Chapter 7: Consequences
Nathan and the rest of the men were still talking amongst themselves, about what had transpired earlier that day. They still could not believe that Felipe had been killed in such a gruesome manner; even moreso that he was devoured by such fearsome lizards. The weight of his death--and the fact that they had abandoned him when he needed them most--hung heavily over their heads.
Then, off in the distance, they heard a sound--the unmistakable sound of the house's main door opening, and then slamming shut. Followed after were rapid--and hard--footsteps that grew louder as they neared. Before they could even process what was going on, Tina appeared in the living room's doorway. However, the men took notice to her expression: it was not a cheerful, calm, or even neutral one. It was one of pure anger. She stomped inside of the living room, and stopped right in the middle of the room, gritting her teeth and her eyes locked right on the couch.
Seeing this made all of them uneasy. The men glanced at each other with worrisome looks. They knew that she had found out about their escape attempt.
"Everyone one of you little bastards!!" Tina shouted. "Get out here! Right now, or I'll kill each and every one of you!!"
Nathan looked towards Peter, who gave him a slight, nervous nod.
Nathan watched as the other men slowly began to step out from beneath the couch. Peter followed after them, before Nathan finally departed as well.
Tina revealed a small object that was concealed within her hands, and held it in between her index finger and thumb. It looked like a bloody shirt; no doubt belonging to Felipe.
"What the fuck is this!?" Tina asked. "...Wait! Don't say it! One of you piece of shits left the house, didn't you!?"
"Th-that's not true, sweet feet!" Geoffery said, perhaps trying to appease her. "We have no-"
"Shut the fuck up!!" Tina barked. "Or I'll stomp the shit outta you!!"
Geoffery flinched, and became silent.
"Explain this!" Tina released the shirt from her fingers, letting fall slowly to the floor. "I found this outside with my lizards! Who decided to be the odd one out!? Which one of you is missing?!"
There was no answer from any of the men. With her furious eyes, Tina glanced through the entire group.
"Felipe..." Tina said. "And some of your clothes look dirty! I knew it! You ALL tried to leave me, didn't you?!"
Nathan was astonished at how she had figured that out, as were some of the others. Perhaps the lighter colors that some of them were wearing gave it away to Tina, or perhaps she was bluffing to get a reaction from them. Regardless of the case, they remained silent.
"Goddammit, answer me!!" Tina yelled as she reached to her right, grabbed a vase from a table there, and threw it towards the men. They fled as it flew above them and shattered on the arm of the couch. The pieces rained down onto the floor behind them.
"Next time, I won't miss!" Tina warned. "So you better tell me or-"
"Alright, we did, okay!?" Edward blurted out.
Tina looked to be somewhat surprised to hear Edward's confession. However, his companions looked at him with a mix of fear and anger on their faces. Edward looked around him nervously.
"She already knows we did it," he said, "and knowing her, if we try to deny it, she'll just call us liars and then smash us."
"You should have stayed the fuck quiet, then!" Percy replied angrily.
"Didn't you hear what I just said?!"
"I knew it!!" Tina said, grabbing the men's attention again. "After everything I do for you bastards, you pull this on me!? AAUGH!!!" She exhaled heavily. "...I have a mind to kill all of you right now." She laughed sinisterly. "It'd be loads of fun. Not for you all, I mean, but for me. Seeing all of you run for your lives as I chase after you... I'd make all of you suffer for as long as I want to before I finally put an end to your pathetic misery..."
Nathan and the others became apprehensive upon hearing her intentions.
Tina shook her head. "...But that's not going to solve anything. So here's what I'm going to do..." She then pointed in Peter's direction. "Peter! You're the leader, right? Come with me; we're going to talk."
"...Okay," Peter replied as he began to walk towards the titaness.
"Peter!" Percy called in a slightly worried tone. "You're not going to say anything, are you?"
"Of course not," Peter replied. "What else can I say that she doesn't know already?"
The group watched as Peter made his way in Tina's direction. Upon reaching her, she kneeled down and took him in her hands, and then stood back up.
"The rest of you wait here," she ordered. "And don't do anything stupid. I'm already in a bad mood, you know, and if you act up, I'll just squash you without a second thought."
The men watched as Tina walked out of the living room, and then head upstairs. They listened as her footsteps became more distant until nothing could be heard at all.
"Damn..." D'Marco sighed. "I thought she was gonna kill us all."
"Same here," Larry agreed. "But there's no tellin' what she's gonna do now."
"Hopefully Peter can calm her down," Edward chimed in. "Tell her that we learned our-"
In that instant, Edward was met with a hard punch to his left cheek. So hard that it knocked him off of his feet and onto the floor. He rubbed his aching cheek as he looked up at his assailant: Percy.
"What the hell, man!" Edward angrily yelled at him.
"Your stupid mouth almost got all of us killed!" Percy said. "Why couldn't you just shut up!?"
Edward shot back up and delivered his own punch to Percy's face. Percy recoiled back, before going for another strike, but before it could connect, he found himself being restrained by D'Marco and Geoffery, while Larry and Guy held Edward back.
"Chill, man!" D'Marco said to Percy. "Didn't Tina say don't do anything stupid!?"
"I don't care what that bitch said!" Percy retorted as he broke free from D'Marco's and Geoffery's grasps. "She's is so fuckin' lucky we're as small as we are, 'cuz if we were big again, ohh boy!!"
"Believe us, we feel the same way," Larry said. "But that's not the case right now. We're nothing but vulnerable little toys to her, and we have no choice but to stay on her good side."
Percy grunted. "Whatever." He then started to walk towards the couch.
The rest of the group watched him leave, before turning their attention to Edward.
"Are you alright?" D'Marco asked.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Edward replied. "It was just a punch, but I'm glad you guys stopped us before it got worse."
"So, what now?" Nathan asked.
"...I guess we just wait until Tina comes back," Geoffery said. "Nothing else we can do right now."
"Even if she comes back angrier than ever and kills us?"
"...Yep. Nothing we could do to stop her."
Nathan sighed. "I'm starting to wish that we had just ran for it when those lizard things appeared out there. ...I mean, out of the yard, and not back here."
"Well, that's a moot point, now," Larry said. "Besides, we probably wouldn't have lasted long out there, anyway."
"Better than being in here," Nathan said.
Nathan seperated from the group, and walked towards the shirt that Tina had recovered from those monstrous lizards outside. It was ripped across the front where its buttons were, and was soaked with Felipe's blood. Nathan could not imagine what Felipe had felt when those beasts bore their teeth into his skin and devoured him. Not to mention what he had felt knowing that his comrades had abandoned him to his fate.
And yet, Nathan was thankful that it was not him instead that was annihilated by those strange creatures.
~~~
The group waited in mostly silence for minutes, perhaps even half an hour. They waited for Tina's next move, and what she had in mind to do to them. They also wondered what she was doing with Peter; was it possible that she was torturing him for information about their escape attempt? Of course, Peter had not gone with them, but as the leader, he was well-informed about the failed endeavor.
After what seemed like an eternity of a wait, they heard footsteps from above. Approaching footsteps that became louder with each step.
"Here she comes..." D'Marco warned.
Indeed, Tina appeared in the doorway, and walked inside of the living room, with Peter in hand. She stepped closer to the couch, and placed Peter onto the floor in front of it. He went to rejoin his comrades, who all rushed out to meet with him.
"What'd she do?!" Larry asked him.
"I think the better question is what you said to her," Percy added.
Peter looked towards Percy with a somewhat annoyed look on his face. "I said that I wasn't going to say anything incriminating, and I didn't." He then looked towards the rest of the group. "But she's not done yet."
The men looked at him with a mix of curiosity and confusion.
"...She wants to interrogate all of you," Peter said.
This news garnered shock from the group.
"Same rules apply," Peter continued. "Say as little as you can. I already told her that it was Felipe's idea; in fact, I told her that it was only Felipe's idea." He looked towards Percy, who looked to breathe a small sigh of relief.
"You told them, right?" Tina asked high above them.
Peter turned to face her. "Yeah, they know."
"Good. So, which one of you little bastards are going to go first? Hmm?"
She scanned the group with her eyes, perhaps for the one she would choose to question first. Then, her eyes locked onto Stephen.
"You, Stephen," Tina called. "Come here."
The group all looked towards Stephen, who quietly obeyed Tina's command and walked towards her. They wondered what he would even have to tell her, considering that he was not apart of the attempted escape group.
Upon arriving inches from her feet shod with her black shoes, she bent downward and took him in hand, and then turned around and exited the room.
One by one, Tina returned and took another of the men into her bedroom upstairs. Including Geoffery, who also did not attempt to escape. As they returned, they relayed what Tina had asked them; about whose idea it was to escape, how they exited the house, and what they hoped to accomplish after successfully stepping off of her property. Guy and Edward were more tight-lipped than the others and were physically tortured--at least, they said they were--until Tina was satisfied with the information that they gave. They had since retired to the couch to rest their bodies.
With every passing minute, the remaining men became more restless and apprehensive. They silently waited for her to return, to choose whoever would be joining her in the room next. And returned she did.
Eventually, there was only one person remaining who had not had an audience with Tina. That person was none other than Nathan. In a way, he was rather irritated that he was the last to be chosen; with all of the pressure of the situation building on him, he just wanted to get this ordeal over with and then see what Tina's next move afterwards would be.
After a while, Tina returned to the living room with her last chosen in hand: Percy. Upon reaching the couch, she kneeled down and placed him on the floor besides Nathan.
"Your turn, blondie," Percy said while patting him on the shoulder as he walked past him.
Nathan grunted, and then looked at Tina's open palm that was awaiting him on the floor. He took a deep breath--to try to ease his nervousness--and walked towards it, during which he took a glance at Tina's still-serious face.
He stepped onto her palm, which then lifted off of the floor, causing him to lose his balance and fall onto his buttocks. Her fingers wrapped around him, securing his body inside of her hand, though his head was free. He watched as she carried him out of the living room and then upstairs, before walking the path that led to her bedroom.
Upon arriving inside, she closed the door behind her, and walked to her bed and sat down on it. Then, she opened her palm and looked down at him, her facial expression still rather indignant.
"Okay," she said, "tell me your side of the story."
Nathan sat up, his body shaking at the cold look she had in her eyes as they stared right at him; a stark contrast to the much more bright and playful one she had when he was usually with her--and in general. Looking in those eyes sent a chill down Nathan's spine; with the way the others talked of her, was this her true self, he wondered.
Because of that dark look, Nathan could not bring himself to tell her of the botched escape attempt.
"Am I scaring you?" Tina suddenly asked. "...Answer honestly." Her cold demeanor seemed to have softened slightly.
Nathan hesitated for a few seconds, before answering. "...Yeah."
"Ohh, well..." Tina's free hand then appeared above him, and its index finger reached down and pinned him against her palm. "I don't give a shit."
She started to press down harder, not enough to completely ravage his insides, but enough for him to feel the pressure on his ribcage and force the air out of his lungs. He started to scream in pain; it felt as if his ribs would snap under her finger's power. He instinctively tried to push her finger off of his chest, but the large and mighty finger was just too much for him to even move the slightest.
"You better talk, Nathan," Tina said. "Or... Well, I don't think you want to know what will happen next."
"Okay, okay!!" Nathan pleaded. "Please, get it off of me!!"
Without a word, the weight lifted from his body, and Nathan sat up while inhaling heavily.
"Talk," Tina ordered.
After spending a few more seconds catching his breath, Nathan looked back up at the towering woman's face. Her heartless look had returned.
"They probably already explained it all," Nathan started. "Felipe made a way out through the wall, and most of us left to try to get out of here. But then... Those things appeared and killed Felipe."
"Those 'things' are my prized burrowing fire lizards," Tina said. "Genetically engineered by my friends at FutureTech Labs. As you saw, they dig underground and feed on anything, especially flesh. They also spit acid, and bear extremely sharp fangs and claws. To be frank, they're worth more than you assholes."
Nathan took notice to her personality shift around him; a stark contrast to the cuddling and soft one that she typically displayed. Such a shift made him uneasy, and further proved that such an imbalance meant that not even he was safe from her wrath.
"Then what happened?" Tina asked.
"Nothing," Nathan replied. "We came back. We weren't going to try getting past those lizards."
"Okay... And one other thing. Who came up with the idea of you all breaking out of here?"
"Felipe did," Nathan answered.
"Is that all?"
Nathan was confused. "Huh?"
Tina reached for him again, and then pinch his left arm inbetween her finger and thumb, and began to squeeze it. Nathan once again cried out in agony; she was obviously being careful not to demolish it, but the pain almost made him think otherwise.
"I don't believe for a second that Felipe was the only one who came up with that plan of yours," Tina cooldly stated. "So, if you're hiding something, you better tell me now, or I'll rip your arm right out of its socket."
She pinched tighter, increasing the pain that Nathan was experiencing and causing him to cry out louder than before. Like earlier, he did not know if she was bluffing or not. However, he also did not want to take the chance of her being serious about her threat to tear out his arm.
"AHHHHHH!!!" Nathan screamed. "Okay, okay!! I'll tell you!!"
"Mm... Good boy," Tina said in a comparably soft tone. "I knew you'd make the smart choice."
The pressure on his arm lightened, though she still held it gripped in her hand, perhaps as some sort of assurrance that he would not deceive her, or suffer the consequences.
"Now, who else was in on that plan?" Tina asked.
Nathan looked up at her face, now with a mostly neutral expression.
He let out a sigh. "It was..."
~~~
Tina carried Nathan back to the living room, to rejoin his companions. Upon arriving, she placed him onto the floor inches away from the couch, where the other men stood. Nathan held his pained arm with his opposite hand, as the other men watched her expectantly.
"How'd it go?" Peter asked Nathan.
"I told her what she wanted to hear," Nathan replied. "Nothing more than what you said, of course."
"Hm." Peter nodded, and looked back upward towards the towering woman.
"Okay..." Tina started. "After talking with all of you, I have a clearer picture of what happened. Felipe--in his stupidity--knocked a hole in my wall for you all to escape through. While out there, you ran across my lizards, which ate up not-so-poor Felipe and scared the shit outta the rest of you, and so you came back." She smirked at them. "Wise decision, bugs."
Tina then kneeled down, giving some of the men in the right position a view up he black skirt that she was wearing. "However, I now know that there was another one of you who planned your great escape. So until that person comes forward to receive their punishment, this issue will not be buried. ...You know who you are. Be a man--well, as much of a man as you can be--and step forward."
The men nervously looked amongst themselves. They knew who the culprit was, but they did not want to draw Tina's attention towards him. They remained silent.
Tina sighed. "Fine. You wanna be like that? Then I'll just call you out, Percy."
The group's eyes widened in shock; there were even a few gasps heard among them. They turned to face Percy further back, who was standing away from the rest of his companions; perhaps still steamed over his altercation with Edward. His face was a mix of shock and anger, as he looked from Tina to his comrades. He knew; they all knew.
Someone had told her.
Immediately thereafter, Percy took off running, fleeing further underneath the couch in an attempt to get away from the vindictive woman.
"You son of a bitch," Tina said in an annoyed tone. "You're seriously gonna try to run?"
With a swift movement, Tina got on her hands and knees and reached under the couch with her right hand. In no time at all, she had recovered Percy, as evident from the angry yelling that the remaining men could hear.
"Let me go, you bitch!" Percy yelled at her. "I didn't do anything!!"
"Calling me a 'bitch'?" Tina said as she stood to her feet. "That's not going to do you any favors. As of right now, your life is literally in my hands."
She looked back down at the men standing at her feet. "Wait here. Percy and I are going to have one final talk." With that, she carried Percy out of the room, and then upstairs once more.
After hearing the door upstairs close, an air of unease came upon Nathan and his companions.
"W-what the hell!?" Larry exclaimed. "She found out it was him?!"
"That's not cool, man..." D'Marco added.
Peter let out a heavy sigh. "Dammit. I told you all not to say any more than necessary. Are you all that weakwilled?"
"But she did torture some of us," Edward said. "Maybe one of us cracked under the pressure...?"
The group silently stared at Edward, who quickly noticed and became apologetically nervous.
"I didn't say anything!" he said. "Honest!"
"Me either," Guy added in. "I stuck with my story even when she was pinching me."
"Same here," Nathan said.
"This is bad," Peter said. "Even amongst us, friends and companions, we can't even trust each other? Furthermore, I'm guessing the culprit or culprits are not going to show themselves?"
The room became silent, with not a word uttered. They waited to see if anyone would confess to revealing the truth behind the attempted escape. However, as expected, none came forward.
"...I see." Peter shook his head in obvious disdain. "There's nothing we can do in any case. Percy is now completely at the mercy of Tina. All we can do is hope that he comes out of it mostly unscathed."
"...But you know if that does happen, he's just going to come after us for snitching, right?" Edward said.
"We'll deal with that when it happens."
Nathan watched as the other men became silent once again. They then began to separate off into different directions; some back to the couch, while others went elsewhere in the room. Peter, however, stood where he was, perhaps lost in thought.
Then, Nathan's eyes set upon the shattered remains of the vase that Tina threw earlier, the very same that she had threatened them with. Today had shown Nathan just how unstable she was; unfortunately, he did not have much hope of Percy coming back without any physical abuse done to him. In a way, he felt sorry for him.
~~~
Despite all odds, Percy continued to free himself from Tina's mighty grasp. All the while, she merely stared at him with her still-irritated expression worn on her face, not saying a word at all. More than anything, he wished he could give that very face the hardest punch he could muster. Her, as well as whoever it was that sold him out to her. He could not believe that someone that he had called a "friend" had spilled everything to her and put him in this position.
Whoever was responsible, he would find out and make them pay once he returned to the others.
After a minute of him struggling, Tina finally spoke. "Are you done yet?"
Percy did not reply.
Tina squeezed tighter, pressing the air out of his body. The pain was excruciating. He tried to cry out, but was unable to do so.
"Yeah, you're done," Tina said, before kneeling down slightly and dropping him to the floor.
At his size, the fall was not fatal, but combined with his already aching body, the impact of him hitting the floor only served to further incapacitate him. Unable to muster the strength to move his body, he had no choice but to lay there and catch his breath, while he looked up at the frightening sight of the angry woman whose face stood many stories above him.
"You've been a pain in the ass ever since I brought you here," Tina said. "To be frank, I'm fed up with you."
Percy's heart skipped a beat upon hearing this.
Tina then walked around him, stopping at his head. Then, he saw the black sole of her workshoe rise up above him. His heart sank, and he desperately tried to muster the strength to move. Unfortunately, before he could even make a slight movement, the front end of the sole descended onto his head, pinning it against the floor.
Percy screamed and yelled at her to step off of him, and even tried to push it off himself. All this knowing that his efforts were futile.
"Percy Black," he heard Tina's voice from beyond her shoe. "You really are a pathetic piece of work. So I'm not even going to bother with you anymore. Right here and now, you're going to die. ...Just like your brother."
Despite the situation that he was in, this latest revelation caught Percy's interest. His missing brother who had walked out on his family... Did she have something to do with his disappearance?
"You!!" Percy yelled as loud as he could. "You killed Bruce!!"
"No, I didn't. Melissa did. You know about her, right? She went into great detail on how she slowly crushed the life out of him. She desribed him as arrogant and a prude. Funny, because I'd describe you as the same. I guess it runs in your family."
Upon hearing this, Percy was in complete disbelief, mixed with grief and anger. "You... You're both bitches!! I hope you both burn in hell!!"
He heard Tina giggle. "Silly Percy... There is no hell."
Then, he felt the pressure on his head increase. He cried out as his vision began to become hazy and watery. Was this his end, to be crushed underfoot by this mad woman? Even now, at this very moment, he could not believe that all of her threats from before would turn out to be very real for him.
"Well, this is the end, Percy Black," Tina said. "As you go, keep in mind that you were absolutely worthless, both here and in life."
The weight upon his head increased by the ton, bringing with it a sharp and unbearable pain for a split second before everything went dark.
~~~
Still thinking about the events that had transpired that day, Nathan sat in the middle of the floor, a bit away from the couch. He wondered what hell Tina was putting Percy through, and if he would even return unscathed. He hoped that there was a chance, however; they could not afford to lose two companions in one day.
Then, footsteps. He, as well as the other men, heard them on the floor above. They became louder as they drew closer, and then heard them stepping down the stairs. Everyone prepared themselves for Tina's umpteenth return into the living room.
As expected, Tina walked into the living room, holding both of her hands behind her back as she entered. She stopped a few feet away from Nathan, the closest to her at that point, as the other men walked to join him.
Then, Tina pulled her right arm out from behind her back, revealing that it was holding something. A closer looked showed it to be Percy being dangled by his arm; a further closer look revealed Percy's body to be lifeless... and headless. Blood gushed out onto his shirt and soaked it red.
This sight horrified all of the tiny men who saw this. Nathan especially; it was his first time seeing someone who had been killed in this house--let alone someone that he had somewhat of a budding relationship with--and the sight of his mutulated corpse nearly made him gag.
Tina then reached down and grabbed Felipe's torn and bloody shirt from the floor. She then worked the shirt onto Percy's body, pulling his arms through the shirt's sleaves to secure it onto the lifeless husk.
"Do you all see this?" Tina said in a serious tone. "This is what happens when you defy me."
There were no words to be said; everyone was speechless at this brutal display.
"I'm going to hang this thing on the coat rack in the front hallway," she continued. "As a reminder of what can and will happen when you step out of line."
Tina then turned around and exited the living room, leaving the mortified men to talk about her latest gruesome act.
"Shit!" Larry exclaimed. "She really did it! I can't believe she killed him!!"
"Damn..." D'Marco covered his eyes with his hand. "Man... I don't believe this shit..."
"I didn't think she'd actually kill him..." Edward said in a low tone.
"Percy..." Guy muttered.
They were silent for a few minutes, perhaps reminiscing of the time that they had shared with Percy. Nathan wished that he had more time to get to know him better. Though he moreover wished that he had never been brought into this situation, a situation that--as just demonstrated--was unsafe and uncertain for everyone here. Even him, Tina's supposed "favorite".
Furthermore, the seeds of discord had been sewn within them. Percy's death was the direct cause of someone telling Tina of his involvement with Felipe's escape plan. Not only could they now not trust each other anymore, but they had to work to find who exactly gave Tina the information she needed to punish Percy in the most demeaning way possible.
This was added stress that none of the men needed given their situation.
~~~
-I can't believe this bullshit!
I work a long and hard day ay work, and I come home to find that those fucking bastards have completely lost their minds! After all I do for them, they repay me by trying to leave me!? I should just kill them all and get it over with!!
Sigh... Felipe's dead; he was the one who led the charge, and he was killed by my lizards. They're much more obedient than those shits downstairs, I know that much. And thanks to a special someone, I found out that that annoying Percy was in cohorts with him. Percy was always a troublemaker, even before I took him in, and to be frank, I had enough. So he's dead, too. I should have prolonged it, maybe took to shoes off, but I wasn't in the mood for fun and games.
I don't want to be bothered with them right now. They can all die for all I care. Most of them, anyway.-
[End Chapter]
Giantess World
