Falling from the Top of the World (short story)

Falling from the Top of the World

Written by SteeleBlazer

Going into my senior year of high school I should’ve been on top of the world.

After all, I was the star player. The team MVP. The guy the whole school cheered for on Friday nights.

So why was I standing on the sidelines, a towel boy, while the cheerleaders—our ex-cheerleaders—were out on the field crushing our opponents, breaking tackles as easily as they broke hearts, and hitting so hard they’d change your perspective—up was down, left was right, and you hit like a girl was now a compliment instead of an insult? That just couldn’t be right!

It all started with a gift.

The cheer squad had chipped in and bought fitness trackers for the whole team. These were supposed to be cutting-edge fitness trackers. “Like a Fitbit, but better,” they said. “They’ll really allow us to get the most out of your workouts and get the most gains possible.”

I thought it was a dumb waste of money, especially since they gave one to everyone—even the losers on the bench. What was the point? They’re benchwarmers, not real players.

But the cheerleaders wouldn’t shut up about it—and everyone got a fitness tracker. "It'll really help maximize our gains if everyone gets one," Stacy insisted. Then she smirked. "I mean, who knows what might happen if you don’t wear one? You might just… turn into a wimp!"

The whole squad burst into laughter.

I didn’t think the joke was that funny. And knowing what I know now? I still don’t think it’s funny—especially since it was on me. But at the time, I figured maybe this fitness tracker could help transform us as a team, give us that extra boost to become champions.

If only I had known then what I know now.

Because in some ways, I was right—just not in the way I ever could have imagined... But then again who could have ever imagined what happened could have happened.

"You're gonna LOVE this, Max," Stacy, the head cheerleader, had gushed as she strapped the fitness tracker around my wrist. "It’s life-changing, trust me."

And at first, it seemed fine. My stats showed up on my phone, tracking my workouts, my calories, my sleep. Everything.

I used it to push myself harder, imagining how much bigger and better I’d be on the field. If this thing really worked, I’d be stronger, faster—ready to dominate. The first game was only a few weeks away.

This was going to be a season to remember.

But then… things got weird.

Week after week, with the first game now only days away, I wasn’t getting stronger.

I was getting weaker.

And not just me—the whole team.

Despite practically all of us hitting the weight room harder than ever, in practice, we’d never been hitting softer. Our tackles had lost their impact. Our sprints were sluggish. Our deadlifts killed us—left us wishing we were dead. And we weren’t just lacking our usual strength.

We were lacking strength.

Something wasn’t right...

I started wondering if these fitness devices were actually working, because according to my app, I should have been bigger, stronger, faster. But the only thing increasing was my doubts.

I decided to ask the cheerleaders.

Not that I had high hopes. When I spotted them before practice, they were all dressed in oversized sweatpants and bulky sweaters, looking like they’d been packing on the pounds. As in, they looked like they were getting fat—not that I’d ever say that out loud. A gentleman should never call a woman fat.

But I couldn’t help but wonder… maybe they hadn’t been using the trackers after all?

Hey, uh… you guys are still using those fitness trackers, right?" I asked.

Stacy turned, flashing me a bright grin. "Every day!" she said. "They work great, don’t they?"

"Umm… I'm not so sure—" I started.

Stacy’s smile didn’t waver. "Don’t tell me you’re not using all the features," she said, tilting her head. "You gotta use all the features to really take advantage of it and get all the gains."

"Well… about that—"

"Me and the girls think it works great," Stacy interrupted. "We’re really maximizing our gains, aren’t we, girls?"

"Mmm-hmm!" The squad giggled in agreement.

"Uh-huh…" I muttered, not really believing her. They used to be so trim and fine, but now? They looked… bulky.

And then, right in front of me, she peeled off her sweater.

One by one, the rest of the girls followed, tugging off their sweatpants and sweatshirts—revealing exactly where those extra pounds had gone.

Not fat.

But, Muscle…

Shredded, rock-hard muscle!

Sur, they were bulky—as in, bulky, hulking muscles like you’d see on the Incredible Freaking Hulk, and not on cheerleaders.

Their arms rippled with definition, biceps bulging as they stretched. Their abs—hunky, chiseled abs—tensed and flexed with every move. Their broad, brawny shoulders strained against their tight cheer uniforms, looking more jacked than some of the guys on the team. And not just the benchwarmers.

"Don’t you use your fitness tracker?" Stacy asked sweetly, watching me.

I barely registered the question at first. My jaw had gone slack, my brain short-circuiting at the sight of them. I snapped my mouth shut, cleared my throat. "Y-yeah. Of course."

Stacy smirked. "Aren’t these just great?"

She stretched, her muscles rippling, and they caught my eye—I couldn’t help but stare as they tensed and flexed with every movement.

And then she caught me looking.

Smiling slyly, she flexed her arm, watching her bicep swell as she grinned. "They really let us get the most out of all your workouts."

I swallowed hard. "Yeah… great."

Then she eyed me up and down, slow and deliberate, like she was sizing me up.

And even though I was the big star on the football team, I didn’t feel like I was shining so bright—at least, not compared to her big, bright eyes, her big, bright smile, and of course… those big, bulging muscles.

Her smirk widened. "You sure?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest, her biceps pressing thick against one another, forming a peak that could’ve belonged to a bodybuilder—and if you ask me, had no business belonging on a cheerleader.

"Yeah, of course," I said quickly, shifting on my feet, suddenly aware of just how loose my jersey felt. It didn’t hug my frame the way it used to, which was odd—but really, no big deal.

Maybe I stretched it out.

Like how those girls and their big muscles were stretching out their cheer uniforms.

Stacy exchanged a glance with the other girls. They grinned, their smiles just as broad as their shoulders, their bodies filling out their uniforms better than any of the benchwarmers— but then again, these girls looked like they could fill up the whole bench by themselves!

"Well, maybe you wanna step it up. Wouldn’t want to be a wimp now…"

The entire squad giggled.

I forced a weak chuckle of my own, but it wasn’t just my laugh that felt weak.

Looking at them… they made me feel weak.

Stacy must have noticed because her smirk didn’t fade. If anything, it grew.

"Well, if you ever need help, or, you know, some pointers," she said, resting a hand on her hip, "just ask us."

She turned to the squad. "We’re really getting all the gains from our fitness trackers, aren’t we, girls?"

A chorus of giggles erupted as, in unison, they all flexed.

Just a small, little, quick flex—but their muscles were anything but little.

And for the first time, I felt it.

That creeping, primal fear of being a wimp.

If these fitness trackers worked so dang well for them, then they had to work for me. I’m a man and they’re just girls. I’m the big football star, and they’re just cheerleaders—I can’t let them eclipse me. I’d just have to push harder, train longer, lift more. There was no way I’d let them surpass me.

I couldn’t let myself become a wimp.

I had to up my game.

Only, I didn’t know I was playing a losing game.

And the losing hand?

It was strapped to my wrist.

A SEASON TO FORGET

I tried to focus.

I tried to keep my mind focused on the big opening game and not on the big, musclebound cheerleaders parading around the field.

I rededicated myself.

Refocused my workouts.

Dialed in my diet.

I tracked everything on my fitness app, making sure I wasn’t slacking. Hell, I even helped out my teammates, giving them pointers in the weight room—because they were all struggling too.

This wasn’t how the season was supposed to start.

And it should be no surprise to hear that the first game was a struggle.

Missed tackles. Broken plays. Too many hits we should’ve shaken off kept us down.

But the cheerleaders?

They didn’t let anything shake them.

They shook their pom-poms instead— and with every shake, their muscles bulged, rippling and flexing along with them. They didn’t even look like cheerleaders. They looked more like football players— more than most of my teammates did. These girls had wider shoulders than almost all my teammates— and they weren’t even wearing shoulder pads.

And that was with my teammates wearing theirs!

We just couldn’t hold our own.

Just like we couldn’t hold the line. Our tackles didn’t hit as hard. We tackled like a bunch of girls.

Only—

As I looked over to the cheerleaders on the sidelines, there was nothing soft about those girls.

I wouldn’t want to get tackled by them.

It was bad enough that I was tackling a bigger problem— or rather, getting tackled by it. I was playing the worst game of my life, and yet, somehow, my stats weren’t half bad.

But they weren’t good.

And things weren’t looking good.

Unlike the cheerleaders.

Despite their big, brawny muscles, they still looked as good as ever—if not better.

Better, because their legs were stronger, their high kicks more powerful, their leaps and jumps were never higher, and their jumps jump-started the whole crowd, getting them to cheer along.

Better, because with their powerful chests, they could shout louder, the crowd would shout back, and it had never been louder.

Better, because as they pumped their arms and pom-poms in the air, their biceps pumped up—bigger and bigger— and with every pump of their arms and pom-poms, they pumped up the crowd to levels I’d never seen before... I’m talking about the crowd, not the cheerleaders’ biceps—but both would be true.

Better, because they had so much energy that the crowd fed on it. I wish I could say my teammates and I felt the same, that their cheers lifted us up.

But it wasn’t like that.

Because something was feeding on us.

Something was holding us down.

Something was draining us— instead of pumping us up.

And as the game went on, their cheers only got bigger and louder.

Even though there was nothing to cheer about.

But they cheered us on anyway, not just the cheerleaders but the crowd.

That’s just how strong the cheerleaders were, they got the crowd into the game, and I wish me and my team could have done the same.

Because play by play, the cheers might have been getting louder, but play by play, our problems were only getting bigger and bigger.

And I know I should have been more focused on the game than on those cheerleaders, but they were too big to ignore.

Mainly because they were just too dang big. And so yeah, while I had so many, many problems to deal with, I did have a problem with those cheerleaders. I had a problem with them being so dang big. And I couldn’t help but think maybe, just maybe there was a problem with our fitness trackers...

But that was a small problem, and right now I was dealing with some awfully big ones... I mean the cheerleaders—they took up the whole sideline, their broad, bulging bodies packed shoulder to shoulder.

And I couldn’t shake the sinking fear creeping into my chest— the fear that the football field itself wasn’t big enough for the both of us.

Only, it wasn’t them who looked out of place.

It was us.

We were the ones who didn’t belong.

Just like muscles don’t belong on girls.

And the humiliation of sharing the field with them was bad enough.

Our spirits were crushed.

But the cheerleaders?

Their school spirit was bigger, louder, and stronger than ever.

Just like their muscles.

It was a strange sight.

They lifted each other with one arm, tossing and launching each other so high into the air that it looked like they were defying gravity—

Just like their muscles seemed to defy gender.

And I wish I could say that, empowered by the cheerleaders and their cheers, we defied the odds and won that game.

But we weren’t defying anything.

We were sinking.

Sinking into quicksand.

And the more we struggled, the deeper we sank.

That game wasn’t just the start of the season.

It was the start of our humiliation.

It was our first loss.

But it wouldn’t be our last.

And by the end of the season, we wouldn’t just have lost mere football games.

We wouldn’t just have lost our places on the team.

We would have lost something bigger.

Something we never thought we could lose.

Our place as the stronger sex.

It might sound sexist, but men are supposed to be the stronger sex.

And women?

They’re supposed to be the weaker ones.

Supposed to be... Just like this was supposed to be our year...

I told myself it was just a bad start.

We’d turn it around.

Right the ship. Get back on track.

But nothing went right, and everything kept going wrong.

It was quicksand, and no matter what we did, we just kept sinking deeper and deeper.

We trained. We practiced. We pushed harder.

And yet—

The deeper we sank!

Next week came, and we were even weaker than before.

Game two? Another loss— only this one wasn’t even close!

Game three? A bigger loss.

And the only thing bigger than our loss were the cheerleaders’ muscles.

And yet, they stood by us...

Supporting us.

Cheering louder and stronger than ever.

Looking bigger and stronger than ever.

While me and my teammates were playing weaker and looking smaller than ever.

No matter how badly beaten and one-sided it was, they’d keep on cheering us, their strength never flagging, never failing—even as ours failed us on the field.

It was perverse.

It almost seemed like they were cheering for the other team.

Because the more the other team drove up the score, the more they rallied and drove up the cheers for us—

Not a single sad face among them.

All smiles.

Grinning ear to ear.

Their smiles as wide as their ever-widening shoulders.

We needed to win out if we wanted to make the playoffs...

But winning out felt more out of reach than just winning a single game!

We had fumbled this season...

Just like how we fumbled so much this season that we set the record for most fumbles not just in a single game, but in a season itself. That wasn’t the record-breaking season we wanted. And yet, we set more...

All of the bad kinds.

Most rushing and passing yards allowed in a single game. Most points scored against in a single game. Fewest yards in a game—with our last game being in the negatives.

And that was probably the biggest negative of the year.

If a negative can be big.

This was supposed to be our year.

We were supposed to be the ones breaking through, breaking records— but we couldn’t even break a single tackle.

Everything just seemed out of our grasp—especially the football, proverbial or actual.

And it didn’t just slip out of our hands—

It was like we got hit by a Mack truck and fumbled the football.

Only—

It wasn’t a Mack truck that hit us.

It was our cheerleaders.

And they hit us harder.

Ran over us harder.

Far harder than any Mack truck ever could.

They had diesel muscles powering them, and we were running on fumes.

This wasn’t our year.

This wasn’t our season.

All our hope, all our expectations—

Gone.

I couldn’t deny it anymore.

No matter how much I worked out, how much I lifted, how much I ate, how many protein shakes I choked down— no matter what I did, nothing worked.

I had nothing to show for it.

Maybe even less.

I wasn’t just watching the numbers on the scale go down—

I was watching my muscles disappear.

Day by day.

Week by week—I just kept on getting weaker.

And not just me.

All of us... My entire team!

We were getting weaker, despite how hard we worked out—nothing was working out.

I couldn’t help but think it—maybe these trackers just don’t work.

I did everything it said to do, I did everything right, and yet, it all felt so wrong.

But then—I’d look at them.

I’d look at the cheerleaders—how they strutted around the sidelines, so hyper-muscular now that it’s not even hyperbole to say they took up the entirety of the sidelines.

At school, they strolled through the hallways like a stampede of buffalo—only they were buff cheerleaders, walking shoulder to shoulder, knocking aside anyone foolish enough to be in their path. They even knocked aside our star halfback. Just last week, he got trampled and pushed aside, his books and notebooks scattered across the floor. And as he scrambled to pick them up, the cheerleaders giggled.

"I hope you’ll be able to hold onto the football better than your books," one teased before they all skipped away, their big, burly muscles flexing with every step.

I remember the look on his face as he got up off the floor, gathering his things. I remember looking at his fitness tracker—the same one on my wrist. The same one on all my teammates. The same one on the cheerleaders.

And then, I’d look at them.

At their rock-hard abs. At their big, brawny, bulging arms. At their bodies packed with not just muscle—but muscles on top of muscles… On top of muscles, on top of muscles!

They weren’t getting weaker. They weren’t shrinking. They were getting bigger.

And bigger, and bigger, and bigger, and bigger!

And they were getting stronger—so, so, so much stronger!

So what were they doing that we weren’t?

Something had to be wrong, I thought. These devices had to be malfunctioning somehow, and yet—how was I to know everything was working out perfectly?

The devices weren’t broken—they weren’t malfunctioning.

And the cheerleaders’ plan was working out exactly as planned.

Only, I didn’t know their plan. And you can’t blame me for not being able to see it—as these cheerleaders were so big, you couldn’t see anything behind them.

What was their secret?

Why were they getting all the gains?

The first time I saw them like this, I should have known right away something was wrong. But I just didn’t think it was possible. It all seemed unreal, like a dream—only this was a real nightmare.

A nightmare I couldn’t wake from.

Because it wasn’t a dream.

It was real.

And now, they were really, really big.

They were big before.

But now?

Now, they were huge.

As in humongous.

So huge, they’d make male bodybuilding champs look like chumps.

At first, I convinced myself they were just hitting the gym harder.

But I’ve never worked out harder in my life—and what do I have to show for all my hard work?

A soft, weakening body.

I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. Something wasn’t right.

And it wasn’t just because the cheerleaders were bigger and stronger than a few guys on my team.

They were bigger than all of us.

Only, as it turns out—this whole thing was bigger than all of us…

The same girls who used to struggle with push-ups were now bench-pressing double their body weight. And the lightest of them weighed 350 freaking pounds!

Their biceps looked like cannonballs under their sleeves—if they wore sleeves. Most of the time, they went sleeveless. As if to flaunt their biceps. As if to shove their muscular superiority in our faces.

And the worst part?

While they were maximizing their gains, I hadn’t even put on a single pound of muscle.

Not even a measly half an inch of size.

It was worse than that.

I was shrinking.

And it wasn’t just me.

The entire team was shrinking.

Our star linebacker, Brett, looked like he was wearing his dad’s jersey. Even the guys who never really lifted weights couldn’t avoid shrinking.

At first, I thought it was all in my head. Then, one day in the locker room, I saw Coach’s reflection in the mirror. He was watching us, arms crossed, shaking his head in frustration.

"This doesn’t make any sense," he muttered under his breath. "You boys are working hard, but you're all getting weaker."

But standing just behind him, in the doorway, was Ms. Jackson— the cheerleading coach.

And she was huge.

Her arms were thicker than Coach’s. Her legs were like tree trunks in her tight yoga pants.

And wrapped around her wrist, just barely able to contain her muscular forearm, was a fitness tracker—

The same as ours.

The same as her girls’.

She caught me staring.

And she smirked.

"I don’t know why you boys are having so much trouble with them," she teased. "Ours are working just fine. Better than fine."

The way she said it. The way Stacy and the other cheerleaders laughed behind her...

Then Stacy grinned and leaned in slightly.

"Maybe we should play football and have the boys cheer for us instead," she mused.

The whole squad burst into laughter.

But me and my teammates?

We weren’t laughing.

We were too paralyzed to say anything. Too timid to do anything but stand there in the weight room like we were a bunch of dainty lil’ wallflowers.

Only, if we were flowers, we were shrinking violets.

And we just kept our mouths shut.

Our faces turned red from embarrassment—

But we might as well have turned green with envy.

Those words hurt.

Just like how sometimes the truth hurts.

And the truth?

Those girls had wider shoulders than not just our linebackers—

They were practically as wide as the entire offensive line.

Or the defensive line.

And I don’t want to get offensive when I say this, but... There is no way a woman should or could ever be that big or that strong. And yeah, maybe I’m a bit defensive about women being bigger and stronger than men.

But I’m a man.

I’m a football player.

A cheerleader shouldn’t have bigger muscles than me.

But they did.

Way, way bigger.

And they probably would have made better football players than all of us.

"Boys? More like wimps," one of them giggled.

"Thanks to our Wimp-Bits," another teased.

The laughter grew louder—

Until Ms. Jackson shot them a look.

Instant silence.

She placed her hands on her hips, biceps swelling, as she stood there like an Amazonian statue chiseled from stone.

"Okay, girls. Enough joking around like a bunch of weak little boys. It’s time for a real workout. No lifting the little boy weights. Only the heavy girly weights."

And with that, they marched straight to the free weights.

A place that had always been ours.

A sanctuary for us guys. A shrine to our strength. Where we lifted heavy barbells and dumbbells, only now we looked like dumbbells as we struggled with the smallest, lightest, tiniest of the weights... You know, the kind of weights me and the guys used to call girly weights...

Only these girls—these cheerleaders—they weren’t lifting those light weights. They were lifting the biggest and heaviest weights in the entire weight room. They called what they were lifting 'Girly Weights,' and you could call it absurd, but I was there, and I saw them as they started loading up our barbells. Gripping the bars with dainty but strong, well-manicured hands—with nails painted cute lil’ shades of pink and red—and lifting weights we couldn’t even dream of maxing out on.

Not just more than what we were lifting, which wasn’t much, as I bet a single cheerleader was lifting more than me and my teammates combined.

Or rather, truthfully, we were struggling to lift.

And there was no struggle for these girls.

Not only did they lift more weight than we’d ever lifted—

They were repping it.

I watched in humiliated disbelief.

I was a football star.

I was known for my stiff arm.

I had never been pushed around on the field.

But without lifting a single arm—just by lifting massive, back-breaking weight—

They strong-armed us.

And pushed us out of our own weight room.

It was too much.

Too humiliating.

Too belittling.

Standing next to their big, brawny, bulging muscles, our own muscles looked...

Smaller.

Littler.

Scrawnier.

Heck, let’s face it—we looked like we didn’t have any muscles left at all.

Where did the muscles all go?

I didn’t know… I only knew that me and my teammates scampered out of there, retreating from the weight room as fast as we could.

Behind us, the cheerleaders giggled.

They laughed.

At us.

At our backs, at our scrawny shoulders, at the way we walked away like a bunch of whipped puppies with our tails between our legs.

Only—

It felt like I didn’t have anything between my legs at all.

How did it get like this?

Who could have seen this coming?

And then—WHAM!

I hit a brick wall.

Or at least, that’s what it felt like.

Only it wasn’t a brick wall.

It was Our Team’s Towel Girl—Emily.

And she practically ran me over.

I staggered back, blinking. Had she always been this big?

She reached down, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me up like I weighed nothing at all.

Her hand practically crushed mine.

"Need a towel?" she asked.

But all I needed was to get the heck out of there.

So, I scampered away.

And as I did, the sounds of the weight room filled my ears—weights clinking and clanking, bars rattling, plates slamming into the ground.

And underneath it all—

Girly grunts.

Feminine moans.

Only those weren’t the dainty, delicate sounds you’d expect.

No, those were deep, powerful, full-bodied noises—grunts that rumbled from thick, muscular chests, moans that carried the satisfaction of lifting weights heavier than anything we’d ever dreamed to be able to lift.

Only those weren’t sounds of struggle.

They were sounds of triumph.

They weren’t struggling.

They were having fun.

THE NIGHTMARE REALIZATION

I wasn’t having fun.

I was stewing in my room, thinking about losing the gym to the girls. Thinking about our losing season. The worst losing season in history. It might only be a matter of time before I lost my spot on the team—but who could replace me?

I was still the best player we had—which wasn’t saying much. I was a great big loser. We all were great big losers.

Well… tiny, small, little losers.

And I couldn’t shake this fear—this growing, gnawing feeling—that it was only a matter of time before me and my teammates were replaced. And I had an even stronger feeling who might replace us.

The cheerleaders.

With how strong they’d grown this year.

It wasn’t right. It was all so wrong.

And the only thing I could get around my head was these damn fitness trackers. They were supposed to help us win. They were supposed to maximize our gains.

Only… they don’t work.

I wanted to take mine off. I tried to take mine off.

But I couldn’t.

And that frustrated me more than anything. Not just because I was still wearing it… but because I was too weak to take it off.

I told myself it was in my head. I told myself I was just imagining things.

But all I could think about was those fitness trackers.

They were everywhere.

On my wrist.
On my teammates’ wrists.
On everyone.

On the cheerleaders.
On Ms. Jackson, the cheerleading coach.
On Emily, our team’s towel girl.

And what did that all add up to?

Well… they all had more muscle than any of the guys on the football team.

But it still didn’t add up... At least not for me and my teammates—we were still less than the sum of our parts and so very much less than the cheerleaders. Heck, I think we weighed less now than the cheerleaders did when we first got these fitness trackers…

Given to us—by the cheerleaders!

And that’s when it finally did add up.

All the missing gains.

All the lost muscle.

It had to go somewhere.

And that’s when I remembered it.

What did that one girl—Macy—call the fitness tracker?

A what-bit?

A WIMP-BIT!

It took me a second to recall.

What a weird name… That couldn’t be right, could it?

And then, I googled it.

And suddenly—all the bits and pieces started falling into place.

A FALL FROM GLORY

It didn’t matter how hard I pushed myself.

All my hard work—

Didn’t go to me.

Just like it didn’t matter what my fitness tracker said.

It told me I was getting the most out of my workouts. That I was putting in maximum effort. That I was on track for maximum muscular gains.

It lied.

It was saying that to keep me motivated.

To get the most out of my workouts.

But not for me.

The hard truth?

The Wimp-Bit wasn’t helping us.

It was stealing from us.

Turns out, it was made by some company called the Athena Corporation—whoever they are. A bunch of female egghead scientists who think they’re setting nature right by making all men equal—equally wimps. And by making women the bigger, stronger sex. That’s their whole thing. Only, I guess those female egghead scientists are just as much beefcakes as they are eggheads.

I saw a picture of them.

And they weren’t just beefcakes—they were an extra, extra-large heaping portion of beefcake. And their heads? Not enlarged. If anything, they looked almost comically small compared to their extreme muscular physiques.

And they’re the ones behind this.

The Wimp-Bit.

The strange fitness tracker that’s stuck on my wrist—only they call it a fitness trapper.

Because it doesn’t just track a man’s muscular gains—it takes them.

And traps them.

The way it works is simple. Every guy gets a Wimp-Bit—his unit is called the Lil Brother, and every girl gets one too—hers is called the Big Sister. And the moment you strap it on, it’s game over… as in All your base are belong to us game over—only it’s all your gains now belong to us, the muscular matriarchy of Athena Corporation! Every workout, every lift, every run, every drop of sweat—it doesn’t make you stronger. It makes her stronger. And your progress? Gone. Your strength? Stolen. Your size? Transferred. The Big Sister takes it all.

And that’s exactly what the cheerleaders did to us.

Bit by bit.

Muscle by muscle.

They stole everything, leaving us scrawny, helpless, weak little wimps.

This whole time, there was nothing wrong with our fitness trackers—with our Wimp-Bits.

They worked perfectly.

Just as designed.

They worked just as intended—stealing from us…

Our gains.
Our strength.
Our stature.

And now?

Now that I knew the truth, what could I do with it. There was no going back, no reversing the effects of it... All my gains were taken away, all my muscles weren’t just missing but taken, my strength stolen—stolen by the cheerleaders.

And there was nothing I could do.

As anti-climactic as it sounds, I lost...

I lost my muscles, just as I lost my place on the team.

I lost my life as I knew it. I lost my identity as the big football star.

I wasn’t even on the team anymore.

Now, I was just...

A towel boy.

While I lost so much, the team did the exact opposite. They won, and won, and won... Winning out the rest of the season, and each game was a blowout, with the girls running up the scores higher and higher week after week, growing stronger and more confident in their football abilities—while also just plain growing stronger.

Running up scores as easily as they were running over the other team’s players. Breaking tackles and breaking bones with their own tackles. Breaking the boundaries of what people thought girls were capable of.

And breaking stereotypes.

Especially that old insult—you hit like a girl.

Yeah, well, that wasn’t an insult anymore.

Not after this season.

Not after these girls.

Now?

It was a freaking compliment—with the crowds and cheerleaders chanting it! Only they chant we hit like girls... And the ones doing the chanting?

They’re not girls.

They’re my former teammates...

Brett.
Jake.
Even Ryan—the biggest guy on the team—conversely and inversely, now the smallest cheerleader on the squad.

Now they were wimps.

Worse, actually.

They were cheerleaders.

Not that the crowd needed help or a reason to cheer. Play after play, the girls gave them something to cheer for, whether it was another hard hit by a hard-bodied beauty or a thrilling touchdown run where all eleven defenders were flattened and bulldozed by these buff babes. And sometimes, a defender or two might get run over more than once—just for the sheer fun of it—fun for the girls, not the boys they just bulldozed!

And everyone, it seems, was having fun.

Except for me...

But my ex-teammates sure loved being cheerleaders, complete with miniskirts, shaved legs, and pom-poms!

They would laugh and giggle and cheer and shout for the girls, cheering them on from the sidelines, high-kicking and celebrating the end of their masculinity with each score and touchdown.

They were the ones lifting up the crowd’s spirits, all while a few girls left on the squad would lift them up into the air—sometimes launching them so high into the sky, I guess you could say the girls shattered the glass ceiling on gender roles and stereotypes... Whatever that freaking means... I just like to try to sound smart. A big brain is the only big thing I could have.

This whole thing has left me shattered... Emotionally.

Physically, it’s left me shriveled.

Small.

Scrawny.

Weak.

And this week finds us in the championship game.

So while it wasn’t mine and the boys' year—it's certainly one for the girls and the record books. Because they broke just about every record there is... along with so many boys’ bones—all in a single season!

But besides the cheerleaders taking over and becoming the football team, there was another humiliation just as big.

The towel girl.

Emily.

She’d had a crush on me for as long as I could remember.

Back when I was somebody.

She was cute but way too scrawny, and let’s just say not well-built enough for my desires.

But now?

Now, she was really freaking built.

Think double-wide brickhouse.

Stacked and jacked.

And of course, I was the scrawny one now.

Her forearm alone was bigger and thicker than my thighs—both of ‘em combined!

We were standing on the sidelines, watching the game, and it was really only a game in the sense of how a cat plays and toys with a mouse is a game.

And just so you’re clear, the cheerleaders—well, ex-cheerleaders—the girls—the musclebound, brutish beauties—they're the cats.

And the other team—the boys—they're the mice.

“Hey, Max,” Emily purred, flexing an arm bigger than my entire leg. “We’re out of towels.”

Before I could even respond, a damp, sweaty towel slapped me in the face.

I gagged, peeling it off as she smirked down at me, crossing her arms over her chest—her thick, shredded arms, her biceps flaring up as if to mock how little I had left.

Then, she wrinkled her nose. “Try not to sniff it like you always do. That’s creepy.”

I blinked. “I—I d-don’t— I wasn’t— I d-don’t do that!”

She smirked wider, knowing full well the only reason I’d ever sniffed or smelled her towels was because she was always throwing hers right in my face.

I swallowed hard. “R-r-right! I’ll—I’ll get them!”

She grinned. “And while you’re at it, be a good lil’ waterboy and grab me a bottle of water too.”

I turned to hurry off, face burning, but before I could take more than a few steps—

Smack!

I let out a high-pitched squeak as her hand landed hard on my backside, right on my sweet and tender patootie, sending me stumbling forward.

The girls laughed.

Not just Emily.

The whole damn football team.

Me and the guys used to laugh like that. Not at Emily, but at the other towel boys. We were such big jerks to them they all quit… And now, I guess karma is a b-word.

Just like how some of these girls can be—but I wouldn’t say that to their faces.

Besides, I think this is how Emily likes to flirt. She spent so long crushing on me that she still is—only now, it’s in a way that’s more humiliating and crushing to me.

Sometimes literally.

As I scampered toward the supply table, trying to ignore the echoing giggles, I heard her voice.

Ms. Jackson barked from the sideline. “Waterboy! Quit dragging your feet and bring the whole damn cooler! These girls need proper hydration.”

I hesitated, glancing at the massive yellow cooler, knowing full well it was way too heavy for me to handle. It practically weighed the same as me—if not more.

Before I could even figure out how I was supposed to carry the thing, Stacy smirked and stepped up.

“Need a hand?” she offered, all too eagerly, giving her bicep an over-eager flex—showing off just how big and strong she was. And I swear, I’m not watering this down, but her bicep was practically as big as the cooler itself.

Why would I lie about such a thing? I don’t have the time or energy—because just keeping these girly goliaths hydrated is already hard enough. And they make things harder for me.

And I’m not just talking because they have those hardbodies... But don’t think too hard about it, and I think you’ll get just what I mean.

Because while Stacy might be a hardbody and the biggest girl on the team, she really is easy on the eyes. And she always tries to make things easier for me, helping whenever I’m struggling with the loads and loads of towels and laundry these girls go through—way more than what me and the boys ever did.

But then again… they don’t stink like we did.

They smell ever so beautiful.

Just like Stacy was beautiful.

And damn… I loved spending time with her.

"STACY! Stop flirting with the waterboy and focus on the game," Ms. Jackson snapped. "We’re only up sixty, and your last drive was sloppy. You let a boy push you out of bounds."

Stacy rolled her eyes. "That wasn’t just a boy, Coach. That was the entire defensive line. And I slipped."

"Slip-ups don’t win championships."

"I got a touchdown the next play."

Ms. Jackson grunted. "Get me another... And waterboy—get me that COOLER!"

Stacy flashed a cocky grin before jogging off toward the field, her mountainous thighs pumping with each step, already focused back on the game. And her thighs really were mountainous—more beautiful than any bucolic mountain range I’d ever seen. Not that I spent much time staring at mountains, but I did spend a lot of time staring at her thighs—especially lately.

Then she was gone, back to the game, and I was still standing there… staring at that damn water cooler, wondering how the hell I was supposed to carry it. Almost wondering how, in the past, I could’ve carried it all by myself—easily.

Now?

Now, I might have to ask for help.

From one of my ex-teammates.

One of the cheerleaders.

The male cheerleaders.

If they can be bothered to stop shaking their pom-poms—and you know what else—maybe they can help me move it.

But it might take two, maybe even three of us just to lift it.

I sighed.

And that was my life now.

From standing on top of the world… to falling.

Falling further and further—pushed, pulled, and dragged down by the Athena Corporation.

And men…

We’ll keep falling.

Further and further, until we hit rock bottom—underfoot, beneath the heel of a hardbody woman with mighty female muscles.