Deviant Downsizing (Chapter 1)

“Mason! It’s just me! I’m home!” Lori’s maternal tone thunderously called out into the house immediately after she let herself back inside at the end of another surely-taxing day of teaching grumbly high schoolers. Her uncommonly mighty footsteps could be heard pacing down the hall, and then eventually also felt as an approaching shudder that subtly vibrated the coffee tabletop, whereupon her shrunken one-inch-tall son Mason was waiting just outside his makeshift dollhouse apartment for her return.

            Not that there was any chance of the boy not recognizing his own parent’s voice, but in light of recent events, he could tell she was doing her best not to put him even further on-edge. Mason had been this miniscule size for two weeks straight now, having spent his entire eighteen years of life previously at a normal human stature, unsure if he’d even inherited his mother’s incredibly rare deviant status, since no meta-ability had manifested thus far during his adolescence. Neither had his older sister shown any sign of such a development.

But it turned out that he was just a late bloomer, not a normie after all, as he’d discovered when an especially harrowing dream had triggered his unknown power’s activation – which apparently included shrinking himself down to a single inch in scope while still asleep. Having grown up raised by Lori alone, a benevolent wonderfully-compassionate deviant who just so happened to be a pyrokinetic master, Mason had become used to keeping his fire-manipulating mother’s secret identity. He deeply admired her as a person as well as a deviant, and had always assured himself that he would be proud to claim her same familial superpowered status – despite the danger posed by a world of impotent homo sapiens that largely looked down on their extraordinary co-species.

            Of course, when Mason had made that noble hypothetical decision as a child, there was no way of knowing how his possible power might one day show itself, if he had one at all, and how he might control it. Or rather, how his lack of ability to control that power first-thing, just like any worthwhile skill, might ironically disempower him by stranding him down at one inch tall like this, with no way yet discovered to grow himself back. Having now effectively spent two weeks as a prisoner of his own surprise size-changing power, and cared for his concerned automatic-giantess of a mother until he could unlock a way to reverse this, Mason still didn’t regret his deviant DNA. But, internally, he had to admit to himself that the strain of becoming a pitiful shrunken burden – who just might be stuck this way forever, if he couldn’t provoke the correct intangible muscle within – was starting to wear him thin.

            “Well. Any luck today with the you-know-what?” Lori asked him with a cautious smile, upon entering the room.

At six-foot-four, the woman had always been something of an above-average amazon to her more ordinarily-proportioned son even before his deviancy exhibited. But now she was a straight-up living monument from his bug-like vantage, utterly towering above Mason like a four-hundred-fifty-foot goddess-on-Earth. That otherworldly grandeur of her aura was only enhanced by the stark sea-blue hue of her hair, which was only revealed after she promptly yanked off the dull brunette wig she used to stay incognito while working her day job at the high school. It had taken Mason a whole week just to avoid being stricken speechless in his gargantuan parent’s intimidating presence. No matter how kindly and soft-spoken Lori was as a person, the unspoken supremacy of her outright hugeness couldn’t be denied. And even now the boy experienced a certain spine-tingling tension whenever he was placed in her shadow, feeling himself go lightheaded and the air catching in his lungs as he craned his neck back to meet her supportive gaze high overhead: both in affectionate awe and moderate fear of her at once. Though, with his mother newly returned from work, Mason instinctively knew that those clandestine feelings of his were about to be usurped by something much stronger within him.

“No luck,” he admitted with a defeated shrug. Lori must’ve known the answer to that question before she even asked it, of course, or else she would’ve come home to find a son who wasn’t still the size of her thumbpad. But he knew she was just trying to encourage him, since it was already getting difficult to find the motivation to keep on trying to alter his stature at will after two straight weeks of failure. Because he obviously couldn’t go to school with her in his condition, Mason had spent every instant of solitude in his mini-sanctuary here doing everything he could think of to spark active control over his powers, by putting himself through exhausting physical exercises and concentrating to the point of daily headaches. Still nothing seemed to work.

“Just keep at it. Maybe tomorrow will be the day,” Lori said with a wink, upbeat as ever, though Mason was pretty sure he could detect a hint of disappointed worry in his mother’s booming voice. Even if she didn’t show it, a part of her must’ve also been anxious that he might be stuck this way forever.

Sighing deeply and running her fingers through those deep-blue locks, the giantess took a ponderous seat down on the sofa, though of course she still loomed significantly overhead of her boy even now. “This isn’t your fault, you know, kiddo. It’s not weakness or stupidity, because you aren’t capable of either of those things. Sometimes it can just take a while to get ahold of your powers, the same way it took a while to show up in you at all. Hey, you should’ve seen how many things I accidentally set on fire back when I was your age. And by things, I mean ROOMS. It’s seriously a wonder that no one was ever hurt. But, I got it under control eventually, and now look at me. You’ll be the same way. I know it. Better yet, you don’t even have to worry about your power hurting someone on accident while you’re still learning, so at least that’s a plus, right?”

Mason glumly nodded, appreciative of his mother’s unwavering faith in him, but he also knew she was bending the truth here somewhat. Yes, his size-changing power couldn’t start a deadly inferno by coincidence, but he had inadvertently made himself ridiculously vulnerable by going this low, with no obvious way to fix it. First he’d put himself in danger, by becoming the most-helpless version of himself, which in a way also put Lori in danger. It was difficult enough keeping their identities under wraps, being (as far as they knew) the only deviants in this entire city. But if he couldn’t regrow soon, his absence at school would become suspicious, which by extension would put his mother at risk of having their covers blown. On top of that, with no way of comprehending the extent of his deviant powers yet, for all Mason knew, he might just wake up one morning having shrunken himself down to the size of a microbe, too small to ever be noticed by Lori, until he simply starved to death as an anonymous particle. There was indeed a lot at stake here, even if neither he nor his mother was willing to acknowledge it out loud, but the onus of that treacherous possibility weighed heavily upon him. He had to figure this out, and soon.

“You’re right. Thanks, Mom,” Mason muttered, hanging his head and choosing not to divulge all his current woes. She had enough to handle already, now being exclusively in charge of both their lives and safety, since her son was currently more hapless than the average newborn.

“Chin up, okay? Or if you can’t, at least do your best. I know it’s tough right now. But we’ll get through it together, as a team, just like we’ve always done,” Lori sweetly insisted.