Fight!

Chapter Four: Mixed Doubles

Eagerly, you grasp onto your hulking saviour’s meaty claw and seize hold of the ring triumphantly. You’re not sure why, because you still haven’t the slightest idea as to the ring’s purpose, but somehow having it back brings you a great sense of relief.

A sense which is quickly extinguished as Jason lets out a groan from the floor and begins to push himself to his feet, staring daggers at Sheila. “That was dirty, you skank.” He grunts in a guttural Bostonian timbre. Leaning on an uprooted tree trunk, he staggers to his feet, looking a lot less threatening than he did a few seconds previously, a thin line of red trickling over his right eyebrow. Sheila simply returns his gaze, seemingly nonplussed.

“Huh, thought I bashed him harder than that. Guess I just don’t know my own strength!” She giggles and brings her hands up to her mouth, a gesture that looks comically out of place on her monstrous frame. You’re not about to complain about your choice of allies, however, as a look of menacing confidence settles over her pockmarked features. Jason, meanwhile, is shaking Maddie (Still hiding in her stolen ebony host) back to consciousness. With a moan and a half-stifled cough, she rolls, doubles over, and a familiar electric-blue ball erupts from her abdomen, quickly reforming into her authentic lithe, pale-skinned form, which, much to your dismay, is in seemingly perfect condition. As Jason clasps his hand on her shoulder, her exhausted former vessel simply quivers and slumps in place, her head lolling to one side.

Maddie’s real face is a caricature of rage. The veins in her neck bulge as she rounds her fury on Sheila. “I LIKED that costume, bitch!”. She screeches, dropping into a crouch. For the briefest of moments, the two sides stare each other down intently. You glance over to Sheila, sizing her up, but she doesn’t return your gaze. Her eyes are fixed squarely on Maddie, who is clearly the greater and angrier threat of the two at the moment, since Jason looks as though the hand he’s placed on Maddie’s shoulder is as much for his benefit as hers, and he seems to sway on his feet unsteadily. With a gut-churning sense of discomfort, you fidget with the ring, rolling it around the centre of your palm anxiously; simultaneously waiting for someone to make a move, and painfully aware that you have no idea what you’ll do when it happens.

You aren’t given long to contemplate your situation. Within seconds, Maddie saunters forward indignantly, shrugging out of Jason’s feather grip with ease, and glaring at Sheila with a gaze of pure venom. “Babe, are you sure-” Jason mutters ineffectually, as his girlfriend lets out a screech of primal intensity and darts forward, her body already beginning to deteriorate, the outline of her whole being decaying into a crackling neon surge of energy, enveloping the rest of her body until she resembles little more than an amorphous ball of sparks, the thunderous power intertwining with her scream to give it a tinny, metallic roar as the entity hurtles toward Sheila. Concerned that your newfound alliance might be over before it started, you turn your attention back to the lumbering tower of Sheila, who bizarrely, seems to be doubled over and clutching her head in confusion. For the briefest of seconds, her eyes meet yours, and a glint of recognition lights up her visage. “YOU!” She grunts in a notably un-Australian accent, thrusting a fat finger in your general direction.

Before you can make any sense of what is happening, Maddie strikes her target. The giant girl contorts in discomfort as the ripples of electricity cascade through her nervous system, straightening her spine reflexively as she involuntarily cedes control of her body to Maddie, and a victorious smirk etches itself across her face. “Hah! Not so tough now, are ya, skank?!” She cackles, crossing her beefy arms.

The thought occurs to you that your adversaries have no idea that the “skank” she’s berating is actually a tiny unimposing Aussie girl, and that you’ve heard three separate accents come out of this massive girl’s body in one day. The further thought occurs that Jason has finally taken the initiative from his partner, and is currently barrelling toward you in energy form from about 20 metres across the clearing.

Panicking and out of options, you instinctively slide the ring onto your finger, catching a brief glimpse of the runic inscriptions shimmering and shifting around the surface of the brilliant gold ornament mere milliseconds before the Jason-ball strikes your chest.

You clench your eyes shut, fearing the inevitable and waiting for Jason to open them on your behalf. But he doesn't. Instead, as you your eyelids apart, you’re greeted with the sight of your assailant sprawled out on the floor. About 10 feet beneath where you’re now levitating.

You stifle a gasp as you realise you’ve wriggled your way out of peril once again and struggle to gain purchase on the air before you’re carried off by an errant breeze. To your surprise, the air puts up a small degree of resistance, allowing you to push your way forward, not unlike swimming through a liquid ever so slightly thicker than water. The thought of a McDonalds milkshake comes unbidden to your mind, and you shake it away. Even if you’re flying, it won’t save you from the clutches of the two flight-capable antagonists below you.

“The hell?” Jason curses, rubbing the grazes on his elbow and scraping away the debris where he hit the forest floor after he missed you. “Where’d that little shit go?!” He pivots, his gaze scouring the clearing hungrily. You pray to every conceivable deity that he won’t look up.

He does.

And to your immense confusion, his gaze passes straight through you and drops back to ground level. He marches back over to Maddie-in-Sheila, who is flexing her arms appreciatively. “God damn, babe. We gotta find you a new meatsuit, asap. That is one UGLY mug.” He makes a face, clearly not thrilled with his girlfriend’s new look.

“Whaddaya mean? I think she suits me just fine!” Maddie chuckles, twirling on the spot and giving a ballerina’s curtsey, stumbling with the unaccustomed weight. She puckers up and advances on her terrified partner, before her face drops back into menacing neutrality. “Hold on. Where'd the scrawny one go? Don’t you dare tell me you let that little rat get away?!” She squares up to Jason, her hands perched on her substantial hips.

Jason begins to stammer out a protest of innocence, but his aggrieved mumbling is abruptly cut off by a cheery Australian voice cutting through the clearing. “‘Scuse me Darl, I think ya dropped this!”. Maddie swings her bulky shoulders in the direction of the commotion, and grits her teeth when she sees her dark-skinned former host not only conscious, but stood standing with her legs together, waving at the pair emphatically from across the clearing.

“What, no fair! I possessed you!” Maddie shrieks, her deep voice rising an octave or two.

“Who, little old me? Hopped out as soon as I realised what you were up to.” Sheila beams, flashing a set of pearly whites at Maddie. “Ripper of a trade, I won’t lie. You know this chick’s already got at least two others crammed inside her? Gettin’ a little cramped, if you get me?” Sheila squirms, rotating her shoulders in discomfort. “Besides, I kinda liked being tall for once. Me and old sharkface there had a real bonza connection.” The mocking smile still hasn’t left her face.

You see the muscles in Maddie’s forearms tensing as she grinds her host’s teeth to shreds. Roaring again, the ball of Maddie jumps from the golem’s chest and rockets toward Sheila, who promptly steps back and heaves as the candyfloss cloud of girl essence bulges her unfortunate vessel's throat out wide and fountains from her mouth, before zipping over to the goliath girl, who is stood in place rocking on her heels groggily. As Maddie’s energy crackles back into her former host, Sheila repeats the action in kind, the thick syrupy cloud prying open the square jaw of her original host and oozing down her throat, a discernible lump travelling down past her jaw, trickling down over her tonsils and into her torso. A brief shake and Sheila has reclaimed her beefy former vessel, her customary cutesy grin spreading across the dour features instantaneously. “You’re gunna have to be quicker than that, bud!” She taunts.

As the confrontation between the two intensifies, you notice that Jason is leaning on a rock, looking immensely fatigued, but with a start you realise that he’s now positioned in Sheila’s blind spot. You see his body begin to crackle as he readies himself to blindside her. From your lofty perch, you swoop downwards, throwing your entire weight into his path. At the very least you figure maybe you can knock him off course. A hypothesis which you instantly prove wrong as your fingers pass harmlessly through his chest, shortly followed by your entire hand. Jason stops in place, the energy receding back into him, and utters a bizarre croaking noise, looking down at his chest in equal parts horror and confusion. For a half second, nothing seems to happen, until you feel a strange sucking sensation envelop your submerged hand. Try as you might to pull your hand free, the magnetic influence tugs you all the harder. You’re reminded of the unpleasant sensation of being sucked down into a muddy bog, and decide this must be how diving into quicksand feels. A strange gurgling sound echoes from somewhere inside Jason, and before you can put up any further resistance, an incorporeal slurps you inward, your upper arm disappearing entirely inside the panicking man. Quickly you realise this is the ring’s doing, and probably completely inexorable. With an anxious gulp and a deep breath, you stop fighting, allowing the phantom to suck you bodily inside the other man, who is now shaking and contorting like someone experiencing a severe electric shock.

The ensuing blackness inside Jason’s chest doesn’t last long, and as you regain your sight, you’re greeted with the unsettling image of your own feet disappearing into a chest that isn’t yours. Best not to question anything at this point, you think. As a barrage of new sensations your sense, not least of which are the pounding pain in your head and the rock hard erection Jason had evidently been sporting before you hijacked him. Clearly either the thought of body hopping the giantess or watching his girlfriend do the same was getting him off somewhat. What a perv.

Your gaze quickly snaps back up to the showdown in front of you. Sheila seems to have taken notice of Jason’s flailing and has turned to face him/you, a look of concern in her eye. “Woah mate, are you alright?” She cocks an eyebrow and takes a step toward you.

Maddie, however, suffers no such compassionate distraction. She sees her opportunity, and energises once again, streaking through the air and back into Sheila, who tenses up in familiar fashion, before the friendly smile is wiped in place of the vitriolic sneer once more. “Hah! Gotcha that time, bitch!” Maddie jeers, jumping up and down on the spot.

“We did it babe, you didn’t see her escape that time, did you? I’ve must have got ‘er trapped in here!” She gloats, bashing a ham fist against her chest.” You swallow nervously and she strides towards you, knowing you won’t be able to masquerade as Jason for long.

Before your subpar acting abilities are put to the test, however, Maddie stops dead in her tracks. Beneath her jumpsuit, something is wriggling and undulating around her abdomen area uncontrollably. Gruffly, she swats at the disturbance dismissively, but the writhing rises higher, travelling up over her chest and travelling round to her back. “Ungh, what the fuck?!” She snarls, tearing at her clothing ineffectually. As the activity rises up to her neck, the fabric begins to part, and a gooey pink miasma spews out through the neck hole of her top. Maddie’s eyes go wide and she stifles a yelp as the neon cloud funnels itself roughly into her ear, causing her head to tilt and her left eye to flutter uncontrollably. “Nnnnnnngh! Noooo!” She half screams, half coughs, as the outermost edge of a blue ball seeps out of her chest, albeit without its usual sharp velocity.

The huge body squirms and shudders spastically, her facial expressions shifting into a grotesquerie of monstrous visages, and the ball continues to make slow but determined progress from her chest. Just as it’s about to break free, several smoky pink tendrils erupt around it, enclosing around its circumference like a spider wrapping a cocoon. One final bellow of defiance escapes the giant girl’s lips as Sheila drags Maddie back into her essence, and with one last fruitless bulge as the Maddie-Ball pushes against Sheila’s encroaching cloud, both the ball and the miasma are sucked abruptly back inside, causing the bulky body from which they were protruding stagger back a step. “Haha, ya dumb bogan! Whoever said I needed to escape through her mouth?” You shudder at the implications of this piece of information as you suddenly understand how Sheila managed to eject from her host in time. Shaking her head and rolling her shoulders, she regains her composure. “Bugger me, she was a fighter!” Sheila cricks her neck and flexes her arms, shaking the tension out of them, before suddenly realising that you’re stood there gaping gormlessly at the spectacle.

Wordlessly, she turns on you, advancing with unconcealed menace. You raise your hands defensively, hands raised in the universal signal for surrender. “What did you do with my little mate, you spacehead?!” She growls, rapidly closing the gap between you.

Before the club fist connects with your jaw, however, a shape bursts from the undergrowth at breakneck speed, leaping menacingly from the treeline and colliding straight into you.