"What are you two senseless buffalos gawking each other? Come in. Come in." Harper said as she saw Miley and Gina weren't following her inside her house through the front door.

Miley and Gina looked at each other in uncertainty. "What about your parents? We look like hell." Miley regarded all the black stains dotted all over their clothes from playing in the woods – not to mention the thick caked layers of mud under their shoes.

Harper laughed. "Like, really, Miley? You've just made us turn your home into a pigpen and you worry about mine? How sweet."

"That's different. My mom is–"

"This is my Dad!" Harper dangled a minuscule figure from her fingers in front of Miley's eyes that she just took out of her pocket. "And my mom is very ill and has been lying in bed for three days. We expect her to shrink these upcoming days."

"But you're only 12, are you not?" Miley asked, "Aint there no at least a 16-year-old person in the house to look after you and your kid sister?"

Harper smiled. "And that's where Charlie comes in."

Miley frowned. "Charlie?"

Harper nodded. "My niece from up north. She's 21 years old and the coolest chick ever! You're gonna love her! She stays here for the summer."

Reassured, both Miley and Gina entered Harper's house. Harper said something patronizing to her flailing, shrunken father before stuffing him back in her pocket and following her friends to the living room.

"Sup girls!" A young lady with headphones on called out to them with a friendly smile, a bit louder than necessary. The girl stood at the kitchen counter – singing along with whatever song she was listening to – while preparing something aromatic that made Miley's mouth water.

"Come, pop down. Make yourselves comfy." Harper dropped herself on the couch, removed her shoes, and plunged her dirty feet onto the table.

Besides plunging their feet on the table, Miley and Gina followed Harper's example.

Miley squinted at an object she saw standing on the table, then her eyes lit up when she recognized it. "Oh my god, Harper! You have a tiny city in here?"

"Yup," Harper had a remote in hand and zapped mindlessly through various channels on tv. "Puh! Nothing but crap on this blasted thing!"

"Can I take a look?" Miley asked, already leaning forward eagerly.

Harper gave a nonchalant wave of approval as she switched through hundreds of channels, all displaying nothing but gibberish.

"Nice!" Miley rubbed her hands, eager to see a miniature city for the first time in real life. She slithered off the couch and sank on her haunches, leveling her eyes just above to table so she had a good view of the terrarium containing a city.

It was a total mess on the table, with various used mugs, candy wraps and emptied bags of chips sprawled out everywhere.

A big coke bottle blocked Miley's view, forcing her to shove it to the side. What greeted her was the splendid sight of a reasonably sized, modern-looking city, all boxed in roughly one square foot.

Packed in the middle stood a forest of skyscrapers, each roughly the size of her pinky finger. As Miley's glare moved more outwards, she saw that the buildings became more compact – with warehouses, apartment buildings and office blocks adorning the outer ring of the downtown area. On the outskirts, Miley saw dozens of panels, separated by roads, filled with houses matching the size of peas.

Houses where Miley's Dad could live in right now, she realized – the barely visible speck.

Speaking of specks, when taking even a closer look so that the tip of Miley's nose almost touched the glass – she saw an innumerable amount of dots traveling along the city's roads.

These specks have actual working cars!

Miley recently saw a documentary on television about nano-infrastructure fabrication and development. According to the documentary, a quantum leap was made last year due to the use of some cutting-edge technology – thus, making it possible for all these sophisticated miniature cities to sprout up on such short notice.

"This city yours?" Miley perked up, looking at Harper sitting on the couch, admiring some shrunken people standing upon the palm of her hand.

"Mmm." Harper nodded while roughly pinching one of the 2-inch tall tinies with her index finger, making him groan with pain. She chuckled with delight.

"So, like… what do you do exactly with it anyway? It's not like you can chat with them, can you?" Miley asked.

Harper shrugged while dangling her father in front of her lips, threatening to bite him. "Not much. I rather prefer my tinies to be a bit bigger. It's way more fun if you ask me." Miley saw Harper smiling before closing her hand into a fist – trapping the screeching shrunken people, including her own Dad, in an inescapable prison – before depositing them roughly on the couch right next to her left thigh. "Stay here!" Harper whipped, pointing like a school teacher at the tinies. "You should ask Charlie about it if you're interested in it. She has a Jumbo city."

Miley frowned. "Jumbo city?"

Harper nodded, bending over to grab a bottle of drink standing on the table. The tinies beside her lap remained obedient, just like Harper ordered them. Some of them – one of them her own father – was bowing down, worshipping her.

Harper appeared not even aware of it as she took a long sip of a bottle of Sprite, or she was simply ignoring it. "It's the equivalent of a metropolis holding millions of shrunken people in it," Harper explained while roughly snatching up the tinies to deposit them in her pocket before plunging back on the couch and wolfing down a bag of chips.

"I hear my name?"

Miley jerked up, startled when Harper's niece suddenly stood behind her with her headphone resting around her neck. The beat of a rock song blasted faintly through its small speakers. Miley was initially wary of Charlie's imposing presence. It was her first time seeing a woman with such a stately posture and fairly muscular arms and legs. However, Charlie's gracious smile made her feel at ease.

She was a stunning lady, though, and still looked very feminine despite her athletic build. The woman had a remarkably comely face with fine, perfectly symmetric features and a tightly knotted brunette ponytail.

Harper noticed Miley's discomfort her niece's presence was igniting. "She's a top-rated power lift contestant," Harper said proudly.

"You're looking at the upcoming world champion here, kiddo!" Charlie flexed her impressive bicep with a playful wink.

"That is so cool!" Miley said, looking instantly impressed after hearing these things.

"Anyway," Harper said, apparently bored as she fished one of the tinies from her pocket again to play with. "Miley here wants to know more about your city. Care to explain her a thing or two?"

"Certainly!" Charlie beamed at Miley. "Right this way, kid." She ushered Miley along. Both ladies walked up to the dining table in the back of the living room while Harper indulged in playing cruel games with her shrunken Dad again. On top of it stood a rectangular, glass box containing a microscopic city. Only this one was multiple times vaster than Harper's. It even had a naval base with a vast puddle of water to allow its ships to bob about.

"Miley, behold Charlievile, my personal Queen-dom!" Charlie put her hands on her hips and proudly showed Miley her city. Her muscular bare thighs, exposed beneath a raffled pair of denim shorts, towered over the tiny city, making them loom threatening over millions of freshly shrunken people.

"Wow! Where did you get this?"

"It's a prototype." Charlie placed a hand on the lid of the box. "Let's just say I've got the right connections." She gave a wink.

"Can I?..." Miley said carefully.

"Hey, look all you want, kid!"

Miley parked her butt on a chair and leaned in closer. "Wow! It's so huge! How many people live in there?" She peered through the glass, seeing so much so she did not know where to look.

"Uhm, about 6.2 million, give or take."

"Is that like a colosseum over there?" Miley pointed at the far end of the box near some sloping green hills. She could barely contain her excitement.

"Mmm," Charlie nodded, "Gladiator fights are being held there in my honor. I like my boys to be tough." Harper's niece parked her tight butt on a chair on the other side of the table. Millions of shrunken souls peered fearfully at the sky, where they saw the faces of two immensely huge females observing them from above like omniscient Goddesses.

Miley noticed a clearly visible commotion occurring in the city when Charlie's monumental countenance hovered in front of the glass, whereby millions of dots darted significantly faster than they did a second ago. Like a classroom full of students whipping to their diligent bearing the moment their teacher came barging in.

"What are they building there?" Miley pointed.

"Ah, yes, a statue of yours truly," Charlie smiled at her through the glass.

"On orders of you?"

Charlie chuckled. "No, silly. It's all on their own initiative. They love me, I guess."

Miley snorted. "Sounds much better than what my sister is planning to do."

Charlie frowned. ""And what is it your sister is planning?"

"She's applying at the moment for a city of her own. And from what I heard her talking, she craves to rule over them like some cruel Deity."

Charlie chortled. "Sounds like some girl."

"Tell me about it," Miley replied.

"No, the only thing I do is give them a new purpose in life," Charlie said.

Charlie removed one of her many rings from her finger and opened the lid. She carefully lowered her hand and placed her ring – the size of several city blocks to the tinies – upon some elevated plateau on the city's outskirts. Immediately, from all sides, came dozens of vehicles riding up. Miley watched it all with curiosity. Charlie handed her a magnifying glass for a better view. She saw thousands of specks working fervently to make the ring clean and shiny again.

"They're the best for these kinds of chores, kiddo," Charlie whispered in Miley's ear with a smile before sauntering off towards the kitchen, putting her headphone on.