"I still can't believe I have to work with her" Ashley muttered as she approached the lab. It was a cool March day, and the wind lightly slapped against her face, moving the few strands of her straight light blonde hair not tied back with her wide black hairband onto her bright blue eyes. Her pink lips turned to a frown as she watched her step, making sure not to step into the puddles of melting snow with her mary janes, or else she'd both soak them and her white thigh highs, and the last thing the tinies would respect was a "goddess" in a soaked black skirt and muddy grey sweater. She approached Robins, where their setup was, and scanned her id, allowing her to make her way to the secluded room in the basement.
Mandy was hard at work at the work bench, finishing the last touches on the last house she had to build. Behind her was an entire diarama of lush green plains and in the middle was a miniscule village where this house would go. She had just gotten up to place the house when she heard the door swing open. She quickly turned around to see her lab partner come in, she seemed upset.
"I just finished up the last house, these tinies are gonna love their new world!" Mandy proclaimed with an air of pride.
Ashley grunted. "Lets just figure out our roles and get it over with." Ashley ordered as her partner stood up from the desk where she was working on whatever stupid thing. The gray eyed brunnette stood slightly below her by a few inches, and she was blissfully smiling.
"Okay, lets flip a coin, heads, I'm the mean one, tails, you are. Sound good?" Ashley didn't wait for an answer before flipping a coin which quickly dropped to the floor.
Bending down to see the reuslt, Mandy's eyes grew wide in astonishment as she read the result "Tails."
Both girls stood speechless for a moment. Thoughts raced through Mandy's head - what was she going to do? She had just spent the better part of the day making the village, now she had to terrorize it? Work hard to undo all her work?
Ashley meanwhile was resenting the result - she had secretly wanted to torture the tinies, show them that she was in control of their lives while Mandy simply had to feed them. Now she was stuck with that role. She HATED it. She stomped her foot angerly.
Mandy jumped at the sound of her partner's shoe slamming on the floor.
"Careful!" Mandy squeaked. "The tinies are already there, you don't want to scare them."
"What do you care?" Ashley poked her partners chest. "You're the mean one now."
//////////////////////////////////////////////////
Aron was woken up by a sudden slam that echoed throughout his village that startled every one of its inhabitens.
"Les?" He shook the half nude woman next to him, and she woke.
"Yes?" She muttered, half awake.
"Did you hear that boom?" Aron was worried.
"No." She muttered "And if that's all you wanted me to hear, then I'm going back to sleep."
Aron suddenly noticed something... This room felt... Off.
"Les wake up" He shook his wife again.
"Aron, please, let me sleep, we have a long day of hunting tomorrow, we can talk about it on the trail, okay?"
"Les I don't think we're going to be hunting tomorrow."
"Why not?"
Aron went white "This isn't our house."
"You really went out with this cruel thing, huh? Going with the all black look?" Ashley chuckled.
"Huh?" Mandy looked away from her book to see Ashley walking in.
"Black dress? Check. Black boots? Check."
Mandy got up "Oh this?" She looked down her sleeveless black sheath dress. "It's just because it's comfortable, I'm not trying to make a statement or anything."
"Sure. And you think when the tinies see you and your 'black angel of death' getup over here crushing their friends under your boots you won't be making a statement?"
"N... No?" Mandy hadn't considered the impact she'd have just in appearence, but she shrugged it off. "Besides, no shoes on the lab floor."
"But you're wearing boots right now!" Ashley chasitized.
"Yea, but I mean the terrarium. You can't step on that with boots, it'd permanently damage it."
"Look." Ashley was getting heated up. "It's bad enough I have to feed these lil ants and be their benevolent nature goddess or whatever, but if you think I'm going to have their dirty little bodies touching and gawking at my feet, you've got another thing coming."
"Socks work too." Mandy replied, unphased by her partners aggressiveness.
"Fine." Ashley grunted. "Anyways, who's going first?"
"I think you should, they haven't been fed yet. Be sure to record what you see, knowing how they react to first contact is really important." Mandy reminded her.
"Whatever"
///////////////////////////////////
Aron was dumbfounded when he walked outside. The village he was just at yesterday had completely vanished! This new terrain was eery, there was a strange haze to the sky, a odd fog, and no sun to speak of but plenty of light. Yet everything normal surrounded them, a dirt floor, grass forest, and a large hill in the distance. The other villagers came out of their houses looking confused as well, and a crowd had began to congregate in the center. Les came out behind him.
"So everyone's gone?" She asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know where we are?"
"No. Lets go check it out."
Aron and Les approached the crowd, they were all congregated around but one man was on top of a small mound of dirt that made him seem higher than the others.
"Without warning or reason, we have all been taken to this strange world" The man exclaimed. "From the consensus here, it seems we must investigate!"
"Hey who put you in charge?" Somebody shouted from the crowd.
"I'm not in charge, this is a consensus. We must spread out and investigate!"
"I'm not following you!"
"Yea!"
"Fine! I'LL go investigate, alone!" The man on the mound claimed. Jumping off, he went out to the forest of grass.
"I just thought we should consider our situation first?" Aron shrugged.
//////////////////////////////////
Ashley was making her way through the tall grass, carrying a handful of feed. It was a rather large terrarium, and from her distance all the way on the other side there would be no way for the tinies to see her. Yet. Besides, the artificial atmospheric regulator was doing its job and projecting a blue hazey "sky" that blocked out most of the tinies ability to see beyond a few feet. Still, she watched her step, she didn't want to get her socks stained with green. Suddenly, she noticed a movement from the grass. Quickly taking a few steps forward, she made her way to the disturbance.
Alos grumbled. He was furious, at his former village he was the chief! A young chief, only being of 20 cycles, but a respected one. They all listened to him. But here? Here he was a nobody, all the respect - gone. Don't these fools know the value of knowing your surroundings?
Suddenly, he heard a distant thud. Then another. He knew that sound. He quickly turned around, and began running the opposite direction. Not looking back, he yelled as the thuds became louder and the floor began to rumble into a mighty earthquake of pounds. Suddenly a wall appeared out of nowhere, kicking up massive amounts of dirt and sending the tiny flying backwards.
"Here, just take it" He heard a booming voice from the heavens as he saw a colossal blonde from above, his vision blurry he barely could register each word as it thundered around him. She brought her hand over him in the distance, and turned it over, dropping brown pellets on top of him. He closed his eyes as he braced for impact.
When he came to, the giant was gone and around him were strange brown pebbles. He came to one of them, a large brown rock, and touched it. It was mushy, and had a strange meat-like texture. He grabbed at it, and found a part came loose easily into his hand. Tasting it, he realized what this was - food! His eyes widened. He had found food for the whole village! He brought a chunk of it and ran back.
//////////////////////////////////////////////
"So, what did you see?" Mandy inquired as her partner stepped out of the terrarium.
"Honestly? I only saw one. We didn't talk. I dropped him all the food and just left as fast as I could."
Mandy frowned "You were supposed to make first contact with the whole village!"
"Well, I didn't." Ashley shrugged.
"Fine. I'll do it." Mandy sighed as she pulled off her boots, freeing her small, warm, bare feet from the leather confines of her shoe. She wiggled her delicate unpainted toes. "I've been reading up, by the way."
"On what?"
"On how to be 'cruel,' I have some things I want to try out."
"Knock yourself out, Ms. Reaper."
///////////////////////////////////////////////
The villagers were still in a crowd when Alos came out carrying a brown rock.
"I, Alos, have brought you all food!" He exclaimed.
"Food?" Aron inquired. He came up to the tall man.
"Try it for yourself, my suspicious countryman!"
Aron took a scoop of the food and ate it.
"Amazing. Les you got to try this." He turned to his wife, who immediately came forward to take a scoop.
"Delicious! Where did you get this?" She asked him.
"It's easy, my friends, I, Alos, has made contact with a giant!"
The crowd gasped.
"A FRIENDLY giant! The blonde beauty came down to me and handed me personally this food, there's more of it in the forest!"
Aron was suspicious. "You're saying a female giant just gave you this food?"
"Yes! It was unreal but it happened!"
"I wouldn't trust this." Aron looked down at the food in his hand, and chucked it. "It has to be a trap, it's like bait, you know how they are."
"My God, what a downer." Alos mocked. "You have no idea, this giant must have rescued us, she's only trying to be friendly!"
"All I know is that whenever a giant just so happens to leave something out for us, it's a trap."
"Fine. Don't come. All who want free food, come with me, all who want to sit around and starve, stay with this man." The crowd seemed to agree with Alos, and a group of gatherers followed him out into the grass.
///////////////////////////////////////////////
Mandy made her way through the grass, the tiny leafage tickling her soft sole as she easily made her way through them, creating small indentations in the ground which mostly reformed behind her step. In the distance, she could see the tiny village, and she smiled nervously. There were going to be so many tinies there, she knew that she had to set the pace of thier relationship. It was a lot to think about, and she had to be careful, every movement she did counted, and she had to maximize the shock value to create the strongest negative reaction from the subjects. Stopping and scouting out the area, she spotted a mound nearby. She trekked slowly towards it.
///////////////////////////////////////////////
They all heard the thuds. The ones still at the village, and to a lesser extent, the gatherers far on the other side with the food. It was coming from the hill.
Everyone turned to see a figure seemingly manifesting in the distance. It was massive, gigantic girl, pale as the daylight and garbed in a black dress, her long brown hair and large eyes had a strange intensity to them, and she eyed the crowd. Without a word, she raised her long bare leg over the mountain, and gently put it down on the top of the hill, her strong toes dominating the top of the soil, pushing it down under her tremendous weight, forcing the world to bow to the command of her imposing force. She smiled warmly. "Hello!"
The villagers were mortified. Les grabbed her husbands chest, and Aron curled his arms around her tightly. The other villagers were cowering, but static, unable to move from her gaze.
She came forward. Stepping off the mountain, coming through the grass, each step of her bare foot causing the ground to rumble. Her bare feet now only a few meters away, she could crush the entire crowd with her next stride.
Mandy wiggled her toes. "Now that we're acquanted, I want you to do something for me. I want a volunteer."
Nobody moved. Mandy crossed her arms, she was getting impatient. "Can a volunteer please come forward?" She lifted the ball of her right foot and dropped it with a quick slap, sending shudders through the crowd.
"Okay. How about this." She uncrossed her right arm, and hovered it around with her pointer out. Randomly turning, she felt a wave of energy as she observed their reactions to the looming shadow of her hand, each tiny cowering as it felt the sheer dread of the finger pointed right at it, the simple tip of her finger enough to squash them entirely if she wanted to. Finally, she settled, pointing towards a woman in the crowd.
"Can you come forward?"
Ameli was mortified as the massive finger was pointed right at her. She had to come forward now.
Mandy smiled as the tiny came out of the crowd, approaching her waiting feet.
"Okay. Watch this." She raised her right foot. The tiny fell backwards in fear, as she slowly pointed her big toe, hovering it over her.
Ameli felt her whole body unable to even remotely register her absolute dread as she looked up at the pale expanse of the tremendous pad above her, the strong ridges slightly crusted with specks of dirt, far too miniscule for the giant to realize but shockingly real to her dimuntive view, complementing the immense strength of the expanse above her.
Then it came down.
Suddenly Ameli was crying as the bone crushing feeling of being pressed by the rubbery pad assaulted all parts of her body. Her bare legs were forced open as the overwhelming expanse forced itself down on to her space, occupying more than was it was physically able to without crushing her. And that's what she was doing. Ameli screamed as her bones felt the compounding pressure of tons of power from her tormenter increase.
Mandy smiled as the tiny simply collapsed under her big toe, the sheer size of which easily dwarfed her victim. She was trying to add enough pressure, just enough, to crush her but not kill her. She didn't want to do that just yet.
Overwhelmed with rage, Les screamed and jumped out of Aron's arms. "Stop! Please stop!" She cried as she threw herself on to the toe, trying her hardest to lift it as it compressed the screaming woman beneath it. "You're killing her, please, just please stop!"
Mandy was shocked to see another tiny try to save her friend. The next words came eerily natural to her.
"It's okay." The sweet voice cooed from above. "We're just trying to make a little blood, see?" Les tumbled as the toe suddenly lifted, showing the pad of her toe, now slightly red. "It's okay, we made it now."
Les's eyes grew wide as the toe hovered on top of her.
"Should we make a little more, though?" Mandy giggled as she gently poked the new tiny with the tip of her toe, causing it to squirm. She brought her foot back, and turned around, simply walking away.
Les got up on her feet and inspected the damage, she was fine, the other girl, however, wasn't. She was covered in blood, but breathing.
Aron was right behind her, at first trying to comfort his wife, but then realized the situation. Other villagers came to.
They sat there, trying to administer first aid, on the first day of this new hell they'd found themselves in.
It had been a month in the new world, and Aron had become the new town chief. Angered by the fact that they had lied about the nature of the giants, Alos was cast away to wander alone in the forest. Meanwhile, Les's resolve had began to harden. The girl from the first day, Ameli, required constant counseling due to her near death experience. Others had been tortured since then by the one the tinies had resorted to calling "the dark one," but something about being the first made her a constant target. She was compressed, crushed, flicked, and thrown. Her body was battered and she had lost most of her sanity, to the point that the even mention of her tormenter would cause her to scream. Les was the only one willing to calm her, but deep down she knew that if she'd gone through what Ameli had gone through, she wouldn't be much different.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"Did you feed them?" Mandy asked as she caught her partner walking out of the lab.
"Yea, I did my job. Your turn." Ashley poked Mandy's chest.
"I want you to start being more engaged in this experiment" Mandy pushed the hand away.
"Look, I do my job and you do yours. You have no idea how boring it is just delivering food every day, what am I, their butler?"
"Perhaps you're right..." Mandy suddenly got an idea. "Perhaps we can do something about that."
"Huh?"
"I'll talk to you about it tomorrow." Mandy smiled. "But for now, I have work to do."
Ashley watched as her partner gingerly stepped through the door like a kid walking through the entrance of an amusement park. She was weird.
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
"I have a surprise for everyone!" The giantess spoke from the heavens, perched atop the hill she always stood on to begin her address.
"Today is a special day" The crowd had gathered, murmering.
"Today we'll have our first culling." She smiled. Gasps flowed through the village. Les and Aron hugged eachother tightly. Suddenly, someone screamed. Les turned to see Ameli screaming and running back into her house.
"Nevermind her" The giant spoke. "I don't want your weakest. I want..." She continued. "...Your leader."
Les gasped, looking at Aron, who's face had gone grim. The crowd murmured, and turned to look at Aron.
"What does she know? Send Alos.
"W-What? Me?" Alos stuttered.
"Yes, you're our leader. Go." Aron ordered.
Two large men grabbed Alos and forced him forward. He got up, and began to approach the giant.
Mandy frowned. She knew better. She'd watched the whole engagement, the tinies all looking at one of them, then forcing another forward. This bug wasn't the one she wanted. She turned her bare foot and gently kicked him away with her heel, sending the tiny flying backwards.
"I'm not stupid." She grunted. "Send me your REAL leader."
Les felt Aron let go of her, he looked back at her. "I have to go."
"A-Aron... Don't, we'll just send someone else."
"She KNOWS it's me, Les, there's no way out of this." He walked forward.
Mandy smiled. "That's more like it."
She raised her foot slightly as the tiny approached her.
Aron gulped as he saw the soft massive sole come into view. He knew she fully intended to kill him. There was nothing he could do but go out fearlessly. He had to show that even the largest giant could not phase the brave.
"Hi there!" Mandy talked down to the tiny below her. She dropped her toes on to the floor, causing a shockwave that shook the tiny to their core. "I'm going to kill you now, but first..." She raised her foot slightly. "I'm going to crumple you." She simply pushed the tiny over with her big toe, forcing them on the floor. She positioned her foot quickly, having his miniscule head between the relatively sizeable gap between her toes, and dropped down, blanketing his body with the ball of her foot. She watched as the crowd looked intently, with both morbid curiousity and absolute dread. She ever so slightly pressed down.
Aron screamed as nearly ever bone in his body was crushed at once.
"Now, for part two." Mandy had that fire in her eyes as they grew wide with intent. She was so focused that she barely saw the tiny girl running forward.
"Hey now, now's not the time to play, we're doing work, okay?" Mandy cooed as she used her other foot to shove Les away from her husband.
"You'll get your turn later, it's alright, I'm almost done, see?"
Les screamed as she watched the love of her life be picked up between the gaint toes, far above her, far above anyone to save him.
"Okay, take one last look everyone!" Mandy smiled as she held Aron's limp form between her big and second toe.
"3... 2... 1..."
Les shut her eyes.
"And gone!"
"You're going to WHAT?" Jul screamed at the girl standing at the door of his house as his wife, Mari, hugged him tight.
"Really" The girl spoke back, her projection glimmering a brief moment. She was short, much shorter than Jul, standing about 5'4'' and wearing a black dress that matched her brown hair. Her skin was milky white, and her bare feet were petite, matching her overall small frame. One foot was down, and the other was slightly arched up, her creamy sole lurched over an imaginary thing, as if over a delicate paper, ready to crumple it. "It's ok, it'll be over soon!" She chimed back.
"No. Don't. Look, you don't have to do this." Mari cried. "Please..."
"There there" The girl replied. "Everyone has to get crushed sooner or later, your day is just today!" She smiled warmly.
"But WHY? Why do you have to do this?" Jul yelled, stressing each word.
The girl pouted "It's on the schedule."
"The... The schedule?" Mari sniffled.
"Yea! You're scheduled to get pruned today, it's okay, it happens to everyone eventually. We need to maintain the population size." The girl brushed a strand of hair to the side of her face. "Do you have any questions?"
"QUESTIONS?" Jul was beyond rage. "It's because of YOU that our life is miserable!"
"Yea, I guess you could say that." The girl smiled. "But I mean, I'm just doing an experiment..."
"E-Experiment?" Mari questioned.
"Yea... You see, you tiny lil guys are just here for us to grow a little bit then smush. We're here to see the effects. That's why I'm here, how do you feel?"
"We're FURIOUS!" Jul stomped his foot, taking a step forward as his wife tried to hold him back.
"Denial?" The girl replied inquisitively. "I mean, you know for a fact that I'm not here, I'm up there." She pointed up. "See?" She gently moved her foot, pressing down with her big toe. The roof creaked as a massive force was suddenly applied to its shaky worksmanship. Meri screamed as Jul's anger reached a tipping point.
"That's it!" Jul, all 6 feet of him, ran towards the girl and tackled her. Instead of hitting her, he went right through and slammed through the door, falling over. The girl looked down at him.
"Hmm. You KNOW I'm not here and you attack anyways, interesting." She noted.
"SHUT UP" Jul yelled.
"It's ok little guy, keep being angry, it's your last few moments you can do whatever you want with them!"
"Please, is there anything we can do!?" Meri begged, getting on her knees in front of the hologram.
"Hmm... I don't think so." Mandy pouted again.
"PLEASE!" Meri begged.
"Sorry, rules are rules..." Mandy looked down at the girl, through her projection, she saw just how lifelike the tiny seemed. Through her vision, they were the same size, it was an intimate moment in an emotionally sterile process as the woman began to cry. "There there..." Mandy cooed. "It's ok, it's going to be over soon."
"NO!" Mari yelped through her tears.
"ENOUGH!" Jul had gotten up and started swinging, each fist went through nothing but air as they simply passed through the projection, and the girl paid him no mind.
"It's okay, I'll count down with you, okay?" Mandy tried to comfort the woman.
"3..." Mari scrambled to get up off the floor. "2..." She started making her way for the door. "1..." Swinging it open, she was met with a disheartening sight - nothing but the same pale skin that Mandy had. It was now perfectly clear why her projection had her foot angled to the side like that.
"Bye bye!" Mandy cheered. Mari and Jul's eyes both looked at the holographic foot as it gently began to press down. Their eyes followed the buckling walls, then the ceiling, and at their last moments - eachother.
Mandy only looked at the ceiling as through the crashing wood she saw a glimpse of a toe. Her toe. Coming down before the projection ended. Her vision immediately returned to her normal view of the entire village from her towering height. She looked down at her big and second toes, and wiggled them gently, grinding the remains of the house into nothingness. She turned, and with a skip she walked back out of the enclosure, smiling softly.