Several hours passed in the interim - easily the longest window of time Eva had to herself since this whole ordeal began. The sun had set over an hour ago and her eyes remained shut as sleep took her poor soul once again. A fleeting peace doomed not to last as she slept in her prison in the kitchen. She took what she could, however; since when Eva awoke it was both sudden and loud.

The break, it appeared, was over. 

Tina’s return announced itself with the usual aplomb of earth-rending crashes and seismic activity rumbling across the walls. Far off, Eva could hear the door opening and the subsequent footfalls of giants. Plural. As in more than one. She quickly noted that the rhythm of chaotic steps was too much to simply belong to one monster; and she had a rather safe assumption as to who it was that returned with Tina. For lack of choice in the matter, Eva found herself listening in. In the distance a powerful voice let out a wry, echoing chuckle. 

“So this is Miss Martin’s fabled abode eh?” That sounded like that Amy woman from before. 

“H-Hey quit it with that Miss Martin stuff! So I got a promotion, big deal.” Tina replied with an audible fluster in her voice. “It doesn’t change anything.”

“Whatever ya say Boss.” 

Their little celebratory dinner evidently went well. At least someone had an active evening, Eva supposed. Her muscles naturally tensed as the giants’ noises grew louder and closer, halting just one room away. Amy’s teasing went on in spite of any pitiful Tina protests to the contrary. If one didn’t know what Tina was capable of it might’ve even been a bit cute. Sadly, Eva did know and that only made her more uneasy as the chatter went on. At best this was some annoying noise to stop her from going back to sleep. At worst it was a prelude to the humiliations that awaited her shortly. The jury was out on which it was. 

“You want a drink?”

“Sure. Gimme something strong!”

That was the cue. Eva rose to her feet as she felt one of the giants making their way towards her. A familiar parade of booming footfalls that reached a crescendo as Tina’s immense form rounded the corner through the doorway. Once again she was dressed rather casually: simple jeans and a red t-shirt clinging to her buxom figure. It was a rare chance to actually look down on her again given Eva’s vantage point, the woman glibly reminded this was once her view all the time. 

The towering brunette adjusted her glasses as her eyes promptly fell onto Eva atop the windowsill. Her casual smile dimmed as she approached, a subtle hint of relief in her eyes. “I’ve only got soda as a mixer, that okay?” She called out, only half paying attention when her friend assured her it was fine. Tina rose onto the tips of her toes and leaned forward, face seemingly expanding rapidly as it came in close. Eva didn’t bother backing away as she often did when the giant did that - she was still trapped in a water bottle after all. Where was she going to go?

“Whew. You had me worried sick.” Came the low whisper with a seemingly mandatory tap against the glass edges of Eva’s prison. “Hang on.” Tina added as her fingers coiled around the bottle. 

Hang on to what exactly? Eva thought bitterly. The bottle’s walls were smooth and as such Eva could do little more than brace herself as Tina lifted it. It turned in the giant’s dainty hand and gravity sent Eva hurtling into the hard glass surface as a pittance of water splashed against her. Mere inches away and separated only by a wall of glass was the deformed surface of Tina’s palm pressing against it, blocking Eva’s view in the seconds she had before the bottle turned once again - this time vertically. A sharp cry escaped the smaller woman as the bottle was brought high above Tina’s head, the world flying past her in a blur as her prison was relocated. 

When the action settled and the bottle was set down, Eva paused and noted her surroundings warily. The sides were walled off by ivory-colored kitchen cabinets - not to be confused with the same-colored ones she was surrounded by before. Beneath her was the ridged black surface of a mountainous refrigerator; it’s roof, she swiftly deduced. Down below, very far down below, laid Tina's dark-haired scalp and the woman’s eyes staring up at her. After so long looking up at the woman it was a curious thing having a proper ‘taller’ vantage point again. Easy as it was to forget, Tina was still a rather slight, short woman. It must’ve taken all she had to set Eva’s prison so high.

Apparently confident Eva was now safely hidden, the giantess returned unabated to making a pair of drinks for her and her guest. At least for Eva it was a different vantage point for a change. From where she was it was almost like could blur her eyes and convince herself she was a towering giant as well; and not trapped in an annoying girl’s water bottle. In time, Tina had the drinks made and stepped out of view once again, reducing all Eva had to go off of back to mere eavesdropping. 

“To Miss Martin’s rise to power!”

“To our promotions.”

There was the clink of glasses and Eva simply sat down, allowing herself a chuckle at the irony of that toast. 

For a while that was it. Two colossi drinking and enjoying one another’s company while Eva remained right where she was. Dull perhaps, but after the week she’d had dull was more than appreciated. She made an effort to try and move the bottle. Maybe tackle it so it could fall from the fridge and catch Amy’s attention. It didn’t even budge. In the room beyond the gigantic duo continued to chat about whatever crossed their fancy and soon threw on a movie as idle viewing. Some old comedy about a murder mystery in a mansion by the sounds of it, hardly relevant.

It was largely ignored as far as Eva could tell, Tina and Amy talking comfortably with more than a few drinks shared between them. Tina largely had to endure the brunt of her friend’s teasing by the sounds of it. The fiery-haired woman had more than a few comments about how cutesy her friend’s apartment decor was; and once there was a healthy degree of liquid courage in her Tina actually returned fire with Amy’s apparent fascination with lizards. 

Two friends, liquor, and a small woman in the apartment. How could it possibly go wrong? As it would turn out, not in the way Eva would’ve predicted. 

It started as these things were often want to do: with a lull in conversation. Running out of banter for the moment, the pair were content to sip at their drinks and enjoy their little movie. The TV dominated the gathering for a good fifteen or so minutes; but then it was Amy of all people who spoke up. About a topic that was a bit more...relevant to the imprisoned Eva. 

“Man, Miss Rhodes getting fired sure panned out for you didn’t it?”

Even if it were somehow possible for Eva to ignore that, her ears perked as she leaned against the glass with sudden interest. Meaningless perhaps, but as a rule of thumb she tended to listen when she heard her name. 

“H-Huh? I mean, I guess you could say that.” Tina slurred ever so. “I try not to think about it like that. I’m just focusing on doing my job.”

A rueful chuckle sounded off as a reply. “Yeaaaah, that sounds like you. Sweet little Tina. You deserved better anyway. Kinda makes you hope karma smacked that bitch upside the head, huh?”

“Well...I-I wouldn’t say tha-”

“You hear she apparently went missing?”

Silence. A deathly lack of anything as the world slowed to a crawl and the air grew heavy. It was something Eva had lacked since all this started: insight into the world beyond Tina. People were taking notice. They were realizing something was amiss. Perhaps that could even mean an...investigation? Did she dare dream?

“N-N-No...I...hadn’t.”

“It was just some whispers in the lab. Guess word is getting around nobody’s seen her since she got canned - and I don’t mean in the normal ‘she moved on’ way.”

One could hear the hesitation in Tina’s voice, exacerbated by the booze. “Well...She still hasn’t cleaned out her office I guess. I just thought she was too angry to. I was going to gather her things and try to send them to her.” A decent lie for a drunk woman. 

“Plus, did you hear about the other thing?” Amy went on. 

There was a momentary pause. “Other...thing?”

“Oh yeah, apparently a few days ago someone noticed the new Reducer prototype had lost some of its charge. Almost like a person had used it.” Amy said. 

Eva felt her heart skip a beat. No way.

“R-Really?”

“And moved the key from where this someone left it.”

“Uh huh.”

“And didn’t know this someone could check the access logs.”

“Right.”

What a most delightfully unexpected wrinkle. Eva was on the edge of her bottle, trying to envision the undoubtedly delicious look on Tina’s face right now. This Amy woman knew. She fucking knew! And she had Tina dead to rights! It was such a curse that she couldn’t bear witness to this glorious moment, but Eva’s imagination was more than happy to fill in the gaps. She wove a beautiful scene of the two on that couch, Tina blank faced while Amy leaned in with a knowing look. The former’s jaw wide open and unable to say anything for a long while.

“Got something you wanna say Tina?”

“...”

The next few moments were critical. Whatever came next would change everything. The secret was out. Despite her confidence to the contrary, it appeared Tina’s preemptive measures weren’t as air tight as the giant brunette once thought. What this meant, who could say? Whatever it was it brought new life to the reduced woman as she continued listening in, relishing in the mental image of Tina’s panic. 

“I-I didn’t think anyone would notice! I...I just saw where you kept the access key and...and…” She blubbered.

“And you thought you could just shrink Eva since she was canned anyway?” Amy finished.

Never had a silence been so gloriously damning.

“Where is she?”

“I-In the kitchen.”

“Wanna be a dear and get her for me?”

Against such a command from her friend, the timid Tina never stood a chance. Without a word she stood and moved, her steps resounding like choir bells for all the joy they brought Eva. At long last, someone noticed! This woman was...Well she hesitated to say she was here to rescue her. At this point that seemed a bit too good to be true. Even so, Eva couldn’t bite back the waves of joy as she spied Tina’s colossal form dragging her feet into the kitchen. 

From her vantage point up above she could drink in every delicious detail. Tina’s face was a pure, ghostly white and her eyes downcast and sunken. She looked as though she had been hollowed out, little more than a shell of a woman. She turned and walked unevenly to the fridge, gaze trailing towards Eva with each slow, heavy step. Hers was the face of a woman who knew she was through and it was so unbelievably satisfying to behold. Even if she were to die, Eva could die happy that she got to see such an expression on Tina’s face. 

Tina’s shaking hand reached for the water bottle, the trembling only intensifying as the woman screwed off the lid and tilted it towards her palm. What little water that remained guided Eva towards the opening and for once she didn’t fight it. She reached the edge and fell out along with a pittance of liquid over the bed of skin that awaited her. Tina didn’t even seem to realize the other droplets smacking the floor at her feet, her eyes too busy looking at Eva for what could be the final time. Any semblance of her unimpeachable authority had been shattered, and they both knew it. Eva couldn’t hold back her grin any longer.

“It’s over bitch.”

For the second time that evening, Tina said nothing.

Instead, her widened and she took a step back, as if in an attempt to escape the bug in her grasp. The ground under Eva trembled and, much to her satisfaction, she could feel the relentless pounding of Tina’s chest reverbing across her body. After so much time trying to unravel the inner workings of the giant’s thoughts, right now Eva knew exactly what Tina was thinking. Her little fantasy of playing god was over.

The fingers closed around Eva, practically screaming that she couldn’t face a woman a hundredth her size. All she could do was precisely what was asked of her: to grab Eva and bring her to the living room. To the beautiful red-haired savior herself. Amy could not yet see her, but it was in the gaps between Tina’s fingers that Eva could. Right where she had envisioned - seated on Tina’s couch with eyes expectantly on the dainty woman. Tina stood before her friend with her head low and her hand outstretched. Slowly, the digits unfurled and a new face loomed over the shrunken woman.

“It actually worked…” Amy muttered under her breath. Hot, alcohol-laced air washed over Eva as she spoke. Despite her assuredness in her deductions, when met with a real life shrunken person she looked as shocked as anyone would. She drank in every detail of Eva’s minuscule form in awe, and for Eva it was a good chance to do the same. A chance to at long last get a good, long look at her hero. 

Hers was a beautiful visage. More adult than someone like Tina, but with a distinctly boyish quality that Tina lacked. More than likely a result of the number of freckles along her nose. Unlike Tina with her shorter stature and rounder face, this woman was tall, willowy, and had a leaner and more angular visage. She was an attractive red-haired woman all told; although frankly Eva couldn’t have cared less what she looked like. Right now she was a god damned angel.

“An honest to god shrunken person...” Amy whispered. “Hey there…” She cooed as her fingers plucked Eva from Tina’s grasp. “You’re...wet?” She blinked and tilted her head, Eva dangling before a pair of bright amber eyes. 

“I-I kept her in my water bottle while we were out. Fo-Fo-For water.” Tina admitted.

“Among other things I bet.” Amy mused with the ghost of a knowing smile. “I gotta admit Miss Rhodes. You were a lot taller the last time I saw ya, but I kinda prefer you like this.”

That better have been some kind of bad joke. Eva shot her a sour look, kicking her feet in the air with several concerns about the immense drop in store were the redhead to drop her. Nearby Tina remained, albeit uncertain what to say or do.

No matter, Eva steadied herself with a breath. Bad size jokes aside, this was...real. Holy shit, it was real! At long last someone had found her! She didn’t want to get her hopes up but...Well to hell with it. A broad grin spread across her face as her relief and joy overflowed. “Thank...Thank you. Thank you! I never thought anyone would find me! This crazy bitch has been torturing me nonstop! You...You work at R&D right? You can help me get back to normal, right?!”

Amy...didn’t particularly react to that. She focused on Eva for a moment and then nodded, an analytical edge to her eyes as she moved on to the other woman in the room. “What’re you looking so scared for?” She asked.

Now it was the other giant’s turn to speak frantically, a slew of panic spewing out at the first prompt she got. “Because it’s over for me! I-I didn’t think it would work and I was just...Oh god I don’t even know what I was thinking. - I wasn’t thinking! Oh God I...I’m so so sorry Amy! I...I won’t fight you. I promise. Just...I know! I’ll turn myself in.”

“Eh? What’re you on about?”

“What?” Tina blinked.

“What?” Eva blinked. 

It was the beginning of such a beautiful breakdown. Everything Tina had been building for the past week was crumbling in real time before their very eyes. Then, from seemingly nowhere, Amy upended everything a second. Eva and Tina both were so wrapped in their own torrential emotions that they lost themselves in the moment; but now Eva stared at the redhead and noted her easygoing expression had barely budged. That...was not the face of a woman particularly condemning Tina. Instead, she dropped Eva into her open palm and then, without any warning whatsoever, tossed the tinier woman into the air like a ball.

“Turn yourself in? What, you think I’m here to rat you out?” Amy asked while catching and releasing Eva in her hand. The smaller woman simply cried out, just as confused as anyone - And far more dizzy. 

Tina stared blankly at her, her eyes trailing Eva as she soared up and down in the air. “Y-You’re not?”

“Psh. Of course not. You think I’m gonna cry over Bitchy Rhodes getting her just desserts?”  Amy snorted, catching Eva quite decisively in her hand and sealing it shut. “I just put two and two together and took a guess you had something to do with all this. Gotta admit, I didn’t think you had it in ya. Makes a girl so proud I almost wanna cry.” 

“I…You...How...Wha…?” 

Eva’s thoughts exactly. What Amy was saying broke both Eva and Tina’s minds. Tina could only evidently gawk, whereas Eva was...Of course a bit otherwise occupied. 

“You’re...not...upset…?” Tina asked.

“I’m a researcher Tina. My job is to crunch numbers and try to make shit happen. Leave the ethics shit to people who got nothing better to do.” Amy replied and unfurled her hand, observing Eva with a frankly alarming grin. “Why the hell would I be upset? You have any idea how long it would take to get to a point where we do human trials? This is some of the best data I could’ve hoped for!”

“But...The access logs…”

“What access logs?” Amy snorted. “You gotta learn to stop being so gullible girl. It was waaaay too easy to guilt trip you into spilling everything.”

Tina stared like a broken doll, unable to even begin to process the situation. “So I’m…”

“Fine. Yes.” Amy dismissively waved the hand with Eva in it, the woman spared from falling by the redhead’s thumb holding her in place. “I just wanted in on your little secret is all. What else was I supposed to do? Just gonna walk up and go ‘Hey, so about your shrunken boss?’ I think not.” That was indeed basically what she had done anyway though.

“Want...in?” Tina repeated like a broken tape recorder.

“You got it.” Amy smirked and closed her fist, reaching to poke Tina on the forehead. “Way I see it, this here is an opportunity. You get your little pet or whatever, and I get some good data that can save years of headaches. All you gotta do is gimme some updates on a few things. Maybe let me poke and prod once in a while. Whaddaya say?” The woman opened her hand once again, offering the smaller woman back to her captor. “You help me. I help you, and nobody’s gotta know about little ol’ Evie. Not bad eh?”

Tina stiffened, eyes growing wide and not even looking down at Eva. “...What did you call her?”

“Eh? What, Evie?”

“Evie.” She repeated it under her breath. “Y-Yes...I...I think I would like that. Honestly, I have so many questions that I haven’t been able to ask.” She reached over, seemingly to grab Eva, but instead she took her friend’s hand in a handshake. Their palms met around Eva’s body, sealing her fate.

“Boy, who are you telling? I have so many questions for you too! Have you been feeding her? Can she even eat?” Amy laughed.

Tina managed the slightest smile after a moment and pulled her hand back, fingers curled around her prize. Eva was right back where she belonged. “Just...gimme a sec to make a new drink and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know...”