Game is Life

[tttrbn]

According to my grandparents, the first day of the year 2000 was supposed to be a big deal. Y2K they called it, or something, and it had to deal with computers, I think? I guess computers must have still been new when they were kids or something, since I don't really understand how they could ever think a computer would fail them. But I digress. A big piece of news did come out, but it wasn't what anyone was expecting. The newspapers (I know, right?) even called it the greatest discovery of the 19th and 20th centuries - which also doesn't make sense, since the 21st century wouldn't have started until 2001. Oh, well, old people always get confused about these kinds of things.

On that day, Saturday, January 1, 2000, a woman named Dr. Michelle Powers unveiled a new piece of technology she had spent the better part of her life developing. She called it the Neural Link, and it bridged the gap between a human brain and a computer. It all sounds so quaint now, but she had created a device that allowed a person to interact with a computer using nothing but their mind. Of course, you could only use this technology on a single device that was connected to the piece of machinery that had to be surgically implanted in you, and it really only mimicked the use of a keyboard and mouse, but it was the start of something incredible. They still teach about her in schools, even though the current application of her technology makes her look like the cave-doctor who first chiseled a wheel out of stone.

To list all the ways Dr. Powers' Neural Link has been expanded upon and refined in the time since its debut would be impossible. For me, at least, since her Wiki article is right there for you to look at if you're so curious. But for the last 5 or so years, slightly more than a quarter of my life, the biggest and most widely used application of her technology has been the Game Mode app. With computing power being what it is, nerds across the world are able to live like their favorite characters from an isekai anime. Except it isn't just nerds and dorks (like myself) who are flocking to Game Mode. Athletes, professionals, academics, and even regular people like my family have been adopting it. And I cannot understate the rapid societal shift that exists between Game Mode users and non-users.

Through several dozen layers of analysis and abstraction, the app reconfigures how your brain and body develop to resemble how a character in a video game would. The app lists out your attributes and skills, and when you reach a certain milestone in whatever you're doing, it increases your value or gives you a new perk. Instead of gradually having to learn something until you can memorize it, the app instantly gives you mastery over a portion of what you're learning once you've practiced it enough. At first, people thought the app's method of progression was jarring, since it was so all-or-nothing; once people saw how much easier it became to gain skills, though, this was universally ignored.

All this to say, Game Mode doesn't immediately make everyone overpowered or unreasonably hyper-specialized. It still takes time and effort to get good at something. But once you get to a certain skill level or attribute, you never lose it. And it doesn't just affect your memory.

Game Mode also handles physical changes, treating things like strength and height the same as any other attribute. The more you train, the stronger you get. And unlike before, as long as you can keep challenging yourself, there's no limit to how big you can get. Sports, both professional and amateur, realized this early on and have created separate Game Mode and non-Game Mode leagues. Anyone who has opted in to Game Mode, even if only for a second, is ineligible to participate in the non-Game Mode league, so you can imagine how many more players are in the new leagues. The games are certainly a lot more fun to watch now, what with all the previously unthinkable things the athletes are capable of doing.

I would say, though, the most interesting thing Game Mode has affected has been socializing. It came out when I was still in high school, and now that I'm in college the social climate is just so different. A lot of my friends and peers opted in to it when it just came out, and since we were all going through the normal hormonal changes teenagers went through, we got to witness firsthand how Game Mode treats "unexpected" things like growth spurts. Basically, it stores up that "potential" until it reached some hidden threshold, at which point the user got to determine how it was applied.

That's right: people got to dictate how their bodies grew. The people in my age group were in the middle of these hormonal shifts, so for most of us the worst was behind us. But there were late bloomers (and even those of us who still had one or two more growth spurts still in us) who got to really push the envelope for what a teenager could look like. Technically you weren't allowed to opt in to Game Mode until you were 18, but there was a loophole you could abuse for the first three years that we all did. All I'm going to say about that is that my prom was the first one in my school's history where about a third of the girls looked like supermodels crossed with porn stars, and a similar proportion of the guys looked like movie stars crossed with professional athletes. My sister is three years younger than me, and her cohort was the last to have that "problem," except it was almost the entire grade that was like that.

But now I'm in college, where you have a fun mix of people who adopted it right when the could, people who missed the boat and are just getting on, and people who still think it's unethical or unhealthy or whatever to be doing this. Even though I opted in fairly early on, I'm far from a super-user like some of the people I know. There are some who claim they've discovered glitches in the coding or ways to hack the system to get more stat points, but I'm just happy to be skating by in a world that is struggling to adapt to this cataclysmic shift.

It was early November of my junior year of college, but a bunch of us were allowed to end the semester early because we all aced the final exam well in advance. We still had to come back at the end of January, where allegedly there would be extra measures put in place to appropriately challenge the Game Mode people, but I was banking on getting to close out that semester even earlier. I packed up my car early in the morning and drove home. By that, I mean I got in my personal semi-floating vehicle, sent it my destination mentally, and kicked back and drank a few cold ones as it took me to my parents' house. Oh, yeah, the drinking age got lowered back down to 18 a few years ago when enough studies came out showing that we had gotten rid of all negative effects of alcohol. You would think that would mean getting rid of the drinking age entirely, but, hey, progress moves slowly sometimes.

A couple hours later, my car wheeled itself into my parents' driveway. Once I got out, my bags taking themselves out of the car and moving onto the stoop, I greeted my mom who was doing a bit of gardening out front. Despite being the only person in my family to not opt in to Game Mode, she was a freak of nature all of her own. It was still early in November, but where we lived the cold air was coming in fast, and yet there stood my mom, in her usual shorts, tank top, and flip-flops, pruning some hedges.

"Hi mom," I called out to her, remembering the rule that we always spoke out lout to one another in this family. I may be an adult, she and dad would always say, but when I came home I still had to respect the rules. They may be a bit behind the times, but I still loved my parents and wanted to show them their due respect. Turning to face me, my mom dropped her sheers and ran over to give me a big hug.

"Oh honey, I knew you were coming home today but I didn't think you'd be here so early! What an amazing surprise! Oh, but you stink of alcohol. It's not even noon, sweetie, try to show a little restraint for your dear old mother."

Despite her chastising me, she still broke the hug to give me a kiss on the cheek, just to wrap me back up in her arms and lift me up. Yeah, like I said, my mom was a bit of a freak of nature. I stood at an even 6' tall in my sneakers, and she, in her flip-flops, had to look down a little bit to look me in the eyes. Not to mention despite her "old" comment that she directed at herself, she barely looked any older than me. At 52, she had skin that was as clear and a head of hair that was as full as any girl my age, if not a little better. Not to mention how she kept herself in tip-top shape all her life, being a regular at the gym even when she was 9 months pregnant with me and my sister. But this was all normal for me at this point, so I just nodded her along, said I won't touch another drop until dinnertime, and went inside to say hi to dad.

Since it was a Saturday, he was where he could always be found from 9 PM on Friday to 9 PM on Sunday - his little library. I never really understood the appeal myself, but the old man loved sifting through those antiques and savoring each and every printed word like it was made of gold. The door to the room was ajar, so I let myself in, knocking softly on it and announcing my presence with a cough. There he was, sitting on his big, comfy chair, a mug of coffee and a glass of whiskey neatly arranged on a little table next to him. He put his book down, the text looking positively ancient in his hands. Though my dad wasn't the health nut my mom was, he still took good enough care of himself and still had a spring in his step for a 49-year-old.

"Ah, Jason," he said quietly, as if he were afraid the books might desert him had he been any louder, "it's great to see you again. Your mother - I think she's outside. Oh, you must have seen her when you came in. Here, let me -"

He started to fumble a little bit, trying to get out of the chair that had always been too big for him, but I held my hand up. "All good, dad," I said, happy to see him but not looking for another hug at this time, "we can do that when you're done reading." He smiled again, happy that he could go back to one of his only pleasures in life that didn't involve his family, and I left him to his friends.

I sent Sarah a Link Message when I realized that she wasn't home. She had delayed her first semester of college until Spring so she could take a little extra time to decide what she wanted to study. At least, that was the official reasoning. I knew it was so she could spend a little more time with her girlfriend before moving across the country, but who was I to get in the way of her fun? While I waited for her to respond, I decided to Link up with my old high school boys. The chat immediately popped off once I told them I was back.

"What's the word, fellas? I'm back in town for almost an hour and no one tries to hit me up? What's the deal?"
"Yo, JM, didn't know you were back, dawg. U free tonight? We were gonna go cruising for babes"
"Put it back in your pants Jetty, you know JM always spends his first night back home with his family"
"With a mom and sis like his, I don't blame him"
"Gross! Don't talk about my family like that, guys. Plus, Little Chris, even if my sister liked guys, she'd never go out with you"
"That's just because I haven't taken her out yet. But I've been working on her the last few months, so get ready to call me your brother-in-law"
"stfu Little Chris, she's like barely out of high school, you freak"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but for once I agree with Jetty"

We kept bantering back and forth like that for a little while until we all agreed to hop into Channel Shoot and play a few matches. As I stood in the living room, letting the ARG textures replace what I was looking at, I heard the front door open. I thought it might have been Sarah at first, but when I turned to look, it was my mom again, wiping some sweat off her face with a kitchen towel.

"Oh, Jason, before I forget, I wanted to tell you something. Last night I downloaded that game you and your friends are all playing. It sounded neat, so I thought why not give it a try? It gave me the strangest message when I finished installing it, though. Something about me becoming a beta tester for a new version? Either way, I'm excited that we can play again like when you were little."

"Mom, are you talking about Game Mode? That's not really a game, it's more of a-"

Before I could finish explaining, I was cut off by the ARG overlay finishing. Instead of my living room, I was standing in a bloody battlefield, my fellow soldiers running by me to continue working on the mission objective.

"Shit. Oh, sorry, uh, sorry, mom, but I'm in the middle of something. Can we talk more about that later, I- wait up for me, guys!"

I began running in place to move my character along inside the game world, barely able to hear my mom over the ambient sounds of death and destruction as she said that she already talked it over with my sister. As much as I wanted to keep that discussion going, I didn't want my rank to suffer any more than it already had, so I found my friends and started shooting.

[tttrbn]

About 45 minutes later, after my boys and I had our fun playing a couple rounds, we decided to end on a high note and call it there. Hopefully, luck in gaming would translate to luck in love later tonight. Mom was in the kitchen getting lunch ready, and no sooner than I dismissed the ARG did my little sister Sarah walk through the door.

I should clarify - little because she's younger than me, not because she's any smaller. Even without Game Mode, I suspect she would have taken after our mom, but with it was a whole other story. She opted in to Game Mode before I did, and she had been able to take advantage of the under-18 loophole for longer, so she had been able to store up a lot more potential than me. Wearing a dress that barely covered her chest and went just past the middle of her thighs, my 6'5" (and growing) sister walked into the house, kicking her heel off as she crossed the threshold. Unlike me, she had been an athlete growing up, so she wasn't just statuesque and stacked.

"Mom, I'm starving. Is there any food?"

"Lunch will be ready in 10 minutes, little miss. Though I won't be serving you anything until you're washed up and dressed in something more appropriate for family time."

That was a little rich coming from our mom, considering she was showing about as much skin as her daughter, but instead of pointing that out Sarah just groaned and numbered over to the living room where I was. I had sat down on the couch, winded from my gaming time. Sarah sat at the other end, the piece of furniture groaning under her weight. She spread out her arms and legs and leaned her head back, her long, red hair falling behind the couch. Her eyes had been closed the whole time, so when she tilted her head in my direction and opened her eyes she was shocked to see me.

"Oh, shit, when did you get back, runt?"

"Almost two hours ago. Funny that I got home before the person who still lives here. What's up, just finished up with Jill?"

"You're so fucking annoying. You're lucky my head hurts or I'd give you a dead arm for that. And if you must know, yes. We had a very long, productive discussion about the future of our relationship. Turns out we were both worried about the effects distance would have, so, long story short, we're opening things up."

"Wow, giving each other permission to cheat. How progressive."

"It's called ethical non-monogamy, you philistine. God, remind me to slap you after I shower and eat something."

Just as quickly as she came, the hormonal hurricane that is my sister got up and left, no doubt to obey mom for her own sake as much as she respected mom. Sarah had always been a little hotheaded when it came to her physical changes, so she likes to challenge mom a lot for more independence. And yet, no matter how big she got, my meathead of a sister could never take down our mom.

Once mom announced lunch was ready, I washed up and took my seat at the table. Dad was close behind me, and a few minutes later Sarah came down, cleaned from her shower and dressed much more conservatively. Mom served us heaping piles of lean chicken, lightly sautéed vegetables, and brown rice, one of her classic meals, and for the next half hour thr air was filled with jovial conversation and good vibes.

Once we were all done, dad excused himself to return to his books, Sarah and I went back to the living room, and mom did some cleaning before joining us. We took separate seats this time, but Sarah and I picked up where our earlier conversation had left off.

"This is me reminded you to slap me for some reason."

"I'll add it to your tab. I think I owe you like three dozen slaps now. But I don't want you going to the hospital just because you're a dummy, so, once again, I'll let you off the hook."

"How generous. But seriously, this non-monogamy thing, do you really think that's going to work?"

"I don't know. I mean, as it is Jill gets hit on all the time at her job, and it's not like people aren't trying to take a bite out of me here. We both figured, we may as well take care of our urges while we're unable to take care of each other. If it works, great. But if not, I mean, it's not like I was planning on marrying her anyway."

"Wow, that's incredibly mature of you. I guess i just don't think I'd be able to handle the jealousy of it all."

"Yeah, that's because your girlfriend, if you ever had one, would be cucking you left and right while you'd be stuck at home each nice with your left hand."

"Not the response I was hoping for, so let me say, from the bottom of my heart, fuck you."

"Speaking of fucking, is your friend Ronald around tonight? I've been seeing him around more, and he's looking good."

"Ronald? Oh, you mean Little Chris. Wait, are you trying to hook up with him? I thought you were a rug muncher exclusively?"

"Once again, you embarrass yourself by being so far behind the times. While I've exclusively enjoyed the company of non-male persons so far, sexuality is a spectrum, and I owe it to myself to use my new relationship status to figure out exactly where I land on it."

"Wow. Uh, yeah, I mean we were planning on going cruising tonight if you wanted to-"

"Say less. I'm gonna fuck his little boy brains out tonight."

"I really didn't need to hear that."

"And yet, you heard it anyway. Deal with it, little bro."

With that, Sarah got up and left the room, no doubt to devise a plan for how to bed one of my best friends. Knowing her, it probably started and ended with her flexing at him until he did whatever she wanted. Whatever, that means that it would just be me and Jetty tonight. We could make do on our own.

But when I heard the last bit of washing end in the kitchen, I remembered what my mom told me earlier and how we never finished that conversation. I walked over to the kitchen, hoping to catch her before she started her next task. Lucky for me, she was still in front of the sink, drying her hands off.

"Hey, mom, you said something about installing a new game. Is it called Game Mode?"

Her face lit up when I asked her, and in a bright voice she replied, "That's exactly the one! When I did it, though, I got a notification saying I was going to be a beta tester for the newest version. Do you have any idea what that means?"

I had never heard of something like this before, and said as much to her. She continued, "Oh, well I'm sure it's nothing. Actually, I'm glad we're talking about this now. I have all these points in the game and it's telling me to allocate them, but I have no idea what it's talking about. Here, let me show you.

She linked me over a screenshot from her HUD, and I was immediately surprised at how differently it looked from mine. For one thing, her "active stats" were constantly on display, unlike in my view where I had to open up some menus. Not to mention her numbers were super high. But even weirder than that, in the upper right corner was a little box with the title "Unused Attribute Points". This was something that had never been in the app before. Even after a growth spurt, it didn't give you a numerical representation of how much you could change your body. And why was it that she had millions of points that were unused?

"Dang, mom, that's really strange. It doesn't look like that for me. But, uh, I imagine you can just put points into whatever stat or skill you want by just thinking about it. Like if you wanted to get stronger, just use your mind to tell the app to put a point into your strength score?"

"Oh, honey, you know I was never really a gamer, so a lot of this stuff is going over my head. I'll give it a shot, though. Okay, Game Mode, please put all unused stat points into my strength score."

[Biceps108]

This is looking really, really fun! Can't wait to see where this will go. The premise is good on its own, but you also explored and established it masterfully. So you have a lot of directions. So if you don't have everything planned out yet or are open to suggestions, then I'd recommend:
- Have her easily gain points, and invest them into other stats as well. Could be cool to see the mom raise her intelligence and becoming a musclebound genius.
- Give the mom a function that affects others. Either allowing her to edit other people's stats with her points, or let her transfer them somehow to others. Thus allowing the sister to get bigger, stronger, etc. Could be done in the form of an allowance, or the mom doing so by accident because she's unfamiliar with the game, for example.

[erocha75]

This is such an awesome start to a story!! Maaan, so exciting!! I can't wait to read what happens next!!

[tttrbn]

Faster than I could ever hope to react, my mom was enclosed in a blinding flash of light. Just as quickly as it came, though, it faded, and what I saw standing before me was difficult to process. She looked just like my mom - all the same features, all the same proportions - and she was right where my mom stood, but the woman I was looking at now was truly a behemoth. For one, I was no longer looking slightly below her eyeline. Instead, I was staring into her collarbones. For two, our shoulders were no longer about the same width. Instead, my entire breadth was overtaken by her thighs. For two, while my mom had always been strong, her build had always been more lean and wiry. Instead, she was a hulking, bulging pillar of muscle.

I actually had to take a few steps back to get a full view of her, and as soon as I did I wished I hadn't. While her body exploded in size, her clothes had not been so fortunate. Once I realized this, I turned away and covered my eyes, trying and failing to delete that split-second of memory from my brain. Aside from her changes and my reaction, the rest of the room looked totally normal. I don't even think any sound had been uttered from this whole thing. I wanted to say something, anything, to react to what had just happened, but before I could figure out my words my mom jumped in.

"Oh, look, another notification from the Game Mode developers. Let's see here, it says, 'Thank you, username Linda Manheim, for opting into our app's beta best for the new points system we plan on introducing. As you can see, we frontloaded you a few million points to give you room to experiment with your build. As a feature unique to the beta testers, we are also providing a re-spec option if you ever want to try something new. Additionally, as a reward for being a part of this experiment, your experience point acquisition rate will 50% higher than normal during the beta test and will remain at an increased 20% permanently afterwards. Stay safe, have fun, and remember our company motto: when life's a game, be the best at it.'

"Oh, well that was nice of them. Most of that went over my head, but it sounds like I'll get to have a lot of fun playing this game. And my goodness, the results! I know I need to cover up, but with a body like this I have to wonder what I'm capable of."

It was difficult for me to comprehend how she was being so nonchalant about this. I mean, she was like a foot taller and who knows how much heavier! Ugh, and I hated how I really wanted to know how much she had changed, but I couldn't open my eyes just yet. Still closed, I turned to face her and said, "Mom, please, for all of our sakes, find something to wear. If only for me and Sarah, I don't know if we could handle you walking around.... naked."

"Oh, Sarah, of course! She plays too, I had completely forgotten. Thank you for the reminder, sweetie, let me go ask her for some help."

My mom lumbered away, shaking the house with each of her steps, completely missing my point, and seemingly immune to any kind of embarrassment. It felt a little hypocritical, especially since she was always getting on Sarah's case to dress more modestly, but maybe the growth had done something to her brain? Maybe it knocked a couple points out of prudishness and into openness? Either way, as much as I didn't want to keep looking at my mom, I was desperate to see how Sarah would react to this. I followed my mom, staying one corner behind her at all times so I didn't see too much, but when she came to Sarah's closed door I had to peer in. Mom always respected closed doors by knocking, so she did her usual triple knock. Unusually, though, were the dents it left in the door. I could see her cringe at that, clearly not having intended to cause and property damage. I heard movement come from Sarah's room, and she opened the door while saying, "What the hell, mom, is there an earthquake happening?"

And then she saw it. Say her, rather. Poor little Sarah wasn't used to looking up to people in our family anymore, so she definitely looked surprised to see mom. But half a second later it was my turn to be surprised when she looked up approvingly and said, "Damn, you look hot as hell. What happened? You looked like your usual self during lunch. Come on in, let's talk."

My mom struggled to make her way in the door, Sarah closing and locking it behind her. While I was tempted to sneak in closer to listen in on what they were talking about, I decided that I was starting to enter perv territory. Feeling at a loss, but knowing I didn't want to stick around here, I sent a link message to Jetty and Little Chris.

"Boys. We're hitting the town tonight. Can I come over now? Wild stuff happening here, need to show you and talk about it."
"For sure, JM. Show us what, though? You can upload the file here and we can talk on your way over."
"No way, Little Chris. I'm going to want to see the looks on your faces when you see it."
"Aight, tease. I'm still working until 3 PM today, but Jetty should be there to let you in."

Jetty and Little Chris had been roommates since we graduated high school. While we were all friends, I wanted to go to college and they wanted to stay local, so it made the most sense. Part of me sometimes felt insecure that they were becoming better friends because of it, but they were always there for me when I needed them so I tried not to dwell on it. I decided to walk into the city to get to their apartment so I had some extra time to think about what I was going to say to them. By the time I got there, it was past 3 and Little Chris was already home. He welcomed me at the door while Jetty was in the kitchen making us some snacks and pouring us some drinks.

"Dude, what took you so long? You forget where we live or something?"
"No, I just walked. Weird for me, I know, but I needed to clear my head."
"Yeah, you said you needed to talk about something? What's up with that?"
"Yeah. Here, take a look at let me know what you think."

I sent them the memory file of everything that had happened with my mom, including the audio and the part of me sneaking around watching her with Sarah. Jetty was the first to reply.

"Dude, if I wanted to bone your mom before, I'm there times a million now."
"Fuck off, Jetty, that's my mom."
"Not anymore, baby boy, that's a she-woman goddess right there. IDK what happened with her Game Mode account, but it sounds like she's living the fucking dream right now."
"Yo, think about how rocked his dad's going to be tonight when he sees Mrs. Manheim all super-stacked like that?"
"Guys, please, I'm begging you, show a little sympathy."
"You want sympathy? You lived with two smoke shows before, and now you live with a smoke show and a literal goddess. Man, no wonder you stay away from gym girls, you must have some kind of anti-kink from living in that house. For that, I'll give you sympathy."
"Not what I was looking for, Little Chris, but on that topic, take a look at this."

I uploaded the file of Sarah saying her whole deal about polyamory and her growing sexual curiosity.

"Looks like you got your wish, Little Chris. Now's your chance to wow Sarah and make it into the family."
"I don't know what I've done to deserve this honor, but I will do my absolute best."
"So you'll flop around for an hour and get off before fully satisfying her? Nah, try my best."
"Jetty, gross. And I thought you weren't into my sister because she's just out of high school or whatever."
"That's when I thought she wasn't into guys. Now that I might theoretically have a shot, my morals have changes."
"You guys suck. Throw me a cold one."

We continued on like that well into the later afternoon, alternating between pregaming and giving me endless shit for having the family I did. It made me uncomfortable, even when they were kidding, but I had to wonder if something they said was right. With how Game Mode affects people, it's easier than ever to get a gym body and keep it. I had been into a lot of the changes that Game Mode had introduced, especially since so many women were so buxom and tall now, but I had always stayed away from the ones that showed even the slightest hint of muscle. Was I doing myself a disservice in the world of dating because of my discomfort with the women in my family?

I thrust down my beer can, and proclaimed to my friends out loud for the first time in years, "Boys, tonight I'm bagging the biggest, beefiest gym girl we can find. I refuse to let my hang-ups get in the way of a good time, and I'd like your help with this."

Little Chris responded in kind, raising his beer can up and saying, "Then tonight, our boy shall finally become a man. I propose a toast to him finally losing his muscle-virginity."

"Here-here," Jetty proclaimed as he raised his can in agreement. I picked mine back up, clinked it against theirs, and we drained our drinks. Crushing it against my head, I said to them, "Alright, we have an evening to get ready for."

[tttrbn]

Thank you, everyone who has done so, for the words of encouragement. My main concern is establishing the world enough to tell the story I want to tell while also being within the guidelines of the forum. I plan on staying away from certain topics or, at the very least, toeing a line with them, so that this doesn't get reported to the mods for inappropriate content.

[tttrbn]

After a couple more hours of messing around, it was time for this crew to get ready for our night. This mostly comprised of us showering, dressing slightly more nicely than we usually did, and styling our hair as best we could. While the most awkward years of our lives were behind us, we were, at the end of the day, three dudes who had just hit 20, not really sure how to carry themselves. Confidence was key, and Little Chris and Jetty exuded that with plenty to spare. This being their place, they primped themselves to the nines, gelling their hair back, putting on expensive-sounding cologne, and accenting their outfits with what little jewelry they had. While they had some clothes I could borrow, I decided I was better off just wearing what I had come here in, even if it wasn't the fanciest or nicest. Just a simple button-up shirt, jeans, and sneakers, though they did let me do a quick load of laundry while I showered, and they shared some of their cologne with me. Once the sun had set, the three of us were ready to head on the prowl.

We decided that, since I was trying to get laid and break out of my shell, we'd hit the bar in meatspace instead of linkspace. Linkspace had its advantages, what with not having to actually put this kind of effort into your appearance, but I needed to physically be wherever we were going. I wanted the full sensory experience, not the watered down version that comes with sending a digital avatar in your place. Sarah had been sending me some link messages with updates on mom, and even some pics and videos, but I ignored all of them and put her on non-emergency silent. I needed my head in the game, not at home.

The first bar we got to was pretty sparsely populated, which wasn't surprising given the time of night. We had been coming here since we had to use fake IDs, but the owner and bar tender was cool about serving us. Her name was Maude, and she had been a little old lady when we were still young teenagers. Now, close to a decade later, she was practically a raisin. Or, at least she should have been. Despite her age, Maude had always been very technical; she was the type to be on the bleeding edge of whatever new apps or technology was coming out. The word on the street is that she has a single-digit user ID from when Game Mode went public. And it shows - her hair that used to be white now had flecks of color running through it, her back that used to be hunched now stood straight, her skin that had been so wrinkly you could hide a pencil in it now clung to her body much more tightly. More succinctly put, the app breathed new life into her.

She greeted us as we walked in, standing behind the bar, all 5'2" of her, a cigarette in her mouth, dressed in an old-fashioned black and red flannel shirt tucked into jeans. I had expected her to look young despite her age, but I had to do a double take when I looked at the woman who poured our drinks. Her hair looked shinier and had a lot more color, the rusty red streaks in her hair so much more prominent. Her skin made her look like she was in her mid-50s, not her late 80s. And as wild as all that was, as we got closer to her, I could tell that her body had changed in more ways. This was the same shirt she always used to wear, I'm sure of it, but it looked a lot tighter across her shoulders and chest. And while there used to be so much fabric she had to tuck it into her pants, now her shirt left a gap of about an inch between it and the top of her jeans. Was she taller, too? That much was hard to tell, since she was leaning over the bar, resting her head on a bent arm, but given what happened to my mom earlier I don't think I'd be surprised if Maude was growing too.

"So, what'll it be, boys," she asked from the across the room in her usual deep, throaty voice. The older lady had always spoken in this voice that toed the line between feminine and masculine, and it had always been very intriguing to me. Jetty replied, saying, "the usual, Maude. Whatever's cold and on tap. And make it three of that, since your favorite little cherub is back for the winter.

She turned her head lazily to face me, never lifting it from her position. She took a long drag of her cigarette, blew the puff of smoke at me, winked, and said, "welcome back, college boy. Your first drink tonight is on me. Each of your lay about friends, though, have to pay 50% extra."

Maude got up and went over to grab a couple of steins, and in that moment I confirmed that she had gotten taller. It wasn't much, but having known her for so long even a few inches looked obvious to me. Jetty whined at her, saying something like how it wasn't fair that he had to pay more, but all I could focus on were Maude's arms. She carried the three steins so easily when they were empty, and when she filled them with cold beer, I could see her biceps and triceps expand from the effort, flexing and unflexing as she moved the glasses around. She must have been at least a little strong, running drinks between increasingly belligerent patrons all night long, but I had never noticed the extent of her muscular physique before. For all I know, she hadn't had much of one before. But when the glasses were all filled, she slid them over to us, took another drag of her smoke, and said, "I already started a tab for you two bums. Now, drink up. What's the plan for the night? I know you only come to old Maude's these days when you want to fill up on cheap booze before a long night. So give an old lady some excitement and tell me about all the poon you young boys are trying to hound after."

It always seemed like such a cool thing, the way Maude spoke to us so casually. But now, with her looking like this, and me feeling... certain things, I couldn't help but wonder if there was something more to the bawdy, experienced woman she presented herself as. Little Chris was first to speak.

"Well, Maude, I'm afraid for me and Jetty it's just business as usual. Go clubbing, find a nice lady to dance with, and if she says no look for another one. You know we're not picky. Though my night could be looking a little different. Turns out JM's little sister Sarah is looking to try some sausage, and she's got eyes on yours truly. I'm gonna stick to the normal plan, but if she comes out tonight, all bets are off."

"And speaking of miracles coming from the Manheim family," Jetty interjected, "sweet little JM here wants to break his muscle girl virginity. He finally understands the appeal of a girl with some real meat on her bones, and it's my duty and honor to hook him up with the biggest, beefiest girl we can find tonight."

Maude's eyes narrowed at me while I meekly sipped my drink. She looked the way she usually did, except now I could see that there was something a little extra behind her eyes, something that made her closer to a predator than a kindly older woman. "So, college boy, you want a girl who can haul some material? Well, while dames these days tend to like boys on the shy side, you'll never meet anyone worth spending time with if you're always waiting on them to approach you. You gotta learn to take some risks and put yourself out there."

"And how do you suggest I try that, Maude? You know I've always treasured your advice."

The way her face changed when I said that made me think I had taken her bait, whatever it was. She leaned back over the bar and stuck her arm out. planting her elbow firmly on the wood. She extended her hand out, her calloused fingers dancing in the open air. "Let's you and me arm wrestle, best of one. You win, and you and your buddies get to drink here for free the rest of the night, but you have to stay here until you go home. You lose, and I take you into the back and show you how to approach a girl who you think is out of your league. Sound good?"

I was trying to parse her request, wondering which outcome, if any of them, was bad for me. Either way, it seemed like I was getting something good. Granted, if I lost, that meant I lost to an old lady and would surely get some shit for it from my friends, but how much did that matter to me?

"Okay, Maude, you're on." As I extended my hand to meet hers, she smiled and said, "Smart boy, already off to a good start. Be respectful, but don't back away from a challenge when presented to you. At least not without thinking about it you can withstand the consequences."

We clasped our hands together, and when Little Chris counted us down from three, the match was over as soon as it began. I don't think any of us expected Maude to come out the gate so hard and fast, the way she slammed my hand down. It felt like she put her whole body weight into it too, which, once again, felt like more than I was expecting. We were silent for a few moments, until Jetty quietly said, "Holy shit. JM lost to a little old lady. What a wimp."

I felt my face get red as Little Chris immediately burst into laughter, and I tried to stutter to Maude, "Wh... what the hell was that? Come on, let me try again?" Maude just shook her head at me, saying, "No can do, little man. You agreed to only one shot. Wingus, Dingus, you two watch the bar while I share my secrets with college boy. If I find a single thing is out of place when we get back, though, you're both in for a world of hurt."

My friends saluted her with mock authority, and the shorter, older woman invited me behind the bar and lead the way to her back office. It was a very tight, cramped space, with a double-wide bed the only piece of furniture in the room. She instructed me to sit on the bed, and when I did I asked, "Damn, Maude, you really surprised me with that. I hope this doesn't sound condescending, but I'm really impressed with how strong you are. So, what's this big secret of yours? How can I get over my hang-ups and meet a big, strong woman."

She cupped my face with one hand and leaned in to plant a long, slow kiss on my lips. "Shut your pretty boy face up and let me take care of things. When I'm done, you'll know all you need to know." She broke the kiss and went back in the room as far as she could while still facing me. She brought up one of her arms in a flex, and I was amazed to see how dense her arm looked as her muscles bunched up from the movement. Her sleeves had been rolled up this whole time, and the girth of her muscle looked like it was about to tear open the fabric. I was about to say something, just a quiet expletive to show how taken aback I was, but before I could utter a sound she clamped her mouth onto mine again. When I was quiet again, she backed up one more time and lightly slapped me across the face.

"I won't say it again. Keep that mouth of your shut until I tell you to open it up again."

Nothing else needed to be said. Maude removed her top, revealing a bare torso underneath her previously oversized flannel. Her breasts were modest, but they hung high on her pecs which looked supremely defined. The rest of her torso was so wide and thick, her lats fully on display making her look huge. I could see little stubbles growing out of her underarms, but before I could form an opinion on that my eyes darted over to her abs. Six semi-defined blocks ran from the bottom of her pecs to the top of her jeans, where I was finally noticing a little bush poking out from her underwear. Maude closed the distance before I could properly appreciate that, jamming one of her erect nipples into my mouth. I happily accepted the hard nub, licking and sucking on it instinctively while my hands tried to wrap around her bulk. I felt up her chiseled back and ran my hands up and down, grabbing her hard, clothed ass, suppressing any moans from escaping my mouth. I felt myself go from casually erect to painfully erect as she pressed her body into mine, and I could feel her body temperature increase as her arousal mounted.

She reached down to my jeans, unzipping them and freeing my penis from its denim cage, and didn't waste any time before putting her mouth around it. As much as I wish I could say I lasted, between her tongue and the suction she was creating I barely lasted longer in her than I had in our arm wrestling match. But she swallowed every last drop, rising from her crouched position only when she was sure I had no more milk left to give. Satisfied, she stood up, wiped her mouth with her hand, and put her shirt back on as though nothing had happened. While she buttoned herself back up, she looked over at me and asked, "So, you understand now?"

To say I was confused would be an understatement. Still semi-nude, I stayed in my spot and replied, "Uh, not really? So am I supposed to just... give her head? Have her go down on me? Sorry, Maude, I just don't understand what the lesson here was."

Fully dressed, she replied, "Maybe there wasn't one. Maybe I just wanted to have some fun with a weak, younger boy. Either way, your muscle cherry is now popped, so don't feel so stressed when you're trying to flirt with some geared up giantess. Just try to last a little longer with her, since I doubt she'll be as nice as me about not getting off. Now go on, get back to your friends. I have a business to run."

We emerged from the back, both looking and acting like nothing had happened. I wasn't sure if Little Chris or Jetty had heard anything, but they didn't look like they suspected us of any kind of misconduct. "Back already," Jetty asked. "Must have been one lousy secret."

"Ah, you kids never change. Finish your drinks and get out of here. Just find a nice girl for college boy to talk to, and he'll take care of the rest."

As instructed, we drained our glasses, paid our tabs (I refused to let my friends pay extra so I could drink for free), and began our bar crawl in earnest, drinking and flirting our way through the city until it was time to hit the clubs.

[tttrbn]

I'll be honest, the next couple hours were pretty hazy for me. While I was able to follow along my friends well enough, trailing behind them just close enough to stay privy to our destination, joining into conversation with automatic responses, and raising my drinks in cheers as we hopped from bar to bar, all I could think about was Maude. This older woman, someone I had written off for years, had manhandled me in such a definite way. It had never occurred to me that she would have her own physical wants, nor had it occurred to me what she would be willing to do for a little fun. I didn't understand why it was me she chose out of my friends, but perhaps I was overthinking it? Maybe it was as she said, that she just wanted to have a quickie and I happened to be the easiest person to get it from.

Thoughts of her tight flannel shirt stretching against her broad chest before she hastily removed it, unveiling all her mature, powerful glory, filled my head. Every time we entered a new establishment, it was her I saw first instead of whoever was actually stationed at the bar. The sense memory of her large, calloused hand wrapping around my smaller, comparatively delicate one was what came to me whenever I grabbed a new drink before the actual sensation of the cold glass around my hand hit me. The smell of smoke and wood is what came to my nose first whenever we walked by some girl who had perfumed herself before her night out. Even though the older woman was smaller than pretty much all the other female Game Mode users we walked by and tried to chat up, Maude had a density to her physique and a thickness to her presence that stuck with me more than any of the pretty young things we encountered.

It wasn't until we had finally made it to a club, the strobe lights and electronic music assaulting my senses, that I finally snapped back to reality. Little Chris had been trying to talk to me this whole time, but I had been ignoring him. It wasn't on purpose, of course, but it was still rude of me.

"Sorry, man, I was a little out of it. What's up?"

"Nothing much, it's just that there are three Amazonian hotties over on the dance floor that have been eyeing us up since we walked in. Check'em out."

I turned to where he was pointing, and Little Chris's description had been correct only in the most technical sense. The smallest of this trio must have been 7'3" in her bare feet, and in the platform heels she was wearing nearly cleared 8'. Her black hair cascaded in waves down to her shoulders, which were bare, and she was probably as wide across the shoulders as my torso was long. She was built like it was her job to demolish old buildings by herself, and her skimpy black dress left little to the imagination. The top of it just barely went up to the middle of her pecs, which were pushing out in front of her like a porn star's breasts, and the shapely tits on her pushed her dress out even further. Depending on how she danced, I could swear, even at this distance, that I saw hints of her areolas peeking out. Each of her arms was thicker than my legs, and each of her legs was thicker than my entire body. Her skin had a gorgeous tan to it, her features making her look like a light-skinned Middle Eastern woman. The other two women next to her had similar complexions, though the bigger they got the darker their skin looked. The middle woman looked about four inches taller than the smallest woman in similar-sized heels and was at least 100 pounds heavier. The biggest woman was a foot taller than the shortest woman in much shorter heels and looked like she could have picked up my and my friends in a single arm without noticing we were there.

On any other day, under any other circumstances, I would have been intimidated. I probably would have turned beet red at the idea that someone like that would pay attention to me and turn tail, confused at why I was feeling the way that I did. But not tonight, and I had Maude to thank for that. Just as Jetty returned with our drinks, the three of us switching to smaller, harder drinks that were easier to dance with, I nodded at Little Chris and approached the trio.

I walked right up to the middle woman, the top of my head not quite coming up to her chest. Luckily, I was standing just far away enough from her where she could tell I was addressing her without being totally covered by her anatomy. Craning my neck up to look at her, I addressed all three of them and said, "Good evening, lovely ladies. I couldn't help but notice that you fine three were taking some looks at me and my friend over there. Our third just got back with some drinks, making our numbers equal. Shall we refill your drinks so we can get to know each other better?"

The middle woman replied quickly with, "You're brave, habibi, not many boys your size would approach us. But yes, as it happens my sisters and I became quite fascinated with you and your little friend quite quickly. And now that your other friend has returned, we would like to dance with you lot. No drinks for us, though, as it is haram." She spoke in a deep, luscious voice. Every sound she made felt like it was coated in honey. She spoke in an accent similar to mine, except for when she spoke in Arabic. I couldn't tell which was her native tongue, or if she learned both at the same time.

"Of course, I didn't mean to offend. I'm Jason, by the way. How may I introduce you three to my friends."

"Respectful. My name is Rana, my smaller sister is called Yasmin, and my larger sister is called Fadwa. No, introduce us to your fellow little boys."

I walked the trio over to our standing table, their incredibly long legs covering the distance in far fewer strides than mine. In spite of their size, each step they took was silent. It wasn't clear if that was because they could truly walk so quietly or if their quaking footfalls must have been drowned out by the noise of the club. Little Chris and Jetty had been watching us the whole time, and while they must have been surprised at my ability to get this far they otherwise seemed ready to talk. When I closed the distance, I turned to the sisters and said, "Ladies, it is an honor to get to behold you tonight. As I already mentioned, my name is Jason. These fine gentlemen behind me are two of my dearest friends. The one in the tailored green shirt is Ronald, and the one with the diamond earrings is Michael. Guys, these lovely women are sisters who want to share a few dances with us. This is Yasmin, this is Rana, and this is Fadwa. Let's mingle."

While we talked as a large group, we had already started to pair ourselves off. Rana had stayed closest to me, no doubt because I was the one who approached her, Yasmin stood nearest to Jetty, and Fadwa had picked Little Chris. Conversation seemed to flow naturally, as though my guys talked to women like this on the regular. Even I was impressed that I could hang, but I was more than happy to let Little Chris and Jetty do most of the heavy-lifting on our side.

Little Chris said to the group, but mostly Fadwa, "Jason doesn't go out so much, but Je... Michael and I hit the clubs fairly often. Why haven't we seen you dynamite girls before? Even in a world of Game Mode users, you three stand out far and away among the crowd."

Fadwa chuckled at his compliment, replying in a voice that was deeper, throatier, and more heavily accented than Rana's, saying, "We are from out of town. I moved here just recently for business, and my sisters were quick to follow me." Little Chris continued with, "Ah, so you're like the ring leader for you and your sisters? You're the one in charge, and they follow behind? I don't blame them, you look like you could give them a proper whooping for stepping out of line.

Yasmin was the one who replied, speaking in the least accented voice. It was lighter and higher than both of her sisters', and she said, "Oh, please. Just because she's oldest and biggest doesn't make her the boss. As it happens, both Rana and myself have business in this city as well, so it just made the most sense to all move together. Plus, even for girls like us it helps to travel in packs. You never know what nefarious thoughts might cross the minds of men at night." She had been speaking directly at Jetty at the end there, the look on her face making it clear that she was the one with 'nefarious thoughts' in mind. He was too flustered to reply, so I took the initiative and asked Rana directly, "If you don't mind my asking, what brings you to our fair city? It's not one of the major ones in the country, and it's not even the biggest one in the state, so I'm curious to know what we're doing well enough to attract a trio like yours."

Rana smiled down at me, her face momentarily looking like Yasmin's. It faded as quickly as it came, though, and she earnestly said, "You three seem trustworthy, so I see no reason to hide out motivations. You are fellow players, yes?"

"Players? Oh, you mean Game Mode? Yeah, all three of use are opted in." She was the second person tonight, after my mom, to refer to Game Mode as a game. I know it's in the name, but it wasn't fully accurate to describe it as one. Then again, with the beta test my mom was part of, the app certainly did seem like it was leaning more into that area. Wait...

"I had thought so. I was hesitant at first, since none of you seem to be on the same version of the game as any of us. Do you know of this new version? It is currently out for beta testing."

"Know it? Jason's mom is a beta tester just like you guys, and she's fucking huge."

I shot a look over at Jetty, who had regained his ability to speak at just the right time. Luckily, none of the sisters seemed to care about my familial relationship to a beta tester. Rana continued, "So in addition to the new attribute mechanics in the game, there is now a quest system as well. Completing quests awards additional bonus points which can be used as we wish. From our youth, my sisters and I are very experienced in the world of gaming, so such things are not at all strange to us. What did seem strange, however, was the quest that popped up in each of our logs earlier this morning."

Before any of my friends or I could react, the sisters changed their formation and formed a perimeter around us. Between their heights and widths, there was no way we could escape. Even if we tried to go under, their lower bodies were so bulked up we wouldn't have been able to slip past. Fadwa was the one who continued where her sister left off, saying, "In general, the quests we have received over the last week have been more sexual in nature. Have a certain number of orgasms in a day, bring a certain number of people other than yourself to climax each day, even small things like flirt with some number of total strangers. The first quest we all received when we became beta testers, though, was to move to this city. It didn't make any sense to us at the time, since we had to travel halfway across the world from our beautiful desert metropolis to this fourth-rate American filth city."

Yasmin leaned in close, towering over Jetty by nearly two feet, put her arms on his shoulders and concluded the explanation, saying, "And so that brings us to this morning. For the first time, we each received a different quest, a truly unique goal to try and accomplish. None of you seem stupid, just desperately horny, so I'm sure you've all figured it out by now. Mine was to find a boy named Michael Tetch, Rana's was to find a boy named Jason Manheim, and Fadwa's was to find a boy named Ronald Copperton. The game even gave us your pictures, home addresses, and other personal info to make our hunt trivially easy."

I already knew the answer, but I still needed to hear it from her mouth. I looked up at Rana, noticing the way her mouth had been curled to bear her teeth, and meekly asked, "And do what to us?" Rana knelt down so she could whisper her answer in my ear, saying as delicately as she could, "Conquer you. And the longer we keep you, and the more we drain you each day, the more points we get. We're going to punish your little dicks so much we'll be able to crush this whole city and everyone in it with a single stomp."

The color drained from my face. This was everything I had been nervous about, and I was immediately proven right. The first big girl wanted to turn me into her sex slave.... wait, was that really so bad? I mean, Rana was absolutely fucking gorgeous, and I already wanted to sleep with her. I didn't necessarily lover her tone, or the idea that she wanted to destroy my town, but maybe that was all foreplay for her? It was certainly working on me, since even though I felt faint I also felt painfully erect. I looked to either side of me, linking up with Jetty and Little Chris in the wake of this news.

"So... how do we feel about this?"
"What do you mean? This is great. We get to bang these massive beauties as much as we want. Well, possibly more than we want, but that hardly seems like a problem."
"Aww, I thought you only had eyes for JM's sister now that she was opening up her relationship?"
"JM, don't get me wrong, on any other day I'd bark if Sarah told me to, but Fadwa makes her look scrawny and short. Sorry to be callous, but this feels like an upgrade to me."
"Honestly, at this point, I can't even hold it against you. IDK if your girls told you the same, but Rana told me that she wanted to keep me for a while. That certainly sounds like she won't hurt us too bad right away."
"This is a classic death by snu-snu situation. Whether we live or die, we get to have an incredible experience. I'm all-in, but I don't think our consent matters anymore."
"So it seems. Alright dudes, see you on the other side."

The sisters picked us up, our bodies feeling weightless in their heaving arms. No one in the club, not even the security, thought anything was strange about this. Over the past five years, scenes like this had become increasingly common to the point of being mundane. Once we were outside, they kicked off their shoes, leaving them in the street, and ran like the wind. In a matter of seconds, we had gone far outside city limits and entered into a clearing in the middle of the woods. Smack in the middle of this clearing was a five-story mansion, easily the nicest house any of us had ever seen. When our senses returned to us, my boys and I kept bantering in the link chat, but when we entered the house our girls each went their separate ways, never stopping or slowing down to check on us or put us down. From the foyer, Rana jumped up to the landing two stories above us, landing with a grace that shouldn't have been possible for someone her size. Yasmin had jumped up to the floor below me, and Fadwa had jumped up to the floor above. At this point, we decided to be gentlemen and sever our link. We could always compare notes later.

Rana took me to a massive room. It looked like it could have been a ballroom, save for the enormous canopy bed placed in the middle of the floor. There were several dressers, mirrors, and closets that adorned the room as well, which made it extremely clear that this was her bedroom. For the first time since we left the club, which had only been at most a few minutes ago, Rana untucked me from under her arm and threw me onto the bed. She was gentle, and her bed was so soft I landed quite comfortably. She looked at me, towering in her bare feet even at this distance, and explained, "My sisters and I each have our own floors in this house. It seemed like the best solution to minimize the space we needed to take here while also getting the necessary privacy to complete our quests. Can I offer you anything before we get started? A cup of tea, perhaps? Some protein to give your body the strength it needs to serve me? A stimulant to keep you hard after your tenth ejaculation tonight?"

"All three would be great, actually."

She snapped her fingers, and a robotic servant came into the room from a small door I hadn't noticed before in one of the walls. When it approached me, it produced a tray with a warm cup of spiced tea, a protein bar, and two little blue pills. I took a bite of the bar, a sip of the drink, and swallowed both pills. Once I had finished my preparations, Rana took care of hers. She took a wide stance and moved to flex her lats, shredding the tiny dress in a single, swift motion. Her breasts looked cartoonish on her hypertrophied pecs, hanging high on her chest despite their size and her lack of a bra. Her skin looked the color of a light caramel, and a fierce, untamed bush was growing between her legs. The rest of her body was almost indescribably muscular. Each breath she took exuded power, her muscles practically vibrating with anticipation. I didn't need the pills to be ready for our first round, but I was glad I had them for the rest of the night.

[tttrbn]

My night with Rana was long and joyous, one I would be sure to remember for the rest of my days. Come morning, though, my body was battered and bruised. I had surpassed her prediction of 10 ejaculations halfway through the night, and if it wasn't for the pills she gave me at the start of the night I would have only been firing blanks. It didn't occur to me until the sun had risen that I hadn't been offered any protection to use, which was just as well since there hadn't been a decent time to ask about that until now. I had stayed off the link chat with my boys, figuring we were all having our own incredible experiences. And with the initial salvo finally quelled, and my gargantuan lover lying next to me, I felt a kind of bliss that none of my prior girlfriends or hookups had given me.

We were both lying on her enormous bed, nude as the day we were born. Her long hair was splayed out all around her, and I was gently stroking its length as I pressed my nude form against hers. She snored lightly as she slept, and I got to watch the gentle rise and fall of her inhumanly large chest. When I saw her nose twitch, signaling that she might be waking up, I kissed her exposed breast flesh, tasting the salt of her sweat mixed with the sweetness of the perfume she wore to the club last night. Rana's eyes opened, and she turned her head to face me, reaching over just a little bit to kiss me on the forehead.

"Good morning, habibi," she said, her voice as soft as the morning dew. She did not embody the character she presented herself as last night, which put me at ease concerning some of the worries my friends as I had. "Are you feeling well enough for another round or two? I know we have only just parted, but my flesh already hungers for yours."

I blushed at her words. Whether she was being genuine or just trying to milk as many points as possible from me, it didn't matter. All I cared about was the wonderful night we had spent together, and the fact that I got to keep spending time with her. "I don't know if I have it in me to cum anymore, at least not for a little while, but I would love to explore your body. I want to know the full extent of your power, not just what you use to dominate me. I want to taste the lioness you have growing between your legs, just as you've feasted on the cub between mine. Would that please you, my heart?"

Rana gently ran a finger across the length of my face, smiling at me with a mix of endearment and pity. "Oh, little Jason, under other circumstances I would want nothing more than for my lover to do to me as you've described. But, sweet as you are, your only use to me is to satisfy the parameters of my quest. There is no end to it, other than the end of the beta test I would assume, so unless I'm making you gush I have no need for you. You understand, I hope?"

My heart sank at her candor. I suppose I should have appreciated her being so upfront with me, but I really thought we had made a connection last night. I told her as much, saying, "I'm sorry to hear that. I understand, I guess, but I really like you. It would have been nice if you felt the same way, but I guess it was foolish of me to think that. If it's all the same, I'd like to meet up with my friends and be on our way back."

Before I could move to get up, Rana's hand shifted from my face to my chest. Her large paw pressed onto my smaller, softer chest, pushing me into the bed. "I did not take you for the slow kind, Jason. As my sisters and I explained to you last night, you boys aren't going anywhere until we're done with you. We will keep you safe and healthy, to a point, but you all will stay here until we can no longer satisfy the conditions of our quest. Letting you return to your lives is not the optimal choice for us to make, and my sisters and I are nothing if not power-gamers."

She snapped her fingers again, and once more the robotic assistant emerged from wherever it stayed when not in use. When it approached, it produced a harness on the same tray that gave me my food and supplements earlier. Like she had done it thousands of times before, Rana lifted me up and tied me to the harness, connecting it to the top of her bed. She stood up and planted a kiss on me and said, "There, now you're not going anywhere. I'm going to freshen up and meet with my sisters to discuss how we will use our new points. After that, I will return for you and get you ready for the next few rounds." With that, she turned her back to me and sauntered out of the room, swaying her naked backside with each step. I hated how much I liked the view, but when the door closed behind her a single thought entered my mind.

"Shit."

Immediately, I reopened link chat with Little Chris and Jetty and asked them about their situations. They were in the same spot as me, though they had ended up in their harnesses hours before me. It turns out Fadwa and Yasmin were much more aggressive and selfish as lovers compared to Rana, so the two of them were locked up almost immediately when we got home. We talked for a few minutes, trying to come up with a plan, but none of us could figure out any way to escape our giant women captors. Until, finally, I realized that I had an option in my back pocket this whole time.

I undid the notification pause on Sarah, and I was instantly flooded with dozens upon dozens of messages, pictures, and videos from her, depicting her and mom working out, sweating, and lifting the night away. I didn't have time to read through or look at any of them, but it was clear from the snippets I was seeing that she had gone from rubbing in my face how big and cool mom is, how awesome it is that they're working out together, to genuine concern for my lack of response and how I didn't come home last night. That was a little rich coming from her, since when she came home yesterday it was after an even longer night than mine, but none of that mattered anymore. I needed help, and while Yasmin, Rana, and Fadwa were huge, Sarah and my mom were our only hope. I shot Sarah a link chat message right away.

"Sarah. No bullshit. I'm in trouble and need help."
"what the actual fuck, Jason! where have you been? You know mom's not the type to worry but I've been worried sick!"
"Long story, really can't explain. Need you and mom to come to me ASAP"
"bro we're messaging at the speed of thought, give me the deets"
"Fine. Last night I went out with"
"nope, boring. just send me the memory files"
"Ugh, fine, whatever."

I sent her over a compressed version of my memory of the past night, from our encounter with the Arabic princesses to my talk with Rana this morning. I tried to cut out and censor the parts that were inappropriate to share with my sister, but, as usual, she fixated on all the wrong details.

"woah, these girls are hot as fuck. wait, that bitch took Ronald home last night? My Ronald?"
"What do you mean, 'your'? He's single, and you only passively said you were into him."
"when I said I was into him, that was me planting my flag. im gonna fuck that skank up for touching my sweet prince"
"You know what, awesome. I don't care how we got here, just please get to where I am ASAP. Faster than that, if possible. Here's my location."
"thx. idk if I can take on all three of them, so ill bring mom with me. i doubt you watched any of the vids i sent, but i was teaching her how to fight last night too"
"Sarah, I really can't stress this enough - rescue me and my friends, and you can tell me all about that, and whatever else you want, afterwards."
"bet"

And just like that, the beacon was lit. I told Little Chris and Jetty about the situation, so now all we needed to do was last until the cavalry came.

[lardbutt1]

What an awesome concept and story. Your writing is excellent. Hopefully Sarah and his big mom can save the day.

[tttrbn]

Three hours passed with me in the harness. The link chat between me and Sarah had gone dead, likely so that she could focus on the conflict that was to come. I tried reaching out to Jetty and Little Chris to let them know that help was on the way, but my messages were going unread. Dear god, had their girls come back to ravish them some more? That must mean that Rana would be here soon.

Before I could properly panic, my nostrils were overwhelmed by the scents of sweat and rose coming in from the front door of the room. A shadow crept in from the hallway, and as the door opened, I was greeted with the majority of Rana's body on the other side. The doors in this house were taller than usual to accommodate the Amazonian sisters, but earlier today Rana had been able to cross the threshold without needing to crouch down or shift to the side. Now, however, dressed in an ornate robe, I could see the middle of Rana's body, up to her traps. Not only was she too tall for the doorway, her chin not being visible at all from my vantage, but she had grown so wide that her shoulders could not fit inside the door frame. Instead, her breasts filled up the width of the doorway, practically spilling out of her loosely tied robe.

"Oh my, it seems that I've put too many point into my physical growth this morning. I told Fadwa that we should have allocated them elsewhere until we could reconstruct the house. No bother, I can simply get started on that job myself." Her voice should have been muffled, as she was speaking to me, effectively, from behind a wall, but I heard her as loudly and clearly as I ever have. The effect this subtle display of power was having on my anatomy was not lost on me. I couldn't see much, but I could see a shifting from within her robe, and with a mighty crash a huge fist burst through the wall above the frame of the door. When Rana removed her hand, the hole was large and high up enough where I could see her gorgeous face poke in from it. "I hope you have not missed me too much, my heart. Your personal muscle mommy has returned to extract more of those wonderful, wonderful points from you."

As casually as I might tear a piece of paper, Rana forced her hands through the wall and made a more suitable entrance for the bedroom. She stepped in, not caring about the rubble and debris around her feet, and planted a kiss right on my lips. Whereas before she had to lean up a little bit to kiss me, now she had to stoop down to meet my lips. Once again, when she broke the kiss, her mouth found my ear and started whispering again. It was hard to concentrate on her words because of the intensely powerful aromas wafting off her, but I could hear her say, "I'm sure you're curious about how I've changed since we parted, habibi. My sisters and I, we measured ourselves when we met this morning so we had a reference point for how last night's points would enhance us. The game tells us our statistics, but there is still a joy to be had in measuring yourself, no? I confirmed that I stood at 7'7" tall, and weighed not a pound less than 699 lbs. My memory files tell me I weighed over 700 last night, so take pride in how our lovemaking diminished me. But, little Jason, those measurements are meaningless now.

"We discussed how we would use our points, making sure we did not waste the thousands we had each accumulated last night. Yasmin wanted us to increase our comeliness, improving our natural scents, pheromone production, and sexual stamina. Fadwa wanted us to increase our physical power, improving our heights, strength, and endurance. I wanted us to increase our intelligence, improving our planning, information gathering, and domination. Given our current situation, we agreed to prioritize Fadwa's desires, seconding mine, and putting Yasmin's last. After all, now that we have you boys, we don't need to ensnare anyone else. Shall I tell you how big I have become now?"

Her hot breath on my skin was making me delirious. I didn't know how high her stats were, but the fact that she was having this much of an effect on me without going all-in on what Yasmin wanted was worrying. Was it because I already was so attracted to her? Was it because her sexiness was already incredibly high? I tried to focus on the situation, but none of that mattered. Rana had asked me a question, and I needed to answer her. The words wouldn't come to my mouth, though, so I simply nodded at her.

"Good boy. I invested over 800 points into my physical attributes, nearly two-thirds of what I won from you last night, and my body has grown to 8'2" tall and 1070 lbs. Do you want to know how big my muscles are now, little one? My biceps each measure 48" around, my shoulders are 58" across, my thighs are each 51" around, and my calves are 47" around. I could tell you more, because I know the depths of your fascination with me, but I don't want to waste any more points."

It wasn't until Rana brought it to my attention, but I was so painfully erect that I was leaking cum like a low-pressure faucet. My breath caught in my throat as I tried to say something, but I was just too overwhelmed. Rana was moving her face again, first away from me, and then bringing it slowly, tantalizingly close to mine. She would treat me well. She would take care of me, and make sure that I was properly loved. She would -

*DING-DONG*

Rana turned away from me as her attention moved to the source of that sound. It must have been the doorbell. She cursed and said, "Who could that possibly be? This house isn't on any mapping service, we made sure to pay extra for that. How could..."

She turned again to face me, her visage a mask of fury and hateful wrath. The doorbell rang again before she could do anything to me, though, so she tightened her robe around her and said, "I will deal with you in a moment. First, I must deal with the intruders. I have alerted my sisters to your betrayal, and they have been instructed to punish your friends until I tell them otherwise. Just a moment, darling."

There was so much venom in her voice, Rana didn't sound like herself at all. Or maybe this is how she normally was? It was dawning on me, now that there was a bit of separation between us, that I didn't know this woman at all. Her pheromones were so strong, though, that she could basically control my mind. It wouldn't surprise me if continued exposure to her, especially if she keeps upping her points, that I would end up a mindless slave to her.  Now that my mind was becoming more clear, I was remembering the plan I had crafted with Sarah. Rather, that I begged her as hard as I could to come here and rescue us. I tried messaging her again to see if she was here, and I tried pinging her location, but it was all coming up empty. I would have been worried, but just as I was starting to freak out I hear a huge crashing sound from downstairs. A second later, a link message popped up in my head from Sarah.

"sup. we're here now. i had to keep the feed dead till we got here, in case they picked up on it. idk who let us in, but mom just laid into her. take a look"

Sarah shared her visual feed with me, so now I could see what she was seeing. She was still outside, but the front door of the mansion, as well as the wall up to three feet around it on all sides, was destroyed. A huge, hulk of a woman in the largest tank top I had ever seen and a little pair of jean shorts stood were the door was, and on the ground a few feet away, robe totally destroyed and discarded, was Rana. Oh fuck, was that mom? She looked way bigger than she did yesterday. It must have been from all the time she spent with Sarah since then, she must have been gaining points like crazy. I heard her say in a voice that sounded like her, but much deeper, "Where's my son, you pretty witch? My daughter told me you've kept him and his friends here all night long, and you've been torturing them!"

Rana stood up, totally naked, her luscious hair cascading down to the middle of her back. She started to mess with it, gathering it up into a high do, and spat some blood out of her mouth. She retorted, "I would hardly call what I've been doing to him torture. His body might be worse for wear, but I assure you that he has been enjoying it. However, I cannot abide some white she-devil coming to my house and wrecking it. Ah, look at this. The game tells me that you're a fellow player on the same level as my sisters and I, and I have been given a new quest. If I take you down and prevent you from taking Jason from me, I get an exorbitant amount of points. Hmm, but this little girl here doesn't seem to be on our level, and there is no mention of her."

"That is because we have been tasked with containing her, sister."

Sarah looked up, and saw Fadwa and Yasmin, similarly bulked up to Rana, disrobing themselves and putting their hair up as well. It was Yasmin who spoke, and she continues with, "Since she is so small, the game has instructed us to help you with the old hag when we are done with her."

"Hah, she might be big but she pales in comparison to us. I shall have no trouble with her."

"Hag? Oh that's it, I'm taking you all down."

Mom charged in to fight Rana as Yasmin and Fadwa jumped down to take on Sarah. While Sarah was big compared to me, she was a normal Game Mode user, so she wouldn't measure up to either of these gigantic sisters. The point of view I was getting from her didn't look quite right, though, but since I didn't know how big Yasmin and Fadwa had become I just ignored that for now. Fadwa came in first, swinging her arm like she was ready to topple a mountain. She had been bulky yesterday, but now she looked like two fridges put next to each other. Due to the disparity in height, Fadwa had to lean down pretty hard to aim for Sarah, but my sister was able to use her smallness and agility to get out of the way. I had forgotten until she mentioned it earlier, but Sarah had always been a scrapper when we were little. She loved getting into fights with neighborhood kids, and even some adults, so she had practical experience to use along with her physical might.

Though Sarah avoided Fadwa's strike, Yasmin was close behind. She jumped at my sister, trying to tackle her to the ground. Instead of sidestepping again, though, Sarah jumped up, landing on Yasmin's head and using her leverage to jump again. Now she was the one trying to tackle Fadwa, and even though her opponent was so big she was enough momentum to knock her off her balance.

My sister had grabbed onto Fadwa, and while Fadwa was furiously flailing to try and get Sarah off, I caught glimpses of my mom's fight with Rana. They were closer in size than I had expected, and there were circling around one another tried trained boxers, each one looking for an opening. While doing this, my mom stepped on some rubble on the ground. She must have created it when she barged in, and, not realizing it was there, she got off her balance. Rana seized the opportunity, lunging in and assaulting my mom's midsection with rapid-fire punches. Even though she had taken some easy shots, though, when Rana was done with her attack, she stepped back and shook out her hands. It looked like she was actually hurt from her own move?

Before I could see mom's rebuttal, though, Fadwa had succeeded in freeing herself from Sarah's grapple. The much larger woman grabbed my sister in her hands and threw her across the foyer and into the landing four stories up. The impact must have really hurt, since the feed died for a few seconds, but when it came back Sarah was falling back to the ground. She was aiming at Yasmin, and right before impact she hit the smallest of the sisters with a piece of the floor from where Fadwa launched her. Between the weight of the piece of rubble, the momentum of the fall, and Sarah's own strength, Yasmin was knocked down for the count, sliding across the room and into the fountain outside. Fadwa wasted no time in charging for her again, and Sarah used a piece of rebar that was in the rubble she attacked Yasmin with to fend Fadwa off. Fadwa, while proud of her strength, must know she's not invincible, so she started taking a more cautious stance with Sarah. Now that they were circling each other, I could once again get glimpses of my mom and Rana.

The fight couldn't have been going on for more than a minute or two at this point, but it looked like my mom had gotten bigger over that time. She had grabbed Rana by the throat, lifted her off the ground, and was repeatedly punching her in the face, all while screaming, "No one keeps a mother away from her child! Take me to my boy now or I'm going to put you in the ground!"

Rana was looking so much worse for wear, her face now a bloodied mess. I was so desperate to know how we had gotten to this point, but that would have to wait. Hearing my mom wailing on her sister, Fadwa took her attention off Sarah for just a second. She turned, saw the brutality, and cried, "Sister!" But Sarah, that was all she needed. Since her opponent had turned her back to her, Sarah took the rebar she was holding and slammed Fadwa in the head with it. Now that the biggest sister was out cold, Sarah returned to my mom, who had definitely grown since she first got here. With the fight being won, my mom knocked Rana out with one last punch. Sarah ended the visual feed and shot another link message my way.

"kk, jobs done, bitches knocked out. where r u?"
"Third floor. Huge bedroom. I'm, uh, strapped to a harness. And I'm naked otherwise."
"lol, totally gonna use this against you one day. later bro, coming to free you now."

They found me a few minutes later. Now that I was looking at my mom with my own eyes, with the additional context of this house, she had ballooned in size since last night. She had to duck to get into the hole in the wall Rana had made not so long ago, and for what it was worth Sarah looked like she had grown a fair amount too. I had a million questions I wanted to ask them, but at this exact moment my priorities were, in order: getting dressed, finding Little Chris and Jetty, and getting the hell out of here.

[tttrbn]

The next few hours were a bit of a blur to me. I was exhausted from being used and abused all night long, and now that Rana's pheromones and my own adrenaline were going away it was dawning on me how dangerous my situation had been. What I thought was a consensual, mutually pleasurable experience was really someone I had no chance of beating on my own using me as she saw fit. No matter how much she tried to cover it by saying she would take care of me and treat me well, she only saw me as a way to satisfy her quest and gain points, not a person. The realization made my whole body shiver, which my mom was quick to notice. On our way out, she wrapped me up in her growing arms, brought me up, holding me the way you would hold a baby, and whispered, "I'm so sorry, honey. You must be so scared. But don't worry, mommy's here. You're safe now." She kissed my forehead, but her mouth had gotten so big as a consequence of her other growth that she basically just kissed the entire top half of my face. I mumbled something to her along the lines of me being thankful, but I was still processing everything.

From what Sarah told me afterwards, we found Little Chris and Jetty in their respective rooms on the other floors. The sisters who had claimed them had been rougher than Rana had been with me; while most of my wounds were emotional, my two friends were covered in bruises from the forceful lovemaking. Apparently, Little Chris was in the worse condition, but neither of them was doing well. Instead of bringing them back to their apartment, mom and Sarah decided to bring us all back to the house. We had a guest room that we could put my friends up in until they were feeling better.

I went in and out of consciousness the whole way home, and once we got back, mom put me in my bed, tucked me in, and let me rest. When I woke up, my HUD was showing me that it was the middle of the night. They had rescued me on Saturday morning, so I had slept for almost a full day. While I felt rested, I was also more aware of the various ways my body had been damaged. I checked myself out in the mirror, stripping down to my underwear to get the full scope of what Rana had done to me. In truth, there wasn't a lot of apparent damage. A few small bruises here and there, but the biggest thing that stuck out to me was how much skinnier I looked. I checked my vital log in the Game Mode settings, and from our one night together Rana had taxed me like I had run multiple marathons in a row. I checked my stats, too, and all of my physical attributes and skills were diminished. The exact details of the beta test were still unclear to me, but I doubted she was able to leach points from me. There was simply no way the number of points I lost were what grew her that big; rather, this was the result of being physically exhausted. In fact, the only reason I wasn't on the floor in pain from hunger was because Game Mode automatically put me into survival mode. I'll be able to make it a little longer without eating something, but I wasn't going to get any better without something nutritious in my body. But I put that off a little longer so I could check on my friends.

The two of them were in the Queen-size guest bed. They looked way gaunter than I did. The room was dark except for a small lamp that stood next to an armchair, and in the chair was my dad. He was sound asleep, no doubt posted here so my mom and sister could get some sleep. My heart sunk when I saw the details of their drawn faces, the dark blue and yellow spots on their exposed skin from how they were handled. They were in this spot because of me, because I had some weird hangup that I needed to get taken care of tonight. I'll never forgive myself for the damage my selfishness caused, but there was no point in self-flagellation, at least not at this time. Once they're awake, I'll do whatever it takes to atone for the harm I put my friends in. Until then, I needed to eat something.

On my way to the kitchen, I had to pass by the door to the basement. Sarah had begged to get our basement converted to a home gym well before Game Mode was a thing, and ever since she joined the home gym had turned into something that resembled, and maybe even rivaled, a professional one. I didn't expect to see a light peeking out from under the door, nor did I expect to hear what sounded like shouting coming from down there. Oh, fuck, did those sisters find us? It shouldn't have been possible for them to recover so quickly, but with this new beta test I guess anything was possible. I ripped open the door and flew down the stairs as fast as my body could take me, not caring about the pain in my ribs or lungs as I pushed myself.

At the foot of the stairs, though, I saw something less serious but far stranger than what I had expected. Down here was just Sarah and mom, and it looked like they were in the middle of a workout. I would guess it was rather intense as well, given how sweaty and pumped they were looking. And that shouting I had heard wasn't the sound of those sisters coming back for a fight, but my two family members yelling words of encouragement at one another. When my feet reached the basement floor, I was greeted to the sight of Sarah wearing only a thong and a black sports bra, her back turned to me, doing skull-crushers with a barbell that must have weighed over 400 lbs. She looked bigger than she did this morning, and not like it was a typical late-puberty growth spurt. Her rusty auburn hair was tied up in a high ponytail, allowing me to see the definition and vascularity that ruled her backside. From her traps down to her calves, Sarah looked like she was made of marble, carved from stone by a master of the craft. Even though her body was literally covered with a layer of sweat, I could see faint hairs growing all over her back and the back of her legs. I couldn't see her face, but she was turned to our mom and was yelling, "I'll never forgive those cunts for what they did to Jason and Ronald! If they think we pounded them now, just wait till they see us again. I'm going to get so fucking diesel that if they so much as get a whiff of me they'll piss their little bitch-ass panties."

"That's right, Sarah. We basically let them off with a warning. Once we're done here, we should go back and give them a proper thrashing. What they did to those boys is despicable, and they have not even begun to know true punishment."

I turned my head to where my mom's voice was coming from, and if she looked big this morning, she looked like a titan now. Unlike Sarah, who was wearing the bare minimum of clothing (and even that was struggling to stay on her), mom was fully nude. She was facing away from me, same as Sarah, but unlike Sarah she was doing biceps curls with weights that made Sarah's look light. Each barbell she curled must have weighed over 800 lbs., and even though she wasn't facing me I could tell that my mom's biceps were gigantic. Her back and shoulders looked wider than I was tall, and she tapered down to an impossible narrow (compared to the rest of her) waist. She then flared back out at her hips, the mass she had packed on making her twice as wide as Sarah was down there. And then her legs... my goodness, each of those legs looked to be at least twice as wide as I was. Just like my sister, mom was coated in a thick layer of sweat, but I could still see the hairs growing all over her body. I had never known either of them to be hirsute, but that could just be one of the many changes happening to them that I didn't understand.

My voice was caught in my throat. I was only seeing part of them, and yet I couldn't comprehend how big and impressive the two of them were. When I finally found my voice, all I could manage was a hoarse whisper.

"Holy shit."

Somehow, they had managed to hear me over their shouting, because when I spoke they quickly turned to face me. They still did their respective exercises, and any sense of embarrassment they might have felt over their forms was lacking. Now that Sarah was facing me, I could more clearly tell that she had gotten taller. She had been 6'5" a day or two ago, but now she looked like she was almost 7' tall. And my mom was truly gigantic. I recalled her growing in real time as she was fighting Rana, and she looked like she hadn't slowed down. The ceiling of the basement was 12' above the floor, and my mom was about three-quarters of the way up. If I thought their backs were big, now that they were facing me it was clear how truly huge they were. Sarah's chest was spilling out of her bra, her stomach was a cobblestone road, and she radiated pure power. Moreover, I could see a lot of stubble growing under her arms, one the front of her legs, and out of her panties. Mom's body was almost indescribable, at least for me since she was nude. She had a somewhat softer look than Sarah, but that might have just been because of her supersized chest. They both clearly had defined pecs and lats, but the sheer size of their soft breast-flesh was overwhelming. Mom might have had similar hair growth to Sarah, but I covered my eyes since I couldn't bear looking at her like this. Frankly, I didn't know how Sarah was able to.

"Hi. Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to disturb anyone. I just woke up a few minutes ago and wanted to eat something."

"You have nothing to apologize for, sweetie. I'm sorry neither of us were in the room to help you when you woke up, but your sister and I have been dying to blow off some of the steam we had been feeling since this morning. Those girls... they got off easy, if you ask me, so Sarah and I are planning on paying them another visit."

"Right. I, uh, heard you say that just now. You really don't have to do that. I know my friends are in really bad condition, but you already beat them up for us."

"Yeah, for you. Now mom and I want to beat them up for us." Sarah put down her weight and continued, saying, "They thought they were better than us because they were on the beta, but we showed them up. Now we're going to make them afraid to do this to anyone else."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but is more violence the answer here? I know how you two are feeling, but haven't we been through enough?"

My voice caught in my throat again at the end there. Mom put down her weights and walked over to me, kneeling down so she could wrap me up in another hug. She was so warm, and even though her skin was soaked I didn't mind. Her strong, musky scent filled my nose, and her powerful arms wrapped around me easily. "If you really don't want us going after those girls, Jason, we won't. At least not until your friends can weigh in on the matter. You three went through a lot, so we'll abide by your wishes on the matter. Now, sweet daughter of mine, since we won't be exacting any vengeance today, shall we go up and check on the boys?"

"You can if you want, I'm going to finish my workout. I don't want to waste a good pump."

Mom nodded in agreement and lumbered up the stairs, leaving me down in the basement with Sarah. Now that it was the two of us, I had to get out the question that had been burning in me all this time. "So, what the hell happened to you? How did you manage to put on so much size in such a little amount of time? And how the hell did you get so much taller?"

Sarah rolled her eyes at me, scoffed, and said, "Come on, Jay-jay, you can't be small AND dumb. I'm on the beta now."

"How in the hell did you get on the beta?"

"Mom had a bonus invite code and she gave it to me while you were trying to get captured by those beasts from the Middle East."

"Hey, if I had known how dangerous they were I wouldn't have gone out with them."

"Sorry to burst your little bubble, but you didn't really have a choice in the matter. If you were a quest target for them, you were going to get taken, whether you like it or not. Face it, as long as you're not on the beta you're a potential target for someone who is. So either find a way on it yourself or stick really close to someone you can trust who is, like me or mom."

"How do I get invited to the beta?"

"Since you're hurt, I won't take another chance to take a shot at your intelligence. I have no idea how to actually get on it, but clearly there are invite codes for people like us. Find someone who has an unused one and get cracking."

"Shit. That means I'll have to put myself out there again. And I don't want to have you or mom around me all the time like a personal bodyguard. I'll try to find a way to ask around, I guess. Well, thanks for the help."

"Don't mention it. Now get out of here. I have a lot more anger in me that I need to get out."

I let the moment sit with me for a second before heading back up the stairs myself. As I ascended, I heard Sarah's voice fill the air with grunts and mantras, and as I closed the door behind me I remembered the low ache in my stomach. The idea of eating still felt like too much for me, so I just warmed up some chicken broth and sipped it slowly in my room. I had only been back from school for two days, and already my life had been changed dramatically. What a start to winter break.

[tttrbn]

It took almost a full week for one of my friends to finally open their eyes. Jetty woke up first, his eyes a hazy mess struggling to take in information after nearly seven straight days asleep. I had been taking shifts with my dad so that Sarah and mom could focus on other things. I would have taken all the shifts myself, but I was still recovering so dad relieved me every night when he got home from work. I didn't see much of either of the women in my family during that time. Mom kept herself in the kitchen, trying out recipe after recipe for a nutrient-dense liquid diet to keep all three of us strong. By the time Jetty woke up I was back on solid foods, but mom still kept refining her work to make sure the other two could get back up to speed quickly. I didn't really know where Sarah was during that week. She didn't respond to any of my link message or location sharing requests, but I could only imagine that she was trying to figure out her own feelings on the event. No doubt she was still pissed at me for the whole situation, but I hoped she was also happy that I was safe. When I see her again, I'll have to ask her.

I told Jetty everything that had happened since we got to those sisters' house, included the video file of my mom and sister beating up our captors. He didn't stay awake for long, but the last thing he said before going back to sleep was, "What a ride. Wouldn't mind seeing Yasmin again, though." I couldn't help but laugh at that, and he smiled at me with the last of his energy. When Little Chris woke up a couple of hours later, I went through the same routine with him, and he more or less said the same thing.

"Overall, 9.5 out of 10. Would get my cock drained there again."

These two guys. How lucky was I that they were more focused on chasing tail again than blaming me for what had happened to them? I didn't kid myself, though - this was something I would need to make right with them when they were more cogent. But at least I could absolve myself of some of the shame I was feeling.

A few days later my friends started being able to stay awake for longer stretches. Mom refused to come into the room and feed them directly for fear of how they would react upon seeing her, and she even managed to hide herself from me during this time as well. Whenever the next batch of their soup was ready, she would message me and I would find the bowls in the kitchen on a tray, but there would be no sign of her. And I still hadn't heard anything from Sarah. Whatever. I was grateful for the help when they rescued us and the help now, but if Sarah and mom don't want to talk to me, that's something they can deal with on their own.

By the end of the second week of my winter break, Jetty and Little Chris could stay awake for nearly five hours at a time and had basically all of their mental faculties back. Their bodies were still doing poorly, but we could start on physical therapy in the next couple of days. I was taking turns feeding them the soup, something that they had quickly come to terms with, and we were shooting the breeze like normal. We stuck to link chat, though, since I didn't want them burning any excess energy talking.

"You've been a perfectly fine nurse to us, JM, but I wouldn't mind a change in staff every now and again."
"How quickly you forget - at night, instead of looking at his ugly mug we get to be in the care of his old man, Mr. Manheim."
"You guys are such shitheads. I'm glad you're feeling better."
"Only way for us to be."
"But seriously, I thought Sarah was into me. Where has she been?"
"I have no idea. I haven't seen her since our first night back here, and she's all but blocked me."
"Ice cold of her."
"Did you do something to piss her off?"
"IDK, nothing out of the ordinary. I guess I could have thanked her more for rescuing us? I mean, I thought I was pretty thankful to her and my mom."
"Oh, sweet Mrs. Manheim. I can't believe how beefed up she was in that video file you shared. She must be even bigger now, right?"
"Once upon a time I fantasized about her, but now Sarah is the only Lady M for me."
"Same story as my sister. I haven't seen her, but at least she lets me know when your food is ready."
"Now you definitely must have done something to piss her off."
"Ice cold of her."
"Well, she and Sarah were really into the idea of beating up those sisters even more. I told them no. Mom said she would listen to me, but we'd revisit this when you two are awake."
"All is fair in love and war. I would be used and abused 100 times over if it meant I got to make love to a gigantic babe like Yasmin."
"You told them no? Dude, you're such a pussy."
"I can't help but notice that I'm getting mixed signals here."
"You know how I role, JM. Remember that girl I dated a few years ago when Game Mode was still new? She was practically abusive, but every time she showed me her back muscles I came crawling back."
"Those twisted sisters nearly killed us and your family, who already paid them a serious beating, wanted to go back for more and you told them no? Kinda fucked up, tbh."
"Glad I know where you guys stand on the matter. Well, Sarah will definitely be happy to hear that she can go beat up Fadwa again. You want me to tell her?"
"Oh, Yuxiang, how I miss her. Maybe I should see how she's doing?"
"Yeah man, tell Sarah to go fucking nuts."

While we were talking I sent Sarah another link message. I tried to word it carefully, ending up with, "Just talking to Little Chris. He wants you to find Fadwa, the sister who took him, and, quote, 'go fucking nuts'. Thought you might want to know." As quickly as I had sent her the message, I saw that she had reacted to it with a thumbs-up link emoji and sent me a video file. It must have been from her perspective, but it was a little hard to tell. It looked like she was standing in the woods, right next to some really tall, thick tree. She growled, her voice sounding a lot deeper than normal, and a massive fist made contact with the bark. Immediately upon making contact, the tree was severed at the point of contact, the top part of it falling to the ground with an ear-splitting thud. I decided not to share that with my friends, but rejoined the link chat.

"I told Sarah your wishes, Little Chris. She's on it."
"Damn, Yuxiang looks good now. Her back looks even bigger than it used to..."
"Thank you, JM. And on that note, I think Jetty and me are fully capable of feeding ourselves. What are you still doing here, wasting your whole winter break looking after us?"
"Uh, what? I'm the reason you're both laid up like this. What else would I be doing?"
"What else is there, my innocent friend? You wanted to find a big girl, and she ended up being a bit of a predator, so try to find one who isn't."
"For real. Just because we have to be here doesn't mean you do. Get back out there."
"There's no arguing with you two, is there?"
"If I see you here tomorrow I'm going to tell your mom you've been diddling us in our sleep."
"And that you've been eating our food instead of giving it to us."
"You two are twisted. Fine. I'll go out tonight or something."

I finished feeding them a short while later, and not long after that my friends were asleep again. The idea of going back out after what Sarah and I had talked about didn't sound like the best idea, but I guess I wasn't doing myself any favors by disappearing from the world. I don't need to do anything crazy tonight either. I can just head into the city for dinner and maybe a drink afterwards. That's it. And if any girl approaches me who looks a little too eager, I'll run home as fast as I can. Fun.

[tttrbn]

That night it was on. I was feeling a lot better now that my friends had basically egged me on. Even I had to admit they were right. It was getting too stuffy sitting in the house all day, and I needed to stretch my legs a little. Figuratively, though, since I called a cab to take me into the city. A short, automated drive later, and I was out of the suburbs and once again where the people were. Immediately I started looking around for signs of beta testers. There was no way for me to tell who was looking different than they usually did, but as my mom, Sarah, and those sisters showed, there is a very obvious physical tell when someone starts cashing in their points like crazy. While most of the people walking around looked like absolute specimens, they all looked like normal Game Mode users. I was safe, for now at least.

It was a little after 8 PM when I made it into the city, so pretty much every restaurant that interested me was already packed. Even places with the fastest turnarounds still had waits between 30 and 45 minutes. That shouldn't have been such a big deal since I wasn't on a schedule, but a part of me wanted to be able to get in and get out quickly. With how much my nerves were flaring as I walked around, I was desperate for a drink, but I didn't want to go anywhere until I had some real food in my stomach. But with the way things were looking, fine dining would be out of the question for me. That left old reliable: fast food.

As the idea crossed my mind, ads for local burger chains started flooding my link feed. This usually wasn't a problem since ads were kept to a minimum when you were at home, school, or work, and I hadn't paid attention to them the last time I went out, but tonight I actually welcomed the distraction. A guy could only look over his shoulder so many times to see if a titanic woman was trying to hunt him down, so the intermittent stream of mouth-watering, flame-grilled, all-beef patties coming into my consciousness helped keep me grounded, in a weird way. As long as I wasn't in a club, it would look weird for someone to just pick me up and run away with me, so I could at least rely on the social contract to keep me safe.

I was switching between the ads and my paranoia so much that I hadn't even realized I had walked into a burger place. Right away the smell of meet and onions on the grill hit my nose and reminded me of simpler times. Times when the people I loved weren't turning into gigantic monsters before my eyes and I didn't need to worry so much all the time. There was probably a lesson or a greater bit of perspective I could be gaining from all this, but before I could learn anything my stomach growled, reminding me why I was really here. There was a small line in front of me, only three people, but I wasn't familiar with the menu. Man, their specials and daily deals went on for pages. When did ordering food become so complicated?

As I considered all my options, I stood towards the back of the dining area. I was close to the doors, but not so close that I could be snatched easily from someone outside the establishment. My eyes flickered over every line of the menu, but I was having trouble focusing. For the first time tonight, it wasn't due to my general anxiety over coming here without protection. Rather, it was the sound of someone gorging themselves on food. I didn't know how I missed her on my way in, but seated at a table directly across from the front door was a mammoth of a woman hunched over a table, shoveling burger after burger into her mouth.

Curiosity won over, and I decided to take a closer look at what was happening. I was behind her, so as I walked towards her I saw that she was basically a freak of nature. She was so wide that she needed to distribute her weight across two chairs, and even with that her hips were spilling over the sides and the legs of the chairs were buckling under her heft. Her shoulders and back were just as wide as her hips, and her whole upper body was wrapped in a red and blue flannel that was straining to cover her copious bulges. Her blonde hair was tied in a messy bun, likely just to keep it out of her food and away from her mouth. It looked like she was wearing jeans, but given how the fabric stretched over her ass and thighs they must have been a jeans-colored kind of leggings. They left very little to the imagination, as they were stretched in multiple places to the point of being nearly transparent. I could actually see the bright pink boy-shorts she was wearing under her leggings because of how thin the fabric was being stretched.

As I started to cross over to her side, I could see, among other things, how long her legs were. She was seated quite a ways away from the table due to the simply enormous stomach she had, and she still had to keep her legs bent since they could easily reach the other side of the table. Her flannel wasn't buttoned, as I expected, and so I saw that she was also wearing a black undershirt. It somehow managed to keep all the skin of her torso covered, including her vast stomach, but it looks equally as worn as the rest of her clothes. Despite its size, her flannel only covered up to the middle of her forearms, which looked big enough to have their own postal codes, and I could see very faint blonde hairs growing along them. Hands that could have easily palmed my head with room to spare made the burgers she was forcing down her throat look like sliders, but despite her messy manner of eating her face looked incredibly clean.

A few stray hairs that weren't caught in her bun made their way to the sides of this woman's face. While her body fat percentage must have defied all laws of mathematics, her face looked like it belonged on a woman who was about a hundred pounds overweight. She was laser-focused on her food, but I could still see the freckles along the bridge of her nose. While I would have been hard-pressed to recognize her otherwise, this particular arrangement of freckles was unmistakable to me.

"Holy shit, you're 'Megaton' Molly Barret, the champion fighter in the Game Mode league. What are you doing here, shouldn't you be in Seattle?"

She didn't slow down for a second, but before she could down another burger in a single bite she simply responded with, "Bulking."

It was at this point that I finally looked at her table. Or, rather, her tables. Four of them were arranged next to each other, and from the density of wrappers on two of them I could only imagine what the spread must have looked like when she first sat down.

"Well, you don't know me but I'm a huge fan. Jason. That's, uh, my name. I didn't think I'd ever get to meet you in person, but I've watched all your fights from the last ten years. Can I, uh, buy you a burger? Or twelve?"

Once again, she didn't look up from her meal. This time, she didn't even dignify me with a verbal response, opting instead to grunt and shrug her shoulders. I took that as a 'yes' and decided I didn't need to look at the menu anymore. At this time, the line was gone, so I just walked up to the register and ordered 13 double-burger meals - twelve for Molly, one for me. The staff helped me bring them over to her a minute later when they were all ready, and it was good timing because she was down to her last table of food. I sat down across from her, clearing some of the trash from the tables, but before I could eat my food I was mesmerized by the raw efficiency of what was before me. There wasn't a single wasted movement or unit of energy as she brought the fatty, greasy food to her mouth. I wasn't sure how good this could be for a professional athlete, but I wouldn't doubt her process.

By the time I was ready to eat, though, my food was gone. I looked down just in time to see her huge paw reach over and shove my burger into her mouth as unceremoniously as the last few dozen. I wasn't even mad, though, because now that the food was done Molly leaned back, sighed, and stretched. As she did those simple movements, I got to watch all of her move, undulate, and flex. I don't remember her ever being close to this big, but I certainly wasn't complaining.

[tttrbn]

As she stretched, I got to watch Molly raise up her arms. The muscles in her biceps and triceps bunched up and exploded, making her already huge, thick arms look like they had tripled in size. I could see sweat stains soaking into the armpits of her flannel through her undershirt. With how much she had been putting away, it was no wonder that her body was fighting back a little bit. I watched her tense up for half of a second, and as she did the sleeves tore around her expanded musculature. After that, she relaxed her body and stood up, knocking the table over with her stomach.

Now that she was standing, I could tell that she had grown. Not in terms of muscles, that was painfully obvious, but in height. Megaton Molly had been listed at 6'6" her whole fighting career, but I had been around enough huge women recently to know that she was a lot closer to 7'. And since she was standing now, I could see that her undershirt couldn't contain her gut anymore, and the bottom part of it was poking out, reaching its bottom near the middle of her thighs. She patted her stomach, the soft flesh shaking under her strong hands, and looked down at me. I almost couldn't believe she could see me over her pectoral shelf, her oversized breasts, or that huge belly of her, but she spoke like I was standing right next to her.

"You live around here?"

I gulped before replying with, "Uh, yeah. Yes. I've lived in the suburbs outside this city my whole life. Why?"

"I'm still hungry. Where's a good place to get more meat? Barbecue is ideal."

"You're still... okay, wow. Um, there's a pretty good place up the road, actually. It's kind of small, but really tasty."

"Come on, we're going." She waved her arm at me, basically ordering me to follow her, and so I did. I tried talking to Molly, asking for more details about why she's here, or even telling her about some of my favorite fights of hers, but she just didn't care. The woman was hungry, and I had to take her to her next meal. She followed me as I directed her to a little shack of a building called Chucky Sue's. The joint was so small she had to turn to the side and bend down just to get through the door, but once she was inside she sat down right in the middle of the floor, not caring that she was blocking the door for everyone else. She looked up at me, and I got a notification that she had transferred me some funds, and holy shit did she send me a lot of cash.

"That should cover the burgers you bought for me and what I want from here. I'll keep it easy: ten of everything."

"Uh, sure, but, Molly, you're kind of... blocking..."

As I tried to tell her to be considerate of the other customers here, she gave me a glare that could freeze fire. Even though she was sitting on the floor, her torso was so long that she was nearly looking me in the eyes.

"If they want to leave, they can get around me. Just get me my food. Now."

There was no arguing with her. Molly spoke in absolute commands, leaving me with no choice but to obey. I walked up to the counter and placed the order. The clerk would probably normally have been wary of an order that size, but she saw Molly walk in (not that there was any way to miss her), and understood. I noticed that I had a lot of leftover money from what Molly had sent me, so I tried to send the change back to her but she rejected it. The rejection came with a text note that said, "Keep it. I'm going to want more after this, so I'll probably have to send you more anyway." I just shrugged and waited at the counter until the first round of her food was ready.

Over the course of the next half hour, I walked back and forth between the counter and Molly's spot on the floor a few dozen times. Each time I approached her, I was hit with the mixed scents of meat and sweat. Her musk was making me dizzy every time I got near, and whenever she lifted her arms up to get another tray from me the intensity just skyrocketed. Once everything had been delivered to her, I plopped down on the floor next to her. The area immediately surrounding her bulk was littered with empty trays and other trash, but no one in the establishment was going to say anything to her. As she had said before, people had been coming in and out of the restaurant since she took her space on the floor, and though there was very little room between her and the door people somehow managed to squeeze through. Sitting beside her, I was able to get full whiffs of her odor every time I inhaled. It was intoxicating, really. Such a heady aroma, and it was full of strength.

Just as I was starting to get lost in Molly's odor, I heard a jingle from behind her as the restaurant's front door opened. It got stuck against Molly's wide, thick back as it had every other time, but unlike those times a thick, deep, yet still audibly feminine voice spoke up with a hint of anger. "What the hell? Who put this fat cow in the doorway?"

I looked up, and standing in the front door was a woman that would have made Fadwa look small when she fought my mom and sister. This woman was easily over 8' tall, possibly even over 9' tall, and was wearing two pasties to cover her areolas, a tight pair of workout shorts, and combat boots that looked like they were about to fall apart from the strain of covering her enormous feet. Her head was bald, but she more than made up for it with the rest of her. Thick bushes were growing out of her armpits, a dense trail went from the middle of her 8 pack abs down to her shorts (from which a sizable bulge was also growing), and her legs were practically shrouded by the hair that was growing on them. It was all thick, coarse-looking black hair, but the parts of her body that weren't covered by it looks absolutely shredded. Between the sheer vascularity and definition of her body, it looked like she must have had a body fat percentage less than 3. Looking back up at her face, she had dark makeup on that made her look like some sort of goth or punk (I could never really tell the difference). She snarled again at Molly, waiting for an answer.

Once I was done taking her in, fear and anxiety overtook me. This chick, she was a beta-tester for sure. That kind of size would be impossible to get without it. I could feel my chest tighten as my breathing started to get faster, and a cold sweat quickly covered my head. Just as I was about to fully freak out, though, Molly looked away from her food and looked into my eyes. "It's going to be okay."

She stood up, her rolls jiggling every which way as she rose to her full height. While Molly was still physically impressive, the effect was diminished given the height difference between her and this new woman. Without an ounce of ceremony, Molly belched in this woman's face and asked, "What's your problem, butch? Afraid your girlfriend is going to leave you for a broad with a bigger cock or something?"

The punk woman answered Molly's insult with a roar and rocked back to punch her in the face. To her credit, I'm sure it would have sent pretty much any other person flying and would have knocked them out for days. But not the champ. Molly took the hit like someone had thrown a paper ball at her, yawned, and asked, "Are you hitting on me? Cuz it's not working." Then, without any wind-up, Molly landed a jab on the taller woman's hairy abs. She buckled immediately, losing her wind, and spewing spit all over the floor. Molly then pushed her to the side, looked at me, and said, "Lost my appetite. Let's go." Without another word, Molly started lumbering out of the restaurant. After a second to catch my wits, I followed her, trying to stick as close to her as possible without being assaulted by her blubber.

We walked for a few minutes until we got to the park. Once again, Molly decided to sit down in the middle of the path without saying anything. It was getting late, so there wasn't anyone around us, but if there were there was still enough space to move around Molly's bulk. I sat down on a bench next to her, and after working up the courage for another minute finally said, "Hey, uh, thanks for telling me things were going to be okay back there. If you don't mind me asking, why did you beat her up, though?"

For the first time since I met her, Molly seemed to ponder her words before speaking. After a few seconds, she replied, "You looked like you were about to have a panic attack, and I couldn't have that. And since it seemed like that lady was the reason why, I took care of her for you. That's all."

"Wow. That's actually really kind of you. I was going to have a panic attack, or something like it. I had a recent... well, a bit of trauma, I guess, with a woman that looked kind of like her. Well, not really like her, but around her size, so it was kicking back up. I appreciate you taking care of me."

"Sure thing. You're my guide around this city after all, so I can't have you feeling threatened."

"I'm your city guide, huh? Well... that sounds plenty good to me, actually. To be honest, you've kind of been my hero the last couple years. It was always cool to me that you were so big and strong, even before Game Mode, but that's not what drew me to you. It was your unbeatable spirit and tenacity. I remember six years ago, before this all started, when you went forty-seven rounds with the former world champion, Kimiko Sakuraba. She had talked such major trash about you leading up to the event, saying that she could take you down in less than ten rounds. I remember the first time she knocked you down, three rounds in, when it looked like the match was over and her trash talk would be proven right, but on the eighth count you stood back up! And even though she knocked you down eleven more times that fight, you kept getting back up until you finally delivered the knockout punch in the forty-seventh round. The announcers were going nuts, saying that you had somehow stayed in the fight so long that you had dragged it out to where anyone was one punch away from winning, but I'll never forget the look in your eyes. You were tired, yeah, but it wasn't an act of randomness or chance that lead to you winning. You had wanted the fight to go on for as long as possible to make a statement. Hell, based on your next fight later that week, it seemed to me like you could have knocked Kimiko out a lot earlier, but that wasn't the point. You wanted to prove to her, prove to everyone, that what really matters in life is grit."

I stared at her for a little while as it looked like Molly was taking in what I had said. Truthfully, I was expecting some kind of heartwarming reaction from her since I kind of bore my soul out, but instead of any of that she just started laughing like crazy. Her head bobbed back and forth as more and more laughter fell out of her mouth, tears streaming down her wide cheeks as she could hardly contain the humor of the moment. I was shocked more than anything, though I was also a little offended, so after three straight minutes of her laughing I had to cut in, yelling over her with, "Hey! What's so funny about that story?"

She forced herself to calm down before replying, "Kid, you're a funny one, I'll give you that. I'm glad that that's what you took from my fight with Sakuraba, but it's a complete load of horseshit. I was way out of my depth in that fight, but I was so loaded up on stimulants that I barely felt her hit me. All of that was legal at the time, mind you, since we were fighting in a no-holds-barred league. Don't think that Sakuraba wasn't filled to the gills with steroids and stimulants either. That fight wasn't about grit, kid. The announcers got it right, I managed to drag it out long enough where either of us could have taken the belt home. It was my only real shot of winning, so I played to my outs."

"Wow. Uh, okay. I mean, that kind of sucks to hear, to be honest. Since that fight, I would look back on it whenever times were tough to remind myself to stay resolved no matter what. Fuck me, I guess."

"Well, if you're offering."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Once again, Molly stood up, sending waves of her sweaty musk at me as her thick, fatty rolls undulated from the effort. She looked down at me, her eyes a mixture of predation and softness.

"You're a good time and I like you. There's something about you, you're earnest, I guess, and it appeals to me. You're not afraid of your weakness and you're not afraid to make an idiot of yourself around someone you've idolized for a while. It's nice."

"What do you mean I'm not afraid of my weakness? I nearly had a panic attack in that restaurant when that punk lady walked in."

"Yeah, because she reminded you of your ex or whoever it was that fucked you up so bad. But you weren't afraid to approach me, even though I'm probably six or eight times as strong as she was. This doesn't need to be a whole thing, but I'm horny and I like you enough to want to fuck you. You in or out?"

Could the world really be so simple?

"Alright, I'm in. Your place, right?"