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”