It was early Saturday afternoon at the local Miniborough Mall (nicknamed the Mini Mall). It's girders of dark purble and gold a seeming relic of the 1980s, but sometimes that kind of nostalgic comfort is what one needed. Lexi and Leah would get off on many "adventures" there as kids, sneaking off while their parents would be off looking at boring grown up people stuff.
Of course they'd end up spending a decent amount of time there themselves when they got older and now that Leah could drive, well ... she now had the honor of driving her best friend there at random times.
"ANY luck on the car search?" Leah would tease as she sat down with a small salad from a local eatery. Lexi by contrast had a plate of cookies and a smoothie from 'Henry's' -- the small ice cream stand in the mall run by a middle aged recluse named ... you guessed it, Henry.
"I'm looking ... it's just ... the money that's not adding up ... as in.. it doesn't add up to enough" Lexi would blush sheepishly, taking a sip of her smoothie, "MmmmmMMMM, that's good!! Keep it up, Henry!" she'd cheer boisterously towards the middle aged man in the striped ice cream cap who would just sigh and give her a begrudging nod. "I tell ya, Leah, this man is a genius with the dairy products, he just hasn't been discovered yet..."
"So if you're trying to save money, why do we keep coming here exactly?" Leah would retort, taking a careful bite of her salad
"Ummm duh, it's tradition and we don't KEEP coming here, we haven't been here since like August..." Lexi shrugged
"It's OCTOBER now ... not exactly a lifetime" Leah would shrug, taking a sip of her strawberry kiwi punch as she peered around the mall, noticing it definitely wasn't as crowded as it once was.
Part of that may have had to do with the mall's close proximity to Minitropolis, the bigger city which was a bustling hotspot for all manners of things, the most prominent of all lately being the crime unfortunately. It seemed a bad element may have been responsible for a lot of the smaller and larger businesses in the suburbs also seeing some of the effects.
"Well hey, I mean it's been a month or so and we've barely hung out" Lexi shrugged, a point that Leah couldn't deny, "I just want us to ... stay close, yknow?" she'd then look around, noticing Henry had already packed it in for the day, "Hmm, slow day I guess"
"Well what did you wanna talk about?" Leah would ask
"Well ... hey, how about boys?" Lexi would smirk, "I remember before we started you were all excited to meet some hot college boys" Lexi would laugh until she snorted
"W-Well I mean ... h-heh ... knock it off..." Leah would remark as Lexi would playfully try to throw cookies down her blouse, "I mean, there's a couple cuties here and there but ... ugh!" Leah would grunt, trying to retaliate but there was only so much she could do with lettuce as she tried to lob it towards her best friend, it would end up as a wrinkled and sad piece of foliage on the table.
After a little bit of a pause and laughter, Leah would restart the conversation, "well how about you? Anyone on the horizon? What about Chrissy?"
"Heh... I already told you it's not like that" Lexi smirked, although she had hung out with the friendly blonde a few times, when she wasn't geeking out with Josh or Leah.
"Yeah and I keep telling you it so is..." Leah raises an eyebrow, looking over for a moment, seemingly distracted and not in a good way as her eyes hooded down sadly.
"Leah?" Lexi asked, looking over to see the news on the TV monitor she was looking at.
"3 DEAD IN SHOOTING SPREE IN MINITROPOLIS ... LATE NIGHT MOTORCYCLE CHASE CROSSES INTO MIDDLE STREET"
"That's the road my dad lives on ..." Leah groans, "I just hate ... well... I know he can take care of himself but still.."
Lexi would nod, putting her hand on Leah's for a brief moment, "I get it hon... family's important and I don't like all this either ... the other day we were startled awake by some kind of police chase ..."
"I just wish the cops would get their you know what together, yknow?" Leah mentioned
To this Lexi would simply nod, seeing this visibly upset Leah. If only there was something that could be done about it. Her train of thought would be abruptly broken though by Leah bringing her back to reality, and an academic one at that. Ugh.
"Well hey, you ready for the science lab on Thursday?" Leah would ask, referring to the lone class the 2 girls shared in a chemistry class.
"Ugh not really... this with a benson burner? Not a wonderful idea" Lexi tsked
"You realize it's more than that, right?" Leah would add
"I do, why do you think I'm dreading it?" Lexi would joke, finishing off her smoothie as the pair began to take a stroll down the colorful tiled floors of the mall.
Yes, it was true that science was never Lexi's thing, hence why she was going to University for graphic design. However, at that very moment there would be a discussion ongoing at said University with a prospective new student for whom this wasn't the case.
"Well, your qualifications are certainly impressive, Mr. Wright..." Lexi's science professor, Dr. Harpin would say, sitting down with a young man of 20, slicked back black hair and brown eyes. A bit of acne but otherwise a handsome young fellow, although that seemed hardly relevant to his intelligence at this point. "Are you sure you'd be able to catch up on the work this late into the semester?"
"I'm very confident, sir" the young man would answer, an air of confidence, although not arrogance, in his tone. "I'm just looking forward to getting back to school, I've been homeschooled the past few years and I'm really hoping to get that well, college experience"
"Be careful what you wish for Mr. Wright..." Dr. Harpin joked, "it's not all rainbows and roses"
----
"Whoo!" Chrissy would giggle, following a cheer practice with her fellow ladies as they were chatting in the locker room. "Okay so maybe 'rainbow and roses' was a lame theme for our last cheer..."
"I don't know, Rachel seemed to like it" one of the girls would tease, laughing until she snorted
"Oh whatevs..."
As the girls would wrap up their talk and put their bags back in their lockers, one would stop. Chrissy looked around a bit and sniffed, "You smell that?"
"Don't look at me" Rachel scoffed, briefly sniffing her underarm. Chrissy rolled her eyes
"No... I mean ... don't you guys smell..." she'd ask, before lowering her voice a bit, "...weed?"
A hushed murmur befell the crowd. While it naturally wasn't uncommon to smell such a thing on a college campus, it was a bit weird to experience the odor pervading the ladies locker room. From behind the closed door of a shower stall, the smell seemed strongest. The ladies mostly rolled their eyes and just walked away, All except for Chrissy who was determined to investigate.
After all, everybody seemed present and accounted for ... everyone but ...
"Gloria!" Chrissy would gasp, tapping on the shower stall door to see a fully clothed, but toking up Gloria from behind the glass. Gloria would give her an annoyed look, while keeping her blunt tucked down by her waist.
"Ummm.. yes?" the annoyed black haired woman would ask, her eyes appearing a bit ultra focused despite being a little high.
"Gloria what are you doing??" Chrissy asked, with a hushed panicked whisper.
"What does it look like I'm doing...?" Gloria would quip, the blunt still snug between her index finger and thumb, "I'm de-stressing ... what? You never did it"
Chrissy would turn bright red, "W-Well yes I have ... but ... you could get in trouble having that here, you know how our coach is ... plus the new policy on campus?"
"Psh, don't worry about it ... I'll be done in a moment... alright? Geez, when did you become such a goody two shoes?" Gloria scoffed, continuing to smoke up, the aroma becoming more and more obvious. Chrissy would just put her head down and walk away, trying to act as if she saw nothing.
----
Lexi would arrive home later that evening to a shocking sight. Her mom's deep red buick was in the driveway but with a large dent in the right side. Upon seeing that, the worried girl would rush up the stairs to the entrance and come in to see her mom sitting in a seat at the dining room table, looking clearly distraught while her dad consoled her, an arm around her.
"Mom? What happened?" Lexi winced, looking horrified and worried
"It's okay Lexi ..." her mom would sigh, a cold compress pressed to her head, "I was just ... driving through Minitropolis and ..."
"And some jerkoff on a motorcycle cut her off!" her dad would snap, drawing the ire of his wife, "Sorry hon, the whole thing just has me infuriated ... the cops know who this person is, they've been chasing her for weeks and yet she's still out there terrorizing innocent people!"
"So what happened?" Lexi asked again, "somebody hit you?"
"This girl on a motorcycle..." Lexi's mom sighed, "it all happened so fast, she looked like some kind of 80s action movie villain ... leather pants, guns strapped to her waist, the whole 9 yards ... she came out of nowhere and smacked into me and I hit the brakes really fast, as did the car in front of me ... and it was just a whole mess..."
"4 car accident, 1 person critically hurt ..." Lexi's dad would sigh, shaking his head in dismay, "Your mom has a bit of a headache and some minor whiplash but she made it out the best ... I told you to stay out of the city, hon"
"We can't just live in fear of these people..." Lexi's mom sighed.
To this, Lexi would have to agree, but she was still very afraid. Between the incident near Leah's dads and now this accident involving some motorcyle gangster chick, something had to be done. Lexi wasn't sure what but she could no longer idly sit by. She hastily headed upstairs to her room as soon as the direness of the situation died down.
She'd open her dresser drawer and slide out a note, then let out a pensive sigh.
It was time to make a phone call.
Giantess World
