Taller, Better, Faster, Stronger

The week following the corn maze had been a rough one for Malara. So many friends hurt and traumatized. And Pandora was dead. That last fact alone had been enough to make Malara finally give in to her impulse and get a tattoo. The black ink of the spider still itched on her thigh, but she refused to heal the thousands of puncture wounds that the tattoo artist had made in her skin. She didn't want to somehow ruin the image.

The past few days in particular had left her in a haze. It was jarring. How normal things could try to be after a weekend of anguish. But Malara could still taste it in the air. Fear, mistrust, anger, and doubt. So much negativity swirling around her, she couldn't help but absorb it. It sickened her, the constant bitter metallic taste in her mouth.
She just wanted each day to end so she could go back home and get away from the cacophony of negativity around her.

It was getting harder to fake it. To pretend to be peppy and excited for everything when all she wanted to do was punch something to pieces and burn the rubble.
Work was especially hard. Between her self imposed obligation to be a wanton flirt with the other Crown employees and Dorian's crazy good intuition into her mental state, she was mentally exhausted every day after she got off the clock.

Today was only slightly different. Malara had found a small box on her dressing table. Gold paper and a white ribbon. Whoever gave this to her certainly knew her aesthetic. She had somehow fought back the urge to open the box right then and there. Instead, she waited until she was safe behind closed doors, where she could react to the gift in whatever way she saw fit.
Once home Malara stripped out of her clothes and let her hair slowly revert to it's natural, flaming state. She preferred being like this, bare and unhidden. Clothes were restricting.

The tag on the package said it was from Cat. Despite her soured mood, Malara couldn't help but smile. They had been through a lot together, the maze included. She touched her stomach, remembering the feeling of being sliced nearly in half by the Butcher as she tried to rescue Cat from the serial killers. The pain hadn't been so bad; Malara had had worse injuries in her life. But it had made her realize just how much she had relied on having a nearly endless supply of energy over the centuries.

Tearing into the package, Malara found a pair of earrings. Blue gemstones dangled from small hooks, wrapped in silver wire. They were beautiful, and Malara's smile widened.
Putting them on only served to improve her mood further. Once both earrings were in place, Malara felt a small jolt of energy. She had felt it several times before. The same feeling when Cat made contact with her and her powers were boosted. Were these things somehow linked to Cat?

Malara had to see how the earrings looked on her. Walking quickly to the bathroom, she gasped when she saw herself. Her heartbeat quickened and all thoughts of how shitty her week had been were gone. Staring back from the mirror was Malara, but a far more familiar version of her than what everyone saw of her here.
Her hair a dancing pillar of flame atop her head reflected off of her skin, now bright burnished gold. Her eyes, still their normal pink-red color, looked more like cut rubies than real eyes of flesh and blood. Malara ran her hands over her body, looking between her own body and her reflection. Thoughts began to race through her head, wondering how much power she gained from this, how she could use it, if it made.her a fully realized god again.

Jafar and Noli were gone. She would have to show them when they got back. Malara meandered through the house, still marveling at her golden hands. She finally reached her bedroom and threw herself onto the bed, thoughts still racing.
No, she finally decided. She wouldn't tell anyone. Not yet. She wanted to know just how far she could push these earrings to work.
Twisting her face in concentration, Malara held her hand in the air and watched as the gold slowly faded from her skin and returned to a more normal skin tone. She would have to think of something special to thank Cat for the gift.

The gold domino mask slammed into the opposite wall of the bedroom. It cracked and fell apart, leaving a visible dent in the wall where it had impacted. Jafar wouldn't be happy about that. Whatever. He was used to her outbursts at this point.

Malara replayed the events of the previous night over in her head. She had gone to the masquerade. Danced with a powerful stranger. Then she had showed up. Pandora. It was the briefest of reunions before the spider was swept away by others. Malara had gone back to her dance partner, but the night had been bittersweet from that point on.
Worse still, Malara had woken up early to go see Pandora at her lair, and the spider was nowhere to be found. She had even texted Chloe to make sure that she hadn't just been hallucinating.

Malara threw her chair, sending it flipping to slam into her dresser. She grabbed her jewelry box to do the same thing, but paused when she saw a glint of blue through the glass front. The earrings.
Putting them on and slipping into a sports bra and shorts, Malara ran out the back door towards the treeline behind her house. If she was going to break things, sgeight as well be productive about it.

A golden fist slammed into the first tree she came to, denting the wood and sending bits of bark and wooden splinters flying in all directions. Malara had barely increased her strength, at this point, but was already doing this much damage. Sending another burst of energy into her limbs, she threw another punch at the same spot. The tree groaned and moved a fraction closer to falling.
Malara frowned a bit and pulled her hand back. It felt like her punch had been thrown a bit lower, but she had hit the exact same spot. Shrugging the stray distraction off, she wound back and hit the tree again. Again, it shuddered with the inspect and dented towards the ground. And again, Malara felt like she was having to aim lower to hit the same spot.

A third punch, and then a fourth. Malara paused. Her clothes felt tight. Looking down, she saw the fabric of her sports bra straining against her breasts. Her face twisted into a frown and she threw another punch, but kept an eye on her chest while she did. It was barely noticable, the change. Or it would have been, except that she clearly saw the fabric stretch a bit tighter.
Staring back at the tree, Malara threw a few more punches. Each one was aimed lower, each one hit harder, and each one stretched her clothes closer and closer to their breaking point.
Finally she threw the punch that brought the tree down. It shuddered to the ground with a satisfying thud, which drowned out the sound of fabric ripping.

Her shorts were still mostly in one piece, thanks to how stretchy they were. But her bra, Malara saw, had ripped open and exposed her golden breasts to the cool air. Almost mindlessly, she walked back towards the house, so she wouldn't be seen and have the cops called for public indecency.
Only, reaching the door Malara found that she couldn't simply walk through. Her head reached above the doorframe and her shoulders were almost too wide to actually get through either. Realization began to settle in, and Malara ducked and twisted through the doors of the house, moving as quickly as she could to her bathroom.

Staring at herself in the mirror was difficult. Not because Malara didn't want to look, but because she couldn't. The mirror only showed from her shoulders down, her head cut off by the fact that she was too tall. Over seven feet at this point, in fact. Stopping low to get a look at her face, Malara stared at.the reflection of the earrings. They were glowing softly, dangling from her ears. Out of the clothes she wore, only they seemed to have been affected by her change in size. Stripping out of her clothes, as ruined as they already were, she took a deep breath and concentrated.

And watched herself grow another few inches. A toothy grin slowly spread across Malara's face, and for a moment she forgot about all her angst. Whatever these earrings were doing, it was giving her access to her larger, more powerful form. At least somewhat. She wondered how far she could push it, how far she could grow.
Looking at the clock, Malara sighed. Jafar would be home soon. She didn't want to show anyone, not yet. Better to keep it a secret and wow them when she had control over it. She carefully removed the earrings and set them down on the edge of the sink. The shift back to her normal size, her normal complexion, was abrupt and almost painful. Like a rubber band stretched too far, Malara suddenly shifted down to her normal height. She rubbed her neck and shoulders, easing tension she barely felt.

Looking at the earrings, Malara began setting up a time for herself when she could test them more without being discovered. Feeling drained, both emotionally and physically, Malara released some of the energy stored inside of her. She felt her body relax and return to its normal, well rested state. She also felt some bones in her hand and wrist knit back together. Funny, she hadn't even realized she had injired herself.

Malara stretched her arms over her head and grinned at herself in the full length mirror she had had installed in her training room. The basement was equipped with all sorts of exercise equipment and sparring gear. Not to mention the one wall that was nearly taken over by weapon racks.
It was better organized than the ones she had had back on Mes, but she liked that to an extent. The structured space put her in a more structured frame of mind.

Currently, she was naked in the middle of the room. Not uncommon, really. But today was different for one reason. Malara stood very nearly ten feet tall with burnished gold skin and eyes that looked like cut rubies. Her hair danced around her head as a mane of fire, and no amount of concentration would tame it back to normal.
She had neglected the earrings for several days, due to emotional conflict over her and Pandora's relationship. But that had changed when she had met the spider demon during one of her by then regular tantrums in the forest. They had hashed things out, and were a couple now. To say it had put Malara on cloud nine was an understatement. Like when she and Jafar had become a couple, the demigoddess was bouncing in her heels whenever she thought about it.

She had been tempted to show Pandora her own secret when her new partner had shared that she had given birth to baby demons not long after she returned to life. But she opted not to. It would be a nice surprise later, when they were together in bed.

Her flail was wrapped around her body, cutting lightly into her flesh. The head of the flail swung in wide arcs over her head before snapping forward like a snake. The heavy iron head sheared off the head of a training dummy. Malara grinned wickedly. She wasn't even boosting her strength right now. Her training was paying off in more ways than one. She could feel the muscle definition beginning to grow on her.

Taking another wide swing, she felt a sudden heaviness as her body began to involuntarily shrink. She was knocked off balance, thrown to her knees. Snapping her head around to look at the mirror, she saw that her body was back to normal, and she frowned. What was more, the earrings no longer gave off their familiar glow. She couldn't feel any energy coming from them anymore.

Heading back upstairs, she grabbed her phone and texted Cat, asking about them.
It was several minutes before she got a response. They needed to be recharged. Witha sigh Malara texted the pink haired girl back, asking if she wanted to grab lunch.
She got dressed and rolled her shoulders. She didn't want to use Cat, but she really wanted to get these things figured out.

There was a pounding in Malara's ears. It could be her blood, since her heart rate was undeniably high. Or it could be the sound of her fists impacting with the metal beam in her training room. Bone shattering as she hit as hard as she could, no super strength involved, and knitted back together just in time for the next punch. It was a self destructive rhythm, one that she had been at for several minutes.
But it was all she could do when she thought about the damage done to her girlfriend by that cunt of a centipede.

Stopping only when she somehow heard the door upstairs shut over her own rage. Jafar was home. Or maybe Noli. Healing her fists back and throwing a house coat on over her nude form, she began to head upstairs to meet them.

Before she was entirely out of the room, a glint of blue caught her eye. The earrings. She felt the beginnings of an idea form in her head. If the police weren't going to stop the centipede, she would. But she'd need to recharge before she could do that. No sense going in at anything less that full strength.

Impotent. Stupid. Angry. Malara felt like all these things and more.

She had planned poorly, mouthed off to the wrong people. And then gotten lectured by no fewer than three people, two of which were Jafar and Felix. She was being stupid and reckless. She could die if she went after Nasci. Or if she somehow succeeded, she would be arrested for murder.

The thought still gnawed at the back of her mind though. There must be a way for her to do it. If not legally, then at least in a way she wouldn't be caught. The cage matches, maybe?

Submerging her face briefly in the ice cold water of her sink to cool her thoughts, Malara came up and stared into her own angry eyes.
She was wearing the earrings, but there wasn't a speck of gold on her skin. She had figured out how to suppress the transformation. Save the energy for when she needed it. It was also happening faster now. She could grow to her full size, double her original height, in just a few seconds.

But as much as Malara tried to focus on her accomplishment, she could only see the grinning face of that damned centipede. Mocking her. Reminding her that she was powerless to protect her loved ones.
Malara punched the vision of Nasci in the mirror, shattering the glass and cutting her hand pretty badly. For several minutes, she didn't bother to heal the wound. The pain was sobering.

There was a solution. The Allfair arena. They had duels that could legally be lethal combat. That was what Malara would do.

She had delivered the letter to Nasci, her challenge, to the Islets in person. She knew the centipede was going to get out of jail soon. She had only been indicted for assault after all. Utter bullshit.

Her training routine was all planned out. She was going to use as little energy as possible, to make sure her reserve was full for the fight. So she would be eating and sleeping regularly. Not taking any risks of frivolously using her strength.
Wake up before sunrise, go for a run through the forest. Never the same route twice. Improve her reaction time, plus cardio. Then standard strength training. Get herself back in fighting shape. Then weapon training. Relearning maneuvers and tactics. Make sure her muscle memory wasn't too rusty. Then training with her earrings. She needed to make sure she could pull the energy out quickly enough if she needed to.

She also began thinking about the arena. How she would want it set up. What weapons she would take. What her plan of action was. Nasci may look and act like a monster, but she was still sentient. Malara would have to think quicker, be quicker, in order to win.