Substantial Phenomenon

Crunch.

"Apple L3-09 tastes... normal, so far. Possibly drier than normal?" Dr. Occi rotated the apple, studying other characteristics of it. "The growth formula seems to have strained the apple skin a bit, but otherwise it shows no major signs of trouble." He looked at his bite and decided to take another. "Hmm... I wonder if the formula dilutes the juice of it. Perhaps it displaces it." Putting down that apple, he turned towards the next one: A virtually identical apple with a label saying L3-10.

As his paw reached for the apple, he wavered a bit. Something about L3-09 was interesting. Not quite an aftertaste, but something regardless. He jotted this down in his notebook, then he took another bite. "I wonder what it is about this particular example. Oh well. Bottoms up!" He tossed the remaining half of L3-09 into the air and caught it in his muzzle, then quickly swallowed it whole. "Ahh... Well, I think I'm about done for the day. How about your apples, Alexis?"

The lynx turned around, holding a tiny apple in her paw. "They seem well, Dr. Occi. The L4 batch is intensely flavorful, however it is not nearly as filling as a regular apple." She ate the apple she was holding, making only a barely audible sound.

The wolf doctor nodded, "Seems like there's still room for improvement in the expanded fruit experiment. That said, we'll have to wait another day to make some more batches, and I'm pretty full." He patted the paunch he had beneath his shirt (only partially the result of this fruit experiment). Yawning, Dr. Occi headed towards the lab exit and waved back, "Good night, Alexis! I'll see you in the morning." He trotted sleepily down the hallway, even hitting his head on the doorway to his room. That hadn't happened before, but he just shrugged and plopped into bed.

*/^\*

Dr. Occi's alarm went off at his calculated ideal time, considering his circadian rhythm and the work to be done. He immediately sat up, banging his head into the ceiling again. He muttered to himself as he went to slap the snooze button on his clock, smashing it and the night table. Only then did he open his eyes properly and realize: Something was very off. As he rotated to get out of bed, the wolf realized he couldn't really stand up much more than he already was simply by sitting on the bed. A button of his shirt popped off with quite some force, ricocheting off the wall and hitting his leg. "Ow... Well, I'll need to write this down, but first..."

Alexis was sleeping somewhat peacefully when she heard her door open, but notably without the bright light that usually results. She glanced towards the door and couldn't see, though something was clearly there. Her clock said it was 5:25 AM. Turning on a lamp, she was able to immediately and dimly see her boss in the doorway, if quite a bit larger. He was crawling in on his knees, struggling to fit through the frame without breaking it.

"ALEXIS, I-" Dr. Occi immediately noted his voice seemed to be coming out much louder than he expected, though maybe not louder than his normal yelling. He began to 'whisper' and continued, in what would otherwise be a normal volume, "Alexis, something happened to me overnight. My guess would be the apple batch from yesterday, probably the one I ate entirely. If you could so kindly come down to the lab with me, we should be able to extract something of an, ugh, antidote from the seeds of L3-09."

She watched, from the safety of her bed, as he hesitated in the doorway. He seemed to be eyeing her, not unlike how he'd eye a test sample. "That's odd... Something about my increased size makes certain thoughts more appealing." He moved further into the room, his muzzle hanging rather massively above her bed.

"Sir...?" she asked, not afraid, but unsure what he was doing.

"Ah... Don't mind me, I think I just would like to see how things taste from this size..." With that, his maw opened and his tongue rolled out onto her, dragging across her body. She was familiar with the view from past experiences, but not at that scale... or in her room. Smacking his lips after coating her in a layer of saliva, he mused, "It seems flavor has been enriched, likely due to my size. Maybe there's a factor there... Not unlike your small, flavor-rich apples." He licked her again, this time dragging her up off the bed and even partially into his mouth before he let her go. "Sorry about that, just curiosity getting the better of myself. We should really go to the lab now."

Awkwardly, since he had pushed himself so far into the room, he pulled the rest of himself in and began to turn around. A hindpaw pushed Alexis into her bed as he attempted to crawl back out the door. He didn't seem to react to the feeling at all, but she was fortunately released as he moved off. The last disturbance as he exited was his fluffy wolf tail swatting her a few times as he left. Thwap thwap thwap, and then he was finally gone. Though she'd see him again in a few minutes after she got ready and headed down to their labroom.

As Alexis entered the lab from yesterday, she found her boss sitting in the corner of the room with his legs folded up. In the bright light, she was able to notice that his shirt had lost all its buttons somewhere during his growth. His pants and sleeves were each strained and even tearing slightly across the seams, silvery fur poking out the holes. There was a crushed metal cabinet behind him, with some white balls spilled about. "Hello, Alexis... I attempted to activate a drone but my, ah, paws are too big to press the button. I may have smashed a few, and then the cabinet..." He gestured around himself, fracturing the walls in the progress. "Sorry."

She carefully stepped around the fragments of some unfortunate drones, finding one intact white orb between his legs. She clicked it on and said, "Corvus form. Run self-diagnostic." It started up without a hitch, restructuring from a sphere to a featureless white crow. It then determined its functioning was intact, and so Alexis continued, "Run 3D scan, Dr. Occi." The drone took flight, projecting a grid onto the giant scientist in the room. In the meantime, Alexis headed over to the experimental seed vault, fortunately still intact.

While she searched for L3-09's seeds in the display of vials, Dr. Occi's attention turned towards the half-eaten apples from yesterday. They were browning somewhat, since he had failed to contain them at all. He felt curious. "Corvus: 3D scan, self, continuous." The drone immediately shifted into an orbiting maneuver, maintaining a constant circle around the wolf as he reached for a single apple. L3-10 was still intact, so he tossed it into his maw with ease. Barely any pressure from his teeth shattered the apple, to which he said, "Mmm! It does taste better at this size... I'll have to make a note of that when I can write in my journal again."

At this point, Alexis turned around with a vial labeled "L3-09 seeds" in hand, just in time to see her boss swallow something. "Sir?"

His ears perked up, turning his attention back to his assistant. "Ah! I um, wanted to record the growth process, if I could. It... might provide insight?" He meekly paused for a moment as his assistant stared at him blankly. "I also wanted to double check the apple taste at this size. And I'm hungry! My metabolism has quite different needs at this size..."

"Well, hopefully we can get you back to normal before you eat through the lab's food budget for the year. Now, if you could, ah, scoot aside... I need to reach the mixer near your right buttock."

Dr. Occi nodded carefully and said, "Of course, sorry," as he tried to get out of her way. It was very difficult for the wolf doctor, since he was rather taller than the room and taking up quite a bit of it. He managed to work out a careful system of rotating around his assistant, though scraping up the ceiling and walls as he did so. A small price to pay for access to a potential antidote for this growth. He tried to keep to himself as much as he could, given that he was taking up an increasing amount of the room.

In the meantime, Alexis focused rather intently on her work. As odd as the situation might be, she was unflappable. She had been through many other odd situations at this point, so the doctor growing large on accident wasn't a big deal to her. Tuning out the sounds of the room creaking and clothes tearing around her while she worked was simple. She watched carefully as some of the seeds were ground up and mixed with a few other chemicals to create what would reverse the process, with any luck.

She even managed to focus through his paws pressing up against the walls around her as Dr. Occi struggled to stay out of her way. But finally, she was forced to acknowledge her surroundings when he muttered a strained, "Alexis...!" She turned around at that, finally noticing he had grown an awful lot closer. His paunch now displayed prominently in front of her, with his legs blocking off her sides and arms above them. "I think this room is reaching its limit in how much of me it can contain." With a relatively sudden pwoomf, Alexis found herself pressed against the wall, smushed firmly between it and a much doughier place.

This she could not ignore. Hopefully the antidote was ready now. She just needed to be able to administer it. Of course, this was easier said than done. She could barely turn her head, with most of her muzzle buried in Dr. Occi's fur and fat. "Sir, if you could just back up a little!" she shouted, trying to reach for the mixture she just produced. She could barely see it in the corner of her vision, but she couldn't move at all. With a rumbling, hearing Alexis's request, the wolf she was stuck to backed up. From the other side of the room she could hear the sounds of things being completely smashed to pieces, including probably the other wall. But it gave her a little bit of leeway.

Unfortunately, she still found herself stuck to Dr. Occi's body. She was practically glued to and half-buried in his soft belly, having been flattened onto it by the wall. Her head was the first part she was able to easily unstick. Then each arm, with some effort. Then the rest of her peeled off without as much difficulty, though she had to carefully climb down his fur. Finally, she had access to the mixer. Before he could grow any further, she quickly poured the contents into a few new vials and stuck them in her lab coat's pocket.

Now there was the question of administration. A syringe would probably be the easiest at this size, but they weren't on this side of the room, and in all honesty, they were probably shards of glass on the ground by now. That left the oral method next. However... That seems troublesome, she thought, looking up at his nose which barely jutted out from beyond his gut. She shouted once again, "Dr. Occi! I need you to turn around and put your head at face level so I can administer the antidote!"

Dr. Occi himself was practically in a separate room. When he had tried to back up earlier, he certainly destroyed the wall and anything on it. Fortunately the ceiling remained stable, but he was quickly growing too big for the facility. He couldn't hear his assistant call for him the second time either, as the new room he was in had some loudly operating machinery. The corvus drone he had activated earlier also served to distract him now, its droning becoming a high-pitched whine as he grew bigger relative to it. He sighed, wondering when this would be over. It was getting a little tiresome in their tiny facility, but he didn't really want to create an incident outside.

Meanwhile, Alexis realized that the doctor couldn't hear her after a few more shouts. She would have to find her own way over to him. Fortunately, he was staying as still as he could, considering the occasional bursts of growth. The easiest way seemed to be climbing up his paunch again and hoping she wouldn't be crushed against the wall. Or the ceiling, for that matter. With some agile movement, she climbed onto the countertop and then leapt over to his belly and began to climb. The jump startled him some, which she could tell by the fur around her spiking up. It made her chuckle a bit despite the rest of the situation. Though then a late knee-jerk reaction caused the wall behind her to go out and the ceiling to start collapsing. She gasped and let go, doing her best to take cover beneath the big wolf.

He had let out a sharp gasp when she felt him grab onto her and accidentally kicked the wall with one leg. He immediately realized his mistake, though by then it was too late. Bending forward, he tried to locate Alexis to protect her from debris. "Alexis! Where are you? Are you safe?" The room was coming down around him and even the corvus drone was struggling to dodge chunks of it. The ground beneath him crunched as he grew ever more, putting his head through the ceiling as well. Moonlight started to stream into the room, and he could feel the outside air. Uh-oh, he thought simply as he finally started to poke out of the laboratory.

With a great and loud crash, the majority of the room finished collapsing. Dr. Occi shook his head to get rid of some dust and rubble on it, then examined his surroundings better. His head was definitely above-ground, though fortunately it was still dark out. He could see the lab entrance some distance away, very small relative to himself now. The ground had collapsed into the two rooms he had broken through, and he could probably safely estimate his size at about, say, fifty meters? He hadn't had a chance to stand up in a while, though. He tried looking down to find his assistant, but it was dark after the lights were destroyed. Fortunately, the corvus drone seemed to still be functional, zipping around him.

With his best whisper, he said, "Corvus: Locate subject, Alexis Kerr." The bird drone accepted the commands and dove down to where it last sensed her. Dr. Occi could distantly see a light from the drone as it attempted a search, while he kept something of a lookout. Fortunately, he knew they were pretty far away from the nearby town and the lab was unoccupied except for him and Alexis.

After a few minutes, the drone returned to head level and responded, "Search complete. Alexis Kerr not located; trace signs were located."

"Hmm. Well, let me move a little and maybe you'll be able to reach her then..." He took an arm out of the room and placed it on the ground outside, knocking up quite a lot of dust as he used it to prop himself up. "Corvus: Repeat search." Once again it flew down, though it returned in under a minute with a more successful result.

It chirped, "Alexis Kerr DNA located. Would you like to perform resurrection?"

His ears flopped down some at hearing the news. "Resurrection? Where was she?"

"Alexis Kerr DNA was located on Dr. Occi's right buttock and the ground directly below," the drone said, flatly.

His face turned a bit flushed, imagining the red stain on his fur down there. "Oh my. I guess I shouldn't have moved after all. Well, er, run resurrection, Alexis Kerr." Once more, the bird drone flew away. Dr. Occi looked outside, sighing again (and rattling some fences rather strongly). Hopefully it won't be too long until she's back with an antidote. His stomach grumbled some, reminding him that he was rather hungry in his new size. He waited until the drone was gone to stand up and stretch. Standing up, even with his knees in the underground lab still, he could see the town. It was dark, and a small one. Certain ideas were starting to pop into his mind. He could almost certainly rebuild the town... and the people there. And well, he was continuing to grow in such a way that it'd be an awareness problem in short notice anyway.

With all that in mind, he decided to climb out of his lab and head into town. He wished he had a drone to record this, but he would do the best he could on his own. As he started walking downhill, he snapped off a tree and snacked on it. "It would seem most things have their flavor enhanced at my size. A random Pinus edulis is much tastier than tree bark normally is, for instance." He continued to munch on the tree as he trampled many more on his way to the town.

When he arrived, he overstepped a little and ended up flattening a small house and presumably whoever was inside. "My apologies!" He whispered, as quietly he could. He realized he had grown maybe another ten meters on his walk to town, which he recorded quietly aloud. Perhaps it was the food intake? He pondered this as he kneeled down to rip the roof off of a house next to the one he just destroyed. Inside was a bear living all by themselves, still asleep despite the wolf towering over them. Dr. Occi carefully lifted up their bed with ease, then stuffed it into his maw. With a quick swallow, the bear and bed went down without any trouble or even really a bulge.

Dr. Occi smacked his lips some. "Yes, it would seem everything is much tastier! The bed was not unlike a dry bread snack, while the bear, even whole, was a juicy burst of flavor. Yes, I believe this town will sate me while we wait for a new antidote." Licking his chops as he grew a little more, he moved onto the next building. Peeling off yet another roof and carefully picking up a frightened couple he said, "Don't worry. I'm told digestion is, remarkably, not unpleasant!" and tossed them down his gullet.

*/^\*

A lynx woke up in a room, filtered yellow by the liquid in her chamber. It was breathable despite the liquid state. In front of her there was a white bird. Or rather, something bird-shaped. After some time without action from either of them, memories automatically flooded into her. And as they did, the yellow liquid began to drain. The glass parted and the Corvus-form drone chirped, "Auto-resurrection complete. Welcome back, Alexis Kerr. Please contact Dr. Occi if there are any gaps in your memory."

Fortunately, she had none. It was brief, but she did remember being accidentally crushed by the aforementioned doctor. Her brewed antidote along with it, most likely. She hurried to her room first, grabbing a simple set of clothes, then to the room they were working in earlier. The door was dysfunctional, though luckily ajar. A hole to the surface served to light the room naturally somewhat and towards the middle she could see a conspicuous red stain in a round crater. At least it was absent of anything grisly, though it did confirm the antidote (and her clothes) were destroyed.

She pondered what to do. Synthesizing more L3-09 seeds would take longer than she would like. Especially since she wasn't exactly sure where Dr. Occi had ventured off to. Hopefully not getting himself into much trouble. She gazed over at the vials of seeds left. She doubted any of the other L3 seeds would help, since 01 through 08 didn't seem to cause this effect. L3-10 maybe. She spotted a tiny red apple glinting in the light. An idea clicked in her head. Her L4 branch... Perhaps her shrinking serum apples could work as a sort of antidote.

Some time later, Alexis was stocked up with new mixtures of experimental apple seeds, experimental tiny apples, and other chemicals. It's basically guesswork, but one of them should work and there shouldn't be any too-dangerous effects. She headed up to the surface and hopped in a van they often used whenever they had to travel into town. The sun was starting to rise, which served to rather clearly illuminate the silhouette of a wolf against the terrain. Even without being close, she could tell he towered over any building that would've been there. Though she couldn't quite tell if he was making it difficult for her to recognize the buildings from height alone or if he had actually wrecked them. She supposed she would find out soon.

As she drove into town, she had to drive rather carefully to avoid fallen, crushed trees and increasingly large paw prints in the ground. Some buildings in the town itself were just obliterated, but many simply had their roofs peeled off. The ground rumbled here with every movement of Dr. Occi, who was still on the other side of town, but absolutely towering now. She estimated he was close to a hundred meters tall. Quite the growth in a relatively short period of time, compared to overnight.

Finally, she drove up to Dr. Occi's feet. They were each much bigger than the van, and all of him cast quite the shadow. She peered out from the driver-side window. She could clearly hear the sound of a building collapsing, though also... crunching? She decided to slam the horn to get Dr. Occi's attention. Slowly, he turned around and looked down at her. His face was rather out of focus from sheer distance, despite being at his feet. He was holding the top of the town's tallest building, an apartment complex, in his hand. Notably, most of the building was missing except for the bottom floor. His mouth was full of something, bulging out one of his cheeks. Quickly, he swallowed down whatever was in his mouth and then stuffed the rest of the building in.

The thought crossed her mind that he might not have recognized the fairly plain van from his size. However, this thought crossed her mind only as soon as he was already reaching down for it. With a sudden jerk, the enormous wolf scooped up the van with her inside and started lifting it up. She tried her best to remain calm despite the circumstances, but it was rather alarming to be raised so far into the air, not to mention her vehicle being held like a can. As she came up to level with his muzzle, she could hear a very audible gulp as he finished off the building. Then he started to record to himself, "Apartment complex was quite filling. The sun is beginning to rise though, and I wonder where my assistant is. In the meantime, now commencing taste test of a twelfth vehicle, a white van."

Her eyes widened as his maw opened, revealing a large pink tongue illuminated by the sunrise. It was the right size to be a massive highway, albeit to a dead end. Hot breath fogged up the windshield in an instant. But she wasn't looking to be resurrected twice in one day. She honked once again, but this time a more specific S-O-S tone. Dr. Occi seemed to hear this, fortunately, and stopped. His mouth shut again and he lifted her up a little higher.

His eyes and ears perked up as he recognized her. "Alexis! You're a sight for sore eyes. Sorry about earlier... and also almost eating you just now. It's hard to recognize you when you're so small." His voice was booming, even at his quietest, but still pleasant to hear.

Alexis turned off the van and stepped out, onto his paw pad. She waved at him, and yelled, "DOCTOR OCCI! I HAVE PRODUCED A NEW ANTIDOTE FOR YOU!"

His ear twitched slightly and he replied, "I'm afraid I can't hear you, Alexis. You are not unlike a bug at this size... And it's rather difficult to even focus on you." Sighing, she simply lifted up a hand with the vials. "Ah! The antidote! At last." She shook as he shouted a bit, causing her to pout as visibly as she could. He covered his mouth with his other paw and whispered once more, "Sorry again for earlier. I'll let you administer the antidote now."

With that, he carefully lifted his paw above his head, making sure to keep it level, and then opened his mouth beneath it. Alexis walked to the edge of his paw and briefly took in the view. She was high above the town, higher than any building that was once standing. The sunrise was very apparent and admirable from up high. Lastly, hot breath rose up from below, from a glimmering maw. It was quite a unique view. She took the vials out from her pocket and dropped them into his throat. With nearly no movement on his part, they disappeared inside.

Gently placing her and their van back down on the ground, Dr. Occi noticed that the effect was pretty immediate. The same hypermetabolism that enabled him to grow so much beyond the original apples must be working with her antidote now, accelerating his shrinkage. Meters of him were going away by the seconds, though the process decelerated as he approached his original height. When he finally reached that height, he was greeted by his assistant who kindly said, "Good to see you once again, properly, Dr. Occi."

He beamed back, "Glad to be normal-sized again! As tasty as the town was, it's certainly not feasible all the time. This will be quite the project to rebuild." He rubbed his belly idly as he began to plan it in his mind. "Well, let's head on back to the lab." As he said this he hopped into the driver's seat of the van and realized something was wrong. "I can't seem to... reach the pedals?"

Alexis crossed her arms on the open window. "Ah, yes. You see, Dr. Occi, the original antidote I created derived from L3-09 was, unfortunately, destroyed during an incident back at the laboratory." He bashfully rubbed the back of his head. She continued, "What I ended up giving you, in the interest of time, was a cocktail of L4-related items. I wasn't able to accurately predict side effects, but I was aware this might be one."

Dr. Occi was beginning to realize what she meant as he began to have to look up to maintain eye contact with her. "Ah," he squeaked. It would seem his original size was merely a checkpoint, as now his size was once again changing quickly. Alexis reached through the window and grabbed him, as he was quickly approaching the size of a doll. "A-Alexis? Just what are you doing?" he asked, as he approached her face. Her tongue popped out and then dragged across his body.

"Hmm... It does indeed seem flavor is enriched from size. Subject Dr. Occi is particularly tasty right now, especially as he shrinks further..." She continued to experimentally taste him all over, slathering his fur.

"Alexis! I believe that's enough samples, shouldn't we get back?"

She stopped to look at the small wolf in her paw, now only a couple dozen centimeters. Then into the van. "Dr. Occi, I'm afraid we don't exactly have safe seating for you in the van. Fortunately," she said, patting her stomach, "I'm familiar with another method."

Her mouth opened wide, and for the first time, he saw what she had already seen quite a few times. "Now, Alexis, wait, we've already performed enough research on-" She cut him off, closing her jaws around him and slurping up his tail. Inside, Dr. Occi found himself experiencing things he had listened to or read from logs much more personally. In some ways, he was really quite stunned. "I had never imagined this was so... intimate." He instinctively tried holding onto her tongue, though it sought to taste him further by smashing him against the roof of her mouth or tossing him to the sides. He lost track of what was going on outside until he could distinctly hear an engine start up. Then her tongue finally tilted him towards the back of her mouth, where it pressed up to seal him from the outside. And then he was swallowed.

She burped softly as she started driving. "Sorry, Dr. Occi. But I'm afraid I don't have a safer way to hold you while I drive back. Also, I haven't had breakfast yet." That line got her a small kick from inside. "Don't worry, I plan to let you out when we get back." In the meantime, she turned up the music and drove out of the wrecked town.