The Facility was so secret that it didn’t really have a name. Its existence was known only to base personnel and the highest ranks of the South Korean general staff. Situated on a remote island on the southern tip of the Korean peninsula, the Facility was a secret that the South Korean government had not even shared with its ally, the United States.
Its purpose was to conduct military research which could safeguard the Republic of Korea against its insane neighbour to the north. In fact, it was on the verge of a breakthrough on Project 86 – a supersoldier formula that promised to make any military confrontation between the two Koreas a very one-sided affair.
Project 86 was designed to enhance everything from physical strength to endurance to mental ability. It did what it set out to do in spades. In fact, the problem was that it was sometimes too good at enhancing subjects. The formula was too potent, and created undesirable and unpredictable results on female subjects especially.
Clearly there were still problems to be worked out. Still, those weren’t the problems on anyone’s mind right now. There was a much, much, more important issue at hand – samples of Project 86 had gone missing.
Alarms blared as uniformed security personnel scrambled to their stations. The Facility’s front gates were sealed and armed men patrolled the perimeter with barely restrained dogs. The drone of a helicopter could be heard overhead as it swept the darkness with a searchlight. Patrol cutters circled the island like school of hungry piranhas, their crews scanning the water with night-vision equipment.
Little did they know, it was no use.
The culprits had escaped long before Facility security had even known that the formula was missing. By now, the thieves were already on their way back to Seoul on a small black motorboat with their stolen cargo. Sitting comfortably inside the sleek watercraft were seven female figures. They were the world’s most talented cat-burglars.
Of course, most of the world knew them as something else entirely.
***
The seven members of Ace of Angels poured into their backstage dressing room after their latest concert. The women were dressed in black leather outfits, their costumes for their hit song “Like a Cat”. It amused them that the music video for that song depicted them as cat-burglars executing a complex heist. What better way to conceal the truth than to hide it in the open?
They were all chatting excitedly, still coming down from the rush of performing and the rush of their heist the night before.
“Chanmi, where did you put the goods?” Asked Jimin, their leader.
“I locked it in the safe like you told me to.” The youngest member of the group replied.
Jimin walked over to the safe concealed in her dresser and punched in a combination on the keypad. As the door swung open, a cloud of pink gas poured out of the safe and filled the dressing room. The group had not noticed the slight leak that had occurred in the transport cylinder overnight.
“Chanmi you klutz, you forgot to…” began Jimin right before she slumped over. The rest of the group didn’t even have a chance to react before they too slipped into unconsciousness.
***
They were all over the news. Newspapers, TV, and the internet were all covering the disappearance of K-Pop group Ace of Angels. As far as anyone knew, they went missing from their dressing room after a concert. The backstage crew saw them go in but found only an empty room and a strange odour when they went in hours later looking for the group.
People speculated wildly about North Korean kidnapping plots, intentional promotional gimmicks, even alien abductions. Days passed. Then weeks.
No one had seen or heard from any of the members of Ace of Angels.
No one connected the dots of what had really happened.
No one could have predicted how they would reappear, and how they would reshape the world forever.
The United Nations General Assembly was in session.
“… the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea categorically denies the lies and accusations that the South and their pig-dog American masters have raised against us. The DPRK has not kidnapped any South Korean citizens…” The North Korean delegate was giving a fire-and-brimstone speech that would not have looked out of place at even the most radical church.
The rest of the General Assembly muttered quietly in disbelief. No one had evidence to back up allegations of a kidnapping, but at the same time almost every nation instinctively distrusted North Korea.
Click. Clack. Click. Clack.
The North Korean delegate’s speech was interrupted by the sound of high heels on marble. The assembly room collectively turned around to find themselves staring at a young Korean woman dressed in black leather and high heeled boots.
She continued to walk down the isle between seats towards the podium. The assembled ambassadors were stunned and wondering why security was not stopping her.
“He’s not wrong, you know.” Jimin stated in Korean. Her words echoed in the minds of each delegate in their native tongue.
The North Korean delegate was the first to regain his composure.
“See? She is one of the “missing” women!” He screeched, pointing his finger at Jimin. “This is proof that the Democratic People’s Republic had no involvement in this…”
Jimin waved her hand casually and the North Korean delegate found the air rushing out of his lungs. He gasped like a fish on land, trying desperately to speak.
“Ugh, there’s nothing I hate more than a man who doesn’t know when to shut up.” Jimin complained as she approached the podium.
The room erupted into commotion as the gathered delegates frantically tried to summon security. Jimin rolled her eyes at the noise and continued to saunter towards the podium. The diplomats reminded her all too much of the old, disgusting, middle-aged record executives who constantly stared and tried to grope her bandmates. They used to have to smile and bear it. Not anymore.
One of the delegate’s aides sitting close to the isle surged to his feet and attempted to rush Jimin. She smiled as she reached out with one of her seemingly delicate arms. She flicked her index finger. To Jimin’s superhuman senses, her finger made contact with the aide’s chest, leaving a bloody crater the size of a dinner plate in the centre of his torso. To everyone else who was watching, his body simply lifted into the air and evaporated in a red splat on the roof of the General Assembly chamber.
Jimin’s face displaced only smug satisfaction as she reached the podium and the choking North Korean ambassador. The debate chamber had now fallen into mad panic. The leather-clad singer grabbed the prone ambassador and lifted him up by his collar. She turned to address the delegates.
“World leaders,” She addressed before pausing. The fingers of her free hand stroked the tip of her chin in contemplation.
“Former world leaders,” she continued smugly. “Many of you know who I am. Some of you do not.”
The panic had subsided to a small extent as delegates turned their attention to the petite songstress addressing them.
“I am Jimin, leader of the Angels, but from now on you can all address me as Goddess.” She continued with a slight giggle.
This elicited an uproar from representatives of more religious countries. Jimin ignored the yells of “blasphemy!” and “infidel!”
“Several weeks ago, my sisters and I gained powers that you can’t even imagine. We’re now more powerful than all of your silly little countries put together.” Jimin explained as the General Assembly gawked in disbelief.
“The world belongs to us now, and you – humanity – will all be our servants.” A broad grin had spread across her face as she made this declaration.
She threw the struggling North Korean ambassador to the ground in front of her.
“You.” She intoned coldly as she regarded the ambassador with distain.
“You have the honour of being the first to submit to us. Kiss my boots.” She ordered.
The North Korean delegate let loose with a long string of Korean obscenities and spat at the black-clad woman in front of him. It was a trivial matter for Jimin to use her telekinesis to deflect the glob of spit away.
“What a shame.” Jimin sighed as she shook her head.
The entire room was holding its collective breath, waiting to see how the cruel singer would respond to this defiance. What they saw then was beyond belief.
The North Korean ambassador started getting smaller.
Jimin was now staring at him intently, like a cat watching its prey squirm as it toyed with its catch. Slowly, the man dwindled in size. First to the size of a large dog. Then to the size of small cat. Finally, to the size of a rat. He tried to run, but his short legs couldn’t carry him very far.
The K-Pop star raised one of her lengthy, stocking-clad, legs over the fleeing figure. The terrified man barely had time to look up at the shadow above him before the rubbery sole of her shoe slammed down on him.
Jimin felt a satisfying crunch under her foot. She saw the ambassador’s body burst like a grape filled with red gore. The rest of the delegates could only watch in abject shock and terror as she twisted her foot against the ground – turning the ambassador’s body into a bloody smear on the carpet.
“Well, now we’ll have to make an example of what happens if you defy us.” The svelte Korean woman purred seductively.
Without another word, Jimin disappeared in a flash of bright light. The diplomats were left to their terror, confusion, and impotent rage.
For a few seconds.
Faster than any mortal person could comprehend, the roof of the General Assembly caved in. The last thing anyone in that chamber saw was a massive black object hurtling towards them behind chunks of falling ceiling. The object would have been a familiar sight to the dead North Korean ambassador – it was the sole of Jimin’s boot.
***
Jimin sighed in satisfaction as her foot demolished the United Nations building. She was now standing a thousand times taller than her normal size – about a mile tall. She swept her 250 meter long foot through the entire UN complex, reducing it to rubble.
The leader of the Angels knew that UN meetings were being recorded and broadcast, so her mission to send a message to the political leaders of the world was complete. Now, it was up to her other band-members to execute their parts of the plan.
Now it was time for her to send a message to the common people of the world – and have some fun in the process.
She surveyed Manhattan from an unparalleled vantage point. Jimin used her telekinetic powers to rip every bridge connecting the island to the rest of New York out of their foundations. People, cars, trucks and busses were thrown into the waters below or crushed outright as she did so. She was delighted at the thought of how powerless those people were, unable to resist the power of her mind.
The callous diva willed the bridges to fly towards her, trailing debris over Manhattan as they went. She used her mind to smash them together into a hundred-meter ball of tortured metal and shattered concrete. She then grabbed the ball with her hand. Jimin tossed the ball in her hand a couple of times like a baseball player going for a perfect pitch.
Without warning, she threw the makeshift sphere into Brooklyn with inhuman strength. The projectile tore through buildings, people, cars and roads alike with no resistance until it exploded into a crater. Jimin’s death-toll was already in the thousands. She wanted more.
The cruel singer reached out with her mind into the warren of subway and traffic tunnels beneath the city. With a thought she caused them to collapse, flooding some completely and blocking the rest with rubble.
Now, there was nowhere for the inhabitants for Manhattan to go. They belonged to her now… and she was going to have some fun.
Chapter II: Chanmi
General Argent of the United States Marine Corps observed the North Korean side of the DMZ through his binoculars. The sun beat down overhead as he watched soldiers – his and the enemy’s – go about their duties.
The Korean De-Militarized Zone was on high alert since scattered and panicked reports had come in from New York minutes ago about some sort of disaster at the UN Building. Conflicting and vague updates were filtering in about some sort of attack in New York through military channels. The civilian news was reporting some nonsense about a giant woman. Argent dismissed it as panicked drivel.
“They’re definitely up to something, alright.” He huffed to his aide, Lieutenant Kilian.
“Yes sir, intelligence reports that the North Koreans have been mobilizing all of their forces and reinfor—“
The general put down his field glasses and turned towards his aide. Lieutenant Kilian was still there, but his face bore only a blank expression. In fact, every officer and soldier in the war room was wearing the same empty expression. The general had seen a lot of strange things in his decades in the military, but never something like this.
Argent’s hands reached for his side-arm. He slid the pistol out of its holster and checked that he had ammo in the magazine. He knew that the North Koreans were experimenting with all sorts of chemical and psychological warfare. He thought that he would be safe in his protected command bunker, but evidently whatever weapons the North had cooked up could reach them there too. Damn.
He could hear a sound coming from the other side of the blast-proof exit of the war room. It was a voice? A woman’s voice. No, it couldn’t be a voice, the room is utterly blast-proof – there was no way that a woman’s voice could carry through the reinforced steel and concrete. And yet… the voice continued. Whispers of thought, tugging at the edge of his mind.
The general couldn’t quite make out what it said, but he knew that it wanted. It wanted… obedience. Yes. It just wanted him to do what he was trained for and follow orders… her orders.
His hands were shaking now as he took cover behind the map table. Whatever this voice was, it was coming for him. The only way in or out of the bunker was the metre-thick blast door. Whoever stepped through it would regret it… he would go down fighting.
Suddenly, the door was wrenched from its hinges as if a great, invisible, hand had simply pulled it inwards. Argent’s mouth hung slack as the ten ton object floated to the side. He was so stunned that for a moment, he forgot about the weapon in his hand. He forgot about his training, his rank, his predicament.
All he could think about was the petite, leather-clad, Korean woman standing in the doorway.
The voices in his head reached a sudden crescendo. “OBEY,” it yelled. “SUBMIT,” it cried.” He could hear it clearly now. It was the voice of a young woman, clawing at his sanity. He fought to stay lucid, to stay sane, to stay himself. For a moment, he felt like he was winning this contest of wills. He remembered his training. He remembered the weapon in his hand.
He pulled the trigger. Then again. And again. And again. He pulled the trigger until he heard the “click” of an empty clip.
The woman giggled as the bullets bounced off her without even scuffing her clothes. Argent could swear that he even hit her in the eye with a lucky shot, with no effect. The speeding balls of lead ricocheted around the room – one of them hitting Lieutenant Kilian in the head. The Lieutenant slumped to the ground without a sound.
The woman started to strut towards him as he scrambled to reload his weapon. The voices were unbearable now. He tried to move his hands to insert the new magazine into his pistol. They wouldn’t budge. His legs wouldn’t move either. He could only kneel there, like a stunned deer in headlights.
The Korean woman approached him and casually grabbed the pistol out of his hand. She brought her other hand up and bent the barrel out of shape without any visible exertion.
“Silly general, I can’t have you damaging my new army now, can I?” She scolded with a tone most people would reserve for babies and dogs. He recognized her voice. It was the voice in his head.
“N… no… my goddess.” He felt himself stammer involuntarily.
“Hehe, good.” She giggled as she surveyed the war room.
“Now get up.” She commanded. Argent surged to his feet. “We have a war to win.”
***
Chanmi was having the time of her life. She had secretly played with army men as a little girl despite how her parents disapproved of her playing with a toy meant for boys. Well now she would get to play with a real army, and she was loving it. Despite being the youngest, she was entrusted with an important task – subduing North Korea and laying the foundation for their new Korean Empire.
The singer looked positively diminutive as she strode confidently amongst the ranks of assembled American and South Korean soldiers. She noticed how the men tended to tower over her, even in her high heels. She giggled at little at this observation – it would not be the case for long. Her new pet general followed a few steps behind her like a loyal pet dog. Every soldier along the DMZ was already under her mind control but she liked the feeling of power she got from having such a (formerly) powerful man as a servant.
With a mere thought she willed herself to grow a hundred meters tall. Camp buildings crumbled and soldiers were crushed under her expanding platform heels. Chanmi didn’t care in the slightest. What was she going to do, wait for a podium to be built? As if! Jimin had ordered her to reunify Korea before the rapper was done “making an example” of New York. She looked over the military force gathered at her feet. One way or another, this was going to be fun…
“Alright you guys” she addressed with child-like enthusiasm “do you know what your new mission is?”
“To serve you, Goddess Chanmi” they chanted in dull unison.
Chanmi couldn’t help but giggle. “That’s right! Now you know what I want. Get to work!”
With that, the soldiers gathered their gear and started marching – towards the border.
***
The North Korean soldiers couldn’t believe their eyes. They had been warned that the Americans might attack the Motherland soon, but they never expected this. American soldiers were charging across the DMZ in a massive human wave, with blatant disregard for casualties. Minefields took a deadly toll on the Americans, but still they kept coming. North Korean machine guns mowed them down like cattle to the slaughter.
They had always expected the Americans to attack with their advanced tanks and planes – not rush at the North’s defences like a pack of stampeding beasts. The North’s soldiers and officers were pleased at how their defences were holding up – and at the bloody havoc they were wreaking upon the Americans. They should have been elated, but something felt wrong.
And then, they started to hear the voice in their minds.
***
Chanmi floated above the North Korean lines. Her hundred-meter tall form was an easy target for the North Korean gunners, who saturated the air around her with all the ordinance they had. She could feel anti-aircraft shells, missiles, and tank rounds all harmlessly bouncing off of her catsuit. Nothing could even scratch a strand of her hair, much less harm her.
Almost all of the Americans were dead now, which freed up much of her mind control powers for the North Korean soldiers. It was all going according to plan. The Americans had cleared the minefields that separated the North and South, allowing her mind controlled South Korean troops to advance. The fact that the Americans had taken horrendous casualties was part of the plan – the Korean Empire was no place for foreign soldiers.
As she established her dominance over the North Korean soldiers and officers, she willed the Americans to make one final sacrifice. In unison, they pulled out their sidearms and pointed them at their own heads. With a thought, she commanded them to pull the trigger. “That’s the Americans taken care of.” She thought.
Now she turned her eyes towards the heart of the North Korean regime – Pyongyang. She thought about what would be the most fun way to make her entrance in style. She had an idea. She was going to play soldier – big time. She closed her eyes and began to swell in size.
***
Kim Il Sung Square was the heart of Pyongyang. It was filled with soldiers and civilians hurrying to and fro. News of the war was being broadcast over loudspeakers, along with propaganda exhorting the people of North Korea to greater feats of production for the war effort.
Abruptly, the stream of patriotic broadcasts ceased – replaced with… some sort of pop song? People looked around in confusion. “Surely this was some sort of capitalist mind-game?” many of them thought. In a way, they were right. AoA’s latest song was beyond catchy – it was imbued with mind-altering messages that compelled any mortal who heard it to obey the super group. Soldiers and civilians alike came to a halt, and turned towards the southern border. They were overwhelmed by the sight that greeted them. The first person to bow was a young man, on his way to his local recruitment office. Then, an older woman. Then, entire groups of people. Within a minute, millions of North Koreans were kowtowing before their new deity.
***
Chanmi was beyond huge. At 450 kilometres tall, her feet were planted on either side of the entire Korean peninsula. It was as if she was looking down at the world from a satellite. In fact, she was pretty much tall enough to swat satellites out of their orbits. The platform of her heels, usually about 5 centimetres tall, were now a majestic 13 kilometres thick. They rose out of the sea like black monoliths of leather. The heels themselves were twice as high, meaning that most planes struggled to even climb to the altitude of her heel.
It occurred to Chanmi that her shoes themselves were like gods to the little humans. The thought tickled the idol’s fancy. She made a note to herself in her perfect memory that one day, after this was all over, she should grow to this size again and force her subjects to worship her footwear. The thought of millions of tiny people bowed before her 25 kilometre tall shoes brought a smile to her angelic face.
She was snapped back to reality with pinpricks on the underside of her toe. The navy and air force of North Korea was currently throwing everything they had at her. She briefly wondered why they were targeting her toe. After all, that wasn’t any way to kill somebody. Then, she realized that the underside of her toe was the only area of her body that their weapons could reach. A chill of pleasure ran down her spine at the thought. She was so powerful, so massive, so dominant, that the weapons of an entire county couldn’t even scratch the skin on her feet.
She smiled as she looked down upon the Earth, arms akimbo. Her enhanced vision could see millions bowing and scraping before her. Her super-human hearing could hear chants of adoration and submission. The song was working as intended, but she knew that its effects weren’t permanent or guaranteed. Chanmi reached out with her mind, and scanned the thoughts of those below.
Then, without warning, she lifted her foot.
***
The people of North Korea gasped in amazement as their new goddess lifted her right foot. An entire naval flotilla was destroyed as seawater rushed into the gap left by Chanmi’s gargantuan shoe. Thousands of men died for the simplest of the pop star’s actions, and she barely noticed.
Seawater, silt, and debris streamed off the bottom of Chanmi’s black leather pump as she moved her foot to the north. Entire villages were buried under mud or washed away by cascades of water as her godly shoe flew north. The calamitous wave of debris had more or less ceased by the time Chanmi’s foot passed over Pyongyang, but the citizens of the capital were still terrified as her footwear blotted out the sun.
Millions of people prayed to Chanmi with even more fervour, hoping that their acts of devotion could persuade the goddess to spare them. Their goddess’s foot paused for a few seconds over Pyongyang, hovering menacingly over the entire city. Some people broke and tried to run outside of the area under her shoe. Some of the smarter ones made a dash for the area between the platform of her pump and its stiletto heel.
It was all for naught, as Chanmi’s divine leg started to move again, taking her heavenly foot even further north. The North Korean capital breathed a sigh of collective relief. They were safe – for now.
***
The youngest member of AoA knew exactly what here target was and where it was. The North Korean regime had evacuated its highest members to its most secure nuclear bunker, in the northern mountains. It was also where the North Korean nuclear arsenal was controlled and launched from. Chanmi knew that the nukes posed no threat to her, but didn’t want the idiots down there to wipe out the rest of her new toys in a desperate last strike.
She brought her foot down slowly, savouring the act of wiping out a pathetic challenger to her power. Suddenly, streaks of light rose up out of the mountains, towards the sole of her pump. They were nuclear missiles, the regime’s last ditch attempt to save itself. She closed her eyes as the missiles streaked upwards. In an instant, her mind probed the surrounding area and found a farmer in the mountains watching the event unfold. She observed from his perspective.
Her own shoe, humungous beyond the microscopic farmer’s comprehension, was not even completely visible. Even the treads of her sole were canyons that entire cities could be built – and lost – in. His mortal eyes could not even see the top of her shoe, but even he could see the missiles hurtling towards their target. Mere seconds later, he was blinded by five brilliant flashes of light in quick succession – the weapons had found their mark.
Chanmi retreated from the mind of her convenient lookout. He was useless to her, now that he was blind. The 450 kilometre tall titaness barely felt any heat from the warheads. She knew that she was utterly indestructible, but at the same time she was disappointed that humanity’s ultimate weapons had such miniscule effects on her shoe.
“Eh, whatever,” she thought to herself, “time to finish the job.”
She brought her stiletto heel down, with pinpoint accuracy, upon the command bunker that Kim Jung Un and his cohorts were cowering in. It was buried almost a kilometre under a mountain, but that was a trivial distance for her heel. The plastic monolith bored through the mountain, propelled by Chanmi’s infinitely powerful leg. What had taken an army of workers years to construct was no match for Chanmi’s stiletto. The mountain, violated by her shoe, did not offer any resistance.
No one in the bunker even had a chance to react before Chanmi’s heel ploughed through the entire compound, leaving a 200 metre hole in the mountain. She slowly withdrew her heel from the mountainside, admiring the neatness of the shaft she had dug with her shoe.
“Hmm, that was pretty fun, but I’m not sure if that was an impressive enough demonstration.” She mused to herself. “Ahh well, better be sure!”
With that thought, she lifted her foot high up into the sky and stomped down forcefully on the entire mountain range. Dozens of mountains, which had stood proudly for millions of years, were instantly compressed into bedrock. Hundreds of thousands of tiny people were wiped out in an instant, and the resulting earthquake was felt around the world.
Chanmi was now satisfied that she had made her point clear. She projected her voice into the minds of every Korean, relinquishing the mind control she held over them.
“I’m Chanmi, your new Empress!” Her incessantly cheerful voice boomed. “My sisters and I are now goddesses, and we will conquer the world! You’ve just seen what happens to people who fight us, but we promise you that if you serve us, you will live long, happy, lives as citizens of the Korean Empire. The inferior peoples of this world will be your slaves, just like how you’re our slaves now. What do you say?”
In unison, every man, woman, and child in Korea cheered her words.
The age of the Korean Empire had begun.