Trade: A Giga-Sized Glow-Up (Part 2)

Summary: Celes the slime woman encounters Feza, a giant-sized slime woman from the briny deep; she hopes to quell the inadvertent destruction of her hometown by appealing to her kinder nature. Strangely, they rub off on each other, and strange things happen.

A trade with MRGIllusion45, who provided the illustrations and the character of Feza; story is written by me.

[Story Listing]

[First Part]

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Part 2

Celes was rather pleased that her boutique was situated on prime real estate; it was nice and close to the touristy sector, so it attracted a lot of traffic. Sure, plenty came just to gawk at her appearance, but she did fine for herself making a living.

Today, she was just happy that the place was in relatively close proximity, since she was in a mad rush to get there. She hurried up the street, swerved to the front-facing window, her boots crunching on some dried-up fallen leaves from the small garden she maintained, and hunched over the front door. She grasped the lock and pressed her finger in, watching it narrow and slip into the keyhole at the bottom. She stuck her tongue out, futzing with the insides to undo the lock; one would think that opening

Celes opened the door and glanced over her shoulder, expecting to spot Feza... well, obviously, she was taller than a skyscraper. What Celes hadn't counted on was finding Feza a lot closer than expected, rapidly approaching at a snail's pace as she oozed through the main boulevards—the colossal green slime woman took up at least a block or two on her own—and loomed over Celes.

Celes yelped... her face went pale as she recognized Feza was making a direct course for her, and her boutique! Her life's work... she had to do something! Panicking and without the luxury of time, she balled her hand into a trembling fist, before shooting it upwards.

"FEZA!! STOOOOOOPPPP!!!"

Shlorp... as Celes extended her arm upwards, her hand bubbled with energy, and rapidly expanded in all directions. Celes felt it, but closed her eyes, expecting to get crushed at any moment, feeling a shadow cast over her... she peeked through one eye, and then gawked at the visage of her extremely embiggened hand! Her eyes followed her regular-sized arm, stretched like a noodle an extra fifteen, maybe twenty feet up, and then at the wrist her hand exploded in size! She almost couldn't see Feza, considering each one of Celes' fingers, lined up in a halting gesture, looked the size of a bus!

"H-Huge...!" Celes whimpered. Did she do that on purpose?? Feza was also greatly intrigued by Celes' display, tilting her head. She bent over slowly, lowering her hand...

...And with a squeak of delight, playfully pressed a palm against Celes'. A perfect match in scale and size! Celes gawked, the corners of her mouth twisting into a bashful smile. Feza had come to a total and complete stop... due to whatever the heck Celes did there.

Celes' outstretched, super-sized palm tingled with Feza's touch. The sensation coursed up her noodly arm, and briefly overwhelmed her; the hidden strength supporting her colossal hand waverved, and Celes saw it beginning to fall towards her.

"A-ah-" Celes yelped, flinching and bracing to be crushed by her own hand. Nothing happened; Celes' eyes blinked open. Her hands were back to normal, reflexively raised to protect her face. Weird.

Feza seemed curious about Celes' reaction, and hunched over to examine Celes; the poor, purple slime woman's heart (figuratively speaking) couldn't take more of this; Feza looked absolutely chilling with all that seaweed hanging from her form. She looked like a dang ghost.

Not that Celes would say that out loud. She remembered to be polite.

"O-okay..." Celes took a breath. With Feza in earshot now, she had to explain things.

"Feza?" Celes gestured towards the boutique. "All my stuff's in there. To work on something for you. But you're too big for..."

Thwip thwip thwip thwip... Feza tilted her head up as a news helicopter buzzed around her. She smiled goofily, a finger rising to poke it.

"NONONONO!" Celes hollered, waving her arms. "No playing with the news crew!"

Feza pouted; the news crew, fearing for their lives and getting the footage they needed, swooced right out of there. Celes massaged her brow, her entire head yielding to the pressure.

"Okay... the boutique's for regular sized people... if you try to come in, you'll break it..." Celes tried to explain. "It's really important to me that it doesn't get... crushed..."

The giantess stared at Celes; though it was hard to make out Celes' expression from the height difference, even when bending over, Feza could tell from Celes' body language that this was important. Even the purple slime woman's hair dropped slightly.

"!" Feza had an idea. She straightened up at attention... and, from Celes' perspective, slowly began to crumple and deflate.

"...Eh??" Celes gawk, rising on her tippy toes to watch the strange sight, as Feza's slime body seemed to retract, buried under layers of sea hunk. Before long, with a wet squelch, a whole heap of seaweed, coral, shells, and other rubbish plopped onto the streets... a whole mountain of the stuff! Celes approached the pile with trepidation...

Splurt. Celes yelped as the sole of her rubber boot stepped in an emerging pool of green slime, jumping back a step. In a matter of moments, the green slime burbled, surging upwards, tendrils spiraling into shapes... and suddenly, there she was! About as tall as Celes...

"Feza??" Celes blinked, leaning closer, now that they could see eye to eye.

Feza smirked, and cheekily snatched Celes' sunhat from her head. She put it on and did a playful little twirl, her hands lowering to grasp at her lower body, pulling at her oozy green hips in gooey strands, as if to model Celes' playful pirouette earlier.

"You... you could shrink down in size the entire time?" Celes chuckled.

Feza nodded. Celes let out a fluttery laugh she didn't know she was holding...

"Ah... ooh." Celes grimaced, looking at the pile of sea detritus Feza had left behind. "But we can't just leave all that here... it'd be terrible for traffic. And we'd probably get fine..."

Feza tilted her head quizzically. She tapped her chin, pensively. She gasped, and hurried towards the pile.

"Feza?" Celes blinked. Feza turned to Celes and flexed her arm; Celes gasped as it popped into shape, rapidly swelling into a literally rippling muscled bicep! Celes couldn't help but let out a soft "oooh" to herself...

Feza hoisted the pile up on her shoulders, smirked proudly towards Celes, and slimed over to Celes' front door... a fluid motion that Celes regarded with increasing dread.

"Ohhh no no no not in there not in there-"

Celes' protest fell on deaf ears as Feza, with a couple of shoulder barges, crammed the pile through the door and into the boutique! It fit! ...Somehow!

Celes stirred with a grimace; the cost of getting a cleaner in there would be steep.

"Oh Feza..." Celes murmured. "...Feza..."

Celes blinked, folding her arms as she grew pensive all of a sudden. She'd been calling the slime girl Feza for a while now. That was her name, right? It felt right... but the green slime hadn't said a word to her. It just... popped up in her head.

...Celes determined she had more important things to worry about, and hurried inside.

---

Feza had no idea what a "boutique" was. It seemed kind of cramped, but boy were there a lot of strange and exciting things. As Celes hurried off to... do something or other, Feza excitedly distracted herself with what this unusual place had to offer.

It was a homey little storefront to be sure, offering lots of variety in pretty garments. There seemed to be some people here already, standing around the windows! They were completely still, eerily unmoving... and being made of wood and plastic would've been a dead giveaway to a regular customer that they were mannequins. But Feza's friendly waves garnered no response. Nor did a series of poking and prodding. As she extended her torso to slither around the mannequin to get any sort of response...

Pop! The head came off! Feza backed off, grimacing as the remainder of the mannequin crumpled into a heap as well; Feza wrapped her hands behind her back and slithered off, looking for something else to do.

"!"

Feza's eyes lit up as she spotted a line of leather belts, hanging on a rack! She slithered over in an excited hurry and slipped one off the shelf, enticed by the shine of the brass buckle. It had been a looooooooong LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG trip to shore, and she was utterly famished!

Feza opened her mouth, part of her slimy jaw calcifying into sharp canines; she let out a growl as she gnashed at the leather belt, tearing off a mouthful. She chewed thoughtfully, turning her head back and forth.

The flavour was... not appealing. There was a little bit of cow in the taste, but she could barely make it out under those gross layers of varnish. Feza grimaced, silently reflecting about how this was the worst piece of jerky she ever had.

...She took another bite though, because she was starving, but just the one belt would have sufficed just fine. Chunks of luxury leather flowed visibly through her translucent gullet...

When he polished off one down to the buckle, she tossed it aside (the buckle must've been the land-dweller's equivalent of a clam or oyster shell) and reached for another belt. This time, she studied the material, particularly the strange holes in it.

She raised her head, studying another static mannequin. They were actually wearing a belt! For once, an idea crossed Feza's mind! This was stuff you were supposed to wear! Like Celes wore stuff!

She beamed and looped the strap through the buckle and pulled on it tight around her waist; her upper-body blorbed as slime was forced upwards, her hair and arms bulging with the motion!

She jiggled, reaching for another, and wrapped it around her torso. And then each of her shoulders. She was going mad with power, the slime rushing to her head as she enthusiastically wrapped one more around her head, now bulbous like a bobblehead...

POP! Splutlterer... Feza popped and splattered green ooze everywhere, the ground littered with buckled up belts. Feza rapidly reformed, smiling broadly.

She peered over to the open doorway to Celes' workshop. Celes seemed to be absorbed in her craft, and oblivious to the shenanigans Feza got up to. Feza wondered if she noticed her hiding somewhere.

Feza eyeballed a stylish, business casual blazer, just hanging in a display cabinet and, with a cheeky grin, slipped inside; the green slime girl's head bobbed out from the neckline, watching Celes work from a distance...

To Feza, it didn't seem all that strange how Celes' hair moved around so excitedly and erratically as she worked, her long purple slime hair splitting into thick, powerful tendrils. Celes excitedly muttered to herself as she worked.

"I thought this seaweed was junk, but it's a remarkable material..." Celes cooed, hunched over. "It's water repellent, durable and elastic, and if I twist like this... it could knot like rope, or be made into thread..."

Celes was a genius when it came to fashion design, but coming across an all new material, as fishy as it was, was a game-changer for the enterprising slime woman. She couldn't keep her thoughts straight; there was seaweed to be processed into strands of thread, seaweed fabric to weave together, seashells to sew into the woven fabric, not to mention the cutting and the sizing...

Celes seemed oblivious to the way her hair stretched beyond her chair to shuffle across the room, rising above her to grab at her other tools, digging through the pile of crud Feza had dragged in; a bulbous tendril prodded and slipped in and out of the pool.

"Conches, sand dollars, a sea snail's shell... o-oh my gosh is that a shark skull?" Celes gawked, her head turning as her hair brushed some razor-fangs. "...could make a necklace from the teeth..."

Celes shook her head. "Focus, Celes. Um, Fezaaa! Can you come over here?"

She turned towards the cash register, where she previously saw Feza milling about. But there wasn't any sign of her, apart from a trail of minor destruction left behind. Celes' eyes narrowed, looking for a sign of movement...

...There was a rocking blazer in the display closet. Celes' eyes narrowed as her hair tendril stretched over, plucking the hanger from the closet. Celes blinked, and then let out a good-natured raspberry.

"Did you find something that fits?" Celes smirked. Feza beamed, swaying as she clung to the material, droplets of green ooze slipping from the sleeves and the hem of the blazer.

Two more tendrils split from Celes' hair, clutching some measuring tape at both ends. Almost instinctively, they quickly zipped around Feza, and Celes nodded with each motion... she was very good at taking measurements and committing them to memory without missing a beat.

With Celes multi-tasking like this, a fully realized, completely unique custom outfit, suited for Feza's eccentricities... such a crazy idea wasn't so far off after all!

[NEXT PART]