Investigation

By VivettaVenray

(WARNING: Contains vore, digestion, cruelty, clean sweat, slime-esque vore, and gore among other things)

(NOTE: This story is loosely inspired by an RP, among other inspirations perhaps.

In addition to size content, this story also features some same-size omni/powers content, so please keep that in mind.

Just as a heads-up, although this story does feature use of powers, the actual super hero is of the vigilante type. That is, she's a more mundane heroine with gadgets as opposed to super speed and things like that. Just wanted to make that clear, as I know super-powered heroes themselves are sort of their own interest for some, and I don't want to seem like I'm misleading!

In this story, I wanted to explore the theme of a super hero versus an omnipotent foe, among other things. I'm not sure I did that properly though. It's hard to explain, but this turned out a bit different/weirder than I expected/planned.

Oh well! I hope it's enjoyed anyways.)

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Chapter 1: Monitors

Laura Yeal reclined back in chair. In front of her were over a dozen monitors, each showing different yet similar scenes of scattered white dots across a black background. Each visual was labeled with a bar at the bottom featuring names such as “New York City”, “Chicago”, and “Seattle”. Each name was next to a date and time, unchanging but different from one another.

A whirring sound rang out in the cave-like chamber. Laura didn’t bother turning around as she knew who it was by the click-clack of short-heeled shoes against the smooth metal flooring she had installed.

“Mistress Laura”, spoke the older woman. “Must you really obsess over this so early in the morning?”

“Margret”, said Laura. “This is important.”

“Not so important you can’t have breakfast while you work.”

Margret lifted the lid off the tray in her hand. The smell of crisp toast and fresh fruit reached Laura’s nose moments after. Laura turned around to take in the older woman’s stoic smile. She couldn’t help but smile back, softly, at the least.

Laura took in the usual sight of her live-in maid. Margret was clad in the typical, traditional uniform of black and white clothes complete with an apron. Her short silver hair was curled. Circular spectacles adorned her face, resting on the nose with lenses a bit too big but ones she oft insisted were ‘perfectly fine, Mistress Laura’.

Margret set the tray on a free portion of the wide metal desk. Laura took a piece of toast in hand.

“You know, you don’t need to wear that outfit you know. It must be a hassle to put on so early in the morning.”

Margret had a curt chuckle.

“As though you are one to talk, Mistress Laura.”

Margret had a point. A cat-eared mask, attached to the neckline like a demi-hood, was draped backwards past Laura’s head. Though her short brown hair was free to breath, and her blue-eyed face was bared, the rest of her body was fully clad in costume.

Browns spots bespeckled the form-fitting costume. It was a sleek getup covering every inch below the neck. Though attention was paid to the obvious theme, that came second to making sure the suit had the needed mobility and gadgetry to function out in the ‘wild’ so to speak. Nonetheless, even with some diversions of black and gray, the brown spotted pattern over mostly yellow material made it clear to any who she was.

Yes, the city of Kramston’s famous protector, the Leopard, was none other than billionaire CEO of Yeal enterprises. There weren’t many citizens in the city who didn’t find hope in the costumed heroine, nor were there many criminals who didn’t feel fear at the sight of the Leopard in the night.

“Margret, you know I like to wear it when I work.”

“Yeal industries has need of you I’m sure.”

Laura swallowed a bite of the toast she held in a black-gloved hand.

“It’s a slow month for business, they’ll be fine. Besides, you know the kind of work I mean.”

“I just worry is all, Laura.”

“Yes but you always have, ever since I began on this path.”

In her youth, Laura’s parents were killed when hit by a speeding car. The vehicle was the getaway van for a group of bank robbers. Laura herself was inches away from being crushed.

Since then, she had dedicated herself to the ideals of justice. Training in martial arts and more as part of a comprehensive education, she dropped out of university after just one year under the guise of running the company she inherited. In reality, she did much more.

Taking on the theme of the famous jungle predator of the night, she became the Leopard. The heroine started off fighting robbers, muggers, and other would-be assailants to help keep the crime-ridden streets of Kramston as safe as possible. The world is far more complex than petty thugs though. It wasn’t long till she was butting heads with plant men, clay women, and, surprisingly, deadly clowns.

But, Laura Yeal always came out on top. Not because ‘good always wins’ as many might believe, but because the Leopard is prepared. She knows the best way to win a fight is to know what to expect. The best way to stop a threat is before its evil plans come to fruition.

That’s why Laura was so confused of late.

“This is different, Mistress Laura. It’s been days of this same routine.”, said the maid.

“Margret, how long have I been doing this? How long have I been the Leopard.”

“Laura...”

“Five years now, coming close to six. I’ve fought crime bosses and mole men. I’ve fought enemies that can change size and shape. Werewolves and mutants I’ve dealt with. A foe that’s extra-terrestrial? Once or twice, but extra-dimensional... That’s something new. I’ve never faced a foe like that.”

Margret tilted her head the slightest amount.

“Extra-dimensional?”

“Yes. What other explanation could there be? I mean, the tachyons indicate--ah”

Laura chuckled, sliding the chair away from the desk a tad.

“Sorry, I guess I never fully briefed you on all this.”

Laura pointed to the monitor which said “New York City” at the bottom of its displayed image. White dots were scattered all about the monitor’s image.

“See that?”, asked Laura.

“Yes.”, replied Margret.

“Those are tachyons. Or, tachyonic particles rather. A tachyon was the originally theoretical particle which traveled faster than light.”

“I’m no physicist Mistress Laura, but I’ve heard such a thing is impossible.”

“Neither am I, but I have a passing interest, and Yeal Enterprises hires some of the best in the field as consultants. You’re right in that until recently it was thought impossible. Such particles were discovered in earlier experiments, but that they are scattered like this is a new observation.”

“And why is that? Are these particles altering time?”

“Not exactly. See, when someone goes faster than light, the implication is that it can mess with time. However, another theory emerged a couple years back, and it led me to the initiative to start monitoring tachyons in the first place. Friction is one of the fundamental laws of most physical phenomenon. When a runner sprints long enough in improper clothing, their clothes rub against their skin, producing heat via friction.”

“Which causes chaffing.”, interjected Margret. “Kind of like your old costume?”

“Oh please,”, began Laura again. “That was the first design kink I worked out. But, yes. However, there was a theory that if the flow of time was ever disturbed, there could be a friction, and the friction could produce tachyons instead of heat. I believe that is what we’re seeing here.”

“So you think some extra-dimensional villain is messing with time?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“But, why?”

“To cover something else up.”

“Something else?”

“Yes.”

Laura pointed to a monitor with the displayed label of “San Jose”, it was one of the ones where the dots were scattered.

“You know I was at that city just 6 days ago, a day after the tachyons appeared on the monitor here. Under the guise of Yeal Enterprise business matters,] I talked to people from all walks of life there: from the homeless, to top tech CEOs, and even government officials. Not a single one of the people I talked to remembered anything happening a day prior. I checked the obituaries for that day and there were no deaths out of the ordinary.”

“So, nothing happened?”, asked Margret.

“No, no one remembered anything happening. That’s why I think time is modified. Whatever this villain is doing, they make it seem like nothing was done up to and including wiping the memories of everyone involved. Not just the people in the city, but across the entire planet most likely, since anything of interest would be captured by smart phones and streamed live. All of that is being erased, alongside the very memories in our minds.”

“Mistress Laura that is... an extraordinary theory.”

“I’m open to other suggestions.”, said the super heroine.

“I admittedly have none, but it seems so outlandish. What could they possibly be covering up?”

“I don’t know. It could be that they are planting bombs across all the world’s major cities: maybe they plan to detonate them all at once. Maybe they are planting beacons so their people can find our world with more ease when the time comes. Perhaps they an eldritch being up to some inscrutable plot. There are a bunch of hypotheses, each one about as ridiculous as the next. But I know one thing for certain: whatever they are doing, it has to be big. Why else go to such efforts to cover it up?”

“But they aren’t covering it up that well are they? They are leaving these tachyons scattered everywhere. If they can wipe memories surely they can clean up all these stray... particles right?”

“Perhaps they can’t. Or, more likely, perhaps they don’t see the need.”, said Laura, still focused on the monitors as she spoke.

“Perhaps they want to be found, Mistress Laura.”

“Perhaps, but, no, I think it’s more likely they underestimate us. Us humans. They don’t think we could detect this. For the most part they are right. Yeal enterprises advanced city security systems are the only thing on the market right now with built in tachyon detection. Of course, I don’t tell the clients that, but since it’s included free of charge I can’t see how they’d mind.”

“So you think they are careless?”

“Yes, careless, overconfident. Point is this is the only lead I got to solve this, and I have to. Notice anything about these monitors?”

“They... all list cities in the US.”

“Exactly. Though I’ve tried to sell my security products oversees, national security interests there spoil any hope of a sale. That means, for all I know, this villain could have already done whatever it is they do to cities from Stockholm to Cape Town, and from Beijing to Bangkok. I have no way of knowing, and the tachyon detection technology is so cutting edge and so niche I doubt they know either. No, I think I’m the only one monitoring this.”

“So, I still don’t get what you intend to gain watching all this.”, said Margret.

“Habit.”, said Laura.

“Habit?”

“One day, I will wake up, turn on the monitor here, and see that the one for Kramston is lit up. That’s when I know that whatever is happening to these cities, has happened here.”

“You’re waiting till Kramston is the prey for the next ‘hunt’ of this villain then?”

“No, this isn’t hunter and prey. Not quite. It’s more like I am setting a trap.”

“How so?”

Laura smiled. She rose from the chair. Her black boots stamped against the metal tiles as she moved towards a terminal. The machine came equipped with a screen, presently off, as well as a keyboard at standing height level.

She pointed to it.

“The tachyon manipulator device. That isn’t it. The actual machine is too big and expensive to be housed anywhere other than the R&D basement of Yeal Enterprises HQ. However, this terminal connects to it and sends it directives. Some tachyons are interactable: not much, but enough to nudge them into one of two distinct states. Call those states “1” and “0” and you have binary. If you have binary, you can have Unicode, and thus a way to make words and sentences with particles that elude time manipulation.”

“So you instead to describe the event as it goes on, so you can read the notes on it later?”, said Margret.

Laura smiled.

“Exactly”.

“And these sentences and words will persist through whatever time manipulation is going on?”, said Margret.

“I think so. Like I said, this enigmatic foe doesn’t seem to care about the tachyons that they make in their wake. I’ve considered that their manipulations may shift the messages I intend to leave, albeit unintentionally, but that’s why the manipulator has redundancy. If I were to type ‘hello’ the message would be reprinted at least one hundred times within the time-space of Kramston’s geographic area. At least one of the copies would be preserved.”, said Laura.

“So, that’s it then. You’re just going to keep waiting in your cave?”, said Margret. One silver eyebrow of hers was cocked.

“Yes.”

“How will you know that it’s happening? The event you are waiting for? What if it’s subtle.”

“Like I said, I doubt it. I’ll know. I think we will all know. The only problem is deducing what it was after the fact.”

“What if it hits, say, San Francisco first before here? That monitor is empty too you know.”

“Then they will just have to make due Margret. The tachyon manipulator is inordinately expensive. Even *I* could only make the one, and it’s here in Kramston. Besides, this is my home city, if I can only be there for one attack, I’d rather it be the one here.”

Laura moved over to the tray of food, intending to take a sip of the orange juice Margret was so kind to bring. It’s there she saw the liquid stir. At the same time, a subtle booming noise rang out, coming from afar. She could feel the vibration beneath her boot soles.

One of the cave’s other monitors flashed something about an Earthquake warning.

“This is it.”, said Laura. She quickly slipped her mask back on.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, when was the last time there was an earthquake in the Northeastern United States, Margret? Something’s going on. I need you to keep that communicator in your ear. You need to work that terminal I just mentioned. Rely everything I say with it. Every utterance I make, even if it’s just a scream. Every sound you hear. This is the only shot I have to gather information on what’s going on.”

The Leopard ran to a spotted sports car and hopped in. The engine roared to life. Margret moved to the terminal, speaking aloud and having her voice reach Laura via the communications device in her ear.

“You’re taking the Leopard mobile?”

“It’s the fastest way out of the cave. I attend to watch this event myself.”

“But, you could die?”

“If I do, it won’t be for long.”

The car sped off through a tunnel, heading outside the cave beneath Yeal manor. All the while, the booms grew louder and louder. The vehicles built in city-status monitors were blaring about seismic anomalies, but Laura paid it no mind. She had to see what was going on for herself.

The car cleared the exit tunnel and stopped on a hidden road. She stepped out of the car, knowing she wouldn’t have a better view of the city than she did now from the midpoint of the hill her manor was set on.

She at once understood the booms. What she saw made even her normally stoic costumed-self drop her jaw.

Far past the edge of the city, stretching farther than she could see, was a loafer-clad foot.

Chapter 2: Attack

“Miles.”, spoke The Leopard.

Laura set her communicator to “always on” mode during the ride out of the Leopard Cave. Every sound in close enough proximity, or simply loud enough, would be picked up. The ear piece had software smart enough to give her own words extra precedence during transmission, however. In those cases, the background noises would be muffled in volume.

“Miles tall. The loafer is taller than the Bricksenheim Building its looming over. That means the attacker has to be... 10 miles at least. 10 at least.”

The ground rumbled as whatever feet in the loafers presumably shifted slightly. A wiggle of toes or the like. Perhaps some other, minute replacement of weight, likely not even thought about by the giant being the shoes belonged to.

“Loafers, brown. Socks, black. I can’t see much higher, even on the cliff of my--the manor.”

As a habit, while in costume she tried not to admit to owning any of the Yeal properties or the namesake company’s holdings.

Laura spoke with an odd mixture of hesitance and haste. On the one hand, she recognized that she needed to cram as much information as possible into her transmissions to Margret. On the other hand, the sight was as bewildering as it was unexpected.

If only she knew it was just beginning.

A great buffet of wind sweeper over the city from its distant edge all the way towards Laura. Great currents of air whipped up and thrust her way as she looked out towards the south end of the metropolis she called home.

The giant crouched down and leaned over in a sudden movement.

Laura could make out the face is it took up much of the morning sky.

“Female. Young woman. College aged? Purple hair, medium length. White skin. Brown almond eyes. No lipstick on smiling lips. No blemi-”

The smile, stretched hundreds of feet wide, turned to a grin as the teeth were bared.

The giant spoke.

“Miiiii-naaaaaaaaa-saaaa-nnnn”

A single, drawn out utterance vibrated building and bone alike. Laura could feel her spine tingle just from the power of the words. It didn’t seem right. She felt like she shouldn't have been able to make out anything from a being that large, and yet she could feel the syllables echo in her head with clarity.

It was a language she had dabbled in, but didn’t know particularly well. She knew enough to recognize that word though.

“Minasan, that’s Japanese for ‘everyone’. Attacker is Japanese perhaps? Fits some facial features. No facial blemishes or scars. No other unique marks. Face is perhaps a mile or more in-”

The giant started speaking again. Laura shut herself up, as she wanted her communicator to pick up every word said above without any sort of interference. The super heroine trusted Margret, listening on the other end, to keep typing whatever she heard no matter who said it.

“Keheh, good morning, good morning~ How nice of the city of Kramston to help me unwind.”

Laura heard those word with equal clarity. She heard the laugh too. An odd sort of chortle. It was somewhat abrasive.

“English. Attacker speaks English as well.”, said Laura.

The air was in tumult once again as the giant woman moved. She leaned back, resting on her haunches somewhat. Laura could make out more of her form.

“Healthy build. Black skirt. Black-blue jacket. There’s a symbol on it I can’t make out in full. Partially pink symbol. Looks like school outfit? Pink symbol might be emblem. Scattering drones and checking cams.”

Laura hit a few buttons. Some drones flew off from around the city. They gained altitude quickly. The left lens of Laura’s masked lit up as it become a screen on the inside. She saw an array of views from every drone as they zoomed upwards. She was hoping to get more intel before the colossal woman moved again.

“C’mon, c’mon.”, she muttered.

Her hand was on her wrist, where her gloves had flipped open for drone controls. At first the drones had naught but views of flesh. They had to fly up past the bend of giant’s knees. Soon, they started recording the fabric of the skirt, then the jacket. The symbol Laura gleamed was on the left side of the coat, so she cut half the views off then and there.

The giant was moving slightly left and right, like someone looking over a march of ants in their yard. The shifting of weight ravaged the city with quakes: it was enough to trigger a bunch of auto alerts for seismic monitors that Laura had interspersed about Kramston. Moreover, the clearly threatening posture was enough that some city officials had activated some defensive measures throughout the metropolis.

Laura saw some missile launchers pop out of the roofs of a select few buildings across the city. They looked like two sets of honeycombs, joined by a solid band of metal that extended down into their latch point on the structure roofs. From the comb-like pods, they fired a series of missiles upwards at the gigantic gal.

“Shit.”, muttered Laura. “They’re gonna make her move!”

The missiles roared through the sky. Designed by Yeal Enterprises, they were some of the fastest on the market and it wasn’t more than than a second before they hit the bare knees all the way up towards the sky.

The drones had since cleared that area, but Laura could see the tiniest puffs of red explosions on the giant woman’s kneecaps. It seemed utterly ineffective, and the booming chortle that followed confirmed Laura’s suspicion.

“Kehehehe, that was fast! Usually takes a little longer for your guys to strike. Must be eager to play huh? Well, let’s get started then.”

As the heroine feared, the giant rose up. Already having flown up miles, the hi-tech drones now had much more to go before she could gleam the emblem on the jacket. An emblem would at worst narrow down the attacker’s association with a specific school, but at best could even narrow it down to a local club or something even more identifying.

Laura quietly cursed under her breath. In the meantime, the enormous attacker set one hand to her hip, and pointed her right hand outwards. The super heroine kept narrating it all. Every action could be a clue, after all, when the time for the defilement of time had passed.

“She’s raising her finger, pointing it at the eastern edge of the city, where the majority of the launchers were set-up.”

Her tone was one of perplexment, then quickly it shifted to surprise.

“There’s a light in the sky. A--mother of...”

As the woman chortled overhead, a great beam of red light surged forth from her finger. The ferocity of the ray was enough to have Laura shielding her eyes, and the wind screamed as it seared through it like a torch through butter. Disintegrating heat singed all the beam touched and melted the ground to glass. Anything near the impact burst into flames.

“Beam.”, spoke Laura. “Laser beam from finger. The eastern district is gone. Temperature must be off the charts. Too many structures obliterated to list each in time.”

The beam terminated, and the giant spoke again. Though Laura couldn’t see it, she brought her finger to her mouth and blew on it as though it was the muzzle of a gun.

“Kehe, not a bad shot right? How’s that for a counterattack? I think it’s pretty fun.”

A rumble roiled through the air. The giant shifted her right foot. It moved over towards the hind of the left loafer.

All this, Laura narrated into her communicator, as well as repeating the giant’s words.

“Fun buuut I shouldn’t just laser you all away. That’d be too easy. Too impersonal.”

The giant woman lifted her left foot free from its loafer, with the right following soon after. She kicked the shoes behind her, then wiggled her toes within the black socks that covered her feet.

Buildings at the edge of the city buckled and fell. Grinning, the giant slid one socked foot forward, toes wiggling still, and crumbled a few dozen more blocks beneath the warm black fabric of her socks.

She was so immense that people and structures in the area actually went through the warp and weft of the socks fabric, falling into the even warmer confines of the garb where they crashed against her toes.

“Then again, I think even this isn’t close enough. If I’m gonna kill you all, I wanna feel it you know? Better chance of your city giving me a good massage with socks off, right?”

She chortled, then leaned back and bent her knee. Her fingers found the front of her sock. Holding the mildly awkward posture with the ease of a gymnast, the purple haired city invader tugged the garb loose.

Her left foot now bared, she taunted the blocks at her feet by hovering her sole over them. The shadow cast for miles. A wiggle of her toes and some of the earlier building bits and cars fell after they had sifted through the sock fabric earlier.

Laura’s drones were almost level with the chest again. Then, the attacked stepped down. Her footing shifted, and the process of the movement had the massive woman shifting *slightly* forward which, at her scale, meant an uproaring of air by her chest that blew a few drones off course.

“Dammit!”, muttered the super heroine.

“C’mon, stay still.”, Laura said to the giant in vain.

“Stay focused.”, Laura said to herself.

Laura grit her teeth and mentioned the going-ons into her communicator. The drones were almost at their target again. She could see the bits of pink on the jacket emblem.

The giant had finished her step, and cruelly shifted her foot which caused quite the tremor through the city again. That done, she swung her sock in hand, then chucked it towards a distant part of the city. There, the thousands and thousands of lives beneath it were crushed under its cloying bulk.

More derisive chortling rumbled through the city.

“Not bad, but too fast. I should take it nice and slow for my next step. I should really feel you at least once.”

With that, the miles tall invader moved to get her other sock off. Alas, she did so by bending forward! Nearly the entire fleet of Laura’s drones burst against the massive woman’s chest. Only a couple still remained.

“No!”, Laura shouted. She needed that image, but the feeds were all scuffed and staticky. She kept culling them from her view on the mask’s built-in smart lens. Her fingers were flying across the controls built into her costume’s wrist.

“C’mon...”

As this happened, the woman hoisted up her leg and slowly peeled her right sock off now. She flicked it towards another more-pristine part of the city in the opposite direction of her last sock strike. Chortling, she watched it soar through the air and land across a stadium-turned-shelter that was packed to the brim.

“C’mon!!!”

As the attacker moved to lower her right foot for a ‘slower’ step, she had leaned back down just slightly. At the same time, one of the injured drones sputtered out of its glitched camera state. The angle of the massive woman’s body in its lean was *just* enough for the heroine to get the image she wanted.

The drone’s propellers were busted, too, so as it fell from the sky the Leopard even got a zoom-out effect. She saw the emblem at last.

“A pink peach. Pink peach emblem on jacket. The college emblem, perhaps?”

The giant stepped down again, slowly as she had promised. Thousands beneath her sole looked up to see the sheer precision she tortured them with. Her foot stopped right at the tips of the buildings, and she output just enough pressure to have them creak, but not enough to break them. For a few brief moments, they were basking in the body heat radiating off the recently freed foot. Her sole was clean, and not at all offensive in odor, but they felt its presence nonetheless through something so casual and humiliating as the thermals of the giants body.

Then, she pressed down. With the sound of her roaring coos, the foot slowly tore through the structures as it fell bit by bit. Buildings weren’t meant to withstand this sort of thing, slow step or no, and thus they fell inwards on-themselves like paper boxes given a push.

Pretty soon the only things un-crushed were people and cars. The young woman held them there, flush against the whorls and wrinkles of her sole. She felt them squirm, and clearly enjoyed it as the continuing coos intensified. Their screams, too, intensified, as did their futile wiggling and writhing.

It ended, though, when she pressed down with a bit more pressure. As clouds of red mist, they briefly stained the surface of her sole. She sighed.

“Mmm, not bad. But, I hope you all understand I can’t give each and every step that much attention. Well, I can, but I’m not gonna be *that* slow.”

With that, the miles tall monster started leveling the city in earnest. She lifted her legs up for powerful stomps; she swept her feet left and right, and dashed out swaths of districts against the unstoppable side of her foot.

Her movements were faster now. Every step quaked the earth. The very mountain the Yeal manor rested on was beginning to crumble. Laura still did her best to narrate everything. She did her best to hold her composure as Kramston, her city, was flattened to ruins one step at a time.

Soon, the giant woman spotted something though.

“Eh? Fancy manor. I think I can snuff you out with just a toe though: maybe a bit more too~”

The Leopard looked up as the sky was replaced by the print of the woman’s big toe. She angled her right foot so that the digit would fall first. Laura narrated it all as the spiral-like-patterned flesh drew down on her. It was all she can see. It was so massive, so much power behind it that she hardly even felt pain before everything went black.

Chapter 3: Waiting

“What if it hits, say, San Francisco first before here? That monitor is empty too you know.”, said Margret.

“Then they will just have to make due Margret. The tachyon manipulator is inordinately expensive. Even *I* could only make the one, and it’s here in Kramston. Besides, this is my home city, if I can only be there for one attack, I’d rather it be the one here.”

Laura moved over to the tray of food, intending to take a sip of the orange juice Margret was so kind to bring. She succeeded, taking a decent gulp of it that she nearly spit out when she looked up at the monitors.

She turned to Margret whose eyes were wide and her hands lightly trembling.

“It’s happened”, said Laura.

She turned back to the monitors to be sure. There, on the screen with the displayed label of “Kramston” were a bunch of white dots. As the software dictated, the date was also frozen at the time said particles were detected in the city.

Laura started typing away at the console near the desk.

“Let’s hope I was detailed at dictating this event.”, she said.

“I do hope I took good notes.”, said Margret.

Laura opened up the logs from the tachyon manipulator which, in reality, was just a fancier more precise tachyon detection protocol. The more minute sensors associated with it and scattered about the city allowed the complex software to search for patterns in the particles. Many such patterns were disrupted and incomplete due to the defilement of the time. Thankfully, the manipulator utilized redundancy to avoid this exact issue.

In less than a few seconds, the most repeated series of patterns were conveyed. They were the notes Margret had inputted, which were word for word on every spoken thing she could hear over the communicator. The maid also added her own descriptions of things, which Laura noticed.

“Good on you.”, said Laura after pointing it out. “Seems the Leopard Cave caved in at the end.”

With the way the logs were assembled and displayed, it started at the end. Laura quickly scrolled to the top and started reading. It wasn’t even past the first few lines of logs that she cocked a brow, utterly bewildered by what she was reading.

“A giant attack. Really?”, said Margret, who was looking over the heroine’s shoulders.

“Miles tall apparently. Japanese. Purple hair.”

“Are you sure this isn’t just a glitch or something? I mean, this all seems so far fetched. Maybe by chance the ‘tachyons’ of yours scattered like this, and the real logs are elsewhere.”

Laura paused, then shook her head as she kept scrolling.

“No. Even if the redundancy didn’t cover that, the odds that particles would be scattered to something intelligible, even if nonsensical, are beyond abysmal. This is what happened. It doesn’t make believing it any easier though.”

Laura scrolled through the logs, committing it all to memory. Her face trembled at parts given the descriptions of the devastation. Absurd as it was, she did believe every word of it.

Laura sat back, composing herself.

“Margret.”

“Yes Mistress Laura?”

“Make arrangements for a flight to Japan on the Yeal company jet.”

“Er of course, but, where in Japan exactly.”

Laura was already leaning back in, typing furiously as she searched a few things on the internet.

“Let’s see, peach emblem. Peach emblem.”

She saw some images pop up, one of which of a large school building situated within an on-city campus. An emblem of a pink peach fruit hung over its entrance.

“Tokyo.”, she said. “That’s where Momo University is. Its the only university with a peach on its official emblem.”

Laura swiveled the chair around and already started gathering up a few things. She had a suitcase prepared for emergency travel like this, and she took it by the handle and started walking to the elevator back to her manor. She’d take her normal car to the runway.

“Wait, Mistress Laura you’re, just going to fly on over so soon. I mean, if this being could destroy all of Kramston in a few steps--”

“Then she, or it, is extremely dangerous. I can’t wait much longer to handle it.”

“It?”

“No human has that much power. It’s probably some reality warping thing in human guise. In any case, I want you to keep me up to date on any news regarding that university, or Tokyo in general. If some purple haired university student appears in a photo anywhere, I want to know about it.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Laura smiled, then stepped into the elevator as the doors closed.

--==--==--==--

Etsu finished her classes for the day and took the bus off campus into the city proper. She stayed at the arcade long enough to rack up a few more high scores at the popular dancing game they had. As the sun started to set, she left to grab some noodles, then ice cream.

--==--==--==--

Laura sat down in the jet. It would be a long flight over to Japan from the Northeastern United States. The plane had to fly west first with a small stop to refuel.

Her laptop was open on the table before her. Sadly, despite her connections, she had little if any inside information on Momo University. She didn’t have access to the student records or anything, and the thought of hacking her way in didn’t cross her mind. If this powerful entity didn’t want to be found, it could have some sort of detection built into the servers for anything like that.

So, she kept a tab open on the university’s student journal site and kept refreshing. As the sun started to set, Laura realized there probably wouldn’t be an update on anything for at least another day. The student journalists were probably studying, doing homework, or out for the evening.

Laura sighed. She knew quite a bit, but still not enough. She spent a lot of time researching the region’s culture, though. Alas, the heroine wasn’t fluid in Japanese, but she had a cursory knowledge of it, as well as her browser’s built in translator: inept though it was.

“Purple hair.”, she said to herself. “Probably a first or second year student then: third at most. Most students start looking into companies to work for during their third year in Japan, which means they typically ditch the dyes to try and seem more ‘professional’.”

Laura relied this guess to Margret via phone, as though it could possibly help, then laid back in her chair.

Everything had been arranged accommodation wise. She’d transit from the airport to a hotel under the guise of an important business meeting in the city for a week. Much as Laura disliked it, it did indeed look like she’d have to wait at least a day to find this mysterious purple haired time-bender.

--==--==--==--

The night just arrived and the streets of Tokyo were lit primarily by the myriad and many street lamps and signs everywhere.

Etsu sat down at a bench. Her brown loafers tapped against the ground as she waited for the bus to arrive. Her belly full of noodles and ice cream, she wanted to just head back to her dorm and relax for a bit.

The streets had a decent level of busyness to them, with all the salary-men and such briskly walking to catch their train or bus or whatnot. Plenty of other people around too.

One man walked towards the bench, clad in more casual garbs. A shop-clerk perhaps, Etsu had guessed. As he passed by the sidewalk, one step of his had come down on the toe of the young woman’s left loafer.

He profusely apologized right away.

“Oh, kehehe. It’s fine.”, said Etsu in her native tongue. She gave a small bow of her head to weakly mirror his much more pronounced genuflection.

The man took a few more steps along the sidewalk. Just a few. Then, a car sped by. The university student saw the driver fall asleep right when the vehicle passed into her gaze.

A loud skirtch rang out as the car, out of control, swerved left straight into the man and a few others on the busy street. The car only came to a stop once the front of it was thoroughly squished into the cement wall of the nearby building.

Blood and body parts flew out from the scene. Many nearby were splashed. One young woman was hit in the head by the shoe-stepper’s arm and knocked unconscious. Etsu, sitting close by, watched as a mist of red blood stopped just short of her left shoe as it tapped against the ground.

Without so much as a glance at the wreckage, she rose from the bench and crossed the street: an easy feat now that all traffic had halted from the horror everyone just witnessed.

The purple-haired woman decided to walk back to campus today. It’s not as though she had to get to bed early for a class or anything tomorrow.

Chapter 4: Volleyball

Laura awoke in her hotel bed at 6am at the dot. That was an hour before the campus opened up to guest visitors. Till 7, only staff and students were allowed in on weekdays, and Fridays weren’t an exception.

After quickly getting ready, she ordered room service and sat down at a table in her suite. Her research continued. Margret had managed to acquire the campus design documents along with a bunch of room plans. Laura was committing them to memory. Her plan was simple: she’d wait till 9 when the new edition of the school’s newspaper was released online. She’d check it, hope for something, but whether there was any news or not, she’d head on over to investigate the campus herself.

She had a tab open for every web-page on the school’s newspaper site. Sure enough, it updated right on time. It was in the sports section of the website that she found what she was looking for.

A headline read.

“Hobbyist Team Tournament Continues Today. Will the Star Player Cinch Victory Again?”

And there, right below the headline, was a color picture taken at the previous event. It featured a few women on the indoor volley ball court where the scoreboard showed 23 | 20. One of the women, jumping up in the image for a serve, was a student with purple-hair.

The small notation beneath the pictured credited all visible students from left to right. It was there Laura got the name and year status.

“Etsu.”, she said aloud. “Second year student.”

“So that’s who I’m looking for.”

She shut the laptop’s lid and slid it away for now. Hurriedly, she finished ‘suiting up’ the last bit of things she thought she’d need before heading to campus.

“If only the site actually archived issues older than a week. I would've seen the picture earlier then, perhaps. Could’ve gotten there yesterday...”

When finished, Laura was clad in a thick-fabriced executive suit ensemble. If anyone asked, she was on the campus to scout talent for a new Tokyo division of her company. If need be, there were plenty of gadgets beneath her garbs to defend herself with, as well as a sleek stealth-oriented, brown-spotted yellow costume clinging to her skin beneath all the business clothes.

--==--==--==--

The game wasn’t till 4:00PM, which was past the end-time of many classes at the university. With her sunglasses on, Laura managed to evade recognition as she wandered about the campus. Even as a brown-haired foreigner she didn’t stand out too much, as the university had quite a few international students and staff as well.

The heroine had been hoping to spot the purple-haired woman earlier. But, the target seemed to be staying in her dorms all day, she figured. Laura’s leading theory was that Etsu just wanted to relax before the game. It ultimately didn’t matter too much for Laura. She got a good grip on all the buildings and how to navigate the campus well before the scheduled match would take place.

About an hour before the match, Laura found an inconspicuous spot to stand and wait near the gymnasium building. It was only at 3:45, a scant 15 minutes before the game, that she at last saw the purple-haired woman show up with a gym bag slung over her shoulder and carried with ease.

Etsu was clad in a red and white athletic uniform, with white sneakers and white socks. The thin-fabriced shorts were red, as was the sleeveless jersey she wore. The latter had the numbers “01” on the back and front in white. A small scrunchie in her hair had it styled in a loose ponytail, but it was purple and recognizable all the same.

Laura debated chasing after the woman. However, the heroine reasoned that, if feeling threatened, Etsu could simply say she had to get away to the locker room to set down her bag and get ready for the game. An entirely reasonable excuse to evade questioning.

So, Laura waited a couple minutes. Following the signs in the large sports complex, she eventually found where the game would be held, brought a ticket, and found a spot to spectate on the front row of some bleacher-like seats.

--==--==--==--

Etsu walked onto the court just a few minutes before the game started, much to the chagrin of her team. It didn’t matter though, she was more than prepared for whatever the opponents had in store: as always.

Given that it was a simple hobbyist game, there were no stakes involved other than the little intercollegiate tournament victory in and of itself. This wasn’t even the quarter-final match either, let alone the grand finals.

Just a friendly game in a friendly tournament that Etsu intended to win with ease, but not too much ease.

The whistle blew and the games began. Etsu did her usual strategy of securing an early lead, then slowing down as things went on. Each of her actions was correct, but not so overwhelming to her opponents that it drew any suspicion.

Her serves were powerful, and a few went right past the opponents attempt to block: but only just barely. She knocked back the ball when her teammates would have otherwise failed to do so, but the calls were close.

She was winning, but not obviously so.

Etsu was always aware of her surroundings, though she didn’t think to give them special attention during her sports time. Still, she had no issues noticing the curious guest watching her from the front row bleachers.

It wasn’t *too* odd to have a foreigner in the stands. The games weren’t the most popular thing in the campus. Woman’s sports drew less spectators than men’s, and hobbyist teams of course drew far less than any actual competitive sports divisions. Yet, students and staff had free time. They got bored, and when bored they’d wander in the gym to watch a sports bout from time to time.

However, Etsu hadn’t seen them before. She knew they obviously weren’t a student given their dress and mid 20s age: unless they were a grad student killing time before a presentation. She also knew they weren’t staff, as anyone in such clothes would be a professor whose face she’d recognize. No, they were Laura Yeal, a famous American CEO she had seen in an article once and remembered just like she remembered everything else that hit her expansive senses.

Then the woman, Laura, had said something. Faintly under her breath, she had said the words “impressive” in regards to one of Etsu’s more forceful serves.

It was that moment Etsu knew who it was. Etsu didn’t usually opt to see through people’s clothes, but her sensory awareness was absolute even when miles tall. She recognized the voice as belonging to that strange costumed woman near the manor at Kramston: the city she had toyed with just yesterday.

Etsu had another question though: did she know? Could she possibly know? Was this just a coincidence that this woman, a CEO and secret costumed crime fighter, would be at Momo University, on business, with enough free time to watch a game?

The purple-haired woman doubted it. No, this “Leopard” character, Laura, had to know what she had done. But, that was impossible far as Etsu knew.

She had to find out.

Of course, finding out would be trivial for Etsu. She could find out in an instant what Laura knew: everything the woman knew. But, Etsu didn’t see the fun in that. There were better, more entertaining ways to discover such things.

She had a plan, and she’d act it out real soon.

--==--==--==--

Laura kept watching, perhaps a bit too obviously so, but she did her best to try and keep Etsu in her peripheral rather than the focus.

So far, everything seemed roughly normal to her. Yes, Etsu was great at the game, that much was sure. But, the young woman didn’t seem to be abnormally adept. She seemed human. Sweat dripped down the athlete’s forehead and pooled on her arms as slight droplets as well as accumulating other places. Etsu’s breathing picked up too, albeit not as much as the others.

Laura knew something was up, but she wasn’t seeing it yet.

At least, she didn’t for just a little while longer. Then, it became very clear to her something was up. All it took was one special serve of the ball.

--==--==--==--

It was time for another serve. Etsu’s teammate was supposed to do it, but at the last moment Etsu was chosen instead. No one on her team could complain much, given how all her serves thus far had been real solid.

Etsu took the ball in hand. Her knees bent and she lept up with a squeak of her sneakers on the shiny gym floor, as she had done many times before. The ball was tossed upwards for an extra bit of velocity. She took a glance at the woman on the other side of the net, feet on the floor, hands locked to try and hit the ball she was about to send down.

Within the span of those few moments, the purple-haired student smiled, and brought her arms back for a powerful swing.

Etsu served the ball--right through her opponent’s chest.

The ball cut through the opposing team member like a hot bullet through butter. As blood spurted out the volley-ball-sized wound, the crowd let out gasps of horror.

The horror was not over.

The ball came out the other side of the athlete and hit the gym floor. It bounced at an impossible 90 degree angle, hitting the athlete immediately to the first victim’s side. From there, it went in a straight line, never once dipping, towards a spectator in the bleachers to Etsu’s right. Then, it bounced off there and went right through the skull of another one of the players on the team opposing Etsu’s.

Carrying the poor woman’s brain on the front, the ball showed no signs of stopping. Back into the crowd it went, but on the opposite bleachers. The deadly sports ball bounced from victims to walls and back again, and overall moved in a nearly unpredictable fashion that seemed to eviscerate or decapitate at last one person with every bounce.

The crowd went into a panic. They went to the doors, which were of course locked and sealed. That didn’t stop much of the players, staff, and spectators from piling up at the door, pounding to try and get out. Yet, the glass wouldn’t budge.

Etsu laughed, they had stacked themselves up nice and tight, and the volley ball just so happened to bounce back their way. Tens died as it tore through their bones and bodies like nothing. It blended their viscera together.

Then, it bounced straight back, looping over the net, to cut through one of the athlete’s cowering by Etsu’s side. Yes, even her own teammates weren’t safe. The deadly, physics defying ball cut through them just as easily and mercilessly as anyone else in the room.

As the ball filled the court with the sounds of its bounces and of carnage, Etsu added to the macabre melody her own chortle.

“Keheheh”

--==--==--==--

In mere moments, a normal volley ball game turned to a bewildering bloodbath. Laura was no stranger to carnage, but the sheer shock of everything easily had her among the gasping crowd at first.

Laura acted fast. Once she realized the ball wasn’t gonna stop, she dived to the side of the bleachers and undid the buttons of her suit coat. Though there were still layers to hide her spotted Leopard costume underneath, this did give her access to some much needed tools.

The heroine had to face the facts, she couldn’t save everyone.

From her cover, she noticed the ball heading towards one of players on Etsu’s team. Laura pointed her right arm forward and hit a button located on that arm’s wrist. A small, concealable grappling hook shot out towards the ball, knocking it off its course.

Though she couldn’t see Etsu from her current position of cover, she heard the purple-haired woman laugh.

The ball veered off its original trajectory at a near 90 degree angle. It bounced off the right-most wall, from Laura’s perspective, then came back at a zig-zag. The woman Laura had briefly saved soon had a gaping hole where her chest used to be. The ball then went Laura’s way, faster than predicted, and bounced mere inches from her face.

Laura ran out from behind the bleachers and slid across the ground. She moved to fire the grappling hook, which had since recoiled, about Etsu’s legs. To her surprise, the purple-haired woman was on the other side of the net now, back turned. The hook, of course, missed and Laura slowly moved to a crouch as it winded back into its slot on near her wrist.

Precious seconds, during which the ball kept bouncing.

Laura saw Etsu spin around, her gaze perfectly following the sphere no matter where it bounced or how it turned. The crowd was thinning. Bodies were piling up. Blood was raining everywhere. Etsu’s left face was painted red with the blood of a few victims.

The heroine saw how, despite having enough kinetic energy to rip through people, it didn’t so much as leave a crack on the paint of the walls, nor bust through or break any door nor window it bumped into. It didn’t even crack or knock-over the scoreboard as it bounced off it once.

Not that Laura didn’t already know, but this was not natural. The laws of physics were being defiled. That young woman, Etsu, was not normal. That much was clear.

Laura stood up, just in time to notice a player running towards the far doors. Her shoes stomped the viscera on the way over. Her hands gripped the handle, which was slick with blood. The poor woman couldn’t have opened it anyways, as the only two other living beings in the room knew.

The ball tore through her with ease, then bounced back towards Laura.

The heroine saw the ball coming, and threw a sharp little boomerang at it. The ball didn’t pop, but it did veer to the side just enough to miss Laura.

Etsu stared back at the heroine now. She smiled, seeming amused. It angered Laura, but not so much that she couldn’t think fast as always. She pointed her arm again and shot the grappling hook. To her amazement, Etsu caught the front of it with her left hand. Laura gasped, as the force the gadget fired with would’ve been enough to break a few fingers if snatched like that.

Laura was even more bewildered when Etsu squeezed and crumbled the metal tip of it like tin foil: no, more like how a compacter scrapped trash. It was a dense cube with deep finger trenches into it at the time Etsu let it drop to the floor.

Laura heard the ball bounce. She ducked, but it hit the other wall even faster this time. Back it came. Laura threw another one of her little smart-tech boomerangs at it, but this time the gadget just flung off to the side.

Laura heard her chest rip before she noticed it. She felt the pain as her intestines slumped out like noodles spilling from a bowl. It took nearly all the strength she had to keep standing.

The ball bounced off the opposite wall once more, this time coming back through the gaping hole in Laura’s abdomen.

In front of her, she saw the ball finally stop its rampage. Instead of hitting the other wall, it looped around Etsu several times. Each rotation it slowed, until it started orbiting her at a diagonal angle. It looked like a little moon circling around the blood covered college student.

Etsu clapped.

“I’m impressed you’re still standing.”, said the purple-haired woman in perfect English.

Laura moved to talk, but she spat up blood instead. She stumbled, falling down on one knee.

“Maybe I spoke too soon. Kehehehe.”

Laura fell backwards, her strength fading.

“W-why?”, she asked.

Etsu sauntered over. Her sneakers squeaked against the floor as usual.

“To see if you remember.”, she said.

“I don’t understand.”, muttered Laura.

“Save your questions for later.”, replied Etsu.

The young woman raised a leg over Laura’s face. The heroine could see its clean white sole hovering overhead.

“See you soon!”

--==--==--==--

Etsu stomped down on Laura’s face. The suited woman’s entire head exploded like a crimson pumpkin. Blood and bloody bits shot everywhere.

Chapter 5: Courtside

Laura woke up with a big, deep, inhale. All around her were pools of dried blood. She rose up in a stir, readying her gadgets as she took a look around: from left to right.

She saw piles of mutilated corpses, many missing their heads. The doors in particular had a pile up of gore which made her stumble.

Turning to her right, she saw the purple-haired woman she was looking for. The college student sat on a bench, sipping water from a bottle while idly swinging a towel with her other hand. Her body was clean of blood or gore, but still a bit sweaty from the volleyball match it seemed.

“What did you do?”, said Laura. “What happened to the game?”

It occurred to Laura she might’ve forgotten something. That seemed to be the power of the purple-haired gal, after all.

It didn’t take long for the mysterious woman to confirm it. Etsu took a loud gulp of her water bottle, then set it to the ground by her shoes.

“Ah, so you don’t remember after all. It’s not innate, then.”, said Etsu.

Etsu snapped her fingers, and the memories flooded back into Laura. The heroine remembered the volley ball massacre. Moreover, she remembered the events that happened to Kramston. She had gotten an idea of them from the logs she had read of course, and she knew she was there, in another timeline perhaps. But, now, she vividly remembered it all. It was no longer cut off from her.

Laura stared back, open mouthed at the brown-eyed face that had once loomed over her entire home city.

As back then, it was smiling.

“You should be grateful, I don’t usually do that for people. Much easier to leave them in the dark. Funner, too, to watch them squirm in confusion over something they can’t possibly recall on their own~”, said Etsu

“Grateful?!?”

Laura was incensed. She charged towards the college student, yet moments before reaching her, Laura was stuck. Her legs had sunken into the floor of the gym as though it was molasses. They swallowed the limbs up, then solidified.

“Relax.”, said Etsu. “I just want to chat. I mean, I’m sure you have questions. There can be time later for fighting each other, if you want to.”

“You’re a monster!”

“Eh.”

Etsu lifted her hand and the floor unswallowed Laura’s legs. The heroine immediately repaid the favor by fetching a mini-boomerang to throw. It hit Etsu’s face head on, and crumbled into dust so fine it blew away in the conditioned air of the gymnasium.

“Are you done yet?”, said Etsu.

Laura clenched her fists and grit her teeth.

“I suppose, but I want answers.”

“You’ll get them.”

“Why did you attack Kramston?”

“First I have my own questions.”

Laura grunted in indignation.

“You slaughtered a gym full of people-”, said Laura.

“I’ll bring them back.”, said Etsu.

“You killed millions in my home city.”

“I brought them back already, along with every atom in every building, street lamp, and more. Would you like a seat?”

Etsu patted the open spot on the bench next to her.

Laura didn’t even shake her head. Etsu didn’t need to read her mind for an answer. It was clear Laura wasn’t gonna seat next to someone she viewed as a mass murderer.

“Fine.”, said Etsu. “I guess your view standing is fine too.”

“View?”

Laura took a few steps closer to Etsu, which the purple-haired woman didn’t protest with another flex of her reality defying powers. Laura stood over the young woman, who didn’t seem phased at all. She figured it dangerous to be this close, but being far, well, that wasn’t any safer really. Besides, this close, she could reach out to try and subdue Etsu if she got the chance.

“How did you remember the Kramston events?”, asked Etsu.

“Because you made me remember.”

“No.”, said Etsu, not exactly amused. “Before that.”

Laura deemed it in her interests to answer.

“Tachyons. I assumed you were rewinding time, or otherwise messing with it. No one remembered things, but your meddling spread the particles everywhere in a radius of your actions. I detected this, and figured something was up. So, what you did to the city was recorded via tachyonic particle manipulation as I saw it happen, so I could leave a message to read later that escaped time, in a sense.”

Etsu’s eyes widened and she smiled.

“Kehehehe, that’s very smart of you. You’re a good hero aren’t you?”

“Why did you attack Kramston?”

“For fun.”

“For fun?!?”

“Yes.”

Etsu wiped her face off with the towel, then her upper arms. Laura was clenching her fist again.

The college student giggled. She brought the towel against the front of her jersey gently, and the white cloth soaked up the sweat there with ease.

“Same reason I’m going to do this.”, said Etsu.

Etsu stuck a finger in her mouth from her right, free hand. She dragged it against the open air in front of her. As she did so, space-time warbled and teared. A portal opened up. It was level with the stomach of the sitting Etsu, while being closer to the level of Laura’s knees.

The sight within the portal had Laura gasp.

It was a city. She recognized it. Sydney to be precise. Yet, no sooner did she notice some of its famous buildings did Etsu move her towel over the portal.

With her hands on either end, Etsu wrung the sweat-laden towel out over the portal.

--==--==--==--

The citizens of Sydney were going about their late afternoon. People were commuting along the busy streets.

Then, the sky opened up, and saw they saw a smiling, purple-haired woman looking down at them from the north while, looming higher, was the similarly unbelievably immense face of a certain famous CEO.

Then, a towel came into view. With a twist of the younger woman's hands, the sopping cloth gushed out a deluge of warm, salted liquid atop the city.

The roaring sound as it came down was unforgettable, though the citizens of city would be lucky to remember it for long at all. The fluid was quick to crush all in its direct path. People had their bodies crunched and crushed beneath the liquid’s sheer weight.

Salty sweat gushed through the buildings too, of course. Office workers heard the roar from above mere seconds before it burst through their ceilings, caved in their floors, and continued till the entire building just burst apart from the flood.

Tons upon tons of the sweat surged through the streets. The grates couldn’t handle it all. Nothing could. It was a city wide flood of college-girl sweat which caused untold damage to the infrastructure and lives of the metropolis. It defeated the city.

A few lucky survivors found themselves rafts or the like after avoiding the worse of it. They could see, through the portal in the sky, the white towel move away. Now, they could focus and really make out the distant roof of a gym and the two, miles-tall giants looking down. The standing one seemed horrified but the purple-haired one was smiling, watching all the chaos.

The standing one reached for the portal, but it quickly shut.

The city of Sydney was left to stew in Etsu’s sweat.

--==--==--==--

As Laura reached out to the portal, Etsu had shut it.

“A nice idea kehehe, but you’d just end up hurting them trying to help them. You’re just too big compared to them. But, wasn’t that fun, being so huge?”

Laura furrowed her brow.

“What? That wasn’t fun at all. Those people...”

“Are stewing in the hard earned sweat I cooked up during a nice game of volleyball. Isn’t that just delightful? You can’t tell me you don’t get a vicarious thrill out of that, don’t you? I mean, how humiliating for them, and the power trip...”

“It’s disgusting.”, said Laura.

Etsu brought her water bottle up to her mouth and took a big swig.

“I have more questions. You said you’d answer.”, said Laura.

“I have more of my own too.”

Laura grunted, curtly, in anger.

“Who exactly are you?”, said Etsu.

“I’m Laura Yeal.”

“No, the costume. That’s a bit newer to me. Lots of news articles out there: not many useful ones. I just checked. Besides, I want to hear it in your own words.”

“I’m the Leopard. I patrol the streets of Kramston, fighting crime and villains: villains like you.”

Etsu snorted out some water as she chortled.

“What’s so funny?”

“I don’t think you’ve ever fought someone like me.”, she said.

“Not yet.”

“Maybe later.”, said Etsu putting down her water.

“So you knew it was me in the costume, how? Did you read my mind?”

“No I don't like to do that. Takes the fun out of things.”

“Then how’d you know?”

“I have keen senses. Very very keen. Down to the atomic level when I feel like it: which is quite often. I heard your voice while you were watching the game, and remembered it from the many other millions crying out and screaming as I flattened your city to rubble.”

Laura scowled.

Etsu continued.

“Though, I’m surprised you didn’t introduce yourself as the dust that briefly stained my big toe as I flattened your manor, and the surrounding district, to a smear.”

Etsu looked down at a bobbing sneakered foot as she said that, chortling to herself with her usual “keheheh.”

“Not funny.”, said Laura.

“I disagree.”

“Fine. Disagree, but I have more questions.”

“I’ll answer them. This game of ours is pretty fun.”

“Not a game.”, said Laura.

“I dis-a-gree”, said Etsu.

Laura couldn’t take it anymore, she cocked her fist back and moved to punch Etsu’s face.

Just like the boomerang, her fist turned to dust on contact.

Etsu laughed, then snapped her fingers. Laura was now in the woman’s palm the size of a small doll: the kind you’d put in a doll house. At the least, her fist had reformed.

Laura felt Etsu’s fingers clench around her. They wiggled to shift the grip upwards, about her chest.

Etsu’s stomach gurgled, and she giggled.

“Ah, she should talk over some food.”, said Etsu

“Food?!? What have you done to me.”, said Laura.

“Ah, but I should change first, of course. Can’t go to the dining hall all sweaty.”

“Change?!?”

“Yes.”, said Etsu. She moved her free left hand towards the free and kicking legs of Laura.

“And you’ll be coming with me.”

“What?”

“You still had questions right? Don’t see why you’d be upset.”

“You-”

Etsu gripped tightly and turned her hands in opposite directions. Just as she had wrung out the towel earlier, she applied torquing force to Laura’s shrunken body. Like a brittle cracker, Laura split open, gore dipping onto the floor.

Naturally, Laura’s vision went black, and she died, again.

Etsu looked down at her water bottle. The lid was off. She kicked it over and water spilled out of I and kept flowing far more than its capacity should have held. It quickly surged over the floor, walls, and crept up to the ceiling. The gym soon cleaned itself of blood.

The college student smirked as she quickly dried and cleaned up the rest of the mess.

Chapter 6: Changing

Laura came too with her butt on a bench in a locker room. The lights were fluorescent, the place empty save for Etsu who stood opposite her, with her gym bag resting on another bench.

Etsu was bent over, unlacing her shoes while her eyes were on Laura.

“What the, you killed me didn’t you?”

“Yes, and I brought you back.”

“What about the people in the gym.”

“Also back. Don’t worry, it’s not the first time my good friend Yuko has died during a game like that.”

“Not the first time?”

“I get bored often. The games can be too easy you know.”

“And did you mess with the time stream again?”

“No, I simply modified their memories.”

“Why that, this time?”

“I like the idea that we had our fun conversation in the current timeline. It doesn’t make a difference to them anyways, or overall, besides the absence of some more scattered tachyons kehehe.”

Laura grunted with more of that stymied anger of hers. Etsu, meanwhile, had finished kicking off her sneakers. She wiggled the toes of her socked feet, then nudged the shoes forward into the two portals she made in the floor. Each one fell through, and the portals sealed right after.

“What, where are those heading off to?”

“Cities.”, answered Etsu.

“Which cities?!?”

“Does that really matter? Would it change anything? You’d be just as helpless to stop it as you are now.”

Laura stood up.

“It’s not Kramston though, if that’s all you’re concerned about.”, said Etsu.

“It’s certainly not all I’m concerned with.”, said Laura.

Etsu took off her hair scrunchie. Her purple hair now hung freely in its medium length, and she dropped the scrunchie in another portal that popped in and popped out soon as the deed was done.

The young woman then reached down and tugged off her socks. They were, of course, a bit moist and cloyed with her sweat. However, they didn’t stink. Etsu liked the feeling of working up sweat, but not the usual smell. So, she had ditched that part of her bodily functions.

Once her feet were free and bare, two portals appeared behind Etsu. Laura could make out a couple buildings standing past the apertures, and she could hear the screams, oddly enough, as Etsu tossed her socks carelessly behind her shoulder into the space-time gateways she made. They sealed soon after with a “zloop” noise as before.

“Was that?”

“Screams? Yes, I thought it might make you squirm to hear them, and I was right.”, said Etsu.

“Knock it off. Knock off all these games.”

“Never.”, said Etsu. “What would life be without games now and then? Even you indulge I’m sure.”

“Not with lives on the line.”

“Do you always have the choice?”, said Etsu.

There was a moment of silence, then Etsu broke out into laughter.

“Kehehe, Wow, didn’t that sound serious just then? How embarrassing. How stupid.”

“If it’s stupid then stop this. Stop all of this.”

“Stupid can be fun.”

Laura took a step closer, though she didn’t know why. She knew at this point there wasn’t too much of a point rushing Etsu, at least while the woman was fully aware.

“What are you? What kind of monster are you, and what are you doing with that young woman?”

Etsu snorted. “I may just be a second year student, but I’m 20 years old, you know. I’m not that young.”

“Don’t play dumb, why are you possessing this human? Or taking the form of one, at least. I know you’re some sort of extra-dimensional being. Maybe eldritch, maybe just an advanced species. Perhaps you’re some false god, deigning to torment people just trying to live their lives.”

Etsu erupted into a chortling fit. She stood up from her bench seat.

“Oh I see.”, she said. “You have things backwards--kind of. You think I’m a god, possessing the body of a human. I’m a just a normal college student, though, possessing godlike powers.”

“What?!?”, said Laura.

“What?” repeated Etsu in a far more casual tone. “Is that harder to believe for you? I bet it is. I bet it’s worse. It’s unfair, isn’t it, for a human to have this much power right? That’s what you think I bet. I promise I didn’t snoop in your mind, but I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I-”

“After all, you deal with a lot of evil people I imagine. Who knows how bad this planet would be if they could do what I could. Maybe, though, you are thinking about what someone who’s as good as you could do with my power. All the lives you could save, problems you could solve-”

Laura was quick to interrupt.

“I don’t want that power. It’s not right.”

Etsu shrugged, grinning with teeth bared.

“Feels right to me.”

She reached for her jersey and tugged it up, revealing the sports bra she had on underneath. Laura turned away.

Etsu laughed.

“Kehehe, really? It’s ok if you watch. Don’t you wanna try and get a clue on what city I’ll throw this to?”

Laura could hear another portal open up. She could hear the screams.

“Stop messing with my senses.”, said Laura.

“Then look at me at least.”

“No!”, barked the heroine. “I’m not gonna be a spectator to your perversity.”

“Then I’ll make you look~”

Laura turned to move towards the exit of the locker room. She felt an intense tug against her body. Her entire form was pulled back to the bench opposite Etsu. Her shoes were bolted to the floor all but literally. Her hands were stuck palm down against the bench. She couldn’t move her head as it angled towards Etsu.

Laura tried to close her eyes, but she couldn’t even blink.

Etsu had her jersey off, dangling between her fingers. The sweat-sopped grab was held over a portal slightly angled Laura’s way. The heroine thought she could make out a building she recognized in Berlin.

Etsu dropped the jersey and the portal sealed. She started taking off her bra.

“Don’t worry.”, she said. “Your eyes won’t dry or over-water. No need to blink: till I’m done changing at least.”

“Why make me watch?”

“It’s funny.”, said the grinning Etsu. “You seem more upset about witnessing this than seeing all those volleyball players get pulped to red sludge. Are you really that desensitized? Or, maybe you’re just really that much of a prude?”

“It’s just not right what you’re doing.”, said Laura.

Etsu’s bra came off. She grinned as dumped it into a near vertical portal showing off a large clocktower through it. The citizens of London looked up at the bra as it was tossed their way. It fell atop the tower, crushing it and much, much more before the weight of the garb settled on them.

“Like I said, I’m 20 years old. You’re what, 25 or so? It wouldn’t even be weird if we kissed.”

Laura gritted her teeth. She was repulsed by this game, whatever it was.

Etsu laughed.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make you kiss me. But, if you asked...”

“So what actually are you then? Just a human huh? Really?”

“Well, I’m not *just* a human, at least no more than *you* are just a human. You’re an extraordinary human yourself aren’t you? I read every newspaper article about you while I was in the gym. You’ve certainly fought foes that aren’t *just* human either in other, more literal ways.”

Etsu took off her shorts. She had just some white panties on, a bit slick with sweat from her time on the court.

The shorts Etsu dropped in a horizontal portal, so Laura couldn’t see where it went.

Etsu was right though. Laura couldn’t fix anything Etsu was doing.

‘At least not yet.’, thought the heroine.

Still, it was best to try and keep the perverse destruction of cities out of her mind for now. It’d only throw her off, which seemed to be what Etsu was after.

“So are you some human turned god? Stumbled into some lucky accident, and decided to use your powers for despicable acts?”

Etsu tugged on the elastic of her panties. They were the only garbs left at this point.

“I don’t see why origins matter.”, she said.

The purple-haired woman slipped her panties down past her crotch. Laura tried more than ever to look away here, but it didn’t work. She only strained herself.

“What?”, said Etsu. “Are you that surprised the carpet matches the drapes? Khehehehe.”

“You’re twisted.”, said Laura.

“Relax, I don’t actually dye my pubes. Well, I do, sort of, but not how you would. I just want my hair to be purple, so it is. So easy. If everybody could do the same, they would I imagine, much to the dye industry’s protest too I’d think.”

Another portal opened. Completely vertical save for a slight angle, it gave a window into a city Laura easily recognized from the wire-frame like tower in the distance of the view. That was the Eiffel Tower she had spotted, and the city was most certainly Paris, France. Only, the portal was such that Etsu would be 10s of miles tall in comparison, as usual.

Etsu pinched up her panties and slipped her arm through the portal. Parisians immediately erupted into a confused panic as the slick white garb ripped through their city.

Etsu was letting the fabric touch down on the ground, and buildings were bulldozed against the slightly sweat-sodded undergarments as they moved. The purple-haired woman was dragging the panties over above the Eiffel Tower. She let go, and that garb fell such that the very crotch part of the garment fell over that famous tower.

It fell over much more, of course. Thousands were shrouded beneath the expanse of moist pink clothing. Buildings groaned and buckled, people cowered and crushed, all beneath the might of the undergarment. All surrounded by the steamy atmosphere, all surrounded by the subtle scent of her crotch and feeling the moisture of her sweat.

By Etsu’s will, a piece of purple pubic hair was hanging on her finger. She shook it free over a more pristine part of the city, letting it fall to ravage all beneath it with humiliating ease.

Etsu then withdrew her hand and the portal shut. She kept her awareness in the city though. A smile on her face widened. She was aware of every person, squirming and fidgeting as the undergarment continued to settle. Her body shivered.

“Knock this off!”, shouted Laura. The heroine’s attempts to move had served only to render her skin a bit red from futile straining.

“Look at you, your face all red. Are you that flushed?”

“Why won’t you answer the question?”, barked Laura.

“About my origins? Assuming I have them and wasn’t just perfect at all times? Well, would you answer about your origins if I asked you? What about the most traumatic moment in your life? Maybe they are one and the same? Maybe not. Point is I’m not going to pry into such personal matters of yours, at least not yet~”

Etsu laughed, then continued.

“All your talk of gods. I mean, maybe I am a goddess right? It’s a matter of perspective. Does a god need to be worshiped? That’s easy. I just appear outside the planet and break stuff till I get my way. I’ve been there and done that. Does that mean I’m a god, or do I have to be worshiped at all times: known constantly. My face, at the forefront of every person’s mind.”

She laughed again.

“Kehehehe, it’s fun for a bit, but not an everyday thing for me. In any case, you’re asking about something that’s not that complicated. I’m a human with godlike powers: that’s how I see myself and I don’t see why other opinions would matter, especially to someone like me. So, you could say I have nothing to hide~”

With that, Etsu struck a licentious pose with one hand on her naked chest, and the other slid in close proximity to her crotch.

Laura grit her teeth, unable to form a fist with her body partially immobilized as it was.

“You’re so angry about this. I mean, I’m sure flaunting my superior, prettier body might upset you. Kehehehehe”

Etsu’s chortle continued while Laura sat in silence.

“But it’s more than that isn’t it? Well, if its any consolation, it doesn’t matter what I am so much as what I can do, right? In fact, it doesn’t even matter what you are right now does it? You’re a super heroine to many. The most successful woman in the world to many more.”

Etsu adjusted her pose, sliding the fingers of one hand just close enough towards her crotch to graze her purple pubes.

“Yet, here you are just an observer. For all your training, and gadgets, just a thought from me has you powerless to act, glued to a seat. Watching what I want you to watch; hearing what I want you to hear... If I were you, I’d be less upset about my stripping of my clothes than the stripping of your autonomy here. Look at what you’re reduced to. You’re not even much of a character here, just a personality. A perspective that doesn’t matter in the end.”

Etsu’s grin widened.

“Thankfully I’m not you. I’m me, and it’s wonderful~”

Laura finally spoke.

“When are you gonna let me go?”

“What I feel like it.”, answered Etsu quickly.

“You know...”, continued the purple-haired woman,

“I do have to admit that, naked as I am now. I certainly look like a god of old, right? Gods are often depicted naked; beyond the human concept of shame. Maybe a bit of a glow to really enforce that divinity.”

Etsu trailed the hand on her chest down towards her stomach. The one on her crotch moved to her thigh. Her body glowed with an aura of subtle, white-ish light. Her hair however, glowed with more of a purple hue. Her eyes in particular shined bright, light radiating from them like a circle of white luminescence. It lightened the natural brown of her irises heavily.

“What sort of power trip are you on?”, asked Laura.

“Is this better?”, said Etsu. “Ah wait.”

She cleared her throat.

“There we go~”

Laura’s face winced. Etsu’s voice radiated now, echoing off the walls and carrying an odd sort of timbre to it. A timbre that conjured the idea of raw light or power. It was the kind of effect one might see used in some movie or show featuring a divine being: perhaps a game.

“Let me go!”, shouted Laura.

“I hear your plea, mortal. Your wish is granted. Kehehehehehe”

Etsu snapped her fingers and the sound of a heavenly chime rung out. Laura stood up took a look to the locker room exit, but noticed it wasn’t there. When she turned back to face Etsu, the lockers had slid out of the way and morphed into towering obelisks with pointed tops and sconces decorating them. The ceiling of the locker room rose up and angled like a cathedral. The floor, though, had stayed much the same aside from expanding outwards to meet the much more distant walls of the recently expanded room.

“Is this better?”, spoke Etsu.

“Are you more comfortable with my power when I look like this? My nudity, perhaps? I noticed you haven’t turned away. Kehehe.”

“You’re repulsive, I promise, but its clear I need to keep an eye on you in case you hurt more people.”

“In case? Kehehehehehe.”

She laughed and the room shook with quakes.

“It’s all but guaranteed I will. Good on you not to run though. There’s no where for you to go right now that I don’t want you to be. That’s why I let you move in the first place, as I’m sure you figured out. You’re a great detective after all.”

“I still have more questions.”, said Laura.

“Why don’t you walk over here; maybe even crawl After all, gods would often have mortals bow down at their feet, so the legends tell.”

Etsu slid forward a foot on its ball. She set the heel of it down and the chamber shook.

“I’m not gonna play another one of your cruel games.”

“You will.”, spoke Etsu.

Laura found herself shrunk down again, and moved before Etsu’s toes. In particular, Laura found herself roughly the size of one of Etsu’s big toes.

Said toes glowed with the same mocking luminescence that covered the rest of Etsu’s body, of course. The light made the powerful woman’s skin seem even more pale.

“Go on, kneel. Bow.”, said Etsu, staring down with brightly glowing eyes. Her head hair seemed to hover about, shining bright and purple.

“It might make you more comfortable about the idea of my overwhelming, inexorable power~”

“Never.”, said Laura.

“There’s no ‘never’ with me, Laura.”

The tiny heroine felt immense pain at her knees as they ‘popped’. Parts of her legs shot off from the now missing joint to fly off behind her. Laura’s body slumped forward, palms to the ground to avoid landing face first against the locker-room floor of the perverse temple chamber Etsu had made.

Laura quickly realized what this pose looked like: a supplicating worshiper.

“Your goddess accepts your sacrifice, mortal~~”, said Etsu.

The purple-haired woman couldn’t stop snickering after.

She lifted up her right foot and positioned it over Laura. The luminous sole came down to touch the heroine at first. Of course, Laura, ever a fighter for justice, tried to resit. As before, Etsu was immovable and invincible. The heroine served only to pepper the foot with more sensations.

Etsu pushed her foot to knock Laura onto the heroine’s back, which was something said heroine wasn’t in a position to resist. The ball of her foot came down on the brown-haired woman. A bit of pressure and Laura crunched, much to the shining Etsu’s satisfaction.

Chapter 7: Eating

Laura sat at a two-person high table. Her legs were back, clothes as pristine as when she walked into the gymnasium. Her memory was still fresh with being stepped on: with Etsu’s glowing sole covering her body. She felt its warmth and its crushing pressure. She had felt a few bones in her body snap before she actually lost consciousness.

But, now she was back, and sitting across from Etsu. The purple-haired woman had her usual school attire on: the same garbs she was wearing when she rampaged over Kramston as a miles tall giant. The ponytail was gone now too of course, just as in the changing room.

A plate in front of Laura held some pieces of sushi. There was a plate in front of Etsu too. Hers rested on a bed of rice, and she seemed to have a few more pieces of the seaweed-wrapped bits of food and Laura did.

Laura took another quick look around, taking in the sights of the room they were in. There were other seats and tables, though they were mostly empty. Wasn’t until a few rows of space away from the pair that other people, students mostly, actually were sitting down and eating at. TVs dotted the walls, all switched to news channels.

“Where are we?”, asked Laura.

“A dining hall. The one nearest my dorm. You didn’t forget that I mentioned we were going to get some food, did you?”

Etsu snatched up her chopsticks and used them to cart a piece of sushi into her mouth. She chewed once before swallowing noisily.

Laura looked around some more. She noticed other university students with trays moving around. They invariably stayed away from the pair, sitting far away, often out of view at the tables far to the other side of the hall.

The heroine also noticed what was on the TVs around the eating place. It unnerved her.

“Why aren’t they sitting anywhere near us? Why do we have all this space?”, she asked Etsu without glancing back over.

“You know why: cause I don’t want them here. Don’t you like the space? The privacy as we chat?”

Laura was still staring at the TVs. They were tuned to different news channels, but the events they were covering had overlap. It was footage from the various cities around the world. Helicopters were hovering over the devastation. One screen showed Etsu’s panties draped over Paris. Another showed her socks scattered with one of them in Amsterdam, Netherlands and the other in Cape Town, South Africa.

Headlines were ticking by at the bottom of the screen. Captions showed the words of the experts being interviewed who tried to explain the peculiar phenomenon. There was so much going on at once it was almost impossible for the news to cover it all.

One international station had broken up their broadcast into little screens with each showing a city Etsu had affected. All her articles of athletic clothing were seen, as well as the flooded city of Sydney. Warnings were flashed before much of the footage, which showed piles and piles of bodies.

Yet, through all that, the students kept eating as though the screens weren’t there.

“You left your clothes there? And Sydney is still-”

“I’ll fix it all later, don’t worry.”

“Why aren’t they reacting?”, asked Laura, referring to the students that just ate and chatted happily while this broadcast went on.

“Are these TVs an illusion?”, continued Laura.

Etsu chuckled.

“No don’t worry. This is real. It’s just easier if they don’t react to it.”, said Etsu.

“So you’re mind controlling them?”, Said Laura.

“Not exactly.”, said Etsu. “I’m just tweaking their minds a bit. Anytime they’d think to want to look at the screen, they don’t, and if they can’t avoid looking without being awkward, I just short circuit their mind’s attempts to process it. They’ll think of something else right away. In fact, they were already thinking of other things, I just push it out of their unconscious mind into the forefront at the right time. Little nudges of neurotransmitters. Little sparks of synapses. It’s very easy~”

“And that’s the same reason they aren’t thinking to sit remotely near us, isn’t it?”, asked Laura.

Etsu slipped her rice-holding chopsticks into her mouth, swallowing another bite of food.

“Mmf, correct.”

“I thought you didn’t like to read minds, or control them.”

Etsu chortled.

“Kehehe. You’re right, I don’t. Why control a mind when you can just break one? Same thing for reading them. It’s not too fun. But, do you want the alternatives? Do you want me to teleport everyone outside, seal the doors, and then have us having to deal with the commotion going on past the windowed walls while we eat?”

Laura squinted.

“Or, even better.”, continued Etsu. “Would you want me to just kill them all, so we can have peace and privacy that way. Say the word and I could pop them with a thought and paint the dining hall spotted red. If that makes you too squeamish, I can just blip them into the sun instead, no mess to distract while you eat. Then, we’d have all this space to ourselves just the same. By the way, speaking of, you haven’t touched your sushi.”

Laura slid her plate forward without even looking at it.

“I’m not hungry.”, she said.

Etsu grinned.

“Fine, more for me kehehe.”

Etsu reached over with her chopsticks and stole a piece of sushi from Laura’s plate, stuffing it in her gob.

“Besides.”, she said, then gulped, then spoke again.

“These people don’t matter. They’re like background characters to us now. They should be here, but they also shouldn’t mess anything up. I don’t wanna tweak their minds like I am, but it’s just easier that way. Our conversation is worth it, don’t you think?”

“They’re people, not props.”, said Laura, sternly.

“Oh, good idea!”, said Etsu. She had looked down at her legs. The stools they were sitting on were rather high off the ground. Laura was tall enough that her fancy shoes almost reached the floor, but Etsu’s loafer-clad feet didn’t quite touch down at the college student’s shorter height.

One older university student came into view with a tray. He seemed like the sporty type, fourth year, with a wide but healthy build. He turned towards Etsu and Laura with a zombie-like gaze in his eyes. At one point in his brief walk towards them, he dropped his tray on the floor, making a mess and a noise that caught the attention of none of the other people around him.

He walked up to the table, fell to hands and knees, then crawled under it.

“Stop, you don’t have to do that.”, said Laura, looking at and speaking to him.

Etsu lifted her legs, providing space for the man to scoot under them. She planted her shoes on his back, crossing the legs.

“Ah, a footstool, what a good idea you helped me think of.”, said Etsu. She gleefully beamed the words before taking a sip of the water cup nearby.

“Beh~”, she sighed happily.

“Can he even hear us?”, asked Laura.

“Yes, but he can’t listen. He’s much too infatuated with the idea of being my footstool.”

“Another mind twisted to your whims then, is it?”

Etsu snorted.

“I’m a hypocrite, so what. There were alternatives here too. I could’ve frozen time and broke him. I could’ve bent his arms and legs every which way till he’d want to shimmy over here, under my feet, out of fear. Or, I could’ve done that till his mind was like putty to me. With words and time alone I could’ve eventually had him worshiping me like a god, eager to do anything including, yes, acting like a footstool. But, that would take time. I mean, for me. For everyone else it’d be instant, but it’s a waste of *my* time. Boring in comparison to chatting with you.”

Laura ignored the compliment with her next words.

“You forgot one other solution.”, she said.

“What’s that?”

“Just poofing an actual, inanimate footstool into existence.”

“Kehehehe!”

Etsu broke into a chortling fit.

“Nonsense.”, said the purple-haired woman. “There’s not too much fun in that.”

“How do I know you aren’t controlling my mind then, Etsu? Steering me to ask the questions you want to answer? To do the things you want to do so you can perform tricks for yourself for your own amusement? To respond how you want”

Etsu licked her lips to snatch a piece of rice that had been stuck to them.

“What a smart question. You don’t! I could be doing all that. But, I’m not, and you just have to trust me.”

“You’re not exactly trustworthy.”

“I haven’t lied to you yet~ Besides, everything you want to do, you’ve already decided before you’ve done it. Some unconscious processes in your mind steer you towards the choices you make and the thoughts you consciously think. By the time you reach to grab a banana over an apple for breakfast, you’ve already decided fractions of seconds before based on the light reflect off the fruits to your eyes, and the scent hitting the olfactory senses near your nostrils. That’s how everyone’s mind works: well, not mine of course. I’m beyond that. True free will, though even in the case of you *mortals* it’s semantics really~”, said Etsu.

The man below let out a small oof as Etsu changed what leg was crossed over which.

“You can kick your feet up too. His back is big enough, and your legs are long enough for it.”, said Etsu.

Laura just ignored that offer.

“So, why don’t you want to read my mind, or minds in general?”

“Well, to start, I don’t really have any more questions for you to answer.”, said Etsu.

“’To start’”, repeated Laura. “You could’ve read my mind back at the volleyball court, but you didn’t.”

Etsu sat a bit straighter up.

“Have you ever played a video game, Laura?”

“I don’t play games.”, said Laura.

Etsu snorted out laughter.

“Kehehehe. Yes of course, big super serious super heroine. Ok, well, I’m sure whether you’ve wanted to or not you’ve seen at least one movie, maybe a TV show. You’re smart so I’ve bet you’ve read your fair share of books. Tell me, is skipping to the end of a story fun?”

Laura simply listened.

“It’s not that fun, right? That’s cause it’s about the journey, not the destination. You’re right I could’ve read your mind, but then we wouldn’t have a need to have this fun conversation, our little back and forth I’ve grown to like so much in such a short time.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”, said Laura.

“Ouch. Not even the least bit friendly to me even now huh?”

“You’re a murderer.”

“True, I guess. But, you are still thinking a bit small. Why even read your mind when I could, say, just become aware of the knowledge directly. You know reality is mine to toy with. I could simply will myself to know everything that happened and will ever happen. Then we wouldn't need any conversation cause I could see how it’d go.”

Etsu continued.

“In fact, I could become aware of every *potential* conversation too. Going one step further, instead of having stomped your city to bits, treating it as a massage mat, I could have just given myself the knowledge of how that all would’ve gone if I *did* do it. Then, I never would’ve felt the desire to ruin your city in the first place. Moreover, why not just do that for *everything*, I don’t even need to be on this planet anymore, or even this universe! I could just be above it all, immaterial, filled with the bliss of every potential pleasurable action I could take, with my own sense of ecstasy ramped up to infinite levels both maximum yet always growing. You know why I don’t do that though? You’re smart enough to put it together?”

Laura had an answer, and it would’ve matched the gist of Etsu’s. She felt like giving it was playing along too much. Etsu clearly wanted to speak, anyways. So, she remained silent as the young woman continued talking.

“Because that’s boring to think about! Fun to live, sure, maybe, but so boring to think about. Plus, you’re missing something there, right? Sure, I could probably break the universe so I have all that bliss without actually missing the ineffable delight of not knowing what will come next, or how someone else will react to me snuffing their home out under heel. I could have all the novelty with none of it at the same time if I wanted to, but that’d probably break reality in some weird way. It’d be some chaotic soupy gunk of illogicality that I’d enjoy for a bit, but wouldn’t want to live in, even if it didn’t bother me enough to fix given my infinite bliss. I mean, I could resolve the paradox bu that'd make another, and resolving the infinite chain would be easy, but also lame.”

Etsu chortled.

“No, I wouldn’t want to live there in chaotic illogical soup. No one would. Would you?”

Laura remained silent. Etsu stuck out her tongue to mock the stoic heroine.

“You wouldn’t. And you don’t have to, cause I like novelty. I like a lot about being human, even if I’m beyond a normal person. I like getting horny then feeling satisfied. I like the feel of warm, clean sweat on my skin as I exercise. I like to feel my blood pump, and my breath quicken. I like to feel hungry, then eat till I’m full. An energetic light blob of perma-bliss doesn’t get that, you know?”

Laura looked to the side a moment.

“Ah, speaking of eating.”, said Etsu. “I think this food is a bit bland, don’t you? It could use some spice.”

With that, a bunch of small little “zloop” noises rung out across the table as portals briefly opened up on the pieces of sushi. Entire cities dotted some, others had entire landmasses as toppings. Laura leaned back from the table in disgust, while Etsu pinched up a city-clad chunk of sushi with her chopsticks, and moved it to her mouth.

“Aaaa~”, she said, exaggerating it all.

Laura reached out and grabbed Etsu’s wrist. Rather than paralyze Laura, or turn the arm to dust, Etsu simply moved her arm despite the interference. For Laura, it was like trying to hold back the limb of a powerful machine. She merely kept her fingers about the wrist as it inexorably moved. The heroine was unable to swipe the sushi out of Etsu’s chopsticks without ruining the tiny city in the process.

Etsu slid the piece of sushi in her mouth before an irritated Laura’s gaze. She swallowed, eyes open, then stuck out her tongue.

Etsu pinched up another piece of sushi, this one dotted with a small country, visible as green and brown topping on the circle of sushi.

--==--==--==--

People of New Zealand saw the sky swap shades of blue from natural sky to the sterile ceiling of a dining hall. It wasn’t long after that till they saw an utterly immense pair of chopsticks move overhead and snatch a country-dwarfing piece of sushi which shadowed the entire nation as it passed over it.

There was some thundering chatter above. They couldn’t quite gleam the context of things, other than that the purple-haired woman seemed to be the bad one among the two.

Then, it was their turn. The chopsticks came down to either side of them as great big wooden walls that passed over their sky. From there, a great tumultuous quake wracked their land as the piece of sushi was hoisted up. A few had figured it out from the odor of rice and seaweed and everything else where exactly their entire country was.

There was another shake as the other giant being’s hand gripped the wrist of the purple-haired one, again, to no avail.

They saw the great lips part, so very large that one could scarcely even know what they were looking at. Everything was so large. They were so small. It was almost alien to view lips that were tens upon tens of miles long.

The mouth basically was alien. Saliva pooled around. Maw flesh shifted. The great tongue curled to take them in, and they saw the wall of pink bumps making up Etsu’s papillae and taste buds for a brief moment. No sooner, and the lips sealed and shut out the last bits of light from the humid, sushi-scented cave.

Though the saliva ruined much of the country, drowning many hundreds of thousands, Etsu didn’t chew. She let the fluid in her mouth soften the land and the sushi piece before swallowing it all down whole and without issue.

They couldn't see in the journey down her throat, but they heard it. They heard the shifts of countless tons of muscle and flesh. They heard the heart beat and break up their country a bit further with every thump.

They of course heard the gurgling as they plopped down into an acidic stew of sushi and rice. Acid droplets started to flood them not long after.

--==--==--==--

Laura watched helplessly as Etsu ate another piece of sushi, then again.

“Haven’t you ruined enough cities today? Enough lives?”

Etsu gulped down yet another piece.

“Relax, these aren’t from our universe.”

“Where are they from then?”

“Another one. One I made up. It was the same as ours except I wasn’t there, and, of course, that its history is shaken up by me pulling a few cities out of it when I did. You know, for this meal.”

“You’re duplicating universes so you can have a meal? As though that makes it ok?”

“I am~”, said Etsu.

She pinched up a few grains of white rice from the pile of it beneath the sushi. It was the kind of rice you could see through a bit when cooked right. She held it up to her amber eye and Laura, against her better judgment, squinted to see it as well with her own blue gaze.

Within the grain of rice was an entire spiral of stars: a Milky Way Galaxy. A few of the other grains had galaxies in them as well. Laura recognized Andromeda and one or two others, but many seemed unknown despite her studies of astronomy.

Other grains ‘merely’ had planets in them, or stars, or sometimes even just a continent or two.

Etsu moved the chopsticks into her mouth and swallowed the rice with even more ease than she had gulping down sushi.

“Being eaten is probably not a great way to go, right?”, said Etsu. She continued talking.

“I mean, you’re stewing in what’s essentially puke. All that acid probably stings huh? Then to top it all off, you can’t even get a solid footing with all the churning. Then the noises. Deafening gurgles. Roaring squelches. It’s a real delight for me to even think about, let alone inflict. Wanna see?”

Before Laura could answer, Etsu’s jacket unbuttoned on its own, and the shirt beneath went invisible in a small circle around her stomach region. Laura could see Etsu’s bare, taut tummy for a moment before that too became see through all the way to Etsu’s stomach.

Laura could see inside the digestive organ. It was horrifying, but she couldn’t look away: at least not in time. She saw the piles of sushi and rice mixed among digesting cities. The bits of rice with civilizations in them would split open at times from digestive processes, with all the stars and whatnot spilling out into Etsu’s stomach like a capsule.

Laura could feel her senses drawn in. She could see the cities as though she had the vision of a hawk. Her ears were assailed with the sounds of agonized screams, alongside gurgles which matched up with the undulations of the stomach walls, now lit as Etsu’s little trick let the lights of the dining hall illuminate the organ for Laura. The heartbeat of Etsu thumped in her mind.

“Enough!”, shouted Laura. It was an uproar of a statement, but none of the other students turned to face her. No staff did either. No one did except Etsu, whose jacket was buttoned back up, body full opaque once again. Laura’s senses were once again wholly her own, at least as far as she could tell.

The purple-haired woman chortled. She reached over with her chopsticks at another piece of sushi, but Laura was ready this time. The heroine reached for the chopsticks and batted them out of Etsu’s loose grip. They skidded across the table a moment before falling down near the man-turned-footstool’s hands. He didn’t react to it.

Etsu pouted a moment. Then, holding eye contact, she opened her mouth wide. Her tongue stuck out, and from the maw echoed a vacuum noise. All the pieces of sushi and rice on the two plates were sucked up into her mouth with a cartoonish noise accompaniment: ‘plomf’.

She devoured it all, no need to swallow it seemed as it past down her throat without so much as a twitch: as though there was just a black hole back there.

Once that last grain was past Etsu’s lips, she sealed them, and gave them a lick. A satisfied sigh followed to mock the appalled Laura. She then stuck her tongue out, showing off her empty mouth before speaking again.

“All gone, see. Nothing to worry about anymore. No more of them to save.”

Etsu sat up straighter in her chair, her smile faded a tad.

“Haven’t you learned you can’t stop me from doing something I want to do yet?”, said Etsu.

“I have to try.”, said Laura.

Etsu chortled.

“Is that so? Of course you do, heroine~”

She leaned back, and patted her tummy region. “Mmf, feisty in there. This all reminds me. I promised you a fight didn’t I? You really want to bring me down huh? Well, do you still want to?”

“Yes.”, said Laura without any hesitation.

“Let’s have our fight then. It’ll be fun. It’s what you do best, super hero~ First though, my dessert. I was saving it.”

Etsu stood up from the table. Of course, the foot stool was in the way of her shoes hitting the floor, but she didn’t let that stop her. Her legs punctured through the man like pistons through paper. He let out some involuntary utterances of pain before finally slumping over, dead. By then, Etsu had taken a couple steps to get to the side of the table: steps that waded through his body as easily as her legs would wade through water. More blood mess was scattered about.

The table cleaned itself of the old plates. A new, small, fancy circular plate manifested. Atop it, a small puffy pastry appeared. It was the size of a coin in diameter. A thin layer of white icing topped the doughy part, and then atop that was a city settled in the fluff of sugar.

Laura recognized it as Kramston of course. She moved to pull the plate away but before her fingers touched the porcelain, she found herself shrunken down small enough to fit on one of its streets. She stared up at Etsu’s beaming face.

Laura clenched her fists, but was determined not to give Etsu the satisfaction of any words at the moment.

Etsu’s voice came down, shaking the land with its volume.

“There, the perfect extra bit of spice.”

Her fingers grabbed either side of the treat.

“I’ll be taking this one to go, though. I’ll see you soon~”

Etsu’s mouth parted and Laura looked up at the palate that became her sky. A strand of drool dangled, plopping down on one of the entertainment districts of the city. Though Laura was confident this wasn’t the real Kramston of the current world, it was still filled with real people with thoughts, and dreams, and an ability to sense pain.

As saliva rushed through the streets in a flood, Etsu swallowed. Everything shifted. The ground tilted with the tongue as a suction force tugged Laura and the entire pastry down the college student’s throat.

By the time the small pastry landed in Etsu’s stomach, it and the city were so soggy as to be falling apart. Having survived to make it to the gut--thanks to Etsu’s help no doubt--Laura was able to experience the horrors of being digested alive first hand. A wave of acid took her off the relative ‘safety’ of the city and into the churning chyme of doom.

Chapter 8: Fighting

Laura came to consciousness again on the streets of Kramston. Her costume was on: the one she had worn under her suit, with a retractable mask and a thinner design that still carried the characteristic brown spots on yellow pattern the Leopard was known for. The costume still had plenty of space for protective linings for blows, and of course she had all the gadgets the costume normally came with.

She figured that Etsu must’ve removed her executive suit which she was wearing earlier: probably just blinked it out of existence, most likely. The costume she was wearing was underneath all that, and only the black shoes from her previous ensemble were kept.

The streets were lit only by the numerous street lamps, and the hovering moon shining bright and full in the night sky.

Across from her, standing in the car-less road was none other than Etsu of course.

“What did you do? It’s night?”

“Isn’t that your favorite time?”, said Etsu.

“Did you skip time? Is this the real Kramston?”

“No I didn’t skip time, but I entertained myself and waited till now to bring you back. Yes, this is the ‘real’ Kramston in that it’s the one you’re used to living in. Don’t worry though, I’ll put it back.”

The streets were crowded with people, who didn’t take too long to notice the super heroine.

“It’s the Leopard!”, shouted one guy.

“My hero!”, said a random, college aged gal.

“Then they...”

“Are real people. Don’t worry, I’ve had my full of duplicates and mind control--for now~”

The crowd murmured.

“Mind control, what’s she talking about?”
“Real people?”
“Who is she?”
“Why’s the Leopard talking to that weird student over there?”

“So.”, said Etsu. “Let’s do this. You can have the first strike. Go on, fight me.”

“There’s no point.”, said Laura. “You’ll cheat.”

“Maybe.”, said Etsu. “But don’t you wanna hit me? Take out your aggressions?”

Laura hesitated, standing in the road, thinking.

Etsu was getting bored. She turned to her side at the woman who proclaimed the Leopard her hero. Etsu pointed her finger that way and shot a beam of focused light that cleaved the woman in two diagonally across the abdomen.

“How about now? Kehehe”, said Etsu.

Laura charged the purple-haired woman, fist reeled back.

“You fiend!”, she shouted.

Etsu stood still, letting the fist hit her face and twist her head far to the side. She quickly cocked her head back into place with a snap.

“Nice punch. Would've knocked any other person out I think.”, she said while effortlessly dodging the next few blows.

“You’re a monster!”, shouted the Leopard.

“Ah, good idea.”, said Etsu.

At once, her body and outfit changed. Her university clothes were gone and in her place were leaf coverings over her chest and bottom. The leaves grew out her body, which had quickly turned a shade of green itself with vines crawling over it. Her hair was laced with leaves and flowers, though still purple in its shade.

She moved her hand back and tried to backhand the Leopard. If it hit, it would've stung given the thorn sticking out of the back of Etsu’s hand. Thankfully the Leopard dodged in the nick of time. Another swipe came from Etsu’s other hand, which was blocked by the hard metal band covering Laura’s left wrist.

“Do you like it?”, said Etsu, as she dodged the retaliation strikes from the costumed heroine. “You recognize the influence right? Plant Man. One of your recurring foes.”

“I thought you said you didn’t read my mind.”

“This is all public knowledge. Years of articles and battles. I don’t think he used his powers to their full potential though. Like so.”

Etsu tilted her head, trying to sway her hair across the Leopard’s Face. Her hair was coated with a thin, oil-like layer of a toxin that would make poison oak juice look like massage cream in comparison. Laura didn’t exactly know that, but she saw the oily texture and put two and two together to duck out of the way of something dangerous just in time.

“Aww,” said Etsu, jumping back just in time from another blow. Her bare green fit landed on the sidewalk.

“Now I have to demonstrate on some others.”

Laura gasped as she realized Etsu was dodging back towards pedestrians. The plant woman bent her head down towards some poor man who had crouched down, shaking with fear from the brawl. Her hair draped over his face, rubbing against it as she planted a kiss on his scalp.

Screams echoed from behind the veil of the lose hanging purple hair. When Etsu leaned back up, the man’s skin was red with bubbling blisters, and his scalp was black, flesh sloughing off to reveal bone. Whatever the toxins were, they were spreading, and it wasn’t too long before the man rolled in agony, his body blistering and going red all over. Her fingers fell off the bone before death set in over the course of a few agonized seconds. By then, it was a long awaited mercy.

Etsu laughed of course. She raised her arms and vines crawled up them, then shot out like whips towards the Leopard. The heroine was ready with her smart-tech boomerangs which cut through the vines with ease. Etsu tried to grow the tendril-like growths back, but Laura was already charging her again.

Etsu turned to the side and opened her mouth. A stream of thorns shot out, blocked by Laura. So, she turned to the side and hit some pedestrians running away through the streets. The men and woman punctured by the thorns stopped, turned around, and looked at the Leopard with anger in their eyes.

“Get her!”, said Etsu, chortling. The people rushed the Leopard’s way.

The super heroine dealt with them easily. A shot from her grappling hook roped them by the legs. She hit a button the hook’s roped cut off there, keeping them tied.

“You said no mind control!”, barked the Leopard.

“Those were just pheromones, laced into the stings~”

Laura fished out a capsule-like device from her tool belt, hit a small button on it, then stuffed it into some of the leaves dotting Etsu’s plant-like body.

It started to fizzle, then caught fire.

“Hey!”, shouted Etsu. “I thought you didn’t kill people?”

“We both know you won’t die from this.”

The thermite-based fire spread over Etsu’s form with ease. She winced, feeling some pain while dulling any excess. With Laura no longer holding her immolating self, she rushed towards a nearby fire hydrant and grabbed hold of it. With her godly strength she twisted the cap off and let the water flow over her.

The water kept flowing, soaking into her body which doubled in size. She changed colors too. Her body was no longer green, but a gray-brown like clay. Indeed, her flesh shifted and warbled much like clay taking shape. In lieu of eyeballs and a mouth, she simply made holes for her facial features, and her nude body had the lewd details smoothed out. The only symbol of her old self was that the clay morphed to her hair was colored purple.

She took a soggy step towards the Leopard, her new bulky clay-morph of a body thumped as she moved. Her steps were deformed the moment they impacted: demolding to just a pile of clay really. Yet, when the time came to move the leg again, she was sure to get every last drop of her clay self back up with her.

“Kehehehe. You know this one right? Clay Woman! Famous model turned shape-shifting killer.”

“Enough of these games, Etsu!”, shouted the Leopard.

The heroine rushed to the other side of the street. She had known from facing the actual inspiring villain that Clay Woman had quite the reach, so she kept her distance.

“But I’m having fun!”, said Etsu. She then opened her mouth wide and started spitting balls of clay the Leopard’s way. It was exactly as the heroine had planned. To attack her from too long a range, Etsu had to lose mass.

Etsu caught on fast, though. Rather than aim at the Leopard, who easily dodged, she shot a few balls of clay towards some pedestrians still cowering on the other side of the street. The clay didn’t just knock them over, but it seeped inside their bodies. It filled them from within, blocking their internal organs and clotting the arteries that the clay mass burrowed its way into.

After tearing through the people she had infested, the clay she shot came back to her like snakes and she stomped back after the Leopard.

Laura had to compose herself.

‘The people are real, but they will be brought back. The best way to save people is by focusing up. I can’t save everyone, but I can always try.’ she thought to herself.

As the fight went on, Laura was looking for a special grenade of hers, tucked tight and far on her belt. It was tricky to get to, unfortunately for the people already killed.

Etsu raised up her arm, which slowly morphed into a big clay bludgeon.

“You know, I’m kind of baffled how so many of your enemies lost. I think they are just a bit too crazy for their own good. They seem to have every advantage over you. At least half of them seem to have real powers! Yet, you keep winning. It’s quite the story each and every time!”

She swung the clay arm and missed, though cracked the asphalt of the road with ease. The sopping clay monster stumbled after the Leopard once more, this time morphing the arm to a bit thinner of a bludgeon. She swung faster, but still missed.

Alas, in tracking the heroine’s dodge she noticed a pedestrian right by her side. She reached down with her other hand, letting it flow over the middle-aged woman. The clay limb brought the victim deeper into the claymass, where Etsu devoured them. The sounds of bones cracking and screams echoed out, muffled by the pounds and pounds of clay. that worked to churn and ‘digest’ the meal.

“Mmmf, yummy.”, taunted Etsu. In her haste, she hadn’t cared to stop the Leopard from moving towards another hydrant on the side of the street. The heroine had gotten the water from it free, somehow, and it blasted Etsu.

“Making me more wet? That just makes it easier for me to move.”

She stomped over towards the Leopard, smiling wide with the clay hole that was her mouth.

Laura wasn’t in the mood for banter. She simply shook the grenade in hand, pulled the pin, then chucked it Etsu’s way. Mid flight, the liquid-nitrogen based cooling agent burst out as a fog of mist. It froze the spraying water on contact, while also solidifying the water-sopped clay-form Etsu had taken.

Another pedestrian was nearby. Etsu had reached out to try and swiped them down with a big clay arm. But, the limb froze just in time and the man ran off. The Leopard had saved at least one person, it seemed.

“Not, b-b-b-b-bad~”, said a shivering Etsu.

It was all she managed to squeak out before her entire form froze like a statue. The Leopard had sealed the hydrant back up, and walked over with ease thanks to her anti-slip shoes.

As expected, Etsu had more in store. The entire frozen clay blob she had become shock and cracked. It exploded outwards as shards of ice, which the Leopard shielded herself from. Nonetheless, the shards still pelted some of the cowering pedestrians that finally got the good sense to run away. Minor wounds, thankfully. Nothing fatal.

From the icy prison, Etsu emerged in yet another form and back at her normal height. The hat of a jester donned her head, and a clown outfit covered her body. It came complete with ruffles about the neck, and colorful purple and red spots and shapes atop a predominantly yellow color base for the clothes themselves.

Her face and skin were painted stark white with a big purple grin and black circles about the eyes. In her hands, she carried a hammer far too big and heavy than one a woman her size should wield.

“Tada!”, she said. “One of your favorite villainous inspirations right here. Sometimes, villains don’t even need powers to win right? They just need to be unpredictable, cunning. I have to say though, Leopard, you got me good. I think your villains lose cause they overlook their own weaknesses. I should've known ice was on its way. Overconfidence is a killer, right?”

She charged towards the Leopard, hammer in hand. Though Laura dodged the first slamming strike, she horizontal follow-up sent her slamming through the street to the nearest intersection. Traffic was thankfully closed, but the area was far more crowded.

Etsu was running back, hammer in hand. She lept into the air in an unnaturally high leap, then brought it back down atop a parked car.

The college-student turned villainess rushed at the heroine who, of course, dodged yet again after rising back to her feet. Etsu knew she would though, and her horizontal strike hit some of the crowd behind the Leopard instead. The powerful strike sent them flying into the distance, limbs mangled. Once they hit the buildings in the path of their flight, they splatted like flies to a windshield.

“The Clown didn’t have super strength.”, said the Leopard as she kneed Etsu in the stomach: a blow which the purple-haired woman didn’t even register.

“I may have taken some liberties. That’s why I will win our game. I don’t have weaknesses.”, boosted Etsu.

The student twirled her hammer, cleaving everything around her. The Leopard simply dropped to the ground and tried to tug at Etsu’s legs to trip the woman. It didn’t work.

The smiling woman rushed into the nearest crowd, spinning her hammer to blend the people around her into a crimson storm of gore.

“You’re wrong.”, said the Leopard. “You do have a weakness, at least one.”

“Oh?”

Etsu turned back to the heroine, who was holding an unlabeled little spray canister of some kind. Etsu knew the heroine’s tricks, but since the canister was unlabeled she didn’t quite know what was inside: she didn’t wanna peek, after all. That was actually ‘cheating’ to her in her already self-advantaged game.

So, she swung her hammer the heroine’s way. With a slight dodge, Laura missed the crushing blow, then blasted the hammer with a spray of purple gunk. It was a fast acting glue which held the hammer head in place.

Etsu tugged on the handle, making a show of having a hard time pulling it free. Of course, she cloud easily pull it free. She could melt the glue away. She could rip it free without any damage, or with the proper force needed to, which would probably tear up the road a bit. She could do any number of things with her infinite power.

Both her and Laura knew this. But, Etsu made it a show, cause that was entertaining to her. She liked the struggle.

The college student moved her gloved hands from the handled. She sighed, a mockery like everything else she was doing.

“Alright you got me again. My hammer is weak to glue.”

“That’s not what I meant.”, said the Leopard.

“Oh?”

Chapter 9: Fear

“You’re weakness is that you are afraid.”, said Laura.

Etsu cocked her eyebrow.

“Me, afraid?”

She transformed back into her normal university attire. School jacket. Skirt. Black socks and brown loafers.

“What do I have to be afraid of.”, said Etsu. “I’m omnipotent.”

“It’s a specific thing.”, said Laura. “An issue only you would have.”

“Spit it out, then. I’m curious.”

Laura debated stringing Etsu along, but it didn’t seem like too good an idea. She would have to say it soon enough anyways, and better to do so now on her own terms than after being subject to some sort of reality-warping torture.

“You’re afraid of advancing. You’re afraid of becoming an omniscient, all-knowing being of bliss. You don’t want to lose the novelty of things, sure, but you’re afraid of losing something else.”

“And that is?”

“You’re afraid of losing yourself. What if you like being a ‘light-blob’ so much, that you never go back. You never want to go back. Maybe simply knowing everything changes you in some way. Your personality shifts enough that you’re not the same Etsu anymore.”

Etsu seemed a tad unamused. Laura continued.

“You’d be out in your own bubble of existence, while the universe, no, all the universes go on without you. They’d be just fine. It’d be better, even, as unfair as it’d be for everlasting pleasure to be felt by a sadistic woman like yourself. It could better for everyone, but you would never know unless you let yourself know, and if you did, you might not want to come back to how you do things now. Is that right? A forbidden fruit that you banned yourself from tasting, even though you’re the only one who could pluck it in the first place.”

Etsu chortled softly. The people on the street disappeared, as did all the cars. She clapped softly.

“Wow, bravo, you are the greatest detective on the planet or something Laura! So I’m a little timid about ascending to some higher state of intelligence. So what. Fear is a part of the platter of human emotions that make life so sweet.”

Laura just smiled smugly, treating this as a little victory for herself. She found it hard not to savor it a little.

“Satisfied?”, continued Etsu.

“I suppose you would be. You need to cling to moments like these right? After all, there’s not a villain you’ve fought that I can’t defeat with a snap of my fingers or a dash of my toe. I could fix them, too. For all your wasted efforts on trying to redeeming literal monsters, I could just clap my hands and you could have a clay woman passing out free food at a shelter, and a plant man tending the flowers of the city park with something other than blood.”

“But you won’t, of course.”, said Laura. “I wonder if there’s something you’re afraid about there too.”

“No.”, said Etsu. “It’d just be boring. You know what’s interesting though?”

“What?”, said Laura.

“What *you* are afraid of. Let’s take a look!”

Etsu disappeared. Past where she had been standing, Laura saw Margret, her maid, standing on the sidewalk.

“Mistress Laura?”, called out the older woman. “What is going on? Why am I here?”

“Margret!”, shouted Laura. “I thought you said you didn’t read my mind, Etsu!!!”

Etsu came into vision, looming over the city. Margret seemed startled, and her footing trembled. The Leopard held her ground, though.

“I didn’t read your mind, but I know your secret identity, and I helped myself to every bit of info on you that ever existed. Assimilated by me, in one big gulp, and people know who Laura Yeal’s maid is.”

Laura looked up at the towering purple-haired woman.

“So, once again, you’re big?”

“For you? Of course! You deserve a spectacular view of yours truly. Now then, onto your fear: losing the things and people you love~”

Etsu reached down from the sky with her finger. Margret was easily snuffed out beneath the divine digit along with the surrounding block.

Laura winced a bit, but then just sighed.

Etsu cocked her eyebrow.

“Not the reaction you expected?”, said Laura.

“I figured you’d be more afraid. I can feel your pulse as your blood vessels bulge against the air around you. It’s not that heightened.”

Laura shrugged.

“You’re right, I’m afraid of losing the ones I love. I’m afraid of losing Kramston. But, that’s not what’s happening here. That’s the real Margret, sure, but you’ll bring her back. You’ll bring the city back.”

“And you’re sure of this?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t want to live in a world where the consequences of your actions was never having toys to break again. Sure, you might kill a few people in this universe, your ‘home’ universe I imagine. I bet you have. I bet you’ve permanently killed thousands in this world like that. But a modern city? No, that’s why you bring all this stuff back instead of hopping between universes forever. You always come back here, don’t you? There’s a perverse sentimentally to it, I imagine.”

Etsu leaned down. Wind buffeted as her face drew closer to the city and her voice bellowed.

“You would dare presume so much about me?”

It startled Laura, which made Etsu quake the city with a chortle.

“Kehehehe. Don’t worry. It’s fine. This just means I’ve won, in a way.”

“How’s that?”, asked Laura.

“Because you admit this doesn't matter. You’re detached from the destruction, the death, and suffering. Since it can all come back, there’s nothing too much to worry about, logically, right? Now you know how I feel. How a ‘god’ feels.”

Etsu snorted.

Laura’s eyes widened, then her expression calmed down. She chuckled softly.

“You’re right Etsu. You’re 100% right, but I’m gonna win in another way.”, said Laura.

“Oh?”

“That’s right. I know how to bring this game to an end.”

“Oh really now?”

“Yes. I’m just gonna stop playing.”

“Stop playing?”, said Etsu. “You realize you’re in a city I control right? Everything here bends to my whims, and you’re in it.”

The streets warbled and shook. The buildings Etsu had crushed rebuilt themselves after the crater the digit left refilled.

“Yes, but I don’t have to do anything, and you’d have to deal with that. A limp toy, strewn on the floor. You could mind control me, sure but, as you say, what’s the fun in that?”

Laura smirked.

Etsu squinted.

“We’ll see how long you hold up.”

She snapped her fingers and Margret returned.

“Perhaps a bit of vehicular trauma might shake you up.”, said Etsu.

While Margret got her bearings yet again, a speeding car drove down the street, and veered of the road. It slammed right into Margret, crushing the older woman against the wall.

Laura felt sad, but true to her word she just stood there, unmoving.

Etsu grumbled. She snapped her fingers again and more cars showed up. They piled onto Margret. A helicopter fell out of the sky to join the stack of mangled vehicles. A plane came down, too. A subway train ripped out from underground to mash into the mess. Each vehicle was packed with a person that Laura could tell was another Margret: either the same one or plucked form another dimension. She saw the family friend die over and over.

But, the heroine held her ground. She didn’t fall to her knees and cry, nor rush towards the giant monster with rage pumping through her like blood.

Etsu then summoned a blimp to crash down on the piled mass of metal and scrap. A satellite fell from the sky onto it.

She chortled.

“Kehehe. This is stupid. Stupid.”

Laura felt her body levitate of the ground. She felt a burning sensation over her skin that made her grit her teeth.

“I could make you move through sheer agony. I could torture you in a time bubble for 10,000 years and have it be one second in the real world. Then you’d be real eager to participate in things like this. Things like this, they’d be a cakewalk compared to what I could do.”

Indeed Laura couldn’t help but fidget her arms and legs in the air as an injury-less pain wracked them.

“Y-you could”, stammered Laura. “You could probably break my mind with enough time and torture. B-b-but, then what? Them I’m hardly different from that living footstool you made earlier. Or, you wipe my mind after so I’m back to normal but, then, what was the point of it? I wouldn’t remember the torture, as horrible as it might be. You wouldn’t have punished me in a way I remember.”

Etsu ramped up the pain a good deal, enough for Laura to scream a tiny bit. All the while, the city dissolved as though hit with a nuclear blast, only to come back, again and again. Each time, the flames rose higher, adding to Laura’s agony.

Then, after a few repetitions of that, Etsu stopped. She eyed Laura who caught her breath, but then raised her head back up, coyly smirked a moment, then went back to her stoic expression.

“Kehehehehehehe. You’re good at this. Fine, fine, you win.”

She let Laura fall back to the ground. The super heroine rolled forward to break the fall, then slowly stood back up.

“But, don’t think you’ve humbled me much here. For even trying, I should return the favor. Yes, we’ll end on my terms. I’ll show you something that will help you realize, fear or no fear, just how insignificant you are.”, said Etsu.

The purple-haired woman grinned, then grew up and outwards across the horizon. Her body was expanding rapidly: exponentially.

Laura found her senses hijacked about the time that Etsu had grown big enough to loom over the continent. She saw the purple-haired young woman expand past that, looming over the planet as it hovered between her hands. Her view was as though a far off agent, an observer that watched from afar at a hovering view.

The hands moved away as the 20 year old kept growing. She saw the sun loom above Etsu, briefly, before it became the size of a pea.

Soon the galaxy itself came into the perception of Laura's senses. She saw from the front Etsu growing out of it, then wrapping her hands around it in turn. Etsu’s fingers closed in on billions of stars.

After that, there were the galactic clusters, made up of hundreds and thousands of galaxies in their own rights as a massive, super stellar construct that burst against Etsu’s burgeoning body.

The edge of the universe was upon Etsu’s form. Laura could see it strain against the purple-haired woman’s body: almost like the university student was trying to break out of plastic wrap.

Etsu did, of course, break out of the universe. The thin film-like exterior of it simply snapped back to place without any tears. Etsu now hovered in an endless field of weight where the universe bubble hovered. There were universes just like it, stretching across the stark white expanse.

Etsu expressed that the post-universe area wasn’t actually stark white. She conveyed, wordlessly, the idea that it was a far more chaotic and different place than that. She conveyed without words how in trying to show it to Laura, she’d break the heroine’s mind with just a glance--at least without any extra omnipotent fiddling on the purple-haired woman’s part.

Grinning, chortling, the godlike woman in the university uniform closed her hands around the universe. At the same time, every other universe also had its own Etsu body, acting the same. The white expanse of this post-universal realm was filled with the light skin of Etsu’s palm as she closed around that too.

Complete and total darkness fell across Laura, and the planet, and the universe and every single ‘thing’ or ‘being’ in all of existence.

Except for Etsu, of course.

Chapter 10: Memories

Laura awoke from her recent, most all-encompassing demise yet. She was back in her executive suit and in her hotel room.

Etsu was sitting down at the table where the CEO and super heroine had surfed the web on just that morning. She was wearing her usual university attire, and had a smile on her face.

Laura was still reeling from the experience. The sensory overload of seeing all of reality as she did, even if it was just a brief snippet, was, to Etsu’s credit, humbling. The sights alone would do that enough, but the sheer tininess of Laura’s being to the cosmos was something she had known, logically, yet never quite experienced.

Indeed, she was visibly humbled, and Etsu was visibly pleased by that. Laura thought not to protest, obviously. She let the omnipotent monster have their smug victory moment. Things were better that way.

“Welcome back.”, said Etsu.

“Are we done?”, said Laura. She stood up straight and brushed her executive suit with her palms.

“Sadly. Like I said, the game’s over... for now. It was a lot of fun. It was really something. It felt almost therapeutic, didn’t it? I think like I actually learned something about myself, which is quite rare. I think you learned quite some things too, didn’t you?”

“Sure.”, said Laura. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind leaving Kramston alone for the future, and maybe be kinder to the world?”

Etsu chortled.

“Kehehehe, as if.”, she said with a snort. “I’m not gonna stop having fun just because we had an especially interesting day together. If it’s any consolation though, you’ll be happy to know my panties are off of Paris, and Sydney is sweat free. I undid all the mess I made already. I will try to be more careful in the future about those tachyons, though, so you can consider that a small win of yours.”

Laura said nothing, but shot a look of disapproval.

“Don’t be like that. Although, you know, it is sad in a way. You won’t even remember our fun times together. I’ll be erasing your memories of course. I can’t have you blabbing about my existence and nature. I mean, sure I could fix it, but why not just prevent that now?”

“No.”, said Laura in protest. “Leave my memory alone.”

“And why would I do that? I could erase your mind and be done with this.”

“Don’t.”, said Laura. “There’s not as much of a point as you think. So long as there’s a clue, a single clue to something weird going on with time or some other physics anomaly, I’d just find you again. That’s all I need, just a few clues. It’s how I am.”

“I don’t know~~~”, said Etsu.

The purple-haired woman brought her fingers together as if she was about to snap them. She leaned back in the chair, defying reality to rock it forward and back a tiny bit, even though the piece of furniture lacked that feature in its design.

“I could just be super thorough cleaning up my tracks.”, said Etsu.

“Yes.”, said Laura. “But that’s a bit more effort.”

“The word ‘effort’ doesn't’ mean for me what it does for you I think.”, replied Etsu. She tilted her head and grinned.

“No, you’re right in that the effort would be infinitesimal at best. But, I think you like leaving a mess from time to time. Do you really want to have to put all the particles back in the box every time you, well, do what you do?”

“Hmmmm”, hummed Etsu. “It does have a certain flair to it, scattering tachyons around like confetti. Still, are you sure? Do you really want to go on with life knowing what you know now? That so much control is in the hands of one young woman, thousands of miles away? This is information no one else knows or would know. Not any intelligence agency in the world. If they did, they’d try to cover it up.”

“I think the world must know. They must know your crimes against the world, our reality.”, said Laura.

Etsu sighed.

“No I can’t have that.”

Laura saw the fingers stiffen. She was worried Etsu was gonna snap them as a gesture of wiping her memory.

Instead, Etsu lifted her hand up, fingers interlocked with another. Both hands were behind her head in a leisurely pose.

“But, you can keep your memory.”

Laura smirked slightly.

“On one condition though. I need to make sure you can’t tell anyone, of course.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. If you ever want to meet up again, for a chat or whatnot, well, you’ll remember who I am, and where to find me... at least when I’m not out and about tormenting another universe or something. Kehehehe.”

Laura moved to say something, ‘stop!’, but Etsu clapped her hands together and everything went black.

--==--==--==--

Laura found herself in the elevator down to the Leopard Cave hidden under her manor. Her base of operations for all her heroic business: the business that really mattered to her.

Her executive suit was on, suitcase handle in hand. The doors slid open and she stepped out.

“Ah, welcome back Mistress Laura, how was your trip to Japan?”, said Margret. The older woman was in her black and white work attire, ready with a tray upon which rested a cup of water and a plate with a single scone on it.

“It was... certainly something.”, said Laura.

“Shame it was cut short as you mentioned, but good on you for traveling on the behalf of the company for once! Even better of you on not getting into any of your vigilante business. At least, I hope that’s what happened, or, rather, didn’t happen”, said Margret, chuckling to herself.

“I suppose if you stopped a pickpocket or something, well, that’s a good deal safer than what you usually are up to. I don't like to worry, you know. You didn’t fight any super villains or anything like that, did you?”, continued the old maid.

“I...”, said Laura. She set her suitcase aside then moved to her desk.

The heroine remembered her vision going black when Etsu clapped in the hotel room. And then, she remembered everything that happened after, as if she had done it of her own will. She had not, however. She was on autopilot, and she knew now that she had been.

Etsu just disappeared from the room, and Laura called the hotel staff to cut her stay short. A quick call to Margret explained that her business meetings were over early and, with Etsu’s modifications to reality, that’s all Margret thought the trip to be: just Yeal Enterprise business. The memory of the tachyon manipulator too was likely expunged for Margret and anyone who worked on it.

She remembered getting on the plane, flying for hours, then driving back to her manor. Harmless actions really. Boring things. She thought maybe Etsu cut all that out from her awareness at the time not just to make sure Laura didn’t try anything, but more cause it was boring. Like, as though removing the conscious experience of it was a courtesy.

Of course, Laura still remembered all the atrocities and twisted games she had witnessed Etsu do. The games she was a part of. She remembered what Etsu had done to her city in the first place to start her on that journey. Etsu kept her word that she wouldn’t make Laura forget what she learned, for better or worse.

Margret set the tray down atop Laura’s desk.

“Thank you Margret, but I’m not hungry right now.”, said Laura.

“Mistress Laura, my question about trouble in Japan wasn’t entirely rhetorical. You seem a bit shaken. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

There was. Laura looked towards her maid and wanted to blurt out everything. Everything about what the tachyon particles were about, who Etsu was. She wanted to say how some sadistic young woman across the pacific was responsible for acts of unparalleled abhorrence. How such a rotten person wielded powers none should have.

Yet, when Laura opened her mouth to say these words, she found it sealed shut. In a bit of a panic, she fished out a piece of paper and brought a pen to its surface, aiming to write it out. Instead, her hand stopped just before the tip of the writing instrument touched paper. Try as she might she couldn't push it down that extra bit of space to put the ink down. Her arm simply wouldn’t cooperate.

Laura turned around to type on the keyboard to her front. She tried to type out a message about Etsu and what the trip to Japan was really about, but her hands froze against the keys.

In one last attempt, she turned to Margret and tried to blink out something in Morse code. ‘Etsu was the attacker’, was what she tried to convey. She managed to blink once, then found she couldn't blink again to continue the message conveyance.

It was at this moment Laura grasped the trust meaning of Etsu’s words. She had the memories, yes, but not the ability to share them. She couldn’t speak about anything that would implicate Etsu as what that young woman really was. Something activated in her mind like a trap. It was an awareness. An awareness that this was a curse of sorts, not exactly surveillance. A safeguard rather than a security cam, so to speak.

That did little to soothe Laura on the matter. She grit her teeth and lowered her head in frustration.

“Laura, what’s wrong?”, said Margret.

“Just jet-lag I think.”, she said. “You know I’ve been a bit sensitive to it of late.”

“Ah, well, yes. Yes of course.”, said the maid.

Laura wanted to check something though. She pulled up the tachyon monitors on the screens. The sight of them shocked her.

“Oh, that fun tachyon project you were talking about. That hobby of yours isn’t it? Why are they arranged like that? How curious?”

Margret chuckled.

Laura did not. She stared at the monitors and saw the tachyons were arranged to span across the array of screens in the pattern of a smiling emoji.

“Did you do that somehow?”, asked Margret.

“No.” said Laura.

“Well, what’s it mean then?”

Laura shut off the screens.

“Nothing worth worrying about.”

An alarm sounded in the Leopard cave. The screens turned back on just as they were shut off. They showed a hammer wielding clown-dressed man banging a giant hammer against a bank vault, while face-painted goons pointed guns at cowering customers and staff in the background.

Laura ditched her business suit, then pulled up her costume’s mask as she bolted towards the Leopard mobile.

“Already? But you just got back.”

“I know,” said Laura as she hopped into the car and fired up the engine.

“But it’s what I do.”

The vigilante then sped off into the night, off to go and fight a threat she could actually beat.

Fin