An extremely curious and eager Joshua James would watch in awe as Trevor Hilfmann very carefully installed a very small but powerful motor in the center of his drone as well as tuned up the propellers. For somebody who had seemed skeptical at first, Trevor struck up an odd friendship, maybe even apprenticeship with the young lad who took the same level of interest in technology and science as he had. Still, Trevor was worried of a couple things but he wouldn't let that taint what was otherwise a wholesome moment.
"So, first thing..." Josh nodded as he watched the diligent former doctor work, "you have CLEARLY done this before ... I mean, you disassembled the main frame without even going through the exhaust..."
"I've worked on a drone or two..." the humble Mr. Hilfmann confessed, still tilting his head to read the graffiti on the side of the drones wing better. "How about you? What made you get into drone flying, if you don't mind my asking"
"Oh. Well ... huh, I don't know actually..." Josh answered, in a sort of earnest and socially awkward way, despite his sincerity. Although he was trying to hide the true nature of his drone, the truth is he often enjoyed diving into different kinds of tech and sciences without really having a reason.
"Might it have something to do with this ... SG logo on the side?" Trevor asked, suddenly seeming a bit more serious.
"SG?" Josh asked, getting a bit hot under the collar as he felt like he was close to being found out. "That uh ... must be the brand name"
"I don't think so" Trevor shook his head, "...please tell me you're not a fan of that 'ShrinkGirl' character on TV..."
"Oh her?" Josh scoffed, doing his best to lie. He was a notorious awful liar despite his brief experience in espionage and the like. "I mean, she's alright I guess ... never really uh ... thought about it ... actually now that you mention it, I'm not even sure who that is... you said ... SkunkGirl?"
"ShrinkGirl..." Trevor said sternly, "I assume you've seen the news?"
"Oh I ... I watch once in a while..." Josh stammered, "nothing really too interesting, y'know?"
Trevor shook his head. Having worked for a serial liar a number of years himself, he was very good at spotting ulterior motives. Granted, he didn't know the whole story but he suspected this Josh character knew more than he let on. Still, he had to admit, for such a young man with limited experience, he was doing fairly well as an inventor and technician. Perhaps there was hope for a future generation of scientists after all.
"Anyway ..." Trevor sighed, trying to break the high tensity silence, "These modifications should help your drone fly a bit more efficiently and the new propellers I installed should help with the turn radius ... you're lucky I had some compatible parts on hand"
"Heh ... yeah ... thanks again" Josh nodded, "So ... what do I owe you?"
Trevor paused for a moment and shook his head.
"Are you sure?" Josh asked
"Just ... do me a favor and be honest with me..." Trevor said, as he handed the drone back to Josh, "...if you knew who she was ... would you tell me?"
Without needing to explain further, Josh knew exactly what Mr. Hilfmann meant by that statement. He wasn't quite sure how to answer so he simply stood in stunned silence. Did Trevor know? Dare he reveal more? He decided to just nod.
"Oh um... w-well yeah..." Josh replied, feeling worse for lying after all the doctor had done to help him, "I'd ... uh ... I'd say if I knew ... but I don't ... I uh ..."
As if saved by the bell, a loud roaring rang out from outside. It was enough of a ruckus to startle the few customers gathered in the storefront as well as Trevor and Josh. The sound was emitted from a very poorly maintained motorcycle as it rocketed down the city streets and to add to the audio chaos was the loud rachet of police sirens as they pulsated closely behind.
"Geez... some crazy people out there, huh?" Josh sighed, drawing a reluctant nod from Trevor. As he addressed the young man, he had his hand tucked into his jacket pocket, with his cell phone at the ready. He had a feeling he may need to place a call to a certain female youngster he knew.
---
A little closer to the action, the Leah-Mobile ... otherwise known as a Toyota Corolla careened down the road at a blistering pace of ... 37 miles an hour?
"Leah lovely...?" Lexi sighed, leaning her head on the dashboard a bit, "I hate to be a bother but do you think you could go like ... the speed limit?"
"I'm trying, Lex..." Leah replied, her hands tensing up around the steering wheel as they were caught in a slew of slow moving traffic, "Guy in front of us is a student driver ... is that a Garfield doll suctioned cupped to the back window? That's so cute ... y'know you always see those in movies but you never see them around anymore..."
"Leah..." Lexi grumbled
"Okay okay Ms. Grumpy..." Leah sighed, "I'll get you to your damn caper on time, don't worry..."
Lexi had to smirk a little, as Leah would try to take a short cut by heading down a side street away from the traffic.
Lexi's plan from there though was a bit murky to say the least. It's not like she could just jump out of the car and catch up to Roxie who was likely a few city blocks away at this point, and Leah's Toyota wasn't exactly equipped to just cut through a high speed police chase. This was probably the kind of stuff her parents warned her vehemently to stay out of.
"Y'know what Leah?" Lexi sighed, a bit exhausted as the traffic became congested again, cars pulling to the side all at once to let a caravan of police cars through. "...maybe you were right ... maybe you were all right ... I shouldn't be pursuing this, I should just let the police handle it..."
Leah was about to reach over and give Lexi a short hug before she noticed something herself, seeing the purple blaze flash by as Roxie's motorcycle was cutting through a side alley and going off road in an effort to dodge the police cars.
"I ... think I know where she's going ..." Leah said, raising an eyebrow
"Roxie?" Lexi asked. Leah simply nodded, suddenly performing a quick reverse and a K-turn which set off some horns from the cars around her while she pulled off an illegal U-turn in slow moving traffic.
"Sorry!" Leah said with a hint of guilt as she changed course and hit the gas with a bit more fervor.
"Leah ..." Lexi said with a hint of astoundment and wonder in her voice, "I had no idea you ... oh hold on, I got a call... it's from ... Josh?"
"Awwww, your boyfriend wants to check up on ya" Leah teased
Lexi scoffed at the comment and simply picked it up as the high speed chase continued around her.
"Josh?"
"Lexi ... I think I see your car... well, Leah's car..." Josh said in a sort of business like but hurried tone, wasting no time in testing out his new and improved SG-Drone, although Lexi didn't know that so his comment came completely out of left field, "is she still okay with you calling it the Leah mobile?"
"Josh, I don't think she was EVER okay with that..." Lexi replied, rolling her eyes as she looked around curiously, "And what do you mean you see the car?"
"I'm testing out the new drone ... just fixed it up, thing can go crazy fast now!" Josh said, as excited as a kid on Christmas receiving a Nintendo64 for the first time
"Josh I appreciate the enthusiasm but now's really not a ..."
"No, I mean I see everything, like I have a wide view of the city ... you're chasing down Roxie, right?" Josh asked, a slight whooshing sound from above soon confirming the presence of Josh's drone, painted in sleek purple with swatches of silver where the new components were installed. It made its way down into traffic, weaving a precarious path between cars before pulling up along Leah's Toyota.
"Huh, impressive" Lexi said simply, trying not to distract Leah too much as she was the driver and took a sharp turn to keep up with Roxie. "But maybe this isn't the best time to give it a test run..."
"I don't know..." Josh said, again sounding eager as he paced the city streets nearby Aztek Parts and More, watching the ensuing action through a video feed on his phone that was beamed from the drone. "Looks like you could use a quick way to catch up to her and well ... I know you have some experience piloting drones in your shrunk form..."
"Do you have any idea how dangerous that sounds?" Lexi asked, before letting out an abrupt eep, as Leah's car came to a quick stop behind a minivan that just slammed on the brakes, being re-routed due to police blocking off the road.
"Son of a bitch..." Leah cussed, something you'd never hear Robin or even Nightwing doing.
Lexi gave Leah a bit of a sheepish grin, "You did the best you could hon..."
As Leah looked over to see Lexi's consolation grin, she also noticed the drone hovering just behind her as the passenger side window was now opened. She also watched in concern as Lexi fished through her bag for the SG medallion and began hastily clipping it onto her belt to make the "hero buckle". That and the addition of her gold wrist gauntlets told her everything she needed to know.
"Lexi, please don't tell me you're planning what I think you are ..." Leah groaned. Lexi simnply shrugged but then gave her a goofy nod.
"Please be safe" is all Leah could say before watching Lexi unbuckle her seatbelt, dive sideways out of the window and shrink instantaneously to her usually tiny height, small enough to hitch a ride with the drone as a bug sized passenger, although it wasn't exactly a smooth landing.
As the drone carefully raised its altitude, Leah could only offer a wave and try her best to clumsily get out of traffic, hoping Lexi would be okay. Lexi would find herself slipping a bit as she tried to maintain traction on something that was a bit slick aside from a few rugged pieces of metal she could kind of hold onto.
"You didn't think to put a seat on this thing?!" Lexi squeaked, her voice even harder to hear through her cell phone as the wind blasted through it. Still, Josh heard enough to produce a slight chuckle on his end.
"It's a prototype, but eventually, yeah" Josh nodded, now trying to get into a serious mindset and pilot the drone as carefully as he could towards the speedy Roxie on her motorcycle.
It was around that point as Lexi was using almost all her strength to stay aboard the rocky drone's rudder that she noticed another call coming in via her cell phone from Trevor. She'd sigh and hit "ignore" on the call for now, needing to focus. To that end, she would also end the call with Josh abruptly by putting the phone into her pocket in order to have both hands free. Josh would see her do this on the drones built in camera, although her current angle was such that Josh got an awkward view of the back of Lexi's thigh and some of her ass.
"Hmm..." Josh would simply remark, trying not to get distracted as a sudden drift to the right would shake Lexi enough so that she wasn't blocking the camera but was also semi-firmly planted on the surface of the drone as it closed the distance significantly on Roxie.
So significantly in fact, that the tiny Lexi could make out Roxie's booming taunt as it rang out ahead of her, a single gun pointing in the general vicinity of the ShrinkCopter (patent pending)
"Don't you know this is a no-fly zone?" Roxie sneered, taking a shot at the drone.
Josh was thankfully very skilled at flying drones, especially ones with super enhanced jet-like engines, and he was able to barrel roll away from the blast although in doing so, he inadvertently threw his tiny passenger from the drone's surface and sent her tumbling down towards concrete -- or at least that's what would've happened if Lexi didn't think fast and lunge forward, growing back and grabbing hold of Roxie's shoulder, causing her to swerve a bit.
"Oh!! And she sticks the landing!" Josh exclaimed, although nobody knew what he was talking about at the time, since he was the only one who could see the video feed of Lexi latching onto Roxie.
"Careful, Shrinks!" Roxie groaned, throwing a punch while her motorcycle continued to give way due to her diverted attention. "That's my bad shoulder ... not that YOU care..."
"I hear they have pretty good doctors in jail!" Lexi quipped, dodging another of Roxie's reckless punches with a quick shrink and regrowth maneuever.
"Buzz off!" Roxie sneered, seeming genuinely angry this time, "don't you have a girl scout meeting to crash or something?"
"Awww, and I went to all this trouble just to see you..." Lexi teased, "I see how it is"
Roxie glared at her snarky foe with disdain as the cops were also not too far behind. From above, Josh's drone caught sight of what was happening and he was also the first to see a strange red rip in time and space forming in front of Roxie's motorcycle as Roxie was slowly losing control of the bike due to her battle with Lexi.
"Uh... Lexi?" Josh whimpered, although he quickly realized the fighting superheroine couldn't hear him since she was no longer on the phone.
"What the fuck?" Roxie exclaimed, suddenly more focused on the blood red vortex that awaited the duo than fighting off the over eager ShrinkGirl. Within seconds, the motorcycle, Lexi and Roxie were absorbed into the circular all consuming portal before it vanished without a trace. The police all came to an abrupt halt, obviously confused.
Josh flew his drone out of the conflict before it could be spotted, just hoping his friend was okay, whereever she was.
In another remote location resembling a complicated laboratory, Roxie's purple bike came sliding through, sparks screeching on the tiled floor of the lab as Roxie would gracefully backflip off the bike as best she could, watching it careen into a lab bench.
"Someone's paying for that ..." Roxie groaned, taking note of the damage her bike had taken. She turned around to see Lexi was nowhere to be found, "At least I lost the ShrinkBitch..."
No such luck.
Lexi had shrunk as a means of gaining a tactical advantage and she did just that when she grew back and delivered a swift uppercut to Roxie's chin, sending her down to the floor across from her fallen motorcycle.
"That's for endangering Chrissy!" Lexi sneered, suddenly feeling very violent as she charged at the fallen Roxie. "This is for blowing up my job!"
With that Lexi would try to throw another punch. Roxie threw her arms up in futility to block it and just sputtered a bit, more concerned with their current surroundings than the suddenly overly aggressive ShrinkGirl barrage of punches.
"Hey hey hey!" Roxie grunted, throwing Lexi off of her, "You wanna calm your tits for 2 seconds?! You didn't just notice we flew through some kind of vortex thingy?! Where even ARE we?"
"I figured you knew..." Lexi shrugged, still feeling pent up anger as she stared at the blonde haired woman who had taken so much from her already. "Wasn't this your doing?"
"I'm good but I ain't that good..." Roxie shrugged, "although Dr. G did want me to get him the last of the components for his portal thingy ... but seems like ha already found what he needed on his own"
"I'm sorry ... who what?" Lexi asked in curiosity
"Oh right, you don't know..." Roxie shrugged, matter of factly as she paced around ShrinkGirl, still keeping an eye on their surroundings in case anything else suspicious turned up, "lemme tell you from the beginning, it goes like this ... none ya!"
"Oh very mature" Lexi sighed, rolling her eyes, "so you're telling me we were both teleported here and we don't know by who?"
"I think I know..." Roxie shrugged, "although this isn't the doctor's usual MO ... then again, I suspect he's been missing for a while anyhow ... would be nice to find him..."
"Huh, actually a bit surprised..." Lexi smirked, "you actually caring about someone's well being..."
"It ain't like that, Shrinks..." Roxie shrugged, cocking her .45 as she kept it close to her waist, "He owes me a shit ton of money..."
"Now THAT sounds more like you..." Lexi sighed
"Yeah, what of it?" Roxie shrugged, casually pointing the gun at Lexi but strangely even the usually skittish Alexis Cole didn't feel the need to dodge or even move. At this point, Roxie seemed to draw a gun on someone as if it were a bodily function. It was threatening for sure, but given all their battles to this point, Roxie seemed to be more bark than bite in certain situations. "I gotta say ... when you were like ... wailing on me just now? Kinda turned me on, not gonna lie"
"Uhhh gross?" Lexi scoffed, while also wondering why that would be the case.
All of a sudden, the room grew brighter, as several channels of flourescent lights flickered on. The two girls then heard footsteps approaching.
"I swear, if that's some kind of monster, I'm feeding you to him first" Roxie sneered
"Thanks Rox" Lexi quipped, "means a lot"
"Don't mention it" the non-chalant Roxie said, as the footsteps continued to grow in volume, finally revealing the identity of the man in question, Dr. Giovanni.... or so it appeared.
Lexi tilted her head, and observed the man who was dressed as one would expect, in a white lab coat, black undershirt and matching white pants. She didn't exactly have the best history with generic mad scientist types so she was understandably skeptical and on her toes.
"Lemme guess ... Dr. G?" Lexi sighed
"Dr. Giovanni Guillardo..." the man said in a low tone
Lexi looked at Roxie confused
Roxie shrugged and said "Now you see why I just call him Dr. G?"
"Quite frankly, Roxanne..." Dr. Giovanni said, stepping closer to the two girls, "I'm disappointed ... I thought you were better than this..."
Roxie raised an eyebrow. Nobody called her Roxanne ... not even her dad.
"Eh, I have a history of disappointing people, don't know what to tell you..." Roxie shrugged, suddenly enamored with the barrel of her own gun as she toyed with it a bit, disinterested in the moment all of a sudden.
"Unfortunately, while I appreciate your services, you are no longer needed" Dr. Giovanni said, "I have acquired the parts I need to perfect the portal inducer and ..."
"Yeah yeah yeah .... your fancy machine works ..." Roxie shrugged, "I noticed when you poofed us both here ... but why'd you bring HER?"
"I'm sorry I can't control who gets teleported when I form a random portal..." the disgruntled Dr. Giovanni sighed. Again, Roxie seemed perplexed. This wasn't usual behavior for the eccentric scientist. "Point is, I have what I need ... you are free to go..."
"Free to go?" Roxie asked, now focusing on pointing her gun at Giovanni rather than just look at it, "Okay cut the shit"
"Excuse me?" Giovanni asked
"You ain't the Doc..." Roxie said, "Either that or he's a schizo, I don't know ... but I've noticed the way you've been talking to me lately and especially now? You ain't Giovanni ... I don't know what happened to the real Doctor, but chances are he was killed or eaten or something when his lab exploded..."
"...Lab exploded..." Lexi thought to herself, hearing Roxie's words, and remembering the destroyed looking lab building she had seen many times before.
"So yeah, I've been onto you the whole time" Roxie said, confronting the possible impostor, "But I kept going along because well ... I like money and I figured maybe if I got you what you wanted there was something in it for me ... like more money or some kind of portal gun... like in that video game..."
"You mean ... Portal?" Lexi asked, all snarky like.
"Butt out, Shrinks" Roxie sighed
"Enough!" Dr. Giovanni proclaimed, his eyes suddenly glowing an eerie shade of red, although to be fair, whenever anybody's eyes glow, its usually not a good sign.
"You uh ... wearing some kind of special contacts or something?" Roxie asked, a bit flabbergasted herself, "you don't look so hot"
"This is no time for jokes!" Giovanni sighed, going over to a control panel and flipping a switch, "The test run on the portal inducer worked and that's all I needed ... you are both free to go but for now, time is of the essence..."
"Yeah, I don't understand a word of what you said" Roxie shrugged, cocking her gun for dramatic effect and pointing it right at the doctor's head, "but here's something I do understand"
"ROXIE, NO!!" Lexi yelped, this time taking Roxie's threat seriously and for good reason as she watched futitely, beholding the horrific sight of the villainess pulling the trigger and exploding the doctors head in a burst of blood. "...I think I'm going to be sick..."
"Oh grow up..." Roxie shrugged, "haven't you ever seen the Rambo movies?"
As Roxie cocked her gun again, proud of her latest kill, Lexi was focused on something a bit more forboding... some kind of fiery looking bird creature was rising out from behind a lab bench, and it wasn't alone.
"Get down!" Lexi yelped, pushing Roxie out of the way and crashing onto her right arm to avoid a divedomb move from the mystical looking phoenix like creature.
"Ack! For fucks sake!" Roxie snapped, "you love hitting me in my bad arm!"
Lexi then looked over to see that Dr. Giovanni ... his beheaded corpse anyway ... was no longer there. But how?
"Uh..." Roxie stammered, also noticing the Doctor's remains were gone. "Did you like ... shrink him or something?"
"Yeah Roxie, I shrank a headless corpse..." Lexi rolled her eyes
"Makes about as much sense as anything ..." Roxie shrugged, taking a shot at the fiery bird as if playing a game of duck hunt. The shot was a direct hit but generally ineffective.
Lexi raised her wrist gauntlets in an attempt to defend herself when another of the fiery bird creatures made a move at her. She gulped, hoping the defense would be successful but in the blink of an eye, the bird creature was disintegrated ... stabbed clean through by some kind of red glowing blade.
It was then, Lexi laid eyes on Vektor ... the imposing, 6'4 armor clad warrior in black and red with a jagged upside down V on his chest. He shook his head and turned his attention to the slider on the control panel again.
"I tried to warn you, Roxanne..." Vektor said, operating the portal machine with haste as more crystallic creatures began to take form, this time a more humanoid looking creation hobbling their way. It was slow but much like the interdimensional bird, immune to Roxie's bullets. "Don't mess with things you don't understand ... I'm going to return to my home world and hopefully take these horrific things with me ... so don't get in my way"
"H-Hold on..." Roxie stammered, "You were the one impersonating the doctor?"
"I thought that was fairly obvious by now..." Lexi shrugged, part joking but also fearful of the approaching crystal creature, although it seemed like it would take a good 5 minutes for the lumbering hulk to even reach them at the slow pace it was walking.
"I do not wish to be part of your couples quarrels..." Vektor sighed, typing in some coordinates and firing up the portal inducer, a machine made of thick steel that formed an arch and would slowly generate a bright blue light which became another portal.
"Couple?" Roxie gasped, "We're not a ..."
"Yeah no...." Lexi chuckled, "We are not..."
"...never gonna happen" Roxie chuckled
"Get down!" Vektor warned, firing an energy blast to vaporize the oncoming crystal hulk. Lexi gasped, wondering who or what exactly she was dealing with.
"L-Look..." Lexi stammered, "whoever you are ... maybe we can help you..."
"Yeah sure, Lex... let's help the weird interdimensional monster to kill us..." Roxie said as she rolled her eyes
"He just saved both our lives" Lexi scoffed, "And he's powerful enough to kill us both if he wanted to, yet he hasn't... so ... I don't know..."
"I appreciate the offer, fair maiden..." Vektor said, while Lexi herself wondered who still used terminlogy akin to "fair maiden" "but this is my fight..."
As Lexi watched on in confusion, she noticed that another couple of fiery beasts were headed Vektor's way and he was too busy putting the finishing button presses on his control panel to notice. Lexi leapt forward, shrinking to a smaller size to try to fight off the bird long enough to give Vektor the time he needed. Vektor, upon witnessing this, gasped, quickly generating a red blade from his own wrist gauntlet and slashing through the bird, catching the tiny Lexi in his hand.
"Y-You ... how did you do that?" Vektor asked, intrigued by what he was seeing as the portal was finally fully functioning, crackling and popping as it represented a gateway back to Vektor's homeworld of Quartzaria.
Seemingly too enamored with the tiny woman in his hand, he was also missing the fact that another crystal hulk was approaching. Roxie grabbed the creature and despite her weakened state, shoved it back towards Vektor -- in the process knocking him and the tiny Lexi into the portal.
Lexi would scream but the scream would be cut off into silence as the electricity sparked and crackled even brighter, the crystal hulk creature swinging recklessly as it charged towards Roxie, and struck the control panel, turning off the portal. Roxie raised an eyebrow, heading back towards her motorcycle and standing it back up as the creature slowly made its way towards her.
"Well ..." Roxie shrugged, getting on the bike and hoping like hell it would start. To her pleasant surprise, it did and she was able to speed out of the makeshift lab, glancing back only briefly at the closed portal. "It was nice knowing you, Shrinks..."
Giantess World
