Adel the Bounty Hunter

Adel belched. She had been drinking through all of her canteens the entire day just to keep herself hydrated while she waited for the target to show up. Now that the sun was finally beginning to settle, she didn't have to feel like she was sitting inside a baking oven on high any longer. She pat her rounded stomach, which was firm and taut with fat and water both. She belched again. It felt good to let it out now and then, manners be damned to hell and back. A little mewl started to creep its way up her throat, that tickle of excitement she got whenever she was bloated or stuffed this big, but she managed to swallow it back down. Now was the time for business, not pleasure. She refused to mix the two, as one was meant to lead to the other, and nothing more.

As of this moment, she sat alone on a smooth stone beside a dark desert highway. There was not a soul for miles. Cars never rode this way anymore, if many of them still rode at all. Yet she knew that the target would be passing this way; she believed in the information provided to her, and she refused to distrust it, least it meant she had been wasting her entire day and most of her water supply on nothing at all. Her auburn hair flicked and twisted around her in thick, tentacle-like coils as a cold wind ran through it. She rubbed her stomach again, the act too tempting even for someone who liked to keep business and pleasure separate, but this time with her false arm. The cool touch of metallic fingers against the bare skin of her brown belly made her shiver even more than the wind did.

Adel sighed, she wished that the target would show up already so she could get this (business) over with. She had a very important date (pleasure) waiting for her later tonight, and she refused to have to reschedule. She'd been waiting too long for it (pleasure) as it was, because so much of her time was being occupied with chores (business) already. Such was the life of a bounty hunter.

The warm smell of colitas hung like a roaming fog in the air, but that was likely because a literal family of the desert flowers were growing just behind her. Adel belched a third time, this one much quieter and less boisterous than the others, a clear sign that she was running low on 'steam'. She wished she had more water to drink, but then she stopped herself and told herself it was a good thing there wasn't any left, or else she would have drunk until she was near bursting, and that wouldn't have been good for the job ahead.

Adel looked down the length of the highway. Up ahead in the distance, she saw a shimmering light. Her head felt heavy and her sight grew dim, but she knew she couldn't stop for the night. Not yet.

The young woman immediately leaped to her feet. She paused for a moment to reach back and pluck her shorts out from riding up inside her ample bottom. She was a rather curvy woman for her age, hourglass-shaped (her butt was bigger than her breasts, though) with a soft, plush ring of squishy fat around her middle for good measure, but it had never bothered her once before (pleasure). Sometimes, being softer than normal could be a nice little protection bonus too (business).

As the light drew closer, Adel began to be able to make out the form of the being that was casting said light to begin with. She knew what it was from the start, because the notes of this mission had told her so. It was a Treader, and it was simply doing what any Treader did best, by 'treading' across the landscape in its usual fashion. All Treaders tended to follow a similar pattern in terms of their pathways, going straight ahead without any turns. This resulted in these mysterious creatures being able to charge straight through mountains or the deepest depths of the ocean without issue. It made it easy to track them, even though for the most part the Treaders had nothing to offer humanity aside from being a deadly nuisance whenever you happened to be in its way. They were like the sharks of the land, they couldn't stop moving or else they would die, expect they were about the size of cargo trains. Living cargo trains that moved fast enough to completely reduce even the toughest metals to scrap beneath them.

Adel stepped off of the rock and positioned herself on the very edge of where the road and the dirt met. She held out her false arm, the only part of her body that could never gain any weight, even as a subtle layer of excess fat had already begun to form on the upper-half of the other limb. She flexed her fingers a few times to make sure that her 'arm' was secured tightly to her shoulder; there had been times where, misjudging the tightness of the bolts, the prosthetic had been ripped clean off. Those times had been painful ones as well, considering some of her nerves were connected to the machine. The Treader was getting close enough for her to hear the sound of its hundred dozen feet scampering across the ground, like a thousand sneakers pounding on the pavement at the exact same time. She waited to hear the sound of a blow-horn that would never come, and she prepared to reach out and grab onto one of the hairs of its mane.

The Treader rushed past, kicking up a great gust of sand around it. Adel was carried off along with it, her false hand clinging desperately onto the creature's hair. She took a moment to gather herself, using her free hand to reach behind and tug out her shorts again, before she began scaling the side of the beast.

The Treader was coated in a matted layer of red-brown fur, the strands themselves thicker than steel bars. It helped to make climbing an easy endeavor, even when the Treader itself was still moving at top speed. Adel's hair whipped about violently, her coat nearly about to fly off of her back, as she cautiously pulled her way upward, taking it one step at a time. She could have been stripped off of the Treader's back at any moment due to the strong and unrelenting wind, if not for the extra strength provided by her prosthetic.

She was near the top now. The Treader would never notice her presence, and even if it did, it had no arms with which to apprehend her. The Treader wasn't what she was most concerned about anyway. It was more so its 'allies' that she needed to be wary of.

Adel hoisted herself up onto the Treader's back and, as she rose to her feet, she realized just how strong the wind was here. It was like many invisible hands were pushing into her, trying to knock her off, and if she did not keep her body as rigid as possible, there was a very good chance that that would actually happen to her. She would be left as nothing more than a bloody stain and a couple of cracked teeth on the side of the road.

Adel's turned to begin moving toward the head of the Treader, her destination. From the skull of every Treader grew a protruding tentacle that carried within it the brain of the creature. Its brain was considered both very rare and very valuable, particularly because of the way the organ crystallized upon contact with the air, transforming it into a precious jewel that could not be found anywhere else. Removing the brain killed the Treader, of course, but no one felt particularly bad for doing it when they were such destructive beasts in the first place. If anything, it was a good way for bounty hunters to make money while also helping out humanity and weeding out the undesirable species, whether they personally cared about such things or not.

To protect the Treader from being killed when its most important organ was out in the open, its body had special 'anti-bodies' on it that fought to the death to protect it. Those were what Adel was looking out for now. She knew that they would appear eventually because she could reach the brain. Adel reached her real arm for the holster in which she kept her gun, while her false arm was kept outstretched, prepared to lunge forward and grab hold of the hair again in case she managed to lose her footing. The wind was practically slashing at her face, and it made her belly ache from having such pressure pushing against it while it was so full. Even worse, her shorts were riding up again. She was not in a very comfortable position, she could admit to that much.

Suddenly, Adel heard the sound of scuffling, and she turned around to see them. Essentially, they were called Goblins or Trolls by many because of how much they seemed to resemble the mythical creatures. Small, furry, lanky little beasts that clung to the Treader's body like human-sized parasites, with claws long and thin as needles and teeth that could easily cut through flesh. Whether they were actually the offspring of the Treader or there was some sort of symbiotic relationship between the two, no one knew for sure. It just seemed that every Treader carried these things on them.

Adel immediately whipped out her pistol and fired a bullet in between the eyes of one of the trolls. Its body was instantly ripped off of the Treader's back by the winds, exploding to pieces as soon as it hit the ground at such a high speed. There were still several more left, and after seeing one of their friends killed so easily, they were now a little more careful with their actions. Adel fired again, but the goblin she tried to hit leaped back and ducked its head.

The goblins hissed, bubbles of saliva foaming over their lips. Adel decided to forgo wasting too many bullets on the small-fry and she made a bee-line for the Treader's head. Of course, the goblins hurried after her.

Adel was huffing and puffing before long. She didn't have as much stamina as she used to, before she got into her little 'stuffing' interests. It was one of the more unfortunate side-effects of having so much bountiful fluff clinging to one's body. She looked back over her shoulder, using one hand to brush her hair out of the way. The goblins were already ganging up on her, getting close now. They were repulsive, the way they let their tongues hang out and their round, yellow eyes bulging out of their sockets. Adel fired a bullet through the tongue of one of the creatures, piercing its throat and sending it flying. At least that was another one down.

The remaining two had already witnessed enough to know that what the woman had in her hand was dangerous, that avoiding the projectiles it fired was a priority at all costs, even though said projectiles probably moved too fast to avoid most of the time. Adel fired several more bullets and they all missed. She bit down on her lower lip; she honestly didn't have the time, or the ammo, for this right now.

She didn't want to have to use one, since she didn't have many, but it may have been necessary. She reached over and flicked open a small compartment on her prosthetic, removing a tiny grenade no larger than a ballpoint pen. She clicked it once, heard it start to beep, and threw it behind her. Having been prepared for bullets, the two goblins did not know what to think of the strange pen that had suddenly been hurtled their way. It was being blown by the air, and it would have zipped right past them, which they'd expected, but it managed to ignite and explode just as it reached the gap of space between them, setting both of the trolls alight. In their panic, they were pulled off of the Treader and reduced to splotches of red on the gravel within seconds.

They weren't very tough, these goblin-troll-things. But that was only because they were the young ones.

Adel was nearing the exposed brain organ now. It was a thick, wet tentacle that stuck out like a wilted flower from the top of the Treader's head, with a bulb on the end that contained the creature's brain. Why it had its brain exposed like this, an obvious danger to its very life, was curious, but something in its species' evolution must have caused this to happen. Adel removed a knife strapped to her plump right thigh with intent to cut off the bulb. She knew that the client wished to extract the brain themselves, so she would remove the tentacle and bring it back whole instead.

A low, guttural snarl announced the much larger goblin that was now behind her. A massive and ancient thing, with a beard that hung down low enough to mesh with the Treader's own fur, it was propping itself up on four legs and three arms. A missing limb hinted it had fought against other bounty hunters and did not come out unscathed, but unlike what probably happened to its past opponents, it didn't come out dead. It bared teeth that were blacker than hunks of charcoal, with little red veins that helped display further how poorly-maintained they were. It raised one of its clawed hands with intent to slice her in two.

Adel tried to fill the creature with bullets, first into its gut and then into its face. The goblin howled, blue blood streaking from its face and the holes in its belly, but it still swung nonetheless. Adel ran straight at the creature, so that the wide arc of its swing would go completely around her, missing her. She gave it a few more bullets as punishment, including loading a few into its privates. The old, giant goblin was screaming, yet it didn't seem to consider retreat as an option.

Adel briefly wondered if these goblins eventually became Treaders when they were too old to go on, like maybe instead of death, they had to become these mindless, constantly-moving corpses that continue running over and over until someone came in to cut out their brains, putting an end to the misery once and for all. She didn't really understand it. No one had the time or the technology to find out these days. For all she knew, it was a distinct possibility.

The giant goblin tried to scoop her up in its arms. Adel tugged her shorts out again and rolled to the right, ignoring the nick that one of its claws managed to get on her leg. She shot its hands. The goblin was only getting angrier as it continued to lose more blood. Adel knew that her time for her date tonight was running short, and if she didn't get there quickly with the money, it would be closed for the night. She had to end this quickly.

She opened the compartment for grenades inside her false arm. She only had two left. They cost a pretty penny to buy, so she hated using them except when it was absolutely necessary. Using two in one bounty was the absolute worst, in her opinion. However, she had hoped that there would be less of these goblins to deal with. Most Treaders she knew of had two or three, not five and a big one. She removed the 'pen-grenade' and clicked it to begin the countdown. She let it fly just as the goblin roared at her again.

The goblin was briefly obscured by the explosion, the smoke and flames engulfing it from head to toe like a sudden outbreak of black and red flowers sprouting from its body. Adel could feel the searing heat go so far as to singe the faint hairs on her skin, and it made her belly rumble, but whether it was from hunger or indigestion she wasn't sure. She wasn't particularly hungry for roasted goblin in any case, so she turned away and hurried to disconnect the Treader's brain. Behind her, she heard weak growls; the goblin was still alive, but badly weakened.

She began digging her knife into the tentacle, which turned out to be more rubbery in texture than she had expected. She could feel the Treader's speed slowing and stuttering beneath her feet; it was literally experiencing its own brain shutting down. That must have been pretty horrifying. Adel wasn't about to stop, though. She was nearly finished tearing through the tentacle completely when the old goblin, burnt and bleeding from nearly every orifice on its body, came lunging out at her through the smoke. It didn't care if it smashed her, crushed her, slapped her, slashed her, ate her or snapped her, it just wanted her dead.

With a final swipe, Adel disconnected the brain from the rest of the Treader. It came to an immediate stop. It was like slamming down on the brakes while moving at a speed already capable of snapping necks. It was a good thing Adel had decided to hold onto the creature's hair at the last second with her mechanical prosthetic, saving her from being flung off due to the sudden halting of movement. She flipped over onto her back; again, another good reason she had a mechanical arm, or else that would have snapped a real arm clean off.

Unfortunately for the old goblin, it wasn't so lucky, and its skull shattered like a watermelon's as soon as it hit the ground. Adel wrinkled her nose. She definitely didn't want to eat roasted goblin now.

After checking over the brain to make sure there were no damages, Adel climbed off of the dead Treader and hurried back to the motorcycle she had used to get here. She was tired, aching and hungry, not to mention she needed to get the wound on her leg disinfected. She stopped one last time to pluck her shorts out of her backside before she climbed onto her bike and, with the brain bulb sitting in the side-car, drove off to the nearby town to perform the exchange. It would only take her about a half-hour to reach there if she drove at full speed, and that was exactly what she did. She didn't even waste time putting on a helmet.

--

"Ah, there you are! I was wondering when you would show up! You're usually right on time, but you were a bit late tonight!"

Before Georgette could say anymore, Adel had already placed a heaping stack of bills onto the older woman's counter.

"Alright, I'm here...I made it...just before closing time..." Adel was heaving, her belly quivering with each gasp of breath she took.

"Yes, you did." Georgette smirked with lips coated in red and a mouth full of gold teeth. "I'll be taking this money very much."

"You have a room set up for me, don't you?"

"It's right in the back, as usual." Georgette nodded. She wrapped her long fingers around the money and quietly shuffled it over to her cash register as Adel strode past and down the hallway.

The room at the end was completely empty except for a couch, a table, a painting of a seaside resort overlooking a beach at sunset, and a device sitting on the aforementioned table. It was for this device that Adel had come to this place. She immediately undid the belt around her shorts and took a seat on the couch with legs spread wide. Now that business was out of the way, she could finally indulge in her deepest, most shameful pleasures of the flesh. It was her greatest vice, her sin and possibly her biggest waste of money, but she enjoyed doing it every time, so she wasn't about to stop any time soon.

She picked up the device and placed it beside her. She removed a tube from the end of the device and stuck its tip into her mouth. She turned on the device, flicked through the settings on the tiny screen, and twisted the knob until it flashed a full 'ten' on the screen. Adel laid back and allowed the device to do its work.

It only took several seconds before a tasty, vanilla-flavored liquid started to pour down her throat. Her stomach didn't take long to follow suit by expanding at a rapid pace. Adel moaned into the tube. She grasped hold of her belly with both of her hands so she could feel it grow bigger under her palms. The liquid pumped fast enough to make her sick, but she was so used to this procedure, she was able to keep it down.

The mixture she was inhaling was actually quite fattening, but most of its effect was only temporary. Not all of it, though, and it was the reason she had already become so chubby as it was. Every session made her fatter and fatter, but she couldn't get enough of it. Her stomach started to roll itself into the space between her legs, filling the gap with its swollen skin. She may have just had a problem, she knew that. Still, Adel was glad she managed to keep her business and her pleasure apart.

Otherwise, she would never have left this place if she could have helped it.