Growing into the Job, Post 481: Sharpening the Weapons: Stephanie, p4

The air inside Red Dog’s Bar was heavy with the aftermath of destruction and carnage. What had begun as a regular Saturday night for Kurt and his friends to prey upon unsuspecting young women had become a nightmare for them. Stephanie Wojcik, once a victim early in their careers as serial rapists, had grown into a towering nine-foot blonde behemoth with musculature and strength far beyond that of human and had unleashed her long-buried fury upon each of her former assailants - with a terrible finality. Ryan, Blake, Jace and Troy had been obliterated in a brutal display of Stephanie’s raw, newly-realized strength, heads crushed, bodies destroyed and life snuffed out in her powerful arms or beneath her merciless feet. 

Marisela, her giant black raven wings unfurled and commanding the remaining crowd, was presiding over the evening from atop the worn, wooden bar. The pulsing, suggestive strains of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” rang from the bar’s jukebox. But all eyes were now on the enormous, blond Stephanie as she turned her gaze to the final man - the spring source of her pain and torment - her ex-boyfriend, Kurt. Injured, slumped in his chair with his hip shattered, Kurt’s once-confident swagger and cocky demeanor was gone, replaced by an unmistakable mask of fear. For six long years, Stephanie had carried the weight of his betrayal and the trauma he had inflicted upon her. Now, with him at her mercy, she stood ready to reclaim and finally rebuild every fragment of herself that he had destroyed.

The neon-lit chaos was reflected in the old bar’s windows, shattering the moment into a hundred shards of red light. Stephanie, now looming at her full, menacing height and all but bursting out of the tatters of her clothes, let out a growl that reverberated off the walls. The group watching - mostly young women, but several men as well - stood frozen with eyes wide, transfixed not with fear, but with something closer to awe.

Go get him, Marisela had just said.

When he first recognized her tonight, when she was still a less jaw-dropping size, Stephanie saw Kurt had feigned friendliness, even a weird, possessive familiarity. That made me so mad. Underneath, though, she knew he’d been unsettled by her presence, especially with the aura of strength she now exuded. For the moment he’d tried to play it cool, almost challenging her with his attitude, as if daring her to remember the past.

Stephanie, though, hadn’t forgotten anything. She’d used the past six years to grow stronger, using the gym in place of a social life. She secretly hoped that if she got strong enough, she would stop being afraid. She had never planned on bringing comeuppance to Kurt, or really ever seeing him again. Her last couple of months at Far Horizons, though, under Melissa’s influence and now Marisela’s guidance, had  changed her. Now, she knew not only that she no longer needed to be afraid, but that she could have her revenge. 

Stephanie’s bright blue eyes, cold and unyielding, had found their way down to the quivering man seated crippled on the cheap, wooden bar chair. He was frozen before her, back against the wall. The table that would have separated them had already been tossed aside. She looked down at him and allowed herself a small, dangerous smile. “You used to think you were strong,” she said, her voice low and resonant, carrying the weight of every memory and every ounce of pain he had inflicted on her as she shifted her weight towards him, her thighs flexing, the sheer size and shape of her legs beginning to cast shadows over him. “But now…look at you.”

She saw how her words, combined with the sight of her massive, sculpted limbs and powerful torso - to say nothing of what she’d just done to his friends - struck fear deep into him. He cowered beneath her, understanding with every fiber of his being that Stephanie was no ordinary girl anymore, that she had changed in unholy ways since their days together as undergrads. She was now a colossus, towering above him, ready to exact justice.

She closed her eyes, tilted her chin up and remembered the night. The fear was gone, now there was only one thing: anger. A deep, molten ANGER. Anger at WHAT HE HAD DONE. 

Oh GOD.

She began to grow again.

Already at nine feet tall her body began to shudder, and she let loose the heat of her fury and let it fill her muscles, lengthen her bones. Two inches, four, and quickly then nearly a foot she grew in less than ten seconds. Her shoulders, her thighs and chest ballooned again, to even more massive proportions. Something between a terrible laugh and triumphant roar left her, rattling the windows of the bar, and when her eyes shot open again she barely noticed that her black lycra shorts had finally given way and - with one great filling breath - so had the remains of her bright orange top. The last shreds of its inner supports, some black straps, still clung to her. Even the ponytail holder that held her hair in place had snapped, and she barely registered her long blond hair flowing in waves down her back. What she did notice, though, was Kurt.

He was screaming.

She shifted her massive weight again, now stepping towards him. As the ground shook, glasses rattled, and he screamed louder.

It took only two of her mighty steps for her to reach him. “Stop screaming,” she purred in her new basso profundo, crouching down in front of him to bring herself eye-to-eye with him, “No one who cares can hear you.” She paused, to study his panic-stricken, quivering face. He had, in fact, stopped screaming and was now just whining in abject fear. “And even if they could hear you,  they couldn’t help you.” She put her huge face right in front of his smaller one and stared deep into his wild eyes, tenderly brushing a lock of hair off his sweat-slicked forehead with one enormous finger. “No one can save you from me, Kurt,” she whispered, almost tenderly, though feeling every fiber in her muscle bound body swelling and preparing itself for violence, “No one can save you now.”

Kurt was always skilled at appearing genuine, creating a façade of being trustworthy and fun-loving. He knew how to keep up appearances, even convincing Stephanie that he was protective and supportive in their relationship. But underneath, he was always calculating, using people to boost his own ego. She saw that now, how calculating and manipulative he truly was. She also saw that he was about to shit his pants. 

He hadn’t, though, tried to run. She had heard the crack of bones earlier, when she’d shoved the table into him, and guessed correctly that his pelvis was broken. “Can’t stand up, huh?” she asked him, quietly, plainly, “Did I break your hip earlier?”

All she got in response was gibbering. She would like more begging, more pleas for her mercy - that would come. In the meantime, Kurt was defenseless. The only point in hurting him was retribution. And pleasure for her, a lot of it.

She put her hands on his legs, huge hands on skinny knees through thin jeans. “Well, Kurt, I’m going to make it so you can never stand up again.”

The moment her fingers tightened, Kurt’s breath caught in his throat, and his eyes went impossibly wide. Stephanie’s massive hands, broad enough to encompass Kurt’s entire kneecaps with room to spare, had started to squeeze. She could feel his fear through the taut denim, every muscle and tendon quivering beneath her touch.

“Are you ready, Kurt?”

He shook his head weakly, his lips forming a first soundless plea for mercy, but then he whimpered.

“P-p-please, Stephanie, n-no…” he prayed.

Ah, there we go, with the begging.

“Yes, Kurt, never again,” Stephanie said, her voice deceptively soft, almost caring, as though she were speaking to a wounded animal. She slowly squeezed harder, savoring every moment as she applied pressure, her fingers sinking deeper into the fragile joint. Beneath her powerful grip, the delicate structure of bone, ligaments, and tendons crumpled, giving way with a grotesque symphony of cracking and splintering. The sound was thick and wet, like twigs snapping underwater. Kurt howled, a soul-rending scream that seemed to echo through every corner of the bar as she began to cripple him.

Stephanie inhaled deeply, fighting back the grin in her otherwise placid smile and relishing the sensation of the power coursing through her. The raw heat of her fury had transformed into something else entirely - a burning ecstasy that swelled in her chest and rippled out through the strength in her hands. The feeling of crushing his knees, of slowly reducing a once-strong man to shattered pieces, was sending a thrill through her. She marveled at how fragile he felt in her grip, how easily his knees crumbled. I wonder if the rest of him is just as fragile. 

After a bit, Kurt’s screams died back to moans. He was gasping for breath.

“Hmm,” Stephanie murmured, almost thoughtfully, cocking her head as if inspecting a piece of fruit. She began to slide her hands down his legs, her touch deceptively gentle, until her fingers wrapped around his shins, nearly able to grip all the way around them and his skinny calves. “Now, your knees are gone, but let’s make for sure you never walk again.”

There was no hesitation, now, as she squeezed her fists again, this time crushing his lower legs in her grasp. He yowled again, the bones buckled instantly, splintering into shards beneath her strength. A sickening crunch reverberated through the air, followed by the nauseating sensation of bone grinding against bone, bone tearing through skin. Blood pooled and seeped from his mangled limbs, soaking quickly into the thin fabric of his jeans.

Stephanie tilted her head again, watching Kurt’s face contort in unimaginable agony. Tears streamed down his cheeks, his cries now reduced to ragged gasps and incoherent sobs. “Oh, you poor thing, crying,” she said, mocking sympathy dripping from her words. She leaned in closer, her enormous frame casting a shadow over him and eclipsing any sight of him from any of the onlookers. “Did I hurt you? Hm? Did the big, mean lady hurt you?”

His sobs were pitiful.

“Awwww, she did, didn’t she?” Stephanie chuckled, moving in closer to him to slide two enormous hands under his arms, “Do you need a hug?” She stood, then, lifting him effortlessly with her. 

She shifted him, cradling him against her chest like a mother holding a child. His broken body lay limply across her arms, his head lolling back, eyes wide with pain and terror. “How does it feel?” she whispered, her breath flowing warm down across his face, “To be so small? So weak?”

Then, suddenly, she laughed - a wild, unrestrained sound that filled the air, rattling glasses and sending shivers down the spines of everyone watching. “Oh my god, Kurt,” she said, still laughing, “I am going to break you into so many pieces.”

Stephanie hugged him tighter, feeling the tremor of his shattered bones against her skin and a new groan rattle through him. The sensation was electric, and she relished every moment of his helplessness. Her laugh echoed again, and she heard it herself this time: it was the sound of a woman who had become something more - something unstoppable in the face of these tiny, tiny men.

She gazed down at Kurt as his eyes rolled up into his head, and considered the man in her arms. When he had allowed his friends to assault her, he’d seen it as a form of entertainment, a twisted way to exert control and “share” what he felt he owned. Even now, years later, he’d felt untouchable, immune to consequence as he continued to abuse those weaker than him, innocent women and girls.

Tonight, though, he was finally being made to pay.

“You’ll never stand again, you’ll never walk again,” Stephanie mused, her gaze bearing down thoughtfully onto Kurt. The awestruck gazes of her audience bathed her in a vitality that only encouraged her; any thoughts of mercy that she may have entertained upon first seeing Kurt and his friends had quickly dissolved into wisps like a steam that rose from the perfect skin stretched taut over her brobdingnagian frame. She shifted her hold on him, able to cradle him in a single arm, her left. His head rested on her massive bicep, she supported his skinny rear and broken hip with her mighty left hand as the rest of his torso lay across her bulging forearm. His shattered legs dangled impotently. 

In her right hand she gathered his left palm and fingers, much like she had Blake’s earlier. She held them up, her hand and his, palm-to-palm, fingers-to-finger, comparing their sizes, again like she’d done with Blake The difference here, though, was even more dramatic. Where Blake’s may have looked small next to hers, Kurt’s hand now looked absolutely tiny. She played idly with his small hand as Kurt and the others watched the comparison, rapt. Stephanie had grown so much she made Kurt look like an absolute weakling.

Stephanie tightened her grip on Kurt’s hand in her enormous right palm. His fingers, trembling and frail, splayed awkwardly against the unyielding strength of hers, like brittle twigs pinned beneath an iron vise. She could feel every contour of his knuckles, every fragile bone, as she toyed with them, her fingers curling ever so slightly to trap his trembling hand inescapably against her palm. The warmth of his skin was a stark contrast to the icy intent that burned behind her eyes.

“Because of me, you’ll never walk again,” Stephanie continued, now collecting his other hand, his right, into her hand as well; she could easily gather and grip both between her long, powerful fingers, “But there are so many things I could make you not able to do again.”

Kurt’s gaze flickered between her face and his hands, his expression a kaleidoscope of emotions - fear, disbelief, and desperation. He whimpered, his lips parting as if to plead, but no words came. His silence only emboldened her.

“You used these hands to hurt me,” Stephanie said softly, her voice calm, almost contemplative. “To hold me down while they… while they did what they wanted. You used them to take away my choices, my strength, my life.” Her grip tightened incrementally, and Kurt sucked in a sharp breath as the pressure began to build.

She paused, studying his face with cold fascination. The blood had drained from his cheeks, leaving him pale, sweat-slicked, and trembling. She could see the fear etched in every line of his face, the dawning realization of what she was about to do.

Slowly, Stephanie’s fingers contracted, her grip gradually shifting from toying to painful to devastating. The first crack was faint, a whisper of cartilage giving way, but it sent a jolt through Kurt’s body. His head snapped back, his mouth opening in a silent scream. Then came the crescendo - a sickening series of crunches and pops as bone after bone in his hands splintered and collapsed under her increasingly constrictive, merciless grip.

The sensation was visceral, the delicate lattice of his fingers and metacarpals pulverized with an ease that sent a shiver of exhilaration up Stephanie’s spine. His flesh yielded like clay under the force of her squeezing, the once-firm structure of his hands reduced to a grotesque jelly that began to seep between her fingers.

Kurt’s scream tore through the bar, raw and animalistic, his entire body convulsing in her unyielding grasp. His face twisted into an unrecognizable mask of agony, veins bulging in his neck as tears streamed down his cheeks. Stephanie leaned closer, watching every nuance of his suffering with an intensity that bordered on scientific curiosity.

She turned her gaze briefly to the wreckage in her hand, the mangled remains of his once-capable fingers now a shapeless mass of blood and tissue. She gave an experimental squeeze, and the pulp squished audibly, forcing another anguished howl from Kurt. “Hmm,” she murmured, tilting her head, “so fragile.”

Stephanie’s voice dropped to a low, dangerous purr as she leaned even closer in to Kurt, her massive form eclipsing his entirely. “Do you understand what this means, Kurt?” she whispered, her breath hot against his tear-streaked face. “You’re done. I’ve taken your legs, your hands, your strength, your power. You’re nothing now. Useless.”

Her words hung in the air, punctuated by the wet plop of his ruined hands falling limp at her side. Kurt slumped further into her hold, his chest heaving with ragged sobs as the reality of his total helplessness crashed over him. His hands and legs were now nothing more than shattered remnants, and he would be a cripple for the rest of his life - if she let him live, that is.

Stephanie straightened to her full, awe-inspiring height, holding Kurt aloft like a broken doll. She marveled at the contrast between them - her towering, muscular self radiating power and beauty, and his crushed, defeated body, hanging limp and useless.

She chuckled, low and menacing, the sound vibrating through the room. “And I’m not done with you yet, Kurt,” she promised, her icy tone sending a shiver through the onlookers as she turned towards them, with him in her arms, so they could see what she was about to do to him, “There’s still so much more to break.”

From atop the bar, Marisela chuckled and watched as Stephanie tilted her head, her piercing blue eyes narrowing as she regarded the pathetic shell of a man in her arms She smiled as she saw how his pleas did nothing to stir Stephanie’s pity; instead, they were just fueling the fire that had been burning within her coworker for six long years. This girl is going to turn out great, Marisela mused.

Kurt’s broken sobs filled the air, ragged and desperate, as he turned his tear-streaked face up to Stephanie. His words came in fractured gasps, the pain of his shattered hands and legs making every syllable an effort. “P-please...Stephanie… please, don’t…d-don’t kill me. I’m sorry! I-I’m sorry…!!”

Stephanie brought her head in, leaning closer into Kurt again. “Sorry??” she said, her tone dripping with mockery and cutting through his whimpering, “Were you sorry when I begged you to stop? When I was crying, pleading with you and your friends to let me go?”

Kurt’s mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, but no answer came. His silence only strengthened her deliverance..

“I begged you, Kurt,” she continued, her voice rising with the intensity of her memories. “I begged you, and you laughed. You let them use me, break me like I was nothing. Like I didn’t matter.” Her massive hands shifted her hold on his frail, agonized body, cradling him still steady in her left arm as she straightened back to her towering height. She peered down her nose at him and her right hand moved deliberately down, sliding across his upper thighs, until it came to rest between his legs. She clutched his groin through the thin fabric of his jeans, her grip firm and unyielding around his entire manhood - cock, testicles in their sac. “You’ll never hurt a woman again,” Stephanie declared coldly, her fingers tightening incrementally.

Kurt’s eyes widened in fresh terror as - even in his confused, pain-addled state - he slowly began to realize her intentions.

She watched the cognizance form on his face, the recognition of what she could do, the appreciation of what she now held in her huge, powerful, female fist. Judgment, reckoning. 

“N-no, p-pl-please Stephanie..!!” he entreated.

Kurt’s scream was immediate and piercing, reverberating through the bar. Her grip was that of a vise, crushing him with a strength that was as unnatural as it was absolute. The fabric of his jeans strained, the seams beginning to give way as her fingers dug into the soft flesh beneath. The masculinity he had used as a weapon against others was almost immediately reduced to pulp in her powerful grasp and with an audible <squish>.

The crowd watched, their expressions ranging from horrified fascination to grim satisfaction. Stephanie didn’t stop, her voice dripping with disdain as she twisted her hand slightly, sending a fresh wave of gut-wrenching agony through Kurt’s already broken frame. “I’m gelding you, Kurt,” she hissed, squeezing even harder and feeling the remains of his testicles, just small chunks now, rolling between her fingers,  “I’m neutering you, making sure you’ll never have the chance to use this pathetic excuse for a manhood ever again.”

The wet squelch of ruptured tissue was sickening, the sound mingling with Kurt’s guttural wails as his body convulsed helplessly in her hold. She released her grip suddenly, allowing his mangled groin to slosh back into his thighs. Blood seeped through the torn fabric, staining the denim a dark crimson.

Stephanie looked down at him, her expression one of calm contempt. “There, you’re not a man anymore,” she said, her voice almost clinical, “You’re nothing now.”

Kurt’s sobs turned into incoherent babbling, his body quivering with pain and humiliation. Stephanie, unperturbed, adjusted her embrace of him once more, again cradling his broken form into both her massive arms and across her chest. “Look at you, helpless to use your legs, helpless to use your hands…though you don’t even have anything to jerk off anymore, even if you could.” He felt impossibly small against her, his shattered body folding inward as if it were already submitting to her will.

“In fact,” she considered aloud, tilting her head as if considering a new idea, “I think I’ll make it so you’ll never be able to do anything. Ever again.”

Her arms tightened around him, her muscles bulging as she began to squeeze. “I’m going to squeeze you,” she whispered, her voice low and deliberate. “Squeeze you in like an accordion.”

Kurt’s breath hitched as the first wave of pressure coursed through his broken body as Stephanie began to fold it in unto itself. His ribs creaked audibly as his thighs met them, the sound a haunting prelude to the crushing force that followed. Stephanie’s arms constricted like iron bands, her strength folding him inward with horrifying ease.

“Look at how small I’m making you,” she taunted, her tone almost playful as she continued to apply pressure. His torso began to collapse, his chest compressing as - <crack crack crack> - his shattered ribs immediately caved inward. The distinct crunch of the breaking bones was punctuated by Kurt’s wet, strangled cries.

Stephanie’s grip shifted slightly, her forearms gathering around his back and legs, and squeezed again. The femurs in his thighs snapped next, the thick bones no match for her overwhelming strength. He cried out as his legs folded unnaturally, pressed against what remained of his chest. “There you go, smaller and smaller and smaller,” she laughed, the sound both triumphant and terrifying as she continued to crush him like a soda can. “Maybe I should squash you into a little ball,” she mused, her voice carrying through the bar, “small enough to keep you in my pocket. Would you like that? Huh?”

At this point, Kurt could only whine, groan.

“You could be my little trinket, a souvenir of the past,” she told him, “A little reminder of what you did to me. Of what I used to be. Of what men used to be.”

Her words were accompanied by a fresh wave of pressure, her arms tightening further as she continued to compact Kurt’s broken body. His spine finally buckled under the strain, the vertebrae collapsing one by one with grotesque precision. Blood seeped from his mouth and nose, staining his pale, terror-stricken face.

“Thinking about you, nestled in my pocket…” she told him, more bones crunching as his body became more and more compact, “...will just keep making me want to get stronger.”

Somehow, miraculously, Kurt remained not only alive but semi-conscious, his irrevocably crippled body twitching weakly in the giant woman’s grasp. She held him there, savoring the moment, the room having fallen silent save - now that the Zeppelin song was over - for the faint hum of the jukebox and the quiet gaspings of her awestruck audience. Stephanie gazed down at him, cradling what was left of his mangled self with an almost maternal tenderness. “Oh, Kurt,” she whispered, her tone filled with a dark satisfaction, “Look at you now. So small. So helpless. Just the way you left me.”

He gibbered, begging for his life as much as he could. The air was thick with the metallic tang of his own blood and the acrid scent of ozone, released from shattered neon lights

“But, after your friends were done, and after you all went back to the party,” she continued, bringing him back almost tenderly to the fateful night at the frat party six years ago, “you came back for me. Remember? Remember how you came back to your room later? By yourself? After I had finally passed out?” 

From her vantage point on Red Dog’s bar, Marisela’s throat tightened. Stephanie had never told her this part of the story.

Stephanie continued to gaze down at Kurt, looking into his watering eyes, blood-red with burst vessels, watching as he stared up at her. 

“You came to bed and you raped me yourself,” she said, her voice laced with a mix of cold detachment and simmering rage, “and then you told me to get up and go home.” Even now, the memory made Stephanie’s skin crawl, recalling the humiliation she felt. But she also knew that her recounting of the evening was a means of reclaiming her own narrative. “That was the last time we saw one another.”

Marisela, here, saw how much pain her friend had truly been in.  And she knew her journey away from it was nearly complete. She needed, though, to guide her the last step of the way. “You know you can’t leave him alive,” Marisela said, gently, from across the room, “He knows who you are. And we can’t have anyone looking for you.”

Kurt, still somehow conscious and now struck with a new panic, started begging again for his life - weakly, as much as he could though shattered ribs and one punctured lung.

Acknowledging her friends’ insight, Stephanie hoisted what was left of Kurt up  - bringing a new wave of agony to him - so that she and he were face to face. With her huge hands holding him below the arms, his boneless body flopped like a sack of jelly underneath him. The misery was beyond mind-numbing, and he groaned pitifully, broken. 

“Shhh shh shh…” she quieted him, considering what to do with him, studying his pain-wracked face, both bloodied and bloodless.

“Maybe give him a kiss goodbye,” Marisela suggested darkly, every movement of her wings moving the shadows they cast over the scene, reminding all here of her otherworldly grace and menace. 

To that, a smile grew on Stephanie‘s face. “Oooo… would you like that, Kurt?” she purred, the depth in her voice rattling the remains of his bones. She watched as he tried to respond, his mouth just dropping open. His jaw was one joint she hadn’t broken yet. “When you told me to leave that night, Kurt, you didn’t even give me one last kiss,” she said, bringing him in closer so that her enormous breasts pressed into his belly, “Maybe I’ll take it now...“

Tilting her head slightly, Stephanie brought his face in towards hers, closing her eyes and puckering her huge lips in preparation of meeting his.

The man, despite the agony in his neck, turned his head away from hers.

"Awww I thought you liked me," she said in mock disappointment, her eyes open once again and sparkling in dark amusement. She removed her left hand from under his right armpit, delighted to see that she could hold him in place with just one hand under his other arm, grasping his torso. With her free hand, she grabbed the back of his head and turned his face back towards her. She could see his neck muscles bulging as he tried to fight against her, but his struggles proved pitifully futile. It gave Stephanie a tremendous thrill to see a man utterly unable to fight against her vastly superior strength. If I want a kiss, I’m going to take it. 

Stephanie pulled him in again and, still holding his head, moved her mouth towards his. She settled her chest around him, making the undulating movement of her soft breasts even more pronounced. Then she parted her lips slightly and planted them on his. Knowing that if he could move them, he would have placed both his hands on her shoulders in desperation to push her away, Stephanie fought back a smile. He was completely at her mercy. The blond young woman, for a moment, remained completely immobile, relishing the moment, feeling how he was frozen in fear.  She opened her lips a little further, pressing them against his small face and totally surrounding his mouth, forming a seal around it. With the man still trying to struggle, Stephanie began to inhale slowly and deeply.

Scant inches away, she watched his eyes bulge wide in astonishment and his meager efforts to pull away from her became desperate. But all his efforts were pointless, especially with Stephanie’s huge hand on the back of his head. She could do anything she wanted with him - and, eyes wide open in their kiss, she wanted to watch him die.

She continued to breathe in, her mouth locked on his. The look in his eyes became even more panicky and the color began draining from his face. Quickly, his already impotent struggles grew weaker as she kept on drawing his air into her lungs. They were as mighty as the rest of her, and her chest swelled around him as his shattered rib cage began to deflate, a sagging balloon, further and further. 

With every labored wheeze that escaped his broken lungs, Stephanie felt lighter, freer. It was as though she was pulling the and wisps threads of her own fractured soul back into place, knitting herself whole again with his very breath. The shame, the humiliation he had inflicted upon her - she could feel it dissolving, replaced by an intoxicating surge of strength and vindication. She wasn’t just taking his life; she was taking back everything he had taken from her.

His eyeballs seemed to be about to pop out of his head. His complexion was now a bluish white, his limbs hanging redundantly and boneless. Stephanie heard a muffled squelching sound and tasted blood as one lung collapsed, then the other. Instantly, Kurt’s eyes became dull, and fluttered closed. He went absolutely limp in her hands.

Just as the last vestiges of air left Kurt’s crumpled body, a flash of memory struck Stephanie, unbidden. She was back in his bedroom, barely able to move, the sound of laughter fading down the hall as the door creaked shut. The humiliation, the fear - it had been paralyzing. But now, standing here with his broken body in her hands, that frightened girl felt like a ghost. Stephanie inhaled sharply, as if pulling in not just Kurt’s breath, but the remnants of the power he had stolen from her that night. He would never hurt anyone again. And yet…

“Keep going, Steph…” Marisela said, from where she watched. 

“But…it's over,” said someone from the crowd of watchers, “Isn’t it?”

Was he dead? Yes. Stephanie, though, did not stop inhaling. She sucked and she sucked and she sucked until she’d drawn every last bit of air from his now lifeless body, until she pulled his chest in so tightly around itself that she heard more bones breaking just from the sheer force of her lungs. She sucked until blood absolutely streamed up into her mouth, and she kept sucking, sucking, now swallowing.

As Stephanie drew in Kurt’s final breath of blood, a flood of sensations coursed through her. She could feel it - the essence of him, as weak and pathetic as it was, flowing down her throat and into her lungs and diffusing through her veins like a drug. Her heart pounded, pumping with renewed vigor, and a warmth spread through her chest, growing hotter and hotter until it burned like molten steel. Her muscles tightened and bulged, a ripple of strength cascading outward, making her feel invincible. Even her skin felt different - taut, glowing, almost electric to the touch. She was absorbing him, and with each gulp of air, with every drop of his essence, she felt herself becoming….

“Oh my god,” said one girl, watching. Other women exchanged looks of silent understanding. The men appeared torn between arousal and terror, unable to reconcile what they were seeing.

As Kurt’s blood continued to fill her mouth, Stephanie felt her body surge again. Her shoulders broadened, her arms swelled, the sinews in her neck and chest visibly thickening. Her planetary ass, it bulged and grew, shredding with finality the last of her shorts. She felt her height increase as her beyond-shapely legs lengthened, her head now brushing against a track-lighting fixture and forcing her to tilt slightly to one side. The room seemed to shrink around her, the crowd stepping further back as her growing mass cast longer shadows across the sticky floor. I’m growing…I’m GROWING!!

Kurt was being drained - and he’s going into me!! His ex-body was withering up like a dried plum. It was as if all the blood, all the fluid in his now lifeless body was flowing up his windpipe and throat and out of his mouth, pulled up by the sheer force of Stephanie’s mighty lungs. Suck, suck, suck, swallow, swallow, until he was nearly gone - and she was now MORE.

Finally, though, she was done. She took her lips off of his face and brought the kiss to an end, having just sucked all that he was inside herself in one long, continuous breath. When she finally exhaled, it came out as a low, guttural growl, primal and triumphant. Kurt wasn’t just gone - he was hers now, fueling her strength, feeding her power.

Looking into Kurt’s drawn, sunken, lifeless face, Stephanie smiled briefly before removing her hands from her ex-boyfriend, her victim, the drained husk in her now bigger fists, this bloody sack of bone fragments. It dropped to the floor, and the body seemed to fold up on itself as it became a heap at Stephanie’s gigantic feet with what looked like a grizzly human head atop it. Stephanie looked down at it and smiled, bringing her huge, bare foot to its temple. She paused there for a second, in thought. She tilted her head, studying Kurt’s withered, hollow shell. The strength she’d stolen from him hummed through her, vibrating in her muscles, her bones, her very core. It wasn’t just about revenge - this was balance. For every scream he had wrung from her - some of them coming in the middle of the nights over these past six years, waking her from dreams - and for every wound he had inflicted, she had taken something back a hundredfold. She wasn’t just a survivor anymore: she was a predator, and he had been her prey. She looked down at his head. It looked so small under her huge foot, which was now roughly the length of a computer keyboard at twenty inches long. “Look how small you are,” she murmured, her voice low and rumbling like distant thunder as her heel played with his chin. The sheer size difference was staggering. The top of his head barely reaches the ball of my foot. His skull, though swollen from the beating, seemed almost comically insignificant under the vast expanse of her sole. She shifted her weight again, and a faint crackling sound emanated from beneath, the bones in his jaw straining under the pressure. Her toes curled, her heel lifting slightly, focusing the pressure onto the center of his cranium. Then, with deliberate slowness, she began to press down.

The first sound was a wet, sickening pop as the top of his skull gave way beneath the ball of her foot, shards of bone bursting outward like the shattered shell of an egg under her weight. Blood and brain matter sprayed in all directions, painting the floor in a grotesque tableau Then came his cheekbones, even more fragile, crackling to dust, the face becoming immediately unrecognizable as anything that was ever human . Stephanie didn’t flinch; instead, she pressed down harder, grinding the remains beneath her foot until there was nothing left but a dark, pulpy smear. Now he’s totally gone, she thought to herself, It’s like I’ve absorbed him, and erased him from the earth. 

She stepped back, staring down at the mangled heap of Kurt’s remains. The floor beneath her was sticky with blood, the air heavy with the coppery tang of it. Around her, the bar seemed to breathe in unison, its remaining patrons frozen in reverence or horror - she couldn’t tell which. For a moment, the enormity of it all weighed on her. Five lives extinguished, and hers forever changed. She looked at her huge hands, slick with blood and trembling faintly. This strength, this power - was it really hers now? Would she control it? Or had she become something else entirely?

But then she remembered Kurt’s face, his sneering grin as he had loomed over her years ago, telling her to "go home." Her jaw set. No. This was who she was now. And it felt good.

Stephanie licked her lips, thinking that she had enjoyed the taste of his blood almost as much as she had enjoyed sucking the life out of his broken, male body. What a feeling - to have collapsed a man's lungs just by kissing him! To have crushed him to pieces with her bare hands! She turned to face Marisela, who was looking on approvingly. 

From atop the bar, Marisela observed the shift in Stephanie with satisfaction. Her friend had always been strong, but this…this was something else entirely. It wasn’t just that Stephanie had grown bigger - she now loomed impossibly large, every muscle carved from female fury and power. No, there was something deeper, something elemental in the way Stephanie now moved, her every motion radiating dominance. It was as if she had tapped into some ancient, primal force, and Marisela couldn’t help but smile in thinking that it was similar to what had become of herself. She was familiar with the feeling of draining her victims, of how it strengthened her. With herself, though, Marisela would become faster, more intelligent; Stephanie just got HUGE. Both she and Stephanie, she now knew though, were dark angels of retribution. And, yes, they were beautiful. This, world, is what justice is going to look like.

So that the remaining humans would understand what had just happened here, Marisela spoke to her friend. "So, what do you feel like now?"

To that, Stephanie chuckled. I am a goddess of vengeance. Turning, she started walking back towards  where Marisela was waiting, standing upon Red Dogs’ bar with wings slowly folding in and wearing the widest smile she had ever seen on the normally reserved, acerbic young woman. The floor shook beneath Stephanie’s mighty, blood-soaked feet, and she secretly enjoyed the sight of boys and girls stepping out of her way, allowing as much room for her as possible. One of the college kids still held his paper plate, in trembling hands. She picked off a fried pickle, and popped it in her mouth with a smile and a “thanks”. Otherwise, she just ignored them.

“Was it fun?” Marisela asked with a wink, with the elevation of the bar bringing her line of sight just a bit above Stephanie’s.

“Fun?” Stephanie asked back, her voice a low rumble, now rattling the liquor bottles behind the bar, “Is this what you were expecting from me the entire time?”

Marisela chuckled, and reached one taloned hand out to tenderly push a lock of bloodied hair away from Stephanie’s forehead. 

Stephanie knew she would have had the right to be upset with her new partner for having basically  played a tricks on her, but she decided to disregard it. She had always known that Marisela was the smartest of them, and in just one night she had learned just how true that was. Marisela had hit the bullseye when she had brought her here. Manipulated or not, Stephanie could only think  of the power of her new condition.

“How did you know I would do it?” Stephanie asked, tilting her head with certain curiosity and looking up at Marisela as if for the first time, “How could you be sure I’d go through with it?”

“Are you serious?” Marisela asked, chuckling again, “After what they’d done to you? And with the strength you have now?” The black winged woman smiled, showed her fangs. “How would anyone in her right mind not do it?”

Stephanie had killed five boys tonight, but she knew Marisela’s murders far outnumbered her own. She couldn’t deny she felt not only a new admiration for her dark fiend of a friend, but a new camaraderie. They were in this together, now. They were part of a family, a hive, and they knew their role. Stephanie also knew that - far from this being just a night of closure for her - this evening was just the beginning.

There was an instant of silence, only broken by the occasional shuffle of feet at Stephanie’s back.

“So, what’s next?” Stephanie asked Marisela, considering the small crowd of people behind her. Three men, perhaps a half-dozen women. All onlookers, all witnesses. What was to become of them? 

“Why, are you still hungry?” Marisela joked, watching Stephanie turn towards them and the entire crowd - the three pickle-nerds most of all - take a step backwards. They probably think they’re next.

Stephanie, from ten feet up, cocked her head, peering down at the little people. “They’re looking at us like we’re monsters, Marisela,” she said, having turned the intensity of her attention down onto the group. She addressed them, now, her voice plain and equable, curious even. Marisela, the gorgeous, dark-winged harpy, stood aloft behind her with claws and fangs. “Are we? Are we monsters to you?”

It was one of the men, actually, who stepped forward. The one with the plate of fried pickles.

“If you are monsters,” he said, lip trembling in the presence of these two superwomen, “you are the most beautiful monsters I’ve ever seen.”

“Monsters..?” said one girl, “I think they’re gods…”

The others - the two men, the six women - all nodded. Marisela looked out into the eyes of the crowd, making her own judgments. She would agree. To them, she and Stephanie probably were monstrous. But gods?

“If you think we’re gods,” Marisela said wryly, “you should see our boss.” 

However unearthly the two of them may appear, though, Marisela knew that - after having witnessed the justice just enacted on the five men tonight - the assemblage had more allegiance now to them than they would to any authorities. They understood that what they had seen tonight was a righteousness that transcended the written rule of law. And, even better, it fucking turned them on.

And so, with a slow sweep of her giant wings, Marisela stepped from the bar and alighted herself down in front of the group. Regarding the pickle-guys, she appraised them. She was several inches taller than any of them, and strolled between the trio, tracing a black talon of fingernail across their shoulders. Each of them shivered in turn. She could tell, from the way they looked at her: after what they’d seen, they were in, hook line and sinker. “Why don’t you three tell school you’re not coming back,” Marisela purred, in a voice that seemed to slither into their ears, “and come on down to Far Horizons on Monday. We may have a place for you there.” She smiled again, letting her bright blue eyes freeze the one with the paper plate in place. “You’d look cute in brown.”

“What about us?” asked one of the girls, a blonde. She’d been one of the ones sitting with Kurt and his friends at the table, and one who had helped pummel Jace nearly to his death, trampling him with her thick, platform boots. Marisela looked at her, and her friend, and then all the girls. They were changed people, too.

“We saw what you did tonight,” Stephanie offered to the blonde.

“So you should come on down, too,” Marisela added, finishing the giantess’ thought, “We need more she-wolves.”

Marisela then told the crowd to go. She instructed them to wait about three minutes - their phones would be working by then - and then call the police. Dispatcher Doris, she explained, would answer. 

“What are we supposed to tell…Doris?” another one of the girls asked.

Marisela, having taken to using one taloned finger - dipped in Kurt’s blood - to paint some strange symbol on the wall, knew Stephanie would know exactly what to tell her to say:

“Tell them the Furies were here.”

…

…

Five minutes later, Red Dog’s bar was as cold as the November night, now missing a wall that had been shattered outwards into the parking lot by what must have been some monstrous force. The crowd had left, a squad of policewomen were on their way, with sirens oddly silent…

…and from behind the bar came a groan from a man that had lost half his face.

=====================================

thanks to EndlessRain for the cap from one of his vids.