We said no more as time drug on. Time moves even slower when you have more than enough power to break free of any human jail. Such is life I guess.
Eventually, the new day came and with it. . . . Sweltering heat. It was almost as if this prison had been specifically designed to bake it's inhabitants. The sun didn't reach us underground, and usually the room would have been cool, but somehow we were melting. While giant slayers were resistant to the cold, heat was the complete opposite for us.
"Does it always get. . . This hot in here?" I panted.
"It never used to. . . But it hasn't rained here since the day Emelia arrived. The gods are punishing us!" The man in my cell answered.
"It hasn't rained in 20 years?" I repeated, no longer playing a character and genuinely shocked.
"No. We have to get most of our water from the wells, but Emelia claims all of that for herself. Not that she cares too much about us, but she allows a wagon to go to the river to get water for the city 3 times a day. . Rationed."
I didn't respond, as the heat just settled in on us. It became so bad, that I was just about to get up and leave when 2 guards finally came for me. I let them rough me up, before they forced me back up the steps and across the street into a human sized door to the giant building.
I was led through a few narrow hallways, and finally out into a large open court.
There she was. . .
Unimpressed, I layed eyes on the giantess known as Emelia.
Even with the room as big as it was, it didn't feel large enough to house a giant. Our backs were nearly against the back wall, and we were standing below the crossed boot of the giantess. It felt like this was done on purpose, so that she could easily dispatch of anyone who displeased her.
She looked much as the little girl had described. An average looking woman who appeared to be in Her late 30's early 40s (human years). Her twirly brown hair was the result of some type of curler She must use. Her attire was that of a bar maiden, her ample cleavage barely contained by the dress. She wore leather boots that reached up to her calves.
Emelia was sat atop a lavish throne, that no doubt she had forced the citizens to construct. I had to admit that it was beautifully made and honestly rivaled anything I had seen in the land of the giants.
She paid us no mind as she was talking with a human woman who stood on a wooden platform that reached up to the armrest of the throne. It appeared like she was deciding on a fabric for something, thumbing through samples.
I took this time to look around the giant room. The walls were adorned with various art, tapestries, trinkets and toys from all over the kingdom. She must have confiscated all the items from every human she was keeping in her servitude. I also noticed that the items were on all the walls EXCEPT the one behind us. . . Below my feet, the cobblestone was noticeably cracked.
This woman really was living like a queen here, as humans scampered around her feet like mice. She wasn't even threatening anyone at the moment, but the tension was high in the room. It felt like everyone's life was in danger, just by being near her.
It took a full 15 minutes of nobody interrupting her before Emelia finally noticed us.
"Is he here for assignment or punishment?" She asked casually, as she continued to look through fabric samples.
"Assignment, M'lady." Said one of the guards, sheepishly.
"And. . . Has he any special skills?" She interviewed, not even looking at us.
"We. . . " The guard began, but thought better of it. "NO, M'lady."
"Hmm. . " She hummed, to herself before her gaze was finally turned to face us.
The moment her eyes turned to us, the guards knelt down and bowed their heads. It took them a second to realize that I wasn't bowing with them, as I stood with a blank look on my face.
Emelia narrowed her eyes at me, and her nostrils flared, almost imperceptibly.
"Kneel!" She thundered, and it made all of our ears ring with the sound of her voice.
I felt the guards grab my arms and try to drag me down, but for the first time, I actually resisted them with a fraction of my true strength and they couldn't budge me.
Emelia pursed her lips, and exhaled loudly through her nose. In the blink of an eye, she uncrossed her legs and put her boots on the floor, shaking the room and rattling items on the wall. Her hand stretched out and knocked the guard on my left aside like a piece of garbage. He was thrown against the side wall, and there was the distinct sound of bones crunching.
I foolishly thought that was the end of it, but I was wrong. From there, the hand curled and delivered a vicious flick to my torso, catching my ribs and stomach. A normal human would have been completely crippled by the blow and even I wasn't able to just shrug it off.
The force of the flick involuntarily doubled me over to my hands and knees in a forced kneeling position as I gasped raggedly for air.
This pleased her.
"That's more like it!" She said, smuggly. "Really! How hard is it to make someone kneel?! You guards are worthless!" She berated as she sat back in her throne.
I decided not to stir the pot, and stayed kneeling. Not for fear of what this giantess would do to me, but for fear of what my sister would do to me if I was to get into a fight with this giantess in front of me and in turn destroy half the city in the process.
The guard she had smacked lay motionless and only quiet moans came from him. The other man had begun to tremble next to me. His priority had changed from forcing me to yield, to just plain surviving the day.
Emelia kept me waiting as she chatted idly with the human woman at her side. She laughed and smiled as they discussed decor touches I had no interest in. Finally, I lost my patience and stood up. I just stared blankly at her while she continued to ignore everyone.
When she finally did glance at me, her face was less than excited. She scowled and was about to scream at me, when suddenly a man appeared in the human opening to the chamber.
He was an slender man, who appeared to be in his early 20's. He had his hair neatly parted and slicked down. He wore a fancy silk shirt and black trousers, atop black boots.
None of that was important though. . .
What WAS important is what he was carrying. In his hands he carried a sword.
My sword.
The man shot me a look, and I couldn't tell if it was fear on his face or something else. Either way, what he had to say couldn't wait and he interuppted whatever Emelia was about to yell at me.
"M'lady. . . M'lady! There is something you need to know! Something about this worker!" He exclaimed as he rushed in.
Emelia sighed, as if this was a common occurrence and she was tired of it.
"What is it Julius?. ." She asked, boredom in her tone.
"This man. . . . I have reason to believe that he is a wanted fugitive from the crown!" He began, somewhat out of breath.
"And?. . . Half the work force is wanted fugitives from the crown! As long as they don't disrupt proceedings, it doesn't matter!" She said, annoyed.
"Yes I know M'lady! But this man. . . This man matched the description of a wanted giant slayer!" The man shouted, pointing at me.
The room fell silent. Everyone just stared at me. All the humans were in awe, but Emelia's response was what surprised me.
In the midst of the silence. . . She burst out laughing.
The man, "Julius" just continued to look concerned as he waited out her laughing fit.
"Is. . . Is that really what you are all worked up about?!" She laughed, wiping a tear from her eye
"Yes! His face matches the wanted poster and so does his weapon!" He exclaimed, holding my sword up above his head.
"Julius! Are you stupid or something?" Emelia asked, leaning down and getting her face closer to him.
"Well I-" he began, nervously.
"This little worm is NOT a giant slayer!" Emelia proclaimed confidently, pointing a giant finger at me.
"M'lady?" Julius questioned, unsure of her logic.
"You obviously know nothing about giant slayers! First of all, all giant slayers are at least 10 feet tall! Does he LOOK 10 feet tall to you, Julius?" She demanded, motioning to me.
I had to hold back my laughter upon hearing this. The Truth is, nobody outside the capital really knew anything about giant slayers anymore. Our abilities and attributes had been told and retold one million times and since we moved to the capital, time warped every detail about us to the point where 95% of what people thought, was untrue.
"Well. . . No. ." Julius said, suddenly unsure of himself.
"Exactly! Plus, giant slayers are as strong as giants! Do you think the guards would have been able to capture him if he were as strong as a giant?!" She boomed.
"He could be hiding his true strength!" Julius suggested, frustration in his voice.
"Ha!" Emelia snorted. "And what possible reason could he have for doing that? Giant slayers challenge giants directly, not sneak around like pathetic, weak little cowards!" She declared, just making facts up as she went along.
"I'm not sure what his intentions are. All I know is that he is a dead match for the description of the giant slayer! I'm just trying to protect you!" Julius answered, struggling to keep calm.
"You. . .protect me?!" Emelia exclaimed, as she laughed harder than ever before. "Remind me again which one of us is the size of a field mouse?"
Julius' face went red as Emelia humiliated him in front of everyone.
"You've seen me crush countless bandit gangs, and yet you think I suddenly need "protection" from some little piece of commoner garbage? You insult me!" Emelia continued her assault on Julius.
He hung his head now.
Emelia noticed, and leaned down again.
"Aww, did I hurt your little feelings?" She taunted, shoving him with one finger. "Look. . . I'm sorry, but I don't have time for your nonsense today Julius. I just want to finalize the cloth for my banquet hall, and rest today. You are to see to the food delivery, and then wait in my chambers."
Julius said nothing, which irritated Emelia even more.
"Fine Julius! You want peace of mind? Here!" She shouted, and in the blink of an eye she made her move.
Her giant boot lifted over my head, and descended like a flash of lighting.
Every human's assumption was that because of their size, giants were slow and clumsy but it was quite the opposite.
Their size helped them move far greater distances than humans in no time at all.
"See? Problem solved!" She said matter of factly, as she felt the familiar feeling of blood, guts and bone under her foot.
It wasn't until the dust clear that she got the disappointment I had in store for her. While she HAD crushed a man with ease under her sole. . . .it wasn't the one she had intended.
Everyone looked down to see if the giant slayer had been demolished, but their jaws dropped when they saw that I had clearly avoided her stomp, a feat that must not have happened in the 20 years since Emelia came to power. Unfortunately, the other guard wasn't so lucky and his remains splattered myself, and the wall some feet behind me as the ringing of the stomp echoed off the stone walls.
It was at that moment that I realized why there were no items on that particular wall. . .
And why the floor was cracked only in this area under the giants feet.
The room remained silent as the humans and the giantess just stared at me. Silence hung in the air. It took a moment, but Emelia's mouth slowly pulled closed and formed into a scowl. Her hands, closed into fists and just like before, she was about to scream something at some incompetent fool when Julius intervened.
His voice rang out with the weight of 20 years worth of oppression riding on my actions.
"SAVE US, GIANT SLAYER!" He screamed, shattering the silence as he hurled my sword towards me.
My senses, heightened from finally not being in a drunken stupor felt Emelia attack, but I needed to wait to dodge until I had my sword.
I payed the price.
As soon as the sheathed blade touched my finger tips, I was kicked as hard as she could from her seated position. My body offered little resistance, and as such I was hurled back, violently smashing clear through the bloody brick wall and out into the street.
Emelia, infuriated, made a grab for Julius, but he narrowly escaped and sprinted down the hallway in the opposite direction to which he came.
"Guards! Bring me that traitor, Julius!" She screamed, pointing in the direction he had run. "I need to deal with this so called "giant slayer!"
She rose from her throne, and turned to leave through a giant wooden door behind her throne. It was a miracle that she didn't crush anyone else as guards and servants scrambled around her feet.
It took me a second to get my bearings after the brutal kick. Not only had I smashed through the closest wall, but I had flown across the street, and become inbedded in the wall of another building.
My body screamed it's protest from my front and back as I tried to unwedge myself from the wall. In front of me, I felt, saw and heard Emelia emerge from her massive home. She stepped out into the street, crushing a hay cart, and sending the horse attached to it into a panic.
Her eyes scanned the small crowd that had gathered, until she spotted me. I could do nothing but squirm as her outline blocked out the sun and her hand moved to seize me. She was in no way gentle as she grabbed me, along with chunks of the wall in her hand.
I was able to clutch my sword to my chest before I was wrapped in her fist and lifted skyward. Pieces of brick and dust fell back to the street below, as she began to leverage and squeeze the life out of me.
One fact about giant slayers that is of note in this particular instance, is our resistance to being crushed. While we weren't completely impervious to it, our resistance was based on the energy our body stored. That went for all damage we sustained. We were created to be able to take the type of abuse that giants could dish out, and still continue to fight.
That being said, Emelia soon realized that she couldn't outright crush me inside her fist, and while she was suffocating me, I wasn't about to crumble like every human that had dared stand up to her so far.
With my arms trapped against my chest, I couldn't use my strength to break free of her hand, but after a few seconds of impass between us, she relented and reared back, before I was thrown brutally into the side of a guard tower on the corner of the block.
This attack really didn't hurt as much as getting kicked through the wall, and I was able to just shake it off, but before I could stand I heard giant footsteps outside the tower.
I looked up, and caught a glimpse of Emelia looming large above the 50 foot tall structure through the hole I created. All I saw next was her palms crashing down, as she began to slowly cave the tower in on me, paying no mind to the guards in the tower. Again the rubble hindered me just enough that I couldn't escape, and I was buried beneath the ruin of the tower. Again. . .this didn't feel great, but I was still in the fight.
Beyond the pure weight of brick and stone, I felt her pushing and packing the debris with her hands until she was satisfied that I wasn't escaping alive.
Outside the tower, two guards had captured Julius and had since dragged him out into the street and forced him to his knees. He began to tremble as Emelia approached, having finished off the giant slayer without receiving so much as a scratch. She didn't look pleased, and even though he was her most trusted assistant, he knew she would most likely kill him for this infraction.
"Give him to me!" She seethed, as she cast her long shadow over the 3 humans. The guards shoved him forward on to his stomach and backed away like they had fed him to a den of lions They knew he had zero chance of escape now.
Julius did the only thing he could. . . He begged for his life.
"M'lady! I am so sorry! I. . . I don't know what came over me! I was bewitched by the slayers power! Please forgive me mistress!" He pleaded, crawling over and planting pathetic kisses on the toe of her boot. He knew that being called mistress pleased her, so he added that to help his chances.
She scowled down on him, but allowed him to continue living uncrushed for the moment.
"Forgive you? FORGIVE YOU!?" She bellowed, her anger rising. "You decided to betray me after all I've done for you! Protection and special privileges for you and your family!, favor in my political choices!" She ranted.
Julius was more afraid now then he had ever been. He had seen Emelia angry before. Not many times, but enough to know that she would likely flatten him into the cobblestone and get a new assistant. Simple as that.
"The answer is no Julius! You will pay for your treachery. . Pay with your life!" She said, pointing down at her terrified assistant. "Say goodbye, worm!" She spat, pushing him backward as she lifted her giant boot into the air.
Julius put his hands over his head in the fetal position, only able to await that most final of fates. He closed his eyes as the boot dropped, silently praying to the gods for any sort of miracle and just waiting for his life to be over.
But the crush never came.
As Julius' heart continued to pound, it was only made worse by the fact that nothing actually happened.
He opened his eyes, and couldn't believe what he was seeing. The giant slayer! The giant slayer had stopped Emelia's stomp dead with his bare hands. He was steadily struggling to hold her as Julius just stared, mouth agape.
"What. . . What is happening!" Emelia demanded to know as her foot failed to meet it's Mark and sort of floated awkwardly around 7 feet off the ground.
She tried adding weight, but she didn't have enough to get it to the ground. After trying for a moment, she was forced to retract her foot and see what was going on.
She pulled back to reveal the giant slayer, unscathed and protecting the traitor Julius.
The crowd that had gathered erupted with cheers as they saw the giant slayer still standing. By this time, the whole city had come to a standstill as their future, and past 20 years clashed in the street.
I. . . . I couldn't let him die. I don't really know why, but call it the Gods. In a burst of speed, I was over the man, but under the giantess, as she moved to crush the human for his rebellion.
After a battle of strength, she finally stepped back and gave me a moment to breathe. Against all odds, and in poor character, the guards once again seized him. Apparently there was no confidence in my ability to go toe to toe with Emelia so they chose her side. In their defense, I hadn't really landed a blow yet.
It was time to change that.
Emelia stared daggers at me as I walked causally to the center of the street, before squaring up to face her. The crowd was still cheering and shouting encouragement for me, but I still didn't know exactly what I was planning on doing.
While killing her would be the easiest and most final solution, the publicity and attention it would bring is the last thing I needed. That WE needed. Once humans knew there was an active giant slayer in the area, every city would make requests for my protection. What a drag.
On the other hand, if I could hurt her enough to scare her off, I could avoid most of the potential backlash and destruction that this battle could potentially cause.
I took a breath. Felt my senses heighten. It appeared as though Emelia was about to say something, but I never gave her the chance.
In a movement too quick for the human eye to follow, I charged forward, jumped, and hit her with my strongest punch, straight to her stomach. She let out a distorted gasp as I knocked the wind out of her and she fell to her hands and knees in the exact same way she had made me do.
"That's more like it!" I said, living in the moment as she coughed and spit a wad of saliva onto the street.
Not letting her catch her breath, I wrapped each of my hands in a strand of her hair. It looked like I was holding horse reins, and I used them as such. With a snap of my arms, I smashed Emelia's face into the cobblestone.
The force was enough to rattle the closest building, but to her credit, Emelia lifted her head from the ground, though she remained on her hands and knees.
She moaned, and though her face was shrouded by her hanging hair, I saw droplets of blood pooling below her mouth. Not giving her any chance to recover, I snapped again, harder this time.
Again her face made contact, actually putting a crack in the stones this time. I prayed that it would be enough to convince her to just leave but impressively her head rose again and she wiped her mouth on her arm.
She spit some blood, and it looked like she was going to stand, but not before I gave her one final snap. The hardest I could.
This time it stuck.
Emelia's arms buckled and she collapsed face down the moment her face hit, this time with a small splash of blood accompanying the cloud of dust that the force kicked up. The giantess lay motionless, and for a moment, the whole city was too.
I knew she was unconscious, but the rest of the city waited, holding their breath to see what she would do.
She stayed down. Blood pooling around her face.
They gave it a brief second, and then the whole city erupted in applause. I hadn't really noticed just how many people had stopped to watch, but when I turned around the street was lined front to back and so were the rooftops.
It reminded me of the good old da-
A shadow over my shoulder. . .
I had let my guard down, and now paid the price as Emelia's palm came down and smashed me like an insect. . . . And this blow. . . . She made sure that this blow hurt.
Emelia lifted her face from the dirt, revealing a bloody scowl on her grime caked face. She was slow to rise,using a nearby building for support as the crowd watched on in silence. Their one hope for liberation lay motionless on the street, seemingly crushed.
Emelia tried to stand on her own, and was successful for a moment but then swayed gently before she fell back, crashing ass first on top of the building, causing the civilians to scatter or be crushed.
Sitting stunned, Emelia raised a hand to her mouth and nose, to see how much she was bleeding. It was a substantial amount but somehow she seemed unphased by it, and again tried to stand. Chunks of the building fell away from her behind as she removed herself and stood, this time more stable.
It was at this time that she noticed a few villagers had gathered around me and were trying to get me back on my feet. She didnt allow it, reaching down and knocking them aside as she grabbed me again.
I was lifted in her fist and this time she used both hands to crush me. Unlike the first time where I had energy reserve, this time I was more tired and as such, my body was more malleable.
I could do nothing but groan as her grip tightened on me. I began to see spots as my ribs creaked and joints popped. The look of determination on her face told me that nshe was done playing around. .
Giantess World
