From: lewj99@yahoo.com Here`s the new Bannister story, at long last...enjoy! JL BANNISTER PART 4 - The Recruitment CRACK! Drew dropped the bat and shaded his eyes as he watched the ball blast through the air, soaring hundreds of feet above the clearing before fading into a tiny white dot. He`d been practicing all morning, and could hit the dry riverbed half a mile away with frightening accuracy. Sweat dripped off his massively muscled body as the hot summer sun beat down; it was hot enough that he`d stripped down to his briefs, which struggled to contain his own Louisville Slugger. It had been nearly a month since the incident downtown. After such a public display of destruction, he figured it would be best to lay low for a while, so he`d headed to his cabin in the mountains. Not that he was afraid of anything the police or army could throw at him. He knew he could rip apart a tank with his bare hands, which he had first done at an army surplus depot after getting wasted on his sixteenth birthday. His only concern was getting thrown into the public spotlight, if anyone connected him to what happened downtown. The authorities blamed it on a bomb blast, one powerful enough to blast a bank vault door off its hinges and cause major structural damage to an office building across the street. Of course, nobody could explain why only one building was damaged, or why investigators had found a set of indentations on the mangled vault door that looked strangely like a hand print...privately, the investigation had caused quite a stir, first in the police, until it was turned over to the Army. But thoughts like that were a million miles away from Drew`s head as he tossed another ball in the air, cocked his bat, and nailed it straight on. The ball took an incredible arc through the still air, headed for the riverbed...but as Drew squinted, he caught sight of the ball bouncing off the thick trunk of a redwood. "Shit," he muttered, "third time today. Time to do somethin` about it." He tossed the bat aside and and strode toward the tree on legs far more sturdy than any of the massive trunks soaring around him. Stopping at the redwood`s base, he craned his neck; this particular tree was impressive, about 100 feet tall. His heart rate picked up slightly as he ran his hand up the rough bark, and his firehose cock sank a little to the left. Drew stripped his briefs off and stood in front of the redwood, in the buff. "Always thought I shoulda been a lumberjack," he smiled, grabbing the trunk in a brutal bear hug. But the trunk was way too big for him to encircle, so he went to plan B. Backing up about fifty feet, Drew crouched down and squared his shoulders, facing the redwood like a linebacker eyeing a tackling dummy. He sprinted at the tree, shoulders low, feet kicking up clods of dirt as he covered the distance quickly. CRUNCH! The impact rocked the tree, splintering it up the middle and sending birds fleeing from the top. The trunk had bowed inward where Drew`s battering-ram shoulder hit. He backed up again, snorted like a bull, then took off once more. BOOM! The second collision opened a 30-foot high crack, and angled the entire trunk forward. In less than a minute, the brute of a man standing at the redwood`s base had caused more damage than centuries of earthquakes and storms. And it was just the start. Drew pressed his right foot against the tree`s base, the sole of his size-15 Nike digging into the bark next to the crater his shoulder had made. He flexed his right quad a couple of times, the corded muscle bouncing in response, then pushed. The tree groaned as Drew`s quad rippled, bunching up into an incredible v-shape. He leaned in close, close enough for the head of his massive, semi- erect cock to brush against the rough bark, and breathed a little harder. Striations leapt forth in that oil drum quad as the ancient tree cracked and groaned, struggling to hold on against the building pressure. The base splintered like toothpicks around Drew`s sneaker, as he pushed it farther and farther forward...he spun around and delivered three quick karate kicks - boom, boom, boom -and the redwood simply split open, collapsing under its own weight. It crashed to the forest floor, taking a couple of smaller trees with it. Drew stood over the fallen tree and grunted his approval, flexing his engorged thigh a couple of times. "Yeah, couldn`t handle this fucker, could ya?" he sneered, spitting in the dirt before turning around and heading back. The next five balls all landed in the riverbed. --------------- A couple of hours later, Drew was relaxing back in the cabin, half asleep, wondering what to do with the fallen tree. He was about to doze off when he heard a car in the distance, its engine struggling slightly as it climbed the steep access road. There were no other cabins in the area, and the nearest highway was 5 miles away, so the car had to be headed for his place. Drew grabbed some clothes from the closet, an old workshirt with the sleeves torn off and a pair of cutoff jeans. Looking out the window, he could see the vehicle clearly - a jeep. An Army jeep. Drew watched the Jeep pull up in front of his house. The lone driver grabbed some papers and stepped out cautiously. He looked fairly young, barely old enough to drink; six feet tall and fairly well built, though nowhere near Drew`s league. Private Burke, according to his uniform. He paused for a minute, then knocked on the oak door. Drew opened the door and stood there, silent. The young soldier did a double take when he saw the size of the man standing before him, six and a half feet tall with shoulders that filled the doorframe, and arms that looked like they were forged from cast iron. Burke swallowed hard. "Um, are you Andrew J. Bannister, Social Security Number 489-36-8275?" "Yeah," Drew said, followed by a long silence. Finally Burke spoke again. "I`ve been authorized to give you this." He handed Drew a letter, which the big man opened and glanced over. It was signed by a Sargeant Daniels, and was to the point: it invited him to go to a nearby army base for an `informal meeting` in two days time. It closed with Daniel`s saying he was looking forward to meeting someone of Drew`s `unique abilities`. So the cat was out of the bag. "Tell the Sargeant I`ll think about it," Drew said in a flat tone, even though he had already decided to go. "Yes sir," Burke said, visibly relieved. "Is there anything else?" Drew asked, arching his eyebrow. "No sir," the soldier replied, turning to walk away... then stopped. "Actually, there is. This is off the record, but I gotta ask, since I heard some crazy shit down at the base. How strong are you anyway?" Drew shot the young private a broad grin, and scratched his beard. "Soldier, you wouldn`t belive me if I told ya. I`ve wrecked a lot of shit in my day though." He walked over to the Jeep and gave it a once-over. "Want a demo?" Burke`s eyes widened. "Wait, that`s US Army property, you can`t..." he protested meekly, but the growing bulge in his khakis gave away his interest. Squatting down, Drew slid his hands under the Jeep`s frame. Steadying his grip, Drew quickly rose to his feet, levering the Jeep off the ground with arms far more powerful than any forklift. Burke gasped, and the bulge in his pants became a tent. Drew noticed the hard-on and smiled. "Soldier, I`m just gettin` warmed up. Follow me." He tilted the Jeep in his monster arms, resting it against his Everest biceps, which dug into the tough metal. He started walking toward the forest, Burke following close behind. The Jeep bobbed in Drew`s arms as he maneuvered it through the trees (and tree stumps). After five minutes, he took a left and headed toward a rock face, which he followed for another half-mile. Burke had to jog to keep up with the big man`s pace. Finally, Drew came to a stop in front of a cave and glanced over his left shoulder. "Hope you don`t have anything important in here," he said in a serious tone. Burke could only shake his head, unable to take his eyes off the enormous span of Drew`s back and shoulders. The cave was oddly shaped - wide enough to accomodate the Jeep lengthwise, but only about seven feet tall, leaving little headroom for Drew. Without a word, he shifted the Jeep so that he was underneath it, then squatted down and backed into the cave. The top of the Jeep scraped the cave`s ceiling. Drew looked at Burke, looked up, and nodded slowly. "Holy shit--" Burke blurted out, as he realized what was about to happen. He`d never been so hard in his life. With a half-grunt, half-bark, Drew shot upward on his redwood- cracking quads, easily pressing the Jeep upwards. He only made it about a foot before the vehicle hit the top of the cave with a crash, cracking the windshield. Now Drew put his arms into it, pressing a ton and a half of metal into the solid rock above. The frame creaked ominously, while the windshield burst and shattered. "Yep, just gettin` started," he said through clenched teeth, to the disbelieving Army private. Folds appeared in the thick metal along the Jeep`s sides as Drew steadily rose, inch by inch, his arms bulging with ropes of muscle. Trapped between the granite above and the hydraulic force of the 23- year-old freak below, the Jeep didn`t stand a chance. Heavy steel groaned and buckled as the frame collapsed; Drew`s muscle had reduced it to half its former height. "Jee-sus," Burke whistled, as he dropped his pants and pulled out his cock, which throbbed painfully. Again, not exactly in Drew`s league, but at 7 and a half inches, not bad either. "Like this show, huh, soldier?" Drew snarled. Egged on, he pushed even harder, and the Jeep shivered under his power. The spare tire buckled and blew, while the engine itself began to compress, pistons breaking and twisting and Drew rose nearly to his full height. Oil dribbled down over his bicep, following the curve of the swollen head. Burke stroked his cock slowly, completely transfixed by the muscle man before him. Another thirty seconds, and the Jeep was barely recognizable, compacted into a concave slab of twisted metal. Drew dropped his vein-covered arms, but the Jeep didn`t move, compressed into the cave`s ceiling. Burke jerked furiously, looking like he was about to shoot, until Drew looked him in the eye. "Uh-uh. Not yet. Not til you get a load of this." With a sharp grunt, Drew drove his arms upward again, completely flattening the metal beneath his paws. His arms erupted in a freaky display of cabled, veined muscle, while his hairy pecs mounded and jutted like two rocky outcroppings, popping the buttons on his old workshirt. The sound of creaking metal was quickly replaced by another sound, which to Burke sounded like gunshots -@but coming from within the rock face. One deep breath, and fabric tore over Drew`s sweeping lats. CRRRACK! Another ear-splitting boom. The young soldier`s jaw hit the ground as he watched Drew take on untold tons of solid rock...fissures spread out in every direction from the cave, soon joined by a series of larger, zig-zagging cracks. Drew`s bi`s and tri`s writhed with frightening power, his bearded face clenched from the inhuman effort. Small bits of granite began to fall away from the rock face, and Burke swore he could see a huge section shift a few inches upward. The cracks spread further, a dozen feet in every direction, as a slight rumbling began to shake the ground. Drew let out a roar, which echoed into ear-splitting proportions inside the cave. That was all for Burke. He moaned loud and long as he shot his load, splattering the forest floor with ropes of thick cum. Drew was so involved that he barely noticed, savoring the feel of granite shifting and cracking under his hands. He still hadn`t tapped the full extent of his power, but the cave started collapsing around him, and seeing that Burke had gone over the top, he figured that was enough. Drew stepped from the cave; seconds later, the defeated granite caved in, filling the space below. A bit of crushed metal poked out from between two of the boulders. Drew walked by Burke, watched as he squeezed out a few last drops from his dying erection, and smiled. "Don`t ask, don`t tell, right soldier?" Burke was so in shock he couldn`t respond. "Well, you`d better get walking. It`s a long way back to the main road, seein` as I`ve turned your Jeep into a fuckin` pancake." Drew tightened his rippling guns as he said this. "And one more thing. Tell Daniels I`ll be there, but tell him he`d better not fuck with me. If this isn`t legit, I`ll turn the whole goddam base into a junkyard. Jeeps, tanks, whatever. Don`t think Uncle Sam would appreciate that." He walked away from the cracked rock face, his mind racing a mile a minute. How had they linked him to what happened downtown? What did they have planned? He certainly had a lot of questions for Daniels to answer. But it was a change from the demolition business, and he`d been at the cabin long enough. It was time for a new challenge. "Besides," he grinned, "I always wanted to be all I that I could be." END PART 4