Research and Muscular Development Part 2 (Patreon)

Make sure to read the first part here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/research-and-1-42975749

Falco hulks out further, with an explosive bout of muscle growth! Enjoy everyone, and thank you again for your support! 

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Fox McCloud was left staring at his hulking avian teammate, trying to keep his cool as he grabbed his comm. “Starfox Team meeting, now!”

After Falco pried himself out of the wreckage of his arwing, the newly embiggened bird met with the rest of the crew back near the lockers. Peppy, the only one that hadn’t caught Falco’s transformation, was left staring at the blue slab of beef like he had grown a second head on top of everything else.

“Does… does he look even bigger than he did just a few minutes ago?” Slippy muttered as he leaned into Fox’s ear.

Fox looked over his squadmate; in the span of a few minutes, Falco had turned into a titan. The feathered beast had a chest like a cliff-face jutting out past his beak, pushing aside the tattered remains of his shirt. Arms with cannonball biceps attached to broad, sprawling shoulders had shredded the sleeves of his jacket, and what remained of his pants clung to thighs thicker than Fox’s waist. He had even grown taller, now towering over the rest of his crew. Falco was also greedily stuffing his beak with protein bars and anything else he could get his hands on. The buckle of his belt finally snapped, revealing a densely packed set of abs; Fox’s eye twitched as the buckle bounced off his side, clattering on the floor.

The Starfox leader sighed, massaging his temples. “Alright… so we all know why we’re here right now.”

Peppy and Slippy slowly looked over to Falco, who, after eating a grown man’s weight in protein bars to sate his hunger, was now smirking at his own body, flexing his bicep so it swelled mightily. “Wha…?” he looked up as he felt everyone’s eyes on him. “Y’mean me?”

“No, I mean Emperor Andross standing right behind you.” Fox smacked his forehead when Falco looked over his shoulder. “Yes, I mean you, Lombardi! What were you thinking?”

“Uh…” Falco glanced down, his beak fitting comfortably in the crevice of his pecs as he tried to avoid Fox’s glare. “Uhm. I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember? We’re not in the Academy anymore, Lombardi, don’t feed me some lame excuse like that!” Fox ranted. “I think it’s because you’re a greedy bird and Pepper’s money was too tempting. You jeopardized the integrity of this whole team, and now you’ve busted your arwing beyond repair without even flying it! How could you do something so stupid?”

“Hey!” Falco stood up, wincing as he hit his head on one of the ceiling lights. “Ow! I’m not stupid. Just… y’know, it… y’know!”

“...y’know.” Fox shook his head in disbelief. “Falco, you’re too big to fly! Did you get that through your thick skull?”

The hulking bird scowled, looming over Fox. “Maybe y’don’t wanna piss me off right now, McCloud!”

“Or what, you’re going to hit your CO? Try it, I’ve fought uglier than you!” Fox snapped.

“Hey, hey,” Peppy stood up, placing himself between the two of them. “We all just need to take a step back and breathe. There’s a really simple solution to this- Lombardi stays grounded for now, and we call General Pepper to fix him.”

“Fixin’? I don’t need fixin’, old man!” Falco scoffed. He turned on his heel and stormed off. “Screw all of ya, ‘m quittin’!” The hulking avian snarled, kicking the door off its hinges with one well-aimed thrust of a heavily corded leg. He pushed through the door frame, metal buckling and twisting as he forced his bulk through, leaving a Falco-shaped hole as he stomped away.

Fox was back to massaging his forehead as Slippy nodded sagely. “Yeah, he’s definitely bigger, now.”

“Thanks for pointing that out, Slip.”

Falco was muttering darkly to himself as he stomped through one of the public parks of Corneria, peeling off the remains of his shirt and jacket, getting odd stares as his bulging physique was on full display. Sometimes he would get wolf-whistles and the quick snap of a camera, other times he would get sour looks and disapproving glares, but no one dared move to stop him- and he was starting to like it that way. He would give a casual flex of the arms or the glutes for his increasing number of admirers, a few rude gestures for whoever didn’t like it. The strength and power coursing through his veins- something he could feel with every curl of an arm, every tensed muscle- was intoxicating, even if it made it really hard to think straight. He barely remembered why he was out here, until he remembered how mad he was at that little twerp, Fox. Who was he to talk to Falco like that, anyways? He was bigger, stronger- he should be the leader. Team Lombardi sounded way better than Starfox, anyways.

The bird stewed for a moment, until he heard a familiar beeping- his comm. His hand automatically went to the side of his head, bicep mashing against his inflated chest, but it wasn’t there. Looking around, he tried to see where the beeping was coming from. Craning his thick neck, he checked the ground, leaning forward to see past his chest, but it wasn’t there, either. Scratching his head, he tried to follow the sound, gripping a tree by the trunk, and with barely a tense of his arm, pulled it out from the roots to see if his comm was under it. He was starting to get frustrated, palming his fist and stomping the ground, cracking the pavement beneath his feet before he glanced down.

“Oh!” Puffing up his chest, Falco fished around and snatched the comm out from between his pecs. “There y’are.” He tapped the comm, placing it back in his ear. “Yo.”

“Falco? You gotta come back here, please!” Slippy’s shrill voice rang in the bird’s head.

“Slip? Get Fox to say sorry, first,” he grunted, crossing his huge arms with some difficulty. “Falco don’t take no shit anymore.”

“Falco, please, there’s been an accident! One of the fuel lines broke, and now the whole hangar’s lit up like a Katinan Candle!” Slippy cried, before the audio was cut.

“Slip? Slip!” Falco tapped his comm, but there was no reply. He was left to ponder for a moment, as much as it hurt his head, until a moment of shocking clarity hit him. With how puny and breakable everything in the hangar was to him, if something was broken, it might have been his fault. “...Oh. Oh.” The hulking bird turned around, and began running back towards the hangar.

Fox coughed as smoke stung at his eyes, flipping on his Comm one more time. “Cornerian Emergency Services! Come in! We’ve got a gas fire at Hangar N-64, over!” The only answer he got was static. “Agh!” He kicked at the steel beam that had fallen on him, catching his leg. “This is Commander- ack! Fox McCloud, requesting emergency aid!” Nothing but static. Swearing under his breath, he tried not to think about the possibility that he might not make it out of this one- he was Fox McCloud, after all- he could think of something, right?

Just as he was about to try some very desperate prayers to whoever might be listening, Fox’s ears perked at the sound of breaking, groaning metal. He turned his head to see a blue fist punching its way through the wall, and then gripping it, a powerful arm the size of a laser cannon tearing through the wall like paper.

“Falco?”

The massive beast of an avian burst through the hole he had made, a wall of blue feathers and pec muscle preceding the rest of him. He grabbed the steel beam holding Fox down like it was a twig, throwing it aside as he picked up the vulpine, tossing him over his mountainous shoulders.

“Yeah, don’t cream yer pants, Fox.” Falco grunted. “You the only one?”

Fox nodded, jaw slightly agape at the sheer size of Falco. Perched on the avian’s shoulder, Fox was up close and personal to biceps as big and powerful as spaceship engines, a chest he could lose an arm in, and his feet dangling off of a back that outpaced the wingspan of an arwing. Falco enveloped Fox with one huge arm and lumbered his way through the hangar wreckage, before a loud, ear-splitting crash drew Fox and Falco’s attention back to where Fox had been stuck, now buried under a smoldering heap of slag and debris.

McCloud quickly drew in his breath. “Okay- yeah, I- I owe you one, Lombardi.”

“We ain’t out yet,” Falco said gruffly. The busted remains of his arwing stood between them and the half-ruined doors of the hangar. Huffing slightly, he pulled back his mammoth leg, his bulging thigh as taut as a coiled spring before he kicked the arwing, the heap of hardware flying across the room and slamming into the doors, creating an exit for them. Rushing through the hangar wreckage, Falco breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he saw sunlight, and Slippy and Peppy rushed over.

“Is he alright?”

“You saved him, Falco!”

Falco smirked. “Heh, yeah… guess y’guys need a big guy around to take care o’ ya. Uh… Fox.” He prodded the vulpine, still clinging to the avian’s side. “Y’can let go, now- yer safe.”

“Oh! Yeah- yeah, uhm-” Fox cleared his throat. “Thanks- you, uh. Want to come back to the team?”

Falco smirked, and then picked Fox up, effortlessly trapping him in a headlock, tensed bicep and swollen chest bearing down on the vulpine’s head. “I got a condition. We’re all gonna go talk to Pepper- and you can be the next test subject, McCloud.”