Jason had been gone for an hour, leaving AJ and Ben to strategize.

Ben examined each of the bottles Jason stole for AJ. “I know one of these restores you to your proper size, but what are the others?”

“This one is the shrinking supplement,” AJ said, pointing, “this one makes your size permanent-”

“-Unless you take the restoration medicine?” Ben ventured.

“Correct. And then this is the one that hardens your little body.”

Ben set a bottle down and held his hands in the air, palms facing the collection of bottles. He spoke with great hesitation, trying to withhold any judgment against his old friend. “AJ... Why did you have Jason steal these?”

“Ehhhhhh well, here’s the thing,” she began.

“Oh no.”

“Look, I was pretty freaked out at first when the company handed me off to the Big Guy for ‘interrogation’ or whatever... But fuck he was good.”

Ben sighed.

“And so gentle. Y’know, he’s really not that bad of a guy, Ben.”

“You should hear some of his war stories. Might change your mind.”

“Well y’know what? My life was in danger, and I was a lot safer in his care. He offered me a choice-”

“Of fucking course,” Ben muttered.

“I could either stay at my shrunken size or he’d grow me back to normal. But either way he’d keep me safe. I stayed small, and loved every second of it. The things he did.. Ohhhh..” She wriggled her shoulders just thinking about it.

“That still doesn’t explain-”

AJ snapped out of her fantasy. “Oh. Well, when he told me he thought you were in trouble, I changed my mind and decided to return to normal size to try to find you, and stop whatever is going on at the company.”

Ben picked up the bottle of shrinking supplements. “But why take this one?”

“I figured this whole thing’s eventually gonna blow over, and when it does... I dunno, I kinda liked being shrunk by him.”

“Christ. AJ, he’s emotionally manipulating you. It’s what he does!”

“Yeah, maybe. But I liked it. It wouldn’t be such a bad life, y’know, being his tiny slave.”

Ben set the bottle back down, and glimpsed over to a pair of Jason’s socks lying on the floor. Ben had been in those socks, once. And he didn’t want to leave them. A small part of him would kill just to be back inside them. 

Heather’s socks were heavenly too. And her panties. Vivid remembrances of Heather’s mighty glutes squeezing his tiny body from all sides flickered through Ben’s mind. Wouldn’t be such a bad life. The sentence rolled around in his head. If it wasn’t for the fact that both Jason and Heather had god complexes and desires to inflict their wills onto the whole planet, Ben might actually have surrendered to them. But if either of them gained absolute power, they would be corrupted absolutely. Ben rejected that with every fiber of his being. But what if-

Something slowly dawned on him. That’s it. That’s the answer. The thought was a cloud of seemingly unrelated ideas that slowly merged into one unifying realization. His eyes widened, mouth went agape, as the thought, like a scorching bullet, seared through his brain.

“What? What is it?” AJ said, tugging at his sleeve.

Ben whispered, almost inaudibly, his mind still processing the thought, “We should just give them what they want.” He was still staring at the socks.

“Huh?”

The phone rang. It was Jason. Ben answered. “Yeah?”

There was a long silence, then Jason spoke. “Heather wants to see you.” His voice sounded cold and distant.

“How much did you tell her?”

“Everything.” 

Ben’s eyes dodged back and forth as he contemplated Jason’s state of mind. 

“Where is she?”

Jason provided the directions, and abruptly hung up.

“What are you gonna do?” AJ asked her old friend.

“End this thing.”

A short while later, Ben arrived at the location Jason had provided. It was a huge, nondescript warehouse in the industrial side of town. There was absolutely nothing interesting about the place. A few cars were parked outside, but little in the way of security. This is the place, he felt certain. The building was over 100 feet tall. At least Ben had an idea that Heather couldn’t be bigger than that.

He got out of his car and walked up to the nearest building entrance. A security guard stood by the door, eyed Ben up and down, then proceeded to open the door for him. No questions asked. Ben noticed the sign above the door, which simply read “SITE 1.” He shivered to think there may be other sites in operation right now.

Ben entered. Immediately inside of the building was a downward staircase. Not only was the building tall, but it was deep too. He descended the stairs for several minutes, realizing that every step he took increased Heather’s potential maximum size. He lost count of the stairs.

The air inside the building was musty and humid. A distinct, sensuous aroma lingered in the air. It was Heather’s scent. Ben could even faintly smell it outside the building. He was in the den of the beast now.

The staircase finally ended, and he exited the corridor through a door, leading to a vast, expansive opening. The interior was taller than a football field is long, Ben estimated. High above, industrial light fixtures hung from the ceiling, but otherwise the facility was fairly barren. The floors were concrete, with some padded areas for its giant denizen to sleep and relax.

In the middle of the room, far in the distance, there was Heather. She was sitting, legs crossed, back faced to Ben. She appeared to be in conversation with the minuscule people around her. Ben squinted, trying to reassess his sense of perspective. The people weren’t tiny at all. Heather was monolithic. Even sitting down, she was easily a couple hundred feet tall.

“Hello Ben,” her voice boomed, echoing off the walls and seemingly coming from everywhere. Ben trembled.

“How...” he said under his breath. 

“I can smell you,” she answered, from a quarter-mile away. “And I can hear you too.”

He nearly wet himself with fear.

“It’s okay, I’m glad you came,” she boomed again, but in very soothing tones. She’d learned to pitch her voice perfectly so the sound waves are calming, rather than threatening. Jason might have learned to do the same as part of his interrogation training, Ben thought.

“Come to me,” she commanded. He did so without hesitation. As he walked to her, she rose, revealing her complete height. She was perhaps 500 feet tall now. The men and women gathered at her bare feet were smaller now than even her toes. She wasn’t dressed in much. Making clothes for a growing girl is expensive, of course. She wore just a spandex sports bra and panties.

Heather’s stature wasn’t the only thing that had grown. Her muscles, too, had gained considerable definition. She was toned, not bulky, but her entire body radiated power. Ben oggled her rock hard calves, his eyes running upward to godly, meaty thighs. As she rose to her feet, her mammoth glutes flexed. There was enough strength just in her ass to crush an entire building full of people.

The temperature and humidity in the room increased as Ben approached. If she was any larger, Heather’s body might have a significant effect on local weather conditions. Her aroma hung thickly in the air now. It was intoxicating.

“Away,” she spoke to the gathering crowd, the word echoing everywhere. Ben saw them now more clearly. There were some scientists, a few folks Ben recognized from AllTec’s board of managers, and a slew of decorated army personnel. Their prized science experiment was running the show now. They were all completely obedient to her commands, and they simply walked off in their own directions. 

Heather turned to face her lover. One foot gracefully lifting off the ground, before crashing back down. The force of a single step was enough to nearly knock Ben off his own feet.

Ben stood now, far beneath her and slightly ahead of both her feet. He was in awe of her. At long last, she had done it. She has finally become a goddess, Ben thought.

“I’m not a goddess just yet,” she said, as if reading his mind. Could she? “And I’m glad you came. After all, I need you to be witness to my miracle.”

Every syllable she spoke resonated with each atom in Ben’s body. Calming. Soothing. Subduing. She had total control over his emotional state.

“I.... I still don’t understand what this is all about...” he said, stammering a little.

She stooped down, extending one massive palm. Without a word, Ben climbed on. She rose him, effortlessly, delicately, hundreds of feet in the air, bringing him close to her face. Each exhalation from her nose was a powerful gust of hot air. Her eyes, now a more radiant shade of green than ever before, fixated on her tiny subject. Her face filled the entire sky.

“There’s so much I never told you about me, Ben. Things that would be hard to understand. My whole life has been building up to this moment. And I’m so thankful you’re here to share it with me.”

“What do you mean? Did your mother put you up to this? Is this what she wanted for you, or what you want for yourself?”

“My mother?” Heather looked confused.

“Dr. Carter. I figured it out, Heather. She’s your real mother.”

Her eyes softened, and she smiled with the utmost patience and kindness. “Oh Ben. She’s not my mother at all. I mean, not in a literal sense.”

“In what-”

“She created me.”

“Uh.”

Heather chuckled, the force of which shook Ben to his core.

“She wanted to create the perfect goddess. I’m not like the other girls, little guy,” she said, flashing her characteristic irresistible smile.

“You’re... Genetically modified?” Ben thought about how easily she commanded everyone in the building to do her bidding. They weren’t just following her orders. They didn’t have a choice. He squinted, thinking of what AJ had said about AllTec’s other research divisions. “Pheromones?”

She smiled wider, her colossal tongue glistening beneath perfectly white teeth. “No one can resist me.”

“But I can! And I have!” Even now, he was capable of independent thought. She hadn’t gotten her tendrils into his mind, despite her best efforts a couple weeks ago.

“Because I wanted it that way. And I made sure you were given supplements so you could resist me.”

He shook his head. “But why?”

Her head loomed closer. Ben almost suffocated in her hot breath. “Because I love you.” She kissed him, covering his body in her slobber. But the kiss was a warm welcome home. He felt his body give, totally surrendering to her lips. “You make me so mad sometimes,” she said, kissing him repeatedly between her words, “I... I do crazy things. And I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“I love you too,” he said, tears filling his eyes. “And I forgive you.”

Tears filled her eyes now too, creating small rivers running down her cheeks. “I’m going to keep getting bigger, Ben. And my pheromones will fill the world. Do you understand now? All war, all violence, all the suffering; I’m going to end it all. And I just want-” she touched her other hand to her chest, choking up a bit, “-I just want you to see it all, with fresh eyes, and through it all, love me.”

She could do it. Ben didn’t doubt for a second that Heather had the power to remake the world into a peaceful paradise. And the cost? She would strip all of humanity of free will. They would be her mindless automatons. Little love robots. She would be the perfect goddess, possessing more power than Jason ever could, but becoming infinitely more terrifying. The loss of freedom is a price too steep.

“Heather, what if you could have me, but just me? No one else. You and I, alone, together. Just like this. But without all of...” Ben fluttered his hands in the air, pointing at nothing in particular, “...this!”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “It’s my purpose, Ben. You’re asking me to give up my purpose?”

She wasn’t mad, but her emotions were tensing slightly. Even tiny variations in her emotions seemed to distort the world around them. Ben wasn’t sure if the lights in the room were actually getting darker, or just appeared that way. The air was thickening, and Ben felt heavier, until he was brought to his knees. He almost couldn’t breathe. What power! Ben marveled.

“I’m asking you Heather...” Ben struggled, supporting his body with one hand against her godly palm, and reaching into his pocket with his other, “...if you would marry me.” He withdrew a wedding ring, waving it feebly in the air, awaiting the goddess’ judgment.