Don resumed his walking and entered the fire station, there Rodriguez saw him coming in. When Don got close to him, Rodriguez couldn’t help but feel a little thrilled by Don’s size and self-assured attitude. “Mm, Vo…Volkowicz, you’re a little late this morning”, noted Rodriguez, his voice was almost trembling. “Have there been any duty calls?”, asked my dad. “Well, guess no”, answered Rodriguez. “Then, I guess there is no problem, what do you think?”, said Don while grabbing his hips with his hands, expanding his enormous chest and getting a few steps closer to Rodriguez. “It’s ok, mm, guess we’ll let it pass for today”, was his reply.

My dad loved intimidating Rodriguez with his strength and size, he tried this every occasion he had, his favourite was once he had to walk to the other end of the room, and Rodriguez was standing in his way, he single-handedly grabbed him from his belt and lifted him over his head, while saying “sorry, little guy, I need to pass” and put him back down to a side with gentle and steady grip. The lifting was his favourite, but he also did other things like pushing him away or just shaking hands too strong; he once gripped him with such might Rodriguez went weak on the knees, growled and begged him to stop. My dad loved showing off his strength and size; one day, after he’d acquired his actual size, aunt Teresa came for a visit, it’d been long time since we didn’t see her, when she left my dad was just about 1.78m (5’10”) or so tall and weighed just about 90kg (200 lbs). Dad opened the door and received her, at first she thought she got the wrong house, she couldn’t recognize the immense man in front of her as her brother. My dad was wearing just a pair of shorts and a tank top. After a few moments, she shouted “Don!! Is it you?! My GODNESS!”. Don just smiled at her and crouched, lifted her in a hug and brought her inside. “Oh my, you’re huge! Look at that! How tall are you?”, she asked while standing in front of him. “I guess I’m about 1.95m (6’5”), maybe a little more”, said him while putting his hands in his hips with pride. Aunt Teresa was just 1.58m (5’2”) so even standing very straight, the top of her head didn’t even reach Don’s nipples. “Wow, is that your voice?! You sound like an announcer, wow! You’re so tall if I keep looking up at you I’ll break my neck”, she remarked. Don hit a double biceps pose and she marvelled. He relaxed his pose and she tried to grab his upper-arm with her hands, wow, aunt’s hands looked really small next to that big arm. Don bent his arm for her so she would have more to grab, she exclaimed “wows”, she run her hands through my dad’s back, and caressed his enormous laterals. “Damn, look at these”, she said for the lats, then she looked down and cried “and look at those legs! My god, I’ve never seen legs like those.” “Come here dad!”, I told him and brought a chair, he would put his huge foot over the chair, bending his leg, this move made his inmense thigh flex into a ball of muscle. I put my hands on it and caressed “feel this auntie, there is strong mass in here”, I told her. She put her hands in it, she was ecstatic. “Wow, my big brother”, she jumped at him and Don grabbed her with an arm and held her up over him. “Hey, now you’ll have to take care not to upset your big brother, hehe”, Don said and we cheered. Then he gently put her down and he told us to wait in the couch for a moment, he went to his room. He appeared a few minutes later wearing his old clothes that were just too tight, the old pants impossibly ultra-snug to his legs and one of his old XXL shirts which no longer fitted, all buttoned and about to burst, his muscles clearly bulking and impossibly stretching the fabric; he then bent his right arm and the huge biceps popping destroyed the sleeve; then did the same with his other arm and also expanding his chest removed the buttons from top to botton. We all sat on the couch while he performed for us, watching as he flexed every single part and his engorded muscles tore the seams, ending up in just a pair of briefs.

It was morning at the Station, right after Don had gone to his tasks, two old men came, these men were supervisors from the City Council, Rodriguez received them with surprise and asked them some explanations. They were there to check out a situation that had been reported, of the unfair promotion to Captain of a too-young fireman. They made all kinds of questions to everyone and checked on records. They were heard remarking how “good the files reported about this man, Volkowicz”, they said they wanted to meet him personally. “I’m afraid he hasn’t come today”, Rodriguez said. Don wasn’t too far from the place and overheard the conversation, he went close to them and asked “What are these men looking for?”. The two old men were surprised, they’d never seen a guy like that, looking so big and strong. “Well, we’re looking for Don Volkowicz, do you know him?”, asked one of them. “Of course I do, said Don, it’s me”. “Oh, my!, excuse us, we expected someone two heads shorter and a hundred kilos (240 pounds) lighter than you”. Don smiled and gently shook hands with the men, they went somewhere else and talked in private for a while, asking him questions. A few days later, in the morning, the two men came again and informed the whole station that they had a new Captain, it was Don, and Rodriguez was degraded to cape. Nobody dare say but everyone was happy everything was in the right place now. That day, Don ordered Rodriguez right away: “I want my office clean by noon”. Rodriguez had nothing to say, and did as ordered.

A couple months passed by and everyone got used to the way things had turned. Most of the times, once a fireman is named Captain he quits doing the hard work, he just gives orders and leaves the tough tasks to his inferiors. This was not the case with Don, since he loved using his physique, he was always in the middle of the fire situations. Effectiveness of the station raised dramatically under his command, because of his experience but also because of his incredible physical capacities that allowed him to do things that couldn’t be done before. Soon he discovered he was almost unvulnerable; no bullet could penetrate him, no flame could burn him, no blade would cut him, no needle could pinch him; his body was tougher than tempered steel, stronger than titanium, he couldn’t be crushed, or exploded or whatever. He could breathe in any kind of mortal fumes, like smoke from a chemical factory without any consequence at all. Smoke couldn’t even affect his eyesight and not even his hair was burnt by fire, making him perfect for his job.

That night they had a calling and quickly moved all men. When they got to the place it was very tough, Don quickly held a hose and ordered his men to flow water at full pressure. The place was a factory and it was burning very bad, it just had a little door that was closed, Don thought he’d better be holding the hose pointing at the roof and ordered four of his men, including Rodriguez to try and open the little door. The four men used a special steel tube, swinging it with their combined might and crushing it against the door several times; but apparently it was too well closed and it wouldn’t open. Don shouted at them he would take care of the door; and ordered the four men to keep the hose steady for him. The amount of water coming out from it was incredible, yet Don was keeping it steady with just one hand. They all took the hose as well as they could, and once they were sure Don let it go. Oh my, the thing began to shake and the four man could barely control it; they had to adjust their stance and put the hose close to their bodies grabbing it under their armpits just to keep it in place; no near as steady as Don could keep it effortlessly with one of his hands. Don stepped in front of the door, gave a look at it and noticed it had a handle. He thought maybe he could pull the door out. He grabbed the handle and though it was almost red with heat he wasn’t hurt at all. Without much effort on his behalf he pulled, to his surprise the door was well stuck with the wall and instead of just the door, the whole wall gave in and crumbled, Don just took a few steps back and gave a look at what his hand was holding up easily: a big chunk of heavy thick wall with the door just –in the middle-. He threw the thing away without concern, it must have flown about 20 meters (60 feet). Then ordered his men to shoot the water at the opening he’d done. As he saw their men had trouble directing the hose, he went next to them and grabbed the hose in his hands, easily directing it. He ordered them to grab other lighter hoses and point at the opening too. This operation extinguished the fire very quickly; and once the place was safe; a couple cops came in to investigate, they told Don they suspected an incendiary was behind all this. They walked with Don inside the ruins of the factory, looking for traces of gasoline or any other product that may have ignited fire. They checked out all the possible places but there was nothing. One of the cops pointed at a part of the factory and said “damn, if only we could see what’s behind that debris”. The place was blocked by a thick ball of wall pieces attached to bent steel seams, these weighed a couple tons. The other cop said they’d better come tomorrow with a crane to move that. Don just told the guys to take a couple steps back and he’d handle it. Then he grabbed the ball by two of the twisted seams, and bam!! He lifted it, no challenge for my mighty dad. After the fire Don had taken out the protective clothing so he was just wearing a pair of blue t-shirt and short pants and slippers. This allowed the cops to have a close look at how Don’s back seemed to get even wider and thicker with the task and how his deltoids, biceps, triceps and forearms tensed and bulked even more than they already did in rested position. His legs were an spectacle too, they were thick and well up to the task, while Don stood up with the heavy debris in his hands his thighs and calves expanded to the sides and stretched the short pants’ fabric. In a few moments, Don cautiously put the thing in a corner where it wouldn’t cause trouble. Once the area was clear the cops could work on it and found out traces of the same compounds present in two similar cases that had happened before in the neighborhood. “Damn, this relates to the same guy”, said one of the cops. The other cop seemed distracted by something, “hey, who is that kid?”. He could see a kid hidding, peeping at them; “He may have been a witness!”, the other cop replied. “Hey, come here boy! We’ll ask you some questions”, instead the kid was going away, “come here, we won’t harm you!”, then the kid started running away. The two cops were suspicious and run after the kid as fast as they could. Don decided he would help them and ran after the kid as well. The kid ran two fast and the cops weren’t in good condition so they quickly got tired and had to stop; but Don’s never-ending stamina allowed him to follow the kid very easily, he ran after the boy at a speed that was less than a quarter what his legs were capable of; and he quickly reached for the boy in a parking lot, but the kid was smart and hid behind some trucks. Don checked out the place with his eyes, “Come out boy, I won’t hurt you, cops want to ask you just a few questions!”, said with his deep voice that echoed back and forth in the lonesome lot. Then the kid let a small noise come out and Don quickly went close to the back of one of the trucks, he put his hand under it and easily lifted it up; the kid was revealed, all fearsome he continued running as fast as he could. Don yelled “Damn!” and let the back of the truck go with a furious thud. He went after the kid and as he was quickly reaching for him the kid just vanished in the floor. “What the fuck!”, cried Don. A moment later, he arrived to where the kid had disappeared, there was a sewer opening the kid’s thrown himself into, the cap was just laying on a side apparently it was left open by a company that’d been doing repairs. “Witty boy”, he said, his wide muscle body couldn’t get past the opening; so he crouched and yelled at it, trying to persuade the boy to come out. Yet he had no response. When he was going to rip the pavement open with his hands something came to his mind: there weren’t many ways out of the sewer; and a kid as small as that couldn’t lift the heavy round steel caps the openings had. He then grabbed the (for him) light as a feather cap and closed that exit just in case. He then rushed to a place he knew the kid would have to come out at. In a few moments, Don arrived at a sewage processing plant, the place was closed with havy gates, with tightly piled thick iron bars; and locked with a special system. Don didn’t think much about it and put his hands in between two bars, like a blast he extended his arms and expanded his chest and the iron bars bent like butter or clay, the gates twisted and were torn into useless crap. He quickly got in and got close the ending of a big pipe he thought would be the kid’s first option for getting out. It was blocked with a pretty thick steel grill; to make sure the kid would use this Don ripped the grill away with his hand and hid it somewhere else. He awaited behind the opening so the kid couldn’t see him. Just a few moments after that the kid was getting out as he expected. He grabbed the boy from his back, and lifted him, turned him around to face him, holding the kid at eye level, “you’re one slippery little boy, uh!”, he said! “It’s not easy to scape a man like me”, he said this while bending one of his arms, the kid looked awe struck at the inmense biceps that popped off, which collaborated with his heaving triceps to strain Don’s T-shirt’s seam, he had a close look at the monster elbow and the thick bulking and veiny fore-arm connected to a proportionally wide and thick wrist which led to his big fisted hand with fingers so thick and strong they easily twisted steel. “Don’t worry little fella, I’m not gonna hurt you, I’ll just get you to the cops who will ask you a few questions; your scaping just made you all the most valuable”, Don explained the kid. Suddenly the boy looked in a pocket and pulled out a gun, it was a 38, too much for a kid like that; pointed at Don and shot at his chest. The bullet just bounced off Don’s inmense pectorial and he gave a severe look at the kid, he took the gun from the kid’s hand and said “Didn’t mom tell you not to play with these kind of things?”, while saying this Don pressed the gun crushing it in his hand in front of the kid’s face until it was reduced to twisted metal and plastic shredds which fell to the floor, the kid’s mouth was wide open. Don looked down at the remnants and said “this is not going to cause any more harm”.

Later, the cops saw Don coming, bearing the boy with one hand. They checked the kid’s pockets for extra weapons and found the kid had a small video camera hidden. While still being held by Don, cops began to make the boy questions regarding who he was making the recording for. He replied he couldn’t say, or he would be in danger. Don tried to calm the kid down, saying he’d seen just how powerful he was and that he would protect him. Cops tried to encourage the kid to talk, they told him they were going to find who’s behind this with or without his help. They threatened with jailing him for several years (they knew they couldn’t do that, but the kid believed). Scared, the boy told them the owner of a bar nearby had given him the videocamera and payed in advance for the videoing job; the only condition was he would not tell anyone or they’d kill him. “Don’t worry son”, said Don with his deep manly calm and confident voice,”you did good, nothing bad is going to happen”. “Who’s bar is it? Who is the owner?”, asked one of the cops who was older and balding. “It is called ‘Irlanda Bar’, and the owner is known as The Irish”, said the kid in a trembling voice. The bar was well known, and Don offered to help, but the cops told him they would take care.

A few hours later the cops appeared at the bar; Captain Golvin was the elder one and more experienced, about 50, while Sergeant Senna was in his thirties, he was considered pretty cute and also a big strong guy, easily 1.87m (6’2”) and 115 kg (250 pounds), though next to Don he looked pretty puny. They never wore cop suits because they belonged to a separate detective department, most people realized they were cops anyhow. Once in the bar people looked at them real weird, they didn’t fit. The bar was pretty big and it wasn’t only just a drinking and dancing place, there was a wrestling arena in the middle and a place for people to stand looking at the fights. It wasn’t wrestling time so in the arena were just a couple guys training, for their style they realized they fighted no holds barred. The cops sat at the bar and took a couple drinks, then they began asking questions to the barman; if he knew the owner of the place, if they could talk to him a few minutes; the Barman said “no” to all that, and ensuring the cops didn’t realize he made signals to a couple big guys that were playing billiard. In just a few seconds five men came close; they were all big muscle fellas, none of them was shorter than 1.85m (6’1”1/2) and none lighter than 120 kg (260 lbs), obviously wrestlers. “What’s the matter Nico?”, asked one of the biggest guys with a deep voice; this was easily a 130 kg (300 pound) man 1.90m (6’3”) tall built as a bull, he was wearing a leather jacket without sleeves that exposed his huge arms with a tattoo. He was bald at the forehead but had black hair shoulder length. He also had a piercing in his left brow. “These men are asking for The Irish”, said the barman. Both officers stood. “I think they are cops.” “The Irish will not come today”, said the big guy, “So Fuck off”. Golvin was about to pull out his gun, one of the men noticed it and grabbed his arm, pushed him and punched him in the face, nocking the wind out of him, making him fall. Senna charged at the big guy with his shoulder, the man went out of balance but quickly grabbed him and all the other guys began to punch him, the cop could do nothing. After both cops were punched really hard, they were thrown away in the street by the five bullies, they turned and twisted in the ground, bruised.

After the cops had gone, Don was left alone with the kid, he realized he was holding him still up and said “sorry” while gently put him down on the floor and took him to the fire truck were the boy could have a seat. The kid began to cry, “Hey, little fella, don’t cry”, said Don and enveloped the boy with his huge arm. Don asked him a few questions, the kid answered in between sorrows. He was 11 and his name was Camilo, he had no parents and was living in the streets. Don brought Camilo home with us, we were surprised when right at the doorway our dad came in and said “I need to introduce you a new friend”. Then Camilo stepped in, he was olive skinned and had black hair and eyes. Dad explained us the circumstances and that the kid would live with us for a couple weeks until he found him a place, I accepted it with entusiasm but my younger sister didn’t like the idea, despite she was too fearsome, she was right “the kid came from the streets and he stole and used guns and what if he was a bad guy”. However, it didn’t take much until she realized the kid was good and could be our friend.

The weekend came, Dad forgot about all and wanted to spend some time with us. We played volleyball at the backyard with Camilo, who we’ve found was very fun to stay with, his bad attitude could be blamed at the bad influences he had. Dad didn’t play with us, because of his super-strength he wouldn’t play games in places were things could be broken by him. Last time we played he unadvertently hit a column with his elbow while trying to catch a ball and almost brought down the ceiling. Actually when he’d first acquired his super physique he didn’t know his own strength; once we were playing he hit the ball what he thought would be really soft but it flew away like a bullet, missed my head for just a few centimeters, hit a wall creating a hole in it; then caused a Dent in the living-room floor and the ball was blown to pieces. Dad regreted it a lot, and thanked god it didn’t hit my head. Since then Don had a lot more control of his might, though he could hit the ball with kindness now he had to take care about the buildings. That’s why we decided we should go and play in the open air.

Don owned a pretty big van, the only car he could fit in. He took my sister, Camilo and me down a route in search for a nice field to play ball in, the day was sunny and calm, after a few minutes driving he was going to cross a bridge but he had to stop, several cars were jammed before the bridge. We waited for a couple minutes and Don turned off the engine, he pulled out his head to look. A couple cars were stuck behind us; and those in front of us moved just a little, my dad didn’t follow them because he was trying to look what was the problem a couple meters ahead from us. A driver behind us honked at us and shouted at my dad, asking him to move on, insulting him. My dad ignored the guy, and the man was so furious he stepped out of his car and went close to my dad’s window to insult him. The man was pretty big, not huge but of decent size to be intimidating. “You feel powerful because you have a big car, uh?”, said the middle aged man. Then my dad opened the door and stepped off the van. The arguing guy looked at him in awe, Dad stood in front of him so big a wide; wearing just tight short pants and tee stretched by his enormous muscular physique. The man was like “Sorry big fella, Uh, I didn’t mean to say that”. Don just ignored him and walked a few meters ahead to see what was going on. We were curious too and followed him. Once in place he’d found out what the situation was: a group of men, some of which were firemen, were trying to rescue a horse that was hanging from the bridge. Apparently the animal had slipped and fell, but its ankle was caught in between two steel bars supporting the bridge, the poor animal was moaning in pain of his twisted ankle while five men could do little to rescue him. The fall was pretty high so the men couldn’t just free his ankle, the animal would be killed. They were trying to put ropes around him so they could pull it up but the animal was moving a lot making it impossible. The firemen saw Don appearing, and though they belonged to other district one of them said “Hey!! Look at that, this is Don Volkowicz!”, they greeted Don and told him he was famous. They explained him the situation and realized his presence there was the best thing that could ever happen. Don said he could handle it, he just crouched at the horse’s ankle and grabbed it very hard with a hand where it wasn’t twisted so the animal wouldn’t suffer much, also trying to be gentle not to brake any bone. With his remaining hand, he grabbed the steel beam that was trapping the horse’s ankle and firmly pulled at it, ripping it off completely and throwing it away. Still holding the animal, he pulled his arm up and slowly stood, picking the animal up with ease, while he balanced and calmed the horse with his other hand. He extended his arm up wide until the animal’s whole length was over the bridge. Then he gently craddled it in his arms, holding the animal so it wouldn’t have to stand on the floor right away. He beared the horse out of the bridge in firm land then softly put it down, trying to direct the animal’s weight away from its twisted leg. The horse then stood proud again, balancing itself with three legs, and lifting up the broken one, Don caringly patted the animals’ back with affection. Soon the vets would be coming. Needless to say this was a real easy task for him, firemen cheered up and thanked him; soon the place was clear and cars could pass. We all went back to the van and found a nice place to spend the afternoon, had a good time playing ball and cheering.

In the evening we went back home. When we were relaxing and helping dad with the cooking, the bell rang. Dad opened the door and saw the two cops, they were bandaged, looking bruised all over and the younger one had a purple and swollen eye. “Hey! What happened to you!”, Dad said. The men explained him and told him they had a plan. •