Two things were certainly for sure as Leah leaned the side of her face against her hand, elbow rested firmly on the lightly matted play table. The Crazy Jester was indeed a premier location for gamers of all kinds to gather. It was the kind of store you'd find in the corner of a mall ; not exactly extravagant but a certain attention to detail made it charming with its bright blues, greens and grays adorning the walls. Behind glass cases would exist rare special edition trading cards and under glass display cubes would dwell highly detailed figures of fantastical creatures such as dragons, paladins and more.
The other thing that was all but certain was Leah's interest in Dungeons and Dragons was dwindling as fast as her best friend could shrink herself.
"So ... I roll a 3..." Josh narrated, advancing his porcelain figure, a pretty well made red and silver model that looked like a medieval-ish character featuring a mix of superhero elements. It honestly wasn't all that surprising given Josh's fasincation with both subjects. "And ... shoot, I do not hit the dragon"
"I gotta be honest with ya..." Chris chimed in, simply watching as Josh and a few others were in the main group of DnD players, with Leah and himself as bystanders, "I just don't get it"
"Right?" Leah tsked,
"Oh I mean I GET it but ... I just don't get why anyone would wanna play it" Chris commented, perhaps a bit too loud as a few of the DnD gamers looked miffed as they peered over, "um... as you were, my bad..."
Leah stifled a giggle as Lexi came strolling back into the store.
"Oh, there you are!" Leah giggled, suddenly coming to life a bit more now, "Where did you go anyway?"
"Um... I took a very long bathroom break" Lexi lied, shrugging her shoulders as she sat down next to Chris, "so what did I miss?"
"Not much" Leah sighed, confused and bored
"Well Josh just stormed the dark citadel fortress with a level 7 orc-mage but got sent retreating by a level 8 dragon with equipped sapphire armor..." Chris explained, as Leah just stared at him, her eyes rolling towards the back of her head.
"...and I thought you weren't paying attention" Leah teased, eliciting a guilty look from the sheepish Chris.
Upon seeing Lexi re-enter another set of eyes was also re-engaged in things but in another direction. Those eyes belonged to Joshua James as he hastily wrapped up his D&D session in favor of talking to his friend, Lexi, subtlely pulling her to the side. She'd lean in with some interest, wanting to hear about this prospective hit on her website.
"So, you mean to tell me ..." Lexi whispered, lowering her voice as she leaned in, "...somebody actually took the website seriously?"
"Well of course they did..." Josh nodded, also whispering now, and neglecting to notice a third party joining their private pow-wow. "it's a very well made website too, I'll have you know"
"Why are we whispering?" Leah interjected, being the aforementioned third party to join the growing huddle, "are we sharing secrets? I wanna know..."
"Leah!" Lexi leapt out of character for a moment, almost wanting to playfully smack her best friend on the back of her cute head, "We're just ... talking"
"If you're just talking then why so secretive?" Leah remarked
"Honestly, I'm not really sure..." Josh shrugged as all 3 of them proceeded towards the exit.
It didn't completely elude the attention of Chris though, who noticed them all departing together, the most curious of all being Josh who seemed to be invested in the game not that long ago. He decided to look elsewhere for the moment but one thing was for sure, the meeting of Lexi and Leah, plus Josh, definitely left an impact on him.
---
Speaking of impacts, one determined and confident policewoman was hoping to do just that ... make a big impact on the frantic and sometimes dangerous community of Minitropolis. She was determined to make sure her career and life had meaning and persuaded strong and swift change in an unruly city. Unfortunately, that mission would have to wait. As of this time, she would be assigned to patrol duty around Fenster Forest, acting as part of the security detail in case things got out of hand while a mob of angry protestors continued to march around the construction machines that dotted the outside of the woods.
"Sonia Sanderson... guarding the forests since ... right now..." she'd mutter to herself, flipping through the frequencies on her cruisers' police radio just to monitor other situations. It seemed fairly calm at the moment and even the protests were peetering out. There were a lot of kids who liked to go the forest, and just take walks and hang out. She could even remember as a kid herself, her father taking her fishing down there by the lake that rested deep in the forests annals. It was a dark area but always seemed nicely illuminated by fireflies. She could distinctly remember being a bit scared to go deeper into the woods with her father because of the darkness but he'd always reassure her and sure enough, fireflies or ... some kind of unexplainable glint of light would always guide the way. Eventually she never felt scared there and actually was quite fond of the area. She'd let out a dispirited sigh as she pondered the eventuality of the woods being ravaged for more industrial expansion. Especially by Enormo Enterprises ... as if that company's footprint wasn't felt enough in the small city.
While peering around and taking note of anything unusual, one thing did stand out, but the young officer thought for sure she must be seeing things. Entering the woods from beyond the fenced off area appeared a young girl and she was walking at a brisk pace. She wasn't running but she definitely seemed to have an intent to her travels. This alone wouldn't be the weirdest thing, and heck, even though one wasn't supposed to breach the fencing, it was something she could look the other way on. What was throwing her the most is the woman was wearing predominately purple and white and even from the long distance, she could recognize her pretty distinctly as Alexis Cole, the young woman with whom she encountered before. The tackily dressed Alexis had already drawn some attention from the Mini Troop as a potential threat due to her being prominent at a few other crime scenes and well, anytime you dress in attention grabbing colors, you're bound to ... well, draw attention. Still, that COULDN'T be Lexi, right? What would she even be DOING at Fenster Forest, let alone dressed up as a cheerleading superhero?
The answer to that question and its eventual outcome would lie in the events from earlier that day, as an irate and slightly befuddled Lexi questioned her friend Josh on the legitimacy of her website call.
"Faires... really..." Lexi sighed, not amused.
"I don't know..." Leah shrugged, snatching the phone as if they were playing a game of hot potato, with Josh's phone changing hands many times in a short period, "I think it's pretty cool! Remember as kids how we always wanted to meet Tinkerbell?"
Leah paused an unusually long time after saying this, as if waiting for Lexi to show more excitement or connect the dots on what she had just said.
"You could meet Tinkerbell!" she exclaimed with glee
"Yeah ... or a squirell..." Lexi sighed, "there's no way this is real..."
Lexi again seized the phone and read over the fairly lengthy message. It was by far the longest message her website had received and was very well written. Most of the messages had just been silly things like "haha can you shrink my ex for me?" or "Here's a picture of my ..."
...Really? Geez, what is it with people on the internet?
The fact that the fledgling website had even received more than 10 hits was something Lexi wasn't expecting, let alone that there was a genuine "distress" call from ... a fairy? It couldn't be. Still, she'd scan over the message again in more detail while Josh and Leah talked behind her, all 3 of them in the privacy of the young heroine's hideout ... Josh's public dorm room.
"My name is Mark ..." the message read, "I saw your website and I was very interested because our colony could use a sort of guardian... I don't know if you do that kind of thing? Or do you just stop bank robbers and stuff? I admittedly don't know a lot about hero culture except for a couple of movies. I'm not exactly from around here... don't laugh but I'm a fairy. Yeah, I know ... the name itself doesn't exactly garner a lot of credibility or respect. My sisters are oblivious to the way humans think about us, but that's a tangent for another time. We (meaning the colony) could really use your help. The idea that you're able to shrink to our size means you could approach us without being threatening but also stop any larger sized intruders that may threaten our way of life. We're generally cloaked from being seen but somehow this witch attacked us the other night. My sisters don't believe me and heck, nobody believes me but she was really there. There's this guy that tries to protect us, he calls himself an elemental wizard ... no disrespect to him but I don't think he's really equipped to handle this... I ask you ShrinkGirl for your help. We're located in central Fenster Forest, down by the Miniborough Pond, if you get lost, just follow the trail of fireflies, I can have them guide you in. I'd really appreciate the help.
Sincerely, Mark"
"If this is a hoax, that's a lot of backstory..." Leah remarked, leaning over Lexi's shoulder to read it again, "I say you should at least check it out... if it's a hoax, you at least get to hike in the woods or whatever"
"We could always come with you" Josh added, "I've been dying to see the world famous ShrinkGirl in action"
"World famous..." Lexi groaned, "I've fought like 1 bad guy ... okay 2 ..."
"Didn't you have some weird sexual fantasy with her?" Leah added
"What? No..." Lexi blushed bright red, extremely flustered
"You sure? Because all you mentioned to me was that she was fast and had a nice..."
"Okay! Moving on..." Lexi snapped, a bit startled now, "I appreciate the help guys, but ... I think I should be okay just scoping it out for myself ... I'll swing by the forest after classes and just ... I don't know, see if this place is even real"
"And if it is?" Leah asked
"I'll give Tinkerbell your phone number" Lexi rolled her eyes
And so, that brings us to present time, with a fully dressed "ShrinkGirl" exploring the woods tenatively, thankfully not drawing too much attention (save for one keenly observant policewoman) thanks to the ongoing protests and construction. Of course Lexi hoped that the protests would push back the construction and maybe stop it altogether but she feared in the end, the corrupt corporation would continue taking its hold on what was left of Miniborough and Minitropolis' nice natural sights.
She didn't have quite the backstory of going to the forest that Sonia and her dad had but she could remember a few times goofing around in that area with Leah and her parents. And funny enough they did use to pretend that Tinkerbell or other small creatures lived there. At night especially it looked like the stuff of fairy tales, with lush vegetation and even odd looking red and purple mushrooms that weren't native to the area growing in. The wildlife was fairly prevalent but always tame, including rabbits, squirells and the occasional owl that would hover by. Lexi always felt strangely at peace there when she hiked the trails.
Even now, as she headed to her first fully sanctioned "hero job", she felt no nerves. Mainly because she thought this would be a mere walking excursion and nothing more. After all, what were the odds of there being an actual fairy colony in the woods? According to young Lexi and Leah, fairly high. But 20 year old Lexi knew better. Then again, not even a year ago she would've thought it impossible for her to shrink.
"I really need to be more consistent in my reasoning..." the skeptical Lexi muttered to herself.
The fair fairy colony of Fensteria would be fairly calm at that moment, until the sudden stomping of a human being startled that calm. An erratic Spark would almost immediately flutter up to her brother in angst, getting in his face while she flew at a tilted angle.
"You happy now?" Spark snapped, "You see what happened? This is that ... that ... that GIRL you invited here!"
"It's not like we didn't know this was coming..." Lark sighed despondently as she stood in the threshold of the young man's room, her arm draped non-chalantly on the side of the door, "you made this mess, you clean it up"
"Huh?" Mark shook his head, looking utterly stunned as his 2 sisters stood over him
"Yeah, you go out and meet your girlfriend or whatever ... maybe get her to go away" Lark sneered
"She's not my girlfriend!" Mark retorted, "and... s-sure ... I'll ... I'll go see her"
"Great ... then go" Spark smiled, already sensing the nerves in her brothers voice. Plus she just knew him too well.
True to form, Mark would step off his bed kind of shyly, his feet trembling with each step.
"Well?" Lark smirked
"I'm going ... I'm going ... geez..." Mark groaned, "you'll see ... she'll be nice"
"Or she'll squish you" Spark winked
"Funny funny..." Mark groaned, beginning to question his own decision to summon the superheroic ShrinkGirl there.
As the self conscious and nervous male fairy stepped outside and peered around ... and well, he didn't have to look too far, he began to worry. What do I say to this newcomer?
"Hello Ms. Girl ... I'm Mark ... welcome to our village ... no, that sounds STUPID..."
As he paced around and pondered ways to introduce himself to this newcomer, all whilst keeping the cloaking spell on the colony until he was read, Lexi remained equally stupified on how to approach this unusual situation, if it did indeed even exist.
The confused heroine stood dead silent in the woods, and things were quiet ... too quiet some may even say.
She'd look at her phone briefly, just to see if there was any way she could pinpoint her location via GPS but of course the signal was spotty given her location, surrounded by trees and all the weird glittering things. Wait, weird glittering things? Fireflies? This is when her "fairy senses" (a new power she just decided to give herself then and there) activated and she remembered the instructions from the message to follow the fireflies, who seemed remarkably good at building a makeshift runway, guiding Lexi through a lane of sparkly lights towards an eventual end point where she'd stand.
Down below an awfully shy and quite frankly horrified Mark stood down by her purple boots.
"Oh boy, what do I say ... what do I do?" Mark muttered, loud enough to hear but also figured nobody the size of Lexi would even bother to listen, "Umm... okay, hi ... I'm uh ... Mark? No that's stupid, she'd already know my name from the message ... I've gotta just ... I've gotta ..."
Lexi would peer down only briefly, her eyes glancing in the direction of the scared little fella. She spotted him pretty clearly despite his small size but then again, she was expecting to see a small fairy, although not one quite so cute. He definitely wasn't Tinkerbell but he had little wings similar to her, wore a brown tunic similar to Pit from Kid Icarus and just seemed all kinds of troubled, like a middle school boy trying to ask out his crush ... or like Lexi herself trying to form a full sentence around Chrissy when it came to the Valentine's Day dance.
"Um ... hi" Lexi said shyly, trying to break the silence. Mark stood there in silence.
She spotted me ... she actually spotted me ... what do I do? What do I do?
Before the answer to that could arrive, 2 other fairies floated up behind him, staying quiet until they got within closer range of Lexi and her 2 purple boots as they towered over the trio.
"Hey" Spark remarked casually, floating just beside her shy brother
Lark remained without speaking but she seemed strangely unfazed by Lexi's appearance. Despite their size difference she didn't seem concerned.
"H-Hey ... I thought you guys were going to just ..." Mark stammered
"What? Leave you to die?" Spark joked, "Nah, we just wanted to see if she was real and make sure you didn't ... yknow, get kidnapped or something"
Lexi could hear their little discussion, despite their small squeaky voice and she tried to stifle a giggle, not wanting to come off as disrespectful and instead attempted to disarm any tension by waving to the 3 fairies down below.
"H-Hi ... my name's uh ... ShrinkGirl" Lexi stammered, trying to actually preserve her secret identity this time, "and I'm ... here about the job?"
"Holy crap, you found us a superhero..." Lark said, still seemingly unimpressed even if she didn't want to admit she found the makeshift costume as impressive, if not more, than Lexi's amazing stature as she towered over them at her 5'4 native height.
Spark seemed a bit more skeptical. Despite the teasing of her brother and her at times flippant attitude, she didn't want any harm to befall him or the colony. They still didn't know this Lexi person, or ShrinkGirl, the alias she went by. She took a bit of a defensive stance, legs spread apart as if ready for battle, her hands sparking a bit.
"Look ... ShrinkGirl ... I'm sure you don't want trouble and neither do we ... so just ... show us that we can trust you" Spark challenged. Despite the clear size disadvantage, the determined Spark appeared unafraid in the face of such overwhelming odds and looked as though she would even try to fight Lexi if it came down to it.
"Um... okay ... h-hold on, then and please don't freak out" Lexi nodded, stuttering a bit. Admittedly, she would be afraid too if a "giant" newcomer showed up to her town, even if they acted friendly as she had. "...and maybe stand back a bit?"
"I don't trust this one..." Spark muttered under her breath, glancing over at Lark as if to ask for backup. Lark again, remained unmoving, although her face showed slight concern.
"I ... trust her" Lark said, after some contemplation. Mark remained speechless throughout.
"Why do you trust her?" Spark scoffed, completely oblivious to the fact that while they went back and forth, Lexi herself was shrinking before their very eyes. This was a fact that didn't go unnoticed by Mark as he tried to explain to his sisters what was happening but his demure voice and demeanor was easily drowned out by their strategizing, all the while Lexi shrinking smaller and smaller to match the height of the fairy group.
"Okay..." Lexi sighed, now walking up to Spark, seemingly the nervous one now as the size advantage was all but gone. At 5 inches tall, Lexi stood at about the female fairy's height, maybe even a tad shorter due to Spark's stylish heels that gave her a very slight height boost. "H-How's this?"
"Not now, ShrinkGirl, we're talking about..." Spark started but then snapped her head quickly back in astonishment, "You uh ... you ... shrank?"
"Yeah..." Lexi blushed, "It's ... kind of in the name?"
"You ... made yourself smaller..." Lark stated "...on purpose?"
"Well yeah" Lexi shrugged, "I'm not going to like ... loom over you like some kind of monster... I wanna talk and find out what's up ... I can't very well do that while you're afraid of me"
"Psh, I wasn't afraid" the overly confident Spark scoffed
"...I was" Mark sighed, raising his hand.
Lark rolled her eyes. "Of course you were"
"Well there's no need for anyone to be afraid" Lexi said, still appearing shy as she stood a good distance away from the 3 fairies as they looked her over. "I'm here to help ... or at least try to ... and still kind of getting over the fact that fairies are real ... I've got like a million questions ... but I'll try to keep my inner fan girl contained"
"Inner ... fan girl?" Lark asked
"I... I actually really loved fairies as a kid..." Lexi nodded, "I think you're all awesome ... like, if I'm dreaming right now, I hope I don't wake up because if I'm being honest ... this is pretty freakin awesome"
Spark softened her stance almost immediately, "Oh? W-Well thank you ... human girl... y-you're pretty okay yourself ... I've never seen a human willingly shrink themselves to ... be with us"
Lexi shrugged. After all, height was just a number.
Giantess World
