Mankillers: Baroness
By Martin Kane mksequela@yahoo.co.uk
A lethal vigilante with a surprising superpower


Author's Note:

These tales were originally written for the mankiller.blogspot website hosted
by Dusty Bottums and are based on the characters featured there (themselves
often based on a variety of Superheroine sources.) Though the site is sadly no
longer up, Dusty's work can still be found in his own Diana the Valkyrie
library shelf, and his artworks (including those featuring Serena, Scarlett,
Titaness and Baroness) at the deviantart.com website.

Please also note that this story contains graphic material, including scenes
of violence which may not appeal to all.

************************************************************************

She was known by those who feared her as the Baroness. There were tales told
in underworld circles of a disguised, self-appointed crime-fighter - a
psychotic woman of extreme physical development who used her abnormal strength
and skill to combat the organised criminal rackets. She was a lone warrior for
justice, a Batman fetishist for the twenty- first century, a post-feminist
poster-child with a yen for vigilante justice and excessive violence.

Her costume was said to be black latex, stretched to encompass the voluptuous
curves of her huge round muscles. As massively developed as any female
bodybuilder that graced a competition stage and as lethally skilled as a kung
fu master.

But hers was no contest physique, her concern was not for the beauty of her
body but for its tremendous capabilities. Her muscles were entirely practical,
a fact that her countless victims could testify to. Or rather would be able to
had they survived the encounter. The Baroness knew the value of fear, the
value of notoriety, and rarely allowed any of her victims to live. Those
blessed with such leniency were permitted escape only so that the rumours
could spread.

The people who told these tales, the criminal fraternities' equivalent of
campfire yarns, never seemed to wonder at their inconsistencies - why she used
an alias for example. Surely a massively muscled woman could only enjoy a
limited degree of anonymity. Hers was not the kind of body that passed by
without notice.

The truth was that the Baroness enjoyed anonymity because her everyday alias
was as physically different to her superhuman persona as Jennifer Walters was
to the She-Hulk.

Right at this moment, she was a slender, delicate young woman. She stood at
five foot five and her slim body contained no evidence of the huge muscles
that inspired such fear and horror in the underworld masses. Her shoulders
were small, her arms thin, her breasts modest, her hips narrow and her legs
slender.

She was certainly attractive enough but only in a non-striking manner. She had
a pretty face and a conventionally appealing body, though she lacked either
the glamorous and bountiful curves favoured by tradition or the gym-honed
definition and tightness of more athletic tastes. Dressed in a tailored suit,
she was an elegant, youthful businesswoman. Wire-rimmed spectacles sat before
clear blue eyes, her black hair was tied behind her head in a neat little bun.
She looked every bit the well-qualified young professional, at home in an
office environment. Which is what made her current location in a sewer system
all the more odd.

She crept through a dank, stone tunnel, taking particular care that her heels
didn't clack on the hard floor. The echoes of her footfalls would quickly
betray her presence to the men who were gathered in the chamber beyond. She
hunkered down amongst the shadows and watched them working. Her private
entrance was entirely unofficial. It was a small arch of stones leading to the
sewer access from which she had come. Her way into the main chamber was barred
by a heavy iron grill. Although the barrier kept her from her final goal, it
would serve as no obstacle whatsoever once she had fully prepared herself for
battle.

This underground factory she had uncovered was operating via one of the firm's
many legitimate business fronts. The main complex above was wholly official,
even turning out a steady and stable income. A modest manufacturer unworthy of
any close scrutiny. But beneath the respectable surface, an altogether more
nefarious business ran in parallel.

The Baroness saw the chemical factory and knew this was the right place. The
armed guards were slack and few, the criminal mastermind behind this
processing station obviously considered discretion to be its main security.
Through her diligent and meticulous research into the company records she had
found the tell-tale paper-trail that suggested this factory complex was more
than met the eyes.

The staff wore facemasks, busily refining the raw product into processed
merchandise and getting it ready for bulk delivery to the high volume dealers.
From there it would be separated out and cut, ready to go into the network of
buyers and sellers, making its way down the pyramid until it hit the streets -
until it hit the users. But not this batch. This batch was going nowhere.
These chemists were going nowhere. This factory was going nowhere. She would
cut off the whole branch, right at the trunk.

It was a different chemical that preoccupied her right at this moment,
however, a very different drug that ran through her body. One that could not
be purchased from any dealer, no matter the price you were willing to pay. It
seemed to sing as her heart pumped it through her veins. She could feel the
elixir, like heat, as though there were wires in place of her arteries and
electricity in place of blood.

The MKX formula was what allowed the spectacular and unnatural transformations
her body went through. As was normal right before a change, her pulse had
begun to accelerate. The process was half- involuntary, but the longer she'd
been using the formula, the more control she found she had over it.

The primary factor was adrenalin of course, that ancient, inbuilt physical
defence system. It was the natural chemical trigger that ultimately began the
change, the catalyst that reacted to the MKX formula and allowed her to
undergo the transformation from a slender, delicate woman into the huge and
mighty Baroness.

She took a breath, controlling her body, wanting to investigate the operation
further before the violence kicked off. The tactician in her wanted as much
data beforehand as possible, but her agitation threatened to push her over
into change. And it was also true that there was another side to her
personality - a more bestial side. Justice be damned, there was a part of her
nature that did it for the pure pleasure of it - the thrill of the hunt. If
she was absolutely honest with herself, she'd have to admit that what kept her
doing this, time and time again, was not just the satisfaction of the evil she
was ridding the world of, but for the sheer, unadulterated joy of unapologetic
violence.

It was this side of her that won out now, her body already gone too far, her
adrenalin pumping too hard. The change began.

It was a pulsing, thudding roar inside her flesh. It was blood pumping hard
and fast - an exhilaration that no workout high could possibly match. Only
orgasm came close to the sheer throbbing joy her body experienced as her weak
and feeble form gave way to the raw, physical might of the Baroness.

Her body felt like it was erupting. A physical swell with each heavy bass-drum
beat of her heart - an echoing thud that shook through her flesh. A beat she
could feel at every joint in her body, every crook and every muscle.

It was all she could do to stop herself from crying out with the exuberant joy
of a body freed - a physique reaching the zenith of its physical capacity.

When she regained her composure, despite still possessing the same elegant
beauty, no one would have recognised her as the same woman. The face was the
same, but the body was rebuilt in a manner that inspired fear in all those
that saw it. Because those who saw it recognised it from urban myth, and they
realised too late that the tales of the Baroness were true.

She looked down at the shredded remains of her clothes. The suit trousers had
split apart, the legs ripped open at the seams as her thighs had swollen with
muscle. The belt buckle was still fastened but the stitching beside it had
ripped, shredding through the leather, popping the strap open at its weakest
point. Her blouse had been torn into rags, ripping in all directions as her
tremendous torso had exploded within it. Buttons had flown off like bullets,
but still, the sudden vast protrusion of her breasts had torn the front apart.
The fitting about her shoulders and back had suffered multiple tears when her
upper body had swelled, as though with a massive intake of breath. The arms
had simply burst. Even her suit jacket had ripped open, torn at the back and
shoulders, the sleeves split apart. It was utterly beyond repair.

The Baroness now stood in her full glory, body rippling and bulging like
something from a comic-book. She had gained just half a foot in height, but
looked to have added fifty pounds in weight - every ounce of it pure,
unadulterated muscle.

The shiny black latex-like costume was custom designed. It stretched enough
that she could wear it when in the form of an ordinary woman, discretely
concealed beneath her normal clothes, but offered enough give that it alone
would survive the transformation she made while all other garments burst
apart.

The boots were built into the costume, also stretching. The heels, though
hardly stilettos, were perhaps a little higher than might be practical. But
she liked them. They helped the disguise and besides it was always useful to
have an extra weapon to hand. Though they were hardly stilettos, she'd still
stabbed many a victim just by driving her heel into him. They didn't need to
be sharp if you put enough muscle behind them.

She was still wearing her glasses. She took them off to wipe them clean on the
torn rag that had been her blouse, then replaced them. Superheroine or not,
she didn't like contact lenses and didn't trust laser-eye-surgery.

She gathered her wrecked clothes into a small pile and pulled a small vial
from the jacket pocket, cracking the glass seal. This was not the MKX formula
but another useful little enzyme that her Professor friend had provided her
with. She emptied the vial over the clothes. The enzyme would eat through
everything in less than ten minutes, leaving no evidence behind of her
transformation.

First, the bars. Wrapping her fists about the central two she pressed her
shoulders in close, getting a full range of muscles into the task. With near
superhuman strength, she wrenched the iron bars apart, the metal bending to
her will as though no more substantial than cooking dough.

The exertion was good. A warm-up exercise that got her all the more ready for
the violence she was about to indulge in. Her muscles throbbed in celebration,
swelling with the effort as she forced a gap big enough for even her
stupendous shoulders to fit between.

She repeated the trick, closing the bars after her, then crept forward to the
edge of the shadowy alcove, surveying her prey.

It would perhaps be smart to watch them for longer, wait for the perfect
moment to strike. Study the motion of the guards, try to ascertain exactly how
many of the personnel were armed, and with what. She could have taken the time
and trouble to plan the perfect strike. But she'd been passive too long. She
yearned for violence and would hold back no longer.

She fell upon them. Going for the guards first was logical of course, they
were the ones with the guns. The Baroness was unarmed, excepting the weapon
that was her body. And that exception was a significant one, the body in
question being mighty beyond belief. Not just the tremendous skill she wielded
but the unbelievable strength.

Two guards reared at the sudden lunge of the woman, a silhouette of black, a
shape bulging and fluid. But by the time they reacted she was already upon
them. Fists flew forward and the two guards were knocked unconscious. She
caught them, stopping their fall, wrapping her arms about their necks. A
squeeze and twist, both men were jerked around as their necks snapped in
unison. The clattering their guns made dropping to the ground, was the first
indication anyone else in the factory had that anything was even amiss.

There were more guards than these two, and she targeted one of them next. He
was close by and lifted his weapon to fire. It was a sub- machine gun, a
square, heavy-duty piece of kit, strapped to the guard with a thick band
running across one shoulder.

She snatched it from him before he could fire, tugging the weapon out of his
grip as easily as a parent would confiscate a water-pistol from a child. Then
she yanked the gun hard, drawing the man by the strap, pulling him off of his
feet.

Throwing her hip forward to meet him, she swung his weight over her shoulder,
using the gun and strap to slam him around, hard against the cold stone floor.
She then pressed one foot neatly across his throat. Still grasping the gun,
she pulled it up hard, bracing the man tight against her foot before she
crushed her weight down hard, ending him for good.

She let rip with the weapon, firing a stream of arcing lead across the
enclosed chamber, the sound of it echoing off the stone walls. She didn't care
what she hit, she took no effort to aim or use the weapon for anything other
than to announce her presence and make all those about her duck in fear and
panic.

Dropping the gun she targeted another guard, this one by the main entrance to
the chamber. She estimated only he and another guard were on scene. After that
it was just the workers. Though of course, they too could well be armed.

This guard had by now had enough time to react, his gun drawn and he fired at
the Baroness. How his stream of fire had missed her he could not have said but
her speed and motion was too random and too rapid to predict. She'd bounced
off the wall, leaping like a pinball from station to station, covering the
distance in an illogical path that nevertheless took only seconds to reach
him.

A flying kick had his gun knocked aside as she swept past in front of him.
Instinctively he punched out at the descending shadow, catching what he
thought to be a killer blow to the woman's passing flank.

Muscle unlike anything the man had ever experienced before protected the
assassin's body, his blow was probably not even felt by her, totally
ineffectual against such dense, solid mass. Her own assault retaliated, a
swift, flat chop against his side as she spun her weight around, crushing his
lower ribs and shattering his spine. He was thrown sideways by the force of
the strike, his body slamming heavily into the wall.

The man was dazed but could clearly make out the feeling of cold stone against
his face. He wondered momentarily whether his cheek had been broken by the
hard contact - his whole head was singing. And then he felt a steely grip
grasp the back of his skull. He realised with horror that she had not yet done
with him, that all the rumours he had ever heard about the Baroness were true.

His head was drawn back, the wall he faced now two feet away. He tried to
brace himself by putting his hands out in front, pressing himself away from
the wall, but it was no use, the woman who held him was far too strong for his
feeble struggles to have any effect. He screamed as his head was slammed
forward again. And then he knew nothing.

The door the man had stood before was the main exit. It could be locked with
deadbolts, duel bars that slid across into their housings via a heavy lever
system. The Baroness wrenched the handle to the side, closing the bolts and
then ripped the handle off. With a tearing of metal, it came free in her grip,
effectively rendering the door secure.

The last guard came at her then. He was running towards her, lifting his
weapon to gun her down. Without pause for thought, she tossed the handle at
him, sharp and hard. It struck him square, smack in the face. As it fired, the
gun went wide, accidentally cutting down innocent personnel as they dove for
cover. His head seeped blood and he wiped it with one hand as he tried to
re-aim the heavy-duty gun, swinging it around towards the descending shadow
that was the Baroness.

But she was already on him, wrenching the gun aside and slamming a heavy fist
into his stomach.

He had never known strength like it. Even with his body-armour the blow was
like a sledgehammer to the gut, throwing him backwards. She still held the gun
tight and he was jerked around by the strap across his shoulder. She tugged
it, swinging him back towards her, ready to meet her fist once more.

This time she went for the face. Once those black-gloved knuckles struck, he
knew nothing more, unconscious even before he landed. This was a blessing as
she concluded the act by stepping up to her fallen foe, lifting one insanely
muscled leg and then bringing her heel down right between his eyes, splitting
his skull apart like a melon struck with a carpentry hammer.

Someone had taken it upon themselves to help the guards, had decided that a
high-seated stool would act as a weapon even when the sub- machine guns
wielded by trained security personnel had proven ineffectual.

To his credit, he got as far as slamming the metal frame hard across her
shoulders, as though this were a barroom brawl in a cheap western. The
Baroness remained as solidly resolute as an oak tree struck with a broom
handle.

The man shakily regarded the buckled stood, his arms quaking from the impact.
The Baroness slowly turned to face him, alight with sadistic glee. And he knew
that she had deliberately let him strike her because she knew he had no
ability to hurt her. She let him strike her because she wanted to see the fear
that now shone in his eyes.

He turned to run, panic overwhelming him. She was too fast and too strong for
him to escape. She grabbed him by the shoulder and by the hip as he spun
about, falling over himself, trying to scamper away.

"Not so fast," she cooed, amused, "it's my turn first."

With a wrench of her massive muscles, she heaved him above her head. She kept
him aloft a few seconds, making sure all those around her had a chance to see,
wanting them to witness this assault.

The crazed, stunned, audience of workers watched and panicked. Some stood and
stared, rooted to the spot in terror. Others ran insanely about, trying to
hide. Some went for the only door, the one she had effectively locked. Others
found the irons bars she had wrenched closed after her entrance. They were all
trapped however. One actually went to a guard and wrestled the heavy machine
gun out of the dead grasp. Others had weapons of their own. Handguns were
plucked from waistbands, from ankle holsters or jackets. Guns were cocked and
this monster of a woman closed in their sights.

With an almost careless twist of her wrists, the Baroness wrenched the man she
held, snapping his body as one would a breadstick. He shuddered once, a
spasmodic jerk, then slumped slack in her grip.

A man twenty feet away had managed to free one of the corpses of its weapon
and was inexpertly aiming it forward. His inexperience was all too apparent
but the gun was primed and ready. All he had to do was aim and shoot, both of
which he did with far greater effect than its true owner had achieved.

But the Baroness was too quick, tossing the man she held directly at the
gun-wielder, just as he let loose the barrage. As the flying corpse spun with
absorbed shrapnel the massive silhouette of the Baroness closed behind it,
leading with a flying kick.

The crunch of foot striking face ended the rattle of the gun, the man already
dead as the blow sent him sprawling. The Baroness landed like a gymnast, and,
also like a gymnast, bounced straight back up into another move. She flew
gracefully into her next pose, foot contacting another victim, this a strike
to solar plexus, practically folding the man in two.

She kicked off again, landing on the back of a fleeing man, her muscular
weight and momentum taking him down, her knee focusing the full impact between
his shoulders. His back caved under her with a satisfying crunch.

A bullet fired then, zipping past her. It was followed by a salvo of others.
Someone had taken shelter behind some of the industrial equipment and was
making use of the cover. His first miss had alerted her - he was too far for a
true shot - and she'd reacted immediately, diving aside as the following
bullets fired off in a panicked impulse.

He realised he'd alerted her to his presence. The mistake would be his end.
How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?

The Baroness tore across the factory floor as the man reloaded his weapon. A
race to the finish. He slammed the new magazine home.

Just as she landed in front of him he pulled the top-slide to chamber the
first bullet and cock the weapon for firing.

There was a pause then, almost a stutter, as each of them realised the
standoff and waited to see what the other would do. Like a gunfight, each
waited for the other to make a move.

It was true, he held a loaded, primed gun and she was armed only with her body
- lethal though it was. But that gun was not aimed at her and she stood but
three feet away.

The tension was palpable. Though the beat lasted less than a second, in the
head of the two protagonists, it seemed to drag on for minutes.

The man moved first, his body exploding with speed and action. As quickly as
his body could move, he jammed the muzzle into his mouth and pulled the
trigger.

But as ever, the Baroness was faster. His actions had surprised her, but she
still reacted on a level too quickly for rational thought, kicking out the
second his body jerked into motion.

As the gun fired, she had already kicked it clear, though he lost most of his
teeth as her foot ripped the weapon away. The bullet fired out and missed them
both.

She dropped, grabbing the man by the head, cupping his face between her hands.
The latex-like suit that covered her felt cool to him. Though the pain in his
mouth should have been excruciating, all he felt right now was heat, and the
coolness of her hands was pleasant.

"Naughty," she scolded flirtatiously. "Trying to rob me of my prize."

And less than ten seconds after saving his life she called in the debt,
twisting his head around sharply, snapping his neck in a single smooth motion.

The panic in the room seemed to have a life of its own. An insane beast born
of horror and fear. An entity of mad, unregarding hysteria.

Riotous, people fled in all directions, clambering over one another, pounding
on the sealed door, scurrying beneath furniture. A bedlam of chaos. And at the
centre of it all, the eye of this hurricane, the Baroness calmly regarded the
turmoil.

Another victim tried to creep up behind her, this time armed with a
flick-knife. Against the gleaming barrage of muscles that made up her
tremendous back and shoulders it seemed ridiculously inadequate, like trying
to stab a buffalo with a toothpick.

Not that he got that far. As soon as he was within range, the Baroness swung
around, bringing her massive arm out in a savage backhanded smash. She struck
the side of his head, shattering the skull within and sending the man's corpse
flying to the side.

She lowered the huge arm once more and continued her slow, steady trek across
the factory.

A man was cowering hopelessly beneath a workbench, trembling in the footwell,
holding the chair before him for protection. The Baroness ripped the worktop
off of the metal frame, tossing the huge wooden slab aside as though it were
nothing, (and accidentally felling another fleeing victim, the huge, heavy
tabletop smashing down against his spine.) Various equipment and chemical
apparatus spilt, glass jars shattering, a heavy clang of a flat steel plate.
She punched down at the man, smashing his head open below her fist.

She turned to see a man staring at her, fear registering as madness on his
face. The gun he held levelled at her was awkward and clumsy in his hands, but
that didn't mean he couldn't kill with it.

The Baroness was fast, but not faster than bullets. But she didn't need to be,
she only needed to be faster than the man himself. Looking into his eyes, she
judged when to move - that frightened, snatched jerk that signalled he'd
stoked up the nerve to fire.

She spun aside, cartwheeling away, grabbing the metal plate from the floor as
she turned. She didn't know what purpose it served in a chemical lab, but it
was thick enough to ricochet the remainder of his magazine and she was strong
enough to keep hold of it as it did, though each shot felt like being struck
with a mallet.

Then she threw the plate. It was square and heavy, spinning into him with a
solid clunk, knocking him backwards off of his feet. He felt the crunch of
something give in his chest and gasped painfully for breath. He was still
holding the gun but found it kicked from his grasp, a blow with the power of a
jack-hammer.

She stood above him, lowering herself to sit astride him. He realised that she
held something. Large and heavy and square. It was the metal plate that she
had thrown at him. Realising what was coming next he began to scream.

The Baroness took a tight hold of the steel slab, barley damaged even with the
gunshots it had deflected. She placed it over his face as though it were a
pillow and she intended to smothered him. His death however, would be far more
gruesome than that.

As she began to press down, she smiled. His screaming was quickly silenced,
replaced by the sick crunch of his skull giving in against her immeasurable
strength.

There were only a few men left but she still had more killing in her. One man
was trying to open the main door. She saw he was trying to wrench the
mechanism open by hand, grasping both bolts and pulling them simultaneously.

She was actually impressed that he'd almost done it and waited a moment to see
if he would be successful. The man rejoiced as the bolts seemed to finally
submit and snapped back in unison. He grabbed the door and tried to wrench it
open. It was large and heavy, but surely it shouldn't be that hard to move.
Confused, he checked the dead-bolts again, doubtless thinking they hadn't shot
fully across, but no, that wasn't it.

And then he saw. A thick, obscenely muscled arm, clad in shiny black. She was
holding the door closed, an open palm pressing gently above his head.

He turned, the giant woman towering over him, her arm casting a shadow of
foreboding doom.

"Please!" was all he could think to say, the word coming out as a sob of fear.

"No," was her only reply, before driving her fist into his side, rupturing his
internal organs. He slumped, broken and defeated, unable to support his own
weight.

She drove the bolts back across, just to reiterate to those left in this room
that they were all trapped, then regarded her remaining victims.

Her eyes glanced around, picking out the four survivors. She figured three was
enough. That gave her one more plaything. She picked a man, smiled
flirtatiously at him.

"You'll do," she told him.

The one she had picked was cowering behind a workbench. As soon as she singled
him out he turned around and fled.

There was nowhere for him to run to, but he ran anyway. What else could he do?

Like the predator she was, her instinct was to chase down fleeing pray and
chase him she did, leaping forward and taking off after him, covering the
distance between them in seconds.

Arms the size and strength of industrial machinery wrapped around his body and
heaved him up off of his feet. His legs kicked uselessly, several inches above
the ground. She was bear-hugging him from behind and by the size of the biceps
that cut into the sides of his elbows he knew that all she had to do was
squeeze and his body would snap like dry kindling.

"You like that?" she cooed, her lips brushing his ear as her honey- drenched
voice whispered as sweetly and sensually as any lover.

He could only assume she referred to the intimacy of the hold. It was true,
her tremendous breasts were crushed up hard against his back, two huge, round
mounds of solid, sensual flesh, every bit as magnificent as her muscles. They
were firm and heavy, and threatening to do to his spine what her biceps were
promising his arms.

"I bet you've never been held by a woman like me before," she continued. "Tell
me, how do I compare to the stories they tell? Do I match up to your
fantasies?"

She changed her hold, moving her hands up to cup his shoulders. And then she
squeezed. She pulled his shoulders back against her body, snapping his
collarbone. Then she moved her grip again, bracing his chest with one mighty
arm and twisting his body to the side to brace his hips with the other.

She made a harsh thrust forward with her groin, snapping his spine with a
sharp, clean crack. But his torture wasn't over yet, though his life was
surely ebbing away by the second.

She lifted him upright again and got a tight grasp of his arm just below the
shoulder. With a twisting wrench, she ripped his whole arm off, bones
splintering, ligaments twanging apart. Blood and ruptured flesh, torn muscle,
fragmented joins and the ripe crunch of living bone.

He was blessed with unconsciousness, his ordeal finally over. Unless you
believe in hell (where the devil would have to up his game to match the
torment that sent this man his way.)

The Baroness didn't concern herself with such details however, the man still
had another arm. Though not for long. She swapped her grip and repeated her
party-trick, tearing the remaining limb from his chest.

She dropped the man, tossing the wet limb aside. His torso was bleeding
profusely, creating a pool around him. To her eye he looked uneven with his
legs still intact, and she had a reputation for brutality to upkeep.

So she continued. She stamped down hard on his hip, shattering the bone,
ripping the meat, tearing up the joint into a messy, broken mangle. She
stamped down again, further mutilating the joint. Had the man any chance of
survival, this was a break that no degree of physiotherapy could have him
recover from.

She grabbed his thigh in both hands and braced his body with her booted foot.
With a final, savage yank, she pulled his leg right off. It seemed improbable
that there was any blood left inside the man's body, and yet, this last
atrocity caused him to bleed anew, an arterial spurt that finally concluded
his life. Any further wounds would have to be post-mortem.

But no, the Baroness was at last done with him; it was enough to finally sate
her.

Looking about her she regarded the devastation she had created. She had ripped
through the warehouse like a tornado, leaving nothing but destruction in her
wake, the broken debris of her victims torn and strewn asunder.

The Baroness didn't need a calling card. She didn't need any idiosyncratic
signature with which to characterise her work. All anyone had to do is look
out across the carnage - see the excessive damage and bloody chaos wrought
here, and they would know it could only be the work of one person - one woman.

* * *

Professor Susan Stein wasn't a professor and wasn't called Susan Stein. She
had left her official title and her real name behind her, her original
identity being wiped out in the accident that had left her dead, though only
from an administrative point of view. Given that those who had tried to kill
her had nearly succeeded, she thought it wise not to correct the official
tribunal's conclusions on the accident. After all, those who had arranged it
could easily arrange another, or maybe even take less discrete action on a
second attempt.

They had wanted her research, and when she had refused to give it up to them,
they had stolen it and attempted to put her out of the equation for good. They
had failed, however, and she saw no reason to give them any opportunity to try
again.

So she left that life behind her. Now she used various aliases, keeping
herself under the radar, avoiding detection. She continued her research alone,
unburdened by university bureaucracies and unaided by its facilities. She was
however, confident that her project would not now be stolen or abused by those
who would seek to use it for their own unspeakable ends.

The Professor had been saved by a friend. A woman, who had been intrigued by
the research and had seen a way of utilising it in a project of her own. The
woman wanted to combat the growing problem of crime syndicates, and thought to
do so in the guise of a masked vigilante crime-fighter. Between them, the
Baroness had been born.

The Professor was currently driving a large transit van. She had picked up the
Baroness and now found a quiet place to stop. As soon as she had parked,
having found a suitably discreet alleyway, she hurried into the back of the
van where the Baroness sat resting.

"How are you?" she asked.

"I'm fine," the Baroness insisted. "Honestly, you fuss too much."

"You make too many changes. It's far more draining and traumatic on your
system than anything else you could put your body through. You don't seem to
appreciate that."

"I can handle it."

"No one's debating your toughness." She smiled then, less nagging, "God knows,
they wouldn't dare. I just wished you'd allow yourself more time to recover."

"I have to go to work tomorrow."

"What, you mean the office job?"

"Yeah."

"What on Earth for? It's just a stupid temping job. The only reason you took
it is to get into their files, find the chemical lab. I'd say you did that
admirably."

"I want to cover my tracks. Make sure I'm not suspected. If I don't go into
work, it may send up a red flag to whoever investigates."

"Can't we just dump the alias? It's served its purpose. God knows between us
we have enough identities to confuse a schizophrenic. Talk about your split
personalities."

The Baroness shrugged. "Even so," she said, "I want to go in."

"OK," the Professor sighed. "Have it your way then. But for the record I
advise against it. What your body needs right now is rest."

"No. What my body needs right now is pizza."

The Professor laughed. "I think we can manage that."

"One more thing," the Baroness said. "I'm going to need some more of the
formula soon."

"OK. I'll start on another batch."

The van started up again, driving through the city night.

* * *

Macintyre wasn't happy. He stood surveying the damage done - the wrecked
factory, the strewn corpses, the destroyed merchandise. He couldn't even begin
to calculate the monetary value this had cost him, though he didn't doubt it
would run into seven figures. This was hardly the first time the Baroness had
targeted one of his major operations, but it was the biggest strike so far.
Something had to be done.

When he spoke, Macintyre's voice was unspeakably calm. It was a warning sign
and Dooley knew there was likely to be one more act of violence committed
inside this cavernous chamber.

"The Baroness?" was all he asked.

Dooley was Macintyre's right-hand man. He was party to every dodgy deal, legal
and illegal, that the business mogul was involved in. If Macintyre was the
Machiavellian mechanic designing a business operation that balanced crime and
corporate deals against one another, then Dooley was the grease-monkey who
kept the wheels turning, allowing his boss' evil genius to work.

"Undoubtedly," Dooley confirmed.

Macintyre nodded. "Any survivors?" he asked.

"A few."

Close by a man sat hunched over. He was filthy and weary but other than that
looked healthy. His face however reflected the savage horror of all that he
had witnessed. He had survived the Baroness, but there were images in his head
that would never leave him, not for as long as he lived.

"You've debriefed him?" Macintyre asked.

Dooley nodded. He knew what was coming next, he'd seen similar scenarios
unfold a number of times before. Macintyre was not a forgiving man. His temper
was legend.

Macintyre nodded to a couple of his private guards, armed security men who
followed him everywhere. He gestured to the survivor, making hand signals to
dictate his orders silently.

The two guards responded immediately, going over to the man and hauling him
up, each holding one arm, pinning him helplessly between them. Macintyre
carefully removed his suit jacket, folding it and handing it to Dooley. Then
he unbuttoned his shirt, smoothing it out and passed it to Dooley also.

He stood before the hapless survivor, his chest bare, exposing a surprisingly
athletic physique. Beneath the suave business exterior was a body of brute,
physical power. He had tremendous upper body strength, and when punching out
in anger, he could do another human being considerable damage. And he was
angry now.

The guards held the victim upright while Macintyre went to work. They turned
their heads away, partly to avoid the horrific sight of what their boss was
doing to his employee, and partly to avoid the thick spatters of blood each
successive blow sprayed. But neither guard released their captive, despite the
fact that after the first strike, he no longer struggled. If they dropped the
man before Macintyre was done, there was every chance they would be next.

Dooley stood back and watched Macintyre, his boss and friend, a respected
businessman and criminal mastermind, as he silently and savagely exhausted
himself.

Eventually, breathlessly, Macintyre ceased. He stepped back from the innocent
focus of his relentless wrath, a man who was now just as messily brutalised as
any one of the Baroness' victims.

The guards dropped the body as soon as they were able to. Their police style
uniforms were thick with gore.

"I want the Baroness dead," Macintyre declared. "Whatever it takes. You have
carte blanche to utilise full resources. Find her. Bring her in. Alive."

"You just said you want her dead," Dooley pointed out, wryly. He was one of
the few men in the world who could get away with saying something like that to
Macintyre's face.

Macintyre just smiled. On his blood spattered face, the expression was uglier
than ever. "I do. But I want to be the one who kills her."

* * *

The city was a wired network of communication. A buzzing hive of technological
marvels, condensing information into electronic signals. The government's
policy on surveillance over the preceding years had become incrementally more
intrusive, civil liberties gradually being worn thinner and thinner. All in
the name of security, in the name of freedom. The city's people should be free
to go about their lives, free from fear of crime or terror. Freedom, that
great, Orwellian paradox. CCTV was just one small brick in that iron wall, a
network of cameras covering just about every inch of public space.

One of the many legitimate business concerns that Macintyre's corporation
dealt with was the security industry. A fat government subcontract that would
have been a huge boon to Macintyre's business even without the illicit perks
it offered, what with security being one sector that was suffering no ill
effect from any financial downturn. Owning the technology and the hardware
gave Macintyre an instant wealth of information to be utilised. It was a
difficult job and the right kind of expert had to be employed to the task.
Briss was just such a man, a meticulous, methodical machine.

He sat in his office, banks of monitors surrounding him. Philip Glass played
on the stereo, he found it both soothing and appropriate, and lists played out
before him. Data organised into sub-categories, digital clips, software tools,
and files. His gateway into the seething mass that was the raw data.

He was playing Where's Wally, only he was playing it on a page the size of a
football field, and the image he sought was a fragmented jigsaw, the pieces of
which resembled every other snippet of data that flickered past. But he knew
where to start and systematically went from there. After sixteen hours of
exhausting work, Briss smiled. He picked up a phone.

"Is that Mr. Dooley?" he asked.

* * *

"We've actually found a lot more since I spoke to you," Dooley told Macintyre
when he arrived. "And I'll warn you now, it's not easy to accept."

"Just tell me," Macintyre barked. Despite his abruptness, his ever present
anger, Dooley could tell his boss was pleased. He'd ordered that the Baroness
be found and technically, they'd delivered.

Briss' office had never been so popular. As a data analyst he rarely had call
to leave this small but extensively well equipped room. He'd left it now
however, been ordered to in fact. Macintyre wanted to discuss the finer
details with Dooley in private.

"Stick around though," Dooley told him.

Briss nodded and left them to it. He wasn't disgruntled at being turned out of
his own office. Quite the contrary in fact. Macintyre was a scary guy and
being around such a man made Briss nervous.

"We know she accessed the chemical lab through a sewer," Dooley explained.
"But she can only have gotten that far from within the complex itself.
Security is tight enough on all visitors so she must have got in with a
legitimate passcard. Going through the records of everyone clocking in and
out, gives us a one possible anomaly."

"You told me this much on the phone."

"This is the woman."

A low quality head and shoulders shot, blown up from the original so far that
it was pixelated far beyond practical benefit.

"This is from the security feed when she signed into the complex," Dooley
explained.

"So this woman works for the Baroness," Macintyre said. "She infiltrates the
organisation, gets access to our files and somehow finds her way to the
chemical lab. Then, having confirmed where and what it is, she calls in the
Baroness. But that doesn't explain how the Baroness gained access."

"Well that was the problem. There's no indication that the Baroness ever
entered the complex at all. What it looks like from this side is that she just
appeared out of thin air and started attacking our people."

"That's not helpful."

Dooley hesitated slightly before he continued. "We've also been looking for
evidence of this employee leaving."

"And?"

"There's none. She could have slipped out in all the chaos of course..."

"But...?"

"But it looks like she vanished into thin air the moment the Baroness
appeared."

Macintyre looked at Dooley, wanting to be certain of what he was suggesting.
There could be no doubt. "You're serious about this?"

"I wouldn't tell you if I wasn't. We've been trying to find out more about the
woman."

"OK, good. So who is she?"

"That's just it, it's a made up name, a made up employee reference. She
doesn't exist."

"But it's a genuine passcard?"

"She couldn't have got in without one."

"So she must have access to our administration, must have infiltrated our
personnel department and managed to issue herself a pass with adequate
security."

"The CCTV footage is very poor but we managed to make up a basic features
profile, enough for facial recognition if we use low criteria for the matches.
It spits back more results that way but not so many that we can't go through
all the possibles manually. We went through our employee databases but no
luck, she wasn't in there. Figured she must be a temp and slipped through the
administration somehow. If her position was lowly enough it would probably be
easy enough to do."

"This story better have a happy ending," Macintyre warned.

"It does," Dooley assured him. "If all she wanted to search out was possible
fronts for the chemical lab - or any of our illegitimate factories for that
matter - and she also needed to give herself access, then there's only a
couple of offices she'd be able to do that from. Going through the CCTV
footage to try and match up her facial profile was a nightmare, but we did
it."

He clicked a button and the still was replaced by another. This was slightly
better quality, there being more footage to choose between.

"We've got a name, an address, a history. All fake. Cheeky bitch even came
into work today. Probably just to test the waters."

Macintyre looked into the face of his enemy. Long black hair tied neatly into
a bun, an elegant and attractive face. Smart looking secretary-glasses hid
pretty blue eyes. But did those pretty blue eyes hide the face of a vigilante?

"Comparison to Baroness?" Macintyre asked, his voice practically a whisper.
Footage of the Baroness was rare, she didn't tend to operate in areas with
heavy coverage, but it existed. Enough to see if this woman was a match, at
any rate.

"From what we have, about as positive as we can possibly be. I'd say it's
almost certain."

"I take it this woman isn't a giant bodybuilder."

"Not even close."

Macintyre nodded. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing, but he was
more than willing to accept it. It was beyond his wildest dreams - so much
more than he could have hoped for. The project had fallen apart when the
murdered professor's research failed to yield any usable results. But if this
were true, then someone else had cracked it.

"Our own transmutation experiments were a washout," Dooley said, perfectly in
synch with Macintyre's thoughts. "We developed a serum but the metabolism of
the subjects became too unstable."

The serum had caused wildly differing effects in their practical tests. Some
had died instantly, writhing in pain. Others had burst apart, their bodies
unable to fully go into flux, different body parts expanding and growing at
different rates. Even those who has survived the transformation, their bodies
huge and swollen with vastly enlarged muscles, had fared only slightly better.
The artificially stimulated muscles were as unstable as the bodies that were
so ill equipped to handle them. A flexed muscle was as likely to work against
the body as with it. Physiques tearing themselves apart on the lab tables,
testing stations awash with blood as organs spontaneously ruptured.

The experiments has ceased, the project pulled. But now?

"Tell me you've found this woman," Macintyre said, unable to keep the
excitement from his voice.

"We've found her," Dooley told him. "Facial recognition again, tracking
commuter routes from the office. We managed to piece together a limited
hodgepodge of her movements. Basically, we followed her home. Which makes it
sound a hell of a lot easier than it actually was."

"But you found her?"

"She lives in a studio north of the city. I authorised a Midwich on the whole
apartment block. Gas in the ventilation system."

Macintyre looked at his right hand man in surprise.

Dooley shrugged. "Extreme situations call for extreme measures." He saw his
boss' face. "You did give me a blank cheque to deal with this," he said, his
voice even. He wasn't scared of Macintyre, as such. But that said, he knew
when to be cautious. "There was a strong chance she'd be leaving. I put it
down to luck on our part that she returned there at all. Guess she didn't
think we'd trace her this quickly."

"But did you get her?"

"We got her."

"You still should have asked me," Macintyre told him, annoyed that such
measures had been taken without his say-so. "Civilian casualties cost money."

"I couldn't get hold of you and I couldn't wait. The prize was too valuable.
Facilities are in place to deal with the cover story once people start to come
around. We already had contingency plans prepared."

Macintyre nodded. It was OK. It had been expensive but Dooley was right, the
Baroness was too valuable to risk loosing, especially given what they now knew
about her.

"I want to be there when she wakes up."

* * *

Macintyre was there when the Baroness woke up. He had given his orders and
they were not to be disturbed. This was personal. This woman had waged a
vendetta against his organisation, costing him untold damage and expense. And
now he had gained from her a secret that would recompense him. Plus he had the
pleasure of personally ending her campaign for good.

The Baroness woke to see she was in a small room fifteen feet by twelve. White
painted brickwork. The only furniture was the flat, table-like cot upon which
she had been laid and the chair where Macintyre sat watching her.

He was dressed in a suit, the jacket and tie removed. He had the careless air
of one patiently awaiting a friend in a bar after a day's work at the office.
All he needed was a drink and a magazine and he'd look the part too.

She was wearing the Baroness costume, its properties allowing it to adhere
snugly to her slender figure just as well as it would should her body undergo
a transformation.

"Hello, Amanda Smith, or should I call you Baroness?"

Her vision was blurry, her glasses had come off while she was unconscious. She
found them and put them on. Rising to a sitting position, she took her captor
in properly for the first time.

She smiled in response to his question. "If I were the Baroness you wouldn't
be in here with me. You wouldn't dare."

"That's a cute costume," Macintyre said. "I've been seeking out the woman who
wears it, but I never thought that when I finally caught her, she'd weigh less
than a damp towel. I had a concrete cell picked out ready for her, but you?
You'd slip between the bars."

She didn't speak, trying to remember what had happened. One minute she'd been
in her apartment, getting ready to leave. Then she'd suddenly felt dizzy. And
now she was here.

"Don't worry," Macintyre told her. "We won't be disturbed. I've given orders.
It's just you and me. Do you know who I am?"

"Yes," she admitted. The time and effort she'd spent on this man, taking down
his various operations, she could hardly fail to recognise him.

Macintyre smiled, pleased. He held up a small vial. "You recognise this, of
course."

She didn't respond. She realised then that he knew everything.

"MKX," he read from the label. "Our scientists are loving this, I must say, we
only found a couple of vials but I'm assured that we'll be able to replicate
it given a little time. We've tried to develop something similar in the past
but we never quite cracked it. I should thank you. To be honest we had thought
the answer was beyond us, that the problems were insurmountable. I've had
experts tell me it couldn't be done.

"But you've proved them wrong. To look at you here and now, and think that
you're the Baroness? It's incredible."

She didn't respond, she didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

Macintyre continued, almost lost in his own reverie. "To think what could be
done with this kind of biotechnology. I could build an army of near
superhumans. If an ordinary woman like you can become the Baroness, just
imagine what would happen if a trained soldier took it. Just imagine what
would happen if I took it!"

Still she didn't speak, watching the man coldly.

He smiled and waved the small glass bottle at her. "Bet you want this, don't
you?" he mocked.

"Shove it up your ass," she told him, her voice low and vicious. "You think
you've got the upper hand? You're wrong. Because I know something that you
don't."

"And what's that?"

She smiled evilly. "I know that I'm going to rip your head off."

"And how are you going to do that without this?" he asked, holding up the vial
of serum. "You may think you're tough, but without this, you're nothing. Maybe
you think you can somehow overpower me and take it from me? If you do, you're
wrong."

Macintyre pulled his shirt off. He didn't unbutton it and carefully remove it,
he simply ripped the front open, tearing the buttons off. He roughly threw it
off his body, tossing it aside, standing before her naked from the waist up.

The Baroness had to admit to herself, his body was startlingly well muscled.
She'd have never guessed at the degree of development this man had hidden
beneath his clothes. Though not a bodybuilder he looked frighteningly strong
and she had to admit, in her current, diminutive form there was no way she
would be a match for this man in any contest of physical might.

"I think you'll find if anyone's going to get killed at the bare hands of
another, it's going to be you, not me. What's more, I'm going to enjoy doing
it."

"Are you going to take the formula?" she asked.

Macintyre grinned. "It took me a while to decide that myself," he admitted. "I
am going to beat you to death, but I could easily do that anyway, I don't need
the formula to help me. My scientists don't want me to take it of course, not
until they've studied it properly. But I'm a curious man."

"I have one question for you," she said, her lips parting into a mocking
smile. "How can you be sure I didn't take some of the formula before you
captured me? How do you know it isn't coursing through my body even now, as we
speak? I might be moments from a transformation."

"Don't try and bluff me. My experts have made a few preliminary tests. They
tell me it's a catalysing agent that instantly triggers hyper- stimulation.
Once you take it, the change is instantaneous. You don't scare me, little
girl, without this formula, you're as helpless as a kitten."

She didn't reply to that. In the end, if he wanted to take it, he would. She
couldn't see that her circumstances would much change whether he did or not.

"I do have one question for you though," Macintyre said, his voice perfectly
conversational. "What does MKX mean? I'm told it's a Xanthic acid compound,
but what does the MK stand for?"

She smiled again at that. "You'll find out soon enough," she assured him.

Macintyre looked down at the vial in his hand. There was no need to take it,
he knew. His scientists wanted to do extensive tests before any kind of
practical trials. But then of course they did, they were scientists. It wasn't
as if he actually needed the extra muscle power which he was certain the MKX
formula would provide him with. He was hardly lacking for muscle anyway. But
what kind of superman would it turn him into? He couldn't contain his
excitement. And he wanted the Baroness to witness his change - wanted her to
see him claim her sacred power as his own.

Without any further hesitation, Macintyre cracked open the vial and swallowed
its contents.

The change was instantaneous.

He bucked. He fell to the floor. His body went into flux.

The woman who wasn't really known as Amanda Smith and was sometimes known as
the Baroness just stood and watched. She didn't take advantage of his
temporary distraction. She knew from personal experience that the
transformation didn't take very long. Instead she just waited, honestly
wanting to know what the man would make of his new body, once it had finished
changing.

Macintyre's muscles were trembling, feeling curiously like jelly, as though
he'd just undergone the most strenuous workout imaginable and his body was
regretting it.

Then a bizarre sucking sensation, as though his body was impacting in upon
itself, like a high-power vacuum pump inside a plastic bag. Unprepared for the
extreme sensation, he staggered back, clutching at his sides. Only the wall
stopped him from collapsing altogether. And then, just as suddenly, it
stopped. A fuzzy tingle like pins and needles went right through him in a
tremor and then immediately abated.

It was done. He had changed.

Macintyre looked down at himself in horror. What had happened? What had gone
wrong?

The Baroness smiled. Though her body currently resembled a slender and
vulnerable woman, that smile was every bit as savage and sadistic as when she
was at her most rampant.

"Now you realise the truth," she declared, laughter in her voice. "You thought
there was some magic formula to turn an average slob into a rippling
superman?"

Macintyre was looking down at the stick thin arms that protruded from his
emaciated torso. What was this? What did it mean?

His well-muscled physique had transformed into an atrophied, scrawny creature,
so weak that it was a wonder he could even stand. He had the strength of a
child. His thighs were thinner than his arms had been just moments ago. His
biceps now skinnier than his wrist. Even the action of lifting his arms made
them horribly tired.

The Baroness laughed, a darkly rich sound, full of cruelty and - more
frighteningly - knowing confidence. She knew what was happening here,
something that he was beginning to suspect. With growing dread. The Baroness
stepped up to Macintyre and punched him squarely in the face.

She wasn't powerfully built, but she still had a little strength. That of an
average woman, slight and scanty though she was. What with Macintyre being in
this newly diminished form it was more than enough to hurt him. What's more,
she still had skill and technique. Though she wasn't used to fighting in this
slender form, her mind knew the motions her body made, even if it was used to
there being far greater muscle behind each move.

Her fist busted his nose, crunching into the bone with a satisfyingly brittle
splat. Though she was used to a man's skull smashing apart with such a punch,
she was still more than gratified with the result.

Macintyre went down, staggering backward and collapsing while blood squirted
from his shattered nose. He was not used to being hurt by others, especially
petite women, and was as disturbed by the fact as by the act.

The Baroness seemed to be enjoying herself. She too was unused to this, only
ever expressing her joy in violence while pumped up and muscled. Letting her
dainty alias play the aggressor for a change was surprisingly liberating.

She reached down and grabbed the fallen villain. With a grunt of effort she
managed to haul him up onto his feet, a strength feat she was able to achieve
only because the man was now so emaciated. He weighed far less than she did
and was certainly far weaker. For any man, such a truth was hard to bear. For
a man like Macintyre it was utter anguish.

He tried to fight back, giving her a hard, two-handed shove.

Though it was her modest breasts that took the brunt of this assault, more
than her slender shoulders, there was nothing sexual in the attack - it was
like a panicked creature lashing out in fear and hopelessness against a hugely
stronger predator.

The Baroness didn't budge an inch, enjoying this scaled down version of her
normal bullying games. She grabbed him by the throat and began slapping him.

Long, sweeping strokes, back and forth, swinging her arm in strong, even
blows. She got into the rhythm of it, continuous, stinging strikes -
resounding through her arm. She relished the singing sensation as her hand
began to pain her.

Macintyre struggled against her, trying to free his throat from her grip,
trying to block the relentless slaps. He was unable to do either, utterly
helpless before her.

He was howling in pain and humiliation. His cheeks were red raw, each new
strike sending the agony soaring to ever higher peaks. He was dizzy - his
vision shaken senseless. He was sick and frightened. He knew his body could
not continue to endure this torture, that permanent brain damage lay
dangerously close.

The Baroness laughed, finally letting him go. As soon as her hand released his
throat, Macintyre fell to his knees. He tried to stand but was reeling like a
drunk. But there was more to it than the (admittedly considerable) damage she
had inflicted. His body was beginning to quake with unnatural fervour.

"Ah, there we are," she said, pleased with the reaction. "It's the adrenaline,
you see," she explained. "That's what triggers the antigens. You're body is
currently neutralising the MKX serum. Your cells are reverting back to their
natural state. You're returning to normal."

Macintyre lay on the floor, his body bucking in spasm.

"Technically it's an involuntary process, though I've been using the formula a
while now and I'm slowly acquiring more and more control over when the change
occurs. You're right to say that change is instantaneous, but that's only the
initial transmutation. The change back is triggered by adrenaline. That's the
one you have control over."

She smiled at the swelling expanding form of the floor. She couldn't tell
whether he was paying her any attention or not. She knew what the
transformation felt like. To go from a body so weak and feeble, then suddenly
become muscled and powerful. It was potent, to say the least.

"Now I can pretty much bring it on whenever I want to," she told him. "I just
have to get myself a little bit worked up."

Macintyre stood, regarding his body in amazement. His muscles were back, as
solid and vibrant as ever. It was incredible, he had never felt so alive - so
powerful. He was still dazed from her brutal assault on him, or maybe just
knocked for six by the two transformations he had made in such rapid
turnaround. But the brief time he had spent as a helpless weakling made him
appreciate anew the tremendous strength and savagery of his body.

And the Baroness was still just a woman. A very small and feeble woman. She
appeared untroubled by the inequity.

"And you're back to normal," she concluded with a smile. "Now, do you want to
see what I look like when I revert to normal?"

He didn't. He really didn't.

The Baroness wasn't going to let that stop her however. In fact, she was
already going into flux.

As the first quakes of change began to wrack her body, she threw her arms
forward, like a bodybuilder on stage, punching inward and down in a muscular
pose.

And he saw those arms swell.

It was an unreal sight, the sudden rapid growth of muscle, her whole arm
exploding into extreme size and density.

The shiny black latex shot out to twice its circumference stretched far beyond
that which another substance would endure. Her shoulders swelled up like she
had balloons beneath her costume - her entire torso inflating right before his
eyes.

Her breasts shot out, growing and swelling, beach-balls expanding in
fast-forward. If she'd been wearing a bra the cups would have split apart even
as the strap about her chest snapped. The sides of her torso swelled out to
either side just as hard and rapid, muscle growing beneath muscle.

Even her abs, so clearly seen beneath the obscenely tight latex, shot out of
her belly, neat rows of cobble-stones, smooth and round and rock hard.

Though her waist expanded to keep her proportions, she maximized an hour-glass
figure, hips and thighs growing. He legs went from model slender to
bodybuilder massive in a crack second. In an almost instantaneous moment her
thighs had doubled in size. If she'd been pinning a golf-ball between then, it
would certainly have shattered at the sudden expansion.

The Baroness threw her arms out to the side, as though embracing the sky,
loving this moment of change - absolutely relishing the physical joy of her
body.

All this happened in a heart-beat - expansion so quick that Macintyre could
barely register it was happening. His own transformation had happened quickly,
certainly, but it had taken several moments. Was it just his perception that
had stretched those moments out?

Then, right before his eyes, he realised the truth.

It was just one beat he had witnessed, as though her heart was the organ
pumping the transformation through her body.

He remembered the pulse of it, the steady rhythm, how with each beat he had
felt himself grow stronger.

This monster before him - this huge, mountain of a woman - was not yet fully
transformed. She'd only just started.

Her body jerked again, swelled once more. Inches added to every circumference,
the inflation continuing anew.

Her breasts jerked, protruding even further and rounder. Her shoulders huge.
She flexed her arms, making the biceps leap like bowling balls beneath her
sleeves, swelling ever bigger - ever harder.

With every beat of her heart, her body pulsed again, growing far beyond that
which he would have believed possible. Certainly bigger and stronger than
anyone he'd ever encountered, male or female.

The Baroness roared with elation, celebrating her body in all its awesome
mass. The sharp thrill of the transformation seemed to fade and she focused
her attention on Macintyre.

Her body seemed to throb, the swollen muscles alive with power and absolutely
aching for action. He feared that very soon they would see it.

"This is the real me," she explained to him, her voice rich and joyful. She
gave her arms a pump, flexing her biceps. They stood up like boulders, so hard
and round and huge. In the stretched black suit the shiny round muscles made
her look like she was made of obsidian. "I take the formula to disguise my
body, so I can remain incognito.

"You thought there was some magic formula? A short-cut for a body like this?
No. Just thousands of gym-hours, slowly and meticulously building it into what
you see before you now. And now I'm going to show you what it can do!

"You asked me what MK stands for, it stands for Man Killer. Because that's
what I am."

Macintyre steeled himself, determined not to give in without a fight. However
scary that body might be, she'd just admitted the truth herself. She was no
superhuman, she was just a woman. And he was hardly a weakling. Not any more.

He leapt forward and threw his fist into her stomach - into that washboard of
abdominals. The Baroness didn't even flinch, made no effort to duck or block
him. She trusted that her body was strong enough to withstand the punch, and
she wanted to prove this fact to him.

It was as though the shiny black latex was actually cast over steel and backed
up with concrete. He'd killed men with a blow like that, but on the Baroness
it was utterly without effect. Her muscles were so solid he'd felt no give,
even though he'd slammed her with all the strength he could muster.

If there was any doubt before it had now completely evaporated. This wasn't
going to be a fight, it was going to be a massacre. Macintyre was more
out-matched now than he had been when both of them were physically reduced by
the formula.

He punched out again, aiming a solid jab at her face. This time she caught it,
not wanting him to knock off her glasses. They were an expensive pair and she
didn't want them damaged.

So she caught the offending fist, wrapping her black clad fingers about it and
easily absorbing the momentum of the blow.

Then, claw-like, she began to squeeze, closing her grip about his trapped
fist.

With a malevolent grin she slowly tightened her hand, wanting his torture to
be drawn out.

The pain was unbelievable, making Macintyre scream out and drop to his knees
even before the bones began to pop. And when they did begin to break, she
squeezed all the harder, crunching up the mangled bundle of broken joins and
crushed flesh into a damp wad of bleeding meat.

When she released it, his fist could not have been more pulverised by a meat
grinder. Macintyre was on his knees before her, clutching the crumpled hand
against his stomach.

She could have killed him then and there with a single kick, but she had made
him a promise, and she had every intention of keeping it.

With a careless jab of her foot, she pushed him backwards onto the ground.
Then she got on top of him, climbing astride the man, pinning his body to the
floor with her own.

She knew she could break his hips just by bouncing her own, squashing him
beneath her own muscular body. But she didn't. She was obsessively gentle with
him, not wanting to cause him any further damage until she was ready.

She lent forward to wrap her arms about him, then sitting up again, lifting
him into a sitting position too. She had him trapped in a bearhug, his arms
pinned to his sides as hers wrapped around his chest, her wrists locking in a
tight embrace. The position jammed his head between her giant breasts so that,
were he a bald man, she would look down to see three shiny round globes
instead of two.

Next, she swung her legs around, locking her ankles together behind his back.

The last time she had a man in this same position she had been having sex with
him, not killing him. Admittedly, the man in question had been just as
helplessly trapped as Macintyre was, but the pleasure had been two-way. This
time the pleasure was all hers, and Macintyre, unlike that highly privileged
individual, would not be walking away from the encounter. (Though it had to be
said, after the encounter the man wasn't actually capable of walking for some
time afterwards - was so exhausted, in fact, that she couldn't even rouse him
until late afternoon.) Even if she suddenly changed her mind and let Macintyre
live, he wouldn't be walking anywhere ever again.

With a grunt the Baroness squeezed, her lethal legs tightening until she felt
his back snap.

A muffled cry of pain issued from somewhere deep between her breasts. She
ignored it, though she released her legs from about him.

Then she squeezed with her arms, tightening the hug about him so hard that the
solid swell of her biceps snapped his arms even as her grip began to slowly
crush his ribs.

A resounding series of crunches sounded the systematic devastation of his
torso, bones breaking in unison with the rupturing of internal organs. This
time, the muffled shriek of pain was louder.

Laughing, the Baroness suddenly let go. Macintyre collapsed down, his torso
limp and heavy. It was broken and mangled, already misshapen and swelling from
numerous internal injuries. His arms fell broken and useless to either side,
totally beyond his control.

Though his screaming had stopped, he was sweating and gasping in agony. The
Baroness flexed one massive biceps, the enormous swelling of the peak making
the black sleeve creak under the strain. The consequential muscle that rose to
her command was so unbelievably huge it would have shamed even competition
class bodybuilders. If Macintyre had been even vaguely aware of anything
beyond the screaming walls of his physical torment, he would have goggled at
the awesome sight in humiliated envy.

The Baroness shrugged. If she couldn't wow him with the sight of her biceps at
full blast, then she could certain move him with what they could do.

And she punched him in the shoulder.

The blow mashed the join into paste. Mangled flesh crumpled, tangling with the
crunched up debris of broken bone. The side of his shoulder split open under
the impact, blasting out a spurt of blood, torn up flesh and fragments of
glistening bone.

Macintyre screamed anew and the Baroness punched him again.

This time she hit him in the stomach. There was no resistance beneath her
fist, as though his insides had already liquefied. She was grateful the flesh
hadn't split open this time. It had suddenly turned a very dark purple.

She drew back her fist for another blow. Quite against her expectation,
Macintyre somehow managed to draw one of his arms up, hauling the shattered
limb across his chest as though trying to hold it up to protect himself. The
smashed arm failed to play ball however, merely being dragged along, lifeless
from the elbow down.

When she punched, she was sure to get let the protecting arm take the brunt of
it, smashing the forearm, shattering the bone to pieces, utterly decimating
the limb.

The Baroness punched down, again and again. Each blow broke something else;
each wound inflicted was itself fatal. She tirelessly rained her fists upon
him in a steady, ceaseless rhythm.

Throughout the assault she was careful not to punch him in the head, knowing
it would be instant death for the man, or at the very least unconsciousness.
And she wanted him to experience the full force of her terrible strength.

It wasn't long before his chest began to look flattened. His body was crushed
and pulped. Organs were squashed within their cavities - limbs were broken and
mangled. He had been utterly demolished.

Before his ruined body could give up completely, shudder its last and die,
before his final broken heartbeat could pump the last drops of his life's
blood through his ruptured veins, she fulfilled her promise.

The Baroness took Macintyre's head in her hands and began pulling. With his
collarbone reduced to mangled fragments, the job was easy. His neck tore away,
blood and broken viscera spilling free. With a cry of satisfaction, she ripped
his head right off.

She would leave the head there, on top of the bloody stain of pulped meat. It
would help cement her reputation.

He was true to his word. They had not been disturbed.

She wondered how many guards and personnel were out there, how many more men
she would slaughter before this day was out. The unknown factors didn't worry
her however, after all, she was the Baroness - whatever they threw at her she
was confident she'd be able to handle it.