The canister was white, but not pristine. At three feet tall and fifteen inches in diameter it was a noticeable fixture in the center of the lab space in which it had been found. It had a thin metal handle affixed at two points to the top, but its weight was still too much for the scientists to lift, adding another kink to the puzzle that was its very presence. Five men stood in a circle, looking down at it in contemplation.

“'Ingwit's Universal Fast-Acting Amalgamation Cream.'” The scientists thought over the words as they were recited again, read off of an orange sticker attached to the top.

“We shouldn't open it, right?”

“Definitely not.”

“What could be in there? It's heavy as fuck, it's probably just concrete or something.”

“Or a bomb.”

“Who would put a bomb here? And how? You saw the footage with the rest of us, nobody came in or out all night. This is just a... a misplaced barrel of concrete from somewhere else in the facility.”

“And the sticker?”

“A... joke, probably.”

“What's going on?” A rhythmic clacking noise came from the doorway, and the five men turned to see their superior, Doctor Ellen Bishop, approaching their little circle. The two closest to her parted a bit, as if to invite her into their ring. She approached the barrel when she noticed it and took a moment to read the label before looking at the five once more. “What is this?”

“Your guess is as good as ours. It was here this morning, the cameras didn't catch anybody putting it here.”

She rolled her eyes. “And you haven't opened it to at least figure out what's inside?”

“It... it could be a-”

“A what, exactly? We don't live in a Tom Clancy novel, Frank, this is probably just some... some...” She had knelt down as she spoke, and was obviously using as much force as she was capable of mustering to open it. “Goddamn,” she muttered under her breath, forgetting her train of thought.

“Do you need help with that?” While assistance was offered, none of the men stepped closer to the canister.

“No, I've almost... got it!” She gave a final tug and ripped the top of the can free, standing up and facing her coworkers with a celebratory smile on her face. After a quick straightening of her lab coat she turned back around to see what was inside.

“Is that pa-” she got out before a thick white substance shot out from within, piercing through her skull. Doctor Bishop's body went limp as the fluid retracted back into the barrel, hungrily pulling her in with it. The rest of the men fell over themselves with fear. They screamed and scrambled towards the door, but stopped when a low, guttural noise came from the barrel. Turning back, they saw the white substance crawling from the container again, this time shaping itself in the image of the bare torso of Doctor Bishop, staring at them hatefully with hungry eyes.

Suddenly, the new Bishop propelled itself forward, the barrel still attached to its amorphous lower segment. It moved with incredible speed, reaching the men in only a second's time. It grappled Frank in a powerful embrace, crushing his ribs against its own, pulling him inside of itself. As Frank disappeared, the form of Doctor Bishop not only became more defined but also grew, easily expanding by half again as big as it had been.

The remaining scientists shrieked and rushed the door, losing two more of their numbers in the confusion. They could hear the sickening crunches and animal groans of delight as their colleagues were devoured by whatever was emerging from that barrel, and those noises fueled their flat-out sprint down the halls of the facility.

“I said! I said it was dangerous!” one of them screamed as they ran.

“Nobel fucking Prize winner right here!” yelled the other. He looked back and immediately wished he hadn't. It had replicated Doctor Bishop down to her waist, still dragging the barrel behind it like an underdeveloped tail. It had also, in its reinterpretation of Ellen Bishop, grown her to almost fifteen feet tall, and the monstrous woman dragged herself quickly down the hall, a mad, awkward grin stretched across her face.

“Keycard!” the first man yelled, but the second looked forward too late. He ran full force into the thick glass beside the door, knocking himself out. The last man standing quickly swiped his keycard and pushed himself through the door, letting out a whimper as he glimpsed the unconscious form of his friend for a split second before Doctor Bishop's hand pulled the body back, and he slammed the door, falling to his knees in exhaustion.

“What in God's name...” In their panic, the men had run straight towards the meeting room, the final stop in a dead end of a hallway. Phillip, the last survivor of the initial incident, took stock of his location before bursting into tears.

“It's Doctor Bishop,” he whined, shaking his head and pointing at the door, still on his knees. “She's... she's...”

BANG! The entire room shook from the force of the blow that clearly originated at the door. Phillip scrambled away and pressed his back against the far wall, a window with a ten-story view of the nearby city. The other people in the room screamed and shouted in shock, staring at the door in abject horror.

“I'm not a monster.” The voice was low but distinctly audible. The comforting feminine tone of the voice was a stark contrast to its recent actions, and the occupants of the room were reluctant to believe the speaker.

“I don't want to hurt you... Phillip.” He drew in a quick breath, his eyes widening. How did it know his name? “I don't want to hurt any of them, and I haven't. Didn't you see how quickly Ellen died? I can tell you for a fact that she didn't even understand what was happening to her. It was over too fast, and now she doesn't hurt.”

The eyes of everyone in the meeting room were on Phillip, who stared intently at the door. Was he supposed to reason with that creature? To sympathize with it? He opened his mouth and was about to call out when they heard another voice from outside the door, this one much softer.

“What on Earth is so important that you have to ye... you... you...” This was punctuated by a shrill shriek and a loud crunch. Phillip shook with fear, his imagination vividly filling in the ensuing silence. When Doctor Bishop's voice came again, it was louder.

“I'm coming in now, Phillip.” Her next blow bent the door dramatically inwards, and the room broke out into a panic. Everybody inside threw themselves into the far corner of the room, some of them crying in fear of the unknown. The next impact was the final one, breaking through the last shred of resistance that the door provided. Doctor Bishop's looming visage filled the doorway, and she scanned the contents of the room.

“You've brought me to more, Phillip,” she said with a smile. He noticed that as she spoke, her facial features became more relaxed and natural, and more emotion crept into her tone. “That's good. That's very good.” Her eyes refocused on him and she reached out, grabbing him around his lower section and pulling him into the hallway.

“No! Please, no!” he screamed as he was raised into the air. She angled him horizontally and smashed his head into the wall, crushing it like a peanut shell, then crumpled up the rest of his body in her fist, absorbing it into her.

“Oh my God!” Someone in the writhing mass of fear in the corner of the room shrieked, plunging the room into hysteria. The window flexed against their panicked flailing, finally shattering and plunging half of them to the sidewalk below.

“No!” Doctor Bishop yelled, forcing herself through the doorway despite the physical limitations. The walls were torn aside as she entered, desperately reaching out for those who had fallen. She only managed to catch one, dangling by their leg caught between the sides of her pinky and ring finger. She hauled the person up, a woman, and put her back in the room, scooting her and the two others away from the window.

“You seem afraid of me... and I think I understand why. I want to explain to you why I'm doing this. I want you to understand why this is happening. You want that too, don't you?”

“P-please... whatever you are, don't hurt us. We didn't do anything to deserve this!”

“Paula, it's me. Doctor Ellen Bishop.” She stroked her finger down the side of the woman's face, her own countenance one of concerned sympathy. “And I'm Phillip Maddox... and Frank Barlow, and four others as well.” With her other hand she tapped the side of her head. “It's all me now.”

“How... how can you be Phillip?” Paula said defiantly, tears still running down her face. “How can you be Phillip when you did that!?” She stuck her arm out, pointing at the brain matter left on what parts of the wall were still intact. Doctor Bishop looked back at it, then turned around, a sheepish smile on her face.

“Well... admittedly, I've always had a bit of a mean streak I tried to keep hidden from you all. That one was for me.” She giggled. “But don't worry Paula, I'll preserve you in your entirety. Come here now, it'll all be all right.” Doctor Bishop closed her hand over the small woman's head, bursting it in her fist. The other two, who had thus far remained paralyzed in fear, now screamed and tried to scramble past the giantess. She brushed them back with a sweep of her hand, the focus of her attention still being crumpling Paula's body into a wad of meat and bone, drinking her in through her palm.

“Paula is happy now, you two,” she reassured her captives. “She understands why this has to be done.” Doctor Bishop took one of them in each fist, bringing them up to her face. “Let me show you my mercy.” With that, she took their heads into her mouth and tore them off with her teeth, swallowing them whole as she ground their bodies together into a single mess that slowly faded into her.

She looked at the makeshift doorway, now a little small for her, and decided crawling through the building at her new size would be not only uncomfortable, but unladylike. Instead she swung her lower half out of the window, dangling it towards the ground. She withdrew the last remnants of the white substance from the container, letting it fall to the ground, and finished her transformation with a beautiful pair of twelve-foot legs.

Richard, the man leading the meeting that had been so dramatically interrupted, had always considered himself an important person. From adolescence, when important things happened, he was involved. From student council, to prom king, to free rides through college and a quick ascent up the corporate ladder, he knew that when big things happened, they were going to involve him. It's just who he was.

It was why he had not been completely shaken when the monstrosity had begun breaking down his door. If there was going to be some kind of supernatural entity to attack Earth, why shouldn't it start in his building? And when the window broke and he saw Paula of all people snatched up by the massive arm that reached out of the building, he had been momentarily confused; but he realized, in the split-second he had to think, that the fall wouldn't kill him. After all, he was him.

And right again he was. Richard had landed on the broken form of one of his investors, and had only broken both of his legs – a fair deal compared to the well-being of those who surrounded him. He needed only a moment to catch his breath before he painfully turned himself onto his front and began pulling himself away. He would have to get somewhere safe, recover from his wounds, and then make sure he stayed at the epicenter of the action no matter where it went. He knew he was destined for great things. If he wasn't, life surely would have given him some kind of sign by now.

Bonk! A small plastic container bounced off his head, the impact only not-quite-painful. Grimacing, he turned his attention skyward, and saw an enormous pair of legs above him, attached to a body that was completely vertical. Vertical? N-

“Oh,” Doctor Bishop said in surprise as her heel smeared Richard into the pavement, sucking in everything that he had been. “Well, I guess I was right about being at the epicenter.” She smirked and turned her attention towards the nearby road. She saw cars turning down the street towards her only to make quick u-turns and speed off in the other direction. She shook her head.

The giantess was big, but not big enough. She needed to consume more before an effective attack could be organized against her. Taking long, quick strides, Doctor Bishop rushed towards the city where the tremors of her footfalls were already being felt. Dozens of people stared up at her in shock and amazement, unaware of the bloody show she had put on in the facility. She paid attention to where she stepped, actively adjusting her gait to avoid crushing any of the tiny cars at her feet. When she was a few blocks into the city, she stopped at an intersection and addressed the masses around her.

“People of Earth, I'm here to save us!” she insisted, smiling warmly. Already her message was being broadcast on the news. FCC regulations be damned, Doctor Ellen Bishop's nude, colossal body was slowly making its way onto every television set in the state. Her long brown hair was luxurious and flowed down past her shoulder blades, and the more religious percentage of the population knew without a doubt when they laid eyes on her that God had sent one of His angels to deliver them from perdition.

“I'm here to protect us all! We'll be safe from war, famine, pestilence, and poverty! We'll never want for anything! I'm here to deliver us, as a species, into an era of peace and comfort!” She looked around at the people below her, beckoning with her arms. “Come to me, everyone! Come here!”

Slowly, people from the crowds approached her. Confronted with an impossibly beautiful, impossibly large woman promising paradise, many realized this was the closest they would ever get to a sure thing. If she wasn't capable of fulfilling her promises, who was? Mere man?

Ellen Bishop, realizing now that any man-made titles bestowed upon her were meaningless, felt a comforting warmth within her as people accepted her call, standing by her feet and looking up at her as if expecting paradise to just fall off of her body. Some reached out and touched her legs, running their hands across her shockingly smooth skin.

Just then, a voice called out from in front of her. She looked up and saw a helicopter hovering in the air an armspan away from her face. “What is your name?”

“I am Ellen Bishop.”

“How did you get to be this big?”

She paused briefly. “I must be, to help us all as a species.”

“Are you going to hurt us?”

The people beneath stared expectantly up at her, waiting for an answer. She returned their gazes, looking down at all the little lives that trusted themselves to her. “I don't want to hurt you,” she said before a small smirk turned up the corners of her lips. “But sometimes... it's inevitable.”

The footfall claimed three people beneath it before anybody screamed, and Ellen grew bigger in response. Her demeanor dramatically changed from one of poise and love to that of a child by an anthill. The gigantic feet came down again and again, her hair flying wildly around her face as she concentrated solely on her body count. A few of her hairs flew past the helicopter, the thick strands getting caught in the blades and snapping them off. The pilot shouted a quick mayday through his loudspeaker but Ellen didn't hear it. The aircraft dove steadily towards the ground, killing both passengers immediately upon impact.

“I'm sorry!” the giantess yelled, though the smile on her face told a different story. With every stomp she grew, able to catch a larger number with her next stomp. In a little under two minutes she had crushed a hundred people, and now towered over them, truly a goddess. It was then that the police finally arrived, a cavalcade of flashing, wooping cars peeling out at her feet, and dozens of officers jumped from their vehicles, unloading heavy firepower on her immediately. Ellen just stared at them with a mixture of confusion and amusement, watching them like she might watch a housepet fight its reflection.

“Why do you want to cause suffering?” she wondered aloud, moving her big toe over a small cluster of officers, crushing them with a soft application of force. Their bodies broke easily beneath her, and she made them a part of her, allowing what existed as their consciousnesses to see out of her eyes with the hundred other people she now was.

“I appreciate your sacrifices, but please come unarmed. It's better that way.” She sank to her knees so she could more easily draw out her victims, plucking more than one officer out from beneath their car in a vain attempt to protect themselves. She held their bodies between her index finger and thumb, enjoying their struggles for only a moment before bursting them like little water balloons. Some stayed and fought, blasting round after round from their shotguns into her. They were easier to kill; she simply lowered her index finger onto them, smashing them against the ground like ants, not even leaving a stain when she would lift the digit away again.

“You're the lucky ones, I promise.” The last remaining officers were running for their lives, even though they could feel her hand hovering above them, maliciously teasing them. “So stop running right now, or I won't let you in.”

The statement moved something in her. Until now, she had only intentionally denied one person, overwhelmed by a need for violence. Now her bloodlust was sated, but there was something else at play. She had the power to deny them eternity. Ellen picked up one of the undamaged police cars and began slowly chasing the remaining officers down, giggling like a girl playing with her toys.

“Beep beep!” she teased, nudging one in the back with the hood of the car. He stumbled forward, falling onto his front, and a second later she drove the car over him, pressing down hard against the wheels as they rolled over him. He screeched in agony as his body was mutilated from the bottom up, reaching out desperately before she rolled over his chest, exploding his heart in his chest, then finishing him off by flattening his head for good measure. She continued to roll the car forward in pursuit of the final two.

“Who's it going to be, hmm? Who wants to live forever, and who wants to die?” Officer Hale could see her colleague several meters ahead of her. She knew she was a goner, and something in her told her not to die like a coward. She whirled around and drew her service pistol, aiming it up at the gigantic woman.

“Die you cunt bitch!” she screamed, squeezing off three rounds before the car plowed into her, knocking her onto her back. Ellen let out a chuckle and rolled over the officer's legs, utterly destroying them.

“Aww, we have an officer down! Aren't you going to at least try to help?” She addressed the last policeman, who was still running with everything he had. He turned a corner around a skyscraper, hoping to break her line of sight and escape by doubling back.

The people inside the building watched the intense chase from their windows with wide-eyed horror. They watched the beautiful brunette woman carelessly toy with the lives of those beneath her, each sadistic laugh sending chills through them. Together, they watched the policeman run around the building, and after a brief look of disappointment, her eyes refocused on their building.

In the next second, there was pandemonium. Her hand had lifted up and was coming straight for the skyscraper. It plowed into the side, her fingertips sinking into the building and smashing a few people on contact, absorbing them into her. She then gave the building a shove, and it quickly crumbled under the pressure, huge chunks of rubble flying in all directions. The officer who had hidden behind it was killed instantly, buried under tons of concrete, steel, and bodies.

Ellen waved her hand in front of her face, pretending to cough on the dust that the collapse expelled. She looked down and saw that the lady police officer was still alive, actually suffocating to death in the huge dust cloud. The giantess laughed and dropped the car on her, fracturing a few ribs but not outright killing her.

“Is that it?” she wondered aloud, rising to her feet again. “Have I gone through every willing sacrifice this city has to offer? Must I tear you out of your homes and force you into paradise?” She could see crowds of people running away from her and had to fight back her impulse to spit on them in disgust. It wasn't their fault that they didn't see the grander picture. When she was but one person, she suspected that she, too, would have had a hard time understanding. They had to be shown mercy, frustrating though it may be.

She looked at the rubble at her feet. That had been careless of her. An entire building of people who may have desired salvation had been lost to kill one pissant who had spurned her gift. She needed to get these people out of the buildings and onto the streets.

“Attention, everyone! Starting right now, I'm leveling the city! No more buildings! If you're in a building, consider yourself lost!” To illustrate her point, she shoved her foot through what looked like a bank, waving her foot back and forth to drink up as many people as she could, and also to destroy the support for the building. It crumbled around her foot and she shook off the debris. “Get out of your buildings now!”

For the next half hour, Ellen rampaged through the city, crushing every building she came across. Many heeded her advice, fleeing to the streets only to be stepped on by the slowly-growing goddess of destruction, but there were those that took their chances inside. They were killed to the last.

Eventually she paused, taking stock of her carnage. The entire city had been brought low beneath her, and she was now significantly larger. In her frenzy she had killed tens of thousands more people, adding their miniscule mass to hers. She now loomed over the land and had to get back down on all fours just to see what she was doing.

Just as she was bending down, a brief flash of pain came from her ass. She yelped, spinning around, and her large curtain of hair interrupted another missile, exploding harmlessly in front of her face. She frowned, peering down at the ground.

“Where the fuck...” she wondered, before realizing the missiles weren't coming from anywhere nearby. She could see a few more all making their way to her, each one spaced out by several miles. She started tracing them back, flicking each one aside as it got close. She was careless of where she placed her feet, thousands more dying as a side effect of her little stroll. Finally she came upon the source, a military base a few states over. She leaned down, her brow furrowed deeply.

“What do you think you're doing?” she chastised, shaking a finger at the heavily-armed compound. The soldiers fired on her in response, realizing that there was no other option. Flight was impossible – she covered the distance of a few states in a minute. There was no running from her anymore.

The giantess rolled her eyes. “Well, if you guys are going to be buttheads about it,” she said with a wry smirk before turning around. “I don't have to do this, you know. You're welcome.” With that she came down hard, her ass slamming into the ground with enough force to be felt across most of the country.

Ellen looked down and noticed a city small enough to be completely surrounded by her thighs, with several craters where she had stood in it. She smiled at just how big she had gotten, and how easily swaths of people could be absorbed into her now. She was gathering more personalities within herself with every movement, slowly becoming a singular vessel for all of humanity.

“Come out, little ones,” she cooed softly to the city, gently dragging her finger across the ground. She felt hundreds of people absorbed into her every second, and before too long she had literally wiped the city off the face of the Earth and consumed almost every person living within.

For the people below, the scene was utter chaos. Their entire sky was a gigantic, beautiful woman who rubbed their lives out in a matter of seconds. Nothing could be done against her. She couldn't even hear their pleas or cries. From now on, whatever happened to humanity happened only because it was what she wanted.

She had made that realization too, of course, but to her it was a blessing. Humanity could no longer unwittingly damn itself by killing her. She was an invincible ark ready to save them all. She rose up and began to walk across the land, scanning for signs of civilization. When she would see a city, she announced that they had only a few minutes to leave their homes, and after the time was up she crushed their city completely under her feet. Her growth had essentially stopped at this point, but it didn't matter. She could engulf entire cities under her sole; inches and feet were meaningless to her at this scale.

Ellen moved tirelessly across the planet, scouring the surface for survivors. Oftentimes she crawled on her hands and knees, carefully and methodically destroying every sign of civilization. She ripped up entire forests and swallowed giant cruise liners whole, tracking down every tiny little individual who had yet to offer themselves up to her. She had no need to eat, and she moved with the sun, ensuring she always hunted in the day.

After three days of hunting, she finally crushed the last town beneath her index finger, and fondly studied the smear that remained. Sure, there were probably still people out there, those who had somehow evaded her hunt, but they were negligible. Billions of lives now existed within her, seeing through her eyes, simultaneously thinking all their thoughts, a harmonic cacophony of acceptance and understanding. For a moment it was comforting, but then an unsettling thought occurred to Ellen. What was she to do now? Her purpose was fulfilled; she now harbored all of humanity within her.

It was a question she pondered for weeks, idly walking across the barren landscape as she thought. In this time, her benevolence slowly withered with nothing to protect, and her malevolence started to take root. She had enjoyed hunting down the little things, and she wanted more. It was a trivial matter to shluff off several hundred thousand lives across her arms and hands, blowing them into the wind as to spread them around like spores. But they were indoctrinated to her, and invariably ran towards her soles, taking away the sport of the hunt.

She made larger people, taking those hundreds of thousands and putting them into the bodies of only a few, tiny attendants to serve her whims. But, Ellen realized, she needed nothing. She was never uncomfortable or hungry or tired. She sent a few of them across the planet to hunt down stragglers, and occasionally one would come back with a few extra consciousnesses to give her, but it still bored her immensely.

Years went by, and Ellen went from feeling like a Goddess to feeling like an ant trapped on a marble suspended in nothingness. The planet's surface was torn and ruined, unrecognizable to any familiar with how it once was. She gouged out huge tracts of land, occasionally attempting to fling them at the other planets in contempt of their freedom from Earth's gravity. She yelled and screamed and tore at her hair and flesh, pounding uselessly at whatever was nearby. Madness claimed her over and over again, ripping away every shred of happiness and warmth she had once felt.

When the ships finally came, Ellen was elated. She bounded over to their landing site, welcoming the presence of anything that wasn't herself for a change. Small creatures emerged from the ships, but they were still the size of her hand. They looked very much like humans, except with two extra arms beneath the first set, and a grey complexion that suited the look of what she had made Earth. Five of them approached as she knelt down, getting a better look at them. One of them started to speak, but of course she couldn't understand.

“Hang on a second,” she said, grinning wildly. She reached out and grabbed one of the creatures in the back of the formation. He started screaming immediately, and Ellen closed her eyes, savoring his little body in her fist. For the first time in so long, something's suffering beneath her was real. She broke each of his ribs individually with her thumb before moving up to his head, twisting it with a sharp crack and absorbing it into herself.

The landing party had already begun to flee. Ellen reached out and placed a hand on their ship, threatening to crush it into the dust. “Stay,” she commanded in their language as she began to process the new information. Their language came slowly, but second-by-second she developed a firmer grasp on it. “It has been so long... since I had someone to play with.”

The four aliens drew their weapons and fired on her, but even with their increased size it was meaningless. She knocked them to the ground and set her palm down over one of them, smashing him into the hard dirt of the planet. He let out a brief scream before bursting beneath her, and Ellen giggled madly. The third was pulled back by one of his legs down to Ellen's torso. She leaned up for a minute, sliding the little creature face-up underneath her, then settled her titanic breast back down on top of him. His weak struggles for freedom delighted her, and she focused on the last two.

“W-why are you doing this!?” one of them screamed. With a casual gesture she reached out and utterly destroyed his legs, leaving him squirming in the dirt. The last she grabbed in both hands, eying him over with sadistic lust.

“You little things have so many limbs,” she mused. Ellen grabbed one of his arms in her fist and tugged, pulling it free from his body. He howled, and Ellen popped the limb into her mouth, chewing slowly. “Oh my god, you have no idea how good this feels. And there's a whole planet of you to play with!” She tore another limb off and ate it.

“W-we'll... we'll never tell you where we live!” The one with the broken legs screamed. Ellen knew him to be their ambassador. She smiled softly and held out one of her hands. On the surface of the palm, the first one to be killed by her rose up from her flesh, forming from the feet-first until he stood before his ambassador. He stepped off her skin, looking down at him.

“It's okay,” he said to the wild-eyed man who had once been his superior. “She will take you in, and you will know.” As he spoke, Ellen continued to tear limbs off of her little plaything, ignoring his weakening whimpers.

“How... how?” The broken-legged creature stammered. Ellen finally finished off her snack and pulled herself forward to loom over him better. The one beneath her breast, on the verge of suffocation, was suddenly twisted and smashed against himself, a brutal shock of pain filling his body before his end.

“I'm Ellen Bishop, Goddess of Earth,” she whispered as she laid her thumb on the side of his head, slowly applying pressure. “And you're going to take me to the stars.”