[SoylentOrange]

"Mary," Katie said, poking the green-skinned tentacle-monster in the stomach. "Mary, wake up. Mary..."
"Wha, hua, what is it?" Mary asked, starting awake and rubbing her eyes with a tentacle. She realized what she was doing and formed the appendage back into a hand.
"We're in trouble," Katie said, stepping back.
"Trouble?" Mary scoffed, sitting up on the squared-off mat of tentacles that served as her bed. "We passed trouble a long time ago." Mary looked down, firming up her legs into a more humanoid shape before standing up. She'd used her toga to make a kind of bedspread, and once again wound it around herself, noting with dismay a few patches that had been eaten through.
"Dammit, you guys!" She said, turning and yelling at the tentacle-bed. "I said no eating the sheets!" In response the mat seemed to compress in on itself, shrinking away from Mary's rebuke.
"...I thought all that stuff was you?" Katie said, cocking her head.
"Yeah, well, I'm being run by committe, remember," Mary said, pointing to her head with an irritated gesture. "Apparently not everyone's on board with the 'don't eat what's left of the furniture' thing."
"Well, we got bigger problems now," Katie said, backing up towards her room.
"Greeeat," Mary said, rubing her eyes with one hand while the other held the knot of her toga. She followed Katie into her room, stopping suddenly when she saw Shandra sitting against the remaining wall of Katie's bedroom. Shandra flinched away as Mary scowled at her, but before things could escalate, Katie's snapping fngers re-focused Mary's attention on her computer screen.
"Your little performance yester-"
"Oh, that's just fan*tas*tic," Mary interrupted as she read the headline on Katie's screen. 'Strange animal confronts police', it said.
"That's not the half of it," Katie said, clicking on the link.

Mary's jaw set as the local anchor's 'serious' voice told the story about a missing persons investigation gone awry, but what made her eyes pop was when she said that a local reporter had recovered a video from an abandoned police cruiser. Mary covered her eyes with her hands as she saw her spiked, hulking form in the grainy dashboard footage, but a new pair of eyes formed on the backs of her hands to continue watching. She heard the sharp retort of the rifle and saw her fall to earth, bouncing on the pavement and laying still for just a few moments, long enough for Mary to distractedly wonder why a form supposedly meant for fighting had such large breasts before she stirred again. Mary watched her recorded version rise up, her face already reconstituting itself as she growled. Then she leapt, and with a great crash and roar the video cut out.
"Now remember," the anchorwoman said, "authorites have confirmed the footage is genuine, but are saying that it is an ongoing investigation and refuse to comment further. However, Channel Eight news has determined that all of the aprtments on the Yorkshire Terrace apartment complexes have been evacuated, and traffic up and down 73rd street is being regulated by officials. Also, the jornalist who recovered the tape from the damaged police car snapped this photo of a crud message carved into the hood of the car," She continued, a photograph of Mary's "CDC" scrawled into front of the caved-in police car appearing on-screen, "Although its meaning or signifigance is not immediately clear. We'll have more on this breaking story as it develops."

"Greeeeat," Mary said, looking up at the ceiling. She turned away from the computer, putting a hand to her head. So what now? Escalation? Could Mary expect to see the national guard on her door by nightfall? Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard Shandra's voice, no more than a whisper, but when half the room was basically one huge sensory organ it was impossible for her to *not* hear.
"K-Katie...?" Shandra whispered, trying to get her attention. "KAtie?"
"What?" Mary asked, turning. Shandra flinched away, curling in as much as her huge stomach allowed. She was still producing new tentacles, each spawn slithering out from the improvised "skirt" she'd made from her lab coat and joining the rest of the mat that covered most of the floor.
"Well, what?" Mary asked, putting her free hand on her hip.
"Nothing!" Shandra said, curling in even tighter.
"Oh, don't give me that," Mary said, losing patience. "What were you going to ask her?"
"I- I'm thirsty," Shandra said, still looking away. "I- I just wanted- can I please have some water?"
"Well what do you need to ask for?" Mary said. "Just go get some from- er..." Mary trailed off as she remembered that in her frenzy the day before she'd eaten the sink and the cupboards and everything inside them. Shandra said nothing, but snuck a glance at Mary. "...Hmmm," Mary said, turning and looking out the bedroom door. "uh..."
"I'm kinda thirsty, too," Katie said, turning in her chair to face Mary. "and I'm not waiting to boobzilla out just to get a drink, that's for sure."
"Hmm..." Mary thought. "Well, I mean, I can't have eaten all the way back to the pumping station. I bet there's a tap-water pipe we can get clean water out of somewhere."

"Just a sec," Mary said to Katie and Shandra, walking back into where her kitchen used to be. She closed her eyes and "felt" around, letting the sensations of the living floor come into focus. She could feel the rough, pebbly surface of the concrete foundation, everything down to the carpet having been stripped away and consumed already. She felt a few cold pieces of metal, but it was the cold, wet sensation of water that finally tipped her off. Opening her eyes, Mary turned to the source of the.water, kneeling down and waving the tentacles away with her hand. As they parted, the seal over the sink pipe released and water began flowing up and out of it once more. Mary immediately noticed the tentacles nearest the pipe began swelling and fattening, just like she had when she'd gotten caught in the rain and when she'd gone swimming. Mary bent down and held her lips just above where the water was coming out and took a drink. She could taste that the water was clean- not pure, but clean enough to be healthy to normal humans- but the action offended her. Bending down like a dog to drink from a broken pipe... she was still civilized, even if she was a monster.

Mary extruded a long tentacle from her arm, wrapping one end around the broken pipe and hollowing it into a tube so the water would flow through. After a short mental command for the tentacle to not "drink" the water that was flowing through it, water began dribbling out of the end of the hollow tentacle.
"Well, it's a start," Mary said to herself as she stood, "But it still looks like I'm drinking out of a booger."
Concentrating on the hollow tentacle, Mary stiffened its outsides somewhat, then darkened the color. Finally, she gave the tentacle a glossy scaled pattern, and with that the tentacle's transformation into a reasonable fascimilie of a garden hose was complete.
"Not Perrier, but a little civilized, at least," Mary said, turning toward the bedroom. "Hey, I found the water!" She called out.
"Is it good to drink?" Katie called back.
"Yeah!" Mary replied, folding the 'hose' at arm's length so the water didn't splash on her toga.
Katie came out first, followed cautiously by shandra. Mary held the hose out to Katie, who took it, and after a moment, turned to Shandra and held it out to her. Shandra looked at Mary nervously, clutching her hands as close to her chest as her enormous stomach and engorged breasts allowed. When Mary turned away, Shandra cautiously approached Katie and took the hose from her.
"Th-thank you," She whispered to Katie, as she brought the hose to her mouth.

Shandra took a few sips without event, but the instant her lips touched the end of the hose it spasmed, darting into her mouth. Shandra reeled back, her eyes going wide, but her head snapped forwards as she reached the end of the hose's length, apparently unable to let go of the hose.
"Mmmph! Mmmm!" She wordlessly screamed as she tried to pull the hose out of her mouth, cheeks buldging with water. She pulled, but it only served to pull her face forward, her brow furrowing in doscomfort. Like some sort of lamprey or barbed tooth, the hose had somehow attached itself to the inside of shandra's mouth.
"Mary!" Katie yelled.
"What?!" Mary shot back, spreading her arms wide. "It's not me!"
"Well, help me get it off!" Katie said, grabbing the tentacle hose and yanking on it. Shandra let out another muffled cry as she was dragged face-first around the kitchen.
"Okay, okay, stop! We're hurting her!" Katie said as she dropped the hose, Shandra waving frantically. The three stopped to take stock of the situations, all that could be heard being the running of the water and Shandra's frantic, rhythmic swallowing.
"Uh, oh..." Mary said, looking down at Shandra's front. Katie and Shandra followed her gaze as handra's already gravid belly seemed to pulsate farther out in front of her with every swallow. The creaking of her pink scrubs indicated that her breasts were following suit, taking up more and more room on the shelf of her swollen abdomen. Shandra looked back up at Mary and Katie with terror in her eyes, and set about trying to kink or bend the tentacle-hose so as to restrict the flow of water. Katie turned to the source of the water, but the tentacle hose was bonded tightly to the pipe. Katie tried shaking the pipe loose, but it was cast right into the foundation- without some sort of tool she'd have no hope of hampering the water's source.
"What? What're you doing?" Mary said, grabbing her head in her hands. "Let her go!"
"Why do you fear?" The Body asked. "We are merely preparing this meat to go long periods without sustenance."
Mary looked at Shandra, frantically struggling as her enormous stomach hung down close to her knees and her breasts threatened to rip the pink scrubs in two. "She's good! She's fine! Knock it off already!"
"This meat exists only to help give birth to the Flesh," the Body said. "We do not need to worry about her defending herself from predators while she remains in the lair."
"So?!"
"So the only thing this meat needs is plenty of sustenance."
"You're going to pop her! She can't get much bigger."
"Nonsense. The Flesh is strong and durable, our glory can take many forms."
Mary looked at Shandra, trying now just to hold herself on her feet as she grew more and more gravid by the second.
"I. Said. STOP!" Mary finally yelled, raising a hand into the air, her fingers lengthening into scythe-like talons as she brought her hand down on the taut hose, severing it cleanly. Shandra stumbled back a step before falling down on her butt against the wall, the mountain of flesh attached to her front nearly completely obscuring her.
"Puh-pleh!" Shandra said, spitting out the tentacle, having finally disengaed it from her mouth as she sat there panting.

Mary and Katie stared at Shandra in shock, her grotesque exaggeration of a figure sloshing and jiggling as she panted. She wa a veritable wall of feminine curves, solid (if pliable) flesh fron her knees to her chin, her breasts actually pressing in against her cheeks as it heaved with each pant, the green flesh billowing up out of the neck of her scrubs, thrust skyward even moreso by the buldge of the enormous abdomen that dominated her silhouette.
"Lord almighty, Mary..." Katie said, shaking her head with a hand to her mouth.
"I said it wasn't me!" Mary exlaimed, still agape at Shandra's size. She had grown bigger before, when she was first transformed, but still, to see the giant mounds of jiggly flesh stacked on top of Shandra's lap like overfilled water balloons was still a sight.
"Well, fix it anyways!" Katie said, gesturing to Shandra with both arms.
"Well- I- how?!" Mary retored.
"I don't know, you put it in her, take it out!"
Mary looked incredulously as her friend and back to Shandra. What, just poke a hole in her and let it drain? She thought sardonically. Well, she thought, looking at Shandra struggling under her own weight, at the very least she could make her comfortable. Mary pulled up the tentacle-floor beneath Shandra, which caused her to start, but she was pressed down into the bowl of the floor as it rose and shaped, turning into what was essentially a living papasan chair, supporting Shandra's head and legs while still allowing space for her enormous breasts and stomach to sit comfortably.
"What, you're redecorating?" Katie asked.
"Look, she got this way because I was trying to 'help' in the first place. The less I get- the less the *body* gets involved- the better."
Katie looked at Shandra, who had thankfully moved past panting and was now moaning like an over-stuffed Thanksgiving diner, running her hands over what parts of her engorged stomach she could reach.
"...You think so?" Katie asked, looking back to Mary.
Mary shook her head slightly. "*You* wanna risk it?"
Katie grimmaced, then approached the little seat, looking down at Shandra. "Mary," She asked, brushing her hand over Shandra's forehead, "You can turn into just about anything, right?"
Mary cocked her head, looking at her friend. "...I think so," she said, "why?"
"Could you turn into a guy?" Katie asked, looking at her friend.
"Do what?" Mary retorted, flinching as though she'd been struck. "I mean, what?"
"I've been... pretty understanding, I think," She said, taking a step towards Mary, "But I think if I keep this bottled up anymore it's gonna split me in half."
"What? What's bottled?" Mary asked, taking a step back.
"Anger," Katie said, "Anger at this whole rotten situation! Anger at being turned into boobzilla, anger at that dead repairman, the two dead cops, anger that you've been basically hijaced at the cellular level and I can't even really hate it because it's *you*!"
Mary shook her head and put her hands up as she backed up another step. "And- And so you want to...?"
Katie looked Mary straight in the eyes and squared her jaw. "I want to hit the Body. Just once. *Hard*."
"Katie, it's not- I mean, there isn't-"
"I *know*, which is why I asked if you could turn into a guy. Turn into him. It. Whatever." Katie looked to the side, scowling. "I want to vent my frustration at something that doesn't have your face, okay?"
Mary's brow furrowed. The request was bizarre, but it was a bizzarre circumstance, and if this was what Katie needed to keep sane in such an insane situation...
"So... what, just any guy?" Mary asked.
"I dunno- Just, what the hell does the Body look like?"
Mary actually laughed a bit. "It doesn't look like anything, KAtie. I mean, that first night, when it did whatever it did to me, it was like this light green light that went on forever, and it was just this voice talking to me. It's not a guy; it's not even a person. It's just... it."
"Well, okay," Katie said, putting her hands up. "How about this; make it look as little like you as possible, okay? Like I said, I don't wanna see your face when I do this."
"Okay, okay," Mary said, turning away from Katie. She'd turned into lots of things so far, but they were all female at least, sometimes embarrassingly so. Even the alien shapes of the mermaid-like swimming creature and the scythe-taloned sprinter didn't seem as strange to her as trying to be a man.
"Um... you mind turning around?" Mary asked, blushing.
"You're gonna take off your toga?" Katie asked back, her expression twisting.
"No, no!" Mary replied, eyes popping wide. "I just... this is really weird, you know?"
"The whole reason I'm asking for this is because I've been swimming in wierd all week," Katie retorted as she turned. "You'll have to excuse me for not differentiating between the flavors."
Mary smiled, but she was more concerned with the canvas she was staring at, the familiar shapes and colors needing to be redrawn. "Hoo-kay," She said, exhaling. Let's take away before we add, she thought to herself. Closing her eyes, she began willing away all the things that she consedered feminine about herself, drawing in her hips, shortening her hair, flattening her breasts to nearly nothing, the sensations odd and disquieting. It was only a few moments and Mary had reduced herself to something that could hardly be discerned as a man or a woman at first glance.
"Ready?" Katie asked.
"No, I'm done taking away," Mary replied, "Now I have to... add."
Katie snorted. "I almost wanna watch."
"Katie, gross," Mary grimmaced as she willed her shoulders a little wider, fingers a little thicker, jaw a little squared off.
"Look, I'll take all the laughs I can get, okay?" Katie said, cracking her knuckles.
"All right, okay," Mary said, flattening her nose, changing her hair and eye color, and giving herself a few inches of height just for the heck of it. "Okay," Mary said, buldging her muscles just a bit all over, "I think I'm done."

Katie turned, recoiling a bit at the different person standing in front of her before her face scrunched up in rage and she belted Mary right across the jaw. It was the speed that caught her off guard the most, the blow delivered so quickly and with such force Mary didn't even have the time to tense up. Mary spun around, tossed off her balance as her feet tangled aound each other. She landed on her stomach, catching her face before it slammed into the ground, and even as she hit she felt the Body react with anger and fear.
"The Meat attacks us?! Why does it do this thing?!"
"Stop, stop!" Mary yelled inside her head. "She didn't mean anything by it!"
"It attacked! The meat attacked us!" The Body retorted, trying to slip into the muscular "defensive" form Mary had been turned into before.
"It wasn't realy!" Mary insisted, trying to keep the muscles down. "She- it was practice! PRactie against, others, other, uh, prey!"
"Prey?" The Body said, stopping. MAry let out her breath and forced herself normal again, or at least as normal as she got.
"Yes..." The Body said, Mary sensing something akin to pride in its voice. "Yes, the Meat that serves the Flesh may not always be within the lair," it said. "It should know how to defend itself from predators. This pleases us."
MAry exhaled as she rose to her feet again. Another bullet dodged, another bomb defused...
"Another day in paradise," Mary muttered as she stood, shaking her head as she regarded her friend. "Feel better?" She asked, ruvbbing her jaw.
"...yeah, actually," Katie repied, her features softening. "Sorry, did it hurt?"
Mary chuckled and shook her head. "Nah. Pretty surprising, though, where'd you learn to punch that fast?"
"I couldn't tell you," Katie said. "It just came so quick, all the stuff I've been bottling up just shooting into my fist."
"Well, believe me, no one wants it gone more than me," Mary said.
Katie nodded, smiling slightly. "You know, for a split second I was thinking maybe I'd kick you right in the dangly bits."
Mary laughed at that one, putting a hand to her mouth and wincing. "WOuldn't've done any good, I'm afraid," Mary said, "Nothing down there."
"Back when you were a guy?" Katie asked, eyes widening slightly.
"I'll change the wallpaper all you want," Mary said, putting a hand up, "But no way am I re-doing the plumbing. Even I've got my limits."
Katie blushed and turned to the side, putting a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing. "Okay, okay. So now that we've got that little detour settled, what do we do about her?" She asked, pointing with her thumb to the tentacle-recliner and the gravid form atop it. Mary watched as another long tentacle slid out of Shandra's skirt, falling off the makeshift recliner and absorbing into the floor.
Mary walked up next to Shandra, who was still moaning and slowly rubbing the sides of her stomach, as much of it as she could reach around the sides of her drastically swollen breasts.
"Geeze, she's almost as big as me when I go all boobzilla," Katie said.
Mary shook her head again. "I really don't think there's anything for us to do," she said. "Just let her process it all."
"You think you could give her one of your shots? Like you do to me?" Katie asked.
"No," Mary answered, shaking her head. "Not like this. You remember how short it lasted when you were full of milk, right? If I did it to her now, like this, I doubt it'd last an hour."
"So just leave her?"
"You got any better ideas?"
Katie put her hands on her hips, biting her lower lip as she slowly shook her head. "Just hate to see her like this," She said.
"I know," Mary nodded, "Me too."
For a little while the pair of friends stood in silence, looking at the horrendously-bloated nurse in her strange, fleshy chair.