“A whole city gone!? What's up with that? The whole world wants to know what happened to Mesagoza! Well, tune into the Iono Zone tonight and I'll tell you, in a super-special stream about the mysteriously vanished city! #IonoZone #MesaGone #Exclusive”
Shortly after that message went up on Iono's social media pages, it exploded to the very top of the trending tab, becoming the most viewed post in the history of every site it was posted to. Her stream soon became the second most talked-about thing on the web, only behind the disappearance of Mesagoza itself. Much of the talk was skeptical, or even negative, criticizing her for exploiting the tragedy for views. Despite that, when she started streaming later that day, a hundred thousand people were already tuned into her channel, waiting for her big reveal.
“Ladies and gentlemens! Are you readyyyyy?!” Iono's voice gave the streamer's usual greeting. Immediately the chat exploded with messages and emotes whizzing by so fast that they were gone almost as soon as they appeared. A second later, the camera finally turned on and Iono appeared on the screen with a big, toothy grin. “Your eyeballs are MINE—caught in my electroweb! Whosawhatzit? Iono! 'Ello 'ello, hola! Ciao and Bonjour! It's time for the Iono Zone, everybody!
“That's right! And tonight it's a very special episode! I'm sure everyone saw my announcement earlier today, but if you didn't... Really?! Why aren't you following all my social media pages yet?! Go do it right now! But since you're already here, I might as well tell you all that we're going to be talking about my trip to Mesagoza and how I discovered what happened to that little city. He he!
“So there I was, at the edge of that big empty crater...”
Iono went on to recount how she had arrived at the empty land where Mesagoza had once been and how she had wandered around for a long time, showing off all the photos and videos she'd taken there, really spicing the story up, making it sound to all her viewers as if she had gone over to investigate the city's disappearance, all the while the viewer count climbed ever higher, surpassing two hundred thousand without any sing of slowing down.
Finally she recounted her call with director Clavell. “He's the director of the Academy over there, don'tcha know? Real smart guy! Anyways, I called him and, whaddaya know, he actually picked up! He sounded super scared and was literally begging me for help! 'Please, Iono, you're the only one who can save us!' Of course I had to help them out; wouldn't want to let my Mesagoza fans down, y'know! I saved all their lives, and they were all so grateful that they agreed to come on my show so you could all see them. And now... here they are!”
The stream switched over to another camera showing hundreds of people, with even more out of frame, all huddled together on a glossy pink floor, looking not the least bit happy to be there. In fact, anyone who was looking at the stream objectively would have told you they looked haggard and scared, many of them shivering visibly.
“Here they are! Say hi to them, chat! Wave hello, everybody!” The Mesagozans were hesitant to wave, until all of a sudden it looked like the place they were standing on shook. Then they all waved frantically at the camera. Many of them shouted something too, but the sound wasn't picked up on the stream at all.
“You see? All safe and sound, thanks to your beloved streamer! But, some of you may be wondering, what's up with that super-trendy pink color in the background? Well, if we just zoom out a little bit...” The camera zoomed out as she said this, showing the thousands of Mesagozans who had been out of frame, and still kept zooming out further, until the ground they were standing on was shown as a convex surface so big that the people were barely visible on it—it had to be as big as a city. “Do you recognize it yet? No? Let's go further out, and...” As the camera zoomed out once more, the pink, convex surface was finally revealed to be the nail of a pinky toe. With the camera now zoomed out enough to show two feet in frame, the Mesagozans were so small that they were totally invisible, even at the highest resolutions.
“Ta-da! That's right, everybody; allll the population of Mesagoza is standing right here, on yours truly's pinky toe! Aren't they just the cutest?” As Iono gave a little wiggle of her toes, a second camera, zoomed in on the shrunken people, showed their terrified reaction in a corner of the screen. Instantly the chat exploded again as over three hundred thousand viewers expressed their amazement.
“Yep! And would you believe that's almost exactly where I found them, too? Well, they weren't on my toe, but they were right by my foot, in their little city. Mesagoza was so small I didn't even see it at first and I came so close to crushing it! They're super lucky I didn't, isn't that right, little guys? Even when I did see it I thought it was just a pebble until I looked really close at it. Obviously I had to get them out of there, so I took off my boots and told them to climb on my lovely feet so I could bring them home. They were sooooo happy, you wouldn't believe how quickly they ran out of their itty-bitty city to climb my little toesies! Hehe! I bet a lot of you guys wished you'd been in Mesagoza last night so you could be with them now, isn't that right?
“And like I said, after I saved them, they all agreed to come on the stream so we could put on a special show for you guys! Here's how it's going to work: we're going to put these tiny people through a series of games, and the losers of each round will be subjected to whatever punishment you guys decide! Anything's fair game, even having me step on them! And don't worry; even if it looks like they're dying or getting crushed, remember it's just special effects to make it more realistic! They'll be totally fine and you'll even see them again in my next stream. Now, is everyone ready?” Another wiggle of her toes soon had all the Mesagozans nodding their heads. “Good! For this first game, you're all going to run and jump and climb from my pinky toe allll the way over here, to my right foot. The game ends after fifteen minutes, or when half of you make it over. Oh, and try not to tickle me too much while you're crawling around on my toes, or you might just make them twitch and get thrown off! Are we clear on the rules? Then readyyy, set, goooo!!!”
The sound of a starting gun played on the stream and just like that the tiny people were off, running across the surface of Iono's toenail on their way to her ring toe. The view of Iono's feet retreated into the corner while the zoomed-in view took its place as the main screen, letting the viewers witness the progress of the tiny mites across the vast, pink plain that was Iono's toenail, occasionally zooming in closer to track individual runners.
Forced to participate in this sick joke of a stream, the Mesagozans ran as hard as they could, vaulting over the microscopic grooves and crevices on Iono's toenail, crawling over the folds of her skin, climbing down one toe and jumping over to climb up the next one. Some faltered and fell off, getting wedged in the depths of the valley between one toe and the next where, except for a handful who managed to climb out, they were crushed by some minute movement of the streamer's toes causing the vast walls of flesh to close in around them, instantly reducing them to microscopic smears on her skin.
Still more of the unwilling contestants were caught off-guard by a wiggle of Iono's toes and thrown off her toenail, falling all the way down to the red carpet below. Even with how soft it was, at their size the fall was so immense that most died on impact, and of those who survived most were severely hurt, hardly even able to crawl away. Some contestants even fell into the minute sweat droplets pooling at the mouth of her pores, and however hard they tried to swim out, the water's surface tension was too strong for them and they quickly drowned.
It was a massacre; even without Iono actively trying to kill them, they were so pitifully small that simply trying to get around in this monstrously huge world was a deadly challenge—one broadcast to hundreds of thousands of eager spectators around the world, their lives and deaths mere fodder for entertainment. But despite all the death going on around them, the Mesagozans didn't even have time to mourn the loss of their friends and loved ones; they couldn't, not if they were going to survive this twisted competition.
“Wow, and there goes another one! Such a shame! And to think she was doing so well. Just goes to show that no one is safe when you're this pitifully small,” Iono said, commentating on the death of the latest poor soul to drown in her sweat. “Anyway, there's still a minute left in the game, but it looks like half of you already made it to my other foot so I'm gonna call the race now!”
Iono moved her left foot away from the other one just as the last few contestants who had been about to reach the goal made a desperate leap to try and get on her right foot at the last second, only for all of them to fall to their ignoble deaths between the young streamer's feet.
“Let's have a great big round of applause for our little winners! They gave it their all, so they won't be getting punished... yet! And now, let's take a look at our losers...” The camera slowly panned from her right foot over to her left one, all zoomed-in on her toenails so the viewers could see all the people who had lost the race. Most of them were on her big toe, but there were also some people on her second, third, and fourth toes, and even a couple stragglers all the way back on her pinky! “Wow! You guys really couldn't even get off my pinky toe? Man, I almost feel sorry for you! Hmm, maybe we should give you a second chance to prove yourselves. What do you say, chat? Should we show them some mercy?”
The two stragglers held their breaths, waiting for their fates to be decided by the arbitrary whims of the hundreds of thousands of spectators so engrossed by this massacre, while Iono scanned the incoming flood of messages, her expert eyes quickly processing dozens of comments per second to arrive at an answer. “The people have spoken! You're both getting a second chance. Here, hang on to this.” Carefully placing a cotton swab down next to the two microbe-humans, Iono waited for them to climb on it before lifting it up and carrying them over to her right foot as the thousands of other losers watched their passage despondently, thinking that if only they had stayed back they might now have been accompanying those lucky two to their salvation.
“Okay!” Iono exclaimed once the two were safely on her other foot. “So with that out of the way, now it's time to decide how we should punish these losers on my left foot! There's a poll going up right now so be sure to vote for your favorite option! And if your choice doesn't win, don't worry; there's gonna be another chance for all of you!”
While she waited for the poll to close, Iono idly drummed her toes while the thousands of people still on them clung desperately to their tormentor so they wouldn't be thrown off. After a couple minutes, the poll closed with a clear winner. “Wow, you guys really want me to step on these little guys! I wonder why~? Could it be all of you wish you could take their place as tiny specks of dust under your beloved streamer's feet? Oh, don't act so surprised! It's my job to know what all my lovely viewers want and give it to them! Trust me, if I knew how to shrink you down, I'd for sure let you all spend a day as tiny specks on my feet! But we're getting off track. Now, everyone give your good-byes to our unlucky contestants! You tried your best, but your best wasn't good enough. Thanks for playing!”
After one last pan over her left foot to look at the pitifully tiny losers sobbing or begging for their lives, Iono slowly lifted her heel up until only the tips of her toes were touching the floor, almost perpendicular to it. The weeping Mesagozans were sent tumbling down the great slopes of her toenails to finally land, not-too-safely, on the carpet below, joining the hundreds of others who had survived their earlier falls. Those who still clung desperately to her toes were flung off or else crushed between them as she raised her foot and gave her toes a vigorous wiggle. Finally, she held her foot over the tiny people, letting the survivors gape in awe at her sole as it hovered miles above them.
Iono gave one last teasing scrunch of her sole, as much for her viewers as for the little specks beneath her, savoring the sheer terror on their pathetically adorable faces as seen on her screen. At last she set her foot down on the soft carpet, pressing down forcefully as she twisted her sole left and right. When at last she finished, the camera zoomed in but could see nothing at all as their remains blended perfectly together with the red of the carpet.
Only a few dozen remained alive, cowering unseen in the furthest depths of the carpet, beyond the reach of Iono's camera, and peering out at the monstrous toes looming far above.
“Well, that's that! Now, I hope all you other specks took that chance to rest up, 'cause it's time for the next game!” Iono moved her foot back next to the other one, with the sides of her big toes touching very firmly. “First I need half of you to cross over to my other foot. Come on, get movin' you mites!” Iono egged on the Mesagozans while more and more of them crossed back over to her left foot, until each big toe held something like half of them. “Great! That's enough, I think. And now I can tell you that your next challenge iiiiiiiis... Tug-of-war!”
Iono bent and reached down to her feet with both hands, carrying a strand of silk so fine it was almost invisible to the naked eye, with a second one knotted around the middle. Carefully she placed it between her feet, where it stretched from the peak of one toenail to the other, the second strand, hanging right down into the crevice between them. “Everyone, grab the rope! Whoever pulls the knot in the middle all the way across to their side's toenail wins!” she announced, and the Mesagozans hurried to do as she said, thousands of them grabbing on to each end of the silk strand, which was about as thick around as one of them. Then at Iono's signal they all began pulling.
Though it was slow-going at first, soon the game snowballed in favor of the side that had stayed on the right foot, as it boasted a few more people who were also less tired since they hadn't had to make the lengthy trek over to her other toe. Even so, it took a while for them to finally pull the strand of silk all the way over to their side, simply because of the great distances involved. It was taking so long, in fact, that Iono called the game early when she saw her viewers expressing their boredom.
“Wow, wasn't that a great show? Well played by both teams; especially the winners, obviously. But now, what's gonna happen to the losers? Time for all of you to decide! Poll number two is a go!”
With the previous poll winner removed as an option, this second poll was much more hard-fought, with the top two choices staying neck and neck the whole time, one briefly overtaking the other whenever a viewer made a donation to tip the scales over to their punishment of choice. Finally, though, a winner did emerge courtesy of a generous donation of a hundred thousand pokédollars.
“Wow! Thank you so much, IonoChanFan87! Well, guys, the people have spoken! Looks like you're all going to a very special trip into the Iono Zone. That's right; you've all won a one-way trip to my mouth!”
As Iono bent over, the losing side started to flee, all of them dispersing to try to get away before she could get them, but before they could get anywhere, the tip of Iono's finger, covered in her own spit after she had licked it, descended on the shrunken people. A huge portion of them were crushed instantly, while the rest were stuck to the moistened surface, struggling feebly to escape the endless swamp of sticky spit as they were brought up.
The stream switched over to Iono's facecam, where she held up her finger for all her viewers to see. “Here we go! Enjoy your trip, little guys!” Iono opened her mouth wide as she brought her finger closer to it, sticking out her tongue to receive the Mesagozans. Its massive, pink surface loomed ever larger in their view until at last they were all licked right up, caught in the vast expanse of taste buds as big as hills to float in an ocean of saliva. “Hmm...”
Iono moved her tongue around around, making a big show of tasting the tiny people, who were caught up in the immense currents of her spit moving inside her mouth. Dashed against taste buds and teeth, gums and cheeks, the tiny people were soon disintegrated by the unrelenting forces of the streamer's mouth and swallowed along with her spit.
“Ah! All gone!” Iono announced, opening her mouth wide for the camera. “Too bad I couldn't taste anything. Guess they were just too small for that. Moving on! I think we have time for one more game, but... what's it gonna be? Hmm... Oh, I know! Everybody, hold on tight down there!”
The view switched back to Iono's foot just as she lifted it back on its heel, slowly turning it upwards until her toes were pointing straight up. The sudden change threw off many of those who still remained on her toe, and left everyone else clinging desperately to the tiniest of imperfections on her nail, looking down at the huge fall that awaited them should they slip. Then, reaching down with a pen in hand, Iono left a tiny black dot at the very tip of her big toe.
“Are you still hanging on? Great! Now, for the last competition, all you have to do is get to the little dot I just drew on the tip of my toe. Either that or be the last one holding on. There's only one winner here, so everyone do your best because this is your last chance to show the world what you're made of! Are you ready? Then on your marks, get set, go!”
The Mesagozans had already started climbing even before Iono finished, clambering towards the distant finish line knowing full well that their lives depended on it. There was nothing else on their minds save their own survival; some were so eager to be the sole winner that they strove to pull down whoever happened to be above them, sometimes even getting themselves pulled down in the process.
Even at their size it was hard to hold on to the glossy surface of Iono's toenail, let alone climb it. Hundreds had already fallen off by the towering toe gave a slight wiggle that knocked off hundreds more. Their numbers grew thinner by the minute, and before long they were down to a mere one thousand people left on her toenail.
After some ten minutes, the first few people managed to make it over the edge of her toenail and dropped down to her skin to continue the race to their destination, only for another toe wiggle to send them tumbling down to the depths beneath her toenail. At last, though, just a short while later there was a definitive winner as Florian, a young student from the Academy, ran panting up to the black dot on Iono's skin, immediately collapsing on the inky surface.
“Wow! Congrats, little guy! You made it! Hang tight; I'm gonna pick you up.” Again Iono lowered the cotton swab to her toe, letting the young boy climb onto it, then put her foot back down and brought him up to show all her viewers. “Well, ladies and gentlemens, here is your winner! Everybody give him your applause!” As the camera zoomed in on the young boy hanging on fearfully to the cotton swab, the chat overflowed with emotes cheering for him. “That's right, you're the lucky winner today, and do you know what you've won? It's a very special reward, something I'm sure my followers would kill for! That's right; you get to kiss me on the cheek. Are you ready, little boy?”
Trembling on the mass of cotton fibers, Florian watched as he was pulled towards Iono's face. Soon her cheek alone filled all his field of view, and still he was pulled even closer, until he was pressed ever so slightly into her soft skin, nearly being crushed in the process.
“So, how was that?” Iono asked after pulling him away. The camera zoomed in, showing he had fainted on the cotton swab. “Aww~, looks like it was too much for him. Anyways, that's all for tonight, guys! Thank you all for watching, and remember to subscribe to my channels and follow me on all my pages so you can catch all my streams and updates! Buh-bye, Iono-Fans; see you again soon!” With that the stream ended and Iono sighed as she turned off her “streamer-mode”.
“Ah, what a day! Man am I ever tired. I still can't believe I managed to put everything together for this stream on such short notice. It was definitely worth it, though; this stream must have broken, like, every single record! You can bet Iono's gonna be the name on everyone's mind tomorrow! And it's all thanks to you little guys,” she said, looking down at her feet. To be honest, she didn't even know if any of the Mesagozans were still alive, but she assumed at least a few of them must have made it through all that unscathed. Not that it mattered much. She still had some more of those shrunken people stored away in a Petri dish in her room so she could keep milking them for views. As far as she was concerned, these ones might as well be dead already. “Anyway, I'm going to my room now. If any of you are still alive, good luck surviving down there; I'm sure you'll need it.”
And so she left the survivors to fend for themselves in the vast new world that was her streaming room, scurrying around in her carpet to try to make a new home for themselves where they could survive for at least a while longer, knowing full well that they'd be spending the rest of their lives beneath the feet of the young streamer.