No one knew when it happened. Most of the affected didn't even realize anything was different until well after they had woken up and started going about their day—it wasn't something easily noticed unless one lived on the edge of the city. But soon after breakfast, when the people of Mesagoza left their houses on their way to work or school, they slowly realized that something had indeed changed: somehow, their city had been shrunk down, leaving the whole metropolis, once the biggest in Paldea, stranded in the middle of a great, barren expanse it had left behind with its shrinking.

Even then, they didn't realize just how small they were until a wild fletchling landed near their city. The thing seemed massive—easily as big as a mountain. Their whole city was like a pebble next to it, and until it flew off they all feared it would mistake the city for food and peck it to bits, or rend it with its huge talons.

How had this happened? And why? Was this some freak cosmic phenomenon, or were humans responsible for this? Had Arceus decided to punish them for some unforgivable sin? And more importantly, what were they to do? How in the world could they survive like this?

Panic and despair seized the hearts of the Mesagozans and all of them thought themselves goners for sure. But just when the world seemed darkest, a glimmer of hope appeared on the horizon in the form of a young, pink-and-blue-haired woman. the shrunken people were quick to recognize as Iono, the electric-type gym leader and world-famous streamer. If only they could get her attention, maybe she could save them from this horrible nightmare.

The shrunken people cried out all together to the young woman, jumping up and down, smacking garbage cans, waving flags around, honking their horns, and doing anything and everything they could to get her attention, even getting their pokemon to help out. But though she looked all around at the great barren land left behind by the city's shrinking, wondering what might have happened here Iono never so much as glanced at the ground in front of her, and as she came closer, kicking up little clouds of dirt and making the tiny Mesagozans crane their necks further and further back, their hope again became despair.

Powerful tremors and great, thundering booms accompanied every one of the streamer's steps, both growing stronger by the second, until the tiny people felt she was more likely to be their doom than their salvation. Their attempts to get her attention turned ever more frantic as they realized they might be crushed under her boot if she didn't see them, and when she was only a few steps away many people broke into desperate flight, trying to run away before they were crushed with all the others.

Everyone's shouts rose to a fever pitch as the sole of Iono's boot became visible overhead, its shadow all but consuming the pebble-sized city. There wasn't a soul among them that didn't think the end had come when that gargantuan foot began its descent. Yet when it hit the ground a moment later with a great, deafening BOOM, the city still survived. Oh, some buildings did collapse in the apocalyptic earthquake that followed, but hardly anyone had been indoors when it happened, and though some Mesagozans perished, the great majority still lived, as Iono's foot had so landed that their whole city sat safely in the space between her boot's heel and sole.

Yet it shook them to see how close they had come to being crushed—how close to it they still were. Iono needed only slide her foot an inch forward or back and the city would be razed beneath her boot, turned to dust so fine no one would ever know what had happened to them. Only an inch, and yet this little gap seemed big enough to house even the loftiest peaks in all of Paldea.

Trembling as they stared at the giant arch looming over their city, the shrunken people held their breaths, praying for her to leave them in peace. But when Iono's other foot came down right next to this one with another great BOOM, it became clear that she wouldn't be leaving just yet.

Far above the Mesagozans, still blissfully unaware of the panic caused by her mere presence, Iono pulled out her phone and opened the GPS. Sure enough, it said she was standing right in the very center of Mesagoza. And yet, when she looked around, she saw... nothing. Zilch. Nada. Not a single sign that this place had ever been inhabited. There were a few people around who had shown up after her, but they all looked every bit as lost and confused as she was. Maybe one of her fans would know what was up, she thought, and she opened her social media app to ask them.

“Hey, what gives!? The GPS says I'm in Mesagoza, but there's nothing around! Did someone steal the city before I got here? This is so not cool! #MesaGone” She typed out the message and sent it along with a selfie of herself in this empty land. Then, waiting for the replies (and the sweet, sweet interactions) to come flooding in, Iono started tapping her foot impatiently.

To the people stuck beneath her, this was like a series of earthquakes that threatened to reduce their whole city to rubble, if Iono didn't simply crush it on one of those taps. Each tap of her foot brought about the collapse of more and more buildings which simply  couldn't handle the amazing stresses Iono put them through. And while the people cried out as desperately as they ever had for her to notice them, all their voices combined were as nothing compared to the sound of Iono tapping her foot, rendering all their efforts worthless.

At last, after the most painful minute the city of Mesagoza had ever experienced, Iono ceased her foot-tapping and took a small step back that left the toe of her boot looming over the shrunken city. Finally Mesagoza was out of her shadow, yet the people felt no better than they had a moment ago. If anything, now that they could look up and see all of Iono looming over them, standing so impossibly big that their puny minds struggled to comprehend what they were seeing, the Mesagozans felt smaller than ever before as they were all but forced to contemplate their sheer insignificance. And while a few of them still tried to get her attention, most had fallen silent with a case of despondency as it became clear that a bunch of microbes like them had no chance of being noticed by a living landmass like Iono;the most they could hope for was to make it out of this encounter alive.

Meanwhile, after sifting through dozens of replies to her post, Iono at last saw one with a link to a news report that talked about how the city of Mesagoza had mysteriously disappeared overnight, leaving behind only a big empty crater. The whole thing sounded so bizarre she had to make sure she wasn't reading some weird conspiracy theory site, and even then she probably wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't been standing there right now, surrounded by the empty land where the city had once been.

“And to think I canceled one of my streams for this,” Iono muttered, shaking her head. She'd been supposed to visit the Academy here to host a talk about what it takes to be a successful influencer, but now it seemed the whole trip had been a colossal waste of time.

Then again, Mesagoza's disappearance was likely to be the talk of all of Paldea, if not the whole world, for at least a couple days; if she was the first big streamer to cover it with her own firsthand account, followers and subscriptions would come flowing in like never before! She might even break her old viewership record! Just the thought of it made her excited; maybe this trip wouldn't be a total waste after all. She just had to get home before someone else beat her to the punch.

Closing the social media app, Iono called for a cabbie to come pick her up, then opened the camera to take some pictures and videos for her stream, already thinking about what she would say and how she could spice up her story to engage all her viewers. Then, once she had enough material to work with, and with plenty of time to spare before the cab arrived it occurred to her that she might try calling her contact at the Academy to see if he picked up.

Just as she pressed the call button, down in the tiny Mesagoza, director Clavell's phone rang and, to his surprise, he saw that Iono was calling him. Seeing a chance to save the city, the director was quick to answer. “Iono?” he called into it, his hand and voice alike shaking as he held the phone up to his ear.

“Oh, hey! What's up, director? Are you okay? Tell me what's going on.”

“I'll tell you as much as I know, but first I have to tell you, DO NOT move your foot!”

“My foot?” Iono looked down at her feet, feeling super confused. She lifted her foot up on its heel, shaking it left and right, her sole passing over the tiny city over and over again. “Why not? What's wrong with my foot?”

“Iono, please, stop it! Just take a step back, I implore you! This is a matter of life and death!”

“Okay, okay! Fine! I'm taking a step back now.” Iono did so, finally putting some welcome distance between herself and the tiny city, though it would still only take a single step for her to be back on top of them.

“Oh, thank goodness,” director Clavell sighed. He felt himself about to faint; at his age he couldn't handle much excitement, and simply being near Iono like this was almost more than he could bear. Still, he couldn't allow himself to pass out at a time like this; not when so many people were relying on him.

“Iono, listen; what I'm going to tell you is going to sound like a fantasy, but I assure you, it's all very much real. You can see that Mesagoza is gone, right? Well that's not exactly right. We're all still here—at least, most of us are. No one knows how it happened, but last night our city shrank. We're right here, on the ground, close to where you were just standing.”

“Shrank? Are you pulling my leg, gramps? You really shouldn't kid around with something so serious, you know.”

“I'm not joking, Iono; I wish I were. If you could simply get on your hands and knees, I can guide you so you'll find out city. Please, we're in such danger by ourselves; if you could help us out, we'd be ever so grateful to you.”

“You want me to crawl around on the floor? Are you serious?” Iono scoffed. “I guess I got nothin' better to do right now so I'll humor you, but let me tell ya, if this is some weird joke, I'm making sure all my followers hear about this.”

“That's alright; you'll see soon enough how serious this is.” After Iono went down on her hands and knees, the director guided her towards Mesagoza until their city was right in her sights. At that moment a chorus of cries erupted from all the other shrunken people, who had been following her journey in suspense. “That's it! You're looking right at us!”

“What? You mean this tiny thing here?” Iono moved her hand to point to what at first glance looked like some tiny pebble, holding her finger so close that the Mesagozans feared she would crush them. Her finger hovered over the shrunken city, its surface easily big enough to crush them all with a single poke. Her light skin filled their sky with the spiraling pattern of her fingertip, magnified to such a degree that the people beneath her could make out every last pore and wrinkle.

“Yes! Yes, that's us. Please, be more careful, Iono.

“... Iono?”

“Sorry, gramps; I'll call you back later. Gotta make sure you're tellin' the truth.” Hanging up on the director, Iono leaned in closer to look at that tiny little pebble director Clavell had made such a fuss about. There did seem to be something weird about it—it was weirdly-colored for one, with more green than she'd seen on any pebble before—but that wasn't enough to confirm the director's ridiculous story. No, she needed to take a closer look, so she turned on her camera, trained it on the little green pebble, and zoomed in as far as her camera could go.

Had her phone been almost any other model, even maximum zoom wouldn't have been enough to identify that thing as a city. Fortunately for the Mesagozans, Iono's phone was equipped with the latest and greatest phone camera, able to zoom in even beyond the limits of other phones, and once the camera focused on it, previously unseen details of that tiny “pebble” were revealed to Iono. Even so, it took her a minute to recognize the curious geometric patterns she was seeing as the streets and buildings of a big city, and the faint movement she saw in the center as a crowd of tiny speck-people waving at her.

As soon as she confirmed that everything director Clavell had told her was true, Iono sat back in shock, staring mutely at the tiny city. Her eyes passed over the ground near it, over the footprints she had left there, some having come so close to the city it was miracle she hadn't crushed it.

Crushed it? Yes; crushed the city and all the people in it. Strange as it was to think that she could have wiped out thousands of lives in a single step, there was no denying what she saw. And what had the director said? “We're all still here—at least, most of us are.” If only most of them were still there, were some others not there anymore? What had happened to them? Had they... died? Had she caused their deaths without ever knowing about it? It was possible at least. And perhaps it was only her imagination, but she thought director Clavell's tone might have hinted at it.

Iono pondered the question, staring intently at the tiny city. Yet she found that, no matter how much she thought about it, even after coming to the conclusion that the missing Mesagozans were surely dead and that she had killed them, she didn't feel guilty at all. Even telling herself about how how awful it was that those people were dead, she couldn't feel bad about it.

Just look at these people: they were mites. Specks. Germs. She couldn't even have seen them without her phone. A gust of wind might wipe them off the face of the Earth. Feeling bad about killing them made as much sense as feeling bad about all the germs she'd killed by sanitizing her hands. They were lucky to have survived so long like this, really.

But, with that out of the way, what was she supposed to do about these tiny things now? She supposed she should aid them somehow, but she really wanted to have some fun with them first, so she leaned in real close to smile at the shrunken city.

Though they had been working so hard to get her attention, now that they had it the Mesagozans were already regretting it. As scary as it had been to know that she might kill them all unknowingly, with that grin they all feared what this girl might knowingly do to them.

“Well well, looky what we've got here! If it isn't Mesagoza city! Now how'd all you guys go and get so itty-bitty small? I totally didn't see you there before! You really should have said something, ya know; I could'a stepped on you guys by accident! But I guess you were just speechless at havin' such a super-popular streamer standing next to you. Good thing I thought to call your director, huh? Anyways, he told me I should help you all, so I'm thinking, why don't I take you all home with me? You'd be a lot safer sittin' in a little box in my room than you are out here, don'tcha think?”

The people below muttered in careful approval; maybe they had misjudged Iono after all.

“Only problem is, how am I supposed to get you there? Hmm... You think I could just...” Iono stretched a hand towards the little pebble-city, making as if she was going to grab it. Instead she put her thumb and forefinger down on the ground on opposite sides of it, so close that another fraction of an inch would have spelled doom for the Mesagozans. “Nah, that won't work! Just look at you! You're so small I'd probably crush you all just trying to pick you up! You'd all go flat under my finger, just like that!” Iono moved moved her fingers away and flattened a tiny clump of dirt that had been lying close to the city.

Seeing that thing get crushed beneath Iono's fingertip and ground down to nonexistence, the Mesagozans collectively went pale, many nearly fainting on the spot. Director Clavell pulled out his phone and tried calling Iono to beg her to stop, but the call wouldn't go through, even after trying with another phone; it seemed she could call them, but they couldn't call her.

“But then how can I bring all you tiny people back with me? Hmm... Oh well, I'm sure I'll come up with something soon! And until then, I might as well get comfy, don'tcha think?” The Mesagozans sighed in relief as the young streamer moved away from them for a moment, only to panic once more when she sat back and her feet rushed towards their city, stopping just shy of it. But what came next was more bewildering than anything, as Iono took off her boots one at a time and propped her feet up right in front of their city, her massive soles rising into the sky to loom far above their city, her skin faintly glistening with sweat.

“Ah, that's nice! So good to be out of those tight boots! They're super trendy and all, but not too good for being out in the sun, you get me? Of course you do! You guys must be really hot too, isn't that right? Let me give you all some shade. Iono to the rescue!” she announced enthusiastically, giggling as she moved her feet lower over the city.

To the Mesagozans the approach of Iono's feet looked like sky come crashing down. It seemed impossible for something so big, and moving so fast, to simply stop falling, and until her vast soles stopped a mere inch above their city, they felt certain they'd be crushed beneath them. Even once her soles stopped, they still felt as if they might be crushed at any moment, especially as Iono playfully rocked her feet over the shrunken city, bringing tremors with each little motion.

Toes like mountains splayed and curled by turns, causing her soles to scrunch up and leaving the speck-sized people gaping in awe at the hypnotic bulging and stretching of her flesh. Soon something else caught their attention, though—a growing figure hanging from the end of one of her toes—a drop of sweat nearly as big as Mesagoza itself. The monstrous drop grew bigger by the second, hanging lower and lower. Such a volume of water would surely wipe out the whole city on impact if it hit, and it was still getting bigger.

The shrunken people hung on to it in suspense, until at last a particularly energetic curl of Iono's toes flung it down to the earth, to splash down right at the outskirts of the city. In the blink of an eye, a massive wall of water bulldozed through several blocks and dozens of buildings, before vanishing into the earth, leaving behind only scattered remnants of the structures it destroyed and the people it killed. The survivors could only keep staring at Iono's feet, praying that no more drops of sweat would be falling on them.

“Ha ha! You guys look so cute down there! I bet you're all honored to be so close to my feet, isn't that right? I've got tons of fans who'd pay me a fortune to look at them like you're doing right now. I bet I could find enough of them to take all your places.” Just then, Iono had an epiphany as she realized what a huge opportunity had fallen right into her lap. She could picture it already: a super-special stream dedicated to showing off the tiny Mesagozans, where she'd let the viewers decide what she should do with them. It would be the single biggest show of her career. Heck, it might even be the most-viewed stream of all time! She just had to make sure the city got back home safely. But how was she going to do that without wrecking everything?

Actually, maybe she didn't need to bring the whole city. Just the people would be good enough. And if that was so, she didn't even need to pick them up herself.

“Okay! I think I know how to take you all back safe and sound with me! At least, I hope I do.” Iono pulled her feet back just a bit, then lowered her soles all the way, leaving her little toe standing right in front of the city. “All you gotta do is climb up my toe and... find some little place where you won't get crushed once I start movin'! Easy, right? I mean, it's not great, but I don't think anyone could come up with something better on such short notice! So, you coming or not? I guess you could stay here if you want. You might even survive a few more hours! But are you really gonna take your chances out here, all by yourselves?” Iono punctuated her question with a small wiggle of her toes, then held her feet still to let the little specks climb it.

The Mesagozans weren't too keen to hitch a ride on Iono's feet, but they didn't have much choice. It was a miracle they had gotten her attention at all—the odds of them getting help from anyone else were almost nonexistent, as were their odds of survival if they stayed her any longer. Not that their odds were much better with Iono, but at least there was an opportunity there. In the end they all swallowed their pride and came forward to climb up Iono's toe like a swarm of mites, dodging sweat droplets and other such obstacles, all while she recorded their journey on her phone.

It took something like twenty minutes, but at last they had all hidden away under Iono's toenail—all save a few unlucky people who had fallen to their deaths or drowned in the sweat droplets that speckled her skin here and there. Giving a small wiggle of her toes once they were all safely in place, Iono put her boots back on and stood up, taking care not to apply too much pressure on that toe so she wouldn't kill any more of those little people. She them all alive to make this stream the best it could be, after all! At least until the show started; then her viewers would get to decide their fates. And if the people wanted to see the little bugs crushed, well, she'd just have to give them what they wanted.

Anything at all for the sake of a good show.