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.