Rena leaned gently against the door to the apartment, exhausted after her long day of work, and slipped off her shoes before stepping into the hall. She dropped her small handbag the the side of the passage and proceeded onward. She could see lights on in the living room and coming from her sisters’ bedrooms, so people were still awake. She slid open the door to her room quietly, quickly closing it behind herself as she checked the dresser. Sure enough, the thick glass jar was still there - the morning hadn’t been some bizarre hallucination or waking-dream. Relief that she hadn’t lost her mind mixed with anxiety over the next steps of her brother’s salvation as she walked across the room, picking up the jar gently and holding it up to the light. Inside she could see the little speck she had seen in greater detail reflected in her magnifying mirror. The tiny fleck of dust that represented her brother’s undoubtedly terrified form. The bizarreness of it all washed over her, and she stood transfixed by the idea for a moment. Quietly, she headed for the study.
Yasushi awoke to movement, rapid changes in inertia marked his prison’s carriage in the hands of his big sister as she took him to the small workshop. He watched, almost uncaring as she gingerly stepped into the cramped space, lit only by the high-powered lamp over the bench, and closed the door behind her. She turned, placing the jar on the workbench and learning over the simple plastic and metal stool to inspect the machinery.
“Charge says ‘Good’... this… number is what the paper says is right. Change the ‘Operational Mode’ to ‘Revert’...” she quietly spoke to herself, operating each switch and dial after consulting the papers spread across the desk. He watched as she pushed on the little 3-position switch that determined which part of the device was fired.
*click*
The little switch moved to the middle position. The middle position. Yasushi panicked, leaping to his feet and banging his fists ineffectually against the glass. Two lights were lit on a small panel to his sister’s side. Of the three indicators, “Reduce”, “Restore” and “Safe”, both Reduce and Restore were lit.
*click*
Rena pushed the little switch a little further, looking a little annoyed that it hadn’t flipped properly the first time, before returning to the paperwork. Yasushi sighed in relief, sinking to his knees just as the glass was suddenly but gently upended. He found himself standing on what had been the wall, and saw his sister’s fingers beckon to him from the mouth of the vessel. With what little energy he had left, he pressed his body to move forwards, deprived of proper food and water and exhausted from his ordeals. He reached the edge of the glass, and saw the tip of a sample probe waiting, shaking visibly. The slim aluminium spike resembled a skewer, and was used to move tiny samples around on the target lens, but at the size it resembled some kind of extremely long missile.
Nervously, he climbed onto the tip, holding on to the thick metal tip with arms and legs as the world flicked by. Almost instantly he found himself staring into the beam path, the bright light of the alignment laser dazzling him. He relaxed as his sister braced her hand against the desk and flicked the final switch. Darkness and noise came all at once.
When Yasushi opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that he was naked, and that he was sitting on an aluminium spike and an optical bench. He quickly rolled to the side, landing with a thud on the stool, and then on the floor. He squirmed to see Rena looking down at him, eyes visibly filling with tears as she realised how much danger her brother had been in, and the kind of fear he must have felt. He stood, shakily, covering his manhood with his hands. Without warning, Yui and Mika stuck their heads into the room.
“What’s going on?”
“Where’ve you been?”
“Why are you naked?”
The questions, reasonable as they were, were of no concern to the young man. He smiled, tears flowing from his eyes, before fainting.
Epilogue:
Yasushi sat in yet another lecture, one of the last of his final year at university. More a formality than anything - he’d already been awarded a research position and two honorary degrees by the university in light of his groundbreaking work. The research team assigned to him were busy working for the second consecutive year on improvements and testing of the device he’d created, and “rendered-safe” copies were being used in a handful of laboratories worldwide to push the boundaries of science of all kinds. New medical treatments, advanced materials, electronic devices were being made every day, and mega-corporations were paying 8-digit sums for time on the little machines. The operating principle was well known, but the specifics of the device’s operation were known only to one man. One young student who knew the dangers all too well.
No-one else would suffer what I did, he thought to himself.
He thought.
Giantess World
