To ring in 2019, I've decided to share a few of my older stories from my Patreon, which you can check out HERE!

For as low as $1, you can vote for and read exclusive stories every month, each one illustrated by  cedricbrowning! This one from April 2018 is about the famous pair of feline superheroes making it big!

---

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!” a rough voice cut through the scrap yard. Chance snarled as he shoved aside some fallen metal plating. The yellow cat frowned as he tugged at a tear in his jumpsuit, the blue fabric ripped from where the scrap had fallen. He cut a decently impressive figure; he was tall and built with a body thick with burly, if well-fed, muscle under his striped coat. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been enough to move all the scrap he’d been working on.“Ugh, this wouldn’t be a problem if somebody wasn’t busy using the only forklift!”

“I’ll be done in a minute, Chance! Besides, thought you always said you could handle a few bits of scrap metal.” Chance’s partner, Jake smirked as he parked the forklift. The orange cat was shorter and more slim than his friend, but at least he was agile enough to dodge falling scrap.
The pair had been part of the military once, with Chance as an ace pilot and Jake as his radar coordinator. A career-ending run-in with a particularly nasty criminal and charges of insubordination had earned them the ire of the top brass, which landed the pair working in the military’s scrap yard, seemingly forever. Thankfully, negligence and a lack of a watchful eye had given them time to work on some spare projects, like building their own fighter jet. Under the covers of T-Bone and Razor, the pair worked as the Swat Kats, the city’s very own vigilante duo. As of late, they had been lucky; the criminal element of the city had been oddly quiet, but it was a mixed blessing. It was great for the city, but it left both of them restless.

“I can handle scrap, it just slipped, that’s all. Not like you haven’t tripped up when you can’t keep up with my piloting.” Chance grinned tightly back at the shorter cat, ribbing Jake as he jumped out of the vehicle.

“Yeah, Chance, and then when you try to go too far and screw up I’m the one who has to bail us out.” The orange cat shook his head, shoving the larger cat back a step. “You could have waited to move that stuff instead of insisting on doing it alone. Stop being such a hot head!”

“You took too long, I can’t just wait for you to finish up with machinery. Besides, why can’t you just build another forklift or something, Mr. Tech Genius?” Chance grumbled and crossed his arms, jumpsuit snug across his arms and chest.

“You think I haven’t considered it? I just haven’t gotten the parts, bonehead! This is military scrap, I could blow up most of it, but I can’t make construction equipment from jet engines and plane parts.” Tossing the forklift keys Jake rolled his eyes. “And the order I put in for more equipment got punted back. Like I expected it to.”

Snatching up the keys Chance grumbled as he climbed into the forklift. “Just go tinker, I’ll be done in a couple minutes.” The yellow cat huffed as he began moving the scrap metal around. It was wounding for his pride; not the menial work, but that he couldn’t move all the plating on his own. Between the two, Chance was definitively the muscle, and he had his piloting skills, but lately the former wasn’t the bon to their team it had been. Maybe he hadn’t been working out as much as he should, that had to be it. “I just gotta do some more weight training...maybe bulk up some. Besides, not like I gotta be cut and trim to pilot the TurboKat. Some solid mass just helps outside the cockpit.”

After finishing some of the scrap, Chance headed down into the underground lair he and Jake had carved out under the scrapyard. Digging through some of the cabinets in the kitchen he pulled out some bulking supplements he had used back in the military days, before the discharge. “Simple, I add some supplements to my routine, up the weights and my calories. I’ll get stronger, bigger, perfect for working the yard.”

“Just don’t blow up, Chance, there’s no way I’m gonna dig out a whole new cockpit if you wind up looking like a marshmallow.” Jake chuckled as he stirred some tea, grinning. “Besides, the TurboKat won’t fly right if you wind up with the steering controls mashed on you.”

Chance rolled his eyes before mixing some of the powder into his milk. “Hey, I hope the peanut gallery has more than cheap shots. And don’t worry, I’m not gonna put on that much, flying won’t be a problem. Never has been, never will be for me.”

The pilot’s new diet and workout routine did wonders in the short term. Chance was finding himself more than capable of handling the scrap around the junkyard on his own, much to Jake’s chagrin. The smaller, skinnier cat goaded his friend as a joke; he didn’t think Chance would take it so seriously. Naturally though, so much heavy eating had begun to pad out Chance’s frame, his once cut form growing thicker all around. He wasn’t terribly worried for now; he might have been sporting a bit of a belly, but his arms and legs were stronger than ever.

“Maybe you should dial it back, Chance. I don’t think the jumpsuit is gonna hold much more feline,” Jake quipped as he jabbed a finger into his friend’s thickened side.

Chance grunted in surprise before tending his arm, sleeve growing taut before ripping over his meaty limb. “Yeah, it just can’t handle all this bulk. No problem, don’t need sleeves to haul scrap.” Chuckling he began tearing the fabric off his suit.

Jake rolled his eyes. “You know that’s not what I meant! Just cool it on packing more on. You’re plenty strong enough for the day job. Not like more mass is gonna make piloting the TurboKat easier.”

“Maybe not, but there hasn’t been an attack on the city in weeks. Weird, but I’m not gonna complain.” Chance shrugged as he bit into a hotdog before chugging a large protein shake, one of many snacks he kept close at hand. Jake could swear he saw Chance’s jumpsuit tightening around his middle as he ate, a light wobble visible through the fabric.

“Just be ready if we need to get off the ground. If you can’t get in the air then we’re in trouble. It isn’t like the TurboKat was meant to be flown solo.” The orange cat drummed his fingers before sighing as he watched Chance scarf down another hotdog. “It’s like talking to a brick wall.”

“Yeah, because I’m built like one.” The thick, yellow cat let out a deep chuckle before drinking another protein shake.

Chance’s fervent dedication to his increased diet didn’t seem to falter, but his early burst of energy petered out; eating was a lot more fun than working out, after all. Day after day he found some excuse to slack off and just push his weights off for another day, but didn’t stop shoveling down just as many calories as he had intended to start, and maybe a little extra on the side. Food came easy to Jake and Chance; their vigilante careers had made enough contacts and favors with local butchers, grocers, and fry cooks to keep them supplied with food for years. Even when Jake began to try and goad him into pumping iron, Chance shrugged it off, tuning him out with loud crunching.

This lead to his thick, strong body and hard muscles slipping into soft and extra thick, instead. His jumpsuit no longer fit, as his belly went from a prosperous, thick middle to a ponderous mass that sagged from his torso, a round, jiggling keg complete with a soft, doughy chest a top it. Eventually, almost no clothes at all could cover his expansive mass. Thankfully, his wide, bulbous behind and sagging belly had gotten just large enough to keep him decent at the same time he had officially given up on clothes as a daily requirement. The cat’s arms and legs were swaddled in soft, doughy fat, not that he used them much beyond picking up food and walking to more food. At the rate he was going, it wouldn’t be too much longer before his legs wouldn’t be able to do that, either. His boulder-sized gut filled not only his lap, but pushed out to his ankles. Chance was about a dozen hot dogs from his belly dragging against the floor… ten, after his midmorning snack.

Jake glared at his partner, waving his hands around. “Chance, look at you! You couldn’t fit in the TurboKat three weeks ago and you still kept going! I tried putting a lock on the fridge… and I’m still not sure how you got it off.” Leaning himself against the jiggling mass of the big cat’s belly, he sighed. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Chance grunted as he demolished a burger before licking his lips. “Yeah, can you swing out to pick me up a couple more pizzas?”