Carly flew backwards, her body smashing through even more trees, causing the giant redwoods to fall to the ground. Carly landed a few hundred feet away, groaning in pain. She reached for the ray gun and noticed it had fallen out somewhere. She desperately searched for it on the ground.

A few moments later, Barbara landed with a thud a little ways away from her. She was even bigger, her musculature almost double that of Carly’s. Barbara was nearly 9 feet tall now, her transformation coming to an end. She walked slowly up to her nemesis.

“You dumb bitch,” Barbara said, picking Carly off the ground and punching her in the face again, causing her to fly backwards once more. “You DO realize that if you duplicate the powers of a person who works out regularly, that that person will be MUCH stronger than you.” She slammed her fist hard into Carly’s midsection, driving the wind from her lungs. Barbara stood over her.

“Especially someone like me who takes kickboxing classes and is a third degree black belt.” She jumped a little into the air, performing a roundhouse kick directly into Carly’s face. The smaller behemoth flew face first into a large boulder about 30 feet away, slumping to the ground.

Barbara jumped and landed close to Carly. She sat her up, standing over Carly’s battered body. Barbara then spent the next minute or so pounding her powerful fists into Carly’s weaker body, turning her into a makeshift punching bag.

Fists rained down on poor Carly’s face, ribs and back, while a few kicks found their way into the mix, as well. Carly had no choice but to stand there and take it, waiting for any opportunity to defend herself.

Barbara rested for a moment, trying to catch her breath. She turned her back from her nemesis, hands on her hips.

“This is my best chance,” Carly thought to herself. With her face badly swollen and a few ribs broken at this point, Carly charged, ramming her smaller body into Barbara’s much stronger one. She managed to pin Barbara against a tree and began hitting her as hard as she could. After a half dozen hits, the larger woman just stood there, laughing.

“Is that the best you can do?” she asked, shoving Carly off of her. The smaller woman stumbled backward, falling on her ass. Barbara inspected her body. “That barely hurt.” She laughed again, before picking Carly up once more and slamming her fist into her. Carly’s feet left the ground, before crashing into a rock formation, her large body’s outline embedded into the hard stone.

The older woman slumped to the ground, defeated.

Barbara ripped a large tree out of the ground and ran towards her rival. Using as much momentum as she could, she made contact, seeming to bury Carly between the ground and the enormous oak tree.

Barbara began walking away, thinking the other woman was dead by now. A few moments later, however, a huge fist crashed through the other side of the tree. Soon after, Carly’s battered body made its way out of the hole and limply fell to the ground. She groaned in pain.

“Wow,” Barbara said, amazed. “You just will not quit, will you?” She thought for a few seconds. “Hold on. I know how to end this fight.” Barbara returned a few minutes later, holding the ray gun.

“I believe you lost this. Yes?” Barbara said, holding the gun in front of her. She pointed the gun at Carly and fired, the warm glow enveloping her entire body. Soon, Carly shrank back to her original size, her immense power being drained from her body and stored in the ray gun.

“You sure can put up a hell of a fight,” Barbara said, chuckling a little. “But never mess with the master.” She knelt down to observe the soft, slightly overweight body of Carly now. The years of drinking heavily had done quite a number on her, both physically and emotionally, Barbara reasoned. She poked the blubbery midsection of her former sparring partner. The much smaller woman groaned lightly.

“What a waste,” Barbara said, before standing back up. “I’ll leave you to lick your wounds.” She turned and walked away, leaving Carly for dead, it seemed.

Barbara weighed her options. She had enough power in this gun to make herself twice as strong as she was now. She could become the most powerful being on the planet, not that she wasn’t already. She could just imagine ruling this pitiful planet with an iron fist, any person who dared to oppose her would be crushed to paste with her bare hands. Life would be SO sweet.

Then again, she could just share the power stored in the gun with one of her friends.