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.