“… Huh…?”

Fingers fumbling against the tabletop beneath the device for a moment, Ema took a careful grip on the tiny object she’d spotted, extracting it to look it over.

Growing ever more frustrated with her inability to figure out anything even remotely useful about this device, Ema had been nearing the verge of giving up entirely, but now, she put her irritation aside for a moment, examining her new discovery. She was fairly sure that this tiny little component hadn’t been lying here earlier.

“Wait…”

She frowned. Was this the reason that Apollo had taken off in such a hurry earlier? Had he broken this piece off? Ema already had a strong desire to give her friend a slap across the face for causing her so much trouble, and that urge was only getting stronger.

With extreme care, she tilted the device over, examining the underside to try and pinpoint where the dropped component had come from. She blinked in surprise, noticing a small hatch she’d never seen before, which was hanging open. It housed several more individual components that appeared identical to the one in her hand. They didn’t look like they were attached to anything, so were they some kind of power cells? She hadn’t ever noticed a port for anything like that before.

Pleasantly intrigued, she gave the device’s entire exterior another once-over. Her face lit up at the sight of an opening she was certain hadn’t ever been visible before. She set down the loose component and grabbed one of the others from the open hatch, carefully inserting the cell into place and hoping for the best.

Inspiring the first moment of delight she’d experienced since acquiring this enigmatic piece of machinery, the LCD display lit up on its own, running through its usual jumble of code.

(Batteries. Those are batteries!)

It was small, but still, she’d actually discovered something clear about this device, and that was incredibly satisfying after so much time spent mystified by its design. Out of habit, she watched the LCD, expecting the usual vague interface to appear, but instead, a new readout took its place. She squinted, surprised once more. The screen was still displaying plenty of unclear information she couldn’t parse, but for once, it also included plain English, and she wasn’t about to miss any information that might help her. Mumbling under her breath, she read the display over to herself.

“One subject logged, biological, approx. 165 cm, 0.71 kg attached, whatever that means… let’s see, logged for future reversal… process success, target scale reduced to approx. 0.29 percent original, activation time-…”

She paused, eyebrows raised.

“But that’s…”

The readout was displaying a time, down to the second, and to Ema’s confusion, it matched almost exactly with the time she’d been down at the photocopier, making a new set of documents for Apollo and Athena. She remembered seeing the time displayed exactly on the photocopier itself.

She looked back over the previous data again.

“Target scale reduced…”

Feeling apprehensive, she pushed one of the buttons to advance the display. Further data appeared, and as she read it through, a very strange idea began to develop in her mind.

As unbelievable and downright crazy as it sounded, the data almost seemed like it was trying to suggest that this device could change the size of things, like some cartoon scientist’s shrink ray.

“… No way.”

She looked through the data again, but nothing else she could imagine seemed to make sense. But that was ridiculous, right…? It wasn’t physically possible.

“A hundred and sixty-five-…”

Staring blankly at the display, Ema’s mind slowed to a stop.

“... Oh my God.”

That couldn’t possibly be what it meant. There was…

“Apollo…?”

Ema still wasn’t fully prepared to believe the idea that was now creeping to the forefront of her mind, but she just couldn’t seem to interpret the information on the display any other way. If what she imagined was right, then…

It was starting to sound very much like this machine had shrunken Apollo, reducing him to 0.29 percent of his regular height. Running the math in her head, that worked out to somewhere around half a centimeter.

Frozen in place, she let out a slow breath.

“A-Apollo…?” she asked aloud, her voice shaky. “A-are you in here…?”

Flopping down at her desk, Athena gave a sigh. She set her elbow down, resting her cheek against her hand.

Where in the world was Apollo? Had he gotten himself caught up in something? It just wasn’t like him to disappear without warning, and he should’ve replied to a text by now.

She picked up her pen, starting to look over the documents from Ema once more. She could try to pass some time by just jotting down a few personal notes. That could save a bit of work later on, once she and Apollo got the chance to read them through together.

Unnoticed by Athena, Apollo was still perched on her head, moving carefully through the damp tangle of her hair. He could really only compare it to a strange jungle, his gigantic host’s red hair rising into the air like innumerable trees and vines, twisting around one another in every direction.

It looked like Athena had settled down, and Apollo was getting the urge to try and draw her attention again.

Heart rate picking up, he crawled toward Athena’s bangs, planning to try and maneuver himself downward until he got into her view. Her hair was long enough.

He could see Athena’s desk below, and felt a bit anxious about the possibility of falling. He’d already spent some time on Ema’s work table since shrinking, and being there hadn’t done him any good; it was hard to feel like Athena’s desk would be any more helpful.

Athena’s subtle movements made the hairs he was clinging to sway, like ropes dangling in the breeze. At his scale, her individual hairs could measure a couple of inches across, making them feel incredibly alien, in spite of his knowing exactly what they were. Apollo tugged a small group of hairs together, wrapping himself around them, and began to slowly inch his way down, gradually descending Athena’s forehead. He just needed to get himself low enough to reach her eyes…

Up close, and at his pathetic scale, Athena’s blue eyes had to be twenty feet high, at least. They too looked unbelievably bizarre like this, all the comparisons he could think of sounding more like something he would expect to read in a sappy poem. Athena’s eyes resembled entire pools of blue, deep enough to drown someone his size.

(… Yeah, I kinda doubt anyone would be jumping to read that poem…)

Athena’s gaze was fixed firmly downward. Shimmying down to as low a point as he was comfortable with, Apollo locked his ankles tightly around the lock of hair he’d chosen and shakily raised one arm, waving to Athena.

“H-hey!!” he called out. “Athena!!”

He yelped in panic, hugging the cluster of hairs as tightly as he could and closing his eyes. Athena had moved again.

Athena’s pen was loose in her grip, grazing over the paper on her desk. She’d faintly registered something strange in her line of sight, and glanced upward. It looked like she had a bit of lint or something stuck in her hair.

“… Huh?”

The lint was moving.

In the space of about a second, her mind ran a sprint from “lint”, to “ohmygodit’sabug”, and finally settled somewhere that made her lock up entirely.

Nearly cross-eyed, she could still see the tiny thing moving, and it was beginning to look startlingly familiar.

Her sensitive ears pricked at what sounded entirely too similar to a voice.

“Athena…!!”

She jerked in place, almost causing her chair to topple backwards. The tiny figure caught up in her bangs dropped, and without even thinking, she rushed to catch it, hands cupping together just below her chin.

“Oof!!”

Apollo groaned, rolling onto his hands and knees. Athena’s enormous eyes had fixated on him, making him hopeful that she’d spotted him at last. It still seemed like he was right, but instead of a comfortable moment of recognition, Athena had jolted in place, causing him to lose his grip and fall. Fortunately, she’d been quick to catch him well before he could slam down against the desk, or fall even further.

“H-holy…”

Hearing Athena’s loud voice, he looked up. She was staring right at him, blue eyes wide with shock.

“A-Apollo…!?”

He felt like collapsing with relief. After hours of stress and repeated near-death experiences, he’d finally done it; Athena had recognized him, and that meant he was safe at last. He opened his mouth, but for a moment, his voice wouldn’t come out. Clearing his throat, he tried again.

“H-hey, Athena!!” he called out loudly. She nearly fell over again.

“A-Apollo-…!?” she repeated. “B-but-… how did… why are you-…”

Athena fell silent, until-

[EXPLAIN!]

The simple outburst from the device dangling from Athena’s neck broke the tense pause, making Apollo laugh. When he stopped, Athena was still staring at him. She’d moved him closer to her face now, raising her hands a bit.

“That’s a… really long story.” he said, his whole body shaking with relief.

“I’m listening.” Athena said simply, starting to sound desperate for any explanation.

…

“And that’s where we are now.” Apollo finished. He’d run through a -- carefully abridged -- explanation of how he’d been meeting with Ema, only to be accidentally shrunken down after she left the room, and how he’d wound up being carried out of the precinct by Athena without her knowledge, eventually ending up here, dangling from her bangs to try and draw her notice. Athena had interjected a few times, but mostly just sat in silence, stunned by what she was hearing. Apollo couldn’t blame her.

“… Do I even want to know how you got into my hair…?” she asked, making him freeze up for a moment.

“U-uh…” He felt horribly unsure about answering that. There were several things he’d seen since shrinking that he really didn’t feel Athena needed to know, at least until he was back to normal. He felt much too vulnerable to harm right now to risk it. “No…?”

Eyes locked on him, Athena paused.

“Well, OK.” she said, in a tone of voice that seemed to make it clear this subject was never to be brought up again. Apollo sighed under his breath. It felt like he’d just dodged a particularly painful bullet.

“So, you said it was Ema’s machine that did this, right?”

Caught off-guard by the subject change, Apollo nodded.

“Yeah. I… don’t know how, though.”

Athena sighed, anxious.

“I sure hope Ema does…”

Around twelve minutes later, Athena was waiting at the bus stop half a block from the Wright Anything Agency. She kept nervously glancing down at the pocket of her white blouse, where she’d chosen to store Apollo. He was so incredibly tiny that nothing felt properly safe; it was like trying to safely transport a single, particularly important ant.

(I hope he’s comfy in there… it’s gotta be really weird. And there’s lint!)

The bus came into view, and Athena straightened up, trying not to look suspicious.

When she left the office, she told Trucy that she’d finally heard from Apollo, and was off to meet up with him again. It wasn’t really a lie, but she felt bad for hiding several key facts from her.

She boarded the bus and headed straight for a lone seat, keeping her movements as gentle as she could, so as to avoid any undue discomfort for her tiny passenger. She just needed Apollo to stay safe and unharmed until she got back to the precinct.

Once the bus got moving, every bump and shudder made her nervous. With other passengers present, she couldn’t try and communicate with Apollo, so she remained quite anxious throughout the entire trip.

Halfway there, she realized something; Ema probably wouldn’t appreciate having such bizarre news as “your crazy science machine shrunk Apollo” dropped directly into her lap without warning. Digging up her cell phone, she dialled Ema’s number.

…

“Athena?” Ema immediately inquired.

“Hey, Ema, are you-“

“I-is Apollo with you…!?” Ema cut in, sounding more frantic than Athena had ever heard.

“U-uh…” she stammered. “W-well, yeah, he’s-…”

“He is!? Put him on!!”

“Um… well, I can’t do that, Ema-…”

“Why not!?”

Athena nervously glanced around the bus. No one was looking at her. Keeping her voice low, she spoke up again.

“… Ema, you know that weird machine you’ve got in your lab…?”

“I know, listen -- is Apollo OK…!? It’s totally my fault if he’s-…”

“Ema, hold on.” Athena interjected now, taking another quick glance around to check that she wasn’t drawing attention. “That machine -- this is gonna sound crazy, but-“

“It shrunk him, I know!!” Ema cut her off, voice firm, but clearly filled with panic. “Is - he - al - right!?”

Athena paused.

“… Yes. He’s not hurt. Just… really, really small.”

A very loud sigh could be heard from the other end of the line.

“Oh my God, Athena, why didn’t you just start with that!? Look, come back and see me right now!!”

“We’re already on the way! We’ll be there in a few minutes.” Athena replied, trying to sound reassuring. She kept shooting nervous glances around the bus, but fortunately, her call was still being largely ignored.

“Thank God… OK, I’m going to keep working on this damn thing over here, just don’t stop anywhere.” Ema said. “Later.”

“Bye!” Athena answered, hanging up. She stowed her phone away, looking out the window. She’d never heard Ema that concerned about anything before. She usually kept a very cool head, and even when she got worked up over anything, she was usually only grumpy, if anything. Concern and panic were strange, coming from her.

Hopefully she wouldn’t reach the precinct only to find Ema losing her mind entirely. It was hard to tell what to expect.

Finally, Athena hopped off the bus, a short walk from the precinct. Her first instinct was to run, but she caught herself just in time. According to Apollo, he’d already experienced one extremely dizzying trip as a passenger with her while she enjoyed a jog, so it would be better to spare him a repeat.

Walking instead, she approached the building and headed inside. The desk sergeant looked a bit surprised to see her.

“You lose something?” the older woman asked. Athena nodded stiffly.

“Yeah, I need to see Ema again.” she said. Fortunately, the sergeant just nodded to her.

“Alright, go on.” she said.

Athena wasted no time in reaching the forensics lab. Ema was waiting inside, standing against the wall. Concern was written all over her face.

“You’re here, thank God…” she said, stepping forward. Athena shut the door and walked up to the table. “Apollo?”

“He’s right here, one second…”

Very carefully lowering her hand into her pocket, Athena let Apollo clamber up onto her index finger. It felt very strange, even now. She extracted him, then set her hand on the table so he could hop down to solid ground.

“H-holy shit…”

Ema was in awe. She’d never seen anything like this, and until an hour ago, she never would’ve believed it possible. Apollo was standing before her, right on her work table, looking quite shockingly normal, aside from the fact that he was smaller than a grain of rice. All of his familiar features were there, in spite of the astounding reduction in size.

“So you’re… you’re OK?” she asked, breathless. “Nothing’s broken? You can move around perfectly…?”

Apollo was clearly speaking loudly when he replied, but his voice was so tiny that it was barely audible.

“Yep! I took a couple of nasty falls, too, but nothing hurts too badly!”

“That’s… that’s amazing…!”

A considerable sense of cognitive dissonance was setting in. On one hand, Ema was utterly amazed by this discovery, and her mind was running wild with speculation and questions, wanting to learn everything she could about Apollo’s situation. There could be days, if not weeks’ worth of experiments to perform. On the other hand, this was Apollo she was talking about. He was one of her closest friends, and there was no way she could just leave him in this state, even if she wanted to research everything she possibly could about it. She wasn’t a physicist, and she didn’t know anything about medicine, but still, this was easily one of the most incredible scientific breakthroughs in modern history, and she couldn’t help feeling like she needed to do something with it…

“So, can you fix this…?” Athena asked, making her look up. “Apollo’s not gonna be stuck like this, right?”

Ema bit her lip.

“Uh…”

She glanced at the machine on the table. She remembered it saying something about “reversal”, but that was the only hope she had. If it had been what caused Apollo to shrink like this, then it was her only hope of fixing his situation.

“I’m giving that a ‘maybe’, with a side of ‘God-I-hope-so’.” she answered. She stepped to the side, looking at the LCD again. She’d tinkered with it a bit, and had some idea of what to do, but it was only a guess.

“Uh, Ema?” Athena prompted her. When she turned, Athena was pointing toward Apollo on the table. “He’s saying something.”

“What’s up?” she asked, leaning close. Apollo’s voice was still barely audible, even like this.

“Back before it happened, I remember a light flashing from that lens on the side of the machine.” Apollo said, gesturing with his tiny arm. Ema followed his gesture and located the familiar lens.

“Hmm…” She looked it over, then gestured to Athena. “Here, run the screen for a sec’. There are just a couple of buttons to press."

“… OK.” Athena said, sounding a touch uncertain. “I won’t screw this up, right?”

“I doubt it. Just press the first button there whenever a prompt comes up.” Ema instructed her.

She dragged a few books across the table, setting them in a stack in front of the lens.

“C’mon up, Apollo.” she said, lowering her own palm to him. Apollo climbed onto her fingertips, and she moved him to the stack of books. “Stand right there.”

Apollo got into position.

“OK, hit the button.” Ema said. “What’s the screen say?”

Athena looked it over.

“It says… ‘subject locked’.” she answered. “And… ‘begin reversal’. Is that good?”

“I think so. Hit the button again.”

Athena did so, and the machine began to hum softly. Tension was starting to fill the air. Ema kept glancing back at forth between the device and Apollo, anxious. If this didn’t work, her friend could be looking at spending the rest of his life as the world’s tiniest defence attorney…

The humming sound picked up, and with a sudden hissing sound, matched by a flash of light, the machine activated.

…

“Wh-whoa!!”

-CRASH-

Momentarily covering her eyes, Ema heard a gasp.

“Apollo!!”

She looked, and a relieved smile split across her face. Apollo was lying on the floor of the lab, looking like he’d just fallen. The impact had sounded quite painful, but after he’d had a second to get over the shock, he scrambled upright. Ema made a surprised noise as Apollo suddenly lunged forward, grabbing her in a hug.

“Uh-… Apollo?”

“E-Ema-… oh my God, Ema, thank you…!!”

Nearly hysterical, Apollo held a shaky grip on her, Ema returning the hug after a few seconds. She frowned, spotting Athena’s smirk. She could tell she was blushing a bit, and she hated knowing that Athena had noticed. When Apollo stepped away, Ema looked him over.

“You look OK.” she said. “Your whole body’s back to normal, right? You should check.”

“I… I think so…!” Apollo said, practically ecstatic with relief. He patted himself down, still shaking a bit.

Athena darted forward, tightly hugging him as well.

“Well, good!” she said brightly. “I can’t have a defence partner the size of a bug!”

The group simply enjoyed the moment for a bit, overwhelming relief sweeping over all of them. This situation could easily have been an utter disaster, and if Ema was honest, Apollo was lucky to be alive. She didn’t know how she would’ve reacted if her negligence had gotten him hurt or killed, and she didn’t want to think about it.

“… OK, enough!” Athena piped up. “We’ve still got a buttload of paperwork back at the office, Apollo! You’re normal again, so let’s move!”

“B-but-…”

“Nope! You’re still on the clock, and Mr. Wright’s not paying you to hang around here and hug your friends!”

Apollo sighed.

“You’re the one hugging me…”

Within a minute, the two defence lawyers were out the door again. Ema sat down on the edge of her work table, eyes fixed on the strange device. She knew what it did now, so by the books, she was supposed to write down everything she’d learned and prepare a report. She would get to it at some point, but…

Well, if she was honest, she was feeling quite a lot of good, old-fashioned curiosity right about now. Her report would be even better with more detail, so there was time to… experiment a bit, right…?