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Once she was texted about what happened to Rachel, Lucy rushed over to the organization as fast as she could from school.  She headed into the lab where the others were waiting. She wore her glasses, her brown hair was tied back in a ponytail, and she was dressed down, wearing simply jeans and a t shirt.  The sight of her workplace stunned her.  Strewn about everywhere was broken instruments, computers, and machinery.  “Val, what happened?” she asked nervously, looking up at the group who were all sitting around in chairs. 

It seemed like everyone was here.  Valerie, Robyn, Gray… and this was her first time seeing Vivian and Joey back to normal size again, which was a bit surreal.  Even the CEO of the organization, Faith Sinclair, was here scowling up at Lucy in her seat. 

Valerie looked more disheveled than Lucy had ever remembered seeing her.  Even if she was drunk out of her mind, Valerie still seemed to keep herself looking good somehow.  Now, her hair was a loose, tangled mess, and she sat on her seat looking completely done with everything.  Lucy regarded her worriedly.  ’Am I crazy?’ Lucy wondered, ‘Or is one of her eyes… glowing?’

It was Vivian who finally answered her.  “Val had a bit of a meltdown after coming back from seeing the girl who ate Rachel.”

“I see?” Lucy began, confused.

“We went looking for her when she went missing and found someone leaving her classroom who wasn’t a part of her class,” Vivian continued, “She’s a big girl, very hard for someone like her to sneak around.  She was running some race when we snuck into her locker and checked out her phone for clues.  And… yeah…” Vivian looked away. 

“Do you really even care?” Lucy asked, “You were always so hard on her.  And you even shrunk her for Val to eat!”

“I know,” Vivian said.  “I just… didn’t realize how important she really was to Valerie,” Vivian gave Valerie a sad, apologetic look.  “I thought Rachel was just a distraction to Valerie, so I figured I’d help Valerie out and shrink her so she could get one last bit of pleasure from her before being more focused on her work.  If I’d known Val was in love with her, I… I wouldn’t have done it.”

“So you were okay with doing that to Rachel if she were just a crush, but Val loving her changes everything!?” Lucy yelled.  She was surprised at how angry she was.  She was usually very quiet and calm.  Rachel was a good friend, though, and Lucy didn’t feel like Vivian deserved no punishment.

“Yeah,” Vivian said quietly, almost shyly.  “I knew what I was doing was wrong.  All the months I was planning and working on it, deep down I knew it.  But I wanted the end to justify the means, you know?  Valerie is special, and instead of looking at Rachel like a person, I looked at her as an obstruction to Valerie’s work, a thing, and a problem to be removed and destroyed.”  Tears began falling from Vivian’s eyes, her voice quavering.  “And I did terrible things to her.  What’s worse I failed to ever consider Valerie’s feelings… because I thought I knew better.”

“Vivian,” Valerie said emotionlessly, finally speaking up.  “Shut the hell up.”

Vivian not only stopped talking, but ceased all noise and remained as still as possible, afraid to even continue crying. 

Valerie continued talking, but made no eye contact with anyone and seemed to stare through the floor.  “I’ll deal with her, Lucy. Trust me.”

“Oh.  A-alright… well.  I guess since I’ve been out of the loop, how did you end up solving the shrinking problem?”

“An interesting question, Miss Lucy,” Gray said, “And it comes with fairly loaded answers, I must say.”

“Decades ago,” Faith began, albeit unhappily, “My team and I managed to draw on strange energy from... everything.  It’s all around us, and for ages had been untapped until we made the breakthrough.  We decided to run tests, experiment with this newfound energy.  Eventually we managed to build a whole facility around experimenting with it once we showed the right people what this energy was capable of.  Shrinking people.  Making things grow.  Regenerating limbs and super fast healing.  There was no end to what it did in the right hands.”

“But that power wasn’t yours,” Valerie said, “Nor did it accept you as it has with me.  It’s basically power over time and space.  No time traveling, but very similar to magic or your Star Wars force users.  So, in its pure, harvested form, even though this substance somehow exists in all things, touching such a large concentrated amount of it causes.. a wide variety of problems to a person.  You know, if you don’t have the mark.”  Valerie gestured at the glowing symbol etched into her iris.

“Hence why we contained it in glass, and why we ended up referring to it as radiation,” Faith continued.  “But apparently…”

“There’s an entity who is responsible for keeping the sanctity of life intact.  I can almost hear his name,” Valerie said, closing her eyes and holding her head as she seemed to think deeply, “Reh.  Rah.  Rag-a-roo?  Something like that.  But he’s having to use so much of his power to protect the life in this world that his power is seeping into our reality.  That’s why Faithy here was able to draw upon it at all.” 

Lucy felt some kind of relief, despite the questions she still had.  Valerie was starting to seem less of a shell of who she once was, and she started slowly acting more like herself.  Valerie always couldn’t help but enjoy analyzing a situation. “So, why you then, Val?”

“Come on, Juicy.  Look at me.  I’m HOT!”  Valerie gave Lucy a ghostly, half hearted smile.  It was strangely sad yet uplifting.  “Anyway.  This entity, I call him Shaft.  He thinks I can help him fix this world.”

“And you will?”  Lucy asked, “Right?”

Valerie shrugged, smirking.  “Maybe for a little bit.  Shaft cares not for ye olde right and wrong, either.  I could shrink and eat the entire human race and he’d probably be not the happiest strawberry in the fruit punch, but if it fixed everything he’d be okay with it.  Anyways, if I don’t help him, I’m screwed.  I have to use the power I’ve been given to the benefit of saving life on this planet or he’ll find someone else to give his other eye to hunt me down and kill me.”

“So, are humans basically what’s wrong, then?”

“Kind of.  We are the ones who upset and hurt the balance of life so drastically.  Even Faithy here was going to go through with a crazy plan of shrinking a certain percentage of people in order to help deal with the overpopulation issues.”

“Ugh.  Yes,” Faith said, “But we had benefactors who paid us with the assurance of not being shrunk.  Yet some still were.”

“You never owned this power, Faithy,” Valerie said,  “It was Shaft’s.  You more or less opened the floodgates and let him do what he wanted.”

“So this… this ‘Shaft’ was responsible for Crystal, and everything?” Lucy asked.

“Well.  Actually no.  It’s hard to explain,” Valerie began, “It was an odd combo of both Shaft and Faith’s attempts at controlling him that ended up backfiring and shrinking random people.”  Valerie thought for a few moments before a light bulb seemed to shoot on in her head.  “So, imagine two kids fighting over the same toy, right?  They’re both tugging and pulling on it as hard as they can when one kid finally manages to rip it from the other’s hands… but in doing so hits some other nearby kid in the face with the toy by complete accident.  That’s… that’s honestly the simplest way I have of explaining it.”

“Anyways,” Valerie continued, “Faith might’ve solved the overpopulation issues temporarily with the whole shrinking thing. But there’s still more pressing things to hit on.  Pollution, for instance.  In this day and age there’s no reason why we can’t have clean energy,  right?  But that’s just one obvious example.  I’m going to force the world to standards that’ll put everything back on track.  Shaft won’t have to overexert himself saving a world we’re killing, and we all can live happily ever after. 

“And so long as I’m making him happy, I’m sure he doesn’t mind me using my powers for a bit of fun in my offtime.”  Valerie grinned dangerously.  Even though she didn’t look her way or mention Vivian’s name, Vivian felt like she was front in center in that last statement and shuddered. 

————————————————————————————————————————————

While Valerie and the others talked, Robyn leaned in to Joey.  “Are we sure this is the right thing to do?  Should we stop her?”

Joey scoffed.  “You askin’ me?  Hell, even if it were possible, I’m not doing shit.  She got me back to normal size.  I’m not being shrunk again.  S’far as I’m concerned, she’s my god damn goddess if it means never being shrunk again.”

“I… see,” Robyn replied hesitantly, backing off and listening half-heartedly into the conversation once more.  ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Valerie,’ she thought, ‘Please don’t lose yourself in all of this.  Especially when you’ve just found yourself.’

————————————————————————————————————————————

Later, Valerie sat in her very own office after successfully having ownership of the company transferred to her.  She held her head in her hands.  She was tired, on the verge of passing out as it is.  And in desperate need of a shower and makeover.  ‘I don’t think I’ve let myself go this bad since… back then,’ she thought, gritting her teeth.  ‘At least I have real power now.  I’d like to see them try that again. They’ll wind up in my stomach faster than-’ she cut herself off as Vivian and Lucy entered the room. “Vivian!  I was JUST thinking of you!  And Juicy!  Do you like?”  She stood and gestured around the office with a flourish and made a ‘ta-da’ sound effect.

“It’s really nice Valerie,” Lucy said, smiling.  “Are you sure you’re okay though?”

Valerie grew a bit more serious.  “I think I’ll be fine, yeah.  Thanks to you gals.  I can count on you, y’know?”  She looked down, growing a bit more sad.  “I’ve lost a lot of people I could trust.  I didn’t realize how lonely I was until Rachel ended up shrunk.  Even though I’d have made the same choices a thousand times over about Crystal, or Brittany.”  Valerie sighed wistfully.  “But i gotchoo gals, so it’ll be fine.  And together we’re going to be heroes, I say!”

“Alright,” Lucy said, “Well, just wanted to stop by before I head back to school.”  She gave both Valerie and Vivian a nervous glance.  “I should get going…”

“Yeah, Juicy!  We can hang out later tonight!  So long as your kingdom will be alright without you!”

Lucy blushed for more reasons than one.  “N-no, they’ll be fine.  S-sure Val, that sounds nice.”  Lucy bowed, turned and left, shutting the door and leaving Valerie and Vivian alone together.

Valerie smiled wickedly at Vivian.  “I mean it, y’know.  You done fucked up, Vivian.  But if anything, your actions prove that at least I can trust you.  Me and me alone.”

Vivian couldn’t bring herself to look Valerie in the eyes.  “What’s going to happen now?”

Valerie took slow, careful steps around to the front of her desk and leaned back against it, never taking her eyes off Vivian.  “I think you know.  Though I’ve always been fond of the idea of what it’d be like for a tiny to go through my whole digestive tract.”  Vivian’s face went pale.  “And they say karma hits three times?  I think that’s a good start.  I will eat you three times.  You will spend hours stewing in my guts only to finally come out of my ass for it to start all over.  I’d say that’s a good start to making amends, wouldn’t joo?  My DEAREST friend?”

Valerie smirked, pausing as she regarded Vivian.  “You only have yourself to blame,” Valerie continued, “The idea was inspired by you.  Because you found a way to shrink the people who were protected from it.  You accidentally gave them the ability to heal and regenerate faster than normal.  I wondered what it’d be like to have a tiny heal so fast they could survive digestion!”  Valerie giggled, then her tone becoming more sinister.  “Now with the power at my command, I can make it happen!  And make no mistake, you’ll feel it.  You’re not going to be invincible.  You’re just going to heal so fast you won’t ever die within my bowels.  But you’ll wish you were.  I guarantee it.”

Vivian was trembling at how casually Valerie explained her fate, backing away towards the door instinctively.  She wanted to atone, but she didn’t want this.  Anxiously, she tried the doorknob but it wouldn’t budge.  Valerie cackled.  “Come on, Vivian,” Valerie said, “You can’t escape from me.  Not now.” 

With a wave of her hand, Vivian was two inches tall.  Valerie bent down, picked her up, and held her in front of her face.  “I made you a bit bigger because I’m wondering just how big of a person I can swallow.  So you’ll help me test that out!”  Valerie gave her a long, sultry lick, bringing her lips to level with her face.  “I’ll make you a bit bigger each time you come out.  Just so I can see what I can handle.  For science.”  Valerie gasped, her hot breath washing over Vivian’s tiny form, and bit down on gently on Vivian’s neck, sucking on her entire head and muffling her cries and screams. 

“Mmm,” Valerie moaned, “I’ve been waiting to do this forever.  I could easily bite your head off from this position,” Valerie said carefully as Vivian felt her large teeth squeeze uncomfortably against her throat as she spoke.  Saliva oozed out of Valerie’s mouth and splashed down on Vivian and all around Valerie’s hands, getting all over Vivian’s hair and on her clothes.

“Please…” Vivian sobbed, keeping her eyes closed more so out of fear than the incoming drool, “Valerie.  I’m so sorry.”

If Vivian had her eyes open, she could see Valerie’s entire mouth work as she spoke, her tongue undulating and emphasizing every word, her throat and uvula eagerly awaiting her in the distance.  “Not yet,” Valerie whispered, “But you’re gonna be.”  With that, she moved her teeth tight against Vivian’s midsection and her teeth bore down on Vivian’s tiny form, eliciting a short cry of pain and a satisfying crunching sound.  Tilting her head upwards, Valerie used the moment before Vivian fully healed from her broken spine to slide her down into her throat. 

Vivian was in so much pain and there was absolutely nothing she could do to even struggle.  She felt herself slide into Valerie’s wet throat as it stretched open to accept her.  Unable to do anything, she fell head first into Valerie’s esophagus, hitting her head against Valerie’s epiglottis.  Everything squeezed and glucked around her as Valerie tried to swallow her down, feeling Valerie’s uvula and soft palate pressing down against the bottom half of her body as she was driven face first into her esophagus.  All Vivian could do was scream as loud as she could with her mouth closed shut.

After a couple of tries, Valerie succeeded.  After a loud and victorious GULP, Valerie could feel all of Vivian’s two inches trapped within her being squeezed and crushed all the way down as the bulge in her throat disappeared behind her chest.  She traced her path with her fingers, gasping, lifting her head and arching backwards over her desk in the throes of bliss.  It had been too long since she last ate someone, and she didn’t realize how much she had been craving it, especially after the tease of having Rachel in her mouth.  Plus, the fact that it was Vivian herself made it twice as enjoyable. 

Valerie’s hand didn’t stop at her stomach.  It drifted down after Vivian reached her gut, undoing her lab coat and moving into her pants.  Vivian must have healed enough to move because Valerie could feel the commotion inside her, much more easily than with those she ate who were less than two inches.  It sent waves of pleasure all throughout her body to feel Vivian thrashing around in there.  She was almost surprised at how wet she was when she touched herself, how much it had soaked through her panties, and how firm her clit was already.  But then again, she had been anticipating this moment all week. 

Valerie couldn’t wait to feel Vivian going through her whole body.  It was going to be a relaxing few days before the real work began.