“I don't think you appreciate the gift I'm trying to give you here,” the brunette woman said, doing what she could to keep from openly glaring at the girl sitting across from her. “I'm offering you my favor. I carry much more weight than your little director boy-toy, and if push comes to shove I will have him wiped off the map.”

The blonde rolled her eyes, though the gesture was mostly lost behind the dark sunglasses she wore for anonymity. “There's nothing sadder than watching your idols go senile,” she said with a smirk. “I'm not giving up the part, but if you'd like I can ask around about openings. Those lights do get awful hot, and it's not like we can be expected to fetch our own water.”

Lily Paige could feel her blood boiling in her veins. She could feel herself trembling with rage, but she kept a practiced neutral tone in her voice. No matter what the little cunt thought, she was a good actress. “You're hot shit right now, but that will fade. Your body will not make you a legend. The talent you possess will not make you a legend. Everybody will forget about Emily What's-Her-Name, With The Nice Rack. At that point, if you want to keep making a living, you will need to have not pissed off people like me.”

Emily burst into a fit of giggles, holding her napkin to her mouth. “You really believe that, don't you?” Reaching out, she put her hand over Lily's, smiling condescendingly. “Don't worry. By the time I fade, you'll be long dead. There's nothing you can do to stop me.” She smiled, looking down at her chest. “It really is a nice rack though, isn't it? I'm sure you remember what that's like.”

“Listen to me, you little cunt!” Lily's hand turned over, clasping Emily's, and gripped it so hard that her nails dug into Emily's wrist. “You have the chance to not fuck up your future here by being reasonable. If you keep disrespecting me, I will end you.”

Deep scratches were carved in Emily's flesh as she drew her arm away, clutching it protectively. “Don't touch me, you old harpy. If you had a fourth of the weight to throw around that you're pretending you do, you wouldn't still be here begging for the role. There's nothing more to discuss. Get out of my sight.” The women stared darkly into one another's eyes before Lily rose from the booth.

“You will regret this,” she warned, looking down her nose at Emily.

“Doubt it; fuck off.” The young blonde's tone was one of annoyed dismissal. Shaking with rage, Lily stormed out of the diner, slamming the door out of her way as she headed into the parking lot and towards her car.

“Lily! Lily Paige, over here!” a voice called, drawing her attention. The next thing she knew a white flash filled her vision, and she swore under her breath.

“Parasite,” she hissed.

“Lily Paige, who were you talking to in there? What were you talking about? Do you have anything you'd like to get off your chest?”

“You know, there actually is something I-” Lily started to whirl around to face the paparazzo, but her leg didn't land where she expected it to and she lost her balance, stumbling to her knees. She could hear the click of the shutter as she remained there on all fours, simmering with frustration and embarrassment.

“Are you okay?” the man asked, though he made no effort to actually come to her aid. She should have known trying to talk to him was pointless. A quick glance into the diner showed that the little cunt hadn't noticed her fall. Lily went to pick herself up when she noticed that the world was steadily growing away from her.

“No...” she whispered, her heart hammering. This can't be happening to me right now, not here, not with them around, she thought to herself, but try as she could to stop it, she was definitely shrinking. The photographer seemed to have noticed by now, and his shutter was clicking much faster than before.

“Lily Paige, before you shrink too small, can you tell us what you're thinking? What do you plan to do as an Infected actress? Will you still be making movies?”

“Shut up and help me!” Lily yelled at the top of her lungs, thrashing to the top of her oversized clothes. She held the top of her blouse up around her collarbone, face blushing red with embarrassment. “Please call somebody to help me!”

“Oh, shit, good idea.” The man lowered his phone and walked towards her. Lily was partially stunned; she hadn't expected him to actually come help her. Now that he was approaching, every step made him seem more and more colossal, especially since she continued to shrink away to nothing. She was only around a foot tall when he reached down, and Lily expected to feel his thick fingers wrap around her tiny, delicate frame, but the sensation never came. Instead, he rifled through her pockets, withdrawing her cell phone.

“Direct connection to all of your contacts. Thanks so much, Lily!” The man was gleeful as he turned the phone over before dropping it into his pocket. “So like I said, what are your plans for the big screen? Will you be joining any of the Infected support groups, like the Motivation? What does the future hold for Lily Paige?”

“I can answer that.” Before Lily had a chance to unleash her growing frustration at the giant who was back to taking pictures, another voice called out in the parking lot. The two turned to see Emily folding up her sunglasses, clipping them onto the front of her shirt.

“Emily Frost? You were talking with Emily Frost?” the paparazzo asked of Lily.

“Please, you have t-”

“She wasn't just talking with me,” Emily's voice easily drowned out Lily's, who had reached her final size of two inches. “She was threatening me.” The blonde girl slowly walked forward, smirking widely down at her shrunken enemy. “Telling me how she's so much bigger than me. How she'll crush me if I don't do what she wants.” The man with the camera backed away, still taking pictures, as Emily advanced.

“E-Emily, please, this is-”

“She thinks she can do whatever she wants to whoever she wants, and nobody will ever fight back because she's Lily... Fucking... Paige.” She planted her last three steps down dramatically at each word, standing just before the shrunken Lily, sneering down her nose at her.

“Please hel-”

“Just shut up.” Emily kicked out, sending Lily flying a foot away from her clothes, tumbling across the asphalt. She could hear the shutter clicks even as she bit her lip to keep from crying in humiliation and pain. “Hey, you. Cameraman.”

“Yes?” The man stopped taking pictures long enough to look up.

“If she died, would you run it?”

“Oh, of course! She's the first celebrity to shrink in public! This is huge!”

Emily grinned, walking towards Lily once more. The tiny woman scrambled to her feet, fleeing the giantess in a panic. “Please help me! Stop taking pictures and fucking help!” she shrieked up to the paparazzo, but it was no use. He clearly heard her, but he kept the end of the camera trained on her, taking picture after picture.

“I do hope you're going to go see The Trumpeter's March, coming out this fall,” Emily said softly as she approached the tiny woman. She knocked Lily to the ground with her big toe, then placed the tip of her shoe over her little body. “It's a great film that I think will really touch millions of people.”

“Please... please help me...” Lily begged from beneath the shoe as it slowly came down on her, bending and compressing her bones against the unforgiving ground. The man laid down on his front to get a better view of the execution.

Emily could not have been more thrilled. She savored every second of the experience, dragging out Lily's death for as long as possible, and loving the fact that the cameraman, with his inaction, was endorsing her murder. She knew that once she did this, she would be invincible. She would conquer Hollywood, and crush everybody who tried to stop her like she would with Lily now.

Small pops started to come from beneath her foot, signaling Lily's bones snapping under the tremendous pressure. The tiny woman let out a gut-wrenching scream of pain, and it was amid this scream that the front-page picture was taken: Lily reaching out from beneath the shoe with one arm, blood running down her once-fetishized body, and raw, pure emotion painted all across her face as she stared into the camera of the man who refused to save her life. It was a hell of a performance.

“Ew, I think I stepped in some gum,” Emily said, pressing her foot to the ground, silencing Lily Paige forever. She dragged her foot back a few times on the ground, scraping the viscera off her shoe and painting the former actress into several spots in the parking lot of a nameless diner. “Oh, no,” she said, turning her shoe to look at the sole. “Looks like it was just nothing.”

 It had been almost a year since Emily Frost had even thought about Lily Paige. The court case had garnered some attention, but amidst the shrinking panic and backed-up legal system in general, it had been hard for the prosecution to make any progress. Emily's lawyers dragged the case out until that November, at which point what Emily had done was retroactively labeled animal cruelty and she was given a small fine. She sneezed away the money it took to make the matter disappear, and the entirety of Lily Paige was gone from her mind the second it was over.

Now she had another two-inch problem. The man inside of her, rising star Jeffery Green, was trying his hardest to work her to orgasm, but he was just too ill-equipped for the job. He struggled himself to climax, panting heavily, and fell against her once he was done.

“O... okay, big guy,” she said condescendingly, pushing him off of her. He was still breathing heavily, as though he'd just run a marathon. Emily rolled her eyes and stared at the ceiling.

“That was incredible. You're so good.”

Emily smiled. “Yeah,” she said softly.

“I can't believe I fucked Emily Frost. That's... that's like fucking...” he stalled, trying to think of an equivalent.

“It's like fucking Emily Frost,” she said.

“Exactly! God, you're incredible.”

“Yeah, I know. But you have to get out now, my boyfriend could be home anytime.”

“Your... you have a boyfriend?”

“Of course I do. Didn't we just talk about this? I'm Emily Frost.”

“B-but I thought that I...”

She barked out a quick laugh. “That you what? Were going to be my boyfriend? Or that somehow you had found me in a two-hour window in which I was unspoken for and you thought that you were the one I was gonna spend my time with? Jeffy, baby, you're cute, but you've got to know you're not going anywhere, right? Not really, anyway.”

The actor looked as if he was going to cry. Emily rolled her eyes, getting out of bed and leading him up by his hands. “Come on, don't be a big baby. You're really going to cry if my boyfriend comes home and catches you here with me while I'm naked. You know Dylan Twist?”

“The director?”

“Yeah. He's on his way here right now.”

“Th-that guy's huge!”

“Unlike present company,” Emily muttered. “Anyway, yes he is. So come on. Get up, get dressed, get out.” Jeffery leaped to his feet, quickly getting his clothes on.

“So... can I call you?”

“Do you have my number?”

“No, I don't think I got it.”

“Guess you can't. Come on, go!” She shoved him out of her bedroom and closed the door behind him. His footsteps were loud against the marble floor as he descended the giant staircase towards the main floor. She let out a sigh, then looked at her dresser. The lights were off, but the moonlight provided enough illumination to reveal a tiny man standing on its surface, still facing her with his miniature camera.

Aaron had been licensed out by his firm to be Emily's private paparazzo, taking the pictures nobody else could get. Being Infected meant he could live on her dresser, she would provide for him, and in return he got whatever pictures he wanted. Emily had no problem with the arrangement, as she felt the more exposure she got in the public eye, the better. But now she had a problem.

“Give me the camera,” she demanded, extending her index finger towards the tiny man.

“Are you insane? These are gold!” He rushed towards his tiny computer – which was just barely capable of storing files and uploading them to his firm's database. Emily swiftly lashed out, knocking him aside with a backwards brush of her hand. His camera clattered to the desk, and in the next instant Emily lowered her fingertip onto it, crushing it beyond repair.

“What did you do that for!?” Aaron yelled.

“I can't have people knowing I fucked him. Sorry. I'm sure the agency will be willing to get you a new camera, right? I'll have someone swing by there tomorrow.”

“The public deserves to know everything!”

“The public can know what I show them. I'm not showing them that, and neither are you, little man.” She leaned in close for emphasis, but Aaron was accustomed to dealing with stubborn famous people.

“I still have my laptop! I can still tell people, and they'll believe me! Especially if it comes on the night of my camera being destroyed!” Emily paused for only a moment before reaching out and crushing his laptop just as easily as she had his camera.

“There. Now you don't have either. And I won't be getting you replacements.”

“Oh, yeah, good thinking on your part!” Aaron shouted sarcastically. “If I don't have a camera or a laptop, what are you even keeping me around for?”

Emily straightened up, looking down at the miniscule man on her desk, and raised an eyebrow in response to his question. Her new expression sent a chill down his spine and he stumbled backwards, raising his hands apologetically as he remembered the court case from a year ago. “N-now wait... I didn't mean like that!”

“No, you're right. What am I keeping you around for? You're not increasing my fame, and you don't have a great personality. And fuck, I bet you're even smaller than Jeffery's dick!” Emily giggled. “If you can believe that.”

“Please, Emily, I was just... I was just talking, you know? I didn't mean any of it! I swear, I won't tell a soul about any of this!”

“And why should I even take the chance that you will? Hmm? Do you really think your little life is so valuable as to convince me to take any risk to myself?” She leaned in close again, enjoying instilling fear in the little vermin. “You know I wouldn't throw a hundred dollars your way to save your life? That's what you mean to me, fuckface.”

“O-of course...” Aaron was finally at a loss for words. He had dealt with bitter, childish, asshole celebrities before, but never one with such an aura of chilling sadism like Emily Frost. Sometimes his clients may have wanted to kill him, but none before Emily had ever wanted to murder him.

“So prove your worth. Convince me why I shouldn't just end you right here and now?”

“B... because, I... I, um, I can...” he stammered, staring up at the beautiful, naked goddess of an actress that loomed above him. “E-Emily... please...”

“Begging? Really? That's what you think is going to convince me to keep you around? Honestly, are you even trying to save your life?”

“Y-yes...”

“Are you really? Because if you don't care about your life you just let me know right now and I'll squish you into paste.” Aaron paled. His mouth open and shut, but he wasn't able to produce any noise. “Ugh, pathetic. Look, just nod or shake your head in answer to this question: do you want me to smear you into the ground?” The tiny man shook his head. “Okay. So you want to live?” A nod. “Fine, I can arrange that. But you're still going to be doing work around here, you know that, right?” He nodded again. “Good boy. I like this new system, where I tell you what's happening and you accept it. In fact, I don't really see any need for you to speak ever again. From now on, you just nod or shake your head and that's it, got it?” He nodded, his mouth too dry to speak even if he wanted to.

“Perfect! Now, let's get you useful again, shall we?”

Days later, Emily was attending the premiere of her newest movie, walking the carpet and smiling broadly as the clicks and flashes of cameras went off all around her. She was happy to pose for pictures, drinking in the attention they lavished on her.

She found a microphone in her face and it took her a moment to determine to whom it belonged. “Miss Frost, could I ask you some questions?”

“Of course!” she responded happily.

“That's an interesting fashion piece you've got on tonight. Who are you wearing?”

“Oh, this old thing?” She looked down at her chest, and the man dangling just above her cleavage. Aaron was attached to a gold chain that looped around her neck and hooked through his shoulders, keeping him firmly secured. Colorful twine had been used to sew his arms to his sides, and his legs together, and his body was painted with interesting designs. “Just a little Mote I found. I captured him and then I realized, you know, people look down on them, but there's beauty inside them. I just thought I'd do what I could to bring this little guy's inner beauty out, really make him a centerpiece of attention and show the world that there's more to the Motes than just being clever vermin.”

Aaron shied away as the microphone was lowered to his level. “Do you have any comment on that?” He stared at the fuzzy black ball hovering inches away from him.

“Please, hel-” he began to shout before Emily flicked him in the side of the head, causing him to rock back and forth momentarily. He screamed in pain, thrashing as much as he was able, and the microphone lifted back to Emily.

“I'm so sorry about that, he knows he's not allowed to speak. He's very happy to be setting a good example for Motes everywhere.” She smiled, looking into a few more cameras as they took pictures.

“Well it seems like the two of you are getting along just great!” the interviewer said. “Can we expect to see more Mote-based fashion pieces from you in the future?”

“Oh, absolutely! I think there's so many uses for them, and I'm sure I'm going to have a blast exploring them all with my little helper here.” She gave a wink to the cameras before moving on, the tiny man around her neck still twisting and screaming for help to the uncaring crowd surrounding Emily Frost.