Summary: My first ( co-written) story. In a superhero filled city, the new-kid-on-the-block hero Twenty-Two finds himself face to face with his worst nightmare...another hero with the power to shrink! This encounter soon becomes a full-blown rivalry with both trying to out do the other in a silly game of who stands as the public image of both courage and humility. But Twenty-two has yet to realize that he, in the fact, might be the protector the city needs.
Categories: Age of Characters,
Giantess Characters: None
Growth: Giga (1 mi. to 100 mi.)
Shrink: None
Size Roles: None
Warnings: This story is for entertainment purposes only.
Challenges: None
Series: None
Chapters: 5
Completed: No
Word count: 3963
Read: 23323
Published: January 02 2013
Updated: January 18 2013
Story Notes:
This story is a four way third-person perspective. Every chapter or two we will switch between the heroes, that way it doesn't get confusing.
Having said that, let's meet our (so-called) heroes!
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Mr. Miniature- The original shrinker, this dashing hero is typically seen in a bright blue full-body suit. (Except of course during the 2009 prostitute sex scandal where he returned to regular height, naked, while trying to sneak out of a hotel room) His most notorious (and often mocked) trait is his immense ego, but even through all this, opponents fear for their lives whenever they see an orange minus sign descend from the starry sky above.
Twenty-Two (shortened to merely 22)- A new-comer in the game, a young FBI agent, given the ability to shrink, has decided that the world can never have too many heroes, and finally jumps in full force. Most who have met him have described him as ' Almost shy, he saved me from being shot or worse, and he was actually apologizing!' Almost the polar opposite of Mr. Miniature, Twenty-Two rarely talks to the press or public for that matter, always wearing a pure black body-suit with the number 22 on its sleeves.
Skyscraper- Another recent super, Skyscraper has been noted around the South, only stopping petty robberies and such. The only thing that would have (and has) gotten her noticed is her incredible power to grow to unimaginable heights. A bubbly personality during when approached, she oddly never wears a mask, saying quote 'Heh, my face is too big to buy a mask that fits.' Most spot her by running into giant scarlet boot, then looking up and up to find a giant woman, dressed almost in gymnastic shorts and a long-sleeved shirt. She has declined to comment on how her clothes grow with her, and at that, why couldn't she make a mask out of the same material.
Bantam- An already established superhero, almost everyone knows her, most notebly by her auto-biography in which she detailed how she was enabled to shrink, and further details how it requires some effort. She designed her suit to reflect her Irish ancestry, a forest green tee-shirt and spandex, flowing with swirling patterns. She has had two recorded conferences with the press stating 'I'm not doing anything special. I was blessed with a gift, and I'm doing the right thing with it, that's all.'
1. Holy three-footer! by Imagineer0914
2. The Man in the Neon Suit by Imagineer0914
3. Watch the skies by Rachel
4. A Figure from the Past by Imagineer0914
5. Table for one-and-a-half by Rachel
Holy three-footer! by Imagineer0914
Author's Notes:
I'm not a very decent writer, so, anyone who's has suggestions, advice or, (hopefully) praise for this project, remember to write on the odd chapters for me. (I am co-writing this, writing a chapter after the next is written.) So remember, please take it easy on the hate.
"I wiiiiiiinnn! Haha, suck on that, Twenty-Two, hope you don't mind me borrowing your girlie friend over here!" exclaimed the brute, holding the superhero's girlfriend close to his body, his arm wrapped his arm around her waist as she screamed in fright and ,surprisingly anger, because this was all Twenty-Two's fault .
"You stupid son of a bitch! Get this creep off of me, and maybe I WON'T break up with you!" She snarled at her boyfriend who stood there looking at the ground with calculating eyes. She groaned and started clawing and slapping the thick-set man currently holding her in an attempt to free herself. She cried out again,
"Guess someone's gonna be lonely for the holidays!"
Ignoring all the verbal insults and threats, Twenty-Two looked up, oddly calm with the fact that the man currently pointing a gun in his face was about to pull the trigger, softly singing the pop hit 'I cry a little'.
"Hm, nothing witty? I thought all of you super guys were supposed to be comedians or something. Oh, well." The man pulled the trigger... the brown toothy grin instantly vanished from his face. Somehow, someway, the man he was going to shoot had...vanished?
"That's....fucking impossible! How did I not see a guy in some pansy cat woman costume run away?"
He thought for a minute, finally shrugging. Some hero, he ran off when his girlfriend was being kidnapped!
His thoughts returned to his prize when he felt a sharp pain in his wrist. The woman was viciously biting him like a wounded animal, quickly drawing blood and enraging the rapist.
"Gaw!" He released her with a rough shove to the ground, fuming.
"You bitch! Keep that up an your boy's gonna find your face on his Christmas card!"
He pointed the barrel of his .22 magnum (that was pure irony, right there.) at her chest. She shrank back, her breathing eratic and eyes wide in fear. Despite her fit physique, she could have easily been mistaken for a heart attack victim.
"Look..my boyfriend might LOOK like a bitch.." she eyed the gun, beginning to shake like a chihuahua frightened by a loud noise. "B-but he's gonna come back and whoop you if you do anything! So-so don't even think of trying anything with that gun.." She gulped, hoping he would buy her bluff. She had only been dating the superhero for a couple of weeks, but even then, most couples would say their relationship was rocky at best. Even though he hadn't even shown her what he looked like, but she never thought he would let something like this happen to her.
She crawled backwards across the pavement, bumping into a wall in the darkness, cursing to herself.
'Maybe he didn't even have powers..that would explain why he never talked about them..'
Throughout all of this, something was happening. The masked hero, 22, was silently waiting behind the thug, at his smallest stature, a mere .22 millimeters tall, only 88% of an inch! His tiny frame shook with anger, not only from the fact his girlfriend was ,from what he could see, about to be raped but also that his she, who he finally thought respected him, just flat-out called him a bitch...well..she kind of did anyway.
Frightened and assuming her boyfriend was a coward and had abandoned her, she pulled herself back up, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The man reached out and grabbed her by the throat. His foul breath assaulted her senses as he let out a nasty promise.
"Say anything or scream, I'll put a bullet right in that pretty head of yours, got it?"
He grinned as she nodded, her mascara smeared from the tears.
"Good! Let's go."
As 22 watched, the man lowered his gun to his side, now was the moment he had been waiting for chance. As quickly as one can say 'Hey, that guy wasn't there before!' or perhaps simply 'Hey!' 22 had re-grown to his full height of 5'11 behind the criminal. He held his finger to his lips in silence, signaling for the woman to be quiet. Very quickly and violently, he grabbed the man's arm and with a swift sickening snap, broke it without a hint of emotion. Times like these were ones of pure thought, not fear or worry.
As many of us have experienced, as is the natural reaction to any bone in your arm breaking, you tend to howl as the now useless thing hangs lifelessly at your side. The rapist released his victim and only had time to let out a squeak before 22 was on him again.
Muriel John jumped away from her captor and watched as 22 wrapped his arm around the mans neck. The man struggled, kicking wildly in every direction, but the experienced FBI agent stood firm. In seconds, the man crumpled to the ground unconcious.
"Why the hell did that take so long!" she screeched. "My own boyfriend can't stop someone unless he's given an hour?!"
She stomped her foot, brushing her dyed-blond hair back. Not only had her boyfriend turned out to be a coward, his so-called "superpower" was to shrink! How lame was that?!
Laying the man down, 22 placed two fingers on his neck to check his pulse. Normal, ok, he could stand up again and face Muriel's fury.
"I had to make sure he thought I had left so I could evaluate the situation!" He stated irritatedly. "And how about the nice little fact that you blatantly called me a bitch to this guy?! I know we haven't been dating for a while but come on! That's just plain disrepectful!"
22 sighed, looking at Muriel.
"A-and..I didn't want you to find out about my powers.."
He looked down, ashamed. Even fully sized he felt as if everyone towered over him. And then, as if in a movie, they heard a clap in the darkness.
Turning in front of Muriel, hearing her scoff, he looked around, they were in a small four-way backstreet, but the sound echoed over from the left passage. He squinted, yelling into the inky blackness "Show yourself!"
"Yeah, and try to rape me while you're at it, he'll just stand there for thirty to forty-five minutes!"
They both watched, amazed, as they saw a child sized figure walking towards them.
"Now, how the hell does something like this happen?"
End Notes:
If I have any misspelling or spacing errors, I tried to write this on my phone, so this might've been an eye sore.
The Man in the Neon Suit by Imagineer0914
Author's Notes:
Hey guys, I'm the other co-author for this little super hero tale. My chapters will be the even numbers. I hope you like what you read and thanks for giving us a look! Same as before, constuctive criticism is welcome, but no hate please. On with the show!
The steam from a man hole cover billowed in the harsh orange light of a near by street lamp. 22 stood in front of Muriel hoping to prove that 'coward' was not a word found in the FBI oath of induction. The sound of the slow echoing claps grew louder as the 3 foot tall man emerged from the shadows. A brilliantly white smiled stretched across the man's face. "Wellllll," he began as his height slowly brought him to a tall 6' 1", "that was pretty impressive kid. What was that?" the man chopped the air while forcing out a few generic karate noise, "Some sort of kung fu trick?" He stepped forward, his neon suit shimmering with each step. With a deal of force, he used his foot to roll the unconsious rapist onto his back. "Well, kung- shwey or not, whatever you did, it worked. Oh and who's this pretty miss behind you?" Much like he did to the thug on the ground, the man shouldered 22 to the side. "Good evening fair - very fair - citizen. I am Mr. Miniature." He took her hand and kissed it. "You perhaps have seen me on countless television interviews, magazine and newspaper covers, and even the late night infomercial runs. Yes. I am THAT Mr. Mini."
22 just stood there as his girlfriend morphed into some unholy school girl nightmare. "Well hello there," she squeaked out in a fit of giggles, "I've seen all those things at least a dozen times." It's a safe bet that she had, in fact, not even heard of Mr. Mini before now but hey, when you're famous, that doesn't matter. "So you're a real superhero? Why don't you show me some of your powers then."
"Sure thing little lady." Mr. Mini stepped back into the center of the alley cross roads. With a flick of his hair and his hands on his hips, he bellowed out, "Miniatureize!" and disappeared...sort of. Muriel giggled and ran forward, dropping to her hands and knees to see the tiny hero strut his stuff at a few inches tall. 22 couldn't help but roll his eyes and scoff. In a flash of orange light, Mr. Mini was instantly back to normal. Muriel's eyes remained wide and glazed over in shallow admiration.
"Oh boy! Twenty did you see that?" She hopped up and down, directing her comment at her boyfriend but not giving him a second glance."Now that's a REAL super power!" 22 opened his mouth to object that his shrinking ability was nearly identical when he was interrupted.
"You see kid," Mr. Mini strutted over and placed a blue gloved hand on 22's shoulder, "if you want THAT kind of reaction, you gotta show a little pizzaz, give some showmanship, flair! I would lend you some, but I wouldn't want it to go to waste. I mean look at me!," He spun Twenty around to face him. "I'm the symbol of justice in this city! When you see an orange and blue blur out of the corner of your eye, that's me. You on the other hand look like you've been taking your inspiration from some dark and moody teenager's book of poetry. The jet black suit and tiny little number on your sleeve isn't going to grab anyone's attention. And I couldn't help but notice your reappearing act." He held a finger to 22's chest. "You know...that looked a lot like my special talent. Are you trying to step in on my show? I mean I would say that this town isn't big enough for the two of us but since we can shrink that's just not true. So here's the deal. I'M the superhero around here, not you. I don't know how you got your power but you better make your secret identity, your ONLY identity. Got it?" He stepped back, a false toothy grin returning to his mouth. "Well it was pleasure to have this chat with you two but I shall be off."
As he turned to the alley way, Muriel ran forward. "Wait, MM, take me with you! I want a real man with real powers, not this boy who can't save me when I need a hero."
22 found his voice, "But he does exactly what I do!" he protested.
"Yeh, but my Mr. Mini can do it better." she smirked. Mr. Mini turned and raised a condescending eyebrow in Twenty's direction.
"When the lady's right, she's right" he chuckled. In a blue flash of light he was tiny once more. Muriel picked him up and placed him on her shoulder.
"Good bye Twenty-Two." She with a wave of her hand as she disappeared in the steam of the manhole cover.
22 just stood there alone. He wasn't saddened by her exit, no he was more irritated than anything. "You need pizzaz kid." He mocked the hero's tone under his breath.
"Agent 22 come in!" His ear piece sprang to life.
"22 here."
"Agent, we need you over in Shantville, there's some heavy activity around a hot spot that we have just confirmed to be a drug smuggling operation. Please report."
"Confirmed, 22 out." And with that, the man in the jet black uniform became one with the shadows as he unkowngly headed towards a meeting with fate.
Watch the skies by Rachel
Author's Notes:
Finally, what we've all been waiting for!
The ride to Shantville was anything but pleasant, maybe even tolerable. Watching the woods fly by him, 22 sighed. It was roughly 3:00 in the morning, and he still had over eighty miles to go before he would even get to the drug house.
In the early hour, it was a miracle that he had found a shabby, loud-colored pickup going in the same basic direction. Now, it probably would've looked suspicious if 22 had actually asked them for a ride, a young man wearing what was basically a rubber ski-mask, and a full-body suit made from an expensive nylon compound. No no, he just walked towards the truck as luckily the driver needed to 'take a leak'. He had just enough time to shrink to the size of a toddler and climb into the back. His fall was very short-lived as he fellinto a giant pile of newspapers and magazines. They seemed to mainly be fashion magazines, but there were some hunting subscriptions thrown in. There even seemed to be one or two playboy magazines, the filthy bastard.
22 shook his head in disgust and looked up at the rear view mirror. They had darkened the glass quite a bit, maybe even over the legal limit, thought 22.
But that didn't matter now, 22 had spotted the highway 88 sign. He needed to get off, and fast. He slowly allowed himself to grow back to four feet tall, and pulled himself on to the rim of the truck, preparing for a rough landing.
Before he jumped, he looked back at the tinted window. Something just wasn't right, but he couldn't see anything. For whatever reason he sat still and listened, they seemed to be shouting at eachother but then there was...silence...and finally, crying. 22 didn't see anything but he could geuss what was going on. He quickly jumped off the car, almost hitting his head on the dry dirt. As he landed, he rolled on to his side, and launched himself upward again. Landing flat on his feet, the spy quickly jogged out into the tree-line, pushing and dodging stray branches. After getting whacked in the face a few times because of his small stature, he came upon a clearing. Off to the side a bit was a run-down shack. Criminals always choose the most suspicious buildings, don't they?
The raining had stopped, not that it mattered, his suit kept hi body temperature up, almost like he was wearing a blanket.
He approached the shack warily, with each step smoothly shrinking an inch or two. Finally, he was at the door, only an inch tall. He got down on his stomach and crawled under the door, which was a little too high up. Inside, he was greeted to an unnerving sight. No one was in the house, but he did take a two-hour trip. He re-grew back to regular height, and started to notice some even weirder details. For one, the roof was ripped off and nowhere in sight. Secondly, the tops of the walls were crumbling in on themselves, almost as if something had hit it..
"Come in 22! Do you read me?"
"Copy that, 22 here."
"Are you only now at the crime scene?"
"Sadly, yes sir. It looks like they got away."
"Nope, a decent cimetidine stepped up and did her part. Having said that, she told the police she wanted to speak to you, said to ,uhm, 'Watch the skies' whatever that means."
The ear piece whent silent and 22 was left alone with his thoughts once more. He shrugged, assuming his job was done.
22 opened the door and looked up at the rapid movement of the approaching sun. Though something was different about the sky..there almost seemed to be an outline. And then, the outline giggled.
"Hey mister, what took you so long? You missed the party!"
22 looke up at the giant face of a woman. Towering over the trees in the distance, and shut the door.
A Figure from the Past by Imagineer0914
The night air was cold and damp. Loren's shoulders heaved with a sigh as she locked the door to the office building behind her. You would be surprised by the amount of stress she carried with her each day but when you're the single dedicated editor to the city's entertainment magazine, stress just comes naturally. She was proud of her position though. The Holmes was the only magazine she could think of that still reported cold hard truth. No fluff. No gimmicks.
Her bright green eyes scanned the empty city street, only a light fog and the street lamps kept her company. With a final check of the door knob, she hoisted her bag over her shoulder and began her usual nocturnal walk home. All was silent apart from the rhythmic clack of her shoes against the dull gray concrete. Loren wasn't a fan of passing dark alleys at night. She had heard too many stories of people getting into trouble in the alleys once the sun had set, and while she counted her blessings, she was not looking to join their ranks.
Her pace quickened as the one alley she had to walk past drew closer and closer. "Hey, hey you there, he- get off me woman! Look I know what I said but I don't want you hanging around me anymore. Here, here's some cab money, get yourself home. No- no don't you Mr. Mini me!" Loren froze as a blonde woman stumbled out from the darkness, clearly uninjured except for what little pride she had left.
The blonde turned and spat at the ground, "Some hero you turned out to be!" she snipped before storming off. Our red headed editor gave out a low groan. She knew what was coming next.
"Well! Look at who we have here," Mr. Miniature stepped out from the alley. Loren would have preferred to have been jumped and mugged over running into HIM again. "Bantam Bantam Bantam, how have you been my dear?" He reached out to take her hand but she quickly whipped it away. "Oh, I see. Still haven't forgiven me about last time have you? Listen, I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry for having cheated on you all those years ago, but the past is the past. After you stormed off, I went looking for you everywhere! I searched for at least four hours! Why don't you let me take you to dinner? Perhaps we can go back to the Mini Mansion and, relive some of our better memories?" He smiled. God how she hated that smug smile of his.
"Look Mini," she began pinching the upper area of her nose between her eyes, "You were great when we were together. And yes, we had some good nights. You definitely knew how to treat a girl, but what you did was unforgivable! To be honest, one shrinking powered individual to another, these past couple years apart have been good for me! I go byJUST Loren now, Bantam, sure she's still around and I'll slip into my suit every now and then but I have a great career and am happily doing things on my own. I like being the one behind the stories in the magazines, not on the front cover."
"But the front cover is the best place anyone can be!" Mr. Mini took a step forward, "Especially for someone as beautiful as yourself. So come on, why not join me for a drink or two."
Loren stepped back, smacking away the gloved hand that was so close to running against her cheek. "I said NO Mini! Jesus, you really haven't changed have you? And by the way, I don't know who that blonde chick was, and why you two were in a dark alley together but all that does is confirm what I already knew to be true. You're an egotistical nightmare who only works towards his own selfish needs. That girl was right, some hero you turned out to be." She put air quotes around hero before shutting her eyes.
"Bantam, come on don't be that way, I'll make it up to you." What Mr. Mini couldn't see was the swirling lead tattoo on the back of Loren's neck begin to glow.
"Good bye Mini, I hope this is the last time we run into eachother." With that, she opened her eyes, now glowing the same maginficent green as her tattoo, and disappeared leaving only a single leaf where she once stood. Mr. Mini looked around at the ground, knowing she had to be down there somewhere but it was too dark to see.
"Your loss." He said with a casual shrug before turning and walking away. Loren stood, an inch tall, with her back to the brick wall of the alley. Who would have guessed that the dark passage she had dreaded for so long who offer her protection in its shadows from a real monster. Sadly, this would not be the last time Bantam and Mr. Mini would come face to face.
Table for one-and-a-half by Rachel
Author's Notes:
These chapters are gonna be a lot less frequent, unfortunately.
'At least it's warm.' Thought 22. And he was definitely correct. Not only was the heater turned on inside the shabby Italian restaurant, but also the woman in whom's lap he was sitting was VERY warm.
At that, it was fairly awkward for the young man to also be roughly the size of a four-month-old, being fed in a similar manner.
Now, that isn't to say the evening hadn't started any less strange. After being coaxed out of the run-down crack house by the mysterious giant, 22 actually had to strike a conversation with her about exactly who she was. Another new face, formally introduced as Skyscraper, an attractive and motherly figure from the looks of it, had Caught the gang members, quite literally too as proof, 22 found a hoodie jacket torn almost right down the middle near the edge of the trees.
"You know, most everyone I've ever had dinner with usually look me in the eye..." 22 mumbled, glancing up at the powder-white face, sprinkled with freckles, hidden by silky black hair as she giggled.
"It's cheaper this way, and I didn't see a pocket on that fancy skin-tight jump-suit of yours." A pair of startling blue eyes looked down, eyeing his dirty blond hair, his bright green eyes, childish, very fitting. Of course, no person in their right mind would every believe the two were even remotely related, let alone her son.
"Speaking of which, is it hard to find clothes in a size 50?" 22 joked, squirming around nervously in the woman's lap, causing her to squirm a little in response.
Skyscraper glanced down, silently cackling. "It's very rude to ask a woman a question like that, young man! Haha, and quit talking so loud, people are looking at me like I'm crazy!"
"Hmm, I can't say for certain, but maybe it's because your having a conversation with your baby? Ow!" The shrunken man rubbed his now sore bottom.
"Was that really necessary?" The shrunken man irritatedly whispered.
Skyscraper winked, looking up at the waitress coming back to refill her tea, raising an eyebrow. "I'm sorry miss, my baby's just having a little hissy-fit is all." The super heroine shrugged her shoulders apologetically and smiled, watching the young lady place a check on the table next to an almost-empty plate of ravioli.
As the woman placed a credit card on the plastic tray, 22 mockingly called out "Momma, I hunnngy." He finished the statement by nibbling on her jet-black hair.
The evening ended at that, at least, dinner did. What followed after that was hours amongst hours of talkin about what it was like to see the world as an ant, or as a giant. About failed relationships, about odd stalkers, finishing school, finding a job. All while still staying larger and smaller then the other. It was amazing to find another super so exact in their issues, but so opposite in the spectrum of goals.
And it all unknowingly kick-started a mudslide of destruction. One sentence at a time.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.