Eruption

"Hey!  Get back here right now!"

Doctor Chemistro, otherwise known as Nigel Simmons, was not in the best of spots.  Barely twenty, he was book smart and a savant in matters of chemistry, but lacking in street smarts and not at all prone to standing up for himself.  Thus, he found himself in with the wrong crowd and part of a criminal plot, being told that bank robbery was acceptable because the money was insured and thus no one would really lose money.  In retrospect, it was a terrible idea.

Pursuing him across the rooftops was Regina Riley; he recognized her from articles on obscure news sites he frequented.  The only power to her credit was incredible regenerative abilities, and she was bizarrely enthusiastic about what amounted to dangerous volunteer work, wearing track shoes and a sleeveless jumpsuit in situations where the police would be using riot armor.  He would have said she was insane, but then again, she didn't just try to rob a bank.

Nigel hurled himself across a gap between buildings, stumbling as he landed on the other side.  He sprinted for the stairwell door, skidding to a halt and hitting it roughly shoulder-first.  Grasping the knob, he wrenched it in an attempt to get it open, but to no avail.  He turned, only to see Regina standing a few yards away, arms akimbo.

"So," Regina said, "are you going to give up?"

He fumbled at his side, pulling a complex-looking magazine-fed dart gun out of its holster and aiming it at Regina with a shaky hand. "Don't come any closer!"

"You know, if that's poison, it's not going to work too great on me."

He pulled the trigger, and the device let out an empty click.  Smiling, Regina took a step forward.  In a panic he slapped the side of the gun and it sputtered, spraying its magazine into her right arm.

Regina looked down at the darts before shaking her arm, dislodging them. "Like I said, poison... isn't..." She trailed off before staring at her hand, noticing that it was looking a bit swollen.  She held her arm to the side, taken aback as her fingers grew puffy and the puffiness extended up her arm, muscle definition disappearing as her arm swelled up like a sausage. "Oh.  Well, that's something."

Nigel stared at her arm, wide-eyed. "I -swear- that's not supposed to happen!"

"You're not just saying that, are you?" She took a step forward; the swelling was spreading, and the wrinkles in her jumpsuit was beginning to be pulled flat by her expanding breasts.

He pressed his back up against the door, shaking his head frantically. "No, I swear!  It, it was just a topical numbing agent!"

She looked down at her arms, both now thick and round.  Beneath her breasts her belly was beginning to strain against the fabric. "Well, it's having an odd reaction on me.  It's like my insides are bubbling."  Her thighs grew wider, making her look as if she had more than doubled in weight in but a moment. "Like that time that one guy made my blood boil, only less warm."

"I... see," he said, slightly put-off.

"But I'm still going to bring you in," she said. "Even if you were trying to be non-lethal." She took a step forward, but stopped suddenly as her belly stretched her jumpsuit to its limit, gurgling and fuming loudly.  She winced, holding her stomach. "Hey, this..." Her expression changed to vague surprise. "...this actually hurts a little."

As soon as the words left her lips her gut surged outward in all directions, shoving aside her arms and tearing her jumpsuit along the seams.  It quickly grew in throbs in time to her heartbeat, pulsing outward before shrinking back again ever so slightly, her body taking on a rounder shape and her breasts being pulled flat across its surface.

Nigel watched in horror as his unwitting handiwork continued to take effect, the young woman struggling to stay on her feet and maintain her composure.  Her body swelled, as did her limbs, bit by bit.  They tore her jumpsuit to shreds, leaving it to hang in tatters from her neck, wrists, and ankles.  They were bloated beyond any normal semblance, but not for long, as her growing midsection soon enveloped them.

He thought that would be the end of it, but she continued to throb, her growth slowing but not ending.  Her hands and feet began to be pulled into indents on the sides of her, and the young woman's grunts began to be muffled as she sank into her own mass.  Soon the skin around her navel began to turn an ominous shade of red, which spread as stretch marks formed across her surface.  There was a sound like tearing rubber, and Nigel scrambled behind the stairwell just as there was a sickeningly loud, wet pop, viscera and gore splattering on the ground beside him.

Nigel went ashen-faced as he struggled to keep his lunch down, struggling with the knowledge that he just gruesomely condemned another human being to die.  His knees buckled beneath him,  he squeezed his eyes shut, and he fought down the urge to curl up into a little ball and disappear, knowing he still had to flee.  He forced himself up on shaky feet, putting one hand against the brick wall and leaning out.  He slowly opened his eyes, the nausea somehow intensifying as he saw a rooftop positively coated in gore.

...and Regina, sitting in the middle of it, naked but for a pair of track shoes and tattered strips of a blood-soaked jumpsuit.

She was staring into space, dazed, until she saw Nigel move out of cover. "That..." she breathed. "That was -amazing!-"

Nigel's jaw bobbed as he tried to form a coherent thought, now sick and confused beyond all measure.

"I've never experienced anything like that!" She stood, slipping on the gore a few times before getting to her feet and approaching Nigel with a rapturous expression. "My flesh actually changing as something roiled and bubbled from within!  Being trapped in my own body, feeling it -stretch- and -distort!-  And the end!" She put her arms around herself, shivering in remembrance as her expression practically melted. "I've been in explosions before, but they're all concussive.  Nothing like that!  Nothing like..." She gestured, overeager, searching for the right words. "...like being made so fragile before being torn apart by a force -inside of me!-" She noticed Nigel, and took his sleeve in a blood-flecked hand. "Do it again!"

"What?!"

"Do it again!  Pop me!  Burst me!"

"I..." The nausea was beginning to fade.  Or perhaps he didn't notice it as much due to being so confused. "No!"

She shook his sleeve. "Come on!  I'll let you go and when we meet we can do it again!  Getting shot is so -boring-, but this is-"

"No, I-" He yanked his arm free, stumbling off in a daze. "I really need to turn myself in to the police now."

She stamped her foot, following after him. "Aw, come on!  Get back here!"