Only one will remain - Chap 6
By Neptune
Housewife vs Construction Worker


These stories follow the premise of the "Highlander" series, where super-
natural beings fight to the death until only one remains.  Except in this 
case, the combatants are all women in or around LA and battle with their 
super-human strength as opposed to swords.  All of the women received 
their powers at the same time.

This is the second round for each of these women.  Introductions and brief 
histories were presented for the women in earlier chapters.  See Chap 2 
for Housewife and Chap 4 for Construction Worker.

Peggy

Everything was different for Peggy now that she had faced death and 
prevailed.  She immediately divorced her movie producer husband, took 
half of his money and became an adrenaline junkie.  She moved down to 
Muscle Beach and carried out her life among those who admired her 
awesome physique.  Peggy used her body as her main source of income, 
and became something of a celebrity as an advocate for muscle-building 
supplements.  Her fantastic shape year-round coupled with that fraction of 
her strength that she displayed for the cameras (just enough to be the 
strongest woman around) made her a hot commodity for the advertisers.  
When that package was combined with her invented background as a 
simple housewife that had hit the gym and transformed herself into this 
pinnacle of muscular perfection, she was irresistible to the advertisers 
and the talk-show circuit.

She made frequent trips back and forth to LA to shoot episodes of all the 
talk shows, including some that she had never seen or heard of.  But she 
felt most comfortable in Muscle Beach, where her awesome physique was 
remarkable but not too out of place.  The people there, both men and 
women, treated her with open respect and admiration rather than wonder 
and resentment.  She had standing free memberships at all the gyms she 
mentioned in her appearances, and could have as many or as few people 
talk to her as she wished.  Her reputation also gave her immediate 
credibility with the muscle-head men that she lusted after, and she had 
enjoyed the company of many of those she had pursued.  While the 
second battle that would eventually occur as a necessary accompaniment 
to her body which drove her fame, she didn't pay much attention to it.  
She lived for the now, with all the instant gratification she could find.

The other thing she loved doing now that she was financially independent 
and had time on her hands was to explore.  She had hiked numerous 
trails, climbed numerous hills, and conquered many caves.  She always 
explored alone, so she could used her incredible powers to experience 
life in the outdoors as only she could.  The great outdoors was just full of 
massive objects that had never been disturbed, just begging her to test 
herself against them.  She could jump into caves, making passageways 
with her massive strength where none had existed before.  She could 
climb rock faces with minimum gear, using her astounding grip strength to 
manufacture holds in the stone where none had existed before.  The thrill 
of using her powers to the maximum with zero audience thrilled her 
almost as much as the displays of a fraction of a power before the masses 
for her appearances.

Barb

Barb alone among all the victors had felt some remorse after vanquishing 
her opponent.  Even though the duel had been to the death and both 
Supers had known that, Barb still felt guilt over the death of another 
person.  Barb relived in her mind the final moments of her last duel, and 
felt remorse in the unbridled animal excitement she had felt as her power 
had increased to crush the life slowly out of the other woman.  While she 
had never felt a similar extreme rush of excitement and joy before or 
since, she was not looking forward to another chance to experience it if 
she had to kill again to get there.

For that reason, Barb had distanced herself from humanity in the hopes 
that her chance for running into another Super would diminish to zero.  
She had gone from city construction work to park ranger support, where 
she would maintain parks' natural habitats and the buildings that housed 
the park support staff.  There was plenty of work in cleaning up the 
messes made by both man and nature, sometimes allowing her to use her 
powers to clear rocks from trails, move felled trees, rescue lost or 
endangered hikers, or whatever.  Because of her strength, misinterpreted 
by people who saw only the results of her work as skill, she was largely 
left alone in the support role for large sections of the park.  This allowed 
the park coordinators to better spread the few remaining workers due to 
budget cuts around more area.

Battle

Today, Peggy was hiking through a forest to clear her head the day after 
yet another intense photo shoot.  The photographer had attempted to 
goad her into posing with extreme weights for the weight gain 
supplement, challenging her to attempt to lift them.  No photographer had 
ever seen Peggy struggle with a weight before in a picture, and there was 
an unwritten pool among the photographers about how much she actually 
could lift.  The photographers took turns pressing her to pose with heavier 
and heavier weights, but Peggy steadfastly refused to work with any 
weights heavier than the ones she always used.

After that headache, and an amazing picture nonetheless with a weight 
than few woman had ever hefted before, Peggy just wanted to get out and 
be by herself for a while.  She walked along the forest, deliberately 
avoiding any trails to allow her Super leg muscles to carry her over and 
around obstacles too big to move.  When she came across a fallen tree or 
something that looked within her capability to lift, she would take the 
opportunity to attempt it as soon as she had determined that she was 
indeed alone.  In effect, she was sort of creating her own trail, by 
removing rock and tree obstacles from the path she was taking.  She 
continued to steer herself into the denser forest, where the chance for 
interruption was minimized.

Barb was out on patrol that same morning, traveling through the 
unmarked lesser patrolled areas.  These areas were the ones that tended 
to have potential fire hazards or vandalism marks left by uncaring city 
folks who saw nature as their plaything.  Once in a while Barb would 
come across someone dreadfully lost on her patrols, and she would nicely 
steer them back to the paths marked to get the people back to their cars.  
On the odd occasion that she came across someone in the act of defiling 
her precious park, she would receive great satisfaction from forcibly 
stopping them in the act.  With some of the folks she ran into, she wished 
she could use some of her power to inflict on them comparable damage to 
what they would do to her trees.

On this weekday, there was predictably less people traffic around the 
forest so she could focus on removing potential fire and safety hazards.  
Barb studied the dead trees as she went, to take care of the ones that 
presented a danger of falling at an inopportune time.  With one smaller 
dead tree that she found, she used her incredible strength to crush it into 
nice sized logs for a lucky hiker to find and use at his or her campsite.  
She also removed small jagged rocks from the earth that could present an 
issue to hikers' ankles as she walked along.  The refreshing release from 
the exertion on the dead tree that she had just broken into pieces was just 
what she needed, and her muscles were still warm from the exertion.

Peggy stopped and leant one arm against a tree, not because she was 
tired but because she was eyeing it.  While she continued to amaze 
herself with the size of the fallen trees that she could heft into the air over 
her head, she had never attempted to remove one from the ground.  The 
root system alone would make uprooting even a modest sized tree a real 
challenge.  This particular tree was especially attractive because it was 
tall and thin, so she could get her arms firmly around it and it would have 
a challenging root system.  As she decided to do it, she made one final 
check around to make sure that she wasn't being watched.  Then she 
crouched down, putting her legs on either side of the tree and digging her 
hands into the bark.

With an explosive thrust of her legs, Peggy pistoned upward to jerk the 
tree out of the ground.  Unfortunately, the tree held fast and she managed 
to raise up only about an inch as her hands held fast to their grips in the 
trunk.  But instead of resetting and trying again, Peggy maintained the 
strain and continued an isometric pull against the tree.  She felt the strain 
of all of the muscles of her body straining to the maximum against the 
immovable object, and she reveled in it.  Peggy tried to will herself 
stronger and visualize forcing blood into her muscles in an effort to tear 
the tree from the earth.  Peggy bit her lip as the strain started to cause a 
delicious slow burn deep in her muscles.

Barb continued to walk as a funny feeling came over her.  With each step, 
she could feel her blood pressure start to rise and her adrenaline 
response begin.  For a while, she wrote it off as a reaction to the exertion 
against the tree she had broken into pieces.  But now, the feeling was 
much more intense.  She could feel her muscles pulsing within her 
clothes, and could somehow hear the increased blood flow around her 
body.  Her muscles tightened up all over her body without her command, 
and she cold swear that they began to push against her clothes more.  
Suddenly, in a flash with one more step, Barb was hit with an electric 
ecstatic flash of power that charged her muscles beyond what she had felt 
in a long time.  In that moment, she recognized the once in a lifetime 
feeling of her muscles at full charge and knew that another Super was 
near.  

Peggy was dismayed to feel the burning in her muscles begin to subside 
and looked down.  Amongst the veins that had begun to crisscross her 
trembling arms and legs, she noticed another change to her physique.  
She could swear that her muscles were beginning to expand even further 
than the extent that she thought was her maximum as she strained at full 
power against the tree.  Peggy was filled with the feeling of increased 
strength, and as she applied it a beautiful thing happened.  As Peggy fully 
activated her now expanding muscles, the ground beneath her feet began 
to shake and roll.  As Peggy exhaled and continued her pull, she could 
feel the tree start to move ever so slightly upward in her grip.  With a 
delighted yelp, Peggy redoubled her efforts and concentrated on 
imparting her maximum strength to the effort.  With a sudden wave of 
power that rolled over her all at once, Peggy tore the tree from the earth 
with a victorious yell, almost tripping herself as the root system exploded 
upward between her legs.

Peggy held the once proud but now defeated tree aloft in front of her, the 
root system dangling helplessly in the air below the tree evidence of her 
mastery over it.  The weight of the tree was now insignificant compared to 
the force required to rip it from the earth.  As Peggy held it aloft, she was 
surprised that she felt no relief in the completed effort.  Rather, her 
muscles were still straining against her skin as if they were being flexed to 
the maximum.  Suddenly, Peggy realized what was going on and knew 
that she was no longer alone.  Throwing the tree aside, she scanned the 
area for the other muscular woman she knew had to be there.

Barb's head jerked toward the victorious yell heard through the thick 
trees, then saw a disturbance in the trees as something massive was 
hurled through the forest.  Barb knew that another battle was at hand, and 
she expected her first thought to be that of flight.  But she surprised 
herself when she felt nothing but anticipation as she flung herself 
headlong into battle.  The trepidation surrounding killing another human 
being was gone with the onset of her engorged muscles, and all she 
could think about was fulfilling her destiny by killing the woman she hadn't 
even met yet.  

Peggy heard the sounds of something rushing toward her through the 
underbrush, and figured that it had to be her opponent.  She reached 
down with both hands for the visible edge of a rock that had been 
exposed in the crater she had formed in the ground through her tree 
removal efforts.  With a mighty heave, she exerted her newly increased 
full strength on the rock to pull it free for a weapon.  It turned out that the 
rock was indeed a buried boulder, but it was no match for the woman's 
muscles in the newly turned over earth.  Peggy pulled it free and hefted it 
over her head with some effort.  With surprise at the weight, Peggy looked 
up at the boulder above her head.  She was shocked and pleased to see 
that the rock she now balanced over her head was a car-sized boulder, 
probably weighing more than anything she had ever lifted in her life.  
Readying herself in the direction toward the ever-approaching noise of 
another Super, she awaited her destiny.

Barb broke through a group of trees to see a beautifully muscled woman 
standing in front of her with a car-sized boulder held impossibly over her 
head.  Barb noticed that the huge weight did not seem inconsequential to 
the other woman, which filled her with some hope.  Barb wondered if she 
herself was that strong, and resolved to find out after she had destroyed 
her opponent.  Even though her mind was racing at a million miles an 
hour, her body's momentum would not allow her to react instantly.  As she 
saw the woman's arms move forward with the heavy rock, she attempted 
to dodge by pushing off with her super-charged legs into the soft, shady 
ground.

But the soft ground betrayed Barb and slipped under her feet.  Barb fell to 
on knee still facing in the direction of her opponent.  In desperation, Barb 
put one arm up to defend against the missile and then cocked her other 
hand behind her.  Just before impact, Barb pistoned out her open hand in 
self-defense in order to redirect the fast-moving rock.  To Barb's surprise 
and gratification, the soft stone obliterated into much smaller pieces upon 
the collision with her super strength.  Barb stood in place for a moment, 
with her hand still outstretched in front of her, coming to terms with what 
she had just done.

Peggy's heart sank a bit when she saw that her gambit had not paid off.  
The rock attack designed to give her the early advantage had completely 
backfired, and had instead given her opponent greater confidence in her 
own powers.  As Peggy observed her opponent, the woman's muscles 
and veins in her arm erupted all over as she held her arm still 
outstretched, Peggy wondered if she was up to the obvious challenge of 
this Super.  Nevertheless, Peggy sought to maintain her advantage by 
attacking her opponent while she was still on the ground.  Peggy dove at 
Barb with her hands aiming for the other woman's throat.

Barb snapped out of her reverie as she saw the other muscle-woman 
diving at her.  While she still had her massive, vein covered arm posed 
straight out in front of her, her other arm was cocked behind her as she 
regained her balance.  In a seeming replay of what she had just done to 
the rock, Barb drove her cocked fist into the other woman's chest with all 
her considerable might.  The other woman's momentum was halted 
instantly, and she flew backwards into the trees behind her.  Barb felt an 
instant flash of pain through her wrist and up to her elbow as she made 
contact with the other Super's densely muscled chest.  The bloodlust 
welling up in her along with the adrenaline tightening her already pumped 
muscles made the pain barely noticeable.

Peggy's chest felt much worse than Barb's wrist, however.  It was only the 
thick plates of pectoral muscles that had saved her internal organs from 
being reduced to mush by the other Super's incredible blow.  
Nonetheless, Peggy felt it hard to catch her breath as she flew backward 
into a tree and landed on her knees before it.  She had flown far enough 
to be out of immediate eyesight of the other woman, but she knew that 
she had not flown far enough to be out of imminent danger.  As she 
struggled to her feet, she knew that the coughing and wheezing she was 
forced to do to catch her breath was not going to help her maintain a low 
profile.  She just hoped that she had enough time to recover before the 
impending counterattack from her opponent.

Barb animal instincts took over for her human caution and she leaped 
through the trees after her opponent.  She quickly came upon the other 
woman, a coughing fit keeping her from standing completely erect.  Even 
though the direct approach had cost the other woman dearly, Barb's mind 
was now reduced to that of a predatory animal completely devoid of all 
strategy except to tear the other woman to pieces.  Barb rushed over to 
the other woman still slightly bent in front of her and grabbed two handfuls 
of the other Super's full brunette locks.  Then, with a terrible wrenching of 
all of her incredible muscles in tandem, Barb swung the other woman 

around her in a giant arc and then flat into the giant tree behind them.  

Peggy's body acted like a long axe, with her carved obliques smashing 
into the giant trunk at amazing speed.  Unfortunately, although the noise 
from the impact was deafening, the young and healthy giant tree 
withstood the Super body with only minor damage.  Also, Barb lost her 
grip on the other woman's sweat-filled hair with the impact.  Barb's feral 
mind erupted into rage at this denial of her will, and she reached around 
to grab both ankles of the fallen Super.  Then she hoisted the woman up 
into the air and continued on her quest.

Barb swung the other Super's body around again in a death arc to crash 
into the tree at exactly the same spot.  Again the tree withstood the 
onslaught, but this time more wood was dislodged from the massive trunk.  
With a primal scream from eons past, Barb continued to beat away at the 
trunk with her organic axe.  Barb swung the other Super in horizontal arcs 
and chops from above her head, all the while maintaining her grip on the 
other woman's ankles.  Finally, the tree gave way after several collisions 
in the same spot with the Super woman's enhanced muscles and split in 
two, toppling over away from the two women.

Peggy was in a state of semi-consciousness due to the terrible beating.  
The pain from her abdominal muscles collapsing was now melting away 
as her consciousness diminished.  She felt herself being laid atop the 
stump her body had just created on her back and knew that she had to do 
something.  But her body was simply unable to comply with the directions 
her mind was sending.  Moments felt like hours as she bordered on 
unconsciousness, and the world was eerily quiet after the cacophony of 
the previous terrible minute.  The only command she managed was to 
open her eyes toward the impending danger.  The sight that greeted her 
was enough to make her close her eyes again in reaction.

Barb had run over and grabbed the toppled tree section and easily hefted 
it before her.  Feeling some subconscious guilt over what she had just 
done to a living tree, she decided to rectify the situation.  As the other 
Super lay atop the stump she had just created, Barb raised the giant trunk 
before her.  Then Barb brought the trunk down atop the stump with 
terrible force, driving it through the top of the stump and the unfortunate 
Super atop it.  Barb could sense that the tree was not yet whole, so she 
lifted the top section once again and then drove it downward.  She 
repeated this pile-driving motion until the top section had driven though 
the top of the stump and into the ground beneath it.  Finally, the tree was 
driven far enough into the ground to be seen standing once again.

Then, before Barb could make another move, a bright light filled with 
sparks surrounded her and the tree.  The light grew so bright and the 
energy so overcame her that she closed her eyes.  The tree burst into 
flames as the energy around it grew more intense.  Eventually, the 
crackling and the energy receded, and Barb opened her eyes to notice 
that her opponent's deceased body was gone from view into the ground 
beneath the burning tree.  Barb stood and considered the flames for a 
while, as her body calmed down from its fever pitch.  Then her humanity 
gradually returned and she realized what she had just done once again.  
At least Barb knew that she now had another personality, a wild strong 
woman that would protect her at all costs.  It somehow comforted Barb 
that this other woman was doing the killing.  Now Barb could get back to 
her patrol, as soon as she figured out a way to put out this fire.