Despite the unfortunate events regarding Sabrina and her private yoga session eventually Hellion and Kyoto did return to going outside normally. This mostly came down to them discussing things with each other and deciding that these things were going to happen regardless anyway, so there was not much point worrying about it and it was best to just get on with their lives. However it also had to do with how their constant turtling up in the Admin area was drawing concern from McKenzie and Lucy, and Emily was threatening to teleport them out at random times to waylay suspicion.
This day Hellion was actually hanging back in the Admin area alone without Kyoto, mostly because some Genbu players had volunteered to try out a new bathhouse/spa simulation cooked up by Emily and invited her to join them. Hellion had seen many mildly lewd things since becoming trapped inside of the game including a by now nigh uncountable number of panty shots, but intruding on girls literally in the bath without their knowledge and when he could prevent himself from doing so was a step too far even for him. As such he had disembarked for now, letting Kyoto have some fun.
His slightly bored watching of a television show was interrupted by Emily entering the room, and by now long experience had taught him to pay attention to her until she was settled down instead of focusing on the screen. He did not want to end up in her popcorn again like the last time he had relaxed too much. Helpfully her arms were empty and she was actively looking for him, so there was minimal danger of a repeat performance as she walked up to him. Solidifying his relaxation was the visible Admin sight in her eyes, and how they were locked onto him. So Hellion felt secure enough to stand and wave at her with a genial “Hey Em, what’s up?”
Taking a seat on the couch next to his position on the endtable, Emily smiled at him as she spoke up. “Hi yourself Hellion. I’m almost surprised to see you still here, I thought I heard about ‘Kyoto’ being invited to try out my mountain spa program and didn’t think you would want to miss it.” Having said this Emily kept a straight face for a few seconds before bursting out laughing, prompted by the visibly flat look Hellion gave her combined with him crossing his arms unamused. Thankfully this was a controlled laugh, no fist pounding on the table involved. Hellion replied with a simple “Are you done? Is this what you came to see me about?” and in response Emily composed herself while maintaining her grin.
“Ha, no, no, I actually do have another reason to be here besides teasing you, fun as that is.” The Admin raised her hand and called up her virtual keyboard, pressing a series of buttons that initiated the deposit of something into Hellion’s right wrist. Looking down the tiny male saw that it was a silver wristband of some sort, one with a slightly raised circular opening on the “hand” side and a large left hand imprint/reader on the top side. As he looked it over Emily explained her thought process. “So my last few upgrades for your protection were sort of duds, so I decided to try something a little more drastic: Active Shrinking.”
Those last two words shocked Hellion out of his interested examinations of the new accessory, and he all but jumped as he rapidly turned his attention up at Emily in confusion. Seemingly paying the tiny no mind, the tanned girl continued to explain. “Now to be clear I don’t mean shrinking yourself, that little doodad is for shrinking other people. It’s become abundantly clear over time that for you the greatest danger to you outside of Kyoto is not the few insects crawling around that get past the players and NPC’s, it’s the other girls themselves. So if you wanted to have an emergency option this might be the next best thing. Just point the emitter at your target from close range, about three or so of my feet and activate the palm sensor and it should solve the problem, or at least bring it literally down to your level.”
This was rather unprecedented for Emily, and Hellion figured that this was a rather clear sign that Emily really was concerned for him and wanted him to be happy. Of course he still had questions, but as usual Emily was a step ahead of him. “Now obviously there are a few caveats to this, I want this to be legitimate emergency’s only and not you running around shrinking people all willy-nilly. I will warn you that I put a counter on it with a punishment if you abuse it too much in one day. In addition do keep in mind that your current status is still meant to be a secret, so I programmed the NPC’s to think you are also just an NPC if you shrink them, and I ask that you do likewise with any players who stumble across you. Also for what I should hope are obvious reasons, this only works on NPC’s and players. Real live people and bugs are immune.”
As Emily talked about the features and limitations of the shrinking gauntlet, Hellion was listening but also getting a bit of a wicked idea. He nodded along as he pretended to go back to looking over the silver band, before turning his hand just so to point it at Emily. Then moving quickly he placed his hand on the activation pad, and a small beam of light shot out and hit Emily in the chest. However to his surprise nothing happened, beyond a recording of Emily’s voice coming out of the band saying ‘Invalid Target.’ The mischievous boy looked back up at Emily, who had clearly seen his attempt, where she was looking down at him with a self-satisfied smug expression.
“Oh, you little sneak. Heh heh, well as I was about to inform you another limitation I built into it is that all Admins, myself and Kyoto included are immune to the effect. I do respect that you had the balls to try though.” The girl highlighted this by reaching over and placing a finger on top of his head, and with a bit of pressure rubbed it slightly back and forth in what might be called the worlds largest noogie. Hellion was nearly pushed off his feet but held firm and took his punishment like a man, accepting that it was the cost of his failed prank.
An hour later Hellion was alone again, having left the lounge room in the Admin area behind as Emily had co-opted the remote to watch a soap opera he held little interest in. His sister was also a fan of it and he had experienced enough storylines of amnesia, long lost twins, faked deaths, and the faked deaths of amnesiac long lost twins for one lifetime. After getting an assurance that his failed prank would not count against his new daily shrinking counter because it failed, he wandered off towards Genbu to see about finding a good target to try it out on. Wanting to avoid being in the danger zone in case of a misfire, he climbed up onto a tabletop and waited for someone to approach.
The false Tinykin did not have to wait long, as soon enough a few people did come by, but none of them came close enough to hit just yet. Eventually one of them, a mage if the orb topped staff on her back was any indication did move closer, and as she did Hellion prepared to strike. This seemed like the best opportunity, as when the girl shrank it would also be away from him, so there would be fewer awkward questions. Sure this might be a bit of a stretch to call “an emergency,” but he had to actually test it at least once, right? However even as he prepared himself, a complication arose as he actually recognized this particular girl.
Her name was Mikoto, and while he would not have called her one of his friends back when he was not yet in this game he had known her fairly well by reputation alone. The black haired girl was well liked by many people for her willingness to tutor and help with nearly any subject, and Hellion had been one of the ones to get her help with a particularly tricky mathematics assignment. He just did not feel right hitting her, and so lowered his arm and prepared to just let her pass by. Sadly, this did not end up happening.
Instead the mage paused by the table, as one of the other girls in her party piped up with a “By the way Mikoto, how many mana potions do you have? We plan to be out for a while and I don’t want you to run out.” This query prompted the girl to open her inventory and start to pull out several items from her pockets, placing them down on the convenient tabletop and nearly squashing Hellion. The tiny had to dodge around several bottles, a spare wand, and some utility items before she stopped, and he had the chance to catch his breath as the barrage stopped. He was so busy breathing that he missed her answer, but what he did not miss was Mikoto electing to just sweep everything back into her inventory.
This involved her more or less just dragging her hand across the table to push everything into her pocket where it would vanish into her digital inventory. This unfortunately included Hellion himself, as he was caught between two potion bottles and dragged along for the ride. The good news was that Hellion was no longer counted as an item after the first time, so he was not dragged into the actual inventory. The bad was that he was still dropped into the actual physical pocket, and when Mikoto was done she let it close back up, trapping him at her side as she began to walk with her party.
The interior of the Genbu mage’s side pocket was a bit tight and warm, not helped by the bouncing involved from every step she took. For his part Hellion was unfortunately in a bad position, upside down and pinned in place by the material being stretched a bit tightly by the way the girl was moving. Being inconvenienced like this was enough to have him get over his aversion to reducing her, but that did not mean it was a solution right now. Since he was in contact with her body he was not sure what the effect would be on him, but more importantly he could not actually fire the thing. His hands were being held apart from each other by the pinning fabric, so he could not reach the trigger panel to activate the beam. A bit of a flaw in the design perhaps, but on the other hand it was preventing an accidental discharge so the boy supposed that made things more even.
Hellion was stuck in this position for a fair while, forced to listen to the chatter of the party and endure their actions. It was quickly clear that they were out doing some adventuring or questing based on their comments to each other, and he also felt the sudden jerks and fast movements that indicated combat was occurring. The male had to suppose that there was an advantage to being trapped on the squishy mage, in that she was remaining in the back and was not being actively attacked. Eventually he felt the girl stop walking, and from outside he heard the leader of the group talk about “splitting up to search.”
Hellion faced a minute of silence and more walking after that, but he also noticed that the sounds from outside were different. The footsteps from below sounded more solid somehow, like walking on hard stone instead of dirt, and there was a faint roar or rustle in the distance that did not sound like the wind on grass. He did not have long to wait to figure out these mysteries, as he heard Mikoto mention “I could probably use a top up” before light entered his position. The magic user reached down into her pocket and pulled out a mana potion from her inventory, the bottle of liquid forming underneath the tiny’s position and unexpectedly dragging him up and out of the pocket.
Of course smooth glass does not make for an ideal surface to cling to, so naturally the little guy slipped off once the angle became steep enough. The girl noticed nothing as he fell down the length of her legs, and he impacted the ground harder than he expected. Slightly sore but otherwise fine the tiny man got up and looked around, taking a moment to try and make sense of his odder surroundings. He was laying on a vast mostly smooth plain of stone, all a uniform color and stretching out in all directions. Two of them seemed to go on for a long time, but one direction led towards the grass, while the opposite was a massive uniform lake of water. In fact there was water everywhere, pooled up chaotically. It was that last thought that stuck in Hellion’s mind for a few seconds, before he recalled what was around the Genbu guild house area. This must be the side of the school pool!
Hellion was so proud of figuring this out that he temporarily forgot what had brought him here, at least until he heard a sigh of satisfaction coming from above. He looked back to see Mikoto had just finished draining her potion, and so was ready to go again. Looking around she was clearly searching for something, and Hellion recalled hearing about a resource gathering quest involving ‘special water.’ It was thus clear that Mikoto and her group were here searching for that resource. Once again Hellion became distracted figuring this out, that he missed Mikoto glancing down and seeing an out of place spot on the pool tile. The boy was dragged out of his musings by a “Ugh! What is a Tinykin doing here?” from above, and he saw the girl lifting her foot to crush him.
At this moment in time Hellion was not thinking clearly, and so reacted on instinct as he swung up his arm and pointed it at the girl, slapping the other hand onto his wristband. The beam shot out and hit the girl, and in a brief instant she shrank down to Tinykin size. However, she was not the only one. At that same instant Hellion suddenly felt himself feeling strange, and he too suddenly had the world expand out around him. As he tried to process this he became aware of his wristband lighting up, and Emily’s voice coming from it like before. However this time it was not an error message about an invalid target, but something worse.
“Okay, you used the Reduction Beam for the first time today. You should have four more consequence free shots on the counter, but one should be enough.” “That was your third shot today, either you are really unlucky or you are pushing your luck too far. I would advise getting somewhere safer.” “Well that was your fifth and final shot. Honestly this seems like a bit much, I mean why would you need to shrink 5 people in one day? No more mister, get home.” “Really Hellion? You had to push it? The beam worked but now you get to suffer the consequences. You like shrinking people so much despite being so small yourself? Well what goes around comes around. Oh, and also the device is offline for a week or until I think you deserve it again.”
It took Hellion a few moments to parse what the hell just happened, but then it dawned on him. He knew he had only fired the one beam, and yet all the messages had come up one after the other. He recalled a year or two back Emily working on programming a robot to do tasks in order, but when she turned it on it did them all at once with no break. Later she had told him that upon examining its code, she found out that she had forgot to input a number into the timing position, so everything had fired off all at once. Taking into account the mention of a counter and the exact order of the warnings given, it was clear that Emily had made the same mistake and failed to set his number of “allowed shots” as anything, meaning it defaulted to zero!
As Hellion mumbled to himself about giving Emily a piece of his mind about making the same mistake twice he became aware of two things. The first was that he had never actually been told how LONG the shrinking lasted, or indeed if it even would end. Normally he might have assumed that there obviously would be an answer, but considering the error Emily made it was not out of the question that she might have made more and that there WASN’T a way to end it. The second and more pressing issue was that Mikoto was getting over her own dazed confusion at what had happened and was looking around in abject confusion.
Mikoto finished blinking her eyes and tried to comprehend what had just happened. She had been about to step on a disgusting little pervert of a Tinykin when a flash of light had blinded her. She stopped looking down as she tried to locate the source of the light, only to find herself in a landscape more alien than usual. Thankfully for her she was moderately quick on the uptake, and so while it was strange and unexpected the mage was able to realize that she had somehow been reduced in size. “Well, reduced in size even more than I already was” she muttered to herself. The Tinykin had been quite sent out of her mind as she saw the poolside from yet another new perspective, and so she did not look down as Hellion scrambled up onto the rim of her shoe.
Being aware of what had happened did not bring the girl any closer to figuring out How or Why, so she began to walk to try and figure things out. She soon found navigation tricky, as the water that had been on the pool deck before was currently a wild array of large walls towering over her head, whereas before they were merely waist high ponds to wade through. Still she tried to find her way out of this micro labyrinth, even as her steps threatened to toss her hitchhiker off. On the bright side for her, this was still a new and novel experience, like starting the game all over again, so maybe things would not be that bad?
Almost as soon as she thought it Mikoto and Hellion heard a dull roar in the air, for the former a simple mystery at why the noise was familiar and for the latter confirmation in his mind that the girl had probably just taunted Murphy. Both were proven right when the noise came again, and they recognized it as Mikoto's name being shouted. The girl turned to face the direction of the call, nearly whipping Hellion off of her from the sharp turn. Looking down the deck Mikoto saw her party members walking in her direction, so she smiled and waved while shouting in turn for their attention. Hellion just groaned to himself as he heard the now Tinykin sized girl call out, knowing from long long experience that her strategy was not going to work and that she was making a rookie mistake. Then again not every player had encountered a non-playing student before, so she might be forgiven for not knowing how much danger she was in. On the other hand her being in danger was putting Hellion in danger, so he wasn't really feeling all that charitable.
When the other four girls did not immediately answer her Mikoto was not all that worried, assuming that they just could not hear her from that far away and would spot or hear her once they got closer. That confidence slowly began to drain out of her however, as the quartet drew closer and closer and showed no signs of slowing or looking down. Just as concerning was the rumbles in the ground and faint ripples in the nearby water, chaotic due to the number of different footsteps and looking like great waves to Hellion. Soon the girls were nearly upon them, and both Hellion and Mikoto could clearly hear them talking about “-we got all of the water we need, so where is Mikoto?” “Maybe she had to leave?” “Or she got into a fight and died without us. That is why I say we should never split the party.”
Now Mikoto began to realize just how deep over her head she really was, especially when one of the other girls idly kicked a small bead of water to her, only to make a huge splash in the direction of the tiny mage. Once more the girl turned around nearly losing Hellion, only this time it was away from the other girls and involved her running for her life. A sentiment that Hellion appreciated even as he had to cling to her sock like a barnacle, but he feared it might be too little, too late. The girls were moving fast by dint of their greater size alone, but they also were able to walk more or less straight in a way that Mikoto could not. The smaller black haired girl had to juke around beads of water the size of a swimming pool to the tiny on her foot, locate and navigate a pathway of potential dead ends, double back points, and split intersections. The girls four former party members were soon upon her, and Mikoto was left scrambling to avoid them.
Hellion could not help but compare the quartet of titans to some of the other people he had seen, the micro person actually not that unfamiliar with the sight. While it was always awe inspiring in some capacity, the digitized male had seen girls as large as the other players were right now, on those unfortunate occasions that he saw a regular student or teacher when he was outside of Kyoto. There were honestly few things like seeing a sole the size of a building coming down towards you, and heads far enough away that they began to grow fuzzy just from the raw distance involved. However while he might be an old hand at this due to months of experience for Mikoto it was her first time seeing someone so much larger than her, and so she was freaking out.
The girls green eyes were wide in panic and slightly stained with tears as she looked around, her four friends unintentionally boxing her in as the leader walked ahead of her and stomped her booted foot on the one path forwards. Meanwhile behind her another girl was standing on one of the paths she had taken to even reach this point, while another girl had pressed through a larger water drop scattering it, washing away other, alternate paths she might have taken. The cherry on top was the last girl, the healer of the group nearly hitting her with the bottom of her healing staff when she placed it on the ground nearby, and knocked her off her feet just by stepping on either side of the girl. Falling into a sitting position half on her back, Mikoto began to swear to be nicer, to never hurt a Tinykin for as long as she lived. A touching sentiment in Hellion's opinion, if he forgot the danger she had already and was continuing to put him in.
In fear and desperation Mikoto walked over towards the nearest of her group cleric's feet, and began to bang on it. This elected no response at all from the enormous girl, and Mikoto found it to be like hitting a brick wall. She still continued to try to damage or get through the leather, even kicking it a few times which Hellion did not appreciate as he was on said foot. Finally she hit upon the idea of using her magic, but as she said so Hellion felt a small pang of pity. He had tried something similar once in Kyoto, and knew that at this size difference the magic was too weak to matter. Not that the girl got the chance, as before she could she was interrupted by a quake more massive than any others. Not that she was alone, as while it was cataclysmic for her and felt apocalyptic for Hellion, the four players were also nearly sent off their feet, feeling it as merely disastrously strong.
With mounting dread the six humans present all turned their heads as one to look in the direction of the quake, and all of them beheld a simply bowel-emptying terrifying sight. Normally the appearance of a girl wearing a uniformly black bikini would not have been a cause for concern, and would even be a welcome sight to Hellion and only of the girls who swung that way, but this was far from a normal circumstance. Quite frankly the sight of a perfectly normal and thus continental to Hellion sized girl walking in the direction of everyone, still dripping wet from the showers was just about the worst thing to possibly see in this situation, even for the still “full sized” players.
The four players were briefly stunned at what they were seeing, all of them likely also only seeing people so large at their scale for the first time. This gave Mikoto time to act, as while she was shocked as well the adrenaline surge she had felt from running from her friends already meant that she was fully in “flight” mode and not the “freeze like a deer in the headlights” state. She started to flee in the opposite direction, rounding the shoe in her way and moving towards the leader blocking her main path. Mikoto had a hunch regarding what was about to happen, and she was right as the leader stammered out a “N-no, it's too early!” before backing up a step clearing the way for Mikoto, and then starting to run herself.
As Mikoto was snaking her way around the puddles of water and the quartet of players were getting over their own stunned reactions, Hellion was mentally starting to check out a bit. He was well and good used to giantesses being around him, and the monolithic twice over giantesses that usually would have been simple students he was familiar enough with. However this was an absolute titaness thrice over, and he was just a bit overwhelmed at this point. Her bare feet slapping the pool tiles could have filled city blocks, and her knees were visibly grainy from the raw distance involved, much less her face. Put simply, the boy who was currently bug sized to a bugs bug could hardly comprehend something that large that was not a mountain, much less it moving so fast a plane would have been overtaken.
Heedlessly walking closer the swimmer gave a shake to her long damp hair, sending water droplets cascading down in buckets and swimming pools to the girls below. The slaps of her feet on the pool deck were utterly deafening to them all, and they could hear nothing else. Mikoto could not even hear the moment the other girls started to run, so her only warning was the more minuscule rumbles in the ground indicating their steps between the swimmers walking pace. She was lucky enough that the shoe of one of the girls narrowly missed her, even as it almost sent her sprawling into the path of another girl. Complicating matters was that as the four players fled the approaching titaness their feet and legs kicked and stepped on more water, making splashes all around Mikoto that made her own fleeing more difficult.
Finally the girls were past her position, but the straggler of the group slipped a bit, and as she stumbled she sent one last wave backwards. It hit Mikoto and nearly blew her back, but she managed to just barely keep on her feet. The same could not be said for Hellion, who was washed off of the girl's sock by the force of the wave and left spiralling in the middle of a bead of water. From in here he was barely able to watch as the four players managed to find a clear patch off to the side, and managed to successfully make a break for the edge of the grass and escape the pool. However Mikoto was not so lucky. She tried to follow after them, but the swimmer was faster and reached her first.
Hellion managed to barely breach the surface of the water droplet and get some air, just in time to be looking upwards as the girl in a bikini walked over him. She had never needed to alter her course for obvious reasons, and just strolled on while Hellion was staring up at her. This close she truly was a mountain to him, even as he could faintly see the outline of the crotch of her bottoms and faint jiggle of her ass cheeks as she stepped over him. Then the water cascading off of her hair and body started to literally rain around him, and he had other concerns. The water splashed and gathered everywhere, and Hellion found himself being washed away in a mini-river of water, following the faint slope of the pool deck and the groove between tiles until he saw himself approaching the waterfall that was the edge.
As for Mikoto, she was also affected by the walking girl, and could only watch as another shake of her hair sent a splash of water down, blocking the route her friends had taken and turning it into a flowing lake for her. The mage had no choice but to turn away and search for a different path, even as the swimmer thundered around her making things ten times worse. At last the swimmer passed the Tinykin sized girl a little, and Mikoto seemed to find a plausible looking route. Sadly for her the opposite was the case, and as she tried to follow it amidst the literally changing tides formed from the water and footsteps made by the swimmer she instead found herself herded towards the edge of the pool.
Mikoto was left panting at the edge of the pool, needing to catch her breath after all of the running she had done. A glance over her shoulder showed that the swimmer had stopped, so at least there were no more tremors. The green eyed girl began to try and come up with a plan, to wait for the swimmer to move on and then backtrack, perhaps then finding a new route away from here. This lasted a few seconds before the thundering slapping footsteps of the swimmer started up again, and Mikoto turned her attention back to her only to freeze.
The swimmer had now turned towards the pool, and walked the few steps towards it until she reached the edge. A normal sized player could easily have gotten away from her, or at the very least garnered some attention, but such things did not apply to Mikoto at the moment. The poor shrunken girl could only watch and then scream as the swimmer lowered herself down to slip into the pool, her hand landing on the far side of Mikoto as she tilted and adjusted herself. The last thing that Mikoto saw before the darkness of death was the bikini-clad rear of the girl as she sat down on the edge of the pool to dangle her legs and feet into the water.
Hellion had found himself washed down the width of the pool tiles to end up dropping down a waterfall, landing himself in the vast ocean that was the school pool for him. Thankfully despite the power of the water making steering nigh impossible, he was able to keep mostly near the surface as the water was only a little broken up. He was able to barely tread water for now, even as it did get harder from the waves formed by the swimmer placing her legs into it comparatively nearby. On the bright side the waves also pushed him further away from her a bit, so he at least got a better look at her. Then from the heavens her voice boomed loud, and the words filled him with utter dread as he at last recognized her.
“Alright everyone, glad you could make it. I want to see some good hustle today!” Hellion recognized this girl as the captain of the swim club, which also put into some perspective Mikoto's teammate's comment about “too early.” Based on the evidence, it was time for practice, meaning...Hellion turned himself in the water and looked back towards the change rooms and showers that the team captain must have come from, and as suspected saw just under two dozen more girls walking out in various swimsuits. This pool was in a very short while going to become very, very chaotic, and he was stuck right in the middle of it. The question now was not “if” he was going to die, but instead “how.” In a final moment of levity at the situation Hellion gave himself decent odds at drowning or being crushed in someone's cleavage, but he was not ruling out being kicked or swallowed.