Shoulders of Macros - Junksters (2024)

The Megalith Institute of Science was an unassuming building. Nestled between a department store and a high-rise apartment building, only a few stories of white brick and cracked mortar. Just enough space for itself and a cramped parking lot, a single gate leading to the busy street beyond.

From the bustle of traffic, one car pulled away from the honking masses. It drove onto the short entry road of the facility, rolling up to the gate where a red-eyed scanner awaited their input.

The car stopped. Its window rolled down in a single slide, revealing a young bluejay at the wheel with brilliant green eyes, framed by thin glasses. Tall and thin with severe features, he looked beyond to the institute within. With a sigh he dove into his pocket, fishing around for something unseen.

"I refuse to believe I forgot my ID," he mumbled.

His passenger leaned over. A hyena with sharp and gleaming teeth, a brown-black mane and spots patting his smooth fur. He was wearing sunglasses, and tipped them down. Brown eyes glanced over them, looking at his friend with an admonishing smirk.

"You could use mine, Bell."

Bell shook his head. "No. Institute policy; identification has to be-"

"-Produced by the driver. Yeah, I know. But really, who's going to notice the difference?"

The bluejay stopped his search. He craned his neck over to his partner, raising a brow. "Really, Dr. Swahali?"

"Bell, I've known you for, what is it, a year now? I'm just Saber."

"When you stepped outside your door this morning, you became Dr. Swahali just as I became Dr. Cannaris."

Saber blinked. "...what?"

"What university did you even graduate from, again?"

"Like, five, technically. I transferred from-"

"Guys!"

A third member of their carpool leaned forward. A lynx with an excited catty smile, orange fur laying under dark stripes that coated his body. Clad in a plaid shirt with a lab coat, he was a creature of a cool disposition and a lazy, smug grin. His long tail curled behind him, weaving in idle amusem*nt.

In his claws, an ID. A picture of Bell sat in the front with an awkward smile.

He handed the ID to Bell. "It was in the back seat. Like everything else in here. Should really clean up back here!"

Bell plucked the plastic card from his friend's claws. "Thank you, Seth."

"Why is he Seth and I'm 'Dr. Swahali?" Saber complained.

"Because I've known him longer," Bell sighed. "Now, let's start the day."

With the plastic card in hand, he leaned out the window and held his prize up to the crimson eye. It flashed a pulse of red, then poured scanning light over the ID. The light ceased, and a soft tone played from the gate beyond. It pulled aside with a grinding whine.

Saber crossed his arms. "You'd think we could spring for a better gate?"

"Better...how?" Bell asked.

"I don't know! Could make it white, give it some glowing lights."

"And lens flare!" Seth chatted, "can't forget the lens flare!"

"I don't know how that'd work with a gate, but sure! And maybe a soundtrack! Something modern. Something that goes oontz oontz oontz oontz!"

"This is coming from the man that is the only person I know that still uses CDs."

Saber snapped his claws at the smiling lynx. "Hey, you knock 'em now, but they're gonna make a comeback. Like vinyl."

Bell rolled his eyes. "Or smallpox. Look, we're already late, and we have a lot to catch up on." He put the car in drive, and navigated it into the cramped corridors of the lot. A few barren spots left, he took the closest one and turned the key.

The engines fell to silence, and he popped open the car door. He stepped out, stretching in the welcome summer air. It was getting downright hot this time of year; just another reason to work indoors. Seth sauntered out behind him, moving like a liquid pouring from a glass. He came out with his hands behind his back, the same sly grin coating his lips.

Bell turned to him, rolling his neck. "You going to be in the lab today, Seth?"

"Unfortunately."

Saber stepped out, tugging at the sleeves of his lab coat. "'Unfortunately'? I thought you liked working in the lab."

"I do. But today is just tedious. Mixing serums. Takes forever."

"Couldn't you just make the vial-spinner-thingie go faster?"

Bell looked over his spectacles. "Dr. Swahali, you know the name of that device."

Saber fit his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, I'm just screwing around."

"Shall we?" Seth prompted, and swept his hands to the facility.

Seth and Saber nodded, and together the group made their way towards the front door. Up an inclined ramp with the handrail, leading to a heavy door with a scanner out front. Thick and metal. Something that belonged on a bunker.

With mild surprise, they saw someone was already out front. A fellow scientist, twiddling an ID card across his claws.

A raptor with a long, plated tail swaying behind him. His scales were the shade of colored ash, a pleasant gray from the tips of his clawed feet to the very end of his snout. An untamed wild of feathers crawled from his skull down his back. The color of his lab coat; pure, sterile white.

Bell waved to him. "Hello, Athos."

The scientist turned. Calm, green eyes glanced back at the group, appraising them with a serene amusem*nt. "Good morning, Bell," he greeted in a soothing tone.

Always the smooth customer, Athos. A little bit flirty, even. He'd been a researcher at the facility longer than anyone. Technically speaking, he was their boss.

The three of them approached the door. Athos stood aside with a smile, watching them as they fished out their IDS.

"Traffic slow you down?"

Bell shook his head. "No, not traffic. We're little late because someone I know overslept." He shot a look at Seth, one brow raised.

Seth shrugged. "What? I thought it was Sunday."

"It is Sunday, Seth."

Athos chuckled. "No harm done, I suppose. Not in a position to complain, as you can see."

Bell stepped forward and held his ID for the scanner. Gridded light poured over the plastic. A green light appeared next to the door.

"Dr. Cannaris!" Bell declared. "Superfluid Research."

He stepped aside for Saber. The hyena held up his ID, intoning his identity.

"Dr. Swahali! Genetic Engineering!"

Seth was next. He held up his ID, only to fumble it and catch it midair. He sprung up to the scanner with a wide smile. "Dr. Spelane. Superfluid Research."

Athos leaned over with his ID, flashing it like a police badge. "Dr. Athos. Macrobiology."

He stepped back.

Saber scratched his mane. "Wait, is your first or last name Athos?"

The raptor turned to him with a wink. "I'll never tell~."

A soft screech intoned from the door. A heavy thunk sounded inside, and a small breath of air as the door unlocked. It drifted open slightly, a wave of cool, dry air wafting from the inside.

Athos moved first, pulling open the door and gesturing the rest of them inside. "Let's start the day, shall we, gentlemen?"

Bell gave a silent nod, moving beyond the door's reach. Seth moved in next with a tiny salute, Saber bringing up the rear, hands in his pockets.

Just as Saber passed him, Athos pointed to his sunglasses. "I hope you're not going to wear those inside."

"What?" Saber blurted, picking them off his head. "They're prescription."

He gave a knowing chortle. "I doubt that."

Saber took them off and tucked them into his coat pocket. "But seriously, they are my good luck shades. I got a feeling about today. On the verge of a big breakthrough. Every time I've had these, things have just worked out."

Athos nodded. "I know the feeling. I'm also at a critical juncture, I feel."

"And call it a hunch, but I got the notion that Bell and Seth are onto something too."

"Then today shall be quite productive, wouldn't you say?"

"Definitely," Saber agreed. He stepped inside the door. Athos followed behind, closing it behind him with a hefty thunk. It sealed back in place, steel beams locked across the door. High security, for such an unassuming building.

A small security booth lay right next to the door. A bored-looking was on his phone, tapping at a game with his thumb. He barely acknowledged them, giving only a grunt of greeting as they passed him.

Saber moved ahead and made his way down the hallway. "Welp, time for science."

"It's always time for science, Dr. Swahali!" Athos called back.

They parted ways, walking to their respective labs in the facility.

Science was a marvelous thing.

It was a thought that struck Bell often, whenever he was in the lab. The process of discovery, of finding how reality worked and bending it to his will.

He observed the chemical in the vial, taking notes and jotting down every eerily alive movement it made as it crawled up its glass prison. Friction had ceased, viscosity rocketing to the limits of infinity. Hardly any container could hold it now, quantum effects emerging on the macroscopic and turning it into something truly, truly strange.

His little project, for the last few months. Something he'd been working on in semi-secret in his corner of the lab. A superfluid, but one with subtle differences. How it moved, how it acted. Most important, how it existed. It'd taken a lot of work, but he'd created a superfluid that could exist beyond the boundaries of near-absolute zero. Though still cold and pouring the ghostly fog of condensation, it represented a breakthrough he'd been searching for for years. Not just for the triumph of understanding, but for something else he'd hypothesized.

A possible...side-effect. A fantasy he'd entertained in his wildest dreams, now within his reach. If the calculations he'd run were right, he'd truly become a giant of science.

He leaned
over and jotted a final few numbers on his notepad as the liquid squirmed in
its
container. He flipped the page, then ran down the list of numbers and equations, slotting them all into his sharp mind for the answer.

Plug this numeral here...

Electron probability field here...

Did he factor for the 519 neutrons? Do it again, just to be sure.

He traced graphite lines, arrows and trails down the page. They led him onward, dragging him to the sacred answer. When his tip reached the end, his heart was racing. He could feel an excited sweat on his brow, every piece drifting so elegantly together to that single, inevitable answer.

1.

The number one. The number he needed to know that his experiment was ready. He circled it three times with bounding glee and smacked the notepad down onto the desk. He reached over and plucked the fluid from its chilly home, swirling it around to admire its beauty. It was blueish; a twinge of ghostly opaqueness that let the light of the windows eek through. Parts of it bubbled as if boiling; bits of it expanding, popping, sliding against the transparent glass.

It was ready.

His magnum opus was truly, finally ready.

And he could barely see it.

His glasses were fog. In all the excitement, they'd grown heavy with condensation, nearly blinding him to the lab around him. He took them off, rubbed the cloth of his lab coat across their surface, then placed them back.

"Eureka."

"Hey, I was about to say that!"

Bell spun around. On the opposite half of the lab, surrounded by bubbling flasks and vials, was Seth. In his claws, in a small vial, something fresh and sizzling. It appeared like liquid rubber, a glossy texture churning across its surfaces as it churned inside the container.

Seth held up the vial, smirking at it with childish pride. "But I guess you said 'eureka!' first, so that means you beat me."

"Seth...?" Bell inquired.

"Yeah?"

"Have you...?"

"Been working on a dubiously ethical super-secret serum using company assets during work hours? I mean, I wouldn't deny it..." He quirked a brow at his fellow researcher. "But if my instincts are right, you've been up to the same, Bell."

Bell lifted his vial. The white serum inside stirred like a caged animal. "I suppose I can't hide it. Yes, I've been working on a little something."

Seth scratched his chin. "Hmmm. Looks like more than a little something, Bell."

"Yes, I-"

Three hard raps came against the laboratory wall. Both them turned heads to the transparent door, where they had a new visitor just outside.

Saber. His sunglasses on, waving to them with Athos right at his side, arms crossed. Saber was excited as he usually was, and Athos looked...bemused. Like he knew something they didn't.

"Dr. Swahali...? Athos...?" Bell whispered.

Bell held up his ID, waving it in front of the scanner outside. He shook his head, mouthing the words 'let us in!'. Athos nodded at his gesture, rolling a wrist to add to their request.

Seth walked over, head co*cked at their new guests. "What are you two doing here?" he asked. "Oh! It's not lunch already, is it? Because today they have the super burgers, and we only get those once a-"

"Seth, let them in," Bell interjected. "Else I fear Dr. Swahali is going to explode out there."

"That'd be cool! Though picking up the mess might take a while..."

"Seth."

"Right, right."

The lynx came up to the transparent door, and tapped the keys on the side. Four swift numbers, then a tone that filled the lab. The barrier slid inside, and Saber stepped in with bouncy energy.

Bell chuckled. "Aright Dr. Swahali, what's so important you have us breaking protocol to let you in here?"

"It's fine," Athos assured. "We can bend the rules. Especially with the fascinating story Saber's been telling me."

"Telling you?" Saber shot back. "You've been working on one too, you feathery sneak."

"Guilty as charged."

Bell walked up, regarding them with a suspicious gaze. "I acquiesce. Seriously, what's going on?"

"You're not busy, are you?" Saber asked. "Because-"

"We just finished, actually."

"Right! So, uh, you might wanna sit down for this."

"There's only one chair in here, so..."

"The conference room?"

"...Goodness, I haven't stepped in there since-"

"Perfect! Let's go!"

Saber turned heel and bolted down the hallway. Athos watched him flee with an amused smile, then turned to them when he was gone. "Trust me. It'll be worth your time~!"

He waltzed off, whistling a cheery tune. When he was gone, Seth turned to his friend.

"How does that man use tildes when speaking?"

"That, I'm afraid, even science can't answer," Bell sighed. He moved towards the open door, tucking his vial into his coat's inner pocket. "Let's see what all the fuss is about."

Seth followed on his heels. Together they walked out and down the hall. Past other laboratories where scientists were hard at work unraveling the mysteries of nature, staring at computer readouts or compiling notes of their own. A few of them waved.

They came upon a wooden door. Far removed from the high-tech environs around them, nothing more than a simple oak frame and a brass knob. Above it, words plastered in plain text declaring it as the coffee room, and a few science-related memes taped to the front.

Bell turned the knob. It creaked open, gaining their entry into a small room of cupboards, tables, and a bubbling coffee machine. Athos and Seth were already at the central table, chatting with themselves as they entered.

Athos turned to them, smiling wide. "Ah! Our friends in discovery have arrived."

They both walked up to the table and dragged out seats. When they sat down, Bell leaned forward, one elbow on the table.

"All right, Athos. Dr. Swahali. You've successfully coaxed us away from the lab. What are you so anxious about showing us?"

Saber and Athos exchanged glances. The raptor scientist held out a palm; a gesture for Saber to first. He took the invitation proudly, tapped a fist against his chest, and loudly cleared his throat.

"Ahhh-hem! Gentlemen! As you may or may not know, one of my doctoral theses was on Square Inverse Subversion via Genetic Recombination of Selected Chromosomes."

"I know," Bell sighed. "I peer-reviewed that paper. You had some very interesting ideas in there."

"I did! After I put out the paper, I had to put it on the back shelf for a while, but lately I've had enough time to...pursue some of the ideas in that paper. Pursue them rather aggressively. And today, I had a breakthrough. And no sooner than I did did Athos here walk in on me finishing the serum that-"

Seth waved his arms. "Wait wait wait wait. You made a serum?"

Saber flashed a co*cky smile, and reached into his lab coat. From it he took out a small vial of sparkling liquid. It appeared as water, clear and shining in the sterile light of the break room.

"Ta-da!" Saber announced. "I'm rather proud of it, actually. Took me months to get a stable result, but-"

"Wait a minute," Bell muttered. "I need some context here. What, exactly, have you been working on?"

"C'mon, Bell. You've known me long enough."

Bell blinked, unsure what he meant. The realization crept in, and his eyes lightened. "...No. You didn't."

"I dare say he did," Athos cut in. "Because it just so happens, I had the same idea. Or rather, something very similar..."

He rooted around in his own coat, taking out a smaller vial of glowing green liquid. A kind of emerald slurry swirling in the vial under its own influence. "A different route, but the same goal. When I saw Saber finishing his serum, I showed him mine. It just so happens we happened to finish ours on the same day. Which brings us to you two." He tapped the vial against his head. "The late nights. The extra requisitions. That gleam of inspiration in your eyes. I'm a fool for not noticing it earlier, but now it's all too obvious. You two have been working on something as well, hm?"

Bell looked over to Seth. The lynx looked like a robber caught with the money, sheepish and guilty.

"We're not in trouble, are we?"

"I don't think so," Athos assured. "But..."

With, Bell reached into his coat. "You got us, Athos." He pulled out his vial, still pouring the cold clouds of freezing fog. "But before we continue, maybe we should all be on the same level. What do you think I've brewed here? What we all have?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Athos asked. "A means for ascension. A growth serum."

Seth took own his own vial, and laid it on the table. "Oh, good. I thought you two had brewed up a new disease or something."

Saber shot him a look. "Hey, we're all mad scientists here, not crazy ones."

"I can't believe this," Bell sighed. "You mean to tell us not only did Seth and I have the same idea to create a zero-point superfluidic quantum expansion formula-"

"I'm fine with calling it a growth serum," Seth shrugged.

"...But Dr. Swahali and you also created serums with the same effects, with different methods?"

"Yep!" Saber chirped.

"Science is always full of those serendipitous coincidences, yes~?"

Bell leaned back, looking down at the assembled vials. Each one unique, carrying the signature of the mind that had created them.

"Incredible," he whispered. "Great minds think alike. If I may inquire, what are all of your reasons?"

"Want to get really big," Saber answered. "It's pretty much that simple."

"Same," Seth echoed. "Always liked those kaiju movies, so..."

"I love the sense of power it'd bring," Athos explained. "The feeling of being huge, strong, and unstoppable. And you, Bell?"

Bell sunk lower into his chair. "I mean..." His eyes shifted away, a slight blush rising on his cheeks. "It's kind of...been a fantasy of mine. I don't have a
rational explanation for it."

"You mean a fetish," Saber chuckled.

"Ugh. Yes, Dr. Swahali, I-"

"Hey, no
shame in that. That's basically what I meant when I said I want to get really big."

Seth nodded. "Same."

"Likewise~."

"Great," Bell grunted. "So we've all made our serums to live out our dreams. Becoming giants. I'm assuming you all believe yours will work?"

"I know mine will," Athos said. "I've very confident in my calculations. And Saber here...I went over his equations. You may be surprised, Bell, but he's quite thorough in his notes."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Bell huffed. "But that leaves me, and I ran a thousand simulations before I brewed this. And Seth-"

"I have no idea if mine will work!" Seth declared. "But isn't that the fun of science? Testing to see what works?"

"...Right. So. We're all gathered here, and we've laid everything out. All four us have made growth serums. That's...not the sentence I expected to say when I woke up this morning."

Saber narrowed his eyes. "Waaaaait a minute. What were you gonna do if we hadn't made ours?"

"I was..."

"You were gonna use yours, weren't you? Just leave us in the proverbial rubble?"

"I would've-"

"Kinda selfish, don't you think?"

"Look, Dr. Swahali. It's a fortunate coincidence we all finished our projects simultaneously. Instead of just one of us advancing the cause of science alone, it can be all four of us."

"You don't mean...?"

He swept his arms over the collected vials. "We have them before us. And except for Seth, we're all quite confident they'll work. Frankly, I don't see any reason we can't run our experiment right now."

"Like, now? Now now?"

"Yes. Now. Unless you had something else even more exciting planned for today."

"Totally. Got a shrinking potion I need to test after this."

"No you don't."

"You got me. So, who's first?"

Seth took up his vial, holding it up to inspect. "Hmmm. As much as I'd like to go first, I kinda wanna see what it looks like from the 'ground level', y'know?"

"So that's a 'no'."

"Yep. I mean, no. I mean-you know what I mean."

"Indeed. What about you, Athos?"

"I'm with Seth on this one. Not every day you get to see a giant be born~."

Saber swirled his concoction between his fingers. "Yeah, honestly, I'm still kinda psyching myself up to drink this. I engineered this for efficacy, not taste, know what I mean?"

"Which leaves me," Bell sighed. "I suppose it couldn't be any other way."

He took his serum in hand, and held it high like a prized doubloon. Letting all present observe its chilly majesty, then brought it to his talons to pry it open. The cork cap flew off with a loud pop!, bouncing off the table to the floor below. More wispy clouds flowed from the mouth of his brew, and he took a moment to soak in the reality of what he was about to do.

He ran his lips over his beak. The tension of the moment was wringing him dry. Thirsty. With a cool and beckoning beverage in his grasp. A nervous gulp fell down his throat.

"Bottoms up."

He opened his mouth, and poured the liquid down his throat. A blast of frigid juice gripped his mouth a torrent of arctic ice and cloudy vapor that filled his being. It was brisk. Like a cruel mint, a feeling of drinking an iceberg all at once. The taste of absolute zero, funneling down into the core of his stomach.

In a few short moments, the vial was empty. The last drop of cold liquid dripped over his tongue, and he leaned forward with a desperate gasp.

"Gah!"

He breathed out a cold fog. A brisk and minty flavor drifted from his mouth. Cold. Refreshing. It'd filled him like an ice-cold drink on a hot summer day, chilling him to his very core. He gave a few testing breaths, waiting for something to happen.

He was sure his numbers were right. There was no way they couldn't be. Couldn't argue with the number one.

Saber tilted forward. "Well?"

Bell rolled his eyes. "What, you were expecting it to happen instantly?"

"Maybe?"

"Dr. Swahali, as I've told you before, science cannot be rushed. This is the results of months of work, and-"

"Months?" Saber intoned. He scratched the back of his head, flashing a toothy smile. "Uh...that long, huh?"

"What are you getting at?"

"Only been working on mine for two weeks. Might have taken a few shortcuts to get there..."

Bell shook his head. "Honestly, I was expecting worse."

"I still got to drink it."

"And I'll be sure to give you plenty of room to-"

Bell's eyes went wide, and he doubled over in surprise. A small, timid burp jumped out of his throat. He balled a fist, then tapped it against his chest. "Pardon me."

"You're pardoned," Athos replied. "And, not to interrupt, but if I could direct your attention to your hand..."

Bell lifted it, holding it to the sterile grow of the ceiling lights.

It was...changing.

Shifting.

The skin bubbled like cauldron water, tiny swells and bumps boiling just under the surface of his skin. He could feel the bubbles coursing through his flesh, melting into his muscles and racing the circuits of his blood.

He was...changing.

"Oh," Bell blurted. "The effects are...faster than I anticipated."

Sssshhhshhhhhh...

A whistle of air flowed through his skull. Primal noise, emptiness that flowed through his nervous and soul. His skin churned under it, furious swells flowing in currents across his flesh. He stood up suddenly, gripping his sizzling forearm. It felt like...not something alive, but something being forced into his being. Emptiness. Air. Full, pushing void.

The chair fell over behind him. It hit the floor with a hard clack. Only Seth paid it any mind, pointing to it with a smirk.

"Watch the equipment, Bell."

Bell gripped his arms, trying to hold back the tide of bubbling, fluid motion. "Quiet....you...!"

"Are you well, Bell?" Athos asked.

"Doing...dandy!"

"Are you sure?" Saber pressed. "Because you're starting to look kind of...round."

Bell held up his hands once again. High above his head, watching as his body gave itself to a new paradigm. The bubbling had stopped. They had stopped moving, and had now settled into the deep depths of his muscles. Swollen lumps across his body like rolling hills, squirming and kneading together.

And then, movement.

They began to grow. Slowly at first, rising like yeast. Growing from their deep homes, slowly stretching out his skin and feathers.

"Uh...oh...mrrrrppph!"

Bell realized he couldn't talk. He brought his fingers to his jaws, only to find that they'd swollen shut. His head was growing to a near-perfect sphere, his cheeks and beak both fat with filling size.

"Grrryyyyyss!" he slurred. His waved his arms, trying to get out a word. Nothing came, just more noise, muffled by pulsing, rising pieces of himself. A small terror jumped in his chest. This was what he'd engineered, but there was nothing that could've prepared him. Nothing that could ready him for the feeling of his very being stretching, pulling, growing around his very bones, pushing him to the very edge.

And he was growing. He held out his hand. It looked like a lumpy, inflated glove, his swollen fingers poking out from the mass.

Pop!

One finger swelled forward, growing heavy and round. Bell strained to move it, but its position was locked. On all sides, he was being crushed by the gravity of himself, lumps breeding in number across his body. He was swelling, knees wobbling to hold up his growing weight. He was heavy, and...taller.

Rrrrriiiip!

His shirt cried out in agony, split down the middle. His lab coat with it, joining broken jeans. His feet swelled, taking with them his neat dress shoes. They exploded under pressure, split open in a ragged mess of curled leather, then swept aside as his heavy feet grew across the room.

Bell could see it in his friends eyes. And their necks. They were craned up, all three of them staring at him with a mix of amazement and bemusem*nt.

"Oh, my~!" Athos chirped. "At this rate, you'll hit the ceiling in..."

Creeeaaaaak...

Thin plywood pressed against Bell's crest. His crown had already found the top panels of the room, and were slowly pushing them up. The lowest-bidder construction did little to impede him. It cracked and splintered over his skull, a growing swell on his head like a great, soft fist to push through the material above.

Crunch!
Crack!
CrrrrrRRrrrrrrrnnnk!

Crrrsh!

The ceiling yielding. The splinter of wood like a fallen tree, and the echo that bounced off the walls of the research facility. Somewhere, a dinging alarm went off in shrill repeat. His little stretch had set off an alarm. Or someone had pulled it.

Didn't matter now. Now he was in darkness, his head caught between the dark space between the roof and the ceiling below.

Full

He felt so full. Like a pile of pillows, or a mountain of buddy. Puddy that swelled inside him, pushing and merging with the lumps across his being. Every second that passed, it only grew. This notion of...padding. Fat-ness. Blubbery and bouncy.

He...

"Grrraaaaagghhhh!"

CRASH!

His round head burst through the second floor. White tile poured off his noggin, clattering to the lab floor below. Screams filled the room. Scientists, understandably terrified, running for cover and bolting for the nearest exit as this blue mound erupted beneath them.

He would've said "hey, guys!", if he could say words. Or move his arms. As it stood, he was more like a living bee sting. The mounds on him swelled out in uneven pace. A piece of his head pushed out. A piece of his arm, knocking over expensive lab equipment to the ground. The glasses mixed together, and a sizzling hiss came as the accidental concoction melted into the floor. It dug a hole straight
through the floor, green fumes trailing in its wake.

Below, a chair scooted back. Saber shouted.

"Hey!
Watch it!"

"Graaarrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhh!"

Not much of a reply. His legs swelled. In a sudden lurch he jumped in size, and his curved head smashed against the second floor ceiling. Into brief darkness with steel and frame, then the rush of outside air. Concrete crumbled over him as he broke through the roof in a burst of dust.

"Graaarragghhyyyys!"

"What'd you say?!" Saber called from below.

"I ssrrrraaaaa-"

"Guys, I don't think he can hear us."

"I srraaaiiid-"

Fwwwoomp!

The fullness exploded in his right arm. It filled out the room below, blowing through walls and offices. His whole body tore through the building, its sold frame no match for the unstoppable tide of Bell.

He grew taller. He grew wider. The uneven lumps of his body slowly pooled, melted, fused into longer, solid mounds. Fat chunks that engulfed him, smothered him as he coiled upwards. Well past the roof now, reaching up to the third floor of the neighboring apartment complex.

"Grrrrhhhhh..."

"What?!"

"SSssssssaiid-!"

Bell blinked. The windows of the fourth floor sailed past him. A woman at one of them shrieked, then slammed it shut and threw down the shutters. Car horns began to honk, people stopping in the street and pointing at this giant tearing its way out of the small facility.

Fifth floor. Something inside him hit a snag, and his growth lurched into a sleepy plateau. A few more inches his body clawed forward into the sky. Millimeters, slowly purchased.

Until.

He stopped.

Bell was now a giant mass, standing in the ruins of the Megalith Institute of Science. His limbs and torso had broken out into blimpish proportions, still encased in meters upon meters of flesh.

He tried to wiggle his arms. They were buried deep in the fleshy dunes of his upper body, too entombed to move. His legs gave the same answer. He couldn't see quite see them, but they felt just as heavy and swollen as the rest of them. It was as if...

The epiphany hit him. He winced, cursing himself for his carelessness.

"Can't believe this," he thought. "Forgot to have it affect bones..."

He was almost worried.

Almost.

But he was a professional. Though he'd made a novice mistake in neglecting to have his serum affect his skeleton directly...

bwomp.

...It was only a matter of moments before the effects would seep in from his muscles.

thrrump!

His bones rattled. It tickled the swollen fullness inside him, burrowing deep into the fat tissue.

crk.
clk.
clrkclkcklk!

Like crackling ice, his inner structure stretched to fill its new home. Far faster than his initial growth, he jumped as his femurs and tarsals exploded in size. Catching up to the rest of him. Making him truly complete.

Bell's legs made their journey first. With a few more pops, a sense of normalcy returned into his body. A sense of proportion regained, everything back to their regular...

...size.

He could hardly believe it. He had to be fifty feet tall now, towering over the facility and the cards in the streets. People were already gathered around, smartphones held high as his limbs grew longer. His bones were stretching into their final slots, his zeppelin form slowly fading to an unadorned giant.

Crack!

His ribcage popped against his chest. He patted it down, feeling the last few stragglers of his skeleton settling in their proper places. Squeezing in, nestling into where they belong.

A final, tiny zop in his mouth. A tooth, filling out its new home.

He was done. Finished. Raised to his new form.

Bell. Bell the Giant Bluejay.

Had a nice ring to it.

With his body in average-yet-huge segments again, he could finally take stock of his achievement. The feeling of broiling, rounded growth was gone, for sure. In its place, an acute awareness of size. He felt huge. As huge as he was, a mammoth standing tall over the streets below.

"Wow!" he called. "That was...intense."

"That was awesome!" a tiny voice cried from below.

He glanced down. Into the wide crater of the facility, all the way down to the center of the room he'd just lurched out of. Athos, Saber, and Seth were still standing in the halfway-buried remnants of the coffee room. They all looked quite impressed. Especially Seth, waving with both of his arms.

"Quite impressive!" Athos rejoined. "Unorthodox, but impressive!"

"Was that swelling stuff supposed to happen?" Saber pointed. "Because it didn't look it."

Bell glanced down at these little things that barely came up to his ankles. Some mouth on Saber. He very briefly entertained the thought of pinning him down with one of his toes, but...

"Calling it growing pains," Bell offered. "New frontiers are rarely without bumps."

"Or lumps!" Saber called back. "Seriously, you looked like an airship for a minute, there."

Bell sighed. "Everyone's a critic."

"I thought it was cool!" Seth effused. "Like a big, blue wrecking ball!"

"See?" Bell said. "Seth gets it."

Another alarm surged through the building. More yelps and shouting of scientists as they poured through the halls, running out the fire exits of the building. A constant stream of white coats poured into the parking lot, making way for the gate or cars.

Saber watched a few of them flee past the coffee room. "We are so fired."

"We'll deal with that annoyance when we arrive at it," Athos chuckled. "For now, I think we should consider who will go next."

Saber held out his vial. "That's easy. I'm going next. Need to show Bell how a growth serum really works."

Athos bowed his head, then stepped away to give the confident hyena space. "By all means, Dr. Swahali!"

"Oh, don't you start."

He yanked off the cork. "Right. No thrills, no spills!" he declared, then plunked the vial's end into his mouth. He drank it like a starving calf, slurping down the contents in two seconds flat. He lapped his tongue against the vial's edge, then tossed the empty contained over his shoulder.

"Yeah!" he cheered, fists pumped into the air. "How's that do you?"

Bell quirked a brow. "Dr. Saber. Nothing's happened."

"Give a minute. Or two. Look, I knew you guys were working on yours, so I had to boogie with mine."

"You're a gift to the cause of science, Saber.~" Athos purred.

"Thank you. See, Bell? At least someone appreciates my..." He bent over, body shuddering in quaking pulses. "Oh...okay."

Seth stepped over. "You okay, Saber?"

"Hoo boy. Either this is breakfast, or..."

"I think we should step back," Athos observed.

Saber groaned. "This feels weird" he complained. "Like, this feels really really weird."

"Of course it feels weird!" Bell scolded. "It's a growth serum!"

"It's not every day you become a giant!" Saber shouted back. "Wouldn't be any buildings left! Just stand back! I'm gonna blow up any second now!"

He kept his posture, clutching his sides as the serum's formula coursed through him.

"Aaaaany second now..."

No news was good news, they said.

Those people didn't work in media.

Hunched over a desk, a curvy deer lazily tacked away at the keyboard. Fur of golden brown, darker wavier hair falling over her shoulders, and spectacles balanced on the end of her snout. She had the look of a professional, wearing a clean-pressed beige suit and a neat, black tie.

Margaret sat at her desk, typing up another braindead human interest story. She'd been working at the news station for over six years, and she still know what a human even was.

She leaned back in her chair. It squeaked a complaint, and she rubbed the bridge of her nose with tired apathy. "Ugh, what am I even doing?" She glanced back up at her article, and the flickering indicator on the word processor. "'4th Largest Pumpkin grows into 3rd'? How is that news?"

The deer leaned back over to the desk, taking a slurp of much-needed coffee. Cold as a fridge, the taste and texture of dirt. Just how she liked it.

Margaret wished something would happen. Anything. Not sure for her. Viewership for the whole station was down. They'd been slipping in the ratings and for years. Felt like every day, they were drifting further and further from irrelevancy. Something had to happen, soon, or she'd have to start brushing up the ol' resume again.

She pulled up her cup for another sip. She had it just to her lips when a voice rang out behind her.

"Margaret!"

She shrieked. A jolt sent her limbs flailing, and the coffee spiraled upward in a doomed spin. The cap flipped off, sending its brown contents twisting towards her head.

Splish!

The cold splashed on her face. A hard chill that send her scrambling back in her chair, spitting out the stray contents. She sat there for a moment, soaking in the coffee. She refused to acknowledge the voice. At that moment, all she wanted was to think about where it'd all gone wrong.

She opened her eyes, and looked down to her suit. A new, ugly brown stain lay across her chest, droplets pooling into her pants. Her white shirt underneath looked like it'd fought with mud and lost, the earthen stain spreading outward from the point of contact.

With deliberate slowness, she reached up to one of her short horns, then plucked the empty coffee cup off her head. She turned around on her swivel chair, crushing the thing styrofoam between her fingers.

"What, Avery?"

Standing in entrance, keys in his hand, was a large, bulky bulldog in an unbuttoned plaid shirt. A baseball cap fit firmly on their head, carrying the station's logo. Looking more a logger than a cameraman, he was nonetheless Margaret's partner in reporting-on-crime.

He looked excited. He was always excited, the big puppy, but now there
was a real, genuine sparkle of adventure in his eyes.

Margaret tossed the empty cup over her shoulder. Something
might have been happening, but she knew his flights of fancy all too well. Caution was warranted. "This better be worth my coffee."

"Sorry about that!" he chirped. "Look, we-"

Someone sprinted behind him.

"-we gotta move, Maggy! There's something big happening downtown!"

Downtown? Now she was interested. She leaned forward, forgetting all about the cold liquid soaking into her suit. "Big? Like a robbery?"

"No, bigger than that! Literally!"

An anthro frog ran up to the entrance. "There's a giant downtown!" he called, then sprinted down the hall.

Margaret squinted. "A...giant? What?"

"I know it's crazy, but it's happening! Look!"

Avery pulled out his smartphone, revealing a picture. A few photos of a massive blue sphere above a broken building, people below staring at it in awe.

He walked closer, letting Margaret take a closer look. She plucked the phone from his hand, swiping through the images. The blue, feathery sphere above the building slowly 'deflated', changing from an inflated mass to a giant, naked bluejay. Then it looked down, apparently...talking? To someone below.

Margaret glanced up. Her eyes hard-set. Her bored stupor had dissolved, now replaced with the grim determination of a reporter headed into war.

"Let's bounce."

She shoved the phone back into Avery's hands, wiped off her suit as best she could, and ran out the room into the main hall. Avery followed just behind, dangling the keys to the news van.

"Where's Ferris?!" she panted.

"Haven't seen 'em!" Avery shouted.

Just ahead, another figure walked out into the hall. They looked around the bustling news station with passing interest. More intrigued than confused. A tall and slender blue peaco*ck in an unkempt coat, a loose unlit cigarette in his beak.

There he was. Ferris, the tech expert of their little crew.

Ferris turned his head, brows raising at his two co-workers barreling towards him. "Hey, what gives? Is there a robbery happening or-"

Margaret flew past him, snatching his wrist and dragging him into their forward sprint. He stumbled behind her, his passive voice changing to slight concern.

"Oh, shoot. A bank robbery?"

"Bigger than that!" Margaret shouted.

Avery jogged up behind him, throwing the keys into Ferris's grasp. "Here!"

"Where are we going?!" he demanded.

"The garage, obviously! You're driving!"

"We're taking the van?"

"I don't have a license and we both know Avery can't drive!"

Avery laughed. "Nope!"

Their wild run brought them to the end of the hall, and the row of elevators along the wall. Margaret's heart leaped in joy as she saw one of the elevator was open...then turned to primal terror as they began to close. She shot out her hand, screaming to anthro orca inside looking down at his phone.

"Wait! Hold that elevator!"

The orca ignored him, his attention entirely fixed on his phone.

Margaret threw extra fire into her limbs. She bolted forward with pounding speed, diving for the closing jaws of the elevator doors.

She was just upon it, but it was too late. Only a sliver of open space remained. Too late to reach it.

Unless.

She jumped forward and stretched out of fingers. She flopped on her belly, fingers slotting into the closing frame. With all he strength she forced them apart. The elevator doors snagged, then slid open as they detected her between. Leaving her on the floor, arms open, glancing up at the orca still staring at his phone.

"Hey!"

He finally took his eyes off his device, eyeing Margaret on the floor. "Hey, Margaret. You been watching the news?"

She scrambled up, a scowl on her lips. "Will. We are the news."

"Riiiiight. Going down?"

"Yes."

Her comrades caught up behind her. They quickly shuffled into the elevator. Will reached for a lower floor, only for Margaret to slap his hand away. She pressed a button that read 'G', then crossed her arms as the box descended its iron shaft.

They stood in awkward, wordless silence. Only the musak of the elevator kept them company. It cut out halfway through one song, replaced by a pre-recorded voice.

"KTAL, Channel 3! With Weatherman of the Year, Will O'Donnel!"

She shot Will a judging glance. It wasn't an untrue statement. He had been voted Weatherman of the Year. Once. Ten years ago. They were still milking that.

The lift lurched. A soft ding pulsed through the elevator's cabin, and the doors ground open. Margaret was the first to leap out, shoes clacking on the hard cement. Avery and Ferris lagged behind, only barely keeping up with the woman outrunning them in high heels.

The elevator dinged again, and the doors slid shut. Will waved goodbye to them, lips curved in vague concern. "Good luck!" he called, then glanced back down at his phone. "...You'll need it."

The three of them scrambled around one of the stone pillars of the garage. There, between two yellow lines, the van. Large, black and plastered with the channel's logo, it was ugly square brick of a vehicle.

The Channel 3 Van. Older than any of them, a model from forty years ago with tech to match. A great, gray radar dish big enough for a navy ship laid across its top, two long antennae rising from the flat, slanted hood.

She was hideous, loud, and probably half the reason for global warming. But she was reliable.

Ferris moved to the back, taking his keys and slotting them into the scarred keyhole. With a heavy clunk it unlocked, and he threw open the back doors into the cramped space inside. A veritable prison cell filled with heavy equipment; big screens and buttons across consoles, and messes of wires coating the walls.

Ferris scrambled forward, pushing past the junk into the driver's seat. Avery moved in next, sitting down on one of the back seats and leaned over to the great, heavy camera set on the floor. He picked it up, inspecting it as Margaret scrambled into the passenger seat.

Ferris turned the ignition. The van roared to life. Its growl bounced off the garage walls; the sound of something mean and cranky woken from its nap.

He pulled the transmission, then threw the car into a sudden reverse. The van doors, still open, slammed shut from the sudden backward veer, and the square brick of a vehicle peeled out into the passage of the lot.

"Gun it!" Margaret shouted.

Ferris threw it in forward, then slammed the gas. The pedal met the metal, and the wheels squealed against the hard garage floor, sending up a smokescreen of burning rubber. With a lurch the van bolted forward, lumbering fast towards the sunlight of the garage entrance.

They tumbled out onto the road, veering hard left onto the lane. A few cars just barely avoided them, breaking dead with loud, angry honks. As they peeled into the heart of the city. Margaret punched the glove box. Inside, a microphone, 'CHANNEL 3' taped across its handle.

Maggy took it out, licked her hand, and smoothed out her hair with a few nervous strokes.

She leaned out the passenger window, where the wind buffeted her hair. "This is it, guys! Our big break!"

Ferris glanced over. "Do we have a plan when we get there or...?"

"Reporting is like war! Organized chaos!"

"What?"

"I'll think of something! Now move!"

Ferris threw the van into a higher gear. It howled in fury, zooming awkwardly into the metropolis beyond.

"Aaaaany second now..."

They'd been watching Saber for a few minutes.

So far, nothing had happened. The hyena scientist didn't even seem uncomfortable anymore, yet still he pretended as if its effects had a tight hold upon him. Bracing himself for a growth spurt refusing to arrive.

Finally, Athos tilted his head. "Saber?"

"Stand back!" Saber commanded. "I could blow at any moment!"

From high above, Bell stared down at his colleague. He'd begun to tap his foot. Slowly yet impatiently, sending gentle quakes through the earth with every tap of his toes. Every rumble brought a gentle rain of debris from above, plumes of ash that drifted downward in hazy clouds.

"Saber," Bell stated, "I'm not entirely sure your serum is viable."

Saber glared up at him. "Hey, knock it off with the predoc stuff, alright? I'm an expert. I know what I'm doing probably!"

"You did tell us you took some shortcuts..." Seth pointed out.

"Shortcuts I knew would not compromise the effects of the serum! Even if I had to...fudge...the numbers a bit."

"'Fudge the numbers?'" Athos questioned.

"This kind of thing is more an art than a science. I thought you guys of all people would..." He trailed off, a look of queasiness rising in his eyes. "Uh..."

"You can stop pretending," Bell sighed.

"I'm not! I just feel..."

He stumbled a bit, then shook his head. "Just need to take a breath."

He stood up, bracing himself as he sucked in the air around him. The rush of oxygen came as a hiss, pouring past his nostrils in a howling gale.

Haaahhhhh!

More than a breath. Everyone's jaw went slack as they saw Saber expand, growing fatter throughout his inhalation. His body grew round and smooth, clothes straining at the new girth below.

He was...inflating!

Different from Bell's growth. No lumpy masses and fleshly mounds. He was filling up like a real balloon, pumped full of the rushing air into his lungs. With a single intake he'd become and chunky, limbs fat, body swelled into the shape of a massive grape. Somehow his clothes still held, however barely.

Saber breathed out, exhaling slow and tired. He didn't seem to notice his growth. Not until he opened his eyes and glanced down at his new proportions. He studied them a moment, admiring the smooth, subtle contours of his acquired, plump body.

"Oh!" he blurted. "Huh." He glanced up at Bell, wiggling his stubby arms. "See?! It works!"

Athos rubbed his chin. "Fascinating. Using air
for growth."

Saber wobbled around on the floor in glee. "Yeah, that's definitely what it was supposed to do! Just needed a little time to kick in, is all!"

"I hope that's not the limit," Seth said.

"Couldn't be," Saber replied. "In fact..."

He inhaled again, mouth held wide as he drew in roaring gust. Stray dust danced in the air as more fell into his growing lungs, falling inwards into the stretchy form of the round hyena. His inhale brought a new swelling expansion, his form moving in all directions with the fresh air inside him. He sucked in as much air as his lungs would allow, drawing in the world around him until he had to stop.

"Haaaaahhhhhh-!"

With his first gulp, Saber doubled in size. From a fat hyena to one downright bulbous, his gut swollen to a giant ball. He was already taking up half the coffee room.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

He sucked in air again. The rush of air came with loud rips, his clothes finally defeated. His pants exploded off his legs, shoes joining them in broken straps. His shirt was last, straining valiantly against his chest. But it was ultimately a doomed fight, and one-by-one the buttons on his inner shirt started to pop off. They shot off in screaming blurs, darting around the room like errant bullets. His lab coat was last, ripping straight down the back and its two halves sliding over his arms.

He was a balloon, now. In more ways than one; to everyone's surprise, including Saber's, he'd begun to float. Drifting slightly off the floor, buoyant in the air like a floating pool toy.

"Cool!" Saber chuckled. "I wonder if..."

He inhaled again, closing his eyes and flaring his mouth to one side. The air flooded in once again, and this time another part of him popped out. One of his arms puffed out to massive size, taking on the swollen shape of his body. He flexed the fat fingers carefully, a wide grin stretching across his lips.

"Hah!"

"Careful, Saber!" Athos warned. "Wouldn't want you to pop~!"

"I'll be fine!" Saber dismissed. Just need to..."

He drew in more air. More rushing, pushing air into his flesh, letting it expand his form to greater glory. This time it rushed into one of his legs. With a thump it grew out into a long swollen shape, and Saber flexed it with careful jerks. The air inside him began win its fight against gravity, and the swollen scientist started floating upwards to join Bell above.

Bell watched him in, looking rather skeptical. "If you float off, I'm not helping you."

"I won't!" Saber shouted. "Just need to get the right equilibrium. And there's only one way to do that!"

Saber breathed out, emptying his lungs in a long exhale. Until he was empty as space, then readied himself, bracing his floaty limbs. He cleared his throat, then forced a sharp lance of air past his gums.

He pumped himself up, every breath pushing out his form by pulsing measures. Bigger. Bigger. Bigger, with every single breath. His drawing sounded less like a person's now; it was more immense, more colossal. Air wasn't filling a simple mouth anymore, but a practical cavern, rushing into the stretchy, empty cave inside. His growth spurts and their airy pushes sounded like the strokes of a huge bicycle pump, loud and pressing with high squeaks of growing pressure.

Frrrwwup!

He took in a final stroke of air. His form blew out, then settled into his desired size, floating over the streets.

Massive. Round. Casting a shadow on the street below, he resembled a parade float version of himself. With all the proportions to match, idly hovering in the air between the building. As big as Bell was, but floating a story above him, looking rather smug.

"Well, well!" Saber declared. "Look who's bigger!"

"You're not bigger," Bell groaned. "You're just floating."

"And are you floating, huh?"

"No."

"Didn't think so!" He held out his ballooned arms. "This is awesome! I knew it'd work!"

Bell's posture relaxed. His annoyed glance faded, replaced by a tiny smile. He couldn't stay mad at Saber. "Credit where it's due, Dr. Swahali. Consider me a scoffer proven wrong."

Saber smiled. "See? What that so hard?"

"Unbelievably."

"If you two are done," Athos called from below, "I think I'd like to be next!"

Bell glanced down. Saber...pivoted his whole body in a lazy spin, turning his massive floaty head to the white-feathered raptor below.

"Go ahead, Athos!" Saber cheered.

Seth nodded excitedly. "Yeah. I want to see what you cooked up!"

Athos produced his vial, holding it up for all to see. He pooped off the top with one of his talons, then threw back his head and dumped the vail's contents into his waiting mouth in a single gulp. The liquid splashed across his gums and tongue, staining them white, then slid down his gullet.

His closed his mouth, wiping off the stray droplets with his sleeve. He dropped the vial, then held out his arms.

"In my personal opinion," he began, "I believe the best way to a solution is usually the most direct. I prefer the tested. The orthodox. The leneeaaAARRR..."

As he finished his sentence, his height stretched to the ceiling. He was already growing, legs towering up in great expansion. His tail pushed long below him, his feathers flaring out to widened size with every inch he gained. Ascending without pause, gliding through the facility's floors. By the second, his clothes were far gone, little more than scraps clinging to his form. When his shoulders scraped the roof, they all fell away from his body, joining the fall of bent beams and asbestos with them.

Only a mild shudder accompanied his growth. A great stretching quake, and a 'growing' sound with it that grew in pitch as he rose.

fwwwwooooOOOOOMP!

He crawled up to Bell's height, flexing his arms as he grew into the bluejay's equal.

"There!" he chirped. He struck another pose, throwing out an arm while flexing the other. "Quite an efficient mode of expansion, wouldn't you say?"

"That was fast," Saber guffawed.

Athos smirked. Pride in his sharp, white teeth. "It's all about the precision, Seth. No sense doing something like this if you can't do it correctly."

"You have been here the longest," Bell noted. "Maybe you could show me your notes later?"

"Certainly~!"

"Just one thing, though."

"Hm?"

"You may want to double-check just a few of those equations."

"Peg your pardon?"

Bell pointed at Atho's tail. The raptor turned around, glancing down at his trailing appendage. While he'd grown to great size, his tail had only matched him by half. A positively puny thing dangling between his legs, growing very slowly to match the rest of him.

Athos raised one brow, then held out his hands. Sure enough, a few of his fingers had also fallen behind, stretching and filling much slower than the rest of him had.

"Hm," he hummed. He placed his arms behind his back. "Well, close enough. As you said, it's more an art than a science."

With the three of them now gigantic, that left only one candidate at their feet. Seth, waving his arms like a kid that knew a question's answer.

"Ooooh!" he perked. "Me next! Me next!"

"There's no one else here," Athos chuckled. "I'm downright eager to see what you've got in store."

Seth tried to yank the top off. But he pulled too hard, and tore the vial from his own hand. It tumbled through the air, shining in the sun's light. The lynx's scrambled in panic, grasping at the glass cylinder. He grabbed it, only for it to slip through his fingers again, sent up in a new spinning arc.

With another dive he caught it, clasping both his paws around it in a vice grip.

Bell let out a loud snort. His size magnified it, the air traveling all the way to the street below. His wind kicked up discarded papers and stray, loose trash, sending them tumbling across the sidewalk. "Nice catch."

"Thanks!"

Saber wobbled in the air, gesturing one of his inflated limbs. "C'mon, drink it! We ain't got all day!"

"I will!" Seth shouted. "Just, give me a minute! Can't drink this too fast, or, uh. I might slightly explode."

"Slightly explode?"

"Emphasis on slightly! Probably. As long as I don't guzzle the whole thing down in one go, I should be good!"

Saber pounded his swollen fists in the air. "Chug! Chug! Chug! Chumrmmmmmmmmmph!"

His stretchy, rubbery snout was slammed between two feathered fingers. It collapsed under them like the sheath of a blimp, sealing them shut. Saber tried to protest, throwing wild kicks and punches through the air, but to no avail. Bell had him on lockdown, fingers sealed, his trap secure.

"What Dr. Swahali meant to say was 'then please, exercise caution'!"

"Irrr dnmt srmay mat!"

"Shhhhh. Science is happening."

Seth smacked his lips. Working the up the nerve, until he found enough to guide the vial's end to his lips. He poured down a few drops, paused, then let another few drip down his throat. Perfectly timed pauses between his gulps, spacing them out in practiced tempo. Halfway through the vial, Seth grew a little braver, and tilted his head up to invite gravity's help. The rest slid out from the glass, down his throat, and deep into his belly.

He emptied it out. Only a single drop dangled from the vial's end. He extended a tongue, waggling it as the drop grew longer on the rounded edge. It dripped down, melting into his pinkish flesh. Then he slurped in, worming his tongue about his mouth.

"Hmmmm," he muttered. "Not a fan of the aftertaste." He held up the vial. "Note to self: Plutonium poor substitute for Elerium."

"You were going to use Elerium?" Bell blabbed.

Seth
glanced up. "Turns out the only places that have that stuff are military bases the government says don't exist. Which is a shame, because-" He burped, then stumbled back. One hand found his belly, rubbing it with a kneading
curiosity. "Oop. Guess that's my cue."

"What exactly did you make, Seth?" Athos asked. "I'm rather curious about the details."

Seth rolled up his sleeve, peeking at his watch. "Well, I think I got time. I've created a fluid that's capable of self-replication! Once it hits a critical mass, it begins to use the water around it to expand, without consuming the water! I'm pretty proud of it!"

"I'll say. Any downsides?"

"A few unlikely scenarios. Don't worry about 'em. You're all here to see me get big, and I don't wanna disappoint."

He tapped his watch. "Should start happening right...about...now!"

As the word left his lips, a rush of water filled the air. His wrist filled as liquid beneath rushed to the surface, filled to the brink. Like water in a rubber glove, wobbling like jello as it grew. The watch on his wrist held tight for a moment, then snapped off with a piercing twang! The timepiece rocketed upward towards the three giants, right toward Bell's great head.

It bounced off his eye. A sharp, irritating pain struck the behemoth bluejay, and he shut it closed with a yelp. "Ow!"

"Sorry!" Seth screamed below. The liquid has filled up his shoulder, leaving as big as the rest of his body. The lynx struggled to hold it up, but finally relented. It plopped to the ground with a heavy thud, jiggling and warbling as its insides sloshed about. A beat passed, then the slow spread of its effects. It poured into his chest; a trickle that became a torrent, filling it out into a heavy roundness. He rolled back, his rotund belly sloshing over him. Almost smothering him until his gut's momentum sent it back, sprawling across the floor in a syrupy mass.

Saber waved. "You okay, Seth?"

"Doing fine!" he lied. "Just...dandy!"

Inside him, an invisible levee broke. The liquid broke into his other arm, a waterfall of force and mass plunging into his muscles. His other arm joined the first; vaguely saggy masses he could barely move. But by the moment, they were growing and growing wider, growing taller. As if they were filling their limits, turning to something more. For now, he was a giant marble with gorilla arms, flailing about the remains of the coffee room. His grasping arms tore through the upper ceiling, knocking away panels and tiles. It blew through walls and labs, deceptively strong despite their size. They were heavy, big wet clubs that blew down anything in their way.

With another gushing rush, the liquid broke into his legs. His shins and thighs jumped out in sudden bursts, but it was his feet where most of it pooled. They fattened like an old waterbed, wide, flat, rolling tides crashing underneath. The sudden shift in his gravity's center sent him tumbling, but now it was too low to fall. He simply careened over on his own massive feet, hitting the jiggly flesh. Waves bobbed from his impact, rolling through the rest of him in sweeping dunes.

"Oh, man!" Seth shouted. "Definitely should've drank it slower!"

"Is this the 'slightly explode' part?" Saber laughed. "Because if it is, I'm gonna take pictures. If I had a camera." He squinted. "That was five feet wide."

Bell tapped his colleague's squishy shoulder. "I'm sure there's one around here somewhere."

"Man, I can't wait to get around the city like this!"

"Speaking of," Athos intoned, "perhaps we should give our friend some room? We're taking up an awful lot of this facility..."

Saber and Bell glanced down. Athos had a point; the research facility was completely gutted now. It barely resembled a building at all, more an advanced rubble pile. Or a ready-made movie set for a warzone. As it stood, they were taking up quite a bit of what was left. Athos and Bell's legs standing like giant oaks inside the ruined superstructure, and Saber's shadow looming overneath.

Bell nodded. "You're right. Let's give Seth some room."

He pulled up one great leg, his feet scraping against the uneven floors. It carried debris with it; stray lab equipment, riffraff he couldn't quite make out. Whatever it was, it was junk now. Trampled, useless junk. He lifted his leg over the facility, then down into the flat bed of the parking lot. He stepped between the cars, carrying bits of the institute with his feathers.

He rolled a wrist. "Athos?"

Athos moved out as well. More graceful than the bluejay, almost dancing out into the parking lot. Only his tail caught a snag, smashing against the top floor. A plume of dust erupted from it, brown and heavy.

"Whoops~!" Athos chuckled. "How clumsy!"

He joined Bell in the lot, and they both looked up to Saber. Still floating, watching as their friend filled with water. He was a jiggling mass now, his head threatening the lower edge of the second floor. His skin wobbled like a hose at full blast, rigid yet squishy, full yet filling. Ascending to be one of them. A giant, joining the giants of steel and mortar around them.

Bell waved to Saber. "Dr. Swahali! You coming?"

"I ain't movin'!" he retorted. "I got front-row seats! Well, not a seat, but..."

Athos beamed. "I get your meaning~!"

"See? Athos gets it. Also, how you doin' down there, Seth?"

The lynx gave a shuddering blurb. Not really words, merely a noise of acknowledgment. His body was too deformed to speak at the moment, still caught in the throes of gushing growth. With a loud pop!, another burst of water poured into his limbs, filling them out to rigid thickness. It allowed him to stand, and a labored grunt he bent his swollen knees, pushing up above the lab.

Every little touch, every minor scrape and bump sending more waves rippling across his body. A giant of water, rising up to claim his proper form. A loud crash exploded. Somewhere inside him, a din like a busted dam bust out, and with it an unstoppable tidal wave. It careened through his chest, blowing it out to double-size. Before he could react, it flowed into his limbs, throwing them to equal measure. Then his arms, one popping out, then another.

Finally, his head. It jumped out, a sloshing rolling through his wobbly head. He gave a woozy mutter, swaying slightly in his stupor. He almost fell, caught only when a second wind grabbed him, and he laid his hands upon his head. He shook his head, chasing away the errant vertigo, empty splashes sounding through his head. But as he shook through them, the jiggling of his flesh subsided. The semi-liquid form took on something more sold, and the slosh of water inside him pulled away into silence.

And with that...his growth ended. He'd reached the height of the rest of them, a new colossus among the other three.

Seth patted one of his long, spotted ears. A bucket's worth of water fell out the other, then splashed into the ruined building below. "Second note to self: dosage used in first field trial likely...excessive."

"I'll say!" Saber laughed. "I'm surprised you didn't spring a leak!"

The lynx patted down one of his shoulders. "Yeah, yeah. The important thing is, it worked. It worked for all of us, actually."

He bent his knees and curled his long, waving tail. The others stood back, judging his intent. When they were clear, he jumped forward from the building's ruins. Saber floated to the side as Seth sailed a good few stories upwards. A massive leap with arc, where he reached the summit instantly. And just as quickly came crashing down, plummeting to the concrete of the parking lot.

K-THUMBP!

His whole weight crashed into the asphalt. Craters cracked into the concrete below, deep indents forced under the gargantuan blow. The front gate snapped clean off its hinges, and car alarms erupted for blocks around.

Seth listened with glee, his ears perking up as the quake rolled into the city until he could hear it no more.

With that, Athos clasped his claws together. "So, gentlemen! What do we do now?"

Seth co*cked his head. "Isn't it obvious?" His grin turned impish. Mischievous. A dash of malice. "Now? We get to have some fun."

The Channel 3 van swerved like a drunk, weaving left and right between oncoming traffic. Cars head towards them, veering away at the last moment with bleating horns.

Margaret held on for dear life, one hand clutching the dashboard and the other nailed to her seat. Her heart was pounding a million times a minute, nerves screaming at the certain death they were facing.

"Pick one lane or the other!" she howled. Her eyes widened, and she pointed ahead with a shriek. "Watch out!"

Ferris veered the wheel right, swerving around a sports car just as it barreled past them. She watched it peeled out in the rearview mirror, squealing smoke. It ground to a halt, and a panther in a business suit poked out from one of the windows, shaking his fist in understandable anger.

She swiveled around, pressing her back against the seat. "Ferris, are you absolutely sure we have to take this route?"

He replied in a flat tone, his unlit cig moving with his bottom lip. "Your words: 'Ferris, I don't care if you take us into oncoming traffic, we are getting there before anyone else!'"

"I did say that, yes."

Avery poked his head between the seats. "You'd think we'd have the cops on us by now!"

"You'd think that, but-"

A patrol car sped past them on the opposite lane. A blur of black and white, its sirens blaring red and blue. Ferris turned his head, just long enough to watch it pass. Right behind it were five more cop cars, sirens blaring the 5-0 cry.

"-They might have bigger problems!" she finished.

"What did you say the problem was?" Ferris asked. "That there's actual, literal giants downtown?"

"The internet don't lie. Well it does but not about this! Too many videos, too many angles for a fake! This is legit! This is the scoop of the century!"

"We're gonna get there and it's gonna be a
bunch of parade balloons got loose," Ferris grunted. He shot a glare to her. "If this ain't something, you're taking the blame."'

"I'll take it gladly. Besides, if this was nothing-"

Another swarm of cop cars rolled past them.

"-then what are they going after?"

"I dunno. Protesters?"

"Ferris."

"Someone spray-painted '1312' somewhere."

"Ferris."

"And it was probably me."

"Ferris!"

"What?"

She snapped her arm forward. "Please concentrate on our survival!"

He rolled his mouth, putting his cigarette to the other side. "Right," he grunted, and gripped both wheels. The traffic ahead began to thin, just enough for them to get a clear shot down the road. Nothing but paved blackness ahead and red lights they wouldn't respect.

As they peeled down the road, Avery pointed at the speedometer. "Can't this thing go any faster?"

Ferris shot his over to the cameraman. "Depends. How much you weigh?"

"Sorry I asked."

"But, yeah. Might be clear enough to use 'it' now."

"Use...what, Ferris?"

Margaret leaned over, jaw slack. "What did you do, Ferris? What did you do to Channy?!"

He sighed. "I may or may not have installed nitrous boosters."

Avery glanced back to the van's cabin. "Huh. So that's what those are. Wait a minute, aren't those illegal?"

Ferris chuckled with the devil's humor. "Ho-hoh! Extremely."

Ferris gripped the round ball of the transmission and flicked his thumb across its top. Its tip fell forward on a hinge, revealing a tiny, round button beneath.

Margaret glanced down at it, then shifted her eyes to their sullen driver. "Ferris..."

"I'm not a monster," he huffed. "I'll put it up to a vote. All in favor?" He shot up his hand. "Aye!"

"No!" she cried.

"Aye!" Avery voted.

"Motion carried," Ferris droned, and hovered his thumb above the button. "And, just a suggestion: you might wanna put on a seatbelt."

Margaret screeched as she slammed her fist against the dashboard. "Channy was made when people thought car safety was communism! She doesn't have seatbelts!"

"Oh. Well, hold on to somethin'."

She gripped her seat with all her strength, sinking her fingers into the faux leather of the ancient seats.

And Ferris pressed the button. A strong hiss flowed behind them, nitrogen tanks filling the engine with oomph. It roared in thanks, screamed in fire, and then went flying forward on the pavement. Avery, still between seats, went flying backward. He hit the back van doors with a loud thunk, enough to jolt the van on its new and building velocity.

Margaret watched in terror as the van's speedometer dragged to the right. As far as the meter went, then a little further into black plastic. Her heart pounded against her chest, every poor decision she'd ever made crossing her mind at once. A car flew past them as a screeching blur, too fast to even catch. But she did see a building. Just barely, the barest shape of beige columns whooshing past them.

Then leaned out the window, watching it reel behind them. "That was the 3rd Street Bank!" she shouted. "We're close!"

Ferris smacked his lips. "Yep. Turn should be coming up right about...now!" With a wince he slammed the breaks, then spun the steering wheel to the right. He kept turning, whirling as fast as he could. The van's wheels squealed beneath them, the smell of burning rubber filling the air as they turned the tight corner.

The van was neither graceful nor agile. Its high center of gravity and sudden shift sent it teetering dangerously to the left. A desperate moment as its right wheels came unglued from the road, and it peeled forward with only two to spare.

Margaret slammed her shoulder against the passenger door. The force battered against the van's frame. A hard smack, but enough to send her back the other way. The van tilted rightward, then smacked back down on all four of her well-worn tires.

"Ferris?" she sighed.

"Yeah?"

"Never do that again."

"Yeah, not a fan either."

"Okay. We're on the street this is happening."

Avery clawed his way back between the seats, hat in hand and rubbing a fresh lump on his head. "Lotta cars parked around here."

"Not parked. Abandoned. Something is happening around here. And we're gonna be the first crew to film it. Really film it."

Ferris spoke up, but his voice barely registered. A murmur on the periphery of Margaret's mind. "Uh, Maggy?"

"Avery! Is the camera charged?"

"All the way!" he answered.

"Maggy?"

"How's the backup?"

"Also charged."

"Maggy."

"Ferris, did you leave the battery back in here? The big one."

"Maggy!"

"What?"

She'd been so caught up, that she'd hardly notice their crawl. They'd slowed to a total stop, and Ferris was glancing up through the windshield. Disbelief in his eyes, his cigarette so loose in his mouth it threatened to fall out.

He took one hand off the steering wheel, pointing above. "Consider me...convinced."

She followed his gaze. All the way up, to...

...she didn't believe it.

As wild as it seemed, as much danger she'd put them through instigating their wild tear through the city streets, it was something else to see the impossible looming over her.

Giants.

Four, massive beings. A bluejay, a white-feathered raptor, a lynx, and...what seemed to be an inflated hyena. Three of them were standing next to the ruins of a smaller building wedged between two taller ones, the hyena floating above with a smile.

Avery glanced as well, and an awed gleam in his eyes. "Woah."

"Hell yeah, 'woah'," Margaret agreed. "We're gonna be famous, boys."

Ferris squinted. "Hey, ain't that that lab?" he asked. "The Mega...something."

She looked at the remains of the building, a vague memory playing in her mind. "Yeah, the...Megalith Institute of Science, I think?" Her eyes widened, and she snapped her fingers. "That's it! That's the scoop! Science Gone Mad! Rogue Researchers! A laboratory incident beyond our wildest imaginations!"

"Always on the story," Ferris sighed.

Maggy reached down to the floorboard, picking up her microphone. "That's why I get to carry this." She gripped it hard, then clamored into the back of the van. "Come on, Avery!"

Avery barked a 'yeah!' and the two of them began to scoop up their equipment in a frantic scramble. Maggy with her microphone and backup, Avery and his humongous camera, and a smaller strapped to his waist. When they had everything, the reporter climbed to the back of the van.

"Hi-ya!"

The doors flew open. Blown open by a swift, heeled kick. Margaret and Avery jumped out like soldiers, Margaret shouting over her shoulder as they ran around the van. "Ferris! Get the equipment!"

"Right," he sighed. He rolled his cig in his mouth, then climbed into the cabin of the van. Onto a stool on one of the consoles, then leaned over and pressed a single, black switch. The equipment fluttered to life. Screens fuzzed to glowing warmth, lights blinking in random patterns. An old, text-only bootup prompt appeared on one of the screens, green text on a plain black void.

He leaned over, settling his fingers across the keyboard. He began to type, throwing down line after line of commands in click-clacking strokes.

"I do not get enough for this."

Meanwhile, Maggy and Avery were still running. Between empty cars, and around gawping bystanders. They pushed to where the crowd was thickest, semicircle mass packed tight around the ruined gates of the former facility. She pushed past them, muttering her credentials to anyone that complained.

"Scuse me. 'Scuse me! Channel 3 News! Channel 3 News, get back!"

She pushed past the last gawker, walking to the front of the crowd where none dared ventured closer. There she spun around, microphone in hand. She straightened her posture, patted down her matted hair, and held the microphone close to her lips.

"Am I lined up?"

Avery shot up a thumb.

"How's my suit?"

He winced and wobbled a flat palm.

"Good enough."

Avery's eyes lit up, and he pressed one finger to his headset. "Ferris says we're ready. You?"

She cleared her throat. "Let's do it."

"We're ready!" he spoke into his headset. After a pause, he nodded, and fit head eye behind the camera's eyepiece. "We're live in five! Four! Three!"

He counted down the last two his fingers, then pointed forward.

This was it.

The story.

Time to shine.

In that moment, Margaret cast away all her fears. All her doubts and terrors, perking up into her reporter's persona. Chirpy, yet concerned. After all, who wouldn't be?

"This is Channel 3 news!" she informed. "I'm Margaret Addelville, coming to you live at the Megalith Institute of Science, or what's left of it! And behind me is quite possibly the biggest event that has ever graced our city! Not just in scope. Not just in size! But in the sheer mass of these four gargantuan beings that have suddenly appeared!"

She pointed her mic upward. Avery leaned up, trailing his camera lens to the four giants above them.

"Though we do not know yet the true nature of these behemoths, we can ascertain that they are recent arrivals! We have reliable reports that they appeared..."

She turned the mic away form herself, whispering to one of the crowd. "When did these guys show up?"

"Like twenty minutes ago?"

She turned the mic back. "Roughly twenty minutes ago, from the Megalith Institute of Science! We are the first to arrive at the scene. We do not know yet know what they intend, but we intend to find out!"

With Avery's camera trained on the
giants, she walked over to him, keeping her mic away as she whispered into his floppy ear.

"The camera stays on, no matter what. Got it?"

He gave a curt nod.

She stepped back, straightened down her ruffled suit, then gave a signal. Avery trained the camera back down to her, and she held up the mic with renewed gusto.

"I'll admit it, folks! This is quite terrifying! But I give you my guarantee that we will stay live until our cameras, or our very lives, expire! This is Channel 3 News, I'm Margaret Addelville, and everyone at Channel 9 is a hack!"

Avery leaned over his camera. "Uh..."

"I know what I said! Keep rolling!"

Bell glanced down at the gathering crowd, pooling in a dense mass near the front gates. "Hey, fellas?" He nodded down. "I believe the media's here."

The others followed his lead, craning their heads down to the puny figures below. Sure enough, in front of the crowd was a reporter, staring into the black eye of a hefty shoulder camera. A deer by the looks of it, gesticulating wildly towards the four of them.

"She's animated," Athos mumbled.

Saber wobbled in glee. "Guess we're stars now!" he said. "Smile for the camera, guys!"

Seth bounced on his heels, sending tiny tremors through the ground. Enough to send the crowd below scrambling back. The reporter kept her ground, simply shouting louder into her microphone as she pointed to them."If we're on camera, that means the whole city knows we're here," he observed.

Bell puffed a brief laugh. "I think they already knew were here, Seth."

"No, that's not what I meant. I meant I wanted the city to find out."

"How?"

"Like I said. With fun. The reason we're all standing here. C'mon, guys. We're all naked giants, here. Don't have to hide anything at this point. We all have the same dream. To be huge. Have the power to do anything we want. And-!"

He spun on his heel, turning to face the neighboring department store. He reared back one leg, held it for a moment, then sent it flying into the soft side of the building.

His leg smashed into it like a wrecking ball. An orange-spotted wrecking ball. The brick facade of the store collapsed instantly, an ugly hole blown into its side. The dust of pulverized masonry erupted upward, a rusty reddish cloud billowing from the wounded side of the building. It wafted far enough to reach their mouths, and they coughed as the particles drifted into their throats.

Seth faced them, hands on his hips, a long hole cut into the building. He swiped his long legs clean across the store. A whole wall of the first floor was simple gone, kicked inwards into the building or out into the street where it marked the road like seeds.

"-destroy anything and everything we want to!" Seth finished with a voice of triumph.

"Wow," Bell coughed. "Okay. Right off to the races, huh?"

"Yep! I didn't make that serum just to impress ya'll, you know."

"Clearly. But, I guess you're right." He glanced to the others. "I think we all share a certain...urge."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Seth asked. "C'mon, I hated that store. What's something you all have always really wanted to crush, but couldn't?"

Bell tilted his head. "My car, but-"

"And what's stopping you now?"

He froze. "Good point."

Seth took a few steps back, pointing down to the parking lot. "I think it's about time you sent that old thing to the scrap yard."

Bell glanced down, tapping his clawed feet against the pavement. There it was. His car, gray and square. A car he didn't care for.

Cramped. Smelled weird. Mileage was something awful. And he was pretty darn sure the thing was cursed.

A smile crept across him.

And the only way to get rid of a curse, was to break it.

He splayed out his arms, motioning for the others to clear the way. "Stand back! I'm gonna pound this thing into a pancake."

"Oooooh, car crushing~!" Athos purred. "Now that's an activity!"

The massive bluejay raised one leg, holding it over the doomed vehicle. "An activity that begins now!"

He slammed his foot with full force. A crushing blow of weight and power. A heavy, thunderous blow that descended down on the roof of the car in a yellow blur. The car collapsed under a mountain of flesh, crushed underneath hundreds of moving tons.

It crumpled like flimsy can. Its roof caved, its belly met the concrete below. Its tired popped off the rims, pushed down and flat against the pavement. As its body bounced off the concrete, a blaring scream erupted from the flattened car's hood. Its horn, stuck on full force, howling in a single, unbroken honk.

HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK!

Bell lifted his foot. Pieces of the car came with it, but the honk kept in its steady, loud hum.

"Ah, crap."

He crashed his foot down again, digging his heel deeper into the car's metal depths. His foot smashed through the thin smashed layer of the hated automobile, cracking down into the very concrete. A rumble shook the parking lot.

And still the horn blared.

With a full scowl, he lifted his foot again. Once more he brought it down in a massive stomp. But this time he didn't wait. As soon as his wide foot connected, he withdrew it and sent it crashing again. If one big stomp wouldn't do it, a flurry would. He smashed down in a furious succession of quick and powerful kicks.

With every hit, the car became less. Less a car and more a flat metal mass on the concrete, flatter with every blow above. Its honk was muffled now, but still stubbornly stuck. But it was wavering now, cutting in and out like a wounded animal.

Bell'd had enough. He pressed his foot down on the flattened car, then curled his toes in front of it. Using his claws, he scraped the squat vehicle off the pavement, then pinched it between his toes. It came along as easy as a card, riding between his digits as he lifted his sole towards the air. There he plucked it out, holding the still-honking flat car between his fingers.

hhhhhhhhhhhnk....

He pulled his hands apart.

The car snapped like a cracker, and the long honk cut with a final squawk. The thing finally silenced, leaving the bluejay with two halves of the former auto. He looked between the both of them, indecisive. "Hmmm. What should I do with these?"

"Eat 'em?" Seth suggested.

"No thanks. I've got enough iron in my diet."

Saber shrugged. "Stomp them even more?"

"I don't think it can get any flatter."

Athos smiled, and nodded his head to the buildings across the street. "Should be obvious. If it's destruction we want..."

Bell nodded. With a naughty grin he smashed the two halves together. With overwhelming strength he began to wad up the broken car, melding it into a new shape altogether. "I like the way you think, Athos."

"As do I~!"

He closed one eye, the other scanning the buildings on the other street. "So which should I aim for?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Eh, screw it. Bombs away!" He threw his leg high in a pitcher's pose.

A half-spin. A rush of air around his massive body, and then the release.

The once-car went flying as a massive black ball, a dark blur that instantly met a tall blue building window. The wall stood no chance. It exploded inward, chunks tumbling with the wadded car. The projectile bounced off the floor, knocking through another wall into a hallway beyond. A cloud of smoke enveloped it, engulfing the entire hole in an opaque cloud of rising debris. It drifted outward, a mix of black and brown. And the ringing of what Bell was pretty sure was a fire alarm.

Oh well, he thought. Not his problem.

The plume drifted out towards them, stray pieces raining forward. A tiny piece of cement blew out from the carnage like a little bullet, finding the very center of Saber's eye. He closed it tight and recoiled in stinging pain.

"Ow!"

Bell glanced back. "Sorry!"

The inflated hyena rubbed his eye for a moment. "S'alright."

"Catching flak up there?" Seth teased.

"Gonna need some goggles or something. Some really big ones."

"Maybe you should come down here and join us?" Athos suggested. "It won't be as fun if you just get to float up there and just watch us~!"

Saber scratched his chin. "Hmmm. Good point. Let's see if I can..." He twirled his massive arms, wide circles running like gigantic windmills. They chopped through the air, each roll of his shoulders bringing another gale to batter the air. It pushed at the growing clouds around them, blowing them out in curved columns, and sent the crowd below into defensive postures as the wind pressed down on him.

Slowly he righted himself, putting his massive, bare feet level with the destruction below. With his balance found, he reached out one paw and held it there.

The others glanced at him, waiting for him to act. Athos arched a brow.

With another burst of air, Saber punched himself in the gut. A light love tap to him, but its sound reverberated off the building walls around them. He grunted, and his lips parted to their sides as a tiny fraction of his air escaped. A high whistle, then silence.

Slowly, he began to descend. The others watched him float down to the ground, following him until the pads of his clawed feet gently pressed down on the remains of a flattened car. He arched his back, his fluffy tail waving behind him with a certain sense of surprise.

"Touchdown!" he declared.

"I'm surprised that worked," Bell chuckled.

"Gonna be honest, so am I!"

"I suppose we're all learning new things today, hm?" Athos said. "Natural trailblazers, all of us! But there's something I wanted to bring up. A hypothesis I want to test."

Seth scratched his chin. "Like what?"

Athos turned his green, slit eyes to the crowd of tinies below them. The group around them remained packed, curious glares and morbid curiosity anchoring them to their great forms.

"What do we do about...them?"

"The little guys?" Seth asked. He glanced down to the crowd as well. His mouth turned to a naughty grin. A crooked, knowing smile of mutual understanding, and he gave a slight nod. "I think we can do...whatever we want."

"I concur~!"

Saber took a step forward. He balled his knuckles together, popping them loud as he rolled his neck. "Yeah. About time we show these guys whose city it is now."

Bell glanced to the other three. "Oh, are we attacking?"

Saber frowned. "No, Bell, we're gonna ask them for more funding. Yes, we're going to attack them!"

The crowd, having heard all this in their booming voices, were
now beginning to disperse. The outer rim first, the first stragglers throwing themselves into wild retreat along the pavement. More followed, all of them yelling in terror as the core of the mob stayed behind. Fear or the siren call of curiosity, the masses kept staring up at the giants, as they continued to bicker.

Saber lifted his foot. He pumped his fists into the air, his long leg casting a shadow on the street below. "Attack of the Giant Scientist starts now!"

He smashed foot down onto the street. It careened, shattering into the concrete right in front of the crowd. The force rolled through with the power of a bomb. Another tremor shook the city to its pillars, and sent every building around them shuddering like a tub of slapped jello.

The entire crowd; cats and dogs and dragons and sharks alike all sent falling down as the quake threw them off their feet. A few were thrown into the air, helpless as any mote of dust before falling back down onto the people around them. Screams and shouts rolled out with the stomp's echo. Panic set in. Whatever curiosity they had was gone; now there was only fear. Old-fashioned terror at the monster towering above.

He ground down the pavement below him for good measure, crushing it back and forward between the pads of his foot. His heel chewed it into rubble, into pebbles, and finally into a fine ground grain of powder.

Saber kept his foot down, crushing underneath until the grinding sounded like fresh-fallen snow sifting under his heel. Only then did he lift it, watching as the dust fell gently from his soles and toes. He wiggled them slightly, sending layers of the stuff flowing down as a fog of ruined infrastructure.

"HAH!" Saber cheered. "How's that for a stomp?"

After his attack, a few crowd members were left as stragglers. Still out on their backs or too dazed to move, it presented an opportunity to the hyena above them. He swept his eyes over the crowd, then crouched down with his choice made. A gray shark in a clean business suit. His long tail whipped wild as Saber pinched him up by the scruff of his shirt and stared into him with a naughty smile.

"Hey, little shark. Enjoying the show?"

The shark squirmed against him. "Let me go!"

"That's about a fifty-foot drop. You sure you want me to do that?"

"I-"

"Of course, there's another way I could let you down. If you, say, made it worth my while..."

Bell quirked a brow. "Saber, what are you getting at it?"

"It's like Seth said," he replied. "We can do to these guys whatever we want. And I mean..."

He reached down. The others looked on in surprise as his co*ck swelled, growing from soft dangling flesh to a rising hardness. The shark looked down and tripled his efforts, his fear switched to another giant thing that threatened him. Without a drop of ceremony, Saber used one of his claws to rip through the shark's expensive suit, then lowered him down to the yearning flesh of his meat. He put the shark in his palm, then gripped his shaft with an urgent blush.

"More than one reason I made that serum. Been wanting this too long!"

The shark could only give a muffled plea, then lost to nothing as Saber began to stroke. Long, swiping pumps of his shaft, using the shark as a sex toy.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh! Now this is a perk!"

Athos walked up to him, tailing curling behind in amusem*nt. "You're quite resourceful."

"I'm more than resourceful!" Saber grunted. "I'm! A!"

He grit his teeth and shivered. His great co*ck twitched, and from it erupted a sticky glob of fresh cum. It dripped out from his co*ck and melted down into the pavement below, coating it in a field of sticky white mess. It came in waves, thick and thin, until the last significant drop sputtered out from his end.

Saber looked down to see the mess he'd made. He'd cum enough to fill a swimming pool. A lot of it had dropped down into the remnants of the crowd, sweeping them along in a messy sea of his fluids. And the shark was still there. Still buried in the flesh of his shaft, still pleasantly squirming. With a chuckle, he reached down and held up the helpless little fish in front of him.

"Thanks, little guy."

And he let go. The shark tumbled down with a cry, and went splashing into the thick cum below.

"My, what a display~!" Athos gushed. "I think I might try that for myself..."

Seth nodded. "Gives me a few ideas, too." He crouched down, inspecting the footprint that Saber had stomped into the ground. He picked up one of the chunks, a basketball-sized piece of road, and rolled it between his fingers with a keen eye. "We're already doing some damage." He crouched down next to the high hyena, and reached over to his foot. His talons between two of Saber's toes, and from it he plucked out a basketball-sized chunk of road. "Though I see you missed a spot."

He put it between his claws, and flicked it. It sprang forward in a black blur and met instant at the walls of the adjacent building. A red plume burst out as it struck the brick, then bounced fast back at Saber's head. It struck him straight between his eyes, and he recoiled in pain again.

"Ow!" he boomed. "Watch where you're flicking stuff, though!"

Bell walked over them. "You certainly did a number on the road." He looked down to the pavement. His coworker had stepped a nearly-perfect imprint of his foot down into the city. A signature declaring Saber had done the deed.

"Not just the road!" Seth called out.

They all turned to him. He was standing on one leg, a pleased smile on his face. When they looked down, they saw why. His foot was held over a broken fire hydrant. A hydraulic tower poured into his sole, white foam and glittering spray and the rush of overwhelming pressure. It rushed against him, falling back in sheets and fat droplets, a pool below rising in the broken gutter and cracked sidewalk.

"Probably knocked out water for blocks around! Heh!" He looked to them, his smile growing. "This feels really good, by the way. Wanna try?"

"I'll pass," Bell declined. "I think we're falling dangerously behind on our rampage schedule."

Seth's smile turned impish. "What, you think I'm just doing this for fun?"

"You do everything for fun, Seth. Remember that time I caught you making pictures of Athos with ferrofluid?"

The lynx blushed. He scowled in surprised anger, and a subtle flush rose on his muzzle. He threw his arms in the air, outraged. "H-hey! You told me you'd keep that a secret!"

Athos piqued his feather in curiosity. "Oh...?"

Seth looked at him. "You heard nothing!"

"I heard something~!"

Seth turned back, grinding his teeth. "That's it, crushing you both!"

Saber shook his head, and compared their height with a flat palm. "You're about the same size as all of us, Seth!"

"And I'm going to be changing that! Very, very, soon!"

He pushed his foot down onto the hydrant. Its iron body crumpled under the
weight. For a moment the flood stopped, then rushed back as a wide spray under Seth's heel. Spray erupted under his foot, spraying out as a wide star of rushing water. He turned back to them, crossing his arms with a smirk.

Bell blinked. "Wait a minute."

Seth had changed. He could see it now.

His foot planted on the busted hydrant was...swollen. It was engorged, shuddering and shaking like a water balloon as his body absorbed the liquid. His skin poured with the torrent, filling out with every crucial moment. It deformed under the flood, heel growing wide, toes thick and squishy. His limb was like a water bed, sloshy and waving and thick and heavy.

And as their foot filled out, so did his leg. The water spread, finding a new home up from his ankles. It rushed into his thigh, pushing out more of him in gradual but utterly unstoppable expansion.

Bell stepped back. "Ah, crap."

"'Ah crap' is right!" Seth boomed with a laugh. A practiced and maniacal laugh, fingers bent to claws and his back arched. "You all doubted me! Called me mad! Laughed at my theories at the university! But now is the Time of Seth! And among giants, I shall be a titan!"

Saber stepped back a little. His back heel crushed a single SUV that remained in the parking lot. It collapsed under him with a single pathetic honk, then fell silent as its whole frame buckled down to a pancake of polymer and steel.

He gave it only a second's thought; enough to look down, kick it away, then glance back to the still-growing Seth. "You've practiced this speech, haven't you?"

"A little bit!" Seth cackled. The water had filled out his thigh. Nearly double its previous glory, so tall the massive hyena was left standing still on his one other leg. He wobbled in the air, balancing himself against the gushing, sloshing torrent within him. His whole body creaked like an old ship, crackling and groaning under filling pressure.

It spilled over. With nowhere else to go, the water poured from his thigh into his torso. It spilled over into his other leg, spreading out his feet and toes just like the first. His flesh sagged under the weight, then snagged tight. It adjusted. Absorbed. The liquid fuel became part of him, rippling flesh turning back to taut muscle. Up through his leg, until it reached the peak of his waist.

The other three looked on, in varying states of interest. Even jealously. But looked on all the same, watching as the filling liquid poured into the hyena's privates. His balls pressed out in a quick shudder of growth, sloshing with the sound of muffled waves as the rest surged into his manhood. It rose suddenly, then flopped loose and heavy to a greater form. It dangling with new girth, new weight, new size.

Athos, Bell and Saber stood dumbfounded as Seth arched his back.

The growing lynx opened his mouth, showing sharp and shiny teeth. A sigh of satisfaction he made; deep and primal.
The water filled up from his torso, pushing the rest of him to match his lower half. Gushing into his chest to new muscular mass, then into his arms. They pressed out with new strength, liquid growth filling to their ends. As soon as they reached their limit, he flexed them hard, bringing their flowing surface back down to the hardness of giant flesh.

Only his head remained. A tiny dot compared to the rest of him, but it too finally followed. It lagged behind on growth, growing slower than the rest of him. Annoyed, he grabbed one of his arms and squeezed on its wrist. The pressure shifted instant, and his head blew out to match.

He stood tall and wet, smug and smiling, his new height casting a huge shadow over the neighborhood.

He was huge.

Nearly twice as tall as the rest of them, great and wet and shining. No building around them matched him. He stood towering over their peaks, now a true goliath among the city streets. If people hadn't known, hadn't believed that were giants among them, they certainly did now.

Strands of water poured over his chest in flowing streams. From his legs and feet and face, all rushing down in converging rivers to the ground below. His arms he held out, paunchy globs of water dripping from their ends.

"There!" he finished. He held up one of his arms and flexed it fast. A spray erupted, falling to the earth in a fine cool mist. "How's that for growth?"

Athos stepped forward. He dressed the colossal lynx with eyes, only to undress him as he studied his new and dripping form. "Very, very impressive, Seth!"

Seth struck another pose. He curled one arm and threw out the other. "I've been telling you guys for years that hydrophilic solutions were the future, but ya'll didn't listen. And look at you now! You're tiny." He released his pose, glancing down on them with co*cky energy. "I'm your king now!"

"Unless my eyes lie, I didn't see you grow a crown," Bell drolled. "Can't say the same about your ego."

Seth grimaced. "You're just jealous. And, if I remember, I think I said something about crushing you!"

"Both of us, if I recall~!" Athos added with a saucy smile. "You could certainly teach us a lesson!"

"I intend to!"

Saber moved between them. "Could we stow the civil war for later?" He looked up to his gargantuan comrade, and gave a sharp whistle of compliment. "But I'll admit. That's pretty cool. But I have to wonder."

"Wonder what?" Seth protested. "I'm big, you're all small. That puts me in charge! Giant's rules."

"First off, you made that up. Second off, I wanna see if you actually have any mass behind that or if you'll just spring a leak at the first thing you touch."

"You doubt the mighty Seth?"

"We're scientists. If this ain't a field test, I don't know what is!"

A drop of reason entered Seth's demeanor. His shoulders sulked a bit. "Hmmm. You're right. But what should we test it on?"

Saber gestured to the street. To the piled cars and scattering civilians, and the few brave souls that yet remained. "How about all the terrified pedestrians and their nice, expensive city?"

Seth flashed his teeth. "Great idea!" He turned to the street, and punched a fist. The very blow thundered for blocks around. With that, he bent his knees and readied himself for a hurricane of destruction.

"Keep filming?!"

"Keep filming!"

The camera's feed shuddered as the giant lynx took their first step. In its view was Maggy, fingers clenched tight around her microphone. Her dress was soaked with water and grime and her hair a bedraggled mess.

Maggy ran a smooth hand over her hair, and looked at the camera dead center. "We're still live, right?"

Avery threw a shaky thumbs-up. Externally, supportive. Internally, regretting every decision he'd ever made. And by the way things were going, every decision he ever would. But someone had to carry the camera.

The reporter stood up as far she dared, peeking over the door of the overturned car. She glanced up, the camera following her to show the four giants among them. Three giants and one larger still. The great lynx, jumping from side to side in ground-shaking hops. The giant seemed to be psyching himself up, rolling his head and flapping his wrists as his body glinted in shining wetness.

She turned back. "This is Maggy Addelville coming to you live from the Megalith Institute of Science! This is unbelievable folks! If you are listening on radio, I sincerely beg you to find a television or your nearest smartphone because you need to see this!"

And blow rolled through the earth. Maggy ducked, then recovered to continue her report.

"Moments ago, these four gigantic beings appeared in or around the Megalith Institute of Science! Their origins are unclear, their identities unconfirmed. But as for their goals-"

The ground came out under them. The camera's feed went to a busted blur, thrown sideways with its cameraman. Avery laid on his back, holding his camera tight as he focused it forward. In his view, the great lynx. He'd jumped in a great bound, and now was falling back to the earth. Not on his feet, but sideways with a dropped elbow and extended tongue.

Contact. The giant landed on a nearby building, and it exploded under him. It folded, failed, and vanished into a cloud of devastation. It erupted upward and outward, a flow of dust that filled the streets and poured through them as an ocean of broken parts. It rolled toward the camera, then overtook it with a roar of power. They were blown on their backs again. Metal screeched as cars shifted in their places, people ran for cover, glass shattered in windows around the block.

Avery pulled himself to his feet again. He ran over to Maggy, slumped against the overturned car. When he approached her, she sprang up and swatted him away. "Keep rolling!" she whispered, and grabbed the camera's end. She focused it back onto herself, and looked up to the rising junk cloud with eyes of amazement.

"But as for their goals, this reporter finds them very clear! It appears as if these beings want nothing more, desire nothing more than the destruction of our fair city! In mere minutes their trail of destruction has likely already cost the city damages in the billions! Possibly trillions!"

She turned back, leaning against the car with an exhausted huff. "We are safe for now, viewers, but that could change at any time! I cannot stress enough that you do not approach this location, for any reason! This is straight out of a movie, with all the twists and turns of any proper blockbuster. I'm absolutely terrified folks! My heart is pounding on the door of my sternum, and convinced he's going to be let through! This is the sign of our times! Utter chaos, utterly unexpected!"

Avery leaned out behind the eyepiece. "Maggy?"

She ignored him. "Absolute terror here! Absolute mayhem! If I weren't here myself, I'd dismiss this as the ramblings of a terrible author! But this is real, folks! It's real, it's dangerous, it's live, and it's brought to you by Channel 3!"

"Maggy!"

"Hold on, folks! Our camera's having problems!"

She tore her mic away as Avery pushed the camera's eye to the side. None too happy about her interruption.

"What?"

He nodded forward.

The other giants. The raptor, the hyena, and the bluejay. The hyena and the bluejay were looking at the raptor between them, brows raised in interest as the gray-scaled giant flexed his claws.

The bluejay spoke, his voice loud and piercing. "Playing catch-up?"

The massive raptor smiled. "I should say so! Can't let Seth steal the show!"

The great heyna glanced over to the destroyed building. He watched as the much taller lynx rose out of it, dusting himself off with the film and sprinkled remains of the building. "Mark my words, he's going to try and suplex a skyscraper."

"Don't give him ideas..." the bluejay countered.

"I can't say I'm that ambitious," the raptor said, "perhaps a crane. Or even a train. Oh, what choices I'll have~!

It was clear to see. The raptor was growing. Growing like they'd filmed the lynx growing, but this one's ascension was different. Unlike the swelling fullness of the lynx, the raptor simply...expanded. Taller. Wider. Fuller, all at the same time. A linear path to height and weight, slow and steady but just as unstoppable.

Maggy allowed herself a moment's disbelief, then turned back to the camera. "Absolutely incredible, folks! Not one, but two of the giants have now begun to grow even further! Is there no stopping this terror? This reporter asks: where are the police?! Where is the military?! Will Margaret Addelville be the first casualty in the resistance against these behemoths?! I certainly hope not!"

The raptor emerged. He expanded more and more, every moment bringing a new meter to his height. The other two giants stood back, giving him room to rise as his body poured over the asphalt. His growth came with crunching moans; the moan of broken concrete, of steel, of everything as his feet expanded out beneath him. The growing giant closed his eyes and clenched his teeth as his expansion accelerated, and his whole form filled the camera's lens.

Maggy glanced at the growing raptor, then switched back to the camera. "This reporter does not envy the architects that are surely weeping bitter tears as they watch their projects simply vanish under these growing colossi!"

Avery pointed back to the giants.

She jumped out from her cover, watching as the raptor kept growing. Huge. Gargantuan. He'd matched bigger lynx's size now, and was still growing. Still expanding, and expanding towards them. There was frightening
little space between their car and his taloned foot now, and it surged towards them with creeping doom.

She gave a curt nod, and glanced to the camera. "In the interest of journalism, my cameraman and I will enact a tactical retreat! But mark my words, viewers, he will not take his focus off this strange being, no matter what!"

"Maggy?"

"No story too big! No giant too big! Channel 3 will brave the depths of the unknown to bring you this story, or we will die trying!

"Maggy!"

She turned around. The foot had ground its way nearly to them, a wave of pavement churning beneath it. She stumbled away, flailing as the screen filled with gray scales.

"Oh, shi-!"

The screen cut to static.

Bell and Saber watched with impressed expressions as Athos rose, up, up in smooth expansion. A perfectly balanced development, a dial inside him being turned by a careful hand. Cars and city road alike were curled up under his expansion; swept aside by his feet, toes. One unlucky truck was flipped over by the tip of his tail. It went flying with a fresh, long indent caved in its side, and it rolled over into the front doors of a nearby building.

In the smoke of the stucture Seth had flattened, movement stirred within. A dark shape inside the rubble, sifting through dust and ash for the sun's welcome rays. The lynx poked his head out above the debris, coughing as he tried to banish the volcano of junk he'd smashed into the air. When he patooie'd out what he could, he turned his attention to his friends.

"Hey, what gives? Why aren't you guys..."

He trailed off when he saw Athos, slowly emerging to a height above even his. Up, out, sideways, all even in their swells. Seth's jaw went slack, and he climbed out of the remains of the building. What was left of it crumbled down over his shoulders, crashing into the pile below. His long tail scraped the last, dragging chunks of it out into the street.

He came up into a dark shadow. Athos's shadow, growing longer by the moment.

"No fancy tricks, no fancy gimmicks!" Athos boasted. "Just good, old-fashioned growth!" His voice grew deeper as he rose. From the tone of a teasing flirt to something rich and base, a bellow that rattled the air with every word. His fleshed rounded out, thickened skin sliding across the engorged muscle. Every part of him found its place, perfect in their union and in their size, absolute.

He stretched upward to the sky, until he neared twice Seth's height. Only then did his growth finally slow, from a gradual slope to a flattening plateau. With a few stray bwurps of spurting growth, he was finished.

Athos raised his arms. His movements were...sluggish. Almost sleepy, as if his size couldn't keep up with his actions. He grabbed one arm, raised the other, and yawned with a wide-open mouth.

"Aaahhhhhhhhhhh~!" he sighed. "Much better!"

Seth cupped his hands, shouting up at the towering raptor. "Show-off!"

Athos peered down at his colleague, smirking smugly. "As if you have ground to stand on, my waterlogged friend~!"

Seth rolled his eyes. "So you grew out nice and even. He put a hand on his hip, swaying them as he did a very poor imitation of Atho's voice. 'Look at me, I'm Athos! I flirt with everyone and write all the best scientific papers!"

"That's not untrue."

Saber stuck one of his wide fingers in front of his mouth and lolled out his tongue. "Bleh!" he gagged. "But seriously! Athos! How'd you get it to work so smooth?"

"Trade secret!"

"Well, that's not helpful."

Athos only smiled. His tail waved behind him, swishing back and forth between the narrow ally between the buildings. Almost unconsciously the tip of it smashed against the stores on both sides of the street, beating their facades to a glassy twisted pulp. So large he was causing chaos and destruction without even trying.

"Slow and steady wins the race~!" Athos lectured. With wicked mirth he raised one of his legs, and brought his huge talon to the center of Saber's chest. He poked him, sending the tall hyena stumbling back across the stones.

"H-hey!" Saber barked. "What'd I do?"

"Nothing."

"Then don't-!"

"I mean nothing, Dr. Swahali! We've been knocking down buildings left and right, but what do you have to your name, hm? A couple of cars, maybe?"

Saber co*cked a brow. "And who made you the king of giants?"

Athos gestured to Seth. "As per the rules set by Seth, I believe the biggest among us is the giant king."

Saber crossed his arms. "That's a stupid rule, and I'm electing to ignore it!"

"Then what do you propose?"

"Whoever knocks down the most stuff is king one two three go!"

On the last word he threw himself backward. The ground rumbled under the force of his mighty jump, the very city pressed down for the barest moment. He bounded upward, throwing out his arms and legs in a doomed dive back to the bottom. His back struck the dense row of buildings behind the lab.

They had no answer. They failed under his weight. The years and planning that took to building all for naught as titanic weight came crashing down. They collapsed inward under his back, rooves caving to rooms caving to bottom levels in rains of wood and plastic and glass. His massive body hit bottom, and another tremor battered the city streets in a lazy shake.

The others swayed as the street did below them, watching as the smoke drifted up from Saber's impact. Bell almost said something, only to be cut off when Saber immediately sprang up from the carnage and threw a karate chop at the building over. The building stood no chance. It split down the middle with a deep gash, all of it punching to the first floor with a rattling crash.

"Boom!" Saber shouted. He delivered another chop, a vertical one to cross the first. His flat palm struck out pieces of floor and wall, throwing it all far out into the city beyond. It rained down the street, and people ran for cover as giant splinters and support beams came falling from the sky.

He punched the scar straight in the middle, where the two lines met. It collapsed as a house of cards and fell into its own ruin, claimed by another cloud quickly rising to join the others.

"Oh," Bell blurted. "Well, if that's the name of the game..."

He picked the closed building. One next to the institute, and grasped its roof with his feathered fingers. With a grunt he brought his knees into its side, punching his own style of hole through the masonry.

He kept kneeing it until the structure took no more, and the rest of it simply fell as a ruined tower. What was left of the roof lay still clutched in Bell's fingers, and he tossed it away. Without a second thought, he switched to the next building, kneeing it like the first with ever greater force. Saber meanwhile continued to throw his wild chops into every building around them, shouting half-remembered anime phrases with every swing.

"That's the spirit!" Athos cheered. Show those buildings who's boss!"

Seth watched them competitively destroy the neighborhood for a moment, then took a step back. "Uh. I'll be right back."

Athos glanced down at him. "Don't tell me you're getting cold feet, Seth." He raised one of his clawed feet, twiddling his toes through the air. "I'd have to have to pin you down to make you stay."

"None of that! I got my own strategy to win. I just gotta do a little recon."

"Then by all means~!"

"And what about you? What's your big plan?"

"Simple!"

Athos raised his tail, then brought it careening down on a building behind him. It splintered under his backside limb with a shower of dust and flying brick, defeated in a single swipe. And with lazy effort he brought it to the opposite side of the road, sending its twin building to a similar doom of death-by-tail. With both of them blown to pieces, he raised his tail back up high. The end of it wiggled in the air, taunting Seth with the fresh ruin falling from its tip.

"...Right," Seth said. "But don't get co*cky. The day's young!"

"Better hurry up~!" Athos teased. "4th place is so...undignified."

"I'll show you fourth place!"

Seth turned tail and bounded down the street, the street cracking under his run.

"No journalist prize is worth this!" Ferris shouted.

Maggy pointed outside. "Less talk, more fix!"

The peaco*ck was hunched over the camera, a mess of cable in his hand. Hasty field repairs that called on his expertise. "Out of the frying van and into the fire," he mumbled. He plugged two wires together. They burst in a shower of sparks.

Avery glanced out the window. What was left of it. More a square hole in the side of what was once a building, the wall standing by itself defiant of everything around it. Beyond, giants. Two of them fought the buildings like they were punching bags, and the much bigger raptor smashing everything in sight with his tail. Every blow that struck was another few seconds the ground betrayed them, another few moments where they all had to brace.

Ferris looked up, squinting at a line of dust that came raining down above. "I swear, it's like getting shelled."

Maggy was filthy. Her dress had a fresh tear down the middle, one of her shoulders giving way to the elements. The strap of her bra was visible underneath, and bits of detritus filled her hair. But still she persisted, holding her treasured mic tight as Ferris finished the last of the repairs.

"Alright!" he shouted. "That should hold, but-!"

"Good enough!" she shouted, and kicked the camera over to Avery. He caught it out of the air and flicked the power button, sending its signal light to flashing green. Ferris threw up his hand, and as consolation decided to come behind Maggy as she straightened
her shredded tie. He sat down on a rock that was probably once a wall, arms folded as the deer readied for action.

Avery quickly counted down with his fingers, and pointed to her. Live once again.

"And we're back!" Maggy shouted. "Back, to the scene of the century! To unparalleled armageddon playing out across our fair city! Sorry for the interruption, folks! In this line of business, sometimes even we get a little too close to the action!"

Ferris leaned out behind her. He brought a finger to his head and twirled it, crossing his eyes as he mocked Maggy behind her back. She took a step back and kicked him in straight in the stomach, her heels punching deep into his gut. His crossed eyed crossed deeper and he went tumbling over the rock out of sight.

"-I make this promise: this broadcast only permanently ends when we are dead!"

Ferris rose up. "And who's fault will that be?"

Maggy threw one of her shoes at him. He went running for cover out of frame. She glared for a moment, then turned back with a chipper smile. She motioned for the camera to move right, and its frame drifted to the open hole in the building's side. In its focus, giants. The bluejay kicked buildings to rubble, the hyena chopping them into broken cinders. And the tail of that raptor! It-

Ferris dove for cover. "Look out!"

BWOOM!

They were all thrown to their feet. The gargantuan tail of the raptor came crashing down on the building just across from them. It exploded in a haze of brown and black, the rest shattered into powder. It plumed upward and outward, covering the hole street in a dense fog of devastation.

Maggy recovered first. She spit out a rock, and crawled over to the camera. She pulled its gaze onto her, smoothed out her hair, and cleared her threat.

"Squeamish viewers may want to look away, for these giants are not just destroying our city, but the very pride of our citizens!"

One of the giants paused his rampage for a moment. He pointed to something at his feet, and the hyena followed. They shared a smile, and the bluejay reached down into the growing chaos. The camera followed his hand, zooming into something small and squirming between his fingers. The giant had caught himself a person, a thin cheetah, doing his best to wrench himself free.

But his efforts were in vain. He was at the mercy of the two colossi, and they subjected them to their will. The bluejay's grin turned saucy as he looked down to his rising co*ck, straddling high and mighty among the rubble around it. With the tiny in hand, he forced them down against his member and stroked him against the flesh. The giant shuddered with pleasure, content in his use in sighing strokes. After a few he handed the poor bystander to hyena, who wasted no time in pushing them against their own co*ck and using them as a squirming stimulant.

"This is not CGI nor the creations of any clever greenscreen! As strange as it seems, as apparently lewd as it seems, I will attest that this is 100% real! Real as any warzone!"

Avery turned the camera right. Towards a new subject: the raptor. The gray dinosaur was just as busy as his compatriots. Even more so. His tail he used as well as any finger, sending it striking into the smoke around him with sniper precision. Its end was always the same; his tail rose above the dust, its end wrapped tight around a struggling city goer.

This one he raised up the level to his face. A bear in a plaid shirt. He could only make a token effort to free himself, forced to watch as the raptor looked at him with hungry eyes and licking lips.

Maggy hitched her breath. She feared the dinosaur would eat him, only for him to do something else. Instead of consuming the bear, he used his tail to bring him behind his haunches, and force him deep into the depths of his rear. A small blush appeared on the raptor's cheeks as he pushed in his new toy, then withdrew to greater shivers.

"I'm not entirely convinced this isn't a dream," Ferris blurted. "Also, I think they're getting closer."

The raptor ceased his pleasuring. He looked up. Over to them. Not at them, but that didn't matter as Avery turned and ran with his camera still in tow.

Maggy followed him. She ran even faster, running out in front while still delivering her commentary. "But some places are too dangerous even for us! We've decided to relocate so someplace marginally safer. A quest for a hidden fortress nearby, where we may keep filming this unprecedented disaster playing out before our very eyes!"

She forced her mic away. "Avery, where are we going?!"

He pointed ahead. A crater in the road. An oversized footprint knocked deep, its natural curves creating a foxhole of asphalt. One side has caved in totally, its deep end filling with water from pipes below.

Maggy nodded. She gestured to the footprint as well. "And even our very water supply is under attack! But this dugout is our best bet for survival, so we'll take it!"

A blur shot past them. It was Ferris, breaking every speed record there was in a wild dash. He made it to the crater first, jumping down and rolling through its steep incline. He poked out his head, his crest flared to its ends in fear as he barked for them to dive for it. He wasn't looking back at them.

He was looking up.

"Go go go go go go go go go!" he rattled.

The camera's eye pointed upward. A shade of black covered it, the sun smothered by a massive shape. It was the giant raptor. The might colossus was on the move, slow and sluggish as his foot raised above the streets. The bottom of his taloned foot dangled high.

And was falling.

The giant's foot was headed straight down at them. Falling, falling, cruising upon their heads. They could hear the wind that blown out of the way as it surged towards them, and the skies darkened under its wide shadow. The shadow of a giant upon them, all his weight and power to crush them an instant.

Maggy dove first. She rolled down the ledge like Ferris, and perked up to yell at Avery.

But, he tripped. His boot caught on a piece of bent road and went tumbling forward onto his belly. The giant's foot above loomed closer by the moment, its owner no wiser to their fate.

Maggy jumped out. With impressive speed she ran over, tossed the camera into the crater, then dragged Avery up by his collar. They went stumbling together back into their hole, the roar of the coming foot bearing down on their shoulders.

They fell in, just as the foot came crashing down upon them.

KA-TTTTTTTTTTHUMP!

The world smashed to black. A shaking, shuddering dark end as the giant's mass came down around them, and blocked out the light of the sun. They were tossed about like dolls, the camera screen capturing only a black void and rattling din as the whole city rumbled.

But
still rolling. The shaking faded. A suffocating silence followed. In the black there were only groans of discomfort, the shuffling of tinies among giants in the sunless hole. No light to illuminate their struggles, curses and grunts sounding out as they tumbled over one another.

Maggy's face appeared in the lens. Her face was ghostly, illuminated below a weak light on the camera's top. Her voice was low, careful lest they alert the giant on top of them.

"Folks. We have just been stepped on by the largest of the giants."

The camera craned up, revealing the underside of the massive raptor's sole. Where the scales grew thin and soft, and long grooves of flesh curling between them.

"I'd say this is our closest brush with doom yet. We're trapped like vermin! I'm not sure if this monster knows we're here, but I shall stick by my guarantee. Keep rolling, no matter the cost!"

Ferris melted out of the darkness, appearing next to Maggy like a haunting ghost. His cigarette still hung loose in his beak, its end now crumpled and bent. His eyes spoke murder, leering at his coworker as she kept up her report.

"You know what?" he prompted, "I'm not even mad. I'm impressed at this point."

Maggy clenched her teeth. "Shut up, Ferris," she murmured.

"Assuming the van isn't trashed, I'm not even sure we have a signal down here. For all we know, everyone back at the station is just getting static."

"I'll make you-"

Halfway through her throat, the ground shook again. Light poured in over the crater as the massive foot lifted high, and they all scrambled for cover at the bottom. Bits of it rained down on top; little pieces carried along for the ride. Maggy pulled herself up, and gestured to Avery to follow the hulking being. His frame jumped upward, locking onto the gray raptor.

The giant was walking. Walking to the two others beating down the other buildings, standing among a dusty fog that rose to their tall knees. The raptor spoke, booming voice draped in amusem*nt.

"SO, HAVING FUN~?"

The bluejay kicked his building. It came down around his knee, and he stepped back, brushing himself off. "Sure, but this is getting old hat. Honestly, I'm a little worried."

"Me too!" the hyena affirmed.

"HOW SO?"

The bluejay shrugged. "Because if I did my numbers right, I should be getting bigger."

"Same!" the hyena echoed. "Like, bigger than you, Athos."

Maggy glanced back at the camera with a gleeful smile. "Did you hear that, folks? These giants, or at least one of them, has a name! Athos!"

Avery leaned away from his eyepiece. "I think the bluejay's name is Bell."

"And the hyena's is Saber."

Maggy scowled. "And you didn't tell me this because...?"

"We were sort of busy not trying to die."

"Hmph." She regained her reporter's persona, and looked straight into the camera. "Regardless! Athos, Bell, and Saber! Fitting names for such destructive demigods! The mind boggles to even guess where these mysterious
individuals came from. Military experiment? Toxic waste? Or is this the vanguard to invasion from another world?"

"I'm pretty sure they're scientists from that lab."

"...or even rogue scientists! The possibilities are simply endless, just like the growth of these titanic terrors!"

"Speak of the devil," Ferris pointed. "I think one of them's blowing up!"

He told the truth. The bluejay stood among the ruined city, holding out one of his arms. It shook violently, something within fighting to break out from its flesh prison.

He was...inflating! His very flesh was starting to inflate, puffing out like a marshmallow around the rigid bones of his body. The giant smiled as the effects took hold, pleased to watch as his arm grew out to fat proportions around its core.

"Finally!" he shouted. "About time I show all you what real growth looks like!"

The swollen effect traveled from his arm, then into the torso. Like his limb it pushed out to roundness, blowing him up as something soft and squishy. The effect dropped into his legs, sending him stumbling as his gravity shifted and his mass multiplied by the moment. The ground quaked beneath him, more of the street and city straining under the growing weight. His legs, his arms, his chest, and finally his head turned to a fleshy mass, fat and meat crowding out the giant's standing form. He soared upward, leaving the hyena to stumble back as his head reached up and up, until it held high above.

"Holy-!" Ferris breathed. "He's as big as the raptor now!"

The bluejay wobbled in place, swinging about his stumpy arms at the hyena. He seemed rather pleased with himself.

But the hyena remained unimpressed. "Be pretty funny if you stayed like that."

"SORRY TO DISAPPOINT, BUT I CHECK MY MATH," the giant bluejay boomed. He'd matched the humongous raptor not just in height, but volume, every syllable croaked in a deafening roar.

"Yeah, yeah, you're the golden child. At least Athos knows how to how to tell a joke."

"I COULD TELL ONE RIGHT NOW, IF YOU'D LIKE~!"

He threw up his arms. "You know what? Forget all ya'll, I'm getting bigger now." He planted his feet on the ground and balled his fists. With gritted teeth he prepared himself, then opened his maw wide. The sharp intake of air rolled through the city as he breathed in, filling the vacuum of his lungs. His whole chest puffed out to impossible proportions, stretching like a rubber with every breath he took. Each one louder. Each one, bigger.

The news crew could feel the wind on their back with every suck of breath. Long and greedy bites at the oxygen, stealing more to fuel his form. Every breath brought him to more enormous heights, pushing him higher and higher. Like his bluejay counterpart, his limbs took on an almost balloon proportion, but where the bluejay's had the aspect of swollen flesh, his turned to floaty thinness. Form with emptiness, air with meat. He was growing on the legs of air itself, his limbs pushed to impossible size fueled by the very wind.

Haaaaah!

He breathed in. Twice as high, rising above the building around him.

Haaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

Another long breath, sending out his limbs to rounded lengths. He took on the aspects of a parade's float, big and lazy. His feet floated off the ground, buoyant force defiant against gravity's tether-hold.

HaaaaaaaaaaaaAAHHHHHHHHHH!

With a third massive inhale, he reached up in size to match his friends. He took in as much his body allowed, leaving him an inflated mass of hyena with soft flesh. Almost ready to pop.

The bluejay nodded his swollen head. "NOT BAD."

"WHADYA MEAN, 'NOT BAD'?" the hyena questioned. "LEAST I DON'T HAVE TO TURN INTO A BLUEBERRY TO GET BIG!"

"IF I COULD MOVE, I'D PUNCH YOU."

The hyena threw up his dukes, swinging them through the air. An awkward move, throwing him in a slow backspin as his floaty body tumbled through the air. "AIN'T STOPPING ME. I'LL RING YOUR BELL, BELL!"

The raptor interceded. He slowly stomped forward, crushing road and rubble beneath him. "CHILDREN, CHILDREN! NO NEED TO FIGHT. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT'S QUITE OBVIOUS WHO ACTUALLY HAS THE BEST METHOD."

The hyena looked over, raising his brows in a skeptic stare. "RIGHT. MR. VANILLA OVER HERE."

"NOW THAT'S JUST UNCALLED FOR."

"HOLD ON," the bluejay blurted. He wobbled his head as his body shifted beneath him. The massively swollen aspects of him began to fill out. His proportions began to even, setting out as the rest of his body took up. It settled like a thousand new houses on top of each other, loud creaks and groans creaking out over the city as they filled n the giant's flesh. He rolled his neck as it happened, bones popping deep inside muffled by layers of fat and muscle.

With the last groan of effort, the rest of him pulled into place. His proportions had averaged out, leaving him a great giant with normal proportions. He rubbed his wrist as the very last of him pushed into place, then glanced over to his hyena friend with a raised brow.

"BIG WHOOP," the hyena went, "WATCH THIS!" He balled his fist and closed his eyes. A great grunt of effort rolled up from his throat as he strained in concentration, pouring all his effort into the core of his being.

"GRRRRRRRRRR!"

His face turned red. A single line of sweat poured down from his forehead, and for a moment the bluejay looked concerned.

"UH, SABER? DON'T PULL SOMETHING."

POP!

The sound of an exploded paper bag magnified a millionfold blew out from the hyena's body. In an eye's blink his form imploded, from an inflated floaty thing to an ordinary giant. Or at least, what passed for normal now.

His form collapsed to normal proportions, then fell as gravity took hold. He suffered a short fall to the city street, all his weight crashing down in a brief drop. Still mammoth in its power, it held enough to send the news crew tumbling back down the crater. All save Avery, who kept his camera fixed on the giant stretching his new body. Like the bluejay, he'd grown out as tall as the raptor.

They were all roughly equal in height now, truly massive things that dwarfed every building around them. Only the tall skyscrapers of the downtown rose higher.

Maggy dug herself out of the hole. Her breaths were deep and raggedy, exhausted and pained and her dress now looking like something had tried to eat her. And did. She dragged herself onto the crater's edge and flopped onto rim. Her visage filled the camera screen, recording her battered address.

"Folks, I'm going to be honest. I don't think I get paid enough for this."

Bell and Saber flexed against each other, both of them eager to show off the true glory of their physique. Mostly both trying to look bigger than the other, each of them critiquing the other's scientific methods for how they'd gained their height.

Athos watched with an amused grin. His appetite for the moment, he took in the pleasure of watching two fellow men of science engage in the most juvenile of comparisons.

"I HAVE TO ADMIT," he called, "I REALLY AM IMPRESSED. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, I THINK WE'VE ADVANCED THE CAUSE OF SCIENCE BY A THOUSAND YEARS TODAY!"

Bell relax from one of his poses. He turned his hand over, inspecting his fingernails as wide across as a car. This large, his voice came across as a guttural base even to his fellow giants. "I'M SURE YOU KNOW THE PHRASE 'ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS', DR. ATHOS?"

"OF COURSE~!"

"THAT'S US. WE'RE THE GIANTS."

"INDEED!" Athos replied. He glanced around at the wide swath of architectural gore they'd left in their wake, and a brief hint of regret graced his brow. "THOUGH I DO HAVE TO WONDER. ARE WE GETTING CARRIED AWAY?"

Saber blew an irreverent raspberry. "PFFFFT! HELL NO! WE'VE DONE THE IMPOSSIBLE. I THINK WE'RE OWED A FLATTENED NEIGHBORHOOD. OR TWO. OR THREE. I DUNNO; I'VE KINDA LOST COUNT HERE."

"I BELIEVE THIS ARE MORE COMMERCIAL ZONES WE'RE TRAMPLING," Bell clarified.

"LA-DEE-DAH. HEY, TELL ME IF YOU SEE A STORE WITH RED BRICKS AND WHITE ROOF. I'VE GOT A BIT OF A SCORE TO SETTLE."

"PHOENIX IN A COWBOY HAT OUT FRONT? BIG SPATULA IN HIS HAND?"

"YEAH! YOU SEE IT?"

Bell reached behind him. Down to his bare bottom, where he wrenched something free from one of his cheeks. A very flattened sign of an adult Phoenix, all their features smushed and widened under a crushing blow. If they had a spatula, it was gone. Snapped off at its end, gone to who-knew-where.

Bell handed it over to Saber. "I MAY HAVE KICKED IT TO SMITHEREENS. SORRY."

Saber took it with a sulk. "AH, MAN! AND I CALLED DIBS!"

"NO YOU DIDN'T."

"IT WAS IMPLIED!"

"NO IT WASN'T."

Not in the mood to cycle in a loop, Saber took up the sign in both hands. He scowled down at it, growling in bestial fury. It rolled through him from his feet into the ground, making stray rocks and pebbles dance on city's earth. His fury grew until he turned and threw it with full force at the downtown. It went screaming out in a terrible art, shot out like a battleship's shell. In mere seconds it rose, then fell towards the dense cluster of skyscrapers.

But it fell short. Instead its trajectory brought it down into the curved dome of the city stadium and punched through. The sign crashed in and took half the roof with it, steel and tin and aluminum crumpling together in a twisted mass of metal.

Saber seemed satisfied. He pointed at the failing stadium, brow furrowed but a smile on his face. "THAT'S FOR BEING THE WORST BAR I'VE EVER BEEN TO!"

The stadium's roof collapsed inward, hitting the field below with a plume of dust. The sound twisted its way back to them a moment later; a high groan of an overpriced tourist trap breathing its last.

"AND THAT'S FOR BEING THE WORST TEAM IN THE COUNTRY," Bell added.

Dusting off his paws, Saber turned back. "SO, ANYONE SEEN SETH? HE KIND OF RAN OFF."

Seth's voice boomed behind him. "SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, AND HE SHALL APPEAR!"

They all turned to the source. Seth, his body wet and shining in the sunlight. He was dripping water, his limbs sloshing with fresh liquid. Its waves across his limbs and chest, writhing like a stormy sea. He was slightly taller than he'd been, but not by much. Only a few dozen meters instead of the enormous spurts they'd gone through, and was now the shrimp of the group.

In his hands, he had something white and bent in his clutches. Whatever it was, it was the source of his hydration. Water dripped from it, droplets hitting the ground below in massive splashes.

"THOUGH I HAVEN'T FIGURED OUT HOW TO GIVE MYSELF DEVIL HORNS. YET."

"THERE YOU ARE~!"" Athos piped. "AND HERE I WAS WONDERING IF YOU'D OFF AND GOTTEN LOST!"

"ME? LOST? I'M NOT THAT EASY TO GET RID OF. I THINK."

"AND WHAT'S THAT IN YOUR CLUTCHES, THERE?"

He held out the thing in his hand, then dropped. It fell to the pavement, hitting it with a rattling clang as its bent body went flat. "WATER TOWER. I WAS GONNA USE IT TO GET BIGGER, BUT...I SORT OF SQUEEZED IT TOO HARD."

Saber shook his head. "SHAME! GUESS YOU'RE GONNA BE THE RUNT FOREVER!"

"HEY, THERE'S A LOT MORE PLACES I CAN FIND WATER. I JUST NEED SOMETHING A LITTLE MORE STILL, S'ALL!"

Athos glanced down. To the street level, where he spotted a deep crater lodged in the pavement. It looked like an indentation where he'd stomped particularly hard, with flattened cars and deeper end where the heel has struck the earth. Filled with water; practically a pool, a water main bleeding out into the deeper end like a struck artery.

And it had guests. A deer shouting in front of a cameraman, and a peaco*ck behind them glancing up at them with an open, gaping mouth of awe. Or was that terror? Didn't matter.

"HOW WOULD THAT WORK?" Athos offered, lifting up his toe and pointing down to the pool of filling the crater.

Seth stepped over, small quakes following with every step. He came right up to the crater and leaned over. His attention first went to the tiny figures at the footprint's edge. The deer shouted something he didn't quite catch, but it carried the note of someone excited and terrified at the same time. She and the peaco*ck exchanged a brief shouting match, then all of them went scrambling to the crater's edge. They climbed out with impressive speed and ran down the road.

Only to be stopped. They fell, knocked to their hands and feet as blue, gray and brown blocked their both with thunderclap blows. Three big stompers stepped down just in front of them, blocking their path.

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING?" Seth accused. "GETTING BORED?"

Bell scratched his cheek in idle thought. "MAYBE THEY'RE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHO WE ARE."

"WHO CARES WHO YOU TWO ARE!" Seth shouted. "BECAUSE PRETTY SOON, YOU'RE ALL GOING TO BE FOOTNOTES NEXT TO THE HUGEITUDE OF DR. SPELANE!"

The bluejay shook his head in shame. "NOT A WORD, SETH."

"YOU KNOW WHAT? JUST FOR THAT, I'M SQUISHING YOU FIRST. RIGHT!" He held his foot over the crater, dangling it in careful balance, then brought it carefully into the water below. His body's reaction was instant; as soon as the tip of his flesh touched the pool inside, the very ends of his toes swelled with the expansion of liquid. His flesh turned to sea and ocean, waves rolling through his ankles and thighs as every part of him began to draw the water in.

GLUP!

His body quivered with the energy of a full bag of soup, soft and squishy yet with the power of a raging torrent. The swell of absorbed liquid rolled up his ankle in a rounded lump, growing wide and aside as it traveled up through his thigh.

Seth spoke as the effects took hold. He sounded oddly proud, grinning as his leg began the first stages of its morph. "BIT OF A SIDE-EFFECT FROM ALL THIS: THIS FEELS WEIRDLY GOOD. LIKE I'M A BIG WATER BALOOOHRRRKKK-!"

Whatever he'd meant to say was cut off by the rising water rushing into his chest. A blast like a firehose, pressure gushing into his torso. The sudden change sent his waist flesh rolling in cresting waves, sloshing the tides of a beach as they rolled around his body. The waves came with growth; peaks merging that bought him extra meters.

Every splash, he jerked. Another few meters at his feet, his legs filling out to bursting fullness. To his toes, popping out as the river reached them and his chest growing wide with his serum's bounty. He was growing tall and fat with water, and none a force on the planet could stop him.

His growth put the others to shame. He sprayed up to their height, flesh jiggling with the motions of something soft and wet. His fullness brought him over their heads, leaving them all to glance up as he kept going through his body's sudden spurt.

A figure with a body of splooshing din, heavy and only barely able to keep the water trapped within. More watery than if he were made of it, every jiggle and slorp only adding to the package of his slushing form.

The water filled out his limbs, his fingers. They pushed out to their lengths, leaving only his head to catch up. When it failed to, he simply leaned forward and let some of the liquid fall into his throat. His noggin jumped out, filled to the brim.

No more growth. He'd finished for the moment, leaving him again as the largest of the group. Twice as high; easily the better part of 500 feet. He was in firm kaiju range now.

Seth patted down his chest. Ripples emanated from it, traveling from his chest in swollen rings. "YOUUUUUU NEVER QUIIIIIITE GET USED TOOOOOO IT!"

Saber shot him a look. "YOU KNOW WHAT ALSO NEVER GETS OLD? TERRIFYING TINY PEOPLE! WHY DON'T YOU-" He glanced down. Surprise wiped over him, and he turned around in a frantic search. "WHAT THE? THEY'VE RUN OFF!"

Bell shrugged. "FORGET THEM. I THINK WE'VE GRADUATED FROM TRYING TO CRUSH A BUNCH OF ANTS."

"INTO...?"

He switched his eyes to the dense property of the city's downtown. It stuck out of the city around it, a tall dense forest of steel trees that taunted the flatter city around it with their towering heights.

He raised his foot. In a single step he cleared straight over a building below him. Something strained yet graceful, gliding through the air with
his massive body. Not bothering to look down, he paid it hardly any mind as his feet crashed into
several unbroken buildings beneath him. His toes smashed them to pieces like five perfect battering rams. They kicked through the remains, scattering what was left through the growing circle of desolation.

In a single step, he'd left almost as much chaos as his former rampage. With his movement finished, he nodded towards the highrises with a smirk.

"LOOKS LIKE THERE'S OTHER GIANTS IN TOWN. I DON'T THINK THIS TOWN'S BIG ENOUGH FOR ALL OF US."

Seth matched his growing smirk, looking to the tallest building with eyes glinting rascality. "YEEAAH! I THINK IT'S ABOUT TIME SOOOOOOMEOOOOONE BROUGHT DOWN THOSE EYESORES!"

Saber cracked his massive fists together. They popped like fireworks, their echoes heard for miles around.

Athos took the first step. He jaunted out in front, his tail swaying behind. "THEN WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR? LAST ONE THERE FALLS DOWN THE BEANSTALK~!" He gave them a wink, then broke into a full sprint towards the skyscrapers. The ground heaved under his gallop. A boom, boom, boom with the very fullness of his mass thrown forward.

Saber took off after him. "H-HEY!" Bell followed alongside, both of them trying to run down the retreating raptor. Seth was left behind, the taller behemoth among them to bring up the rear. He plodded after them, calling out their names in thunderous yells. The buildings rattled under his walk, cracks and fissures scrawling across their faces, defaced only by the sheer power of his steps.

He followed them into the city, his body still sloshing with heavy water.

Maggy ducked for cover. A humongous foot went sailing overhead, bringing with it the wind chasing its ankles. She covered her head, feeling the very pressure of the gigantic lynx as he threw another step forward. It cracked the earth, and she was thrown up a few inches as the impact rolled into her. A moment's pause, then more shaking as it took yet another step away from them.

THUMP!

THUMP!

THUMP!

Thump!

Thump...

The steps faded away. She uncovered her head, and got a good glimpse at the giant's naked stripped back.

"My god..."

A hand seized her arm. Avery. He pulled her up with a single arm, and did his best to help dust her off.

"Thanks, Avery." She noticed nothing in his other arm. His camera was gone. "Avery. Where's the camera."

"Yo!" Ferris shouted. The peaco*ck tromped over to them, carrying the bulky camera with both arms. His arms wobbled under its weight, just barely keeping it level with his chest. "Holy hell, this thing is heavy! How do you carry this around?"

Avery walked over and relieved him of his burden. He hefted it up onto his shoulder with a glint of pride. "Company that made her used to make tanks."

"Praise be the military-industrial complex," Ferris sighed. He panted in the aftermath of his labor, hands on his legs and breaths slow. Somehow, his cigarette was still in its proper place between his lips, though now it hardly resembled a cigarette at all, more a bent and soggy stick lodged in his mouth. When he finally caught his breath, he looked up to the giants running and walking away from them. "I think they're going for downtown."

Maggy looked to the skyscrapers. Her shoulders sulked in dismay. "Ah, crap!"

"They're gonna tear down the whole thing!" Avery cried.

"Worse!" Maggy retorted. "If they get to downtown, the other news stations will be able to cover this up-close."

Ferris shook his head. "Maggy. You have a sickness."

"A sickness for scoops. Now shut up. I gotta figure out how we're going to there. Maybe the train or..."

She trailed off, her neck slowly turning to something on the side of the road.

"Channy!"

She burst into a full run, bounding over to the side of the road. To the parked Channel 3 news van. More accurately, wedged. It had miraculously survived the carnage, almost intact. Save a few fresh dents along her side, she looked like she'd just rolled out of the parking lot. A noble steed, waiting for its master.

Maggy came up to it and planted her arms across it, giving the van her best attempt at a hug. "You are the best vehicle a reporter could ask for!"

Ferris walked up, rolling his eyes. "Great. So if I had to guess, this is the part where you somehow convince me to drive straight towards to the giants about to bring the city down around our ears."

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Yeah. Quit."

"We've come this far," Avery argued. "Might as well..."

"Oh, not you too."

Maggy pointed at him. "You're outvoted. Get in the van."

"No. And besides, it ain't enough we were first on the scene."

She frowned, and pointed a finger at the downtown. The giants were almost upon it, their fists already raised to bash down the urban jungle. "Either we get the credit, or Channel 9 does!"

Ferris stared at her. A good few moments of quiet. Then he lifted his hand, and plucked out his cigarette and flicked it away. He reached into his shirt pocket and took out a fresh one, white and solid. He placed it his beak, eyes hard-set.

"Alright, let's go."

Ferris walked over to the van, coming around to the driver's side. As he opened the door, Maggy tugged on Avery's shirt. "Are we still live?"

He pointed to the camera's green light.

"Then keep rolling!"

She stepped back as Avery swiveled the camera down at her. With the camera's eye focused on her, she made her way to the back of the van, still talking in her false chipper cadence.

"And we're back! This reporter and her crew have been threatened with mortal danger, but that will not stop us in our quest to keep this story going! We have been threatened with roof collapse! With fire! We have been stepped on! For those just tuning in, the giants even briefly turned their attention to us. We were only barely able to escape with our journalist's wits! Just a reminder for the folks at home: do not attempt what we are doing!"

She threw open the back of the van and jumped inside. "And now, the giants are making their way to downtown, where they surely plan to increase insurance premiums! This is a very dangerous situation, so we advise all viewers to please stay indoors, and-"

Booooomph!

An explosion boomed behind them. Avery swiveled around, pointing the screen down at the downtown.

The lynx. The massive, watery lynx had just thrown his fist into the midsection of one of the skyscrapers. A vast brown gloom grew from his fist's edge, trailing along his knuckles as steel beams and a dozen floors went flying out into the sky. The other giants were right below him, cheering him on as he delivered the blow.

Avery turned his camera back to Maggy. She sat there in awe for a moment. Blinking. Then shook herself awake, and brought her mic closer. "Correction: do not stay indoors!"

She crawled further into the van's backside, letting Avery take his place on his seat. Once he was in, she slammed the van's back doors shut, then collapsed against the wall in an exhausted slump. "We're ready back here. Ferris, you ready?"

The camera swiveled to Ferris, just as he was turning the keys. The van rumbled to life. It drew a grumbling breath, lead-soaked engine rattling and ready.

He turned back to them, flipped them off, then gripped the 8-ball transmission and threw it into gear. Rubber turned to smoke as the van's wheels squealed, then lurched them out into the devastated roads around them. The Channel 3 van swerved through it all, around junk and building and flattened cards. It peeled down the street, the one thing still moving in the trail of the monsters beyond.

BOOMOOO-KSHHHHHHH!

Steel and glass shattered together. The beams blew into the window, throwing out its surface in a rain of glittering dust. Almost like water, tiny diamonds that caught the light in glittering glory that crowned the dust around it.

Bell smiled as his foot went straight through the floor of the skyscraper. It'd barely put up a fight, crumbling under first contact with his heel. He wrenched his leg to the side and took the rest of the floor with him; it came out as a ragged pile of office chairs and beige walls, all of it falling out to the narrow streets of the downtown.

He watched his work rain below with an approving nod. More din crashed about him, and he turned to see the others hard at work. In the building next to his, Athos was handily kicking its ass, throwing haymakers and tail whips into its fragile facade. He'd beaten the front half of it into a skeleton shell. His claws came out next, sent to ripping what was left to ribbons in flying chunks.

Saber, just as busy. He'd graduated from punching, to biting. Some bank he'd picked as his unlucky victim, and set his strong jaws into its roof. He teeth shattered its proud walls, ripping them apart with ravenous hunger, then spat out the chunks to the ground below.

And finally, Seth.

He was on task to totally take down a skyscraper. He slammed his foot at its base, every blow a thundering clap that sent its whole body swaying dangerously from the force. All its windows were shattered, a bare skeleton barely standing under the assault.

This was a rampage, with a capital R. With all the letters in caps, really.

But no matter what they did, they all shared a similar preference. When the junk came raining down, when it came to dealing with cars or police sent to annoy them, they all had united consensus: stomping. Anything they could, they crushed under their heel.

Bell felt a tiny sting on his brow. He traced the source of it. A lone cop with a sniper rifle, its bipod balanced on the roof of a police van.

The bluejay shook his head, and raised his foot with a smile. "DON'T YOU GUYS EVER LEARN?"

The cop shrieked and abandoned his post. He threw his gun away like it was radioactive and went fleeing as the shadow of Bell's foot bore down. He dove for cover, barely dodging the edge of Bell's walloping foot.

The van stood no chance. It vanished into a flat disc of steel, blown down and out by the bluejay's prodigious mass. A shapeless storm of debris rushed out beneath his crushing foot, throwing what was left out to the sides beyond his arches. The cop swept along with it, carried on the brief wind. He gave a brief bark of surprise as he went tumbling into a nearby alley. He flew into it out of sight, and the sound of crashing trash cans followed.

Bell picked up his foot. The van was lodged firmly in the middle of his sole. He scraped it off like old gum, picking it up between his fingers. He shrugged and flicked it into a nearby building. It didn't entirely blow through the building, but dodged and stopped dead between two of the windows; a new fixture, flat and useless.

He turned to Saber, still ripping apart the bank with his teeth. This time he'd ripped out a piece too big. A massive chunk of the building even his strong jaws struggled to crush. But finally he succeeded, and his jaws blew through the stony obstacle with a hard SNAP! The pieces littered the ground below in an avalanche. The rocks bruised the sidewalk. Cracks and dents alike crawled across its surface, webbing it tight in damaged lines.

Saber made doubly sure the damage was done and brought the front pads of his foot crushing down. What was stone became dust became a thin, powdery film, smeared out across the streets.

He gave one last stomp for good measure, then turned his attention to a nearby hydrant. He pulled his leg near in a swooping woosh, the edge of his big toe just barely touching its edge. With a slight jerk he pushed against it and it fell away. A geyser erupted from the hole, spraying the streets with a scattering rain.

"HEY, SETH!"

The great lynx turned and looked down on them, his first frozen in an imminent punch. "WWHAAAAT?"

Seth pointed to the broken hydrant. "YOU WANT IN ON THIS?"

"NEED MORE, HONESTLY. THAT'D GIVE BARELY ANYTHING NOW."

He turned away, and threw his fist into the building's side. It clattered under him, a wrecking ball of flesh and water.

Bell nodded, and turned his attention back to Saber. "MAYBE TOO EARLY TO TELL, BUT. I THINK MY METHOD'S THE MOST VIABLE."

Saber rolled his eyes. "UGH, THIS AGAIN? DON'T MEAN TO DISRESPECT, BUT IS IT REALLY THE BEST WHEN YOU HAVE TO TURN INTO A BIG OL' LUMP BEFORE YOU GET BIG?"

"IT'S A TRADE-OFF."

"AT LEAST I CAN MOVE WHEN I START TO GROW. HECK, I CAN BASICALLY FLY.

Bell shook his head. "FLOATING IS NOT FLYING."

"IT'S SELF-DIRECTED BUOYANCY IN AIR! HOW IS THAT NOT FLYING?"

Athos waltzed up next to them, carrying as always his aura of supreme smugness. "THAT IS A VALID POINT."

Seth destroyed another section of the skyscraper. He ripped out a section of it, support beams clutched between his fingers in bent twirls. "OBVIOUSLY, IIIIII'M THE WINNER HERE. MY POTEEEEENTIAL FOR GROOOOOOOWTH IIIISSS BAAAAAASICALLY UNLIMITED. I'M PRACTICALLY A GOD!"

Saber chuckled. "WELL, SETH'S GONE MAD WITH POWER. WHO'S UP NEXT?"

Bell held up his arm, curling his fist tight. "I BELIEVE I'LL VOLUNTEER, DR. SWAHALI."

"OOHHHH. AND HERE I THOUGHT YOU'D LEVELED OUT."

The bluejay giant balled his fist tighter, teeth grinding as a hidden force bubbled inside him. "YOUR THEORY-"

His fist ballooned. It swelled out, flesh growing fat and heavy around the bones of his fingers. It grew until it was a boulder on the end of his arm, and it fell down to the streets.

KA-THUD!

It handily smashed everything underneath in layers of flesh and feathers

"-IS UNFOUNDED."

The swollenness crept up his arm. It spread through him like a creeping venom, his body groaning under the puffy pressure. A big, bloated blob swept over him. Across its arm until it was barely more than a huge blue slug of meat. His chest came next, growing wide as his down and skin stretched underneath to suit it.

Crrrannnnnnk!

His body groaned. Like an old dam holding back a torrent, groans and cracks and creaks eeking out just under the surface. It held back the mass just barely, keeping it in its roomy prison.

It traveled to his head, swelling it up to a corpulent fullness. His cheeks grew swollen with mass, his arms spreading out into long, limp noodles of crushing volume. When it reached its other leg, he had nowhere else to go, and his body's ends slowly spread outward from its center. He regained the aspects of an earthbound balloon, fat and heavy and rising high over the raptor and hyena.

Saber gave a polite, quiet clap.

Quiet for his size, at least.

"WOW. AND HERE I THOUGHT YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT. WHAT'S THAT, THREE HUNDRED FEET?"

Bell tried to reply, but his mouth was too filled to speak. "FRRRM HMMMMRD NND TRRRE FRRT, HRRDRR RRAAHHIRRI."

Saber cupped a hand around his ear. "HUH? CAN'T HEAR YOU ALL THE WAY UP THERE!"

The swollen lumps around Bell's body faded. His innards caught up, and he took a deep breath as the mass receded enough for him to speak. He stood up straight, breathing loud and deep as regained his proportions. "I SAID: THREE HUNDRED AND THREE FEET. AT LEAST, IF MY MATH IS RIGHT."

"THREE HUNDRED AND THREE? IS THAT IT?"

Bell shot an annoyed glare down at him. "THAT IS AS FAR AS THIS SERUM SAFELY ALLOWS. SO YES, THIS IS MY MAXIMUM HEIGHT. BUT..."

He took a drawn-out step behind him, and crossed his arms. Athos and Seth stood where they were, Saber in front and Athos behind, looking and waiting for him to finish his sentence.

Instead, Bell threw his foot forward. Before they could react, his foot sent them across scraping across the ground together. They hit a skyscraper's sides, Athos first and Saber on top him. They'd collided together, with only the skyscraper's mass as their cushion. Paper and plastic and insulation fluttered down around them.

Saber shook off what he could. But his efforts were interrupted. The very foot that had kicked them came flying against them again. Saber threw up his arms. Just in time as Bell's foot struck him dead center. With a determined glint in his eye, the bluejay was standing over them, using his new height and power to press them deeper and deeper into the skyscraper.

He glanced up, his teeth sharp in anger. "HEY, WHAT GIVES!"

"YOU SOUNDED UNIMPRESSED, DR. SWAHALI."

Athos squirmed out behind Saber, and tilted his head around the hyena's back. He seemed far less distressed about their situation, and offered a Bell a disarming grin. "IF IT'S ANY CONSOLATION, I'M VERY IMPRESSED~!"

"I'M SURE YOU ARE. BUT LET'S JUST SAY I'VE WANTED TO DO THIS FOR A VERY, VERY LONG TIME. UNLESS YOU HAVE A BIT OF GROWTH LEFT IN YOU, DR. SWAHALI!"

Bell pressed his wide foot deeper. Seth and Athos went crunching further into the building's depths, more building crumbling down around them.

"ACK! CUT IT OUT, BELL!"

"MAKE ME."

"RAAAAARGH! FINE!"

He threw his hands around Bell's ankle, and looked him dead in the eye. And with all his might, drew in a mighty bellowing breath. A sucking sound like a fallen angel's trumpet. His nostrils flared wide and his maw full open to draw a hurricane. Winds fit for a tornado fell down into his gullet and into his lungs, then to the rest of him in an explosion of his spotted body.

Saber puffed out. So fast it sent him pushing back against Bell. It took the bluejay by complete surprise, and he stumbled against the new force. Stumbled, then fell back straight on his rear with a shaking tremor. Saber wrestled himself free of the building's grasp, flexing out his smoothed limbs filled with the empty bounty of the skies.

He pointed one of them at Bell. Or tried to. It barely budged across its socket, and with a few strained grunts he gave up, and simply wiggled his rotund, blimpish arms in glee. "HAH! IN YOUR FACE, BELL!"

Athos crawled out of the building, plucking off stray trash that coated his shoulders. As he did, Seth paused his beatdown of the building. He took a single massive step to them and crouched down, coming to roughly their level. His massive sloshing form crowded the streets, shoulders almost meeting the skyscrapers from street's side to another.

"HUUUUUH. AND HEEEERE I THOUUUGHT YOU GUYYSS WERE DOOONE."

"YOU WISH!" Saber declared. "WATCH AND WEEP!"

His nose flared again. He drew in a breath sharper than the first. His colossal mouth gulped it all in solid gulps, tons of air falling into his form with every single slurp.

HAAAAAAAAAAH!
HUUUUUUUUUUUAHHHHHHHH!
HUUUUUUUAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...!

With his inhalation came its rewards. The air that filled his being stretched him to tighter limits, pressing him further and further to the edges of his skin. Huge and floaty, his body lifted off the ground a good few meters.

He pumped himself up, each breath longer than the last. Just when it seemed he'd reach his limit, he relaxed a moment then braced himself for the finale.

huuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
hrk!

With a slight cough, was done. A big, bouncy version of himself. He'd gained a height on par with Bell's. And unlike Bell, he could talk. A right he exercised with co*cky glee.

"THERE! HOW'S THAT DO YOU?"

"IT DOES ME QUITE WELL!" Athos called from below.

He glanced down the raptor. "YEAH, ABOUT THAT. ARE YOU GETTING ANY BIGGER?"

"I WAS QUITE CONSERVATIVE WITH MY SERUM. THIS IS AS TALL AS I'LL BE, I'M AFRAID."

Saber nodded. "FAIR ENOUGH. GONNA BE HONEST, I'M FEELING A LITTLE UH, FULL TOO. NOT SURE HOW MUCH MORE I COULD TAKE IN!" He patted his gut. Up came a quick belch of air. His proportions popped back down to standard lengths, and he settled down onto the city street.

Bell grumbled, but rose to his feet without much of a fuss. "I'VE REACHED MY LIMIT AS WELL. AT LEAST, IF I RAN THE SIMULATION CORRECTLY."

"LEAVING MEEEEEE THE WIIIINNER!" Seth announced.

"SETH. THIS ISN'T A CONTEST."

"COULD'VE FOOOOOOOLED ME. AND UNLIKE YOU THREE, I STILL GOT A GOOD BIT OF GROWTH LEFT PROBABLY!" He turned heel, stomping down the street. "I'M GOONNAAA GOOOO LOOOK FOR A POOOOOL. SEE HOW BIG I CAN REALLY GET!"

Seth took off, wandering through the streets at a lumbering pace.

"HE'S GONNA WRECK THE WHOLE CITY JUST LOOKING FOR ONE" Bell commented.

Athos held a finger. "NOT IF WE DO IT FIRST~!"

The ground trembled at their passing. It moved and bounced and quivered, punished again and again and again by the powerful feet that tread upon it. The giants moved deeper into the city, each of them planning their own way to tear it down its foundations.

The Channel 3 van screeched as Ferris slammed the brakes. It veered to the right, tilting at a dangerous angle before it spent its momentum and stopped in the middle of a wide alley. The back doors flew open. Maggy huddled out like a trained soldier, already speaking with the camera fixed upon her. "And we have stopped, folks! We are now in the outskirts of downtown, where we believe lay on the path of the giant's course! On cue, a few panicked civilians ran past the camera. Deer and dogs and cats alike sprinting for dear life, caught in a blind panic to get away. Not great for them, but would make for killer footage during the edit.

Maggy gestured up, and the camera showed many of the skyscrapers looking far worse for wear. A few groaned in metal song, their whole bodies swaying in a concerning wobble "As you can see, our beautiful landmarks are now mere shells of their former selves. Our city may never recover!"

They journeyed out of the alley and straight into the street, where the running crowd parted around them. At the street's end, the giants. The freakishly large beings had gathered around some kind of wide building next to a park. The raptor of the ground was squatted down, making the best effort to rip off the roof.

"And the giants show zero signs of stopping. It looks like they've set their sights on the Inner City Water Treatment Plant, for reasons I can only speculate! And if my contact lens prescription has not expired, I'd even go so far as to say that these hulking brutes are still growing!" She readied herself to say more, but stopped. It was Avery. He was darting his eyes to the left, motioning back to the alley.

She looked back. Ferris was leaned against the van, hands in his pockets. He shook his head, and nodded over to the alley's edge.

There, was a bystander. A short, lean amphibian with big black eyes, barefoot and webbed hands clutched tight on the alley's corner for support. Their mouth dangled just above the floor, either shocked or terrified as they gazed on at the giants tearing the city apart.

Maggy seized the opportunity. Giddy for an eyewitness, she ran up to him and forced his mic to his face. "You there, sir! What's your name?"

He didn't look over to her, keeping his unblinking eyes on the giants. Definitely awe.

"Uh. Flip," he finally croaked.

"And if you could describe the devastation going on around us in one word, what would it be?"

"..."

He didn't say anything. So lost in the wreckage the four monsters were creating, he'd totally tuned her out. She rolled with it and pulled back the mic.

"People on the ground are utterly speechless at the absolute carnage all around us!"

Crash!

The roof came loose in the raptor's claws. He picked it up and threw it away like trash. It smashed down to the street below, blocking its entire width as a ruined steel cage. The gigantic lynx moved in next and raised one of his great feet, then carefully dipped it into the building's boundaries. Almost soon as he did, his body stretched with a watery surge. It swelled up and out, filling his core with fresh liquid.

It sloshed and waved through him, pressing him up to even dizzier heights. Tens of feet in moments, stopped only when his splashing flesh returned to normal. He held up his fingers, flexing them, then boomed out in his base voice.

"GOBBBBNNA NEED MOOOORE POOOOOLS!"

"HOW ABOUT THE SUBURBS?" the hyena suggested. "THEY'RE FULL OF 'EM! I WANNA SMASH UP SOME SOCCER MOM HOUSES ANWAY."

"GOOOOOOD IDEAAA!"

They went on the move again. The crowd that was retreating doubled their speed as they realized they were coming towards them. People pushed and shoved each other out of the way, desperate to be faster than the ones behind them.

Maggy and Avery ducked back into the alley as the ground. They ducked in just in time for a foot for a huge brown foot to block out the city beyond, then lift up and out of sight. Another brown foot followed, slightly smaller yet no less titanic, and a blue one its wake.

Finally, a gray leg. The raptor followed behind them all, walking at his own lazy pace. In his clutches, people. A whole writing mass of them, bunched together in his talons. He stroked himself with them as he walked, their cries for help only driving on his lusty thrusts into them. In front of the alley, he stopped. He looked down, watching Avery and Maggy filming his every move.

The raptor winked right at them, then turned and resumed his plodding journey down the streets. His steps revealed his backside, dusty with debris...and an unfortunate dog imprinted deep into the scales of his behind. He turned and followed the others around a skyscraper. Unseen but still very much heard, his steps still felt through the ground with the others.

With the rumbling faded, Maggy ran behind her cameraman with a new sense of worry. "Alright, new path of interception!"

Ferris watched her round the corner of the van. He pushed himself off and opened the driver's side door. "I bet next week we just get invaded by aliens. Might as well."

When Avery jumped, they slammed the doors and peeled out into the road. Maggy screamed their orders, and the top-heavy van swerved right, chasing right on the generous heels of the rampaging monsters.

GLLLLLLLLLLLLLRRRNN!
GRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLNNNN!
GLLP!

Seth had made a game of it. How long he had to search before he found another pool. His record, as it stood, was eight seconds. As Saber had predicted, the very outskirts of the city were absolutely lousy with swimming pools, and with them came a thousand opportunities to heighten his glory. He wet his toes in every one he could find. No longer just sloshing, but his body almost raging like an angry sea with ocean contained in his depths. His whole being jiggled with the weight, and himself jolly with his progress.

BLOOOP!

He surged another dozen feet. On top of the twenty he'd just gained, he was taller than some of the skyscrapers he'd whacked. A vastness coated him, exaggerated even more by the other giants standing around him.

"I GUESS THERE REALLY ISN'T A LIMIT" Saber conceded. "HOW ARE YOU FEELING?"

"PREEEETY GOOOOOD!" Seth replied. "AND GETTING BETTER ALLLLL THE TIIIIME!"

"I BET! HEY, LEMME KNOW IF YOU SEE A GIRAFFE RUNNING AROUND. I GOT SOMETHING I WANT TO TRY..."

"CAAAAN DOOOO!"

He nodded and turned to Athos. The raptor had a truck held firmly under his claws, one claw taking up the entirety of the vehicle's flatbed. Its tires screeched as it tried to flee, smoke pooling beneath it.

"COME ON, I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT," he teased. "AND IF YOU CAN'T. WELL, I KNOW SOMETHING ELSE YOU'D BE GOOD FOR~!"

"SMALLEST OF THE FOUR OF US, AND I'M PRETTY SURE YOU'RE HAVING THE MOST FUN."

Athos glanced up. "BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER. IT JUST USUALLY IS~!"

"SPEAKING OF, I THINK I'VE GOT ONE MORE GROWTH SPURT IN ME. ONE SEC!"

He splayed out his arms, rolling them back in forth to psyche himself up. He rocked on his heels, saving the moment, then drew his head back with widened jaws.

HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUAH~!
GULP!

This time, he took as much air as his lungs allowed, and then a bit more. A swallow of air followed by a tremendous gulp. It came down as a great ball of flesh under his throat, and fell into his torso. The air expanded everywhere and all at once. His mass socked, blown with force to their thickened rubbery forms. He lifted a bit into the air, floating slow and silent. Not as big as Seth, obviously, but definitely much more prominent than Bell.

Speaking of, where was he? He looked down to Athos, still tormenting the struck under his foot.

"HEY, YOU SEEN BELL?" Saber asked.

He nodded forward. "RIGHT OVER THERE. I BELIEVE HE SAID SOMETHING ABOUT...'RELIEVING PRESSURE'."

"GUY WOUND TIGHT AS THAT? YEAH, I BET."

"I...NNNNNNG! I HEARD THAT!"

He glanced up. It was Bell. He was standing straight, hand firm around his shaft. His grip was tight and his legs weak as he stroked himself in slow measures. Beads of sweat crowned his head, a deep red flush across his face and the hitched breath of pleasured gasps.

"REALLY? COULDN'T FIND A FEW DOZEN VICTIMS TO HELP YOU OUT?"

Bell gasped his reply. "TOO! AAAAH! TOO SMALL NOW! AND BESIDES. FEEL WEIRD. FEEL...BACKED UP. NEED TO-!"

"WOAH
WOAH WOAH!" Saber cut with raised hands. "HEY HEY, NO SHAME AMONG GIANTS. BUT STILL, YOU SURE YOU DON'T NEED HELP WITH THAT?"

"I'M...FINE! AHHHH! THANKS!"

"ALL RIGHT. SHOUT IF YOU RUN INTO TROUBLE."

FWWWWWWWWWWWWWOM!

The rush of air flowed around them. Saber turned to watch Seth over the other pool, flexing his arms as his body swelled. By now, he was so huge he was having trouble dipping anything but his smallest toes into the liquid. But the lynx was undeterred, and proudly struck a pose during his water-fueled growth.

He was more than colossal. More than gigantic. He'd grown to an utterly mountainous volume, truly the biggest of the big. Taller than the tallest skyscraper in the city. Avians soared just over his head. And nearby, a news helicopter with the number 9 stamped on its side. It choppered near his face with annoying flutter.

"HEEYYYYYYYY! BUZZZZZZZ OFFFFFF!"

He blew a puff of air at the offending whirlybird. It spun off in a beating spiral, tumbling through the air as it fought against sudden gusts.

"NNNNNG!"

A grunt caught Seth's attention, and he looked down to Bell. He was stroking his shaft with both arms. Giant fingers splayed across his member, rubbing harder and harder with every pull. His eyes were closed, his motions desperate as he worked against his body.

"UHHHHH. YOU OOOOKAAAAAAY THERE, SEEEETHH?"

"NEVER BETTER!" he called back. "I JUST GOTTA GET OUT! THIS! KINK! I-!" He jerked, shuddering as his hands drew tighter around his co*ck. It brought him to a quivering pause, stopping his strokes for a moment as he recovered. He caught his breath for a moment, then kept on with an even greater urgency. Working like a bluejay possessed, all his mind, all his focus concentrated to that high moment of relief.

It was then Athos noticed something. He twisted his head in a puzzled expression, and lifted his talon off the truck. It peeled out from under him and rolled down the suburb streets, its tires still smoking.

He stood up and came next to Saber, wobbling in the air.

The raptor looked concerned. A rare expression for him, the flirty doctor that never seemed lacking for smiles.

"WHAT'S WRONG, ATHOS?"

Athos spoke out, addressing bell with a twinge of worry. "ARE YOU QUITE ALRIGHT, BELL?"

Bell grunted. "FINE! JUST FINE! WHO'S ASKING?"

He raised a claw. "VERY GOOD. IT'S JUST THAT YOU SEEM...LUMPY. AND NOT IN THE GOOD WAY."

Bell was undeterred. His reply was guttural. Needy. He was driven, by a force he neither ignore nor resist. "I JUST HAVE TO! AAAAAARGH! I FEEL! SO! THICK! GOTTA-"

Saber noticed it too. All across his body, swollen lumps had emerged just under skin. They squirmed across his muscles, growing thicker by the moment. Every time Bell stroked his co*ck, every time he groaned or seethed, they jostled against each other. Thicker. Heavier. It resembled the moments he'd transformed, but different. Whatever this was...it wasn't intentional.

It wasn't planned.

Saber stepped. "UH. UH-OH."

Above them, Seth seemed totally oblivious to their situation. He lifted up his foot, his eyes sparkling with a growing plan. "IIII THIIIINKK I'M GONNNNA TAKE ANOOTHERRRR SHOT AT THOSE SKYSCRAAAPERS" he boomed.

Athos turned and held out a claw. "PERHAPS HOLD OFF ON THAT! WE HAVE A SITUATION DOWN HERE!"

If he'd heard Athos, he didn't acknowledge it. He took a step over several streets, entering a great park that straddled the suburb's center. "THINK I'LL CLIMB ONE," he went on. "JUST ME, AND A BLONDE IN MY HAND, AND A BUNCH OF BIPLANES FOR SOME REASON AND-"

At that moment, his foot caught. It snagged on an ancient and rooted oak; it shattered into splintered bark under his toes, but its resistance just enough to throw off his balance.

He tripped.

"WOAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

He went failing down, his body's water rolling through him.

The air crashed against his belly. It visibly compressed against his whole body, rushing to clear the way for the ruined titan. It was slow. It was fast. All his weight and height that was so invincible a moment before, brought impossibly low in a single motion.

And yet, he fell. He fell face-first towards the earth, but it was not the ground that greeted him. Not grass or trees or rocks, but a clear splotch of blue.

A lake.

He had only time to brace. Then plunged into the depths. The water exploded over him, swallowing him whole in a spectacular whitewater tower. It plumed up and over him, flood the earth and sky alike with every drop of the reservoir.

The lake burst its banks. A wall of water rushed over it, engulfing the entire park in a great flood. Benches and boulders and whole trees were swept up in the wave, mixed together in a soup with the shade of mud.

The tower of water fell. The mist faded, and it came raining back down with a rushing roar. Behind its curtain, a struggling giant. He was face down in the lake. Fighting to right himself, but a fight he couldn't win. Fighting not just gravity, but himself.

He was absorbing the lake. The water rushed in, so much that he couldn't move. He could only squirm, struggle, kick as his body blew up around him, and no way to stop it. Thirsty beyond measure or reason, it slurped up gallons by the hundreds and thousands, piling them on in a single, unbeatable swell.

In seconds, his height had doubled. In seconds more, tripled. A runaway reaction he couldn't stop, couldn't halt, could slow or bargain with. His body absorbed the lake so fast it couldn't keep up, his skin straining tighter and tauter against the massive pressures beneath. Lines grew across his skin and fur; the parts of him stretched to their limit. Like flesh strained against the snare of a net.

He couldn't take it. He'd done the impossible, and become too massive. Too huge to stand. Too huge to even talk. Almost too huge to move at all, and even that was a labor he could barely finish. His body shuddered around him, the pressure building to a fever pitch.

Saber threw up his hands. "LOOK OUT, HE'S GONNA BLOW!"

sprt!
kshhhhhhhh...
He didn't explode. No burst. But instead, a sprout.

An arc of water jumped out the engorged hyena's side. It sailed high, a jetstream of liquid powered by pressure alone.

sprt!

Another. This one on his shoulder. It rose as high as the first, pouring out the water within.

sprt!

A third.
spurt!
A fourth.

A floodgate inside him opened, and they popped off all across his body. Across his back and bottom and neck, dozen then hundreds of them all pouring out their contents to the sky.

Slowly, he began to shrink.

His form receded. From its swollen length back down to his previous height, and further still as the water continued to pour out of him. He gave only a low groan of protest, unable to stop it as more of his mass jumped in pressurized jets.

More sprouted along his body.

More.

More

He'd turned into a living fountain, all the jets merging around him into a single solid sheet of raining water. He deflated even faster, descending down the ranks of size. From Saber to Bell to Athos, then to a fraction so small he vanished under the slopes of the lake.

Gone.

The other giants were quiet. Even Bell had ceased his jerking for a moment, looking on in the same shock as the others. Forever, it felt like. Standing there, wondering what had just happened.

Then, movement.

At the edge of the half-empty lake, a swollen hand appeared over it and grabbed over the side. With an exhausted huff, Seth pulled himself onto solid ground. Dripping, drenched, and his body covered in truckling sprouts of water. Still greater than any normal person, but even that was fading fast. The shoots of water grew weaker by the moment, and with that, his size.

The trickles faded. Their pressure spent. The last of his mass came dribbling out his back, and with that, his last ill-gained inches. He was back to his standard height.

"Ugh..."

It was the only noise he had left. A weak, exhausted moan that bubbled the grass around him.

The other three had seen it all. Still wondering if it'd really happened. Seth, gone from the biggest back to an everyday shrimp.

Athos shrugged. "A QUICK RISE, QUICKER FALL, AS THEY SAY."

"ugh..."

Saber called out to him. "HEY, SETH! YOU OKAY!"

"uuuuughhhhh..."

"YEAH, HE'S FINE. BUT UH. WHAT ABOUT...?"

They turned to the sound of slapping flesh. Bell had made up for lost time, and was now fully invested in his release. Lumpy before, the mounds and swells had almost consumed his body. It squeezed his being, pressing him further to relieve the stifling flesh around him.

"ALMOST...THERE! AAAAHHHHH!"

He bucked into his own palm. The climax warned across his body with a coming shudder. He arched back his head and with a shout, blew his load. A long line of cum streaked out from the tip of his co*ck in a gooey strand, and hit the ground below. Then another.

And another.

Bell kept stroking his co*ck. Still moaning in pleasure as the climax gripped his body and the true flood rushed through his form.

''AHHHHHHHH, GOD!"

He stopped, then threw his hips forward a final time. A deep bellow resounded from his throat, and his co*ck bulged. The lumps across his body vanished, falling deep into a single know that drew into his co*ck as a single solid mass. It raced up his shaft to the tip, then emerged in a single glorious burst.

A white tsunami erupted from the tip of his co*ck. An engulfing torrent of cum, it blocked out everything in front them, even the sun itself in a milky wall. Saber and Athos both ducked out of the way as Bell let loose, spraying a sticky sea across the suburbs. His groans
grew higher, his co*ck harder, driving him to pour out even more of himself into the open air.

A long, drawn-out org*sm. But it had its price; for every gallon he gave, he also gave up a bit of his height. Unnoticeable at first, but inevitably drawing down smaller and smaller as he coated houses and trees and whole neighborhoods in his fluids.

He remained paralyzed, his hands locked tight around his co*ck. He was helpless, only able to buck out more of his seed onto the ground around them.

Bell shrunk. A slow descent to the normal. To the small. When he reached the height of their first growth spurt, the bluejay's single torrent turned into a sputtering stream. His momentum stumbled, and he coughed out in a weakened bluster.

From a stream, to a trickle. His shrinking slowed. The last dozen feet he lost slowly, his excess mass dripping from his co*ck as a single, rolling stream. It melted into the rest below, a thick carpet that'd turned the land around them into a white, gooey wonderland.

To ten feet. To nine. He stroked out the last few feet himself, dumping the rest in a last few globs.

Finished. The last of it poured out, leaving Bell at his usual size. Tired, sweating, blushing and panting, but at least he was standing.

He gasped for air, his legs trembling in the aftermath of his ordeal. Breath, ragged yet satisfied.

Bell floated in the air over him. Concerned at first, but that concern quickly turned to relief. Relief, then joy. From crisis to a smile. Then a snicker. Soft at first. Stifled. But a losing battle. He couldn't help himself. He kept the giggles in as long as he could until he exploded into a wild laughing fit. His whoops came with high cackles; hyena cries and yips melting with his whooping as he rolled in the air.

"HAH! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!" He bat his legs. Clutched his sides. Tears welled at the edges of his eyes, yet the laughter kept coming. "MATH WAS RIGHT, HUH? WHAT KIND OF MATH WAS IT? DID YOU HAVE TO FACTOR YOUR O-FACE? DID YOU WRITE DOWN THE EQUATIONS ON A...WHITE BOARD? HAHAHAHAHAAHA-URK!

His laughter stopped. Something blew up from his throat. A small burp of air that jumped out his throat. And with it, a fraction of his height. Enough to notice. He planted his fingers across his mouth, eyes going wide.

"OH. WELL. AT LEAST ALL I HAVE TO DO IS NOT LAUGH."

Athos appeared below him. Impish. Up to no good.

He knew that smile.

"ATHOS...? WHAT ARE YOU SMILING ABOUT?"

"NOTHING," he answered. "BUT, AND CORRECT ME IF I'M MISTAKEN, BUT AREN'T YOU...TICKLISH?"

Saber pondered on the question. A weird question, but then it struck him. His grew wide, and he tried to float away as the raptor approached him with open talons.

"UH, NO! THAT'S...BELL! YEAH! DON'T YOU DARE!"

Athos wasn't swayed. He drew closer and closer, eyes shining.

"I'M WARNING YOU!"

"THE WAY I SEE IT, THERE'S STILL ONE WAY I CAN STILL BE THE TALLEST. NOW HOLD STILL..."

The Channel 3 van rolled through the suburbs, tires parting through a thick layer of white sticky goo across the ground. Its pace, measured. It moved through at idling speed, touring the slathered rows of houses.

Ferris looked on at the wet road, shaking his head at the sight of it all. "This city's so goddamn weird." He turned his head. At the back of the van was Maggy and Avery at the van's edge. Still filming, despite everything. He almost admired it.

Almost.

Maggy reported on the strange land around him. Her tone has changed. From upbeat and lively to a more sullen tone. The panic was gone. The stress. Content to just comment on what she saw.

"-And as you can see, the neighborhood is rather completely ruined. If you or someone you know happens to own property in this neighborhood, this reporter offers her deepest and sincere apologies. We are on our way now to the current location of the giants."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Laughter boomed in the distance. Big laughter.

"That laughter you hear is from one of them. Moments ago, we saw not one but two of the four go from such towering heights, back down to mortal size. A truly fitting end to these monsters, and now one is tickling the other. I can only surmise why. Have the giants turned on themselves? Has one of them betrayed its own kind? These questions Channel 3, and Maggy Addelville, will attempt to find out."

"HAHAHAHAHA! STOP! STOP IT! I MEAN IT!"

Ferris glanced up. "Uh...we're getting close."

"Just keep driving," Maggy ordered. "We've come this far."

As the van rolled, they passed by something surprising. A bluejay. As far as they could tell, the same one that had just blown out a mountain of cum. He was on his knees, his eyes glazed over, and his body completely drenched in seed. He didn't even seem to realize they were there.

The van cruised past him. They filmed him as they passed.

She shook her head. "A strange end to a strange being. One can only guess the thoughts rolling through his alien mind. Unknowable. Unreachable. Unclean. The terror of the city, reduced to this."

They left him to his sticky fate, rolling down the street to growing laughter. None of them spoke. Not until the van bucked, and fell to a complete stop.

"Close as I'm taking us," Ferris said. He turned around, elbow on the top of his seat. "Also, we're out of gas.'

Maggy nodded. "Right." She moved to leave the van. Stopped, and looked back to their drives. "Hey, Ferris?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

"Just do the report and make us famous."

She saluted him and jumped out. Her heels splashed down into a sticky molasses. Fresh cum, still flowing down the street in a slow river. She wanted to feel disgust...but something this strange brought only a sense of wonder. It didn't even phase Avery. Together they came around the van, and looked up to see the source of the ear-splitting ruckus.

The hyena. His body swollen with air, and lost in a long laughing fit. White claws danced across his body, tickling him in every place it could. Across his arms, his belly, ankles and feet. Anywhere there was opening, the raptor took, torturing the larger hyena as he kept begging for mercy.

"STOP!" he pleaded. "I CAN'T KEEP-! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

He was lost in it. Out of his mind in giggles and snorts and chortles. The raptor was wrapped tight around him, holding him in place as he kept running teasing talons across his whole body.

With laughter, change. With every 'ha', he lost a tiny bit more of his size. The air escaped out his open mouth, lost to the world. His lungs were at the raptor's mercy. He could do nothing but react. Seethe and squirm and roar. Every few moments the raptor switched to another part of his body. Just enough to let him relax. Catch his breath, then pull it right back out with another round of desperate cackles.

The hyena laughed his body away. With every breath, smaller. Less. And the smaller he became, the less he could resist. The raptor went from the smaller to the larger, still clutched tight around the airy giant. If nothing else, he looked determined. A fierce spark of intent. Whatever he was doing it for, it was for a purpose.

Maggy and Avery filmed the hyena's collapse. He shrunk down to a bus's size. Then a car's. Down, down, yelling at the raptor all the way until...

Touchdown.

His feet touched the ground. Only then did the raptor take away his claws. The hyena gave one last snort, then fell backwards onto his back. Limp and winded.

Leaving...the raptor. The last one standing. He stood above them as a gray citadel, tall and robust and with an odd sparkle of satisfaction in his eyes. He glanced at his bare wrist. "WELL, WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME!"

"The...time?" Maggy sputtered.

The raptor stretched. He arched his back and twisted to the side, groaning in a tight strain. "ABOUT THE OUTCOME I EXPECTED, HONESTLY. BE WITH YOU IN A MINUTE. I'LL BE RIGHT DOWN."

"Right...down?"

He flexed one arm against the other.

And then, started to shrink.

No catastrophic flood. No laughing or sticky torrents. He simply...shrank. A smooth and linear contraction, bringing with it only a gentle 'bwwoooooo...' as his form descended to the ground.

Or, at least, smooth enough. On the way, he hit a few snags. His left arm lagged behind. A part of his knee. His tail seemed to have the worst of it, remaining the same size even as he drew down to half his original size. It forced him to balance a bit, holding out his arms and correcting his gravity's center.

His tail began to shrank. It rushed to join the rest of him, but by now he was nearly back to his original size.

bwump.

And done.

He was...normal. Or nearly so. Despite his linear degrowth, a few parts of him remained uneven. His tail was still quite huge in proportion, dragging on the ground behind him. One of his arms, a little too long. Large talons on one foot, and his feathers just a little too wide.

But, normal.

He seemed unconcerned. The only regarded his tail, waving it behind him with a curious brow. It was still shrinking, though still lagging far behind the rest of him.

"Hm." He shrugged, and turned to Maggy. "Oh well. Not bad for a prototype."

Maggy had no words. Here she was, face-to-face with one of the now-former giants, and she had no idea what to ask him. "Uh. Hello?"

The raptor waved with a friendly smile. "Hello! You must be that news crew that's been following us around. Margaret Addelville, yes?"

She blinked. Jaw open. "Uh. Yes."

He held out his hand. Maggy hesitated, but accepted his offer. She offered her own palm, and he clasped it tight in a lively handshake. "Love your stories! You really do see the patterns where others don't! I respect that."

"O-oh! Thank...you?"

He let go, and placed his arms behind his back. "You're
most welcome." He scanned the chaos around them. "Some mess we've made, eh~?"

"A bit, yeah."

"Oh, I'm sure I'm going to get some very spirited e-mails from my superiors later on. But that's my future. Let's talk about yours."

He leaned forward, teeth shining pearly. "Have you, any of you, ever considered a job in science?"

THE END