Eyes of the Storms (Chapter 2) (Patreon)

Rather than show affection for the dastardly storm, however, the officer let out a relentless jet-stream of her own cold focused air against the direction of the storm. Puffing out her chest again, she unloaded every ounce of air in her lungs to counter-act the revolving winds. Her fingers curled into the briny depths; her toes, again flared through the thrashing water, served to stop the oncoming waves before they could give way to the monstrous circle itself. By concentrating with a focused and sustained breath, Marigold noticed the hurricane’s rotation beginning to slow. The black clouds lingered in place, and the waves still responded chaotically to the crisscrossing gusts. Depleted of air, and seeing her chance with the hurricane having been marooned in place, Marigold laughed again, then widened her puckered lips as though preparing to take a luxurious bite out of an ice cream cone. Using the same tremendous force and control which had just allowed her to cancel out a traveling storm’s motion, Marigold began to suck in air, reversing her previous tactic. Stranded, the halted storm hadn’t a chance. The remnants of the hurricane and its spiraling winds were slurped straight into that yawning maw, even taking a few tumultuous waves along with them. The entirety of the second hurricane vanished into Marigold’s mouth, sealed inside when she slapped her lips closed and smiled triumphantly.

The giantess swept her bangs out of her eyes, took a deep breath, and began swishing the hurricane around between her cheeks. Though there was no discernible shape leftover from its ring-shape, the storm was still dying down, the process sped up even faster while Marigold’s tongue lashed through it. Feeling the last of it had settled, the officer swallowed, with the only memory of the hurricane being a chilly tickle on the back of her throat. Two down, one to go, though as her communicator informed her, the category-7 had since swelled into an 8, the maximum possible strength for a hurricane until Mother Nature decided to throw a harsher curveball at the planet.

Either way, Marigold was undeterred, and even fascinated at the thought of the enlarged storm, since she’d never seen one so powerful with her own eyes, though she also understood the risk had reached even graver proportions for the people still watching from the coast. The second hurricane, its spinning debris currently sliding down her gullet, had come a little closer to its target than the first had, near enough in fact that Marigold could see the lights of civilization sparkling like lightning bugs through the shroud of hurricane clouds. She batted away some of the thicker weather, then waved jovially in the direction of those provincial islands. There was no way to be certain the tiny almost-victims could spot her silhouette framed against the calming horizon, so Marigold did her best to stand up straight, waving and smiling using all her happiest energy, though still with a modicum of military professionalism. Finished, Marigold wiped her lips of flecked seawater, then consulted her device again for another directional heading. She had a mission to complete.

The final hurricane was still somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, requiring a stroll a bit longer than the last. Marigold was glad to know the thing was still so distant from land, but upon wiping away enough of the smoky storm clouds to actually spot it in act, the giantess could only imagine what would happen if this beast of a hurricane actually struck its target. Its two sister-storms, having been bested by the giantess’s fist and gullet respectively, were utterly dwarfed by the third hurricane. Marigold couldn’t help but wonder if some mistake had been made in the numbering system, and this was in fact the first category-9 or 10 storm cell in recorded human history. Even standing at a slight distance, she could feel the tug of the winds reaching up her skirt, all the way inside and gently inflating the dark folds outward. She patted them down quickly, blushing, and again felt the salty mist glazing her bare legs. Marigold’s feet, though firmly rooted to the ocean floor again, even experienced the surge of the hurricane’s power deep below the surface , attempting to budge her confident standing with spinning air bubbles forming beneath her creamy soles and water swishing between her toes.

Knowing the eyes of the world, and especially those provinces whose homes, families, and ways of life would be cleansed by the storm, were upon her, Marigold frowned in determination. She squared her jaw, planted her hands on her hips, and marched against the wind. The storm wasn’t strong enough to knock the giantess over, even wobble her stance, and in fact nothing on Earth was capable of such a feat, but this storm came closer than anything else had before, though that was a low bar to clear. Marigold approached, until she stood among the cycling gales themselves, expanded out from the size of a scale-appropriate bracelet, and now evolved into geometry more like a hula hoop the gargantuan officer could actually use, if it wasn’t made of wild murderous storm-winds.

Marigold cocked her head at the storm, admiring its raw power like it was a sculpture, while also resolving how to turn it into a quiet zephyr with her undeniable strength and overall power advantage. Making a first attempt at cleanly dispersing the storm, without a risk of accidentally breaking it off into smaller cells that could still reach the islands and deal crucial damage to the seaside villages and cityscapes, Marigold lifted her foot out of the water. While leagues of collected ocean dripped off her hovering ped, the officer raised her sole over the nearest circular pathway of the roving hurricane. Then, careful not to stomp for fear of splitting the planet’s crust and replacing a hurricane with an even-worse earthquake, she softly yet swiftly dunked her foot back into the ocean, this time with the pillar of her leg acting as a blockade.

The tactic worked for a moment, but the hurricane was too unruly, and the winds soon took a detour around Marigold’s leg. Impressed at first, the giantess turned her gaze from the seas to the sky, and smirked at her own creativity. She sincerely hoped at least someone was watching, and if not, that a satellite would be able to snapshot this upcoming act for preservation. Marigold squatted, sumo-wrestler style, as wide as her tight pencil skirt would allow and lowered both hands below the water right in the broad eye of the storm. This dampened her uniform sleeves, but it couldn’t be helped; the hurricane was too destructive and unpredictable to deal with in her ordinary methods. Looking from right to left, across the whole span of the rapidly-swelling hurricane, Marigold raised both clawed hands suddenly from the ocean, gathering up the violent storm into her arms like a fluffy pillow, and then returned to full height. Ascending fast through the blackness back to full stature, the giantess lifted the angry yet weightless bundle of winds and raging waves up and over her head. Using that trajectory, Marigold released her hold, and literally threw the hurricane into the atmosphere, where its shape was harmlessly dashed into moisture and nothingness.

Standing now in the peaceful waters at the center of the Pacific, Marigold hastily checked her communicator. Sure enough, the threat had been expunged. Relieved, and gratified to have shown off her might in such a tangible way, the officer gleefully golf-clapped, dropping her soldierly poise for just a moment, deciding nobody could begrudge her that token. Still, against her better judgment, it was impossible not to feel a small crumb of disappointment, despite Marigold’s show of world-saving prowess offering some short-lived entertainment.

Because that was almost too easy.

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THE END (for now!)