The short-haired brunette waved wildly, exuding a natural exuberance that only came from lack of responsibility. "Hello there! I'm Jordan."
The pony-tailed brunette nodded in acknowledgment, exuding a natural dignity despite wearing a skin-tight blue bodysuit that left precisely nothing to the imagination. "I am Flora."
"...and we are here," Jordan said, gesturing to the empty beach they were at, the gas cylinder a few feet away and another object covered with a cloth, "are here to do SCIENCE."
"What sort of science?" Flora asked. "For expositions sake, that is."
"Relevant science," she replied, pointing to the cylinder.
"I see. I'm a touch curious as to why this required me to wear a full-body suit, however," Flora said, gesturing to the matte blue outfit that was currently covering everything below her neck.
"We can't have you going around naked."
"True enough, I suppose."
"That and I like how you look like a brown-haired Samus Aran when wearing it."
"Who?"
"Anyway-"
"I'm also a touch curious as to how you found my precise measurements and body shape." Looking down at herself she raised the ball of her foot, wiggling her toes. "Most rubber suits don't have individual toes, much less subtle indentations in the chest for the wearer's nipples. Among other things." She lowered her foot and shot a look at Jordan. "As it stands this outfit is so revealing it may as well be painted on."
"ANYWAY," Jordan repeated, walking over to the cylinder, "I did some math and I just wanted to demonstrate something I found out about everyone's favorite noble gas."
"Something that you didn't inform me of the full details of but still demanded I help you regardless."
"Exactly." Picking up the end of the hose she walked back towards Flora, uncoiling it as she went.
"That's a long hose," Flora remarked.
"We're going to be doing a lot of science," she replied. "Now hold still." Leaning forward, she inserted the nozzle into Flora's navel, giving the hose a pull to ensure that it was in securely. Heading back to the gas cylinder, she placed one hand on the valve. "Ready?"
Flora looked down at the hose, then at Jordan. "Would you even listen if I said 'no?'"
She pondered this for a moment before giving the valve a twist. "Nope."
With a telltale hiss the gas began to flow through the hose and into Flora, who winced slightly at the sudden increase in pressure. Her stomach was the first to grow, going from full to bloated to gravid and beyond in the course of a few seconds. Her breasts were quick to follow, gaining a sudden perkiness as they began growing up and out, jiggling slightly as her belly grew beneath them. Shortly thereafter there was a rubbery squeak and Flora reached behind her, attempting to alleviate her new-found wedgie as her ass cheeks began to inflate.
"How you holdin' up?"
Flora wrapped her hands around her expanding gut, feeling the gradual growth. "Fine. How full is that tank?"
"It -was- full when I got it, but it's going pretty quick." The hissing faded and Jordan looked at the pressure meter just in time to see the needle hit "empty." "Oh, speak of the devil."
"They usually do," she remarked, drumming her fingers on her belly. "That's why I use air compressors; they're far cheaper."
Jordan walked back to Flora for a better look at her handiwork: Her stomach had swollen to the size of a beach ball, gently moving in time to Flora's breathing. Her breasts had grown forward more than they grew out, two foot-long blue ovoids bobbing above her belly, and her rear had gained at least three inches of padding in all directions.
"This," Jordan said, pointing, "is all you'll get out of one tank. You're not flying anywhere with this."
"Yes, because this is a genre utterly -obsessed- with realism." She paused. "Flying?"
"Fortunately for SCIENCE," she continued, running back from whence she came, "we have enough to achieve proper lift-off!" With a flourish she pulled a nearby sheet away to reveal nine more tanks, all connected to a single valve, which was in turn connected to the hose leading to Flora's navel. "Behold!"
Flora's eyes widened. "Oh dear."
Jordan gave the valve a series of twists, opening it as far as it could go. The blue-clad woman grunted as nine tanks' worth of pressure slammed into her belly, swelling it another foot before it began to flow through the rest of her body. Her wedgie returned with a vengeance as her butt grew outward, the size of her backside matched only by her breasts. "Jordan!" she shouted. "Dial it down a tad, would you?"
Jordan shrugged helplessly. "Sorry Flora, valve's stuck."
"Did you even -check?-"
"No, but you know how it is."
Flora sighed. As the tanks continued to empty themselves her back rounded out, her torso quickly growing spherical as her breasts were forced upward, blocking the lower half of her view. As Flora reached up to try and keep her now two-foot-wide breasts from bouncing around as they inflated, she felt her arms begin to fill and plump up from the helium. After struggling for a bit to keep her assets from moving about with her ever-bloating limbs she eventually gave up and let her arms drop, bouncing off the sides of her body.
She began to starfish, her limbs growing wider and spreading apart as she continued to swell outward. Soon the growth of her breasts slowed to a halt as they were stretched across her growing chest, becoming two prominent hemispheres stretched across her five-foot body. Her arms and legs continued to be absorbed into her form, becoming four smaller domes topped with her hands and feet. Suddenly Flora trembled slightly and let out a soft moan, clenching her hands.
"What just happened?" Jordan asked, concerned.
"The pressure is causing me to stretch."
"...that's the point, isn't it?"
"Down there, I mean."
"Ah."
"Yes, and it's-" Flora's cheeks reddened. "Oh my. It's causing the suit to rub against some rather sens-" Her eyelids fluttered, and she bit her swollen lip. "...sensitive locations as well, which is a bit more than I'm used to."
"Oh." A wicked smile crossed her lips and she sauntered over in front of Flora, looking up at her smugly. "Well, you learn something new every day, don'cha?"
Flora tried give Jordan an irritated look, but her as head was currently in a dimple atop a eight-foot sphere the best she could do was stare down the valley of her cleavage at where she supposed the top of Flora's head was. "Yes. Yes we do."
"You know, I never would have thought you were a latex person."
"Sort of like how they wouldn't have thought your long-term 'boyfriend' was a shower massager?"
There was a sudden jerk and Flora felt herself roll forward onto her belly, coming face-to-face with a very intense-looking Jordan. The stream of helium flowing into her continued to push her body outwards, inching her head towards her friend's until she was nearly nose-to-nose with her. "How. Long. Have you known?"
"Since college. Freshman year."
Jordan let out an anguished cry, stomping away. Folding her arms across her chest, she started tapping one foot on the sand. "I can't believe you knew," she said testily.
"Did you honestly think a robe could hide the fact that your hips were -sloshing- as you walked?"
"I kind of hoped, yeah."
"Sloshing -audibly-?"
"...yes. What's worse, I can't believe you just told everyone."
Flora shrugged, or at least tried to; when one has no shoulders and and one's arms are fat, immobile stumps, one's options for gesturing tend to be limited. "You have to give as good as you get. Besides, I think most of them expected that from you."
"You make me sound like some sort of pervert." She paused. "Okay, you've got me there, I guess." Turning, she added, "but you're not any bet- woah."
"Woah what?"
Crossing the sand Jordan again approached Flora, who was rapidly approaching the twelve-foot mark with no signs of slowing down. Even though Flora was lying on her belly Jordan found herself having to look up to meet her gaze. She pressed a finger into the top of her left breast, testing her elasticity. "I turn my back and you get big on me."
"I've been getting big."
"Well -yeah-, but it's like how pots boil faster when you're not looking at 'em." She fell silent for a second. "Wow, I can -hear- you getting bigger. How you holdin' up?"
"For one, my nose is itchy." Jordan reached out, scratching the tip of Flora's nose. "Thank you. For another, my hands are starting to feel stiff."
There was a series of soft "pop"s as, one by one, her fingers and toes began to fill with helium, ending with four simultaneous "pop"s as her hands and feet rounded out and began to swell with the rest of her.
"That explains that, I suppose. Are we almost done?"
"Almost," Jordan replied, walking around her and out of sight. "Don't worry."
"No worries there."
Now completely immobile, Flora closed her eyes and relaxed, focusing on the sensations she was experiencing: The warmth of the sun, the sand shifting under her, the feeling of growth, the tightness of the suit, the sound of her body creaking as it stretched and eventually, the gradual feeling of weightlessness. As her expansion slowed and stopped she felt herself lift into the air before a tugging sensation around her navel woke her out of her reverie.
"Gentlemen!" Jordan proclaimed, holding the hose connected to her friend. "BEHOLD! We have achieved flight!"
Floating above Jordan was none other than Flora. Her inflation at an end, she was nearly sixteen feet in diameter, a dark blue human balloon bobbing at the end of a hose. Her breasts were flat domes five feet across, each stretched across the curve of her massive body. All that remained of her arms and legs were squat three-foot hemispheres on the corners of her body, and her formerly slim hands and feet were swollen orbs two feet across, each dotted with five basketball-sized protrusions where her digits would be. "You're a century late for that," she retorted, her reply muffled slightly by her puffed-up cheeks.
"Yeah, yeah," she mumbled, reaching into her pocket with her free hand. "Let me get out my notes." Pulling out a handful of index cards she paused to read from them before continuing. "Right. Now you see all that?" She pointed to the helium tanks. "That's how much it would take to get the average woman airborne. Ten tanks, twenty-two hundred cubic feet of helium. Right now Flora is -literally- the size of a weather balloon."
"I certainly feel like one," she remarked.
Jordan tossed one of the cards away. "Also, if you wanted to you could pipe it into your breasts, just in case you wanted to be big enough to tit-fuck a smokestack or something." Another card toss. "If I used hydrogen she'd be a foot or two smaller, but there's that whole 'Hindenberg' thing to worry about."
"I should state for the record that I feel so much safer knowing that I won't explode violently should someone set me on fire."
Yet another card toss. "...aaaaaand if I used natural gas she'd need to be a whopping twenty-one feet around." She threw away the last card. "That's a lotta baked beans."
"You just know someone's going to take that as a challenge."
"They could try, but they'd probably just get really gassy and weighed down at the same time."
"Much like your cooking."
Jordan laughed. "That was a weird night, wasn't it?"
"Quite." Suddenly Flora became aware of a barely audible stretching sound, as well as the sensation of the helium inside her gradually pushing her body outward. Nowhere near as loud or as fast as when she was being inflated by the tanks, but still there. "Jordan," she said calmly.
"Hm?"
"I'm in a dark-colored latex suit, outside, and full of gas."
"Yeah, and?"
"Dark colors absorb heat. Gas expands and gets more buoyant when it gets warmer." She paused. "You didn't account for this, did you."
"...not as such, no," was Jordan's reluctant reply. "But don't worry, I've got your tether." She tugged on the hose for emphasis, only for the nozzle to disengage from Flora's navel. "Whoops."
With nothing holding her down Flora began her lazy ascent into the skies above the beach, the heat from the sun fueling her continued expansion as she swelled even larger. "JORDAN!!" Flora screamed. "YOU ARE BANNED FROM SCIENCE *FOREVER!!!* DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
Jordan stared upward. "Oh boy." She looked away sheepishly. "Don't worry folks, she'll be fine. Really."