[Fonk]

Mmmm, that's pretty sweet! 😀

[Fonk]

Happy Birthday to you!

I got you this icon: 😀

[Fonk]

Very cool. As ever! 😎

[Fonk]

Hmm. I really like Will Conrad's style, so it's a shame for me that he's going. That snippet of Paul Smith's work that Masschine linked to (thanks!) doesn't exactly fill me with optimism, either… 🙁

[Fonk]

I really like what you've got so far. It's a great idea and I'd love to see where you're going to take it.

So the question is, what sort of advice are you looking for? Do you want suggestions on where to go with it, or suggestions on how to improve what you've already got?

[Fonk]

Mmm-mmm, that's some fantastic art, right there! I've got my fingers crossed for more… 😀

[Fonk]

I'd just like to say that I love your work! Some of my favourite ever FMG strips are in neverkick3. And now neverkick4! 😀

[Fonk]

"Then you haven't seen everything, have you Gary?"

I love that film! 😀

[Fonk]

OK, a bit of introduction is needed here. I decided a couple of months ago that I wanted the two Floridas to cross paths… it just took me ages to figure out how to do it! For the purposes of this chapter, "Florida A" refers to the Florida from the "A" storyline; similarly, "Florida B" refers to the Florida from the "B" storyline. As you might expect! 😉 Hope you like it, gang!

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Florida A was glad that she could no longer feel panic; she would almost certainly have been unable to think straight otherwise. The trapped titaness estimated that she had three-quarters of her strength left. Her breasts were beginning to weigh on her weakening chest, so she lay on the floor, careful as ever not to touch the surrounding energy field. The gentle goliath began to think of escape plans again. Her previous best had a 71% chance of success, but that had been when she was at full strength. After three minutes' deliberation, Florida A concluded that the new best plan had an 11% chance of success.

Knowing that optimism is always better than pessimism, Florida A had to make sure that despondency did not get the better of her. She concentrated on trying to contact Nefla telepathically, warning her second-in-command not to try and rescue her directly. Helverton was so sure that any rescue attempt would end in the girls' deaths that she felt something had been prepared. As to what exactly it was… there were so many possibilities that even Florida A's superb intuition couldn't work it out.

In fact, the more the gargantuan genius thought about it, the more she realised that the best thing to do was wait. The shrinking Amazon assessed her strength levels again – she was at around 35% of her original power. Florida A rolled gingerly onto her back and took stock of her physical appearance. Most of the fabulous muscles were gone: the luscious leviathan's measurements had returned to within ordinary human levels. With unshaken optimism in her heart, she rolled back onto her stomach and closed her eyes.

—

Florida B was listening to the Goddess' last-minute instructions. The pair were standing in the teleportation chamber, the hypermuscular historian looking down at her kindly double, who was explaining how to use the clunky hover boots, communicator and stun rifle she sported. Florida B wasn't taking in much of the talk, despite the Goddess' urgent tone – she felt queasy and was concentrating on not vomiting. The journey across dimensions was not one she wished to repeat any time soon. It was like being ripped apart, atom by atom, and put back together in an instant.

"Have you understood?" the Goddess finished. "I can repeat anything you wish." Florida B nodded her head, her giant mane of hair billowing around the room. "Good," the Goddess said. "All that remains is for me to send you into the chamber. The most important thing to remember is that you must not touch the floor under any circumstances. There is enough electricity flowing through it to kill you instantly." Florida B nodded again, having decided that opening her mouth for verbal communication was a bad idea. She clicked the heels of the boots together, just like the Goddess had shown her, and the boots activated.

The Goddess examined her footwear critically as Florida B rose a foot into the air. "They seem to be working well," she murmured. "I have never had to make a pair for someone of your… dimensions before, Florida, and I was concerned that they would be unable to support your weight." The bulked-up babe couldn't resist: "I'm just big-boned." The Goddess smiled at her and, for a fraction of a second, Floria B felt her power. The Goddess broke the spell when she moved to pick up the remote teleporter controls. "I will send you in one minute's time. Good luck, Florida." She nodded.

—

Florida A's eyes flicked open.

Something new was happening.

The cannon had switched itself off, which she concluded meant she now had the minimum amount of strength necessary to live. Groggily she examined herself: her ten foot body was shorn of the incredible muscle that it had sported earlier. However, that was not what had awoken her. Quickly but carefully the weakened woman looked around. Her prison was still very much intact. She sniffed at the air – something reeked, and, when she concentrated, Florida A could hear a sizzling noise. As she looked around the room to try and locate it, she saw an almost exact copy of herself floating in the air a few metres away.

The prone prisoner gasped. There was a flash of dark blue energy and then blissful unconsciousness took her away.

—

"Dammit!" Florida B cursed herself furiously. "That – that was the definition of 'bungling', you stupid witch." The jolt of being teleported had pushed the massive musclewoman's stomach over the edge. She had vomited. Gravity had made its inevitable contribution, so the pile of bile was frying neatly underneath her on the electrified floor, giving off a powerful, acrid stench. The smell had woken her counterpart. Panicked, Florida B had stunned her, which was not part of the plan. The rifle was intended for self-defence purposes only.

An insistent bleeping rang through the air. Florida B flipped open her communicator and the Goddess' comforting face appeared. "You have a job to do, Florida, do not dwell unnecessarily. This world's Florida is not harmed. She will sleep for about ten minutes." Florida B nodded, closed the device down and tried to regain her composure. Ignoring the thrashing, raging swells in her gut, the ravishing rescuer moved awkwardly over to the cannon dominating the room, using the running motion that the Goddess had taught her. She got a good grip on its ladder, switched the boots off and began to climb to the controls.

In a flash the bountiful beauty had reached the array of buttons and levers. She glanced over them and found what she was looking for. She pulled the lever marked "DRAIN" down to its minimum negative value, and followed that up by pushing the "ON" switch. Immediately the cannon hummed into life and projected a thick scarlet beam over the energy field that surrounded the other Florida. Florida B grinned hugely.

—

Florida A was floating. She had her original body back: five foot of bespectacled, skinny archaeologist in a white T-shirt and khaki shorts. The worried faces of her fellow Amazonians surrounded her, but she remained unconcerned. They began to cry out: "Queen Florida! What is wrong?" "What has happened?" "How can we help?" "Yes! Let us help you in your hour of need!" Florida A smiled politely. "I am not in need of help, my friends," she responded, looking at as many of them as she could. "I am quite safe. The Goddess has provided." Relief broke out on their faces.

As she looked proudly at them all, their images began to swirl around her, blurring into a mess of colour, before disappearing. Colonel Helverton's cold features came into view. "You will never escape, you know," he crowed. "We will keep you here until the curse of the Amazonians is eradicated from our planet." Florida A merely smiled serenely. This seemed to enrage Helverton. "Where are your precious muscles now? Hmmm?" he taunted. "I gave them to you for safe keeping," Florida A replied. Helverton's image frowned. "I think I will take them back now, thank you."

The defiant woman's body started to pulse. Muscles began to blossom, and accordingly tears began to appear in her clothes. They exposed parts of her rippling six-pack abs, expanding delts, enlarging traps and swelling breasts. Her expansion became too much: the T-shirt tore into pieces and fell away, joined by the shorts, revealing Florida's naked body. She looked like a young female bodybuilder and flexed her biceps at Helverton, whose jaw had dropped in awe. Florida A tilted her head to the left and pouted.

"Like what you see?" she purred, lost in the sexual throes of her change. "How is this possible?" he roared in angry confusion. "That," panted Florida A, "would be telling." She looked down at her still swelling form, enjoying the rush of all her muscles growing at once. Without clothes to restrict it, her body was expanding that much faster. Past six feet, through to seven, approaching eight. Biceps beyond forty, fifty, now sixty inches. Breasts bigger than melons, volleyballs, now basketballs. Thighs more than sixty, seventy, now eighty inches.

"What a rush!" Florida A whispered, feeling her entire body on the crest of orgasm. There was no reason to hold herself back, so the bloating babe let it happen. A small part of Florida A's brain knew it was a dream, or a fantasy, or something – but it was still the most intense experience of her life. Colours flashed before her eyes as if her retinas were plugged into rainbows. Her entire body quivered and shook as another wave washed over her still-growing form. Florida A roared as the joy turned into pleasurable pain.

The image of Helverton was purple with embarrassment. Her body bloated further: a single ab was bigger than the man's hands. One of her titanic thighs was wider than his whole body. Her pulsating pecs pushed her outrageous boobs out a metre and more in front of her. Helverton was unable to take his eyes off her erect nipples as they blossomed from her expanding areolae, like a flower waking. The Amazonian academic grew beyond her previous maximum, Helverton's face boiling with rage as it did so. When she stopped expanding, Florida A was ten foot six, bulging with more muscles than a battalion of bodybuilders and burning with more sexiness than a platoon of porn stars.

"How is this possible?!" he screamed. "The Goddess has provided," she repeated, exploring her mammoth body lustily. He dismissed her reply. "Impossible. No woman can be this strong." Florida A faced to her captor. "This is the strength I had all along," she whispered, striding towards Helverton. "No!" he cried. "What are you doing? Stop!" The sumptuous superbabe stopped with her gigantic globes hovering over the man's head. "I have this strength and I will not hurt you," she mused, looking through her cavernous cleavage at the cowering colonel. "Yet you have none and wish to rid this world of me. We will soon be doing things my way… I hope you like it."

—

"Yes!" Florida B cried. Her counterpart's body was growing. "I did it!" The communicator beeped. "Excellent, Florida," the Goddess congratulated. "Now you must open the doors and turn the power off for the floors so that the Amazonians of this world can properly rescue their mistress." Florida B nodded. She clicked the boots into life, let go of the ladder and air-jogged over to the doors. She carefully applied enough pressure to the door to open it quietly, not wishing to alert the guards.

Floating on through, Florida B searched for the switch, finding it on the opposite wall. She leaned down to push it – the hum that had been going on the background wound down and stopped. A couple of seconds later the communicator beeped again. "You are exceptional, Florida," the Goddess stated. "Your last task is to make sure this world's Florida regains her strength and then set her free." "It will be my pleasure," she replied, smiling widely.

As the floor was safe, Florida B disengaged the boots and surprisingly landed with barely a sound. She padded back into the chamber and watched as her double writhed on the floor, body inflating to beyond superhuman standards. Abs etched onto the torso, calves pushed off the floor, biceps and triceps billowed. She tore her eyes away from the sight to look for a final switch. The energy field could, apparently, be turned off by flicking a lever on the wall to its left. Florida B closed her eyes contentedly. Life was good.

—

Florida A's eyes flicked open. Unlike last time, she was wide awake, with all her considerable mental capacity running at full tilt. She stood up carefully, expecting the energy prison to still be around her… but it had gone. Frowning a little, she drew herself up to her full height. She was taller – not by much, just six inches, but taller nonetheless. Frowning more, the wondrous woman threw a double biceps pose. Eighty mountainous inches of raw strength towered from her arm, the muscle so thick it threatened to spill over the side, like a waiter carrying a soccer ball on a small plate.

Before Florida A could examine herself more, the alarm sounded. The even-more-awesome Amazon rolled her eyes. "Not again!" she groaned.

— To Be Continued —

I think the storylines will now split apart again, and that there'll be only one more chapter of each before I wrap things up. This monster has taken up so much of my time already! 😳

[Fonk]

Goodness, has it been that long since I last added a chapter to this? 😮

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Questions flew around Florida's mind like moths gathering around a flame. Her jaw opened and closed as more arrived, barging to the front of the queue like petulant children. The Goddess's image smiled benevolently at her other self before breaking the silence. "You must have many questions," she said encouragingly. Florida nodded, wide-eyed. "Ask one," the Goddess whispered. So Florida did, snatching at the first one flying around her brain.

"Are you really me?" the hypermuscular historian asked. "It would be most accurate to say that I am a you," the Goddess replied. Florida frowned. "I don't understand, Goddess," she said sheepishly. "Are you a clone?" The Goddess smiled more fully. "No, I am not," the divine woman responded. "Perhaps it will be more… illuminating if I took you to my ship," she suggested. "Would that be acceptable to you?"

Florida didn't respond immediately: her mind was still trying to process everything. Her life had been turned upside-down twice in quick succession… more than anything else, the amazing Amazon needed time to catch her breath. "I have no idea if she's on the level," she thought, "and I was wrong about Nefla. But I've gone with the flow so far… yeah. Let's take it to the end." The massively muscled megababe smiled to herself. "Besides, I could probably fight my way out of any trouble she could cook up!"

She nodded to the Goddess, whose face lit up with joy. "Teleportation will begin shortly," she said, and vanished. Instantly Florida was enveloped in a strange artificial mist. She peered closely at the bizarre fog: it looked like TV screen snow hovering in the air all around her. If Florida had been able to observe herself from the outside, she would have seen the mist fold around her body like wrapping paper, and then quickly compress to a single dot about two inches across, which would have hung in the air for a second before disappearing. As it was, when the luscious leviathan blinked again, the mist had lifted and she was somewhere else.

Florida's jaw went slack with wonder. She was standing in a huge cylindrical chamber with a central pedestal. The ceiling, some forty feet away, was made up of light grey tiles of a material Florida did not recognise, as was the floor. The pillar in the middle of the room was also grey and it was rotating slowly. The walls were covered in hundreds of flat screens, all displaying Florida Cranes doing wildly different things.

As her eyes flicked from screen to screen, Florida spotted herself leading the tribe into battle against an army of what looked like centaurs; another Florida was conducting a birth celebration, headdress flickering in the candlelight; one was getting married, even, but by far the majority were either undergoing one of the three tests or receiving their reward. The bulging behemoth tilted her head as she saw muscles pump up to immense sizes, or breasts enlarge, or huge rocks rise painfully into the sky.

A subtle change in the air made Florida turn quickly to face the rotating pillar. She looked, for the first time, at the top of the column. It held a simple black swivel chair, on which sat the Goddess. The ginormous goliath genuflected as best she could, lowering her head in deference. "There is no need for that, Florida," the Goddess chided gently when she stepped off the chair with easy grace. The musclewoman blushed as she stood up straight again. The Goddess was exactly like her image had been: a six foot woman clothed in a white dress, blushing with beauty, toned but displaying no obvious muscle mass.

"May I ask a question, O Goddess?" Florida inquired politely. The smaller woman took her massive counterpart's hand in hers. "Of course," she replied softly. "That is why I brought you here." Florida nodded and smiled, a little uncomfortably. "What is this place?" she asked, gesturing around at the banks of monitors that surrounded the pair. The Goddess watched Florida's inhumanly huge muscles flex and contract through the motion as if hypnotised by them. "You are truly strong," she said, ignoring the question for the moment. "I am proud that you thought of the perfect plan to defeat Nefla. Naturally, I would have protected you whatever happened. You would never have come to harm."

"Then why set the test in the first place?" asked Florida. She was incapable of keeping a note of anger from her voice and regretted it instantly. The Goddess' expression became severe for a moment before she answered. "In addition to the three trials, each Florida may be called upon to face other trials before becoming Queen of the Amazons. That was yours." The superwoman's head slumped in shame. "I apologise," she said. "Think no more of it," the Goddess said, the good humour back in her voice.

"You are in what I like to call the Floridarium. It's where I keep watch on the most interesting incarnations of Florida Crane. In the broader scheme of things, we are on my spaceship, in orbit around what you think of as the planet Mars." The awe-inspiring academic took this in. "How can there be more than one of us?" she wondered aloud. The Goddess smiled, the broadest smile Florida had yet seen her give.

"Each and every decision that we make affects the world," the divine woman began. "Have you ever wondered what would happen if you had decided to do something differently?" Her counterpart nodded slowly. "Well, somewhere, you did make the decision differently. The consequences of that different decision are then played out in a new dimension." The thought sank in. "There must be infinite numbers of dimensions!" Florida gasped after a moment. The Goddess nodded. "Just from decisions that you took alone," she confirmed.

"How are you able to watch so many of them?" The Goddess' eyes shifted focus slightly, as if they were looking into the past. "I discovered that I could switch dimensions by – well, the science will be beyond you. I believe it took me months to work through the mathematics involved, and my IQ is in excess of two thousand," she continued. Florida's eyes widened in awe. She also noted the strange use of the word "believe", but didn't query it. "I also built this vessel. I used it to travel to many other dimensions. Whilst visiting the ones in which the ship's computer predicted the Florida Crane would locate the Temple of the Amazons, I planted a microscopic camera to find her and broadcast images here to me of her life. The camera also acts as a tracer, so I can get back to that Florida if I need to. The ship can also travel through time."

She paused. Florida used the moment to ask a question. "So am I on one of these screens?" she said thoughtfully. "Naturally," the Goddess replied simply. She turned and pointed to a monitor a couple of feet below the ceiling and to their left. Florida stared at the spot but it was simply too far away: all she could make out was a smudge of vibrant colour as the images melted into one. A thought then struck her and she couldn't help herself. "Are you on one of them?" she blurted out. For the first time since they had met, the divine woman frowned. She looked intently into her titanic double's eyes. "I sincerely have no idea," she said. There was a thought-filled pause whilst Florida worked things out.

"You don't remember your life?" she asked eventually. The Goddess shook her head. "Once I realised what I was destined to become, I erased my memory of everything up to the point I started construction on the ship." The stunning superbabe had a hunch, but wanted clarification. "Why did you do that?" she asked. "I wanted to avoid a paradox," was the simple reply. "This way, I will have no idea of how I helped my past self, and will be able to do the job properly." Florida nodded slowly: she had been right. From the tiny smattering of science fiction she had seen on TV she knew that nothing good came of paradoxes. Another thought struck the mammoth musclewoman.

"You'll be here forever, won't you?" The Goddess bit her lip and nodded. "I have no chance at all of covering infinity, Florida," she agreed. "So, yes, I will be here until I die." Suddenly Florida was overcome with pity for the Goddess. She lead a lonely existence, fighting what she knew would ultimately prove a fruitless battle to care for the Amazonian tribe through the ages in billions upon billions of dimensions. Florida moved to hug her counterpart. The superpowered strongwoman swept the Goddess off her feet and gently pressed the smaller woman to her bloated bosom.

"There aren't many people who can say they've literally hugged themselves," Florida said to herself, and grinned. She realised with a start that she could have crushed the Goddess if she wanted, right then and there. "The power I hold in my hands," she thought grimly. She released her ultra-intelligent double gently. When the Goddess was facing her again, Florida was astonished to note that she was crying. A single, horrible tear slid down her left cheek, but there was a beautiful, crinkled smile on her lips. She mouthed the words "Thank you" to the tremendous titaness. Florida nodded, returning the sad smile.

"With respect, that wasn't quite what I meant, Goddess," she said humbly. "I meant that you have to find your past self. Otherwise your creation cannot take place, and you won't be around to put your past self on the path to becoming your current self." The Goddess took a deep breath. "Paradoxes are tricky beasts, Florida," she opined. "I have taken steps to ensure that I live as long as possible. The only other comforting thought I have is my own existence: I myself am proof that I succeed in finding my past self at some point."

Again Florida nodded. "I even followed that," she laughed to herself. "So," she said aloud, "why do you not think of it as the planet Mars?" The Goddess grinned. "I was wondering if you were going to make a comment on that. It's an interesting story, actually. At the beginning of the twenty-second century in my dimension, a group of Italian astronomers found – " But that was as far as the story ever went, because at that moment an alarm sounded.

Panic began to rear its unwelcome head in Florida's mind. "What's going on?" she cried over the noise of the siren. The Goddess looked around calmly at the mass of screens before fixing her gaze onto one on roughly the middle of the far wall. "One of the Floridas I am observing is in grave danger," she informed her double as she strode to her chair. "Climb on," she gestured to the stunned strongwoman. Florida mounted the pillar gingerly, standing behind the Goddess' seat. The smaller woman pushed a button and the structure began to rise, rotating slowly as it did so.

With a grim expression marring her beautiful features, the Goddess sat calmly. When the column stopped rising, she fixed one of the monitors with a steely glare. Florida couldn't tell which one she was looking at, it was so far away. "What's going on?" she whispered in the Goddess' ear. The superintelligent scientist passed her counterpart a telescope. "Look for the red light," she said simply. Florida cast her a brief glance; there was real anger in her voice. Florida put the instrument to her eye and looked around. When she found what she was looking for, it only took a few seconds for her to work out what was happening. Her eyes widened in shock.

The picture showed a version of Florida Crane who was trapped in some kind of energy field. As the pair watched, her muscles were being drained away at a fantastic rate. "Florida," the Goddess whispered, her anger tightly controlled, "I wonder if you could do me a favour…"

—To Be Continued—

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