She had to settle things with Carol before the conversation could go further. Arthur’s life was still at stake and she could take no risk. The first problem she was confronted with, though, was the incredibly obvious fact that the park, the city was so proud of, was no bigger than a children sandbox to Elsa, and she wanted at least five or six steps of privacy before getting back in the negotiation with Carol.
She thought again of the naturalness shown by the girl just some minutes before in trampling over entire city blocks. Neither the mother or the father of the pretty kaiju seemed to be the least worried about the fate of the world below. For what Elsa could remember neither had done the two giants on the beach, even if they at least had shown the decency to self-exile themselves to the sea. Anyway, she had bought that ticket herself, she was bound to take that ride.
She looked at her feet. She was standing close to one of the shorter sides of the rectangular patch of green. In front of her, now that she had turned her back to the titanic family, there was a good portion of the city thick with buildings and small streets before the next are big enough to host at least her soles. It was a square where the city used to host public events and a seasonal market. And by seasonal, it meant, that one season. She pondered the possibility reaching the park which was at the border of the city, but that would mean more than doubling the route which translated easily to more than double the damage procured by her passage. She baptized the market square as her next stop and tried once more to collect all her courage for her first walk as a colossus.
Elsa raised her foot a couple hundred feet above the ground and gulped one last time. Small patches of terrain fell on the city below announcing the inevitable. Then she sunk her foot into the soft consistence of the buildings facing the northern border of the park. It was not very different from what she expected, almost like crushing a sandcastle or small cardboard boxes, bet far less denser than the former and a bit more resistant than the latter. She took a little courage and proceeded with the second and the third step. Several small buildings collapsed under her first steps and those that stood initially crumbled down because of the vibrations produced by the following ones. Elsa was almost thinking it wasn’t that bad until she looked down in the process of taking her next step.
Just under her foot she saw a crowded intersection. Her walk, or in general all of the events that hd just occurred in the city had pushed the entire population in the streets seeking refuge or escape either in their vehicles or on foot. This had produced congestion more than any actual safety for anyone. She could clearly see the small lights and shadows crawl confusely in every direction, but she couldn't stop a movement her motor cortex had already orchestrated. Her foot followed the neural pattern already set in place and canceled the crowded intersection from existance with all its guests. Elsa felt almost nothing, the same as stepping on some spare grass and the asphalt as usual, now, sinking under her incredible weight. She didn’t even had the time to process the fact that a car speeding on the street, probably in order to flee exactly from her, crushed into the side of her big toe. To Elsa it felt like being hit by a fly. The car got completely destroyed in the impact. “Oh ... oh God! …s-s-soorry!” She tried to murmur, not knowing to whom.
The thought of what she had just done, reached her mind. She even glared back at her path and could clearly distinguish her own footprints like black patches in the lights of the city. All around debris, broken pipelines, flattened traffic lights and worst of all people. There were people down there. It was full of people running in every direction. It was like she had just stepped on the classic anthill and now all the colony had spilled out to assess the damage. She had probably crushed tens if not hundreds of them.
She thought about Carol, and their fight for she had eaten one person. And now she had just done a hundred times worse with one step. Of course, she didn’t mean no harm to anyone. She had no intention, but still she had made the smallest of the action and it had inevitably costed carnage and destruction from a human perspective. Maybe Carol was right, maybe the world was different now. There were giants. At this point, it was fair for her to consider that as well as the family she just met, and the first two giants that had turned her world upside down, there may have been even more around. She was in no position anymore to judge what Carol did. Of course, she was a violent person and someone she didn’t trust the little by now, but at the same time, she wasn’t worse than her in terms of killing humans.
Finally the market square was in front of her. Of course, a large space where several streets interconnected was bound to be the place where an enormous amount of people were going to overflow. The spectacle was endearing and disturbing from Elsa's perspective. People trampling each other and destroying the various stands in a desperate attempt to reach safety. All of them running straight ahead toward a safe haven and yet each one of them running a different direction. She waited some moments for the square to empty but the more she waited the more it seemed that instead larger masses moved within it. She decided to hover her foot on the square for a while in order to scare as many people as possible away from the place. It seemed to work for the most part, she could see people sprinkling in every direction away from the outline of her massive extremity. When she couldn't distinguish clearly any more people running away she put her foot finally down flattening everything below. She repeated the operation with her second foot, but in the while her mind was living the conflict within the attempt at avoiding mass murder and the little embarrassment to make her new acquaintance wait too much. For as strange as it seemed even to her, the lives of those on the ground were worth just a certain amount of what was a minuscule inconvenience to the titans she just met. When that amount was reached she put her foot down, no matter who had been unable to flee from it.
Elsa sighed again looking at the destruction below and got back to the world of titans. She then put Carol back close to her face.
“What was that?” Carol shouted.
“What?” Elsa asked.
“All that ‘nice to meet you’ wee wee stuff. Who do you think you are? Eh? We were talking!”
“Listen here, you little shit! - she was now holding the mini giantess very close to her face – I will do as you ask. Either finding the other two, or convincing our new acquaintance here. But I will do it. I will try to make you grow as well. At this point, it doesn’t even matter anymore. - She wasn't going to have a conversation with Carol on that point, but in a sort of way, she had resigned to the idea of titans strolling around regardless of them being good or bad intentioned toward whoever smaller - But ... you have to free Arthur.” She condluded imperatively.
Carol was a little scared and in some form excited to confront with a more valid opponent finally, but she couldn’t comply with this final request. “What? No! He is my warranty. I won’t.”
“Not now, you little … fuck!”
“Ehi ehi ehi, language. There’s children here.” Carol laughed. She was liking almost every moment of this new Elsa.
“You have to keep it. At least until I find a way to grow him too. He is … too small. I could not even … handle it.”
“What?!” - Carol asked laughing. She was euphoric for she was convinced she had won. She was going to grow soon. And all she had to do was to babysit a little longer.
This last consideration, the sheer concept of 'babysitting' exploded in a crucial insight. Hannah, Micheal, Jo! Of course! It was them, they were the family of the first giantess. That was the family she worked for. They were the owners of the apartment in which the honey was. It was obvious. Who else could have been. Of course they were these other titans. They probably were the original titans as well since they probably consumed the honey first. She decided not to tell Elsa, probably it was not very important, but she didn’t want to chatter any longer. She looked at the awaiting giantess and stood up.
“Deal! I will take care of my special puppy here. - she raised her hands a little to signal the presence of Arthur – And you will ask that beef boy over there to nut on me or something as soon as possible.”
“Jees! You are gross!”
“Ooops, sorry ... Artie!” Carol giggled and sat back down.
“But let me keep on with the conversation with these … people. I don’t want them to enter our little fight here. So for what’s worth, Carol, just shut up.”Elsa was not happy at all with this deal but the situation was already enough out of hand. She tried to reassure herself by thinking that maybe these new titans were reasonable people, even if a little uncaring for the surrounding world and would have settled on her side in any possible confrontation with a grown Carol. The good part was, she didn’t have to go looking for the other two giants, which were gone who knows where. The bad part was that the only possible solution to her hostage situation was a married man. Married to the person she intended to turn into a friend, or at least an ally. A significant obstacle to the specific action required to fulfill Carol’s request. While thinking about all this and how to resume the conversation with Hannah and Micheal she carelessly strolled back on her previous path. The route was already a wasteland but this final passage finished demolishing what still stood. She walked looking at the ground, at the neighborhood standing and suddenly disappearing under her soles, at the thousand running every direction seeking refuge from her, at those which weren't lucky or fast enough that got smashed under her toes offering the same resistance are crumbles of bread. Elsa was sad for them, but she was far more worried for the conversation she was going to have in a very short time, and as such she started desensitizing from the carneficine below. Destroying buildings and obliterating people for the mere sake of basic commuting was becoming more and more her new normal.