"Wha.. what are you talking about? What happened?" asked the girl to Katie, who now looked increasingly like her brain was caught between fainting and running away.

Katie shook her head. "Look, there's no use in trying now sister. Were going to have to memory wipe them - I didn't know there were any other of the people here. What is your name?"

The crowd was so baffled that sitting and watching seemed like the best thing to do. Even Beth, normally quick on the uptake, was taken aback by this. Many in the crowd thought it was some kind of bizarre sideshow - one with excelent special effects.

"Uh.. Maria." she said hesitantly. Katie looked at her with increasing annoyance "No... not your cover name, your actual name. I'm Lanarianiatalosmei - 'Katie' spat out the bizarre name with ease.

Maria just looked stunned and worried. Katie blinked and intoned "You really don't know what I'm talking about do you?" she asked. Maria simply shook her head. "Oh.. oh my. I'll be blunt here. Your clearly not human, but are one of the people - an alien race of unsurpassed strength - we have the ability to tap into our racial power to grow our muscularity and strength to whatever is required.

Maria looked at her like she was a crazy person. Beth and the audience were stunned, but there was a little laughter from those who thought it was a show. Katie looked over at the audience. "Sorry about this folks - don't worry, we just show up to take a few genetic samples and do a few sociology assignments. Were going to have to erase your memory in just a minute, but we'll give you a bit of a show till then."

Maria looked back at Katie. "Your crazy!" Katie looked back at Maria, and grinned. "Oh yeah? Watch THIS!" Katie flexed her muscles, tensing her core muscles and shaking with strain as she kept her muscles tightened to the point of failures. She gave as small grunt, and took a deep breath as she flexed, and the audience watched in amazement as she began to grow in size and muscularity slowly at first, until she appeared just a little bigger then Maria.

"Wh.. that's impossible! I'm not an alien, I can't do that! I've never been able to do that." said Maria. Katie looked over. "The ability doesn't manifest till adulthood, usually in a time of stress. Why don't we find out though." Katie flexed a bicep that went up to her chin. "Take this poze" she said.

Maria obliged. "Ok, now flex.. hard, and try and picture your muscle growing, getting harder. Squeeze... squeeze." Maria went along with it. For a few seconds Beth watched intrigued, and after nothing happened after a moment, fired what was left of the energy gun into Maria, and her bicep peak began to rise, cresting just over her chin.. and then her muscles expanded everywhere - there was an audible snap as her top flew off her body, tiny breasts now visible on massive pectoral slabs.

"Right. That's really good for a first time expansion - it takes practice to get REALLY big. Your one of the people all right. My outfit is indestructable and quite stretchy, but the people aren't big on clothing anyway. I think one of the visitors here decided to have a kid - they aren't supposed to do that - messes with your development. "

Some guy in the front row made a comment. "Jesus. How big can you get?" Katie responded with a smile. "Well, I have the strength of my entire RACE on hand, so pretty darn big, but it takes practice to fit so much power under one frame. I'm a lightweight on my planet - I can get my mass up to about 3,000 pounds - but most of it's density - you don't get much bigger then Maria here without bigger muscles just getting in the way.

Katie flexed, and the muscles in her one arm bulged again, this time growing ridiculously to her nose height till she relaxed her bicep.

Beth spoke up. "So, you have a connection with your racial strength? Like your entire race?" she asked carefully. Katie nodded. "Yep. Sorry you can't see most of our warriors - feel free to run and panic if you don't want your memory erased - you can't possibly get away from the orbital beam.

Beth had of course, no such intentions. She simply withdrew her gun and carefully adjusted the settings. The "transfer to user" direct feature that bypassed the bio-E battery had two functions - the first was to use the user as a battery to transfer energy to itself. The second was to directly drain the target, and add the energy to the gun wielder's frame. Beth put that setting on, waited till 'katie' turned to another quetioner, and fired.