Giantess World
Once Lexi had the answer to her tortuous question, the trip back home from the park was as solemn as the journey two days before from Sanctuary, only this time the Alpha could sense it was Bridget’s turn to stifle further comment after they’d already crossed such a painful hurdle. The temporarily-taller sibling was careful to withhold her remaining sea of anxieties for now, half-certain she’d talk herself out of this crazy venture if she spoke before setting eyes on this so-called manual.
Walking among strangers in the city and then the sparser suburban streets that gave way to the Omega neighborhood, Lexi became self-conscious of the eyes upon her and her handheld passenger, with the crowds likely thinking them simply to be Alpha-and-Beta passerby, friends or sisters, when in fact they were now Enforcer and subject. What would those people think to learn that she was about to learn how to punish Bridget in such a way that, theoretically, two wrongs would cancel out and make a right? How many of them would scoff and shun her? Far worse, how many would support and cheer her on, purely for the thrill of seeing an Omega finally get a taste of her own medicine?
When they arrived back in the Cades’ front yard, Lexi paused so fast she nearly stumbled forward into the grass, thinking rather suddenly of Evelyn. She and Bridget had departed from the house so quickly earlier, in the Alpha’s desperation to let her sister spill the reconciliatory beans, she hadn’t even seen their mother, nor received any texts or calls from her. Not that this was uncommon practice, given Evelyn’s busy schedule at Aegis, but for the first time since finding Bridget shrunken to finger-height in the landscape of her bedspread, Lexi wondered if the elder Omega knew, and more frightening, what she’d say.
It was hard to imagine Evelyn being supportive of her mentally-scarred daughter’s necessarily brutal chastening at the giant hands of the person Bridget loved most, tied only with Evelyn herself. Granted, the Enforcement was unlikely to be anywhere as damaging as what Lexi went through a year and a half before, considering her emotional reticence and total inexperience weighed against Bridget’s near-superheroic constitution, even while shrunken, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to badly sting still for both girls. Still, upon entering the house and finding no sign of Evelyn, not even a note by the door, some strange intuition told Lexi that their mother did know what had happened to her prodigal daughter, and more dramatically, what was going to happen soon, which in the most twisted way was a source of comfort, if not additional nerves as well.
“Do you, um, remember where in your closet the book is?” Lexi asked, speaking for the first time since tacitly agreeing to this role-reversal madness.
“Last I saw, it was on the floor somewhere. It shouldn’t be buried too deep,” Bridget said. “I… was using it a lot just before I… we left home.”
The Alpha nodded, not wanting more detail. It made sense, but nevertheless made her stomach coil worse to imagine Bridget reading the how-to instructions for tormenting her sister in the name of eye-for-an-eye justice. Such an idea made a cold and calculated matter seem even colder.
“I needed it more than I thought I would for my first time,” Bridget sighed, as if sensing Lexi’s contemplation. “I knew the whole thing inside and out already, but after I volunteered to… work with you… I still needed the help. W-What I mean, I couldn’t have done it… without…”
The Omega quieted herself now, too embarrassed to squeeze out another word that might deign to suggest her work as an Enforcer was “hard,” when Lexi was the one penned in a glass box, getting lightly trampled and glued to melting desserts. Still, the Alpha understood why her sister gave this explanation before shame took over, as a gentle piece of solidarity, and like the thought of Evelyn knowing about their unusual arrangement, it gave Lexi bittersweet support, with emphasis on the bitter, to know that it would be just as difficult for her to discipline Bridget in the same way.
Once inside, the walk from the front porch to the Omega’s bedroom along the Alpha walkway felt just as lengthy and arduous as the whole meandering trip across the city. As there was still a barricade holding the standard-size doorway from the other side, the sisters once again took the circuitous route down the elevator to the ground and clambered under the lip of the Omega door in order to make their way toward the two-hundred-foot bulwark of the closet. Lexi appreciated this fleeting chance to recall their adventuring of bygone years, spending afternoons making castles out of cardboard and traversing shrubberies they called enchanted forests. Only this time, Bridget was far more adept at fitting into smaller spaces, not even having to duck to slide beneath the crack of the door, which would’ve proven a major boon for their games in the old days. The Alpha realized, just as they emerged back in the Omega’s room, that she would’ve utterly delighted at the imaginative possibilities for creative playtime if her sister could occasionally have been this size during their tweens.
But they were close now, with the ominous door dead-ahead, and Lexi had to steel herself again. It had been a very long time since she feared finding monsters hiding in closets, especially since as a child, the very-large door in the Omega’s bedroom seemed like it could be concealing accordingly kaiju-scale nocturnal creatures; today, however, she felt some of that same youthful apprehension knotting her innards. This monster in the closet was going to feel all too real.
The door was still cracked ajar from the previous night, when had Bridget rummaged through the storage to find doll-sized lodging for her bedside visitor. It was far too bulky for Lexi to have a chance of nudging it the rest of the way open herself, of course, but at least they didn’t have to scramble beneath, and better yet, what little light could enter the closet would aid their search. To speed up the process, the tiny Omega re-boarded her sister’s palm, and the pair ventured again as a unit into the uncertain semi-darkness.
Making her way around several pairs of boat-like shoes, the Alpha came beneath the overhang of a bookshelf. Like the bedside table, the side of the enormous furniture was etched with stepping blocks for Lexi to scale and reach her own little library of books above back when they were children, but of course none of those fairy tale texts could prepare her for what was coming.
“There,” Bridget said, pointing into the shadows deep under the lowest raised shelf. “I see it.”
“Okay,” Lexi sighed.
Stepping out of the path of light trickling in from the distant bedroom window, she padded across the carpet shrouded in black, until the shape of a white-spined book came into view. “Manual” indeed seemed an apt name for Bridget’s Enforcement handbook, as the lettering and gloss of the cover made the tome look more like the instruction guide for an expensive piece of technology. In a way, though, the concept it had to teach was far more complex than any computerized system. Setting Bridget down on the floor beside the book, which was of course taller than the mini Omega multiple times over now, Lexi pulled out her cell phone and shined its flashlight across the dreaded expanse.
A logo for Aegis was illuminated in the corner. In the center, near-transparent silver block letters read Principles of Junior Enforcement: A Technical Education and Instruction.
“Wow, you weren’t kidding,” Lexi said.
“I know.”
The Alpha almost wanted to laugh, if only to break the tension, and because the book bordered on ridiculous for its clinical presentation of what amounted to force-based behavior modification, but it was just a little too grim to be humorous. She set her phone so the flare of the tiny bulb dimly revealed the entire spotless book. Rather fittingly, the smooth alabaster surface area of the cover was roughly the same as the glass cage she occupied for two weeks as the official charge of the Cades’ resident Junior Enforcer. Despite the lack of walls on this platform, though, Lexi expected the lessons contained in these pages to feel rather imprisoning in their own right.
Sliding both hands under the cover, she proceeded to heave the plasticy wedge upward, finding it at least easier than she expected to open the book, but still a cumbersome chore. That was the case, at least, until Lexi felt the platform suddenly tipping up at an angle with even less effort. Looking down at knee-height where the paper stack peaked, she saw Bridget, who’d not only scrambled up the obstruction without making a sound, but was shoulder-pressing the cover overhead without any of the herculean gumption it would’ve otherwise required, if her strength was proportionate to her Beta-stature.
Clearly the girl wasn’t exaggerating about maintaining much of her Omega-native tough-cookie constitution even at three inches tall. Still, while Lexi was relieved to know they would be able to flip through the book without having to get Evelyn for help (a proposition of such catastrophic awkwardness that she doubted she could go through with it in a hundred years), seeing Bridget’s shrunken gusto in action was another uncomfortable reminder that it wouldn’t be sufficient for Lexi to show gentility toward her in any way through this process. She was really going to have to give the Omega her best shot, an almost-literal beat-down, if any value was to come of their work. Working together, though seemingly with most of the push coming from a far-less reluctant Bridget, the pair succeeded in prying the manual open to the table of contents.
“I guess they’re not all about going digital and paperless at Aegis yet, huh?” Lexi said, trying to force a smile.
“There are computer records for the more experienced… employees,” Bridget replied. “But I think for the new generation, they wanted us to have something solid to start, with pages, that we’d have to touch and look at. I don’t know if it was to make what we were doing seem realer, or…”
The Alpha nodded and, having procrastinated laying eyes on the first page as long as possible, joined her elder sib in studying the clean rows of text. Several early sections in the book apparently detailed the history and philosophies of this unique disciplinary practice, then went into detail on the mentality of imprisoned Alphas, their containment, and an Enforcer’s attitude toward them. Further down the column, though, the terms became more tangible, with greater directness than Lexi was anticipating after pre-judging the clean and almost inviting cover: session preparation, then guidelines and breakdowns for those sessions split into beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert delineations like cooking or video gaming difficulty advisements.
“I was thinking, it might be best to start near the end,” Bridget said, pointing to the advanced label. Her tone suggested this wasn’t even enough in her estimation, though, and Lexi caught the tiny blonde’s gaze flitting to the expert line instead. “You know, since I’m… tougher than most people these things are used for?”
“No. Beginner,” Lexi insisted, rather forcefully. Surprised at her own aggressive timbre, while also realizing it could be used to her advantage in softening the blow, she shrugged, and stepped onto the page, towering over her sister. “Hey, you’re the one who’s putting me in charge.”
“That’s true.” The disappointment was barely hidden in Bridget’s voice, but the Alpha could tell her self-appointed ward wasn’t going to strong-arm the issue, when Lexi’s agreement was tenuous enough already. Stepping back again, together the pair rifled through the pages clusters at a time, until they arrived at the start of the beginner section. Once they’d arrived, however, the miniscule Omega made a point of hopping off the paper stage again, and receded back to the carpet several paces back.
“Aren’t you going to show me which one to pick?” Lexi asked with muted alarm.
Bridget shook her head. “I don’t think it’ll be as effective if I’m choosing my own rehabilitation… stuff. I mean, I’m already taking away some of the point by deciding on my own that we’d do this, when nobody else gets that choice to begin with. I can help you out if the book isn’t clear about something, but it… has to be you, Lexi. Please.”
While this entire scheme was still a tricky one for the Alpha to swallow, she understood this much rationale at least. And the last thing she wanted to do was go through with this whole extreme measure, only for its potency to be lost by Bridget’s over-involvement, and then they’d be back in the same place they were now, except Lexi would’ve punished her older sister for nothing. If she was going to do this, they were going to do it right the first time, leaving no trace of Bridget’s guilt and brokenness behind. So on her hands and knees, Lexi crawled along the page, reading the technical titles and summaries, all while the pit in her gut worsened.
The layout of how-tos on productive and consequential Alpha-criminal rearing certainly wasn’t what she’d expected, vague an idea though she had before. Then again, Lexi had only suffered through two full-blown sessions under Bridget’s tutelage, which wasn’t much for reference. Still, given what those activities entailed, rough underfoot wrestling and toe-punching for one and then plastering betwixt icy pillar and broiling tongue for the last, plus rumors she’d heard from others of what else the judicial system allowed, Lexi half-expected the Enforcement instruction to be segmented by Omega body part categories. In her head, each new chapter might have explained every possible way a foot the size of a car, then a pair of volcanically-exhaling lips, or even an Omega’s finger could make life a living hell for society’s lowest scum. Instead, the difficulty ratings seemed to correlate to the severity of the punishments, physically and psychologically, while encompassing all the methods they could use, both with outside tools and their own anatomy, to answer the horrible choices made by Alphas against Betas.
One of the first sample entries, though, Lexi recognized almost immediately as the same session she’d undergone on her first day as Bridget’s charge. “Introductory Foot-Centered Correction,” it bluntly read. A diagram of a featureless 3D humanoid sat in a chair, overlooking an appropriately diminutive second person, with its foot raised above the victim. A description and bullet-pointed list explained the basics of using one’s feet to chasten an Alpha, and was noted as being a common first session for new inductees to the program, given the frequency of malevolent Alphas bandying ground-dwelling Betas around with their shoes when authorities weren’t looking, if not outright stomping them into paste. The entry was seemingly dispassionate at first glance, almost like a medical textbook, describing methods of dexterously employing one’s toes, or applying just enough pressure beneath a bare sole to avoid inflicting grievous harm, in cold and clear terms.
Then, however, Lexi would stumble upon a word choice or a sentence where she could feel the ire of the author seeping through, and a burning sense of justice, where rather particular examples were given of precisely how tightly to pinch one’s digits with an Alpha limb jammed between to properly unsettle them but before breakage occurred, outlining the sensation with needless detail. Completing the listing was a “Did You Know?” panel, explaining that this basic concept of humiliation and correction underfoot was in fact THE first session conceived by Aegis Enforcers, given the volume of early punishable Alpha crimes which involved grinding and smearing Betas into shoe treads or tattooing three-incher remains across their soles.
It wasn’t exactly the same as what Lexi had experienced, since the Alpha had been batted around in accordance with what a vengeful Beta mastermind had made the Omegas think took place at the crime scene, but the principles were the same. It was also plain that the then-Junior Enforcer had not only chosen the first relevant option out of the manual she saw, but in fact selected one less damaging than Lexi’s alleged crime probably warranted.
“Beginner” was probably too soft for putting someone in a coma. Instead, the first entries Lexi laid eyes on in this section of the manual implied these were actions deserved by perpetrators who either negligently hurt or simply terrorized Betas without physically harming them. Indeed, Bridget hadn’t been joking either about volunteering to be her sister’s keeper specifically to keep the far more brutal activities later in the book from being utilized by less sympathetic Enforcers. This reminder of the Omega’s own prior emotional pains offered strange solidarity to her Alpha sister as she read through the lines, but it still didn’t make Lexi’s decision any easier.
The Beginner section quickly became a labyrinth for the Alpha, focusing at first on the “gentler” use of individual body parts, but quickly combined these primitive concepts into more creative permutations, almost like choreographed dances, and this was still the section meant for the world’s least-offensive Beta-harmers. These options often involved eerie size-unbalanced versions of roleplay between Enforcer and Alpha, or even directly re-enacting the crimes of the perp, except with their statures reversed, including whatever exact dialogue or actions they’d taken to hurt tiny citizens, as reported by witnesses and survivors. Putting them as directly as possible into the shoes of their victims, sometimes literally, the guidebook emphasized, was among the most crucial ways of imbuing these Alphas with necessary knowledge.
Stranger still to Lexi was the fact that the more she read about rolling Alphas along one’s instep or plucking on their limbs like paper finger traps, the easier it became to follow the book’s logic, even while the sickness in her stomach didn’t much subside. Whenever a new punishment recipe involving fake-out falls or phlegmy spitballs began to boil Lexi’s blood in memory of her wrongful conviction, she’d spot another “Did You Know?” blurb, many of which provided background on similar real-life crimes that had earned Alphas the consequence in question.
This led to Lexi reading multiple harrowing three-sentence accounts of her own size-class’s deplorable conduct, from hooligan Alpha students tossing Beta teachers in mud puddles, to sorority sisters “hazing” one another by egging Beta houses with enough yolk to drown the occupants, to professional go-getters trapping their smaller coworkers in jars just to win a promotion at work. And these were still just the Beginner section-worthy infractions. What horrors awaited later in the manual, at higher skill levels, were Lexi could only presume that much more draconian but potentially-earned punishments were enacted?
Just maybe, the Alpha was beginning to conclude, this whole operation would be easier to follow through on if, for but a minute or an hour, she considered Bridget’s line of thinking, and the book’s. Surely she could give her determined Omega kin that much of a chance? And, misguided or not, Bridget’s own actions as an Enforcer over a framed Lexi did technically place her in an even higher category than the lesser abuses of the Beginner section. If Bridget believed so strongly in this system’s ability to correct problems, then maybe it was time for Lexi to trust her big sister again, just as she used to, without hesitation.
“Everything okay?” Bridget whispered, though she still kept her distance from the book. “I know it’s a lot to take in. And plus you’re skipping all the formal training that eases you into it. But-”
“Yes.”
Lexi stood up and walked across the page, planting each stride between impactful typeface and illustrations she was, for better or worse, soon to copy as the first and perhaps only unofficial Alpha Enforcer. Reaching the edge of the manual, she looked down on her three-inch sister, cowered humbly in the glow of the phone flashlight. With her tiny shadow stretching toward the Alpha’s feet, Bridget looked smaller and more insignificant than either girl could’ve probably ever imagined, but every bit as needful, patiently waiting to hear that they were a team. She truly hadn’t backed down by even an inch from her faith that this was the only way forward. And seeing that resolve in the little Omega’s face gave Lexi the last bit of confirmation she needed to see them through what had to be seen through.
“Okay,” she said with near-alien purpose. “Let’s just do this thing.”