Chapter 3: Town
“Bunch of fucking gawkers” Aoi thought as she crouched over the edge of the town, toes digging into the asphalt of the road. Her long tail was resting around a small house to her side. It curled into the back of a neighboring home’s yard. She didn’t know quite what to do with the tail yet, so she just kind of kept it still as possible whenever she moved. Soon as the bastards thought she wasn’t gonna eat them, they came out and pointed their phones up at her.
It could’ve been worse. The townsfolk could’ve not shown up at all, or showed up with guns or tanks or something. She probably didn’t look too friendly at a glance. She crouched at the beginning of the outermost street, covering her newly minted blue-green genitalia with two hands, and shielding her exposed deep viridian nips with a back tentacle crossed and clutched tight to her bosom. She had to admit those new limbs were handy a little here.
It was a tad humiliating to be stared at like an animal. Still, better to have their attention than not. Aoi sighed and opened her mouth to tell them, in the quietest voice possible, that her name was Aoi and she needed some help.
“Myug Nyh itg Aoi cuanyc ygu hulpurp mek”
Her sentence was punctuated with a glob of saliva that launched from her mouth down to a well dressed older woman in a floral french dress. She was not pleased to be covered in what she called “monster spit”, but the other members of the crowd got a laugh out of it.
Aoi realized she didn’t try to talk since she woke up. She just assumed she had functioning vocal chords and a non-spastic tongue. Her body had everything else going on: along with tentacles. You think she’d have talking down pat at least. Apparently not, and her ‘voice’ was a mucousy, muddy mess.
“Aoi myuh nyh itg Aoi. Aoi Aoi Aoi” she said again, managing to spray her saliva a bit less, though she was sure some of the crowd got drizzled.
“Hey, I think she said her name is Aoi!” said some young guy in a t-shirt.
Aoi smiled. ‘Finally, a genius in the crowd’ she thought. She chuckled at the thought and some people startled again. It was Another inhumane sound to their ears.
That guy talked aloud as he typed on his smart phone. “She said her name is Aoi... send.” and he must’ve uploaded something somewhere. They were all filming or streaming or snapping photos of her. She had to admit those flashes were bugging her more than she liked. These eyes were new after all.
She felt something shift in her throat. Her body must’ve been responding to her desire to talk? She hoped it was. It felt... odd. The flesh by her esophagus was moving and shifting around and squelching. It sounded like a purr: a froggy purr, but a purr nonetheless. It felt ticklish, and Aoi started rotating her neck to try to ease the construction or molding or whatever the fuck was going on in there.
“Hey, she’s purring!” some rubberneck shouted.
“Yeah like a cat” said another.
Aoi wondered what kind of cats these people owned...
“She must be happy or something. She likes us!”
Aoi rolled her eyes. Apparently this town was filled with morons. Did they not realize she was a woman having some--admittedly major—issues? Did no one recognize her getting off the train last night? She didn’t look that different. The giant could tell from the way she was being ogled by a few below that she was still human enough to ‘appeal’ at least.
More gawking.
“Hey are those tentacles on your head. Can you wave them?” said one woman, college aged like Aoi was.
She gave one a wiggle. The mob smiled and cheered like she was a puppy who stuck out her paw. Aoi regretted it instantly.
“What’s her skin feel like do you think?” said one chap to another.
“I dare you to touch it.”
“Looks smooth.”
“Do you think she can lash her tongue like a frog? Her color is kind of similar. You know, like one of those bright jungle ones.”
Aoi was getting angry again. The municipal gendarmerie appeared in the distance, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
How foolish of Aoi, to get her hopes up like that.
The three squad cars started wailing their sirens and honking their horns to get the crowd to move back and shut up, though not before some dingus yelled out “we love you Aoi!”. The officers rolled up a good 5 meters from where those toes of hers were before stepping out of their vehicles. One of them, a uniformed female with brown hair, held a megaphone in her hand.
Before Lieutenant Belda said anything, they all assessed the situation.
The vids and streams floating around were real all right. This ‘creature’ was shaped just like a slight fit human. A big, naked greenish bluish one--but very human. There were some differences though. The size was the biggest one. Arm-chair scientists on messages boards figured she stood a good 50ft (15m) tall as she was now.
Those tentacles, the other major difference, made the lieutenant nervous. ‘Hair’ ones didn’t look like they could do much, but the ones on Aoi’s back were at least as long as the kaiju-woman’s arms. Each tentacle, head or back, was smooth. No suckers like an octopus or squid.
In any case the she-monster just seemed to be waiting there, straddling over them. Aoi didn’t really seem to make a move for them, though there was a disconcerting noise from her throat. An omnipresent slimy rumble. Her stomach grumbled as well.
Aoi was worried about getting the officer nervous. Unable to stop the noises her body made, she looked down and forced a smile.
Belda held up her megaphone to her lips.
“Stay still Miss... uh, Aoi. We called Paris and they said they have some specialists on the way.”
The officer also forced a smile.
Wouldn’t that be lucky, first monster earth ever gets is friendly? The lieutenant didn’t buy that and nodded to her squad to ready their weapons just in case. There was something behind those eyes. Something intelligent. This creature was thinking... maybe about attacking them from the way she flashed those white teeth of hers.
Aoi was thinking alright. She was getting nervous again. The young woman was something of a movie buff: her and Yoshimi both, actually. She’s seen enough monster movies to know what specialists from the government liked to do to a being like her. A being they might call a “kaiju”
Visions of being tranquilized and sliced open assailed her mind. Her throat still felt all crummy and slimy as her body kept on trying to form a larynx or an equivalent.
The stressful thoughts kept coming.
“They’re gonna terminate you. No one wants a giant monster walking around!”
“They’re not gonna help you. How could they?”
She was still starving. Her senses were wracked with all these flashing sirens. The yokels started taking flash photos of her again. Her black and green eyes twitched.
She could smell the people glaring up at her. They smelled pretty good actually. Appetizing. There was a hunger in her eyes. Belda saw it and nodded at the officers to set hands on their weapons.
Aoi began to salivate staring at all the doll-sized people below. She gulped it down and the swallowed sounded all alien-like. A throaty fleshy gulp. It made Belda more nervous. Aoi instinctively covered her mouth with her left hand. Her body finished what it was making in by her throat and it sounded like a roar when it lurched into place.
Belda and the others jumped. They pointed tasers and a few pistols at her now. The lieutenant yelled in the megaphone.
“No sudden movements alright. Don’t move. Do not move.” she said. “Stay put. Stay put.”, over and over not as if Aoi couldn’t hear, but as if she was dumb. As if she was a beast and not a person.
Aoi was done with this.
“No!” she shouted. Her new voice box at work.
“No I won’t.”
She didn’t want to sit tight. She didn’t want to be dissected or sampled. The crowd erupted in ooh’s and aah’s as it became known she could speak. The situation was evolving.
The kaiju-woman loomed forward. Her nostrils flared just a tad. It was enough to spook the lieutenant, who started taking a few steps back.
Aoi smirked and reached out to pinch up the officer woman. The other gendarmes didn’t like that, but they held their fire till they heard an order from the lieutenant.
Instead, Officer Belda screamed in the monster-gal’s grip. It was warm; the skin springy. Everyone watched in suspense as she traveled up to the viridian woman’s face.
A few more pictures were taken. Streams kept running. Audiences were optimistic she was just exploring things still: like holding a doll.
Aoi was not immature, however. She knew what she was doing. She couldn’t believe it though, but there was a wordless voice nagging at the back of her head. Coming from that deep primal part of her brain. It was that same piece giving her the urge to sleep when she was slime, and the urge to drink when she woke up.
It said, in its own way: “feed”
Aoi opened wide and stuffed the woman inside: well, half of her anyways. She was a bit big to fit all the way in. Belda broke against cerulean spit. It was thick and cloying and different from before. It stuck Belda’s arms to her side so she couldn’t even squirm. Aoi didn’t have to think about making this fluid, it just kind of happened. A dark green tongue curled around the lieutenant, grinding her flesh with its nubs. Human-like teeth gnawed at the prey’s joints.
The only thing Aoi believed less than what she was doing, was how good it felt to do it. She hated to admit it, but this woman tasted delicious.
No orders needed now; the cops started firing. Aoi let out a throaty screech. The bullets stung, but she flexed her flesh to pop their little pellets out. Displeased, she pulled out Belda for a second.
The officer shuddered, her mouth sealed shut by the saliva coating her. The lieutenant looked like a lollipop just suckled and was indeed in a similar state of affairs.
Aoi felt something building in her esophagus. It was almost a reflex when she lurched her throat and horked out some bright green slime. It came from deep in her body. Some alien organ perhaps? A direct hit towards three of the combatants and they wailed as their flesh started to singe and dissolve in the constricting glob.
The crowd dispersed in horror. The other officers followed suit. They left their cars behind. The splash back from whatever slime she just spewed had melted through the hoods of the vehicles anyway.
Aoi, in a hungry fervor, chuckled before stuffing Belda back in her maw.
One curious guy with nothing to lose hid behind the side of a nearby building. He filmed the sickening sight. Like a bird with a sardine, Aoi tilted her head back and swallowed. Gulp by gulp, Belda went down the Kaiju’s throat as a writhing, wiggling bulge.
Once she felt the new entry into her gut, Aoi broke into a crouching sprint at the crowd. She wasn’t gonna let all those meals get away. She was a person. She deserved respect. But, she was also starving, and seeing that mob of delicious smelling people run away awoke some more bestial part of her.
She knew this was an undignified way of locomotion by human standards, but she didn’t abide by them. They thought her an animal. A dumb brute. But, when Aoi looked at them she saw prey. Creatures unable to evolve like she could. That’s what she was doing in that crater: evolving.
They were the real inferior here.
The tentacles on her back splayed out to the sides of the street. They clipped the small habitats there. She wasn’t trying to grab anyone inside, but the feeling of wood and plaster breaking against her rubbery skin felt good. When she reached that mob from earlier there was a smile on her face.
It faded as she shouted “Stop moving!”
Few obeyed; didn’t matter. She thudded her butt on the street and curled her naked legs around as many as she could. Her soles slammed together with a few of the townspeople between. They couldn’t fit in between her legs, so they’d be a tactual treat instead of a culinary one. The mess they left didn’t mar her skin. She produced that imperceptibly thin coating over her exterior that precluded any sort of staining or mess.
Aoi grinned wide.
That silent-voice returned again. It sent another message; another set of urges. ‘Feed’. ‘Evolve’
The crowd was trapped and afraid. Penned in by her legs and feet on one side and her crotch on the other, they huddled. Any pretense of a friendly ‘monster’ was shattered now: for both parties. She snatched up a victim, one per hand and two in those back tentacles of hers: one per each of those.
A young man in his 20s was stuffed in and gulped down in a smooth motion. Aoi was too hungry to mess around. She couldn’t help herself, nor did she want to anymore. She was a clean eater, but loud. Every gulp and undulation of her throat roared to those outside. Those stuck huddled by her naked snatch heard screams from the taut tummy just above. The cries were muffled by flesh and loud gurgles, but they were clear enough to stoke that fear through the small crowd.
She swallowed another, then another. It just felt so good. Those struggles and squirms... Her body rewarded her for indulging in this power. She curled some of her hair tentacles like one would their toes. It was a good way to deal with the energy flowing through her.
There was just one left in her grasp now. She slipped the tentacle holding the morsel into her mouth. Aoi slurped him right in and gulped.
Down he went. The sounds of her body getting louder and more disturbing. The noises from those within her form growing the same. The throat was tight to the point it snapped his elbows. He was covered in whatever slime lathered the thing. He screamed, begged. Like the others, he didn’t want to be food. Like the others, he was.
The insides were human-enough till he got to the gut. Aoi’s new body seemed human-based thus far, but the insides were a bit different. The stomach walls were dark green flesh just like her throat and mouth, but the fluids were something else. They were thick and glowing a bright turquoise. Immediately he felt their sting.
He could see thanks to the glow of her digestive slime. He wished he couldn’t. That officer was in here, a puddle of flesh now. The others were still alive. He landed right atop them. The place was packed. There was no room to move and in a fit of agony he kicked at the older man beneath him in that pile. His shoe ripped some of the poor chap’s skin right off.
That’s when he put his hands against his own flesh. It felt like soap. He was a pharmacist, he knew this wasn’t acid in here. It was some sort of basic solution. An alkaline digestive system... He figured this monster woman had to be an alien or something. No creature he knew of on earth was like this.
He rushed to the walls and pounded on them as the fluids dripped down. Those same walls bounced him right back into that throng of humanity within.
Aoi had given her stomach a nudge. The humans were feisty in there. She was felt good: full for now. There was a drawback with that: she didn’t want to just leave the other members of the crowd alive down here.
The kaiju-woman remembered that officer’s words about “specialists” on the way. People perhaps competent enough to hurt her? Not much time to play then. The penned cattle beneath her started begging and pleading and appealing to some sort of sense of empathy. Why would she have empathy for them? They treated her like a beast. Like a monster. How stupid they were.
Aoi brought her legs together and flattened them beneath the supple flesh of her thighs. She shivered. Seems her new body kept its sensitive spots. She was always a sensitive gal.
The blue-green monster stood back to her full height and walked along the street now. Something was going on in her stomach. She wasn’t just getting full from her prey as they melted down: she was getting something else. She knew what it was, intrinsically and academically: DNA. Aoi’s stomach was digesting the very genetic data of her meals. Just like with that bee.
“Is that how I evolve?”, she wondered.
It had to be true. What she felt couldn’t be described any other way, but something was missing. She detected something else in this town: something she wanted. Radiation. It was the missing ingredient to this new goal of hers. She knew it, but hadn’t figured out why...
Aoi didn’t know too much about radioactive materials, but her girlfriend did, and there was many of memory of a geeking-out Yoshimi during meals together, talking about how so and so rock was radioactive and such and such plant was just built in Paris.
There was a very small nuclear plant in this town. A “mini-plant” as it was called. She could see it just in the distance: a square little building roughly the size of a small farmhouse. It had a couple transformers and other junk attached to it. Since it was by a small stream, its advanced design left no need for a cooling tower of any kind.
Bare feet flattened house after house. Aoi found bliss in her new might. The home of this town were brittle and cheap, though they did feel nice exploding under step. Several were occupied as a little bonus. Not everyone joined the crowd of gawkers from before, after all.
The ground thumped with her every step. The town was about half wrecked thus far, as the kaiju-woman took ‘slight’ detours when the ground beneath her looked particularly fun to smash. Swishes of her tail increased the range of damage and scattered the debris in the air. Aoi finally figured a use for the thing other than balance. In the corner of her eye, she saw her tail movement sent a telephone pole through a man’s chest. That got a giggle out of her.
By the time she reached the plant, the morsels she swallowed had completely dissolved. It only took a few minutes, though she was active at the moment so it’d make sense her stomach would responded in turn.
They weren’t turned to fluid and whisked off by her body: the stomach was the end point of her digestive system. They were made into the very building blocks of her flesh. Soft, slimy clumps of ‘Aoi’ cells. It looked much like a bluish meringue in there. The walls of her gut absorbed them. Her fluids broke prey down on the genetic level to harvest their genetic codes, but the raw mass itself she mostly made into more height. Half-a-dozen more feet: nothing much, but something.
The mini-plant was disguised to look like something it wasn’t, but beneath the colorful aesthetically-pleasing paint-jobs were slabs of lead shielding to keep any radiation in: the exact opposite of what she wanted. She punched and teared at the plant’s roof to get at the reactor core inside.
The power source was small: a concrete egg really. It easily fit in the palm of Aoi’s hand. She yanked it out of the fluid it sat in. She was a snake invading a nest, and like a snake she gulped down that ‘egg’ effortlessly. A small mercy with eating it whole was that there’d be no radioactive fallout for the citizens of this town.
They had other problems. When Aoi leaned back up, her foot slammed down on the few battery arrays by her toes. They sparked out under-tread, leaving not a scratch. With no reserves and no more power plant, the town entered a blackout.
The reactor core plopped down into Aoi’s stomach. The concrete shell fizzled away under her strong alkaline fluids. Any other creature on this pathetic planet would be dead if they let a fission reaction go off in their gut. Aoi, however, was special. Her body mixed in some cooling liquid in with the digestive enzymes. This kept the rate of fission on a slow but safe path towards termination. All the while, her flesh drank in the radioactive and thermal energy.
There was that urge again, deep within. ‘Evolve’
Aoi remembered her biology classes. Adaption through evolution is trial and error with a bit of guidance. It also needs fuel. Genetic data was her fuel with one exception: radioactive materials. These were catalysts. The humans she absorbed each had roughly one set of DNA throughout their entire body. Almost every cell shared the same code. The novelty was limited. Compared to any other human, they shared more than 99% of that genetic information.
In short, she’d learn very little new things just eating all of humanity.
With radioactive materials, however, she could induce mutations. Undesirable in most life on earth Aoi, again, saw better. Her body was equipped for this purpose. Simplifying things, there was only one design of DNA per person, yet trillions of cells each with a copy.
Aoi’s body pumped that radioactive energy into some of the genetic goop she saved from her meals, and she began to discern possible improvements to her body. Among some more subtle things, she sussed out a way to better convert organic matter into her own.
Naturally, Aoi grew. Such a simple optimization, hiding behind billions and billions of lines genetic data. Who could have thought?
Aoi reached double her height, then triple. She needed more mass. She started flicking or kicking off the roofs of houses and dined on the morsels within. She ate the trees in their yard and even their house plants. Any organic matter would suffice.
There was a brief moment where she paused again, wondering if she was really the monster people were making her out to be. She looked down in her palm and saw a mangled up woman looking up with some potted flowers to her side. Aoi must’ve eaten a dozen handfuls like this by now.
But, this felt good. Her hand slammed against her open mouth and she savored that clump, guilt free. Aoi felt like she had a bigger purpose now than just being one of millions of college students in the world: or really any of the billions of normal people. She would be something greater!
Aoi swallowed, sending the latest prize down to her increasingly packed stomach.
The young woman felt way better about everything now save for one thing: Yoshimi. Her feelings were mixed. She was abandoned by her girlfriend. Yoshimi didn’t send help, she must’ve not even told anyone given what went on here. There was definitely anger; she wanted to find Yoshimi. A part of her in order to rip the coward to shreds! There was another part, though, that wanted to just make sure her love was safe.
In just a few short minutes, Aoi had gorged herself up to 8x in height at a smooth 200ft tall (60m). Her peds took up the almost all the width of streets she used to scamper across. She left feet-shaped divots in the town as she moved on. Her goal now was the highways in the distance. They led to some suburbs she saw on the train ride over.