Chapter 23. Above

General Archer was giving instructions to his aides like crazy, telling them how to position the troops that were right now on the outskirts of Hollner and how to prepare for the immediate attack. Sykes was observing, silent, from a corner of the conference room.

Then, the most massive shake he had ever felt in his life made dust rain from the ceiling.

Without saying anything, Sykes stood up and headed for the window. His jaw dropped.

“What the he…” he started saying

Then, the ceiling collapsed on top of him and everyone else as the Federal One building ceased to be.

Casey stood up and turned to face Lisa. She was pretty beaten up, but Lisa looked even worse. The avenue around them was empty and several of the buildings wore very evident marks of the fight that had been going on for quite some time already.

Casey could feel some blood on her lips and she knew her cheek was swollen. Lisa was even more bruised. They were about a block apart.

“I will kill you” Casey said with anger in her voice

“You don’t seem to have been too successful, so far” Lisa replied with some scorn

Without any other words, Casey charged back towards Lisa. She waited and, in the last minute, tried to stand sideways and use Casey’s force to throw them to the ground. She had not practiced jiu-jitsu for ages, but she still had some instincts. Casey seemed to fall for it at first, but her instincts, trained on a daily basis in prison over the last six years, were much more acute and, just in the last minute, she changed the direction of her charge and elbowed Lisa on the ribs. Both women rolled over each other and into the lobby of a pretty unscratched building to Lisa’s left. For the few people that had managed to hide there from the carnage on the street there had been very little warning as the two titans crashed through the façade and trampled over everything on their path.

More of the building fell over Casey and Lisa. Casey ended up on top and brushed debris off her hair as she secured a lock on Lisa’s body with her legs. One of Lisa’s arms was trapped. Casey punched her. Lisa managed to block Casey’s fist, but she could do nothing to block her other free hand as it hit her jaw hard. Lisa spat some more blood.

She could not muster the strength to fight Casey anymore. They had been fighting for too long and it had been too hard. Still, she knew she had to hold on. Otherwise, she was doomed and, more importantly, the city was doomed.

“What’s happening, Lisa? Where is your brown belt now?” Casey asked as she delivered another punch

Lisa spat some more blood as she tried to free her hand from Casey’s leg cage. Then, with the look of a mad woman, Casey grabbed Lisa by the throat and pushed. Lisa immediately started to choke.

“I never liked you, you stupid Barbie” Casey said. “But I could have tolerated you. You chose to be stupid, though”

She increased the pressure on her throat as Lisa tried to fight against it. It was useless. Casey wore a vicious grin in her face as she kept on pushing.

“I will get rid of you once and for all. And then, I will do anything I fucking please!”

Just at that moment, Lisa managed to free her trapped arm and pushed Casey back. She lost her hold on her throat and Lisa breathed in hard and anxiously. Casey was still on top of her and had her immobilized between her legs though.

“Do you think you can fight back?” Casey asked. “You can’t. Why don’t you let go? It will all be faster and easier” she added with a vicious voice

Casey felt like she was very close to winning. Lisa had held much better and much longer than she would have expected, but she knew she was beaten now. And she knew she was all that stood between her and absolute power, the chance to do anything she wanted.

Of course, there would still be Kelly around, but she knew that Kelly would not do anything stupid.

With the same vicious look, she hit Lisa hard again.

“I’m going to make you suffer. The same way I suffered when they tested on me. And the same way I suffered when I was locked in a maximum security prison for 6 years” she said

She hit Lisa once more. Lisa tried to block her, but she just brushed her arm aside and hit her.

Then, Lisa’s expression abruptly changed. Casey was wondering what could have caused that when she felt an iron grip around her stomach and she was pulled with a strength she could not believe was possible. She even felt a little sick as she raised and turned at an impossible rate. She was trying to recover when her field of vision was suddenly filled by a face she knew very well.

“Ke… Kelly” she babbled as she tried to grasp the face’s immensity

Kelly was not focused on her but on something else. Then, they all started to rise once more. To Casey it felt like flying. Looking down, she could see the city from above. Then, she looked at her stomach and saw Kelly’s enormous hand strongly grabbing her by one side. She felt like a doll being moved around. It was one of the most frustrating feelings she had ever experienced. Casey looked at the other side and saw Kelly’s other hand holding another woman. It was Lisa.  Then, her humongous eyes set on them both and her lips parted. Kelly’s voice boomed like a loudspeaker that is not properly adjusted. Casey’s bones shook with each word. She had never felt anything like that. She could still recognize her former friend’s voice, though.

“Look at what you made me do” Kelly said

Casey did not know how to reply. Suddenly, the world around her had changed. She finally mustered enough courage to speak:

“Kelly… how… how did you do this?”

Kelly sneered and said:

“If you think I’m going to tell you, you are more foolish than I thought. Just let me tell you this: you are never going to find out by yourselves”

“You are huge” Lisa then said

Kelly smiled again and said:

“I guess I am. I would have enjoyed staying at my previous height for a while, but you really gave me no option. And with the damned military trying to reduce us, I could not waste too much time”

“How long have you known that you could get this big?” Casey asked, her voice sounding somehow betrayed

“A while. I hoped that it would not come to this, but you could not be reasoned with, could you?” Kelly said

“Kelly” Lisa’s voice sounded worried. “What are you going to do? You are too dangerous”

Kelly rolled her eyes and said:

“No, you two are the dangerous ones. Casey with her irrational violence and you with your stupid denial attitude. Look at what you did to downtown! Even the damned army took more of the city down than I did, when they shot missiles at me. I have the power to do much worse than this, but also have the intelligence to use it smartly. It would have been easier if you had listened to me. If you had stopped fucking around with your “we cannot be giants” attitude and Casey had managed to control herself. I tried. I really tried. But the only option was to force you to do it”

“What are you going to do to us?” Casey asked, sounding more pragmatic

“It depends. As strange as it may sound, I still appreciate you. But I need to make sure that you two behave. I know that is impossible if I leave you on your own, so I have no other option than to force you to do it. From now on, you two will be my servants. You will do anything I tell you. Anything. If you behave well, I will give you some freedom. You are still much bigger than anyone else around, so you can enjoy. But I want to make this very clear: I am in charge from now on. Do not challenge me if you don’t want to piss me off”

“You want us to be your slaves?” Casey asked bluntly

Kelly shrugged and replied:

“If you want to call it like that… You haven’t had too many problems to abuse anyone that was smaller than you ever since you got big. Now, there is someone bigger than you”

Lisa talked again:

“Kelly, if you look this big to us… to the people…”

“Yes, I will look huge. I hope that is enough to make them finally realize that I’m their goddess”

Almost as an answer, Kelly felt some stings on her back.

“What the hell?” she asked aloud

Turning, she saw multiple trails of smoke heading in her direction. They seemed slower and much less threatening than the ones she had seen before. She followed their path with her eyes until most of them ended in her stomach or chest. She felt a sting every time that happened, but it was barely annoying. Then, an explosion erupted in the spot where the missile had hit and she felt some heat, barely above the comfort level. Looking at the distance, she saw several insect-sized aircraft hovering and some faster but equally small insect-sized aircraft moving very fast.

It was easy to figure out what had happened.

“Fuck” she muttered between her teeth as she still held Lisa and Casey in her hands, her former friends now the size of Barbie dolls to her.

She realized that she was seeing things much clearer than she should have considering the difference in size and the distance when her eyes zoomed into the helicopters that had fired the volley that had just hit her. Then, her eyes kept on scanning the military display in the distance. It would have looked impressive… if it had not been so ridiculously tiny. There were thousands of soldiers, dozens of vehicles, plenty of them looking like tanks, and a large number of aircraft flying above them.

“Little pricks” Kelly muttered again

Casey was silent. Lisa looked worried.

“Kelly! Kelly, stop!” she said

Kelly looked at the blonde Barbie-sized woman in her hand and said:

“They just shot missiles at me. A lot of them”

“They did not even hurt you!” Lisa said

“That scarcely matters” Kelly replied. “They cannot say I did not try warning them. I’ve stated my intentions more than anyone else has ever done in history. I thought this new size would finally make them realize about how stupid it was to challenge me. But they just refuse to learn”

“What are you going to do?” Lisa asked, worried

“I am going to make them learn” she said

“You cannot do this, Kelly” Lisa said

Kelly looked at her with some disdain. Then, she said:

“Look at the bright side of this: I’m going to prevent millions from making this sort of stupid mistake in the future”

Another volley of missiles harmlessly impacted in several spots of Kelly’s prodigious body as she raised the two smaller giants to her face and said:

“I’m going to set you down. If you fight or you mess up with people before I come back, I’m going to be very pissed off. Don’t try me”

Kelly took three steps in the direction of the river. Each of them covered 2 city blocks. She was careful to set her feet on the road, but each of them was almost as wide as the 8-lane avenue. When she was next to the riverbank, she crouched and set Casey and Lisa in the water.

“Don’t get out of the river”

Kelly stood up and turned to face her attackers. And then, she started to calmly walk towards them.

There were more missiles fired at her, but none of them managed to do much more than the ones that had hit her before. To Kelly, the image of explosions erupting along her body with little to no consequence was quite spectacular, in any case.

She was now much taller than any of the buildings in the city. Still, she welcomed it when she got out of the heart of downtown, since she felt less boxed between buildings that in many cases reached her waist. Now, most of them barely got as high as her knees. Forgetting about the missiles being shot at her, Kelly focused on the size comparison for a second and could not prevent being impressed by it. Some of those buildings she was now so clearly towering over had been taller than her just a while ago.

Ron was trying to actively fight the despair that was taking over him. He told himself that he could still be important. That, after having been born again, when Kelly had decided to let him go, he still had a role to play in helping the world out of the very dire situation it was facing.

As everyone else, he had been shocked when he saw Kelly’s head rising among the buildings of Downtown, getting higher and higher in the sky as her body grew in proportion. It did not stop for a while. When it did, she dwarfed even the tallest buildings around.

It had been unexpected, of course. But Ron had known that it was not impossible.

After having observed the amazing events that had happened right after her growth, now Ron saw Kelly heading towards the army that had unsuccessfully fired dozens of missiles at her. Seeing them harmlessly explode in several parts of her anatomy was an astonishing sight. He knew that the army did not stand a chance versus her. And after having seen Kelly deal with Sykes and the entire building he had been at, he knew that she was not holding back anymore.

Even at the considerably distance he was at, Ron could hear every boom and feel every shake every time Kelly’s feet set on the road as she advanced. All he could see was her upper body moving along Hollner’s skyline.

When a building on her path just collapsed on itself, Ron thought:

“I need to stop her. But first, I need to get down”

It would not be easy, but he needed to find a solution.

At her new size, the city spread in front of her like an aerial photograph. Her main concern was sticking to the avenue she was on, though. A few blocks later she stopped when a noise below told her that something was going wrong. She quickly saw a building crumbling on itself.

“I did not touch it!”  Kelly’s mind protested. Then, she realized what had happened. She did not need to touch anything anymore to make an impact. She realized that her steps now had seismic-like properties and that the building that had crumbled had probably not been able to resist the shakes they had produced.

“Oh fuck” she muttered

It was very hard to feel guilty by something that had happened so unexpectedly and with so little intention on her side. Still, she knew that there had probably been hundreds of people inside of that building.

Trying to forget about it, Kelly kept advancing towards the army that had attacked her. They were on the outskirts of the city and she was determined to deal with them quickly and show the world what happened when she was challenged.

Buildings started getting shorter and shorter, until the tallest ones barely reached to mid-calf. The army was now much nearer. She had cut the distance with them in no time, her movement so fast that she felt something similar to a shockwave every time she took a step.

She had taken a few more volleys by the time she was almost in front of the army. None of them managed to even create some discomfort. They all managed to make Kelly feel unstoppable on one side and very pissed off at the army on the other.

The helicopters that had been hovering in front of the tanks and shooting their missiles at her were now trying to fly back, behind the relative protection of the armored vehicles. They were also trying to get higher. Kelly realized that she had caught them unawares. They had not expected her to be so quick.

There were two to three dozen bee-sized aircraft, all buzzing around in a seemingly random pattern and forming a sort of cloud right in front of her chest at what looked like no more than a few feet away from her new perspective.

They would be the first ones she would deal with. Her mind was set on that. After all, they had been the first ones to attack her. She took the last few hits from the lead choppers as she observed that the ones in the back were now trying to move farther back and higher, clearly to get out of her reach by the time she got where they were. She smiled evilly. Then, she puckered her lips and started blowing at them.

No winds on Earth had ever reached even a fraction of the power of Kelly’s breath. Channeled by her thick lips, the mighty stream of air generated at her lungs hit the choppers without mercy as a loud howling sound shadowed every other sound in that half of the city.

Some helicopters were sent spinning out of control, crashing into the buildings and streets below. Others were literally torn into pieces as the wall of air reached them.

She was utterly satisfied at what she had accomplished. She had expected something like that, but the results had been even better than she had imagined. Some drops on her legs reminded her that there were still more troops left. A quick look down showed her that the tanks were now shooting as they retreated.

“You fucking ants” her voice thundered from high above. “How dare you attack me? Can’t you see that I’m all-powerful? I’ll make an example out of you”

Corporal Dwayne Wallace was running like crazy. He had known it would be a bad idea to attack the giant woman the moment he had set eyes on her in the distance. They had been told that three women around two hundred and fifty feet tall were terrorizing the city of Hollner. Few had believed it then. Most of the soldiers in his company thought it was some sort of practical joke as they were sent into some sort of drill. They had seen her soon before arriving to the outskirts of the city. And the first thing Corporal Wallace had been able to say after recovering was:

“Two hundred and fifty feet my ass”

Of course she had to be much taller than that. She stood taller than all the skyscrapers around her.

The order to fire on her had come soon enough. Corporal Wallace had cursed when he heard them. He cursed even louder when he saw missiles exploding all along her body without consequence. And he cursed every single officer all the way up to the President when he saw the woman turning and starting to move in their direction.

He was right after a line of tanks when he heard the wind and saw dozens of choppers crashing into buildings all around him. Fire rained from the sky, as well as glass and debris from the buildings. He had to hurriedly duck. When he managed to stand up, reports on casualties filled the radio traffic. All the choppers were gone. And several ground units had been badly affected by the consequences.

The ground shook harder than he had ever felt it shake before. A quick look to the front showed him her other foot now in the air and moving in his direction. It landed less than a block away.

The shake was much worse this time. Large cracks formed in the spot her foot had set and extended for over two blocks. A tank and two trucks were swallowed by it. Several screams told Dwayne that they had not been the only victims. He managed to stand up, only to feel a shiver running down his spine when he saw the massive toes in front of him, reaching all the way up to the third story of the neighboring buildings despite the fact that the foot had sunk well into the road. Between the foot and him, dust was beginning to settle in.

The tanks right in front of him started to shoot right then. Dwayne cursed for one last time as he realized that the tank cannons were probably the soundtrack for his life’s end.

It was not. There were some words before. They sounded as if a massive thunderstorm had been released from her lungs. Still, he could identify that the voice belonged to a woman.

The monstrous toes flexed. And then the foot rose. Corporal Wallace barely had time to follow its path as the light of the Sun went away and was replaced by the darkest night. Around him, chunks of debris rained on the road, some hitting a few of his comrades. They were the lucky ones. They were spared the last second, when the darkness came down on them.

She moved her foot forward. It covered almost half a block. Five tanks disappeared under it as if they had never been there. Another step took care of half a dozen more. Soldiers were shooting at her from the rooftops of buildings and from neighboring streets. She could not feel the bullets, but she could see the flashes. Pushing her lips out again, she slightly stooped and blew down.

Soldiers and jeeps were sent flying as she unleashed the hurricane, landing wherever. She was satisfied. She really felt like a goddess, doing that. Spying some soldiers seeking shelter in one of the buildings to her right, she raised a foot and flattened a full city block under it.

She crouched. Her fingers easily dug into the asphalt as she ripped a section of the avenue of about 150 feet in diameter out. There were four tanks on it. Raising it to her face, she closed her fist and smashed everything until dust filtered through her fingers. Then, she carelessly tossed the contents of her hand to the side and took another step that finished several more tanks.

There were thousands of them, but Kelly was finishing them very quickly. There were still many tanks left, but she had probably already taken out about half of the original force. Soldiers were a different story, though. The tiny specks had been mostly behind the line of tanks and there were still thousands of them. She could still see many flashes coming from them, telling her than many were still shooting at her. A good enough number of them seemed to be trying to flee, though.

“Sorry ants, but there will be no mercy for you. The world needs to see what happens to those that oppose me” Kelly thought

Without warning, she dropped to her knees. Her stance was too wide to fit on any single avenue, no matter how large it was, so her gesture ended up with her knees and calves bringing down a couple of city blocks on each side of her colossal body. At some indeterminate moment, Kelly had decided that collateral damage was unavoidable as she taught the world a lesson.

She made a fist and slammed it into a group of soldiers. Several dozen ceased to be as her fist hit the road as hard as a meteorite and sunk into a fifty-foot deep crater.

An open hand finished plenty more soldiers as it set on the ground and dug it into its shape.

“It’s so easy” Kelly thought

With a naughty smile, Kelly extended the index finger of her right hand and brought it down, pinning two soldiers under its tip for a fraction of a second, before her finger kept going through the asphalt.

“It’s so fucking easy” her mind echoed as she repeated the operation with her finger, this time crushing a jeep beyond recognition.

The tanks were trying to retreat, very unsuccessfully. Kelly reached out and pinched a candy-sized tank between her fingers. It proved to be sturdier than the rest of the world around her. Rising it towards her face, she observed it with curiosity. There was a flash from the barrel and she felt a small prick on her cheek.

“Fucking bastard” Kelly said aloud.

Then, she pushed her fingers together, easily flattening the tank into a two-dimensional piece of junk.

She wanted to try something else. Reaching into the group of fleeing soldiers, she tried pinching an individual man between her fingers. It was hard, but she managed to do it. Unfortunately, by the time she opened them right on front of her eyes, the man was nothing more than a gore stain in her fingertip.

“Fuck” Kelly muttered, upset at what had happened. She tried reaching for another soldier, but the result was the same.

She then had an idea. Licking her finger, she moved her fingertip towards the soldiers and carefully approached the one that was most isolated.

“Bingo” she thought as she felt the soldier sticking to her fingertip. Curling her finger upwards, she brought it right in front of her curious eyes and observed the man. She was surprised at how much detail she could make, considering how ridiculously small he was.

He was shaking. He had to be the most terrified man he had seen yet, and she had seen plenty, since she had emerged from the hotel. She offers him a devilish smile and then whispered:

“You look about a fourth of an inch. Did you really think that you could challenge me?”

Surprisingly enough, the man tried to reply. And even more surprisingly, she could make out some squeaky sounds coming from the tiny speck. She wondered how on Earth it was even possible that she could hear the sound produced by something so tiny, but the event was more than welcome. She brought the finger holding the man next to her ear as she removed her hair with her free hand.

The fact that he could hear the man was surprising. His words were not. In a mousy tone, the soldier, who must have been a tall and muscular man, said:

“Please, let me go”

Kelly chuckled. Then she whispered again:

“You know what? It’s not a good idea to attack a goddess”

Then, she brought her finger to her right nipple and pressed the man against it. She did not need to push hard before she was rewarded by a popping feeling.

Some alarm rang on the back of her mind.

“This was plain cruel. Like something Casey would do”

The thought troubled her for an instant, but then a defense mechanism kicked in:

“You want to teach the world a lesson. One they will never forget. Once you’re done, you can be careful once more”

Somehow, this made things right. Looking down, she eyed a large group of soldiers trying to flee but still within arm’s reach.

She reached out to the far end of the group and extended a finger of her right hand. Then, she set it down on the road and pushed. Once her finger had easily dug into it, she just moved it sideways. By the time she had finished, her finger had caved a 50 foot deep trench that went from side to side of the road, trapping the soldiers between it and her.

She could observe a couple of tiny specks trying to jump across, only to fall fifty feet to their deaths. Having seen this, the rest of the group stopped trying. They started to pack themselves as far away from Kelly as possible, which meant being very close to the deep trench.

She whispered to them in a mocking tone:

“How many of you are there? You are so tiny that it’s hard to tell, and I’m definitely not on the mood for counting you. Your number does not matter, though. A hundred, two hundred, three hundred… it makes no difference. I can finish you just the same”

Kelly knew that she letting herself get carried away, but she did not care anymore. Not until she finished the army. She was trying to think of some way to finish the tiny soldiers in front of her other than the classic slamming of her hand on top of them. An idea came to mind. She smiled evilly. Moving forward, she placed her face just above the bulk of the soldiers. And then, she drooled on them.

The results were spectacular. Some of them were brought down just by the weight of her saliva falling from high above. Others started running as it spread, forming a pool that soon started trapping more and more of the men. Once it did, the men were completely helpless, no matter how much they tried to fight against the dense and sticky substance. Moving her head back, she let a laugh out at the results of her naughty idea.

“Do you realize what you are, now?” she asked in a mocking voice

Not everyone had been caught by her attempt, though. Now, she had the very awkward situation of having a sizeable group of soldiers running in her direction. She dealt with them with a simple sweep of her hand.

Still on her hands and knees, Kelly advanced, easily sorting the trench that had caused so many issues to the tiny soldiers. Soon, she was kneeling on top of an incredibly packed group of soldiers. Without warning, she just let herself drop on top of them, her body finishing thousands as well as two-dozen city blocks. Her massive breasts sunk a hundred feet in the ground as she rested her head on her folded arms and observed the hundreds of uniformed ants in front of her billboard-sized eyes.

When she pushed her lips out everyone started running faster, in panic, knowing what had happened the previous times the giant woman had done that. She did not blow, this time, though. Instead, she sucked, pulling hundreds of soldiers towards her. Some of the closer ones actually flew all the way to her mouth. She could not close it on time and a few got in. Kelly just spat them in contempt.

A light sting on the cheek, just under her right eye, made her focus back on the road. There were three tanks on it and one of them was actually shooting at her as it tried to retreat. Kelly narrowed her eyes and reached out with one arm. Placing a finger on its turret, she pushed. It held more than the jeeps, but it ended up sinking as well. A second tank ended up in the fifth floor of an office building when she casually flicked it with the same hand. The third she picked and brought it to her mouth. Then, placing it between her molars, she chewed and was rewarded by an easy crunch before spitting it out.

“They threw an army at me and look at what I’m doing with it” she thought, impressed. “I must be the most powerful person that has ever set foot on Earth”

For some unknown reason, this thought reminded her of Casey and Lisa. She did not want to leave them alone for too long. God knew what Casey would be capable of doing if she let her think too much.

Standing up, Kelly dusted herself off and looked at the remainders of the army. They were a fraction of the original size of the force that had struck her and they were all retreating. She almost felt sorry for them. A promise was a promise, though. Without letting herself get too far, she methodically finished them, mostly by the not so fancy method of crushing them by the hundreds under her feet.

A couple of minutes later, she was done and she was almost on the outskirts of the city.

“Time to get back and claim my throne” Kelly thought.

She looked into the city and easily decided her destination. The path to it was pretty much trashed from her dealings with the army, so there was no point on being too careful, Kelly thought. Still, a few buildings that had miraculously remained standing were easily brought down by Kelly’s calves as she carelessly walked through them.

She got to Millennium Plaza less than a minute later. It was one of the only spaces in the city large enough for her to stand normally. The Millennium Tower could now barely reach to the top of her incredible breasts. Kelly had become the tallest feature of Hollner’s skyline.

Reaching out, she easily ripped its famous 100 ft. spike from its roof. It was not much longer than one of her fingers. She toyed with it, as if it were a toothpick. Then, she looked around. The Millennium Plaza was pretty much in the center of the vast city of Hollner, and Kelly could see it all. She prepared to address it. She was pretty sure that she could make herself heard in all the confines of the metropolis.

In the distance, she could see some hovering insects. They were choppers, but not military. They belonged to all the news stations that owned one in the area. They were keeping a long distance, quite obviously aware of what Kelly could do if she decided to blow them a kiss. She was amused by this and toyed with the idea of trying whether they were so safe as they thought. She discarded the thought, though, since the news choppers were serving her purpose.

Rising her tone, she spoke:

“People of Hollner! People of the world! I am Kelly Hanson and I am your Goddess. As you have just seen, my power is absolute. And I expect absolute obedience. If you comply, you don’t need to be afraid of me. I want to be a merciful Goddess. But if you challenge me, I will destroy you”

She paused for a couple of seconds and said:

“I realize that getting used to this new situation will take a while, but you better start working at it right away. I’ll give you some time to adapt, but I’m not a patient woman”

Then, Kelly finished and, without warning, turned and started walking to the outskirts of the city once more.