[$20] The Bounty of Peace 3 (Beta Copy) (Patreon)

Samus was in her own head as she walked away from the table, hardly even looking at the bar she approached. The adrenaline had frozen her heart, had pulled Samus back to a state that she could faintly remember but wanted to forget.

On the surface, Samus’ belly churned, mixing the pounds of pink ice cream around as her gut wobbled up and down with each plodding step. But her mind was focused on the eyes from behind, the eyes all around her, could feel them all watching her domesticated waddle.

Could she blame them?

No. Samus was over six feet tall. She was a foot taller than the average woman, and more than twice as wide. It was no wonder they stared at her fat gut and huge hips, undeniably feminine for such a bipedal cow.

How many other people recognized her? The great Samus Aran, legendary mercenary. Accepted bounties in credit, coin, or gallons of ice cream. A chocolate-fudge sundae would ensure live delivery. Or, if preferred dead, maybe she could just sit on them and save her eyes the plasma flash.

How had things gotten like this? Had she really done this to herself?

It’d been so easy.

She could picture herself, slim and strong, watching as the reflection grew increasingly fat until the blonde pig was tearing her clothing, forcing her body through every small gap. Memories of fitness that felt more like dreams.

She frowned, knowing that she was being unfair. A deepening breath that stretched her stomach, but her mind felt nothing but the fiends all around. The dancefloor became darkness, the people became shadows, and at the center of it all Samus became honest.

Her old body, her old life, wasn’t a dream. It had been a nightmare.

A thousand old bruises, hidden now beneath layers of fat and cycles of time, ached. Summoned to the surface as the cold mind of the bounty hunter brought with it a renewed self-doubt. Her enhanced body had nearly fallen apart.

Samus had spent the last few years sitting on her increasingly fat ass, stuffing her face without a single care as to what her gluttony became. She didn’t puff into obesity overnight. She had indulged again and again, growing to enjoy the times where she could lean back in her seat, putting her feet up and letting her belly hang. Of course she knew she had been gaining weight, but had that ever stopped her?

This weight, this belly, wasn’t anyone’s fault but her own.

It had been so easy. She had finally sat down and just… breathed. Just a meal between missions, a couple desserts, until her grubby fingers and soft will had practically eaten through her entire surplus of cash. Now, she carried the weight that she had so meticulously earned.

The thoughts were coming faster now, unbidden while the rest of the gray shadows spun in the dark. The cry of long dead fauna on decaying worlds.

She’d enjoyed it. She reveled in the power of the sugar high, and most of all in the aches that it helped her ignore. The flashes of evil it helped her forget. Thirty years old, and Samus had fought enough for fourteen lifetimes. She’d broken bones, torn muscles, and had damaged her eyes in service to the people all around her, the creatures who stared.

She knew she was upset but did not really know why, the ice in her heart battling with the warmth of the food in her belly. Samus was losing herself, trickling further and further away as the dancefloor strobed, and memories flashed. Her right arm flexed as her canon fired, and the club echoed with the screams of those on the other side of the blast.

She wobbled past a small ramp, moving directly through a group’s conversation. She didn’t see the people take three steps back to make room, her eyes focused on Zebes, on Tallon IV. Scenes from the Bottle Ship melted into the BSL Research Station. Epileptic flashes, stabs of bright light, they were coming faster and faster. Samus could hear her own footsteps echoing through empty halls before a blood curdling shriek had her hand on her pistol, fumbling with the holster.

Her eyes had snapped upward, toward a large square gap over the dance floor where a long glass square was rotating across the gap. A second dance floor suspended in the sky, gently spinning while bright pink and blue light gave way to a stream of purple that had Samus’ fingers aching before she realized she was glaring at a speaker.

She blinked and the speaker was suddenly much less draconic, her world much less inflamed. She felt like she had a migraine, taking her hand from her pistol and her tubby thigh holster.

She thought she’d seen…

“Excuse me,” a voice muttered as a couple of guys passed in front of her.

It was like a grounding spike and Samus returned to the now, back to the club. She rubbed at her temple, starting back up. It did not matter what she had thought. She’d seen a purple light and a loudspeaker.

Taking a deep breath, Samus steeled her mind. “Focus,” she breathed, the simple word taking her head. The girl didn’t matter. The woman in the lab coat didn’t matter. What she thought didn’t matter. She had to find Sauce, to get him to the Marshalls Office, and then she could have her childish meltdown. Preferably over a new box of ice cream sandwiches.

The thought of soft, cold sugar allowed the dam of ice to warm just slightly, and the heat in her tummy began to return to her body. She adjusted her orange shorts, tugging them up the tectonic crack of her ass.

She couldn’t fit the waistband over her belly. There simply wasn’t enough stretchy fabric to use, so as she waddled on, the unending jiggle brought the shorts back down to a restful position, but Samus’ mind was onto softer things now, and she hardly noticed the little slaps of her belly against her fat thighs.

Samus advanced on the bar, deep red light casting her and everyone else into an afternoon-glow. The corner was the only angle that she could have possibly approached as there were no stools there and put her hands on it. Patrons from either side glanced at her, but nobody seemed willing to meet her heavy blue eyes.

Waiting for the bartender, she scanned the long line of bottles positioned on the back, catching a view of herself in the mirror.

God, she looked fatter every day.

And her skin, while most other girls had a twinge of darkness, Samus was practically glowing under the red lighting. Was she really that pale?

She was starting to look like a mound of whipped cream that was crafted into a woman, her orange top squeezing two fat cherries over her fat, pale tummy. If it weren’t for her curves, Samus would have resembled a pink puffball, as round as the mouth-watering drinks being passed out.

She looked around for a clock, coming empty before checking her watch. Realizing then then that she’d been neglecting her camera, Samus gave the watch a few quick taps and was relieved to see the hallway was empty.

Sauce was still here.

“Can I help you, Miss Aran?”

Samus looked up. A female bartender had seemed to materialize in front her. She was a shorter girl that looked practically miniature compared to Samus, with a black waistcoat and tie set over a white undershirt. She wore bright pink ties in her gray-black hair, the only real connection to the cheery event.

“Um, hello,” Samus nodded. Then asked, “How do you know my name?”

The girl grinned. “You registered upon entry as an all access member.”

“Oh…” Samus felt herself frowning. She hadn’t been aware she’d be added to some sort of list, but it made enough sense. “I was hoping to ask a question. And, uhh, for a drink.”

“Not a problem!” A spark was struck as the girl snapped her finger. The wooden top of the bar shifted beneath Samus’ hands. She pulled back from the belt as a small hole opened on the right side of the bar, shuttling out a globular Kirb directly to Samus. “Buffet access is in the VIP lounge on the second floor. Or do you need menu information?”

Samus had to think for a moment before clearing her head. “Er, no. Do you know where I could find a mister John Sauce?”

The girl put a finger to her cheek. Another spark. “Let me check.”

Samus reached forward, not at all surprised with bartender’s eyes as they turned from blue pupils into a green and black static. The girl was artificial, that much was now obvious, as Samus noted that there was no real way to get behind the bar.

After a moment the blue eyes returned, as did the girl’s cheerful smile. “Mister Sauce is on the second floor, near the managerial offices. He is currently using the computers.”

“Do you know what he’s doing?”

“Nope!” the bartender chirped.

“Wonderful,” Samus sighed, looking from the girl to her Kirb. “Well, thank you for the drink,” she said.

“Not a problem!” the intelligence repeated the phrase in the exact same tone before winking out.

The construct’s tiny body and cheerful demeanor reminded Samus of the small girl from before, the little devil in the fluffy pink hat.

It was then that she finally felt it, the small pit of guilt that opened in her belly.

Did she really need to stun the girl? Sure, it was just temporary, but maybe that’s why she felt so off. She took the Kirb, looking to fill her guilt with the power of hunger.

Even as she began to suck down the straw, Samus couldn’t help glance towards the table they had shared. Not much was visible past the the bright flashing lights, but she thought she might have seen someone that could have been the girl walking away towards the door.

Well, maybe that girl would think better next time. Pick her target more carefully before moving in.

The little bounty hunter who had wanted a whale.

Samus blinked, realizing that she’d just made a joke. One at her own expense. She was too busy sucking down her slushie to laugh, but with an effort of will she lifted her lips with a pleased suspire and allowed herself a small chuckle.

She wondered if the girl had truly marked her, a target to wine and dine before bringing back to bed and began actually laughing.

The universe was a big place. Maybe there were people out there who would want to be smothered beneath Samus, or maybe to ride on top of her belly. But if there was, Samus hadn’t seen them.

She wasn’t exactly ‘sexually active,’ having been without even an interest in such a long time that she was having trouble believing her own instincts.

But if she had been…

Hell.

She might have even gone for it. If she weren’t busy. It had been much, much, much too long since Samus laid down with anything other than her stuffed animal, a pudgy yellow mouse with rose cheeks.

But Samus knew the truth. The girl wasn’t hitting on her, not really. She couldn’t have been. That was just the sugar talking, the warm and happy feelings from the delicious Kirb that Samus sucked deep through the straw, sending the pleasure straight to her gut.

Still… it had felt kind of nice, that moment of feeling like she might still be attractive.

She waddled along towards the nearby stairwell, feeling good despite her self-doubt, and mounted the stairs to the second floor.

When she reached the second floor, most of her good will had disappeared.

Huffing for air, Samus held her half-empty globe with one hand while her other gripped her puffing belly. She paused between pants to take another butterball swig from her fat slushy, glad for the flow of sugar on her tongue even as she had to gasp after swallowing.

Twenty-five steps. Were these people insane? They have an electric bar, but not an escalator?

No walkways, no escalators, whoever designed this backwater crap-hole must have really liked walking.

The moron.

She was breathing heavily, her legs as sore as the arches in her feet as she approached a black-suited man that stood before a small, open threshold.

The man was an absolute monster, a six-foot behemoth of muscle and power that looked as if he was about to rip through his suit jacket if he merely flexed his pecs. A trail of orange ink flowed down his from folded-up sleeves, highlighting just how much the skin stretched to contain his strong muscles.

“Can I help you?” he asked in a gruff, unfriendly voice.

Samus realized that she was scowling. Not at the man. Rather, at the flabby darkness that had completely eclipsed the man in shadow.

Sighing, she rubbed at her eyes, wishing to forget the comparison of her soft fatness but instead only cementing the fact that she was both taller and wider than the veritable gorilla. “Yes, hi. I’m Samus Aran.”

The man chuffed, his scowl replaced by a smirk. “Funny.”

“Thank you. Can I go in?”

A bushy eyebrow lifted. “Well, Samus Aran’d probably get through. But lady I don’t think you’d fit through the door.”

Samus felt the blonde hairs on her neck start to rise as her scowl returned, but now twice as fat.

“Now, don’t get all upset,” the man lifted a hammer-sized hand. “Nobody gets in that’s not on the list. It’s VIPs only, and you don’t even got a badge.”

“I was told that I’d have access.” Samus reached for her wallet, only then remembering how much of a struggle her pockets had given her the last time. Deciding to save as much face as she could, she tried a different tactic. “I am Samus Aran. I was sent here on a bounty for John Sauce, and I know he’s here.”

The man’s laugh sounded like a dog that had swallowed sheet metal. “Johnny’s got a bounty? That much I’ll buy, but they sent the great Samus Aran to come get ‘im?” he shook his head, looking at her as he might a particularly fat child who asked for more cookies. “I don’t think so. Nobody gets in that ain’t on the list, that’s the rule. Now, unless you’re Ava Menendez or whatever, please,” he lifted one of his hands and made a shooing motion.

“You don’t even have a list,” Samus observed.

The man’s unfriendly expression turned into a disbelieving smirk. “Lady…” He took one of his arms and, slowly, began to unbutton the sleeve. “I don’t need a list to know what Samus looks like.”

The orange trail lifted to reveal a long blue leg. Black creases highlighted the skin-tight suit up to a pair of shapely hips. Samus recognized with an existential slice of horror that the orange line was a plasma whip, twirling down around the body of…

Samus Aran smirked up at her, unyielding blue eyes filled with glory and pride. Her gorgeous figure was squeezed by the hugging fabric of her blue zero suit, colored beautifully with ink so stylized it could have been a portrait, but the woman looking down was hardly a mirror. The tattoo was mid-twirl, with Samus’ long blonde hair spinning along with the whip from her pistol, her face wearing a sharp and alluring smile. The blue ink that made up her eyes twinkled even in the shadow of the whale hovering above, taunting the sloppily dressed cow wearing her stretched out clothing.

She even had a thigh gap. A fucking thigh gap. Samus felt the blush on her chubby cheeks, bright enough to cast the entire tattoo into the red light.

“You ain’t Samus,” the guy chortled. “You ain’t a performer, and you clearly ain’t a dancer. And you don’t. Got. A pass.” He flexed his bicep, causing the tattoo’s chest to puff out and making Samus glow all the hotter. “You coulda said you’re here for the buffet and I’d probably just have sent you through, but lying?” He shook his head, letting out a loud laugh even as the shot from Samus’ stunner smacked into his gorilla chest.

He fell backwards, slumping onto a stool that had been hidden beneath most of his bulk, his eyes opened wide in shock.

She hadn’t even felt her finger toggling the stunner up several levels, but felt much more secure in the cool, calmness of her action. It had been easy, a true reaction that required not even a single thought.

Her fingers hadn’t fumbled this time, not like the surprise from the speaker that had caught her off guard. She’d meant to draw, meant to stun, but something was different. Not a single shard of ice was cooling her heart, instead she felt the warmth spreading through each and every pound.

There was no flashback, no separation of herself from her body as Samus holstered her pistol, cheeks still glowing as she adjusted the man’s body. His eyes were still moving, a good sign for the dose of plasma that she’d shocked him with, but now there was something more in the iris. Anger, the look of an animal that had been locked in a cage.

Her mind kept working on automatic. As she patted his suit jacket she informed, “Pursuant to the Bounty Code 702 of Federation Space, subsection 3, as an acting officer of the law I have designated appropriate, non-lethal, force in the act of obtaining a wanted bounty.”

His breast pocket revealed a pair of sunglasses, which she placed over his eyes.

“If you wish to contest this, please visit your local Marshall Office to file a Use of Force complaint. My Bounty Identification is 08061986, and my name is Samus Aran.” Then her instructional voice dipped into a low growling whisper, turning the man’s wrist around to hide her inked portrait. “And for the record, I’ve neverhad a thigh gap. And you made my boobs too big.”

Red in the face and with embarrassed sweat rolling down her fat neck, Samus stomped through the threshold. She’d intended to stomp all the way through, only to be caught completely off-guard as her fatty hips caught between the doorframe. She twisted, looking fiercely at her sides and pressing her sagging arms against the door. She had to shove with every muscle that her arms contained before, with the sound of cream being pushed through a tube, her thighs came free, loudly slapping into one another and she entered the lounge of the second floor.

Two sharp steps had her nearly fall over but she caught herself, as well as the attention of several people who’d been milling about. Attention that was quickly diverted when the onlookers each received a fiery glare.

Samus was, very obviously, not a VIP. She looked like a mess, her pale marshmallow flesh wobbling over and pushing her shorts further and further downward, while her top clutched at sweat-marked skin. The orange was starting to stain as drips of sweat rolled down from her arms and the crest of her tummy. Her deep, deep belly button looked almost as fat as her mouth, her stomach out further and further with each hungry sip of her filling pink Kirb.

Blonde hair, orange clothes, and rounded body, Samus was a white dwarf passing by tiny planetoids as she waddled through the milling crowd.

She’d come out on a balcony, separated from the main area by a railing and a short gap of empty space. Soft lights flashing between deep blue and hot pink, a violet purple mixing into scarlet red, all while the DJ pumped at the music. A cursory glance revealed only a few people were milling about, chatting in groups or leaning on the railing. One person, an official looking man wearing an emerald jacket, was standing at a console nearest to the dancefloor.

She approached him and he looked up, giving Samus a cordial nod. The console seemed to be a touchscreen that controlled the dance floor, with large arrows cycling clockwise as a current speed of two miles per hour.

“Excuse me,” she asked, “where can I find the offices?”

The man said something that she couldn’t hear over the din of music, but he pointed past the railings to the left.

Samus could see figures moving around behind the flashes, a stable area no doubt for seating and for the buffet.

“You’ll have to go through the floor to get there!” the guy pointed back towards the tube at his side. “All you have to do, is step right on! The floor rotates!”

She nodded, looking up towards the ceiling.

The floating dancefloor was held up by tethers of plasma, adding to the colorful lights that gleamed off the glass. Samus stepped forward, briefly feeling like a fat woman mounting a pony that probably couldn’t handle her weight, but was satisfied when the glass didn’t break beneath her tall heels.

The tube was empty, leading directly to the clear dancing area, which was slowly spinning despite the tube and the exit not moving at all. It was as if they were made of different components, but the main entrance was always remaining open to her side.

The music was louder now, and Samus found herself watching the bodies moving in tune with the beat. Hopping up and down, sweat stained skin illuminated by harsh colored light. A few dozen people all partying, dancing, having the time of their lives up here in the colorful sky.

It was beginning to give her motion sickness just looking at it.

The whole area was baking and it smelled like body odor, reminding Samus how long it’d been since she’d even looked at her ship’s personal gym.

Another slurp of her slushie had her coming up empty and pulled a small frown from Samus’ lips. She cradled the large cup in both hands as she stepped into the dance floor, feeling the transition pulling her with it.

She tried to turn, to go along the outskirts of the floor, but felt a shock of cold as her belly pressed up against an unseen glass right before her knee painfully knocked into it. “Ahh,” she took a step back, rubbing her tum and scowling at the glass. A mark had appeared, a stain from her sweat that she could faintly make out.

Samus looked around, hardly able to see anything inside of the glass besides moving bodies and flashing lights. The music was louder here, quivering the entire chamber and, thereby, sending fleshy jiggles throughout the entirety of Samus’ body.

She put her hand on the left side of the glass, walking along the wall until she found a gap. She followed the gap, her feet unsure of their positioning as she passed by a pair of girls making out while pressed up to the wall.

It became quickly apparent that Samus had waddled into some sort of honeycomb hive, or a hall of mirrors that didn’t flash back her reflection. She followed her hand down another hall, where a woman that was wearing as little as Samus over much perkier skin, smiled at her.

Long purple flowed over skin the color of fresh chocolate fudge, the dancer’s bright eyes glimmered as Samus approached. She leaned back, resting her arms on the invisible wall. “Are you looking for some one on one time?” she asked in an exotic voice, her hips continuing to bob to the beat.

“The exit, actually,” Samus replied, turning about. She felt both her belly and bottom squeezed against the sides of the glass hall, lodged for a moment before she sucked in her gut and pulled herself free, her left hand again guiding her through the claustrophobic maze.

The tan woman’s laugh followed her, a voice that sounded as light as bells.

The wall bent and, checking with her right, Samus turned down another empty corridor. She found that, if she kept her eyes on the ground, she could just see the shimmer from the lights glinting off of the walls. Another hallway led to another single dancer, an Elfin girl that reminded Samus of the couple she’d seen down below.

Samus kept on.

Without touching anything, Samus felt the right side of the hall open up. She could hear the music more clearly, the whoops and cheers of the club’s VIPs dancing in the main anti-chamber. They danced and they sang and they drank, but another scent managed to pierce through the miasma of the party.

Food.

More than sugar packed drinks, more than the sweet-covered wings she’s sampled below. Samus’ belly recognized the scent of grilled meat almost as soon as her nose registered. She continued her circle around the anti-chamber, walking against the gentle spin of the floor. Another club guard, a brunette woman wearing dark glasses and short-cropped hair, stood unmoving on what had to be a platform nearby a permanent doorway, from which the smoke of grilled meats bade the overweight bounty hunter.

Samus waddled up to the area. She tried to be careful of an invisible gap, widening her arms for any shift in balance, but was surprised when the height didn’t change. She glanced down at her boots.

It was as if the floor simply spun through this area without ever stopping. An observation which further irked the already annoyed bounty hunter.

They could get morph-glass, but not a simple escalator? Even an elevator! What was the point of all of this walking?!

“Probably to get fat cats to spend money on private shows…” Samus deeply purred, now more than aware why the girl thought she could dance.

“Eh?!” the guard turned, glancing over her dark sunglasses. “You need something, Ma’am?!”

“Erm… No,” Samus said quietly, then realized she’d mumbled. “No! I’m okay.”

“The lounge is just that way!” the woman gestured. “Do you need me to guide you?!”

Samus did her best to look like she wasn’t completely out of her element. “That’s fine!” she held up a hand. “Thank you!”

“Maybe you should sit down a minute!” the guard said, and Samus could feel the woman’s eyes skating from her fat toes to her soft nose. “Relax a little! Have a Kirb!”

Samus didn’t even have the energy to be upset. She just tightened her mouth, waved off the guard, and lumbered down the hall. She was more than aware of the sweat pooling dribbling down her stomach, the show of exertion that marked her huge waist.

Maybe she could go for a seat. After all, the buffet smelled enticing.

Her bounty could wait.