.  Sitting as she was, it piled up to the point that it almost obscured her face.  There were so many rolls to it, the brilliant scientist could have gotten a sponsorship for a tire manufacturer.  Marjorie once used it as a makeshift table for her plates; now, it could host dinner for four.

She had become so wide and globular that her hips almost touched the edges of her bed, which was no mean feat considering it was a California king.  Her backside had never been the most impressive feature on her bulbous body, but it had all but disappeared as her rump merged with her backfat to form one solid mass behind her.  The term “tree trunk thighs” gets thrown around a lot, but the columns of fat that used to support her were now actually thicker than some tree trunks.  Cankles as heavy as some ankle weights now covered her feet, which were much like her poor hands only worse since they were hardly ever used anymore.  There were countless other ways to describe her corpulence—aggressive, friendly, descriptive, etc.—but the simple fact was that Marjorie Corrigan was too fat.

And now, a lifetime of overindulgence and poor dietary decisions had led to her being hooked up to five or six machines, depending on the day, just to stay alive.  Her once obsidian skin had paled to the point of a morbidly appropriate gray, and her puffy hair had deflated like a balloon as she got weaker.  It was difficult for her to speak for very long, which was why she had resorted to a text-to-speech program within the last six months—the only one she ever truly spoke with anymore was Rick.

“Is it ready?” Marjorie murmured through the oxygen mask on her face.

“I’ve crunched the numbers a hundred times over,” Rick answered with a solemn nod.  “It’s going to work—but I still don’t like it.”

The good doctor reached one of her hands out, which her protégé took and gently squeezed.  She gave a tired grin as she told him, “Rick, we’ve been over this—there’s nothing doing at this point.  I’ve wrecked this body, and there’s nothing that can be done to fix it.  I’m not done inventing the future though, so we need to do this and we need to do it tonight.”

Rick took a deep breath to steady himself, but he could not find the strength and felt warm tears running down his cheeks.  “I’m…I’m sorry, Midge…I just can’t stop worrying.  What if something happens and we lose you and it’s all my fault and—”

Marjorie gently shushed him from behind her mask and mustered all the strength in her arm to reach up and wipe the tears from her student’s face.  She assured him, “Rick Harland, you are one of the most capable scientists I’ve ever known.  Between the two of us, nothing can escape our brilliant minds—not even immortality.  Now, take me there.”

Weakly, Rick nodded again and choked back another sob before making his way to the door to prop it open, which Marjorie soon rolled through on her motorized bed.  He led the way down the hall, as diabetes was fast claiming her eyesight, but the bedridden doctor did not need to see to know what lay ahead.  In one of the private labs lay a machine that she and Rick had been developing in secret for months—a device that would, hopefully, grant her a second lease on life…

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28 minutes ago, Batman76 said:

Wow, really super sized here and I'm dying to know where it goes....

This might be the biggest I've ever written. I based Marjorie's look on drawings from Koudelka and StudioFA, both well known for their immense muses.

And I will give out a No-Prize to anyone who recognizes who these characters are parodying.

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((Hey everyone, just wanted to provide a quick update.  I meant to have a new update ready for today, but things got away from me this week and I'm afraid it's going to be a little longer.  This means two things: one, I'm going to do another two-fer this coming Wednesday; two, I'm going to post a little preview to whet the appetite.  I hope you enjoy this little sample, and look forward to a double portion next week!)

The hall was completely silent, save for Marjorie’s wheels creaking under the burden of their half-ton load and the beeping of her life monitors.  Rick, her faithful companion ever since he first became her assistant some fifteen years prior, kept a watchful eye over the deathly doctor, and for good reason.  There was a reason that Marjorie insisted that they do their miracle work that night: she could practically feel her life flowing out of her like sweat; she feared that she would not make it to the morning.  Though there were plenty of stories of people even bigger than her, they did not have the same health problems plaguing her.  In addition to all the ailments that chipped away at her, she had suffered two heart attacks and a ministroke, all well before their time.

It was no mystery as to why Marjorie was like this: she was a glutton for garbage food and lived off of junk that filled her with a metric ton of preservatives.  She could have easily curtailed this before her body had given out, but her mind was always elsewhere, thinking of the future for everyone but herself.  When she could have gotten a salad for lunch, she chose a microwavable bowl of General Tso’s chicken; when she had time to go for a run, she opted to focus on redesigning an arc reactor that could power a small town for years.  Though she was not oblivious to the deterioration of her body as it became caked in lard, she always assumed that she had time to fix the damage.  Maybe she did once, but that time had long since run out.

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((All right, everyone, we're back with another new chapter in full!  We'll see just what Dr. Marjorie Corrigan has planned, and we're introduced to a few new faces as Gal Carter tries to make the grade.  How will this all play out?  You'll just have to read and see!))

AGENTS OF F.E.E.D., PART 2

The hall was completely silent, save for Marjorie’s wheels creaking under the burden of their half-ton load and the beeping of her life monitors.  Rick, her faithful companion ever since he first became her assistant some fifteen years prior, kept a watchful eye over the deathly doctor, and for good reason.  There was a reason that Marjorie insisted that they do their miracle work that night: she could practically feel her life flowing out of her like sweat; she feared that she would not make it to the morning.  Though there were plenty of stories of people even bigger than her, they did not have the same health problems plaguing her.  In addition to all the ailments that chipped away at her, she had suffered two heart attacks and a ministroke, all well before their time.

It was no mystery as to why Marjorie was like this: she was a glutton for garbage food and lived off of junk that filled her with a metric ton of preservatives.  She could have easily curtailed this before her body had given out, but her mind was always elsewhere, thinking of the future for everyone but herself.  When she could have gotten a salad for lunch, she chose a microwavable bowl of General Tso’s chicken; when she had time to go for a run, she opted to focus on redesigning an arc reactor that could power a small town for years.  Though she was not oblivious to the deterioration of her body as it became caked in lard, she always assumed that she had time to fix the damage.  Maybe she did once, but that time had long since run out.

The good doctor was not about to go gently into that good night though; she would rage against the dying of her light until her spirit was gone.  Her hope lay in a small lab that was bare save for a large computer, matching monitor, and a towering canister fixed to the wall.  Marjorie guided her bed into the center of the room, and Rick left her side for a moment in order to get something from the computer.  He returned with a handful of small, circular discs with red lights on them, which he placed in a line on her forehead.

“Okay, the neural interface is complete,” Rick nervously mumbled.  “As the transfer progresses, the lights will go from red to green; I’ll be monitoring everything the whole time.”

“Good lad,” Marjorie whispered into her oxygen mask.  “There’s only one thing left to do, Ricky—press the button.”

The terrified young man’s hands hovered over the computer, but he could not get his fingers to function.  Marjorie had designed the program, he had built the machine to her specifications, and ran the numbers so many times that he could do it in his sleep, but there was still a sickening sensation of dread in his stomach.  Dare he put the life of one of the most brilliant minds in the world in his hands?

“Ricky,” Marjorie called out to him, her voice tired and frail, “now’s not the time.  I need you to be more than brave—I need you to be bold.  If I am to die, then let it be in trying for success rather than giving into failure.  Do this for me, dear boy, before I fade away.”

** back a sob, Rick mustered all his courage and activated the neural transfer.  Marjorie’s eyes shot wide open and her body went rigid as a shock raced through her as though she had just touched a live wire.  Her puffy hands gripped her sheets and squeezed until her knuckles turned white, but she made no sound, not even as the worst headache she had ever felt wracked her cranium.  It was like the old adage, ‘no pain, no gain,’ but she doubted anyone could have imagined it being applied like this.

“Transfer at 20%,” Rick announced to Marjorie, eyes shifting constantly from screen to doctor.

As the numbers ticked by and the lights on her head changed from red to green, the massive woman could feel herself slipping away.  It started when she tried to calculate formulas to concentrate on something besides the pain, only to find that she could not place them in her head.  She attempted to picture schematics committed to memory, but the pictures came in fuzzy before evaporating all together.  More and more memories disappeared from her mind, from her professional career to her schooling, the time and date, and even friends and family.  If she could focus enough to look to Rick, she would see only a perfect stranger doing something with whatever those boxes with blinking lights were.

When all but one of the lights had turned green, the brilliant doctor who had designed countless inventions for F.E.E.D. had been reduced to a vegetable who did little more than breathe and blink.  All of her thoughts, memories, and knowledge had been transferred to Rick’s computer, and from there to the container on the other side of the room.  Her fearful, faithful partner glanced over at Marjorie and saw nothing but a glazed look in her eyes—hollow and empty, with nothing behind them.

“T-Transfer…one hundred percent,” Rick whimpered.  He slipped out of his chair and solemnly crossed over to Marjorie’s side one last time.  With one trembling hand, he shut her eyes and held onto her fat, bloated arm like a scared child.  Everything was working so far—all he could do was wait.

The next few moments felt like an eternity and the air hung still as Rick kept one eye on his monitor and the other on the container.  Little by little, the progress bar on the screen ticked onward bit by painstaking bit, and the closer it got to the end, the more Rick feared a crash of some kind.  It took all his strength to not run over and shake the computer like a Luddite, demanding it go faster and either succeed or fail.

Finally, after the tensest moment in his life, Rick saw the bar reach completion.  A breath caught in his throat as he focused on the container now, his heart racing a mile a minute while he waited for it to open.  Suddenly, it burst open at the bottom with a sound not unlike a cork popping, and the front lifted up high into the air.  Standing inside the container was a humanoid construct with a round face and a feminine body, though not so detailed as to be anatomically correct.  Its synthetic skin was made of Vantablack, making it so dark that it blended in with the shadows inside the container.  That darkness remained perfectly intact until it opened its eyes, revealing familiar golden brown irises to Rick.

It took a moment for the stunned assistant to find his voice, and when he did, it came out scratchy and jumpy.  He asked, “D-Doctor Corrigan?  Are you in there?”

The construct blinked in response before opening its mouth and revealing a perfect set of teeth as it tried to speak.  What came out was a squawk not unlike a wild macaw, which seemed to surprise the construct, as it covered its mouth in what looked like embarrassment.  When it tried again, it produced a string of gibberish, like an actor or singer warming up their lips, before it stopped and cleared its throat.

“What did I tell you, my boy?  There’s nothing we can’t do!” the construct announced in a voice Rick was quite familiar with.

Tears of happiness streaked from the young doctor’s face as he raced across the room and embraced his mentor in a hug.  He babbled incoherently for a moment, all his heightened emotions pouring out of him like a fountain, while Marjorie Corrigan patted him on the back with her new hand.  It was the most surreal feeling she had ever experienced, trying to do something that was second nature in a body that had effectively been born moments prior.  God help her when she tried to walk on her new legs, as she had not been able to walk for the last three years.

“I can’t believe it!” Rick cried out happily as he held onto Marjorie.  “It’s a miracle!  It’s—”

“There are no miracles but the ones that we make, Ricky,” the wizened doctor reminded her partner.  “Luck and fortune had nothing to do with it; you and I did the impossible.”

Too elated to debate the semantics, Rick nodded along, simply grateful that he had not killed his mentor.  Marjorie took the chance to look over his shoulder and winced when she saw her husk of a body seated across the room.  She had seen her reflection countless times over the years and knew she was enormous, but to be on the outside looking in really drove home just how big she had gotten.  At least this time, she would not be able to wreck this body like she had the other one, since there was no way her synthetic form could fatten up.

When he came down from his emotional high, Rick asked Marjorie, “What do we do now, Midge?  We’ve kept this a secret for this long, but there’s no way we can cover it up at this point.”

“We won’t have to cover it up, Ricky.  Tomorrow morning, we’re going to present me to the council and then pull the plug on my old body.  After that, who knows?  Perhaps I’ll go for the first run of my life,” Marjorie laughed.

The good doctor would never call her old life a waste, but now that she had a second chance, she was not about to blow it doing the same things over and over again.  The world was her oyster, and she wanted to experience as much of it as she could now that she had a body that could take the stress of traveling.  She had wanderlust blossoming in her synthetic heart, and Marjorie knew only adventure and excitement would satisfy it.  Perhaps she should check these rumblings she had heard about a special operations unit being formed—every superhero team had to have an android member, after all.

***

“Height: 6’3”.  Weight: 195 lbs.”

Gal Carter gulped and bit back her nervousness when the physician studied her.  She was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants that she could just barely tie off and a t-shirt that was far snugger around her middle than she would have liked.  They were not her first choices for exercise gear, but they were all she could find when rushing out the door that morning.  After the testing was done for the day, she swore she would go to the mall and get some clothes that actually fit—no more putting off this necessity.  It was high time she got a wardrobe upgrade, especially if she actually got this job.

After drawing some blood and taking a drug test, the former corporal was led out to a field behind the building, where a number of other applicants waited.  Each of the potential recruits were in remarkable shape and could have easily passed for professional athletes.  By contrast, Gal felt like a tub of butter in sweatpants, and each step sent a jiggle through the soft adipose that had invaded her physique.  She was going to do her damnedest to keep up with everyone on the field; she just hoped that she did not make a fool of herself in the process.

While she milled around and waited for the physical examination to begin, Gal was approached by a petite, hazel-skinned girl with frizzy hair pulled back into a massive bun.  She gave a polite wave to the former corporal and introduced herself, “Hi there—Candice Clemons.  You’re here for the test too?  I don’t know about you, but I am all jitters.  That might be the coffee I had this morning though, but hey, I just can’t function without my first cuppa, right?”

Gal wondered just how many cups of coffee Candice had consumed to get to such a twitchy, chatty state, but extended her hand in greeting.  “Gal Carter.  Yes, I’m here for the tests; I felt that special forces would be a better fit for me.”

“Sure about that?  Because with love handles like those, I think a cushy desk job sounds perfect for you,” a snide voice taunted the brunette.

Wheeling around, Gal discovered the source to be a woman who only came up to her chest.  The offender had long, flowing blonde hair that fell halfway down her back, a glaringly obvious spray tan, and a body so thin that a stiff breeze could have knocked her over.  Despite this, she had a cocky smirk on her face that screamed ‘diva’, and she carried herself like she owned the field.  Gal had no idea who she was, but she already hated her.

“Hate to break it to you two, but there are limited spots and I’m already a shoo-in for one,” the woman told Gal and Candice while pretending to yawn.  “You might as well pack it in right now—after all, can you do much better than Jamie Stewart, FBI?”

“You were in the FBI?  Oh gosh, that’s amazing!” Candice remarked, clapping her hands over her mouth.  Before Jamie could make another smart remark, the excitable girl asked, “What branch?”

The question made the platinum blonde’s lip twitch, but she maintained her smirk as she answered, “Human Resources.  I was responsible for making sure everyone received proper training when they came on-board.”

“Golly, that’s pretty important,” Candice replied.  “I mean, I spent the last seven years working in the CIA—Counterintelligence, specifically.  But I’m sure that your job was pretty important too.”

Jamie’s face turned bright red, and Gal swore that she could see steam coming from her ears, but the petite woman merely glowered at Candice.  She hissed, “Just…whatever!  Don’t get in my way.”

With that, she stormed off, her insulter waving and calling out, “Okay!  See you out there!”

Gal glanced down at the chatterbox and asked softly, “You were in Counterintelligence?  That must have been intense!”

After checking to make sure Jamie was no longer in earshot, Candice turned and winked to her companion, “Nah—I’m actually in F.E.E.D.’s IT department and wanted a change of pace.  Never seen so much as a minute of real action unless you count dealing with our insanely outdated servers.”

It took Gal a moment to process the lie before she guffawed and clapped Candice on the back.  “You’ve got chutzpah, I’ll give you that!”

“Thanks!  I’ll guess that’s a good thing,” the chipper girl replied with a grin.

Once the physical examinations were complete and all the applicants were out on the field, they were ordered to form single file lines in rows of five.  Each of the prospects lined up as instructed, with Candice right in front of Gal and Jamie in a separate line, though she constantly looked over at the woman who dared to demean her.  After the lines had formed, Agatha Rothstein stepped out onto a platform in front of the F.E.E.D. hopefuls while a pair of assistants brought a table up behind her.  She cast a judging eye over each and every person before her, and Gal swore she could see the aged woman burning holes through her.

“Welcome, everyone, to the first part of your F.E.E.D. qualifiers.  I am Director Rothstein, and I will be one of your judges today,” Agatha explained to the applicants.  “What we’re looking for today are people that go above and beyond—men and women willing to push themselves to the absolute limit.  F.E.E.D. wants the strongest, fastest, and brightest, but more than anything else, we need agents who embody the spirit of our organization.  If you’re only in this to earn a fat paycheck, turn around and walk away, because we’re not looking for hired guns.  The world needs heroes, people: if you want to be a part of this special task force, you need to fight for truth, justice, and the human way.  Is that clear?”

“Ma’am, yes, ma’am!” the applicants barked as one.

With a satisfied nod, Agatha walked back to the covered table behind her and yanked away the tarp over top, revealing a series of curious devices.  There was a large belt with a gold piece in the center like some kind of title belt, a blue and white disc with two lightning bolts inside, and a red helmet with a black ring in the center, among other strange and unique contraptions.  Agatha held the belt aloft with both hands as she looked out onto the attentive crowd.

She told the attendants, “For the lucky few who complete this test, you will be given access to state of the art technology that will make you strong enough to compete with the likes of Justice United and the Vindicators.  You will become a superhero to rival the very best in the business, but you’ve got to show us why you deserve to be a Feedee!”

Gal shouted in the affirmative alongside the other applicants, and she wondered what sort of test they would be given.  An obstacle course was spread out in front of them and covered everything from rope climbing to a mud pit—all exercises she was well-versed when she was still enlisted, but had fallen out of since her discharge.  After the previous night’s failed attempt at a jog down the street, a heavy weight filled her stomach at the prospect of running that entire course.  She was so out of shape now that she feared she would collapse after getting through a quarter of the track if she were lucky.

Just then, a tremor ran through the ground and grew until the applicants had trouble standing up.  Before anyone could ask what was going on, a massive drill burst out of the obstacle course and a gigantic tank followed.  When the tank settled on the surface, a door slid open on the side and out spilled a good dozen men in ivory armor made to look like skeletons.  They were followed by a woman who stood at Gal’s height and was clad head to toe in an emerald green armor that glistened in the sunlight.  Some of the applicants turned tail and fled, while others, including Gal and Candice, stood their ground and watched with fearful curiosity.

“Right on time, Jade,” Agatha applauded the intruder, who returned with a bow.

“I try,” the pale woman hummed.  She studied the remaining applicants and asked, “This is the new batch?  Bit of a sorry lot, if you ask me.”

“We’ll see,” the elderly director replied before returning to the confused group.  “Your first test is to take on the Jade Dragon and her forces—now!”

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