Brobdingnagian Business

By VivettaVenray

(WARNING: Contains vore [including a bit of implied hard vore], digestion, cruelty, messy stomachs, and gore among other things.)

(NOTE: This story takes place in a Gulliverian universe, where Lilliputians seem about an inch to Gulliverians who, in turn, seem about an inch to the Brobdingnagian people.

Gulliverian-style universes have been done in size stories before. Credit definitely goes to past authors for establishing and exploring this setting-style before I ever did myself.)

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Chapter 1: Offices

The words “Lilliadventures (TM)” had hung over the windows, been stamped into the chairs, and was engraved into the large black table of the spacious and busy boardroom. A meeting between the CEO and his dozen subordinate executives had dragged on for an hour now, and tensions were starting to flare.

“Mr. Gonzalez, profits are up that much is true, but we’re concerned about long term.”, said one well dressed bespectacled woman.

“Ha!”, barked Mr. Gonzalez. The sharply dressed man stood by his chair at the other end of the table. He slammed his hands on the furniture’s surface with his utterance. Ran fingers gripped the table’s edge. Gaudy gold rings adorned the digits, each one inset with an eyeball-sized gem.

“When have our investors, or any investors anywhere, ever complained about profits being short-term?”, he said.

“But then how will we get a profit increase next quarter then?”, spoke an aged bald man in a suit. His tone was softer, more obsequious.

“Simple, layoffs.”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He continued.

“By next quarter work on the dock construction contract with the Lilliputian Government will finish. Half the tasked employees are contract workers and are done anyways, but all the in-house staff can be fired. We’ll just rehire them if a contract comes around next year, at which point the news of another big job like that will send the stock soaring high enough to make up for the profit dip.”

He smirked wide, then continued.

“With my plan we’ll have quarterly profit increases for years just doing our usual operations. Only way elsewise is if don’t get any contracts, but my college buddy just got appointed secretary of infrastructure so that won’t happen. Trust me, the value of our shares will reach the moon!”

The CEO took a moment to stand proud and take in the reactions of the room. He looked towards the bespectacled young woman from earlier, who was scribbling on a piece of notepaper. Her brown hair was done back in a bun.

“Well, Ms. Robinson, I presume you’re running some numbers. Wanna share with the rest of the class.”

He chuckled at the dumb joke, as did the other executives to varying degrees of sincerity. One wouldn’t want to get on their boss’s bad-side, after all.

The meek woman adjusted her glasses, then spoke.

“Based on our current revenue and stock price it... checks out. But, I’m still worried Mr. Gonzalez. It’s not just about the money. You’ve sold much of your own stock here: control of your own company. I’m also concerned about opening up to the inter-size markets. I mean, Gulliverian investors typically play fair, but the Brobdingnagians have a reputation for being voracious...”

Mr. Gonzalez paused a moment. He started laughing again, with the yes-men and yes-women on the board joining in. A loud thud on the table put a stop to that. He had slammed his fist there and raised his voice.

“My grandfather started this company with nothing but street-smarts and a million dollar loan from his father. My own father, may he rest in peace, turned it from a simple venture capital firm to a national conglomerate. Their successes taught me well, and so don’t you tell me how to run my own company!”

He slammed his fist again, then walked away from the table to the wide spanning window of the enormous executive meeting room. Mr. Gonzalez paced along its length, sun shining against his back.

“I’m not gonna let them down. I’m taking this company to record profits, and doing that takes boldness, and a bit of brashness. You’re good with numbers Ms. Robinson, which is the only reason you’re still CFO after mouthing off at me like that.”

The countenance of the young woman shook at the words. He continued speaking.

“But, you just aren’t good at business sense. We’re one of the top 10 companies in all Lilliputian territories, but no Brobdingnagian corporation is gonna take an interest in us. They think we’re too small and insignificant in the inter-size markets, so only day traders will mess around with the new stocks. By the time the long standing players will take note, we’ll be worth more than even they can afford.”

Mr. Gonzalez stopped to look out from the window. He took in the sight of the sun-lit city which stretched far and wide thousands of feet below. The Lilliadventures HQ was the tallest and most expensive building in the city. He sighed, thinking of that achievement, then turned back to the others at the meeting.

“Besides, best part of this is that the new stock is special. No ownership or voting rights are included, just dividends. My control is secure. I have nothing to fear from any competitors or vultures, be they Lilliputian, Gulliverian, or even Brobdingnagian.”

It was at that moment the lights in the room went out. In fact, the lights on everything plugged in went out. The coffee machine clanked to a close. Laptops flashed their battery signals. The keycard locking doors to the room beeped as they switched to battery power.

Shortly after, a great whir was heard as everything turned back on at once.

“What was that?”, asked Mr. Gonzalez. He turned to a spring-dressed woman at the corner of the room.

“I believe that was the emergency power kicking back on.”, said the executive assistant.

He groaned. “I know that, but why did power go out at all?”

Ms. Robinson was already checking her phone. “I got an emergency text message. Power’s down in the entire city.”

“Any other news?”

“Afraid not--sir.”, she cleared her throat. “That message was the only one I got. I can’t get a connection signal. Internet and cell towers must be offline.”

She stood up and moved towards the window, and noticed the traffic lights were completely out. Cars were stopped at intersections.

“Seems even the city’s backup grid is offline.”

“You think with all the city taxes I pay this stuff shouldn’t happen. What could possibly cause something like this?”

“I’m not sure sir.”, said that assistant in the warm springtime garbs. “Perhaps an-”

A distant boom echoed through the air and reverberated through the building.

“Earthquake?”, said Ms. Robinson, finishing the sentence. “That shouldn’t be possible this far inland.”

The quake came again, then again. Each tremor louder and shakier than the last, closer. Yet, there was about the same span of time between each reverberation.

--==--==--==--

Kyle considered himself one of the best hackers born in Lilliput, and his salary reflected that. His generous pay also reflected the unusual work environment.

The young man was buckled tight to a chair bolted to the floor. The computers and other instruments in his cubicle were similarly secured. A transparent roof of heavy glass showed some of the blue sky, but aside from that there was only one window by the vault-like door between the sleekly designed chamber and the exterior corridor.

Every single screen and machine was the latest and greatest money could buy. So, too, were the antiemetics--anti-nausea pills--that Kyle and the other members of his team were fed before locking themselves in their workstations. Proprietary gyroscopic mechanisms provided an illusion of stability as the entire ‘office space’ shifted. With each lurching motion his pod-like chair, the desk, and all the equipment rotated to try to keep things level.

Technology could only go so far though. It was easy to provide the visual illusion of everything not constantly rotating and shifting, but a human body had a way of knowing. Although the reverberations of the rhythmic booms could be engineered away from reaching the workplace, their sound still broke through. With all the back and forth swaying like a pendulum, it was definitely one doozy of a ride.

Said ride got it’s greatest lurch yet. Kyle could hear the complaints from his fellow team-members over the voice communications--hundreds of them. Hacking an entire Lilliputian city’s power supplies and connectivity towers took a lot of combined effort, after all.

The blue-sky view from his glass ceiling rushed by. Soon, a big brown eye the size of a building replaced it. Kyle knew all the other members of the team on this side of the workplace had the same view. The others would have to be content with the vertigo of looking miles down to two high-heeled feet which, even now, kept on their march to the ‘target asset’.

A booming voice rung out, which his Lilliputian ears could hardly decipher on his own. Thankfully, his headset carried the words loud and clear despite their coming from a throat that could devour a suburb given enough time and bites.

“Is it done yet?”, she spoke. The almost-bored tone of her feminine voice contrasted the sheer power she wielded in but a finger.

‘Bored’, thought Kyle. ‘I never got how a Brobdingnagian could ever seem bored.’

He was first on the team to respond aloud.

“It is. We can’t touch any local generators, but the grids isolated and offline. Every cell tower in the area too.”

“Good.”, said the titaness plainly. She stopped looking at them. That eye gazing down on them went away and instead they got a view of her dark-skinned chin as she looked ahead.

“Should be safe to go in then.”

With that, the woman dropped her arm back to her side without a care in the world. Everyone working with Kyle got thrust into another immense lurching motion. The woman they talked to had lowered they arm, and her bracelet with it.

That’s where they were working: inside a Brobdingnagian’s high-tech bracelet.

--==--==--==--

Lachelle had a lot of good things going for her. Barely in her twenties and yet her career was already stable, secure, and lucrative. A lot of her friends from college would kill for a job like hers. It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, but the excitement of travel helped spice up the more boring office days while also providing a breath of fresh air to the more hectic ones.

She was also gorgeous, at least to most eyes. Her dark black hair was cut short to just past her ears. Not a single scar or blemish sullied her hazelnut skin. She had just gotten a mani-pedi the other day, so her red painted fingernails looked lovely as the afternoon sun hit their glossy sheen.

The woman was fit, svelte, and had a great sense of fashion. She wore a short-sleeved white blouse and a business skirt black for contrast. Her bare legs stretched towards some black high-heeled closed-toe shoes. A little purse-like bag hung by her shoulder. It was designer, and its exterior was a tastefully, subtly glossed shade of pink. The only piece of jewelry she had was a silver ring on a finger.

Lachelle was, also, 6 miles tall. Of course, that was only in Lilliputian terms. Given that she was in Lilliputian territory, that meant that was probably the perspective to go by. Indeed, for all the good cards dealt to her in life, being a Brobdingnagian was arguably the best.

Her long leg stretched over a small little farming town on her march. The Lilliputians below got quite the view. It inspired awe, fear, and envy.

Yes, they too were inclined to agree being a Brobdingnagian was better.

Lachelle’s high-heeled foot slammed down just past the village’s border. The ensuing quake rattled the inventories off of Lilliputian shelves, triggered car alarms, and just in general caused chaos.

A Lilliputian was the smallest known subspecies of human, of course. Just one step of hers caused that level of calamity to the people that, to her, were but millimeters in height.

“Wait”, came a female voice in Lachelle’s ear, and one the titanic woman knew well. Lachelle paused where she stood, which meant the Lilliputians due below got to look up the Brobdingnagian’s business skirt for some time at her tastefully laced panties.

Lachelle moved her finger towards the small--well, to her—headset that she wore on her left ear. It clipped on like a hearing aid with a small jutting microphone pointing out near the lobe to pick up her voice. They were quite common among all the three sizes of people, and were how the various sizes communicated with one another as clear as possible.

“What is it?”, she spoke.

“No not you.”, said the voice. “Mister Troutman, power is shut off to more than the city, yes?”

Kyle, having just recovered from the lurch of Lachelle’s moving arm, answered with haste.

“Yes Mrs. Yamamoto. The entire metropolitan area is taken care of. No need to worry about any suburbs or even single farm houses having power or internet connectivity.”

“Perfect. In that case we can-”

Himari paused her speech as her chamber rumbled and shifted. Soon, the glass front of her own private workplace got a view of Lachelle’s face.

Of course, to a Gulliverian like her, Lachelle seemed much smaller: closer to just 500ft. That was still enough to break all her bones every which way, but far less a city-ending threat to her people, were the Brobdingnagians.

Lachelle had twisted her necklace around to talk to Himari, who’s ornament-like work-pod was embedded at the center of its sturdy chain. It seemed like a curious pendant in its hyper functional design.

“Lachelle...”, began Himari. Her voice was calm, cool, and professional like almost always while on-the-clock.

“Didn’t I say this isn’t needed, we can hear each other just fine with our headsets. Now-”

“I know, I just wanted to get a look at my precious jewel.”, spoke a smirking Lachelle. The words rattled the necklace single-office much as they were repeated, clearer, over Himari’s headpiece.

“That’s not very professional. Both interrupting me and that, of course. As the Acquisition Coordinator, it’s my job to help you here, so try and work with me well like always now.”, spoke Himari.

But, there was truth to Lachelle’s words. She really did find Himari as pretty as a jewel. The petite Gulliverian woman dressed in a woman’s blazer over her own long-sleeved white shirt. Her skirt was dark shade of blue that matched the blazer, and would be longer than Lachelle’s own were the Brobdingnagian not about several hundred times the Gulliverian’s own height.

Himari’s jet-black hair was tied in a pony-tail. Her own nails were well manicured, but unpainted. Her legs were clad in some pantyhose, and her own feet were in some stylish ivory flats that near matched the shade of her pale-hued skin.

Her face looked back to Lachelle, stoic and professional as ever. Her tone held as well.

“Now, you don’t need to keep standing over Burgsenville. In fact, safely clear it as soon as possible.”

Lachelle did so. She moved her other high-heel over the village. For a moment, her balance wavered, but the foot slammed down ahead just in time to right herself. All the Lilliputians below breathed a sigh of relief.

“Lachelle”, spoke Himari. “Be careful.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Yamamoto.”, said Lachelle. “That was a genuine accident though. I take it with the power and such cut, you don’t want me to level that Burgers-ville just to be safe?”

“It’s Burgsenville, like I said. it’s important to know where you are. And, no, that would be detrimental in fact. Every bit of damage caused is something the company has to pay back. Now, let’s keep moving. We’ve a schedule to keep. Ms. Oshie herself was personally interested in the asset.”

Lachelle loosened her grip on the necklace. Himari’s unwavering professionalism let her preemptively stifle a scream as the necklace-office lurched in a drop. The sleek, high-tech office came to rest against the soft hazelnut skin of Lachelle’s neckline.

“Do you know why?”, asked Lachelle.

“It was not my place to question, nor is it yours.”, spoke Himari.

There was silence for a few more of Lachelle’s ground quaking steps, then Himari broke it.

“But, this means the more we bring the asset back intact, the more pleased she’ll be.”

Lachelle grinned. A few more steps went out. One almost had the Brobdingnagian stomping a fuel-station along a Lilliputian highway, but Kyle’s team called it out in the nick of time. Otherwise, there were no more close calls on the short walk, and soon a sprawling mass of gray laid before Lachelle’s eyes. It stretched about as much as a rug would.

“That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”, said Himari. “Lilyork City. It’s by far our biggest operations area yet. So, you must be very careful.”

“Of course.”, said Lachelle. “As the coordinator, you’re in charge. But, don't worry, this isn’t our first task together now is it?”

“I suppose it’s not.”, said Himari, curtly.

Lachelle smiled a tad then moved towards the city’s boundary.

Chapter 2: Procedures

The quakes continued and it wasn’t long till everyone in the boardroom crowded at the windows. None were afraid of the building collapsing from a simple quake, but that didn’t exactly sooth and nerves. Everyone in the city wondered what was going on, but the executives, being in the tallest building Lilyork City possessed, were some of the first to see the source of those disorienting tremors.

Steps. The quakes were the result of steps. Far on the horizon they saw those dark, divine pillars of legs moving through their country with carefree ease. They led to absolutely titanic feet, clad in black high-heels. Soon, those shoes were most anyone in the city could see. They loomed right at the very edge of the city as harbingers of doom.

One blonde executive spoke up, panic in her voice.

“It’s a Brobdingnagian! What is she doing here, this is highly illegal this-”

“Won’t be our problem soon enough.”, said Mr. Gonzalez. “I’m not about to die here, and if you’re smart, none of you will too.”

The man turned from the window and looked at a sharply dressed, bulky physique man donned with sunglasses.

“You there,”, he started. “We’re gonna make our way to the courtyard. Run to the communications room to rely that message; I know signals are down, but if anyone knows some way to get messages through to my private air-staff, it’d be them.”

The security staffer moved to leave, but the CEO called out again.

“Wait, also, before that, tell all other building security to meet us down there. Once the common rabble on the streets--not to mention the lesser employees--notice we have the means to evacuate, they might try to shove their way in to snag a spot on my private helicopters. We can’t have that now, can we?”

That sun-glasses wearing man nodded, then moved off.

Ms. Robinson--that meek looking brunette--adjusted her glasses before speaking up.

“Isn’t being out in the open dangerous, Mr. Gonzalez? Might it be better to hide in the building's basement, or perhaps even deeper?”

Mr. Gonzalez scoffed just as another one of the executives chimed up. It was a vulture-looking man: bald head, with gnarled facial features.

“C’mon now hun, if that Brobdingnagian means to break the city, she’s surely gonna target the tallest building. Can’t go deeper than a basement either. How would we? Underground? City protocol forbids hiding in sewers or the like during disasters unless there’s a municipal order to do so. This is basic Lilyork civics.”

He laughed a tad, as did the other ass-kissers of Mr. Gonzalez’s executive board. But, Mr. Gonzalez seemed less amused when he spoke.

“Correct Mr. Smith. I don’t pay for a CFO to be countermanded by them. Unless you want to try and hide in the sewer like the other peasants of this city, Ms. Robinson, you’ll come along with the rest of us.”

He grit his teeth and raised his arm in an exaggerated gesticulation.

“And if I hear another word out of you all the while, you’ll be fired on the spot, and non-employees don’t have a seat on my private helicopters. Now, let’s waste no more time. Is that understood?”

Ms. Robinson bowed her head in a defeated nod. Mr. Gonzalez smirked, showing those shiny white teeth of his. They and all the other executives hurriedly shuffled out the door to the private elevators.

--==--==--==--

Lachelle had paused right at the city’s borders. The very tips of her high heels nearly crept into that gray line separating city from highways: the latter of which was smashed a good deal beneath the unfathomable weight of her absolutely monolithic body.

She sighed, then spoke aloud and into her headset.

“So, just to confirm, it’s that skyscraper over there, isn’t it?”

The Brobdingnagian woman was looking straight ahead at the Lilliadventures HQ. It was by far the tallest building in the city, and on top of that it had an entire few blocks worth of space around it as a courtyard. That kind of real estate was a real premium in the crowded Lilyork city. It was arguably worth that area in gold, in fact.

“That is correct.”, said Himari Yamamoto. “It’s the tallest building in the city: over 2000ft.”

Lachelle let loose a tiny scoff.

“It looks like it’d barely come up past my ankles.”

“The measurement is in Lilliputian feet, so that’s to be expected.”

The courtyard space had a few buildings of its own within. Squinting her hardest, Lachelle could make out only a couple of them. She saw a rather wide looking building, flat, and pointed it out.

“Ah.”, said Himari. “Seems the company’s owner and CEO, Mr. Gonzalez, has a personal airport of sorts. That could be a problem if we need to intercept any crafts. With connection and communications signals down, I’m sure we will have plenty of time. Just proceed as normal.”

“Alright then.”, said Lachelle. She pulled up her purse. The metal of the Lilliputian-filled bracelet of hers glimmered in the gentle afternoon sun with that sudden shift of her arm. She unzipped that ‘little’ pink bag of hers and peered into it.

“You’re all ready in there, I hope?”, she said with a grin.

--==--==--==--

With that speedy private elevator, Mr. Gonzalez and the other executives made it to the courtyard in no time. The standard security measures of the property--some tall, spiky fences--were holding up thus far at keeping anyone from the streets out. There was plenty of space to themselves.

The CEO and the others arrived before security did, and thus had the wide, concrete-paved courtyard to themselves. The hanger building with the private helicopters stood a few hundred feet to their left, with a view of the fence and the city past it due in front. An ornate fountain hung near the fence-gate near where all the employees would enter. It was, of course, locked down.

Naturally, to kill time, the executives craned their necks to gawk at the giant 6 mile tall woman standing at the edge of the city. The feet were most anyone could see, and it was well over a mile to her knees. Still, at their distance of miles, they could just barely make out some of her outfit: an enormous black skirt and just the very hem of a white, short-sleeved blouse. At least, that’s what they thought it was.

“It’s absurd to think that people like that actually exist on our planet.”, said one man.

“Oh my, we’re all doomed.”, said that blonde-haired executive from earlier.

“Nonsense.”, said the ever confident Mr. Gonzalez. “We’ll be fine.”

With a rush of displaced air, that Brobdingnagian woman crouched down to her haunches.

“She’s reaching in for something there, in her purse!”, spoke another executive.

Mr. Gonzalez tilted his head at the sight. Others did the same, or gasped--or did both.

“Are those... Gulliverians?”

The CEO’s trailed off at the strange sight. The Brobdingnagian woman’s hand had reached into her purse and snagged a handful of living, breathing Gulliverians. She then causally settled the back of her hand just outside the city. The motion flattened a few more highways into the ground beneath her knuckles.

Out from that hand came some variably-styled but invariably sharply-dressed women. Each one had a tablet computer with a handle in one hand. Their other hands were typically used to brush themselves off from their ‘landing’ of a few Gulliverian feet. That done, they stomped off across the city streets.

Littler quakes rung out as those Gulliverian women spread out across the city. All the while, the Brobdingnagian woman reached in for another handful of them, and then one more before she set her open purse down at the city’s edge. By then, the first two handfuls of these well-dressed Gulliverians had made their way pretty deep into the city. Their steps left high-heeled or flats-shaped indents into the concrete of the roads. Many of the prints were filled with crushed cars or red dots.

Said Gulliverians would stop at buildings from time to time, take pictures with their tablets, note things down with a stylus, then move on.

The executives were able to make out some of what those Gulliverians were up to: enough to be horrified.

“My word, what sort of horrible things are they doing? What could possibly be the purpose of this?”, said one older executive woman.

“I’m not sure.”, said another. “But whoever they are, they seem evil.”

--==--==--==--

“Alright, lawyers deployed.”, said Lachelle.

“Noted, and good.”, said Himari curtly. “They’ve already gotten started assessing the city’s property value. As usual, we’ll be on top of any exaggerated damage claims from the Lilliputian government before the bureaucrats even make them.”

“We haven’t lost a bill challenge with them yet, have we?”

“Indeed, you’re correct Lachelle.”, said Himari. “Though that doesn’t mean we’ve haven’t had high bills before. They assess the aftermath as well, which reflects on you.”

“It’s not as though they don’t also cause damage.”, retorted Lachelle.

“Please, Lachelle, you are over a hundred times their height. Besides, they are professionals: stepping on the cheaper-to-ameliorate Lilliputians over their expensive buildings just makes financial sense. Plus, by hiring female lawyers only, they take up less space. Less accidental building bumps in the streets. Anyways, mind your steps best you can.”

“Of course.” said Lachelle. With that, she lifted her foot as though to take a step in the city.

--==--==--==--

The executives, already thoroughly humbled by the movements of giant women in the city, felt another rush of air as Lachelle rose back to her full height.

Their little ears could barely make out her booming voice. They only gleamed a few words.

“Lawyers? Bill challenge? What do you think she meant by tha-Aaaa!”

That same skittish blonde executive from earlier broke out into a scream. Others followed her lead or simply gasped. Across the city similar sentiments rung out.

The Brobdingnagian woman had lifted one of her high-heeled feet up into the air. The sole of that shoe hung over numerous blocks. Each Gulliverian lawyer was near 500ft to the diminutive Lilliputians. Yet, to a Brobdingnagian, that sub-species of human seemed but an inch tall.

Though each Gulliverian could easily flatten a few buses in but one step, that Brobdingnagian high-heel stretched long and wide enough o flatten a swath of city blocks beneath its bottom. The heel alone could probably flatten a block or a few, and the entire shoed foot was heading down to the metropolis.

A swarm of panicked Lilliputians ran through the siren swarmed city below it’s shadow. It seemed like the end for them.

Then, the heel stopped right in the air. That gigantic Brobdingnagian woman paused her step there, letting her foot hang for a few terrifying and confusing moments.

--==--==--==--

“Stop!”, said Himari. Her tone was, of course, professional, but the word was rushed and loud.

“What is it?”, said Lachelle. She had done as Himari said and paused her step.

“The heels, they won’t work. How unprofessional of me to not check even sooner. The tech team in your bracelet just ran some numbers, those have to come off.”

“Really, again?”, said Lachelle. Despite the verbal protest, her step already moved back before the city’s border. In front and beneath her, some Lilliputians breathed a sigh of relief. A sigh that was all too soon.

“Yes.”, said Himari. “You’ll need to go barefoot again. Those heels weigh many thousands of Lilliputian tons. The city and the buildings within were designed by Lilliputians to their standards. They’ll add too much additional depth to your footprints, and the heel of them will focus too much of your weight to the city. It’ll blow the water and gas lines underneath.”

Lachelle frowned. “I should’ve worn flats like you then.”, she said. She then bent one leg back and, in a terrifying display of balance to the Lilliputian’s below, began to take off her left high-heel.

“No, that wouldn't have worked either. Same issue, just less magnitude. And yes, you’re going to rupture a few utility lines anyways, but it’s about minimizing costs, not removing it from the equation entirely.”

“Yeah yeah I get you Himari.”

“Mrs. Yamamoto.”, reminded Himari.

Lachelle smiled a tad then finished yanking that high-heel free. As a sort of ‘protest’ to having to take them off, she set it down without looking. The heel of it crushed a gas station near a highway behind here while the toe of it came down thousands of feet past it to flatten a few roads beneath its smooth black bottom.

The Brobdingnagian's woman freshly bare foot crashed back down to the ground and she removed her other high-heel shoe, placing it down side by side with the other.

The pleasant breeze hit her toes, which she wiggled in response. That drummed up a few more quakes, and earned some curt glances from the lawyers scurrying through veritable carpet of a city below her.

“Ready, Misses Yamamoto?”

“Good.”, said Himari. “You may begin.”

Lachelle took a step into the city and this time, she actually intended to complete it.

Chapter 3: Approach

The Lilliputians looked up in horror as the Brobdingnagian’s foot returned, now bare. The red polish of her toes shined in the sun for just a moment, but the top of the foot quickly moved out of sight as the entire ped angled for a coming step.

The expanse of pinkish sole stretched for nearly a mile. Her foot alone was nearly one Lilliputian mile of flesh in length. Every winkle was something they could get stuck in. Every whorl on her toe print an elaborate, enormous design like some curious form of art. It was all heading towards them.

The buildings surrounding those Lilliputians were the first to meet that foot. Sturdy metal and concrete structures broke against that unyielding sole. They didn’t even buckle so much as break, instantly, like a sand sculpture just turning to rocky dust.

Debris fell all around them. Shadows covered them as that oppressive foot drew nearer, snuffing out more and more light as it drew closer to snuffing them out. They’d be flattened, crushed out and hardly noticed if noticed at all. All that for one step from the largest type of being on the planet.

The step finished. A wiggle of those titanic toes trailed a few mini-quakes to follow after the tremendous tremor that deadly step had wrought. Of course, the city was very earthquake resistant. However, no high tech materials or girder latticing could protect the city, its buildings, or its people from collapsing under a Brobdingnagian foot.

Lachelle wasn’t here to just step on the city. This wasn’t a show of force or anything like that. It was business. She was here to pick up an asset for Oshie Corp.

And thus, she took yet another devastating step.

Another bare Brobdingnagian foot, the right one this time, loomed over another pristine swath of the city. It was just a second or so till it fell. The Lilliputians below hadn’t even had time to scream before they burst into red mist against that hazelnut-skinned woman’s sole. Hundreds more died from the collapses of buildings near the impact of the foot. Their last views, should they have gazed up, were at the black lacy undergarments she wore beneath that skirt.

Lilliadventures HQ was deep into the city, at the other half of it really. Lilyork was one of the biggest Lilliputian metropolises, so even a Brobdingnagian like Lachelle had to take more than just *two* steps to get there.

As Lachelle moved, so too did the Gulliverian lawyers stomping around. They had no regard for the Lilliputians themselves, only their structures. One Lilliputian skyscraper was worth thousands of times more money than a Lilliputian person when it came time for the company to actually pay.

So, the lawyers had no qualms about flattening running or begging Lilliputians beneath their heels or flats. The vehicles, too, were easily flattened like tin cans beneath shoes that were over 70ft or so to the Lilliputians. Time was money, after all, and the lawyer women didn’t bother to adjust their steps less efficiently just to spare some Lilliputian lives.

On top of that, to be a lawyer was a stressful career with long hours in feet-hurting footwear. Few of those women, as a byproduct of candidate selection for their jobs, would pass up popping a Lilliputian under foot to pass the time or relieve some stress.

Indeed, one rather meek looking bespectacled lawyer was causing quite a massacre in the street she was assessing. Despite her gorgeous looks and golden blonde hair, she was quite the monster, and seemed to deliberately flatten a cluster of Lilliputians here or there almost whenever she had the chance. Of course, as a professional, she knew the limits of pushing-her-luck on an expense report, but the smile she shot her victims below let them know she knew exactly what she was doing between snapping photos of buildings and such.

It was more satisfying that way, she found.

Naturally, all those Gulliverian lawyers stomping about made Lilliputians want to run away from them. However, Lachelle didn’t exactly want to step on any fellow employees, even if they were smaller than her. So, also naturally, she would step where the lawyers weren’t, which was precisely where the Lilliputians would flee towards more often than not.

Thus, in the process of recording property values and damages, the Gulliverian lawyer task force indirectly corralled the Lilliputians to their dooms. So, in minimizing expenses for Oshie Corp, both Lachelle and the lawyer team had maximized the amount of Lilliputian causalities beneath every soft and awe-inspiringly destructive step of Brobdingnagian feet.

That’s just how things often were with this sort of business.

Just one of Lachelle’s crater-like foot prints put the Gulliverian ones to shame. Her steps were very impactful, and very expensive. It was unavoidable for her to flatten swaths of the city. But, it’d all be worth it in Oshie Corporation's eyes once they got to the target. Just a couple more steps and Lachelle would be there.

--==--==--==--

“Where the fuck are those helicopters?”, barked Mr. Gonzalez towards the security staff. They had just arrived and formed a protective perimeter at the front of the executives. Due ahead, some Lilliputian citizens were trying to get into the courtyard, but the fence kept most of them out, and the few good climbers were simply knocked off the fence by security.

The security staffer Mr. Gonzalez was talking to spoke curtly with the barest tone of apology in his voice.

“I’m sorry Mr. Gonzalez, but with communication systems offline we don’t know. I assume the pilots will fly over when ready.”

The CEO gripped those ring-decorated fingers of his tight into a fist. “They better.”, he said, then near fell over from another booming quake.

They saw in the distance how her steps hearkened clouds of debris and cries of despair. Each dark-skinned foot’s rise and fall was an absolute disaster in its own right.

It was only internal denial that kept him and many of the other executives from stating the obvious for quite some time. Eventually, one of them did. That vulture-like older executive.

“S-she’s coming this way.”, he said.

“No no”, said another executive. “She can’t be.”

“She is, those feet are pointed right towards us. Just look at them.”

“I can’t bear to look!” spoke that blonde haired woman again. “We’re all gonna die. It was my vacation next week too, it’s not fair.”

“Quite everyone!”, spoke an older woman’s voice--another executive of course. “The helicopters will be here soon.”

She had glossed over the notion that they were the target. It seemed to be the case, more and more, with every step of that giant Brobdingnagian woman. Each one drew her closer and closer. Soon they could make out every detail of the buildings popping beneath her toes or under an unyielding heel. Soon, each quake knocked them over onto their butts. Yes, she was coming for them.

“Security, protect me!”, shouted Mr. Gonzalez.

The security staff turned to each other. Beneath their dark glasses were eyes marked with confusion. How could they possible defend against a Brobdingnagian?

“Is the company’s life insurance policy not generous enough? Protect us you fools!”, barked Mr. Gonzalez once more.

Said security staff did the best they could: they moved to the front of the executives, drew sidearms of some kind, and readied themselves to defend the company VIPs. The Brobdingnagian spoke some more words, presumably into a headset, they all assumed, as they couldn’t imagine their tiny selves catching her notice. None were stable enough, physically or mentally, to think and try to make out said words.

Lachelle’s next step had her bare foot fall right in front of the courtyard gates. In just one step of hers, all the screams of those Lilliputians trying to get in were silenced. They all disappeared beneath her toes, with countless blocks behind those digits flattened as her sole hit the ground.

The other foot settled right by that one’s side, and, finally at her destination, Lachelle sat on her haunches for a closer look at the target.

The security staff started firing, aiming at her toes and the bare dark skin of her legs. A few even aimed at her knees as she loomed over them with her semi-sitting posture.

Chapter 4: Touchpoint

“You know,”, said Lachelle as she stomped along the city. “It always feels weird to step on Lilli things barefoot.”

“Unless I’m mistaken, and I’m not, I recall you saying you liked it.”, said Himari.

“Well, that doesn’t mean it’s not weird.”, replied Lachelle.

Himari said nothing, but she broke her professional composure ever so slightly with a smirk no one saw.

Lachelle’s walk came to a stop shortly after. She felt the squish of several hundred Lilliputians beneath her toes, and thought nothing of it. Then, she crouched down to get a closer look at the Lilliadventures HQ. Even crouching down, she towered over the structure by well over a mile.

“Ok.”, she began. “We’re here.”

“Yes, we are.”, said Himari. “But it seems you didn’t notice: they have security staff down there.”

“They do?”

“Yes, they’ve been shooting at you for awhile now. I suppose you couldn’t feel it.”

Lachelle shifted forward in her squat, arms hanging relaxed over her knees, with her fingers dangling precariously over the ground by her toes. She squinted real hard and, sure enough, could just barely make out a cluster of specks.

Since each security staff member wore matching black suits, the defensive formation of them appeared as a clump of black dots, basically, altogether no bigger than her smallest toe.

“No, I didn’t feel them. It’d be hard to feel something like that.”

Indeed, even with the terrified silence from the Lilliputian executives below her and past those security specks, she could just barely, if even, make out the sounds of their tiny sidearms going off.

“I can imagine, but they need to be dealt with. Would you please...”, said Himari.

“But, if I do it isn’t it a little heavy-handed? We don’t want to hurt the asset. That building looks pretty expensive, even I can see that.”

“You’re a professional, Lachelle. Just lick them up or something. Quick, precise, and efficient. Safer than snuffing them out with a finger, too.”

“Won’t that leave a bit of saliva?”

“Yes, but in the courtyard only. Once the asset is secure back at Oshie Corp, it’ll be thoroughly cleaned by staff. They must be disposed of, and I’ll deduct their numbers from the final employee count. Though they can’t hurt us, I need to go down there, and when I do I don’t want their armaments to scuff or stain any of my clothes.”

“I’ll have to move real close, which means I need to stretch myself out into the city a bit. That’s a lot of damage to cause.”, said Lachelle.

“It’ll be cheaper than my dry cleaning.”, said Himari.

“Understood.”

Lachelle moved from her squatting position to a laying one: with catastrophic results. The bottom of her palms slammed into the ground just before the courtyard. The wrinkles of one such palm hung over the Lilliputian executives and their security staff. Thankfully, they were angled so as to not crush them in the few seconds before she slid her hands back and lowered them flat to the ground. In the process, her pinky finger flattened some guard posts on the outside of the courtyard fence.

That done, Lachelle stretched out those long legs of hers back into the city. So much previously unflattened metropolis-matter got caught up by her feet as they moved backed. Like unstoppable walls, megalithic bulldozers, her soles barreled into the buildings that survived contact with her toes. Said toes had dug into the city’s foundation, and they left deep trenches as those long dark legs stretched out much as they could.

There was no resistance from the city. The Brobdingnagian's toes and the tops of her feet and legs just tore through all those buildings and concrete like butter.

The only warning the lawyers had came from Himari shortly before the movement began. That area was clear, mostly, but still some of the Gulliverian lawyers on Oshie Corp payroll broke into sudden sprints to dodge the pillar-like limbs as they just extended out to flatten block after block around them.

All made it out safely, but there was at least one close call. Of course, any Lilliputians or buildings in the way broke beneath or against those 500ft bodies that moved with such a sudden haste. More blood stains abounded beneath designer Gulliverian shoes.

Lachelle wasn’t quite finished with her casually apocalyptic repositioning. With her legs stretched out, she lowered her body so that her bosom and abdomen settled atop the city. A few ten-thousand Lilliputians, lucky thus far, met their doom under the cloth of her black skirt or the flowing white fabric of her blouse. A single button from the blouse laid waste to a couple side-by-side company headquarters. Their very roofs broke against the sturdy little fastener of a Brobdingnagian woman’s top.

It wasn’t the most professional position to be in, admittedly. What business woman would lie on the ground? One that needed to, and Lachelle held the opinion that doing one’s job was more professional than not doing it, no matter how it looked.

--==--==--==--

The executives watched in horror as the predicted uselessness of their security staff played out before them. What shots managed to reach the Brobdingnagian behemoth’s toes simply fizzled out on contact. There wasn’t even the slightest mark made against her red toenail polish, least as far as their eyes could tell.

With those looming red-painted toes positioned so precariously close to the courtyard, there was a great temptation to run away. But, they were all either smart enough to realize the futility of that, or paralyzed by fear too much to do anything but tremble in place.

That was all *before* Lachelle lied down. Once she did that, screams rung out and fists clenched. Across the city was pandemonium from such a simple gesture, but for the Lilliputian executives this was the moment where they realized they were noticed. They simply had to be.

Not much thought was given to the calamitous cacophony going on in the city from those gargantuan movements. Sirens blared, screams reached crescendos before being silenced; it was all at the back of those executives’ minds. They were absolutely entranced and awestruck as the Brobdingnagian’s entire face moved towards them.

The massive woman’s visage stretched for thousands of Lilliputian feet. Her smile alone would be over 1100ft. They could get lost in the caves of her nostrils, or be blown away with an errant exhale. But, before their thoughts could wander on all the ways they could casually be obliterated by her, she took their attention in full.

Her mouth opened. Another simple gesture with so much behind it due to her scale. Her humid breath wafted over them like a sauna. They could hear the saliva snapping, the tiny subtle movements of her tongue. They could see all the bands of spittle dangle and snap. Even the tiniest droplets to her made a splashing sound as they slipped to the ‘minute’ pools of saliva which must’ve rested beneath her tongue.

She leaned in just a tad more, and that tongue of hers poked out. It was a pink leviathan: bumpy and unstoppable. A true monster in its own right, it attacked fast. All the executives screamed as they thought this would be it, but they were wrong. The tongue quickly poked at the security staff only, leaving the executives be.

In the span of a second or two the tip of that slick muscle poked down and lapped them all up. The saliva adhered the security squad and they were gone, drawn back into a monstrous cavern of a maw. A mouth that could devour the city over the course of a day or two, dozens if not hundreds of buildings at a time.

The tongue retreated, the lips sealed, and they heard the sickening sound of a casual swallow. They were gone: the entire security force was gone save one lucky fool who stood by the thin puddle of saliva left behind. He was dry, having dodged the tongue, and the air quickly worked to dry much of the 2 meter layer of spittle left on the concrete.

The other security staff were far from lucky. Soon as they were in her mouth they realized just how absolutely doomed their were. Each papillae of Lachelle’s tongue made for a significant ‘terrain’ hazard. The entire tongue was too sticky and slick with the cloying saliva to move.

On that note, two guards perished to the spittle itself. One was due below a droplet as it fell from the palate of the Brobdingnagian’s mouth to inundate and drown him. The other fell off the side of the tongue and splashed down into the pool beneath that muscle. His legs broke and he quickly drowned.

Yet, even those were better fates then being swallowed alive. A tilt of the tongue and they were thrust into darkness. Surrounded in saliva, they went down her throat on a trip that at once seemed like forever yet too fast all the same. Once those disorienting, colossal movements of that long esophagus finished they were thrust through a fleshy valve into the Brobdingnagian’s gut proper.

It was dark and loud. Her heat beat boomed around as unignorable ambiance, yet that paled in comparison to all the gurgling roars in the hot torrid environment. Beneath them was something wet and a tad mushy with a bit of a give beneath the steps of their shoes.

The security staff eventually had the foresight to pull out their connection-less phones for use as flashlights. The light was too feeble to reveal more than their immediate surroundings. Fields of green and bits of purple and white surrounded them. They were like plants, curious expansive leaves underfoot. The smell of the stomach surrounded them, but there was also a faint hint of vinegar as well.

It was salad.

They realized they were on the digesting mass of Brobdingnagian-scale salad the megalithic woman must’ve had for lunch. The purple and white stuff were shavings of radishes. The leaves beneath their feet were lettuce. That hint of vinegar and herbs was some kind of vinaigrette.

It occurred to them that they were food: no, mere seasoning. Spice if even. They were nothing to her. Her stomach would deal with them just as easily as if they were sprinkles of pepper on her greens. They’d digest easier than a shaving of greens.

They didn’t have much longer in there. The stomach churned and their footing was lost. Acid dropped all around them, roared as waves just at the side of their partially-digested salad isles. It wasn’t long till they fell into the sea of juices and began to melt. Any bit of leaf or other vegetable in reach simply turned to slush when they tried to use it as a raft.

--==--==--==--

On the outside, Lachelle moved her head back and her fingers gently touched the ‘pendant’ of her necklace.

“Good.”, said Himari. “Now lower me down if you please.”

Chapter 5: Meeting

Lachelle obeyed Mrs. Yamamoto. The Brobdingnagian reached for her necklace. She lifted it over her neck and off her body. Holding it steady as she could, she lowered it down to the courtyard.

Once the necklace’s ‘centerpiece’ of a little office near touched the courtyard below Himari, in turn, started opening the thing. The Gulliverian hit a few buttons and entered a code on the computer bolted to the side of her pendant office. The glass-like material covering it popped open like a door, and she stepped out onto the courtyard ground.

She turned to all the Gulliverian-inch-high Lilliputians, clasped her hands over her waist, and bowed slightly.

“Greetings everyone, I am Himari Yamamoto, and I will be your Acquisition Coordinator for today.”

Himari waited for them to greet her back, but instead they just stared dumbstruck at her. That was to be expected.

Then, she noticed a couple of the executives staring at her shoes. That wasn’t too out of the usual either, given that it was the only part of her body they could hope to stand tall over. But, when she looked down, she noticed the trembling, sunglasses wearing man standing down there.

“Ah.”, was all she said as she leaned down and pinched him up. He tried to reach for his sidearm, but she wiggled those manicured fingers of hers to shake his body. The sidearm fell right to the ground.

“Seems you missed one, Lachelle.”, she said aloud. Her eyes were on him, but all deduced she was talking to the Brobdingnagian.

That was all she said before she, as politely as possible, opened her mouth, plopped him in, then swallowed.

--==--==--==--

Mr. Gonzalez and the rest of his executives felt almost too curious to do anything when the pendant came down. A well dressed Gulliverian woman, clad in dark blue professional attire, stepped out of the necklace where she seemed to have been working. They saw a to-scale computer embedded in the wall of that pendant room, alongside a chair with buckles that came undone the moment she typed something on a keypad.

The steps of her ivory-colored flats boomed out onto the concrete of the courtyard. As a Gulliverian, she stood a bit under 500 feet to them. That was far, far less than a Brobdingnagian, but still plenty enough to make them feel small and, of course, be a great danger.

She turned not to Mr. Gonzalez, but to all of them for an introduction. The CEO was about to chime up with a slew of questions, but she seemed to have been distracted by the security guard.

The poor guard, who had survived the Brobdingnagian earlier, got pinched right up. A lurching sensation wracked him as he flew by the pantyhose clad legs, past a dark blue skirt and then past a matching jacket laid neatly over a white blouse. Once at the gigantic woman’s face, he hadn’t even a second to take in that pony-tailed Gulliverian's pretty facial features before she opened wide and devoured him.

Though it wouldn’t be the case with her Brobdingnagian companion and a Lilliputian, Himari’s size difference with the guard meant she felt him squirming down her throat. Her throat, in turn, actually had to work a bit to squeeze the inch-tall man, covered in saliva and esophageal slime, down to her gut.

Slimy flesh greeted him inside Himari’s stomach. That came alongside an atmosphere so torrid and acrid it was a wonder he could breath without his lungs melting. He figured if he lived long enough in there, that could happen. At the time he had other things to worry about.

He plopped down not into watery fluids so much as gooey mush. A sensation like giant worms hit his arms and he flailed those limbs of his trying to get it off and away. Once most of it fell off his body, he pulled out his phone to see what was going on with its light.

Worms it wasn’t, but rather big Gulliverian scale noodles. They wrapped about his limbs much as a boa constrictor would or some especially slimy, thick jungle vines. All his work getting some of them off went to naught as that stomach churned and he was thrust into the pile of whatever noodle dish Himari had for lunch. The smells of the meal were many, but all were overpowered by the acidic air of the Gulliverian gut.

With a scream of despair, his phone fell into those churning waters and the light fizzled out. He couldn’t make out whatever else she ate, but it felt far mushier to the unwilling touch than the noodles. Each churn bounced him around.

Using all his strength, he pulled himself free of the digestive mash to pound at Himari’s stomach, desperate to get out. His fists, red with irritation from all the acids, slid off the mucus-lined walls of the gut. Still, he pounded until the walls pounded back alongside some words of the Gulliverian he was too angry and desperate to make out.

From that, he fell. And from there, a churn coated him in stomach slurry once more. He struggled to get back up to repeat himself with less strength behind it.

--==--==--==--

“Mmmm, bit active in there.” said Himari. She gently patted her stomach, fingers drumming at the area with her business garbs softening the effect. She felt his flurry of activity cease for a moment, so it must’ve worked, but he went back to pounding away.

It was pleasant, but she was professional and tried not to take too much visible enjoyment out of it. She then noticed all the executives still watching.

“My apologies, but there will be no use for your security at our meeting.”

“Meeting?!?”, said Mr. Gonzalez. “Meeting!!! You ate him alive!”

Himari moved her hand to her ear and made out his words just barely.

“Yes, I did. I’m sure you Lilliputians know well the history of your kind being devoured. And, yes, a meeting. Now, I can hear you, barely, without aid, but would you all mind putting on your headsets? I’m sure you have some. Turn the code to 256, it’s the only one our staff hasn’t blocked, and even then you’ll only be able to communicate with us.”

“Your staff? You mean you were responsible for the power outage?!”, shouted Mr. Gonzalez.

“Mr. Gonzalez, please, your headsets. I will have to insist on them before I field any questions.”, said a smiling Himari.

Mr. Gonzalez begrudgingly donned his headset and the rest of the executives followed. They heard her voice over it a bit less boomy. Of course, Himari and her staff could hear them clearly now too. In particular, Lachelle could. The headsets helped the bigger sized people hear the smaller more than the other way around.

“Test, test.” said Himari.

“I can hear you!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. “We can all hear you, now tell us what’s going on!”

Politely smiling, Himari began.

“Well, as I said, I’m here on as an Acquisition Coordinator on behalf of Oshie Corporation.”

“Acquisition Coordinator, what are you talking about? That Brobdingnagian is with you, isn’t she?”

Himari kept talking, one hand folded above the other single-ring-wearing one by her waist. She smiled a tad wider, her tone professional--as always--in contrast to Mr. Gonzalez’s indignant shouting.

“Yes, she is an Acquisition Specialist. And yes, I’m the Acquisition Coordinator here. My job right now is to help facilitate the acquisition of the ‘Lilliadventures Inc.’ business. I believe you are the CEO, Mr. Gonzalez, is that not correct?”

“No that’s not-I mean, yes I’m Mister Gonzalez, but we never sold the company.”

Himari smiled.

“Ah, but you recently put stock in the company for sale on Brobdingnagian markets. Oshie Corporation has brought up enough to have majority share, more than 99% actually. That means you are now owned by us.”

“What!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He stepped forward, a tad closer to those looming ivory flats. Himari simply watched, that small, professional smile on her face.

“That’s impossible! Those stocks had no voting rights. They only paid dividends, you don’t ‘own’ 99% of the company, your employer would just get 99% of that value. You have to be mistaken, my business is mine!”

Himari bowed her head just a tad.

“Non-voting shares are illegal and invalid under Brobdingnagian laws. All the shares you issued were instead converted to actual ownership shares. Oshie Corporation, my employer, has enough to take command of your entire company. The shares you own are essentially a rounding error in comparison.”

Mr. Gonzalez was livid.

“That’s not, that can’t be true! My lawyers would’ve told me!”

“Your lawyers were probably only familiar with Lilliputian laws, and to be fair this one is rather esoteric. You have to know what to look for, at least that’s what our company's lawyers say on the matter. The mistake you made was actually quite common.”, said Himari.

“No, no that can’t be.” Mr. Gonzalez was stunned. His mind was wracked trying to process how he just gave up his entire company. He deflated before the smiling Himari. Her facial expression was near the same, but the slight increase to her smile, and a twinkle in her eyes, seemed to hint she took a quiet enjoyment out of delivering this news.

Someone else chimed up with a question. It was the old buzzard of an executive: Mr. Smith.

“Wait, but if you own the company, why are you in the city? Why are you here? Why not just send messengers to tell us how you want the company run?”

“Because we are here to acquire the company as an asset. We have no interest in letting you continue managing yourselves, even with our input. We’re here to collect your company’s assets, not to set up shop, so to speak.”

“Our assets?”

“Yes, the building in particular, but also the employees.”

“For what purpose?!?”, said Mr. Gonzalez, snapping back into it. “Are you gonna liquidate my building? Melt it down to scrap? Pick my company apart?”

“I’m just an employee of Oshie Corporation. I help handle the acquisition, whatever happens after isn’t always something I’m privy to, nor could I disclose it, per-se, if I were. I’m just making sure the building is retrieved in one-piece, and this courtyard as intact as possible. I can promise we’re trying for that, at least.”

“Wait, retrieved? And you mentioned my employees, you’re kidnapping us?”

“Kidnapping? Oh no no, you don’t understand Mr. Gonzalez. Your Oshie Corporation property now. You are owned. My employer, Oshie Corporation, can’t kidnap something it already owns. In particular, Ms. Oshie herself owns you, indirectly, since she has all the shares of her own company--unlike you.”

“I-I... that is why you’re here then. That Brobdingnagian of yours killed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, to get here and kidnap us?”

“No, retrieve.”

“You know what I mean you bitch! This can’t be legal.”

He was waving his arms to shout now. His fist pounded at the sky. He took a step closer to Himari, and she followed suit. Her foot lifted and she took a ginger step forward. That foot of hers slammed down just a few Gulliverian inches away from Mr. Gonzalez. He tumbled onto his behind, and all the executives farther back stumbled at the least.

“An astute observation”, she began, taking just one more ground-vibrating step closer. “It is indeed illegal by Lilliputian laws, Mr. Gonzalez. However, the lands of Brobdingnag have no such laws.”

“You smug...” Mr. Gonzalez stood back up and brushed off his suit pants. His gel-inundated hair didn’t need fixing, at least.

“The Lilliputian government won’t tolerate this.”

“Our governments have something of an agreement. The peace-treaty between our nations had some non-public stipulations. You must understand that your kind was negotiating with people thousands of times their size. That sort of leverage wasn’t something our country would ignore, and Oshie Corporation was just one of the many Brobdingnagian businesses lobbying our government administration for special provisions.”

“’Our governments’, what do you mean ‘our governments’. You’re a Gulliverian, not a Brobdingnagian.”

“I choose my words carefully. You may find this hard to believe, but I’m a full-fledged Brobdingnagian citizen.”

“So you’re nothing but a dirty traitor? A corporate prostitute. A cold-hearted bi-”

“Hey!”, said a new voice. It roared over the Lilliputians with a gale of humid air. They had to press their feet to the courtyard ground to stay standing. Their headsets also relaid the word, a good deal clearer and less bone-rocking.

Lachelle had spoken for the first time since the meeting started, but soon as she did Himari raised an arm and waved it, then spoke herself.

“Thank you, but it’s quite alright.” She said. Her own face stayed smiling at Mr. Gonzalez.

“This isn’t the first time someone has lashed out at me for simply stating the facts of a situation. Just remain on standby for now.”, Himari said, continuing the thought.

The Gulliverian business woman lowered her arm back to its professional and polite place. She then continued speaking.

“Though it’s true I don’t have as many protections as an actual Brobdingnagian human, I certainly enjoy more than you or any Gulliverian citizen. Oshie Corporation is an equal opportunity employer, and they treat me very well. I see no shame in working for a company, under a government, that offers me the most benefits. Surely as a business man you can understand?”

“The media will have a field day on this!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He had quickly recovered from the thoom of the Brobdingnagian's voice. A single word served as a potent reminder of her immense strength. “Oshie Corporation has slaughtered millions this day, that won’t go unnoticed, Mrs. Yamamoto.”

Himari giggled.

“The media won’t even know of this. There’s no connection signals to upload videos with. Almost every offline camera is already powered down by the elite tech team in my Brobdingnagian associate’s bracelet. The few cameras they couldn’t get to, without any sort of connectivity to start with, will be found by the team of lawyers currently assessing the city for property values.”

Gonzalez was too angry to speak. The executives behind him were horrified, color fading from many a Lilliputian face.

Himari continued.

“Of course, even if we miss some, there are upload filters on every major video site to stop word from getting out. The official story will be a series of unfortunate gas-line explosions, total accident or, if the damage is too ‘undeniable’, a one-off Brobdingnagian lone-wolf causing a ruckus. Perhaps some tipsy college student from Brobdingnagian lands wandered over here? I’m sure you’ve heard of similar stories before, did you really believe them?”

She laughed again.

“I suppose that can happen for real now and then, but for the most part it was us, or companies just like us, taking what’s ours. Do you understand now, Mr. Gonzalez?”

Mr. Gonzalez just stood at Himari like an animal in headlights. He still couldn't find any words. His blood felt hot, throbbing through every vein in his body. Anger truly paralyzed him.

Then, something took him out of it. A rhythmic sound of air being cut by blades. A chugging roar of a motor. It was the helicopters! He turned to face the air-hanger building where they came from. A good four Lilliputian transport crafts were flying over: more than enough for him and all the executives.

Himari watched them as well. Her eyebrows raised for a moment, but otherwise she just stood there. They landed about 50ft or so away from the executives.

“Ha!”, shouted Mr. Gonzalez. “Well we’re not gonna be part of this. We’re leaving. I can’t stop you from taking over my building or whatever it is, but I’m not about to stay here and get swiped away.”

Mr. Gonzalez started moving to the helicopters. His executives were already running over.

Himari said nothing. She just took a couple steps forward and stepped right atop the closest helicopter. Right before the executives boarded it, the entire vehicle exploded beneath her shoe.

“You won’t be going anywhere. As I said before...”

Himari lifted her other leg and stomped out the next closest helicopter.

“You are all Oshie Corporation property now, and will be coming with me.”

The other two helicopters got the memo that this wouldn’t work, and they took off. One executive fell off after trying to grab onto the low hanging bars of the air-craft to ride. That ended up being for the best, as the Gulliverian woman snatched the thing out of the sky.

Himari held the third helicopter in hand. Its blades were bent like the broken wings of a fly. With a smile on her face, she clenched her fingers and flattened it.

The last helicopter tried to fly right by her, but she startled everyone with the loud sound of a clap. That and a twist of her palms was all it took to crush it right out of the sky. It fell to the ground, by her feet, and she snuffed out the inferno of a wreck with a twist of her right flat.

“There we go. Like I said, you are coming with us. In fact, I need to ask you a few questions first. But, just to be safe.”

Himari placed a hand on her ear just to make sure her headset, which was already on, picked up her words like it should.

“Lachelle, you can destroy the air-hanger.”

“Yes Ma’am.”, said Lachelle. The words stunned the Lilliputians once more, but the following sight truly took their breath away.

Lachelle leaned forward and moved her finger over the air-hanger building, which stood thousands of feet away from the towering skyscraper of an HQ structure. All the executives watched, stunned as always, as that enormous dark pillar of a finger plunged down like a mountain in its own right.

The air-hanger barely had time to break. It just flattened really, deflated, beneath a finger’s tip. The hand withdrew and the only thing left was dust and rubble.

Himari gave them a few moments to take that in, just a few, before she chimed up.

“Now then, Mr. Gonzalez, I have some questions for you.”

She took one step closer to the CEO. He fell off his feet once again.

Chapter 6: Recruitment

“I need to know the amount of employees you have.”, began Himari.

Mr. Gonzalez still sat on the concrete pavement of the courtyard, looking up towards that 500ft tall Gulliverian. The toes of her ivory flats were before him. IN particular, she was close enough he could probably take a few steps and touch that gigantic right shoe of hers.

“What, you mean on our payroll?”

“That’d be good to know, but specifically I want to know how many people work in that building.”

She pointed to the skyscraper, over 2000ft tall and thus over 4 times her Gulliverian height. She continued.

“I also need to know total revenue and profit, up till now and including projections for month’s end.”

“What? Can’t you look all that stuff up?”

“Oh, my team is trying to at this moment, but projected revenue isn’t always public info. Plus, Ms. Oshie is very particular about this information. It’s better to get it straight from you executives and assess the accuracy later than rely on just asking later, where accidents could preclude more chatting.”

“What?”

“My questions, Mr. Gonzalez. Please answer them.”

“No, never. I’m not gonna help you with... whatever it is you plan to do to us.”

Himari smiled a tad wider before those pink lips of hers returned to their normal, subtly smiling state.

“I assumed as much.”

She rose her right foot up, just a tad, and slid the tip of her flat over his body. She was too big, and he too slow, for her to have failed in the endeavor.

Like a bug, Mr. Gonzalez was now pinned beneath her foot. Like a bug, he squirmed futilely. The other executives gasped in horror, all of them having the good sense not to run away, nor the bravery to try and aid him.

“What are you doing!”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He was hard to hear now underneath her foot, but thankfully the headset carried his voice loud and clear to the acquisition team.

“Mr. Gonzalez, I’m sure you noticed my associate destroying your air hanger. As an Acquisition Coordinator, I’m given great leeway in determining what assets to sacrifice to secure the more valuable ones. Even as a CEO, you are not as valuable as you may think.”

The man grunted in pain as she pressed down just a tiny bit with her foot. Not enough to even hurt, just enough to be felt.

“With a flex of my toes, I can apply enough pressure to pop your joints like grapes. Were I to stumble forward, your entire body would pop like a red balloon. I’m not going to pretend to be clumsy to get you to tell me this information. On the contrary, despite being in just my early twenties, I’ve plenty of experience with operations like this, and stubborn types like you. I promise you I have the honed precision and skill to very carefully cause you excruciating, non-fatal pain with just minute movements of my toes, shoe between them and you. So, will you tell me now?”

“Never! If I can slow you even a second it’s worth-ARGH!”

Himari shifted her foot slightly to the left and cracked Mr. Gonzalez’s shoulder.

“A demonstration was in order then. Pardon me for any mess that might’ve caused, but you understand now I hope?”

Himari paused, keeping him pinned with ease. Her eyes darted to the side as news came over her headset.

“Let’s see here, my staff has just told me there’s an estimated 10,543 people in that main building of yours. That seems rather non-standard for a Lilliputian building that size. Do you have employees off the books perhaps?”

Mr. Gonzalez spoke with his chest pushed in by that oppressive shoe sole.

“I’ll... never-”

“Contractors”, piped up a woman’s voice.

Everyone near turned to the source if they could. It was that brown-haired woman in glasses. The CFO of Lilliadventures: Ms. Robinson.

“We have some contract employees in the building. They are fired and then replaced or rehired regularly on contract completion and when we get new contracts, of course. Last I checked we had 12,644 people on staff, once you include their numbers”

Himari turned her head ever so slightly to the side. She let up a bit of pressure on the man beneath her foot. He, in turn, immediately shouted.

“Ms. Robinson, I told you not to say a single word! I-”

The Gulliverian business woman quickly add enough pressure to shut him up for a bit. She wiggled her foot just a tad to put pressure on his ribs without bruising his body.

“Do go on, Ms. Robinson, is it? What about total revenue in the company’s lifetime, including this month’s projection?”

Ms. Robinson paused. She shut her eyes closed tight to try and remember. The math and memory prodigy muttered to herself.

“Let’s see, at 10% revenue increase per year every year on average, company’s nearly 100 years old... that means...”

She opened her eyes, looking up at Himari as she spoke. The headset carried her words all the same.

“Total revenues forever is about 15 trillion dollars, give or take a trillion or two. The order of magnitude should be correct. Projected revenue for this month, however, was 50 billion since we were intending to close out a contract, so 15.05 trillion dollars would be the number you want... I think, Mrs. Yamamoto.

Himari smiled. She moved her foot off Mr. Gonzalez and set it down to his side.

“Very good. I was actually told a number by my team, and it wasn’t too far off.”

There was a brief pause, enough to be noticed, then that pony-tailed Gulliverian woman spoke up again.

“Come over here.”

Ms. Robinson did so, slowly walking over towards Himari. Mr. Gonzalez shouted something out.

“You’re always going against the grain Ms. Robinson, consider yourself fired!”

“You don’t have the authority to do that now, Mr. Gonzalez.”, spoke Himari. She looked at Ms. Robinson all the while, however. The CFO approached the front of Himari’s other shoe: the left one.

“Good.”, said the Gulliverian. “You obeyed, and passed the first and only test I had in mind.”

“Test?”

Himari nodded.

“Yes, that was a pretty good memory you showed there, I can see why these Lilliputians hired you to be CFO. I’d like to offer you up for a job at Oshie Corporation.”

“What?!?”

Ms. Robinson, Mr. Gonzalez, and a few other executives spoke the same confused utterance.

“Before I was an Acquisition Coordinator, I was a talent recruiter for the company. Even now as an Acquisition Coordinator, I’m given liberty to recruit any human assets I think worthwhile to be full-time employees. Would you be interested?”

Mr. Gonzalez spoke fast.

“Ms. Robinson don’t-”

“I would be! Yes, please, take me out of here!” said the CFO.

“Fantastic.”, said Himari. She crouched down and lowered her palm to the ground.

“Please hop up onto my hand, if you would.”

Ms. Robinson approached that soft looking palm, but hesitated.

“Ms. Robinson, climb on.” said Himari. Her tone was noticeably more flat.

The brunette obeyed, and clambered onto the palm. She had to climb just slightly, despite being about the size of the palm lying flat. She pressed her own tiny fingers into the side of the Gulliverian’s right pinky and hoisted herself up. Once she scrambled to the middle of the palm, Himari herself rose back up to her full height.

Ms. Robinson nearly fell over from the turbulence of the movement. She had stepped onto the hand of a giant, basically, and jostled as such.

The CFO found her ride coming to a stop soon enough. She was face to giant-face with Himari. Though Himari’s face was visible from the ground if one strained their neck enough, Ms. Robinson got a closer look here. Not a single blemish dotted the face, nor even a hint of makeup. That meant Himari was either a master at seamless cosmetic application, or had a natural beauty to herself.

Beauty was not always kind, though, and there was a discerning glint in those almond eyes of hers. She squinted ever so slightly as she studied Ms. Robinson. That 20ft smile stretched a bit wider.

“Yes, I think you’ll be a great fit.”, said Himari. She was polite and professional in tone, yet seemed to show zero regard for talking right in front of Ms. Robinson. The poor Lilliputian’s garbs ruffled slightly from the gust of her breath.

With that done, Himari started lowering Ms. Robinson back down. At the same time, she pivoted her right foot so that the heel of her flat pressed at the ground. With angled leverage, she popped the shoe right off. Her right foot was now free, and all could see those unpainted, manicured toes of hers through the filter of some pantyhose leggings. She gave those digits some wiggles, and let out a curt and pleased sigh.

At this point, Ms. Robinson and all the other Lilliputians were thoroughly confused. Yet, before any could ask a question, Himari moved Ms. Robinson underneath the hang of skirt.

The executives gasped, but Himari simply smiled. What she was up to was less lewd than they expected, as they’d soon see.

Himari brought Ms. Robinson not to the waistband of her undergarments, but rather to the rim of her right pantyhose leggings. Ms. Robinson cried out as the Gulliverian tugged the stockings open and pressed the Lilliputian right in. Soon as the CFO was clear, Himari let the leggings snap back against her thighs, and the Lilliputian executive started sliding down those light-skinned legs of hers.

Himari’s skirt was a bit on the longer side of average. Ms. Robinson screamed and slid down in near total darkness at first. Himari took care of her petite frame, so the skin of her thighs had a taut, smooth feel as Ms. Robinson wiggled on down. The Gulliverian managed to keep her composure through those pleasing, writhing motions from brunette.

“What are you doing, help!” cried Ms. Robinson beneath the fabric. It was a little tight against Himari’s thighs, but past those and she slid down fast. Once she neared Himari’s knee, she at last became visible to the others. Her body was pressed tight by the nylon fabric, and she looked much like a fish caught in a net, squeezed for the amusement of onlookers. Of course, none of the executives were exactly amused by such a sight.

“Stop, stop this. Whatever it is.”

Himari simply giggled at first, then she lifted her leg and wiggled it, helping Ms. Robinson to slide down some of the tighter parts of her stockings.

Ms. Robinson fidgeted and squirmed down past the knee, over the shins. At that point Himari couldn’t contain herself. The sensations were too enjoyable, and she lifted one hand to her face to help channel the giddy energy running through her. To the Gulliverian, the squirms were just too lovely.

But, upon reaching Himari’s right ankle, Ms. Robinson got stuck. There, she got stuck. Her screaming resumed.

“Ah don’t worry Ms. Robinson, I’ll help you get past that tighter part.”

Himari pulled that right pantyhose stocking up and started twisting her foot. The gyrating movement of the ped created enough give at a regular enough interval for Ms. Robinson to slowly make her way down. Each rotation of the foot had her slip just a tad more till, at last, she found herself atop Himari’s foot.

However, the Gulliverian woman wasn’t exactly satisfied yet, and she angled and wiggled that foot till Ms. Robinson rested atop her toes.

Ms. Robinson, near in tears, spoke up again.

“Mrs. Yamamoto, why? I thought you said Oshie Corporation treated its employees well.”

“Oh it does!” beamed Himari. “But, you aren’t an employee yet.”

“But I thought you said you were recruiting me.”

“Oh no, I said I’d offer you up for a job, with my recommendation. You aren’t hired yet; the company has a process to these things. That means, of course, I can treat you however I wish for now.”

Himari moved her foot back towards that empty flat. Mrs. Robinson cried out over the headset frequency. Himari giggled.

“Now now please calm down; it’ll look good in your interview if I can say you were as cooperative as possible. I think you’ll be a fine entry-level accountant.”

“Entry level?”, spoke Ms. Robinson with yet more despair. “But I was a CFO here!”

“Who knows what your future will bring, if you do your job well enough. But, you have to start somewhere, and this Lilliputian company, no matter how lucrative, is just a Lilliputian company. Your experience here will only get you so far.”

The shoe drew closer. The dark, foreboding inside of it seemed a frightening cave to the small brunette. She fidgeted and squirmed against Himari’s toes, trying to pry herself off them. A simple wiggle and she was pinched by them.

“Calm down now, and trust me. You’ll be nice and snug in my shoe. It’s a safe transport back to Brobdingnagian country: safer than many others at least. It’s not as though there’s another chair in my pedant office for you.”

She laughed softly, curtly, and professionally at Ms. Robinson’s plight.

“These pantyhose use a proprietary nylon blend as well for extra breath-ability. It shouldn’t be too stuffy in my flat, you know. I’m sure you can get yourself comfortable enough. You shouldn’t bounce around in there either--too much.”

With another polite giggle, Himari slid her foot into the flat and Ms. Robinson screamed out one more time. From there, she let out a few despaired groans, and then settled on whimpering a bit before going silent.

Ms. Robinson acclimated herself to the environment. The idea of a new job appealed to her a bit less now, being stuck in such humid, hot confines as a Gulliverian woman’s shoe. The toes wiggled here and there, flexing Himari’s power as they flexed themselves.

She could at least breath, as Himari had said.

Chapter 7: Pain Point

“Is this how you treat employees? Is that how you’ll treat us?”, piped up Mr. Gonzalez at last. He had gotten back up on his feet, holding his broken shoulder with one hand to help support it.

“Employees? You all? Oh no. You’re not gonna be employees.”

“Then what will we be?”

“The term is non-employee human asset.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Gonzalez.”

“I mean, what the fuck are you going to do with us?”

“I’m just here to collect you. It’s not my business to pry with what Oshie Sama wants with you.”

“Non-employee human asset. Non-employee...”

Mr. Gonzalez mumbled to himself, that rage of his brewing again.

“You monster, you cunt!”

Himari simply smiled.

“Very unprofessional of you Mr. Gonzalez. It’s a good thing your company's assets are under our management now. I can only imagine how you’d ruin your former business if allowed to run it further.”, replied Himari.

That clever little comment of hers got a thousand foot wide smile from the Brobdingnagian woman still looming above them all. Mr. Gonzalez noticed it.

“You think you can do whatever you want? What you did to me, you and that big dumb professional bully of a Brobdingnagian you have wit-”

Himari stomped her left foot to the ground, sending a tremor through the courtyard to knock Mr. Gonzalez off his feet. Without missing a beat, she hit Mr. Gonzalez with the side of her right foot hard enough to bruise his entire left midsection. That foot, the one with Ms. Robinson inside it, then settled atop him and pressed down.

The Gulliverian woman spoke fast, her tone a good deal more harsh than what the Lilliputians were used to be now.

“You may insult me all you like, but you will not speak ill of my Acquisition specialist. You’ll refer to her only via the proper, respectful title of Mrs. Yamamoto.”

“Mrs. Yamamoto, but then, wait that means-”

Himari pressed her foot down and bent the tips of his ribs inward. They cracked slightly and he screamed out.

“Do I make myself clear?”, Himari said. She waited a second without an answer, then lightly ‘bounced’ her shoe and elicited another pained scream.

“I said did I make myself clear, you insect. You ape of an oaf of a bugish man?”

“Y-yes! Yes I’m sorry Mrs. Yamamoto and... Mrs. Yamamoto.”

Himari moved her foot aside, but before Mr. Gonzalez could even attempt to stand back up, she pinched him up by the scruff of his suit jacket.

He screamed from the pain, the fear, and other, unpleasant sensations a recent frequent occurrence to the rich CEO. He was brought right up to his face beneath a frightfully stern gaze.

“You’re very lucky I’m a professional, Mr. Gonzalez.”, said Himari. “My job leaves me with more than enough discretion to rip you limb from limb for your unending rudeness with me thus far.”

She delighted as the color began to fade from the Lilliputian man’s face.

“Or, perhaps that’d be too good for you. Perhaps I should instead gobble you up and swallow you whole. Yes, an uncouth, unscrupulous businessman like yourself would do well writhing in the acids of my stomach. To be melted down as a slurry flowing through my intestines: that’s certainly one way to liquefy an asset.”

Mr. Gonzalez shivered.

“You know, that security guard from earlier only recently finished his struggles. With all the fluttering I felt, he must’ve been flopping around like a fish in the remains of my lunch. One could only imagine the level of searing pain that’d cause him to dance around like that. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

Mr. Gonzalez swallowed hard.

“N-no.”

“Then apologize to my associate, if you’d please.”

“But I already-”

“Again, if you’d please.”

“I’m s-sorry.”

Himari smiled.

“Good.”, she said, and then she let go of Mr. Gonzalez. The CEO screamed as he plummeted towards the hard courtyard ground. Thankfully, at the last moment Himari lifted her foot so he’d instead fall on the top of her nylon-clad foot exposed by the top of her ivory flat shoe: a considerably softer, though still painful surface to land on. From there, she bounced him up a tiny bit like a sack of beans before angling her foot forward. He rolled down the pivoted ped, like a ramp, to plop on the courtyard ground without any ceremony or grace.

A loud booming noise reverberated around everyone. It was Lachelle, giggling. All could see her gigantic face, looming overhead, cheeks blushed with a bit of red. Be it either from Himari’s defense of her respect, or from the Gulliverian’s stern display, the Brobdingnagian woman seemed quite pleased.

Her gigantic finger came down. The Lilliputians once again shrieked, but rather than smush them beneath that soft, all encompassing finger-tip she instead brought the digit down to Himari’s back to give it a gentle stroke.

The faintest, most tiny bit of red appeared on the Gulliverian’s cheeks in turn. She reached behind herself to gently pat the finger.

“Not now, honey.”, she said. “We’re working.”

“Of course.”, said Lachelle.

Himari cleared her throat. “Alright, well, I think I have all the information I need. This has taken enough time. Mrs. Yamamoto, please fetch the containment device.”

“Of course.”

“Wait, containment device?”, said Mr. Gonzalez. He was too weak to do anything but sit up at this point.

“Yes, it’s to keep you safe on the way back to Brobdingnag territory.”

The ground quaked again as Lachelle got to moving. Her massive form pushed against the earth to rise up onto her knees. That done, she scooted forward just a tad to the sound of anguished grinding from the city below. In a knee sit, her naked soles faced skyward, as before, with her toes still digging deep craters into what was left of the area from her initial laying-down.

The titaness reached up to her neck and took the necklace off again. She brought it down to the ground and paused it’s spin with a gentle pinch at the pendant’s corner. The Lilliputians could see that bracelet on her right hand; its surface filled with a few windows where they could see Lilliputians typing away within.

With the necklace now steady, Himari walked back towards it. Moments before stepping inside, she felt a small sensation against her heel as someone pounded on it. It was that blonde haired executive woman from earlier.

“W-wait, hire me too, please. I don’t wanna be contained, whatever that means.”

Himari merely turned around so her back was to her pendant office. The motion swiped her foot against the Lilliputian, knocking her back and over.

“Just stay still and you’ll be fine. This process is painless.”

Himari sat down in her necklace-office’s chair, hit some buttons, and the pendant’s clear front shut while the executive pounded futilely on the glass-like material.

Himari spoke, and the headset carried her words to all the Lilliputians.

“Remain still. If required, there are ways to keep you clumped up as we need and they aren’t pleasant. I’m sure you’ll enjoy your time at Oshie Corporation, whatever that entails.”

Lachelle brought the necklace back up and wrapped it around her neck. With Himari now safe and sound, close to her heart, she reached into her pocket and fished some kind of device out.

Chapter 8: Acquisition

Naturally, the device was huge. A long clear cylinder, far bigger than any Lilliputian skyscraper, hung in the air. It trailed down to a metal, rectangular base that looked like complicated machinery. The top of the gigantic device was capped off with another bit of metal. All that the Lilliputians could see was some circular lights on that cap. It looked quite curious indeed.

“What is that? What the fuck is that.” said Gonzalez. He spoke between coughs.

There was no answer though. Instead, Lachelle simply brought the device to them. It would seem to squish them flat, but she slid her finger over some button on the device’s top and that base opened. The metal ‘floor’ of it parted like a circular maw, complete with jagged metal teeth-like prongs.

Of course, it wasn’t designed to look like a maw on purpose. Those ‘teeth’ were simply to help it hook into the ground. Nevertheless, it still sent the Lilliputians into a state of fearful panic. There wasn’t anywhere to go even if they dared to defy Himari’s orders, though. The cavity of the device covered the entire courtyard, let alone the skyscraper of a main building it was centered on.

With a thundering quake, it made landing. The prongs stuck into the foundation of the courtyard. Lachelle raised her fist up and gently hammered it even deeper into the ground. At that point, those metal teeth whirred up and dug deep. Lachelle hit another button, and the device’s bottom began to seal with the Lilliputians in it.

“This is it.”, said Mr. Gonzalez. “We’re all gonna die!”

From all around them a circular borders of metal closed in. It threatened to flatten them all together. Then, at the last moment, when all hope seemed lost, a current of air erupted from the churning metal below them.

The device closed from the bottom up, it seemed, and had air jets to bounce the Lilliputians up and out of harm. In the moments the Lilliputians were airborne, the metal floor came together, then made a ‘pfft’ noise as a series of cushions inflated from little divots from the side of the cylindrical rim surrounding them. That saved them from any injuries as they fell back down.

The executives, the courtyard, the skyscraper and everyone inside that area were stuck inside the monolithic vial device. They all breathed a sigh of relief at being safe, but it faded fast when they saw the teeth of the grinning Brobdingnagian woman.

She hit another button.

The entire device whirred up again. From both the floor and far above came a strange watery liquid. It came as a rain at first, and they had some time to process it. The cushions withdrew back into the bottom sides of the device.

“What is this stuff?”, said one executive.

“It feels almost like water, but not quite.”, said another.

Then, the deluge started. The substance flooded the entire device at a speed just slow enough to not rip the building apart. The Lilliputians found themselves tossing and churning in the waves all the while. The liquid entered their lungs. They all screamed but no words came out yet, curiously, they didn’t drown.

The device took but a few seconds to fill. Even once it did, the Lilliputians didn't calm down. They couldn’t with the sensation of the fluid entering their lungs. They did, however, freeze once a familiar voice came over their headsets.

“Enjoying your swim? That came from packets embedded in the device: powder that expands in volume when made liquid via a chemical reaction. Another genius device from Oshie Corporation R&D. Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed you’re all still alive, and the building’s completely intact. In fact, even your headsets still work.”

Lachelle lifted the vial up and the Lilliputians found themselves floating exactly where they stopped. They didn’t move at all. The fluid around them did abide movements of their hands: they weren’t frozen, but rather lacked the ability to swim through it. The ‘water’ seemed to move around them instead of letting them move they entire bodies within it.

They were brought up with Lachelle as she rose to her awe inspiring full height. Through the transparent cylindrical walls around them, they could look down at the harrowing drop of a view that the Brobdingnagian could see every day of her life.

Then they were brought in front of the Brobdingnagian's necklace, where a smiling Himari stared back at them from the safety of her mobile ‘office’.

“It’s a proprietary chemical blend. The fluid is engineered to be breathable. Right now, the liquid is passing oxygen to the alveoli of your fluid-filled lungs. It’s not too pleasant a feeling I’m sure, but your bodies might get used to it before the journey’s over.”

Himari laughed.

“It also simulates being stuck in place without actually being sticky or overly viscous. It’ll keep you safe on the bumpy journey back. Did you know that it's not water itself which causes electronics to malfunction, but rather the impurities in it? This liquid is free of impurities, but even in their presence it’s still entirely non-conductive. Every computer inside the building will still work, just like your headsets. Not a single piece of furniture will be out of place, no windows broken. You’re all perfectly preserved.”

Her smiled widened a moment before settling back down.

“Lachelle, store them safely and let’s be on our way.”

“Of course, Mrs. Yamamoto” said the Brobdingnagian.

The image of the Gulliverian’s smiling face slowly faded out of sight of the executives while they were brought all the way down to Lachelle’s skirt pocket. There, they were shrouded in near darkness, as only the sunlight that filtered through the fabric reached them.

Lachelle turned on her naked heels with a quaking reverberation throughout Lilyork city. Then, she started marching back to her purse.

--==--==--==--

Within the Lilliputian metropolis, those Gulliverian lawyers were still hard at work cataloging things. They had assessed the buildings of the city more or less entirely, and were now occupied photographing the damages Lachelle’’s body had made in its many destructive movements.

The lawyers crowded the foot-shaped craters, near a mile long and over one thousand Lilliputian-feet wide. There, they tallied what rubble and such they could. Any surviving, but living, Lilliputians were hastily crushed out by the soles of high-heels and business flats. An injured Lilliputian almost invariably cost more than a dead one, so it was prudent policy.

They stumbled as Lachelle was on the move again. High above them, she chatted with Himari. The conversation was heard over their headsets.

--==--==--==--

“Excellent work today.”, said Himari.

“You too, Mrs. Yamamoto.”, said Lachelle.

“Thank you, Mrs. Yamamoto.”, said Himari.

The two shared a laugh.

“That was very sweet of you, back there.”

“Think nothing of it.”, replied Himari.

Then, there was a pause.

“You may reward me for it later.”, Himari said, tone professional as always.

The two laughed again, and then they heard a scream over their headsets. Lachelle paused.

--==--==--==--

Far below, while the two were chatting, one meek Gulliverian lawyer was finishing up taking photos of a broken building. She was off on her own, and thus not easily spotted by the Brobdingnagian. Before she knew it, that giant pink sole of Lachelle’s hung overhead. It was but a second till it fell, crushing her and dozens of blocks around her.

But an inch tall to the Brobdingnagian woman, that lawyer’s body simply exploded into red mist beneath the oppressive weight of her step. The fluid sprayed out all over the ball of the foot. The lawyer’s death rattle was picked up by the headset.

--==--==--==--

Lachelle lifted her foot up and inspected the result. It was hardly appealing.

“Urgh, yuck. Wet.”

She grinded her naked sole against the city foundation. More quakes rocked the area, tumbling countless Lilliputians and a good few of the Gulliverian lawyers. After a couple rubs her foot was clean enough of it.

Himari sighed.

“It’s alright, accidents happen. She must’ve froze up when your foot went overhead. Perhaps if she had the courage to speak up instead, this could have been prevented. It’s not too much your fault. To be bold, I do not think Oshie Sama will mind the added expense. I think she’ll be much too pleased with today’s work.”

Lachelle finished wiping her foot, then got back on the move.

“Thanks, Himari.”

“Ahem.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Yamamoto.”

“There we go. Now, grab your purse and let’s get back. The lawyers are professionals, and will finish up their task without issue. Their Gulliverian transports will pick them up within the hour.”

“Of course.”, said Lachelle.

The dark-skinned woman returned to the edge of the city, smashing a few more buildings to dust along the way. She hoisted her purse back up, sipped her heels back on, then marched away from the city in the direction she came from.

Chapter 9: Acquired

Mr. Gonzalez didn’t really keep track of how long the journey took. He was far too busy dealing with the disturbing drowning sensation from that strange fluid in his lungs. That same fluid was all around him, keeping him in place along with all his executives as well as every other employee that survived that “acquisition” of his company from Lilyork City.

He couldn’t exactly see inside his building, which he ‘floated’ by, stuck in the liquid that flowed around him without letting him move his body. His limbs could, and certainly did, flail about, but he couldn’t turn himself around, let alone sink or swim from his current position.

Still, he could twist his head just enough to catch a corner of it: his precious skyscraper. The structure built to tower over all others in Lilyork city was stuck in this container with him.

Was it an hour? Less? More? He didn’t quite recall due to his mind preoccupied with suffering and a heaping helping of self-pity. There was nothing to see with the pocket of that Brobdingnagian blocking most light, so he and the others only had their sense of hearing to go off of.

The transparent glass-like material of the vial-portion of the containment device wasn’t sound-proof, so he and the Lilliputians floating around him or stuck in the courtyard buildings managed to hear a good few things. Booming steps mostly for a time, but then there was a great reverberating, sliding noise as he assumed Lachelle entered some sort of Brobdingnagian building. They figured, correctly, that it was a door making the noise.

From there there was all sorts of clamor. The mundane sounds of activity in some corporate headquarters sounded like the workings of titans. High-heels stepped around with every click of the heels a thunderous boom to the stuck Lilliputians. Words were exchanged, but they were too loud and muffled to be made out.

Then, there was the sound of some gigantic elevator moving upwards. The doors roared open and more steps occurred, hellos exchanged, till Lachelle reached some destination. She reached into her pocket and pulled the device out.

Bright light hit Mr. Gonzalez’s eyes. He and the other Lilliputians were too disoriented to process things fully, but they were being passed off to another Brobdingnagian. Lachelle’s fingers slipped from the transparent surface of the vial-part of their prison, her finger prints unpressed from against the transparent surface. Then, she moved off.

From there, they were carried off yet again by another Brobdingnagian woman. They saw only the bottoms of her manicured fingers before being placed onto another machine of some kind. The device’s bottom opened slightly: just enough for it to lock into this new and presumably horrifying contraption.

The new Brobdingnagian woman leaned down and they could see her face: well, part of it. Lilliputian miles from them loomed her visage, clad in a lab mask. She had ginormous glasses over her blue eyes, and her hair was covered by some sterile wrap of some kind. Though they could only see those gigantic building-dwarfing eyes, that was all they needed to see to know she was smiling at them.

She reached out and hit a button. The fluid around them started changing to a purple shade from the bottom up, and Mr. Gonzalez, along with the others, drifted to sleep. Their flailing from the pseudo-drowning was finally over over.

--==--==--==--

Mr. Gonzalez awoke with a gasp; his body half-expected his lungs to be still filled with that oxygenated fluid. Instead, he inhaled the familiar, refreshing feeling of actual air. There was no fluid around him and, looking down, he noticed the courtyard not far off below his feet. Though it was damaged by the device’s containment procedure, it seemed to have been entirely restored.

In front of him were other fancy looking buildings, but that didn’t concern or impress him now. The fluid was gone and he could breath normally again!

The CEO noticed his back was against a surface of some kind. He thought it an upright bed for a moment, but overall he didn’t think too much of it before he tried to hop off.

And failed.

With the ground just precious inches below him, the CEO tried again to wiggle down to the ground, but he could not. He turned to his sides and noticed his wrists and legs were bolted to some sort of black slab. It wasn’t made of stone like an actual slab; in fact, it has a slight and comfy cushion against his back. Still, he was trapped yet again.

He panicked once more, arms and legs moving in vain. His head swiveled left and right. That was when he noticed two things. Firstly, there was a camera in front of him, on the ground of the courtyard, safe inside some durable glass. Secondly, there was an IV bag on one side of the ‘slab’ he was stuck to, with a cord running from it to his shoulder. Said shoulder also had a bit of a cast on it, above his suit which was still on. He remembered now that was where Himari had broken it.

“They touched me. While I was asleep they touched me. Some Gulliverian, or maybe even Lilliputians working for Oshie... Where am I? Where is everyone? Help me!”, he shouted.

“Mr. Gonzalez sir!” came a voice. It was an older, male voice. That bald, old vulture of an executive came over.

“Mr. Smith. Good, you’re here. What is going on?”

“We’re not entirely sure, sir.”

“Well, what happened to me? Why am I stuck up here and you can walk around the courtyard with the others.”

“I don’t know. We only woke up recently, but before you. Once that fluid turned purple we fell asleep. They must’ve taken the courtyard and moved it somewhere.”

“Somewhere? Somewhere?!? Where are we?”

“No one knows for sure yet, but you can see in front of you at least. You noticed the building right?”

“Of course I did! Are we back in some city?”

Mr. Smith shook his head.

“I don't think so, at least not a traditional one. Mr. Gonzalez, that’s the Lillicoliseum Inc. HQ building. They were brought out by Brobdingnagian investors two years ago, then closed down business. Do you remember? The building was supposedly dismantled overnight, according to the news, but there it is. We can’t get to it though, there’s a transparent barrier in the way. Same material as that vial from earlier, it looks like.”

Mr. Smith spoke somberly. Implications started swarming in Mr. Gonzalez’s head, but he didn’t want to think about them. He looked at the building ahead and, now, was able to clearly see there was indeed a barrier between it and the Lilliadventures courtyard.

“I don’t understand, I don’t get it.”

“Sir, look up.”

The slick-haired executive looked up best he could. His upper-body was restrained by the object he was affixed to, but he was still able to crane his neck up right enough to see a near-perfectly transparent barrier of some material above. Past that, he could see a distant ‘sky’ of very exquisitely designed wood.

“What, no no. We were taken somewhere weren’t we, some sort of Brobdingnagian room?”

“It would appear so, sir. We’re also separated from the other buildings around us. Seems wherever we are stuck, we are also isolated from the other buildings here.”

Mr. Gonzalez paused a moment. A sensation of horror traveled through his body in waves, but then he snapped out of it.

“Whatever, we can figure it out later, just get me down from here.”

“Sir, I-”

“Get me down!”, he barked.

“I can’t. We can’t. We already tried. If we touch the display you’re in, we get an electric shock. The only reason it’s not shocking you is perhaps those metal binds on your body neutralizing it for yourself. It seems to be some other device of Oshie Corporation.”

“What? Wait wait, display? What do you mean?”

“It’s hard to see, sir, but you look almost like, well...”

“Out with it Mr. Smith! Don’t jerk me around here.”

“You look like... a specimen. Like a collectible or something. One of those action figures people prop up. Maybe that’s what the camera is for, to look at you.”

Mr. Gonzalez shouted loud as his lungs could manage.

“But why me?!? What have I done to deserve this?”

“I think it’s cause you were the old company owner. Perhaps the Brobdingnagians want to look at you, now and then.”

“Old owner? I still own Lilliadventures Inc! I don’t care what these Brobdingnagian business types say.”

Mr. Smith hung his head down. Mr. Gonzalez shouted some more.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you! Figure out a way to get me down from here at once. I don’t care if it shocks you. Get some tools or something.”

“There are no more tools. The courtyards buildings were picked clean of them, while we were asleep. They probably don’t want us using them to try and escape.”

“I still own this company! I just need to contact my lawyers, they could figure this out.”

“I’m sorry Mr. Gonzalez, but I think the company truly is owned by Oshie Corporation.”.

He hesitated, then continued.

“...In a rather literal way. You can’t see it because you can’t move but, behind you, well...”

“Well, what? Well what?!?”, said Mr. Gonzalez.

“There’s a golden plaque, with details on our company.”

“You mean...”

There was shouting in the distance and Mr. Smith turned towards it.

“I’m sorry Mr. Gonzalez, but I have to go. The lower level employees banded together and are calling a meeting. Some food and water was left for us by Oshie Corporation it looked like, and it’s gonna be divided up. I shouldn’t miss it.”

He started walking away, and Mr. Gonzalez shouted.

“Wait, no, come back here! Get back here at once! You work for me! You all do, this entire courtyard is mine!”

Mr. smith kept walking, trying to make it as least awkward as possible. He kept moving fast as his old bones could take him.

Mr. Gonzalez was left behind him and, behind his former boss, loomed a gigantic golden plaque just before the HQ building. It stretched for thousands of Lilliputian feet. Black lettering was etched onto the surface. It said “Lilliadventures Inc.”, then beneath it “Acquired” with the date they were taken. Beneath those words, were two more labels with numbers. One stated the total revenue of Lilliadventures Inc.’s lifetime, including projections for the month. The other label listed the employee count for the courtyard area.

“Get back here! Now!”, Mr. Gonzalez shouted. He continued to flail about till some loud booming steps shocked him and every other Lilliputian out of whatever else they were doing.

Chapter 10: Impact

Two fair-skinned Brobdingnagian women walked down a tatami-mat lined hall. One of the two had short black hair, cut just past the ears. She wore a fashionable blouse with a short gray skirt. It was just barely past the border of professional attire. A designer purse was slung over her shoulder.

The other woman, in contrast, was clad in a floral kimono that stretched from her shoulders to just about her ankles. Her own dark black hair was in a “hime” cut: short-cut frontal bangs with side-locks running down her cheeks. As another part of the hairstyle, the back of her hair stretched down, straight as the rest, but stopped instead just around her shoulders.

Each young woman wore no makeup, though the one in business attire had a couple of rings on her fingers. Both their well-manicured nails were short and unpainted. Curiously, each of the women were unshod as they traveled the hall, coming to a stop at a pair of ornately decorated, lacquered stone doors.

“This is the last stop before our meeting, Ms. Choi. I hope you enjoyed the tour of my executive floor.”

“I did. Thank you very much Ms. Oshie.”

“I do hope the no-shoes policy wasn’t too much of a burden for you. Footwear could scuff the tatami flooring.”

“Not at all.”, said Ms. Choi. “This is a beautifully designed area of the building, very traditional.”

Ms. Oshie smiled.

“Thank you, that’s lovely to hear. My office is quite traditional too, and it’s just past these doors.”

“I’m sure I’ll love it as well.”

“I think so too.”, said Ms. Oshie with a coy smirk.

She slid the door open and turned to an awe-struck Ms. Choi.

“Right this way”, said Ms. Oshie, and she took the first step inside.

--==--==--==--

The Lilliputian city had worked itself into a tizzy since the booms started. It was a familiar sensation, those reverberations underfoot, but no matter how often it occurred there was still a good deal of fear and haste surging the streets alongside it.

The steps grew closer and closer. They came along muffled, booming voices from outside. It was clear she had brought company.

A great roar of a sliding noise rung out and the doors were open. Thousands of Lilliputians in one corner of the city looked up at a pale and perfect Brobdingnagian sole. They had but a second till it stepped down towards them. They looked to the ‘sky’ and many raised their arms out of instinct.

*Thoom*

The foot slammed down right atop them, harmlessly, against the clear material which hung a few Brobdingnagian inches above them. That perfect sole smushed against the clear barrier: the only thing that protected them from their owner’s footfalls.

Another ear rattling thoom rung out as she took another casual step. Then, she stopped. The wrinkles of her sole, the whorls of her toe prints: they were pressed above the transparent protective barrier above. The Brobdingnagian's feet stretched nearly a mile. The soft bottoms of her peds made for a canopy that shrouded much of the city beneath it.

Curiously, she had paused. Then they heard her speak. Her voice came through their headsets. These were different headsets though, not the kind many a Lilliputian in the city had used before they were captured. These were controlled by ‘her’: Ms. Oshie. Also, they were pierced into the Lilliputian’s ears. They could not be removed, even if the Lilliputians wanted them gone.

When she wanted her Lilliputians to hear her words, they did. It seems she wanted that now, as her voice came through their headsets instead of just blaring through the air as any titanic Brobdingnagian's would to them.

“Sorry, perhaps I should’ve told you first.”, said Ms. Oshie.

--==--==--==--

Ms. Oshie turned to Ms. Choi, the latter of whom raised a hand to her still-gasping mouth.

Before the business-dressed Brobdingnagian was an exquisite private office. There was lots to admire about it. It had a very traditional feel with its dark-wood ceiling and lighter-wood walls. The latter of which was decorated with some hanging tapestries. A grand window loomed at the other end of the room. It showed the view of the city but, when Ms. Oshie had opened the door to the office itself, she hit a button which made some panels slid over the view to cover it for privacy.

The lighting, too, was nice, and came in the form of some tastefully located fixtures where the walls met the ceiling.

Most eye-catching of all, though, was the floor and some of the furniture. Due in front of Ms. Choi was a large, smooth black meeting table that stood just a bit of the floor. All around the table were some floor cushions for sitting. The table’s surface itself was clear though, and through the transparent material Ms. Choi saw some Lilliputian buildings arranged in grid-like sections by other transparent panes within.

Yet, that was nothing compared to what caught her eye next: the floor itself. She glanced down to Ms. Oshie’s feet, which rested atop a clear, almost invisible material. Beneath that, of course, was an entire Lilliputian city. Past it was a bit of authentic-looking ‘land’ and then more city, then another. Cities dotted the floor, alongside a sparse few smaller towns and villages and the like.

There were a few Lilliputian trees, too, among other features of the terrain. Indeed, the entire floor of Ms. Oshie’s office seemed to be a territory’s worth of Lilliputian settlements.

Ms. Oshie’s voice snapped Ms. Oshie out of her silence. She turned to face the other business woman.

“I, oh no, I just. I hadn’t expected this.”

“It’s a country’s worth of Lilliputians, I’d have been quite surprised if you did expect it. Don’t worry, you can step on it. Though the barrier is clear, the proprietary material can withstand far, far more weight than we can provide.”

Ms. Choi looked down at all the tiny specks stirring below her feet. They darted between the many buildings like little dots, discernible mostly only in their frightened mobs. She watched them flutter past, visible in the spaces between her big and second toe on each foot.

She took a step inside the office, then another. She felt warm, excited. Her smile was obvious.

“This is... amazing.”, said Ms. Choi.

Ms. Oshie moved to Ms. Choi’s front and bowed her head with gratitude.

“I don’t meet people in my personal office often. There’s only two cases where I do so. One is where I think my guests might appreciate the ‘decor’. The other is when my guests aren’t in much of a position to complain. You’re certainly not the latter, but I had you figured for the former, and I’m happy that seems to be the case.”

Ms. Choi cleared her throat. The notion of looming over dozens if not more Lilliputian cities had her feeling a tad overwhelmed.

“Yes, very much so. But, if I may ask, why?”

Ms. Oshie smiled, then started to walk slowly towards the meeting table. She spoke as she did so, her words reaching the Lilliputians beneath as well.

“You complimented my interior design before by noting its traditional qualities. We’re both rather young to be running our own companies, I’m sure many would agree.”

“Yes, I remember reading you’re one of the youngest CEOs. Just 22 years old.”

Ms. Oshie laughed. “Oh please, you flatter me. It’s not as though you’re not doing an amazing job yourself. Being the boss of all of Brob Delights Foods Inc. must be quite the task, and I believe you were on that list as well. Just 23 years old yourself. Now, as I was saying...”

Ms. Choi followed along. She lagged behind, walking a good deal slower. Below her peds, the Lilliputians looked up as a new pair of feet tormented them with quaking steps. Though their buildings remained steady, they all-the-same felt the echoing quakes, those booms, those reminders of Brobdingnagian power as the two woman walked over their ‘country’ like primordial deities.

“...despite my age, I can see value in some traditional aspects of things. I think I know how best to integrate it into many things. Not just the styles of the past, but some of the mindsets.”

Ms. Oshie stood still and paused. She politely gestured for Ms. Choi to stand by her side.

“Lilliputian history is dappled with stories of contact with our kind. They were few and far between, but what there was were nearly all disastrous. We stand miles tall to them, so the best outcome for a Lilliputian of ages past was for our kind not to stoop to notice them, and for them to be lucky enough to not get crushed under-step despite it.”

Ms. Choi nodded. The two of them looked forward towards a stretch of bustling Lilliputian cities atop authentic looking Lilliputian terrain. A few patches of Lilliputian forests with toe-tickling trees, and even a couple mountains dappled the living display spread out beneath their feet.

Ms. Oshie continued.

“But, of course, they were noticed. Many a Lilliputian settlement was destroyed by a Brobdingnagian’s foot. I read about history and archaeology in my spare time, and there’s many murals depicting titanic beings laying waste to cities and the like. Gulliverians had contact with our kind as well and in their history Brobdingnagians show up too, albeit far smaller in comparison within their own ancient drawings and the like..”

She smiled and turned to Ms. Choi for a moment.

“Now, if you were a Lilliputian in the times before education, and you saw a woman towering 6 miles above you, what would you think of them.”

“A monster. No”, said Ms. Choi. “A god.”, said Ms. Choi.

“Precisely. And there’s history of Brobdingnagian worship too. It’s very rare, as not only do the Lilliputians need to get the Brobdingnagians attention, they need to want to for some reason. Maybe it’s to try to save themselves, maybe it’s just in awe at such a massive being moving around them. That’s not all, though, the Brobdingnagian must also not be the type to ignore them or destroy them all outright.”

Ms. Oshie looked back down by her toes, and the Lilliputian civilization going on under her feet. She spoke up again.

“Have you ever heard of ‘Goddess Yuna’, Ms. Choi?”

“I can’t say I have.”, replied Ms. Choi.

Chapter 11: History

“That’s to be expected.”, began Ms. Oshie.

“Ages ago, a young woman from my very own hometown boarded a fishing vessel. An unforeseen storm happened over the ocean that week, and the vessel never returned. She and everyone else onboard were presumed dead as the ship surely sunk. That’s as far as Brobdingnagian history cared about Yuna, but the story continued, recorded by the Lilliputians.”

Ms. Choi turned to her business associate and continued listening.

“Though everyone else on the ship died, Yuna resurfaced on a vast Lilliputian island: Lillishima.”

“You mean?”

“Yes.”

Ms. Oshie nodded, then continued.

“The very same modern Lillishima, which today is now a territory under the unified government of Lilliput. Back then, it was an isolated nation of its own. Isolated as in, the Lilliputians at the time had no contact with others of their kind, and certainly not any Gulliverians or Brobdingnagians. Yet, upon their shores Yuna landed with only storm-torn rags covering her. The Lilliputians of Lillishima went to explore their beaches for anything interesting that might’ve washed up. This was common practice after any big storm.”

“I see.”, said Ms. Choi.

“Naturally, they didn’t expect to find a 6 mile tall woman laying on the beach. As luck would have it, they happened upon her just as she stirred and, after coughing up a small lake’s worth of sea water all over the first beach-crawling party, she herself noticed the Lilliputians beneath.”

“And what did she do?”

“That’s the amazing thing, she just watched them for a moment. They were new to her too, of course. This was far, far before regular contact among all sizes of humans.”

Ms. Oshie paused just a tad, then spoke again.

“I can only wonder what Yuna thought then. Were they bugs? She must’ve realized they weren’t, as I’m sure they bunched up and waved their arms as no unintelligent being could. Historical information revealed the Lilliputians had fallen to the ground to bow to her gigantic form almost immediately, but I doubt she could’ve noticed that level of detail.”

Ms. Choi became more enraptured by the story by the moment. She nodded for Ms. Oshie to continue.

“In any case, the Lilliputians eventually moved back to the coastal city they came from. Yuna, of course, followed and discovered the civilization there. That Lilliputian city was itself close to a few towns and the like, and with just a few minutes of walking Yuna found those too. She then returned to that big city she first saw.”

“And then, if I may ask, what happened?”, asked Ms. Choi.

“Then.”, said Ms. Oshie. “At the young of 20, Yuna became the living goddess of Lillishima.”

Ms. Choi’s eyebrows raised. She was more than interested by the story: she seemed allured by it. The woman in the kimono continued talking after a brief pause and a quick smile.

“She had very easily asserted her dominance over the entire island. Any form of resistance was crushed--quite literally. Yuna was something of a natural at it. She fit all the tropes of god mythology. Her rags eventually became cumbersome for her to wear, so she chucked them in the sea and wandered the lands naked. She was unashamed, and capricious--also like many gods of legend.”

Ms. Oshie smiled, thinking of the imagery of casting garbs to the waters in front of thousands of minuscule onlookers.

“Yuna’s demands were many and her patience was thin. At least two towns were flattened in the first year of her self-declared divinity for not ‘praising’ her enough. She had wanted them all to shout her name, but for whatever reason she deemed their participation lax.”

“Oh my...”, said Ms. Choi.

“Indeed. The entire island near starved to feed her. There was a famine and everything. Miles of fields were dedicated solely towards growing crops for Yuna and Yuna alone. She had no mercy for them if they failed to meet her needs. She had discovered, somehow, that one town had been slacking on farming duties. Do you know what she did to them?”

“Did she... eat them?”, said Ms. Choi. The answer pleased Ms. Oshie, who smiled quite wide.

“Yes. See, I knew we had similar mindsets. Yes yes, she uprooted the town and ate the whole thing. A village of more than 1,000 Lilliputians, right down her throat. There were carvings and drawings of the event.”

“Very interesting.”

“Yes, but the story gets better. Yuna managed to communicate with the Lilliputians somehow. Keep in mind this is essentially ancient history, or near-ancient at least. This was far before there was a shared writing system within the three present day governments’ territories, let alone *between* the three types of humans. It’s presumed Yuna simply talked to them, despite any dialect or accent differences. It can be hard for a Lilliputian to hear a Brobdingnagian and make out what they are saying, so it’s presumed she talked very slowly to rely any demands.”

“And how did they talk to her?”

“Ah that is the question!”, said Ms. Oshie.

“Lilliputians aren’t normally audible by us, sans technology, unless we lean in *really* close. It’s likely they used a variety of means to try and communicate with her. Archaeologists on the island had found deep trenches carved over miles. When viewed from above, they often made out basic shapes. One such shape was for people, another was a box with some crudely ‘drawn’ huts in it. Another site had its shaped tranches looking like rice crops.”

“Pictographs?”

“Yes. It’s possible there were other ways, but that was a common one it seemed. There were written documents to back it up. The Lilliputians had repurposed some of their farming tools to instead plow ditches over miles just to send their goddess messages. That’s how important she was to them.”

“I can imagine.”

“I think you can.”, smiled Ms. Oshie. “But another remarkable part of the story was that she wasn’t all bad towards them. Many of the island worshiped her right off the bat. How could they not? She was huge. Regardless of their opinions on her behavior, none could deny that she was, in fact, a veritable goddess to them. She could destroy towns with a swipe of a hand or foot. People bowed in awe of that, even as they found themselves beneath her divine feet.”

“I suppose they would, wouldn’t they.”

“They would indeed, Ms. Choi. Yet, like I said, she helped them at times. There was a record of a forest fire that raged through the land for but an hour till she spotted it. She walked over and put it all out with a few handfuls of water drawn from the coast. They praised her plenty for that, and the event is one of the most depicted above all the tapestries, carvings, tablets and the like dug up by Lilliputian archaeologists.”

“I take it they depicted her often in art.”

“They certainly did, Ms. Choi. Yuna mostly demanded a couple things. For instance, she wanted a formal sacrifice of 100 Lilliputians every month according to some uncovered texts. That amount, as we well know, could fit on our finger tip with room to spare. Hardly filling. Still, she saw value in it, satisfaction in it. Perhaps she wanted to keep them on their toes, or just loved the idea and sensations of swallowing such masses whole. Perhaps both.”

“And what else did she demand?”

“Art.”, replied Ms. Oshie.

“Art?”

“Yes, she demanded they make art of her.”

“But she couldn’t even see it, could she?”

“No, the vast majority of works they produced, she could never see. There were exceptions: she had them draw a crude visual of her in a field once so she could appreciate their work in full. There were also a few tall sculptures of her as well: 50ft was the highest. That’s something she could make out if she squinted with her head to the ground, perhaps. However, for the most part, she took their word for it when she demanded it. Either that, or some trusted ‘priests’ of hers would make sure her demands were met and conveyed such however they could.”

“Well that’s very interesting as well.”

“I agree. You see, I believe Yuna had a fear of being forgotten. She wanted to be remembered as the island’s goddess no matter what happened. Keep in mind, she knew there were other Brobdingnagians like her, but the people of Lillishima did not. As far as they knew, she was a real and true goddess, and she probably felt like that after a time.”

“This is incredible, but all news to me. How come I haven’t heard of it?”

“Like I said, it’s Lilliputian history and relevant to just one territory as well. It’s also not exactly a pride point for the people of Lillishima that they were ravaged and ruled by one Brobdingnagian woman for a decade.”

“Wait, a decade. That’s all? What happened?”

“Ah, remember I said she was afraid of being forgotten? At least, that’s what I think. Well, she was also afraid of losing her divine image. She wanted them to always know of ‘Goddess Yuna’, and to live on well past she died. Well, she kept track of the years and knew when it was her 30th birthday. Though it should’ve been a cause for celebration, it reminded her of her mortality. She worried about growing old, I think, and getting wrinkles and gray hair. My theory is she thought about her divine image. Gods are immortal, they don’t age, right? She didn’t want them to know she was human, mortal, like them.”

“So, she just left?”

“Oh no no, she didn’t *just* leave. Yuna said she was returning to the sky and would watch over them always. Then, she said she’d make sure they’d always remember her. She said this all while straddling that coastal Lillishima city she came across when first landing. After that, to the tune of their congratulatory cheers, she lifted her foot up and stepped right on the middle of the city.”

“Oh!”, said a surprised Ms. Choi.

“Yes, but then she left the rest of it alone. Then, she moved towards a town close by and shouted at the top of her voice, though she kept her words slowly said to try and be intelligible. It’s recorded she demanded they continue worshiping and depicting her image throughout all time, else she’d return and destroy them all. She said that she would, as a sample of her power, destroy at least a little of every settlement of ‘hers’ so they’d remembered her words well.”

“And she did?”

“She certainly did. She didn’t wipe even a single town out that day, but all were touched. One finger print was almost perfectly preserved before being paved over less than a century ago. There, she had rubbed out just the corner of one small village with her pinky finger. Most of the cities got a full step, but others got a toe or finger poke as she was sure to leave her mark on every bit of civilization on ‘her’ island.”

“What’d she do after that?”

“Yuna said she was leaving now, and walked into the ocean waters. All collected recounts of the event said she was seen swimming off into the horizon. After that, she was never seen again by Lilliputians, Gulliverians, or even Brobdingnagians.”

“So, she died at sea?”

“I presume so. I mean, she just went into the vast ocean with no clothes or a boat. But, her words and image lived on. Art of her exploded then. All the Lillishima inhabitants rushed to produce even just a simple carving of her to avoid her ire. Her foot and hand prints became sacred ground in some areas. The worship of Yuna became the dominant religion of Lillishima and remained such until trade with other Lilliputian territories happened. Even then, it took quite some time for the worship of Yuna to disappear entirely.”

“So, she died for her image?”

“In one sense, yes, but she was worshiped as a goddess for far longer than she had lived, and even today she lives on in history.”

Ms. Choi seemed contemplative at the story still. Ms. Oshie spoke up again.

“I want to show you something. There’s a tapestry behind us. Would you please look at it with me?”

“Oh, yes of course.”, said Ms. Choi.

Ms. Oshie turned around. Ms. Choi followed suite. Beneath them, The Lilliputians were treated to a pair of rough vibrations as the two Brobdingnagians pivoted on their naked heels. All their weight, briefly, was pressed from the bottom of their foot towards the material overhead. The Lilliputians below certainly felt it.

A tapestry hung on the near wall. Atop its white base was an elegant drawing in an ancient style. There was a big walled city depicted near the tapestries base, and around it were a few smaller towns and some green forests. Mountains were painted in the background of the image, and a bit of the ocean was to the far bottom-corner.

However, all that was just the bottom fourth of the tapestry at most. The mountains stretched into the bottom third of it, perhaps. Most of the tapestry painting was devoted to one one naked woman. She was depicted with sun-touched skin and loomed far above the settlements below. She was beautiful, with free flowing jet black hair down past her shoulders.

In the painting, the woman looked down at the settlements with one naked foot raised above one of the smaller towns in them. The other foot rested atop what appeared to be the wreckage of one town, with the debris by her toes painted in just as much exquisite detail as everything else. Above the titaness shined the morning sun, given the blue sky tints of yellow and orange. The giant figure looked very divine indeed.

“Is that Yuna?”

“Yes, this is a tapestry of her. Rather, a replica. The original design was Lilliputian scale and found by archaeologists in some Lillishima ruins. It was in near-perfect condition, so I out-bid a Lilliputian museum for the original and then had the image painted at Brobdingnagian scale.”

“It’s amazing, very well done.”

“It should be. The replica cost me millions. I hired a team of Lilliputian artists to do it. With their minuscule size, they could replicate every detail across what seemed miles of canvas to them. In fact, in this image Yuna is about to-scale.”

“Very impressive.”

“Yes, they certainly earned what I paid them. Now, back to the story of Yuna, I haven’t even said the most remarkable part of her tale yet.”

“What is it?”, asked Ms. Choi.

“She was a nobody.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she didn’t board the fishing vessel so much as sneak on it. We know because of an ancient note found onboard about a ‘stowaway’. There’s sparse few other notes about her from my hometown all those many many years ago, but it’s known she was a peasant. She likely couldn’t read or write. Yet, despite that, among an entire island of Lilliputians, she was a goddess.”

“I see.”

“Yes, and if even the lowest Brobdingnagian could become as a god, ruling an entire island’s worth of Lilliputians, then imagine what Brobdingnagians like us, with our resources, could be to them.”

Ms. Choi tilted her head ever so slightly.

“I think I see, you consider yourself a god among the Lilliputians in your office?”

“Oh no.”, said Ms. Oshie. “I consider myself a god among *all* Lilliputians, and I consider you one too, along with every other Brobdingnagian in the world.”

Chapter 12: Synergy

Ms. Choi blinked a few times. Something about those words.

‘Brobdingnagians, treated as gods.’

The way her kimono wearing companion phrased things had appealed to her on a deep level.

“Oh.”

Ms. Oshie turned to face her fellow business owner and multi-billionaire.

“You seem surprised?”

Ms. Choi faced her in turn.

“No it’s just, I never thought about it like that before. It feels... quite good, I admit.”

Her body gave as much away. The business dressed woman with shorter hair had her cheeks flushed a bit red at the thought. “Gods”, she thought. Warmth tickled her body up her spine. She shrugged her shoulders to help diffuse it so as to remain professional.

“It does, doesn’t it. Look at our feet.”

Ms. Choi did so.

“Down below there are millions of Lilliputians, scurrying about my office floor. There’s a bit more the amount Yuna ever ruled over. They have villages, cities, a society. Yet, if there wasn’t a protective barrier above them, I could ruin all of it with a jog around my office and a bit of furniture rearrangement.”

“I... yes.”, said Choi.

“Now imagine how we must look to them? Looming above them, looking down at them. Our soles fill their skies when we stand, and rock their land when we move. What do you think we must look like to them.”

“Gods.”

“Exactly Ms. Choi. I believe we Brobdingnagians are a race of gods. Not in any metaphysical sense. I obviously don’t believe Yuna was a real goddess in the sense of being immortal with magical powers. But, as far as the smaller sub-species of humanity should be concerned, we are divine to them and should be treated as such.”

“But, Oshie Corporation is one of the number one inter-size employers. You have more Lilliputians and Gulliverians on your payroll than any other business in Brobdingnag.”

“Oh I certainly do. I strongly believe Lilliputians and Gulliverians can do great work. Some of my best employees are an inch tall to me, or even speck-sized. My R&D team in particular is more than a third composed of Lilliputians. That doesn’t mean I don't view myself as a massively superior being in comparison.”

She walked forward across the office floor, looking down all the while. She paused after just a few steps and smiled.

“A god doesn’t need to just wander her lands, destroying things stark naked. I can see the value in the smaller people and use it. They have potential, or at least some of them do. The ones beneath our feet right now, well, they exist to invigorate me. To remind mean all my honored guests, like yourself, just how bigger and better we Brobdingnagians are.”

Ms. Choi walked forward to stand back alongside Ms. Oshie. The latter continued talking.

“At least once a week I treat myself to a rather expensive private spa. There, I enjoy some of the most thorough and relaxing massages and nail treatments one could find anywhere. You know how?”

“How?”

“Multi-size staff. While Brobdingnagian hands knead the biggest points of tension away from my back, dozens of Gulliverians walk along my body to tend to the smaller bits of my body that they can better reach. While Brobdingnagian thumbs rub the arches of my feet for a soothing massage there, I have one Gulliverian attending to each toe as well.”

“Ah, I have been to a Gulliverian spa once myself actually.”

“Yes, they exist, but this spa is even better. When it’s time for the manicure and pedicure, each digit has its own Gulliverian. Once they are done, though, scurrying beneath the tip of my nails are dozens of Lilliputians. They suit up and wield tiny cleaning tools to make sure there’s not even a speck of dirt under my nails.”

“Oh my, that sounds like quite the treat.”

“It is. They file the underside of the tips of my nails down to make sure it’s as shiny and smooth as the outside. By the time they finish, I know my nails are pristine down to the smallest grain of dust. They emerge, perhaps a bit dusty from flakes of shaved nail keratin, but overall immensely grateful for the tips I leave them and the other staff there.”

“Oooh, that sounds very lovely indeed.”, said Ms. Choi.

“Well, you can accompany me the next time I go if you’d like.”

“I would like that.”, said Ms. Choi.

“My point though was about what I want. As a god to the smaller subspecies of humanity, I don’t want to destroy them all as some avatar of destruction. I just want them to know their place. I want them to be grateful whether I ask them to be a chief engineer at my company, or to crawl under my nail as a spa specialist.”

She continued.

“I want them to feel reverence even, and especially, should I snuff them out beneath a toe for my own amusement. They shouldn’t just feel honored to work in our presence, they should be honored to be in it at all. In short, they should show us far more respect, and we should have far more control over their lives.”

“I... I don’t know what to say to.” said Ms. Choi. She was smiling though, clearly enjoying these ideas. Ms. Oshie noticed her expression, then turned back to face the ground by her feet again.

“Do you want to hear something Ms. Choi? Turn your headset code to 512.”

Ms. Choi opened her mouth.

“Headset, set frequency code to 512.”

The headset beeped and tuned in to the code. Ms. Choi gasped, at once figuring she sussed out a big part of what had Ms. Oshie smiling at random intervals during their chat.

She heard the Lilliputians beneath them.

There was a mixture of sounds: gasps, groans of exasperation, complaints and even a few utterances of awe. There weren’t many screams though; it was clear they were at least somewhat accustomed to Brobdingnagian presence.

“We can hear them, can they hear us?”, asked Ms. Choi.

“Oh they can, certainly. The material separating our feet from my Lilliputian country isn’t entirely soundproof. However, aside from that, they are all equipped with a headset that can take in my words. Now that you are on the same code, they can hear you as well. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh not at all, well, I mean, they can’t exactly share what they hear, can they?”

Ms. Oshie laughed.

“Sorry, I was just imagining the uproar if they could. No, it’s a closed communication circuit. The entire display is shielded from outside connections, as is my meeting table which I’ll show you shortly. They hear when I want them to, and their headsets can’t even let them talk among themselves.”

“Impressive.”

“Thank you, but there’s another impressive feature. You can try it out. Just say ‘disable ambient noise filter’, but address your headset first, of course.”

Ms. Choi opened her mouth to speak. “Headset, disable ambient filter.” The headset beeped.

“What’d that do?”

“Take a couple steps and listen for yourself.”

Ms. Choi already noticed something. Both her voice and Ms. Oshie’s came back over the headset, but only once to avoid a feedback loop. She sounded so... big. She didn’t address that. Instead, following Ms. Oshie’s suggestion, she took a step forward.

She heard it. She heard the quaking reverberation from her foot step as it pattered on the transparent material. Though no buildings were harmed thanks to the architectural designs of Lilliputian structures, the power was heard, it was felt. It was impactful; it shook those Lilliputians and their streets.

“How did that step sound to you?”, asked Ms. Oshie.

Ms. Choi smiled and took another. She paused a moment to savor the clamor of that one as well. Below, The Lilliputians watched as her perfect sole slammed down. Many complained over their headsets to each other or no one in particular. Others simply yelped out of reflex.

“Godly”, she said.

Ms. Oshie smiled, then spoke.

“I don’t often tell others this”, began Ms. Oshie. “But there I times I imagine myself walking the ancient Lilliputian world. My body a megalith among them. My steps shaking and flattening their mountains. Every footprint of mine a monument, every whim of mine a pressing, country-wide concern. Entire cities are raised to satiate my hunger or fancy; entire cities bow in attempts to appease me.”

She giggled.

“Sorry, I hope that’s not too embarrassing to reveal.”

“Oh no, it’s an admittedly pleasing thought.”

“Perfect, I assumed you’d like it.”

“Is that your ultimate goal, Ms. Oshie.”

The woman in the kimono laughed again. She took a few steps forward to once again stand side by side with Ms. Choi. Ms. Choi heard those steps as well over her headset. They were almost as pleasing as her own, but fun as they were to hear as the Lilliputians did, they were quite noisy. She spoke into her headset to turn the ambient noise filter back on.

Ms. Oshie spoke shortly after.

“I mentioned I value some traditional aspects of things, but make no mistake: my youth, our youth, is an asset. We’re in our early twenties, in line with much of the ever-changing zeitgeist of technology. History has much to offer, but I am adroit enough to separate wisdom from ignorance.”

“I see”, said Ms. Choi.

“To put it another way,”, continued Ms. Oshie. “I’d much rather enjoy my television shows, the internet, my fine food and other modern delights than be like Yuna, wandering across Lilliputian lands, naked, without proper bedding to sleep on. It has a quixotic allure, and it might be fun to try for, say, a week or so, but I’d certainly miss the lifestyle I’m accustomed to.”

“Hmm, I think I would too.”, said Ms. Choi. “Then what do you want from the Lilliputians and the Gulliverians, in more practical terms?”

“I simply want their governments to know their proper place.”

“What do you mean?”

“We can discuss it during our meeting. Come and sit with me, if you’d please.”

Chapter 13: Big Business

The two business women made their way over to the large meeting table at the back-center of the room. It had simple and exquisite floor cushions in lieu of chairs. Ms. Oshie sat down on the one at the table’s head, but schooched the cushion a bit away from Ms. Choi so she could better angle her body to face her associate. Ms. Choi just sat on the closest cushion at the side of the table.

Ms. Oshie sat on her knees, while Ms. Choi crossed her legs. The latter’s eyes were fixed on the table surface. It was was clear, and filled with countless fancy looking buildings. Each one was divided via clear panes from others: sometimes among other smaller buildings and even entire courtyards. Each one had a plaque with company names and information on them.

“What are all these?”, said Ms. Choi.

“Lilliputian companies. I acquire them as another collection of mine. Do you like them?”

“Yes. Sorry, I just had forgotten about this while I was busy being impressed by your office floor and pleasingly captured by our chat.”

The two shared a small laugh.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Certainly.”, replied Ms. Choi.

Ms. Oshie hit a button on the table which turned on some intercom.

“Could you bring the refreshments to my office. My meeting with Ms. Choi is about to start, so please close the door on the way out.”

“Right away Oshie Sama.”, came a woman’s voice on the other line.

“So,”, began Ms. Choi. “How do these Lilliputians get food? Water? How is all that handled. Do they grow it themselves somewhere or...?”

“Ah, no.”, began Ms. Oshie in turn. “Every week I vacate my office and some staff comes in to place supplies around the city and in each divided section of my meeting table. We have a proprietary sleeping gas blend to make sure they are not disturbed. You might have noticed there’s a few inches of empty space between the barriers and the ‘ground’ of my displays? That’s to accommodate the Gulliverian employees who help with those processes.”

“Oh, very interesting.”

There was another moment of silence before Ms. Choi continued.

“Where do they come from, if I might ask?”

“Oh, from all over Lilliput.”

“The buildings too, though. I noticed a few of them were actually under construction: in the floor display, that is.”

“Ah.”, said Ms. Oshie.

“A great question. Like I said, the buildings in the table display are ones I explicitly purchased. Many of the buildings in the floor display were acquired by other means as well from Lilliputian lands. However I also want my little ‘country’ to expand on its own. So, I order some Lilliputian building supplies to be delivered with the food and water at times. The country’s rather recent: I only got control of Oshie Corporation just two years ago, and it was then I really started the project by moving Lilliputians over from a more private collection at my home. However, some cities here have grown by over a quarter of their old size or more since then.”

“How very smart of you, but they don’t mind building here. I mean, they know of their fate certainly.”, said Ms. Choi.

“Certainly.”, repeated Ms. Oshie. “But, they must entertain themselves somehow. Most of the have acclimated towards their lives here, under my feet. They try to go about things as normal as possible, and construction work is an outlet for many of them. Each city has its own government of some kind by now, and the country itself has one. It’s all beholden to me, of course, but I try not to interfere too much--if only cause it’d usually be a tad ‘beneath’ me.”

The two shared a laugh over the little pun there. A sharply dressed Brobdingnagian assistant entered. Her feet were bare to abide by the policy of the executive floor, though they had a turquoise polish on the nails. She was short, petite, and carried a lidded tray over to the meeting table. She didn’t once look or comment on the floor or the table. She was clearly used to it, and didn’t mind it one bit.

“Here you are Oshie Sama.”, she said with a bow. “If you require anything else please let me know.”

“Thank you.”, said Ms. Oshie. The assistant moved to lift the lid off the tray, but the kimono wearing woman politely waved her off, wanting to do it herself. The assistant left, her feet stomping back over the Lilliputian country beneath her. She closed the door behind her as requested.

Ms. Oshie moved her hand to the tray lid.

“Part of why I’m so interested in meeting with you, and see value in your business, has to do with some of its history.”

“History?”

“Yes.”, said Ms. Oshie. “It was before both our times, but back when laws forbidding the consumption of Lilliputians were introduced, Brob Delights Food Inc. was chief among the food companies lobbying against it. The company, now yours, wasn’t just the most outspoken about, you were the most by miles. Of course, now your public relations downplays it, but something tells me you might still practice that tradition in private.”

“I... yes.”, said Ms. Choi. “I’ve been known to indulge in devouring the smaller sizes now and then.”

Ms. Oshie smiled to match Ms. Choi’s own. She lifted the tray lid and revealed a small porcelain pot of tea. It was already pre-poured into two tea-cups with elegant, subtle designs. Between the cups was a small plate with avocado sushi. On top of each piece of sushi, laying on the solid gob of the avocado between the rice and seaweed, writhed hundreds of screaming little specks.

“Lilliputian garnish?”, said Ms. Choi.

“Indeed. I hope it doesn’t offend.”, said Ms. Oshie. She reached for a pair of chopsticks by the plate. Ms. Choi reached for her own pair, pinched up a piece of sushi, and brought it her mouth. After a few chews, she swallowed.

“Not at all.”, said Ms. Choi.

Ms. Oshie followed and did much the same, smiling all the while.

--==--==--==--

The Lilliputians were stuck to the sushi pieces by both the cling of the avocado mass against their tiny bodies as well as a very thin--to a Brobdingnagian, at least--layer of somewhat sticky seasoning. As such, they were helpless when the short-haired Brobdingnagian pinched up their little ‘island’ and brought it to her awaiting mouth.

Those lips parted, following all the etiquette standards of the upper classes of Brobdingnagian elite. Yet, that made no difference to the Lilliputians. To them, she was a monster and her mouth doom. When those lips swung open, they were blasted with the humid gale of her breath and the sweet, all encompassing scent it carried with it.

In they went. The chopsticks parted and Ms. Choi’s tongue took over handling the piece of sushi. That great muscle wrestled the sushi piece to bits. Rice flew off to all corners of the mouth, along with many Lilliputians that jostled off the piece of sushi. Others were crushed against her palate, and many more were crunched by Ms. Choi’s teeth as they munched the piece of sushi to paste.

Others yet lived, traveling down her throat to simmer in her gut.

The ones on the piece of sushi Ms. Oshie ate fared even worse. She seemed to smile right at them as she opened wide and put them in her mouth. She chewed just once, trying to minimize the amount of early causalities. Instead, she nimbly worked her tongue to press the piece of sushi against the roof of her mouth and her cheeks. Her saliva drenched the piece of food and the Lilliputians ‘garnishing’ it.

Once satisfied, she swallowed the piece mostly whole. Her throat further smushed them as it carted them towards her awaiting gut.

The torrid air within their stomachs was far from inviting, and the noises and uproarious churnings did even less to make them feel welcome. A roaring current soon approached as hot, steaming tea flooded the respective guts of the two Brobdingnagian women.

They had each taken a sip of their cups in unison. It was just a sip, but just a sip was still a lake’s worth to the minuscule Lilliputians languishing within their bellies. Their heartbeats, their laughter and words: all reached them as muffled, seemingly-mocking utterances while they started to digest away in agony.

--==--==--==--

“Mmm, very well made: the tea and the food.”, said Ms. Choi.

“Thank you. I hire only the finest chefs for my meals, refreshments included in that category.”, said Ms. Oshie.

“I can tell.”, said Ms. Choi. She took another piece of sushi and devoured it with dainty grace. In the process, one building within the table caught her eye. It was just below and to the left of the tray. The Lilliputian structure was taller than any of the rest, and she noticed the plaque on it.

“Lilliadventures Inc. What’s this one?”, she asked.

“Ah,”, said Ms. Oshie. That’s my latest acquisition. They only recently sold their stock on the Brobdingnagian market.”

The two leaned towards the particular divided-area that the building rested in. Both of them looked at it, peering easily past that near-perfectly transparent material making up the table’s surface.

“Very impressive as well.”, said Ms. Choi. She blinked at it a few times.

“Thank you.”, said Ms. Oshie.

“Now, you were mentioning laws, is that what this meeting is about.”

“Oh more than that, but yes. We can start with that then discuss some actual business matters.”

She took another sip of her tea.

“Lilliputians are protected by law for humanitarian reasons, true, but also due to their help in technologically progressing our society in the past. They had a leg-up on us in the past there, but since contact all three governments are roughly equal in terms of development within their borders. This is all old news, history really. The point is, I think those laws are too generous, and I’m not the only one.”

Mrs. Choi nodded.

“Now, as you may know, some candidates of the Brobdingnagian legislature are up for reelection next week, and I’ve backed some alternatives who are more amiable to my interests. Anyways, some of the main Lilliputian and Gulliverian protection laws are up for renewal within a couple months, and I was thinking of lobbying for some changes...”

--==--==--==--

Mr. Gonzalez had heard it all. He along with everyone in the table had those same awful headsets pierced into their ears. The two Brobdingnagians had discussed eating Lilliputians, and he heard the sounds of that consumption taking place.

Then, he saw them. Two gigantic Brobdingnagian faces looming high above in the new ‘sky’. They talked about his company like his wasn’t there. They blinked a few times, eyeing the entire courtyard like it was some sort of quaint little trophy.

Then, just as soon as they stared down at his life’s work, continued from generations of labor, they turned away without so much as a word towards him or anyone else that shuddered beneath their gaze.

At last, the fires of Mr. Gonzalez's rage, his short-temper, were extinguished by the ever encroaching waves of hopelessness. It had finally sunk in that his entire company was taken. His life, and the lives of his employees were destroyed all to be one little decoration among many on some table.

All his work was just a minor distraction. An ornament to talk about for a few moments before getting down to business. And the two women definitely talked business. They spoke for well over an hour about laws, business partnerships and deals.

He tuned out for most of it.

This was his life now. He was to be a small mote of dust, hardly if even visible to them. The former CEO was a speck among a display piece. Even the most lucrative Lilliputian company meant almost nothing to these Brobdingnagian it seemed. It was just a display piece. A trifle.

That was what he was to be while the beings above him talked business.

While gods talked business.

Fin.