Genre: originals

A Game of Castles

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: This work is my own. The characters are my own. Do not repost this story beyond the limits of the Fair Use standards of Copyright Law (quotes, examples, 'you gotta read this' excerpts, the usual). The author is not making any kind of profit from this fanfic. I tend to work with size-themed fiction, which includes overwhelming control issues and outrageous differences in scale. Such disparate sizes between partners are not for everyone, so be warned. No sex in this story, but violence and staplers. And a zealously dominating woman.

The Red General was a moron, opting for short-sighted solutions. He had taken over the kitchen, but his primary motivation was the knives. I mean, knives? What good was even a steak knife going to be in combat?

The Yellow General wasn't a lot smarter. He had driven his troops to take over the hall bathroom. He had water, but that was all he had. I was trading him food from my hoarded reserves for water, so we were at least nominally allied against Red. However, he needed me a lot more than I needed him.

I had secured the desk, and my Blue forces had taken control of the one corner of the living room with everything I needed to win. I was under the sofa, evaluating the efforts to ready our weapons. Everything was where it should be. That's when She came in.

Mistress strode down the hallway and into her living room, barely glancing around at the war zone. She stepped easily over Red's barricade at the kitchen door and made herself a sandwich. She took that and a drink over to her desk and called up her surveillance files.

My spy on the mantel signaled that he had a good view of the screen. Getting a man up there and keeping him supplied was a major effort, but today it would be worth it all. He noted the positions of all other men, especially Red and Yellow's sentries, dropped a message to waiting couriers, and then started the arduous descent to the hearth.

I think Mistress knew what he was doing; I know her little sensors had logged that he was there. She played around with the camera views for a while, then surfed the internet. Finally, she stepped to the terrarium, selected a few men to drop into her panties, and left the apartment.

While my lookout continued to work his way down, brick by brick, we started moving out. Three-man teams moved plastic cups over by the bookcase, using them as pavises, as if to hide something. More and more Red men moved to try to glimpse what was under the cups. That meant we could get the actual artillery quite close before we were noticed.

Every man in the apartment had had a chance to arm himself with a sewing pin. The generals had needles. Red and Yellow teams had stopped there. Not me. I had onagers and ballistae formed from torsion springs out of a stapler, and various weapons using springs from dismantled ballpoint pens and the hole-punch.

The men manning the wall were swept aside in the initial rush. Then we were over. Teams secured prisoners by literally pinning them to the ground. The stamina effect from the shrink ray would heal them quickly if they were left alone. By leaving them face down and spiked, we prevented them from being a problem later in the battle.

Red's secondary defense was steak knives. Four teams of four lifted the things and rushed our lines. It was pretty much what I'd expected. During Rome's wars with Carthage, the southern armies had done much damage, initially, with elephants. They stormed the Roman ranks and slaughtered many. The next time, the Roman army formed into ranks with huge alleys between units. The Carthaginian elephants had torn off down the avenues and left the battlefield entirely. A few arrows in the flanks goaded them on as they went by.

My men formed ranks and then split to let the knife men go by. As they passed, the weaponeers were stabbed a number of times by my soldiers, to stumble and fall. The prisoner teams rushed up to secure them while we went on.

Red and his officers retreated to the pantry, a final defense being to cut the cords holding back a potato avalanche. I lost a good half dozen men in the tumbling tubers, but there was no one to keep them down. They'd heal up inside of ten minutes, even the most crushed ones. The rest of us continued across the linoleum. Finally, they brought Red himself before me. The man was weeping, something about it not being fair.

Idiot. Kidnapped, shrunk, threatened, and placed in a freaking game of castles, and he expects me to play fair? We tied the prisoners up with dental floss and herded them out. We took a detour, though, down the hall to the bathroom. I let Yellow's sentries see us coming, and his officers came out to verify the reports. Most of my men and all of Red's were there, colored Sharpie ink on our chests numbering us from one to thirty. There was no way I could have changed the colors on my men and faked the victory.

After the victory parade, we turned around and marched them back. I glanced towards Mistress' bedroom door and the pair of two-foot-tall guards keeping it secure. They affected not to notice anyone three inches tall, but I was sure they were going to report this. I hoped the cameras got most of the action; Mistress would be pleased.

In the living room, my men marched the prisoners up the ramp to the edge of the terrarium. They were forced over the lip one at a time, and I watched them slide down to fall into the water dish. One man resisted, and the scuffle led to one of my men going over the top with him. Damn. I'd almost gone the entire round without losing a man.

He swam to the rim of the dish and climbed out. A few of the red prisoners started to rough him up, but the Oranges kept the peace. All colors aside, they were out of the War, now, no matter how they'd gotten there.

We consolidated our position, hiding the big weapons under the sofa, taking some food but leaving the kitchen alone. Yellow spies were seen moving into the kitchen. They must have seen the blood along the barricade, the abandoned knives, and potatoes. They couldn't have figured out exactly what we'd done, but would have to conclude that it was effective. That's the report I wanted taken back to Yellow and his men.

The next day, I took an escort and approached the bathroom. I brought along the last of the candy bar. I presented it to Yellow warriors and announced that it was the last shipment of food. Behind me, my men uncovered a piece of beef jerky we'd gotten from the pantry. I announced that if any Yellow surrendered to me, now, I'd take them as my own men. I'd implore the giantess to have them counted as part of the winning team, and not have to enter the terrarium as panty slaves.

No one took me up on the offer then and there. I wasn't surprised. We took the meat back to the sofa.

Over the next two days, about half of the Yellow team showed up in our camp. They deserted in ones and twos until we had 16 of them added to our forces. We fed them and started training them in our tactics, but kept them away from the weapons.

When it looked like no more were coming, we started taking them under the sofa in small groups. We told them they were being initiated into the secrets of our victory. Sort of. We mugged them and tied them up. When they were all secure, we marched them to the top of the ramp.

"If you believe we can make the Mistress change her mind about anything, you're too dumb to be worth a shit as soldiers. If you're smarter than that, you're probably a Yellow spy. Either way…" I jerked a thumb, and they went over the side. This time, we prodded them with spears (pins stuck through straws) to keep from another accident.

We left one outside of the tank. I made sure he had a count of the number of artillery weapons we owned. We marched down the hallway to stand just outside of the bathroom door.

I let the last Yellow go, to take a message to his general. No more food coming, half your forces gone, nowhere to go, etc. At least in the tank, they were fed regularly.

We waited. After an hour, the men started filing out of the door. They docilely waited to be bound and were led off. When we'd counted all but one, I took a squad in. We found Yellow pinned to a roll of toilet paper, pierced by at least ten pins and his own needle. He begged mercy. I was tempted to flush him down the toilet, let him find his own destiny downstream somewhere. But Mistress might punish me for that weakness. We dumped him in the tank, pins and all.

When the giantess reviewed the films the next day, she learned of our overwhelming victory. She called us out, and we formed ranks at her feet. My officers presented her with the Orange, Red, and Yellow banners.

Mistress picked up each Blue survivor and kissed us, setting us down in two groups atop her desk. She opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out four suits of armor, each six inches tall. Immediately, we fell to fighting each other. The usual fight was one on one, with the winner pinning the loser to the desk blotter, then taking the loser's pin. When we finally finished, there were only three men standing free.

She clapped in glee and kissed each of us again. Then she pulled out the last pin placed and gave that man a smaller kiss. She waved her hand, and we four rose until we were doubled in height. The ink faded as our skin stretched beneath it, until we were without marks. We policed the desktop, collecting the remaining Blues and escorting them into her In Box. She dumped them in the terrarium and returned to us.

Dressed in the armor, she collected us and went through her bedroom to the master bath. There, she placed us in the bathtub. A score of her champions stood on the edges, towering above us at 12 inches in height. They watched as she lowered a cage to the tub. We readied our weapons and awaited the next challenge.