[Another story taking place inside the Nanoverse, a world where part of the population is normal sized (Giants), and the others are roughly 2mm tall on average (nanos). For more information on the world please read my other stories, Dance Class Goddess and Deranged Exchange]

Emma stood bored at the register, dressed in her red work clothes and black slacks, black bulky work shoes, and her work hat. The restaurant was completely empty, even the cooks were on their lunch break in the back, laughter could faintly be heard from Emma’s post. Emma was a 17 year-old highschool student, she was a little on the shorter side and had long blonde hair that went halfway down her back and sides. She’d finally got her first job at a local fast food restaurant, McBurger Queen Jr. (she wasn’t a fan of the name), and had been working there for the good part of two months. She’d gotten used to it so the initial excitement of her first job had faded, now it had become routine, day-in day-out. She’d just finished doing most of her duties behind the counter: wipe down the counter, restock the cups and condiments, those sort of things. Today was a ridiculously slow day, people mostly coming through drive-thru, though a few people always came and ate inside, even if for a few minutes. From where Emma was standing she could see the table in the corner by the exit, the people who were there last left a lot of crumbs underneath their seat. ‘Why are these people such pigs…’ Emma thought to herself a little irritated. She walked over to the opening in the counter that let her walk into the dining section and went towards the cleaning supply closet, taking out a broom and dustpan.

A few minutes earlier, at the entrance doors, a tiny male figure was crawling in from underneath the door; he was followed by about seventeen others who came the same way. The first male stood up and looked back at his followers; he stood taller than most Nanos while still remaining absolutely puny to any Giant. He wore a green shirt and black pants and looked to be around 19, a soul patch growing on his chin and curly brown hair on top of his head. He waited for the rest of his party to get through the space under the door before looking back into the restaurant.

“Hey, uh.. Cedar, you really think this is a good idea, man?” one of the others said as they stood up.

Cedar was more or less the leader of the group, though unofficially. They were just a small group of nanos that lived nearby (literally just outside the building), just inside of a small tree. They’d all left their previous nano neighborhoods for a simpler life, living in a knothole near the base of a tree that was too small for anything else. They didn’t want to be forced to work for a living with the constant threat of Giants in school and in the workplace and thought they could live perfectly fine out in nature and surviving off plants and crumbs, hence why they chose to live near a fast food joint.

“Yeah man, trust me, I’ve been scopin’ this place out all day and barely anybody been comin’ in. So for sure we’re safe, just don’t get spotted by the chick behind the counter,” Cedar said, sounding pretty sure of himself and calming down his worried friends. The chick he was referring to was, of course, Emma.

The small group of seventeen (ten girls, seven guys) slowly made their way deeper into the restaurant, sticking close to the corners so they could remain unseen. As they made it close to the first table, they quickly became excited seeing the bountiful pile of crumbs someone had left there; it looked to be enough to last them two whole weeks, maybe even more. Cedar looked back towards the counter and saw Emma looking off into space, bored out of her mind just standing there at the register. He motioned for his group to go ahead carefully. Now trying to be stealthy when you're smaller than a large crumb is utterly pointless, and some of the group realized this, but they continued being as stealthy as they could; mostly because they thought it looked cool. When they finally made it to the crumbs they all marveled at how big they were, some of them nearly three times their sizes. They were all mostly pieces of bread from the burgers, but there were some tiny pieces of meat as well, along with some small strands of lettuce (the people who came in last were really messy eaters).

They each began digging into the few larger crumbs, filling their pockets and backpacks with handfuls of bread and meat. Cedar and his friends were too busy filling their bags they failed to notice that the Giant girl behind the counter was now gone. When they were about halfway done, still taking barely a fraction of the total crumbs, they noticed the ground began to shake, almost to rhythmically in a beat. They looked towards the counter and saw Emma wasn't there anymore; she was walking towards them, with a broom, dustpan, and a bored look on her face.

Emma’s work shoes clomped loudly on the floor, like a gigantic beating drum for the Nanos, who now ran in a mad panic for the door. Some of them had dropped their bags just to go a little faster. They beat on, each one imagining what terrible thing might happen if they were caught, or worse. They kept running, lead by Cedar in the front, when suddenly the shockwave of Emma’s final step made them all stumble. They recovered quickly and began running again, but in a moment their escape route was blocked by a wall of bristles as Emma began to sweep. The tiny scavengers ran in the opposite direction as the broom seemed to come at amazing speed, they all screamed loudly as they were pushed back again towards the crumbs, they're bodies launched this way and that; one of the men was unfortunate enough to be stuck in the jungle of bristles, unable to escape, each one almost like a tree to him and closing tight around his body. The survivors that didn't get caught got back to to their feet and ran in the opposite direction, away from the broom as Emma swept the same spot again, picking up what she missed. They only got an inch or two away when they heard Emma's voice from above.

“Ugh… Not ants again, god damnit,” she said obviously annoyed. She hated seeing ants in the restaurant, it never looked good for business and her manager always got mad at her for it, saying she was lazy and didn't know how to keep a clean dining area. Emma looked behind her and from side to side, the manager wasn't around, maybe she could get rid of them before anyone noticed.

Emma stopped sweeping and held the broom and dustpan to her sides. She looked down at what she thought were ants with a frown, it was always little things like this that caused her the most trouble. She raised the ball of her foot over a group of three that were running together. Unknown to Emma, what was under her sole were three terrified young women who were screaming as loud as they could, almost deafening each other as they ran and looked up at the massive black wall that was slowly coming down onto them. They ran and ran but seemed to be getting nowhere, the sole was still over them and coming closer every moment. Emma kept lowering her sole, she went slowly, wanting them to suffer for annoying her so (and because she had nothing else to do so she wanted this to last). The girls below kept running until one of them tripped on the smooth floor; the other two stopped for only a moment to help her back onto her feet. But it was too late. As they began to run again, Emma brought her sole down full force, crushing the girls into nothing more than tiny bloodstains, snapping their bones. They weren't screaming anymore.

Emma lifted her foot again to make sure the “ants” were dead, they were usually pretty durable that it'd take more that a single step. To her surprise, she only found three tiny blood stains close together, almost forming one small puddle.
‘But… ants don't leave blood stains...’ she thought to herself. Emma became confused, if they weren't ants, what the hell were they?

The rest of the Nanos, horrified at seeing their friends getting crushed by the colossal cashier, ran even faster, but still barely traveling more than half an inch. They felt the ground shake again as Emma took a step back, their hopes raised, maybe she was leaving! But they soon saw her seem to collapse to her knees, dropping down uneasily in her tight pants. She set her hands on the ground, her right one coming down hard in front of Cedar and his friends, blocking their path with a massive wall of soft flesh that formed Emma's finger. They feel onto their asses from the wind created by her hand clapping against the ground. They peered upwards and saw their light partially blocked, now only seeing the giant teen's face, she had one eye shut to get a better view of them all.

“What the hell… Nanos? What are you doing here?” Emma asked before glancing over to the crumbs nearby. “Were you stealing food?”

-
In case you're wondering, dear tiny readers, this is in fact illegal in the world. It's essentially the equivalent to eating and not paying for your food. Nanos are supposed to eat at nano sized restaurants to avoid something like this from happening, and because they obviously eat much smaller food than Giants, so portions and prices must be adjusted. Now as stated in other stories, laws concerning Nanos are generally ignored because of their size, and this is no exception. While restaurants can easily call the police, most places decide to either punish the tiny offenders accordingly ( such as cleaning between small cracks in the floor or equipment Giants can't reach) or simply treating them as actual ants taking food.
-

“W-we were hungry!” Cedar yelled out when no one else answered. “We live just right outside in the tree! You… you just crushed three of us, man!”

“Huh?” Emma said slightly confused, until she looked over to the tiny stains by her wrist, “ooooooh, so that's what they were, that explains it.”

Cedar kept looking in horror, this was exactly what they tried getting away from. This girl just crushed three of his friends and just spoke of it so casually, it was horrific. Emma quickly broke the silence.

“Well serves you right for coming in here and stealing food. God, acting just like little bugs, what was I supposed to think you were?”

A sly smile soon spread across Emma's face as she said that last sentence.
“Riiiight, just like little bugs~.”
She quickly stood up but kept her eyes trained onto the cowering group. She held her hands on her hips dominantly before playfully raising the ball of her foot again, twisting it around as she spoke again.
“And what do we do to little bugs that come in and try to steal our food?”

No one answered, they knew what was going on, they'd all seen it before. The fastest of them quickly got up and bolted in a mad dash for the door. That is, until a massive shadow came over them.

“Oh that's right!” Emma said, bringing down her sole and crushing the miniscule runners, they didn't even have enough time to scream before their bodies snapped and were ground out, now leaving only more tiny stains. “It's my job to keep the dining clean, so that means CRUSHING any bugs I find~. Better run faster little buggies~