Identity Theft Part Two

The Confrontation


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      Dr. Maria Dreiser reveled in her newfound sense of power. She felt
like nothing was beyond her capabilities. She felt like she could fly if
she so chose. She wanted to. She wanted to see how much she could do. But
she had some business to take care of before she could do that. Her eyes
were still locked on the little woman who had threatened to kill her mere
moments before.

      Anne looked up at Maria. She must be nine feet tall, she thought.
That makes her a foot and a half taller than me. She was not surprised that
the woman had surpassed her in height. After all, she knew that Maria was
accustomed to being taller than other women, and she knew that Maria had
driven her body to outgrow that of her rival. Nor was Anne surprised at the
form Maria had taken. She had watched Maria’s thought process as the serum
worked its magic on her.

      Maria, secure in her superiority over Anne, decided to look at
herself. What she saw did surprise her. She didn’t know what Anne sensed as
it happened. Maria had simply forced the transformation to happen. She had
forced the serum to transform her into a being larger than Anne. She had
not worried about what she might end up looking like. Just as Anne’s
subconscious supplied the model for the serum, so did Maria’s.

Maria immediately noticed that her skin was no longer a somewhat pale
white. It was green. It was vibrantly green. She was puzzled by the change.
She soon ceased to care about the skin color, instead observing the other
changes wrought by the serum. Her muscles had grown substantially.
Practically her entire body was exposed. She had grown right through her
clothing. Her abs flex with her every breath. Her chest, now supporting a
much larger set of breasts, heaved. She glanced at her arms, and was
astonished by the sheer mass of her biceps.

“I don’t understand,” she said. She knew that she looked like something she
had once seen, but she couldn’t remember what.

Anne laughed that contemptuous laugh that Maria had so quickly come to
despise. “I think you chose the wrong model.”

Maria glared at the smaller woman. “Don’t laugh at me! What do you mean,
wrong model?” Her mind felt cloudy. She felt practically drunk. She
suddenly realized she had a hard time remembering her name.

Anne shook her head. “Well it certainly worked fast. You know, I used to
read She-Hulk comics too. But I guess I wasn’t into it as much as you
were.” She eyed the woman. There was no doubt that Maria had chosen a very
attractive form to take.

Maria nodded vigorously. A slight realization struck her, although it felt
like the greatest revelation of her life. “Yes! That’s my name! She-Hulk!”
She knew that must be her name. That must be it.

The smaller woman laughed again. Maria growled in response, but the woman
seemed unafraid. “It’s a shame you chose her. You ruined that beautiful
mind of yours. I can feel it. Your mind is fading by the second.” She
smiled up at the jade giantess. “To the point that you hardly understand
what I’m saying.”

Maria frowned. What was the little woman talking about? For an instant, she
thought she understood, but any semblance of understanding disappeared.
Soon, she didn’t even really understand her emotions. But she suddenly knew
it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that this woman made her angry.
Very angry.

Plucking the primitive thoughts from Maria’s brain (or what was left of it,
or her), Anne braced herself. She knew that she held the upper hand. After
all, she was in control of herself, which implied that she was in control
of her power source. She knew that Maria was just about to lose complete
control of that fiery green ball. All the same, that meant that Maria would
not hold back if she attacked.

Maria leapt forward so fast that even Anne almost didn’t see it. Her giant
right fist met Anne’s chin with an astonishing amount of force. Anne’s head
flew backward. Maria heard a crack that pleased her immensely. She didn’t
give Anne time to return the blow before her left fist crashed into Anne’s
stomach. There was no satisfying crunch or crack there. Maria’s fist came
back feeling battered. She’d just struck something so hard that she
couldn’t hurt it.

As soon as Anne felt her jaw break, she focused on healing it. And
fortifying it. She made the bone denser, and did the same throughout her
body at the same time. The floor sagged slightly beneath her as she became
vastly heavier than she had just been. She thickened her muscles to match
her bones, and the floor sagged even more. All this she did by the time
Maria’s left fist crashed into her abdominal section. Anne herself was
surprised at the total lack of pain. The first blow had hurt a considerable
amount, but she’d numbed it as soon as she felt it.

Maria looked at her left hand. She didn’t understand why it hurt. She must
be stronger than the little woman in front of her. The little woman didn’t
have gigantic muscles like her. Besides, she was so little!

Taking advantage of the monster’s confusion, Anne threw her own punches.
Her right hand drove into Maria’s chest, immediately followed by a punch to
the stomach. She watched Maria’s body fly backward into and through the
laboratory wall, back into the warehouse.

Moving swiftly lest she lose her advantage, Anne charged after her, quickly
kicking her knee and hearing it break. She slammed her elbow into the side
of Maria’s head and was rewarded with the sight of blood. “I have you,”
Anne whispered.

Rage filled Maria to the brim. The pain only fueled the rage until it
overpowered every other emotion she could have felt. The powerful ball of
energy within her responded to the rage. Maria grew once more. Her muscles
grew impossibly large, exploding with strength. She got to her feet, not
even noticing the pain in her knee any longer. She took an instant to look
down at the little woman who had just hurt her.

“Good God,” Anne said. Maria had nearly doubled in size. Her head was
inches away from the high ceiling of the warehouse. Anne felt the strength
emanating from her. “Oh well.” She willed her body upward and outward. In
the blink of an eye, she ripped out of her clothing in an amazing display
of feminine muscle. She felt her head brush the top of the ceiling and
willed herself onward. Her body crashed through wood and steel until her
head emerged in the pleasant glow of early afternoon. She leapt upward and
landed several hundred yards away in the middle of a small forest.

Maria soon followed. She looked very small to Anne once again. Anne
understood that she had to end this soon, or Maria would simply continue to
transform. Maria couldn’t control the transformation, but that didn’t mean
she couldn’t grow.

“That’s it!” she cried excitedly.

She waited for Maria to throw a few ineffectual punches, then grabbed her
by the arms, much as she had done earlier, and lifted her. Anne squeezed
until Maria bellowed in agony, and then she quickly forced herself into her
opponent’s tiny mind. She locked onto the power source and seized control
of it.

Immediately, Maria began to shrink. She began to lose muscle mass. Her skin
faded from its bright green back to its normal pasty hue. Her hair returned
to its accustomed red.

Maria felt herself returning. She felt her mind reviving. Maybe she had
been dreaming. But she knew she wasn’t when she saw the giant face that
looked so much like her own. She screamed in terror, trying to make herself
grow. But it didn’t work. Anne had too powerful a grip on her power.

      Seeing that she held a firm control of her enemy’s potential, Anne
shrank herself back to her normal (well, her new normal, anyway) seven and
a half feet. She placed Maria’s feet back on the ground. She was smiling
down at her. “So we’re back where we started,” she said.

      Maria couldn’t believe that she’d been beaten. And so quickly. She
remembered the powerful punches she had thrown, and remembered the powerful
punches she’d received in return. She didn’t understand how Anne had so
easily overcome her. But she knew she had one advantage over her condition
before she took the serum. “No, we’re not. I’m immortal now.”

      “You know, you’re right. But that doesn’t matter. Why don’t you try
to use your power? You can’t, can you? Tell me, do you want to live with
the knowledge that you are one of the two most powerful beings alive, but
you can’t do anything with your power?”

      Maria began sobbing. “Why are you doing this? Why can’t you leave me
alone?”

      Anne breathed in the air like she could taste Maria’s painful sobs.
“I’m doing it because I can. I thought we went over this. I don’t have to
explain myself to someone like you.” She scoffed at the once again
relatively miniscule scientist. “You’re weak. So weak that you can’t be
trusted with the power that you have.”

      Maria thought she had Anne on this point. “You can’t control me
forever. At some point, you’ll let go. You’ll have to. And when you do,
I’ll kill you.”

      “That’s why I can’t leave that possibility open. Dr. Dreiser, I want
to wish you farewell. You’re never going to have a conscious thought again,
for the entirety of existence.” And with that, Anne manipulated Maria’s
mind until it disappeared. All that was left was a physical form that
housed an enormous amount of energy. Anne knew that energy was never going
to be used. The power source could affect no changes if there was nothing
whatsoever to direct it.

      Anne forced Maria’s body to shrink until it could fit easily in her
palm. She picked it up off the forest floor and threw it up into the
atmosphere. Her keen eyes watched it fly off at a tremendous speed into the
dead of space.

      “Now,” she said. “I have a lab to blow up.”

                                    * * *

      Joseph Felton, one of the lab technicians, was the first people to
arrive back at work, so he was the first to see that he no longer had a
job. He had seen the smoke rising from the little greasy spoon he ate at
every day, but he hadn’t really thought it was from the lab.

      “Damn it,” he said. He threw his car into park and got out to look at
the remains. There was no reason to call the fire department just yet. The
building was entirely destroyed, but the flames had apparently subsided
very swiftly.

      “What am I going to do now?” He thought of his young wife’s reaction
when he would have to tell her he didn’t have a job anymore. She was nine
months pregnant, and they were dependent on his income and his insurance.

      As he walked closer to the burnt structure he’d left just less than
an hour before, he noticed something lying amongst the wreckage. Something
very large. And very beautiful.

                                    * * *

      Anne heard the young man approaching. Her eyes were shut. She stayed
still until she knew he’d spotted her. She could hear him take a small
breath of shock at the sight of her. She heard his thoughts echo in her
mind. He saw her, naked and unblemished by soot. She sensed his animal
desire for her. She liked that.

      Once he was only a few feet away, moving through the destroyed lab to
reach her, she moaned in feigned pain. She was rewarded by his quickened
pace. “Dr. Dreiser, is that you?”

      “Yes. Can you help me up?” She searched his mind until she found his
name, but she also found that Maria had never bothered learning his name.
Typical. She opened her eyes. She enjoyed the man’s expression. Her eyes
flashed green. He put his hand out for her to grab. “Nevermind. I don’t
think I need your help,” she said, rising slowly to her feet. She rose and
rose until his head was level with her upper abs.

      “Dr. Dreiser, what happened?”

      Anne smiled down at the little man. He’s cute, she thought, admiring
his muscular form. “I don’t care what happened. Whatever happened turned me
into this. That’s all I care about!”

      As soon as she said these words, she felt something strange happen
inside her. She turned briefly inward. What she saw horrified her.

      The radiant ball of energy that powered her was fading.


End of Part Two