While Nate remained blissfully unaware of his brother's activities, another of the gym's patrons was keeping an angry, incredulous eye on the kid.
Chad Hendrickson was a thirty-four year-old professional bodybuilder, six three and two hundred and forty-one pounds of solid muscle. The brown-haired, buzz-cut behemoth liked going to Gold's Gym and Fitness Center because most of the people who went there were just trying to stay in shape. Among them he stood out, in his own mind, like a giant among pygmies. He relished the envious glances he got and once in a while he enjoyed intimidating someone with his size and strength. It was fun watching the so-called men he picked on scurry away in fear. Their actions reinforced the pleasant fantasy that this was really his gym, and that the wimps worked out here only with his permission.
Tonight, however, his usual ego-boosting visit was being spoiled by the smallest pygmy he'd ever seen: a freaking kid, one not even in his teens yet! Normally Chad paid no attention to ankle-biters, but on his way to rehydrate he'd caught sight of the punk moving down the row of arm weights. He'd try one, pump it a few times, and put it back as if dissatisfied before going on to the next. To Chad's shock the dark-haired kid ended up pumping a hundred pounds with one hand, like it was nothing! The weight shot up and down so fast it was practically a blur, yet the preteen's face expressed only frustration rather than the slightest hint of strain.
It was impossible! That barbell clearly weighed more than the kid did! There was no way he should be able to even move it, much less curl it so effortlessly!
Before Chad could recover from his shock the brat started doing leg lifts, with the machine set on max. Once again he seemed to experience almost no resistance, his legs steady and consistent as metronomes while they repeatedly lifted two hundred and fifty pounds! TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY FREAKING POUNDS!
The kid got up after doing an even hundred reps, considerably more than Chad himself could do, and the baffled bodybuilder hurriedly jumped onto the machine. Maybe it was broken somehow. When he tried it himself, though, all such notions vanished; the machine was working perfectly.
How . . . ? Chad stood up in a daze, struggling in vain to wrap his mind around the madness which had suddenly infected his world. As his eyes played across the room he spotted the boy at his weight bench, the one he'd been using before he got up to get a drink. The bar was still stacked with a total of four hundred pounds, his maximum bench press. As he watched in disbelief the little kid slid right under the bar and gripped it tightly in both hands.
Finally someone else, a blond guy in a red tanktop, saw what was happening. He burst out laughing at the frankly ridiculous sight of the tiny child under all of that iron. The man's laughter died in his throat as the boy lifted the weight bar off its supports, lowered it to his chest, and began to smoothly press it up and down. Chad stared at the boy's unbelievable yet undeniable feat, watching paralyzed as this preadolescent benched what must surely be at least four times his body weight.
He shot a quick glance at redshirt, seeking to confirm that the guy was seeing the same thing he was. The flabbergasted expression on the other adult's face left him in no doubt.
Then the kid racked the weight and sat up. To Chad's enraged amazement the brat, whose body now seemed to be straining his clothes at the seams, slipped another seventy-five pounds of weight onto the bar before resuming his work-out. This-this child was benchpressing four hundred and seventy-five pounds, more than he'd ever done in his life!
That was the absolute last straw for Chad. To be shown up by a kid-to be outdone by an infant!- was not something he would ever tolerate. He still had no idea how on Earth any of this could be happening, but he knew one thing for certain: he was going to pound the rugrat until the baby cried for mommy!
Storming up to the weight bench he seized the brat's left shoulder, startled by how broad and hard it felt under the heavily-stretched shirt. He tried to pull his victim off the bench, but the kid barely budged. Jeez he was heavy, far heavier than Chad had expected.
Racking the weight Chris shook off the hand on his shoulder and rose to his feet. The mad-looking guy who'd grabbed him looked pretty strong-but not nearly as strong as Chris now felt himself to be.
"Hey, you little freak!" the man spat out. "This gym is for men, so why don't you get the hell out of here?"
Four hours ago Chris would have been absolutely petrified if a guy like this had yelled at him. Of course that was before he'd bench-pressed almost a quarter ton of iron without breaking a sweat! It was before all the protein he'd ingested had been used as fuel by his growing body to build the strongest, densest set of muscles on Earth. And it was before the chemicals and hormones he'd been injected with had given rise to an overpoweringly primal sense of aggression and dominance in the now-mighty twelve year-old.
So Chris stared up at the hulk and, with a sneering smile, asked, "If this gym is for men, what are you doing here?"
A deep red suffused Chad's visage and vision. Drawing back his right fist, he swung for straight for Chris' nose. Nate, whose attention had at last been drawn by Chad's bellow (along with the attention of everyone else in the gym) screamed when he saw the man try to hit his little brother.
The key word being "try"; Chris caught Chad's in his left hand, balled up his own right fist, and slammed it into the adult's six pack abs. The small, steel-hard wrecking ball which was the fantastic preteen powerhouse's fist smashed through the wall of muscle, doubling Chad over instantly. He collapsed to the ground, retching, his right hand still trapped in the inescapable vise of Chris' other fist.
Chris drank in the stunned disbelief from the onlookers, rejoicing in his own awesome strength! He was certain that if he'd put more muscle into his blow he could have punched all the way through to his opponent's spine. He could have killed this creep with one punch! That was how unbelievably strong he had become! He had no equal anymore; he, Chris, was supreme, the most powerful person on the planet!
Acting on instinct the twelve year-old titan hit a most muscular pose, his shirt exploding off his incredibly defined, immensely muscular physique. Everyone gasped as they took in Chris' colossal, Herculean proportions. The dark-haired superboy looked like exactly what he was: at the age of twelve, he was the strongest and most physically perfect man ever to grace the face of the Earth.
Looking down on the bug who'd dared to challenge him, Chris smiled mischeviously and deliberately squeezed, breaking two of Chad's fingers in his crushing grip.
Screaming Chad jerked his head up, staring at a mega-ripped boy god built better than he could be even in his wildest dreams. He knew he'd made the biggest mistake of his life when he tried to pick a fight with this young, astronomically superior alpha male. All thoughts of vengeance were completely forgotten; Chad's only goal and desire now was to please his victorious conqueror in the hopses that his life would be spared.
The new Chris was willing to let his attacker live, so long as his submission to Chris' mammoth might was beyond question. And the raven-haired boy Goliath knew exactly how to ensure that.
"Hey, you got some of your sick on my shoe, "Chris accurately complained. Ramping up the bone-shattering power of his one-handed hold, he ordered, "Lick it clean".
Nate gagged as the huge man being held captive by his ultra-muscular, super-strong little brother began to eagerly clean Chris' sneaker-with his tongue. Wen he'd finished Chris released him and began to walk toward Nate, his gigantic, power-packed muscles rippling menacingly across his Atlas-like frame.