She Hulk of Earth 2, Chapter 4
By Eegore, eegore959@yahoo.com
Sheila, the newly formed jade goddess, has a fateful confrontation


The first glow of sunrise washed over the angular, amber edges of the Pueblo
ruins, casting long, soft shadows. Color began to return to the ancient
quarters, which push out from rocky hills in northern New Mexico like
half-finished sculptures long abandoned by an indifferent creator. They form a
vast wasps' nest of primitive human ingenuity, drawing gasps of wonder every
day from small battalions of tourists.

Atop the highest point of this small mountain, a woman stretched out on the
gravel, watching the new day arrive as it threw swaths of pale green and burnt
orange over the desert landscape. Sitting on her backside, she propped herself
up on her elbows and crossed her legs. She had arrived here 30 minutes ago,
using four leaps to cover about 15 miles. She smiled. A stray tendril of
bright green energy rose from a dark, erect nipple, swirled inches above
majestic breasts, then plunged back into her aureole.

Bandelier National Monument, Sheila remembered. Daddy last brought me here
when I was 16. We stayed overnight at the camp, hiked to the ruins. Dad
boosted me up so could look into some of the windows. ... God, I thought these
dwellings were the most incredible things I'd ever seen.

She shifted her gaze from the glowing horizon to her own personal landscape,
stretched out 7 feet in front of her with no clothing to obscure the view.
Beyond the sweeping curves of her chest, she looked at her tight stomach, wide
hips and long, luscious thighs. She slowly raised her left leg - toes pointed,
knee locked - and watched rolling muscular terrain shift and bulge under
tight, dark-green flesh. She blew a wisp of dark-violet hair out of her
glowing eyes.

"I guess I had no idea then what a miracle was," she said in a light, mocking
tone. And at this point, she thought, I'm still the only person on Earth who
knows that this could happen to someone. Man, that's weird, now that I think
of it. Nobody knows what's happened to me, what I've become.

She frowned, and the glow in her eyes lost a sliver of intensity. "Well," she
said out loud, "nobody except that junkyard guy."

A dark cloud washed over her as the confrontation, which occurred barely two
hours ago, returned to her with full force: the unleashed ecstasy of feeling
the power this body contained, blunted so suddenly by the appearance of Wyatt,
who apparently was such a light sleeper that the sound of truck tractors
exploding in the sky was enough to pull him out of bed and make him start
poking around. But the fact that Sheila had been caught throwing around
someone else's stuff wasn't the thing that now made her knit her brow and
press her full, dark lips into a pout. No, it was Wyatt's reaction after she
decided she wanted to, um, make friends.

He freaked out, she fumed to herself. The little beefcake flat-out wigged on
me, called me a monster. Why did he do that? I wasn't threatening him. I
insisted I wouldn't hurt him. What in the heck was he so scared about? I was
just me, just little, um, little old ..."Hmmm... but I'm not little old Sheila
anymore, am I?" the woman asked herself, her smile returning. "I'm ...well,
let's face it, I'm mind-blowing truck-tossing green-skin-glowing
muscle-bulging breast-jiggling 7-foot brick-goddamn-house Sheila. I guess that
could be a little, hmmm, intimidating."

The smile stretched into a crooked smirk. "I can see how people could be wary
when they first see me. That's understandable. Heck, I would've freaked if I
saw a woman like me rounding a street corner."

She curled her long legs under her and began to stand. "But he had no reason
to act like I was a bug-eyed creature from Planet Slime, like I was a
terrifying freak."I'm not a freak. How could anyone look at this body and say
that? I've received a wonderful, wonderful gift, and I deserved it! All those
years of physical pain, of social humiliation. I was building up to a huge
payback. I just didn't know that until now." She straightened up, tilted back
her head and closed her eyes. Long, powerful hands began to slide up and down
the valleys and swells of her waist, hips and thighs, sparks dancing in their
wake. She gasped sharply as she ran her fingers past the diamond of
dark-purple hair between her legs. She brought her hand up and cupped the
sides of her breasts, then pressed them together. "This ... incredible,
gorgeous, wonderful body! Part of me still can't believe this is real!"

Then a tiny, plaintive voice rose from inside her: No, it's not real. It can't
be. I ...don't want it to be. It's too much, too much ...

Sheila went stone still, then shook her head, hard. She pressed her hands to
her ears. "No. Go. Away," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm not listening
to me ... to you ..."

The voice continued: ... scary ... don't understand ... what if everyone is
scared of us?

"Stop it."

... too much to handle. What if I can't control it? What ...

"Stop it!"

... if I ...

"STOP IT!"

... kill someone ...

"STAAAAAAWWWP!"

Eyes wide, fearful and laced with emerald fire, Sheila slapped her head again
and again, trying to dislodge the plaintive voice coming from inside her. With
each blow to her head, tendrils of gamma energy, usually small arcs that
danced over her body, multiplied and thickened. Glowing contrails whipped
around her flesh, bouncing over muscles squeezed hard with anger and
frustration. Veins stood out on her arms and thighs. She raised her right leg,
then drove the foot into the ground. A 500-pound chunk of ancient hillside
broke free and careened toward one of the Pueblo dwellings. It slammed into
and through the adobe wall.

The gamma energy outside her body began to coalesce as it spun around her,
nearly obscuring her majestic form. The energy made a crackling, humming sound
that grew in intensity. Her eyes were now closed, her teeth and fists
clenched, her sculpted limbs shuddering out of control. Deafening shouts and
screams roared in her mind and violent fireworks exploded in her body. She
felt herself falling, falling, though she somehow could sense she was still
rooted to the hill.

"uhhh-uh-uhaaaah ..." She strained to raise her arms from her sides, fighting
an opposing force she couldn't see, only feel. "aaaaahhh-aaaaaaahh..." Mad
dervishes of energy grew around each hand. "aaaannnnnnd..."

"UUUHH!!" Beams rocketed from each fist, each of them shaking with the power
of pure release. The columns of energy sent a rumble into the morning air and
made Sheila bite her lower lip. One beam grazed the top of the hill and dove
to the desert floor, plowing through two Joshua trees and digging a 6-foot
trough into the earth. The other beam took a sharper trajectory, shooting down
toward the Indian dwellings, sending up chunks of federally preserved matter
and pulverizing rocks into dust. The barrage went on for five, 10 seconds.
Sheila had no control of the beams or her head or any other part of her body,

which felt as if it was coming apart from the inside out.

"P-p-please, god, help me," she stuttered through quavering lips. "S-st-stop
this. Mmm-make it go ..."

Away. As if someone flipped a switch, Sheila stopped shaking. The power beams
flickered out. The swirling wall of emerald energy withdrew into her body. The
screaming voices were stilled. The wild ride was, all too suddenly, over.

Sheila opened her eyes, which then darted side to side. Large clouds of dust
were rising from below, where she had undone some of the precious handiwork of
a long-lost culture. Her breath came in sharp rasps. Brooks of sweat rolled
down her forehead and over her heaving breasts. Her hands opened and closed,
opened and closed.

She looked down, looked at her arms, at her legs, at everything. A nervous,
furtive smile crossed her face. The voice was gone, but everything else was
still there. She sighed with a depth of relief she had never experienced
before. Tresses of her dark-purple hair rubbed against her hot flesh, which
was

converting perspiration into puffs of salty steam.

She still felt weak and a little dizzy. But the frightening feelings were
diminishing with each second. She stood quietly, gathering her strength and
her wits.

OK. I guess a girl can't go through a makeover this radical without some
challenges, she thought. But I can't let my old - old? Geez, it's been only
five hours or so since the accident - my old fears and insecurities control
this gift. I've already sensed that this body comes with instincts that will
guide me if can just relax and listen to them. That's what I have to focus on:
instincts and confidence. I can do anything now. Anything!

Well, the sun's coming up. It's a new day. That means ... it's time to rejoin
the human race.She looked down at her magnificent frame, then grinned. "It
also means I need to get some clothes."

Without a single glance at the damage she had wrought on one of her favorite
childhood destinations, Sheila cocked her body and shot into the sky, aiming
toward her home town of White Rock. She was happy again, sure of herself. She
was swimming in possibilities.

And she was two inches shorter.

-o-o-o-

McNail Air Force Base, 7:52 a.m., office of Dr. Emil Blonsky

"Great gadfrey, Blonsky, look at her boo ... I mean ... good god, man, how is
this

possible??"

Gen. Eldrick Zaponian reached down to the carpet to retrieve his unlit cigar,
which had tumbled out of his mouth as he watched, for a second time, the
security-camera video of the incredible accident that had occurred in Sector G
of the base's weapons research lab. The general shoved the stogie back into
his mouth and glared at Blonsky, who looked eerily serene.

"Well, of course, general, I can't answer that at this point. The Gamma Cannon
was designed to tear apart organic matter, not build it up." The scientist
leaned a bit closer to Zaponian. "But I will tell you this: My staff and I
understand gamma radiation better than any research team on this planet. We've
spliced it, squeezed it, parsed it, shaped it to our needs. This energy, in
its

rawest form, is quite unpredictable, sir. It is capable of spreading deadly
radioactivity, of powering certain machines. In earlier experiments, we've
found that it can even cause a low level of mutation. But for the Gamma
Cannon, we were able to isolate properties that would do the most damage in
the shortest time.

"So, in short, general, I think it would be best to not dwell on the past. The
data automatically collected during the cannon's firing sequence is intact. We
have the video. He have the testimony of the two guards, who, um ...
lieutenant?"

Lt. Todd DeFalco, standing near the office door, dropped a cigarette and
crushed it with his boot. "We've got what we need from them," he said, his
voice a rumbling growl. "I've already arranged a transfer. They're good men,
but ... they need to be elsewhere now."

"Thank you, lieutenant." A thin smile played across Blonsky's angular face. He
turned back to Zaponian. "So, all we need to do now is find a way to
successfully capture Ms. Huckaby and return her here. She is, for all intents
and purposes, Air Force property now."

Zaponian frowned, etching lines into his pudgy face. "Our ... property?"

"Well, we surely can't consider such a creature as human, can we, general?
This monster is a creation of military technology. It is an extension of our
research. Therefore, it belongs here, where it can be studied, where we can
learn how to put its powers to good use."

The general whom everyone on base called "Zapper" winced at Blonsky's sudden
switch to the word "it" when referring to the transformed woman. This was the
daughter of his old friend, retired Col. Jack Huckaby. She had gotten the
janitorial job at the research center mainly on Zaponian's say-so. Part of
Zaponian was relieved this accident had not killed her. The rest of the
general's brain was still struggling to digest the fact that little Sheila was
now the figure freeze-framed on Blonsky's computer: a green Amazon who can
shoot beams that blast through three floors of steel and concrete as if they
were balsa wood.

"Well, why aren't we out there now, going after her?" Zaponian asked. "Surely
we've got the firepower to bring her down..."

"I'm not as confident of that as you are, general. We have no data that would
determine the limit of her strength or the force of those beams. Intelligence
this morning has picked up a couple nearby incidents that were probably the
creature's doing. A gas station along Highway 4 was destroyed about an hour
after the accident, and not long after that, radar tracked two objects in

the sky. Reconnaissance determined one of them to be a 5-ton truck tractor.
Pieces of it were found on the ground."

"And the other object?"

"It simply disappeared off the screen, without a trace."

Zaponian frowned. Blonsky continued.

"If we go after the monster now, general, we could be risking personnel and
possibly the creature itself. There could be collateral damage. And we can't
let the civilian world know what's happened here. Sir, I recommend that we
track the creature's movements while my team works as hard as it can to
develop a clean, surefire method of capture. If we use some stealth, we can
turn this incredible accident into one of the greatest forward leaps in
military history."

Zaponian's face brightened a bit at those last words. "Yes, it would be quite
amazing, would it? Quite amazing ..." He frowned again. "But why did it have
to be Sheila? And what, if anything, will I tell Jack about his missing
daughter? 'Oh, I'm sure she's OK, buddy. She probably just went on a long
shopping trip.'"

-o-o-o-o-

The town clock at Fifth Street and Saguaro Avenue rang the chimes for 8:30
a.m. as Sheila peeked around the corner of the Salvation Army building. She
took a deep breath, then strode out and onto the sidewalk.

Gotta be the most nerve-wracking shopping trip I've ever done, she thought.
But, considering the source, I think I did rather well.

Sheila has lived in White Rock for 13 years, moving here with her father from
a base in Southern California. She was halfway through high school then. She
made a handful of friends, but lost touch with them when she left for college.
Five years later, and still without a degree, she couldn't think of a good
reason not to come home, so she did, moving into an apartment about four
blocks from dad's house. Thirteen years. And not once over that span of time
did Sheila cut a figure on her hometown's streets like she did now.

She strode down the empty sidewalk, wearing a confident smile and a collection
of clothes pulled out of boxes she found behind the Salvation Army building.
Her feet were in a pair of gray men's sandals. Above those were a pair of
black bicycle rider's shorts; she appreciated the tight fit, which covered her
from mid-thigh to just below her belly button yet left no curve or bulge to
the imagination. Above the pants was a red blouse that she had customized: The
sleeves were torn off and front was fully unbuttoned, with the material tied
in a knot just under her breasts. Topping the ensemble were dark glasses that
concealed her glowing eyes.

She shivered with excitement as long, impossibly sculpted legs churned and her
stomach and back muscles swam with rhythmic motion. She held her head high,
her shoulders back. The round, tight cheeks of her butt danced under the
skin-tight shorts. She felt her rounded shoulders shift and her bounteous
chest bob slightly as she ... saw her first people. She stopped for a second.

This is it, Sheila old girl, she thought. If this goes well, I'll head over to
my apartment and pick up some things.

She crossed Third Street and headed for the Quik Stop, where several people
were gassing up, getting coffee or buying a copy of the Albuquerque Journal.
She was about 30 feet away from the gas pumps when she had her first eye
contact: a man putting fuel in a Camry was staring at her. She smiled at him.
The man continued to look at her, bug-eyed, as she walked by, continuing down
the sidewalk.

"Nice day, eh?" she said, flashing her bright-white teeth.

"Uuuuuh ... guh."

"No, but thanks for asking. See you!" And she continued down the sidewalk,
drinking in other dropped jaws and saucer eyes that followed her. She
approached the Wells Fargo Bank, where security guards were delivering bags of
coins. One guard, staring at her, dropped a sack on his foot.

"Oops," she said, smiling. "Sorry about that, officer."

The guard shrugged, fumbling for the bag while fixing his eyes on her. "N-not
your problem, ma'am. Just buh-butterfingers this morning. Have a n-- ... a
ni-"

"Why, thank you. I will. It's been a great day so far." And she moved on.

Not only is it working, she thought, but I'm the center of attention. God, I
love this! I feel so alive!

"Hey, are you the Nuclear Woman?"

"Whaa -- ?" Sheila looked down and saw a tow-headed boy, no older than 10.
Like everyone else, his eyes were locked on her. But this wasn't a glassy-eyed
stare. This youngster was studying her intently.

"The nuke who?" she replied, breaking into an amused grin.

"The Nuclear Woman!" He reached back and produced a comic book that was
sticking out of his back pocket. He poked the cover. "Her!"

Sheila looked at the colorful page. Under the words "Fabulous Foursome," a
quartet of people in skin-tight outfits were sprinting or leaping into action.
One of them was a tall, muscular female with bright-green skin. Sheila's smile
grew wider.

"No, I'm not a comic-book hero, little guy. I'm real."

"So's Nuclear Woman. I watch her every Saturday on TV. She can pick up buses
and shoot rays out of her hands and stuff!"

"Really? Well, what a coincidence. ... What's your name?"

"Jacob."

"Well, Jacob, I'm not Nuke Lady, but I can do something like what she does.
Watch." Sheila kneeled down in front of the boy and held her hands out toward
him. She pointed both pinky fingers up, then blinked her eyes. A bright spiral
of energy popped out of one finger, looped once, then fell into the other
little finger.

The boy's eyes gleamed. "Cooooolll!"

"Yeah, it is, isn't it? OK, now don't tell anybody about what you saw, OK?
Just our little super secret, right?"

"Right."

"OK. Nice meeting you, Jacob."

"Me, too."

She stood up, watching as Jacob put the comic back into his pants and ran down
the street. Small sparks shot out from behind her glasses as she unleashed a
megawatt smile. "Now that was fun. 'Nuclear Woman.' Yeesh. Where do they come
up with names like that?"

Sheila gathered herself up and continued her sexy saunter though White Rock's
business district, attracting more wide-eyed stares. She slowed down as she
passed the windows of Marla's Beauty Parlor. Hmmm, she thought, I wonder if
they could do something with this hair? Heh, maybe not. It isn't like it needs
a perm or someth...

Her head snapped to the left as the blaring sound of a truck horn cut through
the morning air. With inhuman quickness, she spun around and faced the street,
where, a block from where she stood, a blue delivery truck was careening
toward an intersection. The driver, who had long since given up on his useless
brakes, was laying on the horn, praying that the little boy right in the
truck's path would stop acting like a statue and get the hell out of the way.

"JAAAY-CAAAWB!" Sheila screamed.

In a split-second, she was bounding toward the child, her powerful arms and
legs pumping with a catlike grace. More than a block away ... Her sunglasses
flew up and off as she slammed her left foot into the asphalt, obliterating
the sandal and launching her in a flat trajectory toward the boy. She flew in
at a right angle to the truck, which was now less than 15 yards from the

child. At the same time, a conversation erupted in her head:

I can do it. "No, you'll both die." I can do it. "Please, stop..."

In one fluid movement, Sheila hit the street with her shoulder, rolled,
gathered Jacob with her right arm and, with her left hand, fired an seething,
bright-green beam that ripped through the truck, cutting it cleanly in two.
She continued to roll, cradling the child, to the other side of the
intersection. The sundered truck, split vertically down the middle, tumbled to
a stop. The half containing the stunned driver came to rest against a post
office box.

A few feet away, Sheila and Jacob uncurled themselves from the cocoon she had
formed for him. Both were gasping for air. Sheila, kneeling, grasped the
child's shoulders with her powerful hands.

"You OK, buddy?"

Jacob, wide-eyed, could only nod.

"Oh, Jacob, you nearly scared the life out of me. I thought you were going to
... going ..." Sheila blinked her eyes, shook her head. "...going ..."

"What's wrong, Nuclear Woman?"

"I don't ... know. I can't ...focus ... on ..." A sharp spasm rocked her body,
locking up her joints. Staring through a growing haze of pain, she looked down
and saw tendrils of neon light seeping out of her body and rolling across her
flesh. The bands of energy grew more numerous and more intense as she stumbled
to her feet. She could barely stand, however, as a chorus of screams in her
head robbed all sense of balance. Through double vision, she looked at the
boy, who was looking back at her with a combination of curiosity and concern.

"Hey, are you OK?" he said. "Are you being attacked by Dr. Deadly?"

"G-get away, Jacob," Sheila stuttered through chattering teeth. "Go." She
doubled over as another spasm wracked her muscular frame. "GO!" The boy took
three tentative steps backward, watching the big green woman as she shook and
as green lights danced around her. Then he turned and ran.

Sheila's life-saving stunt, followed by her current plight, had attracted a
small crowd. She knew she couldn't stay here. She knew she had to leave,
somehow.

Struggling against a force that seemed to fight the slightest movement, she
bent her knees, gritted her teeth and leaped. She rose over the buildings,
over the power poles, out of town, a green contrail in her wake. Fifteen
seconds and two miles later, she slammed into the earth, kicking up a swirl of
refuse at the Los Alamos County landfill. Sheila struggled to her knees,
moaning as vicious cramps seized her body. For the second time today, she felt
as if she was falling, disappearing down a dark hole. Her body shook and
bucked as a hurricane of gamma

radiation ripped around her, tearing off her blouse and shredding her pants.
Her muscles surged and relaxed of their own volition, over and over. Jade
energy poured out of nipples that vibrated atop breasts that surged in size,
then began to contract, falling in on themselves as if drained from within.

Sheila's moans turned into cries and tears of pain and fear as he rocked side
to side at the waist, her hands clenching and unclenching. She winced as her
body emitted strange sounds: groaning, crunching, squishing. Thick muscles
rose and fell, rose and fell, each time leaving a little less than the surge
before. She was melting, wilting under an inner furnace that had blown open
its physical and psychic doors. It was all pouring out, rushing out, draining
from her beautiful, green body, which was becoming less beautiful and green
with each pain-wracked

second.

She rolled back her head and wailed, tears pouring from eyes that were losing
their inner fire. A increasing chill was gripping her gut. Shaking hands
reached down and clutched her stomach, and her fingers sank into soft, doughy
flesh that was rolling and twitching uncontrollably. A cold numbness was
spreading around her face and neck. She shivered with chills and with pain as
her bones and skin and muscles and everything else contracted, pulling in on
themselves.

"Oooohhhgaaawd...ooooohhgaaaaawwwd ..."

The last sparks of emerald fire sputtered out of Sheila's breasts. The
swirling bands of jade energy were fading, shrinking. Her body continued to
shake, as if every last erg of something incredible and wonderful and precious
had to be torn from her. Her eyes were clenched shut, squeezing tears that ran
down her pale face. The swirling gamma radiation slowed, like a wild carnival
ride coming to a stop. A few stray bolts jumped around her head, then
vanished.

The moment the last band of power disappeared, Sheila collapsed as if her
strings had been cut. She lay motionless for a minute, for five. There was no
sound except for her rasping breaths and the wind blowing through the trash.

Finally, Sheila, her eyes still closed tightly, rolled to her knees and
pressed her palms to the filthy ground. She pushed herself up, grunting with
effort, until she was upright from the waist up.

She opened her eyes. She looked down. The she flung her hands to her face, her
chest, her legs.

"Oooh, god, nooo..."

It was all gone. And it was all back: her thin arms and legs, her pale pink
skin, her stringy hair, the spare tire around her waist, her double chin.

A stiff wind kicked up, blowing dust and bits of grimy paper against the
small, naked woman in the county dump. She stopped the frantic groping of her
body and squeezed her hands into fists. Her doughy face was creased with
paralyzing realization. And all she could do was scream.

"OhgodohgodOHGAAAWD! NOOOOOOOO! GUH-GIVE IT BACK! PUH-PLEEEASE!"