One centimeter. The width of a pencil. The size of an average green pea. Put simply, just barely big enough to not be considered bug-sized, and yet Belzé, ever the adventurous one, had decided to fly around at this size specifically, floating across the roads of a medium-sized town… somewhere. This tiny bug girl had the uncanny ability to shrink herself at will, as well as grow back to her normal size of 5’4”... but no taller than that. It had a clear upper limit, but as for the lower end… well, not even Belzé knows just how tiny she can become, she never bothered to really test the limits. She was content to just flutter about the world at the size of a bug or sometimes a germ, seeing sights most wouldn’t spare a second glance at magnified due to an incredible size difference. She’d seen the rough surface of a pencil’s tip, the vastness of a single oak leaf and the sheer, insurmountable length of a pine needle. More than that, she had seen bugs and animals at unimaginable sizes, and traveled places that would disgust or terrify most people. She had found herself swallowed whole and alive plenty of times, but due to her insectoid body and years of experience in the art of adventuring at this scale, she has thus far avoided being crushed or digested, and she wasn’t going to break that streak now!
Still, she was feeling a little lost. This was not her original world. It wasn’t uncommon for her to go traveling through the fabric of reality and cross over to different dimensions entirely, but the initial arrival was always a bit strange, having no concept of where she was or what kind of people she’d fly into and all. Fortunately for her, most of the world seemed familiar, save for the big gray roads that seemed to connect all the houses in this town. What were those made for, people? That couldn’t be right, the house doors were much too small for the roads to be made for something so large. Belzé touched down on the rocky surface, putting a silvery claw to her tan cheek as she pondered what these pathways were made for.
As she stood there, brow furrowed and bright red eyes staring at the road, she failed to register the deep rumbling coming from behind her, magnified by the cause being hundreds of times bigger than she was. It wasn’t until the shadow of a car’s underside passed over her that the bug froze on the spot, eyes wide and frozen in that pensive posture. It was only a few moments, but those gargantuan wheels rolling on both her sides would have rattled, if not traumatized anyone caught underneath the mobile machine.
Belzé? She blinked a few times, posture unchanging, then said to herself: “Question answered, I need to get out of he-” Her words were cut off as her breath caught in her throat, a thick cloud of exhaust smoke lingering over her and finding its way into her lungs as she spoke. She coughed hard, eyes watering as she waved her spindly arms to try and get the smoke away. Blindly, she spread her wings and took off, like a tiny little bug-sized fairy. Fortunately for her, as it was about six in the morning in this universe’s local time, there were fairly few cars on the road, so she was able to ascend to safety easily. Wiping the tears from her eyes, she saw the vehicle that just nearly crushed her under its mighty wheels turn a corner and vanish from sight. Was that some kind of automaton? A robot, perhaps? She had failed to see the driver, so her mind was running wild with theories. To be fair, this was also a thing she loved about entering new worlds: seeing alien concepts and foreign devices, figuring out how it all worked as she spent more time there. Putting her good memory to use, she made a mental note of the vehicle, hoping to see it again so she could get a closer look. That smoke was unpleasant, though… she coughed a little more, clearing her throat and wiping some of the residue out of her boyish brown hair. Gross. Anyway, the coast was clear, and she was once again free to fly wherever she pleased. Seeing as the outside world was rather quiet right now, she got to thinking with a devious little grin on her face… perhaps she could find more excitement inside someone’s house!
Her new path decided, she dove down again, not quite landing on the road but rather zooming across it as she passed several enormous houses. Granted, if she wanted to she could easily shrink down and slip in between the most minute gaps in doors or windows, but Belzé often challenged herself to find ways in without entering the microscopic scale. It made things more interesting for her. Thankfully, she didn’t have to look for too long before an open window caught her attention. “Gotcha”, she whispered, smiling brightly with her little fangs showing as she flew up and towards the cracked window, slipping inside and entering the private comfort of another person’s home.
Upon entry, she touched down next to an enormous potted cactus sitting on the windowsill. Thinking it’d be a decent vantage point, she jumped up onto the rim of the pot, then half-climbed, half-flew up the spines to get to the top, hanging on to a vertical spine to peer into the room. Much like the outside world, the inside world of this room felt very alien to the bug girl. She was from a world where magic was commonplace, but metal was mostly found in swords and chandeliers. She could see a few familiar objects, like a bed and a dresser, but on the left side of the room was a desk with curious machines on top. Some sort of black box, a board with many buttons on it, accompanied by a rectangular board positioned upright. Entirely unfamiliar to Belzé, who floated over to take a closer look.
The buttons barely depressed under her little feet as she landed on the board, obviously made for something with much more weight. It took a bit of bouncing up and down for the button to fully depress with a satisfying click, but it came back up just as quickly, knocking Belzé up into the air again where her wings’ buzzing caught her and suspended her. Then, her attention turned to the largest part of this collective of devices: the large box on the right side. She pushed up against the glass window on the side of the box, marveling at all the strange parts and features inside. Lots of wires could be seen within, a few oddly-shaped circular thingies, a couple of bulbs lining the sides, whole boards of tiny pins and plugs and patterns… none of it made a lot of sense to a computer-illiterate insect, but her curiosity was certainly piqued as she flew past one of the circular objects that were blocking the path of anything larger, carelessly entering the box to get a closer look at its insides…
---
It was a beautiful early Saturday morning as Rozalin sat down in front of the bathroom mirror to fix up her hair. She had woken up surprisingly early today and she knew that going back to sleep would just end with her waking up more tired than she was now. Might as well use the time she got to get things done! Having dressed up in a fairly casual green sweater and jeans, she carefully braided her hair into two pigtails on the sides of her head, topping each one with a cute pink ribbon, a trademark style of hers. It was a bit of a process to get right, but she’d made these braids so many times now she could probably do it in her sleep.
Rozalin’s life hadn’t been the most difficult, to be sure. Born to a father who spent most of his time overseas on business trips and a mother who owned a large clothing brand, she never wanted for much. Money, specifically, was something she always had in excess. In fact, the small house she lived in was bought for her entirely by her mom! That’s not to say she doesn’t appreciate it, however. Her time at a public school softened her up quite a bit and made her realize the value of what she had and how lucky her life has been. She may have been a little bit bratty at first, but it was a phase she quickly grew out of, even making some rock-solid friends she still hangs out with to this day!
Running her fingers across her braids one more time to make sure they were perfect, Rozalin got up and nodded, rubbing the last bits of sleep out of her emerald green eyes before leaving the bathroom, fresh and ready to start the day.. after breakfast, of course. Figuring she could check in on her friends online, she quickly stepped into her bedroom first, walking over to her PC and turning it on, heading to the kitchen as the machine’s fans hummed to life…
---
Belzé’s surroundings were suddenly bathed in light as the bulbs lining the sides of the machine case lit up, accompanied by a breeze entering the expansive chamber she was in. She had been inspecting the patterns of pins and buttons and details on the boards around her, blissfully unaware of her position. The breeze grew stronger as she noticed those large circular things she had slipped past on her way into this device started spinning slowly, then faster, the winds growing deafening to her tiny form while her surroundings began to heat up… Some mild panic set in for the tiny bug as she realized that with the blades spinning like this, there was no way out for her that didn’t involve getting shredded inside the machine. At the same time, it was getting uncomfortably hot and the winds picking up around her seemed directed towards the air ports, sucking her towards the enormous spinning blades!
Meanwhile, Rozalin was peering into the pantry, wondering what to have for breakfast. There was an almost empty box of cereal in there, which she pulled out with a mumbled “Should probably finish this before I have to throw it out.” As she grew to understand the value of money, she developed a very frugal lifestyle in spite of her vast wealth and access to more. In fact, she had a job interview at a local grocery store in two days, even though she didn’t technically need the money. If she wanted to be independent, she’d have to earn her own salary, she reasoned. Finishing up her preparations by pouring the milk over her cereal, she looked back at the stairs to her bedroom, wondering what to do first on her free day. Play games, talk to friends perhaps…
“Oh no” Belzé managed to squeak out, keeping her wings tucked tightly against her back to avoid them catching the now hurricane-like vacuum that seemed hell-bent on sucking her through the port she entered from. She wondered if this was what the machine was designed for, to trap bugs and kill them in the most elaborate, painful way possible… She yelped as she lost her footing and began to float up, the blades threatening her spinning up even faster for some reason. If Belzé was familiar with the concept of a jet engine, this is what she’d compare it to. Right now, as her clawed little feet left the ground and she found herself sucked back the way she came, there was only one way for her to avoid certain death.
And so, she shrunk.
A centimeter was small, to be sure, and allowed her easy access into the machine, but it was far from Belzé’s limit, which was now proving to be her salvation. She entered the realm of dust motes, straddling the line between millimeters and micrometers. The heat building within the infernal machine threatened to boil her tiny body, dust specks flying around her as the winds grew hundreds of times stronger from her diminishing perspective. The main drawback of being this tiny was a complete lack of control unless one’s surroundings were completely still. The slightest breeze could blow Belzé away, but at this point, that was what she wanted. The spinning blades that loomed ever more threateningly over her speck-sized body were sucking the hot air out of the machine, almost like-
“Oh, a cooling system? Huh…” Belzé mumbled, alert but still no less curious than she had been when she entered the machine. She had no experience with most technology, but she was always quick to understand certain basic functions. As she joined the motes of dust in being sucked towards her escape route, she spread her wings wide to catch as much wind as possible. If the blade were to hit her at this size, it wouldn’t shred her body to pieces but the impact would probably knock her out cold, if not outright kill her. She had to fly out very precisely, and the best way to do that was to just let herself be sucked out, riding the winds generated by the spinners around her. She took a deep breath, aligned herself to catch the wind… and prayed.
Rozalin finished her breakfast, rinsing the bowl quickly and then putting it on the side of the kitchen counter. Her kitchen was too small for a dishwasher, so she did all that by hand. Usually in the evening though, she never used too many dishes. By this point she had decided to go see if any of her friends were online this early in the morning, maybe she could chat a bit, invite one of them over tomorrow… Today was shaping up to be a quiet one, perhaps she could go for a walk outside after lunch. For now, she headed back up to her bedroom, sitting down in front of the computer with a small smile on her face, hands resting on the keyboard as she looked over her games library and her friend list.
The impact had both knocked the wind out of the bug girl and dazed her to the point of dizziness. Not from the spinning blade, thankfully she managed to avoid getting hit by that. Instead, the impact came from the wall she slammed into when she was shot out of the machine. A quick shake of the head dispelled most of her dizziness, likely a result of having been launched into solid objects many times before on previous adventures -without lasting brain damage, even. As she peeled herself off the wall, she lightly buzzed her wings to reach the top of the machine she had just fought for her life inside, standing there while the door to the room opened.
Belzé gasped as she saw a girl enter, bright green eyes and cute braids in her black hair. She was one of the prettiest girls the tiny bug had seen, and all she could whisper to herself in response as this enormous young lady sat down at the desk was “Jackpot.” If there was one thing Belzé loved more than anything, it was flitting around cute girls, and this one definitely fit the bill to a T. Unable to resist jumping right back into adventure, the little bug hopped off the case, spreading her wings and flying towards her!
In her rush, Belzé had completely forgotten to grow herself back to a centimeter, something she only realized when she noticed the girl was MUCH further away than she had anticipated. In her initial confusion, she changed course and dove down instead. The girl’s right hand was placed on another device Belzé didn’t understand the function of, only moving slightly as her fingers sometimes pressed down on it with a resounding click. The landscape seemed to warp in the nearly-microscopic bug’s vision, confirming to her that yes, she was too small right now. There were times when Belzé forgot her own size and needed some point of comparison to reorient herself without attracting any unwanted attention. With that in mind, she landed neatly on the girl’s index finger, right on the edge of her nail. Inspecting her surroundings, she figured she was only a few times smaller than the thickness of this part of the girl’s body.
She didn’t get to assume more than that as the finger pressed down again, creating a steep, smooth slope that the tiny Belzé helplessly rolled down, off the finger and the device, landing right in front of it on the surface of some sort of mat. Just then, something seemed to catch the girl’s attention on the screen, and she began moving the device up, threatening to roll it over Belzé and crush her underneath! In mild panic, the bug grew herself to roughly her previous size of a centimeter, putting her little hands on the encroaching object. Of course, a tiny bug like her couldn’t possibly hope to stop the hand of a girl that was easily at least 150 times her size, but in a situation like that, it was a reflexive response.
And it caught the girl’s attention. The device pulled away again, and when Belzé looked up, their eyes met. She was small, but not invisibly small, and her humanoid figure was easily distinguished from the background of the desk.
A long, awkward silence followed.
“Uh… hi?” Belzé started, lifting a clawed hand and waving sheepishly at the giant girl. As much as she enjoyed flying around unnoticed around pretty girls and invading their privacy at every possible turn, she was notoriously awkward when it came to actually talking to strangers. She couldn’t even find any other words to say, quietly hoping she was too tiny for the enormous young lady looming over her to hear.
“H… Hello?” No such luck, she was heard and seen. The girl’s right hand pushed the device she was holding off to the side, her face leaning in to get a better look at the strange humanoid bug that was… talking to her. “What are you?”
There was no point in trying to lie or anything at this point, so Belzé stepped forward, still completely fearless even knowing she was spotted. She was confident she could escape if the girl tried to crush her or something, so there was very little reason for her to be afraid. “Well, I’m… a bug, I guess. An itty-bitty bug girl!” She brightened up saying that, thoroughly enjoying being reminded of how tiny and insignificant she was… even by herself. “I don’t think people like me exist in this world, I just kind of popped in a few minutes ago, been tryin’ to find my way since- you don’t mind me bein’ here, do ya?”
A booming giggle nearly knocked Belzé off her feet, something the girl seemed to notice as she sat upright, a warm smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. “No, not at all! I’m Rozalin, it’s nice to meet you! What’s your name, little bug girl?”
“You can call me that if you want!” Belzé’s nerves eased upon hearing the girl’s gentle voice and seeing her relax. Part of her survival experience at this size was reading people, and she was very good at discerning intent. She could tell that Rozalin wasn’t going to hurt her intentionally. Not to mention, the way she looked at the bug girl… it aroused some suspicion that drew a little grin from the insect. “But, seriously, my name’s Belzé! Nice to meetcha too!”
Rozalin nodded, giggling some more. Seeing something so fantastical chatting with her like this made her heart flutter. She had always dreamed of fantasy being real, discovering magic and creatures science would never be able to explain, and now there was one such mythical being, standing on her desk being adorable and talking to her! Her left hand twitched as her eyes darted to a text notification from one of her friends. They made a promise when they were still in school to share something like this… it was a juvenile vow, but it was one Rozalin had clung to. Anything magical, they’d share among each other and never with anyone else. Should she message Shorty right now?
“Hey, you okay? You’re kinda starin’, what’s goin’ on up there?” Rozalin snapped back to reality as she realized Belzé was flying now, hovering in front of her with her back turned to the girl. She was looking at the screen, at some numbers and letters… It was hard for Belzé to make sense out of it at this size.
The flabbergasted girl shook her head. “Oh! I’m sorry, I just… I’m so excited to see something like you, I…” She trailed off, not quite sure how to continue that sentence.
The little bug turned around, looking at her enormous eyes focused on her tiny body. “Somethin’ like me? Like… tiny?”
“M-More like magical” Rozalin mumbled in response, a light blush playing on her cheeks. Her eyes briefly looked over at the tab list on her internet browser, which had a tab searching for ‘giantess’ images. Almost as a reflex, her hand shot towards her mouse and closed that tab. Had Belzé seen that? Hopefully not…
Belzé lightly scratched her own cheek with her claws. “Magical? Does magic, like… not exist in this world, is that it?” She could hardly actually imagine a world that boring. Then again… she eyed the machine that nearly killed her just now. Perhaps there were other things worth seeing here.
Rozalin shook her head, a small sigh escaping her lips. “No, not at all. I mean, the internet is pretty magical if you think about it, but it’s just… not REAL magic, you know? Like- like bug-sized girls or-” she made some broad gestures with her hands, but stopped when she remembered she was about the size of a building compared to Belzé, bringing her hands in front of her chest. “I’m sorry, I’m not scaring you, am I?”
That elicited a laugh from Belzé, who flew over and landed on her finger again, looking up at the giant girl. “Roza, I can tell ya right now, I’ve seen PLENTY scarier than you, and nothing’s really terrified me yet! ‘Sides, if I’m ever in any real danger, I can always just get invisibly small and vanish from sight~”
That comment made Rozalin’s eyes widen and her jaw drop a bit. “S-smaller? You can shrink yourself even more? C-Can you grow, too?”
“One question at a time, kay?” Belzé felt a little sorry for Rozalin for living in a world without magic, so she was fine with humoring the girl’s questions. “Okay, so… I can shrink myself no problem, I don’t even know if there’s any limit to how tiny I can make myself… and I can grow, but not any bigger than my normal size, which is… I think about your size. Like this!” Hopping off of Rozalin’s finger, Belzé fully regrew to her normal size of five foot four, sitting on the edge of her desk. “This is as big as I can get!”
Rozalin yelped as the tiny bug was suddenly very much not tiny, and in fact… very cute. She had a tomboyish look about her with her tan skin, short hair, and those little fangs… She didn’t even mind that Belzé’s abdomen nearly knocked a desk light onto the floor, she was just completely caught off guard by the girl. It took a few seconds for the blush to subside and for Rozalin’s throat to open up again, allowing her to speak. “Y-Yeah, uh… I… do you mind shrinking again I kind of don’t want people to see you like this-”
Belzé’s crimson eyes widened slightly in curiosity as she shifted on the desk, shrinking to about half her size. “Why not? You wanna keep me your lil’ secret friend?” She grinned deviously, knowing that at this size Rozalin could easily see her smirk and her cute fangs.
“No, no, it’s not that I just-” Having just had her whole world changed with Belzé’s arrival, Rozalin had to take a moment to think clearly. “Look, if people found you out, you’d probably be captured, studied, experimented on… you’re unique in this world, which means you’re of interest to, like… scientists and such.”
Belzé crossed her arms, her smirk turning from teasing and devious to confident. “I’d like to see ‘em TRY to secure and contain me~”
“Yes, but also I’d probably get in trouble too!” Rozalin raised her hands to reinforce her point. “Look, you can live here if you want to, I’d love that actually, just… don’t go showing yourself to everyone, okay? Please?”
Belzé pretended to think it over while already having made her choice several minutes ago. She loved being unnoticed anyway, keeping herself as Rozalin’s little secret was completely fine with her. She stood upright on the desk, shrinking a bit more to comfortably poke the girl’s cheek with a claw. “Okaaaay, I’ll behave. So how tiny do you think I should be? Pea-sized, bug-sized, subatomic~?”
The human girl shuddered at the thought of Belzé becoming even tinier than she already had been, though whether it was fear or excitement wasn’t entirely clear to her. Part of her wanted to see how tiny the bug could become, but she also didn’t want to get weird about it. She was into it, sure, but she didn’t want to make her new friend uncomfortable… after all, this might be her only chance ever to live out her fantasies!
Rozalin brought up her hand, bringing her thumb and index finger together and measuring out approximately an inch. “Like… this big, maybe? Maybe s-smaller…”
“You like that word, don’t you?” Belzé giggled at the instant blush on her new friend’s face as she got up, shrinking steadily while she touched Rozalin’s growing fingers. She positioned herself atop the pad of her thumb, shrinking to fit between her fingers and then shrinking just a bit further as instructed, ending up about two centimeters tall. “Like this?”
“Perfect!” The girl smiled at Belzé, shifting her fingers and lightly grabbing hold of the small bug. Her thumb fidgeted a little against the tiny body, something Rozalin caught and stopped as soon as she noticed. ‘Don’t make her uncomfortable, don’t be weird…’ she thought to herself as she looked back at her monitor, seeing her friend’s latest message:
‘tomorrow 10am, ill be there’
Oh dear, that might be a bit awkward now. “S-So, Belzé. Do you like shrinking?”
“Duh. Why do you think I’m so tiny like this all the time? I love seeing the world from this kinda scale, it’s super neat!” Belzé laughed, happy to answer that particular question. “I’ve been tiny in a garden, seein’ giant roots and leaves and spiders and bugs, and I’ve flown around big cuties like yourself, even been swallowed whole once or twice, not just by people but even big animals like dogs or frogs! I’m super good at survivin’ all that though, so you don’t have to worry about me at all, I’m used to it! Oh, and I’ve been inside people before, like I said, not even just in their stomachs but also-”
She kept on rambling and rambling, sharing embarrassing and very intimate stories of happenings while she was shrunk… she was too excited to notice, but Rozalin’s cheeks got steadily more beet red as she listened to Belzé’s escapades…
It was at this point she knew that she and Belzé were going to be the best of friends.