Coming Up Short (Chapter 9) (Patreon)

Nerea cheekily observed her smoking handiwork thirty miles below. She had already laid waste to multiple entire cities, declared herself queen of the world, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Then again, it wasn’t difficult to get things done quickly when she had the gumption for it, plus four-mile-long feet which could cover any and all major metropolitan areas beneath her wrinkled soles. Where once she’d been the failed cheerleader and the object of derision from her taller classmates, now, Nerea was truly finding herself. Her confidence was blooming like never before.

And all it took to achieve that confidence was an innocuous sample of her friend Marcus’s little mad science project growing her into a world-breaking leviathan of a woman. Still, better late than never.

The young woman shrugged as she let her favorite jet-black flip-flops dangle by the thong from her fingertips. As she idly nibbled her thumbnail bed, Nerea coyly nudged her big toe into the wrecked remains of her latest city conquest. Gray, pulpy rubble of the helpless place was scooped up on the shiny curvature of her big toe like butter. She could almost feel infinitesimal human bodies becoming lodged in the grooves between the spirals of her toeprint, smeared across her skin like lotion made from the human race. It was an admittedly satisfying thought, even if she didn’t have any personal grievances with the thousands she’d squelched, and even if she could no longer perceive people as anything more than microbial specks. Hers wasn’t a march of vengeance, but merely one of logic; as a being thousands of times the size of her subjects, she had the right and the duty to subjugate them.

If she felt anything other than elation and contentment in this moment, Nerea was a little worried. Not for the wellbeing of the world below, of course, but for the very-real threat of becoming bored.

What was one to do, really, when they owned a whole planet as well as the insignificant lives of the insects which roamed between her toes below? Tedium was likely to set in. After all, Nerea could very well rapidly plow through the remaining cities of the world without even a whiff of opposition, and probably destroy most of the towns within a few days with a simple grazing of her burly toes or a sporting smack of her sole. However, it would be foolish to use up all her reserves of toy cities too quickly. She’d have to pace herself, if she was going to avoid boredom in this newfound state.

Over the next hour, she took her time in tracing her toes into fresh, untouched cities just waiting to be blessed by the deadly feet of the brunette beauty. Arching her sole, Nerea would carefully use one single toe, either her pinky or her meaty big toe, to draw circles through the silvery checkboards of the urban sectors. It felt much like luxuriously etching shapes into soft beach sand, and like that particularly enjoyable vacation pleasure, Nerea ensured to squeeze the remains through the crevices of her toes after a successful introduction to the town, courtesy of her bulldozing digits. Her sole creases became clogged with the mushy remains, massaging the balmy ball of her tanned foot with each successive step. Occasionally, Nerea slipped her flip-flops back on and instead allowed the storm-cloud hue of her rubbery footwear above to uniformly trample zig-zag tread shapes into the earth. Every step left ovular territory-markings, often covering several towns in one step beneath the weight of her favorite flips. Inevitably, though, Nerea would lust again for the exquisite fun and tantalizing tingles afforded by visiting the cities barefoot; so, back over her fingertips the flop thongs were hung, leaving her long toes and riveted soles to their destructive surgery upon the American landscape.

Afternoon rolled around eventually, and Nerea had no intention of slowing down this train. She’d have the entire coastline under her soles by the time the sun set again. However, for the first time in hours, an actual distraction manifested itself.

Frowning, she perceived a hum in her left ear. Something very fast, despite its comparatively miniature size. The equivalent of a coin falling from hundreds of feet in the air and back toward the earth. Her fingers batted at her earlobe, and her brow furrowed as she tilted her head, curiously scanning the horizon for clues. Dark hair whipped from side to side, alternately blotting out the sunlight for any unlucky survivors still roiling somewhere in the soup of burning cities between Nerea’s insteps. One downside of being a thirty-mile goddess was her inability to pick out details which would’ve once constituted staggering events at her former puny human size. Everything was, literally, on the macro scale alone.

It took Nerea more than a minute to become aware of the nuclear bomb which had erupted against her hip. As it turned out, the quick-moving object wasn’t a coin, but in fact a missile with sufficient payload to wipe out a major city, plus enough radiation to cook all the surrounding provinces.

The blast hadn’t succeeded in penetrating her skin, of course, courtesy of Marcus’s chemical cocktail exponentially increasing the density of her body along with her growth; this was welcome news to Nerea, as she wouldn’t have much enjoyed an atomic sun burn, especially without easy access to any soothing cream.

Nevertheless, the blast had succeeded in tearing through a flank of the girl’s blouse. The smoke of the mushroom cloud briefly blotted out Nerea’s vision. She fanned the haze away to assess the damage. Miniature forest fires dotted the once-bright fabric of her clothes over her side. Pinching the smoky material in her fingertips, the girl easily shore away the problematic patch of cloth before the nuclear fire could spread further, and flicked it into the ocean.

At first looking cockeyed at the tattered hip of her shirt, the girl concluded as the queen of the world, she was simply making a bold new fashion statement by only exposing one hip to the onlookers below before they were mulched beneath her toes. And she happened to have a very shapely hip, curved and sun-kissed, so it was no great loss.

Only then did Nerea notice the hum again. She became aware of the second assault too late to shuffle aside more than a couple of miles, but because her body took up so much of the skyscape, the second nuclear missile still met its mark, and in roughly the same spot upon her hip.

Thrown off balance by sheer annoyance and skin irritation, Nerea thrust her heel backward to catch herself. Her four-mile left foot harvested another three counties in its wake as her toes grappled with the ground for stopping friction. Houses and skyscrapers aside flung into the air above her peds like popcorn kernels. The giantess’s silky sole sunk into the mud of destruction again as she stood in a widened stance, wiping away the fire of the second attack from her side.

“Ouch,” the girl groaned, running a finger along the blushed skin of her hip: ground zero of both bombs. It hadn’t necessarily hurt, but it was noticeably uncomfortable, especially without intact clothes to catch the brunt. Rather than outright pain, it was more like receiving a booster shot at the doctor’s office. Certainly something Nerea didn’t feel like repeating, especially if it meant ruining more of her outfit. If the military kept up a volley of these things, she was likely to be left naked before the whole world, and of course that wouldn’t do. She just wasn’t that type of girl. She had her pride.

Nerea squinted, and with some concentration managed to pick up on the smoke trails in the air left by the oncoming missiles. Something to follow, at least. No others followed them, but she had a suspicion it wouldn’t be long before another attack, especially since whatever trigger-happy party had fired them was likely monitoring the effects of their toys.

Reaching a hand out and stooping down, she estimated the origin point of the bombs from a military complex amongst the greenery: a building which was roughly the size of one of her fingernail clippings. How a site so small had succeeded in getting her attention so thoroughly was beyond Nerea, but she did know action was needed if she was to keep her remaining clothes in working order.

The shadow of the giant woman’s index finger caved down against the army complex, engulfing them in cold and the promise of certain demise, courtesy of the spiraling looping of Nerea’s soft fingerprint. A matching micro-scale missile silo on-site confirmed the girl’s guess. No time was wasted. She shoved her finger downward so hard that it dug into the cool earth by nearly a half-mile; when she withdrew her digit from the impact crater, there was no remaining sign of its existence. Fire and brimstone from the finger-impaling painted Nerea’s hand, which tickled her enough to warrant a smile; as a show of victory, she licked the wreckage away upon the slimy serpent of her tongue. With that, her attacker was thoroughly defeated.

Of course, Nerea knew better than to assume this was the only source of amusing human resistance. In fact, the other military sites were likely in conversation about coordinating a new assault before she discovered them, as well. The smart bet said another missile was on the way already. The one upside here being that boredom was likely to be staved off for the time being. Nerea couldn’t help but smile, and silently thank the foolish military forces for their provision of entertainment.

She returned to her full height, brushed away the last remains of soot from her hip, and listened with all the focus she could muster. After standing as a still sentinel above the world for another ten minutes or so, Nerea picked up the familiar wisp of an oncoming nuclear attack in her ear. This time she handily sidestepped several counties over, mashing multiple collateral cities beneath her heels in the process, and watched with fascinated delight as the smoky trail of the missile sailed straight by her. No more cheap shots.