Thankfully when Hellion inevitably met his end when he respawned in the Admin area it was back to his “original” Tinykin size, and the same thing applied to Mikoto as well in regards to her “normal” scale. She was very confused when she came back to life, but some quick thinking on the part of Emily once Hellion explained the situation had her thinking that it had just been a temporary glitch and that it had been patched and fixed. Technically the truth as well since Emily scrapped the whole idea and removed the ability. Apparently she had not been a fan of the idea in the first place and trying to correct it was actually more complex than just increasing the shot increment.
After that Emily was quiet for a week or so, and might have been longer if not for the tiny boy offhandedly mentioning that if he just had some more protection then things might be fine. That comment sent off a brainwave for the blonde, and she hurried back to her coding lab to whip something up. The next day she returned and hurriedly borrowed Hellion from Kyoto and took him into the lab to talk and show her newest innovation to him.
The act of getting practically stolen from his protector was slightly disorientating for the boy, but at least Emily was partially careful so the actual trip was not so bad. She held him close to her body so the bouncing was manageable, but the visible jiggle of her chest this close was also distracting. When she arrived in the lab and set Hellion down on her workbench she at least had the decency to look slightly abashed, and apologized with “Heh heh, sorry about that. I was working really hard on this for most of the night and I am running a little low on sleep. I was just too excited to get it implemented once you put the idea in my head.”
With that said Emily brought up her console and pressed a few buttons, and then Hellion received a notification that he had just gotten several items deposited into his personal inventory. Opening up that menu he searched for a few seconds and saw that what he had gotten was several pieces of armor, a full set for his head, body, arms, legs and feet. Taking the hint as Emily rolled her fingers, Hellion began to equip them from the menu and noted that his stats did indeed seem to be going up by large amounts with each one.
Once he was fully equipped the tiny guy moved around in the full body armor, and found that it while a touch bulky was also so well fitted and designed that it seemed to not be hindering his movements at all. All the while Emily was explaining “You had talked about wanting more protection, and that got me to thinking. The vehicle armor and Safety Capsule had their good points to them, but why did they have to be so large? Now you will have your protection on you and just you, and it will keep you safe.” Then as if to demonstrate, Emily without warning lifted her hand and brought it down hard on top of him in a great slap.
While this had shocked and completely caught Hellion off guard, when the actual impact came it was more like a slightly forceful shove down onto his back, with only a little actual discomfort and next to no pain involved. Considering that before such a blow should have reduced him to a red smear on the blonde's palm and table top, and to be fair that had happened before at least once, once he was over his initial shock Hellion was more convinced. A glance at his still open menu to stats showed but a single point of damage done to him, a most ringing endorsement.
Of course that did not really excuse the fact that Emily had slapped Hellion without warning him first, and as the palm retracted the tiny looked the girl in her eyes about to tell her off. However he was caught off before he could even begin when he saw just how tired the girl actually looked, and he began to suspect that her “working late into the night” might have been code for “worked clear through the night never sleeping.” If such was the case than Emily running low on sleep was an understatement. This was just highlighted when the girl while smiling down at him was interrupted by a jaw cracking yawn. To that end Hellion just shouted “Well, the armor seems to be working great, any other features I should know about before you turn in?”
The head Admin grinned down at her friend, and said “Not really. All of the bonuses go into defence making you nearly indestructible while wearing it, and besides you shouldn't be fighting outside of it anyway so agility and attacks are not needed.” Hellion nodded along with this, it made sense to him and after the previous experience trying to deal with a player outside of Kyoto he was in no mood to try anything hostile again for a while. Then Emily fought off another yawn, and glanced at the console showing what time it was. “Oh? Is it that late already? Damn. You just hold on tight here, I think I'll go grab a drink from the cafeteria here and then log out, I should really take a nap or something...” With that said Emily idly swiped away the console from the air to dismiss it, but in her tired state she did not notice the rapid action had created a gust of air that hit Hellion and blew him backwards.
The small boy found himself unexpectedly falling off the edge of the worktable, the armor not actually adding any real weight to him like normal metal would have. He hit the ground and rolled a little, but again his new protection meant he was fine. He started to get back up, just in time for a shadow and pressure to fall upon him. Unfortunately long experience allowed Hellion to identify what happened within the space of just a few seconds, and it became clear to him that Emily had just stepped on him, briefly wedging him in the treads of her boots. In a near exact mirror of what happened to him on his first day in the game he was dragged out of the Admin area, Emily's lab even, and into the front hall of the guildhall before falling out. The only difference was this time it was Emily doing it and not Lucy.
Hellion watched as Emily walked off towards the cafeteria leaving him behind, and let out a small sigh. This was rather annoying, but he was willing to put it down to just an accident due to Emily's tired state. Still it would be nice if this sort of thing happened less often, although he supposed that this was why he had wanted these improvements in the first place. At least unlike that first time Emily had adjusted the Admin doors to recognize him even at this size, so he was not locked out and could return to safety soon enough.
However as he turned around to do so, he was interrupted by the door seeming to anticipate him and opening before he was ready. This was odd, at least before Kyoto materialized through it stepping into the hallway explaining it. She looked around briefly and then downwards, after a moment locking eyes onto him. Hellion was not worried however, as after a few early incidents involving mistaking him for a random Tinykin Kyoto had learned to always check with her Admin senses before attacking to ensure it was not him. Thus he naturally expected the same thing to happen here, and it was a nasty shock to see an expression of confused interest come across her face followed by her saying “Hmm? I did not know Emily was implementing new bugs.”
This shocking statement caused Hellion to actually look closer at himself for once, and his second sweep of his appearance made him realize the rather important thing that Emily had overlooked in her design frenzy. The armour he was wearing was predominantly black, and slightly bulbous in the torso and legs to protect the limbs while also allowing for ease of movement. Finally the face concealing helmet he wore was partially inspired by Samurai ones complete with ornamental “horns” on the top. It all certainly looked very cool, and just so happened to make the wearer look rather like an insect when seen from further away where finer details were blurred. When Kyoto had spotted him she had not seen him or even a Tinykin, she just saw a regular “bug!”
This horrible revelation stunned Hellion for a few seconds, which was plenty of time for Kyoto to lift up her boot to prepare to stomp. Hellion of course shouted for her to stop, but it fell on deaf ears as he saw her Admin senses were currently turned off. After that he had to start running, and an all too familiar chase scene ensued. This was bad enough considering it was supposed to be his protector doing this, but since she had just come from the Admin area she was chasing Hellion away from it, and as it was the middle of the day and Byakko's guild hall there were plenty of NPC's and Students alike wandering about. Most were just content to let the girl vent her frustrations or have some fun going after what they at first assumed was a Tinykin, but a couple girls decided to join in, and their incoming assaults were not lessened once they found out that it was just a “bug” instead.
Hellion had run through these hallways before outside of Kyoto, and had managed it usually well enough, but the situations then and now were different in a few key areas. Firstly he normally had only been out and about when the number of people in the building was low due to classes and such, but right now was a time when the player population was higher so there were more people meandering around making the floor a small gauntlet of shoes and boots. Secondly he had always either been sneaking around or just dealing with one girl, but now he had multiple on his tail. Eventually these factors combined to cut him off, and Kyoto successfully caught up to him when he needed to stop and backtrack away from a girl exiting a room right in front of him.
The girl's boot slammed down with great force, and Hellion closed his eyes in preparation for death and respawning. However that did not happen, instead he was just placed under pressure and darkness under the foot. Then Hellion realized that the suit was doing its job of protecting him, and he was still in very high health. He only realized the downside of this when Kyoto raised her foot to look at the “corpse,” only to see a fully intact body below. As such while muttering to herself about “Oh? It's a resilient one I will give it that” she simply lifted her foot and stomped down again. And again. And again.
The girl stepped and stomped on the boy several times in a row, practically making him bounce a little in place taking new positions as he rebounded off the floor just to be caught by another step. By now the other girls had caught up as well, and the group circled around the unflattened bug before starting a bit of a stomp party. Boots and shoes from them lashed out from all directions, stepping on Hellion over and over leaving him no time to get back up before another one would smack him back down. In the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of his health bar, and saw that while it was high it was also slowly draining. Each “attack” might only be doing a single point of damage but this was a lot of attacks hitting him one after the other.
Finally as he began to wonder if this was going to continue until he finally died, one of the other Byakko students tried something a little different, stepping on Hellion and instead of withdrawing her foot she ground it back and forth on top of him. This did several points of damage in semi-rapid succession, but still was only enough to get him to a bit above half his health. Then when the girl stepped back, he found himself stuck under her treads, wedged in place amid a bunch of red paste. For a moment Hellion was just a bit grossed out, and that revulsion increased when he saw the stump of an arm embedded next to him and he realized that what he was stuck in was the remains of a squashed Tinykin.
Above he heard the girls talking, mentioning the smear left where he had formerly been laying and how at last the “bug” had been crushed. Apparently when she had ground her foot this girl had left some of the Tinykin remains behind, which was enough to convince the girl and everyone else that he was dead. Then the girl lifted her foot containing him up high and behind her, so much so that he was facing upwards and was briefly blinded by the lights above. When his vision cleared he saw the girl looking over her shoulder at his good covered form, and she said “Ugg, gross, its stuck to my foot.” The girl then proceeded to firmly put her foot on the ground and slide it forcefully back, doing some more damage to him but leaving him behind on the ground.
Thinking of his situation Hellion remained still in the Tinykin goo, as he was still being looked at and if he moved now then the girls would see that he was still “alive” and the whole process would just start again. So instead he remained as still as possible, limbs slightly splayed out and him covered in Tinykin paste. His ruse worked as the girls soon lost interest and started to walk away and disperse, but he did hear one of them, possibly even Kyoto mention “I'll spread the word to keep an eye out for some new black bugs.” Still there was nothing that he could do about that, so he stayed prone on the ground with the intention of getting up in a minute and making a break for an area he knew was probably less inhabited.
As it turned out this was a half a minute too long to wait, as he was interrupted by the arrival of a maid tutting about “such a mess.” Then before he could get up the generic brunette reached behind her for a pole she had been dragging, and lifting it up and swinging it forwards more or less dropped a wet mop head right on top of the boy. She then began to swirl the cleaning implement back and forth, swiftly removing the guts off the ground but also picking Hellion up for the ride. Almost instantly the poor tiny was tangled in the strands of the mop and dragged across the floor, swirled around at speed while the NPC above was oblivious. Then the woman lifted the mop and returned it to its bucket of hot soapy water, and Hellion was splashed down below its surface.
Hellion desperately struggled to get some air, swimming up to the surface even as he felt the rumble of the mop bucket being wheeled to its next destination. He reached the side of the bucket and tried to climb up, but the water level was too low and the side too slick. Then the bucket stopped washing him back towards the centre from a momentum wave, and the mop being lifted up out of the bucket snagged him again. The maid had several more stops to make to remove stubborn stains on the hardwood and sometimes stone floors, and Hellion was present for each and every one of them as the water became dirtier and dirtier.
Eventually the woman finished this cleaning cycle, and Hellion was left floating in the murk of her bucket. He was currently discovering that while he was still only taking a single point of damage at a time, as the hits continued without healing they were gradually becoming more and more painful just as an indication of how his health was still decreasing. Now just a bit below half, he waited for the maid to dump the bucket into a sink, only for her to instead open a door leading outside and draining the bucket there, washing Hellion into the grass of the courtyard.
The by now tired boy coughed and spat up dirty water, kneeling on the ground as it absorbed the water and began to grow muddy. Starting to get up he began to look around for the driest route away, not wanting to plunge into any puddles or mud pits. Sadly for him almost right away came a short stream of girls, all of them players going out for a bit of practice. The first girl's foot landed on top of him, pressing him down into the soft mud at the bottom of an imprint of her foot. Then after she stepped off the next girl walked on top of him, skidding briefly on the mud and him in her flat before she stabilized herself. The process repeated for each girl in the line, every single one of them by pure happenstance stepping directly on top of him, leaving him in a new humorous pose each time. Finally the last girl exited the building, and this time he stuck to her sole thanks to the mud.
The faux-Tinykin had to endure several long painful steps, until the girl stopped moving standing on the grass. Above his head and muffled Hellion heard the leader of the group talking about combat drills, practicing new moves before putting them into direct effect. As this happened the girl standing on him shuffled her foot a little, and he was scraped off by the grass to end up deposited in the midst of it. As he got lower in health, he dimly noted that the view was not all that different from being outside of some of the other guild halls, tall grass and towering girls included.
Then the training started, and Hellion had other things to worry about. The girls were remaining in the same general area, and so he had to avoid falling boots and flats everywhere. The combat manoeuvres involved charges and quick movements in all directions, and with the grass cover all around him Hellion had little to no idea where anyone was or what direction they might come from. More than once he was nearly stepped on or actually stepped on, and unfortunately one of the girls was a melee fighter with a very heavy hammer, one that she loved to hit the ground with making it quake underneath his feet. He even had to avoid falling into some of the craters left behind by those strikes, and one time was even at ground zero for one meteoric hit. This hurting like hell but still only draining a single point of damage just further highlighted the downside to this state of affairs, as his suffering was just being drawn out.
At last Hellion reached a new clearing, and the trampled and ripped grass allowed him to better see what was around him instead of just randomly running around. Unfortunately for him this just meant he was out in the open when one of the girls who before now had been mostly passive decided to test out one of her combat spells. Hellion's only warning was a series of blue lines appearing all around him at ground level, glowing brighter and brighter over the space of a second indicating magic was being cast. The boy had no time to get out of range of the circle, which was probably the point as when it fired the air around him became absolutely frigid, and massive sharp spires of blue ice formed all around him.
Naturally one of said spires also began to form underneath him as well, and it was only the wind whipped up by the rapid temperature change of the spell sending him flying that he avoided becoming encased in the deadly frost spike. As it was he was chilled to the bone, and he discovered both that his defences applied to magic damage and that there was such a thing as frostbite damage over time. Hellion flew through the air until he saw a wall of blue and black rapidly approaching. He hit the black portion below the blue and remained in place, and it took a moment where he just hung there to realize that he had still been wet from the bucket and mud not so long ago. When hit by the ice spell the liquid had become supercooled, and as soon as it hit the new surface it had frozen solid. Now he was stuck to wherever this was, and as he looked around he had to suppress a groan.
The blue wall fluttered down to cover the path he had taken before, and now that he looked at it closer it was not just blue but also slightly checkered as well. The blue and black walls extended in all directions, but straight down there was light revealing the back of a pair of legs and shoes. The wind had not only blown him away, but it had also made the skirt of one of the girls flutter, briefly revealing her black underwear where naturally Hellion had impacted and frozen to, meaning he was stuck to one butt cheek of an unaware girl.
This was just confirmed when he heard from above “Brr, watch where you are aiming those Susan, I caught some of that!” Then the girl began to move, and the male was slightly bounced around in time with her ass cheek as she moved around through her own drills. Thankfully for once he remained stuck to the rear through it all, not falling below where he might get trampled again. Even better the training session ended soon after that, and the girls stopped moving so rapidly and headed inside at a more sedate pace. Feeling the ice now starting to slowly melt, Hellion began to actually feel a sliver of hope, just in time for the girl he was on to reach the cafeteria, flip her skirt up out of the way, and take a solid seat down on a chair, crushing him.
The pressure was immense on the little guy, and a glance at his health was showing that it was finally actually getting to the “critically low” range. If he could just mentally endure this for a little longer he might get out of this soon, and the time that would take very rapidly began to shrink as the girl was not one to sit very still for long. The girl bounced up and down several times on the hard chair, the reason for it being perhaps excitement about the groups new moves, Hellion being an uncomfortable lump on her ass, or both. Each movement was like being crushed by a house, and just drained more and more HP. The girl even wiggled back and forth a few times, grinding Hellion hard and painfully into the seat, lending credence to the discomfort idea.
Eventually as Hellion at last saw his health reduce to the upper teens level, he anticipated at last getting a break from this nightmare. However as if summoned by his thought, the girl remained still for a while, only occasionally moving and slowing his health loss to a crawl. The boy had to endure a further hour of this, likely while the girls ate something, before at last she got up. As she did so Hellion noted two things, the first of which that while the ice had at last melted he was temporarily sticking to her black panties, mostly due to a mixture of lingering moisture and being under the pressure of her plump rear for so long. The second thing was that the back of her skirt caught on itself higher up, leaving him and her ass exposed for all to see.
As it turned out both problems were resolved in short order, as one of the other girls glanced in her direction as she too got up and saw the fashion faux-pas. The girl could not see Hellion himself, as his black armour matched the shade of the girl's undergarment, but that mattered little if the slightly evil grin on her face meant anything. As she took a step closer and Hellion's host was pushing in her chair, the other girl said “Man Amy, I knew you could sit for a long time without getting sore, but I always wondered how you could do it. Now I think I know.” As she had said the last few things the girl had drawn her hand back, and as she finished she whipped her hand down and forwards to give the other girl's rear a hearty slap that also knocked the skirt down while saying “I mean, if you are going to show it off like this...” The girl jumped in shock, but based on her blush she also did not mind very much.
Not that Hellion was really aware of that last part, as when the girl had slapped the rear her hand had impacted him directly, and with the follow through the male was sent flying off of the cheek and through the air. He helplessly screamed until he landed somewhere, although splashed down was probably the more accurate term as he had ended up in the midst of a white lake studded with floating yellow orbs. Hurting and stunned from the slap hellion tread water for a few seconds, before looking up and getting a major shock.
Sitting before him was Emily, the blonde looking much better and less tired, without the bags under her eyes. Feeling some relief he waved up at her, only to feel rapidly growing dread as she continued to look straight ahead, well above Hellion's position. Turning in place to look he was shocked again to see Kyoto sitting across from Emily, further away from him and looking at Emily in return. Trying to figure out what was happening Hellion turned back towards Emily where he received yet another big clue. The girl was wielding a massive silver spoon, and as he watched the blonde plunged it into the white lake he was swimming in and scooped up a bunch of the yellow masses. Of all places to end up, he had landed in Emily's cereal bowl!
Desperately Hellion turned around and tried to swim for the far edge of the bowl as he heard the crunches of Emily chewing above him, but even from here he could see that this was likely hopeless. It was a bucket situation all over again, the sides likely too smooth and slick for him to ever climb, and the liquid was chaotically swirling around making swimming difficult. Then the whole thing became moot, as the next plunge of the spoon managed to whack Hellion on top of the head, and dazed he just floated for a second before washing onto the eating utensil. In a last ditch effort to get attention Hellion called out, but the general din of the cafeteria patrons easily drowned him out.
The spoon, cereal, milk and Hellion were shovelled into Emily's awaiting maw, and the boy saw a few strands of clinging saliva and felt a wave of warm breath wash over him before the lips closed blocking out all light. Heedlessly the tiny man was dragged off of the spoon and onto the girls tongue, and he did not register to it as anything more complex or interesting than a fragment of a cereal piece. As such he was swirled around with everything else, the darkness preventing him from seeing much of anything. In fact all he could see was just his HUD, showing him at just over 10 HP. This number dropped again as two cereal chunks pinned him between them harshly, and yet again when the tongue rammed him and the cereal from the side.
At last he came to a stop again, but instead of soft tongue or semi-soft palate he was resting on top of something hard and uneven. It only took a moment to realize what this meant before the ceiling collapsed on him, being of similar texture as the floor below. That last tongue lashing had pushed him and the cereal onto Emily's molars, and now she was chewing them and him up. Again and again the boney protrusions came down, the pain at his low health threshold terrible to behold. They shifted up and down and forwards and backwards, never letting up. It might very well have broken Hellion mentally, if not for the fact that it broke him physically first.
Maintaining a shred of sanity left, Hellion's eyes never left his HP display, at last showing a single HP point remaining. Briefly light entered the mouth as Emily opened up her mouth again for another bite, and beaten and torn the way he was now Hellion was almost eager knowing that in a moment the teeth would come down and this would be over. He looked up at the molars hanging above in the light, and he grinned in acceptance and anticipation. Then he frowned, and wondered out loud to himself “Wait a minute...if I wanted to die, why didn't I just take off the armor and reduce my defence? OH I AM SUCH A MORO-”
CHOMP!