(awesomex18)
It was another bright and sunny day in the world resting atop the Sea of Chaos, at least in the walled-off continent severed from the rest of the planet due to the ancient Monster Barrier surrounding it. In the bustling village of Riesenfalle, people went about their daily business as usual, motivated by the balmy weather and pleasantness that their town afforded them, located a great distance away from their local regent to maximize their independence and freedom in governance. As children ran gaily through the cobblestone streets, they narrowly managed to avoid bumping into two young women at the local bazaar who were browsing the stands while enjoying a local seared meat kebab, both of whom seemed to be visitors to their fair city.
The first of these two women was a tall, beautiful, and voluptuous visage of beauty, a violet-maned buxom bombshell clad in a black leather outfit that left most of her curvaceous form on display. A large pair of iron spiked spaulders on her shoulders, matching leather gloves, a billowing red cape, and a long sword sheathed at her side would indicate to anyone looking at her that she was far from friendly. In stark contrast to the other woman, the second young lady was a short girl under five feet in height, almost mistaken for a child both because of her diminutive stature and her flat chest. With flaming orange hair that easily made her stand out in any crowd, she donned a similar outfit to that of her acquaintance, sporting a yellow overshirt, black headband, purple cape, dull pink pants, and forest green boots. Large obsidian shoulderpads adorned with sizeable, fake magic jewels rested upon the top of her arms, while small golden spheres hung from her ears, emphasizing that she enjoyed the rarer treasures of life. Anyone who possessed a basic knowledge of the world’s various professions could tell immediately that both women were dressed in the traditional garb of sorceresses, making them incredibly powerful magic users.
The citizens of Riesenfalle had no idea that their quaint little town was being frequented by none other than Lina Inverse, the notorious so-called “Bandit Killer”, and her off-and-on friend and occasional rival, Naga the Serpent.
“Lina, this town is a bit strange, don’t you think?” Naga asked her fellow sorceress as they casually walked along the length of the bazaar, taking in the various local vendors peddling their wares. As they passed by the shops, the girls could not help but notice that each of the shopkeepers came across as having something unusual about their physical appearance: one merchant showed off what looked like an extra set of arms, another seemed to have his lower legs replaced with flesh-like springs that allowed him to bounce in place like a human pogo stick, while a fortune teller had a third eye in the middle of her forehead to draw customers to her predictive arts booth.
“Well, I suppose a town dedicated to body-altering magic is quite the tourist trap,” Lina replied, taking a bite from her kebab as they kept up their pace. “Huh… ‘Try our head-swapping magic. Take a picture with your favorite celebrity’s head temporarily morphed onto your body as the perfect souvenir. Only two silver coins,’” she continued, reading off a nearby booth sign as they walked past it. “When they put it like that, it’d be hard for the average person not to give it a shot and impress their friends back home. Take a picture, tell them where you went, and it’s another boost to the local economy. These people really know how to sell these things…”
Just as Naga was about to reply, the panicked screams of townspeople caused her azure eyes to widen slightly, both girls able to spot a fleeing crowd of locals running towards them in a frenzy from down the road. The duo simply blinked in place as people ran past them left and right, unaware of the situation at hand.
“Run for your lives!” a man shouted among the scrambling mob. “He’s overdosed on strength magics and gone berserk!”
“Strength magics?” Lina asked aloud, looking to Naga for any form of clarity on the subject. “That’s certainly a new one.”
A loud crash in the distance drew the sorceresses’ attention as a large, burly man clad in tattered rags appeared from a billow of smoke, obviously crazed by his appearance alone. Carrying with him a large, crudely-made club from a tree stump, the berserker stood roughly thirteen feet tall with a tough, musclebound frame, his red eyes alerting everyone who gazed upon them that something was clearly not right in his mind. With a loud, primal roar of unadulterated fury, the man swung his bludgeon wildly in front of him, smashing the heavy weapon into a nearby inn door and sending more citizens fleeing with his mere imposing presence alone. A second mighty brandishing of the club impacted into a nearby fruit stand, causing numerous pieces of rind and fruit juices to spray all across the area, the cherries and cranberries crushed by the blow giving the appearance that a bloody massacre had just taken place.
While utter bedlam continued to break out on the once peaceful bazaar avenue, a young woman, appearing to be in her late teens or early twenties, fell down while attempting to escape the scene with her fellow townspeople, left to fend for herself against the rampaging thug. The fall left the woman completely paralyzed with fear, unable to pick herself up from the ground despite the looming threat rapidly approaching her. Hoping to spur herself into action, the young girl made the mistake of looking behind her at the rampaging oaf, immediately catching his attention. A toothy grin formed on his malformed face as his eyes fell upon the girl, spying his latest plaything. Another loud grunt emanated from the man’s mouth as he proudly smacked the edge of his club in his opposite hand, making a slow, menacing beeline towards the helpless damsel.
Is… Is this really it? I’m gonna… Am I really gonna die here...? the woman thought as her attacker drew ever closer, her body refusing to respond to her demands to move as she became even more paralyzed with fear. No… N-No! This can’t be how it ends! Not today! I still have so much I need to live for! If only there was someone… anyone… Mustering up what courage she had within her, the girl closed her eyes tightly and began screaming at the top of her lungs. “I’d give anything if someone saved my life right now! Anything!”
“Anything, huh?” a young female voice asked her in response to her plea.
“Truly anything?” another woman added, her tone much more smug than that of the other mysterious savior.
As the girl heard the sound of nearby heroes having come to her rescue, she quickly opened her eyes in surprise, finding two smiling sorceresses towering over her - none other than Lina and Naga. The woman remained speechless for a moment, unable to express her gratitude before the heavy stomps of the berserker behind her brought her back to reality, reminding her that time was of the essence.
“So then, do we have a deal?” Naga asked, chuckling slightly as she complacently placed her hands on her hips.
The young woman hesitated at the offer the two strangers had placed before her in exchange for her safety; if they truly meant what they said, then who knew what sort of payment they would ask for after saving her life. On top of it all, judging on how the two women dressed, they appeared to be rather shady characters, ones who may not even hold up their end of the bargain regardless of the agreement. These thoughts and many other worries were immediately washed from her mind as the sound of wood shattering into splinters caused her to turn her head around once again, spying the aftermath of the ogre’s latest rampage: a wooden barrel had been smashed into pieces as a warm-up for his next act of wanton destruction, the death of a helpless young woman. Now a mere step away from the trio, the young girl had run out of time to decide as the man lifted his club high over his head, preparing to bring it down upon her without a shred of remorse. A loud growl of fury escaped the man’s lips as he readied his attack, the girl’s life immediately flashing before her eyes as the blunt object began to descend.
“Yes, yes!” the woman cried out in pure terror at the very last moment. “Just please, save my life!”
“Heh. Well, you heard her, Naga,” Lina nodded, the two magic users already prepared to go on the offensive. Extending their left hands out in front of them, both mages drew back their right arms as if pulling the string of an imaginary bow, a ball of crimson light appearing at the tip of Lina’s left index finger as a result while a similar azure light formed at the same position on Naga’s hand. “Flare Arrow!”
“Freeze Arrow!”
Shouting the name of their spells one after the other, the duo launched a simultaneous attack on the crazed man, firing their magically-charged arrows directly into the ogre’s torso and scoring direct hits, interrupting his swing and sending him stumbling backwards into an abandoned stall. The young woman let out a cry of relief as she saw her champions’ strength before her very eyes, saving her from certain doom. However, before she could thank her mysterious heroines, the man began to stir from the wreckage of the now-disheveled booth, letting out a true savage howl of pure hatred.
“My, my, aren’t we a tough one?” Naga gloated, taunting their furious opponent. “Then again, it wouldn’t be as fun if you went down that easily in the first place.”
“Alright, Naga, time to finish this,” Lina commanded, earning a nod from her traveling companion in complete agreement. Bursting forth from the wooden wreckage around him with another garbled screech, the behemoth charged towards the group of women with reckless abandon, discarding his weapon in the process and now acting solely on instinct.
“Mega Brand!” the two shouted in unison, both mages snapping their right index finger and thumbs to activate the powerful spell.
Two large magical seals formed on the ground in front of the man’s path, triggering their effects the moment he stepped foot upon them. A powerful set of explosions blasted the rampaging doper upwards high into the sky, blowing out a large amount of dirt to cover the nearby area in dust and debris as an unintended side effect of the spell. The pair of magicians simply stared forward confidently after their spells had activated, waiting for gravity to do the rest. Several seconds later, the man’s body came crashing back down to earth, his body burnt to a crisp and his eyes closed tightly, clearly having been knocked out cold by the non-lethal dual attack.
With the brute now fully subdued, the terrified masses settled down almost instantly, gathering around his unconscious form to admire the heroines who saved their town from certain doom. The young girl’s eyes remained affixed to the bodies of her saviors as they quickly turned around to check on her, amazed that they had taken out such a powerful opponent with such minimal effort.
“Are you alright?” Lina inquired of the girl, acting as if the threat they had just dealt with had never existed in the first place.
“You seem to be fine,” Naga observed, offering the girl her right hand. “Can you stand?”
“M-Me?” the girl stuttered, nodding her head frantically and suddenly finding the will to move once again, slowly rising to her feet of her own accord. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I don’t know what I would’ve done back there if it wasn’t for the two of you showing up when you did!”
“We just happened to be in the right place at the right time, that’s all,” the Bandit Killer smiled, happy to be of service.
“That ox over there was no match for the two of us,” the purple-haired witch concurred as she smugly placed her gloved palms against her sides.
“I really don’t know how I can thank you two sorceresses enough,” the young woman said, bowing her head slightly in place in thanks. “Again, thank you so much for saving me. I’ll… just be going now, so-”
“Now then, about our payment…” Lina interrupted, cutting off the girl as she attempted to politely leave the area without paying her dues.
“You did say you’d give us anything, didn’t you?” Naga grinned, joining in on their debt collection.
“O-Oh, yes, I, um…” the local woman flustered, scratching the back of her head awkwardly as the two sorceresses drew closer, causing her to step backwards to keep a noticeable distance between the duo. “I just sorta meant that in a figurative way, you know?”
“We certainly didn’t,” Naga made clear, both magic users continuing to slowly push forward towards their client.
“Yep! Where we come from, a deal’s a deal,” Lina affirmed, taking another ominous step ahead of her.
“Well, there was just so much going on at the time what with my life flashing before my eyes and all, so I really just-” The girl’s eyes widened as she felt a strong barrier press up against her spine after taking her latest step backwards, unaware that the two foreigners had cornered her against a brick wall, leaving her with no possibility of escape. “I-I guess maybe I could… come up with something to thank you?”
“That’d be great!” the bejeweled mage grinned from ear to ear. “Oh, by the way, my name is Lina, and this is Naga. You can reward us with a meal if you want, and if you do, you should know that I like all kinds of food!”
“And I’m the same way about food too,” Naga concurred, flashing an equally radiant smile. “Though I suppose the drink I like the most is bread!”
Realizing that she had no other option than to acquiesce to their demands, the young girl let out a loud sigh, summoning up her courage to address her greedy saviors. “I can’t offer you much, but… would you ladies like a meal as my thanks?”
“Really? If you’re offering, how could we say no?” Lina enthusiastically accepted. “You’re too kind!”
“Hmph,” Naga gloated, crossing her arms beneath her breasts in a pompous display of faux displeasure. “Well, I guess it would be rude to turn down such a generous reward...”
I can’t believe I’ve just
been saved by two con artists… the girl lamented,
watching as the sorceresses gave themselves a high-five to celebrate their
confirmed payment. And to make things
worse, they’ve conned me into giving them a free lunch… I probably should’ve
taken my chances being attacked instead. Maybe he would’ve missed? Why is my
life so terrible...?
-----------------------------
As the local town guard was left to deal with the cleanup of the bazaar and taking the crazed man into custody once his strength magics wore off, Lina, Naga, and their generous benefactor had made their way to a local restaurant to fulfill their impromptu contract. After settling down at a table and ordering drinks, the girl’s eyes shot open in disbelief as the sorceresses ordered plate after plate of expensive food, knowing that the eventual bill would cost her a hefty sum. Apprehensive that saying “No” to the magic users would be out of the question, the girl simply let out another sigh of defeat and ordered herself the cheapest item on the menu - a children’s lunch set - hoping to offset the overall cost somewhat by lowering her impact towards the final check.
“Man, I can’t believe how many great types of food you guys have here in Riesenfalle!” Lina exclaimed, her words garbled as she gnawed on a large slab of grilled meat.
“I can’t say it’s the best I’ve ever had, but it’s not the worst either,” Naga complimented in her own way, feasting upon a similar dish as both women stuffed their faces with as much food as they possibly could. “Still, it certainly is rather delicious.”
“Ehehe…” the girl blushed, unsure of how to respond without
possibly drawing the ire of the powerful women while in the midst of their food
binging. “Eat as much as you like. It’s… on… me…” she continued, barely able to
get the last words out of her mouth, practically choking on her own voice.
These two are going to empty my bank
account at this rate!
“Will do!” the traveling duo affirmed simultaneously, voraciously consuming everything in front of them without a moment’s hesitation.
The young girl was left to helplessly watch Lina and Naga devour
plate after plate of food with no signs of stopping, their stomachs seemingly
bottomless as they ordered second and third helpings of meals without skipping a
beat. As the amount of dishes at the table continued to pile higher and higher,
the girl’s fears of bankruptcy grew all the more real as she mentally calculated
the rising cost of the bill - they had already eaten enough to feed a modest
family for a week in a single visit! A satisfied belch from the younger magus
seemed to be a sign from the heavens that some divine figure had taken mercy
upon her; Naga, too, had slowed her consumption pace down to a crawl as both
women’s hunger seemed to now be mostly sated.
Oh thank goodness! she mentally
cheered, hoping that her nightmare would soon come to an end.
Maybe I might actually have a few coins
left over if they don’t order anything else…
“Ahhh! I’m feeling stuffed!” Lina proudly touted, patting her belly with a satisfied grin. “Thanks for the meal there, uh… Hey, what was your name again?”
“You know, I don’t believe we asked,” Naga corrected, looking towards the young girl.
“Oh, right. I didn’t tell you, did I?” the girl meekly confirmed. “With everything going on, it kinda just slipped my mind, you know? Anyway, my name is Erinn Vastonia. I really can’t thank the both of you enough for-” Erinn paused mid-sentence as she looked over towards Lina, the young sorceress suddenly choking on her food, giving her cause for alarm. “Oh my! Miss Lina, are you alright?”
Pounding on her chest to make sure her airway would be properly cleared, the fiery-haired sorceress managed to free the obstruction in her throat with a hard swallow, wasting no time in voicing her surprise. “Wait, you can’t be serious. You said your name’s Erinn Vastonia, right?” Lina inquired. “Which means you’re the daughter of Linus Vastonia? The Linus Vastonia?!”
“Who is that? I’ve certainly never heard about them before in my life,” Naga blinked, becoming more invested in their client’s family history.
“Are you kidding, Naga? Linus Vastonia is a living legend!”
“Well, I don’t know about the whole ‘living legend’ part, but yes, that is indeed my father,” Erinn admitted, confirming Lina’s assumption. “He’s one of the-”
“He practically wrote the book on modern-day body-altering magics!” Lina interjected. “How could you not tell us you were related to one of the greatest mages of our time?!”
“Oh, um, well… I guess because, to me, he’s just my father. You really don’t think about the whole popularity aspect of it when you’ve lived with them all your life.”
The revelation that a random stranger they had saved from certain doom was related to such a renowned figure was quite the stroke of serendipity for the wandering pair. While Naga still seemed to be somewhat oblivious as to the breadth of his talents and the feats of magecraft that had made him known across several circles in the magical community, Lina saw this as a chance to profit for her own personal gain.
I can’t believe it!
Who’da thought we’d end up rescuing Linus Vastonia’s daughter while we were just
passing through his home turf?! Hmmm… I have a great idea!
the feisty magician thought as she began to scheme.
Erinn still owes us for saving her life
and all that, so the way I figure it is that the least she can do is let us
spend the night at her place too. We meet up with the guy while he’s doing…
whatever it is he’s up to these days, and while Naga’s off doing whatever, I’ll
get him to teach me one of his super-secret spells as thanks for saving his
kid’s life! I wonder if he knows any sorta spells that could make my chest
larger? Maybe even permanently too, even bigger than Naga! I can just see it
now: standing over Naga’s bed as she wakes up and showing off a chest that’s
bigger than hers...
“Heeeeeeeeey Errrrrr-inn! Buddy!” Lina smiled, her tone suddenly changing to sound much more amicable as she stood up from her chair and walked over to her new friend, draping her right arm around the young woman’s shoulder once she was close enough to her. “So I was thinkin’... We did pretty much save ya from getting turned into mincemeat and all earlier today, and I don’t think a meal is really thanks enough, don’t you think? Since Naga and I don’t really have a place to stay tonight, how about we stay the night at your place, huh? You do that and we’ll call ourselves even.”
“Hmmm… Yes, I approve of that plan, Lina Inverse,” Naga nodded in agreement to the proposed arrangement. “We’ll stay the night at Erinn’s and consider it done. To be honest, I’m rather curious about meeting this supposedly famous father of yours,” she admitted, turning towards the Riesenfalle native and looking her square in the eyes. “If he’s even a fraction of the man he’s being made out to be, then it certainly could be quite the interesting experience.”
“Well, I-”
“Then it’s settled!” Lina immediately chimed in, confirming the accord without the third party’s consent. “Heh, thanks for the generous offer there, Erinn. Who knew you locals were so kind-hearted when it came to paying off your debts?”
Someone please kill me… Erinn mentally lamented, letting out a depressed sigh at her current lot in life. “I… I guess it’s alright. But, well… my father really hasn’t been himself for the past few years,” she explained. “He’s perfectly fine, really, but… He just really hasn’t been practicing his magics as much as he used to. It’s… kinda hard to explain, but maybe it’s better to just see it for yourself. If you both are done eating, we can go there now if you wish.”
“I’m sure it’s not as bad as you say it is,” Naga spoke, crossing her legs in her chair in the meanwhile.
“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Lina nodded, letting go of Erinn and dismissing her worries. “Anyway, I think we’re good to go, so Naga and I will wait outside while you handle the check.”
“The… The check?” Erinn froze as she watched Naga rise from her
seat, the two sorceresses exiting the restaurant together and leaving her to
fend for herself. “Oh, that’s right… The… check…“ A waiter soon approached the
young girl and handed her a small slip of white paper, causing her eyes to
broaden in complete shock as she took in the cost of all the food her saviors
had consumed in a single meal. How… How
did they eat all this?! Did they practically order everything on the menu?!
she panicked, clutching her coin purse tightly in her other hand, knowing she
would have to reluctantly pay the exorbitant bill from her own coffers.
Why must my life be so terrible…?
-----------------------------
By the time the girls arrived at the Vastonia estate, the sun had already begun to set, signaling that the day would soon be drawing to a close. Located on the outskirts of Riesenfalle, the large manor nestled deep within the surrounding forest was the perfect spot for any practicing magician to work on their craft in seclusion away from the hustle and bustle of the town.
“Ha! I’ve got it now!” an old man’s voice called out in the distance, seemingly enthusiastic about what appeared to be a recent discovery. “Annnnnnd... There!”
A large explosion triggered from behind the mansion, giving Lina and Naga cause for alarm while Erinn simply sighed, holding up her right hand to her side to calm her companions. “He’s fine,” she assured them, slumping her shoulders in embarrassment. “This is what I was talking to you about earlier. C’mon, this way…”
Flashing each other a look of bewildered curiosity, the two sorceresses followed along as the Vastonia heiress led them towards the back of her home to meet her world-renowned father. What was now an all too familiar sight for Erinn was somewhat of a shock for the foreigners: an older man in his late fifties with a thick head of gray hair, covered from head to toe in soot over his plebeian clothes, stood motionless in place in front of the charred remnants of what appeared to be a wooden barrel, smoke still simmering from its leftover tinders. A few minor grunts escaped the man’s mouth, insinuating that he was in too much pain to move and explaining his paralyzed stance. Erinn let out another heavy exhale as she approached her father, gently patting him on the back to remove some of the dirt blanketing him and to restore his movement to some degree.
“Father, you were messing around back here again, weren’t you?”
“Ah-Aha! Erinn, my daughter! You came just in time!” the magician exclaimed, his injuries seemingly instantly healed by his child’s touch alone. “I was this close to finishing that recipe for exploding tea that I told you about! ‘Prank your friends with some tea that’ll explode right in their face,’ I say! Once I finally get the last kinks worked out, we’ll be making a killing in no time!” he heartily laughed. “Unfortunately, I kinda blew up the last batch I had, so I’ll just have to make another one, and this time, it’ll be the real deal!... I think!”
“This? This crazy old man is the ‘living legend’ you were carrying on about?” Naga asked, glaring at her shorter comrade while crossing her arms beneath her breasts in disappointment. “Hmph! I’m not seeing what all the fuss is about. All I see is a doddering old fool.”
“Yeaaaah, that’s… him alright,” Lina was forced to admit, nervously chuckling to herself as she observed Erinn trying to recuperate her father while dissuading him from pursuing any further lunacy for the day. “No doubt about it, he’s the one and only Linus Vastonia...”
“Huh? Who goes there?” the old man called out, turning around and spying two strangers on his property. “Erinn, who are these people?”
“Oh, um, they’re Lina and Naga,” his daughter answered. “They managed to save me earlier today from some weird guy who overdosed on strength magics. I would’ve been a goner if it wasn’t for their help, so I wanted to express how much I appreciated them by inviting them to stay the night at our place. I hope that won’t be too much trouble?”
“Hmmm…” Breaking free from Erinn’s clutches, Linus Vastonia stormed towards the two girls, his stamina having completely recovered in a matter of moments. Stopping roughly a foot away from Lina, he placed his left hand against his hip while covering his chin with his right palm, bending forward slightly to examine the smaller mage in greater detail. “Mhmm… Mhmm... “ he nodded several times, confirming his observations before standing back to his full height and letting his hands return to his sides. “I like you!”
“What? Me?!” Lina blinked, surprised that her plan may have been unfolding more smoothly than she thought it would.
“Yeah, you!” Linus confirmed, a bright grin of amusement beaming on his excited face. “I dunno what it is about you, kid, but you’ve got it, and I like that about ya! Plus you saved my little girl on top of it, so you’re alright in my book!”
“Ahem!” Loudly clearing her throat, Naga arrogantly stepped in front of the shorter Lina to eclipse her behind her taller stature, bumping the wily girl with her elbow to force her to take a step back out of safety. Placing her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest to show off her more womanly physique, the ravishing beauty pouted cutely, wanting the old man to thank her as well, clearly jealous of being left out.
Taking one look at Naga’s well-developed figure turned Linus’s smile upside-down, the old man immediately growling at what he saw in front of him. “Humph…” he snorted, wasting no time in walking around the purple-haired enchantress to get back to adoring Lina, causing Naga to let out a surprised gasp at the insult. “Hmmm… Yeah, I like the cut of your jib, little lady!” he continued, his happy grin returning the moment he laid eyes upon the Bandit Killer once more. “I owe ya for what you’ve done for my Erinn, and we Vastonia men always keep our word!”
“Oh really, it wasn’t anything special,” Lina shook her head as she waved her left hand in front of her, pretending to downplay the entirety of the earlier events. “Anyone else would’ve done the same if they were in our shoes. We really couldn’t possibly ask for anything else for a reward, buuuuuuut… if you really are offering…” she trailed off, her voice turning even more fakely innocent, “...I’d love it if you used one of your spells on me! It beats having to pay us, don’t you think?”
“Sorry, kiddo, no can do,” Linus declined, shaking his head sternly. “I just don’t got the motivation anymore to be usin’ my special magics on other people. It’s a real heck of shame though - you’d be a perfect subject for me, little lady!”
“No motivation?” Lina blinked, tears practically beginning to well up in her eyes at the possibility of being denied a bust enhancement spell from the legendary magician.
“There you are, father!” a loud male voice called out from behind them, prompting the spellcasters to gaze at the approaching interloper.
“Ah, big brother! What brings you here?” Erinn called out, alerting her new friends that she was not the sole heir to the Vastonia family legacy.
Dressed in a similar, yet more modern, set of magician’s clothes like that of his father, the young man made a beeline for his family, barely even taking the time to notice the visitors to their lands. Judging by his toned musculature and youthful features, the sorceresses would have estimated that he was roughly the same age as Erinn, most likely her older sibling. “Father, are you alright? I saw the explosion while I was out in the forest and came as fast I could. Are you in-”
Linus growled and immediately lashed out with the back of his left hand against his son’s face, sending the young man careening towards the ground. “You’ve got a lotta nerve to show your face around here again, Maius,” he chastised, watching as his own flesh and blood rubbed his face in pain from the sudden slap. “I told you that no son of mine is going to be living under my roof and make a mockery of the magics I created! Get the hell off my property, you lousy good-for-nothin’!”
“What the hell’s the matter with you, old man?!” Maius quickly retorted, jumping back onto his feet and playing through the pain, still reeling from the sting of his father’s blow against his skin. “Last time I come and check on you when it looks like you’ve burned the house to the ground! You probably could’ve seen that explosion all the way back in Riesenfalle!”
“Did I ask for your opinion, you sorry sack’a suds?!” his father barked back. “I know exactly what I’m doing, unlike someone who couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag even if there were directions on the inside on how to get out!”
“Oh yeah?” the fiery youth asked in turn, stepping forward and grabbing his father by the collar of his shirt to assert his authority. “If you’re gonna act like you know everything, then why don’t you make your own magics again for a change, huh?!”
“What was that, you little twerp?!” the elder Vastonia snarled, pushing his son backwards a short distance and raising his right fist, preparing to strike him a second time.
“Both of you, cut it out!” Erinn intervened, her loud shout causing the men of her family to look at her, both of them suddenly feeling mutually ashamed of their fight in front of the three women.
“Hmph!” Linus groaned, putting his fist down as Maius let go of his clothing, the two wordlessly agreeing to cease any further physical interaction between them. “This is all because someone’s worthless son has been distorting the very magics that put this family on the world’s notice!”
“Grrr…” the elder Vastonia sibling murmured, gritting his teeth at the scathing remarks. “Fine! I don’t know why I even came out here to check things out. You just stay here and keep wallowing in your own failures for all I care!”
Maius instantly stormed around his sister and her guests in a fit of rage, though just as he had hurried past the two sorceresses, something caused him to stop in place and turn around, having to take a second look at what had caught his eye. The profile of a tall, buxom woman with a regal air about her had captured his heart, doubly adding to his smittenness as she turned on a forty-five degree angle to stare at him in return, her deep sapphire eyes reminiscent of a calming ocean, only further adding to her impeccable beauty.
“...Breathtaking… Truly spectacular… A living goddess…”
“Hmm?” Naga perked up, turning completely around at the sound of compliments being hurled her way. “Were you talking about me by any chance?”
“Yes, of course! Do you see any other true epitome of beauty and grace nearby besides you?” Maius affirmed with a rhetorical question of his own, his pupils dilating with joy, mentally feasting on the divine physique of the purple-haired magus. “Pray tell, may I ask the name of the goddess who stands before me?”
“Hmph! Well now, finally someone who knows how to appreciate a beautiful woman when one appears before them,” Naga grinned, confidently crossing her arms beneath her chest, her already massive ego growing larger before everyone’s eyes. “My name is Naga the Serpent, though you can simply call me Naga.”
“Naga… Truly, a name handed down from the gods themselves for the perfect woman to bear!” he exclaimed. Taking a step towards the embodiment of femininity in front of him, Maius carefully dropped down onto his left knee, bowing his head before all of Naga’s beauty. “Lady Naga, I know we have only just met, but I have never before been so inspired by one so perfect as you. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought to have seen a sublime woman such as yourself come through our little town, let alone appear on our property. I cannot lie - you are my muse, someone who has reignited the spark of my soul and filled me with a surge of inspiration the likes of which I have never felt before! This… is a bit sudden, I know, but…” Maius paused momentarily, raising his head enough to look directly into Naga’s calming eyes before finding the courage to finish speaking. “...Would you… Would you do me the privilege - no, the honor! - of being my assistant at the Riesenfalle Centennial Magic Royale this year?”
“The Magic Royale?” Naga blinked, intrigued by the offer. “What’s that?”
“Only the biggest event in our town’s history, of course,” he began. “This is the one hundred year celebration of our annual Magic Royale. Every year, mages participate in the Royale to show off their spells, arts, and other original techniques in an attempt to wow the crowd and the judges. You can kinda think of it as a friendly magical battle of sorts, hence the word ‘Royale’. I hate to toot my own horn here, but I happen to be the best mage in town,” Maius proudly stated, much to his father’s chagrin. “As such, and considering that I’ve won it the past two years in a row, I unfortunately have no competition this year, meaning that I’ll win by default. So, essentially, this’ll just be an exhibition of my own magics in front of the entire town. Of course, it’ll be rather boring if it’s just me on the ‘battlefield’ putting on a small performance, so I’ll need someone to help show off my latest masterpieces.”
“And you want moi to be the star of the show for you?” the Saillune princess inquired, already primed with her answer. “Why, of course I would. Someone has to help the classless people of this little town learn about the finer points of beauty and magic, so it might as well be me! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!” Naga immediately cackled, bringing her right hand in front of her chin to indulge in her signature smug laughter known far and wide.
“Now hold it one gosh-darn minute!” Linus bellowed, unable to take his son’s gloating once Naga had agreed to assist him. A fire seemed to be lit in the pit of his being, unwilling to let his so-called failure of a son go without some form of competition. “You’re the only one in the Royale this year, did I hear that right? Well, not anymore! As of this moment, I’m puttin’ my hat into the ring and takin’ you down a peg!” Grabbing Lina’s left wrist tightly and unexpectedly, the old man yanked the young sorceress to his side, claiming her for himself. “And this little lady right here’s gonna help me! You wanna see the real star of the show? Well, you’re lookin’ at ‘er!”
“Me?!” Lina asked, taken by surprise by Linus’s sudden change in attitude.
“Yeah, who else am I gonna use to show up my idiot of a son here?” the old man retorted, impassioned by the thought of humiliating his progeny in front of the entire city. “Besides, didn’t you say earlier you wanted me to use one of my spells on ya? Well, now’s your chance, ain’t it? You get the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a Linus Vastonia original before anyone else does, and you get to help show up your ugly friend over there in the process. And if it all works out in the end, I’ll cast it on you for free before everyone else starts wantin’ it too. Sounds like a plan, don’t it?” he proudly asserted. “Well, whaddya say? You in, little lady?”
“Of course I am!” the Bandit Killer shouted without a moment’s hesitation.
“‘Atta girl!” Linus beamed, now in possession of everything he needed to complete his spiteful plan. “You hear that, Maius? Me and the girl here are gonna show you what it really means to carry the Vastonia family name and the magics that’ve made us famous over the years!” Turning towards his youngest child, the elderly magician raised his left hand, pointing directly at the girl to put her on notice. “Erinn, get over to city hall and put in an application for me right now! I’m sure the mayor’ll be happy to have another entrant,” he barked at his daughter. “Well, don’t just stand there lookin’ like a stray sheep! Get a move on already!”
“Y-Yes father!” Erinn reluctantly obeyed, timidly bowing her head towards her father and proceeding to make her way towards the town. I’m glad to see my father come back to normal, but did it really have to be because he wanted to punish Maius?... Oh great! I just realized that even when I do register him for the Royale, they’re both going to make me pick a side to support during the battle. I can’t pick between the two of them - they’re both my family! Erinn mentally lamented. Add Miss Lina and Miss Naga to the mix and… Well, I can only imagine what they both must have in mind for the two of them. There’s no way this is going to end well for anyone! Why must my life be so terrible…?
As the youngest of the Vastonias made her exit, the two teams immediately stared each other down, sizing up their competition. With the Royale scheduled for the next day, it would be father versus son, sorceress against sorceress, for the glory of being crowned the best magician in all of Riesenfalle.
“Well, Lina Inverse, it appears the two of us will be fighting against each other once more,” Naga gloated, confidently placing her hands against her hips. “I’d never work for a sniveling old man like that, so I can’t wait to see what sort of lame feats you two try to pull off tomorrow. Besides, if I’m going to be anyone’s assistant, it’s going to be for someone who appreciates my superior beauty - someone like Maius here. Not only that…” Taking a moment to pause for dramatic effect, the purple-haired beauty turned and aimed her right hand at her shorter companion, pointing her gloved index finger directly at her head. “...Did you forget that I am Naga the Serpent?! I am your greatest and most powerful rival, who is without equal in the entire history of all the magical arts!”
“Ha! Like I’m afraid of what you can do as the assistant to some loser that even the great Linus Vastonia disowned!” Lina countered, irritated by Naga’s baiting. “Only a true idiot would try and recruit someone like Naga, Maius, because Naga’s a total dummy! You’re pretty much handing us the victory by taking her off of our hands!”
“Ahaha! This little lady’s really got some moxy in her!” Linus agreed with his new partner, giving the orange-haired sorceress a proud pat on the back. “I knew I liked you for a reason, kid! Well, you heard the lady, Maius. Get off my land and rest up for tomorrow… The two of us are gonna give ya the trouncin’ of a lifetime at the Royale in front of the whole town!”
“Grrr… I’ll show you, father!” his son retorted, shaking his left fist in anger. “Come, oh Divine Goddess Naga, we’re leaving!” With one final huff towards Lina, Naga followed Maius as he led her back to his abode, leaving his father and his assistant alone to begin their own preparation for the next day’s festivities.
“Well, kiddo, time’s a-wastin’,” Linus smiled at Lina as their competition departed. “We’ve got ourselves a Royale to win!”
-----------------------------
As night fell and the two Vastonia men planned their entries for their magical clash, it became clear to both of their assistants that they had nary a clue as to what particular magics each man specialized in performing. Based on the knowledge they possessed of the Vastonia family, it was all but certain that they were masters of their own body-altering magics, putting their minds at ease somewhat that they would be in the hands of true professionals.
“So let me get this straight,” Erinn began, having returned from her errand some time ago. “You two are really going to fight Maius and Miss Naga in the Magic Royale tomorrow just to spite him?”
“Yep, that’s pretty much it!” Linus affirmed. The legendary magician was already hard at work at his workbench, feeling more inspired than he had been in years, furiously writing up a storm on how best to enrapture the crowd with a brand new Vastonia original. “That damn son of mine is gonna learn the hard way by getting humiliated in front of everyone by his old man. That’ll finally knock some sense into that thick skull’a his!”
“And, uh… You said this magic you’ll be having me show off’ll be permanent, right?” Lina asked, barely able to hide the excitement in her voice while she hovered around her benefactor, hoping to catch a glimpse of his latest work.
“Darn right, kiddo,” he nodded, refusing to take his eyes off his paper amidst his flurry of inspiration. “Of course, since this is the Royale we’re talkin’ about here, I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna impress the crowd by using this new spell on a doll that’ll look just like ya. But don’t worry, ‘cause if all goes well, I’ll use it on ya afterwards just as promised. Haha! This is gonna be my finest work yet!”
“This is going to be my finest work yet!” Maius declared, himself hard at work on refining his craft to defeat his illustrious father at the centennial festival in the coming day. Located far on the other side of town, hidden away in an isolated clearing behind a chain of small mountains, was the younger Vastonia’s workshop, secluded enough that he could work on his art in peace away from the effervescence of the city and any possible interference from his cross father. Unlike his parent, Maius instead had his head buried in a thick textbook on ancient magical rituals and spells, several tomes of similar subject matter spread out on his desk, countless bookmarks and underlined passages littering their pages. “No one will ever foresee that I could pull off a masterpiece so utterly magnificent that even my father will have to recognize my talent as the superior Vastonia!”
“And this magic you’ll be using is… permanent, correct?” Naga asked out of boredom, the bountiful sorceress lounging at a nearby table with a cup of hot tea at her side.
“Of course it must be,” her partner replied, taking a brief reprieve from his research to turn around and admire his precious muse. “When a Vastonia man performs a spell, we do it in such a way that we leave our mark on the world. At least that’s how I was raised… B-But don’t worry, my goddess, for I won’t be using it on you directly. You will be the star of the show, however, the key to my performance. The entire city will have their eyes glued on you throughout the entirety of the Royale, and then everyone can witness the true splendor of your superior grace, just as much as I already do!”
“Hmph!... Well, as long as you promise that I’ll be able to show Lina just how much of a flat-chested fool she is for teaming up with an old has-been who wouldn’t know true beauty if it was standing there in his backyard, then I’ll be glad to do whatever I can to help you,” she nodded in approval, confident in their plan. “That victory is as good as ours! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
As the night progressed into the wee hours, the sorceresses and Erinn had retired for the evening, leaving their respective teammates to finish up while they caught up on their beauty rest. It seemed, however, that as both Vastonia men came to their epiphanies at roughly the same time as one another, they also appeared to run into the same problem. Although each of them planned on using dolls to be shown off by their assistants as the main crux of their performance, neither of them possessed the magical potential needed to sustain the spell indefinitely due to their lack of gathered mana under such short notice. Both men were equally stumped at how to proceed, believing that the other was already hard at work on their own project and needing to catch up with them as quickly as possible. Confirming the ancient saying that the apple does not fall far from the proverbial tree, both Linus and Maius again came to an identical solution independent of one another.
“I don’t got any other choice,” Linus sighed, pushing himself backwards from his seat at his workbench and rising to his feet. “If this is gonna work…”
“...then I’ll have to use my newfound love as my living model in order to defeat my father,” Maius concluded.
“It makes perfect sense, really, and it’s the only thing that’ll work with how much time I got left. Those sorceresses are overflowin’ with mana, so if I use it on her, then she’ll be able to sustain it forever.”
“It pains me to have to do this to my darling Naga, but for the sake of the Vastonia family name, it must be done,” the younger mage said to himself, steeling his soul to go through with the revised plan. “Her power is truly incredible, and should this ritual be used on a living being, why… the results may be even more amazing than even I could imagine!”
“Really hate havin’ to do this to the kid, but it’s gotta be done. Ain’t no way my idiot of a son is going to shame our family in front of the entire town - hell, the world! - on my watch! Not when I’m involved!” Linus exclaimed, pledging his energy to the idea. “‘Sides, she wanted me to use the spell on her in the first place, so it’ll all work out fine. Heh, I can’t wait to see the look on Maius’s face when I surprise him with a living example of my supreme magics!”
“My father will have no choice but to finally see that I have surpassed him in every way once he sees how my finest spell to date is used on my divine assistant,” the other Vastonia nodded to himself, confident in his winning strategy. “Get ready, father, for tomorrow, I will surpass your legacy as the new body-altering magic king of the world!”
-----------------------------
With the dawn of the sun rising in the east, morning came to the sleepy hamlet of Riesenfalle, the townspeople slowly awakening to what would surely be a day of celebration and exciting festivities. In just a few short hours, the Riesenfalle Centennial Magic Royale would commence, and with word having spread throughout the city during the prior evening that Maius Vastonia’s father would be coming out of his semi-retirement to challenge him this year, it was certain to be an event that could not be missed. Preparing themselves for a battle between the finest mages in their town’s history, the citizens made their way over to the fairgrounds at Bony Day Spring, taking their seats far ahead of the starting time to secure the best view possible for the eventual performance. Vendors picked up their booths and set up shop closer to the excitement, peddling their wares and knowing that they would be able to turn a much heftier profit by capitalizing on the unexpected boost of popularity to what was originally billed as a much more tame spectacle. Hopes ran high for a truly amazing display of magical talents to celebrate the town’s one hundred years of tradition, and with the Vastonia men pitted against one another as its sole competitors, it would truly be a once-in-a-lifetime match between two titans of Riesenfalle’s signature genre of magic.
Although the rest of the town had awoken early for the day’s events, the same could not be said for Lina Inverse, the young sorceress still sound asleep in her bed even as the noon hour approached. Tired from yesterday’s events and wanting to catch up on as much beauty rest as possible to show off to the crowd, she was completely dead to the world around her, snoring gently while in the thick of her slumber.
“Rise and shine, sunshine!” Linus’s voice called out to her, yelling at Lina to awaken. “If ya don’t get up now, you’re gonna sleep through the whole damn Royale. You want that friend’a yours to win that badly? Then get up already!”
“Mgrgh… What?” a groggy Lina mumbled, slowly lifting her head from her pillow. “Linus?... Where are you? Ugh… What time is it anyway?”
“Look to the left of your bed.”
Doing as instructed, the young girl gently tapped her cheeks to wake herself up, tossed off her covers, swung her legs over the side of her mattress, and was able to quickly spy a small, metallic box-like device sitting on a table next to her mattress. “What the...?”
“Never you mind what it is. Let’s just say that it’s a kinda remote speaker of sorts,” the old man explained. “Now get up and get dressed. Show’s almost about ta start!”
“Already?!” Lina howled, enraged at the lack of notice. Hopping out of bed, she immediately began changing into her usual attire, starting by tossing her yellow shirt over her head and pulling it down with both hands before inserting her arms into the sleeves. “Why the heck didn’t you wake me up earlier, old man?! Don’t you know it takes time for a girl to get ready?”
“When you were sleeping like a baby like that? Figured you could use as much rest as possible to be at tip-top shape for the day ahead,” he responded. “Anyway, you see a small little beige thing next to the speaker? Go on ahead and put it in your ear. It’s a magical earpiece that’ll let us communicate during the Royale no matter how far apart we are. Gotta coordinate if we’re to beat my knucklehead of a son, after all.”
“An earpiece, huh?” Scanning the table for the item in question, Lina picked up what appeared to be the strange device, placing it in her right ear and lodging it deep into her ear canal. “Alright, think I got it on,” she confirmed, continuing to put on the rest of her clothes.
“Good, good. Time for a test run then. I’m gonna kill the power to this thing now…” The small box gave out a muffled electrical whirring noise as it powered down shortly after Linus expressed his intent, leaving the mage alone in the privacy of her room once it was fully turned off. There was silence for several seconds before Lina heard Linus’s voice once again, this time emanating from directly within her ear. “Can ya hear me, kid?”
“Yeah, perfectly actually,” she replied, her mood mildly increasing as she marveled at the feat of magical technology. “This is gonna be really helpful. I can’t believe you actually made such a thing yourself!”
“Me? Ha! No. This is just somethin’ I stole from my son,” he brazenly admitted. “I mean, I could’ve made my own if I wanted to, but I’m not really the whole technological type, y’know? Tch, kids these days… Anyway, what Maius don’t know won’t hurt ‘em, so we’ll use these to our advantage. He’s probably got a set for himself and that ugly friend of yours too already set up, so we’ll have an even playing field.”
“I shoulda known better than to think that…” Lina sighed as she put on her shoes, now finally dressed and ready for action. “Well, I’m all set now on my end. Just when is this thing supposed to start anyway?”
“Whenever the heck you head outside, kid,” Linus responded. “Staging area’s not too far from where you are now, so we’re just waitin’ on you over here for my half of the team. C’mon now, you’re keepin’ the entire town waitin’, so get a move on! The longer you wait, the longer you don’t get to see my Linus Vastonia original!”
“That’s right!” the Bandit Killer exclaimed, reminding herself of the entire reason for agreeing to assist in this competition in the first place. “Alright, Riesenfalle Magic Royale, here I come!”
Kicking down the door to the outside, Lina ran out into the open excitedly, her eyes closed in deep thought, imagining what mysterious spell her partner had concocted for their side’s performance. Hehe, I can’t wait to see what spell he’ll use on that doll! There’s no doubt in my mind it’ll be to give it a bigger chest, and when I help to show it off to the crowd and we beat Naga and Maius, he’ll be so grateful that he’ll cast it on me for free! I can see it now… “Oh Lina, you were the best assistant I’ve ever had! Please, take this for your-” The fiery-haired mage’s thoughts were soon interrupted as she suddenly walked into a large green tree, too unaware of the outside world to have noticed it amidst her fantasies.
“Yeowch!” she yelped in pain, falling backwards flat on her rear from the force of the impact. “What’s the big idea?! Stupid dumb tree! Can’t you see I was…?”
Lina took a moment to regain her composure and examine the tree in front of her, noticing something peculiar about its composition. Unlike any arbor she had encountered before in her life, this one appeared to be not made of wood, but composed of a durable viridescent material that felt just as strong, if not even stronger. Additionally, whereas regular trees possessed numerous branches and leaves upon their sides and top, this anomaly was devoid of any other signs of foliage, instead merely bending slightly at its apex, forming a concave curve of minor shade overhead. The entire scene seemed eerily familiar to the sorceress, and while she had never seen a timber like this up close before, she knew that somewhere deep in her memories, she had encountered this type of plant at some point in her life.
“Where the heck have I seen this thing before…?” the Zephilian witch wondered aloud, closing her eyes in thought to concentrate. “I know I’ve seen it… I just… I can’t remember…” After tapping her right index finger against her chin for several seconds, her memories seemed to trigger a revelation in the back of her mind, one that filled her head with terror. “No… No way… There’s no possible way…” the magus trailed off, shaking her head in utter disbelief. “But it… it really is, isn’t it? This is… it really is… a blade of grass?!”
Lina was stunned at the incredibly frightful discovery, but she quickly attempted to rationalize the situation; perhaps Linus was playing a prank on her? Given his eccentric nature and the amount of effort he wanted to put in towards the defeat of his son, it would not be too far-fetched for him to go to such lengths, incorporating stagecraft into their presentation without telling her about it first to gauge her reaction. There’s no way this is real, she calmed herself down, trying to put ludicrous conclusions out of her mind. If it really was just a blade of grass, then it wouldn’t’ve felt like I ran into a brick wall. Still, least he could’ve done was keep me in the loop instead of springing it on me like this. I dunno what he’s gonna be using this for, but might as well see what it is. “Hey Linus, can ya hear me?” she called out to him using her earpiece communicator.
“Loud and clear, little lady,” he immediately replied. “What’s the matter? You out and about yet?”
“Yeah, about that…” Lina trailed off, scratching the back of her head awkwardly before continuing, “...I ran into one of your props out here. There’s a bunch of ‘em scattered all over the place, actually. You mind telling me what the heck they’re all about? I didn’t even know these were even allowed in a magic competition.”
“Oh, those…” Linus paused, his voice suddenly sounding much more chipper than it ever had been. “Guess you finally made it outside then? Well, I feel bad about pulling your leg about this any more than I need to, so I’m gonna come right out with it: that ain’t no prop. It’s the genuine article,” the wizard stated flatly. “To be honest, you’re actually on the Royale grounds right now!”
“Wh-Wh… WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!”
“Heh, I see now you’re noticing that my body-altering magic worked, did ya?” Linus continued as the gravity of the situation began to sink in for Lina. “I gotta say kid, you’re definitely my pride and joy, way better than using that doll I was going to use for this! The second I saw your petite little form, I knew right then and there that you could be extra puny and even more adorable than before. I hadn’t felt so inspired in years!” the elder Vastonia laughed zealously, still excited about his chance encounter with his muse. “So, while you were sleeping last night, I put up a magical barrier around your room, applied the magic, and before I knew it, you started to shrink, shrink, shrink! Ha, kept right on shrinking through most of the night until it finally settled into ya, but I’ve gotta admit, I really outdid myself this time. Shame I had to give up my detached guest room for it to work, but ya gotta crack a few eggs, am I right?” he happily chuckled. “After that, all I had to do was cast another barrier over your little place, pick it up carefully, and then drop it off right in the middle of the field here so you could just walk right out onto the Royale stage. Pretty nice of me, right?”
“You… You… You did what to me while I was sleeping?!” the Bandit Killer fumed, practically breathing fire out of her mouth from the amount of pure, unbridled anger flowing through her body. “Ugh! I thought something was off about you, but I’d never think you’d do something this sleazy! Anything else you want to tell me about while you’re getting things off your conscience? Like, oh, just how small I am right now?!”
“Hmmm…” Linus paused, performing calculations in his head before he answered. “If I had to take I guess, I’d say you’re about… around 1/70th of an inch tall, give or take a few fractions of an inch. You’re gonna be the star of the Royale, Lina! Ha! Let’s see my idiot son try and match this masterpiece!”
“One… One seventieth… of an… of an inch…?!” Lina stuttered, barely able to get the words out of her mouth. “You made me this small?! Just what the hell is the matter with you, old timer?! And why didn’t you use the doll for this like you were planning on, anyway?!”
“Oh, that? Don’t you worry about that,” the legendary mage replied, casually dismissing her ire. “You’re now my official entry into the Magic Royale! I just didn’t have enough time to build up enough magic power to sustain the spell indefinitely on such short notice, so the next best thing was to cast it on you and let your own magic power do it for me. That’s why I had to shrink you while you were asleep - it was the only way I could make sure I could give Maius the trouncin’ of a lifetime today!”
“You expect me to believe that as an excuse?!” the shrunken sorceress wailed, causing Linus to grasp his ear in pain on the receiving end from the sheer loudness of her voice. “This has gotta be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard before in my life! Of all the dumb things you coulda done, you didn’t even bother to see if-” A sudden tremor coursing through the ground interrupted Lina’s tirade, causing her to grab onto a nearby piece of grass to maintain her balance. “Woah! And what the heck was that?!”
“I dunno, kid, but it ain’t just you. We all felt something just now,” Linus affirmed, looking out at the gathered townspeople in the stands behind him, concern and fear beginning to form on their faces. “What the hell was that anyway? There ain’t no fault lines around these parts…”
A second shockwave coursed through the Bony Day Spring shortly afterwards, genuinely beginning to spark cause for alarm in the citizenry. Moments later, a third quake followed, this time stronger than the last, with a fourth following in a regular interval. With just how frequent and rhythmic these vibrations were occurring, it almost seemed as if something was approaching the fairgrounds from afar, drawing nearer with each approaching step. Whatever it was, based on the power it was generating from its footsteps, it clearly had to be rather massive.
“Mommy, Mommy!” a young boy cried out from among the crowd, seeking his mother’s attention. “Look, over there! What’s that purple thing behind the mountain?”
After the fifth rumbling of the earth had passed, some of the attending townspeople were able to spy a large tuft of violet plumage on the other side of a nearby ridge, drawing the attention of the rest of their fellow Riesenfallians though shouts of wonder and bewilderment combined with numerous people pointing towards the strange sight. Another rattling motion followed soon after the tuft was spotted, this time bringing into view none other than… a human face. The attendees swiftly became silent, awed at the gorgeous visage that had revealed itself while realizing that it was a giant human that had been making the terrible tremors over the past minute. The towering being took another step forward as it walked around the mountainside, revealing more of its physique and features; it was a young female with flowing violet locks, her face grinning with unshakable confidence and satisfaction. The giantess’s next thunderous footfall allowed her to fully clear the obstruction of the tall earthen mound, putting her full, curvaceous figure on display for the masses.
BOOOOOOOOING!
A loud, spring-like sound emanated from the woman’s body as her massive, full bosom bounced in place several times before settling down, a consequence of her body’s natural motion.
“So… jiggly…” a young teenager in the audience commented, spilling his drink onto his now-seething girlfriend’s lap.
“Mommy, Mommy! Look at what that lady’s-”
“Close your eyes, son!” his mother yelled, immediately covering her son’s eyes to spare him from the adult sight at the supposedly all-ages event.
With another jiggling footfall, the graceful colossus now appeared to be standing next to the nearby mountain by comparison, giving the townspeople an estimate of her size: roughly around 300 feet in height. The woman advanced onward without saying a word, continuing to take slow and precise steps forward, each rattling the earth as she drew closer to the fairgrounds. In reality, the mysterious woman was drinking up the gazes and attention being thrust upon her by the bewildered public, her ego swelling with each successive movement of her gait.
“Almost there, my goddess,” Maius called out to the woman from within the crowd of his fellow locals, seemingly directing her with a strange device embedded in his left ear. “Just another two steps forward and… Yes, that’s perfect! Stop right there! That’s far enough away to give my father room for whatever he’s brought today. Let the entire town feast their eyes upon your resplendent beauty!”
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!” the massive Naga cackled as she reached her designated spot, bringing up her left hand in front of her chin for her signature haughty display of superiority. The moment the towering beauty began her laughter, the entire village - including Maius - grasped their ears in pain from the sheer volume of her words alone. When Naga was at her normal height, her smug chuckling was already notorious for causing people to flee from her naturally loud voice, choosing to run for their lives rather than to suffer through her obnoxious exhibition. Now, having been increased to close to sixty times her scale, there was no chance of escaping her hubris; Naga’s omnipresent laughter resounded throughout all of Riesenfalle, ensuring that everyone in town would know of her inherent eminence.
“Nnnnngh…” Lina yelped in pain, dropping to her knees from her spot on the ground and covering her ears tightly, luckily somewhat resistant to Naga’s guffaw after their numerous travels together. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?! Why the hell is Naga a giant?!”
“Hmm?” the mighty sorceress blinked, cutting off her laughter immediately. “I could’ve sworn I just heard Lina…” Placing her hands on her hips in mild curiosity, Naga began to scan the surrounding area, ignoring the crowds and instead focusing her vision on the large staging grounds in front of her.
“How the heck can she even hear me from way up there?” the miniscule mage wondered aloud, amazed at just how keen her frenemy’s senses had become practically overnight. “Well, it’s worth a shot. Not that she’ll be able to see me at my puny size,” she shrugged, reminding herself of her current predicament. “Hey Naga, down here! Heh, let’s see if you can spot me from-”
“Oh! Why there you are, Lina!” the gigantic goddess interrupted, having pinpointed her rival’s exact location from her vantage point. “My, my, what have we here? I always knew you were a bit on the small side, but I never thought you’d embrace your inferiority complex to this degree, Lina Inverse,” Naga pridefully taunted. “Then again, when you’re traveling about with the strongest sorceress in the world all the time, it’d be a natural consequence that you’d just want to literally shrink away before my awesome might. Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
“Grrr…” the fiery-haired teen growled, gritting her teeth in pure anger as Naga belittled her stature. “Oh yeah?! I dunno how you can see me either, but what I do know is that there’s no way a moron like you could come up with a spell like that on your own,” she fired back. “You know, your height’s kinda fitting too, Naga - now you can literally be the big dummy you are in everyday life! I can’t believe you’re so insecure that you needed to be as big as your fragile ego just so you could stand a chance of beating us. You really are just an overgrown idiot!”
Naga took the full brunt of the smaller woman’s insults without even so much as a hint of irritation, keeping her composure due in large part to her increased confidence in her stature and her natural maturity. “You know, Lina, my height isn’t the only thing that’s grown…” Bending downwards to loom over her opponent, Naga attempted to intimidate her jealous rival by playing on her strongest desire.
BOING! BOING! Naga’s chest bounced in place, audibly jiggling once again for everyone in range of her shaking bosom.
“I’d say I’ve gone up at least two sizes, wouldn’t you say?” she emphasized, flashing a victorious grin in the process while bracing her hands against her sides to keep herself balanced. “In fact, if I had to make a guess, it looks like your small breasts have gotten even smaller from where I’m standing. How fitting that such a small sorceress like you has a flat chest at your pathetic little stature. You might as well not have any breasts at all! Ohhhhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
“How dare you!” the Bandit Killer wailed, balling her hands into fists to channel at least part of the endless fury coursing throughout her body. “I’ll kill you! I’ll crush you! I’ll make you wish you were never born!” she threatened, stomping her feet one after another against the soft earth to further vent. “Stop showing off just because you have a tiny bit more than I do! I’m plenty-” Lina’s mind instantly went blank as her right hand touched her chest, realizing that Naga had been right all along, discovering that her bosom was, in fact, flatter than its usual state. “What in the hell?!” she immediately raged, wasting no time in contacting Linus for an explanation. “Linus, you senile old man! Just what did you do to my chest?!”
“Huh, what’re you gettin’ mad at me for? It’s all part of my spell!” the legendary wizard replied, not quite understanding why his assistant would have further qualms with his enchantment. “Being flat-chested is a rare breed, an elusive wonder in this world of ours. Sure, you could have some massive melons like your friend there, but those are so common! Now having a smaller chest? That is what this world needs more of, I tell ya. Not to mention it fits with the whole small magic theme I have going on here: smaller everything! Well, except for your magical potential, of course. That’s probably the one thing I actually made larger, just in case worse came ta worse, ya see,” Linus casually elaborated. “I ain’t the best at guessin’ ladies’ sizes and all, but I reckon you dropped down a full size, at least down to an A-cup, if not smaller. It’s like the kids always say these days: flat is all that!”
“NO IT ISN’T!” Lina
shouted at the top of her lungs, causing Linus to again suffer more ear damage
while Naga began her laughter anew from high above, assuming that her rival had
received some terrible news. Still…
she paused, instantly calming herself among the chaos as her mind wandered
elsewhere, ...I wonder what he meant by
saying he did something to my magical potential? He said he didn’t make it any
smaller, and the way he sounded made it seem like he might’ve increased it just
in case I ran into any problems or something. Just what else did he do to me
that he hasn’t told me about yet?
As Naga continued to laugh at Lina’s unexpected physical hardship, the two sole competitors of the Riesenfalle Centennial Magic Royale reunited over on the main viewing area, Maius having come to join his parent now that his own secret weapon had arrived.
“Well, father, I see you’re still here,” Maius smirked, brashly greeting his opponent. “Can’t say I’m not surprised, though I’m sure my heavenly idol here will show you the true folly of your ways soon enough.”
“Meh! To hell with you and your freak show of an assistant there!” Linus growled back. “You wouldn’t know true beauty if it bit ya in the behind! Now my little lady? Heh. She’s a real work of art, I tell ya!”
“I see we both had the same idea then,” Maius chuckled, his attitude beginning to improve slightly. “I guess it’s true what they say, ‘Like father, like son.’”
“Heh,” his father began, cracking a slight grin of his own. “You might still be an idiot in my eyes, but you’re still my flesh ‘n blood. A Vastonia never misses a chance to show what they’re made of by any means necessary!”
“Which doesn’t surprise me why you decided to participate,” the younger Vastonia sighed. Before risking irritating his father once again, Maius expertly decided to change the subject to something more conducive to keeping his competition calm. “So, dad, I’m kinda curious… What exactly did you do to that sorceress of yours? I know she’s here, obviously, but I can’t see her at all.”
“Jealous are ya? Finally seen the light?” Linus boasted. “Well, wanting to beat you finally gave me that final push I needed to get back into the game, and heck, I managed to even fulfill my dream in the process: I made the ultimate small-scale being by my own hands!”
“Ultimate small-scale being?” Lina blinked, picking up on their conversation as Linus had left the channel open by accident. “Hey, what gives?! What kinda wizard has the last name of Vastonia and has a dream like that?!”
“Oh, you can hear me, kid? Well, I’ll tell ya who: this one!” he proudly replied, laughing heartily. “First of all, the family name’s just that - a name. What, you think I care about what someone with the last name of Inverse does for a living? No way! Now, back in the old days, the name Vastonia was meant to define someone with a vast amount of knowledge, but that’s kinda gone by the wayside over the centuries.”
“At least in your interpretation, old man…” Maius huffed, clearly in disagreement.
“Ah, shut it already, you lazy young’un! You wanted to hear what I did or not?”
“Might as well,” his son shrugged. “You’re gonna tell me regardless.”
“Darn right I am! You gotta understand real Vastonia ingenuity when someone’s nice enough to tell ya all about it!” Linus retorted. “After thinkin’ about it for a while, I realized that by mixing some of my older magics with a rare piece of orihalcon from, uh… What’s that place called again? Biaz? Yeah, think that was it. Anyway, that along with some of my personally-grown crop of Reducshrooms was all I needed. Mix ‘em up together to make a temporary amplifier for my patented reduction magics, and before I knew it, I was able to turn the kid into my masterpiece! And heck, I threw in a little somethin’ extra ta make sure she was plenty powerful to boot! Big things gotta come in small packages, am I right?”
“He specializes in… reduction magics…” Lina gasped, at a complete loss for words. The revelation that the legendary manipulator’s last name was the opposite of his professional skill set left the tiny magician utterly flabbergasted and incredibly betrayed. While Lina herself knew that he was without equal in his field, she had truly hoped for some form of enlargement magics to be used on her body, unaware that this was far from the case. “So… Wait, don’t tell me…” she loudly gulped, trying to remain composed. “If you think your last name means ‘vast knowledge’ and you know your way around making things smaller, then that must mean that Maius…”
“Thinks our family name has to do something with the larger things in life and vast sizes? Darn right he does!” Linus confirmed. “Idiot’s been blathering on about it since he was ten. That’s why as soon as I could, I kicked him outta the house ‘cause no son of mine was gonna make a mockery of our family history like that!”
“You just simply fail to realize that it could mean both, father, though I certainly believe it means a love of all things massive,” Maius corrected him. “After all, ‘bigger is better’, as they say, and nothing else here is quite as large as the magnificent, massive Naga in front of our very eyes!”
“Bah! Dunno how anyone could like someone as big as that,” the elder Vastonia huffed. “Even back when she was normal, she was still too much of a freak!”
“Hmph! I can see you truly are just jealous, father,” his son smirked. “However, because you detailed your own methods in creating your ultimate creation, so shall I to prove that my enlargement magics are the true signature spells of the Vastonia name!”
“Oh brother…” Lina facepalmed, picking up Maius’s explanation over her communicator.
“You see, father, I, too, was striving to make my masterpiece, the ultimate gigantic human being inspired by my love of all things gargantuan and the pride of the Vastonia family name,” the enlargement-specialist began. “I ended up stumbling upon a ritual magic that would allow a one-time-only expansion to the person or object as its target, though a human would have active control of how large they would wish to become. Luckily for me, the ritual required a few gallons of water from the Fountain of Growth over on Mipross Island, a rare import that I already had plenty of in my possession. So, while the vision of loveliness before us was asleep, resting and becoming even more beautiful in the process, I simply infused the gemstones on her tiara and bosom, along with her strange skull necklace, with the necessary magical power needed for the ritual to activate. By the time I finished, practically all of my special water was used up, though it was more than worth the use. Why, you may ask? Because something I had truly hoped for actually occurred…”
BOING! BOING! the jiggling sound of Naga’s chest coincidentally rang out, drawing everyone’s attention back to her heaving orbs.
“...And that was… that her bounty swelled right before my very eyes!” Maius laughed, a slight amount of blood trickling down from his right nostril as he spoke. “After all, massive breasts are the sign of an ideal, fertile woman, so having them become larger still was a sign from the gods that I was destined to win today!”
“That’s… uh… really somethin’ else there, son…” Linus blinked deadpan, unable to understand his child’s obsession with all things gigantic. “So, uh, you said somethin’ about a controlled growth burst, huh?” he continued, trying to shift the subject somewhat. “How the heck did ya get her to agree on being that tall in the first place?”
“Well, if you must know…”
-----------------------------
Earlier that morning…
“There, the magic should now be fully settled in,” Maius whispered to himself, standing over the form of the sleeping Naga. After watching over her body all night long, the exhausted magician only needed to take the final step of convincing his assistant to use her sole growth spurt responsibly, becoming large enough to amaze the crowd at the Royale, yet not too large as to be a threat to the city itself should something go awry. Maius knew that Naga’s ego was as enormous as she herself deserved to be, and that if left unchecked, would derail his plans with an errant desire. To counteract this, he came up with a plan to guarantee that Naga herself would comply with his original vision, and all it would take was a simple piece of paper and a pen. “Awaken, my sleeping beauty,” he gently called out to her, watching lovingly as the sorceress’s resplendent sapphire irises gently fluttered open.
“Mmgh… W-What?” the groggy woman blinked. “Maius, what are you-Oop!” Naga suddenly squealed, her mouth covered by her partner’s right hand gently pressing down upon her lips.
“Shhh. Please don’t say a word, my goddess. This is all part of my plan,” he assured her with a tender smile. “Simply get dressed and come outside as soon as you can, and remember, don’t say a word until I tell you. I don’t want you to ruin the surprise…”
Naga’s eyebrows gently rose out of curiosity, intrigued by what Maius had in store for their finished spectacle for the contest, and with a silent nod, she did as asked. After leaving her side, the sorceress quickly put on the rest of her ensemble and marched outside into the open clearing in front of the inventor’s workshop, finding her partner writing something down on a piece of paper and awaiting his next set of instructions.
“Ah, Naga, my goddess, you’re here,” he smiled, finishing up the final strokes on his written parchment as the purple-haired woman approached. “Now then, as promised, I’ve just finished writing our winning slogan for the Royale today. Read it aloud to me and tell me what you think,” the young man asked, turning around his paper for her to read. “And after that, I can show you our entry.”
“Now you’re talking,” Naga smirked in turn. “If it was just this piece of paper, I might have had to blast you out of boredom. Mmm, but let’s see here…” Placing her gloved palms against the sides of her waist, the noblewoman leaned forward to get a better glimpse of the scribbled letters in front of her. “If I’m reading this right, it says, ‘I want to be as tall as Bony Day Hill?’ Just what sort of slogan is-” A sudden shiver went down the tall woman’s spine, interrupting her complaint in the process. A moment later, Naga’s entire body started shaking uncontrollably, and in the next instant, she began rapidly rising higher and higher, growing several feet per second. “What the devil is going on here? Am I… am I growing?! Hey, have my breasts always been this big?” she blinked, only now realizing the increased weight and roundness of her bosom.
“Haha! Yes, yes! It’s actually working!” Maius enthusiastically cheered, clapping his hands together and watching his hard work pay off right before his very eyes. “Grow, almighty Naga, and gain the power you’ve always deserved! With this, we shall surely win the Magic Royale today and show up my father and that friend of yours with our superior brand of enlargement magics! Oh, and um, yes, those grew larger as well,” he awkwardly paused to confirm her query. “The important thing is that it’s working! Haha!”
“Enlargement magics, huh?” the beautiful, budding giantess pondered, captivated by Maius’s plan once he mentioned directly showing up Lina in a contest of magics. “Hmmm… Well, I think I’ll wait until my body stops growing before we continue. While highly alarming, I’m even more interested in just how much I can now literally look down at Lina by the time I’m done, whenever that is. She’ll have to admit once and for all that she is nothing before the strongest sorceress of all time, Naga the Serpent! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
“P-Please keep it down, heavenly goddess!” Maius pleaded as he held his hands over his ears to mitigate the loudness of Naga’s cackling. “You’ll give away the surprise if everyone in town can hear you.”
“Oh… I suppose they could, couldn’t they?” the haughty woman paused, ceasing her laughter immediately, hoping to surprise her rival most of all. “Sorry about that. But how much longer is this supposed to last anyway? I’m already taller than all these trees… Just how big is that Whatever Hill?”
“It’s just about done, oh majestic one,” he assured her, noticing that her acceleration began to curtail as she approached her desired stature. “The place I had you speak of is adjacent to where the contest is to be held, a rather large hill that is more like a miniature mountain. It’s roughly about 300 feet tall, and that’s how large you… now are…”
Maius was without words as he witnessed the towering sorceress’s growth come to a sudden halt, leaving him to stare in sheer veneration at the vision of massiveness she had become. Before him loomed Naga’s right boot, the wall of jet black fabric a true marvel of modern magic; refraining himself from touching it, Maius immediately noted that he was not even close to reaching merely her ankle, estimating that it was roughly fifteen feet tall just to where her foot began. High above him, twin bulging melons clad in a matching tight bra cast a shadow over his miniscule figure, and above them was the face of the woman he called a goddess, looking every bit the part from her new perch high above the rest of the world.
“So, I’m 300 feet tall now, you say?” Naga wasted no time in asking once she felt her body return to normal and the shaking exit her system. Taking a moment to become adjusted to her increased frame, she turned her head slowly to the left before doing the same towards the right, letting her flowing violet hair flow proudly in the early morning breeze. “Mmmm… Well, I can’t say this is the least bit terrible at all,” she smiled, satisfied with the outcome. “The view from here is fitting for a sorceress of my caliber, not to mention the fact that my clothes grew with me as a bonus, though I suppose it’s a good thing I left my sword inside before coming out here…” she noted, flinging open her cape for a brief moment to point out her lack of weapon. “Oh well, it was useless anyway! Someone of my power doesn’t need to rely on something as weak as a sword anymore!... Not that I ever used it in the first place, of course...
“I am… I am glad you are so pleased with the results, glorious Naga,” Maius nodded, happy to hear of her genuine assent to the results of his experiment. “So you’re… not mad or anything? Even though this is permanent?”
“Oh riiiiiight… I do recall you saying something along those lines last night…” the titanic mage mused, playing coy. Before Maius could blink, Naga stomped her right foot towards her partner, practically crushing him under her boot with a purposeful narrow miss. “...But to answer your question, not at all. Though, of course, if you choose to provide me with some proper compensation as well as a sign of further appreciation…”
“Are you… Are you trying to bribe me?” Another stomp was all it took to confirm the message, giving the young man a second brush with death. “Alright, alright! I got it!” he replied, throwing up his hands in defeat. “How about 100 gold coins? No, 150!”
“More than double that,” Naga curtly replied, turning her head slightly away from him to express her disdain.
“More than 300 gold coins? Are you serious?!” A third stomp reiterated that the massive woman had all the bargaining power in their exchange. “Ugh. The prize money for the Royale is 1000 gold coins though, and I need enough to recoup the costs of my entry. I’m down to my last vial of sacred water that I use for all my magics...”
“Hmmm…” Leaning forward down to her waist height, Naga extended her right hand towards the defeated Vastonia. “Give it to me. Whatever you have left of it.”
“Um… O...kay…” Maius blinked, reaching into his left pants pocket and offering up a small ampoule of water towards her gloved palm. “What do you want with it?”
“Simple: to use as a good luck charm, of course,” she grinned, immediately snatching up her prize. Standing back up to her full height, Naga brought the tiny phial up to the top of her breasts, proceeding to hold her skull necklace tightly with her left hand. With an artful display of her peerless dexterity, the Saillune princess slipped it into the right eye socket of her centerpiece, able to spy it rolling into its dark depths with ease. “There we are! Hmmm… How was I able to see that though...?”
“Oh, that’s because I cast extra-sensory magics on you as part of the ritual,” Maius interjected. “It’d be useless if you were big without the ability to interact with everything else around you, so I threw in some boosters to all of your senses, especially with your sight and hearing. It might take some getting used to, but you should be able to zoom in on anything you like and even hear distant conversations as if they’re happening right next to you, even if they’re whispering. Winning the Royale means going all out on every avenue to make sure that I present the ultimate gigantic woman as my one true masterpiece!”
“Enhanced senses with zooming, you say? Hmmm… I guess I’ll have to try it out in a bit,” Naga mentally noted for later experimentation. “But for now, as we were discussing before, I’ll take your little vial here as my good luck charm, and we’ll split the prize money right down the middle to call it a deal. A nice even 80/20!”
“80/20?! That’s nowhere even close to even! You’re really going to take 800 gold-” Naga’s boot struck the ground with tremendous force, knocking Maius off-balance and making it clear there would be no room for negotiation. “Fine, fine! 80/20 it is. I can’t believe I’m going to lose money on this competition now...”
“Mmhmm! I knew you’d see it my way,” the smug sorceress chortled, impressed by her own immense bargaining power. “Now then, perhaps I should become even larger now that we’ve agreed on our mutual coordination in this little event coming up, hmm? Tell me, all I have to do is say what I wish to be as large as or greater than, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s exactly right,” the great mage nodded up to her. “However, I must explain that it only could trigger but on-”
“That’s all I needed to hear!” Naga proudly interrupted, lifting up her left arm in front of her and pointing dramatically with her index finger. “All I have to do is desire it and such greater vantage in this world will be mine! Let’s try it out, shall we? I think I’ll start by… becoming large enough to scoop up entire swathes of trees in my hand!” she declared. Holding her pose for several seconds in the hopes that she would experience the same shivering sensation she had felt before, nothing ultimately occurred, only the sound of the gentle breeze and Maius’s exasperated sighs filling the air around her. “Hey, what gives, Maius? I thought you just said I could get even bigger?” she immediately accused him, staring daggers down at the magecrafter past her heaving chest.
“I did, but-”
“Then why isn’t it working?!” she demanded, now pouting slightly at the lack of her promised ability. “I want to be so big that I could see the other side of town from here!” Naga waited a quarter of a minute this time before becoming irate, stomping her left foot in place to demand answers. “Well?! What do you have to say for yourself? You call yourself a quality body-altering magic master with such shoddy promises, hmm?”
“That’s because…” Maius fumbled, trying to come up with a way for his assistant to drop the subject. “That’s because… ittttttttttt’s got a long recharge time! Yeah, that’s it! It can’t just be used all willy-nilly all the time,” he lied, believing it would be enough to convince her of the fib. “It just completely slipped my mind in all the excitement. However, it should be ready to go again sometime by the end of the Royale, so you could always try it again then.”
“A long recharge time, you say?” Naga huffed, crossing her arms beneath her enormous orbs. “Then why didn’t you say so in the first place? It makes sense that it would certainly be rather taxing, and it then becomes a fantastic showstopper of a finale to put Lina and your father in their places! Hmph…” Pausing for a moment, the mighty bombshell placed her hands back on her waist before continuing. “Well, we might as well head out to the show then. Just where is it, anyway?”
“H-Hold on, my giant muse! While it’s just over the hill in the distance over there, it’s still too early, and I need to get over there in advance to make sure your entrance is absolutely perfect,” her companion explained. “Oh, that’s right! I almost forgot! I transmuted your earring with a communicator I made myself so that I can help command you from a distance,” he elaborated. “You can probably hear me regardless, but it just makes things easier this way. Trust me when I say that if you wait for my signal and do as I say in the Royale, not only will we trounce our competition, but all eyes will be on you as you make the grandest entrance in its hundred year history!”
“Hmmm…” the titaness mused, tapping her left thumb against the side of her chin in thought for a short while, flashing a bright grin of approval soon afterwards. “Well, when you put it like that, how could I possibly say no?”
-----------------------------
“Let’s just say she desired the same thing I did…” Maius boasted.
Yeah right,
Lina mentally sighed. Knowing Naga, he
probably just duped her into getting as big as he wanted. She’s too stupid to
use magic like that properly…
A loud klaxon blared from the back of the spectator stands, alerting everyone present at the spring that the show was about to begin. “Fellow citizens of Riesenfalle!” a deep, older male voice called out to the masses via a loudspeaker. “As your mayor, I welcome all of you to this celebration of our fair city’s rich legacy of cultural and magical heritage. Now, without further delay, let the Riesenfalle Centennial Magic Royale commence!” A loud roar of applause emanated from the townspeople at the declaration, the citizenry absolutely ecstatic at finding out just what this year’s competitors had to offer in their demonstrations of magical prowess.
“Hmph. Finally, we’re getting started,” Naga smugly stated, looking past her amplified chest down at her rival in the grass below her. “I’m surprised you haven’t backed out yet, Lina. What with that pathetic little state you’ve been reduced to, it’s a miracle you haven’t already died of embarrassment. It must truly be impossible not to mope about when you have so much less than I do. Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
“Grrrrr…!” the diminished Bandit Killer growled through her teeth, unable to restrain herself around Naga’s latest bout of self-satisfied laughter. “I can’t believe you! All that added height has gone to that empty little head of yours! I pay for your food all the time, and this is how you repay me?! I won’t stand for it any longer!” Patching into her communicator, Lina immediately contacted Linus to vent her frustration. “Hey, old man! New plan! How about we turn this Royale thing of yours from just a demonstration into a full-on battle royale? I can’t let Naga keep mouthing off like this, and I’m sure your locals would love to see a real magical fight. Everyone wins, don’t you think?”
“Hmmm…”
“A battle royale, huh? You versus me?” the giant woman inquired, interested in the proposition herself. “That sounds fine by me. In fact, it’ll be the perfect opportunity to show the entire world that I am the superior sorceress! Handing you your defeat in front of all these people will be a perfect stage to finally settle our rivalry, Lina Inverse!”
“I don’t think we’ve got much choice in the matter, father,” Maius noted. “Those two are going to fight whether we try and stop them or not.”
“Hmph… Much as I hate to admit it, you got a point there, son,” the elder Vastonia nodded. “Alright, we’ll head up and talk to the mayor about the change. You two just stay here and keep from killing each other while we smooth things over and get the people to safety. Talk about one heck of a show for the centennial…”
“That certainly won’t be a problem,” Naga acceded, retreating two steps away from her present position to put some distance between herself and her rival. “Though you may have to warn Lina again. I can’t guarantee she won’t start flinging spells before then because she knows she has no chance of defeating me!”
“What did you just say?!” the fiery teenager demanded, their banter serving as the perfect intermission while the citizens of Riesenfalle calmly began to evacuate the spectator stands in the background. “Are you that insecure that you’re gonna lose? Maybe if your brain was even a quarter of the size of those balloons you’re carrying around, then maybe you might stand a chance!”
“Hmph! How dare you!” her much larger competition shouted in offense. “I won’t stand for you making fun of my intellect!”
The two sorceresses continued to trade insults back and forth for roughly two minutes, both of them reaching their boiling points by the time another siren blared from the now barren stands, drawing their attention. The once capacity crowd had now been completely relocated to another impromptu viewing area in the town itself, assuring both women that they could now do battle against one another without causing any accidental injuries to civilians. From high in the bleachers, the Vastonia men waved down to their lovely assistants, assuring them that everything had been cleared for the battle they craved.
“Hey! We’re all set on our end,” Linus called out to the magicians. “The mayor’s gonna give ya the signal to kick things off real soon, so be ready. You better not lose out there, kid! I need to show my son here what real Vastonia magics can do!”
“As if!” Maius instantly countered, looking towards his gigantic creation in the distance. “The great goddess Naga will prove once and for all that size trumps all in terms of power and form! You can do this, oh divine one!”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please!” the bass tone of the mayor rang out from above, his voice resonating over the speaker system. “I have done as you’ve both asked, so let your young associates here settle your disputes for you. Now then…” he paused momentarily, clearing his throat before continuing. “Without any further delay, let the first ever Riesenfalle Magical Battle Royale… begin!”
A second blare of the loud siren served as the starting bell to the duel of the ages, Lina Inverse against Naga the Serpent. With their pride and the reputations of their associated factions on the line, neither sorceress would be giving up this battle easily, making it a fight that no one in Riesenfalle would soon forget.
“Alright! I’ve been waiting to shut you up for a while now, Naga!” the pint-sized adolescent called out, taking it upon herself to make the first move. By outstretching her left arm and aiming upwards at the massive leather-clad woman in front of her, Lina prepared to shoot at the gargantuan Naga, knowing that she was guaranteed to score a hit against her huge body. Aim for her breasts… Aim for her breasts… she mentally psyched herself up, targeting the mammoth mounds of envy high above her in the distance. “Let’s see if you can handle this! Flare Arrow!”
Unleashing the fire shamanistic spell against her opponent, Lina let loose the magical ruby arrow from the tip of her index finger, her salvo unfortunately already off its trajectory, poised to make contact with her target’s midsection. Confident that her rival could never dream of scratching her at her present size, Naga simply stood in place, her hands square on her hips, ready to take the small attack head on to prove her superior defenses. The instant the narrow beam of light connected with her flesh, the gigantic royalty exhaled sharply, causing her to stumble backwards from the surprising amount of force it exerted against her, exploding in a bright flash of scarlet radiance. Unable to keep her footing, the violet-maned beauty fell backwards onto her rear in complete shock, her impact rattling the land for thousands of feet around her.
“What… What was that…?!” Maius exclaimed from up in the stands, sharing the sentiment of both his partner and the rest of the town as they marveled in awe at Lina’s inexplicable firepower.
“A-hahahaha!” Linus burst out in laughter, proud of seeing his modification spell in action. “What, you think I was gonna put my little lady up against whatever you were gonna throw at me without some insurance? Think again, ya numbskull!” he boasted, smacking his son on the back of his head in the process. “Now listen up and listen good ‘cause I’m only gonna say this once, ya got it? With all the size the kid lost, I was able to do some manipulation with her magical capacities to compensate for the reduction in scale,” the old man elaborated. “First off, her spellcasting stamina’s through the roof now - she could sling spells all day and not feel the least bit tired. But the real kicker’s what I did to her magical output: by my estimations, I turned her into one heckuva powerhouse! She’s easily got over 100 times the power she had before while bein’ able to cast her spells with the same amount of mana without any sorta penalty. Heck, if I’m bein’ accurate here, I’d say it’s more like she’s close to 200 times as powerful as she was when she was normal-sized!”
Despite hearing Linus’s explanation through Maius’s communicator line, Naga placed her gloved palms against the ground and soon rose to her feet, almost immediately pointing her right index finger at the grass in the distance where her opponent resided. “What sort of trickery was that just now, Lina Inverse?!” she glowered, furious at the unexpected power behind her attack. “There’s no way a simple Flare Arrow could have that sort of force at your scale! I demand you tell me what you did at once!”
Didn’t she just hear what the old man said? Lina sighed, shaking her head at Naga’s usual ineptitude. ...Still, I guess he really was serious earlier about amping up my magics as part of his spell. If I really am this powerful, I actually might stand a chance of beating that overgrown boobs-for-brains after all… she nodded, looking down at her hands for a brief moment to admire the hidden potential newly awakened within her body. “You really need to ask, Naga? Don’t you know that big things can come in small packages, and clearly I’m no exception,” the sorceress smugly replied.
“Grrr…” the colossal beauty fumed, enraged by the answer she received. “If that’s the way you want to play it, fine! Now it’s your turn to witness just how much stronger I’ve become from my upgrade! Freeze Arrow!”
Wasting no time in preparing her counterattack, Naga retaliated with a chilling azure projectile from the tip of her right index finger, the massive magical bolt connecting with the field below and instantly turning the ground near her opponent into a frozen patch of tundra. The initial impact from the spell was powerful enough to send Lina hurdling into the air, flying high above the stalks of grass all around her as her body repeatedly somersaulted against her will. While she was not physically harmed from the sudden assault, Lina was both practically and literally blown away by the scope of Naga’s enhanced might; it seemed that by her sheer size alone, her magical power had also been scaled up proportionally with her height, making the haughty titaness even more of a threat than Lina had initially deemed her.
The Bandit Killer continued to tumble in mid-air for another two seconds, eventually managing to land on her feet on a now completely glaciated plane of turf, the icy surface slippery to the touch. “Waaaaah-ooooohh-wooooooooooah!” she yelped, struggling to maintain her balance after her touchdown, her body comically flailing left and right to re-establish her equilibrium. “Phew! That was a close one,” she sighed a few moments later, regaining her footing and wiping a few droplets of sweat from her brow. Lina proceeded to turn her gaze from her left to right, surveying the arctic wasteland that seemed to stretch onward forever from her vantage point so low to the ground, impressed by just how much the once neutral grassland had shifted in a matter of seconds. “So this is what Naga’s magic is like now, huh? If she had cast an offensive spell that could actually do some real damage, I would’ve been done for!”
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho! How do you like that, Lina? You’re not the only one with a magical… upgrade…” Naga trailed off, visibly becoming fatigued without warning. The sorceress bent over slightly to rest her gloved palms on her knees, breathing heavily as she found herself out of breath, completely exhausted for some inexplicable reason. “What is… going on here? Why am I… so tired…?!” she groaned between inhalations. “...And why am I almost completely out of mana all of a sudden?!”
“I can answer that one,” Maius reluctantly chimed in, his voice also being picked up by Lina’s communicator due to his proximity to his father. “I honestly had only planned on making you gigantic to show off to the town and to my father here today, so I didn’t expect you’d actually end up using magic during the Royale. Unfortunately, however, there is one minor downside of being so positively monumental, oh magnificent Goddess Naga, and that has to do with casting spells,” he explained. “You see, as the size of one’s body increases, the size of their mana pool doesn’t necessarily expand as well, but the required mana to cast the same spell does increase proportionally. Essentially, because you’ve become over fifty times your original height, give or take, you have to pay an increased cost in mana of that same multiplier as well now whenever you cast a spell. That means that if you try to fight against that pitifully small girl by using magic against magic, you’ll be quickly drained of your mana reserves in an instant, just as you are now.”
“Grrr… And why am I only learning about this now?!” the exhausted seductress barked back, finding the strength to berate her partner amidst her recuperation.
“I’m so sorry, my glorious vision of massiveness! As I said, I truly never believed the need would arise today!” Maius pleaded for mercy. “I was planning on telling you after the Royale was over, honestly! I was even going to ask father for help afterward about adjusting your mana pool if at all possible, but it seems that will have to wait until your fight is over. I’ll make it up to you, I promise! How does, erm… I can’t believe I’m doing this, but… 90/10 sound to you?”
“A 90/10 split, huh?” Naga asked, her stamina having instantly recovered from the sudden appeal to her inherently greedy nature. Standing back up to her full height, the voluptuous bombshell clapped her hands together, reinvigorating herself to get back into the battle at hand. “If that’s the case, then I guess I can overlook that indiscretion for the time being, though I’ll make sure you fix this after I win,” she pompously asserted. “For now though, while I had wanted to settle our score in a contest of magic, I’ll simply have to settle for crushing Lina physically instead!”
The leather-clad titaness immediately stomped forward, capitalizing on her motivation to keep the pace of the battle in her favor. Naga’s initial footfall shook the earth powerfully, causing Lina to fall down onto the frozen grassland without any opportunity to catch herself, succumbing to the giantess’s successive strides as she continued strolling at a slow, ominous pace. It only took a total of four steps before Naga was in proper striking range of her target, pausing in place and cementing her left boot on the ground to steady her footing. In the next second, she raised her right foot over her target, casting Lina in the darkness of her immense shadow.
“Woah! Not good!” Lina panicked, sensing the imminent doom high above her. “Raywing!” A spherical shield of wind instantly formed around Lina’s body, blowing her away from the danger zone with the force of an incredible gust behind it, narrowly dodging Naga’s vicious strike just in the nick of time. The strands of solidified grass shattered instantly and exploded outwards into countless chunks of icy shrapnel, littering Lina’s escape path with a barrage of hail from all directions. Luckily for Lina, the barrier created by the air shamanistic spell served as a natural defensive cover, deflecting the rain of shards the moment they touched the swirling winds. “What the hell, Naga?!” she shouted up at her off-and-on comrade. “Are you seriously trying to kill me?!”
“Sorry, Lina, but I really don’t think anyone’s going to mind if I end up squishing a little bug like you. Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
After confirming that her miniscule rival had survived her attack, Naga remained on the offensive, picking her boot up off the ground and performing a second mighty blow against the planet’s crust, shattering more of the frozen field beneath her footwear. Thanks to her numerous adventures with the annoying mage, Lina was able to successfully predict where Naga would stomp next, avoiding her attack with another use of Raywing. The duo’s game of cat and mouse continued on for a while longer, with Naga using both of her feet to try and crush her rival like a common housefly, while Lina furiously casted spell after spell to propel her away from the merciless rampage of her opponent. It was in the midst of Lina’s thirteenth cast of Raywing, however, that Naga saw her opening, deciding to fake out the shrunken sorceress with a feint, prompting Lina to preemptively use her spell and throw her off her timing. Seizing the opportunity, a mighty boom thundered outwards from the point of impact as the purple-haired titaness stomped harder than ever before, certain that she had landed a direct hit. The meadowy battlefield became deathly silent in the aftermath of the decisive strike, not even the gentle breeze of the wind daring to disturb the sanctity of the moment, mourning the death of Lina Inverse. The entire population of Riesenfalle looked on with baited breath, stunned at the outcome of the match; even both of the competing Vastonia men were at a loss for words, neither of them ever foreseeing that the battle would have taken such a dark turn for the worst.
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!” the mighty Naga cackled, her laughter slicing through the quietude as she could not help but bask in her victory. “Well, I guess we can call it a day. I think we know who won the Royale this year, hmmm?” she grinned, shrugging her pauldron-clad shoulders with impertinence. “It was such a shame poor Lina had to perish, but you know, I really think-”
“Mega Brand!”
A massive explosion instantly triggered from beneath the 300-foot tall woman’s body, launching her high into the air; beneath where Naga once stood, the remnants of a familiar magical seal rapidly began to fade, revealing an enormous pink circle roughly as large as she was. The spectators to this epic clash of sorceresses immediately let out cheers of delight as the gargantuan Naga fell to the ground with a mighty thud a great distance away, her entire body burnt to a crisp from the incredible power behind the spell. In a rare act of unified relief, father and son happily embraced one another in a tight hug in the stands, overjoyed that Lina had made it out alive and was still in the competition.
“Kid, I dunno how the hell you pulled that off, but that was one heckuva comeback!” Linus congratulated his combatant. “Next time you’re gonna pull somethin’ like that, warn me first, got it? Damn near gave both me and the entire town here a collective heart-attack!”
“I know this is a contest and all, but even I wouldn’t want to see you killed,” Maius concurred in the sentiment, sighing heavily as he felt a lump disappear from his throat. “How on earth did you survive that?” he asked, putting his ear up against his father’s to listen in to his communicator.
“Honestly? It’s because I’m just lucky enough that Naga’s a complete idiot!” Lina responded from down within the grass, confidently crossing her arms beneath her non-existent chest.
“Lina Inverse is still alive?!” an irate Naga exclaimed, immediately rising back to feet and appearing to be fully healed, her penchant for comedically instantaneous recovery triggering for the second time in this fight. “But I thought I crushed her completely? I didn’t see you move out of the way out of my boot! There’s no way she could have possibly survived that!”
“Well, you’re right about one thing, Naga: I didn’t move outta the way at all,” Lina explained, running her left hand through her orange mane to flaunt her ingenuity. “You see, it took me a few stomps of yours to realize that even though you were trying to crush me, even if you managed to hit me dead on, there was still a ‘safe zone’ of sorts that I could always get to even if I couldn’t escape: the arch of your heel. Unlike my shoes, those black boots of yours have a pretty wide arch, big enough for someone to duck under if they needed to - and with my smaller size, I’d have a lot more room to hide in it. I figured you’d try and trip me up sometime, so I just waited for the right moment and pretended to fall for your trap. Like you could really fool me with just how predictable you are!” she gloated. “All I had to do then was wait for you to drop your guard. That annoying laugh of yours was the cue I needed to let you have it!”
“Hmph!” the giantess scowled, enraged at the smaller magician’s masterful gambit. Not willing to be humiliated by another tactful display of Lina’s magics, Naga decided it was time to level the playing field back in her favor by revealing her secret trump card. Raising her left hand in front of her, Naga’s once livid visage had become calm, cool, and collected, a devious grin forming on her beautiful features. “Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, then I suppose you leave me with no other choice but to use my secret weapon…”
“Secret weapon?” Lina blinked, confused by her ominous threat.
“That’s right. For you see, I, too, have a hidden power I’ve yet to demonstrate, only to be used as a last resort should I need to use it,” the smug sorceress continued. “And given how our battle is going, now seems like the perfect time for me to use it. Behold, Lina Inverse, my own new special ability: the power to grow even larger at will whenever I so desire! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
“W-What?! Naga can… Naga can get even bigger?!” Lina exclaimed as her eyes widened in shock, taking a step backwards in surprise out of instinct.
“You tellin’ me that ugly chick of yours can grow whenever she damn well pleases?!” Linus shouted at his son, equally baffled by the sudden discovery. “What the hell’s the matter with you?!”
“That’s…” Maius began, pausing as his muse’s heavenly laughter dominated the air around him. “I… I can’t believe she said that…” he immediately facepalmed, too embarrassed by her divulgence to say anything further on the subject.
“That’s right! With just a simple statement of desire, I can take on any greater height I please!” Naga confidently bragged, feeling her fractured ego rejuvenating rapidly as she drank in the astonishment of the entire town marveling at her latent ability. “Now then, Lina Inverse, prepare yourself as I, Naga the Serpent, become even larger and more powerful! I wish to be taller than all the mountains in the land!”
Lina, the Vastonia family, and the entire population of Riesenfalle watched on with bated breath as the haughty colossus declared her future size, utterly afraid by how much havoc she would wreak on the region as a whole if she truly shot up to such an excessively large stature to continue the battle. With everyone else unable to take their eyes off of her or even daring to make a move, Naga proudly took a forceful step forward towards her rival, carrying with her an air of mystical anticipation of what she was certain would be an explosive growth spurt.
“What’s the matter? Have you finally realized that I was simply going easy on you?” the leather-clad goddess taunted, taking another earth-shattering footfall to further close the distance between the two combatants. “Any moment now, I’ll grow to my desired height just as I did before, and this time, I want to make sure you get to watch it as up close and personally as possible. After all, it’s not just any day that you can say you were defeated by your opponent merely becoming bigger and stronger instead of actively needing to attack you, right? But then again, I suppose factoring in that pitiful downgrade of yours in the height department, I could merely grow a tiny bit and look like I’ve practically doubled in size compared to you! Ohhhhhh-hohoho-”
Just as Naga seemed poised to unleash the full strength of her growth within a mere step away from Lina, her usual overbearing laughter was unexpectedly interrupted as she began to plummet towards the ground almost instantly. In the midst of her next stride, Naga had tripped over a large rock in her path that was obscured by her enhanced bosom, causing her to pratfall face-first into the meadowland below her. Though Lina herself knew all of Naga’s weaknesses and reactions, even the young sorceress could not have predicted her sudden lack of carefulness while in the midst of her temerity, leaving her with no time at all to dodge the incoming titaness. With the force of a meteor crashing into terra firma, the 300 foot woman slammed into the earth, instantly falling unconscious from the force of the impact.
While the entire town was left to marvel at the overgrown sorceress’s display of foolishness, Lina now found herself pinned underneath the massive Naga, unable to move a muscle underneath her 9000 ton form. “Nggh… Damn Naga… Why the hell is she so freakin’ heavy?!” she complained aloud, currently attempting to free herself from an unknown prison. While being too dark to see anything and with her arms and legs pressed together by soft, pliable walls surrounding her on all sides, the Bandit Killer was powerless to even attempt casting a simple Lighting spell to discern where she was on Naga’s body. “Darn it! If only I just had a hand free!” Lina lamented. “Ugh… Well, at least I’m still alive. It’s probably because I’m as small as I am that I actually managed to survive at all, really,” she reasoned, beginning to calm herself down and become focused. “Alright, let’s think about this for a second. Naga fell forward when she tripped, which means this is the front part of her body. It looked like she was still pretty far away from where I saw her, so if that’s the case, then…” Pausing momentarily to test a sudden theory in the back of her mind, Lina pressed her right hand tightly into the restrictive wall at her side, pushing with as much force as possible before suddenly relenting and bringing her hand back to her side.
BOOOOOOOOING!
“No… NO! You have got to be kidding me!” the miniscule mage shouted as loud as she could, horrified by the familiar sound she had just experienced, all but confirming her present location. “I’m trapped… I’m trapped in Naga’s cleavage?! Of all the places it had to be, why the hell did it have to be her breasts?! Damn it, I’ve gotta get outta here, and fast!”
Upon her astonishing deduction that she was currently imprisoned in Naga’s bosom, the feisty teen immediately struggled against the resilient walls of mammary that held her in place, desperately trying to escape before Naga could wake up, knowing full well what would happen if the larger woman were to spot her. Lina tried to move her body in every which way imaginable, using whatever bit of leeway she had to try punching and kicking the fleshy orbs, attempting to free herself one fraction of an inch at a time. Unfortunately for her, the enhanced malleability of Naga’s chest in relation to Lina’s height made them truly invincible foes when it came down to a contest of physical strength; the perfectly round, supple spheres effortlessly bounce-countered her every move, making her efforts completely and utterly futile. “Damn it, Naga, why the hell are your boobs so freakin’ huge?! These were supposed to be my boobs, not yours!” she wailed to no effect. “Get up already, you big oaf!”
A short time later, the earth began to stir as Naga slowly started to regain consciousness, drawing countless murmurs and shouts from the crowd in the distance to mark the continuation of the battle. As her sapphire eyes slowly fluttered open, the mighty seductress waited several moments for her mind to recover, letting a light haze clear from her head before trying to figure out what had happened. “Mmm… Mmm?” she lightly groaned, placing her gloved palms on the ground to gradually prop her body upwards as she assessed the situation. “Hmmm? Ah, I get it now. My growth spurt must have truly taken it out of me. Everything looks so much smaller already…” she boasted, gently picking herself off of the terrain and rising back up to her full height, admiring her ‘increased’ stature. “I barely even recognize this place. Oh, how I wish I could see the look on poor Lina’s face after witnessing my hidden trump card in action. Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!”
Unaware that she had brought a pint-sized passenger along for the ride, Naga’s smug laughter sent her chest bouncing, pummeling Lina from all directions just as daylight was restored to her vision. The constant wobbling of the supple mounds left the smaller sorceress with little recourse other than to scream into her opponent’s chest flesh for attention; the massive orbs completely absorbed any sound Lina made into them, rendering her resistance completely hopeless. After several more seconds of torture in her new personal nightmare, fortune seemed to shine upon the Bankit Killer for a brief moment, allowing her head to pop into open space between the mounds for a chance at freedom. “...ga!” Lina barely succeeded in yelling yell out, only managing to get the final syllable of the giantess’s name out of her mouth before being smashed by more of the unyielding tan mountains surrounding her.
“Ohhhhhh-hoho-Huh?” Naga paused in the middle of her second wave of laughter, her superior hearing picking up on the call of her name from parts unknown. “That sounded almost like Lina…”
With the larger woman’s chest now suddenly settling down from her regained composure, Lina was no longer passively subjected to the merciless battering of the bouncy balloons of her prison, allowing her to once again speak freely without any dampening effect. “That’s ‘cause it is me, Naga!” the orange-haired captive angrily shouted back, wasting no time in making her presence known. “Down here!”
“Hmm?” Blinking several times out of confusion, the massive mage immediately craned her neck downwards, almost immediately spying a brightly-colored oddity wedged in her cleavage due to her enhanced vision. “Is that… Lina?” Naga asked, curiously pressing her right index finger against her right breast and partially freeing up Lina’s body in the process. “How the devil did you end up in there? And how come I can still see you? Don’t tell me you grew too somehow?”
“Finally, I’m free!” Lina cheered, throwing both hands above her head to stretch her limbs. With Naga’s finger providing the support needed to escape the cavernous cleavage, the sorceress wasted no time in using the springy flesh as a series of trampolines, bouncing off one orb to the next in rapid succession until she cleared the canyon entirely, landing on the surface of Naga’s left breast in no time at all. After taking a moment to catch her breath, Lina stared daggers at her off-and-on companion, unleashing a vicious tirade. “Naga, you idiot! You didn’t get bigger; you just tripped over yourself and landed on top of me!” she roared. “Ugh, I can’t take this any longer! Flare Arrow!”
Using an alternative version of the fire family spell, over a dozen flaming magical arrows appeared all around Lina, surrounding her in a circle for a brief instant before immediately advancing straight towards Naga’s face. Due to the naturally quick cast time of the spell, her target had absolutely no time to defend herself from the close-range attack, every last scorching bolt scoring a direct hit against her heavenly visage. Naga was immediately sent reeling backwards with a loud shout of pain, instinctively covering her face with both her hands to shield herself from any further blows, passively bouncing her attacker from her body in the process.
“Woaaaaaaah! Levitation!” Lina shouted as she fell from roughly 250 feet in the air, quickly chanting a spell to save her from certain doom. As she rapidly flew down to the ground from a relative height of thirty-nine miles, the plucky heroine could only watch as the titanic Naga stumbled backwards into Bony Day Hill, using it to prop herself up as she continued to stagger in pain from the point-blank barrage against one of the most vulnerable parts of her body. “At least that’s over for now,” the petite teen sighed with relief, continuing her descent back to terra firma. “What the heck just happened back there?”
“Couldn’t tell ya, kiddo,” Linus interposed, trying to answer her over their communicators. “I’m just about as baffled as you are. Hey, Maius, you better tell us just what the hell is going on with that crazy broad of yours!”
“I… I might as well tell you,” his son lamented, throwing up his hands in embarrassment. “The truth is that my ethereal deity really can’t grow any further. It was just a lie I told her earlier so she wouldn’t try to accidentally crush me before the show started. I told her that it’d be usable sometime after or late in the Royale just to keep it out of her mind, but I never thought she’d actually try and attempt it, honest! You can trust me; Naga is incapable of becoming any larger than she is now.”
“Seriously?! So Naga really only did that because you told her she could? No wonder she tried to get bigger!” Lina barked back at the younger Vastonia. “How the heck do we know he’s tellin’ the truth anyway?”
“I’ll vouch for him on that one,” the old man replied. “My son might be a lotta things, but after livin’ with him for all these years, it’s not too hard for me to tell when he’s tellin’ the truth or not. You can rest easy kid; Maius ain’t lying. Doubt he’s got the heart to tell your nutty friend about it either, so you can use it to your advantage and take her out!”
“Heh, well, if you say so…” A short time later, Lina had finally landed back in a sea of grass-trees, the towering stalks serving as both a familiar sight and a bastion of relaxation, allowing her to take in a deep breath and compose herself just as her Levitation spell faded. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this,” she spoke, a strong determination now present in her serious tone of voice. “It’s time to finish this once and for all!” Concentrating her magical energy into the palms of her hands, Lina slowly raised her arms above her head, channeling her power for a final blow. The masterful sorceress proceeded to gently close her scarlet eyes, focusing on the incantation for her signature attack:
Power beyond the twilight
and crimson blood that flows,
Buried in the stream of time
is where your power grows,
I pledge myself to conquer,
all the foes who stand
Before the mighty gift bestowed,
in my unworthy hand...
DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGON SLAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!
Calling upon the power of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu, Lina’s eyes opened broadly as she maneuvered her arms from a vertical to a horizontal position, an incredible orb of ruby light now being held together between her gloved palms. The strongest spell in the black magic family of magical arts was ready to be unleashed, and wasting no time in using it, Lina hurled the pulsating sphere at her opponent, watching as it sailed off into the distance at incredible speed. Meanwhile, just as Lina had launched her finishing blow, Naga had finally recovered from the Flare Arrow assault, her face free of any noticeable marks, save for a slight bit of dust on her cheeks, as she lowered her hands.
“Urgh! That Lina! How dare she do that to me!” the noble beauty fumed, clearly enraged by the ambush. “And for that matter, how come my special ability didn’t work? Maius said that just about now should be the time that it should be able to be used again, so how come it… Hey, what’s that light over there?”
Leaning her head forward out of curiosity, Naga managed to spy a bright crimson spark emanating from the ground in the distance, observing the anomaly as it expeditiously closed in on her location. Before she could identify what exactly the strange spark was, it had made contact with her body, scoring a direct hit against her left boot. A massive mushroom cloud immediately engulfed both Naga and the surrounding area for thousands of feet around her, destroying everything without prejudice in a gigantic sphere of destruction. Due to Linus’s enhancement of Lina’s magical potential, the normally ultra-destructive spell had become further amplified to the next level - broad and destructive enough to level a city with ease - making it the perfect weapon to defeat a fortified opponent such as Naga. The incredible winds formed by the spell’s spontaneous explosion could be felt back in Riesenfalle proper, citizens being blown away left and right by the intense gales surging throughout the area of effect. Closer to the blast zone, the Vastonia males watched on in amazement as Lina made her move, both of them quickly having to grab hold of a metal railing on the stands to prevent themselves from being blown away as well. While they had hoped to avoid a similar fate, the railing itself gave way almost instantly, throwing them high into the air as they screamed for their lives, at the mercy of gravity for the potential of a relatively safe landing.
It took a full twenty seconds after Lina cast the Dragon Slave for the lingering effects of the burning wall of searing crimson energy to begin dissipating, leaving a massive crater in the earth from where the fairgrounds once stood. Bony Day Hill, the distinguished complement of the Bony Day Spring, had been completely vaporized in the attack; a mere pile of leftover sedimentary rocks was all that remained of the former natural monument, a true testament to the Dragon Slave’s unmatched destructive power. In the nearby lake, the titanic Naga lay flat on her back, her eyes in a complete daze and glazed over, utterly defeated by Lina’s ultimate attack. Despite her enhanced size and defenses, Lina’s magical power was simply too much for even the overgrown Naga to survive unscathed, solidly handing the victory to her diminutive rival.
“That should do it,” Lina nodded, clapping her hands together to congratulate herself on a job well done. Surveying the obliterated battleground all around her and witnessing her defeated opponent remaining unmoving in the distance, she solemnly tilted her head downwards slightly and closed her eyes, confident in her victory. “The aftermath of an intense battle is always so grave and tragic for all…”
“...Kid… Kid, ya hear me?” a familiar voice mumbled in her ear.
“Old man Linus?” Lina blinked, surprised to hear the change in his tone. “You alright?”
“Well, as well as I can be. Damn near killed the two of us with your spell back there!” he replied, instantly back to his usual level of vigor while yelling at his representative. “Luckily, I had Maius to cushion my fall, so I’m fine.”
“Can’t say I’m much better off though…” Maius grumbled, rubbing his back in mild pain while standing next to his father, both men having been whisked away back to town from the incidental gusts created by the Dragon Slave. “Ouch…”
“Eh, quit yer yappin’! You young ‘uns are supposed ta be fulla energy!” Linus admonished him, clonking him on the back of the head. “As for you, Lina… If the townspeople hadn’t evacuated when they did, you mighta killed everyone in Riesenfalle! What the hell’s a-matter with you?! Using that kinda spell so close to other people like that… Didn’t you remember your power’s amplified?!”
“I, uh… I guess it just sorta slipped my mind, y’know?” Lina awkwardly chuckled, scratching the back of her head nervously to partially deflect the master mage’s ire. “But everything worked out fine, right? I mean, minus the whole area being destroyed, but nothing really was lost. The important thing here is that I won, hands down! And since I did, you can undo the spell now, right?”
“Well, about that…”
The ground slowly started to rumble in the distance just as Linus was about to elaborate, drawing the attention of the entire town. From the depths of the spring, Naga gradually began to sit up, pulling her boots towards her buttocks before placing her hands on the ground to assist her with standing up to her full height. Groggily taking a step forward, the weakened giantess made sure to step with the whole of her foot, clearly too exhausted to even remain standing for a long period of time.
“Well, I should’ve expected nothing less from Naga. She sure is persistent if nothing else…” Lina grinned, crossing her arms beneath her non-existent chest to take on an arrogant posture. “Hey Naga, it’s over! Just give up already! I’ve already won!”
“That’s… what you think… Lina Inverse…” the exasperated magus answered between heavy breaths, never before feeling so exhausted and bruised in all her life. “...But I’ve just been holding back… I’ve yet to reveal my true… trump card!”
“Oh brother, not this again…” Lina said just before facepalming into her right hand.
“I was just going easy on you last time… but now you’ll see just what I’m truly capable of… This time, I won’t hold anything back!... Watch and be amazed as I will myself so large…” Naga paused, holding her left index out in front of her, “...that I can hold the entire planet on the tip of my finger!”
“Ugh, she’s so dense…” the Bandit Killer sighed, shaking her head into her gloved palm. “Naga, for the last time, you can’t-”
To everyone’s surprise, the planet’s crust once again trembled ceasingly, only this time, Naga was not moving a muscle. Instead, the purple witch’s entire body was shaking uncontrollably, causing her to let out a slight gasp of pleasure as a familiar shiver traveled down the back of her spinal cord.
“But… But how…?! This shouldn’t even be possible…!” a bewildered Maius spoke up, his eyes widening in pure terror at the sight of his personal goddess displaying a familiar set of symptoms.
“Eh? What’s not possible, Maius?” Linus blinked as he turned to face his son. “What the hell’s come over you? Ya look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“This… I’ve seen this before… It was right after I tricked her into growing for the first and only time several hours ago at my workshop…” the younger Vastonia explained, his body now quivering with both fear and excitement simultaneously. “I wasn’t lying earlier when I said my divine muse could only grow but once… but now… I don’t know how this is happening, but it seems that she’s… she’s unlocked the ability to grow she pleases once again…!”
“What did you say?!” both Linus and Lina shouted in unison, flabbergasted at the revelation.
“Wait, so you’re telling me Naga actually can get as big as she says she wants to be?” the fiery-haired sorceress inquired. “But if that’s true, then that means…”
“Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!” the overconfident noblewoman cackled, her curvaceous physique rapidly rising higher and higher in the moments after her haughty laughter commenced. Enlarging at a rate of several dozen feet per second, Naga could feel her spurt showing signs of rampant acceleration almost immediately, her stamina recovering in mere moments as her growth seemed to refresh her with its continual rush of empowerment.
While the sudden awakening of Naga’s at-will enlargement ability was a truly unexpected development and an impossibility under normal circumstances, it was the battle itself that facilitated the unlocking of this legendary power for her through the right combination of serendipitous elements. When Naga was hit with the Dragon Slave, it panned out that the impact from the initial collision managed to dislodge the vial of enchanted water that was hidden away in her skull ornament; the tiny bottle flew out, landed in her mouth, and was accidentally swallowed by the sorceress. To anyone else, the sacred waters of the Fountain of Growth would have aged the imbiber into a much older version of themselves, turning Naga’s insides into those of an eighty-year-old immediately upon consumption. However, due to her treatment and exposure to its effects via Maius’s ritual spell, it instead resonated with her body, giving Naga numerous positive growth-related boons, all to be activated upon another at-will spurt. This, in turn, reactivated the one-time use of the ancient magics to evolve into an anytime talent with infinite usage, heralding the vainglorious sorceress as a master of the enlarging arts.
"Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!" Naga burst out in another bout of her signature smug laughter, the volume of her naturally loud voice amplifying exponentially as her body continued to rapidly shoot outwards in all directions.
"Oh, come on!" Lina growled as she jumped to safety beneath the arch of Naga's right heeled boot as it swiftly approached her location, Bony Day Spring itself quickly turning into nothing but a footnote on the buxom woman's path to godhood.
As she expanded without end, the citizens gathered back in Riesenfalle were able to view the expanding beauty rapidly nearing them without moving a muscle, her feet ravaging the land mere moments later, bulldozing through everything in their path to give herself more room to grow. Fifty miles came and went, as did a hundred, and soon two hundred miles, the milestones bringing with them an equivalent amount of loss of life and absolute calamity. In no time at all, she grew through the ancient Monster Barrier with ease, shattering it into countless magical shards that were instantly absorbed into her being as fuel for her ascension. Entire kingdoms soon fell to the unrelenting power of Naga's ever-expanding leather, her weight causing the ground to crack, shatter, and rumble uncontrollably with her seemingly infinite growth, swallowing up massive swathes of land into the depths of the planet. Streams of lava burst forth from the mantle in an effort to alleviate some of the pressure placed upon the world, consequently flooding innocent towns by the dozens as an accidental aftermath of the planet's self-defense mechanism.
Unfortunately for the denizens of the world and the planet itself, Naga was not merely becoming physically larger, but growing in other ways as well. Mipross Island’s fabled Fountain of Growth certainly lived up to its reputation as practically everything about the mighty sorceress improved exponentially. While most notable to the masses - and Lina herself - would be an almost doubling of her current cup size, Naga's greatest improvement would be her "growth" beyond mortality: the complete loss of all necessary mortal survival functions such as sleeping, breathing, and the need to maintain homeostasis through daily consumption. A being now beyond the concerns of humankind, even Naga's cells had ceased aging through the perpetual and eternal upkeep of her homeostatic mechanisms, rendering her eternally youthful and an ageless immortal. Of course, while Naga would only appreciate these new perks in due time, the noblewoman herself was most impressed by the growth of her own inherent magical abilities. Mystical energies flowed throughout the sorceress's expanding physique like a raging river, making her the most powerful spellcaster on the planet without question as her might continued to swell, liberating her of the former cost increases exacerbated by Maius’s original ritual. By the time she was 300 miles tall, Naga was certain she could cast the Dragon Slave at least twenty times in a row without any form of incantation, that number only increasing in proportion to her height.
As the world struggled to survive against the relentless onslaught of the mighty Naga the Serpent, their newborn goddess blessed them with the first of many gifts upon reaching 5000 miles in height, just after her boot sunk into a neighboring continent.
"Levitation!" Naga proudly declared, her body soon coated in a heavenly aura of pure white light as she began to gradually float off of the planet's surface, allowing her to continue her evolution unabated in the depths of space. The people of the world were utterly helpless but to crane their necks upwards in sheer awe and terror, watching their goddess become an even more unstoppable force of nature, a modern deity in a world where the old gods now slumbered or had long since passed.
Back on the remnants of Riesenfalle Centennial Magic Royale battleground, Lina gradually struggled back up onto her feet, utterly astonished by how much pure magical potential was brewing within her companion. Of course, Lina's amazement quickly turned into jealousy and envy as her eyes became glued to the size of Naga's chest, immediately irritated by how much larger the already-buxom woman was sporting for all to see. "What the hell?!" the Bandit Killer screamed as she stomped her right foot against the cracked earth below her in protest. "Those are supposed to be my boobs!"
Several more minutes passed before, by some miracle of the heavens, Naga's growth gradually tapered down to a stop, the effects of her new ability no longer persisting due to finally reaching her desired stature. By her own estimation, Naga was roughly 350,000 miles tall, the planet itself now a mere bluish-green marble hovering in front of her cleavage, a veritable toy to the fledgling deity. In addition, to say that Naga's magical abilities were now enormous would be an insult to just what she was now capable of casting. Not only was her magical regeneration nearly instantaneous, but were the Giga Slave not exclusive to Lina, the almighty sorceress could chain the spell - without incantation - all day without feeling any tax on her vast stores of power. As a final testament to her ultimate power, Naga's body was now surrounded by an ethereal radiance, a natural barrier that absorbed any magics cast against her, adding their mana costs directly into her own stores in the process. In every sense of the word, the sorceress known as Naga the Serpent had evolved into an absolute, all-powerful, invincible goddess.
"Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!" the newly crowned deity triumphantly laughed, resting her right hand atop her cleavage as she stared down at the world in front of her chest, her almighty voice defying all logic and piercing the vacuum of space, rattling reality itself around her. "Well, Lina, I told you that I was merely refraining from using my true ace in the hole out of respect for your own skill, but now, I won’t be holding back any longer,” she threatened, speaking directly to her rival as her eyes zoomed in to focus on Lina’s location. “I think I’ll be the bigger person here and allow you to do something you didn’t bother affording me: the luxury of admitting defeat now before we continue our battle and I utterly crush you once and for all! Ohhhhhh-hohohohoho!"
With Naga's powerful laughter shaking the planet to its core with her every syllable, Lina could only growl at her fellow sorceress-turned-divinity with the utmost contempt as she covered her ears to protect herself, her blood boiling at the power and beauty that was meant for her. “What did you just say to me?!” the less-than-an-inch-high spellcaster fired back, utterly infuriated by the offer.
“Woah, woah, woah! Calm down there, little lady!” Linus called out from within her communicator, attempting to pacify the feisty mage. “There’s no way you can win this fight now.”
“Father’s right,” Maius concurred. “You don’t stand a chance against… against…”
“Don’t you dare say it, son!”
“The Divine Goddess Naga!”
“Oh brother…” Lina sighed, not needing another headache in the form of Maius’s delusions to add onto her already full plate of problems. “I’m surprised you two are alive though. Guess you made it out alright too, huh?”
“Heh, even the end of the world won’t bring down the Vastonia men!” Linus beamed with pride.
“We simply made a barrier over ourselves and used our combined talents to reinforce it like crazy,” his son added. “Can’t say the same for the rest of the town though, and most of the world, really. I’m almost certain Erinn’s fine somewhere out there, however. She may not look like it, but she’s still a Vastonia; she can definitely protect herself if she’s in a real pinch just like we did.”
Uh, didn’t she get into a life or death situation that she couldn’t get out of on her own when we first met? I’m pretty sure she’s probably not fine… the teenager mentally griped. “Well, whatever. What are we gonna do about Naga then?”
“Egging her on won’t be good for anyone, especially for the planet itself,” Naga’s sponsor answered. “Your only hope is to stall her by any means possible. I don’t know how, but you two are good friends, right? If you can think of something to buy us a lot of time, I think my father and I might be able to come up with another ritual art with an opposite effect to override the original modification.”
“That’s it?! That’s literally all you’ve come up with?!”
“Hey, it took both of us all night to change you two to how you were at the start of the Royale!” Linus bellowed. “With a problem of this magnitude, it’ll probably take us that long working together, so the more time you can buy us, the better. Doubt you wanna live with those oversized udders hoverin’ over the world for the rest of your days, right?”
“Grrr… You’ve got me there…” Lina huffed, staring into the sky and growling at Naga’s voluminous chest filling the entirety of the firmament. “Alright, I’ll do what I can, but no promises, got it?”
“We’ll take whatever you can give us, so just focus on distracting her as best you can. C’mon, Maius, we gotta get started thinkin’ of how the heck we’re gonna fix your mistake…”
Calming herself momentarily, Lina took in a deep breath to collect her thoughts, deciding to play on Naga’s general stupidity to prolong the battle indefinitely. Readying herself to play the part, the young magician shook her left gloved fist up at her new goddess of an opponent with all the rage she could muster, knowing that her competition could see her clearly. “Hey Naga, you hear me up there, you big idiot?!” she prefaced. “There’s no way I’d ever just give up like that! Who the heck do you think I am anyway? Not to mention that you’re not the only one who’s been holding back this entire time,” she continued, expertly lying through her teeth. “Old man Linus didn’t wanna hurt his kid’s feelings by telling him how much more powerful I actually became thanks to his magics, but now that he’s given me the OK, I can use just a little more of my new strength and make you wish you had given up a long time ago. You’re gonna have to be a lot bigger than that if you wanna defeat me, Naga. My power’s literally out of this world, so don’t think for a second that I won’t be able to beat you down even now!”
“Hmmm… Well, you wouldn’t be my rival if you truly weren’t an opponent worthy of defeating, Lina Inverse,” Naga mused, her every word oozing with unbridled smug. “In that case, I guess I’ll have to show you just what my full power looks like as well. Of course, I wouldn’t want any accidents to happen in the meantime, so for the time being, I don’t think you’ll mind if I keep the planet safe between my big, beautiful, bountiful, perfect breasts, now will you?” she proudly taunted, knowing that Lina would be seething with bust envy.
Carefully moving her right hand in front of her mammoth chest, the violet-haired goddess gracefully extended her index finger and thumb, bringing her gloved digits within close proximity of the planet. With an elegant display of dexterity representative of her noble upbringing and superior nature, Naga gently placed her fingers on opposite sides of the globe, making sure to target already-devastated areas to minimize casualties while applying as little pressure as possible so that she would not accidentally pinch the fragile world into oblivion. Once the macrocosm was safely in her grip, the interplanetary deity plucked the spheroid from its ethereal foundation, bringing it towards the top of her bosom and proceeding to expertly press the southern hemisphere of the world into her cleavage, safely trapping it between her invincible mounds. Where only a few minutes earlier Naga’s breasts dominated the heavens, her skull necklace was now on display for those still alive on the top of the relocated planet, the old charm’s deathly symbolism a grim reminder of what their new deity was capable of doing to the planet whenever the mood struck her fancy. For those who were unfortunate enough to still subsist near the planet’s equator or its southern half, they were greeted by the gentle pressure of Naga’s enormous orbs relentlessly pushing against the planet, smothering them on all sides by her feminine perfection. In a strange twist, however, it seemed that Naga’s barrier of invincibility had passively covered the globe in her holy radiance, acting on her will to protect the planet and its people completely while in the comfort of her cleavage until her quarrel with her rival was fully settled. Regardless of where anyone was located, everyone on the cosmic marble was now a captive, eternally imprisoned on the chest of the buxom goddess for as long as she desired.
“Ah, there we are,” the haughty deity nodded, boastfully placing her hands on her hips before readjusting her vision to remain focused on her insignificant challenger atop her latest acquisition. “Now then, Lina Inverse, witness the full might of the all-powerful Naga the Serpent! As the supreme sorceress that I am, I’m going to grow until there’s nothing left to outgrow, because then, and only then, will we be able to truly cut loose!” Naga proudly declared, excited by the thought of finally trouncing her frenemy and being officially declared the greatest sorceress to ever live. “Of course, I have no idea just how long that’ll take, but I can assure you, once I get there, we’ll settle our fight once and for all! Prepare yourself as I wish for absolutely nothing else to be bigger than I am, everything else to be held in the palm of my hand before the Royale can truly be brought to its grand finale!”
“Did… Did she just... “ Lina fumbled, unable to get the words out of her mouth after hearing Naga’s latest and most ludicrous proclamation to date. “...Did she just say she wanted to outgrow everything?!”
“You… You can’t be serious, right?” Linus gawked, at a loss for words himself after comprehending the massive woman’s plan. “Maius, she doesn’t possibly have that kinda power in her, right? Right?!”
“I… I absolutely love it! This is what I’ve always dreamed of! B-But I… I never truly thought that it would actually happen… She… She does remember that this is permanent, right?” his son worriedly asked, watching on as Naga’s entire body began to shake with a reality-warping energy, her godly magical power about to truly make her as omnipotent as she blustered.
“OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-HOHOHOHOHO!” Naga’s all-encompassing laughter resonated throughout time and space, her ever-growing form beginning its quest to outgrow all of creation and beyond to ready herself for the ultimate battle between sorceresses to come...
To be continued…?