"So, um...what are we going to do now, Artie?" asked Lizy shortly after helping her friend back onto his feet.
"I...I don't know, Lizy," coughed Arthur as he still tried to recover from his near-death experience with Lizy's massive mammaries. "We need to figure out what agent you came into contact with, but we can't just go back to Briar Labs. We'd be escorted off the premises, assuming we don't get arrested first that is."
A very perplexed look plastered itself onto Lizy's face.
"What the heck are you talking about?" asked Lizy quizzically. "I wanted to know what we were gonna do about our unemployment problem. We're both kinda out of a job now, remember?"
"Yes, I remember," declared Arthur as he straightened his shirt and glasses. "But that's not important right now. What IS important is trying to figure out what kind of material you were exposed to."
"Well, why?" replied Lizy confusedly. "I mean, yeah, I'm about the size of a bulldozer, but I seem to be okay."
"In fact," continued Lizy with a smile. "I actually feel pretty good! Better than I have in a very long time."
"Well, that may be so," responded Arthur. "But surely you don't want to spend the rest of your life looking like that, now do you?"
Lizy quickly glanced over her rippling sinew and then blushed yet again.
"Um...n-no, not really," replied Lizy nervously as she avoided direct eye contact. She had to admit, the idea of being that huge, all day, every day, was just plain embarrassing.
"Then we should figure out a way to get into Briar Labs' Archival Department," stated Arthur in a very serious tone. "Or at the very least, get access to their database."
"They've got to have a cure, a name, something related to your mystery agent in there," he said as he walked towards Lizy's kitchen.
Arthur took a seat at the kitchen table, then rubbed his chin as he began to fall deep into thought. He was pondering how to get to the information he needed, without breaking any laws. Or more than likely, finding a way that involved breaking as few laws as physically possible. He wanted to know the truth, but not in such a way that could easily land him and Lizy in prison.
Lizy followed suit by gently leaning against the kitchen counter (the chairs in the kitchen obviously wouldn't support her weight anymore). After a minute or two though, Lizy stopped trying to think about what to do next and instead began to look at her hands again, fiddling with the band-aids on her fingers out of boredom.
"Wow, this is all so weird, isn't it?" asked Lizy in a rather relaxed tone, reflecting on everything that's happened thus far. "One minute, I'm just regular old me. Then the next minute, I'm 'Lizy, Queen of the Barbarians'."
"I swear," continued Lizy with a weak smile and a soft laugh. "It's almost as if I'm a character in a comic bo..."
Lizy suddenly stopped her train of thought. She had an epiphany.
"Wait...a comic book..." she stated aloud as she began to rub her chin as well.
Lizy then acquired an even greater epiphany.
"OH MY GOD!" screamed Lizy emphatically as she leaped away from the counter. "I'VE BECOME A SUPERHERO!!!"
"What?" queried Arthur, having suddenly returned from his pondering. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"Don't you see, Artie!" declared the rather ecstatic catgirl. "I've got superpowers now! That means I can become a superhero and finally realize my dream of fighting crime! Of making a difference!"
"WHAT!?" reiterated Arthur, now flabbergasted by his friend's declaration.
"I could have a cape and leather boots and a cute mask and oh, you could be my sidekick!" she stated exuberantly as she bounced around vigorously. "We could have really cool names too, like 'Adventure Girl and her trusty young sidekick, Smart Boy'!"
"Now wait just a minute!" stated Arthur, trying to get a word in edgewise.
"Oh man," dreamed Lizy. "The both of us fighting crime together, taking on the biggest baddies the world has ever known? It's gonna be totally awesome!"
Arthur just sat there, completely stupefied by her spiel.
"What?" queried Lizy when she noticed Arthur's eerie silence and contorted visage.
"Are...are you completely insane!?" he finally replied with a mixture of shock and concern.
"Oh Artie, come on!" whined Lizy childishly. "I thought you said you'd do whatever you could to help me?"
"I stand corrected," retorted Arthur as he put his hands on the table and stood up. "I'll do everything I can to help you, except that!"
"But why not?" she pouted, with a tone that made her sound more like a spoiled toddler then a grown woman.
"I don't know, maybe because of the fact that it's DANGEROUS!" yelled Arthur irritably, in a manner that actually made Lizy jump slightly. "I mean seriously, what if you have to deal with armed robbers, or rampaging murder-bots, or...or worse!?"
Lizy then looked at him with a very doe-eyed stare.
"You...you really think I could be fighting murder-bots?" she asked apprehensively.
"Um...well," stated Arthur cautiously, under the impression that he may have accidentally intimidated her with his ranting and raving. "I-I don't know. Maybe?"
Lizy's expression then suddenly changed from one of concern to one of pure elation.
"EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she squealed girlishly, thrilled about the idea of fighting killer robots as well as a plethora of other nasty evildoers.
"What? No! Bad Lizy! Bad!" chastised Arthur, much like what one would do to a disobedient pet. "Don't get excited!"
"But, but Artie...murder-bots!" was Lizy's response. She was obviously looking forward to seeing them.
"No! I mean it!" declared Arthur as he pointed at her menacingly. "No superheroing! It's too dangerous! You could get hurt!"
Arthur took a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself.
"Now," he said as he crossed his arms. "Promise me you won't do anything related to superhero work."
"What!?" queried Lizy with a genuinely surprised look.
"I know how you are Lizy," he quickly retorted. "Once you get an idea in your head, you never let it go until something really bad happens or somebody gets hurt. Namely you! Now promise me you won't do any crime fighting!"
"But!" edged in Lizy.
"Promise me!" snapped Arthur.
"Okay, okay, I promise not to do any superhero stuff," Lizy huffed, accepting of the fact that she had just lost the battle.
"That's good," said Arthur, feeling much better now knowing that his friend wouldn't be doing something so irrationally detrimental to her health.
"Besides," he stated as Lizy continued to pout. "The crime rate has still been pretty low for quite a while now. The city just doesn't need superheroes anymore."
After hearing such a statement, Lizy began to rub her arms somberly.
"Yeah...I guess you're right," was her reply.
So with his victory now unquestionably secured, Arthur started towards the front door.
"Alright," said Arthur as he reached the portal. "I guess I'd better go and see what I can find out from the Archives."
"Okay," said Lizy with a still somber tone. "Um...do you need any help?"
"No, it's alright," responded Arthur tiredly. "It'd probably be best if I did this part on my own. In the meantime though, just stay here and relax. I don't want you to get too worked up and possibly make things worse."
"Oh, and um...you may want to change into something a bit less revealing," stated Arthur with a slight blush.
"Huh?" queried Lizy, breaking out of her depression. "Why?"
Arthur's cheeks then changed to a much deeper shade of red.
"You uh...look like you're about to enter a wet t-shirt contest on Muscle Beach," he coughed nervously.
Lizy immediately looked over herself again. He was right! Her overstretched t-shirt and semi-naughty panties made her look like a prime candidate for a competition involving gratuitously wet garments and gloriously gigantic breasts.
And that fact made her laugh. Hard. She then retorted with her own light-hearted quip.
"Oh, that's real cute coming from a guy who dresses like a SEARS mannequin," she declared with her tongue sticking out playfully.
He looked at her curiously for a moment, but then got the joke.
"Hey, don't knock the look," chuckled Arthur with a grin. "A lot of people over fifty say I look very handsome!"
The two of them then partook of a much needed laugh. Throughout the entire morning, they had suffered through complete and utter shock, soul-crushing depression, mind-breaking exhaustion, and a horrifying level of stress. So needless to say, that laugh provided a much needed reprieve from real life.
Unfortunately though, like many things in real life, that reprieve eventually came to an end.
"Listen, I better go," stated Arthur sincerely as the laughter finally died down. "I'll see you again tomorrow morning. Please don't hurt yourself, okay?"
"Don't worry," reassured Lizy. "I won't."
"And remember," stated Arthur as he walked out the door. "No superhero work."
"Yes, yes, I remember, geez," declared Lizy teasingly, but also with a hint of irritation. "Honestly, sometimes you sound just like my mom."
Arthur then gave a weak, but genuinely heartfelt, smile.
"Alright, I'll see you later."
"See you later," responded Lizy with her own warm smile.
She then gently closed the door behind him. Arthur was off to scour the Archives for information; a task that could easily get him thrown in jail if he wasn't careful. Briar Labs was the type of place that didn't take too kindly to intruders; especially if they happened to be ex-employees.
She really wanted to go with Arthur and help in any way that she could. But, with a frame like hers, she imagined being stealthy was something that she couldn't really pull off very well. So instead, Lizy decided to follow his advice. Namely, to stay at home and try to relax. Before she could really do that however, she had to clean up her apartment. Shattered bits of dresser and broken couch still littered much of her apartment floor. She had to clean it up before it became an even bigger problem later on.
So, after eating a light brunch of fruit and cereal (all the fuss she went through this morning caused her to skip breakfast entirely), she went to work taking care of the mess. Lizy also decided that while she was at it, she'd have the TV on as a means to help the cleaning process go faster. She gently picked up a small, black remote from the kitchen counter and then pressed the "Power" button; causing a screen only 16" across to swiftly come to life.
"Welcome to Channel 14 News, I'm your anchor, Mindy Carson. And today we start off with a Breaking News bulletin."
The woman that was currently speaking on Lizy's TV was none other than Mindy Carson; a fairly well-liked anchorperson, as well as a very well known TV news personality. As expected of television, she was an attractive young woman with some nice curves and a pretty face. But she also possessed a very determined personality and a burning desire to only report the facts; a couple of traits that many people claimed were dead within the Media today. Furthermore, there have been many instances where Ms. Carson would leave the safety of the newsroom, to personally bring the news to the public; not only acting as an avid news anchor, but also a tireless reporter.
As Ms. Carson spoke, Lizy went into her bedroom and started collecting pieces of the broken dresser into a trash bin. However, she listened intently to the news broadcast as she picked up the pieces.
"At 5:20 AM Eastern Standard Time near downtown Hyperion, local proprietor and volunteer, Henry Wilcox, was shot and killed today within his own business, the Blue Cup Diner, off Edgemont and Willowbrook."
The moment Mindy stated the phrase "shot and killed", she now had a captive audience in Lizy. The beefy catgirl immediately stopped what she was doing and went into the living room. Taking a seat on a sofa cushion that happened to be near the very small television.
"The motive behind such a killing has yet to be determined," elucidated Mindy with a serious tone. "However, police strongly believe that the murder was the result of a robbery gone wrong. As evidenced by the broken cash register and several coins littering the floor near the exit. A meter maid on duty at the time..."
Lizy began to stare at the screen with a very intense amount of focus. It was as if she was drawn to it. Consumed by it. She continued to watch the show feverishly.
"We here at Channel 14 News hope to learn more as the story unfolds," stated Mindy, having wrapped up the segment.
"In other news..."
Lizy turned off the TV before Mindy Carson could go on with the broadcast. She began to feel nauseous. Anger, grief, helplessness, and passion, all churned together into a palpable sludge at the bottom of her stomach. A man was killed today and someone could've stopped it. Someone with the power to do what was right and just. Someone like Lizy.
"The city doesn't need superheroes anymore, huh?" asked Lizy sarcastically, openly mocking Arthur's statement from minutes before.
She looked back up towards her wall and stared knowingly at her guide; the Badge of Heroics. She then smiled and without further delay, went to work. But now this time, she was doing more than just cleaning up her apartment. She was going to clean up the entire city. Wash it away of all the scum and filth that dared to plague its streets with crime. After swiftly taking care of her apartment, she went to work making a costume. Because as she well knew, no superhero worth her salt was ever going to fight crime without the proper attire (plus, she'd finally get to use all that extra material she had been meaning to get rid of from her last cosplay endeavor).
With the flip of a switch, her sewing machine obediently worked its magic as it stitched excess pieces of teal cloth together, creating a suit that would effectively cover her powerful legs and impressive bosom. She then went about making a pair of matching teal gloves that would cover most of her arms, as well as a matching mask to cover the top half of her face (a girl has to protect her secret-identity after all, right?). Afterward, she dug around her closet for some proper footwear. A pair of off-white, thigh high boots she rediscovered in the back would work very nicely for her purposes. A matching white belt (and a cute green collar later), and her costume was complete.
Now, all she needed was a name; a name that would inspire fear within the wicked and hope amongst the innocent. A name like...
"JANITOR GIRL!" thought Lizy excitedly.
"Wait, no...that actually sounds really lame," she argued within her own mind.
She needed something a lot better than that. Something that was dynamic. Respectable. Awe-inspiring. So she contemplated on the matter for several minutes more and then finally came up with something. Something that matched all of her desired criteria. From then on, Lizy Toplin would be known as...
ULTRA-KITTEN!
"Yeah, now that's a superhero name!" declared Lizy proudly to herself. And to commemorate her new superhero status, she quickly put together a heroic logo and sewed it onto her costume.
Now, her crime fighter garb was truly complete. In a flash, she donned her new uniform and stood proudly in the middle of her living room.
"Alright," declared Lizy, ready to take on whatever the world could throw at her. "Let's go fight some crime!"
