The night air of the boggy town of Tennisee was humid and abuzz with the high pitched buzzing of mosquitoes and the loud chirping of cicadas. Strikeman wandered his way around the lamplit streets in his normal tennis playing attire, singing a small southern song to him as he scratched at the forming stubble on his green face. He mumbled something about shaving in the morning but quickly shoved the thought away with the smacking of his dry lips. L.O.S.S. went on a rather long and tedious mission for the entire day and left everyone worn and ragged.

Booze

He needed booze

Lots and lots and lots of booze

Whooping and cheering brought his eyeless gaze towards a rundown hole in the wall bar: its shingles were rotting off and Spanish moss hung limply on the cracked windows and met its end onto the tall crabgrass below, small crabs scuttled from the nearby bog and pinched at it, scraping their claws against the plants and grabbing the itching red chiggers to place into their greedy carapace mandibles. Strikeman sensed the little creature’s efforts for food and forced out a throaty chuckle, his hand pushed open the door and welcomed him to a large bar filled with patrons shouting in their thick Cajun accents about their lives, marriages, and how much crawfish they can put in a gumbo before it tastes like crap. The Cajun man sighed to himself as he rubbed at the empty sockets where his eyes once were.

“Ey Cherie, jou ned a seat?” A deep voice called towards Strikeman and motioned towards an empty barstool; he followed the voice closer and patted himself onto the open seat. Strikeman smiled softly at the bartender and replied in his own thick accent

“Danks beb, ah have an ahnvee fuh some boulettes, got any at dis place? “

The green skinned tennis player could smell the boulettes frying from somewhere, that delicious mix of seafood and Cajun spices fried in heavy oil with breadcrumbs always made a perfect beer drinking snack. The bartender nodded and took a freshly made plate of them from the kitchen window along with a rather large cup of a deep amber colored beer, its creamy looking froth spilled from the lip of the mug.

“A La Mange!”

“Ahahaha…a la mange”

He sloppily drank from the mug and nibbled at the fried seafood on the plate, if it weren’t for the cool ambrosia spilling into his mouth after each bite his tongue would be burned to hell and back by now. The alcohol felt so good running down his throat, its fine bitter taste, the crispness it somehow held in perfect harmony with its thin viscosity. Strikeman could drink an entire barrel of this heavenly nectar of the gods.

That’s what he was planning to do

Suddenly he pulled his tennis racket up and pointed it towards the bartender as he continued to gulp and slurp. The bartenders eyes went wide and all the commotion died down to complete silence; it finally dawned on him who this green skinned athlete was: Strikeman…the most feared villain in all of Tennisee, one touch from him could cause severe mutations or instant death.

“Yuh…Y-Yuh Strikeman! Thuh radioactive guy!”

“Mmm-hmm, y’all can leave cansuh free if y’give me yuhr tap”

“The tap?! Sure! Take it!” The bartender quickly ushered the patrons and himself out of the bar. Strikeman laughed and shouted out to them

“If ah heauh yuh call 40 Love ahll come and destroy all of yuh!”

Finally, the beer was all to himself, he could have a constant flowing stream of the delicious alcohol going into his lips and down into his beer starved belly. He licked at his lips and made his way over the counter and towards the beer tap. Fingers ran up the nozzle to find the starting button, his lips met the metallic opening of the tap and a rather forceful stream of beer pushed itself down his throat

Gags and coughs littered the air as he became accustomed to the pressurized flow; the uncomfortable noises were replaced with moans and intoxicated gurgling laughs and Strikemans green face gaining a darker hue reminiscent of blush. The dingy gray tank top he always wore began to grow tighter and tighter as more of the beer pushed itself into his innards, his stomach pushing on his skin, forcing it out and showing it to a nonexistent audience

His pulsing green belly bulged outwards; groaning and gurgling as it tried to make room for more and more of the alcohol. He was too distracted by his binging chug fest to notice a strange new noise that his stomach was making

Hissing…and…creaking?

The radioactivity that coursed itself throughout his body was all rushing towards his stomach to help process all the alcohol, it noticed that the poor gustatory sack couldn’t hold any more and…mutated his stomach lining, making it rubberier and more balloon-like to adapt to the consumption.

Strikeman was turning himself into a radioactive, human water balloon to keep the beer flowing. He showed absolutely no sign of stopping either.

The tap gurgled and sputtered weakly, the last drops dripped onto the tennis players sopping tongue. He blinked his sockets open and looked at the tap

“Whuh? Sonuvabitch it ran out!” He fumed and grabbed the tap, melting it with a concentrated pulse of burning hot radiation, his ears picked up the gurgles coming from his bloated belly. “Whoa…must’ve drank thuh whole damn thing”

Strikemans stomach bulged out like a basketball attached to his torso; a fine line of blonde hair ran down it and bristled under his warm touch. It was so tight and full; he couldn’t help but shake it a little just to hear the contents slosh about inside of him; the sloshing quickly stopped and was replaced with a loud hissing. The carbonation bubbled itself up and made his stomach swell even further, pushing his tank top up until it crumpled up near his adams apple. His blushing cheeks swelled as the gas pushed it up to hopelessly escape “BUUURAP, ga-lee, ahm blowin up like a BUUURP balloon!” He experimentally shook his stomach again in confusion

Biiiiig mistake

The burps became deeper and intermittent between hiccups and sputtering, his poor stomach expanded bigger and bigger, his shorts stretched along with until the elastic began to give out and tear, the pants began to tear at the seams, revealing his dark green boxer shorts. His arms filled with carbonation and air, becoming conical and hard to move.

“HIC…BUUURP…oh god…HIC HIC HIC…ahm…BWOOORP…gonna…UUUURP…EXPLODE! BOOOORP!”

Strikeman hopelessly rolled onto his back which was inflating as well, forcing his head up and unable to turn or even move in general. Out of the corner of his eye he could see his immobile arms; they looked like how that cat did whenever the mouse filled him with air from those old cat and mouse cartoons that used to play at Tennisee Cinema before the main picture. He flapped and wiggled his hands weakly to no avail

Strikeman had become a cartoonish balloon filled with beer; his inflated body was twenty feet wide and thirty feet high and also hopelessly wedged into the bar counter.

“BUUURP, ahm HIC stuck…OOOOURP…”

Minutes later, a large buxom black woman heroically strode her way towards the bar, brandishing a tennis racket of her very own. “Now you folks said Strikeman was causing trouble in here?”

“Yes 40 Love, get dat babette outta mah bar!”

40 Love pushed her tennis visor up over her poofy hair and kicked the bar door open, peering inside and looking towards the bar counter, her face went pale from the vision of the absolutely massive balloon that was once Strikeman. His green skin creaked and squeaked with every subtle movement he made. 40 Love strode her way back out of the bar and looked at the worried patrons

“Y’all might wanna call your drinking night off early tonight boys, seems like you ain’t gonna get him to move at the moment”

“What? Whachoo talkin bout?”

“Strikeman is…uhm…a little bloated”

-BUUUUUUUUUUUUURP-

The patrons ran themselves back to their houses at the sound of the horrible noise, not wanting to take any chances as to what had transpired inside.