PYRAMID POWER
by Steve the Z
Alan and Susan make a life-changing anthropological discovery


The Discovery

Deep in the humid, vegetation choked Valley of Mexico, Professor Alan Cummings
and his wife Susan were searching for the lost pyramid of the Aztecs called
Qxkhtlcylkxskiola. Similarly clad in sweat-stained brown khaki shorts and
light brown shirts, the two intrepid explorers hacked their way with sharp
machetes through the undergrowth.

"I – just – gasp – can't – lift this thing anymore!" Susan wheezed, letting
her knife hand fall to her side as she took ragged breaths of air through her
mouth.

Susan was only 20, but she was petite, barely 5' tall, and very slender.
Although twice her age, Alan was 9" taller, and in far better shape from his
explorations. He had met her at the college where he taught anthropology. She
was his brightest, most enthusiastic and his prettiest student, and their
professional relationship had quickly turned to love.

Alan mopped his brow with his sleeve. "All right dear, we'll rest here for a
few minutes.

"Thank god!" Susan gasped, sitting on a tree stump. "I'm exhausted! This heat
is killing me!"

"We'll make camp if we don't find anything soon."

"Good! But first I have to rest!"

"I understand. But when you're done, let's just see what's over that slight
rise we saw back in the clearing. Then we'll call it a day."

"Ok," Susan said a few minutes later, standing up and hefting her machete. "I
think I can make it that far."

A quarter of an hour later, the two stood side by side at the top of the rise.
They were looking down into a lush, green valley and the golden pyramid that
stood precisely in its center.

"I don't believe it," Alan said. "We've found it! It's Qxkhtlcylxkskiola!"

Susan took his arm. "Oh! I'm so happy for you, Alan! But don't you mean
Qxkhtlcylkxskiola?"

"Of course!" he said. "In my excitement I mispronounced it!"

Their fatigue forgotten, they scrambled down the slope and made their way to
the pyramid as fast as they could. The sun was beginning to set when they
reached the structure, which stood tantalizingly before them, its triangular
entrance shrouded by leafy vines.

"We should camp and wait until sunrise." Alan said, without much enthusiasm.

Susan wanted to go inside as much as her husband.

"It'll be dark inside whether it's day or night," she reasoned. "And we have
the flashlights and plenty of batteries."

"You make a good point. Should we, then?" Alan said, happier.

"Oh, yes!"

The Entryway

Dusk cloaked the valley floor when Alan stepped under the entrance archway,
closely followed by Susan. He switched on his light, revealing the dirt strewn
brick floor and an empty chamber with an open doorway at the far wall.

As soon as they passed the threshold, the temperature dropped ten degrees.

"Did you feel that, Alan?" Susan whispered.

"Yes, I did. But what is it?"

The air in the entrance seemed to be charged. Alan felt as if small currents
of electricity were running along his skin. It was too negligible to be
uncomfortable, but it was a strange sensation.

Susan felt it even more than her husband. She gasped as a wave of dizziness
overcame her. She fell to her knees, dropping her flashlight, and it rolled
away from her prostrate figure.

"Susan!" Alan yelled, rushing towards her. "What's wrong?!"

Susan's fists were clenched and she was pounding them on the floor. The
tendons stood out in her arms, and she made soft whimpering noises.

Alan patted her back, totally unprepared for this strange happening.

"Susan, Susan, what's wrong? Say something!"

Susan shook her head back and forth, her teeth clenched tightly together.

Finally, after about a minute she managed to gasp out some words.

"It's – I'm ok – it's going away now..."

Alan helped his shaking wife to her feet.

"Oh my god!" he said. "You're taller!"

"W-what?" Susan said, "That's ridiculous, Alan!"

But her eye level was no longer below Alan's chin, but above it! She looked at
the floor, but they were both standing on the same ground level. Looking back
at her husband, Susan could not deny it.

"I AM taller!" she said. "But how, why?"

"I don't know." Alan said. "But it must have something to do with that strange
sensation we both felt entering this pyramid. Maybe we should leave!"

"Yes, I think that's a good idea!" Susan said. "But where did my flashlight
go?"

"I think it's over there, against the wall." Alan said, shining his light in
that direction.

"Yeah, there it is." Susan said, striding over to the wall and picking the
flashlight up. She shone the beam back towards the entrance. "Oh oh!"

The entryway was now a solid slab of rock.

Both Alan and Susan tried to open the blocked door, but to no avail.

"I didn't hear a thing." Alan said. "It's like it appeared by magic!"

"It must have slid into place when I had that fit." Susan said. "I don't like
this at all."

"I think we only have one choice." Alan said, swinging his flashlight's beam
onto the opposite wall and the open doorway there. "And that is to go
forward!"

The First Chamber

"You go first," Susan whispered.

Alan cleared his throat nervously, but putting on a brave front, took one step
into the next room. He let out his pent up breath when nothing happened, then
took a second, and a third step into the room.

"Seems OK." he said, looking back at Susan.

She put her head through the doorway, looked around, then tentatively moved to
Alan's side. As soon as she cleared the entrance, another wall of rock slid
across the door, while a rock doorway at the other end of the room similarly
opened.

"Did you see that!" Alan gasped. "Amazing!"

"How can it work when it's so old?" Susan asked.

"Their engineers must have been very clever."

"Oh no! It's happening again!" Susan said.

"What?"

"That crazy feeling! It's come over me again!"

"I don't feel anything!" Alan said.

"Well, I do!" Susan insisted, gritting her teeth. "It's not so bad this time,
but it's definitely there."

"Does it hurt?" Alan asked in an anxious tone.

"No, it – it's like some kind of internal pressure. Oh! Oh my!"

Alan stared as Susan's brow furrowed and she raised her clenched fists up so
her forearms were parallel to the floor. To his astonishment, Susan's biceps
were becoming fuller, rounder, until they had caused the short sleeves of her
brown blouse to become tautly stretched around them.

Apparently, Susan had felt her arms changing, for she was looking from one to
the other in astonishment.

"No - this can't be happening!" she said.

"My god...." Alan gasped. "You – you – you're...."

"I'm stronger!" Susan finished for him, flexing her right bicep, which bulged
so large her sleeve split apart across it. "A LOT stronger, I'd say."

Alan's throat clicked loudly as he swallowed the dry lump that had risen in
it. Susan was staring at her bicep, which was almost twice its former size.

"How..." she said. "How can this be happening?"

Alan reached out as if to touch Susan's new muscle, but his hand wavered, and
stopped halfway to it.

"I don't know!" he whispered. "The Aztecs must have had an understanding of
scientific matters we have no concept of. That's the only explanation!"

"What should we do, Alan!" Susan cried. "I'm afraid to go into the next room!"

"Me too," he admitted. "But we can't stay here forever. We have very little
food and water. We must move on!"

The Second Chamber

They stood before the entrance to the second room, peering into the dark
interior.

"Maybe if we both stepped through simultaneously?" Alan suggested.

"Maybe," Susan said doubtfully. She sighed. "Let's try."

They glanced at each other, then wordlessly stepped across the threshold.

To Alan, it was the strangest thing. It seemed to him that Susan must have
stepped up onto a rise in the ground, for her head rose up a couple of inches
as soon as they both crossed the doorway. He instinctively looked down, but
they were both on the same level stone floor.

And that could only mean one thing.

"It happened again!" he gasped. "You're taller still!"

"Oh my gosh, I'm almost as tall as you, Alan!" Susan said, her hand going to
the side of her astonished, open-mouthed husband.

"This is totally beyond explanation." Alan said, his eyes travelling up and
down his wife's legs. "And is it the dim light in here, or is your skin
getting darker?"

Susan played the beam of her flashlight across her thighs.

"It is!" she said. "My tan is deeper! And my legs are more mus - ...what's
that?!"

A loud grating noise came from the side of the room where they had entered it.
They turned in that direction, to see the wall moving steadily towards them!

"We've got to get out of here!" Alan cried.

They rushed to the opposite wall, only to find the entrance blocked. The stone
door had not opened.

Alan put his shoulder against it and heaved.

"Oof!" he said, the veins standing out in his forehead. "I can't budge it!"

"Look!" Susan said, "There's a gap under the door!"

Sure enough, a two inch opening existed between the bottom of the door and the
floor. Alan bent and slid his fingers underneath it, heaved with all his
strength.

But to no avail, the door remained steadfast.

"Let me try." Susan said.

"You? But, how could you possibly open this Susan?"

"Remember these, Alan?" Susan said, side flexing her left bicep, which tore
through her sleeve as readily as the right one had done a few minutes
previously.

"Oh." Alan piped in a small voice. "Yes. Those..."

"Stand aside, Dear. Please. I hate to say this to you Honey, but I think this
is woman's work!"

Alan moved over, and Susan squatted in front of the door, fitting her hands
under the bottom of it. She pulled upward, her shirt tightening across her
broad back.

‘Broad back?' Alan thought. ‘But she is, I mean was, so slender!'

The door emitted a loud crack, and began to inch upwards.

"My god!" Alan cried. "You're doing it, Susan!"

Susan's very fit looking legs slowly straightened, and as she stood the door
came up farther and farther. When it was about four feet off the floor she
stopped, and dusted her hands together.

"There," she said, looking Alan in the eye. "We can scoot under that."

"We're the same height!" a shocked Alan said.

"So we are." Susan said. "But we'll also be a lot skinnier if we don't get out
of here right now!"

She jerked her head in the direction of the moving wall, which was about a
foot away from them.

"Yikes!" Alan said, quickly ducking down and scooting himself under the
opening.

Susan was right behind him.

The Third Chamber

"Whew, that was close!" Alan said, wiping the sweat from his forehead as he
turned to face Susan.

"Yes," she said, looking down at him from her two inch height advantage. "It
was, wasn't it?"

"Oh my...." Alan whispered, staring at Susan, whose hands were on her hips.
"Not again."

Susan was broad shouldered, her shirt now tied under her breasts to reveal the
washboarded abs above her slender waist. Her shorts were somehow shorter and
tighter than they had been, and the waistband was a good two inches below her
navel.

"Yes, again." she said. "I'm sure I could lift that door with only one arm
now, don't you?"

Alan looked at her carefully, paying particular attention to the large muscles
poking through her shredded sleeves. "Um, you may be right!"

"There's no sense denying it, Alan. It's clear to me that I'm going to change
every time we step into a new room."

"Maybe. Well, yes. But – what are you becoming!"

"I have no idea." Susan said. "But I can't deny that I'm starting to like it!"

"Like it?"

"Yes! Growing bigger. Growing stronger. Getting so much stronger every single
time! Can you imagine where this may lead? It's really starting to excite me!"

"Oh my goodness!" said Alan. "I fear you're losing your scientific
perspective."

"You think so? Hmmmm. Any theories, my darling Professor, about how many more
rooms we'll have to pass through before we find our way out of here?" Susan
pondered.

"M-most Aztec pyramids have at least a dozen interior chambers." Alan said,
just a bit nervously.

"Counting the entryway?" Susan asked.

"Uhm, no, maybe, I'm not sure!"

"So there may be at least eight or nine more rooms!"

"Yes, that – that's possible."

"So ... you must be thinking what I'm thinking. Hmmm, Alan?" Susan asked, a
smile playing about her full lips.

"Yes, probably." he said quietly, his eyes widening.

"I'll be superhuman by the time we leave!" she whispered excitedly.

"And then what?" Alan said, almost to faint to hear.

"Who knows? We'll just have to wait and see, won't we?"

The Fourth Chamber

Alan and Susan stood before the open entryway into the next room. Alan shone
his light inside, to reveal another empty space with a stone floor, rock
walls, and a few odd designs painted on the ceiling.

"Doesn't look like much." he said.

"Why don't you go in first?" Susan said. "Since it has no effect on you at
all, maybe you'll deactivate whatever is changing me and then you won't be so
nervous."

"Wh-who says I'm nervous?" Alan asked nervously.

"Dear," Susan said firmly. "You're shaking like a leaf! Try to calm down.
Nothing bad has happened yet, and I'm here to protect you!"

"You – protect-..." Alan spluttered, his mouth opening and closing.

"Go on." Susan said, giving him a gentle shove.

Alan could feel the strength in Susan's body propelling him forward. He
stumbled across the threshold, holding his breath and closing his eyes.
Opening them a moment later, he looked around. Everything was the same, except
he was in the next room and Susan was behind him in the previous room.

"Everything all right?" she asked.

Alan sniffed, as if he could smell the magic or whatever it was that infested
the pyramid. All he could smell was dust and dry stone.

"I think so." he said. "I detect nothing here except an old chamber, nothing
at all."

"Good! Here I come then." Susan said, stepping into the room.

As soon as she entered, her shoulders burst her sleeves apart. She shot up
another two inches in height, and the muscles of her thighs became instantly
defined. Her shorts were now skin tight, and so short the sides were higher
than at her crotch. Her breasts filled the confines of her halter-like blouse
with a centerfold's voluptuousness, and her nipples hardened, becoming
distinctly visible under the stretched fabric. Susan's short blonde hair
became wilder, more curly, with waves that brushed the bottom of her neck, and
her tan deepened, her skin becoming a deep sun-kissed shade of brown.

"Nothing here, huh?" she said, flexing her right bicep, which amazingly had
grown even larger, with thick blue veins criss-crossing the peaked, powerful
muscle.

"My god in heaven!" Alan blurted, almost falling down as his knees went slack.

Susan, who was now four inches taller than her husband, deftly caught the
sides of his arms and kept him from swooning.

"Easy there, big guy." she said. "Don't pass out on me. I don't want to have
to carry you now, though I suppose I could without slowing down even a little
bit!"

Alan felt like a helpless baby in Susan's powerful embrace. He was not
standing under his own power, but she held him up as easily as a mother does a
toddler. He could not believe what had happened to her. Her shoulders were
conspicuously wider than his, and her newly muscular legs made him ashamed of
his skinny, hairy shins poking out from his shorts.

Susan seemed to read his mind, for she glanced at his legs, then to her own
long, sexy, muscular and deeply tanned perfect limbs, fully exposed by her
tight little shorts.

"Well, I'm not as skinny as I used to be, am I Alan? In fact, I think my legs
are a bit bigger than yours aren't they?" she said subtly as she pulled him up
straighter and let him go.

Alan swayed, but remained on his feet, looking up at his wife.

Susan laughed. "You look funny with your mouth hanging open like that, Alan!"

Alan didn't even know he was gaping. He shut his mouth with a loud click of
his teeth, and Susan laughed again.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, covering her mouth with her hand. "I admit that
it's strange being taller than you! You used to be so much bigger and stronger
than I was."

"I – yes. I find it very strange too!" Alan blurted.

"It's so weird having these muscles," Susan said, flexing her biceps. "I've
never even thought before that being muscular was even possible! But I kind of
like the way they look, don't you?" she went on, tensing her arms to make her
muscles even larger and placing her biceps directly below Alan's eyes. In the
strange light of his flashlight, they appeared inhumanly large and powerful.
"And, of course, darling, the way they look isn't nearly as important as what
they can do. You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes - well, of course I do. They – they certainly are impressive..." Alan
said, a slight sheen of perspiration breaking across his brow.

With a mocking grin, Susan said "Yes, were you going to say ‘... for a girl'?"
she laughed. "And to think, all my friends would always say I'm too skinny and
should eat more red meat!"

Their conversation was interrupted by a loud rumbling noise, accompanied by a
rain of dust and dirt falling all around them.

They looked up, to see sharp iron tipped rods beginning to lower from the
ceiling.

"Holy smokes!" Susan said. "We have to get out of here!"

The Fifth Chamber

They rushed to the other side of the room, Alan scrambling to keep up with his
long-legged wife. The doorway was open, but the floor level of the next
chamber was about a foot higher than the one they were in.

Susan reached it first, put her hands on each side of the doorframe, and
lifted her left leg up and put her foot into the room. As soon as her hiking
boot touched the dirt, her calf expanded into a huge, split diamond shaped
muscle.

"Whoa!" she said. "Get a look at my leg!"

She stepped up and onto the higher ledge, her other calf growing in size to
match the other, and another inch adding on to the length of her shins for
good measure. The inch that was then added above her knees made her six feet ,
three inches tall, or six inches taller than Alan.

Susan turned and extended a hand to help Alan up, her thick blonde hair with
the dark streaks tumbling across her thick, muscle-bound shoulders.

He grasped her small hand, and felt the velvet vise of her fingers pull him
off his feet. With one hand, she lifted him high and set him down on the floor
next to her.

"I'm starting to make you look like a pipsqueak!" she said, her voice a bit
louder and lower.

Susan's chest thrust so far forward her blouse looked like a tight halter top,
the buttons barely holding on across the deep cleavage of her full breasts.
She saw how Alan was staring at her chest and gave him a superior smile.

"Time to go, little man." she said, her bright green eyes, now slightly
slanted, twinkling as she turned and walked away from him.

Alan gasped, for Susan's shorts had become so brief over half of her gluteus
maximus was exposed, and she had the shapeliest, sexiest and roundest derriere
he had ever seen. She strode purposefully, her long, magnificent legs covering
the room in only a few strides, Alan hurrying along behind her.

They came to the other side of the room, to find the doorway blocked by a huge
slab of stone.

Susan looked down at Alan and smiled.

"Just a little while ago I'd be wringing my little hands and crying, begging
you to move this stone for us," she said. "But now, well..." she shrugged her
powerhouse shoulders, upon either one of which Alan could now comfortably sit.

"Simply beyond belief!" was all Alan could think to say as they inspected the
rectangular obstruction before them. The stone was about eight feet high and
four wide, perhaps two feet thick.

"Probably weighs a good ton or so, wouldn't you say Alan?" she asked.

Alan pounded his fist against the rock. "It feels like I'm hitting a solid
brick wall," he agreed, nodding and straining his neck to look up at her.

"Wanna try shoving it out of the way, Darling?" Susan offered, raising her
arched black brows and waving her open hand at the stone slab.

Seeing Alan's red face, she giggled.

"Sorry to tease you honey! But you just look so cute when you look up at me
like that, all confused and non-plussed!" Susan reached down and taking Alan's
shoulders, gently guided him a few steps back and to the side. "Better stand
back so you don't get hurt baby."

Alan moved even farther away on his own initiative as Susan braced her massive
shoulder against the edge of the stone. She dug her hiking boots into the
dirt, and pushed.

She actually permitted one small drop of perspiration to bead up on her left
temple as a grinding, grating rumble accompanied the slab as it was pushed
three feet to one side. The sinews in Susan's arms and back stood out like the
cables holding up the Golden Gate Bridge and her thighs bunched up like there
were live grenades of power going off under the golden taut skin.

"Hhhmph!" she said, slapping the dust off her hands. "Little heavier than I
thought! Probably would've taken twenty or more of you little men to move
that! Oh well!"

She turned to beckon Alan to her side. He felt like a rag doll next to its
girl-giant owner.

"Ready to move on, Honey? Personally, I can't wait to see what happens to,
uhm, ‘us', next!"

"Do we have a choice?" Alan said gloomily.

Instead of answering, Susan strode over to where the ledge they had entered
was now blocked by a seeming solid wall of granite. She pushed on it
experimentally, and to Alan's surprise actually managed to make a few small
shards of rock and dust fall from the ceiling.

"Nope!" she said. "Even I can't break through THAT!...yet...We'll have to go
forward, or inward, wherever the path leads!"

The Sixth Chamber

Alan was peeking around the opening she had created, into a circular room with
about a twenty foot diameter. The door at the far end was covered in strange
symbols, the light coming from thin recesses around the ceiling. ‘Must be some
sort of lenses catching the moonlight and transferring it inside.' he thought.
‘Or perhaps bio-luminescent lichen or moss.'

He stepped into the room, turning as Susan carefully came in after him. She
was so big now she had to be careful how she moved, although her movements
were very graceful, cat-like in their execution.

He fully expected her to shoot up a foot taller and pack on another fifty
pounds of muscle. But this didn't happen. Instead, her forehead rose about two
inches and a thick vertical blue vein began to pulse in the center of her
lofty brow. Her hair shade darkened, she was almost a total brunette now.

Ignoring his startled gasp, Susan walked over to the symbols. Her blouse and
shorts had combined into a one-piece skirted garment that left one shoulder
bare. Her skin was a dusky bronze-gold. A somewhat crude-looking tatoo of the
sun had appeared on her left shoulder. The only remnant of her former outfit
were the pair of hiking boots still on her feet. As her hair swayed across the
rippling muscles of her bare back, the outlines of another tattoo peaked out
between the dark wavy strands.

"This is quite interesting." she said, turning and letting her intense
green-eyed almost hypnotic stare make him flinch and look away. "It seems our
little Aztec friends knew something about prime numbers."

"What are you talking about Susan?" Alan asked, his eyes watering as he
unsuccessfully tried to hold her gaze.

"This formula." she said, pointing a long finger tipped with a long, sharp
nail at the symbols carved into the door. "Is for one of a series of nine
prime series representations. However, it is not complete, obviously."

"Huh?" Alan said, scratching his head. "Prime numbers? Series what? How do you
know these things Susan?"

She looked at him very strangely, her brows raising haughtily. "This is simple
number theory," she said. "Why WOULDN'T I know this?"

"B-b-because you failed even the most rudimentary math courses at the college,
Susan! I think this room made you smarter!"

"Hmm...possiby...probably!" she said.

She reached out and added a "+1" to the formula, scratching it into the stone
with her diamond-hard talon-shaped nail. Immediately, the door and the carving
rose up to reveal another opening.

The Seventh Chamber

Without a word, Sharon stepped through the doorway into the next chamber.
Alan, dumbstruck, stared after her as she grew another two inches, and her
hiking boots finally gave way to the pyramid's influence to become a pair of
sandals with criss-crossing straps that traveled up and around Susan's
tremendous calf muscles before knotting themselves under her knees.

The door began to slide shut, snapping Alan out of his trance. He jumped
through the narrowing opening just in time, realizing he had almost trapped
himself in the sixth room.

"Christ, I almost didn't make it!" he yelped as he skidded to a halt, staring
up at his six feet, seven inch tall wife.

"You needn't have been concerned, Alan." Susan said, her voice a seductive
contralto. "I would not have allowed you to become trapped. I would have held
the door open long enough for you to get through."

"But how! You were already at the other side of the chamber!"

"Why, like this, of course." Susan said, waving her hand (a gasping Alan saw
it had SIX fingers) at the door, which gratingly began to re-open as the vein
between Susan's brows thickened and pulsed.

She held her palm up a few more seconds, then let it drop. Immediately, the
door slammed shut with a loud thud and the vein subsided to a faint azure
tracery under her unlined skin.

"H-how did you DO that!" he said.

"It's actually quite simple, dear Alan," Susan said, "for me. But I'm afraid
you wouldn't understand even the basic concepts of the principals involved."

"Wouldn't understand..." he whispered.

"No Alan. Because you haven't changed, of course, while I am becoming a sort
of Goddess."

"...no..." he said. "That's impossible?" But his questioning tone indicated
that he knew it WAS possible, as he could see the evidence standing very tall
right in front of him.

"You know that it's true Alan. As soon as we stepped into the foyer it was
inevitable. Contrary to your theories, this is actually the last chamber.
Through that portal is the exit. Come, we will leave together."

She held out her hand, smiling, her long thick raven black hair hanging past
her tiny waist, a soft nimbus of golden light shining around her and
illuminating the room.

As soon as her fingers clasped Alan's, he felt a tremendous sense of well
being fill him, but also a sense of awe and complete inferiority. He wanted to
drop to his knees and worship Susan, or what she had become.

"Later." she said softly, her hand urging him forward as she led him through
the golden door that slid aside before her. "All that will come in good time."

They were whisked upwards through the very heart of the pyramid, their
platform taking them out of the top just as the sun rose over the jungle.

Susan smiled as she beheld her world; she already knew what her first step in
re-shaping it would be.

THE END