Ape-Woman Transformation Pt. 03

It was right... And it was good! Good to be so powerful, good to feel as strong as she did, like she could take on everything and anything, do absolutely anything that she wanted to, taking on life with both hands, charging into the fray! Even her thoughts seemed to speed up, coming with sharper sincerity and even more clarity than before.

Her shirt ripped across the front, under the arms and below her breasts, her bra stretching to contain the new muscle building across her back. Her clothes remained somewhat in place, however, her trousers splitting across the buttocks, though her body was modestly covered.

Charlotte wasn't even sure that she would have cared if she was exposed, not as sheer exhilaration and strength coursed through her. She didn't have claws or fangs -- she was everything that Michelle's pill was, but so much better!

Michelle gasped, tipping forward, not sure what she was doing, her head pounding. A tinny ring coursed through her head and she shook her head, a strain blossoming down her neck, prickling, red heat slamming into the smaller muscles on either side of her spine.

"I can't... My research!"

She didn't know whether to be infuriated or impressed with Charlotte, for it looked like the woman had improved on her work -- not that Michelle had even tried to improve on her transformations. All she'd tried to do was to curb them, to slow them down, to make them easier for her to manage. Had she been missing a trick when she could have been doing so much more with the gift and opportunity that she had unlocked for herself?

"She's... She's huge!"

Even from where she stood, Michelle could see that Charlotte was the perfect physical specimen, standing tall and proud, a smirk on her lips, charging into the fray. With incredible agility, even greater than what Michelle had boasted at the heights of her transformation, she lunged, streaking through the air, her muscles bunching, a fist drawn back.

"Raaawwwwrrrrfff!"

She let out a muffled roar, devolving into a grunt, as she slammed her fist into first one man and then backhanded another on her left, sending them both flying. Bullets rained down but not a single one touched her as she twisted and spun, darting through the storm to sweep the legs out from another opponent with a well-timed side sweeping kick.

Michelle gaped, though she was too dizzy and weak to do anything else at that time.

"Where... Where did she learn all that?"

Oliver shrugged.

"Must have been into martial arts or something," he suggested. "Can only say it's playing out in our favour now."

That much Michelle definitely agreed with. If Charlotte had not had some level of physical prowess, she may not have been able to handle herself as well as she was in ape-woman form. Charlotte heaved, bellowing a roar, though her lips were stretched in a smile that ended up distorting it, a gleam of raw glee in her eyes. It was evident, even to a bystander, how much she was enjoying the thrill of her newfound power.

"Hrf... Unff... Who wants some more?" She grunted, forcing the words out, though she spoke more clearly than Michelle or Oliver ever did in their ape forms. "Who...wants...unff..."

She grunted, tackling a cluster of hunters and bowling them all over backwards -- but it was a rushed, more desperate move. Charlotte took them out easily, knocking them unconscious, and snarled one of the last guards who came in, trying to level his gun at her.

"Unff.. You shouldn't...do that..."

It seemed more and more of a struggle for her to talk as Oliver got Michelle's arm around his shoulders, watching with a shake of his head just how Charlotte snapped the man's gun in half. Throwing him into a cage, she slammed the door closed and bent the locking mechanism so no one would be able to get it open without using more heavy-duty tools to cut through the metal itself.

The last guards were easily picked up, snatched into her hands and held above her head, twisting and flailing, weapons stripped from them, as she tossed them in similar cages, though she made sure that only one went to a cage. She wouldn't have wanted them working together, after all, though Charlotte doubted that people like that even understood the value of teamwork and the like. They were all out for what they could get for themselves, ruining the natural landscape while they went off on their wild monster hunts, selfishly taking resources for their own.

But something was wrong, something was different. Still, she tried to push down the aching, bubbling sensation of something pushing up from her gut, as if her skin was rippling and boiling. Charlotte shook herself, shaking out her arms and legs, clenching her fingers into fists and scrunching up her toes. Her shoes had remained in place, though her clothes still felt like they were unduly restricting her movement. Now she knew how people who frequented the gym felt, never quite in clothes that fit them fully.

"Here... Here, I'll help."

Charlotte squatted down, intending to carry Michelle on her back so they could get the hell out of there, but she never got there. Not as she dropped to the ground, groaning and heaving, her back rounding as she hunched down.

"Rrrrrffff... Unff... No..." Her eyes grew wide and wild, even to her feeling like her eyeballs were straining, too dry, unable to even blink. "What's...happening? It should be...perfect!"

Alas, controlling ape-person transformations and "perfecting" them was far outside the scope of everything Charlotte had done before, even though she had worked on similar research and projects to Michelle over the years. If she had asked Michelle about that, she would have understood, for it was not as if Michelle had simply given up on a cure because Shelly was a part of her -- and she was a part of Shelly too. It was more complicated than that and Charlotte would never be the same again, now that she had unleashed the ape-woman within her.

"Charlotte!"

Her cry was lost in the air as Charlotte groaned, a bone-chilling cry that twisted into a bellow, heaving up from deep within her as if she was some kind of wild beast. Charlotte grunted, eyes wide, unable to blink still, her muscles pumping up more and more and more.

What's...happening?

She couldn't even think straight, entirely caught up in physical sensation as she heaved for breath, dragging in what she could to her lungs and simply hoping it would be enough. But it was not, not in the slightest, not as she moaned and hair rippled down her form, her skin turning to a richer, more golden-brown shade than before. The hair that sprouted from the back of her neck and her shoulders, spreading down her back and forcing her clothes to puff out where it thickened up, was a golden-brown, however, not all that far removed from the blonde of her hair.

"Charlotte..." Someone was talking to her, though it felt like they were very far away, as if she was hearing them from underwater. "Charlotte, you've got to listen to us... Breathe... You can control this. You can be yourself again."

But it didn't at all feel as if she could be herself in the slightest, not as her jacket and shirt pulled around her and her growing muscles forced the shoulders to split even further. She clawed at herself, ripping it off, the under wire of her bra pinging free where it was too tight. It was not as if it was an expensive one anyway, but would anyone have wanted the under wire to stay in place when her body was growing to that extent either? No one would have wanted it to cut in, the elastic straining and stretching, one strand after the other loosening and breaking.

Her clothes simply could not keep up with the transformation as she crawled and grabbed at her body, twisting and kicking a leg out where her thighs and glutes were thickening up to such an extent that her trousers restricted her movement. They ripped clean through the middle, under her crotch, though her underwear, thankfully, had just enough stretch in the waistband and around the legs to stay in place as a pair of boy shorts. Sure, they strained over her round, firm backside, showing the bottom side of her cheeks, but they more or less preserved her modesty.

By some kind of fluke, the ragged remains of her jacket, hanging from her as if it had become a fashion statement, torn and shredded with a single button holding it closed in the middle of her chest, covered her breasts. Just. If she moved the wrong way, she'd flash everyone -- but that was the least of Charlotte's concerns as she fought against her transformation, more hair spreading wildly down her legs, covering her pale skin as she fell onto her back.

"Keep calm, Charlotte!"

Yet them shouting at her did her no good at all, even if it was ever so slightly comforting to know she wasn't alone there. She needed good people around her, to have friends around her, for they would be bound in ape-person transformation forevermore, working out ways to manage what they had stepped into, either willingly or without truly knowing what they were doing at the time.

Yet the hair growth was not the end of it, her blonde locks twisting into waves, though she did not quite gain Michelle's curly bounce of hair. Her eyebrows fluffed up, heavy over her eyes, and hair sprinkled around her chin and jaw line.

"Urrf..."

She grunted as her teeth pulled back into a snarl that felt more fitting on her new form, even if Charlotte would not have wanted it there. Her teeth grew, sharpening into points, filling her mouth with fangs -- fangs just like Michelle had when she was in her "rage form," though that was not something Charlotte had truly had the grace of seeing quite yet. Maybe she would have thought otherwise about taking the prototype pill if she had known, though it was far too late for any of that.

Some things were not all that easy to come back from, after all.

She growled, her tongue flickering out around her new, sharper teeth, though there was nothing Charlotte could do to stop it as she resigned herself to riding out the transformation.

I can do this.

Those words were small enough and simple enough for her to hold on to in her mind, letting them carry her through as she got up onto all fours, her feet digging down into the ground as she kicked off a shoe. It just didn't feel like it was needed anymore as big claws curled from her toes, cutting into the bare soil where she was transforming. As hard-packed as it was from lack of use and previous big vehicles rolling over it -- back when the place had been a sanctuary -- her claws sliced through it with no trouble at all, her underwear soft across her backside with the hair coating her body.

She was a prime specimen, that much was true, though Charlotte had not been able to satisfy her need to not become an ape. Her muscles rang much larger, just like Shelly's when she was in her "rage form," exploding with fury, but they trembled, veins popping out of them, though they were hidden, mostly by her fur. Her abdominals showed, popping out into a defined six-pack -- something that Michelle would have had before, when she had transformed, if not for her pregnancy.

"Unff... Nnnggghhhh..."

Charlotte groaned, standing upright, taller than before, though not by much. It no longer felt as natural to stand up to her full height and she slouched forward, her eyes darker, seeing more. The late hour didn't hinder her vision in the slightest anymore and she swung her arms, spreading them out a bit to either side just to maintain something of her centre of balance, even though her centre of gravity had most certainly shifted.

Her back was thick with hair, coming down over her buttocks, though some of her rear cheeks was left exposed. She huffed and panted, everything coming a little more easily, turning her head back and forth, the sense of stiffness and tension in her neck slipping away. That was a little better, just a little, and she groaned, clenching and unclenching her hands, feeling the raw strength in them.

Yet she was bigger and burlier and hairier -- and wilder. She whipped around with a roar that shook the foundations of the sanctuary, her mind slipping away, surely temporarily, as her ape side took control. Michelle leapt away, startled, yet it was an instinctive response to get herself out of danger, seeing something in Charlotte, in that moment, that she had to evade.

She was just like her -- but infuriated. There was nothing to threaten Charlotte there and yet Michelle and Oliver watched her stomp and rage, smashing her fists down into the concrete and leaving craters behind, big cracks spreading further through the ground than either of them would have believed if they had not been there to see it with their own eyes. She ripped apart a cage seemingly just because it was there, her large hands wrapping around the thick bars with ease and wrenching them apart with an unholy shriek of protesting metal.

Oliver cursed and tried to cover his ears, but he had to hold on to Michelle and make sure she was okay, tucking them back beside a ragged bush that seemed to have grown in the disrepair of the sanctuary. It was enough to keep them, for the moment, out of Charlotte's line of sight as she raged and stormed around the sanctuary where they could see her, benching bars and twisting them up into knots. Yet it was her hurling them away that they had to pay the most attention to, big chunks of metal flying through the air, even if there was not deadly intent behind them.

Charlotte could hurt them in her rage and not even realise it. That was, perhaps, the most terrifying thing of all.

But it was not something that either Michelle or Oliver had not faced before and, frankly, they were the most competent people in the world to tackle such a thing. Even if they could not approach Charlotte when she was in such a form, leaping to the top of an enclosure with a chain roof, which should have been strong enough to stop a large, wild feline from clawing their way through it, if they climbed the sides of their enclosure. It posed no barrier to her as she ripped it from the concrete posts with a rattle of metal, snarling and hollering whenever it caught and infuriated her even more.

"Unff... Rrrrraaaaawwwwwrrrrrfff!"

Michelle didn't even bother sparing the hunters a single passing thought, for all the trauma they had caused her, though Charlotte didn't seem interested in them in the slightest. She stormed through the compound, cracking the concrete, smashing through bars, and leapt for the exterior wall. In all honesty, she chose one of the most difficult parts to smash through where it was not merely a chain fence strong enough to contain big cats (if escaped from the main enclosures) but a tall, foreboding, concrete wall with additional security and what seemed to be old, electrified fencing at the top.

It posed her no trouble at all as she smashed through, taking her shoulder to it and pummelling with her fists, great chunks of concrete rubble flying off in wild and random directions. Oliver whistled lowly.

"I never thought I'd see something more fearsome than you raging out..."

Michelle made a face.

"Yes... But I always knew to come home. There was still a part of me that was Michelle, even when Shelly had to take control for a time, just to keep us safe. I...don't think that's the same for Charlotte."

For she had tampered with the formula and changed things to such a point that there was no telling whether she would come back down to her normal self again or not. Smashing through the exterior wall, the last they saw and heard of Charlotte was her golden-haired body disappearing off into the night, dawn incoming, with a whooping holler, laced with a snarl.

Michelle sighed and ran her fingers back through her hair, leaning heavily on Oliver. At least she had her clothes, she thought, grabbing the backpack and slinging it over her shoulder too. It was light enough to not be a bother to her as she limped alongside Oliver, trying to put weight on one leg for a bit and then the other. Never had she felt as sapped of all energy as she did then, though it clearly told her exactly what happened when she was in her ape form for too long.

Sorry, Shelly, she thought, trying to reach the ape part of her, but even Shelly seemed quiet at that time, not clamouring to get out, to influence any decisions. But I think we need to be careful, going forward.

They were always careful, working together as well as they could, but she would have to delve into her ape side even more than she ever had done before if she was going to make the changes she wanted to, in herself and the world. The world could not see them as monsters, no, but they were a part of science. First, undoubtedly, Michelle had to get through her pregnancy and, ultimately, find a solid way to control her transformations.

She had every intent, of course, to make sure Shelly got plenty of time to be herself, fusing with Michelle, one being, a singular entity. Cutting off and shutting away that side, sentencing it to death... It would be like chopping off a limb, after everything they had gone through.

However, Michelle was too tired to speak as Oliver helped her limp from the compound, a little of her strength returning so that she could walk somewhat normally, if she was slow about it. Some of the guards had fled and they just had to get back to the car, to recover for a moment, before working out what the hell they were to do about Charlotte.

She was a complication that neither had anticipated, raging off into the night without a backwards glance at them -- simply because she didn't even remember they were there. They had been fortunate indeed to escape being in the way of her wrath, but that would have to be set aside for the time being, letting them continue with searching for Charlotte.

One way or another, as calmly as possible, Charlotte had to be brought back to herself and home again, though there was a plethora of problems associated with that.

"She had her phone in her pocket still..." Oliver mused back at the car, settling Michelle down while she recovered a little more. "Maybe we can track that."

"Here," she smiled, putting her hand out. "Let me do it. I'll be quicker. A bit."

She was not much better at that sort of thing than Oliver, but it was enough. Their adventure was not yet over, but at least no one was behind bars anymore.

Michelle just didn't know where all of it was going to end.