Ztretch, the new elastic heroine in town, flew across the night sky on a glider formed from her arms. She had a tip the TFG Party Supply Company's brand new building would be the next target of a gang of thieves. Her plan was to stake it out and watch for the robbers, so she had to be in position before morning. She wanted her presence to be a surprise, so she moved under cover of darkness.

"I can't believe these mooks would go after a party factory! They're just trying to create fun! Who doesn't love a good piñata?"

The new factory itself was a large building, consuming half a city block. It was the go to brand for confetti, streamers, balloons, costumes, candy, bunting, decorations, and anything else you would need to celebrate.

On the other hand, this was exciting for Ztretch. Nobody really knew what the inside of TFG buildings looked like. Employees were famously tight lipped and loyal about company methods. And as Ztretch was finding out, security was pretty good.

She rode air currents around the building once, morphed arms stretching in the breeze, without finding anything resembling a way in except the front door.

"I can't believe this, they have NO windows?! Ugh, I'll have to go in for a closer look."

Gliding was always the easy part. Landing...was still a work in progress. More often than not she got turned into a rubber band ball of limbs when she crashed. Still, there was little the elastic woman couldn't walk away or bounce back from.

"I hate landings. Time to see if my new trick works."

She relaxed her legs, letting them ripple in the wind while she focused. She envisioned them spinning around, then felt it happen. Her knees had a delightful tickling sensation, shifting to the sides while her shins and feet slurped up around them. With one more deep breath, they poofed into custom tires, and Ztretch had landing gear!

Confident in her wheels, she dove towards the roof. She bounced on her feet turned tires once, then twice, but stayed on the roof after that.

"Yes! I did it! I finally got a clean landing and...uh oooooh."

While it was true Ztretch managed to land, she practiced so much on getting wheels to work at all that she never considered stopping. Now she was speeding along the roof, much too fast after diving, directly towards wall near the service exit.

*SPLAAAT*

Ztretch slammed into the wall head first. She felt her body compress. Her momentum forced her hips into her body, forcing her face to spread across much of the brick exterior. Her arms, still a glider, bent out of shape into a broken mess of pipe and cloth, and her lending gear legs splatted out to the sides. With her uniform on, she was reduced to an unrecognizable mess of pink and blue painted against the wall.

"Oooow...okay..."

Fortunately, with her infinite malleability, she wasn't in any real trouble. The mess of flattened rubber against the wall shook and rumbled. The splat against the wall rearranged itself into a face-out if still flat version of Ztretch. With some effort, she forced her flat but decidedly human arm to peel off the wall, and started ripping herself off the wall. Bits of her stuck to the wall, creating long thin strands between it and her body, but she had no trouble getting them off.

After all, she hadn't had to use her powers a lot on this mission...yet.

*POP*

"Whew! Okay...I guess now we wait! Hopefully this gang is as punctual as I hear they are. *YAWN* I don't want to wait here all day.

* * *

They were late.

Zstretch was bored AND tired. The gang was supposed to arrive at 8, and it was getting close to 11. What was supposed to be a cloudy day ended up delivering a blazing hot sun. And there was STILL no sign of this gang.

Her elongated eyes slinked over the edge of the roof's side wall, scanning the streets below for at least the 200th time since she got here.

"Uuuuugh where are they! *YAWN* I just want to punch these losers in the face and go home."

She pulled her eyes back, and they vanished into the pink of her body. She slinked along the roof floor as a wide, flat, few inches thick sheet. The last thing she needed was someone spotting her running in the open before she could catch them.

Ztretch found a spot against the wall near a TFG Company sign with bold saturated colors, making her own bright pink outfit stand out less. She leaned against the wall to relax, and suddenly felt the weight of her tired eyelids.

"Nothing happening here...maybe I can catch...a quick nap..."

Zstretch tried to keep her eyes open, but she drifted to sleep. A night on a rooftop tends to sap strength, and the sun wasn't helping her stay awake.

Although, it was about to show her the vent she missed while searching for entrances.

While she rested, the sun continued beating down. The heat emanating from the brick walls and rising from the roof asphalt surrounded her body, and Zstretch enjoyed her dream relaxing on the beach.

"Pass the sunscreen...I think I'm dripping into the sand..."

A puddle of pink was slowly growing around her while she slept. Bits of Ztretch dripped off her body to the roof, sizzling on contact. Her legs were quickly losing cohesion to become a giant blob of elastic, spreading across the roof, while her slouching arms and shoulders flowed down her sides in pink waterfalls.

Naturally, with her luck, she was positioned perfectly to flow into some vents.

*DRIP*DRIP*

Unfortunately, she was still asleep. Her face dripped down to her chest, turning pink  to blend with her outfit as it cascaded down in a river of melted malleability. She may have been a melty mess, but it looked like she was in heaven. She was pooling into layers of pink goop with streaks of blue, bubbling blissfully away.

"Oooo...the waves feel nice today...I should have brought my board, but at least I can...I can..."

*SPLAAAASH*

* * *

The flow of pink cascaded through the factory vents, splashing onto a strange conveyor belt. A pink blob of Ztretch stretched up on a mass of melted pink elastic, moving around as if frantically looking everywhere, even without visible eyes.

"Why can't I feel my surf board...and...GAH!"

Her puddled body had nervous goosebumps ripple through it. "Why am I melted?!"

Ztretch, having finally realized her predicament, slowly tried to pull herself together. Tendrils of blue and pink tried to form into arms and legs, but she was still far too overheated. All she managed to do was send ripples through her body as she splashed around.

"Oh no! I knew I should have brought sunscreen. That's the last time I trust a thief to be on time! But where does this go?"

The machinery carried her gooey body along. She splashed with every bump, looking around nervously for threats. Fortunately nothing major appeared, and she started cooling off. After a minute, she was a soft solid rubber rather than a liquid. She instinctively began rearranging her features, colors swirling everywhere. She quickly turned herself into something resembling a pink and blue dough ball.

"Okay, I'm cooling down. I should be okay in another minute if-"

*WRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

Giant globs of pink sweat splashed from atop of her body. "What was that noise?!"

Ztretch was answered by the floor falling out from under her. She felt her body catch on a steel bars, and they were moving fast.

"WHOOOOAOAOAOAOAOAA!"

Half her body was being carried up, but the other half was being dragged down by the machine. Ztretch reflexively tried to pull herself together, pulling hard on the bars, just as they spun back towards each other anyway.

"OOOF!"

Pink slime met blue ooze, slammed together and folded over each other. Ztretch felt bits of her merge and knead together, only to get stretched out by the bars again and again. She spun around for several seconds before it hit her.

"WhooAAAAAooow...how did I end up in a taffy machine?!"

Lucky for Ztretch, her body was able to take a lot of punishment without being harmed. Even without knowing where her anything was, she wiggled her goopey body to the side. She was still getting stretched and folded on top of herself without a chance to form a proper body, but now she knew what she was dealing with. Little by little, strands of pink and blue mush slipped off the bars, dripping and sagging towards the bottom of the chamber, until finally,

*PLOP*

A big ball of blue and pink mushy taffy splatted to the ground. It sat motionless for a moment, before growing and shrinking as if taking a big breath.

"Uuuugh...I'm never eating candy again...today. Ugh, I hope I didn't miss them. I better get back into shape."

Slowly, the colors on the surface rearranged. They got a slightly darker, as the white accent marks separated from the rest of her. Blue shuffled to her sides as she stretched taller and thinner. There were a few crisp *SNAP* sounds as her limbs grew and separated from her center. Finally, a pink orb grew out of her, eyes fading into existence on it, color slowly shifting to her normal skin tone to form a face.

Ztretch stretched her arms, running her hands over her body to make sure she was in one piece. Satisfied she was whole, she looked around at the industrial pipeline she stood within.

"Finally! Now, how do I get out of here?"

* * *

A few minutes later, Ztretch found an exit. She emerged into an empty factory floor, pristine, empty, and ready for opening.

"If nobody's here, then how did the machine...never mind. I need to get to the entrance."

Stretching her legs many times their normal length, she stretch-stepped across the room to the conveniently labeled exit. She stepped through to a walkway several floors up, overlooking a wide open lobby of sorts. There was a statue of the company mascot, a multitude of colorful balloons, and large "WELCOME" and "GRAND OPENING" signs.

Ztretch leaned over the rail, and looked around. Nothing was moving except the balloons swaying in the air conditioning.

She finally had cause to smile. "Oh hey! I made it to the entrance! And it doesn't look like anyone's broken in yet."

On cue, the wall next the the door exploded inwards. The back of a large white moving truck smashed through, scattering bricks and rubble everywhere.

Ztretch reflexively raised an arm to shield herself, even though she was several hundred feet and a few floors away.

"What the heck is...oh no, the door's opening!"

With no where else to hide, Ztretch forced her body down. It looked awkward, but when her legs and torso squished down like a deflating sack on her own terms, it just tickled. Her face again turned pink and melded into her flat body. With barely a sound of a squish, the only sign of her was a 4 by 3 pink and blue rubber mat.

Some colors swirled on Ztretch, and a pink tendril stretched up from her body. It slowly rose to look over the edge, shaping its tip into binoculars not out of a specific need, but some deep seated instinct about seeing things from a distance. Now she could stay hidden, but still see what was going on.

Several robots emerged out of the truck. They were mini fridge sized boxes on wheels, with long snaking metal plated arms, snaking around to lower themselves to the floor.

Ztretch had to stop her binocular eyes from bugging out with surprise. *Robots?! Oh no, I thought I was dealing with normal goons. I need to get down there fast before they can analyze the factory! But how do I not get spotted?*

Her binoculars tendril looked around while slowly sinking and spreading across her body. She was still searching for any way to sneak across the wall. Once again she almost regretted her choice of bright pink uniform. It was impossible to blend into so many corporate settings, taupe walls...

...but not party supplies.

*The balloons! I've got an idea.*

Ztretch tugged the rest of her binoculars into the rest of her body, briefly causing it to gain thickness and flop into the air before morphing back into a human shape. Still lying on the ground, she stuck a thumb into her mouth, and blew.

*HIIIIIIIIIISSSSSS*

Her body slowly inflated. Her stomach puffed out, rounding out her slim figure. She took another deep breath and blew again.

*PUFF*
*PUFF*
*PUFF*
*PUFF*

With a few more breaths, each of Ztretch's limbs inflated, turning her into a huge balloon with 4 smaller balloons attached.

Ztretch bit her lip and focused. With her arms stuck at her sides, her cheeks puffed up as she gave one more puff.

*BOOP*

With a ripple of pink and blue, her body billowed out, growing to absorb the rest of her body. Even her head vanished into the sea of pink, and she turned into an 8 foot, spherical balloon.

Ztretch would smile if she still had a mouth. *Great! Now to float over!*

Ztretch twisted the bottom of her body, to better disguise it as a balloon. After one more look to ensure the robots were still unaware of her presence, she bounced into the air. She crashed into the grand opening display, knocking many of the balloons loose, making her just another balloon floating through the room.

*BOOOOMP*

The robber-bots heard the sound of balloons colliding, and looked up. Heads and sensors darted back and forth, processing this unexpected event.

"BZZZZZZT. BALLOON SCRAMBLE IS OUTSIDE SCENARIO PARAMETERS. PROCESSING PROBABILITIES."

Meanwhile, a peculiar pink and blue balloon was floating right above them. Ztretch's disguised form was studying the situation.

*Okay, that's 5, 6...wow that's a lot of robots. I'm going to have to act fast once I'm down there. Last thing I need is some jerk robot with lasers trying to disintegrate me. I think I'm over the one in the corner, I can fight them one at a time from there...*

Ztretch's balloon body quickly pulled together. Pink and blue shiny rubber rippled and scrunched together, twisting from a shiny rubber balloon shape to an angular, cartoonish 2 ton weight. She plummeted straight down, landing squarely on top of one of the robots.

*SMASH*

The huge pink weight smashed the robot like a cheap tin can, crumpling steel and sending scraps flying everywhere. Colors swirled on its surface as the weight flowed upwards into the feminine form of Ztretch, eager to smash the rest of the robots.

It was a good thing she did. One of bots was speeding towards her, clanking its metal clamp hands together. Rather than wait and see what it had planned, Ztretch pulled herself towards the ground, coiling her legs like a spring, and jumped at it. She flipped in mid air, her face enlarging and turning pink in mid air, growing into a large mallet.

*BOOOOING*
*WHAM*
*CRRRRRUUUUUUUNCH*

Ztretch's hammer head struck with enough force to compress against the ground, leaving a completely flat sheet of metal where the robot once was.  She shook, suspended in the air, before landing on her feet. Her pink hammer head flowed into the air as a stretched out tendril and shlurped back into her neck. It stacked on top of itself as layers of pink rubber before snapping back into a human head shape.

Gaining confidence with two robots out of the way, she called out the rest of the gang. "Alright! You can give up now or you can get...um...Z-tretched? *I really need to think of something better to say...*"

A few robots circled her position and moved towards her, some from opposite sides. Ztretch smiled, deciding on one of her favorite tricks. She moved an arm across her chest, then flung it at a robot. Her arm stretched a good 30 feet to snag one, wrapping around the speeding robot. Using its momentum against it, Ztretch turned her hips, yanking the robot off the ground, and letting her stretched limb whip it over her head.

Right into another robot.

*CRASH*
*BOOM*

The robots crunched into each other, exploding in a shower of sparks and steel.

Ztretch smiled and retracted her arm to a normal length. "See? You dumb robots have no..."

She looked around. There were more robots than she thought. Some must have still been hiding in the truck. Seeing four of their friends fall, the rest were approaching more cautiously. Each had two metal arms extended, winding into the air ending with sparking hands, whirling at blender like speeds.

Ztretch gulped. She wasn't looking forward to getting gooped by that.

There were too many robots still around to take on one at a time. Her options were quickly becoming limited. She looked around for ideas, retreating slowly into the corner to buy time.

The only thing of note was a fire hose.

"Well...I guess that's one option."

Ztretch subtly shifted direction towards the hose. Once she was close enough, her arms stretched towards it. One arm snapped back with the hose, while the other turned the crank. Seeing the bulges of water flowing through the hose, she jammed the hose in her mouth and closed her eyes.

*GLUG*GLUG*GLUG*GLUG*GLUG*

Water flowed into her, and her stomach immediately swelled. Every bit of her torso puffed out, filling with water. Her arms creaked and bloated, and the curves of her body disappeared into a bottom heavy water balloon.

The robots paused to look at each other, then continued their cautious approach.

Ztretch grew bigger and bigger, soon a ten foot water balloon. Her face was growing to comical sizes, eyes and cheeks bulging out, before turning pink and blue to blend into the rest of her uniform.

*THOOMP*THOOMP*

Her body swelled ever outward, absorbing her limbs into the spherical shape until her hands and feet disappointed into her. With nothing left to expand with, her pink and blue ball shake started undulating from the building water pressure.

Once she saw the robots were close enough, Ztretch mentally winced, and tightened her body. It had the intended result.

*SPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH*

Ztretch popped spectacularly, sending waves of water and pink and blue goop across the room. The robots were caught by surprise, and had no chance to avoid the blast. The hoard was stunned and slowed by the water crashing over them, but some clung to some level of functionality.

Unfortunately, they were still coated in heroine goo.

It wasn't the easiest task, but Ztretch had a some awareness and control over the pieces of her body. She willed anything touching steel to seep into any opening it could find, fill it, and do anything to cause mechanical mayhem.

"BZZZZZZZZZZZ"
"ERROR! ERROR!"

Pink and blue splats flowed around the remaining robots until one by one, they sparked and shorted, falling to the ground with a loud *CLUNK*.

It still took a lot of Zstretch's energy to do that, and she was feeling drained. Knowing her limit was near, she summoned herself together. Blue and pink goop oozed out of the robots, and flowed along the floor from all corners of the room. It collected at the site of her explosion, gelling together bit by bit, until the disorganized pink and blue slime twisted and morphed into the young heroine.

But instead of her confident pose, she was shaky. Her limbs stretched to the floor, unable to retract completely. Her stance was hunched over, dizzy from the effort of popping on purpose.

"Whooooa...I'm glad I practiced that, but that was rough. I need to eat something."

She struggled to look around, almost letting her head fall to the floor on an elongated neck. She had to stretch her loopy forearm to catch it.

"Whew...at least that took care of the robots. Now I can call this in and-"

A deep mechanical voice emerged from the robot truck. "CONTACT LOST. ENGAGING RETRIBUTION PROTOCOLS."

The floor shook, and a single large robot wheeled out of the truck. It looked like an oversized industrial refrigerator, a giant rectangular tank.

Ztretch's entire body slumped towards the floor. This would be trouble. "Oh no..."

The robot's arms retracted into and emerged back out of its sides. Instead of clampy hands, it wielded two maces. "TARGET IDENTIFIED: ZEE-STRETCH. ENGAGING EXTREME MASHING."

Ztretch stretched her hand up from the floor to smack her forehead. "That's Ztretch! It's one word, not Zee-GAAAAAH"

The robot didn't wait for her to finish. It raised its weapons, and Ztretch tried to dive to the side. She tripped over herself and only made it 2 feet.

*SPLOOOOOOOOOOSH*

The mace came down, completely obliterating her. The hero was instantly reduced to a pink and blue splat on the floor.

*SPLAAAAAAAAT*

It struck again, splattering Ztretch further across the floor. She was losing all cohesion, no longer a pile of elastic, but a pulped puddle of goo.

*SMASH*
*SQUISH*
*SPLOOOOOOOSH*

This robot was not programmed for stealth. It rocked the room, continuing to pummel the pink splat on the floor. Ztretch's mind was spinning, too spread out in her gooped body to move. Being elastic may have made her nigh indestructible, but she still had limits. It would be a while before she would have the energy to reform her body.

Satisfied the hero was not getting up, the robot's mace hands clanked open, revealing humanoid gloves. It collected Ztretch's goopey remains into a pile, forming a pink and blue pile of mush.

All Ztretch could do was quiver, completely out of strength to shift back to human shape.

The robot drew two Xs for eyes on the pile, and a line to finish the unhappy face. It spent the next minute speeding around the room to collect its fallen comrades, and toss them into the truck. Its task complete, the giant robot climbed back in, and the truck sped away.

Ztretch, still a pile of pink mush, tried to reshape herself, but could only make her blobby body wobble.

Her drawn on mouth moved and spoke with a dizzy voice. "Oooooooww...at least I stopped them. Another victory...for...Ztretch."

Her blobby body melted, spreading over a ten foot area of the floor. She figured she could rest until the authorities showed up with a mop.