The Super Fireman

[mutador]

Note: I wrote this story back in 2005, it's pretty well constructed in terms of story telling IMHO. Again this one doesn't have sex scenes, it's got a lot of strength feats, display of power and transformation.

 

The super fireman

 

I was doing homework when my father, Don Volkowicz, was watching TV, just arrived home after a day of extenuating work at the Fire Station. Today they had two major fires to extinguish and he couldn’t get any time to rest.  After eating, he sat on the couch with the remote control in one of his hands and a few minutes later, he fell asleep.

I looked at him and tried to examinate the traits of his body: he wasn’t tall, a plain 1.67 m (5’6”) and he didn’t have big muscles, at least not those you would expect in a fireman, he was more of the scrawny type at 66 Kg (147 lbs) with flabby limbs and a little hanging belly. But all he lacked in body he had in good looks because of his handsome face, with a nice jaw, well shaped nose, attractive blue eyes, well cut dark hair and the beginning of an also dark lock-shaped beard. He was a fine 40 year old specimen of man but he felt bad sometimes because he wasn’t big as most of his partners in the Fire Department. He sometimes commented that to the family; but me and my younger sister (just about twelve) always tried to cheer him up, telling him he was the best father in the world. Well,  actually, he was quite a good one, particularly because he had to raise us all on his own since Mom had died in an accident about four years ago. As a dad he was understanding and calm, always taking care of us, concerned about our feelings and such.

Lately he’d been bashed in his job for being skinny, particularly he was very upset because after the death of the captain of the Station, Mr. Fanego, the Department officers chose a younger, less experienced fireman for his replacement, Rodriguez; so he was being ordered around by a 30-year-old. Reason for that decision was more a matter of physical complexion than of capacity at stopping fire. Rodriguez was kinda big, he was about 1.85m (6’1”) and with a weight of  98kg (215 lbs), and despite they recognized Don’s trajectory and abilities they preferred the younger agent for they thought a bigger figure imposed more authority. Also my father had to admit Rodriguez had a deep commanding voice while his was thin and laughable.

Next morning my dad went to the Fire Station in Paternal, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires as usual, and prepared with his buddies for the (sometimes) long wait for a duty call. Usually, like that morning they played cards just to pass time, my dad had started some working out to see if he was able to bulk up about a month ago and he used some free time at the station to train, cause they had a rack with some free weights. So far he’s had very little or no results, at least none I could perceive, and I’m very perceptive of male muscle growth.  After doing some workout my father joined his buddies, in the table sat Rodriguez and five other guys. Some of them were around their thirties and most at their twenties, they all were pretty big, around 1.82m (6’) in average height and 100 kg (220 pounds) in average weight. But the biggest and strongest was David Quevedo, he behaved like a macho man, he had been a weightlifter and he was 1.90 m (6’3”) 115 Kg (255 pounds), my dad wouldn’t want to get that guy angry. Though he was friendly most of the time, he’d behaved toughly and in an argument he could punch and such so no messing around with him.

My dad had a reason to feel skinny compared to those men, they were all pretty big.
That morning while they were playing and doing jokes, talking about Don’s workout that wasn’t actually working out, the phone rang and the station’s secretary, Melissa, told them they received an urgent call. This time it was a real situation: the Atucha Nuclear Power Plant’s core was melting dangerously. When the team heard that, they were shocked, but the commanding voice of Rodriguez made them wake up to their tasks. They dressed up quickly and stepped on the big fire truck hurrying for the place.

When they arrived they realized many other firemen teams were already working, the place was an inferno. Fire was everywhere, not only the spheric core of the Nuclear Plant was in flames but also a lot of sub-units scattered around of the place. Only a few places were still without fire. When they got out of the truck, Rodriguez gave all of them their orders, when my dad’s turn came he received his orders as well:

-You Fabrio are in charge of the fire down there –told Rodriguez while pointing with his finger at a big fire – and you Volkowicz must help him.

My dad was pissed off, he was sent to “help” a younger guy, just because the kid was bigger!! He didn’t complain because the situation was critical.

Rodriguez was actually thinking that my father was too old and small to even hold the hose so he was going to tell him to stay in the station for helping Melissa receive the duty calls and doing the paper work. Well, I think that was most unfair cause my dad was still young in my opinion and the years and years in the job had given him a lot of knowledge.
After a few minutes of doing as ordered my dad began to notice fire was not being extinguished properly and new spots of flames were coming up; he began to realize he knew the reason to that and that a similar thing had happened at a fire situation he’s been many years ago. He immediately headed for Rodriguez.

-Rodriguez, I think we’re not doing a good job here.
-What!? What’s the matter Don?
-I think the strategy is not correct, look at those spots? Fire is reappearing everywhere! We had a situation like this many years ago and what we did was...
-Hey, hey,  wait a sec!! Who is in charge Don!? Is it you or me!? –Rodriguez interrupted my father- There is no time to discuss about many years ago strategies you old man!!
-What did you call me? You must respect my years in the force!
-Know what? I don’t care your years in the force so go back to your duty and shut up!

My father hit Rodriguez in the face with his right fist but it wasn’t strong enough to knock him down and Rodriguez quickly recovered, punching my father in the stomach and pushing him.
My father was hurt but slowly stood up.

While they were discussing, the other firemen turned to look at them, surprised.
-So you’re in charge because you’re bigger, right!? – my dad said ironically and pissed off.
-Of course I am, and I know how to end fire, so go back to your duties –Rodriguez answered.

My father returned upset to his tasks, he knew he was right and he could stop the fire a lot faster. While he was walking to his position, thinking about Rodriguez’s words he spotted something that called his attention in an area of the Nuclear Plant that was not in fire. There, a man in a protective suit was handling some glowing tubes that contained nuclear material, the man was trying to take all the potentially dangerous stuff out of the place so no more damage would occur. Don saw in his direction and heard that the guy shouted and could notice the tubes were getting brighter and hotter, something bad was to happen.
As fast as he could my dad ran to were the guy was and jumped over him, he took the tube in his hands and the guy in the suit fell to the floor some meters away. Suddenly there was a big explosion that looked like a flash of light. The light bathed Don, going through him, people looking could see his skin trespassed by rays so much his skeleton was revealed through the glow. After the blow my dad was on the floor and his body was smoking.
A rescue team in protective suits approached him and amazed that he was still alive, they took his body to the hospital.

At home, my younger sister and me were listening to the radio on batteries about news of the nuclear plant, when the phone rang my sister took it and as the conversation went along she began to cry and then we both hurried to the hospital.
Our aunt Teresa called us on the phone and offered to take us to the hospital. Once there, a  doctor explained that the situation was critical and that it was very unlikely my dad would survive. “He has received several megawatts of nuclear energy, he is in a coma state, his body seems full of burns everywhere and crackled bones, he’s with assisted breathing right now, luckily his heart is still beating...”, the doctor said.
Aunt Teresa, dad’s sister, was concerned as much as we were, and though she tried to look strong for us and give us hope, she was visibly in the need to cry. We decided it was better to stay in the waiting room.
As hours passed doctors appeared with news, they said the heartbeats seemed stronger and that they didn’t need to assist my father with machines for breathing.  That was great news! We cheered up, still the doctor was warning us that even if my dad survived he might have irreversible sequels. They let us enter the room and could see Don all bandaged, my sister and my aunt began to cry, but I didn’t. Not because I thought as a man I shouldn’t cry, but because I had hope, with my comic book influenced 13-year-old mind I fantasized maybe nuclear radiation was not that bad after all.
As days went by my dad was still alive and doctors said his condition was improving, they plainly said it was a miracle.

A week after the accident my aunt was taking care of Don at the hospital while we were at school and suddenly my father moved his hand. She touched it with her finger and Don gripped it. Teresa cried for the doctors, they appeared and said it was signs my dad was getting out of coma. They took him for studies and when they returned the doctor was shocked at the news more than my aunt: “His bones are all welt, and also his skin seems to be healing very quick, this kind of situation is not very usual with these patients!”. Teresa was happy and after school we went to the hospital and she gave us the good news.
A few days after that my dad woke and a few days more he could speak. It took only a week more after that (a total of three weeks recovery) when Don was taken out the bandages. Doctors were in awe his skin was completely cured and they decided he would stay a couple of days more for observation. Dad began to feel hungry and doctors said he could eat whatever hospital food he wanted. It was strange to us how much he ate, he usually ate a third the amount he was eating in hospital. As days went by my dad began to walk and he turned perfectly healthy. Nobody could believe it, when asked how he felt my dad said “as good as before the accident, or better”. I was beginning to think maybe I was right, maybe something unusual was going on with him and the radiation.
From hospital my dad went home and stayed a couple of days resting,  aunt Teresa offered help at home so we lived with her for a couple months. Dad said he didn’t want to rest and he felt very good and wanted to go back on duty but we asked him to stay home because it was too soon. At home we noticed he still ate a lot more food than usual, but we also noticed how well he was curing because he could spend all day playing with me and my sister in the backyard.

After some days at home he decided he should go back to work, when Rodriguez heard about this he called on the phone and told him he was giving my dad job as a receptionist helping Melissa, he said it would be “for a couple of days, until we see you’re fully recovered” , but in fact he wanted my dad to stay there ’til his retirement.
That is the way my dad began working again, taking phone calls, tidying up papers and such... he was pissed off but every time he complained Rodriguez told him his orders were not to be discussed.

A month passed by and my dad just did as ordered, only leaving the office to make some free weight training that didn’t give many results, and hanging around with his partners, they weren’t that bad after all. He didn’t realize in the meantime something was going on with his body.
After that month dad came home one day and I was the only one to notice.
-Dad! Did you look in the mirror, I think you’re bigger than yesterday. –I pointed.
-What!? –Don was surprised.
Teresa was in the room and she laughed
-Maybe you’re just making up things, you read too much comic books- aunt said to me.
-Well, I feel different -my dad said and he removed his T-shirt.
-Wow!! Danny (me) is right!! You have more muscles! -Teresa exclaimed, after all she was his sister, and she knew him well.
She was right, my dad touched his torso to check himself up, he didn’t grow huge but he had more definition in all the muscles and instead of a belly he had a flat stomach. Also I could notice his biceps were beginning to show up. He had almost a swimmer’s build.
-Maybe all those workouts are paying off! –Dad said and bent his right arm and a biceps bounced up.
-Can I touch it? –I asked.
-Of course, son.
Then I approached him and put a hand in his upper arm and could feel the muscle appearing was quite hard, but still pretty small. My sister jumped about shouting she wanted to touch also and dad gave her the opportunity.  Daddy laughed, Teresa also joined and touched Don’s arms and torso, “Hey! Look at my big brother!” she exclaimed.
-I also think you’re taller– I said to Dad (Geez! Was I the only one who noticed?!).
-Do you think so? Go get the tape measure! –he said.
Me and my sister brought the tape and he brought a scale from the bathroom. His weight had increased in 4Kg to 70Kg (155 lbs) (considering he’d gained all muscle and lost a lot of body fat) and he was 1cm taller (1.68m, 5’6 1/3”). But I knew this wasn’t the end of it for I could clearly see my dad’s muscles were slowly growing in front of my eyes.
Days went by and dad’s partners didn’t notice his changes much, but he was still growing, he was adding approximately 4kg (9 pounds) of new muscle and 1cm (slightly more than 1/3”) of added height a week.

A week passed and he was 1.69 (almost 5’7”) and 74kg (164 pounds). That morning at work there was a duty call, and as usual all other firemen could go but my father. When they received the call Rodriguez just pointed at him while saying “you’re not coming!” and my dad had to stay there. He was pissed off and sad, so once everyone had left he went to the weight rack to see if he could get some of his anger out. When he tried and lifted a weight he left the day before, he surprised.
“Hey! What the hell!”, he first thought somebody had tried to play a joke, changing the weights. “This thing is light as a feather”, he said, and curled the 9kg (20 pounds) barbell many times as if it didn’t weight much. He then grabbed another heavier one to see if it was a joke, the 15kg (30 pounds) barbell was only slightly heavier to him and he could curl it no problem. He grabbed a 20kg (45 pounds) one and he felt some strain with it but not much, he was perfectly able to curl it. “Holy fuck!” he thought, “I’m stronger!”.
There was a place were they kept all kind of fire equipment like extinguishers, hoses, ladders. He tried and see what he could do with them, because sometimes he had trouble lifting up the gear. He first tried the hose that was rolled. The thing weighed a good 20kg (45 pounds) maybe, Don was happy to see he could grab it very easily and manage it. Then he tried the ladder, it was big and weighed about 30kg (65 pounds), he took it with both his hands and put it up and down, happy now he could easily handle it. In a corner there were a couple of red long and thick fire extinguishers that were full and weighing a good 25kg each  (55 pounds), he grabbed one in each hand and to his surprise he could lift both of them at the same time.
At first dad didn’t connect his gains with the accident, he just thought maybe the workout was paying off, but it was just that all the nuclear power that had been absorbed by the molecules of his body was beginning to manifest.

As time went by my dad’s body continued to grow and so did his physical strength. The third week of growth he was 1.70m(5’7”) and 78Kg (173 lbs), the next one he was 1.71m (5’7 1/3”) and 82Kg (182 lbs). He went from swimmer’s build to beginning of athlete type of build, we could clearly see his back widening, neck growing thicker and arms bigger at 43 cm (17”), thicker legs and everything. And GROWING. Next week he was a good 1.72m and 86kg (191 lbs), he was getting rugby player or weightlifter build, and that’s when the other firemen began to notice. One of them,  after cautiously looking at my dad exclaimed something like “damn, you’re getting big, buddy!”
-Yes, - dad answered – my workouts seem to be paying off, don’t you think!?
-Know what! You should arm wrestle Quevedo! What do you think big man?
Quevedo was sitting there and the men looked at him.
-Yeah, why not! –Quevedo said, sat on the table and extended his right hand. He knew he was going to win anyway, cause he was still much bigger than my dad.
Dad looked at him and put his own hand in place. Both men grabbed their hands,  dad wanted to show his new strength so he gripped tight, Quevedo seemed surprised at that strong grip, he wasn’t expecting it. Then one of the guys said “start!” both men began to strain, Quevedo was puzzled, it was being really hard to bend Don’s arm. My dad was holding up perfectly, using his new strength. The guy was in awe, some time passed and both men began to notice they were equally strong. My dad was happy but Quevedo didn’t like it much. As minutes went by both men began to sweat and get tired and their arms were sore. Someone had to give in. A few minutes more and Quevedo’s hand was touching the table. My dad had won. Quevedo couldn’t believe it, his hand was sore and he was angry, but he laughed.
-How do you feel uh! After I let you win! Hehehe – Quevedo pretended he hadn’t lost.
-You let me win? You looked like you were straining – Don said.
-Oh well, yes, I was pretending...
Dad knew that wasn’t true, he had truly won Quevedo, besides the big guy was massaging his sore arm. Dad’s arm soreness lasted less than a few seconds, so quickly it cured he was surprised, he didn’t even have to rub his upper-arm.

Time passed and size increased. Next week daddy was 1.73 (5’8”) and 90kg (200lbs) and he was definitely beginning to look like an athlete , his body was wider all over and he began to use new clothes. He had pretty big arms now, 47cm (18 1/2”) Men at the fire station marvelled at my dad’s size increase, he looked better and he walked and moved different. That’s when my dad showed Rodriguez he could lift up all the gear very easily. That obliged him to recognize Don was fit to return to duty, besides the lack of one of the men was starting to get noticed by all the team, so my dad was allowed to go into fire extinguishing again. All the firemen were surprised how well my dad did his job and the heavy stuff he could lift. What they didn’t expect was the ever -growing and ever –strengthening process he was undergoing.

Weeks passed and skinny Don was becoming more and more a hulking super dad. Aunt Teresa, seeing she was no longer needed, left, though she would visit us now and then. The 3rd month since dad’s gone out of hospital he was a different man. He stood to 1.8m (5’11”) tall and weighed a good 118kg (262 lbs), when he met new people they asked him if he was a boxer, bodybuilder or something. At this point he was perfectly aware that the growth had nothing to do with the workouts and he was also getting used to being way bigger and stronger or maybe super – stronger. At home he began to go around shirtless so we could see his perfectly developed torso, he usually wore nothing more than short pants. While he walked his 50cm (20”) upper arms were pushed outward by his huge laterals and his 80cm (33”) thighs bulged with every step. He had also bulky pecs and defined abs. His delts and neck were developed giving a powerful frame to his head, I’d noticed that listening to a small man speaking was very different to listening to a man whose head was attached to a powerful body, for example, since I was just 1.63cm my dad was about a head taller than me now, just being obliged to look UP at him so big and wide while we talked if we were standing or just walking made a huge difference, everything he said seemed more important. I also tried my best not to upset him, though to me his superstrength was awesome and nobody deserved it better than him, it also intimidated me, once we were walking in the park and he just played a joke to me, pretending he was angry and “lightly” punched my shoulder, for him it was a gentle punch but I felt like ten rugby players were hitting me, I had to go to hospital to get my shoulder checked! Doctors said it was taken out of place but bounced back by itself and if the punch had been just a little bit stronger he would have broken the juncture completely. My dad was so sorry, he made sure I knew how bad he felt for that and tried to compensate, he turned extra-gentle with me, giving me all I wanted for a while just to apologize, like extra-money to go out with my friends,  paying for electronics stuff I always wanted, etc. That’s what I love from my dad, he is so kind and gentle.

At the fire station Rodriguez was distrustful and jealous of my dad because of his muscle increase and his incredible strength. At first he thought Don was taking steroids, one day when they were at the table waiting for a call Rodriguez had to mention it:

-Don, be sincere with me, do you have a drug problem?
-What? –my father was surprised.
-Yes, I mean, look at you, your muscles, nobody grows big this fast. You’re on ’roids, right?
-I’ll tell you something – my dad stood up and his size impressed Rodriguez - from now on you’ll have to take care the way you treat me, you’d better respect me, ok?
-Oh, really? And what are you gonna do about it? –Rodriguez stood facing my dad, he was still a little taller than Don but looked thinner and weaker.
My father took Rodriguez from his shirt collar with his big right hand and lifted him up almost 30cm (a foot) over the floor and held him there.
-Wanna have a taste of my strength? –my dad said. Rodriguez was amazed.
-Ok, ok,  put me down! I’m not pissing you off again.
-Right. –Don put him down gently on the floor and smiled.

The 4th month since he was out of hospital, was the point in which my dad began to look like a big bodybuilder, he reached 130kg (290lbs) and 1.83m (6’) tall. He was bulky, this time he began to experience other changes like a deepening of the voice, and new thick hair sprouting in his chest and some in his abs and legs; he also decided he would leave a full beard in his face. All these made him look more handsome than ever, with his new muscles, voice and beard he looked manly as hell.

My dad’s growth lasted until the 7th month since he went out of hospital. Since the 4th month he added about 48kg (100 lbs) of pure muscle to his frame making him a 178kg (395lbs) man and his height rose to 1.95m (6’5”),  he was the incredible hulk only he was good-looking. The way he moved and behaved gave a handsome and attractive feel to him because he was well-proportioned. His torso, arms and legs were enormous and now he had a deeper louder voice than ever. His strength was ridiculous, having overpowered Quevedo by many many times,  he was even much stronger than all the other firemen combined, he could not only lift the gear now, he could easily lift the whole fire truck with firemen and gear inside, he could heft big chunks of walls and columns, he picked up cars like they were made of cardboard, dammit, he was perfectly able to support a 50 store building with his hands if he had to.
When he stood up next to Quevedo or Rodriguez he made them look puny, he was 5 cm  (2”) taller and 65 kg (144 lbs) heavier than Quevedo and 10 cm  (4”) taller and 80 kg (180 pounds) heavier than Rodriguez. His measurements were as follows: 76,5 cm (30”) upper-arms, while Quevedo’s were only 52 cm (20”); 48 cm (19”) forearms, while Quevedo’s were just 34 cm (13”); 96 cm (37”) waist, just an inch over Quevedo’s; 177 cm (70”) chest, while Quevedo’s was 127 cm (50”), 106 cm (42”) thighs while Quevedo’s were just 69 cm (27”). Smaller than Don’s biceps!! 70 cm (27”) calves and 66 cm (26”) neck; while Quevedo’s calves and neck were equally just 46 cm (18”).
Just for comparison’s sake, Rodriguez had 40 cm arms (15 ¾”), 114 cm (45”) chest and puny 55 cm (21 ½”) thighs.

 

“Damn, this feels good”, thought Don while walking job that morning. He was wearing a short sleeved plaid shirt and tight flannel trousers. In the street everyone ogled him in awe, people even commented when they saw him.  This only increased his self confidence, feeling his powerful legs taking him where he wanted was awesome, he couldn’t help thinking that if he just stepped a little stronger he would easily cause a dent in the floor. He thought, “Maybe I’ll do it, What if I hit the floor with my feet and crack a hole in it, what if I punch a wall and blow it away right now?”, but he refrained, there were better things to use his strength at, fact is, he loved using his super-strength, he tried it any chance he got.
While passing by a dead-end street, he saw a young guy cursing at a big trash container, he was trying to move the thing pushing it with his whole body and as he couldn’t he kicked it with anger several times.
Don got close to the guy, put one of his heavy hands in the guy’s shoulder and asked him what was wrong.
The guy was awe struck, he didn’t know if it was Don’s deep powerful voice that shocked him or his amazing size.
“Oh, uh, Sir”, though Don was looking at him in a friendly way, the guy was intimidated, “thing is, a couple guys wanted to play me a joke and took my bike an threw it behind the container”.
“Uh, I see, and you can’t move it”, said Don understandingly, while taking his hand off the little man.
“Yes, this is heavy as hell”, said the guy while trying to push the thing with all his might.
“Maybe I can help you”, with this, Don put his left hand on a side of the container, and pushed effortlessly, immediately the thing slid half a block to the end of the street as if it were weightless, the base of it scraping the floor, the steel sparkling against the sidewalk.
The guy just stared open-mouthed, he couldn’t believe it, there laid his bike and he quickly grabbed it “Damn it!! You’re so fucking strong! Thank you man!”, he said.
“No problem kid”, Don said while gently patting at the guy’s back, “I like helping little men like you”.
After watching the guy going out with his bike Don went close to the container, crouched and grabbed it from its base, without even breathing hard he stood up and the thing was lifted up with him, it weighed three quarters of a ton,
“Heavy as hell?”, he said, “this feels light as a feather”.
He easily walked to where the thing had been and gently put it down, he grinned, rejoiced at his own might.

Don resumed his walking and entered the fire station, there Rodriguez saw him coming in.
When Don got close to him, Rodriguez couldn’t help but feel a little thrilled by Don’s size and self-assured attitude.
“Mm, Vo…Volkowicz, you’re a little late this morning”, noted Rodriguez, his voice was almost trembling.
“Have there been any duty calls?”, asked my dad.
“Well, guess no”, answered Rodriguez.
“Then, I guess there is no problem, what do you think?”, said Don while grabbing his hips
with his hands, expanding his enormous chest and getting a few steps closer to Rodriguez.
“It’s ok, mm, guess we’ll let it pass for today”, was his reply.

My dad loved intimidating Rodriguez with his strength and size, he tried this every occasion he had, his favorite was once he had to walk to the other end of the room, and Rodriguez was standing in his way, he single-handedly grabbed him from his belt and lifted him over his head, while saying “sorry, little guy, I need to pass” and put him back down to a side with gentle and steady grip. The lifting was his favorite, but he also did other things like pushing him away or just shaking hands too strong; he once gripped him with such might Rodriguez went weak on the knees, growled and begged him to stop.
My dad loved showing off his strength and size; one day, after he’d acquired his actual size, aunt Teresa came for a visit, it’d been long time since we didn’t see her, when she left my dad was just about 1.78m (5’10”) or so tall and weighed just about 90kg (200 lbs).
Dad opened the door and received her, at first she thought she got the wrong house, she couldn’t recognize the immense man in front of her as her brother. My dad was wearing just a pair of shorts and a tank top. After a few moments, she shouted “Don!! Is it you?! My GODNESS!”. Don just smiled at her and crouched, lifted her in a hug and brought her inside.
“Oh my, you’re huge! Look at that! How tall are you?”, she asked while standing in front of him.
“I guess I’m about 1.95m (6’5”), maybe a little more”, said him while putting his hands in his hips with pride. Aunt Teresa was just 1.58m (5’2”) so even standing very straight, the top of her head didn’t even reach Don’s nipples.
“Wow, is that your voice?! You sound like an announcer, wow! You’re so tall if I keep looking up at you I’ll break my neck”, she remarked.
Don hit a double biceps pose and she marveled. He relaxed his pose and she tried to grab his upper-arm with her hands, wow, aunt’s hands looked really small next to that big arm. Don bent his arm for her so she would have more to grab, she exclaimed “wows”, she run her hands through my dad’s back, and caressed his enormous laterals.
“Damn, look at these”, she said for the lats, then she looked down and cried “and look at those legs! My god, I’ve never seen legs like those.”
“Come here dad!”, I told him and brought a chair, he would put his huge foot over the chair, bending his leg, this move made his immense thigh flex into a ball of muscle. I put my hands on it and caressed “feel this auntie, there is strong mass in here”, I told her.
She put her hands in it, she was ecstatic.
“Wow, my big brother”, she jumped at him and Don grabbed her with an arm and held her up over him.
“Hey, now you’ll have to take care not to upset your big brother, hehe”, Don said and we cheered.
Then he gently put her down and he told us to wait in the couch for a moment, he went to his room. He appeared a few minutes later wearing his old clothes that were just too tight, the old pants impossibly ultra-snug to his legs and one of his old XXL shirts which no longer fitted, all buttoned and about to burst, his muscles clearly bulking and impossibly stretching the fabric; he then bent his right arm and the huge biceps popping destroyed the sleeve; then did the same with his other arm and also expanding his chest removed the buttons from top to bottom. We all sat on the couch while he performed for us, watching as he flexed every single part and his bulging muscles tore the seams, ending up in just a pair of briefs.

It was morning at the Station, right after Don had gone to his tasks, two old men came, these men were supervisors from the City Council, Rodriguez received them with surprise and asked them some explanations. They were there to check out a situation that had been reported, of the unfair promotion to Captain of a too-young fireman.
They made all kinds of questions to everyone and checked on records. They were heard remarking how “good the files reported about this man, Volkowicz”, they said they wanted to meet him personally.
“I’m afraid he hasn’t come today”, Rodriguez said. Don wasn’t too far from the place and overheard the conversation, he went close to them and asked “What are these men looking for?”.
The two old men were surprised, they’d never seen a guy like that, looking so big and strong. “Well, we’re looking for Don Volkowicz, do you know him?”, asked one of them.
“Of course I do, said Don, it’s me”.
“Oh, my!, excuse us, we expected someone two heads shorter and a hundred kilos (240 pounds) lighter than you”.
Don smiled and gently shook hands with the men, they went somewhere else and talked in private for a while, asking him questions.
A few days later, in the morning, the two men came again and informed the whole station that they had a new Captain, it was Don, and Rodriguez was degraded to cape.
Nobody dare say but everyone was happy everything was in the right place now.
That day, Don ordered Rodriguez right away: “I want my office clean by noon”. Rodriguez had nothing to say, and did as ordered.

A couple months passed by and everyone got used to the way things had turned. Most of the times, once a fireman is named Captain he quits doing the hard work, he just gives orders and leaves the tough tasks to his inferiors. This was not the case with Don, since he loved using his physique, he was always in the middle of the fire situations. Effectiveness of the station raised dramatically under his command, because of his experience but also because of his incredible physical capacities that allowed him to do things that couldn’t be done before. Soon he discovered he was almost invulnerable; no bullet could penetrate him, no flame could burn him, no blade would cut him, no needle could pinch him; his body was tougher than tempered steel, stronger than titanium, he couldn’t be crushed, or exploded or whatever. He could breathe in any kind of mortal fumes, like smoke from a chemical factory without any consequence at all. Smoke couldn’t even affect his eyesight and not even his hair was burnt by fire, making him perfect for his job.

That night they had a calling and quickly moved all men. When they got to the place it was very tough, Don quickly held a hose and ordered his men to flow water at full pressure. The place was a factory and it was burning very bad, it just had a little door that was closed, Don thought he’d better be holding the hose pointing at the roof and ordered four of his men, including Rodriguez to try and open the little door. The four men used a special steel tube, swinging it with their combined might and crushing it against the door several times; but apparently it was too well closed and it wouldn’t open.
Don shouted at them he would take care of the door; and ordered the four men to keep the hose steady for him. The amount of water coming out from it was incredible, yet Don was keeping it steady with just one hand. They all took the hose as well as they could, and once they were sure Don let it go. Oh my, the thing began to shake and the four man could barely control it; they had to adjust their stance and put the hose close to their bodies grabbing it under their armpits just to keep it in place; no near as steady as Don could keep it effortlessly with one of his hands.
Don stepped in front of the door, gave a look at it and noticed it had a handle. He thought maybe he could pull the door out. He grabbed the handle and though it was almost red with heat he wasn’t hurt at all. Without much effort on his behalf he pulled, to his surprise the door was well stuck with the wall and instead of just the door, the whole wall gave in and crumbled, Don just took a few steps back and gave a look at what his hand was holding up easily: a big chunk of heavy thick wall with the door just –in the middle-.
He threw the thing away without concern, it must have flown about 20 meters (60 feet). Then ordered his men to shoot the water at the opening he’d done. As he saw their men had trouble directing the hose, he went next to them and grabbed the hose in his hands, easily directing it. He ordered them to grab other lighter hoses and point at the opening too.
This operation extinguished the fire very quickly; and once the place was safe; a couple cops came in to investigate, they told Don they suspected an incendiary was behind all this. They walked with Don inside the ruins of the factory, looking for traces of gasoline or any other product that may have ignited fire. They checked out all the possible places but there was nothing. One of the cops pointed at a part of the factory and said “damn, if only we could see what’s behind that debris”. The place was blocked by a thick ball of wall pieces attached to bent steel seams, these weighed a couple tons. The other cop said they’d better come tomorrow with a crane to move that. Don just told the guys to take a couple steps back and he’d handle it. Then he grabbed the ball by two of the twisted seams, and bam!! He lifted it, no challenge for my mighty dad. After the fire Don had taken out the protective clothing so he was just wearing a pair of blue t-shirt and short pants and slippers. This allowed the cops to have a close look at how Don’s back seemed to get even wider and thicker with the task and how his deltoids, biceps, triceps and forearms tensed and bulked even more than they already did in rested position.  His legs were an spectacle too, they were thick and well up to the task, while Don stood up with the heavy debris in his hands his thighs and calves expanded to the sides and stretched the short pants’ fabric. In a few moments, Don cautiously put the thing in a corner where it wouldn’t cause trouble.
Once the area was clear the cops could work on it and found out traces of the same compounds present in two similar cases that had happened before in the neighborhood.
“Damn, this relates to the same guy”, said one of the cops.
The other cop seemed distracted by something, “hey, who is that kid?”. He could see a kid hiding, peeping at them; “He may have been a witness!”, the other cop replied.
“Hey, come here boy! We’ll ask you some questions”, instead the kid was going away, “come here, we won’t harm you!”, then the kid started running away.
The two cops were suspicious and run after the kid as fast as they could. Don decided he would help them and ran after the kid as well. The kid ran too fast and the cops weren’t in good condition so they quickly got tired and had to stop; but Don’s never-ending stamina allowed him to follow the kid very easily, he ran after the boy at a speed that was less than a quarter what his legs were capable of; and he quickly reached for the boy in a parking lot, but the kid was smart and hid behind some trucks.
Don checked out the place with his eyes, “Come out boy, I won’t hurt you, cops want to ask you just a few questions!”, said with his deep voice that echoed back and forth in the lonesome lot.
Then the kid let a small noise come out and Don quickly went close to the back of one of the trucks, he put his hand under it and easily lifted it up; the kid was revealed, all fearsome he continued running as fast as he could. Don yelled “Damn!” and let the back of the truck go with a furious thud. He went after the kid and as he was quickly reaching for him the kid just vanished in the floor. “What the fuck!”, cried Don. A moment later, he arrived to where the kid had disappeared, there was a sewer opening the kid’s thrown himself into, the cap was just laying on a side apparently it was left open by a company that’d been doing repairs.
“Witty boy”, he said, his wide muscle body couldn’t get past the opening; so he crouched and yelled at it, trying to persuade the boy to come out. Yet he had no response. When he was going to rip the pavement open with his hands something came to his mind: there weren’t many ways out of the sewer; and a kid as small as that couldn’t lift the heavy round steel caps the openings had.
He then grabbed the (for him) light as a feather cap and closed that exit just in case. He
then rushed to a place he knew the kid would have to come out at.
In a few moments, Don arrived at a sewage processing plant, the place was closed with havy gates, with tightly piled thick iron bars; and locked with a special system.
Don didn’t think much about it and put his hands in between two bars, like a blast he extended his arms and expanded his chest and the iron bars bent like butter or clay, the gates twisted and were torn into useless crap.
He quickly got in and got close the ending of a big pipe he thought would be the kid’s first option for getting out. It was blocked with a pretty thick steel grill; to make sure the kid would use this Don ripped the grill away with his hand and hid it somewhere else. He awaited behind the opening so the kid couldn’t see him. Just a few moments after that the kid was getting out as he expected. He grabbed the boy from his back, and lifted him, turned him around to face him, holding the kid at eye level, “you’re one slippery little boy, uh!”, he said! “It’s not easy to scape a man like me”, he said this while bending one of his arms, the kid looked awe struck at the immense biceps that popped off, which collaborated with his heaving triceps to strain Don’s T-shirt’s sleeve, he had a close look at the monster elbow and the thick bulking and veiny fore-arm connected to a proportionally wide and thick wrist which led to his big fisted hand with fingers so thick and strong they easily twisted steel.
“Don’t worry little fella, I’m not gonna hurt you, I’ll just get you to the cops who will ask you a few questions; your scape just made you all the most valuable”, Don explained the kid.
Suddenly the boy looked in a pocket and pulled out a gun, it was a 38, too much for a kid like that; pointed at Don and shot at his chest. The bullet just bounced off Don’s immense pectoral and he gave a severe look at the kid, he took the gun from the kid’s hand and said “Didn’t mom tell you not to play with these kind of things?”, while saying this Don pressed the gun crushing it in his hand in front of the kid’s face until it was reduced to twisted metal and plastic shreds which fell to the floor, the kid’s mouth was wide open. Don looked down at the remnants and said “this is not going to cause any more harm”.

Later, the cops saw Don coming, bearing the boy in his arm. They checked the kid’s pockets for extra weapons and found the kid had a small video camera hidden. While still being held by Don, cops began to make the boy questions regarding who he was making the recording for. He replied he couldn’t say, or he would be in danger. Don tried to calm the kid down, saying he’d seen just how powerful he was and that he would protect him.
Cops tried to encourage the kid to talk, they told him they were going to find who was behind this with or without his help. They threatened with jailing him for several years (they knew they couldn’t do that, but the kid believed).
Scared, the boy told them the owner of a bar nearby had given him the videocamera and payed in advance for the videoing job; the only condition was he would not tell anyone or they’d kill him.
“Don’t worry son”, said Don with his deep manly calm and confident voice,”you did good, nothing bad is going to happen”.
“Who’s bar is it? Who is the owner?”, asked one of the cops who was older and balding.
“It is called ‘Irlanda Bar’, and the owner is known as The Irish”, said the kid in a trembling voice.
The bar was well known, and Don offered to help, but the cops told him they would take care.

A few hours later the cops appeared at the bar; Captain Golvin was the elder one and more experienced, about 50, while Sergeant Senna was in his thirties, he was considered pretty cute and also a big strong guy, easily 1.87m (6’2”) and  115 kg (250 pounds), though next to Don he looked pretty puny. They never wore cop suits because they belonged to a separate detective department, most people realized they were cops anyhow. Once in the bar people looked at them real weird, they didn’t fit. The bar was pretty big and it wasn’t only just a drinking and dancing place, there was a wrestling arena in the middle and a place for people to stand looking at the fights. It wasn’t wrestling time so in the arena were just a couple guys training, for their style they realized they fought no holds barred.  The cops sat at the bar and took a couple drinks, then they began asking questions to the barman; if he knew the owner of the place, if they could talk to him a few minutes; the Barman said “no” to all that, and ensuring the cops didn’t realize he made signals to a couple big guys that were playing billiard.
In just a few seconds five men came close; they were all big muscle fellas, none of them was shorter than 1.85m (6’1”1/2) and none lighter than 120 kg (260 lbs), obviously wrestlers.
“What’s the matter Nico?”, asked one of the biggest guys with a deep voice; this was easily a 130 kg (300 pound) man 1.90m (6’3”) tall built as a bull, he was wearing a leather jacket without sleeves that exposed his huge arms with a tattoo. He was bald at the forehead but had black hair shoulder length. He also had a piercing in his left brow.
“These men are asking for The Irish”, said the barman. Both officers stood.
“I think they are cops.”
“The Irish will not come today”, said the big guy, “So Fuck off”.
Golvin was about to pull out his gun, one of the men noticed it and grabbed his arm, pushed him and punched him in the face, knocking the wind out of him, making him fall.
Senna charged at the big guy with his shoulder, the man went out of balance but quickly grabbed him and all the other guys began to punch him, the cop could do nothing.
After both cops were punched really hard, they were thrown away in the street by the five bullies, they turned and twisted in the ground, bruised.

After the cops had gone, Don was left alone with the kid, he realized he was holding him still up and said “sorry” while gently put him down on the floor and took him to the fire truck where the boy could have a seat. The kid began to cry, “Hey, little fella, don’t cry”, said Don and enveloped the boy with his huge arm. Don asked him a few questions, the kid answered in between sorrows. He was 11 and his name was Camilo, he had no parents and was living in the streets.
Don brought Camilo home with us, we were surprised when right at the doorway our dad came in and said “I need to introduce you a new friend”. Then Camilo stepped in, he was olive skinned and had black hair and eyes. Dad explained us the circumstances and that the kid would live with us for a couple weeks until he found him a place, I accepted it with enthusiasm but my younger sister didn’t like the idea, despite she was too fearsome, she was right “the kid came from the streets and he stole and used guns and what if he was a bad guy”. However, it didn’t take much until she realized the kid was good and could be our friend.

The weekend came, Dad forgot about all and wanted to spend some time with us. We played volleyball at the backyard with Camilo, who we’ve found was very fun to stay with, his bad attitude could be blamed at the bad influences he had. Dad didn’t play with us, because of his super-strength he wouldn’t play games in places were things could be broken by him. Last time we played he inadvertently hit a column with his elbow while trying to catch a ball and almost brought down the ceiling. Actually when he’d first acquired his super physique he didn’t know his own strength; once we were playing he hit the ball what he thought would be really soft but it flew away like a bullet, missed my head for just a few centimeters, hit a wall creating a hole in it; then caused a Dent in the living-room floor and the ball was blown to pieces. Dad regretted it a lot, and thanked god it didn’t hit my head. Since then Don had a lot more control of his might, though he could hit the ball with kindness now he had to take care about the buildings. That’s why we decided we should go and play in the open air.

Don owned a pretty big van, the only car he could fit in. He took my sister, Camilo and me down a route in search for a nice field to play ball in, the day was sunny and calm, after a few minutes driving he was going to cross a bridge but he had to stop, several cars were jammed before the bridge. We waited for a couple minutes and Don turned off the engine, he pulled out his head to look. A couple cars were stuck behind us; and those in front of us moved just a little, my dad didn’t follow them because he was trying to look what was the problem a couple meters ahead from us. A driver behind us honked at us and shouted at my dad, asking him to move on, insulting him. My dad ignored the guy, and the man was so furious he stepped out of his car and went close to my dad’s window to insult him. The man was pretty big, not huge but of decent size to be intimidating.
“You feel powerful because you have a big car, uh?”, said the middle aged man.
Then my dad opened the door and stepped off the van. The arguing guy looked at him in awe, Dad stood in front of him so big a wide; wearing just tight short pants and tee stretched by his enormous muscular physique.
The man was like “Sorry big fella, Uh, I didn’t mean to say that”. Don just ignored him and walked a few meters ahead to see what was going on. We were curious too and followed him. Once in place he’d found out what the situation was: a group of men, some of which were firemen, were trying to rescue a horse that was hanging from the bridge. Apparently the animal had slipped and fell, but its ankle was caught in between two steel bars supporting the bridge, the poor animal was moaning in pain of his twisted ankle while five men could do little to rescue him. The fall was pretty high so the men couldn’t just free his ankle, the animal would be killed. They were trying to put ropes around him so they could pull it up but the animal was moving a lot making it impossible.
The firemen saw Don appearing, and though they belonged to other district one of them said “Hey!! Look at that, this is Don Volkowicz!”, they greeted Don and told him he was famous. They explained him the situation and realized his presence there was the best thing that could ever happen.
Don said he could handle it, he just crouched at the horse’s ankle and grabbed it very hard with a hand where it wasn’t twisted so the animal wouldn’t suffer much, also trying to be gentle not to brake any bone. With his remaining hand, he grabbed the steel beam that was trapping the horse’s ankle and firmly pulled at it, ripping it off completely and throwing it away. Still holding the animal, he pulled his arm up and slowly stood, picking the animal up with ease, while he balanced and calmed the horse with his other hand. He extended his arm up wide until the animal’s whole length was over the bridge. Then he gently cradled it in his arms, holding the animal so it wouldn’t have to stand on the floor right away. He bore the horse out of the bridge in firm land then softly put it down, trying to direct the animal’s weight away from its twisted leg. The horse then stood proud again, balancing itself with three legs, and lifting up the broken one, Don caringly patted the animals’ back with affection. Soon the vets would be coming.
Needless to say this was a real easy task for him, firemen cheered up and thanked him; soon the place was clear and cars could pass.
We all went back to the van and found a nice place to spend the afternoon, had a good time playing ball and cheering.

In the evening we went back home. When we were relaxing and helping dad with the cooking, the bell rang.
Dad opened the door and saw the two cops, they were bandaged, looking bruised all over and the younger one had a purple and swollen eye.
“Hey! What happened to you!”, Dad said.
The men explained him and told him they had a plan.

The next day Don appeared at Irlanda Bar, he was all covered in black leather; leather jacket, pants, sunglasses and boots. They all looked at him, bet they’d never seen a guy big like that, it was like Terminator. His powerful way of walking directed everyone’s view to his legs who’s size was evident even through the leather. Everyone realized his wide and big torso too, since the jacket he wore was gargantuan. He got close the bar and told the barman he knew they were looking for wrestlers.
The barman pointed at a group of about five guys in the other end of the room and called for “Carlos”. Carlos was the big fella that beat the crap out of the cops the other day.
Don went close to Carlos who was intimidated by his looks and size but pretended not to.
“And So?”, Carlos asked defiantly.
-They told me you were looking for wrestlers - said Don with the confident deep tone of his voice. Carlos was a little shocked to be face to face with someone that was more man than him in every aspect: Don was bigger, heavier, more muscled, obviously stronger and had a much deeper voice.
-Hey! I know you! You’re the district’s fireman captain, hey! Look what we have here boys, you wanna be a wrestler, but, do you have what it takes?
-Wanna have a look?, with this Don removed his jacket, he was wearing a black t-shirt that tried to contain all his big bulges. When Carlos saw Don’s torso, he gulped.
-You think you are big, uh? Think you can fight?
-Well I definitely am big, don’t you think?, with this Don bent one of his arms, the immense upper-arm was easily twice as big as Carlos’.
Then suddenly Carlos punched as hard as he could at Don’s stomach. Don didn’t even budge and looked back at the man, grinning widely. He was about to laugh.
Carlos massaged his fist, sore after trying to punch the thickest and denser muscle ever.
“Guess it’s my turn then”, said Don, and easily punched at Carlos’ belly without using even a small fraction of his might. This punch not only bent Carlos over but sent him flying to a nearby wall, hitting chairs and tables that scattered around or broke.
Carlos took a while to recover and four of the other big wrestlers threw themselves over Don.
“Huh, want to play”, Don said. One of the men tried to punch him but Don grabbed his wrist and held it. The guy couldn’t understand how someone could keep his hand so steady, he was clamped by Don’s grip. Don gripped tightly at the guy’s wrist until the man was bending over in pain, he then grabbed the guy with his free hand and threw him away about easily 20 meters.
Other man jumped on him but he put him off just the same way, extending his arm was enough to send the guy flying to never come back. One of the guys took a baseball bat out of nowhere and hit him in the shoulder. The bat just broke in two pieces, Don just laughed and also made that guy fly like he was a rag doll. The last guy tried hitting Don’s back with a crowbar, it didn’t make any harm, he turned around and easily took the bar out the hands of the bullie, he grabbed its sides and bent it effortlessly, the thick tempered steel was no challenge for him, he looked at the bullie straight in the eyes and the guy just ran away with fear.
Carlos was still dizzy, and Don decided to help him up, he grabbed him by his trouser’s belt and picked up the heavy man single-handedly like he was a scarecrow.
“It’s ok man, calm down”, Carlos asked. He was even shaking.
“Haha, so you think I can be a wrestler, or want another show off?”, asked Don.
“No! It’s ok, let me down! Please!”.
“Fine”, Don let him stand in the floor again and chuckled.
“Will you take me to The Irish now?”
“Fine, I’ll tell The Irish about you”, and Carlos left.
A few minutes after, Carlos came in company of another man. It was no regular man, the guy was easily a couple centimeters taller than Carlos at 1.92m (6’4”) and maybe weighed a good 140 kg (320 pounds), much muscular than Carlos, he had piercing green eyes and red thick well-cut curly hair.
“I suppose you must be The Irish”, Don said while looking at him.
“Yes”, the Irish said, Don was a little impressed by his looks and manly voice.
The Irish stood closer to Don, though The Irish was a very big man, he was slightly shorter and had clearly less muscled than my dad.
“You performed quite a show-off with my men, so you wanna wrestle? Wanna add a few bucks to that puny fireman salary you have?”
“Yeah”, Don said with confidence, realizing his physical superiority also compared to this man.
“Then you’ll have to wrestle me, what do you think?”
“No problem!”, Don cheered, “When?”
“Right now”.
The Irish told the men who were training in the arena to leave it, they obeyed immediately.
The Irish took off his shirt and his jean trousers and shoes, he wore just a tight boxing short.
“I suggest you get more comfortable, I’ll give you quite a fight”.
Don took off his black t-shirt showing his hairy bulky torso, when he did that he heard a “wow!” coming from somewhere, the men were impressed.
He also took off his leather trousers and boots, he was also wearing a pair of snug shorts.
Both big men got in the Arena, they were not equal, Don exceeded The Irish by easily 35 Kg (75 pounds) of muscle mass, yet the red haired one felt very confident.
“Let’s begin”, The Irish said. And someone made the bell ring.
Don just stood there, The Irish punched at his face but Don was quick enough to dodge it.
Then, furious, landed his best punch on Don’s belly. The Irish’s hand was sore, he took a few steps back and looked at Don. The big man’s hard ab muscle was so dense and powerful, Don didn’t even feel a thing, he just stood there, grinning and looking down at his opponent.
“You fucker!” The Irish shouted, and landed a few kicks at Don’s laterals, but the big fella kept standing there, kicks bouncing off him like he was made of granite.
Then the red haired guy made a fist with both his hands and tried to land a strong blow at Don’s head to knock him down. But Don was too quick and stopped it with his left hand.
While still holding both The irish’s arms with his left hand, he grabbed the man by the crotch with his right hand, and lifted him over his head, “Hey is this a legal move?”, he asked mockingly. Then threw the guy down on the floor with a loud thud, he didn’t use much force because he didn’t want to kill him.
The Irish fell dizzy on the floor and took a while to recover, seeing this, Don smiled, crouched and extended his hand offering to help him up. The Irish took his hand and as he was standing, landed a surprise punch with his free hand at Don’s face.
Bad idea!, his hand hurt like crazy, and Don’s face and cheek didn’t even budge with the punch.
“Hey, that almost hurt!”, Don said while chuckling and finally getting The Irish on his feet. It was a lie, it didn’t even hurt a thing.
The Irish was exhausted and dizzy, Don stood pretty calm, looking at him. He looked at Don and said that it was ok, he admitted he would never beat him, he sounded really angry.
Then an assistant came with a cell phone, “it’s Sergeant Peabody”. The Irish took the phone,
“You fucking Irish, don’t you dare let this man leave, I want him near!”.
“No darn way! I don’t keep wrestlers who can beat me like that”
“Ok, this is what we’re going to do…”
The Irish talked for a few moments in the phone, then hung and asked Don to come to a private room with him.
“I want you to be a resident wrestler here, but I want you to pretend I beat you in the following fights”.
“Hah! No fucking way, idiot, I don’t know if I can even pretend, I’m so much stronger than you”, Don motioned to leave.
“Wait! I’ll pay you 50 extra grands the fight if you let me beat you”, Don stopped for a moment. Don was going to accept anyway, the plan was he would get into the organization and find solid proof that The Irish was starting up the fires.
“Mmm, that sounds better”, Don said, and accepted.

In the meantime, Sergeant Peabody, a man in military uniform, was sitting at a reunion table with four soldiers under his command and men in lab coats, appearing to be scientists.
He hung up the phone, before them was a big screen were they had Don and The Irish in frame. One of the soldiers exclaimed “What this man has just done is amazing!”
“This is exactly what we need”, said Peabody.
Peabody has been since a long while trying to create a race of super-soldiers, working with the scientists, their efforts gave some minor advances, like increasing the strength of soldiers like those who guarded the military base, they were not anywhere near super-human, they were just strong like extraordinarily well-trained regular men.
“We have some research on this man actually”, a scientist said while pushing some buttons in a remote control.
The screen changed and displayed images of Don in different stages of growth, in the accident at the Nuclear Plant and then when he’d achieved his full capacities, bending steel, picking up a school bus, entering a place in fire and coming out without harm.
“This is amazing!!”, Peabody said, “Is there any way we can duplicate these in our men?”.
“We have a couple men working in that research line, Sr.”, the scientist replied, “apparently the conditions of the radiation exposure are terribly hard to replicate, all test animals we tried it on are now dead”.
The other scientist almost interrupted, “But there is something we can do, if you want, a new invention we could use!”, said the man who’d been quiet until that moment.
The former scientist was clearly nervous with his partner’s suggestion, and they left the room to talk in private,
“What have you just done? We agreed not to tell him about that reasearch line yet!”
“This could be our only chance to get more funding, to be famous!! Are you kidding?”
“I don’t know”
“I do know what to do, I’ll tell him anyway”.
After the discussion, both men entered the room and began explaining “Well, this is what we have been researching…”

Weeks passed and Don had a couple fights and became pretty popular among the public. He began to get really big bucks from the fights at night; and despite bets were huge he wondered where did The Irish get all that money from. He tried to find proofs and did all he could, he even used his superstrength to break into The Irish’s office, looked at his drawers and examined his computer and such, but there was nothing unusual in it, the fucker was clean. But still he suspected there was someone behind The Irish he had to find out.

That day when Dad was back at home, me and my sister showed him our concern,
“Dad, we need your help!”, I told him.
“What’s wrong son?”
“It’s Camilo, he left in the afternoon, he said there was something he had to do, that it would take half an hour, but he never came back, do you think he could have escaped from us??”
“Well, did you have an argument or something?”, he asked.
“Not at all dad!! Actually we were just playing when he remembered he had to go!”.
“Damn it!”, the huge man said.
Then the phone rang, Don took it.
A mysterious voice asked “Is it Don Volkowicz?”
“Yes”, replied my dad in his deep bass tone. “Who is it?”
“We have Camilo, if you want him see what’s inside the mailbox between streets Thomas and Philips”, they passed the phone onto Camilo and he shouted “I’m here, don’t come for me, I’ll be fine!”.
Don wondered why he shouldn’t go, with all his super abilities nothing bad could happen to him, he was unstoppable.
The mysterious voice gave him the adress, “I’ll be there you suckers! Don’t touch the boy or you’ll regret it”, Don replied, hanging up the phone with fury.
We asked dad to go with him but he said it was too dangerous, then he left driving his van.

He reached for the mailbox the man on the phone mentioned. Desperate, he ripped it off the ground and pried it open with his superstrong hands; steel easily shredded and torn to find a map inside, leading to a mysterious place. In a few minutes he was in the place. It was away from town, and more to his surprise, in what looked to be a military base! That was very weird, the place seemed carved in a mountain. He was  intrigued to see what was inside, he’d never been in a place like that and he found the challenge of cracking its security quite appealing.
In the van he changed his clothes to something comfortable, a pair of shorts, slippers and a tight gray t-shirt.
The place was fenced with electrified wire mesh, he thought he’d better use his super leg muscles, he just crouched a little and jumped over the fence, about 4 meters (14 feet) above the ground.
When he landed on the floor without effort, he began to feel machine gun shots in his chest, these bounced off his impenetrable skin and muscles so he didn’t worry much, he kept on walking until he found a big sliding door, it was high security stuff, really thick heavy steel door that closed from top to bottom like those anti-nuclear facilities.
He didn’t see a problem at opening the door, he bent on one of his knees at the base of the door and dug the land with his hands until he found a spot were he could grab the thick steel sheet of the door.
He just grabbed the base of the door with his right hand and pulled up like he was curling and the steel sheet began to lift, all the door gear cracked and squealed unable to stop Don’s strength. The door weighed a good 4 tons and it required a pressure of at least 6 or 7 tons to be opened the way Don was doing it. For Don it wasn’t that hard and he began to stand up while still pushing up the steel sheet until it was way above his head.
Inside, Don stepped in a big hallway, it was well lit, and he was surprised there were no soldiers guarding it and trying to stop him. He heard some cries that seemed to belong to Camilo and he hurried. He ran around until he was in front of a gate of shinny steel bars blocking his way through the hall. It appears someone had put it for him to make a display of strength. “My favorite”, he thought, while grabbing two neighboring steel bars with a hand each and just pulling at them with a cocky grin, all the bars were pulled aside bending and twisting and squealing. He heard cries again and followed them through the many turns and twists of the hallway until he was in front of a heavy steel door with a huge lock, he could hear the kid calling him on the other side. He grabbed the lock in his hands and pressed at it, turning it intro shreds; then, with quite fury, grabbed the doors and ripped them off their hinges, throwing them away.  These led to a room, there was a metallic table and on top of it an old  tape machine where the cries were coming from.
Don was mad “What the fuck!?”, he shouted and punched heavily at the tape machine, making it and the table blow into million pieces.
For this time, they made him mad, my calm and nice dad was really really angry. And he had reason to be. He punched at one of the thick brick walls of the room, turning it into dust, it lead to another similar room, he entered it and destroyed another wall in it with a mighty punch only to find it led to another similar room, finally he was determined to throw the whole mountain down when he literally walked through one of the walls, destroying it into shreds.
Debris was all over his huge body while he entered a big room full of computers. Sitting in a high place was Peabody and eight of his scientists were monitoring the computers. There were countless soldiers all over the room and some of them were keeping Camilo tied.
Don stood proud and talked to Peabody “Hey you better release the boy, now, understood?”.
“Are you threatening me?”, Peabody said, in a challenging tone.
“Yes I do”
“Guards!”
Two of the soldiers tried to grab Don, they seemed pretty big but small compared to him. Don just punched them away like straw bags, they flew with immense force and crashed against the walls.
He then began to walk towards Peabody when felt something unusual. Something hit him, it was a ray of green glowing light that was bathing him and he couldn’t move.
“What the f…!”, soon he was unable to talk. He was frozen. The ray was coming from a sci-fi looking gun one of the scientists was holding.
Then he began to feel strength being drained away from him, and to his surprise he was feeling his muscles being depleted, little by little he began to lose all the muscle mass that gave him his strong looks and power; kilo by kilo he was getting lighter and also he could see he was shortening!! he looked at his once huge biceps going from watermelon size to bowling ball size, then grapefruit to baseball then to golf ball all of a sudden!! He was losing height and mass by the second, all the things in the room that looked so small began to look big and it didn’t stop until he was the old Don once again. Then the ray stopped. He was standing there, his clothes all baggy, his shorts that had only covered up to the half of his thighs before, were now past his knees, and baggy where they’d fit snugly around his former monster legs. Since his shoulders had narrowed his t-shirt sleeves that’d had a hard time covering his enormous upper-arms up to the half were now lose around his now toothpick arms and reaching almost the half of his forearm.
Peabody laughed out loud, “Hey, what you’re gonna do to my guards now? Grab him!!”.
Two soldiers grabbed him by his armpit very tightly, Don tried to break free but he felt for the first time in long he was being easily overpowered. The men who were 1.85 m (6’1”) and easily 105 kg (220 pounds) each looked enormous to him now and were much stronger.
“Now it’s time for phase two of our plan”, Peabody said to the scientists.
The scientist with the gun took a look at it, turned a dial and pointed it at Peabody. Then a ray of light beamed at the sergeant. It was yellow colored instead of green and bathed Peabody’s body completely. He stood up, he was wearing army camouflage uniform and black boots, soon he began to shout in ecstasy “Yeah!!”, he was certainly feeling hyped and closed his hands in fists. Peabody gave a look at the fist of his left hand when suddenly his army shirt began to rip at the forearm that was getting thicker by the minute, the wave of growth moved from his forearm all the way to his upper arm making it much bigger and unproportioned to the rest of his body. His upper arm was huge like a rugby ball and then his torso began to push the fabric of the shirt. First his pecs strained the front and buttons popped off, then strength began to emanate from his right fist too and turn his right forearm and upper-arm in huge slabs of muscle meat. His shoulders began to get bigger and wider and his rib cage began to expand, the shirt opened completely at the front, ripped in two at the back. Then he bent his arms and the seams blew in tatters. He began to feel the gain in weight, height and strength, everything was getting smaller in perspective as his head was higher and higher. His abs developed and his flabby stomach turned into mounds of carved muscles. Soon his shirt was removed completely, exposing his enormous muscle torso, wide as a barn door, with pecs of huge size, enormous delts, really thick neck corded with veins and arms that caused fear.
In the meantime his legs were stretching the army trousers too, first filling them, then his engording thighs caused the fabric to rip away, and his expanding calves and growing feet finally destroyed the boots.
When the transformation was over Peabody removed the remnants of his clothes, and wore just a pair of briefs unable to hide the growth his penis and balls had also undergone.
He stood proud and cheked his body, he was a handsome man, blonde with short hair, a well cut beard and blue eyes, and after the transformation he looked younger and healthier than ever.  Everyone in the place marvelled at how good he looked with all that muscle on him. He gave a few steps and smiled. He walked towards Don, towering over him. He was now 1.98m (6’6”) tall and around 180 kg (400 pounds).
“Damn, What I’m feeling now I can’t explain”, When he said this he marvelled at his now much deeper voice and touched his neck with his fingers while he made a surprised mock.
“Wow, nice voice, I must thank you Don, for all this power, hehe”
Then he hit a double biceps pose at Don, my dad had to admit muscle suited this man like a glove.
“Haha, guards! Take him to a cell”, he ordered.

Don tried to resist but he couldn’t do anything against the men, when he stepped towards the cell he was shocked, it was long since he hadn’t had to make such an effort to do something, just walking is a lot of effort when you’re a regular man. Everything felt so heavy and hard, even moving. One of the guards opened a prison cell while the other was easily keeping Don steady, then threw him violently in the cell, “get in there, you skinny wimp!”, he said. Don’s body hit the wall and felt something he’d not felt long since his transformation, it was –pain-. Behind him, the guards closed the cell door. He threw himself at the gates trying to scape, stumbling on his own baggy clothes. He grabbed two steel bars of the door and tried to pull at them like he usually did only to find it was hopeless, the steel that had been like butter before was now hard like a rock, unmovable, unbendable. Guards saw it and laughed at him, Don answered them “You’ll see fuckers, you’ll never get away with your plans”, he was surprised the way his voice came up, it was thin and high pitched, he didn’t even sound threatening, the guards laughed more at him and he just sat on the floor, upset.

Meanwhile, Peabody was enjoying his new body, walking around, “Damn, I feel sooo good!!”, he shouted.
“Let’s see how strong I am”, in the room was a big metallic table, it must have weighed half a ton, he easily lifted it up and pressed at it with his hands, the steel began to crack and bend, then threw it away.
“Hahah”, he went to a computer casing and ripped it off the wall, lifted it over his head “light as a feather” and also pressed it packing it into a ball of useless steel, then threw it violently at the wall where it became encrusted.
Then he pointed at a guard that was pretty big, the biggest of them a guy easily 1.9m (6’3”) and 130 kg (300 pounds) heavy, “You! Come over here!”, the man did as ordered.
“So you think you’re pretty big, uh?”, Peabody said defiantly, his huge build dwarfed the guard’s. “You think you’re strong?”, then he grabbed the guy from his army shirt and lifted him off the floor and held him there.
He noted the machine gun the guy was carrying, “Heh, try and shoot me with this thing you little fella”, then put the guy on the floor again and the man aimed at him with his machinegun but hesitated.
“Come on!, don’t make me wait!”
The guy shot machinegun fire at Peabody’s enormous chest, bullets bounced off his immense pectorals like arrows thrown at a steel vest.
“Hahah!”, then Peabody took the machine gun off the guy and pressed it in his hands, destroying it completely.
“Hey, guess you’re well trained uh?, Come on and punch me!”, the guy was nervous and didn’t know what to do
“Come on you insignificant crap! It’s an order! Punch with all your might!”.
Then the guy punched at his stomach with all his capacity, any regular man would have been hurt pretty badly by the punch of this big guard but Peabody just stood there, the punch was like a caress for him.
Peabody just laughed “Haha, this is your best punch? You fight like a little girl!! Come on do it again”.
The soldier’s hand was in pain and he didn’t want but he did as ordered and tried to punch again. Peabody was much quicker and grabbed the soldier’s wrist in his left hand, stopping the punch. Then gripped at it, the soldier released his fist and began to cry in pain.
“Hey, am I being too rude? Does this hurt?”, Peabody said while gripping tighter and tighter at the guard’s wrist. Then some cracking was heard, the wrist was broken.
“Haha, guess you’re not that strong after all, You think you have a strong arm?”, he grabbed the guard’s upper arm very tightly with a hand and behind his neck with the other and pulled, the man was obviously in pain and moaning “May I rip your arm off so it doesn’t hurt anymore?”, Peabody said. The man was shouting for mercy, then Peabody pulled back the arm dislocating the juncture but not ripping it off, the guard shouted in pain “Haha, it’s so easy to do this, You two”, said while looking at two guards, “take this weakling to infirmary”.
One of the scientists was in horror “Why did you do this?!”, he asked
“Because I can”, Peabody replied. “And now I have big plans for my new powers”, said while looking at his pumped chest and closed fists.
They had created a monster.

It was a few hours until Peabody realized how to use his new powers. He was going to have the pleasure of his life, to fulfill a wish he always had. He wanted to do anything he wanted, without having to obey any superior authority, with his new powers he could destroy, burn and cause pain to whatever he wanted and nobody could stop him. Now he was going to burn a building and, as his new powers enabled him to, see fire destroying it from the inside.
At around 1 A.M. Peabody and a group of about ten soldiers arrived at a big building that belonged to a hospital. Peabody had the time to change clothes and now was wearing a military uniform that fitted tight around his enormous muscles. The 1st and 2nd floor were empty, just a security guard was at the entrance; but in the higher floors there were people in intensive care sleeping. Peabody always wanted to burn down a hospital, the more important the facility the more he wanted to burn it down. Peabody’s men had flamethrowers besides their machine guns, he wanted to make sure the fire was big and finished with all the building. The security guard at the hospital was shocked when he saw eleven soldiers forming in front of the building, one of them standing out of the rest because of his height and size. He wondered what was going on, and then all the men aimed at the entrance with their flamethrowers and fired, waves of fire began to burn the entrance, literary melting it, the guard started an alarm and it began to sound, waking up all the people. At least now the police was on its way. People and nurses who could get out of their beds now flocked downstairs, but Peabody didn’t want anyone to leave so he instructed his men to keep on firing at the only exit.
When people began to notice the first floors where in flames they ran upstairs again for their lives. Apparently, Peabody was enjoying it pretty much and he got inside the bulding, watching as fire was consuming more and more.

Don was desperate, upset and weakened, sitting against the cell wall, his baggy clothes now covering him, making him feel small. He stood, and walked inside, knocking his own head, “Come on Don, you have to think, how to come out of this”, he told to himself. The two soldiers were guarding the cell outside.
Suddenly Don felt weird, was he feeling a little better? He was in doubt, he felt a little stronger maybe. Then doubt disappeared, he had a deep breath and wow, he felt like strength was coming back to him with every inhalation. He was definitely gaining back some strength. Then he began to feel really light all over, like something was lifting him up, “Wow” he thought. What the fuck, now the strength increasing was being dramatic, it felt almost erotic, he could feel all his strength coming back. And suddenly, he saw the room began to look smaller, his height was increasing!!! At the same time his body began to widen again, first he could see his shoulders widening and slowly they began to pull the shirt sleeves higher and higher, then his shorts were not covering his knees anymore and began to hang lose around the half of his thighs. Wow, he looked at himself, he recovered his stature, and once he was as tall as before he began the fill up. This felt even much better than before, he felt superstrong again when his muscles began to grow out of nowhere, first he look at the way his thighs and calves began to bulge like crazy, straining the shorts’ fabric. Then his torso filled up completely, recovering his enormous pecs and laterals that made his back look even wider, his necks and delts were getting his usual size and finally his arms who were the most complete manifestation of his might were filling up, straining the t-shirt sleeves that now hung over the half of his upper-arm; watermelon sized upper-arms like he used to have.
He stood proud again, moved all his big muscles just to feel them, wow, he felt as good as ever, or even better, having regained his powers so quickly made him really feel the difference, now he could consider his state a few minutes ago as of the worst helplessness and weakness, he felt lucky those guards hadn’t crushed him like a grape. Now he really appreciated his powers. He finished checking his body, took a look at the big bulge in his groin, “Damn! I feel more man than ever!” he thought, then couldn’t help but bend his arms on and on and caress his enormous bis, and finally give a good rub at his giant thighs.
First thing he put his hands on the cell bars and did his favourite trick again. He easily pulled while smiling, rejoiced in his recovered might, the steel bars bent like cardboard, now they felt like made out of paper!! They had been so hard before.
He went out of the cell and the two guards were in awe at the sight. He first faced the guard that’d been rude with him. When the soldier saw the big man approaching he aimed his machinegun at him, Don just took the tip of the gun and bend it over. Then grabbed the guard’s collar and lifted him off the floor.
“Please let me down!”
“Hey, you haven’t been very nice a moment ago”, said Don, now rejoiced on how his voice came up deep and manly.
“Who is the wimp now? Uh?”, he threw the guy away, who hit a wall and fell unconscious.
The other guard aimed his gun at him and shot several times, bullets bounced off Don’s chest, he grabbed his gun too and turned it into pieces. The guard was wise enough to run away.
Now he had to find Camilo. He walked around the place, when he found a hallway full of maximum security cells, the doors had no windows so to look who was inside the cells he had to rip the doors one by one, and so he did. He easily ripped about twenty security doors off their hinges, releasing injured, mutated people who had been used for experiments, then in the last one of the doors there was Camilo. When the boy saw him he jumped over Don! “You’re big again!!”
“Yeah, what do you think?” said Don while hitting a double biceps pose for the boy.
“Wow!”, the kid was in awe. Then an alarm began to sound all over. “Quick!!”.
They scaped, while they were running they reached for the lab area were Don had lost his powers, there were scientists and a bunch of soldiers still in there who tried to attack them.
“Behind me! Camilo!”, Don ordered the boy. Then he grabbed a big computer casing that must have weighed a ton and lifted it up, throwing it at the soldiers, stopping them with ease. The scientists all ran away in fear, except one who wasn’t fast enough. Don grabbed this one and held him steady, asked him were Peabody had gone, fearing him the man told everything, then Don let him run away.
Camilo then realized the power-sucking gun was laying in the floor, left over by a scared scientist. He took it with him in case it would come handy.
The way out of the lab was closed by a huge chunk of the roof that had fallen when Don destroyed the walls. When they saw that, the kid said “Oh, no”, Don chuckled at the kid “Don’t worry little fella”. Then crouched and picked up the big roof chunk in his hands like weighless crap. He threw the roof chunk out of the way making a nice opening, told the kid to hurry and then they left.

At the Hospital the police and firemen had arrived, but Peabody instructed his men to aim at them with their war machine guns, not letting any of them come near. Peabody was inside the building, enjoying his invulnerability to flames and watching how fire ate it all little by little, he seemed to love sucking the mortal fumes into his lungs, and helping the destruction by breaking up stuff with his own superstrong hands. In the higher floors people was desperate, the fire was soon going to reach them, and those who could, tried to climb the stairs to the highest floors.

Don helped the kid out of the mountain and finally they got in Don’s van who drove to the place the scientist told. Once there Don could see a couple police cars and a fire truck that was there but couldn’t do anything. He instructed Camilo to hide somewhere and stay there. Then he got close the men who shot at him with their machineguns, but as usual it was to no avail, his body rejected all the bullets. He picked up a small car and threw it at five of the soldiers, taking them out of action. When Peabody heard something happening outside he came out of the building, his bulging body in pleasure and sweaty because of the heat that could have killed any weaker person.
When he saw Don was coming close and had his powers back he rushed to the fire truck, crouched behind it and picked the whole vehicle up with ease, the firemen that were in it ran for their lives. He then threw it at Don with impressive force. Don couldn’t dodge it and sheltered from the blow with his own forearms, the several tons of the truck hit him and took him out of balance, but he soon recovered.
“Wanna play big, uh?”, Don said. Then he picked up two big cars and threw them furiously at Peabody, one after the other. The hit also made Peabody retreat, but he came back quickly. A couple police units were scattered in the street, cops were behind them trying to avoid machinegun fire. Peabody picked up the police cars, unprotecting the cops who ran away. Then threw them at Don, who was quick enough to dodge them and run close to Peabody. Both men were determined to enter hand on hand combat. When they were close, Peabody ripped off the street a big mailbox and tried to hit Don hard in the head with it. Don quickly grabbed it in his arms and both men pushed at the mailbox, trying to take it dip into each others’ head.
In the meantime, cops and soldiers were firing at each other, and new police units and fire units were coming in to place.
Both men seemed equally strong and the mailbox steel couldn’t take it much and quickly began to get crushed and dented by the combined force of these super studs.
In the middle of the struggle Don realized suddenly Peabody was losing force, he was winning, then he saw his opponent, he was being bathed with green light, it was Camilo who was shooting at him with the power-sucking gun!!
Don looked happily at how Peabody’s muscularity began to decrease, and lose weight and height, until he was the old sergeant. When the glow stopped he was the only one holding the mailbox, he tossed it aside and quickly got a hold of Peabody, not letting him scape. Luckily cops could control the few soldiers and arrest Peabody. Firemen quickly began to extinguish fire and rescue the people, and the situation was controlled.
Then Don saw Camilo and the kid ran towards him, he crouched and hugged him,
“Thank you little buddy!”, he said with a lot of thankfulness, “You’ve been very brave”.
Then the kid released from the strong hug and run a couple meters away, then changed something in the gun and aimed at Don.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Don shouted.
Then a yellow ray beamed from the gun and hit Don. Don began to feel even better than before, “WOOOOOOOW” he exclaimed, as he saw his muscles growing a little bigger but a lot denser, his height rising from 1.95m (6’5”) to 1.99m  (6’6”1/2) and his weight from 177kg (395 pounds) to easily over 200 kg (450 pounds). Then the ray stopped, Don could feel his clothes now about to burst, he couldn’t believe this. If he’d been big before he was even bigger.
Don gave a severe but caring look at Camilo, “Come here mischievous little boy!!”, he was shocked when he heard his voice sound louder and more powerful. Then he took a step towards the kid and as his feet hit the ground it caused a dent in the pavement and the whole place trembled. “What the fuck!”, Don said, he was now easily twice as strong as before. He gave a few brutal steps until he could control his walking, every dramatic strength increase is a shock at first. He got close to Camilo “God damn you boy, you made me even stronger! give me that gun”, Don said as he extended his enormous muscled arm to the kid. The boy gave it to him, he took it in his hand and gripped, turning it into bits. “Now, nobody is going to piss me off with this anymore”.

This is the story of how my dad turned into the strongest man in the world. Since the doubling of his strength he’s become unlimitedly powerful. Wanna lift up a locomotive? An airplane? A cargo ship? He could do it without effort. At the fire station he was considered the best captain ever and respected so, not only because he was so powerful nobody dared to be against him, nobody needed to do so because he was the most understanding, caring and concerned for the well-being of the team captain that Station or any other had ever had. I’m sure nobody deserves these superior physical capacities better than him. Will this be the end of his adventures? I doubt so, and I will personally take care from now on that every great feat the mighty Don accomplishes will be known to everyone everywhere.

 

[hans902]

Of course Rodriguez was demoted again, after that cluster fuck happening at the nuclear plant!

The city investigating the unjustified promotion of a clearly unqualified person is the touch of realism such stories need.

That's why I have problems with the Avenger Movies and their lack of real-life consequences.

Like: Really, Natashalie? Corporate espionage? IRL, Pepper would have gotten you in big legal trouble.
Telling the Congressional Intelligence Comittee to fuck off after you took part in dumping every single SHIELD file on the internet? They need you? An assassin with delusions of grandeur and complete disregard of the rules and regulations? IRL, you would have become the sacrifice!
And Team Cap, basically being terrorists and foreign aggressors in Captain America: Civil War and not having to face any consequences "because the world needs them"? Seriously?! In real life, in the real world, the EU would not give up demanding Team Cap's heads, and Cap would be charged with obstruction of justice and being accessory after the fact regarding the murder of Howard and Maria Stark.
Adding to that the obvious attempted murder of Tony Stark in Siberia. Don't tell me that Tony Stark wanted to kill Steve Rogers and/or Bucky Barnes. If he wanted them dead, they would have ended up dead, because Unibeam. He acted irrationally, yes. But so would everyone of us, if we found out that someone we considered a friend lied to us and betrayed us like that.

Sorry for the rant.

And, again: Thank you for including real-life consequences for a clearly incompetent captain.

[hans902]

Annnnd Peabody and his troops are in biiiiiig trouble now. A dishonorable discharge will be the least of their worries...