Blood Brothers (Chapter 12)

[florida20]

I'm having some strange formatting problems all of a sudden. If anyone has advice to fix that please let me know.

PREVIOUS CHAPTERS:
Chapter I | Chapter 2-4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter11


REFERENCED STORIES:

THE CHEST
Parts 1 thru 4 | Parts 5-8,9,10 | Part 11 | Parts 12,13 | Parts 14,15 | Part 16 |Part 17 |Part 18
THE MENTORS
Chapters 1 & 2 | Chapter 3 |Chapters 4&5 |Chapters 6&7 |Chapters 8&9 |Chapter 10 | Chapter 11&12 |Chapter 13 |Chapter 14 |Chapter 15&16 |Chapter 17 |Chapter 18
THE INNOCENT BYSTANDER:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3


CHAPTER 12

?Dude, where?s Cody. It?s not like him to be late.? Staley put the dumbbells down and turned to Rick, his roommate and best buddy since their freshman year of college two years earlier. Both worked out a lot but didn?t have any real training or dietary control. Each about 5?10 and 180, they were fit and strong college juniors and garnered a small share of second glances, but no one would have called them studs. Both of them worked out harder than it showed. Maybe that?s why they worked out with Cody, who, although wasn?t exactly a runt at a soft 170, wasn?t genetically made for lifting weights.

?Beats me,? Rick said as he put a set of 45s on the bar of a flat bench.

Rick performed eight bench press reps of 185. Just as Staley was about to take his turn, Cody?s voice rang at their backs.

?Hey guys. Sorry I?m late.?

The two others turned, at first confused at the person standing before them. He had Cody?s face but this guy was wearing a sleeveless shirt which revealed a pair of ripped arms Rick and Staley would have killed to have. They weren?t huge, this guy looked like he may have weighed 170 but it was all muscle.

?Uh, Cody?? Staley asked awkwardly.

Cody smiled as if this scenario was going exactly as he hoped it would. ?Yep,? he said as he put an extra pair of 25s on the bar. ?Mind if I take a turn??

Staley stepped back and let his friend lay on the bench.

?Where have you been hiding those pythons?? Rick asked. Cody usually wore baggy shirts with sleeves so it was technically possible the guy has been hiding those impressive arms.

Cody just smiled as he lifted the bar and did twelve reps of what was usually fifty pounds more than his one rep max.

* * *

Blake nearly hid behind Nick before he realized Jesse wasn?t the same giant that attacked him this morning. This Jesse was small, maybe smaller than he?d been before their little war even started. He was still muscular for his age but wasn?t anything spectacular. Although, Blake thought somewhat wryly, it may be just in comparison to what I am now.

Jesse?s sleepy eyes made contact with Blake?s, but before the jerk could utter anything insulting, he noticed Nick. That woke him up in a hurry, for Jesse scooted back like a crab, face covered in fear. There was weight lifting equipment scattered across the space and Jesse banged awkwardly into various machines and free weights before making it to a corner. ?Don?t touch me!? he screamed, and then added pleadingly. ?Please.?

It was then Jesse noticed his own body, or lack thereof. Fear and anger drained from his face and he slumped against the back corner. ?It wasn?t a dream,? he said groggily as he lifted his arm. Truth be told, it still looked impressive since he was still muscular and his body fat was so low but it couldn?t have been more than 17?. Respectable or no, Jesse was obviously very upset at his current size. ?What did you do to me?? he asked in barely over a whisper as a tear dropped from his eye.

Blake fought down the urge to pity his former nemesis, doing everything he could to hold onto the hate. This was the asshole that would have happily paralyzed him. He was beyond psychotic and as one dimensional as a comic book villain. Still, this wasn?t the same Jesse; the old Jesse would have flicked them off then gone home to do anything it took to be the strongest in room. This creature didn?t look like he ever wanted to get up again.

Just then the truck creaked to a halt. That was apparently Nick?s cue. ?All right stud,? he said, clapping his giant hands together. ?Time to go home.? Nick turned to Blake. ?Would you do the honors??

Blake would, but didn?t particularly want to. He didn?t expect Jesse to be cooperative anyway.

The tasked turned out to be a walk in the park, though. When Nick started towards Jesse to pick him up, the limp and whimpering former bully bolted to his feet and practically hid behind Blake to keep his distance. ?Don?t let him touch me,? Blake whispered, almost frantically.

?Ok, ok,? Blake said, still reveling to finally be the bigger and stronger of the two of them. ?Come on. Let?s go.?

They made an odd pair as they jumped from the truck, Blake a shirtless and ripped 260 lb, 6?2? monster and Blake a completely naked 6? 190? jock. Luckily, there didn?t seem to be anyone around to notice in the twilight.

?I don?t need a fucking escort,? Jesse said with forced hostility as they proceeded up the walkway to the front door.

?I could let the other guy do it instead.?

The comment sent a shiver through Jesse?s body but no comment. They remained in silence until they were both on the porch. As Blake turned to go, he heard Jesse sigh than say something Blake didn?t think him capable of.

?Hey Blake.? There was a dramatic pause. ?I?m sorry,? he said. ?For everything. I?m not sure why I acted that way. I, I guess I have a worst temper than I thought.? He opened his front door and made his way in. ?Looks like I got what I deserved.? Then he shut the door.

Blake stood there for a moment, trying to decide if he was happy or sad. He settled on a mixture of both before walking back into the truck, where Nick was standing behind the bar with his oak tree arms crossed.

After closing and latching the back door, the truck started up again and sped off to God knew where. Blake stared at his temporary roommate, still in awe at the sheer size and definition of his body. ?So how much do you weigh?? Blake asked finally as he made his way up to the bar where he picked up his half empty cup of slurry.

Nick shrugged his boulder shoulders. ?I?m not sure,? he said nonchalantly.

?Well how big are those arms?? Blake asked after emptying the cup. The shit wasn?t half bad. It still felt like he was swallowing iron bars when the liquid hit his stomach.

Nick smiled and handed him another. ?Depends,? he said infuriatingly.

Blake sighed at the uselessness of the conversation as he tore the cap off his second bottle. ?Well could you at least tell me what?s going on??

?Sure,? Nick said as if it hadn?t been a secret until now. He sat gingerly on a stool seemingly made of solid steel. ?It started ?uh- four years ago, when I was a 130 pound junior in high school.? Blake gave a start. ?You heard me: 130 pounds, soaking wet. Anyway, these two kids your age showed up fall semester looking like college bodybuilders. The rumor was that three months earlier one was a porker and the other was taught but skinny so you can imagine the eyebrows that rose.? Nick stopped to hand Blake another drink. ?Here.? Blake took it, fixed on the story but quickly realizing those drinks tasted like candy.

?So, whatever, they hit a remarkable growth spurt that summer. It happens all the time, right? No need to call the cops. Well, within the span of a semester, our football team went from awful to state champs. To make matters more interesting, there wasn?t a player on the team that didn?t gain less than fifty pounds. There were some, like yours truly, that gained over a hundred.?

?You guys do a lot of sleeping around?? Blake asked, reaching for another drink.

Nick looked at him curiously. ?What?? Then realization hit. ?Oh, no. It wasn?t like that. You see, those two buff freshmen had a strange trunk full of some kind of formula. They found it in the woods at some abandoned government facility. They had been secretly juicing the water at football practice. Some of us, let?s say, were a little more thirsty than others.? Nick smiled mischievously as he absent mindedly caressed abs that had to be over an inch deep. Even un-flexed, his obliques bulged like rippled armor.

?So what happened?? Blake asked impatiently.

Nick broke from his nostalgia. ?Well, there are Jesse?s everywhere,? he said. ?A trio of bullies found the chest and turned themselves into monsters. Their ringleader, who shared your namesake believe it or not, proved to be quite an asshole when given the power to be one. My friends and I had to fix things. Long story short, we took care of them.?

A stray thought made Blake pause mid-gulp. ?Wait, so the virus is waterborne??

Nick laughed. ?Not at all. We?re talking apples and oranges. This is where the situation gets interesting. We lost the trunk.?

?You lost it??

Nick got slightly defensive. ?It was stolen. It?s probably still floating around the college campus it was taken from.?

?Well you must have found it. How do you explain this?? Blake pointed at his body. Nick grinned a little bit, causing Blake to look down. He looked like he had the most severe case of roid gut ever recorded. His stomach bulged like he was about to give birth to a rhino. He blushed and put down the drink he was about to open.

Nick laughed. ?Oh quit crying you baby,? he said as he ripped the top off hand handed the drink to him. Blake took it and downed it. It tasted like heaven. ?And quit interrupting me. My friends and the bullies caused quite a ruckus. Ruckus brings cops. Then the FBI came. Then the government medical guys came. Try as we might to hide in the crowd, we weren?t exactly able to. They found us.

?Apparently somebody knew about that old government lab and put the puzzle pieces together. A few doctors showed up: Dr. Thornton, whom you?ve met; Dr. Sanders, whom you will meet; and Dr. Powers, whom you won?t.?

?Why?? Blake asked.

?Shut up and listen,? Nick said as he threw him another drink. ?I?ll get there. With the muscle juice gone and apparently no notes or research to work from, our blood was all there was. These doctors told us of grand aspirations to rid the world of degenerative diseases and stopping the aging process. They made it sound like not cooperating would be bad for mankind. So we accepted.

?They worked for years trying to match the formula using our blood but they didn?t have enough data. That doesn?t mean they couldn?t come up with something. This is where Dr. Powers got into trouble. He developed something in secret and used his son as a guinea pig. Can you believe that? Well, things got a little out of control.? He looked at Blake from below his eyebrows. ?Sensing a pattern here?? He laughed. ?After the swim team became a bodybuilder club in the course of a single practice the cat was out of the bag. Needless to say Dr. Powers was fired.?

?Where?s he now??

Nick shrugged. ?Dunno. He?s out there somewhere. Not like it matters, his formula was a bit of a joke. For one, it didn?t increase muscle mass, it only increased muscle size. And it was temporary. A month later, the body?deflated I guess you could say. They were about to give up, but then came Hayden.?

?Hayden??

?Dude!? Nick bellowed. ?Would you let me tell my own fucking story?? Blake responded by putting another bottle of slurry to his lips. ?Good. Hayden was a piece of work. He had some disease which allowed him to double his bodyweight in a matter of months but it tore his muscle cells up in the process. It messed up his body chemistry or something. They guy went bat-shit crazy and lost all he?d gained. After he returned to his normal size, he got better, but the case made medical journals across the country. Dr Sanders just about had an orgasm when the story broke. Hayden was in our labs before the week was through. With his genetic issues, my blood, and a mutated chicken pox virus the wonder virus was born.?

?You gave me chicken pox?? Blake asked curiously.

Nick smirked and Blake was suddenly very conscious he was completely responsible for his current state. ?Sort of. You mustn?t have had it before. Or at least had a very mild case. You can only contract this little wonder if your body doesn?t have antibodies already. Or, you?re sickly by nature.?

Blake went through chickenpox when he was three and his parents had always commented if it weren?t for one sore they?d never have known he?d had it. ?Jesse never had it?? he asked incredulously. ?Pretty long coincidence.?

Nick shrugged. ?I never asked him. He was too busy cursing and screaming. Either way, it doesn?t matter. I?m not a scientist and can only provide the corporate Kool-aid.? He paused for a second, sighing. ?It?ll be a different world within a decade unless we can get this under control. This thing doesn?t transfer as easily as chicken pox but when you got it, you got it. Until we find you that is.? He handed over yet another container. Suddenly, Blake eyed it suspiciously.

Nick laughed. ?This is not a cure, squirt. Frankly, I?m surprised Thornton took you since you?re so young.? Nick?s eyes drifted away. ?He must see something in you?or be really desperate.?

?What do you mean?? Blake started, then noticed the top shelf of the fridge was now empty. ?Fuck, how many did I drink??

Nick shook his head nonchalantly. ?I dunno; a couple dozen. You?ve really been putting them down fatty.?

Blake was ashamed to admit that his gut extended out to the point of being grotesque. The hard blocks of his abdominal wall were still plainly visible yet stretched like a balloon. Yet he was suddenly warm all over and instead of feeling sick and bloated, his energy levels were spiking through the roof. It was like the Chinese buffet all over again, only the onset was much more rapid.

?What happened to Hayden?? Blake said, only half interested. He felt tight, like he?d slept on a soft mattress for too long. He tried to stretch his appendages.

?Oh, he?s still with us. So is your friend Casey. You?re only the second person we?ve invited to the brotherhood that wasn?t issued the virus on purpose. Everyone else had some sort of disease that made the drug an obvious choice.?

?But you give them those pills,? Blake said, somewhat breathlessly. He felt hard. He felt powerful. Energy rushed through his body and seemed to carry pure excitement with it. That orgasmic feeling flooded through him like a river.

?Those pills both dull the virus?s ability to transfer to a new host and minimize its effect on the current host. It helps keep people normal looking while eliminating the disease they were once stricken with.?

?I?,? Blake began before a torrent of energy swept through every crevice of his body. ?Oh fuck.? He stood clumsily and put both hands on the bar to steady himself. He was now noticeably heavier than before he sat down and his feet weren?t used to it. His protruding gut sagged and felt full of lead.

Nick?s smile would have mirrored the Mona Lisa. Blake, hunched over the bar, started to shake slightly. Then his back, ever so slowly, started to breath. Blake felt muscles crawling under his skin as his lats grew down his back and quags started to bulge out. He expanded with each pump of his heart, growing thicker and broader. Blake squeezed the rail of the bar he was leaning on, making his forearms swarm with veins and ridges. His bicep stretched his skin so tight, it began to shine like a bald man?s head.

?This?is fucking?incredible,? Blake said between deep gulps of air.

?This is nothing,? Nick said, grabbing a handful of other bottles. ?Follow me.?

The slowly swelling Blake followed Nick like a stumbling drunkard into the room that briefly held Jesse. Now that he wasn?t so fixated on the former bully, Blake noticed that it was actually a small gym. Well, small was a relative term. There was enough equipment to fill up half a semi-truck trailer, making it about 25? deep and 15? wide. It appeared that anything less than 45 lbs was considered unnecessary. Dumbbells started at 50 and increased in 25 lb increments. Plates seemed to be in 45s and 90s only. Although small, it was obviously a gym for giants.

Nick took the fifty pound dumbbells from the rack and handed them over. ?Here, do something with these.? Blake obliged. He tried curling them, remembering how fifty pounds used to be a lot for him. Although he relished the feeling of is bicep squeezing against his lower arm, it was like lifting a loaf of bread. So Blake transitioned to lateral raises. His shoulders exploded and it almost tickled as the muscle fibers crept down his upper arm, forming a bulging triangle between his triceps and biceps. However, after fifteen reps Blake threw the weights down in near disgust.

?More,? he said hungrily, like a Neanderthal. His eyes had glazed over, as if focused inward on the changes of his body. Those changes were becoming more obvious now and Blake, having tasted the exhilaration of lifting while growing, hit the room like an animal.

?Lift it, you pussy,? Nick said a few minutes later with a menacing chuckle as he stepped back from the bench. Beneath the bar loaded with 500 pounds was Blake, who was losing a battle as the weight fell slowly towards his purple chest. ?I?m not going to spot you.?

Black screamed and pushed with all his might. His chest exploded. Deep striations crossed each pec, the deepest creating a clear separation between the upper and lower part of the muscle. ?I can?t? had been beaten out of him by Coach Rod so Blake, arms shaking and chest on fire, found a strange reserve of strength he hadn?t noticed before. It was enough to stop the fall of the bar. Blake gritted his teeth and pushed still harder, finding exhaustion was strangely moving further away. His skin slowly seemed to pull tight across his body like a plastic bag being vacuum packed against a block of meet. His triceps flared angrily with deep grooves etched in the horseshow that bulged from below his shoulders. His front delts grew to the size of softballs, leaving the other pair of muscles in the shoulder behind. His chest filled in by pushing outward and expanded laterally, nearly obscuring his armpit from view. The bar started moving up and by the time the rep was complete, Blake?s arms were no longer shaking.

Nick moved to help re-rack the bar but Nick grunted and did another rep, this time in perfect form with no shaking. Then he did another, and another. Still his chest grew, forming granite slabs that looked four inches deep when the bar was fully raised. At ten reps, Blake threw the weight back on the rack; not because it was too heavy but because it wasn?t a challenge anymore.

?Help me put more weight on there,? Blake said. When he stood up he was obviously taller, maybe 6?4? now and the grotesque bulge from his abdomen had somewhat reduced.

?Hold up there, partner,? Nick said. ?You?re looking a little uneven,? he continued, referencing the proportionately oversized pecs, anterior delts, and triceps. ?Let?s try something else.?

Blake gave him a strange look, as if he would humor him this time. Over the next few minutes Blake laid waste to the small gym. He continued to grow and his strength did too. ?Aaauugh,? he screamed, completely overwhelmed by the surge in testosterone and raw power. His thighs had grown inhuman and his once loose sweats were stretched so tightly across them that they looked painted. He flexed his thighs and sent a tear that made the fabric snap like a rubber band. Not wanting to be hindered, Blake tore them off. His muscles seemed to flex involuntarily as they grew.

?Oh fuck,? Blake said breathlessly yet voice saturated with a hint of rage. ?This is incredible. I can?I can do anything.? He downed two more of the strange slurries Nick had strategically placed there. He was now nearing seven feet tall and must have weighed over four hundred pounds. If each of those bottles weighed about eight pounds and he?d had nearly thirty of them, he probably weight far more than 400. By now his bloated stomach had shrunk to a bulging sheet of abdominal boulders. Pecs bulged like slabs of marble below shoulders the size of small pumpkins. Blake heaved with an animalistic furor as he turned to Nick. He held the olymbic bar bell and bent it in half like it was made of warm butter. ?I could crush you,? he said menacingly as he threw down the bar and walked over to the silent observer.

Nick stood about 6?4? and although gigantic in his own right, Blake was over eight inches taller and a good bit wider. And he was still growing. In the time it took to walk over to the shorter, yet calmer, Nick, Blake grew another inch and his body tightened even further.

Blake reached for Nick yet instead of lifting him and playing with him like a toy, Nick instead easily pushed Blake?s arm aside and lunged for him. The trailer shook and Blake grunted as if hit by a truck. He resisted and tried to push Nick off. But the calm opponent grabbed his arm and threw it to the ground. He was pinned Nick, who seemed to take up more of his vision than he should.

Nick smiled. ?They always have to test me out,? he said with a tisk. Blake roared and struggled against Nick?s iron grip, his muscles swelling as they absorbed the last reserves of the slurry. Nick didn?t seem to notice. His impossibly vascular body seemed to have swelled to the size of Blake's.

After a few minutes of pointless struggle, Blake?s aggression subsided. Panting and flat on his back, Blake looked up at Nick slightly confused at what he'd just done. Nick's face was as calm as ever. ?What-?

?Shh,? Nick said over Blake's face, keeping his grip tight. ?Don't worry, we're cool. It?s pretty common for people to get a little bit?excited?when they go through a change that quickly.? He made as if to get off Blake but actually lowered his head and put his lips right next to Blake?s ear. ?Look, we can go a long way together. I can make you into whatever you want to be.? He whispered calmly into Blake?s ear but there was an undertone that made him uncomfortable. ?But I am number one and the day you forget that is the day you?ll wish that pussy you called Jesse was the worst of your problems.?

[debate1]

What is the next chapter, its getting good!!!