Super Slime Saga, Finale
And it's here! After counting the votes across my galleries at FurAffinity, SoFurry, DeviantArt and the Process Production forums, the results for each option for Julie's fate were the following:
A 35, B 11, C 7, D 18
And thusly, as promised, my loyal readers, I have produced the ending to this wondrous tale. Is it how you envisioned it would be? Let us see!
Finale.
It took Julie a day or two in solace, running from the hounds back at the lab and keeping in hiding, to come to terms with her situation. Thanks to her newfound powers and abilities, the slime girl could keep a low profile by making herself as inconspicuous as her imagination would allow her. If all failed, she could always travel in her fluid form.
One night, she accessed a hotel room that she had made sure was empty. For once, Julie could make lodgings where she wanted, instead of having to live in the streets and sleep with one eye open. "I don't have any money. I was literally naked when I woke up in that horrible place," she sighed, jumping onto the bed.
"I need to find a way to make some. I..." she looked at her hands while resting her head on a plump pillow. "I could always get into a bank... maybe borrow some and then give it back when I... No, that'd be wrong."
Her hand morphed into what seemed to be a key of random design, "It would be so easy. Get in, get out, nobody gets hurt. Things could go my way for once." The idea was appealing, especially after having had to spend all her life scraping for whatever she could get. "If I do it at night then..."
Julie closed her eyes. Was she ready to take such a step? She decided that after the idea came to her mind, she would not be able to sleep. Julie decided to go out for a walk instead.
It was a chilly night, but nothing out of the ordinary. Silent city streets created the illusion of peace and quiet, but the shattering of glass and the security alarms dispelled it.
"The money, now!" Frank yelled, banging the cash register of the late night drugstore he was robbing with the butt of his pistol.
"Please, don't hurt me!"
"I said, give me the money! I already shot your window down, it's NOT a fake gun pops!" Frank groaned impatiently. He cursed louder, holding the attendant down. "You don't want me to test it on you."
"Fine fine fine, calm down, I'll give it to you!" the frightened attendant reached into his register and began to draw his money out.
"Good, now put it in one of those plastic bags, fill them!"
Once Frank had the money, he smiled, "Finally, things are going to go my way." He grinned down at the old man, then shot him in the chest, "Hey, thanks for the money."
Meanwhile, Julie was walking down the street, still deep in thought. She had created thicker clothes and a jacket for the cold weather, and she had decided to also create the illusion that she was wearing glasses so she wouldn't be noticed by her pursuiters if any happened to be nearby. "Do I really want to do something like that because I can?" was the question that still remained in her mind, too distracted to pay heed to the alarm which was growing in sound as she approached the block where a robbery was taking place.
It was when Julie turned a corner that someone ran into her, causing both to stumble to the floor. Julie groaned in discomfort, but then as she opened her eyes she noticed the person she had bumped with was armed, bloodied, and the bag he had dropped had spilled a bundle of money. Julie's eyes froze as, for a moment, she considered what might have happened.
"The people that defend what is theirs by right. They can't defend themselves when those that try to steal from them possess more power. It's an unfair disadvantage. I know this, it happened to me, I defended myself when Luther tried to rape me, but no matter what I did..." tears were starting to well up in her eyes.
Frank groaned, having bumped onto an unforeseen obstacle. There was another witness now. He quickly reached for his gun, "Sorry, sweet cheeks." He aimed his gun and pulled the trigger, but the gun merely clicked. "What?! It's still loaded, what the fuck?" he cursed, trying to get the pistol to work, "Damn cheap piece of shit!"
Julie reviewed her thoughts, "If I tried to take everything I want from others, I would be no different than him. I would be a monster." She wasn't able to respond to Frank, but his bloodied clothes and the circumstances clearly gave her a glimpse of what her life could be like. "Harm innocents, take what is theirs, I can't... I can't bring myself to that!" she grit her teeth together, starting to get angry at herself for what she had been considering to do. The anger made her aware of her surroundings once more, snapping her back to reality.
She saw Frank, still cursing and trying to check his gun until he had got fed up and was now holding it like a bludgeon. "Sorry for the wait, but I'll still have to silence you, little girl!" he pulled back, about to strike the grounded Julie down, but she threw her arm towards him. The limb turned into blue goo which made Frank flinch as the material spread over his armed hand and extremity. "F-fuck, what the shit, what the hell...?!"
Julie frowned, "What did you do? Who have you hurt?!" she demanded, standing up. The stunned Frank could only deliver silence. Impatient, Julie spread her slime and wrapped it around his waist, keeping his arms glued to his sides; then, she slammed him against the wall with a loud thud. "Tell me!" she shouted.
"What the fuck are you?!" Frank struggled, kicking and trying to free himself. Julie frowned.
Suddenly, she began to expand, her clothes vanishing and her skin turning blue. Her face morphed into what appeared to be a monstrous fanged shape, her voice warping as she gowled. "I WILL BE YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE IF YOU DON'T ANSWER THE DAMN QUESTION!"
Frank, stunned again, felt his bowels near empty themselves in his pants. He whimpered, then finally said: "The drugstore. Shot the attendant! Two blocks away, just follow the damn alarm!" he panicked. Julie, going back to her normal slime form, turned to the faint sound of the dwindling alarm. Then, she began to make her way there, sliding with her puddle feet, dragging Frank in tow with his bag.
When she made it there, she quickly skidded to a halt and jumped to the side into an alleyway as she noticed several vehicles were there. Red and blue lights were spinning on top of them, Frank was about to yell, but Julie quickly muffled him with more slime. She peered out while keeping herself hidden. Aside the police cars, she could also discern an ambulance.
A small amount of gathered policemen were guarding paramedics as they attempted to treat an wounded old man. Julie's eyes widened as she could make out what they were saying: "He won't make it. The bullet ruptured his lung, internal hemorrhaging is bad."
If Julie had had a heart, it would have skipped a beat. She looked at Frank, her glowy blue eyes showing nothing but fury in them. Just by looking at the slime girl's face, Frank could already understand her: "You killed an old man in cold blood just for a few bucks!"
Julie was gripping harder, her citoplasm was warping, as if she was reading herself for a meal. But something came to her mind at that point. The police was there, the stolen money she could deliver, along with the culprit. "You got lucky tonight, mister," she whispered, eyes narrowing as she melted down to goo and began to crawl along the alleyway wall while dragging him along.
"Whoever did this was really fast in getting away. We've already scoured the surrounding area and there's no sign of anybody," one the policemen mentioned, "Poor sod. Should've closed earlier," he frowned, stopping mid sentence to check as he felt something fall on his shoulder. "Is it starting to rain?"
No longer than he had uttered those words, he startled, stumbling down on his butt as he noticed the wriggling body of a man on the wall above the drugstore. He was tied around the waist with what appeared to be slimy bonds, some of it covering his mouth; he had been glued to wall somehow. A gun and a bag had been sticked next to him, but the most bizarre thing was a big message carved into the concrete next to him.
"I DID IT."
Frank tried to yell, but the slime was keeping him silent, he tried to escape, but the slime was holding him down. He wanted down, but the slime had glued him to the wall. Suffice it to say, no one would believe the story, but the evidence was there to convict him for attempted robbery and homicide.
Julie was perched on a window of the neighboring building, watching the policemen cut Frank back down. She looked at her slimy hand, "This feels even better than eating."
The following day, news of the fantastical circumstance of the crook's arrest had made the paper. A vigilante operating outside the law using very strange methods had apprehended him, securing evidence for his arrest. Julie, during the morning, browsed the paper as she passed a stand. A strange feeling of pride filled her as what she could make out of the headline let her know that Frank had been successfully taken in. "I didn't make money of it, but... It still felt good."
Her tummy was mimmicking a growl of hunger which she could easily recognize and hear, "Mmm, I'm so hungry... I better get a job soon or I'll starve."
With Exo's metabolism, Julie could survive for a long time without food, but when using her abilities, stored biomass had to be used for energy. This included the maintenance of her human appearance as well as her generated 'wardrobe. Even though, to her, that was very basic and low consumption, the energy still got spent. She had already suffered through the side-effects of abusing this, as the lack of excess biomass meant she had to use her own to generate energy, which resulted in her shrinking. Thankfully, she had only lost a couple of inches, which Julie was sure to regain by adding more mass.
"What job should I get though?" Julie passed by a clothes store, "Maybe selling clothes? I've done that before," with a small grin, her imagination started to run wild, "Then again..." as she noticed her reflection on the window, she posed a bit, relishing how her large breasts pressed against her tank top and her wide hips stretched the skin-tight leggings. "Mmm, or maybe a model? I do have the body for it now. I could have any body I wanted, teehee," Julie giggled to herself, but then realized a very important fact.
She was still being searched for. If she somehow became a famous face, she would no doubt be hunted down with ease, "Nngh, maybe just... a clerk or attendant," she bopped the back of her head while sticking her tongue out, then entered the clothes's store to apply.
Lucky for once, the manager, a woman by the name of Sally, was actually looking for some extra hands to help sell the merchandise. Even though Julie had no curriculum vitae on hand, the ample experience on dealing with customers she related and practical examples she could provide were enough to convince Sally that she could make a good employer.
Fortunately for Julie, she managed to arrange for a daily wage, and her position would be effective that day. Satisfied, she began to do what she had always known to do best at: Work hard.
A busy day of work over, Julie eagerly took her pay, which would guarantee a hot meal before going to bed, and bid farewell to her new employer. It was late at night, she had to put on her 'cold weather disguise' again.
After satisfying her hunger with a couple double cheeseburgers and fries at a fast food restaurant, Julie took off to the streets. While walking down the public lane her mind went back to the previous night. "It really felt good to bust that guy and deliver him to the police. But if I had been there sooner... maybe I could saved that poor old man," she frowned a bit, "There are so many people that can't defend themselves, and there's a bunch of crooked people just waiting to do them bad," she sighed. Looking down at her hands, she started to contemplate. "Maybe I should..."
But her train of thought suddenly came to a halt as a piercing scream alerted her. "What the?!" she turned, trying to tune in her ears to the source of the scream. The scream repeated, it was a woman. Julie made haste, turning into her slime form as she jumped onto a wall, sliding along it to ascend and jump from wall to wall to cover distance faster. In another alleyway, two men and the screaming woman were gathered. One of the men, a burly one, was holding the woman down while the other held her at knife point as she struggled.
Julie's eyes widened, "No..." it felt impossible to her. The same exact scene from a couple of nights was being repeated, but the most baffling fact was: It was the same men. "That bastard!" she screamed in her mind. Unable to hold herself back, Julie bounced off of the wall and pounced the goon, engulfing him in her slimy form, forcing the girl to be pushed towards Luther, who was knocked down under her.
His goon cried out before he was smothered by the slime girl. "Bawss!" not that Luther was capable of anything right now. The woman, startled, attempted to push Luther away, successfully crawling away to hide behind a nearby dumpster. The middle-aged manager looked on in horror as his musclebound goon started to become a blur within his slimy confines and stopped struggling as his shape began to vanish. He dropped his knife and kicked the cold floor as if trying to scamper away.
As the goo completed to dissolve his goon, Luther witnessed the bizarre sight of the blue material suddenly rising and taking the shape. Before he could tell what it was, a tendril of slime impaled him to the wall, piercing his shoulder. "Gyaaaaah!" he screamed out in pain.
Julie, completely formed, stared at the agonizing Luther with a glare of pure hatred. "You!"
"What the...?! Who are you?!" Luther cried out helplessly, moaning in pain as blood trickled down his shoulder, trying to reach the hardened goo to take it off. "Gahhh!"
"You despicable, horrendous, self-absorbed bastard!" Julie yelled, "Don't you even remember me?!" she snarled; if she had had blood, it would have been boiling over already. "Fucking asshole!" she screamed, pulling him back before slamming him against the wall, causing him to cough some blood as his insides became battered. "So this is what you do to every girl you meet, don't you? Take them out, rape them, kill them if they play hard to get?!"
"Ahhh, gak...!" Luther coughed, unable to bear the pain. "You... I don't know you...! I..." but then his eyes widened as Julie held him high up, gripping his neck with her slimy arm as the rest of her turned into her human form with the exact same clothes she had been using the night he had stabbed her. Speechless, Luther felt like he was going to have a heart attack thanks to what he was seeing.
"You murdered me! I should chew on your brains for that!" Julie growled, "Recognize me now, huh?" she glared with even more intensity. "It would be so easy to just... gobble you up!" she growled louder, her blue slime form taking over, her citoplasm warping, readying to engulf him, when it suddenly pulled back and she went back to her human form. "But I'll probably give myself a stomach ache if I do. Nngh!" she groaned, punching Luther's lights out with a single hook.
Julie dropped him to the ground, stared at him as he bled out and frowned. "I should make you suffer for being the inhuman pig you are. You don't deserve any mercy!"
Luther was barely breathing by that point, struggling to even remain conscious after such a hard punch, plus the blood loss had been considerable. "You don't have that mindless thug to fight for you anymore. How will you torture defenseless girls from now on, huh? HOW WILL YOU?!" she snarled, pulling her arm back, which morphed into a spiked club ready to smash the man to a bloody pulp.
"I'm... I am... I'm... s-so..." Luther was struggling to make his mouth work.
"What is it?!"
"I'm sorry!" Luther screamed.
"YOU are SORRY?!" Julie sarcastically shouted back, "Oh good, I should let you go then. If I wait, you will just reform, won't you?! Is that what you're saying?!"
Luther managed a nod, but Julie was in no mood for further joking. "You'll rape, you will kill, anything to get your kicks. But no more, I'll just..."
But before Julie could end the already badly beaten up man's life, the sound of a siren followed by bright blue and red spinning lights began to cover the alleyway and its surroundings. It appeared a neighbor had reported the screaming and the police were on their way. Julie looked to the side, then back at Luther.
The victim still was hiding behind the dumpster, Luther couldn't get away even if he wanted to. Julie dropped him to the floor, her arms going back to normal.
She breathed. Then calmly walked towards the victim, "Are you alright?"
"M-my leg is cut... p-please don't hurt me, I was just trying to make a bit of money!"
Julie shook her head, then looked down at the girl's bleeding wound. She couldn't have been older than 17, "What's your name?"
"Sandra..." she replied, still wary of Julie. Julie gave her a soft smile to try to be comforting.
"Sandra, you have to be brave and tell them the truth, or that slimeball will walk and continue harming girls like you."
With that said, Julie formed into a puddle of liquid that made off quickly. Not long afterwars the police cars arrived and the place was surrounded. They found a wounded girl and a battered man, as well as the apparently discarded clothes for a big man, but no third person.
An investigation started, and Sandra was found to have been cut by the knife with Luther's fingerprints on it. Sandra related what she had been through when questioned, and answered truthfully to each and every question. Her tale was as odd and bizarre as the scene itself.
"She was... very beautiful, and strong... and scary," Sandra would answer when they would ask about her savior. "And slimy," she would finally add. "She moved and attacked almost like a cartoon super hero. And she kept changing shape... like a morpher... or something!"
Authorities were baffled by the strange tale, but Luther's wounds could have not been caused by Sandra, they concluded. There was a nightly vigilante in the streets, and this had been her second strike.
The next morning, Julie passed by the newspaper stand, but this time bought herself one copy since she had money. "Dark Vigilante's Second Strike," she read out loud as she headed to one of the park's benches to sit down, "Manager Luther A. Smith beaten to near death by an alledged 'super heroine' physical abuse victim Sandra Myers titled as 'Morphea' to accentuate her heroine's features." Julie stopped at the name, "Catchy," she mused to herself, then continued with the headline: "Police investigation revealed through an interrogation that Smith had been abusing his employees and would later kill them, as he himself confessed in a panicked state. Myers would've been his latest victim, if not for the interference of the alledged 'savior'." The news continued on detailing the bizarre circumstances of the scene the police had encountered, including the slightly damp set of disowned clothes they found. Smith would claim that a monster had eaten his friend, but this could hardly be related to anything of sense.
Julie, feeling warm inside over the development, dropped the newspaper on her lap and relaxed against the bench, smiling. "Seems like I've done some good."
She paused, thinking of what she had done. Had it been right of her to leave Luther alive? He had confessed his crimes, probably in a fit of the perilous situation he had been forced by Julie to go through, but that did not mean he was suddenly a good man. "Still... that's not my place to judge, I guess," she told herself, thinking that the police would resolve the problem. "There are problem people in this city, no doubt. Some of them probably are out of the cops' reach I bet. I think Morphea will be prowling around often at night from now on."
Julie giggled a bit, ready to take a bit of time to relax, but then froze as she recalled her appoinment. "Oh damn, I still gotta get to work, I'm running late!"
With that, she dashed off to her destination. Julie had found her place in the world as a heroine, a vigilante that would protect those that could not defend themselves. Soon enough, the entire criminal element would come to know the name "Morphea", and that would give them reason to hold back on their operations, lest they be found tied to the walls, or not found at all...
Finally, justice would be seen to.
The End.