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 “Ahhhh… where… where am I?” Her voice was delicate and refined, yet as all-encompassing as the wind.



The flash was bright enough to seem like a meteorite , but any heat it produced was a nuisance at best. The real calamity was what it left in its wake.



Wha… what is this place?



In only a moment, a vast swath of the city’s skyline had been replaced by an oblong range of oddly-shaped hills, the buildings in their place only assumed to have been crushed underneath. Hills that had long, lustrous hair the color of the sky moments before the sun rose, garbed in fine silks as stylish as they were functional for battle. Hills that moved, breathed, shifted, causing quakes even as she slowly began to come to, sitting up with unfathomable, paralyzing slowness as the city held its breath in fear.



This woman was Sheila. A warrior from another world. A noble who fell from grace, and in a moment of great folly, she took her mother country with her. But despite the pain she’d endured, Sheila came to realize that the only constant in life is change, and that embracing it, rather than running from it, was the most crucial lesson one could learn in this life.



But that didn’t explain how she found herself teleported into the middle of the metro area at toughly three thousand feet tall.



Sheila was now sitting, a brilliant black and white, silk-clad peak rising above it all. She clutched her knees as she examined the ground.



These are… are these… buildings…?



It was inconceivable to her. Even the most massive of these structures seemed only to go up to her ankles. And yet… as she looked out across the afternoon horizon, at the massive sprawl of gray interspersed with green, their grid-like arrangement, Sheila soon came to realize that could be the only explanation.



Then, another flash of light from above, and:



Ouch!



Sheila grit her teeth, feeling something small bonk on the top of her head. She turned, seeing a pair of items fall, their massive size bulldozing wide, shallow paths into the surface of the earth.



Sheila recognized these as her sandals.



Oh… they must’ve arrived shortly after I did.” It made sense, she realized, as she scrunched her toes, each one of them building-sized in its own right, bare as they dug ten little trenches into the residential district.



Then, Sheila began to stand up.



The anxious populace began to break down in panic as this massive humanoid creature propped herself on her fingers, lifting herself up. Her feet lifted out of their resting places, two dominant piles of pure flesh, bone, and muscle, fitting of the seasoned fighter. Her toned, slim ass was so large, the idea it could possible leave the two pits it had carved so deeply into bedrock was inconceivable. And yet, it lifted, hundreds of tons’ worth of ambient sediment and clay falling away as she finally stood to full height, dwarfing all but the tallest mountains on the planet.



Sheila took a glance down at the impression of her unconscious form, permanently etched into the ground, untouched buildings rising out of its border. She smiled wistfully.



Then Sheila sighed. She would need to figure out some way to return to her own world. And to do that, she had to find out more about this world. And so, with a stretch that brought the pillars of her arms skyward, she began to walk.



Order was breaking down in the city below. What had been merely implied had now become a reality – this woman was about to step on them. Already, she was rearing her utterly massive, milky white foot to take that all-important first step. The umbra of the foot eclipsed the sun, though its light still managed to pass through the crevices between her five perfectly-proportioned toes, diffusing into a vague, artificial twilight that mesmerized and horrified in the building seconds before…



BRA-PHOOOOOOOOMMM!!!



Her toes came in first, clenching and clutching countless tons of Earth to find its grip on the ground. Followed by the ball of the foot, the most massive section, completely flattening countless acres and hundreds of square-feet worth of the financial district. Followed finally by the heel, smooth and elegant, its pressurized point drove into the street, treating both people and vehicles with the same level of discrimination: none at all. And like a whisper, utterly uncaring of the countless lives that had just been reduced to atoms as a result of its arrival… the foot left, preparing another step to repeat the process, ad infinitum.



Or, was it?



Sheila had only taken a single step when she paused, her recently placed right foot stilled, her left stuck in the dismount as Sheila’s expression turned intense. Through the rubble and debris, those few survivors that managed to dig out from the remains saw this, and in their broken hearts, hope blossomed. This woman’s very existence defied logic; was it possible that something had gone wrong, and was preventing her from continuing this unknowing rampage?



A deep rumbling vibrated through the Earth.



Few knew what it was at first, until this rumbling resulted in more buildings, collapsing into columns of dust, and out of that dust came tannish-pink walls. Feet, toes, heels, expanding, growing in magnitude, becoming even bigger. With horror, the populace let out collective shrieks as Sheila’s footprint expanded, her entire body growing taller and taller, planting her at an even 3,500 feet.



As her growth tapered off, Sheila let out several deep breaths.



G-goodness…” she heaved, finally free to finish her stomp, bringing her left foot forward with meteoric force, crushing a crater into the crust of the city. Only the highest of tall buildings now were able to exceed the height of her toes, and of those, too many had already been obliterated beneath her massive size.



Could it be?” Sheila pondered to herself, her analytical mind seeking to bring her to conclusions as she tried to deduce the reason for her growth. “...that I grew… because of you?



Experimentally, Sheila lifted her foot, building chunks and wreckage still caught in the rolling wrinkles of the underside of her sole. She angled it, pointing her toes downward as she balanced perfectly on one leg. Then, crouching slightly, she lowered her foot, striking red-painted toenails carving inconsolable gashes and untold destruction, localized into a crescent.



Her toes were next, sinking with delectable softness as she pressed down carefully, stopping. Then, Sheila carefully and precisely carved an arc in the ground, feeling the pain, suffering, and terror of thousands as she did it, drawing a path in the ground with her toes that crumbled everything beneath. Sheila breathed, contented as their emotions filled her, and as she did, so too did that euphoric sensation arrive again. She began to vibrate unwillingly, and the Earth shook again as Sheila shot up in spurts, a few dozen feet at a time.



Sheila almost gasped. “That is… truly remarkable…!” It would seem that the more people died, sacrificing their soles to her feet… the more she grew, changing, shifting, becoming even more massive.



Sheila closed her eyes. As much as a shame it would be to lead to so many deaths… she could not deny that the sensation of her growth was almost as addicting as the sensation of feeling so many people perish beneath her soles. And as she grew again, short, several-foot bursts, that need only became stronger.



This must be a sign, thought Sheila. From the Goddess herself. She’d spent her entire life trying to fight change, repent for the massive, devastating changes she once brought to her own country. When in reality, she should’ve fought to embrace it, this transient nature of life. That was the only way to truly repent for the destruction of her own nation.



And what way to better drive that lesson into her thick skull than to grant her such an immediate cause-effect loop, here in this strange, small world, the destruction of their own nation in return for a magnificent change experienced by Sheila herself?



With every alteration of the landscape brought about by her taking mere steps, she would become bigger, metamorphosing, becoming closer to what she was always meant to be!



It couldn’t have been more clear. This was Sheila’s destiny. And if it meant wiping this nation off the map… she would be honored to effect such a magnificent alteration to this minuscule land.



My sincerest apologies,” Sheila said as a thin smile curled across her face. Her hair continued to shine, her clothes were luminescent, utterly sparkling in the hot midday sun. “But I intend to make this as quick as possible!



And Sheila reared her leg up high, aiming for the nearest, most untouched patch of grey little columns, as they got incrementally smaller by the moment. Her incoming step caused gale-force winds before she made any contact with the pristine buildings, whipping up everything that wasn’t tied down – cars and people – into a furious flurry just slightly tinged with the scent of her perfectly perfumed, earth-scented toes. They were swept, crashing into the dominating, flat, white, meteoric surface of her own foot moments before it made contact with the land.



Until, finally…



SMA-SHOOOOOOOOSH!!!



It hit. The impact threw up countless metric tons worth of debris, silt, rock, and organic matter, blended into a slurry from the utter magnitude of Sheila’s weight. Sheila buried her foot within, the imprinted earth feeling smooth against her sole, and she lost herself in the bliss of feeling all their emotions, exponentially increased as a result of her magnified size, a size that was only now growing larger and larger as Sheila expanded.



Yes…!” Sheila could barely maintain her composure, wobbling and threatening to come crashing down, a truly apocalyptic scenario. As it was, her simply standing there was a cause for all those in the untouched parts of the city to scream for the end-times. But here, in the wake of the dust and debris sent out from such a forceful step, and her subsequent size increase, the hopelessness of the situation truly dawned on them as Sheila reveled in her ability to end life. A power useful against fiends, seldom of use against humans, but in this case, necessary for Sheila’s emotional metamorphosis to take full effect.



The clouds bumped into Sheila’s head as she was jolted upward, higher and higher, her size finally at last breaking through the airplane line. Sheila was ecstatic, metaphorically gulping down the heaps of emotional anguish and spectral energy that fueled her growth.



M-more!



From the ground, Sheila’s voice was beyond a mere magnified voice. It was the sound of death itself, trumpets of judgment, as she braced, taking another sturdy step, crouching to maintain her balance as her entire body shuddered. The people caught in the forming crater of her foot, mountainous in its magnitude, were pulled down into the deluge. Sheila’s perfect, slender red-painted toes clenched, dragging in ample piles and piles of wreckage, rubbing them between the toes and grinding them to mere moist dust. Sheila groaned. The sensation of expansion was an intense one, but one that gave her no end to the amount of emotional joy it brought about. The planes of her footprints were already outgrowing their former divots they created, her rolling flesh an encroaching wall that none could outrun.



Sheila’s knees were weak; as powerful the warrior was, she was forced to double over as the immense pressure coursed through her. She stood on her toes, her breaths shallow, even if every inhalation had the collective volume of an explosion. “M-m-more!



Her wishes were granted. As the pain of an entire population flowed in through the bottoms of her soles thus fueling her growth, her mere expansion was enough to end its cascade of lives, more and more finding the encroaching surface area of her multitudinous, ample feet impossible to avoid, driven underneath and being flattened, smoothened, and functionally moisturized into their supple skin.



Yes! Even MO – whoa!



Sheila’s ominous swaying finally caught up with her. Lost in her revelry of pleasure and satisfaction, caught in a relationship between herself and gravity with continuously shifting goalposts, her balance lapsed, and in this fit she found herself falling, tumbling down, down, backwards, directly on her behind.



KRACKOOOOOOOOOOOOM…!!!



Ouch...!”



Sheila’s fall was a humbling experience for the swordswoman, a reminder of her own capacity for folly. Her shoes, growing on their own in their bull-dozing fashion, were only a pace away from her landing area. Her butt’s impact had perfectly created two warm divots to implant her derriere into, though that didn’t make the slight ache hurt any less…



Wait...” Suddenly, Sheila realized it. Yet another smash, yet another region wiped off the map. Her growth would happen any second now, though it seemed this latest spurt was under an exceptional bit of lag.



Hmmmmm...” Sheila’s shoes close by gave her an idea. One that would be best executed now, before her expansion truly commenced at snowballing, runaway levels.



Sheila leaned forward, planting her elbow on her knee as she beheld a graciously unscathed community nestled within the crook of her legs. The people below saw her godlike face, and they cowered, fear possessing them as many tried their best to hide in the buildings, hide underground, do anything to avoid the seemingly innocent wrath of this traveler from another world.



Hello... your world certainly seems pleasant enough.”



They shrank back in fear. She was addressing them directly. This was unprecedented.



It would seem my arrival has spelled the end of your world… I can only imagine how scared you must feel. But this doesn’t have to be the end. For any of us, least of which for you.”



Then, she reached a hand downward.



Her slender fingers were coated in the deft cloth of her gloves, though their fleshy pads were bare. They implanted themselves, one by one surrounding the miniaturized city by their thick, girthy pillars, digging underneath, carefully uprooting the upper surface of the crust, until Sheila pulled out a singular section of the city.



Don’t you see? Sometimes change doesn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, it can be the most wondrous thing there is!”



Sheila smiled at the city in her palm, still mostly intact. With her free hand, she grabbed her sandals, dropping them both in the empty divot where the city once lay.



Sheila handled the sandals with expert dexterity, arranging them upright before carefully, carefully placing the uprooted city onto the insole of the footwear. She broke up the earth upon which the buildings lay – an easy feat – and was able to evenly split the towns and buildings between both shoes until there was a verifiable borough laying flat in both of her sandals.



Isn’t it grand? What a marvelous change from your dreary wasteland. Now, you can remain with me, within my shoes, worshiping my soles for all eternity. Wouldn’t such... a change of pace be... simply magnificent?”



The flexible Sheila stretched her leg out, her bare toes twinkling in the sunlight. She took one sandal in hand and then carefully, carefully aligned it on her foot, tightening it. The people, thousands, were horrified as they saw the pink mass arrive, closer and closer, smothering them entirely, a move that – miraculously – failed to completely obliterate them. No lives were lost in the wake of Sheila equipping either of her moccasins, however that failed to change the fact that entire contingents of individuals, families, lineages, would be forced to live beneath the warrior woman’s heel until she deemed it not so, only able to hope she would maintain this level of hygiene for the duration of their stay.



It’s... starting…!” Sheila had never forgotten her impending growth spurt, certain it would be one for the history books. She was just finishing up tightening the straps on her sandals when the deep RRRRRUMMMMMMBLINNNNNNG reverberated through her body and through the entire Earth, finally causing her to jut out, expanding in her current, sitting position.



Oh, oh… oh-oh-oh… oh, yes! Indeed! Please, don’t stop!” Sheila screamed out in deafening pleasure. She clenched and unclenched her every tense muscle, stretching across the land as she stretched across the land. Those within her insole witnessed as the very surface of the shoe began to expand, becoming its own landmass, even as her encompassing foot was its own doughy, pillowy sky.



I can feel you… all of you!” Sheila chanted through grit teeth. “Dying so pitifully, so easily… beneath me!” Sheila was practically drooling as her growth began to level off. Any semblance of a rough, uneven landscape was now completely unheard of to her. In every direction she could see, there was nothing but more smooth, mottled curves of the planet. Her growth had outpaced any notion of a “horizon”, and yet it still continued if at a (relatively) glacial pace. Nothing changed the fact that with each passing moment, her prior growth caused yet more death, and only those she chose to eke out their existence within her sandals were exempt from this encompassing judgment of their new goddess.



Goddess…



That word danced on the tip of Sheila’s tongue as she panted, slightly out of breath from the most recent growth episode.



It wasn’t a word Sheila was wont to take in vain,



But, yet… this was another world, was it?



The Goddess had no jurisdiction here… right?



And that would mean…



Sheila was completely capable of accepting that title for herself.



Ahhh... goodness! The way you people just flatten is simply impeccable…!”



As Sheila relaxed, reclining herself on the soft, moist earth, she stretched her entire body out once again, truly making the world into her seat. Her hair flowed down the side of her head, a massive, stilled waterfall of midnight that cut thousands and thousands of ropes through absolutely everything in its path at the slightest provocation. Laying supine, her hips, slender though they were, made up the girthiest part of her body. Sheila giggled, feeling the slowly collapsing infrastructure melting into dust against her ever-increasing body size. She placed her hands on her chest, simply content to do nothing except relax, allowing the ambient death to do her work for her. A true goddess needn’t lift a finger to smite those she deemed worthy of it. So what if this population, this planet had done nothing wrong? Neither had she, back in her own home dimension. The immense opportunities for transformation and change as a result of Sheila flattening the landscape to smithereens would be a boon for these people anyway.



Further making herself comfortable, she braced against her elbows, truly driving her buttocks into the ground, surpassing the buildings, roads, infrastructure, topsoil, soil, bedrock – her immaculate posterior made mince of absolutely everything in her path. Sheila almost wanted to drool, receiving a better feeling as the various pieces of the city – and its cars and people – squirmed, driving themselves into her crack, than the longest scratch. It was an unmatched sensation of pleasure, and she never wanted it to end, slowly spurting out several growths as she did it. Once she was through, only her butt had done more damage and devastation to the city than the largest nuclear bomb ever could – and it did so without unleashing the bio-weapon Sheila had stored of her own, something she was grateful for. Despite everything, Sheila still had her sense of decorum and reputation.



Well then, thought Sheila. She had played with these dust motes for long enough.



Sheila decided finally to stand up once again, propping herself on her elbows as she slowly, sturdily, finally reached full height. Her form was one that inspired fear, awe, and devotion. Sheila’s empathic abilities allowed her to tap into the full breadth of emotions that still swam around in the collective unconsciousness of the scant few parts of the city she had yet to decimate, not least of which those caught within her boots, already erecting shrines to their new object of worship this very moment. It made her feel good. It made her feel powerful. Feelings she was unaccustomed to. She always held the weight of the world on her shoulders… it was time for a world to serve her for a change.



Indeed... feel me…!”



Sheila stretched her limbs out, happily reveling in the fact that each second was bringing even more hundreds of thousands of survivors beneath the heels of her moccasins. The delineation between atmosphere and space was becoming immiscible. The darkness of the stars now hid at the top of Sheila’s world view. Meanwhile, as she looked at the ground, the curvature of the Earth was becoming a constant reality, no matter where she looked.



Suddenly, Sheila felt something wet.



Looking down, she saw the ocean, her expanding feet having finally caught up with its shores, lapping at her toes. Sheila giggled, just barely, barely able to make out the images of the tinies possible ships – fishing boats, cruise ships, military carriers – caught in the whirlpools formed by her shoes, crashing into the divots of her toes like the maelstroms of Scylla and Charybdis.



Perhaps the time has come to put this planet out of its misery,” said Sheila with a smile. Already, she was experiencing diminishing returns from each passing moment. There were only so many lives to end on the planet, and with the billions that had crushed so far, she might as well end what was left all at once to experience a truly euphoric high.



So, as Sheila stretched further and further into the heavens, she raised one leg high above the crust of the planet, mirroring that all-important first step she took what seemed like so long ago.



I have to thank you. You people taught me a lesson I never realized I forgot: change is good. It’s inevitable. And now, I’m going to give you all the greatest gift of change I possible can: when this world is but dust, you can rest assured I will do my utmost to reform the ashes into something beautiful. A place wholly dedicated to me as its one TRUE Goddess!



Sheila felt the rush. Never before had she ever said anything so blasphemous. And it was in this rush that she brought her foot down, heel-first, drop kicking the planet.



If earlier episodes were apocalyptic, this was the true definition of Ragnarok. The Earth groaned, grumbled, and shook, eschewing matter of all types. Molten stones were spat out, water raged, metal melted, people on the other side of the planet fell to the ground in prostrate before being decimated by the ensuing tsunamis, circumnavigating the globe in a cleansing pattern. Sheila grinned as she watched the Earth split apart like an egg, the red inner layers casting a wondrous glow on to counter that white glow of the sun.



Sheila stood over the remains of the Earth, hands on her hips as the primordial soup that once called itself home to nearly 8 billion men and women lapped at her toes, barely singing the skin of this universe’s new Goddess.



Her powers came easily to her, as she cracked her knuckles, shaping a new planet out of metal and clay.



The people who populate this new celestial body will be devoted to me. But worry not…”



Sheila glanced toward her shoes, thinking of those trapped within them. Generations would be born, live, die within those sandals, a world that they would never be able to leave, forever protected by the canopy of Sheila’s immaculate feet.



You all will always hold a place dearest in my heart.” Sheila touched her heart once, filled with warmth before once again returning to work in formulating a brave new world.

Chapter End Notes:

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