Vara 2.0

Edited version of Vara, both to clean up the typos and for a better read:

“Do the scouts report anything?”
“There’s still no sign of her, sir. It may be her woodcraft is beyond them.”
“It had better not be. I and my three brothers are the only known males left with the inborn talent of magic in this hell-hole of a queendom. It would not do if this woman, whoever she is, came upon us while our arts are not yet fully mastered,” said Baltus told the squad leader.
Looking over the polyglot gear and crude weapons of his rebel bodyguards, he felt a rather hollow feeling in his gut, as if he and his brothers were already doomed. Please, he prayed, just don’t let them find us. He knew the rebels here had the heart and determination, but little training and worse equipment. They would be hard put to if even a squad of Amazon regulars came upon them. And if one of the Queen’s Chosen came here…does not bear thinking about, he told himself. Looking around in the still warm air, Baltus looked about his “headquarters.”
Built long ago, two squat drum towers stood on either side of what used to be a river but was gradually turning into a swamp. While the tower he was in was built on slightly higher ground, the other tower was slowly sinking, and in fact had about two or three feet of standing water in its bottom. A rope bridge hung suspended between the two towers and connected them (which was just as well, as it aided in the men stripping out the flooded tower). Nothing remained in the flooded tower save some spiral stairs circling the interior of it, leaving nothing but a hollow “drum.” With luck, the Amazons either don’t know about this place or have forgotten it even exists, he thought.
Across the river, Vara Redbelt, Queen’s Chosen, crouched in a stand of poplars as she spied on the would-be rebels, most of her attention on the man in red robes. Looking around, she noted that almost all the men were concentrated in the drum tower on the far side. The flooded tower on her side had almost no activity by comparison, just two sleepy guards in unmatched armor.
Smiling to herself, she inventoried her gear. Her quiver had ten normal arrows for the more mundane challenges of life, a couple blunts for hunting, and half dozen arrows specially made for her mission, plus a single magic silver ring with special properties. A more mundane broadsword and a pair of throwing knives plus her bow rounded out her weapons. Smirking a bit, she laced up her leather armor that protected her torso and arms while leaving her legs free. She glanced over at the “camp” the rebels made. One possible mage and lots of soldiers atop and around one tower while just one adept guarded by a lone soldier around the closer flooded tower. She made a decision and went back to alter her tracks…

“We found her tracks, sir, but they led to one of the abandoned forts downstream of us,” the squad leader said.
“That’s just as well,” Baltus said. “It will be some time before we can master much more than the few cantrips we have. In any event, tell Delkar to come over to this side, the sun’s going down soon.” He winced as the man yelled, “You two! Back over to this side, pronto!” He would have to have a word with the man later about maintaining noise discipline. “I need a drink,” he said. “Tell the others to have my favorite meal and my favorite girl ready when I get in,” he added.
Later that evening, they men sat down to their evening meal: rabbit and vegetable stew, as fate would have it. As their two serving women ladled it out, they talked in low tones about the woman they saw earlier and whatever happened to her. As they washed the stew down with their ale, they were too tired to notice that one of the serving women was watching them a bit more closely than might have been expected. The meal was halfway over when one of them said, “Where’s Delkar? Shouldn’t he be here?”
Drevo and Malvo, the other two brother mage-apprentices, looked over at Baltus. “Thought he was with you,” they mumbled in response to his quizzical expression.
“Oh, sorry masters,” said a particular serving girl with head carefully lowered, “I was to tell you that he and his guard were going to keep watch in the tower across the river.”
“Damned rude of him,” said Baltus, finally getting a bowl of stew. “Woof, guys, this stew is giving me some serious wind,” mentioned Drevo. “Better sleep upwind of me tonight.”
“You know, Drevo,” said Baltus, “that’s really not going to be a problem…what the hell?!” he yelled as one of his men gasped and cried out, clutching his belly. In seconds, an enormously loud hissing sound was heard emanation from all the men in the room; surprised, Baltus watched as almost every man there clutched at his belly in unison. Baltus looked down at the stew he was about to eat and dropped his spoon in shock as with a rising crescendo of groaning and moaning, the bellies of all the men-at-arms surged forth in an orgy of expansion.
“Mages, do something, quick!” yelled the peasant soldiers as the pressure in their bodies continued to increase. As the air inside them continued its assault, their pleas for help only increased. It was just as well the men’s armor was poorly made or horribly mismatched, as straps, suddenly presented with additional strain, failed to contain it and burst under the pressure, avoiding any (immediately) fatal results. Stunned, thought frantically as his men got bigger by the second, until their bellies stuck out a good six feet, then started to migrate to their respective limbs, bursting off greaves and the like.
Drevo and Malvo, among the last to get served, looking at each other with premonition in their eyes, started to utter spells of warding when Vara (as indeed the remaining serving girl was) sprang into action. Stripping aside her skirts, she delivered a pair of whistling blows that trailed silver fire straight into the belly of the two mages. As Drevo and Malvo clutched at themselves, Vara took off immediately, heading for the stairs, yelling, “This is how Queen Asa bestows gifts on rebels! You’ll get a real bang out of it!”
Vara split for the stairs without any spells or weapons being cast at her. Drevo and Malvo cried out in fear as, with a terrible roaring sound that drowned out the hissing of the soldiers, a miniature hurricane was unleashed inside each of them. Unencumbered by any armor, their bellies swelled rather quickly, immediately jutting out a good four feet or so. As Baltus thundered “After her!” the men lumbered to their feet and took up weapons and the pursuit in a desperate hope to avoid fate, the mages coming close on their heels and only barely scraping through the doorway.
It must be some type of air spell, but I can’t counterspell it indoors, it might backfire. Better wait until we’re outside, he thought.
Racing up the stairs, Vara knew that if she could only reach the bridge to the second tower, then her plans would reach a perfect fruition. Relying on her lack of armor and a bit of fear, she made it to the other side and bolted the door a mere five seconds before the men reached her. Racing down the stairs that ran around the inside of the tower’s walls, she reached the bottom to the sound of men futilely beating against the door at the top. Looking up with anticipatory fear was a somewhat bloated Delkar and his guard, all tied up and lying in two feet of water. With a grin, Vara cheerfully said, “Your rescue party’s here, but right now, their under a lot of pressure. To be honest, I think there going to go to pieces in a bit. As for you,” she said, holding up a silvery glowing fist, “It’s time to play.” Hauling the poor guard to his feet, she said, “Those ropes must be horribly chafing. Let’s get them off you,” and poked him in the belly.
“OHHHHH,” he cried as his entire body strained against the ropes, accompanied by the now familiar hissing sound, echoing the same sounds heard outside. Deliberately leaving his belly unbound by the ropes, it was the largest thing to expand, his gut billowing out a good five feet, straight towards Vara’s extended glowing fist.
“Now now,” Vara cooed, “I think you know what’ll happen if you come in contact with me,” as his belly pushed his armor, then his shirt out of the way while exposing itself. “Oh dear, I guess that was a mistake,” she said as his belly brushed her knuckles and his inflation took off again. “Tell you what, I’m going to take this ring off and put it in my mouth. If your inflation stops before I kiss you, fine, I’ll let you go, If not…” With that, she placed the ring in her mouth and stepped back to the other side of the tower. She turned to face him and stuck her lips out in a pout, waiting for him to reach her, her entire form now glowing silver.
It was no use. Being struck twice by her ring had not been good for him, but the ropes were proving to be the killer, forcing air that would have gone into his arms and legs straight to his belly, causing it to massively bloat like an obscene male pregnancy. The guard could no longer see Vara, but he had no doubt at all that she was still there, waiting to give him a kiss that would finish him. Truly panicking now, the guard tired to burp, to fart, to do anything to expel this terrible air from himself as his smooth satiny belly bloated up even further…
Meanwhile, up on the tenuous rope bridge, Baltus chanted quickly at the guards: “Annihilo Pneumatico!” Slowly, the guards’ inflation slowed, then stopped and slowly went down, but stopped without completely deflating them. Great, he thought. Now instead of having 20-foot wide guards, I have 10-foot wide guards. Now, all they had to do was work on the door looking like orbs with arms and legs that more resembled protolimbs. Panting with the effort, Baltus looked over his shoulder. “Drevo,” he said, turning, “it looks like…”
He didn’t bother finishing the sentence.
Drevo and Malvo had been the last hit, but were even worse off than the guards. The hurricane sounds from the bodies were barely subsiding, but they had swollen to an obscene twenty feet in diameter; not only that, it almost seemed as if they were trying to float. They were hopelessly entangled in the rope bridge and only the strength of the knots and the suspension ropes kept them from flying off with the bridge. Quickly he cast a deflation spell similar to the one he used on the guards: “Annihilo pneumatico!”
Immediately, their inflation increased, their bellies physically pushing Baltus back. Trapped between the guards and his two mage brothers, Baltus felt the night would get worse before it got better. At least the guards, with incredible desperation, were starting to make progress.
Down below, the guard had just about to believe that his inflation was slowing down (it was, but not for the reason he was thinking of). Try as he might, he just could not get any air out of him. It was then that he made his misstep. Making a final effort, he wriggled about as he tried to at least pass gas (undignified but effective way to stay alive), but he lost track of where Vara was.
Right away, she reminded him. With both hands she grabbed his torpedo belly and planted the longest lingering kiss on it she could.
The guard’s eye flew wide open as the hissing inside him suddenly gave way to a roar as Vara pressed her face as hard as she could against his tautness. With one last massive pulsation, his belly heaved…and he finally got all the air out…all at once, that is.
Vara joyously inhaled the wind of his passing as a massive BOOM echoed through the tower. Hauling Delkar up and removing his gag, she murmured, “your turn, sweetie.”
“Bitch,” snarled Delkar, “you must get off on that.”
“Oh, no, not really,” said Vara, holding up a fist that glowed and swirled with silver fire. “He’s just a grunt to me. No, silly boy, I don’t get off on popping poor little spear-carriers,” she said as she swiftly dealt a trio of blows to his belly.
“I get off popping uppity men that think they can become wizards and defy the Queen’s Law. If only the bunch of you had reported for self-termination upon discovering your powers, I wouldn’t have to do this.” As Delkar’s belly started to billow out with a storm roar, Vara said, “You know, those friends of yours are coming to your rescue, but I bet your mage brothers are done for. I saw that one mage ‘help’ the mundane guards, but he can’t do squat for the mages. This ring I hit you with, the inflation actually feeds off your magic,” she said as she traced a finger over his rapidly bloating body. “You’ve probably been thinking and casting spells since I kidnapped you, only to swell up even more. Too bad for you. What you probably didn’t know was that unlike the grunts, you’re not inflating with air, but with hydrogen: lighter than air and also quite explosive. These arrows I’m holding cause similar effects.” A crash sounded as the guards finally forced the door above them. “Showtime!” Vara chirped as she let go of a 20-foot wide Delkar, allowing him to rise as she reached for some special blunt-tipped arrows.
Looking down, two still bloated and surprised guards saw Delkar rising up, up, up, and getting bigger, bigger, bigger, until he hit the roof of the flooded tower and stopped, just a massive human gas ball. Down below, Vara smiled as she took aim at Delkar, special arrow nocked, and loosed it into his belly. Immediately she drew and shot a second arrow into his expansive body. That done, she ran to the nearest window to enjoy the spectacle.
Elbowing his way past the guards, Baltus got to the door just in time to see Delkar rising up like a spherical harbinger of doom towards them. Completely horrified at what he saw, he quickly backed away from the sight as Delkar screamed, “Run, Baltus! She’s after all of AUUUUUGGGGHHHHHHHH…”
Vara’s two arrows had the desired effect, increasing Delkar’s expansion terrifically and trapping him into the space he was in, as he swiftly bloated up to a size that completely blocked off the doorway and filled up the top of the tower, a gigantic gas-filled 50-foot human sphere. Baltus looked back just in time to see an arrow hit Drevo and Malvo each, inflating them even further to about a lovely (to Vara) sixty feet in diameter. He heard Vara say, “Oh Baltus, don’t cry! I haven’t forgot you, see, I saved an arrow just for you!”
Baltus had seen enough and didn’t even hesitate. With a cry of anguish, he swiftly (if gracelessly) dove off the bridge into the river some sixty feet below, leaving his brother mages and the guards behind. As the three mages finally neared the end of their mutual expansion amid a cacophony of groaning and creaking, Vara called out, “Oh don’t worry boys! I wouldn’t leave you all in such dire straits forever!”
Going back to the center of her tower, Vara stood in the water, lighting a fire arrow. Looking up, she estimated and guessed, then lay down in the water, keeping her arrow and bowstring dry. She nocked her arrow, placed both feet against her bow, and gracefully raised it up, up, until it was a perfect 90-degrees up, pointing at Delkar’s helpless bloated body. Smiling, knowing she had a target she couldn’t possibly miss, she lowered her upper torso under the water and let fly, dropping her legs almost instantly.
No one on the bridge could see her do this (least of all Delkar), but Baltus could, swimming in the river. He put two and two together and dove under the water.
For the long line of bloated helpless men on the bridge and inside the tower, the best that could be said was that it was quick. Vara’s flaming arrow was the key that opened up Delkar’s hydrogen-filled body, piercing the taut sphere he had become with ease. Absolutely unable to do anything, over 60,000 cubic feet of hydrogen ignited and followed the path of least resistance, which was, in this case, downwards (towards Vara), then rebounding off the water and up again and outwards (towards the bridge) while partially taking off part of the roof. As an eight-foot wide jet of flame shot out directly towards the guards and the mages. Crammed together as they were, the guards were unable to do a thing as it went through them in an instant.
And then it struck Drevo.
And under their respective water surfaces, Baltus could only grit his teeth while Vara grinned as three years of work and sacrifice disappeared in a glorious, ear-splitting boom. Swimming back to what he hoped was his side of the river, he dragged himself out the water just as the pitiful remnant of his rebel force came out of the base of the tower. Of his erstwhile “army,” Vara’s ring, arrows and poison had left not a trace. He spoke.
“What happened, today,” he said, “is just a temporary setback. We can recover from this, we can rebuild. Granted, I didn’t wasn’t prepared for this to happen,” he continued, “but we can—and will—come back from this!” Looking over his followers, he realized that they weren’t looking at him so much as past him. Aware of splashing, he turned and saw Vara in all her nude glory stepping out of the water, sword and knife at her belt, bow in hand with a single arrow. “It’s that apprentice I want; the rest of you can either go home or split up, but I’m taking this guy home with me.”
Baltus opened his mouth to yell defiance, but at the sounds of rustling and retreating footsteps, he thought better of it. A spell tried to come from his lips until Vara leveled her arrow at him. She smiled.

FOUR WEEKS LATER
As a gagged Baltus stumbled into the arena as Vara yanked on the rope around his neck, dragging him further into its center. Looking about, Baltus gazed upon thousands of screaming Amazons, each attended by several male slaves. As he stumbled on, the relatively quiet murmur of the arena erupted into a high-pitched roar. Shuffling forward into the middle, he was rather surprised as Vara, hair made up and body perfumed and oiled, reached between his legs and started stroking him. As he got hard, she knelt and continued her ministrations to the obvious enjoyment of the Amazon crowd. As his body arced in enjoyment, Baltus couldn’t help but notice something fine stretched over the entire arena completely enclosing it. As Vara pushed him down and mounted him, Baltus grinned through his gag.
“You’re probably wondering if we’ve had second thoughts about you. Not at all,” said Vara, brushing her breasts over his face. “It’s been a long four weeks, hasn’t it? Yeah, I can tell by the way you’re pumping into me...trying to stop? Oh, that’s okay, I’ll just start squeezing. Pulse and release, pulse, release…oh! Done already?” she asked as Baltus cried out in obvious orgasm. “You see, we Amazons still need spellcasters,” she said as she got up from him. “We just have to make sure that they are all female,” as she dragged him up. Amused at the look on his face, she patted her belly and said, “yes, we can control what gender will grow inside us; thanks for the future Amazons war-witches!” With that, she whispered something in his ear and held up a pair of silver glowing fists. As the roar grew to a fever pitch, Vara smiled and struck Baltus’s unresisting belly. Almost instantly a loud roaring sound was heard as his belly swelled immediately while Vara removed the gag. “C’mon, baby, got any last words for us?”
“YOU BIIIIIITCH,” screamed Baltus as the roaring continued, overwhelming pressure straining at his belly, pushing it out massively. “Darn, said Vara, “as many times as I’ve done this, I was hoping for something different.” Pushing Baltus up against a pole in the middle, she waited as Baltus’s belly swelled up to a shocking fifteen-foot sphere. “Aw, we can’t have an early finish,” she said as his belly started to creak. She drew back a silvery glowing hand as Baltus shut his eyes, his skin nearing its limits…
A “FWOOOMPH!” echoed around the arena as her hand struck his belly, sending gas into his hitherto bypassed arms and legs. Temporarily relieved of the strain, Baltus was able to talk briefly again. “You must really enjoy humiliating me.”
“Sweetheart, if I really wanted to humiliate you, I’d have done to you what I did to the Tyrant of Penepolis: inflate you until you turned red with strain, then sit on your face and finish you off with a single, well-placed fart. That’s humiliating. See the difference?”
As his arms and legs started to get absorbed into his body, Baltus had to admit to himself that he really couldn’t see the difference for the life of him. With his skin started creaking, whatever Baltus’s feelings he had about leaving his brothers behind on the bridge had fast disappeared as his body continued to swell bigger…and rounder…and tighter. Feeding as it was on his natural ability to do magic, regardless of his actual training, the spell-created gas continued to appear inside him, his skin straining at every pore and pulsating madly, until the massive sphere that Baltus was screamed, “No more! No more! I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE…”
“No problem,” said Vara as she laid a gentle hand against his belly. As thousands of Amazons started chanting in unision “Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop…” Baltus looked down at Vara. “Then I’m not gonna go boom?”
“What, are you, nuts? You’re the reason these gals are here. Now then,” She said as she cut the cord that tethered him to the post, try not to go too far!”
As Baltus rose into the air, the pitch of the screaming Amazons rose even higher than he thought possible. Male spectators tried to look away, but were forced to watch by their Amazon mistresses. As he kept getting higher, he discovered that the pressure inside him increased even further, making his skin crackle now. He opened his mouth to scream defiance when his upward progress was stopped. As he looked about, he saw that what the Amazons had stretched over the arena was a fine mesh net some 200 feet off the ground. As the rest of his body moved about, it forced him to face the ground where he could see Vara lighting an arrow.
“In the name of the Queen and justice, said sentence is hereby executed!” In a single smooth motion, she drew, aimed and loosed her arrow. Thoroughly gone in his head now, Baltus screamed and screamed as thousand of women cheered and men groaned…
And the arena shook as the pitiful hopes of a male rebellion ended. As Vara ran her hands over her oiled body, her lover came up to her, asking, “Just what was it you whispered in his ear?” Vara chuckled.
“First fellate, then inflate.”