Dr. Max had been busy it seemed. Way TOO busy. Since his last encounter with the then unnamed ShrinkGirl, Dr. Maximillian E Mumford had constructed a whole new add-on to the lab, involving complex ductwork, piping and slamming metal doors. This all sounds very expensive and it was. It also seems like it would take up an incredibly hard to hide amount of space. Except it didn't. It was basically the size of a lab rat maze and it was specifically designed to ensnare one well meaning youngster by the name of Alexis Cole. It was only there as a "what if" plan though. For now Dr. Max already had the upper hand and a test subject, however not his ideal one.
"I'd have you sign the waiver..." Dr. Max said condescendingly as he leaned over the captive Leah, "but I don't think it would do any good anyhow"
Leah would groan and spit in his face, quite literally. The cranky Doctor would snarl and shake his head. "You're only making this harder on yourself Leah..."
"Fuck you!" Leah shouted
"Again with the language!!" Dr. Max scoffed
Elsewhere Lexi was patrolling the eerily dark hallways of Enormo Enterprises. It somehow got more ominous since the last time she was there. The place seemed completely empty but at least she knew where to go. The 8th floor. She'd dash up a staircase and then another, her own hurried running producing a decent amount of sound. Maybe too much as it impeded her hearing of the slithering that was closing in on her. 2 fearsome Maximites were still online and chasing the moving Lexi up the stairs by clinging to each step from its underside.
Dr. Max was hard at work in his lab, preparing the nefarious machine for testing, every once in a while glancing at one of the 12 monitors that showed the different sectors of the facility.
"Wait!" he said, stopping the initialization sequence. "There! It is her!"
He pointed to a screen where Lexi could be seen, albeit in blurry black and white, running across the stairwells.
"Lexi?" Leah gasped silently.
"Hmmm ... we'll continue the experiment momentarily..." the mad scientist gloated. "But for now ... initialize Protocol Mousetrap!"
"...Protocol Mousetrap?" a very confused Dr. Wright asked.
"What can I say?" Max shrugged, "I've been busy"
Just as Lexi reached the top of the 8th stairwell, as Trevor had instructed, the 2 horrid metallic creatures sprang out from under her feet, their faces contorted like gelatin to make the incredulous stretch it would take to reach her. Lexi just turned and grunted as she swung open the heavy metal door to get onto the next level, no longer having time to deal with these things. She had but one thing on her mind, saving her friend Leah.
Leah watched the screen intently, trying to make out what was happening while also processing the chaos going on all around her. She'd see that maniacal grin on Maximillian's face as Lexi took a few steps forward, only to throw a switch and watch her best friend disappear down a trap door hatch.
"Lexi!!" Leah cried out
Lexi was okay, although she landed in a dark dingy metallic room, or at least it was dark, until a row of lights activated in sequence, one after the other, after the other. She spotted a pair of garage doors ahead and ran to one of them slamming a nearby button to open it, but on the other side was nothing, just a solid wall. On the other side of the next was an opening but it was a small one, almost as if it was meant to park a fisher price car, except it went deeper into the depths.
"Let's get small..." Lexi muttered before squeezing herself and eventually shrinking herself to fit, all the while thinking she needed a better catchphrase.
Leah didn't quite see that part as the security cameras weren't visible to her but they were to Max who blocked the console leaning forward with the enthusiasm of a college student playing Call of Duty. He had finally concocted a trap to confine and trap the minimizing heroine. In order to advance, she'd have to keep making herself smaller to get through the subsequent doors.
She wouldn't be alone though as she heard the familiar screech of the Maximites ; liquid nanite robots with glowing red eyes and persistent claws for feet that made them hard to escape as they'd quickly gain ground. Lexi looked back in fear and anxiously scooted down the next corridor, having to squeeze her body even more to do so.
The strange thing is, because the space appeared relatively the same to her (the ceilings were almost always higher than her head) she didn't quite FEEL the shrinking as much but she knew she was using it in order to advance. Finally things began to open up a bit more but she still didn't know which way to go. The convoluted network of piping and tunnels was becoming more and more like a maze and thats exactly what the mad doctor was counting on, even though only he knew where it would all end up.
As Max watched his size shifting and vicious Maximites pursue the size changing Lexi he'd shout over the intercom,
"Don't let her get away!"
Our main heroine knew she was cornered, or at least that she would be. One hallway led to another, led back to the first, led to another. Sounds of clanging doors in the distance signaled her deepest fears being confirmed. She was being contained. She still had room to run but it was at HIS allowance. He called all the shots for the time being and that would be bad enough if not for the snarling and hissing of anthromorphic metalmuck as it crawled its way towards her from all sorts of angles.
"Oh shoot, I did not wear the right shoes for this" the vagabond damsel decried, her face worn with sweat, her purple sneakers a bit scuffed. She wanted to collapse. She wanted to cry. How did she let things get to this point? She looked to the left and the right and presented to her were a pair of passageways, almost like a sick carnival game. Which way would she pick? Would it even matter?
"Left..." she mutters, barely audible and makes her way through it. Another slap, like a metal gate ... or a mouse trap.
"I'm not giving up on you, Leah..." the brunette would mutter in determination, fists bared as she began her next step but not before a slimy recoiling tendril of liquid steel restrained her right arm in place. She yanked against it hard but it recoiled with her like a stubborn rubber band, "Owwwwww!! Hey!"
"Give up now ... ShriiiiinkGirl...." the overly confident scientist would announce through a loudspeaker. "Give up now and you may at least get to see her fate!" he cackled, appearing now on a small video screen with Leah positioned behind him. This only further fueled Lexi's anger and determination.
"Ooh you'd like that, wouldn't you, Mad Max?" the heroine quipped, quick to get up and leave nothing but a severed robot limb still clinging onto her.
I never should've let things get to this point, Lexi pondered, I should've just told her the truth sooner ... it might not have helped though ... would she even have believed me? Do I even believe this, even so much time later?
Now why does this scenario seem so familiar?
The tired Lexi let her hands momentarily rest on her knees as the 2 pursuing Maximites seemed to slither in from under the slammed gates, reforming at a size similar to hers. It appeared there was only one door left now and no matter where it led, Lexi was determined to get there.
Now since Leah was simply viewing footage of Lexi fighting the metallic monsters (and that alone was unbelievable) in what appeared to be a large room, she hadn't put it together that her best friend was actually no more than 2 inches tall at this moment. It just appeared to her as a scene playing out in an action movie but Lexi was the star. She'd watch, mouth agape, rooting her on just like her days in cheerleading while still having an understandable degree of confusion about what was going on.
Lexi would duck the lightning fast whip of the cold metal tongue as if it were a jumprope being snapped her way, before sliding a bit and standing up quick, striking hard with an uppercut. The other robot would advance quickly, it's large claw like feet stomping clumsily towards her, she'd backflip onto its head and poke its red eyes which would only momentarily impair its vision as the viscous like red pupils would slowly regenerate, given time.
"You're almost there, Fraulein!!" Max would mock from his place at the monitor board, all the while Leah being held back by a couple of his overdressed goons with Justin sitting across and Joseph watching on with concern. "Just one more door..."
Leah could only watch on in horror watching her best friend fight bravely but she was worried about what the mad scientist had up his sleeve next. It wouldn't take long to find out as the steely Lexi came barreling through the final door, into a large room with a glass dome raising up into the skies. Except it wasn't large at all. In fact, she was basically inside a Hungry Hungry Hippos game minus the plastic hippos. Looming overhead was the victorious Dr. Maximillian E Mumford, his face reflecting in the glass as he gloated over his tiny little foe trapped inside.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!" Dr. Max laughed triumphantly, "you like that?! You literally delivered yourself to me Fraulein Alexis and now you are MEIN!"
Leah had to sit up to see better, seeing her best friend, only 2 inches tall and trapped under the glass.
"LEXI?!" she screamed, more tears forming in her eyes
"Leah!" Lexi squeaked before feeling something hit her, a bit of an electric shock, subtle at first until it began to disable her entire body, sending her down onto the cold metal floor in agonizing pain. Behind it all was none other than the ruthless mad scientist, his hand leaning slowly on the switch for the electricity as it filled the chamber.
"Turns out I can study you alive or dead ... but we won't kill you just yet" Max laughed, "I only want to give you enough to see you suffer... you miserable little..."
"LEAVE HER ALONE!!" Leah would cry, finally throwing a sharp elbow to one of the men in suits.
Before she could advance more than two steps however, Dr. Max had a gun drawn in her face, a surprise he had kept tucked in his large lab coat pocket just in case he needed it.
"Not. One. More. Step." Max warned.
"Leah! No!!" Justin Wright screamed, breaking free as well and leaping for the Doctor's wrist as he gripped the gun tight, swinging it away from Leah and towards the glass containment chamber. A loud POP would pierce the surface, causing a spindling spiderweb pattern to form throughout the dome. It wouldn't shatter but it would render certain components of the machine inoperable, like the mechanism that had been shocking Lexi. She'd look up weakly seeing that though the electric shocks had stopped she was still trapped despite the cracks in the glass.
"Ugh!" Dr. Max grunted, throwing the foolhardy Justin Wright off of him, "Perhaps I should have sprung for the bullet proof glass but no matter!"
He'd casually swing his arm down towards Justin, not firing but merely aiming the pistol at his downed body.
"H-Hey..." Joseph said, very assertively, "don't point a gun at my son"
Dr. Max shook his head and pointed the gun at Joseph now, "You really want to take the chance that I only had one bullet in this barrel, Doctor?"
While this standoff played out, the tiny and still trapped ShrinkGirl looked around for any way of escape. The floor was pretty solid metal so her trick from before to shrink micro and go out through any kind of hole was pretty much moot. The Maximites were still factors but they seemed to be standing down for the moment, maybe having been deterred by the electrical field that had just been in the room. So far the only thing that had done anything was the bullet to the glass but too many blows would shatter the glass entirely, causing its own issues.
"Now Dr. Max ... let's not do anything crazy ..." Joseph stammered, the gun about 10 feet from his cranium as all involved parties stood at a close distance from one another.
"Oh I'd say we're beyond that!" Leah snapped, turning the gun to her now. She gulped deeply.
"Don't you dare hurt her!!" Lexi squeaked, trying to grow as much as she could, getting to maybe 4 inches before the glass would impede here from furthering her progress, she'd bang on the glass like a fish trapped in an aquarium seeing the tear filled eyes of her best friend.
"Oh what are YOU going to do about it, Thumbelina?" Max retorted, turning around and in doing so letting his guard down long enough for the determined Leah to tackle him from behind, slamming his head into the glass. Lexi would wince and shrink herself a bit to not get slammed as more glass would begin to splinter into the room.
"Oop sorry..." Leah would grunt shyly as 2 guards would pick her up, one holding her by each arm as she struggled uselessly trying to get closer to the glass to see her tiny best friend, "LEXI!! I promise you!! No matter what it takes...!!" Leah screamed between breathy sobs, "I will get you out of there!!"
Lexi too was fighting back tears but the emotions would have to wait as she could see a Maximite mounting its attack from the corner of her eye. The metallic dog was beginning to gain back its aggressiveness and its vision.
Meanwhile the stunned Dr. Max was stunned no longer and returned his gun to its original position, cocking and aiming it at Leah Henderson.
"No you don't!!" Lexi squeaked, willing to throw herself through the weakened glass wall to save her best friend but a strong force was holding her back in the form of two sturdy silver bands of metal that had latched onto her wrist gauntlets and were squeezing so tight the metal was beginning to crunch against the flesh on her wrists. "N-N-N-....NOOOOOOO!!"
Lexi's scream would resound throughout the room, as tiny as it was while she gave all her strength to slingshot the attacking Maximite through the glass completely, striking Max himself as if it were a bullet but with much slower speed. Still it was enough to send the doddering Doctor onto his face, and send his two thuggish guards over to aid him, allowing Leah to kneel down and carefully collect the tiny Lexi through the hole in the glass, scooping her spent little body into her hands. She'd wrinkle a brow at this, Lexi's form reflected in her shiny brown pupils.
"H-How?" Leah asked, her voice sounding as broken as the glass, "How did this happen to you?"
Lexi would look up at Leah weakly and wave shyly
"How do we make you big again?" Leah asked concerned.
Lexi weakly was trying to talk, but more importantly she was keeping an eye on the determined Max who was looking for his gun again. Instead of saying what she was going to say she shook her head and motioned for her giant best friend to move her face closer.
"Yes, Lexi? What is it?" Leah asked
"Throw me"
"What??"
"THROW ME!!" Lexi squeaked
"What? No, you'll get hurt..."
"Leah if you're really my best friend..." Lexi squeaked in an assertive tone, "You will throw me this instant!"
Leah muttered under her breath something about Lexi being stubborn before finally complying and gently lobbing her best friend up like a soft ball, not expecting what happened next which was the heroic young lady's expansion whilst she crashed into Max with a flying kick.
"Leah, let's go!" Lexi yelled, standing before Leah in her purple and gold costume.
Yes, it was scratched up and scuffed, the shoes weren't shiny purple boots like in the old picture but rather her beat up sneakers painted purple. The top had little rips in it from her battles and the gauntlets looked like they were custom made at a shop in the mall by their friend Taylor but damn it, as far as Leah was concerned, she was looking at the real ShrinkGirl in person.
Of course the time to be starstruck would have to be later, if they even survived the night. Lexi would take Leah's hand and lead them out the door of the lab.
Mad Max would violently get himself up onto his feet, even shoving his own guards out of the way as they offered to help him up. Instead, his focus was on the main console as he watched the two girls escaping through security camera footage.
"You're not getting away that easily" Max snapped, hitting a button that would send a series of metal gates down every so many feet in the corridor.
"Okay Leah, I'm going to need you to be on your game here, can you do that for me?" Lexi asked, determined as ever, even while her joints were killing her, she'd try to maintain eye contact with Leah while they dashed through the hallway, "Leah, look at me ... please..."
"Lexi ... this is ... unbelievable..." Leah shook her head even while she was witnessing it
"I know, but we don't have much time, please..." Lexi shook her head, "catch me"
"What?"
Without warning, Lexi would jump towards Leah but instead of landing on her, she'd shrink to a few inches tall and Leah would react swiftly and catch her.
"Okay, now what?" Leah yelped
"Slide me!" Lexi yelped
Leah looked down for just a moment, "Yknow, you're awfully bossy when you're small"
"LEAH!!"
"Okay okay, geez..." Leah sighed, trying to slide Lexi under the gate before it closed.
Lexi looked up and all around before she realized why she couldn't allow that to happen. She'd stop her slide short on purpose and just plink into the metal gate at her tiny size. Leah would catch up and Lexi would grow back.
"Wh-Why didn't you go under?" Leah asked
"I'm not leaving without you..." Lexi shook her head
"So cute ... and so weak...." the evil doctor would proclaim over a loud speaker, "and this is why I win!"
Lexi let out an exhale, "Yes Max, you win..."
"Lexi, what?" Leah stammered, but Lexi just turned back and smiled with a wink.
"You win ... you can have me" Lexi sighed, putting her head down.
"What?" Max exclaimed in disbelief.
"But..." Lexi said sternly, "you have to let Leah go ... drop your gates and let her walk free"
"Lexi..." Leah looked at her friend worriedly but Lexi seemed unfazed. She had a plan.
"Let her go ..." Lexi repeated, "and I'm all yours ..."
"Hmmm ... very well" Dr. Max chuckled, raising the metal gate again and all metal gates in the sequence. "Go ahead Leah but remember, I can track you any time I want ... you tell anybody what you saw here tonight, you get it and so does your whole family!"
Knowing her own dad worked there, Leah was attentive to that warning, even if Max wasn't keen to that fact yet. She simply nodded in compliance watching the gate to her freedom open. She walked very slowly though, resistant to leave her best friend hanging.
"You know Max ... for a genius ... you really are an idiot..." Lexi giggled, jumping into Leah's hand as she shrank rapidly.
"Go go go!!" Lexi squeaked as if flooring a getaway car. Leah ran as fast as she could, cutting through a side door and booking it down the stairs.
"OH for heavens sake ... stop them!!" Dr. Max shouted, dispatching as many of his black suit goons as he could throughout the building but it would soon be too late as the duo evaded detection, which to be fair was easy when one of them could fit in the others hand.
Max angrily slammed the console and looked over at Joseph who was simply flabbergasted, "Oh for crying out loud, like you haven't seen worse things working here... and where's your son? Where's Justin?"
"He took off and honestly I don't blame him..." the irrate Dr. Joseph Wright responded
"Ugh fine whatever..." Dr. Max sighed, before remembering one other thing, "wait ... you said you had a daughter too, right?"
"...uh we're not exactly on talking terms ... she um... turned to a life of crime" Dr. Wright lamented
"Oh how terrible, and wasn't she very young?" Dr. Max asked
"Yeah ... why?"
"Oh nothing ... I just know some of the kids these days they uh ... swing both ways?" Max queried
Joseph seemed none too pleased with the implication of that even as a suggestion.
Outside the Enormo Enterprises building, it was Joseph's son, Justin who would be chasing down the two girls.
Leah put Lexi down on the grass and let her re-enlarge, not expecting to see her now ex-boyfriend approaching.
"What the hell do you want?" Leah sneered
"Look, I didn't know ... I ..."
"You so knew!" Leah snapped
"I ... I was suppose to go for Lexi..." Justin sighed, "that crazy guy said he would fire my dad and have him arrested if I didn't go along with his stupid plan ... he wanted me to try and learn more about your friend Lexi but then we started talking and I really DID fall for you, Leah..."
"It seems I fell for you too, Justin" Leah grimaced, "but not in the way I wanted..."
"Leah look..." Justin stammered
"Please leave me alone ... you could've at least told me, you could've warned Lexi ... ANYTHING!! You did nothing!" Leah screamed, hanging her head. Lexi just stared on with anger at Justin.
"Leah please..." Justin implored one more time.
This time Lexi stepped forward to intervene.
"My best friend told you to leave her alone" Lexi said sternly, "I suggest you do it ... or I shrink you ... that's one of my powers now ... apparently, I'm honestly not sure?"
Lexi cradled Leah somberly as she led her off the premises of the awful facility. Now the next question became, how would they get home? Luckily, as always somebody came through and no it wasn't one of Josh's off the street friends. It was ... Dr. Hoffnung.
"Dr. H..." Lexi said, holding onto her still upset best friend, "I thought you..."
"I couldn't take off without knowing you were okay ..." Dr. Hoffnung nodded, "now let's get out of here..."
Back inside the lab, Max would simply throw himself back into his lab chair completely flummoxed at how this failed. As he went over the prototypes for his new and improved Maximites, he knew some tweaks would need to be made if he wanted to stand a chance against whatever the hell Lexi was supposed to be.
A bit frustrated, he'd retreat down the hallway to the former office of his colleague Dr. Hoffnung.
In retrospect he shouldn't have been surprised to find the office nearly empty. After all, he knew about the secret cell phone and how it was a line to Lexi. He knew Trevor had been plotting behind his back but he still wondered why. The only clue he'd get was the one thing still remaining in the office which was a flat piece of paper on the desk, containing a message.
"Max,
I started here at Enormo Enterprises 15 years ago determined to make a difference in the fields of
modern medicine, engineering, and defense technology. For a while, we did that and were making strides,
but then the work started to become classified. Long nights turned into unruly hours and untenable
conditions for wonderful colleagues and friends of mine who all moved on to better places in time.
I stuck around as long as I did because I was seeing great progress in our mission and dedication, but
you've changed Max ... and this whole operation is just something unethical that I can no longer be a
part of it. At some point, somebody has to stand up and do the right thing, so I will be tendering my
resignation, effective immediately.
Dr. Trevor Hoffnung"
------
The next night, a heartbroken Leah Henderson lay in her bed. She had answered a few messages from her friend Lexi but she didn't really expect company. She also didn't expect Lexi herself to come over because, well ... she had been battered pretty badly. It still boggled her mind how Lexi could keep such a secret from her. Then again, she wasn't sure she'd be able to keep it together any better given those impossible circumstances.
Lexi always was the stronger one, the depressed Leah would think to herself before hearing a knock on the door.
Leah stubbornly got herself out of bed and walked to the door, wearing only her purple Mini-U T-shirt and black sweat pants with the Mini U varsity font running veritcally down the leg. She cautiously opened the door, not sure what to expect at this point. Justin? One of those creepy robots? A telemarketer? No. It was a box of pizza ... from Minima's, the kind with the pleasant red and green trim and the familiar nostalgic smell of early 2000's pizza. But it was only the box?
"Only one person knows ..." Leah muttered, not realizing the ultra tiny Lexi had snuck in and now stood at full height behind her.
"Pizza delivery for Ms. Leah Smendersons..." Lexi smiled, wearing her ShrinkGirl costume now or at least a better version of it. She had a proper purple top with the cut off sleeve, a nice goldenrod skirt and a pair of sleek purple boots. Can't forget the wrist gauntlets naturally. She stood and twirled a bit for her friend who just hugged her. "Oof, maybe a bit more carefully, my ribs are still a bit sore"
"Oh ... sorry..." Leah sighed, her head leaning on Lexi's shoulder, "I just ... can't believe it"
"I know ... neither can I" Lexi nodded, smiling a bit, "I have someone I can tell now ... well ... 2 somebodies I suppose"
"2?" Leah asked, confused
"Josh more or less knows" Lexi shrugged
"Yeah but I found out first, right?" Leah asked, seeming pretty insistent on this.
"Well ... he DID watch me shrink someone..." Lexi blushed, giving a crazy kind of shrug
"Wait you actually SHRUNK someone else? Who?!" Leah asked, suddenly very intrigued
"Gloria Graff..."
"For real?! Oh my gosh that must've been crazy funny!! I would've loved to have seen that!" Leah laughed a bit
"Heh wasn't so funny at the time but ... yeah..." Lexi blushed, going back and grabbing the pizza. "Oh shoot, I forgot forks"
"Who needs forks?" Leah shrugged as they laid the pizza on the bed and began to share it.
They'd kind of eat in silence, half smiling, half crying, but enjoying one another's company nonetheless as the night wore on.
"So what's it like?" Leah asked, looking at Lexi in a sincere way, "...to be small?"
"It's ... a learning curve for sure..." Lexi nodded, "definitely takes some getting use to"
"I'd imagine ... I'd be freaking out..." Leah chuckled nervously, "No way I ever wanna be that small"
Lexi just gave her a "yeah right" sort of stare. She knew her best friend better than that.
"I'm sorry again..." Lexi sighed, head down, "about the whole Justin thing ... I know you cared for him"
Leah just nodded
"You were right though ..." Leah sighed, "I was moving way too fast"
"No, who could know?" Lexi scoffed, her mouth full of pizza as she mumbled, "I'm just glad it worked out ... I mean relatively well..."
"So ..." Leah paused after a moment with a goofy grin, "when are you gonna tell Chrissy you like her?"
"Chrissy already knows I like her ..." Lexi replied, not catching on
"That's not what I meant...." Leah teased
"Oh no! Oh no!!" Lexi giggled as Leah stood up from the bed,
"Maybe I'll go tell her right now" Leah joked, walking for the door
"Don't you dare, Leah, I will shrink you where you stand!"
"Ooh, ShrinkGirl's gonna shrink me, go for it bitch!" Leah giggled, as Lexi tried to tag her with her hand, thinking that would somehow work. It didn't, even as Leah evaded her attempts.
"Smallus Maximus!" Lexi joked, flailing her fingers in front of Leah as if casting a spell.
"Where'd you learn that, Harry Potter?" Leah smirked
"Just shut up and eat your pizza" Lexi giggled, realizing the only thing cheesier than that pizza was the moment she was having right now. And yet, she wouldn't trade it for anything. After all, it simply felt right.
Giantess World
