A.N.: This is the official sequel to my previous series Body Issues, and while I would love it you folks who haven't read it yet would check it out, it's also 48 chapters and nearly 170K words long, so, what follows is a very abridged version of the events of that story. If you do want to read the original instead, skip this and wait for Chapter 2.

BODY ISSUES 2: GROWING PAINS

Chapter 1: Obligatory Recap

For those who came in late:

The Body Issues universe is… a bit different. Of course, everything that happened in the series, the two movies, and probably those chapter books that I haven't actually read, happened as seen, but the world these characters live in is a bit… stranger. The uncanny can, and does, happen here.

Of course, we all know the story of the Jungle Movie. Helga, in an attempt to get closer to Arnold, enters an essay contest to win the class a trip to San Lorenzo. Little does the class know that the contest is actually a ruse plotted by the evil La Sombra to lure Arnold to San Lorenzo in an attempt to locate the sacred relic of the Green-Eyes Tribe, El Corazon. As we all know, Arnold and his friends thwarted La Sombra and his pirate crew, and Arnold was reunited with his parents and began a new relationship with Helga.

What we don't know is that La Sombra had a second goal. He was actually being funded by a mysterious benefactor, in exchange for locating another lost relic, one of the fabled Goddess Stones, said to grant great power and immortality.

He died before he could find the relic, but unbeknownst to him, Rhonda (literally) tripped over it during the trek to his base. The so-called Goddess stone was actually a tiny geode which broke open, releasing a cloud of dust that she, Helga, and Phoebe accidentally inhaled. They coughed for a bit but generally thought nothing of it at the time.

The dust was no ordinary dust, though… it contained a strain of extraterrestrial spores that took up residence in the girls' bloodstreams and incubated for several months, until that December, when the school board sponsored a flu shot program. When the three got their shot, the spores merged with the flu vaccine and caused it to mutate. Helga and Rhonda at first developed what just seemed to be a severe fever, but it soon became clear that nothing about it was ordinary. After Arnold brought Helga to the school nurse, she began to change color and sprout new limbs. The nurse called in the CDC, and Helga was bundled into a van by supposed agents of the organization, who actually turned out to be agents of La Sombra's mystery benefactor. She was shipped to a hidden facility in Wyoming, where she found out Rhonda had been captured by the same people. La Sombra's patron, AKA "The Old Man", had been using his organization to intercept any reports of odd mutations, and the two girls certainly qualified.

Though the two despised each other, they were forced to admit they would have to work together if they had any hope of surviving their captivity. Their physical transformations completed, resulting in unusual skin coloration and the growth of wings, tails, horns, a second set of arms, and a third eye… but also greatly increased strength, a degree of invulnerability, and a unique power for each girl… heat and cold manipulation for Helga and electricity control for Rhonda. The two used their newfound abilities to escape the Old Man's facility and slowly made their way across the Northwest, having numerous adventures as their grudging cooperation slowly gave way to a budding friendship. They even revealed their deepest secrets, Helga her relationship with Arnold and Rhonda her crush on Lila.

While the duo journeyed back to Hillwood, Arnold and Gerald learned that Rhonda had been kidnapped and discovered Phoebe was going through a bizarre metamorphosis (the same Rhonda and Helga were, though the two had no way of knowing about it at the time. By this time, it had been clear Helga had vanished, and when Arnold realized Phoebe's early symptoms matched Helga's, he began to speculate that her disappearance, Rhonda's abduction, and Helga's disappearance were all connected. Phoebe was rushed to a lab at the former FTI building, now owned by an independent think tank, where Stella Shortman took lead in studying her condition. Meanwile, Olga decided to mount her own investigation of Helga's disappearance, leading her to join Bridget's organization.

After their long journey, Rhonda and Helga arrived home, Helga joyfully reuniting with Arnold and Phoebe and Rhonda with her parents and Nadine, and the friends learning the truth of their metamorphosis from Stella. Less joyfully, Helga discovered that in her absence, Miriam had further descended into alcoholism and Bob had made a desperate attempt to safe his business by throwing in with Hillwood mob chief Little Gino. After Bob called her a monster, she stormed out and moved in to a spare room in the boarding house. Angered by Bob's treatment of Helga, Miriam walked out on Bob for good, eventually moving in with Helga at the boarding house and making a sincere attempt to get clean, while Bob, realizing just how badly he screwed up, sank into a deep depression.

The Old Man, meanwhile, frustrated that none of his attempts to recapture the girls had succeeded, made a deal with a malevolent extradimensional entity that had contacted him in his dreams. The entity promised that, in exchange for one of the girls as its permanent host body, it would deliver the Old Man a DNA sample. The entity attempted to gain control of the girls by manipulating their dreams, but they saw through its attempts and successfully resisted his influence.

Tired of being isolated from their friends, the girls came up with a plan to try to smooth over the revelation. With the holidays approaching, Rhonda decided to throw a combined Christmas/Halloween party, since they could pass off their appearances as "costumes" before the big reveal at the end of the party, giving the gang a chance to get used to their new look. The plan seemed to be going smoothly until Curly's antics caused Rhonda to lose her shit and blow their cover. Sid, already suspicious by nature, fanned the group into a panic until Brainy, of all people, calmed them down with a heartfelt speech. The gang apologized for their behavior and the party continued without a hitch. Emboldened, Helga finally announced that she and Arnold were a couple and anyone who didn't like it could lump it. Rhonda, in turn, felt encouraged to be honest and confessed her crush to Lila, who was flattered but turned her down gently.

Everything seemed to be going well, until the Old Man's mercenaries attacked while Rhonda and a few stragglers were cleaning up, wielding weapons designed specifically to harm the mutants. Lila, who had stayed around to help clean up, was gravely injured in the melee and Helga was forced to save her life the only way she knew how… infecting her with the live mutagenic virus in her blood. The tide of the battle finally turned when Phoebe discovered that her unique power was magnetism, allowing her to easily disarm their opponents.

Lila was rushed to Stella's care, but the her injuries and transformation deeply traumatized her. The entity that had been tormenting the girls in their dreams took advantage of her trauma, appearing to her as an angel and convincing the deeply religious girl that she had died in the battle and was now in purgatory. Meanwhile, blaming herself for Lila's injury, Rhonda spiraled into depression until Nadine managed to pull her out of it, letting slip that she'd had feelings for her friend for some time now. The two spent the night together (G-Rated! They're only 12!) and took the first steps to a new relationship.

Believing "the angel" to be her only way to salvation, Lila made a deal with it, winding up expelled from her body and helpless to stop anything. Now in possession of Lila's body, the entity fulfilled its bargain with the Old Man, delivering a sample of her blood. It's end of the deal held up, the entity decided to take advantage of its powerful new body to indulge in mayhem both petty (attempting to ruin Rhonda and Nadine's budding romance) and blunt (rampaging at a nearby department store).

Desperate to find some way to undo what she had done, Lila managed to get in touch with Madame Blanche, who it turned out really did have some degree of psychic ability, and the two were able to warn her friends that Lila's body was possessed. Phoebe, Helga and Rhonda were able to subdue Lila with a bit of help from a few of Bridget's agents, including Olga, and with the help of a scientist who had some experience dealing with the entity, managed to expel it from Lila's body and the material plane, and return Lila's spirit to her body properly.

The Old Man, revealed now to be none other than legendary Prohibition-era gangster Wheezin' Ed, wasted no time using the blood sample, and used his empowered, rejuvenated body to quickly take control of the Hillwood underworld, But something had gone wrong with the process, and his body was starting to deteriorate. His personal doctor concluded their best bet was to capture and experiment on one of the four girls to find some way of reversing the deterioration, since they had been mutated longer and shown no signs of the deterioration. To this end, Wheezin' Ed captured Bob Pataki and secretly contacted Helga, demanding she surrender herself in exchange for Bob's life. Helga at the time was surrounded by her friends, so she faked a temper tantrum to throw them off and escaped to the Beeper Emporium, where Bob was being held by Ed. After making sure he was okay, and knowing Ed had no intention of letting either go free, Helga took Ed on solo, giving her father the chance to escape. Though Helga had more experience using her new body and powers, it became quite clear that she was out of her depth in a one-on-one match with the larger and much more brutal ganglord. During their fight, the Beeper Emporium's structure was compromised beyond the point of no return and began to collapse on top of them. Both would have very likely perished had Rhonda and Pheobe, who had not been fooled by Helga's blowup for a second, arrived to rescue her. While Phoebe used her magnetic powers to brace the collapsing building, Rhonda pulled Helga out, leaving Phoebe free to drop the building on Wheezin' Ed.

Of course, as all horror movie fans know, the monster is never dead the first time. Wheezin' Ed, his deterioration, both mental and physical, accelerating, dug himself out of the rubble and made a final desperate attempt to finish the girls off. Rhonda, being the only one in any shape to fight, used a desperation technique of her own to augment her strength to fight Ed to a standstill. Finally, when Rhonda was on the verge of collapse, the gangster succumbed to his deteriorating condition and died, leaving behind a tumor-ridden corpse. It's now being studied by top men. Top. Men.

With the last of the threats against them defeated, the girls learned that Dr. Shortman had come up with a "cure"…. Sort of. While they were still mutants, she was able to give them the ability to assume their old human forms for extended periods of time (at the cost of most of their powers). The girls decided that they were actually pretty cool with this, and Helga, Rhonda, Phoebe and Lila returned to school, while secretly beginning crimefighting careers under the alter-egos Temper, Joule, Magnetica, and Decibelle, respectively.

Her work curing the girls done, Stella reunited with Miles back at the boarding house, the two discussing whether they should reveal one final secret…. that Helga's superhuman form also just happens to look just like an image of Xothipacla, the Green Eyes' goddess of love. For the time being, they decided to keep the possibility of Helga's possible avatar of godhood status under wraps.

Time has passed since then… while Bob and Miriam Pataki's marriage was officially dissolved, another was born as Lila's father and the former Suzie Kokoshka tied the knot. Rhonda's parents welcomed their new daughter Rhia to the world, Nadine and Rhonda's relationship has gone public, and Curly has finally gotten over Rhonda and begun a new relationship with Sheena.

Yesterday was the last day of Grade 10. Tonight is Rhonda Lloyd's official annual end-of-school bash, and for one couple, everything is about to change…

A.N.: Welcome back! This series is going to be a bit more episodic than the last one, but there will be character arcs throughout the whole thing. Expect plenty of teen hijinks and drama, along with the usual dash of weirdness. I don't know when the real first chapter'll be up, but hopefully this'll fill the gap for anyone new to the story!

Next: Avoidance