(C) Starfire's Ascent - Preview

(posting the preview in text here instead of the file for convenience, next time back to the usual)

(Warning: This story contains female muscle growth, muscle worship, and graphic sexual content)

Starfire wasn’t used to feeling… vulnerable.

Of course, she did not mean it in the emotional sense. She wore her emotions on her sleeve, as the human saying went but well… she needed to get used to many human things lately, the type she did not know she was even capable of handling.

Starfire sighed as she stared at her reflection in the mirror, her emerald eyes were dimmed, and her orange skin lacked a lot of its former vibrance…

Starfire felt more than vulnerable, she felt weak.

Doctor Light, ugh how she cursed that name. The buffoon’s plan had actually succeeded this time, the machine he designed blasted her with enough radiation that her internal energy responded reacted horribly to her own internal physiology, it was like all of her inner solar radiation left her body, repelled by its mere presence.

Her Starbolts frizzled out like sparks, her feet would not leave the ground for even the shortest levitation. Her eyes and skin were slowly losing their coloration.

X’Hal, she was even getting shorter. How? How was that even possible?

It was like she had been turned human, now that all of her powers had left her.

And with it, it felt like her spot on the team was gone as well.

Robin could try to be as considerate and kind-hearted as he could, and she loved that about him. But it hurt to watch the team leave in missions while all she could do was stay behind and ‘keep an eye on the tower’, as though their security systems didn’t already do that.

It got worse when they all had to go for different reasons, Robin to work with Batman, Cyborg with the League, Raven… doing whatever she was doing. That only left Beast Boy, whose emotional depth and people’s skills were not up to par to help her in this hour.

Starfire’s frustration and self-doubt kept growing by the day, morphing to shame and fury. She walked around the tower, recalling the times she could have already stopped five different active crime scenes before lunch, now condemned to wander around this almost empty building. Useless, weak…

Her wandering took her to the gym, the high tech room filled with all the equipment they could ever need. She looked at the incredibly dense weights she once lifted with ease back when she was Tamaranean, back when she was Starfire. Not this… mockery.

Mockery. The weights mocked her. Offended her with their existence, a reminder of what she lost.

“Damn you…” She shook with fury. “Damn you!”

She knew it was futile, she knew it was foolish. Yet she did it anyway. She reached for a large dumbbell with the intent of throwing it as far as she could, even if she barely managed to tip it over the rack it’d still be worth it.

The dumbbell, at 200 pounds of weight, was sent flying across the room a good distance.

Starfire blinked repeatedly, realizing what just happened as she slowly looked at her hand.

That… had been easier than she expected?

Could she-?

She swiftly tested her theory by reaching for another dumbbell and picking it up. Once more it was 200 pounds, something even the most fit baseline human would heavily struggle with.

And she was lifting it, it wasn’t easy but… she was lifting it in one hand.

Her body, her muscles… they retained part of her strength still.

Starfire smiled, feeling immense elation as she realized her fate was not written yet.