Prologue

 
“This plan is plain stupid” Telara said, her two right fists raised and joined in a typical and somewhat forced expression of frustration.
 
On the other side of the large oblong table, Antara twisted her lip as she looked at her longtime rival with non-feigned disdain.
 
“Perhaps Councilor Telara would care to explain the reasons for her assessment?” Antara said. “That is, if she has any”
 
“Do I need to?” Telara said, opening her bottom arms as she kept the top ones crossed. “I think that it should be rather obvious to the council”
 
There were mixed reactions in the table. Some clearly sided with Telara, while everyone on Antara’s faction made an effort to look as scorned as their leader. At the top of the table, the Overseer remained silent, unmoving.
 
“Perhaps…” someone started from the far side of the table. “Perhaps, rather than discussing the effectiveness of different plans we should take a step back and evaluate if we need any plans to start with? Why shouldn’t we leave the humans alone?”
 
The Overseer raised her bottom right hand and everyone else knew better than to say anything. They just waited for her to start speaking with a soft voice that nonetheless carried to every spot on the large table.
 
“That is not an option, Councilor Nayara, and you know it. Ignoring the threat humans pose to our race would be unacceptable negligence. They need to be stopped. The Council has already voted on this several times, and our position is clear”
 
Nayara frowned.
 
“My faction has already presented enough evidence to prove that the Council is overestimating the threat posed by humans” she said.
 
It was not the Overseer who replied, this time. A quite more excited councilor stood up and used a louder than usual tone to address Nayara:
 
“Your proof just shows what you want it to show, Councilor. This Council has gone over it many more times than it should have been necessary. Your faction and you can continue to conveniently ignore the reports from the Board, but this Council cannot ignore the fact that humans are predicted to start the colonization of other planets in less than a century. And that once they spread in multiple start systems, any attempts at stopping their progress will be useless”
 
“It should have taken them considerably longer. If only someone had not given them nuclear energy…” Antara said in a sarcastic tone.
 
Telara stood up, clearly upset at the comment.
 
“Humans have used nuclear weapons against themselves multiple times, and they have been close to use them in mass scale several others” she said.
 
Antara’s ears moved in a typical sign of mockery as she replied:
 
“Only they have not. And they have enjoyed nuclear energy for over fifty years. And gained an understanding of the atom that they should not have reached for another two centuries. Without nuclear energy, humans would not even be dreaming of long distance space travel, right now”
 
“You can mock me as much as you want, but there are nuclear weapons in the hands of more humans every year. It is just a matter of time before they use them” Telara said.
 
“Councilor, your faith that your plan will eventually succeed is disheartening, honestly. Does the Councilor need me to remind the basic rules of socio-history for her?” Antara asked.
 
Telara was visibly pissed off. She could have killed her with her look. Still, she managed to hold off and muttered between teeth:
 
“Perhaps the Councilor would be so kind as to enlighten me and the Council?” Then, she added: “And maybe the Councilor could also enlighten us on why the plan being proposed today does not suffer from the same flaws”
 
“I am grateful for the chance to provide some more details on my plan” Antara said. “Especially considering how it has been so promptly disregarded by some Councilors without having them. Regarding our previous lack of success, I just wanted to point out that a basic socio-historic analysis would have predicted the current situation with significant accuracy”
 
Antara stood up before going ahead with the explanation. She knew she had the attention of the Council. She was surprised at how clumsy Telara had been, giving her the chance to rip her plans in front of the rest of Councilors. Basic courtesy rules in the Council would have prevented her to discuss old settled matters in any other situation.
 
“Much like us and much unlike any other sentient species we have found so far, humans lack a hive mind or anything even remotely close to it. And with their home planet as populated as it is, there are enough individuals so that socio-historical probability equations can predict outcomes with very high accuracy. Nuclear energy definitely has the potential of destroying humanity. The flaw in your plan, Councilor, is that in order for this to happen, you need a significant number of humans to use it with destructive purposes. You incorrectly assumed that human nature would be enough for this to happen. The problem is that you analyzed human nature in an individual way and extrapolated your results to the entire population. And while individual humans are definitely capable of using nuclear weapons to kill those other individuals they consider their enemies, no human faction will take action that will result in its own destruction. You tried to overcome that by making sure that different human factions would have access to nuclear weapons, expecting mutual destruction as a result. Instead, you just created a deterrent for each of these factions to use their weapons on the other. Giving nuclear weapons just to one of the factions would not have granted any better results, though. In that scenario, that faction would have easily prevailed, joined humanity under a single rule and kept on the path of evolution that would have eventually led to inter-stellar expansion. In both cases, humanity gets nuclear energy as a prize, accelerating their scientific progress significantly. Any socio-history specialist with a bit of talent would have been able to run the equations for you and anticipate these conclusions”
 
There were some murmurs all around the table as Telara looked at her rival with fire in her eyes. She was about to speak when another councilor spoke up.
 
“We are always limiting ourselves. Humans are the most serious threat we’ve found since the War. Direct intervention is justified!”
 
Everyone shut up when the Overseer raised her hand again.
 
“It’s not for us to question Scripture. We ignored it once and the War almost finished our species. It won’t be ignored again”
 
Then, the Overseer stood up. Everyone else did almost at the same time. She said:
 
“We shall not be known”
 
The rest of the Council repeated the first rule in the Scripture in unison:
 
“We shall not be known”
 
When everyone had sat down again, Councilor Telara raised a hand and when she had everyone’s attention, she said:
 
“I thank Councilor Antara for sharing her conclusions with this Council. I do not necessarily agree with them, especially considering that similar courses of action have proven effective in several other occasions. Nonetheless, I admit that the Councilor’s analysis has merit and I wanted to inquire on the reasons why the plan the Councilor has presented today would not be affected by the same problems, in the Councilor’s opinion”
 
Antara stood up. Could Telara really be so stupid? She was serving her victory in a silver platter. Looking at both sides in a dignified way, she opened her four arms and said:
 
“With pleasure, Councilor. The foundation of my plan is simple; the analysis on what’s needed in order to stop human progress is not. Our objective is clear: we need to make sure that humans stay confined in their planet and that any progress towards space exploration or travel is stopped. And our rules require that they do that by themselves. Our attempts so far have been unsuccessful, and the basic reason behind has always been the same. There are too many humans and they all have individual thought processes. The plans that we have tried to implement can be basically be classified in two groups: giving them the tools to destroy themselves or helping the wrong individuals to rise to positions of power. Plans based on giving them weapons have all failed for the same reasons nuclear energy was unsuccessful. Plans trying to affect their social organization have failed because human society is so fragmented that no single leader can have enough momentum to deviate it from its progress course in a sustained way. Bad leaders will eventually get replaced or human factions with incompetent leaders will eventually be overridden by other human factions with more competent ones. This has happened all through human history. Some plans have tried to make the wrong people rise and to give their faction the necessary tools, but once more, the complexity of human social organizations has made these attempts short lived, as leaders have been overthrown by their own factions and tools have ended spreading to the rest of humanity”
 
Antara stopped a moment for everyone to understand what she had said so far.
 
“Once this conclusion has been reached, my plan is simple. Our rules require humans to stall or destroy themselves. But their self-preservation instinct and their social complexity will prevent them from that. There is only one solution: to choose the right individual and to give her the tools to prevail over the rest of humanity by herself. Only by doing this we can ensure that social complexity will not bring our chosen individual down and that human self-preservation instinct will not refrain her from taking any action. My plan has this into account and because of this, my plan is the first real chance we have at stopping human progress”
 
Antara smiled and then sat down. Councilors from her faction started clapping. She enjoyed the general looks of approval from the Council, even from some of the members of Telara’s faction. Telara herself looked both confused and angry. When Antara saw her rival standing up and realized that she was going to speak while still considerably upset, she could not prevent a smile.
 
“Your words sound appealing, Councilor. But still, a quick read of your plan is enough to realize how ridiculous it is. Our species has always prided in stealth and discretion, yet what you propose is… obscene!”
 
Antara did not care to stand up this time. She just dismissed Telara’s criticism with a wave of her bottom right hand and said:
 
“If the Councilor cared to read the operational details on my plan and the detailed reports in Appendixes A and B, I would be happy to discuss them with her. In the meantime, I would hate to waste the time of the rest of the Councilors who have obviously read the plan in its entirety”
 
Telara was to stand up again when the Overseer raised a hand and everyone shut up.
 
“There has been enough discussion. We will put Councilor Antara’s plan to a vote”
 
A minute later, the plan was approved by an overwhelming majority and Antara was being congratulated by several Councilors as Telara and a reduced group from her faction left the Council chambers, visibly upset.

 

Chapter 1

 
“Rumor has it that you got the entire Council at your feet, this morning” Quo said.
 
“They bought the plan. Telara was clumsier than usual” Antara said.
 
“She has never been the brightest member of the Council” Quo said.
 
“No, but she is cunning in her way. I caught her unprepared today, but she is far from done. We don’t have so much margin” Antara said.
 
“The plan will work” Quo said.
 
“It should better work. If it doesn’t, I will fall. And I will not fall alone” Antara said.
 
“How much margin do you think we have?” Quo said.
 
“About 10 human years” Antara said.
 
“That should be enough” Quo replied.
 
“It better be. We only have one chance, though. It we fail the first time, Telara will make sure that the plan is cancelled” Antara said.
 
“It will work. It’s just a matter of finding the right individual” Quo said.
 
Antara looked at the liquid panels all around Quo’s office. She stopped at the image of some kind of giant lizard.
 
“You know, Quo. Your plan makes complete sense, but I never understood your passion about human’s popular culture”
 
“It’s incredibly funny, once you get to understand humans. And it has grown exponentially over the last fifty years. The first couple of centuries were a little more boring. I have to admit that part of the plan was inspired just by my interest for it. But it actually makes a lot of sense to use it for our purposes. The more we rely on things humans themselves had already imagined, the better. And it will fit Scripture better, as well”
 
“I never thought you were such a devote of Scripture” Antara said, sounding mildly sarcastic.
 
“I’m not. But until someone realizes that it’s stalling our progress, I guess I need to look as devote as possible” Quo said.
 
“In the wrong ears, these words would be considered blasphemy” Antara said.
 
“That’s why I chose yours”
 
“If the plan works, I may be able to leverage it to get into a position where I can do something to address your concerns about the future of our species” Antara said.
 
“It will work” Quo said confidently.
 
“I hope you are right. You know I agree on your conclusions, and I actually bet my political future on them”
 
“Don’t worry, Councilor. We have everything we need. Now, we just need to find the right individual”
 
 
 
 
“Not so fast, Laura. I don’t have your long legs!” Stacy protested as Laura made her way to the Widow’s peak at a speed she could not match.
 
“Sorry shorty. Are your boobs too much of a burden?” Laura said with a giggle, but she slowed her pace down anyway.
 
“I don’t understand the rush. We come here every other week” Stacy said.
 
“It’s still the best view of the valley” Laura said as she finally set foot on the peak and looked both ways.
 
Stacy finally caught up.
 
“Why do they call it Widow’s peak?” she asked.
 
“The path from the north is significantly more dangerous than the one we took. You don’t need to worry about it, anyway” Laura said.
 
“You are about to take that path” Stacy protested
“Yep, but since we will never be allowed to marry, you will never be at risk of becoming a widow” Laura said.
 
“It’s not funny” Stacy said.
 
“What? The fact that I might die or the fact that we live in a state that still cannot accept that two women may love each other and might want to spend the rest of their life together?” Laura asked.
 
“I was referring to the first… our politicians might still decide one day that letting us marry will not bring society down” Stacy said.
 
“Highly doubtful” Laura said, shrugging.
 
“I see you don’t put too much trust in the system” Stacy said, knowing the answer perfectly well.
 
Laura pointed to her left. Stacy looked in the direction of Emerald. Their city was covered by a pretty noticeable dark cloud.
 
“See that? Everyone knows what causes it, right? We know that we are killing the planet and that we are killing our health in the process. And are we doing anything about it? We are not, and just because there are too many people that need to sell cars, that need to sell oil and that need to sell plenty of other stuff that is fucking our environment at the speed of lighting. Our system has produced that and our system is protecting that. And our system entertains itself by fostering stupid debates on whether people should have the same rights or not based on their sexual preferences instead of discussing if it’s fair that half of the world is hungry while the other half is throwing food to the dumpster every day” Laura said.
 
“When you put it like that I almost feel like spending my days in a Buddhist temple” Stacy said.
 
“Religion… as if it were the solution” Laura said.
 
“I was just joking!” Stacy protested cheerfully. “There do not seem to be many solutions around” Stacy said. “Well, not at least until you manage to make yourself a thousand feet tall” she added in a joking tone.
 
Laura tensed. Stacy noticed.
 
“I wouldn’t mind it, you know?” Stacy said.
 
Laura looked at her questioningly.
 
“I’d much rather be ruled by a giant you than by the bunch of incompetents we have now”
 
“I wasn’t sure if I had freaked you out” Laura said. “I had been wanting to tell you for a while”
 
“Look Laura, it’s the first time I go out with someone with plans for world domination but you know what? They suit you well” Stacy said.
 
Laura looked at her once more. Stacy smiled and replied to the implicit question:
 
“You are a natural leader. You have the attitude. And you have the right ideas. The world would be better under your rule. I’d miss you, of course, but I should not get in the way of a brighter future for the world, should I?” Stacy asked.
 
“I would not mind having you with me” Laura offered.
 
Stacy waved her hand.
 
“Oh, no. Giant size would not suit me too well, I’m afraid” she said cheerfully. “I’m naturally clumsy; my feet would end up crushing someone sooner rather than later and I would not be able to stop whining about it from then onwards. I guess that being a giant is as much of an attitude as it is of a size. I don’t have it. You do” Stacy completed her sentence.
 
“So, that did not freak you out either” Laura said, serious.
 
“Let’s just say that if anyone needs to get gigantic, I’d want that someone to have your attitude. No one would want a thousand-foot-tall candy-ass, which is what I would be, but neither would I want a loon or a psycho. Stuff would get crushed. The world would need someone that could live with it without crushing any more stuff than needed” Stacy said.
 
“The argument, of course, would be about how much stuff really needed crushing” Laura said.
 
“I’d trust your judgment there over everyone else’s” Stacy said.
 
“Any particular reason?” Laura asked.
 
“Well, to start with, you’ve put more thought on this than anyone else. And you are a reasonable person. And I guess that’s it” Stacy finished, smiling.
 
“I might let myself get carried away” Laura said.
 
“I would slap you in your cute butt if you did” Stacy replied.
 
“You’d be barely the size of my pinkie’s fingernail. I doubt I’d notice” Laura replied in a joking voice.
 
“Oh, no matter how much bigger than me you were, you would not dare ignore me, Laura Anderson”
 
 
 
 
Antara’s tridimensional projection filled the chair in front of Quo. She was not surprised that she looked so real despite the fact that she was dozens of light years away. FTL communications had been considered a given by their species for centuries.
 
“We are still looking for the candidate” Quo said.
 
“You have been there eight years already” Antara said in a displeased tone.
 
“Are you getting pressure from the Council?” Quo asked.
 
“Not yet. But Telara won’t wait too long to make her move” Antara said.
 
“Everything is ready, councilor. We just need to find the right individual” Quo said.
 
“There are six billion humans. It cannot be so hard!” Antara protested.
 
“We have found more than a thousand subjects with good profiles” Quo said.
 
“Then, what are you waiting for?”  Antara asked, surprised.
 
“We still have some margin. I’m waiting for the perfect match” Quo said.
 
“A thousand good candidates, you say? For the sake of Scripture! You are the scientist here. You know there is not such a thing as the perfect match!” Antara said.
 
“I’m sure we can find a better profile, that’s all. Let me know when the pressure is too high and I’ll execute” Quo said, sounding very neutral.
 
“You know, Quo, making my life easy should be part of your objectives, if you want to make the most out of this assignment” Antara said.
 
“I understand, Councilor” Quo said before the projection faded out.
 
The call ended and she turned back to his main console. Making a gesture with her hand, the movie resumed. She really enjoyed human popular culture. Humans were, by far, the most interesting sentient species she had had the chance to study in her long career.
 
Quo had managed to be assigned to lead the mission. Antara had seen to that. This would grant her first-hand feedback on the results she was so eager to see. And it had also given her a few years to take a very close look at humanity from a cloaked ship in geostationary orbit. This had allowed her to progress enormously in her analysis of the human species and when she was back she would very likely publish work that could grant her a permanent membership of the Board of Xenology. She had delayed the selection of the candidate for as long as she had been able to have more time for her research. She was quite done, by now, so it would not be too much of a problem to get to action with any of the suitable candidates already on her list.
 
She took her note pad and thought to it:
 
“A close examination of human societies proves all the hypothesis pointing to clear male domination right. The female role in society has grown in importance, but males have managed to keep the balance of power through less obvious but equally effective means. This represents a real unique case among the sentient species identified so far, where the predominant role of females was obvious, both in hive-minded species, where females were the only sentient beings, and in individualistic species like ours, where the secondary role of males and their main use for reproduction is clear.
 
In the human species, males have managed to stay in power throughout history by means of slightly superior physical strength, and as their societies have become more complex, they have found ways to keep in power through social convention. The case of mainstream religions is especially clear, in this sense”
 
The access lid to her chambers chimed. She waved it open.
 
“We found another match, director” the aide said.
 
“Send the profile to my console” Quo replied.
 
The aide waved the information in the direction of her screen. Quo gave it a quick look and said:
 
“98 per cent. Not bad. Discard it as ‘no match’”
 
Her aide did not look surprised. It was not the first time they had this conversation. That was the reason she had gone to her chambers before updating the central system.
 
“The best profiles we’ve found are males” the aide just said. She had a good enough relationship with the director to be able to speak her mind.
 
“Social and historical conditioning” Quo stated.
 
“We shouldn’t care, should we?” the aide said. “A male could serve our purpose well enough” she added.
 
“A male would be fine for our primary mission, Laya, sure. But I’m trying to get a bit more accomplished, here”
 
“I might be able to serve you better if I had full access to your plans, director” Laya said politely.
 
It was the first time she had been so direct. Quo was expecting it. Laya was loyal and efficient, but she had been trained to be a scientist, and this meant that she could not prevent having questions when things were not clear.
 
“Do you have time?” Quo asked.
 
Laya seemed not to believe her director’s answer. When her two left arms pointed to the chair that materialized in the pit she was sitting in, she knew she was serious. She sat, obviously eager to listen to her director’s plans. Quo was fond of Laya; she would enjoy sharing her plans too.
 
 
 
 
“Are you sure you are going to find your way back?” Laura asked
 
“Sure, the trek was easy enough so far. Are you sure you want to go on yourself?” Stacy asked.
 
“I need to. I’ve not been in the lake for too long. I miss it” Laura said.
 
“You really are a tree-hugger. And you are even willing to take a path that has been given 5 danger stars in all hiking guides just to get a “nice view”. Just for the record: that scares me more than your dreams of world-domination”
 
“Bitch” Laura said, smirking.
 
“Anyway, be careful where you sleep. I’d like to have a full girlfriend when you’re back” Stacy said.
 
“I’ll see you home tomorrow”
 
 
 
 
“It’s… surprising” Laya said.
 
“She’s perfect” Quo replied.
 
“Well, she’s a female” Laya said.
 
“She’s much more than that. She is the ideal candidate. I don’t care what the computer says, she’s a 100% match”
 
“Out of curiosity, what makes her better than the females that wanted to become as strong as that ‘Superman’? There were a few of those” Laya asked.
 
“Superpowers are not enough guarantee. They give the person the ability to do as she pleases, but also the ability to keep anonymous. To the naked eye, a superwoman would not be different from a regular woman. She could lead a normal life, using her powers only to get her objectives accomplished when she needed them, no matter if she is good or evil. As a matter of fact, if a woman were inclined to make her powers known to the rest of the world right away, it would probably imply that her attitude towards them would be destructive enough to pose a threat to the planet” Quo said.
 
“I don’t think the council would complain about that” Laya said, smiling.
 
“The council is short sighted. Humans are the first sentient species without a hive mind we find. They may be a threat, true, but they are also a great opportunity. Why destroy them when we can simply neutralize them, study them and use them, whenever someone decides to change those ridiculous precepts in Scripture?” Quo said.
 
“You convinced me already on this, director” Laya said.
 
“Whoever we choose must have a very fine balance between the will for power and domination and the will to preserve the species and its societies. This subject does. She has the potential to seize power, to refocus human efforts to purposes other than expansion and to keep the status quo for many generations to come” Quo said.
 
“But her particular choice of power… becoming hundreds of times larger than a regular human… it’s weird, director” Laya said.
 
“It’s not so unnatural when you analyze human evolution. No matter how complex their societies might have got, humanity has traditionally based its politics on strength, and for a very long time, physical size was the best representation of physical strength. It’s natural for someone who craves for power to desire becoming much bigger as a means to achieve it” Quo stated.
 
“There was a large number of subjects that simply wished to become stronger. Super-strong” Laya said.
 
“I see you really liked that particular possibility” Quo said with a smile. “The size increase is much more convenient for our needs. Once we turn her as big as she wishes she will be forced to act and the rest of the world will be forced to acknowledge her presence. Results will be immediate. A super-powered human does not offer these guarantees”
 
“One could argue that the risks will also be higher, since the consequences of her presence are more obvious” Laya said.
 
“This particular individual had put a lot of thought on this possibility. This would help containing the risks. In any case, we should expect a somewhat painful adaptation period. No matter how much the scenario has been considered, the human mind will never be completely ready to find itself hundreds of times larger than the rest of inhabitants in the planet”
 
Quo looked again at the profile and let more data to flow into her mind. She smiled.
 
“Yes, she is perfect” she reaffirmed himself
 
“So, should we proceed?” Laya said
 
“Yes, get everything ready. Tonight, Laura Anderson is going to get all her wishes turned true” Quo said.
 
Laya started thinking commands into the console that had materialized in front of her. Quo stood up and headed for the lid. While it opened, she added:
 
“And when we get Scripture updated and direct contact is allowed, we’ll come back to Earth and I’ll let the ruler of the planet know that she owes all her power to me”
 
And with that, she left the room and headed for her quarters.
 
 
 
 
Nights were always a little cooler in the valley, but the summer was being hot enough, so she did not need much more than her sleeping bag half open to protect herself. She chose one of her favorite spots, in a clearing that was close enough to the lake. Stacy would have been scared, but Laura knew it was perfectly safe.
 
She fell asleep looking at the stars. Away from Emerald’s pollution, they shone much brighter. She had strained herself to get to the clearing by sunset. She was tired. Her eyelids felt heavy. Soon she was asleep.
 
The dream came to her quite naturally. It was not the first time she pictured herself in the middle of a city, standing taller than the skyscrapers. This time it felt more realistic than ever, though. It was very descriptive, as well. She had never done so much stuff in a single dream. The moment she faced the army had been especially lively. She always enjoyed the army scenario, since it allowed her to give in more than usual to a dark streak in the back of her head. After the army, she dreamed about herself doing some more stuff. In perspective, the collection of images that had gone through her mind looked more like a tutorial than a proper dream. Then, a voice in the back of her head told her to be ready to experience it for real.
 
Her eyes opened right then, when the first rays of light met them. Unknown to her, her life had changed forever. And so had the life of the other 6 billion people in the planet.
 
 
 
 
Abe had insisted that they should reach the Widow’s peak by sunrise. The view was beautiful. His son Rudolph had reluctantly accepted. Young men were much lazier than they used to be, back when Abe had been young.
 
“Enjoy this view” Abe had told his son. “There are not that many like this in the world”
 
Then, they started hearing the noises, coming from down in the valley. They were noticeable, but they could not associate them to anything known. Rudolph was the first one to notice the wavering of the trees.
 
“What’s going on?” Abe said.
 
A few trees started toppling, much to the surprise of father and son, who remained speechless for a couple of seconds. Then, Rudolph saw something between them.
 
“What’s that mass?” he asked, pointing.
 
They did not have time to answer as the pinkish mass expanded and brought a few more trees down.
 
“Is that… a woman?” Rudolph asked, as the shape of the expanding mass that had been bulldozing its way around the trees started to be recognizable.
 
As shocked as he was about the entire situation, Abe was about to reprimand his son when the mass went through a pretty quick expansion, downing a few more trees in the process. By the time it went back to its normal expansion rate, it was undeniable that its shape was that of a woman. Of a naked young woman, to be precise.
 
“Oh my God!” Abe said.
 
The first obvious thing about the woman was that she had to be massive. She was covering an area that had been previously taken by a large section of forest. Abe knew that those were no small trees, too. Sure, they were not the majestic redwood trees on the other side of Widow’s peak, but they were old and tall pine trees. The second thing that an observer could easily see was that she seemed to be unconscious. And the third was that whatever had turned her that size was still working on her: her body kept on expanding.
 
Father and son observed as what they now knew were her feet kept on advancing, toes poking now over the cups of some of the pines they were bringing down as the expansion of her legs pushed them through. Far away to the north, her head was having an even worse effect to the section of the forest close to it. Hands, shoulders and hips were also contributing to the deforestation.
 
“What the hell is that, dad?” Rudolph asked.
 
“I’ll be damned if I know” Abe said, awestruck.
 
It was then when Rudolph realized about something else that they had not seen before. The woman’s chest… it was rhythmically moving up and down.
 
“She’s breathing, dad”
 
All the answer he got was a “Fuck”.
 
The entire process had been very quick, once looked in perspective. One moment there was the lake and the forest and the next a large section of the forest had been replaced by the lying naked body of a woman that rivaled in size with the lake itself.
 
The noises came less than a minute after the body’s expansion had finished. They reminded Rudolph of someone transitioning from sleep to wakefulness. They reminded him of that because that was precisely what they were. Only they were much louder.
 
With a speed that was unnatural for such a large mass, the woman’s arms moved to the sides, downing dozens of trees each in the process. Then, they moved upwards and stretched as a louder sound came from deep in the valley.
 
With her eyes still closed, the giant woman began stretching. She rubbed them, and then looked around. Rudolph and Abe were practically immobilized. The show in front of them was too incredible to be true. The woman frowned, rubbed her eyes again and looked at her surroundings once more. Then her words filled the ear. To father and son they sounded as if a loudspeaker had just turned on next to them.
 
“What the hell is going on?” the thundering voice said.
 
It was the voice of a young woman. Only thousands of times more powerful, as expected from a creature of such colossal proportions.
 
Scooting, the woman reached out and pinched a tree. She only needed two fingers to do that and to easily rip it from the ground. She brought it in front of her eyes and examined it with curiosity. Then, she looked to her side again and kept her sight on the lake for a few seconds. Turning her eyes back to the tree, she then looked in Rudolph’s direction. He felt as if he had been caught red handed and felt a chill running down his spine. Luckily, her eyes did not remain trained on him for too long and just kept on looking around. He realized that she had not seen him. He was too inconsequential for that. She was just having a look at the landscape.
 
He was beginning to feel a little calmer when her laughter boomed and echoed all across the valley.
 
“It happened” the young woman’s voice said.
 
Then, her laughter boomed even louder.
 
“It really happened!” she said in a very excited tone.
 
Dropping the tree and pushing on the ground with her massive hands, the woman began standing. It was an unbelievable show. Her fit slender body rose into the air with a grace and agility that were hard to associate to its size. By the time she was on her feet, Rudolph could see that the large pines barely reached over her ankles.
 
The woman looked down, a wide smile in her lips. Rudolph could not prevent that she looked very beautiful.
 
“I’m giant” she said, and she let another laughter out.
 
Running her hands along her body as if she still could not believe that it belonged to her, she added: “I am a fucking goddess”
 
The woman remained motionless for a few seconds. There was still a smile on her face, but Rudolph could see that she was pondering. Then, she moved a foot up and took a first step to the front.
 
“We need to go son” Abe said.
 
“Where?” Rudolph asked.
 
“As far away from her as possible!” his father replied, as if there had been no other logical answer.

 

Chapter 2

 
 
"So, there's the city" Laura thought as she looked at Emerald's skyline. It was still a few miles away, but instinctively she knew that it would take her just a short stroll to get there at her new size.
 
Her new size... her new amazing size. Ever since she had woken up she had only been able to compare herself to the landscape. Seeing how her body dwarfed the countryside she was so familiar with had already been amazing enough. The redwood trees she had looked up to in admiration just a day ago now could barely brush her lower thighs.
 
She knew she should have been freaked out. Only she wasn't. Her size felt... natural. The dream had been so real... and then she had woken up and she had found out it was true. Having played the scenario so many times in her head, her thoughts as she held a large pine tree in her fingers as it were a mere flower were only about how the rest of the world would look to her. Now she was about to find out.
        
Her first stop was obvious enough. From her lofty point of view, the dark ribbon stretching into the city was too attractive to let it pass. Or rather, its contents were. The sound of crashing and screaming easily reached her ears as her hazel eyes scanned the hundreds of cars stuck in the worst pile up ever. Thousands of people were trying their best to get as far away as possible along the aisles formed between the stopped cars. Smiling, Laura knew they would only be going as far as she let them.
 
Without saying a word she took one step, then another one in the direction of the highway. She saw the cars visibly bounce as her great weight rested closer to them. She could not prevent a giggle. There was nothing better than the feeling of power and there was nothing that could make Laura feel more powerful than seeing how powerless everyone else was to prevent her from doing anything she wanted.
 
Ever since she had memories Laura had wanted to be a giant. In her fantasies, she had wished to be large enough to look down at buildings, walk long distances in a matter of minutes and pick vehicles like toys. But more than anything, her wish for size had been related to a craving for power, and the one and only measure for her new power was people. People that had been her equals just a day ago; people who now would have no hope to oppose her. So, quite naturally, people were the first thing she wanted to observe from her new condition.
 
Dropping to a knee, Laura took a closer look at the highway and reveled on the chaos at it. Knowing that her mere presence was the cause for it was the best possible proof of her newfound status. People had been running ever since they had spotted her, and at her height she was easy enough to spot. Still, her vast reach made any attempts at escaping her futile, and she knew that. 
 
Of course, it was not as if they were not trying. Especially annoying were the owners of some vehicles that were trying to ram obstacles out of the way as they attempted to put as much distance with her as possible. An SUV that looked especially large caught her attention. Well, at least it looked large in comparison to its surroundings. Of course, from Laura’s new point of view, the difference in size with the few hundred other vehicles on the road was almost inconsequential.
 
She had always despised people who owned monster cars like that one and that thought that killing the planet’s environment was acceptable as long as they could drive the closest possible thing to a tank. When she saw the SUV running over a couple of people and pushing two cars aside she felt her blood boil. She just needed an instant to realize that now she could do something about people she abhorred.
 
Reaching out with her right hand, she extended an index finger the size of a city bus and rested its tip on top of the offending car, stopping it on its tracks. She marveled that she could feel the puny efforts of the vehicle trying to break free from just a fraction of the weight of her digit. Then, she just effortlessly pushed, easily caving the roof in and soon embedding the crushed remnants of the car into the asphalt below.
 
Laura lightly moaned as her simple act of justice sent ripples of pleasure down her spine. She had not enjoyed taking a life per se, but the impromptu sentence she had dictated had given her a taste of the absolute power she now held over the rest of the world’s population.
 
As the power rush calmed down, Laura realized that her first interaction with the ones that were to be her subjects had ended up with the loss of a life. It had never been like this in her dreams. In the end, she did not want to be the type of goddess that ended lives purely for enjoyment. She did not fool herself into thinking that her size alone would not cause hundreds, if not thousands of victims, though. And that was if she managed to stay careful enough, which she suspected would not be the case more often than not.
 
No, she would not apologize for being big and for its consequences. And she would certainly not feel bad for the guy she had just squished under her finger. It was not as if he had not deserved it.
 
In a way, it was not bad to set the expectations right from the very beginning, she considered. Building on this thought, she realized that the fact that the little people were trying to get away from her annoyed her. It wasn’t as if it was not to be expected, but that hardly mattered anymore. All that mattered is that she did not want it to happen.
 
"Stop" Laura said in an apparently soft tone that was heard in the entire highway, nonetheless. There, her first words to the world had been in the form of a very explicit command. It felt only natural.
 
Predictably enough, the crowd did not comply. The predictability of the people’s reaction did not make it any less annoying. Of course, ignoring such a challenge to her authority was not an option. A taste of the consequences of such behavior was in order. Reaching out to her far right, she took hold of an overpass and pulled, easily toppling it over the highway and effectively blocking the way. A dozen cars and the few unlucky people that had been standing on it were thrown to the highway below; she did not get a clear picture on whether anyone had been buried under it, but it was almost impossible that no one had not.
 
"I said stop, and I meant it. From now on, you'll learn to follow my orders" she said in a calm tone
 
The words came naturally to her. She was no stranger to authority but of course leading the girl scouts or the reading club could not compare to having a few thousand people at her mercy.
 
Her little show of force had come at the cost of several more victims, but her mind was beginning to rationalize that the sooner the world learned everyone’s new place the better if would be for everyone in the long run.
 
With their escape path now blocked, Laura had now time to decide what to do. She had longed for the current moment for so long that she decided to take it slow and enjoy it. Bringing her legs backwards, she let herself drop on her stomach and stretched her body, as long as it was. Resting her chin on her folded arms, her building-sized face loomed right over the highway and the population trapped on it.
 
Laura’s billboard-sized eyes observed the miniature world with curiosity. Right under her cute nose dozens of cars and hundreds of people did not know how to react to her presence anymore.
 
She let their miniscule sizes sink in. She could only imagine how magnificent she must look to them.
 
The level of detail she could make despite the size difference was amazing. Her sight momentarily focused on a suited man fighting with all his strength to open the twisted door of a car that had obviously been involved in an accident. A shadow inside told her that he was trying to free someone. She quickly scanned through a dozen of uninteresting people and stopped again at blonde woman. She was on her own and she was easy to spot amongst the crowd. It was the kind of woman every heterosexual man in the world would dream of. It was also the type of woman Laura would have hit on the minute she had seen her on a bar. Well, at least before she had met Stacy, of course. The woman’s eyes locked with hers for an instant and Laura smiled at her. The tiny blonde did not hold her sight for too long, though. Opening a little more her field of vision, she saw that many of the rest of the people in the highway shared a common attitude: while plenty of their comrades were still running around without too much sense, they had stopped and staring at her in awe. It was at this moment that Laura realized that she had not introduced herself. How rude of her! It was time to correct that.
 
Keeping her head in her folded arms, Laura used her sweetest and softest voice to address her audience:
 
“My lovely tiny people” she started. “I’m Laura and I guess that it’s pointless to say that I’m huge. You all have eyes. I did not intend to be so rough with that overpass I toppled, but I told you to stop and I really meant it. I hope you’ve learned that you’ll be better off if you follow my orders. As for the car I crushed… well, I guess you’ll all agree that the asshole deserved being squished. I’ll try not to kill any more of you, but I have to admit that, given the difference in size, that might prove difficult. I’m not really interested in hurting you, though. I’m more interested on having a closer look”
 
As she said that, Laura unfolded her arms and reached out for the highway. Her simple gesture brought panic a couple of notches up, and it had been pretty high to start with. She did not care. It was not as if anyone was going to get out of her reach, no matter how hard they tried. If anything, she was just amused by their attempts.
 
No one save Laura knew where her extended fingers would be heading. Her choice was obvious enough, though. She wanted to be careful, so she was slow. This gave the blonde hottie enough time to realize that the shadow of Laura’s fingers was moving in her direction and to react. She “hid” behind a van, not realizing that from her point of view Laura could see her well enough. Resting her fingernail right in front of the van, Laura gently pushed it out of the way, the unfathomable strength of her finger sending it rolling over itself.
 
Laura realized too late that her careless gesture had ended up making the van trample a few people. She would not have bet for them being alive, which meant that she had failed in her intention not to kill anyone else less than a minute after announcing it.
 
“Not killing them is going to be even harder than I thought” she thought, not really too concerned about what had happened. Instinctively she knew that it would be far from the last time something like this happened, so there was no point in making a big deal out of it.
 
She was more concerned about the little blonde woman. She had seemed to realize that she was the object of her attention and with the cover of the van gone she had turned and started running. Laura easily stopped her, her index finger suddenly becoming an impassable wall of flesh in the woman’s way. The tiny blonde even bumped against her smooth skin and fell on her remarkable ass. Laura giggled and waited for her to stand up and turn before she closed her pinch with her thumb, trapping the half-inch tall woman between her fingertips, trying to be careful enough not to hurt her.
 
Once she was reasonably certain that she had struck the right balance between holding the woman in place and crushing her, Laura lifted her up and brought her right in front of her curious eyes. She had to roll her in her fingertips so that the woman would face her. Then, she smiled at her tiny captive as she reaffirmed herself on her initial observation: the woman was smoking hot!
 
“Hi there” Laura said in a cheerful tone.
 
The woman looked pale, but did not scream. She seemed to be too much in shock for that.
 
“I would have invited you to climb, but this seemed so much easier” Laura added casually.
 
The woman did not seem to share Laura’s enthusiasm, but this hardly stopped her from going on.
 
“So, what is your name, tiny?” she asked.
 
The paperclip-sized woman did not reply, but she made some noise. It was progress, but it was slow. Laura’s patience was not proportional to her size, so she decided to push.
 
“Come on, tell me your name. You’re hot. I’d hate having to crush you between my fingers so soon after having met you”
 
“Noooo” the woman screamed.
 
Laura giggled and said:
 
“See, you can talk”
 
“Jane! My name is Jane” the woman screamed.
 
“Jane?” Laura asked. “That’s too plain for a woman like you. I was expecting something more… exotic” Laura said, teasing.
 
“Please, don’t hurt me!” the woman screamed.
 
Laura chuckled.
 
“Well, that was stereotypical. I guess I’ll have to get used to it, though. I’m sure I’ll be getting a lot of this as I keep going”
 
The woman seemed nervous, so Laura added: “I was not planning to hurt you, anyway”
 
Then, without warning, Laura rolled on herself and lied on her back. She was careful to keep Jane secure in her fingers during the process. Holding her over her head, she said:
 
“You know, I think I like you”
 
“You… you killed people” the blonde woman said.
 
Laura rolled her eyes.
 
“Some of them were not on purpose” she said, as if this settled the matter. From Jane’s face, it was easy to see that she had not been successful, at least from the little woman’s point of view. Laura decided to ignore her reaction.
 
Bringing the woman to her right tit, she carefully set her against her erect nipple. Letting her go, she waited a couple of seconds so that she would find her footing and then giggled as she observed that her nipple actually stood taller than Jane.
 
“You’re really cute” Laura said as she observed her nipple towering over Jane.
 
The tiny woman looked anything but comfortable. Laura did not care as she added:
 
“You know, the only real drawback of being naked is that I have nowhere to carry you”
 
The woman finally seemed to come back to life at the reference to her immediate future. Her voice was shaky as she asked:
 
“What… what are you going to do with me?”
 
Laura smiled and said:
 
“I guess I’m going to set you back down. It was nice meeting you and everything, but I’m really eager to get to the city”
 
“You are going to the city?” the woman asked, seemingly forgetting for the first time about the consequences on herself of their encounter.
 
“Sure, where else would a woman my size go?” Laura asked casually.
 
“What… what are you gonna…” Jane started.
 
Laura didn’t need to wait for her to finish the question:
 
“Check my new size out a little and, you know, take over”
 
 
 
 
The feeling of being on top of a hill that felt as alive as the giant woman’s breast was very weird. Jane had managed to secure her footing and was resting her weight against the dark hard column she knew was the woman’s nipple, even if the concept itself was difficult to grasp. Lying back, with her head slightly craned to look at her, the giant woman seemed incredibly content. It was hard to believe that this woman she was having a conversation with had just taken a few lives and did not seem to be the least concerned about it.
 
And now, this woman had just said that she was going to take over the city in the same tone she could have used to say she was going to watch a movie.
 
“Take over” Jane muttered to herself, but apparently the woman heard her nonetheless.
 
“Of course. With my size and power it’s only logical, don’t you think?” the giant woman asked.
 
Jane remained speechless. She did not know what to make of the change in the woman’s expression until a large shadow was cast over her and she realized that two giant fingers were reaching back for her. She screamed, but the two massive pillars of flesh closed on her nonetheless and pushed her between two somewhat soft surfaces she knew were oversized fingertips. Like in the highway, Jane was about to throw her breakfast out when she was risen with the momentum of the space shuttle during take-off. She was dizzy for a few seconds while she felt her body was being transported around. When she managed to focus her eyes again she realized that she was hovering right on top of the woman’s face.
 
“It was nice talking to you” the thundering voice coming out of the semi sized lips said.
 
Then, she felt dizzy once more. By the time her head had finished rolling, her feet were back on solid ground. She looked around to try to check where she was. She found the second a massive shake made her lose her footing and fall on her ass once more. Her jaw dropped when she recognized an anklebone looming fifty feet over her.
 
A fast-moving shadow was quickly followed by another shake. And then another. Three shakes later Jane had enough perspective to see Laura, the titanic woman that had just held her in her fingers, walking down the highway. She noticed her hard ass and long fit legs as she advanced. Jane could not prevent thinking that her enormous body looked thin and athletic, despite the deformation that was caused by perspective. Then, a chill ran down her spine. Was she… walking on the highway? Quickly standing up she felt relieved to see that she was walking just next to it. Jane could only imagine the massacre that would have ensued if the giant woman had chosen to step just a bit to her left.
 
 
 
 
Her first encounter with the tiny population had been refreshing. It had been everything she had hoped it would be and then some more. The conversation with the blonde hottie had also been fun. After a few steps down the highway she had regretted leaving her so soon and even pondered going back for her, but she quickly discarded the idea.
 
“She was just one tiny woman out of the hundreds of millions of people in the country. There will be more like her. There will be thousands more like her. And all of them will be mine”
 
Laura’s nipples hardened as the implications of her new size started sinking in.
 
“I now own every single person in world. I need to get used to the notion. And they better get used to it too”
 
Less than a dozen steps later, her path was met by a new overpass. She had been leaving the hundreds of people trapped in the highway alone as she advanced, but she was way too excited about her new size to ignore all the lives by her feet for too long. Easily bringing her right foot over the overpass, she turned and straddled it. The road was barely at ankle level.
 
“Well, so much for my little tribute to Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman” Laura said cheerfully. “I guess I’m way bigger than Nancy Archer ever was. I think I could pick her up like a doll” she added
 
Without further word she crouched and reached for a vehicle that had caught her attention. It was a gray long-distance bus and it was barely longer than her middle finger. She easily picked it up by the sides with two fingers.
 
Straightening back up, she brought the bus in front of her huge hazel eyes and looked through the windows. A rush of excitement ran along her body as she saw that the coach was actually pretty packed.
 
“Oh God! There’s so many of you!” she said excitedly
 
She wasted no time in making herself a better view of the contents of her catch. It took very little effort for one of her fingernails to bulldoze its way into the bus and allow her enough leverage to rip the roof off it with ease.
 
Tossing the roof over her shoulder, she brought the now topless bus a little higher and looked at the people inside. They were screaming to the top of their lungs. This did not bother Laura. She kind of liked being able to cause such a reaction.
 
“This is amazing” she almost whispered, even if everyone on the bus could hear her without problems. “You’re all mine” she repeated in the same soft tone.
 
She decided to make it more obvious. Tilting the bus to the side, she placed it over her extended palm and started shaking everyone out as if it were a pack of tic-tacs. The half-inch tall people could do nothing to fight the overwhelming strength of her “light” shakes and started landing, bouncing and settling on different corners of her hand.
 
Once she was happy that all the contents of the bus were safely resting on her soft skin, she pushed the vehicle between her fingers, easily crushing it, and then let it drop hundreds of feet to the ground below.
 
“I own all of you” she repeated in a soft voice. She sounded excited. She was.
 
On her palm, a few of the people started recovering and some started even to move around it. She was not even a little concerned by this. There was nowhere they could go.
 
“There are maybe a couple dozen of you, and all it takes me is a hand to hold you all. Fuck, I could probably fit plenty more of you if I wanted to. Is there any better proof of my status?”
 
She got no answer. She wanted one, so she reached with her free hand and plucked a person at random from the crowd in her hand. Bringing the tiny man in front of her eyes, she asked:
 
“What do you think?”
 
The man only screamed.
 
“I asked you something” Laura said, calmly. “If you cannot answer you are useless to me” she added.
 
The man kept on screaming. She just tossed him over her shoulder, making sure that everyone else at her hand took notice. She knew she could have spared him, but she hoped that her little show would help her get better results from the rest of the crowd. Reaching back down, she plucked another man.
 
“So, can you talk?”
 
The man was shaking between her fingertips, but managed to let out words that were understandable enough.
 
“Ple… please do not hurt me. You own us. You own us!” he screamed as he finished.
 
She smiled. Then, she asked:
 
“How do you feel next to me?”
 
The man had to think a couple of seconds before he asked. He finally let out a single word:
 
“Powerless”
 
Satisfied, Laura dropped him back at her palm and smiled at the crowd there.
 
“I don’t want to hurt you” she said, ignoring what she had just done with the first man she had plucked. “I just wanted you to know. I’ll let you go under one condition. You have a mission. Let everyone know how you felt. Tell everyone you meet that now every single person in the world is in my palm, that I can do anything I want to anyone I want. And let them know that as long as they obey me, I can be reasonably gentle. And consider yourselves lucky to be the ones to carry my word to the world”
 
As she finished, Laura crouched again, making sure that she kept her palm as balanced as she could and then brought it towards the overpass where everything had started. Tilting her palm quite carefully, she let the people on it roll and drop into the road below.
 
Standing back up, Laura completed her step over the overpass and resumed her walk right next to the highway. Emerald’s skyline was getting closer by the second. She felt almost as if she could grasp it in her fingers.
 
Taking a deep breath, she let the reaction of the city to her now undeniable presence sink in. She took into the distant screams and the sounds of thousands of horns telling her that the nightmare of the highway’s traffic was now probably being replicated in every single street and intersection of the city.
 
She smiled as she saw the first choppers buzzing in the distance like insects and wondered how many carried people that were trying to get away from the city as soon as possible versus the ones that were owned by news stations and were probably trying to get the best spot to film her awe-inspiring approach to the city.
 
She knew that besides the choppers, thousands of cameras were probably trained on her at that precise moment. Leaving aside those owned by journalism professionals, everyone with a smartphone would have its camera focused on her.
 
She was sure that her presence was currently making the headlines of every newscast and online news outlet in the world. More than this, she had no doubt either that she was now Twitter trending topic and that pictures of her were probably filling thousands of Facebook status updates as footage of her ponderous approach accumulated millions of clicks in YouTube.
 
Suddenly aware of the world’s attention, she enjoyed it and then put some swagger into her movement, to make her feminity and sexuality more prevalent.
 
Less than five minutes later she had reached the gates of the city and stopped, taking a commanding pose. With one foot on each side of the highway, which was now turning into a wide avenue, Laura brought one hand to her hip as she let the other casually dangle on her side. The twin buildings that marked the entrance into the city barely reached as high as her knees.
 
She smiled. She knew that millions of people in the city and billions in their homes everywhere else in the world were waiting for her first words or her first action. She let them wait a few more seconds as the breeze cooled her titanic body down. She wanted them to realize how absolutely big and powerful she was.
 
She pondered what her first move would be. She had played the scenario in her head a million times before, but there were many ways a woman like her could get introduced to the city. She needed to find a suitable enough one. Luckily, there was no need to rush.
 
 
 
 
“She killed several people already. Was her profile wrong?” Laya asked.
 
“What was really surprising was that she left the people on the highway as alone as she did” Quo replied confidently. “I don’t think her profile was wrong. It would be a first, to start with” he added.
 
“Well, the profile was clear enough. She wanted to become giant in order to get absolute power, but she did not want to use her size to kill or destroy more than needed. But her first interaction with humans has ended up with several victims, many of them unnecessary” Laya said.
 
“Are you concerned for the lives of humans, then? You were the one that did not have too much of an issue with choosing a candidate with higher risk of species annihilation…”
 
“It’s not the humans’ lives that concern me, but the accuracy of our predictions” Laya defended herself.
 
Quo let out the equivalent sound to a chuckle.
 
“I guess I’m missing something” Laya said.
 
“You are missing the basic thing: human nature” Quo said.
 
“What do you mean?” Laya asked.
 
“This was probably the most balanced subject we could find, but she’s still human. And no matter how much a human can think of a given situation, her considerations will never be able to replicate her body chemistry and her perception of reality once that moment comes” Quo said.
 
“She will not behave as she thought she would?” Laya said.
 
“Partly. But not entirely. Every time she thought about what her behavior would be, Laura Anderson was thinking on having the power giant size would grant her, but was not actually giant. She wished to be, but she was not. Now that she is, she feels more excited than she has ever felt before. Her body chemistry is not the same. There are thousands of tons of hormones pumping through her body that were not there when she “just” dreamed about the scenario. At the same time, in her dreams Laura Anderson was thinking of herself as giant from a normal human’s perspective. Now, she is a giant and she is seeing what the normal humans are to her from her new eyes, not a conceptualization she attempted but she was not successful at doing. This is presenting her the power she has in a totally different way of what she might have imagined. At this point, her ego is larger than her body”
 
“So, her attitude is the same but her perception of the world is not?” Laya asked.
 
“No. Her attitude is not the same either. We could say that her overall intentions, her guiding principles, are the same. But she is shocked by the change she has gone through in a very positive way. This is affecting not only the way she sees the world but also her attitude towards it. Just to give you an example: her principles about taking a life will probably remain similar, but her attitude towards the same topic will vary” Quo said.
 
“I don’t think I followed the last part” Laya acknowledged.
 
“Let me try like this: Laura Anderson thinks it’s bad to take a human life needlessly. That’s her principle. However, from her new size and as excited as she feels in this precise moment, an individual human life has very little value to her. So, in Laura Anderson’s head, a human life or a few are perfectly acceptable prices to pay to get things she needs” Quo said.
 
“The man in the SUV?” Laya asked.
 
“He was breaking her laws. His life was the price Laura paid to enforce them and establish herself as the authority. Same thing for those that were killed when she toppled the overpass” Quo said.
 
“Trying to run is not equivalent to running over some people” Laya said.
 
“In her eyes, their crime was not trying to run. It was challenging her orders”
 
“That’s setting a very low bar, for someone that had started with so high standards… Anyway, what about the ones that got trampled by the van?” Laya insisted.
 
“These ones are tricky, but the best explanation I can get to is that they were the price to pay for her size” Quo said.
 
“What do you mean?” Laya asked.
 
“We made her just as big as she wished to be, even if that size was quite bigger than what would have been needed. The benefits of an easier adaptation outweighed the challenges of such a large size. Some of the challenges are that she can kill by accident very easily. She knows that. In front of that, she has two alternatives: restrain herself and be extra careful the entire time or move freely and accept that accidents will happen. So, the deaths are the price to pay for her freedom to use her size as she sees fit, and she is willing to accept them” Quo said.
 
“And the man she threw over her shoulder? Challenger?” Laya asked.
 
“Kind of. I believe he also served a purpose. She used his death to prompt the rest of people to comply with her orders” Quo said.
 
It was Laya who chuckled this time.
 
“So, we have a woman that by principle would not kill anyone but that has no problem to kill those that do things she does not like, those that do not immediately obey her, those that happen to be in the way when she needs to do something and also those she needs to kills to set an example. Not bad”
 
Quo smiled.
 
“No one said that human nature was easy. That’s why they are so interesting to study” she said.
 
“One last question, director” Laya asked. Quo nodded to her and she went on: “What prevents her from considering that human lives are a small enough price to pay to have fun?”
 
Quo smiled once more.
“Interesting question, Laya. There is no simple answer, actually. In principle, her morals should prevent her from reaching that conclusion. In practical terms, there are no assurances” she said.
 
“Will she do it?” Laya asked, concerned.
 
“I don’t know” Quo admitted.
 
“But, wouldn’t this kill the purpose of the mission?” Laya said.
 
“That’s why I introduced failsafe mechanisms to recover from that eventuality” Quo said.
 
“But we cannot interfere” Laya observed.
 
“We won’t need to. If Laura Anderson gets deviated enough from her purpose, which she might, she will correct herself”
 
“How” Laya asked
 
“Let’s wait and see, shall we?” Quo said. “She’s about to get into the city. This will be interesting”
 
“More than the highway?” Laya asked.
 
“Of course. There can be nothing more interesting for a woman of Laura Anderson’s size than a large city”

 

Chapter 3

 
 
Everyone around him was running and screaming, but Jason stood transfixed, in the central pedestrian island of the wide avenue, unable to take his eyes from the unbelievable woman that was approaching the city.
 
He could tell that she was still miles away, but she was easy enough to see. Even her steps could be mildly felt as the smiling behemoth approached the city in a sensual swagger, bringing the concept of a Greek Mythology Goddess to Jason’s mind.
 
The truth was that the approaching mountain-woman did not fit the Classical Greek beauty patron, but it fit his own very well. Her slender body was incredibly well toned, with long, shapely legs, a washboard flat stomach and perky breasts that fit her frame almost perfectly. She had the athletic build that he loved so much in women and he could only guess how amazing her ass would be.
 
The woman’s face told about her young age, at most in hear early twenties. She was beautiful in a girl-next-door sort of way, with high cheekbones, a cute nose and full lips, all framed by long light brown hair that waved in the wind in certain disarray.
 
Any doubt that might have existed about the giantess’ feelings or her attitude towards her size could be quickly dissipated by a quick look at her. Her expression was that of a woman that was absolutely delighted with the situation. Her eyes were regularly moving from the city in the distance to whatever was closer to her feet, as if she were checking on what she was stepping on. Whatever she was seeing when looking down below was definitely making her happy, as it was obvious from her look. Of course, Jason knew what she was seeing: small people and cars. Tiny, most likely, from the look of her. She was walking next to the highway.
 
The tremors, which had been pretty mild so far, started to increase in intensity. Jason did not know how long he had been transfixed, looking at the approaching woman, but it could not have been that long. Still, she was much closer to the city despite her deceivingly casual walking, halfway between a lazy stroll and a model walking down the runway.
 
Jason’s mind was still trying to grasp the speed at which this impossible woman was moving when she stopped. He realized that she was at the gates of the city already. Moving her left leg, she adopted a wider stance and placed a hand on her hip. Her body language was explicit enough: she had great power, and she knew it. She remained motionless, in that position, for a few seconds. Jason realized that she was showing herself, letting everyone in the city, much like Jason, realize how large she was and the implications of her size. She also seemed to be contemplating the possibilities. A widening in her smile told him that she saw many, and that all of them were very welcome.
 
 
 
 
It was the moment she had been anticipating. In her fantasies, she always doubted between acting first and speaking first. The good thing about fantasies was that she could relive them as many times as she wanted and test different scenarios. If anything, the only con of having had all her dreams come true was that there would only be a first time for everything, so she would be faced with choices. It was a small enough price for having actually become a goddess.
 
She made her choice on a whim. Her reasoning was pretty simple: her size was her most obvious feature, so she would let the people on the city experience it first.
 
She had set her eyes on her target a while ago. It had been obvious enough, especially considering that Laura was keen on keeping Emerald’s population in the city. She knew that even if the authorities managed to put together a quick and organized evacuation plan in place, which was highly doubtful, it would take them considerably more time to get a relevant enough number of people out than the one she would need to make her way around the city a few times. But this did not make her change her mind. She wanted to keep the people within her reach, and no matter how vast it was, this meant keeping them in the city. And there was no need to put her trust on the people’s incompetence when she could take care of the problem so easily on her own.
 
A quick glance down showed her that the intricate collection of overpasses and ramps that extended several levels into the air right in front of her was far from empty. She could try to fool herself and think that the majority of cars would have been abandoned by now, but she could not deny that there were a few dozen tic-tac sized men scurrying in the aisles among them.
 
She decided against warning them. This was a defining moment, and a warning would be just anti-climactic. She wanted the first thing people saw her doing to be a show of power. And besides, they had had time enough to empty the area. If they had not done it by now, she doubted any warning would be too effective.
 
Of course, she was not going to change her mind about the overpasses either. It was too bad about the people, but she had always known that her size would not come free of victims – she had caused a few of them already – and she was not going to restrain herself from what she needed or wanted to do because of that.
 
So, without further word, she lifted her right foot and moved it slowly and ponderously forward. She placed it right on top of the web of bridges and viaducts. She observed with satisfaction that it was large enough to cover them all in just one step. She then slowly set it down. The top overpasses could barely hold the weight it carried. Everything on them was instantly flattened a second before the massive concrete structure started cracking and then breaking into the roads in lower levels. The massive chunks rained down but did not have too much time to cause damage. A foot as big as half football pitch moved faster than them.
 
Layer after layer of roads and bridges kept on breaking before Laura’s foot finally met the ground and dug it, burying the infrastructure it had so easily broken a few dozen feet into it.
 
Laura could have sworn that she had heard a collective gasp of horror coming from the city. Maybe it had been her imagination, but she was pretty sure that even if it had, it would not be too different from reality. It was the effect she had sought, of course. Bringing her foot back from the destruction it had so easily created, she regained her commanding pose and pushed her chest out. Time to let words convey the same message her foot had already sent to the city.
 
She used a loud tone and projected her voice. She wanted everyone to hear her words.
 
“Tiny people of Emerald. I am your new Goddess”
 
She had always known these would be her first words as a giant woman upon reaching a city. The fact that this time she was saying them for real made them so much better. She felt her nipples getting harder than diamond.
 
It was time to give them some additional information about herself and to set some ground rules. Nothing too elaborate yet. She knew she would need to give them some more time, and possibly a few unsuccessful attempts at stopping her, before her authority was unquestionable enough to dictate some policy.
 
“My name is Laura Anderson, I’m 22 years old and yesterday I was one of you. Luckily, when I woke up this morning I had transformed in the amazing being that you can now see. It’s obvious enough that it’s unfair to consider me human like you anymore, so for lack of better word you can refer to me as a goddess. The first and only of my kind” Laura said with a smile.
 
She went on.
 
“I’m much bigger than you, much stronger than you and much smarter than you. And I’m going to do the only logical thing for someone of my station. I am going to take over. I will rule you. From now on, I am the one and only authority. There may be those of you that find this unfair. Consider this: I have the power to do as I please. Moreover, I have the power to force you to do as I please. And you are absolutely powerless to stop me. What would truly be unfair would be to deny this obvious truth” she said in the same assertive tone she had been using since she had started her speech.
 
“So, this is how things are going to work from now on” she added. “I will issue commands, and you will obey. I will do anything I want and you will accept the consequences of my actions. And if there are those of you stupid enough to challenge me or, even worse, to attack me, I will crush them. These are some very simple ground rules, once you think about them, aren’t they?” she finished with a question.
 
It was good enough as a declaration of intentions, she thought. She had been scanning the city while delivering her speech. So, by the time she issued her warnings, she already knew what her next destination would be. She was about to start moving when she felt that it might not be a bad idea to take just a tad of tension from the atmosphere. After considering it for a couple of seconds, she went ahead with it. So, still in the same commanding pose, she added some parting words:
 
“I will be visiting the city. I’m eager to. I’m dying to check things out from my new point of view. I realize this will be disruptive. As I said, you have no other option but to accept it. Also, I’ve been this big for a very short while. It will take me a while to educate myself on the full extent of my power and the effects I have on my surroundings” she said.
 
Well, this was probably not very reassuring, she realized. She had to complement it:
 
“I am not a cruel woman” she said in a convincing tone. “I won’t destroy things or kill you for fun or just because I can. I will be using my size and strength, though. I’ll move around, check things out, test my power. Accidents will happen. The size difference is just too great” she said
 
She finally added:
 
“I’ve always dreamed of being this size. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. So you can be damn sure that I will never apologize for being big or its consequences”
 
Well, the speech had ended up being a little convoluted, but she had made her point. It was time to test herself.
 
 
 
 
The woman’s voice had carried her words to Jason with the power and fidelity of a stadium’s speaker system. Others had joined him while she had been addressing them, momentarily stopping their attempts at escaping.
 
Her speech had not really added that much to what her body and attitude had already expressed. Besides her name and the confirmation of her youth, what the woman had basically told them was that she liked being like she was, that she was going to user her size as she saw fit and that she did not care at all about the consequences of that. Oh yes, and that she expected all of them to submit to her rule.
 
Jason’s blood froze when he realized that the entire city of Emerald was at the mercy of a woman that had barely become old enough to drink.
 
When she took her hand off her hip and took the first step to the front, making the ground shake again despite the considerable distance, Jason forgot about his previous amazement and joined those that were still running down the avenue.
 
 
 
 
One of the consequences of being so big was that Laura could be seen from very far away. Sometimes this could turn out to be an inconvenience, but this time it played to her advantage. Her approach to the city had been noticed so early that by the time she finished her speech and proceeded to move towards her first destination the avenue in front of her was practically deserted.
 
She knew that would change soon enough. Given her speed and the unpredictability of her movements, she was bound to meet large mobs sooner rather than later. She would deal with that challenge when she met it, though. For now, she just enjoyed the quiet walk in the direction of the Windsor.
 
Emerald was a city of large buildings but Laura still was, by far, the tallest thing around. In that section of the city, the buildings on both sides of the avenue she had chosen ranged in height from mid-shin to mid-thigh. She loved looking down at their roofs as she advanced, in a Google Earth view of the streets.
 
Soft thuds as her feet set on the road were the soundtrack to Laura’s thoughts. Her ears were actively filtering the more annoying screams that came from further into the city and let Laura relax as the combination of breeze, quiet and a warm soft surface conveyed a scenario much like walking on the wet beach sand just after the high-tide. She was not in a deserted beach, though. She was in a city of millions and she loved that.
 
She had to stop after a few blocks, when she felt something sticking on the bare sole of her right foot. Bringing it up, she chuckled as she peeled a crushed 18-wheeler from it with a finger. This amused her and reminded her to check below the roof level and into the street, where the comparison of her feet to their surroundings was also incredibly arousing. Abandoned cars disappeared by the dozen under them while her ankles toppled every single lamppost, traffic light and power cable around.
 
“I’m just walking” she reminded herself, impressed
 
She reached her destination soon enough. Despite being in the same general area she had chosen to get into the city, Laura knew that the Windsor was still probably a couple of miles away from the spot where she had given her introduction speech. A couple of miles she had covered in just a few minutes.
 
The Windsor stood out from the rest of buildings in the area. Large and sturdy, this construction from the beginning of the 20th Century stood about as high as Laura’s navel piercing.
 
Crouching, she ripped a large banner that someone had hung from the roof and read its small letters: “Save the Windsor”
 
Having been the first real skyscraper in Emerald, there were a lot of people that were against its planned demolition. The building had been abandoned by its owners fifteen years ago and none of the projects to bring it back to use had been successful. Apparently it was more expensive to restore it than to bring it down, and this was actually what had driven the decision from the City Hall to demolish it and build a shopping mall on its place.
 
Laura had been quite supportive of the campaigns to have that decision reverted. The Windsor was a regal building, a landmark of the city, and having it replaced by monstrosity of concrete and steel was kind of obscene.
 
So, it was ironic that she was now standing right in front of the building with the very clear intention of bringing it down herself. Her priorities had changed as her size had increased.
 
She needed to learn more about her new condition, to check her size out, test her strength… and the Windsor was perfect for the task. Large enough to be relevant, it was probably the only structure in the entire city she could get rough with without having to worry about the victims.
 
“I will make damn sure that they do not build the shopping mall, though” she thought.
 
She walked around the building, stooping to look at its different angles. Architecture principles had been way different when the Windsor had been built. The thick concrete structure and a shape that resembled that of a Castle’s main keep took it apart from its nimbler modern counterparts. It looked robust. Which was the reason Laura was surprised when the entire north-west section easily crumbled on itself when she playfully bumped her ass at it.
 
“Oh God!” Laura exclaimed.
 
She had learned her first lesson. The world was much weaker than it looked. Crouching down, she looked though the 20-stories tall opening her ass had ripped on the corner of the building. Reaching down, she picked one of the largest chunks of concrete between her thumb and index fingers. Bringing it up in front of her face, she easily pushed it into powder.
 
“Wow” she exclaimed, thoroughly impressed with herself. She had imagined she would be strong, but this was even better than expected.
 
Pinching a steel girder that had become visible after her ass’ demolition work, Laura pulled and started to take it out of its concrete encasing. By the time she had a bar that was half as long as her forearm, she pulled it out, sending another section of that particular façade down.
 
Holding the long piece of metal in her fingers, she started molding it with ease. By the time she was done, she had shaped it like a fifty foot tall heart. Happy with her sculpture, she planted it in the ground, as a witness to her visit.
 
Standing up, she walked to the main East façade before dropping back to her knees. If her ass was too much for the building, she would test it with the smallest possible part of her body. Extending her pinky finger, she rested it on the surface and then pushed. The Windsor held for a second and then broke as if it had been made of crackers. Bringing her finger out, she scooted forward to look through the hole.
 
“Tinfoil, clay and crackers” she thought. “That’s what the world around me is made of”
 
As proof of her mental statement, she just punched the building in the center of its main façade. Her fist broke through the concrete with ease and she felt as wall after wall fell as it made progress into the building. With half her forearm embedded in the Windsor, Laura decided to go all the way, so repositioning herself closer to the building, she resumed her push and felt as more and more crackers broke until her fingers felt the breeze once more. She had brought her fist all the way through.
 
Removing it and looking at it with pride, she just unfolded it, making her fingers break through the façade again in the motion.
 
Incredibly happy about the results so far, Laura stood up once more and walked around the building to check the spot where her fist had emerged. It looked just as if someone had carved a new large rosette on it, in the likeness of a Cathedral, she thought. It was missing the stained glass, though. The Western façade was also a little more undamaged, so it was as good a spot as any for Laura to make her new test. She had no doubts about the results, but when she rested her foot on her heel and then pushed its ball through the lower levels with ease it felt satisfactory anyway.
 
Fingers, fist, feet, ass… all of them had had terrible effects on the old landmark. She was running out of parts of her body to bring to the test. The next one was obvious enough, though, and it made her smile naughtily as she got ready. Holding her hair back with one hand, she pushed her chest out and started bringing it down on the Windsor’s roof.
 
Her nipples stopped at the reinforced concrete of the roof… but an instant later were pushed in by the incommensurable force of the mounds of flesh behind them. Removing herself from the building, Laura chuckled at the two more or less circular depressions on its roof.
 
“Even my tits are lethal!” she proclaimed aloud in a very satisfied tone. While nicely shaped and proportioned, her breasts had never been too remarkable. Now she possessed the biggest pair of tits in the world, though, and even the softest and most sensitive part of her prodigious body had the power to bring a building down.
 
She had reached the Windsor absolutely convinced of her strength already. The only difference after playing with it for a while was that she now knew that she would need to be even more careful than she had expected. The world was obviously not ready for someone of her size and strength.
 
It was much more of an issue for the world than for her, of course. If anything, the conclusion Laura had reached was that it was much better to have excess power and to have to control it than just falling short. After all, that was what goddesshood was about, wasn’t it?
 
She would need to control her strength with their buildings and with their vehicles. And of course, she would need to balance it very carefully when dealing with the people directly. Her short experience in the highway had already proven her that she would be able to. Since she was in self-education mode, though, she decided that after Buildings 101 she might enjoy a session of Humans 101 too. In the end, the sooner she mastered her size the more enjoyable her experience would be.
 
There was a problem with her plans, though. There were no tinies to be seen around. There had been few enough of them already as she had walked towards the Windsor and apparently they had used the time she had been messing with the old building to get away too. Laura did not have a lesson outline in mind yet, so she did not know how many tinies she might use. Her approach here was simple enough, though: get as many as you can first and use the ones you need later.
 
She felt a little frustrated about the lack of raw material for her learning experience. Her new status did not play well with not being able to do as she pleased. Then, she slapped herself in the butt when she realized how stupid she had been. There were no people to be seen on the streets, but she was surrounded by buildings and they were surely teeming with them. And if her recent lesson had proven her anything was that she was exceedingly good at ripping buildings open.
 
She mentally chose a large office building on the other side of the large square where the Windsor had been and decided that it would supply her the tinies she needed. She was about to walk to it when she looked at the pretty fucked up Windsor building right in front of her and realized that it would be pretty unnatural to leave it standing after all.
 
After her tests with it she knew that the possibilities to demolish the building were almost endless. She could kick it to the ground, punch it to the ground, butt-bump it to the ground and even tit-fight it to the ground, although this last possibility seemed the less convenient, given the relative height of the building.
 
Seeing as the Windsor stood right in her path to the office building she was heading next, she had another idea. She took a step to the front and her foot easily broke through the façade. Then, she took another step and her entire left leg plowed into the building. Another step and her right leg was in too. She took yet one more step, more of the Windsor breaking as she did.
 
Her path would make her wade the longer axis of the building. She could not see what was happening below her belly button, but every time she moved one of her shapely legs she felt an awful lot of things breaking. In the end, her advance was not much harder than advancing on muddy waters, she thought, yet another proof of the fragility of the world around her.
 
Of course, she did not reach the opposite side of the building. It collapsed much earlier than that. Laura just giggled as it did, and dusting herself off, she completed her walk, kicking the last standing chunk of the building away with a lazy movement of her left leg.
 
She had enjoyed her architecture lesson. She was eager for more, and she knew she had much more to learn. The possibilities of her new self were so vast that she would probably be able spend the whole day “studying” and not learn them all. She doubted she would find many more abandoned buildings though, so future lessons might prove a little more challenging, she thought.
 
“I’ll figure something out” she thought confidently as she headed towards her new destination.
 
The building she had chosen was shorter and less interesting than the Windsor. Her pussy loomed just above its roof and its architecture was much less elaborate. In the end, it was a vast flat building with a glass façade. It had plenty of the people she was seeking, though, judging by the dozens of shadows Laura’s huge hazel eyes spotted behind the windows when she sat on her haunches to have a better view.
 
She smiled at them. She doubted they were aware of the plans she had for them. She was eager to get her hands, or her fingers so to speak, on them, but she had learned from her recent experience at the Windsor.
 
Suddenly frowning, she moved her head towards the building as she let out a loud:
 
“Boo”
 
It was not even a passable attempt at scaring someone. Thankfully for Laura, her size was scary enough, so she got the results she was seeking. Those that had not yet been trying to run as deep into the building as possible and that had been glued to the windows, staring at her imposing figure, changed their mind and joined their colleagues, giving Laura the room she needed to do what she wanted to do next.
 
She just turned her hand backwards and brushed the entire façade of the building with her fingernails. In a wide motion from left to right, Laura had effectively peeled the façade of the upper part of the building and exposed what seemed to be 7 or 8 floors to the outside.
 
Stooping a little more and peeking, she saw dozens of terrified tiny people that did not know too well how to react to the sudden scenario change. She smiled at them and said:
 
“Hi there, tinies. Wanna join me for some fun?”
 
Of course, she was not going to wait for an answer. She was just going to test her theory. Next to a fault, Emerald was in the area of the country most likely to suffer earthquakes. Laura’s bets were on that. She had seen documentaries on TV where tall buildings could be seen waving like trees in the middle of very intense quakes, only to remain standing after everything had passed. Apparently, they were built with that objective in mind. The building in front of her seemed to be new enough to incorporate the most modern techniques to that respect. This was Laura’s gamble.
 
So, dropping to her knees and moving to the side of the building, she extended her left hand right below the opening she had just ripped in the building’s main face and placed her right hand on the building’s back. Taking great care to push gently and not to break, Laura started tilting the building towards her waiting hand.
 
Sure, there were some cracks in the spots were her fingers exercised the pressure, but Laura was quite impressed with the finesse she had managed to achieve when she had pushed the entire building to a very noticeable angle.
 
She was happy when the first scattered tinies and some of their office furniture dropped into her waiting palm. Still, they were scarce enough. She would need to “help” more people out. Letting the building move back a little to its original position, she pushed again, emptying a few more people on her palm. Then, she started rhythmically shaking the building, sending more and more people to the destination she had intended for them.
 
For those inside the building it felt as if a never-ending earthquake was throwing them around. Some had managed to take hold of columns or fixed furniture to prevent being sent out of the building at first. Most of them were eventually beaten as their stamina ran out way sooner than the goddess could even feel bored, much less tired, of her little building emptying exercise.
 
To Laura, the experience was anything but boring, actually. Being able to manipulate a building like that, treating it as nothing more than a dollhouse, was exhilarating. And it was very effective as well. The number of people on her palm was becoming pretty decent. All she had to regret were a few tinies dropping beyond the edges of her palm or slipping through her fingers when she was not careful enough to bring them together, but their numbers were small enough that Laura accepted them as unavoidable collateral victims.
 
There were about fifty people in her palm by the time she decided she had enough. She knew she could have fitted plenty more, but they should suffice.
 
Standing up and leaving the rest of the occupants of the building alone, Laura brought her hand in front of her eyes and smiled at the pretty shaken office workers and also at some of their furniture.
 
“I guess this was kind of rough for you” Laura acknowledged to the tiny people. “Sorry, could not be avoided” she said, not feeling sorry at all. “I did not have time for more delicate methods” she added, as if she had had a very important appointment in a matter of minutes.
 
“I don’t want to hurt you” she assured them. “I just need you to help me learn a little more about you and, more importantly, a little more about me. It will be fun” she finished, of course, knowing that the fun would most likely be entirely hers.
 
“Let’s go find a quieter spot” she finally said to the palm-crowd, who was beginning to recover from the experience of being shaken out of a building and were beginning to scream.
 
Laura ignored them as she kept her hand flat in front of her chest and walked back to the wide square where the Windsor had once stood. She guessed it would be good to have some room to move freely without danger of knocking another building down.
 
Observing her own footprints as she walked back, she had an idea. She crouched near one of them and then emptied the contents of her palm on its bottom, taking as much care as she could. Kneeling next to the spot, she brought her face over the tiny people and expanded on her intentions.
 
“I’m learning about my size, which means learning about yours as well. I want to get a better feel for it before I keep on moving. You are my test subjects”
 
At the bottom of her footprint, no one seemed to be very reassured by her words. She did not care. She observed them with curiosity, seeing how ridiculously small they were even compared to the depressions her feet left in the ground when she merely walked.
 
“First test” she said. “ You are in one of my footprints. Anyone who manages to get out of it by himself in less than a minute, is free to go”
 
The majority of the tinies started towards her footprint’s walls right away. Strangely enough, a few remained more or less in the same area she had left them. Most were sitting or lying. She realized that they were injured, probably with broken limbs. She might not have been careful enough when dropping them down, in the end, she thought. Or no amount of care she could take would ever be completely enough, her mind added.
 
Forgetting about them, she focused on the ones that were actually trying to get out. They were not being very successful. The walls of her imprint seemed to be steeper than she had thought. She let out a few giggles as she saw some of the ones that had managed to climb the highest fall and roll down again. After some more time, it seemed obvious that no one would be getting out in anything remotely close to a minute. A few might succeed if she granted them enough time, but she was already eager to test a few more things.
 
In a cheerful tone, she addressed them again:
 
“Guys, don’t take this wrong, but you are even punier than I thought”
 
She had mentally isolated one of the best climbers. Reaching out, she pinched him between the fingertips of her pointer and thumb. She knew already that she was able to pick people up without crushing them right away, but after seeing the effects of her body on buildings, she was especially mindful with the pressure she was applying.
 
Bringing him in front of her excited eyes, she addressed him.
 
“You did well enough. Answer to my questions and I’ll let you go”
 
She did not wait for him to acknowledge her offer. She just asked:
 
“The wall you were trying to climb… how tall it was?” she asked
 
The man hesitated for a few seconds. He finally said:
 
“Fifteen… or twenty feet tall”
 
“Impressive” she thought. She had already seen that it had to be considerably tall for the tiny people, but it was hard for her to put herself in their frame of reference. Hearing the number and remembering about her not so distant past as a tiny person she realized that her footprint walls were taller than a regular prison fence. “And I’m just walking” her mind added.
 
Smiling at him, she said:
 
“This is all I needed to know. You are free to go”
 
And then she extended her arm and set him in the ground as far away from her as she could.
 
Forgetting about him, she reached back into her footprint and grabbed another subject, this time a woman in a formal dress.
 
She did not address her. She just needed her size this time. Extending the fingers of her free hand she placed the woman on top of the neatly manicured fingernail of her index finger. She marveled when she saw that there was room to spare. She crossed no word with the woman as she set her in the same general area as the previous man and reached for yet another person to unwillingly cooperate in her simple experiments.
 
This time, she set the man in the ground and then extended two of her fingers right next to him, as if she were walking them. Bringing her head closer to the ground, she chuckled and said:
 
“Even my fingers look gigantic compared to you”
 
The man took a step backwards. To tease him, Laura poked him gently with a finger, sending him flying a few feet backwards. The man needed some time to stand up.
 
“Oops, sorry” she said. “I guess that this teaches me a little more about how weak you really are”
 
The man was not happy at all, but she did not care as she caught him between her two fingers, as if they were chopsticks, and set him in her usual “releasing spot”.
 
She was at it for a while, comparing people to her toes, her belly button, her nipples again,…
 
She set them in the center of her palm and asked them to cover the distance to the edges, lied down and made two of them race over her washboard flat stomach, promising to release the first one to cross the line between her two turgid breasts and then repeated the operation over her smooth thigh.
 
The conclusions were always the same: the new proportions of her body were so vast that to mere humans they could only be described in cityscape or landscape terms. By the end of the exercise she was also happy that she had managed to manipulate twenty or so humans individually or in small groups without any serious injury. She had incalculable power, but also the greatest of controls.
 
She was done with her first lesson in dealing with tinies. Funny as it had been, she was eager to get deeper into the city and on having some of the tasks she had set for herself accomplished.
 
A final look at the thirty or so people still trapped on her footprint, she felt sorry for them. There was no way they would be able to get out of their earthy prison until emergency services got here. And with her roaming around the city, she was pretty sure that emergency services would be quite busy the rest of the day.
 
One thing she knew for sure: she was not going to pick them up in small groups. Just thinking about the possibility tired her. She did not need to do that, though. Taking the end of the footprint that had been caused by her toes, all Laura had to do was to use a fraction of the strength of her fingers to dig a ramp that would let the people grouped in the area where the ball of her foot had set on the ground exit her imprint safely.
 
Happy about her show of gentleness, she stood up and left. She was heading to the only logical place a woman her size could go: Downtown.
 
 
 
 
 
“She’s more creative than I thought” Quo said sounding happy.
 
“She killed some people just to show off. That’s close enough to killing for fun” Laya said.
 
“Showing off had a purpose” Quo said. Looking at Laya’s questioning eyes, he went on: “She was getting introduced to the city and having millions of people realize about her power had an easy to assess return”
 
“So, she did it out entirely of practical reasons” Laya said, her voice suggesting that she actually did not believe that.
 
“Of course not. In human terms she is much closer to puberty than to becoming infertile. Combine that with an ego the size of the entire planet and you will have the other half of the explanation” Quo said. “The truly interesting part about these last minutes was her creativity when dealing with the people. Our subject may be even more promising than we thought”
 
Laya signaled to the hologram and changed the perspective. She pointed and said:
 
“She’s getting closer to a packed crowd”
 
“It had to happen, sooner or later” Quo said.
 
“What will she do?” Laya asked.
 
“What would you do?” Quo replied with a question.
 
“This time it would not be just a few people” Laya said.
 
“She is a smart woman. How long do you think it will take her to realize that if she wants to move around that’s a price she will need to pay?” Quo asked.

 

 

Chapter 4  
 
“Come on guys, I don’t want to kill any more of you than necessary, but you are making it really hard” Laura said, looking down at the thick crowd that was trying its best to get away from her. Of course, their best was far from enough to escape from a woman that could cover a city block in just one step.
 
The truth was that their stupidity annoyed her. It was to be expected, of course. But it was annoying, nonetheless.
 
“Can’t you see that there’s no fucking way you are going to outrun me?” she then asked. “For God’s sake, stop running down the avenue and get into the side streets or buildings! I’ve been leaving the buildings alone for a while!” she commanded
 
A few complied, but most still kept just running. She realized that there would be no way to move down this avenue without her feet crushing hundreds. A quick look around from her vantage point showed her that every other street in the direction of Downtown presented a similar situation. The only options not to step on anyone were to stand still or to move back in the direction she had come. And there was no way she was going to choose either of them.
 
She wanted to advance, and goddesses should be able to do as they wanted.
 
“I’d much rather not step on you as I move. You need to clear the streets. Now!” she finished in a commanding tone.
 
She had not seen the need to add a please. From now on, people should do as she wished whether it pleased them or not. The problem was that they weren’t. The number of people realizing that the buildings were a much better choice for them was still discouragingly low. Exasperated, Laura sighed and then said:
 
“Ok, as you want. In ten seconds I’ll resume my walk down the street. If you are still there when I do… well, it’s going to hurt you more than me”
 
She started the countdown:
 
“Ten… Nine… Eight…”
 
If anything, her ultimatum had made them more nervous. It had not made them any smarter. They kept running, the only difference was that now their paths had become so erratic that more often than not people ended up crashing into each other and falling on the road. God, it was pathetic!
 
“Three… Two… One!”
 
Seeing how little the crowd had been able to accomplish in the time she had granted them made Laura have second thoughts for a moment. Then, she discarded them.
 
“What kind of goddess would I be if I cannot do something as simple as walking?” she thought
 
“Here I come!” she announced as she raised her right foot and moved it forward. She avoided any theatrics. She did not attempt a particularly long stride or a harder than usual stomp. She just took a small step. She doubted it would make a difference to the dozens of unlucky people in the area where her foot landed.
 
Those instantly obliterated under her bare sole were not the only victims of her step. As usual, her feet sank deep into the tarmac, sending chunks of asphalt flying and landing, often on some of the people directly ahead of her toes. An instant later, cracks formed and started spreading out from her foot like spider-webs. Some were wide enough to swallow a few more victims.
 
The living hell that the simple movement of her foot had caused failed to register as such to Laura. If anything, her perception of the carnage she had caused down below at street level was that it had been mildly amusing, even if unsought. Even if the change had been very recent, her altered perception was one of the consequences of being the size of a skyscraper and wielding the power of a God. It was hard to empathize with someone that looked no bigger than one of her eyelashes.
 
So, without further consideration, Laura moved her left foot forward with similar consequences.
 
She stopped, a dozen blocks later, at the sight of a billboard that caught her attention. It was on the roof of a building slightly below her naked breasts, so she stooped a little to examine it.
 
There was the picture of a very untrustworthy man in an expensive looking suit. Above an abnormally large telephone number, she could read the words “Killed or injured?”
 
Laura let a chuckle out at the ad of the personal injury lawyer. Straightening up again, she then turned and looked at the stretch of avenue she had just walked through.
 
It looked like a war-zone. Downed lampposts and traffic lights and debris that had peeled off the building’s façades when her calves had accidentally brushed on them were noticeable enough, but of course the most remarkable consequence of her trek were the two dozen or so depressions, each in the shape of her lovely but otherwise deadly feet.
 
Remainders of vehicles ranging from small urban cars to city buses and 18-wheelers filled most of them. Their two-dimensional silhouettes were still close enough to their original three-dimensional form. It would have been harder to get a feeling of how many people had shared the vehicles’ fate had it not been for the display of the fashion variety, from dark suits to bright floral dresses that covered the compacted ground.
 
All around them, those that had been lucky to survive but were still too shocked to realize were slowly recovering from the hellish experience they had lived, most trying to stand up after having lost their footing, making sure to avoid falling into footprints that Laura now knew were way too deep for the mite-sized people.
 
It was impossible for her to feel sorry about the scene. She could only wonder about the number of figures in the body count. Three were for granted. Chances were that she had got as high as four.
 
It was somewhat weird to realize about the consequences of just moving from point A to point B. Still, when putting them in perspective to the millions of people that lived in the city, they felt less extraordinary. Laura’s mind was not working like that of a tiny person anymore. Among other things, her frame of reference had changed, and not just a little.
 
Stooping again, she faced the injury lawyer’s billboard once more and smiled at it.
 
“You are going to be busy” she whispered.
 
Then, she just flicked it with a finger, sending it flying over a few city blocks.
 
The idea of a class legal action against her momentarily crossed her mind. She chuckled at its stupidity. She wondered if the jury would buy her argument that she had just been peacefully walking. Well, if they did not, she could always step on them.
 
Of course, that was what her new status was about. She was above the law! Hell, she was the law now!
 
Amused by the injury lawyer’s sign, Laura made a game of picking up as many billboards as she could find. Once the roofs around her were reaped, she dropped to a knee and went on with the signs at street level, ripping off storefronts and bus shelters just the same.
 
Letting herself drop on her hard ass and causing a mild earthquake that made cracks form in the façades of the buildings around her, she sat down, crossed her legs Indian-style, dropped her collection of signs on a conveniently located roof by her left tit and started picking them up one by one, examining them with her keen eyes.
 
Looking at what some tiny humans wanted other tiny humans to know was an interesting exercise to learn more about her new condition.
 
The first one showed one of the monster SUVs she despised so much. It was pictured in a perspective that made it look even bigger. The sign claimed “Power” in bright yellow letters with a red rim. Laura giggled. Then, she looked around her to see that there were a few sections of the block that were still standing after she sat down. She found a car like the one in the sign soon enough. Sure enough, her town mates loved oversized fuel-draining cars that served no other purpose than killing the planet. She reached out and picked it up between two fingers of her free hand. Bringing it up, she manipulated it until she was holding it flat just in the last segment of her index finger. Then, she looked back at the sign and giggled once more.
 
“Power?” she asked aloud.
 
The vehicle in her finger would barely qualify as a toy. A toy she did not like at all. Bringing her thumb on top of it, she effortlessly pushed and turned the SUV into a metal pancake the size of a coin.
 
“I’m going to abolish this crap” she muttered.
 
Then, she smirked as she let her mind wander.
 
“I’d be doing the world a favor. Who needs one of these, anyway?”
 
Then, her mind added: “And even if they did need them…I don’t give a fuck! I don’t want anything like this in my streets anymore. Period”
 
To prove her point, she brought her hand back on the street and crushed another similar SUV under her fingertip, just as she had done on the highway. A third one she just flicked, sending it flying father than she expected until it crashed against a building down the street and remained half-embedded on its façade.
 
“Ooops, sorry” Laura said casually, although she was more amused than sorry.
 
“I have to start taking mental note of the changes I want in the world. I’ll have to make them known soon enough”
 
Discarding the car billboard, she reached for the next one. It pictured an oddly large burger with bacon, cheese and everything else. Laura had never been big on burgers, but the sign made her think anyway.
 
“I’m not hungry but… will I need to eat?” she wondered. She realized she did not know. There had been no clue about it in the otherwise incredibly realistic dream that had heralded her real growth. She acknowledged that could be an important issue. It was one of the areas she had often considered, in her fantasies. Of course, the freer she was from real-world needs the better. Her preference had always been that her transformation would come together with some way to self-sustain herself. It was not as it would be too big of an issue if that was not the case, anyway. It would merely be an inconvenience. At her size, her needs in terms of food intake would be roughly equivalent to those of the population of the city she was sitting in. This should be manageable for the little people, once she had succeeded to establish her authority over them.
 
She was more concerned about the consequences of her eating or drinking. In the end, if food was getting in… it would need to get out as well. And at her size that would be unavoidably gross and inconvenient. She was a goddess now, and goddesses should not be seen doing certain things.
 
“Anyway, I guess I’ll find out as I go” Laura thought as she discarded the burger billboard and went for the next.
 
The jeans on it could not have fit the model that was wearing them any better. With her long and toned legs and her shapely hard ass, Laura knew that they would have fit her almost as good. And yet, she was not at all interested on them. She had been asleep during her growth, but it was obvious enough that she had grown through her clothes. If she had not and her clothes had keep up with her new size, the first thing she would have done back at the lake would have been to take them off.
 
To start with, she did not want to show up in the city in hiking apparel. But even if she would have been wearing her fanciest party dress she would have got rid of it anyway. Laura was aware of her looks. She had a model-like figure, even if a tad too tall, and she enjoyed showing it. Used to run around the house in her birthday suit, she was more than happy to show her body to the world.
 
Besides, she could think on no attire that could be more suitable for a goddess. Her power derived from the fact that she was a moving skyscraper made of flesh and she wanted the world to realize that she needed nothing other than her naked body to dominate them. The days for shopping and clothes were over for her and she was not the least concerned about it.
 
For an instant she considered adding an obligation for all the people in the country to strip and move as naked as her, but she discarded it. As small as they were it would not really make a difference for her, and she doubted that the people would be as resistant to weather changes as she expected to be.
 
She discarded a few billboards until she got to one that made her chuckle. It was that of a condoms company and the large pink letters in the black background formed just one word: “Sex”
 
After the initial chuckle, she then put some more thought at it. She had never needed condoms. And she would not need them in the future either. Having gone through the scenario many times, the thought that came to Laura’s mind was not new. The only difference was that now it was real. For Laura, the days of having sex with another human being were over.
 
Stopping, she corrected herself: the days of having sex with an equal being were over. In her current state, this would have required another goddess to be around, and she was not sure that she wanted something like that to happen. At most, she would have been fine with Stacy, her girlfriend. She always did as Laura said, anyway. But she was willing to trade goddess-to-goddess sex off in exchange for ensuring that her power was absolute and not shared with anyone. The last thing a goddess needed was to have to discuss her plans with someone else.
 
She realized that this did not rule out the possibility of having sex with another human being. Or a few dozen, for that matter. Like everything else, it just depended on her will.
 
Smirking, she wondered if some of the things that ran through her mind would be considered sex by her counterparts. Most likely not. Some would even call it spelunking, she thought with a chuckle.
 
She had some doubts that the experience would be too pleasurable for her, in any case. After all, she was VERY big. She was quite sure that the ride would be very rough for whatever lover she chose, in any case. Of course, after the hundreds that had died just so that she could advance a dozen blocks the prospect did not look as dramatic, but somehow, in Laura’s mind, forcing them into her womanhood looked quite more questionable than just smashing them under her sole.
 
Her erect nipples and moist cunt told her that, no matter what happened with food or drink, this would be a womanly need she would need to take care of, sooner or later. If anything, her libido had only grown with her new size and power.
 
Ruling out the possibility of forcing some unwilling lovers to work on her, both because of the concept and the questionable results, Laura realized that she would be stuck to sex-toys. Hopefully the city would provide enough of them. In her dreams, the cities she had visited had always had. All it had taken her was a little creativity.
 
The idea that she might actually have some willing lovers crossed her mind. It was a remote possibility true… then she thought about Stacy. Yes, Stacy would be willing enough to do anything Laura wanted, without the need for her to use her amazing size to force her. Precisely because of this, she discarded the possibility too. Stacy was too important to risk her like that. She was probably the only one of the ant-sized people around her she still cared for individually. Up to a point, Laura regretted that Stacy would not be able to share this new situation with her. Far from scared at the notion, she had been very supportive ever since Laura opened up enough to tell her about her fantasies. She just did not share the same craving for power. Laura realized that wishing her to become a goddess like her was selfish. Stacy would not enjoy it. Not being able to be with her was probably the biggest trade-off of her new size. Still, if she had been given the choice, she would have chosen to grow anyway. There was nothing she wanted more than what she had become. And Stacy understood that, Laura told herself.
 
Then, the thought came naturally to her. Stacy did not want to be big, but this did not mean that she could not be with her. She could go find her. Even get her out of harm’s way, she thought, ignoring the fact that she was as much the source for harm as her possible protector.
 
Yes, she would go find her girlfriend. And maybe she could bring her along as she explored the city for something that could actually help her with the ever growing “itch” that came from down below.
 
Dropping the Sex billboard, she postponed her urges for later and looked at one of the last signs. There was a warm-looking old man on it and a text in the colors of the American flag that read “Re-elect Strauss”.
 
She frowned. The billboard reminded her of her true purpose in the city. She was going to take over the world and she would start in her city. She could not think of any better favor she could do for the world than ridding it of Jacob Strauss. He represented all that Laura despised in politics: elitist, unconcerned by those in need and with a complete disregard for the people of the city he had vowed to serve, Strauss had used every trick in the book to stay in power for over twelve years. He was known for destroying the political careers of those that could end up representing a threat, for favoring to those that would give him money or screen time for his campaign and for exercising power like an absolute ruler.
 
His extreme right morals did not help Laura like him either. Having grown a massive real estate business from the ruins of his family’s fortune, using political favors and bribery, he had jumped into politics on top of the most populist speech possible, blaming immigrants for every problem, despising poor people just for being poor and treating left-wingers, ecologists or homosexuals with the worst possible contempt.
 
He was scum. Laura despised him, as much as she could despise anyone. She would have taken over the city no matter who had been in charge. It was only suitable to her new station. But the fact that it was Strauss made the prospect so much better.
 
Removing Strauss would be her first priority. She could take care of some of the other stuff that had been going through her head later. With her mind made up, she unfolded her legs and started to rise back to her feet, digging the ground as expected as she did.
 
Towering over the landscape once more, she mentally chose the path she would take to City Hall and took a first step down the avenue. The crowd had been smart enough to use the time she had given them while reading the billboards to clear the avenue considerably. Still, none of her steps was completely free of victims. Her feet were just too big. That was a stage she had gone over, though. After her previous experience, Laura was now ready to accept that moving meant stepping on people.
 
A dozen blocks later, she stopped when she realized that the crowd was again thick enough that the body count would be back at two to three figures per step. She needed to get through, so if they were stupid enough not to make it easy for her… well, then tough shit. But she felt that she owed them at least a fair warning.
 
Placing her hands on her hips quite unconsciously she prepared to address the crowd when she realized that there was too much noise. She quickly identified the source.
 
The news choppers had been following her for a while and she had not minded. As a matter of fact, they played to her advantage. The more people understood her power, the easier it would be for them to accept her as their new ruler. She had been also considering stopping and making some statement, but after the initial speech when she had reached the city, she decided to give the people some more time to check her out before she addressed them again.
 
Laura now realized that the fact that she had left the choppers mostly alone had probably made some of their pilots grow bolder. A group of them were now flying much closer to her and the sound of their rotors was becoming annoying. She was about to send them away when one of them did the stupidest thing yet. Taking advantage of the fact that she had stopped, the chopper had flown around her and was now hovering in front of her and close enough that she could not only hear its rotor but also feel the wind it generated. This made her mad. When she realized that the pilot was hovering as close to her as possible while still staying out of her reach, she got madder. Stupidity was annoying enough, but this challenge was totally unacceptable.
 
Fixing an angry stare at the chopper, Laura addressed the pilot.
 
“Dude, you need to get out of my face. Now!” she said in a very unfriendly tone
 
The fact that the pilot did not immediately comply made her blood boil. She realized he felt he was safe. This was too much.
 
Muttering the word: “Insect”, Laura pointed her face towards the chopper, puckered her thick lips and let out a short but strong gust of wind through them.
 
The results were even better than she had expected. Taken completely by surprise, the pilot lost control of the aircraft, which started to spin around like a brown leave at the wind’s mercy. Soon, it dropped and its tail crashed with a building to Laura’s left. This only accelerated the process. Laura let out a couple of “Ooops” and a snort as she followed the erratic flight of the news helicopter, which started to bounce between the buildings on both sides of the street like a pinball. When it finally crashed on the street below she was about to claim victory. Something else happened first.
 
Working at his best, Murphy had decided that the spot where the helicopter crashed would be precisely the one occupied by a full tanker truck. The explosion was massive even from Laura’s perspective.
 
The first two dozen of victims were already unavoidable. It did not take Laura to be a fire expert to realize that the body count would quickly rise if no one put the fire that had ensued out. And it did not take a genius to realize that she was the only one qualified for the task.
 
Feeling a little sheepish, since in the end the accident had been of her own doing, she decided to help the people out. It would also serve as a proof that her intentions were not evil, she thought. She did not stop to think that the amount of people she was set on saving was in the order of magnitude of the victims of a couple of her steps.
 
Dropping to a knee, she stooped forward and pushed her lips out once more. Then, she started blowing as someone trying to cool down a cup of coffee. The results were considerably different from what she was expecting.
 
To start with, the gale-force winds generated by her lungs and channeled through her lips caught a couple dozen people that had been running from the fire and in her direction and threw them back into the area where the fire was the fiercest. This was far from the worst consequence of her action, though. Fueled by the fresh oxygen from her lungs, the source of the fire roared brighter and wider, engulfing several dozen people more.
 
“Fuck!” Laura said aloud when she realized about the consequences of her actions. She was more ashamed than concerned by the wellbeing of the tiny victims, in any case.
 
As the screams from the avenue increased in intensity Laura’s mind was trying to find an alternative to blowing in order to put the fire out. Unfortunately, every idea that came to her mind had the unwanted side effect of finishing the people in the area around her as well. She started to look around, searching for ideas. A rooftop to her right gave her the answer. Standing up, she ripped the water tower off easily enough.
 
Bringing her hand over the area where the fire was burning, she squeezed the water tower between her fingers and let the water it held stream out of it and into the flames. It did something, but not enough. Laura did not give up, though. She now knew how to put the fire out.
 
It took her only a few minutes to gather half of the water towers in the neighborhood and hold them in her palm. Happy with its contents, she placed it directly above the flames once more and closed it into a fist. There was more than enough water to put the fire out this time. Laura waited for the last flame to be extinguished with a satisfied look and then said:
 
“You’re welcome”
 
No one had actually even thought on thanking her.
 
Realizing that it would be too absurd to save the crowd from the flames just to step on them a minute later, Laura decided to find an alternative route in her path to the City Hall. If she had not she would have probably left the Beck Tower alone.
 
Once her path had brought her next to it, though, she could not ignore it. The Beck tower was one of Emerald’s landmarks, even if Laura had never liked its architecture too much. The tall communications tower was built like a tall spire with a wide circular deck that stood more or less at shoulder-height to her. On top of the deck there was a taller spike that held most of the communications gear.
 
With spike and everything, the Beck Tower was just a tad taller than Laura. This was the first thing that needed to change. Laura was not in the mood of letting anything be taller to her. Reaching out, she took hold of the base of the spike, twisted it a couple of times with a movement of her wrist and then ripped it off the building.
 
She admired the foot-long spike in her hand. Then, she opened it and offered it to the dozens of people inside the circular deck. She smiled at them as she observed the multiple shadows glued behind the glasses. She wanted to have a closer look.
 
Bending down, she set the spike by her foot, since she thought she might find it useful later, and then stood up again to stoop and bring her billboard sized eyes closer to the deck. The reaction from the people behind the glass was almost immediate. She saw them scurrying back inside and joining some groups that were randomly formed across the surface of one of the four floors. Laura was wondering about the logic behind those groupings when she realized what was going on. They were waiting in line for the elevator to get there. Over 700 feet above the ground, the elevator was the only way in and out of the deck for anyone that did not share Laura’s height.
 
“Leaving already?” she asked in a mocking tone. “I’m afraid I cannot have that” she added.
 
Laura had been to the Beck tower. She had often been to its top and then spent long hours looking down, observing the ant-sized people and vehicles, dreaming that she was a giant. She had the same view now, only her bare feet were firmly planted on the ground below.
 
So, no stranger to the tower and its observation deck, Laura was familiar with the four elevators that ferried people up and down and had a pretty good idea on how to disable them. Of course, everything was much easier when one had the power of a God.
 
Bending lower, she looked through the openings in the tower spire that she knew gave access to the elevator shafts. She would have only needed to damage the shafts enough to prevent the elevators from working. But seeing the elevator of the side directly in front of her crawling down at a snail’s pace right below her eyes was too tempting.
 
Extending her index finger, she turned it face up and easily dug her way into the shaft. Then it was just a matter to patiently wait until the elevator was stopped by her soft fingertip. Breaking into the shaft over the elevator with her thumb, Laura was soon holding the large cabin between her fingers. The hardest part was to strike the right balance between pulling the elevator out and crushing it between the titanic strength of her digits. Luckily for Laura, and especially for the two-dozen people inside the elevator, control over her unfathomable power seemed to come naturally to her. Out of the shaft, the elevator cabin looked barely bigger than a thimble to her. Having been inside and knowing how many people it fit made the scene even more powerful for Laura.
 
She was eager to have a closer look at its occupants, but she needed to take care of the remaining three elevators first. Not in the mood for more delicate capture operations, she resolved to just make sure that no one would be using them anymore. All it took her to disable them was for her index finger to dig deeper into the tower. She just needed to make sure that she did not damage the structure enough to put the tower itself at risk. She thanked her lesson with the Windsor for having given her additional insight in the manipulation of buildings.
 
Looking at her extended finger as she removed it from the spire, she pondered at the fact that on itself it wielded a power few other things on Earth possessed.
 
Standing up again, she brought the elevator, which was partially covered by glass windows, right in front of her eyes. She smiled at the terrified people inside.
 
“I hope you don’t mind I took the liberty to bring you back up, but you were about to miss the best attraction in town” she said in a mocking tone.
 
Of course, she was not waiting for any response. She just looked for a good enough spot to set the elevator at. She had plenty to choose, since the top open-air terrace, around the spot where she had ripped the spike, was totally empty. Predictably enough, everyone on the observation deck had gone downstairs, to any of the four roofed floors inside the disk-shaped structure. She would make this change soon enough, but for now it fitted her well.
 
Realizing that the structure of the elevator cabin was too twisted for the doors to ever work again, Laura picked it up again and then used a fingernail of her free hand to rip its top open. It was then easy to empty them on the roof of the Beck tower as if she had been emptying a tube of aspirins.
 
Crushing the empty cabin in her fingers and tossing it over her shoulder, she stooped to take a closer look at the dozen or so centimeter tall people.
 
They were beginning to get back to their feet and scream. It suited Laura well.
 
“Anyone seriously injured?” she asked.
 
Seeing that most people seemed to be moving, she answered herself:
 
“It does not seem like it. Kudos to me for being so good at dealing with you, don’t you think?”
 
A few of the people were, predictably enough, heading towards the stairs that would bring them down. Laura made a show of stopping them using only her extended pinky finger, which to them looked like an impassable wall of flesh, nonetheless.
 
“I want you up here. And believe me, it’s a bad idea to upset me” she added.
 
Removing the finger, she patiently waited for them to react. The majority of the people she had intercepted reluctantly got away from the stairs. One of them seemed to have a different idea, though, and dashed towards the stairs again, as if he had any chance to get here.
 
Laura sighed and brought her hand back on the roof. She then flicked the challenging man and sent him flying a couple hundred yards. The fact that he had not screamed during the flight told her that he had probably died at her fingernail’s impact. It was hard to tell, with the little people being as puny as they were.
 
Moving her hand back, she said in a matter-of-fact tone:
 
“Anyone else needs my help to leave the roof?”
 
She only got murmurs and the crowd getting farther away from the stairs.
 
“Thought so. Now, we are going to have some fun. Let me just find you some colleagues”
 
 
 
 
Klaus had already accepted that the elevators were not going to work anymore. A few dozen people still seemed to be denying reality and were still grouping in front of their doors.
 
He lazily moved towards the windows and let himself drop into one of the observation benches that would have been crowded if a skyscraper sized woman had not been standing outside. He had been regretting having extended his business trip to Emerald for some sightseeing ever since he had set his eyes on her in the distance, but there was no point on denying what was obvious: they were at her mercy.
 
At the moment, the woman seemed to be focusing her attention on some people on the roof of the observation deck. He wondered who could have still been there. Tired, Klaus sat and looked through the glass and at a breast the size of a large three-story house.
 
The landscape changed quite abruptly, though. Klaus remained speechless, but some high-pitched screams behind him reacted to the fact that the window was now suddenly filled by the smiling face of the giant woman that had them trapped in there.
 
Even standing somewhat away from the building, the woman’s face filled his field of vision as if he were on an IMAX. Her lips parted and her voice reverberated inside the deck, making the glass rattle. One would have expected a sound of that volume to be distorted, but her feminine tone was clear and easily discernible.
 
“You thought I had forgotten about you?” the voice asked in a tone that matched the cheerful expression of the building-sized face.
 
Klaus realized about three things. The woman was young, probably in her early twenties. She was also very pretty. The third one was the most concerning one: she seemed incredibly happy with the situation.
 
“Come on, don’t look so gloomy” the woman said in the same cheerful tone she had used before. “If you play along, we can all have a lot of fun together. I bet you were not expecting to get to see two towers for the price of one when you bought the ticket, were you?”
 
Klaus was anything but amused at the woman’s puns.
 
Her expression suddenly hardened.
 
“Now, let’s cut the crap and let’s get to the meat, shall we? I am a reasonable woman. And I can be gentle. But this does not mean that I’m not aware of the fact that I’m standing as tall as this tower you are on. I don’t know if you all heard my little speech as I got into the city, but just so that there is no misunderstanding: I’m in charge here. I command, you obey. Simple as that. If you don’t follow my commands, I’ll force you to do so or I’ll crush you. Or both”
 
Smiling again and looking as warm as ever, the woman switched back to her cheerful tone:
 
“But that does not need to happen. I’m sure that you’ll all be very devote tiny people. And my instructions are really simple. You just need to get out in the roof, where I can see you” she said. “Right now” she added
 
Without any time to react, Klaus found himself covering his face with his arms as glass shattered and rained all around him. It took him a second to realize what had happened. The tip of a finger the size of a bus standing uncomfortably close to him was clue enough, though.
 
The finger moved, but thankfully not in his direction. He heard some screams and then realized that another finger was closing from farther to his left. When they moved outside of the glass, he saw that there were two people wriggling between their tips. The fingers and people moved away from his view and he could see the woman’s face again. Her lips were smirking.
 
“I forgot to mention that there are two ways you can get to the roof. I went ahead and helped the first couple of people. I don’t mind helping others. If you want my help, it is really simple: you just need to stay and I’ll find you. The other option you have is to get to the roof on your own. Your choice, really”
 
Klaus wasted no time in standing up and running towards the stairs. He could swear that he heard a loud chuckle coming from outside as he did.
 
 
 
 
Laura was back standing and looking at the ever-growing crowd on the roof of the observation deck, right between her perky breasts. The stream of people went on for a while. By the time it stopped, the roof was practically full.
 
Of course, Laura was not fool enough to believe that no one had tried to cheat her and stay behind. It was in human nature to do things like that. And she knew it would take her time to change that kind of nature. She considered ignoring them and focusing on the clear majority of people that had followed her commands, but something in the back of her head advised against being complacent. There was as much power to be had from the fear of what she might do as from what she directly did. If stories of tinies that had managed to cheat her, to use their ridiculous sizes to escape from her scrutiny, started spreading out, it would not play to her advantage. No, she needed to outsmart them as much as overpower them.
 
She was too eager to enjoy her willing playmates to waste too much time on the cheaters, though. So, without any warning, she just stooped, widened the opening she had previously made with her finger and approached it with her mouth.
 
Bringing her lips to the hole as if she were kissing the tower, she inhaled deeply and then, without warning, she blew as hard as she could into the observation deck. The force of the current and the sudden increase in pressure were too much and all around the circular shape of the observation deck, glass shattered and was blown out together with anything that had not been firmly attached to the floor. This included all those who had thought that were smarter than a woman with a brain that weighted thousands of tons.
 
She stood up again to see the very confused faces of the couple hundred people on the roof. Shrugging, she said:
 
“The rats had to be purged out”
 
She felt the increase of the general nervousness and, while she did not mind inspiring fear, she knew that fear would not play out well for what she had in mind.
 
“Ok, let me bring up the elephant in the room first” she said. “I don’t plan to kill you” she added. She heard a collective sigh and smiled. “I don’t enjoy killing people. I don’t kill for the sake of killing. I’ve killed out of need or by accident. But not out of cruelty”
 
The mood in the roof seemed to be getting a little better.
 
“Now, killing you is one of the best tools I have to make sure that you follow my commands, and I don’t mind using it in that context. Bottom line: don’t piss me off and you’ll be fine”
 
She enjoyed the counter-reaction her last words had caused.
 
“Now, you don’t have to be too afraid. All I really wanted to do was to tell you a little bit more about me. I know you’ll think I’m vain, but I hope you’ll be able to understand that when one is taller than the tallest tower in Emerald, this kind of comes naturally. And for those smartasses in the crowd that are thinking that the Beck Tower was actually taller than me, I just wanted to mention that I was the one that made it shorter. Any questions?” Laura asked
 
As expected, there were none.
 
“Ok, let’s start then. Just something else: get your smartphones out. Take pictures and videos of me. Post in Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. I want to be the trending topic. Use the hashtag #GoddessLaura. Understood?”
 
She got some nods from the crowd.
 
“Lovely little people” she said with a smile.
 
Waiting until enough smartphones were trained on her, she started. The fact that she was addressing a crowd of regular people and not the cameras made her sound more natural.
 
Smiling at her audience, she started:
 
“Ok, let’s get started, then. I’ll try not to repeat myself too much. I’ll take advantage of the more reduced audience to be a little more intimate. You should already know that my name is Laura Anderson and I’m 22. I live in Emerald.  Well, I guess I should say I lived in Emerald. Now, I kind of own the place. I was actually on my way to let the mayor know” she said.
 
Making a pause of a couple of seconds, she went ahead.
 
“I know it will take you tinies a while to accept the new state of things but it does not need to be bad at all for you. I’m a nice girl. I’m big enough to force you to do as I want, but I’m also big enough to do plenty of stuff for you. And hell… I’m also very hot.  You’ll have both the biggest and hottest ruler in the world” she said
 
She got no reply. Laura chuckled.
 
She brought her hands to her bare breasts and cupped them.
 
“Doesn’t it feel better to be ruled by an attractive young woman?” she asked as she mashed her tits together.
 
“Ok, I guess that my tits are not so impressive, but they are still the largest in the world”
 
Winking at them with a naughty face, she observed as most of the men in the room seemed to be closer to the railing now.
 
“So predictable” she thought
 
She massaged her tits a little more, starting to feel aroused by the touch as much as by the power her gesture implied.
 
“You like them, don’t you? You want me to get naughtier?” she asked
 
Without saying anything else, she extended the index finger of her right hand and brought it into her mouth. Sucking it, she moaned lightly and enjoyed the reaction from many of the males in the crowd.
 
Without further warning, she took her finger out and moved it towards the roof of the deck. People tried to clear the way, but they could not get anywhere. Laura’s intentions were simple enough. Placing her wet finger on top of a tiny man, she waited for him to get stuck. He did, which marveled her, and then she slowly moved her finger upwards. Her joy was short-lived, though. Her saliva was apparently not sticky enough, and her finger had barely left the roof when the man unstuck and fell back into its surface.
 
Disappointed, Laura said:
 
“Oh, that’s too bad”
 
Then, she had an idea, smirked naughtily and said:
 
“I guess I know where I can get something stickier, though”
 
Bringing her hand down, she slid two fingers in and moaned again. She had not realized that she was so wet. She would need to do something about it, and she would need to do it soon.
 
In the meantime, all she did was remove her fingers from her cunt, extend the same index finger she had used before and marvel as another tiny man got stuck into it. The grip was much stronger this time, and she enjoyed lifting him off the roof and moving her finger around a few times while the tiny man remained stuck on its tip while screaming.
 
Happy with the results, she just pinched the man with her other hand, set him back on the roof and licked her fingers clean.
 
“Was that sexy for you? Or you were too freaked out to realize?” Laura asked with a chuckle.
 
No one replied. Stooping to get a closer look at the terrace, she whispered:
 
“You’ve been a good audience. I’m afraid I need to get going. I’ve got a city to take over”
 
She was about to turn when someone screamed:
 
“Goddess Laura”
 
She smiled and looked in the direction where the yell had come. She had not seen who had called for her, but it was easy enough to identify him when a circle started forming around him as people tried to get as far away from him as possible.
 
She smiled at him and said:
 
“Laura will be enough. I may be big, but I’m not big on formality” she said
 
“Laura” the man said
 
“Yes, tiny?” she asked
 
The man seemed uncomfortable, but finally managed to say:
 
“We have no way to get down”
 
Laura realized it was true. She was the cause for that, as a matter of fact. She quickly made her mind up. Straightening again, she said:
 
“All of you, get off the roof and down to the lower levels”
 
When she saw that the tiny people hesitated, she added in a harsher tone:
 
“Now!”
 
They started complying soon enough. She waited with some impatience until the roof was finally empty and everyone was back where they had started. Then, without further word, Laura took hold of the two sides of the observation deck and started pulling upwards. The structure started to groan soon enough. That was not a surprise, though. Laura had no doubts that she would be able to rip the observation deck off. The trick was doing so while keeping it in one piece.
 
So, applying the best balance she could between strength and subtlety, Laura kept on pulling, until she felt that the foundations of the observation deck were now basically free from the spire it had rested on. Taking a step backward, she was satisfied when she saw the observation deck coming out of the tower in one piece. A second later, the circular structure was at the exact same height it had always been but supported by a much stronger foundation: Laura.
 
Happy with what she had achieved, she took yet another step backwards and then carefully dropped to a knee. Soon, Beck Tower’s observation deck rested on the grass of the park below. Laura brought her head as close to the ground as possible to look through the broken windows and when she saw that the tiny people inside were battered, probably from having been thrown around a little, but more or less fine, felt satisfied with herself.
 
“Stay inside until I’m gone. After all the effort it took me to get you down in one piece, I’d hate it if one of you accidentally ended up under my feet”
 
Moving her head back, she proceeded to stand up. Looking in the direction of downtown, she walked around the tower and chose the new path she would take towards her destination.
 
As she took the first steps along the currently quiet path, one thought filled her mind:
 
“How have I been able to be not like this my entire life?”
 
 
 
 
“I need to admit I’m a little lost” Laya said.
 
“I guessed you would. I’m too, but that’s part of the thrill of this experiment” Quo replied.
 
“Why would she get out of her way to save the people on the fire or to help those in the tower down when she has just crushed over a thousand people to move?” the assistant asked.
 
“Of course, I can only make guesses about her thinking process right now, but my guess would be this: even if the unit of measure can be human lives in both cases, her mind is rationalizing both situations in very different ways. People represented a challenge to her mobility, so her mind decided that she should not care about those clogging the streets. Once it made the decision once, I expect she is going to behave similarly in similar situations in the future. We had a few examples of accidents and challengers that she did not mind in managing harshly, as well. But then, there were those cases where she realized that her large size could actually help. And since she is set on ruling the world to make it a better place, at least from her point of view, those acts of mercy make her feel better. She feels like she is staying true to her initial intentions” Quo said
 
“But that is not true. None of her actions so far have had any impact that could help her on her future plans” Laya said. “At most, one could say that she is experimenting and even playing”
 
“Of course. Consider this: Laura Anderson has wanted to be just what we turned her into during her entire adult life. Now that she is, she is eager to enjoy this status. But she needs to convince herself that she is doing it for the right causes. That’s how she’s behaving now. She will get back on track, eventually” Quo said.
 
“Not right away?” Laya asked. “She is close enough to the City Hall”
 
“Oh, I’m pretty sure that she’ll find herself plenty of distractions along the way. But don’t worry, she is doing better than I expected, actually”

 

Chapter 5

 

 
The streets had not remained empty for long. With none of the buildings in her immediate surroundings reaching higher than her crotch, Laura could see Downtown well enough. It looked so close… and it was actually close. At her pace, she could be there in just a few minutes. The problem, of course, was that her path was not going to be free of obstacles.
 
Right in front of her feet she had a few hundreds of them. From up above, she judged that the crowd was not tightly packed but dense enough. Her short experience with crowds told Laura that there would be no way to get to the river and to cross it to get into Downtown without stepping on those in her way. She had been successful enough at dealing with groups of individuals up to a certain size, but whenever they turned into a mob they seemed to become stupid enough not to have any sense of self-preservation.
 
She was wondering whether to waste her time with a warning or not when an idea crossed her mind. Crowds were different than individual humans. But she would need to interact with plenty of them too. Why not try a lesson of Crowds 101? She felt it would be challenging, but she needed to learn a little more about her new world.
 
Somehow, the fact that she had already mentally marked them for crushing made experimenting with the tiny mob more appealing. In the end, the worst that could happen was what was going to happen originally, right?
 
“Ok, let’s see if I can find some alternatives to trampling you” she said from up above. And then, she started dropping to her knees, genuinely curious.
 
As every one of her actions, the landing of her knees was far from inconsequential for the little people right in front of them. A group at the back of the crowd lost their footing and was left behind.
 
“First observation. Crowds don’t care about their individuals. If anyone falls, he gets left behind”
 
She wanted to see something else. Resting her weight in one hand, she stretched her body and reached out as far as she could into the mob. With her long arms, this was pretty far. Knowing that she was being far from careful, she cupped her hand like an excavator and scooped a handful of people, roughly three dozen. Bringing them up, she observed the crowd. The empty spot left by those she had picked up were filled quickly enough.
 
“So, a crowd always reshapes itself” she thought, amused
 
She then moved her hand closer to her face and looked at her captives. Unfortunately enough, a few had been crushed in the picking motion. Laura had already expected something of that, considering how rough she had had to be. The majority was still alive and very much shocked, though.
 
In a soft tone, she addressed them:
 
“I need one of you to answer me a simple question. If I told you that I will not touch the buildings as I advance down the streets and that I will give you enough time to get into them, what would you do?”
 
She got an answer screamed from somewhere in her palm saying:
 
“Get into the buildings!”
 
There were some nods of approval all across her palm.
 
Laura smiled at them.
 
“So, in smaller groups you are reasonable enough. Why don’t you do it when you are running and I’m telling you this from up above, then?” she asked
 
No one could reply. She saw some nervous headshakes.
 
“It is as if you get stupider the greater your number is” she said
 
No one dared to contradict her. Seeing that she would not be getting too much more out of them, Laura dropped them in the most convenient roof she could find to her right.
 
“The most important question, of course, is whether there is a way to get through crowds without necessarily having to crush everyone in them” Laura thought.
 
The particular mob in front of her had already cleared enough space for her to rest her hands on the ground just in front of her knees. Bringing her ass up, she got in all-fours and decided to go on with the next test.
 
Extending her arm, she placed her palm flat and landed it on its side, deep into the crowd. A few got crushed, but mostly what she did was to divide the road in two more or less symmetrical sides. Then, she swept to one side. Her objective, of course, was to see if she could get the people out of the way in a more or less easy and convenient way.
 
The results were mixed.  She did actually get the people out of the way. And it was easy and convenient… for her. The red streaks on the pavement had already told her that her little test had not been free of victims. A quick close look at the sidewalk told her the complete truth:  her hand and forearm had bulldozed through the crowd, not only killing but literally smashing the majority of people on it. The very few surviving on the pileup were screaming like madmen.
 
“So much for good intentions” she thought
 
She was running out of ideas. She tried blowing at them, but all she got was to send a few people flying into some other people. Except for the ones that splashed against building façades, of course.
 
Half frustrated, Laura stood up again. She barely had a couple of free steps, and it was half a dozen blocks to the river. She needed to cross it to get to her intended destination.
 
“Ok, probably wasting my time, but here I go anyway” she said. “I’ll be walking down this street. None of the alternatives to stepping on you seem to be very effective, so that’s what I’ll be doing. If you have a brain, use it to process this: I’ll be leaving the buildings alone, so if you get to them before I get to you, you’ll be fine. Otherwise… well, tough shit”
 
She did not count down this time. She just moved forward. By the time she had reached the river, she had stopped caring about the body count. She had learned some more about crowds. Nothing of what she had learned would save too many people, though.
 
Laura enjoyed the cool water when she took her first step into the Emerald River. The water barely reached her ankle, and the Emerald was a deep river. It wasn’t wide, though. The river would have barely taken Laura two steps to cross, if that was what she had wanted to do. With tall buildings lining on both sides of it, the Emerald meandered along the city and divided it in two almost identical halves. To Laura, it looked almost like another street, only this one felt more refreshing to her feet.
 
So, even if her original intention had been to cross the river and get into downtown, Laura stood on it for a few seconds, observing it from her height. Her attention was soon enough grabbed by the sequence of drawbridges lining it. Predictably enough, they were packed with vehicles and people on foot.
 
For some reason that she could not explain very well, Laura was very keen on keeping Emerald’s population inside Emerald. This was the reason she had brought down the overpasses on the eastern access to the city. In her mind, anything that she could do to limit mobility would also help her in that objective. And with the bridges along the river being the main infrastructure connecting both sides of the city, she decided that she might invest some time on them.
 
Soon enough, Laura was kneeling next to the first bridge. The pedestrians and motorists on it did not like her attention. She could not care less. Observing the bridge from her perspective, one thing was clear: there were many different ways she could easily destroy it. It was one of the bonuses of being her size. She found out that she did not want to just bring the bridge down, though. She wanted to fuck mobility while she was visiting the city, but sooner rather than later she would take over it, and when she did, she would need to command the tiny people to rebuild the infrastructure, so that city life could go back to normal.
 
She knew that the streets she had walked on would be hard enough to restore already. So would be the overpasses. This could not be helped. She thought it was worth trying to make things easier for the reconstruction crews when it came to the bridges. The fact that they were drawbridges should help here.
 
“It would be a really good idea if you got out of the bridge like right now” Laura said
 
Her warning had been more of a courtesy than anything else, though. She was not expecting the crowd to be too cooperative so she did not even wait a second to reach out and grab underneath one of the two halves of the bridge with her right hand. Pulling her hand upwards, she felt something easily break and then the bridge started rising and tilting.
 
Pedestrians were the first to start rolling towards the bridge’s end. Cars followed soon enough, no matter if they had their parking brakes on. Letting go, she tested whether the drawbridge would fall down or not. It did. She had broken something that was needed to hold it in place. She would need something to brace the two halves of the bridge. An abandoned 18-wheeler offered an interesting enough possibility. Sticking it into the rotation mechanism, she let go and felt the 18-wheeler slightly crushing but holding.
 
Very happy about what she had accomplished, she proceeded to do the same with the second half of the drawbridge.
 
She mastered the technique soon enough, allowing her to be incredibly effective with the rest of drawbridges along the river. The speed at which she manipulated them combined with her speed as she advanced down the driver meant that the two halves of the city became completely isolated for the first time in decades.
 
Standing up and looking back she admired her work.
 
“I have a talent for urban planning and engineering” she thought, without stopping to consider that more than urban planning what she had done fit more in the category of urban chaos.
 
Happy enough with her accomplishment, though, she proceeded into a calm stroll down the river, enjoying the soothing ankle-deep waters and the feeling of walking through a canyon of buildings that in some cases reached as high as her chest.
 
The boat caught her attention the moment it came into view, after the river made a turn to her right. Smiling, she advanced towards it. It was one of the classical tourist boats that regularly made their way up and down the Emerald River and judging by its wake, it was trying to move as fast as possible once she had come into view.
 
Of course, Laura was not concerned at all by the boat’s pathetic efforts. She wanted it and she would have it. All she had to do was to calmly advance down the river, crouch and bring her open palm into the water and under the boat. Standing back up, she brought the boat, which was about as large as her hand, under her cute face.
 
“Doing some sightseeing, aren’t you?” Laura asked in a cheerful tone as she took a look at the panicky people on the boat. Most were still in their seats, but a few were standing up and moving around, not knowing very well what to do. Laura shook her wrist ever so slightly to send all of these people off their feet. She giggled.
 
“I thought you’d like to have a closer look at Emerald’s new biggest attraction” Laura said.
 
A few of the people on the boat were starting to scream very loudly, after the initial shock.
 
“Now, what should I do with you?” Laura wondered aloud in a tone that filled the hearts of all those in the boat with uncertainty. “I know. Let me show you around” she said.
 
Holding the boat in front of her face, she smiled and said:
 
“This is me. I’m up here. But I’m also down there. Let me show you”
 
Moving her hand down, she then brought the boat to her behind.
 
“This is my ass. Most say that this is my most remarkable feature. Apart from my height, of course. My girlfriend loves it. I have long legs and I jog and hike to keep in shape, and I guess it pays off”
 
Laura then moved the boat to the front, right in front of her womanhood.
 
“This is my pussy. I like it shaved, as you’ll have seen. Stacy does, too. It’s been craving for attention for a while now. I don’t know if you can smell it. All this stuff of being a goddess really turns me on. I still don’t know how I’m going to “appease it”. I guess I could fit the lot of you in there, but luckily for you, I’m all for consensual sex. You’d be really fucked if I were not” she said with a chuckle.
 
Moving the boat up a little more, she bent and, without warning, pushed a few on the people on it with her right tit’s nipple.
 
Chuckling, she straightened back up and said:
 
“And this was my tit. My chest was never my best asset, but I guess that I can now claim to have the biggest pair of boobs in the world”
 
Bringing the boat back to her face, she smiled at the tiny people once more and asked:
 
“So, what did you think?”
 
After a couple of seconds, Laura chuckled again and said:
 
“Don’t speak all at once!”
 
After a couple more seconds, she gave up.
 
“Anyway, it was nice meeting you and letting you know me a little bit better, but I should get going. I already invested too long with the 98 of you. I have a city of millions to conquer”
 
With that, she moved the boat to the closest roof to her right and set it there. She was sure they would find their way back to the street.
 
She took another step when she realized about something.
 
“Why did I know there were 98 people on the boat?” she wondered. Because she was sure there had been 98 people.
 
An idea came to mind. She took two more steps and crouched to look into a street perpendicular to the river. Predictably enough, there was a mob there. And predictably enough, they got scared and started to run without too much sense. She did not mind. She just focused and in two seconds she knew that there were 327 people in there.
 
Laura was intrigued. Standing up again, she stooped next to one of the tallest buildings around and brushed her fingers along its surface. As expected, the façade easily peeled. There were three floors exposed at once. Something told her that there were 87 people into view. 24 in the lowest floor, 41 in the middle one and 22 in the top one she had exposed. She asked herself a new question and instantly knew that there had been 40 men and 47 women in the mix. And, of course, she could tell how many of each had been there in every floor.
 
She let a laugh out. She realized what was going on.
 
“Well, it seems that this big brain of mine can do other stuff than just moving me around” she said aloud
 
Laura was incredibly happy with her finding. It was yet another proof that she was not only bigger. She was better. She was not a human anymore. Not even a big human. She was something else, a goddess.
 
Encouraged, she looked in the distance. She saw the bay, at the mouth of the river. Her attention was grabbed by Bay Bridge. She realized that after her work with the drawbridges along the river, Bay Bridge was the only connection between both halves of Emerald. Spanning the bay at its beginning, where the landscape, after the widening of the bay, brought both sides closer once more, it was probably the biggest feat of engineering in Emerald.
 
It was still quite a distance away, but Laura felt incredibly curious about it and wanted to know more. Almost responding to her wish, her eyes focused on the bridge in the distance and zoomed in. Laura’s mind was flooded by high-resolution images of the scene in the distance. She found out that she could control the zoom and the focus and, testing herself, she closed in a woman in jeans and a T-shirt. She was amazed when she could clearly read the “Love” word on it.
 
If anything, her recent observations made her get even wetter. Her size and strength were the tools she would use to take over, but the fact that she could see and process the information around her in the way she had found out she could was as important, if not more, to exercise her role of goddess. Now she knew she could force people to do as she pleased but also control them.
 
She was eager to learn more about her abilities. She still had no idea on how she had got them, besides the mysterious and incredibly realistic dream she had had before waking up as a goddess, but the more she learned, the more convinced she was about her goddesshood.
 
She was also eager to get to the bay and to interact a little more with the population. So, without further delay, she started wading her way down the river. She knew that she was taking a bit of a detour from her original objective, but if anything, she had learned that at the speed she could move, the city was small enough for her to get back on track easily.
 
Laura playfully run a finger along the roofs of the buildings to her right as she advanced down the river. She had reached the city feeling like a goddess. After a while on it, her feeling of power and superiority had only increased.
 
Her super-sight showed her two tiny people on the roof of a building that would be to her left as she advanced. The moment they saw that she would be getting close to them soon enough they tried to hide behind a wall. Laura felt this was funny and stopped next to the target building once she reached it.
 
Stooping, she brought her face over the roof of the building, blowing the cover of the two tinies.
 
“Hi there!” she said. “Wanted to have a better look?” she asked them in a cheerful tone
 
The two tinies did not like at all her attention. Standing up, they tried to start running. Laura just reached out to the building and pushed it gently, making it shake in its foundations and sending the two people off their feet. They were a middle aged man and a young woman. They were close enough, so Laura captured them both between two fingers as they tried to stand up.
 
Dropping them in her waiting palm, she gave them a couple of seconds to recover and told them:
 
“No one can hide from me anymore. I’m your goddess”     
 
Without further ceremony, she dropped them in the same roof she had picked them from.
 
Laura enjoyed these brief moments where she could interact with individual tinies and show them how things were going to be from now on.
 
By the time she reached the bay, the water level had risen from her ankle to mid-shin. It was not a huge difference to her, but she guessed that it made a difference for the little people. To start with, some of the boats in her immediate surroundings looked bigger.
 
She stopped, hands on her hips, and took a few moments to observe the situation. Emerald’s bay was pretty unique and one of the main features of the city. The inner bay was almost circular and protected by natural walls formed by two short hilly stretches of land that were separated by a moderately narrow body of water. This was where engineers has decided to build Bay Bridge, since even if they had to manage their way around the elevated terrain, the bridge “only” had to span half a mile in there.
 
She eyed the activity in the bridge and saw that it had not changed much since the moment she had zoomed on it from deeper into the city. She had not paid attention to activity in the inner bay and once she did she found it to be extremely interesting. The inner bay hosted the sports harbor, where the privileged in Emerald docked their yachts and socialized with those that shared their same class. Laura saw that most of the yachts were now at different spots in the bay and apparently trying to make it to the open waters, beyond Bay Bridge. Not having too deep an affection for those people, she instinctively knew that she was going to spend some time letting them know how things were going to be from now on, having some fun in the process.
 
The large commercial harbor was on the outer side of the bay. She could barely see it from where she was, since it was partly hidden by some of the hills. She could clearly see some of the large cruise ships that regularly used Emerald as a starting point for cruises heading south, though. Like their smaller siblings the yachts, the cruise ships seemed set on getting as far away from the city as possible. Laura knew that this was most likely because of her.
 
She figured out what she was going to do pretty quickly. She was not too worried about the cruise ships getting too far away, so she decided to focus on the inner bay first. Taking a new look at the bridge, she decided to issue a warning with enough time, even if she was not too confident about the benefits.
 
Standing at the mouth of the river, Laura was still at a considerable distance from the bridge. She had no doubt that she would be heard when she addressed the thousands trapped on it, though.
 
“Tiny people on Bay Bridge. Pay attention to your goddess. I’ll try to put it as simple as I can: I don’t want the bridge standing, so in a while, it won’t be standing. The good news for you is that I decided to play a little with some of the bathtub toys in the bay before I get to the bridge, so you have some time to get out of it before I bring it down. Get out of your cars, get your shit right and run to any of both bridge’s ends. If you do that, I promise I will leave you alone. If you are still on the bridge when I get there… well, you’ll go down with the ship. Understood?”
 
She was not waiting for an answer but still she zoomed into the bridge to observe the reactions to her words. Predictably enough, the first one was panic. Then, she thought that some people were trying to get organized and make her life easier. A few seconds more told her that they were not a majority.
 
It was worthless to pay too much more attention to them, though. Whatever had to be would be. She would not stop for them, in any case. A few hundred people more would not make the difference, considering the impact her trek through the city was having already. Besides, she had issued her warning. That was as much as she could do. It was a courtesy even, something that she should not be expected to do. She could hardly be blamed for people being stupid.
 
With that thought, she brought her attention back to waters right in front and to their contents. Her increased mental ability quickly told her that there were a total of 19 yachts sailing in the direction of Bay Bridge and the ocean beyond. A few of them were sailboats, but the majority were more classical and less classy motor yachts. One thing was clear: their owners and the majority of the people on them would be among the higher classes in the city.
 
Laura despised them. Not just because they were rich, but because of their attitude to those that were not as lucky as them. They thought they were above everyone else. Well, Laura was now really above them and she would show them.
 
She realized she could do anything she pleased with the yachts. None of them was going to outrun her. She found out that she did not want to start chasing them. An idea popped up and she decided to give it a chance.
 
Sitting down in the mouth of the river, water just reached to mid-thigh. It was cool and soothing, in any case. Opening her legs, she faced the bay. Then, she brought her hands in front of her and started stirring the water, creating a strong current that quickly caught everything in the bay that was not firmly attached to the ground. Laura moaned as a result of the pleasure her power display caused. Caught by the current and unable to fight it, all the yachts in the bay were stopped in their tracks and were starting to move towards her.
 
She felt a power rush as she tried to imagine the reactions of the passengers on the yachts as they were invariable being dragged towards her. Luckily for her, she did not need to imagine too much when she could just zoom on them and see their panic. She chuckled as she continued to stir the water in her direction. She had to control herself in order not to be so rough that she might end up making some of the boats capsize. She wanted them all in one piece. Soon enough, she stopped stirring and just waited for the current to finish the job for her, bringing the yachts to the harbor between her legs.
 
A few of the passengers in the leading boats started jumping in the water. She did not want that, so she decided that she had to discourage the rest from doing so. Scooting forward, she brought her hand into the water, palm up, and brought it out holding fifteen people or so. Looking at the rich people on her palm with some disdain, she sneered and said:
 
“I want you in your boats. If you are not on them, you are of no use to me. And if you are of no use…”
 
Then, she just closed her hand into a first, knowing that she had just turned them into pulp. She felt a power rush running down her spine. She wondered if what she had done was right. She had killed them basically in cold blood. True, it was not the first time she had done that since getting into the city, but this had probably been the harshest one. And still… it had felt good. Very good, as a matter of fact. Being able to finish all those lives with such ease had felt even stimulating. Laura wondered if the fact that those people had belonged to a social group she despised made it more acceptable. But of course, reaching that conclusion was risky. It meant that she would be entitled to finish any lives she wanted.
 
A voice in the back of her head told her: “Why not? You are a goddess. You can do anything you want”
 
Somehow she knew that was not right, though. It was not what she had set herself to be.
 
Opening her hand, she cleaned the gore into the water next to her as she pondered about what she had done. Her mind offered her a solution of compromise to her dilemma: she was well in her rights to do what she had done. There were other ways she could deal with similar problems, though.
 
There was nothing wrong on using what she had just done to deal with the rest of the high-society in front of her, in any case.
 
“Anyone else wants to jump?” she asked in a defying tone
 
No one did, which made it easier for her to reach out for the largest yacht of all and pick it up from the bay. Bringing it up to her face, she let it rest on her palm and looked at the nineteen people on its deck and smiled at them. She could see the stereotypes she had been expecting. Leaving the eleven people in the crew aside, she could see older men dressed ridiculously, two women that tried to hide their age behind pretty obvious plastic surgery and some younger ones, much better looking.
 
 
 
 
This was the worst and at the same time the most surrealistic day in Margot’s life. She had not believed the reports about the colossal woman getting into the city at first. Even when she had seen the first images on TV she had thought they were fake, like Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds”. After a while it had been impossible to deny the truth. Her husband had suggested that the safest route to safety would be the sea. They were already at the harbor when the news broke so it was easy enough for Harry and her to get to their yacht together with some of their usual friends and command the crew to get to the sea.
 
It had been too late. Quite unexpectedly, the titanic woman had shown up at the bay.
 
She was young and she would have looked even cute if she had not been so massive. Standing at the mouth of the river though, she looked like a fleshed out version of the Colossus of Rhodes, though. It was obvious to Margot and to anyone else that dared looking at her that her once nubile body now held the destruction power of an entire army. And it was also obvious that her once cute face was now holding a look and a sneer that clearly told everyone in sight that they belonged to her.
 
Her husband screamed to the crew to push the yacht harder. Margot understood that it was to no avail. Screams erupted around her but then, suddenly, they were overshadowed by the loudest sound she had ever heard: the giant woman’s voice.
 
It was not addressing them. She could understand the words clearly enough and feel that, despite its power, the voice belonged to a young woman. A few seconds later, all hell broke loose.
 
The yacht stopped moving forward and started to rock violently. A couple of people fell overboard. Margot dropped to her knees. Holding herself on the back railing of the boat she looked back and saw the massive giantess sitting on the back, the deep water barely able to cover half her legs. And then she saw what she was doing: she was dragging them to her. It felt as if she were playing!
 
Margot threw up when everything stopped. She could feel the presence of the giantess much closer now. A shadow moved quickly over her. She covered herself, as if to protect her head. The movement was not meant for her. A second later she saw the woman’s impossibly large hand emerging from the water and several squirming and screaming bodies on its wet surface. They disappeared from view a second later. Margot had to crane her neck to see where the hand stopped. It was impossibly high.
The voice came back again. And then, the hand closed viciously into a tight ball of bones and flesh. She could not see it or even hear it, but she could feel it. Plenty of lives had ended in that casual gesture. She felt herself getting sick again. Then she saw the giantess’ lips curling into a sneer and finally threw up.
 
She did not have too long to recover this time. Her entire world, the yacht, started to shake in its foundations. Soon she was thrown to the wooden floor when a force equivalent to that of the Space Shuttle when it’s taking off pulled the yacht upwards and pushed her down. By the time it all finished, the smirking face of the goddess was filling her entire field of vision. Screams erupted around Margot once more.
 
The titan’s thick lips parted and her warm breath raised the temperature enough for Margot to start sweating. Her voice had been powerful before. From such a close distance it felt as if thunder had been cast right in front of them. And still, it managed to keep a young girlish tone.
 
“I own you” the voice observed
 
As miserable as the words made Margot feel, she could not deny that they were true.
 
 
 
 
It was hardly the first time she had made the same observation. The fact that the recipients were amongst the wealthiest people in the city and probably in the world made it feel even better.
 
Laura had done plenty of stuff already, some of it impressive. And still, she was feeling even more powerful now than she had felt when cutting the height of the Beck Tower by half.
 
Her mind was working quickly. And it was way more powerful than it had been the previous night, when she had fallen asleep in a clearing in the forest. Almost imperceptibly, it tied an invisible knot between the present moment and the very recent past that offered her the perfect justification for her actions.
 
“You thought you could do anything you wanted. You thought you owned the world. But I own you. I decide if you live or you die. Simple as that” Laura said
 
There it was. With a simple sentence she had erased any trace of guilt that could have still remained for what she had just done and had turned it into a right. There had been something in the back of her mind that had realized that she would need a more solid moral foundation than the one she had to enable her to do the things she would need to do. And when presented the chance, it had seized the moment.
 
She had not stopped to think, she had not had a strong internal debate. There had been no clue about the tipping point. It had happened in the background. But it had happened. From this moment onwards, Laura Anderson had added the right to kill anyone she pleased to the amazingly long list of things she was entitled to thanks to her new size.
 
Of course, it was not as if she had not killed hundreds of people already. Thousands, most likely. But she had had to find a justification for them, even if feeble. She would not need justifications anymore. From now onwards she would regard people’s lives as her possession, and she would use them as she saw fit.
 
It was a next step in her evolution to goddesshood, of course. That’s what being a goddess meant, in the end: to own people’s lives.
 
It was hard to call someone that had caused so much death as Laura had in such a short time benevolent. But she could be defined as magnanimous. Laura’s character was still mostly cheerful, so she was keen on sparing as many lives as possible as she kept on taking over the world.
 
The unnoticed change in her approach happened as she stared at the nineteen high society people in the toy boat she was holding. She decided she would spare them.
 
One of the people in particular caught her attention, though. She was a woman, middle-aged. Out of the two, she was the one with less obvious effects of surgery. She was staring at her, almost into the eye.
 
She felt curious, and with her new status she could do something about it. She reached out with her massive free hand. Each of her extended fingers was almost the size of the yacht, which made the fact that she cold maneuver them so carefully even more remarkable.
 
With a gentleness one would not expect of a digit the size of a city bus, she pushed a couple of people apart and then closed her fingertips around her target. She could hear her muffled screams and feel the vibrations they caused in her skin. It tickled. Securing the grip around her tiny body, she lowered the yacht back into the water, suddenly losing interest on it.
 
Then, she held the miniscule woman right in front of her eyes. She was quite smaller than the top phalanges of her finger, making her look totally dwarfed by her fingertips. She maneuvered them so that she was facing her.
 
The woman had stopped screaming. She seemed to be in shock. Laura smiled at her. Then she said:
 
“I’m not going to crush you”
 
She sounded as if this was the most natural thing in the world to say. She did not stop to think about it, but in her new condition this particular sentence had definitely gained preeminence in her list of popular expressions.
 
The woman seemed relieved, but just slightly.
 
“What’s your name?” Laura asked
 
She was surprised when the woman answered almost immediate.
 
“Margot”
 
Laura smiled at her. Then, in a soft voice, she asked:
 
“So tell me, Margot, how do you feel?”
 
There was confusion in the woman’s face. Her words confirmed it:
 
“What?”
 
Laura’s smiled widened.
 
“I want to know how you feel. You know, I’ve just realized I had not asked anyone about it, and I’m curious. I want to know how do you feel as I hold you in my fingertips, how it felt to have your boat picked up by someone like me… you know, how it feels now that I’m around”
 
The woman’s answer caught her by surprise. Laura had underestimated her, she realized. She had probably just considered her the stereotypical rich woman.
 
“Why do you want to know?” the tiny woman asked
 
Laura let a chuckle out. Then she said:
 
“Ego, I believe” she said. “I was never too arrogant, but I guess that once someone gets to my size it can’t be helped” she added. “It also has to do with curiosity. I’m going to take over the city. By the end of the day I’ll be ruling millions like you. Give me some more time and it will be billions. And I just realized that I had no clue on how all this felt for you. I had my guesses, of course, but I had not stopped and asked. So please, go ahead. I’m curious”
 
The woman’s answer caught her by surprise once more.
 
“I am scared. And I feel frustrated”
 
“Frustrated?” Laura asked
 
“Of course. How do you want me to feel?” the woman said
 
Laura arched an eyebrow.
 
“Well, I had not thought about it, but I guess it makes sense. You’ll have to get over with it, eventually. Things have changed. I had not thought that much about it, but I guess humanity will need to go through a process of change acceptance”
 
“And what makes you think that humanity will accept it? That it will accept you?” the woman said in a defying tone. Laura felt the challenge, but she did not entirely dislike it.
 
“It’s simple darling: they have no other option”
 
She could see the frustration growing in the woman’s eyes. It suited her well. She sneered. The woman did not seem to like it and replied.
 
“People will fight back” she said
 
Laura shrugged. Then she said:
“It’s likely. Futile, but likely, sadly. I hope it does not come to this, really. I’m not interested in killing too many of you in the process to change the status quo”
 
The tiny woman kept looking at her. Laura’s keen sight showed her that her expression had changed.
 
“I’ll do whatever needs to be done, in any case” Laura added and saw as the woman’s expression kept changing to one of terror
 
The conversation had derailed, unfortunately. Laura had genuinely interested on knowing how the woman felt about the new situation, but it had quickly diverged to yet another instance of her bragging about her power. Well, it was partially to be expected, she guessed. There would be plenty more chances for her to talk to more of her new subjects. She was done with the tiny rich woman though.
 
The idea of just bringing her fingers together and crush Margot between her fingertips ran through her head, but it did not become anything more than that: a thought. Bringing her hand down towards the yacht she had been holding until a short while ago, she dropped Margot’s tiny figure on its main deck with as much care as she could.
 
She had used too much time with the tiny rich people in their toy boats. It was time to get moving again.
 
Despite not having enjoyed her size for too long, Laura was beginning to get used to it. This was lucky for those in the yachts between her legs since, otherwise, she would not have realized that just standing up in the water right next to them would probably be fatal for the boats.
 
Without any notice, Laura brought both her hands in front of her looming shaved cunt and then gently pushed the water, rocking the dozen or so yachts between her legs and slowly pushing them away from her. It was not until they had cleared the imaginary line that joined her feet, with their toes poking several yards above the water surface, that she started to slowly fold her legs back towards her body. Then, mentally measuring the distance to the boats once more and judging it safe, she started to stand up, water cascading down her legs like the Niagara Falls.
 
Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on her hips and observed the bay below. The conditions quickly changed. One of the yachts, one of the smallest ones that was on the farthest edge of the group seemed to be less affected by the waves she had created and had visibly turned its engine on at full power. It wake could easily be seen as it sped away from the group, heading again towards open waters.
 
Laura’s first reaction was of disgust. She just needed an instant to realize that she could do something about it. And another instant to realize that she actually was eager to. Discarding any warning, she just too a step around the group of yachts in front of her, then another. Her mere movement, even if gentle, made the rest of yachts in the water rock again. She did not care.
 
The offending boat had put some distance to the rest of the group. Laura took two more steps and placed herself between her prey and the remaining yachts. It was obvious by then that she was going after it. She smirked when she saw that the boat reacted to this new reality, trying to steer away from her. She smirked especially because she knew that there was nothing the boat and its crew would be able to do to get away from her.
 
Two more steps and the distance was cut by half. Two more and the boat was barely one step away. Being so close, her calves made high waves that rocked the boat violently and made its engine lose its traction. Laura stopped. The yacht was right in front of her and was almost adrift.
 
She pondered what to do. She opted for the simplest solution.
 
In a mild tone she said:
 
“You guys need to start learning”
 
Then, without further warning, she lifted her right foot out of the water and moved it right over the yacht. Waterfalls from her sole soaked its deck. The people on it barely had time to think about it, though, since that same sole, many times larger than the yacht, came down violently.
 
To Laura it had been just one more step. To the people in the yacht it had been the end. They did not even have the time to feel their boat splintering into a hundred pieces right before being buried deep into the bay’s bed.
 
With her foot planted in the spot where the yacht had been, Laura completed her previous sentence.
 
“Or I will need to keep on having to teach you”
 
Once more, exercising her power had felt satisfying. Laura knew that she had finished a few more people just for the sake of it. But that was not an issue to her anymore. It was now one of her rights, one of the tools she had access to.
 
She was done with the yachts. She had to keep moving to the next target. Her encounter with high society had been more satisfying than she had originally thought, but she had other things to do. She looked in the direction of the bridge. It was her next destination.
 
 
 
 
 
“So, she finally decided that she did not a reason to kill?” Laya said. She did not sound as if she liked the statement she was making
 
“Had to happen, sooner or later” Quo said
 
“I thought your theory was that every death she had caused so far had a purpose, even if sometimes it was difficult to find it” Laya said
 
“Yes. But it was unavoidable for her to move into the next stage” Quo said
 
“And what would that stage be?” Laya asked, genuinely intrigued
 
“She had killed thousands already. She had tried to rationalize every death, and she had been successful at it. But sooner or later she had to realize that she would end up killing plenty more. So, it was to be expected that at some point her mind would find a shortcut. A loophole if you want. It has” Quo said
 
“She does not admit it, though” Laya said
 
“Of course not. Admitting it would go against her principles. It’s obvious it has happened, though” Quo said
 
“So, does this mean that she will change her intentions?” Laya asked
 
“Not at all” Quo replied
 
“I don’t see how free murder matches with the purpose to conquer the world in order to make it a better place” Laya said
 
“Easily enough. Try to see things from Laura Anderson’s perspective. How large do you think a regular human looks to her?” Quo asked
 
“I guess they must look very small” Laya said
 
“Very small indeed. The size of a small bug” Quo said
 
“So, you’re saying that people now looks like bugs to her? This goes even more against her trying to rule that people with benevolence” Laya said
 
“Individual people look like bugs. They are expendable, hard to relate to for a woman of Laura Anderson’s size. Humanity, as a whole, is still a concept she can relate to. So, her purpose remains unchanged” Quo said
 
“So, she wants to save humanity but she doesn’t mind killing humans” Laya said, sounding a little sarcastic
 
“Kind of” Quo said.
 
“Humans are weird” Laya said
 
“Yes. But aren’t they fascinating?” Quo asked
 
Laya remained silent for a few seconds. Then, she asked:
 
“I have another question. It goes beyond what she just did. It’s more related to her evolution, the trend in her behavior”
 
“I see what you mean” Quo said. “It’s a good observation”
 
“It will get worse” Laya stated, not asked
 
“Worse for the people. Considering you did not mind choosing a subject with a desire for world destruction in the first place, it should not necessarily get worse for you” Quo said
 
“There is no need for sarcasm, professor” Laya said
 
Quo made a gesture with her two right hands that meant that he had just been kidding.
 
“But yes, it will get worse” Quo said. “It’s unavoidable”
 
“How much worse?” Laya asked
 
“It will depend on the reaction of the rest of humans to her. If the reaction is stupid enough, it can get pretty bad” Quo stated
 
“So, how do you think they will react?” Laya asked
 
“Well, humans have a history of stupid reactions in front of unexpected events, so I would not place my bets on them” the professor said, using the gesture of her arms equivalent to shrugging
 
“If it gets bad enough… won’t it defeat your purpose when choosing this subject in the first place?” Laya finally asked
 
“That’s why I built my failsafe into the test” Quo said, looking visibly satisfied. Then she added: “Let’s take a look at what she does next. I think we will be entertained for a while”

 

Chapter 6

 

People had done a lousy job of clearing the bridge, but Laura had already been expecting it. This had not been a problem in her eyes before and it was even less of a problem now. She reached the suspension bridge soon enough and stopped next to it, looking down at the dozens of vehicles and hundreds of people still trapped on it.
 
Laura sighed. Then she addressed them.
 
"You are going to die," she said in a matter of fact tone. The screams from the road, which was level with her upper thighs increased in intensity. "And it's going to be your fault" she added
 
Then she stooped slightly and looked at the scurrying bodies of hundreds of people making their way through the aisles between piled up cars.
 
“I warned you. And you had plenty of time. And yet, here you are. I told you that the bridge was going down, and you could just not clear it on time” she said
 
Then, Laura lowered her tone, as if addressing a child.
 
“You know, I get it. I know I’m impressive, shocking and even scary. It’s hard for me to think like you anymore, but I think I can relate to that. And you know what? I’m making an effort to make this easier for you guys. I’m taking extra care. I’m warning you in advance. I’m even giving you some advice. But honestly, I feel like you tinies are not putting anything on your part. You keep packing the streets I’m walking on, keep on trying to challenge me and keep on ignoring my advice” she said
 
She stooped lower, taking a closer look at the panicked people.
 
"I need this to work. I mean, I'm going to rule you, and I need you to learn how to behave around me."
 
Laura stood back up. Her sensitive ears caught the sound of rotors in the distance. She turned to see her usual entourage of news choppers, which had got closer over the last minutes. They were still far enough away for her not to have to punish them again, but close enough to observe whatever it was that she was going to do with the bridge.
 
She took a deep breath. Then she made her mind up. She now knew that she had the attention not only of those on the road, who were doomed to start with but also of millions of people at home. She might as well use the bridge to send a message.
 
She was about to resort to brute force when she realized that there was no reason a goddess should not look sexy. Turning back to the choppers, she winked an eye at them and then she beckoned them with one finger while keeping her lips sexily pouted.
 
They hesitated at first. She realized that her previous experience with them had been a little too rough and tried to ease the situation a little.
 
"Come on guys, don't be shy. You will want to take a closer look at what I'm going to do. I won't hurt you."
 
Choppers started to approach gradually. When they were close enough, Laura started her routine.
 
Laura was tall and slim. Her tits had not been remarkable until they had acquired the ability to bring buildings down a few hours earlier, but her long silky legs and her ass had always been world-class. And she knew how to use them. As the choppers approached, Laura started a slow, sensual dance at the rhythm of the imaginary music in her head, moving her ass with the skill of a professional stripper.
 
Plenty of cameras in the choppers were instantly trained on it. Those that kept their zoom in the general situation were the only ones that caught her next movement. Following her routine, almost as if the imaginary music was moving her to do so, Laura lifted a leg from the water and with the grace of a ballerina, she moved it over the bridge, in the section where two sets of suspension wires joined each other at the road level. Soon, she was straddling the massive infrastructure, dozens of people trapped under the shadow of her womanhood.
 
She kept on moving gracefully, moving back to the lap dance routine. Then, she started lowering herself down, bringing her tight ass cheeks barely a few yards over the road surface.
 
A few dozen motorists thought that this would be it, their final moment, but then she rose back up. She was teasing them.
 
The collective sigh of relief was her cue for her next movement. Pushing her ass back and stooping down low, she reached out and grabbed two fistfuls of suspension wires with her hands. The thick steel wires easily gave way under the titanic strength of her digits, and as she stood back up and pulled, Laura easily ripped an entire section of the bridge and lifted it with her.
 
The screams were much closer now, having brought their source quite nearer to her ears. Laura stopped shaking her ass for a while and focused on keeping the stretch of road as steady as possible while holding the cables. A couple of dozen cars ended up in the bay below, but that was unavoidable. She still managed to keep the majority of them on the road and now level with the enormous hazel eyes.
 
Now that she had them there she did not know too well what to do with them. She made her mind up on a whim. Winking at them and blowing them a kiss that sent a few off their feet, Laura arched her back backward and tilted the stretch of roadway, gradually forcing cars and people to fall in her chest, between her two perky breasts.
 
People and vehicles slid down her washboard flat stomach and into the warm water, hundreds of feet below. They tickled as they did. Soon, the entire contents of the stretch of the bridge she had ripped were done. Straightening back up, she decided that she had already made her point and just grabbed one of the segment's ends with one hand while still holding the cables with the other. Then, she let go of the wires and caught the other end of the piece of the road she had ripped out of the bridge. With nothing else to do, she just brought her hands together and turned an entire section of Bay Bridge into chunks of concrete and steel that rained into the water below. She was not careful when doing that, so a few of the fragments ended up falling into relatively untouched sections of the bridge and creating a few more collateral victims.
 
Dusting her hands off, she looked down at the very shocked people on the standing two halves of Bay Bridge and smirked at them.
 
“Was that as sexy for you as it was for me?” she asked
 
She was not waiting for an answer.
 
Instead, she just looked deeper into the bay and saw the cruise ships she had spotted early on. They had made it a little bit farther, but nothing she could not quickly solve, she thought.
 
Looking back at the choppers, she winked at them again and said:
"That was enough for now. I'd like some more space again, so get off my face."
 
After a while following her and after seeing her evolution over the last few minutes, none of the pilots dared challenge her command.
 
 
 
 
Captain Willis was looking back at the inner bay and felt a cold taking over him when he saw the giant woman dealing with the bridge and then turning to face their direction. He had hoped that she would ignore them but had always known that a ship like his was probably too appealing to a woman like that.
 
The moment she stepped over the fucked up bridge and started wading in their direction, Captain Willis knew that his life and the lives of the thousands of people in his ship were at the mercy of a woman in her early twenties.
 
 
 
After all, Laura had left the bridge more alone than she had initially thought. With the show and everything, the result had not been that bad, since she had only taken a section of the bridge down.
 
She had pondered whether to let herself get carried away a little more. She had been close to taking another section of the bridge apart with her ass. But she had finally decided against it. Her primary objective had been accomplished: no one would cross from one half of the city to the other through Bay Bridge. There was no point in killing more people. She hoped that those observing her were bright enough to realize how magnanimous she had been without the need for her to spell it out for them.
 
She quickly forgot about the bridge, though. She now had another objective in mind: the cruise ships. There were five of them, and despite their efforts, they were not getting anywhere far from her reach. Laura waded casually in their direction. She wanted them, and anything she wanted she should get.
 
The cruise ships did something she had not been expecting as she got closer. They spread in different directions, as was made evident by the trails they left on the water. It was a smart move, but unfortunately for them, a useless one. Laura's superiority over them was so vast that all they could hope to get out of that were a few more seconds.
 
She mentally chose the ship farthest to the left and headed for it. She would make her way from there to the right to take care of the five vessels.
 
Laura was more in-depth into the bay by the time she reached it, as made evident by the fact that the waterline was barely a few inches (from her perspective) from her crotch. Her womanhood was damp, but not out of contact with the seawater.
 
The ship was large. Laura thought that it was probably as long as she was tall. And she was damned big! It also stood tall above the waterline, its upper decks getting all the way under her perky breasts.
 
Not too many people remained on the outer decks, but Laura’s keen eyes could easily see the multiple shadows behind the windows. She took the final two steps towards the ship and then reached out with her impossibly long right arm. Her fingers curled around an open space between the upper deck and the decks below, in a spot that was built like a canyon. The ship stopped in its tracks, pulled back by Laura’s slender arm and sending hundreds of people off their feet.
 
"This is my ship now," Laura said as she pulled the vessel backward and turned sideways, to move it right in front of her body. Together with the Beck Tower, this cruise ship was one of the first man-made structures that could rival with her size. She felt both admiration and a little jealousy and not being the biggest thing around.
 
Laura crouched and looked through the windows of the middle decks at hundreds of unrecognizable but undeniably scared faces.
 
“I’m not going to damage your ship or hurt you. But this is my city now, and no one leaves without my permission” she added
 
With that, she stood up again and started to turn the ship with her hands, effortlessly manipulating it until its prow was pointing back towards the city. Then, she looked at the choppers in the distance, winked at them again and gently shoved the ship back towards the city. The momentum she had given it with her delicate limb would be enough to send it halfway back to the harbor it had come from. Time to go to the next.
 
The next two ships were close enough for her to overtake them, stop the first with a hand on its prow, drag it towards the second and repeat the same operation with it. She did not waste time with the passengers on them save for some brief words intended to comfort them.
 
Turning, she grabbed the prow of each of the ships with one hand and started walking in an arch, dragging the ships with her and pointing them towards the city. She stopped when they were practically next to her first victim.
 
She decided to play a different game with the fourth ship. The sun was shining fiercely and was making her tan skin glow. Some degree of refreshing would be welcome.
 
Crouching, Laura let herself drop into the water and then she started to dive under it, gently paddling with her feet to impulse her body in the direction of her victim. Her eyes were as keen under the water as they had been outside of it and had no trouble identifying the wake of the ship. Soon enough she was under it and turned around so that she would be lying face up right under a keel as long as she was tall.
 
Without further ceremony, she grabbed the ship by its sides with her hands and started paddling her feet again, moving herself and her catch in the direction she wished. Soon enough the vessel was level with the other three, and there was only one cruise ship left.
 
Passengers on the Empress of the Seas were in utter panic, knowing perfectly well that they were next. Those in the stern of the ship were probably the ones that were having the worst time since they could see the massive woman through the windows and they had seen how she had turned and faced in their direction. Then, suddenly, the woman disappeared under the waterline again.
 
Laura reappeared just a few seconds later. When she did, she was way ahead of the cruise ship and had enough time to stand up and wait for it with her hands on her hips. She could notice the change in speed of the large vessel, but its momentum was far too significant and the skipper could not prevent it from crashing its prow into her model caliber stomach.
 
It did not hurt her. The story was different for the front part of the ship, which bent and buckled at contact. Laura just giggled and took hold of the damaged section, dragging it with her and bringing it to her gathering point.
 
A minute later she was standing in the middle of the outer bay, with five cruise ships at her mercy and with over ten thousand people wondering what she had in stock for them. They had seen her deal with the bridge and they had heard what she had done with some of the smaller yachts back in the inner bay. Panic was the widespread feeling and more than a few were on their knees, praying.
 
None of Laura’s thoughts were around harming them, though. She just wanted them back into her city and was trying to find a convenient way of doing it.
 
The idea came to her almost naturally. For someone like Laura, who had had a wish to become a giant for as long as she could remember, proficient knowledge of any popular culture related to the topic was a given. So, it was not strange at all that "Gulliver's Travels" was among her favorite books. She also owned any movie, cartoon or comic that had ever been made about it, including her favorite: "Gullivera", by Milo Manara.
 
So, the answer came naturally to her. Wading towards the prow of the closest ship, Laura stooped and looked for the anchor. It was held in a compartment underneath the prow itself, but Laura had more than enough brute strength to rip the metal cover open and pull the twenty tons anchor out. She quickly repeated the operation with the other four.
 
The journalists in the choppers that had been following her ever since she had got into the city were then treated to the most spectacular sight of the giantess yet. That of the 22-year old thousand foot tall woman calmly wading back towards the city while casually dragging five massive cruise ships by their anchor chains with just one hand.
 
Laura could not be more content. Her longtime dream had been fulfilled. She was the single most powerful being on the entire planet, wielding the power of entire nations in her fit body. And she was showing it to the world as only a young sexy woman could.
 
She reached the outer harbor soon enough, using her free hand to move some ships out of the way. As she advanced more and more of her legs came above the waterline until even her knees were visible. She stopped when the docks were a couple of steps away.
 
“Done with these” she thought. “Time to move back to the city take over stuff” her mind added.
 
Turning towards the cruise ships, she felt it was quite anti-climatic to just move away without further ceremony. She observed the one closest to her, and an idea came to mind.
 
"I'm not only bigger. That is pretty clear. I can see much better, I can hear much better, and I can think much faster. And I could swear that I feel much stronger than I should be"
 
The problem with her last statement, of course, was that there had been no way to prove it to herself so far. “Just” the regular strength she should have had at her new size would have been enough to overwhelm any of the obstacles she had met so far.
 
She realized that the cruise ships posed a unique opportunity to prove her theory. Without further ceremony, she waded to the closest one and said:
 
"You know what the problem with being my size is? There is no decent gym around to work out."
 
No one understood too well what she meant until she crouched and brought both her hands under the keel. Then, she started to stand back up, lifting the massive vessel from the water. She soon was holding the cruise ship and the three thousand people inside twenty yards over the waterline, pressing it against her chest, her nipples denting the surface.
 
"It is damned easy," she thought
 
She was holding a ship that was as long as she was tall and must weight as much as her, and it was not even straining her. Encouraged by it, she kept going, lifting the ship higher and rotating her hands under the keel. The ship was now in front of her face, and everyone around looked at her with even more astonishment than the one she had managed to create so far, not believing that they were seeing.
 
They were not ready for the final effect. Much like a weightlifter, she rotated her hands under the keel once more and proceeded to straighten her arms. A second later, her arms were wholly stretched and holding a massive cruise ship right over her head. She was amazed at herself. And what was best of it all was that she was still not feeling any strain at the feat of strength she was accomplishing, telling her that she was capable of much more.
 
She turned and faced the city with the ship over her head. She let a loud laugh out.
 
“I told you I was a goddess. For those that did not believe it, see it now!” she screamed for all the city to hear.
 
"I am bigger than you, I am stronger than you, and I am smarter than you. My power knows no limits. I promise I will be a wise and compassionate ruler but never forget who I am and what I am capable of!"
 
Her moment of ecstasy was interrupted by something she had not been expecting. A large crack formed on the keel of the ship, right above her head, and she started to feel the entire structure bending.
 
“Fuck” she muttered to herself
 
She might be almighty, but the ship indeed wasn't. And it was not prepared for the kind of stress she had subjected it to.
 
The crack widened, and Laura felt that if she kept holding the ship like that any longer it would break in half. She did not want that. She was not interested in killing the thousands of people inside and hell, after the speech she had just given, it would make her look like a fool.
 
She had to think fast. Her first reaction was to drop it into the water, right where she had picked it from. She quickly discarded it. A quick look up at the keel told her that that ship would not be floating anymore. She needed a Plan B.
 
The harbor was way too packed to find a spot for her to set the cruise down without crushing a few hundred people at the same time. She needed an alternative. She finally found one. The harbor's train station seemed to be abandoned enough. It was not empty, but a few dozen people were a reasonable price to pay to save a ship and the thousands of passengers on it.
 
She hurried towards her new destination, her calves capsizing two smaller fishing boats and sending them to the bottom of the harbor. Laura realized about them too late but just added them to the list of acceptable collateral victims. She was next to her chosen spot soon enough. The crack widened almost to the point where the hull was about to break an instant before she started the movement to bring the ship back down. For a very long second, Laura wondered if the cruise would make it safely to the ground or if it would break in the middle of the movement. Luckily for her, and especially for the passengers, it held.
 
The humongous cruise ship groaned as she finally rested on its final destination. A few last screams confirmed to Laura that it had not been entirely empty. But the ship was fine, so she sighed in relief.
 
Then, she stooped to look through the windows.
 
“That was close!” she said cheerfully
 
Then, she noticed that she needed to give them another piece of advice.
 
"It would probably be better if you just got out of the ship anyway. I cannot guarantee it's going to stay in one piece."
 
Surprisingly enough, people started pouring from the inner decks and into the outer ones. And surprisingly enough, they stopped in their tracks and started to look around, even at Laura, not knowing what to do.
 
“What’s the problem?” she asked
 
She only received a cacophony of screams in response. Not in the mood to try to filter through them, she just reached out and pinched a man between her fingertips. After some insistence on her side and a more detailed than necessary explanation of what would happen to him if he did not answer her question, the man finally told Laura what she wanted to know: the people wanted to get out of the ship but couldn’t.
 
"Of course," Laura thought. It was sometimes too easy to disregard how complicated some things were to regular people once one was Laura's size. But the truth was that with the ship out of the water, the height between its multiple decks and the train yard below was way too high for anyone to climb down without killing himself.
 
Laura dropped the tiny man into the train yard but decided that she was not in the mood to work as a lift for the remaining few thousands on the ship. She needed to find a more sustainable solution. She looked around and smirked when she had an idea.
 
She only needed to adjust her position slightly to reach out and grab a large train car in her right hand. Well, at least she guessed it would look massive for anyone but her. To Laura, it just felt like a toy, like everything else in the world.
 
Setting the train car on its side and right in front of her, Laura made a fist and smashed it right in its center. As expected, all that remained of that section of the train car was a flattened metal foil. She repeated the operation three more times. By the time she had finished, she had turned the large car into a long metallic ramp.
 
She bent one of its edges with the sheer strength of her fingers and without further warning moved it to the ship, perfectly attaching it to one of the lowest decks and then resting it on the ground below.
 
"Here you go," she chirped. "You won't complain that I do not take care of my subjects" she added
 
She waited for some of the bravest ones to break the ice. When she saw that people had got the message and were taking care of themselves, Laura decided that her job was done. It was time to get moving.
 
A noise from above distracted her. Looking in its direction, it was easy enough for Laura to spot the low flying plane heading towards a spot further down the coast. Of course, it was the airport.
 
Dozens of ideas started flooding Laura’s mind when she realized that the airport was close by. A different thought tried to prevail.
 
“You have work to do, Laura! You cannot keep getting distracted by everything! The city is not going to take over itself on its own!”
 
Then, another more powerful thought, fueled by millions of gallons of hormones took over.
 
“You are a goddess, for God’s sake! Goddesses are meant to do anything they fucking want.  You could conquer this city in five minutes with a hand tied at your back if need be. But you'll only live a few things as a giantess once. You've wanted to be like this ever since you remember. You are finally everything you ever wanted to be. Enjoy it, for fuck's sake."
 
 
 
"That was certainly entertaining," Laya said
 
"It was, wasn't it?" Quo replied. He had thoroughly enjoyed Laura's antics. She had made it look like a game, which in turn had made Laya and him, the observers, watch the entire scene like a movie
 
“She’s a show off” Laya added
 
“Of course she is. And who can blame her?” Quo added
 
"Well, she does not seem in a hurry to take over the city," Laya said
 
“Yeah, I had already anticipated that”
 
"You did?" Laya's tone suggested some sarcasm. "This human cannot surprise you, can she?" she finished, winking
 
"Oh, she can. This is what I love the most about humans. They are creative, playful, expansive… it's hard to predict what they will do next, as individuals, no matter how well socio-history can predict their behavior as a collective. That's pretty unique, and I dare to say that we got a unique subject."
 
“So, is she going to get back to conquering the city and the world?” Laya asked
 
"If I had to bet, I'd say that she will play a little more," Quo said
 
“Why?” Laya asked
 
"She is starting to realize that her life-long dream has finally come true. I mean, she did already, back in the highway, but now she has understood that it is completely real and that no one is going to take it from her. This is all the playful side of her mind needs to convince her that she does not need to be so hard on herself and that she can indulge a little" Quo said
 
"We could have conditions that part of her mind if we had known about it" Laya observed
 
"Oh, that would have been a waste. These moments… they are not only incredibly entertaining to watch. They serve a purpose."
 
“Which one?” Laya asked
 
“Think about Laura Anderson like a smart little girl. You want her to have her assignments, but you also want her to have fun. The more she can combine both things, the more effective she will be” Quo said. She went on:
 
“Now, think about the world’s population too. Laura Anderson is killing them by the thousands. No matter how negligible that quantity may seem compared to the entire population of the planet, it is a shocking number for an individually oriented society like theirs. If they see her as an evil being that takes pleasure out of their deaths, they will never follow her rule. They could temporarily submit, but they would always, eventually, fight for their freedom. This would end up bad. They cannot see her as soft, either. If she is too gentle or wimps out easily, they would never follow her either."
 
Laya understood. "They need to see her as unstoppable and willing to do everything it takes, but they cannot see her as a cruel tyrant."
 
“Correct” Quo said
 
"Well, that's not easy, I guess," Laya said
 
"Which is the reason why our subject works so well. I told you, Laura Anderson is unique."
 
“Interesting” Laya said.
 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

Chapter 7

 

Laura left the crowd abandoning the ship alone and turned. She was a Goddess, but up to some point, she also felt like a little girl in toy land. She had dreamed about having the power to take over the entire world for most of her adult life, but at the same time she had also dreamed of being just a big girl, surrounded by tiny things, the world becoming no more than a playground to her.
 
And her inner big little girl knew what she wanted next: the airport. She had already decided that she would indulge a little. Hell, she would only experience one first day as a giantess, and she wanted to do other things than just taking over a city.
 
She would only have one chance to experience the first reaction from people to her new presence, and something inside her told her that she had to enjoy it.  
 
Even if she had not been tall enough to have a clear view of her surroundings for miles she would have known where the airport was. She had flown from it a few times, and even if she hadn't, everyone in Emerald was aware of its precise location, down the coast.
 
Since she already was on the water, she decided that she would just wade towards it. She might as well give the little people in the city a chance.
 
She was about to get going when she thought on something. Laura had always been a talkative person, someone who enjoyed a good conversation. Her change in stature posed some challenges to that. The thing was that no one that did not share her height seemed to be interested in engaging in a chat with her. This discarded the rest of the world.   
 
"It's ironic,"  she thought. "I'm the most powerful creature in the world, which turns me on as nothing else has ever had. And not only can't I have sex to celebrate it. I cannot even talk about it."  
 
Then it occurred to her. Using her new subjects as sex toys was still beyond her moral threshold. But there was nothing wrong in forcing them to talk to her, was there?
 
She thought about the situation for a while. Her seven thousand ton brain started to process possibilities at the speed of lightning, offering her the optimal one to achieve all her objectives just an instant later.
 
Reaching to her face, Laura pulled her hair behind her ears and then removed the loops on them. She had always been discreet with earrings, but as she observed the twin loops in her palm, she could prevent thinking that the white gold on them probably cost a small fortune. She did not care too much though. She was beyond the need for money. Why would she need it when she owned the entire world? 
 
She walked to one of the four cruise ships that were still on the water and stooped to take a closer look. Being closer to land, the waterline was considerably lower relative to Laura, which at the same time lowered the relative height of the cruise ship to some point between her naked crotch and her navel. She corrected that by crouching right next to the vessel and   smiling to the people on the outer decks, which were getting panicky again after a few moments of calm. 
 
Laura did not say anything. She just scanned the deck with her enhanced vision and looked for suitable candidates. She had the privilege of choosing, and she exercised it by picking two of the most attractive people she could identify. She knew it was shallow on her side, but who cared.
 
She had to use her fingernails to push some people around and make some space. It was easy enough. Soon, her victim, a hot blonde woman with green eyes was isolated enough so that she could gently pick her between her fingertips. She lifted her protesting form from the deck and dropped her with care on the same palm that contained the earrings. Then, she moved back for her second prey.
 
Her previous action had elevated the level of panic on the outer decks, which made her next catch slightly more complicated. In any case, the level of difficulty just rose from 1 to 1.5 on a scale of 100, so a few seconds later she had a muscular young man firmly held between her fingertips.      
 
She was a 6 in Kinsey's scale, so there was nothing sexually stimulating about the man she had just dropped in her palm. But this did not mean that she could not admire his figure from a purely aesthetically point of view like she could admire classic Greek sculptures.
 
Predictably enough the two people she had chosen were screaming.
 
"Shut up," she said gently, perfectly conscious that her softest words had a thundering effect on the people anyway. Either because they had understood her or because they were shocked by the impact on her voice, they complied.
 
"I know you won't necessarily see it like this right now, but you two are fortunate people. I've chosen you as my conversation pals."      
 
Both tinies were looking at her as if her words made no sense. Well, the fact that she wanted to have a chat with them might be a little hard to understand, she reflected trying quite unsuccessfully to put herself in their shoes.
 
"I just need to know your names, and I'll get you ready," she said 
 
The woman seemed to be a little sharper than the man since she replied quickly enough:
 
“Nancy”
 
Laura smiled. Then, she moved her eyes slightly to the man and asked:
 
“And you are?”
 
She gave him a couple of seconds. He finally said:
 
“Ken”
 
"Good, Nancy and Ken," Laura chirped. "I've done this a few times already, so let me shorten the whole introduction a little. No, I do not have any intentions of hurting you. I    will eventually release you, but it will happen when and how I decide it, so no need for you to ask about it. I expect you to do anything I tell you to do. If you don't, I may have second thoughts about the entire not hurting you thing. And finally, speak up. I don't mind honesty. I want to encourage it. So you don't need to be afraid to speak your mind. I won't punish you for that. Deal?"  
 
Both people nodded, and she chuckled.
 
"Well, of course, it's not as if you had an alternative, is it?" she said in the same cheerful tone
 
Then, she got to work. Taking a couple of steps back to the harbor, she punched the dock with her free hand, creating a fifty-foot wide and thirty-foot deep crater. She dropped her captives and her earrings into it. She could have threatened them not to escape once she set them on the ground, but what was the point on trying to convince someone not to do something when it was so easy just to force that someone not to do it?
 
Then, she pinched Nancy with the fingers of her right hand and then picked a large metal pole with her free hand. Being as colossal as she was made her ability to manipulate something as tiny as Nancy even more remarkable. In a matter of a few seconds, she had placed the pole between Nancy's legs, twisted it with her fingers and looped it around her waist. Straightening the remainder of the pole with another effortless gesture of her fingers she then twisted its top like a hook and curled it around the white hold of her earring loop. 
 
She had effectively hung Nancy from her earring in a self-created harness. With great care, she moved the hair on the right side of her face back and looped the pendant back in place.    
 
She would enjoy this idea, she thought. She first had to take care of Ken, though.
 
Now that she had done it once, she knew that doing it a second time would be easier. Ken did not necessarily like her idea, but he was trapped in a thirty-foot deep crater, so he did not have too much of a say. A few seconds later, he was conveniently hanging from her left ear.
 
“I’m going to enjoy this” Laura said aloud
 
Then, she decided that she should give some instructions to her new conversation pals.
 
"Ok, I guess you'll want to know a little more about what's going on here, won't you?" she asked aloud. Half the city could probably hear her, which meant that Ken and Nancy could listen to her too, which was what she was looking for.   
 
"It's simple. I like to talk. You'll be my pals. Now, I'd like you to acknowledge that you have heard me and that you understand." 
 
Hanging from her ears as they were, the tiny people’s mousy voices sounded surprisingly close. She could have probably listened to them even without her enhanced hearing. Both of them let her know that they had listened to her, even if they sounded reluctant. She did not mind it. She was at a point where she did not need to worry about people doing things willingly.
 
"Ok! Good!" she said, the joy in her voice evident enough. "Now, you will probably not listen to each other. I guess my head is too big for you. This won't be a problem. You just need to focus on talking to me when I want to. I know you'll be wondering why I took the trouble to loop you into my earrings, but it's obvious enough. I want to move as I talk and I don't want to be bothered with carrying you in my hand."
 
With her hands now free, Laura took a couple of steps back from the dock. She was too careless, which doomed yet another small boat.
 
Noticing it, she muttered:
 
“Fuck”
 
The woman quickly reacted to her interjection. She heard her tiny voice asking:
 
“What happened?”
 
Laura had not been expecting the interaction to start so soon. She decided to take the chance.
 
“I did not notice a boat behind me. I think it was a fishing boat. I crushed it”
 
She said as casually as if she had been telling Nancy about what she had had for breakfast.
 
“Were there people aboard?” Nancy asked
 
Laura thought about it and replied:
 
“Probably”
 
“Does it bother you?” were Nancy’s next words
 
Laura stopped for a second and thought. She realized that she had not put too much consideration into it. She finally said:
 
"The truth? I don't care."
 
“You don’t care about killing people?” Nancy asked
 
Laura was surprised by how harsh the little woman had sounded, considering her precarious position. In any case, she had promised her and Ken that they would not be punished for being honest, and she intended to keep her side of the deal. She wanted to encourage this type of behavior. As a goddess, she could force anyone into anything, an ability that she thoroughly enjoyed and that she planned on using very frequently. But still, she needed to learn what people thought, independently on what she finally forced them to do. Otherwise, she would get out of touch with the world she intended to rule very soon. 
 
"I guess it will probably sound too brutal from your perspective, but the truth is that there is no way I can care about individual lives. I won't fool myself pretending that you can see things as I do. There is no way you can do that from your insignificance, but I can try to describe it from my perspective at least. And the bitter truth is that there are millions of you and that you are too small, too weak and too fragile. There is no way I can move   around freely without a few of you dying. And while it may not be a popular thing to say, I care much more about my mobility and freedom of action than about a few hundred or a few thousand of you."   
 
“But that’s terrible!” Nancy said
 
"I guess it looks like that from your point of view" Laura admitted. "Try to think like this: there are millions of you, and there is only one of me. But I'm more powerful than all of you combined; ergo I am more important. So, what would be more unfair?"  
 
The woman remained silent, which told Laura that she had not taken too well her answer. Well, that was her problem. The world had to start learning how things were going to be from now onwards.
 
She was not interested in forcing the conversation out of her. So, without further notice, she took a few steps along the coast and in the direction of her destination: the airport.
 
After a few more steps, she looked to the horizon and saw something she did not like at all. Once more, she muttered:
 
“Fuck”
 
“What happened now?” a worried Nancy asked
 
Laura let a chuckle out when she realized that Nancy thought that she had crushed some other people.
 
"Nothing for you to worry about, tiny" Laura said. Then, she complemented her answer: "It's much worse when you look at it from my perspective. There's a storm front coming. It will probably rain in the afternoon. Not the type of weather one enjoys at my position."  
 
She was surprised by Ken’s voice coming to her ear for the first time.
 
“Goddess or not, you can’t do anything about the weather, can you?”
 
Laura immediately felt upset about his words. It was not only what he had said, but also the way he had said it, sounding challenging, sarcastic. It took her all of her will to refrain herself from reaching to her ear and smearing him between her fingertips.
 
It had been the first time something coming from the tinies had managed to make her so angry. She had the mental capacity of the rest of the city combined, so she quickly realized what was going on. The worthless bug had dared question her power!
 
She was thinking about what would be the best way to reply to him that avoided the easy task of finishing his sorry existence when the answer came to her mind by itself: by proving him wrong!  
 
So, ignoring the two earring people dangling from her ears, Laura turned towards the horizon and focused on the black clouds approaching in the distance. They would be in Emerald soon enough, based on her experience. Being an avid hiker as she was, Laura was used to evaluating the potential impact of weather. 
 
“Can I?” Laura thought as her keen sight showed her more details on the storm front.
 
“I won’t know unless I try” she concluded
 
Then, without further word to her conversation pals, she slowly turned and started inhaling.
 
Laura loved the whooshing sound as she did that. It felt as if she had created a new weather pattern on her own. She felt her lungs slowly filling with air, but after a few seconds, she realized that things were much different from her times as a normal person. She could keep at it seemingly forever. Somehow, her lungs seemed to be taking air in and compressing it, storing it for what she had in mind. This alone was an excellent sign for what she intended.     
 
She was at it for a very long while, people that could see her (which were a lot) wondering what was going on.
 
Once she felt she was done, she placed her hands on her hips and spread her legs apart in the water a little bit more, adopting a commanding stance. Her determined eyes and the expression on her face fit nicely with her body expression. And then, she pushed her lips out and started blowing. 
 
The whooshing sound as the air left her mouth was quite louder than the one produced by the air getting in. The results were also much more spectacular. Laura's primary concern when the idea had come to mind had been the distance to the storm front. It was soon evident that this would not be a problem.  
 
The effects of her breath on the dark clouds was evident when her keen eyes showed her the turbulences that formed in the space where the air from her lungs met the front. Encouraged by it, Laura kept on blowing, increasing the intensity. Her efforts were promptly rewarded, and the turbulence increased. Soon enough the darkness of the clouds started fading away, and Laura realized that she was making the storm front dissipate.  
 
She was not nearly out of the air, so at that moment she knew that she had won. Waves of pleasure ran through her body as she forced the remaining air in her lungs out at an even more intense rate. In front of her, in the distance, a storm front that had threatened with ruining the weather of her glorious first day as a giant was dissipating. A few seconds later, it was no more.      
 
Laura stopped blowing and let out a moan so loud that it was probably heard across the entire county. Bringing her hand down she was not surprised to feel that she was wetter than she had ever been.
 
There was nothing that could excite her more than power. And what she had just accomplished… well, she doubted there could be anything that could make her feel more powerful.
 
Turning, she saw her classical entourage of news choppers hovering in the distance. She concluded with great satisfaction that the entire world had been the witness of what she had just accomplished. The ripples of pleasure that were still running along her body intensified. The only thing that could rival with exercising great power was probably showing it to her new subjects.
 
She could not prevent another loud moan as she looked at them with a sneer. Then, she prepared to address them, taking on a commanding stance once more.
 
“Have you seen it?” she asked in a defying tone. “I am a ... mmm… Goddess!” she proclaimed, unable to prevent another moan as she affirmed her status to the world. “I am the most powerful creature ever to set foot on this planet. I own the weather! I own the Earth! And I own you!”
 
She could not prevent yet another moan as she finished her speech. She knew she could not postpone it anymore. She might not need to eat or drink. But she needed to take care of her womanly needs. And she needed it urgently.
 
Forgetting about the choppers, she turned again and moved towards the airport, her pace significantly more rushed than it had been until then.
 
Water geysered as her powerful legs easily advanced through it. Laura could not claim not having seen the two additional fishing boats that ended up in the bottom of the ocean as a result of their proximity to her. This time she could see them enough in advance so that she could have been able to do something about them. She just decided not to. In a rush, as she was, she could find no reason to divert her path.
 
Moving uninterrupted at the incredible speed her new scale allowed her, Laura reached the airport much sooner than anyone, including her, could have expected.
 
Certainly, her arrival caught the tens of thousands of people on it by surprise. It was evident enough to her, looking at the scenes of chaos from up above.
 
Her unexpected arrival was not the only source of the turmoil on the airport grounds, Laura observed. The thousands of people outside of the terminal buildings or the massive pile up on the access road had been there for a while already. The ultimate responsible, in any case, was still her, of course. It was in Laura's new condition to be egocentric, but even the most humble giantess in the world, if the concept could really exist, would have realized that the scene at her feet could not have been caused by anything else than the fear of her from a few tens of thousands of people, a fear that had led them to flee the city by plane as quickly as possible.    
 
Laura would have loved to stop for a while and tease them, but her pussy was craving for attention. So instead, she just crushed them.
 
The access road was so packed that there was no way for Laura to step out of the water without her foot ending on nothing but cars and people. So, rather than trying to minimize the number of victims, she just made the most natural gesture out of the water. With a foot the size of hers, this could only mean adding a hundred additional souls to the body count. A hundred souls that were promptly joined by a similar number as her left foot rose from the bay to set next to its impossibly colossal twin.  
 
Only the terminal building stood between Laura and her objective. One of the advantages of being her height was that Laura's stride challenged the imagination. Choosing one of the narrowest parts of the terminal, Laura stepped over it and quickly cleared the building.   
 
She did not need to be an expert in airport logistics to understand what was going on. Having a full picture of the airport grounds from her vantage point of view helped.
 
Standing by the terminal building, Laura could identify a few planes attached to the fingers that came out of it, with others moving at a snail's pace to the vast stretch of asphalt that was the runway.   
 
On it, a plane was taking off. For some strange reason, Laura did not like that. It had already happened to her back at the highway, at Bay Bridge, and with the cruise ships. This was her party now, and she did not like anyone leaving without her permission.
 
There was not too much she could do about that particular plane, its nose already pointing up to the sky. But she could prevent any more planes from following its path.
 
She was on the track in half a dozen steps, bringing everything to a halt. She would not have needed to do anything else, but for good measure Laura forced two hard stomps on the tarmac, completing the job that just walking in there had started. No plane would use that runway again.  
 
A quick look around told her that there had been a couple dozen that being close to. They would not be leaving anytime soon. And their shape made them incredibly appealing.  
 
Laura was eager to humor her womanhood's screams for attention, and she was surrounded by perfectly suitable instruments for that. She was about to reach for one at random when her mind produced the first objection: every single plane heading for the runway would be filled with people.
 
Suddenly aware of the red lines she had imposed to herself, Laura looked around, trying to find an alternative. It was not hard to conclude that every plane attached to one of the fingers in the terminal building would be as full as the ones that had been taxying for take-off.
 
“Damn” she muttered between her teeth
 
She looked around some more as if just looking around would provide her with an answer to her problem. She did not find a too obvious one. She consciously knew that some of the hangars in the farthest parts of the airport might be housing an empty plane, but it was far from certain, and the wildest part of her brain reminded her again that she needed attention and she needed it immediately. 
 
Her excitement decided for her. The power she was gradually discovering she had made her feel so much that she could do anything she wanted, that it was logical enough for her mind to conclude that she could do anything she wanted.   
 
In a last desperate attempt to fool herself, Laura tried to reason that using a plane full of people as a dildo was not equivalent to using people sexually "directly." To start with, they had a higher chance of surviving, she told herself as if she cared about the equivalent to the lives she finished in a couple of steps.   
 
So, forgetting about the taboo with surprising ease for someone that had started with the firm belief that she was adhering to high moral standards, Laura looked down at the collection of planes at her mercy and pondered about which one she would turn into her sex toy.
 
Her first temptation was to get hold of one of the largest models, with their characteristic hunchbacks. She was about to head for the nearest one when she realized that it was impractical. While the plane was noticeably smaller than Laura, it was still too big for her purposes.
 
Her eyes scanned the remaining aircraft, and she soon decided that one of the two-engine planes at about half the length of the hunchbacks would be more suitable. They seemed to be about the length of one of the vibrators in her collection.
 
Without further notice to anyone, Laura took a first step towards the victim she had chosen. Four steps later she was crouching next to it and easily grabbing it with one hand in the center of its fuselage.
 
She would have sworn that she could hear the screams coming from inside the aircraft. For some dark reason, she enjoyed them. Then, she leveled the plane and brought her huge hazel eyes next to the tiny windows.
 
She guessed more than saw the couple hundred people inside. Even if she had limited visibility of them, it was easy enough to deduce that they were in panic. She did not do too much to calm them down.
 
Putting her best bedroom voice, Laura addressed the passengers.
 
“My dear tiny subjects. Please, do fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to get… mmm… bumpy”
 
Ripping the wings of the plane was relatively easy, as was tearing the rudder. The landing gear was a little more involved, in the sense that it took Laura about a couple of seconds for each set of wheels.       
 
Screams kept on coming from within the plane. Laura stuck her tongue out of her mouth and started to lick the plane’s front.
 
"I hope you can enjoy this, even if only a little. I know I will" she said, keeping the same low, purring voice.
 
She had already moved back to the runway and was about to sit down and get started when she reminded of something. A quick look over her shoulder quickly revealed that her usual entourage of news helicopters was not only not gone, but had grown.   
 
Her first impulse was to turn and command them to leave. Then she realized about the stupidity of the idea. She was sure she could force them to get away. After all, she had just forced a storm to get out of her way. But what would be the use? Someone else would record her.
 
Then, she realized something that had already been evident but she had not yet thought about it: her privacy was gone. For good. From now on, every single of her actions would be seen by millions. Every single of her words would be heard by millions. And while she had the power to try, she was smart enough to know that there was not too much she could do about it.
 
Her entire life had become public. She was an all-powerful goddess. But she was also a public goddess. The last refuge of privacy she had were her thoughts.
 
She looked back at the plane and then took a glance over her shoulder, back at the choppers. As carefree and uninhibited as Laura was, she had never had sex in public. The old taboos still applied to her, there.
 
For an instant, she considered putting the plane down. Then, her libido let her know that it did not agree with that idea. The decision came quite naturally to her.
 
“Why the hell should I care about what they think? I am their fucking goddess!”
 
Without further word she let herself drop on her butt, causing a mild earthquake, and spread her legs wide. And then, she carefully approached the nose of the plane to her sweet spot. She could not have been more lubricated. The plane easily slid in, and soon half of it was inside her, along with about a hundred people.
 
The fuselage complained, but she did not care. She started to thrust gently. Her moans overshadowed any other sound two miles around her. They started to gradually increase in intensity and frequency as she kept on going.
 
Laura realized that the idea of having a hundred people inside her exited her as much as the physical stimulation itself. She could feel the plane breaking between her powerful vaginal muscles, but it was far too late for her to give a damn about it. At this point, the few hundred lives inside the plane were as valuable to her as any of the ones she had snuffed when stepping on them.
 
Rather than stopping, Laura increased the intensity feeling the aircraft break more and more with each thrust and feeling the distance to the climax getting shorter and shorter.
 
The timing of the events was not clear to Laura afterward. She did not know if she reached the orgasm the moment she felt the plane completely breaking or if the plane broke as a result of her reaction to her orgasm.
 
The consequences were the same, in any case. Her last moan was so loud that it made a few of the closest people deaf and the fuselage of the Oceanic Airlines Airbus 320 was twisted so badly that it was hopeless to try and look for any survivors.
 
Laura let herself drop to her back, causing another strong shake in the airport grounds, and took a deep breath in. She was still panting as she reached between her legs and took the remainders of Flight 1397 out.
 
 
 
 
"I must admit, I'm lost," Laya said 
 
“I think I know what might be going through your mind, but why don’t you share it with me to see if I can help you out of your doubts?” Quo replied
 
“In practical terms, she just killed another group of humans. One not especially bigger than any of the groups she had finished before” Laya said
 
“But there was a difference” Quo replied, guiding her assistant to the next question
 
"There would not be to us. We see sex just as a means to an end: reproduction."   
 
“But we’ve been observing humans for long enough to know that this is an important difference for them” Quo stated
 
“Of course. It’s a ritual for them, something that goes way beyond reproduction. It’s the first species we’ve found that shows this behavior” Laya said
 
"Sex is the most pleasurable physical stimulation a human can get," Quo said
 
"So, if we follow that logic, Laura Anderson just killed two hundred people to feel pleasure. Which brings her current actions to a whole new level" Laya said
 
"It does."
 
"But you sound as if you had already been expecting it," Laya said
 
The professor paused for a second and then replied:
 
"My behavioral model had predicted it. Nothing stimulates Laura Anderson psychologically like power. And we've given her the ultimate power. But humans can hardly separate psychological stimulation from the physical one."
 
“Which means that there will be more of this” Laya said
 
“Probably” the professor replied
 
“About that ‘ultimate power’…” Laya started
 
“Yes?”
 
“Don’t you think that you went a little too far? Granting her the ability to blow away the weather when she does not like it…”
 
"I gave her all the abilities she had dreamed of," Quo said 
 
"You also gave her some she had not even thought about." Laya tried to make sure that it did not sound like a retreat 
 
"True. But there is a purpose behind them."
 

 

 

Chapter 8

 
Laura remained lying down for a few minutes, her bare back resting on the warm surface of the tarmac as her chest moved rhythmically up and down. This was probably the best come down she’d had in her entire life.
 
After a while, she sat down and looked at her surroundings. She realized that her ears had been filtering the chaos around her as she had been relaxing, but now it came back to her with full power. There were screams, there were sirens, there were hundreds of tiny ants teeming around, and there were the pretty battered remainders of a commercial plane resting between her legs.
 
"Wow, that was wild," she said to herself in a low tone
 
She knew she had got as carried away as any giantess could. A quick look at the severely twisted shape of the plane she had used as a dildo was enough to tell her that none of the unwilling lovers inside of it had survived the ride. She knew she should feel embarrassed, even ashamed about it. After all, she had gone well beyond one of the only red lines she had set for herself. However, this was not at all how she felt.
 
She felt… excited. She could not fool herself. There was no point in that. She made the rules, decided what was right or wrong. She would not get anything out of denying herself the truth.
 
She knew what she had done. She had taken a wholly packed plane and used it as a sex toy. And quite predictably, she had ended up killing what had to be at least a couple hundred people to pleasure herself. And she knew how she felt about it: great. A dark part of her mind was already looking forward to the next chance to repeat.       
 
There were two things she could do. The first one was to feel terrible about it. She opted for the second option.
 
“In the end, what is the difference between stepping on them and killing them in my cunt? They are dead all the same, aren’t they?” she rationalized
 
And there it was. In one single sentence, Laura had got rid of her latest taboo, and she had not had too many to start with.
 
It was such a simple mental association, and yet it represented the final breakthrough regarding goddess psychology. Laura had accepted very early on both that accidents would happen and that people would die so that she would be able to move freely as a giant woman. By now, there was no doubt in her mind that she was well within her rights to kill people with this purpose.    
 
She had soon enough added challenge to her authority or the need to prove authority as two new and perfectly good reasons to kill. Up to now, though, her mind had worked to find a justification for each of her actions resulting in deaths. And every time she was confronted with a new scenario, she had had to work to find a new justification.
 
This was over, once and of all. What Laura's mind had just done was to stop analyzing her actions based on the motives and to start analyzing them based on the consequences. The unit of measure was a human life, and as it had already become evident, a single human life was worth very little  to Laura. She could kill a hundred in one step, an apparently very simple act. So each life was worth a hundredth of that action.
 
So, in a simple mental association, Laura had dropped the entry price to killing to an almost negligible one. She had not realized about it yet, but the world was about to find out.
 
So, unconcerned about the consequences of her sex session, Laura could only focus on how good it had felt. There was only something almost as good as sex. Talking about it.
 
“Tell me Ken, Nancy… was this as good for you as it was for me?” she asked, mocking the two tiny people she was holding captive in her earrings
 
There was no response.
 
"Come on guys, there should be no come down for you, should there?" she insisted.
 
Still, no response
 
A couple of additional attempts were not more successful, so Laura decided to check what was going on. She removed Nancy's earring first. She frowned when she saw the results.
 
Nancy’s body was limp and there was… blood running down her face. Laura did not need to be a doctor to realize she was dead. But how? She had been rough when playing with the plane, but she would have sworn that the spot she had set Nancy and Ken at was the safest one in her anatomy.
 
It took her powerful brain only an instant to give her an answer. Nancy’s blood had an origin: her ears.
 
"Oh, God! Could my screams kill someone?"  Laura wondered. She realized that she was a little freaked out… but also somewhat impressed.
 
She reminded of something she thought she had seen. Looking over her shoulder, she focused on the terminal building in the distance and zoomed it. There was no doubt. Plenty of windows there had shattered. They had been in one piece when Laura had got there a few minutes ago, so she could only think one possible cause for that.
 
"Oh fuck! Even my voice is like ultra-powerful."
 
There it was. Amazement was quickly replacing any sorrow she could feel at the situation. She wondered how many more people could have been affected.
 
A siren in the distance told her that she could get the answer if she wanted to. She needed to take care of something else first, though. Unclasping Nancy's harness from the earring, she tossed the tiny dead woman over her shoulder and looped the earring back in place. She repeated the operation with an also very dead Ken. There was no point in carrying a corpse around, even when it was so tiny and weightless, was there?  
 
Laura then turned and got on her hands and knees. Slowly and quite sexily, she started walking on all-fours. She only needed a few steps to reach close to the spot where most of the emergency services were working.
 
Her presence had sent them fleeing, but it was really up to her to choose which of the tiny fuckers to pick up. It was as if none of them would be able to get out of her vast reach. Seeing a couple of paramedics get into a large ambulance she just reached out and picked it up between two fingers.
 
 
 
The freakiest day in Jorge’s life had just turned freakier. Working with the massive woman just a few hundred yards away had not been too appealing from the start, but Jorge knew his duty and was willing to do it under any circumstances. And Jorge knew he was more needed today than he had been needed in his previous ten years as a paramedic.
 
When the mountain-woman approached them, he could not take it anymore, though. She was on them in a matter of seconds and Kyle, and he did the only logical thing to do: get into the ambulance. 
 
He knew they had made a terrible mistake when they were lifted upwards with the speed that would make any rollercoaster ashamed. He got so dizzy that he needed a few seconds to recover once everything stabilized. When he did, all he could see through his windshield was an iris.
 
Kyle and he started screaming immediately. Their yells were soon overshadowed by a thunderous but still quite girly voice.
 
“Gotcha!" the voice said in an undoubtedly amused tone.
 
When it came back, shortly afterward, it stayed on for a longer time, making the glass and steel in the ambulance rattle with every syllable.
 
"I'll start by saying that I have no intention of hurting you since this seems to be the first thing all of you tinies care about. That being said, I did not pick you up just so that we could get acquainted. I want information, and you are going to give it to me." 
 
Jorge could feel the ambulance moving quite violently, only to stop a couple of seconds later. The iris returned, and the thundering voice did as well, shortly after.
 
"It's quite obvious that we cannot talk while you are in there, so the first thing you'll do is to get out. I just set you in my palm. Don't worry; there's room to spare. And don't worry, I've done this before. I'm becoming kind of an expert. Which leads me to the next point: I've been through this before, and I'm not in the mood of wasting my time, so let me be very clear about this: either you get out in five seconds, or I will crush your ambulance flat… with you in it. There are plenty more people to choose from where you came from. Now, your choice. I'd advise you to get out. I'd hate to have to repeat the speech with someone else."      
 
Jorge could see Kyle hesitating, but he understood what he only had an option. Quickly reaching for the handle, he opened the door and stepped out. The surface was soft and uneven, and it almost made him lose his footing. He managed to stay still, holding himself in the door. A quick look through it showed him that Kyle had seemed to realize about the situation and was getting out too.
 
Jorge finally dared to look up, at the woman’s face. It filled his field of vision with a warm smile.
 
"I'm happy to see that you are as reasonable as I am" the thundering voice came back.
 
Without warning, a shadow approached them, and Jorge had to jump out of the way as their ambulance was crushed by what had felt like a falling meteor. Peeking over his shoulder as he tried to recover he realized that it had been far from that. Rested on top of the now two-dimensional remainders of their ambulance was a thick pinkish pillar that he had a hard time to understand that it was her finger.
 
"This could have been you in there. Not good" the voice repeated.
 
Jorge's mind was mostly dominated by fear. It was easy for him to realize, however, that the giant young woman was playing with them at the same time she held their lives at stake and cheerfully threatened them with exercising the vast power she had over them. It made him feel somewhat mad. There was nothing he could do about it, though. 
 
 
Being the size of a tall skyscraper had plenty of perks. Being able to use the real-life contents of a city like toys was one of them, and it was both empowering and exciting. Her recent experience with the plane was proof enough of that. Still, nothing could compare to holding tiny people in her hand. Nothing.
 
Easily picking the remainders of the ambulance and tossing them away, Laura focused her attention on the two centimeter-tall men in her palm. They could not even fill a significant portion of it. Laura knew because she had tried it, that she could hold dozens of the ant-sized people in her hand. And still, she loved being able to focus on individual ones. 
 
In the end, there was nothing that could prove to Laura just how massive and powerful she had become than comparing herself with a "regular person." She could not prevent thinking that she had been just as tiny merely a few hours ago. She relished those moments of realization. Nothing else could convey just how much she had progressed in such a short time. The scenario showed her how feeble, how powerless she had been during her entire life. She had been just one tiny ant among billions. And now she felt that she had the power to take over the world.     
 
It was somehow ironic that all it had taken her to reach that status was an increase in size. True, it had been a massive increase in size, but it still was kind of simple. Size and raw strength. Nothing more than brute force, in the end. Grant enough of that to a single person and the world's balance of power changed forever.
 
"Whoever said that size did not matter did not know what he was talking about,"  Laura thought, amused.
 
Laura could not be happier that the recipient of all that raw power had been her. She had dreamed about this during her entire adult life, but the reality far surpassed her wildest wishes.
 
She felt so euphoric that she could not prevent her next words, now aloud and addressed to the two tiny creatures in her palm.
 
“It must suck to be you, right?”
 
She was amused by the tinies' reaction. While the one with paler skin could just cower at the power of her voice, the one with darker features reacted with what looked like a mix of pride and resentment. It was lovely. Laura could not prevent a giggle.     
 
"Oh, it seems that someone doesn't like the situation," she said
 
The target of her words reacted differently now. He seemed to realize that his previous reaction had been foolish and his face show uncertainty as if he was expecting the worst.   
 
"Oh, don't worry. I understand you. I would hate being in your spot too. I mean, who wouldn't? Thank God I'm not" she added in a cheerful tone
 
She had unconsciously forgotten about the paler man. The darker-skinned one was much more interesting.
 
"I guess that we all need to accept what is given to us. I mean, it's quite easy for me, but I hope that you can man up and rise to the occasion. What do you say? Are you up to the task?" she asked, probing while still keeping the same mocking tone
 
"What do you want?" the man finally yelled. There was even some defiance in his voice, making Laura giggle again.
 
"That's the attitude," Laura said, giggling once more
 
Through the corner of her eye, she could see that the paler man looked worried at the fact that his colleague had stood up to her. She let out another giggle. 
 
"Oh, don't worry whitey," she said. "I've never punished someone for being brave. I kind of like it. I mean, being so tiny and such, I guess it must take guts to talk to me. And I like men with guts" she added
 
Seeing that none of the two tinies would fill the silence, Laura went on.
 
"I only had a question for you. I've reached the conclusion that some people might have got hurt because of my voice… but I'd like some second opinion. Is there any light you can shed on this?" she asked 
 
Quite predictably, it was the man with the darker skin who replied.
 
"Half the people in the airport is deaf. A few passed out. Plenty was injured because of the glass shattering. It all happened when you screamed" 
 
"Cool!" Laura said, excited to receive yet another confirmation of the power embedded into her new size. After having been able to blow a storm front away, she should have imagined that her lungs had enough power to do what the tiny guy had just described and more. She had just not thought about it upfront. And finding out about it after the fact had felt exciting.
 
The tiny man was not so excited. His tone was annoyed when he asked: 
 
“How can you be so happy about hurting people?”
 
Laura frowned, making him suddenly react with fear, but she quickly softened her expression and addressed him in a quite soft voice.
 
"I'm not happy about hurting people. I'm just impressed with myself, that's all" she said truthfully.
 
"But you've killed and hurt a lot of people already" the man protested.
 
Laura smiled and said:
 
"I'm not happy about hurting anyone. But I don't mind it either."
 
“But… how?” the man asked, puzzled
 
"Look, tiny, there's no way you can understand it without being like me. I know it. I've imagined being like this most of my life, and I did not understand what it meant until it happened. But try to understand this: I'm way too big. I mean, I love it, but it has its consequences. One of them is that there are very few things I can do without at least some people getting hurt. Once you understand this, there are only two options: stop doing stuff or accepting that people will get hurt. And there's no way I will stop doing stuff."      
 
The man was about to protest when Laura’s sensitive ears caught a noise she was used to but sounded a little different anyway. Moving her eyes from the tiny man, she looked around, trying to find its source. It was easy enough.
 
She had been chased by choppers before. This time it was different. The fleet of helicopters flying in her direction did not fashion the multiple colors of the different TV stations in Emerald. They were all painted alike, in the dark blue of the Police Department.
 
Laura frowned once more. She realized what that meant. It had to happen, sooner or later, of course. She was about to be faced with authority. 
 
"I think that we'll need to put this conversation on hold," Laura said
 
"What happens?" the tiny man replied. Of course, he had not heard or seen the choppers flying in their direction. She was too puny for that.
 
"It would seem that the cops want a word," Laura said
 
"What are you going to do?" the tiny man asked.
 
"It will all depend on them. If they're smart and they understand how things are going to work from now on, it's going to be OK" Laura said
 
"And if they don't?" the man asked.
 
"Then, it's not going to be OK," Laura said
 
Without further ceremony, she moved her hand to the tarmac and dropped the two tinies with as much care as she could. It was still not enough, judging from how battered they looked after she did so. She did not care too much. Her 7,000 tons brain was now fully focused on a new situation.
 
"Stay out of trouble," she said vaguely as she stood up and took a few steps towards an emptier section of the airport and in the direction the choppers were coming.
 
 
 
No matter how much footage of the woman he had seen, Captain Kowalski could still not believe what his eyes were showing him.
 
He was flying over the bay, along five other helicopters, half of the Emerald Police Department’s fleet. It was not the first time he flew in the direction of the airport. It was the first time that a woman the size of the terminal building was waiting for him.
 
She was young, naked and gigantic. And she could not look more confident, standing in the middle of the runway with her legs spread apart and hands on her hips, in a commanding pose. Her attention was focused on them, as he had suspected from the moment she had started standing up and moving.
 
Were it not for her size and for the reports that she had already killed thousands of people in all sorts of manners; the young woman would have looked even cute. There was nothing warm in the way she was looking at them, though. Her building-sized face was locked on an expression that showed an almost perfect mix of anticipation, disdain, and curiosity.  
 
Kowalski’s instructions were crystal clear. As he flew in the woman’s direction, he could not prevent thinking that they were also utterly stupid.
 
 
 
Laura waited for the choppers to cut the distance to her with her hands on her hips. She was far from concerned about the danger the tiny aircraft represented, but this was likely to become the first real challenge she had to deal with, and she wanted to make sure that she set the grounds for what was to come.
 
A quick look to her right showed her that the other group of choppers, the ones belonging to the news stations that had been following her since she had set foot in the city, was still around. They had taken some more distance, probably pushed by the cops that were flying towards her, but they would still be in a vantage position to show the world whatever happened in the airport.
 
Authority. That was the key word. The cops in the choppers probably still thought that they had it. Humans were stubborn creatures, after all. She had to prove them, and the world, wrong. In a way, this was to become her first real step to taking over the world.
 
The helicopters slowed down and then stopped at a respectable distance.
 
"So, they want to talk,"  Laura thought. “Good!”
 
She waited for them to make the first move, remaining idle with her hands on her hips, keeping the commanding pose.
 
A distorted metallic voice soon came from the group. Her sensitive ears guided her enhanced sight, and she zoomed into the leading chopper. She marveled as she discovered that she could  see the guy that was talking to her through the windshield. He did not look too confident. Good.
 
"Miss, this is Captain Samuel Kowalski, from Emerald's Police Department."
 
Laura decided to add to the little man’s visible stress.
 
"My name is Laura Anderson," she said, her voice overshadowing any other sound in the vicinity
 
"Ok… Miss Anderson…" the cop continued.
 
"Laura. If you want to be formal, you can call me Goddess Laura. But just Laura is fine" she said with a smirk in her face and without changing her pose.
 
“Ok… Laura… you are commanded to stop” the cop finally said
 
Oh, he had got into meat soon enough. Well, it served Laura right. She was not in the mood of wasting time. She decided to play a little bit, in any case.
 
"I'm sorry. If you came here to issue any commands to me, I believe that you are missing an army at your back. Not that it would do you any good, but at least if would give you some believability" she said
 
She enjoyed the reaction from the cop in his chopper seat. He seemed to be about to have a nervous breakdown. Still, he managed to regain his composure and address her once more.
 
"If you do not cooperate, we are authorized to use force," the cop said
 
“Ok, use force then!” Laura let out.
 
Her unexpected response left everyone in silence. She decided to fill it.
 
"I want to get going, and I'm wasting my time already. Either leave or cut the crap and do what you came here to do. The sooner everyone realizes how futile resistance is, the better." 
 
The choppers kept hovering in the same spot.
 
“Do I need to spell it out for you? Attack. Me. Unless you want to chicken out, which works well for me too” Laura said
 
 
 
"What do we do, Cap?" his pilot asked.
 
"We don't have any option," Kowalski said just before issuing the command.
 
Of course, the fleet of helicopters at the disposal of Emerald’s Police Department had never been meant for attack operations. The six helicopters combined were far from the firepower of a single army’s gunship. Still, they had brought the closest thing they had to an attack helicopter and fitted the other five with machine gun posts and one even with the same rockets as its attack sibling.
 
The giant woman was still at a respectful distance, too far away to use any of the weaponry they had available. So, they had no other option but to fly in. Three of his choppers moved forward. The woman did not move an inch.
 
Machine guns roared, and rockets were fired as his men got close enough to the giantess. And still, she did not move. Explosions erupted in her chest and stomach, and she did not even flinch. The first group of choppers flew past her and Kowalski commanded the second group of aircraft, including his, to fly in. They were as ineffective as their comrades. Up to a point, it felt like shooting a mountain. They could not even get an expression out of her that told them that she was noticing the attacks! 
 
 
Laura let them break against her. She had not been at all concerned about the weapons of the micro-cops, and the results had proved her right. She did notice the impacts, but they were anything but harmful. They were not even annoying.
 
Laura tried to imagine how it must feel for the policemen, seeing that she was impervious to anything they could throw at her, and smirked. Through the corner of her eye, she could see that the news choppers were not missing a detail of the "battle." 
 
The police choppers were getting ready for a second pass. She welcomed it.
 
"Let them see that I'm impregnable first."
 
She let them make several passes on her, observing them with feigned nonchalance while she was actually studying them with curiosity. After several unsuccessful attempts, she had already identified all the pilots and all the gunners in all the choppers, and her massive brain had already processed their patterns and behaviors.
 
After a few minutes, Laura decided it was time to move to the next phase. Her right hand left her hip for the first time in a long while.
 
 
Kowalski was frustrated, like the rest of his men. He had not expected to bring such a massive woman down with the weapons at his disposal, but he would have expected to at least do some harm. He was far from it. As far as he could see, they had not even been able to put a red spot into the giant’s skin. And judging from her expression, she was not even tickled by the attacks.
 
When her hand moved, Kowalski realized that they had made a mistake. They had been making passes at Laura Anderson ever since the attack had begun, and she was yet to move. Now that she was doing it, Captain Kowalski saw that they had been flying much closer to the woman than would have been advisable.
 
When the shadow of her hand covered his view, Captain Kowalski realized that this mistake would cost him his life. Although it didn't. At least, not immediately. The world turned upside down for an instant, and his harness cut against his skin as the helicopter was violently rocked. But nothing exploded, and nothing collapsed. The interior of the cabin was completely dark, and Samuel Kowalski wondered what the hell was going on. 
 
 
Laura knew which chopper she wanted. So, she patiently waited until one of its passes brought it close enough. She had observed that the pilots had grown bolder as a result of her inaction, so it was just a matter of waiting for them to make a mistake.
 
Once the helicopter with the lead cop was within her reach, she simply reached for it. She could have swatted it out of the sky with ease. However, this is not what she wanted to do. She was not done yet.
 
Capturing such a teeny aircraft without destroying it or killing the people inside was harder than just bringing it down. It required Laura a finesse that she knew she possessed but still impressed her every time she had to use it. So, instead of reaching for the chopper from the front, she just let it fly past her and then reached out, matching the helicopter's speed with her hand and finally closing her fingers loosely around it. Of course, the fuselage suffered as it crashed against her much more resistant skin, but there had been no explosion and no crushing. 
 
She instinctively wanted to open her hand and see her catch, but she knew that it was not the right moment for that yet. Two other choppers had made the same mistake than the one she had captured and were flying too close to her left. She did not need them, though, so instead of trying a delicate capture, Laura just backhanded them, the aircraft exploding with her skin as she did so.
 
The three remaining helicopters soon saw that they were in great danger, so they tried to break their attack as they were getting ready for a new pass.
 
"I gave you a fair chance," Laura said.
 
Then, without further ceremony, she pushed her lips out and started blowing. She knew without a doubt that the helicopters were doomed. How could they not be, when she had blown a storm front away?
 
She was not harsh. Instead, she almost made it a game of capturing the offending aircraft in her soft air stream and pushing them down with an invisible force. She toyed with them for a while like that, making sure that the news choppers got a good view of what she was doing. When she finally got tired of it all, she just blew a little harder, sending the choppers spiraling down and crashing into the bay.
 
Turing towards the news helicopters, she winked and smiled.
 
Then, she opened her hand and observed the battered remainders of the aircraft she had previously captured.
 
 
 
 
For a long while, there was only darkness, and a few sparks coming from the several broken systems in his chopper. He was about to lose track of time when the light came back and flooded the aircraft, forcing Captain Kowalski to protect his eyes. 
 
When he opened them again, his entire field of vision was filled by the massive face of the massive young woman that had just mocked them all.
 
“I took care of your men” her thundering voice filled his entire world, making his bones rattle. Its shock was such that he needed a couple of seconds to realize that his entire squad was dead. The thought filled him with a mix of coldness and anger.
 
The voice came back:
 
“It’s hard to have a conversation with you in there, don’t you think?”
 
He could not even think on answering. Metal groaned violently around him, and before he could realize, half of the helicopter's fuselage was gone. He was now staring at the titanic woman with nothing to interfere his view.
 
She smirked at him, and suddenly, twin columns of flesh approached him. He thought this time it would finally be the end, but to his surprise, the woman's humongous fingers maneuvered with unbelievable delicacy and "just" ripped his seat from the floor and lifted it.
 
There was nothing delicate in her next action when she just tossed what remained of the helicopter, along with three of his very battered comrades, over her shoulder.
 
“Nooooo!” Kowalski screamed
 
"They shot rockets at me, you know?" the voice, now with some girlish tones, came back.
 
Samuel Kowalski realized that he was the last survivor of the attack group he had led. It made him feel mad.
 
"I also attacked you! Why don't you kill me?" he shouted.
 
He only got a giggle back, which made his blood boil.
 
"I'm not done with you yet" the voice, which sounded as if the clouds had parted and a Goddess was speaking to him from the sky, came back. 
 
"What do you want from me?" he yelled, desperate.
 
He thought he had seen one of her massive eyebrows raise.
 
“Oh, not much. I only want to know who ordered the attack” she said
 
“I did!” Samuel yelled
 
"No" her voice came back. "You sent your mean to die, but I want to know who ordered you to come here and attack me in the first place."
 
Samuel Kowalski's first impulse was not to answer her. Then, something inside him urged him to reconsider that initial reaction. He and his men had been sent to die. He had protested, but it had been to no avail. Why should he protect those that had so eagerly decided the fate of his comrades from the comfort of a luxury office?
 
“Mayor Strauss” he finally said
 
The giant eyes in front of him narrowed, and her voice came back. It was sharper than it had been before.
 
“I should have suspected that. I guess it’s my fault, for having postponed my duty longer than I should have. I should get back on track” she said
 
“What… what are you going to do?” he dared to ask
 
"I'm going to take care of him, of course. And I guess I will finally take over this city. It should have already been obvious to everyone that I call the shots now, but it seems that some people do not get the memo until you do things formally."
 
For some dark reason, Samuel was not so upset about the idea of Laura Anderson looking for the mayor. Suddenly, a more selfish concern took over him.
 
“Are you going to… kill me?” he asked
 
He could see her thinking about it. When her lips parted his sentence was finally passed.
 
"Nah. You pose no threat to me anymore. I want you to live with the memories of what just happened. Tell people how powerless you were. Tell them what happens to those that challenge me. And make sure our paths do not cross ever again."
 
 
 
She felt happy with her resolution of the conflict. Not only had she proven the world that she was in charge, but she had also shown that resistance was futile and had dealt with the leader of the pathetic attempt in a way that was quite more humiliating than simple death. 
 
Without further word, Laura crouched down and set the diminutive man in his diminutive seat in the middle of the tarmac.
 
Then she turned towards the news helicopters, took two steps in their direction and beckoned them with a finger:
 
"Come closer. I'm going to address the city."
 
They complied, of course. She did not think it was the fear they had at what she could do to them should they not. There was something else as if she was projecting some primal power that could not be resisted. 
 
In any case, Laura waited for the choppers to be in place and then cleared her throat. She was not going to deliver a long speech.
 
"Fellow citizens of Emerald… tiny subjects… because you are my subjects, whether you like it or not. I tried to tell you how things were going to work from now on, but it's clear that some of you did not want to listen. I guess it's my fault as much as yours. I let myself get de-railed too easily. I came here to take over this city and judging from the pathetic attempt at attacking me that just happened, at least some of you did not get the message. Well, I'll make sure that there are no misunderstandings now. Mayor Strauss, I'll be there soon."
 
 
 
 
"Wow, things are escalating fast," Laya said.  
 
"They had to, sooner or later" Quo replied.
 
"I believe we will need to re-run what happened over the last few minutes. So many changes!" Laya added, excited.
 
"I see you are enjoying them," Quo said.  
 
"Well, in a way, I do. You know I had more doubts than you about the chosen subject. I respect your opinion on the matter more than mine, so I had faith that things would finally fit, but seeing it happening is rewarding, anyway" Laya let go.
 
"I see you are not only referring to the fact that she has announced that she will now be serious about seizing power," Quo said, his face twitching into a gesture that conveyed the same expression as a human smirk. 
 
"No, doctor. This was meant to happen no matter what, as you've been saying. The truly remarkable thing is that Laura Anderson just lets go of every single one of her inhibitions. I was worried that she was doing everything we expected her to do but always for the wrong reasons. Or rather than the wrong reasons, because of some convoluted theories, she made up as she went. But in a matter of minutes, Laura Anderson has moved from saying that she is the most powerful being in the world to acting like it. She has finally embraced the power we gave to her completely and decided that she can use it as she pleases without the need for justification. Once that happened, her reaction to her attackers was quite predictable" Laya said.    
 
"That was a really good analysis; Laya" Quo let out with a warm smile.  
 
"I've had good teachers," Laya said. 
 
"So tell me, then: what do you think Laura Anderson is going to do?" Quo asked.
 
"She will do what she said she would do. She needs the world to see that she means business. I believe that she will try to find the chance to make another show of power as soon as possible" Laya replied.
 
"This shall be interesting to watch," Quo said as he turned her chair towards the holopit. 
 
 
 
 

CHAPTER 8

 

Laura remained lying down for a few minutes, her bare back resting on the warm surface of the tarmac as her chest moved rhythmically up and down. This was probably the best come down she’d had in her entire life.

 

After a while, she sat down and looked at her surroundings. She realized that her ears had been filtering the chaos around her as she had been relaxing, but now it came back to her with full power. There were screams, there were sirens, there were hundreds of tiny ants teeming around, and there were the pretty battered remainders of a commercial plane resting between her legs.

 

"Wow, that was wild," she said to herself in a low tone

 

She knew she had got as carried away as any giantess could. A quick look at the severely twisted shape of the plane she had used as a dildo was enough to tell her that none of the unwilling lovers inside of it had survived the ride. She knew she should feel embarrassed, even ashamed about it. After all, she had gone well beyond one of the only red lines she had set for herself. However, this was not at all how she felt.

 

She felt… excited. She could not fool herself. There was no point in that. She made the rules, decided what was right or wrong. She would not get anything out of denying herself the truth.

 

She knew what she had done. She had taken a wholly packed plane and used it as a sex toy. And quite predictably, she had ended up killing what had to be at least a couple hundred people to pleasure herself. And she knew how she felt about it: great. A dark part of her mind was already looking forward to the next chance to repeat.       

 

There were two things she could do. The first one was to feel terrible about it. She opted for the second option.

 

“In the end, what is the difference between stepping on them and killing them in my cunt? They are dead all the same, aren’t they?” she rationalized

 

And there it was. In one single sentence, Laura had got rid of her latest taboo, and she had not had too many to start with.

 

It was such a simple mental association, and yet it represented the final breakthrough regarding goddess psychology. Laura had accepted very early on both that accidents would happen and that people would die so that she would be able to move freely as a giant woman. By now, there was no doubt in her mind that she was well within her rights to kill people with this purpose.    

 

She had soon enough added challenge to her authority or the need to prove authority as two new and perfectly good reasons to kill. Up to now, though, her mind had worked to find a justification for each of her actions resulting in deaths. And every time she was confronted with a new scenario, she had had to work to find a new justification.

 

This was over, once and of all. What Laura's mind had just done was to stop analyzing her actions based on the motives and to start analyzing them based on the consequences. The unit of measure was a human life, and as it had already become evident, a single human life was worth very little  to Laura. She could kill a hundred in one step, an apparently very simple act. So each life was worth a hundredth of that action.

 

So, in a simple mental association, Laura had dropped the entry price to killing to an almost negligible one. She had not realized about it yet, but the world was about to find out.

 

So, unconcerned about the consequences of her sex session, Laura could only focus on how good it had felt. There was only something almost as good as sex. Talking about it.

 

“Tell me Ken, Nancy… was this as good for you as it was for me?” she asked, mocking the two tiny people she was holding captive in her earrings

 

There was no response.

 

"Come on guys, there should be no come down for you, should there?" she insisted.

 

Still, no response

 

A couple of additional attempts were not more successful, so Laura decided to check what was going on. She removed Nancy's earring first. She frowned when she saw the results.

 

Nancy’s body was limp and there was… blood running down her face. Laura did not need to be a doctor to realize she was dead. But how? She had been rough when playing with the plane, but she would have sworn that the spot she had set Nancy and Ken at was the safest one in her anatomy.

 

It took her powerful brain only an instant to give her an answer. Nancy’s blood had an origin: her ears.

 

"Oh, God! Could my screams kill someone?"  Laura wondered. She realized that she was a little freaked out… but also somewhat impressed.

 

She reminded of something she thought she had seen. Looking over her shoulder, she focused on the terminal building in the distance and zoomed it. There was no doubt. Plenty of windows there had shattered. They had been in one piece when Laura had got there a few minutes ago, so she could only think one possible cause for that.

 

"Oh fuck! Even my voice is like ultra-powerful."

 

There it was. Amazement was quickly replacing any sorrow she could feel at the situation. She wondered how many more people could have been affected.

 

A siren in the distance told her that she could get the answer if she wanted to. She needed to take care of something else first, though. Unclasping Nancy's harness from the earring, she tossed the tiny dead woman over her shoulder and looped the earring back in place. She repeated the operation with an also very dead Ken. There was no point in carrying a corpse around, even when it was so tiny and weightless, was there?  

 

Laura then turned and got on her hands and knees. Slowly and quite sexily, she started walking on all-fours. She only needed a few steps to reach close to the spot where most of the emergency services were working.

 

Her presence had sent them fleeing, but it was really up to her to choose which of the tiny fuckers to pick up. It was as if none of them would be able to get out of her vast reach. Seeing a couple of paramedics get into a large ambulance she just reached out and picked it up between two fingers.

 

 

 

The freakiest day in Jorge’s life had just turned freakier. Working with the massive woman just a few hundred yards away had not been too appealing from the start, but Jorge knew his duty and was willing to do it under any circumstances. And Jorge knew he was more needed today than he had been needed in his previous ten years as a paramedic.

 

When the mountain-woman approached them, he could not take it anymore, though. She was on them in a matter of seconds and Kyle, and he did the only logical thing to do: get into the ambulance. 

 

He knew they had made a terrible mistake when they were lifted upwards with the speed that would make any rollercoaster ashamed. He got so dizzy that he needed a few seconds to recover once everything stabilized. When he did, all he could see through his windshield was an iris.

 

Kyle and he started screaming immediately. Their yells were soon overshadowed by a thunderous but still quite girly voice.

 

“Gotcha!" the voice said in an undoubtedly amused tone.

 

When it came back, shortly afterward, it stayed on for a longer time, making the glass and steel in the ambulance rattle with every syllable.

 

"I'll start by saying that I have no intention of hurting you since this seems to be the first thing all of you tinies care about. That being said, I did not pick you up just so that we could get acquainted. I want information, and you are going to give it to me." 

 

Jorge could feel the ambulance moving quite violently, only to stop a couple of seconds later. The iris returned, and the thundering voice did as well, shortly after.

 

"It's quite obvious that we cannot talk while you are in there, so the first thing you'll do is to get out. I just set you in my palm. Don't worry; there's room to spare. And don't worry, I've done this before. I'm becoming kind of an expert. Which leads me to the next point: I've been through this before, and I'm not in the mood of wasting my time, so let me be very clear about this: either you get out in five seconds, or I will crush your ambulance flat… with you in it. There are plenty more people to choose from where you came from. Now, your choice. I'd advise you to get out. I'd hate to have to repeat the speech with someone else."      

 

Jorge could see Kyle hesitating, but he understood what he only had an option. Quickly reaching for the handle, he opened the door and stepped out. The surface was soft and uneven, and it almost made him lose his footing. He managed to stay still, holding himself in the door. A quick look through it showed him that Kyle had seemed to realize about the situation and was getting out too.

 

Jorge finally dared to look up, at the woman’s face. It filled his field of vision with a warm smile.

 

"I'm happy to see that you are as reasonable as I am" the thundering voice came back.

 

Without warning, a shadow approached them, and Jorge had to jump out of the way as their ambulance was crushed by what had felt like a falling meteor. Peeking over his shoulder as he tried to recover he realized that it had been far from that. Rested on top of the now two-dimensional remainders of their ambulance was a thick pinkish pillar that he had a hard time to understand that it was her finger.

 

"This could have been you in there. Not good" the voice repeated.

 

Jorge's mind was mostly dominated by fear. It was easy for him to realize, however, that the giant young woman was playing with them at the same time she held their lives at stake and cheerfully threatened them with exercising the vast power she had over them. It made him feel somewhat mad. There was nothing he could do about it, though. 

 

 

Being the size of a tall skyscraper had plenty of perks. Being able to use the real-life contents of a city like toys was one of them, and it was both empowering and exciting. Her recent experience with the plane was proof enough of that. Still, nothing could compare to holding tiny people in her hand. Nothing.

 

Easily picking the remainders of the ambulance and tossing them away, Laura focused her attention on the two centimeter-tall men in her palm. They could not even fill a significant portion of it. Laura knew because she had tried it, that she could hold dozens of the ant-sized people in her hand. And still, she loved being able to focus on individual ones. 

 

In the end, there was nothing that could prove to Laura just how massive and powerful she had become than comparing herself with a "regular person." She could not prevent thinking that she had been just as tiny merely a few hours ago. She relished those moments of realization. Nothing else could convey just how much she had progressed in such a short time. The scenario showed her how feeble, how powerless she had been during her entire life. She had been just one tiny ant among billions. And now she felt that she had the power to take over the world.     

 

It was somehow ironic that all it had taken her to reach that status was an increase in size. True, it had been a massive increase in size, but it still was kind of simple. Size and raw strength. Nothing more than brute force, in the end. Grant enough of that to a single person and the world's balance of power changed forever.

 

"Whoever said that size did not matter did not know what he was talking about,"  Laura thought, amused.

 

Laura could not be happier that the recipient of all that raw power had been her. She had dreamed about this during her entire adult life, but the reality far surpassed her wildest wishes.

 

She felt so euphoric that she could not prevent her next words, now aloud and addressed to the two tiny creatures in her palm.

 

“It must suck to be you, right?”

 

She was amused by the tinies' reaction. While the one with paler skin could just cower at the power of her voice, the one with darker features reacted with what looked like a mix of pride and resentment. It was lovely. Laura could not prevent a giggle.     

 

"Oh, it seems that someone doesn't like the situation," she said

 

The target of her words reacted differently now. He seemed to realize that his previous reaction had been foolish and his face show uncertainty as if he was expecting the worst.   

 

"Oh, don't worry. I understand you. I would hate being in your spot too. I mean, who wouldn't? Thank God I'm not" she added in a cheerful tone

 

She had unconsciously forgotten about the paler man. The darker-skinned one was much more interesting.

 

"I guess that we all need to accept what is given to us. I mean, it's quite easy for me, but I hope that you can man up and rise to the occasion. What do you say? Are you up to the task?" she asked, probing while still keeping the same mocking tone

 

"What do you want?" the man finally yelled. There was even some defiance in his voice, making Laura giggle again.

 

"That's the attitude," Laura said, giggling once more

 

Through the corner of her eye, she could see that the paler man looked worried at the fact that his colleague had stood up to her. She let out another giggle. 

 

"Oh, don't worry whitey," she said. "I've never punished someone for being brave. I kind of like it. I mean, being so tiny and such, I guess it must take guts to talk to me. And I like men with guts" she added

 

Seeing that none of the two tinies would fill the silence, Laura went on.

 

"I only had a question for you. I've reached the conclusion that some people might have got hurt because of my voice… but I'd like some second opinion. Is there any light you can shed on this?" she asked 

 

Quite predictably, it was the man with the darker skin who replied.

 

"Half the people in the airport is deaf. A few passed out. Plenty was injured because of the glass shattering. It all happened when you screamed" 

 

"Cool!" Laura said, excited to receive yet another confirmation of the power embedded into her new size. After having been able to blow a storm front away, she should have imagined that her lungs had enough power to do what the tiny guy had just described and more. She had just not thought about it upfront. And finding out about it after the fact had felt exciting.

 

The tiny man was not so excited. His tone was annoyed when he asked: 

 

“How can you be so happy about hurting people?”

 

Laura frowned, making him suddenly react with fear, but she quickly softened her expression and addressed him in a quite soft voice.

 

"I'm not happy about hurting people. I'm just impressed with myself, that's all" she said truthfully.

 

"But you've killed and hurt a lot of people already" the man protested.

 

Laura smiled and said:

 

"I'm not happy about hurting anyone. But I don't mind it either."

 

“But… how?” the man asked, puzzled

 

"Look, tiny, there's no way you can understand it without being like me. I know it. I've imagined being like this most of my life, and I did not understand what it meant until it happened. But try to understand this: I'm way too big. I mean, I love it, but it has its consequences. One of them is that there are very few things I can do without at least some people getting hurt. Once you understand this, there are only two options: stop doing stuff or accepting that people will get hurt. And there's no way I will stop doing stuff."      

 

The man was about to protest when Laura’s sensitive ears caught a noise she was used to but sounded a little different anyway. Moving her eyes from the tiny man, she looked around, trying to find its source. It was easy enough.

 

She had been chased by choppers before. This time it was different. The fleet of helicopters flying in her direction did not fashion the multiple colors of the different TV stations in Emerald. They were all painted alike, in the dark blue of the Police Department.

 

Laura frowned once more. She realized what that meant. It had to happen, sooner or later, of course. She was about to be faced with authority. 

 

"I think that we'll need to put this conversation on hold," Laura said

 

"What happens?" the tiny man replied. Of course, he had not heard or seen the choppers flying in their direction. She was too puny for that.

 

"It would seem that the cops want a word," Laura said

 

"What are you going to do?" the tiny man asked.

 

"It will all depend on them. If they're smart and they understand how things are going to work from now on, it's going to be OK" Laura said

 

"And if they don't?" the man asked.

 

"Then, it's not going to be OK," Laura said

 

Without further ceremony, she moved her hand to the tarmac and dropped the two tinies with as much care as she could. It was still not enough, judging from how battered they looked after she did so. She did not care too much. Her 7,000 tons brain was now fully focused on a new situation.

 

"Stay out of trouble," she said vaguely as she stood up and took a few steps towards an emptier section of the airport and in the direction the choppers were coming.

 

 

 

No matter how much footage of the woman he had seen, Captain Kowalski could still not believe what his eyes were showing him.

 

He was flying over the bay, along five other helicopters, half of the Emerald Police Department’s fleet. It was not the first time he flew in the direction of the airport. It was the first time that a woman the size of the terminal building was waiting for him.

 

She was young, naked and gigantic. And she could not look more confident, standing in the middle of the runway with her legs spread apart and hands on her hips, in a commanding pose. Her attention was focused on them, as he had suspected from the moment she had started standing up and moving.

 

Were it not for her size and for the reports that she had already killed thousands of people in all sorts of manners; the young woman would have looked even cute. There was nothing warm in the way she was looking at them, though. Her building-sized face was locked on an expression that showed an almost perfect mix of anticipation, disdain, and curiosity.  

 

Kowalski’s instructions were crystal clear. As he flew in the woman’s direction, he could not prevent thinking that they were also utterly stupid.

 

 

 

Laura waited for the choppers to cut the distance to her with her hands on her hips. She was far from concerned about the danger the tiny aircraft represented, but this was likely to become the first real challenge she had to deal with, and she wanted to make sure that she set the grounds for what was to come.

 

A quick look to her right showed her that the other group of choppers, the ones belonging to the news stations that had been following her since she had set foot in the city, was still around. They had taken some more distance, probably pushed by the cops that were flying towards her, but they would still be in a vantage position to show the world whatever happened in the airport.

 

Authority. That was the key word. The cops in the choppers probably still thought that they had it. Humans were stubborn creatures, after all. She had to prove them, and the world, wrong. In a way, this was to become her first real step to taking over the world.

 

The helicopters slowed down and then stopped at a respectable distance.

 

"So, they want to talk,"  Laura thought. “Good!”

 

She waited for them to make the first move, remaining idle with her hands on her hips, keeping the commanding pose.

 

A distorted metallic voice soon came from the group. Her sensitive ears guided her enhanced sight, and she zoomed into the leading chopper. She marveled as she discovered that she could  see the guy that was talking to her through the windshield. He did not look too confident. Good.

 

"Miss, this is Captain Samuel Kowalski, from Emerald's Police Department."

 

Laura decided to add to the little man’s visible stress.

 

"My name is Laura Anderson," she said, her voice overshadowing any other sound in the vicinity

 

"Ok… Miss Anderson…" the cop continued.

 

"Laura. If you want to be formal, you can call me Goddess Laura. But just Laura is fine" she said with a smirk in her face and without changing her pose.

 

“Ok… Laura… you are commanded to stop” the cop finally said

 

Oh, he had got into meat soon enough. Well, it served Laura right. She was not in the mood of wasting time. She decided to play a little bit, in any case.

 

"I'm sorry. If you came here to issue any commands to me, I believe that you are missing an army at your back. Not that it would do you any good, but at least if would give you some believability" she said

 

She enjoyed the reaction from the cop in his chopper seat. He seemed to be about to have a nervous breakdown. Still, he managed to regain his composure and address her once more.

 

"If you do not cooperate, we are authorized to use force," the cop said

 

“Ok, use force then!” Laura let out.

 

Her unexpected response left everyone in silence. She decided to fill it.

 

"I want to get going, and I'm wasting my time already. Either leave or cut the crap and do what you came here to do. The sooner everyone realizes how futile resistance is, the better." 

 

The choppers kept hovering in the same spot.

 

“Do I need to spell it out for you? Attack. Me. Unless you want to chicken out, which works well for me too” Laura said

 

 

 

"What do we do, Cap?" his pilot asked.

 

"We don't have any option," Kowalski said just before issuing the command.

 

Of course, the fleet of helicopters at the disposal of Emerald’s Police Department had never been meant for attack operations. The six helicopters combined were far from the firepower of a single army’s gunship. Still, they had brought the closest thing they had to an attack helicopter and fitted the other five with machine gun posts and one even with the same rockets as its attack sibling.

 

The giant woman was still at a respectful distance, too far away to use any of the weaponry they had available. So, they had no other option but to fly in. Three of his choppers moved forward. The woman did not move an inch.

 

Machine guns roared, and rockets were fired as his men got close enough to the giantess. And still, she did not move. Explosions erupted in her chest and stomach, and she did not even flinch. The first group of choppers flew past her and Kowalski commanded the second group of aircraft, including his, to fly in. They were as ineffective as their comrades. Up to a point, it felt like shooting a mountain. They could not even get an expression out of her that told them that she was noticing the attacks! 

 

 

Laura let them break against her. She had not been at all concerned about the weapons of the micro-cops, and the results had proved her right. She did notice the impacts, but they were anything but harmful. They were not even annoying.

 

Laura tried to imagine how it must feel for the policemen, seeing that she was impervious to anything they could throw at her, and smirked. Through the corner of her eye, she could see that the news choppers were not missing a detail of the "battle." 

 

The police choppers were getting ready for a second pass. She welcomed it.

 

"Let them see that I'm impregnable first."

 

She let them make several passes on her, observing them with feigned nonchalance while she was actually studying them with curiosity. After several unsuccessful attempts, she had already identified all the pilots and all the gunners in all the choppers, and her massive brain had already processed their patterns and behaviors.

 

After a few minutes, Laura decided it was time to move to the next phase. Her right hand left her hip for the first time in a long while.

 

 

Kowalski was frustrated, like the rest of his men. He had not expected to bring such a massive woman down with the weapons at his disposal, but he would have expected to at least do some harm. He was far from it. As far as he could see, they had not even been able to put a red spot into the giant’s skin. And judging from her expression, she was not even tickled by the attacks.

 

When her hand moved, Kowalski realized that they had made a mistake. They had been making passes at Laura Anderson ever since the attack had begun, and she was yet to move. Now that she was doing it, Captain Kowalski saw that they had been flying much closer to the woman than would have been advisable.

 

When the shadow of her hand covered his view, Captain Kowalski realized that this mistake would cost him his life. Although it didn't. At least, not immediately. The world turned upside down for an instant, and his harness cut against his skin as the helicopter was violently rocked. But nothing exploded, and nothing collapsed. The interior of the cabin was completely dark, and Samuel Kowalski wondered what the hell was going on. 

 

 

Laura knew which chopper she wanted. So, she patiently waited until one of its passes brought it close enough. She had observed that the pilots had grown bolder as a result of her inaction, so it was just a matter of waiting for them to make a mistake.

 

Once the helicopter with the lead cop was within her reach, she simply reached for it. She could have swatted it out of the sky with ease. However, this is not what she wanted to do. She was not done yet.

 

Capturing such a teeny aircraft without destroying it or killing the people inside was harder than just bringing it down. It required Laura a finesse that she knew she possessed but still impressed her every time she had to use it. So, instead of reaching for the chopper from the front, she just let it fly past her and then reached out, matching the helicopter's speed with her hand and finally closing her fingers loosely around it. Of course, the fuselage suffered as it crashed against her much more resistant skin, but there had been no explosion and no crushing. 

 

She instinctively wanted to open her hand and see her catch, but she knew that it was not the right moment for that yet. Two other choppers had made the same mistake than the one she had captured and were flying too close to her left. She did not need them, though, so instead of trying a delicate capture, Laura just backhanded them, the aircraft exploding with her skin as she did so.

 

The three remaining helicopters soon saw that they were in great danger, so they tried to break their attack as they were getting ready for a new pass.

 

"I gave you a fair chance," Laura said.

 

Then, without further ceremony, she pushed her lips out and started blowing. She knew without a doubt that the helicopters were doomed. How could they not be, when she had blown a storm front away?

 

She was not harsh. Instead, she almost made it a game of capturing the offending aircraft in her soft air stream and pushing them down with an invisible force. She toyed with them for a while like that, making sure that the news choppers got a good view of what she was doing. When she finally got tired of it all, she just blew a little harder, sending the choppers spiraling down and crashing into the bay.

 

Turing towards the news helicopters, she winked and smiled.

 

Then, she opened her hand and observed the battered remainders of the aircraft she had previously captured.

 

 

 

 

For a long while, there was only darkness, and a few sparks coming from the several broken systems in his chopper. He was about to lose track of time when the light came back and flooded the aircraft, forcing Captain Kowalski to protect his eyes. 

 

When he opened them again, his entire field of vision was filled by the massive face of the massive young woman that had just mocked them all.

 

“I took care of your men” her thundering voice filled his entire world, making his bones rattle. Its shock was such that he needed a couple of seconds to realize that his entire squad was dead. The thought filled him with a mix of coldness and anger.

 

The voice came back:

 

“It’s hard to have a conversation with you in there, don’t you think?”

 

He could not even think on answering. Metal groaned violently around him, and before he could realize, half of the helicopter's fuselage was gone. He was now staring at the titanic woman with nothing to interfere his view.

 

She smirked at him, and suddenly, twin columns of flesh approached him. He thought this time it would finally be the end, but to his surprise, the woman's humongous fingers maneuvered with unbelievable delicacy and "just" ripped his seat from the floor and lifted it.

 

There was nothing delicate in her next action when she just tossed what remained of the helicopter, along with three of his very battered comrades, over her shoulder.

 

“Nooooo!” Kowalski screamed

 

"They shot rockets at me, you know?" the voice, now with some girlish tones, came back.

 

Samuel Kowalski realized that he was the last survivor of the attack group he had led. It made him feel mad.

 

"I also attacked you! Why don't you kill me?" he shouted.

 

He only got a giggle back, which made his blood boil.

 

"I'm not done with you yet" the voice, which sounded as if the clouds had parted and a Goddess was speaking to him from the sky, came back. 

 

"What do you want from me?" he yelled, desperate.

 

He thought he had seen one of her massive eyebrows raise.

 

“Oh, not much. I only want to know who ordered the attack” she said

 

“I did!” Samuel yelled

 

"No" her voice came back. "You sent your mean to die, but I want to know who ordered you to come here and attack me in the first place."

 

Samuel Kowalski's first impulse was not to answer her. Then, something inside him urged him to reconsider that initial reaction. He and his men had been sent to die. He had protested, but it had been to no avail. Why should he protect those that had so eagerly decided the fate of his comrades from the comfort of a luxury office?

 

“Mayor Strauss” he finally said

 

The giant eyes in front of him narrowed, and her voice came back. It was sharper than it had been before.

 

“I should have suspected that. I guess it’s my fault, for having postponed my duty longer than I should have. I should get back on track” she said

 

“What… what are you going to do?” he dared to ask

 

"I'm going to take care of him, of course. And I guess I will finally take over this city. It should have already been obvious to everyone that I call the shots now, but it seems that some people do not get the memo until you do things formally."

 

For some dark reason, Samuel was not so upset about the idea of Laura Anderson looking for the mayor. Suddenly, a more selfish concern took over him.

 

“Are you going to… kill me?” he asked

 

He could see her thinking about it. When her lips parted his sentence was finally passed.

 

"Nah. You pose no threat to me anymore. I want you to live with the memories of what just happened. Tell people how powerless you were. Tell them what happens to those that challenge me. And make sure our paths do not cross ever again."

 

 

 

She felt happy with her resolution of the conflict. Not only had she proven the world that she was in charge, but she had also shown that resistance was futile and had dealt with the leader of the pathetic attempt in a way that was quite more humiliating than simple death. 

 

Without further word, Laura crouched down and set the diminutive man in his diminutive seat in the middle of the tarmac.

 

Then she turned towards the news helicopters, took two steps in their direction and beckoned them with a finger:

 

"Come closer. I'm going to address the city."

 

They complied, of course. She did not think it was the fear they had at what she could do to them should they not. There was something else as if she was projecting some primal power that could not be resisted. 

 

In any case, Laura waited for the choppers to be in place and then cleared her throat. She was not going to deliver a long speech.

 

"Fellow citizens of Emerald… tiny subjects… because you are my subjects, whether you like it or not. I tried to tell you how things were going to work from now on, but it's clear that some of you did not want to listen. I guess it's my fault as much as yours. I let myself get de-railed too easily. I came here to take over this city and judging from the pathetic attempt at attacking me that just happened, at least some of you did not get the message. Well, I'll make sure that there are no misunderstandings now. Mayor Strauss, I'll be there soon."

 

 

 

 

"Wow, things are escalating fast," Laya said.  

 

"They had to, sooner or later" Quo replied.

 

"I believe we will need to re-run what happened over the last few minutes. So many changes!" Laya added, excited.

 

"I see you are enjoying them," Quo said.  

 

"Well, in a way, I do. You know I had more doubts than you about the chosen subject. I respect your opinion on the matter more than mine, so I had faith that things would finally fit, but seeing it happening is rewarding, anyway" Laya let go.

 

"I see you are not only referring to the fact that she has announced that she will now be serious about seizing power," Quo said, his face twitching into a gesture that conveyed the same expression as a human smirk. 

 

"No, doctor. This was meant to happen no matter what, as you've been saying. The truly remarkable thing is that Laura Anderson just lets go of every single one of her inhibitions. I was worried that she was doing everything we expected her to do but always for the wrong reasons. Or rather than the wrong reasons, because of some convoluted theories, she made up as she went. But in a matter of minutes, Laura Anderson has moved from saying that she is the most powerful being in the world to acting like it. She has finally embraced the power we gave to her completely and decided that she can use it as she pleases without the need for justification. Once that happened, her reaction to her attackers was quite predictable" Laya said.    

 

"That was a really good analysis; Laya" Quo let out with a warm smile.  

 

"I've had good teachers," Laya said. 

 

"So tell me, then: what do you think Laura Anderson is going to do?" Quo asked.

 

"She will do what she said she would do. She needs the world to see that she means business. I believe that she will try to find the chance to make another show of power as soon as possible" Laya replied.

 

"This shall be interesting to watch," Quo said as he turned her chair towards the holopit. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 9

 
Laura's mind was laser-focused on finding Mayor Strauss and putting an end to his farce that he was still in charge of the city. Under those circumstances, it was even harder to care about the tiny lives at her feet. And she had not bothered too much to start with.   
 
The bay was pretty shallow in the area where the airport had been built, which meant that Laura was barely getting wet up to her toes. When she looked down the visual effect resembled that of her walking on the water, which reinforced her perception of herself as a goddess.
 
She was heading straight towards the beckoning skyline of downtown. The time for detours was over. It was time to officially seize power so that everyone got the message.
 
Laura realized that moving towards the city through the bay made her easily visible. Suddenly conscious that millions of eyes were surely trained on her, she adapted her walking pace to try to look as sexy and powerful as possible. It was not as if she had to do too much, of course. Her body’s figure alone was already enough to convey her sex-appeal; its size was an ode to power.
 
It took Laura a matter of seconds to move from the airport to the middle of the bay. Once there, boat traffic increased. They were mostly smaller boats now: yachts, fishing boats and also some recreational craft. And they were everywhere. Where had the tinies got the notion that sea offered a better escape route than land Laura did not know, but there were plenty of little people that had had the same idea.
 
She tried to step in the space between boats, at first. It made no difference. The moment her foot hit the water and sunk into it and the bed of the bay below, it unavoidably ended up creating whirlpools that dragged and swallowed the tiny boats around them. After two steps Laura ended up deciding that since the results were not going to differ, she might as well step directly on the boats without having to change her path, which was always a nuisance.
 
A few seconds and a few boats later, Laura finally reached Downtown. She stopped for an instant before stepping out of the bay and into the busiest section of the city.
 
Downtown was Emerald’s heart and soul, what made the city unique. Lively, bustling with people and activity and packed with wonderful high-rises designed by the world’s top architects, it was as beckoning a scenario as a goddess could wish for.
 
Laura wanted to let the scenery sink in before she proceeded to live it. Her enhanced mind processed the facts as her more emotional side relished the fact that everything she could see was now hers, whether the tiny people knew it already or not.
 
High-rises got more packed here than in the rest of the city. She realized this would pose higher challenges to her ability to move freely. If her judgment was right, and she was sure it was, she was still confident that it would mostly be OK. Of course, her concern was not selfish, but more related to the wellbeing of the buildings.
 
She was not concerned about the people anymore. The fact that thousands would die so that she could move was something she discounted already. At least, they had been smart enough to clear half a dozen of blocks from where she was standing on the bay. It was not as if this would buy them too much time, but it was one of the first displays of collective intelligence she had observed so far.
 
The combination of this with the joy she felt at getting back into the city moved her to address the people again. She did not talk to the ones at her homes through the press choppers this time. She just addressed the crowd in front of her, knowing for sure that most of Downtown would end up listening to her words anyway. She did not even raise the tone.
 
"You know what? I'm happy that this happened to me here" she started. Her tone was soft and sincere. She even felt a little emotional. "I love this city. I was born here, and I've lived here my entire life. And living my first moments as a goddess here is special. I know you will probably not see it this way, but of course, it doesn't matter. Look at the bright side of things, though. Taking over this city is just a tiny first step. I'm going to take over the world. A fellow Emeralder will rule the entire planet. Doesn't this make you proud, even if just a little bit?" she said. After a quick pause, she went on: "You know, you should be proud of me. I will bring peace and justice to this world. And you should think that I was one of you once, before I became something else." 
 
Laura stopped a couple of seconds and then, in a more matter of fact tone, she said:
 
"Anyway, enough of the chatter. I have work to do. And, oh yes, I'd advise you to clear the streets. You already know what happens when you don't."
 
After finishing the sentence, Laura took a small first step from the bay and into the road. As usual, the warm tarmac sunk and conformed to her foot, digging a well-contoured footprint in the road as if it were nothing more than wet sand. This had to be one of her first steps without victims in a while. Her left foot soon joined her right one, and with that, Laura was back in town. 
 
She enjoyed feeling the skyscrapers trying to reach as high as her… and failing. She had chosen one of the most remarkable sections of Downtown for her exit, but still, the tallest building in the area could barely make it to her perky breasts. She knew that the avenue she was walking on was supposed to be wide, four lanes in each direction. But it felt tight to Laura. She fit, but she had to walk like a model in the runway. It was not completely strange to her, her height and figure having allowed her to take a few jobs as a semi-professional model to pay some college expenses a few years back.     
 
She was slow… and still, she cut the distance with the crowd in half in less than thirty seconds. And then, she stopped…
 
Something was wrong, but she just could not put her finger on it. She relaxed and let her brain process the data. The sharp noises hidden in the cacophony of the city, the tiny flashes that were almost blinded by the bright shining sun that had blessed her morning, the almost imperceptible feeling in her skin, not even reaching the level of an itch… she was being shot at!
 
Now that she knew what she had to look for, it was awfully easy for her to locate half a dozen rooftops in the skyscrapers around her that hosted some shooters.   
 
“You fucking tiny bastards!” Laura muttered between her teeth
 
Both curious and enraged, she stopped to take a closer look at one of the offending rooftops. About a dozen people were startled by the sudden approach of her building-sized faced at first but took aim with their rifles back at her soon enough, and Laura started feeling teeny pings in both her cheeks. She remained idle for a few seconds. When the shooters seemed to try to  coordinate to shoot her in the eyes, she decided that she had had enough of them. Blinking a couple of times to fix some blurriness that had been caused by the sudden barrage, Laura pushed her lips out and let a moderately powerful hurricane out of her lungs. It was more than enough to send everyone on the roof flying out of it and down to the street below. 
 
Now that she was aware that she was being shot at, it seemed as if her brain had activated a higher degree of sensitivity that allowed her to feel, even if barely, the shots along her anatomy. So, Laura perfectly knew that hundreds of bullets had kept harmlessly bouncing off her skin as she was taking care of her “first” rooftop. She was even surprised that a considerable number of the shots seemed to be targeting her ass. Besides the fact that it was model-caliber, she did not understand too well how someone could end up considering a giantess’ ass to be a priority target versus other parts of her body.
 
Standing back up, Laura addressed the rest of the would-be aggressors.
 
"You fucking mites are even more stupid than I had thought it was possible. You could have stayed at your homes, and I would have passed by without any consequence. But now… now you managed to catch my attention" she said
 
Then, she shut up for a couple of seconds, trying to decide what to do with them. The decision came pretty easily to her.
 
"I could shrug it off. Despite your best efforts, you guys are less consequential to me than a bunch of angry ants" she said. Then she added: "It's too bad for you that I don't feel too magnanimous right now. There are some things a woman of my station simply cannot stand." 
 
Taking a step towards another of the target rooftops, Laura let dozens of bullets ricochet from her impregnable skin as she extended her arm and reached for it. Turning her palm so that it was facing upwards, Laura led the charge with her fingernails and pierced the building three or four stories below the roof. Her fingers easily dug into the formerly magnificent structure, bulldozing everything they met. She was oblivious to the side effects of her action, though. She was centered on accomplishing what she had set herself onto. Her fingertips soon exited through the opposite side of the building, but she was happy that she had achieved the most complex part of her plan: the section of the building above her hand was still in one piece. Once this was done, it was piece of cake to pull upwards and rip it from the rest of the skyscraper.
 
Her casual gesture sent everyone on the rooftop off their feet, stopping the fire from that front. Shooters kept unsuccessfully trying to harm her from some other buildings, be her level of attention to them was proportional to the danger they represented: none.     
 
Laura concentrated on the section of the building literally at hand and the dozen or so shooters on it. Her brain power quickly kicked in: there were actually fourteen shooters: thirteen men and a woman. A woman! The image of the relatively young and not bad looking female with the rifle surprised her. Somehow, she expected the majority of her shooters to be stupid redneck men. Stereotypes had to have exceptions, she guessed.
 
"It beats me," she said in a soft and disappointed tone. "It really does" she added. "First, there was no need at all to shoot me. I would have left you alone. It was pretty evident. And then, of course, it beats me how in the hell you could get the idea that you had the slimmest chance to hurt me. Have you seen me? Haven't you heard anything about what I've done, so far? A flea would have a better chance of killing you" Laura said 
 
Without warning, she reached with her free hand. People on the rooftop were starting to recover just then. She did not give them the chance to regroup. Extending two fingers, she pinched the woman between their tips and lifted her from the room. Moving her aside, she addressed the remaining thirteen men in her possession. 
 
"I must have killed thousands already, this morning. The majority are probably people that could not get out of the way on time. Stupid, but understandable. But you… you have set a new standard in stupidity. You guys deserve a Darwin award. I guess that a positive side effect of my presence will be that I will improve humanity's gene pool."
 
Once she had finished her words of contempt, Laura just closed her hand. The remainders of the building crumbled, sending the people still in the roof down between the cracks and pieces of debris. They weren’t there too long. Applying a generous amount of her astronomical strength, Laura tightened the rubble into her fist, turning it into powder and practically disintegrating those trapped in the mess.
 
Opening her hand again and letting the remainders of the once proud building drop, she shifted her attention towards the tiny woman she had saved from the casual carnage. Lifting her in front of her billboard-sized eyes, Laura studied her tiny figure. Then, with the same contempt she had used on her mates, Laura addressed her:
 
“Your only chance of making it  out of this is to give me a convincing justification for having shot me." 
 
The woman babbled at first, but then managed to say:
 
“Ma… Mayor Strauss”
 
The mention of the person she had chosen as her nemesis caught Laura’s curiosity.
 
"What does he have to do with you shooting me?" she asked.
 
"He asked… the people… to give their lives defending the city against you."
 
Laura arched an eyebrow. She had always known that Strauss was the worst class of populist, but sending people to die in such a futile way was too much. She was eager to get her hands, or fingers, on the bastard.
 
"I'm here to save the city," Laura said, although even she could see that her words would sound completely delusional to the people she was trampling.
 
“What… what are you going to do with me?” the woman asked
 
"I will grant you your wish," Laura said, and then she rubbed her fingertips, smearing the woman into a gory stain.
 
Even Laura realized how cruelly cold-blooded what she had done was. For someone with a five-figure dead count, including the couple hundred people that had given their lives to make her orgasm, it felt ironic to give so much thought to an individual life, but the truth was that her disposal of the female shooter rivaled her crushing of the high-society people back in the bay as the most arbitrary death she had executed. Then, her self-created defense mechanism  kicked back in: this was just a woman's life, worth a hundredth of a step. There was no point in getting concerned about something of such low value.    
 
The number of attackers in the neighboring buildings seemed to have gone down after her little act of justice. Still, Laura had to feel somewhat admired at the determination of the ones that were left shooting. Knowing that they had been fooled into their actions by the worst possible kind of leader made her level of contempt for them somewhat lower. This was not going to save them, in any case.
 
Taking another step towards the next roof, Laura reached out with her hand once more. This time she turned her palm downwards and just lowered it on top of the roof, taking care to be slow and deliberate. She concentrated to feel the tiny pellets bouncing off the delicate skin of her hand as she slowly brought it down, leaving the people on the rooftop without space. She did not stop when she felt the warm concrete and steel. She just kept going, feeling happy when the top couple or three stories of the high-rise caved in.
 
The group in the building to her left seemed to get the message right then. Turning to have a better look at what she had seen through the corner of her eye, Laura observed half a dozen people trying to get back into the building through the roof access door. It was, of course, the smart thing to do. It was not going to do them any good, though. Laura was beyond forgiving them.
 
The fact that punishing them certainly meant the demise of dozens of others did not matter too much to her. Closing her left hand into a fist, Laura simply punched the top third of the building, instantly turning it into an explosion of debris.
 
There were at least a couple more buildings that had hosted shooters, even if they could not be seen anymore. Laura’s newly acquired photographic memory had no issue in identifying them.
 
She reached the first one, a tall and slender tower that reached right under her perky breasts two steps later. Standing in front of it, she pondered what to do. Her attackers were not on the roof anymore, but she was certain that they were still in the building. The only issue was that they were probably sharing it with hundreds of people that had done nothing to her.   
 
Her anger at what had happened decided for her. She made a fist with her right hand and held it high over her head for a second. Then, she slammed it hard on the building’s roof, not pulling her punch back at all.
 
The results were even more spectacular than she had expected. Laura's experience with the Windsor, back when she had entered the city, had already taught her that buildings were no match for her newfound size and strength. She had never been as violent with them so far as she had been now, though.
 
The top third of the skyscraper was disintegrated by the force of the punch. Her first kept going, turning even more of the building into a pile of rubble. In a single, swift movement, she had reduced the tower to about half of its original height. 
 
There were very little chances than any of her attackers had survived her initial retaliation. She was not going to take any, though.
 
At its new height, the building presented some new possibilities to Laura. Determined to be creative in her role as a destroyer, Laura decided to use a different part of her body to take care of its remainders.
 
Widening her stance and standing on her tiptoes, Laura advanced slightly and straddled the building, letting her glorious ass loom over the myriad of startled survivors that were trying to react to her in a floor that had formerly been in the mid-section of the skyscraper and that had now become its roof. Then she lowered herself back to her soles, flattening an entire floor and its occupants under her butt.
 
This was just the beginning. Without warning, Laura turned the music in her head back on and started dancing at its rhythm, much like she had done back at Bay Bridge. Feeling way more carefree than she had been back then, she followed a stripper’s routine, executing a lap dance of devastating consequences.
 
Lowering herself a bit more with every sexy gyration of her hips, Laura kept on dancing, letting her butt and thighs proceed with her intended demolition work. People started pouring through the lobby and into the avenue, but it was too late for them too. A large majority were buried by the rain of rubble that Laura's actions were causing. Those that were lucky enough to survive the random meteors could do nothing to avoid a not random at all step as Laura stood back up and spied the group of survivors. 
 
There was one last thing for Laura to do. Lifting her other foot, she planted it over the now much shorter building and stepped without ceremony, finishing what little it remained of it.
 
By the time she was done, she realized she was panting. Laura could not fool herself: she had barely exerted herself to achieve the massive amount of destruction she had created. She knew the reason she was out of breath was another one. A quick check between her legs with two fingers confirmed what she already knew. She was all fired up again.
 
Laura was a little bit bewildered by the realization. It was far from the first time she got turned on by her new condition, but she had already taken care about her urges not so long ago, so she could not fool herself into thinking that her current excitement was driven by an accumulation of experiences since she had grown. There was only one reason for it, and she knew it: the massive destruction she had just caused.
 
There was something disconcerting in the sudden understanding. It was easy to explain, but hard to justify. And so, she did not. She had been attacked, so she had been well within her rights to deal with the attackers. The rest… it was just anecdotal.
 
Her mind looked for something else to focus on, away from the more troubling considerations. The last "offending" building gave her an easy out.
 
Perhaps unconsciously trying to redeem herself, Laura decided to use a different facet of her power to deal with this last task, one that would likely be less dreadful for the tinies. Taking two more steps and reaching her objective, Laura sat on her haunches to bring the building's top and her head more or less to the same level. Then, she extended a hand and brushed it all along its surface, easily shattering glass and concrete and ripping most of the skyscraper open to the world and her curious eyes.
 
She smirked and waited a few seconds to let the panicked people inside take her presence in. Then, she addressed them, bringing back some conveniently stored memories back from her brain.
 
“I suggest you listen to me” she started.
 
 
 
 
Much like a drunkard that wakes up with a terrible headache after a crazy night, Caleb felt the weight of what he had done crushing him. The moments when he had been firing his semi-automatic rifle at the giant woman in a frenzy seemed very distant in time. How in the hell he had got fired up enough to do what he had done, he still did not know. He had been angry at the woman. And Mayor Strauss’ rant had sounded much more convincing, back when his mind had been clouded by rage.
 
It was all so clear now. It was so dreadfully clear. Now it was obvious that there was no way a woman like that could be hurt by the likes of him or a thousand like him for what mattered. It also was crystal clear that attacking her had been a really bad idea.
 
He was fighting to avoid the third conclusion he had reached: that by shooting the giantess, Caleb had signed his death sentence. He had not got to that point until he had seen her finish the third group of attackers. Once she did, his mind cleared, his rifle dropped and he found himself leading the escape towards the rooftop access.
 
He instinctively knew that he had to get out of the building. His instincts proved right when some hysteric screams around him let him know that the giant woman had just brought an entire skyscraper down. Caleb knew that there was only one reason she would have done that.
 
The building had lost power minutes before he had got out on the roof. According to some people, the giantess had disabled a section of the grid when one of her steps had dug too deep into the road a while back. The fact that she probably was not even aware of that was hard proof of her impact in the city. So, with the elevators disabled, there was only one way for Caleb to reach his objective: to climb down the stairs of the 56 floors that separated him from the ground level.  
 
He had reached the landing on the 48 th floor when the world shook, and he was sent off his feet. When a girlish but incredibly powerful voice made the walls rattle, he knew he was doomed.  
 
"I suggest you listen to me," the voice said.
 
It came back a couple of seconds later.
 
"I decided to give you a fair chance to survive," it said. "There were nine people shooting at me from the roof of this building. I know they are among you now. I want them. Now, the easy thing would be to bring this entire building down, just like I did with the one a block behind. This would take care of my problem, and I would be done in a matter of seconds. This, of course, would have the undesirable side effect of killing hundreds of you that have done nothing to me, but, quite frankly, I wouldn't mind too much. It's not as if I haven't already done this a few times before."   
 
Caleb felt shivers running down his spine. He knew what was coming next.
 
"Now, I'm feeling kind of gracious, so I decided to give you a chance. Bring the nine fuckers that shot at me to the roof, and I'll leave the rest of you alone. You have five minutes." 
 
Caleb felt cold sweat running down his forehead. Then, someone a few steps below him turned and took a good look at him. His expression left no room for doubt: he was fucked.
 
Still, he was not going to go without giving everything he had. Turning, he opened the door that led into the 48th floor and dashed inside. He was not prepared for what he found. It looked like a war zone. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that the source of the rubble that filled the large office space was the window. Or the lack of it. The entire floor was exposed to the world, and he felt a chill running down her spine when he realized what the pinkish mass that blocked the light in part of the opening was. 
 
Some moans to his right made Caleb turn and see two people lying against a desk, noticeably hurt. They were not the only ones. Others were simply moving around the area like zombies. There were barely a few former workers of the office that seemed to be lucid enough to try and help others.
 
He looked around, trying to decide where to go. He saw the sign pointing to an emergency exit to his left. Having taken some air back, Caleb was ready to make a run for it. He was barely in his second stride when he heard a door slamming shut behind him, and then someone yelling:
 
“He is one of them! He is one of the shooters!”
 
A dozen heads turned in his direction almost at the same time. He changed his direction a couple of times, trying to find a clear path that would bring him towards his destination. He was barely a couple of strides away when a shove in his left shoulder made him lose his balance and fall. He tried to stand up in a rush, but could not. The weight of an indeterminate but large number of people pinned him to the floor. He fought like a cornered animal, but there was no way he could break free. In great anguish, knowing that his life was forfeit, Caleb screamed:
 
“Nooooooo”
 
 
 
There was not much for Laura to do while she waited, so she just stayed in her haunches, observing the activity inside the building with curiosity.
 
In a way, it looked like an anthill, full of frenzied tiny creatures that were reacting to her presence in the funniest ways. In any case, the pattern of their actions had changed after she had given them her ultimatum, so Laura knew that the little humans were doing their best to try to fulfill her wishes. Somehow, this made her as wet as bringing the building down. The certainty that she did not only rule them but that she owned them was as arousing as her wildest display of physical superiority.
 
Even if she was dying to mess with the tinies, she decided against it. She had given them some instructions, and she did not want to interfere. When the door to the roof opened a couple of minutes later, and an angry mob pushed a man into the roof just before slamming it shut once more, she could not prevent a giggle. Raising herself a little and locking her eyes on the man, she smirked at him and let out a soft: 
 
“Hello”
 
Her words seemed to trigger some possession in the man, who started to run across the roof like a madman and then jumped into the void. Laura observed the action seemingly in slow motion and just moved her right hand to intercept the man's fall mid-flight.
 
Cupping her hand so that the ant-sized man would roll to the middle of her palm and bringing it to her face, she said:
 
“You will die when I decide it. And believe me, when I do your death will be way more horrible than that”
 
It took the people in the building quite more than five minutes to gather all the shooters, but since they were obviously trying to do their best, Laura gave them some leeway. By the time they were done, she had fifteen incredibly scared people on the roof plus the one already in her palm. She stood up, towering above them and making her mind up about what to do.
 
The first decision was easy. In their zeal to please her, the occupants of the building had taken at least seven people that had had nothing to do with the shooting. It was too bad, but there was nothing Laura could do about it. In any case, she guessed it was best to kill seven “innocents” than to bring an entire skyscraper down.
 
Reaching into the roof with her free hand, she started pinching the panicked people on it in twos and threes. In less than a minute, she had the entire crowd in her palm, with a lot of room to spare. She raised them to her face and fixed them with an icy stare. She wanted them to feel the fear, and even if her size alone was more than enough for that, she decided that adding some theatrics could only help.
 
“You are so pathetic!” she said.
 
She waited a couple of seconds, rejoicing in their fear, and then went on.
 
 
Caleb was lying on his back on the soft and warm surface of the woman’s massive hand. Only a few of the other people suffering his fate could stand on the uneven surface.
 
The young woman's face filled his vision. Her voice shook every ounce of his body. The fact that he was certain of his own death did not take any dramatism out of the situation. He was shitless scared, and every single word of the giant made his suffering increase.
 
 
Laura addressed them in a reproaching tone:
 
"I certainly hope that I was not so pitiful when I was like you. I mean, I believe that if I had not grown and another woman had shown in the city, with my current size and all, I would have understood my place. It would have sucked, of course, but I would have got it. It takes a lot of idiocy to think that you can stop me."
 
Then Laura realized about something, sighed and addressed them in a softer tone:
 
"I guess I should have expected that you would be more stubborn than that, though. After all, I've been thinking about this my entire life, but I realize all this is new for you. It must be hard to accept that you are not in control anymore. That someone else showed up and suddenly owns everything, including you."
 
Her super-powered mind processed the information as she talked and she got a new understanding of the scenario. Then, she reached the unavoidable conclusion.
 
"I would have wished this would be easier, but if I have to break you so that you realize how things are going to work from now on, then so be it." 
 
She took a last look at the sixteen tiny mites in her hand and then turned towards the news helicopters.
 
"You'll have a use, after all. You'll be a nice showcase."
 
Without further warning, Laura brought her cupped hand to her right naked breasts and grabbed it, trapping the tiny people between her palm and the softest part of her anatomy. With their size, each of her tits was roughly a handful. Then she squeezed forcing herself to moan as sixteen people ceased to be, their lives being crushed out of existence.
 
Laura opened her hand and partially brushed the gore out of her skin. Then, she looked at the choppers and said:
 
“Are you starting to get it, now?”
 
After a brief pause, she went on:
 
"You know what? I don't think you do. I think I'll need to be a little more proactive in showing you how things are. It's a pity, really. I wish it would not have had to come to this"
 
And then, Laura turned, wondering if the last part of her sentence was true. No matter what, she would not feel bad about it. It was not her fault. Of course, this was easy enough to conclude, since she was making her own rules and her own morals as she went, but that was one of the nice advantages of having absolute power.
 
Taking the first step down the avenue again, she shifted her mind from any moral considerations about what she had said and done and towards her real objective: Mayor Strauss. 
 
 
“Amazing” Laya said
 
“I knew you would enjoy it, once the moment came” Quo replied
 
“You knew it would come” Laya implied
 
“Of course. I designed the experiment, didn’t I?”
 
"But still… I would have never expected such a fast-paced evolution" Laya said
 
“Human minds are incredibly flexible. This has both pros and cons” Quo said
 
"Definitely. After an entire morning of making excuses up, Laura Anderson has moved fast to conclude that she could use her power as she saw fit and then to deciding that she had to use it violently to achieve her objectives. This is remarkable" Laya said        
 
“This is the upside of human’s mental flexibility. It allowed Laura Anderson to adapt to the new circumstances we granted to her very quickly. It’s true that choosing the right subject with the right aspirations helped, but it’s remarkable anyway. At the same time, this flexibility made the rest of the population react in stupid ways, driven by irrational collective thinking” Quo stated
 
“You were expecting both” Laya said
 
“I correctly predicted both” Quo confirmed
 
“So, any predictions about what she’s going to do next?” Laya asked
 
"Well, if anything, Laura Anderson has been very true to her word. She will do what she said she would do: she will seek to proactively demonstrate her new power and status, and she will use that to remove the current rulers of the city and to instate herself into the role officially" Quo said
 
“Will the humans surrender?”
 
“Not yet. Their level of resilience is among the highest we’ve observed in any species so far” Quo said
 
"So, things will continue escalating," Laya said
 
Quo nodded.

 

Chapter 10

 

Laura stopped at a fair distance from Emerald’s city hall. After dealing with the attackers on the roofs, her stroll had been pretty uneventful, discounting the usual number of victims buried in her deep footprints.
 
The attacks and the reason behind them had reminded Laura that she was in the city for a purpose: taking over it. The reaction from the little people had also told her that having shown restraint so far had not necessarily been a good idea. It would take the world longer than she had initially expected to accept her presence and the changes it implied, no matter how much she might have wishfully thought that things would be easier. With this new understanding, she was beginning to realize that an early and more intense show of strength might be best for everyone, in the long run.
 
The sight of the glass and concrete behemoth, standing in the middle of a modern and soulless square, made Laura despise Mayor Strauss yet once more. Everyone in the city knew he had had it built exclusively out of ego, and only God knew how many of Emerald's less favored citizens could have benefitted from the massive amount of funds that had been used to replace the former city hall building which, aside from being adequate, was more representative of Emerald's more traditional architecture.
 
Yes, she would dispose of Strauss. And she would make the people of Emerald a favor at the same time. They might not necessarily thank her right away, but they would in the long run. So, without further delay, she walked around the building that was blocking her access to the vast square even if it had not been able to block her view of it and entered into the large extension of concrete.
 
Of course, the cops had seen her before. After all, the building had not reached much higher than her crotch. For some reason, the moment her feet entered the square their nervousness visibly increased. Laura enjoyed the feeling. She always liked it when her presence alone was able to convey so intense emotions. She decided to test the effects of her stature a little more. Widening her stance and placing her hands on her hips, she fixed a glance at the main group of cops and remained silent for a few seconds.
 
It was not her first encounter with authority, but Laura realized that from the tiny cops' perspective the display they had put together in front of city hall was probably meant to be pretty impressive. Almost as if it were the last stand. She was reluctant to label it as resistance, though. It was not as if any force on earth would have a chance to succeed against her, but to qualify as resistance one had to be able to at least require some effort from Laura. She was pretty sure that the police blockade in front of her was not up to the task.  
 
Her ears told her that her usual entourage of news helicopters was still following her. They had learned to keep their distance ever since the incident where she had shown them what happened when they didn't. They had behaved like well-trained pets from then onwards, following her when she wanted them to, getting closer or farther when she commanded them to. She had been unconsciously aware of their presence ever since, and she knew that every one of her words and actions was being broadcast live to the world. So, it was not by chance that she decided that the police force in front of her would serve a purpose. Still   feeling mean after her incident with the shooters on the rooftops, she was on a mission to prove the world what she was capable of.
 
Seeing as no one from the police force had decided to take the lead and talk to her, she decided to do the talking instead. It was more fitting, in any case. She used a plain tone, although she was sure that it sounded threatening no matter what.
 
"You guys are on my way to the city hall," she said. Then, she added: "It would be a good idea if you cleared a path." 
 
 
 
 
Sergeant Donnelly was standing behind the squad car, shaking. He was holding his regulation gun with both hands, trying to steady his aim at the woman. Of course, she would have been almost impossible to miss, despite the fact that his body was refusing to keep calm. She was way too big.
 
She was also too big to be stopped, he realized. It took all is courage and then some more to stay behind his car doing his duty. Especially after the words that had come from above with the power of thunder.
 
She was young, thin and cute. And she was naked. Of course, this description alone could not convey the danger the woman represented. Kurt had never paid too much attention to the sentence “Size matters”. Now, watching at the living skyscraper of flesh that was standing across the City Hall’s square, he knew there was nothing else that was so true in the world. Yes, size mattered. Size had turned a cute young woman into a goddess.
 
No one in the blockade knew too well what they were meant to do. Their radios had insisted that they had to keep their posts right after the woman's warning. There had not been further instructions. Looking up at her face, Kurt realized that the woman did not seem too interested in keeping with the chatter. Rolling her eyes as if she had not been expecting anything else from them, she took her hands from her hips and took a step to the front. She was still far away – the square was that massive – but with her size, the usual concepts of distance were lost.
 
It was the distance what saved Kurt and his colleagues from being thrown off their feet the moment she completed her step, and her right foot landed on the square. The shakes had been noticeable enough, and even their squad cars had bounced a little. Having managed to keep his eyes trained on her foot, Kurt swallowed hard when he saw it spectacularly breaking through the concrete of the square and sending chunks of it flying around. The sound of it all vaguely reminded Kurt of that of a building being demolished. Her left foot was already in the air by the time he was completely recovered. The effects of its landing were similar.
 
The command came on the radio just then:
 
“Fire! Fire at will!”
 
Kurt doubted the wisdom of the order. When some of his colleagues in different points of the blockade started firing their guns, he had no other option than to join them, though.
 
He had been expecting the giant woman to be angry at being shot. He had been afraid of her reaction. He got none of both. Obviously realizing that they were shooting at her, the giantess stopped, placed her hands on her hips again and let them proceed as she kept an amused look on her face. 
 
The realization that hundreds of bullets were hitting her and she was not even annoyed by them made Kurt despair. He was one of the first ones to stop the shooting. The gradual drop the cadence of the shots told him that more of his colleagues were gradually feeling like him.
 
 
 
 
Once she realized that the last shot had been fired, Laura let a chuckle out. It was a calculated chuckle, of course, addressed both to the cops and to the audiences at their homes. Their first attack, back at the airport, had upset her. Now, she was only thinking about how she could use this one to her benefit.
 
The first step was to let them break against her, to let them realize the futility of their actions and to make them despair. She was reasonably confident that she had achieved her objective.
 
She tried to think how it must have looked from the tiny cops' perspective. It was hard for her to put herself in the shoes of the pea-sized people, but she guessed that their impotence might at least have felt frustrating for them. She decided to build on that frustration, as much for the cops' benefit as for the audience watching the scene in awe at their living-rooms. 
 
“Is that all you have? Come on guys, it did not even tickle!” she said in a mocking tone
 
She waited a couple of seconds and added in the same tone:
 
“Are you sure you don’t have anything else?”
 
Laura knew that she would need to face bigger weapons sooner or later. They would fail to harm her just the same, but at least it would look like a fight.
 
Waiting a few more seconds for the drama effect, she shrugged and then said:
 
"Ok, I guess you don't have anything else. I had not thought that you would be so pathetic" she said with some disdain. A few cops had already started to flee the scene. Most remained speechless behind their cars. Laura realized that her cheerful tone might have deceived them with regards to her intentions. "My turn, then," she said 
 
Raising her right foot as much as her shapely long leg allowed, Laura kept it there for a second and then slammed it down as hard as she could.
 
It was spectacular. The earthquake she created was way stronger than the mere shakes her regular walking produced. Her foot sank deeper than her ankle into the square’s concrete, meeting the main piping level and sending geysers of water into the air in front of her toes. Chunks of concrete the size of boulders flew around, some crushing a few squad cars and some unlucky cops. Deeper and wider than usual cracks started forming around her foot, the main one advancing dangerously in the direction of the blockade, finally engulfing a squad car, a SWAT van and half a dozen cops that were in the way.
 
Of course, no one that did not share her height was left standing.
 
 
 
Kurt Donnelly needed a few seconds to recover. His bones were aching. All he could hear was a loud whistle that filled his brain. With considerable effort, he managed to roll on himself and look up.
 
The young woman was still standing in the distance, hands on her hips. She was letting a laugh out, this time.
 
 
 
A stomp. It was all it had taken her to disable the blockade. It was hilarious. Her nipples got harder than diamond and she felt the wetness between her legs come back with force.
 
She observed the cops trying to recover on the other side of the square and chuckled once more. She thought on what to do with them.
 
"I'm well within my rights to crush you all. It's still the most probable outcome. I want to give you a fair chance, though. Surrender to me, and I'll spare you" she said, glancing the few toppled cars and vans and the cracks that had opened the asphalt in the area where the blockade had been. 
 
Zooming in with her enhanced sight, Laura could see the doubt in the cops' expressions. Killing them would send a message. Making them would be an even stronger message for the people looking at the scene.
 
"My offer will not last forever," she said casually, and then she crouched and dug her left hand in the asphalt, her fingers easily caving into the ground. When she stood back up, her cupped left palm contained a sizeable amount of the rubble her stomp had created.
 
She pinched one of the largest chunks of debris between the thumb and index finger of her free right hand. Rolling it in her fingers a couple of times, she observed it with curiosity. Then, she just flicked it in the direction of the cops.
 
Such a casual gesture… and such a devastating result. The boulder landed right where she had intended to, in the middle of the thickest section of the blockade. Those in the spot where it hit were crushed instantly. The body counts rapidly increased as the chunk of asphalt rolled on itself and smeared a few more cops on the ground. Laura let out another chuckle.
 
It had been a simple gesture, meant both as a warning and to show off. The cops took it the wrong way. Shots erupted from the blockade once more, and Laura just raised an eyebrow, almost as if she could not believe that they were so stupid.
 
She did not wait for them to finish, this time. She just pinched another chunk of the square and tossed it into the direction of one of the most active groups of shooters.
 
"Bulls-eye," she said as she effectively hit her target with unexpected precision
 
Laura had always been fit and coordinated but had never been especially good at darts when she and Stacy hit the pub a couple blocks down from where they lived. Thus, hitting her target with such precision two out of two times was a little unexpected.    
 
"I'm a thousand feet tall, can see the minutest detail and hear the faintest whisper, I can process information faster than a NASA super-computer…why shouldn't I have a great aim too?"  Laura thought as her smile widened in her face.
 
Ignoring the bullets that were still ricocheting from her skin, Laura picked another reasonably large piece of debris and looked for a target. A SWAT van was being used for cover by a group of four cops and offered as beckoning an objective as anything else in the area. She chose it, drew her arm and threw.
 
“Bingo!” she thought as the boulder crushed the van out of existence and took care of the four cops as well.
 
She felt excited, and like every time this happened, her wetness increased. She touched herself to check it and realized that she would need to take care of it sooner rather than later. 
 
“Oh God! Have I become a giant nymphomaniac?” Laura thought, amused. She did not think that this was the case, but her sex drive was higher than it had been in her entire life… and Laura had never been bashful.
 
“I can be at it all day” she announced to the cops, who finally broke. They did not surrender, though. From her vantage point of view, it was easy for Laura to see that they were trying to flee.
 
It was logical, of course. It was also pointless. There was no way they would be able to escape from her. The turn in the events forced her to make a decision once more, though. Should she let them leave, making sure that the world saw the reaction of those that had attacked her? Or should she punish them for trying?
 
She did not have time to think too much since a helicopter sound that was quite louder than the ones coming from her news entourage took hold of her attention.
 
The heliport was on the back of the City Hall building, but from her vantage point of view, a thousand feet over the ground, it was easy for Laura to see the tiny chopper taking off. By the time she saw it, the little aircraft had barely cleared the height of the building. Laura realized that it would not be getting away and relaxed. She had time, so she took it easy.
 
In a way, the little aircraft had made her previously held decision for her, since the route Laura chose to walk around the City Hall building was the same one the majority of the cops had taken in their attempts to escape. She paid them no attention, but her humongous feet finished them all the same.
 
By the time she had circled the building, she had barely allowed the chopper to reach as high as the silver piercing on her belly button. Logic dictated that Mayor Strauss would be on the aircraft, trying to flee before she could get her fingers on him. Building on that thought and realizing that there was no way in the world the helicopter would be able to get away from her, she decided to play with him a little. She despised him so much that she wanted him to feel as powerless as humanly possible.
 
So, she remained motionless and waited for the pilot to react. He did, moving upwards but trying to move away from her towering form at the same time. It was the easiest thing in the world for Laura to take three steps around the chopper and walk right into its path by the time it was at chest level.
 
The pilot had to pull out a rough maneuver in order not to crash with her left nipple and Laura let a laugh out.
 
"Take it easy, lover," she said
 
As the pilot tried flying away from her once more, she placed a massive hand right above the chopper, creating an artificial roof and forcing the pilot to change his direction once more. He was good, she realized, as he managed to avoid her and at the same time put some more distance from her colossal body. She repositioned her hand, blocking him once more. Then, she used her free left hand to block another path and offer him only one obvious exit. She was at it for a while, herding the chopper with a series of casual movements of her arms and hands and just needing to do a few correcting steps around her original position. Focused as she was on the action a few hundred feet in the air, Laura was oblivious to what was happening at her feet. Unknown to her, her chase of the chopper had brought her away enough from the City Hall that she had caught another crowd and each of her “small correcting steps” was creating a new massacre. When one was Laura’s size, keeping her attention away from her feet for too long tended to have these consequences.
 
Laura’s mood had been gradually becoming more playful without her realizing too much but with the city suffering the consequences. So, much like a child that had suddenly become bored with her game, Laura stopped herding the chopper and pinched its tail between two fingers. The main rotor instantly broke in contact with her otherwise soft skin, saving her the annoyance of having to do it on purpose. Bringing the two-inch tall flying craft up, she smiled at its occupants and addressed them.
 
"You're mine," she said plainly
 
The aircraft was so small, and it was so packed that it was hard for Laura to see too well what was going on inside. She could have sworn that she could feel the fear emanating from inside, though.
 
Solving her visibility problem was easy enough. Still keeping the chopper held by its tail, Laura used the neatly manicured fingernails of two fingers of her free hand to pinch the top of the chopper, right under the rotor, and then to mercilessly rip it off.
 
Tossing the tiny remainders over her shoulder, Laura then cupped her free hand and proceeded to empty the contents of the helicopter on it as if they were tic-tacs and then discarded the aircraft.
 
Her heart filled with glee when she identified Mayor Strauss easily enough. He was lying face down, but his haircut was hard to miss. Choosing to use this to her advantage, Laura extended an index finger the length of a city bus and brought it to the very moist area between her legs. When she brought it back up, she reached out with care and rested her fingertip on Mayor Strauss’ back, letting him stick to it. Happy with the results, she lifted her finger and turned it. Not needing the rest of her capture anymore, she just casually turned her hand, letting them drop hundreds of feet to the ground below.
 
She raised her finger right under her face and chuckled when she saw the man she hated not even being able to take the entire space of her fingertip. He was screaming like a madman, which made the situation even better.
 
"Shut up," she said coldly
 
She guessed it must have been due to the shock of her voice’s power, but Mayor Strauss complied.
 
"Hello, Jacob. I'm Laura. But I guess you already know that since you sent hundreds of your men to die unsuccessfully trying to hurt me and you also managed to convince some of your fellow citizens to do the same" 
 
Much to her surprise, the man replied pretty soon, his mousy voice making her smirk.
 
“What are you going to do to me?”
 
Laura chuckled.
 
"Yes, of course. It was always about you, wasn't it? You never cared about anyone else. So I guess it was to be expected that after all that happened in the city, all you care about is yourself."
 
Strauss remained speechless, so Laura went on:
 
"Look, I'll be honest: I hate you."
 
Strauss swallowed hard, and Laura enjoyed every instant of the fear her simple words had instilled on the man. Then, she went on:
 
"I could just crush you and go on about my business. You realize about that, right?"  
 
Strauss swallowed hard again but did not reply.
 
"I asked you a question. Do you realize your situation?" Laura asked, fixing Mayor Strauss with a stare
 
He nodded.
 
“Say it, then? I want to hear you” Laura insisted
 
“You could crush me” Jacob Strauss finally said, to Laura’s delight
 
She smirked, and Strauss added:
 
"Please, don't do it."
 
She was enjoying the situation enormously. After an entire morning of having best moments of her life one after the other, this had to be the summit of her joy. After all, being a giant woman was about was all about power. And Laura could not think of any situation that could highlight her power so much as the one she was currently living. 
 
It was a weird thought, after having lifted a cruise ship over her head, used a commercial jetliner as a dildo or having brought down a massive bridge or a high-rise. But she knew it was true. Laura had not given a shit about any of the thousands of people that had already died because of her presence, but she cared about the man in her fingertip. She did because she had hated him more than anyone else in the world.
 
For years, Jacob Strauss had been the representation of everything Laura despised. He had been untouchable, though. No matter how little she could understand it, he managed to get very solid majorities election after election. This had been, as a matter of fact, one of the reasons behind Laura’s lost faith in democracy as a valid system for the world. Democratically elected governments were fucking people’s lives everywhere. And democratically elected governments were killing the planet for future generations.
 
A morning as a giant woman had proven her what she had already known: when in a group, people acted stupidly. She had been convinced for a long time that the same happened when they voted. If it stayed in its current course, humanity was heading straight for extinction, and for a long time, she had not seen a way out of it. The answer came naturally to her when her political consciousness had met her long time fantasy. Someone had to take humanity away from its current course, and that someone had to be her. She had linked her long time wish for power with a purpose. And she had lived with that idea in mind for what looked like forever. 
 
And now… now finally she had everything she had wished for, the power to do as she pleased, the power to force humanity on the course she wanted.
 
She had always known that she would need to dirty her hands to achieve her objectives. She had never been too concerned about it. And now she knew that she had no problem at all to do it.
 
"You are one tiny piece of shit," Laura said. "I think this city deserves better. What do you think?" she asked, humiliating him
 
There was fire in the tiny man’s eyes for a second, but then it went away.
 
“Yes… yes”
 
God, he was pathetic. All his usual pride, his arrogance… they were gone. Jacob Strauss was proving to her that he was what she had always thought: a coward.
 
“Do you think I would be a good candidate?” Laura asked
 
The man quickly nodded.
 
“Yes… yes” he said again
 
"You know… it's curious. I would have never thought that you would endorse me. After all, I'm a woman, I'm young and, you know, I'm a lesbian. Isn't this a problem for you?"
 
“No. No. Please…” Strauss said
 
It took Laura some self-control not to giggle. She wanted to look serious. She was feeling so horny about the situation that the idea of fingering herself with Strauss included also ran through her head. She managed to keep her cool, though.
 
“It’s curious what being the size of a building can get you away with, isn’t it?” Laura teased. “But I guess that I should have expected this, at least. After all, you were always respectful of power, right?”
 
“Yes. Yes. Please, please” Strauss said again
 
"I'll tell you what. I should not be necessary since I think it's pretty obvious who's in charge now, but I'd like to make things a little more official. I'd like you to formally surrender the city to me. What do you say?"
 
She could see the hesitation in Strauss’ face. All it took her to make him react was a frown.
 
"I'll do whatever you say."
 
Laura prevented a giggle once more and then said:
 
"Ok, let me arrange it."
 
After an entire morning roaming the city, Laura felt incredibly comfortable at her new height. In a way, it was as if she had always been this size, memories of her previous life as one of the tiny people at her feet feeling like a blurred distant past.
 
After some initial moments of experimentation, Laura was now incredibly aware of her surroundings, on how they sized up against herself, about the consequences of her actions and the possibilities of her stature and strength.
 
So, it was very natural for her to look around, find a spot that fit her needs and then turn to face the news helicopters that had been following her the entire day. All that while making sure that Jacob Strauss was kept safe… for the moment.
 
"I need you again" she addressed the choppers. She had become used to treating them like servants. "But I'll just need one of you this time" she added. Pointing with her free hand, she said: "You, the red one with the white letters WKRC. Pay attention. I'm going to give some instructions to you."
 
Turning slightly and pointing towards the roof of the building she had chosen, she went on:
 
“There is a heliport on the roof of that building. You will land there, turn the rotor off, get out with your cameras and wait for me to get there. Understood?”
 
She had no way of getting an acknowledgment, but when she saw the chopper move in the desired direction, after some initial moments of hesitation, she felt happy about it.
 
She gave them enough time to do as she had commanded them, and then she headed towards the building herself. She felt the uncertainty on the roof as she approached, but they held their position, which made her happy. 
 
Laura smiled when she realized that she had judged right. The building’s height made its roof reach right under her breasts. She walked as close to it as she could, smiling as she saw the reaction of the people to her perky right tit as it got much closer to them than they would have liked. It was amazing to see how the tiny reporters were barely the size of one of her swollen and harder than diamond nipples. After all, her pussy was not the only part of her body that was showing her massive arousal.
 
Bringing the fingertip with Strauss to her face, she said:
 
"Time for the show."
 
Only Laura knew what was coming next. She wanted it to be her formal acceptance of power at the same time as the final humiliation of Strauss. She brought two fingers of her free hand to her pussy and took a generous dose of her love juice on them. Then, she spread it on and around the nipple of her right tit. Once she was done, she brought the finger with Strauss stuck to her tit and transferred him to the much fresher trap she had set for him, rolling him so that he would straddle her nipple and face the camera. A little slight pressure ensured that he would remain in place.
 
“Get him on camera” she commanded softly to the journalists
 
When she felt they were ready, she addressed Strauss.
 
"Ok, Jacob. I believe you have a statement to make. Address the city."
 
He hesitated. Then, he hesitated some more. Laura became impatient, as could be felt by those a thousand foot below, once she started to nervously tap her foot, making her surroundings shake.
 
“People are waiting. Me too” Laura said, her tone slightly more threatening
 
One of the only cons of what she had done was that she could not see Strauss' face. She wanted this to be his final humiliation, and she was pretty sure it was, but it was a pity that she could not get all the details. Maybe in the future, she could ask for the footage to be played for her in a jumbotron.
 
"People of Emerald" Strauss started to say, to Laura's delight. "I've been proud to be your Mayor over the last eleven years. Today, our city is facing a great challenge, and I've found out that I'm not up to the task. It's with great sorrow, but with the hope that this decision will be the best for this city that I love so much, that I announce that I'm surrendering Emerald to Laura Anderson."
 
Well, it was not exactly what she would have preferred him to say, but it was good enough. She just reached for her tit and plucked the tiny man again, now effectively as powerless as he had always felt to her. Letting him roll to the center of her palm and closing it around him so that he would not fall, Laura took a step back and stooped, facing the cameras. She kept her voice soft, knowing that it would make things easier for everyone.  
 
"Hello, my lovely tiny people," Laura said. "I've already introduced myself countless times, but since I'm now formally your ruler, I thought it would be appropriate to be a little formal myself, as well. You all know about me already: my name is Laura Anderson, I'm 22, and   I'm a fellow citizen of yours. You also know that I'm huge and that I have the strength and power of a God and I've already proven to you that there's nothing you can do to hurt me or to try to stop me. I am a Goddess. And I plan on acting like that."
 
She stopped for a second and smiled at the camera, to try to make her words easier to swallow. Then, she went on.
 
"This city is fucked up. I know it. I was one of you, not so long ago. The world is fucked up too. Our rulers have failed us. It's time for a new type of rule: my rule. I alone have the power to change this mess the world has become, and I'll do it. You have no alternative but to listen to me and to do as I say. You may not like it, but you will thank me for it in the long run. One last piece of advice: my priorities are to take over the world and save it from the mess it has become, in this order. I do not make it a priority to protect individual people if you know what I mean." 
 
After having said that, Laura straightened back and looked down at the tiny journalists. The man with the camera tried to focus her face, which was hard enough for him to do. The woman with the microphone yelled:
 
“Laura, what are you planning to do in the city?”
 
Laura smiled at her and replied:
 
"All in due time. You'll see soon enough. I suggest you get into your puny flying machine and try to keep up. You will not want to miss the show."
 
“Laura, just two questions” the journalist yelled
 
She had to admit she had guts. She liked her. And she was kind of hot. She just smirked at her and said:
 
"Maybe at some other time. I have better things to do than wasting my time with you, cutie."
 
Her reference to the journalist’s appearance made her visibly uncomfortable, which made Laura chuckle. She decided to force the situation a little more.
 
"Unless you want to take a ride with me, of course."
 
She chuckled once more at the woman’s reaction, taking a step back.
 
"Thought so" Laura added, chuckling.
 
And then, she turned and headed for her next objective, feeling as content as a young woman could.
 
 
 
"I'm enjoying this" Laya said
 
Quo smiled.
 
“Of course, I already admired you. But I have to acknowledge that the results you are getting surpassed all my expectations” Laya added
 
"I'm glad I did not make a mistake with my apprentice, then," Quo said, smiling again.
 
“The subject… Laura Anderson… she is perfect. I thought she was incongruent first. Then I thought she was getting too easily distracted. But then, all the pieces are starting to fit nicely” Laya said
 
“Would you care to explain me which pieces?” Quo asked, adopting a professor stance
 
"She had already embraced her power from the very beginning, but now she is embracing her fate, the fate we wanted for her and humanity. I have the feeling that now that she has sped up with the process, things will move forward very fast" Laya said
 
“You are right… but only partially” Quo said
 
Laya looked surprised
 
“So, tell me” Quo went on. “What do you think Laura Anderson has achieved so far?”
 
"She has taken over the city," Laya said
 
"True… even if only partially. Do you think that everyone in the city feels subjected to Laura Anderson's rule?" Quo asked
 
"Does it matter?" Laya asked. "Her authority is unquestionable."
 
“It matters. Her authority, the authority we need for her, will not be real until everyone feels that they have no other option than to follow her. She is not there yet” Quo said
 
"Why does it matter? They cannot harm her."
 
"It does. Greatly. Our objective is to have Laura Anderson rule Earth to change humanity's direction. You cannot rule a people if a large part of the population rebel against you. So tell me: if not even everyone in Emerald feels under Laura's rule, what are her chances to lead those in other cities or even in other distant countries?" Quo said
 
“So, what does she need to do?” Laya asked
 
“She needs to break them” Quo replied
 
“Is she ready?” Laya asked again
 
"She is, but she still needs a big push," Quo said
 
“But we cannot intervene” Laya protested mildly
 
"We don't need to. I did not only model Laura's behaviors, in my equations. I modeled humanity's behavior as well. They will do the job for us" she said
 
“Are you sure?” Laya asked
 
"Oh. It's one of the easiest socio-historical equations I've ever had to run." 

 

Chapter 11

Three steps out from the rooftop where she had addressed the city, Laura stopped and opened her palm, letting the tiny figure of former Mayor Strauss to roll to its center.
 
"Hi there, Jacob."
 
He needed a couple of seconds to recover from the dizziness, but when he did, his words came out quickly.
 
"Please, let me go."
 
Laura smirked and arched an eyebrow.
 
“Now, why would I do that?” she asked, trying to sound surprised
 
“I did everything you told me to” Strauss protested at the time he looked close to desperation.
 
Laura chuckled, reinforcing the effect on the tiny man.
 
“Jacob, Jacob, Jacob…” she started saying. “Do you have any idea about how many people I stepped on, today?” she asked in the most casual tone
 
Strauss’ face lost all its color.
 
"I don't know myself. Thousands, surely. Tens of thousands, most likely" she said. Then, she added: "Do you know what they had done to me?"
 
She waited for a couple of seconds. As expected, she did not get an answer from Strauss.
 
"Nothing. They were innocent; they were just in my way." 
 
She gave Strauss a couple of seconds to swallow hard. Then, she went on:
 
“You, on the other hand… Jacob, you represent everything I despise. You are what I want to free the world from. It would be ironic if you made it out of this, wouldn’t it?”
 
“It… it… it is not fair” was all that Jacob Strauss was able to babble. Laura could hear him perfectly well, though. She could not prevent a loud chuckle.
 
“Life’s not fair, is it Jacob? One day you think you have all the power, that you are above the law, that you can do as you please, insult who you please, ruin as many lives as you please… and then it all fades away, doesn’t it?”
 
She was enjoying every instant. Seeing the reaction of the man she had hated so much was turning her on.
 
"Suddenly, one day, someone truly powerful shows up, and you realize what you are. Have you realized yet?" Laura asked
 
She observed the broken man with a smirk.
 
"You haven't? Let me spell it out for you: you are a mite. You might be rich or powerful among mites, but it does not matter, does it? You have no real power. Right now, I have an itch in my butt that is more noticeable than you." 
 
She knew she was being harsh, but at the same time, she realized that the way she was addressing Strauss was humiliating both for him and the rest of the people who was surely listening to her. She knew it was counter-productive for her plans but at that precise moment, she did not care. She hated Strauss with passion and… hell! Why shouldn't she be able to do and say as she pleased?   
 
Her words had had their toll on Strauss. The man was sobbing and visibly not controlling himself. Laura would have never thought that she would enjoy inflicting psychological pain to someone, but the truth was that the current moment ranked among the best she’d had as a goddess, and she was not even moving a finger.
 
“I will destroy you, Jacob. You are the embodiment of everything I will weed out of this world. And you know what? It’s personal too. I’ve lived under you, I’ve had to suffer your rants, your hate politics, your policies… I will enjoy this. Enormously”
 
Laura knew that she was acting like a bully, but somehow it did not feel bad.
 
Keeping her palm cupped and observing the desperate tiny man in its center, Laura resumed her walk. She kept her eyes trained on her victim as she smiled, ignoring the world at her feet. She was walking back along the path she had taken when heading towards the rooftop where Strauss had surrendered the city to her, which reduced the number of new victims. Still, it was impossible for her to move without the list of casualties increasing.
 
She reached her destination quickly enough.
 
"I will destroy your legacy, Jacob. By the time I'm done with you, everything people will be able to remember about you will be your pathetic speech in my nipple. I will start here. Emerald should not have to stand a city hall that looks like an oversized glass shoebox."
 
Laura looked down and saw people pouring out of the building, probably pushed by her words. She had assumed that it would be empty, but now she realized that her previous antics at the square had probably not done much to encourage people to get out of the city hall.
 
"Oh fuck,"  she thought. Her brain immediately added an idea. "It's not as if they're going to make a difference, at this point. Tough shit, I guess."
 
With that, Laura gracefully lifted her right leg and rested a foot the size of an Olympic swimming pool on the North-East corner of the building. She did not even need to apply force. Just pushing down gently was enough to bring down an entire section of the City Hall and turn it into rubble.
 
Screams down at toe-level intensified enough for Laura to receive them all the way up to her ears.
 
She knew it would not take her too many additional steps to complete the job. Her ears confirmed to her that her usual following of news choppers was around, not missing any single detail of her antics. Suddenly aware of their presence, Laura thought on how she could make the destruction of City Hall more spectacular.
 
She would have sworn she had not felt that itch before. It was quite a surprising reaction of her body, since she had not felt the need to eat or drink ever since she had woken up, having turned into someone new. 
 
She had not put too much thought into her sustenance needs, but the little attention she had devoted to the matter had been to be grateful for the lack of them. The times to enjoy a nice meal were over for Laura in any case, but this meant that she did not need to burden the world with equivalent food and water needs to a large city. It was fair, she guessed. Still, she wondered if her body would be able to process the food, should she choose to ingest it no matter what.
 
Laura could not prevent thinking about the irony of not needing nourishment at the same time her sex drive was requiring constant attention. It was almost as ironic as not needing to drink while her body was telling her that she could freely exercise one of the basic consequences of drinking.
 
She paused for a second and thought whether it was a good idea to move ahead with what her body was demanding her to do. It was rude, extremely rude… which was what ended making her mind up.
 
She hated Strauss, she hated the City Hall building and, by extension, she hated everyone who worked on it, which included those scurrying by her toes right now and those that were still inside. She wanted them to feel how much she despised them. And she wanted the world to see. And right now, she could not think of any greater alternative. 
 
So, without warning, Laura took a step back, spread her legs wide and squatted down. She could feel hundreds of eyes around her wondering what all that was about, including the eyes of the choppers that were broadcasting every single one of her actions to the entire world.
 
The world did not have to wait long. A golden torrent of piss roared out of her womanhood and tore through the roof of City Hall like it was rice paper. Laura smirked, again impressed with herself for the umpteenth time today - she couldn't help but think of the scene from Independence Day where the White House was destroyed by the aliens’ laser. Laura tilted her hand so that her tiny captive could witness the destruction of his cushy office complex.
 
The devastating beam punched through all eight floors and into the basement in a matter of seconds, and the entire structure began to sag as the roaring tide began to erode the foundation and backwash into the lower floors, flattening walls and tearing out support beams as the wave swept up furniture, office equipment and occupants alike. The glass facade put up a good fight before shattering, unleashing a 10-foot high tsunami riddled with furniture, debris, victims and deadly shards of glass into the plaza.
 
Those who had managed to evacuate now fared poorly as the tidal waves swept them up and carried them into the neighboring streets, where hundreds of people that had felt relatively safe soon learned that they had not been.
 
By the time Laura felt the last drops, the surroundings of City Hall looked like the aftermath of a tsunami. Laura was more proud than concerned about that. Her main focus of attention was another one.
 
Standing up and taking a couple of steps in the safe side of the square and into the area where Emerald’s Trade Show Center was, Laura crouched and ripped a large tent from the ground with ease, removing the cover of some of the only people in the area that had not been hit by her self-made tsunami.
 
It was the largest piece of cloth around, even if it still felt small to Laura. It was enough to clean her private parts, though, even if they were not so private anymore.
 
Nothing about Laura would be private again. Her body, her words, her actions… they all belonged to everyone now. She was their only master, though, which in turn, turned her into the only master of the world. 
 
Discarding the now wet cloth, Laura giggled when she observed the mayhem she had created in such an “unexpected” way and turned towards the choppers.
 
"That damned building had always pissed me off," she said, not able to prevent another giggle. She suddenly realized how all this must be feeling to the audiences at home. She had been trying to tell them that all this was for the greater good… and now she had probably pissed a few hundred people to death. She guessed that if she were still tiny, this type of act would have felt like nothing more than humiliation. She could not prevent feeling great about what she had done, though. She had to express that feeling to the choppers, trying to make some sense of it at the same time. 
 
"This is my city now. I don't have to stand things I don't like. You should expect some more redesign. But don't worry too much. I mostly like Emerald's architecture" Laura said as if that settled the matter.
 
Then, she looked at the tiny sobbing figure of Jacob Strauss on her cupped free hand and smirked at him. 
 
"Don't worry; I'm not going to drown you in my pee. That would be way too good for you."  
 
Closing her fingers slightly around the tiny man, as to protect him even more, Laura looked around, trying to find her next destination. One of the advantages of being taller than anything else in the city, combined with her enhanced sight, was that she could find everything with utter ease.
 
She did not owe any explanation to the tiny worm in her hand, so she did not offer any. She just started moving towards her destination, making sure to avoid her pee, which had reached much farther than she had originally expected.
 
Like every time she moved without interruptions along the city, Laura reached a crowd soon enough. She stopped just one step before starting a massacre, letting her toes dangle above the tiny people. 
 
She just needed a quick look to know that her path towards her objective would be pretty costly regarding human lives. She did not know too well why, but the avenue that would    lead her to her destination was incredibly packed as if a majority of the population in the area had chosen it as an escape route.  
 
“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to clear a path, would it?” Laura asked
 
She only got screams and even more erratic movements from the people in front of her.
 
"Well, tough shit," she said, taking the first step into the dense mob and snuffing a hundred lives with ease. A second foot doubled the body count. After all, a few thousand lives were an acceptable price to pay to get where she wanted to.   
 
She was about to take the third step when she stopped. From her godly height, it was easy enough to see her entire surroundings, and her superhuman mind was processing every piece of sensorial information she was getting in the background. Soon, an alert rang in the back of her head and told her that there was an alternative to massacring the population at her feet.  
 
Laura looked to her left and down, trying to get more details on the route her conscience was suggesting.
 
The alternative avenue was remarkably empty. The contrast between it and the one she had chosen felt almost impossible. Quickly following its path, Laura concluded that it would take her where she wanted to as well. It was a tad longer, but nothing that mattered for a woman of her height and speed.
 
There was only a little problem. There were no side streets she could easily take to move from where she was to the new route. The only alternative seemed to be heading back multiple blocks, which was something Laura was not willing to do.
 
Her pragmatism and mental abilities showed her an answer. She rejected it at first, but after a second thought, she realized that it was more efficient than her original route. And besides, the architecture in this particular area of the city was not great.
 
The knee-high buildings were too tall for her to step over them with ease. They were not sturdy enough to prevent Laura from walking through them though, which is what she did. Her first step ended up with her foot and her shin halfway through the building right to her left. A new step brought that building down and part of her limbs into the adjacent block.
 
Encouraged by the results, Laura kept walking, wading across the concrete, admittedly impressed by the ease of it all.
 
"I'm doing this for you," she said aloud, although she doubted that anyone would share her evaluation of the matter.
 
Laura knew that she was finishing hundreds of lives, lives of people that could not have expected at all that their buildings would collapse on top of them. It was tough luck, but it was the best option. Walking down the avenue would have caused plenty more victims. 
 
A few steps and a few downed city blocks later, she reached her destination. It felt almost impossible to look at a wide and mostly empty stretch of road. The number of people on it was so inconsequential that Laura had even a hard time to consider them as the same  kind as the ones she had prevented stepping on in the parallel avenue. To her, the scattered ants in her path were more than acceptable collateral damage.
 
Up to some point, Laura felt content about the situation. She just risked a glance over her shoulder to observe the trail of destruction she had had to leave in her path to get to it.
 
Just in the last moment before raising her right foot for a first step, a thought of guilt crossed Laura’s mind; it almost felt like her sub-conscious pouring water into the wine. Her level of excitement went considerably down when she realized that by doing what she had just done, all her previous addresses to crowds, urging them to abandon streets and to get into buildings, would now lack credibility. After all, she had just done the opposite from what she had been preaching: bringing several buildings down and leaving the people in the streets alone.
 
It felt bad… for a moment. Then, Laura had an easy time to convince herself that she had not been successful at all before, so there was nothing to lose with her new change of approach.
 
Almost as if to reinforce that thought, Laura said aloud:
 
"Since you tinies don't want to cooperate, it's up to me to decide how to crush as few of you as possible."
 
The next thing the city heard about Laura was the loud thud of her right foot as it rested her weight on the road ahead of her and broke through the asphalt and into the ground below. There had been three people in the area where her sole landed. Almost nothing by Laura’s crushing standards.
 
Besides the unavoidable smashed pedestrians, Laura’s stroll towards her destination was both uneventful and amusing. Having crossed to an avenue lined with relatively low buildings, Laura enjoyed the feeling of towering even more over her surroundings. There was nothing in the city that could stand taller than her, once she had dealt with the Beck Tower, but she still felt a little constrained when walking among skyscrapers that could reach all the way to her chest. She loved moving among them, but she was also enjoying this “more open” section of Downtown, for a change.
 
The fact that every one of her steps ended up digging a deep and perfectly contoured imprint of her otherwise lovely feet in the asphalt meant that, by the time she was done walking around the city, no one that did not share her height would be able to do much use of the roads. She realized the fact but ignored it. Her mobility was way more important than that of all the millions of people in the city combined. Roads and avenues had become her private trails.  
 
Building height started to gradually increase once more; with her size, the speed at which she moved and made the landscape change around her was impressive. She reached her destination soon enough. As in the case of the City Hall, her target building was right across a plaza. The difference was that the plaza was not filled by cops, but by regular citizens.
 
“Oh, it never stays easy for too long” Laura protested from up high
 
 
Of course, Mary had heard about the giant woman. Who in the world had not? Differently to most other people, Mary happened to share the same city with her, though, which made her interest in the news quite different.
 
She had gone through a denial phase first. At one point, the truth had become unquestionable, though. This had led her directly to a phase of panic, which was the one she was at now. As a pretty natural reaction to it, she had left the relative safety of her office building and joined the mindless mob in Liberty Plaza.
 
She realized about the stupidity of her actions shortly after. By the time she regained her self-control, though, she was way too trapped in the crowd to be able to move back. It was more or less at the moment when her clarity came back to her that the shakings started.   
 
Screams all around her intensified considerably. The mob had noticed the tremors and had guessed their cause. Mary had, too. A cold shiver ran down her spine, and she found herself joining the crowd in its screams.
 
Her vocal chords ached. This was not what drove her to shut up, though. The last shake did. It almost made her lost her footing. She managed to keep standing. A change in the lighting drove her to instinctively look upwards. Her jaw dropped as her gaze joined that of thousands of other people in the area.
 
Nothing she had heard, no live feed from the news stations that had been following her all morning, no video she had received on her cellphone… nothing could have prepared her for the shock of seeing her life, standing in the opposite side of the plaza, in a stance that reminded her of that of a girl that wants to be noticed in a bar.   
 
She would not have needed it. No matter what she would have done, she would have been impossible to miss. Mary quickly understood that the giantess was not seeking attention. She was just feeling comfortable, incredibly comfortable.
 
Of course, Mary had heard about her size before. She had listened to dozens of clips and read hundreds of texts that had informed her that the giant was about a thousand feet tall. She had known, but she had not understood. Now, for the first time, the true implications of someone being that size were sinking in.
 
Mary prided herself not to be easily impressible. It was impossible not to feel struck by awe by the sight right in front of her eyes, though. Her cubicle on the 34 th floor was close enough to the windows so that she had a good view of the plaza as she worked. So, she knew just how tall the building right across it was supposed to be. This made Mary more ready than others around her to understand the implications of the fact that its roof could not reach much higher than the young woman's shapely hips.    
 
Everything about her distilled youth and health. And power, of course. Her face, partially distorted by the effect of perspective, was that of a curious and visibly content girl. Mary had never been too good at judging ages, but if the woman in front of her was not still at college, it could not be too long since she had finished.
 
Then, the thought struck her: they were at the mercy of a woman in her early twenties, with nothing they could do about it.
 
She could not go on with her thoughts. A deep and quite sensual voice engulfed her, its sheer power making her shake.
 
"Oh, it never stays easy for too long," it said
 
Her shivers went up in intensity. The goddess remained silent for a few seconds as if pondering something. Then, her godlike voice came back, engulfing her and everyone else in the plaza.
 
"You're in my way. That's not good."
 
There were no further words. An instant later Mary heard a loud whooshing sound, though. She was trying to make some sense of what it was when the hurricane hit. Mary barely had time to think about how warm and moist the extreme wind currents were before she was sent off her feet. The next thing she noticed was a hard crash against something hard and cold. She could have sworn that something was shattering as the result of her body's impact. The thought that it felt like glass was the last one to go through her head before the world went dark.  
 
 
 
Laura knew she was much more impulsive than she should. The reasoning behind her actions was simple enough, though. She was going to walk across the plaza anyway, so the people on it were as good as dead. Under those circumstances, what was the harm in testing something new? 
 
This something new was not, actually, that new. The results were, even if she should have expected them. She had been able to blow a storm front away, so it was easy enough to predict what would happen with a crowd.
 
Still, the sight of hundreds of people being thrown around like dust in the wind by the mere act of blowing at them was… invigorating. It was yet another proof that size mattered but also that she was much more than just an oversized girl. She was a certified goddess, and she loved being able to show it to the world every time she could.
 
The plaza was empty by the time she cut her breath. Some of the buildings across it were randomly stained as some of the people she had blown away had just crashed against their façades.
 
She could not prevent a moan. She realized she would need another plane soon enough.
 
Laura advanced through a new clear path. As soon as she was standing in the center of the plaza, she brought her hand up and looked at the diminutive figure of Jacob Strauss. He looked somewhat recovered. After all, she had not messed with him for a while. His expression changed when Laura tilted her hand enough for him to see the building she was standing in front of: the Strauss Center.
 
He seemed to hesitate. Then, his mousy voice came back.
 
“What are you going to do?”
 
Laura smiled and asked:
 
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
 
“You can’t do that!” the tiny man protested
 
"Jacob! After all, you've seen me do… do you believe that?" Laura asked in a tone of mockery. 
 
The man looked desperate. This suited Laura well. Breaking him was way better than just killing him.
 
"I told you I would destroy your legacy," she said. "That's a horrible building, by the way. That golden color is just… awful" Laura then added.
 
"There… there are hundreds of people working in there."
 
Laura could not prevent a chuckle.
 
“This must be a first! Jacob Strauss worrying about someone other than himself”
 
He was puzzled by her answer. She took advantage of that to go on with her plan. She had thought about it on her way to the plaza.
 
Reaching out with her free hand, Laura took hold of two or three of her hairs and pulled, easily pulling them off. It was the closest she had been to pain ever since she had woken up, despite the fact that she had had thousands of bullets shot at her.
 
Looking at the long, silky brown strand in her fingers, she smiled and proceeded with the operation. She did not want to hurt Strauss yet, and he was so tiny that this would require some delicacy.
 
Two steps brought Laura next to a rooftop that reached the height of her belly button's piercing. Setting the strand of hair on it, she then reached for the teeny body of the former mayor of the city and pinched it between her fingertips. She rested it on the roof, on top of her hair strand and close to one of its ends of the strand of hair. Then, without letting him move, she took hold of the end, lifted it and passed it around the man's legs, which was conveniently lifted by a careful movement of one of her free fingernails. This first movement was the hardest one. Once she was done, the rest was quite simpler. To Laura, it felt as if she had been this size forever, not just for a few hours. Looping her hair around the man's body like a harness, she finished the job by tying a knot between the end of the strand and a section above the spot where she had set Strauss. 
 
She was proud of her work as she lifted the strand from its opposite end and let Jacob Strauss dangle in front of her excited eyes.
 
“You make a nice toy” she said, mocking
 
Any recovery Strauss might have had on her way to the plaza was gone, as his face showed him how shocked he was by this new form of humiliation Laura had thought for him.
 
She smirked naughtily at him and then raised her eyes to guide herself in her short trek to the opposite side of the plaza, where a construction crane had caught her attention. Tying the strand of hair to its edge, she let Strauss hanging there and then stooped to smile at him again.
 
"You'll get a nice view from here," she said.
 
“Stop!” the tiny man yelled with an energy that surprised Laura. She broadened her smile and chuckled.
 
“You still think that you are in a position to issue commands? That’s cute” Laura said
 
“Please! Why are you doing this?” Strauss yelled, now sounding desperate
 
"Because I want to. Simple as that. You, of all people, should understand that. I have what you've always sought. The only difference is that I don't need to hide my true intentions. My power is absolute, so I don't need that. I would not be good at politicking either, so it's good that I'm above that. From now on, I will make decisions, I will announce them to the world, and I will execute them. And I don't have to give a damn whether anyone agrees!" Laura said, her voice sounded more excited as she went on.
 
"There are things I've never liked in Emerald. Starting with anything that smells of you. And I've just realized that it's really up to me to have them changed" Laura concluded. 
 
“The people…” Strauss started
 
“Can’t be prevented, I’m afraid” Laura said. “It’s all for the greater good, in the end” she added, almost as if trying to convince herself.
 
She remained silent for a few seconds. Strauss looked too shocked to say anything either. Laura finally added: “Take a good look and enjoy the action. After I’m done, it’s your turn”.
 
She moved her head away and winked at him. Then she stood up and faced the Strauss Center. It was the worst possible display of modern architecture, standing out like a gaudy monolith among the much more refined skyline of the city.     
 
Of course, everyone in her surroundings had listened to her end of the conversation, so it was easy enough to deduce what she was going to do next. The sizeable group of people rushing out of the Strauss Center was proof enough of that.
 
Somehow, Laura did not like that. She rationally knew that none of those people had done anything to her. The fact that they worked at the Strauss Center made them more hateful than the rest of the population, though.
 
A moment of pause would have been enough for Laura to realize that she had nothing to gain from finishing them. Unfortunately for them, she did not take that moment, and she just followed her gut, which was telling her to step on them. Once she did, it only took her a moment to move her foot in their direction and fit practically all of them under her sole before stepping down. 
 
Moving her foot backward, she stooped slightly to inspect the several dozen gory stains in the deep depression her foot had left in the concrete of the plaza. All she said was:
 
“Oops”
 
Laura decided to use the fact that the rest of the people in the lobby of the Strauss Center were having second thoughts about getting out after seeing the fate of their colleagues as proof that what she had done had served a purpose. 
 
Happy with it, she just straightened back up and took a good look at the chest-high building right in front of her. Out of all the modern monstrosities that had been built in Emerald, the Strauss Center was by far the ugliest one. It stood out from the city's more traditional architecture, and its golden color made it even worse than what its unremarkable blocky appearance was already. 
 
She did not want that in her city.
 
Almost by impulse, Laura closed her fist and then punched the building's top third. It ripped like wet tissue. She was quite happy when she felt her hand exiting through the other side but the building holding. She was curious, so she removed her first with great care and stooped to look through the massive hole she had just put into the skyscraper.
 
 
Andrea was scared shitless about the situation. Like everyone else, she knew everything about the giant woman that was standing right in front of the building she worked at and that she had announced that she would bring the building down.
 
Unlike many of her co-workers, Andrea was going through her fear with a calmer demeanor. She worked at the seventy-second floor of the building which, with the elevators gone, meant that her only way out was seventy-two very long flights of stairs. Many of the people in her office were trying their luck. She had decided to accept her fate. She was not the only one. 
 
Andrea was used to watching the landscape at the other side of the windows. She knew just how tall they were. This made the rough skin that was now filling her vision, which she perfectly knew was the giant's nipple, even more remarkable. She had already consciously known it but realizing for real that the young woman was larger than the Strauss Center sent a shiver running down her spine.  
 
Andrea did not have time to react when the nipple moved away and was replaced by a fast-moving object. She could not understand that it was nothing else than the woman's closed fist before she was thrown violently around, the light getting
knocked out of her as the sounds and screams of destruction grew all around her.
 
It was amazing how utter chaos could become complete calm so quickly. Andrea managed to turn and open her eyelids. Her office was no more. She was surrounded by smoke and rubble. And the light was way more intense than she was used to. A quick look around told her the reason why: there were no windows anymore. There were no walls either. And judging by the lack of screams, there were no survivors.
 
She sat down, and her blood froze when a movement outside made her look in the right direction and lock into the massive eye that was observing her with unhidden curiosity.
 
Andrea frantically looked around her to check that she was, actually, the only one in the area that was alive. This should have been good news… only they weren't. It meant that the giant woman's attention was fully trained on her.
 
 
 
 
 
The tiny redhead was curious to observe. Laura did not know how she had managed to survive, but she even looked unscratched.
 
"You are a tough little ant," she said cheerfully. The woman did not like her words at all, of course. Laura did not know if that had been driven by the words themselves or by the fact that she had realized that she was focused on her. 
 
The tiny survivor was interesting enough for Laura to want to have a closer look. She thought about letting her know but then discarded the idea. It would not make any difference, would it?
 
She just reached out with two fingers the length of a city bus and pinched the woman with a care that she was now completely used to but that felt completely illogical to the rest of the world.
 
Straightening back up, she just held the now screaming redhead in front of her curious eyes and smiled at her.
 
"You little people never cease to amaze me," Laura said, her soft voice easily overshadowing the tiny woman's screams.
 
“Let me go!” the woman finally screamed
 
Laura chuckled.
 
“You see? This is the reason I need to be in charge and make the calls for you. If I did as you want, you would drop a thousand feet to the ground. I know that would not be good… but you tinies just can’t see it, can you?” she said, mocking.
 
"Please," the woman said, now crying.
 
It was stupid. Laura realized about it. She was about to bring the entire building down, along with the hundreds of people inside. One more woman would not make any difference at all. And still, she found herself crouching and setting the puny office worker on the road below, right on a right foot that dwarfed her.   
 
"I would get out as quickly as possible if I were you," Laura said. "After all the hassle, I would hate it if I ended up stepping on you" she added.
 
The woman did not waste time to start running. Still crouching, Laura observed her comical movements for a few more seconds, chuckling again just before standing back up to face the building.
 
She could not fool herself. These little acts of magnanimity did nothing to compensate the increasing violence with which she was treating the city. They still made her feel good, though. They made them feel that she was still fair-minded.
 
It was very ironic that her next action right after this thought was another punch into the building, this time in a lower section.
 
Significantly weakened in two critical spots, the Strauss Center could not hold it anymore and started to collapse on itself.
 
"Oh well," Laura said aloud. She had expected that the golden monstrosity would offer her some more entertainment.
 
Debris rained into the street below, burying some of the ones that had decided to try their luck in the plaza once they had realized that staying in the lobby would not save them. It felt like a chain reaction… and then it stopped.
 
The building was about the height of her mid-thigh by the time it did.
 
There were plenty of ways Laura could have dealt with it. Her previous training with the Windsor had told her as much. She just kicked it, out of contempt. Her foot broke through the building as if it had been made of crackers. By the time she drew her leg back, nothing left standing of Jacob Strauss’ former headquarters.
 
Laura was satisfied. And at the same time, she was disappointed. She was feeling playful, and up to some point, she felt that she had broken her latest toy way too quickly.
 
Shrugging, she just thought:
 
"Well, this was hardly the only skyscraper I don't like in the city."
 
Not putting too much thought into the fact that she was beginning to long for chances to show and use her size and power, regardless of the real purpose this would have for her plans.
 
Laura did not see anything wrong with that.
 
Turning to look across the plaza, she smirked at a very shocked Jacob Strauss and headed back towards him. It was time to deal with the man once and for all.
 
 
 
“We were already expecting this, of course, but the speed at which Laura Anderson is evolving is amazing. The level of creativity and arbitrariness of her latest victims could not have been expected just a few hours ago” Laya said
 
“Well, you might not have expected it. I did” Quo replied, smiling
 
“Sure, professor” Laya replied, doing a gesture with her four arms that was equivalent to shrugging
 
"You will enjoy it for a while more," Quo said
 
“How do you know?” Laya asked
 
"Well, until some external factor pushes our subject in the direction we want, she will just keep on evolving her current state, which is nothing else than pure indulgence," Quo said
 
“She already went through this before” Laya pointed out
 
"She went through a phase of indulging with her size. Now she is indulging in her power. In her mind, she has already taken over the city. And she longs to prove it to the population in every occasion she is granted" Quo said  
 
"But she has not taken over the city, yet, according to you," Laya said 
 
“No. Not until she breaks real resistance” Quo said
 
“When will that happen?” Laya said
 
“Oh, soon enough. But for now, it will be entertaining to see her exercising her authority over the population, punishing those she did not like as she keeps on exploring” Quo said
 
“Will it be even better once she is tested?” Laya asked
 
“I doubt it. If things go the way I’m predicting, Laura Anderson’s reaction to her first real challenge will be genuinely violent” Quo said
 
“Isn’t she being violent now?” Laya asked
 
“Not in her mind. You always need to take into account the point of view” Quo said
 
“Of course” Laya acknowledged
 
"Anyway, let's enjoy the current moment. I'm not sure how long it will last, but it has a lot of potential."

 

Chapter 12

 

 

Jacob Strauss had never felt so powerless and been as scared as he was in this precise instant. And this was a lot to say, considering that he had been the giant woman’s captive for a pretty long while now.
 
After an entire life of seeking for more power while already being the bigger fish, the current situation was the worst possible nightmare he could have lived. Suddenly, the world had changed, and everything he had known and everything he had worked for was meaningless.
 
Suddenly, someone had appeared that had made everything he had taken for granted a joke. Suddenly, nothing within his power had meaning anymore. To think that it was just because some random brat had become massive was almost the final insult.
 
The truth was that the fact that she was who she was made things even worse. The woman that was holding him captive and using the city as a sandbox was everything Jacob despised in a person.
 
Young, unimportant, lesbian and obviously too liberal, Laura Anderson was the kind of person he had worked hard to push out of his city. He was smart enough to know that he could not have everyone he did not like leaving, but he could damn well work to make Emerald a tough place for them to live in. In time, there would be too few of them to bother him and the rest of the fine people in the city. He would complete the job once he did the next jump and became governor.
 
Jacob was an ambitious man, in many more ways than his father. Rudolph Strauss had thought that money was power. He had been partially right, of course, but Jacob knew better. Money was important, but he sought other forms of power as well. Very soon he had known that he would need to play in the political arena if he wanted to drive the changes he thought were necessary. And he had been very successful at it.
 
All this made his current situation even more hurtful. To be at the mercy of the likes of Laura Anderson was the worst possible humiliation he could have been subjected to. It was only made worse by the source of her dominance. 
 
Jacob could rationally understand that being taller than any skyscraper in town, the giant brat possessed both the power to defeat any attempts on her and the power to force anyone in town to do as she pleased. It still beat him, though.
 
One of the factors his mind was refusing to process was the simplicity of it all. Jacob had had to invest an entire life of work to get the money, the contacts, and the influence to do as he wanted. In Laura Anderson's case, all she had had to do to evolve from the powerless scum she had been the day before to the most powerful creature in the world had been growing.
 
Size apart, she was the same uninteresting woman. But now she could dictate the world her rules just because she could crush a hundred people in one step. It was too blunt for him to accept it.
 
But, hanging from one of her hairs as he was, he could not deny it either. He moved his hands to the bonds around his body to check that they felt stronger than steel and that there was no way he would be able to free himself from them. It would have something stupid to do in any case, of course, considering the hundreds of feet of space between him and the ground below. Despaired, he looked in her direction as she moved towards his pride and joy, the Strauss Center.
 
He resisted the urge to yell. After all, what good would it do? Knowing that she was going to bring it down was almost worse than the certainty of his death once she was done with it.
 
As he observed her moving across the plaza, he could not prevent a more primitive part of his mind to observe that the giant's ass was world class. It was obviously tight, and its cheeks brushed against each other rhythmically as she moved her long silky legs with the leisure of a woman taking a stroll. She was not especially well endowed in the chest area, but the truth was that Laura Anderson was pretty good looking. The same primal part of his mind that was thinking this felt some anger at the fact that she was a lesbian. In Jacob's mind that was some liberal bullshit that some people had made up so that they would not need to behave like proper people.
 
The spot she had chosen for him offered him a great and unhindered view of her antics. For all his hatred of her, he had to admit that she was not as stupid as he had originally thought. There was a certain cunning to her, even if she would have not needed it, considering the limitless amounts of brute force available to her.
 
Seeing her stand taller than the Strauss Center hurt. It hurt way more than the step he knew had finished an indeterminate but large number of his workers. Jacob had spent half of his father’s inheritance and several years of his life to have it built. Seeing it from anywhere in Emerald was one of the things that made him feel the proudest. Having the jewel of the crown of his empire dwarfed by a naked woman hurt beyond recognition. When she punched it, it almost felt as if he had been punched in the stomach himself.
 
He managed to keep together as Laura Anderson tortured some random soul inside the building, but the next punch and the following kick made him yell like a madman again. He could feel tears running down his cheeks as the building collapsed on itself, becoming nothing more than a pile of rubble in an instant.
 
He shut up as his blood froze when Laura Anderson turned and locker her eyes on him with a naughty smirk on her lips. 
 
When he realized that he did not have much longer to live, Jacob Strauss reconsidered his previous thought about his building being more important than himself.
 
 
 
 
Laura wished that the skyscraper would have lasted a little longer, but she did not worry about it for too long since she knew there would be plenty of other options to play whenever she wanted to. Deep inside she knew that other buildings would not offer her the same sort of excuse to mess with them as the Strauss Center had, but this did not bother her. She would find a way around it.
 
She was not going to play with a building now, though. She was going to do something much better. It was somehow ironic that she could anticipate dealing with a centimeter tall man way more than playing with any of the high-rises in the city that tried to rival with her in height, but that was how she was feeling.
 
Laura had never thought of herself as an especially spiteful or revengeful woman, but the truth was that the level of hatred she felt for Jacob Strauss made her feel good about being able to deal with him.
 
She smiled at the former mayor as he dangled from her hair in the construction crane she had set him at. Not being in a hurry, Laura decided to extend Strauss’ humiliation for as long as she could. She walked back across the plaza in slow, sexy steps, almost strutting as kept her eyes fixed on him and her lips pouted.
 
She reached the spot where she had hung him soon enough, in any case. She then stooped forward, bringing her massive face right in front of the dangling man and letting her warm breath bathe his body.
 
Without saying a word, Laura pushed her lips out a little more and let out the softest gust of wind. She was not looking for anything radical. It was way too soon to get rid of the man. But she sent him into an uncontrollable spin, which was what she had been seeking. Her giggles overshadowed Strauss' screams as he kept spinning around and around.
 
Then, Laura made it all stop with two fingers. Letting him go in a steady hung and moving her face backward just a little, she smiled evilly and whispered:
 
"You are going to die, Jacob."
 
“Noooo! No, please” the man said, crying
 
"I've killed so many people today… Couldn't be helped, of course. I always knew taking over the world would be a messy business. Even now I know that I'll have to kill plenty more. I need to make the world realize that challenging me is futile. A woman in my position cannot treat things lightly. And then… then there are the thousands that died mostly because I had to move around. I know there will be more too. It is what it is, I guess. Becoming a goddess is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and I would not trade it off for anything else. I'm aware of the consequences, and I'm glad to accept them. But I never enjoyed any of the deaths that I caused. Even when I dealt with those that attacked me, I was feeling as much pity as contempt for how mistaken they were or for how foolishly they had been sent to their deaths by the likes of you" Laura said softly, almost as if she were telling a story to a little child.   
 
"In your case, though, Jacob… in your case, I'm thankful for every inch of size and every ounce of power in my new body, and for the possibilities, it offers me to finish you. I want you to know this: I will enjoy your death. I will enjoy it enormously… and I will make sure that I make it as painful and memorable as possible. Take your time to think about it" Laura finished.  
 
The man was shivering uncontrollably. Laura did not say anything else. She just straightened back up and undid the knot she had done to put the former mayor of Emerald in place.
 
Transferring him to her palm, she crossed the plaza again without further word, and then she let herself drop on her hard ass. She had chosen the spot with care: the remainders of the Strauss Center.
 
Opening her palm, she looked at the beaten man and smirked again.
 
“Your legacy is under my ass, Jacob. You could have ended up there too, but that would have been way too quick” she said. Then, she added: “Now that I think about it, I never stopped to consider how many people I could sit on. Any guess on your side?”
 
The man was too shocked to reply.
 
“I have also not stopped to count how many I can step on, as a matter of fact, but you don’t have to worry. That’s not how you are going to end either. That would not be nearly bad enough for you, don’t you think?”
 
Finally, Jacob Strauss managed to get enough strength together to yell back at her:
 
“Kill me already and be done with it!”
 
Laura chuckled.
 
“Didn’t you listen to anything I said?” she asked sarcastically.
 
"Please," the man said.
 
Laura ignored his plea and just went on.
 
"I'm starting to realize that there are so many ways a goddess like me can finish off an ant-sized man like you that it's even hard to choose," she said.
 
Strauss started sobbing again.
 
Laura did not mind him once more and just moved a pinkie finger the size of a city bus to her palm. Strauss was afraid for an instant, but she just set its tip next to the miniature man.
 
“This is my pinkie finger. Probably one of the smallest, cutest parts of my body” she said. Then, she set the pinkie’s tip right on top of Strauss, without pushing. “I could just push and be done with it. I’m afraid that would not achieve the amount of agony that I’m looking for, though” she added.
 
Moving her finger away, she turned it and set its neatly manicured fingernail on top of the former mayor’s torso.
 
“I could also cut you in two with my fingernail, couldn’t I?”
 
The man screamed as she moved the fingernail away.
 
“You would last a little longer. I bet your last seconds would be quite painful” she said. Laura loved the terror in the man’s face so much that she even got a little concerned about how far her cruelty could get. The fact that all she was doing was to Strauss made it kind of OK, in any case.
 
Bringing her pinkie back to her hand, she used her nail to partially lift Strauss and then proceeded to curl her finger around him. Raising him, she squeezed with great care not to break him. Laura did not exactly know how she could manage to keep the proper balance to do so, but she instinctively knew she could.
 
"I could also squeeze you to death…just with my pinkie", she said.
 
The man could not reply, as compressed as he was. She let him know that this would not be the method of his demise when she dropped him back into her palm.
 
"You know, I can think of plenty of other ways to kill you with a finger. And if I get to my toes, there are some that I like even more. Would you like to be trapped between two toes, being slowly grinded as I walk?" she asked.  
 
"I would definitely not flick you," she said. "You would instantly die on impact. You are way too puny for that" she added. "I could still throw you. I wonder if I could send you beyond the city grounds. Wanna bet?" she asked
 
Strauss was not in the mood to reply anymore, but this did not prevent Laura from going on.   
 
"I'd have to be careful with that, though. I would like you to live until you landed, but I'm so big, and you are so puny that I could end up killing you if I applied too much acceleration in the throw" she said. 
 
Arching her eyebrows and giggling immediately after, Laura said:
 
"Yeah, I know. I have been thinking a bit too much about this. But I could not help it. I've wanted to be like this ever since I remember and I could not prevent thinking about what I would do if I ever managed to become a giant."
 
She then shrugged and said:
 
"I guess it's for the best, though, even if you are probably not in a position to appreciate it. I'm still learning a bit about this size and trying to get used to some stuff, but I don't think you realize about the advantages of the fact that this happened to someone that had everything planned."
 
Smiling, she added:
 
"I was ready to know how you would look to me, ready to know how to handle you and ready to accept the consequences of me being here. And I knew what to do from the start. Things would have been much worse for you if you had ended up with a random woman getting to my current size and breaking under the stress of the change, believe me."
 
Laura shut up for a couple of seconds and smirked at the terrified man.
 
"It would have been even worse if you had ended up with someone acting like a candy-ass, of course. There's nothing worse than having the ultimate power and feeling sorry about it."
 
She paused for a second and went on.
 
"I'm just what a goddess is supposed to be. Sooner or later the world will realize and will thank me for that. The fact that I'm going to rid it of the likes of you should be proof enough."
 
Laura felt herself getting wet again and moaned.
 
"Oh God! Just thinking about all this is making me horny," she said. "I could even fuck you" she added. 
 
Seeing the change in the man’s expression was delightful and encouraged Laura to explore this avenue a bit more.
 
“Am I too much woman for you?” she asked in a naughty voice.
 
Of course, Jacob Strauss did not reply. The mix of shock and disgust on his face was good enough for Laura, in any case. 
 
“I could even kill two birds with one stone, because… seriously, there’s no way you would survive that fuck!” she said, giggling.
 
"You'd probably end up grinded against my clit, in the heat of the moment. If you didn't, then you'd probably drown in my juices. The sad truth is that I doubt I would feel you too much in there."
 
She was not waiting for any reply from Strauss' side anymore. Laura was on a roll, and she just went on. 
 
"Maybe we should try anal. I'm tighter back there. Probably tight enough to feel you" she said. "Tell me, how would you like to get stuck in my asshole?" Laura then asked.
 
“I bet if I try hard enough, I could even squeeze you to death in there” she added.
 
Unconsciously, Laura brought two fingers down her stomach and slid them into herself.
 
“Mmmmm” she moaned, much louder now.
 
Bringing her hand holding Strauss right in front of her massive right nipple, she commanded him:
 
“Lick!”
 
Strauss hesitated, but Laura was not in a mood to bargain.
 
“It’s either this or my ass. Your choice”
 
Strauss started licking after a couple of seconds of hesitation. Laura kept fingering herself and moaning, although the pleasure from her tit was more psychological than physical in nature. When it became obvious that she was not going to get anything out of the man, she stopped it all and looked at him with a disappointed expression.
 
“You are a useless tiny ant, you know?”
 
Just her look managed to make him look even more scared. Laura was finding out new levels of fear that she could inspire in the tiny people. And she loved it. She told herself that the fact that it was Strauss made it OK. But deep inside she knew that if she were not careful, she would get lost in the rush of power.   
 
"I should crush you against my nipple," Laura said in an annoyed tone.
 
The weirdest thing happened. The look of the man changed… to one of relief. She understood quickly, of course. He was looking forward to the moment of his death.
 
This was encouraging and upsetting at the same time. On the one hand, it was clear that she had managed to break the tiny man she hated so much too far beyond any limits he might have had. In a way, she had achieved her objective. The realization also meant that there was nothing else she could do to torture him. He had reached his terror limit. 
 
Or had he?
 
The naughtiest, cruelest idea came to Laura's mind. Her initial reaction was to reject it, but then something in the back of her mind kicked in and told her that she was above any morals. Or, being more precise, she made her morals as she went.
 
Under this perspective, she saw no reason for not doing what she felt like doing. A grin was drawn on her face as her eyes narrowed. The broken Jacob Strauss was in for his last surprise.
 
"I need to get fucked," she said. It was true. "And since you are not going to do the job, I'd better start looking for ways to please myself."  
 
The hope in the man's eyes increased. He was waiting for her to end his pathetic life. Well, he was in for the last surprise. 
 
"Your time has come," she said, and the hope slightly increased. Then, she dealt the blow: "Have you ever heard that old Aerosmith song? Eat the rich?"
 
She could see the terror rising in the diminutive former mayor instantly, and she could not prevent smirking in response.
 
"I see you got it," she said, enjoying every word.
 
“Noooooooooo” Strauss yelled, opening his mouth for the first time in a long while.
 
“You should be happy. Up to some point, you’ll become part of me. For a while, at least” Laura said. “You’ll first have to slowly dissolve in my stomach’s acid, of course” she added, speaking in the cruelest tone she had used in her entire life.
 
The man was about to have a heart attack.
 
"Yeah, of course, I won't chew. You don't deserve it" Laura said.
 
“Noooo. Please, nooo. You can’t do that!” the man yelled, tears running down his face.
 
"I can do anything I please. That's the whole point of being a goddess," Laura said.   
 
She then raised her hand closer to her mouth and addressed him as much as the rest of people listening to her:
 
"Normally, this sort of thing would be considered cannibalism, a human eating another human. But look at me, am I even really human anymore? I suppose not.”
 
Giving a last look at the despicable man, she said:
 
“Goodbye, Jacob”
 
And then, she just placed him on her tongue.
 
She did not play with him for too long. The risk of ending up killing him in her mouth was too big. Instead, she just guided his tiny figure to the back of her mouth and swallowed, as if he were a pill.
 
Laura enjoyed feeling him squirming all the way down her throat, confirming to her that he was still alive. She lost trace of him the moment he slid into her stomach, though.
 
She expected that he would last for long enough, but the truth was that she had no clue about how much a human was supposed to live in someone else's stomach. Even her years of careful study and planning of her desired giant self had not given her an answer to this question.  
 
 
 
 
Jacob Strauss thought that he had known terror before, but now he knew he had not. After a long while at the mercy of the giant brat, he now knew that the last moments of his life would be the worst.
 
His short ride in her mouth had been bumpy but far from fatal. Without even realizing how, he found himself, head first, into a wet, sticky, downward tunnel. Still tied by her hair, his arms bound, there was nothing he could do to guide his quick descent. The warm, moving walls did the job, instead.
 
The idea of being inside a living creature would have blown his mind if it had not been so paralyzed with fear. His body bounced from wall to wall as it kept on moving down.
 
Then, at some point, he felt himself getting through some opening and suddenly he was in freefall. He hoped for a hard landing, something that would finally put an end to his suffering. This is not what happened.
 
The pool where he landed was thicker than what normal water was supposed to be. Pitch black, there was no way he could see his surroundings, but despite the weirdness of it all, his brain rationally knew where he had ended up: her stomach.
 
A few seconds passed before he felt the liquid soaking his clothes and starting to eat through his skin. It burned, even if only mildly. The noises and movements he felt hinted at extra doses of what he now knew were her gastric juices getting added to the cavity. 
 
Being as thick as it was, the pool guaranteed that he would float. The burning feeling kept increasing, but Jacob soon realized that it would not be a quick process.
 
His screams were absorbed by the cushioned walls of the cave where he now knew he would die. As the acid kept on eating through his skin, Jacob tried to think on his times at high school, many years ago, to see if he could remember how long digestion was supposed to be.
 
 
 
 
"She was cruel," Laya said.
 
Quo did the equivalent gesture of a nod.
 
“Were you expecting this?” Laya asked.
 
Quo nodded again.
 
“I thought you had chosen Laura Anderson precisely because she would not act like this” Laya said, but there was no judgment in her voice, just genuine curiosity for her mentor’s answer.
 
"Laura Anderson is not a saint by any means. She offers a curious combination, though. She is a determined woman with an objective in mind and who will stop at nothing to achieve it. At the same time, she is a woman with a sense of morality. You may not agree with her morals, and she may even bend them a little as she progresses, but her acts are based on them. Up to a point, she needs to find a rational justification for all her actions, even when an observer like you or me might disagree with it. This makes her unique" Quo said.   
 
Laya saw that her mentor would continue, so she did not interrupt.
 
"Still, and with Miss Anderson not being a pacifist, it is natural that there are people she despises. It is a logical consequence of her growth to her new status that she will use it upon them. If she did not, that would probably make her unable to achieve our primary objective as well."
 
Quo gestured with her hands and displayed a view of the city where it was easy to see Laura’s trek. Surprisingly, she used it to illustrate a point different from the one Laya was expecting.
 
"The consequences of Laura Anderson's presence in the city are obvious. And still, if you analyze things fairly, you'll realize that they could have been much worse. Laura Anderson has contained herself, behaving according to her principles. She is not a psycho or unnecessarily cruel. Think about how the majority of other candidates on the list would have acted in her place."  
 
"Her actions are scaling up, though," Laya said.
 
“Of course. She has still to go through a long journey before she reaches her zenith” Quo said.
 
“How do you know?” Laya asked.
 
“Because she will need to go further to take over the world. And she is taking over the world. She has not stopped to think about it, but deep inside she knows that breaking humanity will take quite more than a few tens of thousands” Quo said.
 
“Did this require doing what she did to Strauss?” Laya asked.
 
“In a way. It required her to get tougher. Strauss was the catalyst” Quo replied.
 
“What will she do now?” Laya asked.
 
“Well, she has free will and all that… now, my prediction is that she will think she is doing exactly what she has been doing so far, while in fact she will be way more arbitrary and destructive” Quo enounced.
 
“For how long?”
 
“Until she gets a reaction. It should not take long now”

Chapter 13  
 
Laura remained sitting, trying to feel the tiny man inside her. Once she accepted that she would not know what was going on in her stomach, she just moaned and looked around.
 
Eating a whole person alive had been weird… but the truth was that it had also felt amazing!  Up to a point, it felt like the ultimate demonstration of power and dominance. Her words, right before executing the feat, had actually reinforced her own thoughts about it: the people around her might be humans, but she was not. Not anymore. She was something else, a goddess, able to do things that were beyond the wildest imaginations.   
 
Those that saw her just as a very tall version of her previous self were making a huge mistake. She had transcended her previous existence and become something else, and while she had known this the entire morning, being able to articulate it more clearly in her mind made her nipples get harder than diamond.
 
She moaned once more and felt pussy getting incredibly wet again. Suddenly, Laura was very aware of the news helicopters that had been following her all day long. Of course, they had not missed any single detail of what she had just done. Far from feeling embarrassed, the realization made her feel strangely empowered. Feeling playful, she forced a cute burp. She was sure that it sounded thundering to anyone still alive in her surroundings, anyway.
 
Turning her neck, she faced the cameras and winked an eye at them. Laura knew she had probably crossed yet another line, but she did not feel bad about it at all. As a matter of fact, she was pretty sure she would need to cross a few more in her path towards world dominance. While she was not interested in being perceived as cruel, she reasoned that there was nothing wrong in being seen as reckless.
 
Laura had thought that the sudden increase in her horniness had been temporary, but if anything, a few seconds later she was even more aroused. She had never had a too prominent chest, but right now it felt as if her nipples were going to explode. Oh God! She really needed to get fucked.
 
“I don’t suppose anyone will be interested in some wild large scale sex” Laura said aloud, almost in a mocking tone.
 
She did not get an answer. She had not been expecting any. She was so much in heat that she even considered fingering herself then and there, but somehow, it did not feel right. Not after what she had accomplished. And not after having been able to get way more creative in pleasuring herself just a while before.
 
She could always get back to the airport, she thought. It was not such a long walk, and she would have plenty of dildos readily available. But Laura felt that she could do more than that. She was in one of the largest cities in the country, there sure would be something else she could resort to.
 
Without further warning, she gracefully stood up to her full, awe-inspiring height and brushed her tight butt from the remainders of the Strauss Center and its former employees.
 
Turning towards the choppers, she winked at them again and giggled when she saw this made them get a few yards back. She loved being able to be so intimidating. Of course, by now the pilots and journalists on the news helicopters already knew that the only reason they were still airborne and following her was because not only she allowed it but, to some extent, she took advantage of it.
 
Forgetting about the choppers, Laura focused back in the city and tried to find a solution for her immediate urges. Not for the first time, she reflected on one of the most obvious inconveniences of her current size.
 
She loved her present stature. Laura had been dreaming of being a giant ever since she had become sexually aware, and she had thoroughly thought of every scenario and every possible size. She had long reached the conclusion that the height she was enjoying right now was the optimal one. Whatever or whoever was behind her change seemed to have known that.
 
Still manageable enough to interact with the little people individually, her thousand feet tall body was formidable by any other standard. Being able to rival with any skyscraper and to actually top most of them, Laura knew that she would never feel dwarfed again in her life. Her size also granted her enough raw strength for any challenge she could imagine, including any confrontation with the military. Yeah, it was the perfect size for her self-imposed mission, which was no other than to take over the world.
 
And still, it was pretty challenging when it came to sex. She was too large for regular humans to make a meaningful impression on her. They were just too negligible. But she was not large enough to use buildings instead.
 
In any case, she would not have traded off any inch of her body for easier sex. In the end, in her fantasies, she had always found a way around that, of course. After all, it was surprising how many phallic objects actually existed in the world.
 
A difference between her fantasies and reality was that Laura could not make her properly shaped object of choice appear right next to where she was. She would need to go look for it and considering how frequently she was getting hornier than a hot rod it would not be a bad idea to start making a list of good places to look for a good shag for those times when she needed it.
 
Placing her hands on her hips and unconsciously widening her stance in a commanding pose, Laura started exploring the city from her vantage point of view. The narcissistic asshole that was now slowly dissolving in her stomach had built his tower in a spot of the city where it would clearly stand taller than its surroundings and where he would get a privileged view of the rest of Emerald. Now standing in its place and being effectively taller than the Strauss Center had ever been, Laura commanded the same view of the city.
 
Her eyes met the airport soon enough. It was a good back-up plan. She doubted she would find too many crowded planes anymore, but as much as she had secretly loved to fuck a couple hundred tinies at once, she rationally knew that an empty plane shell would do the job just as well.
 
She wanted to find something else, though. Her eyes stopped in more than one building that would have looked incredibly appealing… if it had been about eight inches long to her rather than three or four feet tall. No matter how horny she was, there was no way she would be able to fit them in! At most, what she would achieve would be to grind them down under her cunt.
 
Her attention was caught by a couple of bridges. She knew she could bend and tear the steel with her bare hands, so she wondered if she could rip a nice enough section of one of them and use it to please herself.
 
She forgot about all that an instant later. She found what she was looking for. It was perfect! Her heart filled with glee and her nipples hardened even more, despite the fact that Laura had thought that to be impossible. How could she have forgotten about it! In her dreams, she had fucked trains plenty of times, and the maglev was just the ultimate train.
 
God, it was fast! Different from most other vehicles that had crossed her path during the morning, the magnetic levitation train that linked Emerald with San Francisco was one of the prides of the city and still seemed to move quickly from Laura’s new perspective.
 
Sleek and aerodynamic, the maglev had the right shape and Laura thought that also the right size for what she intended. And, as she saw it moving, her imagination started to run wild and to ponder whether she could also take advantage of its momentum.
 
She had no doubts that the train would be packed with people trying to flee the city and herself. She followed its advance and then let her huge brown eyes scan the tracks ahead of it. She smirked when she realized that its path would cross most of the city. It was designed like that, of course. Having to move north and with the most densely populated area in Emerald being in the south of the city, there was no other way to do it.
 
Laura’s more rational side quickly realized that what she intended was close to impossible. Then, the other side took over and reminded her that she was impossible, so, by definition, everything she had accomplished so far was impossible too.
 
Both sides of her brain soon started working together in order to make a plan. With a processing power she had not had before, Laura deduced that if she moved swiftly enough, she could intercept the maglev a couple of miles before it left the city.
 
Excited about the challenge, she quickly started moving towards her new objective. With her mind completely set to the task and horny as she was, Laura completely disregarded any collateral damage or victims of her actions. Her fast paced stroll became her most deadly one yet soon enough.
 
Laura kept her eyes focused on her destination as her bare feet finished people and vehicles alike with grim finality. That was far from the worst consequence of her trek, though. Not having time to stick to the streets and roads, Laura made ample use of her recently discovered ability and just trampled through the buildings in her path.
 
Her shins and thighs broke with ease through residential and office high-rises alike, barely slowing her down as she mercilessly waded through them. She did not even stop to pay an instant of attention to the thousands she was killing in such a rush. Her pussy was craving too much for attention for her to spare any to the ant-sized people.
 
When the landscape changed to one of two-story houses with gardens around them Laura did not hesitate to keep on advancing, entire families disappearing under her sole as it compressed their homes to the ground. That area passed like a blitz before she got into another business neighborhood.
 
Laura kept her eyes trained on the maglev as she used both her fists to get a rather tall building out of her way as she moved.
 
Walking faster than she had done before as a giant, Laura’s trail of destruction rivaled with that of any natural disaster. She considered it worth when she finally reached the tracks and straddled them with ease.
 
The maglev turned around a corner a little less than a mile ahead just at that moment. Laura did not waste any time. She just let herself drop into her hard ass, shaking her surroundings with force, and spread her legs open wide.
 
Aligning her craving pussy with the tracks, she used fingers on both hands to spread her lips wide. The maglev had finally started to brake, but it had too much momentum. Laura could not believe that her crazy idea was about to work. She smiled and waited for the fireworks.
 
She moaned loudly. For the first time since she had woken up in the morning, something had actually managed to make an impression on Laura. And with the area of contact being her sensitive womanhood, the impression had been both intense and pleasurable.
 
The problem was the lack of follow up, of course. Looking down she saw the first train car partially inserted into her pussy. It was obvious that it was not going to thrust by itself, though.
 
Reaching down, Laura started doing the job herself.
 
It was good. In many ways, it was better than the plane had been. The maglev was sturdier and it felt fuller inside her. Laura’s moans started to increase in intensity, matching their pace with that of her hand as she kept thrusting with the train. She became aware of the fact that it was probably completely packed with fugitives again.
 
“Oh God! I hope you guys are enjoying this as much as I am!” Laura said aloud as she kept thrusting. The moans came back soon after.
 
 
The warning to get their seatbelts fastened came almost without time for him to react. Josh would never be able to thank himself enough for having managed to do it on time. He would not be alive, otherwise.
 
The maglev was designed for speeds of over 300 mph. It was a really stable and quiet train, but whoever had been in charge of the overall security of the project had decided to add some really high-end seatbelts to the design. To a point, they looked like harnesses rather than seatbelts.
 
They had worked splendidly when the train abruptly stopped. Josh had been in a car accident once. The violence of the maglev’s crash had been several orders of magnitude higher.
 
Screams erupted. Josh could not focus too much on them, though, since the train started rocking harshly back and forth. Windows broke and the frame started groaning and twisting in some spots, but other than that the train seemed to be holding whatever was happening to it admirably.
 
Before he could realize what was really going on, Josh’s mind was intoxicated by something he could not quite understand. Up to a point it felt like being drunk, but it was different. It could have been probably associated to the feeling of being infatuated by someone… but the weird thing was that there was no one to be infatuated with. He tried to focus, but it was impossible.
 
The maglev’s windows could not hold the stress any longer and finally shattered almost at once. An instant later, Josh’s infatuation was joined by an intense smell that made his body react almost against his will. Rock hard and lost to inebriation, he realized with his last threads of consciousness that he was getting lost to something. Only he did not know what.
 
He started moving back and forth with rhythmical violent movements, even if their intensity was lower than the initial collision. Each of them would have been enough to end his life, had he not been securely held by the seatbelt. Josh had no time to think about that. His mind was entirely taken by pleasure.
 
There were a couple of brief instants when Josh’s awareness managed to break through the spell. In one of them, he realized with horror where he was and what each of the movements meant. He did not have too long to reflect about it and about how insignificant it made him, since his mind was soon completely taken by pleasure again. In the last second before this happened, Josh heard several other people moaning, telling him that he was not alone in whatever was happening to him.
 
He did not know how much time had gone by once he recovered his senses. All he knew was that he was panting after having spread his seed all over his trousers. No sex he had ever had before could come even close to whatever it was that had happened to him now. A quick look around was enough to check that he had not been the only one.
 
 
 
 
Laura spread out her knees as she let herself drop on her back, all while keeping the precious maglev securely held in her right hand.
 
She shuddered with pleasure as she pushed the packed train in and out at an initially comfortable pace. The metal felt cool and slippery at first, her labia so sensitive that she could even feel the window frames. Turning her head to the side, she saw a group of incredibly shocked people through her half closed eyes and started moaning, in part, to add to the show.
 
Her left hand soon met her clit as her right increased the pace of thrusting. Laura was no stranger to sex toys and before meeting Stacy she could play with them for hours. She was tempted to do that now. Somehow, being a giant had also acted as an amplifier for pleasure.
 
A voice in the back of Laura’s mind was trying to tell her that it was not a good idea to invest so long into pure indulgence, especially when it had already become clear that she was going to have to resort to it quite often. So far, the rest of her mind was managing to ignore it.
 
The strangest thing happened just then. Laura had always been able to tell when she was truly making her girlfriends enjoy in the past. It was as if, at one point during sex, she could establish a mental link to them.
 
She was feeling sort of the same thing right now. As weird as it could sound, Laura could have sworn that she was mentally linked to the hundreds of people in the maglev she was bringing in and out of herself. And, even weirder, she realized that they were enjoying. She could also feel that the physical strain was beginning to make its effect on them.
 
Suddenly aware of this, Laura worked to finish herself off as quickly as possible. Of course, she was not going to leave the job unfinished.
 
Her clit hand increased its vigor as her right hand forced the maglev to do a final effort. It was still close to ten minutes before the fireworks came. She yelled so loud that hundreds of windows in the neighborhood shattered at once. Feeling hundreds of others reach their climax in sync made it just so much better than any other orgasm she had had in the past.
 
Panting, she removed the maglev, which was holding admirably, from within her, and then carefully set it on her chest, its front car resting between her two perky breasts.
 
“Was this as good for you as it was for me?” she asked, still panting.
 
A second later, she added:
 
“You know, there’s no need for you to answer. I already know it was”
 
Reaching a state of almost perfect relaxation, Laura reflected on what had just happened.
 
She knew she had felt the people inside the train. And she was certain that they had enjoyed the ride. She could not tell which of the two felt the weirdest. How could the tiny ants have enjoyed the ordeal she had put them through beat her. The only logical explanation was that she had somehow influenced them, but that should have been impossible. Only she could also swear that she had been able to read their emotions.
 
There were different possibilities to explain all that. Of course, one of them could be that it had been just a coincidence or a product of her imagination. She would need to test some of the others further, but after her come down, she was way too relaxed for that.
 
Instead, she just felt playful enough to devote the hundreds of people resting in her chest some attention.
 
“You guys were good” Laura said in a soft tone. “You deserve to be rewarded” she added.
 
She took a deep breath in and switched to a much naughtier voice.
 
“Do you want to know how a goddess like me rewards good little subjects like you?”
 
Of course, there was no answer.
 
“Come out and see” she said, still sounding naughty.
 
After a few seconds without any movement Laura started to feel irritated. She managed to calm herself down and tried to think on how to lure the people out instead. She could still feel them, her mental link to them weaker but present. Curious about the weird feeling, she focused on it and realized that she could tune it better. Almost immediately she felt the fear and uncertainty in the dozens of people still alive on the mass transportation vehicle she had just used to satisfy herself.
 
“Does this work both ways?” Laura thought.
 
Eager to learn it, she focused on soothing those she was connected to as she addressed them again:
 
“Come on. Come out to play. You don’t have to be afraid of me”
 
She was surprised, but it actually worked. A few seconds after gently commanding the people to do so, passengers started pouring out of doors and emergency windows.
 
She chuckled as she felt their tiny feet all over her sensitive skin. Her chest gently rocked as she did that, making several of the people lose her footing and making Laura chuckle louder.
 
“You are so puny” she said in a cheerful tone. Her intent was far from humiliating them. Having just got laid and feeling more powerful than ever, Laura was incredibly content. She wanted to share that with the tinies that had involuntarily helped her reach her climax. If anything, her comment had been affectionate, like something she would say to a little child or to a pet.
 
They did not take it too well. Laura was amused at their reaction, and not concerned at all. She knew how to deal with it now, even if she was just starting to grasp some of the new possibilities that she had just been presented to her.
 
This lack of mastery of the new ability she had just found out about prevented her from having the finesse she had been aiming at, but soon after focusing on mollifying those on her chest she could feel them calming down and, in some cases, coming down on her knees or backsides.
 
“This is amazing” Laura thought, exhilarated. “I am a true goddess” she added, completely convinced at the statement. “Being a thousand feet will allow me to take over the world, but what I have just found out will help me keep it”
 
Feeling ecstatic and a little naughty, Laura tried to arouse the crowd on top of her, which had increased its numbers. She quickly realized that she had quite a lot to learn, when it came to this new skill. She had intended to be mild, but judging by the orgy that instantly started on her chest she realized that she had not achieved the desired level of intensity.
 
She could not prevent a few more chuckles.
 
 
The “ground” shook as the goddess chuckled and Josh was sent rolling on his side. He felt some frustration first, quickly followed by some anger. He was trying to find a way to act on them, but it all changed in an instant. Taken over by a combination of bliss and frenzy, he stood up and moved towards the closest woman he could find. She was young and reasonably good looking, but Josh found that he had never lusted so much for someone in his entire life.
 
His mind was unable to process some of the logical concerns his more rational side had, the most basic of them being that she did not know that stranger and that the likelihood of her being attracted to him were close to zero.
 
Then, the weirdest thing happened. The woman literally ripped her top off, exposing her bare chest. Josh quickly followed by unbuttoning his jeans.
 
He was on top of her before he could think about it. She buried her fingernails in his bare back as the made love like beasts. There was still some warning flashing in the back of his head, but there was nothing he could do to pay attention to it.
 
 
 
“Oh my God! This is absolutely amazing!” Laura thought as she craned her neck to take a better look at the porn movie happening right on her chest.
 
“Hey guys! I also want to be part of it” she said cheerfully. “Come to my tits!” she added.
 
To the tiny people’s credit, some tried. Seeing the problems they had, Laura reached out and, as gently as possible, picked half a dozen people and rested them on the areola of her right breast. They went back to action as soon as they could get their balance. It was too much.
 
“Can I ask for some nipple-sucking?” she asked.
 
The most amazing thing yet was that they complied. Soon, she had a platoon of lovers trying their best to please her. And while their efforts were pretty feeble, the intellectual excitement about the situation more than made up for it.
 
Exhilarated as she was, Laura picked the most good looking woman she could find, a blonde who was probably in her late twenties. The man that had been trying to please her did not seem happy about being deprived of her, but Laura just flicked him gently, sending him rolling down her torso and into the area where her navel was. He would eventually find someone else to fuck in there.
 
She rested her head back on the road and held the centimeter-tall woman between her fingertips, in a position where she could see her well. Turning off her “wide-band” sensing, she focused only on her and felt as she was gradually transitioning from arousal to fear.
 
“Oh, no honey, no need to be scared” Laura said in a cute voice, almost as if she were addressing a baby.
 
She tried to soothe the woman, and it apparently worked, even if she looked a bit too shocked for what she had been expecting. She decided to go on with her plan, in any case:
 
“You know, everyone is having so much fun… and I wanted to be part of the party. So, what do you say, do you want to be my girlfriend, for a while?”
 
The woman looked kind of numb, so Laura decided that it would fall into her to excite her. She focused solely on her tiny figure and projected as much sexual excitement as she could muster.
 
Things did not work out as expected. The woman’s limbs started moving wildly and then, suddenly, they stopped. Her body was limp. And thanks to her enhanced sight Laura could see blood pouring down her cheeks. It was coming from her nose and ears.
 
“Oh fuck” Laura said aloud.
 
She shook the woman a little, but got no reaction. She knew what had happened.
 
“Shit! I fried her!” she said aloud.
 
Laura quickly realized about two things: the new mental ability she had just unwrapped was way more powerful than she had thought. And she did not control it well. At least, not yet. It was easy enough to deduce that the woman’s tiny brain had not been able to take whatever type of psychological force she had applied to it.
 
This realization made two contradictory impulses arise in Laura. On one hand, she wanted to learn more about this new power. She had barely tapped into it and it was clear that it had the potential to be as awesome as her own physical abilities. On the other, she knew that she would have to be extremely careful with it. Otherwise, people would die.
 
She could not prevent a cynical chuckle.
 
Of course, people would die. They had been dying all day long, and she had more than accepted, by now, that that was the price to pay for being much larger and powerful than anyone else. What was the difference between that and killing someone with her mind? In practical terms, there was none.
 
This line of thought somehow helped her push the guilt about the dead woman in her fingers away. It was all the same, in the end. She had become so powerful that it was almost impossible for her to use her powers without some collateral damage occurring. But that would not prevent her from using her power, of course. First of all, she did not feel like it. And, more importantly, she was convinced it would be better for humanity, in the long run.
 
It was time to get going. She had satisfied her urges and had had her fun. She could not keep wasting her time everywhere. Looking back at her chest she found out that the former orgy had now turned into a mass of very shocked people. Her first impulse was to sit down and let them roll down her skin. She suppressed it, though. They had done as told and they had made her enjoy. A goddess had to reward that.
 
First, she removed the train car. She then picked them up with care and set them in her free palm. She sat down once she was done.
 
She had three dozen or so people. The fear was back as they looked at her. She chose not to tamper with their minds anymore. She was not sure about how much more they would be able to take, even if she spread her touch among all of them.
 
“You guys were good. I’m going to keep you for a while” she announced.
 
There were some protests.
 
“Last time I looked, this was not a democracy” she added.
               
And then, Laura proceeded to stand up and to look for her next destination. The whole exercise of chasing the train had actually taken her quite far away from the place she had been heading to. It was time to get back on track.
 
 
 
 
 
“Her mental powers…”  Laya started to say. She was an experienced enough xenologist, so she had quickly identified them.
 
“She has only untapped a small portion of them” Quo said, not letting her finish the sentence. It was not like her to do that, so Laya realized that she had been eager to make the comment. She wondered why.
 
Laura Anderson was far from the first creature Laya had seen that had been able to mess with other creatures minds like that. They had found many hive-minded species over the last centuries, and some of them had more powerful mental links than others. They had known the mechanics about how these abilities worked for a long time, but Scripture was very specific about the ban on experimenting with them on themselves. It did not say anything about experimenting with other individualistic races like humanity, though.
 
The next question was very clear in Laya’s mind.
 
“Laura Anderson never dreamed of having these type of powers”
 
It was actually not a question, but a loaded observation. When Quo smiled.
 
“No”
 
“So, why did you give it to her?” Laya asked.
 
“She will need them” Quo said.
 
“To take over the world?” Laya asked.
 
“In a way. But to answer your direct question: no, she would not have needed these abilities to take over the world. Her physical supremacy would have been enough. And it will end up proving to be enough” Quo said.
 
“Then?”
 
“This is my failsafe” Quo said.
 
“For what?” Laya asked.
 
“You’ll see. Things are about to get more interesting soon, I think”

 

Chapter 14  
 
Laura was back on her feet, her point of view back to the privileged position where she could see the world around her for miles. Her right hand was extended just in front of her chest, holding three dozen of her recent lovers on it. She did not know too well what she would do with them, but she had decided that she wanted to keep them around for a while more and she did not see why she should not have her way.
 
Laura was perfectly aware that she had derailed a lot. From the Sun’s position she judged that it was probably early afternoon already, which meant that she had been in the city for hours without actually accomplishing anything remarkable.
 
Well, that last statement was probably too modest. She had actually accomplished a lot of amazing things, deeds only available to her and her newfound size and strength. But the truth was that she was not much closer to taking over the world than she had when she had straddled the highway at the entrance of the city and told everyone about her intentions.
 
There had been a point to her actions so far, of course. And they were, actually, useful. Even if a simplistic external observer could have confused them with showing off, the truth was that Laura had made progress in two very important areas, setting a solid foundation for what she had to do next: she had tested her new condition and power and she had proven it to the world. In the process she had also indulged herself, much more than she had ever thought she would.
 
In any case, it was time to move forward. The world had already learned about her, so it was time to get more methodical and to the point. There was something she needed to do first, though. Something she had postponed for too long. Laura had promised herself that she would share her privilege with Stacy, but truth be told, she had been incredibly self-centered so far. It was time to correct that.
 
Raising her palm, she smiled at the people on it and said:
 
“We’re going to meet someone. I’m sure you’ll like her”
 
Laura realized she was just in the opposite side of the city from where she had to go. It was not as if this would be a big problem, but even with her size, it would take her a few minutes to get to her destination. She took a couple of steps down the avenue, purposefully moving in the right direction.
 
She was way gentler on her way out than she had been on her way in. Laura slightly blushed when she noticed for the first time the massive trail of destruction she had left behind when moving from the Strauss Center to the spot where she had intercepted the maglev in a rush. She forced herself to block any potential feeling of guilt. In her mind there was no difference between that and anything she had done before, and she had already accepted that stuff like this would happen just because she was around and she was massive. And she was not going to trade that off.
 
Laura stopped four blocks later. She was not trying to tamper with the minds of the crowd in her hand, but she now knew how to read their emotions. It was not as if she would have needed this ability to realize about their fear. It was very obvious.
 
This was not the reason she had stopped, though. She had tried to ignore something for a while, but she could not do it anymore. Twitching her nose, she sniffed and then raised her arm higher. The smell was evident, and it was not precisely like roses.
 
Laura kept getting surprised by the way her new body worked.
 
She did not feel any hunger but she had to (or at least could) pee. She definitely had sexual urges, even more than usual. And apparently, whatever it was that made pheromones and sweat was still working, and at a grand scale.
 
The Sun was shining, the day was hot and Laura had been both exerting herself and being very liberal in taking care of her sexual needs. This had unavoidably had consequences, and she could now smell them.
 
If the combination of sweat and love juices was noticeably to her, Laura wondered how it must be feeling for those around her, especially those in her hand. She decided not to ask them. As stupid as it was, she was mildly embarrassed by the situation. It was not as if she cared at all about what the centimeter-tall people thought about her, but there was no need to make a conversation topic out of it.
 
There was someone whose opinion Laura cared about, though. And she was precisely on her way to visit her.
 
Laura frowned as she thought about the situation. This immediately raised the panic level in her hand, making her chuckle instead.
 
“Oh God, you guys are so impressible” she said, half amused and half frustrated.
 
She was not in the mood to pay a lot of attention to them, though, so she just moved her hand lower and thought about her problem. She did not want to be smelly when she met Stacy for the first time in her new condition. She wanted to look sexy. And well, why not admitting it, she wanted to look godly. She wanted Stacy to realize that she was the luckiest person in the world, aside from Laura herself, and she did not want anything to spoil it.
 
So, she would need to take care about the issue. The problem, of course, was that there were not many showers around able to hold someone of her stature.
 
Laura looked around from her vantage point of view. It did not take her long to realize that there was only one choice that would be both close and convenient: the ocean.
 
Raising her hand to her face again, she realized that she would not be able to take her new passengers with her. It made her frown once more, frustrated. Up to a point, Laura felt like a little girl not being able to have her way. She did not know what she wanted to make out of her captives, but she had wanted to take them and it made her upset to have to part with them so soon. In any case, it was a matter of priorities.
 
Without further warning to them, Laura made a left, changing her direction and heading straight towards the sea. It was less than twenty blocks away, nothing by her new standards. Needless to say, her sudden change of pace ended up with a new score of collateral victims of her steps, but Laura was not even paying attention to them now.
 
She reached the beachfront blocks soon enough and stopped. Then, feeling a little mean as a consequence of not being able to have her way completely, she raised her palm to her face once more and said:
 
“Wait for me here. Try to flee and I will get very, very, very angry with you. Understood?”
 
She had to suppress a grin when she felt a sudden spike in the general level of fear coming from her palm. She then moved it down and turned it with care, creating a slope and emptying the group of people on it on the roof of the tallest building in the area. Some of them seemed to have got hurt, something unavoidable when the difference in scale was the one it was, but Laura did not care too much. There did not seem to be any serious victims.
 
Quickly forgetting about her former passengers, she faced the beach, which was much emptier than what the date and temperature should have suggested.
 
Her toes were soon touching the warm water of the Pacific Ocean. A dozen steps later, the normally deep waters were only reaching up to mid-calf. Laura realized that she would need to get quite far away if she wanted to achieve her objectives. She turned by the time the water had already reached all the way to her crotch and saw that the city was much farther away than she would have thought. Frowning, she kept on wading.
 
She stopped when the waterline reached her breasts. The city was still visible in the background, but everything looked so small from the distance that it felt as if it would take her hours to get back to it, rather than the minutes she rationally knew she would need.
 
There was no point on thinking about distances and depths, though. They were what they were, and in any case, they were a testament to her size. Walking a few minutes to clean herself was a perfectly acceptable trade-off in exchange for the ultimate power, was it not?
 
Of course, there was no soap. That was another of the trade-offs she would need to face, unless she reached a point where she could force people to make a large enough quantity to cover her needs. That point would come, she was sure, but just not yet. Laura had to prevent a chuckle when she thought on the movie Fight Club. She hoped the tinies would find a better way of making the amount of soap she would need other than that, since her body count was already large enough as it was.
 
In any case, there was no point in thinking about the future. The situation was the one it was, so Laura just crouched and started rubbing her body under the water, cleaning her skin, removing the dirt and gore and refreshing it.
 
She had not realized about how hot the sun had been until now. Laura enjoyed the bath, beyond its original purpose, letting the water cool her skin. She was glad that the whimsical process behind her growth seemed to have given her skin the ability to take a whole lot of direct exposition to the run rays without getting burnt. Realizing that she was actually getting nicely tanned in the process was an even better discovery.
 
It had been a while since the last moment she had stopped to think about her change rather than in what to do with her new condition. Cooled and relaxed as she was, it seemed like a good moment to let her mind wander a little, though.
 
Laura had been dreaming about becoming an all-powerful giantess for what seemed like forever. She was far from the only woman with that fantasy, as the larger than expected online community proved her, but she soon realized that she had put much more thought into her dream than any of the women and men she had interacted to.
 
For most of the people she had known virtually, it was all about sexual satisfaction. Not for Laura. Of course, sexuality played an important role in her fantasy, as a commercial jetliner and a maglev train had proven. But to Laura it was not exclusively about that. She had gone much further in her vision.
 
To her, becoming a giantess had many more implications than just her arousal. It was, actually, a political statement. Laura looked at the world and did not like what she saw. It was going from bad to worse, and no one seemed to be able to change its course. She had very clear ideas on what needed changing and also enough judgment to know that there was no way she would be able to implement them… unless she managed to muster enough power for it.
 
She soon found out that her political views blended in really well with her giantess fetish. She was very aware of her origins and her possibilities. There was no way she would be able to make it to the top in the world’s corrupt political system, and even if by some miracle she did, she also knew that this was far from a guarantee to push her agenda forward.
 
Changing the world would require mustering the strength of a global superpower. Becoming the president of the USA would not do it, though. Too many people would work against her. The same would happen with any other country of choice. This left her with a single option only: becoming a global superpower herself.
 
Letting herself fall backwards and submerging her entire body into the water of the Pacific Ocean, Laura smiled as she opened her eyes and enjoyed the colors and shapes the light from the Sun drew after refracting at the surface.
 
There was no doubt that she had got everything she had wished for. Twenty-four hours earlier Laura Anderson had been an average girl, living a mostly average life, with her sexual orientation as her most remarkable difference from the average. Now she held the equivalent political and military strength of a global superpower. Even without testing herself to the max, Laura was convinced that she had become more powerful than the rest of humanity together.
 
“How did this all happen?” Laura then wondered as she kept her body submerged, not feeling short of breath for the time being.
 
The thought had been bugging her for most of the day, but it was actually the first time she articulated the question like that.
 
She had everything she had ever wished for… and then some more. Her height perfectly matched her preferences. Her strength had proven to be as limitless as she had always desired and there was no doubt in her mind that she was completely invulnerable. All she had done had been to go trekking and to fall asleep in her perfect spot in the valley. She doubted that sleeping under the canopy of stars was a good enough qualification for growth.
 
She had not done anything to have her dreams come true. In fact, she knew that it was physically impossible for her to be that big and still walk and breathe. And yet… she was.
 
It did not stop there: the apparent lack of need for nourishment definitely worked very well for someone of her condition while being able to pee even if she had felt no thirst during the day had also proven convenient. Far from being an issue, feeling sexually aroused was actually welcome. The initial drive behind her fantasy had been, after all, sexual, so it was fitting that she could enjoy this aspect of her transformation too.
 
It was too perfect, now that she thought about it. Her senses had become keener, she had quickly mastered the balance of strength that she would need to interact with the world… and she had recently found that her physical abilities seemed to be matched by her newly discovered mental powers. Powers she had not even dreamed about but that she was sure would work very well for her intentions.
 
The only minor inconvenience of her transformation so far seemed to be the fact that her body was still secreting substances with odor, such as sweat, vaginal juices or pheromones. It was definitely minor… and Laura wondered if there would not be a purpose behind it as well.
 
In a nutshell, all her dreams had come true with amazing precision, and she had not done anything to make that happen. Or, at least, she had not done anything consciously.
 
“Either I am the luckiest person alive or there is something else going on here” she finally concluded.
 
What were the odds of someone growing? Well, scientifically they were zero. Add to that the fact that it had happened to her, who had longed for it, and exactly in the way she had wished and there was no way this could be a coincidence.
 
But, if it was not a random event, then what was it?
 
There were only two possibilities that came to mind.
 
The first one was the “mind over matter” approach, the belief that somehow her mind had managed to transcend its limits and turn her into what she had always wanted. It was hard to believe, of course.
 
The second one was even harder, considering Laura was a fierce atheist. It was the “divine intervention” possibility. She liked this one less, since it basically implied the existence of an entity that was more powerful than her. After all, if something had managed to grant her wish, that same something could take it away from her, couldn’t it?
 
This last thought unsettled her a little, but feeling relaxed in the water she quickly realized that her concerns were unfounded. If her current state was purely a result of her will there was nothing to fear, of course. But neither there was in the event of a divine entity having granted it to her.
 
If anyone or anything were powerful enough to do this, they also knew her motivations. So, if they had granted her wish to her that could only mean that they wanted her to act like she had.
 
This last thought unavoidably sent her mind into a tour through her actions of the day. Laura removed any tension from her muscles and let her body float, pushed by Archimedes’ Law. Staying still, she was thrilled to feel how her body, colossal by any measure and weighting hundreds of thousands of tons, could keep itself afloat without any movement. Keeping her arms and legs open, Laura found out that she could actually hold that position without any effort on her part. She could not prevent a chuckle. The thought of what was happening was exhilarating. Of course, cruise ships, aircraft carriers and oil tankers managed to float just as she was, but this did not make the experience any less surprising.
 
Letting her body go as it floated and took the bright rays of the Sun once more, she focused on her adventure so far. With the adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream now at normal levels and feeling more relaxed than she had at any other moment in the day, images of her morning in Emerald flashed through her brain.
 
Laura was definitely megalomaniacal, but she had never been delusional, so looking at the events from the distance it soon was evident that she had been fooling herself. She might have become arrogant with the tinies (how not to?), but she could not be so arrogant as to cheat herself.
 
Suddenly, all her illusions of being a fair-minded goddess, showing the necessary restraint to use her astronomical power for the greater good became that: illusions.
 
She had stepped on thousands of people. Tens of thousands, actually. And as deadly as this had been, it was probably the most justifiable use of her new scale. After all, she had had to move.
 
Looking back in perspective, not everything else was so easy to rationalize. She refused to feel bad for Strauss, as cruel as that had been, but that aide, she had also killed a few people in cold blood. They had not been that many, if she compared them to the ones that had perished just so that she could walk, but still many more than what would have made a normal-sized woman become the worst mass murdered in the history of the country.
 
Then, there had been those that had died in the several buildings she had brought down just to make a point. Hell, plenty of people had probably died after she had peed on them.
 
And, of course, there were the ones that had given their lives so that she could satisfy her sexual urges.
 
Laura tried to imagine how all that must have looked and felt from the perspective of one of the tiny persons she aspired to rule. She found out that she could not. It was curious how quickly and easily she had detached from her previous self. In any case, she rationally knew that it had probably been horrible. Monstrous. She felt the weight of the judgment of her actions by billions of people. As she did that, her mind returned to the moment her vaginal muscles had crushed the crowded plane she had used as a dildo.
 
For an instant Laura felt some weight on her chest. The images in her mind seemed to rewind and the plane’s fuselage collapsed like tinfoil once more as she reached her climax. Laura panted, feeling short of breath. A battle started in the back of her mind. Her body tensed, ending the peaceful float she had enjoyed over the last minute. Laura kicked and soon found solid footing, easily reaching the ocean’s bed with her upper torso and head still comfortably above the waterline.
 
She took a deep breath. And suddenly, something snapped in her subconscious. Her breathing accelerated at first, but the cadence of her inhales and exhales started slowing down almost as quickly as it had accelerated. In less than a minute, she was standing still in the middle of the Pacific, her stance perfectly calm.
 
If someone had been around, he would have heard her muttering:
 
“Why shouldn’t I?”
 
And like this,   with a simple sentence, uttered after a just a few minutes of mental debate, Laura’s approach to her condition and to the world had changed forever.
 
The confrontation taking place at her head had been brief but intense. Suddenly facing everything she had done since waking up turned into a goddess, Laura felt like a fraud for an instant. She had examined her actions and had called herself what she had been: a hypocrite, preaching grand intentions while using her power selfishly and to cause death and destruction without specific purpose.
 
The thought had anguished her… until she had realized about another obvious truth. There was only one person she responded to, and it was no other than herself.
 
In case her growth had been the product of her mind’s will, this truth was unquestionable. But even of someone else had been involved on it, the fact that she had been left on her own to do as she pleased for so long and after the many displays of arbitrary use of power she had gone through told her that whoever was behind her current condition was fine with her doing as she was.
 
This knowledge, together with the certainty that there was nothing the tiny population of the world could do to stop her made Laura herself the only judge of her actions.
 
And when the pressure on her chest had started to become unbearable, her mind unlocked the solution to it.
 
“Why shouldn’t I?” she had asked to herself, standing in the middle of the Pacific.
 
The pressure was gone in an instant. And so was a mask Laura had been wearing the entire morning and that she had now got rid of with a simple shrug.
 
By the end of her mental struggle, Laura finally come to terms with her true psychology. She wanted to take over the world. And she loved being gigantic. She had longed for both things for a long time, but while they blended in really well, they were not necessarily related.
 
In more recent times her mind had built an elaborate scheme where her political ambitions and her giantess fantasy were related. By doing that she had been able to build a reasoning behind her fetish while, at the same time, finding a way out for her illusions of power. And once she had woken up, finding herself in the spot she had always longed for, she had played by those rules she had built for herself.
 
Laura now realized that those rules had been constraining her during the entire morning, inhibiting her from doing what she wanted. A quick reminiscence of her sexual games at the airport or with the trains made her reformulate that last thought, though. She had actually done quite a bit of stuff, but it was not nearly all that had come to mind. And she had had to invest a considerable amount of time to rationalize it afterwards.
 
Well, not anymore.
 
Once she had realized that she was the only reason behind her inhibitions, the solution presented itself to Laura. All she had to do was to permanently activate a mental switch that had always been there but she had seldom used.
 
She repeated the sentence:
 
“Why shouldn’t I?”
 
She was louder this time. It made no difference. There was no one around.
 
And, as simple as that, Laura Anderson decided that she was going to use her size and power as she pleased and that she did not care about the consequences.
 
It was an inflexion point. The inflexion point. Laura smiled, then looked at the around her, observing the world from a new mentality.
 
From her vantage point of view she found the trails in the water soon enough. It was easy enough to find the ships they belonged too. There was a varied collection of them: fishing boats, tankers, cargo ships. The fact that they were so close together could only mean one thing: they had packed to try to flee from her, their original courses probably taking them too close to the spot where she was.
 
Laura felt a sudden urge to play with them, as if they were mere bathtub toys. Her smile widened and she muttered:
 
“Why shouldn’t I?”
 
 
 
 
“She broke from her restraints” Laya said.
 
“It was about time she did” Quo replied.
 
“You were expecting it?” Laya asked.
 
“Of course”
 
“I thought we had chosen this specific individual because of her morals” Laya said.
 
“I did”
 
“I’m afraid I don’t understand” Laya said.
 
“It’s all part of the process. She’s not done yet” Quo replied.
 
Laya looked at her mentor, visibly puzzled.
 
“Her morals will come into play. They are actually related to what I care the most about her: her purpose” Quo stated.

 

Chapter 15  
 
 
Captain Jacobs had been long enough at sea to know how fast the tide could turn. And it just had, against them.
 
The murmurs and whispers around him in the deck of the Barracuda told him that the rest of his crew had noticed, as he had, that the giant woman had not only come back from her momentary trance but that she was wading in their direction. He had had some hopes at the beginning, but after a few steps and after looking at her expression, it was obvious that she was not advancing towards some indeterminate point but that she had a target in mind: them.
 
He looked at the radar to see how the rest of the ships that had slowly but steadily packed into the same area where they were reacted. The problem with ships, of course, was that they were relatively slow, so Captain Jacobs could only see some hints at their changes of direction.
 
“Cap? What do we do?”
 
He hesitated for a second. He knew that nothing they could do would change the outcome of whatever had to happen. Right now, their fate depended exclusively on the will of the gigantic young woman advancing towards them.
 
So young, so good looking… and so massive, the girl, barely a woman in Captain Jacobs' old eyes, looked like Poseidon's daughter. And he would have believed she was, had he not heard extensively about her profile on the radio. 
 
Rather than the daughter of a Greek deity, he knew that the woman inexorably moving their way had been born in Emerald as a normal-sized human and that her name was Laura Anderson. She was 22, had recently graduated and worked in a local department store. Or at least, had worked there until she had woken up a few hours before, turned into a goddess.
 
Because, she might not be related to the Greek Pantheon, but in Samuel Jacob’s mind there was no doubt that she was a goddess. There was nothing about her or the way she behaved that could suggest otherwise. Other than her size, Laura Anderson’s attitude had nothing to do with that of a normal woman. That was very obvious to Sam. The way she moved, the way she smiled, the way she looked at the world around her… was that of a goddess, even if she had only been one for a less than a day.
 
A question popped up in Captain Jacob’s mind:
 
“How come it only takes a size boost to turn a regular girl into a god?”
 
Then, he had another:
 
“How does a woman see the world when she suddenly turns into a creature like that?”
 
It was an important question. His immediate future and that of his crew depended on its answer.
 
 
 
 
Laura had had to get quite far away from the coast to find enough depth for her original hygienic purposes, which meant that the packed group of ships that had caught her attention were closer to the shore than she was. So, less and less of her prodigious body was hidden under the waterline as she approached them. By the time she was close enough, she was waist-deep, her entire titanic torso looming out of the water, waterfalls raining down her tanning skin like the Niagara.
 
It had taken her just a few minutes to wade what had originally looked like a large distance. The heterogeneous assembly of ships was now almost within her grasp, and she felt both content and excited by that. The crews on the ships did not share her enthusiasm. They had noticed her soon enough (how not to?) and their reactions ranged from cold fear to mindless panic. The old Laura had found this type of responses amusing; the new one found them thrilling.  
 
There must be a couple of dozen ships of all types and sizes in the neighborhood. To Laura, every single one of them looked like a toy. And free from any restraints and inhibitions for the first time since waking up in goddesshood, Laura was eager to play.  
 
“You guys make the most amazing set of bathtub toys I’ve ever had. How nice of you to pack together for me to play!” she said cheerfully.
 
And then, without further warning, Laura crouched and then disappeared under the water.
 
 
 
“Where the hell is she?” Captain Jacobs heard someone shout somewhere in a lower deck as the sea goddess disappeared under the water like a mermaid.
 
There had been a second of relief when her menacing presence was gone, but it was soon replaced by an even more uncertain fear as everyone realized that the danger was far from gone and that now they did not even have the advantage to know where it was coming from.
 
The Titaness’ words had been clear enough regarding her intentions, and now they would not even have the only advantage one is supposed to have when threatened by a giant creature: seeing it.
 
The Barracuda started rocking a few moments later, the violence of the movement increasing by the second. The radar screen turned crazy by the time the boat felt as if would be torn in two… and then the rocking started going down in intensity.
 
Samuel Jacobs swallowed hard when he realized that whatever the goddess was doing under water, it was generating worse currents than a typhoon.
 
A few calm moments followed. Samuel knew that, in the sea, total calm usually only happened right before the worst of the storm.
 
Not a minute had passed when the horn of a large cargo ship to their starboard started blaring. Its trail suddenly disappeared, and Captain Jacobs saw it being left behind. He was ashamed when his first thought was around how lucky they had been not to be the first victims of the giantess. 
 
 
 
 
Being able to hold her breath for what felt like forever was a nice plus of her transformation. So was the ability to see perfectly well under the water.
 
Laura had already been a good swimmer, a skill which blended in very well with her newfound abilities.  Moving her colossal body under the water with the grace of a mermaid, Laura advanced towards the ships, which were visible on the surface.  
 
She did not stop when she reached the first boats in the group. Her observations from below matched the ones she had made when standing over the surface: the bigger ones were in the center.
 
Instead, she kept diving until she got close enough to one of the largest ships in the assembly. If she recalled correctly, it was a cargo ship. Getting as close to the ocean bed as she could, Laura rotated her body and looked up at the ship, which rivaled with her in size. Somehow she did not like that fact, which made her to unconsciously adopt a rougher attitude with it.
 
Laura barely needed a very mild paddling of her humongous feet to keep up with the snail's pace of the ship. After a few seconds, she decided to make things even easier and just reached out for the two supposedly massive propellers. Made of thick steel, they had been designed to channel the power of the formidable turbines the ship boasted and gave it enough traction to sail the seas. They broke with ease when Laura closed her fingertips around them, much to her delight.  
 
The ship abruptly changed speed, only the momentum of its previous traction managing to push it forward. Laura was certain everyone on the freighter had realized about her presence by now. Focusing her newfound mental abilities, she smirked when she felt waves of panic emanating from the metallic confines of the freighter.
 
Happy with her game of cat and mouse, Laura decided not to make her presence obvious and to play with the people’s panic from below them, much like the Kraken. Grabbing both sides of the boat with her delicate but oversized hands, she easily stopped it in its tracks, feeling the fear on the upper decks increase.
 
It was time to get a bit rougher. Not too much, yet. She wanted her toy to last. So, she decided to rock the ship quite lightly, enjoying how confusion joined fear in the general mood of the crew.
 
Laura waited a few seconds, letting the sailors recover, and then rocked the boat again, quite rougher this time. She could feel how pain joined the other two feelings. Far from concerned, she was somewhat amused that an act that felt so simple to her could wreck so much havoc among the crew. Of course, it was far from the first time she felt like this through the course of the day, but being underwater, soothed by the oceanic currents, it felt even more extreme.  
 
She could have been at it forever, but this was far from the only ship in the group and Laura was eager to play with all. She was making her mind up about how to finish her starting game and focus on the bigger picture when an idea came to mind, sending waves of pleasure down her spine.
 
Being tall and attractive, Laura had enjoyed the attention before. After having become a giant, she had turned into nothing short of a show-off. There was no point in denying it. Smiling with her lips still sealed underwater, she started to maneuver for her grand appearance.  
 
 
 
Like most people in the improvised flotilla, Captain Jacobs was in the top deck of his ship, watching as the MSC Aral was left behind, its crew waving their hands in panic in the decks around the bridge.
 
And then, all hell broke loose. It was not lost to Samuel Jacobs that once the overall situation was considered, arguing about all hell breaking loose was major words. But he could not find any other way to refer to what was just happening.    
 
The Aral had stopped dead in its tracks a few seconds before. Sam instinctively knew, even if it was hard to imagine, what had happened. Then, the water around the massive freighter started bubbling, as if someone had turned a boiler on underneath it, and the hull of the ship started tilting. 
 
“Oh my God!” Sam caught himself screaming. His men looked at him and he was conscious that he had done nothing to calm them down. He did not care anymore. There was no point in trying to remain calm in a situation like the one they were living.
 
The Aral kept on raising among the bubbling water until the keel of the ship started to become visible, now well above the waterline. Among the confusion of the situation, it felt as if the freighter was becoming airborne. It was not until the Aral was quite higher than everyone could distinguish the two massive hands taking hold of the hull and pushing it upwards.  
 
The water continued bubbling long after the ship was too high the be the source of the commotion. It wasn’t. Not long after the slender arms the hands had belonged to had shown, a large brownish mass of something resembling seaweed appeared, followed by the rest of the young woman’s head. Shoulders, breasts and the rest of her torso followed, raising up with the steadiness and grace of a gymnast having completed her routine and saluting the jury.
 
By the time her emergence was done, the giant woman was standing in the ocean, water barely reaching her navel as she held a ship as large as herself above her head as if it were a weightless pool raft. There was no sign in her that she was straining to do so.
 
Samuel had been intimidated by the giant woman before. He felt ridiculed by her presence now.
 
 
 
Laura loved the staging she had come across. The reactions across the flotilla were very noticeable. Quickly tapping on her new mental muscle, she could feel how her entrance had been received at the same time her keen eyes showed her the expressions of those in other boats.
 
Thousands of eyes were glued to her, and the overall feeling among her audience was a combination of fear and awe. She loved it. The freighter was not the first massive ship she held, but her recent change in attitude made her enjoy the fact that it was piece of cake to hold it in place even more arousing.  
 
Laura felt herself getting excited again, as in any previous occasion where she had displayed her power to the world. She wondered how long she would be able to go this time before her womanly needs became too pressing. If anything, her libido seemed to have grown in proportion to her. At 22, Laura had been at the zenith of her sexuality, but the level of lustfulness she had felt since growing was beyond any of her previous experiences.
 
Anyway, this was not the moment to waste too much time on this. If anything, she had learned that getting satisfied at her new scale was not so tough as she could have imagined when she had awakened.
 
Right now, with the entire flotilla observing her, it was time to put on a different type of show.
 
She slowly rotated, facing the area most crowded with ships. Then, projecting her deep and powerful voice, she addressed them.
 
"I think I was very clear that this is my city now," she said, her tone as imposing as it got. "And I do not remember having given anyone permission to leave." 
 
She contained a smile as she felt around to notice the fear increasing. Well, they had not seen anything yet.
 
“A while ago I would have just commanded you to get back. But you know… I’m starting to realize that you tiny people have a hard time to understand how things are working on now that I’m here. Who knows… maybe I just put too much faith in you” she said.
 
It was time for the blow.
 
“So, let me be much clearer. There is only one way you get to leave my city. This one”
 
Without further word, Laura arched her arms back, holding the freighter over her head as if it were some massive and weightless beach ball. Then, without warming, she shot her arms forward and release her hold on the ship, sending its forty thousand tons flying over the rest of ships in the flotilla.
 
Seeing something so massive being shot like that was among the most spectacular sights the day had brought to Emerald. Laura enjoyed every second of it.
 
And judging by the thousands of emotions her new skill was reading, everyone else in the area was appalled by the sight. This was a more impulsive Laura now, so different to some of her previous interventions; she had not actually planned for the sort of reaction she was seeking. The one that she had got worked perfectly well, in any case. 
 
She tried to guess what had struck the people the most. A freighter like the one she had just tossed did not hold so much crew, so she doubted that she had killed any more people with this action than with any of her steps before. Doing it as she had done, so spectacularly, had obviously had an impact on the drama effect, though.    
 
Needless to say, Laura was not too worried about this new episode of loss of life. If anything, she felt curious. In her new state of mind, she merely saw it as an opportunity to explore a bit more her impact and the possibilities she had.
 
It was for this reason that the next ship she chose to devote her attention to was much more packed than the freighter she had used to show everyone her strength. It was yet another cruise ship. Having already disabled and brought back a few of its cousins earlier in the morning, the sight of it rebelling against her will gave Laura a certain resolve to chastise it.
 
Without further word, she gyrated in the direction of the ocean liner and started to calmly wade towards it. She enjoyed every second of the panic that ensued as each of her steps cut the distance with the massive passenger ship.
 
She caught up with it soon enough. She did not do anything immediately, though. She just took a step to the side and kept wading, keeping parallel to the massive ship, not taking care to leave a safe enough distance. The effects of her wading soon started rocking the ship with violence, adding physical pain to the overwhelming fear she sensed.
 
She soon reached the prow and turned, placing herself on the ship's way, close enough to prevent it from any possibility of maneuvering. She chuckled when the hull groaned and cracked as it crashed into her flat stomach at the height of her deep belly button. Needless to say, hundreds of people in the ship were thrown around as a result of the impact.   
 
“You will go no further” Laura said in a deep, solemn tone, not even raising her voice.
 
Then, she crouched and brought her massive face over the main deck of the cruise ship. It looked different from the cruise ships she had intercepted before. This one was even more packed, with people crowding the exterior areas. She realized that rather than regular tourists the liner she was looking at now was carrying what she guessed could be considered refugees.
 
It was obvious that they hated her close attention, but they had nowhere to go. The ship was too packed. She remained there, crouched, looking at their tiny forms as they tried to recover from the collision with her unyielding form.
 
After a minute, she pushed her lips out and puffed out a light exhalation, sending a few dozen people off their feet once more. She could not help but giggle. She would not have needed her new seventh sense to realize that her childish game had brought a new feeling to the equation: anger. It suited her well.
 
Trying to choose one of the angriest people in the mob, she moved her hand and used her bus-length fingers to push some people around and finally pinch two tinies between her fingertips.
 
"You're so puny… so worthless…" she said in a soft tone that instilled terror not only in her two direct victims. "You challenge me, get mad at me, but when the moment comes, you are helpless to do anything" she added. "As individuals, you're nothing. As a society, you may be worth ruling."  
 
She then dropped them back in the crowd without warning. The difference in scale was too much for them not to be injured, but she did not think they were dead. Laura focused and let their fear and awe sink in. Somehow, she knew that there were 5,348 people on the ship.
 
Laura stood up and placed her hands on her hips in a commanding pose as she looked down at the panicked crowd.
 
“You are all mine” she said in a matter of fact tone. “Whether you like it or not”
 
She felt a spike of rage coming from the cruise and smirked. Then, a tempting idea ran through her head. Free from all inhibitions, Laura decided that the cruise ship was as good a field test as any.
 
“Oh, you think you at least have the right to be mad at me, don’t you? Well, you don’t” she added.
 
Once she was done, she focused on her mental muscle and tried to project submission into the people in the ship. It was hard to control. On the one hand, she had to choose the feeling she wanted to project and on the other, she needed to keep the "connections" under control. She was broadcasting, but she wanted to keep it limited to the people on the ship. To her inner mind, it felt like adding and keeping some links to her overpowered mind while she used them to force a feeling into the other end. She had a vague intuition about how the process worked, but God did it require focus!          
 
Laura realized that she would need a lot of training to develop this new ability. Once, back when she was a girl, Laura had broken her leg. It had been in plaster for close to two months, but the hardest part had been trying to regain her mobility first, and agility later after the plaster was gone. Her leg muscles had been atrophied, and it had required training to make them fully functional again. Up to some point, she felt the same with her new mental power. She did not know how long it had been there, but having never used it, Laura was pretty sure that it would be atrophied. It was up to her to develop it. And she was eager to do so.  
 
The crowd in the ship looked like a good enough sparring for the needed training, so once she felt like she had a good enough hold on her connection, she forced submission into them. The results were exhilarating. The crowd suddenly abandoned their fear and anger and as one became quiet and docile. Laura let a loud laugh out, but not even this managed to disturb the crowd's new attitude.
 
Then, like someone surfing and about to lose her balance, Laura felt the link wavering. She tried to get a hold of it. It was a disaster. Much like the inexperienced surfer trying to overcompensate, Laura ended up loading her link to the crowd too much. The consequences were dire.
 
In front of her, people started dropping to their knees with their hands in their heads or just passing out. Well, she thought that at first. After a short while, it became obvious that she had ended up frying more than a few brains.
 
She blushed slightly, feeling somewhat embarrassed at the results of her action. Of course, she was not going to admit it to the people. But she did not see the need to torture them anymore after a quick look told her that the body count was probably more in the hundreds than in the dozens.
 
She turned and sheepishly waded away, leaving the crowd in the ship alone and recovering from the massive shock they had been subjected to. Without her mental tampering, panic came back, and this time it was even increased a couple of notches as people slowly started to realize what had happened to them.
 
Needing a few seconds to reflect, Laura ignored some of the closest ships and went for the farthest one in the group.
 
She would need to train her mental muscle. She had thought it before, but she had fully understood it now. In a way, she was happy at finding out just how powerful it seemed to be, but this also meant that she had a lot of work to do to sharpen it. 
 
She would need to choose her sparring victims more carefully. She now knew that this ability could be as destructive as her physical ones, but she needed it for more than just that. If she started using it on crowds and frying people in the process… well, this would not help in its popularity.
 
Her thoughts had carried her to the edge of the flotilla, and she faced the weirdest ship she had seen yet. It was rather large, although not so much as the freighter she had tossed or the cruiser she had tortured. But its shape made it stand out from the rest. To Laura's untrained eye, the ship looked like a medium-sized freighter with four "boobs." She ignored the words LNG at the side and just approached the boat with curiosity.   
"Well, well, well… what do we have here? This looks like a boob ship!" she said cheerfully. "You boys know how to appeal a mega lesbian like me, don't you?" she joked.
 
As she got closer, something else caught her attention, though. It was orange, it dropped from a considerable height, and its splash was noticeable enough when it hit the water. Incredibly curious, Laura waded towards it and crouched to take a closer look. 
 
She marveled when she saw it was some boat and promptly reached for it. Its sturdiness was refreshing as she picked it with three fingers and raised to her full height, bringing it to her face.
 
“Oh wow! This is one of those lifeboats in really fancy ships, isn’t it?” Laura said aloud.
 
She was turning her head and bringing her massive right eye close to the potholes and inspected the interior. She marveled when she saw a pretty thick crowd of people piled up inside.
 
“Oh my God! There’s a ton of you there!”
 
She had the naughtiest idea just then.
 
"Look, I never said that I was going to sink your ship, so there was no need to abandon it, but I guess it was reasonable enough to take precautions. The thing is… I'm feeling a little guilty, and honestly, I don't see you guys going all the way to the coast in this piece of crap. So, let me do this: I'll carry you!" 
 
She sensed the interior of the freefall boat with care, not to repeat recent mistakes. She felt a combination of puzzle and fear. She giggled and added:
 
“Besides, you won’t tell me you have not noticed the dildo shape before?”
 
Laura now sensed an increasing concern, but ignored it and just lowered the lifeboat to her private parts. It was nicely shaped, true, but it fell a bit short on the size department. She would feel it, but at a bit less than 4 inches in length, it did not qualify as a good cock. Well, beggars can't be choosers, she guessed, so she just proceeded to slide it in. 
 
She had, of course, already noticed how moist she was. The ease of the process to “park” the lifeboat into herself made it evident that she was ready again for wilder rides.
 
"I will probably need to start looking for something a bit more permanent to calm down my urges,"  Laura thought, knowing as she knew, that her previous attempts had ended up with broken mass transportation vehicles and dozens of victims.
 
The lifeboat felt pleasurable, but its lack of size soon proved to be limiting when it came to physical pleasure. She tried to accommodate it a couple of times but abandoned hope after a short while. Well, at least she had the psychological excitement of holding some people inside her. At first, guessed, she thought she might have around 50 guests in her sweet spot.        
 
The thought was thrilling. Being inside the boat, they would have enough air and supplies to last the ride. Which meant that she had captured her first permanent guests or prisoners. She discounted the two unfortunate people she had carried in her earrings for a short while and that had died when her orgasmic screams had proven to be too much for a regular man to live near her.    
 
Feeling her nipples harden, Laura reached for the “boobs” of the ship close to her. It was amazing how, by pure coincidence, the scale of the metallic containers (or whatever they were) was quite in line with Stacy’s breasts. Winking an eye to the ship, Laura reached out and caressed the container closest to her.
 
Obviously enough, it felt very different to the touch. Where Stacy’s breasts were soft and warm the ship’s boob was cold and unyielding. Well, at least unyielding to a regular caress. Feeling naughty, Laura squeezed a little harder, trying to get some reaction from the ship. She did, but it was far from the one she had been expecting.
 
Laura had not known what LNG meant. Had she known it was a liquefied gas carrier, she would have probably not understood the destructive potential of its contents. Designed to carry high amounts of gas at incredibly high pressures, the explosive power of a ship like the one she had been playing with only felt short of a nuclear explosion. Once the unfathomable strength of her fingers broke through the seemingly reinforced metal of one of the four spherical gas containers, the chain reaction was unavoidable. It happened so   fast that all Laura managed to notice was a strength like none she had felt since her growth throwing her backward.  
 
She had been thrown backward!
 
Her ears whistled as she tried to stand up, visibly disoriented. There was a fire in the water around her, but there were no remainders of the LNG ship to be seen. Scanning her surroundings as her senses came back to their normal keenness, Laura saw that the LNG had not been the only victim. A few boats around her were either destroyed or sinking, and fires had ensued in some that were even farther away.
 
The radius of destruction of the explosion must have been huge!
 
Laura moved her hands along her body and tried to feel for any injuries, worried for the first time since her growth about the consequences of something. Was it possible that she was not indestructible? After all… the explosion had sent her backward!
 
She regained her full senses and realized that there was not a scratch on her body. The force of the explosion had been enough to move her hundreds of thousands of tons but not enough to even put a blemish on her skin.   
 
Somehow this relaxed her. It made her think back about herself as an all-powerful, unstoppable goddess. But she had to admit that her self-confidence had suffered for a few seconds.
 
Frowning, she scanned her surroundings once more. The flotilla was not gone, but it was visibly decimated. It did not look like such a source of fun anymore. Also, feeling somewhat embarrassed, Laura did not feel like staying in the area anymore. There was only one way to go, then: back to the city.
 
She remained silent as she chose the most direct route to Emerald and started wading towards it. Feeling quite mean about the entire situation, she smashed her fist on top of a small fishing boat as she passed by it. She did not even stop to check its name as the boat was turned into a thousand splinters of wood that sank into the ocean bed. If she had, she would have seen that it was the Barracuda.
 
Halfway to the coast, Laura remembered something and reached into her cunt. Seeing that her “guests” and their boat were in almost perfect condition was encouraging and managed to lift her spirits.
 
"I saved you," she said in a more relaxed tone before bringing them back in.
 
In a way, it was true. It was also true that she had been the only cause of the massive destruction around her, of course.  
 
The sight of the well-preserved lifeboat was more reinvigorating than she had thought at first. As she kept on advancing towards the city, she realized that its survival meant that she was truly impregnable.
 
Feeling more relaxed with every step, Laura started to ponder about what to do once she got back into Emerald. Even from a distance she could see the areas of the city that had  been affected by her previous presence, but the truth was that there was more of the city left intact than the parts that had suffered her size.
 
Her final destination was obvious. She had postponed meeting Stacy for too long already. But… well, Stacy did not live by the sea, and there was no reason she could not play with the city a bit on the way there, was it? It was time for Emerald to enjoy her new attitude.
 
 
 
"She's out of her path," Laya said.
 
“She is. It had to happen” Quo replied, relaxed.
 
"The more I talk to you, the more I realize how much you have not told me," Laya said. There was no acritude in her tone; she was stating a fact.    
 
“Well, this is an experiment I’ve been preparing forever, so it’s natural that I know much more about it than you. It’s also a good enough chance to teach my most advanced assistant about how to think” Quo said.
 
"I had guessed that…" Laya mentioned. "How am I doing so far?" she asked, making it sound light.
 
“Oh, I never make mistakes… and I chose you, didn’t I?” Quo said.
 
"You flatter me," Laya said.
 
“Indulge me… what do you think is going on?” Quo asked.
 
"Lateral paths," Laya said, moving her four arms in their equivalent to a shrug.
 
“Brilliant” Quo replied, smiling.
 
"She wanted to rule the world, and she wanted to be a just ruler. This path would have led her to a cul-de-sac sooner or later. You gave her enough abilities and incentives so that her wildest side would momentarily prevail and she would let go. She has done so by embracing her fantasy over her political goals. She needs to do that to become as ruthless as she will need to be, no matter how much she had said she was at the beginning. But from what you are telling me, you have also included something in her conditioning or abilities that will prevent her from going too far or diverting too much from her original objectives. So, she will be bitchier than she ever thought she would, she would cause gratuitous death and destruction, but when the time comes, this will make her better ready for what she will need to do. And since we are worried about the results and not about the morals of her decisions or her path, we are fine with it."  
 
“You know what… this was so good that I think it’s a good enough time for me to take a break and let you oversee the next phase on your own for a while”.

 

Chapter 16

 

Emerald had barely had time to recover from its most dreadful morning. The giant woman had waded out of the city a couple of hours ago, but that had barely given the emergency services time to deploy to some of the affected areas. There were so many, and all of them were so fucked up that it was hard for them to choose. 
 
The consequences of her presence had been dire, but the worst part for the city was the uncertainty about the future. Was she gone for good?
 
The massive explosion in the sea, close to where the horizon met the water surface, was easily seen around the entire city. In a normal day, it would have been considered remarkable news. Today, it was the trigger for a new wave of consternation. No one had any doubts about who was behind it.
 
Soon, her towering form came into view over the horizon, and the general unrest gave way to new widespread panic. 
 
“Oh my God! She’s coming back!” could be heard as the crowds on the street resumed their running and screaming, even if they had no clue about where the giant woman would finally come ashore.
 
Her figure gradually increased in size and threat as the young woman approached, every step bringing her closer to the city and bringing the city closer to chaos.
 
On the opposite end of the situation, Laura felt content as she waded back into the city. Feeling content after the somewhat embarrassing incident with the gas boat, Laura sensed the fear in the population. Shared by millions of individuals, the signal was strong enough for her to feel it even from a few miles.
 
There was some underlying feeling in it. Laura chuckled when she realized it was hopelessness. Of course! Beyond some spare words to the crowd she had left on a rooftop, Laura had left the city without much of a farewell. She now realized that the people had probably hoped that she had left for good. Her smile widened, feeling excited about the discovery. This would make things so much better! It would work very well with her new attitude, too!  
 
She wondered what to do once she got back in town. Of course, it was not as if she had not caused plenty of mayhem in her morning of exploration, but she had done so while forcing herself to be relatively restrained. That was gone now! Having split her world-conquering objective from her giantess fantasy, she was now ready to enjoy her size without inhibitions.
 
And hence, that was what she would do. Laura was ready to play a bit in the city.
 
She kept wading, getting closer and closer to her destination, its skyline feeling more of her horizon. The relative integrity of Emerald was noteworthy. Of course, the trail of her passage was easy enough to spot, most noticeably in the section of the city that had suffered her run from the Strauss Tower to the spot where she had intercepted the maglev. Curiously, the columns of smoke were easier to spot from her vantage point of view than the city blocks she had brought down. But, all in all, Emerald was still standing.
 
Curiously, she had a certain feeling of failure, as ridiculous as that was. Logically, Laura knew that Emerald was a huge, 8-million-people metropolis. Even for a woman of her scale and power, a city like that could withstand plenty of messing unless she really got her mind into bringing it down. And that was not what she had been doing. And it neither was what she was planning to do now.
 
She was not in for mass destruction. She just wanted to indulge herself.
 
Her thoughts entertained her all the way to the city. She was soon standing in front of the commercial harbor, the one that was used by cargo ships. She smiled in anticipation as she took the final steps towards it, seeing what it had become. She did not find a better way to describe it than a refugee area.
 
Apparently, despite her previous antics with the cruise ships, plenty of people in the city had decided to flee it by sea. The flotilla she had intercepted had probably been part of this effort. It was not in fancy cruise ships this time, but people were getting anywhere they could, including some of the rustiest freighters around.
 
Ships of all kind lined up in the harbor while some others waited their turn, as thousands of people packed the docks. They had been screaming for a place in one of the ships a few minutes ago. They were screaming at the sight of her, now.
 
Laura was amused by the sheer terror her reappearance was causing in the population. Well, if anything, she could say that it served the people well. She had been very clear about her intentions and in her instructions to the population. She did not want them leaving. She had done as much on her part as she had been able to stall mobility. And still, they were trying to flee from the city. She did not like it. And, more importantly, she could not tolerate the challenge. 
 
So, now that the gloves were off, she was going to do something about it.
 
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” Laura said in a threatening tone as she approached the docks, now taken over by chaos.
 
"From up here, I could swear that you guys are trying to leave my city" Laura then added. "I thought I had been very clear with you that I did not want that." 
 
She fine-tuned her mental muscle a bit to feel the rising panic in the crowd immediately in front of her. Water was barely reaching mid-shin by the time she stopped, hands on her hips, between two of the ships that were waiting their turn to dock on the harbor.
 
"So, let me see if I can make you understand once and for all. The world is not the same since I woke up this morning. I have changed the rules. You belong to me. You will obey me. And those of you who cannot accept living under me will die under my foot."
 
Laura lifted her right leg high out of the water as she said the last words. She held it there for a couple of seconds, causing a general murmur of awe. And then, she mercilessly stomped the ship to her right, which had a convenient enough size to be completely flattened by her sole as she pushed it into the ocean bed.
 
The screams erupted again, with renewed vigor. Laura loved them. She knew she was showing herself as a significantly meaner goddess now, but she did not mind. It was due to happen, she realized. If anything, being unrestrained would help her achieve her objectives faster.
 
"You know?" she wondered aloud. "I'm not above using a few thousand of you to set an example."
 
Laura had to tune down her mental abilities a bit since the panic was almost reaching annoying levels. Taking another step, she repositioned herself next to a large freighter that was half full of people and crouched down. The sight of the would be refugees from up close was strangely delightful.
 
"So, you think you can get away from me," Laura said in a matter of fact tone. "Well, my fist thinks otherwise" she added.
 
Closing her right hand in a fist, she raised it over her head and then slammed it in the freighter without pulling back. It was spectacular, her knuckles easily breaking through layer after layer of metal until they reached the ship's keel. The ship was torn in three: a central part, smashed by her fist and two edges that were sinking in the harbor's relatively shallow water faster than the Titanic. 
 
Laura stood back up and enjoyed the reaction coming from the land.
 
"Yeah, that's right people. The giant woman is not holding back anymore."
 
She kept her hands on her hips as she observed the pandemonium with a sneer on her face. Then, in an impulse, she crouched down again, cupped her hands together and splashed thousands of gallons of water into the crowd. They were washed away like dirt, their centimeter-tall bodies not being able to withstand the tsunami she had so casually unleashed on them. Laura snorted as she stood back up and took the first step into the harbor, forcing her step just a bit, like a woman getting on a bus.   
 
As usual, her feet sunk deeply into the ground, dragging water into them and forming puddles the size of Olympic swimming pools. Her previous clearing of the grounds only granted her half a dozen of free steps. Soon, she was standing right behind what remained of the mob.
 
The easy move would have been stepping on them. Instead, Laura bent low and swept her hand, sending dozens of cargo containers that had been nicely stacked up rolling into the crowd. It was a massacre. Eager to take a closer look, she knelt on the ground, crushing people and containers alike under her knees and bent lower. Her hair dragged and threw some of the unlucky people that had ended up in the area. She ignored them and just bent lower, bringing her face very close to the laggards in the crowd. 
 
She blew softly on them, just for fun, and giggled when dozens were sent off their feet by her careless gesture. When one of them, who had reached his limit, stood up and turned to face her, she was momentarily amused until he took a gun from the back of his pants and emptied its clip on her. Needless to say, she did not feel the ridiculous bullets. She barely heard its sound. But of course, what had happened was very clear.
 
Without even crossing a word with him, Laura reached forward and flicked the tiny guy. His shattered body flew over dozens of city blocks before dropping back into the ground. She had no illusions of him suffering during his flight, though. She was pretty certain he had died instantly on contact.
 
Bored, Laura slammed her fist randomly in the fleeing mob. Her actions were having their toll on the crowd, which was thinning noticeably. This also meant that it was scattering around, making it less obvious where to go next to maximize her punishment.
 
Spying a stack of cylindrical containers and deducing what was inside, she decided that she did not need to do all the hard work herself when she could use the tools at her disposal. Picking up one of the containers, she looked for a target and smirked at the sight of one of the ship refueling stations in the dock. Then, without further notice, she threw one into the other.
 
The explosion was massive. Of course, not so massive as the one she had caused back at sea, but massive enough to engulf part of the crowd in flames.
 
She felt a dark satisfaction at the results of her rampage. One of the consequences, though, was that there was not much of a crowd to mess with. Declaring her action at the harbor a decisive win, Laura stood back up and just looked for a suitable spot to get into the city.
 
She smiled when she identified the obvious one and took the first step towards her new destination. Looking over her shoulder, she left some farewell words for the shocked survivors.  
 
"That's right, people. Goddess Laura is back, and she is not taking any shit from you anymore."
 
 
 
 
 
It had been the city’s toughest day, but it had been even tougher for Clark. Seeing his city being attacked by a skyscraper-sized woman on TV had been surrealistic enough, but everything that had happened to him from then onwards had been several orders of magnitude worse.
 
Out of sheer luck, Clark had had a maglev ticket for Palmsdale at noon. And seeing the fate of his city at risk on TV, he rushed to the station to take that train as if it were the last shuttle out of a dying earth. He had had to fight less than expected to get on the maglev. He had later learned that the giant woman had fucked mobility in the city so much, that for most people it had been impossible to get to the station on time.
 
Clark's fear all the way to the station and during the boarding process had been for the woman to show up and rip the roof of Grand Central off, as it would have happened in most B-movies. So, when the low humming of the magnets indicated that the train was moving, he caught himself cheering, along with the rest of the passengers. 
 
The speedometer at his car’s end kept on climbing. Clark started feeling relaxed when he saw it moving beyond the 200mph mark and steadily raise towards the 300. And then, all hell had broken lose.
 
He had vague memories of the crash. And then, just mixed dreams of what had happened afterward. His shredded clothes and noticeable cum in his pants seemed to validate some of the wildest blurred images. Still, he could not believe he had participated in some type of collective sex exercise over the giantess' body.  
 
Images of him being held on the woman's palm, along with many others, were clearer than the memories of the previous moments. And the moment when she had set them on the roof of the seventy stories tall office building by the coast was the clearest of them all. 
 
He remembered the feeling of uneasy calm as the woman turned and got away from them. She had threatened with coming back, of course, but after a very long while, the consensus among the more than thirty people trapped with him was that she would not. Which incentive would she have to do it, after all?
 
They started calling the emergency services soon after they had reached that conclusion. The roof had no direct access to the building, so their only chance was to wait for a helicopter to rescue them. They were told that they would be brought down. They were not on the top of the priority list, however. No matter how stressful being in the palm of the giant woman had been, they were in considerably less danger than many of their fellow citizens now. 
 
There were protests, of course. After a while, they accepted it with resignation. The knowledge that the worst of it was over helped them through that.
 
And then, panic started rising amongst their ranks again. They first saw the giant coming back to the city. Then, they observed with panic as she employed herself harshly against the people in the docks. Things got out of control when she turned in their direction and started walking towards them.
 
For an instant everything became confusing. His head hurt like hell, and he was about to drop to his knees in pain.
 
And then, he felt calm again. The pain was gone. He felt at ease. Suddenly, Clark observed the approach of the giant with confidence, taking into her beauty and power. His dick reacted soon after. Around him, others did the same, lining into the edge of the roof to take a closer look at the advancing beauty. Hands dropped to erogenous parts. Moans ensued. And all he could think about was that he wanted to be near her.
 
 
 
 
The shortest path to her chosen emergence point was across the bay and, with the ocean being merely a glorified puddle to her now, Laura saw no reason not to take it.
 
Her enhanced sight let her close to her previous lovers. She had fond memories of them, of her sex session with the train and the discovery about her "power of suggestion." Apparently, her ex-lovers did not seem to share the fondness for her, their reaction as they saw her heading towards them not leaving too much room for interpretation.    
 
Laura frowned at first. And then she decided that if she did not like the way they were reacting to her, she could certainly do something about it.
 
Reaching out with her mind, she soon overwhelmed the links coming from the roof of the building, forcing them to attach to her. The connection was feeble since the distance was still vast, but not having too many links to hold made it easier to keep them up. Once she was reasonably certain that they would stay on, Laura let go a load of lust and eroticism into the group.
 
She smiled in satisfaction as she could not help but love the results, the formerly panicked crowd now looking at her with anticipation and touching themselves.
 
Not needing any more tampering, she let go and just focused on getting there quickly. Her emergence from the sea was more uneventful than that at the dock. The beach was empty, and so was the promenade that separated her target building from it.
 
Smiling in a quite slutty way, Laura just stepped by the high rise and looked down at her appeased crowd of admirers. She was about to mess with them when her mind told her that something wasn’t right. With her memory and her processing skills vastly improved, it did not take her long to find out what.
 
She had stood by this same building less than a couple hours ago when she had headed into the ocean to clean herself. She had dropped her lovers there and addressed them while looking down at them. She was looking down at them again, but the perspective had shifted. It was not something major, but it was noticeable.  
 
Overlapping her memories with her current view, she soon identified a good enough reference point. It was no other than her chest. The image in her mind showed the roof of the building reaching up to her erect nipples. And now, standing in a relaxed pose, it was evident that it could not even reach the underside of her breasts.
 
Shocked at the realization, Laura forced her mind a bit more. Every image she could recall and compare with the present situation gave her the same answer. It was unexpected, but it was also exhilarating. She let a laugh out as she understood that she had grown!
 
It had not been anything dramatic, maybe some 50 feet when she had been an impressive 1000 feet tall already. Most likely, no one except for her had realized about her change of scale. But she had, and it was the most amazing discovery since… well, she had had plenty of amazing discoveries over the course of the day.
 
In any case, the implications of her finding were very far-reaching. In the immediate term, being 1000' or 1050' would barely make a difference. The importance of the discovery was the fact that her size was not fixed. It was not limited. She could get bigger. And that was a hell of a conclusion.
 
For a few seconds, she tried to understand how it had happened. She soon realized that it was useless. For all she knew, it could have been exposure to the Sun or even the fact that she had kept on gradually growing ever since she had awakened. She wanted to find out, of course. Knowing that she could get bigger was amazing, but it was also important for her to understand how it worked. She had no clue about how she’d do it though, so she just decided to let for the moment she would enjoy her finding and keep observing to try to get more data.
 
In the meantime, she decided to enjoy the fact that her boobs were now above the roof level. Feeling a bit naughty, Laura winked at her subdued subjects and commanded them in a low bedroom voice:
 
"Make some room."
 
They complied at once, and she did not waste time to take a final step towards the high rise and rest her massive breasts at the edge of the roof.
 
Laura had always felt very proud of her body. She had reason to be. Even before her growth, she had been much taller than average. The combination of a privileged gene pool and her frequent trekking and work-out had shaped her imposing form magnificently. Her flat stomach was close to model-caliber, her impossibly long legs were smooth and silky, and her ass was world-class. The only part of her body she had ever had any regrets on was her chest. Her breasts were not tiny, but her large frame could have afforded larger ones. She knew that it was not fashionable among top models to have large breasts. Up to some point, she could use that excuse to brag about having a model body scaled up to a WNBA player height. But she could not fool herself. She was a lesbian. She loved large breasts, and all her girlfriends had always had them. Laura would have killed for a D-cup and would have committed genocide for an E.   
 
Still, her C-sized cups had the power of wrecking balls thanks to her size increase. Being strict, Laura now boasted the largest boobs in the world, at quite some difference from the runner-up. She might as well use that.
 
Weighing more than 5,000 tons each, her breasts soon made short work of the roof, caving it in in the spot where she rested them. She did not care since they were held firmly in position by pectoral muscles that could handle much more than that.     
 
Bringing her hands to her head in a relaxed position, she tapped onto her crowd of lovers and commanded them: 
 
“Suck!”
 
She snorted as she saw them fighting to get the best possible spot. And then she snorted again when she realized that there was no way they would be able to reach her nipples. She decided to help them a little by stooping slightly, making her breasts cave deeper into the building and making her nipples more accessible.
 
She could not help but laugh first and then moan when over a dozen people fought to service each of her breasts. Touching on them with her mind, she rewarded them by sending some pleasure back.
 
She was not going to get off out of the experience, but Laura was enjoying it enormously, both at an intellectual and physical level.
 
She let them go on for a while. When she felt them whimpering, she touched on them again and forced them to overcome their fatigue. She was not ready to let go yet.
 
She repeated the operation three more times. She stopped the entire process when a couple of people by her left breast passed out.
 
Stopping her tampering, she took a closer look and then pushed them slightly with her finger tip. They did not move. They could have blacked out… or worse.
 
Free from her mental hold, the remaining people in the roof looked dizzy. They gradually seemed to realize what was going on, and soon a few of them were screaming and heading to the opposite side of the roof. They did not do it too vigorously, though. Laura realized that she had forced them beyond exhaustion.
 
For a moment she questioned the morality of what she had done. Then she reminded something: there were no more morals than the ones she made. And messing with three dozen people did not seem so wild once she had established that killing a few thousands in a matter of minutes at the harbor was fair game.
 
Removing herself from the building and taking a step back, she looked at the incredibly battered crowd and said:
 
"You have done well."
 
They were afraid of her. She did not care. They had been good subjects, so she was more than willing to reward them.
 
Reaching down, Laura introduced two fingers into her cunt and messed with its contents. A few seconds and a moan later, she was setting a wet and sticky free fall lifeboat in the space the retiring crowd had left in the front of the roof.
 
She sensed inside the boat and tapped on those that were closer to the door. Her new ability did not allow her to give direct mental commands or to suppress free will. It gave her something that was close enough if she used it with care. Her mind muscle allowed Laura to establish connections with people and to set them in the right mental state. She was also beginning to understand that she could control the intensity, even if she did not have too much finesse on that front yet.   
 
So, reaching into the crowd in the boat, she projected submission and then just uttered the words:
 
"Open the back door."
 
It happened soon enough. Since she was at it, she included those in the roof in her mental lock and commanded:
 
“All of you, get inside. Quick”
 
They were way too tired to be too efficient, but they complied, to her satisfaction. Laura could not hard code any permanent state on people, just tamper with them while she focused on them. So, the moment she let her control go, everyone inside the boat started screaming. She decided not to control them mentally anymore. Instead, she just opted for an older fashion but equally effective technique and raised the boat to her face.
 
"You should feel privileged. You are the ones that will not die. Right now you are going to the safest spot on Earth for anyone who is not me" Laura said. Then, she added: "You are my private entourage. Do mi bidding, and I'll keep you alive." 
 
She did not give them any time to reply. She just shut the door with a finger and fit it back into her womanhood.
 
It was time to devote her attention to something else. And the two large, tit-shaped holes in the building’s façade where it met with the roof were an appealing enough sight.
 
Stooping, she looked through them and to her delight saw dozens of people scurrying. Laura used her fist to widen the opening a bit more so that she could get a better look.
 
“I guess you are wondering what I’m going to do with you, aren’t you?” Laura purred. Out of ideas, she just said “Don’t wonder too much” and slammed her fist in the first few floors of the building, obliterating everything and everyone.
 
Laura wanted a fresh crowd to play with, so she decided to try something else. Bringing her hands to the mid-section of the building, she turned her palms up and then mercilessly bulldozed her way inside from opposite sides of the high-rise.
 
With her hands now holding vast sections of the ceiling of what was the forty-second floor or the skyscraper, Laura pulled up. A few things crumbled, but the upper part of the building mostly remained in one piece as she kept pulling. With a bit more effort, she got what she had been looking for and removed the top twenty-eight stories from the rest.
 
Not having anything to do with them and not having any regrets or compassion either, Laura simply tossed the section of the building she had ripped to the side, smirking as she saw it spectacularly exploding as it hit the ground. She snorted and looked at the very startled crowd on the floor that had now become the penthouse. 
 
Winking at them, Laura said:
 
“I guess you were not expecting that”
 
She could not prevent a girlish giggle as she said it. She knew she was not too original, but she was having a great time.
 
The truth was that Laura had not thought beyond that point. A new look down showed her that her chosen entry point had left the building at a pretty convenient height for some activities, though.
 
"I guess you'll have already realized that I'm the most powerful person around. So, let me give you some piece of advice: you should all kiss my ass. Here, let me make it easier for you."
 
She doubted whether she had crossed the line into bullying mediocrity, but the new Laura was about having fun without inhibitions, so she did not see why she could not try some ideas, even if they probably were pretty stupid.
 
She turned and snorted once more when the screams indicated that the people in the building had already guessed what she was about to do. It did not stop her from doing it, of course. Laura just kept pushing her ass out and moving it towards the new “roof” of the high-rise, in the motion to sit.
 
Walls, office furniture and, of course, people disappeared with grim finality under the sensitive skin of her hard ass cheeks. She snorted once more, knowing perfectly well how humiliating the deaths that she was causing must be. By the time she completed her motion, Laura was resting her entire weight on the remainders of the office building. No matter how well it had been built, the architects had never designed it with the idea that its structure would eventually have the need to withstand over 300,000 tons of weight. So, after merely 2 seconds of resistance, floor after floor of the building started giving like wet tissue, sending Laura down.
 
She giggled like a girl in a theme park ride when her ass hit the ground, making her surroundings shake and forming a cloud of dust that raised all the way to her face.
 
Her giggle stopped halfway as dust got into her nose and Laura was very aware of what was going to happen next. The sneeze could be heard for blocks. She did not realize until a couple of seconds later that it was also felt. A short burst of the most violent wind out of Laura’s lungs yet caught a few dozen people in the area and pushed them with such force that they were dead way before they landed. This was not the most spectacular part, though. Seeing cars and trucks being sent around was exhilarating but what made Laura snort was the sight of the façade of the building across from her exploding at her girly act.
 
“Oh fuck!” Laura said aloud, slapping her thigh. “I end up causing mayhem in the funniest ways even when I don’t want to!”
 
Laura's inner girl was awake. These were not good news for the city. 
 
 
 
 
"She can grow?" Laya asked, taken by surprise. The more Laura did and found out; the more Laya realized that in her attempt to coach her, Quo had kept plenty of stuff from her. 
 
"You've seen it."
 
“What’s the purpose of it?” Laya asked.
 
“Why don’t you try to explain it yourself?” Quo proposed.
 
“You want to keep an incentive for her?” Laya suggested.
 
"Bull's eye," Quo said. 
 
"She does not know how it works, though," Laya said.
 
"She will eventually find out."
 
"This field test is way more complex than you had told me," Laya said, without any reproach in her voice.
 
"As you'll have realized already, humans are the most complex species we have found out so far, excluding ourselves. Their special biology and psychology have led them to a very special social organization too. This was never going to be straight forward. I've been preparing this for years."  
 
“You are going to get to the Board of Xenology after this” Laya said.
 
"Of course." Quo replied in a matter of fact tone. "That's not the important part."
 

Chapter 17

 

Feeling both powerful and playful, Laura stood up from the wreck she had just caused and looked for new sources of fun. She was aware of the fact that she was, once more, delaying her meeting with Stacy, but she now realized that she had been holding off in using her new size adequately and had some backlog.
 
Her antics with the building had given the crowds in the area some time to evacuate, but from her vantage point of view, now 50 feet over the 1000-foot mark, Laura had no trouble in finding them soon enough. It was just a matter of choosing. And she chose the largest one.
 
“Fee Fi Fo Fum!” Laura bellowed playfully to the city. “Ready or not, here I come!”
 
There were no apparent traces of the stateswoman she had wanted to be when she had shown up in the city and announced her intentions. She was there, waiting for a future occasion to come out, but right now all the city could see was the little girl that had had her lifelong fantasy come true. 
 
She paraded down the avenue as if it were a fashion runway, using her enhanced sight to observe the panic she could cause even from a dozen blocks away.
 
Feeling sexy, Laura took advantage of passing next to one of the tallest buildings in the area, which reached as high as her waist and slammed her butt into it with a sensual sideways movement of her shapely hip. The building never stood a chance, its top half crumbling like a sand castle at the tremendous blow.
 
“I guess they don’t build them like they used to” Laura mocked.
 
Soon enough she was standing right behind the crowd. Their screams reached her ears. Even from over a thousand feet above the people that uttered them. They were all waiting for her next step, for the blow that would sow a hundred lives. It never came. Laura just widened her stance and placed her hands on her hips, looking down with despise at the mass of people trying to flee from her. 
 
As usual, she was amused at their reactions to her. They were so utterly stupid that there was even some universal justice in finishing them. Up to some point, she was making the gene pool better. She knew she could not move forward with that criteria, though. If she were to be strict about it, she had the risk of depopulating the planet too much.   
 
She was tempted just to resume her walk and stomp them, but somehow it felt too easy. She had already done plenty of that when she had not been trying to amuse herself and knew everything that had to be known already. When the crowd was packed enough, each of her steps would kill around a hundred people, her sole feeling them popping right before the road under them sank, and she buried their splattered remainders several feet under the ground. It could be argued that being able to flatten them under her feet like bugs was still one of the most obvious demonstrations of her power, but it was probably not the most amusing one.     
 
Keeping her sight fixed on the crowd of thousands, Laura searched for something that would open some new possibility. She smiled when she identified a candidate. After all, the cop trying to guide the crowd in their desperate attempts to flee was too cute to leave him alone.
 
Without further warning, Laura took a step forward. Her objective was not the death that would come from the step per se, but it came anyway. Two more steps and she was already in position to crouch first and kneel later. She did not know what gave a clue to the cop that she was after him, but he reacted to her and got into his squad car in some instinctive move. How cute!  
 
It only made things easier for Laura, of course, who now only had to pick the diminutive cruiser with two fingers and raise it with her as she stood back up.
 
Laura set the squad car in her palm and looked through its windshield with piercing eyes. Smiling, she addressed the terrified centimeter-tall cop inside.
 
"You are lovely," she said.
 
It was quite obvious that the man did not like her attention at all.
 
“Honk once if you can understand me. Don’t honk and I’ll flatten your car with my thumb” Laura said in a casual tone. She could not suppress a giggle when a long honk came immediately.
 
"Good," she said, satisfied. "I will need public servants that help me enforce my laws in my new world. Judging from what I've seen, you might as well be one of them. Step out of the car and serve me" Laura said.
 
She was putting back her conquering goddess hat, but it was only a temporary charade to mess with the cop.
 
The officer hesitated a bit more this time, but he finally opened the door and stepped out into her uneven skin. It was too good!
 
Laura just flexed the thumb of the same palm that had been holding the cop and the squad car and flattened the cruiser mercilessly, barely avoiding the officer, who was thrown off his feet.
 
“Don’t worry, that won’t happen to you” Laura said.
 
“What do you want from me?” the cop said finally, sobbing.
 
"I don't want anything from you. I want you" Laura said and then reached into her cunt to remove her private free-fall boat transport. Manipulating it and opening its back door, she commanded: "Get in and get acquainted with it. You are going to spend some time inside me."
 
The man hesitated, but all she needed to make him comply was a stare and a frown.
 
Bringing the boat back in, Laura thought that she might have to look for some bigger transport if she kept increasing the number of guests.
 
It was time to handle the crowd, which had barely managed to clear a block in the time she had spent with the cop. She was tempted to trample them this time, but then a better idea came to her head. 
 
Smirking, Laura opened her hand and pushed it into one of the tallest buildings in the vicinity. Curling it like an excavator, Laura got her hand out of the building and was satisfied with the collection of rubble, furniture, and corpses on it. She closed her fist to smash the contents a bit  more for good measure and when she was satisfied with the level of granularity, moved to the next step in her plan.
 
Opening her palm flat, she tilted it somewhat down and adjusted her body so that the palm would point in the direction of the crowd. And then she just started blowing.
 
Football sized boulders flew along the street at the impulse of her hurricane-forced winds. It was a massacre; the hundreds of chunks of rubble she had been holding in her palm hit their targets more often than they missed. By the end of the sandstorm, there were hundreds of victims and many more very startled people.
 
Feeling both naughty and mean, Laura let a laugh out at the deadly results of her game.
 
“You guys really cannot hold your own, can you?” she mocked them.
 
She remained idle, hands on her hips, observing the crowd to try to come up with new ideas to disrupt their activity. As she did, Laura narrowed her eyes at some weird pattern in the mob. It took her a few seconds to realize that, as observed, the crowd was thinning. A short while later she found the cause in a subway entrance a couple of blocks down the avenue. Hundreds of people were trying to get away from her underground.
 
This upset Laura and her new and rougher approach to handling people. Without further word, she stomped her way to the subway sign, her merciless feet snuffing hundreds of lives without her even paying any attention to them. 
 
She could sense the spike in fear as she approached. Focusing, she felt it propagating underground. Making some adjustments into her mental perception as she became more and more used to it, Laura soon tuned with the thousands of people in the station and in the tunnels that spread from it. The shakes and raining debris caused by her mere walking were causing shockwaves of fear among the people.
 
Taking a good look at the ridiculous centimeter-tall folks disappearing underground right in front of her towering toes, Laura used a grave tone as she said:
 
“How dare you?”
 
Laura understood that the time for lessons was far from over. She set to it without wasting time. She could feel the anxiety in the area as she slowly got down on her knees. She ignored those crushed under them, as well as the ones that gave her lives so that she would be able to rest her hands on the road. The times to try to minimize victims were over. Bringing her head closer to the ground, Laura’s hair started to wreak havoc on its own, but again she ignored it.
 
No one knew what she was about until the gusting sound flooded the avenue and gale-like winds caught the crowd unprepared. Those that were not too busy trying to stay on their feet soon found out that there was something weird happening. It took them a few seconds to realize that it had to do with the direction of the wind: it was not blowing from the giant woman but towards her.
 
Laura kept inhaling, filling her lungs with compressed air, her overpowered muscles letting her breathe in for way longer than a normal person would have been able to, even at her height.
 
Laura had to honestly admit that she had not been expecting her breathing to suck some of the people closest to her in, so she was a bit startled when she felt their tiny bodies hit the back of her throat and slide down into her stomach. For an instant, she even considered stopping the entire process, but she quickly discarded the idea and kept on filling her lungs.
 
She did not stop until she was satisfied. When she did, she crouched even lower and brought her lips into the subway entrance, encompassing it as if she were kissing a lover. And then, she unleashed the hurricane she had been building up in her lungs.
 
It was brutal. Not having room to expand freely other than the halls and tunnels of the subway system, the air she was violently channeling through her lips did not merely throw people around, but it hit them with the force of an explosion. Those in the station she was kissing were obliterated almost instantly. It did not stop there. Heavily compressed air traveled through the tunnels, not finding enough room to properly expand. Those in other stations in the system never knew what hit them when the gusting sound was quickly followed by a splattering force.  
 
Potholes and the areas around them were violently sent flying as her hurricane advanced. The explosions became more massive when the basement of a building or a wider area in a square exploded as the storm reached a station.
 
 
 
POV of someone from a station being killed
 
 
 
 
Intending to be thorough, Laura kept blowing for close to a minute. By the time she stopped, she had caused her worst massacre yet. Half of the vast network of subway tunnels in Emerald had been hit, thousands of people had been disintegrated.
 
Stopping and sitting back on her knees, Laura smirked in satisfaction as she observed how her little act of retribution had been way more effective than she had been expecting. It turned out that she still managed to surprise herself with her newfound abilities.
 
Thinking of them, she tuned her emotional antenna, just passively receiving. Her smirk widened as she felt the overall shock at what she had just done. It was exhilarating to confirm her ability to still shock the crowd. Just when they thought they had seen everything from her, she managed to find new ways to exercise her power.
 
"You cannot hide from me," Laura said, not even raising her tone. "You cannot run away from me" she added. "You cannot fight me back" she concluded. "It's time for you to accept that you belong to me. It will increase your chances of survival." 
 
Spying a group that was close enough and that was still trying to get away from her, Laura frowned and spat at them in contempt. It turned out that even this was fatal. Coming from pretty high above and having a larger than expected mass, Laura's saliva took on quite a bit of kinetic energy before hitting the ground. The results were some people splattered in the epicenter of the hit and quite a few more being caught by the "explosion" that ensued.   
Not having expected it, Laura snorted like a little girl as she slapped her thigh.
 
“Oh my God!”
 
Encouraged, she turned towards the high-rise to her right and smiled evilly at the shadows gathering behind the windows. They never stood a chance as Laura balled up her saliva behind her lips once more and then expelled it at high speed. It hit the façade with the strength of a tank shell, making it explode and caving a large section of a couple of floors in. The funniest image yet was that of the badly injured survivors at the edge of the explosion.
 
Feeling encouraged by this, Laura adjusted her stance and took a closer look at the building. People were moaning in pain and screaming in terror. She smiled at them and then punched a quite larger hole without warning.
 
“How are we all doing today?” she asked as half a dozen floors of the office building were exposed to her.
 
No one seemed to be very interested in answering to her. Following them with her sight, Laura soon identified a pattern and smirked when she saw what it was: people running towards the elevators. Seeing many them getting into one of the elevator carts, Laura reached towards it, unconcerned when the doors closed before her fingers reached the area.
 
Why should she have been concerned when she could break through the wall and pinch the elevator car into its shaft? Holding it tight for a few seconds while she tried to reach mentally to those trapped in it, Laura transmitted them something in the lines of "Yeah, sure, as if you were going to be able to get away from me". Then, she just pushed her fingers together, crushing the elevator and the close to twenty people inside into nothing.
 
Removing her hand from the building, she kept observing the dynamics inside, the panic now even higher as word of what she had done spread through the people on it. She smirked at them, then without warning, she shot another round of saliva, obliterating a few more people in the process. She knew she was behaving like a mean little girl, but she did not see anything wrong with it.    
 
Finally bored with the building, Laura stood up, ignoring the very shocked survivors and focusing her sight on the landscape down the avenue.
 
It looked quite worse than she had expected. Her blowing into the subway had been way more destructive than anticipated, and besides the thousands killed in tunnels and stations, it had also made large sections of the streets around her explode upwards. She could rip another building open to find some more toys, but the area was essentially wasted in what had probably been her most destructive outburst yet.
 
Shrugging, she said aloud what she had been thinking, for everyone to hear:
 
"Time to find me another playground."  
 
With no better way to go, she started heading towards Stacy’s neighborhood. Having caused so much destruction upfront meant that her path was quiet for some time. Of course, she still ended up stepping on some stranded laggards, but it was nothing compared to the usual body count when she moved.
 
The casual stroll helped her to relax a bit, so quite naturally, Laura started to observe her surroundings, much like a tourist doing some sightseeing. The city sprawled for miles and Laura smirked at the thought that everything she could see was hers. Everything she could not see was hers too. It was just that the world did not know it for a fact yet. 
 
Gradually, Laura started getting out of her exclusively playful mood and focusing back on her main world-domination mission. She had indulged for a bit, and it felt great, but she could not lose track of the longer-term objective.
 
With no better direction to go, she decided to find Stacy for good first and complete her conquest of the city right after.
 
She knew Emerald well enough to plot a path towards Stacy’s apartment, even though her view of the city was changed. She enjoyed once more observing how most buildings could not make it even up to her shapely ass and started strutting shortly after. It was a Laura more focused on her image than on her deeds once more.
 
And, with enough mental capacity to spare, she let her mind wander into what came next. After all, if she was to subdue the world she needed something like an action plan, so she started building it in her head.
 
First, she would find Stacy. She was the only person in the world Laura cared about, and she wanted to make her part of her dream. Once she had caught up with her, she would resume her city takeover. There was no doubt in Laura's mind that she was already the only power in the city, and she guessed that by now its population had reluctantly accepted it too, but one thing had the power and the other one was projecting it. She needed the world to see that she was in power. And this would require some display of it.    
 
Luckily for Laura, this was one of those aspects of her campaign she had thoroughly considered in her years getting ready to become a goddess. So, she knew what was involved. Laura would finally use mass media to her convenience, announcing her intentions. And then, she would issue her commands to the population. They would be simple enough at first, something that they would do without too much effort. It would show the world that they were obeying her, though. Then, she would gradually escalate in her demands until it was clear to everyone that Emerald’s citizens obeyed her. She hoped that she would not need to punish anyone during this phase, not because she was not ready to, but because the smoother her display of power was, the easier it would be to export it to a larger scale.
 
Which would be, of course, the next step. Once there was no doubt to anyone in the world that Emerald was hers, she would step things up. City first, country next. It would take her more than a day, she knew. The United States of America was the most powerful country in the world, so Laura would effectively be fighting to subdue the second most powerful entity on Earth after her. In some of her mental plans, this process unfolded to close to a week. It all depended on whether she would need to sleep or not, something which was already a big unknown to her.
 
The reason for the expected length of her campaign had nothing to do with the fact that the centers of power were on the East Coast. She could be there in less than a day at a leisurely pace, she knew. Laura did not expect. However, the USA would surrender without a fight, so she knew that she would need to defeat its armies at least once. Probably more times, if they were as stubborn as she expected. This would, in turn, require her to invest some time into punishment raids. It was especially important in this first phase of her ascension to show the world that she was ruthless. Defiance could not go unanswered.     
 
She knew she would need to break the will of the country first. Once she did, it was only a matter of showing at DC, the center of power, and dictating her new rules. The good thing about being born in the USA was that once she had taken over her country, it was over. No one else could dare oppose her if the USA fell. She knew some would try, but maybe except the Chinese and the Russian, their will would be weak. She did not expect too much of a fight from Europeans, and smaller nations knew they would never stand a chance.  
 
Laura's train of thought was interrupted when a tiny noise she had not been expecting brought her attention back to feet level after a while. She could not prevent a snort when she saw a tiny squad car with its siren on stopped at a bit more than two steps away.
 
“Oh well, that should be interesting” Laura thought.
 
It was obvious to Laura that the squad car was not in a foolish attempt to stop her. After everything that had happened along the morning, no one could be that stupid. She was curious about what their intentions could be. There were three centimeter-tall people gathered around the vehicle, and they looked obviously nervous.
 
Smirking, Laura took another step towards them, feeling their panic increase. Then, without warning, she proceeded to sit on one knee.
 
Like every time Laura stopped treating people like masses and focused on a specific individual, she was exhilarated by the difference in scale. The three tinies, two cops and a man in a suit, felt even lesser than bugs. They were not bugs, though, she knew. They were humans, and despite the vast difference there was with her now, they were still the second most powerful species on the planet. The species she aspired to rule.  
 
"You wanted my attention," Laura said in a soft tone. It was a statement, not a question.
 
It made the three tinies even more nervous, but finally, the man in the suit gathered the courage to take a step to the front and said:
 
"We've come to present our terms for a surrender."
 
Laura had to work hard not to let a loud laugh out. Instead, she made an effort to keep a serious face as she asked:
 
“Who are you?”
 
"My name is Roger Limbaugh, I'm… I was the deputy mayor of Emerald" he said. 
 
This was getting interesting. So, she was dealing with the authority, and she had not even had to search for it. Laura felt genuinely curious about the tiny man’s intentions. Still, she was not about to waste a chance to make a statement. So, still looking and sounding serious, she said:
 
"Come closer."
 
Even without her increased mental abilities, it would have been very obvious that the man was terrified. She reached out and felt him a bit more, without tampering. It was easy to notice the fear and a stronger feeling emerging and beating it. The man took the first step towards her. So, she was in front of a brave man. Because, in her mind, brave men were not the ones that felt no fear but those that acted despite it.   
 
Curling her lips only slightly, she observed the man taking one step, then another… and then another. He stopped when he was well within grabbing distance.
 
“So, I guess I made you acting mayor when I ate Strauss, didn’t I?” Laura said, taunting him on purpose. She wanted to learn more about the kind of man she was dealing with.
 
She was satisfied when the man showed disgust but held his ground.
 
“Are you willing to talk?” the tiny man said, his voice barely carrying to her ears, even if for some other amazing side effect of her transformation she could hear him perfectly.
 
"Always. The question is, why did you decide to talk?" Laura asked. 
 
"I… we are concerned about the well-being of our fellow citizens," Limbaugh said. 
 
“You are right to be” Laura replied dryly, making him swallow hard.
 
“We… the cabinet… we have decided to offer you rule of the city in exchange for you stopping to cause death and destruction” the man finally said. It was obvious that the words had been hard to pronounce.
 
Laura did not change her expression at all when she said:
 
"This is now how it's going to work."
 
She would not have needed her mental muscle to realize the combination of surprise and frustration her answer caused. She ignored it and went on.
 
“You called this a negotiation, but this is far from what it is. I don’t need to negotiate with you. The city is mine, whether you say it or not” Laura said.
 
She smirked at the shock her words had. Still, she went on.
 
"There's no way I can move around the city without killing some people and breaking some stuff, so there's no way I will promise what I cannot fulfill. Besides, I don't want to. I want to have the option to kill and destroy when I want, not just when I need" Laura said.     
 
The level of anxiety in the trio in front of her threatened to reach unbearable levels. Concerned that any of them could have a heart attack, she eased the pressure a bit.
 
"This does not mean I cannot be reasonable, though," she said. Feeling some opening for hope in the deputy mayor, she added "I can tune it down. These last few minutes have been wilder than they need to be looking forward. Once the city is formally mine, I will be more interested in ruling and less in disrupting its activity" she added.
 
The three men were left speechless. Finally, the deputy mayor managed to open his mouth.
 
“What… what do you want?”
 
Laura smirked and said:
 
"Unconditional surrender. You will gather what remains of the government and the press somewhere public. Let's say, the Eagles' stadium. You will name me supreme ruler of the city. You will advise people to follow every order coming from me. And then I'll give my acceptance speech. In case you are interested, you can keep your post. You will report to me. I need some people to do my bidding and take care of the housekeeping, and you've proved to have guts" 
 
“What… what if we don’t?” Limbaugh said.
 
Laura narrowed her eyes and brought a finger so close to the tiny man that he jumped backward in reaction.
 
She ignored that and just pressed her fingertip on the road, making it crack first and sink later. Her finger followed, like a bulldozer. By the time she stopped pushing, Laura had drilled a five-foot-wide, fifty-foot-deep hole in the asphalt, reaching the piping level underneath. 
 
Removing her wet fingertip from the ground, Laura fixed her stare on the tiny man and said:
 
“By the time I’m done, there will be only two types of people in the world: those I rule and those that are not anymore. Be smart” she said.
 
Without further word, Laura stood up, the tiny man looking tinier and tinier as she rose to her height, now above the one-thousand-foot mark.
 
"There's someone I need to pick up that cannot miss my coronation. Make haste. It would be good if everything were ready in the Eagles' stadium when I get there so that I don't need to find myself any distraction while I wait for you."   
 
 
 
 
"I was not expecting humans to surrender to her," Laya said.
 
“Well, the one that surrendered to her hardly counts. She broke the chain of command enough with her previous antics so that the one making the decisions was weak” Quo replied.
 
"But he surrendered the city to her," Laya said.
 
“Did he have the power to do that? Only if everyone else follows” Quo said.
 
“Why should not they? The same way he realized it was worthless to fight Laura, the rest of the population must have seen it too” Laya said.
 
“Humans are the most stubborn and resilient species we’ve found so far. What you’ve seen so far is far from the level of resistance that’s expected from them” Quo said.
 
“Even if they realize it’s meaningless to fight back?” Laya asked.
 
“Have they realized yet?” Quo replied with a question.
 
"They should," Laya said.
 
“Oh, you’re very wrong there. Laura Anderson is far from breaking humanity’s fighting spirit” Quo said.
 
"She will, though, eventually," Laya said.
 
"Of course. It will be then when it is safe to say that she has taken over the world."   
 

Chapter 18

 

Most people in History never lived a world-changing event. The current population of the planet would not be among those anymore. This was even more exacerbated in the case of Stacy, since the event reshaping the world was no other than her girlfriend, Laura.
 
Stacy had woken up late, as usual when Laura was not bugging her to go hiking or doing some other stuff. The TV, which she had meant as mere background as she cooked her breakfast soon let her know that this would be an exceptional day. There were no stupid talks about the properties of this fruit or that other or the usual gossip about celebrities. It was easy enough to identify the serious tone of a newscaster.
 
Stacy brought the volume up as she tried to make some sense of the imagery. It was some general cityscape. Easily identifying Emerald, the news grabbed Stacy's full attention as she identified several columns of smoke rising at random points in the city. Was the city under attack? From the nervous talk of the anchor speaking in the background, it was not obvious if this was some terrorist act or a natural disaster.  
 
A closer shot of a crumbled building let Stacy know that whatever was happening was very serious. She soon identified the area and the remainders of the high-rise as those of the Windsor.
 
Stacy realized she was hyperventilating. Her first thoughts were of Laura. Was she alright? She should have been back home by now, shouldn’t she?
 
She needed to learn more about the situation, so she focused and started identifying words without any apparent sense both in the speech and in the text in the lower thirds.
 
“Crush… woman… foot… giant…”
 
And then, her jaw dropped when a new image finally showed her the source of the city's distress. It was a general shot of the city, probably taken from a chopper flying pretty high. It covered some blocks, apparently without too much purpose, until Stacy realized that the cameraman was trying to keep an avenue centered. Laura was walking down that avenue.   
 
Stacy’s heard momentarily filled with glee when she found out that her girlfriend was OK. Then, she was taken by shock when she was not the woman she had met anymore.
 
Her naked body was still as hot as Stacy knew. Even hotter, once one considered just how confident she looked. The change was, of course, in size.
 
Seeing her girlfriend towering over everything in Emerald with her gigantic figure was both shocking and not crazy. How could it be when Laura had shared her secret wishes with her so many times, and they had even role played it on more than one occasion?  
 
Of course, one thing was talking about a fantasy, and another was seeing it turn into reality. Stacy was taken out of her trance by another word from the anchor: "dead." 
 
She had not heard the sentence before that word, so she hurried to read the lower third of the screen where several sentences were scrolling. She could read “Laura Anderson”, letting her know that the entire city knew, as she did, who the giant woman was. And a couple of sentences later she could read “Hundreds dead”.
 
Hundreds dead. They had often discussed it with Laura. If she ever became a giant, as she wished, people would die. Many people. Laura spoke about it naturally. There was nothing in her words that suggested that she longed for it. She accepted it as something that would happen and should not concern her any more than necessary.
 
Stacy then realized. Laura was walking, looking confident, down the avenue. She was looking to the front, not down. At her size, this could only mean that either the avenue was deserted or plenty of people were being crushed under her feet. Several hundred feet over the ground, Laura seemed oblivious to it.
 
Stacy realized that she did not know how to feel about it. Back when they had role played it and Laura had told her that it would be unavoidable to kill plenty of people it had sounded logical. Now that her girlfriend was killing hundreds of her fellow citizens the moral implications felt significantly stronger.
 
"At least she does not seem to be killing anyone on purpose,"  Stacy thought, as if trying to convince herself.
 
She remained transfixed, watching her girlfriend roaming the city on TV as the background comments kept repeating words like giant, conquest, murder, strength, speech…
 
Stacy caught herself thinking about Laura's size. How large was she? In their several conversations about the topic, Laura had shown a preference for a size in the thousand-foot range. Her rationale had been simple enough: she did not want anything to dwarf her. Being a visual artist gave Stacy a certain ability with three-dimensional perception. Still, it was hard to guess a size just from looking at Laura on a TV screen. Judging by how short the high-rises on both sides of the avenue looked, she did not think that Laura would be very far away from her wished size, in any case. 
 
This, of course, led to the next question. How had Laura got like that? Stacy's first reaction was to feel betrayed. What she saw on the screen was what Laura had always wished for, so her first instinct was to think that she had done this to herself. Which would mean that she had kept this from her. Then, something from deeper inside her told her that this was not possible. Laura was an open book to Stacy, and vice versa. They told each other everything, as proven by the fact that Laura had opened about her secret wish to Stacy early enough in their relationship. She had valued that so much that it had made the fact that she had been a bit freaked out pale in comparison.  
 
But, if Laura had not done this to herself, how had she then turned into everything she had ever wished to be? And… what did this mean for their relationship?
 
Stacy realized that having woken up late was playing against her, so she rushed to her bedroom to pick her laptop up. Soon enough she was watching the first existing footage of Laura as a giant, that of her approaching the city and stopping to deliver what was now being called her introductory speech.
 
 
 
 
"Tiny people of Emerald. I am your new Goddess."
 
It was amazing how, a thousand feet tall and as empowered as anyone could feel, Laura still sounded like Laura. Her voice carried to every corner of the neighborhood she had chosen to get into the city, but her tone was still that of her girlfriend. It was not the same tone she used when they were together in bed. It was more like the one she used when she was talking about hiking with confidence. Of course, Stacy did not miss the fact that Laura was referring to her as a goddess. She had often claimed she would be one, should she turn a thousand feet tall. When Stacy picked on her reminding that she was an atheist, Laura would simply shrug and say   "No one would be able to deny my existence."    
 
"My name is Laura Anderson, I'm 22 years old, and yesterday I was one of you. Luckily, when I woke up this morning, I had transformed into the amazing being that you can now see. It's obvious enough that it's unfair to consider me human like you anymore, so for lack of better word you can refer to me as a goddess. The first and only of my kind."    
 
Stacy had role played goddess scenarios with Laura for what seemed like forever. So, this part of the speech did not catch her by surprise. It was not that different from some of the stuff Laura had said when playing the part with her. There was a subtle difference in the overall mis-en-scène, though. Stacy realized what it was: this time, Laura meant what she was saying.
 
"I'm much bigger than you, much stronger than you and much smarter than you. And I'm going to do the only logical thing for someone of my station. I am going to take over. I will rule you. From now on, I am the one and only authority. There may be those of you that find this unfair. Consider this: I have the power to do as I please. Moreover, I have the power to force you to do as I please. And you are absolutely powerless to stop me. What would truly be unfair would be to deny this obvious truth."
 
Of course, it was logical. Despite the undeniable sexual aspect of it, Laura's wish for size had always been with a purpose. She was announcing it. Stacy had mixed feelings about it all, though. On the one hand, seeing Laura with such confidence was invigorating. Even exciting. On the other hand, Stacy could not prevent thinking that when Laura compared herself with the rest of humanity like she was doing, Stacy was on the other side of the scale.   
 
"So, this is how things are going to work from now on. I will issue commands, and you will obey. I will do anything I want, and you will accept the consequences of my actions. And if there are those of you stupid enough to challenge me or, even worse, to attack me, I will crush them. These are some very simple ground rules, once you think about them, aren't they?"
 
Laura had always been a direct person, and Stacy had not expected her size increase to have diminished any of that. So, her words were logical. Still, hearing her girlfriend talk so casually about killing hundreds of people and knowing that she had done that shortly after that speech left some weirdness in Stacy's mind. The Laura she knew was an empowered young woman that preferred to ask forgiveness rather than to ask permission. But she had never been violent, even less a killer. No matter how much she had grown and how much she had anticipated that this would happen in this scenario, it was still unexpected for Stacy to hear her girlfriend discuss death so blatantly.    
 
"I will be visiting the city. I'm eager to. I'm dying to check things out from my new point of view. I realize this will be disruptive. As I said, you have no other option but to accept it. Also, I've been this big for a very short while. It will take me a while to educate myself on the full extent of my power and the effects I have on my surroundings. I am not a cruel woman. I won't destroy things or kill you for fun or just because I can. I will be using my size and strength, though. I'll move around, check things out, test my power. Accidents will happen. The size difference is just too great." 
 
This was not the first time Stacy heard those words from Laura. All the previous times she had been just a head taller than her, though.
 
"I've always dreamed of being this size. This is the best thing that has ever happened to me. So you can be damn sure that I will never apologize for being big or its consequences."
 
 
And this was the final touch of Laura for her speech. It sounded like her, of course. And it didn’t. Stacy realized that what she had heard sounded like what Laura should sound at a thousand feet tall. She had never thought that this would be much more than a fantasy they would share to make boring Sunday afternoons a bit warmer or to get her excited enough for bed.
 
Realizing that she still did not know what to think about the entire situation, Stacy went back to TV, to watch her girlfriend live.
 
 
 
 
Stacy had barely stopped looking at one of the multiple screens she had set up to go to the bathroom. She was following the unfolding of events on TV while watching videos of Laura's previous antics in her laptop and following what was being said in social media. The multiple close-ups of her recorded from cellphones and uploaded on Twitter were especially awe-inspiring. From up close, Laura was not Laura anymore, but a gigantic creature that was wreaking havoc in the city.
 
Her girlfriend had never looked sexier than she did on the screen of TV, so Stacy had gradually got into the new world where Laura was a thousand-foot-tall goddess and caught herself enjoying her antics. The way she had handled the Beck Tower had been incredibly sexy and her lap dance over Bay Bridge had turned Stacy on so much that her nipples easily protruded through the thin fabric of her silk sleeping gown. She knew people were dying as her girlfriend did all that, but somehow it felt natural. It felt proportional. And seeing her deal with the city as her playground was incredibly arousing.
 
Choppers had some trouble to catch her playing with the cruise ships at first, but when they did Stacy felt her excitement growing once more. Of course, they both had read Gulliver's Travels and anything inspired by it countless times and seeing Laura playing the Gullivera role with ships that were much larger than those from the Blefuscu navy was nothing short of arousing. Her fingers had met her crotch when Laura had taken action to the next level and had lifted one of the largest cruise ships over her head.
 
In hindsight, Stacy could have said that this moment had marked the peak of her excitement about her girlfriend’s new self. Things started going south shortly after. The tipping point was probably the airport.
 
Stacy should have guessed just how turned on Laura was. She was, after all, living her dream. The image of her using a crowded plane like a dildo did not sit well with her, though. Rationally, Stacy knew that Laura did not have that many options, at her new size. But still, seeing the highly detailed images, broadcasted live by every single TV in the country, of her girlfriend pleasuring herself with an inanimate object as she moaned for all the world to see were disturbing.  
 
A glass broke when Laura climaxed, and the chopper cameras caught a very good close-up of the remainders of the plane. They were so twisted that there was no doubt about the wellbeing of the passengers. And there Stacy had it: Laura had gone off in public, and she had killed a bunch of people to do so. A glass inside Stacy's head broke there and then. 
 
Laura was still her girlfriend after that. She was still the person she cared the most in the world. But she could not find it in her to justify every single action she did. She could feel amazed by them, as she did when she beat the police helicopters sent to stop her. But she could not prevent thinking her too cruel when she destroyed several buildings because of some foolish attempts of shooting at her that Stacy knew would not have even annoyed Laura at a physical level.
 
Her girlfriend's wave of destruction had not ceased to increase since then. Stacy's ambiguity about her did not cease to increase either. She even caught herself cheering at Laura when she tortured first and finished later Jacob Strauss, the person both hated the most in the world. At that point, Stacy even felt jealous of Laura, thinking of herself being the one to deal with the despicable tycoon. The massacre she caused to destroy the city hall first, and the Strauss Tower later were less justifiable, even if Stacy still accepted them in the wake of the accomplishment of dealing with Strauss. 
 
It was a false comeback. Laura's posterior leveling of a large section of the city and the use of a high-speed train as a new sex toy made any excitement Stacy had feeling disappear. After that, every single sequence she had seen of her girlfriend had been one where she was using her size to kill arbitrarily, quite noticeably looking for maximum damage and very visibly enjoying it.    
 
Stacy knew that Laura too. It emerged in very few occasions, but she feared her when she did. She was childish, cruel, brutal. She had never been like this with her, thankfully, but she had seen Laura act without restraint a couple of times in the past.
 
Stacy was in that state of mind, still impressed and in love with her girlfriend but appalled by some of her latest actions when the general shot of her advance on TV made it obvious in which direction she was moving: hers.
 
There was some delay between the images on TV and reality, apparently, because the shakes started being obvious shortly after when she would have expected a much longer notice. Not knowing how to feel, Stacy headed for the window of her loft and dragged the curtain enough to see the magnificent body of her girlfriend moving towards her, the low-rise buildings in the area barely able to cover much higher than mid-shin.
 
She was still a couple of dozen blocks away, but she could see every detail of her gorgeous figure as well as if she had been standing in the living room with her. The shakes increased in intensity, each of them perfectly synchronized with the graceful movement of her legs. Stacy could not see Laura's feet, but she could feel them perfectly well, knowing that every time they set on the road, they were likely to cause a little carnage of their own. 
 
It then struck Stacy. As close as she was to her home, Laura was probably treading on her neighbors, people she regularly met at the grocery store or the gym. A look up to see her girlfriend’s face, which was starting to appear distorted by perspective, told Stacy that she was completely oblivious to it.
 
Dust stated raining from her ceiling as Laura got closer. Soon her windows cracked and several pieces of furniture toppled. Stacy was finding it hard to stay on her feet. And still, this was not what concerned her. Her main worry was what to do if Laura was here for her, as it seemed very evident she was.
 
Stacy had long headed into her kitchen, moving around it as she tried to make her mind up. Laura was still the most special person in her life. But… was she still Laura? No matter how long they had discussed this scenario in the past, some of the stuff she had seen Laura doing was too hard to accept for her. She felt like a different person and she… well, she was scared of her.
 
The two strongest shakes yet finally managed to make Stacy lose her footing, sending her to a knee as she held herself in the kitchen table. Everything that had not been yet on the floor fell, several vases and hanged pictures breaking as they did. The cracked window in the living room finally broke. And Stacy felt a terrible weight crushing her soul. She knew she was not ready for what was about to come.
 
The world remained idle for longer than she would have expected. Gathering her remaining strength, Stacy managed to crawl to the window and dragged the curtain. She caught herself letting a yell out when she saw the massive foot filling her visual field. Its toes reached as high as the second floor of the building her loft was in. Being in the penthouse of the six-story building herself, Laura’s foot felt close enough for her to jump into it and slide along its silky curves until the street. This was far from what Stacy wanted to do, though.
 
There was no doubt Laura was here for her. There had been no doubt the moment she had seen her walking down the avenue that led to her apartment. In a way, it was natural. They were a couple. But then again, nothing was natural with Laura anymore.
 
Her thoughts were interrupted when a voice that felt as if it were coming from God himself filled every inch of her attention.
 
"Stacy, I'm here for you. Come out. The roof is probably the best spot."
 
What she had seen of Laura on TV did not make justice to the sheer power her voice had. She did not only hear her girlfriend. She felt her words in every inch of her body. It was curious because she still sounded like Laura, but it was as if her voice had been amplified by the speaker system of a Rolling Stones’ concert and the loudspeakers were right next to her.
 
Laura and Stacy did not live together yet. They had often reflected about the stupidity of it since they spent most of their time together at either of their apartments. The proximity to their workplaces had made them stick to their former housing for longer than it would have been necessary. Still, ever since they started going out, they had woken up next to each other many more times than alone. And they had learned a lot about each other from those moments.
 
Laura could be the most tender person in the world. Usually, after a night of wild sex and a morning of cuddling, Laura would speak softly to her, tease her, show up with some breakfast in bed…
 
There was another Laura, though. Stacy was not up to her standards when it came to keeping the house tidy so, on several occasions when sleeping at Laura's, they had had some stupid fights. Laura would then boss her around, bark instructions, tell her what to do and how she expected things to be done. 
 
She was listening to the second Laura now. There was nothing inviting in her voice, nothing that suggested that she was eager to see her, to share with he the amazing things that had happened to her since they had last seen each other. She was telling her what to do. And, knowing her, she knew that she expected her to comply promptly.
 
Only she could not. Her legs were frozen, her body paralyzed. She was afraid. She was utterly afraid of the woman she loved. And the fear did not let her do anything.
 
Stacy did not know how long it had been by the time Laura’s voice thundered again. She easily recognized her impatience, another of the traits of Laura’s character she was well aware of.
 
“Stacy? Where the hell are you?”
 
Stacy dropped to her knees again, covering her ears with her hands. She started screaming when something she could not identify brushed her mind like a wet cloth brushing her skin. Laura's voice came shortly after. 
 
“Stacy! I know you are in there. Come on!”
 
Screams gave way to tears. Once more, she lost track of time. She was taken out of her shock by the world collapsing around her. By the time it stopped, there was no apartment. Only the floor she was kneeling on, a couple of pieces of furniture, some scattered debris and the clear blue sky, mostly filled by the massive face of her girlfriend turned into a goddess.
 
"I think it's time we move together," her thundering voice said with a trace of sarcasm.
 
 
 
 
Stacy’s home was in the area and Laura did not give a damn about whatever was in her path. The combination of both meant that Laura reached her destination soon enough. She found out that she was eager to meet her girlfriend, the only person remaining in the world she cared about.
 
The rest of humanity was now just an impersonal mass of individuals she aspired to rule, but none of them was of any particular importance to Laura. Stacy was. 
 
True, after everything that had happened, Stacy and she would not be equals anymore. In a strict sense, her girlfriend was as puny as anyone else in the world. But Laura cared about her, and this made all the difference.  
 
Laura longed to see Stacy, to talk to her, to let her know how amazing life had turned into her. Having been the only person in the world that had been privy to her secret dreams made Stacy the perfect person for that too. She also wanted to listen to her, to know how she felt about her change, to feel her warmth and to discuss the future. Of course, Stacy would not be the one ruling the world, but she would be the only one with real influence in Laura, which made her the second most powerful person on Earth. Stacy was smart, so she had certainly thought about this already, but Laura wanted to let her know, to confirm to her that anything she wanted she would do. 
 
She was so eager to finally have a conversation with her that the moment she reached her building, she wasted no time letting her know. It was not as if she would not have seen her coming, of course, but Laura felt like she should give her some instructions on the best possible way to meet.
 
"Stacy, I'm here for you. Come out. The roof is probably the best spot."
 
There was no response. No movement, no one trying to contact her, nothing. Laura waited. After all, Stacy would be as tiny as everyone she had met so far, and one thing she had to learn was that she constantly overestimated the ability of the tiny people to move fast. Enough time had passed without any signs of Stacy for her to start becoming impatient, though, so she addressed her again. She did not think, for a second, that Stacy would not have heard her, but there was nothing wrong in insisting. 
 
“Stacy? Where the hell are you?”
 
More time passed and still nothing. The idea that Stacy would not be home had not occurred to Laura before, but it was, of course, a possibility. She frowned, thinking on just how inconvenient it would be if that were the case. The first thing that occurred to her was that if Stacy was somewhere else, she might have to command the tiny people to find her, but she quickly realized that that was a terrible idea. Stacy was the only person she cared about, so letting the people know meant giving them leverage against her.   
 
Upset and impatient, Laura reached out with her mental muscle and sensed the six-story building, which barely could make it higher than her ankle. There were twenty-three people in it. Soon Laura had a good feeling about the profile and current feelings of all the tenants. Of course, the general feeling was fear, but she could even sense different flavors of it. She did not stop too long on that, though. Her mind was fully focused on something else. She had found Stacy.
 
“Stacy! I know you are in there. Come on!” she said.
 
It did not occur to Laura until then that Stacy might not be coming out because she could not. She might have got hurt. Or she might be too afraid to get out. Maybe neighbors had realized that she was her girlfriend and were threatening her. Laura did not think twice before taking a step back, flattening an entire low-rise block with her feet. She then knelt in a hurry and reached for the roof right over Stacy’s loft. Breaking it was piece of cake. Doing it in a way that would reduce the risk of hurting Stacy required some more focus.
 
She finished the job soon enough, in any case. Debris and dust cleared, and Laura exhaled in relief when she saw that her girlfriend was in good shape. She smiled at her, meeting her startled gaze. And then she realized something: she had just broken her apartment. 
 
Smiling sheepishly, she offered:
 
"I think it's time we move together."
 
Stacy stood up, but it was obvious that she was more startled than excited. Laura understood that seeing her in her current state certainly had some shocking effect. Having your apartment destroyed in the same process had probably not helped. Still, it bothered her a little that her girlfriend was not feeling a little more effusive at their reencounter.
 
"Not sure how much I did break the building," Laura said, sounding less warm than just a second before. "It would be probably a good idea if you climbed in my palm," she said, offering the massive surface of her right hand right next to the edge of the building.  
 
“I… I am fine” Stacy finally managed to say.
 
Laura frowned a bit more. This was not how it was supposed to happen. She was not looking for a tight hold since that was impossible for her now, but some enthusiasm would not have been out of place, would it?  
 
Feeling a bit mean about it, she just said:
 
"I don't think you understand the situation."
 
And then reached into the apartment, picking Stacy gently between her two fingertips. Stacy screamed, which made Laura feel a bit worse. But what had to be done had to be done. She did not keep her in her fingers for long. She knew it was scarier than just lying in her palm, so she transferred her there quickly. Stacy looked shocked when she looked up at her face.
 
"Hi… hi, Laura" she said after a long while of them staring at each other.
 
Well, it was not what she had expected, but it was progress, so she decided to take it positively and smile.
 
"Hi girlfriend."
 
The choice of words was not coincidental. Laura was telling Stacy that no matter what she had become, she was still her girlfriend. Stacy's lips curled into a smile then, and Laura felt a heavy weight lifting from her shoulders.
 
“Nice of you to drop by. I was not expecting you” Stacy said, her tone moving to her legendary sarcasm.
 
"Oh, come on, I'm pretty sure you've been glued to the TV all day long waiting for this moment to happen," Laura said, winking. 
 
Unexpectedly enough, Stacy swallowed hard before replying.
 
 
 
 
Sure, it was Laura, her girlfriend. And sure, she was still addressing her like her girlfriend. But then again, she had picked her up against her will, and now she was lying on her palm. Things were normal, and then they were not. 
 
It was curious, but the fact that Laura had picked her up had taken Stacy out of her trance. It had done nothing to ease her fear, but at least she was in control of her reactions. Seeing Laura and hearing to her first sentences, she quickly understood what the situation was about. Laura wanted to act like normal. And she expected Stacy to do so too.
 
She had to make an effort, but she knew what was expected of her. She managed to exchange a couple of sentences. Then Laura hinted playfully at the fact that she had been expecting for her and Stacy realized that she took a second too long to reply.
 
Laura frowned and said:
 
“Am I missing something?”
 
She knew that Laura. The one that lost her temper when things did not go her way. And she knew that, in her current condition, she had to prevent Laura from getting all the way there at all costs. It made no sense to try to fool her, though. Laura was smart, and she could read Stacy with ease. She was also a fair person, so she decided the direct approach.
 
“You mean… apart from the fact that you are a thousand feet tall and you just broke my apartment?” Stacy replied, sounding as serious as she meant.
 
Laura’s frown deepened, making Stacy afraid. Then, her giant girlfriend’s features relaxed.
 
“I… I understand this must be shocking for you” Laura finally said, her voice softer.
 
"How considerate of you to notice," Stacy said. It was safe now. Laura was away from the danger zone.
 
“We need to talk” Laura finally said.
 
Curiously enough, Stacy would have feared those words much more had Laura just been a head taller than her.
 
She nodded.
 
 
 
 
Once Laura understood that it had been foolish to think that she would just meet Stacy and engage in a couple conversation with her, she felt stupid for her behavior. Hard as it was, she tried to put herself into Stacy's shoes and think about how she would have reacted if her girlfriend had suddenly shown up, turned into a thousand-foot-tall goddess. 
 
Yeah, it was not the sort of thing that could be settled with a “Wow, cool, girl. Tell me, how has your day been, so far?”
 
Stacy was understandably shocked, and it was up to Laura to bring some sense into the situation.
 
“Where do you want to talk?” Stacy said.
 
Laura arched an eyebrow and said:
 
"This is as good a spot as any. I don't think your neighbors will mind."
 
With that, Laura just turned and let herself drop into her ass, letting it flatten the entire block where Stacy had lived.
 
"You sat on my apartment," Stacy said after some time, startled.
 
"Your apartment was gone," Laura said.
 
"If you wanted to make thing easier, killing my neighbors might not have helped," Stacy said.
 
"Let's see if I can make you see this my way," Laura said. After all, her act had been on purpose. "I was going to sit down, so someone's block was going to get flattened. It's what it is. I could have chosen the one next to yours, or another one down the road. And it could have been filled with perfectly nice people. We both know that most of your neighbors are assholes, though. So, tell me, would you rather have had me kill some random people or are you happier knowing that the homophobic bastard next door is now a stain in that ass he always stares at?"
 
Stacy remained silent for a while. She finally said:
 
"I see your point. It's still shocking to hear you talking about people's death with such levity."
 
The truth was that Laura had forced the conversation. She had the feeling that this was getting between them and she had always been a strong proponent of dealing with the elephant in the room.  
 
“I know. But we always knew it was going to be like this” Laura said.
 
Stacy took a while to reply. It was not a good sign.
 
"We… we role played a fantasy. Now, this is real. You just killed all my neighbors" she said.
 
“It’s impossible for me to be a thousand feet tall and not kill anyone. You know it. People are just too tiny, too fragile, too stupid…” Laura started saying.
 
Stacy remained silent once more. Laura did not like the look on her face. 
 
“I… I am one of those people” Stacy finally said.
 
Laura blushed, realizing her mistake. It turned out that the way she tried to fix it made it even worse.
 
“You are not. You are my girlfriend” Laura said.
 
Stacy did not hold off this time. She just yelled back.
 
"Is this how I am supposed to define myself, from now on? Based on my relationship with you? Look, here you have Stacy Beauvois. She is a worthless tiny human, but she is Laura Anderson's girlfriend."   
 
“You are the girlfriend of the most powerful creature on Earth. Many would feel proud about it” Laura replied, starting to feel upset.
 
“Oh yeah, what a couple. Laura, the most powerful woman on Earth and her bug-sized pet Stacy” she came back. She was getting so upset that she started to forget her fear.
 
Laura chuckled. It was not a nice sounding chuckle, though.
 
"Really? I mean… really? I have all my wishes come true, and you have a stupid jealousy attack?" Laura asked, raising her tone.
 
“Jealousy? You are delusional” Stacy replied.
 
“Really? Tell me, do you like me having turned into a goddess or not?” Laura asked.
 
Stacy moved her sight away.
 
"I knew it," Laura said. "We had talked about this a thousand times. I thought you understood me. But it turns out you were fooling me. You thought it was OK as long as it was the wild fantasy of a silly delusional girl. But now that I am a goddess you cannot stand it. All you care about is how pathetic you'll look next to me when you should be thanking the universe for being my girlfriend."   
 
“Really, why?” Stacy asked, defiant.
 
“Who in their right mind would not want to be with a goddess?” Laura asked, surprised.
 
"See, Laura? This is your problem. To you, the world just exists as a function of how you see yourself. You are a goddess so everyone and everything should adapt to that. And then you just cannot see that what the world sees is not a goddess but a monster." 
 
Laura frowned and barked:
 
“Who are you calling a monster?”
 
"You've killed tens of thousands of people Laura," Stacy said.
 
She knew it perfectly well, but hearing it from her felt like a stab in the back.
 
“I always knew being this size would have side effects” she snapped back.
 
“You killed people to have sex. You killed people for fun. I’ve seen it. The entire world has seen it” Stacy said, accusing.
 
“Stop!” Laura said, raising her fist.
 
Stacy let out a short yell. Everything froze.
 
“Are you going to kill me?” Stacy asked, accusing. What felt the worst to Laura was the fact that her tone suggested that she was prepared for it.
 
There were some very few long moments of silence. Laura finally said:
 
"I love you."
 
Stacy started sobbing.
 
"Laura, I'm scared like hell of you."
 
She reached out with her mind and saw that it was true. Then, the world shattered to pieces for her. Stacy, her love, the only person she cared about in the world… she was terrified of her.
 
All she could say was:
 
"Don't."
 
"You can't fix that," Stacy said.
 
Laura’s ego made a last attempt at controlling the situation.
 
“I can”
 
Then, she reached out with her mind and touched Stacy gently, sending her fear away.
 
Stacy was startled in her palm. Then, she freaked out.
 
“What did you do?”
 
"I told you I'm a goddess," Laura said, reaffirming herself.
 
“My feelings are mine!” Stacy protested.
 
"No. They're mine now," Laura said between clenched teeth, reaching out once more and sending Stacy into a state of ecstasy that she thought was close enough to love. She smirked when she saw her physical reaction to her touch.
 
She stopped when Stacy yelled. Frowning, she observed her little girlfriend.
 
"Laura, I love you."
 
"Of course you do," Laura said, sounding mean.
 
“But you don’t love me” Stacy then said.
 
The sentence hit her like a hammer. Stacy went on.
 
“You cannot love without respect. And you don’t respect me. Go on! Turn me into your zombie. I’d rather you kill me. But do not tell me you love me when you think I’m just another one of your toys!” Stacy snapped.
 
 
 
 
Laura remained idle for close to a minute. Stacy had never been so afraid in her entire life. She could not believe that the woman she loved was doing what Laura was doing. She knew that she could become a stain of blood in her palm or a mindless zealot any moment now. Laura's expression did not give her any clues about which was more likely.
 
Then, the most unexpected thing happened. Tears showed in Laura’s eyes. Her mouth opened and she just said:
 
"I'm sorry."
 
Stacy immediately started to cry.
 
"I'm sorry because I love you," Laura said after a long while. She had never been one for tears, so she was trying to recover from the shock as quickly as she could.
 
“I’ve lost you” Laura finally said.
 
“Why do you say that?” Stacy asked.
 
“You are terrified of me” Laura finally said.
 
“I am” Stacy admitted.
 
“Then, how can I expect to be with you?” Laura asked.
 
Stacy did not know how to react. Then, she found the answer in her heart.
 
"Make me stop fearing you," she said.
 
"I thought you did not want me to tamper with you," Laura said casually.
 
The ease with which she had assumed that she could mess with her mind scared Stacy, but she made her best to prevent it from showing.
 
“I don’t. There’s still the old-fashioned way. Act in a way that makes me stop fearing you” she said.
 
Laura frowned and said:
 
"Stacy, there's no way I will stop killing people."
 
Stacy had to work not to show her surprise once more at the casual way Laura was now talking about human casualties.
 
“I… I know… but could you… I mean… tune it down a bit?” she said.
 
Laura shrugged and said:
 
“Sure… I guess”
 
There was an uncomfortable silence. Then, Laura said:
 
"You are the most special person in the world for me. I would do anything for you."
 
Stacy had not expected it.
 
"I… I guess we can work from there."
 
Laura was obviously trying to think about what to say. She never got the chance. Stacy could hear some very loud whistling sounds just an instant everything ceased to be amongst the most painful burning feeling she had ever had. The last image in her retinas before the light flooded them was that of her girlfriend’s giant face showing surprise.
 
 
 
 
"You were expecting that," Laya asked.
 
"It had to happen, sooner or later," Quo said, making her equivalent gesture for a shrug.
 
“So, now what?” Laya asked.
 
"Now things will speed up," Quo said confidently.
 

Chapter 19

 

“Do we have a confirmed kill?” General McKenzie asked.
 
No one would have said that he was nervous. His voice was deep and steady as always, commanding the respect of everyone who worked for him. The truth was that he was melting inside, though. Never in his more than thirty years of service had he had to face a situation that was comparable to this one.
 
And never before had he had to give an order like the one he had just given. The smoke was still too thick for the satellite images to show how much of the city the bombing had taken, but he knew the amount and type of ordinance they had released, so he did not fool himself into thinking that it would be contained.
 
Rationally, he knew he had done the right thing. As a General, in a situation like this, his duty was to present options to the civilian leadership and to make recommendations based on rational facts. This was what he had done.
 
Kyle McKenzie was as freaked out by the giant woman like everyone else, but different from others, he had also been  cool enough to analyze her presence from a military point of view. Her destructive power had become obvious soon enough. And still, for a while, he had been hopeful, seeing that she was using it with some contention. Laura Anderson had been considerably less shocked and considerably more focused than General McKenzie would have expected a 22-year-old woman of her size to be. Up to some point, she had looked like a woman with a plan. And, as weird as this was, it had made him think for a long while that the best way to deal with her would have been through negotiation. No matter how surreal the situation was, this was what the textbook of said about dealing with opponents with a target in mind and with the power to cause massive destruction.
 
The situation had degenerated soon enough, way beyond the point of no return. Laura Anderson had started acting like a monster, and the world stopped seeing her like someone that could be reasoned with. To the world, Miss Anderson was something that had to be destroyed.
 
Different than most others, Kyle McKenzie still saw the rational and smart young woman in her, but he concurred with everyone else in the need to eliminate her as soon as possible.
 
He would blame himself forever for not having been ready when she had left the city and got into the ocean. She had returned, and once this had happened, the General knew that there would be no clean way of ending with this.
 
Laura Anderson had been way more destructive since her return, every minute she spent in the city ending with dozens of deaths. And with her path taking her back towards the densest parts of downtown, Kyle McKenzie realized that things would only get worse.
 
He had never thought he would recommend a course of action consisting of bombing one of the country's cities. It had taken him his entire self-control to prevent his anxiety from  showing. He could not afford it. He could not allow his men to have any doubts. Not with what he was going to order them to do. 
No matter how wrong it felt, he knew it was the right thing to do. Leaving Laura Anderson at large was not an option. Not after what he had seen her do. He felt both relief and regret when both the President and the SecDef had accepted his conclusions and his recommendation. They had obviously understood they were choosing the better of two evils. Lesser leaders would have blamed him and would have tried to deflect responsibility for what was going to happen. They had luckily taken ownership of the situation.
 
The General had known that his chance had come when the giantess had changed her path and got into a low-rise residential neighborhood. She had even slowed her pace down, looking more careful than she had been in the last minutes. The planes had been flying at high altitude for a while now, and his aides started to position them for an imminent attack. He gave them the green light when Miss Anderson stopped for long enough at a certain spot. General McKenzie had wondered why, of all the places in the city, she was stopping there. The planes were already inbound when he realized that she was there for someone.
 
Kyle McKenzie had had a moment of doubt, but he had disregarded it when he concluded that it would be hard to find a better moment. The giant woman was surrounded by blocks and blocks of residential buildings, so the number of collateral victims was not going to be small, but it would probably be smaller than in any other area of the city. And with her having shown no desire to abandon Emerald, it was his responsibility to bring her down before she could create any more victims of her own.
 
After a while of tampering with one of the buildings, Miss Anderson sat down. An entire block was gone under her ass, and soon another one followed its fate when she extended her legs.
 
Planes had got in position shortly after that. Kyle McKenzie had given the most painful command in his career. Shortly after, Laura Anderson had disappeared from the multiple displays in the command center, being replaced by white flashes in the satellite cameras and by more lively explosions in the shots taken by high altitude observation planes.
 
They had shot at her everything they had short of nuclear weapons. Someone at Intelligence had favored penetrator rounds over other options. Most of the ordinance used had ended up being bunker-busters. No one knew how tough Laura Anderson was, so they had planned with ample margin. Of course, the high yield explosive in the ordinance that had been shot at her had done more than just hit the giantess.
 
As General McKenzie waited for the smoke to clear, he mentally counted the number of blocks that had been covered by it. He contained a shiver as he realized it was way too high. The affected area was as large as a five by five street grid. Twenty-five blocks. He blocked his mind's attempt to estimate the number of victims. 
 
Instead, he put all his focus on confirming the neutralization of the biggest threat his country had had to face in its entire history.
 
The thick smoke had been clearing for too long. Kyle McKenzie narrowed his eyes, trying to pierce through it. The blow came through the radio before the images were there.
 
"It's a negative sir."
 
“What?” he asked, shocked.
 
The report had come from one of the units on the spot, barely out of the destruction radius of what they had shot.
 
"Target is not neutralized."
 
Kyle was going to yell at them when the smoke cleared enough for him to get a view. He could only see her massive shadow at first. She was sitting back up, her movement letting him know that she was alive. He felt a ball of ice in his stomach as the images became clearer and clearer.
 
He contained the yell of frustration every cell in his body wanted him to let out. His mind switched focus. If at least she had been hurt enough…
 
The rate at which the smoke was opening up was much faster now. Laura Anderson’s face was easy enough to see among the last wisps of it. It looked incredibly angry. But besides some scorch marks, there were no signs of harm. No wounds, no blood, not even some burnt skin.
 
“Oh my God!” General McKenzie said, finally losing his cool.
 
 
 
 
Laura was quickly evolving from disorientation to rage. Her mind was still debating whether she had felt pain or not, but no matter what the conclusion was, this had been the closest she had been to a physical threat since her growth. Not even the explosion of the gas tanker had felt like this.
 
It had been like… being punched. In the space of a few seconds she had been hit dozens of times in every spot of her vast anatomy, and each of the times she had noticed the sudden increase in pressure, like someone slamming his fists at her. She was not sure if it had been painful, though. It had been uncomfortable. And disorienting too. Her ears had been whistling for a couple of minutes, and her eyes had watered at the intense heat and light.  Needless to say, she had been thrown backward.   
 
She was starting to recover her sight and her hearing as she clumsily started to sit down, trying to make some sense of what had just happened. Her mind was slowly coming back to speed. There was, of course, only one possible explanation: she had been attacked.
 
She felt rage start to pool inside her as she was processing the stupidity of the little people for having made another attempt on her. Would they never learn?
 
Then, something in the back of her mind told her that she was missing something. Something critically important. She completed her movement to sit and looked at her surroundings. In the attempt to kill her they had completely fucked up a pretty large section of the city. So, they had reached that point.
 
Then, memories of the section of the city she was at finally worked as an adrenaline shot to her still startled brain and she opened her eyes wide. A deep fear was quickly rising inside her. She looked down at her palm, in a foolish hope that physics would not work like they were supposed to. There was nothing and no one in there. Only blackened remainders of the missiles that had been shot at her.
 
The fear gave way to despair. It filled every cell of her body, making her feel a coldness she had never experienced before, a coldness she would have never thought she would feel now that she had become a goddess. And then, the ice started to melt and gave way to rage like none she had felt in her life.
 
They had killed her! The fucking ants had killed the only person in the world she cared about. Ice and fire fought a battle inside her. Rage quickly won.
 
She had the most prodigious mind ever, but right now every neuron could only process one thought: they would pay!
 
Opening her thick lips, Laura let out an inhuman bellow as her mind broadcasted the only thing going through it: hate!
 
Tens of thousands died in an instant, their minds too weak to resist Laura's unfocused mental burst. Several thousand more died a few seconds later when the shock made them lose control of their vehicles. Millions dropped to their knees and covered their ears as the deepest fear they had ever felt invaded their consciousness. No matter whether they had seen her in action before or not, every citizen in Emerald that was still alive understood one thing: the giant woman was going to kill them. Plenty lost their sanity forever.
 
Laura started standing up, her head quickly clearing the remainders of the smoke and reaching a new and unknown to her height of close to 1,200 feet. They had gone too far. She had been too good to them, she now realized. She had been careful first, selective later. She had expected them to come to terms with the new reality on their own. And it had cost her everything. It had cost her the only person that had mattered to her in the world.
 
They had never deserved her mercy. Humans were selfish, traitorous creatures. She had always known that. She had just been too self-confident. And because of this, Stacy was dead!
 
A tear started forming in Laura’s right eye when a defense mechanism kicked in. Yes, she had been too confident, but she had not been the one killing Stacy! The humans had! And they would pay! She would correct her previous mistake, even if too late.
 
“You fucking idiots!” she screamed for all the city to hear, about to break into a cry. “What the fuck did you do? You fucking killed her!” she added, her tone as angry as it could get.
 
Laura was breathing heavily, not out of exhaustion but out of excitement.
 
“I will crush every single one of you. I will turn you into nothing more than stains in my sole!” she screamed to a terrified city.
 
 
 
“Sir, should we give any instructions to wave 2?” an aide said.
 
General McKenzie was so shocked about the situation that he had forgotten about wave 2. In the original plan, the nimbler attack planes were meant to deliver a more surgical strike with anti-tank missiles to finish off the job after the more massive impact of the initial attack.
 
Seeing how ineffective the heavy ordinance had been, Kyle McKenzie had no doubts about the possibilities of the second wave. He did not react, though. After all, he did not think anything he could command the planes would make a difference, at this point. He was mistaken.
 
 
 
 
Laura was standing in the middle of ground zero, trying to make her mind up on which section of the city to unleash her rage upon when she heard the whistle of the fighter planes as they approached for an attack pass. Armed with anti-tank missiles, the second wave of planes needed to necessarily fly lower, making them more noticeable to her.
 
Lower was still too high for Laura, who had grown so used to her new condition that not being able to reach something felt extremely frustrating. It was even worse in her current state of rage.
 
She unconsciously widened her stance and placed her hands on her hips as she sneered at the approaching planes. She spied a dozen trails converging on her, but it was clear that no matter how low they were flying she would not be able to punish them as they deserved. 
 
Or so she had thought.
 
Despite the distance and their speed, Laura’s enraged mind found a connection to the twenty-four people on the dozen attack planes converging on her. It took her only a nudge of her overwhelming mind power to fry them all at once.
 
The dozen trails suddenly lost their synchronism. Seeing the planes randomly crush in different spots of the city made Laura feel briefly satisfied within her general state of rage.
 
“No one is safe from me anymore!” Laura bellowed.
 
No matter how pissed she was, the realization that her mind allowed her to reach where her vast size did not was a rush of power.
 
It was time for the city to feel her wrath.
 
She was at the edge of ground zero in three steps. There was no one in the street, but it did not matter. Without further word, Laura raised her foot and rested it on top of a twenty-story building that could barely make it to mid-shin. The building groaned as she merely held her sole on its roof. Then, she pushed down, demolishing the building as if it were a sand castle. She knew she had snuffed a few hundred lives in one step. It was a drop in the ocean compared to the loss she had just suffered. Sneering, she kicked three identical buildings, turning them to dust in one swift gesture.
 
A few seconds later, people started pouring out of neighboring condos. If they thought they would be safer in the streets than in their homes they were deeply mistaken; Laura thought as she found the thickest concentration of people and planted her foot on it. It was way  larger than it should have needed to be to finish them all, so her sole also ended up partially destroying another apartment building. It suited her well.
 
“How long do you think it’ll take me to kill you all?” she asked aloud.
 
Laura maneuvered her body with ease, finishing an entire block in the process. She then chose the largest avenue that would take her to downtown.
 
She had been trying to avoid too many casualties during most of the morning and had ended up killing tens of thousands instead. Now, Laura was actively looking for maximum damage and the city noticed it.
 
The crowd got thicker with every new step towards downtown. Not in the mood to spare any life, Laura started advance like a tightrope walker, making sure that her heel landed close enough to the toes of her other foot, removing any hopes of salvation for those that were foolishly trying to escape from her.
 
Her body count started to increase at an astronomical rate, each small movement of her feet adding hundreds of names to an already dreadful list. Yet, she was very far from being satisfied. Laura doubted whether the millions of people in the city would be enough for that.
 
She reached an intersection and stopped. The crowd was thick in all directions save the one she had come from. Laura had to make a decision, but she did not feel like sparing anyone. Facing the road to her left and noticing the gentle slope as it moved towards the sea, Laura smiled evilly and squatted.
 
She did not even warn them this time, as her body obeyed her wishes and what had just been an itch soon turned into a roaring torrent of a warm but deadly golden liquid. A few dozens were instantly crushed under the sheer weight and pressure of her piss. Most others were mercilessly dragged down the avenue, along with cars and urban furniture. Laura found their humiliating demise strangely  fitting, but was far from satisfied with “just” one mob.
 
"You are less than nothing," she said as she stood up again, smirking as the thousands of gallons she had expelled from her body kept doing their job.
 
Her little act of retribution did not go unnoticed to the rest of the crowd that was close enough to her to take good notice. Laura loved both seeing and sensing their increased fear.
 
"Are you scared?" she asked. "Let me give you a hand."
 
Feeling more comfortable than ever with her mind powers, Laura focused on the stretch of avenue uphill from the one that had suffered her rage already. She immediately started broadcasting a mild fear, causing the crowd to feel a surge of panic. Frowning, Laura kept at it and started to increase the intensity, satisfied by the increased control she was feeling. 
 
The crowd had never looked too coordinated, but the impact of her tampering was obvious enough when entire groups of people started crashing against each other while others were dropping to their knees. Laura was enjoying it, even if she knew deep inside that what she was doing was purely sadistic. She did not mind, as proven by the fact that she kept on increasing the fear she was projecting on the tiny mites.
 
They soon started turning against each other. It was exhilarating, at least from Laura’s point of view. She wanted more, so she kept going. Their pathetic reactions were almost becoming arousing. Laura felt a rush of power, which as usual, came together with a more carnal type of excitement. It made her lose focus. Trying to recover it proved to be fatal, at least for the crowd. Thousands dropped dead in an instant, their synapses killed by the goddess’ overwhelming mindpower.
 
"Oh," Laura said panting. She felt a little sheepish at the unexpected results of her toying with their minds, but not at all guilty. If anything, it felt good to be reminded that her goddesshood reached far beyond her phenomenal size.
 
The few minutes she had used to punish those in the avenue that crossed the one she had been advancing through gave the original crowd she had been chasing a bit of a head start. Nothing that could not be quickly fixed once she resumed walking, in any case.
 
Laura did not start right away, though. Instead, she crouched once more and reached out to the closest building to her right. It turned out that her still unknown boost in size gave her the edge she needed to accomplish what she was looking for. Digging her hands in the asphalt with ease, Laura met the building’s parking lot and cupped her hands upwards. She stood back up, effortlessly ripping at 30-stories tall high-rise from the ground. It turned out that the most challenging part of the feat was to keep the structure in one piece as she got back to her full height.
 
She reached out with her brain, feeling the hundreds of lives inside.
 
“Did you think you were safe from me in there?” she asked in a challenging tone. “No one is safe from me anymore!” she then boasted.
 
Her intention had been to toss the building at the fleeing crowd. The results were mixed. It would have been unfair to say that she had not achieved heavy damage, but the truth was that the execution had not been as expected. Already quite weakened by the mere act of ripping it from the ground, the building did not hold together once she pushed it from her. So, rather than falling into her intended victims in one piece, the high-rise broke in smaller chunks that were thrown in multiple directions. Plenty of them caught the crowd as intended. Others just sailed in different directions, damaging some other buildings in the area or even surprising other groups of people in neighboring streets. Still, the results had lacked the spectacularism she had been aiming for.
 
Sneering, she just moved forward. If the trick she had tried had not worked, she would need to finish the job the old-fashioned way: under her soles. A dozen steps later, the crowd was no more.
 
Laura had not set herself a specific destination, but her path was unconsciously leading her towards the heart of downtown, where the tallest buildings stood. In her mind, the most packed people were, the easier they would be to crush.
 
It was not long before she met another crowd. She contented herself with crushing them as she advanced, at first, but after a few blocks, she felt like she should show the world that she was more than a pair of deadly feet.
 
Stopping in another large intersection, she placed her hands on her hips once more, in a gesture that was quickly becoming a signature, one that was telling the world that she was above and looking down at it.
 
There was no trace of compassion in her voice as she addressed them.
 
“Seeing how you try to escape from me would be fun if it was not so pathetic!”
 
Without a further word, Laura crouched down and reached out. The crowd's screams joined in a single shriek as she stood back up, a packed city bus held in her fingers.
 
She repositioned the vehicle so that she was holding it with the fingertip of her index finger in the front and her thumb’s in the back. Then she peeked inside with brown eyes, each larger than any of the windows on the bus. She smirked at the pandemonium.
 
"Scared, aren't you?" she asked with a mix of cruelty and pride. "I would be if I were in your position. But then again, if I were so puny as you are, I would also do my best to prevent someone like me from getting mad. You, on the other hand, are going above and beyond to attack me and piss me off." 
 
She brought her fingers together as soon as she finished her sentence, instantly turning the bus into a mangled heap of metal and snuffing 50 lives in the process. There was a collective gasp from the street as she did so. It was curious, Laura thought. She did not get the same type of reaction when she killed plenty more at once every time each of her feet landed on a crowd. It probably had to do with the fact that she had used her hands instead of her feet, she reasoned. It seemed to make things more personal.
 
Following that line of thought, Laura dropped to her knees without warning, knocking hundreds of people off their feet and crushing a few dozen under her never-ending legs. They were mere side effects since she was looking for something else.
 
Reaching into the thickest of the crowd, Laura tried to scoop as many people as possible. She had been rough enough, so she knew better than to expect all her catches to survive the ordeal, but she was satisfied enough with the number of squirming bodies in her palm as she raised it and opened it under her nose.
 
"I love holding a few of you in my palm. Out of all the stuff I can now do, this is still the best reminder of what I've become, of how much above you I am. Does it work for you as well? Does this help you realize your insignificance?" Laura asked.
 
She did not get any answer, just a few screams and some short-lived attempts at moving over the uneven surface of her hand.
 
Frowning a bit, Laura reached out with an extended finger of her free hand and pinched two of the squirming bodies between its tip and the palm that was holding them. A slight push was enough to make them pop and to increase the volume of everyone else’s screams.
 
“You’re so helpless” Laura stated, neutral. “Why can’t you realize? Why would you still hold to the illusion of defeating me? It beats me, it really does. If I, God forbids it, were in your position I want to believe that I’d be smart enough to understand that I would not have any other option but to submit. But no, you just have to fight me, as if that was going to change anything." 
 
The crowd in her hand was looking up at her colossal face in terror.
 
"It was amusing, at first. Feeling you breaking against me was even entertaining. But now… now you've cost me everything I ever cared about in this world. And you are going to die for it."
 
Laura started closing her hand into a fist as she completed her sentence. She activated her mind receptor to feel the ever-increasing  anguish of those held on it, as her skin wrapped and closed on itself, narrowing the space and time they had to live.
 
She tightened her fist until her knuckles whitened and gore oozed through them. Laura had never been too sympathetic for any of the lives she had taken so far. But now she had truly enjoyed sowing them, even if not a million deaths would be able to fill the hollow space she now felt in her soul.
 
She stomped her left foot hard on the closest mob as she once more realized that Stacy would not be back, that she would live her reign over humanity alone. No one would ever be able to replace her. Stacy had been the only connection between her past life and her present reality, the only human that had known her before she had ascended to goddesshood. She had loved her before, and she knew she would love her now. Laura would never be able to feel the same for anyone else, with every other person she would meet from now one being but a mite in her eyes.
 
Thinking about people with special connections made her remember something. The world, who was looking at her in awe, did not understand it at first when it saw her reaching into her womanhood. After all, she looked anything but aroused. Then, she removed her hand, holding an orange free-fall lifeboat and everyone was even more surprised.
 
This included Laura, who could have sworn that the boat looked a bit smaller than she remembered it. She reached inside it with her mind and felt several lives, even if pretty battered ones. It had not been so long ago that she had taken this boat, her goal having been to collect a group of humans she would keep handy. It felt like a million years ago, though.
 
She had been a different Laura then. She had felt invincible, in charge, playful. She still knew she was invincible, but now she also knew there were still things she could lose. Her playfulness was long forgotten, her mind now only filled with hatred.
 
"I hope you enjoyed the ride," she said, her voice suggesting otherwise. "I don't feel like having any more of you close for the time being, though" she added.
 
And as simple as saying the words, Laura tightened her fist around the boat, crushing it and her carefully selected passengers in a heartbeat.
 
 
 
"She has no empathy left," Laya said.
 
“She has none to show” Quo corrected her.
 
“But you did not want a psychopath” Laya stated.
 
"She is not one," Quo said. "She is a ruthless woman with a massive ego and that has been hurt when she thought that impossible." 
 
“Did you know Stacy would be killed?” Laya asked.
 
“That was impossible to predict. I had actually anticipated a more gradual escalation. The former authority had to eventually come up with some military response that could be effective enough to annoy her. I was not anticipating that she would be hurt, even if only emotionally."   
 
“Does it change anything?” Laya asked.
 
“Not in the long run. It does accelerate things considerably. It will increase the death toll too” Quo said.
 
“What if she goes on a retribution quest forever? How would that make her different from a psychopath?” Laya asked.
 
“She won’t. Laura Anderson is a smart woman. She has a plan. She will eventually realize that there is no other fate for her than ruling humanity. It will make her even less compassionate when projecting her power, though”
 
“You don’t seem worried” Laya observed.
 
"I'm not. I think this was a lucky strike." 
 

Chapter 20

 

Downtown unwillingly greeted Laura back. She was the last sight anyone in the city center desired, but there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it.
 
There were not too many people in the city could do to escape from her either. During her field day in the city, Laura had made short work of the vast majority of its transportation network, getting rid of highways, railways, subways, bridges and ocean liners.   
 
With all that in mind, people's choices were limited to sharing the streets with the goddess or trying to hide from her inside any of the skyscrapers in the area. Neither of them was very encouraging, as Laura quickly proved by walking through a waist-high building, instantly finishing it and the hundreds of people inside. 
 
The goddess had taken the mayhem at her feet for granted and had decided to focus on reaching downtown as quickly as possible. The conclusion she had reached had been that getting Emerald rid of its skyline would greatly contribute to getting it rid of a large chunk of its population.  
 
A closed first brought down the top third of the HQ of an insurance company as she kept progressing.
 
She had been in this area before, which was the reason why her view of it felt somehow odd. She was still massive, and her scale versus the buildings felt more or less in line with what she would have expected, but still, it felt a bit different.
 
She noticed that none of Emerald’s skyscrapers was making it even to her perky breasts… but had it not been like this already before? Another closed fist took care of yet another roof. This time she was skilled enough to apply a blow that replicated along the building and brought most of it down into a pile of rubble.
 
At her feet, a world away, people were more hysteric than anyone had got yet in her day in the city. It was obvious to them that Laura had only one objective in mind now.
 
Laura passed through two twin buildings and extended her hands to the sides, grabbing each top with one hand, not slowing her pace. The two buildings toppled as she kept moving, apparently unimpressed by the massive feat of strength she had accomplished.
 
Laura would never know if she would have noticed her old employer’s HQ had it not been for the chopper. That was how much her job had meant in her life before her ascension. The best word that could be used to describe it was unremarkable. She had never been mistreated, but she had never feel engaged either. More than once she had caught herself thinking that if that had to be the type of work she would do in the future, her years at College had been nothing but a waste.
 
Not that many people knew that Laurelann’s national HQ was in Emerald, even if they owned the majority of one of the tallest skyscrapers in town. Most people would just assume that the hundreds of apparel shops they owned nationwide were managed on their own, by people like Laura, who worked 60 hours a week to make sure that everything was tuned like a clock. But the truth was that Laurelann’s was a massive corporation, and as such, it boasted hundreds of white collar jobs in its shiny headquarters.
 
It also owned a fleet of choppers for its executives, it seemed, judging by the frenzy of activity on its roof. It was too tempting to let go, so Laura soon found herself walking through some shorter buildings to get to her new objective.
 
The building’s roof was in line with her nipples, which meant that the chopper was easily within her reach, even if it had managed to take off a few second before. Reaching out, Laura plucked it by its tail.
 
A fingernail made short work of the rotor as she brought the bright aircraft to her eyes. With a peek inside she thought she recognized at least a couple of the faces in the internal memos she got as a department manager, but the truth was that she had never paid too much attention to those.
 
Opening up the helicopter's shell like an egg, Laura emptied its passengers into her hand and tossed the remainders over her shoulder, not concerned that the pilots were still there. She counted five of them, and she was pretty sure that she had got the top brass in the company.
 
“Yesterday, I worked for you. Today you belong to me. How do you feel about that?” Laura asked.
 
She got some cowering and some screams, but no answers. The truth was that she was genuinely interested in them, though. She wanted to learn how those who had thought themselves on top were feeling about the change she had so abruptly brought. 
 
“You know what, you don’t have to tell me. I can get it from you myself” Laura said.
 
With a smirk, she locked their minds into hers with ease. Her regular use of her mental faculties was starting to give her some level of mastery of them, up to the point where she was managing them comfortably.
 
Scanning them into her was easy. Breaking into their minds too, especially once she was not concerned about any long-term effects she could have on their sanity.
 
Except when using her brain as a weapon of mass destruction, Laura had not been so rough with her mental powers before. She was behaving like a burglar that had broken into a house and was tossing the furniture over to find the jewelry she was after. Soon, the executives' feelings started showing up, and she widened her smile in satisfaction.
 
It was obvious she was straining them, also in the physical world. Her enhanced eyesight was keen enough to detect a couple of bleeding noses as her mind kept stomping through her victim’s brains. She could not have cared less.
 
Then, suddenly, everything changed. She felt the excitement first and realized about its causes later. What she was reading were not feelings anymore. It was… information.
 
"Oh, God!" Laura muttered as personal memories, business information and countess pieces of data started streaming towards her mind, who was quite naturally storing them.
 
Her excitement betrayed her, making her inadvertently “suck” at an increased pace. Her mind acted like a vacuum cleaner at maximum power, taking everything it found on its path as it kept smashing its way through the brains of her captives.
 
A minute later, she was done. And they were, too, their minds sucked dry by a power they could not have comprehended, their lives having expired in the process.
 
Laura could not have been less affected by the demise of her former bosses. Tilting her hand and letting them drop a thousand feet to the road below, she could only focus on what had just happened. She was amazed, still trying to understand what she had done.
 
She tried carefully first, tapping into her mind. She found information she would not have had the right to know there. Laurelann’s results, secret plans to merge with a top competitor and strategies to evade antitrust laws, the tax havens where the company hid a substantial part of its income.
 
It was too good to be true, Laura thought, letting a loud laugh out. The realization even made her forget about her tragic loss for an instant.
 
Needing to confirm her finding, Laura smashed her fist into the chest-high building, ripping a substantial part of its façade in the process. Dozens died, but she was not interested in them. Her interest was in the several startled and scurrying mites that were now into view through the hole she had just carved.
 
Selecting a tiny woman at random, Laura reached out and pinched her between her fingertips. Once more, she looked smaller than some of the people she had held before, but the difference was not relevant enough for her to reach any conclusions. Maybe she was just short.
 
Ten seconds later, the woman was limp, and Laura knew that she had been rather tall, around 5'8", and that she told everyone that her weight was 120lbs when it really was 130. 
 
Laura’s nipples hardened as the woman’s body dropped down to the street below. She was still trying to process the consequences of what she had just found out, but she instinctively knew they were big.
 
She had had world domination fantasies ever since she could remember. They had always involved her being much larger and stronger than anyone else, crushing any resistance she would find in the process of uncontested rule. During the majority of the day, Laura had been exhilarated with the knowledge that she had got everything she had ever wished for. But now she was coming to the realization that she had got so much more than that.  
 
Her mind had become as powerful as her body. And she was beginning to understand that this unlocked limitless possibilities.
 
She had been too enraged to adequately process the fact that she had killed the pilots of the fighter jets heading to attack her from an enormous distance. The consequences were now clear to her, though: no one would ever be able to feel safe from her.
 
Her latest discovery was even larger in magnitude. Sheer power, her ability to kill and destroy at large scale, offered her the possibility to punish those that did not obey her. Coercion should have been enough to take over the world, but now she had an even better weapon: knowledge!
 
No secrets would be safe from her anymore. If anyone knew something, she would know that something too. Instinctively, Laura knew that she saw but the tip of the iceberg of this new ability. Like every new skill she had learned about so far, it would take some time and practice to exploit its full possibilities, but she could already perceive their vast potential.  
 
Unlimited knowledge with unlimited power! This was what Laura had become! A Goddess!
 
“How could you worthless insects ever think about challenging me?” she bellowed, defiant.
 
Laurelann's headquarters soon became an example of what she meant as she mercilessly kneed the building in its mid-section, the weakest point of the structure, as it soon became available. Her slender leg tore through steel, glass, and concrete with ease, damaging the structure so much in one blow that the rest of the building collapsed like a house of cards.
 
Laura started to feel excitement about her power once more, the ever-present wetness returning to her not anymore private parts. Lust and an intense power rush started to share her mind with her rage and sense of retribution once more. It was not going to make too much of a difference to the population of Emerald, though, since the goddess was as determined to annihilate them as a few minutes before.
 
Her sensitive ears caught the buzz of the news choppers in the distance, making her turn to have a better look at the swarm of colorful aircraft hovering at a very respectable distance from her. Laura's first impulse was to exterminate them, using any of the multiple resources at her disposal to do so. She suppressed the urge, though. Instead, she looked at them in the most arrogant pose she could find and addressed the billions of people she knew were following each and every one of her actions through the objectives of their cameras.
 
“Take a good look at your fate! Take a look at what happens when I’m challenged! I will level this city! And I will raze as many cities as it takes to have you learn that you either kneel to me or die under my sole!”
 
She raised her right foot as she finished her sentence, resting it on the roof of yet another building of the right height and holding it there for a couple of seconds for added effect. The fate of the high-rise was sealed, though, and Laura soon pushed her foot down, turning its thirty crowded floors into a pile of rubble.
 
“You’re free to take a peek as long as you don’t become annoying” Laura then said to the choppers, before turning and keep progressing into downtown with a swagger.
 
Three blocks later Laura decided that she was being too nice and switched her sensual walking by a more murderous one. Being in downtown, buildings offered the best chance for maximum damage with minimum effort, so Laura soon took a liking on bringing them down in a variety of fashions.
 
After half a dozen blocks it became evident that the best possible height for a building to survive was one that would bring it to some point between Laura’s upper thigh and her waist. Shorter buildings ended up kicked or stepped while taller ones were just too convenient for her to punch or sweep.
 
There had been millions of man-hours involved in the construction of that part of Emerald. Now, it was only taking a few minutes of a giant woman to undo all that effort. News crews were not missing any detail of her demolition work as they kept following her.
 
Laura's body count was increasing at its highest rate yet, people now dying by the hundreds under her feet and by the thousands in the buildings she brought down with the rest of her body. Her thirst for vengeance was far from quelled in any case, even if now it was shared by another type of need, sexual in nature. 
 
Any inhibitions she might have had earlier in the morning when the city had met a more principled version of herself, were now gone. So, with consent no longer being an issue, Laura's mind was wandering through how many of the tiny fuckers she would need to satisfy herself.
 
She spied a group of people scurrying in the roof of a building to her left. They had probably been observing her approach and were now trying to hide as she got closer. An earlier Laura might have felt intrigued by this, to invest some time on the mites. She was not that Laura anymore, so she just slammed her palm on the building, covering its entire roof under its extension and demolishing its top third.
 
Thoughts of Stacy were still very present in her mind, but Laura was starting to ride the wave of power once more. In her mind, there was no contradiction between the pure love she had felt for her girlfriend and the lust that accompanied her every display of power. She had already discarded Stacy as a sex partner after growing, so the look for alternatives to satisfy her ever-growing horniness was perfectly compatible with her memory.
 
Then, as she kept causing mayhem with her mere advance, Laura had her attention caught by something. It was not a physical stimulus this time. It took her an instant to recognize it had come entirely from the back of her mind. Much like radar, something had bounced off it and alerted her conscious self. Laura stopped, frowned and focused, trying to make some sense of what had happened. She felt it with renewed intensity as she did so. The best way she could find to describe it was as a signal, one that stood over the rest of the background noise she now knew she was processing and ignoring as she moved around the city. 
 
She did not know when it had started, but Laura was now fully aware of the fact that her mind was not only working as an active projector but also as a passive antenna, keeping track of her surroundings. Focusing a bit more and zeroing into the signal, her eyes soon aligned with its source. Laura felt genuinely excited when she identified the Admirals stadium.
 
 
 
Kendra was a successful woman by all measurable standards. Her success had not been a gift, though. She had had to fight for it. No man would have considered her unattractive, but she had not let her life be guided by her looks and had worked hard to get into a good college first and to climb the corporate ladder later.
 
In her early forties, she had had everything she had ever wanted. This had not included a family, but she had never seen the need for one. At most, she saw it as a waste of time, a time she needed to keep achieving her professional objectives. She was determined to break any glass ceilings society imposed for her. She was determined to rise to the top. And she was in a good track to make her goals a reality.
 
She knew she was not well loved. She knew she was considered too aggressive. Executive women had to typically suffer this type of judgment, even when they showed the same attitudes that would have made some of their male colleagues "assertive" or "strong." She did not give a fuck about it. Why should she? It was much better to get the next promotion and forget about those that badmouthed her by leaving them behind. 
 
At 42, she was about to rise a step higher, merely weeks away from getting the vice-presidency she had been coveting for so long… and then it all had vanished.
 
Life was even more unfair than she would have ever thought it would be, Kendra pondered as she pushed the man ahead of her in the line at the same time she was being pushed by the woman behind.
 
The thought of just how much could be lost in less than 24 hours was cruel. Her vice-presidency would not come, at least not in the foreseeable future. The company where she worked was no more, its headquarters having been smashed earlier in the morning. Her luxurious apartment was gone, the neighborhood where it had been having disappeared a few hours later. 
 
All that was left for Kendra was her own life, and right now she was fighting hard for it, being treated by the authorities as just any other of the worthless people around her.
 
She counted the number of people ahead of her in the line once more. Twenty-five. Not having anything else to worry about, Kendra had been working out the pattern for the different lines that converged into the improvised landing zone in the middle of the Admiral’s pitch.
 
With the highways gone, the railroad blocked and the airport unusable, the military had funneled the mass of evacuees into the only areas large enough for them to land a few cargo choppers at once. The stadium had been one of them. The closest one to the spot Kendra had been when the evacuation effort had started.
 
Shocked as she was at seeing her entire life going down the gutter, Kendra had followed instructions at first. Now, trapped in a never-ending line, sharing the pitch with tens of thousands of panicked people, she was beginning to think that it might not have been a good idea to come here. It was not as if she had any other option than to stay and try to get evacuated, though. The crowd was as thick as she had ever seen one, and it was moving in one direction only.
 
None of the soldiers coordinating the activity in the landing zone was giving them any meaningful information other than instructions on how to arrange themselves. The screens in the stadium were not showing any information either. Together with the fact that their cell phones had a battery but could no longer connect to any network meant that they were effectively isolated from the external world. An external world where a giant woman was bringing their city down.
 
There had been no fewer than a dozen instances where rumors had spread about the giant woman approaching the stadium. The reaction had always been the same: utter silence and tension that could be cut with a knife. Every single time this happened Kendra's thoughts returned to the utter stupidity of packing herself with thousands of other people.  
 
Her overall opinion about the entire evacuation attempt started improving as she got closer to the landing zone. Like everyone else, she knew better than to try to skip the line or make a rush to the choppers. A few had tried, only their bullet-ridden corpses remaining of them. Kendra knew they had had to do it, but this had not made her feel any less anxious. Now, only two helicopter trips away from salvation, she was starting to feel some hope.
 
The large, bi-rotor helicopters showed up and landed, one after the other, until all five of them were down. Doors opened, and soldiers started guiding people in. By the time they were done, hundreds were on board, and she was number five on her line. One more round-trip and she would be safe. 
 
She did not know where they were taking the evacuees, but according to her analysis, it took them less than fifteen minutes to return every time. She had not started to look for distinctive elements in the choppers until recently, so it might well be that the army was using more than five aircraft for the mission.
 
Kendra brought her hands to her ears as the massive behemoths increased their rotor speed and started parting from the grassy ground. Their movements were ponderous but sure; she had to admit that the army was executing the entire operation efficiently.
 
A minute later, the five massive choppers were clearing the stadium’s open roof. She knew from previous observations that they would climb a bit more and then accelerate towards the sea.
 
Not having anything else to do, she followed their movements with mild interest. Then, all hell broke loose.
 
The whooshing sound of the hurricane got to her first. An instant later, the bi-motor behemoths started shaking like leaves in the breeze. Things paced up faster than anyone could have expected. The choppers never stood a chance. Four of them were sent meandering through the sky; four distant explosion sounds removing any doubts about their fate from Kendra's mind. 
 
The fifth one was the one that fought the cyclone for the longest time. It proved to be fatal as the aircraft was defeated, just as its comrades had been. It was flying lower than them by the time it gave up, though, which sent her crashing not with the neighboring areas of the stadium but on the north stall itself.
 
The explosion was massive, the chopper having carried enough fuel to carry its passengers to safety. Screams, smoke and flying chunks of metal mixed as thousands of people panicked and looked for cover. There was none.
 
Hundreds died in the explosion. Hundreds more were crushed in the stampede that followed. The soldiers, as shocked as they had been at first, were now back in control of themselves, and were working hard to get control of the crowd back.
 
She heard shots, screams, and megaphones. She was about to trip in the confusion but miraculously managed to stay on her feet. This had probably meant the difference between  death and life since she did not doubt that she would have been trampled if she had lost her footing.    
 
More shots. More screams. More voices on the megaphone. Nothing seemed to make sense. And then, things started to calm down. Just a bit. People were still more panicked than she had ever seen them. Smoke still rose from the north stall of the stadium. But screams of fear were replaced by sobs of those that had been injured. And the mass settled.
 
“… stand you ground! The landing zone can still be used. You will be picked up! Stand your ground…” the voices from the megaphones said.
 
Kendra realized that in the confusion that followed the explosion she had lost eight positions in the line. She was about to fight her way through it when her rational self kicked in. Thirteen. She was in spot thirteen. She would still make it in the next batch. And fighting would probably get her shot. She hyperventilated, the screams of those around her hurting her ears.
 
And then, the stadium became silent. It did not happen all at once. Like a wave, it started in the far area of where she was, closer to the south stalls, and traveled all along the crowd. In less than twenty seconds, a screaming crowd of tens of thousands was not uttering a sound.
 
The messages on the megaphones went on for a couple more iterations. Then, they died too. Kendra was about to ask what had happened when she felt the ground shake under her feet. A second later it shook again, and she could have sworn that with higher intensity. Then, she heard the thuds coming from outside. 
 
"Oh my God" she muttered between her teeth.
 
The stampede started again. Kendra would never know how it had occurred to her, but the fact that she ran in the opposite direction to everyone else and dashed behind one of the podiums where the megaphone men were set had saved her life. In a matter of seconds, hundreds of people died, crushed against each other, in what Kendra thought was one of the most horrible deaths a human being could have.
 
Thankful for being out of harm’s way, Kendra risked peeking around the podium.
 
Her shadow was cast in the vast extension of the Admiral’s pitch long before she became visible behind the tall walls of the stadium. As tall as they were, they could not reach much higher than her knees, once she came into view. The Admiral’s had long boasted about having the largest stadium in the National League, but this claim was now ridiculed by a single woman in her early twenties.
 
The giant wore a permanent smirk on her face as she completed her last couple of steps before stopping and placing her hands on her hips. Kendra could have sworn that her massive brown eyes had locked in hers, but it soon became evident that the colossus was not paying attention to a single person, but to the entire contents of the stadium. 
 
In any case, Kendra’s instincts were telling her to hide, to get out of sight of the creature that had been sowing terror in her city and that had put an end to her all her life’s aspirations. She could not. She was too impressed.
 
The woman, who could not even be twenty-five, craned her neck down a bit more and took a broader view of the situation she was responsible for. Then, her lip twitched upward another notch, and Kendra felt it.   
 
It was even worse than dying, for she understood her utter insignificance. All she had been working for and fighting for in her life did not matter. It had never mattered. She understood that being on top of other insignificant beings meant nothing. She understood true power, and how far away from it she was.
 
 
 
 
Laura was amused by the sight of the human avalanche her mere presence had created, especially considering that besides blowing five choppers out of the sky, she had not done much more. She let them go for a few more seconds, observing them with curiosity from her lofty stance, hands on her hips in her favorite commanding pose.
 
Then, she addressed them with the mockery and scorn she felt for them.
 
“Wanna crush yourselves before I do the job? Be my guests!”
 
The stall immediately below her was as packed as the rest of the stadium, but if she had to judge, it was probably the area where people were doing the lousiest job of trying to get away. She did not give them any chance to improve as she moved forward without warning, her shins and lower thighs spectacularly breaking through the mass of concrete as Laura waded through the stadium's structure.
 
She stopped once more, standing where an entire stall holding thousands of people had been, arms akimbo once more.
 
“Trying to flee, were you?” Laura asked, almost in a conversational tone. “Haven’t you already learned what happens to those that try?” she added.
 
She gave them a couple of seconds to digest her words. Then, went on.
 
"This is a new world. One where I decide who leaves and who stays. One where I decide who lives and who dies."
 
She then crouched and reached to one of the packed masses of humanity by her left foot. There were over a hundred people in her palm by the time she stood back up.
 
“One where you are only as good as what I can get out of you” she added.
 
Bringing her hand down to her very moist crotch, she used fingers of her other to widen the entrance and ease the passage to her unwilling lovers. Not everyone made it, plenty of the people she had caught dropping to their deaths a few hundred feet below. There were still enough of them for Laura to feel their pathetic wriggling inside her.
 
"Ooooohhhhh," she said, more excited by the entire psychology of what she was doing than by the actual physical stimulation.
 
Closing her eyes, she focused on her cunt, trying to increase the feeling of what was going on there. It was a party. One where the guests were not enjoying but where the host was having the time of her life.
 
Screams around her intensified, but she did not care. They had nowhere to go, as she keenly proved them by crouching down and grabbing two more handfuls of people. Her ratio of inserted people versus the ones that dropped to their demise got worse, but she did not care. It was not as if she was going to run out of supply any time soon. 
 
She inserted her fingers with care, trying to guide the majority of people in without crushing too many in the attempt. It surprised her to realize that she had room for more.
 
“Am I going to have to do the entire stadium to get off?” she asked aloud, her subconscious betraying her.
 
She took a step into the stadium. Then two more. She was now standing in the middle of the crowd, hundreds of lives having been extinguished under her feet. Her hands were already looking for more sex toys.
 
Laura opened them and looked at their contents, trying to get a peek of her catch.
 
 
 
 
Kendra felt like she would suffocate at first, then she was about to throw up at the same time she felt weightless. By the time everything stopped, her body had rolled over a pile of what could only be more bodies. She rolled on herself to be able to breathe. She instantly hyperventilated. 
 
Her entire field of vision was taken by the skyscraper-sized face of the giant woman. She was impossibly close, which made Kendra quickly rationalize that she was hundreds of feet over the ground.
 
As massive as it was, Kendra could see every small twitch of the giant’s face with crystal clarity. Her lips were still curled upwards, in a gesture that conveyed more self-sufficiency than happiness. She could not prevent thinking that her skin looked very smooth, despite the evident lack of make-up. It was yet another proof of the giant’s age.
 
Her brown eyes looked down, and Kendra thought they stopped at her once more. She soon realized it had been another coincidence. Why would a woman like her notice someone like Kendra?
 
Of all the thoughts she had had since seeing the titan, this one was the hardest one to accept. There, packed with dozens of worthless people, Kendra could not stand out.
 
"I doubt you are going to enjoy this as much as I will," her thunderous voice said, her tone mocking. 
 
Kendra understood what would happen. She had seen what the woman had done to others just an instant ago. A short-lived debate erupted in her mind: would it be better to drop to the ground and die instantly or to get inside her and live a bit longer? Not even this was  her decision to make, though. Her fate would ultimately depend on the skill of the giantess when handling her. This was how meaningless Kendra had got.
 
The giant’s expression changed abruptly. There was a twitch of her lips first, a frown later. Kendra did not realize about the sound of explosions until the humongous face turned. He entire frame of reference changed and she realized that the woman was turning. Then, she felt weightless once more.
 
It was a pleasurable sensation. It took her an instant to regain her senses. When she did, she saw herself flying over the stadium’s roof. Going up filled her with peace. Her heart accelerated as soon as the ground started to get closer, though. Her last thought before meeting it was that she would have done anything to be in the giant’s place.
 
 
 
Missiles hit her all along her back, ass, and legs. Despite being tank busters, none of them could make any sort of meaningful impression on Laura's skin. They were certainly annoying enough for her to notice, though.
 
Turning and seeing the explosions at the same time that a few dozen extra trails indicated that the barrage was far from over made Laura forget about her lust and immediately get back into an alert status.
 
Turning as she tossed the contents of her hands to either side, she faced the incoming missiles and made a conscious decision of waiting for them. They impacted in her washboard flat stomach, her perky breasts, her face and even her crotch. A few of the missiles even missed her, in what must have been the least accurate shots ever.
 
They were not inconsequential, but they were far from harmful. Laura waited for a new barrage, but it never happened. Not having any sort of immediate threat heading towards her let her focus on the source of the attack itself.
 
She had to admit that she felt even a bit impressed at the display the army had put together for her. She wondered how she had not been able to notice if before.
 
They were mostly stationed on the opposite side of the bay, the attack she had suffered having mostly consisted of mid-range missiles and some attack helicopters that were hovering above the spot where Bay Bridge had been. Forgetting about them and focusing her formidable sight in the area beyond the airport she could see that Uncle Sam had brought as much as he had been able to gather to fight her. There were thousands of soldiers and a fair number of tanks, transport vehicles, artillery batteries and missile launchers.
 
The choppers were not alone in the air, too. Fighter jets were flying farther away, but close enough to attack her in no time if they decided to.
 
The only thing she was missing was a comparable display at sea. There were a few small boats, but no large warship she could see. She guessed they were to slow to react in time to her presence. 
 
So, this was it. This was the fight she had been waiting for. There was no doubt in Laura’s mind that whoever was in charge of this attack was the same one that had ordered the attack where Stacy had been killed.
 
It was time for retribution. But it was also time for the world to learn a new lesson. The world needed to learn that not even the most formidable war machinery on Earth could dare to challenge her.
 
She placed her hands on her hips once more and addressed the army in the distance, projecting her voice at a volume that made it heard in the entire county.
 
“So, you’ve finally come for a fight!”
 
She got no answer.
 
“Do not expect mercy from me! Not anymore!”
 
She was about to start heading towards her attackers when she stopped, thinking about something. The fact that she had not noticed them did not mean that they had not been there for a while. A force like that could not be assembled in five minutes. They had not attacked her until now, though. She smirked evilly as she understood what whoever was in charge of the army was after.
 
Raising her foot as high as she could, she looked in defiance towards the area where the military had gathered and then stomped down hard. It sank deep into the pitch, reaching its foundations and shaking the entire structure. Thousands of people lost their footing. Most interestingly, cracks formed and advanced towards the stalls that were still standing.
 
Encouraged, Laura raised her foot and stomped hard once more. The first cracks widened and reached farther into the stalls. She did not give anyone a chance to react before she started pounding the ground under her foot regularly, repetitively, trying to stomp as hard as she could with every single instance.
 
To those in the stadium, it felt like being in the epicenter of a Scale 9 earthquake. It was no different for the stadium itself. Emerald was in an earthquake-prone area, so every structure in it had been designed and built for the eventuality. None would have been able to resist the ordeal Laura subjected the stadium too. The west stall was the first one to give, breaking in two first and collapsing in a pile of rubble a minute after. The rest followed suit.
 
Laura smiled evilly as she stopped, her work not completed with tens of thousands of people buried under the remainders of the former Admiral’s stadium.
 
The city had certainly noticed her actions. The army too.
 
Looking at them in defiance, Laura bellowed:
 
“Was your plan to save them? You cannot save anyone from me!”
 
And with that, she took her first step towards the battle.
 
 
 
 
Quo was really enjoying what she was seeing. The half a life of dedication to this project was certainly paying off. It had not been easy, sometimes. Beyond the pure scientific challenges, she had had to work her way up in the political ladder, to identify a powerful enough patron and to convince her.
 
She had been close to quitting plenty of times. There had been many nights when she had wondered if so much sacrifice was worth. Today she had the answer.
 
The door to her private chambers chimed. There was only one other person on the ship, so there was no mystery about who it was. It was not like Laya to disturb her when in private. 
 
This could only mean one thing, of course. She had finally found out.
 
She waved the door unlocked and welcomed Laya in. Her accusing expression was everything Quo needed to confirm her suspicions. It was obvious she was ready to confront her… but after taking three steps into the room, she froze, unable to say what she had come to say.
 
"I was going to tell you," Quo said. "You were always going to be the first." 
 
“What you’ve done…it goes beyond Scripture… it’s… it’s madness” Laya finally said.
 
Quo sighed. Then, in a steady voice she replied:
 
"It's science."
 
“You did not make her a thousand-foot tall” Laya said.
 
“No, she did that to herself” Quo admitted.
 
“Because you gave her the power to do that” Laya said, looking somewhat panicked.
 
"That's correct," Quo said.
 
"You did not make her big so that she would feel like a goddess. You turned her into a goddess so that she could make herself big" Laya finally accused.
 
“You are correct again” Quo replied.
 
There were a few seconds of silence. Then, Laya asked:
 
“Why?”
 
“Because I had the power to do that. And I needed to see” Quo finally said.
 
Silence invaded the room again.
 
“This is not protecting us for the future. This is potentially devastating for our future” Laya said.
 
“We have no future” Quo replied dryly.
 
Her sentence caught Laya by surprise. She did not know how to react, so Quo just went on.
 
"It's not going to be immediate. It will even take a few hundred generations. But our people have rejected their true place in the Universe. We are the only ones who know what's out there, yet we hide. We are the only ones with the power to do something to guide the common fate, yet our Scripture calls for no intervention. We have evolved to be in the driving seat, yet we reject the results of that evolution. We are not the first ones, and we will not be the last ones to do this. I've studied cultures and races all over, and there is a universal truth that always repeats itself: our approach leads to stagnation first and extinction later. We are past the point of no return. It's way too late to get back. So, our demise as a species does not depend on our actions here. Neither the original plan, which was intended to protect us from the expansion of humans nor my real goal of turning Laura Anderson into something as close to a god as I could make a difference to our destiny."       
 
Laya was speechless, so Quo went on.
 
“Look at us and look at humanity. 10,000 years ago, we were not that different from what we are today. Humans, instead, were hunting with sticks and stones. Today, we are rushing to prevent them from reaching farther into the stars. There is no point in doing that. They will reach us and far beyond us. It’s in their essence. They will become what we have rejected to be”
 
Laya looked at him, not believing what she was hearing.
 
“What’s the point with making Laura Anderson a goddess, then?”
 
"Accelerating it," Quo said. She proceeded with her explanation, seeing her disciple's expression. "Humanity's diversity is its strongest asset and its biggest weakness. By turning Laura Anderson into a supreme being, I will help unite humanity. Granted, it will not happen overnight. It will take Miss Anderson years to get precarious stability and much more to have true unity. Once she does, she will drive humanity farther than anyone would have ever imagined."  
 
“Her mental abilities…”
 
"I see you found the key" Quo said. "And I guess you've already seen the records for the ones she is yet to uncover. The plan the council approved consisted on turning Laura Anderson into an unstoppable being that would establish a reign of terror over humanity. She is still very well capable of that, but she is now capable of so much more. Laura Anderson's mind combines the strengths of every hive mind we've encountered so far and has none of the weaknesses. Over time, she will become both omniscient and indescribably intelligent. This will help her keep her status, but it will push humanity well beyond its limits." 
 
“What’s your role in this?”
 
“You surely see. We are scientists Laya. Tell me, are you familiar with a human book called Frankenstein? 19th century, if I’m not mistaken” Quo asked.
 
Laya did the equivalent gesture to shaking her head.
 
"I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Humans can be very creative when it comes to mixing science with arts. Dr. Frankenstein is convinced that he can create life. He, essentially, wants to become a god. To prove it, he takes a corpse and works to bring it back to life, which he successfully achieves. The book is tragic since his creation ends up killing him"
 
"You want to play God," Laya said.
 
“No. I created a God. What does that make me?” Quo replied.
 
“Aren’t you afraid that your creation might kill you?” Laya asked, sounding a bit sarcastic.
 
“I’ve never valued my life more than my scientific achievement” Quo said.
 
There was another minute of silence. Laya finally broke it.
 
"I don't buy it."
 
Quo sneered a bit.
 
“This is not the ultimate experiment. This is a field test” Laya said.
 
"I chose my disciple well."
 
“I don’t understand one thing. Results will take years to come. Decades. You are… old” Laya said.
 
“Again… I chose my disciple well” Quo said.
 
Laya got the implications immediately.
 
"I should report to the council," she said feebly.
 
“But you won’t” Quo ended the conversation with a smile.

Chapter 21

 

Laura advanced towards the military in a straight line, ignoring streets or other useless human conventions. Her shins obliterated every building in her path as her feet finished anyone unlucky enough to have not been able to flee the area.
 
The goddess had a determined look, facing her fate with serenity. Stopping right before her toes got wet, Laura widened her stance and looked at her attackers in the distance once more. Even from the opposite side of the bay it was easy enough to feel their fear.
 
She used one hand to widen her lower lips as the other fingered the contents of her vagina out. She would have time for fun later; she had business to attend to, now. Dozens of bodies fell hundreds of feet to the ground below, but only a few of them were actually alive enough to scream.
 
Her sensitive ears told her that her usual entourage of news helicopters was not far behind. They had an important mission. They would be the ones showing the world how it was to fight a goddess.
 
 
 
 
General McKenzie looked at the image of the giant woman on the other side of the bay and sighed, trying to prevent his men from seeing the gesture. He knew he had probably doomed them, but it was them or the city, and they had all sworn an oath to serve.
 
The time it had taken to be ready had passed painfully slowly. Once they were, it was hard to decide when to proceed. Until the woman reached the stadium and he knew he had to save the people there, even at the cost of his own men.
 
Not having been able to had been devastating. Learning that the woman was using the population for her own sexual enjoyment first had been tough. Seeing her bring the entire stadium down for the whole purpose of killing every soul in the area had been even worse. When had she become such a monster?
 
Kyle McKenzie had seen her profile. There was nothing too remarkable there. Twenty-two, college graduate, manager at a well-known department store, lesbian and with a stable couple… how did a woman like this end up in a creature that killed people by the thousands? Was her growth enough explanation for such a change?
 
He did not have too much time to think about it, in any case. The battle for Emerald was about to start.
 
“Send Wing 1” he said.
 
He did not hold too many hopes on the results of the attack planes. Recent experience had taught him as much. Still, the more he could delay the woman from reaching his troops, the longer they’d live.
 
 
 
Laura saw the wake of the fighter jets as they got ready to attack her. She remained in dry land, hands on her hips, completely unconcerned by them. She knew she would not be harmed. And now she also knew she could bring them down.
 
She was about to link herself mentally with the pilots, ready to fry a few more brains, when she thought on putting together a better show for the live audiences. A whooshing sound took over the area. The water surface started undulating and anything that was not firmly attached to the street started moving, including abandoned cars and trucks. She was at it for a while, waiting for the trails of the fighter jets to become closer. There were two dozen of them.
 
Even after finishing her apparently never-ending deep breath, Laura waited a bit more, hands on her hips, chest held high. The jets were slower than she would have expected. Finally, they got where she wanted them to be.
 
And then, she unleashed the power of her weather-shaping lungs. Not only did she catch each and every single of the fighters getting ready to shoot their missiles at her. Her hurricane, with winds way faster than any that had ever been recorded on Earth, dissolved nearby clouds and noticeably changed the atmospheric pressure in the bay. The jets never stood a chance. A few were sent meandering down to crash with the sea. Some others were not so lucky and just disintegrated under the power of her breath.
 
The attack helicopters that had fired at her while on the stadium had not been directly engaged in this new attempt on her, but they suffered its consequences too. Not directly on the path of her self-generated typhoon, their rotors were not ready to react to the abrupt change in pressure. Soon, the dozen or so aircraft started spiraling, their drops ending in noticeable explosions and geysers as they crashed with the sea surface.
 
Laura could not have been happier with the results of her actions. She knew that killing them mentally would have been an equal, if not larger, display of power. But she was playing for her audience now, and she reasoned that sheer physical power still ruled when it came to pure intimidation.
 
“Look at that! Two birds with one stone!” Laura said proudly.
 
The level of fear and unrest projected from the opposite side of the bay increased. It suited Laura well. They would soon meet the same fate as their comrades. As a matter of fact, she did not see why they should wait for her to get there to give them a taste of what was coming to them.
 
Crouching, Laura reached out and grabbed a medium sized boat that had drifted close to her position. It was clearly abandoned, but this did not matter for what she had planned. Lifting the boat from the water with one hand, she let it rest in her palm. It was about as long as her hand, heel to fingertips. It soon became shorter, as Laura tightened her first around it, twisting it into an unrecognizable shape with ease. The boat’s thick hull was quickly losing the battle with the astronomical forge of Laura’s digits and kept deforming. A few seconds later, Laura used her other hand to help shaping the boat into what she wanted: a compacted and much denser ball of steel that took less than half the room in her palm as the original ship had.
 
Tossing it up gently and catching it back, Laura weighed the metal sphere she had created and then raised her sight, setting it on the army waiting for her.
 
She had never been especially good at throwing. She did not need to be. The army was taking a vast enough extension so that missing would be practically impossible. Laura drew her arm back without further consideration and tossed the ball, letting it describe an arc over the bay. She was happy enough with its apex and the point where it started its descent. It was obvious that she would hit the thickest of the troops.
 
The results were even better than expected, the ball having accumulated energy in its flight and causing a kinetic explosion that she had not been looking for. Dozens of soldiers were instantly obliterated by the initial blow. A few dozen more joined them once the ball refused to stay idle and started rolling over them.
 
All the reaction they got from Laura was a short snort.
 
Then, the goddess took a step forward and started wading across the bay.
 
They had apparently been waiting for her to be away enough from the city to start the artillery barrage, since the impacts started as soon as she was one third of the way to them. Judging by the multiple misses, which caused noticeable columns of water around her, the cannons were not as precise as the missiles that had been shot at her before, which was probably the reason they had held for her to be at a certain distance from the city they were trying to protect before firing at her.
 
Still, the majority of the shells impacted her. It did not make even the slightest difference. Much like a truck that drives across an insect infested area, getting splashed mosquitos into its windshield, Laura advanced uninterrupted through the artillery rounds.
 
“Haven’t you seen enough of me to learn that a few cannons are not even going to slow me down?” she asked, defiant.
 
Well, she had fired at them and they were firing back at her, she guessed. Only the results were so much different…
 
Her path across the bay led her next to a small islet that she would have ignored if not for the fact that she had been actively looking for something to throw back at the army. Stopping and looking at its rocky surface she was about to ignore it. Then, she thought:
 
“Who’s the goddess here?”
 
Laura crouched, ignoring the shells that continued to harmlessly bounce of her impregnable skin. Placing one hand on each side of the islet, she then started to pull. She could feel the resistance, the seabed not wanting to part with one of its features. She could also feel that her supply of raw strength was not even close to exhaust.
 
Laura’s biceps bulged as she willed to rip the rock from the Earth. And she did. It was spectacular, the noise of the geological event she had caused easily reaching the panicked troops.
 
She was slow and deliberate as she lifted the rock off the water, bringing it over her head with both hands. It looked easily a couple of feet long to her, a true meteorite to the mites that were so unsuccessfully attacking her.
 
She held it in position for a few seconds, letting the fear at what was coming spread across the army ranks.
 
“I can throw stuff too” she said just before tossing the massive rock towards her attackers.
 
It was spectacular. Hundreds were instantly crushed under the islet’s sheer mass. Hundreds more died as a result of the impossible shockwave. Best of all, the artillery fire finished. The army was too broken to be able to keep firing at her.
 
Laura felt incredibly proud. Risking a peek over her shoulder, she made certain that the news crews had caught her latest action in its full glory. Then, not being able to hold herself any longer, the giant let a loud laugh out and bellowed:
 
“So, what’s the score? Army 0 – Laura 2,000?”
 
 
 
 
The giant had not yet reached them and the casualties among his ranks were already unbearable. General McKenzie pondered his next move carefully. He did not ask his staff, not wanting to involve them into a decision that would probably not be well understood.
 
It was a day or giving orders he would have never thought possible, apparently. He owed it to his men, though. They had done their duty. They had sacrificed themselves with valor and discipline, attracting the giant woman out of the city and suffering the worst losses the US military had had since the Vietnam war.
 
There was no point in sacrificing them all. He knew not all of them would make it, no matter what he decided. But he needed to save at least a few.
 
Turning and addressing his officers he said:
 
“Prepare for retreat”
 
 
 
 
“Oh no, you won’t!” Laura bellowed as she saw the troops starting to fall back from their positions. She unconsciously accelerated her pace, her shins making taller waves as they effortlessly cut through the water.
 
There was blood in Laura’s eyes and it was crystal clear to her that she was not going to let the army leave in one piece. They had to pay for Stacy. And they had to show the world what happened when someone challenged her.
 
Bi-rotor cargo helicopters, looking like the ones she had blown out of the sky over the Admiral’s stadium, started lifting on the rearguard of the army. They would be the first ones to go then.
 
Without time for elaborate displays, Laura tapped into the limitless power of her mind and scanned the pilots into her control with an ease that suggested that she was beginning to master this new ability. The distance did not matter. Their number did not matter. Her mind could beat any of those feeble challenges.
 
She did not need to toy around this time. She knew just what she needed to fry them all. Still, she used a couple of extra seconds to let them know what would happen, to send them into a shriek just before she killed them with a wish.
 
A dozen helicopters dropped from the sky like flies suddenly caught in insecticide, killing the soldiers in them and dragging a few more lives as they exploded when hitting the ground.
 
The impact in the ground troops was immediate. It was easy enough for Laura to observe how shocked and directionless they had become. She did not mind. They would die just the same.
 
Her feet were on solid ground before anyone could react, water cascading down her shins and flooding the area around her. The ant-sized soldiers were not too far, their efforts not having let them put that much distance with the coast for her new standards.
 
Artillery batteries were abandoned around her. Curious, Laura bent down and picked one of the largest canons around, not looking much longer than a couple inches to her. Bending its barrel casually with a fingernail, she then tossed it over her shoulder and moved her humongous right foot to finish a dozen similar weapons under her sole. Soon, thousands of soldiers would have the same fate.
 
Laura did not feel any sympathy for them. She did not feel sympathy for the fucking ants anymore.
 
“You think you can get away from me?” she asked, defiant. “Really?”
 
Slowly, ponderously, she took a step forward. Her naked body was instantly hit by dozens of shells. Once more, they were totally ineffective. As a matter of fact, to Laura this last attempt felt even feebler than any of the previous ones.
 
It did not take her long to find its source in a battalion of tanks that were staying behind, turrets turned, canons raised, firing at her while they covered the retreat of the ground troops. As if this was going to help them.
 
She ignored the impacts, nothing more than raindrops breaking in her anatomy, as she kept her slow advance towards them. She saw no reason to strain herself in the pursuit when it was evident that she was going to catch them soon enough.
 
A dozen steps later, her toes were right behind the lagging tanks. They could not hit her much higher than her shins and ankles now. Laura could have sunk half a dozen of the pesky cockroaches in one more of her footprints, but decided otherwise. Instead, she sat on her haunches and reached for the closest one.
 
The 2 inches long armored vehicle felt more resilient than most of the stuff she had held between her fingertips so far. Its colleagues were still firing at her, but with the tank shells being more inconsequential than the breeze, Laura decided to ignore them and focus on the catch at hand.
“So, this is what you guys send when you want to storm an enemy’s position” she said. “Let me show you what I send”
 
Without further consideration, Laura started to push her fingertips together, pleased to feel the thick armor giving and deforming under the astronomical strength of her digits. A few seconds later, all that remained of the tank was a penny-shaped disc of metal.
 
“Do you guys even realize just how easy this is for me?” Laura asked, arrogant. She started picking up tanks one by one and placing them in her cupped palm. Needless to say, the tanks were trying their best to flee from her, but with the difference in scale, their speed could not even be compared to that of a snail.
 
“It would have been best if you had just accepted the new reality. It was not so hard, believe me. I did. I know it’s easier to accept that you are a goddess than to accept that you will now have to live under one, but it’s called being realistic. Being pragmatic. But no, you had to keep your illusions that you could defeat me. And you ended up killing Stacy instead. Now, you have to pay”
 
As she said that, Laura closed her hand into a fist, a dozen tanks compressing and merging with each other, their crews turning to pulp barely as she was getting started. She enjoyed the ease of it all, how the world obeyed to every single of her wishes by proving itself as weak as she had expected.
 
She opened her palm to find a more or less spherical pile of armored steel weighing close to a thousand tons. With nothing planned for it, Laura just sat on her knees and rolled it on the ground, giggling when she saw the “tank-ball” chasing the fleeing soldiers and leaving a read streak in the ground as it trampled them. Still, the effects were less spectacular than they could have been, since the sphere had been anything but perfect and started losing traction soon after she threw it with tremendous initial momentum.
 
“Oh” Laura said as the ball stopped. “I guess I’ll have to finish you myself” she added.
 
Dropping to her hands and knees, Laura punched a group of tanks to her right and started to crawl in the direction of the fleeing soldiers. There were thousands of them. She set her mind to finishing the job fast.
 
 
 
They all knew that she was huge, but her true scale did not become evident until she was upon them. Seeing the powerful M1 Abrams tanks not being able to reach over the toes of the behemoth, whose features appeared distorted, was awe-inspiring. Feeling the shakes in the grounds as she dropped to her knees was humbling. And seeing her finish dozens of the armored vehicles with her bare hands was terrifying.
 
From up close, Laura Anderson stopped looking like a giant woman and started feeling like a monster. It was impossible to keep their attention in the entire vastness of her body, different parts of it raining death on his comrades as she advanced upon them.
 
Her thundering voice made their bones rattle and their souls freeze with fear every time she addressed them, letting them know what they were to them, letting them know what future awaited.
 
Corporal Hicks started questioning everything that had happened. It was evident now that they had no chance against her. That they did not have even a hundredth of a chance. With Laura Anderson’s figure looming so close, the truth that she was invincible sunk in. How could they hope to defeat a creature like her?
 
He was about to lose his footing twice. The shakes had been tremendous. Some of his comrades did. Hicks just pushed on, knowing that they were doomed. A few of the men, most likely having lost their minds, stopped and started firing at the approaching giant, as if that was going to achieve anything. To Hicks it felt like firing to a meteorite in a collision course with Earth.
Another shake. This one was worse. It was almost a miracle that he had not lost his footing this time. The area around him started to become darker. Finally, a dark shadow was cast over him. Every cell in his body asked him to turn, to take a peek to see what was going on. He knew this would be a fatal mistake. His only hope was to keep moving forward…
 
This was the last thought to ever run through Carter Hicks’ mind.
 
 
 
 
Laura snorted as she observed the spiderwebs of cracks originating in every corner of her hand. She had slammed it open into a group of fleeing soldiers, instantly obliterating dozens of them, making them noticeably splash. Dozens more dropped off their feet around the spot her hand had hit, some of them now being engulfed by the widening cracks.
 
Laura enjoyed the handprint she had got in the tarmac, close enough to those the celebrities had in Hollywood Boulevard, with the only difference of a number of red splotches on it.
 
“Pests” she said as she slammed her hand into another group.
 
One of the most obvious advantages of her size was that she could finish them by the dozen. Still, there were so many of them that it would take her a while. Or maybe…
 
Laura dashed forward quite impulsively, removing her hands from the ground and letting her mammoth body drop. It was an instant massacre, her titanic figure crushing hundreds at once under every inch of her anatomy. Laura could feel them everywhere: under her thighs, under her stomach, under her crotch and under her boobs. Those being turned into pulp under her nipples were possibly the ones she noticed the most, just before her perky breasts kept going and dug suggestively shaped holes in the road under her.
 
“Whoa!” Laura said, allowing herself a tiny bit of cheerfulness after a long while.
 
Somehow, she felt like a little girl playing on mud, only she knew that the slimy substance under her was different. Lying, she had a great view of those right in front of her towering face. An instant later they were obliterated as her fist landed like a comet on them.
 
Sitting back on her knees to take a look at the carnage, Laura smirked and eyed the very shocked remainders of the army. She was surprised to see a few flashes coming from it, a clear indication that some of the soldiers were still shooting at her, even if she could not feel it.
 
“I think you are not scared enough yet” Laura said casually.
 
With that, she scooted forward and reached out, scooping a group of soldiers in her cupped right hand. A number of them died, bulldozed by her careless movement, but Laura did not care too much, since she had enough living mite-sized soldiers in her palm by the time she was done.
 
Looking at them, she repeated in a softer tone:
 
“I think that you have already accepted that I can crush you. But there’s, oh, so much more I can do to you. Here, let me show you”
 
Without further consideration, Laura brought her palm upwards and tilted it, creating a ramp. Those on her hand started screaming when they saw that the only destination was her open mouth.
 
Laura moaned, enjoying both the physical and psychological pleasure as centimeter-tall soldiers started dropping into her ready mouth, guiding them with her tongue and storing them in the side of the massive cavity.
 
She was not hungry. She had not been ever since waking up. But she knew that she could eat. And with all of her power, there were very few deaths she could think about that could rival in horror with being slowly dissolved in her stomach.
 
Laura took care not to kill them too fast. A few salty splashes told her that she was not successful with every soldier, but there were still enough noticeable wiggles in her mouth by the time she was done to know that there were plenty of alive morsels in there.
 
Sitting back up and without further ceremony, Laura swallowed. She did not chew, just sending a couple dozen full grown men to her esophagus and down to her ready stomach. The pleasure she felt while they slid down their path to doom made her moan and think if she was turning into too much of a sadist. She did not care. She did not give a damn about it anymore. Laura was not a human being anymore, so she should not be bounded by the same stupid moral standards of the much lesser creatures.
 
Her actions had the desired effect. The remainders of the army had been scared. Now, the soldiers were close to a nervous breakdown. Laura contributed a bit more when she scooped two more handfuls, sending them down the hatch with the same grim finality.
 
“Yummy” she said. It was the final insult.
 
Laura was wet again. Apparently, her libido had not gone that far away. A quick look at her surroundings showed her that the battle had been a decisive win. And to think that the only reason she had broken a sweat had been out of sexual arousal!
 
Not finding any reason to remain focused anymore, Laura made her mind up and grabbed two more handfuls. She then turned, let herself drop on her back and fit them into her. Never before had she been so rough with her sexual playthings, but she did not care about their wellbeing anymore. All she cared about was having a hundred or so bodies working on the most sensitive area of her anatomy.
 
It was soon evident that there would be no fireworks, no matter how many humans she fit in there. Impatient, and with nothing looking close to a dildo anymore, Laura sent her fingers to help.
 
Bodies burst with every stroke. She did not care, the accelerating pace of her fingers and her panting showing that she was getting somewhere. This was the last image the news helicopters ever reported of her, her ecstatic scream as she reached her climax making them practically disintegrate in the air.
 
Her scream was not the only fatal surge that came with her orgasm. Having learned about her mental powers but still far from being able to control them, Laura’s mind had chosen the same moment to release a massive surge of energy that killed thousands of synapses right away, the owners of their brains instantly falling dead.
 
Laura’s body relaxed. At the time, her mind was beginning to understand that she had both defeated the army and avenged Stacy. For the first time since her awakening, Laura felt quiet, together with a warm certainty that the world would be hers. Content with that thought, she dozed off.
 
 
 
 
“She needs to rest?” Laya asked.
“She doesn’t” Quo replied. It was curious how her disciple’s questions had suddenly shifted to getting more detail about Laura Anderson’s goddesshood.
 
Seeing Laya’s inquisitive look, Quo went on.
 
“I was expecting this. She needs to consolidate all the knowledge she has got”
 
“And then?” Laya asked.
 
“Then, she will accept her true self”
 
 

Epilogue The World’s leaders were as shocked as their peoples, even if they could not show it. In public, everyone offered their sympathies to the President of the United States, but privately they all had tasked their intelligence services with finding out whether the giant woman had been the result of an overambitious military project.
 
Surprisingly enough, her sudden disappearance had done nothing to ease the world’s tension. Images of Laura Anderson wading into the Pacific Ocean, walking towards the sunset just before diving into the dark waters, had been as repeated on worldwide TVs as those of her finishing the army just a couple hours before or the multiple scenes of the giant destroying most of one of the nation’s largest metropolis.
 
Two questions were being repeated incessantly in the news, which now took practically all the air time of every TV station: how did Laura Anderson become a skyscraper-sized giant and where was she now.
 
Seven billion people suddenly became jumpier than they had ever been. Every incident of rough weather, every loss of any kind of ship… it was invariably associated to the giant. Governments had to assign specific spokespeople to deny the multiple rumors about Laura Anderson that arose the days after her rise and disappearance. All the while, they were busy deploying military reinforcements to every large coastal city and, more importantly, trying to find the whereabouts of the giant monster.
 
Satellites, spy planes, sonar networks… they all proved to be useless in a task that had initially felt much easier: to find a woman who was over a thousand feet tall and weighed half a million tons.
 
Formal offers for help were made soon. The USA respectfully declined them, fueling the suspicions of those that saw their hand in the emergence of the giantess. Tensions arose between countries arose, hidden at first, in plain sight just a few days later.
 
Suddenly, images of Laura Anderson started to share the screens with speeches and statements from leaders across the world that suggested anything but peace. After a month, the risk of nuclear war started to beat the return of the giant as the most immediate threat in the world’s minds.
 
The United States population, still mourning the tragic loss their country had suffered, was outraged at the accusations from former allies and rivals. In the rest of the world, the initial wave of sympathy at what had happened in Emerald soon gave way to suspicion.
 
Why had the US army not nuked the giant? How in the hell was it possible that they could not find her? The theory that Emerald had been a failed field test and that the giant had later on been subdued and addressed to her home base started growing in the net. In them, the thousands of soldiers sent to attack her where but a smokescreen to divert people's attention. The truth was that the United States had a new weapon and they were getting ready to use it on whoever they saw fit.
 
It was in that context that the Reconciliation Conference was held, one month after the infamous day of July where a large city in the Pacific Coast had been razed to the ground.
 
Only the permanent members of the Security Council were in the room. Other countries were kindly told that they were not expected in the core talks. Still, one hundred and sixty-four out of the one hundred and ninety-three member-states of the UN were in the headquarters in New York City, waiting for the permanent Security Council members to reach an agreement and address the General Assembly.
 
"Your intelligence services had not been able to find anything," the US President said.
 
"That does not mean that it does not exist," the Chinese chairman said.
 
“Who in their sane mind would release a weapon that killed over a million of his countrymen?” the US President replied, trying to keep his tone neutral.
 
"It would not be the first time in History" came the Russian President.
 
Talks when on like this for a while. Finally, the US President said:
 
"Look, we need your help. And we are willing to pay any price you put on the table to get it."
 
There were a few moments of silence.
 
“What for?”
 
"We need to find her. Before there is another attack", he finally said.
 
"We are already devoting as many resources as we can to that task," the UK Prime Minister said sharply.
 
“We need to coordinate efforts. DARPA believes they have a way to detect her movements, once they happen. But it is intensive in manpower. We need you to agree. Once you do, the General Assembly will do to” the US President said.
 
The translation from the Chinese chairman took a couple of seconds to come.
 
"So, you are asking us to give you the power to coordinate all out resources. A convenient way from getting them away from where you don't want them to."
 
It went on like that for an additional hour. And then…
 
An alarm rang, and the safety doors of the Security Council room shut down. They were designed for the event of an armed assault on the building, and they protected, the assaulters out. Of course, the also had the effect of keeping those in the room in. A similar scene was happening in the General Assembly room.
 
Dozens of security details were reaching for their radios and trying to make some sense out of what was happening. None was getting a good enough answer. Looks of mistrust repeated themselves inside the room.
 
 
 
Those in the Verrazano-Narrows bridge were the first ones to see her, her hair first emerging like some sort of underwater forest, giving way soon enough to a face the entire world's population knew very well by now. Her huge body kept on rising, water cascading down her slim figure as she got higher and higher.
 
The water surface did not even reach to her knees by the time she was standing at her full imposing height, her face so high up that the terrified drivers that were packing the bridge could not even read her expression.
 
They did not need to. Dozens of doors opened and hundreds of people took to the road in an instant, forming a frenzied mob that was doing its best to get as far away from the giant as possible. They did not have to wait for her to do or say anything to react. They had already seen what she was capable of.
 
Laura did not even give the bridge’s occupants the consideration of paying them any attention. Taking a step forward, the goddess started wading her way to Upper Bay, the bridge effectively being the gate to it.
 
Her thighs broke through the feat of civil engineering as if it had been made of matchsticks, not even slowing Laura down as she went on. She remained silent, her face determined, as she progressed towards Manhattan.
 
Those that had hoped that the bridge had merely been an accident were shocked when Laura diverted her path only slightly, enough for her to set her foot on top of one of the multiple ferries that operated in the bay, crushing it and the hundreds of people inside beyond recognition and embedding it in the ocean bed.
 
Liberty Statue did not deserve much more of the Titan's attention than a kick that sent it well into New Jersey, shortly before her left foot finished another large ferry with ease.
 
News of her sudden appearance was starting to spread along the city, but the very few minutes she had used to cross the bay and plant herself in front of Battery Park had been clearly insufficient for anyone to react.
 
Those that did first were the thousands of soldiers that had taken the waterfront, their artillery and rockets starting to hit, as unsuccessful against Laura’s impregnable skin as any weapons had been so far.
 
Laura ignored them. Instead of reacting to the mites, she just placed her hands on her hips and gazed into the city, a look of superiority on her face.
 
Her voice thundered to every corner of the world’s capital as she addressed it.
 
“People of New York. Behold!”
 
There were a few seconds of puzzle as people wondered what she meant. Then, a low rumbling noise filled the city. Finally, someone said:
 
“Oh my God! She is growing!”
 
Laura did not alter her pose or expression as her body started expanding. Her initial scale was making the process look slower than it actually was, dozens of feet being added to her height every second.
 
She loved it, the gradual stretching of her skin feeling wonderful as her own point of view of the world below got higher and higher.
 
Rockets and shells continued breaking against her, each a bit more negligible than the previous one. She just sneered at the pathetic attempts as her body kept on growing.
 
She soon crossed the two-thousand-foot mark, her head now clearly standing taller than any building in the city, her height having almost doubled since everything started just a couple of minutes before. Her expression and the rate of expansion itself suggested that she was far from done.
 
Panic spread through the streets of New York as fast as Laura’s own growth. She savored it while her body kept on expanding. She soon was half a mile, the Empire State now barely able to get to her clean-shaven crotch. It was still not enough.
 
Upper Bay was less and less able to cover any meaningful part of Laura’s body, the water level now getting as low as her ankles. Laura looked down and smiled as she saw a small tourist boat hopelessly drifting towards her expanding feet, the currents too strong for its engine to be able to fight against her own growth. A minute later, her advancing toes trampled it while her head got taller and taller.
 
It had been less than fifteen minutes since she had got in position and the city was already collapsing. She was eager to play with it. She was not done with growing, though.
 
News choppers were having a hard time keeping the pace with her height increase, their pilots climbing to the limits of their rotors as dozens of news crews reported what they were seeing while trying to make some sense of what was happening.
 
It was still not enough.
 
Laura's toes were now poking over the bay's surface, tidal waves washing against the coastline, making the job of the thousands of soldiers there harder if that was even possible.
 
Still not enough.
 
She did not stop until the Freedom Tower was below her knee, knowing that this put her somewhere above the one-mile mark.
 
Laura slightly changed her pose and expression after cutting her growth off, but remained mostly motionless, letting the city and the entire world understand what had just happened.
 
A quick look down showed her many explosions still going on in her calves and thighs. God, the tiny army guys, were not giving up, were they?
 
"I am your goddess," Laura said, her new proportions ensuring that she did not have to raise her voice to be heard as far as New Jersey.
 
Bringing a hand forward, she turned it with her palm upwards and started to lift it.
 
Tanks, Humvees and thousands of tiny green army men were suddenly detached from the ground, being pulled by a massive but invisible force. Laura kept the gesture as the tiny dots populated the sky in front of her, climbing higher, now about to get above the top of the Freedom Tower.
 
Millions of people in New York were watching in awe at what was going on. They should have already been much more prepared than they had been a month before to accept the supernatural. And still, seeing the woman they had dreaded so much multiply her size in front of them and then play some type of godly trick on the soldiers that were trying to protect them from her was too much to accept.
 
Laura did not change the position of her hand until the army detachment that had tried to stop her from getting into the city was as high as her eyes, more than a mile over the city. They were helpless.
 
"I will not tolerate challenge," she said for the entire population to hear. Then, in a swift movement of her hand, much as if she wanted to backhand someone, she sent the would-be army flying for miles, their ranks landing wherever into the Atlantic Ocean.
 
"I will punish resistance" Laura then said, taking the first step out of the water and flattening two entire city blocks under her sole.
 
"I am your goddess. You will obey me, or you will die"
 
Laura waded across the city, bringing much of Manhattan down as she walked, killing thousands in the process. A minute later, she was standing right in front of the UN building.
 
Kneeling with care, she dug fingers of both hands on both sides of the emblematic structure and reached deep, getting below its foundations. A piece of Manhattan holding the building and its surrounding grounds tore with ease once she pulled up. Laura held it with pride, much like a trophy, resting it in one palm only and seemingly offering it to the swarms of shocked journalists flying around her in news choppers.
 
"World leaders," she said in a solemn voice. "I'm here to negotiate the terms of your surrender to me."
 
And then, she turned and walked back to the bay, more of New York disappearing under her soles. News helicopters did their best to keep their pace, the reporters on them frantically speaking to their microphones as they elaborated theories about where the goddess was heading to.
 
She was knee-deep into the Atlantic Ocean when she turned, facing the swarm of followers.
 
"I need some privacy. You'll be let know when I'm ready to make my next announcement."
 
Without warning, she pushed her lips out and blew softly. It was more than enough to send four dozen news helicopters spiraling without control until they crashed into the water below.
 
 
 
 
The last thirty days had been admittedly boring, especially after the excitement of D-day. So, the re-emergence of Laura was welcome to Laya, who once she had chosen to side with her mentor and place herself outside of the Council’s law had no other choice but to go until the end.
 
She was less surprised that she had been at the discovery of Laura's new abilities. After all, Laya had already known about them, even if just at the theoretical plane.
 
She followed the new-minted goddess path after she had taken hold of the majority of the world's leaders until she got to her destination, an abandoned island in the middle of the Atlantic. It was evident that her actions had obeyed to a carefully laid out plan.
 
Laya was curious about how the exchange between Laura, who had now reduced herself to a more manageable height of a 1000 foot, and the leaders trapped inside the UN building. She knew what the ultimate result would be, in any case.
 
When the door slid open, Laya was surprised to see Quo standing by it. She had not been feeling too well, lately, so she had been following the events on Earth from her stateroom. With things having been mostly quiet, this had meant that the two of them had seldom seen each other over the last days.
 
“How are you feeling?” Laya asked.
 
"Better. I'm still old, though" Quo said. "You'll need to take care of me."
 
"Of course," Laya said. Then she added: "She's back."
 
"You knew she was going to be back," Quo said.
 
"It does not make it any less exciting though," Laya said. "So, now what?" she asked.
 
"Now, the really fun part of our work begins."                                                                                                                                                                          The End