One of the major disadvantages of being, essentially, trailblazers on a bleeding-edge sports medicine program was the frequent, intrusive, and omnipresent probes into their daily lives. Blood, saliva, urine, and stool samples were collected in alarming quantity. Their diets were very carefully monitored right down to the last gram of rice and milliliter of milk. ‘Horse (and his full-time kitchen staff) did all of the food preparation, logging, measuring and so forth, which made the experience far less burdensome on the men. But that did mean that every scrap of junk food or snacks that weren’t on the “eat sheet” for the day must be reported in excruciating detail.
Woe betide anyone if Kovač found evidence of unlogged snacking in their samples. The resulting “remedial diet adjustment” was a Motivational assignment crueler than “tending the Zen garden” or “walking the red truck.” Or even the dreaded “buckshot sandbag pyramid.”
Nor did the data collection speak to the equally onerous burden of simply eating as much as was needed. All of the men were enormous. Vandenberg and Blaczynski were titanic. Burgess, Firth, and especially Arés were unambiguously monstrous. And all of the men were extremely active. Food was therefore a constant fixture in their lives. They had to eat so much and so often that, on their more active days, simply moving their food around was a major logistical challenge for ‘Horse’s motivated but overworked kitchen staff.
Consider Firth’s daily routine: wake up, grab a pre-workout shake. Sweat for an hour in “light” group exercise, followed by a post-workout shake and breakfast. Then first formation followed by individual physical training. Another meal. Then, on an active day, scenarios back to back until noon. Before and after each, there would be a shake or a hearty snack. Comfort break, rest, lunch. Then classroom time, perhaps, with snacks provided. Then the second scenario block, much as before. Another meal. Retreat ceremony, followed by another quick meal, his real exercise session for the day, a big post-workout meal, then finally, relax for a couple of hours with his brothers on the couch, too tired to do much of anything else.
Then bed time. And before that…a final meal. All of the men had a similar schedule, the differences being primarily based in nutrition content, dietary preferences, and size of the individual meals. Their food plans were so utterly individualized, in fact, the men typically only ate together at lunch. During the work week this was the one time the men had any freedom to plan their own food, and Titan and ‘Horse took full, absolute advantage. One needed variety in their lives, after all. The tedium of planned food—no matter how tasty or well-prepared—would quickly drive anyone mad. Shakes, rice, chicken, fish, and supplement powers, pills, drinks and so forth grew old very fast.
All of this eating, training, and exercise, with recuperation time nearly eliminated thanks to the Crue-D, meant their bodies could grow as fast as they damn well pleased and grow all parts of themselves in response to the stresses experienced, all without the typical resulting inflammation. Just like with that crazy idiot Adrian, this “tricked” their bodies into growing far, far larger and hardier than they normally would. Bones thickened, frames broadened and deepened, muscles and tendons hardened, organ systems adapted and hormones increased, sometimes quite dramatically.
But Firth had grown up experiencing a genuinely extreme state of body and mind so none of that was an entirely new experience for him. He had been a hulking example of “testosterone poisoning” since middle school and it had taken years to learn the discipline and self-control a man like him so desperately needed. Quite how his “little” best friends handled the rush of hormones flooding their brains so late in life was a thing Firth never failed to marvel at. He at least had years of familiarity on his side.
He had to admire them for it, especially Arés. His transformation was the most extreme of them all, growing from a dense, wiry, iron-strong, short little super-heavyweight powerhouse teenager into a much taller and hulking specimen of manhood. And while neither he nor Vandenberg were exactly vertically challenged—both were pushing six feet these days—they were both the shortest men on the team. And yet, there was absolutely no question who was the biggest. ‘Horse was far and away the most physically powerful human being to ever live, and probably the very heaviest to walk under his own power.
And despite that, the boy was so athletic and light on his feet he practically bounced off the walls anywhere he went! Who else could perform an iron cross in triple Earth gravity, repeatedly, with weights? Blac and Akiyama could, and of course Burgess and now Firth, these days…but they were all so much lighter than ‘Horse. Not even ‘Base compared. Nor could they match ‘Horse’s added weights, either absolutely or relative to body mass. That boy was a fuckin’ stud and Firth knew it’d be a long, hard slog to ever match him.
Compared to that sort of experience, Firth’s Crue-D changes had been mild.
That was beginning to change, though. Firth noticed his feet had started to widen and his shoes were growing uncomfortably tight, something he’d not felt since he was seventeen. More and more he found himself going about his daily life totally barefoot, just like the Protectors. He was pretty sure his shoulders were suddenly a little broader, too. Some of the narrow hallways in SOR’s warren-like office building had lately gained an acute claustrophobic quality to them; both his shoulders and his head lightly brushed against the narrow walls and the low ceiling. And he knew beyond any doubt his pants were getting uncomfortably tight in every measure. He suspected they were getting too short as well. Perhaps he was finally beginning the same transformative journey as Warhorse and Baseball had experienced; where would it take him? Would the rest of SOR follow? He could not say.
But despite their enormity, the growth the men had experienced was not, it must be said, past the theoretical realm of what was nominally possible for a human male to achieve. Though Firth was a truly gigantic man these days, he wasn’t—at least for now—inconceivably beyond the largest strongmen competing in the circuits. Vastly bigger, stronger, faster, and far more athletic? Absolutely. But, given exceptional luck, lots of time, appropriate medicine and a team to plan every aspect of their training, diet, and lives? The strongmen of the public world could probably come surprisingly close. And one must remember, those enormous specimens couldn’t cheat their way around injury like the men of SOR could. If that restriction were removed…
One got a Warhorse, or a Baseball. And these days, a Righteous, too. It wasn’t all upside, of course. Beyond the enormous demands of nutrition and the relentless body growth came all the inconvenience that entailed. This was particularly consequential for the EV-MASS techs, who were constantly re-working or periodically re-fabricating the suit’s components and layers from scratch. And finally, all the growth and change meant that, every quarter or so, the teams needed full body measurements taken in painfully intimate detail.
They started with a relaxed full-body laser scan. Then they directed the men through an arduous routine of full-body motion much like they were a gymnast, bodybuilder, or perhaps a vain party boy (Blaczynski in particular made light of this ritual) but with the purpose of recording how the men’s muscles moved and bunched in concert. They took detailed measurements of every conceivable body part from every angle in every state of relaxed and flexed, all to ensure the more-than-skin tight undersuit and body-smashing midsuit perfectly conformed to the men’s anatomy, and would move correctly as they moved.
Firth enjoyed this bit just as much as Blaczynski did. The giant Aggressor was probably the leanest man on the team and it showed, with all of his muscles shaped and lined like a bodybuilder preparing for competition. Firth was shamelessly egotistical about showing off—all the men were to varying degrees—but he was both very cocky and very good-humored about it all, even if his enormous and impressive musculature was maybe not quite as model-perfect and magazine-cover pretty as some of the others.
His copious body hair probably didn’t help, either. But manscaping was totally out of the question so he’d just have to live with it. Let Blac and Sikes have their flawlessly symmetric abs. Firth looked damn good too, and he was bigger and stronger in every measure and liked it that way. If you lined up everyone and compared? Everyone had their high points but Firth was the best overall.
Except for Adam. That stumpy shit’s body was just so fucking perfect despite his absolute stocky hugeness, that he didn’t really count in the first place. Nobody surpassed or even equaled his body in any way: speed, endurance, toughness, strength, symmetry or aesthetics…anything. The perfect fucker.
And yes, the men’s very favorite measurement was also frequently repeated, much to Kovač’s annoyance and the Beef Trio’s increasingly smug and bemused views on the entire subject. Sadly—or happily, depending on one’s viewpoint—given how the Crue-D affected the rest of the body it was only prudent to ensure every critical measurement remained current. What were the results? Only Kovač knew the overall trend for certain, and the suit techs of course knew their men, but whatever the numbers were, nobody was telling.
Funny, then, how the female barracks gossip seemed to know exactly what details were felt pertinent to the rumor mill’s goals. The weekend after Measurement Day generally proved a satisfying adventure for everyone.
Firth personally found the entire thing hilarious. For as much shit as the rest of the dudes gave the Beef Trio about their blessings, the other bros were awfully protective about their own. Which was silly, really; none of them had any secrets between each other, given the close proximity of their living and the nature of life in the combat arms. And none of them were exactly petite to begin with. They had nothing to be ashamed of! ‘Course, Firth was tied for top dog with ‘Horse so maybe it didn’t bother him so much. Whatever. ‘Horse was the one dude in the whole world Firth didn’t mind a loss or tie with in any contest. Maybe Blac, too. Yeah. Blac was good people.
But that did motivate Firth to lift harder and eat bigger. He was convinced he would finally “win” one day against the shortstack freak and finally outlift him. Firth couldn’t wait! He’d celebrate, too. Maybe make ‘Horse the perfect steak dinner. Yeah! And afterwards he’d drag the boy out to a really fine strip club. He’d take his girl, too! Someone’s gotta educate those two, after all.
Firth was extremely fond of them both in his own hypermasculine way of things. He was so lucky to have such good friends!
The final measurement taken was generally their mass and its distribution. This was critically important because the balance of their gear changed as their weight increased and their centers of gravity shifted. Getting weighed was, consequently, not a particularly simple process, but even here the men could make a game of it. What better way to endure an embarrassing situation than by making light of it? Firth certainly did. He pranced his way up to the stations with all the cocky showmanship of a pro wrestler peacocking for his fans.
First, he sauntered over and squeezed himself onto a medical-grade digital scale under Earth gravity. The platform was clearly sized for extremely large and obese people and yet it was simply too small to accommodate either his enormous feet or the epic mass they bore. It creaked loudly under his weight and flat refused to report his weight: the display showed EEEE. He smirked at it and mugged for the rolling-eye amusement of his techs.
“Goddamnit,” complained Kovač, “You too? All three of you mutants are bustin’ outta my gear!” She shook her head, “Guess we’ll need to find a better scale to weigh you three…” The variable-G pad could of course calculate their mass based on their motion and reactions, but that was hardly ideal.
Firth smirked. Just the idea of being too much for any mortal scale filled with him with smug giggles and silly self-congratulatory happiness.
“Hey, congrats dude, welcome back to the big boy’s club!” Adam delivered a painfully loud and congratulatory bit of back-slapping macho affection, which caused Christian to stumble off the tortured scale and grumble good-naturedly. ‘Horse and ‘Base were best bros with Righteous and together they were the undisputed, unapologetic alpha-meatheads on a team filled with gym rats.
“Eh, it’s just a number.” Firth was not a modest man but he did try to keep himself in check, at least a little. “Well, okay, I don’t get a number anymore, heh. But anyway what matters are the speed trials and I’m still the fastest.”
“And your lifts are way better lately. Time to upgrade you to heavier armor!”
“Heh,” he gave a smug little smirk, “Yup. Just starting to beat ‘Base’s lifts now. Feels good!” He pulled John into a crushingly tight bro-hug and nuzzled affectionately. “And if you both hadn’t helped I’d would’t be here. Thanks!”
“Heh.” The three had long suspected Baseball would eventually be left behind in the strength game. He simply did not have the same fanatical motivation to continuously push his limits, at least not quite as hard as the other two. Happily he bore no ill will or jealousy. He could still keep up and he was still stronger and faster than the rest of the team by far; he had to be, as large as the men were growing these days. And he was a damn good medic, after all, and Adam insisted he was the best there was. Whether that was true or not…it was a warming thought, and one Adam held genuinely.
Meanwhile Firth moved on to the variable-G pad, which was designed to locate and measure one’s center of gravity. The techs applied retroreflective stickers along all his major joints and key landmarks on his torso, head, and extremities, making quick work of a surprisingly precision-oriented job. But for Firth, his work was just beginning. It would be an awkward thirty minutes of ridiculous birthday suit prancing in an unstable high-gravity field and a shifting floor, all to force him to balance aggressively against the competing forces on his body. It wasn’t necessarily pleasant for most people; the unprepared could find themselves violently dizzy in a matter of seconds. And it wasn’t easy. The men half-joked it was the hardest workout they had outside of skin-rules Gravball.
All the men loved it, especially the Aggressors. Nothing else demanded so much self-awareness and constant, fully-body tension just to stay upright. But the resulting measurements were fantastically precise and would be used to fine-tune the equipment positioning on his revised suit, and perhaps slightly redistribute his protective armor. Balance was king for a Spaceborne operator, and that went triply so for an Aggressor.
“Step on over, ‘Pony, I need to get your gross measurements.” Kovač gave Arés a little smirk, and he blushed in response and grinned his goofy puppy-dog smile. “You need to perform for me!” Firth chuckled under his breath, happy to see the two interacting so happily.
Adam decided to have some fun. He too had stripped down and endured the preliminary measurements by the techs, laughing and joking all the while, and decided to troll Kovač a little.
“Hey, I’m already buck naked and now you get to poke and prod me. You enjoy this, don’t you?”
“Damn right I do. I always said left beef was best beef—Goddamnit, ‘Horse.” Her joke trailed off as Adam squeezed onto the scale, wrapping his oversized feet over all its edges simultaneously. The poor scale squealed alarmingly as it took his weight; he was considerably heavier than Firth and everyone knew it. He grinned an evil grin, knowing full well it wouldn’t show anything useful. The scale’s EEEE stared accusingly at its tormentor, as if begging him to step off and show some mercy. He didn’t. Adam looked at the screen and grinned huge and smug, obviously proud of his achievement. Kovač sighed in annoyance.
She quickly recovered her wits, rolled her eyes, and chuckled in faint disbelief. “Good God man, it sounds like it’s gonna explode! I guess you’re still the biggest fucker around.”
In response Adam grinned bigger, then flexed and alternately roll-bounced his gigantic pecs, earning a giggle and another friendly insult. Adam was feeling particularly trolly that day, with his display tattoo scrolling various ego-boosting fake messages like “My face is up here” with an arrow pointing up, or “Choking hazard” with an arrow pointing down.
He wasn’t really that kind of personality but sometimes he enjoyed playing one.
“Beat that, Firth!” He loudly slapped his chest with enough force to break a smaller man’s bones, flexed his bowling-ball sized arm and then slapped that too. “I’m still king shit!”
Firth grinned wolfishly. “Gimme time, shortstack. I’ll get ‘ya yet.”
Kovač chuckled along with everyone else. But then she gave ‘Horse an evaluating glance. “I gotta say, you don’t look anywhere near as big as you actually are. You look like you should be maybe half as heavy.”
The men all sniggered but Warhorse only grinned. And it was true. Despite his mind-boggling size and titanic appearance, he and the rest of the Beef Trio simply did not look like they massed enough to confound a scale with a four-digit screen. All the men of SOR were like this to varying degrees, but Adam was far and away the most extreme example. His muscles were quite literally more solid than hardwood, even totally relaxed, and a crushing hug from him was much like one from a warm and sweaty marble statue.
Nothing drove that point home quite like a recent incident at Rooney’s. One of the locals—big, burly, and utterly plastered—took a strong and inexplicable dislike to Adam and without any warning, punched him right in the gut. There was a very loud smack followed by a pained expression, then tears, as t he man shattered his fist against Adam’s iron-hard abs. The idiot needed reconstructive surgery and a month to recover. He couldn’t have done more damage to himself if he’d punched a concrete wall.
Warhorse, for his part, was caught completely unaware. But given the man’s inexplicable aggression, the resulting self-injury, and the perverse ego-boost Adam got from the incident? He wasn’t inclined to press charges, especially since he wasn’t even flexing. Karma had been served.
He nodded happily. “Yup! Dad always told me I’m a dense motherfucker!”
Kovač’s laughing grin was all the reward he needed. He flexed a little more in his happy, cartoonish display of male bravado to the jeers and cheers of everyone present. But as usual he had trouble containing his exuberant energy. In short order he was up on his toes and bouncing as he showed off for his friends, encouraged by their good-natured taunts.
Sadly, the motion caused by his peacocking was too much for the scale to bear. It groaned, the EEEE melted into a half-broken mess as the electronics inside gave a dying gasp, then there was a loud snap as something within blew apart under the stress. There was a very brief pause, then Adam fell about a quarter-inch as the device effectively disintegrated beneath his mass.
Everyone in the room paused and looked over at the weigh station in the pregnant silence. Kovač looked at her ruined scale, then at Adam’s slightly mortified face.
She burst out laughing, and so did everyone else, even Adam.
“Look at that, my ‘Pony’s all grown up!” She sighed, “Well, I suppose we’ll need to find something more appropriate for you Lads. I wonder what—“
“Get a cattle scale.” Murray, as always, had the sharpest wit.
Another round of laughing. Adam grinned, red-ear embarrassed yet a bit proud, perhaps, but such was the reality of his job. When absolute strength was far and away the overriding qualification, mass became the price. And by extension, clothing, destroyed furniture, care when entering elevators or rickety old houses…
No one ever said it was easy being big.
Shortly thereafter
Operator’s Barracks
Corporal Faarek of Clan Whitecrest
“Daar! I brought you something!”
A brute of a creature came bounding around the corner with his best cross-species friend on his heels. Seeing a creature as big and heavy as Stainless come bounding along on all four paws was an amusingly terrifying thought. Fortunately, everyone here were friends.
But enough about Bozo. He was only a dog and meant no harm. Daar, on the other hand, was heavier, stronger, and apt to pounce, especially given Faarek’s slightly tenuous relationship with the massive…creature. While on friendly terms, their previous conflict left Daar a little mindful of their mild rivalry, and inclined to tease slightly more aggressively, or perhaps to wrestle just a bit more enthusiastically at every opportunity.
In fact, the growl and friendly-aggressive set of his teeth suggested a tackle was likely, until he sniffed the air.
“Wait. WAIT.” He skidded to a halt and bounded upright. “Is that Nava?”
“Yes. Fresh from the butcher, too.”
Daar whined a bit out of pure happiness. “Thank you! Let’s go cook some right now!” He bound over to the kitchen in four efficient gallops, slinking down to all four paws and then back upright almost like a sapient fluid. Faarek couldn’t help but chitter happily; Daar was so very easy to please.
“Maybe we should try it in a human stir-fry? Yeah!”
Faarek helped the big brute cook.
“Hey, ‘Horse! Try this.” Daar offered a chunk of white meat on a stick.
“Yuh?” Adam took the offered food, sniffed and examined it carefully, took a little nibble…“Hey, this is great! What is it? Something like a scallop?”
“Nava cutlets marinated in…what did we use?”
“We improvised,” said Faarek. “The traditional sooba paste wasn’t available. Sooba is, uh, maybe something like a teriyaki? And you already had teriyaki sauce on-hand, so we tried that.”
Adam swallowed his bite and grinned, “Well, it works! What’s a Nava?”
Regaari answered. “It is the reproductive form of an insect we breed for food purposes. A single fertilized female transforms into a massive Nava grub. It grows to a dozen kilograms or so and when it reaches the critical mass, tens of thousands of individual larva nucleate within and eat their way through the female, then consume her utterly. Right before that happens, we harvest the Nava.”
“Messy work, too, especially when they start to slough off the superbody.” Daar shook his head at the memory. “Moving those pallets around all day was just super, super gross. And smelly. And gooey, too.”
Regaari duck-nodded. “I can imagine. They go bad quickly, don’t they?”
Daar growled. “The worst is when you’re not quick enough getting to the farm and they pop. Pus and flies everywhere.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “So…yeah, that was my fourth-grossest Job.”
Remarkably, nobody bothered to ask what could possibly be worse.
Adam, meanwhile, could not contain himself. “Wait. So…that’s a bug.”
“Loosely, yes.”
“And they eat their way out of their host.”
“After a fashion.”
Adam blanched and contemplated the remaining meat on his stick. He handed it to Daar. “Uh, thanks…you finish it.”
“Wh—don’t you like it?” Daar seemed slightly crestfallen.
“No, it was fine! I just…dude, it’s fucking parasitic bugs.” He shuddered at the thought.
“Naw, it’s healthy protein! Nice nutty flavor, too. It’s only ‘parasitic bugs’ once they’ve grown up, I think?” Daar told him. “And I’ve seen human food that’s gone bad. All that green…fur…”
There was a distinct shudder amongst the Gaoians.
“And the smell,” remarked Faarek. “Just awful.”
“Dude…we don’t eat moldy food!”
“Bleu cheese,” Regaari observed. Every pair of Gaoian ears in the room flattened involuntarily.
“…Fine. Okay. So you don’t eat Bleu cheese, and I don’t eat…bugs.”
“Fine by me.” Regaari took the stick, popped it into his mouth, and stripped the morsels from it with obvious relish. “Mmm!” He chewed luxuriantly while Warhorse dry-heaved.
“…Imma leave you guys to it. Make sure you clean up. Everything.” He left to spread the warning.
Bozo didn’t seem to care. The smells had him begging from a respectful distance during the entire preparation. The three Brothers looked at each other and the large pile of cutlets they’d prepared, shrugged, and shared a taste of home while Bozo cleaned the pans.
Humans had strange taste in food.
As soon as Adam left, Regaari quirked his eyebrow at Daar, who sighed dramatically. “Fine. You win. What’s your price?”
“Oh, that’s easy. You’re gonna help me leave our mark on Sharman.”
“Oh?”
Regaari flashed a wicked smile. “Yes, but not yet. We will wait until after they run us through their advanced climbing course.”