Danny Meets His Match
By Chip Masterson
chipmasterson@yahoo.com

Danny was more excited than I'd seen him in a long time.  Lately science stuff 
was beginning to bore him but he hit upon a new idea that took us out into the 
desert, to an old nuclear testing ground.  "It's a experiment" he said with mock 
ignorance.  He'd been playing up the "I'm just a kid" angle ever since the docks 
and it was soooo annoying.

"I'm gonna solve the Chicxulub problem."  Yeah, fine, whatever.  He got his 
bored-patient look on.  "You know, the dinosaurs?  What happened was, a comet or 
asteroid the size of a small city hit and was felt all around the planet.  What 
happened was, it also turned much of the Yucatan into mush, causing rock to 
behave like a thick fluid.  What happened was, the meteor generated vibrating 
acoustic waves this one guy thinks.  These waves then supported the weight of 
the rock, reducing friction deep down in the pile of smashed bedrock, and 
allowing the whole mess to slip around, so it blooped back up.  Like when you 
drop a rock in the water, it bloops back up.  Only the waves made the rocks flow 
without melting them.  Then it settles back into this concentric ring, but they 
don't know why.  They think the bloop in the middle was three times as tall as 
Mt. Everest.  Sounds rad."

"And you're gonna do all that with your itty bitty fist," I said loosely and 
sarcastically while my balls tightened with terror.  I sneered to keep from 
throwing up.  Danny saw the conflict in my face and smirked.

"Naw, I'm not gonna wipe everything out... today.  Just a little mini-experiment 
to see if I can make the same thing happen.  You know," (I hate it when he reads 
the paper) "when they imploded the Seattle Kingdome it was the same as a 2.3 
Richter quake.  That's what I'm aiming for."

I felt dizzy, and nauseous in the back of that bouncing humvee on our way to the 
Nevada test site.  I hate quakes.  Real ones are bad enough but they always end, 
you can tell when they're about to leave.  The ones these guys generate are 
weird, they sometimes keep rippling as if the rocks can't take the force but 
keep bouncing it around like an echo.  I get so afraid they'll set off something 
major I can't sleep for days after.

I tried to blow all the dust from my nose.  It was gonna happen fast so Cole & 
Salas set up the video cameras to try to capture it and we moved a "safe" 
distance away.  With these two I felt a little more secure, anyway.

The first part of the experiment went fine. Danny found a wide rocky place with 
just a little surface soil on it.  To protect any wildlife, he stamped his foot 
a couple times, shaking the ground like Bam Bam. A flurry of mini-stampedes 
rustled out of the area.  Birds flew up, javelina and rabbits scurried away, 
mice came out of the ground and fled.  He waited until it was all deathly quiet.  
Then, warming up his shoulder like he was about to throw out the first pitch, he 
jumped straight up about twenty feet into the air, twisted around, reared back 
and falling, SLAMMED his fist into the solid rock.  

The camera equipment was stabilized a little but still rocked with the tremblor 
that ripped out of the desert as if nuclear testing had started all over again.  
We watched in awe as we saw exactly what Danny predicted happen: solid rock 
flowed up into a peak about three times as tall as Danny, rippling as his impact 
forced it to move unnaturally; and then dust obscured everything but the 
infrared camera, which would have to wait until later.  The rings were starting 
to solidify as the quake died down when suddenly BLAM!  Another, huger quake 
knock even Cole and Salas on their asses and the equipment fell and shattered.  
Then all the shaking stopped.  I leapt onto Salas's back as we raced to the 
epicenter to see what the damage was.

What we saw stopped us in our tracks.  Danny lay flat on his back and a boy 
smaller than he but immensely muscled and bronze as a statue over him.  The 
ground sagged into a shallow dish around them, the ring structure about ten feet 
across.  He looked hard at us, appraising.  "I'm Tetsuo," he said, his black 
hair glistening through the dust.  "I didn't like your earthquake, so I, ah, 
knocked it out."  The look on Danny's face showed that that's exactly what 
happened: Tetsuo had somehow canceled Danny's earthquake!  We all looked around 
for what sort of machine had that could possible do that but there was nothing 
nearby.

"Let me show you a real earthquake," he said softly, and chuckled.  He got down 
on one knee, his eyebrows raised in an expression radiating "Huh? What's he 
gonna do?"  He cocked his head to the side a moment, then smiled broadly, 
shadowing in his young features the handsome man he would grow into.  Raising 
his hand almost limply, he suddenly tightened a bicep denser than steel and 
BOOOM!  Hit the earth with a force that cracked it inches open but then raised a 
pillar at least two hundred feet high into the air.  The force threw us all back 
dozens of yards and we hit ground that was anything but solid: it bounced around 
like the earth had gone insane.  A deepening pit formed all around us as 
pulverized bedrock flowed like lava beneath the surface.  All around us we could 
hear cracking and splitting, the roaring of faultlines igniting and furious 
tectonic plates forced from their beds.  Plumes of smoke and dust flew up around 
the surround mountains and the force continued for what seemed like hours.  We 
did the best we could to scramble out of the collapsing depression that sagged 
wider and wider around us.  Cole, Salas and Danny still couldn't stand when 
Salas roared (his voice jiggling) "ON THREE!  ONE!  TWO!  THREE!" 

BOOM! all three hit the ground at once, trying to cancel out the shockwaves the 
way Tetsuo had.  The rumbling continued; they couldn't even tell which direction 
the waves were moving in.  "HARDER!" Cole shouted.  "ONE!  TWO!  THREE!"  POW!  
And the ground still moved: together they still couldn't match Tetsuo's power.  
The tried it again, on three...WHAM!  They could have been flies landing.  They 
tried it AGAIN and AGAIN in a pile-driver rhythm that caused the massive 
hemorrhage of solid rock to subside.  Maybe, I thought with horror, it had 
really just stopped on its own.

The quake lasted an incredible 4.53 minutes.  

Tetsuo was nowhere to be seen; even Danny, Cole and Salas's eagle eyes and ears 
couldn't find him.  We gathered up the shattered equipment and headed back for 
the hummer when BLAM!  An aftershock hit that was still three or four times the 
strength of the quake Danny had created.  A FUCKING AFTERSHOCK.  Again they hit 
the ground uselessly, until on the third try the rumbling stopped suddenly.  

The desert was a mess: huge clouds turned the sun to blood and rocky 
outcroppings and sinkholes had appeared out of nowhere.  The entire land had 
utterly changed its appearance.

The humvee was in ruins as bouncing rocks had pierced its undercarriage; it 
would be a long trek home.  

***

The air force base where Danny trained was a ruin.  Planes on their sides with 
shattered wings, most of the buildings piles of broken lumber and twisted sheet 
metal.   It looked like the guys had had a party themselves.  

The only building left standing was the specially reinforced hangar they used 
for special training.  The extra steel and concrete used to fortify it could 
withstand attacks by most anything a military enemy might launch at it, 
including the guys themselves.  We huddled in there, where Danny repaired a 
shortwave radio to find out the news.

Las Vegas had been leveled.  Every hotel had collapsed, the entire surviving 
population was without a single shelter and fires raged along the strip that the 
crippled fire department couldn't begin to handle.  Phoenix, Tucson, Reno, San 
Diego and Los Angeles all had serious damage.  The quake had been felt in six 
states.  We all felt sick ... and a little scared.  We knew the aftershocks 
would continue for weeks, with strengths to dominate even the fiercest quakes of 
the 20th century.

This Tetsuo was a bad bad boy.

Danny was introverted.  Danny was depressed.  Cole and Salas readied themselves 
for a quick run to Vegas to see what they could do, but Danny was clearly in no 
shape to go; the child portion of his brain had taken over.  I promised to stay 
close by and get him to eat, and sleep.  They took off not long after.  Danny 
sat on a small hill (it had been a little bigger, I swear) and crushed small 
pieces of granite to fine sand in his hand, cracking them and grinding the 
pieces together until only the smallest particles could escape from his restless 
fingers.

I called him into the hangar for a sandwich.  The refrigerator had fallen over 
but nothing was spoiled.  Thank god for plastic mayo jars.  We were just sitting 
down to a tense, silent lunch when a small shadow appeared in the hangar 
doorway.  Danny sensed it at his back and stiffened.  His pulse quickened, and 
whatever he felt, an iron determination covered his face.  He got up to face his 
opponent.

They stood about ten feet apart.  Danny was rigid, wary; Tetsuo seemed loose and 
relaxed.  Careless.  Taunting.  "I heard about you.  I decided to see for myself 
if you were so tough.  After this morning, I guess you're not."

Danny was getting angry, like a little boy being called out by some older punk.  
"I wasn't even trying.  All I wanted was a 2.3.  I calibrated it just right.  If 
I wailed-- "

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure.  Holding back.  I've heard it aaalllll before, tall boy."  
Tetsuo was about four inches shorter than Danny but thick, solid where the 
muscle lay.  He wore a windbreaker that stretched in ridges around his delts and 
strained at his arms, but fell open to reveal pecs at least an inch deep and 
ridged abs so defined and hard ants could build colonies among them.  He then 
flexed each one of the eight abs, separately from the other, and I took a step 
back.  He held open the jacket so we could watch him play his intercostals like 
a xylophone just by fuckin' flexing.  How old was this kid to have such 
phenomenal muscle control?

"You want to test me?"  Danny glinted and smiled, and held his hands above his 
head, flexing his fingers.  "Come on, you little brat, let's SEE you take these 
arms down."

Tetsuo sauntered up and suddenly flexed into a crab pose.  The nylon jacket 
stretched and parted in a dozen places across his back, shoulders and arms.  
Then he tightened the pose and muscle poked through the tears, widening them in 
a zipper-like rip until the jacket fell off him in shreds and tatters.  My heart 
skipped, because he hadn't pumped his muscles, he simple kept a solid sustained 
flex that made the muscles get insanely bigger and harder than they had been.  
Then he reached up and was still a couple inches short, though his arms were 
longer than normal.  The muscle fibers stretched into long tubes along his arm, 
but his triceps still looked like angry pincers and the solid pipes of his 
biceps seemed thicker even than Danny's.  Danny rolled his eyes and lowered his 
hands a couple inches so their hands could interlock.  They worked their grips 
until it seemed like they were flirting.

"Come on, girls, quit finger kissing and get on with it."  I couldn't believe I 
said that.  They each looked at me as if only now realizing I was there.  I 
stepped backward.  Then Danny glared down into Tetsuo's upturned face.  "Ready, 
turd?"

Tetsuo simply smiled, cocked his head again, and opened his mouth like he was 
going to say something but decided not to.  Their fingers went suddenly white 
and the four arms tensed.

My eyes moved from face to face.  Tetsuo's was fully relaxed and he hadn't lost 
that silly grin.  In fact, he was nodding a little, as if to say "See?  See?"  
Danny showed no emotion, like some stone coffin, but then I saw the cords bunch 
and knot into little peaks along Tetsuo's forearms and looked up at their arched 
fingers: he was squeezing.  Danny's eyes narrowed to register the pain and I 
began to find it hard to breath.  Danny too: he was breathing harder, through 
his nose and out through his mouth in a regularized effort.  Tetsuo looked like 
he wasn't breathing at all ... except wait, what was that?  Was he whistling?

It got louder and I realized he was, Tetsuo was whistling.   "You Don't Know" by 
98 Degrees.  Then he scrunched up his eyes with pleasure and his forearms 
rippled like an avalanche of boulders and Danny hissed in a tight breath between 
his teeth.  Tetsuo kept nodding his head and staring up into Danny's face, 
seeming to say "Didn't I tell you?  Didn't I WARN you little man?  Well, you 
ain't seen NOTHING yet."  

The tune changed to "The Hardest Thing" and counterpointed eerily to Danny's 
breath, which held a slight wheeze.  My knees gave out and I fell onto them and 
held myself up with my arm: my hero was struggling, for the first time in his 
life he was actually really struggling.  I couldn't believe it!

Looking up into their faces I was amazed by Danny's throbbing neck and rigid 
back and legs and Tetsuo's almost casual absorption of the power Danny was 
generating.  Danny strained to give it his all but he was having a hard time 
handling the strength in Tetsuo's hands, and the pain was starting to make his 
own muscles jump and buck in rebellion.  His arms wanted to pull away but iron 
will held them high.  He tried to raise them to full height and take advantage 
of Tetsuo's shorter stature ... but Tetsuo shook his head.  Danny's lats flared 
and his pecs hardened into dense mounds, his triceps shot out but his arms 
didn't move.  "Uh-uh-uh," said the challenger.  And squeezed tighter on Danny's 
poor fingers.

Danny grunted with the pain and started to rage, all-out bursts of power.  Their 
hands wavered as Tetsuo sought to control the explosions of strength from 
Danny's arms ... and suddenly Tetsuo's own lats flared into vein-pressing 
hardness, and the deep hairless pit between them and his armor-plate pecs closed 
tight: and Danny's arms stopped moving.  

His body still racked as it struggled but Tetsuo held his arms fast, countering 
each paroxysm instantly with a counter-force that contained and mocked it.  
Danny's face abandoned all stoniness and gnashed with rage and effort, his chest 
heaved with breath ... and still Tetsuo barely breathed at all.  He was dappled 
with a fine mist while Danny sweated in rivulets.   Danny shuffled his feet but 
didn't dare release the tension in his legs, and I caught my breath: when was 
the last time I used the words "Danny didn't dare"?  Never, that's when!

Their arms were lowering, and Tetsuo hummed 98 Degrees again: this time, "Hand 
in Hand."  Tetsuo controlled Danny's arms down, moving them forward and back at 
his whim.  Danny almost seemed to cry when a look of sheer outrage lit his eyes 
and he screamed a guttural warrior cry and their arms moved back up ... two 
inches.  Then Tetsuo stopped humming.  His face hardened into a determination 
he'd never yet shown, and I felt like I was going to pass out.

Setting his jaw, Tetsuo glared, nostrils flaring, and robotically lowered 
Danny's cramping arms down, down and down.  Danny's head flew back in agony.  
Tetsuo's delts rotated and his pecs pressed together and he further pressed 
Danny's arms to his sides.  Then he grinned a scary, scary grin, chest to chest 
and licking the sweat that fell off Danny's face onto his own.  He squeezed his 
hands even tighter than before and through the heated breaths I heard something 
crack and pop.  Danny tried to head butt him but Tetsuo withstood the attack 
without flinching and Danny's head bounced back.  Tetsuo let out a serious of 
savage grunts, matching his flexing pecs, driving against Danny's legs. Danny's 
knees bent and Tetsuo smiled broadly, and again, like some cyborg, he smoothly 
pushed Danny's fighting quads down until he was on his knees before him.  

Danny was now weeping, openly, completely incapable of escape.  He'd never been 
trapped before: his rage had always turbo-charged his escape.  But now he fought 
and pulled and pushed but it was like he was paralyzed: paralyzed by a boy who 
held him by his hands alone.  Utterly owned by this newcomer.  I pounded the 
ground and shouted stupidly in frustration "Who are you?"  

I couldn't believe my eyes.  Tetsuo took a step back and slowly twisted Danny's 
arms up: and began to make him clap his hands.  Danny tried to resist but all 
that feral brute strength was outgunned by the rippling, writhing pythons that 
commanded him.  Through gritted teeth, Tetsuo said in a high voice, "I am 
Tetsuo, and I'll be ten ... in two weeks."

Clap.

"NO WAY!" I screamed.  "NO WAY ARE YOU NOT EVEN A TEENAGER!"

Clap clap.

"You want to be watching your mouth, dude.  You don't want me to come over to 
get YOU"-- and he turned his head slowly toward me " --without your little 
boyfriend here unable to do a damn thing about it."

Clap clap clap.

"So you apologize for calling me a liar" -- clap -- "and I'll" -- clap -- "let 
him go before his little cramping baby muscles pull right off the bone."  Clap.

Fearing more for myself than for Danny, I'm ashamed to say, I did it.  "I'm 
sorry."  

Clap.

"Stop it, please!" 

Clap.

Tetsuo sighed a big sigh, and suddenly reversed, lifting Danny up into the air 
by his arms, twisting and slinging Danny out through the doorway.  Danny flew in 
a straight line until he hit a downed plane and punctured the fuselage with his 
body.  The steel gave away on the other side too but it slowed him down enough 
to send him tumbling along the tarmac while his scrambling hands and feet dug 
into it to stop the impetus.  It wasn't enough: the runway broke apart as he 
grabbed it.  He'd been thrown THAT hard!  Asphalt slung into the air, trenches 
deepened under his feet until he finally was able to pound his way to a stop.

"I was getting bored with patty-cake anyway," Tetsuo said, fixing me with a 
deadeye.  "It's for babies.  Like Danny-boy."  I started to run out to Danny but 
froze when Tetsuo said "Where YOU going, faggot?  Think your boyfriend needs 
YOUR help?"  I began to tremble, wondering what he would do to me.  I saw Danny 
get up and shake his head.

"Help," I tried to yell but it came out a tiny airless squeak.  Tetsuo mocked 
me, without any smiling.  "Help," he squeaked as he walked toward me.  "Oh 
help."

Suddenly he flew across the hanger into the far wall and tore part of it loose 
from the roof.  The entire structure groaned.  Danny was standing in his place: 
he'd recovered enough to spring and knock his challenger for a loop.  "Daddy's 
home," he said in a soft growl.  I HATE myself because I didn't quite believe 
him.

Tetsuo sucked in his lost breath and landed on his feet like a gymnast.  "Aw, 
now, you wouldn't pick on a younger kid, would you Danny?  That wouldn't be 
fair."  And he leapt, almost flying, toward Danny.

I ran for cover (such as it was) behind a forklift Danny played with.  (The 
forks were twisted like mammoth tusks.)  Tetsuo swung around in mid-air with his 
feet.  Danny dodged at the last second but Tetsuo incredibly kicked right where 
he dodged to and sent Danny spinning.  Tetsuo then landed at a complete 
standstill, conquering inertia and propulsion with sheer muscle strength.  An 
ugly red mark appeared on Danny's pec in the shape of Tetsuo's foot.  

Danny screamed and lunged for Tetsuo, who dodged.  Danny caught it but not as 
fast and merely grabbed Tetsuo's arm with both of his own, bringing up swiftly 
in a half-chicken wing before Tetsuo flexed and stopped him.  They stood stock 
still again, Danny curling upward against that arm with all his might, biceps 
bulging like melons and that one arm resisting from behind his back, holding 
Danny off while the other hand came up to pat his own hair!  Danny burst upward 
again and again and the chicken-wing arm barely moved upward each time, while 
the other arm's bicep popped up and down like a cannonball while he touched up 
his hair.  Then it formed into a fist that jutted back and clocked Danny in the 
forehead, sending him stumbling backward.

Danny hadn't been able to chicken-wing him using BOTH arms.  Tetsuo shook out 
his arm and for the first time I saw a grimace of pain pass over his face as he 
popped his shoulder back into the socket.  Then I knew: it wasn't that he wasn't 
feeling pain or effort from Danny's assaults, but he was capable of completely 
repressing it, to look as if it didn't affect him.  

"He's psyching you out, Danny!  He feels pain!  He feels pain!"

To shut me up Tetsuo lunged at me.  I cowered back from the forklift and Tetsuo 
picked it up quickly in his arms, a fucking 9 year old holding a forklift over 
his head like it was paper!  He weighed whether or not to squash me but then 
chucked it straight up.  That huge tonnage soared high and higher, ripped out a 
support rafter of thick I-beam and kept sailing up and out through the extra-
plated roof, shearing inches of steel that had been designed to knock it back 
down.  It landed with a thud outside the roof and tumbled into the desert and 
the building groaned and shivered as the weight redistributed.

Tetsuo pointed a finger at me.  "You're lucky.  That was your one chance."  
Danny sprang from behind and got him in a headlock, tightening his arm around 
the boy's neck and pressing his nuke-bicep into the arteries.  Tetsuo tensed his 
neck into a column of dense muscle that pushed that bicep back into Danny's arm.  
Danny grabbed his wrist with his other hand and pulled the arm up.  Tetsuo 
started turning a burnished red.  With one arm he reached up and grabbed Danny's 
forearm, and dug into the writhing muscle there.

His other arm hung limp.  His fingers barely reached half-way around  Danny's 
bristling forearm but it was enough to get a grip.  He yanked, and they both 
lurched forward.  Danny increased the pressure, flexing and pulling, battling 
that kid neck with both his teen arms.  Tetsuo started whistling again:  98 
again, their "Take My Breath Away."  And he pulled, tightening his arm and 
flaring his lat.  Danny struggled to hold on but the angle was starting to 
increase:  Danny's bicep was being stretched out!  Danny strained with his other 
arm but the vise-power of his crushing arms was being humbled by Tetsuo's one 
arm and impregnable neck.  Danny poured on even greater force, shouting "No! No! 
No!" and for a moment his arms closed back toward Tetsuo's throat.  Tetsuo 
stopped whistling, rolled his eyes up into his head and let his mouth hang limp 
like he was channeling some deep inner strength: and his single arm first 
resisted Danny's bicep-might by stopping it, then overcame both arms all by 
itself.  Danny couldn't hold on as Tetsuo dragged his arms away.  Danny screamed 
in frustration, tried to buck but then Tetsuo pitched forward, having gained 
enough to slip out of the stranglehold and flip Danny over onto his back so hard 
the entire building rocked, and kept groaning from its damaged frame.  

Danny bounced up from the shattered concrete where he landed and with 
frightening speed Tetsuo slid under him, encircled him with his own arms and 
hefted him up into a bearhug, pinning Danny's arms to his sides.   Danny tried 
to break out but Tetsuo was too quick, hefting him up off the floor and holding 
him helpless in his arms.  

"You keep trying to crush me," Tetsuo said, "But you keep going all girly on me.  
So I think maybe it's time for the youngster to teach you what crushing is all 
about."  He gave three quick strangles, each time grunting "Huh?" and Danny's 
eyes widened in undisguised panic as he registered not only the physical might 
Tetsuo was demonstrating, but sensed how much MORE was still being held in 
reserve.  "How does it feel to be manipulated by a kid four years younger than 
you?"  Danny's arms tensed but got nowhere.  Tetsuo's arms met behind Danny's 
back, beneath his ribs.  Danny trying to kick his legs only to meet quads as 
dense ... or denser than his own.

"Feels, good, don't it, to be in conTROL?"  Danny shook.  Drool fell out of his 
mouth onto his quivering pecs.  "To feel things deFORM as you SQUEEEEEEZE them?"  
Danny was bright magenta and groaning.  Tetsuo wormed Danny down a bit, taking 
in more ribs but bending his own back to keep his feet off the ground.  In fact, 
the two were parallel to the floor, Tetsuo not only balancing on his two legs 
but continuing to compress the space between his arms and his torso--a space 
crammed with the compacted muscle of Danny.  

"Ever since I was a baby I LOVED" -- Danny cried out with that squeeze -- 
"exPRESSING myself."  Danny was worked farther down so Tetsuo circled his lower 
chest:  Danny flared his lats and built a wall of muscle but Tetsuo seemed fully 
capable of breaking through that wall.  To show off, Tetsuo even let go of his 
own wrists and pressed down in a boogie-like shimmy.

"Oh-HOUGH-ho!" coughed Danny.  With each exhale Tetsuo squeezed higher and 
harder like a python until he and Danny were face to purple face.  He rose up.  
Danny's legs hit the ground and flopped there, limp. Every ounce of his titanic 
might was channeled into lats, pecs and arms to resist the earth-shattering 
constricture of Tetsuo's dominance.  The boy-master started singing "Come And 
Get It," softly into Danny's ear.  Danny closed his eyes to concentrate but he 
wasn't able to fend off Tetsuo each time he exhaled.  And Tetsuo tightened his 
grip only enough to prolong the torture of bending Danny's young ribs more 
sharply into his weakening body.  

Amazingly, Danny passed out, though his body remained rigid.  Tetsuo sensed the 
loss of consciousness and dropped Danny to the floor.  I prayed to every god in 
the sky that Cole and Salas would return, but I knew this whole thing, the quake 
and everything, had been masterminded by Tetsuo to get Danny alone.  He kneeled 
astride Danny's chest, trapping his arms with his thick brown legs, and lightly 
slapped Danny to wake him up.  "Good morning, drool baby," he cooed.  "Ick."

"Okay," said Danny in a voice choked with dry humiliation.  "Okay, you win.  
You're the best.  You're the strongest.  Let me up."

"Uh-uh."  Tetsuo shook his head with the sing-song expression.  "You have to do 
better than that."  And his quads flexed into grand-canyonesque bluffs and 
valleys and Danny coughed again, a fine stipple of blood appearing on his chin.  

"Alright," said Danny in an ancient voice.  "You're my master.  You dominate me.  
You're my god!  I am your slave, your humiliated servant.  I'm a worm!  I'm 
nothing!"  Danny's voice rose with indignation.   Tetsuo snorted and rose up 
above him, spreading his lats and bouncing his pecs in incredible syncopation.  
He bounced his delts and popped his tri's and made his abs flow and undulate 
like nothing I've ever seen Danny do.  Then he reached over, stopping to say 
"Hmmm?" as his thick deep-set lat spread over Danny's face, pounded a chunk of 
concrete out and closed it in his fist.

"Gods create things.  Watch this."  He closed is other fist around the one with 
the chunk.  He squeezed into into it with both hands, his chest flaring and 
splitting, his hairless nipples actually moving underneath the swell of muscle 
to point straight down.  Smoke seemed to whisp up between his fingers, and when 
he opened his hands, there was a lump of carbon.  He'd put so much pressure onto 
that rock that it fried right in his hand!  Danny's mouth fell open in awe.  
"That's nothing.  Watch THIS!"

This time he got a maniacal look on his face and closed the lump of new coal 
again in the tomb of his fingers.  His triceps bulged out from his arms like new 
limbs themselves and his fists shook with the strain.  He kept squeezing until 
it felt just right... then opened his hand.

In the middle of his palm lay a fucking diamond the size of an egg!  It was 
cracked and hazy, not like a real pure one, but jesus god in just a few minutes' 
time  he made a fucking DIAMOND!   I suddenly knew what Danny's hands had been 
up against... or thought I did.

"Diamond's are the hardest known substance, you know?  Well, watch THIS!"

His hands closed around it again and he began to twist, like he was trying to 
get the lid off a jar.  Again that insane look of joy and expectation ... and 
his hands jerked!  The diamond split in half!

"I could reduce it to dust if I wanted to," he said, talking to me.  "I plan one 
day to do that to all the diamonds in the world, except the ones I decide to 
keep.  But I'm not done with my little play-date friend here."

He stuffed the split diamond halves between his Danny's arms and his body.  
Rearing up again, he smiled with pride and flexed a bicep that was shaped like 
an artillery shell.  It rose up from his arm and sailed beyond the tensed peak 
of his deltoids by inches. 

"Kiss it.  Kiss your one true God."

He wouldn't lower the arm.  Danny, while being held in place by those massive 
thighs, diamonds digging into his ribs, had to writhe and twist his way up 
toward it.  His abs throbbed and flexed to draw him upward, his arms only barely 
slipping up from the legs that ground them against his fracturing rib-cage.  The 
pressure made the diamonds crack--I hearrd it--just as he pursed his lips to 
make that extra half-inch.  Tetsuo shook his head and arched his back, lifting 
his arm away and tensing the muscle tighter and impossibly higher.  A tear fell 
from Danny's eye as he tortured his body farther up, higher and higher, feeling 
those quads dig into the intercostal armor beneath his rib-cage.  Finally he was 
able to press his flat lips against the peak when Tetsuo smiled broadly, 
tightened his fist and drove that peak another half inch higher while his legs 
overcame Danny's abdominal walls.  Danny shot up like squeezed toothpaste, 
screaming, still anchored by Tetsuo's ass against his hips, and stretching his 
neck he kissed the peak of that miracle-creating arm.  He kissed it again and 
again.  

"Taste and see that the Lord is good," Tetsuo quoted, and Danny licked the sweat 
and oil off the glistening fibers.  He smeared his face across the farthest 
outward expanse of its bulge and Tetsuo crushed Danny's lips against his teeth.  
Danny gasped for breath Testuo's hand grabbed Danny's head and ground his mouth 
against the muscle as it flexed and bobbed.  Blood tricked from Danny's split 
lips, staining his lips and his Master's dark flesh.  The arm pulled away and 
Danny reached of his own volition to kiss the botton of the biceps fibrous 
belly.  And Tetsuo chuckled and said in a girlish voice, "That's enough, lover-
boy!"

Danny collapsed to the floor and Tetsuo stood up, dusting off his hands.  Danny 
rolled onto his side, too weak to even clutch where it hurt.  I stood to the 
side, terrified.  He turned to me.  "This should be over quick, dude."

"Why?"  I screamed.  "Who taught you to be so fucking mean, you little brat?"

This made him stop.  "Nobody ever taught me anything I didn't want to learn.  
Many so-called masters came up against me when I was little (relatively 
speaking), and I defeated them all and forced them to teach me every martial 
art.  They tried to teach me other things as well but I have a taste for blood 
and I like to quench it.  I killed my first Bengal tiger when I was four.  I 
jumped on his back and crushed his skull between my fingers. When I was six I 
swam out to a feeding frenzy of great whites and killed every one that didn't 
get eaten by others.  Not one escaped me as I dragged them back into the fray.  
I swam here from Kobe and killed a blue whale."

"Kobe?"

"Yeah, that was me, that earthquake.  I was such a kid then.  I swam here in 
about 12 hours.  Took longer because of the whale.  I killed it by dragging it 
down and holding it beneath the water until it suffocated.  Who knew something 
that big couldn't hold its breath as long as me?  Talk about a struggle: that 
thing REALLY put up a fight.  Really set the ocean churning.  I heard it made a 
wave that swamped the harbor all the way back home, and completely covered some 
of the little islands out there.  Not like this sissy.  It was cool."

He started cracking his knuckles, like rifle shots.  I felt vibrations in my 
feet and hoped the cavalry would arrive in time. 

"Danny started out that way," I said, buying time, "mean and arrogant.  Cole and 
Salas, they taught him, they're teaching him to be responsible."

"Who wants that?"  Stepping closer.

"It's about being human!"

"Why be human when you can be superhuman?  Like ME!"  He leapt at me.  I 
flattened myself against the wall and closed my eyes but his arms never reach 
me.  Squinting, I saw something that froze me with fear:  Cole had one arm, 
Salas had the other, and it was all they could do to hold him in place!

These two giants cracked the cement beneath them from the sheer pressure of 
pulling the 9-year-old superboy backwards.  Tetsuo's face was rigid with strain, 
frustration ... and finally a little smile that said "Finally, something to 
CHALLENGE me!"

The two behemoths slowly inched Tetsuo backwards and he reveled in the feel of 
all the weight and muscle they brought to bear, how much they NEEDED to use to 
drag him away from me.  Just when he sensed they were giving it their all and 
making all progress possible, the smile left him and he closed his eyes: and I 
could almost hear his pecs squeal tighter together as he powered both hulks 
forward against their will!

"Holy shit!" cried Cole.  "Backwards!" screamed Salas and pounding the ground 
with their legs so that the hangar shook and creaked.  The two grown men grunted 
Tetsuo's arms out sideways, but only one inch at a time.  Tetsuo's face was 
blank as his muscles shot out in higher relief than ever before.  They strained 
every muscle in their bodies, forcing veins against their own skins and only 
slowly were able to conquer the power of this boy.  Suddenly his pecs flared 
into a dimpled split and his arms moved together swiftly, dragging the men and 
furrowing the concrete beneath their feet.  The each screamed a terrible 
agonized roar and stopped it, pulling his arms back out backwards ... but not as 
far before he smoothly pulled them forward again.  He was doing cable rows with 
them!  I ducked out and watched sometime terrible begin.

Cole lost his balance.  Tetsuo spun around and slammed Cole against the wall.  
Ripping his arm free he slammed it into Salas's shoulder, making him stumble.  
Cole jumped back in but Tetsuo's arm was too fast, it caught him around the 
neck.  His other arm held Salas and yanked him backwards, wrapping itself around 
Salas's neck.  Both men where in headlocks, their bodies stretched backwards 
where their legs couldn't find purchase: and those 9 year old biceps contracted, 
dragging tungsten-steel forearms against their windpipes.  Each man grabbed a 
forearm with both his huge hands and squeezed, but couldn't penetrate the 
density of muscle there.  They tugged and yanked but all their strength couldn't 
budge the boy's biceps crushing their carotid arteries.  I watched those bullet-
shaped bi's penetrate the thick ropes of neck muscle, growing and withstanding 
all the pulling power of four massive earth-shaking arms.  He was defeating each 
of them with a single arm!  He whooped a rebel yell and called over to me, 
"These guys came here to save YOU?  Maybe you should try to save THEM!"

Tetsuo began bouncing the men up and down, making them flail.  Their arms tried 
to reach up to the boy's head but he leaned back and their own thick muscle 
prevented them from closing in.  Tetsuo actually giggled watching their dark 
faces redden.  Then Danny woke up.

Danny recovered quickly, healed fast.  He couldn't be at 100% after the pounding 
he took but he might throw the balance off.  He flew at Tetsuo from behind and 
knocked into the boy's ridged and writhing back with his feet.  He winced in 
pain as his ankles buckled but landed upright.  Tetsuo flung the men away and 
turned, crouched down in a wrestler's stance.  "Spartacus rebels?"  Danny rushed 
him.  

Tetsuo's skill, speed and agility still commanded the scene as all three men 
came at him.  Powerhouse blows to his abs cracked fists and wrists; his own 
blows fell so fast his three opponents flew away from him as if under their own 
power.  My eyes couldn't focus fast enough to fix his blurred body as he reduced 
all three of my super-friends to clumsy oafs.  They finally dogpiled him and 
pressed him like giant starfish into the ground, when with an eerie Bruce Lee-
like wail he exploded to his feet, sending them all outward and upward.  Each 
flying figure smashed THROUGH the steel-plated walls.  The entire army-proof 
hanger twisted and sagged and sighed, and I beat it out the door before the 
entire steel structure collapsed onto Tetsuo, his arms raised against it.

We all cleared our heads and approached the wreckage cautiously.  There was no 
movement.  Humanitarian impulses overcame fear (for the STRONG guys, at least) 
and they began peeling and wresting the steel away from where Tetsuo had stood.  
Heavy plating and I-beams bent like wax as they dug their way into the pile to 
find the boy unconscious, still rigid and holding a crumpled steel beam in each 
hand.  He'd been brained from behind by a thick steel plate.  Salas carried him 
out and laid him on the ground, waking him gently.

"Careful.  Even you can get a concussion."

 Tetsuo grinned and sat up.  "MAYbe."  He looked around at the destroyed Air 
Force base, then all of them.  "So I guess I'm in, huh?"  

Cole laughed.  "You're in, boy."  

Even Danny smiled.  "I'll whup you yet, you little brat."

I will NEVER understand these guys.


The End.