FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Warning: This story contains transformation, growth, butt expansion and breast expansion. You've been warned!

---

Amazing Fiction #i, by DragonMasterX.

Mid-Asia, the deserts are known to be inhospitable areas for even the toughest animals, save for those naturally adapted to survive its harsh conditions. But humans have overcome so many obstacles in their path to evolution that creating habitats even in these unforgiving sands proved to be just another stepping stone.

While Charlotte Richards toured the resort village she had been assigned to, her eyes stayed sharp for suspicious behavior, even under the brutal heat she had to. As an agent of a well-known branch of Interpol, she had been personally chosen for this mission given her successful arrest record and high regards from her peers.

The mission went as follows: Apparently a group of bio-chemists had developed a special kind of bacteria with DNA-recombinant properties. 'Charlie' wasn't big on science, but as far as she was concerned the bacteria by itself wasn't dangerous. However, its unique properties made it excel as a bridging agent for developing other compounds, such as super vaccines. By the same token, though, the research on the bacteria could also be used to produce new kinds of biological weapons that could really bring disaster upon mankind were the aforementioned research fall into the wrong hands.

A hot tip nabbed by the Interpol just in time had placed their watchful eyes and ears over a vein of black market dealings that were supposedly dealing with leaked samples of the bacteria in question, and it was Charlie's assignment to find, apprehend and search suspects, and upon retrieving the samples, bring them back to use as evidence.

Charlie pulled on the collar of her shirt and sighed. The heat was brutal. Everyone was wearing turbans and loose clothes in order to shield themselves from the unforgiving sun and stay fresh. She wished she hadn't been assigned to this place. She'd never done well on sand. Unpleasant memories of early years at the beach filled her mind, but she quickly dispelled them and returned her focus back to the mission.

As her eyes scanned over the place a second, then third time, she gave up on this particular area of the resort. The normal market was usually a good place to start investigations on a black market, but everyone was especially clammed up in respect to that.

Charlie was the careful one when questioning civvies but the way they appeared to be pretending they knew nothing of illegal dealings in the area made her curse deep down. Sometimes she wished she could just pull out her gun, flash her ID and take the bad guys back. She felt a drop of sweat roll down from her head down her right cheek and then she let out a depressed sigh. It wasn't going to be easy this time either.

After some more fruitless legwork, the agent decided to turn back and head to her base, a small and cozy hotel but with excellent location for keeping survey in every direction. Charlie was hungry, so she brought some local food back and after a while decided to lie down for an afternoon nap. Investigations in places with extreme temperatures really drained her, but she had also been awake since way early, and hadn't had much sleep overnight since she had arrived the night before. She would resume her investigation later...

That night...

Deep inside the local market was a particularly run down shack. Agent Richards had paid special attention to it in case it would reveal to be a way into the black market joint earlier. Upon closer inspection however, one would only see a dilapidated house that screamed to be removed from sight, there was no one inside and that was clear from the get-go once one saw through the empty windows. There really didn't seem anything particularly out of place about this location, and in the dead of night it was all but blended right in with the rest of the closed-up shops.

With no one snooping around, a pair of men dressed in thick black robes approached this particular shack and knocked on its unhinged door a total of five times. Each knock was done on a different spot on the wood surface, and every knock seemed to emit a different sound in response. When the men had finished knocking, they would step back and the floor before them would begin receding into the ground to reveal a long set of stairs heading into pitch black darkness. A small while after the couple had disappeared into the depths of the strange stairs the ground would once more regain its original shape, and all that was left was that small shack.

Over the course of the night, several other figures dressed in black would approach the shack and repeat that particular knocking ritual, sometimes they came alone, sometimes they came in pairs or trios, but the knocking never changed in style.

Each person outfitted in black would, after 'entering' the pass code, gain entrance to the mysterious stairs. After enough descent through what seemed to be a narrow passage downwards in the shape of a spiral, they would then enter a shiny, much wider hall way illuminated by fine candelabras and wall torches made of gold. At the end of the hallway awaited the blinding light of a gigantic four-walled room with a very high ceiling from where even more candelabra decorated and lighted the room at the same time.

Fancy tables were arranged before a large stage, several seats were already taken, but none of the patrons were dressed in black. Their coats and turbans had been removed by the guards at the end of the hallway and put away for their commodity. Faces and membership cards would be double checked to ensure they were in the list of bidders. Cameras were placed everywhere, armed guards stationed at every corner with orders to quickly subdue intruders, making it even harder to gain entrance. No one would be able to sneak past that kind of detection system.

No one, unless one was the date of a patron whose notable purchases had earned him the right of exception. One of those would be Godfrey Smith, an English gentleman known to the public as an incredibly successful man of the business world with some extra karma because of his voluptuous donations to the benefaction. His true passion however was not his line of work nor his supposed golden heart, but more frivolous things such as fine women, wine and just about anything of huge value that others craved.

Tonight was no different for Mr. Smith. He'd heard an especially expensive item had hit the market and as such he felt he had to possess it no matter what. He was going to win no matter what. He always did if the object interested him.

Smith was particularly happy that evening. Not only had he made it to the auction, but by the end of the afternoon he had earned the favor of the lady seated by his side. Her name was Lira apparently, a black-haired beauty dressed elegantly and skimpily at the same time, just as he liked. He had to bring her down just to show off how rich he was, and then after he'd claimed his newest possession he'd also claim her as his. The woman was nice, eager to hear him talk about his incredible victories over the other bidders and the grand amount of treasure or investments he'd earned. She was as elegant as she was sensual and as beautiful as she was smart. So different to the flashy sluts he used to pick up; in fact, she seemed to have been tailored just for him! He had no idea.

The auction soon started. The first few items were common junk in Smith's eyes, nothing that seemed to interest his date either; which was a pity, he had brought some 'spare change' in case he wanted to buy more than just the best item, or treat such a nice lady. As a gentleman he offered to buy her pretty jewels or treasure on display, but she politely declined. She had class, he thought, and it made her even more alluring to him.

Eventually came the item he'd been waiting for. Supposedly it would work as the ultimate investment for his company, and generate enough liquid cash to the point nothing would ever escape his greedy hands. It appeared to be a small vial, described as a powerful chemical compound that had not yet been released by any laboratory, thus it was the opportunity to make a fortune off this enterprise. The starting bid was twenty million. There was no buy-out for it, so it was going to be a tough call.

The first five calls raised the bid to a hundred in less than three minutes. Smith had yet to lift his bidder up. His date eyed him curiously, Lira seemed interested in how he was staring at the item, chuckling at the minimum increases in price. It was all an amusing game to him. A game that Mr. Smith won every single time.

"A thousand million," the bidder stick of the lady situated three tables over Smith was raised up above. A few gasps resonated throughout the auction house, then silence befell the scene; Lira was intently staring at the English gentleman.

He didn't know who this woman was, her head concealed by a fine silky cloth, a pair of sunglasses adding to the mystery. Smith scoffed at the insolence, insulted even by the small notion of competition. Those kind of exhilarant bids were his trademark. Lifting his bidder he loudly announced: "Five thousand million."

The prying eyes jumped from the lone woman to Smith then back to her, feasting on the tension of the apparent bid war that was beginning. No other bidder stick was being raised, but the woman's did, once again, and she declared: "Ten thousand millions."

Smith grunted. "The folly!" he thought, taking a big gulp off the glass of fine scotch he'd been having. It was on.

"Twelve thousand million!"

"Fifteen thousand."

"Twenty thousand!"

"Thirty thousand."

Eyes bounced like ping pong balls, back and forth between the bidders, the offers by the rich competitors deflating egos and inflating anxiety. Just how high would it go? Was it really worth that much? Everyone knew Smith was a compulsive buyer from his frequent visits, but this mystery woman, a supposed newcomer, it was almost mind-baffling how nobody seemed to recognize her in spite of how much money she boasted to have.

Smith strongly set the empty glass after one last gulp and finally stood up with a loud shout, his face red from both his anger and mild inebriation, "A HUNDRED THOUSAND MILLION!"

The atmosphere suddenly turned even more oppressive. The air was so thick you could slice it with a knife. The surprised peoples' eyes laid upon the lone female, who seemed to smile as she stood up. She turned in the direction of Mr. Smith and, unexpectedly, took a bow at him, as if revering him. She then proceeded to leave.

Everyone was baffled at this behavior, even the auctioneer who hadn't even begun counting down, having been expecting yet another table-turn. No one was bidding more either. 100,000,000,000 was many zeroes. Eventually, the auctioneer snapped back to reality as the female finally left and then, at the fall of his hammer, so did everyone snap back.

"A-a hundred thousand m-million..." he repeated, stuttering slightly, "One... two..."

Everyone was holding their breath. Lira looked at Smith's dumbfounded face with amusement. He hadn't yet registered what had just happened. Usually when anything like this happened he would have the pleasure of humiliating his competition, yet this woman, someone he'd never seen or heard of before had just pushed him and in the end... politely accepted her defeat? Good-sportsmanship in an auction house? Unheard of!

"Three! Sold to Mr. Smith," the auctioneer loudly announced. A few claps from some tables sparked a huge applause for the winner. It wasn't often that Greedy 'ol Smith, as he was known in this kind of circle, got backed into a corner by a rookie. And the way he showed her! Everyone exploded with both ovation and admiration. Smith only came back to Lira's tugging of his arm, her soft voice soothing his mind back to normal.

"Very good job, Godfrey, I'm so... impressed," she sensually smiled as she softly stroked his forearm with her fingers, "And I'm not the only one it seems," she smirked, her eyes suggesting for him to see the well-known bidders in the house. Eventually, Mr. Smith gathered his composure back and stopped at nothing to brag about his victory, to show off his beautiful woman and to shake a couple of hands until eventually he stepped in to emit a check and pick his item. The vial had, after all, been the last one in display.

"Hm, so tell me more about your spoils, dear," Lira asked as they left through the same stairs they had come in before, their dark robes concealing them as they walked in the deserted market place.

"Ah, I didn't take you for an enchanting beauty interested in complex sciences..." Godfrey complimented, before producing the coveted metallic vial containing what would repay his investment and with interest. The container was no longer than a middle finger and no thicker than two of them, there was a transparent spot designed to show the contents; all in all a very mundane container vial, yet the value of it skyrocketed due to its contents. "This right here, my darling, is a very powerful agent capable of synthesizing any kind of advanced compound in half, no, three quarters the time it takes for any other bridging component! And here I've the only sample out in the market at this moment," he proudly smirked, showing the vial to Lira for emphasis.

She seemed not only pleased but almost aroused at his description. Lira stepped forwards, chest pressed against his, she placed her hand on the tip of his pectoral region, looking up at him, "Mm, I like a man with a big... vocabulary," she cooed, making Smith blush. As he was smitten she reached for the vial to examine it closer in her hands, "So this thing is worth a hundred thousand million... worth every penny, am I right?" she sensually asked, waving the vial in front of the large man, who only nodded at the sexy devil of a woman.

"Yes, now be careful, we don't want such a valuable container to get..." with him raising his arm he clumsily bumped Lira's, causing her to drop the vial with a small whimper, "Ah! Don't worry, my dear. The vial is strong enough to withstand that. It was my fault, allow me..." he said, about to reach for the treasured item before she stopped him.

"Please, Godfrey, it was my fault, let me," Lira said, "Plus it seems like you're... distracted tonight," she smirked a bit, the almost half-bent man's face quite next to her defined chest. The robes were tight enough to mark her breasts. He instantly stood up in order to not seem like a pervert old man and waited, looking elsewhere. Lira giggled and went down to pick up the object by her feet. She then grabbed Smith's hand, placed it on his hands and gave him a playful bump with her hips, "Come now, Godfrey. I was only joking..." she grinned, "Let's go to your place, mm?" she pressed her rouge lips to his cheek and kissed.

After being urged to safely put the vial away in his pocket, the couple headed on to Smith's luxurious hotel to spend the night together...

---

Smith woke up as the first ray of morning sun hit his face. He felt at a loss, holding by his head. He didn't remember much of last night bar the victory over that cocky newbie back at the auction house. As he sat up on the king sized bed he attempted to collect his memories of the night before, but his thoughts stopped at his arrival in the hotel and the subsequent heavy drinking he'd undergone with. "Ow, my poor head... I must've drunk too much..." he sighed, shaking his head for clarity as he attempted to remember more. Come to think of it, he'd come to the hotel with someone, hadn't he...? But Smith was alone in his bed, no one by his side.

He looked around for any indication of company, but it was just his own belongings there. He looked again, nothing. Eventually, he gave up and stood up, headed for his bathroom and tried drinking some cold water in order to get rid of the pounding headache result from the hangover. Smith inspected his face... that's when he noticed something on his cheek. He felt it to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, but he was sure about it: rouge lipstick. It all quickly came back to him. That woman he'd picked up a couple hours before he left for the auction, her name, everything she'd asked of him. His eyes widened.

Out of fear, he ran right back to the bedroom and jumped over the bed to the sprawled black robe by the night table. He desperately reached into the pocket of the robes and slowly fell to the mattress, relieved to be holding the vial in his hand. Smith rolled it over his palm in order to make sure it was the genuine article, and sure enough it felt just as the vial he'd purchased on the day before, but something was wrong... Something definitely felt wrong about it.

And then he noticed it after looking through the display on the vial. The liquid holding the bacteria, it wasn't transparent the night before. He was sure of it. And now he was sure his fears hadn't been unfounded. "Curses, but when did she?!" he grunted, reminding himself of when she had dropped the vial, she must've been carrying a spare and switched it when he wasn't looking!

Quickly, an enraged Godfrey Smith began dialing phone numbers and barking orders as fast as you could imagine. The only airport out of this desert was a couple of miles away from this resort and vehicles were unsuitable for travelling between the airport and there. That wench would need to leave in one of the caravans and they did not leave until eight in the morning. He was going to stop each and every caravan if he had to, and search them all if necessary to get his investment back.

That bitch would pay, too. As he closed the phone, he hurled it against the wall in a fit of rage, fortunately the material of his cell phone made it impervious to moderate impacts. He growled, "No one messes with me. I don't know who she thinks she is, but no one crosses me."

---

Charlie was hiding in an alley. Her raven hair a mess and the make up she'd been using the night before was all scurried. She'd no time to take a shower after spending the whole night trying to get Smith drunk so she could put him in bed and leave. She was glad she'd had the time to change though, that dress she'd put on in order to seduce the man had been murder on her waist; she was fit, but the corset she had to wear underneath had been a real pain.

As she produced the vial with the bacteria however, she thought: "It was worth it," with a smile. All she had to do is use the time she'd bought herself with the alcohol on the old man and then make a run for it to the airport, the rendezvous point. With some luck, Smith would sleep the booze off his system until it was too late. She'd been hoping for too much however.

"Empty your cargo." Armed guards stood by the caravans, groups of two per transport, all of them thoroughly checking for the described female and the missing item. Threatened by the firearms both the patrons and the drivers complied.

Charlie watched with a frown, hoping she could somehow exploit an opening and make a break for it in an unbothered transport. She lay in wait, keeping out of sight, watching intently...

"Now, empty your pockets!" one of the guards yelled. The mother of the child he was staring down walked in front of her little one defensively before the guard could seize him. "You're in the way, woman!"

"Mommy, I'm scared!"

"Can't you see he's terrified? I won't let you lay a hand on him!"

"We've no intention of killing anybody, but I'll rough you up if we have to!" the guard barked, "Now empty your pockets."

"He only has toys and candy I bought for him, for the love of god he's only seven years old. What could he possibly have that YOU want?!"

"That's of no concern to you. What we're looking for may've been passed along, and if we don't get it our boss's gonna be angry with us, and that's enough for me to get this done as quick as possible!"

"Bastards," Charlie muttered as she witnessed the commotion. "Smith probably paid them pure gold to get this back. These goons are probably willing to kill to get it back even if they said they wouldn't..." she groaned, her priorities starting to confuse.

"How about you help us make it quick? That way I won't have to get rough with a woman and a kid."

The woman seemed shaken, but the guns in the guard's hands made her resolve in favor of their lives. "Thomas, please... show them what I bought you earlier," she said.

Thomas was still frightened, yet with his mother backing him up he felt like he could stand up to the situation. Reaching down to his robe's pockets he pulled out a bag with artisan-quality sweets and a small silver-plated vial-shaped object. The guard's eyebrows lifted above his shades, then suddenly he seized the container from the young boy's little hands. Thomas cried out: "Wait! That's mine!"

"This... it fits the description," the guard observed the silver object from every angle. The design was perfect, even if it smelled sweet. There even was a see-through section on the vial with blue liquid inside. "We'll be confiscating this. Thank you for your cooperation."

"Wait, I said it's mine!" the child insisted even as the guard nonchalantly turned his back to leave. His mother tried to hold him but the angry kid broke free. Charlie widened her eyes as she saw him strike out and kick the guard in the shins. "Meanie!" he yelled.

The guard winced loudly, having been taken by surprise, the vial flying from his hands and crashing against a stand. Everyone gasped as the sound of the vial bursting and its contents spilling all over the wooden stand elicited a big "No!" from the kneeling guard.

The rest of the guards converged on his location, asking questions and receiving the saddened explanation their target had just been destroyed. One of them left and examined the spot where the vial had burst and upon getting next to it his eyes closed and he braced himself instinctively. "Phew! Man this is some sweet odor. It's pungent!"

"Sweet odor?" the captain of the group grunted, "The target's contains odorless substance."

"What?" the kneeling guard's jaw dropped in disbelief, "So what was I...?"

"Stealing? My son's candy, jerk!" the mother quickly went to grab Thomas, cradling him in her arms. "The nerve of some people, stealing a kid's candy!"

"Phhth!" the kid flagrantly stuck his tongue out at the dumbfounded guard. He was about to get up and go show them a thing or two before their captain stopped him.

"It's no use, Zeng. We've already covered this one. Keep going, and this time make sure you don't throw out fake alarms."

With that, Zeng and the rest of the guards went back to their mission, allowing the clean chariots to leave unbothered.

Thomas and her mother made it into their own, and as soon as they found a spot next to a concealed person. The child took out his bag of sweets and began eating with a grumpy look on his face, his mother just glad they had avoided any further conflict. The person beneath them looked down at Thomas and whispered: "Hey kid," to get Thomas's attention. "Good kick," the female said with a light, amused tone in her voice.

"I fight bad guys like that aaaall the time!" the kid bluffed with a proud grin, then offered a candy to his new admirer. She smiled through her muffler and then peered outside through the chariot's windows. Mr. Smith would have to hope for his bank to reject that check in time, because the slippery agent had just made off with his hard earned prize.

The man himself sat at his hotel room at that moment, thinking hard on how he had deceived himself, and how eager he was to have that woman with her neck surrounded by his hands. He patiently awaited for news until the captain of his enforcers finally showed up. The fellow appeared nervous as if to deliver bad news. "Don't give up, Captain," the robust millionaire grunted, not even needing the captain to say a single word to know what had happened. Or rather, what hadn't. "Stop that caravan."

"But sir, we've searched each and all of them and no one had..."

"You don't understand, do you? She's a slippery one, that woman," Mr. Smith balled up a fast, clutching his fingers together as if in deep anger and humiliation, "This caravan is her only option out. The next one leaves tomorrow, and no one would overstay their welcome like this. Do as I say, man!"

"What if they resist? Sir the tourists were restless at first."

"Fool! Don't talk back to me like that, you're on my payroll, and I OWN this little resort. Now do as I say, and take EVERY precaution necessary to get my investment back. Am I clear?"

"Crystal."

"Now go! Stop wasting time."

Mr. Smith was red with anger, but he trusted his men.

Only ten minutes of nonstop order barking from the Captain, the guard under Smith's payroll began gathering in large sand buggies, loaded with weapons on mercy bullets that would be shot if deemed necessary. Two buggies left with the forces. Their target remained unchanged, but their methods had been authorized to become much more forceful.

Unaware of this, the passengers of the desert caravan blissfully continued their ride to the airport, Charlie included. She had mostly kept to herself, only taking quick glances to her PDA. "Shoot, I'm on time but while I slipped through in here during that confusion earlier I forgot to send my message to HQ, and there's no reception in the middle of nowhere... Well, they should be set for picking me up as soon as I get there," she mused, looking out of the window as if it was a habit. There was something about the clear skies that always put her at ease even during the most anxious moments.

Agent Richards's anxiety however would peak if she knew she was being followed. The sand buggies with Smith's goons were rapidly catching up, and soon enough, one of the passengers noticed the jolly bunch approaching them. "Hey look, dune riders!" one passenger exclaimed.

Another one joined them on the window and added: "That's awesome, but was there a sand buggy rental shop back at the resort?"

Her interest piqued, Charlie glanced down and her eyes widened as she noticed who were driving the approaching buggies. "Damnit! I might've let one of them see my face back then..." she cursed under her breath, standing up and looking around for anything that might help her. She had, after all, only brought a concealed small caliber gun in case she ran into the kind of trouble she could deal with. Charlie hadn't counted with ten men rushing her vehicles!

There was nothing she could do without giving away her identity. She ran out of time to think of a plan and eventually she decided to allow things to play out. The buggies passed her chariot and went ahead to press the leading one in order to have them all stop at once. As the chariots came to a halt, the passengers became restless. "Why are we stopping?" "What's going on?"

Those questions and more were answered as the reasons climbed down of their own vehicles. The armed guards began to approach the chariots and this time, without even asking, began to throw people out, forcing them down on their knees. Each and every man, woman or children had their turban removed, their face double and triple checked, and their belongings meticulously registered. This time however, no one would leave until everyone was rounded up.

Before, the operation had been under the cover that an illegal object was being smuggled out of the country. Now, they hadn't even explained a thing. This caused even more unrest for the tourists, who eventually began to rise up. The first person that did, however...

"We already cooperated. I demand there to be an immediate stop to this bullshit! We have our rights, don't we?!" the angry tourist shouted, but before he could even see it, the guard he had been yelling to pointed his rifle at his chest and pulled the trigger. The force of the mercy bullet being propelled out of the gun's barrel was enough to knock the air out of the poor man who slumped on his knees, clutching his stomach in pain and then finally collapsed, unconscious, not that anyone knew that was the case. With that, silence began to pervade the area, everyone simply stared, and the guards continued their search.

"Anyone else would like me to read their rights?" the guard asked without even looking at the terrified eyes of the passengers.

"He killed him!" a woman yelled out.

"Let me at 'em, mommy!" young Thomas said from far back, but this time the over worried mother clutched her arms around her son tightly, unwilling to let go.

Charlie swallowed. "I can't allow these people to be involved anymore... this is Interpol's deal. I might've been sent on this mission but its importance can't come before the well being of these people," she told herself, almost regretting how she had allowed fate to resolve her issues before. But now, things were quickly escalating out of hand. Her conscience got the better of her.

She was trained in martial arts and high discipline for Close-Quarters Combat, but she couldn't take out 10 armed men so easily. She couldn't break out her weapon and go gun-ho either, as the crossfire would put all the civilians in danger. Charlie was certainly in a pickle. "If this doesn't work, well... Guess I'll be bouncing unwanted people off that pretty bar up the sky," she gulped.

With her resolve to save people and her mission at the same time set, Charlie walled herself against the long queue of chariots and began to sneakily make her way to the sand buggies. Fortunately the groups of people had been rounded up and were making a line on one side. Thanks to that she had an easy break making it to the first chariot. Now came the hard part.

She peeked out of cover and made sure there wasn't anyone looking her way before she managed to skip undetected to the side of the buggy. One of the camels pulling the carriages snorted at that moment, which turned the attention of one of the soldiers, but fortunately Charlie had already made it. That didn't make it any easier for her as she silently cursed at the animal, but then she glanced at the panel of the buggy and allowed her a smile. "Idiots."

Agent Richards took a deep breath and then finally jumped onto the vehicle. She turned the key and was relieved that the engine roared to life almost immediately. This turned the attention of at least six guards, but before they could say anything Charlie stepped on the gas, "That one's trying to get away! After them! We have to..." but before they could finish, the dusty cloud Charlie purposely kicked up blinded them. "Shoot! Shoot damnit!"

They began unloading mercy bullets, but they were highly ineffectual against the plating of the sand buggy. They didn't even do anything to the tires! "Wong, you guys stay here," the Captain said to five of his soldiers. Hurrying to the remaining buggy, he brought the engine to life, "The rest of you, come with me! We have a rat to catch."

Charlie looked at the panel. The speed-o-meter wasn't going higher than a hundred and twenty kilometers. "Damnit!" she said as she noticed the speeding image on her buggy's retro visor, "I should've sabotaged that one before leaving. This is gonna get rough... Ahh!" she shrieked as a bullet collided against the windshield, shattering it. "The ones before weren't making a dent because they were mercy bullets, they must've switched! Oh goodie!" she sarcastically said.

"I've to get to the airport, that's the only way to contact HQ. I'm on my own out here!" her mind told her, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate both on driving and making sure she was also moving erratically to avoid giving them a clear shot.

"Fools! Do I have to do everything by myself?" The captain growled, switching the driver's seat with one of his guards, taking his rifle as well. He began to aim.

Charlie became slightly relieved when she began to distinguish the airport not too far away from her current position. She hit the gas as hard as she could, attempting to make it. She also slipped her hand into her robes, using a free hand to quickly dial to HQ, hoping to get signal now that she was nearby. "Yes! I'm getting reception! Finally," she grinned a bit, but that moment of leisure was one she would soon regret as she heard a loud bang followed by an ominous hissing. "The tank!" she gasped, making a desperate swerve as the next bullet caused one of the rear tires to blow up. "Damnit! I'm losing control!" she gasped, "But I'm so near!"

The buggy was losing speed, and Charlie's heart was racing as consequence, knowing the leaked gas might ignite with even the slightest spark and send her with a one-way ticket to hell. "But the bacteria... they can't have it!" she gasped, then as she began noticing a nearby tall rock formation she devised a plan. Maybe her last one.

"Look captain! They're going off-track! Headed to..."

"No! They're going to commit suicide! We can't have the target destroyed with them! GET GOING MAN!"

"It's as fast as it's going to get, Cap!"

"D-dang... gotta time it just right..." Charlie fearfully held onto the wheel and forced her foot down on the pedal. The engine let out a small groan as nearly all its fuel had been depleted already. Her persecutors had almost caught up with her too! She was about to make one last swerve before the Captain lined up a last hopeful shot and managed to shoot Charlie in her arm, making her yelp out and also lose focus. Blood gushed from the wound, but Charlie couldn't allow herself to fail now! She made the swerve just as she had intended... and crashed the side of her buggy on the formations, jumping off at the last moment.

The vehicle exploded against the rocks. The Captain's buggy came to an abrupt stop a mere 30ft away. The blast blocked the view of everything, even of its driver. There was a minor quake as the force of the explosion cleared some natural supports for the spot, causing the sand to collapse into what seemed to be an all-devouring hole. Rock and smoking debris started falling into the broadening hole that seemed to consume everything.

The goons looked on as the pit widened broader and broader, stopping barely 10ft away from them. "Holy... didja look at that? No way they survived that explosion!" one of the men exclaimed. The Captain was mainly silent, staring at the smoking pit of sand with glaring eyes, as if entirely convinced of the opposite his men had. "Search that pit. We'll take no chances."

"We'll need some rope and a hook. Check the compartments. Hurry up!"

But even as Smith's agents prepared, they would've never been able to foresee what was going on below. The debris had fallen into the sandy abyss but it was by no means endless. A short distance below, the Interpol agent known as Charlie was barely hanging on to life. She was both hurt and confused, her muffler burned off in the explosion, somehow her face had only received minor, stinging burns, the rest of her clothes in bad shape but nothing one couldn't fix with enough silk. Charlie quickly fished into her robes, her PDA was destroyed, but the vial with the coveted bacteria was without harm, "Tough... little bastard, aint'cha?"

She had miraculously survived the intentional car crash, but she had lost blood from the gunshot wound on her right arm. "Can't... close eyes. Must... stay awake..." she told herself sternly. This had been some divine providence or something to her. She was alive, alone, and had a chance at escaping. "Where...?" her tired eyes glanced around as she somehow managed to get up on her knees, "A subterranean tunnel- under the desert?" she mused, finally able to stand on her two feet, clutching her sore arm hard as she flinched from the pain. "Ahh! Nggh... Wasn't too far away from the airport... Maybe I can make it there, somehow."

Before she could make more than a few dozen feet in distance however, she began hearing the ceiling rattle. Charlie cursed herself, thinking the earlier blast must've upset the entire cavern. She couldn't bring herself down with pessimist predictions however. The rattling insisted, and she couldn't help but to stop and observe as an intricate set of holes began appearing above her. Charlie narrowed her eyes, trying to make out what was happening, since the holes were too small, and too few in number to signify a cave in. Suddenly one of them abruptly widened and an object fell through, landing on her forehead.

Charlie froze, gulping. She felt the object move on top of her head. It was big, and she couldn't see it thanks to the position; it was crawling however, with eight disgusting legs, and it was starting to make her legs weak. "O-off... off..." she muttered, before a second creature descended onto her arm, "GET OFF ME!" she screamed as she noticed the creatures falling were big types of black desert scorpions that she'd never seen before in her life. And they were angry, as if disturbed from someone making a ruckus. Charlie shook around as fast as she could, but the scorpions continued to rain down on her from the ceiling.

"Ahhh! Noo! Stop it, stop it!" she began struggling, flailing her arms as attempted to throw the arachnids off her. The scorpions, now feeling threatened, began to attack with their stingers, which Charlie narrowly avoided by pushing them off her limbs and head, swatting them off as if they were oversized ants crawling on her skin. But in her haste she forgot to check below, where another scorpion was emerging, equally disturbed by her screaming and dancing on his home. Angry and annoyed at the same time, the creature climbed onto the girl's footwear and in an effort to get rid of the intruder drove its venomous stinger into her leg. The pointy tip was strong enough to penetrate human skin, and as a result it injected the venom into Charlie's bloodstream.

The intrusion of the stinger was, by all means, like an annoying sting to Charlie, who immediately lost her balance as she realized she'd been stung. "Ahhh!" she cried out, knowing that there were certain types of scorpions who carried toxins deadly to even humans. "F-fuck, get off, get off! Nngh!" she fought to get all of them off, falling from the loss of balance and the lack of energy. Charlie had no idea what she would do now that she was not only crippled but also stung, "D-damn... can't... allow this... to stop me..." she gasped, feeling her legs go numb, and the rest of her body followed suit as the neurotoxin worked to paralyze her.

Satisfied, the victorious scorpion and his brethren prepared to feast upon the giant source of food, conglomerating upon their paralyzed prey. They were about to start feasting immediately, but suddenly they all scattered at once, leaving the crippled woman to her own devices.

Charlie was feeling drowsy. While not strong enough to induce unconsciousness, the venom had worked to its intended purpose and her locomotive system wouldn't respond to her brain's commands. She could move her eyes and see, but she couldn't speak, only breath. Her body felt increasingly weaker, unable to cope with the loss of blood. She was slowly slipping away, but then a blinding light covered her and a strange sound akin to that of a drum kept ringing in her head. Somebody was approaching her, they seemed to be alone.

---

Three of the guards under the Captain's had made it down to the underground tunnels. They were surprised to find no corpse, not even any sort of remains after searching through the debris. The Captain was still unconvinced, and sent them further along the maze. They weren't making good progress. The farther they went in, the more they realized the tunnels kept forking and splitting; it was like a massive natural labyrinth. "We ain't gonna find nobody in here man. Better head back and tell the Cap we found nothing... 'cause that's the truth!"

"What's the use? Boss man has the Cap overclocked. We go back there and he'll kick us down here again. We either find that suicidal sod or any proof they were successful in buying the farm or we'll be stuck here 'til X-mas I tell ya."

But even as they worked to find who was nowhere in vicinity, the person responsible for their target's disappearance was carrying Charlie to their safe abode.

"You're in a pretty rough shape," the voice of a middle-aged man was the last thing Charlie heard before her eyes closed and she finally lost consciousness. "Well, don't know who you are or where you come from; heck, why the hell you were down here at all, but I'd be a really bad practitioner if I didn't treat you."

The man carried his guest through a metal door that opened with simple set of everyday keys. Walking through the door the resident of the apparently desolate sandy tomb entered into his abode. The self-referred practitioner placed the bruised Charlie upon a metal table that sat in the middle of the large room. If she'd been awake, Charlie would've found what seemed to be an underground hall filled with a plethora of medical and scientific equipment, their purpose unknown, but their technology very much to date.

"Now, what do we have here?" the man carefully observed Charlie's unconscious form, noticing her bleeding arm first, and a red swelling spot on her right leg. "A bullet wound... Whoever you are, someone didn't like you, eh?" he said to his slumbering patient, expecting no reply. His eyes went down and he grabbed Charlie's leg, "Nice legs," he commented, "But I think they can do without the high amount of black scorpion venom they've been pumped with... I better get to work."

The mystery man proceeded to treat Charlie with near unparalleled speed. Even if alone, the man behaved like a professional surgeon capable of operating individually. After preparing his instruments and respective containers, the practitioner began his operation. Charlie would feel nothing thankfully, but the doctor had to extract the bullet and disinfect the open wound in order to prevent infection. The blood loss had been considerable, but the vitals seemed strong on the machine the man was using to monitor his patient. "She must be a fighter... Good for her, I hate dealing with corpses," he jokingly told himself, and continued his work.

After a while, Charlie's arm was sutured and her wound was due to heal. The medical expert began the second treatment, which was to purge the venom out of her system. She would need to receive a blood transfusion plus the antidote to the venom if she'd ever want to walk again.

"Done... You're still stable, but you need that blood transfusion soon," he said out loud. It was risky to transfuse while he hadn't yet fabricated or administered a serum to block out the venom's effects, but if he didn't give her blood the nutrients and oxygen would be delayed from reaching vital organs. Charlie had no chance if he began working on a cure right now without giving her fresh red cells first. "Any doctor would declare you clinically dead right now. They'd never attempt to do what I'm about to do..." Guessing at blood types was nothing one could effectively do, but the man was ready with his equipment to tell what Charlie's was after a simple test. A bag was prepared with fresh blood from a container and he proceeded to begin the transfusion. The vitals took a while to begin raising, but the biggest danger had passed. "Good thing I never received my doctorate."

"Now let's see what... oh!" The practitioner gasped as he was making sure Charlie was in a comfortable position and clumsily knocked something off her. He quickly crouched and picked up the dropped object, "Hmm? Is this a vial?" he looked down intently, as if trying to take a guess of what was inside. "Well well, what have we here...?"

A minute of mesmerizing himself was all the man needed to realize he was getting nowhere by wasting time. "I can find out later. Must engineer that cure," he said, but before beginning he carefully undid the lid to the vial and used a syringe to extract a few cubic centimeters of the blue liquid. He put half of it on a sampler and set it on his compound analyzing machine, then went off to a different part of his underground laboratory to get to work on the actual job.

Half an hour later, the scientist was finally done with the batch of the antidote. The compound was a lite blue in color and that meant he had been successful. "Ahhh. Got to say, you're one tough customer lady, but you sure give a man reason to push his limits! This should've taken me two hours," he laughed a bit, knowing he wouldn't receive any sort of response from the sleeping girl.

At that same time, a ping from the machine on the far side of the room alerted the mysterious middle aged man, who just couldn't resist his curiosity. "Well mon petit, you'll have to forgive me. You can wait a couple minutes longer right? After all I'm doing this free of charge!" he chuckled, sliding with his wheeled chair over to the compound analyzer. He set the syringe with the antidote on the tray next to another syringe and started peeking into the microscope attached to the machine. Scheme-quality feeds and other scientific gibberish started appearing in front of the medical expert, work of his highly advanced lenses which allowed him to both observe and scan compounds at the same time. "This..." he was left speechless. He gasped and looked back at his slumbering patient, "Why were you carrying this?" he grunted suddenly. "The Recombinator. Schmidt's work... It's the genuine article. The protein links are perfect, the bonds are entirely malleable, it's... it's beautiful..." he trailed off, so distracted in his observation to realize what was happening near the entrance to his lab.

"Hey, ah found somethin'! Look'it dis 'ere door!" one of the American goons yelled, his gun pointing at a metal door at the end of one of the many tunnels they'd been through. "Bet'cha it's the exit. In yer ugly mug, Feng!"

"It's Zeng. Now get out of the way!" the Chinese guard angrily said, pushing his fellow guard before heading over to the metal door. He was surprised to see the rim of the door gleaming with a bit of light. "Whoever lives in here doesn't count on guests, huh. Time to show them they need to be prepared for any surprise visit."

The three armed guards busted into the practitioner's lab, surprising the unarmed man, who turned around and instinctively lifted his hands in surprise. "Mon dieu... What are you gentlemen doing here?"

"Hmm, she could be who we're looking for. Search her, Maxwells," Zeng told to the American, moving over to the startled scientist, "Who are you? Where are we?"

"Oh, I'd be no one if by association you're asking for my profession, mon frère! I'd just be an observer of the world and its natural order!"

Weirded out by the man's flamboyant words, Zeng just shook his head and uttered "Just your name will do."

"Pierre! Oh, are you by chance lost?" the jolly one answered and asked at the same time, getting off his chair and approaching the asian, "There's an exit up there. I usually help people who get trapped in the- how do you call them? Sand vortexes! Hmm, the quicksand! Oui."

"No quicksand, old man. Just some crazy woman running off with something that didn't belong to her." Zeng was losing his patience. He turned around and looked at his partners sternly, "Well?"

"The chick's empty, Feng," Maxwells said, "Fits da descripts boss man gave us 'tho. Ah say we take her anyway!"

"What? Non non, unacceptable! I can't allow you to remove my patient yet. She's just survived a bullet wound and I was about to cure her toxin ailed body!" Pierre objected loudly. Zeng turned around and pointed the barrel of his gun right under the medic's chin.

"Bullet wound, you say?" he asked, getting a quick, exaggerated series of nods from Pierre. Zeng turned once again to look at the female's arm, noticing a sutured wound where their Captain had sniped the arm of their target, "It's her alright. We're taking her."

"B-but, the toxin! She will never again be able to move if I don't inject the cure... s'il vous plaît!"

"You might be in cahoots with her, no go, doc."

"Ahh, no need to call me that, after all I've never..."

"Save it! Where is the cure?" Zeng impatiently barked.

"Feng what da heck man? Why we curin' the broad?"

"The Captain told us she was expendable, but the Boss has a beef with her. A personal beef. Don't you see? We can get a big, fat bonus if we deliver her just as she escaped him. He'll want to put his fat british hands on this woman."

"Ah like how yer thinkin' cap's workin'," Maxwells grinned.

"It's on that tray... take the lite blue syringe and just inject her right arm with it. Please do be careful not to inject the-"

"Jus' the blue syringe eh? No big deal! Hoooh? Hey Feng, look'it what ah found!" Maxwells said, shaking the silver vial in his fingers as it had been left on the table.

"So that is what we've been looking for eh. Here's hoping it's not stupid kid candy again... Go on and give her the cure, man!"

"Yeah yeah, blue syringe..." Maxwells looked down at the tray with two syringes. He took the blue one and went by the metal table where Charlie lie asleep. "Right arm right doc?"

"Indeedly so! Just be sure to apply proper disinfectant after..."

"Quiet!" Zeng growled again. Pierre fell silent but then noticed from afar that the syringe Maxwells was pressing against his patient's arm only had half the dose he had filled it with. From a distance it couldn't quite be told apart, but the color didn't matter to Pierre. There was only one other syringe in use that wasn't the antidote.

"Non! Non non, you must desist! Do not inject that syringe!"

"Say wha?" Maxwells blinked, he already was pumping the blue solution into Charlie.

"Mon dieu! You nincompoop! I said lite-blue!"

"Whut's the difference? You said blue, there were two blues."

"Mindless brute, you've injected the wrong one! Surely you've killed the poor girl!" Pierre exclaimed.

"First ah hear of an antidote that kills patients. Ya sure yer a doctor mate?"

"Maxwells, you better not have snuffed her, because I'd been expecting a bonus after this trek!" Zeng groaned, looking at the slumbering patient. Pierre fearfully looked at the vitals scanner, but was surprised to see vitals raising instead of dropping.

Unaware to anybody in that room, there was something going on inside of Charlie, something unnatural, something which hadn't been planned by none of the men inside that room. Charlie's toxic blood was on a sub-level of being fatal to her nervous system, the antidote had been made in order to purge the residuals, but no antidote had been administered to the female.

Instead, there was something else working in her body now. The recombinator bacteria was running rampant within a human being's body, assimilating tissue and reworking it to the genetic level, harmonizing protein chains and optimizing the performance of all the cells in Charlie's body. The venom was meant to be repelled, but its negative properties had been recycled by the bacteria working at uncanny speed, breaking apart the basic components of the toxin's compounds and reworking them to not only not damage Charlie's body but to mix with it down with her own genetic pattern.

Nobody was aware any of this was happening, and nobody, not even Pierre, would've been able to guess what was about to happen. The vitals scanner seemed to stabilize finally after a peak in heartbeat rate before Charlie's eyes suddenly opened wide and she let out a loud gasp, taking in a generous gulp of much needed air. Three rifles pointed her way as soon as her vision cleared and she realized she wasn't in the arachnid nightmare her brain had machinated for her during her sleep.

"Bad day, bad day, bad day," Charlie told herself in defeat as she glanced left and right, even behind. She was surrounded!

"Oh merci! Merci the heavens, merci mon dieu! The lady lives! It's... how do you call it? A miracle!" Pierre cheerfully exclaimed, although no one else joined in the festivities.

"Good, now I don't have a reason to shoot a hole through your head Maxwells," Zeng merely smirked.

"Bah, who needs dem quack doctors. Call me Doc Max from now on, Feng! Way bettah than dis one," he swung his arm in victory, his rifle accidentally knocking down a small metal backpack that crashed loudly against the ground, which set in on. Suddenly a small drum-like sound started beating with a certain rhythm. It was nothing special, it just seemed to loop the same tune again and again without change. "Whoops. Mah bad, doc."

"Oww, my head..." Charlie groaned slightly as she noticed the more she focused her hearing into the rhythm the worse it felt for her. "Shut that thing off!" she suddenly shouted, the headache only making her feel more aggressive, as if wanting to either crush what was making that sound or run away from its source.

Pierre's eyes widened, "That's... not possible, that gadget uses a certain sound frequency which only arachnids are susceptible to... It shouldn't work on humans unless..." his train of thought suddenly stopped, his jaw dropped, and he just couldn't begin to put together anymore words.

Charlie continued to scream, holding by her head. The pain was unbearable. She felt herself leap forwards at Maxwells.

"Oh, so you want sum, bitch? C'mon then, I ain't afraid of no dumb broad!" the confident man said, ready to punch the stuffing out of the aggressive girl, but she ducked right before his fist could connect with her. This act alone sent everyone into a trance as they watched Charlie move too fast for them to make sense of how she had managed to duck after she had dove with such momentum at the large man. In fact, Maxwells hadn't been Charlie's target. She balled her fists and suddenly drove them down like a gorilla would when wanting to smash a particularly tough coconut, and like a coconut smashed by a gorilla the gadget on the floor was reduced to a pile of scrap and debris.

With that display of brute strength, even Maxwells was left speechless. But the silence was cut short as Charlie grabbed herself by the head and began thrashing around. "Grrr!" she growled in pain, screaming. The pain was slowly leaving her head but now it was spreading all over her body! It wasn't the sharp pain anyone would expect however, instead of sharp pain stemming from an internal wound this was more of an annoyance, a constant subtle pounding, a tickling in her insides. Something that Charlie had no control of was happening within her, and she wanted it out! She was irritated, she had to get out!

Taking the time to look at a set of stairs going up she didn't even stop to ask, she just with uncanny agility over the large man blocking her path and began running out of the lab, paying no heed to any of the men, savior or persecutors. Their daze finally broken by her escape, Zeng ordered Maxwells and Jacks to give chase. "We can't let her escape, not now!"

But Charlie had no plans of staying behind. She felt cramped even though the place was humongous in scope, she was able to fully exert newfound agility and strength as well as speed. She felt good when she ran, jumped, bounced off the many walls. It felt amazing, as if she was drawing power and energy from some untapped well within herself! But she still wanted out. The cozy madeshift living room she had made it out to wasn't enough for her.

Wanting to escape through the nearest door she found, Charlie didn't notice, or didn't care, that as soon as she pulled the locked metal door in her way, the raw strength coming out and into her arm was just enough to pull the door off its hinges. Unaware or uncaring, she flung the door away as if it was a baseball bat held by the batter who just hit a home-run, and just like one she began making the speediest run of her life, her destination: freedom.

But as Charlie made it into one the darkest, dampest caves she'd ever seen before, she realized something. At the end of the tunnel she saw light, and her eyes weren't agreeing with it. She had to stay in this cave, where it was nice and cozy, where she had room to move and do as she wished, but she didn't want the light. It wasn't hurting her, but there was this new feeling of preference which made her feel attached with the sight.

"What the hell? She forced a door..." Jacks commented as the guards made it to the upper level of Pierre's concealed abode.

"Scratch that Jacks, she didn't just force a door, she TORE it off its hinges! What's going on here...?"

"Bah! So she's fit! Ah ain't afraid of no butch broad!" Maxwells said, charging into the passage Charlie had taken.

Charlie looked around curiously, soothed by the place she found herself in. It felt like she finally could afford to feel free, the annoying feeling of light, irritating pain was almost gone... She just needed time to herself. "I just need a little rest..." she told herself, and as if suddenly affected by what seemed to be months of unrest she began heading nearby a wall, where her fingers began carving a tunnel. Strength beyond her wildest dreams allowed her to dig through crust and hardened minerals, allowing herself a small alcove where she would take residence. Wobbling a bit, she suddenly made it into the hole and proceeded to cover after herself. She wanted to be undisturbed.

But just as Charlie was beginning to relax, her body suddenly began to react wildly again. Something was inside her, causing the tingling, changing her from the inside out, adding, mixing, changing, becoming.

She noticed how the pain in her right arm was beginning to shoot up again, but before she could even complain she noticed the sutures being pushed off as her flesh seemed to regenerate the damaged tissue in record time. The swelling in her leg had long disappeared, not that it had mattered to her earlier. Charlie became scared at first, "What's happening to me? This was going to be an easy mission... Am I feeling guilty over my failure...?" she asked herself, unaware that part of the very thing she had been sent to extract was now in her body, stimulating every cell in her body, rewriting information, subverting its normal routines and protocols to satisfy the recombinator bacteria's whims. It had to optimize, it had to mix, it had to perfect. It had to recreate. That was its sole purpose behind its creation.

But Charlie didn't know that, nor what was about to happen to her. She was filled with anxiety all of a sudden, the tingling in her body beginning to spread all over her form. Without being able to react in any other way she just moaned as she felt pressure in her back, her feet and her chest. The first thing she did was to bring a hand down at her chest, which felt tight against the tattered robes she had been wearing. "It's... what's this? My breasts, they..." she gasped, moaning again as the feeling intensified with her touch. All of a sudden the tingling began to concentrate into one blast of pure bliss as she felt her natural C cups to suddenly begin swelling, pushing her bra and the fabric of her clothes away. The bra was putting on a valiant effort, but the rate at which Charlie's bosom was enlarging was too much, and with the stretching sound of fabric tearing off, her boob flesh won the tugging competition. Her bra's straps broke off and then her palm felt as her huge bosom spilled onto her palm. She could feel their size and weight had increased as she felt them through the robes. "It's... ahhh! It's gotten bigger, my chest! It's so big now!" she moaned to herself as her D cups continued to swell. She felt an irresistible urge to grope herself, and thus she moved both hands to her immense orbs and began squeezing the growing mounds.

She was so busy playing with her growing mounds that she didn't notice how her feet were undergoing a certain change. A small bump started to push against her sneakers, which was in fact something growing out of the back of her feet. The stretching sound was only muffled by Charlie's moans of pleasure as she played with herself, but the sneakers wouldn't resist. They busted from behind as her feet sprouted a sharp yet short talon that grazed flint and roused a few sparks. Its sharpness was great enough, but that wasn't all that was granted to Charlie. Her feet continued their metamorphosis, her toes seemingly melting and then melding together, bones shifting and fusing into what seemed to be two extra talons, these a bit longer than the one behind her ankle.

Then came her back. Charlie's tailbone was beginning to elongate, but only enough for what seemed to be a mound of gooey material to protrude from her coccyx, which began to solidify and form into a solid appendage. A second, much smaller mound grew atop the first one, repeating the process of molding and solidification. Four extra mounds of the same size followed, the tail-like appendage folding to fit inside the confined room neatly. It looked like the segmented tail of any scorpion, and to complete its appearance the tip formed a curved stinger from where pink liquid finely excreted, making a sizzling sound as it touched the ground nearby.

But Charlie was too into her new set of knockers to pay attention to this. Her growing double Ds were still getting larger, and with the robes stuck under her weight their elasticity was engaged in a losing battle with her great boobies. Eventually, the weight and pressure were so great that the flesh began popping through the seams that were being opened by Charlie's needy fingers. She needed to feel her sweater meat, she had to squeeze and feel her endowments! And so she did when her breasts reached a size of two large softballs, tearing through the front of her outfit. "Mmmm... so big, so sensitive. Oh, whatever's happening to me don't sto-" but before she could finish her sentence she noticed the little light filtering through the cracks of her hidey hole was showing her the humongous tail by her front, "Oh god, oh god! Giant scorpion, AHHH!" she screamed out in a panic, not that it could be heard outside...

Much.

"Hey! Did you hear anything?" Jacks said, the group already outside the tunnel and into the same cave where Charlie had decided to hide to 'rest'. "Sounded like a girl screaming..."

"The hell, you think she hid in here? When she could've just bailed? I say we contact the Cap, look at that exit. I bet she's on her way to the airport as we speak! She'll be laughing all the way back to wherever she's headed to!" Zeng growled.

But Charlie wasn't in the mood to laugh. In fact, she was so terrified it was a incredible she hadn't started screaming again. She held the segmented tail that was protruding from her back just as she would try to move a heavy hose from one side to another. "This... this is mine!" she gasped, then felt her toes wiggle... or what were left of them anyway. "What? My feet, I... I lost my feet!" she panicked again, trying to move her new claw-like feet to experiment, "Oh god, what's happened to me? I have a scorpion's tail, clawed feet and... cow udders?" she semi-jokingly told herself, bouncing her basically unchanged but largely improved mammaries in her palms.

"Gah!" Charlie gasped in surprise as she felt her hips on a whim, noticing how wider they felt to her touch. The shift in weight probably had required her thighs and buttcheeks to swell larger in order to better balance her new form, not to mention her hips needed to support it all. "Oh man, I'll never be able to slip into that bikini again..." she sadly thought, trying to think of anything alternate to the nightmare she was living. "Damnit!" she mentally cursed her situation, "The bigger breasts were fine, just why did it come with all thi- Ahh!" she was interrupted as another change was suddenly forced upon her. Her arms were starting to get bulkier. It didn't feel as though she was becoming muscular, but was gaining some sort of extra covering. No longer skin, the whole complexity of her body started to take on a pale, yellowish color, and certain places over her body started sprouting extra skin, or so she thought.

What used to be skin became an exoskeleton that was added to her build, complementing certain tactical spots of her body. Slim but incredible dense plating started to cover her shoulders, and continued down her spine, precisely atop the places where the nerves were lodged, and now they could no longer be touched. The black armor spread from underneath her armpits, dressing her flanks with it and passing as a relatively thin line over her breasts, conveniently covering her nipples from view. The same happened to her hips, the armor mainly protecting the sides, but a small portion of it also appeared over her groin where her most sensitive woman bits were located. Finally, it formed around her moaning mouth, muffling her voice, and at the same time protecting her with a face guard of sorts.

The sides of her face guard popped open, protruding what seemed to be a set of small but potent extra mandibles. She felt how they belonged to her cheekbones now, yet somehow, with merely a mental command, the gruesome things simply went back into hiding and the mask returned to what it was before. Charlie was astonished. Finally some control!

She could talk and breathe just as before, the plating was part of her, and thus represented no encumbrance whatsoever. Charlie wasn't too sure of that though, as she was still confined within a small space. She would need to test it out later, yet somehow she felt as if she would be able to anyhow! But first, she wanted to test something else...

"C-come on... off..." Charlie shyly spoke, and as if in response, the black armor pieces over her whole body suddenly retracted and seemed to melt into her body. It was as if she had never had them in the first place. She was naked now, the swell in body size having been enough to terminate all else that she had been wearing. She grabbed a piece of the fabric underneath her and lifted it, "Aww... my favorite panties!" she lamented, feeling as if the panic of her transformation had suddenly slipped away. "I... I'm not going to ever be able to go back to normal, am I?" she thought, defeated. Charlie wasn't big on science but whatever had happened to her had turned out this way because of the people she had seen back in that confined lab. "The lab! Those bastards...!" she suddenly remembered.

"No, no way I'm going to let them go scot free! Not after they've threatened to get that dangerous thing back to Smith... Not after they've endangered innocent lives, and not after they made me destroy my clothes!" she balled up a fist, her armor suddenly re-appearing over her body. The harder she clutched her fingers however she noticed something underneath her forearms. She focused on the feeling, and as she applied the correct pressure only once...

"Holy mother of god!" she exclaimed as a sharp, thick talon of sorts suddenly shot out over the back of her hand followed by a smaller one from underneath her wrist. A pincer had formed between her balled up hand. Charlie examined it in great detail and was glad she didn't have her face too close when it came out. She began relaxing, but as she did, the pincer started to retreat back to where it had come from, the armored part of her hands. "Now this..." she clutched, causing the pincer to suddenly come out and snap together, "Is interesting."

With a grin, she began experimenting, wanting to gain full control of what she could do. Outside, the three had just finished relaying all which had happened to their Captain and were in the process of telling him their coordinates when suddenly Jacks noticed the patchwork Charlie had put on in front of her hidey hole was starting to crumble. The other two didn't bother to pay attention as their partner approached the rumbling section to inspect it.

"What the hell is going on here...?" Jacks said in a low voice, before all of a sudden an appendage burst out of the madeshift wall and wrapped itself around the man's neck, choking him. The strong segmented tail was too heavy, too strong for Jacks to fight against it, and it was particularly hard to resist while it was choking him! Eventually it pulled him him inside the hole, whole.

"Huh. Ya say somethin', Jacks?" Maxwells asked without even turning around, fixated on the device triangulating and transmitting their coordinates. "Guy speaks so little. Must be mah imagination."

"Shh. Don't say a word," Charlie softly told her captive, "Or else I might have to get a bit rough with you," she said, tightening the grip of her tail around Jacks's neck, as if it was ready to snap his vertebrae or collapse his airway.

Poor Jacks's mind was way past redemption. The sight before him was staggering. There were two soft things he was pressed up against, big things, but he couldn't do much more than use leverage and grip tightly. The creature who was holding him seemed to close her jet black eyes as she appeared to enjoy it, but then she suddenly approached her face to his and shrieked, two large mandibles protruding from the sides of her face, about to snap on his face. It was too much for him. Jacks fainted.

"Mmm, and I didn't have to get rough with you one bit. Good," Charlie smiled, pushing the unconscious soldier off her chest, setting him behind her with her prehensile new tail. The extra mandibles hid again in the sacs beneath her cheeks, part of her black face guard. Charlie felt great, as if she had just caught the first of many dangerous criminals which she wanted to personally subdue. And there were two more people she would have to test her newfound abilities with.

But she wasn't done with subtlety. Pressing her hands against the walls she found that she could easily adhere to the surface of whatever she touched. It wasn't an incredible strong adhesion but she was confident that added to her sharp clawed feet it could support her for a good while. With her hands on the walls she quickly rolled in her hole and dug her foot claws on solid rock. Charlie began crawling outside while hanging from the upper side of the hole. She came out silently, wall-crawling like a natural, like she was meant to do this. Up the wall Charlie continued, thrill filling her as she realized she was scaling the wall and was soon hanging from the ceiling, above her newest two targets.

"I tell ya Feng, Jacks was just behind us. Dunno where he could've gotten to," Maxwells argued, the two soldiers having just discovered Jacks was absent. "The nerve of that guy, bailin' on us!"

"He might've gone to check on Pierre, Maxwells. We can't let that old coot alone here, we can't even- wait."

Maxwells stared at Zeng, obviously enthralled by the dramatic pause, "Wha?"

"Did you hear that? It was like some sort of hissing... It came from..." But as Zeng stared up he saw something skitter right off. It was big, but it was also faster than anything he'd ever seen. Whatever had been on the ceiling had been watching them, observing them, carefully planning. Zeng's heart began beating faster, glancing and turning here and there trying to locate the source of his unrest until he bumped onto Maxwells.

"Yo. S'up with yer guts man, they're all over place!" the burly man laughed. Zeng grunted in annoyance and turned around to give their surroundings another good look. A coiling tail dropped from above, surprising Maxwells by latching around his neck, muffling him in the process. The big man struggled as much as he could but was eventually lifted off the ground, kicking and groaning, eventually alerting his partner.

"Oh god!" Zeng exclaimed as he widened his eyes, taking in the sight of what he had thought he'd seen earlier. "This... this can't be... a monster!" he exclaimed, seeing a humanoid scorpion perched on the ceiling with its tail around Maxwells's thick neck, holding him hostage it seemed. "Put him down, freak!" he said, aiming his gun up.

But Charlie reacted faster, and used the opportunity to swing her tail in Zeng's direction, letting go of her catch at the precise instant to crash him against his partner. Both men grunted as Maxwells collided. Charlie couldn't help herself but giggle. She let go of the ceiling and flipped in air, landing with incredible grace and coolness. "You gentlemen have been a thorn on my side for a while. I don't suppose you want me to show you MY thorn, do you?" she taunted, resting her hands on her wide hips.

"Get off me you oaf!" Zeng groaned as he pushed Maxwells off him, then jumped to his feet, aiming at the threat, "I don't know who you think you are, or how you're speaking my language, but I'm gonna fix both problems right now!" he said, then without warning pulled the trigger to the fully automated M-16, spraying bullet after bullet in Charlie's direction.

She found herself in a different situation as she braced for the coming bullets. For some reason, her senses felt sharp, more so than ever, and she was able to see the bullets coming at her. They still were moving, so she didn't have the luxury of time to gauge what exactly was the extent of her newfound skill. Under the pressure of being shot, Charlie suddenly began artfully dodging, making impossible leaps, bending in incredible ways, her body as flexible and elastic as the proverbial rubber band! Zeng unloaded without care, thinking he would hit her eventually. But just as she jumped an amazing 15ft and flipped back to the ground like an Olympic pole jumper would, except without the pole, Zeng finally realized he was out of ammo. "Fuck, what was that?! None of my shots hit?!"

"Hmm... looks like while you boys have the reach," Charlie grinned beneath her mask, her completely black eyes narrowing cockily, "I have the flexibility," she finished, goading them on with her palm.

Maxwells got up by that point, rubbing his sore head. "Ohh, my head, fuck that top heavy monster, she nearly choked me to death!" he said, pointing his gun to aim at Charlie, who took the chance to suddenly speed towards him. Maxwells never had a chance. She threw her fist his way, but instead of punching him her pincers came out, surprising him and seizing the gun in-between the sharp talons. She skipped away from him, effectively disarming the big man. Smirking confidently, she shook her head in half-disappointment, half-amusement, "Tsk tsk tsk. I just can't stand men that won't pay attention," she arrogantly said, lifting her arm up, "Look, I'll put it this way so even you can understand," she said, then clutched her fist hard, the pincers suddenly snapping so hard the rifle was split in half as if a hot knife had just sliced through butter. "You're boned."

"Pah! ...heh, hehehe, hahaha!" Maxwells suddenly had a laughing fit. Even Zeng turned his head while Charlie simply withdrew her pincers and stepped away slowly, "Ohhh this be rich! Look'it dis freak, Feng! She thinks she stands a chance!"

"Is this guy bluffing? No... he looks and sounds too stupid to be the brains," Charlie thought to herself, exchanging glances between Zeng and Maxwells.

Zeng was silent, staring daggers at Charlie. But he seemed to be examining her in detail. "Whatever she is, the boss will pay us well if we can deliver her alive," he said aloud, rousing Maxwells's materialistic interest.

"Eww, I just knew that old man was into eekie stuff. But well, even for a monster I've to admit I look good," Charlie thought to herself, briefly looking down at herself. She could tell herself to be at least happy for the curves and the fact her dark hair, other than having gotten long enough to reach her perfect ass, had remained largely unchanged. She suddenly shouted: "Come at me if you think you can take me!"

"That's just what we're going to do," Zeng said, suddenly assuming a battle stance, followed suit by a more rustic Maxwells. "You don't stand a chance now that we're wise to your tricks, monster. You're outnumbered!"

"Yeah, and ah ain't afraid of no dumb broad with a tail!" Maxwells added, crunching his fists together.

"Oh yeah? Well... your mother might be that!" Charlie scoffed, pointing directly at the bigger man.

"Enough pointless barter, surrender to us!" Zeng declared before he lunged forwards. Maxwells followed suit in an attempt to team-up against the scorpion gal, but she was faster than them once more, leaping off just in time for them to collide. "You big oaf! Don't you even aim your attack?"

"Lay offa me, Feng! Yer at much fault as ah am!" Maxwells impatiently stood back up and tackled Charlie, but she just jumped and stepped on his head, bouncing off him to land on Zeng's back like a gymnast showing off would.

"Oh man, this scorpion agility and speed thing aren't that bad! I could go for the Olympics! What do you say, boys? Aww... cat got your tongue?" she giggled as she taunted Zeng, but her overconfidence became her undoing as Maxwells quickly recovered from her pouncing on his head and tackled her from behind, this time managing to get his muscular arms around her waist and arms.

"Got'cha! Ya can't escape me now!"

"G-good job, Maxwells. Now... get her off me!" Zeng groaned, Maxwells noticed Zeng was still being stepped on and moved away, holding the struggling scorpion girl in his bear hug. Zeng stood up, "Don't try to break his hold, you'll just waste your energy. I've seen this man crush a steel beam bare handed just to show off to a bunch of workers back in his old job. That's why the Cap got him in the team."

"And what did he get you on the team for? Because for funnies I bet he didn't!" Charlie growled, trying her best to break free from the bigger man's hold. Even someone as strong as Charlie had become was having trouble breaking free, but Maxwells was feeling his need to put effort in the bear hug to rise.

"Insolent bitch!" Zeng, losing his temper, threw a fist right at Charlie's face, hitting her on her cheek. Even though Charlie seemed hurt and flinched from the blow, Zeng's every bone hurt after it, having put incredible strength to back his punch her. As a master of the martial arts, Zeng was used to breaking helmets with his hand, and still dealing damage to his opponents, but what he had punched right now didn't feel like a face, but an entire brick of highly thick bricks. "That faceguard... whatever it's made from, I swear it's the last thing you'll ever wear in your life."

"Tough words for someone who likes to beat on girls!" Charlie teased, making Zeng even madder. Zeng focused all the power he could into his other fist and prepared to punch Charlie with enough strength to shatter the very brick of walls he had just tried to hit. Charlie however noticed this and before the fist connected she quickly yanked her whole body to the side, forcing this from the tiring big man and instead Zeng's fist barely grazed her neck and instead hit Maxwells's pectoral with all his might.

"Bwah!" Maxwells was out of breath after the blow, but his arms continued to hold that death grip. "Yo! Ya dumb ass, ya punched 'ol me!" he grunted. Zeng had no words, only anger. But he calmed himself quickly on principle alone.

"Fine. We'll take her with us unharmed... for now," he ordered. Maxwells coughed a bit, still a bit out of breath. Charlie wasn't going to be taken anywhere she didn't want.

"Ngh! I'm tired of being pushed around by these bozos!" Charlie thought to herself, then suddenly and with just one mental command, her prehensile tail suddenly curved and her the tip stung Maxwells on the neck. "The kid gloves are off!" she called out just as Maxwells let her go to swat her tail away. As she was dropped, she took the chance to spin herself and smack the big man on his temple, sending him reeling to the nearest wall. She turned around and faced her remaining enemy, "You're the only one left, Feng!"

Zeng groaned. He cursed his defeated ally one last time and prepared to duke it out. "And you think you can take me? You're just a foolish girl aren't you?" he narrowed his eyes, then grit his teeth, "Now I get it."

"Oh yeah? What is it? You realized you can't win and will go turn yourself in?" Charlie sarcastically said. Zeng ignored her and continued.

"You're that girl we've been chasing. Lira, is it? You're the one who was at that operating table... I should've guessed it was you who tore that door off its hinges. You're become something very powerful, and it's all thanks to that foolish old man who decided to patch you up."

"What foolish old man? Who're you talking about?" Charlie asked, confused all of a sudden. It seemed to her as if a lot had happened from when she'd been unconscious to this moment.

"A hermit lives in the tunnels you miraculously saved yourself with. He's a brilliant scientist in fact, and he was responsible for curing you of some sort of toxin you'd contracted... but my friend here injected you not with the cure, but what we'd sent to recover."

"The Recombinator..."

"Correct. This confirms my suspicions, you're the one we're seeking. I definitely can't let you escape now."

"Oh? Because you weren't trying before? Silly 'ol me! I should've paid more homage to your hospitality!"

"You're looking for this, aren't you?" Zeng smirked, showing Charlie the silver vial with the blue compound within it.

Her black eyes widened. Charlie recognized her target which she had held with her for so long, but now it represented more than just a mission to her. If there was anything that could return her to normal, back to normal Charlotte Richards, it was in that vial! "Now now, Feng, I might've been a complete blabbermouth and all that, but suppose you give me that and I leave without bruising you... much?" she asked, posing as cutely as she could.

Zeng laughed, "You don't get it do you? This is the thing responsible for making someone into a powerful monstrosity like you. Imagine what it could do to dozens of our men if properly replicated, processed and adapted... controlled! My Captain must know of it and its purpose. The boss will be most pleased, and we'll have a tool to fabricate armies! You... you're just the one of many. Imagine just what you represent. You're a monster as it is, but you could be much, much more! Just think! You could be the catalyst to a new world order. Is there anything you ever wanted to make happen that you lacked the power to accomplish? Our group will help you realize all your dreams, but you must surrender peacefully and join us first!"

Charlie frowned, "Gee, let me think about. Take recombinator and look for a cure for myself... or listen to the evil guy that's been trying to kill me and now thinks I wanna join up. This isn't Star Wars! You're going down, pal!" she yelled, pointing at Zeng with rage.

Zeng slipped the vial into his Kevlar jacket's pocket and assumed his battle stance again, "A pity you're incapable of seeing the big picture. Our Captain's always looking for ways to increase our power, so that more influential types will hire us. You could've had everything, yet you..."

"Too much talk, just shut up!" Charlie abruptly interrupted, leaping at Zeng with the intention to tackle him. Before she could strike him though, Zeng suddenly did the unexpected and threw himself to the floor, delivering a spinning kick to her stomach as she passed by him, "Oof!" Charlie gasped as she got the wind knocked out of her, landing on the sand while clutching her stomach in pain.

Zeng stood up, straightening his jacket and dusting it off, "...spit on our glorious offer to you. Well, I'll see to it that you're stripped of your free will like the animal you are!" he said, approaching the apparently incapacitated scorpion before her tail suddenly wrapped around his ankle, "Damned tail!"

"Just kidding!" Charlie lifted her head, eyes dangerously narrowed as she picked up on his moment of overconfidence, then swept him off the floor and before he could land her agility and speed allowed her to swipe the silver vial out of his jacket. When he landed, she suddenly stomped him on the stomach, leaving him breathless. Before he could even say a thing, her tail suddenly bent over her and curved down, aiming her stinger directly in-between his eyes, to his forehead. "Hey, I wonder what this pink stuff does. What do you think it does, hey Feng?" she asked curiously, shaking the stinger to the side, which spat a droplet of pink to the sand, which sizzled. The man was looking at her terrified. "Aw sorry, I keep going on and on about myself, you must be bored... Well, don't let me keep you from going to sleep. Here, I'll even help!"

With that, Charlie gave him a very hard tail smack, knocking the man unconscious. Finally, Charlie fell back on her large rump and sighed in relief, her armor melting off as she relaxed. "Boy oh boy... I can't believe I said all that! ...that I did all that!" she gasped, her eyes staring at her prize, the silver vial with the recombinator inside, "And it was all thanks to you huh? Well thanks for nothing! I would've kept the speed and strength, even these things are fine," she poked her boobs, unable to stiffle a moan afterwards, "Whoa, sensitive..." she shook her head, "But why did you have to make me so hideous?! Blargh... science..." she sighed.

But then she recalled something Zeng said earlier. Among all he mentioned, she recalled him mentioning the one who had saved her from dying. "That hermit, scientist, brilliant, whoever!" she groaned as she worked her memories together, but she had to stop herself from screaming as a hand suddenly rested on her shoulder. "Gah!" she let it out, suddenly leaping forwards and turning mid-air, the vial falling and her armor reforming over her body. "Get back! I know kung-fu and lost of neat other tricks!" she said without thinking, "And a lot of other things that I still don't... huh?" she trailed off, noticing a man in a sweater, harmlessly standing there and waving her hello.

"Ahh, please don't be alarmed, mon cherie! My name is Pierre, I am the... how do you call it? Oh, the one who nursed you back to health!"

"Really? Hey... um, thanks, I think," Charlie softly said, still a bit wary. "How did you manage to sneak up on me anyway?"

"I just came out through the door, waited until the conflict was over, or did you believe your change had added some sort of uhh... arachnid sixth sense? The absurdity!"

"Yeah, guess that's kinda silly," Charlie rubbed behind her head a bit in rejection, but then she walked closer to Pierre and looked straight to his eyes, "Pierre, I... is there anything you can do to make me normal again?"

"Normal? Oh hoh hoh," the scientist laughed, "But dear, you're tres normal! Oui, you're simply an evolved creature, that is all! Evolution after all is a pretty normal phenomenon. Did giraffes not grow long necks in order to reach their food? Did birds not grow wings in order to soar the skies? Even our primate friends learned the hard way bananas must be peeled before eaten. Why, the common dung beetle..."

"That's okay, doc. I think I get it. Um, I still think I should get back to normal. Like, back to a normal human being, an unevolved human being. Liked myself that way, thank you very much!" she laughed a bit nervously. The 'doctor' merely frowned.

"Ahhh, such a shame. But hmm, I'm afraid Schmidt's work is not so easily undone. That bacteria the nincompoop injected in your body has rearranged your whole biostructure dow to the genetic level. For me to rework that... it would take decades! Alas, much more time than I unfortunately count with. Maybe I could contact a colleague or two of mine... Hmm, why one of them worked for the Interpol last time I was outside! Oui, oui. Please follow me downstairs, s'il vous plaît!"

"Weird accent... must be Canadian," Charlie thought to herself as she followed Pierre. Once downstairs, Pierre activated a few devices in his living room, opening a private channel in a communication's room. "But he knows Interpol..." she thought as the picture of a man appeared on the monitor.

"Ahhh... Francois! It's been too long friend," Pierre exclaimed with a smile, "I trust your family's doing okay? How about Fi Fi? Are you treating her well? She's tres revolting but such a nice Poodle!" The conversation appeared to be taking some time.

"Ahem..." Charlie tossed in the background.

"Oh. My bad," Pierre suddenly stopped, "You see, mon frère, I've a guest here who requires assistance!"

"Tell him to bring an armed squad too. We've got three criminals that need to be questioned. Authorization from Agent Richards, Code: A330063."

"Ah! You're Interpol, mon cherie. How rude of me, I haven't even asked your name!"

"I'm... uhh, just call me Charlie."

"Charlie it is! Well Ms. Richards, I believe the extraction team will be here any minute. Is there anything you'd like me to help you with while you're here?"

Charlie shook her head, "It's okay, I've completed my mission, just have to... Eek!" she startled, looking at her empty hands, "The vial! The recombinator, I must've dropped it when you startled me! And in that sandy cavern it'll take hours to..."

"If I may, Ms. Richards," The scientist lifted his index, then used it to very carefully point in her direction, more precisely, to her chest area. And as Charlie's eyes moved downwards, she noticed the silver vial was snugly lodged in-between the valley of her cleavage, now plenty noticeable thanks to her breast size. "I would doubt you'd put such little care to your mission objectives!"

"Y-yeah! That's me, always thinking on the job, hehe," Charlie, blushing, fished the vial out of her cleavage, not allowing the old man to see a lot of her. In fact, she turned around just so he wouldn't gawk at her tits anymore than necessary from now on. She secretly looked down and whispered, "Good catch, girls."

It took a while, but a truck finally made it to the outside of Pierre's cave. Charlie had tied up Jacks, Maxwells and Zeng together so they wouldn't run away. They had come to pick them all up, but Pierre would stay behind.

"I prefer solace, mon cherie, to the dealings of this modern world," Pierre said as he hugged the scorpion lady, "I'll miss you as I'd like to think I played a part in your... glorious transformation. And I must again insist that it is such a pity you'll be seeking to undo this!"

"Ahh- haha, yeah, um, doc? You're hugging a bit too hard," Charlie gasped a bit, blushing out of embarrassment as her savior nuzzled her large bosom while hugging her good-bye.

"Of course. You must leave and I am keeping you!" Pierre exclaimed, walking back to allow her some room. "You must never think you're a monstrosity, Ms. Richards. If anything, you've gained a great deal of power, which you can use to help others," he said, the serious tone actually snapping Charlie back to the conversation. "It's a gift, but it's up to you to use it or give up on it! I wish you luck whatever you decide."

Charlie frowned as she thought about it, but ended up smiling. She willed her faceguard off and then leaned forwards to peck the good man on the cheek. "Thank you for saving my life, doctor. I'll never forget it," she smiled, then finally walked up into the truck, which promptly left for the airport.

Pierre stood there as the most magnificent creature he'd seen in his life was transported away. It had been a very uncommon day for him, but yet there was something nagging him at the back of his head. "Mon dieu, I forgot to let her know I never earned my doctorate!"

At the truck, tension was rising with Charlie's startled colleagues, obviously needing to be brought up to speed to why there was a mutant scorpion seated next to them. "Okay, story time! Who wants to share theirs first? Mine's kinda boring."

The End.