Kynes

     Eliza Hunter’s credentials spoke for themselves: First in her class at Cambridge University with dual degrees in chemistry and criminology. She was proficient in both armed and unarmed combat and had even taken home the gold medal for fencing in the 2012 Summer Olympics. After university, she joined the Royal Air Force where she received medals for both valor and gallantry when her helicopter was shot down over hostile airspace. 

 

    All of these experiences resulted in a transfer to a “Special Projects” team with MI6. From there, she had personally handled a number of covert solo-operations in and outside the United Kingdom. She was widely regarded as one of the most dangerous women alive.

 

    HQ sent her to the Alps, to a secret facility nestled deep in the mountain range. Getting in had been easy, but now she found herself suspended several meters above the ground with no weapons, no backup, and no way to call for help.

 

“How do I always create these ludicrous situations for myself?” She grumbled. She attempted to blow a stray lock of umber hair back into place. She kept it mid-length and loose, even though she’d been chided for the unnecessary liability. To Eliza, it wasn’t so hard to brush a lock of hair aside from time to time... Unless, of course, your wrists were tied to your ankles. 

 

    From what she could tell, they’d been bound with zip ties, which looped through the bottom link of a length of chain which dangled from the ceiling. The flimsy plastic ties seemed an irresponsible choice, but who was she to complain if her captors wanted to make her escape easier? Without her equipment, all she had was her steely grey catsuit and matching combat boots. She was going to need all the help she could get. 

 

    “Do you appreciate my facility, Frau Hunter?” The honorific was German, but there had only been the slightest trace of an accent. Standing near the door was a tall man with blond hair styled in a clean military cut and wearing a grey suit with his hands behind is back like a perfect tin soldier.

 

    “Damian Kraus,” Eliza said cordially, “we really must stop meeting like this. I believe that the last time I saw you, I was tied to an ICBM.” 

 

    “I remember clearly, Liebchen.” His lips curled wickedly over his teeth in what was likely meant to pass for a smile. He raised his right hand, pulling away a black glove to reveal the metal prosthetic beneath. The hand closed into a fist with a mechanical hiss.

 

    Eliza tutted. “Now, you and I both know that if I had my way, I’d have taken more than just your hand.” She wriggled slightly in an attempt to free herself from her bonds. If Kraus was here, it would be safest to end things quickly.

 

    “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Frauline.” He pressed a button on the wall next to him, and a circular section of the floor began to slide open like the aperture of a camera, revealing what appeared to be an enormous meat grinder below her. The diameter of the pit looked to be about six meters across, making it approximately half the width of the room. 

 

    “So much for swinging to safety then,” she murmured. “Do you intend to lower me slowly or all at once?”

 

    “A bit of both actually.” He pushed another button on the panel next to him. The evil teeth of the blades below began to spin to life just as a large metal door at the other end of the room slid open to reveal scissor gates and an elevator carriage. Two men in grey jumpsuits emerged from the gates, wheeling out a tall, stainless steel cylinder with a hose and a pneumatic pressure pump attached to the side. 

 

    “The last time we met,” Kraus began as one of his henchmen lifted the free end of the hose and attached it to what looked like a respirator mask, “I underestimated you. You fought for your life much more furiously than I’d expected.” The minion lifted the mask on a long metal pole toward Eliza’s face. She struggled and strained her neck away from the hose, but once it found purchase over her nose and mouth, it stuck fast. “Let’s see how furiously you fight after this.”

 

    “Kraus!” Eliza yelled, screaming to be heard over the whir of the saw blades and through the rubber of the mask. “When I get out of here, I’m taking your other hand!”

 

    “I welcome you to try, Liebchen.” He walked toward the steel machine, and as he passed behind the henchmen who was still balanced on the edge of the pit, he kicked him. The man cried out in terror and surprise as he let go of the pole and fell into the meat grinder below. He was reduced to crimson pulp almost instantly, and droplets of red gore sprayed on the hem of Damian's grey trousers. The metal pole was still attached to the mask, and it dangled, heavy from Eliza’s face for a moment, before unhooking and falling into the mechanical deathtrap. The saw blades stuttered for just a moment on the study metal before tearing it apart just as easily as the henchman before. “That is… if you survive and if you’re in any shape to do so.” 

 

    Kraus reached up and started the pneumatic pump. The contents of the cylinder began to flow into the opaque tube leading up to Eliza’s mouth.  Without another word, he and his remaining minion turned to leave, closing the elevator door behind them and leaving Eliza alone. 

 

    The hose vibrated and shuddered under the strain of moving the viscous liquid, but as it bore closer to Eliza’s mouth, the weight of the fluid kept the tube mostly still. Whatever it was, she had no intention of letting Kraus pump it into her. She set to work on her legs first, both because her ankles could more easily burst their bonds and because she needed her legs free to enact her plan. 

 

    She worked the zip ties up to her calves and flexed, popping the plastic and dropping her legs so that she was now hanging by her wrists, nearly dislocating her shoulders in the process. She lifted herself upward, as if performing the world's most deadly chin-up. Once her hands were in front of her neck, she swung her legs underneath her and pulled hard until she was braced against the ceiling. She grabbed the chain to hold herself in place and avoid any undue pressure on the straining zip ties and wrenched her head backward.

 

    She tugged against the tube and the mask, but they were affixed firmly to her face. She’d been afraid of that. Kraus wouldn’t have left her attached to something she could so easily break out of. The substance in the tube was getting dangerously close, so she moved to her next plan. She braced against the ceiling and leaned backward, attempting to tug the hideous metal monstrosity into the saw blades. It only took a few tugs to determine that it was well outside her means to pull.

 

    Eliza was stronger than most people would assume upon first blush, but the wheels of the cylinder had evidently locked when it started pumping, and the machine itself likely weighed in excess of five hundred pounds. She took inventory of her options only to realize that she was too late: The liquid in the tube finally reached her lips and forced its way into her mouth.

 

    Her eyes widened. To describe the concoction’s flavor would be doing it a disservice. Flavor is the way the human brain interprets the energy content of food. Imitation sweeteners taste the same as the real thing but don’t give the brain the bust of energy that it expects from sugar, and as a result it withholds that burst of precious dopamine. If pressed to describe the taste of the substance now pouring down her throat Eliza might have compared it to cake batter: sweet and inoffensive but nothing she’d normally crave. Her brain, however, knew better, and as soon as Kraus’s concoction hit her tongue it released a flood of happy hormones into her system. 

 

    She moaned around the tube, and greedily sucked more down as her eyelids drooped and fluttered. So distracted was she by the mixture that she let her grip on the chain relax. She dropped, somersaulting back into an upright position and was brought to a jarring halt as she reached the end of chain. The force of the fall was enough to snap one of the zipties, forcing her out of her daze. The ruined plastic fell noiselessly into the blades of the meat-grinder below her and disappeared. 

 

    She breathed heavily through her nose as she stared down into imminent death below her. Whatever was in the tank was still forcing its way down her throat, and she felt her stomach becoming uncomfortably full, yet the sweet sensation of the sugars over her tongue made her body feel warm and tingly. As much as she wanted to escape she also wanted more. She forced herself to focus on finding a solution to her more immediate problem, and her eyes landed on the control panel next to the elevator.

 

    She remembered which button Kraus had pressed to start the meat-grinder. Hopefully she could stop the machine by pressing it again. She kicked at the laces of her right boot with the heel of her left until she was able to undo the knot. She mentally judged the distance, tracing an arc in her mind. She gripped the chain in her fingers and began to swing herself back and forth. At the height of her swing she kicked out with her ankle and let the boot fly across the room. It impacted with the control panel and a moment later there was a loud ding. The elevator door opened to reveal an empty carriage. She’d hit the wrong button. She cursed, a sound that came out as a muffled growl, and waited for her swinging to stop before trying again. 

 

    She looked down at her feet, intending to undo the laces on her left boot with her toes when she noticed that she couldn’t see them. Her view of her feet was partially obscured by her belly. She hung for a moment, staring. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. With how much of this stuff was being pumped into her, she was bound to get a little bloated. She felt around blindly with her toes for the end of her shoelace, but without a visual frame of reference, she was finding it more than a little difficult. Grunting, she lifted both legs out in front of her for a better look. 

 

    Even though moments before she’d easily flipped herself upside down, she now struggled to pull her herself into a basic L-sit position. With some difficulty, she lifted her legs out in front of her and found the source of her problem. The ends of her laces had been tucked into the boot. She did her best to ignore the way her belly bunched up against her chest as she maneuvered her free foot toward the boot and tugged the end of one lace free. Her breathing was loud in the mask and beads of sweat stood out on her forehead as she took the lace between two toes and pulled the knot free.

 

    She let out a heavy sigh and nearly choked on her cake batter as she let herself hang freely again, taking a moment to catch her breath. She winced as she felt the zip-ties around her wrist creak, but that wasn’t the only thing she felt. Her drop, while not quite graceful, hadn’t been nearly as jarring as her fall from the ceiling but somehow managed to feel more jostling. She looked down once again at her bloated belly. It was bigger than she’d assumed possible with her navel leaving a clear impression in the tight fabric. Was Kraus’s plan for her to pop? 

 

She redoubled her efforts, gripping the chain tightly and starting to swing. It was harder to get going. She could only assume that she’d tired herself out in the process of getting her boot untied. When she got out of this, she’d have to put in some extra time on the gymnastics rings. She focused, aiming lower than she had before. She couldn’t afford to miss a second time. It wasn’t like she had any other boots hidden up her sleeve. One of the downsides of wearing a catsuit was that it didn’t offer a lot of opportunities for concealed gadgets.

 

She kicked out with her ankle. This time, the boot had a bit more backspin, and it seemed to hang in the air even as Eliza swung backward away from it. It arced toward the control box before crashing against the button with a mighty thwack! She let out a muffled shout of victory at the direct hit only for the floor to shudder beneath her and open even wider. The steel machine was pulled further away from her as the floor beneath it slid backward until there was only a slender walkway surrounding the spinning blades that made up the majority of the floorspace. Eliza’s swinging halted as the hose connecting her to the machine was pulled taut, and she gripped the chain harder to avoid breaking the zip ties.

 

She groaned. Kraus had pressed that exact button to open the meat grinder. It wasn’t unreasonable to assume that pressing it again might open it wider. She hung at an odd angle, pulled slightly forward by the hose stuck to her mouth and still filling with cake batter. She cursed, which came out as a muffled grunt and impotently struggled against the mask. She stopped when she felt her behind quivering.

 

Eliza had been an athlete since she was twelve years old. The only time she’d ever felt a part of herself jiggle was when she wasn’t wearing a sports bra. The idea of wobbling happening below the waist was a foreign concept to her. She twisted her head as much as her mask would allow, peering over her shoulder. She let out a muffled gurgling gasp. She shouldn’t have been able to so much as glimpse her ass from this angle, but now it stood out behind her, huge and round and demanding her full attention. 

 

The tingling warmth she’d felt earlier wasn’t just her brain reacting to the sugar. It was the sensation of her metabolism kicking into overdrive. The problem with processed sugars is that the human body can’t store them, and as such has to use that energy right away. Aside from the sugars, the cake batter was absolutely brimming with calories, and, since her metabolism was currently prioritizing energy for the sugar, those calories would be stored for later on Eliza’s hips, thighs, and belly.

 

While she had been busy attempting her escape, her body had been putting that excess energy to good use jumpstarting her digestion and adding a good fifty pounds of fat to her nimble frame, all the while the overtaxed zip-ties around her wrists fought valiantly to keep her from falling to a messy end. She whimpered as her expanding body began to test the confines of her catsuit.

 

She could feel the stretchy fabric growing tighter especially around her lower half. She’d been mercifully spared up top which was likely why it took her so long to notice the changes, but now that she was paying attention, the tightness in her sleeves and across her chest showed that she wouldn’t be slim up top for long. The zipper of her suit began to slide down her chest as more and more fat billowed behind it.

 

“No no no!” She tried to yell, but all that came out was a series of gurgles behind her mask as the zipper continued it’s descent. It slid over the crest of her breasts, opening up to reveal tits that didn’t belong to her. Round and huge, the pink nipples jostled with each swallow as more and more of the fattening substance was pumped into her. 

 

The zipper slid lower and lower, passing over the dome of her stomach and sliding downward, allowing her newly fat stomach to billow out from it’s confines. Soft and expansive, it rolled forward like rising dough until the zipper met its final destination just above her belt. But her fattening wasn’t finished. Seams along her thighs popped as her titanic lower continued to expand. Her flanks burst through the fabric, and her behind grew larger and fatter, unobstructed by the suit. 

 

Her outfit wasn’t the only thing straining against her increased girth. Another zip tie burst and fell into the spinning teeth bellow. Eliza gripped the chain harder, feeling the plastic of the ties bite into her wrists as her weight worked in tandem with the  fattening of her arms. Her muscles cried out as she attempted to support her new weight. Her sweaty palms struggled to find purchase on the smooth chain.

 

The ties around her right wrist gave way completely and she cried out inside her mask as she scrambled to grab at the chain, fighting against the weight of her newly fat body. With a mighty heave she managed to snatch the chain and hold fast several centimeters up from where her other hand was tied. Her grip was firm, if not comfortable. She had to pull against the hose on her face in order to reach it, and as her fingers locked she heard a loud bang. 

 

She looked around for the source of the noise, but nothing had changed… except… Had the machine always been so ascue? She tugged again. The tank and pump assembly attached to her face rose slightly on its front wheels, before falling back to the ground. 

 

It occurred to Eliza that the tank had grown lighter because a significant portion of its contents was distributed across her frame. Finally, the tides were turning. She would have smiled if she could. 

 

    She swung her legs back and forth, making the container rock but not tip it over. As long as she could hold on, her weight advantage would make it easier to move the machine, but harder to fight against gravity.

 

She pulled harder, throwing all of herself into each thrust, and the tank came closer and closer to tipping into the pit. The metal chain pinched and dug into her right hand, but she refused to let go even as her left wrist rapidly outgrew the zip ties holding it. She felt like a pinata. She was a parody of herself; a parade float to mock the woman she used to be. How would she ever be able to work like this? Forget being a spy. She was pretty sure she couldn’t fit through most doors. What was she to do? Lay in bed all day, sucking up a government pension and growing even fatter from lack of exercise or any meaningful stimulation?

 

    Her belt burst off of her expanding body with a painful pop, and she was jolted back to reality. She couldn’t think about that right now. She was operating on adrenaline, and she knew that once the ties snapped, she would no longer have the strength to hold herself up. At the rate she was going, she wouldn’t be able to tip the tank over in that time. She had to speed things up. She performed the same move she’d done moments before. On any other day, she could do an L-bend easily. Five minutes ago, it had been a struggle. Now it felt damn near unattainable. 

 

    She bent her legs at the hips. It took several tries, and she had to use her forward momentum to help her, but she managed to get them out straight. Then, knowing she couldn’t maintain the position for long, she reached out with both legs and wrapped them around the tube. She hung there for a moment, arms supported by the chain, meaty calves resting on the feeding hose, she looked like an enormously fat sloth. She felt like a sloth too; she’d expended so much energy to get into this position that she could barely muster up the will to do anything more.

Part of her wanted to drift off. She’d just close her eyes, let the tube fill her up until the zip ties gave, and then… Her eyes shot open, and with a mighty heave she tugged on the tube. Her behind was by far her fattest feature, and all that weight was pushing against the fulcrum of her legs. With a final push she managed to topple the tank over and pull it into the meat grinder below.

 

    The weight of the tank pulled the mask from Eliza’s face with an audible pop, and she coughed and sputtered and took deep, gasping breaths. The blades of the meat grinder locked around the metal tank and stopped with a mechanical screech. Eliza let out a cry of victory just as the ties on her left wrist snapped and she was left dangling by her right arm.

 

    The blades may have been stopped, but Eliza was sure that they’d be just as deadly to impale herself on. She grimaced and gritted her teeth as her sweat-slicked palm slipped down the chain. She swayed over the pit and when the timing was right she let go. 

 

    She landed utop the ruined tank with a thud and the impact was enough to push it deeper into the mechanism. The saws shuddered but didn’t begin to spin again. 

 

    She groaned, forcing herself to stand, a much harder process than it’d been minutes before, and surveyed her situation. The saws were spaced evenly on massive metal drums, which gave her justs enough room to maneuver if she was careful. Gingerly, she stepped off of the tank with one bare foot and began to pick her way across the gap. With each step the blades jolted, her own weight threatening to stir them into motion again, but the tank held. She wobbled and waddled her way out, no longer possessing the fine dexterity necessary for such a task. 

 

    “Can’t just bloody shoot me in the head, can he?” She grumbled as she slid through a particularly tight spot between two blades, her beanbag behind and beach ball belly sliding along the smooth metal. She pulled herself to the edge, which was just a bit over chest height and effortfully pulled herself up. “When I get out of here I swear I’m going to--” 

 

    There was a loud metal crunch. Eliza turned, hanging halfway over the side of the pit, her rear end still well within the path of the blades, to see the the tank beginning to crunch and shudder under the force of the blades.

 

    “Shit.” She focused her full strength to getting herself out. Never mind the workout she’d already gone through to get down from the chain. She had just doubled her weight, and if she didn’t act fast she was going to lose it again in the messiest way possible. She strained and pushed, but her behind was just too heavy to pull over the side. The tank crunched deeper into the blades, and the saws beneath her slid dangerously close to one meaty thigh. In a final burst of effort, Eliza growled, rolled over onto her back and lifted her legs from the pit just as the tank was crushed and the blades began to spin freely once more. 

 

    She huffed and puffed on the ground letting the extensive surface area of her fattend behind cool off on the metal floor. She looked up at the surveillance camera in the corner and gave a peace-sign to the camera. 

 

    Relaxing didn’t come naturally to her, but this new body had her wondering if she might have time to take a minute or two before getting up again. She’d always considered people who wasted time with unproductive tasks to be lazy and boring, but when she thought about spending a few hours just laying down, she could see the appeal. She allowed herself just a few more seconds of rest before hoisting herself into a sitting position and taking inventory of her new body.

 

    She was fat. That much was obvious. Her gut lay between her open legs, and she could feel the cold floor on the bottom of her belly. That was new. She’d never had a “bottom” to her belly before. She lifted it experimentally, and it deformed in her hands, warm and soft and heavy. She would have to carry this around with her for a while yet.

 

    Fortunately, she had an equal, if not greater, counterweight. Her behind had grown incredibly. Wider than her shoulders and spreading wider still while sitting, she was pretty sure she could fit her entire slimmer form inside her ass. While her arms were notably larger and sagged slightly under their own weight, and her tits had transformed into massive heavy orbs, each larger than her head and supported ponderously by her belly, her thighs had seen more growth. She hadn’t gotten much of a look at them before, but now she could see that her legs had tripled--no, quadrupled in size. Thighs as thick as pillows blended into calves as thick as footballs which devoured her ankles and merged into her fat feet and chubby toes.

 

    She was preposterously bottom-heavy, and, given her level of exhaustion, she opted to use the wall to help her stand. In the future, she’d have to learn to stand on her own. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to need help with something as simple as walking around, but today she had more pressing concerns. 

 

    “Up and at ‘em, Eliza. You’ve got a megalomaniac to put in his place.”

 

    She retrieved her boots from where they lay by the control box and waddled over to the open elevator hitting the button labeled “Penthouse”. Villains were always either deep underground, or at the very tippy-top. As the elevator began to move upward, she realized that though her catsuit was still on and covering as much of her as it was capable of at the moment, her breasts and belly were left exposed; a long stripe of her thighs were visible on either side; and, though she couldn't verify it, she was pretty sure it also had a pretty significant hole in the back, giving a perfect view of both of her fattened cheeks. If the catsuit hadn’t allowed for much concealment before, it was doing nothing for her now. She wasn’t thrilled about fighting Kraus in the nude. 

 

    Suddenly, a new problem dawned on her: She wasn’t sure how she was going to get her boots on. She leaned forward and tried to lift her leg enough to get her shoe on, but her fat belly would bunch up under her tits and make any hope of reaching her foot useless. She groaned, realizing that she would have to sit down again, and fell down onto her behind. The metal resounded with a loud thump, and the elevator actually jostled under her weight. 

 

    She reached forward and tried to force her shoe on, but encountered yet another obstacle. Her fatter foot could be shoved into the boot with some discomfort, but her ankle and calf were simply too wide for the high top of the boot. And suddenly it all felt like too much.

 

    Eliza had risen to every challenge she’d ever encountered, and her body and mind had always pulled their own weight. Now she was, quite literally, barely able to pull the weight of her body. Getting fat was not something that happened to people like her. She’d worked hard to avoid this very thing her entire life. She’d never experienced being fat before, and it felt… well, to be honest, it felt fine. Sitting on the floor of the elevator, she was more or less able to focus. It was only when she was trying to do something physical that her newfound fatness became a problem.

 

    She squeezed at her belly experimentally, slightly surprised by how soft it felt. There was something luxurious about it, and even a little exciting in a rebellious sort of way. People like her didn’t have bodies like this. People like her weren’t allowed to have bodies like this. She felt like a kid sneaking candy or going to a movie their parents wouldn’t approve of. She was experiencing something new and forbidden, and despite her better judgment, that made her a bit excited.

 

    Besides, she had nothing to worry about. Once the mission was over, MI6 would pay for the best doctors in the country to fix her up. In the meantime, she could finally use some of that vacation time she’d been saving up. She could spend it relaxing and eating food she’d never touch under normal circumstances like cheesecake and burgers and carbs by the fistful. One hand traveled up her belly and grabbed one of her fattened breasts. 

 

    What sort of pleasures could she wring out of a body like this in the short time she’d have it? Something told her that lounging and gorging weren’t the only things her new T&A were good for.

 

    There was a loud ding, and the elevator doors slid open to reveal the henchman in gray from earlier, pointing a handgun at her and looking very confused. 

 

    She smiled, blushing at the embarrassing image and her state of undress before throwing her boot at him. The heel impacted against his head, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes. She snatched up her other boot, stuffing it under her left tiddy. 

 

    Eliza struggled to her feet, also much like a sack of potatoes, and jogged from the elevator in her bare feet, scooping up the man’s gun along the way. She’d have plenty of time to plan her vacation later. Right now she had work to do. She ran toward a set of enormous double doors at the end of the hall. 

 

    Eliza smirked as she barreled down the hallway as quickly as her fattened legs could carry her. She wasn’t going to be able to rely on her body this time around, but Eliza was still one of the most dangerous people in the world, and her mind was a far more useful tool anyway.

 

     A laser grid appeared in front of her. Crimson lines cut through the air and moved in and out, forward and back, rotating to create an obstacle course that even a slimmer Eliza would have had difficulty with, but fat Eliza raised her gun. She was having none of it. 

 

    She fired eight shots, and each bullet found its home in one of the emitters. She moved through the path she’d created and burst through the double doors, red-faced and more than a little vexed. 

 

    “Ah, Eliza. I’ve been expecting you.” Kraus stood, a glass of red wine in his good hand, and a medieval long sword in the other. “I see you’ve--”

 

    She fired the last four bullets in the magazine directly at his chest, but he raised the sword in front of him. The bullets veered off before they could find their mark and shattered the window behind Damien Kraus.

 

    “Temper temper, Eliza.” He lowered the sword, and brought the glass to his lips, taking a long sip. She took the opportunity to glance around his office: large and ornate, though sparsely furnished, the only decorations on the mahogany walls were a fireplace on her left with a coat of arms above the mantle, and the desk in front of Kraus with only a computer and landline phone sitting atop it. It looked to be made from a single piece of petrified wood. 

 

    “I prefer my original arm,” he continued, “but this one does have some benefits. A built-in electromagnet for one, longevity for another. Now, about my plan.”

 

    “Save it,” Eliza growled. “I’ve had a very rough day, and I’m not exactly thrilled about how things have gone so far. Suffice it to say that whatever you’re up to is, in some way, despicable and can’t be allowed to happen. I don’t care about the specifics as long as I can end things here.”

 

    “End things? With what weapon?” 

 

    Eliza’s gun sailed toward Kraus’s head, and he raised his sword again to repel it away. It instead hit his desk and took a chunk out of the corner. Kraus looked over at the damage and glared at her. “That was very expensive.”

 

    Eliza grabbed a sword from the coat of arms and assumed her best fencing stance or the closest approximation of one that her larger body would allow. The sword was an épée, a type of fencing sword that she was familiar with, but that gave Kraus the advantage in both range and power.

 

    “Oh? You’re approaching me?” He asked as she advanced, raising his own sword. “Instead of accepting that you can’t beat me in your current condition?”

 

     “Well,” Eliza growled. “I can’t kick your ass from all the way over there, can I?”

 

     Kraus laughed, an obscene, open-mouthed guffaw. “Well then, by all means Fräulein, come closer.”

 

     Eliza lunged, a painfully sluggish maneuver that Kraus dodged easily. He struck outward with his own attack: a sweep that Eliza thought would go wide, but it struck her on the flat of the blade and left a welt on her exposed hip. She retreated, somewhat shocked about how open her new girth left her.

 

     “Now you’re beginning to understand your situation, aren’t you Liebchen?” Kraus wiped his blade as if the blow had actually drawn blood and turned to face her. Eliza backed away. This was bad. In a fair fight she could destroy Damien Kraus, but these were not normal circumstances, and Kraus had every advantage. 

 

    And then it occurred to her that she was thinking like skinny Eliza again. How would fat Eliza deal with this? 

 

    She had every confidence in her abilities. She could fence circles around Kraus on a normal day, but the idea of going in circles just sounded exhausting to her now. That made things simple: She just had to beat him standing still. 

 

    She was sure her defense was well beyond anything he could muster. She approached slowly. Kraus rolled his neck and watched her as she entered his range. In a burst of movement he struck out at her, this time aiming with his blade. She deflected it with a flick of her wrist and repaid his slap with one of her own right across his stupid German face. He glared at her, dumbstruck.

 

     “Fencing’s not all footwork you overripe sauerkraut.” She struck out at him. He deflected, but she redirected his counter attack outward and stabbed him in the shoulder. Her defensive posturing was perfect, and, aside from shifting her weight with each blow, she barely moved at all. And what weight! Eliza’s thrusts and parries redirected the larger blade with minimal effort, and she could practically control his every move with the slightest pressure. 

 

     Just when she was about to disarm him, something unexpected happened. Her blade bent out of the path of his own, and she narrowly ducked out of the way of a swipe that would have taken her head off.

 

     “What’s the matter, Eliza?” He spat, hair disheveled, blood running freely down one shoulder. “Is the sword not doing what you tell it to?”

 

     “The magnet in your arm,” she accused.

 

     “That’s right!” he raised his sword toward her and her own was pulled toward it. The blades game together with a metallic clang, and she was stuck fast. “I can make them attract…” Suddenly she was pushed backward, her sword pressed dangerously against her own fleshy chest. “... or repel.”

 

     “What’s this?” She huffed as she finally skidded to a stop. “Can’t fight a fat girl without cheating?” 

 

     “Well, Liebchen, you are out of my weight class. Besides…” he turned away from her, keeping the pressure on her sword to keep her from approaching. “It pays to be the one with tricks up their sleeve.” 

 

     Eliza withdrew her other boot from under her left titty and threw it at Kraus’s head. He stumbled, dropping his sword and turned to face her, but Eliza was already on him. She hip-checked him and knocked him over the desk, taking the computer and telephone with him as he fell to the floor. He scrambled to his feet looking both furious and baffled.

 

     “I told you, Kraus…” She said, sword extended. “I’ll be taking your other arm now.” Kraus didn’t wait for her to make good on that. Instead, he turned and leaped from the open window behind him. Eliza gasped. And ran to look out at the snowy mountain landscape below, but Kraus’s body was nowhere to be seen. That was nothing new. Kraus had a way of disappearing. 

 

     She sighed and sat on the floor, finally giving herself a moment to relax. She retrieved the phone from the ground and dilated a familiar sixteen-digit number. 

 

     “HQ? Yes, this is Eliza hunter. I’m going to need an evac.” She paused. “No, the mission was a success, but you see, I’ve sat down now, and I’m not sure I want to get back up.” Another pause. “Oh, you’ll see when you get here.” She hung up the phone and leaned back against the desk. She would be sure to contact a plastic surgeon to fix all this once she was back in the UK, but there was no hurry. Before that, she was going to take some time for herself. Maybe go to a spa… one with an all you can eat buffet. She closed her eyes and waited for the sound of helicopters.