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A wave of intense heat radiated out from Jackie's body onto Xenia's hand before the two could touch. Xenia had to take a few steps back to avoid suffocating from the heat, which gave her a new opportunity to observe Jackie's newly transformed body. The rippling waves of heat in the air distorted the assistant's large, red figure, if only for a few seconds. Before long, the heat had dissipated into the rest of the lab, raising the temperature by at least a few degrees. Whatever had caused the surge of heat had stopped, however, and Jackie's body soon appeared to be back to its previous temperature.

Unwilling to take dangerous risks which could easily compromise her research, Xenia remained a short distance away from Jackie, in order to observe her as best as possible. Leaving the door to the quarantine room still open, Xenia stood behind the glass wall in case of yet another blast of heat.

"What's going on, Jackie? Are you feeling alright? Did you do anything unusual?"

Jackie, who had kept her eyes closed since the incident had started a few minutes earlier, shook her head slowly. She had been sitting on the ground with her arms wrapped around her knees, both limited by her new height as well as what appeared to be fear of harming Xenia.

"I want to go outside... It's so hot in here, and I feel I'm running out of air... Please? I know we shouldn't, but I just feel I have to!"

"What if something were to happen to you out there? Even as you are now, we don't know if it's safe or not! What if you end up losing your mind, or maybe just end up dead on the spot, or-"

"Please, Xenia? I feel I'm going to die suffocating in here anyway! If I need to go, can't I at least do it seeing the sky one last time?"

Xenia let out a long sigh as she considered the situation. She had avoided performing any tests on Jackie to find out whether or not the Xenophyll saw her as one of its own, by fear of the girl's life being in danger. On the other hand, if Jackie's body was indeed entering some kind of reaction similar to a meltdown, all the lives in the lab and the guard station above would be in danger.

She shook her head to herself as she walked to the closet, putting on one of the hazmat suits specially designed to survive the Xenophyll outside the closed confines of the lab. The heavy boots hitting the ground as well as the sound of filtered breathing caused Jackie's head to turn towards Xenia. Although the eyes remained closed, the red face showed a large, thankful smile as Jackie's hand reached out to grab Xenia's at her order.

"We'll have to go quickly. I don't want any of the guards upstairs noticing us. I have no idea what they might do to you if they saw you. You'll also need to be very careful. We don't know what happens if you cut yourself or touch some materials. I want you to follow me very closely, and very carefully, alright?"

Jackie nodded, and slowly opened her eyes. From outside the suit, Xenia swore a second heat wave emanated from her assistant, but dismissed it as pure coincidence. What mattered most at the moment was to get the girl outside safely and stealthily, something which would prove difficult at her new size and weight.

The researcher and her assistant slowly made their way towards the exit. Many objects were knocked over, by Jackie's size as she crawled on her knees and hands while following Xenia, but also by Xenia's own clumsiness in the unwieldy safety suit. As the stairs led to full view of the security floor, Xenia decided to lead Jackie outside through the freight elevator, used to lower large pieces of equipment.

Although Jackie had to curl herself up to the point where she was nearly unable to move, she had managed to enter the elevator along with Xenia, who quickly pushed the button to head to the surface, as well as the necessary security code.

Both women remained as quiet as possible while the elevator made its way upward. Jackie's weight slowed it down somewhat, but it was still able to slowly lift her. Eventually, they were able to peer into the security floor through the windows of the elevator door, where most of the guards appeared to be too busy eating to see or hear them.

However, while they both hoped to be able to exit the building unnoticed, the elevator suddenly stopped somewhere between the security floor and the surface floor. Muffled by the walls and the thick suit, Xenia could only hear faint shouting coming from below. After a few minutes of tension and silence among the two researchers, the elevator continued its way upwards to the surface floor, where the door opened to reveal a dozen guards, all wearing their own safety suits but also equipped with automatic rifles.

Neither Xenia nor Jackie dared move a muscle, fearing how these men might react. The leader, identified by a bright red band around his helmet, pointed outside, past the various decontamination rooms.

"Outside! Both of you! Now! Don't you dare try anything funny, either!"

Xenia nodded slowly and took careful steps out of the elevator towards the exit. Jackie's exit was somewhat clumsier, as she tore off part of the elevator doors along the way, but the guards refrained from shooting. With careful steps, the two eventually made their way outside, where they were promptly surrounded by the guards and targeted by rifle barrels.

Unwilling to move or even speak, Xenia paid close attention to Jackie, who was sitting on her knees beside herself, as well as to the guards around them. It wasn't very hard for her to tell that a few of the soldiers were clearly trembling, most likely from the sight of Jackie or even just because of having to be outside, with only their suits to protect them from the Xenophyll. The bright, cloudy afternoon seemed strangely fitting for the situation.

"We've had enough of your crazy experiments, Akulova! It's bad enough you've been risking our lives each day, now we find out you've been using that time to make monsters! Open the suit and die like you should, bitch, it's all you deserve!"

Xenia blinked at the commander, and then turned to glance towards Jackie. The two women were utterly terrified, unsure of what to do. One of the guards attempted to speak out against the idea, branding it as the equivalent of torture, but was soon silenced by the leader's rifle. His man back under control, the chief of the guards ordered Xenia and Jackie to stand next to a decrepit brick wall, which once belonged to a large building until the Xenophyll took over. Both scientists did as ordered, despite each of Jackie's movements causing the ground to shake ever so slightly.

As Xenia watched the men take position and prepare to fire, the sun penetrated the clouds, even if only for a brief moment. Xenia smiled at the opportunity to see its light one last time, as the guards raised their rifles to aim. The commander began raising his hand to give the order, but was interrupted by a shriek so loud he had to cover his ears. Some of the soldiers even dropped their weapons to do so.

Confused, Xenia did her best to survive the noise as well, but nearly tumbled to the ground as Jackie fell at her side, curled up in the fetal position. It was unclear if she was experiencing horrible pain or some other intense emotion, but Jackie's eyes were shut tight while she writhed on the ground for a few seconds, as the light shone brightly against her red skin.

Before she knew what had happened, Xenia suddenly felt herself being thrown back, away from Jackie. She quickly rose back to her feet, in case she needed to react to either Jackie or the guards, but watched in amazement at the sight before her. Having already grown to be about twelve feet tall, Jackie was already more than twice the size of Xenia, but this was quickly changing.

Seemingly fueled by the sunlight, Jackie's body was quickly gaining mass in various ways. The most obvious was the added growth in height, which led to Jackie growing what seemed to be yet another four feet or so, placing her height at nearly three times the average human. The growth came in spurts, however, leading only to minor gains in height when she was curled up, but accelerated much more quickly whenever Jackie squirmed and exposed more of her skin to the sun.

Much like a tree growing at a highly increased rate, the rest of Jackie's body also changed in comparatively minor ways. The stem-like growths on her head, which were once her hair, quickly grew along with her height, but continued to develop even further. The stems, each about as thick as her fingers, increased mostly in length, to the point where they easily reached her waist. By that point, they resembled lianas more than plant stems, placed on her head in the same overall pattern as human hair. The bulbs tipping each "hair" had also changed, swelling slightly and taking on brighter colours. The few bulbs which were cast into the shadow of Jackie's body also appeared to emit a slight glow, the same yellowy-white colour as the bulbs themselves.

The most unusual change, however, was the way Jackie's body changed in proportion to itself. Although Xenia had previously noticed an increase in Jackie's curves, this new change had brought up yet even more swelling. Particularly, Jackie's breasts each seemed to have grown in size to match her own head, yet they weren't leaking the nectar at that moment.

The largest increase in mass was found in Jackie's muscles. Jackie's arms and legs, previously smooth and relatively flat, began to grow much firmer and thicker, to the point where each of these limbs became a very defined and intricate set of powerful hills and valleys. Whenever Jackie's stomach became visible to Xenia, it was clear that this part of her body was also affected by the growth. With each of Jackie's writhing movements against the ground, each muscle appeared to grow slightly larger, to the point where a single of Jackie's upper arms eventually became larger than Xenia herself, even more so when flexed. Although Xenia's eyes would only reach Jackie's knees at that point, this was still quite large by all standards.

What surprised Xenia the most, however, was an entirely new appendage growing at the base of Jackie's spine, forming into a new limb similar to a tail. It grew quickly and steadily, the base growing thicker as the tail grew longer. It could easily be missed whenever Jackie rolled onto her back, but continued growing steadily nonetheless. By the time Jackie's growth spurt had finished, the tail was slightly longer than her legs. Its base was about the size of her head, yet quickly tapered down into a thin, pointy tip.

Although only five minutes had passed since Jackie had begun to transform, to Xenia and the guards, it appeared to last only a single instant. Surprisingly, not a single soldier had fired during the entire change. They were most likely all paralyzed by fear or wonder. It was when Jackie let out a gasp and opened her eyes, now fully jet black, that the guards reacted. What should have only been breathing out for air sounded like a mighty roar to the much smaller humans, including Xenia.

The first soldier to start firing was soon joined by the others, one by one, including their leader. Bullets thundered out from the rifles onto Jackie, who quickly placed herself in front of Xenia, but the hulking red woman appeared to remain mostly unaffected. Each shot which hit her body caused her body to shake slightly, but the bits of metal accumulated on the ground around Jackie, leaving her bark-like skin unharmed.

Xenia's intense trembling against Jackie caused her to believe she was doing more harm to the red creature than the bullets, which rained down ineffectively. By the time the drumming of the guns was over, Jackie quickly stepped away from Xenia and grabbed the guards one by one, tearing the weapons away from their tiny bodies and placing each man onto the roof of the lab. As large and strong as she had become, there was little they could do to escape her crimson fingers.

Very carefully, Jackie then placed Xenia in her hand, doing her best to avoid any rough or sudden movements. Xenia was still trembling from shock, eyes wide with fear as she stared at Jackie, who whispered gently, to reduce the impact of her booming voice.

"I'm okay, Xenia. They didn't hurt me."

Although this seemed to reassure Xenia somewhat, the scientist remained speechless. She simply looked around at the scene of the carnage, then back to Jackie, who was smiling gently, a light shine in her dark eyes.

"You don't need to worry, we're safe for now. If they attack us again, I'll protect you."

"B-b-but... You..."

"I'm feeling fine, Xenia, it's okay! In fact, I'm feeling great! Better than I've ever felt!"

Jackie smiled further, and flexed an enormous red bicep, to show just how good she was feeling. Very carefully, she placed her finger onto Xenia's back, as somewhat of an attempt to pat and reassure Xenia, who gradually calmed down and began to admire Jackie's new body.