Chapter 10: Attack of the Colossus

“I figured you’d be dumb enough not to leave me alone.”

Belle spun around, swinging her arms through about 3 of the airzeps. What bits of them didn't explode outright did when they crashed into the ground.

She turned around and flattened the wreckage of one under foot, then she took a step in that pond of the capital courtyard. It crumbled and leaked, but she appreciate the feeling of cold water against her metal foot.

“I mean, I guess I expected it to some extent. All my life I’ve seen people too egotistical to do what makes sense.”

An airzep flew close to her head, peppering it with machine-gun fire from the rapid-fire gun on its gondola. Belle moved her neck back and then slammed her forehead into the craft, utterly obliterating it.

Screams came out over the radio. Belle smirked.

“I think I’m just gonna talk normally for now. I think I’m loud enough for you all to hear, but before I do that, let me give you one more message: I’m going to wreck this rotten city till you finally surrender to me. How long that’ll take is up to you. I’ll still keep listening in though, don’t you worry about that.”

Belle backhanded another airzep out of the way and took a turn towards the geartanks lined up at the east. Although the streets were more free of the civilians, the city’s assigned military forces were absolutely packing them. Between the slew of geartanks were plenty of normal soldiers, with their rifles clad in uniform and ready to fight.

Belle walked up to the very front of those forces, and simply stepped down on them. She was big, lumbering, but at her scale even her slower movements were hard to escape and react to. It didn't’ matter if her foot took 3x as long to fall as a human’s if it was hundreds of times as big.

The brass bodied woman felt the explosions of warmth beneath her tread. She took another step, then again, methodically stomping out chunks of the forces at a time. It felt almost massaging: the warm explosions followed by the slightly cooler blood of the pilots and soldiers also smashed under sole.

There were still more to be thwarted, but she turned her massive body once more and marched straight into a slew of buildings. She felt them break against her legs and feet, with a few taller structures even crashing against her thighs instead.

It did little to calm her though. Belle was pissed. It was clear to see on her brass face. She was done being mislead, used. She rampaged through the army and city not to get them to submit, but to unleash her anger. Her boss hadn’t supported her, some business man stole her brain and, to top it off, Angelica betrayed her. Even the government itself cared little for her wants and well-being.

Some people had moved to the roof of a nearby skyscraper rather than evacuate. They were on their hands and knees atop the flat-surface there, begging. Belle moved close to them, saw how their tears stained their fancy suits and dresses. In the moment, they repulsed her.

Smiling, she pursed her lips and blew them off the tower. While they plummeted to their doom, she brought her elbow through the building and sent it folding down over into a pile of rubble atop her toes.

“That made me feel a bit better. Hmmm.”

More bullets were hitting her: against the back of her knees and even a few shells against her perfectly proportioned, petite brass butt. She laughed.

“I see, want more attention? Fine, I’ll give it to you! You little insects can’t even let me have a moment to myself, can you?”

Belle started walking towards the row of tanks to the west, faster and faster until, smiling, she started running. It was all the span of a few seconds, but the thoom and thud of her footfalls made for a few mini-quakes that knocked the un-expecting soldiers off their own little feet. She came to a stop by raising her left foot and slamming it down in the center of the armed throng.

“Haven’t you learned you can’t do anything to me? Just give up already!”

She arced her right leg back and brought its foot in for a kick. Geartanks and soldiers flew through the air, and a few hit the airships which were coming in. They had looped around Belle and we’re ready to strike: well, the ones not ‘sunk’ out of the air by soaring geartanks at least.

Belle wondered how they had coordinated this without saying something over the radio. The radio was mostly quiet, save for the occasional, fruitless call for ‘help’ from the odd radio-equipped geartank.

‘Help huh, when I asked for help, you government bastards were gonna try and scoop out my brain for the second time.’

Belle zoomed in on some of the airzeps, and noticed a few had some colorful flags waving out their windows.

“Semaphore huh? Clever.”

She took some steps towards the fleet, utterly uncaring of where said steps land or what poor fools they ended beneath.

Then, there was chatter over the radio. Something new this time.

“Fire!”, came the voice of that captain woman from earlier.

Shortly after, the long barreled steam cannon on the largest dirigible in the pack fired.

A large iron shell ripped through the air, 5-feet in diameter and shaped like a bullet. Belle saw it coming and, her human instincts in-tact, raised her arm to shield herself while simultaneously ducking to the side. Despite that effort, the powerful shell still managed to slam into her right shoulder.

Belle’s feet stumbled some from the blow, stomping out a few more geartanks before her heels found a steady place to rest after crushing down a building each.

She tilted her head towards the impact point, and noticed the slightest dent. Before her very eyes, the depression in her brass body began to un-depress, albeit slowly.

“The minibots.”, Belle muttered. “They must be at work, a bit slow though.”

Belle faced the airship fleet, grit her teeth, and charged at them.

“I didn’t think you could hurt me, but thanks for keeping me on my toes!”

She leapt just before them, bringing her hands together before slamming it down on the airblimp. Though it was longer than her face was wide, it still wasn’t tough enough to withstand that. Belle heard the captain’s screams as the dirigible careened to the ground. She raised her foot to finish it off. A twist and it was fully deflated and flat.

“Ha, little air rodents.”

The airships started to clear the area now that their flagship was ruined, but Belle wasn’t having it.

“Cowards, no you do not!”

She reached out and snagged two handfuls of airzeps, which amount to about half-a-dozen each. Her fingers curled to start to crush them, but before finishing them off, she took another look at the dent on her shoulder.

Then, she turned back to them.

“You know, that dent you gnats put in me is healing slower than expected. Let’s see if I can speed it up with a bit more materials to work with.”

Belle opened wide and listened to the confused screams coming over the military radio. All the airships were suddenly faced with her open maw. She stuffed them inside, give them a quick swirl with her tongue, then gulped, and gulped some more.

Even with no gag reflex, she didn’t swallow all of them at once. They went down in clumps of 3 or so, following after each other in the tuggings of her pipe of a throat. Once they landed in her stomach, she felt a fluttering and heard from their barely functioning radio systems the most desperate pleas for help yet--and the most visceral screams yet too.

A few quick punches and spins of her arm took out most of the remaining airships before the stragglers dispersed. Belle reached down and behind her, where some geartanks were rolling in. She chucked a few at those escaping dirigibles while popping a couple of the tanks in her mouth. She tested her teeth, chomping the vehicles just enough so the pilots couldn’t escape. Then, she swallowed.

“Ah, there we go. I guess if I want anything from you government bastards, I got to take it.”

As she spoke, she looked at the dent on her shoulder, which quickly healed to be as good as new. At the same time, she felt a subtle feeling, like her body was pushing out. Looking at her fingers, she realized she had indeed grown slightly. Very slightly: probably on the order of a few feet.

“Interesting.”

The military was now actively dispersing. The chatter over the radio, few as it was, was panicked.

“She’s unstoppable!”
“I’m retreating!”

Belle had finally scared them off a bit, but there was still no surrender from the government, so she would still let off some steam—so-to-speak. And, she knew just where to go next.

“I wonder how my old workplace is doing~”

Belle sauntered over towards The Squeaky Wheel’s office building. She strode with pride, her feet meeting no resistance as she stomped right through a few more buildings. Some of the people had evacuated to this area too, which meant more popping sensations as she moved.

Belle was growing more comfortable in her new body. Her movements were nearing her old human fluidity. Whereas before it felt like she had to walk with knees she could barely bend, she now had no trouble shocking the insects on the ground with a surprise stomp or two to the left or right.

She was strong, immense, near-invincible! Even a airblimp’s heavy weapon could barely dent it, and that was already healed.

Belle felt she could take on anything, destroy all beneath her. She felt something she hadn’t felt that often as a human. That feeling she felt earlier.

Powerful.

Pretty soon she was upon her old workplace. It was a rather short squat building. She could fit it square under foot if she raised her knee up just a tad. Focusing her ears, she could some sniveling inside. It was from her old boss: and numerous hiding employees. She had never heard him snivel before, only yell at her, call her stupid or order her to go do some meaningless story on park trees or a new road renovation.

She chuckled above them all, knowing they’d recognize her voice even now. She angled her foot so the toes where lightly spread and the ball of her foot near touched the roof of the place.

“I quit”, she said.

Then stomped.

A flood joy reached her as she felt the building just collapse. Their screams silenced in the span of a second. A second was all it took to destroy her old workplace, her old means of living.

Belle had never felt so satisfied. She had to admit it: her dream of becoming a famous reporter was well and truly dead. She had a new goal now.

To be the god she was meant to be.

It just made sense. It was too fun to wield this power, too thrilling. If humans are gonna constantly try to ruin each other to get ahead, she might as well take charge of it all herself. She could make a better world: who better to trust with running it than herself?

Belle talked aloud and over the military’s radio channel again.

“Hello, this is Belle. Just a reminder you have yet to submit the United States Government to my divine authority. I’ll keep listening to this channel, so just let me know when you finally capitulate. It’d be a shame to have to level my home city, and more, to get you to see there’s no choice in the matter.”

“But just you damn well go and try me, see what happens. In the meantime, I think I’ll go and visit the upper-east side...”

The upper-east side of New York City was known as a more rich area. Top donors to the government lived there, business men and women. There were also plenty of elite financial institutions headquartered around there too.

Belle ran straight towards it. The very quakes of her steps caused all sorts of issues, but the impacts of such fast moving feet from a metal colossus just ruined the city infrastructure oodles with every step. Once she reached that rich-district, she spared no mercy, no hesitation. Her arms cleaved through the tallest skyscrapers, her feet flattened anything she could lift them over.

The streets deemed with panicked people. No one had really evacuated out of the city, and she was at the North-eastern edge pretty much, with no military to slow her and the people looking at her like bugs before a bird.

The streets ran red with blood that cleanly glided off her brass body. Unstained by the mess of their burst bodies, Belle was in a gory rapture of delight with her rampage. She had pivoted her foot above an entire crowd of people, letting them run and trip over their overly long dresses or the cracks her step-echoes had made in the streets. Before any escaped she pressed down, squishing them all.

Belle moved to a taller building, decorated with brass reliefs and gargoyles with gold trims. It was the headquarters of one of the leading financial institutions in the nation, and she bent her knees to clench part of her thighs around it. Her arms draped over it too in a gentle hug. The building began to shake.

It was at that moment she heard chatter over the radio. It was a woman’s voice in a no-nonsense tone that leaked her age: probably late 30s.

“Hello, hello. This is general Verd Kadwell speaking, leader of the North Eastern Division of the United States armed forces. I’m acting on behalf of former Secretary of State and acting President Ralph Barman. I’m here to let you know we surrender, unconditionally. Please, stop this destruction.”

Belle grinned.

“About time.”

She finished her hug, pressing her legs together and squeezing to finish off that skyscraper. The rubble fell from her body like surf from stone.

“Hey!”, said a man’s voice moments after. “This is Ralph, we surrendered, so why do that?”

“Just one more for fun, and don’t talk to your superior like that.”, she said, aloud and via her radio-speak.

“I-”

“From now on, let it be known I’m the divine ruler of this nation. Its new god. Now call a task force to the sight of the capital building.”

Belle smiled to herself.

“I’m sure there’s a lot of work to do.”