Gage sat down at his VR Terminal and strapped himself in. He attached the Nerve Connections to their appropriate Receptors and then threw on his Visor.

“Please identify yourself,” said a robotic female voice.

“Gage 1016,” he replied impatiently.

“Welcome back, Gage, to Perfect Dimension,” replied the voice. He felt the familiar tingling across his body as the game input itself throughout his nervous system. He momentarily lost consciousness, and then…

“Surprise, surprise… the Graceful Gage is back at it again,” said a sardonic voice in his ear.

“Stuff it, Charis, you play this game just as much as I do,” Gage retorted.

“Well at least I’m still a college bum,” she countered. “You graduated two years ago!”

“Yeah, yeah, just get back to Town and let’s see about this deal.”

The “Town” Gage referred to spread out around him as far as the eye could see – a massive, futuristic metropolis complete with flying cars and all manner of flashing lights and blinking signs. Perfect Dimension had been out for almost twenty years now, and with each patch the game became more elaborate and detailed. Even now, well beyond his one-thousandth login, he still marveled at how life-like this game really was.

Presently, Gage stood atop one of the many Entry Points that dotted Town, a floating platform on which all users spawned once they had logged in. He reached for a small circle in his belt and dropped it onto the metal floor below him. Almost instantaneously, the circle grew to about four feet in diameter. He stepped onto the circle and began to fly down towards the city below, the wind ruffling his already messy brown hair. He came to a stop at a comparatively older clock tower ornamented by a ring of gargoyles. Just as he landed, a girl emerged from behind one of the stone beasts, her neon pink hair contrasting violently with the chiseled gray.

“Gage, that jacket still looks ridiculous,” Charis said, eyeing it with disapproval. He grunted as he returned the floating disc back to his belt. Compared to his plain black leather jacket and jeans, Charis looked appropriately futuristic in a silver body suit with bright blue lines patterned up and down her limbs. Lights moved incessantly along the lines like cars on a highway.

“How long until they arrive?” asked Gage.

“They’ll be here any second, just be –”

She was interrupted by an electrical hiss followed by a continuous hum. A bright white portal split the air off to their side, and out of it emerged a man dressed in an all-black suit. “Greetings, players,” he said as he approached them. “We don’t have much time, so let’s get through this process right away.”

Charis and Gage exchanged looks. “You sure you want to do this?” she asked pointedly.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I’m not exactly contributing a whole lot Out There.”

The suited man didn’t wait for them to discuss it any further: he raised a pistol and aimed at Gage. “You might feel some initial discomfort…”

Gage heard the trigger click, and then his entire world was pain. He lasted for two seconds before blacking out.

…

“Gage?” He could feel a pair of hands trying to shake him awake. “Gage, wake up!”

With a groan, he pried his eyes open to see Charis’s worried face framed by that absurd pink hair. His body tingled all over in a way that wasn’t unlike the initial log-in sequence; except now it felt… amplified.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“I feel… alive,” he breathed. And he truly did. Where before the game felt like an alternate reality, one that he viewed through some ambiguous tint or fogginess, Gage now felt totally at home within his virtual body. The body felt powerful.

Charis helped him up before gripping his upper arm tightly. “You know you can’t go back now, right?” she said seriously.

“Yes, Charis, I know. We’ve had this conversation a million times. Now why don’t we see what I can do?” Without bothering to see if she was following, Gage hopped onto his disc and flew towards the nearest Hub. A massive open platform bustled with dozens of players moving in and out of portals similar to the one that the suited man had emerged from. Ignoring everything around him, Gage rushed excitedly to a raised computer terminal and input a random waypoint. Right on cue, a white slash spun and widened into a person-sized oval. Gage glanced back to see Charis standing with her arms crossed and a disgruntled look on her face. “Well?” he asked.

“You better hope it doesn’t hurt when you die – cause I’m gonna kill you.”

Gage laughed and jumped through the portal, his body feeling more at home than it ever had before.

The pair emerged in a forest of massive trees. Each trunk could have easily been a house, and the canopy above spread out in every direction, leaving no glimpse of the sky. Instead, a sickly green light came from what appeared to fungi coating the colossal plant-life surrounding them.

Without warning, a gigantic spider came scuttling towards them from behind a nearby root. Gage drew his trusty sword from his belt and met the creature head on, slicing it apart with ease. Just as soon as he had disposed of that creature, another bolted towards him from some other crevice, but Gage had no trouble dealing with it either. In less than a minute, he slaughtered four of the beasts before they had had their fill and retreated.

Panting heavily, Gage felt the adrenaline course through his veins like nothing he had felt before. The blood of the slain arachnids dripped from his hands and limbs, and he could feel its disgusting sliminess on his skin. The game had become his reality.

“Pretty cool, Gage,” said Charis from behind him. “So it must’ve worked.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a smile. “Even a maxed out character like me should’ve had trouble with those… but now I’m on a whole different level. I’m really in the game.”

“Ah, well if it isn’t another newbie.” Gage and Charis twisted their heads around to face the mocking voice. A female dressed as a witch sat on a floating broomstick, her eyes staring hungrily at Gage. The look sent shivers down his spine, even if her ridiculous outfit didn’t. “Climbed all the way to Level 100, but still looking for more?”

The two friends remained silent. Both of them could feel an ominous power emanating from the woman.

“Well I have news for you, little man…” she said with a cackle. “Level 100 is just the beginning.” With that, she waved a wand, sending a bright ray of light towards him. Even with his heightened speed and awareness, Gage could barely react to the attack, let alone dodge it. A blinding explosion enveloped him, and for the second time today he lost consciousness.

…

“Gage? Gage where are you?” thundered Charis.

“Not so loud,” he complained. How could she not see him?

Gage left his eyes closed for the moment as he tried to process what had just happened. What kind of attack had that witch used? It wasn’t anything he’d ever seen before, but at least he wasn’t in any kind of pain. And was she serious when she said Level 100 was just the beginning? It had taken him years to max out his character. In any case, he wouldn’t be able to answer those questions just lying there. Gage gave his head a shake and then opened his eyes. “What the…?”

Where before massive trees towered over him, now a pair of gigantic silver legs took up his entire vision. His eyes followed the legs up the familiar blue lines all the way to Charis’s face, which swiveled back and forth frantically as she looked for her friend. It seemed odd to see her from this angle; he could only see her chin and nostrils. When she took a step across the root she and Gage shared, the vibrations forced him to brace himself against previously tiny grooves in the tree’s bark.

“Gage where are you?”

“I’m right here, down by your feet,” he called, trying to speak both physically and via their private messaging network. Neither succeeded in getting her attention, so Gage rose to his feet and reached for his disc – but it was missing. In fact, all of his items were gone – he only had the clothes on his back! Had the witch stolen his inventory? He didn’t have long to curse his bad luck when it turned even worse.

Despite her efforts to find Gage, Charis failed to realize how dangerously close to him she really was. She took a step towards him, not realizing that her raised boot posed a real and immediate threat to her friend. For the tiny Gage down below, her silver footwear looked like a skyscraper crashing towards him. He had time to raise his arms and scream before she put her foot down.

 

The wall of silver that constituted Charis’s right foot forced Gage instantly onto his back. The pressure spiked upward to unbearable levels, but before Gage could fully realize his predicament, Charis had lifted her foot and kept walking, leaving him pressed into the root like a piece of gum. Waves of pain rippled up and down his battered form, but he appeared to have avoided any permanent damage. Gage wondered if the 20 level gap between the two had anything to do with it, but immediately discarded the idea. Under normal circumstances, her most powerful attack wouldn’t displace a hair on his head; but just now her mere footstep had shown him his diminished strength.

Rising groggily to his feet, Gage had just enough time to be grateful he didn’t die when he again found himself underfoot. This time Charis’s tremendous weight pushed him facedown into the root, and once again the pressure soared drastically before just as abruptly disappearing. He had the fleeting image of a cartoon character being squashed multiple times. Bewildered and aching, Gage remained prone on the root, his breath coming in gasps and his body screaming in protest. His mind couldn’t process the levels of pain he now experienced.

While the game had been designed to engage its user in a life-like world, pain had always been dulled to a reasonable extent. Aside from a fairly mild bike accident as a kid, Gage had never dealt with any real physical discomfort – until now. His nerves were on fire from Charis’s simple footstep, and he could only surmise that whatever the suited man had done to him earlier had given him a stronger connection with the game – for better or for worse.

Still, it appeared that at least some of Gage’s important combat abilities remained intact from before the witch’s curse. In fact, now that he thought about it, he had basically just had a skyscraper dropped on top of him. It was amazing that he had survived at all, Level 100 or no. Perhaps his character’s strength had been lowered proportionately to his size.

“Gage, where are you?” boomed Charis from above, anxiety edging her voice. Her search had taken her quite far from him, so he could at least relax for a moment. Still, this presented a downside: it would be impossible for him to get her attention if he didn’t get closer, which had obvious dangers.

Wincing at the thought Charis’s boot crashing down on him, Gage struggled to think of another way to get her attention – ideally from afar. She clearly couldn’t hear him, and at his size he was tough to spot. She probably wouldn’t be looking down in the first place.

As it turned out, his decision had already been made for him. He watched in growing horror as Charis spun on her heel and went straight back to where he stood, her hand on her chin. “Where could he be?” she asked aloud. He could hear her mounting desperation.

“Charis, I’m right here!” shouted Gage urgently even as he tried to escape her merciless footstep. Fortunately, with a little forewarning Gage could try to avoid his friend’s boot with his virtual body’s superhuman speed – well, a tiny man’s superhuman speed. So, in spite of his initial success, at his reduced size even his fastest movement couldn’t keep him completely out of harm’s way.

In fact, when Charis began pacing frantically back and forth, Gage found himself in some nightmarish version of Frogger. Her boots crashed down around him, seemingly trying to snuff him out underneath. Their sheer size disoriented him: he could only react to the massive footfalls instead of getting himself out of there for good. Gage managed to avoid his fate mere seconds before tripping on the uneven terrain of the root. His body tensed up involuntarily before the now-familiar pressure of Charis’s weight bore down on him.

But this time, it was slightly different. The pressure remained intense, but for some reason it came at him from both sides as well, instead of just from above – and it didn’t relent. When he felt himself rising upwards and then falling down at an alarming rate, he quickly realized what had happened: he was stuck in the tread of Charis’s boot.

Like some sort of demented rollercoaster, Charis’s foot shot him upward before plunging him towards the earth, whereupon he made impact with the ground with a shockwave of pain. He began to worry that he would die like this until he noticed that the pain lessened with each step. As luck would have it, his body had wedged itself so firmly in her tread that the rubber columns on either side of him supported the brunt of Charis’s weight, leaving him with some pressure, but not a life-threatening or even painful amount. It was certainly uncomfortable, but it was nothing compared to his first two encounters with her foot. Not including his acute embarrassment, Gage could endure this just fine.

“Gage?” Charis shouted. She came to a stop and heaved one final sigh. He heard the telltale sound of a portal opening: she had given up. Did she think he was dead? When the portal had finished opening, the ride started anew. Gage saw the bark surface of the root stretching away from him one last time before the terrain switched in the blink of an eye to the metal tiles of the Hub. When she had stepped both feet onto the ground at the Hub, Gage could hear her slamming the toe of her other boot into the ground in an effort to dislodge whatever dirt had gotten stuck in there. He had always scoffed at her ridiculous habit, a carryover habit from the real world; but this time it might help him immensely.

Sure enough, she tapped the his boot into the tiles three times, and on the third one he pried himself from her treads’ embrace and landed heavily on the ground below. Then Charis walked away at speeds he couldn’t possibly hope to match, and Gage immediately regretted his decision.

“Charis!” he shouted. “God damn it.” In a matter of seconds, she had stepped onto a disc and flown away, leaving him to wallow in despair. What was he going to do? Apparently his size precluded him from messaging of any kind on top of his inability to be physically heard. She might as well be in another dimension as far as his ability to communicate was concerned. A small but insistent thought emerged from the depths of his mind: even he did find Charis, could she even change him back? He could be the size of a bug forever. Recoiling from the awful mental image, Gage shoved the thought aside, grimly determined to never think about that again. Self-pity was not an option.

Ultimately, he didn’t have time to feel sorry himself. Although his dark thoughts prevented Gage from noticing the portal opening in front of him, the gigantic sandal rushing downwards refused to be ignored. With speed born out of desperation, Gage leaped to the side and narrowly avoided being crushed by what appeared to be a female foot dressed in an open-toed, red leather item.

An idea flashed through his mind: if Gage could get onto that sandal, he could potentially get this girl’s attention by pinching the skin of her foot! But as soon as the plan had materialized, his chance had gone. The girl had walked away – but before Gage could lament his indecision, another pair of massive feet arrived on the scene. While this person’s high-heeled boot left her skin unexposed, Gage still leapt onto the front and held fast to a buckle. He assumed that the second girl would follow the first.

He had guessed right. As he hitched a ride on top of the footwear of this unknown woman (a much more pleasant experience than underneath), he hoped that it was just a matter of time before they stopped moving. Then he would make his move.

As far as ways to travel go, Gage could do worse than riding a gigantic woman’s boot. The up-and-down rhythm of her gait took a little getting used to, but aside from that, Gage kind of enjoyed himself. He used this respite to take stock of his situation.

First off, he was tiny. Gage estimated himself to be an inch or two tall, although he appeared to have some level of durability: the suited man’s procedure afforded him some strength leftover after the witch’s curse. That being said, without his equipment, he had no spells or abilities. He was a level 100 character completely naked of any items – not something you see every day. He would have to depend on his basic traits and attacks until he could get his gear back.

On a sudden impulse, Gage tried to log out. He activated the icon in his Heads-Up Display (HUD) like normal… but nothing happened. It’s not like he expected otherwise, but it was worth a shot, right? He pondered the witch’s words. Level 100 is just the beginning. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. Literally billions of players logged into Perfect Dimension daily, and while his encounter with the suited man seemed shady, the fact that it happened at all only proved that some sort of infrastructure aided people like him. People who wanted to escape.

With that in mind, it shouldn’t surprise him that there would be a whole underground society of beyond 100 characters. In fact, that witch had probably targeted him precisely because he was a newly elevated player. She hadn’t bothered with Charis at all – probably because she could log out and undo the spell at will.

“Finally!” a feminine voice above him boomed. His ride had come to a stop, snapping Gage out of his thoughts. “I can’t wait ‘til I level up enough to get a disc – everything in this city is too far apart!” Glancing upwards, Gage’s HUD confirmed that his ride was a level 18 firearms user, just two levels shy of receiving a disc.

“Yeah, totally,” agreed her friend and Gage’s target, a level 18 spellcaster. “Let’s dump this quest and get our reward. We can grab a drink afterwards.”

Looking around, Gage recognized his location – Felicia Fine’s – basically a bar for low-level players. The designer had clearly programmed the place with women in mind: the place glowed with garish neon hues of pink and blue and green. But as they moved deeper into the bar from the entrance, Gage found himself paying less attention to the décor and more attention to the forest of female legs surrounding him. Not bad, he thought, admiring the view. Despite everything that had happened, he had to smile at this bit of good fortune.

Eventually, the boots came to rest as his ride took a seat in a booth. Gage watched in fascination as her friend slid into the booth on the other side, her massive form moving with impossible grace. Like a pair of buses, her red sandals came to a stop in front of him, the leather scarlet bands wrapping tastefully around her feet.

“What are you going to order?” asked one of the girls.

“I don’t know, I was thinking…”

Gage promptly ignored the rest of the conversation and scurried down from his perch on his ride’s black boot. However, just as he reached the toe, the girl lifted it up and crossed her legs, forcing him to hold tight to her boot’s leather. After his initial surprise, Gage let go and dropped to the ground – a considerable height for a normal person – and ran over to the other girl’s feet. The incident didn’t slow him down, but it served as a reminder: at his size, even the girls’ most casual movements posed a real danger.

With this in mind, he paused in front of one of the red sandals, eyeing it with some trepidation. After giving it some thought, Gage figured his safest bet would be to get on top of her foot as quickly as possible and minimize the chance of her accidentally crushing him with a simple twitch. He shuddered at the thought, but tried to convince himself of his toughness – after all, Charis had stepped on him not ten minutes ago. Still, the pain of that experience didn’t exactly leave him begging for more. Briefly, he wondered how Charis was doing; he hoped she was all right and not worrying too much about him. I’ll get back to her soon, he promised silently.

Gage took a deep breath and gathered himself. Quit getting worked up over nothing, he chided himself. Then he broke into a sprint, charging directly at the sandal-clad foot of the girl. With a wild leap, he launched himself into the air and landed directly on one of the straps. Gage clung to it tightly before dragging himself to an unsteady standing position on the sloping foot. Now he just had to…

Without warning, a mass of leather and flesh knocked Gage off of his perch and sent him tumbling to the ground. He watched in a mixture of awe and frustration as his assailant – a girl’s foot – scratched the area he just occupied. Gage knew it was foolish, but he swore the foot’s movement had a decidedly smug air to it. If he hoped to attract the girl’s attention, he would have to pinch her foot without also being smeared to a pulp by its counterpart. It wouldn’t be easy, but what choice did he have?

Wasting no further time, Gage rushed to the closer foot and began pinching with both hands in multiple locations. Moving frantically, he grabbed an area of her exposed skin and then ran somewhere else and repeated his assault in a preemptive effort to avoid the other foot. The plan worked: like some blind beast, the girl’s foot poked and prodded, but never succeeded in finding Gage.

“What’s wrong?”

“Something’s biting my foot or something,” came the annoyed response. Gage felt the shoe begin to rise beneath him; she must want a closer look. Instinctively, he dropped to his stomach and grasped the nearest handhold: the small piece of leather running between her big and second toes. While this particular decision provided him a solid, two-handed grip, his nose wrinkled at the decidedly unpleasant smell invading his nostrils. The grim combination of sweat and her foot’s musky odor made his head swim, and a wildly unrelated thought ran through his mind: it must have been one thorough programmer who made sure that feet stank in this game.

In any case, Gage didn’t have to endure for too much longer. After a short trip upwards, he sensed more than saw that the owner of the sandal had rested her foot on her other knee, presumably to get a look at whatever was “biting” her. Still hanging from between her toes, Gage threw a glance upwards – and was confronted by a pair of astonished blue eyes.

“Uhhh… Lilith?”

“What?”

“You’re not going to believe this…” Gage let go with one hand and waved frantically.

“What?”

“…there’s a tiny man between my toes.”

 

“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

Gage found himself standing on a glowing blue table with two gigantic women staring down at him on either side. When he had opted for his… procedure… he hadn’t for a second expected that this would happen. He licked his dry lips and said, “I was in a Zone when somebody set a curse on me, which reduced me to this size. I was with a friend, but she couldn’t find me because I’m so small. I’ve been trying to get somebody’s attention ever since.”

“Very interesting,” said the girl who had found him clinging to her sandal. She pushed aside burnt red bangs to get a closer look at him. “And why should we help you?”

“Who cares?" chimed in the other girl. "Let’s just fuck with him for a little and then kill him." Even though he faced the red-haired girl in front, he could feel the other girl’s massive presence behind him.

“Wow, I actually like that idea a lot. Let’s do it!” Their tones set alarms off in his head – this might not go as well as he’d planned. It didn’t surprise him that they would want to end his life totally unprovoked: not only were people very different online than in the real world, but the fact that he would respawn made their actions inconsequential. What they didn’t know – and what he didn’t know, either – was what would happen if they did kill him. He fleetingly thought that whatever shady organization in charge of these transformations should have some sort of orientation.

“Hold on,” he protested. “Can’t we talk about this?”

“Nope,” the redhead responded curtly. “We’re gonna have a fun time with you, little man.”

Gage weighed his options: against their massive sizes, he would be hard-pressed to escape, let alone fight. On top of that, he literally had only his base stats to aid him in any kind of altercation – no spells, no skills, nothing. But if his only other option was death and torture at the hands of these two, he had no other choice.

“Now then, why don’t we – what the fuck?!”

Gage dashed to his right and leapt off the table. What had once been a mere surface for eating had now become a skyscraper, but he felt confident that he could survive the fall – he had certainly survived worse. His heart bursting from his chest, he plummeted to the garishly bright floor and made impact. Instantly, pain shot through his legs like lightning, but it took only a split second for him to shake it off and start sprinting away.

“Get that little shit!”

He had taken four strides when a black leather wall appeared in front of him, nearly crushing him in the process. With his inertia carrying him forward, he had no choice but to slam directly into the girl’s footwear. As quickly as he could, he leapt to his feet and tried to make his escape – but a gigantic hand like a five-legged kraken descended upon him and his bid for freedom was ended. Squeezed tightly in the grip of the other girl, Gage struggled against her vice-like strength as he traveled upwards to her face, where her narrowed eyes confronted him with venomous anger.

“What the hell was that?” Her hot breath blew across his face, and her grip tightened even more, causing him to squirm uncomfortably.

“Fuck you,” he spat in a spike of helpless rage. He instantly regretted it.

“That wasn’t very smart,” his captor hissed. Still gripping him forcefully, she brought him down by her side while she apparently used her other hand to unzip something. Before he could make any kind of protest, the hand dropped him unceremoniously into a dark, dank hole – her boot. “Since you like feet so much, maybe you won’t mind spending the day in my boot!”

He could hear the redhead laughing at his predicament. “That’s a great idea! We can’t kill him or he’ll respawn – but we can definitely make his life suck!”

Gage didn’t have much time to dwell on that statement’s implications because a colossal foot presently barreled towards him as it settled into the boot. In the blink of an eye, complete darkness enveloped him, but that didn’t keep him from rushing towards the toe section where he deduced he’d be the safest. As he scrambled, the ceiling quickly angled downwards to a point, signaling that this was as far as he could go. Not a moment later, what felt like a set of boulders slammed into him, pushing his body as far into the front of the boot as he could go. Far above him, he could hear the muffled cackles of his would-be saviors.

White-hot anger boiled up inside of him. How could this happen? With all of his strength, he struggled futilely against the girl’s toes; but when it became apparent that she couldn’t even feel him, he forced his emotions in line. It wasn’t an easy task: he had gone from what he thought was the pinnacle of power to a mere insect in the blink of an eye, and his current situation served to remind him in the most ludicrously aggravating fashion. Gage couldn’t think of anything more humiliating than being trapped in some girl’s boot, and the situation was only getting worse. The heat from her foot, combined with the leather that enclosed him, began to create a truly abhorrent atmosphere where Gage’s heightened senses went from a blessing to a curse. While he had endured high temperatures before, the rank smell emanating from her toes made him gag, and further enhanced his claustrophobic situation. Gritting his teeth, Gage resolved to endure.

As the seconds stretched into minutes, Gage contemplated his options while trying his best to ignore this discomfort of having his body jammed into the end of a girl’s shoe. Until they let him out, he really couldn’t do anything, and even once they did, he might not be that much better off. If either of those girls got a hold of him, he’d be just as helpless as he was now.

Just then, he felt his prison jerk upwards violently, only for it to crash just as quickly into the ground – she was walking. With each step, the pressure shot up tremendously, followed immediately by the vertigo of rising and falling, which in turn ushered in another spike of pressure. Any thoughts of escape fled from his mind as he tried to cope with this intense deathtrap, an oven filled with the disgusting scent of feet.

Time passed, but Gage couldn’t hope to measure it any meaningful capacity. The horrendous smell and heat of his captor’s foot and boot assaulted his senses, beating his consciousness into submission until all he could conceive of was the hope for an eventual end. Worse yet, her toes began to sweat: it didn’t take long for the acrid liquid to coat him in a filthy sheen. Whether it had been minutes or hours until this torture ended, Gage couldn’t fathom – but end it did.

Without warning, the walking stopped, and the toes that had battered and bruised him for so long retreated. Light poured in from above, but before Gage could brace himself the whole world spun and his body tumbled out of the boot like a pebble. He landed on a steel gray floor in a heap. The thought of running flashed briefly through his mind – but his body wouldn’t function. He was too exhausted to execute a daring escape.

“Wow, he looks so pathetic,” said the redhead. Both girls stared down at him from impossible heights, their expressions cruel and mocking.

“I think he’s had enough of my foot for one day, don’t you think? Let’s put him out of his misery.”

“Let me do it!”

“Be my guest.”

Panic seized him as the redhead’s sandal loomed overhead before coming to rest on top of his crumpled body; but try as he might, he couldn’t move at any substantial level. That bitch’s foot must’ve hurt me more than I thought, he realized.

“Ok, little bug,” he heard the redhead call from above. “Time to die.”

The weight of her foot pressing down on him felt like nothing he had ever experienced. His nerves screamed out in agony as the force of her shoe slowly intensified until his mind had been reduced to howling desperation. This couldn’t be the end. It couldn’t! Far too late, his body sprung to life, and he fought with the ferocity of a cornered animal. Not that it really mattered, part of him knew, but even that cynical part quickly retreated from the elemental frenzy that was his death throes. But even that gave way to a solemn acceptance of his fate. In the seconds that it took him to die, he progressed rapidly through the various stages of grief until he came to rest on a single, pure desire: Charis. As his existence came crashing down around him, he glimpsed her face.

And then it was over.

“Gage?”

His consciousness floated in some nebulous existence halfway between waking and dreaming. Lying on his back, the previously unbearable pain had receded to a dull ache, and his breath came in ragged gasps. Wait. He was breathing?

“Gage!”

His eyes snapped open. There she was, looking down on him with a combination of happiness and concern – he had never seen a more beautiful sight. “Charis!” he tried to say, but instead blood spurted from his open mouth.

“Oh my God! You’re hurt!”

Gage felt massive hands gather up his body before dipping out of consciousness.

 

Gage awoke to find himself in some kind of sleeping bag. It took him a few seconds, but he eventually realized what it really was: a sock. Heaving a deep sigh, he dragged himself up and took stock of his situation. From what he could tell, he was in Charis’s room on a table. Her room had a simple but futuristic look to it: all curves and clear surfaces with the occasional neon border. He had always scoffed at the idea of buying property in Perfect Dimension, but now that this was his permanent residence, he should probably –

Without warning, the door slid open, and Charis trudged into the room with a worn expression. That expression swiftly changed when she spotted him. “Gage!” she practically pranced over to him. “You’re up!” She bent down so that her enormous face could come down to his level.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he replied drily.

“Hey I don’t appreciate your sarcasm,” she said with one eyebrow arched. “Now tell me what the hell happened to you.”

“You remember when we got attacked?” he began. Charis listened intently as he related his experiences to her since his initial shrinking. She didn’t interrupt a single time, although Gage could tell that she wanted to her. She gasped and frowned at several parts, and somewhere in the middle she took a seat and placed her chin on the table.

“So how did you get here instead of…” Charis trailed off, clearly uncomfortable.

“Dying?” Gage finished. “I honestly don’t know. It definitely wasn’t a respawn, or else I would’ve been back to full health and at a respawn zone. Plus, I don’t even know if I’m even able to respawn.”

“Well whatever happened, let’s not take any more chances with it again,” she said firmly. “We can just chalk it up to yet another thing we don’t understand since you got hacked. In the meantime, it looks like I’m gonna be protecting you for once.”

Gage nodded with a rueful smile – nothing had changed. He would never characterize their relationship as romantic, but their level of trust was implicit. “Where were you just now?” he asked.

Her face turned serious, and she rose from the chair and began pacing. “I was out trying to find the person who did your procedure.”

“No luck, huh?”

“It’s like they just vanished.” She threw her hands up despondently.

“They were always a slippery bunch,” mused Gage. “But they would definitely know if you were trying to find them; so that just means they don’t want to talk to us. It looks like we won’t be able to count on them for anything.”

Charis stopped pacing and turned to face him. She gave him a long look. “I don’t like it,” she said in response to the unspoken.

“Can you think of anything else?”

“But she scared me,” Charis protested.

“The fact of the matter is I’m something of a criminal in this game now. That wouldn’t be a problem if I was fully-powered, but either way we can’t go to the Admins about this problem.”

Charis sat back down in the chair and put her face even with his. “Fine – but we’re bolting at the first sign of trouble. Let me grab some Escape Charms and we’ll go.”

Gage nodded and then turned his thoughts inward. Going back to the instance he had been initially shrunk was a risk, but he really couldn’t think of anything else. The fact that Charis agreed with him was all the proof he needed that this was the best plan of action. With that resolved, his mind inevitably returned to his near-death experience. Picturing that girl’s sandal over his head made him shudder. He still had no idea how he had ended up in front of Charis at the last moment, but Gage couldn’t shake the feeling that something very significant had occurred.

“You ready?” asked Charis, dispelling his thoughts. She extended a hand down to the table, palm up.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” He clambered up onto her hand, and she placed him onto an amulet that she had apparently adorned just for this purpose.

“I had to dig out this old shield amulet for you,” she said offhandedly. “It looks hideous, but this’ll give you a place to ride. I had to de-equip my good amulet, so be thankful.”

“You’re the best,” said Gage with a hint of sarcasm that only Charis would notice. Without warning, she snatched him from his perch and kissed his entire body, her lips engulfing him in a slightly sticky embrace.

Then she put him back without saying a word.

…

Charis and Gage emerged from the portal into a gigantic, gloomy forest for the second time today. Only this time, Gage clung to an amulet around her neck, one that clashed terribly with the rest of her silvery body suit. On a more practical level, when she had de-equipped her old amulet, it split up the Item Set that she wore, depriving her of the Set’s bonus stats. She would be appreciably weaker, and Gage could only hope that it wouldn’t come into play. At level 97, Charis technically didn’t belong on this level, but she had over twenty Escape Charms just for that reason.

“So you think that witch player is just gonna show up and turn you back?” whispered Charis. Her eyes scanned the gigantic trees surrounding them. From Gage’s perspective, they looked monolithic.

“I don’t know – maybe we’ll run into another 100-plus character.”

“Yeah, sounds swell.”

The pair traveled in silence. Admittedly, Gage could see the questionable nature of their plan – but they really didn’t have any other options. He could remain in relative obscurity without too much trouble, but at a cost: he would be stuck at this size indefinitely. Notifying Admins or making bulletins would lead to him getting caught, so the only way to get out would be to go down, deeper into the rabbit hole his procedure had opened.

“Well, well, well.” A menacing voice rang through the forest. “What have we here?”

Charis spun around to face the voice, her dual pistols drawn and raised. The movement flung the amulet around her neck, but Gage managed to hold on tightly enough to avoid falling to the ground. When the necklace settled, he followed the aim of her pistols and spotted two level 99 players. They clearly meant trouble.

“Not good,” muttered Charis.

“Use the Escape Charm,” urged Gage.

“Can’t,” she said through gritted teeth. “I’ve been Silenced.”

“Shit,” he spat. “Okay – I’m getting off. You’ll respawn and you can come get me afterwards.”

“No!” Charis shouted – but Gage had already let go. He fell to the ground and landed in a crouch. But he had hardly taken a step when her tremendous hand snatched him up and stuffed him into the top of her boot. “I’m not letting you out of my sight again!” she hissed fiercely. “And sorry, but this is the only place I can put you where I know you won’t try to bail.”

“Hey what the fuck are you doing over there?” Evidently, her seemingly strange behavior had bewildered their assailants enough to buy them a few seconds.

“Fuck off,” Charis fired back. She stamped her foot three times, each impact rattling Gage further and further down. He wrinkled his nose involuntarily – once again, he found himself in close proximity with a woman’s smelly foot.

He had just a moment to dwell on this latest indignity before his whole world exploded into motion. While he couldn’t hope to match the movements he experienced with what he presumed were her strides, Gage could definitely hear the sound of gunfire. The fight had started.

 

Charis tugged the tongue of her boot over her squirming friend with a pang of guilt. She could feel him struggling against the top of her foot: she knew it couldn’t be comfortable in there – just imagining the smell in there made her shudder.

Her expression hardened when one of the two thugs screamed something or other at her, prompting her to spit back with equal ferocity, a move she regretted immediately. That probably killed her chances of reasoning with these idiots.

Charis stamped her boot reluctantly in an effort to secure her friend completely. Dwelling on Gage’s predicament for a split-second longer, she determined it to be a necessary evil, and then resolved to make it up to him later. After the apprehension he had put her through with his initial disappearance – when she thought he was dead – Charis refused to let him go, especially at his current size. The thought of Gage being gone forever had hurt in a way that she frankly hadn’t expected – not that she would ever let him know about that. Right now, however, Charis had a fight on her hands; she would have to sort out her feelings later.

Tightening her grip on her dual pistols, she rose to her feet and directed as stern a look as she could muster toward her assailants. At level 97, she had a very slim chance of defeating two level 99s – but escaping was a very real possibility. Sizing her opposition up, she saw that one was a spellcaster and the other a warrior. Logic dictated that the warrior had Silenced her, so she would have to target him; but first, some diplomacy.

“I’ll pay you my Bounty if you’ll let me live,” she called.

“Fuck you, bitch,” came a swift and decisive reply. Charis sighed inwardly: the internet made people so aggressive. She aimed her weapon and pulled the trigger. An ear-splitting crack issued from the muzzle, shattering the natural hush of the forest. The bullet flashed towards the warrior, only to disintegrate against some kind of greenish, translucent shield. The brute’s eyes locked with hers and he grinned broadly. Charis took off running.

Casting an arm backwards, she fired blindly in an effort to deter her pursuers, but the attempt was more symbolic than anything. Her heart beat so hard that it threatened to burst from her chest, but she used that frenetic energy to inspire her to new speeds. She dashed along roots and leapt up to branches at a breakneck pace, tearing through the foliage like a lightning bolt. In fact...

Charis threw a glance behind her, and to her surprise, she saw her enemies fading in the distance: they were eating her dust. While it was true that she had built her character around speed, she had no business outdistancing two level 99s with ease. What had changed? Well, she had switched out a piece of her equipment for her old amulet, but that should’ve lowered her speed, not raised it. Suddenly, she felt Gage wriggle against her foot, clearly angry at her for unceremoniously dumping him into her footwear.

Suddenly, Charis had an idea.

Her excitement rising, she forced her hand into her boot and grabbed her poor friend by the leg before depositing him on top of her weapon facing her. His expression panicked, he clung to her handgun precariously, all the while emanating the stench from her shoe. She really should do something nice for him later.

“What the Hell?” he asked with his eyes.

“Trust me,” her expression replied.

It didn’t take long for the two brutes to catch up, but as they drew closer they slowed and approached warily. Charis saw the warrior class open his mouth to say something, but she didn’t feel like entertaining their theatrics: she just wanted to confirm her suspicion. She pulled the trigger of her gun, swiveled her aim towards the other thug, and pulled again with Gage still clinging tightly to the barrel.

Instead of simple bullets, two volleyball-sized spheres of red energy issued forth, visible for barely a split-second before colliding with their respective targets and summarily annihilating them. In the blink of an eye, it was over.

Charis remained rooted to the spot, her weapon still raised and her breathing coming in rapid heaves. In between her exhalations, she could hear Gage’s smaller lungs working similarly hard. They reminded her that he still clung to her gun for his life, not exactly a comfortable position. Breaking out of her reverie, she stowed her other firearm and plucked her friend from his perch and let him rest on her palm.

“What just happened?” he gasped.

“I’m not really sure,” she replied, “but I’ve got some ideas. But first, let’s get out of here.”

“Good plan,” Gage agreed. “Just promise me I won’t have to ride in your boot.”

Charis’s expression softened, and she moved her palm to the opposite shoulder. “Yeah, sorry about that. Is this better?”

“I’ll take it.”

…

Not long after, the pair lounged about in Charis’s apartment. She lay on her bed, her hands folded behind her head, her eyes studying the sterile white wall above. Meanwhile, Gage paced back and forth across her nightstand, ruminating on her hypothesis.

“So you’re saying that I somehow imbued your items with my… body?” he asked.

“That’s the only explanation I can come up with,” she replied. “I mean, my speed was off the charts in that fight, and the only thing that was different about my setup was you in my boot. Plus, when I fired my gun with you on it, it basically launched a miniature sun.”

“Right…” Gage stopped pacing and cupped his chin. “Well at least I’m useful for something.”

His comment elicited a snort of laughter from Charis, who rolled onto her stomach and brought her face close to where he stood. “I dunno, your new size could open new avenues for our roleplay... maybe we could play a little cat and mouse.”

Now it was Gage’s turn to laugh. “Charis, you know it’s not really roleplaying for me anymore.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Charis remembered back to when the two had first met. They had hit it off right away thanks to their mutual interest in serious roleplay in Perfect Dimension. Whereas most people just played to get treasure and rewards, she and Gage preferred to get in character, to treat the game like a second life. Back then, Charis hadn’t known how serious Gage really was in his desire for escape, but they had developed a real friendship over the course of their many adventures. It seemed crazy that she considered him one of her closest friends and she had never even met him in real life. In fact, Charis hardly knew anything about her friend outside of his Perfect Dimension avatar; the few times she had broached the subject, he said he preferred not to talk about it. Maybe she could try a different tact.

“Gage?” began Charis tentatively. He looked at her quizzically, perhaps sensing the change in her voice. “What’s your real name?”

“It’s Gage,” he responded with a wry grin.

“No – seriously. What’s your real name?”

“I’m not kidding,” he said, trying to suppress laughter. Charis squinted at him, not able to shake the feeling that he was pulling her leg.

“So your screen name is the same as your real name?” she asked skeptically.

“Yeah,” he confirmed. “What about you?”

“Oh!” she blurted; she hadn’t considered that he would turn the question back on her. “Uhh… It’s Haley.”

“That’s a nice name,” he paused, regarding the massive face in front of her, hot pink mane and all, “but you’ll always be Charis to me.”

His words made her blush, and she quickly stood up and tried to look busy in order to hide it. “So what now?”

“We’re going back,” Gage said firmly.

Charis turned around and gave him a long look. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” he answered. “Plus, now that we know my body can imbue your weapons, we’re safer than ever.”

Charis sighed. “Have it your way.”

…

Once again, Charis and Gage stood in the colossal forest. “Pretty soon they’re gonna start making us pay rent,” she joked, but Gage didn’t respond. She cast her gaze downwards and could barely see him around her nose, perched on her amulet and deep in thought. Paradoxically, seeing him so intense made her relax; it felt more natural.

“I have an idea,” Gage said.

“Yeah?”

“I say we make a signal. Put me on your gun.”

Charis did as he asked, but she didn’t like where this was going. “Okay… now what?”

“Fire it into the sky with your most powerful attack,” he said. “My body should multiply its power to absurd heights.”

“I thought we were trying to lay low,” objected Charis. “Pulling a stunt like that will attract too much attention.”

“Don’t worry,” Gage assured her. “We’ll easily destroy any level 100s that show up, and we can just talk to any 100-pluses we encounter. We need information from them.”

“And what if the Admins get wind of us?” she asked evenly. Charis looked down at him, a tiny man sitting on her gun. He looked absolutely ludicrous, and on top of that, her cold logic had visibly deflated him. She felt guilty, but then dismissed the notion immediately: Gage was an adult, regardless of his size. Charis had no reason to coddle him.

“Good point,” Gage admitted. “Christ – all we have to do is get in touch with one of these people. This is – ”

“Hello!” a voice rang out in a mocking, musical tone. Charis spun around, dreading what she already knew to be true. “Is it me you’re looking for?”

The witch was back.

 

Throwing caution to the wind, Gage leapt from the barrel of Charis’s gun and landed on the ground just in front of her feet. An impulsive move, perhaps, but he figured that if the witch wanted him dead, she could kill him at will. The only way out of this was to try talking with her.

“Hey!” he shouted as he craned his neck upwards. If Gage didn’t know better, he would say the witch looked ridiculous as she floated high above them, perched on a floating broom. “What’s up?” he asked with a grin.

Gage’s congenial approach seemed to take the witch by surprise, but she recovered quickly with a smile of her own. “Not much, shorty,” she replied.

Gage sauntered a few steps forward and then came to a stop, his head tilted back and one hand scratching the back of his head. “So I was just wondering… do you know if there’s some kind orientation for this 100-plus situation? I’m a bit lost.”

Without warning, the witch broke out into a fit of cackling laughter. The noise sent Gage’s skin prickling, but he maintained a sheepish smile and tried not to fidget. “Oh I like you,” she declared. In the blink of an eye, she swooped down to where Gage stood and slipped off her broom, planting her feet on either side of him. He just now noticed that she wasn’t wearing shoes.

Gage twisted his head backwards and locked eyes with Charis. “Don’t interfere,” his gaze said before returning to meet the witch’s. He tried his best not to wrinkle his nose as the pungent smell from her bare feet invaded his nostrils.

“So, Gage,” the witch began, pushing aside a lock of snowy white hair. Gage was surprised by how attractive she actually was; he hadn’t expected it from someone so intimidating. “I can easily help you,” she paused, pinning him with her reddish brown eyes, “but what do you have to offer me?”

Gage coughed and shifted his weight from one side to the other. “Well, besides my digitally enhanced good looks, I’m actually a really good bowler, and I know you’ve been looking for someone to anchor your team on Wednesday nights.” It was extremely hard to keep the tremor out of his voice.

“That’s nice,” she commented evenly. A vicious glint flashed through the witch’s eyes, and she lifted one of her feet with slow, menacing deliberation. “Do you give good foot rubs?”

Gage took an involuntary step back, but he managed to rein in his instincts before breaking into an all-out retreat. “A-actually I’m really good at hand rubs – you kind of pick that up from bowling and all that. Charis knows, right?”

“Y-yeah,” he heard his friend blurt from somewhere high and behind him. “The best hand rubs!”

“Okay,” said the witch, “but I’m really craving a foot rub right now, so…” her foot began to lower down towards him, but Gage tried his best to hold steady. The stench of sweat worsened as her big toe collided with his chest, forcing him onto his back and pushing him into the ground.

From this new perspective, he could see both Charis and the witch towering above, the witch appearing totally at ease while his friend wore a horrified expression. She looked poised to attack, but another stern glance from Gage kept her at bay. “Hey, maybe if you gave me back my sword I could give you a little acupuncture treatment. You have it, right?”

By now Gage had been pressed completely into the ground by the witch’s toes with most of his chest and lower body under her sole. Her vile foot sweat mixed with his own to soak his shirt and further increase his humiliation. “You’re not doing a very good job,” pouted the witch. “Maybe I’ll just step on you instead.”

“That’s a bold strategy,” said Gage hurriedly, “but I wouldn’t if I were you.”

“Oh?” the witch asked even as the pressure from her rank foot began to rise. She could snuff him out like a cigarette.

“Well,” Gage struggled, “I have tickets to the carnival this weekend and I was hoping you would come along.” He gasped for air. “They’re photo-ID so I kind of need… to be… there…”

As Gage’s consciousness began to fade in and out, he started to consider that his plan wasn’t going to work out after all. Worse yet, his death wouldn’t be some triumphant blaze of glory – with the stink of this woman’s foot inundating his senses, and the sweat from her toes drenching his face, he couldn’t do much worse than this in terms of ignominious ways to die.

Suddenly, he noticed Charis reaching down with one finger. Was she going to crush his head with a simple prod? That would be a step up from being stepped on, he supposed. Everything moved in slow motion as her finger came to rest on his face. The bewildered Gage at least enjoyed the cool rubber of her glove on his skin, which provided a striking contrast to the disgusting heat emanating from the witch’s foot. Then, through partially obscured vision, he saw his friend throw a tremendous punch with her free hand from a kneeling position. The strike connected beautifully with the witch’s torso, and in an instant, the crushing weight vanished. Gage felt himself being gathered up in a pair of tremendous hands.

“Don’t worry,” Charis said down to him. “I’m gonna get you out of – ” Her eyes widened, clearly fearful of something in front of her. Gage could probably guess what it was.

“That’s an interesting side effect,” the witch mused. Against the protests of his aching body, Gage grabbed onto one of Charis’s fingers and hauled himself to his feet. From his vantage point on the palm of Charis’s hand, he saw the witch back on her broom, seemingly unruffled by his friend’s attack – not that he really expected different. Her power clearly dwarfed anything they could muster, reemphasizing that this had been a terrible plan from the start: what was he thinking running into the maw of the beast like this? They had rushed into things, and they were about to pay for it.

“Oh quit cowering,” said the witch. It took a full three seconds for Gage to comprehend what was happening, but then the witch made it abundantly clear. “I’m not going to hurt you, ok?” Gage’s instincts told him not to believe her, but everything about her tone and body language – even her very aura – had become friendly. The tension in the air dissipated like the air leaving a balloon. “My name is Rima. You two aren’t total dicks like most people online, so I’ve decided to help you.”

“So you’ll be our Orientation Leader?” called Gage, trying to be glib but failing to hide his shakiness.

The witch arched an eyebrow before breaking into a smile. “Sure.”

 

Somewhere deep in a digital forest, an unlikely trio sat on a branch so massive that it could easily carry a house. The group consisted of two beautiful ladies, one with ridiculous pink hair and the other with blonde-bordering-on-white, as well as a tiny man that would be easy to miss if you didn’t know what to look for. Presently, the tiny man was fuming.

“So you can’t change me back?” he asked.

“Sorry, I can’t,” Rima replied, genuinely apologetic. “I don’t have an item that increases size – just one that shrinks.” She smiled mischievously. “I could shrink you again if you wanted.”

Gage scowled and ignored her last comment. “But you’re saying such an item exists?”

“I believe so. It’s pretty rare, and quite powerful too, but I’ve heard about it. It might be a bit of a hassle, but we could probably get a hold of it.”

“And you’re certain there’s no other way around this?” he pressed.

“Yeah, pretty sure,” the witch affirmed, her face remorseful. “I’m really sorry I did this to you. If I had known – ”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gage interrupted. “It’s in the past – you can make it up to me by helping me find the item that’ll fix me.” Rima stared, taken aback by how quickly she had been forgiven. Charis sent her a knowing smile – Gage really wasn’t one to gripe about anything beyond his control. The tiny man began pacing on the tree bark between the two women, rubbing his chin in thought. “Well now that that’s out of the way, could you please tell me everything you know about the procedure I underwent?”

The witch nodded. “Well first off, the procedure is called ‘jailbreaking.’ Don’t ask me why – it doesn’t make any sense to me either. As you probably already know, when you get into one of the VR terminals, a computer hooks itself up to your nerve endings while simultaneously drugging you into REM sleep.” Gage stopped walking and began to listen intently. Standing in front of Rima’s massive form, he felt like some sort of pilgrim paying his respects to a deity – the fact that she had her legs crossed in a decent imitation of Buddha certainly enhanced the effect. “Usually, the synapse between your own nervous system and the game is a mostly one-way street. The sensations come at you from the game, but your own nerves can’t send anything out save for action impulses. However, once you’ve been jailbroken, the game interfacing directly with your central nervous system. The effects aren’t fully characterized, but initially this new relationship manifests itself as quicker movements and reaction speeds. My theory is that you’re now moving at the speed of thought as opposed to the speed of your normal simulated body. But the real benefit of being jailbroken is that you can actually manipulate the game via your brain.”

This last part especially interested Gage. “What ways can you manipulate the game?”

“Well, I suppose the possibilities are theoretically limitless. In practice, though, it’s very difficult to get too much to happen until you’ve put in some time working at it. On the other hand, I’m seen some players with seemingly infinite power; there’s a whole underground society of these players that even I’m not a part of.”

Gage nodded. “Tell me what you think of this.” He then proceeded to tell the towering witch about his misadventures just after he had been shrunk, focusing in particular on how he had mysteriously appeared in front of Charis when he was about to get crushed by some girl’s stinking foot.

For her part, Rima winced several times, and she wore an apologetic look when she said, “Yeah, teleporting like that would definitely be in the realm of possibility. I’m really sorry about all the trouble you went through. I shouldn’t mess around with newbies like that but most of them are such dicks…” she trailed off weakly.

“It’s really not a big deal,” replied Gage firmly. “But what you’re saying is that I willed myself to be with Charis so badly that I just teleported in front of her?” A furtive glance backwards confirmed that Charis was indeed blushing.

“Pretty much,” she nodded. “It’s only unusual in the context of how recently you’ve been jailbroken and how you’ve spent essentially zero time practicing. For instance, I don’t think that I could teleport like that at all, and I’ve been working at this for six months.”

“Wow, for that long?” asked Charis. “What made you want to get jailbroken? If you don’t mind my asking,” she added hastily.

“Not at all,” Rima replied. “I actually got into a freak car accident a number of years ago… I became a vegetable, and Perfect Dimension was the only game at the time using the neural link interface; but it allowed me a way to interact with friends and family and actually have a life. The whole thing isn’t strictly legal, but the Administrators and whatnot hadn’t really established a policy on it at that time. Eventually, the game got so big that I think I just kind of slipped through the cracks.”

“Yeah, so how big of a problem has it been trying to dodge the Administrators?” Gage asked.

“Not that big of a problem, actually,” the witch answered. “Like I said, the game has gotten so big that the Administrators are always playing catch up when it comes to hackers and whatnot. In fact, while jailbroken players have the potential to do the most damage in the game, they’re less of a priority simply because there are so few people willing to sacrifice their real lives. Out of the hundreds of millions of players on Perfect Dimension, I’d put the number of jailbroken players at a few thousand, and they’re all are quite elusive.” Rima paused for a second. “What about you, Gage? Why’d you do it?”

Gage’s expression turned uncomfortable. “Just trying to get away from it all, I guess,” he said. “I’d rather not talk about.” Rima shot Charis a look, but she just shrugged.

Rima took the hint and changed the subject. “Well let’s think about what we need to do now.”

“What’s that?” asked Charis, trying to help move the conversation away from what was clearly a sensitive subject for her dimunitive friend.

“Our ultimate goal is to get that item that will restore Gage’s height. Theoretically, if he could teleport himself he should also be able to grow himself, but I’m inclined to think that that was just a fluke,” Rima said matter-of-factly. “Honestly it would take longer for him to train himself to that level than it would to just track down the item in question.” Rima reached into a pocket and then laid her hand in front of Gage.

“My items!” he shouted gleefully. He had already moved on – or at least that’s what he projected. He excitedly equipped all of his gear. “Thanks for holding onto these for me, Rima.”

“No problem,” she said with a rueful look. “I don’t know why I picked these up, to be honest. Just impulse I guess. Anyway, now that you have those we need to test the limits of your shrunken body.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gage.

“Well since you’re jailbroken and since you’ve got your items back you shouldn’t be totally helpless. Plus, I’ll try to train you a bit so that you can become stronger.”

“Who am I going to train against?” No sooner had the words left his mouth when a titanic boot crashed into the branch on either side of him. Gage craned his head backwards to see Charis standing over him and grinning wickedly.

“This is gonna be fun,” she purred. “And if you lose, I get to wear you in my boots and enter a few Tournaments. With that extra power boost you give me, first prize will be a breeze.”

Gage groaned and gave Rima a plaintive look.

“Don’t look at me,” she laughed. “Now let’s see what your little body can do…”

 

Gage gulped as he stared up at Charis, who towered over him like the Statue of Liberty. Unarmed, but still an exceedingly dangerous threat to the diminutive swordsman, the pink-haired giantess grinned playfully down at her prey.

“Don’t forget what we’re trying to do here,” Gage called up to her, his palms already sweating profusely.

“Oh?” asked Charis, tapping her foot menacingly. “What’s that?”

“We’re just trying to test out my combat abilities – you’re not trying to kill me.”

“Don’t worry,” assured Charis. “I won’t hurt you… too much.”

Gage scowled. Charis was having way too much fun with this, and it could end up with him in serious trouble. “Okay… just so we’re clear on that,” said Gage, trying to seem confident. “Would you do me a favor, though?”

“Hmm?”

“Would you take off your boots?” Despite his best efforts, his request came out quite sheepishly. “If you manage to step on me, I think it would hurt less to have your bare foot instead of your boot.”

“Of course, little guy,” smiled Charis. She bent over and began removing her boots, the simple movement of her arms and upper body intimidating poor Gage.

“Can we get on with this?” complained Rima, who observed proceedings from a nearby branch. She, too, seemed to be looking forward to the upcoming fight – if you could call it that. For Gage, it would be more like a Whack-A-Mole game, except instead of whacking it would be stomping.

“Ok, ready,” announced Charis, her bare toes wiggling a few dozen yards away (to him). “How about you, Gage? Ready to get up close and personal with my stinky feet?”

Gage drew his sword with his right hand and settled his black leather jacket with a shrug of his shoulders. “Ready,” he called.

“Ok then,” said Rima. Gage looked at the two massive feet resting a short distance away and gulped for a second time. He threw a glance upwards and saw Charis still smiling playfully at him. “3… 2… 1… GO!”

Gage bolted right with all the speed he could muster, and just in the nick of time. Charis’s tremendous foot occupied the space he had just been, the force of her stomp sending ripples through the branch they shared. Gripping his weapon in both hands, Gage made a slashing motion directed towards his friend’s exposed ankle. A barely perceptible arc of clear energy sizzled through the air, but upon impact with Charis’s foot it dissipated meekly.

He cursed even as he kept moving. That was his most powerful long-range attack, and it had brought Charis’s health down a tenth of a percent. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another foot crashing towards him. By reflex more than anything, he pivoted and sped off in another direction, barely avoiding death by squashing.

“You’re a quick little bug, Gage!” laughed Charis from high above.

“Yeah, well it’s not tough outrunning someone as big as you!” he shouted back.

“Are you calling me fat?” she giggled. “You’ll regret that!”

Glancing upwards, Gage saw Charis’s foot leading him slightly. With a violent twist, he planted his right foot into the ground and came to a full stop, just in time for her sole to smash into the branch in front of him.

Now’s my chance. Gripping his sword with both hands, he brought the hilt up to his ear and activated his ultimate attack. In an instant, the blade burst into blue flames, and he thrust forward with all of his might.

“Ow!” yelped Charis. Her reflexive kick sent Gage and his sword flying, and both of them crashed into the branch some distance away. The little warrior leapt to his feet, moving as quickly as possible to retrieve his weapon – but that was exactly what Charis expected.

Without warning, a massive weight slammed into his back, ruthlessly pressing him into the branch and leaving him breathless.

“Gotcha!” she heard him say triumphantly, her voice muffled by the enveloping skin of her foot. With a brusque movement, Charis rolled him over onto his back and shifted her foot back so that his head poked out between her big and second toes. He could make out Charis’s beaming face high above him, and off to the side he saw that Rima had come over as well to inspect the vanquished warrior.

“Well you didn’t put up much of a fight,” admonished the witch. “I’d put your effective level at around 40, maybe 45. Obviously against a Level 97 character like Charis, you have no chance, even with your heightened senses.”

“Speaking of senses,” interrupted Charis slyly. “Can you actually smell my feet? I mean, do they really stink?”

“Yes,” griped Gage from between her toes. Not only had she been wearing those boots for hours, but all the activity of their brief but intense fight had made them sweat, leaving poor Gage to inhale a truly intolerable stench. The vinegary smell coupled with the heat from her foot multiplied his suffering to the point where he started to feel dizzy.

“Ok, sorry,” she said, clearly not apologetic. She lifted her foot from Gage’s battered form, and he dragged himself up with some effort. Upon standing, both girls’ feet confronted him – although he knew it was ridiculous, they seemed to leer at him menacingly. Looking upward, he saw both girls smiling down at him. Clearly they couldn’t empathize with how frustrating it was to be helpless against a female foot.

“All right, you’ve had your fun… what now?”

“We need to go after that item,” explained Rima. “I asked a friend of mine to track it down. Apparently, it’s called Jack’s Magic Beans.”

Charis lowered herself at the knees and set her hand down in front of him. Gage stepped on, and then she lifted him up and placed him on her shoulder. He was grateful to at least be eye-level with them; hopefully they would take him a little more seriously.

“Comfy?” asked Charis, looking at him through the corner of her eye.

“Yeah,” he replied. And that was the truth. Despite the crushing heaviness of Charis’s weight, his body had actually been quite resilient. All in all, the worst part of the experience had been the smell of her dirty foot; otherwise, he felt pretty confident of his durability against anything but direct attacks. He shuddered to think what would happen if she aimed one of her guns at him.

“Here’s your sword,” said Rima, extending him his weapon. It looked like a toothpick. “Anyway, since it’s clear that you can’t contribute in your current form, I think it would be best to take advantage of your item enhancement side effect.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How does it even work?” asked Gage.

“Well, you know how you can imbue items with gems and runes?” He nodded, already seeing where she was going. “My theory is that the game interprets your body as a power-up in that same vein, but since you’re a maxed out character, your contribution to the item is more than the item itself. With your help, Charis is on par with any non-hacking player in the game.”

“I guess that’s one reason to keep him around,” joked Charis. “Anyway, I should really log off... I’ve been online for hours now. Can you take care of him, Rima?”

“Yeah,” said the witch. “When you get back online tomorrow we can go after the Magic Beans.” She shifted her gaze towards him. “In the meantime, we can get started on your training.”

“Sounds good,” said Charis. “Let’s meet at my house at 4PM tomorrow, Eastern time. Gage can tell you where it is.”

As Charis handed him off to a witch that had tried to kill him just a short while ago, Gage mused at the irony of his situation since he had been shrunk. In the beginning, he had expected to become some sort of all-powerful being in the game, only to be cursed by a witch who later turned out to be a friend. On top of that, the girl who was his friend had just stomped him into the ground, and presently handed him to his former enemy. Part of him wondered if this was the best idea, but he reminded himself that if Rima wanted to hurt either of them, she could do so at a whim. He might as well try to make the best of his situation, and Rima seemed like a genuinely nice person when she wasn’t trying to grind the life out of him with her foot.

These thoughts circulated through his mind as he watched Charis exit the forest via a portal. Once she had gone, Rima regarded him in the palm of her hand with a bit of a smirk. “You really are adorable at that size, Gage.”

“Thanks, I try.” She might like it, but he certainly had misgivings. An image of Charis’s foot colliding into the ground in front of him flashed through his mind. He really needed to rectify this situation as soon as possible; hopefully it would only be a matter of time. In the meanwhile, however, he badly wanted to know more about his new, jailbroken abilities. He fixed Rima with a serious look. “Now about that training you mentioned…”

Gage concentrated with all of his might on the weight on top of him. As the pressure increased, he struggled harder to force it off of his body. At least this time it wasn’t some girl’s foot.

“Gage, don’t expect your body to be able to move my hand,” he heard Rima say from somewhere outside of the layer of skin and flesh that pressed down on him. “Remember, you’re trying to send a signal to the server, not to your arms and legs. Think of your brain as separate from your body.”

He gritted his teeth and tried to do what Rima said, but try as he might, he could not budge her hand one millimeter. Worse yet, his body started to fatigue; he could feel his shoulders, elbows, and wrists begin to buckle underneath the witch’s palm, and that did bode well for his immediate future.

“This is the most basic skill that needs to be mastered,” explained Rima even as increased her weight on poor Gage. “You’ll note that you have two obstacles to surpass: obviously you have to trick the game into giving you strength, but more importantly, you have to trick your own brain into believing that you have the strength in the first place. If there’s any impulse in your brain that doubts your ability, then whatever you’re trying to accomplish will fizzle and die.”

Rima made it sound so simple, but against the crushing reality of her hand, it didn’t seem to make a difference. After a few more seconds of tense struggle, his body gave out and the hand came down onto him with thudding finality.

“Don’t worry, Gage, it takes time,” the witch said encouragingly as she helpfully pulled him up onto his feet. “But I’m afraid it doesn’t get any easier.”

Gage dusted himself off, wearing a worn but optimistic expression. “I actually kind of like the challenge,” he said. “It’s nice to have goals and things to look forward to. And with a fantastic instructor like you…” he added slyly.

“Quit trying to butter me up,” snapped Rima with a long-suffering look. She got up and went to pour herself a glass of water, leaving Gage to admire the witch’s home – as well as her curvaceous figure. The pair had long since left the forest and had spent the last few hours in the witch’s… penthouse.

High atop one of the tallest buildings in Town, her residence looked like something straight out of a housing portfolio for billionaires. The lack of walls or partitions of any kind handsomely enhanced the stunning 360 degree view of the surrounding futuristic metropolis, and of course the room itself was beautifully appointed with mostly white and clear surfaces, but with accents of color here and there.

Gage stood on a large marble table as the witch returned with a crystal glass, although it wasn’t exactly right to call her a witch. Really, the only reason Gage thought of her as a witch was her choice of clothing: raggedy black dress complete with pointy hat and broomstick. Now, though… while her dress might still be black, it was a slinky, silky piece; and instead of a hat she wore a pair of velvety black pumps. There wasn’t a broomstick in sight.

“You like what you see?” teased Rima.

“I can’t complain,” Gage replied. “Why did you get all dressed up? You got somebody to impress?”

“I like to try different things, I guess,” she said, taking a seat at the table and regarding him with a smile. “You know I’m not nearly as attractive in real life. In fact, my face and body are pretty much a mutilation.”

“That’s pretty blunt, so I’ll be equally blunt: you look magnificent.”

The compliment drew a blush from Rima. “You’re quite the charmer. I want to know more.”

“Well, I graduated from college a number a couple of years ago… I didn’t have much going on, and you know how crazy it is IRL. I decided to go with this; it seemed a bit more interesting.”

“Look, if you feel uncomfortable talking about your past, that’s fine,” said Rima, her voice neutral. “I just want you to know that I don’t buy it.” Gage sighed, but Rima gave him a serious look and pressed on. “You’re the first decent jailbroken person I’ve met, and I’m actually really excited about that. So I’m not trying to sound too cheesy or anything, but… I’m here for you, ok?”

Now it was Gage’s turn to blush. Rima’s kindness caught him off guard – not that he wanted or needed it. She just surprised him. “Thanks,” he paused, taking a deep breath. “I just… didn’t have the best situation IRL. I guess I needed a restart, you know?”

“Yeah, I get that.” Rima smiled. “Anyway, what are you going to do once you’re big again?”

Gage scratched the back of his head. “Honestly, I haven’t thought about it too much. What you’re telling me about being jailbroken and stuff is pretty cool. I actually knew a bit about the neural connection that the game establishes before you told me, but only a few hazy details. I think it would be cool to explore that a bit more. Plus, the game is practically limitless, so there’s always that. What about you? What’s your deal?”

“Well, I already told you about the accident that left me paralyzed and mutilated,” she joked. “That was a while ago; since then my parents have died, but I used to see them almost every day. I still see my sister every once in a while, but it’s kind of like we’re living in different countries. Still, she checks in on me a fair amount. Any friends I used to have are pretty much gone, not that I blame them. I guess I was always shy IRL and that sort of carried over to the game. I was always pretty book-smart, although recently I’ve started playing pranks on people…” She trailed off and her expression turned guilty, although by now she had to know Gage’s scowl was in jest. “It’s crazy, this game has so much power to bring people together, but that very same power also makes the relationships so transient. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I really can’t call anybody here a true friend.”

“Well today’s your lucky day!” announced Gage in his best game show host imitation. “You’re our millionth customer, and your prize is one pint-sized friend.”

Rima broke into laughter before snatching Gage up and hugging him to her chest. “I swear, something about your size makes you just perfect – let’s just cancel the whole thing tomorrow and leave you this way.”

“No, thank you,” shouted Gage from somewhere within Rima’s cleavage. With another laugh, she returned him to the table and smiled at him, her eyes sparkling.

There was a brief pause. And then: “You wanna have sex?”

Gage was completely taken aback. “No. What? No!” he blurted, only to regret it immediately. He spotted Rima’s look of confusion edged with hurt, and he felt guilty. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

The white-haired beauty attempted to recover. “No, I’m sorry. I’m being ridiculous.” She looked away. “You have Charis,” she add hurriedly.

“No, that’s not it,” Gage tried to explain. “We’re just friends, it’s just that…”

“It’s not weird or anything,” Rima interrupted. “It feels amazing – just like in real life. People do it all the time. You know about it, right?”

“That’s not it at all,” stammered Gage. “Look, please don’t take this the wrong way, I just…” he stared into Rima’s eyes. “I can’t.”

Framed by that blonde-white hair, her face looked so full of hurt it looked like it might crumble to pieces. In the back of his mind, Gage couldn’t believe that Rima had asked him so directly in the first place; girls didn’t normally take this type of approach. But then he had to remind himself that Rima wasn’t as beautiful in real life as in this game. She was probably shy and reserved, and this sort of interaction didn’t come naturally to her – not that he was a total lady’s man, either, Gage thought. The whole situation felt ludicrous.

Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. “Plus, how would it even work?” he joked, desperately trying to inject some humor into the situation. “I mean, my penis, of course, is huge – you know, proportionately – but I dunno if the big guy could really make a dent.”

Rima choked – from crying or laughter, Gage couldn’t tell. “I guess I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, putting on a tentative smile.

“Yeah, you know –”

“I’m sorry,” Rima cut in. “I’m sorry for being so weird about this. You’re such a good guy, I should’ve known this would be uncomfortable.”

“Don’t worry, I –”

“It’s just that people online are so different. They do this sort of thing all the time, and I guess you were the first person I’ve met that made me want to try, and I just wanted to copy them, and…” she trailed off just before her voice became hysterical.

“Hey, don’t worry,” said Gage as reassuringly as possible. “You’re amazing – really it’s my fault for lacking in certain… departments. I want to make it up to you though, and I think I have just the thing.”

“Huh?” she perked up slightly, giving Gage hope that he could salvage the situation.

“Well, if I remember correctly, there’s something you asked me for a little while ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

Gage put on his most winning smile. “How about I give you that foot rub?”

Rima put on a sheepish expression. “Well actually… I was just doing that to try to humiliate you.”

“Come on,” insisted Gage. “Take me to that couch over there and you can put your feet up.”

“Well… ok,” she relented. She set her hand down on the table, and Gage clambered on. He soon found himself staring down a pair of woman’s soles, with the rest of Rima looming ridiculously far in the distance. Without wasting any time, he approached the warm flesh in front of him and began kneading it rhythmically. “Oh wow… that feels amazing.”

“Good,” called Gage. Knowing that she couldn’t see his face, he wrinkled his nose against the smell. While it wasn’t nearly as bad as back in the forest, she had been wearing those pumps for hours, leaving a leather and sweat scent. It didn’t help that his small size intensified the effect.

“You know, before my accident, I used to love walking barefoot everywhere. Especially at the beach – the sand between my toes felt the best! Then I was paralyzed, and I couldn’t feel anything at all,” she continued, seemingly talking to herself more than anything. “One of the things I missed the most is how good my feet felt after walking around for a long day, and then just feeling the blood come back when I propped them up.”

“You’re welcome,” said Gage teasingly.

“Your little hands feel so good.” A moaning quality crept into Rima’s voice. She was really getting into it, he thought. He removed his jacket, figuring he should get into it a bit more too. “I must have forgotten how amazing this felt.”

“You have little men rubbing your feet often?”

“No!” she blurted. “I mean, I guess the only time I really got foot massages was when I went to get a pedicure, but that wasn’t very often. Should’ve probably done it more, considering how much I liked it.”

“You could’ve just come out and said you were into this sort of thing,” chided Gage. “I’m happy to pamper your feet.” And that was the truth. He figured this way she would know that he still wanted to be her friend, despite rejecting her sexual advances. It really was him and not her, as cliché as that might sound: he just couldn’t feel… right… with another woman right now.

“Thanks so much Gage, this really does feel unbelievable.” For a few minutes, Gage just kept working against the warm skin of her soles. “By the way, I’m so sorry about earlier. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Well, I’m pretty much irresistible, so you really didn’t have a choice,” he joked. “It’s fine, though, I promise.”

“Ok.” Rima sighed with relief. “But I’m still pretty miffed you wouldn’t want a piece of this,” she emphasized the last word by pushing her ample cleavage together, “However… I guess this is a good way to make it up to me. In fact, this is even better considering how useless you’d be in bed at your current size.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” panned the tiny masseuse. “Will you lower your feet down a little bit? I want to reach your toes.”

“Ok!” Rima quickly bent her knees and propped her soles against the edge of the coffee table. Now her toes were about chest level.

“So I read that this little move I’m about to do felt really good in an article once,” prefaced Gage. “I hope that you like it!” With that, he thrust his head between her toes and began to vigorously lick the sensitive skin in between.

“Oh!” yelped Rima, halfway between arousal and surprise. “Oh…” She stretched the syllable, so that it became a pur. Gage could feel tremors of excitement running through her limbs as he ran his tongue along her skin, and while the taste and smell weren’t ideal, he didn’t mind doing it for her. Her obvious enjoyment made it more than worth it.

Over the next several minutes, Gage meticulously licked between each and every toe, all the while massaging them with both hands. The colossal girl continued to moan with pleasure, but finally he stepped back and rested – after giving her big toe one final kiss.

“So you wanna know why that feels so good?” asked Gage a bit smugly. Rima nodded vigorously. “Well it turns out that nerves from the feet, particularly in between the toes, enter the spinal cord at the same level as nerves from the clitoris. When the toe nerves are excited, it’s possible for cross-talk to occur such that the nerves from the clitoris are also stimulated. It actually works quite nicely.”

“And presumably you’ve used this technique on the dozens of women you’ve slept with?” Rima asked with an arched brow.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” replied Gage defensively. Still, it cheered him to see that Rima seemed to have recovered a bit of her moxie. The two laughed for a while longer before a comfortable silence developed between them.

“It’s getting late,” Rima announced. “We should get some real sleep, instead of this REM stuff.”

“You’re right,” Gage replied. “If I could borrow a sock or something that would work just fine.”

“I don’t think so,” Rima said with mischievous grin. Before he could react, her hand darted forward and grabbed him in a warm embrace. “If I can’t have sex with you, I’m at least going to sleep with you.” She walked over to the “bedroom,” which was really just an area in the expansive penthouse with a large, circular bed. With a quick toss, she sent Gage flying through the air before he landed quite comfortably on one of the massive down pillows on her bed. By the time he had gotten his bearings, Rima stood in front of him completely naked. “Take a look at what you missed out on,” she breathed in sultry tones.

“Christ…” the word escaped his mouth in spite of himself. Gage had to remind himself that her whole body was digital in some sort of futile effort to keep his hormones in check: her milky white skin and perfectly proportioned curves would get any man going, computerized or no.

“Anyway,” she giggled, throwing on an oversized T-shirt and panties, “now that I’ve regained my senses, of course you’ll never get any of this.” She punctuated the “this” with a slap of her sumptuous ass and then proceeded to leap onto the bed, her impact launching Gage up to the air. In an act of remarkable dexterity, she snatched him mid-air and proceeded to snuggle him, all the while burying herself underneath the covers. “Lights off, please,” she called out, and the room immediately went dim, although it could never be completely dark. All around, the sparkling lights of Town shone like stars in the Milky Way, casting a soft, multi-colored glow off of all the reflective surfaces of Rima’s luxurious apartment. Rima still snuggled him against her cheek when she said, “Thanks for saying ‘no’ to me, Gage.”

“What do you – ”

“You’re the first jailbroken person I’ve met that wasn’t totally despicable, and I was about to mess that all up – but you didn’t let me. You didn’t let me be a total hypocrite by acting like one of those online idiots – who I obviously despise – and I really appreciate that.” She drew Gage back from her face, and fixed him with her sparkling gaze.

“No, problem. Really it was – ”

She interrupted him again, but this time by stuffing his little head between her soft, wet lips. “Good night, little Gage. Tomorrow we’ll get you big again.” She then placed him on the pillow beside her head and draped her hand over his body like a blanket. With a shrug, he made himself comfortable beneath her fingers, and soon began drifting to sleep.

Hopefully she’s right, and tomorrow this whole ordeal will be over, he thought. Although if he could spend all of his time like this, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to be this size for a little while longer.

Gage woke up long before Rima did. To his surprise, Rima hadn’t moved in the slightest the entire night: her hand still lay protectively over his body, providing a pleasant warmth. After lying awake for a few minutes, he squirmed out from beneath her hand and leapt off of the bed, landing without any trouble after falling the equivalent of several stories. The clock showed 6:00, and he had no idea when Rima would wake up, so he figured he could make himself busy by working on his jailbroken abilities.

He jogged across the well-appointed penthouse to the nearest table, an obsidian black piece that towered over him like a building. After taking a deep breath, he bunched his legs into a squat and then launched himself upwards. He shot into the air, reaching a height several times his own – unfortunately, it wasn’t even close to height of the table – and more importantly, it wasn’t an improvement on his normal jump.

According to Rima, if he just ordered the game to send his body flying through the air, he should theoretically be able to jump that height. However, this action apparently worked differently from normal – completely differently – and Gage needed to somehow separate the familiar action from what he really wanted.

So for the next hour Gage jumped… and jumped… and jumped. Fortunately, the simple movement didn’t cause him too much fatigue, but it certainly became boring. At one point, he swore he got an inch or two higher than normal, but he couldn’t know for sure. Either way, that wasn’t anywhere close to the height he really wanted.

It had to do with rewiring the way your brain worked, Rima had explained. The power had to come from the action potentials in his neurons and not from the contracting and relaxing of his muscle fibers. Not that his muscle fibers were actually working in the game; the real reason had to do with his muscle fibers having set parameters defined by coding. However, since theoretically his central nervous system – his brain and his spinal cord – had been directly connected with the computer, he should be able to order the computer to act based on those commands, bypassing his digital muscles altogether.

Easier said than done.

Finally, after making zero headway, Gage gave up and headed back to the bed. He would wake Rima up and hopefully she would be able to help. He was just nearing the bed when the music started.

Gage recognized the song immediately – “Maggie May,” one of his favorite oldies – but at his size, the music blared loudly in his head from all directions. He realized that this was probably her alarm clock. Sure enough, he heard Rima stirring in the bed, and a moment later he saw her swing her legs over the side and yawn massively. With the morning sunlight streaming in on her predominantly white residence, she looked like an angel in heaven. Gage gathered up his slack jaw and began walking towards her.

This was a mistake. Still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Rima groggily got up and brought her foot down on top of him. He had tried to get out of the way, but maybe jumping as high as he could for an hour straight had taken more out of him than he thought. Either way, he suffered from the immense pressure of Rima’s sole for a split second before she took another step – and his body with her.

Much to his dismay, he had somehow gotten stuck to the bottom of her foot, probably because she hadn’t washed them since they got to her house yesterday. As she hummed along to the raspy tones of Rod Stewart, she apparently couldn’t hear Gage’s cries for help, not that he was in any danger. Especially now that he had his equipment, her steps alone couldn’t hurt him substantially – he was uncomfortable in the same way someone is uncomfortable bench pressing half of their personal record – but he’d still rather not be in that position if he could help it.

Besides the physical toll her weight took, the smell of her feet had only worsened from the night before. Now with his face pressed into the sole, her pungent smell inundated his every breath. In her defense, it only took ten or so steps for Rima to remember her little guest.

She spun around and darted back to the bed, clearly searching for him. “Gage?” she called. She shut off the music and called again. “Gage!”

“Down here!” he shouted.

She must have heard him, because soon Gage found himself rising upwards as Rima moved to inspect her sole. “Oh my God! How the Hell did you get stuck to my foot?” She peeled him off immediately, only to wrinkle her nose in distaste. “God, you stink. Is that how my feet smell?” Gage didn’t respond as he recovered on the palm of her hand. “Let’s get you washed up.” She carried him over to a sink where she turned on the water and held him close to it. “Let me know if that’s all right.”

Gage stuck his hand into the water and said, “Yeah that’s fine.”

“Okay – how do you feel about baths?”

“They’re my favorite.”

“Good.” Rima set him down by the sink and filled it up with soap and warm water; then she placed a hand towel on the counter before walking away, presumably for his privacy. “I’ll be back in a little bit… sorry about… er, walking on you.”

“You can make it up to me later,” Gage replied, waving her off. He quickly removed his clothes and hopped into the soapy water. Once submerged, he let out a long sigh. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in a long time.

“Don’t mind me!” called Rima in a singsong voice. Gage’s eyes snapped open, only to see her completely naked and heading towards the shower. She hopped in, and the water came on immediately – meanwhile, Gage oscillated between casting sidelong glances and gawking openly at her gorgeous body. He indulged himself for a second or two before moving his back towards her and attending to the banalities of cleaning his body. She was being quite aggressive.

He eventually got out, dried himself off with a corner of the hand towel, and threw on his clothes, careful to maintain his modesty – but not necessarily hers. In the mirror’s reflection, he spotted Rima behind him, still naked but now dripping wet. “I don’t know why, but I have no problems being naked in front of you,” she called from the shower. “I wonder if it has something to do with how small you are.” Rima continued to muse out loud. “Maybe it’s because I know you can’t rape me or whatever… not that you’d stand a chance against me in a fight even at your normal size,” she added with a giggle. Gage didn’t quite know how to respond; the more time he spent with Rima, the more her weird quirks rose to the surface. Her shy-girl-personality in that perfect body made for a strange dissonance.

Closing his eyes, Gage folded his arms across his chest and put on his most intimidating scowl, his back towards the exhibition of beauty taking place. After a little more teasing and goading, he heard the shower turn off and the sound of rustling towels. Still he gave it at least a minute before turning around, where he saw the white-haired beauty dressed in only a towel.

“I look pretty good, don’t you think?” she deadpanned.

“I’d say so,” he replied, giving as good as he got. She scooped him up from the sink and carried him over to a table.

“So what are we gonna do until Charis gets back online?” she asked, trailing off suggestively.

“You’re going to teach me how to use my jailbroken abilities,” replied Gage stoically. Rima’s lips turned into a pout, although he could tell she was having fun with this give and take. “And maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll give you another foot rub.”

“Oh?” She arched a brow with a mischievous smile. “Maybe if you’re lucky, I won’t rape you.”

Gage shook his head ruefully. She was definitely a weird one.

It was quickly becoming a trend – one that he’d rather not perpetuate – but Gage once again found himself underfoot. Presently, Rima sat on a chair reading and humming while he struggled beneath her sole. With all the strength he could muster, he tried to move the mass of flesh that pressed down on him, but it was to no avail. Gage much preferred trying to lift her hand, but Rima had begged him to let her use her foot and he had eventually relented. “It makes me feel so powerful,” she said breathlessly. Between that and her “rape jokes,” Gage wondered if she wasn’t an evil witch after all.

After a few more seconds of effort, he gave up. Rima smiled and scooped him up. “Nobody said it was gonna be easy,” she chided. “The best analogy I can come up with is this: it’s like learning a new sport. It takes hours of practice, and even then you’ll never master it.”

Gage nodded as he tried to recover the breath that had been pushed out of him by her foot. “What else can you tell me?”

She put on a thoughtful expression, one finger pressed against her pursed lips. “It’s really tough to explain, but once you get it to work, you’ll know. Honestly, this is the best way to go about it.”

Suddenly, something occurred to him. “Who taught you?”

Rima grinned. “Nobody. I read about it and taught it to myself. I’m more talented than you think,” she winked. “And you’ve turned out to be a bit of a dud. I’m starting to think you made that teleporting incident up.”

Gage didn’t rise to the bait. “I’d like to keep working on it, but Charis should be logging on any minute.”

“You’ll get it eventually,” she encouraged. “It honestly just takes time. Oh, and there she is now. I’ll tell her to come here.”

“Yeah, she definitely needs to see your place.” Charis’s arrival reminded him of something. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something: why have I been disconnected from the messaging system and all that?”

“I’m not sure, but my theory is that when you were shrunk the game started treating you as an item, and so you’ve been disconnected from the global communication grid. That also ties in with why you give armor and equipment power boosts. The funny thing is, neither of those effects happens to normal characters – it must be a bug having to do with you being jailbroken.”

“Your little stunt has been a real chafe, Rima.” Her expression fell, and she looked away. “But it’s okay,” he added hurriedly. “It has its upsides.” The quick save elicited a smile, but she still looked a little hurt. She really did regret her prank, he thought.

A bell tinkled somewhere in the penthouse. “That’s Charis,” Rima explained. “Let’s go get her.” She gathered him up in her hand and the pair headed towards a nondescript circle in the corner of the apartment. Upon standing on it, the circle rose up to the ceiling, and the pair exited through the roof via a sleek opening. They spotted Charis immediately, looking bewildered.

“Charis!” called Gage. When she spun around and saw them, her face lit up. Charis literally skipped over to them before grabbing Rima in a tight hug, which meant the witch had to grip him carefully as her arms were pushed against her sides. “Hey, I was your friend first!”

“Yeah, but she’s just so much prettier than you,” teased Charis. Rima laughed and raised him up on her palm. “I think this tiny look is good for you though. Maybe we should leave you that way.”

“Why don’t we make me big and you two can try it out?” Gage fired back. “You’ll be like cute little Tinkerbells.”

“Has he been this cranky the whole time?” Charis asked.

“Pretty much,” Rima answered. “Come down into my apartment; I need to grab some things, and then we’ll go.”

They went down the little elevator and entered Rima’s penthouse. Charis’s reaction was predictable. “Holy… this place must’ve cost a fortune!” While a dollar went much farther in Perfect Dimension than in the real world, a place this luxurious would still fetch a high price.

“I have my ways,” smiled Rima with a slight blush. “Here, take the little guy. I’ll be right back.” She handed him over and scurried away.

“I like her,” Charis declared.

“Me too,” Gage agreed. “What have you been up to today?”

“Oh you know, the usual: class, and whatever. It’s the worst,” she complained. “You guys might be on to something with this whole escape-from-real-life plan.”

“You should give it a try,” he joked.

Just then, Rima returned with what appeared to be a blue jumpsuit draped over one arm. “Here, Charis, put this on. It’s the Zero Suit – it’s far superior to the equipment you have on now.”

“Oh my god!” she squealed and practically threw Gage onto a nearby table in her excitement. In a flash, she had switched out of her comparatively clunky silver suit in favor of this sky blue number, which hugged her figure with undeniable allure. “Wow, it looks so cool!”

“Yeah, it’s based off of some really old game. It should give you a huge stat boost too.”

“Thank you so much, Rima!” Charis cried with glee, wrapping her arms around her.

Rima blushed again. “No problem,” she mumbled.

“But what are we going to do about Gage?”

“Well, I don’t think there’s anywhere for him to latch securely onto you; but I don’t think you’ll need his stat boost anyway – unless there’s an emergency, in which case you’ll probably just want to stuff him in your boot.” Rima gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry, Gage, that’s the best I can think of for that.”

“Fine, fine,” he muttered.

“Anyway, if Gage can give boosts to items, there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be able to boost familiars as well.” Rima whistled loudly, and in a puff of a smoke – a bat appeared. It screeched and flew around for a moment before landing on the table beside him. “This is Nightwing, my pet bat. He’s Level 100 already, and if you ride him... well, let’s just say he’ll be tough to beat.”

“Not exactly the most intimidating beast of the night,” observed Gage wryly. The flying rodent could almost be described as cute until it opened its mouth, revealing a set of razor sharp fangs.

“Trust me, he’s a very capable fighter,” smiled Rima. “Anyway, I Crafted you a saddle – it actually doubles as a rune slot, so there shouldn’t be any issues with your stat boost not working for whatever reason.” She stroked the creature affectionately before putting on the saddle. “Well, give it a try.”

Gage approached the animal resolutely; he would never admit to being nervous, but that didn’t stop him from engaging the bat in a stare-down as he approached. To his credit, Nightwing seemed downright nonchalant about the whole affair, and it didn’t take long for Gage to get situated. Still, he felt ridiculous – and rightly so.

“Awww!” said the girls, practically in unison.

“You’re so cute! My heart’s gonna melt,” Charis cooed.

“Let’s get going,” Gage cut in gruffly, but the girls ignored him and began petting him and the bat, all the while making more noises about how adorable he was. He was on the verge of drawing his sword and stabbing them their fingers when they finally relented.

“Okay, we should get going. Also, just so you know, Nightwing won’t take orders from you,” explained Rima. “He follows my commands only – so you’re kind of just along for the ride.”

“Whatever – can we just go and make me big again?”

This elicited a peal of laughter, but they at last left the building.

…

They emerged from the ubiquitous white portal onto a scene that could only be described as “quaint.” Gently sloping hills stretched as far as the eye could see with the occasional tree dotting the landscape. Just a little ways off, a tiny farm nestled in a valley. This was all well and good, but the main attraction wasn’t the farm or the pleasant landscape – it was the simply colossal beanstalk.

Like the finger of some god, the dark green beanstalk formed a massive tendril up into the clouds. At its tremendous size, Gage’s shrunken state made little difference: even at his normal height, he would’ve been similarly inconsequential compared to the monolithic plant.

The trio had been staring for some time when Rima broke the silence. “So I guess we go up?” Having long since changed back into her witch’s attire, she hopped onto her broom and zoomed upwards. Gage followed on Nightwing, while Charis used her disc to fly upwards.

They traveled in silence as they made their way up the beanstalk. Even on their various modes of the transportation, the trip took a while, but Gage didn’t mind. He enjoyed the downtime, although he specifically ignored the fact that he was riding a bat. By the time they broke through the clouds at the top, he felt rested and prepared for anything.

“Look girls, we already found our first victims!” boomed a gigantic voice.

“Are you kidding me?” Gage groaned.

Five titanic women loomed above them, their size relative to Charis and Rima roughly proportional to Gage’s size to his friends. Each of them wore wicked grins as they looked down at the group – clearly they had nothing good planned for their prey.

“Gage?” said Charis shakily.

"Yeah?"

“I think I’m starting to see why you don’t like being so small.”

Five tremendous pairs of feet surrounded their little group, but for poor Gage they had taken on truly mind-boggling proportions. Where Rima and Charis were like little dolls, he must’ve been smaller than a flea compared to them. All five of them emanated cruel beauty at an unthinkable magnitude.

So intimidating were the five women that only now did Gage take stock of their surroundings. They appeared to be in a massive cathedral: apparently, the beanstalk rose straight up through a circular opening in the floor, and then continued to climb up through a shattered stained-glass window in the ceiling. Even in this land of giants, the beanstalk remained the largest thing by far – it was easily wide enough to hold all five giantesses in its vines and branches, and it dominated the center of the cathedral.

Speaking of the five girls, they looked ludicrously out of place in the old cathedral. All of them wore snappy cocktail attire coupled with strappy heels; they could’ve been attending a Hollywood premier, but definitely didn’t belong in this grave hall.

“Wow, you two munchkins are in for some fun,” called down one of the giantesses, a blonde. She wore a form-fitting red dress, a matching set of red heels, and plenty of red lipstick that made her grin seem all the more evil.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” muttered Rima fiercely. She drew a wand from somewhere in her witch’s cloak and waved it. Nothing happened. “Shit – I’ve been Silenced!”

“Look at the little girl waving her little wand,” mocked the blonde with a laugh. In the blink of an eye, she bent down and swatted both Rima and Charis to the floor, knocking them from their respective means of flight. Before either of them could react, another of their tormentors, this one a brunette, slammed her black pump onto both the broom and the disc, pulverizing them instantly. Luckily for Gage, Nightwing had taken him well out of range of the tremendous hand, but that did nothing for his immense frustration at his inability to protect his friends. He watched helplessly as they staggered to their feet.

“They’re only Level 75, how is this possible?” gasped Rima.

“I looked up the Magic Beans on the trip up,” answered Charis raggedly. “Apparently if you beat this level, you can use the Beans to grow yourself – it pretty much doubles their stats.

“How the Hell is that fair?” hissed the witch.

“The effect wears off when you leave. They must’ve been waiting here just to mess with whoever came along.”

“Rima, can you take them?” shouted Gage.

“Maybe two of them,” she growled, “but not five.”

Gage’s mind raced as he tried to think through the situation. Rima wasn’t strong enough to win in a head-on fight, but worse yet, if she died... she would really be dead. Those bitches didn’t know that, not like they would care either way; judging by their hungry stares, they wanted to see them suffer, nothing more. On the other hand, Charis had no such limitation – she could easily kill herself to escape the level. Plus, the bitches hadn’t even noticed him, so in that sense he was safe as well. Still, that didn’t leave them with much to work with.

Without warning, Nightwing swooped away, carrying Gage out of the circle of feet and to safety. He scowled, remembering that only Rima could control her familiar. Apparently following orders, the bat lighted on a marble podium, where they became horrified onlookers. As he watched, he could see Charis and Rima having a heated discussion even as the circle of women began to close in with their feet, poking and prodding the tiny women with growing force and malice. He couldn’t know for sure, but he could guess what was being said: no doubt Rima urged Charis to kill herself, and of course Charis stubbornly refused. Gage knew she would never abandon Rima like that. Unfortunately that meant both of them would suffer at the hands of these demented girls, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. They couldn’t even attempt to fight for fear that one of them might murder Rima in retaliation.

“What should we do with them, Alicia?” the brunette asked the blonde as all five women continued to lightly tap and shove the girls with the tips of their heels.

“Well, I think we’re already on the right track. Let’s make them our foot slaves.”

The other girls giggled their assent. “Yeah,” chimed in a different brunette, this one wearing a purple dress with gold heels, “these little bugs should be kissing our toes like the goddesses we are.” She kicked off her gold shoes and knocked over Charis, then positioned the sole of her foot on top of her so that her toes rested directly on her victim’s face. “Lick them you little bug.”

Gage winced as he imagined the awful stink that oozed from the giant girl’s toes; but at least Charis’s senses weren’t jailbroken. Meanwhile, poor Rima found herself underneath two girls’ feet, and Gage knew that the stench must be unthinkable. “Lick them clean,” giggled Alicia before batting Rima across the head with her big toe. She proceeded to press her toe down onto Rima’s face. His stomach churned at the thought of swallowing the filth from their feet.

The torture continued for what seemed like forever to the horrified Gage, and probably longer for his defenseless friends. Rima and Charis were forced to thoroughly lick each girl’s toes, soles, and heels. When he saw Rima vomit from the disgusting grime she had ingested, Gage almost leapt off the podium in a rage, safety be damned. Each new abuse slashed into his heart, but he could do little more than clench his fists in powerless fury.

As time went on, the giant bitches became progressively more violent. With their toes and feet, they began battering their helpless victims, causing them to cry out in pain much to their malevolent glee. Great black and blue bruises began to form on his friends’ bodies, and he saw Charis’s arm twisted at an unnatural angle. Gage’s heart fell apart when Rima tried to use her relatively tougher body to shield Charis from harm, eliciting more laughter from their tormentors. They dragged them apart with ease and continued with the torture.

Then it finally happened. Gage saw Charis pull her pistol from its holster, bring it to her temple, and fire.

“Aw, that bitch ruined our fun,” cried one of them.

“It won’t happen again,” said Alicia confidently. “I cast a Paralyze spell on the white-haired bug. She won’t be able to clean our feet, but I don’t think that will keep us from having our fun.” Gage watched as she bent over and scooped Rima off of the ground – he saw the shine from the tears streaming down her face. The group moved away from the beanstalk, presumably to inflict more horrors on his friend.

Suddenly, Nightwing took to the air. Gage roared in frustration as the bat plummeted through the opening in the floor, his vision wet and blurry.

…

Nightwing took Gage to Rima’s penthouse. There, he spotted an ashen-faced Charis, and when she saw him she began sobbing uncontrollably.

“Oh Gage,” she cried, hugging him to her chest. “It was so horrible.”

“Calm down,” he replied firmly. Not that he hadn’t suffered from hysterics already, but he knew that they needed to help Rima – and that time was of the essence. “Our friend needs us. We don’t have time for anything else. So snap out of it.”

Charis held him on her palm, her eyes overflowing with tears. She nodded, choking down a sob. “What should we do?”

“Don’t worry.” Gage set his lips in a thin line of determination. “I have a plan.”

 

Against her instincts, Rima tried to relax as much as possible instead of fighting against the Paralysis spell. In fact, the spell was a blessing in disguise: it acted as a makeshift splint for her various broken bones. Still, her tears flowed freely. The pain was only less, not gone.

“I hope the other little bug comes back for her friend,” one of Rima’s tormentors said.

“Did you see her crying like a bitch?” laughed another. “Pathetic.”

Rima could only hear them. Wrapped in Alicia’s hand, she could only see the lines in her fingers, and dimly at that. At the same time, the filthy stench of feet inundated her nostrils, and their revolting sweat clung to her like mucous. She had dealt with pain aplenty over the course of her playing life, but this humiliation was on a different level. Rima wanted nothing more than to scrape the taste of foot from her tongue.

“At least we still have this one,” chimed in a third. “Her little tongue felt so good between my toes.”

“I know,” agreed Alicia, “but I can think of a place where her little tongue will feel even better.” The walls of Rima’s prison tightened briefly, eliciting a stabbing cough from her body. Her mind wondered at what the giant bitch could mean but immediately recoiled from the obvious implications. Cold fear dragged her heart ever downwards, drowning her fiery rage to where it hardly simmered. These demented harpies meant to humiliate and harm her in the worst possible ways, and she was entirely at their mercy.

Rima grasped desperately for any kind of mental purchase in the panicked chaos of her mind. Her immobility coupled with the Silence spell limited her options to almost nothing. Awful things were about to happen to her, and she had only one recourse: protect her mind.

Light poured in as the walls of her prison relaxed. In a quick movement, the gigantic hand unceremoniously dropped her onto what she fleetingly recognized as a fancy, if antiquated, bed. Complete with a frilly canopy and surrounded by gray stone walls, the room was probably part of the cathedral from earlier. Rima allowed herself only a glimmer of hope, as if she was in a desert and taking a sip from a dwindling flask: she couldn’t be far from the beanstalk.

On her back staring upwards, Rima regarded the hungry looks of her captors with dread. “Ladies,” announced Alicia with her full red lips. “It’s time for some real fun.”

To her intense dismay, Rima watched as all five women above her began removing their clothing, as if this was all very normal. Midway through undressing, a hand snatched her immobile body up and began rubbing her face against an exposed clitoris. The musky scent of this woman’s titanic sex engulfed Rima even as the lubricants dripping from her open lips oozed onto her like some sickening acid.

“Lick, bitch,” the woman ordered, giving her a squeeze for emphasis. Rima stuck her tongue out, unsurprised that at least that bit of movement had been restored to her, not a blessing but a curse – just like her heightened senses. Rima gulped down whatever vile moisture clung to the skin presented to her, and she felt the massive shudder of her captor’s pleasure.

Rima heard the sounds of moaning and orgy above her, as those not occupied with using her as a sex toy entertained themselves in some other way. She didn’t have time to wonder what she had done to deserve this degradation at the hands of these sex-fiends. Instead, she was stuffed headfirst between the grasping labia just below, with only one second thought: “Ooooh, don’t you think she’ll break in there?”

“She’s tougher than she looks,” came the reply. “I’ll Heal her if my hungry pussy gets too rowdy for her.”

A chorus of laughter met this last statement, but for poor Rima it came as muffled background noise. Surrounded by the pulsating, muscular walls of this woman’s vagina, Rima felt both pressure and heat from all sides. Awful smells and tastes assaulted her as she struggled to maintain her hold on her very essence in the face of this twisted torture. Evidently, time held no meaning inside of the female sex organ, but at last she was drawn out, sputtering and gasping in the blinding light.

“Please, no more,” begged Rima weakly.

“You think that was bad?” mocked Alicia with a giggle. Alicia’s continual and persistent laughter chilled Rima more than anything else. She watched helplessly as long, elegant fingers reached for her. She already knew where she was destined, but that didn’t protect her from the latest cruelty to come.

She smelled it before she saw it – the unmistakable stench that marked her latest torture. Rima screwed her eyes shut and withdrew herself from her senses entirely, willing herself to lose consciousness, but unable to achieve total oblivion. The humid presence in the air marked a new aperture to hell, and she felt the pressure of Alicia’s hand attempting to force her body into what was physiologically designed for one-way traffic.

“Lick.”

…

“They’re on the other side of this door,” whispered Charis. As if to confirm what she had just said, a peal of tinkling laughter came from within, the mirthful sounds a stark contrast to what Gage could only imagine went on inside.

“Let’s go,” muttered Gage, and the pair slipped easily underneath the door, Gage far more so than Charis. The sight of five naked women on a bed met the pair, with Rima nowhere in sight. Two of them had paired off, while two others focused on the pleasure of the fifth – Alicia.

“Doesn’t she feel amazing in there, Alicia?” asked one as she caressed Alicia’s breast.

Her response consisted of a husky noise, somewhere between a moan and a growl. From his perch on Charis’s shoulder, she couldn’t make out her expression, but the bristling stiffness in her body said enough. Gage shook his head and forcefully pushed the thought from his mind.

“Charis,” he said in a low voice. “We need to focus. Hide behind that dresser to our right.”

Charis snapped out of her rage and sprang into action. She pushed her back against the building-sized piece of furniture, stealing a glance at the massive women on the bed. To Charis, they looked like skyscrapers; to Gage, they looked like distant mountains.

“What are they doing to her?” asked Charis in a hoarse voice. Once again, Gage couldn’t see his friend’s eyes to measure her mental state, but if Alicia had Rima where he thought she did... there could only be two places.

“I don’t know,” he lied, “but we have to change our plans. You need to distract them.”

Charis tensed even further, if that was possible. Then she gulped mightily. “You got it.”

“I’ll need thirty seconds to get to Rima, and then we should be good,” he explained. “Can you give me that?”

“Yeah,” Charis responded, already removing a bevy of charms and power-ups from inventory.

“Countdown from 300 and go,” muttered Gage. “I’ll take my disc over there and get into position, ok?”

Charis lifted her open palm up to her shoulder. Gage jumped on, and she moved her hand so that they faced each other. Much to his surprise, there wasn’t a trace of anxiety or fear in his friend’s eyes – only a fierce, smoldering determination that clashed jarringly with her pink hair.

“We have to save her,” she said simply.

Gage nodded. Then he jumped on his disc and headed for the bed.

 

Gage reached into his inventory and drew out an Invisibility Potion. While it was probably overkill, he activated it promptly and watched as his body shimmered and blurred until a barely perceptible bending of light remained. Before they had returned to the beanstalk, he and Charis had drained most of their funds on various consumable items and boosts. Still, between the two of them, their combined power stood at just a fraction of what they faced. He neared the bed when a loud crack went off behind him, followed by a red glow that tinted the bedpost in front of him. He pressed grimly ahead, not looking back.

“What the Hell?” Gage heard the voice coming from above as his disc elevated him up to the surface of the bed. He prayed that Alicia would remove Rima from whatever filthy orifice she had her in and would go investigate.

“Is someone setting off fireworks over there?” one of them asked, nonplussed.

“Yeah, that’s what it looks like,” confirmed another.

“So the witch’s little friend came back to rescue her?” laughed Alicia menacingly. “I’d like to see her try. Come on up and play with us, bug!”

Gage just cleared the top of the bed as Alicia extended her invitation. He had already traveled what felt like dozens of stories upwards, only to be confronted by the inconceivably huge feminine forms at the top. One of their toes was the size of a high-rise apartment to him; their simplest movements could bury him beneath mountains of flesh.

Despite his miniscule size, it only took a quick inspection to spot Alicia. She leaned backwards on the headboard, her body braced against a mound of pillows. The others in her orgy lay scattered before her like worshippers before an altar. Her right leg hooked around one girl’s neck – presently, that girl looked up from Alicia’s vagina to watch the fireworks, while another had stopped kissing her mistress for the same reason.

Gage, however, firmly ignored this hedonistic display and focused on Alicia’s pulsating cunt. Despite the considerable distance, he could just make out Rima’s foot emerging from between the bitch’s soaked labia. The bitch stroked that foot idly, her attention on Charis’s lightshow.

The girl closest to the bed – and Gage – looked askance at Alicia, who nodded and said. “Go fetch her.”

She rose off the bed, her limbs like aircraft carriers. Gage gulped, despite calculating that he was in no danger. He had two problems to face: 1.) Alicia had neglected to remove Rima from her body like he had hoped, and 2.) now Charis was in imminent danger. With his limited options, he made the only decision that had any chance of success. Using a Speed Charm, he flew on his disc at maximum speed, skirting around the edge of the bed towards his target: Alicia’s vagina.

“Hold still, you little runt!” A pang of worry slashed through his chest, but he suppressed it. The only way he could help Charis was by reaching Rima.

“She’s actually trying to fight back?” asked Alicia idly. She pressed a hand down onto the head of one of her lovers, guiding it down to her waiting sex. “Pathetic.” The drafted girl began to lick obediently at Alicia’s clitoris, her tongue occasionally brushing against Rima’s exposed limb.

This didn’t help matters. With each passing moment, Gage’s plan became less and less viable; but it really was their only shot. He needed to get to Rima, and they couldn’t wait forever. His friend suffered, and he couldn’t allow that to continue in favor of a tactical retreat.

“Ouch! That stings!” yelped the girl pursuing Charis. “You little bitch – I’m gonna make you pay for that.” The sounds of her stomping after Charis resembled earthquakes, and they only intensified in volume and frequency.

Just a little longer, Gage prayed. He sped towards the intersection of Alicia’s vagina and her lover’s lips, paying no heed to Alicia’s bucking legs and shivering feet. Clearly in the throes of some kind of sexual ecstasy, the bitch had her legs spread out in a wide V, and she presently returned to exchanging kisses with another partner. This left Gage a fairly safe path to access her soaked labia, but the dutiful sucking and licking of her lover presented problems.

He would have to somehow get past her and into Alicia’s vagina without getting seriously hurt – or even killed. Gage even ran the risk of getting swallowed by her enthusiastic cunnilinguist. From their perspective, he came to a stop and floated about two feet away. Both tiny and invisible, it was impossible for them to know about his presence, not that he could do anything to affect them in any way. Horrified, he stared at Rima’s revolting prison, his body overrun by conflicting instructions: he needed to save her, but he didn’t dare go. He could literally die.

Just then, it occurred to him that Alicia’s shouts of pleasure had grown louder and more urgent. If she climaxed, who knew if Rima would be able to survive? He had to move – now.

With fear-induced clumsiness, he grabbed for a handful of boosts and activated them. They ranged from Defense to Attack to Energy and everywhere in between, but he doubted that they would make a difference. Steeling himself, he sprang forward, directly into the maelstrom of activity that was Alicia’s gaping genitalia.

The cunnilinguist’s tongue swiped back and forth like some awful sea monster as Gage made his approach. As luck would have it, she focused her efforts on Alicia’s clitoris, just above the throbbing labia that was his target. Still, Alicia’s pelvis and hips shivered and flailed – the entry would be no easy feat. As Gage drew closer, he realized he had no way of altering the odds of his success. He had to just go for it.

So he went for it.

With his body hurdling towards Rima’s visible foot, his eyes widened as he saw that pink leviathan of a tongue move downwards, threatening to bat him away or worse. Shutting his eyes and ducking his head, Gage screamed as he leapt off the disc and streamlined his body as if diving into a pool. That scream came to an abrupt end as the air was knocked out of him. He made impact with the slippery tongue, only to have his momentum carry him straight across the organ like a Slip-N-Slide directly into a highway sized vagina.

Once inside, pandemonium reigned. The roar of pumping blood drowned out his thoughts, and Alicia’s overflowing lubricants blinded him. He was lost – like a single sperm, grasping for a way. The walls of Alicia’s body buffeted him in every direction, but he knew that there couldn’t be too much space in there. Rima had to be close.

“Rima!” he shouted futilely. His voice failed to register in his own head. How could he get Rima’s attention? His entire plan hinged on it.

He had an idea. Fighting against the viscous fluid coating his limbs, Gage drew out his sword and began attacking wildly. He slashed in every direction, using his most powerful special attacks. His sword burst into blue flames as he swung it blindly, and the acrid smell of burning flesh mixed with Alicia’s musty scent. Still, his attacks didn’t even register with the colossal woman – but that wasn’t the point.

“Gage?!” he heard Rima cry out. “Gage?!” In the light of his sword, he was able to make out Rima’s much larger form – her body crushed between the vaginal walls. Still, her hands grasped as best they could, and Gage stabbed his sword into the surrounding skin and hauled himself towards her, like a climber scaling a cliff.

In no time, he was in Rima’s hand, and she dragged him up to her face with considerable effort – an effort that only seemed to intensify Alicia’s sexual excitement.

“Gage, what the Hell are you doing here?” she asked raggedly.

“Rima – we have to get out of here! Use me as an item boost, do whatever you have to do – just get us out of here!”

“But then what? Even with your boost we still can’t beat them!”

“Just get us out of here,” Gage urged, fighting to be heard over Alicia’s thunderous pussy. “My power boost should be enough for at least that much. I have a plan.”

Gage didn’t know if Rima agreed or not – his blue flames had long since gone out, and she didn’t say anything – but in the next instant, they burst into light, their bodies coated with Alicia’s juices. Gage tried to wipe the slime from his eyes; meanwhile, he could hear Rima coughing violently just beside him.

Finally, he was able to clear his vision, and take stock of the situation.

Rima still gripped his lower body, and the both of them lay in a pool of vaginal secretions on the bed. Above them, Alicia’s cunnilinguist gazed at them with a mixture of curiosity and arousal, and beyond her Alicia herself basked in what appeared to be orgasmic afterglow. Gage twisted his head to see Charis next to them, her body once again battered and bruised.

A brief respite began and ended in the span of heartbeats before their female tormentors began to draw aggressively closer to where they huddled beneath Alicia’s dripping pussy.

“If you’ve got a plan,” rattled Rima between coughs, “I think now would be the time to execute it.”

Gage didn’t have a lot of time to act. “Rima – whatever device you used to shrink me – give it to me.”

Rima fixed her gaze on the little man in her fist. “What? But – ”

“They can’t see me, and I’m not Silenced,” hissed Gage urgently. “Give me the item and I’ll be able to shrink them!”

She nodded and dropped to one knee, simultaneously lowering Gage to the floor. Then she drew out a swirling, black and blue orb from her cum-soaked cloak and handed it to Gage. To Rima, the orb was about the size or a marble, but to Gage it was like a beach ball. Still, he hefted it easily enough. Now, he just had to activate it, and…

“Watch out!” Gage twisted his head just in time to see a building-sized finger collide with him and Rima. The impact easily knocked the orb from his hands, and all three of them were sent flying across the bed. Pain exploded in his head and throughout his body, sending spots of color across his vision. With the simple swat of a hand, Alicia had essentially incapacitated him, so large was the disparity in their levels.

Still, it was unclear whether or not any of the giantesses were aware of his presence. Owing to his lighter weight, Gage went much farther than Rima or Charis, so he appeared to be out of any immediate danger. Unfortunately, the marble had flown yet further, and in his weakened state, it would be a monumental effort to simply retrieve it – but he had to.

Setting his lips into a grim line, Gage took stock of his injuries: he couldn’t put any weight on his right leg, and his insides stabbed with every breath. He reached into his inventory for a Healing item, only to discover that almost all the his consumables had been crushed by the giantess’s finger. Forcing himself to remain calm, he saw that he still had a Speed Charm and a Healing Salve. The latter wouldn’t do much – it was a minor healing item that wouldn’t stand up to his present grievous injuries. As for the former… well, he would at least be faster. Moving anything at all would hurt like crazy, but he would fight through it.

He activated both, and felt his breathing relax slightly. He didn’t know why he even bothered to get an item as useless as a Healing Salve, but obviously it helped now. He looked ahead to where he saw the marble, a tiny speck of blue in a sea of white blanket. He cast a glance backwards, where once again his eyes met a horrifying scene: two tiny women at the mercy of cruel giantesses. Fending off the now familiar feeling of helplessness, Gage dragged his good leg forward, trying his best not to put any weight on his bad one.

He probably looked ridiculous. Even in his hobbled state, the boost of the Speed Charm allowed him to move at a jogger’s pace – sort of a superhuman speed shuffle. By his estimation, the orb was only a few hundred yards away. On the other hand, with each step, pain lanced through his legs and back, and worse than that, he could feel his lungs crackling and fluttering in his chest. Still, if he could just have a minute, he could get to the item, activate it, and they would be home free.

“Enough playing around, Alicia,” whined one of the girls. “I wanna really hurt them.”

This elicited a peel of giggles from all the girls, but it sent Gage’s heart racing faster – each beat rattled his chest. Gritting his teeth, he forced his screaming legs forward, and he sucked in air through hissing lungs. The pain threatened to overwhelm him. His vision blurred, and he concentrated only on lifting one foot in front of the other.

Suddenly, a shriek daggered through the haze of his consciousness and he looked back again. His eyes widened, and his throat caught. Charis hung in the air, her arm between Alicia’s thumb and index finger – if you could call it an arm. Even Gage could see that the limb had been completely pulverized, crushed by the awesome pressure of the giantess. Bones, muscle, and tendon had all been reduced to a thin mush covered by skin, like a scarecrow’s paper appendage.

Gage spun around and redoubled his efforts, struck suddenly by white-hot rage. His fury crashed through him like a great wave, blasting aside the profound agony of his limbs and chest like mere irritations. He couldn’t stand it any longer. All of this scrambling and fleeing and fumbling – and for what? – just because a few sick and twisted girls happened to gain the upper hand in a stupid game. They wanted to have their fun, not knowing that their fun meant the lives of his friends. The injustice of the situation suddenly burned him more than any pain, igniting an anger borne out of frustration, pure and simple – a deep, intense frustration that erased his consciousness, destroyed his deliberateness. The situation was ludicrous, unacceptable, and he wouldn’t allow it to continue. Their power over them was so utterly undeserved – Gage yearned for some sort of justice in the world.

A second shriek split his ears, sent shivers down his spine. He didn’t look back, couldn’t look. Some bizarre, indifferent part of him wondered who designed the tears in this game. They were very life-like; the guy should get a medal. Only a little further – the blankets rose and fell like dunes in the Sahara. That he could see the little blue orb at all was a bit of a miracle. The tiny thing could have easily fallen into one of the folds of the bed; but instead it perched upon a kind of hill, where the blanket seemed to wrap around it like a nest.

Gage had no idea how he reached the top – it was a blacked out mystery, a blur of suffering and desperation. Yet when he opened his eyes once more, the mountainous bodies of his enemies had disappeared, and he gripped the black and blue orb against his heaving chest. Good had prevailed.

 

Gage stood eye-to-eye with Alicia for the first time, and for the first time the cruel woman knew of his existence. Charis and Rima had swiftly disposed of the other girls by stomping them flat – their deaths were anticlimactic, and not at all proportionate to the pain they had caused. They would simply respawn a few moments later, but without the power boost of the Magic Beans, Rima could easily handle any rescue attempt they might stage. That left Alicia, the ring leader of the sordid group.

“That Paralysis spell should keep you from killing yourself,” stated Rima evenly. If she felt any vengeful joy at turning the tables, she hid it well; and if she felt any lingering pain from the torture inflicted on her, she hid that as well. Gage glanced at his own previous shattered leg and shuddered. Despite getting it completely healed, he still felt phantom tremors up and down the limb. “Now then,” she continued. “Tell me everything you know about the Beans.”

Once she had been reduced to Gage’s size, all of Alicia’s self-assurance had vanished. Gage would’ve loved to have seen her immediate reaction, but he had passed out after activating the shrinking device – and his memory surrounding the incident was hazy as well. Why the device hadn’t simply shrunk Alicia and her cohorts to Rima and Charis’s size – as opposed to his further diminished height – remained a mystery to him. He supposed it had something to do with how he amplified items, and since he was the one who wielded it, perhaps it had a double-shrinking effect. Regardless, he was happy to find Alicia and the others on the complete opposite end of the stick once he had been revived, good as new. Their fearful looks took away a little of the sting of his obvious failure: he was still shrunk.

Presently, Alicia directed her pleading gaze towards him, preferring not to crane her neck up towards where Rima stood behind and over her. Following Rima’s lead, Gage kept his face expressionless as well, and instead looked past Alicia towards Rima’s tremendous barefeet. He didn’t know how it was possible, but her toes looked absolutely menacing behind Alicia, as if they were waiting to pounce at any moment. Meanwhile, Charis stood over on one side, her boots towering above him. Gage didn’t mind at all that the feet surrounding him gave off a sharp odor – everything he smelled, Alicia smelled too, and he was just fine with that.

“I’m only going to ask you one more time – the Beans.”

Alicia began to stammer uncontrollably. “T-t-they’re g-g-gone!”

Rima’s voice came down like freezing rain. “What do you mean, ‘they’re gone?’”

“T-t-the Beans only d-d-drop once a S-s-s-season.”

“She’s right,” confirmed Charis, stamping her boot in frustration. The impact sent ripples through the bed, knocking Alicia over with ease, while Gage managed to ride it out without falling. “Let’s step on her and be done with it,” she said, raising her blue footwear over the now-pathetic woman. She resembled a beetle stuck on its back, limbs scrabbling futilely for purchase.

“No!” screamed Alicia shrilly. “You’ll kill me.”

“Wait, what?” Rima muttered. As Charis’s foot descended, Alicia’s eyes widened and she began to beg. “Wait!” snapped Rima.

The building-sized boot hesitated, then withdrew. “You don’t think she’s...” Charis trailed off.

“You’re jailbroken?” asked Rima, her evident curiosity overcoming her cool self-restraint. “At such a low level?”

“Y-y-yes,” Alicia affirmed, nodding vigorously.

“Interesting,” murmured Rima, more to herself than anyone else. Gage could hear the gears turning in her head; he had some thoughts of his own. “Put her in your boot, Charis. She should be able to survive, so long as you don’t actively try to stomp her. Plus, it’ll give her a taste of her own disgusting medicine.”

“With pleasure,” said Charis. She reached down with her hand, a wicked grin on her face. Unlike Rima, she had no reservations about displaying her vengeful glee. Ignoring Alicia’s panicked protests, she quickly scooped the woman up and dumped her into her boot, shoving her undoubtedly smelly foot in after her. Gage could just make out her muffled screams through the material.

He lingered on the spot for a moment before looking back at Rima, who had already lowered a hand to the ground for him. “Come on, Gage, let’s get out of here.”

…

Back in Rima’s penthouse, the three of them rested on various plush pieces of furniture. Aside from Alicia’s occasional sobs, and a fleeting haggard expression on Rima’s face, there was no evidence of their recent ordeal. The tiny former dominatrix sat in a cage on the table.

“So you’re telling me someone is offering to jailbreak low-level characters – for a price?” asked Rima pointedly.

“Yes,” replied Alicia. She had managed to get over her earlier hysterics to some extent, but she still spoke as meekly as possible.

“And you paid for it just so you could fulfill your disgusting fantasies?” cut in Charis, her voice quivering with anger.

“Yes,” confirmed Alicia. “I met those other girls in a chatroom for… like-minded individuals.”

“Sickos…” muttered Charis.

“You paid him money?” asked Rima.

“Yes. I needed… the release.”

“This actually is becoming more common,” Gage explained. “I mean, it’s still exceedingly rare, but people are willing to jailbreak themselves just to take advantage of the virtual world’s infinite possibilities. They save enough to pay for their basic life support indefinitely and then get it done. I know I did.”

“But has it always been so… commercialized?” asked Rima.

Gage rubbed his chin. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.” They were on to something big here, but the revelation skirted just outside of reach. Something occurred to him. “Exactly who can perform the jailbreaking procedure?” he asked.

“Well, the designers of the game performed mine,” answered Rima. “It was a charity case, and it caused a lot of controversy. While I did push the envelope, the backlash was such that I thought no one would want to do it again, at least not in public.”

“Right, that’s how I got jailbroken,” said Gage. “By some obscure… institution… that I had dig to find.”

“Exactly. Up until now, they had strictly jailbroken only level 100 players – sort of like an elite guild that wanted to be powerful yet mysterious. But now someone is coming in and jailbreaking just anyone for money.”

“So why do we care?” asked Charis.

“I’m not sure…” murmured Rima. The group fell into an extended, thoughtful silence.

“Excuse me?” asked Alicia timidly.

“What is it?” spat Charis.

“I don’t mean to interrupt, but there’s something I think you should know.”

Rima stared coolly at the little blond. “Yes?”

“I don’t know what he,” she pointed at Gage, “is talking about when he says life-support and all that.”

“What do you mean?” prodded Rima.

“Well, what I mean to say is… the man who jailbroke me…”

Charis tapped her boot impatiently. Even Gage wanted to slap some sense in her, tell her to get on with it.

“He can reverse it.”

 

Over an hour later, the three friends still sat in Rima’s penthouse. Gage stood on the table, pacing back and forth, while the girls had their feet propped up on the same table – but at an acceptable distance away. Still, every once in a while Gage would get a pungent whiff, although he declined to lodge a complaint. He didn’t want to seem weak.

Needless to say, Alicia’s claim had sparked an intense discussion, and despite a while spent talking things through, they still weren’t sure about the next move. They had long since removed her from the conversation by casting a Sleep spell on her, in part because of the most contentious subject: what to do with her.

“We can’t just let her go,” complained Charis. “Just think about everything she’s done to us! The bitch needs to pay.”

“We can just let her go, and we will,” replied Rima evenly. “What she did was… evil… but we can’t stoop to her level.”

As for Gage, his opinion fell somewhere in between, although he wanted to lean towards to Charis. He couldn’t easily forget his fury from the not-too-distant past. In fact, he couldn’t remember much else from those last moments before he activated the shrinking sphere. His anger had basically overwhelmed him, something he usually avoided. He would endeavor to stay in control in the future.

Suddenly, Gage realized that Charis and Rima were both giving him pointed looks, obviously seeking his input. He cleared his throat and delivered, “Sorry, Rima, I’m with Charis.” Rima’s expression remained unreadable. “The way I see it, we can use Alicia to our advantage. If the game is consistent, she’ll provide a significant power boost to one of you if you keep her as an item. That advantage can’t be overlooked, especially since we’ll probably be running into stiff opposition soon.”

“Yeah! What he said,” Charis crowed. “I know exactly where I’m going to put her.” Her grin was positively wolfish.

“Fine,” huffed Rima, her impassive façade finally cracking. She allowed for a small, slightly worn smile. “I’ll admit it – I wouldn’t mind having a turn with her in my shoe.”

“That’s the spirit,” encouraged Charis. “Now that that’s settled… what should we do about you, Gage?” She wiggled her toes a little just to torment him. Gage didn’t know when it became okay for them to use their size and feet to “play games” with him, but now that it had become a thing, he couldn’t object too vehemently without seeming weird. On the other hand, they weren’t crossing the line with any of the joking; still, it bugged him a little that they could be so cavalier about it when not so long ago they were at the mercy of someone bigger with malicious intent.

Gage deliberately came to a stop close to Rima’s feet, in a probably-too-subtle attempt to show they didn’t intimidate him. “I feel like there’s something in there that we can work with,” he said slowly. “I just can’t figure out how to put the pieces together. Either way, we should definitely try to seek out Alicia’s contact. This person clearly has the power to do amazing things – maybe he’ll have an easy fix for my size issue.”

Rima and Charis nodded in agreement, but they fell into thoughtful silence for a moment. Gage held his chin in his hand, occasionally casting glances up to where his two gigantic friends sat on the couch. He also tried his best not to stare warily at the two pairs of massive feet occupying the table with him, especially Rima’s, which were much closer.

Presently, Rima offered an idea. “I’ve been thinking about it for a bit, and here’s what I’ve come up with. Why don’t we approach this mysterious jailbreaker and have him turn Gage back to a normal player. Then we could just kill him – ”

“Oooh, can we stomp him please?” interrupted Charis with a giggle.

“Actually, that could be kind of fun,” teased Rima, giving Gage a nudge with her big toe.

“Are we seriously gonna talk about me like this?” he protested with theatrical outrage, giving Rima’s toe a solid punch. He knew that it couldn’t possibly hurt her, but she winced in mock pain anyway for his benefit. Both girls laughed, maybe a bit too much, and Gage could feel the heat rising in his face. He didn’t want to admit how much the size difference bothered him, even to himself, but the girls definitely used the disparity as an opportunity to make light of him. Not that he took himself so seriously that he couldn’t handle a little ribbing – he just felt so… powerless. As a person who prided himself on control, that rankled.

“Okay, okay, we’ll try to think of a more dignified way for you to go out,” promised Rima; but then her face grew somber, and she sighed. “Not gonna lie, I’m gonna miss you at this size.”

“Me too,” Charis agreed.

“And why is that, exactly?” asked Gage, actually interested to hear their thoughts.

“Well, I just… and sorry if this is shallow, and please don’t take offense,” Rima hedged, “but I just felt safer around you. Like I could trust you more, that I could depend on you more.”

“It’s kind of weird, but I felt the exact same way,” said Charis. “I’m sure it’s all based on subliminal body messages or whatever, but I didn’t think it would affect me so much. You’re just such a cuddly little guy now, you know?”

“Hmm…” thought Gage aloud. “Well, if it makes you that happy… maybe I could consent to switching back to this size on occasion – if you’re extra nice to me.”

In a flash, Charis snatched him up and hugged him tightly to her chest. Even Rima clapped excitedly. “Aw Gage, that is so sweet of you.”

“You’re welcome,” groaned Gage, his voice muffled by her gigantic cleavage.

…

Charis and Rima decided to walk across Town to where Alicia claimed her contact was. While their destination – a towering skyscraper that was at once wholly unique yet indistinguishable from the endless background of other breathtakingly futuristic architecture – was surprisingly close, it still took the better part of an hour to get there. Hardly anyone actually walked through Town when a disc or teleportation stations – or basically anything besides walking – provided more expedient travel; but Charis really wanted to give it to little Alicia, so she insisted on hoofing it across the cyber metropolis’s many sky bridges.

Dropping to one knee, Charis removed her boot and withdrew her hot foot. On the sole, Alicia’s slightly flattened body adhered firmly via an abhorrent glue of sweat and foot gunk. The little dominatrix looked quite pathetic, and Gage (who hovered on Nightwing nearby) actually felt a pang of pity; but Charis’s stern expression broadcast her feelings on the matter unmistakably. With two fingers, she peeled off the human insole and brought Alicia’s limp form up to her face, fixing her with a ruthless glare.

“You smell like fucking foot and you look like shit,” announced Charis, “but I just want you to know that you deserve every bit of punishment. Every time my big, smelly foot smashes you into the ground, I want you to remember what you did to us. Just be grateful that my friend here,” she nodded to Rima, “won’t let me really make you pay. It could be much, much worse,” she finished darkly. Alicia only sobbed weakly in response, and Gage had to remind himself how awful she had been in that very same day. “Now take us to your friend.”

With that, the group entered the building through a pair of shiny chrome doors.

 

Gage gaped openly at the interior of the skyscraper. Rather than traditional floors and levels, the building had a massive atrium that stretched up to the ceiling. On top of that, the whole building must have been a one-way mirror – with a clear view of the city around him, he felt a bit like a fish in an aquarium. Around the edges, various all-glass suites seemingly floated, and a few literally hovered in the air, scattered above them. Furthermore, transparent walkways crisscrossed the open floor plan (if you could call it that), while at the ground floor where they stood, a huge fountain rose up out of the center surrounded by extravagant greenery and flowers. It was a truly magnificent building, but fact that it was completely deserted made it decidedly eerie.

“Typical,” snorted Charis, unimpressed. She gave little Alice a firm squeeze with her fist and barked, “Which way?”

Alice pointed towards a series of elevators (all-glass, naturally), and they quickly made their way over. “100th floor,” said Alice nervously, and the elevator surprisingly picked up her voice and sent them skyward. At a dizzying pace, the group zoomed upwards a hundred floors before coming to a stop mere seconds later.

A chime sounded, followed by a sexy female voice, “100th floor.”

The group exited to a clear platform attached to the edge of the building. A bridge extended from the platform towards one of the glass suites hanging in the air, and inside Gage could clearly see a man in a black suit bent over a desk, as well as the other standard accoutrements of a fancy office (bookcase, chairs, etc.).

“There?” asked Charis, and Alice nodded in confirmation. The group headed across the bridge, and at least for Gage, his excitement was palpable. He felt so close to regaining his normal size – still, apprehension tinged his excitement. Something about this place rubbed him the wrong way, and by the looks of his companions, they felt much the same. Gage sighed inwardly. It was never going to be easy.

Still, they walked across the bridge without incident – the man at the desk didn’t even look up when the glass doors to his suite slid open automatically. It wasn’t until Rima and Charis (Gage and Alice were less obvious) stood directly in front of the man’s desk that he looked up from whatever he was doing.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, surprisingly cordial.

 

His sharp, handsome face wore an inviting expression, hardly the intimidating figure Gage expected. In fact, his welcoming tone took all of them aback for a moment, but eventually Rima spoke evenly: “We understand that you can undo the jailbreaking procedure. We have a friend here,” she gestured to Gage, who floated on Nightwing at shoulder height, “who would like to be returned to normal so that we can restore his size.”

“Ah, very interesting,” said the man, running a hand through his flowing dark hair before leaning forward. “Unintended consequences – a spell meant to be a simple inconvenience is a serious problem for you. You can’t just ‘die’ to get back to normal.”

Gage nodded in response to the man’s direct address. “Well then, I’d be happy to reverse you – but for a price, obviously.” Normally, such a statement would sound sinister; in fact, an alarm in Gage’s head went off, because the man sounded like every villain in every movie ever. “There has to be something in it for me.”

Still, the man’s tone was reasonable, and his blue eyes didn’t give any indication of malicious intent. “What are your terms?” asked Rima.

“Well, this might sound a bit ridiculous, but there is actually a tournament held every year for jailbroken players. It’s not a death match, exactly, but the stakes are a bit higher, and players die every year. In any case, it provides big-ticket entertainment for all of the jailbroken players out there, but more importantly, the winner is offered a very interesting a prize: a “favor” from Erivar Vane himself. It’s very Mafia-esque.”

Gage and the others regarded the man in stunned silence. On the one hand, what he said was ludicrous, absurd. He wanted them to enter a tournament where they could die? On the other hand, he spoke so calmly, even friendly, that Gage had already begun to consider the offer. After all, that man had something that Gage needed.

“This is the only bargain you’ll accept?” Gage asked eventually.

“Yes,” the man responded simply.

“What makes you think that we’ll win you this favor?”

“I can’t say for certain that you’ll win. However, I already noticed that your mere presence on that bat familiar has boosted its strength immensely. Another unintended consequence, I suppose, but if both you and your unfortunate prisoner,” he nodded towards Alice, “both boosted the witch here in a similar way, I don’t see why you wouldn’t have a considerable advantage over the field.” The man’s keen observation impressed Gage, but his cold disregard for Alice also frightened him: if he could tease out that information so easily, he surely knew that Alice was his former customer. “Obviously, I want you to succeed, so you’ll have my considerable resources at your disposal as well.”

“Won’t other players have similar sponsorship?” asked Rima.

“Undoubtedly,” he replied evenly, “but like I said, I believe that you can win, and as I put it quite plainly to you, the incentives align. And since the tournament is held in a week, I don’t mind giving you time to mull it over.”

Everything he said seemed so cut and dry. He spoke with clarity and brevity, and with self-assurance – as if he already knew that they would agree to his terms. “Yes, we’ll need some time to think it over,” said Gage. “Can we return here tomorrow at the same time?”

“Certainly. And I’m sorry for not introducing myself earlier, but my name is Milan Russeau.”

“I’m Gage and this is Rima and Charis,” he replied. “That’s Alice, but you already knew that.”

Milan ignored Gage’s jab, and pressed on. “Do you have any more questions for me?”

“I do,” Charis announced. “Who is Erivar Vane?”

Milan smiled broadly, and Gage wondered if that had been his first genuine expression this entire conversation. “He is an extremely mysterious player of legendary status. People say he’s connected with Perfect Dimension on a subconscious level, and is regarded as one of the three most powerful entities in the game. His power is so great that he’s practically a god, and therefore has no reason to really do much of anything. Word has it that he spends his days quietly indulging himself – with tournaments like this one, for instance.”

The group became silence as they processed this new information.

“Well, then, I’ll see you tomorrow at this same time,” said Milan, signaling the end of the meeting.

“See you then,” confirmed Rima, and the group turned back for the door.

They had gone about half way to the room when Milan called after them. “Oh, one more thing.” They spun around, and Gage couldn’t stop his pulse from quickening. “I forgot to mention that the tournament is open only to newly jailbroken characters…”

Rima and Gage exchanged looks as they both realized the implication simultaneously.

“…So your champion will have to be Charis.”

 

Gage munched on an oversized grape as he contemplated Milan’s offer. His emotions swirled inside of him at a quickening pace, but his overall feeling was one of excitement. His chest felt lighter, and his limbs felt restless – he wanted to simply run somewhere. Instead, he remained cross-legged on a table, eating a grape bigger than his head.

The three friends presently ate at a vintage, European-style café atop yet another skyscraper in Town. Perched up on a raised platform, the café looked down on a grassy, rustic courtyard down below. An invisible, noise-dampening field around them kept the scene peaceful and quiet – quite the opposite of how Gage felt right now. He replayed Milan’s words through his head.

“His power is so great that he’s practically a god…”

He thought back to what Charis said about being jailbroken.

“Theoretically, the possibilities are limitless. This sounds cheesy, but all it takes is a little imagination.”

Suddenly, he felt a pang of sadness followed by a renewed surge of excitement. However, he tried to suppress both emotions; he knew where that road lead… it could only end in sadness. No – a part of him insisted that this opportunity was worth pursuing.

“The winner is offered a very interesting a prize: a “favor” from Erivar Vane himself.”

Had he forgotten why he had thrown himself into this game in the first place? He couldn’t keep chasing after impossible dreams. He had to stop deluding himself and forget the past.

“Gage?”

He snapped his head up to see Charis looking down at him with a concerned look. “Sorry, I was thinking too hard,” he admitted, returning back from his mental field trip. “What’s up?”

“Your good friend here was just saying that she’d be happy to compete in the tournament for you, despite my best efforts to convince her otherwise,” said Rima, her voice disapproving and sarcastic. “You’d think putting her life on the line for your sake would command your attention.”

“Oh be quiet, Rima, I’ll be fine. Plus Gage and our other little friend,” she stomped her boot a few times, leaving no question as to who she was referring to, “will be right there with me.”

“You could die, Charis, don’t you know that?” argued Rima. “Even with their power boosts, other players are gonna have all kinds of secret weapons.”

“Look,” replied Charis evenly. “Milan seems like a smart guy – he wouldn’t invest in us if he didn’t think we could win. Plus, I’m not just a cutesy girl who’ll lie down at the first sight of danger. I can fight.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” insisted Rima. “There are so many other ways for us to get Gage back to normal.”

“Oh? Like what?” Charis fired back.

“If the idiot would just figure out how to properly connect his brain to the game, he could just will himself to be big again.” Rima didn’t even look at him, acting like he wasn’t there.

“Rima, you couldn’t do it if it was you. How do you expect him to do it?” Suddenly, she stomped her foot angrily – first once, then again and again until she was breathless. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I guess this is just a great way to blow off some steam.”

“Please don’t do that to me,” joked Gage, trying to bring some levity to the conversation. “I bet it smells awful in there, too.” Predictably, it fell flat. The trio fell back into a tense silence, prompting Gage to finally put some serious thought into their next move. The reason why he wanted her to participate was obvious: he wanted to be big again. Plus, on the off chance he could convince this god-player to grant him a favor, maybe he could… Gage shook his head vigorously in an attempt to avoid the imminent thought. No – he absolutely could not use that as an incentive. He locked the thought away and resolved never to go near it again – he would forget all about it, hide it from himself forever.

Taking a deep breath, Gage moved to the negatives. If Charis participated in the fight, she would be in mortal danger; but how large was the risk? If Milan could help her achieve a level beyond that of the other participates, surely Charis could participate. Still, what was an acceptable risk?

“What do you want me to do, Gage?” asked Charis, breaking the silence. She directed her gaze towards him, her eyes soft and earnest.

“Well, I…”

“Actually,” she interrupted, “before you say anything, I just want you to know that I’m perfectly willing to fight for you. It may sound ridiculous, but you’re probably my best friend – and no, I’m not being insane, Rima.”

Gage felt his heart fill; he hadn’t realized how important he was to her. “Well, here’s what I think: I think we should tell Milan that yes, we’ll participate.” This brought a hiss of disapproval from Rima, but Gage quickly headed her off. “Hear me out, hear me out,” he said. “We’ll participate on the condition that he give us all the information he has before we commit to fighting for him. Here’s why I say that: if this Milan person is as resourceful as he seems, the tournament might be a total cakewalk for Charis and I.”

“And our little friend,” cut in Charis enthusiastically, stomping her boot yet again. Gage could hear Charis grinding her sole into the floor for extra punishment.

“Right, and our little friend. Let’s just try to get a better feel for the situation and then make our decision then. Can’t hurt just to talk to the guy again.”

Rima wore an irritated expression. There was a long pause as both Charis and Gage gave their friend puppy-eyed looks. “Oh all right!” she gave in with an exasperated folding of her arms and a look out the window. “But if there’s even the slightest sign of trouble, I’m pulling the plug. Got it?!”

Charis squealed with excitement, and she reached over the table to hug the witch, almost knocking him and their food over in the process.

“And one more thing,” said Rima. “Give me that bitch in your shoe – it’s about time I got a turn, and since you two are pissing me off so much, I might as well take it out on her.”

Charis clapped her hands and grinned evilly. “I knew you’d come around,” she said, withdrawing a bedraggled Alicia from her boot and setting her on the table. She stank. Without even speaking to her, Rima snatched the sweat-soaked girl up and dropped her into a black flat. Gage hadn’t noticed her wearing it before, but it looked well-worn, and probably smelled awful. He was just glad it was her and not him. Charis in particular had really gotten into punishing their former tormentor, and for some reason her weapons of choice were her feet. “You’d better lick Rima’s toes just like mine, you got it?” she ordered imperiously, even as Rima settled the flat onto her foot. Gage could hear her stomping it a few times to settle it in.

“I kind of see where you’re coming from with that,” admitted Rima with a rueful smile. “It does feel nice.”

“I know, doesn’t it?” laughed Charis. “Anyway, I’m so glad you’ve come around to our side. I’m gonna rock that tournament!” She smiled broadly, and for the first time since they had sat at the café, a feeling of joyfulness hung over them.

Unfortunately, Gage couldn’t share in their happy sentiment. In fact, he felt a sinking feeling of dread in his stomach as he came to an awful realization…

That road he tried so hard to avoid? He was on it. 

Haley “Charis” Nickel emerged from her VR terminal feeling tired but excited. She and her friends had spent the last few hours relaxing after talking everything out, and it seemed like everyone was on the same page. The prospect of fighting in a tournament thrilled her, and the fact that she would be fighting for Gage provided extra motivation. Part of her worried about the inherent danger of such a competition, but she resolved to postpone those concerns until after she and the others had consulted with Milan. Right now, she had to arrange for a way to discreetly disappear for a week or so, and she knew just the thing.

With the press of a button, the pod-like VR terminal folded back into the wall, leaving a pristine corner in her otherwise messy room. With all the excitement going on in Perfect Dimension, she had neglected to tidy up the place in a while. Luckily, she had a single – how she kept her living space was her business and hers alone. Still, it spoke volumes about her priorities when her room in a video game was cleaner than her room in real life. Haley ignored the ever-growing piles of laundry scattered throughout the dorm and sat down at her desk before making a call.

“Hello?” The face of another college co-ed appeared on the screen.

“Hey, Christine, it’s Haley.”

“Haley! Where’ve you been? You’ve been a ghost this whole term!”

With a sheepish expression, Haley tried to explain without sounding like a total nerd. “I’ve been really trying to buckle down with school lately,” she said, figuring that was better than saying she played a computer game for hours a day.

But Christine gave her a knowing look. “That’s not what I’ve heard… I’ve heard you’ve been playing that ridiculous game pretty much non-stop.” Haley didn’t immediately respond, so Christine pressed on. “It’s obvious that I can’t convince you to stop… but if you ever get tired of playing… well, let’s just say that me and the other girls miss you, ok?”

“Thanks, Christine,” Haley said finally. While the conversation made her uncomfortable, she could appreciate that her sorority sister was trying to be there for her.

“Now what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, I was wondering about that service trip you were making off-planet…”

…

The pressure of Rima’s entire body pushed down on him as she pressed him into the floor with her foot. Despite her loud objections, he insisted that she ramp up the intensity of his training. Therefore, he once again found himself under the oppressive weight and stench of Rima’s sole.

“Gage, are you all right under there?” asked Rima, her voice concerned. He didn’t respond, and instead pressed upwards with all of his might. Covered in sweat – only some of it his own – Gage gritted his teeth and tried to force his concentration into razor-like focus.

“What, no love for me?” spat Alicia sarcastically. From the corner of his eye, Gage could see her struggling against Rima’s other foot, although she was making even less progress than him, if that was possible. She looked considerably worse for the wear after hours of mistreatment at the hands of Rima and Charis’s vengeful feet, although Gage thought Alicia she could herself lucky that neither of them had the stomach to abuse her in the more sexual manner that Alicia had put Rima through.

In any case, Alicia had surprised both of them when she had volunteered to participate in Rima’s training. “You’ve been stomping on me all day anyway; I might as well try to learn something from it,” she said, sounding both derisive and resigned. “Plus, if I can help Charis win this tournament, that’s helping myself out too, right?” She took a huge risk by speaking to Rima so bluntly, but Gage admired her boldness, as well as her shrewd judgment of character. If she had confronted Charis in the same way…

In the end, Rima had relented with a shrug. Alicia was right, after all; Rima wasn’t going to stop punishing the little bitch – but Gage definitely sensed a paradigm shift upon her acquiescence.

“I’ve heard about this process before,” said Alicia after Charis had explained to her the theoretical extent of her jailbroken abilities. “I read it was called ‘Willing.’”

“Willing?” Gage mused. “Sounds appropriate.” That’s when he had gotten the idea to go all out with the training. If he could somehow tap into the primal part of him that refused to back down, maybe he could channel that energy towards unlocking his jailbroken abilities.

This eventually led to Rima standing on top of the two shrunken players with all of her crushing weight, alternately standing and stomping on them with her bare feet. She had offered to wash the foot Gage would be under beforehand, but when he realized that Alicia would be afforded no such luxury, he declined. The more uncomfortable – the more strenuous – the better.

“Gage?” Rima asked again. This time, she sounded concerned, but there was also something else. Was that pity? Suddenly, irrational anger flared up in Gage’s mind. How must she view him? He probably looked like a pathetic bug underneath her foot, struggling pointlessly against weight. He had been shrunk for so long – she must think of him as subhuman – all because of his fucking size.

His fury boiled white-hot. The sheer unfairness of it all goaded him, stoking his rage to the point of mindlessness. And it felt good. On impulse, he let that emotion carry him, flow through him like a great wave. The wave grew and grew, expanded until it felt like his head literally burned.

And then… release.

Suddenly, the weight disappeared, followed by a loud yelp. Instead of Rima’s leg rising up over him, her toes framing his vision on either side, Gage had a clear view of the ceiling. Some furniture stood out in his periphery. Lifting his head from the floor, he saw Rima a few yards away. She wore a stunned expression as she regained her footing.

“Hey.” Gage turned his head on saw Alicia, herself panting and covered in sweat.

“Yeah?” He asked weakly, the stench of sweat permeating the air around him and invading his sinuses. He heaved a massive sigh, his anger replaced by a profound weariness.

“Nice one.”

…

Haley stood outside of a nondescript, gray building just off of the highway in a nondescript, Midwestern town. She had already made all of the necessary arrangements: she had told her parents that she was going on a school-sponsored trip to the moon, and therefore would be out of communications range for a couple of weeks. Of course she had also pulled out at the last minute from said trip, and now stood in front of the main office of Cryogenics, Inc., where no one would look to find her for a few weeks. While she didn’t expect for her stay in Perfect Dimension to last for that long, she knew she could just extend her stay by messaging her parents in-game. She didn’t like to betray their trust like this, but she assuaged her guilt by reminding herself that this was all for Gage. He would do the same for her.

As she walked into the building, she ruminated on her transformation from Haley to Charis. She had never been a very social girl, and although she grew into an objectively attractive person, which of course led to all kinds of attention, she had found that attention to be tiresome more than anything. Over the course of her life, the world had always seemed sort of dull and gray to her. For a time she experienced a low-level sense of misery and pointlessness that grew and grew, even after she started college. She staved off the negativity with books and movies – any kind of story, really – but it wasn’t until she had started playing Perfect Dimension that she finally felt she was part of an adventure, that she could escape the daily grind, and not just be a cog in some great machine.

Naturally, she took the roleplay aspect of the game very seriously, and she found the perfect companion for that in Gage, a like-minded recent college graduate. At this point, she considered him to be her closest friend. Whether or not there was a romantic aspect to her affection was something that she needed to sort out, but for now she felt content to just be his friend. In fact, she was about to take a big stride in their friendship: she was going to see what he looked like in real life.

“Welcome to Cryogenics, Inc., how can I help you?” greeted a pretty lady sitting behind a kiosk at the entry. As she walked up to the counter, Charis couldn’t help but admire building’s modern, slick sheen, something the outside lacked completely.

“Hi,” she began. “My name is Cha – err, Haley Nickel, and I’m here for your two week Stasis Package.”

“Ah yes, Ms. Nickel,” smiled the lady, “we’ve been expecting you. Come on back.” Haley nodded and followed the lady, whose business heels clacked loudly against the tile floor. “It says here that you’ve filled out all of the necessary documentation, and that you’re familiar with the procedure,” said the lady, pointing to the screen on her data pad. When Haley nodded her assent, the lady smiled broadly. “All right then, we can just move right along then, unless you have any other questions.”

“Actually,” said Haley, “I do have one quick question.”

“Yes?”

“I was hoping to see a close friend of mine. His name is Gage.”

“I’d be happy to accommodate you,” replied the lady. She tapped away at her data pad before leading her in another direction. “Right this way.”

Haley followed excitedly, wondering inwardly if Gage was as handsome in real life as in the game. He kept the same name, so it wouldn’t be so crazy for him to also have the same appearance, right? A short walk later led them to another room, this one lined with the pod-like VR terminals. The lady went immediately towards one.

“Here he is,” she said brightly.

Haley slowed down, suddenly feeling a little anxious. For some reason, she felt like an intruder on a private event. She pushed those feelings aside, however, and watched as a panel slid down.

Haley’s breath caught, and her hand went reflexively to her mouth.

“Is something wrong?” asked the lady.

“Uh… no, nothing,” she stammered, turning away. Haley couldn’t believe what she had just seen. It wasn’t that Gage was some gruesome ogre; far from it – his features roughly approximated his avatar’s in real life. It was something else entirely.

“It is a bit sad for someone like him to insist on a Lifetime Package,” admitted the lady, her hand on Haley’s shoulder comfortingly.

Haley moved back to the VR Terminal once more, and began to read off some of the identification information displayed on a side panel. Her eyes came to a stop at one line in particular, and she had to look away and back again just to confirm that she read it right – but there was no denying what it said.

Name: Gage Riley

Age: 42

 

Haley stared at the symbols on the screen. For some reason, she felt a sinking dread deep in the pit of her stomach; some detached part of her wondered why she should feel like that. So Gage had lied about his age – plenty of people do that online. Hell, people did that in real life too. But no, she couldn’t just let this go: this felt like a betrayal.

Another part of her protested reactively. Someone’s age didn’t bear any real significance; especially with all of the cosmetic procedures around these days, one could enjoy the perks of youth well past what was natural. The fact of the matter was Gage had been a real friend for a long time now, someone who she enjoyed spending time with and who she felt she could trust.

Trust. Hadn’t he broken that trust by lying about his age. If their bond was truly as strong as she thought, Gage wouldn’t need to do that; why had he done that? Was it something she had done?

Haley shook her head in an attempt to clear her frantic thoughts. No – Gage was still her friend. This oversight, while it felt… weird, didn’t change anything. In fact, she would just keep the whole thing to herself. He must have his reasons for not telling her, and it wasn’t her place to snoop around. Gage would tell her when the time was right.

“Is everything all right?” Haley looked up and saw the receptionist giving her a concerned look.

“Oh!” she started. “Yes, everything is fine. I think I’m ready for my little nap,” she added, forcing cheeriness.

“Okay then, please follow me.” As they walked, the receptionist gently tried to explanation the safety and simplicity of the procedure, mistaking Haley’s consternation. “It’s really very simple; you just sit in a modified VR pod for as long as you specified. A feeding tube and other bio-facilitators will make sure that your body comes out feeling safe and sound once your time is up.”

Haley nodded absently, her thoughts still on Gage. Somehow, after the dust had all settled from her recent revelation, she cared about him more than before. She would do everything she could to show him that she was there for him, and maybe then he would feel comfortable confiding in her. As she closed her eyes before being put under, one last thought occurred to her: what could make a 42 year old man just leave his life forever?

…

Charis took the now familiar route back to Rima’s apartment. Rima had programmed the elevator to recognize Charis, so she no longer had to ring a doorbell and be let in. However, maybe that would’ve been better, because the sight that greeted her definitely caught her off-guard.

“I’m gonna get you, you little bug!” cried Rima as she dashed around her penthouse. She occasionally threw a kick at a miniscule figure, presumably Gage, but she never once connected with her target – unless her goal was to destroy all of her furniture.

“Haha, I’d like to see you try you big cow!” crowed the little man as he moved at quite impressive speeds. As Gage fled his gigantic pursuer, he would send fiery red arcs from his sword towards Rima, who actively tried to avoid them.

Charis watched with morbid fascination as Rima charged around her home, destroying everything in her path as she gave fervent chase. Her rueful smile quickly changed to a look of alarm as Gage abruptly changed directions – straight towards her. Charis couldn’t be sure, but she thought he spotted a downright devilish expression on his face as he led an over-focused Rima towards an imminent crash.

The collision seemed to play out in slow motion. Rima, so intent on crushing Gage, only noticed Charis’s presence when she saw the little guy dart between a pair of feet. She had just enough time to swivel her look upwards before barreling directly into a shrieking Charis, sending both of them to the floor.

“What the Hell is going on?” she demanded, her voice exasperated.

“Gage has made a real breakthrough with his training,” explained Rima, her attempt at a calm, even demeanor marred by her breathlessness and obvious excitement. “He’s improved drastically in just a few hours. Even at his size and proportionate level decrement, I have to exert considerable effort to beat him – with just my feet of course.”

“Speaking of feet,” said Charis with a mischievous smile, nodding mischievously towards a small figure transfixed to Rima’s right sole, “I wouldn’t mind having a go with our little stress reliever. It’s been a long day.”

Rima looked down and laughed at the miserable Alicia, her face pressed up against the sweaty sole. “Oh, I had completely forgotten about her,” she said, peeling the tiny woman off nonchalantly. She held the woman up to her face, but scrunched her nose immediately at the stench. “Wow, you reek! Not unexpected, obviously, but still,” she added with a laugh. “Now I’m going to give you to Charis now, and you know she’s not gonna be as nice to you as me. Still, if you can prove to her you’ve had a change of heart as well, maybe things will get better for you.”

With that, Rima tossed the limp woman to Charis, who snatched her out of the air and began to squeeze mercilessly. “I don’t know what she’s talking about, worm, but don’t think for a second I’ll ever forgive you for what you did to us,” she snarled, finding it surprisingly easy to take her anger out on the tiny girl. For her part, Alicia seemed too wore down to resist or even respond to Charis, so with a shrug, she slipped off her boot and dropped Alicia inside. As she put her undoubtedly rancid boot back on, she cast a questioning look towards Rima.

“Oh, well since you’ve been gone, Alicia has participated in our training as well,” explained Rima. “Ostensibly, she’s doing it in order to give you an even better chance of winning the tournament and therefore leading to her freedom – she hopes. I obviously haven’t made her any guarantees.” Rima’s expression turned thoughtful. “Either way, she doesn’t have much to do under our feet all the time but try to work on her jailbroken abilities – so if you happen to feel her push up on your foot a little extra, it means she’s making progress.”

“Really?” asked Charis, casting a look down at her boot. She grinned wolfishly as she imagined the suffocating heat Alicia must be experiencing underneath her toes, which proceeded to wiggle, bashing the little woman in the face with the sweaty digits. “How’s she coming along?”

“Not well, actually,” replied Rima, “but as a sign of good faith, I stopped wearing her inside of shoes and just let her stick to my sole barefoot. It’s only marginally better for her, but she seemed to like it.”

“Well she’s not gonna get anything like that from me,” spat Charis, stomping her foot just to emphasize her point. “Although I am hoping that she figures out how to increase her strength a little bit – that way she’ll be a better insole!”

“Anyway, we should get down to business,” said Rima. “Where’s Gage?”

A quick search turned up their diminutive friend fast asleep on a table. They exchanged silent laughs, and crept away, allowing him to keep sleeping. Still, Charis couldn’t help but look at Gage’s youthful features and think back to his real age. What else was he hiding from her?

Alicia suffered through her endless mistreatment with smoldering resentment. Presently, she experienced the nauseating G-forces of Charis’s rising and falling steps: words that wouldn’t normally be put together, but in this special case, the description served well. At her miniscule size, underneath the reeking toes of her former sex slave, even the slightest movements had vast repercussions for her body and senses. A twitching of the toes resulted in a battering ram of flesh knocking her had back into the revolting insole behind her; the confines of the boot alone led to unbearable heat and endless salty moisture; however, the suffocating stench was worse than both of those. Alicia longed for a breath of fresh air, but instead each inhalation brought more of the sour, cheesy stink.

Still, all of this paled in comparison to the pressure of her steps. With each stride came an inevitable redistribution of weight and soaring compression against her little body. While she could withstand the force coming down on her, especially since Charis’s toes seemed to fold over her like a gel, each step pushed the air from her lungs, leaving her sputtering and gasping for more of the foot-infused air. To combat this, Alicia had to time her breathing precisely with Charis’s footsteps. Couple this with the random vicious stomps and spiteful grinding sessions, and it was a wonder that Alicia hadn’t gone completely insane.

One thing kept her going: hatred.

Even the most extreme conditions become normal given time, and just the same for Alicia’s current predicament. As she endured the repulsive environment of Charis’s boot, Alicia tried her best to withdraw into herself, to numb her senses against her suffering. Instead, she concentrated on manipulating the environment around her, in whatever covert, small way she could. By bringing her Will to bear, she attempted to lower the temperature in the boot – so far she couldn’t tell if her efforts made a difference, which made sense, given her chaotic circumstances. Maybe it was a futile endeavor, but it’s not like she had anything better to do. On top of that, the possibility of using those abilities to get free and eventually exact her revenge on the pink-haired bitch provided unlimited motivation.

So Alicia stewed and fumed beneath Charis’s merciless, stinking, sweaty foot, quietly and angrily determined to escape this hell.

…

Charis wiggled her toes absent-mindedly, enjoying the way her little prisoner felt beneath them. Maybe it was her imagination, but she felt like that foot in particular wasn’t sweating as much as the other – she would have to rectify that right away. She began to fidget that foot ceaselessly, the rapid fire movement quickly warming up her toes and sole and undoubtedly giving that bitch Alicia more of what she deserved. While it seemed Rima and Gage were coming around to her, Alicia could stay in her stinking boot for eternity and Charis wouldn’t feel a drop of remorse. After what she had done to them, two eternities still wouldn’t be enough.

Presently, the three friends sat at a restaurant, just killing time and talking before they headed over to meet with Milan.

“So you’re still in college, right?” asked Rima between bites of a salad.

“Yeah, I go to Till University,” she replied. “I managed to put together a little scheme to take off for a while so that I could win this tournament.” She then proceeded to explain her preparations.

Rima actually clapped her approval, while Gage nodded – a little distractedly, Charis thought. “Nice job, Charis – but after this, you really should get back to the real world. You can’t spend all of your time with two losers like us.”

Charis arched an eyebrow. “Are you two trying to break up with me?” she joked. “Is something going on here that I don’t know about?”

Rima blushed furiously, but Gage didn’t seem to hear her. Aggravatingly, he had been more-or-less disengaged for most of the day. “That’s not it at all,” protested Rima, brushing her snowy white locks aside. “I just think… well, you have your whole life to live out there. You shouldn’t be playing this stupid game with all of your spare time.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” responded Charis firmly. “You two are my friends, and I want to hang out with you as much as I can. Besides, the real world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, right Gage?” Once again, he ignored both of them. “Right, Gage?” Charis repeated pointedly, directing her relatively much larger voice towards where he sat on the table.

That seemed to do the trick, and the little man blinked a few times before swiveling his head from Charis to Rima and back. “Yeah, definitely,” he said, his voice low.

“Is something wrong?” asked Charis gently, trying to cover the edge of irritation. Here she was, taking a huge risk on his behalf, and for nothing in return – while he actively lied to her about his age – and he couldn’t even be bothered to pay attention to their conversation! “You seem kind of out of it.”

“Yeah, sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just that Willing definitely takes a lot out of me,” he explained. Rima nodded, while Charis gazed at him intently. “Not only that, but in order to get it to work… I don’t know how to say this,” he faltered. “Basically, I have to be really angry – seriously, seriously furious – to get it work. That’s basically the opposite of how I normally am, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.”

Charis’s irritation evaporated. In an instantaneous change of heart, she remembered how hard it was for her friend right now. She wanted nothing more than to snatch up her little friend and hug him tightly, but she sensed that he needed some space. “Don’t worry, Gage, I’m sure it’s just something you have to get through.”

“Yeah,” agreed Rima, “I’m sure that you can get past it. I never had that issue, but everyone does it differently.”

“All right, thanks for the encouragement,” said Gage, sounding every bit like a recent college graduate. Charis inwardly marveled at how well he pulled off the act. “And sorry I’ve been out of it – we’ve got bigger things on our plate right now.”

With that, everything seemed to go back to normal. Still, Charis couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on with her little friend.

…

Not long afterwards, the three friends once again stood in Milan’s floating glass office. Impeccably dressed in an all-black suit, the man had an aura of unfathomable power about him. Charis couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew exactly what she was thinking at all times.

“Welcome back,” he greeted them. His tone and demeanor seemed genuinely welcoming, but that of course led Charis to suspect him, knowing his reputation of power and influence. Milan rose from his executive chair and walked around his desk. He shook hands with Rima and Charis, and gave Gage a nod. He gestured to two seats in front of his desk and returned back to his own chair. “So have you reached a decision?” he asked finally.

Gage, standing on an armrest, turned his head back and looked at her. Rima followed suit, and also gave her hand an encouraging squeeze, letting her know that the decision was hers and hers alone. Charis cleared her throat and said, “Well, we’re leaning towards ‘yes,’ but we need to know more about the situation. What are the risks involved? What are our chances for success? I think you’ll understand our concern.”

“Naturally,” smiled Milan. “In fact, your prudence encourages me – it means that you’ll make similarly good decisions in pursuit of our mutual goal.” Charis nodded, feeling both intimidated and empowered. “Unfortunately, for such clear-minded individuals I have no guarantees.” Charis breath caught in her throat, and she became very still. “I have something you want badly, and you have something I want only in a moderate capacity,” he said seriously, yet without malice. His tone was… reasonable. “Furthermore, there exists an information disparity: I know very well the associated risks, but there is no way for you to ascertain them. Ultimately that leaves you with only one small solace: you have my word.”

“So really you could be a lying, smooth-talking bastard – am I right?” cut in Rima viciously. Her words dripped poisonously; Charis had never seen her so fierce.

“Right you are,” replied Milan, unperturbed. “But as I said before, the incentives in this situation are aligned. I want you to win as badly as you do. I might add that you gain a certain amount of… exposure… for doing well in this tournament.”

“This is totally ridiculous,” spat Rima. “You could be lying through your teeth right now and there’s no way we’d ever know it.” She turned her gaze back to Charis, “Listen, let’s get out of here. There’s plenty of other ways to – ”

Charis quit listening to Rima’s rant. She tuned out her voice and her eyes wandered to where Gage stood on the armrest, his mind once again wandering elsewhere. He looked so… forlorn. It hadn’t been all that long since his original shrinking, but Charis could tell it had taken a toll on him. She remembered back to win her friend had been full of a quiet confidence – unshakable dependability. Now, he was just a shell of his old self, always brooding. Even if he wouldn’t show it, Gage needed her now more than ever.

“I’ll do it!” blurted Charis. Rima went into a stunned silence. Gage stared at her, wide-eyed. Even Milan looked taken aback. She took a deep breath, and repeated herself, this time more slowly, resolutely.

“I’ll do it.”

 

Charis took a deep breath. She felt the air flow into lungs, puffing up her chest and stretching her skin. She felt the air push out of her nose; her body felt more alive than it had ever been, even more than in the real world.

“Are you ok?” asked Rima, whose eyes peered at her unblinkingly. She squatted over Charis’s chair slightly, her head and neck extended into Charis’s personal space.

“Yeah,” she replied breathily. She was definitely experiencing some sensory overload. Everything had taken on so much clarity; it felt like she was on some kind of drug. “This is… pretty cool.”

“I’m glad you like it,” chirped Gage from a nearby armrest. “Now let’s get to it.”

“Come on, Gage,” protested Rima. “Let her enjoy it for a bit.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he replied seriously. “We have ten days before the tournament to prepare, and I don’t want to take any chances with my friend’s life.”

Rima seemed like she wanted to argue with him, but she backed down when Milan cut in gently. “He’s right, Rima. We should really try to maximize Charis’s abilities before she enters the arena.”

“Don’t worry,” soothed Charis. “I’ll be able to enjoy it on the go.” The white-haired witch nodded, and both of them got up simultaneously, as if by some unspoken signal. “Ok, Milan. What’s next?”

The next ten days passed by in a blur. Charis spent most of that time in combat with Rima. With the aid of Gage and Alicia, she easily outmatched her friend, so they only joined in on the fight sporadically. Much to Charis’s annoyance, this meant that Alicia wouldn’t spend 100% of her time being crushed by her feet; more annoying than that, however, was the fact that Alicia spent this time training with Gage. Charis would never admit it, even to herself, but she was beside herself with jealousy, so much so that she went to great lengths to punish Alicia further when she got the chance. For instance, over the course of the ten days, she didn’t wash her feet a single time. This required ridiculous contortions on her part, starting with baths only and ending with clever disc usage to hover herself out of the water without getting any soap whatsoever no her feet. But in the end, it was all worth it to Charis just to see Alicia’s disgusted face as she massaged and licked Charis’s sweaty toes every night.

For her part, Alicia seemed energized by their preparations. By all accounts, she trained diligently alongside Gage, and on top of that, she took Charis’s abuse with few outward complaints. This turnaround seemed bizarre to Charis, and she began to suspect Alicia of some sort of foul play; but both Rima and Gage dismissed her concerns, saying that she just wanted to be unshrunk when the whole ordeal was over. While Charis had never agreed to that, Rima and Gage both laughed it off when she insisted that Alicia would be her little foot slave forever.

Speaking of laughing, Gage wasn’t doing much of it. As each day went by, he seemed to grow more and more somber. Rima chalked that up to plain intensity: “He really doesn’t want you to get hurt, dear,” she explained. “The more intense he gets, the more it shows how much he cares about you.” Still, Charis couldn’t help but notice how much he had changed. He hardly ever joked anymore.

At the same time, Rima and Charis grew closer and closer. They spent almost every waking moment together, starting and ending each day with some meditation exercises meant to help her with Willing. Aside from that, they had frequent sparring sessions, and both Rima and Milan showed her any number of fighting tricks to pull out in her upcoming battles.

Once Charis had agreed to participate, Milan had become her de facto personal trainer. He split his time between her and Gage (and Alicia), training both of them with exercises meant to maximize her potential leading up to the tournament. On top of that, he spent a few hours each day describing her potential opposition – their strengths and weaknesses, and how to exploit them.

Unfortunately, his information in that area was vanishingly scarce, so he spent much of that time going over past competitors and some of the tricks they had used to get wins. At least once per session, Milan would analyze a fight in which the loser actually died, and he would go on to explain his or her fatal mistake, while also emphasizing to her that deaths only occurred about 10% of the time. Plus, he assured her, with the help of Gage and Alicia, she was already more powerful than any two of the past champions combined. The way Milan made it sound, Charis was the prohibitive favorite to win this event and get that favor.

So, at the end of ten days, they had all gathered once again in Milan’s office.

“Feeling ready?” asked Rima with an encouraging smile.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” sighed Charis. “With some help from my little friends, I should be fine.” Charis gave Gage, who presently floated on Nightwing beside her head, an appreciative nod. She also scrunched her undoubtedly rancid toes over Alicia in a kind of pseudo-hug, the “nicest” thing she had ever done for the little bitch.

“We’ll be receiving special transportation soon,” said Milan, calm as always. “Don’t be intimidated,” he warned. “The tournament draws many jailbroken characters on the server, but overall there should only be a few hundred players in attendance. That being said, the unfettered power of Willing tends to result in some rather… ostentatious… displays.”

As if on cue, a swirling slash appeared behind them, twisting and forming into the familiar oval waypoint. From it emerged a stupefyingly beautiful woman, even by the already sky high standards of the game. Like some Greek goddess, she wore a snowy white tunic with a gold belt; the outfit did little to hide her lithe figure, and even Charis had to appreciate the marvelous programming that must have gone into designing the avatar. To complete the effect, she sported a halo and a pair of billowing angel wings on her back, taking the whole scene to the other side of ludicrous.

“Follow me, please,” she said with a beckoning wave. The group promptly stepped through the portal, and emerged on a cliff level clearly designed for its breath-taking views. They stood atop an enormous mountain overlooking a truly spectacular view. Down below stretched a valley with a stream going through the center, by itself impressive, but nothing to write home about. Charis had to look up to see the truly impressive part.

There, up in the sky, hovered an absolutely colossal dragon. Its blood-colored wings flapped majestically, like some monumental windmill, seemingly stretching across the horizon. It seemed impossible for such a large creature to hang suspended in the air like that, but there it was, shining like a ruby moon in a light-blue ocean. Rima whistled in awe, and even Milan bore a rueful look.

“If you please,” said their flawless guide, directing their attention backwards.

“Oh come on,” breathed Charis, her eyes greeted by a golden chariot with four dazzlingly white Pegasi (or Pegasuses? Charis didn’t know) harnessed and seemingly eager to fly. “You weren’t kidding – these guys are over the top,” Charis whispered to Milan, who smiled.

“They’re going with the fantasy theme this time, I suppose.”

They piled into the gilded chariot before it set a course for the titanic dragon in the sky. As they drew closer, Charis thought she saw something moving amongst its red scales. A few more minutes passed before she realized what it really was: people.

“Are those buildings?” asked Rima, confirming Charis’s suspicion. On top the beast’s back, made up of its ruby red scales, was a sizable village filled with people moving to and fro, seemingly unaware that their town rested on the back of a huge reptile. It didn’t take long for them to settle on a scale of their own, where Charis tentatively disembarked, perhaps subconsciously worried that the dragon would feel her presence and try to scratch her off like a flea.

Once they all stood on the scale, another unearthly beautiful woman moved forward to meet them, her arms spread amiably.

 “Welcome to Tenaxis.”

 

After a few quick pleasantries, the “angel” led them from the particularly flat scale they had landed on into the “city.”

“Tenaxis is the name of both the dragon and the city,” explained their guide as she gestured grandly towards the scarlet edifices that loomed around them. The horns and scales of the titanic dragon had been carved into homes and buildings. As such, the streets they walked on lacked any kind of rhyme or reason, and instead seemed to whirl and twist wherever they pleased. The great beast was so massive that Charis would’ve been completely oblivious had she not known better. However, she did know better, and she knew that each building represented a miniscule horn on the back of a tremendous reptile. When she looked up, Charis could see much larger spikes rising up in every direction, all of them colored in a bloody red.

They hadn’t walked for long when the guide led them up to one such spike, which towered over them like a skyscraper. They marched through a large, door-less opening into a much larger atrium, revealing that the entire spike was hollow. Sweeping rounded edges and a complete lack of corners completed the modern, albeit red, aesthetic.

“Your chambers,” she finally announced. She pressed a button, which prompted a circular door to slide open. Inside, a set of luxurious appointed suites greeted them. They continued the red theme, although less aggressively so. While the room certainly had a lot of red, the dominant color was a pleasantly soft cream. Charis smiled ruefully, inwardly comparing the gorgeous lodgings with her own room in the real world. “I hope you found your accommodations to be satisfactory,” said the woman – drily, Charis imagined. “Tonight there will be an opening ceremony event held by Erivar Vane himself. Someone will be over to bring you to the event in four hours. The first matches in the competition begin tomorrow. If there aren’t any questions, I’ll let you rest.”

“Thank you for your hospitality,” said Milan. Charis and the others chimed in their appreciation. Once she had gone, Milan turned to address them. “We have quite a bit of time. I suggest you spend the time resting. Tomorrow, we’ll put our training to the test.” After a general chorus of agreement, Charis moved out to claim a bed for her own before promptly collapsing onto it. She fell asleep to the pleasant wiggling sensation in her toes caused by Alicia’s struggles.

…

“Wake up, you slob,” chided Rima, shaking her friend awake. “It’s time to go. I have no idea how you slept for this long.” Charis couldn’t believe it either. She shook her head vigorously and got to her feet; she certainly felt refreshed. “Another one of those girls is at the door waiting for us.” Charis could tell she didn’t like the beautiful women sent to escort them around, but Rima went ahead and confirmed it for her anyway. “Why can’t they send some handsome men over instead of these bimbos!”

Charis laughed while absent-mindedly stomping her feet as she tried to get her circulation going. “I’m sure if you ask this Erivar Vane character nicely enough, he can snap his fingers and get that set up for you.”

“Definitely don’t do that,” Milan cut in smoothly from the door to the room. “Now let’s get going.” Charis nodded, and the pair followed him onto the front. As she looked at the back of his immaculate suit, Charis pondered how Milan had quickly become a friend – of sorts. While none of them knew a thing about him – they were too intimidated to ask, really – he seemed so genuine and amiable that it was hard not to trust him. This contradictory set of circumstances resulted in a sort of cognitive dissonance, one that left her subtly uncertain. Ultimately, she justified her actions by reminding herself that this was for Gage, who Milan would restore at the end of all of this.

Speaking of the little guy, Gage spoke to their latest “angel,” perched at eye-level on Nightwing just outside of their suite. Charis put on a half-hearted smile – she would never admit it, but these unearthly women strutting about grated on her too. “Where to?” she asked.

The woman returned the smile and said, “The opening ceremony isn’t far from here. Please follow me.” The group followed this latest guide outside, where night had fallen. When Charis looked it up, she could tell by the stars and moon that they were actually moving, but like some tremendous ship, the motion of the dragon on her was negligible. Despite the lack of sunlight, it was actually quite easy to see. The celestial bodies lit up the way quite well, presumably because they floated above any cloud cover. Furthermore, the dragon’s scales had an ambient glow about them, like dying embers. When they made a left turn onto the closest thing Charis had seen to a straight road so far, she realized that they must be at the very top of the dragon’s back, and that the massive spikes on either side probably extended from its nose to the tip of its tail.

In fact, just ahead an especially tremendous spike rose out of the creature’s scales, this one in the very center of the de facto boulevard. Noticing her gaze, their guide confirmed her suspicion. “Yes, that horn in particular is where Master Vane is having the opening ceremony. We’re actually approaching the base of the dragon’s neck.”

The group nodded politely, before they settled into a hushed silence. The “city” seemed mostly deserted, but as they approached the wickedly curved bone ahead of them, more angels trickled onto the main thoroughfare with people in tow. Presumably, these others were her opposition, so she tried to surreptitiously appraise them.

For the most part, they seemed normal enough. About half of them wore formal clothes like Milan, while the other half wore their battle gear like Charis. A number of them didn’t have human avatars at all, and among these the whole spectrum of beastly characters made an appearance. Nonetheless, aside from all being level 99 (an achievement she had reached without fanfare during her training with Rima), and being decked out in some of the most jaw-droppingly powerful items in the game, they didn’t seem very remarkable. No doubt they planned to save their best skills for the actual competition.

“What do you think?” whispered Charis to Gage. “Do you think we can take them?”

Gage didn’t respond. Instead, he eyed the other players intensely, as if all it took was a menacing stare to defeat them. Charis sighed and kept walking.

She didn’t have long to be irritated at Gage’s disengagement, though. Their destination quickly commanded her full attention. As they drew near, it became obvious that this was no ordinary horn. Part of it had been hollowed out to create an alcove, which had been further carved up to create a series of outrageous murals. Battles between armies and dragons, gods and men, and yet more scenes with yet more beautiful women covered the edifice of bone. The sheer size of the creation made the whole thing more impressive still, and even though Charis had begun to feel numb to all of the flamboyance, she had to admit that this latest spectacle topped everything else. As they proceeded through a tremendous opening, the monolithic structure rose up in a mind-boggling dome above them, reminding her of the Vatican or some similarly absurd creation. Up in the ceiling, yet more statues of dragons and other ridiculous beasts crouched along the edges, while still further carvings stretched up to the walls all around them.

Charis had been craning her neck upward for so long that she almost failed to notice the array of circular ivory tables scattered across the tremendous room. Seemingly also formed directly from the dragon’s bone, each piece had been elaborated sculpted as well, and it appeared that every seat had been specifically reserved. Their guide didn’t hesitate as she led them to one table in particular, and Charis took a seat facing the main attraction of the entire room: a throne.

“This guy really likes dragons,” muttered Rima. While the absurd structure before them was technically for sitting, it actually bore the form of a coiled serpent not unlike the one they currently rode upon. It shone much brighter than the real thing, however, because each scale had clearly been made from rubies, or some other precious stone.

“That thing can’t be comfortable,” noted Charis. The two shared a smile, but remained silent. Despite the large number of people present (Charis estimated the number to be easily in the hundreds), an unnatural hush came over the crowd. Likely, the ridiculous dragon-temple-thing had cowed everyone.

“Are you liking everything so far?” Charis spun around in surprise, her eyes meeting those of a non-descript but well-dressed man with a trimmed beard.

“Uh…” she stammered, “yes.”

“Good,” he replied, his eyes dazzling with mirth. “Your methods are… interesting,” he said with a knowing glance at her boots. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can get you.” With that, he strode away to another table and greeted another person, leaving a speechless, pink-haired girl in his wake.

“This year is different,” remarked Milan with a rueful smile.

“Why?” asked Charis. “Who was that?”

“I don’t ever recall Erivar Vane personally greeting each participant,” he said almost glibly.

Charis felt a thrill of excitement pulse through her chest, but she couldn’t marinate on her encounter for long because just a moment later Vane stood in front of his chair and called for everyone’s attention.

“Hey everybody,” he spoke with a magnified, yet ridiculously informal voice.

“Really taking it a new direction,” Charis heard Milan whisper under his breath.

“Glad we could all get together for this little competition,” he said laconically. “Before we start having the contestants beat each other senseless, let’s have a little party. Sounds good?”

An awkward silence ensued.

“Sounds good?” he prodded, this time a bit annoyed. The crowd met this with a roar of approval, which brought a smile to Vane’s lips. “That’s more like it.”

 

Not too much later, Charis found herself quite drunk. Her skin flushed and her head swimming pleasantly, she chattered with her friends quite happily as festivities got under way.

“In previous iterations of this tournament,” explained Milan, “Vane held them in dark, secretive locales. Last year the tournament was held in an underground dungeon and only a hundred or so people attended.”

“You mean kind of like that old movie, Bloodsport?” asked Rima loudly. Predictably, the alcohol had made her much more gregarious.

Milan arched an eyebrow. “You like vintage martial arts movies?” he asked incredulously. To Charis’s shock, the pair began prattling on about Jean Claude Van Damme like a pair of bespectacled nerds. She looked at Gage, who only shrugged in reply. He nursed a beverage of his own, but it didn’t seem to loosen him up appreciably. Charis took another swallow of her drink and shifted closer to where he stood on the table, resting her chin on her hands so that they could speak to each other on an equal footing.

“Hey, Gage, what’s up with you these days?” she queried.

“Just want to get this over with so that I can go back to my normal size,” he replied noncommittally.

“Yeah, me too,” she agreed. “I think that – ”

“Hey, do you have Alicia?” interrupted Rima.

“Yeah, why?” asked Charis suspiciously.

“Let’s get her drunk!”

Now it was Charis’s turn to arch an eyebrow. A short stare down ensued, but it was unceremoniously interrupted when Rima lunged for Charis’s boot and began trying to yank it off.

“Okay, okay, stop!” protested Charis with a huff. “I’ll do it myself.” Grabbing her footwear, she shook its contents out onto the table.

“Ew!” said Rima. “No socks, Charis? That’s just cruel,” she giggled.

Alicia did look pretty pathetic. Clearly weakened by the many hours spent inside Charis’s boot, the diminutive woman flopped onto the table and remained inert.

“Look at her, she’s covered in your foot sweat! And she stinks!” laughed Rima. For reasons she didn’t quite understand, Charis actually blushed. She looked to see if any of her friends had noticed, but of course Rima was too focused on Alicia, while Gage still couldn’t be bothered with much of anything. Milan looked out at the other players gathered in the hall with studied indifference. “You really shouldn’t have been such a bitch to us, you know,” chided Rima with an air of superiority. “I know that we’re being pretty cruel to you, but I feel like you and your friends were a lot worse.” Rima spoke in a conspiratorial tone, like she was letting someone in on an inside joke. When she withdrew her wand from inside her cloak, Alicia cringed instinctively. “Oh quit with the drama,” Rima scoffed. She pointed the wand at the little woman and promptly cast a healing spell, which visibly mended her many bruises.

“What are you doing?” asked Charis, probably too loudly.

“This.” Without warning, Charis pinched Alicia’s ankle between thumb and forefinger, lifted her up over a glass full of neat whiskey (Rima’s preferred beverage), and began dunking her head first into the alcoholic liquid. Alicia looked like a shipwreck survivor, which sent both Rima and Charis into waves of laughter. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Charis followed suit; a few more dunks, and Alicia had caught up to them.

“I think I’m going to head back to the suites,” announced Gage all of a sudden.

“Why?” asked Charis, her voice disappointed.

“I’m not feeling well,” he replied. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.” With that, he stepped onto his miniature disc and flew off.

“Wait – won’t he be in danger?” asked Rima.

“Don’t worry,” said Milan. “I’ll go with him. Try not to have too much fun, ladies.”

Charis glowered for a moment, her eyes following Milan’s impeccable suit before returning to Alicia. “This is all your fault, you bitch” she said accusingly. On a sudden, malicious impulse, she spat on the hateful woman, knocking her down with a disgusting glob of saliva. “Ever since the day we met you, Gage hasn’t been the same. I should just fucking…” her voice choked with anger even as she raised her hand with obvious intentions.

“No! Please, wait!” squealed Alicia, her hands instinctively over her head. “I’m so sorry, I really am!” she cried.

Charis’s eyes narrowed on the little woman. “That’s not good enough.”

“Please, just hear me out,” Alicia begged.

“No,” replied Charis coldly. She whipped her hand downwards, only for Rima to stop it midway.

“Don’t be stupid, Charis,” said Rima. “I hate her too, but we need Alicia for the tournament.” Rima snatched the little woman from the table, both to protect her from Charis’s instability and also to dry her off on the fabric of her cloak. Alicia began to sob uncontrollably, her stoic mask crumbling underneath the combination of fear and alcohol. “Besides…” continued Rima in a more gentle tone. “We can’t hold a grudge like this forever. If nothing else, it’s just plain unattractive.”

“But don’t you remember everything she did to us?” protested Charis. She couldn’t help but feel betrayed.

“Yes, of course I remember,” said Rima. “But at some point we have to let these things go.” She gazed at Charis from beneath her white locks, her expression soft yet firm. “Promise me you’ll let her go after we restore Gage’s size.”

Hot indignation rose up in Charis’s body. She couldn’t possibly let this slide. She opened her mouth to give Rima a piece of her mind… but instead of a blistering tirade, Charis could only sigh heavily. She slumped back into her chair and hung her head. “You’re right. As much as I hate that little bitch, I just don’t have it in me to keep this up forever.”

Alicia still in one hand, Rima pulled her friend into a hug. “I knew you’d do the right thing,” she said. “But look on the bright side – we can still mess with her until the end of the tournament!”

“Huh?”

Rima drew back from the hug and held up the little woman between them. “She has to try her best to help us win, because that’s the only chance she’ll have of returning back to her old size.”

“That’s right, I knew that,” said Charis with a finger to her chin. “So the question is what should we do with her?”

“Please don’t hurt me,” squeaked Alicia, surprising both of them by daring to speak at all. “I’ll happily keep licking your feet, but please don’t hurt me!”

“What if we just cut her arms off or something?” suggested Rima. Alicia flinched noticeably.

Charis grinned as she looked down at the tiny woman. “You know, that does sound nice – but I think you’ve made me soft with all of this talk about mercy or whatever.” Predictably, Alicia’s face lit up with hope. “In fact, if she wants to lick feet so badly, we should try to accommodate her. Would you like that, Alicia?”

“Yes, yes please – I’d love to lick your beautiful toes.” Charis had never seen Alicia brown nose so blatantly. Usually she obeyed readily enough, but with obvious aversion. To her credit, she somehow maintained a cold dignity despite Charis’s most humiliating commands. Right now, though, she was like a puppy. The booze probably had something to do with it.

“Wow,” commented Rima. “Alicia’s more fun when she’s like this.”

Charis nodded as she raised a hand to flag down one of the “angels” strutting around.

“How can I help you?” she asked politely.

“Actually,” began Charis, “we want to help you.” The blonde beauty looked confused. “You’ve probably been walking around all day in those white pumps – your feet must be killing you.” The girl nodded hesitantly. “Well I think we have just the thing for you.”

 

Charis woke up the next morning with a groan. She had a pounding headache and stinging photosensitivity, tell-tale symptoms of a hangover. Despite her protesting body, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, but didn’t get much farther than that as she dropped her head in defeat. She had never been hungover in a video game, but she supposed there was a first for everything. She dimly recalled that the alcohol pumped directly into her veins by her VR Pod exactly replicated whatever alcohol she drank in game, but she found that hard to believe: it felt like she had been hit by a truck, and it’s not like she had never had  a few rum and Cokes before.

A muffled cough broke the silence of the room, followed by what sounded like vomiting. Looking down at her feet, Charis felt a little moisture pooling at her right big toe. Her curiosity overcame her dreadful temperament and she peeled off her reeking sock and shook its contents over her palm. Out tumbled little Alicia, and one look at her face told Charis that the little woman felt just as horrible, which actually got her to smile.

It all came back to her: Vane’s little speech prompted a party of epic proportions, complete with drinking and dancing and all manner of hedonism. After Rima insisted that Charis remove Alicia from her boot, the pair had the little woman licking all kinds of feet. In fact, the first “angel” rounded up a few of her friends and took the group to a more private setting, whereupon the little woman was set upon by hordes of hungry toes. Charis had briefly and drunkenly pondered the hypocrisy of the situation: normal people, including herself, could be so easily tempted to commit malice behind the veil of online anonymity. And while she wasn’t exactly anonymous to Alicia, these serving girls certainly were (were they bots? Charis didn’t think so), but they didn’t hesitate in joining in on the malicious fun.

The evening proceeded predictably: Alicia found herself being mercilessly assaulted by the stink of multiple feet – the serving girls would come in and out of their private room to take their breaks and have their soles pampered by the little woman. Some of the serving girls reacted with surprise, but mostly, they didn’t ask questions and took it in stride. The opportunity to be deliberately cruel to a helpless person didn’t come often, and as Charis had surmised earlier, the nature of the game provided the degree of separation required to reveal the darkness in all of them.

What wasn’t so predictable was the effect of alcohol for all parties. As Alicia became more and more inebriated (Rima and Charis would periodically dunk her in shot glasses), the mood in the room actually began to lighten. Baleful hatred on Charis’s part slowly transformed into a more playful cruelty – it reminded her of how she used to haze pledges back when she actually cared about her sorority. The sisterhood never meant to actively hurt their newly inducted members: hazing was meant to be fun for both the hazers and the haze-ees so to speak. Indeed, it had become almost institutionalized, but that didn’t completely prevent an edge of sadism from creeping in.

“Hey, what’s the matter with you?” Charis’s head snapped up to see Rima standing in the door. Charis realized that she had been staring at Alicia in her palm for a while now, as if in a trance. Rima walked over to her and put a tan pill in her upheld palm next to the little woman. Charis recognized it as an anti-hangover pill.

“Thanks,” said Charis. Rima scoffed as she turned away, muttering about alcohol tolerance and responsibility. Charis grabbed up the pill with her other hand and raised it to her mouth – but then she hesitated. She brought it back down and, with Alicia still in her other hand, she used her fingers to break the pill in half. With careful deliberation, she tracked down a tiny shard that had broken off and handed it to Alicia, who groaned in response to her prodding. Without looking, the little woman reached up and grabbed the piece before munching on it like a piece of toast.

The effect was instantaneous: Alicia immediately looked much better, and Charis didn’t waste any more time following suit. She swallowed hers before setting about preparing for the day. Scooping up Alicia, she made her way to the extravagantly appointed shower. Made from the same scarlet-tinged ivory as most everything here, the shower had space enough for three of her. Wordlessly, Charis removed her clothing and stepped in with Alicia in hand (the little woman had been naked since the beginning of her captivity). She proceeded to gruffly scrub the little woman as well as herself, a luxury Alicia hadn’t had in days. Inwardly, Charis wondered why she even bothered – Alicia was destined for her boot no matter. Even if she wanted to, Charis couldn’t put the little woman anywhere else: most of their strategy was predicated on the speed boost Alicia would provide from beneath her toes.

Still, her time with Alicia last night had been almost… fun. And this was undeniably better, because try as she might, Charis couldn’t completely ignore the hollow feeling she got from tormenting her prisoner. So when the mood had subtly shifted, part of her guilt had been assuaged. Alicia’s task became “Tell me whose feet smell the worst” as opposed to simply being ground into the floor beneath someone’s gigantic sole, and somehow that made the anger of the situation drain away. The games took on a more playful tone, and while Charis couldn’t envy Alicia having to take body shots from between someone’s stinky toes, it was definitely an improvement for her, especially when the little woman actually seemed to enjoy herself.

Charis looked down at her nemesis, lying in her palm covered in suds. She actually looked content, having long since abandoned her initial wariness (Alicia would take whatever she could get, after all). “This doesn’t change anything,” announced Charis suddenly. “You’re still an awful bitch and I still despise you.” Alicia shrank back from her captor, seemingly becoming smaller in her palm where there was obviously no escape. What Alicia failed to notice was that Charis’s words lacked their usual venom. Something had definitely changed between them.

With a sigh, Charis came to a realization: she would let Alicia go after this was all said and done. Leaving the bathroom, she went back to her suite and sought out one of her truthfully rancid socks, whereupon she unceremoniously dropped Alicia inside. Charis smiled to herself as she put the sock back on before scrunching her toes around her prisoner’s tiny form.

Sure, she would her go after all of this; but she would at least have her fun until then.

Charis emerged from her suite to find the others all gathered around a table. Rima had a worried expression on her face, but otherwise showed little of the aftereffects of last night’s alcohol. She sat across from Milan, who gave her a stoic nod. His attire seemed to match the mood: while he still wore his trademark black suit, his shirt was a deep, burnt red, such that he resembled a smoldering fire. Gage stood between the two, but slightly off to the side, cupping his chin with his thumb and forefinger. Despite the somber mood, Charis felt tremors of excitement underneath. Adrenaline had already begun coursing through their blood.

“Your first fight is set to commence in two hours,” announced Milan, breaking the silence. “Let’s get some food in you and then get you ready.” He held out his outstretched palm. In its center sat another pill, which Charis realized was a food pill. While she generally eschewed the convenience of nourishment in pill form in favor of enjoying a “real” meal in-game, she didn’t think she could get anything in her stomach at this point anyway. The immediacy of her upcoming battle had jolted her to anxious readiness.

She daintily picked up the pill between thumb and forefinger before gulping it down, sans water. Idly, and retrospectively, she wondered what the pill contained: probably some hair-raising combination of mental enhancers that would shorten her life in the long run. She shook her head cynically before focusing her attention back on Milan. She inwardly noted that her pulse had quickened.

“Now then,” began Milan, “I’ve been told that transportation will be provided for us by way of a portal at our signal.” As he spoke, he began removing four scarlet roses from a previously unnoticed vase on the table. Once he had removed all of the flowers, said means of transportation appeared. With a shrug of her shoulders – at this point not much fazed her or any of them for that matter – Charis set her open palm on the table, and Gage stepped on.

“Let’s do this,” she said quietly, but firmly. Gage looked up and locked eyes with her – it felt like the first time in months they had shared a look – and he nodded, his face etched with determination. Charis felt a rush of warmth in her chest, as well as a sturdy confidence; in an instant, Gage had seemingly snapped out of his melancholy and returned to his old, quietly fierce self.

The group strode through the portal into a room strikingly similar to the one they had just left. The ubiquitous red greeted them, and of course the room had been lavishly appointed, just like the others. However, one important difference quickly made itself apparent: one wall was missing, and in its place was a triple row of box seats overlooking a tremendous stadium. The stadium appeared to be yet another spike on the great dragon’s back, but in this case it looked like someone had sawed off the spike at the base, forming a tall circle, which in turn had many rows of seats as well as luxury boxes like the one they occupied. Still, while the arena certainly impressed her, something was off about the whole thing that she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“Isn’t it too big?” asked Rima. She was right. The actual fighting grounds were enormous, far too large for a simple duel. At the same time, the seating around the edges constituted a thin ring of no more than 20 rows at most, where you’d expect a stadium of this magnitude to have hundreds of rows at least. Plus, the seats were placed high on the walls, so even from their comparatively closer position, Charis would have to squint in order to see the center of the ring.

“We want the competitors to seem larger than life,” explained an instantly familiar voice. Charis spun around and immediately met eyes with Erivar Vane himself. The man wore luxurious red cape that encircled his entire body, obscuring most of the ornamental golden armor he wore underneath. Charis didn’t know whether to be awe-inspired or to roll her eyes at the get up. “I got the idea after meeting your little friend here,” he gestured towards Gage.

“What do you mean?” asked Milan, since everyone else was far too intimidated to speak. As it was, even Milan had a hint of a tremor in his voice.

“Oh, you’ll see soon enough,” replied Vane cryptically. “Good luck in your fight.” He smiled and stepped into a portal, gone as quickly as he came.

“What was that all about?” asked Charis with a hint of irritation.

“Pay him no mind,” replied Milan. “I think I know what he plans to do, but it won’t affect either you or your opponent. For the time being, the most important thing is to focus on your preparations for the fight.”

Charis nodded, and for the next hour they ran through a variety of stretching and rhythmic breathing exercises meant to keep her muscles limber and her mind sharp. They had gone through these so many times that by now they had become automatic, but Charis certainly needed them to keep her nerves from getting the best of her. Somehow, her possible death in this fight had gone from a miniscule improbability to an imminent certainty.

Over the course of her warm-up exercises, the stadium began to fill. By the time she felt as ready as she could be, the building had become packed with spectators. Charis couldn’t fathom where all of these people even came from, but by her estimate they numbered in the thousands. After a few encouraging words from Milan and Rima about “trusting her training,” the group fell into a solemn silence.

All too quickly, the time had come.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” came an affected announcer’s voice over some unseen loudspeaker. “Welcome to the Opening Match of the Erivar Vane Invitational.” A loud cheer came in response. “The two fighters for this round will be…”

Charis didn’t have the chance to catch the last part as Milan and Rima dragged her into another room, apparently soundproof room. “You can do it, Charis,” said Rima, but Charis could tell that she was nervous. Milan said nothing, and instead patted her on the shoulder before the both of them exited the room. As she waited in the silent room, for what she did not know, she wiggled her toes to confirm that Alicia was in her place. She looked down at Gage standing on her palm.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Ready,” came his reply.

She lifted him up into a pocket on her blue combat suit; there, his body would provide her armor a significant boost in power. Then, as if on cue, a final portal appeared in front of her. She hesitated for a beat, but then gathered herself and walked through with a resolute stride.

Once on the other side, she became immediately disoriented. She had obviously been transported onto the fighting grounds, that much was clear; but what had once been an enormous arena had apparently become smaller. She stood at roughly one and a half times the height of the surrounding wall, and the din of the crowd seemed much less intimidating. Across from her stood her opponent, a figure cloaked all in black – more like a nebulous shadow, seemingly lacking a body or any distinguishable features of any kind. What her eyes told her didn’t make any sense: and then it hit her.

“We want the competitors to seem larger than life…”

The arena hadn’t become smaller. She was huge.

Charis was dimly aware of some sort of fanfare: an announcer called out her name, as well as her opponent’s, and some sort of ceremony ensued. However, she made sure that stayed in her periphery. She had to focus on her main objective: destroying her opponent.

Said opponent literally floated above the ground across the arena, a sinister phantasm with obvious malicious intent. Her HUD showed that her opponent possessed an “ethereal” form, meaning her physical attacks would be useless. Therefore, he – it? – likely put a premium on magic resistance knowing that such attacks were her only viable mode of offense. No doubt an opponent favoring darkness and shadow like this would also look to blind her with smokescreens of some kind, and deception and sneak attacks would be his specialty. All-in-all, he seemed to be a fairly predictable match-up – but she wouldn’t let her guard down.

Casting a glance around the arena, she confirmed what she already knew: the fighting area had plenty of space at roughly half the size of a basketball court (at her new size). The walls didn’t exactly provide a barrier to keep them penned in – she could easily leap over them, and assumed her opposition could as well. The flooring consisted of red scales. She assumed both the scales and the walls would be able to withstand anything either of them could muster. Briefly, Charis scanned the stands, searching for Rima and Milan. She must look tremendous to them, although by now Rima had to be used to ridiculous size disparities. Charis wondered how much trouble Vane had gone to in order to make her growth possible. After all, he had said that he got the idea from encountering Gage and Alicia – was it that easy for him to create this especially-sized stadium, as well as enlarge them in the first place? Previously, even Milan believed such powers were reserved for the Magic Beans.

Shaking her head, Charis dispelled these superfluous thoughts and focused on the task at hand. While she couldn’t know with 100% certainty, she pretty much assumed he would begin the fight with a fog-type maneuver, one that would undoubtedly enhance his abilities as well. Still, with both Gage and Alicia enhancing her abilities, Charis felt confident that she could keep up with the dark mass. On the other hand, Milan had always preached that an immediate strike often yielded the best results. Suppressing a smirk, Charis knew what she had to do.

…

Rima gazed out at the now-gigantic Charis facing off against what appeared to be an inky-black rain cloud. She paced agitatedly back and forth in their viewing box, clearly nervous about the ensuing fight. In stark contrast, Milan lounged in a nearby chair, looking both chic and completely at ease. Rima spitefully supposed that even if this fight ended in disaster, it would be no skin off of his back – he could always just groom another champion for the next iteration of this event. On some level, she still didn’t trust their suave benefactor.

“Come on, Charis,” she muttered under her breath.

Various announcements seemed to continue on interminably, but before she knew it, the announcer finally said: “Contestants, ready?” An unnecessarily long pause ensued. Then:

“Fight!”

Immediately, the shadow-cloud began to swell outward at an alarming rate – but before it had even reached Charis, she had drawn her pistols and fired. A blinding flash enveloped the stadium, eliciting screams and gasps from the crowd. Rima shaded her eyes and turned her head, but still strained to keep track of what was going on with her peripheral vision. She fleetingly noticed that Milan had put on sunglasses, but otherwise remained completely unperturbed.

Slowly but surely, the light began to dim, and after a few more seconds, Rima could try to find out what became of the battle. To no one’s surprise the dark cloud had vanished, leaving only Charis standing in an empty arena, guns lowered. She cut quite a confident figure, dressed in her skin-tight blue outfit, lips pressed in a thin, no-nonsense line.

Her attack had been so overwhelming, that it took far too long for the crowd to react. Scattered applause sputtered into a more appropriate roar of approval, and the announcer shouted the victor’s name. Just then, a tremendous portal appeared, and without so much as a wave to acknowledge her adoring fans, Charis exited the arena.

…

Her heart raced as she emerged in their box seat, evidently back to her normal size. Before she could say anything, Rima had already wrapped her in a massive bear hug.

“Careful!” scolded Charis. Rima backed off like a startled cat as Charis removed Gage from her person and set him down on a nearby table. “Ok, we’re good,” she smiled. Rima squealed and once again squeezed her tight, obviously ecstatic about the victory.

“Very clever,” a by-now familiar voice said. Charis released Rima and turned around, her eyes meeting with Erivar Vane’s.

“Thank you,” she replied simply, not sure what the etiquette was in this situation.

“You didn’t even need to use your… advantages.” Charis nodded, working hard to control herself. Vane intimidated her like no one else. “Just know that your little trick won’t work again – the next stadium will have ways to prevent that. Then we’ll see just how clever you really are.” Charis couldn’t help herself: she gulped. “Congratulations on your first victory – good luck.”

With that, he spun on his heel and exited via the portal he came, leaving her decidedly rattled.

“What was he talking about? What ‘trick’ did you use?” asked Rima excitedly.

“Well, it’s sort of complicated,” she began, “but basically I set up a series of portals around him under the cover of the flash distraction. At the same time, I drew my weapon and fired – he couldn’t know what was coming, so I knew he would dodge – directly into one of my portals. I shut them all right away – game over.”

“Wow, where did you learn to be so clever!” complimented Rima.

“Milan,” she replied shortly.

“Let’s not get too confident,” he chided. “There’s still many more fights to come, and I don’t expect any of them to go as smoothly as this one.”

For Charis, the next few days felt like an in-depth analysis of the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun.” After her first victory, the ensuing hours disappeared instantly, and Charis could hardly remember what she even did during that time. On the next day, with her second fight looming, everything slowed to a crawl. Her awareness clung to each passing second like an inmate on death row.

Finally, the fight: a flurry of attacks, counter-attacks, and then it was over. She had won, and she allowed herself to relax. Congratulations followed required rest, and then of course preparations for the next day, the next battle. As the moment drew closer, time dilated once more, and the cycle repeated itself.

Still, underneath it all Charis felt growing fatigue, a profound tiredness that built with each round despite her victories. She didn’t know how many more rounds she had to go – she refused to think about it – she just hoped that it would be all over soon.

…

“It’s Day 6 here at the Mr. Erivar Vane’s little shindig and we’ve seen quite a lot go down so far haven’t we, Bill?”

“Yes we have, John, yes we have. So many storylines to talk about as we have total unknowns making deep runs, while the usual suspects have dominated as expected.”

“Now, Bill, explain to some of our viewers tuning in some of the eccentricities of this tournament that make it so special.”

“Well first off everyone in this tournament is a newly jailbroken player – it sort of evens the playing field.”

“But as we all know, that’s in name only.”

“That’s right, John, because there are upper level players – trainers, if you will – who groom competitors with the hopes of turning out a champion. We call them Patrons, and of course they have an ulterior motive in helping a newbie. Everyone wants that favor from Mr. Vane.”

“Right you are, Bill. Now let’s talk about some of the big stories we’ve seen so far this tournament.”

“Well first off, you’ve got to talk about the all-but-expected dominance of Hiro and his backer, who everybody knows – the one and only Lysander. As expected, Hiro has come out with a devil-may-care, hyper aggressive approach that has become the hallmark of all Lysander-trained fighters. His fights on average have lasted an eye-popping .38 seconds!”

“And of course the other side to that coin is the co-favorite, Edri – who is trained by the famous Ai – she has plowed her way into the semifinals without a blip, using a mesmerizing, suffocating style of fighting that is pretty much impregnable.”

“Our third semifinalist, to face off against Hiro, is the speedy character Edge. This surprise semifinalist has no backer that we’ve been able to identify, but has still managed to claw his way to the Final Four with a combination of ludicrous speed and opportunistic offense.”

“Edge is definitely the Cinderella story of this tournament – but I don’t see him getting past a fighter whose quite speedy in his own right: Hiro.”

“Last but not least, in the other semifinal against Edri, we have another newcomer in Charis from the ever-suave Milan’s camp. While her appearance in the business end of this tournament isn’t a complete surprise, Milan has tried several times in the past to get his charge to this stage, and every time he’s failed. This time, though, it looks like he’s struck gold with a very cagey fighter in Charis.”

“Cagey is definitely the word I’d use to describe her, John, because on paper she doesn’t have a lot going for her. Besides a mysterious yet sizable stat boost that no one can really figure out, she uses her wits and head to get past formidable opponents. However, the one thing that really stands out is this: in all six of her fights so far, she hasn’t had to kill a single one. Starting with a very clever trick with portals in the first round, Charis has managed to disable or otherwise incapacitate every one of her opponents, and for the most part, without even drawing blood!”

“That’s a decidedly clean way of going about things, and if you ask me, she’s still got some tricks up her sleeve that we don’t know about. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that she’ll take down the favorite, Edri, in a knock-down, drag-out fight. I just hope Charis doesn’t expect to get by this one without some bloodshed.”

“I’m gonna have to disagree with you on this one, John. Edri is a tough-as-nails fighter, and with Ai in her corner, she surely has the training necessary to put a real hurt on Charis. I think it’s gonna be a long one too, but there’s no way Edri and Ai go out – especially given Milan’s less than stellar track record. The guy may have a nice suit, but maybe it’s his battle tactics that could use an upgrade.”

“Well, John, I guess only time will tell who comes out on top. As for us, that concludes are sneak-preview into the semifinals of this edition of Erivar Vane’s tournament. We’ll see you next time.”

…

Charis sat with her friends at one of the tables in the suite that had become home for them. The place looked as immaculate as ever, despite their best efforts to trash it. Every time they left, the rooms magically returned to how they were when they had first arrived; it was like they had never even been there. The thought sent a shiver down Charis’s spine.

“You’re my hero, you know that?” said Rima. The two had become so close over the course of this tournament. After all of the training they had been through together, Charis didn’t think that was possible – but it was.

At the same time, and to Charis’s dismay, she and Gage seemed to have drifted further apart. With each victory, they came closer to their goal of restoring his size; yet each day he grew more distant. They should be celebrating, but his gloominess cast on a pall on her. He was in a dark place, somewhere she couldn’t go.

For his part, Milan remained steady and composed throughout. His quiet confidence made Charis wonder if he had somehow rigged the event.

Charis hardly thought of Alicia, but so long as she was inwardly cataloguing the status of their little group, she might as well wiggle her toes a bit to make sure the bitch was still suffering. It felt good to be able to take out some of her angst over Gage out on someone else – someone utterly powerless.

Suddenly, she ground her foot into the ground in a flare of anger, pressing her undoubtedly disgusting and sweaty sole onto her enemy with relish. She soaked in the rush it gave her to abuse the little woman in such a demeaning way, relegating her to nothing but lint inside her boot. She enjoyed drenching her in the liquid waste of her foot, forcing her to swallow the filth from –

“Charis!” Rima looked at her pointedly.

She looked up, snapping out of her decidedly… evil… reverie. “Yeah?”

“You ready for tomorrow?”

“Definitely.”

“God, everyone seems to have their heads in the clouds these days,” muttered Rima, throwing up her hands. “Looks like we’re the only two sane people left in this group, Milan,” she said, punching him playfully on the shoulder of his well-stitched suit.

“Maybe,” he replied.

As the conversation moved elsewhere, Charis shuddered. What had gotten into her? She had never enjoyed tormenting Alicia so much.

Charis didn’t dwell on it for long – she had a fight to win.

 

Rima sat, quite literally, on the edge of her seat as she watched her dearest friends fight for the entertainment of others. As she fidgeted incessantly, Charis streaked across the arena, her body transformed into a shapeless blur.

This round’s battlefield resembled the opening of a volcano: Charis waged war above a lake of unfathomably hot lava with variously shaped platforms as safe zones. While Rima was certain that the melted rock wouldn’t kill either fighter instantly, she knew it couldn’t feel good to touch it – she could feel the heat emanating to her face even from her seat in the stands.

A brilliant flash lit up the stadium with multi-colored pyrotechnics as Charis let loose another volley of shots towards her opponent, a female character named Edri. Charis’s proclivity for long range attacks would normally be a huge advantage in this situation, but not against this particular opponent. Edri was an Elemental who could transform her base type to whatever form suited her at that moment. Right now, her lithe form looked like it had been carved from the lava she fought on, and she evidently had no problem swimming in the stuff. Meanwhile, Charis had to leap from platform to platform, constantly retreating against an opponent with an effectively larger arena.

Still, Charis clearly had the upper hand in sheer strength and speed. She moved faster, and Edri made certain to avoid her attacks. Despite her limited training, Charis seemed to improve drastically with each fight – it was like she was becoming more in tune with the game and her own body. Gage and Alicia’s stat boost didn’t hurt either. Absently, Rima wondered where Gage was on Charis’s body – she already knew where Alicia was.

Thinking about the two of them left an uncomfortable emptiness in her stomach. She had long since stopped mentioning it, but Rima still felt tearing guilt at being the cause of all of this trouble. She had already promised to herself to change her ways, to try to help people and, as corny as it might sound, make the world a better place. Yet each day saw continued torment of another victim, Alicia, at the hands of her closest – maybe only friend. Rima had long since moved past what Alicia had done to her, but Charis apparently couldn’t or wouldn’t.

Honestly, Rima wouldn’t mind this so much – except she was certain that Alicia’s continued presence was the root of all of their problems. Like an insidious cancer, a profound gloominess had crept up on their group, and it only grew worse with each day. Despite her best efforts to cheer them up, Gage and Charis seemed to be drifting apart not only from each other, but also from her as well. Rima couldn’t know for sure, but she suspected that on some level Gage identified with Alicia simply because they were both shrunk; so while perhaps he didn’t openly object to Alicia’s mistreatment, maybe it made him uncomfortable.

On the other hand, he denied anything of the sort when confronted. Rima had asked him this morning why he seemed so despondent, but he simply deflected the question by saying the tournament was tiring him out and that he just wanted to focus on getting through to the next round and to their ultimate goal. Rima’s heart ached to see him so down; all she wanted to do was hold him and tell him that everything would be all right, but ever since he had turned her down so long ago she didn’t know how to act. Not that she really knew how to act in the first place: she had always been awkward among her peers.

Rima had to get closer to Gage. He clearly needed someone to pull him out of his funk, or he would sink even further into depression, to a place where no one would be able to reach him. It may already be too late.

A tremendous roar broke out around her. She snapped out of her thoughts, realizing that she had been hardly paying attention to the fight and immediately feeling guilty for it. Her guilt quickly shifted to elation, however, as Charis’s triumphant, smiling face flashed across massive screens above the arena. Edri was nowhere to be seen, and while soot and ash marred her skin and pink hair, Charis beamed for the crowd before turning on her heel and entering a waiting portal.

…

Rima couldn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned, counted sheep, and all of the other usual stuff, but eventually she just got out of bed and went for a walk. Not bothering to change out of her simple black nightie, she stepped out of their suite and into the cavernous main atrium. There, the continuous bubbling of the oversized fountain greeted her. Heaving a sigh, she walked over to the fountain’s edge where she was greeted by her own face in the pool’s mirror-like finish. Deciding this was as good a place as any to ruminate, she lowered herself onto the sandstone edge.

“Hey, watch it! There are other people here trying to have deep thoughts too.”

Completely startled, Rima stumbled away as if she had been stung by a bee, only to slip and come crashing to the ground. Twisting onto her back, she looked up and spotted Gage with his arms crossed, glaring indignantly at her. “I’m sorry!” she yelped, completely mortified. From her lying position, she actually had to look up at him, which to her knowledge had never happened.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

In an awkward shifting motion, Rima scuttled over to the wall without getting up and leaned her back against it; while she had to twist her head around to look at Gage, at least they were eye level. “I couldn’t sleep,” she explained. “What about you?”

“Same.”

The pair were silent for a moment before Rima broke it. “Only one more round, huh?”

“Yeah, just one more.”

“What are you going to do first once you’re back to your normal size?”

“I’m not really sure,” he replied. “I guess there’s plenty of other adventures to be had.” Gage looked straight ahead, contemplating. “I’m definitely looking forward to – ”

Suddenly, Gage slumped to the ground in a lifeless pile. Rima sprang to her feet, only to feel her own body succumb to whatever wooziness affected her friend. She fought valiantly against it, but darkness quickly overcame her efforts.

In her last moments of consciousness, she saw a graceful, feminine hand pick up Gage’s limp form.