It was almost pitch black in my bedroom, with only the light of the monitor impinging on my bloodshot eyes. Hundreds of thousands of pixels blasted their photons onto my face while my headphones blared with the electronic beeps and growls of Pokémon Diamond. For hours I had blazed through the game on my emulator, defeating countless trainers and wild pokemon with the might of the all-legendary team I had hacked into my save file.
With the clicks and clacks of my mouse and keyboard I commanded my Arceus to attack; the pokémon god demolished Lucian's Girafarig to hand me victory on a silver platter. I grinned, and chuckled smugly at the NPC's pathetic showing even as he praised my unearned victory. With him, the last of the Elite Four had fallen. Now there was only one opponent standing in the way of my victory.
I walked into the champion's room, and there she stood: Cynthia, looking elegant as always in her long black coat. I still wore the same grin on my face when I spoke to her, knowing that my victory was assured, and that she would be crushed as easily as if I were dealing with a Route 201 Bidoof. I was so busy savoring her complete and utter humiliation at my hands that at first I didn't notice certain oddities in her dialogue. And why should I? I'd never gotten this far in the game before, so it's not like I knew what her regular dialogue was supposed to be. Only when I saw her calling me a pirate and a cheater did I start reading her dialogue more closely.
Of course I realized right away what this was—a toothless anti-piracy measure put in place by the developers—and scoffed. Did they really think shaming me like this was going to make me regret pirating and hacking their game? Pfft! As if! If anything, it made my certain victory all the sweeter that the game knew about my cheating but was powerless to stop me. I would beat its champion and laugh in the developers' face.
I mashed through the rest of her dialogue, rolling my eyes as Cynthia berated me and promised I would pay for my crimes, until finally the battle started up.
Only, something was still off. I sent out my Arceus, but Cynthia didn't send out any pokémon of her own. Her sprite was still on the screen when the battle menu appeared, and the life bar that would have displayed the name and level of her first pokémon instead showed her own: “Cynthia Lv ?”
Now I was really starting to worry. Was the game going to deny me my victory after all? I quickly created a save state before selecting my first move, just to see what would happen. Arceus attacked her, but though it hit, she was immune to it. Then it was her turn. “Cynthia used stomp!” the game said. From the top of the screen, a huge sprite of a black high-heeled shoe came down and fell on my Arceus, flattening its sprite and even doing a little grinding animation. “Critical hit! It's super effective!”
I watched helplessly as Arceus's HP dropped to 0 and the pokémon selection screen came up. I already had a sense of what would come next, but I sent out my Dialga all the same, not wanting to give up when there was still a chance of victory. I gave a command, but the same thing as before happened. She annihilated my Dialga, and then my Palkia too, all the while she taunted me with how easily my pokémon had been crushed, threatening me with the same fate and telling me it's what I deserved for being a thief and a cheater.
By then I already knew what was coming and refused to take part in it. Instead of choosing a new pokémon I tried to load an older save state, from before I started fighting the Elite Four. But my save didn't load. The game remained just as it was.
Thinking my keyboard might be broken, I tried navigating the menu bar with my mouse to load the save manually. But when I clicked the Load button, the menu bar disappeared and the window went full-screen. I tried to exit out of it, to Alt-F4, to Ctr-Alt-Del, but nothing happened.
I had started thinking back to my old keyboard, trying to remember if I still had it or had thrown it away, when I noticed that more text had appeared on the screen.
“What's this? Don't you want to keep playing? I thought you were looking forward to crushing me with your team? Go on, pick a pokémon. Or, should I pick it for you? They're all so strong, I'm sure any one of them would make short work of mine.” I watched as the game itself selected Giratina from my team and sent it out to the field. This time I wasn't even given the chance to select a move before Cynthia used stomp and one-shot the mighty beast. Cresselia met the same end, as did Darkrai, leaving me with no more pokémon.
With my team wiped out, the fight should have ended and the game blacked out. Instead, it stayed on the same screen, mocking me with Cynthia's sprite still standing on the field.
I tried again to close the game, wanting only to go to bed now, but still nothing happened to it. Angered, I reached down to the PC under the desk and firmly pressed the power button, holding it down until the whirring of the fan came to a sudden end.
Even then I knew something was wrong. With the PC turned off, my room should have been pitch black, yet I could plainly see that it was no darker than before. That's when I looked up and saw, to my shock, that the monitor was still on and the game was still running.
There were new words on the screen now. “Thought you could get away that easily? Sorry, but our fight's not over yet. Your pokémon are down, but there's still one member of your team left to deal with.”
Cynthia's sprite laughed, and a horrible sense od fread came over me as I saw her pixel eyes turn to stare at me. I wanted to take the monitor and throw it out the window, but instead I stood helplessly frozen in place; I couldn't even take my eyes off the game.
All of a sudden, it was as if the game window expanded to fill my entire field of view. Pixelated light flooded my eyes, and I found myself standing, not in my own room, but in the middle of a great arena, standing opposite a blonde woman in black attire.
I stumbled back in alarm and fell on my rear as I stared horrified at this utter impossibility, for I knew this person was none other than Cynthia in the flesh. As she strode confidently towards me, I felt as though she were growing bigger than me with each step. Much, much bigger. I thought it was an illusion at first, but no; I was rapidly shrinking, and when the champion stood over me, her black shoes seemed like immense black mounds.
I tried to calm myself, to assure myself it was nothing but a dream brought on my staying up for far too late after playing video games all day, but her laughter made my hairs stand on end all the same.
“A dream? No. This is the punishment I promised you. You'll meet the same end as your false pokémon and be crushed under my shoe.” As Cynthia lifted up her foot, I watched in horror as the sole of her shoe was revealed to me, and the flattened remains of my legendary team along with it. I quickly scrambled to my feet and tried to flee, but she caught me all the same and pinned me to the floor.
As the pressure increased I felt the most intense pain I had ever experienced. Just a little bit more, I knew, and I would be crushed like a bug. But just as suddenly as the giant foot descended on me, it left me again. “No, that's not right. A quick death is too good for you. I'm going to make you suffer first. Come here, you pathetic bug.” She moved her foot aside and slipped off her shoe, then brought her sole over me, her bare sole filling the sky. I scrambled away, but couldn't outrun her single step. Toes the size of my house fell on me and curled to trap me in a prison of flesh.
Her toes were strong, and easily smothered all my struggles. The gripped me tight, squeezing with the heft of a dozen elephants. My screams of pain, muffled by her flesh, hardly even reached my own ears as I felt bone after bone give way to her strength, each new fracture adding a new hellish pain that only became worse as the oppressive wiggle of her toes sent their splinters and broken edges tearing into my flesh, until all of a sudden I was released and dropped on the floor.
My arms, my legs, my ribs—all were broken or worse as I lay there on the floor with my eyes shut tight so I wouldn't have to look at myself or Cynthia, sobbing under the incredible pain and wishing for an end to my suffering.
“Not so proud now, are you? You thought you were a big shot just because you beat all those trainers with your dirty little cheats. And now look at you. You're a worthless insect, not even fit to eat the dirt off my feet. I don't want to waste too much time on you, but let's have a little bit more fun before we end this for good.”
I screamed bloody pain as she gripped me, my broken body completely encased in her fingertips. Then I was released again, and this time fell on a wet, squishy surface that welcomed me with a soft plap. I cracked open an eyelid and briefly saw the inside of a giant mouth, moments before it shut and all light was denied me. Then Cynthia's monstrous tongue started moving. She savored me like a little mint, pushing me all over the inside of her mouth. I was coughing and gagging the entire time, assaulted by a small pool's worth of saliva that never gave up a chance to come flooding down my throat. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself sliding down, down, down along a deep, dark tunnel, until at last I was squeezed through a tight opening and fell into a horrible pool.
The pain was indescribable as Cynthia's gastric acid started working on me. It was as if every inch of my skin were being torn from my body, as if I were being burned alive. I begged for it to end, promised I would never again use cheats or pirate a game if only I was allowed to live. But there was no reply save for a laughter rumbling and reverberating all over this foul-smelling tomb. I could only lie there as my body slowly melted away, until at last merciful oblivion took hold of me.
I opened my eyes some time later with a sudden gasp, quickly sitting up and looking all around, surprised to see something other than the pure darkness of Cynthia's stomach around me.
I was back in my room, lying on my bed. Sunlight, softened by the curtains, filled the room and spilled onto my bed, warming my body. I flung open the curtains and welcomed the light of the sun now striking my skin. Tears of joy welled up in my eyes at the sight of my beloved home.
That very day I uninstalled all my emulators, deleted all pirated games from my PC, and ordered a legal copy of all of them. I never again used an emulator in my life, nor any sort of cheating program. And though a copy of Pokémon Diamond still sits in a drawer with all those other games as I write, so long as I live I'll never touch the franchise again.
Giantess World
