Hollow as His Words

(CW: Inflation, supervillainy, monologues, unusual shape transformation)

Commission for Anonymous
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Mayor Thompson’s speech had waffled on for what felt like an eternity. He started his rally with the usual garbage about putting the city first, and ensuring a bright future for everyone. Provided he be re-elected as mayor in the election next month, of course. The man was eloquent, newly middle aged, and had a soft, portly face which made him approachable if only in appearance. His other defining feature, Ben thought, was his capacity for expelling hot air. The man was talented at inhaling doughnuts paid for by the city taxpayer, and exhaling hollow promises; in a way his entire speech was just a big glossy doughnut, pretty to look at, hollow in the middle.

“What do you think,” a man in a plain black tracksuit said, concealing a small tank of transformative gas in his gym bag. He was as wide as he was tall, but he still seemed diminutive next to the ten-foot terror of Ben himself. The two had only gone unnoticed in the crowd because half of Mayor Thompson’s security detail was in Ben’s pocket.

“About what?” Ben replied coolly, giving Mayor Thompson a rare look of contempt.

“Do we pump up and put the rally into a state of panic, then turn the blowhard into a laughingstock?”

“No.”

“... do we let him swell up slowly, let him panic he’s going to bite the big one, then kidnap him once he reforms post-pop?”

“That won’t do either,” Ben said, and shook his head. “I want to try something a bit different. I’ve been experimenting with my powers, and I’ve learned that I can exert more control over a person’s shape when they start inflating.” He motioned for his henchman to pass him something, and the man handed him a long thin hose from his gym bag connected to the tank. Ben took a long drink from the condensed gas within, filling himself to the point where his belt began to stress against the flesh of his globular stomach. He thought about ignoring the tension, and allowing himself to simply blow up and intimidate his prey, but he restrained himself and removed the hose from his mouth. He passed it back and locked eyes on mayor Thompson.

“Watch,” Ben said and pursed his lips to exhale the gas. It was originally extracted from his hollow, balloon-like body, and was as much a part of him as his skin, or his hair, or his very thoughts. He could control it with ease. It snaked a path through the crowd like an airy serpent. Until it reached the bottom of the stage where the mayor was ‘still’ spewing his drivel, and rose up his pant leg until it seeped through his pores. Putting the man firmly, and irreversibly, in Ben’s hands.

The henchman watched the gas slither its way, until Ben returned to his average state of rotundity. Which still wasn’t subtle, or normal looking in the slightest. The man looked like a parade float come to life even at his most deflated. A gut so round, and so massive, that if you pricked it with a pin it didn’t look like it would deflate, so much as detonate with tremendous force.

“Why do you hate this guy so much, boss?” The henchman asked.

Ben put one of his large hands on his henchman’s shoulder, and smiled. “Hate? That’s a strong word, friend. I don’t -hate- the good Mayor Thompson. I just have some grievances with him, and all the other politicians of our fair society, plaguing the people with his misallocation of funds, detrimental policies, and his general lack of acumen for a leader of the people.” Ben laughed quietly. “It’s funny when you stop to think about it. We’re literal supervillains, and somehow our moral compasses are more intact, and in line with the will of the masses than their elected representative.”

The henchman clearly didn’t understand Ben’s point, but he joined his sombre laughter anyway. “Yeah boss, all that stuff. Plus he said some pretty mean things about you last week, so we’ve got to get him back for THAT, right?” He said with a chuckle.

Ben rubbed his chin with his other hand. “Well yes, I do have a certain modicum of pride which prevents me from overlooking slights against my good name, and the hard work of my employees.” Ben hummed to himself and kept his eyes locked on Mayor Thompson. “

“So what are you going to do to him?” The henchman asked.

“Just watch,” Ben replied.

Ben took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. He entered a state of total concentration, somewhere both inside his body where the majority of the purple gas which made up his powers were, and outside of it, floating amidst the glittering particles he released into the air. He was both inside and outside of himself, a contentious state of being, where he could observe - and more importantly - influence the way his gas affected the people it had infiltrated and bonded with. His field of vision was like a blurry bird’s eye view, but the world was muted and grey. His own bulging form shone like a beacon, being the centre of his gas and its origins, and the henchman at his side flickered with a fraction of their power.

Another line of purple led from Ben’s body in this out of body landscape. A powerful thread, leading directly to Mayor Thompson’s portly silhouette. Ben focused and tugged on it. He commanded the gas within the mayor’s body to bond to him, from his skin to his skeleton, muscles and everything else. The mayor patted his chest and let out a shy burp as these life changing alterations took place, and within seconds, he was a human balloon. And the blow-hard hadn’t even noticed his skin taking on the dull sheen of unpolished rubber. A few in the rally probably thought his new texture was strange, but chalked it up to a trick of the light. A wicked smile crept across Ben’s face.

Ben made another command to the portion of gas within the mayor, then returned to his singular point of view, the world returning to colour and his perspective returning to that of a two-eyed upright human man. In appearance, anyway, the subtle creaking of his body was a reminder of his balloon-like body. The same type of body he shared with the mayor.

“And furthermore I pledge to ensure... oof,” Mayor Thompson clutched his stomach. He dug his fingers in, and his eyes scrunched tight. He held on to the podium and narrowly avoided knocking over the heavy microphone. A pair of security guards wandered closer to him in an effort to help, asking him if he needed an ambulance or to see a doctor, but the mayor told them no. “Just a bit winded all of a sudden, I have no idea what came over me.”

“Oh you certainly don’t,” Ben said and mentally amplified the rate of change induced by the gas that now filled the mayor from top to bottom.

“Oooooof!” Mayor Thompson made the motion to burp, but instead, all that came out was a smooth release of hot air. He looked around, seeing his security detail backing away from him, lifting their sunglasses in disbelief at something. “What are you doing, what’s the matter!?” Mayor Thompson called out angrily, demanding an explanation.

“You... you have a hole!”

Mayor Thompson flushed and wrinkled his moustache in indignation. “I have a WHAT, how dare you use such filthy language, and during a public speech no less. What are the people going to think about your unsightly conduct?”

“No mister mayor, you LITERALLY have a hole in your stomach!”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Thompson said. “If I had a hole in my stomach, I think I would know, why, I would be dead.” He raised a hand, “why if I had a hole through my stomach, then surely my hand would go straight through if I did this.” Mayor Thompson thrust his hand through his stomach, and it came out the other end.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” He screamed, the crowd screamed, the guards screamed at the hollowed-out mayor.

“Bit dark for you, isn’t it Ben? What’s he going to do with a hole in him?”

“Oh I’m not done yet.” Ben smirked.

Mayor Thompson staggered and started scratching at his body, only to find that his clothes had become shiny and tight. He pinched, and tried to push his fingers under the fabric, but he only made himself yell ouch a dozen times in quick succession. The bright cerulean suit and white dress shirt he wore to give the speech had fused and was now inseparable from his skin. His blue pants, and expensive Italian leather shoes, had likely fallen victim to the same curse. Ben was thoroughly bemused by the way the red-faced man got redder and redder, realizing his high-cost tailoring was now permanently fixed to his body.

“And now, the final touch.” Ben snapped his fingers, for effect mostly.

Hissing filled the rally. It was so loud and whining that it drowned out the panic, and overruled the protests from Thompson and his security detail. The hole in the mayor’s belly widened, and the rest of his body inflated like a child’s inner tube at the beach. His face fattened up very slightly, and seams became apparent across his circular midsection. His limbs shortened, becoming thicker, less dextrous, and more obviously balloon-like.

“What’s happening to me!?”

“What you deserve,” Ben stood forward and parted the crowd like an ice breaking ship making headway through an arctic sheet. The few security guards not in his pocket rushed at him, pistols drawn, and were mowed down when Ben inflated and elongated his right arm until it was big enough to knock them aside into the trunk of a nearby tree, with one almighty swing. “Mayor Thompson, I believe you remember me?”

“Biohazard Ben!” Thompson wobbled, struggling to adjust to his new dimensions. His neck was half of what it was, he couldn’t move his head without his chin rubbing against the squeaky rim of his hollow, circular body. “You dastard, you did this to me! I’ll see you imprisoned, no, hanged for the mockery you’ve made of me, you ego-maniacal bloat of a man!” It was difficult to be afraid of a shiny, over-inflated man, who looked like arms and legs and a head attached to a comically large life buoy.

“There’s that abundance of hot air we all love and know you for mister mayor,” Ben said. “If only you had actually done your job, and made an effort to improve the living quality of your constituents.” He pointed at Mayor Thompson, pondering how he wanted to finish the debacle.

The mayor scoffed. “You expect me to believe this whole thing is about my politics, Benjamin?” He inflated himself with his own anger, growing almost as wide as the stage. He creaked dangerously, the rage threatening to burst free from his gossamer skin. The seams were sinking in, taut and distressed, as the segments of his odd round body puffed out.

“Careful mayor,” Ben taunted. “Ordinarily I might warn you against raising your blood pressure, but you don’t have blood anymore. And I would warn you that too much anger could cause you to bust a gut, but my dear mayor, you don’t even have a stomach, what a tragedy!” He smacked his own stomach, making it bounce. He was enjoying this, perhaps a bit too much. “Alright I think it’s time to send you up and have you embarrass yourself for a while, a few hours, a few days, it depends on how long until someone gets you down.”

“Until someone gets me down? What do you mean, what are you planning you blim--” Thompson’s cheeks filled up, hot air constantly blew out through his pursed lips. He kept stretching, the gas having made him more elastic on behalf of Ben’s commands, until he was far larger than the stage and infinitely more ridiculous looking than before. He waddled forward with his squeaky hands, poised to wring Ben’s tyre of a neck, but the moment he leapt from the wood he lost his footing and floated upwards at rapid speed. By the time he regained his faculty of speech, he was a soaring one-man parade, drifting towards the towering buildings of the city centre.

“Now he’s as hollow as his words,” Ben chuckled, and looked around. No one dared approach him now that they knew they were dealing with a supervillain. He calmly walked away to safety, flanked by his minion, satisfied that he had visited some petty revenge on one, big, blowhard.