BigBui At The Gym

Chibi walked into the gym with an embarrassed smile on his face. He waved at the receptionist behind the counter, who didn’t seem to pay him any attention. It had been years since he had come to a gym like this; it just wasn’t a place that small people like him usually went to.

Except that this time he wasn’t a little Buizel anymore. Thanks to the experimentation of one of his friends he’d grown into a six-foot-eight beefcake. He was still getting used to the new size though; growing over three feet taller overnight had given him whiplash. Chibi didn’t really know exactly how strong he was. And what better place to figure that out than a gym?

The Buizel adjusted his maroon muscle shirt over yellow furred pecs that peeked out between the straps. He came to the gym pre-dressed for his workout, just to avoid the awkwardness of being naked in the locker room. It would take much, much more confidence in his physique before he’d ever consider doing that. He wasn’t even that happy with the new wardrobe of tank tops and tightly clinging shorts. But there was no way to get around it. Every shirt and pair of pants he owned prior to the experiment was too small and most of his usual stores didn’t keep anything in stock that fit his size. Just thinking about that first trip to the mall again caused his face to flush red.

Rather than dwell too long on his remembered embarrassment, the Pokémon made his way toward the nearest set of weights to try lifting. Something quick and easy for a warm up sounded good. Free weights sat stacked on the rack in slow progression from tiny, one pound weights all the way up to some positively enormous half-ton weights. Chibi’s eyebrows rose at the size of those. Clearly this place was meant to cater to some extremely strong people. He adjusted his glasses and looked down the line of weights. The smallest ones used to be the size he’d work with… but now he had no idea which of them to use. He shrugged and picked one in the dead center of the rack. Was 100 pounds a lot? He wasn’t sure. Only one way to find out. The Buizel plucked the weight off the rack. Huh. That didn’t feel heavy at all. So that probably wasn’t right. He walked his way down the line. 200 pounds… 250 pounds… 300? That felt right. He got a little resistance while trying to take it off the rack.

Chibi took a seat at one of the benches and curled the metal weight in one hand. To his surprise the cold steel didn’t provide nearly as much weight as he thought it would. Furrowing his brows, he focused on doing more reps with it to see if it got any harder. One rep turned to ten, and that turned to twenty. Finally he started to feel the burning in his arm and was forced to switch to the other. Well that definitely answered that. 300 pounds sounded like a lot, but he could probably have gone higher. How many reps was too many anyway? He made a mental note to do some more research online about proper lifting technique.

A few tests later and Chibi found he was even able to make his way up toward the highest of the weights on that rack. It took all of his strength to curl that half-ton weight, and he could only do it for a single rep… but he did it. Somehow. What the Buizel hadn’t noticed was that with each of his repetitions, his body had compensated slightly to help. The already beefy Pokemon slowly added muscle to his frame, pound by pound, bulking up. His muscle shirt stretched a little tighter over his abs and pecs by the time he was done. But to any average onlooker it would look like the Pokémon got a huge pump from the workout.

Chibi set the weight back down with a heavy clang on the rack, wincing when he realized how much noise that was. “Oops,” he mumbled before turning around to look at the rest of the gym. For the first time he got a good look at the rest of the gym and the other lifters. Some of them were actually gawking. Chibi assumed it was because he’d made too much noise and waved back at them, other hand on the back of his neck.

“S-Sorry! I’ll be quieter.”

In reality, the rest of the gym-goers were gawking at the size of this newcomer. The Buizel stood head and shoulders above anyone else in the gym and looked like he stepped directly off the cover of a bodybuilder magazine. Those who weren’t gawking were silently fuming that someone had handled the largest free-weight the gym had without any trouble. One of those, a musclegut Pangoro, huffed and tried to go back to his power cleans. Before he could though a hand tapped him on the shoulder.

“What is it?” the bear snapped. He turned around expecting to look down at whoever was interrupting him, only to find his muzzle pressed square into a set of pecs. He looked upward to see an awkwardly smiling Buizel. The Pangoro backed up, cowed by being loomed over so easily. The white and black shades on his face tinged a light pink.

“Uhh, hi. I was wondering if you could help me. I just had some questions about how to do this exercise and-”

“Who says I’m gonna help you?” he growled, crossing arms over his chest.

The Buizel seemed genuinely taken aback. “Ohh. Well I just figured you could help, since you’re really big and all.”

The panda Pokémon stood there for a second, stunned. This huge Buizel was coming to him for advice? Why would he do that? He took a second to look around, to make sure there weren’t any hidden cameras filming his reaction, or snickering friends trying to play a prank.

“…sure. I guess I can help you with that,” he grumbled. “You ever done a power clean before?”

“Not really, no. Been a few… years since I last worked out,” Chibi answered with a shy smile. The panda simply stared as the Buizel walked his way up to the bar. He wasn’t really sure what to say in response to that.

On either end of the bar was easily 2000 pounds in total. He huffed when the Buizel bent down to try and pick it up. He’d been struggling with that weight for years, trying to get past this plateau in his lifting. There was no way a newbie would be able to handle it. The Pangoro crossed his arms, smug in his sense of satisfaction at the oncoming struggle from the Buizel. He might be taller, sure, but that didn’t mean he was stronger.

Chibi squatted down toward the bar to try lifting it. There was a lot of weight on it… he actually had trouble this time. The Buizel struggled with the weight for just a moment though before his body shivered again. His whole body tensed and bulked visibly, arms thickening with newly formed sinew and legs stretching into the workout shorts. Chibi didn’t notice, but he could tell the weight got easier to lift as he flipped it toward his chest. He held it there, just below his chin, for a moment before completing the lift with his legs. The Pangoro already knew he was short for his species, but to be so easily outclassed by this random Pokémon… he felt his face turning even redder. It wasn’t even a Machamp or some other huge Pokémon, just a Buizel!

The weight bar clanged to the ground when Chibi dropped it. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead before smiling brightly at the panda Pokémon. “How was that? Did I do it the right way?”

“K-Keep your back straight next time. You could hurt yourself,” the Pangoro mumbled through gritted teeth.

Chibi nodded. “Okay, I can do that. Could you help me add a little more weight to the bar too? Think I could still go higher.”

---

The gym looked mighty intimidating to newcomers, that much was certain. The little Dewott readjusted the strap of his gym bag and took a deep breath. “Okay, you can do this. Stay calm and do your workouts alone. Don’t bug anyone, it’ll be fine,” he whispered to psyche himself up.

Walking inside, the Dewott was assaulted instantly with the smells of testosterone, protein shakes, and sweat. He recoiled instinctively and almost decided to leave on the spot. But it already took days of mental preparation to get to this point; he couldn’t back out now. The Pokémon paid for a new gym membership and tried to make his way to the lockers as inoffensively as he could.

The ‘wott dodged and juked between walls of muscle: a Machamp here, a Typhlosion there, and all of them absolutely enormous. The Dewott was only four feet tall so it didn’t take much effort for people to loom over him. He closed his eyes tight, trying not to focus on all of the hot giants around him, only to find himself running into someone from behind. The Pokemon flopped backward, spilling his bag’s contents all over the floor.

“Oh no, shoot, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking where I was going. Promise it won’t happen again,” the otter stammered. He scooped up as much as he could in his arms. Stuffing them back into the bag, he didn’t notice the movement of the bodybuilder he’d run into until he was in shadow. The Dewott looked back up to see a smiling face clad in a pair of dorky-looking glasses.

“Hey there lil dude, are you okay? Didn’t mean to knock you over,” he asked in a deep baritone. The Dewott was struck speechless for a moment, looking up at the largest Buizel he’d ever seen in his life. Easily seven and a half feet tall… maybe eight feet even. He was still dumbstruck when the Buizel reached down to help lift the Dewott back to his feet. The blue furred otter’s legs kicked in the air as his arms were held by a hand that clasped around both of them easily. Chibi’s grip was strong enough it was more like trying to fight steel to get free.

“Just hold on, I’ll put you down in a second,” Chibi chuckled. “Want to be sure you didn’t get bruised or hurt.” The Dewott dangled helplessly three feet off the ground, getting a much better look at his Buizel captor. Chibi wore a red tank top that was obviously several sizes too small. His abs were only half covered by the bottom of the fabric while his neck and arms stretched out the straps cartoonishly. The Buizel didn’t seem mean or anything, just… out of place in his body. If the Dewott didn’t know better, he’d say this guy looked more at home playing video games or watching anime than being in a gym like this.

Once Chibi was satisfied that there were no injuries, he set the Dewott down. The small otter was only about half as tall as this Buizel, and had to look way back up to address him. “Uhm. Thank you. I didn’t mean to run into you.”

Chibi smiled again. “Oh it’s fine. I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new?”

“Yeah, this is my first time here. I’m just getting my bearings.”

“Do you want me to be your spotter for the day?”

The Dewott sputtered, nearly falling back down again from sheer surprise. “My spotter? Why on earth would you want to do that? I just met you.”

“Well, I… used to be shorter than this. Shorter than you even. So I try to look out for smaller folk when they come to the gym. I know how intimidating it can be,” Chibi said, crossing his arms. Specifically, he looked over to a Pangoro working with a bar on deadlifts. The panda blushed and waved back at Chibi before returning to his lifts. The Dewott was a little lost, but he got the idea that the two of them clearly knew each other.

“You wanna watch me first maybe? That might help you get the idea of how to do these workouts,” Chibi said. Still very unsure of himself and thrown off kilter by this enormous Buizel, the Dewott nodded numbly.

The pair of water type Pokémon made their way over to the barbells. “We can start with some bench presses. You just act as my spotter for a little while, okay? I’ll keep it light at first,” Chibi said. He was already loading up the barbell before the Dewott could protest at all that he could never spot someone twice his height. 500 pounds… 1000 pounds… a full ton… but he kept going. The Dewott’s eyes kept getting wider and wider with each added weight. By the time it was full there was easily 4000 pounds on the bar.

Chibi didn’t look worried at all though. He simply laid flat atop the bench and scooted under the bar. Rubbing his hands together, he positioned himself and pushed upward. Muscles strained under his tank top, creaking against the metal until it lifted slowly into the air. Chibi steeled his resolve and pushed it up… and down… and up again. His arms didn’t seem to be struggling too much with the exertion. Finishing a full set, he laid the bar back in place and panted.

“There, did you watch? Think you got the idea?”

“That was AMAZING,” the Dewott said with wide and shining eyes. “You didn’t even break a sweat with all of that! Can you do even more?”

Chibi looked back at the bar, then down at the excited Dewott. He smiled and flashed a thumbs up. If this little Pokemon wanted a bigger show, he could definitely give that. Chibi started to load up the bar again, another 2000 pounds. This was all the weight that the gym had to offer for barbells. Every single absurdly enormous weight was packed on the sides of it, practically bending the metal of the barbell. Chibi grinned at the captivated Dewott before laying down again.

It took some effort this time. Chibi hadn’t ever gone quite this heavy on bench pressing before. But if his last month’s experience had taught him anything, it was that his body seemed very eager to just keep letting him grow bigger. He still hadn’t found anything yet that was so heavy he couldn’t handle it… so why not go for broke? With a deep breath the Buizel pushed as hard as he could upward on the bar, with a mighty struggle. This time it was actually pretty heavy, but Chibi focused himself. His biceps struggled against the weight before bloating visibly. They pumped larger by just a few inches, going from thick to huge in a few moments. The Dewott didn’t notice the change though; he was spellbound by watching that much weight pushed upward. Each repetition of the movement added a few more pounds to Chibi’s frame, pecs stretching the muscle shirt while his arms continued pumping. It got easier with each time Chibi pushed the weight until soon there was barely any resistance from the weight at all.

Visibly dripping sweat now, the Buizel put the barbell back down. “Oof, now that was a workout! Heh. Guess I can’t really use this barbell now. It’s just too light,” Chibi said, grinning wider than he had in weeks. Having an audience to watch really seemed to motivate him to lift even more, to get larger. To push the point home, Chibi bounced his pecs a bit to the happy applause of the Dewott.

“More, more! Can you lift anything else?” the Dewott exclaimed.

“More? Hmm, yeah. Definitely,” Chibi answered, hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Guess I should really test my limits and see how much I can do, right?”

Huffing as he looked back at the barbell, he picked it up in both hands. Rather than using it for bench pressing though, Chibi started to curl the whole bar. Without the bench bracing his back it was a much more difficult workout on his arms, but his body seemed to respond happily to the extra resistance. Each lift packed more heavy muscle onto his build. His six pack abs revealed itself more and more as his shirt stretched out around yellow furred pecs like dinner plates. Even though it wasn’t leg day, it seemed his legs were willing to get their own bit of expansion, tree trunk thick and hard as rock. His biceps and triceps looked like they could’ve been cut from marble, hardening and relaxing with each lift of that overloaded bar. Chibi was too focused on the lifting to realize that each repetition was still adding more mass to his arms. One inch thicker… two inches… three…

Eventually it reached the point that Chibi stopped using two arms and simply resorted to a single hand, swapping back and forth between the two. He smiled down at the Dewott, with just a hint of smugness and satisfaction at his size. This Dewott used to be his size just a short few months ago. Half as tall and several hundred pounds lighter. Now look at him, using every weight in the gym like it was nothing. Curling 6000 pounds in a single hand. He’d need more of a challenge. Much more. This simply wouldn’t be enough weight for him anymore.

Ego full to bursting now, Chibi brought both hands to the barbell and pushed inward on each side. Slowly, with a terrible creaking, the metal started to give way and bend at the middle. What the weights on either end had started earlier, Chibi finished, bending the bar to form a complete right angle in the center. He huffed, beaming at his newfound strength. Well if that wasn’t going to be enough, what else could he lift to find his limit? The Buizel’s dual tails wagged back and forth as he scanned the room to try and find anything heavier. But the only thing he could manage to come up with was… the equipment itself.

The buff Pokémon walked over to a nearby all-in-one style workout machine and picked it up in one hand, balanced on the other side by the barbell. Chibi grunted as he picked up a second, and then a third machine all at once. The single machine hadn’t added enough weight to his arms. They’d been completely useless for his lifting for weeks by now anyway; not nearly enough weight to build any muscle.

As one last lift, the cherry on top, Chibi leaned over to pick up the Dewott. He squeaked excitedly in the Buizel’s hand, before being flung up slightly to land atop a workout machine’s chair. The perfect vantage point for this.

“Alright, you ready little guy? Let’s go-”

“HEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?” a loud voice boomed from behind the water types. Chibi wobbled as the voice surprised him, struggling to keep the machines balanced in his hands. The bodybuilding Buizel turned around slowly. His grumpy Pangoro friend stood there, arms crossed over a wide belly, tapping his foot.

“Uhhhh… lifting?” Chibi answered, all the wind taken out of his sails in an instant.

“I can see that. You’re gonna break something dude, you know you can’t do that. Put that stuff down,” the panda growled.

Chibi’s face went red and he looked down at his feet, suddenly feeling much more bashful. He’d let his emotions get the best of him. It wasn’t the only time this had happened either. Best to put his new Dewott buddy down, and the equipment too. He should probably unbend the bar too. This new life of his came with a lot of changes, not just to his personality. Doors were a constant challenge… along with fitting into showers if they were particularly small. That didn’t even get into his struggles with chairs while in his classes; the school bought him a steel reinforced one after he broke the third one. Regular clothes barely fit him anymore…

Speaking of, as Chibi put the gym back in order, he looked to his chest and noticed it was bare. His muscle shirt must have ripped away during all the lifting. The Buizel’s face scowled as he searched for the pieces of his shirt. “Dang it, not another one… second time this week,” he mumbled. As if being eight feet tall wasn’t already a challenge for clothing, he would frequently burst out of his shirts and pants while lifting.

The blue-furred otter followed behind the whole way, still star struck by this Pokémon who had so easily lifted all the weight in the gym. “How did you get this big anyway?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“Well, you said you used to be my size, right? How did you get this big?”

Chibi sighed, before ruffling the little ‘wott’s head fur. “I had a lot of help from a friend. I could introduce you to him sometime if you’re interested. But not tonight. I should probably head home to get a new shirt.” The Dewott’s eyes lit up before shaking his head yes. Looks like Alkali would have another willing test subject soon then.

With thudding footsteps that shook the light fixtures above just barely, Chibi made his way back to the locker rooms to change. The Buizel stopped to look at his reflection in a full-body mirror, marveling at the curves and contours of his muscles. Without a shirt on like this it was easy to see the V-shaped torso, pecs that could act as shelves, traps behind his head that were just barely visible. With a smirk he brought both arms up for a double flex, enjoying the way those arms thickened with the simple act of movement. As Chibi admired himself, thinking back to how his arms alone were wider than what used to be the whole of his 3 foot 11 inch body, he realized this is exactly what he’d wanted months back when he agreed to Alkali’s experiment. He was big, in every sense of the word. And still getting larger if his workouts were any indication. He made a mental note to search for another gym soon, one that would provide more weight.

And as he looked himself in the mirror, his phone’s ringer went off. He had to fish it out of his gym bag, finding a message from Alkali of all people. “Come to the lab, equipment needs moving, we have big things to discuss. ASAP.”

Chibi sighed yet again. Oh well, back to work it was. Who knows what Alkali could have in store for him back at that lab.