Ty needed a little extra help at the job site, so recruited Theo to help, just as soon as he grows to a hundred fifty feet tall.

Write for  TyVulpine

==============

On the Jobsite
By Theo Winters

Written for TyVulpine

The pair of ‘taurs walked briskly down the sidewalk, trying to stay together in the slowly rising sun. That was a bit easier said than done due to the size difference between the two of them. Theo was a normal lion’taur, not even six feet tall with a saddle bag strapped across one hip in addition to his dark green t-shirt. He was walking quickly to keep up with Ty’s leisurely pace. The gray furred fox’taur easily stood ten feet tall at the tip of his ears, and one of his strides was easily the same length as two of his friend’s. The only thing that even came close to his height was the light polls that line the street, but only by a few scant feet.

The few other people that were around this early in the morning were quickly moving out of the pair’s way, which helped the lion’taur as he didn’t have to dodge many people in his rush to keep up with the large fox.

Every now and then Ty would glance back down to be sure that Theo was still keeping up. There was a slight tightness to his body, one hand clenching at his other arm while his ears stayed rigidly pointing forward. It gave him a slightly stiff feeling as he walked.

“This way,” Ty said as he came to an intersection, pointing to the left even as he started walking in that direction. Theo kept up at his side, wishing he was in a bit better shape as his legs were already aching from just the effort of matching the speed of his friend. Together they walked along past the towering office buildings that lined the street, stretching high into the air while cutting though the rays of morning sunlight.

Eventually they came a large gap in the skyline. A gap that was filled with a busy construction site and the growing frame of another glass tower. Even at the early hour, people were already swarming around the work site, doing a hundred different tasks, a cement truck backing in through one gate.

The pair of taurs went in through a smaller gate that led into the work site. Well, Theo entered through the gate, Ty simply stepped over the fence around the site, the top of it almost reaching the bottom of his barrel.

The moment they entered the site, a muscular wolf walked over to the pair of them. He had a smirk on his face and an air of authority as he came to Theo.

“This is your friend, Ty?” he asked, looking the lion’taur up and down.

“Yeah, this is Theo,” Ty answered, motioning with one hand towards the feline, at the same time the tension seemed to leave his body, his muscles relaxing as his body started to swell larger.

The wolf raised an eyebrow. “He seems to be a bit on the small side,” he said, tilting his head and glancing up at the fox’taur. The fox was growing taller with each passing moment, his feet sliding across the construction site as he did so. Even after a few moments of growth he was already twenty feet tall, and showed no signs of stopping.

That made Ty chuckle. “Trust me, he can match me without much effort,” he said as he rolled his shoulders and flexed the toes on all four paws. Stretching out his body as his growth seemed to start going even faster then before.

“I’m the site foreman,” the wolf said, walking over to a rack that sat next to the gate. He looked back at Theo, then picked out a hard hat and a reflective vest. He turned and handed them to the lion’taur. “Ty has a special exception, but that only applies to him. You still need PPE.”

“Got it,” Theo replied with a smile, taking the hard hat and placing it over his head, having to wiggle it a couple of times to get his ears to poke into the mesh cages. There was also a strap that went under his muzzle, making sure it wouldn’t fall off. The vest was quickly pulled on over his shirt and given a quick tug to make sure it was resting comfortably over his shoulders. He now looked like everyone else on the site other than the growing fox’taur.

The wolf nodded. “Better get to growing, there’s lots to do this morning,” the foreman added, then turned and walked towards where the cement truck was settling into place. A large flatbed was already pulling up in order to enter the site, and more would be following throughout the day.

Theo glanced up at Ty, who had taken a step to the side and was stretching out his arms, his red t-shirt fluttering in the wind. He was already standing close to fifty feet tall and still growing. His shadow was stretching out behind him, darkening the street they had come in on.

Moving away from his growing friend, Theo reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a small vial of cloudy liquid that glowed a bright octarine. He swirled it around in the vial a few times before pulling the cork out with a pop. Lifting it to his lips, he threw his head back and gulped it down in a moment. Strangely, it tasted like durian.

He closed the empty vial and put it back in his saddle bag, then slid the bags off to set them by one of the trailers. Moments later the feeling of magic washed over him, making his fur all stand on end and his mane rose up like he was being shocked. A moment later pressure squeezed down all over the lion’taur’s body, then with a sudden release of the squeezing, he started to grow. In seconds he had already doubled in height, his paws skidding across the ground as they expanded, sending up clouds of dirt all around him.

After another ten seconds he had doubled in height again. One of his back paws started to press up against the fence around the construction site, causing it to shift slightly. He was still only half the size of Ty, but quickly caught up to the fox’s growing height. He shifted his weight on his paws, trying to step away from the fence only to have his hip brush against one of the office trailers, making it rock in place.

Theo kept trying to move his paws out of the way, lifting one up so he could straddle one of the trailers, while his tail tried to jump the fence and sweep across the road outside of the site. Every time he got one foot stable, his growth would cause another foot to push against something else. One paw nearly found itself sliding into a dump truck, only to have another pulse of growth give him enough space to miss the vehicle.

The growing lion’taur tried to mutter an apology, his back paw hitting the fence again, starting to knock it over only to be stopped as his long tail swept it to push it back upright. Ty was just watching all of this from the other side of the work site, standing at a comfortable hundred and fifty feet tall, which put his head just above the highest level of the building. All the fox’taur could do was shake his head with a little chuckle as he watched Theo doing the worst game of twister he had ever seen.

Somehow, when the feline's growth had finally come to a stop, he had managed to avoid damaging anything. Instead, he was weirdly straddling across a couple of trucks and three trailers, his legs spread out in the most uncomfortable fashion with his lower body twisted at a strange angle. Carefully, he moved his paws around the site, slowly adjusting himself until he was actually standing upright. He was slightly shorter than Ty, which meant only his hard hat was visible behind the construction.

Being as careful as possible, Theo made his way across the site until he was standing next to Ty. The high visibility vest was almost growing in the morning sun, scattering light all over the site like a disco ball. “How do you make it look so easy?” he asked.

The fox’taur just chuckled and gave Theo a pat on the shoulder. “It comes with practice. Now we do have work to do. One of the cranes is down and you’re going to be helping make up for it. Just do what I tell you, and you’ll be fine.”

“You’re the boss,” Theo replied with a thumbs up, his tail curling around one of his hind legs to stay out of the way, though his tail tuft was still dragging along the hard packed dirt that covered the worksite, sending up a cloud of dust behind him.

Ty nodded and took one long step to the side, creating a large gap between the two macros. Now that there was space, a truck with a large flatbed trailer pulled up between them. The truck was loaded with meshes made of steel, stacked and strapped together and to the bed of the truck. Once parked, two other workers hurried over to start unhooking the trailer from the truck.

Theo could only watch as the workers hurried about, they looked tiny at his height, only the bright vests they were wearing making them visible. For a moment it reminded him of ants swarming around, but he quickly quashed that thought before it could take root in his mind. Instead, he turned his attention back to Ty, who was watching the trailer being unhooked with crossed arms.

Soon enough the workers moved away, and a few seconds later the truck pulled away from the trailer, then carefully taking a turn went back the other way, making sure to stay between the two taurs. Once the truck was clear, Ty reached down and carefully wrapped his hands around the trailer, lifting it up to the upper floor of the building, where he gently set it in place.

“For now, that’s all we’re doing, just moving loads up top,” Ty explained, a smile on the fox’taurs face, motioning back towards the ground with one hand. “Just be careful and make sure to wait until everyone is clear. Got it?”

Theo nodded, causing the sunlight to flash off his glasses, causing points of light to dance across the building. “Got it,” he replied.

After a quick glance down to make sure it was clear, Ty took another large step to the side, opening almost enough room between the two macros for a third one to fit. Instead, two more trucks pulled in between the pair, and started to be unhooked. Theo’s side was done first, and he leaned down to pick up the trailer. He wrapped his fingers across the top to keep the contents in place, while at the same time trying not to squeeze too hard. Gently he lifted it up to the top of the site and carefully set it down next to the first trailer.

As he unfolded his fingers, one claw scraped across the concert floor, cutting a shallow furrow into the material. Pulling his hand back, he brushed his hand off on his vest. “Sorry,” he said. The potion that had made him grow also allowed his voice to carry to the workers without booming in their ears.

Unfortunately, that quickly became an ongoing problem for Theo. It seemed like he was always scrapping the tips of his claws against either the cement floor, or the ground where the trucks were parking. By the middle of the morning there was a small collection of tally marks across the cement floor. Thankfully none of them were deep enough to damage the structure, but judging by the dirty looks being shot the lion’taur’s way, it was still creating more work for the real crew.

“Don’t worry, Theo. You’re doing fine,” Ty said, giving Theo a light pat on the back. “Don’t worry about the ground, just focus on where your claws are going when you place down loads,” the fox’taur said with a smile, then bent down to grab a large pallet that had been offloaded at his feet.

By mid-morning it seemed like the majority of the trucks had arrived and each trailer had been lifted up into position. A cement truck came in at about noon, but thankfully this one stayed on the ground. Though that didn’t mean the pair had time to stop, there were still a lot of smaller loads to lift, which included pallets of different equipment, a (thankfully clean) port-a-potty, and even parts for repairing the broken crane.

Theo was starting to need a break, his arms and legs were beginning to ache from all the lifting, but Ty wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down as he moved another load up to the top of the under-construction building. As he set it down, something on the pallet shifted and sent a blast of dust flying into the air, right towards the lion’taur.

Taking a deep breath, the dust went right up Theo’s nose, tickling the back of his throat, making him want to sneeze. He tried to hold it back, but it kept growing stronger with every passing moment. He lifted one hand to cover his muzzle just moments before the sneeze finally exploded outwards and out between his fingers. The moment it did he felt something else rush through his body, sending a shiver down his spine and out along his tail. An instant later his hind quarters swelled out, growing larger, along with his hind legs and paws, shoving the rest of him forward, right towards the building.

Pushing backwards with his forepaws, he tried to move away from the building, even as his growing hindquarters was pushing him forward, his paws sliding across the ground, digging furrows into the compacted dirt. “Ty!” he managed to yelp out, scrambling to try and stay upright as the uneven growth threatened to send him falling face first into the building.

The gray fox’taur was already moving, stepping backwards and wrapping his arms around his friends expanding barrel. With a grunt he pulled Theo back away from the building even as the growth continued, his back half almost twice the size of the rest of his body.

Without warning, Theo sneezed again, which caused him to stumble backwards with his mismatched body. That was enough to stop his hind quarters growing any larger. Moments later his forepaws twitched and suddenly started expanding, swelling outwards with a huge surge. The growth started to climb up his forelegs, the limb expanding in shorts burst of size, each surge of growth reaching higher up his legs then the last, moving up past his knees and soon reached his barrel.

Then with a sudden surge front half of the lion’taur’s body grew outwards to match his hind quarters, a huge mass of displaced air pushing away from his body and whipping across the work site, sending any number of loose objects tumbling around, though thankfully everyone stayed on their feet.

Theo turned his torso around, looking out back over his body, glad to see that now everything was back to being the same size, and he didn’t seem to be growing anymore. It did leave him towering next to Ty, the top of the vulpine’s head only coming up to Theo’s navel.

“I think your growth potion might need a little work,” Ty said with a laugh, leaning his head back to look up at his friend.

With a bright blush, Theo reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah, it wasn’t supposed to do that,” he replied with a forced laugh. A quick glance around the work site showed that almost everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch him.

He raised his other hand and gave a little wave. “Sorry about—” he said, but was cut off by one last sneeze that blasted out of his muzzle. Then with a sound not unlike an over inflated balloon popping, Theo suddenly snapped back to normal size, leaving him standing about a hundred feet in the air with nothing under his paws. Though gravity was going to be fixing that in a few seconds.

Ty moved quickly, reaching out to catch the lion’taur before he had fallen more than a dozen feet. Carefully holding the now normal size ‘taur in his large hand, he lowered him back down to the ground. “I think you’re done for the day,” he commented as Theo stepped onto the ground.

“Yeah,” Theo said, blushing a bit more as he stepped away, embarrassed about the failure of his growth potion.

Standing back up, Ty watched as his friend walked over to the foreman and chatted a little bit before leaving the worksite. He had been happy to help his friend, and have someone to work with, and he was sure Theo would be back again, once he had fixed the potion. He was looking forward to it.

-=-=-=-=-=-

This story was written and copyright 2024 by Theo Winters, reposting and archiving are allowed as long as this copyright notice and the author's name are not removed. This story cannot be published without permission of the author. Violators will end up shrunk.