The young man fell from his bed with a loud slam, having been knee deep in a peaceful dream before the powerful bangs of the door knocked him into a drowsy tumble. He got to his hands and knees, and picked himself up. He felt weak, struggling to stand up, but still he managed to pick himself up. He felt cold, having slept without a shirt on, but his body was perfectly fine. Before he could even walk to the door, he was shocked to look at his bed - his mattress was covered in black hairs that had fallen off his head. He hovered his freakishly long fingernails over his head, now having lost his long head of hair for an almost completely bald head. He almost yelled–

The knocks had gotten even louder. Though frightened, he stepped out of his sleeping quarters and towards the entrance to his home. Before he opened it, however, he needed to be safe, and so he looked through the peephole on the top of his door - and he was frightened by what he saw. He was hoping that the people at the door would just be typical farmers or salesmen, but instead, it was his worst nightmare. At the door were two large, burly men - on one side stood General Shao, a massive beast of a man himself, and the enforcer of Outworld, wielding his hardened battle axe. Beside Shao stood his comrade Reiko, a soldier of war that went with Shao everywhere he went. And these two powerful figures in the Edenian social structure wanted him.

Though he was nervous, he knew he stood no chance if he fled. So he opened the door and creaked it open just a little, enough to show he had answered but not enough to reveal himself.

“Seto, produce merchant of Sun Do, me and my partner have come to confirm your wellbeing.” The general muttered, his words seeming passive but his dominant voice turning them intimidating and ominous. “Your neighbors have reported you missing for the past few weeks.” 

Seto stammered slightly, somewhat conflicting with his surprisingly deep voice. “I-I am sorry to concern them, General. But I can assure you, I am perfectly fine and well.” 

However, Reiko piped up. “Sir, we must ask that you open the door to us.” He droned. “We need to confirm that you aren’t hiding any diseases or threats.” In fear, Seto started to let out a “W-well”, but Shao chimed in, “This isn’t a matter of discussion. Reveal yourself, or we’ll have to show ourselves in.”

The young man was about to concoct an excuse for himself, or even just a way to distract them so that he could flee, but after just a few seconds, the general yelled “I will have to show myself in, then!” and slammed open the door with enough force to nearly rip it out of its hinges. As the sunlight beamed into the room, Seto fell to the ground in fear as Edenian troops came to the side of the generals. 

The sun revealed the man’s true self. His rough skin had red scars across them, with small spiky rock-like materials bursting out of parts of his skin. His eyes were small and blood-red, his body was weak and frail, his ears were triangular like that of an elf, his fingernails were almost long enough to be claws, and most noticeably, his mouth looked bloody and monstrous, with sharp devilish teeth that came together with disturbing nature. The onlookers could tell right away what they were looking at.

“I suspected as much.” Reiko snickered. “Another tarkat-infected bastard trying to dodge the quarantine.” It was true - Seto had been afflicted with Tarkat, a deadly disease that rapidly turned the people it affected into bloodthirsty monsters, both physically and mentally. The Edenian troops charged forward to have him arrested. Seto’s face, a mix of fear and anger, quickly lost all fear, and after a split second of rage, he let out an uncharacteristic roar. He had gone berserk in the blink of an eye. 

The crazed-Edenian bolted forward and jammed his sharp fingernails into the eyes of an incoming officer, his screams becoming the backdrop of the massacre around him. Seto removed his fingernails, as blood poured out of the eye sockets like a fountain and the officer’s eyeballs got stuck in his nails for a brief second before popping out onto the floor. A swarm of troops descended onto him, but Seto laughed a monstrous laugh and ran into them, slashing at them with the frenzy of a rabid animal. And as he took joy in the blood that surrounded him, the men that were falling to the ground, the lives he was taking, his joy was stopped by a sharp BLAM into his foot with enough strength to make him fall over - none other than an attack dealt by General Shao’s ginormous axe.

“Take him away”, the general demanded. Despite his beastly groans, a pair of handcuffs were shackled to his wrists as he felt himself being lifted up into a wagon to be imprisoned for his crimes.

-

SLAM

Seto could feel the numbness starting to wear off - clearly he had been injected with some sort of sleeping chemical, but now all he could feel was the throbbing pain in his head. He had been thrown into some sort of prison cell - but, as he got to his head and turned around, he was horrified by the things he was seeing.

A green mist and an acidic stench surrounded this dungeon-like chamber. Tarkat-infected people were locked up in cages across hallways, with some being hung by nails to the walls, their blood dripping onto the ground in a stream. Tarkat body parts were strung together into acid test tubes, dangling in the sea of fluid. Worst of all were the unrecognizable corpses of people strung up by chains, their skin and guts stretching out around the ground in a horrifying red mess. They were half-human, and half-hunks of meat. He had entered into some sort of horror show, a den of butchery and evil.

“HEY!!” Seto screamed, in shock and horror. “SOMEONE GET ME THE HELL OUT OF THIS NUT HOUSE-”

“Don’t waste your voice, tarkatan.” A smooth, cold voice muttered from across the hall. A silhouette walked toward the prison bars, some sort of gigantic monster. Its tail dangled behind its back, the lumbering body stumbling like a drunken beast. Though Seto started to back away, the silhouette mysteriously morphed away from the monstrous silhouette and into one of more humanoid proportions. Before long, the figure exited the shadow and emerged, a frail man in green, a sash running down his chest. He sported a snake tattoo on his arm.

The tarkatan gentleman wasted no time banging on the bars. “You.. you motherfucker! Let me the hell out of here, you insane freak!”

After letting down a sorrowful sigh, the green-clad jailor looked Seto in the eyes. “Ease yourself, tarkatan. Yelling will get you nowhere. This brings me no joy either.” Angered, the tarkatan spit at him. “How could you take part in this..madness?!”

“I.. he.. Shang Tsung.. He has my family. I’m sorry. I am called Syzoth. I understand the pain of being shut out from society. But.. I don’t have a choice.” Syzoth turned away.

“HEY! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN?!” Seto screamed in unrelenting rage. “Wh-who the hell is–”

A man with long black hair and a golden shirt suddenly manifested from a green glow in front of the bars. “Shang Tsung, I’m guessing?” He asked, with a mocking, snobbish voice. “That would be me, tarkatan.”

Immediately, Seto began to scream expletives at him. This man was the one responsible for everything. “YOU BASTARD! HOW COULD YOU? ARE YOU MAD-”

Shang Tsung merely giggled and pinched two fingers together. In a moment, the tarkatan cried out in pain. His teeth had moved out of place and shifted into his lips, stabbing them. Blood poured out of his mouth. “Gosh, you fools never seem to know when to shut up. Much better.” He sneered.

“Now, you, Seto, are the son of Otto, the rich bureaucrat of Sun Do, are you not? You will be the perfect sample for a new concoction I have been testing on various sacks of meat in the pits you now occupy.”

Shang Tsung’s fingers now take on a two-fingered “come on” esque motion - Seto is slammed into the bars with enough force to crack one of his teeth. His body being forced against the metal, his face being right up to Shang Tsung’s hand, he watched as a small needle dangled over his lip. In a single prick, the needle forced itself into Seto’s body. He felt his teeth release themselves into their natural positions as his body fell back to the floor, the sorcerer’s magic having worn off. 

“I will leave you to your.. new predicament.”

Despite more cries, Shang Tsung walked away and did not ever return. The pain continued for hours. He cried as he desperately waited for the pain in his mouth and head to dull - it did slightly, but he still felt in agony - not only physically, but also in anticipation of the effects of the chemical now coursing his body thanks to the madman he had faced.

And then, about 3 hours later, it happened. His body felt a great squeeze. He couldn’t breathe.

All of the oxygen in his body was being sucked away. He gasped for air, but nothing came. His bones began to fold together, and his skin tangled and pulled inwards. His body was being rearranged, every cell in his body being folded together. He screamed as the skin, blood, air, bones covered his mouth, making a sound akin to that of a dying toad. He could not even see, as his eyeballs had themselves ceased to function properly. The other captives watched in fear, but could do nothing to help him.

And in just a few seconds, he realized what was happening - he was getting smaller. His body was beginning to unfold further and further, before condensing itself inwards but at a much smaller scale. Further and further, his body condensed, until eventually, as he was lying flat on the floor, his skin, blood, guts, and bones finally reattached themselves to their proper placements.

He wanted to open his eyes to peace, but instead he screamed. He was in a pool of disgusting water, nearly green. He swam for dear life, for what felt like hours but was actually only a few minutes, until eventually a massive stone platform reached him, to which he pulled himself upwards.

And then, standing over the stone, he realized what had happened. That water was not an ocean, a pool, or a lake. It was a small puddle. What he stood on was not some temple created by the Elder Gods, but instead a single brick. He was still in his prison cell. But he was somehow the size of a speck of dirt. 

After a brief moment of shock, he realized - if he was tiny.. He could fit through the bars of his cage! He was free! He quickly ran as fast as he possibly could.. He was a few normal-sized steps from his salvation, but at his scale it took him about 12 straight minutes to make his way out of the cell. Before long, he was free! Now, to escape and find he-

Seto’s ears felt as if they were pierced by a howling cry - not only be the screams, but also loud bangs. 

As he turned to his side, he saw something barreling straight for him - a tarkatan woman, seemingly early in her transformation going off of her long dark hair, coming straight towards him like some sort of ginormous monster. For some reason, she looked.. almost familiar. She was far too fast for him to even attempt to run, before he felt himself fly into her face and suddenly smashed into a dark place.

Everything was covered in shadows. He could almost hear some sort of fluid dripping down. He hung from some sort of wet, rock-like surface. As he smelt blood and some sort of other stench, he quickly noticed just where he was as he could just barely see the pink-ish muscle beneath him. The woman had eaten him, like a cat does to a mouse.

As if on cue, the “rock” he hung from pushed downwards with the force of a shifting mountain - he realized that this was not a rock, or a mountain, but a single sharp tooth. The shifting of the teeth was too much for him, and he felt himself fall down onto the almost frog-esque thin tongue that grew thicker the farther back his view went. He dangled from the tip, as saliva and blood from previous hunts covered his body. This was no normal tarkatan, but one that was particularly knee-deep in bloodlust.

Like a meat grinder, the ginormous tongue began to move up out of the mouth and into the teeth that moved up and down, waiting to chew the morsel into bits of meat. Holding onto the tongue, desperate to escape, Seto waited until he could find the perfect time to jump out. As he was just inches away from his head being bitten off, he saw the teeth open, revealing the dark but still comparatively bright depths of the dungeon. He had found his chance. On a whim, he leaped out of the mouth. He felt a burst of warm wind as the teeth chomped down behind him. He had escaped.

But Seto had made one grave error - he vastly overestimated how much distance he would cross at his size. He screamed as he felt himself tumble down through the sky. He tried his damndest to slow his fall by waving around his arms and legs, but it was to no avail. Though he feared death at the hands of the cold, grimey stone floor, he was caught off guard when he felt himself fall into a place that was warm, but also soft like a massive pillow. He tried to almost swim through the marshmallow-like surface, but he found that two ginormous, soft walls held him in place. 

Then he felt some sort of liquid drip on his head. Putting his hand into his hair and then holding it in front of his face, he was disturbed to see some sort of mix of blood and saliva. He looked up to see the face of the woman, her mouth open, letting out drips of fluid as if she couldn’t control her own salivation. 

But if he could see her chin, her face, from here.. that could only mean one thing. It hit him that the skin-colored pillowy walls around him were not quite marshmallows, but in fact the woman’s ginormous breasts.

Sweat coursed through her breasts, causing him to have to try his absolute best to hold himself in place. She ran her hands over her body, trying to find her prey, but to no avail. She had lost him. But as he looked upon her face, he realized where he had seen this woman before. This wasn’t a tarkatan..this was the heiress of Edenia, Princess Mileena! She was the eldest daughter of the current empress Sindel, a dignified lady of the Outworld royal family. But he had never seen her like this. Somehow, she had been afflicted with Tarkat, but had managed to hide it from the entire world.

creeeak

Some sort of door-creaky noise emerged from far away, above these “pits”. But he wasn’t scared of the noise - he saw Mileena’s glare go from confusion to bloodlusted rampage. Like a rabid dog, she wildly ran out of the dungeon.

The sheer velocity of Mileena’s speed was so fast, it felt like riding some sort of dragon. He felt himself start to fall off, but began to squirm lower and lower onto her right breast. As he squirmed into her breastplate, he felt his body start to be squished between the clothing and the large breast, but he held himself together as he eased his whole body under the breastplate, hurting his body but also securing himself safely.

Of course, this whole series of events only lasted for about 40 seconds before the monster’s body stopped cold still. Worming his head out of the tight breastplate, he looked up to see they were now in some sort of laboratory, with the source of the door creaking having been revealed: a woman feasting on a dead Edenian soldier’s body. She had massive wings on her back - she was a Vaeternian, a species of vampire that hailed from Vaeternus. He had heard stories of the blood-sucking beasts before, but never had he seen one in person.

However, his remorse wouldn’t last long as the princess whose breasts he was contained in leaped into the air to land a surprise attack and tore her fingernails into the vampire. He yelled out as the high-pitched screams of Mileena and the Vaeternian ripped at his eardrums until only one remained. Blood splashed into Seto’s face and seeped downwards into the breasts as Mileena dug her mouth into the now deceased vampire’s body. He shook his head clean of as much red as he possibly could, as the loud chewing sounds coming from Mileena’s mouth shook his surroundings with each chomp, tear, nibble.

And then, in a few moments, everything stopped. Mileena’s body fell to the ground. Seto crawled out to see that the woman had completely passed out. It was time. He didn’t know what had happened to her, but regardless, he needed to escape n-

Loud stomping noises further punctured his ears, but looming far above like goddesses coming to smite his heathen self stood Mileena’s mother, Empress Sindel, and Mileena’s younger sister Kitana. 

Sindel bellowed. The woman’s sheer height was enough to make you freeze in your place.

Her daughter said loyally as she took a swab of cotton to collect the blood. Sindel stomped out with a queen-like presence - but he was so focused on her, he couldn’t even notice that her daughter Kitana was now preparing to swab some more blood from Mileena’s comatose body - right on her chest, where he now resided. He started to run, but at his scale, he was far too diminutive to even prove a difficulty for the princess’s hands to catch. Ultimately, he was caught in the bloody ball of cotton.

Kitana raised the cotton to her face to check for any signs, merely by eyeballing it - more intensive studies would follow later. Seto assumed he was far too small to be noticed; but as her eyes darted towards his speck-sized body, he realized that he had drastically underestimated Kitana’s vision. She looked at him with a confused but also somewhat grossed out scowl before tossing the cotton swab into a small bag with little care. At his scale, though, he felt the massive ancient cotton device smash onto him with enough pressure to knock him out - and that’s exactly what it did. He reached out for help, but ultimately his consciousness crashed.

-

Seto was shaken up out of his drowse, a loud banging noise around him. He was imprisoned again, trapped inside some sort of transparent, hard-walled trap.. wait.. transparent? Hard-walled? He was trapped inside of a jar! And as a gigantic skin-colored appendage popped once again at the walls, leaving a slight sweat residue, he realized what had happened.. He was trapped in the throne room of the Edenian castle, sitting on a table beside the resting Queen Sindel. As he made the realization, the enormous woman looked down on him and smirked slightly.

Suddenly, as she rested her head onto the side of her throne, her hair began to move. This is but one of Empress Sindel’s many powers, the ability to manipulate her hair. A tendril of hair stretched out and wrapped around the jar - her control was remarkable, but he still felt the jar shake around erratically, shifting him around again and again as he was pulled in front of Sindel’s face. The jar stopped right in front of her face, her nose, mouth and right eye being pressed deeply close to his line of vision.

Seto ran to the front wall and screamed up to her - Sindel saw his mouth moving, but could not hear a word out of his mouth. Frowning, she sent another tendril of her hair to the cap of the jar, opening it and placing it on the table before bringing the hair into the jar.

Seto was unsettled by the feeling of the gigantic strands of hair wrapping around his entire body, before plucking him upside down out of the jar. He cried out in fear as he dangled by his feet over the large drop that would kill him if she was so much as startled by something. However, no matter how afraid he was, he couldn’t stop the empress from what she was doing. She brought him up to her ear, it alone something like 5 times his size, waiting for him to answer her question.

“I-it was Shang Tsung! H-he –”

Suddenly, Seto was shocked as the hair around him tightened, and fastly darted away from her ear and forced it in front of her face, as if she was trying to hit someone with it. Though he was a bit farther away now, he could see her face - and she was clearly not happy.

“Do you even know what you say?! Shang Tsung is a key ally to Outworld! I will not accept baseless slander, especially from an unaccounted-for tarkatan!” She snarled angrily, clearly being set off by his proposition. He was scared, knowing there was no way the queen would believe a diminutive tarkat-sufferer. But what mattered was if she would even let him survive.

C-crap! She was going to put him into the Tarkat camps. Those places were bloody, hostile, and filled with poor, hungry people struggling with the monstrous effects of the disease - he didn’t stand a chance in there. He had to do..something! As Sindel prepared to put him back, he polished his fingernails and started slicing at the hair that bound him.

Of course, your mere nails weren’t enough to cut even a single strand of her hair, but they did do enough to shock her. He had lost her, as she wouldn’t be able to see the small, fast-falling dot. But now.. he was free falling from the top of her head to far down. However, as he looked down, he realized just where he was falling.

He crashed down into the smooth desert, crying out in pain. Something in his leg felt like it had snapped from the fall, but he was at least ok. However, everything around him was shifting. He had fallen on top of the smooth pale feet of the empress. Her toes’ movements were a bit erratic, still surprised by the minimized tarkatan that she had lost. 

And then she began to walk. The air pressure was so strong, he began to fly off, but as he shifted back, he eased his hands onto a jewel within her sandal to ease himself. The pressure still caused his body to shake around with each movement, but at the very least he was staying put.

Far above him, Sindel stomped over to another towering woman - her daughter, Mileena, now out of her tarkat-induced rampage. He could barely even tell what they were saying to each other, but he realized that it was very likely he should divert his focus. He had already tried to enlist the help of Sindel, but it clearly did not work out. So he was gonna have to try and make it to Mileena - but he had a very short amount of time to do it. Thankfully, their conversation seemed to be dragging on a bit, but he still only had a little bit to cross what was essentially a gaping cliff between two mountains.

Seto released himself from the jewel-like sandal piece and began to run across the front of Sindel’s foot, tripping over himself slightly as she absentmindedly flexed her toes. As he reached the side of her foot, he watched Mileena’s open-toed sandals, which were just close enough that he could possibly reach them if he jumped far enough.

They were starting to leave each other’s presence. Now or never. Seto stepped back and leaped forward into the air, desperately trying to make it to the princess’s toes

slap!

H-he barely made it.. He felt the fabric of the shoe beneath him as he..

W-wait.. the fabric? But..

He felt a small yet comparatively large drop of water land next to him, generating a little steam. And then he looked up. She had raised her foot for a moment. And then–

*SPLAT*

The toes smashed into his body with pointlessly cruel force. His head peeked out from between her two middle toes, the stench of fresh pink nail paint still permeating. His legs hurt before, but now he felt like they could burst. He tried moving his left leg, so far so good. Then his left - oh god. It wasn’t responding. He tugged and tugged, but it was stuck. He wasn’t gonna be able to get it out. He felt blood running down from the leg.

He still had a chance! She could still help him! She was going to go and - ugh, Seto could barely even finish his thoughts as the toes squished downwards, upwards, downwards, upwards as she walked, not only getting his legs but also his buttocks and the bottom of his spine. So she marched back up to her chambers - what took only a few minutes for her felt like an hour for him, each of her ginormous steps worth what would have taken around 50 at his diminutive scale.

When she returned to her chambers, she slowly slipped off her sandal - his blood was still visible under the ball of her foot. Mileena gasped as she saw the small thing trapped in her sandal, and picked him up in her fingers. Seto was relieved, as she did seem to be genuinely concerned for him.. though having seen her as he did before, he still had trouble trusting her ginormous face. 

She placed him on her desk, as he laid on his back. His right leg was completely numb, and if he fell one more time it might just fall off. But this wasn’t what was worth his attention - his attention was fully dedicated to the titanic face of the princess that watched over him like a god.

Thankfully, instead of having to repeat being picked up again, she merely brought her ear closer to him - though it was a bit of a scary visual. 

“It was.. Sh-Shang Tsung, he-”

He writhed in pain as she used her fist to slam down on the desk.

She suddenly looked closer at him, her gigantic eyes looming over him like a planet. 

She was in denial. But Seto’s pleading wouldn’t reach her as she crouched down and grabbed an enormous sai the size of a blimp. And though he tried to struggle, he only ended up flopping around like a fish on land. 

*SHING*

The sai cut into his knee and into the wood of the table as he screamed in pain. He put his arms back and tried to crawl his way away, crying out in agony as he was forced to pull himself free from his own leg which was barely still attached. With only one leg, and the other still oozing blood, he began to tear up as he saw the stench of the blood reaching Mileena’s nose.

Her long tongue revealed itself as her teeth began to get sharper, her eyes became redder, and she fell over onto the floor. But in seconds, she got up, and roared like a dinosaur.

Seto tried his best to run, but he knew it was over as soon as he heard the sai be released from the table and be thrust into his chest, blood pouring out of his front and back sides. He was still barely clinging on to life. She held the sai before her face, licking her lips savagely. But maybe he could still figure out a way to-

No, he could not, he instantly realized as the princess Mileena’s long tongue ran up and lapped the minimized creature with all the care of a hungry dog. And then, she chewed. Seto was in the same dark, damp place as he was before, but he knew now he was too weak to make it out. The teeth tore his body apart, ripping bits of skin and meat off. Through the whole way, an “mmmm” sound came out of Mileena as she enjoyed the taste of his blood and meat like a chicken wing. And as she gulped him down, she felt something in her mouth.

She belched something out of her mouth - she reached down to see a single bone of Seto’s, likely the spine. The beastly princess merely laid down on the ground and began licking the blood and meat off of the bone, sucking on it for all of its delicious taste.

–

Empress Sindel stomped into the laboratory of Shang Tsung, where she could see he was still working on some sort of project, of which she didn’t particularly care. “Shang Tsung!” She called out, to which he turned his back to meet her intense glare. “Would you happen to know anything about.. shrinking concoctions?” The room went silent. “I’m sorry, I know that sounds utterly ridiculous, but-”

“No, no.” He answered back. “I do know a thing or two, but it wasn’t meant to reach your eyes, at least not yet. It was merely a ‘prototype’, I suppose.”

“One of your experiments came to my eye. She drove my daughter mad!” Shang Tsung smirked, “Is that a hard task?” The queen sighed, still annoyed with him. 

“I promise you, Empress Sindel, I can swear to you that I won’t use that sort of technology without your explicit permission again.”

Sindel sighed, but put her hand on his shoulder, forgiving him. “Thank you, Shang Tsung. Please just.. see to my daughter.”

And so the queen walked away. She was still suspicious of him, but he was also a close comrade of the royal family of Edenia, and a key player in Mileena’s healing. She wasn’t about to abandon her daughter for what some little vermin said. 

That was her duty as empress, after all.