JEMS : Tifa's Awakening
or "Cloud's Big Surprise"
A Final Fantasy VII Alterniverse Fanfiction
by The Cloaked Ghost

Page 4

A Single Month Ago.......

Light. A stream of light cut through endless darkness. Something slashed like lightning through her mind. Tifa awoke with a start, rolling off the couch and crashing onto her back on the floor. Her heart raced, her chest heaved, regaining breath not lost. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and slowly brought her nerves back to a steady calm. Once again, vision returned as did her personal hell. Tifa rolled onto her side, then pulled her knees under her and hoisted, with the necessary gargantuan effort, her body from the floor. She had fallen asleep in front of the TransVee again last night, after a particularly unsatisfying batch of pecan-rum cookies found its way into her mouth.

Tifa squinted and peered at the calendar. What day was it? Saturday? Wednesday? Time had no meaning, excepting the purpose of reminding her of the impending day of Cloud's judgement. She fretted, day and night, on how he would take this. She sighed. It wasn't like she could meet him at the edge of town, surprising him with kisses, hugs and utterings of love. No. That had been lost many months ago. Now she had trouble navigating her own house. Doors were her enemy, the tight staircase not a particular friend either. A deep, disturbing roar echoed through the room.

"Yes, master." Tifa spat sarcastically, lumbering into the kitchen while comforting her demanding belly. "What do you require today? A five-course dinner? A gourmet buffet? A whole roast pig?!?" Her stomach quivered, shook and thundered, as if agreeing to each and all. Tifa growled at herself. Her hands found their usual tools: the knife, the rolling pin, the mixing bowl. With months of practiced skill, she emptied the box of pancake mix into the bowl and set her mind to other tasks. Glancing at the calendar once again, she noticed a red circle and some writing. She leaned over, sending a spatula clattering to the floor as her ponderous bulk swept across the countertop. It read 'Dr. Jyingu -- House Call, 1 PM'. She blinked and reread the little label, then snorted. About time she checked herself again. The good doctor would at least provide another source of that unending well of hatred she drew upon to keep her sanity. She looked back at her hands, working heedlessly of the thoughts of her mind, now frying the mixture on a hot, black pan. She commanded one to rub her eye, which itched, and it complied. She sighed. She wished to blame JEMS for all this. But of course, it did stem a small bit from a pleasure on her side. It had been nice to indulge for once. But that once turned to twice, the thrice, and on. The hate boiled up into her eyes again and time lost meaning once more.

Tifa did not know how long she remained in her haze of red, suffice, though, it was long enough to cook the entire bowl. She found herself plowing through stacks of pancakes at a terrifying pace while almost engrossed in some mindless TransVee show. She spat out a bit of the bready food and angrily turned off the stupid box. The chronometer read 12:45. The good Doc would arrive soon and almost certainly would not approve of her gluttony. She surveyed the remnants strewn across the top of her stomach. A dozen pancakes, some dabs of syrup. Not much, some part of her mind echoed. As if on cue, her hands ground into motion again, shoveling the pancakes to their doom. One of them rested itself, fatigued, on her encompassing belly. She was quite surprised at how firm the globe was. She pressed inwards on it, feeling much more resistance to her ministrations than the normal soft, fleshy consistency. As her other hand wiped up the last of the syrup with the final bite of pancake, it too join its cousin in probing her stomach, as best it could around her breasts. She soon let her hands rest above the engorged stomach, arching her back and leaning to the rear, staring at the ceiling. As she shut her eyes, attempting to enjoy the now too-familiar feeling of overfullness in her stomach, she descended into a rare moment of peace, savoring it like a child savors a small candy.

Presently there was a sharp rap at the door. Tifa, forgetting herself, attempted to lunge off the couch and answer it. She merely succeeded in painfully squashing her stomach and breasts with her body and legs.

"C.. come in.." she gasped out. The door swung open and Dr. Jyingu entered, carrying his two briefcases of medical supplies. She tried to smile at him through the pain. "G.. good afternoon, Doc..."

"Tifa.." he sighed. "What are we going to do with you...?"

She blinked. This was unexpected. "What?"

"Well, Tifa, there's news, as always. Some good, some bad..."

Doubts flooded her mind. Was JEMS permanent? Was it really going to remiss? Would she ever be normal once more?

"Tifa, the good news is we overestimated your remission. If we're right this time, and we're quite sure, you'll be reaching peak quite soon."

Tifa grinned broadly. "Wonderful!"

"The bad news, Tifa, the bad news.. How shall I put this.."

"It will go away, right?"

"Oh yes," the doctor smiled. "It definitely will remiss. But the problem is more a physical and immediate one than the disease itself."

Tifa was puzzled. "How so, Doc?"

"Well, you know the samples we took again two weeks ago?" He pointed to the nearly-healed scar on the extreme right of her massive stomach. "Well, the tissue sample was odd."

Tifa furrowed her brow. "What? You mean, it changed?"

The doctor sighed. "Not quite. You were complaining about how tough it is to move around, right? How heavy this whole thing is for you?" Tifa nodded. "Well, there's a reason, of course. Since you started 'growing', so to speak, the tissue was that curious fat/muscle mixture, much lighter than regular muscle and much smoother and more orderly than normal fatty deposits. But now, there's an imbalance." He patted the top of her stomach for emphasis. "The composition is off. It's now 43% muscle, which is slowly increasing the mass of.. this."

Tifa grimaced. "So..."

"So, if you think 43% is bad, wait a week or so. It's going to get worse. You'll likely be bedridden for a day or three when you peak."

Tifa's face fell, and she stared at a spot of carpet many feet in front of her. After a time, she nodded and softly murmured. "Let's finish this up, please..."

The doctor watched her expressions, letting it sink in, the nodded and pulled the stethoscope from his briefcases. He plugged it into his ears and began probing the secrets of Tifa's abdomen...

()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Yesterday....

Tifa lay back on the couch, chewing on some potato chips while watching the daily news. She was thankful that she had peaked a few days ago, and had just regained mobility this morning. It was embarrassing enough to be in such a state alone, heavens forbid that Cloud had seen her like that. She closed her eyes and shuddered at the vision. She had been confined to her couch, which was folded out into a bed, unable to stand and able to shift herself with only the mightiest of efforts and strains on her back. She had thought well ahead and stocked the area around the couch with all types of long-lasting edibles. Hard candy, breads, crackers, bottles upon bottles of beverage, all types of food that she would rely on for however long the escapade lasted. It had been worse than she imagined.

She had thought that peak would be like any other time, with boredom, self-loathing and the all-consuming JEMS hunger preceding all else. But it was worse. The hunger fluxed, surging into a necessary binge one moment, then swinging around and causing her to feel sickeningly full the next. The inside of her stomach burned, as though with terrible indigestion, and a fierce migraine clouded her mind. Her breasts, pushed into her face by her vast bulb of a belly, blocked out her vision of the TransVee, her only entertainment. Her stomach itself had taken on a crushing weight, forcing her to let it sink between her legs, lest they be turned into a flattened paste on the couch. But as it ended she slept like she had not been able to in all her JEMS years, contented that it was the beginning of the end.

She returned to the present as her supply of salty snack ran out, the last bit left over from her peak. She twisted her body about, swinging her feet to the floor and summoning all her energy to lift and hold herself upright. Supporting her stomach with her hands, she waddled into the kitchen and plopped herself onto the counter, then turned to the side and opened the refrigerator. The contents increasingly bored her, for she had, by now, completed her cookbooks at least twice over. She looked back to the basics and plucked a full two-pound Black Forest ham from the recesses of the meat box.

Suddenly, the VidComm signaled a call. She twirled about, nearly losing her balance as her stomach swung around, then quickly making her way to the little unit. She repositioned the camera to her face, set the ham aside and answered the call. Cloud's face appeared on the monitor.

"Hi there, honey!" Cloud beamed at her. She blinked and smiled back, thinking in the back of her mind. It wasn't Sunday. This was odd.

"Hello, Cloud." she returned, softly.

"Anyway, I'm on my way home. I'll be there tomorrow." He smiled at her.

She grinned, feigning joy. "How wonderful!"

"I was wondering, Tif.. D'ya remember that outfit you wore when we went adventuring, years ago?"

Tifa nodded, a cold sweat breaking out on her body. It would be nearly impossible to fit into that now.

"Would'ja mind wearing it for me when I get back, for old times' sake?"

Tifa's voice nearly faltered, but she caught herself in time. "Sure, dearest.. Anything." She smiled.

Cloud grinned again. "Thanks, Tifa-chan.. See you tomorrow." The VidComm grew as black as Tifa's mind. The old outfit. She'd given up on that years ago. There was no way she could fit even half of her breasts into the top, let alone squeeze her incredible bulk into the shorts and suspenders. Her eyes fell to the sewing kit next to the Comm. She blinked and looked at it again. That was her only hope. She snatched the kit and the ham at set to working herself up the narrow staircase to her upstairs wardrobe. It wasn't easy, for her stomach had much less give now, and it simply wouldn't fit in, frontways or sideways. She tilted herself, supporting the weight by leaning on the wall, and was barely able to scrape up each stair, very slowly. When she finally burst through at the top, she breathed a mighty sigh of relief, stripped out of the mangled athletics suit she'd been wearing, and pulled the old set of clothing from her closet. She unwrapped the top of the ham, nibbling away at it as she set to work, reinforcing and widening the top and pants, while lengthening the suspenders. It was long, tedious work. The ham was slowly whittled away as was the time. Presently, it grew dark and Tifa's fingers ached from the work. She snapped the final thread from her needle and lay her head down. Sleep came swiftly.

End Page 4

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