Natalie twirled her rope above her head before flinging it skyward and swinging herself up to head in Jordan's direction. Her heart pumped and she let out a loud, yodeling woot as she swung herself above the tree-line. Her excitement turned to dazed confusion and shock when something big and powerful came out of what seemed like nowhere and knocked her back to the ground with a "thwump" that was hard enough to knock the wind out of her.

She lay on her back, briefly seeing nothing but a blur as the world spun. It slowed and eventually the dizziness faded, leaving her staring up at an enormous girl. She looked to be young. A child of perhaps ten or eleven years old, but she towered far above the tallest tree.

For a moment Nat thought she may have had her perception knocked screwy and that her eyes were playing tricks, but when she sat up, she realized that the girl was, indeed, towering over the trees. Her body was proportionate, making her look like a giant and in turn causing Natalie to feel the way she assumed Alice must have felt when she drank the potion in Wonderland that caused her to shrink.

The girl looked down at her and her face twisted into a deviant, wicked smile. She bent over, bringing that face closer to Nat's and then she laughed.

"Bet you feel a bit like a bug right about now, do ya?" she said, winking at the stunned rope-swinger. "I will conquer you and your friends and then I will rule the world!"

"Yeah. Like that's ever panned out for anyone ever in the history of mankind," Natalie replied, struggling to get to her feet. "Let me know how that works out for you, kiddo. I'd love to stay and have a tea party, but I've got dinosaurs to battle."

She got her legs underneath her and began to unravel her spare rope (the first one had been sent flying off into the trees when she was batted out of the air). A shadow fell over her and she looked up to see the bottom of the girl's giant shoe descending upon her very quickly. In less than the time it takes to blink, Natalie's rope shot out to the side and attached to a tree. She pulled herself clear just as the shoe came grinding down onto the ground where she had just been standing.

From the shadow of the tree, she leaned back and looked up at the giant girl who seemed to be the type who enjoyed torturing animals and pulling off one wing and half the legs of flies unfortunate enough to be buzzing against her bedroom window.

"You really need some discipline, young lady!" she shouted up at the kid, who had pulled her foot up and looked under it and then turned her foot upside down to inspect the bottom of it. When she heard Natalie's voice, she jumped a little, seemingly startled that she wasn't squished flat.

She turned toward her and her expression darkened. Natalie noticed that the girl's movements seemed slower than a normal person's, as though her size was a direct trade-off for speed. It was subtle, but she looked like she was moving in slow motion. This put her at a definite advantage over the psychotic, world-domination obsessed child. Her rope moved too fast to be detected by the human eye and the girl howled in anger when she felt it ensnare her wrist. Natalie gave it a yank, nearly toppling the surprised giant.

Suddenly the rope went slack and she looked around in confusion as her captive disappeared from view. It seemed like she sank into the dense vegetation she had just been thigh deep in. Nat pulled her rope in until the end came back into view and she spun in a circle, trying to locate the girl. She nearly jumped into the thicket when something shot out of the shadows and darted between her legs.

"How dare you attempt to bind me!" a tiny voice squeaked from somewhere in the bushes. "You will bow to me and I will make you my slave, rope lady!"

"What the...? Where the hell did you go?" Natalie yelled, trying to see into the thick greenery.

She reached out cautiously to part the brambles, but yanked her hand back when a tiny person shot from the undergrowth and attached herself to her wrist with speed that didn't seem possible. Suddenly her arm was wrenched behind her back and she found herself pinned to the ground, face first, with the weight of her once again growing opponent pressing into her back.

She struggled to dislodge the girl and would have had no problem doing so if she had remained anywhere near normal size, but Natalie felt the breath quickly being pressed from her lungs with no hope of drawing a new one as the child's size doubled, then tripled, and continued to grow along with her weight and strength.

"I may need a little help, here," Nat managed to gasp as her vision began to tunnel.

Her face was pressed into the leaves and dirt, making it nearly impossible for her to speak, but she mentally collapsed in relief when she heard Jerome's melodic voice.

"I'll be right there, Natalie."

No sooner had she heard him answer when she felt the growing weight pulled away from her. She let out a yelp of pain as her arm was wrenched free from the vice-like grip, but it was drowned out by an outraged scream as the menacing child was yanked skyward by the inhuman strength of The Falcon. Nat flipped over to her back and she watched Jerome lift at least ten times his own bodyweight up into the sky with no more effort than it would require to fly off with a sack of potatoes. The girl kicked and screamed for a moment before looking down and getting a glimpse of how far the ground was below her. Suddenly her rage turned to terror and she was shrinking and grabbing at Jerome's arms and neck in a desperate attempt not to be dropped to her death.

Natalie stood up slowly, checking to be sure no ribs were broken and that the rest of her was relatively intact. Her rope was still grasped firmly in her hand and she swung it up, pulling herself into the air with one smooth motion. She separated it into two pieces with the next motion and then swung higher and higher, flinging each rope one over the other to pull herself upward. When she was level with Jerome, she searched him and found the, now tiny, little girl grasped in his powerful arms. She was squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her little face into his chest, sobbing.

"Please put me down! Please!" she begged, almost causing Natalie's heart to soften at her tiny, child-like cries. "I will provide you with the largest birdcage I can find when you are my captive pet!"

Jerome gave Natalie a puzzled look and she just rolled her eyes. "Don't ask. You got this under control? Careful. The minute you are close enough to the ground she'll grow faster than a scrunched up straw wrapper when you get it wet! I'm going to find Tony and Jordan."

He nodded. "I'll keep her up here until she's subdued."

Nat started to swing around, but she stopped and looked back at him. Her eyes lowered for a second before coming back up to meet his. "Thanks, buddy," she said, smiling at him in gratitude. "I think you may have saved my life down there. I love you, bro."

He gave her another solemn nod and she swung in an arc around him, pulling close just long enough to land a kiss on his smooth cheek before setting off once again toward Jordan.

Jerome pumped his wings and shot higher still, ignoring the frightened shriek of the tiny girl who huddled, shaking, in his hands.

...............

Jordan's neck craned back further and further as the lizard grew and changed shape in front of him. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened as its head grew and jagged, razor-sharp teeth appeared in its formerly toothless mouth. The one eye never left him even as it towered above him. It moved its head back and forth as if it were cracking its huge neck and then it leaned toward him and let loose a roar that literally blew his hair back.

He came out of his state of utter shock just as the gigantic, supposed-to-be-extinct carnivorous nightmare snapped its powerful jaws within an inch of his nose. His legs were moving before he even comprehended what it was he was looking at and he realized that they must have been a lot smarter than he was. They carried him away from the monster as fast as they could move and he let out a much delayed, very long scream of complete terror as the creature crashed through the trees behind him, giving chase. The plant-life parted before him and he was propelled by a branch to land upon another and then he grabbed at a vine that swung him to another branch where he leaped to yet another vine and so on.

Meanwhile, behind him the dinosaur roared in frustration and anger as the trees and bushes snapped back into place, tripping and impairing its progress, slapping at it and slowing it down. Jordan didn't even look back to see if it was gaining on him. He just kept moving with the aid of every growing thing within his reach. He didn't stop until he realized there was no longer any crashing or roaring behind him.

He came to a stop and turned slowly to look behind him, his heart pounding so hard he was afraid it would burst from his chest. The trees and vegetation were quiet, containing no sign of the horrendous lizard. He collapsed to the ground in a heap and tried to catch his breath.

"Where are you guys?" he gasped in a loud whisper.

"I've got her under control, Jordan." It was Anthony.

"Her?" Jordan squeaked, his voice climbing an octave or two in pitch. Then he remembered the girl he had thought he'd seen just before the huge lizard had sprung out at him.

"She's no match for my force field. You can come back this way, now."

Jordan felt the ground trembling a bit beneath him and he heard an angry roar far in the distance.

"I think I'll just wait it out right here, if it's all the same, Tony," he managed to rasp as his eyes grew wider and his ears strained to detect whether the massive T. Rex was moving in his direction. He stood up onto shaky legs and was prepared to flee if that thing came crashing toward him again. He wasn't by any stretch of the word a coward, but how many folk walking the planet today have been face-to-face with the jaws of the most dangerous of the recorded breeds of dinosaurs? There was a reason man didn't exist during that era. There was no way co-existing with the likes of that monster was possible for humans. It was hardly possible for other dinosaurs!

"Come on, kid. She won't hurt you, I promise." Anthony's confident voice sounded in Jordan's mind and he quickly shook his head, forgetting that Tony couldn't see him.

"I'm not coming near that thing, Tony!" he squeaked. "You aren't scared of it because you can fly!"

..........

"Jackson?"

"Yeah, Lill. I'm headed their way now." Jackson was pressing his foot to the gas subconsciously. He was worried about his friends.

Orion was almost flying down the highway and Jackson reached over to flip the switch that cloaked them in invisibility the minute there were no other cars in sight. It had been impossible while they were still in the city, but they had finally reached the open country stretch of road and he took the first opportunity.

"I think you should drop by the house, first," Lillian said, sounding worried. "It sounds to me like they have the situation under control out there."

"Yeah, but I want to get out there and be sure."

"Jackson, I think something may have happened at the house."

What do you sense, Lillian?" It was Orion's mechanical voice. He rarely joined conversation via their network, but Jackson was always pleased when he did. He had grown extremely fond of his sentient noble "steed" and Orion was logical and intelligent, bringing a point of view unhindered by the kind of emotions that caused humans to make irreversible mistakes.

"There were some strange fluctuations, kind of like static buzzes, and then Tya went offline followed about fifteen minutes later by Vivian. Their little icons didn't blink twice and disappear the way they usually do when someone disconnects. They both just did this weird... I don't know... buzzy stutter-like jump before just disappearing altogether."

"Something is wrong. I saw it as well. I have isolated their signals and from my calculations, they did not disconnect their links manually," Orion said.

"There ya have it, big bro. Wanna know how often his 'calculations' are incorrect?" Lillian asked.

"I'm assuming that would be zero percent of the time," Jackson bounced back. They hadn't needed to change course since the house was in the same direction they were headed.

Jackson glanced over at Macy who was staring at him with her big blue eyes as wide as they could get. When his eyes found hers, she quietly asked, "Honey, what could be wrong with the girls?"

Her voice trembled. He knew how deeply she had come to care about Tya and Vivian. Natasha was probably causing her no extra concern, but he knew she loved the other two.

"We're going to find out right now," he murmured, not moving his eyes from hers. "Almost there."

Macy turned to look out the window then and she let out a squeak of surprise. Jackson looked out over her shoulder and couldn't help a small, lopsided grin when he saw they were no longer earth-bound. The sprawling farm came into view below and Orion swung in a wide circle as he pointed his nose toward the driveway preparing to land.

There was not so much as a bounce as they touched down and rolled to a smooth stop front of the doorway. Jackson jumped out and sprinted inside with Macy close behind. He stopped short at the scene that seemed to have frozen in time in the living room.

Tya sat on the couch with Vivian kneeling in front of her holding her hands. Vivian's head was turned to the side toward Natasha who was also on her knees. She was staring at Vivian with a strange look on her face. They all had strange looks on their faces. 

Before Jackson could stop her, Macy flew around him and ran to the three women, dropping onto the couch next to Tya. She took hold of the Oracle's slender shoulders and turned her toward her in desperation.

"Tya, wake up!" she sobbed. Then her face changed and Jackson's heart skipped a beat, throwing him into action. Macy was still. She looked just like the others and Jackson felt his blood run cold.

"Macy! You dumb-ass!" he growled as he reached the now four-woman wax museum. He carefully kept his eyes away from hers and reached out to pull her away from the others and into his arms. He half expected her to snap out of it the way Tya had when he'd touched her the last time she'd been stuck, but Macy didn't come out of it.

His heart raced as he laid her down on the floor and, keeping his eyes away from her empty stare, he gave her a little shake.

"Macy! Wake up!" He glanced back at the other women and then back down at his partner again. "Godammit!"

He jumped to his feet, mind racing to figure something out. Lillian hadn't said anything and Orion was quiet. He had mentally tuned out what was going on with everyone else, something Lillian had taught all of them how to do the day she presented them each with their crystals. She had coached them through the difficult to explain, but easy to do once you grasped it, process of tuning. It was similar to zooming in and out visually with a camera, except that you did it mentally and you were tuning in or out of the other people linked in with you, either magnifying their presence in your mind, or dimming and shutting it out.

"Try Tya," Orion's voice broke into his desperate thoughts. Jackson jumped, glancing back toward the door. It had felt like the car could see what he was doing, but he wasn't in its line of sight. Neither were the women or Macy.

He glanced at Tya again and moved over next to her. He knelt down and touched her smooth cheek. A jolt of electricity felt like it was transferred either from him to her or vice-versa and he saw her eyes move back and forth before they went vacant once more. His eyes widened and he grabbed her face in both of his hands. There were multiple gasps of air being sharply inhaled all around him and then each of the women blinked and looked around the room in confusion.

Jackson leapt to his feet and spun around to see Macy rising from the floor with shaking legs. The others stood up, too, and looked at Jackson with dazed, far-away expressions that all changed to utter relief and gratitude when they saw him standing there.

Before he could say anything or even react, he was encircled and being crushed in the arms of four very grateful, very happy to see him, young women. He lost his balance and they all crashed clumsily into a heap on the hard wood floor.

..........

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