By the time Stephanie truly regained her senses, she found herself lying across the length of Claire's big toe. A toe that was now slightly larger than she was. Her face was pressed hard into the unpainted keratin surface of the massive woman's toe as the sock was pulled tight against her right foot. By some miracle, the invading foot had ended up rolling her up the toe of the sock and into her current position. If her warden was seriously about to go for a run, then at least she wasn't going to be getting stepped on.

That was her initial thought, at least, until the cotton wall that pressed against her was pinched away. Stephanie watched, eyes wide, as the toe of the sock began to slowly pull away from the foot.

Then her world went vertical, and Stephanie began to slip headfirst off her current perch. She want to reach out, to try to stop herself, but...God, she was still so tired from whatever the hell Claire had done to her. Stephanie could simply watch helplessly as her limp body fell into the toe of the sock. Claire had apparently felt her fall, and the sock began pulling closer to the Omega's toes.

Stephanie gulped in trepidation as she realized that she would not be getting lucky this time. Claire's raised toes slid above her, hungry to receive their new companion as they curled inward to hug her horizontal form into an embrace of tanned, meaty flesh and forced her face into the crevice between her jailer's big and second toe.

"There we go," Claire's muffled voice remarked from outside Stephanie's prison. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to give you a little hug before we started."

The digits continued their embrace, tightening with each passing seconds and pressing Stephanie harder and harder into their soft underbellies. The pressure was becoming more and more painful, and Stephanie thought she might let out a scream before the toes suddenly released her onto the cotton floor of the sock. Claire's foot was at rest on something now, and her toes settled in contentedly on their visitor.

"I hope you enjoy your time with these little guys," the Omega said, her tone perky. "I think you can learn a lot from them, if you pay attention. They helped me score all one hundred and fifty-six of those goals, y'know?"

Stephanie soon found herself entrapped in another embrace, but this time the pressure was kept low and somewhat tender.

"Aw," Claire continued, voice saccharine, "I think they're looking forward to it. Aren't they just the sweetest?"

"But y'know," Claire said, her voice becoming monotone, "they weren't too happy when they found out about how selfish you were."

The hug began tightening once again, eventually leveling off in a firm embrace that caused Stephanie's breathing to become labored.

"Your assist totals were deplorable, Stephanie!" Claire scolded. "Sure, I wasn't shy about taking shots, but if a teammate had a better one I didn't hesitate to send it their way!"

Stephanie grunted to herself in response. So what if she didn't have many assists? They'd won plenty with her taking every shot she had the chance at. There certainly hadn't been a teammate that could have done better.

"So," Claire continued once more, "they're going to give you a little lesson in teamwork today. A lesson I hope you take to heart."

The toes released their grip once more, and Claire's foot began to rise. Stephanie's brief reprieve didn't last long, however, as the light that had made it's way through the cotton weave disappeared in what would be the first clue to the bus-sized foot's location.

The second clue was the sudden and sharp increase in odor. Claire's feet had obviously been washed recently, so Stephanie hadn't been subject to much more than the scent of fruit. Now, though...

There was no doubt what had taken away the light. Claire had begun to insert her foot, and therefore Stephanie, into her shoe. A shoe that was apparently well-worn and was permeated with God knows how many hours' worth of sweat, a scent that was hauntingly familiar to the smaller girl. If Claire jogged anywhere near as much as Stephanie did...

She couldn't help but shudder as the foot came to rest fully in the shoe. The toes flattened as Claire stood, pressing the reduced girl firmly into the insole at her back and shoving her face into the crevice above her once more.

Then Claire began to walk, and the pressure on Stephanie was temporarily relieved as the foot lifted up, but Stephanie knew this wouldn't last. She braced herself, forcing herself to take a deep breath of the now acrid air that surrounded her, only to have it expelled as Claire's foot hit the ground once more and the toes flattened and pressed once more. One steady step after another, this process repeated. Stephanie eventually heard the sound of a door being opened above her, and one step later the sound of one closing.

Claire began walking again, and as each step brought the massive woman's weight down upon Stephanie, a sense of dread began to overwhelm the one inch tall girl. Claire was still only walking for now, and it was already getting harder to breathe with each step. What about when the steps started becoming more frequent? When the overpowering digits above her began to press harder?

When Claire started to sweat?

The titaness continued this steady walking pace for a time, but it eventually came to an end as she began to speed up. Stephanie's opportunities for breath were becoming shorter and shorter as Claire continued to increase her speed. What little fruit scent that had remained after the foot had entered the shoe was gone now, as the air around Stephanie became more and more humid with each step as Claire began to heat up and the first hints of perspiration began to appear.

Then she finally started to run, and Stephanie realized just how easy things had previously been. Claire was taking long strides now, but...God, the impact of each step was now out of this world. Firm, hard presses of the pillowy toes above her transformed into slams that strained her body hard against the insole below her.

Claire was also starting to sweat in earnest. As the run continued, Stephanie found that she was becoming damp with perspiration. Every gasping breath was now accompanied by it's awful taste, and her eyes were starting to sting. Moreover, each press now resulted in Stephanie's face temporarily sticking into the hot, sweaty gap between Claire's toes, making every breath that much harder.

Yet as Claire continued on her run, and the conditions inside Stephanie's prison began to worsen, the smaller girl found herself focusing less and less on the worsening punishment. Instead, her mind began to wander. She began to notice just how familiar all of this was. Not from this perspective, of course, she had never been in someone's shoe before. It was familiar for another reason.

The toes that assaulted her over and over again had once been her own, and her place had been taken by a small six year old boy. One who had gotten up earlier than usual one morning and apparently decided to go wake up his big sister. Who, in his assumed attempts at reaching her as she slept, had ended up in one of the socks she kept in her sneaker, with no way out. Whose cries for help went unheard as his sibling woke up and eventually slipped on her socks and shoes, trapping him within.

His sister had known something was in her sock, but she didn't see any reason to take whatever it was out. She was in a hurry, and why would she ever think it was her little brother? She was having fun playing with whatever the object was, after all. So she had eaten a quick little breakfast and then taken off toward the nearby park to play soccer with all her friends, oblivious to what she was subjecting her precious little brother to all the while.

When she returned home, her parents had been in a panic. Her little brother had vanished. Her parents could find him nowhere, and he responded to none of the calls they made. Her mother was combing the yard, carefully looking through the grass and flowers, while her tiny father checked every crack or crevice he could find.

She wanted to help, but first she wanted to change clothes. Reaching her room, she had kicked off her shoes and pulled off her socks. It was then that her curiosity had gotten the best of her, and she had reached inside her sock and grasped whatever it was that had been keeping her foot company and slowly pulled it out.

It didn't register at first, what she had held between her thumb and forefinger. Soon enough, though, her eyes had slowly widened and her mouth went agape. Her body was consumed by an unstoppable tremble, and her breathing rapidly accelerated to the point of hyper ventilation.

She was holding the mangled, beaten corpse of her little brother.

Her reaction was ultimately the only reaction it could have been, for a ten year old who had discovered the deceased body of her little brother. For a ten year old who knew that she had been the one to kill him. Because she hadn't taken five seconds to check on the strange object in her sock. Because it hadn't been important enough to her to warrant checking.

It was the same reaction that was now building within Stephanie as she recalled all of this. As each thundering footfall from Claire served as an example of what she herself had done.

It was a reaction that Stephanie could no longer contain, and as the foot began to lift once again and her face fell away from the crevice between Claire's toes, she let out a single, gasping, retching scream.

And as she prepared for the sweaty toes above her to once again come slamming down, one thing began to occur to her.

It still hadn't come.

********

Claire wished she had never heard that sound. She wished she could just put her foot down normally, instead of catching herself on her right heel and halting her momentum enough to allow her to slow down her pace while keeping her toes lifted to avoid slamming the tiny girl underneath them into her insole once again.

She wished it had been any other sound but that, as she gingerly stepped off the sidewalk and took a seat on the grass.

As she pulled her right shoe off, she wished that she didn't care. About the well-being of her charge. About helping someone who needed it. About how much her brother would hate her if she ignored such a person.

Claire had wanted to enjoy this. She wanted to make these girls hurt, to make them feel the pain they had inflicted onto a Beta. Onto her brother. To impose the harsh justice they deserved. To make them too scared to ever think of hurting a Beta ever again. Like every Omega, she derived intense satisfaction from any action that might help make a Beta's life easier. It was how they were conditioned. It was what the fire inside provided them.

Naomi had been a bitter, insecure, bullied girl with one horrible moral lapse in her life. One that could have been avoided if someone had ever actually acted like a true friend t her. These punishments would do nothing for the remorseful girl, and Claire could never bring herself to enjoy harming someone like that. They were simply a thing she would have to deliver moving forward.

Stephanie was supposed to be easier to punish. Claire was aware of her file, but the girl's apathetic attitude had made it easy to push that aside as she held the girl at the mercy of her feet, taunting the girl with her superiority at the sport they both enjoyed. Showing her what "nothing" really was. It had felt so good until that awful, awful scream.

She had heard screams like the one that had emanated from her toes countless times in the thirteen years she had attended the Institute. It was commonplace in the documentary footage they watched as they were educated on how Betas had lived before Dr. Everett was reborn as the first Omega. It was a sound she would never forget, as long as she lived.

It was the sound of complete and total despair. Of a mind collapsing in on itself as it struggled and failed to cope with whatever darkness tormented it.

It was a sound Claire couldn't ignore.

So as she pulled her sock off and fetched the tiny girl from her sweat-soaked garment, she was unsurprised to see Stephanie sobbing as she lay face down in the center of her left pal. Frowning, Claire brought up her free hand and began gently rubbing her back with a fingertip half as tall as she was.

"Stephanie, are you okay?" she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. Her only answer was continued sobbing.

"Stephanie, do you need to talk to me? To someone? I can arrange it if you want."

Still nothing but sobbing. Claire's frown intensified.

"Stephanie, please, I need you to ta-"

"No!" Stephanie interrupted, her screeching voice raspy. She turned to face Claire, her eyes bloodshot, her face a twisted mix of agony and rage.

"I don't need anything!" she continued, her voice desperate. "I didn't do anything! I didn't! I didn't! I didn't! I didn't! I didn't!"

As the girl stopped to catch her breath, Claire could only stare at her blankly.

"I didn't! It was nothing! Nothing!"

"I didn't kill anyone!"

Claire simply sat and listened as Stephanie continued to utter denials, her voice becoming lower and lower. She watched with a sense of horrid realization as Stephanie's agonized expression began to melt away with each comforting denial, until she was eventually sitting there stone-faced. The same way she had looked the first time Claire had seen her, the expression she had kept up almost constantly.

They sat there in silence for a while. Stephanie simply looked at her blankly, and Claire couldn't think of anything to say. The girl had completely retreated back into her shell, and she didn't feel the need to try to bait her back out. At least not today. The important thing for now was that she knew something was in there, and she promised herself that she would find a way to help her.

Sighing, Claire temporarily set the inch-tall girl onto the expanse of her toned left thigh. The girl simply sat down, showing no interest in the ever-so-slight chance to run presented to her. After slipping her sock and shoe back on, she plucked the girl up and stood, bringing the girl close to her abdomen as she did so and curling the tiny thing into her palm. Caging the girl in with her fingers as she began to walk back home, the silence was broken by the sudden ringing of her cellphone. Pulling it from her arm strap, she took a quick look at the caller ID before answering.

"Jenna?" she asked.

"Claire!" her excitable friend answered. "Where are you, I'm at your house with Melody and no one is answering the door!"

Claire sighed. She hadn't been expecting visitors while she was out.

"I'm out for a run," she answered. "On my way back right now. What are you two doing there?"

"We wanted to see Corey, idiot!" Jenna nearly yelled. "We want to see how he's doing, let him know we're thinking about him..."

Claire couldn't help but smile. Her fellow Omegas, her two best friends, were sweet for thinking of her brother. Wasn't particularly surprising, though. She was pretty sure both had a crush on him growing up. She was also pretty sure Melody still did.

"...and we wanted to take a little peek at who did this to him," Jenna finished, her upbeat tone transforming into something a bit more feral.

Looking down at Stephanie, Claire was cautious for a moment, and only a moment. Marion's file suddenly came to mind. The things she had done. The things she had said. A history of cruelty and malice toward everyone around her. Nothing that indicated the problems Stephanie had.

A toothy grin spread across her lips.

"Know what, Jenna?" Claire said, suddenly happy, "why don't you two use the spare key under the welcome mat and go on in? Corey has a scheduled bath a little over an hour ago, so he's probably taking a nap..."

Claire couldn't help but lick her lips.

"...but I think I know exactly how we can pass some time until he wakes up."

"Oh?" Jenna asked, a sense of anticipatory delight in her tone.

"How about you go introduce yourselves to the little redhead in the leftmost tank in my room? I have one last session to do today, after all, and it's the one I've been looking forward to the most."

"Oh, Claire, that sounds just perfect."

"I thought you'd like that," Claire replied, her grin growing wider. "Just don't start without me, and don't do anything with the girl in the middle."

A "Will do!" marked the end of the conversation, and Claire inserted the phone back into her arm strap as she quickened her pace.

She'd ultimately give Marion a chance. She had told her brother she would be fair to them, and she intended to do so.

But she had a feeling Marion would fuck that up all on her own, without Claire having to do a single thing.