September Poll Story- Sidekickass (Patreon)

Perched on a hill high above the sprawling city of Megalopolis was the opulent estate of Vayne Manor, home to mild-mannered playboy millionaire, Brent Vayne, and his ward, the young stag Frankie Farnsworth. But little did the people of Megalopolis know that hidden deep within the bowels of Vayne Manor was the Fortress of Rectitude, the lair of the city’s guardian. Faster than a speeding cheetah, stronger than the Hulk on steroids, and shinier than Lex Luthor’s head, he was the Golden Sentinel, accompanied by his sidekick, the Silver Squire. A master of disguise, Brent Vayne was confident that no one would suspect that the city’s only superhero, a fox who happened to look and sound exactly like him except his pure gold armor, was also the only man in town who might be able to afford it.

Flying into Vayne Manor’s secret entrance on the Golden Chariot, the Golden Sentinel lept from the cockpit, landing with a flourish. Tall and broad-shouldered, he cut the perfect heroic figure with a beefy chest filling his golden armor and limbs roped with well-cut muscle. Removing his helmet, Brent Vayne swept back his thick hair and brushed at his scarlet furred cheeks, his thick tail swishing behind his gold cape.

“Ah, another great victory against the forces of evil, eh, Squire?” the heroic fox declared.

“If, uh... if you say so, Brent…” the young deer grunted, his arms full of the town’s accolades; the Golden Sentinel had been given the Key to the City, again. This one was made out of solid gold, and roughly as big as the gangly sidekick struggling under its weight.

“Oh, what’s wrong, Frankie?” the fox smacked his sidekick on the back, which nearly made the stag drop the oversized key. “I think you did great today.”

Frankie immediately lit up. “Wait, really?”

“Of course!” Brent chuckled. “You were great with the camera at the photo op. No news photographer knows how to get my best side like you do. I’m starting to think you missed out on your true calling,” the fox winked.

“Oh.” If it was possible for a pair of antlers to deflate with disappointment, Frankie Farnsworth was living proof of it. “Thanks, Brent.”

“Now, be a sport, and pick up my delivery at the back of the cave. It’s top secret from Washington, so be careful with it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Frankie’s narrow shoulders drooped. “What we have a butler for, I don’t know…”

“Hey,” Brent chided before heading back to the mansion proper. “You can’t expect poor Livingston to do everything. He’s busy re-tiling my commemorative mosaic portrait.”

The deer rolled his eyes before heading to the Fortress of Rectitude’s back entrance, where a large crate was waiting for him. It looked heavy, stamped with the words “Top Secret” and the logo of the United States Government on its wooden sides. Rolling his eyes, Frankie dug his fingers under the bottom of the crate, and pulled it up with all his strength, grunting as his knees buckled under the weight.

“Stupid… Brent…” he grumbled, struggling to carry the crate inside. “He’s got a… billion dollar supersuit with augmented strength, and can’t be bothered…” he huffed, then tripped, landing with a thud as the crate splintered on the floor of Golden Sentinel’s secret lair.

“Damn it!” Frankie cursed under his breath. Smacking his forehead, he looked over the damage. The contents inside were strewn across the floor, and although he knew he probably shouldn’t, Frankie’s curiosity won out as he took a closer look at what he had just dragged in. Amongst the packing peanuts was a large glass container, and inside was a swirling, metallic liquid that looked almost like molten silver, but had the strangest blue tint to it. The stag was mesmerized by it, until he realized the glass container had a crack in it, and the liquid was actively seeping out, spilling all over him.

“Oh, son of a—!”

“Frankie!” Brent’s voice crackled over the Fortress’ PA system. “Everything alright in there?”

“Uh…” Frankie quickly pulled the container behind him, spilling more of the strange liquid over himself. “Y-yes! Everything’s alright! The, uh… there wasn’t any crate. Sorry.”

“Really? Odd. Ah, those Washington bureaucrats. They keep wanting more of my tax dollars, and they can’t even deliver on time. Politicians, right?”

“Haha, yeah, Brent,” Frankie tried his hardest to sound casual as he desperately rushed over broken bits of the crate to the trash compactor.

“Now get up here, Silver Squire, I need you to help Livingston get my pose just right for the portrait.”

The stag fought an oncoming, frustrated sigh. “Right away, sir.”

A quick change of clothes hid most of the stains the strange liquid left on Frankie, and Brent wasn’t exactly focusing on his sidekick while posing heroically for his portrait. As soon as he was able, the deer rushed to the shower, trying to scrub off the brightly colored stains in his brown fur, but to his horror, they wouldn’t wash off. 

His panic was somewhat alleviated when a quick scan taken in secret with one of the Sentinel’s endlessly expensive gadgets told him he wasn’t toxic or irradiated, but the fact that his fur seemed permanently stained a silvery blue weighed on him. How could he get this fixed without the Golden Sentinel finding out?

Even as nervous as he was, sleep eventually came to Frankie that night, but when he woke up, there was a certain heaviness he couldn’t quite shake, then he looked in a mirror.

“Oh, crap.”

The stains had spread. His once chestnut brown fur with flecks of white, from his feet to the tip of his antlers, were now entirely silver. As he removed his pajamas to survey if everything was stained, he had to stop as something caught his eye. 

The silver armor Golden Sentinel had provided him augmented his physical attributes, which was good, as Frankie suffered from a plethora of health issues that had seen him voted Megalopolis’ most sympathetic orphan three years running before Brent Vayne adopted him. He had always been painfully thin, with weak limbs and bad legs that kept him perpetually one bad day away from a wheelchair, but the body he saw in the mirror was near Olympian in stature. For once, he stood with his back straight, and he could only stare at an athletic form, firmly muscled and toned to perfection that he at first didn’t recognize as his own. He gave his arm an experimental flex, watching new, hard muscle rise up, which he poked to make sure it was really there.

“Woah…” he stared in wonder, hands caressing every hard muscle now packed on to his form. He wasn’t quite to Brent’s level, but he was leagues ahead of the average person. Testing his now-strong legs, he was too distracted to hear the Clarion Call, the Golden Sentinel’s hotline- trouble had come to Megalopolis. Taking one last appreciative look in the mirror, he quickly pulled on his silver armor and dashed to the Fortress of Rectitude, where the Golden Sentinel was waiting impatiently.

“Squire! There you are. Looks like we’ve got the scumbag, Blackwing, robbing Megalopolis National Bank. We’ll be going for attack plan Delta,” the heroic fox explained as he lept into the driver’s seat.

“Attack plan Delta…” Frankie snapped his fingers, sighing. “You want me to distract him by getting kidnapped.”

“Precisely,” Brent flashed him a smile, then narrowed his eyes as he looked over his sidekick’s now-silver face. “What’d you do to your fur?”

“Oh, uh… it’s a new look. Dyed my fur. Silver Squire- I’m Silver, now.”

Brent nodded. “Well, I appreciate your dedication to our brand, but there is such a thing as gilding the lily, Frankie.”

“Right, sir.”

The Golden Chariot roared out of the Fortress towards the towering skyline of the city. By the time they reached the marble walls of Megalopolis’ National Bank, their feared nemesis, the flying rogue, Blackwing, was already making off with the central vault, lifted out of the bank by his massive helicopter, the Flying Fortress. The supervillain, a black cat rigged with a flying suit, hissed as he saw the shining Golden Chariot hurtling towards him. “Curses and calamity! The Golden Sentinel!”

“Time for you to learn that crime doesn’t pay, Blackwing!” Golden Sentinel declared as he landed on top of the vault. He aimed his armored glove, firing off a laser that cut through the ropes holding the vault up. “Heroism, on the other hand, always p—” He was cut off as the vault went crashing back down to earth. 

Silver Squire rolled his eyes as he ejected from the Golden Chariot, leaping through the air as he tackled Blackwing down to the roof.

“Ha!” the supervillain rolled out of the tackle. “A cat always lands on his f—” he was cut off as Silver Squire landed a punch right to his jaw. “Holy shit!” Blackwing swore, cradling his jaw. “Where’d you learn to hit like that, stringbean?”

“Been working out,” Silver Squire smirked, engaging in a skirmish with the villainous feline. Blackwing was a martial artist with several black belts, and gave Silver Squire a tough fight, but with his new strength and the enhancements of his armor, the stag was able to keep him on the defensive.

As he dodged a swipe of the feline’s clawed hand, he delivered a roundhouse kick that sent Blackwing clear off his feet. The villain was sprawled out on the roof, but Silver Squire frowned, as he heard the strangest sound from down below, where the city had been watching the fight. It was cheering. For him.

Silver Squire turned around, smiling crookedly as he waved to the crowd below. Some of them were even taking pictures. 

“Ahem.” 

Taken out of the thrill of victory, Silver Squire turned around to see Golden Sentinel, his arms folded over his broad chest. “What do you call this?” he pointed down to Blackwing, still lying in a heap.

“Uh… we beat the bad guy?”

The fox was tapping his foot now. “This is not attack plan Delta, Squire. We agreed on attack plan Delta.”

“But we always do attack plan Delta!” Silver Squire pointed to Blackwing. “Look, I stopped him. He’s not dead or anything, and the vault’s safe. We worked together.”

“Yes, but you were the one in front of the repor—” Golden Sentinel stopped himself, and started again. “You were the one in front of… Blackwing. You were in danger.” The fox patted the deer on the shoulder. “I’d hate to think you were getting all the exposure… to the danger,” he added quickly.

Silver Squire arched his brow, then slowly nodded. “Right, Sentinel. I’ll… keep that in mind.”

He did not keep that in mind.

Over the next few days, Golden Sentinel watched as his sidekick was showing far too much competence than what he had come to expect. First Blackwing, then the fear-gas wielding snake, Hissteria, the deadly occultist, Seventh Seal, and even Golden Sentinel’s arch-nemesis, the feared and ferocious business magnate and crime lord of Megalopolis, the hulking Commandant, all of them had been captured. The city had never been so safe, but what good was it when Silver Squire kept getting in the last punch? And there was the fact that whatever little Frankie Farnworth was doing in the gym, he just kept getting bigger. 

“Look, Frankie, we need to talk,” Brent said as they returned to the Fortress of Rectitude after patrolling the streets. The fox’s tail was swishing out of annoyance as he looked his sidekick up and down. He had exploded in size. The deer’s silver armor suit had to be refitted two times, and still looked tight. One more, and he’d officially be wearing a size bigger than the Golden Sentinel himself, and that just would not do.

“What’s up, Brent?” Frankie lept from the Golden Chariot, landing with a spring in his step. The mayor of Megalopolis had talked to both of them, and for the first time, he actually remembered Silver Squire’s name.

“I’m a little concerned about our… dynamic, here.” Brent eyed Frankie warily. He wasn’t used to looking up to his sidekick.

“Well… what do you mean?” Frankie shed his armor, and the reveal made Brent’s eye twitch. The deer was rivalling the biggest bodybuilders, with a chest packed with enough muscle to bounce a quarter off of, rolling boulder shoulders, and bulging biceps thick as melons, all stretching his shirt to its limit. It was a wonder his armor could hold all it in.

“I can’t help but feel you’re putting yourself in danger, Frankie.” Brent hid his annoyance, patting the deer’s swollen flank. “I mean. I’m supposed to protect you.”

“Well, gosh, Brent, I’m twenty five, I can take care of myself. I just want to save the city, like you.” He shrugged, shoulder muscles rippling. “We’ve been doing really well.”

The fox’s eye twitched again, but he kept his best winning smile. “It’s just… I fear you might be trying to prove something, here. You must have been hitting the gym pretty hard to, uh… get to this. You don’t have to push yourself so hard.”

“Well…” Frankie crossed his arms, bouncing his pecs as his biceps slammed into them. “I think you’re just upset that I beat your bench press. By fifty pounds.” He offered a challenging smirk to Brent. “Maybe you just need to up your game if you’re so… worried about protecting me.” He prodded Golden Sentinel’s chestplate. “I kinda think you’re getting a little soft under that armor, and that’s why you don’t take it off around me anymore.”

“I do not,” Brent shot back defensively.

“You tried wearing it in the pool.”

The fox glowered, turning on his heel with a huff. “I’m going on my night patrol,” he muttered darkly. “And you might just want to think about your attitude here, Mister.”

“I’ll think about it during my workout,” Frankie shot back.

“Hah!” Brent scoffed. “Not here, you won’t. Livingston’s repainting the personal gym.”

“...But it’s wall-to-wall mirrors.”

“They’ll be stained glass mirrors!” the fox snarled, hopping into the Golden Chariot and firing off into the night.

Frankie huffed, pouting around the Fortress of Rectitude. Brent was just jealous. He was such a glory hound, he just couldn’t stand that Frankie was better than him in one way. It wasn’t like the deer wanted to upstage him, he just wanted to actually do something heroic. Thinking it over, Brent had taken care of him all these years… he was vain as can be, but he had been generous when he was still learning how to be a sidekick. As he meditated on their relationship, he suddenly spotted Brent’s helmet.

“Must’ve forgotten it…” the deer frowned. The helmet was equipped with night vision, heat vision, and a database of all the criminals in the city. It was essential for his patrols. Sighing, Frankie suited up and punched in the GPS tracker Golden Sentinel had installed on his glove. Furrowing his brow, the deer couldn’t begin to think why Golden Sentinel would be at Harkman Asylum.

He took his own plane out of the Fortress, the Silver Speeder, and raced to meet up with Golden Sentinel. After a moment, however, the GPS tracker went blank. Golden Sentinel had gone off the grid. 

“Could be trouble,” Frankie muttered as he raced towards Harkman Asylum.

The sprawling asylum, which believed in a “free range” theory of rehabilitating the criminally insane, didn’t believe in guards or security systems. While this has often been criticized, the inmates didn’t have any complaints, and that’s all that mattered to the board of directors.

Frankie parked his plane as discreetly as one could do with an aircraft coated in solid silver, and began trying to track down Golden Sentinel. It didn’t take long; golden armor isn’t exactly inconspicuous. Only, to the Silver Squire’s horror, the superhero was surrounded by his most notorious supervillains, Hissteria, Commandant, Blackwing, and Seventh Seal. They weren’t fighting, but there were too many to go charging in. Plastering against the wall, he leaned in and listened, ready to charge in at just the right moment.

“What the hell do you call this racket, Goldy?” growled the fearsome Commandant, a massive black bear that towered over Golden Sentinel. He was shirtless, his massive pecs grinding against boulder-sized biceps, rippling under his black fur. It had been one hell of a fight to take him down, even with Frankie’s growth spurt. 

“We had a deal!” Hissteria hissed. “But then that ssssidekick of yoursss joined the Charles Atlas program!”

“Hey, I don’t want to hear it!” Golden Sentinel snapped. “I don’t know how the kid got so big. You’re alive, right? And in a week, you’ll be back out on the streets.”

“Our cut first, Sentinel,” Seventh Seal, a pinniped dressed in black robes demanded.

“What?” Frankie gasped, his mouth agape.

Golden Sentinel sighed, punching some commands into his smart phone. “There. 5% cut of Vayne Enterprise’s profits for each of you.”

“Hold on a minute,” Commandant growled, prodding Sentinel in the chest. “You gotta keep Wonder Boy on a tighter leash. He’s already stronger than you. What if he keeps growing?”

“Let me handle it,” the fox said. “Now, remember. You break out of here in one week. The Golden Chariot will be down on the South Lawn, then you lay low for a day or two.”

Frankie had heard enough. If he was caught now, it would be a disaster. Racing back to the Silver Speeder, he got back to Vayne Manor as quickly as possible, locking himself in his room. Golden Sentinel didn’t come to his room when he heard the Golden Chariot land, and he could only watch his door for the rest of the night until a fitful sleep eventually came.

The following morning, Frankie tried to convince himself he had only suffered from a nightmare. The thought of Megalopolis’ hero actually being involved in a racket was horrible, but, as Frankie glumly thought it over, not that surprising to anyone that knew Brent Vayne. Brent got all the fame and glory, and all he had to do was invest part of his company. The more famous Golden Sentinel was, the better Vayne Enterprises did. All he had to do now was figure out how Brent was going to “handle” him, even as he realized he was bigger than he had been yesterday. His shirt was stretched taut over his burgeoning chest, and the sleeves were frayed over his thick, swollen biceps. His tree-trunk thighs were rendering his boxers so tight, they were borderline indecent.

As the muscular stag moved down to the dining room, he realized how Golden Sentinel would do him in- clog his arteries. The dining table was buckling under the weight of all of Frankie’s guilty pleasures; a sundae bar with hot fudge, caramel, cherries, and whipped cream, bowls of potato chips, and mountains of caramel bars.

“Uh… Livingston trying something new for breakfast?” Frankie arched his brow.

“Oh, just… a little treat for you. A thank you for all the hard work you’ve done lately, kiddo.” Brent smiled wide. “You know, with the gym being retiled…”

“I thought it was being repainted.”

“Right, that,” Brent cleared his throat. “I figured you could, uh. Indulge in some cheat days. What’s an extra pound or two, right?”

Frankie had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. Golden Sentinel was apparently terrible at evil plots. He was going to fatten him up? That was “handling” him?

The little trick wasn't going to make an impact, Frankie was certain of that fact. Meals were kept light, despite the increasing insistence on Brent’s part. If nothing else it served only to incense the fox more to see that his plan of handling his sidekick was failing day after day. 

Frankie dismissed any concerns thrown his way, stroking Brent’s ego to keep him from getting on edge, and kept his distance as much as he could. The time away from Brent was spent dwelling on the impending issue of villains. There wasn't a way around having to deal with their plan, but he could be prepared. While the home gym was perpetually closed off, the Fortress of Rectitude proved to be a literal gold mine for alternatives. Discarded gadgets and gizmos, all gilded, strapped together made for decent weights for bicep curls that caused the stag’s arms to burst with mass as he worked, his meaty forearms colliding with the mounds of his upper arms more and more as the days went by. Squatting his old armor certainly was a situation that he had never even dreamed possible, his mammoth thighs slowly forcing him to roll one around the other in order to walk and caused his increasingly tight shorts to hug against more buck butt than ever before.

The final test of his strength came when he decided to push himself. Placing the Golden Chariot on blocks he shoved himself under the vehicle and gripped along the undercarriage. With a deep grunt he began to lift, his pecs heaving out and shoving against his muzzle, tipping it upward as his biceps ground into the sides of his chest. The reps were slow, but still he kept pushing, the stag easily ten times the man he was before. That shell was gone along with his need for the armor that came with his sidekick mantle. Just like that, the Silver Squire was gone, and the Silver Stud took his place. Granted, he probably still needed work on the name, but as he flexed at a mirror, watching his mammoth back spread out like a shifting tectonic plate, it was at least accurate.

When the week had passed in full, the breakout began at Harkman Asylum. Granted, this was hardly the Great Escape; all the four villains needed were bathroom passes to be waved through by the guards. True to his word, Golden Sentinel and his Chariot were waiting, the armored hero grumbling as he waved the villains over.

“Get a move on, before the idiots wind up calling for me to help!” Brent was grinding his teeth in annoyance, every step he'd taken since the meeting to make sure Frankie was out of the way had fallen flat. Luckily he hadn't seen hide nor hair of his pesky sidekick.

Commandant snarled, the bear scowling down at the “hero”. “Just keep your trap shut, it’s bad enough I have to deal with you normally. Getting a payday for it is only a moderate improvement.”

“I wouldn't expect the money to do much good when you're back behind bars,” the cry rang out across the lawn. Leaping toward the group was an immense mound of silver-colored mass. Frankie’s burgeoning mass even outclassed Commandant in sheer bulk; the stag’s heaving chest alone pushed out past a foot and a half beyond his nose. While his armor no longer fit for the most part he had cobbled together a set of shorts from some of the leftover parts, leaving his rippling abdominals and sprawling lats on full display. His arms were forced to hang at angles, biceps still brushing against his chest. Wide antlers swayed as he shook his head, “You guys might as well turn around now.”

Seventh Seal blinked beneath his cowl. “I try to communicate with beings that cause madness and chaos...and this is probably the weirdest shit I've seen in months.”

“Who ordered the Sssssilver Sssstripper,” Hissteria snapped before glaring at Golden Sentinel.

The gilded hero blanched beneath his armor before Blackwing went bounding toward Frankie, the cat hissing. Lashing out with his claws and legs the cat tried to overwhelm the stag with his agility. “I just got out, I'm not going back in.”

The flurry of blows did little but thud against the buck’s bulging mass. His only hesitation came from being surprised that one of the smaller villains attacked first. A few nicks on his forearms were the only lasting damage Blackwing was really managing to inflict. It was only by luck he noticed Hissteria slinking toward him, the snake staying close to the ground. As Blackwing tried to land another kick Frankie grabbed his leg, easily lifting the cat off his feet, arm rippling and bulging as he brought down the feline on top of Hissteria with a loud thunk.

The pair wound up in a heap on the ground, groaning dazedly before a roar split the air as Commandant grabbed at the silver stag. While Frankie was a larger, his opponent had spent years being the biggest around, and was better at handling his own mass.

Grappling with the former sidekick the bear growled. “When I'm done with you I'm gonna do something fun. Maybe buy an orphanage and shut it down for kicks. Crying kids do my heart wonders.”

Frankie would have seen red if he hadn't spotted Seventh Seal to the side, chanting as a ball of crimson energy filled his hand before sending it flying. Twisting to the side the sudden shift caused Commandant to stumble, the orb of energy striking him and sending a pulse of pain through his body. The bear roared before slumping forward in a stupor. The stag ducked and heaved the ursine from his feet, lifting Commandant from the ground. Frankie groaned, his traps squeezing against his cheeks as he sent the bear tumbling through the air directly into Seventh Seal, the marine mammal pinned by the bear’s bulk.

Brent watched on in horror as his villains were left battered and bruised. Snapping back to attention he tried to dive back into the Chariot, but was stopped when Frankie’s grip found the fox’s armor and sent him crashing to the ground. Scrambling back as the stag loomed over him the fox gulped. “Come on, Frankie! It's me, Brent. The guy who saved you, housed you! If not for me you'd still be in the gutter!”

“You mean the guy who picked me up for a publicity stunt? The one who used me as a prop?” Stomping toward the fox Frankie leaned down, one big hand pinning Brent to the ground, his vision filled by rippling venison. “I could have been okay with it all, but you were gonna let villains out so you could have the limelight. And I didn't sign up for that.” His free hand balled up, fist cocking back.

“Frankie no, not the fa—” the cry for mercy was cut off as that ham-sized fist crashed into his muzzle, leaving him sprawled on the ground.

Shaking his hand the stag sighed and rubbed at his horns, looking at the four unconscious villains and hero. “So, five knocked out villains. Ugh, town’s gonna need a new hero after today…” Looking down at himself, or as best as he could when his chin whacked against his shelf of pectoral mass he bit his lip. “Well, I don’t have anything better to do. But man am I gonna need a new outfit, this thing is riding up like crazy,” he muttered, pulling at the shorts as they strained to cover his overly thick glutes. With that auspicious thought, Frankie Farnsworth looked back to gleaming skyline of the city. “Rest easy, Megalopolis.” He struck a pose, curling one arm until his engorged bicep slammed into his hamhock-shaped forearm, and the other one stretched out into a victory pose. “You’ve got the strong arm of the law, in the… Silver Stud!” His smile wavered as Commandant groaned from his place, still sprawled out over Seventh Seal. 

“Stupid name, kid,” the bear growled.

“Yeah?” Silver Stud stomped over, planting his foot on Commandant’s back and striking the pose again. “Well, looks like you’ll have plenty of time to think up a new name for me. Now, I’ve got a city to protect, because, uh… justice totally lifts!”