Bat Out of Swell
The day started clear, the sky nearly cloudless, and the air was surprisingly clean for the city's standards. The sun rained down on the buildings, gently reflecting off the windows into multiple streams of light that crossed one another and made a shining net that fell down on the streets, upon the multiple hurried pedestrians that couldn't bother a moment of their busy lives to admire the show, and most of all, on the multitude of cars and trucks that had managed themselves locked up in the usual traffic, completely paralyzed and with nothing but the constant fanfare of their horns to desperately try and release their stress. The poor suckers.
"Man, they're pretty loud today," one particular individual said when the noise kept reaching him, no matter how much he distanced himself from its source. Why particular, you ask? Partially because of the shining golden exoskeleton that covered most of his body, the light jumping off of what skin his uniform left exposed, but who hasn't seen a wasp by now? That's pretty regular in cities like this. No, he was peculiar mainly because of his size.
Ivan was a wasp, yes, but beyond that he was also a hulking behemoth of a man. Powerful muscles lined his entire frame, bursting out through what space his armored exterior left exposed, turning into a mix of black and gold that more often than not got several turned heads on his way. Even now, in the not-so-flattering clothes of a common delivery man, he would still be seen as a gym monster should anyone even as much as gaze in his direction, although he had to admit that, under the large stinger, the shorts did compliment his backside.
Sadly no one would see him, rather ironically, for the other reason that he was so peculiar in today's scenario. Ivan wasn't one of those poor suckers, allowing themselves to get trapped in traffic, and instead took full advantage of nature's gifts by taking off to the skies. While many people, himself included, often wondered how his wings had the strength of lifting a man of his burly physique, if it kept him away from the streets for his deliveries, you wouldn't hear him complain.
With that in mind, he took a rather familiar turn around a rather familiar building, headed towards an apartment he had visited more than once. The bag currently hanging from his large shoulder swung slightly as he slowed down-
"Ow! Ow..." he rubbed his head, making sure he hadn't broken his antenna or something of the like. He stared at the open square in front of him, fully capable of seeing the inside of the apartment, which had hardly changed since his last errand in this street, and wondered how high had he flown towards it that he had hit his head on the ceiling. Because that's what happened, right? Therefore, the logical thing was to try again and face plant against the closed window, realizing it was a window and cursing nature's gifts for being so damn ridiculous.
That's when the apartment's owner came into view on the other side of the strange barrier that kept Ivan from entering. Said owner, a short bat in casual clothes, approached the window, his large ears twitching as a curious expression settled in his eyes. The slender fingers rose to the side, his wings dragging like a pair of long, velvety sheets with them, until they slid across the open air in front of Ivan's eyes.
"Ivan! Hey!" the bat greeted him with a big, warm smile that showed just the tip of his fangs. "What's up? What brings you here? Well, that's actually a dumb question, I mean, you're wearing your uniform and all, so you're obviously working. You probably got something for me in there, don't you? Last time was last month, I think? Yeah, that sounds accurate. Funny how they sent you again, don't you think?"
"Luca," was Ivan's greeting to the bat; really all he could even manage to say in the short window said bat took breath.
"You're still having issues seeing glass, I see. Man, that most be a major pain in the stinger, am I right? You'd think the city itself would've done something about it by now; don't birds have the same issue? It must be really bothersome, especially for a guy with such... huge muscles like yours. You must bump into things a lot!" clearly, Luca would've gone on and on had it not been for the light jab he felt in his sides. When he looked down, a clipboard greeted him, held by the hand belonging to one of the large arms he had been praising seconds ago. Their owner, however, stared at him with a frown just slightly deeper than usual, but it still made the bat bite his lower lip for a moment. Nonetheless, he took the large arm instead of the clipboard it held. "I'm sorry! Everyone tells me I should talk less and I've been trying to work on it, but you know how it is, once you start you just keep going and look, I'm doing it right now! But hey, we're pals by now, aren't we? Come on in, I'll get you a glass of water or something; you could use it after a bump like that, don't you think?"
His neverending prattle could get annoying, admittedly, but if he was being honest having some proper ground to stand on would help rest his wings and the pain on his forehead. Somewhere on his aching brain he could still register the bat talking, but tuned him out the moment he stepped into the kitchen and sat back on the windowsill, taking the time to stretch the tired muscles, hearing more than one of his joints pop slightly, a grunt slipping out of his throat as he did. It wasn't the first time he stepped inside his apartment, but every time he couldn't help taking the chance to look around; no matter how many times he saw it, it was just as shocking watching how much stuff the little bat had managed to stuff in it. The walls were lined with tons upon tons of merchandise, from signed balls to those little dolls, whatever they were called that Ivan couldn't put his finger on, perfectly set along shelves.
But the most impactful thing was possibly the vibrant yellow and green of the team that covered almost every inch of the place. Framed shirts and photographs, all marked with the player's autographs, hanging all the way to the front door; plastic cups neatly set in a cupboard next to the fridge, half of them the same colors in a multitude of patterns, the other half printed with still images from recent games; a large flag hanging behind the couch; even the welcome mat had a little football on it. It was rather overwhelming, or so Ivan thought whenever he had a chance to look, which was quite often... Quite often indeed, now that he thought about it, and the more he looked at each piece of merchandise, the more familiar they became. Those shirts, those dolls, even that childish mat he recognized from previous deliveries to this very same address.
"Here we go!" when exactly Luca slipped to him, he wasn't sure. He attributed it to some sort of nocturnal stealth, some natural skill bats had, but it didn't make it any less unnerving, nor did it do much to get his mind off his sudden realization. "One glass of water, courtesy of 'O Lugar do Luca', on the house of course. That was Portuguese, by the way. We speak that in Brazil which, in case you haven't noticed, is where I'm from," he kept talking and honestly Ivan had stopped paying attention after his first three words.
Once the glass was in his hands he downed it immediately, letting the water cool down his tired body; funny how work didn't seem to affect you until you actually stopped for a moment. Under any other circumstances he might have even poured the water over his body, but in front of a client it would be something poorly seen by his boss, so holding it back it was. That's when he noticed said client intently staring at him and realized that even the shirt he was wearing right now was something he had delivered to him; the earlier thoughts came back to his head and almost as if putting two and two together...
"Luca," he started and the bat's ears noticeably perked up for a chance to listen to the wasp's rarely used voiced. He seemed to like his accent, or so Ivan recalled. "Other people bring things?"
"'Things'?" the bat seemed confused at first but a finger pointing at his bag was all Ivan needed to send his message through. "Oh! Oh... Mmm... You know, now that I think about, I think not. I think you're the only one they always send. Man, that's really weird, isn't it? Maybe I should complain, shouldn't I? Not like I would, of course, you're great. You're a relief to tired eyes- Oh, shit! That came out weird! I mean, it's not like you look bad or anything, you look pretty good, man! I just-
Another light jab once again made Luca's words stop again and he looked back up. The same hand and the same large arm, but rather than a frown he met with the wasp's usual expression.
"I must go," Ivan said, pointing to the window with his free thumb and for a moment Luca's ears seemed to drop. He still kept that bright smile and the slender finger took the clipboard with what Ivan could swear was a light brush on his fingers. The lack of reaction from the bat, however, kept him from paying it too much attention.
"Right, you're working!" Luca quickly scribbled his name on the presented sheet with the same rough handwriting Ivan surprisingly found himself recognizing as well, and in a matter of seconds the small cylinder-shaped package was left safely on his hands. "You probably have plenty of things to do, don't you? Long routes and all. You're the flying boy that gets everything delivered right to your window, so I bet they dump a lot on your plate, don't they? Watch out for those windows, by the way!"
Ivan frowned, but the smirk he got at the same time showed his good mood. Luca couldn't help but let a gentle laugh at the rarely seen expression and his own made the wasp feel at ease with his thoughts. If it brought the bread to the table, he would come back next month; with that much in mind he tipped his hat to his client and took off from the window again, checking his list for the next address as he left the apartment behind...
...And behind, in that same apartment, Luca leaned down on his windowsill, staring at the sky as the black and gold figure of his delivery man slowly drifted away into the vastness of the city, drowned by the beams of light reflecting off the countless windows. One single sigh left his lips as he felt his knees going weak and he was left alone with the silliest of smiles plastered on his face.
"How does he find pants that fit around that stinger," he said and another sigh quickly left him as he closed the window behind him. "Anyway, now's not the time to focus on that, is it? What do we have here?" he said to the package in his hands. That familiar need to rip new gifts open was burning him from the inside, but he did his best to fight it off; something like what he had planned had to be approached carefully.
Instead he let the cylindrical package on the table and headed for his bedroom just for a second before he brought over his old laptop, predictably covered in stickers of the Brazilian team, and turned it on next to the package. A couple clicks and taps, along with a quick visit to his bookmarks, and he already had plenty of tabs loading while finally giving in to his childish urges and tearing the package open. Buried somewhere within the sea of foam peanuts that fell all over the floor as his impatient hands pushed them out of the way, he finally found the tiny object he had paid a rather hefty sum for: a plastic tube full of several wires and pieces, the function of which he wouldn't even bother trying to understand, all of it attached to a neatly tied pack of long cords ending in several stimulation pads. Once it was in his hands, he started shaking in excitement as the possibilities quickly flooded his mind, but somehow, even through the massive grin he was now sporting, he managed to function properly enough to at least plug it in first.
"Ok, what do we have here?" he said to no one in particular as the trinket charged and without much interest took a look at the instruction booklet that had come in with his package. "'Congratulations, dear customer, on getting the Zap the Fat: Growth Stimulation System TM', blah blah blah, 'electric muscular stimuli', blah blah blah, 'safety measures', blah blah blah, doesn't this at least come with example pics or something?" his impatience was, for once, rewarded when he skipped several pages and reached the gallery section. What greeted him were pages after pages full of photographs depicting shirtless men of varying species, all of them in typical 'Before and After' sets. The 'Before' pictures were, predictably, unimpressive; the 'After' ones, however, showed a lot more progress as the males in question showed improvement over their musculature and definition, almost all of them showing solid abs and slightly wider shoulders, not mention an increase in mass. Luca, however, didn't seem too impressed as he kept turning the pages, his frown growing deeper as he got rougher with the paper. "What the hell, man!? Where are the huge guys? Isn't this supposed to be for muscle growth and stuff? This is all freaking vanilla!"
The book ended up on the floor along with the padding it came in and Luca instead put his attention to his screen, knowing already that the answers to his questions were there. The tabs had all opened without a hitch and he was more than happy to go through each one of them, from the provider's own homepage to several third party forums full of information and feedback on the machine. One such site had a long list of usage guidelines, which he had already gone through several times in his free time and knew, for a fact, essentially boiled down to 'don't use too many pads unless you're already thick as fuck'. Bullshit, all of it. Other users gave him far more hopeful instructions and ideas.
As you may have deduced by now, Luca's goal was to get bigger. Sadly, despite the intense fanatism he showed towards sports as a form of entertainment, the bat himself was not big on physical effort. Like many before him, as his near constant web browsing had delightfully proved, he searched for a quicker, much less straining option, and found it in the Growth Stimulation System; basically, the typical overnight abs wonder that infomercials loved selling over so often. Normally, he wouldn't fall for one of those, but fate had it that his curiosity piqued the moment one such commercial showed a wasp and his own results; a wasp that had stirred his... budding affection for the delivery man he just had over, and his own exceptionally large body. One thing led to another and before he knew it he was in front of hundreds of posts detailing several customers- real ones, at that! -expressing their pleasing experiences with the product, and so his broader search started.
Long story short, the Growth Stimulation System worked by using electric impulses to accelerate the body's reaction to external elements, or some other techno-babble that Luca could never quite understand. The instructions made it far simpler: You drink a protein shake and the pads make it react faster, so you gain some mass while the voltage passes through your muscles and slowly molds them. However, based on your own current level of muscle mass, there were several more rules and words to follow, mostly to avoid dumbasses burning themselves up by accident and using that to sue the company; things like starting with just two or three, adding up as the weeks went by. Luca couldn't bother to wait weeks, so he looked for any alternatives he could find; of course, others had been as recklessly needy for size as him and through their harsh trial and error had found more instantaneous methods for likeminded small men, like the bat himself, to reach their desired size.
He had gone through all of it already; with no intention whatsoever of ending up zapping himself to death, he had taken his time to set everything correctly. The irony of being unwilling to spend time on the proper process thoroughly detailed and tested, but more than willing to waste that time on getting more things ready to speed it up an indeterminate amount of time, was one that he somehow managed to ignore as his (still annoyingly) slender fingers kept tapping and clicking for one last check of his own, not-so-detailed plan. What didn't escape him was how every single poster he found seemed to derail towards the last bit of their own posts.
"...It's a lot, but don't worry. Just turn the generator on and... Well, you'll see what happens next, hehe," was basically how they all ended. Not like Luca had any time to concern himself with those when his mind was distracted with the idea of his own body swelling up into bigger and bigger proportions. Big enough, even, for a certain wasp to stare at him more than necessary, get to compare bicep width with him and whatever else that got him a chance at a good grope on those guns. Yes! Who had time to care about random internet surprises when such a prospect was so close!?
Step 1: Charging the generator
Just a quick glance was more than enough to show Luca that the small tube-like generator, the painfully expensive trinket that had been quietly charging up during his entire silent tirade, was only up to 15% its max capacity. How long had it been anyway? It somehow felt like five minutes and two hours at the same time, one of those weird time dilation moments that boredom and constant web browsing seem to bring about.
"What the hell? Did it break already or something? I literally just bought this! Or does it really take that long to juice up...? Wait, if it's just 15% after this long then how much capacity does this thing have exactly?" the bat couldn't help but wonder and his hand started reaching for the box to answer his own questions. He was impatient, not stupid; if this actually was more energy than a normal body could actually handle then he had a lot more things to consider before going through with it. But just as he thought about this, the little number to the side changed to a 16. "Oh, it is charging! Cool! I can do everything else while it finishes," and with that he left it safely back on the table.
Because, again, he wasn't stupid. Just impatient.
Step 2: Protein supplement consumption
Once the charging up was mostly out of his mind, the next thing on the checklist was waiting for him buried deep inside his cabinets. It had been several weeks since he started putting his plans in motion, and like everything else, this part hadn't escaped him. After a couple months of hoarding up, he was now in front of packages upon packages of protein mix, the kind that more often than not came with posing bodybuilders on the front, all of it stashed away inside a whole floor-to-ceiling cupboard, just waiting to be used.
Now, the instructions were actually surprisingly specific with amounts and the like, but like every single line before and after, it insisted on giving out pussy measurements because he was 'insufficiently proportioned', as if he needed the reminder to sting him in the ass. Once again, the internet had proved a more effective ally and gave him numbers as large as how he intended to get himself, but being the hyper little bat he was he had gone a bit overboard when it came to maxing out his credit cards in search of the product; he still remembered the amazed and worried faces of every retailer and customer that day, mostly because plenty of them were so delightfully big themselves that his eyes were often glued to their bodies. The main results of that were, among other things, sudden tightness in his pants and several images of himself with a comparable frame.
Oh, and of course the (perhaps literal) tons of bodybuilder fairy dust, as he personally thought of it, which now cluttered his kitchen. His search had hit a mother lode of indications, but all of them gave an average of around ten to fifteen full cups in one go, with maybe five to eight more for the following weeks if he happened to decide getting even bigger. What he had in front of him was far, far more than that however, because, once again, waiting wasn't his cup of tea and he had every intention of maybe- no, definitely going past those measurements and getting even bigger. After all, if Ivan was his body goal then he had to put his back into it, even if 'it' was only chugging right now.
So with his blender plugged in and several bottles of water ready, he poured it along with enough mix to fill up to the top. One lid and one button later and it all started swirling at insane speeds, perfectly visible to the bat through the plastic; the way the water changed colors was mesmerizing, no matter it was a horribly bland, shitty color, and it made Luca's long, floppy ears fold in as he fantasized even more about the sheer amount of mass he would soon have. He remembered hearing somewhere that was all these shakes were, just mass; that the muscle only came around if you pushed yourself for it and that otherwise you would just get fat. They all sounded so foolish to him right now. He was just a couple steps away from his goal size with his only real effort being drinking; well, at least drinking so many cups would present some form of challenge, right?
When it was clear that the water and the powder had blended completely, he pushed the off button and took the large cup off its base. He was downing the whole thing anyway, so there was hardly any point to getting a cup of any sort; instead his lips touched the rim in a curiously anxious way that made his body tingle excitedly, the cold of the brew travelling through his body long before even the first sip reached his mouth. When it finally did, he took one large sip-
"Porra caralho-!" but his diatribe was cut short by his constant spitting, slowly evolving into aggressive heaving, desperately trying to get the taste out of his mouth. The blender was left on the counter, forgotten when more important things came to the bat's mind, such as leaning down and coughing in disgust until his throat was only capable of producing low groans from the stress. "Fuck... This shit tastes like shit..." and with that, his immediate reaction was to throw it all down the sink.
But worry not, he didn't. While the blender was dangerously floating over the sink just slightly tipped, ready to pour its contents away and let its owner bury them forever into the deepest corners of his mind, Luca's eyes wandered by chance towards the plastic container the powder had come in, sort of staring at him. You know the ones that have pictures of massive guys posing on the label? The ones that always crop the face and only show from the neck to the thighs, leaving a rather generous view of their thong-covered bulges? Yeah, it was one of those; a furred species that they managed to keep undeterminable in the picture, but Luca betted on bull. For whatever reason that massive frame made him think of Ivan again and he pictured those monstrous arms crushing him in a long, powerful hug; just the idea was enough to make him weak on the knees, and in the daze the thought produced different flashes started popping up, showing his own enlarged arms, his own plump chest, his own swollen-
That went there pretty fast and Luca stopped it before it was too late, but the idea was already planted in his head. He looked at the blender again, still full to the top, and with a deep breath and a heavy sigh he pressed his lips on it again and just leaned back and chugged, gulped and swallowed like a pro, practically no gag reflex and so fast that even the most dedicated drunkard frat jocks would've died of jealousy on the spot. When everything, up to the last drop, landed on his stomach, he couldn't keep from dropping the blender and coughing out of habit. It was so much and so horrible that his eyes had teared up halfway through and as he dried them up he stared at the container. That was only cup one.
The next couple hours were followed by constant experimentation. Everything that popped into his head, he poured into the blender. Sugar, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, chocolate, milk, even any fruit he could find in his fridge (so many lost bananas) and God knows what else, all for naught. It didn't matter what he added, half the time it would only take off the flavor for the first few sip's before it overpowered whatever he was adding and his tongue registered it, barely improving on the taste. The other half, they would all mix into unspeakable forms that took every ounce of willpower he could muster to keep it all down.
He had lost track of time after what felt like hours of stalling and drinking, and with a loud burp and a pat to his now bloated belly, he slowly dragged against the wall until his ass landed heavily on the floor, fighting the urges to just lie down and let the drowsiness win him over. If his count was right, he had swallowed at least enough of the brew for his intended purpose, and whatever else he had now coursing through his body would at least serve to give him extra mass; such was the one and only relief he could find over the idea of having potentially submitted himself to more torture than strictly necessary.
Either way, he wasn't about to spend the rest of the day just lying down on the floor, feeling sorry about himself. He had more things to do, more steps to take and things to prepare. He wasn't about to quit when he was so close, so with the kind of effort he (probably wrongly) assumed other guys would put towards their own workout routines, he stood up from the floor.
Step 3: Pad placement
He stood up from the floor and walked over to the table, where the generator was still charging up. He didn't bother to look whether it was ready or not, however; he was too anxious thinking about the next step he was about to take, the one he had been waiting for.
He turned back to his laptop while his hands untangled the mess of wires and cables that were the stimulation pads connected to the small cylinder, looking through the many charts and example pictures he had gathered during his quest. There were multiple different methods, but the one thing all the posters seemed to agree with, coincidentally also explained in the company's own instructions, was to start with the shoulders and chest. Made sense, he thought, to make one a tad broader before filling up with more muscle. Not like he had any plans to stop there, but it was good to know which parts of his body were more relevant than the rest.
Finally, the cables decided to play along and Luca was able to straighten them up, properly set on the table. It certainly was company packaging magic, because the small bundle that until a moment ago could fit into one of his tiny hands had exploded into a jungle of white vines in front of his eyes. He couldn't help but think about how funny it was that, despite the instructions' constant prattling on going slow, users were provided so easily with the means and temptation to get nuts. Leave it to big corporations to send mixed messages.
Enough of that! There were bigger and soon-to-be-bigger things for Luca to focus on. With that in mind he took off his shirt with surprising speed and grabbed one of the pads, putting it on the spot the charts on his screen pointed to. His fingers quickly reached the next one and that's when the first one came off-
Wait, what...
Right there on the floor, next to his own bare feet, was the pad he was 100% sure had been stuck to his shoulder. His brain took a moment to properly register, but after a second he did kneel down and grabbed it again, putting it back on its spot only for it to fall off once more when he shifted over.
"What the fuck..." he cursed out loud. Third time wasn't the charm when the pad fell off again, as well as the several others he tried with. Convinced that the problem seemed to be him rather than the pads themselves, he looked up the instructions again to see if there was something he was forgetting, some sort of gel or whatever he may have skipped in his searches. "Boring, boring, pads... Stick the pads to your bare skin. Species with thick fur may..."
...
Step 3.5: ...
A minor setback. That was all there was to it. And even now, an easy enough solution was offered to him; there was barely any effort involved, and once he had the muscles to show off, it would all be worth it.
"Yeah, as if!" Luca said out loud to all those thoughts that conflictingly circled around his head. He looked in the mirror for only a second before immediately turning away, his own scrawny self somewhat turning him off the idea. In his hands, still unused, was a freshly out of package razor and a new can of shaving cream, both of which he had never really had the chance to use due to his unimpressive facial hair. Yet he had them here, just in case, and now he was fully regretting it.
'Species with thick fur may be hindered by it for the pads to make contact with the skin. In this case, it is suggested shaving it off'. That was what the instructions so impersonally said, as if they had been written by the most uncaring member of a hairless species. Those wouldn't be able to understand his apprehensiveness if they saw the scene, but Luca stood motionless in front of the mirror, his hands brushing through the thick, luscious mane that went down his entire torso, stalling as much as he could the inevitable moment.
One final look at the razor, followed by a very deep and drawn out sigh of resignation, was the only prelude there was to his actions. The cream shot from the tap and he smeared it just across one side of his upper chest; baby steps, after all; he could feel the way it mixed with his fur, clinging to every strand it could find, reaching down to his skin where the unfamiliar sensation made him shiver. But once there was nothing else for him to cover with it he had no choice but to awkwardly reach with his other hand and watch in the mirror as the blades went across and left the very pale skin underneath exposed in their wake.
"Fuck..." the disheartened bat cried out when he saw the result of his actions: An uneven and almost ghostly white square surrounded by his usual carpet of dark hair. It was so glaring that it actually pushed him away from his reflection. And then he remembered he had to go through with the same process all around his body. "This better work or I'll look ridiculous... And damn, what happened to my old Latin lover tan? I need to go out more."
Disheartened, yes, but he didn't let that destroy his confidence. More cream went out of the can and onto his torso, and more of his hair ended up going down the drain because of it. A good chunk of his chest, almost his entire belly, where he hoped his abs would settle, the top of his shoulders and the middle sections of his arms and forearms, it was all now exposed to the world, and just like his initial reaction, he was fighting off the natural urge to look at the mirror and check himself out to see if he looked _as_bad as he thought he did; he couldn't look away forever and settled on just trying to block his face as much as possible, to make it less weird, but it didn't do much.
Just as he finished with his back with whatever miraculous flexibility and dexterity his thirst for muscles had managed to give him, two things went through his head: The first was that once he had said muscles, they would get in the way of his flexibility, something that strangely aroused him. The second was that he was only focusing on his body above the waist, meaning that his legs would seemingly stay as scrawny as ever; 'never skip leg day', the almost memetic gym mantra, came to mind. With a groan he unzipped and removed his shorts, kicking them away and only catching one cringe-worthy glance on the mirror of the short, boyish young man in only a pair of briefs that for whatever reason had stirred ever so unimpressively, instinctively hugging himself to cover it all up with his wings, saving his brain from having to continue looking a such an image. Luckily sitting down was all he needed to work on his legs, so he mentally paid good riddance to his own mirror self and was done with it as fast as possible.
Avoiding looking anywhere but right in front on his way out of the bathroom, he took his laptop and the now fully charged generator to his bedroom; even when the apartment was his alone, he wanted to lock himself away out of shame right now. But when he took one of the pads and saw it stick to the clear space on his chest, he found his doubts suddenly replaced by the same surge of eagerness he had been feeling since the beginning. What followed were his hands quickly traveling all over his body, leaving a pad on each hairless spot left, with extra attention to the much larger area on his belly. The end result was rather silly-looking, but he couldn't care less, being so close to his intended size.
However, he did notice that, once all the pads were positioned in the zones he had researched were ideal for his goals, two of them were still left unattended. What exactly they were for, he couldn't quite recall, not even when one of them was between his fingers, almost speaking to him, tempting him...
"I..." he stared at it. He then looked down, between his legs, and lifted the hem of his underwear to take a peek inside at his... It was something he hadn't really thought of, but as he kept looking, the hand holding the pad kept going back and forth, wondering if he should. "Wow! No, these are for my butt..." each word came out lower, more shyly as his long ears folded inwards in embarrassment and he put the pads down, remembering he still had much fur down there for them to stick. Another day it'd have to be. Maybe another day he could also try-
But anyway! Now that everything was in place, it was time for...!
Step 4: Zap time!
At long last! With everything finally set in place, all he had to do was press a button and wait while the generator did its magic. Just how immediate it would be he wasn't sure, but he wasn't getting any strange ideas of growing massively thick in a matter of minutes, mass just popping up out of nowhere for no reason other than fetishism; but at the same time, that very same idea made him particularly giddy.
One last look at the posts that had helped him so much, however, reminded him of that strange tendency everyone had of just not giving him the end result experience. It meant that everything from here onwards was uncharted territory, and while he was sure it wouldn't be anything actually dangerous, he couldn't help the unease that slowly crept up his spine at the thought. Some posters did go beyond that by at least saying he should start in a comfortable position, but nothing else, and led by that he was now sitting on the edge of his bed, staring down at the cylinder in his hand.
"Well... It's now or never, right?" and with a deep breath and more courage than he figured he would actually need for it, he pressed the red button on top. He was ready for some discomfort from a numbing wave going through his body; what he wasn't ready for was the insane energy spike that surged through his entire body, violently jerking him until it sent him flying- literally flying! -across the bed, crashing against the wall until he unceremoniously fell face down on the mattress, all for the better passed out.
A couple hours later Luca woke up and stared marveled at the results. During his sleep the electric surge had worked its magic with incredible speed and what stared back at him in the mirror seemed out of a photoshop screen. The scrawny bat had disappeared, giving the stage to a strong, athletic body that his hands couldn't stop feeling over. The definition in his arms, the broadened shoulders, the puffed out chest that crowned a set of abs he had fun trailing for far too long; even his legs had widened considerably, to the point that his underwear felt somewhat tight. Or maybe it felt tight for other reasons?
He didn't have time to explore that much after a loud tap on the window caught his attention and he looked across the living room to see the familiar delivery wasp waving him from outside. His heart skipped a beat, which he could easily tell due to his hands inability to leave his chest fur and stop groping his new stone hard pecs, and he stepped towards the glass to once again let Ivan in; he landed so gracefully that Luca couldn't stop from swooning.
"Luca, you look mighty fine," he said and one of his own enormous hands reached up to join the bat's own, feeling his chest. The touch alone sent shivers all over Luca's spine, his engorged pecs still significantly dwarfed by those monstrous, careful fingers. A moan escaped his throat at Ivan's rather effective attentions and a chuckle came out of his slip in that deep, powerful voice, somehow carrying that thick accent that made Luca melt with need. What definitely sold the deal for him, however, was when he was gently pushed against the wall and the wasp continued to stand well over him, looking down with both hands feeling up his body. "I want to take you out somewhere. Yeah, we should go out. You know, after I go in."
Had he always been this articulate? This talkative and provocative? Not that Luca actually minded; for the first time he could remember he was out of words just as Ivan was out of his clothes, seemingly just vanishing in thin air. All that he was left with was the massive exoskeleton that so snuggly fit around his gargantuan frame, black and gold melding in so elegantly and yet so sensually, what bits of flesh were left exposed heaving in and out with his breathing, all of them just begging to be touched, screaming to be just as soft as Luca had imagined. It was all exactly as he had imagined, actually, except for the very thin, very tight red speedo the insect was wearing. He never figured that as his style, and it was annoying how it covered precisely everything it had to cover and absolutely nothing else, but it somehow served its purpose as it simply made him want to see underneath even more.
That's when one of the hands rubbing and groping his torso left him and he felt a tinge of emptiness at its absence, but it was immediately replaced by excitement the second it reached for the hem of the wasp's last bit of remaining tight fabric. Tantalizingly so, he pulled just enough so that the bat could see by leaning in, but he couldn't move from the nervousness and had no choice but to wait until he started pulling down-
"Ahhh!" Luca shot up from his bed, pads still attached everywhere, hands seemingly groping the air in front of him... "Nonononononooooooooooooooooooo!!!"
Disappointing, yes. For a couple minutes Luca screamed and thrashed about in his bed out or frustration not for his experience being a dream, but for daring to end before he could get to the good bits. After that one was done, he started screaming and thrashing about because his body was still its usual tiny self rather than the defined muscles he had been promised, even though he was painfully aware it would take more than a single night of use for it to happen. So after his pillow crashed against the wall for the fourth or fifth time, he finally calmed down, breathing unevenly until another burp with the still sickening taste of the protein milkshakes pushed out of him. Shaken and disgusted at once, he could no longer keep himself up and just fell on the mattress.
A certain light caught his attention somewhere to the side and a quick glance showed him the clock he kept on his nightstand. And suddenly, the name seemed all the more fitting as he realized it was already night, meaning he had slept for far more hours than he intended to, and that the electric sensation still coursing through his body had been acting for far, far longer than it was suggested by the instructions. Not like he gave a damn about instructions. So without much of his earlier enthusiasm, he turned the generator off and pulled off the pads all at once, the sensation only reminding him of the fur he had lost to stick them in and forcing one more groan out.
"Fuck it," he said with a long series of stretches to try and wake up his strangely tired body. "I'll keep at it another day, it still beats going to the gym. Might as well just watch some porn or something."
And with that enlightened line of thought he stood up and made his way outside of the bedroom and into the kitchen, his dry mouth craving for something that would take the bad taste out. Sadly, once in front of the fridge, he met only with the void and the memories of how everything that could've possibly helped him in this situation had already been used before. A quick glance at the blender on his sink made another groan come out; he was going to be a groan factory all night long, it seemed.
A glass of water would have to suffice, just as he shut the door in frustration. A couple gulps went down just as his body started to suddenly heat up and out of instinct he poured the remaining half over his chest, which only managed to cool him down for a couple seconds. He was left dripping and angry, stretching more and more as his arms kept getting heavier, his wings pushing outwards as well. He remembered back home when he would do the same around friends, scaring them all off on Halloween nights; right now, in his almost naked, unimpressive build he was sure he looked nowhere as sinister as he did in his younger eyes. A shame, really, but then again, would he look 'sinister' when he got to his goal size? Rather than the typical lean and mean look his species was associated with, the massive frame he was hoping for was more inclined towards the brainless minion. Maybe his horror movie villain days were over the moment he stopped growing.
As all of this crossed his mind, he absentmindedly scratched his chest; in his distraction he couldn't really notice the cleft that had formed right in the middle, shallow but still very much present. What he did notice was the heat spreading and therefore, the sudden urge to turn his AC on; he reached for the remote and aimed, but no buttons were pressed as his attention was draw instead further up his arm: lines that weren't there before were now fairly obvious and he trailed some of them with his free hand. Somehow, the feeling on his fingers made him go back to his chest, feeling the rounding edges that somehow seemed to be forming as he thought about them.
"What the-" a wince interrupted him and he immediately went for his aching shoulder. Rather than pain it was closer to a form of discomfort, a stinging sensation very slowly seeping into his bones it seemed. Again out of instinct, he stretched forward until he could feel his shoulder popping back in place and he couldn't help but let out a long moan out of his lips as soon as it did. As he flexed his fingers to test them, the relief kept coursing through his veins, forcing him to keep down other types of... excitable noises down; what exactly had gotten him so worked up, he wasn't sure, but it certainly fell off the priority list as soon as he took a proper look at his arm. "Holy shit...!"
It was a minimal, yet notable change, how much thicker the limb in question had become in a matter of seconds and, more to Luca's shock, how much more definition it had. Muscles lined up, his bicep bulging significantly farther than it ever did before when he flexed just for the heck of it, his forearm exuding strength. When his left hand rose to feel the creases between his newfound muscles, he saw it the exact same way, powerfully built out of nowhere, and he couldn't contain his excitement anymore. He laughed, a joyous sound that filled his apartment as his hands went down the rest of his body, feeling his chest actually growing bigger between his fingers; his laughter soon turned to moans and sighs and a single glance down showed him the unbelievable show that was his pectorals inflating, taking bit by bit of his field of sight as they expanded in his very palms.
You'd think his hands would go further down, but it was hardly necessary. He could actually feel all the changes going around in his body, each one as clearly as the others. He could feel his hips growing wider, his thighs bulging out and compressing at the same time, new crevices forming between the ever growing mass. He bit his lower lip as he felt the fabric of his underwear growing tighter around his body and thoughts of the cause immediately devolved into a series of muffled whimpers caused by his suddenly adult-themed ideas, followed by an unconscious squeeze of his ample chest.
His hands only ever went down when he started feeling the tickling sensation on his belly and one by one he could feel his abs popping out, leaving deep lines between one another, tantalizing enough for him to trail his fingers across them. It made him shiver in delight, and that shiver seemed to spread throughout his entire torso as it expanded outwards, his sides growing wider until it had a modest yet delectable V-shape to it. Luca's restless fingers couldn't help but roll upwards from there, back to the cleft between his pecs, sighing all the way through as his wings draped over his newfound, surprisingly sensitive frame. His toes curled and he gave his chest a couple squeezes, each one rougher than before, letting out gentle moans as his back arched and his hands, still guided by his riskier ideas, slowly trailed down his new body, reaching for his crotch.
But before that...! Before that he had to actually see himself; get a good look and a good taste at the eye candy he had turned into and have a shot at being one of those douches that got turned on by staring at themselves in the mirror. With that thought in mind he ran over to his room, the one place with a proper full mirror to make use of, and took a second to be taken aback: It was one thing to feel it, to touch and let his fingers do the magic; but to actually see with his own eyes the tall, athletic body he had managed to get- Tall! He realized he was taller now! Not as tall as Ivan, mind you, but he was no slouch. It certainly made him have more to explore, more for his hands to rub and go over.
He turned around and was pleasantly surprised with the sight he got. The wide deltoids, trapezius and all the other muscles he had no idea what they were called, showing such level of definition that he couldn't stop his hands from reaching back as far as possible just to get a feel. He stood straighter and pushed back, flexing to see his new muscles bulge out and couldn't help but whistle at what the mirror gave back. The way it had seemingly lost all body fat was astounding, and another turnover to take in air and watch his pecs prominently rise with another arm flexing only made his underwear grow tighter. He realized his own sight was indeed turning him on when his hand went to rub his bulge on its own and he actually felt it growing bigger as he kept staring at his reflection.
One thing he realized, however, and that he confirmed with another quick look to his back, was that his ass had remained as flat and unimpressive as he remembered. It was a given, considering he had been unable to put any focus in it, but being aware of was like pouring salt on the wound. His body, otherwise the epitome of sensuality, brought down by his unsightly behind... It was definitely something he had to keep in mind for whenever his next zapping session took place. He needed a stinger to match Ivan's own, after all.
Ah, Ivan... As the wasp managed to buzz his way back into his thoughts, Luca fell on top of his bed and had to grab a pillow to clench his growing need to hug something. His mind wandered towards those enormous arms slowly surrounding him, those abs pressing against his own newly defined back, his butt grinding against the tight underwear- He was definitely going to need a bigger butt for that! A bigger everything, maybe; no matter how he looked at it, every single bit about Ivan was far larger than he was and he knew it. His arms dwarfed in comparison, his legs barely lived up to the wasp's monstrous thighs, and images of his chest flying through his head, pressed against his exoskeleton as if wanting to burst out like the massive slabs of muscle they were, only served to work Luca up some more. He was certain Ivan was bigger in 'that' area as well, though. For a second he wondered how it felt having all that sheer mass, how it would feel like under his hands and around the wasp's arms.
Warmth started spreading through his body, and while he tried not to pay it any mind, it soon proved an impossible task. After a couple seconds rolling around his bed yet again, he ended up letting the pillow go as it made the heat grow worse; but despite the uncomfortable sensation, his lips still parted to let out a low moan that bounced off the walls, making his large ears twitch in delight at his own voice. A sudden tickling made him giggle for a moment before the warmth started making droplets of sweat form beneath his fur, and it soon turned into yet more moaning as his back arched from the pressure that seemed to be trying to push out of his chest. And indeed, when Luca's hands went for his chest, he could actually feel it expanding ever so slightly outwards.
"What the fuuuuu..." the end never left his lips as his sharp fangs bit the lower one in bliss and his hands instinctively groped his growing pecs, eliciting more muffled screams of pleasure. When the heat started going down his body and he felt his abs grow tighter, his lips finally parted again for the breath he had been holding to come out as a sharp gasp, and the moans took the chance to come out as his shoulders started expanding along his chest. Luca's eyes were shut tight, but he didn't need to see to know that his chest, arms and neck were growing thicker by the second, expanding outwards while he swore he could even feel his bones shifting accordingly. Everything was somehow moving and through the growing heat he could detect it all, even the smallest of changes.
Luca was already grunting in pleasure, but the moment the growth started pushing out of his chest and into the rest of his body, he found himself in heaven. The way his arms bulged up further, his wingspan expanding as if wanting to cover all of his sudden new mass, only fell short in the impressive scale to his slowly widening hips, his momentary V-shape being replaced by a solidly square, massively built torso meant to accommodate his growing abs. He rolled around and stretched up as his back popped, the deep crevices growing more and more pronounced all across him. His hands ended up clawing the sheets and he finally opened his eyes as he was left a heaving mess, for the first time having a proper look at his arms, grown to up to three times their former size, proportionate to his now gargantuan torso, his pecs so tantalizingly squeezed against one another that several more impure thoughts about what could go between them started filling his head.
But he was wrong if he thought his ecstasy was over. As soon as he let his guard down, the warmth started spreading again, going down to his legs until he could only feel them shaking from the intense sensations. His arms, of all things, massive towers of flesh they now were, couldn't hold him up any longer and he ended up crashing face first on his mattress, perfectly positioned to watch his legs as they started inflating, his thighs getting bigger and bigger to the point they would brush against one another whenever he managed to find the strength to get up again. But he only saw that for the one second before his brain actually registered what was happening and started filling him with the same intense joy he felt before from his body's constant expansion. For a second he could even feel his chest and abs growing just the tiniest of inches further out, but the focus was on his legs as they turned from the compact strength they had been for only a couple of minutes into the tree trunks he now saw forming in front of his eyes.
At long last they stopped and Luca was left in silence. It all finished as abruptly as it had started, and the only sound that could be heard in the room was his own heavy breathing, which rather enjoyably made his chest heave upwards in an extremely pronounceable area; for a second, he thought he could stay hours just looking how his own chest went up and down, but of course that wasn't being realistic... That's when he realized his bed was now too small for his arms and legs to properly fit in, and that realism had been thrown out of the window a long time ago.
He had to see, however. His original intention still remained and with all the strength his new body could muster (which was surprisingly not quite as strong as bed gravity), he stood up from the bed and headed for his mirror. What greeted him was a gargantuan of a man, a frame comparable to Ivan's in size, only followed by the long drapes that his wings had become. It was astonishing, and once again he had somehow gotten taller, but he was in no way complaining. The whole process had even somehow managed to grow back the shaved fur, leaving him with a rather lush mane to cover his new bad boys with, something he was grateful for and not willing to call it anything short of a miracle. A single flex of his arms was all it took to fully convince him as he saw the monster guns grow a couple inches thicker, and a single squeeze was more than enough to confirm the steel-like consistency they had acquired.
"This is a lot more than I bargained for," he chuckled and, just to see if he actually could, put some conscious effort into his chest until his pecs actually started bouncing a bit, erratically so, but nothing some proper training couldn't correct. The next thing he noticed was the growing tightness around his underwear, which only now he realized had managed to survive the sudden increase relatively unharmed. Just out of honest curiosity he wondered how much tighter they would be and with a curious hand and a wicked grin reached down and pulled just enough to let a hand reach in and have a good look. The grin, however, disappeared almost as fast. "...I mean, yeah, it got bigger, but it's not hyper big. The furry internet lied to me again."
Several weeks later, the day seemingly repeated itself: The same sky, the same sun, the same city and the same random folks, pathetically bound to the ground where their large vehicles ended up packed next to one another like sardines. It never got old, and Ivan never stopped thanking nature for the gift that were his wings, strong enough to lift his mass, to gracefully soar the skies and keeping him away from the horribly tedious routine that ground-dwellers called traff-
"Ow!" the wasp cried out as he crashed against some sort of invisible wall- A window, it was clearly a window, he knew he couldn't see glass and that it had to be a window, so stop calling it that. And while he cursed nature for its seemingly arbitrary gift giving, said window was opened and he let himself in without much of a word; it wasn't his first time around, and he was sure the owner wouldn't mind, given his usual proclivity to having him over. "Lu... ca...?"
"Oh, hey Ivan!" was the only way the bat replied to the wasp's surprised expression. Surprised because Ivan had certainly been expecting the excited, petit bat he was used to delivering for, not the gargantuan monster he was looking straight at the face without any need to look down (something rare in and on itself), stretching almost as if to show off his incredibly thick frame, hindered by no shirt and only a couple of shorts to properly hide any indecent features. "Sorry for the looks, I just woke up like what, five minutes ago? Man, it's late! I was shocked when I realized I slept in. Thank God it's Saturday, am I right? Sorry you have to work on Saturday, though, but you gotta bring the honey to the table somehow! Wait, do wasps eat honey, or is that just a bee thing? Not like I think you're a bee or anything! I know you're a wasp! Just not too clear on the differences."
It was Luca, alright. But as the bat continued to prattle on and on about something that Ivan had honestly stopped caring for, he couldn't help but stare at the moving muscles: The pecs were astoundingly large, the arms and legs as thick as steel beams, and probably just as hard, and the abs so thoroughly defined that they just screamed to be touched, even when Ivan could just as easily rub his own instead. It really took a lot of him to not jump at the bat at that moment.
"Ivan!" the wasp's antennae twitched in attention when he heard his own name and he looked at the bat, staring back at him with his usual cheerful expression. That remained unchanged, but it made him look cute. "I was saying I made breakfast. Well, more like brunch, really. These bad boys need a lot of fuel, you know?" he said with a sudden flex that Ivan realized was the first, and would be the last time he ever acknowledged his sudden growth spurt. "But since you're here, why don't you stick around and grab a bite?"
"I don't..." he started, but just then the bat turned around and made his way to the table, as if assuming the wasp would say yes and guiding him, and right between the wings, hidden in plain sight, was a surprisingly round, bulbous, delectable to the eyes butt that swayed slightly with every step he took. "That's... one hell of a stinger," Ivan thought, and suddenly he found himself feeling hungry.