Mission Poppable

(CW: Inflation, popping)

Commission for CynicalGage.

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Jonathan stirred to consciousness with hammers pounding on the inside of his skull. His vision was obscured by a course brown fabric, which he recognized as a burlap sack. Favourite headwear of kidnapping victims everywhere. His sensitive feline nose wrinkled; the fibres were irritating his face. The motions of his muzzle twitching against the sack’s exterior must have alerted someone nearby because he heard a muffled cry of alarm and then, suddenly, he was blinded by light.

Standing over him was the ego-filled balloon man, Biohazard Ben. Master of inflatable havoc and pneumatic chaos, and number one on Jonathan’s intelligence agency’s wanted list. He had been sent to infiltrate one of his America side compounds and neutralize the ‘secret weapon’ intel discovered he was building. Deep underneath New York, the puma agent had managed to navigate the circuitous subway tunnels until he could find a point of egress deeper into Ben’s lair.

Evidently, by the gaps in his memory, and the fact he was now bound to a steel chair in an underground laboratory, he had failed to maintain an element of stealth in his mission.

“Benjamin,” Jonathan said curtly, like he was greeting an ex-lover.

“Jonathan,” Ben smiled with a mirth that could fool most people into thinking the bloated monster was a kindly soul with an odd choice of wardrobe. Jonathan knew better, he had seen the demented genius which lay beneath that cartoon supervillain aesthetic. He was as fit to burst with malice as he was with gas, or at least, Jonathan thought so. No, he knew that to be the case.

“You realize that once the agency declares the mission a failure, they’ll activate my self destruct device and we’ll both go out with a bang.” Jonathan narrowed his eyes. “Though you’d probably get off on that, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, mister Jonathan,” Ben grabbed a handful of his left breast and squeezed, it groaned deep and loud. He was a giant balloon, after all. A giant, evil balloon. Made of evil rubber. “You should refrain from threatening a volatile man like myself with a good time, I might be inclined to take you up on that offer.” He laughed, prompting his gasmask wearing goons to join in the chorus. “Actually, I was hoping you would proposition me.”

Jonathan cocked his head. “What are you getting at, Biohazard? Still sore we reverse engineered your gas to make us as dangerous as you. You’re not the one who gets to decide how long someone stays popped before they reform now, I bet that drives you crazy. You love having control.”

Ben gestured for the lab technicians to leave them. He pressed a button on his utility belt, which somehow stayed taut against his global belly without fraying or snapping off. Jonathan was freed, the metal cables which tied him to the chair rescinded into the wall behind him. He immediately got up, did a cartwheel for flair, and readied himself into a martial arts stance.

“Oh please. Acrobatics? Karate? What’s next, are you going to fire a poison dart from your shoe or burn out one of my eyes with a wrist-mounted laser? You’re a walking cliché Jonathan.” Ben raised a gauntlet to his mouth; he pressed a button and spoke definitively. “Send footage of Lab 8-B to Jonathan’s agency, let them know he’s failed.” He turned to the puma with a smile.

Jonathan immediately let out a belch. His fur was already beginning to flatten down and his slicked back purple hair turned into a single chamber full of air. In a moment, all the bio-matter which used to constitute his internals would be synthesized into a highly unstable self-replicating hydrogen gas. This was a fail-safe reverse engineered from a less viral strain of Ben’s purple gas. It was designed to detonate an agent and cause maximum collateral damage, then reform the agent somewhere along the air current created from the blast at the whims of the agency. It lacked the psychoactive qualities of Biohazard Ben’s internal substances, but it had thrice the stopping power.

“You’re going to ruin months of research, gasbag,” Jonathan said as his swollen feet burst out of his expensive shoes. He cursed, that were his favourite pair! His calves, legs and thighs all blew out into a uniform width and the inflation didn’t stop there; his mid-section exploded and fought an easily won battle against the buttons of his immaculate ivory suit. One by one, his buttons shot away from the rubberised fur and flesh of his domed belly. They impacted Ben at terminal velocity, but they just sank in and rebounded against the wall at a different angle.

“Oh, are we playing bullet-pong?” He laughed. He loved to laugh. Jonathan hated that about him.

“Take this seriously, you balloon bastard!”

“If you insist,” Ben exhaled purple gas. It slowly made its ways into Jonathan, expediting the chemical reaction inside of him. He was unable to maintain his posture as his arms and legs became nothing more than a sequence of differently shaped balloons stacked on top of one another. All definition between his pectoral muscles and washboard stomach had been replaced by an all-consuming black sphere. “Your little self-destruct protocol threw me for a loop at first, that much I’ll grant you.”

Ben casually walked to the other end of the testing lab. Jonathan meowed and growled, unable to fight the rising temperature which had brought him to a feverish delirium. He was so big, so shiny. If it weren’t for the rubberised patches which used to be his fur, he would be identical to the taut black suit Biohazard Ben always seemed to be poured into. He pressed into the supervillain, feeling his synthetic skin ready to burst at the seams in every direction. His face was involuntarily smooshed into Ben’s face, which still, just, kept, LAUGHING.

“At least I... can take your entire lab out... with me...” Jonathan’s black rubber was now lit by a blazing orange from the explosive gas inside of him preparing to ignite.

Ben whispered into the puma’s ear. “Actually, the reason I locked you in this lab? I reinforced it... just to contain you. Happy bursting, big boy.”

And in a fit of rage and defeat, Jonathan exploded like a raging inferno. The lab still stood, Ben kept laughing, and when the Puma reformed... he was going to have a shameful report to make to his supervisor.