Baloo, Bigger and Better!

Of all the strange deliveries Baloo has made over the years, this one leaves the biggest impression of all! Thanks to all our donors, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Higher For Hire was used to strange delivery requests; it was practically the small firm’s speciality in Cape Suzette. Even so, this job seemed just a little off to Higher For Hire’s star pilot, Baloo. There were two crates that needed to be delivered by his plane, the Sea Duck: one filled with bottles of soda water, and the other filled with bottles of a red liquid, labels hastily scrawled on calling them “Cherry Grenadine.”

The tubby grey bear narrowed his eyes as he looked out at the snow-capped mountains around him and the order form he had in his hand. “The… Bria n’ Them club, exclusive mountain retreat.” He glanced back at his cargo hold, then the mountains ahead. “What kind of ritzy club up in the mountains needs two crates rushed overnight? There a Shirley Temple shortage up here or somethin’?”

The snow was starting to fall heavier by the time Baloo landed his plane on a half-frozen lake near what looked like a fortress, ringed with walls topped by barbed wire and four stout lookout towers. The pilot wasn’t exactly familiar with a lot of exclusive resorts, but he was pretty certain none of them were this exclusive. He looked back at the order slip, then back at the building through his iced-up windshield. A lit up sign that still had wet paint on it read “Bria n’ Them Exclusive Mountain Club”

“What the…” Baloo narrowed his eyes, but then there was a harsh tap on his side door. He could see through his porthole it was a very serious-looking, blue boar, armed with a very serious-looking rifle. 

The boar, dressed in a long, tightly wrapped overcoat, snapped to attention as Baloo opened the cockpit door. “You will be stating your business here!” he commanded, in a thick accent Baloo could spot immediately- Thembrian. They were some of the last people he ever wanted to deal with.

“I’m, uh, just here to drop off your order. A crate of soda water and… cherry grenadine?” Baloo arched his brow slowly.

The boar snorted. “Very well. You will be waiting here for Kern- ah. Mr. Kernel. He will be inspecting cargo.”

The pilot slowly sank back into his seat. “Uh… yeah, sure, no problem, pal. You guys must really like your Shirley Temples out here, huh?”

“Wait here,” the boar snorted, and began marching back towards the building.

Baloo huffed. “Boy. And I thought it was cold already.” He drummed his fingers on the instrument panel. This whole thing stank. Especially with that Thembrian goon… he then nearly fell out of his chair, his jaw falling open. “Wait a minute! Bria n’ Them… Thembrian! This whole place is some sort of Thembrian outpost!”

The bear leaped back into his seat, panicking as he turned the key. The engine stalled out once, twice. “Oh, no, no, no… come on baby, do it for papa bear…” he murmured, but it was no use. The engines were probably iced over by now. He glanced out his windshield and bit his lip; he could barely make out the shuffling mounds growing closer; the Thembrian guard was coming back with friends. Armed friends. 

Baloo barely made it into the hold before a hail of gunfire rang through the cockpit. He was starting to panic as he could hear heavy footfalls growing closer. The bear rushed over and ducked behind the crate the Thembrians were apparently willing to gun him down for. 

“What the heck do Thembrians want with a bunch of soda water and grenadine?!” he hissed, as he did his best to hide. 

“Where ith he?! Where ith that oafish pilot?”

The bear had to suppress a gasp; he recognized that voice. Colonel Spigot, a Thembrian officer that he had way too many run-ins with. 

“He seems to have fled, Colonel,” one of the soldiers replied brusquely.

“Ith that what it theems like, private?!” Spigot snarled. “Quick, nevermind that bumbling bear for now! Find the formula! There thould be just enough to make me the mightiest champion our gloriouth motherland hasth ever theen!” 

Baloo’s eyes boggled. Formula? Mighty champion? This stuff couldn’t just be for drinks. And, as much as he hated to play hero, he couldn’t let a tyrant like Spigot get a hold of this, whatever it was. Steeling his resolve, he grabbed the crate, and ran. He only got a glimpse of Spigot’s outraged face as he dashed for the Sea Duck’s cargo bay door, slamming the button to open it up. Just as the soldiers aimed their machine guns, Baloo held up the crate like a shield, screwing his eyes shut.

“Wait! Don’t thoot!” Spigot spat out. “You’ll ruin the formula!”

Baloo opened one eye, letting out a sigh of relief. “Hah, yeah! You heard the Colonel!”

“Let’th not stand on ceremony, you big, bumbling bear!” Spigot shouted. “Sthet down the crate and you won’t be harmed!”

“Hah! After all this time, Spigot, you think I was born yesterday?” Baloo shouted back, still holding up the crate. “I wouldn’t put this down for a whole fleet of planes!”

“That ith property of the Thembrian government you’re holding!” the diminutive boar cried. “It belongth to me! And, my overweight friend, you have nowhere to run!” He smirked, the runt-sized officer glancing out the bay door, leading right to the half-frozen lake the Sea Duck had landed in. “Your choicesth are thurrender, or go for a thwim that’ll put you into hibernation forever!”

Baloo weighed his options, still clutching the crate as he backed away, his foot now on the edge of the bay door, feeling the wind and snow bite at him.  “Ah, you know, I still like the idea of a swim. Later, pintsize!” With that, the bear leapt out of the door, taking a deep breath as he and the crate hit the icy water.

Spigot gasped in shock. “G-get him! Go, you buffoonsth! Get the tanksth out there, and find that crate! Comb every inch of the lakeshore if you have to! That formula is five yearth of Thembrian research to create the ultimate thuper tholdier! If Baloo manages to ethcape with it…” Spigot shuddered. “The High Marshal will have me for thupper!”

Baloo, shivering from the intense cold, gasped for air as he flopped on the shore. The snowfall was persistent, clinging to his fur and freezing him to the bone. “Oh boy, I’m in it now… I’ll t-turn into a popsicle if th-the Thembrians don’t get me first.” He glanced at the crate he had dragged with him. “I-if this is s-supposed to make Sp-spigot a mighty champion, th-then it might my b-best shot…” He cracked the crate open, and grabbed one of the bottles, the strange red formula still sloshing inside. “B-bottoms up.”

Baloo drank the whole formula down in one big gulp. Shockingly, it did taste like cherry. There was almost a warmth to it, which he was thankful for, but more than that, he felt energized, restless. He had stopped shivering and pulled himself up, when suddenly he felt as if he had been struck by lightning, every part of his body galvanized. The bear gasped, taking a look down as he felt a tightness in his chest. 

“Hoo boy, this has a heck of a kick!” Baloo thumped his middle, and then slowed as he glanced down at his arm; it felt bigger. That, and he nearly knocked himself out with the last hit, with far more strength packed into his punch than he thought he had. He ogled at an arm that was suddenly twice as large as it had been, stuffed with thick burgeoning muscle. That tightness in his chest wasn’t just gas, either; his shirt was ready to burst, as his pecs surged out, two thick, grey walls of beef mashed up together and ready to split his clothes more than his gut ever had. His shoulders and lats were pushing out further and wider, giving Baloo a bigger wingspan than some planes he had seen.

The bear staggered forward, having a small case of vertigo as he realized he was further from the ground than he had been. Baloo chuckled once, his pumped, swollen chest bouncing. It was all he could do; his increasingly huge body was filled to the brim with so much energy and strength that he felt like he was about to explode. He growled, flexing an arm that was still growing, his bicep inflating like a balloon as it soon eclipsed the size of his head. He brought up his other arm, and let out a roar of triumph as he saw it was a perfect match in sheer girth.

“Oh, man! I almost want to thank Colonel Pint-size.” The titanic bear tried flexing like he had seen some of the lunkheads down at the beach, grinding tire-sized arms against his hull-sized chest, biceps jostling against pecs. He gave a full-bellied laugh, his torso thick and solid as a stone wall. Even his legs had caught up, his immense thighs and sculpted calves feeling like they could shake the ground with each step. “What do you give a guy who tried to kill you, then turns you into a superhero? Hah!” 

“I don’t know, Baloo! How about a full round of one hundred twenty millimeter shellsth?” Spigot shouted.

Baloo spun around, his jaw dropping. “Oh… yeah, you’re still mad at me.”

Spigot was at the head of an entire tank division, the tiny boar poking out of a turret. “Ready, men! Aim!” Every tank cannon trained on Baloo. “And fire!”

The bear cringed, screwing his eyes shut and turning away as the tank’s cannons roared, and he was ready to go to that big airplane hangar in the sky.

Then he felt something tap him in his valley of a back. He looked over his mountainous shoulder, and soon turned back to three tank shells lying in the snow, still smoking. He then looked up to Spigot.

“Ah… I sthee.” Spigot gulped. “N-now, Baloo, the great nation of Thembria isth ready to open up negotiationth- wait, wait sthtop!”

Baloo grabbed the nearest tank cannon, and tensing his arms as big as the colonel at this point, the bear grunted as he twisted it into a pretzel. The second tank fired again, but Baloo turned around to face it, inhaling and puffing up his shield-like chest as he deflected another round of cannon fire. He then grinned smugly at Spigot, lumbering slowly towards the Colonel’s tank.

“Wait, wait wait wait- I am Colonel Ivanod Sthpigot, the right hand of the High Marsall, and I am far too important to- p-please don’t kill me!” the boar squealed. Baloo winked as he stood eye-to-eye with the Colonel standing atop a tank, and then the bear hunched down, his sprawling back rippling, thighs bulging as he dug in his hands to the bottom of the tank, and with a rumbling grunt, pulled the entire engine of war up over his head.

“Ha!” Baloo laughed. “I didn’t even know if that would work! Man, this stuff is great, Spiggy! You Thembrians sure know how to mix a drink!” The bear heaved, throwing the tank with all his might, the heap of metal landing on top of the second tank. Spigot tumbled out and hit the ground, his legs sticking out of a snowbank as he shouted for the rest of the Thembrians to get him out.

The one stone-faced soldier that had previously menaced the bear was visibly quaking in his boots as Baloo clamped one huge mitt on his shoulder, his inflated bicep inches from the boar’s face.

“Hey, you don’t mind if I let myself out, huh? I got some business back in Cape Suzette.” Baloo smirked. He then knelt down, grabbing the crate and balancing it on his sprawling, rippling shoulder. “I think I’ll take a drink for the road, too!”

Chuckling to himself, Baloo lumbered away from the scrambling Thembrians, and then came back to the Sea Duck, its pontoons iced over, welded to the frozen lake. The bear pilot scratched his chin; his baby was going to be there for a while, with all that ice weighing it down. Unless… 

“Heh, this is going to be thirsty work, after all.” Baloo snatched up another batch of formula, tossing it up in the air and catching it on his boulder-sized bicep. “One more drink oughta do the trick.”