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The Man He Had Become

“Eighty-one… Eighty-two… Eighty-three…”

With reach count, the fox-titan gradually lowered himself, feeling the increasing load on his arm as he remained perfectly vertical, raising his body back up to a one-handed handstand before repeating the process. Where the chill of cold mountain air, combined with the physical strain, would have left an ordinary man a broken wreck, he maintained his composure. Disrobed, wearing naught but a pair of snug-fitting breaches, his well-defined chest steadily rose and fell with each breath.

Since the day he became Volpes, he and the others who shared in his “gift” all felt it, craved it, to different degrees. Their bodies, honed to a razor’s edge, needed to be used and exerted.

“…ninety-eight… nighty-nine…. one-hundred.”

Switching to his other hand in preparation for his next set, the titan mused to himself. Back in his lab, all those years ago, he noticed the restlessness that befell all his animal test subjects. Rats, bunnies, snakes: Once the potion did its work, all of them would throw themselves into their little hamster wheels or slither around with increasing zeal. At the time, the foxkin who would become Volpes chalked it up to increased energy and alertness.

Now, as he continued to raise and lower his body, feeling the euphoria that came from the act, he knew otherwise. The potion had changed him, more profoundly than even he realized. Perhaps he should have been afraid that there were other side effects, yet unknown. Perhaps another man would have paused to consider whether the Magistrum’s consul was right to press for further, long-term testing.

But neither of those thoughts crossed the mind of the fox-titan, continuing his set of handstand push-ups. As he smiled to himself, he could only relish the man he had become: The man he had begun to turn others into. At this moment, all that mattered was the next rep and the bliss that it left in its wake. Knowing that his followers all understood this same jubilation made the feeling all the sweeter.

There was never any room for doubt.

This piece came from one of Marsel-Defender‘s YCHs back in February of 2022. I can’t begin to explain why, but I find that snowy mountaintops tend to be one of my favorite settings aesthetically. I have more art of my characters training high in the mountains than one should reasonably expect.

I recall that I was trying to push the idea that the titan elixir made its user more physically oriented, subtly compelling them to train themselves harder and harder. Overtime, I’ve dropped focus on this aspect, more or less writing it out of the lore. However, the brief window of time where it was considered shall remained enshrined here in the form of this art.