Chapter 18

General Colt had gathered his staff to look at the satellite imagery. No one really knew what Lucia Torres had done after wiping the cops out, but she had given them some precious time that they had used to get closer to readiness. Unfortunately, the news had not been so good over the last minutes.

After the still unexplained interruption, the giantess had resumed her advance, and it was clear that she was now making her way in their direction at a much faster pace and in a much straighter line. Which meant that they did not have long.

“Sherman?” he asked.

“Keane’s team is not ready yet. They are getting close, but they will need at least another hour to synthetize the composite. Then we will need to weaponize it.”

“So?” Colt inquired.

“Our only possible recommendation is thermite,” he said, straight faced.

“You don’t look convinced,” Colt said.

“I’m not,” Sherman admitted.

“So?”

“If the conventional attack fails, it’s our only available option right now. I would recommend holding off on its use until we are certain we cannot bring her down the old-fashioned way,” he said.

“You are aware of the implications of what you are saying,” Colt said, sounding grave.

“I am,” Colonel Sherman admitted. He felt like a man who was carrying a very heavy weight on his shoulders. And it was. It was the weight of the hundreds of lives he was putting on the line with his recommendation.

An aide rushed into the room just then.

“We know what Lucia Torres was doing,” he said. Colonel Sherman identified him as a Captain in Intelligence.

General Colt arched an eyebrow, waiting for the news.

The Captain touched a control and the image on the screen changed. They were now looking at a rooftop, with a much more magnified zoom. It showed the azimuthal view of a young blonde woman.

“Who is she?” General Colt asked.

“Sharon Higgins. She is Lucia Torres’ best friend. She was questioned by the police yesterday, after they arrested Lucia Torres in her apartment. She was with her,” the Captain briskly said.

“Why…?”

“Lucia Torres had a long conversation with her. She set her there after they finished. Just before she started moving straight away to our position.”

General Colt frowned. He finally gave the logical order:

“Send a team. Bring her in.”

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

Lucia realized that the fight was going to start when her usual entourage of news helicopters suddenly turned and left. There was only one possible reason for that: the military had commanded them to. She flexed her muscles, feeling adrenaline pump into her veins.

Maybe because of her conversation with Sharon or maybe only because of coincidence, she had ended up heading to the airport through the emptiest possible route, which ensured that the collateral victims stayed at a minimum. Any newfound consideration she could have felt at human life disappeared when she saw the first soldiers in the distance.

Lucia realized that they did not want her to take the fight to the airport. She still thought that she had caught them before they were completely ready, but whoever was in charge had made sure that the troops were deployed as far away from their improvised headquarters as possible, forming some sort of protection ring. As far as she knew, she was still three or four miles away from her destination, but the soldiers had chosen to make their first stance in the city, before she could get out of the maze of glass and concrete and face them in the relatively open field of the highway.

Her first contact was with the infantry. She could see the little green army men a couple dozen blocks away, deploying themselves with quite more discipline than the cops had. And it still did not feel like such a great deal. After all, as far as she was concerned, they were not that different from the police, were they? Maybe their peashooters would be a bit more powerful, but she did not think that would make the difference. If she had to believe the pilots she had questioned back at BioChem, the army had brought much more than this. So, the question was: where was the heavier stuff?

There was no point in thinking about it. Lucia was no military genius, but she understood why the brass had chosen to fight her while still in the city, despite the considerably higher risk of collateral damage. In that terrain, surrounded by buildings that still towered over her, Lucia could not resort to one of the advantages of her new stature: she did not have a panoramic view of the battlefield. Whatever the army guys were going to throw at her, she realized that they would keep it hidden until the last minute.

This, of course, was yet another proof that she was facing professionals of warfare now. Not only would their numbers be higher and their equipment more powerful, but their tactics would also be way more advanced. She scowled. And then, she decided to add a little innovation of her own. She was also more than capable to surprise them.

Lucia realized that this was the first time she ran as a giant. She had not needed to. The balls of her feet sank considerably deeper into the asphalt as she rushed towards the soldiers, making them hurry whatever it was they were preparing. The heavy bouncing of her breasts reminded her why she never ran without a tight sports bra, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

Lucia had been fast when merely walking. Breaking into a sprint brought her close to the speed of sound, carrying her to her destination in mere seconds. Lucia was a fit woman, no stranger to the gym and regular jogging. And yet, the muscles in her calves and thighs had never felt so powerful. She did not turn to inspect the wake of her rush, but if she had, she would have found an impassable cratered road and deep cracks in the façades of most buildings on both sides of it. Instead, the giant simply looked down at her toes. Professional or not, the tiny soldiers looked awestruck. It was one thing to see her approaching in the distance and another to find her looming over them.

The shooting started soon enough, even if less organized than she would have expected. Lucia smirked when she found the effects of the military rifles as laughable as those from the cops. She meant business, though, so she did not waste any time in crushing the first packed group of troopers under her right foot.

The soldiers were obviously shocked, both at the physical and psychological implications of her stomp. Different than the cops, though, they did not break. Lucia kept feeling the almost constant tapping of the firearms, now mostly on her feet, ankles and calves. A well-placed step took care of one of the most intense focuses of it. This left a group of attackers to the left of her foot. Rather than trying to use their window of opportunity to flee, they kept on shooting. She briefly admired their resilience. An instant later, she swept her foot, sending a dozen or so dark green bodies flying and crashing into the façade of a building.

Lucia had been standing over the infantry position for less than a minute, but it was already clear that the fight was a decisive win. She felt her nipples harden at the thought as her confidence skyrocketed. What if she had been too pessimistic with the outcome of the battle? What if she was stronger than she gave herself credit for? What if she prevailed, in the end?

Lucia smirked as she crouched, reaching with her right hand for a barricaded position. She felt the inconsequential impacts of the rifles in her palm before closing it, grabbing a handful of the defenders. Leveraging the movement, she reached even further into the group with her left hand, grabbing another dozen or so GIs before she stood up.

The first group, she simply tossed over her shoulder. The second, she eyed with an evil smile as she opened her hand under her face. She had a dozen or so inch-tall bodies on it, each looking as feeble and helpless as any of the people she had held so far, the only difference being the greenish camouflage fatigues and the type harmless weapon in their hands. They looked terrified. Finally.

“Next time you pick a fight, choose someone your own size,” Lucia said with derision.

She did not waste time in closing her fingers again. She enjoyed the pathetic attempts of the soldiers she was holding at fighting the titanic force of her digits as they closed into a fist, compressing them in her tightening grasp, as if they were going to be able to do anything about it. Lucia started feeling the first cracks soon after. She did not stop squeezing, going all the way until her knuckles turned white and gore started oozing through the cracks between her fingers.

The giant opened her bloody palm in mad satisfaction as she looked down at the troops, now finally looking shocked.

“You are all so going to die!” she taunted.

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

“What the hell happened?” General Colt asked, raising his voice for the first time, showing how even the coldest officer could get too upset to control his reactions.

“She rushed past our positions. She is slaughtering the infantry!” someone said.

Of course, everyone had already seen that. A well-known military saying stated that no plan survived the first contact with the enemy. This was turning out to be especially true in this case. Colonel Jacobs, his best field tactician, had designed the operation with a lot of care, making sure that they did not underestimate the capabilities of their enemy, a giant woman of still not well understood potential. Everyone had agreed that the man had done an excellent job, once the Secretary of Defense had given them the guideline to prioritize the operation’s effectiveness over the collateral damage.

The idea was simple, but the execution was not. They would cage the giant woman in, catching her in as much cross-fire as possible. The first requirement of the plan was to bring the fight somewhere the giant would not be able to see the disposition of their troops. Denying intelligence to the enemy was the first key to success. Then, they would lead her into the intended battlefield, using the infantry as bait. Once she was in position, they would hit her with everything they had: the infantry would use rockets and anti-tank weaponry from the front, tanks and artillery would show at her back and gunships would gunships would hit her from all sides. Attack planes were already airborne, circling the city at high altitude, in case they needed to be involved, which would be in the event the giant managed to make it out of Downtown and into a more open area.

No one had expected that Lucia Torres would dash past their defenses in an instant. Based on every possible observation of her behavior along the day, General Colt’s staff had assumed that the giantess would follow her usual pattern of approaching the threat at a slow and predictable pace. Instead, Miss Torres had given the word blitzkrieg a new meaning. And, with their lines broken, she was having a field day with the infantry, which had not even been able to get their heavier weaponry ready.

General Colt evaluated the situation. He knew he did not have time to waste. He had to make a decision, and he had to make it now. Every second that passed, more of his men died. He quickly glanced at Colonel Jacobs. The men did not avoid his look, but simply shook his head. He acknowledged that his plan was obsolete. And like this, the General was forced to make the last decision he wanted: to fight the woman head to head, with only as much coordination as they could achieve in real time.

“Send the gunships in. Give the men a break,” he commanded.

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

Lucia was on her hands and knees, chasing the now fleeing soldiers, crushing them lazily both under her closed fists and open palms. The vanguard that had been shooting at her had already retreated to the APCs they had likely been transported in. Their fall back was being covered by the fire of the rearguard as well as the .50 cal turrets on the vehicles. The first one easily crushed under her fist. The second, she grabbed, enjoying the refreshing sturdiness of the armored vehicle, so different from the cars she was now used to pick and dent. She was mostly being hit at her breasts, cheeks and forehead now, but she chose to ignore the barrage, since its effect was so inconsequential.

Instead, Lucia squeezed the palm-long vehicle she was holding, smiling as the reinforced metallic frame started to dent under her strength. The APC soon deformed like an empty soda can as she kept going, proving that no matter how solid they made them, it was still easy for her to overpower the real world.

The titaness was ecstatic. She could not believe that it was all so easy. She had feared the army during the entire day, but so far, they had not proven to be much more of a challenge than the police force had been.

“Is this really all you’ve got?” she asked in scorn.

She got her answer almost immediately, when her exposed back was hit multiple times. This time she could feel both the impact and the heat. And, for the first time in a very long time, she could feel the pain.

Lucia coughed all the air in her lungs out as she was unavoidably pushed forward, her hands suddenly losing the strength to hold her massive body. Her stomach and chest dropped onto the infantrymen, crushing dozens of them under her endless torso. Lucia moaned in pain as she lied, face down, feeling both rage and alertness surge within her body. There was some growing concern too.

Her back was in pain. Each of the blows had been brutal. Individually, they had probably not been so bad as the rocket the cops had shot at her earlier in the morning, but she had been hit at least half a dozen times. Lucia could feel her skin burning, the blisters forming. Then, she could feel something else, something she had not felt before. It was weird, but she could have sworn that she could also feel her skin starting to restore.

Still lying down, Lucia cursed herself for having let her guard down. She had spent an entire day waiting for the battle with the army as the definitive event in her adventure, and then she had written them off after only a few initial easy minutes. Of course they had more than just a collection of green army men with peashooters!

Lucia felt the adrenaline pumping through her veins once more as her muscles tensed and she got ready for the fight. She was pissed off at having been harmed, but she was not too concerned. Her previous experience told her that she could endure whatever it was she had been shot with. They were probably missiles, she thought.

Suddenly focused, Lucia rolled on herself, her body crashing with the building to her left as the stretch of road she had been occupying was suddenly hit by half a dozen new missiles, making it erupt in several consecutive explosions.

Lucia felt the heat as she looked up, just in time to see the silhouettes of the three dark, insect-like helicopters flying over her. They were so different from the colorful news choppers she was so used to. The noise of rotors did not cease, and a look further down the wide road showed her three more aircraft, following the first three. The loud clattering noise preceded new impacts in her body, now in her stomach and chest, as the gunships’ automatic canons fired on her. Designed to destroy armored vehicles, the shells stung her where the soldiers’ rifles had failed, feeling almost like insect bites as they hit her all over her torso.

The shadows of the choppers passed over her and, with a strength and agility she did not know that she possessed, Lucia pushed herself from a lying position to a fighting stance, much like a martial artist coming back after being knocked. She pivoted on her heel, facing the attackers, who were now moving away.

Lucia was hurt. And she was pissed. She was incredibly pissed. When her ears caught the faint cheering from the troopers she had been chasing, the giant only shot them a glance of contempt before stomping her foot on them, finishing two dozen in one go as her sole sank ten feet into the ground.

She scowled as she evaluated the situation. So, the army had brought the bigger toys. Of course, she should have imagined that they would not have limited themselves to some pathetic soldiers. Lucia felt stupid. But at the same time, she also felt relieved. They had caught her unaware and she had been hurt. But she could tell that the consequences of the attack were not that bad. She could not see the blisters, but her back already hurt a little less now than when she had been hit. It could have been much worse. And now she knew that she could not underestimate her enemy.

Lucia did not realize that she had herself to thank for the significantly limited effects of the army’s first real strike. Her rush through their lines, her showing up where no one was expecting her to, had caught the officers leading the attack off guard, so when they had finally chosen to confront her, they had not had all the options they had wanted to. Forced by her lead, they had had to resort to the faster and more mobile elements of their offensive, the Apache attack helicopters. They still packed a lot of punch, but to Lucia, each of the six Hellfire missiles that had hit her had felt weaker than the anti-tank rocket that the cops had shot at her in the morning. This was more because of her than because of the weapon itself. As a matter of fact, Apache-mounted Hellfires were considerably more powerful than the TOW missile she had been hit with. But Lucia was not the same. GC-226 had turned her into what she was now, but it had not stopped working after it.

The first three Apaches were now a dozen blocks away from her and were starting to turn for a second round. Lucia observed it and clenched her fists, reinforcing her fighting stance and getting ready for the confrontation. There was, of course, the little detail that she had no clue about how someone fought an attack helicopter, even at her height.

She decided to just hold her ground and improvise. The attackers changed tactics, now coming at her in groups of two, the first one quickly approaching within the canyon among the tall buildings.

They were about three blocks away when they released their missiles, two each. Lucia realized that she would not be able to dodge them all, so rather than trying, she simply contracted her muscles, getting ready to be hit. She was, twice. One of the anti-tank weapons hit her square in her belly button while the other hit her right under her left breast. The remaining two missiles made a mess of their own as they hit buildings behind her.

The impacts were as painful as she had expected. And then some more. Ready as she was for the hits, though, they were not enough to throw her off her feet or even to make her step back. So, Lucia just weathered them, clenching her teeth to withstand the pain. An instant later, she just charged towards the approaching gunships, hoping to catch them unawares. She did not.

The attack helicopters were both faster and nimbler than she had anticipated, and by the time she reached the position where she thought she would meet them, fists ready for the kill, the aircraft had lifted themselves hundreds of feet in the air, getting out of reach.

Lucia frowned, frustrated. She should have guessed that it would not be so easy. Still, she repeated the operation with the next incoming couple, trying to time her rush a bit better, starting towards the attackers right after being hit. It was as useless as the previous time, her foes getting out of grasp way ahead of her arrival.

Lucia was a couple of blocks further into the infantry line, having inadvertently crushed a couple dozen more soldiers as she fought the choppers. She panted heavily, the lack of effectiveness of her simple tactic against the Apaches making her both weary and frustrated. She wanted to catch them, crush them, squeeze the life out of them. But she could not. Her blood boiled with rage at the realization.

Being as furious as she was, it was almost a miracle that she had a cold enough mind to simply wait for the third round without taking any action. Lucia decided to simply observe, to analyze the attack and the evasion pattern the pilots would follow. It was hard to, being hit twice more, the collection of blisters now reaching the dozen.

Lucia turned to face her attackers as they regrouped in the distance, mad at losing her first real fight. The truth, of course, was that she was still standing, but the attack helicopters had already inflicted some damage in her while she had not been able to touch them yet. If this were a boxing match, she would be heading to a loss to the points. In real life, the best possible analogy would be death by a thousand cuts. No matter how little each of the missiles harmed her, if the gunships kept hitting her while she could do nothing to hit them back, she would eventually get hurt bad enough.

Apparently encouraged by her pathetic performance in their last round, the pilots seemed to choose the same tactic. Soon, two attack helicopters were flying towards her, ready to unleash their weapons. They were smaller than the large transports that had evacuated the eggheads from BioChem, but they were so much more agile! And of course, these one had teeth.

The memory of the previous military helicopters she had met brought some details on how she had dealt with them too. And it was then that Lucia realized how she would handle her attackers.

For all the pilots knew, Lucia was repeating her behavior from the previous round, standing their ground in some senseless attempt to prove them that she was not affected by their weapons. And hence, they behaved the same too. Two missiles left each chopper at the same exact distance she had been shot before. A couple of them hit her while the remaining two contributed to fuel the hell the ordinance the gunships were shooting had created in the neighborhood. Lucia grunted as she was hit, but never lost sight of the offenders. They broke at approximately the same time, both climbing in a steep ascend, moving to get out of her reach as they flew over her.

Lucia timed her reaction perfectly, tensing her calves as she crouched, shooting herself to the sky in a determined jump a moment later. Lucia could still not understand how she was able to muster so much strength as to push her incredibly heavy body upwards so much. But at least, she was prepared for it. No one else was, even less the Apache pilots.

Lucia’s body cleared a height equivalent to her own stature. And it kept rising. Her jump peaked by the time Lucia could see over the roof of the tallest skyscraper in the area. The two attack helicopters were at chest level by then. Despite their helmets, Lucia could have sworn she had seen their reactions of incredulity and panic through the canopy of their cockpit. Of course, she might as well have imagined them. It did not matter. What mattered was that, finally, they were within reach. The first helicopter exploded into a massive fireball as she punched through it. The second she simply grabbed in her hand, the thick skin of her palm taking care of the rotor as if it had been made of twigs.

Downtown shook with violence as she landed. The only thing that saved the buildings around her was the fact that they had been built against the strictest specs when it came to withstanding earthquakes. And still, their façades cracked, glass shattering and raining into the streets below for blocks. Lucia landed on one knee, her mood having changed from incredibly pissed to ecstatic in the course of a second.

Even the pain seemed to have receded as she stood up, trophy in hand. A quick look down her torso actually showed her that there were merely reddened areas where she had expected to find severely burnt skin. Was her back also looking like this? The truth was that it hurt less than she had thought.

The giant opened the helicopter-containing palm and smirked as she looked into the cockpit. What she found were two bodies in awkward positions, leaving no doubt about their wellbeing. She might be ready to climb hundreds of feet in the air and land back without too many issues, but apparently the tiny mites were not up to the task.

With the possibility of torturing her former tormentors gone, Lucia simply balled the chopper in her hand and tossed it to the side, adding to the already considerable damage of the building it hit.

Exhilarated at how quickly she had managed to turn the tables, Lucia looked back to the four remaining helicopters in challenge. Her erect nipples showed that her self-confidence was back to its fullest. The same could not be said of the pilots. Having seen the fate of their comrades, it was clearly that they were hesitating about what to do as they hovered, far away enough from her.

“Come, get some!” Lucia taunted as she beckoned them with her hand. Of course, it was fruitless. She was dealing with military officers, not some brawler in a bar.

She was not afraid of them. Not anymore. Their blows suddenly felt less threatening. And their aura of invincibility was gone. She still needed them to charge in order to deal with them, though.

There were some long seconds of stalemate. Lucia broke it.

“Ok! Since you don’t seem interested in sparring with me anymore, I guess I can get back to your comrades on the ground. You know, the ones that cannot hide from me like chickens!”

Unconcerned about being caught at her back, Lucia turned and resumed her previous advance. The infantrymen had barely managed to put a couple of blocks between them and her. Nothing, by her new standards.

There were rockets coming at her from the ground too, this time. In hindsight, Lucia realized that this might be what the troopers had tried to get ready before she had rushed into their position. She did not even try to evade them. After having been hit by the stuff the gunships had thrown at her, the downscaled replicas from the ground felt barely like mosquito bites as they impacted her, barely more annoying than the constant tapping of the automatic rifle fire.

They did not even slow Lucia down. So, she was upon the retreating soldiers in no time, finishing the first score of them under her foot with insulting ease.

“Your commanders must really hate you,” Lucia boomed from above as she crushed another group of soldiers. “They have at least given your friends some toys so that they can try and annoy me. But you? They pitch hundreds of you against me and all they give you are peashooters and some firecrackers? It feels almost insulting!”

Lucia was all business now, so within less than a minute, over a hundred soldiers had ended under her soles. At this rate, she would finish the remainders of the army a quarter of an hour.

She was interrupted, once again, by an attack at her unguarded back. She immediately realized that the sharp pain at her kidney had not been caused by one of the missiles from the helicopters. The feeling was different. There was no heat, no burn. But the sting was quite worse. Lucia grunted and turned to face her new attackers. She frowned when she saw the tank-like vehicles aiming the long barrels of their canons a dozen blocks down the road.

They four canons flashed an instant before she was hit again thrice, bringing the stings to her tummy instead of her back. The fourth shot inexplicably missed, taking four stories of a building to Lucia’s left in the process. Lucia groaned once more, beginning to think that the pain from these new weapons was worse than the one she had endured from the gunships. She was somewhat relieved when a quick look down her stomach showed her that the effects of the former missile attack were visibly diminishing and that the consequences of the new impacts were not that much worse. There was no blood to be found, letting her know that the damage was only superficial.

Lucia scowled, tensing for the fight with this new enemy as she tried to understand how it made it behind her. She was less concerned than in the case of the gunships, in any case. After all, the tanks might pack a heavy punch, but they could not fly.

She clenched her fists as she stomped her way down the road, heading towards her new attackers as she withheld another salvo, this time the four shells meeting their target, which was no other than her torso. Lucia simply snorted and kept going. She smirked when she saw the crews of the four armored vehicles abandoning them. As if this was going to save them! At most, it would make her job easier!

Feeling safe once more, Lucia got ready for retribution as she took the last step into the intersection where the four now empty vehicles awaited. She would crush them first and chase their craven crews later. Her foot was halfway to its first target when hell was unleashed on her.

Lucia was hit from every possible angle, missiles, tank shells and rockets hitting every inch of her body from both sides of the intersection. She only got side glances at the myriad of tank-like vehicles stationed on the two sides of the road, as well as the hovering shapes of the gunships that had failed to hurt her seriously before.

For the first time since her growth, the pain became almost unbearable. Caught as she was in the middle of a stomp, the giant could do nothing to keep her balance, and started falling backwards as her colossal body kept being hit from every angle. Unknown to her, this was what saved her. With most of her body now outside of the line of fire, the military could not hit her anymore. This gave her the precious seconds she needed to understand the situation and react. She cursed herself when the only possible course of action she came to was to roll on herself and fall back crawling, hiding behind the building at the next intersection, sitting in a desperate effort to catch her breath.

The high-rise across the street featured the common mirrored surface of many skyscrapers. That’s how Lucia could see with her own eyes that she looked like shit. She was panting as she observed her reflection. She looked like someone that had taken a big beating at a bar fight. She could even see some blood trickling of some of her wounds, even if the stream seemed to be dying. Lucia was hurt. It was obvious on the physical side. But the pain reached even deeper inside, into her ego.

Was this finally it? Was this finally the moment when she got more than she could withstand? She had always known that she would not be able to keep her promise to Sharon, but she had hoped that at least she would be able to make her finale as grandiose as it got. Had she done that?

A minute passed. Then five. Lucia started regaining her stamina. Her attackers were nowhere to be seen. And then it occurred to her. She had been caught in a massive crossfire. She could now see how she had been lured into it. This had not been a mere attack. This had been the army’s big push, their plan to bring her down. And she was still alive.

She was not only alive, but also not that badly hurt as it had initially felt. There were no broken bones, no deep wounds. The bleeding had all but stopped and some of the swelling seemed to be receding. Lucia knew she did not want to go through the experience again, but she had already done once, and survived.

And then, she understood that the army guys had never expected she would. They had no plans beyond that. Which was the reason they were not coming for the kill. She was very much alive, and they were very much afraid of her. And now she was going to give them good reason why.

Adrenaline flooded Lucia’s bloodstream as she clenched her fists and stood up.

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

Captain Wilkins could not believe that the giant woman was still alive. He had never seen such a concentrated amount of firepower in his career, and he was a veteran of three wars. And yet, the reports from the headquarters were unequivocal. The woman had been hurt but had managed to crawl out of the way. She was close and apparently hurt, but still breathing.

His exchange with command was frustrating. It soon became clear that they had no clue about what to do. Breaking the set up at the intersection to chase her would be ineffective, since it would expose each of the units to her while not managing to mass the firepower they had when together. But of course, staying in place would not do too much good either.

He did not share the General’s final decision, even if he understood his motives. After the lack of success of the first attempt, he had written them off as an effective unit to fight the giant, so he was ordering them to stay in place while command devised another attack plan. His instructions were to keep his men ready to fight into the intersection, as well as to keep his rearguard covered in case the woman tried to flank them through the adjacent streets. While they had not been able to bring her down, both Command and he agreed that she would not keenly took a similar beating again. So, as long as they remained ready to shoot, they should be safe from retribution.

Or so they thought.

Captain Wilkins barely had a second to realize about their mistake when the building behind him exploded spectacularly and was replaced by the titanic form of Lucia Torres, the woman that had become the city’s nightmare, and also his.

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

Lucia’s heart was pounding in trepidation as she charged through a city block and finally emerged in the middle of the detachment that had beaten her down. They were not ready for her. Of course, who could have been?

Lucia felt the building she had just gone through collapse as she quickly examined her surroundings. The first ones to go would be the two attack choppers hovering not far from where she was, of course. They were still the more mobile enemy and she wanted to deal with them before they had the chance to react. Her fist went through one of them as her other hand backhanded its comrade, sending it spiraling into yet another doomed skyscraper.

By the time she was done with them, the men at her feet had not yet managed to react. They did shortly after, the now familiar tapping of their rifle’s bullets showing up at her feet and calves.

There were about a dozen of the tank-like vehicles, even if their canons looked longer than those of tanks and their turrets were bulkier. Behind them, she could see what appeared to be large trucks holding missile launchers on their backs. The tanks looked certainly sturdier than the trucks. A quick stomp of her right foot revealed that they were not sturdy enough. True, the vehicle’s shape could still be distinguished at the bottom of her footprint when she removed her sole from it, but it was as two-dimensional as everything she had crushed so far.

Two more tanks quickly followed its fate, and then three more ended up embedding into the building at the back as she kicked them in quick succession. The remaining vehicles started moving right then, but it was already too late. To Lucia, they looked like model toys moving around without too much sense.

She crouched down to pick a missile truck in each hand, standing back up to keep her stomping fest on the tanks. The soldiers on the opposite side of the intersection reacted right then. It was surprising how they could miss so many of their shots, less than half of them actually hitting her.

Of course, Lucia was not going to get slowed down by half a dozen distant hits when she had withstood a so much worse barrage merely minutes before. She smirked as she turned towards the foes in the distance and tossed the missile trucks at them. They hit with their matches, engulfing the area in the most massive explosion she had ever seen. The buildings to both sides of the street never had a chance as the shockwave and heat from dozens of mid-range missiles exploding at the same time weakened their structures enough to bring them down in an instant. A few seconds later, all that remained of the left side of the attacking force was a rising cloud of dust.

Things were not so much better for the army boys on her side of the detachment, of course. Feeling like she had more time, Lucia got down on her hands and knees, finishing the tanks with precise punches on their turrets. Missile trucks she simply grabbed and tossed, adding to the fireworks. Inch-tall soldiers screamed, running around in flames as Lucia kept dealing with their peskier comrades in the tanks. When only one of the armored vehicles was left, the giantess simply grabbed it into a massive hand, raising it to her face like a trophy.

The pain was all but gone, replaced by pure thrill, as Lucia held the final proof of her victory. The army had intended this to be their glorious stand. Lucia squeezed her hand, feeling her fingers dent the thick armor with ease, proving herself and the world that she had won.

A minute later, Lucia Torres was walking down the main road again, heading for the airport. Unnoticed to her, the bruises and swelling covering her body were quickly receding. She had not been feeling the pain for a while, now. Her mind was too focused on something else. For the first time in the entire day, she felt like victory might be at hand. Much like she had anticipated, the army had put on a brutal fight. What Lucia had not realized before was just how tough she had become. Maybe, just maybe, she was tough enough to prevail. The sooner she got to the army’s headquarters at the airport, the sooner she would find out.

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

The improvised staff room became as silent as a funeral as the officers on it witnessed how the giant Lucia Torres obliterated their forces with vice. Based on what they had learned from the scientists at BioChem, they had always known that the giant woman would be tough. This was the reason they had worked on all the contingencies. But still, everyone had secretly hoped that their standard methods would end up doing the trick. After all, they have put together enough firepower to take over a small country.

General Colt broke the silence:

“Sherman?”

The Colonel looked up, shaking his head.

“Keane will need almost an hour to be ready,” he said in a concerned tone.

“Let’s burn her, then.”

Colonel Sherman nodded, even if he still had reservations about the plan. Of course, he had no clue about the science involved in turning a secretary into a deadly giant woman, but somehow the redhead had sounded more convincing than the stuck-up career man that had given them the advice that they were about to follow.

*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*

Would they have more troops, back at the airport? Lucia guessed they would. She doubted they could have much more firepower than the one they had already unleashed. She tried to remove that last thought from her mind. The last thing she wanted was to be caught off guard again. She had to get ready for the worst.

She could not prevent letting her mind wander a bit, though. After what she had been through, she deserved as much. Lucia knew that winning this next fight would be far from meaning that she had won in the long run. The army would keep coming. They would keep trying stuff. They would keep fighting her with all they had. The last thing they would allow would be to have someone like her calling the shots.

But if she could win the fight at the airport, she might be able to get them off her back for a day. Maybe even two. And she was drooling only to think just how much stuff she could accomplish in that time. Kingston had already felt her presence, but if she was given more time she would make sure her impact in the world was deeper. She would grow her myth.

The thought gave Lucia a renewed resolve and unconsciously made her force her pace a little. She slowed down when the first army units started showing up in the distance, still within the confines of the city. So, they had a second protection ring. Lucia took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. Of course, it was never going to be that easy.

She did not know just how true this last thought was until a whistling sound made her look up. She could see several wakes in the sky, which she quickly recognized as those of jets. Lucia barely had time to brace before the missiles they had shot at her hit.

Lucia expected heat and piercing pain, similar to the effect of the missiles the Apaches had shot at her. She got none of the latter, but way more than she could have bargained for of the former. Lucia thought she had felt pain before. She had not known what pain was. She was in utter agony now.

It felt as if every fiber of her body was on fire, her skin peeling off in lumps as the muscle below threatened with melting. She was in too much agony to think, so all she managed to piece together was that she had been hit with some type of incendiary stuff… napalm, phosphorus or whatever the fuck it was.

So, the army had finally found the way to get rid of her. She had known it would come. She would have never imagined that it would be being burned alive. It was the most painful and shameful way of dying she could imagine.

The fire kept crawling into her body, now reaching her bones, charring them in intense heat, threatening to crack them as the rest of her being burned. She tried to scream, but her lungs were not able to produce any sound anymore. Her limbs stopped responding, her eyes went dark and Lucia knew that her death was imminent.

And then, as quickly as the agony had invaded her, it went away. It did not only vanish, but instead it was replaced with something else. Lucia could not believe it when she was suddenly engulfed into a bliss that felt close to an orgasm. Was she dead already and were these her first moments in the afterlife? If so, she could certainly endure eternity in such a state of pleasure.

She risked opening her eyes a second later, almost expecting to be surrounded by light. Instead, she was surrounded by a city. A miniature city that was shocked at the new amazing events it was witnessing. It took Lucia a couple of seconds to notice herself. She was so focused on the rapidly healing wounds, on the unexplainable sight of her body knitting the skin that had been torn together, that she had not realized about what triggered the whole process.

Then, as the windows in the building in front of her moved down as if she were standing on an exterior elevator, Lucia understood what was happening. Her body was not only healing. It was also growing.

Of course, she would never understand the details about just how interrelated both effects were. The damage the thermite had caused in her body had been so massive that the only way out GC-226 had found to heal her had been to make her grow once more. There had been a lot of damage. And she was growing a lot.

The skyscraper standing beside Lucia had been one of the tallest in the city, and the giant’s head was already reaching all the way up to its last quarter. And apparently, there were no signs suggesting that the stretching was going to stop any time soon.

Lucia did not know what to make of the news. Her first reaction was of relief at being alive. But, of course, there was much more to what had happened to her than just survival.

A quick look down at the road showed Lucia that her feet were expanding at the same rate as her body, bulldozing stuff around them as her toes headed towards the building across the street. Her forehead soon reached the roofline of the skyscraper beside her. Her expansion went on, so it did not take her long to peek over it.

Lucia looked down at her torso to see that the last of the wounds were practically closed. Her skin was as flawless as ever, her body as gorgeous as it had ever been. With the need for healing now gone, the expansion finally stopped. By the time it did, the roof of the skyscraper she had been growing next could barely make it under her massive breasts. Lucia’s jaw dropped when she vaguely remembered that the building in question was supposed to be some thousand feet tall.

Lucia had known she had been big before. She now realized just how much of an understatement that had been. She only had to take a quick look around to check what she had already known: she was taller than anything in Kingston. There was no structure that could even hope to rival with her.

Lucia had felt some frustration when getting into Downtown, when the first buildings started towering over her. She now knew that she would not be faced with that feeling again. Not at this size.

Of course, this was only one of the most minor consequences of her new growth. She realized that there would be pros and cons but stopped that train of thought when she understood that she owed her life to this new growth spurt. What was the point debating the advantages and disadvantages of the process that had saved her life? And not only that; it had also given her the ultimate power.

Lucia smiled when she started to comprehend the real implications of what had happened to her. It was not only that she was much bigger. It was not only that she was orders of magnitude more powerful. She guessed that any of the attacks that had made her suffer so much in her fight with the army would now barley feel like an itch. And still, these were not the best news. The real meaning of what had happened to her reached much further. Because now she knew that if anyone ever managed to put an attack together that could seriously hurt her, the only thing they would get would be to make her grow once more.

And like that, Lucia realized she had won. She was indestructible. Immortal. A goddess!

From her new height, the city spread around Lucia like a map. Any advantage the army might have sought by bringing the fight between the buildings was now gone, her godly gaze revealing every detail of their disposition. She was surprised at how many of them were left, protecting the way to the airport in three different rings. Ten minutes before she might have felt some dismay at the sight. She now welcomed it.

“So, tell me guys. How should I thank you for having made me all powerful?” Lucia’s voice boomed, heard in every corner of the city.

Without further warning, her right foot raised, setting two blocks further, causing a magnitude 5 earthquake as it landed. Her hips brought down the buildings at both sides of the street as she started her slow stroll, the road now too narrow for her to walk along. Two more buildings collapsed even before she got to them, the shakes and the heavy damage her presence had caused in the area’s structural integrity taking their toll. Lucia’s first four steps at her new stature killed thousands. She could not have cared less.