Comm: Plastic Parent (Part 3)

Summary: A single mother is gearing up to reclaim her life, but developing shapeshifting abilities and becoming a superhero was not what she had in mind. Commissioned by super kaktus

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Despite her warm words to her daughter, Monica herself didn't sleep well that night. Her body was too soft, and she was constantly shifting her position. And that was on top of her body's new, strange affliction. It was a fretful situation, and the threat of men in black whisking her away to some secret lab to be poked and prodded, away from her daughter, weighed on her more heavily than the comforter pinning her to the bed. Nightmares of being experimented on, being poked and prodded with needles and tools, caused her to stir.

Eventually, she would drift off into a deep sleep. And eventually, the next morning would come. Monica was resting peacefully... adhered to the ceiling as her ebony alter ego. 

BEEPBEEPBEEP! The bedside alarm started to go off, leaving Monica to rise blearily to a world that, in her eyes, was upside down. Her arm, curled into a tendril, reached for a bedside table that was below her, not beside her. As she failed to prod the alarm, her white, irisless eyes squinted as she assessed her surroundings. 

Oh. She would've uttered that, but she found herself without a mouth again. This shapeshifting thing would take some getting used to. 

She peeled herself from the ceiling in a coil, hitting the bed with a wet plop. She raised her foot as she tapped the top of the clock to turn it off. Her legs continued to jut across the room, her body following suit in a gentle arc, as she planted her feet and looked herself over again.

"Wwwww... wwgehwoww... trgthrgth... te... teeeeesting..." Monica's body vibrated, quickly finding the frequency she needed to communicate her voice. It was difficult to speak like this...

Shlick. She felt her skin folding and inverting itself, revealing her human form once more, along with her nightdress. She blinked as two latex tendrils slid back in between her shoulderblades; she massaged her shoulder anxiously as she studied the mirror.

"...Hm. I look... good." Monica smiled. She liked her new curves and the healthy, almost glossy sheen her skin had. She rotated her body to admire herself...

Squeak... Monica grimaced as, inadvertently, she had rotated her body well beyond 180 degrees. Her body resembled a twisty pretzel stick, with her nightdress catching in the folds of her skin. She yelped and untwisted herself. She stood pat for a moment, anxious to make another move... it was like her body's guard rails were completely removed.

She let out an abrupt chuckle, before heading to the kitchen to get a bite to eat. An apple a day kept the doctor away, so it went. She stopped at the door frame, eying the fruit bowl on the far counter. Only a couple meters away—she reckoned she could reach for it. 

She raised her arm, her hand extending slowly through the air. Her eyes widened as the curve of her rubberized arm went slack, her limb stretching faster than she could extend it. Her hand hovered to the bowl...

KCHUNK! Monica's eyes wandered to the door. She spotted Danielle entering through the front door.

"Danielle?" Monica's arm wavered, and pressed down on the side of the bowl; when she heard the ceramic piece clunking along the countertop, she immediately realized her mistake; apples, oranges and bananas tumbled to the linoleum floor. 

"Whoa, mom!" Danielle beamed. "Already experimenting with your new powers? That's what I wanna see! Here, lemme help you with those..."

Danielle hurried over to help gather up the fruit. Monica hanged back, sheepishly retracting her extended arm. 

"Did you just come back from somewhere?" Monica asked. 

"Just getting some things! We got a big day ahead of us!~" Danielle moved to rinse off the apples. 

"Oh?" Monica blinked. "...O-oh, yes, dating. Putting myself back on the market. I gave it some thought, and I... I think I'm ready! Nearly, right about. Where do we start? A matchmaking website or... I guess they're apps now?"

"Eh?" Danielle raised her head. "Oh, right, yeah! Definitely! Wasn't what I had in mind today though."

"It... wasn't?" Monica muttered in visible confusion.

"No no, it's about those neat powers you got!" Danielle lit up. "You got the stuff to be a proper superhero, mom!"

"A-a-a superhero??" Monica blurted. "Me?????"

"Mmhm! You should really get dressed, I already got a ton of ideas percolating~" Danielle shoved Monica along to her bedroom. "Switch into something sporty, I'll fire up the car!" 

"But I-" Monica tried to object, but Danielle closed the door after her; her words caught in her throat as she paused, listening for the sound of her daughter's footsteps pacing further away from the door. 

Monica sighed, her raised finger going exaggeratedly limp. Well... her daughter seemed into this idea, and she'd hate to disappoint her. So she got herself ready for another big day. If nothing else, it'd be nice to get some exercise without needing her old cane...

---

Monica would find herself in the passenger seat of Danielle's car, heading towards the outskirts of town. Monica stared out the window, an uneasy pit settling in her stomach. This was the bad part of town; this whole sector existed to support one major car manufacturing plant. Monica recalled the good old days, when all was well. But when the car company moved their operations out of town for cheaper work elsewhere, the infrastructure was largely abandoned. 

They drove through what used to be the worker lodgings, but the massive factory building loomed over everything, an empty husk of its former self. 

"D-Danielle..." Monica murmured. "I don't think the factory is safe for the sort of thing we want to do..."

"Probably not! But I got a hard hat, and you... youuuuu..." Danielle snickered. "Heheh, like you need to worry about getting hurt."

"W-well, maybe not if something fell on me, but what about chemicals?" Monica clutched her arm. She grimaced as she left a hand-sized imprint in her squishy limb. 

"Okay we're here!" Danielle cheered, pulling her car to the curb. Monica stared out the window; they had parked by a chainlink fence protecting the back entrance to a warehouse. Monica snapped into focus, awkwardly shuffling out of the side door as Danielle slammed her door shut. 

"Please remember to lock up..." Monica muttered, closing her door. 

"Okay! The first test is to get over this fence!" Danielle beamed, turning to her mom. "What're you thinking?"

"What? Isn't that, um, illegal entry?" Monica grimaced. "This doesn't sound very heroic."

"Aw mom, no one's been out here in ages! Not in broad daylight at least." Daniella patted her mom's shoulders; the kinetic energy caused her to wobble. 

"Ah, um..." Monica staggered forward. She eyed the heavy padlock. It needed a key. Her finger hovered towards the keyhole...

Shlurk. Monica grimaced as her finger went almost semi-liquid, pressing into the keyhole. She could feel metal mechanisms inside, pinching and tugging at her soft, pliable finger.

"Ooh! Really clever!" Danielle cooed. "Picking the lock with your finger, huh?"

"I-I don't-" Monica twisted her hand back and forth before pulling back her finger with a grunt. She whimpered as her finger trembled, looking as if it was all chewed up. She watched as it shuddered, and rounded itself back into shape. "I-I've never had to pick a lock before, sweetheart..."

"Mm? You don't? It's easy!" Danielle smiled. "Maybe I'll show you a trick when we get home, but don't wanna spend all day on this. Why dontcha streeeetch over the fence?"

"What?? Out here??" Monica's eyes darted around. She was sure someone would see her, but... like Danielle said, there was not a soul in the area. This place really was run down...

"A-alright..." Monica gulped. She focused on her core. She focused on the internal pulling sensation around her midriff, and allowed herself to release. She ignored the unsettling breeze on her rapidly exposed midriff, or the feeling of her abs crunching in reverse—good lord, she had abs now. An honest to God six pack. 

In a matter of moments, she stretched herself to be taller than the fence that previously loomed over her. Her fingers clasped the top as her body continued to stretch. Danielle watched in hushed amazement as her mother stretched whole extra meters before her very eyes! 

"Holy cow, mom!" Danielle cheered. "You're already taller than any pro basketball player! And you're still going!"

"Y-yes...!" Monica was rendered breathless herself as she continued to ascend. Her eyes drifted from the fence to the second floor windows. She was typically a rather lithe 5'2, but she had doubled that length effortlessly. And as she felt the insistent tingle of her body, her body ascended further. Fifteen feet...! 

Crk. And then, all of a sudden, her body jerked to a halt. She looked down, a fear of heights subtly coming to the fore as she witnessed how far away Danielle was.

"Ah... wha..." Monica's breath caught in her throat. Her center of balance was all out of whack. She swayed uneasily, feeling exposed, her ensemble of clothes not remotely adequate to cover her naval. She teetered over the fence that she doubled in height.

"WHOOP!" Monica exclaimed as she tumbled over the fence and into a patch of grass, collapsing in a heap of her own stretched out limbs. Monika poked her head out from between the pair of legs pinning her down, pouting with an annoyed look.

"Whoa, mom, nice going!" Danielle glanced over... Monica noticed her daughter hunched over the lock. "Smooth landing? Didn't break anything, right?"

"Didn't sound like it..." Monica grumbled.

Kchunk. In short order, the padlock holding the door shut came off, and Danielle hurried over to help her mother to her feet; she reached into the pile of stretched limbs for Monica's shoulders and jerked her to her feet, as if grabbing a cat. Monica's body rippled as her proportions rapidly shlunked back to normal. 

"You picked the lock?" Monica glanced to the padlock on the ground. "How long were you practicing? I'm not sure I'm a fan of this dangerous side of you..."

"They teach it in girl scouts now!" Danielle smirked. "C'mon, let's get inside, and we can really get started!" 

Danielle grabbed her mother's hand and hurried into the nearest door. Monica paused for a spell, distracted by her adult daughter's earnestly childlike exuberance about the whole situation. Despite the apparent danger of the situation, it made her heart skip a beat, panging for a more nostalgic time.

Then her arm stretched taut, and Monia let out a yelp as she stumbled along after Danielle, into a big open warehouse. Most of its contents were cleared out ages ago, though empty crates were strewn about, some repurposed as makeshift garbage receptacles. The equipment left behind was cheap, and rusting. 

Between the largely open interior, as well as the rafters up above, there was ample room to cut loose. Danielle noted this with a grin, turning to her mother; she excitedly wrapped her overstretched arm around her arms, as if looping a hose back in her hands, until her mother was standing apart from her. 

"Haha! This is perfect!" Danielle beamed, shoving the loops of her own mother's stretched arm back to her. "Oooooh, what should we start with?" 

"I-I had concerns about this superhero business." Monica stammered, her eyes lowering to watch as her stretched arm retracted back to her side. "I really don't think I have the nerves for this sort of thing..."

"You'll do great!" Danielle patted her shoulders. "C'mon, let's at least test your limits. I'm sure you'll feel better when you know what you can do."

"Or what I can't..." Monica fidgeted. "...Mm... I'll try. Do you... have an idea of what we could try?"

"Well, rubber superheroes are masters of shapeshifting! They can turn their bodies into anything, whatever they need for the occasion! So..." Danielle rubbed her chin. "Let's start with something simple, and blunt—a hammer!"

"A hammer?" Monica tilted her head. "What kind?"

"Just turn your hand into a hammer! One that can WHACK! BAP! POW! the bad guys!" Danielle pumped her fist. "C'mon, try it!" 

Monica glanced down to her hand. She balled it into a fist and relaxed. She tried to coil her fingers together into a hammer, and maybe flair her tips into a mallet's head. She could stretch her limbs, squish them down... 

"It's not working." Monica grumbled.

"Are you, um, visualizing it?" Danielle wondered.

"I think so? I don't know what I'm doing..." Monica admitted. 

"Hm... maybe your mild-mannered alter-ego has limits." Danielle shrugged. 

"Maybe? When you were stretching me a second ago, my arm only went a few extra meters..." Danielle's expression paled. "Good lord, a few..."

"Try going into your super form!" Danielle exclaimed. "With the funky black tentacles."

"What??" Monica grimaced. Her eyes reflexively glanced around for anyone watching. The boarded up windows indicated that Monica and Danielle had complete privacy... and yet, Monica was hesitant. It was revealing, in some sense, to let that part out from inside of her. 

She acquiesced, shuddering as her shoulderblades split open once again, allowing black latex tendrils to slip over her entire body, coiling around her. The familiar sensation of her skin turning in and out indicated that she was transforming again; a moment later, she reformed, squinting through white, iris-less eyes. 

"Still not used to this feeling..." Monica vibrated. 

"Aw, mom, it's okay! You're still the big ol' softie I know on the inside~" Danielle paced over and tugged at her mom's cheeks just below her white eyes. "...and actually, quite a softie on the outside too, heheh~"

"Um... if you wanted to mush me into clay, we could've done that at home." Monica's voice had an echo, her body's vibrations travelling to Danielle. 

"Oh! Right." Danielle withdrew her hands. "While you were like this, you were doing some crazy shapeshifting. I was able to punch right through you, like this!"

Danielle extended her hand palm first at her mother's buxom, only for the black material comprising her body to open up into a hole that Danielle's arm just went through. Monica's eyes lowered.

"It's like my human body isn't there... just this shapeshifting body." Monica murmured. 

"Mmhm! You could form a hammer now, I bet!" Danielle suggested. Monica considered this thoughtfully, her body sliding backwards and away from Danielle. Her white eyes focused on some crates stacked up against the wall. 

Shlurk... Her body shifted downwards as she repositioned herself. Monica noticed that she was passing over a grate. There was a small canal for the drainage of rainwater... Monica had an idea, and accelerated her collapse.

Danielle blinked as her mother disappeared into the floor, hurrying over just in time to see her mother's puddle-like form slip away out of sight. Danielle went silent, trying to track her mother's movements; they were liquid, like water flowing down a babbling brook. 

Shoom! A pillar of latex ooze rose from another grate, stretching higher and higher above the crate. Monica's torso reformed, topping a pillar of latex stretching at least twenty feet into the air. She raised her arms over her head, more tendrils of slime sprouting from her shoulders and hair to add to the mass collecting over her head. Danielle watched in awe as Monica's mass coiled into a massive hammer the size of a bus, and then..

SMASH! She brought down the hammer, so big as to envelop the crate entirely. Not a single splinter escaped her ooze as she crunched the crate down to sawdust. 

"Wow... s-such power!" Danielle gawked. "Mom, that was crazy!"

"It felt... good." Monica admitted. Her body was still shaking from the growth, tendrils slinking back into her curves. She shrunk rapidly and staggered slightly, landing squarely on defined feet. 

"Where do all those tentacles come from?" Danielle massaged Monica's shoulders, looking for seams or pores. They yielded to her touch as if they were a stress toy.

"I don't know, but... doing something like that wasn't a problem at all." Monica murmured. 

"Gimme your hand. I wanna see how far you can stretch." Danielle offered her hand.

"Oh? Ah, alright..." Monica offered her glossy, black hand. She watched Danielle buzz around the empty warehouse, wrapping her mother's increasingly ropey arm around pillars, railings, in and around window frames, looping back around the center, criss-crossing around the room.

"Y-you feel anything yet...?" Danielle hollered, panting with exhaustion.

"Not yet..." Monica responded, marvelling at her arm's sheer length. It must've stretched hundreds of feet long. "You sound exhausted, dear. You should take a break." 

"Y-yeaaah... maybe..." Danielle squatted down, holding her mom's hand in her arms. Even as she sat down, she was still pulling her mom's arm taut, allowing the hand, wrist and forearm to coil into a pile. 

"Maybe I can help move things along." Monica's wild hair extended upwards, towards the rafters above; they wrapped around the metal supports, suspending her in the air as she stretched her arms on her own accord. They zipped around the room rapidly, rising to the upper areas that Danielle couldn't reach, twisting and coiling around each other. 

Monica watched the warehouse transform before her eyes, the lengths of her arms intersecting with each other like a black spiderweb. Her body lowered gently as her hair unfurled and, as if floating, gently descended to step on her strange web. Her arms must've stretched thousands of feet around the warehouse to obscene lengths, and yet... she didn't feel taut at all. That her limits were even further out of reach than she imagined. 

"I can... I can do anything...!" Monica admired herself, pacing along the spiderweb of her own creation. Lost in her thoughts, she didn't realize that she had missed a step, but her body simply flipped upside down. She continued her casual, thoughtful pace, her feet connected to her web as she stood upside down.

"But... what -should- I do?" Monica vibrated, her voice echoing across the myriad tendrils.

"Little tied up down here!" Danielle called. "Maybe you could get me out first?"

"...OH!" Monica exclaimed, witnessing her daughter bound up in her own ropey tendrils. She didn't mean to do that at all! She really needed to get her power in check...

 A moment later, her arms rapidly retracted back into her. Her form, previously suspended a storey above the ground, landed harmlessly at the center of the warehouse; her body rippled with kinetic energy, before she hurried over to a now-freed Danielle. The worried thoughts of her body coaxed another change in Monica; her latex form withdrew back into her skin, allowing her human skin to show... and her sweatpants and top none the worse for wear.

"Danielle! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Monica helped her to her feet. "I overdid it didn't I...?"

"Ah, no, you were great! Your power is... wow!" Danielle beamed. "How are you feeling?"

"...I..." Monica opened her mouth to response, but her stomach let out a loud rumble. She patted it carefully.

"...I could use a bite to eat." Monica admitted, sheepishly.

---

The two had spent the whole day testing Monica's abilities in that warehouse, and the long round trip there also ate into their day. They hurriedly found a 24 hour all-day breakfast joint. Monica wasn't one to have breakfast for dinner, but the idea of the Super Slam Super Platter got her mouth watering. A fully decked out American-style breakfast, it was recommended for two... but when it arrived, Danielle was distracted from her modest fruit bowl to watch her mom tackle the bowl with great gusto. She wasn't even bothering with the knife, she would just stab into entire pancakes, sausages, and slices of French toast, and cram it into her mouth. 

Danielle watched with amazement, horror, and a touch of disgust as her mother destroyed the whole entree in under five minutes. 

"Hoo..." Monica covered her mouth to let out a quiet burp. "I'm ready for dessert~ Dear, are you not hungry? You've barely touched your fruit."

"For some reason, I'm not all that hungry..." Danielle chuckled, resting her head on her palm. "I guess superhero antics builds up an appetite, huh?"

"...That was an awful lot, wasn't it?" Monica blushed slightly, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. "I don't know where I'm gonna put it all. Sheesh, I'll get fat if this appetite keeps up."

"Maybe it goes where the rest of you goes." Danielle twisted her finger in the air. Monica responded with a wry grin.

"I don't know about... all this, Danielle..." Monica sighed. "Women like me are supposed to be getting back on the dating circuit, or making new friends, joining clubs, not... fight crime or whatever."

"There's a lot of seedy parts of town, thought. You could do a lot to help people." Danielle smiled.

"I imagined myself just avoiding those parts all my life, honestly..." Monica groaned. "I don't know if I'm cut out for such-"

BANG! 

"EVERYBODY KEEP YOUR HANDS UP! THIS IS A ROBBERY!!"

Their conversation was interrupted by a pair of masked bank robbers bursting through the front door. Reflexively, Monica and Danielle ducked their heads.

"Turn it down a notch Jed. It's like two in the mornin', ain't a soul alive here at this hour apart from the staff." The partner strolled forward, waving his gun around a touch too casually.

"We talked about using names in a robbery." 'Jed' hissed under his breath.

"Whatever." The partner shrugged, approaching a waitress about Monica's age hovering near the kitchen. "Mind showin' us to the registers and lettin' us gander what's inside? Then we'll be outta your hair."

"R-r-right away, please don't shoot..." The waitress trembled.

"Attagirl. No sudden movements." The robbers followed the waitress along the counter and towards the cash.

"This is crazy..." Danielle whispered. "Mom, are you okay? Let's lay low until... Mom??" 

Danielle realized that she wasn't talking to anyone. Her eyes lowered to a shifting puddle of latex ooze, flowing along the ground. Danielle tried her damndest to stifle a gasp, peeking up just a bit to see how this would play out. The robbers were already helping themselves to fistfuls of cash, and stuffing them into a burlap sack. 

Monica oozed along the ground, mini tendrils pulling her form along, slipping between the legs of the robbers. She rapidly reformed between the robbers and the waitress; her biceps and torso swelled to almost cartoonish proportions, obscuring the robber's sightlines to the waitress.

The waitress squeaked in surprise as her shoes, too, were held in place by the latex ooze at the base of the alien creature that had just emerged. 

"This is a family establishment." Monica growled, her white eyes narrowing. "You need to leave." 

With open-faced palms, she knocked the robbers across the room with a superheroine show of strength! They wailed in terror, trembling in horror at this muscular, alien creature. 

"Wh-what the hell is that!?" One of them hollered. "Why's her hair doin' that!?"

"Freakin' alien invasion!" The one that was trying to smooth-talk the waitress before had utterly lost all composure, and was already making his way towards the door, cash in hand.

"DIE, MONSTER!" The rough-voiced robber aimed his gun and fired round after round at Monica. Danielle croaked in terror and covered her eyes... but she heard her mother's heavy footsteps continue unabated. She opened her eyes to find that each bullet was caught in her body, stretching her back like they were being pinched and pulled by some invisible set of hands, before settling back into her body. Twelve rounds that looked like they would burst through Monica and hit the waitress... but Monica had doubled in size and muscular stature, and strolled forward with a supermodel gait, utterly unaffected by the bullets. 

The robber tried to crawl away, and his panic only intensified when his gun ran empty, the futile clickclick of the chamber signalling apparent doom. She loomed over him.

"-I'm- the monster?" Monica raised the sole of her foot. "I'm not terrorizing innocents, you cad."

She slammed it into his gut, holding it in place as she formed her forearm into a hammer. With a powerful BLAM! she knocked the robber out cold, sending him, as well as his ill-gotten pay day, sprawling along the polished floor. She reached between her emphatic cleavage, her hand sinking into her skin like water, kneading her skin as she pulled out bullet after bullet from within...

SCREEEEEEEEECH! Monica turned her head, hearing the sound of rubber burning in the parking lot. She saw a pickup truck trying to pull out and make a getaway—it seems there was a third robber, an accomplice, a wheel-guy to get them out quickly.

They weren't going to get away that easily. The rest of the bullets inside of her would have to wait.  With muscles forming in her legs, she sprinted at them. Positioning herself behind the truck, she lashed her arms out; they split into myriad black tendrils, wrapping around the truck's bumper, rear axles and frame. The truck was held in place, kicking up smoke and gravel as the front tires skid helpless in place...

Monica grunted as the rear of the truck slowly began to lift up from the ground.

"PUNCH IT YOU IDIOT!" The robber riding shotgun shouted.

"I'M TRYING!!" The driver wailed, glancing over his shoulder in a wild panic. "SHE'S LIFTING THE WHOLE DAMN TRUCK!!" 

Monica's eyes narrowed as she focused all her strength, her tendrils slithering along the base of the truck. She concentrated her focus and...

"GRAGH!" 

Monica lashed her tentacles up and down, creating a massive wave that lifted the back of the truck up, and flipped it over, upside down! The windows shattered on impact as the truck was immobilized, the tires slowing to a stop as the robbers were incapacitated. 

Monica felt footsteps rushing from behind her. She recognized that it wasn't her daughter's footsteps, but the waitress who was accosted by the robbers. Monica reached into the windows of the capsized truck, reaching for the bag of money they tried to get away with.

"This belongs to you?" Monica presented the sack of cash to the waitress. The waitress gawked at the sight of the truck, and sniffed at the acrid stench of burnt rubber in the air, before remembering herself.

"A-ah, um... it belongs to the restaurant, but yes, th-th-thank you..." The waitress's hand hovered to the bag, but paused. "You... you aren't gonna hurt me, are you?"

"...No, I... I'm trying to help." Monica awkwardly replied, a response which betrayed her eerie, alien appearance.

"Oh! I... thank you! Thank you so much!" The waitress took the sack with both hands, clutching it close to her chest. "But... w-what are you? Are you an alien?"

"N-no, I... um... I guess I'm a superhero now?" Monica felt a little put on the spot. "My name is..." 

...She froze up. She couldn't introduce herself by her real name.  Did she need a secret identity? Danielle and her never settled on a name. She hugged herself, her arms wrapping around her sumptuous curves.

"...You can call me... Miss... Tentacles." 

"Miss Tentacles? Really?" The waitress blinked. "That's...erm, it's very... creative!."

The waitress smiled a polite smile. Monica was well-acquainted with that type of polite, inoffensive smile. A touch forced, the type that said, "Bless your soul", but actually meant, "That's the name you're going with? Seriously??"

She didn't think she'd be a superhero, but... here she was, foiling robberies. Monica sighed internally. She'd have to workshop a real name with Danielle later.