#1 - Oscar

“Arrghck!” Oscar grunted, as he jumped awake in pain, reaching for his crotch.

“Oh, sorry,” Robin said, as she pulled her bare foot back from the man’s most sensitive spot.

“What the shit?!”

Everyone else in Robin’s dark, street-lit, one-bedroom apartment woke up at the sound of the commotion. Elias, who’d been sleeping on the couch, grabbed his glasses off the table. He got up to see his friend curled up in a fetal position on the floor, right beside a still-confused, waking Theo, who had also taken a sleeping spot on the floor.

A light went on in the bedroom, as Jade, who’d been sleeping with Robin in bed, ran up behind her in a panic.

“What happened?” she said.

Elias couldn’t contain his grin. “Robin stepped on his balls.”

Oscar huffed and hissed, “Ah, shh, motherfu-“

“I said I was sorry.”

“Bihhh- Fuck your sorry!” Oscar snapped back.

“I was going for a leak, I forgot you were here.”

Theo, now fully aware of his surroundings, tiredly reached his hand for Oscar’s shoulder. “You ok, man?”

Oscar cried a pathetic, “No.”

It had been five days since the entire gang had moved in with Robin, and none of them had an easy time sharing such a small space with five people. Oscar took a few long breaths, as the pain subsided a bit.

“If I’d been bug-size right now, I’d be paste,” he said.

“Well,” Robin said, “when you are, you’re not gonna be sleeping on the open floor like that, right?”

“And what if it had happened tonight, while I was sleeping?”

“Then she would have missed you by a few inches,” Elias said. “People always shrink towards center mass if they aren’t standing straight. Also shrinking during sleep is extremely rare, it’s more common for the shrink to hit during active hours, and even more likely to happen during moments of stress.”

“I’m feeling pretty stressed right now!” Oscar exclaimed, as he looked up at Robin’s guilty little smile.

Of course she was enjoying every second of it. That crazy little ginger had always loved watching him squirm.

Oscar had always had a weird dynamic with Robin, they were at once close friends, and rivalling siblings. Maybe it was their similarities clashing, as if the group had two man-children fighting over which one of them was the alpha male, one of them just happened to be a woman.

They would regularly try to mess with each other; hit each other with below-the-belt humor, or rub in an embarrassing moment, which would at worst result in some pinching, shoving or playful wrestling.

While Robin was a bit shorter than him, and a lot weaker, her aura was a ‘still waters run deep’ type of tough. Unless her fuse went off. A fuse which was much shorter than Oscar’s. If that happened, she’d lunge at just about anyone, with that wide-eyed feral predator look. When she was in that state, she wouldn’t pause to check whether she could take a guy, she just went off.

It wasn’t just all combativeness though; Robin was the type of friend he could rely on. When Oscar had complained about his father calling him home for yard chores and help fixing the shed, Robin had offered herself up to share the burden.

His old man wasn’t very impressed with him dragging a woman along to do his job, but was very impressed with work that woman ended up doing. Robin knew her way around pretty much every DIY tool, didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, and didn’t complain about doing some heavy lifting. His dad praised her every thirty minutes of that entire afternoon.

While Oscar had done about the same amount of work as her, if not more, his dad still held that he had been shown up by a scrawny white girl.

His father was the type to go on and on about ‘real men’, never missing a chance to remind his son that he didn’t fit his narrow definition of one, no matter how much gains he made at the gym, how impressive of a football player he became, or how much he behaved according to his father’s standards. He would never see a hint of pride in the man’s eyes, never feel the squeeze of his hand on his shoulder.

Maybe it was tough love, driving him to do even better, or maybe it was just shit parenting.

Oscar never said much about it, not like how Jade would go on about her parents. He bottled it up and tried to choke out those feelings, deep inside, like his father said he should, like a real man would.

The night after his rude awakening by Robin’s foot, he lingered on those memories, as he watched the streetlights float by, while riding shotgun in her car. They were heading out for drinks, just the two of them, as Robin couldn’t risk taking more than one of them out in public at any given time.

If there was just one person with her, she could keep her attention on them, in case the shrink would hit. The group agreed to a turn system, where each day, Robin would babysit one of them as they went to a location of their choice.

The day before she had taken Jade shopping for new clothes, tiny ones, for the entire group, tailor made for the people they’d soon become.

The day before that she had taken Theo to a multimedia and electronics store, where he had bought a new videogame, and a few TinySafe pulse systems. After that, they went to go see a movie.

Those TinySafe things were a must-have for any place housing victims of the glow. All you had to do was plug a few of those into the outlets around your house or apartment, and they would keep away all insects, spiders, rats and other small vermin that could harm shrunken people, without affecting their quality of life. Though, like any modern technology or medicine, the crunchy health gurus were distrusting of them, convinced they caused early onset dementia in tinies.

This day, it had actually been Elias’ turn to go out, but he chose to pass on it, preferring to stay on the couch and mope, as he awaited the inevitable. Oscar thought it was a waste, these were the final days of them being full humans, why not have a few last moments to feel normal?

He turned to look at Robin, her eyes focused on the road, as each passing light lit up her freckled face. All their rivalry would soon come to an end. There would be competition between them; no doubt which one of them was the alpha. His height, his strength, all the work Oscar had put into building himself up; into being the man that might impress his father, all of it would be meaningless. He could easily imagine his father’s voice in his head, mocking him for having his life be in the hands of that scrawny white girl.

It was about half an hour later, that the waitress brought them their drinks. Robin had gotten him a fancy and expensive craft beer, while getting herself a simple light beer.

“To make up for the grounded nuts,” she said, after she had ordered it.

“All good,” he’d responded. “It’s not like I’ll have any kids at this point.”

His public visit of choice had been the very same pub, outside of which, the Omen Glow had flashed their friend group, along with a young couple walking by. While that event would now forever stain this place in his mind, there were a lot of good memories here too. This had been their main hangout spot, and Frank had the patience of a saint, despite all the fights Robin had started in here.

“Still taking it like a champ, huh?” Robin said.

“How am I supposed to take it?”

Robin shrugged, “I’m just saying, you’re allowed to feel bad about it, vent in a way that isn’t just rage and jokes.”

“You saying I should collapse, all depressed, like Elias?”

“I’m saying you can talk to me.”

Talk to her, about what? About his insecurities? About this horrible pit in his stomach at the idea of being dependent on her? She’d laugh, joke it off herself. She wasn’t Jade, she wasn’t the emotional friend.

Oscar sighed, “I don’t know Robin, I guess I just-”

He cut his own sentence short, noticing a scene unfolding behind Robin, just a few tables away.

Two men; their loose, saggy postures showing just how inebriated they were, stood over a table, on which a tiny woman, probably a decade younger than them, slowly backed away in visual discomfort. The men were chuckling, one of them reaching out with his gross fingers to touch her.

“Such a pristine little doll, aren’t you,” he could hear the guy say. “Shame all the goods are so small now, but that could be fun too.”

Oscar lit up. This was it, his moment to stand up for an innocent person, to play the hero. Likely his last chance to feel like a proper man.

He jumped out of his seat, and roared, “Hey, don’t touch her!”

He drew the attention of the entire pub as both men turned to look at him, their drunken smiles turning to teeth-baring scowls at being interrupted.

“Mind your own business, friend.”

“I ain’t your friend, now back the fuck away.”

The man that had come close to touching the tiny woman rubbed the lower part of his face with a sniffle, “What for? I wasn’t doing shit. We’re just talking.”

Oscar stomped closer, “I said back away.”

The man scoffed and shook his head, as he turned his attention to the tiny on the table again, as if he didn’t believe Oscar would do anything about it. He was very much mistaken.

Oscar charged the man, landing a brutal fist into the man’s cheek, before the drunkard could even look his way. The man was forced back, and tried to maintain his balance throughout a few stumbling steps, before completely collapsing to the floor.

“Nolan, what the fuck,” his friend said, before running over to his fallen comrade.

Oscar could feel the rush, as he looked at the tiny woman he had protected, proud of himself. However, she looked at him with the same discomfort, the fear and uncertainty that her savior had only worsened the situation. She didn’t just have drunk harassers now, but angry drunk harassers.

Oscar inhaled and exhaled through his nostrils, as he waited to see what the men would do, whether he had knocked sense into them, or if they would swing back. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, he was alive.

As the guy he had punched was being helped up by his buddy, Oscar felt an unexpected consequence of his heightened adrenaline. A spot on his lower left leg was starting to ache, a burning sensation in the exact spot where his mark was.

All machismo drained from him as he realized, “Not now…”

For a few seconds all he could see was purple, that same awful purple that had flashed him a week prior. When his vision returned to normal, his surroundings had outgrown him, to dizzying proportions. He still stood in the same pose, ready for a fight, like a tabletop miniature on the floor. The pub he knew and loved, now a cathedral of giants, two of which had turned their attention back on him.

“Well, well, well,” the now giant drunk said, as he wiped the blood off his nose. “Look who got a reality check.”

The man stepped towards Oscar, taking extra care to make each of his steps stomp the ground as hard as he could, sending vibrations through the tiny hero’s body. Grinning like a monster as he got closer.

“Fee-fi-fo-fum, motherf—umpff.”

A giant wall of brown canvas had crashed down right in front of Oscar, it took him a split second to see the dirty white rim, and realize he was looking at the back of a massive Converse sneaker.

He craned his neck to look up at the sight of Robin’s massive legs, in baggy cargo pants, as she stood over him, like a mech-suit defending a civilian, her distant arm swinging straight for the inebriated kaiju’s face, before her fist crashed into the exact same spot Oscar had hit the man only moments before, cutting his intimidation short, and once more causing him to stumble back, this time keeping his balance.

The man didn’t blurt out another comment, as his friend patted him on the back, “Just leave it be, man.”

The guy listened to his friend’s advice, and walked out of the bar, while keeping eye contact with Robin, who’s expression Oscar couldn’t make out, as he was left looking up from beneath her, at her distant jawline and nostrils.

Apart from looking down at him with those frightening brown eyes, the giantess who stood over Oscar didn’t move for almost half a minute after the danger had passed, her breathing heavy, as she seemed to be calming herself.

Once she had, she took a step forward, and turned, now towering in front of him, rather than over him. She sank through her knees, into a squat, and reached her long slender fingers out towards him, the well-defined knuckles of which, showed the early redness of bruising.

Oscar scuttered back, as his friend’s fingers approached, out of reflex, out of fear. Robin’s hand paused, as if considerate of how horrific his newfound perspective must have been, but she didn’t give him long before deciding to grab him anyway. She had to get him off the floor, he could quiver in horror all he wanted once he was safely in her grasp.

Her index finger crept around the back of him, while the tip of her thumb pushed into the entire surface of his chest and part of his stomach, pinning him between her fingers. It was softer than he’d expected, though the rough surface of it felt like leather, with the whorls of a human fingerprint, smelling of beer and car keys.

His feet left the ground, and he could feel the butterflies in his stomach, as he was raised up to a height he was not prepared for, coming to a stop at the chest height of an unbelievably huge humanoid, whom he still couldn’t compute, was his friend. Her dark brown eyes, massive pools of near black, her cute little freckles, now each the size of his palm.

“Are you ok?” she said, her voice rumbling with a resonance he had never felt in it before.

“No,” he answered honestly.

“Who are you?” another giant woman said, addressing Robin as she approached the table.

“Me?” Robin turned to her with a confused frown, “Who are you?”

“I’m her friend, are you bothering her?” the blonde said with sass in her tone, while chin pointing at the frightened tiny on the table.

The fire returned to Robin’s eyes, made all the more frightening by her current size, “Someone was. Where were you?”

“W-Wha-“

“You left your friend alone, at that size? Do you have any idea what type of people are out there? What some people would do if they got their hands on someone that fragile?”

The blonde giantess’ lip quivered, unsure how to respond.

Oscar had so much to process, but as he looked up at the intensity on his friend’s face, he could tell that she knew what she was talking about.