Arnold stood squarely in front of Amanda, clothes hanging off of him in tatters looking like Lou Ferrigno from the old Incredible Hulk show, without all the green, but with a lot more muscle. Seeing Arnold transformed into this mountain of muscle standing fuming in front of her frightened Amanda, but she also felt... what? Awe? Desire? This new Arnold was the hottest guy she had even seen in her life, after all. It was that, but something else too. She couldn't put her finger on it, but she felt a strange tingling sensation as soon as Arnold burst into her room, like tiny electric shocks going off all over her body.

Amanda watched as Arnold slouched his massive shoulders and walked over to her bed. She thought it was going to collapse when he sat on it, the frame groaned under Arnold's impressive weight, but it held up.

"It is what I wanted, but ... you don't understand. It's not ready. It doesn't work right. The transfer isn't permanent. Pretty soon I'm going to be back to scrawny old Arnold, except with ripped up clothes, and a ruined DSi. God, my Mom is going to kill me!"

Amanda sat on the bed next to Arnold and was pulled next to him in the deep crater his body made in the mattress. The strange tingling sensation grew stronger, but she ignored it, concentrating instead on something Arnold had said.

"Wait, transfer? You said transfer. The gun didn't make you bigger? It just transferred the muscles from someone else? But who?"

"No. I mean yes, but not like that. Not exactly. Oh you wouldn't understand! The gun transfers life energy and deposits in the target as height or muscle. Or a zillion other ways, those are just the only two I've finished building. It takes the life energy, the," he held up his hands to make air quotes, "'Force', if you will from everything around the target and transfers it. But the transfer doesn't last. I've been working on a way to make it permanent, but so far, well I haven't solved the problem yet."

Amanda looked out the window from where she sat on the bed, and sure enough, the grass around where Arnold had been standing was looking a little brown, the trees a little sickly. Even the girls that Arnold had been watching looked a little scrawny. She idly tugged at the sleeves of her t-shirt as Arnold kept explaining.

"It's like blowing up a balloon with a hole in it. The balloon blows up alright, but when you stop pumping it up, it slowly deflates. That's what I'm doing now. I'm deflating. I can feel it, I'm getting a little smaller." He flexed his gargantuan bicep and Amanda couldn't help but marvel. No one on earth would have considered that muscle small!

Suddenly the conversation was interrupted by the sound of tearing cloth. Arnold jumped up as if he'd been bitten.

"What. What was that?" he stammered out, startled and a little concerned.

"Arnold, where do you suppose that dissipating 'life energy' goes, honey?" Amanda asked with a smile.

"In.. into well back into the environment. All the living things in close proximity to the deflating vessel... oh my god. Amanda? Err... you're the only living thing in close proximity to me right now."

"You don't say?" Amanda replied with a smile and stood up from the bed. She flexed her biceps and tore out the sleeves of her shirt. Her arms were puny compared to Arnold's, but they still looked as big as any female bodybuilder. And they were still growing.

Arnold stood staring dumbstruck, unable to move as he watched the transfer continue, while Amanda grew taller, bustier and more muscular with each passing moment.