[JimmyDimples]

I like this one quite a bit. 🙂

I guess it must be because she's not glaring at you as if she's gonna grind you into the pavement with her heel like a cigarette butt.  ::)

That star beauty mark below her right eye was a nice touch. 

I also noticed she doesn't wear a mask or hood over her face… I guess with a bod THAT humungous, a secret identity's out of the question. 😉

[JimmyDimples]

Well, I got problems accessing DCM's blog again… I can get to the start page of http://www.blogspot.com, but when I try to access individual blogs, my browser says it's taking too long. 

I've tried this for a different blog (http://subpow.blogspot.com) and it's also not loading.

I can't prove in court it's the GFWoC at work again… but I've got reasonable suspicion.  🙁

Someone keep me posted please if Dave's done anything major? 

[JimmyDimples]

I don't have any pictures for the gallery, but I noticed two chapters of a story of mine is in "Articles." Any tips on how to upload more?

[JimmyDimples]

You're not a wimp, Rock.  You're a guy with common sense.  :-

Like my own writing shows, I've got little to no use for women, fictional or not, with  muscles the size of boulders, and hearts, souls and consciences the size of sand grains.

Glad to see we're both on the same page.

[JimmyDimples]

Player 1 Wins.

PERFECT
30,000 PT bonus

The picture rocks.  And your new avatar, Dave, rolls.  8)

[JimmyDimples]

😮

Oh,snap!  I forgot…

I want to give a big, big, BIIIIIIIIIIG shipload of thanks to:

mangamuscle, for the original concept of the villain:
Cowprobe, for developing him and shaping him up, the original artwork, and the tips and ideas

and most definitely…

Dave, the Great One, for giving me encouragement, advice, more tips and ideas… and Dyna.

And as always, all y'allz, the readers. 🙂

[JimmyDimples]

Her big gasp sucking in all the oxygen she needed for the dive, Dyna leapt overboard after the Belt.  After she hit the water, though, she realized how dark it really was.

Oh no!  she thought.  What if I can't find it down here? What if I pass it going down?  How far will it go?  How far will I have to go?

Then she sucked it in (figuratively), and set her jaw.  Never mind.  I'm gonna just keep on going down until I find it or need air… no.  Just keep going down 'til I get it back.

***

The sea water cascaded across the ballroom floor.  Frantically, the passengers in the ballrooms started slamming the doors, trying to keep it out.  Some of the more desparate-minded yanked down the curtains and tried stuffing them in the spaces at the door's bottoms, as if it were a washing machine leaking outside.  The Atlantic Ocean still seeped and jetted through the cracks at the jamb, and the bulwarks and ceiling bent, creaked, and buckled.

"I can't believe this so-called 'superheroine' just left us to drown for the sake of her belt!" Prof. DeBuncombe wailed.

"No, that's not her M.O.!" Scott reassured.  "She'll be back to save us!"

The professor flopped to the floor as it tilted sharply toward the stern.  "You'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath."

"Not funny, Uncle Marc!" Charlotte snapped as she slid past with other passengers and more water.

"Blasted straight, it isn't!"

***

Fathom after fathom, she sunk.  Then she had a brain wave.  Maybe I can just call Athena and follow her hologram toward the belt.  All I have to do is tap the… button. Crud.

Just then though, she saw the fading, dying firey blaze of the Belt down in the distance.  Summoning whatever "turbo" she had left, she accellerated downward 20 feet… 40… 60… then "clunk!"  She hit it face first.  And with that she grabbed it, flipped herself around and over, and slipped it on post haste.

Not stopping to think how much more air she'd need at Level II, she turned the buckle one quarter click to the left, and rapidly kicked herself into flying surfaceward.  And in that cold, cold, nighttime water, she welcomed the incoming magic warmth.  And all that muscle expanding all over her.  And her body getting taller, her limbs getting longer, her torso getting broader, her bosom getting bigger, rounder, and heavier.  And her speed getting faster.  She zipped at double her Level I speed… then triple… then quadruple.  Though she knew it was meant only for use in extra trouble, she LOVED getting big.

Then her heartbeat's speed quadrupled: she saw the monster squid and the whole of the ship below the surface!  Pulling the speed out of her climb and pushing it toward her target, she zeroed in like she was fired from a U-Boat.

Then in one split second, she spotted a gap between the hull and the monster's head, and like a wet thread through a needle's eye, only much faster, she slipped through it.  Planting her hands on the ship's bottom, and her feet against the rubbery sea monster, she pushed them both in opposite directions in an effort to break them up.

Pfump!  The sea beast shifted under her, and she slipped and fell with her back against the squid, which then thrust up, and slammed her face and chest first against the hull.

Getting purchase again with her feet, she pushed, pushed, PUUUUUSHED with her legs, and slowly got some more space between the Siren of the Sea, and the multi-armed monstrosity… and it slid again.  Whoomp!  The keel then slammed into the small of her back, and her chin landed very hard against the beast's noggin.

And with a speed that only happens in life-or-death situations, she did some very fast remembering and calculating.

She remembered that the Belt would give her current Level II strength, speed, and invulnerability for three days before it powered down.

She also recalled that the dreaded Level III, which gave her 4 times Level II's power (and thus 16 times her standard Level I) would last for only 2 hours before the Belt conked out completely for four days.

Feeling the water pressure increasing, she realized the ship wouldn't last that much longer.  And her own oxygen would probably be used up in less than 30 minutes.

And the passengers, if they weren't out of air already, would last only FOUR before they had to grow gills.

As the Australian proverb goes, thought Dyna, stuff this.  Let's do it.

And she scraped her arm along to the Belt's buckle, and turned it another quarter turn clockwise.

"NRRRRRMMMMN!" she screamed muffledly.  It reminded her of one time after a shower when she mistakenly touched a live phone jack searching for a dropped comb before she'd toweled off properly.  Only much worse, much more intense, and constant.  And she felt every bulge on her limbs, torso, chest, abdomen enlarge and engorge.  Her whole being felt like a bomb blasting apart in slow motion.  The murky greenish black in her field of vision took on tinges of blood red.  She somehow steeled every inner fiber of her core.  And she curled up once more into a tight ball.

All right… so long… chum.

KUH-THOOOM!  Palms shot up, legs and feet shot down, and she instantly lost her footing.  She'd lost the squid.  Then she looked up into her empty hands.

She'd lost the ship!

Then she looked up into the sky… and saw the Siren of the Sea was flipping stern upward, and shooting up through the surface like a bottle rocket.

***

"AAAIIIEEEEEEGH!"

The masses of tourists slid down a floor that was quickly turning into a wall.  And they started piling up on the bow side wall, now their floor.  Scott wound up on the bottom of the heap.  And he didn't know which was flattening him worse: the mass of humanity atop him, or the g-forces of the ships ascent.

***

Shoom!  Dyna blasted out of the ocean straight up.  Her field of sight had a very bad case of tunnel vision… everything except the ship above her was nothing but a blood red blur.  Only one thought entered her head, which ached and throbbed like the rest of her veiny, muscularly bloated body:  Catch ship, catch ship, catch ship, catch ship…

And just as the ship got its bow straight down and perpendicular to the sea, and before it start flipping upside down, Dyna's big arms wrapped around the curvy V of the vessel's fore section.  KLUNG!  It drove her down like a hammer would a nail.  But she kept pushing and pushing back until she'd coasted to a stop and just got her silver winged shoes wet.  And as much as the aching and agony pushed her to just let go and let it splash down like a log, she remembered there were about 19 others that had gotten knocked overboard with her.  No way did she want to dump thousands of tons of ironclad on their heads.  So she painfully, slowly, arthritically lowered it, and let it settle into the stinking ocean.

And she did a midair pivot to scan the sea for threats.  No Mezaros anywhere.  No zombie soldiers.  And she checked the water… it was an ugly, stenching, ink-black mess of squid legs and other parts.  It looked like someone threw a bomb into the world's biggest floating sushi bar.

The Siren of the Sea, meanwhile, looked like an old mangled aluminum tube of toothpaste used by someone who squeezed from the middle, not from the end up.  She was amazed that the thing was still floating at all; in fact, it was a miracle that it was still above the surface.  Reaching over to her belt, she quickly turned the Belt's buckle back to Level II.  And the raw, burning energy faded away, and she felt her body constrict, and shrink back to a "smaller" 7'4" tall.  With a deep breath, she sighed in relief.

"Help!  Somebody help us!"

That came from the water.  The others that got knocked off when she was Deena!

Finally, she did a quick loop around, and counted them all.  Yup, nineteen total.  She dove down to the nearest, thickest cluster.  "It's all right!" she said.  "I've got you!  And you, sweetie, climb onto my back, you take my waist, sir…"  And she quickly cradled a waitress to her side, let a pensioner hang onto the other, let a young lad climb on her back, and hugged a mother with her free arm.  And she began shuttling the people up to the deck.

At long last after she'd gotten everyone somewhere relatively dryer, she smiled wearily.  "I don't think this Mezaros scumbag will be bothering us again any time soon," she announced to everyone.  "But I won't stray too far until I'm SURE he's gone.  Captain, have you radioed for any help at all?"

"U.S. Navy's on its way, and one of our cruise ships on its return trip, too."

"Good, good.  Any serious injuries that need to be flown in to a hospital?"

"Some sprained ankles and bruised limbs from when we flew up," said the ship doctor, "but nothing major we can't handle.  We're all ALIVE, thank God."

"I hear you, there.  I promise I'll stay nearby until you guys are safe and clear."  She leapt up into the air.  "Till then, I'd better go out on patrol!"  And she flew off due west.

"Hey!" Scott cried. "Dyna, wait! WAIT!"  He waved his arms frantically at the departing Damsel Dynamo.  "My girlfriend's not here!  She got knocked overboard by that giant octopus!"  She kept flying on.  "Dyna! DYNA!"

But she dipped low, and disappeared into the night sea.  Scott sunk to his knees. "Dyna…"

He felt a hand on his shoulder.  "Don't worry, old boy," Prof. DeBuncombe reassured.  "We'll scour the sea until we've found her."

"But what if she's injured and can't call out?" Scott dreaded.  "Or what if she's… drowned?"

"Help!" a woman screamed.  "Help!  Woman overboard!  Throw down a lifering or something!"

Scott gasped.  And it was all the Professor could do to stop him from jumping off after Deena.

***

Carrie Harper scanned the carvings in the wall.  And the characters.  She had fought to keep her sanity.  True she didn't feel any itches or boils or other unpleasantries in her stone form, but she'd have been grateful if she could move at all.

Then she remembered something her sainted aunt Kathy, a sister in the coventry, had told her:  "If things get rotten, just praise the Lord.  Things could be worse."

Well, Carrie was an agnostic, but what could it hurt?  So she idly thought, Well, praise the Lord.

Then her knees started to tremble.  And she felt an itch on the back of her left thigh.  And her athlete's foot under her right toe acted up.  If her frozen face could've smiled, she would have. She was about to stoop to scratch it… and realize she couldn't.  Everything below her waist was flesh and blood… but everything above it was stone.  She couldn't move her arms or head or anything.

Her legs trembled.  They bent… and at last they buckled.  She fell to the floor.

She repeated silently, praise the Lord, things could be worse.

Then she heard something crack up on the temple's ceiling.  And something of heavy stone moved.

Down into the chamber descended Mezaros.  And he looked like the proverbial 40 miles of bad road.  The one between Baghdad and Fallujah.  And like he'd stepped on every land mine and IED along the way.

And he was not smiling, to say the least.

Carrie stayed perfectly still.  You were right, Kathy, she thought.  Things got worse.

***

Deena draped the blanket around her tightly.  "And I thought three days with no toilets on the Destiny was a disaster."

Scott hugged her even tighter.  "Thank God you're all right."

The Professor drew near, his face wracked horribly with remorse.  "I'm terribly, terribly sorry about getting you knocked over," he apologized profusely.

"Please don't," she said.  "It wasn't YOUR giant octopus.  And hey, you stopped that soldier from putting a blade through my gizzard.  You saved my life."

"Well…" the Professor blushed.

"And hey," Scott added.  "Dyna saved us ALL.  We all owe her.  Big time."

Prof. DeBuncombe's face tightened.  "Well…" he said, very tensely and tersely.

Deena looked at him cockeyed.  "Well, don't gush and get all slobbery over her."

He leaned in toward Scott and Deena.  "I've always prided myself as a skeptic and a mythbuster.  Found a logical explanation for all the ancient mysteries.  But everything I thought I knew about the old worlds has just been turned on its ear.  Mezaros is proof that Atlantis exists.  And if Atlantis is true, then so are the legends behind Athena… AND the Amazons that serve her."  His eyes narrowed.  "And THEIR history makes Atlantis, dark as it may be with this Mezaros, seem like that insipid musical in comparison."

Deena bristled.  "But Dyna–"

"–is in league with the Amazons," Prof. DeBuncombe interrupted.  "And that means we can't really trust her 100%."  He sighed.  "Look, it's been a perfectly wretched night, and I've had no sleep at all.  What say we continue this chat and I explain it all when I'm not as frazzled?"  He produced a business card.  "Feel free to call or e-mail when we're all back in the USA."

"OK, thanks," Deena said, unsurely.

"By your leave."  And DeBuncombe idled off toward another part of the deck.  "My cruise to the Azores cut short," he murmured.  "My, is Carrie going to be sorely disappointed."

Scott draped his arms around his sweetheart.  "Deena," he asked idly, "why didn't we go to Walt Disney/MGM Studios instead?"

Deena honestly felt the same way, partly.  But then she saw a mother and dad hug their little boy closely as he slept.  The Professor nestling in, trying to calm a still-nervous Charlotte.  Even that lousy tenor from the musical sharing his MRE with a showgirl.

And she knew that she should have been nowhere else that night.  She had her answer why.

All she said, though, was, "Wish I could tell you, Scott.  Wish I could tell you."

The End

Next Issue:  Aries' Hostile Takeover

[JimmyDimples]

Invisible Woman…  ::)

I didn't see that one coming. 😛

ADDENDUM:  Oh, while chatting with WeirdWolfCA, he came up with one idea that was pure genius… literally.

Mad Doctor Sonya Gannon.

"Bwaaah-hahahahahaaa!  Must… make… bigger!  Bigger!  Bigger!! BIIIIIIGGEEERRRRRR!!!"

[JimmyDimples]

Great stuff!  Thanks for sharing!  ;D

[JimmyDimples]

The Belt glowed.  The buckle shined.  And in one instant Mezaros' eyes brightened, and his evil grin grew so wide, Dyna thought the back of his head would flip back like a shampoo bottle cap.

And in another instant, his evil elation melted away.  And in same said instant, on the Belt's buckle… Dyna caught Athena's image's eyes narrowing into a glare.

Suddlenly sparks spat out around the belt like a 91-day-old cheap radio.  Then bright orange-yellow arcs of energy coursed all over his waist, thights, and abdomen.  Mezaros' eyes then widened in alarm and the fringe of terror.  He pointed his staff at the belt.  "Quxis ug Mohjv, hiv exez gsun ni!" he chanted quickly.

Wave after wave of sickly puke-green evil magic wafted from his wand to his body, and the fountain of the Belt's bright power shoved back.  His whole body then wrapped in two auras, the border of conflict moving up and down his torso like a sideways clock's pendulum.  Collapsing to the ship's deck, he twitched in pain as his legs and pelvis began to smoulder.

Keeping his wand pointed at his middle, he agoniously turned his head up toward Dyna.  "What in the name of Tartarus is THIS treachery!?" he groaned, voice breaking.

"The Belt's Curse," Dyna simply said, softly enough for him alone to hear.  "When Athena gave it to me, she told me that only the woman she deemed worthy to wear it would get its power. If an unchosen woman puts it on and clicks the button, it does nothing.  But if any MAN does it…" Her eyes narrowed like Athena's. "A very fast, painful, messy death." The nauseating smoke from below Mezaros' waist got thicker, and it made Dyna wrinkle her nose.  "Sure, your dark sorcery's staving it off, but you can't hold it back forever."

The malicious magician's face twisted into spitting rage.  "You knew this would happen!  You double-dealing daughter of a harlot, you KNEW!"

Dyna coolly folded her ample arms under her enormous chest. "One, I tried to warn you… you cut me off.  Two, I didn't exactly put a sword to YOUR neck or anyone else's to make you take it.  You wanted the power so badly… and you got it."

Now as he grimaced and grunted through clenched teeth, Mezaros and the belt crackled like someone shot a fire hose at an electrical distribution station.  And just then, his lower half caught fire, and launched flames up to doorknob height.  His scream then hit high C.

"CIMV, HIV EXEZ GSUN NI!"

And the belt shot off his body over his legs' remains like a blazing cork from a pop gun, and clanked onto the deck, scorching it.

In the ballroom, Scott peered hard, trying to see the action from the middle of the crowd he'd been pushed back into by the ghoul guard.  He wish he hadn't left his camcorder back in his cabin.  "What's going on?" he demanded.  "What did Dyna say?"

Charlotte, who'd bravely crouched down, peeked between a zombie guard's legs.  "Don't know what she said," she replied, "but it looks like that Mezaros guy's flat on the deck, and his legs are burnt off!"  She giggled.  "Guess his name's now Mess o' Roast!"

Peering over, even Professor DeBuncombe snickered grimly.  "Looks like he's half the man he once was."

Overhearing that, Dyna stifled a chuckle.  She had to keep those on file.

K-shunk!  A swordpoint landed straight down, right in front of Charlotte's face.  She winced and shook back.  But then she saw a fine grey dust shower down over the blade.  Then a single detatched finger fell down next to the sword point.  Then another.  Then two more, then  the rest of the hand.  Then the guard's bracelet plummeted with a clunk, then all the armor shuddered and clanked.

The young girl quickly scooted away into the crowd, and she saw her instant hunch was right.  The undead warrior trembled all over, and then very quickly disintergrated, cascading to the floor into a pile of ash.  And its armor, weaponry, and regalia collapsed with a muffled thud atop the heap.

Then someone in the living throng pointed.  "Look!"

Scott did.  Another crested helmet on the edge of the cluster of captives dropped out of sight.  Then another.  And another.  And very steadily, each and every member of Mezaros' legion fell apart into mounds of sandy granules, damp muck, and ruined livery.

Dyna saw the minions crumble as well, and the relieved murmuring of the crew and tourists was music to her ears.  A whole sweet symphony.

Not far from her feet, though, was a hacking rasp.  "You think you have now triumphed, Dyna?"

She looked down.  Somebody just had to yell Free Bird at this concert.

Crawling, wallowing in the charred soot that was once his legs, was Mezaros.  "Whole body or no," he growled, "I am STILL the great, eternal mage of Atlantis.  You are LESS than dust."

Using his staff as a crutch, he worked his body up, hand over hand, righted himself, and rose to float in the air.  Twirling the staff in both hands in the air like a witch's ladle in a caldron, he summoned up a spell.  The Belt then floated up to his level behind him.

"If I do not defeat you immediately, I'll outlive you later." His snarl escalated. "Then I'll find your patron Athena and devour both her AND her owl!"  The staff glowed on both ends.  "Traof… qamm vji tjoq fuwp… EPF FSUWP VJIN EMM!*

Whoomp!  A bus-sized squid wrapped around the ship's bow.  Whoomp!  A second wrapped atop the ballroom with the passengers in them.  Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!  More titanic tendrils entwined all around the ship, and squeezed down, crushing the bridge into the floor below it.  The whole hull creaked and bent all around.

And with the wand's wave, the Belt shot over Dyna's head at bullet speed, shot through the portside railing and into the sea.  The half-torsoed terror catapulted himself over the rails starboard and into the depths.

And the monster mollusk quickly plunged the Siren of the Sea straight down.

To Be Concluded…

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