She is a fair-skinned, long brown-eyed tainy with waist-length, jet-black hair. He is a mini with dark brown skin, short black hair, and bright green eyes. They are Leslie and Fred, waiting. Mary sees them on her cell phone, the last two members of her study group waiting at the door, she presses the screen that opens the door and lets them enter the cubicle that will transport them inside the house A minute later, a door opens in the wall of the room from where the little students walk to the table leg, where they take an elevator.

- It was about damn time – Victoria snaps at the newcomers.

They both smile, fully aware that her friendship with Mary gives Victoria full capabilities to do and say whatever she wants, especially while they are all in the shadow of the apex. Victoria is the kind of tainy who usually shuts her mouth and stays away from confrontation, a fair-skinned young woman with wide brown eyes and short platinum hair that falls to her ears. But since she met Mary a year ago and became such close friends, she has discovered an unknown self-confidence, a new attitude that accompanies her even when she is not with Mary, as if the overwhelming presence of the apex became omnipresent on her. Of course, the young woman, with a docile nature, only uses her recently found voice to joke around, although sometimes doesn't seem like it, as is the case right now. Although she doesn't always succeed, Victoria tries to be careful, fully aware that a too strong intonation can end with Mary pulverizing a tainy between her fingers or flinging a mini against a wall like a small bullet of red paint, with the mere intention of to defend her little friend.

- Just kidding, of course - Victoria clarifies, blushing as she greets Fred and Leslie -, welcome...

- I think that's what I say – Mary interrupts her, her voice going through everyone present – Welcome to my house, I hope you haven't found it too difficult to get here. I suppose you already know Victoria and Víctor.

- Is Victor already here? – Fred asks, surprised to not see his friend anywhere.

At that moment the elevator door opens at the table and Víctor joins the rest of the students. Leslie immediately gives him a wave, smiling and urging him to join the group.

- Hello Víctor – Victoria greets him, looking up at him.

- Victoria, I just went to the bathroom, we greeted each other twenty minutes ago, remember?

-Oh, yes, of course – she puts her hand to the back of her neck, embarrassed.

Something that stands out immediately about Victor is that the rest of the tainys barely reach his neck, even to Mary it's obvious that the tainy is a giant among his peers, making Fred look like a scrawny little boy next to him. . The other thing that stands out to anyone is that he's built like a tank, with big round muscles dancing under his tight black T-shirt. His skin is a beautiful tan and his short hair is dyed green. Mary looked for some way to get closer to the tainy man and after a few weeks she discovered that she only needed two of the six degrees of separation, because talking to Leslie she discovered that she knew Fred, who apparently plays online with Victor since childhood. Of course she may have only needed one grade, because Victoria met Victor in a guitar class, but as much as she insisted, her little friend never managed to match the apex with Victor, for some reason.

But Mary finally has the chance. And she is nervous about how to talk to him. She has used tainys and minis as toys to satisfy herself in the past, and their delicate bodies always end up smeared between her fingers and crotch, their fragile skin too weak, unable to hold them as one person under her gentle caress. But in neither of those cases was she attracted to them, the exciting part  was rather the fact that the delicate region between her legs was enough to reduce a grown person into shreds of skin and flesh. With Víctor is different. For some reason, she finds the idea of holding his toned, naked body between her fingers arousing, caressing his big, ripped muscles with her fingertips, but carefully, without breaking, tearing, or pulling them apart from the bone. She wants to overwhelm him, to show him that the smallest effort is enough to give him more pleasure than any tainy woman can imagine giving him, but she also wants to keep him afterwards, in one piece, healthy, alive. She usually feels that way about his friends, people she knows, but she doesn't know Victor, she has never talked to him for more than two minutes and they have nothing in common. Except he has muscles, and she likes muscles. It's a dictionary crush.

The group of young students go through factoring exercises, but after just over an hour, concentration begins to wane and quickly Victoria and Víctor are embroiled in a passionate history debate.

- They were double-hulled boats – defends the man.

- Of course not, they were simple canoes - the woman refutes.

- There were hundreds of people, they couldn't put their sheep in simple canoes.

- They didn't have sheep! Who the fuck told you they carried sheep.

Mary observes from the heights, fascinated by the two tainys who provide data and dates to support their position regarding the trips that a mini tribe made centuries ago and that connected the civilizations of the three races. The apex is aware that both are wrong, but like all apex, she doesn't feel the need to refute the history taught in the minis and tainys primary schools.

- Why is it that you don't get in that big big head of yours! – Victoria grabs him by the T-shirt, joking, but remains silent afterwards.

Victor raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't say anything, he just watches her. He loves the reaction women have when they have physical contact with him for the first time. It is when all the hours in the gym are worth it.

- Wow – she finally raises her voice -, I suppose here is the energy that you don't use in studying history – she tells him, feeling with both hands the hard pectorals of the man.

The last comment was intended as a last witty retort, but the tremors in her voice reveal other feelings in Victoria, who quickly pulls her hands back when Victor surprises her with a contraction of his big muscles.

- I suppose they could have been simple canoes – Victor comments, smiling, after a long and awkward silence.

Everyone present noticed the tensión between them.

Leslie in particular noticed an added tension. Fred had commented that Victor liked Victoria, which in itself is redundantly funny, but while everyone's attention was on V&V, she caught a glimpse of Mary's crooked grin, an annoyed expression she's seen on her classmate before, usually before someone suffers severe physical or psychological harm. Mary also likes Victor, that’s bad news. As the group gets back on track with their math mission, Victoria sits next to the muscular tainy and takes every opportunity to brush or squeeze the man's muscular arm, and he doesn’t look uncomfortable about it. Their closeness grows more physical as the minutes go by and Leslie feels her pulse race as she sees the darker and darker expression of the uncontrollable apex looming over them all. Its like seeing a train about to derail and she doesn't understand how no one else seems to notice the impending disaster. You never compete for a man with an apex, even if he is your husband, if an apex wants him in bed, you can only accept it and hope that she returns him to you in one piece, it is a principle of the nature of which no one can escape, like gravity. Leslie steels herself and decides that she has to do something, and it had better be soon, so she gets up from her seat and goes to sit between Victor and Victoria.

- Mary likes Victor – she whispers in the ear of her tainy partner.

The ground disappears under Victoria.

- You have to go. Make an excuse, say you have to go to the doctor or something, but you have to go, now.

- I don't know what you are...

- Stop! – Leslie interrupts her – Don't argue, don't justify yourself, don't waste fucking time. Don't even look at Mary, just get up, and go.

She had never felt her heart beat so fast. She is short of breath and her hands are icy. Victoria tells herself that is not fair, but she knows that “fair” won't do her any good against one of Mary's fingers. How could she be so stupid? She knew the apex wanted to meet Victor, but for some reason logic wasn't working in her head. She has seen many times what happens when a tainy's wishes take precedence over any whim of Mary, and she is afraid. She has a family to return to, she wants to see her dad, she wants to hug her mom. She wants to stay alive.

- I have to go - she stands up and begins to walk towards the elevator, but feels the need to say something to Mary, and she turns to see her. The gaze of the apex gets her words stuck in her throat. She is looking directly at her, but not as her friend, but as a nuisance, like a mindless bug that snuck into her study table.

- See you - she mutters and heads back to the elevator.

A huge shadow swiftly passes over the little students and a powerful crash shakes the entire table. Between them and the elevator, a huge hand occupies the space where Victoria was. For a moment, no one says anything. As the initial shock wears off and some are about to scream, the gigantic powerful fingers drag across the table top and the tainy's panicked screams are heard, which they can only catch a glimpse of before the fingers themselves close around Victoria, silencing her.

- What happened, my dear friend – Mary smiles at the tainy that is curled up in the palm of her left hand, trembling and terrified -, did you think that I was going to crush you under my hand as if you were an insignificant bug? Why do that?

Mary throws the small woman up, it's a few centimeters, but for Victoria it's tens of meters of panic and uncontrolled spinning. At first, she believes that at any moment she will be impregnated against the ceiling like a difficult-to-clean stain, but her initial impulse is over and she floats for an eternal moment, right before the joyful eyes of her blonde friend. She begins to descend and believes that her fate lies on the ground between Mary's powerful feet, where she will become a slightly easier to clean stain. She's seen Mary do both with minis in moments of boredom, she never thought she'd end up like that. But in the end, she just ends up crashing into the same hand she came out of, falling with just enough brutality to feel agonizing pain throughout her body without actually breaking anything.

- No, no, no, I was just picking you up from the table to take you to the door - says the huge teenager to the tiny girl who moans in pain in her hand, as if nothing had happened -, I know it can be a nuisance to take all those transports just to leave my house and it doesn't cost me anything to help you, I was just going to get up to go to the bathroom.

Leslie hears the building-sized chair scrape across the floor as her towering classmate stands up. She tries to imagine a scenario where she warned Victoria earlier, or managed to tell her to go away without attracting Mary's attention, but ultimately the fate of all of them is in the hands of the apex, all the time, and there is nothing she can do about it.

Suddenly, the hand turns and Victoria finds herself falling to her death again, this time without spinning in the air, clearly seeing how the hand that was holding her a moment ago remains still in the air, with no intention of saving her. From far below, the surprised cries of the other students are heard, getting closer and closer to her, unable to help her in any way, as helpless as herself. Just before her small body meets the solid table top, Mary's right hand passes just over the heads of the tainys, so quickly that the wind displaced by the huge limb's path knocks Fred over.

- Uh, I'm sorry Fred - Mary says while Leslie runs to help the little mini -. I'll be right back.

The little teens at the table can only watch the gigantic apex walk away with the fragile Victoria in one of her hands, each deafening footstep reminding them how insignificant they are compared to the immense power contained in the body of an apex teen, a being able to level an entire army in minutes and conquer an entire country in a few days. An almost religious feeling that is necessary to accept and embrace when regularly interacting with Mary.

- Mom, do you know if Mary is going to use the dining room table until afternoon?

- She said she'd wear it until before lunch, why, Lester?

- Today in the afternoon my girlfriend's parents will come to eat, but it will be around seven.

-  Evelyn's parents?... You're not going to get married, right?

- Pfff, of course not, mom. It's just that I'm the first boyfriend she introduces to her parents and they're like, super traditional, so they said they wanted to come see where I live and… meet you, if you don't mind.

Judy has to suppress a laugh. She sometimes forgets that there are "old-fashioned" people.

- Sure son. Just remembers to use a condom, you don't want to give your in-laws “that” surprise.

- Oh, mom, please, I don't want to talk about those things with you, disgusting.

- I love you too honey.

It's sure to be an enjoyable meal, after all, what can go wrong?