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Maximilian

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Gosh, I hope Phil will lose so they may "unbrainwash" him and maybe make him come to his senses again. ^^; I also hope Cass is still there, but I bet that is not the case. And I am almost sure that Phil will at least seriously injure one of them before they get Phil. ^^;

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Really love how you have been ramping up the tension in these last few chapters. It's exciting to see the characters beginning to cross each other and their paths merge. 

 

I won't lie though. I am worried for all of their fates! Too many people congregated around one area. No way they all survive!

 

Can't wait for the next entry!

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  • 6 months later...
  • 6 months later...

It's been a while, so here's a quick recap:

Magic is a lost art form that has recently been rediscovered. Through study and practice, members of the "Coven" can wield a bunch of cool powers, but generally you can only really master one form of it. Cassidy chose to learn how to grow people - or parts of people - to indulge his husband Adam's muscle growth and macro fetish. Mahtab can effectively teleport, which she called "slipping." Russell can cover himself in a nigh-impervious shield. Rodrigo can heal flesh wounds. Adrian can tap into a form of clairvoyance, though he is rarely sure how to interpret it. Nate is telepathic, and used his powers on Cassidy to learn how to copy his powers as well. But members of the magical community have begun to go missing; kidnapped, it turns out, by Cliff, who is able to steal powers from other sorcerers. Among others, he has gained the ability to shrink people, turn them to stone, and become invisible. A vicious sadist, Cliff has been shrinking men and keeping them captive, abusing them for his amusement, insisting they call him "Master." His current captives are Phil, Blake, and Rodrigo, whose healing powers he uses to repair his injured toys when he has finished with them. Cliff's most recent acquisition was Cassidy, and now Cliff has gained his powers as well.

Mahtab and Russell conducted an investigation on the disappearances, initially believing Cassidy was behind it, and roped Adam into helping them. Russell eventually tracked Cliff down, but Cliff killed him, and left Rodrigo and Blake to die, taking Phil - who had been reporting on his cellmates' activities - with him. Mahtab and Adam are now closing in, as are Jamie, whom Adam secretly called, and Nate, who received a psychic cry for help from Cassidy and recruited Tyson, who wants to save Blake. There's some other B plots going on too but you'll figure it out.

 

Part 16 - Phil

 

Phil was afraid of the Master. But he hadn't always understood that fear. When was first brought into the home of the Master, all he knew was fear. It was a selfish, pitiful fear. Fear for the life he had been torn away from. Pedestrian concerns about his job, his home, his family. For his own survival, which had since become so trivial. He had seen the Master destroy other would-be acolytes of this new religion. They had been tempered in the crucible of the Master, and had been found lacking. The price of failing that test - the price of failing all tests worth undertaking, Phil now realized - was death.

As the Master set Phil’s tiny body down on the hardwood floor, Phil looked up at him and wondered how anyone could fail to see what he now knew beyond any doubt. The Master was a creature so far beyond them. The things he could do were outside of the capacity of the limited, unenlightened sheep he had known in his life before. That fear was, in truth, awe. How could they deny it? How could Roddy and Blake fail to understand that after all this time?

For their heathen ignorance and stubborn blasphemy, they deserved the destiny the Master had inflicted upon them. And the time had come for Phil to meet his.

“You've been an adequate slave,” the Master grumbled, looming mountainous over Phil. “I've decided to bestow on you a fraction of my power,” he announced, drawing himself up to his full height. “Kneel.”

Phil dropped to one knee, clasping his hands over the other. He bowed his head in solemnity.

Pain shot through his limbs, and he stumbled as he felt them suddenly growing longer, flesh stretching tight over elongating bones. He clenched his teeth to keep from crying out, afraid the Master would be offended or disappointed. Phil glanced up at the Master as he writhed on the floor, and saw the Master return his gaze, arms crossed in satisfaction, grinning with delight at Phil’s agony.

His body contorted as his shifting bones ground against each other, his legs cramping, toes curling as his feet grew. He drew strangled gasps of breath from the air, and each one was like sulfur in his lungs. He tasted blood in his mouth as his teeth grew faster than his jaw. Tears poured down his cheeks as his eyes bulged out of their sockets before the rest of his face caught up with them. Pain shrieked through every corner of his body, its keen more intense with every torturous moment.

And then it was gone. The aches that echoed its passing were a welcome reprieve, though it took Phil a moment of uncertainty to realize he was still alive. His face was damp with tears, snot, spit and blood. Every muscle burned like a low ember, and every breath came staggered and raw. But it came.

Phil looked up. He had been restored. He felt a tad crestfallen. He had enjoyed being the Master's favourite toy. But he was alive. He had been tested, and he had passed.

“Stand,” the Master commanded, and Rodrigo tentatively braced himself the floor, slowly pushes himself up into a squat, and rose on shaky legs to his full height. He gulped as he found himself a head taller than the Master. In all these months he'd forgotten he had been a tall man.

The Master looked up at Phil with hooded eyes and a sadistic smirk.

“Thank you, Master,” Phil croaked hoarsely.

The Master shook his head. “Oh we're just getting started.”

The pain came again.

 

***

Carlos shook lint and dust out of an old burgundy wool blanket and unfurled it into the air, allowing it to descend unevenly onto the cement floor. On his literal hands and knees to keep his head clear of the parking garage’s low ceiling, Hugo maneuvered his considerable bulk to rest his ass on the blanket, leaning back against the side of a pickup truck - which alarmingly shifted under his weight - with a groan.

Carlos put his hands on his hips and nodded. “It’s not exactly the Hilton but it’ll have to do for now,” he grumbled.

Hugo nodded, shifting his weight around to get comfortable. “Don’t think the Hilton would do the trick,” he chuckled. “Thanks man.”

Carlos exchanged a mirthless glance with Daniel. They weren’t laughing. It was half a block from the Black Eagle to an apartment building owned by a longtime patron, but it took nearly half an hour to get Hugo’s fan club to leave him alone, and Hugo was not being helpful. Still enamoured by both his newfound size and all the attention it was getting him, Hugo was dragging his feet to get out of the spotlight, and paused to give his number to probably ten guys, at least. The logistics of his situation had, apparently, not quite registered with him yet. Even now he was experimentally flexing; running his hands over his muscles and his swollen gut; combing his fingers through his beard; occasionally hefting his impressive cock.

Carlos sighed. After last night’s chaos, Carlos had been transformed into the biggest bear in town - if not the whole world. Now Hugo was outdoing him on every front. But Carlos had a hard time resenting him for it. Previously, Hugo had been a gym rat prettyboy, but now he was a rugged, gigantic beefcake. Carlos felt his cock - which had gone from a respectable six-inch rod to a thick footlong monster the previous night - slowly engorging.

“I’m gonna run back to the bar. Try an’ find something to cover him up,” he mumbled to Daniel. “You stay here and keep him out of sight. Or try to, anyway…” Carlos turned and walked - briskly but slightly bow-legged - out of the garage.

“Mmm,” Daniel replied with a nod, and slowly turned around to Hugo, who was hefting his belly with both hands, raising it as high up his torso as he could, and letting it plop back down with a slap against his lap. He saw Daniel looking and giggled.

Daniel had always loved big men. It was what landed him a job at the Eagle in the first place, back when he was freshly immigrated, freshly out of the closet, and thin as a rake. He was particularly fond of men who were taller than he was. He was a man of supreme discipline but at six foot five, it was rare that he even had to test his resolve. Hugo, of all people, was now giving him that feeling in the pit of his stomach, the middle of his chest, and all over his balls. He took a deep breath and pulled out his phone, hoping to distract himself. It occurred to Daniel that he needed to update his Grindr profile after last night. 

“Y’know when I first started going with guys I tried to become a bear,” said Hugo. “In, like, upper school. But I could never keep the weight on.” He laughed. “I’d totally forgotten about it. And now… I mean fuck! Look at me!” He opened his palms and spread his arms, presenting himself like a piece of art. “I’m so huge! And look at these muscles, mate!” He raised his hands into fists and flexed his arms, glancing back and forth between both of his watermelon-sized biceps, his shaggy bangs whipping across his face in the process. “I never thought I’d be bigger than you, Daniel.”

Daniel felt his cock twitch. “Mmm,” he replied.

“Uhh… hee hee,” Hugo chuckled apologetically as he felt his cock hardening up again. “Sorry mate just can’t help it.”

“Don’t worry none,” said Daniel with a shrug.

“Hey, Daniel. Can you take a picture of me and send it to me? Here.” Hugo lifted off the pickup, leaving it to gently rock back and forth, and leaned forward so he could kneel on the blanket.

Daniel glanced, only for a moment, and then went back to his phone. “No, my friend.”

“Come on Daniel!” Hugo whined. “You can delete it right after you send it to me. My phone’s at the bar!”

Daniel ignored him, saying nothing and thumbing through pages of guys on Grindr. He shook his head.

“Daniel this is a big deal! I want to commemorate it!” Hugo sighed. “Please, Daniel? I’ll owe you big time.”

And with that, Daniel felt his resolve crumble.

Heaving an exaggerated sigh and tightening his mouth into an impatient frown (he couldn’t make things TOO easy for him), Daniel turned back towards Hugo and raised his camera. “Portrait o’ lan’scape?”

Hugo’s big lips curled into a half-open smile. “Wait a tick, lemme get to full mast,” he requested, moving his hands to his cock.

“Ey, I ain’t shootin you no porno, boy.” Daniel protested.

Hugo rolled his eyes. “It’s a cock, Daniel. Nothin you haven’t seen before.”

Oh, thought Daniel as he watched Hugo’s body come into focus on his phone, I seen plenty o’ dick, but I ain’t seen nothin like that before.

Watching Hugo’s manhood rise to attention was a thrill in and of itself. Daniel kept thinking to himself: No, it can’t POSSIBLY get any bigger, and kept on being proven wrong. By the time it finally stopped swelling and settling into a steady throb, it was nearly at height with Hugo’s chest and as thick as an average man’s thigh.

“Mmph… there we go,” said Hugo. “Aright let’s get a few.” He threw up his arms in the same double bicep flex, first wearing a goofy grin, then quickly assumed a devilishly sly expression.

Click!

Hugo lowered his arms and pointed to his dick, looking as if he was shocked by the size of it.

Click!

Hugo twisted to the side, lowering his right arm and gripping his forearm with his left hand, flexing in a classic “side chest” pose, his upright dick almost in the background, placed at a forty degree angle by his belly.

Click!

Next he shuffled around on his knees until his back was to Daniel. He struck a lat spread, flexing his enormous ass in the process. He glanced back, so he could eye the camera with a grin, ignoring the trail of precum that was dripping down the passenger side window of the pickup truck.

Click!

Daniel cleared his throat. Like - he assumed - every man who had been at the Black Eagle the night before, he too had had his (already impressive) manhood upgraded to a frankly ludicrous size. While most of the staff had spent their day shopping for clothes to fit their new physiques, Daniel had spent his at home enjoying his new cock. As a pubescent boy, he had privately nicknamed his dick “Lieutenant (JG) Armstrong,” after his hero, the astronaut Neil (not the pornstar Brad). But earlier today in an informal ceremony, Daniel’s cock had jumped a few ranks to Commander. (Outranking his namesake, for all you trivia buffs out there) 

Long story short, not only was Commander Armstrong quickly filling up a pair of jeans, it was filling up a pair that had been comfortably slack on the impressively muscled Daniel who woke up yesterday morning, not the pair that found themselves creaking at every movement of the ridiculously impossibly muscled Daniel who woke up today. Clearly, action had to be taken.

“Can you take a video?” asked Hugo, who had turned back around and was looking down at his chest. “I want to make a gif of my pecs bouncing… Daniel?”

Hugo looked up to see that Daniel had closed the distance. Hugo’s erect cock was barely an inch from Daniel’s huge swole chest. Hugo’s eyes somehow pulled themselves from his pecs and drifted past his carved-of-stone abs to see his tight jeans had been pulled open and a huge thick black cock sticking out and up - easily a foot long and thick as fuck.

Hugo felt his cheeks flush. “Daniel, I…”

Daniel took another step forward and Hugo shuddered as the head of his cock pressed into a deep canal between Daniel’s warm, sweat-slick pecs. Daniel held a finger to his lips. “Shhh…” he cooed. He stuck that finger into his mouth, doused it in spit, and slid it carefully into Hugo’s puckering urethra.

“Oh blood godfuck!” Hugo gasp, pressing his back into the strip of precum on the window of the pickup truck.

Daniel flashed a rare smile. “Boy, you talk too much…”

Unbeknownst to either of them, Carlos stood in the doorway of the garage, holding a king sized sheet in his hands. He heaved a sigh, tossing the blanket over his shoulder, and glanced back and forth, looking for a place to watch and jack off.

 

***

Adam squinted into the darkness. “There's someone in here.”

“What?” Mahtab hissed, drawing close to him to follow his gaze. She squinted to. “That's a lamp.”

“Are you new?” Adam growled quietly. “That is a fucking person!”

“People,” Liam corrected. He flicked the light switch on the wall but the room remained shrouded in darkness. “Figures,” he mused, and pushed past Adam to the opposite wall.

“Liam!” Mahtab squeaked in alarm, but Liam ignored her, and tugged the blind on the far wall. It snapped noisily upwards, and as Mahtab and Adam squinted against the sudden light from the street, they saw that Liam was right… sort of.

Robyn was right next to the window, and they recognized her first, but as their eyes roved across the room they settled on a number of familiar faces, even if they were frozen in contorted expressions of fear, confusion, or rage. Sara, Dave, Mohan, Hong… even Oded from the Circle, nestled through a crowd of five or six others they didn’t recognize. All slate gray, cold and lifeless stone.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Mahtab managed to choke. “Are they…?” she cupped her hand over her mouth. “Oh fucking god,” she gasped.

“They're alive,” Adrian declared with a definitive nod, although his expression of certainty immediately dissolved. “I… I think.”

“Holy shit this is all of them,” Mahtab moved through the room, squatting in front of Mohan’s statue. She reached out and touched his face, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Cass?” Adam called out suddenly, his eyes searching frantically through the crowd of stone statues. “Liam? Do you see Cass?”

Liam had been examining Robyn but stood up and surveyed the room. “I don't think so. No Russell either.”

Adrian had stayed still at the threshold of the living room, watching the three animated, breathing people move amongst the stone ones. It was horrible and terrifying. But he found himself, to some surprise, unsurprised. He turned instead to the dark kitchen, and the door on the other side of it. He glanced back at his companions, still occupied taking inventory of the statues, and silently sidestepped into the kitchen.

“Do you think we can turn them back, Maddy?” asked Liam, running his fingers over the strands of hair from a statue he didn't recognize. “Like where would we even begin?”

“We'll figure it out,” Mahtab assured him. She glanced at Adam. “Might speed up the process if we had some help.”

Adam glared back. “First we find Cass. Everything else comes after that.”

“I wouldn't be so bitchy if I were you,” Mahtab crossed her arms. “You know, his not being here doesn't exactly get him off the hook.”

“Are you fucking…?”Adam flailed his arms in the air in frustration. “Since when has Cass turned anyone to stone?”

“Guys can you please get over yourselves?” asked Liam. He spread his hands dramatically, glancing at the statues. “We have bigger problems right now.”

There was a loud creak of the floorboards, and all eyes shot to the staircase.

 

***

Rodrigo could barely see the pale shape of Blake, near the far wall of the terrarium. It took all of Rodrigo’s concentration to keep his breathing slow and deep, and he hoped Blake had the presence of mind to do the same. If he passed out, it was all over.

There was movement on the other side of the tank. Penny had stirred. He could see the dull glint off her black, numerous eyes. She had been sitting there, her legs curled close to her body, resting, watching Blake. He didn't know how long anymore. Every measured breath seemed to last an hour. But now she was slowly extending her legs, one pair at a time. She was preparing to strike.

Suddenly the door opened and a blinding shaft of light flooded his vision. He shielded his eyes. Blake turned to look, and Penny sprang up, skittering across the tank. Blake cried out and jumped to the side but Penny quickly changed course to intercept.

“Help!” Rodrigo started screaming. He couldn't see anything but it didn't matter who was standing in the doorway. He took a deep breath and shrieked until his throat was on fire. “HELP!”

Blake had managed to stay on his feet but Penny was already overtaking him. She pushed him onto his hands and knees and was on top of him before he hit the ground.

“Blake!” Rodrigo shouted, slamming his hands on the bars.

Penny curled her legs around him, pressing down on his back. Blake grunted, struggling in vain against her. She spread her pedipalps and jammed her fangs into his abdomen, and a thick spurt of blood slashed across the terrarium glass.

“Augh! Fuck!” Blake screamed.

“No! Blake!”

A shadow blocked the light from the door. “Holy shit, Roddy?”

Blake was still screaming in pain. Penny stood clamped on top of him, motionless save for her worrying padipalps, and her black eyes seemed to be staring at Rodrigo through the glass.

He looked up at the figure looming over him. It was Adrian, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. “Oh my god…” he croaked.

“Adrian!” Rodrigo shouted. He banged his hands on the bars, pointing at the terrarium. “There's someone in there!”

Adrian leaned down to hear him better and caught sight of the struggle in the tank. “Jesus Christ!”

He reached inside, pulling at Penny by her thorax. She immediately swerved around and bit him in the hand. “Aw fuck!” Adrian cried. He quickly pulled his hand off the spider, throwing her off of Blake and slamming his arm against the side of the tank. The terrarium slid cockeyed, one end crashing against the birdcage and knocking Rodrigo to the ground while the other moved off the workbench.

“Adrian!” Rodrigo cried. Penny had already scrambled upright and was moving back toward Blake. “Get him out of there! Hurry! Please!”

Adrian jabbed his hand back into the tank, closing his hand around Blake and ripping out a clump of dirt as he withdrew. He knocked the terrarium with his elbow and it slid further off the workbench, teetering for a moment before it slid onto the floor with a crash.

“Shit!” Adrian shouted.

“Put him in here with me! Quickly!” Rodrigo climbed to his feet. All the excitement was already making him lightheaded. He needed to keep it together or Blake was done for.

Adrian opened the birdcage and carefully deposited Blake inside, the soil he'd brought with him spilling through the grate. 

“I… I can't…” Blake was taking quick, shallow breaths. “I can't feel my legs.”

“Shh,” Rodrigo hushed Blake as he knelt beside him. He laid his palms out flat atop his body, gently running them across his flesh, taking stock of the damage. “I got you. Everything will be fine,” Rodrigo promised, unsure if it was a promise he could keep.

Penny had sliced through a kidney, his intestines, and liver, not to mention the extensive damage to his tissue. Venom and bile were flooding his system, and he was bleeding out.

Rodrigo placed his hand over the wound, applying pressure. Blake groaned and winced.

Adrian looked over the cage. “Is he gonna be…”

“Quiet,” Rodrigo snapped. “And please get out of my light.”

“Oh,” Adrian mumbled. “Sorry.”

Blood seeped from the wound with every heartbeat, hot and pasty against Rodrigo’s palms, but the wound closed under his hands. He sensed the organ and tissue damage repairing itself as well. It was draining his reserves, though, and Rodrigo felt himself getting woozy. He grit his teeth. If he couldn't keep it together, Blake would die.

He took Blake's right leg and crossed it over his left, and maneuvered his right arm across his chest. “I need to get you on your side.”

“I can't…” Blake murmured groggily.

Rodrigo moved to his right side and pushed as hard as he good. His peripheral vision was becoming blurry. Luckily Blake was helping him some, and turned on his side in a recovery position.

Barely able to gather his thoughts, Rodrigo transitioned the offending elements through his body.

“Fuck…” Blake rasped. “What are you…”

“It's gonna be fine,” Rodrigo mumbled.

Blake belched, coughed, and began to retch a foul-smelling, green-brown ooze. The rancid cocktail of poisonous bile pooled beneath the grating. Blake managed a wet cough and passed out. 

Confident that he had cleared Blake's system, Rodrigo heaved a strained sigh of relief, collapsed on his back, and fainted.

Adrian blinked, peering at the unconscious, shrunken pair in the birdcage. “Shit…” he murmured.

He stood upright. “Guys?” he took a step back towards the door. “Hey guys! In here!”

He gasped as he rounded the doorway, and jumped out of the way just in time to avoid the flatscreen television sailing through the door. It hit the far wall with such speed that it smashed in half.

 

***

Phil gripped the banister with one hand. The lacquered wood itself yielded to his strength. The Master had restored him, and done so much more. The Master had empowered him to destroy his enemies, and Phil no longer knew any fear.

Phil threw himself down the staircase, landing with a crash on the hardwood floor. His opponents could only gape at him with incredulous awe. He took that moment of confusion, balled his fist, and backhanded Mahtab. She flew across the room, slamming into the television mounted above the mantle. She fell to the floor in a heap, and the dislodged flatscreen crashed down on her back.
He stood to his full height, the eight feet gifted him by the Master. He drew back his thick round shoulders, puffed out his swollen chest, and glared down at them. They stared back at him with wide eyes full of fear and awe. They were bearing witness to the power of the Master. Like him when he first beheld it, they couldn't understand the glory of it. It was a pity they would not survive to learn.
Phil lunged forward before they had any time to react. He slammed a fist the side of a watermelon into Adam’s chest, and heard a satisfying crack in reply. Adam's feet were swept off the ground, and he fell on his stomach with a winded, bloody cough.

He felt something strike his shoulder and turned back to Mahtab, who had climbed to her feet and was grabbing anything at hand to throw at him. The first has been a picture frame. Now she had a table lamp in her hand and was struggling to yank the power cord from the wall. Phil pulled back his fist and bounded clear across the couch towards her, aiming to pulverize her as he landed.
Mahtab saw him coming, dropped the lamp, and vanished with a loud crack. Phil’s fist connected with the statue behind her, obliterating the stone head like it had been made of plaster. Phil gasped, surprised by his own strength. The Master had wanted to keep his trophies intact. He would be angry. Now more than ever, it was imperative that Phil succeed.

Liam was kneeling at Adam’s side, but Adam was struggling just to get to his hands and feet. The colour drained from Liam’s face as Phil’s glare fell on him. Mahtab was gone, Adrian was elsewhere, and Adam was down for the count. Liam stood upright, tried to gulp and nearly choked on his own dry throat. 

With a grunt, Phil scooped the television off the ground, and hurled it with the ease one might throw a dinner plate across the room. Liam collapsed to his left, feeling the air peeling away around the television as it spun past him and into the kitchen.

Taking some care to avoid the stone statues clustered in the living room, Phil crossed the space between him and Liam. Liam scrambled in a clumsy, backward crab-walk on all fours, until he found himself huddled in a corner.

“No, please…” he gasped.

Phil grinned, and reached down with hand large enough to crush a human skull into pulp. Maybe that’s what was about to happen.

Something flew through the air and stuck in Phil’s meaty shoulder. The picture frame had been nothing, but this was sharp, and it hurt. Phil heard an involuntary whimper escape his mouth, as he reached up and pulled a butcher knife out of his shoulder, covered in blood. He felt his cheeks getting flush with embarrassment. He had been given this gift; he had been made into a mighty warrior, stronger than any man alive. Yet still he whined like a woman. Like a girly faggot. They had all heard it. They all had to die.

Another knife flew out of the darkness of the kitchen, but it was only the handle that struck Phil and he advanced into the shadows, stepping over Adam as he still tried to pull himself out of the way. He made out the form of the man inside. He was skinny and waifish; easily broken. Phil slammed his fingers on the light switch, but his hands were so huge he only managed to turn the lights on for a moment before immediately turning them back off. In that split second, he saw the thin, wiry form of Adrian yanking a drawer of cutlery from the counter, and a second later he felt pricks and prods all along his torso as Adrian flung the contents at his attacker.

“Dumb fucker!” Phil shouted, stumbling forward and swinging his arms blindly in the darkness, feeling them crash into cupboard doors and the refrigerator as his thigh connected painfully with the corner of the island. The fridge gave him an idea, and he ripped the door open. The white light within was enough to sent an incandescent flare washing across the room, only to find it empty.
Voices behind him told him where his attacker had gone.

“Liam! Help me get him up! LIAM!”

“I can’t he’s too heavy!”

Phil turned around. Liam and Adrian were trying to lift Adam to his feet, but they dropped him back to the floor as they saw Phil’s attention fix on them. Adrian grabbed Liam and yanked him backwards, and they fled through the forest of statues to the far side of the room. Adrian began yanking at the window. Liam stood next to him, transfixed by Phil’s gargantuan, monstrous form.

“Please…” Liam croaked out. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Liam shut the fuck up and help me!”

Phil stepped towards them, and his toes prodded the prone form of Adam, still gasping for shallow breaths on the floor, a line of bloody drool hanging out of his mouth. Phil grinned.

“Stop, both of you,” Phil commanded.

“Not fucking likely,” Adrian retorted.

“Stop. Right now. Come back here. Come to me,” Phil continued. He looked down, and raised his right foot, placing it on Adam’s head, and gently forcing it back to the floor. “Come to me now or he’s fucking dead.”

Adrian hesitated.

Adam put a hand on Phil’s foot, trying lamely to pry it off of him. Even at full strength, Adam’s attempt would have been futile, but now he could barely breath, and it was like a piece of spaghetti trying to overcome a boulder.

Adrian went back to the window, and Liam slapped his arm away. “Adrian stop! He’s gonna kill him!”

“He’s gonna kill all of us!” Adrian hissed.

“Maybe…” Phil mused with a shrug. “Maybe not. But here’s one thing for sure: if you don’t get your fucking hands away from the window and start walking over to me right now, this guy’s head just a fuckin’ pile of muck.” Phil exerted the tiniest amount of pressure, and Adam screamed.

Liam took a step forward. Adrian snatched him by the elbow. “Liam! Don’t be retarded!”

Phil smirked with a dark chuckle. “Have it your way, roaches,” he murmured, and raised his foot up.

There was a crack and a rush of air, and Phil blinked with surprise to see Mahtab in the frame of the closed front door. His eyes followed her as she jumped into the air, tucking up her legs as if she were making a cannonball dive. She flung out her arm, and a ripple seemed to arc towards him through the air.

It all happened very quickly. Another crack sounded through the room so loud it momentarily deafened everyone. Something - or more accurately, nothing - lanced across the room, and slashed a deep cut into the wall behind Phil. The sound of it slicing into the bookcase and the halves of framed pictures crashing to the floor was so distracting it took a moment for Adrian and Liam to notice the detached head flying through the air with two bright crimson contrails.

It landed with an unceremonious splat next to the statue of Robyn. Their eyes darted back to Phil. His huge, obscenely overmuscled body seemed shocked to find itself suddenly headless, and it was a good solid moment before the thick arms slumped lifeless to his sides, and he swayed a moment more before toppling heavily to the ground. Luckily, Mahtab had the presence of mind to yank Adam out of the way.

Phil crashed onto the floor, shaking the pictures on the walls and rattling the windows and compelling the statues still on their feet to sway back and forth for a moment. Liam stared with grotesque, alarmed fascination at the neck without a head. The dull white of the spine; the pitch black of the gaping trachea; the angry red of the surrounding tissue still spouting a steady stream of blood onto the floor.

Everything in Liam’s body was tight. His only assurance that he hadn’t wet himself is that every orifice in his body had apparently sealed itself in panic. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t…

“Hey….” Adrian slid in front of Liam, commanding his whole field of vision. He placed his hands firmly on Liam’s shoulders. “Hey. Hey, hey. Look at me.”

Liam locked eyes with Adrian.

“You’re okay. We’re all okay. It’s okay. Or like… it’s all fucked up but it’s okay. We’re okay. Adam’s okay.” Adrian accented every sentence with a nod. “Come back to me, man. Let yourself calm down. Please.” He lowered his voice. “I need you, man.”

Liam’s lungs remembered how to breathe and he swallowed gulps of air. He nodded. “Sorry.”

“S’all right, man,” Adrian shook his head. “It’s all fucked up.” He turned so that Mahtab could hear him. “It gets worse,” he announced.

Mahtab was at Adam’s side. “Guys… Adam’s really messed up.”

Liam nodded. “I’ll call an ambulance.”

“Whoa!” said Mahtab and Adrian in unison.

“You want to bring an ambulance HERE?” Mahtab waved her hands wildly in the air, gesturing equally to the stone statues all over room and the headless corpse a few feet from her.

“Well we have to do something!” Liam insisted.

“Hold up…” Adrian raised his hand. “I might have some good news too…”

 

***

Jamie kept glancing at the house on Boardwalk. He was kind of out of sight, but not so out of sight that he looked like a creep. He had been playing Hearthstone for maybe fifteen minutes but it was murder on his battery so he just put in his earbuds and listened to Ke$ha for a while. He needed to keep his phone on in case Adam contacted him again. In the meantime, he was content to keep a low profile. After all, Jamie was an ad man. Subtlety was his specialty.

“Hi Jamie,” said someone he’d never met before. He turned around and saw a short lean guy with a short buzzcut next to a jacked up prettyboy in a backwards ball cap, his swole arms folded across his swole chest.

Jamie tried to hide his alarm as he yanked out his earbuds. “Yeah, hi… what? I mean… who? I’m not… How did…?”

“S’all cool, man, s’nothin,” the little guy nonchalantly waved away his confusion, alarm, embarrassment, and various other reactions. “‘M Nate, this here’s Tyson.”

The bodybuilder looked around a bit, as if to make sure there was nobody watching, before raising his hand in an awkward hello. “Sup.”

“Sorry I don’t… know…? You…?” Jamie said it like a question, which it essentially was.

“Yeah, s’fine,” Nate shrugged it off. “‘ know all ‘bout it, man. Adam, Cassidy… gettin’ big. I’unno… magic, I guess?” he whispered the last part.

Tyson grimaced. “It all sounds so dumb.”

Nate shrugged. “Yeah, well…” he shrugged again and that seemed to be his whole reply.

“How…” Jamie took a step away from them. “Who are you people?”

Nate raised his hand defensively. “We’re not th’people Adam warned y’about,” he assured him. “Adam doesn’ e’en know ‘bout us.”

“Stop telling me who you aren’t,” Jamie snapped, taking another step. Jamie wasn’t a particularly fast guy and he guessed the little guy had some speed. And by the looks of him, Tyson would flatten him if it came to blows. Both fight and flight were not looking like good options.

Nate searched momentarily for the proper words. “Third party,” he said finally, but held up a finger and added, “with vested interests.” He thought another moment and pointed to Jamie. “Same ‘s you.”

“What does that even mean?” Jamie furrowed his brow.

“You’re here t’help Adam, righ’?” asked Nate. “Tyson’s here fo’ somebody else, an’ so’m I.” He shook his head. “Lookit don’ matter none. We need to get inna tha’ house righ’ now.”

“Dude,” said Jamie flatly. “I can barely understand what you’re saying.”

Tyson tutted. “Don’t be a dick, man.”

Nate screwed up his face and did his best impression of a hick Canadian accent. “Boys we gotta git goin up on that house there, eh. Ferda boys, eh?”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “All right that’s enough.”

Nate strolled past him, cocking his head as he did. Jamie fell into step next to Tyson and they followed Nate up to the front door. Jamie couldn’t help but notice Tyson, his angular face covered in light stubble; sculpted bangs peeking out of the rim of his ball cap, and contrasting bright blue eyes that seemed to sparkle. His photo-shoot features seemed out of place on top of his thick, muscular physique. Since Drew had opened up about his affinity for growth, and unnaturally large muscles on unnaturally large men, Jamie had seen many a photoshopped jpeg, png, and occasionally even a throwback bmp that had morphed attractive men to the similar shapes. Tyson was a muscle morph come to life. Tyson noticed Jamie looking and replied with a terse, awkward smile. Jamie turned his eyes forward and set his jaw. He wasn’t sure exactly what level of insanity he was getting swept up into, but he knew it would need his game face.

Without bothering to knock, Nate flung open the door.

A small Indian girl, a chubby Asian guy, and a skinny emo skid with an arm covered in a sleeve tattoo and ear spacers were all trying to support a half-dead guy who Jamie quickly realized was Adam.

The three strangers looked out the doorway with wide eyes.

Nate greeted them with open hands and a wide smile. “Hey, ‘know none of y’know who we’re, an ‘know this seems a bit…” he suddenly turned to his right and barfed.

Jamie’s eyes fell on the likeliest reason why, and his mouth hung open at the sight of the gigantic headless corpse and its gaping neck-hole staring out the door like a one-eyed bloody… something.

“Dude you just yacked on my shoe!” Tyson protested, hopping backward.

“Dude that’s a headless fucking corpse!” Jamie thrust his arm into the doorway.

“Hey!” The skinny guy dropped Adam’s arm. “Can we try NOT shouting ‘headless corpse’? Just a thought.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Jamie spat.

“Who the fucking fuck are YOU?” the woman shouted back. “One second though,” she amended, “get the fuck in here.” She swiped out her arm and grabbed Nate by the sleeve, pulling him inside. Despite the obviously dire situation before them, Tyson and Jamie played the “you first” “no no after you” game for a few seconds before they were successfully inside with the door closed behind them.

A bunch of them all started shouting at each other at once. It was a free-for-all where only fragments of sentences were getting through at a time. The three carrying Adam were yelling confused demands of who the intruders were, Tyson was screaming for someone named Blake, and Nate was trying to calm everyone down with as loud a voice as calming anyone down would allow. But as Jamie spotted a dribble of spit or blood - he couldn’t tell - escape Adam’s lips and splat silently on the floor into a crimson puddle slowly expanding across the floor.

“SHUT UP!” Jamie shouted so loud it burned his throat. But it seemed to do the trick. “Is he… is Adam…?” he mouthed the word “dead” but his tongue had sense enough not to speak it. “... alive?”

“Yes,” said Mahtab impatiently. “But he needs help. And we can’t bring paramedics here.”

“The fuck we can’t!” shouted Jamie.

“Look. Shut up,” Mahtab snapped. “I don’t know who you are but… I mean do you want to explain all this to the cops? Look around, dumbass!”

“Wait…” Liam furrowed his brow. “You were at the wedding… the ad guy.”

Even as he said it Jamie recognized Liam. He’d put on weight. “Yeah,” Jamie muttered.

The three of them slowly lowered Adam to the floor. “You don’t like Cass,” Liam blurted.

“I’ve come around,” Jamie replied, annoyed. “Look, what’s going on here?”

Adrian shouldered his way past everybody and disappeared out the kitchen. Jamie was about to call after him but Nate launched into an expository monologue.

“‘Ll field that one,” Nate chimed cheerily, holding up a finger. “Aright, so….

“Guy named Cliff s’a wizard, like y’all, but he steals’s powers from other wizards. S’why he started turnin’ m’all to stone, once ‘learned how. He needs’m alive. Also; s’into shrinkin’ guys real small and fuckin’ wi’em. Killed ‘bunch o’em. Killed your friend Russell. ‘M real sorry bout tha’. Couldn’ get here fas’ ‘nough.”

“Wha… what the fuck?” Mahtab shook her head in disbelief. “Fuck off. Where is he?”

“Look,” Nate stressed, “‘M sorry but we don’ got time f’that. Cliff knew you’d come aft’ Russell. So ‘e took off with Cassidy. Only power ‘thinks ‘e needs.” Nate’s eyes inadvertently fell on Phil’s corpse again and he stifled a gag.

“Who are you?” Mahtab asked again. “How do you know all this?”

“Cuz Cassidy asked me for help,” Nate explained. “‘M not gon’ get int’it but ‘was enough for me to get th’rest.”

“Fuck this. This is all bullshit,” Mahtab insisted. 

“Not quite,” came Adrian’s voice from the kitchen. He walked into the light with something cupped in both his hands. Jamie couldn’t see what it was but Adrian showed Mahtab and Liam first and they both gasped in surprise. Adrian drew one hand away to reveal a little human man groggily sitting up in his hand.

“Roddy…” Liam whispered.

Nate cracked his knuckles. “Great. Le’s get started.”

“Whoa!” exclaimed Adrian as the tiny man in his hands quickly began expanding. As he surpassed the size of a toddler Adrian set him on the floor.

Tyson was shaking his head, his hands clapped over his mouth. “Aww this is so fucked up!” his whispered loudly.

Rodrigo gasped full lungs of breath for the first time in months. He felt dazed but energized, his whole body rejoicing at finally returning to a size it knew how to deal with. Stars flickered across his vision. Did he know these people? No. Oh wait. Yes. Wait. No. Sort of.

Mahtab turned slowly to Nate as Rodrigo - now back at six feet and then some - fumbled to get his bearings. “Did you… do that?” she asked, pointing down at Roddy.

Nate cocked his head and sort of nodded in a way that said yes, but… and replied. “‘M not gon’ get int’it.”

Mahtab narrowed her gaze at him and nodded with a fake, thin smile.

“There’s another one in there,” Adrian pointed with his thumb back to the garage. “Can you bring him back up to size too?”

“No!” Roddy shouted hoarsely, coughing. “No, no. I mean… the poison. Give Blake a few hours to recover. I dunno what’ll…”

“Wait, Blake?” Tyson’s eyes darted around frantically. “Blake Blake? Where is he?”

“Look, just leave him alone for now,” Rodrigo rasped, massaging his neck as he spoke. “He’s safe now. The Mas… the… the guy who did all this. He’s gone.”

“Roddy,” Adrian knelt down next to Rodrigo, who was seemingly doing inventory of his body, making sure everything was in the right proportion. “We need your help with Adam.”

“Adam…?” Rodrigo slowly scanned across the room until his gaze came across Adam, lying on his back, drawing shallow breaths. Immediately, he sprang into action, scrambling on all fours over to him. Adam averted his eyes over to him and tried to speak, but Rodrigo shushed him. “Motherfuck…” Rodrigo whispered. He opened his palms and began to run them down Adam’s body, scanning for damage.

Adrian took the opportunity to pulled Mahtab off to the side. They kept eyes locked on each other, trying to ignore the huge headless corpse next to them.

“Mahtab,” it fell clunkily off his tongue. “Maddy,” he amended, more comfortably. He went to say something again but stopped, and fixed her with a stern stare before declaring: “We need to call Harry.”

“No.” Mahtab shook her head. “Nope. No no no.”

Adrian clawed his hand briefly, his mouth open as he searched for the words, before clenching a fist. “I wasn’t asking you a question. I was making a very obvious statement.”

“Harry didn’t want to be involved,” Mahtab answered curtly.

“Harry didn’t want to be involved in the INVESTIGATION,” Adrian stressed. “The investigation is over. We need big guns on this right fucking now.”

Mahtab jabbed him in the chest. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Three fucking strangers walk in on this. We have no Cassidy, no Russell, no PERP, and you’re telling me…”

“Russell is…” Rodrigo shook his head and sniffed. “He was murdered.”

“No…” Mahtab grit her teeth. “No that’s bullshit!”

Rodrigo lifted his hands off Adam and locked eyes with Mahtab. “This guy just set a deathtrap for you. He’s not messing around. He’s a fucking murderer, and Russell was not the first.”
“I…” Mahtab stared into space and put her hands over her face. “Fuck.”

“Maddy!” Adrian snapped his fingers in front of her face. But she just shook her head for a second before turning away. Adrian huffed, exasperated, and returned to the intruders. “All right so who actually are you? What are you actually doing here? And where did muscles go?”

Jamie and Nate glanced behind them, surprised that a man Tyson’s size had managed to sneak off without them noticing.

 

***

Tyson had just been surveying the damage, and the dead body was freaking him out a bit - more than a bunch of apparent wizards having tantrums at each other. He’d drifted through the kitchen and into the garage. The first thing that caught his sight was the broken television that had been smashed apart. The second was the shattered terrarium on the floor. The third was the birdcage on the workbench.

“Oh fuck…”

The last few days had been a strange fantasyland whirlwind for Tyson, but nothing was more surreal than seeing Blake, four inches tall, turned on his side and moaning uncomfortably in his sleep. It was as if his brain was trying to reconcile the contradictions it was witnessing. It attempted to removed him from the situation, tried to convince him he was playing a video game or watching TV. But he couldn’t escape himself, or the strangeness that he suddenly found himself immersed in.

“Blake?” it was a half-whisper. He barely expected a response. Aside from being smaller, Blake looked like shit, too. He was skinnier, paler - he looked ill, and the smell wasn’t that great either. Tyson pursed his lips and gently blew on him. Blake’s hair ruffled, and he grimaced, hugging himself against the cold. He was real. He was right there, and Tyson wanted to pick him up and hold him close. He’d been through so much, it was plain to see, and Tyson wanted to make sure he would be safe forever. It didn’t matter what size he was. But there’d been something about poison, and letting him rest.

“I’ll be back,” Tyson mumbled to his unconscious audience. “I....I really missed you…”

Tyson turned and walked back into the house, unaware of the eight arachnid eyes that silently watched him go.

 

***

“Look I can stabilize him and give him some time, but he had a broken rib that’s very, very close to puncturing a lung. I can’t do anything about that,” Rodrigo explained, gasping for breath at every break. Adam needs a hospital. Period.”

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed, holding up his phone, “and he’s getting one.”

“Wait, please!” Adrian held up his hands. “Let us figure something out!” He glanced pleadingly at Mahtab, but she still had her back turned.

“Cliff’s gon’ try to make it the islands,” Nate explained. “Thinks the lake’ll slow us down.”

“What’s that got to do with Adam?” Jamie threw up his arms.

Nate turned to him. “Lookit. I know you’re here f’your friend. An’ I know you’re worried. But Cliff wants to kill s’all now. An’ he will ‘nless we stop him. Which we can.” Nate poked Jamie in the chest. “But I need y’help.”

Jamie narrowed his eyes. “With what?”

Liam raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about killing someone? Someone else?” He jabbed his arm at the corpse. “I don’t think the solution here is another dead body to explain.”

“That’s it,” Adrian pulled out his phone. “I’m calling Harry.”

“Who the hell is Harry?” asked Jamie.

“Stop.”

All eyes found their way to Mahtab as she slowly turned about to face them, drawing in a long measured inhale and issuing a staggered, jagged exhale. “All right,” she murmured, took another deep breath, and nodded. “All right.” She turned to Adrian. “Put your phone away. Liam? You call Harry. Tell him whatever you want. Just get him here. And make sure he knows that Adam needs a hospital. Roddy, you stay with Liam and do whatever you can for Adam. The rest of us are leaving.” She grimaced, limping towards the door.”

“Fuck that, I'm not going anywhere,” Jamie adamantly crossed his arms.

“Jamie…” Adam coughed out. Rodrigo tried to silence him but batted him weakly aside. “You have to…”

“Seriously Adam you HAVE to stop talking!” Rodrigo shouted as loud as his hoarse voice would permit.

Jamie shook his head “Adam I'm not leaving you with these people I have no idea what…”

“Jamie, y’gotta save Cassidy,” Nate stressed. “Adam's outta commission an’ ‘e don’ trust her to give a shit.”

Mahtab rolled her eyes. “Good a time as any to reiterate that I DON’T give a shit, so Adrian, Muscles, and the Littlest Redneck…”

“Bitch I'm from Cherokee Gardens,” Nate snarled. “Fuckin’ check y’self.”

“Whatever,” Mahtab shrugged. “We're going. Joe Normal here,” she stuck her elbow at Jamie, “come with us or don't. But we're going.”

“How do you plan on stopping this guy?” Liam demanded. “I'm not going to help you kill anyone and neither will Harry!”

Mahtab turned on him, eyes wide and exasperated. “I know, Liam! That's why you're staying here!”

“So you ARE trying to kill this guy?” asked Liam archly. “It doesn't matter what he's done we can't just go and…”

“Yes! Yes I am going to try and kill him! Fuck yes!” Mahtab admitted. “What, you wanna see the cops try and handle him? You want to try and put this guy in a cell? He's a deranged psychopath with god knows what kind if powers. He’s killed a bunch of people, the latest of which was my best friend. So yeah, we’re going to find this sick fuck and kill the shit out of him.”

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Really happy you were able to come back to this. It made my morning seeing the new chapter! 

Loved this entry and can’t wait to see what else you’ve got planned. 

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I gasped when I saw a new chapter was posted!! Wow. Great continuation and a couple hot, fun growth/size moments. So glad you’re back! Hopefully it won’t be as long of a wait this time?

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  • 5 months later...

Part 17: Cliff

 

When Cliff’s father walked out on him and his mom a month after Cliff had turned fourteen, he knew he would have to step up. His mother Karen was not going to be able to handle things. She was prone to depression and addiction and was not very intelligent. She could barely keep it together when his dad had been around. Having to fend for the two of them immediately overwhelmed her.

To her credit, Karen did what she could. She started courting suitors whom she believed could provide for them - and they did, at least for a while. But Cliff could always tell what Karen seemed blind to - these guys were looking for an occasional reliable fuck. No one she brought home was interested in tying the knot with an erratic, jobless divorcee (particularly when no papers had been signed to make that title legal) or getting attached to her delinquent teenage son.

Cliff did what he could to pitch in. He sold pot at school and started stealing from construction sites and selling what he could to the creepy guy that owned the scrapyard. He stashed his money away and broke it out whenever Karen didn't have some guy around to pay their bills. He was a big kid. Nobody wanted to mess with him. Only the cops ever gave him any trouble,but he was smarter than them and nothing ever stuck.

One time a kid at school named Greg Heitzner said Karen was a whore; that she'd gotten drunk at a bar and started offering blowjobs for twenty bucks each. It was probably true. So since Cliff couldn't argue, he broke Greg’s nose. In the month's suspension afterwards, he came to know he'd have to be strong, be tough, and be smart. Because Karen wasn't any of those things. And as bad as some of the losers Karen dragged home were, none of them ever laid a hand on her, because they didn't want to mess with Cliff.

He was content with that for a while. It'd be bearable until he turned eighteen, and then Karen and Cliff wouldn't be responsible for each other, and he could get out of that shithole. He kept telling himself that, confident he was on track, until she brought home a very strange man.

Antoine was an older guy. He had dark skin, thin hair, and a short beard speckled with grey. He didn't seem to have any money but nevertheless always seemed to have what they needed. He had a weird accent that Cliff couldn't place, and whenever Cliff - or Karen - tried to ask him about that he'd tell them not to worry about it, and then they wouldn't. In fact, whenever he told them not to do anything they'd stop doing it, and whatever he told them to do they would do.Even when they didn't want to. Even when it made no sense to. At first it wasn't that big a deal. It was weird and it was uncomfortable. But then it started to get disturbing. Antoine started hitting her.

Cliff came at him, and Antoine told him to stop, and he did. It was the same the next time, and the next. The fourth time, Antoine told him to stop. He said he was tired, and he told Cliff to hit his mother in the face. Then, Cliff hit his mother in the face. She had a bruise shaped like Cliff’s knuckles for two weeks. Cliff stopped going after Antoine. Cliff stopped, but Antoine didn't stop.

Strong. Tough. Smart.

There was something happening that Cliff didn't understand. Antoine wasn't strong, or tough. But he had something that made none of that matter, and Cliff knew that if he ever encountered someone like Antoine again, he would need it too. Was Antoine smart? If he had been, Cliff figured he would have realized the only way the situation was going to conclude. He would had said something to made Cliff stop. Antoine may have tried, but was hampered by the pillow Cliff was pressing into his face, and the torn Discover card jammed in his jugular.

Cliff left before sunrise. But not before finding some very interesting reading material among Antoine’s effects. Those, he took with him. He never saw Karen again.

 

***

 

The stone man Cliff was carrying over his shoulder was still too heavy for him. He was sweating, taking laboured breaths, and his shoulder, arm, and back were all killing him. He could grow himself to a size where it would be negligible, but he couldn’t afford to yet. Once he made it to the water, everything would be fine. But he needed to make it there, first.

He was careful as he loaded Cassidy’s frozen stone form into the bed of a black pickup truck, but it still clanked noisily as it did.
“Hey… Hey! HEY! That’s my truck!”

Cliff turned with a scowl at the guy sprinting towards him. White guy, blonde hair to his shoulders, wearing jean shorts and running in sandals. Reminded him a bit of Blake, though maybe a decade and a half older.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked as he closed in. He drew his fob from his pocket, and the horn chirped as he confirmed the truck was locked.

Cliff turned, drawing back his shoulders. The shirt had been reduced to rags that hung off his sturdy frame. He wagered he was nearly seven feet tall, and pumped to the brim with muscle. It had been the only way to carry Cassidy. He stared down at the little man, who barely reached his chest, and curled his lip in contempt, growling, “Back off, man.”

Cliff tried reflexively to shrink him. He felt his face flush as he realized he’d left the Asian kid back in the living room. All he had was Butch. But it would be enough.

“Back off?” The blonde retorted incredulously. “That’s my fucking truck!” He sneered up at Cliff. “Look man I don’t care how big you are. You are not leaving here with…”

His eyes widened as he watched Cliff growing right in front of him. Cliff crept inches taller as his thick, bulging muscles expanded all across his body. What was left of the shirt split into shreds, floating down off his body to the ground.

“The fuck…?” The blonde took a step back, and held the fob forward. “I… I don’t know what you are but here, just take it. I don’t want any…”
Cliff grabbed the driver’s side door handle, and would never be sure whether or not he meant to rip the door clear off the truck, but in either case, he did, and tossed it into the ditch. He pointed at the steering wheel. “You’re driving.”

Sitting in the back of the truck, his arms spread out across the tailgate, Cliff felt happy in a way he hadn’t in a long time. The wind pummelling his swollen muscles, the sun setting behind the silhouette of the city wrapping around the glittering lake, the statue nestled between his knees, the stares he was getting from passersby… it was great. And it would all be his, soon. Once this coven was dealt with, no one would be able to stop him. Everyone would be his servant, like Blondie there. Anyone he couldn’t cow into submission, he’d kill. It was all pretty straightforward.

He needed to get back to that house. He needed the Asian boy and that girl who could petrify people. He had only had time to take one and he settled on Butch. Or… Mini-Butch or whoever the fuck he really was. How did such a wimpy little toothpick weigh so much as a statue? It didn’t make much sense to Cliff.

By now, Phil was probably dead. If by some miracle that idiot had managed to outdo one or more sorcerers, then Cliff would have to recalculate, but in the meantime… The black guy had called for backup. That backup was probably calling for backup too. He’d stash Butch on the islands, come back to the house, and find it full of all the best sorcerers in Toronto. And before yesterday, that might have given Cliff pause. But when he faced them, he intended to be far more than they could handle.

He could see them now; looking up in terrified awe as he pulled the roof off that house. That would be the expression he hoped to capture once he petrified them. Then, all that power would be his.

It’s tonight, then, he realized. It’s tonight that the true Cliff Esterez would be revealed to the world. He wondered to himself what skyscraper he’d knock over. He’d resolved long ago he’d have to topple at least one. As terrifying as a thousand-foot giant would be, one that clearly means business would inevitably be taken more seriously. He hadn’t like the Aura condo tower at first, but it had grown on him. It would probably be the Shangri-La hotel. His plan was to ram it with his shoulder. Instantly kill hundred, maybe thousands of people. Who’d mess with him then?

He was getting hard thinking about it. The bulge in his straining jeans hardened into a pronounced outline of his cock. Cliff smirked, and watched as his cock suddenly spurted longer and thicker. He chuckled to himself as he lifted his eyes, and caught the gaze of the blonde driver in the rearview mirror, which immediately averted.

Cliff grinned. He would have loved to shrink this guy into his toy, but there were ways to still have fun, eventually.

“What’s your name?” Cliff called.

The driver gulped, but remained silent.

“Hey! I asked your name!”

The driver replied, but it was lost in the wind.

“Say what?” Cliff persisted pointedly.

“Nick!” he shouted.

“So, Nick…” Cliff drew a hand across his chest. “Do you think I’m sexy?”

“Yes, sir…” Nick immediately nodded. “Very… very sexy.”

“Be honest, Nick,” Cliff growled.

“Well…” Nick sputtered, “I mean I’m not… really into guys… but…”

Cliff grinned and leaned back, gazing up at the darkening sky, muttering to himself. “You'll come around.”

 

***

 

“...and then this guy comes back to the bar, tells me he knows where Blake is, and here I am.” Tyson quietly explained to Jamie. “Like… I mean… when all the weird shit started to happen and I, like, changed into this?” he gestured to his musclebound torso. “I knew it had to be something crazy. But fuck… magic?”

“I know,” Jamie rolled his eyes. “I feel like the last few months I've been sucked into fucking Narnia or some shit.”

Leading them, ahead by a few paces, Mahtab and Nate walked side by side, and Adrian between the two pairs. “We got ‘im outa tha’ house.” Nated nodded approvingly. “That house protected him.”

Mahtab pulled the keys from her jacket. They had decided to take Liam’s minivan. Jamie’s car was apparently too tight for Tyson, and nobody wanted to go fishing through the trash for Russell’s keys. She unlocked it with the fob and everyone started piling in. But as Nate went to walk past her she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him closer.

“Tell me why I should fucking trust you,” she hissed. “You just come out of nowhere, know EVERYTHING, and have minihulk over there on guard duty.” She tightened her grip. “What's your connection here?”

“Nate?” Tyson called from the other side of the van. “Everything okay?”

Nate reached up and quietly peeled Mahtab’s hand off his arm. “S’all good, man. Jus’ sec,” he replied with a nod. Tyson didn't look reassured but got into the van anyway.

Nate turned back to Mahtab. “‘Aight look, truth’s I jus' knew this’s goin’ on and came t’help.”

Mahtab crossed her arms. “Uh-huh.”

“‘M not ‘ere t’save you, bitch,” Nate spat, narrowing his gaze up at her. “An’ I don’ give a shit f’you believe me ‘r not. S’let’s jus’ skip t’the part where y’threaten to kill me if I get outa line same as you killed that guy in’ere.”

Mahtab stifled a snarl, and the two stared at each other for a few more seconds before she mumbled. “Just something to keep in mind, kid.”
Nate rolled his eyes. “Mind’s a bit occupied at th’moment,” he replied as he turned his back on her and strode towards the van.

Mahtab looked back at the house. She didn't really have a play, which she wasn't a fan of. Nor was she very eager to follow someone else's lead, particularly some rando she'd never even heard of before. Why wasn't she giving a fuck about all the warning alarms going off in her head?
Someone honked the horn in the van and Mahtab turned back to it with a scowl.

Oh yeah. Revenge.

It seemed like a fairly pedestrian motive… academically, at least. But it was apparently good enough for her. She jogged over to the van and slid into the driver's seat.

As she started it up it was playing some upbeat feelgood pop song on Z103. She switched off the radio.

Tyson, who was riding shotgun, pursed his lips. “I like that song,” he complained.

Mahtab put the gear shift into drive. “Tough shit,” she muttered.

 

***

 

The pickup truck groaned and tilted as Cliff slid to to end of the tailgate, and bounced on its suspension as he lifted off. It was dark, beginning to rain, and the half-nauseating, half-refreshing scent of the lake had Nick’s stomach in knots. Nick, the reluctant driver, clutched the steering wheel in his white knuckles, eyes locked to the rearview mirror at the gargantuan man. He had to be almost eight feet tall, and thick with more muscle than he'd ever seen before. Nick stayed as still and quiet as his nerves would allow, though he felt tremors in his knees and had to stifle a whimper of fear that wanted to squeak out of his throat.

He just hoped the guy would leave. The missing door on his truck hardly seemed important now. This guy looked like he could just reach out, grab your whole head in one oversized hand, and pop it into jelly without breaking a sweat. 

But Cliff turned, locked eyes with Nick’s in the mirror, and his glower turned into an insidious grin.

Nick swore the ground shook as Cliff rounded the side of the truck and blocked the while doorway with his abs and crotch. The overstuffed bulge in his stretched to the limit jeans twitched inches from Nick. Nick just stared straight ahead, ignoring the musk radiating from Cliff’s body. Cliff looked down at his terrified hostage. He bit his lip, and with a grunt, the bulged swelled even larger, and finally the jeans had had enough. The button of his fly popped off and the zipper was forced open, and a mound of Cliff’s shaft peeked out, so visible through his straining cotton briefs he might as well have been going commando.

Cliff reached down a meaty paw and moaned as he pulled his cock out. “Mmmm… there we go.”

Nick was taking very good care to keep his eyes straight ahead, but he couldn't help glancing over. It lolled over a foot long, thick as Nick’s forearm, and it didn't even look hard.

It lowered out of view as Cliff squatted down to bring his face into view.

“You like my cock, Nick?”

Nick gulped. “It's, uhh….”

“Look at me when I'm talkin to you,” Cliff growled.

Nick snapped his head around so quick his blonde hair whipped in front of his eyes. He wanted to brush it away but couldn't unlock his hands from around the wheel. “Sorry! I'm sorry, I, uhh… I mean it's the biggest dick I've ever seen, man.” He finished with an awkward chuckle.

“I can give you a giant fuckin hog, dude,” Cliff smiled.

Nick somehow gripped the steering wheel even tighter as he felt an intense - but far from unpleasant - pressure in his groin. He felt his warm cock inching down his thigh, felt the left side of his jean shorts getting tighter. He looked down and gasped at the outline, inflating like a balloon. The sensation was deeply arousing, and it got harder as it grew. By the time his pink head peeked out from the hem of his jean shorts he was at full attention. He finally wrenched one hand off the wheel and lowered it down to his thigh - his cock was thicker than a pop can, and every touch was like a mini blowjob. He was amazed he hadn't cum.

Cliff brushed the hair out from Nick’s face. “I can make you as big as me… bigger, even! Just promise to help me. To serve me. And I'll make you…”

“Just let me go, man. Please? Please just let me go…” Nick’s eyes were welling with tears.

Cliff’s face darkened.

Nick saw the huge expression change, and began to protest. “I'm flattered. Seriously! You're huge, man. It's very impressive but I just can't… I mean it's not really my…” he gestured down to the boner that stretched past his knee. “No chick’s gonna let me go near her with this.”

Cliff scoffed darkly. “You're worried about chicks, huh? Fine.” He lifted himself up, standing to his full height. His cock, which had in the interim become semi-hard, lolled lazily in front of him. Cliff folded his arms over his beefy chest. “I'll give you one less thing to worry about.”

Nick felt a shiver scurry up his spine. At first he thought it was just the general peril he was in, but it quickly revealed itself to be much more. His shirt became snug, and he looked down in horror to see his flat stomach suddenly bowl out into a growing belly. His shirt rode up, revealing a modestly thick blond treasure trail down the centre of the inflating beach ball of a gut. He put his hands on it, as if to verify it was truly him, and then in some futile attempt to push it  back. “No! Come on man, stop! Please.”

It wasn't just his stomach. His arms, legs, and ass were becoming thick with layers of flab, and even as he pleaded he could feel his cheeks and chin hang heavier off his face. Even his hands and fingers were becoming bloated like overstuffed sausages. 

His clothes were beginning to tear. His watch snapped off his wrist. He winced in pain as his belly pressed up against the steering wheel, as his right thigh wedged up against the centre console. His shorts ripped away. His shirt tore apart. He felt the breeze on his thighs.

“Stop!” Nick pressed against the windshield with his hand, his other arm flailing under his leg trying to adjust the seat. His protests only seemed to make his expansion accelerate.

Cliff smirked as the growth subsided. Nick was in tears, sitting in the torn remains of his clothing, whimpering and grunting.

“Please!” he blubbered, “please change me back. I can't move! It hurts!”

Cliff shrugged his muscular shoulders, smiling at the sensation of all his overgrown brawn moving in tandem. “Not my problem,” he growled, and turned towards the back of the pickup.

“No! No no no! Come back! Please!” Nick’s cries were becoming more and more shrill, his voice starting to crack. “I'll serve you! I'll… do whatever you want just, stop! Please! You can't leave me like this! I'll do anything!”

Cliff hoisted the stone form of Cassidy, feeling the weight of it become less burdensome as he grew his body another foot taller, swelling his frame with more brawn.

“I'll… I'll suck your cock,” Nick said quietly as Cliff passed the open door. “I'll let you fuck me! Whatever you want! I promise! Please stop! Please!”
Cliff didn't respond. He didn't care. Nick had had his chance, just like everyone had. Every prissy little bitch that turned him down. Every stupid teenager who had ever given him grief. Every hot guy who avoided eye contact. Every Grindr profile who hadn't responded to him. They'd all had their chance to get into Cliff's good graces. To earn some level of mercy from him. But that time was over. Tonight began the era of Cliff. Where being smart, tough, and strong were the only currency of value. And he was smarter and tougher and stronger than anyone in this city. Anyone in the world.

It was a full drizzle now. He could see it falling in sheets across the lake.

A deep moan of pleasure rumbled inside him as Cliff felt himself growing larger and larger. His jeans and underwear finally gave out completely. Cassidy became smaller and smaller in the crook of his arm. The ground began to sink under his feet. The head of his cock brushed against the top of a small tree. It sent a fantastic shiver up his spine.

“How you pussies like me now?”

 

***

 

Hasan judiciously examined the dull glowing end of the roach perilously pinched between his thumb and finger. “Think there’s one hit there,” he mumbled, handing it to Drew.

Drew carefully accepted the meager joint and took a drag. He didn't think he got anything. He flicked it off the edge of the balcony, and leaned over the rail on his elbows with a sigh. The night had turned colder, and it was spitting rain on an off. The balcony had been abandoned by everyone who wasn't smoking pot.

“Awww what's wrong, muffin?” Hasan cooed, sliding up next to him.

“Oh nothing.” Drew shrugged. “I was just really looking forward to spending Pride with Jamie. He always has such a shitty time but this year we had these other friends coming to the city… and like, now I have no idea where they are.” He paused a moment before adding, “Plus I really wanted to do that MDMA.”

Hasan leaned his head on Drew’s shoulder. “Poor sweet Drew. I can be your boyfriend for the night if you want,” he suggested. “We can be one of those couples that get in loud, public fights.”

Drew pursed his lips. “Tempting.”

Hasan stood up straight and looked at Drew. “We didn't scare him off being extra, did we?”

Drew smiled and put his arm around Hasan's shoulder. “No honey, y'all’re some basic hoes.”

Hasan chuckled, leaning back on Drew's shoulder. “Bitch.”

“Guys!” Elliot shouted from the doorway. They turned around as he rushed towards them. “Omigosh you guys, you'll never guess what the fuck.”

Hasan and Drew exchanged glances. Hasan shrugged.

“Grant just proposed to Wes!” Elliot jumped up and down clapping.

Drew groaned.

Hasan raised an eyebrow. “Did he say yes?”

“Of COURSE he said yes,” Drew retorted, rolling his eyes. “He’s too much of a princess to turn down a wedding.”

Elliot grimaced. “Who pissed in YOUR cheerios?”

“Come on,” Drew protested. “You can't honestly think this is a good idea. They've been living together for like, three months?”

Elliot raised his hand and splayed his fingers. “Uhh, five, bitch?” he corrected, then waved the comment away with a smile. “Whatever. Thanh and I are too poor to get married and you and Jamie are too butch.”

Drew nodded sarcastically. “Right.”

“I just want to go to a fag wedding,” Elliot admitted. “Don’t ruin this for me. Or… them, I guess.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Drew acquiesced. “Whatever dumb bullshit any of you idiots want to waste your stupid lives on has my full support.”

Hasan smiled wanly and hugged Drew. “That's all we ask, friendo.”

“Ugh,” Drew squirmed. “Let's go inside it's cold.”

Hasan rubbed Drew's stomach. “Mmm I'll keep you warm, babe.”

Drew wriggled free with a chuckle. “Don’t touch me loser.”

“Do you guys have any weed?” asked Elliot.

“Sorry hun, just cashed that check,” Hasan apologized.

Elliot gasped in faux outrage. “Bitches. All of you.”

Drew giggled and brushed by Elliot to go back inside, Hasan close behind him. They were almost to the door when sheet lightning lit up the night above them with a soft rumble.

Elliot gasped again. “Holy shit. Did you guys see that?”

Drew sighed. “It's called lightning, Elliot, it's happens when… clouds… do something.”

“Nonono, out in the lake.” Elliot walked to the railing, peering into the darkness.

“What?” Hasan glanced at Drew before joining Elliot at the railing. Drew followed. “A ship?”

“No… I dunno.” Elliot squinted. “I can almost see it still. Do you see that? It's like… it's too big to be a ship. It almost looks like a building.”

Drew could followed their gaze. It was hard to see through the rain and the marijuana haze, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out a shape far off in the water. If it was anything, it was definitely too big to be a ship, and it was…

“Is it…” Hasan asked cautiously, “moving?”

“I can see it too!” a big Greek-looking guy a few metres from them said, leaning on the railing. “That thing is definitely moving.”

“Omigosh is it, like a Godzilla or a sea monster or something?” Elliot posited.

“Dude I'm kind of freaking out,” said Hasan quietly.

“Alright,” Drew shook his head with a sigh. “Guys. This is a freshwater lake, we are not getting… Kaiju’ed. Lake Ontario isn't big enough to have a giant monster in it.”

“Cloverfield was an alien that fell to earth,” Elliot countered.

“In Pacific Rim they came out of a portal,” the Greek added.

“Guys!” Drew exclaimed. “Look either we’re all just high and freaking out over nothing or there IS a giant monster in the Lake. Either way, let's not let it ruin our Pride, agreed?”

Hasan stood up, turning away from the lake. “Yeah.”

“It's freezing out here,” Drew shivered. “Let's go inside and congratulate our dumb friends on this huge mistake.”

“Omigosh I wonder if Stanley knows!” Elliot turned and rushed back inside, the shape in the darkness forgotten.

Hasan put his hand around Drew's waist and leaned on him as they walked back inside. “Thanks for saving Pride, babe.”

“Anytime, sugarplum,” Drew replied.

He did, however, cast another fleeting, worried glance at the lake. It was nothing. It was just the pot and the storm. It was nothing. It certainly had nothing to do with Jamie, or Cassidy, or Adam.

Right?

 

***

 

Mahtab raised her hand to keep the drizzle out of her eyes. She took a deep breath and sighed. “All right now I need you to hold as still as you can, okay? Take a deep breath and hold it. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

The teary blonde man - grown so immensely fat he was unable to escape his pickup - whimpered and nodded. Mahtab took another long inhale, shook the water from her hands, and hopped from foot to foot for a second. She leaned forward and wedged her arm around Nick’s neck, her other hand sinking into the folds of his giant belly. “All right. One, two, three!”

Mahtab hopped up to take her feet off the ground, and an ear-splitting screech of wrenched metal grated in her brain as she felt herself slip away. It was a mere fraction of a second. One moment Mahtab was leaning into Nick’s truck, and the next the two of them fell out of thin air fifteen feet away, crashing into the ground amidst chunks of the metal frame, the seat, and pieces of the steering wheel. It had been too tight a squeeze, and when she slipped she had been forced to take a piece of the truck with them. Mahtab grunted in pain as she felt the jagged edge of the windshield cut a gash in her arm. Nick slammed on the ground beside him as a misshapen slab of the truck’s ceiling fell on top of him. Blood oozed from a dozen cuts slashed into his bulbous body by the debris, and the roof had given him a nasty bruise on his forehead. Mahtab staggered to her feet, lifted the rubble off him with a grunt, and looked back at the truck, which looked like a giant hand had reached down and scooped a chunk out of the driver’s seat.

“Are you okay?” she asked him after he had struggled to his feet. 

He had started to cry again. “What am I fucking going to do?” he mewled quietly.

“Look, just…” Mahtab looked around. She couldn’t waste time babysitting this guy. “Just sit on that bench over there… we’ll get you fixed. Okay?”

“Re...really?” Nick sniffed.

“Yes,” she nodded emphatically, though she wasn’t really sure. “I have to go back to my friends, okay? You just sit tight.”

As Nick lumbered away from his destroyed truck, Mahtab jogged towards the shore, briefly inspecting the wound on her arm. The four guys were standing in a line, looking out towards the lake, where the gigantic form of Cliff waded in the water. It was difficult to get a decent perspective at that distance for an exact figure, but he had grown himself to titanic proportions, probably close to two hundred feet tall. His every movement sent violent waves across the water, splashing up high above their heads at the shore.

“We need to do something before he gets to the island,” she declared, raising her voice to be heard above the wind and rain.

“We're gonna,” Nate quipped, and turned from the lake to look at Jamie. “You're gon’ hafta fight ‘im.”

“What?” Jamie looked down at the smaller guy. “Why me?”

“Yeah why him?” Mahtab asked archly.

“It... can't be any of us,” Adrian explained slowly, as it was dawning on him. “The moment we get close to him, he'll just take our powers from us.”

“S'only got Cass with ‘im,” said Nate. “It's the only power he's got.”

Mahtab pointed at him. “It made him into a fucking mountain, I'd say it's plenty.” She crossed her arms, wincing again at the wound. “I say I just slip up next to him and slip away with a chunk of his brain.”

“Dude, gross…” Tyson made a face.

“I'll be too fast for him to anything,” Mahtab surmised. 

“Are you sure?” asked Adrian. “We don't know how long that takes. It might even be by proximity.”

“An’ ‘e's been expectin’ an attack from you,” Nate continued. “S'got some safeguards… I'unno which ones ‘e ended up goin’ wit. But he doesn' know ‘bout me. He won’ be expectin’ ‘nother Cass.” He looked over at Mahtab, who was gazing out at Cliff. “Hey,” he said quietly. When she didn't respond he flicked her shoulder. “Hey!”

Mahtab lowered her gaze to him.

“Know why you wanna go,” he said evenly. “But this’s th’ better plan.”

“I still haven't agreed to anything,” Jamie reminded them, raising his hand.

Nate turned to Jamie. “Look bro, ‘e's got yer friend, an’ he is… like, y'don’ even know, man. Can't even. Guy's fucked, dude. An’ lookit ‘im.”

Jamie turned his eyes back to the dark lake. The huge giant striding out into it. It was strangely mesmerizing. “S'not jus’ Cassidy, dude. S'all of us. An’ the whole city.” He paused. “S'gotta be you.”

Jamie sighed, shuffled his feet a bit, looked at his shoes, crossed his arms and bit his lip. “God fucking dammit.”

Nate smirked triumphantly. “Take off your clothes.”

Jamie heaved another sigh before he started to undress, kicking off his shoes and wriggling out of his shirt, shivering as the drizzling rain hit his skin. Tyson’s presence made him a bit self-conscious but he figured it wouldn't really matter in a minute. He was about to take off his pants when he felt his cock plump up an inch or two bigger. He glanced at Nate, who returned a wink. Impressing these strangers with his cock was a low priority at this point, but Jamie gave him a subtle nod of appreciation regardless.

Nate, Mahtab and Adrian were all yammering the plan they had discussed in the van to him again. Jamie was only catching every other word. Nate was trying to get him pumped, reminding him the changes would impede him in ways he might not expect. Mahtab was subtly stressing that Cassidy's survival needed to be treated as a second priority. Adrian seemed to be giving him tips on boxing but Jamie got the impression he had no idea what he was talking about.

Mostly though, Jamie was asking himself if he could really kill someone. Someone he hadn't even seen before. From here he didn't even look like a person, and from the shore he looked more like a monster. He could get his head around that. But this WAS a person, and Jamie was going to have to look him in the face. Could he look someone in the eye and watch them die? Even knowing the stakes. All those lives in danger. All those people.

He wouldn't be looking at them when he had to do it. They were all strangers too. But he'd be watching this stranger when he saved all of them.
In his head he saw all of them. Not so much as people, just as crowds. No faces, no real details of their bodies or what they were wearing. Hundreds of thousands of them, all swarming together. He didn't know them, he couldn't see them. Would their abstract security be enough to let him do it?

But he began, somehow, to pick out some of the faces. He could see Abbie, he could see Adam. And Drew. He could see Drew like he was standing right in front of him, wearing those jeans that he thought made his junk look bigger, and that Modest Mouse shirt he should've gotten rid of years ago, and those blue, scuffed up running shoes. And he had that smile that he got when he was reminded of some joke but didn't want to bother trying to explain it to anyone, and he was shaking his bangs out of his eyes, the way he'd do right before he complained how he never knew what to do with his hair even though it always looked perfect.

“Alright everyone shut up!” Jamie cut off the chorus of advice. “I'm EXACTLY as psyched up as I need to be right now let's go.”

Jamie immediately lurched taller. He grew three feet higher so quickly he almost fell over right there. The others hopped back with a start.

“My bad, my bad,” Nate apologized. “I'll take it slower.”

It started up again, at a more reasonable pace, giving Jamie time to adjust his footing. He rose taller and taller. When he was almost double his original height, he felt his muscles start to swell. Like they had that first night he found out about all this crazy bullshit. His chest puffed up with beef as his arms grew thick and corded, thighs bubbling up with size and weight. He looked down at the four people gaping up at him like they were small children.

At fifteen feet tall, he strode out towards the lake, his cock slapping across his thighs as he continued to grow. He stepped over the breaker into the lake and it barely covered his foot. The shape before him was still formidable, but he was slowly catching up to it. He glanced down at his hands as he walked, watching them get thick and meaty. He felt his shoulders widen, his biceps bulge, and closed his hands into fists.

Out on the lake, and at this altitude, the wind and rain was loud enough that Cliff couldn't hear him approaching, but he felt the lake bed trembling under footfalls other than his own, and turned around just in time to see the huge fist slam into his face.

Cliff felt his teeth cutting the inside of his cheek as his brain rattled around in his skull. He tasted blood in his mouth, and it infuriated him. He staggered forward, almost falling to a knee, but came back around with his own, blind swing, his thick arm arc out wide, only hitting air. Jamie was still ten feet shy but was committing to the fight anyway, confident he was still getting bigger. As Cliff regained his footing, Jamie sent up a wave of water as he maneuvered his leg between Cliff’s, grunting as he threw an arm around his opponent's shoulder, hoping to knock him off balance and send him sprawling onto his back. But Cliff had planted his feet, and was very heavy. He retaliated by jabbing Jamie in the ribs with his elbow.

At over two hundred feet tall, breathing was laboured enough. It felt like he was trying to breathe by sucking air out of a balloon. The strike winded him, and Jamie recoiled, almost slipping off of his hold, but he clenched his fist around Cliff's shoulder, using it as leverage to bring his knee up and hit Cliff right in the solar plexus.

Cliff grunted loudly, coughing, a band of spit knocked out of his mouth, and he grappled for Jamie for a moment before crashing to his knees with a surge of water. Cliff was being careful not to strike his foe with the fist holding Cassidy. He figured it might be like hitting someone with a fit clenched around a roll of quarters but couldn't risk breaking the statue. He deposited Cassidy - like a coin machine toy in his hands - from his right to his left to keep his main hand available. But his eyes settled on another shape in the water, and Cliff smiled.

Jamie moved in to grab him by the shoulders, hoping to shove him into the water, but Cliff suddenly slashed up at him, and Jamie felt something crack across his jaw. He was forced back a step, and Cliff clamoured to his feet, reeling back, ready to throw whatever he had in his hand. Jamie's eyes settled on it and widened as he realized what it was. Cliff had pulled a small cruise ship out of the water, and even as he held it aloft, Jamie spotted people being thrown overboard, plummeting down across Cliff's arm into the dark water below.

Jamie threw out his legs and splashed into the water as Cliff launched the boat towards him.

Adrian covered his mouth in horror as he watched the ship spiral through the air, and all eyes followed it as it descended on the shore, crashing into the parking lot of a marina, destroying half the building with it.

Before Jamie could get up, Cliff was upon him delivering a punch to the eye that dazed Jamie, and pushing his head down into the water, holding his back down with his knee. Jamie thrashed beneath him but Cliff stayed put.

Cliff laughed as he increased his own weight, feeling his frame expand again as Jamie struggled against him. Filling lungs this size took a lot of effort. It wouldn't be long before Cliff took care of this asshole, whoever he was. He'd teach people not to mess with him.

A shape appeared from the side of his vision, blocking out the lights from the city, prompting Cliff to look up from his opponent, to see a titanically muscled, two-hundred-foot tall Tyson bring his hands hammering down on Cliff’s forehead.

“Asshole!” Tyson shouted at his co-worker.

Cliff let out a short wail before Tyson reared back and kicked him with a monstrous heel to the chest, forcing him to fall backward into the water and off of Jamie, he thrust his head out of the water,  coughing and gasping for breath. Tyson quickly grabbed under his elbow and hoisted Jamie to his feet as Cliff scrambled to his own.

“Fuckin kill you,” Cliff rasped. “BOTH of you. Fuckin dead.”

It was really windy, though, and the two other giant couldn't really hear any of it. They got the gist, though.

Tyson began to slowly creep through the water, staying well out of Cliff's reach, circling around to his right. Jamie was still taking huge gulps of air, trying to catch his breath again, still seeing stars, but kept his arms up defensively.

Cliff made a suddenly feinted toward Jamie, and Jamie shifted away with a start. He felt a buoy smack against his shin, as his foot slid up against an outcropping in the lakebed, sharp enough to stagger him. He felt his leg buckle, then give way, and he slammed down to one knee, his thick arm flailing as he tried to steady himself. Cliff moved toward him quickly, grappling for his arm, but Tyson lunged forward as well. Cliff closed his hand around Jamie’s wrist, and kneed him in the chest, but Tyson took the opportunity to loop his arms under Cliff’s shoulders, interlocking his fingers behind the neck. Cliff’s arms were splayed open, and Jamie grit his teeth.

Cliff tried to kick at Jamie but the water weakened the blow. Jamie deflected it with his arm as he rose to his feet and landed a hard uppercut in Cliff’s stomach. Tyson held him tight, feeling Cliff’s rainslick back against his chest, as Cliff grunted in pain, shuddering violently. Jamie’s eyes darted from left to right, and saw Cliff’s right hand was open, while he seemed determined to keep his left clenched shut. Jamie grabbed at the fist with both hands, trying to pry the fingers open. Cliff kicked at him again but Jamie swiveled to the side.

“No!” Cliff cried. “Get off me you fuckin faggots!”

“You’re such a dick, Cliff,” Tyson growled at him from behind. “Give it up!”

“Fuckin cunts!” Cliff cried. They were going to beat him, he realized. He couldn’t go any bigger and keep breathing properly, especially not while exerting himself, and the two of them were just as big as he was. His left arm bulged as he strained to keep his fist closed, but Jamie’s fingers were digging their way in, and slowly he managed to bend one finger loose. Cliff had no choice.

“FUCK!” Cliff screamed, and suddenly, he began to rapidly shrink. His legs burst out of the water, quickly rising up as he slipped out of Tyson’s grasp. The statue in his hand quickly became too big to hold and he released it. Tyson tried to catch Cliff as he fell - still diminishing - toward the water, but in a bright flash of white light, he was gone.

The rain had picked up, and the flash had briefly blinded him, but Jamie had caught a glimpse of the still, stone figure falling through the air, he flailed wildly in front of him, though his side kept his arms from moving as fast as he would have liked, and he felt nothing but the wind. But then he saw a spray of white water on the lake, of something heavy splashing into the surface. He immediately squatted down, and thrust his hand into the water, raking his way through it, until he felt something hard hitting his palm, and lifted it out. He held his hand close to his face to see in the darkness, and amidst the algae and garbage covering his palm was a tiny stone man, in a seated position, his little face frozen in shocked dismay. Jamie breathed a deep sigh of relief, and felt his huge body finally relax.

Tyson waded over to him, panting. “You got him?” he shouted.

Jamie nodded. “Yeah.”

“So…” Tyson glanced at the shore, shaking wet bangs from his face. “Did we win?”

Jamie carefully staggered to his feet, cradling the tiny figure in his huge palm. “I think do, yeah.”

“Okay…” Tyson looked back a the shore, then out to the lake. “So, uhh… what do we do now?”

Jamie looked at Tyson and blinked. “That’s actually a great question.” He gestured back to the shore. “Let’s go check with them.”

“Might not be a great idea,” Tyson replied, pointing. Not far from where they had stepped into the lake was the red flashing lights of emergency vehicles approaching the yacht club the cruise ship had crashed into, and even from there they could see many figures milling around. “Should we… can we help them?”

Jamie shook his head. “Probably best to just let the professionals do their jobs. Here,” he tapped Tyson on the shoulder and gestured for him to follow as he waded towards the island. “Let’s just hide out in the water near the island til we start to shrink down.”

Tyson fell into step after him. A flash of sheet lightning illuminated both of them for a moment, and a few seconds later a roll of thunder boomed overhead. “How long will that be?” he asked.

“Uhh…” Jamie grimaced. “Something like six hours, I think.”

“Fuck,” Tyson grumbled.

Jamie shrugged.

“You fight good, man,” said Tyson.

Jamie chuckled, checking again on the stone figure in his hand. “You too, man, you too.”

“What the fuck happened?” Mahtab shouted, peering into the darkness.

“Got Cass,” Nate beamed. “‘Re jus’ hidin out for a bit. Maybe let’s pitch on a water taxi later.”

“Wait what?” Mahtab glanced at him then out at the lake. “Where's Cliff?”

“He shrank,” Adrian answered. “He must've had something prepared from before.”

Nate nodded in agreement. “Shrink n’ blink,” he muttered quietly.

“What?” Mahtab yelled.

“Shrink n’ blink!” Nate yelled back.

“What? Fuck is that?”

“Nothin!” Nate replied, rolling his eyes. “Jus’ bein funny!”

“Well don't!” Mahtab chided, wiping rain from her eyes. “If Cliff is still alive we need to find him!”

“Where do we even start?” asked Adrian. “He could be anywhere between here and the island.”

Nate shook his head. “Naw man he ‘ported away.”

“What?” asked Adrian. “How do you… oh, shrink n’ blink; I get it.”

“How do you even know all this?” Mahtab finished Adrian's question for him.

Nate chuckled, turning and walking inland. “C'mon, guys. Figger it out.”

“Where are you going?” Mahtab shouted after him.

“Help the fat guy. ‘N get back to Cliff's house,” Nate called back.

“What about Jamie and Tyson?” asked Adrian.

“Can't help ‘em now,” Nate answered. “Plus that.” He stuck his arm out to the west, where firetrucks, cop cars, and ambulances were turning the flaming marina into a red and blue rave.

“Oh…” Adrian nodded, and tapped Mahtab on the arm before jogging after Nate. “Good point, let's get out of here.”

Mahtab took another look out at the water and the two dark shapes wading further out into the lake. She rubbed her bleeding arm and trudged after them with a resigned sigh.

 

***

 

Liam breathed a shuddered sigh as he read the texts from Mahtab. “Harry! HARRY!” he shouted, running back into the house.

“Liam, PLEASE!” Harry stressed. “I’m trying very hard to concentrate and you’re presently blocking the doorway!”

“Oh… sorry.” Liam pressed himself against the side of the door as a stone statue floated silently through the air out toward the U-Haul they had hastily rented. Harry followed it at a slow, measured pace, telekinetically controlling it with his mind. But they'd done some quick calculations and each statue probably weighed upwards of five hundred pounds. Harry was growing more and more exhausted after each statue he transported, but was powering through. Corey was waiting outside with an umbrella for Harry, shielding him from the rain to avoid any distraction. He directed the statue into the open door of the truck, where Brian and Grace were waiting to wrap them in moving blankets.

Before they had left to confront Cliff, Nate had restored Blake to his original size, and Roddy had shortly thereafter taken both Blake and Adam to an ER where he knew the staff, and he could likely avoid dealing with the police.

This left Liam alone in a house full of distressingly lifelike statues, a huge, headless corpse, and apparently, a tarantula on the loose. Needless to say, he was grateful when Harry showed up in response to his call.

Informed of the full situation, Harry had in all available hands to help deal with this as quickly as possible. They were going to carefully transport all the statues back to their headquarters, and see what they could do about restoring them. Even that looked to be a challenge. Harry had been forced to call in a favour. Liam had been too meek to object.

As Harry carefully deposited the statue into the truck, he rubbed his temple, grimacing as he walked through the wet grass back to the house.

“I'm sorry, you were saying?” he turned to Liam, drying his hands on his sweater-vest. “Word from Mahtab?”

“Yes,” Liam nodded quickly. “They're on their way back with someone else Esterez has changed. They said they recovered Cassidy, but Esterez activated some sort of defensive spell and escaped! He may be coming back here!” Liam glanced at the body on the floor. “We need to leave!”

“Liam, calm down,” Harry put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “If he returns as a giant we'll see him coming, and if not, there's more than enough of us to deal with him. Plus…”

“Plus you've got me!” Oliver chimed in, thoroughly British. He strode out of the living room after having successfully outfitted all of the statues with oven mitts to protect their fingers. “I've no doubt we could fend him off together.”

The tall, slim, older man clapped Liam on the back, and Liam poured all his effort into swallowing his disdain and forcing a smile. “I guess,” he replied.

Oliver beamed. “That's the spirit. Though,” his tone became cautionary as he turned to Harry. “I'm tempted to agree with the young gentleman. Our proximity to this business at the marina is most unappealing.”

Harry pursed his lips and nodded in agreement. “You're right. We'll have to leave him.” He glanced briefly at Phil's corpse, which had begun to smell.“Are you sure that's wise?” asked Oliver.

“I don't even know what we'd do with him. Honestly the best way to avoid any connection to us is to leave him here, I believe.”

Liam felt like a sigh of relief he'd had pent up for hours finally released.

“All right I'll make sure everyone's ready to go just as soon as that last of our companions is on the truck,” Oliver replied with a nod. “And perhaps redirect the young lady to rendezvous elsewhere?” he suggested to Liam as he walked out the front door.

Liam's expression fell back into a grim frown the second Oliver's back was turned. Harry, evidently, caught it. “You don't approve,” he observed.

“I'm sorry, Harry, I just don't trust him,” said Liam quietly.

"Neither do I, Liam, but this is a bigger crisis than we can handle alone. And it's not about who… wins, anymore. People have died.”

“I know, Harry, I'm not… I get it. I do.” Liam sighed.

“Good man,” Harry turned back to the living room. “All right, onto the next one…”

The statue of Robyn scraped on the floor as it was hoisted into the air. Her handcuffs had been cut and she was wearing mismatched oven mitts. 
The stupid bitch. She had been the worst of all of them. The whole time she just wouldn't shut up. Even as he body was turning to stone Cliff had been afraid her struggling would damage her. She was a big loss. When the time came to reclaim his power, she would have to be an early acquisition. And it would be even harder this time.

Four inches tall and naked, Cliff watched grimly from behind a vent grating as they stole all his powers from him one by one. He hated being small, but he knew it was the best way to survive an ambush, and so his carefully orchestrated spellcraft had been designed to teleport him to safety while hiding him from view. It would wear off soon, and Cliff would have to start over. But he had learned many things. Phil was a poor minion. Cassidy's powers came from a place of vanity and not practicality. And somehow, his wards had not kept them out. Next time, his defenses would rely on a more subtle version of stealth. Next time, he would recruit his followers more wisely. Next time…

Something rustled softly behind him, amplified by the metallic echo of the vents. He turned, peering into the long narrow ventilation pipe that disappeared into darkness. He was about to dismiss it as his imagination when he saw the light glint dully of her black, featureless eyes. Slowly his eyes continued to adjust, and he made out more of her shape, nestled perfectly still in the shadows at the corner of the shaft. Her body was lowered, her front legs were spread. She was preparing to attack.

Penny darted at him so quickly he barely had time to react. The first bite punctured his lung, and he couldn't even manage a scream.

Liam, Harry, and Corey were all distracted by the work at hand, but had they looked down at just the right moment at just the right vent, they would have seen a tiny pair of hands clinging desperately onto the grating. But only briefly, before they were dragged off into the darkness.

 

***

 

The beach had served as a serviceable pillow, but the water was too cold for them to get a decent sleep and the rain continued on and off through the night. They'd mostly chatted to pass the time. The only way they could remotely stay out of sight was to use the lake as a cover, though the water was fairly shallow until pretty far out, and Jamie didn't want to leave Cassidy unattended. So they did their best, but anyone who happened to look out at the south side of Captain Mori beach would have absolutely seen them.

Jamie told Tyson all about what Cassidy and the coven, which was all news to Tyson. Tyson told Jamie about all the surreal transformations that had been going on at the Black Eagle, which Jamie was amazed he hadn't heard anything about. From there they just shot the shit to keep each other awake. 

It was still dark out when they felt their bodies begin to contract. They couldn’t really tell the time accurately, but it was close to an hour before they were at reasonably human sizes. As the sun had started to rise, they were back to normal. Or, they were back to where they’d been the night before. Tyson’s thick, sculpted physique and ample junk was on full display as they sunned themselves in the brisk dawn light not far from where they had deposited Cassidy.

There was some conversation of what to do next. They hadn’t thought to discuss it. The ferries didn’t start running until nine, and even then, they had no idea what to do with Cassidy, and would probably cause a scene trying to do anything while stark naked. Luckily, their hands weren’t forced. They had fallen into silence, lying side by side on the beach, propped up on their elbows looking out at the lake.

“Hey guys.”

They both looked up to see Mahtab standing near the treeline. She looked like she’d had a shower and changed her outfit, and had her hands in her jacket pockets. She walked over to them, unslinging her overstuffed backpack, and fishing out their clothes and tossed them towards the pair. They sorted out which was whose and hastily dressed, though they were still pretty damp from the rain, and Jamie found himself shivering.

Mahtab raised an eyebrow as she surveyed his chest and face. “Are you all right, man? You look like shit.”

Jamie shrugged as he buttoned up his shirt, covering up the multiple large, dark purple bruises on his chest. He couldn’t do anything about the cut across his jaw, or the bloodshot black eye. “Looks worse than it feels,” he replied with a shrug. “Any sign of Cliff?”

Mahtab shook her head. “Liam and some others were at his house for a couple hours after, getting all the statues out. He didn’t show. They left the dead guy, though. The cops are there now.”

Tyson brushed sand from his back. “Should we, like, get our stories straight?”

“You guys should be fine,” Mahtab sighed. “The rest of us, who fought him there… it might not come up. We’ll come up with a plan.”

“You got a plan for him?” Jamie stuck out his thumb at the statue of Cassidy, lying on its side in the sand. “It’s a long way to carry him back to the ferry.”

“Got it covered,” said Mahtab, looking past them out at the lake. She raised both her hands and started waving. Tyson and Jamie turned around, where they spotted a water-taxi turning towards them.

“Heh,” Tyson chuckled. “Nice.”

“Oh that’s just for Cassidy,” Mahtab informed him. “I don’t know how much he weighs. We’re all taking the ferry back.”

“Aww man…” Tyson rolled his eyes. “We just saved the city! Couldn’t we get some V I P treatment?”

“Dude who do you think I am?” Mahtab spread her hands. “I’m a student. I’m buried in debt. You want a medal take it up with John Tory.”

“I mean, we DID put our lives on the line here,” Jamie stressed. “A ‘thank you’ would be nice.”

Mahtab’s shoulders slumped as she dropped her defensive posture. “Well, like… thanks. Legit.”

Tyson held up his hand, nodding to Jamie. “Hey man. Welcome to the saved the city club.”

Jamie smirked and gave Tyson a high-five. “Likewise.”

Tyson laughed and clapped Jamie on the back. “Man, we’re heroes! We’re so awesome.”

Mahtab held her forehead with a quiet groan. “Jesus fucking christ.”

 

***

 

Yes, Jamie had, in all likelihood, saved the city. But after they carefully loaded Cassidy onto the water taxi, he had to walk all the way to the dock, wait for the ferry, and take it across the bay back to the mainland. It was almost 11 AM by the time he was back in Toronto proper, and it wasn’t until he and Tyson exchanged numbers that he realized he hadn’t checked his phone in nearly twelve hours. He had a bunch of messages from Drew. They generally fell into the categories of “Where are you?”, “When are you coming home?” and “Where the fuck are you????”

Jamie typed back: “Sorry D be home in 20 ;*”

An uber would’ve been 15 bucks, an he wasn’t even that far from home. So Jamie walked up to Queen Street and waited for twenty minutes before a streetcar arrived with any room. People were staring in alarm at the bruises on his face. A couple of middle-aged black ladies even asked him if he needed some help. He laughed off any concern with “Just a bit of a rough night.”

He wasn’t completely sure what he expected to come home to. What it ended up being was a groggy Drew seated at their little dining table, still getting his bearings, likely jarred awake by the opening of their front door.

“Jamie…” he said quietly, his head lolling around on his neck. The sight of all Jamie’s bruises apparently woke him up some. “Jesus christ Jamie what happened to you?”

“I know,” Jamie held up his hands. “It looks worse than it is. I had a but of a rough…”

“Shut up,” Drew commanded, shaking the sleep from his head. “Shut up. I need to say something.” He paused, seemingly dazed. “I need to say something,” he repeated.

“Look it’s… it was Adam. And Cassidy. And this… Drew, you have no idea.”

“Shut up! Please!” Drew raised his voice, and his head drooped. But his half-asleep brain was still struggling to piece together the monologue he had been rehearsing until he passed out. “Just… please shut up and listen to me.”

Drew raised his head again, and Jamie was surprised to see tears running down his face. “D… baby, what’s…”

“You know I love you, right?” Drew croaked.

“What?” Jamie furrowed his brow. “Of course I do, D…”

“I know what happened tonight,” Drew quickly interrupted him. “Or… last night. Or, like, not all of it, but I know enough about it. I know what you did.”

Jamie was about to say something but Drew cut him off again.

“I don’t know… I mean, I guess love is something different to everyone, but to me… it means being there for someone. It means… it means being beside them when they put things on the line.”

“D… come on I couldn’t just…”

“I KNOW it’s scary and… I know you just want to keep my safe and that you don’t want me to get involved. I know you think you need to protect me but… I need to protect you, too,” Drew almost pleaded with him. “And when you… when you go into battle I want to be at your side. I NEED to be at your side. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“D, I’m sorry I lied to you, but I just couldn’t let you…”

“I NEED you to let me!” Drew shrieked. “I’m not going to wait at home and wonder whether or not you’re coming home!” Drew slumped his shoulders, and composed himself. “Look… I get that all the things you’re suddenly being exposed to seem… dangerous. And they are. But you can’t lie to me anymore. And you can’t shield me from it anymore. And you can’t…” Drew lifted up off the chair, taking a deep breath. “If I… if I can’t be beside you when you have to face… whatever this is, then I won’t be beside you at all.” Drew gulped. “Okay?”

Jamie took a step forward, and drew grabbed Jamie’s hand in his own.

“Okay,” Jamie nodded, feeling his own tears welling up. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I want you beside me.” He pulled Drew close and hugged him as tight as his fatigue would allow. “I fuckin love you.”

Drew buried his face in Jamie’s shoulders. “You fuckin better.”

Jamie tightened his grip. "So fucking much."

Drew managed a teary chuckle. "So fucking much."

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Epilogue

 

"On to our top story, Toronto police continue their investigation of the tragic disaster last Friday that left twenty-one people dead and forty-seven injured at the Ashbridges Bay yacht club. Experts have described the event as ‘totally inexplicable’ and ‘baffling.’ In an unprecedented response to public testimony of the incident, Chief of Police Mark Saunders released a damning statement this morning, warning the public that misuse of the Toronto Crime Stoppers hotline could result in prosecution, claiming that, quote: ‘anyone trying to make a joke or prank out of this horrible tragedy should think long and hard about the families of these victims, and those still fighting to survive.’ Saunders further condemned those giving false tips on Twitter. Police have not disclosed the nature of this false information.

“In other news, Toronto Police have released the names of Kenneth Durante and Jennifer Gill-Durante as the owners of a house near Queen and Woodbine in which the body of an unidentified white male was found decapitated on Saturday. The couple hasn't been heard from since early March of this year, and police are asking for anyone with any information on them to contact Crime Stoppers. Despite the house being in the neighbourhood of the Ashbridges Bay yacht club, police are reporting these two incidents appear to be unrelated.

“Up next: the Pan Am Games are coming to Toronto, and HOV lanes are now in effect! We'll go live to our--”

Adam winced as he switched off the television and leaned back on his pillow. The final diagnosis: three broken ribs, major internal bleeding, and a concussion his doctor called “semi-serious,” which didn't sound particularly medical. All Adam knew was everything hurt, and the painkillers could be stronger.

Luckily they'd avoided a puncture to the lung but it was apparently still a risk. They had to strap him down at night so he wouldn't roll onto his side in his sleep. His doctor wanted to keep him in the hospital all week but the nurse was telling him it'd probably just be another couple of nights. Adam just wanted to go home. He just wanted all the big, drama crazy to be all done so he could go back to his quiet, provincial crazy with his cute, magical crazy husband.

He smiled as he turned to look at him. Cassidy had fallen asleep in his chair. His book had fallen onto the floor without waking him, and his head was lowered into his chest with his glasses sliding down one side of his face. Harry had apparently figured out a way to restore all the petrified sorcerers, and Cass had been the first to get stone-to-fleshed. He'd shown up that morning. But evidently being a statue for a couple days had taken a lot out of him, because he'd pretty much been sleeping the whole time. Adam was fine with that, though, smiling at his husband. It was enough to know he was safe.

Adam winced and groaned as he took a drink of water. Pretty much doing anything for the next couple of weeks was going to hurt, he’d been told. Which sucked, but Adam figured the pain was a small price to pay. Things could’ve gone much, much worse.

A figure appeared in the doorway, glancing around the room until her eyes found Adam’s. His smile drifted away.

Mahtab took a step into his room, one hand in her pocket, the other loosely clasping a small flower basket with three bright orange gerbera daisies with a tiny get-well balloon tied to it. She raised it with a polite smile and set it down on a chair. Now with both hands in her pockets, she took a couple steps towards his bed, like they were old friends who hadn’t seen each other for a while. “Hey man.”

Cassidy awoke with a start, knocking his glasses into his lap. He picked them up and righted them on his face. “Oh. Hey Maddy.”

“Yeah, hi Maddy,” Adam grumbled, his voice still a gravelly rasp.

“They takin good care of you?” Mahtab surveyed the room, as if assessing the facilities.

“Yup,” Adam chatted back, unsmiling. “Five stars.”

She chuckled, swaying awkwardly on her heels. “So… I think I owe you guys an apology. Well, I absolutely owe you guys an apology. I just… it felt like we were under attack, and it seemed like…well anyway, I AM sorry.”

“Thanks,” Cassidy chimed, leaning both elbows on one armrest.

“Regardless of any differences we had, I think it’s obvious after this that we need to stick together and… I mean, especially with Russell… gone…” she fumbled for a moment, before finding her train of thought once again. “I just miss being friends with you guys. I miss hanging out, and like… going on this insane adventure together.”

Adam and Cassidy exchanged glances.

Mahtab sighed and smiled. “I haven’t spoken to Harry or anyone about it yet but I’m sure he’d be open to the idea of you guys…”

Adam raised his hand. “I’m gonna stop you right there.”

“...coming back,” Mahtab continued, trailing off in confusion.

“Okay, just stop talking and listen to me for a minute,” said Adam sternly.

Cassidy pointed to himself and the door. “Should I…?”

“No, Cass, I want you to stay,” said Adam, still looking at Mahtab. “Okay, so… I just wanna say I’m very sorry about what happened to Russell. He was a good guy and he didn’t… well nobody deserves that but he… y’know what I mean. It sucks. And I know you guys were close and I’m sure you must be really hurting right now. So… I know this is gonna sound harsh but I’m saying it now because I need to say it now. But… fuck you, man.”

Mahtab blinked, and opened her mouth to say something but he cut her off.

“You barged into my hotel and held me hostage. You dragged me all over the city, threatened me, threatened Cass… and while you were chasing us down that psycho was out there actually killing people. Killing people!” He grunted and winced, having raised his voice.

“I… I said I was sorry…” Mahtab proffered quietly.

Adam took another drink of water. “And I accept your apology. But we were doing fine before you guys came back into our lives. We were doing our own thing, keeping to ourselves, and it had nothing to do with you. And then all this happened.”

Mahtab shook her head. “No… hey man, if it hadn’t been for us, Cass would still be…”

Adam held up his hand again. “Shut up. Look, I’m not going to lay everything Cliff Esterez did at your feet, but it was you guys feeding him superpowers. So, maybe don’t try playing the ‘if it hadn’t been for us’ card.”

“You are NOT being fair,” Mahtab jabbed her finger at him.

“I don’t really care, end of the day,” Adam replied. “Here’s what I want to stress: we are going to go back to our lives, we are going to keep doing what we’re doing, and I don't ever want to have to deal with any of you ever again, all right?”

Mahtab stuttered, and turned, incredulous, to Cassidy for help, but Cassidy just responded with a shrug. “Sorry, bae. She's the boss.” He pointed with his thumb at Adam.

“You're both being ridiculous,” she mumbled.

Adam looked about ready to lay into her again when another face popped in the door.

“Hey boys! Oh; and girls!” Drew hopped over the threshold, holding out his hand to Mahtab. “Hi I'm Drew.”

“Maddy was just leaving,” said Adam with a good-natured chuckle. “Thanks so much for stopping by, though. Oh and thanks for the flowers, you're so sweet!”

Jamie was a step behind Drew, though not as chipper.

Mahtab glared at him for a half second before adopting the charade herself, smiling broadly and adopting the affected warmth of a morning show host. “All right well you guys take care of yourself. Nice meeting you Drew. Bye!” she twirled around, waving with her fingers at everyone as she brushed by them to exit. She pinched Jamie lightly on the shoulder as she passed him. “So good to see you again, Jamie. Ta!”

Jamie furrowed his brow as he watched her leave, then turned back toward the room, pointing out the door with his thumb. “I know I don't know her that well but is she, like, on drugs or something right now?”

Adam leaned back on his pillow. “Long story.”

“Oh my god Jamie you look terrible!” Cassidy exclaimed, putting a hand to his chest in shock.

“Yeah!” Drew chirped, glancing at his boyfriend. “Everyone’s been making… a lot of jokes about domestic abuse.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” said Jamie with a tired smile. “I think getting bruises as a giant just makes them look worse when you shrink back down.”

Drew threw his arm around Jamie’s shoulders and scratched his stomach. “That’s my little hero.”

Jamie squirmed out of his arms. “God, shut up,” he chuckled.

Drew crossed the room as Cassidy rose and the two hugged. “Jeez, Cass, you’re like a sack of potatoes what’s wrong with you?”

“Ugh, ohmygod I’m just SO tired I can barely do like, anything,” Cassidy explained laboriously.

“Shouldn’t being frozen in stone leave you well rested?” asked Drew.

“That IS how it worked on Gargoyles,” Adam noted.

Cassidy rolled his eyes. “Oh my god leave me alone, you fascists!” he protested. “I’ve been through an ordeal.”

Drew pulled Cassidy towards the door. “Here let’s go find some coffee.”

Cassidy dragged his feet but followed him. “You want anything, hon?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Adam nodded.

Drew and Cassidy exited the room, though could be heard from the hallway.

“I can’t grow you today I’m just SO wiped out,” Cassidy was telling him.

“Dude, I can take a day off,” Drew answered him.

Alone together, Jamie smiled at Adam. “So.”

“Yeah.”

Jamie took the gerberas off the chair, setting them on the floor, and slid it closer to the bed so he could sit down. “Cass texted us. Says you’re going to be fine?”

“They’re keeping me for a bit in case anything goes wrong,” Adam confirmed. “I’m gonna be bedridden for a while but I should come around fine.”

Jamie nodded. “Scary.”

“Yeah.”

They sat there lightly nodding in silence at each other before Adam took a deep breath. “Look, man. I just wanted to say… Jamie…”

Jamie shook his head. “C’mon man, don’t get sappy n’ shit.”

“Shut up, asshole,” Adam shook his head. “In here, the past couple days… I really felt like… not a lot of people would’ve come out like that. I needed help and you had my back.”

Jamie breathed an uneasy sigh. “Dude, come on. It’s cool.”

“YEAH it’s cool,” Adam agreed. “You’re cool.”

Jamie rolled his eyes. “God you’re such a fag sometimes.”

“I’m sorry we fell out of touch,” Adam pressed on. “Like… I took our friendship for granted. And I don’t give a shit that that’s a cliché,” he added quickly to fend off another quip from Jamie. “I don’t want it to ever happen again.”

Jamie averted his eyes, rubbing his brow.

“Okay?” Adam nudged him.

“Okay! Jesus,” Jamie conceded. He sighed. “Look, before you have me sign some papers declaring you my B F F…”

“You can be SUCH a dick.”

“... I have something I want to say too,” Jamie put his hands on his knees and pursed his lips for a moment. “So… I want to apologize for my reaction when you told me you wanted to be bigger on a permanent basis.”

“Oh my god,” Adam rolled his eyes. “Dude, absolutely nothing to apologize for.”

“Well, no… I mean,” Jamie paused. “Like, I was sorta… all this magic stuff was a total bombshell for me and it just… it seemed like a lot. But I’ve thought about it some more, and I think you should go for it.”

“Jesus christ, Jamie,” Adam shook his head. “Nothing could be further from my mind right now.”

“Well, listen though,” said Jamie. “Like, this is something you want; this is something that will make you feel more like you’re living your true self; and it’s something you have the means to achieve. Right?”

“I don’t know, man…” Adam looked away, and took a deep breath. “I just got finished telling Maddy off for treating me and Cass like shit, and for letting the stuff with Cliff Esterez get where it did but like… the abilities that made him really dangerous, he got that from Cass. And Cass only learned how to do that because I wanted him to… and now there’s twenty-one people dead. At least. I can’t help but think…”

“Okay, I see where you’re going here, and I totally get it,” Jamie nodded. “And I mean, if you want to get down to the bottom line, you’re correct. But dude… Cliff was already a killer before he got to Cass, and we don’t even know how many people he’s murdered. I was there, man, I… I watched that happen. And maybe I could’ve done something to save them - I don’t know. But it’s not my fault. And it’s not yours.”

“It’s not the same.”

“Okay, sure,” Jamie agreed. “But let me just propose, for a second, that our propensity to blame ourselves for crimes someone else committed is rooted more in narcissism than any desire to… repent, or do anything actually positive.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “That’s twisted, man.”

“We’re getting off track,” Jamie waved the comment away. “If you’ve changed your mind, that’s cool. And, y’know, obviously put some time into thinking about it. But if this is something you legitimately want, I think you should go for it. BUT… don’t send that e-mail.”

Adam looked at him. “What?”

“That e-mail you showed me - it’s not the right move. Listen,” Jamie scooched forward on his chair and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been thinking about it. You’re talking about going public with… magic, right?”

Adam puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “Well, I wasn’t gonna… call it that.”

“Also a wrong move,” Jamie pointed at him. “Look, if you start walking around as a giant you’ll have to eventually address how it happened. One way or another. What you want to do, I think, is a controlled dissemination of information in the media.”

“Wait, the media?”

“Yes. If you do this, whether you want it or not, you WILL be in the public eye,” Jamie explained. “I guarantee it. So if you release select details of what exactly is going on, you’ll be able to control the narrative. You kind of have to approach it like a scandal. You get out in front of it, you set the stage and establish the context. By the time anything actually happens, it becomes the climax to an ongoing story. People will be excited for it.”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t want any of that.”

“Well, then, that’s something else to consider,” Jamie proposed. “It’s a consequence of what you want to do.”

“Okay but I don’t even know how to do any of that,” Adam protested. “Like, who would I contact to…”

“Why do you think I’M telling you all this, dude?” Jamie pointed to himself. “This is my job. I can help you.”

Adam made a face. “I don’t know…”

“So think about it,” Jamie shrugged. “Put some serious thought into it; discuss it with Cass. You know I got your back, right?” Jamie reached forward and clasped Adam’s forearm. Adam smiled at him. Jamie smirked. “You just focus on getting better and figuring out what you want to do. Leave the public relations to me.”

 

***

 

“Ugh! Of all the days to break down, Elevator, why today!” Robyn groaned as she trudged painstakingly slowly up her apartment stairwell.

Liam was a few steps behind, half-expecting her to fall back down on him at any moment. “It’s just the third floor, we’re almost there.”

“You don’t know, man,” Robyn whined, gripping the railing tight. “Being petrified for months is such a drain. Honest? The only thing keeping me awake is how fucking starving I am.”

“Well… all your perishables are probably toast,” Liam said, thinking aloud.

“Pretty sure I got a frozen pizza,” Robyn replied. “And a bottle of wine.”

“Maybe avoid booze for now?” Liam suggested.

“Whatever, man. Thanks to that fucking douchetard I’ve been sober for three fucking months,” Robyn observed. She allowed herself a short laugh. “Ha! Stone sober…”

They cleared the last flight of stairs and walked down the hall to Robyn’s apartment. She took her keys from her pocket and opened it up, revealing a short foyer before a modest kitchen. There was a doorway to the left but the kitchen was all you could see from the doorway.

Robyn turned, smiling lazily. “Thanks for the ride, Liam. You didn’t have to walk me to my door.”

“Well… I mean you sort of barely made it out of the car,” Liam noted. “I feel like I did.”

Robyn chuckled. “You’re sweet.” She sighed. “Guess I’ve been celibate for three months, too.” She bit her lip, blinking slowly at him. “Feel like splitting a bottle of wine?”

“Umm… you know I’m engaged, now, right?” Liam asked.

Robyn smirked, undeterred. “So you’re in the last stretch of bachelordom, right? Last chance to get some kicks in.”

She started to reach for his belt but Liam stepped away, smiling awkwardly. “Get some sleep, Robyn. I’ll see ya,” he gave her a sort of half-wave, and walked down the hall to the stairs.

Robyn watched him go, her eyelids drooping. She sighed and turned inside her apartment, locking the door behind her.

“It’s too bad, guys,” she called into her apartment as she turned on the oven. “You guys almost had another roommate.”

Robyn kicked off her shoes and rounded the corner into her living room, where her collection of a dozen or so stone statues littered the room. She sat down on her couch between the stone forms of Kenneth Durante and Jennifer Gill-Durante, picking up the remote from the coffee table, on which sat the statue of a hissing cat. She glanced at all her familiar faces. Some frozen in shock, some relaxed, others enraged. She chuckled, sinking deeper into her couch cushions.

“I missed you guys.”
 

End

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So that's it for Public Relations. I'm sorry it took four goddamn years to finish, and want to thank anyone who stuck it out. I definitely want to revisit this later, but I'm going to try and organize myself a bit so it's not such a huge wait between installments. We'll see what that ends up looking like. 

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