The Incredible History of Yul Morgan

My name is Wayne Peterson and you’ll never believe the story I’m about to tell you. I saw it happen, and I still can’t believe it!

It all started at the end of our seventh grade year. Back then me and my best friends, Pete Willburn and Stan Shultz, ruled our whole grade. If you saw the three of us in normal clothes you’d think, “They’re just ordinary boys . . . but . . . wait a minute . . . whoa!”

We were all in great shape and very muscular for our age. Each of us had a different most developed muscle group. I was proud of my really big, powerful arms, Pete had great legs and Stan loved showing off his tight, six-pack abs. Yes, were the strongest and coolest boys in our school. Or rather, we used to be the strongest and coolest boys in our school. Read on to find out what happened.

During recess on the last day of school our soccer game ended early when the other team gave up. The three of us headed back to the classroom to take a look at some of Pete’s new comics, laughing and reveling in our victory. The room was empty except for one lone figure under the Virtual Reality helmet in the corner: Yul Morgan.

Yul was the only son of a rich Russian software designer who had settled in our little town last year. The kid still spoke with an accent and was painfully shy. He was smart as a whip, always getting the highest score on tests, but he wasn’t a strong boy; his muscles were weak!

Maybe that’s why he spent as much time as he could using our room’s Virtual Reality station, a donation to the school from his Dad. One day he was the Galactic Emperor, the next he was a soldier in World War II. Pete and I didn’t really have a problem with Yul then, though we didn’t hesitate to push him around. Stan, however, was a different story.

He’d always had trouble in school and his last report card had been all C’s and D’s. I’m pretty sure he resented how easy school was for Yul; I think that’s why what happened next did.

Stan walked straight over to Yul and yanked the helmet off his head. Surprised, Yul blinked owlishly at him from behind his thick glasses.

“You gonna waste all your time on this, wimp? Why aren’t you out on the playground with everyone else?”

“I don’t like playing out there,” Yul confessed.

“That’s because you’re a wuss! You don’t understand what gives a boy his real power: muscles!”

Stan flexed his right arm then, and even though his bicep wasn’t quite as large as mine, it was still pretty big and hard.

“That’s very interesting,” Yul said diffidently, “but could I please have my helmet back?”

In response Stan tossed it over to me. Luckily I caught it; I didn’t want to think about what the bill would be for repairing this thing if I’d dropped it.

“Sure, you can have it back, once you prove to me that you can take a punch.”

“What?” Yul asked, bewildered.

“I wanna see how hard a punch a weakling like you can take,” Stan sneered. “Better tense those abs, stick-boy!” he taunted as he wound up.

“No! Please don’t!” Yul pleaded, but Stan let him have it right in the stomach.

Yul collapsed to the ground, hugging his midsection, tears streaming out of his tightly clenched gray eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Stan gloated, and then he literally kicked Yul’s butt, wrenching a cry of pain from prone, skinny boy.

He looked so pathetic that Pete and I couldn’t help laughing. I did think Stan had gone a little too far, but I didn’t say anything. I wish now that I had! Maybe then what followed would have been different.

Yul’s thirteenth birthday was on April 22nd, only six days after school let out, and everyone going into the eighth grade got invited. Even though Yul was a social reject, almost everyone showed up for the party. The Morgan family lived in a real mansion, with tennis, badminton, volleyball and basketball courts, not to mention an in-ground pool! No one wanted to miss a chance to party at that place!

At Stan's suggestion we had pooled our money for a single gift, a ten pound hand dumbbell with a card, “From muscles to brains.” It was kinda mean, I guess, but once again I went along with it.

There was a shadow over the thin boy’s face when he opened our gift, and he quickly set it aside. The last gift he opened was from his parents, and the box it was in was the biggest I’d ever seen in my life! I couldn’t help feeling a little envious as Yul eagerly opened the giant carton, revealing his gift.

It was a VR helmet wired to a screen mounted atop a treadmill. The screen was securely mounted on a treadmill, with a metal bar projecting outward above the screen and two boxing gloves at waist high, with a couple of handles above them. On the screen was emblazoned the words “Alt-A-Virt”.

“I love it!” Yul proclaimed, to his parents’ smiles. His Dad helped him plug it in and then said, “That’s not your only present, son. For the last four months my design team has been working on a new fantasy game just for you: “Warrior of Balconia!”

I thought Yul was going to hyperventilate he was so excited! His Dad put the new game into the slot at the base of the machine and switched it on. Yul got up on the machine and put on the helmet. The screen flashed to life, allowing the rest of us to see what Yul was seeing.

He was in a burning village, with people running everywhere and being chased by a lot of hideous little green goblin creatures. Yul moved toward one of them and it stabbed out at him. At the same time the right glove shot out on a metal limb and hit him in the stomach! He grunted in pain as Stan snickered and the words “Game Over” flashed up on the screen.
Undeterred, Yul restarted the game. This time he ran away from the goblins, to a wood wall encircling the village. There was a crack between boards and beyond the wall there was a breastplate.

“Armor,” Yul breathed, and his hands went up to the bar and he tried to hoist himself over the wall. All he needed to do to reach the armor was complete one push-up, but as we watched him struggle it was clear that he couldn’t even do that!

Again “Game Over” flashed on the screen as one of the goblins got him from behind. To my surprise he didn’t give up, but immediately restarted the game again.

“Not doing so well, are you?” Stan taunted.

“It’s so funny!” Becky Bujold agreed with a laugh. Becky was the prettiest girl in the school, but she’d never had a boyfriend. She flirted with lots of guys, though, and Stan, Pete, and I had a special advantage, because Becky liked hard bodies.

“Let’s go play volleyball,” she suggested. “And I want you on my team, Wayne!” she exclaimed, grabbing my thick right bicep. I was more than happy to agree. We all trooped outside, leaving the birthday boy absorbed in his new game.

That was the last time I saw Yul for the rest of the summer, but in the first week of August I did see his Dad.

Mom had sent me down to Walmart to pick up some hamburger for dinner. I got in line behind a guy with a lot of fruits, vegetables and steak. As he turned to make sure he’d gotten everything out of his cart he saw me and recognition lit up his face.

“Ah, Wayne. It’s nice to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Mr. Morgan,” I replied politely. I was a little surprised that a multi-millionaire like Mr. Morgan was doing his own shopping. Shouldn’t he have servants for that?

“It looks like you’re getting a lot of food,” I observed.

“Yes, we need it for Yul. His appetite is wonderful now.”

“And how’s he doing at that virtual reality game you got him?” I asked curiously, remembering how pitiful he had been on his birthday.

“He just finished the 60th and last level this weekend and went directly into the solarium afterwards. I know he’s looking forward to seeing you and his other friends when school starts.”

We weren’t exactly Yul’s friends, but I couldn’t tell his father that.

“Tell him I said “hi”,” I offered as Mr. Morgan was paying the cashier for his groceries.

“I will,” Mr. Morgan promised as he wheeled the heavily-laden cart out the doors.

Now I could kick myself for all the clues I missed! I should have picked up on what Mr. Morgan said about Yul’s appetite. I should have questioned why Yul went nowhere but the solarium after completing the game. If I’d been more alert, I could have at least gotten some warning about what was going to happen.

The first day of school I was busy catching up with everyone I hadn’t seen over the summer. I’d been on the same PeeWee football team with Pete and Stan, plus we’d been over to each other’s houses a bunch of times, so there was no need to get caught up there. It was a good thing, since Stan wasn’t there. I knew he wasn’t sick, so I figured he was just skipping school. Like I said earlier, school isn’t Stan’s strong point.

This year we had gym last period and when the time came we quickly got changed into our gym clothes. Our gym teacher was Mr. Washowski, a gruff, black-haired man who didn’t tolerate any back talk. He took attendance while we sat quietly.

“So, everyone is here but Shultz and Morgan.”

“I’m here, Mr. Washowski!” Yul’s voice unexpectedly called from the locker room. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“Get in here, you young truant!” Mr. Washowski bellowed, and Yul made his entrance, to everyone’s shock!

He was dressed the same as everyone else, but if in past years the orange shirt had hung on him like he was a scarecrow, this year it looked about to burst from the pressure of the bulging pecs beneath it! Under the blue shorts his legs rippled with muscle like twin young oak trees, and his now-enormously muscled arms were much thicker than mine without even flexing! His blond hair was long and braided down his back in a barbarian ponytail. And where was the wan, inexpressive face and watery gray eyes? Now his brutally handsome face wore a cheeky grin and beneath his glasses his eyes looked forward like two blades of cold gray steel!

Curses, he’d become unrecognizable! Where had the scrawny boy we’d known gone?

Everyone gathered around Yul, buzzing with questions. The class was completely disrupted, but Mr. Washorski, it seemed, didn’t mind that! Like the rest of us, he was too busy admiring the newly shredded Russian muscleboy’s phenomenal physique!

“Now, Morgan, you look like you could kick anybody’s ass!”

“Maybe, Mr. Washorski, it’s very possible,” Yul agreed. He swaggered confidently over to the weight bench in the corner, the walk of the undisputed alpha male!

“Hey, that barbell is for Pete’s squats!” Simon called out as Yul grasped the bar.

“Of course, for squats,” Yul murmured. Then some of the girls screamed as Yul pressed the weight bar overhead like a broom! Lowering it onto his newly broad shoulders he said, “Now I can do squats too.”

He did ten reps, almost as quickly as if there was wasn’t 130 pounds on his back. A lot of people clapped, but Yul wasn’t finished. He put the bar on the bench and started shoving new plates on, upping the weight to 190 pounds. Again he effortlessly lifting the bar onto his back.
Then he drew in his right leg and knelt down.

“Nightmare!” Pete exclaimed. I knew 190 pounds was more than his weight limit for both of his legs, and here Yul was going to try it with only one leg!

His face grew red and the heads of all four of the muscles of his left leg bulged as he slowly pushed himself erect. He did three more reps before switching off to his other leg for another four.

“It is very heavy,” he told a stunned Pete, “but the slabs of rock blocking the exit to the Crimson Dungeon in Level 45 were even heavier. I lifted and carried many such slabs to escape from the dungeon.”

Then Yul turned to me.

“Hey, Wayny, why don’t we have an arm-wrestling match?” he suggested. “You’re so strong you can hope to win!”

I was furious. Even my mother hadn’t called me in “Wayny” in more than two years! Who did this hasty pumper think he was?

Stretching out on the gym floor as our classmates gathered in a circle around us, we clasped hands. Aw, hell, I remember thinking, as I realized how hard and tough Yul’s hand was.

Mr. Washorski counted us down and yelled “Go!”.

Instantly I put all my strength into it, my arm muscles erupting in well-defined mounds. I was putting forth all of my effort-and Yul was smiling, his very muscular extended arm holding as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar!

“I can’t even feel that, Wayny,” he taunted. “Why don’t you use both arms?”

“You’ll choke on your smile now, you bastard!” I snarled and placed my left hand on top of our joined limbs. I gave it everything I had, causing my arms to hurt and me to feel really tired, but my opponent’s hand started slowly moving back.

Yul’s smile disappeared. “Now, Wayny, our playtime is over,” he told me coldly, like a boy Greek god addressing a mortal. “Now I’ll show you my real power!”

Suddenly it felt as if my right hand had been caught in a hydraulic vise, as if my arms were resisting the levers of some powerful industrial machine. “More strength, more power, more!” Yul whispered, nearly setting me alight with the gaze of his radiant gray eyes as the teen super-stud easily slammed and pinned both my hands to the floor.

Then he smiled again. “You were very strong and pressed very hard, but the Skeleton Lord of Level 54 was stronger and pressed harder!”

Yul rose to stand towering triumphantly above me, while I lay there stunned, in his shadow-which is where I’ve been ever since.

As our classmates were enthusiastically congratulating Yul, Pete pulled me aside.

“That’s not our familiar, bookish Yul!” he said frantically. “He must have been replaced by aliens last summer. That’s an alien invader in disguise!”

“Don’t be stupid!” I scolded Pete, disgusted by his inability to grasp what was going on. “Don’t you see what’s happened? That Alt-A-Virt his father got him was really a universal work-out machine, and the game was an exercise program in disguise. His Dad probably wanted to make him a little stronger, but he didn’t have the sense to see how well it would work! Yul loves VR games so much that for victory in the virtual world he got over his real weakness in a jiffy! It’s incredible, but there it is!”

“So what do we do now?” Pete asked plaintively as the last bell rang to dismiss us.

Suddenly I knew what was going to happen next.

“Now? We get over to Stan’s house, and fast!”

We ran all the way, and found Stan in his garage, lying on his lifting bench.

“Stan, Stan!” we yelled as we ran in. “You won’t believe what’s happened to Yul!”

“What? Did that wuss finally complete a pull-up or something?” Stan laughed.

Oh, to be back in the days when Yul couldn’t even do ONE pull-up, let alone hundreds!

“Maybe I’m just in time?” a familiar voice asked from outside.

Mighty Yul strolled in with the liquid grace and killer confidence of a Bengal tiger. He looked like a young GIANT, an absolutely perfect picture of spectacular kid health and awesome muscle power!

“What’s a fucking, dude?” Stan threw out.

“Last summer I was punched by a stronger boy. You were cruel and pitiless, but you forgot that he who laughs last, laughs best! We still don’t know how hard a stomach punch we can take, you and I. I want to find that out.”

Yul stripped off his shirt, revealing breathtakingly ideal pecs and a laser-cut, anvil-like eight pack abs, by far the most amazingly muscular upper body I’d ever been privileged to see in my life!

“Let’s do it!” Stan agreed aggressively, rising from his bench.

I couldn’t understand Stan! Of course, he was a very strong, fit boy, but against this magnificent new YUL . . . what chance did he have?

“You can hit me thrice,” Yul offered, “and you can go first because you are such a cool stud!” Oh, the sarcasm in Yul’s voice!

Enraged, Stan wound up and punched Yul right in the stomach. Any normal kid would have crumbled at that blow. Even Pete or I, boys with hard, well-trained abs, would have been in some pain, but Yul was in-none at all!

“Did you hit me or caress me?” he mocked Stan.

“Okay, you asked for it now, you hasty pumper! I oughta kill you for that!” Stan roared. He fired his hardest punch ever into Yul.

A puft of air went out of the hulking, muscle-bound Russian boy and he took a single step backward, but he betrayed no other sign of having been hit. Stan, however, was cradling his fist and tears were running down his face!

“When I tamed the stallions of the 36th level with my bare hands,” Yul spoke with feeling, “they many times tested the sharpness of their hooves on my belly. Your hit was quite hard-for a little foal of the horses! You have one more punch, studdy”

“Damn! What are you made of? Your stomach feels like it’s armored with titanium!” Stan gasped.

“Stop talking so much and fight!” Yul ordered, his gray eyes blazing!

Stan groaned and hit his opponent with his left fist in a punch clearly far weaker than his other two.

“Now, boys, watch the end of my duel with the Brown Ogre from the 50th level.”

Yul clenched his LEFT fist, looked dreamily at Stan, and . . .

Later Pete and I would disagree. Pete said Stan flew a minimum of three feet up into the air. I argued that I hadn’t seen Stan flying; he’d just curled up and rolled under his weight bench. Poor “cool stud”; he probably felt like his stomach was coming out his ears!

“He won’t die, children, don’t worry and be happy,” Yul sang in perfect imitation of Bobby McFerrin. “I hope you understand . . . who’s the boss now?” he growled threateningly, hitting an awesome most muscular pose! Mountain after mountain of chiseled, rock-hard muscle settled into place in all of the anatomical details, sculpted and bulging with raw, brute strength!

I know muscles, and I could gladly talk for hours about Yul’s muscles in all of their incredible size, amazing attractiveness and pure power, but I’ll only say I don’t dare to dream that I’ll EVER develop such muscles!

“That’s you, Yul,” Pete and I muttered submissively, eyes on the floor. What else could we say? We didn’t have a choice!

“Good. By the way, you may not call me “Yul” anymore. I like the name, “Kid Warrior of Balconia”’. Then the thirteen year-old, gray-eyed Goliath turned and strode lazily out of the garage, his immense muscles rippling fluidly across his beyond perfect physique.

“Wha- What was that? A Russian nuclear missle?” Stan asked faintly from below us.

“No, that was only Yul of Balconia, our new lord and master,” Pete said resignedly. “Nightmare!”

I was the only one to glance out the garage door after our departing alpha male, so I was the only one who saw what happened next. Or at least, I thought I saw it . . .

The young barbarian boy stopped and spoke to a girl every bit as beautiful as he was buff: Becky Bujold! She gently touched his tree-trunk thick, steel-hard right arm and breathlessly whispered to him, “Oh, Yul, you are so strong, so muscular!”

A thousand, a million curses! Then a large black stallion trotted up with an antique leather saddle on its back. Yul took Becky in his very muscled arms and effortlessly leapt atop the horse. Together the musclebound hero and his lady rode off into the setting sun.

But that would have to be a hallucination, wouldn’t it?

Everything changed after that day. The popular, privileged position the three of us had held in school disappeared; Yul’s super-heroic strength and huge, exquisitely defined muscles made him a blond, pony-tailed Kid Conan who completely overshadowed us all! We couldn’t even dream of attempting to match Yul’s now-mindbogglingly overwhelming might! He was the musclebound king jock of our school, with Becky Bujold as his beautiful, loving queen. After a whole year of constant flirting Stan, Pete and I, she didn’t so much as glance at any of us anymore. Why should she, when she had the savagely handsome super-hunk of her dreams in Yul? His awe-inspiring physical perfection continually mocked our comparatively puny inferiority!

He made sure we knew it, too. As he’d warned, he forced us to respectfully address him as “Kid Warrior of Balconia”, while contemptuously calling us “Wayney”, “Petey”, and “Stanley”. The other kids openly laughed at us, and we had no choice but to take it.

Yul was Mr. Washorski’s new favorite student and was always chosen to be one of the captains when we split up for team games. He would never pick Pete, Stan or I, yet his team would STILL always win, because he was on it! The incredible athleticism, coordination and swiftness Yul had gained with his newly supreme strength made him a sports superstar who defeated us virtually singlehandedly, time and time again!

I was shocked by the unreal determination and relentless will to win Yul displayed during these matches. These were things which beforehand he had always channeled into his video games. His father had taken advantage of these traits of his son with his clever machinations by disguising a universal work-out machine as a fantasy video game. Yul’s drive had motivated him to conquer that game as he had all the others, and in the process the formerly skinny wimp had achieved in real life the peerless, mega-buff musculature of our wildest dreams! Any one of us would have killed to have boasted the ripped, gargantuan muscles Yul did, muscles so strong they could effortlessly crush all three of us!

Even after the school day ended the brutal domination didn’t stop. He forced us to attend his marathon weight-lifting sessions after school, so we could watch him easily pumping much more iron than any of us could have even begun to handle. He ordered us to add weight plates we struggled to lift, and after every workout the young Russian Hercules proudly flexed his beautifully chiseled, massive muscles in the mirror!

“Hey, weak little children, would you like to feel some REAL muscles?” he would often tauntingly asked us while posing. In spite of the embarrassment, we usually couldn’t resist the chance to touch and caress his steel-hard, coconut-sized biceps, his carved, armor-like eight pack abs, his phenomenally flawless pecs and his tree-trunk thick legs. All while being contemptuously watched by the glasses-covered, piercingly intimidating gray eyes which were the sole weak part of Yul’s otherwise immensely muscled, teen pro bodybuilder form! Heck, even his Russian accent was strong!

In our depression Stan, Peter and I started to lose our years-long dedication to working out. What was the point? After all, it wasn’t like we could ever come close to equaling Yul! We slacked off and got weaker, while the already mighty Yul grew ever STRONGER!

I was surprised by how mean and nasty Yul was to us; he’d been so shy and quiet before! After a while, though, I figured things out: it was all Stan’s fault! Stan’s bullying session last year had taught the then-weakling that an ideal boy should be strong, cruel, muscular and merciless! Unfortunately, Yul had turned out to be a very fast learner!

I guess I should have realized he would be, given those wonderful grades he got. Oh, how I dearly wished I’d kept Stan from ever bullying that former bookworm! Yul would still have totally surpassed us physically, but at least he wouldn’t be holding a grudge against us!

Each of us dealt with the catastrophe which had struck us in a slightly different way. Pete began to look up to and admire Yul as his paragon bodybuilder idol and ideal. I went back endlessly over what had happened, thinking about what could have been done differently to avoid this and at the same time wondering if I would have changed things if I could have: Could I really have deprived the world of the utter marvel of monumental physical strength and rippling, mammoth muscles which was the new and infinitely improved Yul Morgan? Stan seethed with resentment and kept stupidly trying to compete with our unstoppable apex alpha male and, of course, always losing. How could it be otherwise? Yul was a total teenage powerhouse, boasting an overwhelming abundance of both brains AND brawn! Of course, looking at his immeasurably amazing body, you could nearly forget what a genius Yul was, except his glasses lent a decided intellectual air to the tall, tremendously muscle-packed Slavic strongboy.

Our misery endured for a couple of weeks before our master informed us that he had indeed joined the gymnastics team and we’d have to be at his first meet, on Saturday night.

“Otherwise,” he warned ominously, “I’ll need to punish you weaklings with some broken bones!”

Last year such a threat would have been ridiculously laughable; now it was dead serious. We all froze as the glasses-sporting, monstrous musclekid threateningly tensed the great bronzed boulders of his mind-blowingly huge biceps. We knew the spectacular new Yul could easily beat up all three of us at once and then snap our bones like rotten twigs! And he’d do it, too. The mild-mannered star student had become proud, cruel and totally dominant!

We made sure we were present in the gymnasium by 5:50 P.M. on the appointed evening. And we weren’t the only ones! The bleachers were packed and every kid in school seemed to be there, chattering excitedly amongst themselves. Foam mats were laid out on the polished gym floor. Atop them were a pommel horse and a set of rings hanging down from the ceiling.

The announcer stated the ring event would be first, and then he appeared, walking out into the center of the gym. The red and white unitard he wore emphasized how jaw-droppingly, colossally built the stunningly ripped Russian teenage titan was! The entire audience caught their breath in awed admiration, myself included. Yul looked like such an unstoppable adolescent juggernaut that I felt like kneeling down and kissing his feet!

He stalked self-confidently to the center of mat, raised his hands overhead, and leapt upward! His gloved hands grasped the rings and he began to twist and gyrate in ways which seemed impossible! Yul’s statuesque, magnificently muscular form whipped about through the air to and fro, propelled entirely by the He-Boy thirteen year-old’s own fantastic physical power! At the conclusion of his remarkable routine he used the rings to raise himself to shoulder-height before lifting his frame up into an inverted iron cross, his every sculpted, enormous muscle bulging with raw, pure power!

Yul released his grasp and gracefully somersaulted to the mat, sticking the landing perfectly to the wild cheers and whistles of, well, everyone! I was sitting close enough to hear our school coach exclaim, “He’s going to win the gold medal at the next Olympics!”

And I knew it was true.

The next day, after a work-out which would have killed any one of us, Stan was feeling Yul’s tree-trunk thick left arm when our young master suddenly began to flex. Stan’s hand was trapped between the irresistible force of Yul’s steely forearm and the peaked, immovable mountain of his great bicep! Stan began screaming and pulling frantically at his hand as we heard his bones crack in the crushing vice of Yul’s amazingly muscular arm! Pete and I could only watch helplessly, knowing the colossally muscle-bound Yul was far too strong for even both of us together to free Stan from him!

At last he released his literally bone-breaking flex and Stan collapsed to the floor sobbing, cradling his broken fingers, while our cruelly smirking, gray-eyed boy muscle god towered proudly and victoriously above him!

“You can call an ambulance for this weakling now,” the superhuman Kid Warrior of Balconia said to Pete dismissively. “Tell them the wimp dropped a barbell on his hand!”

With trembling fingers, Pete dug his mobile phone out of his pocket and quickly punched in 911.

When we saw Stan at school on Monday morning, his entire right hand was encased in a plaster cast. Yul laughed and said, “Let me be the first to sign your cast, Stanley.”

He boldly scrawled across the length of the cast, “Yul Morgan, Kid Warrior of Balconia”.

“You’d better hope your wrist heals soon,” Yul said mock-sympathetically. “You can’t lift with it in a cast, and your arm is already so puny compared to mine!” he bragged, flexing his laser-cut, gargantuan right bicep! Then the bespectacled, uber-ripped Russian muscleboy swaggered off confidently off down the hall.

Stan slipped into an angry funk, lashing out at even Pete and I if we tried to talk to him. The two of us were pretty shaken, since it was the first time our new master had seriously injured one of us. That gentle, bookish Yul we had once known was gone forever, replaced by this violently dominant world-class athlete and mega-muscleboy!

“We should tell someone what he did to Stan,” I argued to Pete at lunch.

“Are you crazy?!?” Pete demanded. “Look what he did to Stan for fun! Think what he’d do to US if we actually tried to get him in trouble!”

That was a pretty scary thought, and took care of my desire to go to the authorities. That afternoon the three of us helped and watched Yul lift a mind-boggling amount of iron, close to the world’s record! He roared as he hit a double biceps pose in the mirror, his pumped, awe-inspiring muscles bulging! Pete and I instinctively started forward, but paused at the same time, both afraid of being injured like Stan had been. Seeing us in the mirror, Yul laughed.

“Don’t worry, stupid weaklings,” he told us condescendingly. “I will allow you to worship me!”

And that’s literally what we did, humbly feeling and caressing our Kid Warrior’s flawlessly statuesque, marble-hard musculature. It was incredible to think, only a few short months ago, he had been a scrawny, ninety-pound wimp; now Yul was the ultimate adolescent incarnation of athleticism, strength and muscles! How could we not worship such a great-looking, glasses-wearing boy muscle god?!?!

As the months passed, we gradually grew used to being the obedient slaves of the Kid Warrior of Balconia, the king of our school, and within a span of months, a national celebrity! He won the U.S. Teen Gymnastics competition, scoring several interviews and endorsement deals from his victory. As Captain of the football team, he led our school to an undefeated season. He was even profiled in Sports Illustrated! We were there for the photo shoot, and one picture depicted our awe-inspiringly built master holding a sickle in one hand and a hammer in the other, posed against a backdrop of the Soviet Union’s flag, to show where he and his family had emigrated from. It was a great picture, and I figured if the Soviet Union could’ve promised all boys would grow to be absolute intellectual and physical paragons like Yul Morgan, they’d have easily won the Cold War!

As we were walking home, Stan suddenly burst into tears! Neither Peter nor I could believe it; in all the years we’d known him, we’d only see Stan cry once. Why was he crying now?

That’s what Pete asked, and Stan tried to blow him off. We kept badgering him, however, and finally he came out with it.

“It’s not fair,” he hissed between angry tears. “We’ve been working out since fifth grade! How can HE only work out for a few damn months and grow to be an ultra-buff superboy?!?”

Pete and I watched silently as Pete wept, uncomfortable and unsure what to do to help.

“I’ve tried,” he sobbed, caught a breath, continued, “tried so hard and I’m up to fourteen inches on my arms, but he’s got peaked twenty-two inch biceps bigger than my head! He’s five times stronger than I am now, FIVE TIMES!” Stan virtually howled. “No matter what I do, he keeps getting even further ahead of me!”

“You can’t match him,” Pete said softly. “Yul’s an adolescent Hercules, he’s like a force of freaking nature!

I expected Stan to deny it, to push back, as he had so many times before, to claim he, too, could somehow reach the pinnacle of physical perfection upon which stood alone the unspeakably mighty, massively muscle-bound Kid Warrior of Balconia! Instead-he only sniffled! I knew then his denial had ended; Stan could no longer dispute or hope to equal Yul’s vast physical superiority.

That year all the kids in our grade wanted to attend our Kid Warrior King’s birthday party. The Morgan dining room table looked like it was about to break under the weight of all the birthday presents everyone had brought! As usual, our Master was wearing tight designer clothes which showed off his magnificently sculpted, phenomenally fantastic physique! Everyone clustered as close to him as possible, clamoring to be near their young Olympian idol!

“Get the birthday cake,” Yul peremptorily told his father.

His Dad hurried out of the room, quickly complying. I realized then that our gray-eyed young Atlas utterly dominated not only our grade, but even his own father! I was actually glad to see that! Mr. Morgan was the one who had set all of this in motion, with his cursed Alt-A-Virt and his Adventures of Balconia game! He was the one who’d transformed his weedy, genius offspring into a teenage model of beyond perfect physical POWER! It was only right he, too, be subjugated by his own impossibly muscular, supremely strong son!

The End