"You call thát singing?" the chief jury member asked cynically. "The bard of the Gauls can do that ten times better!"

The other two jury members, a young woman and a 30-year old pop star, laughed. Megan, however, did not.

She was the one the comments were directed at.

The 20- year old from Doncaster wanted to be a profession singer and had therefore applied as a candidate for the famous show "Britain seeks a pop star". However, what the show really sought was sensation rather than true talent, and did so by exposing and insulting those candidates that thought they could sing, but couldn't. The chief jury member, a 60-year old former popstar, was selected for his abusive and cynical comments, never shying from using them against talent-free would-be singers.

Like Megan.

She had just sang Amy McDonald's hit "This is the life", being sure that she was given the most desired sheet of paper to enter the recall, but instead she got nothing but laughter and insults.

"Your voice is as small as you are," the chief jury member said, with regard to the 5'1 height of Megan. "Every other candidate could put you right in their pocket!"

Laughter again. Megan still did not laugh. She just stood there, baffled at the stream of insults-disguisted-as-critics, while three running camera's were filming her.

"Geez, I don't want to be in your shoes," the 30-year old pop star said.

"No, your pinky toe won't fit in those!" the chief added, pointing to Megan's size 7 feet. Laughter. From three out of four people.

"I'd like to see your vocal cords," the young woman said, grinning. "And if I did, I doubt they look like the vocal cords of a singer," she added.

"You doubt?" Mr. Cynic asked. "I can be 1000% percent sure of that! No singer! Three times a "no" for you. Bye!"

Megan, however, did not leave. She pointed a finger at the chief jury member.

"You," she spat at him, "You didn't sing yourself on stage. Only playback. And now you ask from us to sing a song perfectly here? Idiot!"

With that, she left the building, sad and angry. Did she spend two hours in a train and six hours waiting in the studio for this? Singing two minutes and being turned down so quickly? Being insulted by that moron in the jury, who had indeed only sung in a music studio, recording his songs there, and then used the playback on stage? Megan was sad and pissed as she went back to the railroad station.

Oh, she had been so sure she could sing! That bastard! Making fun of her height! And her feet! And those two other idiots laughing! Megan was angry. Fuming.

She was sulking all the time travelling back home. When she arrived at Doncaster, it was already evening, though still daylight. It had been a sunny summer day, but now the sun was about to set. Megan had no eye for the beauty of the orange ball slowly moving towards the horizon. She was still angry.

As she walked over the pavement to her small apartment, she hardly noticed the child, about 10 years old, running up to her.

"Hi," the little girl said. "You look sad. Perhaps I can help you?"

Megan glanced briefly at her.

"No," she said and went on. The girl ran in front of her.

"Oh yes," she cheerfully exclaimed. "Well not me, but my master. He can do magic!"

"Listen girl," Megan said wearily, "I don't have time to play. It was a bad day and I want to go home."

"It's no game," the little girl said. "Come, he lives right here. And my name is Angela."

The little girl grabbed Megan's sleeve and pulled her towards the door of a common looking house.

"Hey, I don't... oh hell." Megan sighted. The day already had been miserable, so she could take this probably on top of it.

Megan was guided into a large room by Angela. Its walls were decorated with carpets in warm colors, orange, red and purple. Candles burned everywhere, even though the remaining daylight poured in from a nearby window. In the centre, a figure sat cross-legged on a heap of cushions.

"This is Master Hippolytus," Angela said, and quickly seated herself on a cushion next to him. Sitting cross-legged as well, she smiled cheerfully at Megan.

Hippolytus wore canary-yellow robes, a similar colored hood covered his eyes. A waterpipe-like object stood next to him, and he occasionally took a swig from a tube connected with it.

The room was furnished with shelves, holding all kinds of strange objects, and a large well-stocked bookcase. Another door was in the wall to Megan's right.

In front of the two strange figures stood an empty granite table. The man named Hippolytus gestured Megan to sit down on a cushion lying in front of it. Megan sat down, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

"Welcome, Megan." The man introduced as Master Hippolytus spoke. His voice sounded pleasant. "I am Hippolytus. Archmage. This is Angela, my apprentice. Can I offer you a drink?"

"Water, please, " Megan said, a bit uncertain and not realising the guy knew her name. Instead, she wondered what an "Archmage" was.

Hippolytus waved his hand, and a glass of water appeared out of nowhere on the table. Megan looked at it, but didn't dare to drink. She just stared at it. Nah! It didn't appear out of nowhere! This must have been a simple stage magician's trick, only to impress her.... Or was it?

"It's ordinary water. No poison. Just drink," Hippolytus said. He took another swig from the pipe. The tube he held was transparent, and it turned brown every time he did. Probably it was used to drink instead of smoke.

Megan reluctantly took a swig from the glass. Water it was.

"So, you have had a bad day?" Hippolytus asked.

"Yes," Megan answered. "You know what happened?"

"Yes," Hippolytus said. "Though I'm not clairvoyant. Magic and clairvoyancy are two different things." He pointed to a crystal orb, standing in a metallic holder behind him. It was the size of a volleyball.

"I can see whatever happens on Earth in that. Wherever it happens. I can't predict the future with it, however, contrary to popular belief."

"You can see everything in it?" Megan was baffled.

Hippolytus nodded. "I can use it as a TV too. Watch the news, shows and..."

"He sometimes uses it to watch the girl next door showering!" Angela cried out and laughed.

Hippolytus snapped his fingers, and a bucketload of water appearing out of nowhere splashed down on her. Dripping wet, she was quiet instantly.

"As I was saying," Hippolytus continued, "I know about you and your performance in London today. These casting shows are all the same, promising young people a lot and giving virtually nothing. But though I've seen you singing there, I'd like to hear it from you. Tell me please."

"Err," Megan was a bit overwhelmed by the sudden unvoluntary shower Angela got, but once she started talking, this feeling ebbed away. She spoke of her performance, how she dreamed of a life on stage, and how the jury insulted her. Especially about how frustrated she'd been when she was being ridiculed because of her height. Hippolytus listened intensely, while the damp Angela was sulking.

"Well," Hippolytus said, after Megan finished, "there is a way I may help you. But let me first explain a few things." Taking another swig, he started to speak:

"I am an Archmage, like I said. That is a master magic-user. The only one alive. Angela is my apprentice, becoming the next Archmage when my time has come. We live in hiding, because people would come to us to solve their problems all the time. We don't want that. Most people should solve their major and minor problems themselves. They have science and technology. Psychotheraphy. Families and friends. If you cannot use all that to solve a problem, you shouldn't come to us, either. It may sound hard, but that is our policy. No interference, only if necessary."

"You hide? Just like in Harry Potter?" Megan asked. It was all a bit surrealistic.

Hippolytus smiled. "Yes. But there are many differences, between the real arcane world and the one described in Harry Potter. Excellent books, yes. But there is no magic school. We are not even born with the ability to use magic, we learn it from a magic user. Apprenticeships, " Hippolytus said, pointing to Angela and drying her instantly with a small wave of his hand. "Chosen carefully. Angela here is a bright young orphan, though sometimes a bit cheeky...".

Angela kept quiet.

Megan watched the two with a frown and didn't know what to make of all this. Who was this guy? A lunatic?

"Everything that violates the most basic laws of nature, but happens nonetheless, might be magical," Hippolytus continued. "Or, as we always say: "If you could explain it, it would be science."

"He asked me to look for someone who is sad," Angela suddenly said. "I found you. Master wanted to show me something."

"Yes. A lesson for Angela, and help for you. Therefore, I'll give you this." Hippolytus added and conjured a silver amulet on a silken rope from his robes. "Watch, Angela."

Hippolytus put the silver object on the table and made some strange gestures over it, muttering some weird words while Megan and especially Angela watched intensely. Suddenly, the thing began to glow briefly. Hippolytus repeated the procedure, picked it up and gave it to Megan.

"It is charged with unspecified magic," he said. "you can, if you touch it with your skin, make one wish. Only one. But as often as you want. For example, you want money? You get money, each time you touch it and wish for it. You want to increase your strength? Each time you touch it, it'll make you stronger if you wish for it. But if you want money first, you cannot get more strength later."

Hippolytus took another swig from his pipe. Megan nodded. "I understand," she said. "But that is silver, right? I cannot afford to...".

"It's free," Hippolytus interrupted. "I can conjure up gold if I need money."

Megan was pleased to hear that. "Free" was her favorite price. She thanked both of them and put the amulet in her pocket.

Megan left the odd couple soon afterwards. On the street, she expected to be told that she had been on some kind of candid camera show, but no such thing happened. Going home in the dusk, she wondered whether or not she had been fooled.

The months passed. Summer made way for autumn, autumn for winter. Snow covered the streets and houses of Sheffield. Outside it froze, but inside her home, Megan was steaming. She had just seen the episode of "Britain seeks a pop star" in which she appeared. It was the last of the shows before the recall, then the candidates having gotten the desired "yes" from the jury would be further thinned out. All had been taped already, safe the live shows. As usual, it took a few months between the taping and the broadcast.

The show, Megan found out to her great dismay, had ridiculed her even more than she feared. First, they made her appear like a boaster, who thought she could sing well enough to be the winner of this year. Although she had been interviewed like most other candidates before her singing, she had actually never boasted of her singing skills. But with some clever cut and pasting of the footage, they had turned her answers into a boast. Second, the voice-over made snide comments as well, not only siding with the jury, but also attacking her personally.

"Yes little girl," the voice said, dripping with sarcasm, as she left the jury's room after her below average performance, "that is what you get when your mouth is too big for your tiny frame."

Megan was pissed. The cheek! That bloody bastards! She was angry! And she realised all of a sudden that she probably would be recognised on the streets now, and being laughed at by total strangers. It made her heart sink.

After Megan was shown leaving the audience room, angry back then as well, the program showed the jury debating her performance as well as the answer she gave the chief jury member in her anger. Apart from a few other disguised-as-feedback-insults, they accused her of being an unsportive person who wasn't able to cope with criticism.

"Ah well," the chief jury member said, sighing. "She still has a lot of growing-up to do... both literally and as a figure of speech."

Megan jumped up from her couch. That bastard! She had to refrain from throwing the TV out of the window. Her heart pounded and she was at the verge of screaming. How dare they! She turned the television off, vowing never to watch any program of that channel ever again. Then she cried.

After a while, sadness made room for another wave of anger. Oh, if she only could get those pigs! She'd show them. But how? If only she had stayed at home that day! First they let her wait a long time in the studio, after that she had been mocked before a running camera and later, back home, that strange conversation with that weirdo who claimed he was a mage or something....

Megan suddenly remembered the amulet that guy had given her. What did he say again? It granted one wish, and she could wish that, and that alone, over and over again. Yes, something like that.

Megan stood up and walked to a closet, where she had tossed the silver thing in a slide that day, not having looked at it again ever since and even almost forgotten it. The little girl retrieved it and, vaguely thinking she was more than a fool as ever before because she believed it worked, muttered "I want to grow...".

Nah, that was silly. Sad, she dropped the amulet on the floor. But something strange happened suddenly. The floor looked a bit further away. As Megan, baffled, looked around her, she startled. It was obvious....

She had grown! 

Megan quickly measured herself. To her surprise, she found out that she was now 5'4 instead of 5'1. A full three inches taller! And her clothes and flip-flops had grown as well she noticed. Megan picked up the amulet and held it in her hand. "Grow..." she thought, wanting to become taller. And yes, she grew again, clothes and all. Another measuring revealed she had gained another 4 inches.

Megan grinned. This was awesome! The young girl quickly pictured what she could do now to those morons of that abusive show. Rubbing her hands, she made her plans. First, she had to get back to London, to the studio where the last ten candidates would be preparing for the live shows now, even if it took a few months until the first one was broadcast. The, she would....

The next morning, after a night of planning several scenario's of taking revenge, Megan prepared her trip to London. To her delight, she had noticed her sturdy, black leather boots and winter jacket both immediately grew to fit her now 5'8 frame as soon as she tried to put them on. Quite a nice work of magic!

She had also put on dark sunglasses, so no one would recognise her (for the time being) as the tiny girl that made a fool out of herself on TV last night. But soon, London, the UK and all of the world would know her. Megan had vowed that to herself.

Before leaving, Megan glanced in the mirror. Her light-blue eyes were hidden behind the shades. Good, no one would know who she was. Her long, black, curly hair tied in a pony tail so it wouldn't be in her way. She smiled. Time to go!

The trip from Doncaster to London took a little more than 90 minutes, but for the excited Megan it seemed twice as long. She impatiently gazed out of the window, or tried to focus on the articles in the newspaper she had taken with her, but she was too distracted by her thoughts to enjoy the white, wintery landscape or to read anything.

Finally, she arrived at the capital. There, she took a subway to a relatively deserted subway station for the dramatic appearance she had in store for the city.

After her arrival there, the young woman dashed into a dark corner, and, seeing no one around, clutched the silver amulet she had tied around her neck like a necklace. She had, to her delight, noticed it grew with her too, just like her clothes. Megan took off her glasses, she wouldn't need them anymore and smiled, savouring the moment. It was time! Megan, clutching the amulet, closed her eyes.

"I want to grow into a giantess!" she muttered. And she did.



*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************



At first, the people on the street above the subway station felt a small tremor. After a second or two pause, the tremors intensified. Some of them thought with fear that it was an earthquake, but if they'd known what was causing it, they'd wish it had been one. What was about to come would be much, much worse.

KRRRRTTTT! The asphalt cracked with a thunderous rumble. The crack took the shape of a spider's web, and as it grew and grew, it toppled street lanterns and small, decorative trees. People began to panic, cars wobbled and a small newspaper stall collapsed as the crack in the street grew larger and larger.

With an even louder rumble, it burst open like an erupting volcano. Out of the ground, accompanied by dust clouds and falling chunks of rock and black tarmac, a huge figure rose. Its curly black hair full of white powder and dust, just like the dark blue, thick jacket it wore. And it smiled as it rose higher and higher.

The baffled people soon realised it was a young woman.

At least 50 feet tall!

And still she grew!

As the behemoth of a girl slowly stood upright, the street was level her knees, her now long and huge calves easily bridged the distance between the subway floor below and the surface above. The few people present at the subway station only saw a pair of gigantic black boots, followed by two large pillars covered in jeans cloth and dust from the broken and crumbled ceiling.

Boots and trousers slowly expanded as Megan gained more height. The black leather boots, tied together with laces which had become in the meantime as thick as cables, were already so large that they covered more than the entire waiting space for the passengers, hanging halfway over the rail track.

Too bad a subway train approached.

Too bad Megan's boots were tougher.

Though the subway was braking as the operator saw a large, black, leathery boot hanging over the track, it was too late to avoid a collision. The subway smashed into the boot, which was so massive that it didn't give way the slightest. The entire front car of the train folded like an accordion, as if it had hit a wall. People in it were all killed, the ones in the other cars injured, ranging from severe to light. Megan, having reached her desired height of 150 feet, didn't even feel the impact. She was too flabbergasted from the view from her height.

She was so gigantic! So big! The 20-year old would-be pop star gazed with delight over the houses surrounding her, seeing their snow-covered roofs like she was sitting in a helicopter. The giantess, for that was what she had become, caressed her amulet, now easily the size of a small billboard, and smiled. The TV producers and that pesky jury were about to pay!

Slowly, like an all-powerful demon emerging from hell, Megan stepped out of the subway station into the surface. One hundred and fifty feet tall, the 20 year old hardly needed to apply pressure to break through the subway's stony ceiling, since her strength had increased as well. As she stood on solid ground, Megan looked down. The multi-storey buildings were about shin-level with her, trees hardly reached her knees, cars were about half as long as her feet, while the people hardly reached the size of her pinky fingernail. Brushing the last of the debris from the subway station off, she began walking down the street, slowly, to add to the menace.

Megan didn't care where she stepped. If something or someone would get in her way and get squashed, too bad.

The giantess crushed cars under her heavy boots, their tiny frames crunching like rusty soda cans. Sometimes, she bent over a little and tore a tree out off the ground, holding its many-branched crown between her fingers and uprooting it with a quick twitch of her biceps. Megan deliberately crushed a newspaper stall or two under her feet, savouring the sensation as it surrendered to her immense weight.

Soon, a traffic pile had formed in front of her, since everybody tried to flee from this behemoth of a woman, not caring about the traffic rules any longer. Cars honked, people ran. As Megan approached the pile, she saw some of the tinies open the car doors and running away.

They were the smart ones.

Because the 150 foot Megan simply walked through the traffic pile, crushing scores of cars on her way to the TV studio. Dozens of cars were flattened within a few seconds, their puny metal frames squeezed together like in a car compactor and their windows shattered. Megan stepped on a few cars only partially, so that their front or back was flat but the rest relatively intact (not that it matted to their owners).

People inside were squashed and compacted along with their cars, for the giantess didn't care at all she was killing. Megan was the big girl now, and only what she wanted was important. Tinies stupid enough not to leave their puny cars and get out of her way were not worthy to take into account. So they were stepped on without an afterthought.

Megan looked down. How tiny everything was! Her black leather boots could cover the cars easily, like they were matchboxes. And the people... mites, that is what they were. Megan could hardly feel their puny bodies crush under her thick, rubber soles, but she saw the snow slowly turn red on either side of her feet.

Soon, she left the street and entered one of the main roads of London. The people there, having seen her head and shoulder tower over the buildings already, were now trying to get away from her. Like a swarm of termites, they wriggled in front of Megan's feet, screaming and cursing.

The giantess saw them and smiled. She had an idea.

Megan bent down over the mob. Her shadow eclipsed them menacingly.

"I want an ice-cream," she said. "You know what my favorite flavor is? Humans. Tiny, insignificant humans! Mmmm!"

With her enormous hands, each about 35 feet long, Megan scooped huge amounts of snow from the roofs of the houses surrounding her, not caring she took a few tiles along with it. Then she dropped the white, frozen mass on the mob, covering at least a dozen people. Before they could free themselves, Megan had scooped that snow up again and kneaded it into a snowball, smothering those inside or pressing them to mush between her enormous hands.

She repeated the procedure two times. Then she went to a nearby church, grabbed its spire and broke it off with a twitch of her biceps. Holding the spire upside down, it resembled an ice cone. Megan picked up the three snowballs, full of people, and place them on the spire, thus making herself a gruesome ice-cream.

The giantess admired her handiwork briefly before licking it. Her enormous tongue, moist with hot saliva, melted the snow and licked up the people, who were consumed like raisins. Those that were still alive would die soon as the couldn't survive the fall from her mouth into her stomach, and even if, the lack of air and the giantess' strong digestive fluids would make short work of them.

Megan, licking, continued her walk through London, stepping on cars, trees and people. Everything crunched nicely under her heavy leather boots, while the muddy snow again slowly turned red from the blood of countless squashed tinies.

Gazing around her, Megan didn't pay attention to the destruction on the ground. She didn't even feel it, as her boots' rubber soles were about 1,5 feet thick. Not even that double decker bus vanishing under her left foot with its red-lacquered metal squeaking was noticed. The young giantess was too occupied searching for the studio were undoubtedly the insulting jury and the candidates deemed fit for the live shows were.

As she finally spotted it, four city blocks lay in ruins, dotted with countless corpses, snapped trees and flattened cars and traffic signs. Megan, having finished her ice-cream, tossed the spire-cone away and walked straight to the large building, ploughing right through a row of houses and smashing her legs through a large flat, splattering the masonry and its tiny occupants like a sand castle being hit by a motorcycle. Megan didn't care. She had another thought. The time for revenge had finally come!

Megan stood in front of the studio, hands on her hips. With a mocking smile, she gazed down at the building, which was about chest-high with her.

"Boy, are you gonna pay," she said.

The giantess dug her large hands under its roof and gave a mighty shove. With a loud rumble, the roof broke loose. Megan let it slide off the other side, not caring it crumbled as it hit the ground and buried about three dozen cars under its debris, parked on the lot behind the studio.

Quickly, the giantess scanned the now roofless buildings' contents. Yes, there they were, the jury, a camera team and ten boys and girls, each more scared than the last. They all looked up at the enormous face of the young giantess, a frightening replacement of the spotlight-filled roof.

Megan crossed her arms on the wall she stood behind and smiled. Her large, blue eyes twinkled with pre-joy and her long, black, curly, pony-tail hung about 40 feet into the studio.

"Well, well, well. What a show we have here! Remember me? The little brat that can't sing? Even worse than the Gaul's bard?" she asked in the amused tone of someone who is about to take revenge once wronged.

"You call those talents?" she asked with a quick flick of her head in the direction of the 10 recall candidates. "These? These mites?"

Reaching into the building, Megan scooped about half of them up.

"They'd put me in their pockets you said? Ha! Its the other way around! Look! I can put them all in my pocket without much fuss!"

Megan let the 5 youngsters slide into the pocket of her jacket.

"I am the mega-talent here," she said. "I, Megan. No, Mega-N. That is who I am. Mega-N!"

Megan laughed and grabbed the rest of the now panicked candidates, who stood cowering in a corner of the studio. She put them in her pocket as well. It was already full, so Megan had to squeeze the rest of the people into it, crushing a few of their bones. After that, she closed it with the zipper, so they couldn't escape. Megan felt the ten youngsters wriggle in her pocket, unable to breathe or escape.

"I am the biggest singer in the world!" she exclaimed. "Also not just as a figure of speech! I put ten of the best candidates in the pocket of my jacket and no one can do anything about it! I am the best! I'm even better than you," she said to the frozen jury beneath her.

She grabbed the first jury member, the 30- year old pop star, between thumb and index finger and brought him up to her face. The man hung there, white as a sheet and wetting himself.

"Ah yes, you didn't want to be in my shoes you said? Right... well, what you want is of no interest to me. In my shoe you'll go!" Megan said.

With her free hand Megan tied the shoelaces of her boot loose and took it off. Holding the boot up high so the other two jury member could witness what she did, she dropped the guy inside.

A wave of hot, damp, sweaty air washed over the pop star. The pungent, vile odor of Megan's foot was nauseating. After a few breaths, his head swam and he became dizzy. This was hell! Being dropped in the dark, damp, smelly footwear of this... this....

Megan smiled and said: "Ooh, my foot is getting cold. Damn weather. I'll put my boot back on."

Agile as she was, Megan stretched her leg and placed it on the top of the wall. Although a few cracks appeared in the masonry, the wall was able to hold the weight of the giantess' leg. The two remaining jury members saw her huge foot and could smell it a little too. 

Not the scent of roses.

They briefly considered what their colleague had to go through inside Megan's smelly boot.

Grinning, she let her foot, clad in a pink cotton sock, slide into the boot. Doing so, she first deliberately pushed the pop star towards the boots' nose with her large toes. When he had reached it, the giantess simply crushed him to mush, as her gigantic, massive foot claimed all of the space inside. The man was crushed like an ant, splattered and smeared into nothingness. Megan hardly felt his compacting body, only a bit of moisture under her sole as she re-tied her laces.

"OK, and you?" Megan said, standing with both feet on the ground again and pointing towards the second jury member, the young woman.

"You think I am evil because I didn't grant this man his wish? Well, I am not evil. Let me show you. I'll grant you your wish. So, you wanted to see my vocal cords? All right then!"

Megan grabbed the panicked young woman, brought her up to her face and open her cavernous mouth. Slowly, she lowered the now screaming woman over to her gaping maw, savouring her fear of imminent death. After a few seconds, she let her drop in, closed her mouth and swallowed her whole.

The girl slid down Megan's slimy throat, unable to get a hold along its slippery surface. Her powerful digestive cord muscles, together with gravity, brought her down into the giantess' stomach quickly. There the young woman plunged into a puddle of acid and brownish, smelly, partially digested food. It were the remains of the people the giantess had consumed as an ice-cream.

Robbed of air in the hot contents of Megan's stomach she quickly passed out, soon to be reduced to nothing but a few bones. Her flesh would become part of the giantess' diet.

Meanwhile, Megan noticed that the wriggling inside her pocket had ended. The ten candidates had all suffocated. She took them out, gazed at their dead bodies and consumed them too. Paying attention that the remaining jury member watched, she ate them like bonbons, clothes and all.

"I devour my competitors like nothing! Ha, ha!" Megan said between two bites of candidate. With her laughing mouth far open, Megan let the remainder of the dead boys and girls, all about her age, fall into it. Grinning devilishly, she chewed them up, savouring their puny bodies crunching between her mighty teeth.

She felt mighty! Like a large animal on top of the food chain, she was boss, simply consuming whatever was thrown at her.

After her horrible meal, the 150 foot tall giantess grabbed the last of the three jury members, the abusive one. Holding him in her enormous hand she gazed at them, and he gazed back, frozen and sick with fear.

"For you my friend," she said, "I have a very nice plan. Heh, heh, heh."

Megan, with the remaining jury member in her hand, demolished the TV studio with ferocious kicks. But not before she saw the camera team trying to escape via a back door.

Swiftly, Megan ran towards it and squashed the entire team under her soles like insects as they wanted to leave.

Her kicks made short work of the studio. Stones and debris flew everywhere, smoke mulched out of the concrete as the giantess turned the building to rubble. When she was finished, she crushed the camera's lamps and other taping equipment like rotten plastics.

"Ah, no one will be made into a fool here any longer", Megan said as she savoured her work.

She turned towards the jury member in her hand, which she almost squeezed to mush during her demolishing, as she unconsciously made her hands into fists.

"You and I are going for a walk," she said.

On her way, Megan simply ploughed through the buildings, smashing them with her strong legs and heavy boots. Concrete crumbled like thin plaster as she swung her leg against it, glass and small rocks flew everywhere, masonry broke and crumbled with a loud thunder. Megan didn't care. For her, it was like walking in a toyland, all the small buildings were just there for her to be demolished.

The giantess knew where she was going. The living place of the jury member was an open secret, as he regularly showed journalists (working for the same TV station as he did) around his place. His large villa stood in a vast, park-like area. Century-old trees stood there as well, and everything was surrounded by a high metal fence.

The guy had made many millions with his singing, the popular TV show and praising this or that product in commercials, and he wanted to show it, as he was a narcist. And paranoid too, for the fence was electrically charged.

Megan crushed many buildings on her way towards it, just a little outside London. Large, multi-story shops made way for small houses, with crumbled nicely under her boots. Their roofs caved in, walls broke, occupants and furniture were pressed together under the huge mass of the 150 foot tall 20-year old.

As she arrived at the living space of her captive, Megan stepped on the fence, which was hardly an inch high to her. The electric current was nullified by the isolating properties of the rubber of her sole, the fence itself bent and flattened like made of thin rods.

Standing in front of his villa, Megan brought the frightened man up to her huge face.

"So, here we are. I have some growing up to do, hm? Well, as you see, I did. Even more than you anticipated, eh? Heh, heh."

Megan gazed down at the snow-covered building and treetops.

"Before I begin, let us make some room first," she said. "I am so happy today, I could tear trees out of the ground."

Holding the man in such a way that he could see what the giantess was doing, Megan grabbed the crown of a large oak with her other hand. She yanked it out of the ground with little effort. She tossed it casually away and grabbed another tree, this time a thick beech. It too was uprooted like a weed, rumbling and cracking as it was torn out of the earth. Megan repeated this procedure with every tree in the man's garden. The jury member had to witness with great pain in his heart how this behemoth of a girl simply destroyed trees that were centuries old, trees that stood there even before her great- grandfather was born, like they were worthless weeds! Tears ran down his cheeks as all of his beloved oaks and beeches were simply torn out of the ground.

"OK, and now lets wipe the snow from your roof," the giantess said after the last tree was gone and the garden looked like a patch full of large dirtholes.

Megan swept with her free hand over the roof of his house, but did it in such a way that she slashed part of the upper storey away. Tiles and pieces of the walls flew left and right as her large hand chopped at his home again and again.

"Oh, before I enter your house, I'll have to wipe my feet after all," Megan said.

She placed herself on the remains of the villa, which crumbled like hit by explosives as her vast mass and sturdy boots stood on it. Then she began to make sweeping motions with her feet. The villa, already demolished under her enormous weight, was broken and smashed into a layer of unrecognisable rubble as her big boots rubbed over it. Nothing remained intact, everything was totally obliterated. The walls, the windows, and the furniture, which consisted of antiques objects of art as well as expensive tables, closets and paintings. It was all destroyed under Megan's weight and soles.

"Ah, what a pathetic home. Even a little girl like me wiping her small feet destroys it! How sad...", Megan mocked the jury member.

Grinning, she dropped him in one of the holes where a tree stood. Megan unbuttoned her jeans and gazed on the tiny mite between her feet.

"Now I can't visit you. Pity. But at least you can let me use the bathroom!"

Pulling her trousers and underwear down, she crouched over the hole and began to pee. Her hot, stinking piss doused the jury member and turned the ground around him into slimy mud, slowly oozing all around him. Megan relieved herself of many gallons of acidic pee, almost drowning the abusive guy. It was utter humiliation for him.

Finished, Megan grinned as she dressed again.

"You are a worthless piece of slime", she said. "Do you want me to sing for you again? What would you like? Nelly Furtados' song "Maneater" perhaps? ha, ha!" Megan grinned as she saw utter fear in the jury members' face.

"you are a liar and a cheat," she continued. "Did you really think I didn't know this show of yours is nothing but fake? Even before the recall, it is already decided by the directors who'll win! And you, you go along with i for the money and to put yourself on the screen, you attention-sick bastard! But not anymore!"

With that, she shoved snow, with was quite a lot because of her enormous, 20 feet long hands, over the hole with the almost drowned jury member in it. The snow covered his body completely, save his muddy head. Megan kneeled and hummed the song she'd sung during her audition as she pressed the snow tightly around the jury member.

"Where're you gonna sleep tonight?" she sang loud, after she had finished burying the jury member, with a cynical nod towards his ruined house. 

As she saw his insulted expression, Megan smiled, stood up and picked up one of the trees she uprooted. The giantess tore the trees crown of and placed herself with the trunk before the guy's head.

"So, you like being rich, eh? And what do rich people do? They play golf! I can do that as well. Watch!" she said.

Megan struck the head of the jury member with the trunk. The blow was so forceful, it ripped his head clean of, and with a fountain of blood, it flew about a mile through the air before it landed in a small wood.

Megan dropped the trunk and smiled. Revenge at last! They wouldn't insult no one anymore, certainly not her, Mega-N! After having gazed on the now headless, buried body of the jury member, Megan wanted to leave. But as she turned around, she saw she had gotten company.

The army had arrived.

A squadron of infantry, accompanied by two helicopters, approached her. Without much fuss, both heli's shot a rocket at her. Swift as she was, Megan dodged one, but the second rocket hit her in the shoulder. It hurt, and although her thick jacket absorbed some of the damage, she felt she was bleeding.

"Aaaahh!" she cried. "Damn you!" She quickly moved sideward of the choppers, knowing the heli's wouldn't be as swift as her to turn.

Megan heard the soldiers firing their rifles and noticed small stings in her legs. The bullets couldn't hurt her seriously, but where painful nonetheless. As she saw the heli's preparing a second rocket to fire, she pressed her hand against the part of her jacket under which the amulet hung. As she felt its cold metal against her skin, she wished to grow further. And she did.

Megan shot up. To her delight, she noticed the pain in her shoulder lessened and finally disappear. Probably growing meant that flesh wounds healed as well.

Hands now on her hips and gazing down at the soldiers and helicopters with a devilish grin on her face, she expanded. The men and women down at her feet looked up at the 20-year old, their jaws dropping and unconsciously lowering their guns as they watched her grow and grow. Megan expanded to 200 feet, her big, black boots covering more and more ground. The edge of one boot hit a small tree she hadn't uprooted, as it only stood about 10 feet high, and now looked like a weed next to the giantess' big foot. As Megan gained more height, the tree bent slowly because of her expanding boot against it, until it hung at a 45 degrees angle. Then it cracked and fell, only to be steamrolled by the in the meantime 250 foot tall giantess.

Her menacing shadow, even though weak in the watery winter sun, slowly eclipsed the army, swallowing up more and more of them as a sight of impending doom. Megan was now so big, even the large helicopters looked like flying matchboxes compared to her and barely reached her knees. And still she grew.

The cloth of her jeans and jacket had become so thick that normal bullets would have a hard time piercing it, and even if, the impact on her skin would hardly be felt by the now 300 feet tall Megan. She grew slowly, to add to the effect of her becoming more and more powerful and testing the valor of the now ant-sized soldiers at her gigantic feet.

Megan's calves broadened, her frame expanded. As she got bigger and bigger, it looked like she was being zoomed in by a camera. Reaching 400 feet, the first soldiers began to panic.

"Oh my God!" "Good Heavens!" "This is horrible!"

Soldiers were at a loss for words to describe the growing creature before them. They saw her ever-expanding body and her huge face gazing down at them with an evil twinkle in her blue eyes.

Then it happened.

As if given an inaudible command, a few of the soldiers dropped their guns and made a run for it. Then a few more followed. And like every psychologist or general can tell you, if a few run, soon others will copy that behavior, like a chain reaction. Humans are still beings with a herd instinct. As Megan reached 500 feet, the army was a fleeing mob of green and brown clothed mites to her.

She decided this was big enough, stopped her growth and made a big -even for her size- step forward.

Her boot, now easily 70 feet long and 30 feet broad, covered six soldiers at once. Mercilessly, she lowered her entire weight, the countless tons of flesh, bone and cloth, on her boot. The soldiers never stood a chance. Megan's thick, rubbery sole pressed down on them, smacking their puny bodies to the cold ground. Before they felt any pain, the giantess squeezed the life out of them. Megan's vast mass broke every bone in their bodies and turned every organ to mush. The soldiers looked like frogs run over by a steamroller.

Another step. This time Megan caught five of them under her other boot. With sickening crunches their lives ended as well. Megan then stepped over a few soldiers, so that they could see her killing their comrades.

The witnesses saw how a large, leathery black boot descended quicker than one would expect in front of them, covering a few fleeing fellows, and finally simply crushing their bodies like they were vermin. One soldier accidentally ran into Megan's boot, not being able to stop his running in time. He hit the large rubbery sole and leather, stumbled back a few passes, only to see his friends lying squished into a layer on unrecognisable gore when the 500 feet tall giantess raised her foot. The man gazed at the bloody pandemonium for a few moments, then passed out.

Megan was so massive that she hadn't even felt the man bumping into her. She crushed and squished, slowly, sometimes trying to catch only half of a soldiers' body, so that only a pair of intact legs was seen sticking out from under her boot, ending in red mincemeat when she lifted it again.

With a kick, one of the heli's was splattered. As if made of cardboard, it broke into pieces, while its crew was instantly killed. The other heli fired another rocket, but Megan saw it coming and simply stepped out of its way. Then she bent down and clapped her hands with the heli between them together, as if it was an annoying gnat. The machine was flattened between her mighty palms with a thunderous clap.

Then she turned back towards the remaining fleeing soldiers. With two steps, she had overtaken them, crushing a few more in the process.

"What is the matter?" she boomed. "Don't you like my little boots? And they were so expensive! I extra asked for sturdy boots with thick soles, that could hold out a lot of punishment! Ha, ha!"

Megan smiled. Then she bent over and untied the laces of her boots and took them off, thus revealing her pink socks. She took those off as well. Doing so made the mingled corpse of the 30-year of pop star, which stuck to one of Megan's socks, fall down.

"Well, what about my cute little feet then? Do you like them?" she asked, wriggling her toes.

Smiling, she stepped deliberately on a few soldiers. They too were crushed, this time under relative soft female flesh. Their bodies disappeared under Megan's size 7 feet (at normal height that is), with pink fluff as big as a fist between the toes .One could hear their bodies break with soft cracking sounds under the giantess' naked foot, their blood and flesh oozing from between her toes and from under her slightly arched sole soon afterwards.

Megan lifted her big toe, revealing the leftovers of one soldier.

"Well now, do you like my cute little feet? Wouldn't you die to worship them? No? Then you'll just DIE!" she cried, stomping the leftovers of the small army like killing a bunch of ants having entered her kitchen. Soon, the entire squadron was wiped out.

Megan lifted up her bloodied soles and shook them, a few pieces of meat in army-colored cloth dropped from them as she did so. The giantess went to a nearby meadow and wiped her gargantuan, man-killing feet on the snowy grass, not caring much about the chill. She left brown and reddish smears on the meadow, having wiped the green grass away. Megan then put on her socks and boots again, and looked around her with her hands on her mighty hips.

She had quite a view over London! From her now 500 feet height Megan could see the Tower Bridge spanning the Thames, the Big Ben and Westminster Palace, Buckingham Palace, yes all the landmarks. So, this was the capital of her country? One of the most influential cities of the world? A mocking smile formed around Megan's face. It was nothing to her. A miniature city with problems and achievements that she stood literally far above. She, Mega-N, who could grow as big as she want! Yes, she liked that name. Mega-N! Mega-N the giantess! And that city down there dared to send soldiers to attack her? The insolence of these insects! They had to be taught a lesson. The proud capital of the insects had to be reduced to rubble beneath the unforgiving feet of Mega-N.

The now 500 foot tall Megan walked towards the centre of London. With each step she covered about 300 feet and crushed a few things. Cars, people, houses, she trod everything down unlucky enough to be in her path.

As she arrived in the centre, Megan began to demolish London without mercy or respect. Each building, each car and tree, each small bridge she saw was crushed under her enormous boots. Standing 500 feet tall, with boots that measured about 70 feet heel to toe and weighing countless tons, the 20-year old giantess could crunch and squish everything easily.

Quaint red double decker busses disappeared entirely under her feet, being pressed flatter than a 1-pence coin, driver, passengers and all. The police, the so-called bobbies, tried to keep the panicking inhabitants in check, but were unable to withhold the fleeing masses. Those that weren't overrun and crushed by their fellow people who tried to get away from the destroying giantess were crushed by the latter. Needless to say, Megan was far better in crushing people than the mob. Scores of people were squished by her, bobbies and all.

Hide Park got a special treatment. The snow-covered park was turned into a sandy wasteland as Megan's swept her heavy boots, left to right and back, over the ground. She uprooted trees, bulldozed grass and benches away, and turned the soil upside down.

Humming the song "London Bridge has Fallen Down," she smashed the famous Tower Bridge using her fists. Stones and iron flew everywhere, while the giantess was standing in the Thames, which hardly came up to her ankles. And since the boots she wore were water-proof, Megan didn't get soggy. The trapped people on the bridge, however, fell into the chilling waters of the Thames and would either freeze to death or drown. 

With an enormous punch, the giantess bored her hand through the Tower of Big Ben, grabbed the clock, tearing it out and holding it up to her gargantuan face between thumb and index finger. Megan laughed.

"Is that the Big Ben? I thought it was bigger. This little thing is hardly worth hanging on a Christmas tree, ha, ha!" she mocked the now tiny looking bell she held. Smiling, Megan tied the little gadget to a few strands of her long, dark brown hair.

It was a humiliation. This 20-year old first holding the Big Ben, which weighs more than 13 tons, just between two fingers first and now it dangled on her hair like an ornament! With the now ridiculed clock ringing as she moved, Megan walked further.

Ploughing a way through the Westminster Palace!

The yellow stones of the impressive building were smashed to pieces as the giantess crushed through them, as if treading down a sand castle. Dust and smoke flew everywhere, walls cracked and collapsed, windows shattered. Within ten seconds, nothing but a pile of smoking rubble was all that was left of the once-proud palace.

Megan bent down and tore the London Eye Ferris Wheel from the ground. Smiling she looked at it, but no one was inside. People had something better to do with a rampaging giantess around than riding the Ferris wheel. No problem for Megan. She snapped the tiny metal staves in the middle like dried twigs. Then she began playing with the London Eye like a Hula hoop. Twirling the wheel around her waist, Megan began singing again, this time Disney's song "It's a small world". Laughing, she let the london Eye drop, destroying a few buildings doing so, and went on.

Megan stomped her way through London, ending the dispute whether or not one could be considered a Cockney by crushing the St Mary-le-Bow church, and violently kicked the House of Parliament into oblivion.

The giantess arrived at Buckingham Palace. Mockingly looking down at it, she slowly walked forwards, deliberately crushing its walls as if in time lapse. The ancient, beautiful masonry crumbled under Megan's weight, the windows broke, smoke mulched from countless cracks.

Unknown to the giantess, the royal family had already been evacuated, but their properties were being destroyed. Objects of art, worth millions, ended under the huge boots of Megan as she ploughed her way through the palace. Like a huge, unstoppable steamroller, Megan left nothing, not a single piece of stone untouched.

As she finally demolished the last of Buckingham Palace, Megan halted. Standing on its leftovers, Megan looked blissfully around her. She could see the imprints of her feet, the ruins of the countless buildings inside them, smoke and dust everywhere. London's center laid in ruins, only a few sirens could be heard wailing.

"I am the new Queen!" she cried out. "From now on,you serve me! Mega-N! Or else, it squish-crush-squash for you!"

She sighted. Yes, this was power! Nothing could stop her! No army, no building, nothing! This amulet gave her, Mega-N, the power of a god, and she alone could use it....

Or?

Megan startled. These two magic users, or rather that Hippolytus guy, was the only person in the world that could defeat her. After all, he give her an amulet that made her grow,so why not cast a spell that made her shrink again? Or perhaps turn himself into an ever bigger giant, or that stupid brat of his, and get her?

Megan got scared. This was unacceptable! Something had to be done.

Megan felt the amulet on her skin. Yes, she needed that stupid wizard and that dumb pupil of his out of her way. But the trip to Doncaster was too long for her at her present height of 500 feet. So she needed to grow more. Much more.

"Grow...grow...GROW!!!" Megan cried. She wanted to be impossibly huge. So vast she could bridge the distance between London and Doncaster in a short time, like it'd be nothing but a stroll in a garden for her.

And up she shot. Megan's body began expanding in every direction. Her booted feet shoved away the debris she had made, then bulldozed entire still standing buildings aside as the 20-year old giantess gained more and more height. Megan grew and grew, her head reaching higher and higher up into the cloudy, wintery sky, until she felt the sun on her gigantic face.

Megan's head was now above the clouds, and while London under her was bulldozed flat, the meanwhile more than two mile tall giga- giantess didn't stop her growth. She wanted more!

The clouds sank along her body it seemed, as if made of heavy gas. But in truth it was her vast, expanding frame that shot up. Megan past the three-mile mark, then she reached four. All of London saw nothing but two black leather boots, growing, expanding, destroying. Entire city blocks were shoved in to the Thames, then the river itself was covered by an impossibly thick sole. The once-mighty Thames was dwarfed as it began flowing around the large rubber sole of Megan's boot, which kept getting bigger as she shot past 5 miles.

Megan grew and grew. She reached six miles, then seven. At eight miles, she stopped. It would be enough.

Her mile-and-a-half long feet, clad in truly behemoth boots, had destroyed large parts of London just by standing there. The entire historical centre, all monuments and century-old buildings were destroyed, turned to rubble and pressed into nothingness by a 20-year old, who had done nothing but standing still and grow.

Megan didn't care. She was a goddess now (at least after she had killed the two magic-users), and both literally and as a figure of speech above mere humans. Taking a deep breath that sucked millions of gallons of air into her gargantuan lungs, Megan bent her mighty head and blew.

The clouds were blown away like thin smoke. The remains of London were presented with a hurricane that caused huge damage, uprooting trees and blowing houses away like made of paper. Even the notorious London fog was immediately gone. And why? Because Megan wanted to know in which direction she needed to walk to get to Doncaster.

Looking around her, and trampling a large area of the unlucky city next to her gigantic feet as she turned to check the direction, Megan saw several landmarks she recognised. Yes, that was the right direction to go. Not wasting any time, the 8 mile tall would-be pop star went on her way, caring nothing about the remainder of London that ended under the soles of her boots, taking the leftovers of Buckingham Palace with her between the lines of her rubbery soles.

The 8 mile tall Megan stomped over Great (well from her point of view not so great) Britain's soil, blowing clouds away on occasion. Each step covered about 5 miles, and her unphantomable weight pounded the soil of poor Britain. Each of her mighty footfalls inflicted tremendous damage.

Entire villages were obliterated in a single step, as nothing was able to withstand the vast weight of the giga-giantess. Megan didn't even notice. The thick rubber of her boots, easily 300 feet thick, absorbed even the flattening of an entire hill.

The huge earthquakes caused by her steps turned the area around her truly gargantuan black boots into a barren wasteland. Grasslands and entire forests leapt up from the enormous shock waves, the countless, uprooted plants flew for a few moments through the air before landing on the tormented ground, which afterwards looked like a thoroughly ploughed field. Entire acres dotted with countless green pine-trees, the snow on their branches already fallen off because of the first, lighter tremors announcing the giga-giantess' approach, turned into a barren no-mans land within seconds. Even if the giga-giantess didn't step on the uprooted green, even if she walked a dozen miles past them, the gigantic vibrations left not a single plant untouched. Everything was torn from the ground by ripples sent through the earth. The trees Megan did step on where crushed into unrecognisable pulp, pressed deep into the ground. Even the biggest, sturdiest of oaks, some of which stood for centuries like the ones in the chief jury member's garden, cracked like dried twigs under her ultra heavy boots.

The villages and cities in Megan's way fared no better. The puny masonry was no match for the ripples her walking caused. Walls cracked and collapsed by the thousands, buildings were literally vibrated apart, streets burst open. Megan destroyed the landscape, leaving nothing but lifeless rubble in her path.

The city of Bedford was already turned to ruins even before she came near. Unknowingly, for Megan hardly gazed at the puny results of mankind's' toil at her feet, she crushed the leftovers of the city under one of her boots, leaving a deep footprint in the ground which slowly filled with the waters of the Great Ouse.

Nottingham, Sheffield and even Manchester suffered severe damage, as the tremors of her footfalls send deadly shock waves many miles from where she stepped down. Megan walked and walked, crushed and crushed. Farms, forests, hills and the aforementioned settlements, it all ended flat and dead under her soles.

The 8 mile tall behemoth focussed in front of her, blowing clouds away on occasion, her light blue eyes scanning the ground for landmarks indicating she still was on the right way to Doncaster. The about 160 miles where of course nothing for a giantess measuring 8 miles, for each of her steps covered about 5 miles, making it just like a walk towards the corner of the street for her. But Megan had to look carefully to see if she was still walking in the right direction. From her height, rivers looked like small, glittering threads, the leftovers of cities where like yellow crumbs of sand in the white, snow-covered landscape, and even the landmarks of large cities, like the famous cathedral of Nottingham, was reduced to rubble even before she could come near it. Megan found that out as she approached the large patch of smoldering ruins that was Nottingham.

She turned away, crushing the leftovers of the famous Nottingham Forest under her boots, and looked for another clue.

The Trent River. She knew it runs vertically in the direction of Scunthorpe. Doncaster lies a few miles west of it. Megan remembered that from school. And she quickly spotted the river. Smiling, the titaness turned left.

In the vast distance, she saw another patch, relatively undisturbed (yet, she thought), realised it had to be Doncaster. Megan knew that somewhere down there, the two magic-users had to be. The only serious threat to her. Megan took a few steps backwards, then made a run and jumped through the air in the direction of Doncaster, causing a huge hurricane in her wake that sucked countless tons of snow and dust from the ground and setting a world record in Long Jump that would never be broken. With her 1,5 mile long feet together, she landed squarely in the city.

As soon as her feet touched it, there was a brilliant flash of light.

EPILOGUE

Angela and looked out of the window. Megan passed by, annoyed, sad, lost in thought. Soon, she was out of sight. No visit. No amulet. No growth, destruction, whatever else.

"Now," Hippolytus said. "This was a very important lesson for you. Tell me, did you learn something?"

Angela thought a moment. Then she said: "We should take care not to be harmed by our own magic."

"Right!" Hippolytus said, pleased. Angela was a bright young girl. A bit cheeky perhaps, but sure to become a worthy Archmage one day.

"We would have died had she landed on Doncaster," Hippolytus said. "So, I had to use a safety measure. When I cast the spell, I made sure the moment she would have killed us, killed by my own spell, time would jump back to about 10 minutes before the moment she passed by here. That was the second spell I cast, remember? Megan has walked past our home by now, and will live her life oblivious of our existence. I didn't tell you to go down and fetch her, unlike the first time."

"Like in a computer game!" Angela exclaimed. "I save the game. And when I continue playing and things go wrong, I restore the game and can do something different. Only I know what would happen otherwise!"

Hippolytus was impressed. Angela was very bright. The safety spell worked exactly like that. Only he and Angela knew what would have happened if Megan had been given the amulet. The rest of mankind didn't. And never would. No destruction. No killings. Nothing. Half a year later, Megan would see the episode and get annoyed, but unable to take whatever revenge she thought of.

Angela, had watched Megan's rampage in the crystal orb with tears in her eyes. She turned towards Hippolytus.

"Master?" she said. "Why didn't you just tell me this? I mean, seeing Megan kill and destroy everything was shocking. I was afraid and nervous. Why did I have to watch all this?"

Hippolytus smiled. He remembered when he, as an apprentice, had learned the same lesson from his master. It hadn't been less shocking.

"If I just told you, you'd forget in a day. Now, having seen the shocking images of a rampaging giantess, you'll remember for the rest of your life that if you give someone a magical item, grant somebody a wish, always take safety measures. The best lesson is the one that makes the greatest impression."

"Master?" Angela said after a while.

"Yes?"

"There are days when I really hate you. I'd like to summon a demon and sent it after you."

"Good!" Hippolytus replied. "We'll practise that tomorrow!"


THE END