October 31, 1943

Back in the present, Thea wore a subtle smirk as she slipped her black top on over her white undershirt. It was a military top, modified to remove any placement for ranks or insignias. Technically, even eight months after becoming indispensible to Special Project Hexen, she had neither. Nor, she’d come to realize, did she want any. Meaningless titles and honorifics seemed so…petty, now.

Pulling on a matching black skirt, she sat and began the not-inconsiderable process of lacing her leather boots. These were most certainly not regulation, going up to her knees and sporting a wicked spiked heel, but it wasn’t as if anyone was going to argue with her, now. No one had really stood up to her since…well, since that British fellow. It seemed like a lifetime ago; she was still a different person, then. Not yet complete.

August 23, 1943

Much had changed in the months since Thea’s first time, all of it for the better. The doctors in charge of the shrinking operation had been overjoyed with their initial success, although their enthusiasm had been dampened slightly once they realized that it was almost impossible to replicate the results. Or rather, they could replicate the results easily, provided they followed the exact same steps as before. Only Thea Reinhelde was actually able to complete the process, and initiate the transformation of their human subjects into mites to be crushed under her boots.

While the shrinking operation was the only division of SPH that saw any results at all, it was still unable to weaponize its own achievement. What this meant in practical terms was an incredible amount of human testing, which Thea was more than happy to lend her services to. The outer façade of the complex began to become a bit neglected, as the project had to pull three and four prisoners a day to continue testing the modifications to the shrinking process.

Each time, success only came with Thea at the center of the event. And each time, she was allowed the duty of clean up. She was so eager to help, and cement her position in the project, that she would oftentimes lend her own thoughts and opinions on what may be going wrong with the process. Whether or not they paid her advice any heed was irrelevant, of course. She vastly preferred being ignored, if their other option was paying too much attention to the enjoyment she took from disposing of the shrunken subjects.

Do not doubt that she took a great deal of enjoyment from disposing of them.

After her first, all too brief experience, she went the opposite extreme with her next insect, who had formerly been a young woman of about Thea’s own age. Thea tested the limits of the bug’s body, keeping it alive for almost a half hour until the tiny thing finally died. Thea did have to admit that this second encounter wore out its welcome about halfway through the process, but she needed to know how much interaction the maggots could withstand.

The third time was the charm. It was the perfect sadistic blend of physical brutality and mental gymnastics, breaking down her prey, an older man with a full head of gray hair and an impressive vocabulary of profanity, in such a delightful fashion that she still got butterflies in her stomach just thinking of it.

With this victory under her belt, (or rather, under her foot), she began to get delightfully, despicably, creative. With so many incoming victims, and so much free time to let her mind wander, it was inevitable that the small corner in the subbasement would become witness to some ferociously heinous acts.

Despite her truly creative imagination, there were some noticeable constants in Thea’s routine, which only grew more pronounced as her confidence increased. First, she would invariably taunt her victims in a personal, insulting manner. She would insult physical appearance, circumstances, nationality or background, and anything else she could deduce from the victim, with the petty vindictiveness usually seen in public schoolyards. Perhaps even more telling than her spiteful quips were her sensual ones; the process of murdering the insects had become strangely erotic to her. She couldn’t articulate why, but the realization of the absolute power she held over her victims gave a greater sense of euphoric pleasure than anything she’d ever experienced before.

The high she received from slaughtering her prey was so great, she was even able to bring herself to a true climax for the hapless Service Leader Schmidt. Schmidt didn’t suspect that his lover was thinking of other men and women while she was with him, but it was probably for the best; if he couldn’t handle that realization, the knowledge that she was recalling their brutal murders while he was inside her would be even more upsetting.

Schmidt had obviously grown even more proud of his trophy after she proved to be indispensible to the shrinking project, but her success also created some very pressing problems for him. He’d explained to his superiors how SPH had no problem repeating the process; unfortunately, he also had to explain that they’d, as of yet, made no headway in replicating, mobilizing, or generally weaponizing it. His great breakthrough was viewed by his superiors as little more than a dancing circus bear: entertaining, but hardly useful outside of its novelty.

And then, to everyone’s surprise, Schmidt actually had a clever idea.

Even Thea, (or rather, especially Thea), was impressed by Schmidt’s proposal: transfer an Allied spy to SPH, and allow Thea to shrink and interrogate him. It was generally agreed that any person in that position, no matter their training or internal fortitude, would volunteer any information necessary in order to be granted a return to natural proportions. The fact that no way had been found to reverse the shrinking process was immaterial. (In fairness to the doctors at SPH, they hadn’t actually attempted to do so.) A few minutes in Thea’s…creative care was certain to reduce any Allied infiltrator to a fountain of information.

It went without saying that Thea was completely in favor of this proposal. This was how she found herself in her newly-acquired quasi-uniform, waiting patiently for the enemy agent to be escorted to her little dungeon. She was told that the man was British, which was no impediment for a woman who could speak the language fluently. She hadn’t been told, however, how young he was; when the bound prisoner was escorted into the room, Thea would have placed him at no more than nineteen or twenty.

The young man was dressed in a grey prisoner’s uniform, which seemed a bit out of place considering how he still looked relatively healthy and vital. His blond hair and blue eyes made him ironically handsome by German standards, although his features still had a marked boyishness to them. His eyes were glued to the floor, obviously not willing to give his captors any sort of opening to taunt or engage him.

Thea let him keep up his little act of defiance, not bothering to address him as the guards strapped him into the chair in the center of the room. “We’ll be right outside, ma’am,” one of the men noted, not making eye contact with her. Thea had noticed that many of the staff and troops at the facility had begun to shun her slightly, treating her with a superstitious sort of fear. It didn’t bother her; in fact, she found it rather charming. She smiled to herself as they left the room, closing the door and leaving her alone with the Briton.

“So,” Thea purred in English, sauntering towards the man. “What’s your name?”

No response. Thea frowned, physically grabbing the man’s chin and forcing his head up, until their eyes locked. “You will answer me, boy,” she snapped. Whatever patience she might once have possessed had long since drained away in the throes of her power and passions. “Now, what is your name?”

She took a moment to push her nails into the side of his face, drawing a bit of blood. The Briton pulled back, and Thea allowed him to escape her grasp. He glared at her. “You can call me Timothy,” he bit off in English. “And that’s all I’ll be telling you.”

“You’re so certain, now?” Thea replied. “Because, obviously, you’re in such a wonderful position to defy me, aren’t you?”

“I’m not afraid of some Nazi bird in a basement.”

“That’s because you don’t know any better,” she noted, circling him. “You don’t know me, at all. Don’t feel embarrassed; no one here does. But if you truly knew who I am, and what I am, you’d tell me anything I asked.”

“Whatever you say, love. Do your worst.”

Thea chuckled, pausing behind him. “I will, if I must,” she said. “But, if you cooperate, I might, instead, do my best for you.”

She leaned over his shoulder, under her lips were almost touching the young man’s neck. “Have you ever been with a woman, little Timmy?”

She was close enough to see the goose bumps rise along his skin. “I’d rather be with a dog than one of Adolf’s tarts,” he replied sternly.

He expected another violent reaction, but received instead another sultry chuckle. “I’m going to tell you a little secret, Timmy,” she whispered. “You were never going to leave this room alive. You may have already guessed this. You stopped being a human being as soon as you entered my care. You’re just a trinket for my amusement. I don’t care what secrets you hold. Tell me, or don’t. It makes no difference.”

She was certainly correct, in that the agent assumed his fate already sealed. But this last confession puzzled him. What sort of mind games was she playing?

“Well, you’ve made it easy for me,” he said slowly, still uncertain. “If the result’s the same either way, I’m not about to sell out Queen and Country, no matter what you do.”

Thea completed her circle, standing in front of him again. “Try to pay attention, boy,” she sighed. “I just told you a moment ago: I don’t care if you tell me anything or not. I just want to have my fun. I already get plenty of practice on the camp workers; you probably saw them outside. But, between us, they’re beginning to bore me. They’re already so defeated, most of them have already been ground down before I even get to start. It’s not nearly as fun as, say, a strapping young soldier like yourself.”

Without warning, Thea backhanded her prisoner, with a level of strength that shocked the man almost more than the action itself. There was a sickening crunching sound, as his nose was broken by the impact. Blood freely flowed down his face as stars danced before his eyes.

“What the fuck was that, you fucking cunt?” he cried out, his calm defiance totally gone.

“It’s funny,” Thea noted calmly, absently wiping the blood from her hand. “But ever since these tests started, I’ve felt…better. Stronger than before. I suspect that, as part of the process, I’m draining life, vitality, and strength from my prey. I get power from being who I truly am, and turning you people into what you truly are.”

“You’re…you’re fucking crazy,” Timothy slurred, not having any idea what the sadistic beauty before him was going on about.

“But,” Thea continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “I’ve never had the opportunity to play with a man, before. Just bugs. So, I haven’t been able to really see what I’m capable of. Until now.”

With an almost-innocent giggle, she grabbed his throat with her left hand, applying as much pressure as she could. “Now, baby, be a dear and turn blue for me.”

The pain was initially unbearable, but as his oxygen was cut off, it became more like a distant irritation. Timothy felt himself fading away, with enough detachment to note how…impossible this all was. The insane Nazi girl was throttling him with one hand, casually adjusting her uniform with the other. By all logic, this should have been impossible.

For a brief second, he blacked out. As soon as he did, however, Thea released her grip; she wasn’t about to let him off so easily. When reality returned to the agent, he could feel Thea’s weight on top of him; the German woman was straddling him in the chair.

“I’d thought you Brits were made of sterner stuff,” she purred. “Apparently not; you can’t even satisfy a woman of my tastes. Such a pity, little Timmy.”

In a single motion, she ripped open his prison uniform, exposing his chest. Timothy was shocked by the gesture, but the shock swiftly turned to horror as she plunged her nails into his chest. He cried out in pain and surprise as she twisted slightly, drawing forth copious amounts of blood. His reaction was a sharp contrast to hers; Thea was purring eagerly, with a euphoric look on her face. As Timothy struggled against his restraints in a vain attempt to buck her off, she began to gyrate slightly in response, mocking his pain in a brutal and callous pantomime of love making.

After a few moments of her game, Thea retracted her nails, breathing in deeply. “Oh, my dear little boy,” she whispered huskily. “Maybe I was wrong about you. Your screams are so, so delicious…you’re making me excited for what comes next.”

The prisoner was in no condition to inquire as to what came next, instead doing his damnedest to regain some measure of composure. He felt a slight bit of relief when she dismounted, letting him bleed in peace for a moment. It was short-lived, however. With an absent motion, Thea flipped on one of the machines in the corner of the room, and took her place in the center of an arcane image painted on the floor. The Brit had no idea what was coming, but the expression on his captor’s face chilled him to the bone.

There was the flash, of course, although Thea no longer found it blinding. And then Timothy truly was little Timmy, two inches tall at her feet. She didn’t wait to let him regain his senses; she was too excited, now. In a smooth, steady motion, she slid her right foot free from its boot, flexing her toes against the nylon hose that extended down from her calf to her sole. While every part of her anatomy had ended an insect’s life by this point, she had a particular affinity for crushing them underfoot, and had practiced several marvelous ways of doing so.

There were certain, other advantages to leaving her hands free; they could be put to other uses. As she began to put them to appropriate work, sliding one up her blouse and another down her skirt, she pressed Timothy beneath her foot, with just enough pressure to be painful, but not yet enough to injure him.

“I want you to know,” she said slowly, even as her face reddened and beads of sweat began to drip down her forehead. “That you’re nothing. Absolutely nothing. But this…this experience has been very special to me. And you got to be a part of it. Everything about your pointless existence has led to this moment, my moment of pleasure. I’ll forget you, but not these acts. It’s more of a legacy than a speck like you deserves. It’s more than anyone deserves.”

Her hands began to move faster, now, as she pressed harder upon her prey. She could feel things within him breaking, or at least imagined she could. It was ecstasy.

“You’re all insects,” she whimpered to herself, full engrossed in her pleasure. “All of you. Germans, Jews, Allies…maggots at my heel. And I tire…of holding myself down to your level…”

She glanced back down at her toy, eager to see the look of anguish on his face before she crushed him. As she did so, however, something caught the corner of her eye: one of the gemstones used in the ritual had been knocked out of place, no doubt by one of the guards transporting Timothy into her dungeon. By all rights, then, the shrinking process shouldn’t have worked; the mystic circle was incomplete.

Unless.

The implications of her realization flooded through her, and Thea climaxed with such ferocity that she crushed Timothy into a stain without a second thought.