Nagisa could hardly manage to focus throughout the day, the classes seeming to drag on and on. He had told a few classmates about the simulation that Ritsu had made, and they were more than excited to try it for themselves. As the last bell rang out, the group loitering behind in the evening grew a little larger. In addition to Nagisa and Manami, there were two new students interested in the idea of virtual training.

Hinano Kurahashi and Rio Nakamura were busy chatting about their bedazzled knife sheaths to pass the time - but the topic kept straying back to the VR city.

“Do you think we’ll get to be big, like those two?” Hinano asked, clearly interested in the concept. Rio shrugged, chewing her bubblegum. “I don’t know - Nagisa said Ritsu had been trying to fix it for proper training, so we’ll just have to wait and see.” She says, twirling a length of her blonde hair around one finger.

Soon, it was time. Ritsu re-booted with a musical jingle, and the cabinets on the side of her unit slid out with 4 sets of VR gear, freshly printed with a few new sensors. Hinano rushes over. “Whoah, Ritsu, this is so cool!” She beams, quickly followed by Rio as she casually strides over.

Nagisa was just as excited as last time - if not more so. He found himself secretly hoping that Ritsu hadn’t managed to fix the scaling error quite yet - but he didn’t want to press it in case she had.

“The program has loaded!” Ritsu says, displaying on her screen. “And, the scale error should be fixed - it was simply a misplaced decimal point, scaling your bodies by a factor of ten - I’ve corrected it!”

The group of students gathered excitedly around Ritsu, and donned the gear, sitting down in the desks nearby - just like before, the classroom’s lights flicker and dim as the students from class 3-E are thrown into a virtual world once more.

> Loading complete <

Ritsu’s voice rings out from the sky, the students loading into the world with a flash of light. Ritsu had indeed made some changes to the size algorithm - but, it seemed she had made them in the wrong direction. In the last simulation, a skyscraper had come up to Manami’s chest - but now, it seemed to barely even reach far past her ankle. She - and her classmates - were each over a mile tall.  

Ritsu frowns. “It appears I have corrected in the wrong direction..” She says, and Rio chuckles. “Hah, wow - Ritsu, this is great!” She lifts up a foot, watching the shadow fall over a hundred houses in the suburbs. The length of her loafer’s worn sole was longer than a skyscraper was tall - and she had never felt so powerful before. She chewed her gum with a smile that got slowly wider as she watched tiny specks run out of their virtual homes and into the streets, pointing and screaming. “Nagisa said they’re not real - right Ritsu?”

Ritsu nods. “That’s correct, they are simply-”

Before she could even finish speaking, Rio’s sole came down, hard, on the suburbs. The sound would have been deafening to the people on the ground as the hard leather sole smashed into a few dozen houses - the force of the shockwave spraying a wall of dust and debris for half a mile through the still-standing houses, as Rio twisted her foot around. The scent of leather and teen girl sweat flooding the streets as she crushed over a hundred homes into a fine paste. Hinano watches with a shocked expression from nearby.

“Whoah - Rio! Those are houses!” She pipes up, concerned.

Rio pops the bubble she was blowing with an uncaring shrug. “They’re not real ones. Plus, even if they were, it’s not like I could just never walk anywhere, right?” She asks, with a nonchalant smile. “They’ll learn to get out of the way, I bet.”

“W-well, if you’re sure -” Hinano says, daintily lifting up one foot and stepping forwards - flattening an entire highway overpass under the heel of her loafer. “W-well, I guess it is kind of neat…” She says, with a shy smile.

“That’s the spirit!” Rio says, hopping over to the more populated side of the city with an energetic hop that set off dozens of car alarms. The blonde student stretches her arms wide and watches the virtual city shake with her steps, drinking in the feeling of being so utterly massive.

Nagisa watches her curiously - she really was taking to the size with enthusiasm.

“I’ve got an idea!” Rio says, hands on her knees as she watches the bustling city below, a devilish smirk on her face as she chews her gum, squinting to make out the impossibly tiny people on the street stare and scream as she looms closer, kneeling down on the city to get a better look.

But, it wasn’t close enough to really see all the little people, she decided - she laid down closer, propping her head up on her hands as her elbows dug huge craters into the city, her school shoes sliding back to dig trenches half a mile long through the suburbs. Nagisa and Manami stepped closer to watch - their footsteps shaking the foundation of the tiny skyscrapers.

“Okay, little guys, I’m gonna try something.” Rio said, yelling directly down into the city streets with an eager tone of voice. The sheer volume of the student’s voice set off a dozen car alarms, shaking store front windows and making the tiny citizens clap their hands over their ears. 

But that was nothing compared to what was coming next. With a playful smirk, Rio started to blow a bubble - the tiny citizens could only watch as their sky was slowly replaced with a semi-transparent pink dome that grew… and grew - with each playful puff of the blonde giantess’ breath.

A few tried to run, but they might as well have been running from a tidal wave. The huge pink bubble cast a shadow that outstripped them far faster than they could run. A giggle echoed ominously in the pink bubble as it started to push against the roofs of the buildings, pressing into the tips of skyscrapers until -

P O P  

With a deafening explosion of hot breath, chewed gum, and Rio’s spittle - the intensity instantly deafening every single tiny within 500 feet - shattering storefront windows and blowing leaves off of the trees that lined the streets - the bubble burst.

The streets were instantly covered in a huge, sticky mass of Rio’s chewed gum - bits of her spittle splashing down like thick, heavy rain, the scent of her breath all around them as the pink bubblegum popped with the force of a small bomb - some were instnatly smothered under the thick, sticky goo, cars squealing their tires on the asphalt to stretch the stringy pink substance - before snapping back into a blob with a crunch of breaking metal.

An entire city block was covered in the junior high student’s chewed bubble gum, the hot material slowly cooling in the open air and trapping a hundred tinies beneath the pink mess. Manami kneels nearby, taking notes as she gushes about the chemistry of the gum and how it might differ at this scale, poking at the mushy mess with her pencil as an apartment building slowly crumbles and sinks into the sticky goop.

Rio’s eyes grew wide, fascinated, watching tiny limbs panic and claw out of the tar-like substance. “Hey, Ritsu - could you make us even bigger, like - if we wanted?” She asks, with a mischievous little grin appearing on her face.

Ritsu pauses to think. “Well - I suppose it would be possible… If that’s what you all would like, of course.” 

To Be Continued -