The Great Goon Gym (Superheroines TFMC)

Hey folks, how's it going?

You may have noticed that there's a new Quest getting started around here - check it out if you're interested in a little CYOA fun. It's a little experimental and I'll be trying to figure out the best way to do it as I go, so any suggestions you guys have are appreciated!

Other than that, here's this week's main story, hope you enjoy!

-----

It was a quiet morning in the city branch of the Grand Open Overall Natural gym. The usual crowd was marching in, many of them proudly chugging their Grand Open brand water bottles or chomping on the brand’s own protein bars. The gym chain had a top-of-the-line reputation, and this branch more than lived up to it. All of the workout machines were state of the art, all of the classes were professional, and the atmosphere was a delight.

Today, the sun was shining in through the big glass windows that made up the north and east walls, allowing everyone to look out on the world as they worked the weights, or pumped their legs on the cycling machine, or even just jogged on the treadmills. Practically every woman who came in through those doors swore by the place.

Oh, yes, of course it was an all-female establishment. They said it had something to do with cheaper insurance. The ladies, for the most part, just liked the fact that they could do jumping jacks without men staring at their chests all the time. (If they wanted that kind of thing, the window on the east wall had a non-tinted section, so they could enjoy showing off for the stares over there. The Grand Open really thought of everything!)

At least, that was the impression the newest member of the gym’s proud membership thought, as she scanned her card through the reader by the door and stepped through when it slid open. A young brunette woman, dressed to work out in an orange leotard with a little green band around the middle…

“Alright,” she whispered as she positioned herself on a treadmill, away from any other gym goers. “I’m in. They don’t suspect.”

Immediately, the earpiece she was wearing crackled to life. “Are you sure? No visible threats?”

The brunette winced, trying to hide her reaction as she jogged on the spot. “Yes I’m sure!” she whispered, looking around. “The only other people around are a few ladies on the machines. I mean, they look like they work out, but I don’t think that makes them a threat to either of us.”

It was true. There were about five other women using the gym at the moment – and she did have to admit, you could tell they worked out. Well defined muscles despite their surprisingly curvy figures…

“You should never underestimate people just because you’re a hero, you know.”

“I know!” She had to roll her eyes. “I swear BB, sometimes you’re worse than momma Gimmick…”

“Susan is a wise woman and she has entrusted me with your safety.” The preachy reply from Blue Blazer was as quick as it was annoying. “I have no desire to tell her you came to harm while under my protection.”

Tch. “Yeah, yeah, well you can tell her that I don’t need either of you protecting me. I’m a big girl, I fight crime for a living, and I can handle a solo assignment.”

“It’s hardly a solo assignment, old friend, I’m right over here…”

Mimic Gimmick, the shapeshifting superheroine sidekick supreme, took a deep breath and bit back on the irritated response she wanted to say. “You’re over there in the limelight using your big blue butt as a distraction while I have my solo assignment.” Okay, she didn’t quite bite back on all of that irritation.

There was a short pause. “… Do you really think it’s that big? The standards of this planet still confuse me-”

Gimmick’s eye twitched, and she tried to focus on her jog. “Boss! You’re fine. Seriously, don’t worry about it. Or about me. Let’s get on with this thing.” She was running a bit faster than she meant to right now. No, no, slow down, don’t show off, gotta be careful not to draw too much attention. “The sooner we find that stolen… What was it again?”

“A Lazfallian enzyme stimulator.”

Right, yeah, that.” The sidekick paused for a moment, chewing her lip as she eyed her average speed. “… So what’s one of those again?”

“I believe it to be the equivalent of a garnish or condiment dispenser for one of your earth meals. Like a saltshaker, or a bottle of the red fruit pulp.”

“That’s… I mean I guess that’s one way to talk about ketchup…” The shapeshifter frowned, and then shook herself. “I mean, wait, we’re putting all this effort into recovering a pepper pot? That’s my big first solo op?”

“Again, my adaptable ally, I’m right here – I’ll be entering the gym in just a few moments…”

“Not the point!”

“And what’s more… While I admit, it does seem a little excessive, the Lazfallians are very upset about the theft – they’re strict about who gets access to their technology – and they’re threatening galactic sanctions. Things might get rather awkward, especially for me as a guest of your wonderful planet, if we don’t get it back.”

Oh right. Yeah. Sometimes Gimmick forgot that her best friend and mentor was technically a visitor to earth. How you could forget that someone was an alien when they were like eight feet tall, had blue skin, four arms, and sometimes used their antennae to tune into radio stations on boring stakeouts was a mystery to her, but there she was. It was surprising what you could get used to in the hero business, wasn’t it?

“Well then, the sooner we find it, the better, right?” She nodded to herself, faith in her mission re-established. Her friend was counting on her – she wouldn’t let her down!

“I certainly hope so. I’ve no idea what our thief plans to do with the device, but if they manage to reverse engineer some of the components, they may be able to design any number of dangerous and powerful items. Lazfallian technology is some of the most advanced in this corner of the galaxy – there’s no telling what kind of evil they’ll be capable of!”

“Okay, when you put it like that, it does sound pretty serious…” Gimmick clapped her hands, speeding up a little as she ran. “Okay, leave me to it. I’ll snoop around and find this thing while everyone’s busy staring at you. So don’t you think it’s time you greeted your adoring public?”

“I suppose it is time…” Heheh, was that hesitance that she detected in her mentor’s voice? “You have your detector ready?”

“Yep.” The brunette tapped her watch, activating the secret interface with a quick series of button presses. “And it’s set to scan for that radiation you said the device gives out.”

“Good. We know it’s here somewhere, but until we have solid proof to bring to the authorities…”

“… We’re going to have to act with a little more subtlety, got it.” Gimmick tapped her watch again, hiding the detector screen. “No signal out here, though. I’m going to need to check out the employee only areas. Which means it’s time for your distraction play.”

A sigh crackled with static in her ears. “I suppose. Very well. Here I go.”

“Good luck~” The shapeshifter giggled, tapping her earpiece, and then settled into an even jog. Might as well burn a few extra calories while waiting for the big blue babe to make her scene…

-

The glass doors slid open, but the stunned staff on the front desk could already see the woman on the other side of them. Stepping across the threshold, the Blue Blazer herself waved with two hands, while the other two held her gym bag. “Good morning, fine ladies! Might I enquire about using your facilities?”

Gimmick always got on her case about her ‘lingo’, but it felt important to be polite in a first meeting.

“O-of course, miss Blazer!” The first receptionist to respond, a muscular woman with black hair and a charming smile, sat up and slid closer to the desk. “We’d be delighted to have you! A-are you looking for a day pass, or a monthly subscription? I can offer you a good discount on the latter option!”

The heroine chuckled at the offer. “Well, I do need a proper workout routine,” she said, rubbing her chin. “I’ve been slacking ever since my last trip to Polaris 12… But I should see what’s on offer here before I make any long term arrangements, shouldn’t I?”

The receptionist was nodding quickly. “Yep! Yes, yes, you definitely should! Uh. But, you know, I had to ask. Here, um, let me get you set up with a day pass… And, ah…” Shining blue eyes looked up over the monitor of her computer screen as she typed. “Could I get your autograph?”

BB chuckled, flattered even as she nodded. It was always like this whenever she went out in public off duty without some sort of disguise. Even if you weren’t attracted to beautiful blue alien blondes for whatever reason, she was still one of the biggest celebrities in the city. Naturally, her presence here, dressed in casual human clothing – a red t-shirt and sweat pants (custom designed for her sizes and arms, of course) - was going to attract attention.

Hopefully, that would give Gimmick all the chance she needed to crack this case in the background. Blue Blazer was actually mildly jealous of her sidekick here – her stand-out nature made stealth operations almost impossible for her, so she was limited to helping just by distracting everyone. After all, civilians were star struck by her, while villains would be watching her every move – and thus, ignoring the actual threat.

And the plan seemed to be off to a fantastic start as she used her new day pass to enter the gym proper. No sooner had she stepped through the glass doors out of the reception and into the corridor leading towards the gym proper, than she was greeted by a woman in a flattering pencil-skirt business suit, her hair done up in a tight brown bun.

“Ah, Miss Blazer! What a delightful surprise!” The lady approached with a smile, each high-heeled step filled with confidence. “May I ask what brings one of our fair city’s most treasured heroes to my fair establishment?”

“You are the owner of this gym?” Perfect. If this person was in charge, then the distraction ploy had worked wonders. Now she just had to hold her attention.

“I am.” The woman extended her hand, her smile much like a viper’s in the moment before the bite. “Regina Legion. I own the Grand Open franchise.”

“Delighted to meet you.” Blue blazer took her hand with a firm shake, observing her carefully. Unlike most of the women here, she was rather small, and certainly didn’t look like she worked out. Interesting. “I’m just looking in to try out the facilities. Even heroes like me need to get their cardio in, you know?”

The pair chuckled over her rather weak joke.

“Well in that case,” Regina said, raising an eyebrow, “please, let me show you what we have available to a client of your stature.”

“Oh, I’d hate to take up your time…”

The brunette’s eyes glinted. “I insist.”

So did Blue Blazer’s. “Very well then.”

The two smiled at one another, both happy to pretend everything was normal, even though both had to know that it absolutely wasn’t. Heroes didn’t just ‘drop in’ to check out a villain’s place of business. But for the moment, they were going to pretend that was exactly what had happened…

And in the meantime, Gimmick was free to act. She just had to hope that her friend was as ready as she insisted that she was…

-

Go time.

Gimmick slid off the treadmill before it had even come to a halt, trusting in the fact that all eyes were currently on the new arrival – the one everyone could see talking down the hall. Judging by the swivelled heads and dropped jaws, none of them pointing in her direction, she was safe in that assumption.

Her goal was obvious. She’d been eyeing the door to the Employees Only section ever since she’d arrived. It was surprisingly sturdy looking, a sliding heavy metal barricade, with both a card reader and an eye-scanner required for access. With that much security, you knew that they were trying to hide something.

Such a shame for them that security like that would never work against her.

With one last check over her shoulder to make sure she wasn’t being watched, Gimmick stepped up to the door, and then melted down into a plastic puddle, squeeing her flat form straight under the gap beneath it. Easy!

On the other side, she found an empty vertical shaft. Apparently the Employees Only area required an elevator to access! Fortunately, she’d anticipated this kind of thing. Instead of dropping like a stone, the heroine quickly reshaped her orange goop shape into that of a paper airplane, gently gliding downwards until she reached the bottom. Then she repeated the trick that got her in on the door she found below, and voila! Her infiltration had begun.

But the shapeshifting heroine had to shake her head as she reverted to her full human form, trying not to laugh outright at the black floor and ceiling and grey walls, all decorated with the letter G in a big font – maybe a logo of some kind? It wasn’t one she’d seen before, but there was definitely some kind of branding going on - even though this a the side of the Grand Open they’d never show to the public, obviously.

But oh yeah. This for sure felt like a villain’s base. It had that kind of vibe.

Sneaking around, Gimmick dodged the cameras and the security sensors with trained ease, shifting her form as required. This stuff was old hat to her – BB had put her through way tougher training exercises than this. So when she heard the sound of footsteps up ahead, she wasn’t worried – no, she was in her element.

Leaning against the wall, she stretched her neck down the hallway, and then, once she was close to the corner, she stretched her eyes out even further, peering around the bend. She tried not to do this one too much – dried her eyes out something fierce. But it could be useful on occasion.

Like right now, for instance, when it got her a good view of the group marching down the hall. All of them women, real body builder types – made sense for a lair under a gym, she supposed. Big, muscular women with big, bouncy chests, all dressed in leotards and wearing silver helmets that hid the upper halves of their faces. Hmm, one, two, three… five of them, all in a row, marching in sync. And that wasn’t all that was in sync about them…

They all looked exactly the same. Same height, same busty figures, same hair styles, even… really similar faces, now that she looked. About the only difference between them was the colour of their leotards – each of which was marked with that ‘GG’ logo, incidentally - and the colour of their hair, which sometimes poked out from under their helmets.

Hm. She peered at the group, scanning in every detail, before her eyes snapped back into her head, and her head snapped back to her shoulders. These were the villains minions, huh? They seemed pretty drone-y. All of them had blank, mindless looks on their faces. She’d seen it all before – and it was perfect! She had just the trick for this.

Smirking, Gimmick stuck her thumb in her mouth and blew. As she did, first her arm, and then all of her body, began to inflate. Muscles expanded, her chest plumped, her spine lengthened, her thighs thickened, and even her ass got a little extra something. In moments, she’d puffed herself up to the point where she looked just like the muscle-bound morons patrolling around – just with her leotard in orange, and her helmet covered hair in brunette.

(She didn’t really need to do the thumb part, but she’d seen it in a cartoon and it made her laugh, so into the routine it went.)

Then, content with her disguise, she waited for the group to march itself past her corner, and seamlessly added herself to the end of the line. Infiltration complete! It was just that easy. Now she just had to find the device.

Which… might prove to be a bit difficult, she realised as the group continued walking down the very, very, very long hallway, passing dozens of doorways. Just how big was this place? Building an underground lair took a lot of time and work, especially in this part of the city. How long had it been down here? The gym had only been open a few months…!

Well, eventually the squad turned into one of the rooms, what looked like a laboratory of some kind, and Gimmick took the opportunity to break away from the others to snoop around. It didn’t take her long to find a logged in computer terminal, and from there she was quickly looking through the villain’s current projects.

‘Expanding brand recognition’… No, probably not that.

‘Bribery progress on planning permission for lair renovations’ – Ok that was definitely a crime, but still not what she was looking for here.

‘Alien research and development’ – Aha! That was more like it.

Hm.  She scrolled through the files, trying to keep herself from looking too invested. She was supposed to be a blank drone, after all. But from what she was reading, it looked like they were using the enzyme simulator to… Make snack food? The heck…?

Whatever. None of her concern what these jerks made with the stupid thing. BB had said it was practically useless anyway, right? As long as they weren’t making bombs or something, she was- Okay, she wasn’t happy, but she didn’t care.

There was a lab number on the report, though – 63 - so that was probably where they were keeping the device. That was what that mattered. Nodding to herself, she glanced around, and then slipped back out of the lab, marching like the mindless drone she was pretending to be in the direction (she hoped) of the device.

But she had to wonder – why use alien tech to make snacks…?

-

Crunchy, and sweet, but not overly so. BB tended to find earth delicacies to be too sugary for her tastes, but this Grand Open protein bar threaded the needle surprisingly well.

“These are your own brand?” She asked, swallowing the mouthful down.

“Absolutely.” Regina nodded as she guided the (supposedly) off duty heroine around her gym. “We provide them free to all our members. They provide all the nutrition you need if you want a few muscles in your life.”

It was usually a bad idea to accept offerings of food and drink from a villain, the blue blaster had often been told by her fellow heroes. But as well meaning as that advice was – and she always made sure to repeat it for Gimmick – it wasn’t a rule she saw any need to follow personally. Other heroes were worried about poisons or the like, but her alien metabolism meant that such things were of little risk to her.

Which meant she could accept Regina’s snacks without risk, luring the woman into a false confidence. Heh, honestly, it was amusing that she’d even tried something like this.

“I see. I imagine they must be quite popular,” she said as she washed the protein bar down with a swig of energy drink. It fizzed quietly on her tongue, carrying a taste that reminded her of rholberries back on her home world. “I’m not sure I’ve had anything like it since I arrived on your world.”

“No, I bet.” The brunette chuckled. “We’re very proud of our brand of workout snacks. Proven to be effective, and delicious to boot. I developed the recipe myself.”

Oh? That was a surprise. This woman didn’t exactly look like a chef.

“But enough about that.” Regina slid an arm around the heroine’s back, guiding her onwards down the hall, towards some of the rooms at the back of the gym. “Since you’re here, why don’t you try some of our exercise classes? I think one was just about to start…”

“Uh…” The blue babe blinked for a moment, her antennae twitching. The feel of the other woman’s arm around her back was unexpected, but… Was it a problem? She couldn’t think of a reason why it would be. “Classes…?”

“Yes, of course. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To get nice and fit?”

Was it…? BB frowned. It was rather difficult to think of anything at all, actually. Or, rather, it was hard to focus on any one particular thing. Her thoughts were racing away from her, too energetic to sit still and let her think them. Her head was fizzing quietly, filled with energy that she couldn’t seem to direct.

So, in the place of her own thoughts on the matter, all she could do…

“Nice and… fit…”

Was use the words she was prompted to use.

“I can see you’re already raring to go, Miss Blazer,” Regina chuckled, still guiding her onwards. “Just follow me. I know what kind of training you need.”

Yeah… The training she needed. That sounded good. After all, that was why she was here, wasn’t it? To get nice and fit…

-

It took a while to find the lab that Gimmick was looking for. This lair was obviously designed with an organized layout in mind, but whatever that layout was, it escaped her. And there weren’t even any signposts to help a heroine out! You were just expected to know where you were going. Tch, maybe this villain had some idea of what they were doing.

Not as much as they thought, though, given how easily the shapeshifter was moving about down here. Her muscle-girl-drone disguise was working wonders. No one questioned her presence – though, granted, the only people she saw down here were other muscle-girl-drones. Were they supposed to be doing the lab work down here, or were the science types just elsewhere…?

Eh, not important. She just needed to find lab 63. Maybe it was through here?

She stepped through a pair of sliding doors and almost immediately rolled her eyes. Nope. No, this wasn’t what she was looking for. She could tell because she’d seen dozens of this kind of ‘lab’ over the years. Weird full-visor type helmets dangling from the ceiling… Sensory deprivation pods in upright clusters around the walls… Dozens of screens with spirals burnt into the glass from overuse?

Yeah, this was a brainwashing hub. Kind of a standard for a certain kind of villain. You got your victims in here, locked them in with a bunch of hypnotic displays and subliminal laden music tracks, and set an oven timer to leave them in overnight. It was probably where all those muscle minions came from…

Although, funny thing was, it didn’t look like it had been used that much lately. There was a coat of dust over all of the pods, all of the helmets had their batteries removed, and a good chunk of the hypno screens were missing, torn down off the walls completely. Taken to somewhere else, maybe? It seemed like it was the burnt-out ones that had been left behind…

Ugh. That was a bit of a mystery, but it wasn’t an important one. Mind control like this was disgusting, but Gimmick was fairly numb to seeing this kind of set up by now. It was just another thing to add to the list of charges when they brought this criminal down. What it wasn’t, was the room she was looking for.

Sighing, she shrugged the place off and continued her search. What did she care about what they’d done with a bunch of hypnotic television screens?

-

The screens flickered and flashed up at the front of the class as the instructor in front of them demonstrated the set of exercises her students were meant to be doing.

“And stretch, 2, 3, 4… Right to the toes, 2, 3, 4… Grasp the back of your kness, 2, 3, 4… Now round to the side, 2, 3, 4…”

BB was feeling a little self-conscious despite herself as she tried to keep up at the back. These women were so strong and flexible! She’d thought her training as a superhero was going to be enough to prepare her for all this, but she was finding that was very much not the case. In front of her, these was an entire class filled with women who were handling all of this easily.

… All strangely similar looking women, in fact. With such muscular arms and legs, and such proudly large chests. Something about that seemed so odd, but she just couldn’t…

“And jump, 2, 3, 4!”

Ah! BB quickly bounced on her feet, struggling not to fall to far behind. And this was just the warm up…!

“Don’t worry about it, my dear,” Regina told her during the first thirty second break. The gym owner wasn’t taking part in the exercises herself, but was apparently watching closely. “You’re just a beginner in an advanced class – but I can already see you’re starting to catch up!”

Was she? The heroine looked down and blinked. Had her arms always been so… thick? She didn’t remember her muscles bulging quite so blatantly. And her legs – had they always been so powerful looking? She remembered them being quite slender…

But, that might just have been because she was struggling to get a good look at them? For whatever reason, her chest kept getting in the way. It was weird, but it was probably her t-shirt’s fault. It had seemed so much bigger when she’d put it on this morning, but now the fabric was starting to tear right down the middle, exposing a flash of blue beneath…

“So big… So powerful…” The gym owner leaned in, stroking the alien hero’s arms. “Why don’t you flex a little? See how strong you are now?”

Curious, BB posed, crunching all four arms and spreading her legs…

“Huah!” The rush of pleasure almost knocked her off her feet, shooting straight up into her brain from every limb as her muscles bulged. She thought she might have even heard the sound of her sweat pants tearing…

“Feels good, right?” Regina chuckled, pushing another energy drink into her hands and guiding her back towards her spot in class. “It’ll feel even better soon. You’re only just getting started.”

Was that right? The alien licked her lips uncertainly. Wasn’t she supposed to be…?

“Like I said, stop worrying so much,” Regina said, clapping her on the shoulder and jolting her out of her train of thought. “Just drink up, and feel the burn.”

And before she could try to remember what she’d been thinking, class had begun again. “Now breathe, 2, 3, 4, and drink, 2, 3, 4, and down on all fours, 2, 3, 4, and push up, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…”

Eyelids fluttering, BB did her best to keep up, pleasure pulsing through her with every new exercise. The drinks did help, though, filling her with energy that buzzed through her muscles and her brain, delicious taste still dancing on her tongue…

-

Aha! She’d found it! After what felt like hours of searching – though it was probably only like twenty minutes or so, she was never great at keeping time – Gimmick had finally discovered lab 63.

And it was pretty impressive – at least, compared to everything else she’d seen down here. This lab was clearly where they’d been funnelling the budget from their ill-gotten gains. Some of the machines in here were so advanced she honestly had no idea what they did. Fabricators of some kind? They seemed to be making exercise equipment, which seemed weird…

But she’d seen a picture of the device she was looking for, and that, right there in the middle of everything, was definitely it. Blue, diamond shaped, and constantly generating little beams of light which shone down into the machines below, creating familiar looking protein bars and energy drinks. Yep, that really was what they were using it for. Geeze.

The shapeshifting sidekick glanced around, wondering for a moment what the other machines were doing. It had to be something, right? You didn’t just steal alien tech to make a new line of supplements and build a ton of exercise equipment around it for no reason. Some of this equipment looked weird, too – like, the designs looked familiar. Was it based on Lazfallian technology, perhaps…?

Nn. No, never mind. She was wasting time. She’d found what she was after, and it had taken her long enough already. Now she just needed to grab it and get it out of here. Well, that would be easy. The device was only protected by a glass case! She just had to…

Smash!

Ah. Whoops.

That, of course, was when the alarms started going off.

-

“Lift the weights up… 2… 3… 4… 5…”

The weights lifted; a pair of big iron bars being held up by her four arms. She wasn’t sure how heavy they were. They felt so light to her. But they hadn’t when she started, which was probably a good sign.

“Now lower the weights down to just over your chest and hold them there… 2… 3…. 4… 5…”

That was what the wireless headphones that had been slipped into her ears said – and at this point, Blue Blazer was feeling far too thick headed to refuse them. She was feeling thick in a lot of ways, actually…

“Did you enjoy class? Nothing like a bit of exercise to get the metabolism burning faster.”

And, of course, Regina. The gym owner was sitting on the heroine’s stomach, stroking her fingers over the alien’s hard adbs as she watched the weights rise and fall. She’d slid on as soon as BB had laid down, and the hero hadn’t been able to think of a reason to ask her to move.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the Owner continued. “I know your metabolism is different – but not so different, right? I looked your species up in the Lazfallian database, made sure to tweak a few of our snack treats so you’d get their full benefit…”

“Lift the weights up…”

Up the weights rose, allowing Regina’s hands to slide up the hero’s abs and up to cup her tits again, gleefully stroking the sensitive flesh. The T-shirt covering them had long ripped apart. The gym leader had thrown it away, saying that BB didn’t need it anymore.

“Such useful technology, the Lazfallians. A little tricky to work out at first, but not so bad once you’re used to it.” The Owner’s fingers pinched around the alien’s nipples, drawing a quiet gasp from her blue lips – though her grip on the weights remained absolute. “My, recently, I’ve even been incorporating it into my gym equipment, too. Like the treadmills, or the cycling machines, or even the weightlifting bench~”

“Now lower the weights down…”

The hands retreated from her chest as her arms retracted again. BB just kept staring blankly upwards, drool slowly drizzling down the side of her mouth.

“That lets me do neat things,” the Owner continued, not caring in the least that she was basically talking to a rock. “Like programming the gear to keep flooding your system with all those lovely little chemicals that are turning your brain into rock hard muscle…”

“Lift the weights up…”

“Or the ones that are giving you such a magnificent figure…” The brunette leaned against one of the hero’s muscle bound arms, delighting in their strength. “So much power – and soon, all mine to control~”

“Now lower the weights down…”

“And I can even check the readout to see how much longer you’re going to take!” The Owner giggled, leaning over to inspect a display on the side of the bench. “Let’s see, judging by this, you should be done just about…”

Ding!

“Now~”

One last quiet gasp escaped BB’s lips as her eyes fluttered, her antennae twitching, the sensation of toughening, hardening, solidifying rolling through her head. Thought became impossible, her mind a void of even so much as a spark of independence. The only movement inside her skull was waves generated by the commands flowing in from her earphones.

Her brain may as well have been another hunk of muscle, just waiting to be told what to do.

Luckily, there was someone at hand who was absolutely willing to take on that responsibility.

“Put the weights back onto their shelf and stand up,” Regina spoke into her watch, sliding off of her new slave’s belly and getting to her feet. Her words were instantly broadcast into the heroine’s ears, and BB wasted no time mindlessly following their instruction.

The villain’s smile stretched from ear to ear as she circled the blue babe. “Oh, you’re perfect. So strong. So beautiful. So mine~” She stepped in, wrapping her arms around the alien from behind and squeezing her chest. This time there was no reaction at all. “And your powers make you even better. You’ll be the first of my elite minions, my first step towards taking over this entire city~!”

Her eyes blazed with hunger as she slid around her toy, one hand stroking up her muscular, busty frame to rest just under her chin.

Then, before she could say anything, her watch beeped. She blinked, looking down. “Oh, and would you look at that.” She looked back up, grinning at the blank faced hero. “Looks like I get a chance to test you out already~”

Blue Blazer just drooled.

-

Well, this had gotten hairy fast.

Device tucked under one arm, Mimic Gimmick was now sprinting through the halls, doing her (exceptional) best to dodge laser blasts and grapple attempts from the verifiable army of muscle-bound babes that were chasing her. Geeze, she’d known this lair was big, but she hadn’t expected it to have this many minions in it. Where were they all coming from?!

Obviously, her disguise wasn’t going to cut it anymore. The device was way too big to hide, and with the alarm triggered stealth was out the window. So, she’d reverted to her normal form and was now sprinting for her life.

Standard day for a superhero, honestly.

But even as big as this base was, eventually it was inevitable that she’d run out of places to run. That, or she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. Hey, it was hard to navigate down here, all the corridors looked the same!

Either way, she’d ended up in a dead end – a storeroom of some kind, maybe? She wasn’t sure – it was just big and empty. There was a door at the other end, but it was locked, and there was no way she could get the device through it, even if she could do her puddle trick to get around it – and she couldn’t leave the thing she’d come here for behind. Nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide, and with at least two dozen minions swarming in through the doorway behind her.

Well okay then. She was getting tired of playing this the subtle way anyway!

The sidekick spun into the room, placing the device down beside her, and snapped out her arms, inflating her hands into gigantic punch machines. “Alright girls,” she growled, swatting at the first wave, and smacking at least five drones into the wall. “Let’s see what you’ve got! Do you really think this much’ll stop me?!”

“No,” a voice called from behind her. “But this will.”

“Huh?”

Zap!

-

“Uuuugh…”

The next thing she knew, her eyes were groggily blinking open to the inside of a pod. Her arms were bound at her sides, and her legs were shackled to the floor with metal bolts. Not really a threat to her, but annoying, she could say that much.

“Well well well – if it isn’t the infamous shapely sidekick! I should have known where one hero went, another must be sniffing around somewhere.”

That voice, however? Way more annoying than the shackles. Glaring, the heroine tried to peer through the glass pod door in front of her.

It wasn’t hard to spot the source. There was a woman out there – a brunette that Gimmick recognised as the owner of the gym upstairs. She was dressed in a green leather suit that left her upper body mostly exposed, save for her chest, complete with a green commanders cap with the lets ‘GG’ emblazoned on it proudly in gold. Kind of hideous, honestly. Definitely the look of a villain.

But Gimmick was much more concerned with the woman standing next to the green figure, dressed in a red leotard and wearing a silver helmet with holes for her antennae. “Boss!”

“Oh, I’m afraid it’ll do no good to run crying to EG1 for help now,” the villain laughed, patting the motionless Blue Blazer’s arm. “My voice is the only one she can hear. And she obeys my every command! Which is how I got her to zap you and put an end to your little rampage through my base, by the by.”

The shapeshifter’s glare intensified. “You fiend! What have you done to her!”

As lines went, that one was fairly cheesy, but she wanted to get this woman talking, give her time to plan her escape. Slipping free of these shackles wouldn’t be hard – but could she rush the woman before BB got involved…?

“I just gave her what she wanted~” The brunette pressed a hand to her chest proudly. “A lifetime membership in my forces. For you see, I am the General of the Great Goon Legion – the one every villain in the city comes to when they need Goons for hire.” The green villain grinned. “You’ve fought my girls many times, though you might not recognise them in their real uniforms.”

“…” Gimmick opened her mouth and then closed it a few times. Finally, she managed, weakly, “Kind of an unfortunate name you’ve got there…”

“Hey!” The Goon General glared. “Gooning used to be an honourable profession!”

“Oh my god.”

“It’s not my fault that a bunch of perverts have corrupted the- I don’t need to justify myself to you.”

“Yeah, generally people save that for the judge.”

The villain’s eyes narrowed. “… You know what?” She said, raising her watch and hovering a finger over the command switch. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t- Huh?” Gimmick blinked, looking down at her bound body as it refused to melt into a more malleable form. Instead she remained embarrassingly solid.

“Oh, were you expecting to morph your way out of my little conversion chamber?” Now the Goon General was smirking again. “Sorry, dear, I’m afraid I used the enzyme stimulator to develop a counter-agent for your powers. I injected you with it while you were unconscious – you won’t be shapeshifting any time soon.”

The sidekick’s eyes widened. “It can do that?!?” Suddenly this stupid device seemed way less harmless than she’d assumed.

“It can do a lot of things,” the villain laughed. “And finding out its limits is what you’re going to help me with now!”

She punched her command into her watch, and the pod around Gimmick hummed to life. The heroine looked around, trying to not look as panicked as she felt. She didn’t entirely succeed. “H-hey, what is this?”

Unsurprisingly, Goon General was a villain who liked to monologue. “This is my newest toy – I mean, aside from your mentor, anyway. Reverse engineered from Lazfallian technology, welcome to the Gooning Chamber!”

“Could you please not call it-!”

“I’ll call it what it is!” The Goon General snapped, before visibly calming herself back into a smug smile. “This beautiful machine is designed to pump as many of these lovely mutagenic chemicals into your bloodstream as you can take! In test runs, it could convert a regular civilian into a goon in under five minutes, but I’ve been wanting to get the timer under two. And you, with your lovely resilient body, will make a perfect test subject for the new formula~”

Oh. Oh, this sounded… bad. Wow, she’d really underestimated this one.

The villain knew it too, judging by her smirk. “Any last words before you mimic my Goons permanently?”

Hm. Beg for mercy? No, that wouldn’t work. Stall? No, nothing left there. Only one option left then. Couldn’t go wrong with the classics…

“You’ll never get away with- Nnngh!” Gritting her teeth, Gimmick tried to resist what was happening, but there was little she could do. The blue light inside the pod began to shine brighter than ever, quickly obscuring everything else, and she felt a tingling sensation run through her body, washing over her in a wave.

Everything was happening at once. Her muscles bulged, her legs bucked, her chest swelled. None of it was a new feeling for her, but this was the first time she’d ever changed like this completely out of her own control. Her body was twisting out of her grasp – and her mind was starting to twist along with it.

She could feel it. Her brain starting to slow down, her thoughts starting to get stuck in the mud. Viciously, she shook her head, like she was trying to shake the chemicals out of it, but it just made her dizzy, and made the thickening feeling in her head worse. Her mind spiralled, her eyes fluttering and her jaw going slack as everything seemed to grow dark and confusing.

Then, just as her eyes crossed, the mind behind them finally solidified.

Ding!

“Wow~” Outside the pod, the Goon General clapped her hands. “Hero to Goon in under thirty seconds! Now that’s what I call Gooning!”

This time, there was no complaint from the heroine in the machine. She just drooled as a helmet slid down over her head, and an orange leotard materialized around her body. Then the chamber opened and restraints released, allowing her to step out at last, cloaked in blue smoke.

And when it cleared, there stood Goon 256, saluting in place without a thought in her head – just like all the other Goons in the lair.

“Perfect!” The villain cheered, practically dancing on the spot. “Now go join patrol 12, and make sure no one else is sneaking around down here. Two heroes is more than enough excitement for me today.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the Goon nodded, saluting once again before marching away, seamlessly joining with a passing group of drones. Already, it was almost impossible to tell her apart from the rest.

The Goon General watched her go with a happy sigh. “There,” she purred, sliding back up to her new Elite. “That’s that finally taken care of. Now, where was I? … Oh yes.” Her eyes glittered as her fingers toyed with the collar of the blue drone’s leotard. “I think I was just about to find out what my new elite goon is really capable of… As long as she doesn’t mind~”

Of course, Blue Blazer didn’t mind. She didn’t mind anything, anymore. Not now that her brain was a solid lump of muscle. The Grand Open Overall Natural gym had trained her well, just as promised! It had done such a good job, in fact, that she’d definitely be trying to get more of her friends to join…

Just as soon as her new Owner told her to, at least~