The gang arrived, no worse for wear, in the expansively dense mystical forest having completed their treacherous trek through the antagonizing city streets. Though serene, Lexi knew they couldn't relax just yet as she stepped out of her new sleek purple car that had bailed her out of some tough spots already with its ability to not only go super fast but also shrink super fast, much like herself.
As Lexi caught her breath, she couldn't help but look back at Ruby as Emerald came around from the back seat of the car.
"Is she ... going to be okay?" Lexi asked Emerald, referring to the clearly fatigued Ruby who was breathing heavily while remaining in Lexi's car.
Not too far from there, Vektor had just sped onto the grassy field coming careening down a dirt path that ran adjacent to the outskirts of the forest. Emerald looked none too pleased as she aggressively approached the hulking knight-like figure himself.
"Vektor what the hell?" Emerald snapped, causing the leader of the pack to raise an eyebrow at his irrate cohort in the green and gold armor. "You almost got us both killed out there ... where WERE you?"
"My apologies, Emerald, I was trying to lead the way to ..."
"Don't give me that apologies crap!" Emerald snapped, "you were trying to save yourself, like always..."
Lexi frowned at this infighting but also looked over at Ruby who slowly stirred and began to get herself out of the car. Her first step out was a rough one, as she fell on a knee, her armor stained by the messy grass and mud that awaited her upon getting out. She quickly recovered but something was defintely off.
The dazed and confused Ruby watched onwardly as Emerald and Vektor quibbled over the recent events. Normally Ruby, being the more fiery one of the group would have something to say here but she acted uncharacteristically quiet as she simply allowed Lexi to help her get standing upright and once she was stable she waved Lexi off with a friendly nod.
"All I know is ..." Emerald continued her tirade against Lord Vektor, "is that we needed your help ... we almost lost Ruby back there to Pandora ... don't you care?!"
"Of course I care!" Vektor snapped back, jumping off his large black and gold motorchariot and stepping up closer to Emerald in intimidation. Emerald would not be backed down, "But I also knew Lady Lexington had it ... I saw you and her working together heroically to save Ruby and look, she's fine! Ruby, how are you doing? Did they hurt you??"
"I'm fine Lord Vektor..." Ruby groaned, rubbing her head. Again, this seemed like out of place behavior for Ruby, even given what little Lexi knew about the woman to this point.
Lexi then looked back at her car, parked awkwardly at an angle in the middle of the woods
"So uh ... not to make this about me ..." Lexi chuckled nervously, "but while we're uh ... sneaking up to the mountains or the castle or whatever ... where do I leave my car? Can't exactly leave it here and can't really drive it through the thickets..."
"You don't know?" Vektor asked with a hint of confusion in his own voice
"Just shrink it" Emerald shrugged, again matter of factly. It was then Lexi began to realize that normal logic was not exactly followed in the realm of Quartzaria. Things such as shrinking cars, or growing warriors for that matter were fairly commonplace.
"Oh ... uh... right ..." Lexi nodded "and ... how do I do that... without getting in the car myself?"
"Check the controller..." Emerald advised, referring to the key fob itself. Lexi looked down and saw a button that said "SHRINK" just below the icon for a locked door.
"Now how did I miss that?" a disgruntled Lexi muttered to herself, hitting the button and watching in glee as the car shrunk to the size of a hot wheel. She'd grab the car, and wondering where to put it would notice that her armor, particular that which protected her upper arm opened a small slot to put the car in. "...you guys really thought of everything, huh?"
"Is everybody okay?" Vektor asked, also addressing a couple of his guards who had survived the harrowing trip as well
"Oh sure, now you care..." Emerald scoffed, still seeming pissed.
"Hey hey cmon..." Lexi frowned, "we need to stick together ... now how much further to this Paradox place?"
"I like your spirit, Lady Lexington" Vektor said enthusiastically, producing another eye roll from Emerald who went to check on Ruby again. "It shouldn't be too long, but we will have to take the journey on foot to avoid detection ... we should be to the castles outskirts within the hour ... just be careful .. this forest is ... well, probably not what you're used to in your home world"
"Oh I'm definitely learning there's a lot to this qorld I don't understand..." Lexi sighed uneasily, looking up at the twinkling purple skies
"You sure you're okay?" Emerald asked the hobbled Ruby who gave a beleaguered nod.
"Yeah, just a couple scratches..." Ruby shrugged
"I'm confused though ..." Emerald asked her scarlet colleague, "why didn't you activate one of your power stones?"
"I just ... I panicked, I guess..." Ruby sighed, shaking her head in dismay.
Lexi would fall back as the group continued their trek through the strange forest, full of twisted trees and vines that seemed to weave in and out of the grass like some kind of living vegetation.
"So uh ... you never did explain to me how you did that growing thing?" Lexi asked
"Oh, well..." Emerald shrugged, as if it was merely commonplace, she'd proceed to show Lexi her wrist which had a bright yellow, red and gold gem on it, "We're all equipped with sort of power stones that enable different abilities, if only temporary ... I've chosen to equip a speed stone, shrink stone and growth stone..."
"Oh, so you can shrink too?" Lexi blushed, suddenly feeling less special for the moment
"Technically but it's all dependent on the stones ... and it's only temporary as you saw before ... as it is, my growth stone is more or less spent, I may be able to activate it one more time before it burns out ..." Emerald explained
"That's still pretty impressive ... and you've got that uh ... anti-paradox gem thingy too, right?" Lexi stammered, eliciting a bit of a chuckle from Emerald
"Heh yeah ..., right here on the back of my neck..." Emerald nodded, pointing to it briefly, "you have one too, I believe"
"Yeah Vektor fit my suit up with one, which again, this armor thing is more than i'm used to ..." Lexi replied shyly
"Hey, you finally got his name right" Emerald said
"...you guys have really weird accents, you know that, right?" Lexi quipped
----
Elsewhere, an elder doctor, a young upstart scientist in his own right and a perplexed young lady named Leah Henderson were viewing something weird of their own. It was drone footage that showed the daring ShrinkGirl fighting off well known criminal Roxie Wright on her motorcycle while also facing a barrage of pursuing police cars. Strangely, that wasn't the weird part.
That part would occur a few minutes into the surprisingly clear footage as the trio observed for about the 10th time the vortex that opened and sucked the two ladies off the map, or so it appeared. Dr. Trevor Hoffnung would insist that Joshua James pause the video right around the point of the portal's inception.
"That ... that looks strangely familiar..." Dr. Trevor confessed
"You've seen that kind of thing before?" Leah asked
"Not in a long long time" Trevor sighed, "an old colleague of mine ... very old ... named Dr. Giovanni..."
"Oh the multi dimensional guy!" Josh nodded in agreement, a bit upset at himself for not considering the bizarre professor before.
"Am I trapped in a comic book or something? What the heck is going on?" a flabbergasted Leah chimed in
"You ... know of Dr. Giovanni's work?" Trevor asked Josh, seeming equally confused
"I do my research" Josh said proudly, "Dr. Giovanni Guillardo was known for his radical ideas about a multiverse of dimensions ... except he believed there seemingly endless parallel dimensions, all representing different versions of humankind as if each of our steps taken spawned a mirror dimension of the converse"
"In English?" Leah complained
"It's kind of like a web ... or a butterfly effect type of thing ..." Josh explained, "so, say you decided to go to the mall today ... somewhere there's another dimension where Leah decided NOT to go to the mall, and this one thing could alter an entire life ... not just yours, but those around you"
"That seems unnecessarily deep and overthought" Leah shrugged. If she hadn't gone to the mall she wouldn't have ... well, gotten her best friend sucked into a portal. Okay, so maybe it was somewhat valid.
"Well, the scientific community at large agreed with Ms. Leah..." Trevor sighed, lamenting the fate of his old colleague, "Dr. Giovanni was truly a cutting edge genius but many saw him as an outcast..."
Josh simply tsked and shook his head, "I totally get it..."
"Oh shush, you do not!" Leah snapped
"That's just what they say to try to keep you down..." Josh sighed, shaking his head in dismay. Leah rolled her eyes
"But ... Dr. Giovanni, could also be very persuasive..." Dr. Trevor said, "he was able to somehow convince the University in SoCal to provide funding for some kind of portal inducer to test his findings... I think they were also assuming the machine wouldn't work or at least not work as well as it did ..."
"Wh-What happened?" Leah asked
"He died" Josh said, ruining the ending of the story
"It's ... actually not 100% known what happened ..." Trevor corrected, "although yes ... it was an easy assumption to make that the young Dr. Giovanni died that day ... I just remember Max was devastated..."
"Mad Max?" Leah scoffed, "Since when does he care about ... well, anything?"
"Believe it or not, he was Giovanni's biggest fan ... besides maybe Giovanni himself ..." Trevor confided, "Dr. Giovanni Guillardo may have been the only person for whom Max believed his genius rivaled his own ..."
"Now THAT's a minor miracle..." Leah scoffed, "not the other dimensions thing ... the fact that Max may have actually had a friend"
At this, Trevor frowned.
"You know ... Dr. Mumford wasn't ALWAYS ... well ... the way he is ..." Trevor sighed, "I did work alongside him for almost half my life, don't forget..."
Leah lowered her head, suddenly ashamed, "R-Right ... sorry..."
"I understand..." Trevor sighed, "I know Max was heavily rooting for Giovanni's experiment to produce amazing results and the thing is, we'll never know if it did"
"What do you mean?" Leah asked
"Well, as is usually the case when something seemingly unexplainable happens, a number of theories tend to come out" Trevor explained, "heck, I'm sure our resident science whiz Josh over here can fill us in on that"
"You think I know about the various theories about Dr. Giovanni and his interdimensional travels?" Josh asked with a guilty expression on his face.
"That's a yes..." Leah giggled
"Well, he's not far off" Trevor said, "There were many theories that while the portal machine he attempted to build imploded during its activation, the doctor himself actually survived, but nobody knows where he went ... I always thought such a thing was crazy but seeing that portal in your footage, not to mention that weird lab that also imploded not too long ago ..."
"Weird lab?" Leah pondered, before remembering that building that Lexi was always obsessed with, "You mean?"
"Yeah..." Trevor nodded, "I found that weird right off the bat but ... you'll excuse me if I haven't been bombarded as it is with weird happenings..."
Leah and Josh nodded
"So... w-what's our next move?" Leah asked, sounding worried, "I got Lexi into this mess and ... I just want to make sure she's okay..."
"We can try to go back to the area where that portal formed, if you remember where it is..." Trevor suggested, "it's a bit of a long shot but we can possibly trace where the portal led to if enough energy is still present in the area ... maybe then we can see where Lexi may have shot off to..."
"We're going to find her..." Josh said reassuringly, patting Leah on the shoulder.
Leah simply sighed in regret.
-----
It was yet another tranquil and serene night on the lake just outside Fenster Forest. By this point, Spark's siblings had just grown used to her taking off every few days or so, likely to hang out with her human friend Chris. They didn't "love" it but it was better than her sticking around being bummed out about everything that had happened with Esmerelda earlier in the year though, even if it was becoming increasingly difficult to cover for her.
The duo currently enjoyed some time on the moonsoaked lake, Chris simply knelt over while Spark took a gander at herself in the rippling reflection produced by the ambient light. She tsked and looked up at her giant friend, a single hand on her hip as the reflection wavered to and fro with the motion of the gentle breeze.
"And you're sure I don't look a little ... well heavy in this hip area?" Spark asked, self conscious as if she were Tinkerbell observing herself through a funhouse mirror.
Chris let out a bit of a long sigh. It wasn't anger or even annoyance towards the little woman, but rather the fact that he once again saw a silhoutte across the lake and a little burst of fire. This had to have been the third or fourth time recently he saw such a thing.
"Chris, are you listening?" Spark pouted, acting uncharacteristically insecure.
"Huh? Yeah sorry ... no hon, you look fine" Chris muttered, and he was sincere about it despite his split attention span. Spark also observed across the way seeing the dim glow that had caught the human boy's attention a few times before.
"Y'know Chris... we could go check it out?" Spark shrugged, "I mean, the first time you shrugged it off as nothing ... the second time you said you had homework to do even though it's the middle of summer and you said before that human school was out of session..."
"Well, to be fair..." Chris chuckled, "We don't really refer it to as 'human school' ... we just call it school"
"You know what I mean" Spark chuckled, rolling her crimson eyes, "I could go for a bit of a flight, you wanna go check it out?"
"I mean ... it's probably nothing but ... s-sure..." Chris shrugged, standing up slow and waiting for Spark to meet him up at eye level as she hovered up. He always found that so cute ... the fact that the tiny lady could technically match him in height even if it was just her levitation allowing her to do so.
And yet as sure as both Chris and Spark were sure it was "nothing", the sneaky pair found themselves traipsing lightly through the woods, Spark hovering so that she was almost always concealed by fauna and Chris doing his best to tip toe despite his sneakers seeming to snap every twig and crunch every acorn along their way.
"Could you not stomp along, you big clod?" Spark squeaked in a whisper
"I'm sorry I can't be super graceful like you, Ms. Walks on air..." Chris sighed
"I don't walk on air, I fly, big difference and you don't hear my wings flapping in the breeze" Spark commented, as both were momentarily unaware that the source of both the figure and the glowing lantern were closing in on them fast.
"Actually... I do hear it..." Chris nodded, taking a moment to observe a subtle but noticeable change in volume, "it's like a light ... fwooshing sound..."
Spark simply pointed behind Chris as he knelt behind a bush. He turned and yelped, falling on his back before realizing that he remembered the woman who shot him a confused glance back.
"Mara?"
"You guys uh... following me?" Mara asked, perplexed as her new phoenix friend had made its home on her shoulder and was lightly flapping its flame covered wings, producing the fwoosh sound.
"What? No ... it was her idea!" Chris stammered, pointing to Spark, who simply crossed her arms while floating there
"Sure, blame the fairy ... why not?" Spark said, unamused.
Mara just rolled her eyes, offering to help Chris up while the phoenix remained perched calmly on her shoulder. Spark simply floating up towards the red creature, and not Mara in this case but rather the 2 foot high bird or so and peered at it curiously.
"Is that a ... phoenix?" Spark asked curiously, reaching her hand out to touch it
"Spark, don't touch that thing, it's literally made of fire" Chris sighed, standing up again and giving Mara a grateful nod, "come to think of it, how is it on your shoulder and not burning you?"
"Y'know I wondered that myself..." Mara grinned before offering a contented shrug, "but eh, she'd never hurt me"
"She??" Chris asked
"Well okay I guess I technically don't KNOW but I named her Penelope" Mara said proudly
"You named ... the phoenix" Chris said in a deadpan voice while Spark continued to hover around the mystical creature in sheer awe.
"Yeah, this thing ... this thing ain't from around here" Spark chuckled, noticing the creature sticking its neck out a bit, Spark shrugged and scratched it under the chin like a real bird.
"As usual I'm the only one left to find this whole thing unusual..." Chris sighed
----
"And none of you find this unusual?!" Lexi shrieked, dodging the sharp pointed ends of what appeared to be jagged bird feathers as the group was again under attack but this time from a swarm of crystaline birds, resembling the phoenixes but with an electrical field around them. They darted around the group with great speed and their weapon of choice, a seemingly endless barrage of razor tipped feathers made them a pain to get rid of as they constantly flanked the group, changing positions anytime Vektor, Lexi, Ruby or Emerald tried to make an advance.
"Eh, not the worst we've faced..." Emerald sighed, strafing left and right to dodge the shots. She'd have to throw up a quick holographic shield from her wrist to block a particularly fast attack. She'd simply shake her head, perhaps finding herself more outmatched than she let on.
"You think he knows we're coming?" Ruby asked, referring to Paradox
"It's hard to say" Vektor said, finally finding the nerve to draw his red laser sword and cast it through one of the creatures, leaving himself open to an attack from another who flurried behind him, peppering him with violent laser fire which seemed to only strike his impervious armor whilst not leaving much of an impact, "it's not like these forests aren't dangerous under normal circumstances..."
"I'm still not sure how you guys live here..." Lexi sighed, feeling a fine tug on her ankle. At first, it was a light tug but as she tried to walk away she felt almost her whole leg getting pulled back by the astonishingly strong root. Emerald took note and carefully sliced the root off to free Lexi who sighed and said "thank you"
"It's not always easy" Emerald admitted
Lexi nodded and while the others continued the fight, Lexi couldn't help but be lured away by a near silent voice. She even had to stop and double take, confused that the others weren't hearing it either. As she dodged some oncoming laser fire from one of the strange birds who seemed more sentient than they initally let on, she diverted her focus again to the sound of the voice and more importantly, it's source, a dimly glowing green firefly looking creature that twinkled past her eye, clear as day to her, but again, nobody else seemed to notice, perhaps too wrapped up in their battle.
"Help me, Miss..." the tiny voice rang in her head. Lexi looked at the others in confusion. Did anybody hear that?
Lexi suddenly felt very disoriented, partly because the idea of a tiny being (or whatever it was) being in pain deeply bothered her but she also felt out of place in the whole scenario. Being surrounded by what appeared to be this tranquil yet ravaged forest with its crystalline flowers and the vibrant but chaotic sky just was starting to become too much for the proverbial fish out of water.
In some way, she related more to the twinkling creature which fluttered a close distance from her, diving between some trees.
Ruby lightly nudged Lexi aside so that she could get a better shot at one of the bird enemies, thinking nothing of taking a shot dead center and vaporizing it into so much fairy dust.
"Sorry" Ruby said, somewhat stoically, apologizing for the bump to her ally. Lexi simply nodded and began to show herself away from the action, if only briefly. She wasn't sure what it was about the voice or the presence of the small Tinkerbell like sparkle but she needed to investigate it, plus it didn't seem to take her too far from the others so she'd still be there to lend back up.
"W-Wait...." Lexi stammered, persuing the twinkling green glow. Something in her mind was telling her to stop the pursuit and yet something in her heart told her she needed to continue.
Lexi shook her head, pressing on and finally deciding to shrink herself to appear less threatning to the small firefly like creature as it slowed its escape and instead focused on Lexi.
"Miss?" the creature said, it's voice eerie but strangely comforting as it floated nearer to the small Lexi as if to tell her some kind of secret.
In retrospect, the helpful but naive Lexi should have listened to her mind and not her heart.
Lexi's eyes widened as it all happened so fast.
The innocent twinkle, the woman's fluttery voice crying out for help. It was ... all a trap?
"So you're Vektor's new champion?" she smirked, taking the form of an equally sized human woman. Well, human may have been putting it a bit loosely.
The strange newcomer stood at a similar height to Lexi (although the shrinking superheroine soon suspected this wasn't her native size), her pink eyes piercing through Lexi's stunned face as she licked her lips slowly, those lips coated with a strange lustrous lipstick that would be unusual enough on its own if not for the mesmerizing patterns on her dress which were almost purposely hypnotic.
Lexi recognized this strange being as Pandora from the highway encounter but now that she was up close and personal she felt even more terrified, but it was too late to react properly.
Pandora slammed on the forest floor with her bright orange high heel shoe. It was the kind of step that naturally shouldn't have altered the environment much at all but this was no ordinary being in no ordinary world. Lexi quickly found the world around her folding up as if it were suddenly two dimensional ... it felt as if she were being trapped in some kind of pop up book or a cube ... or a ... box.
With a wicked cackle and a flash, Lexi was whisked away by the mistress of manipulation herself.
Not too far off in the battlefield now laiden with slain enemies, Vektor let out an exhausted exhale. He turned around and almost instantly felt a sense of panic and dread upon seeing only Ruby, Emerald and a couple of his hired guards.
"Where is she?" Vektor asked in an assertive tone addressing Emerald in particular
"Who?" Emerald asked
"Who? The warrior from another world! Where is Lexi? Where is ShrinkGirl?" Vektor asked, an unusual degree of concern overcoming his usual straightfroward facade of a face.
"Oh now you care about saving one of your own..." Emerald scoffed, "you had no problem leaving Ruby to die!"
Ruby was surprisingly quiet during this exchange, perhaps still a bit fatigued by her own harrowing experience of dealing with Pandora. Vektor remained irate, demanding the safe return of Lexi.
"We can argue about this later!" Vektor sneered, turning to address the other two, "WHERE IS SHE?! We need to protect her!"
"I thought you said she super strong or whatever..." Ruby finally chimed in, "now she needs to be protected like some kind of flower? Which is it?"
Vektor stammered, his logic seemingly broken for a moment. Breaking the momentary silence came a familiar female voice.
The purple and gold clad superheroine came stepping out from behind a bush.
"Sorry, everyone" Lexi nodded, a sheepish grin on her face, "I got ... sidetracked ... some more of those bird things attacked me ... sorry if I worried anyone"
"Lexington!" Vektor proclaimed, as if celebrating a great victory. He threw his arms around her in celebration as Lexi remained unusually stiff in the embrace. Vektor was too elated to notice the odd behavior though. He'd release the hug after a slightly awkwardly long time, provoking rolled eyes from both Emerald and Ruby.
It is unfortunate that Vektor seemed a bit too lovesick to be his usual observant self or he may have noticed Lexi's eyes looking a bit off ... almost as if ... she weren't quite herself at that moment...
Giantess World
